by Glenn Rolfe
Approaching the shed, salivating at the promise of things to come, Alvin stopped cold. In the pitch black, a light was coming from inside the shed. The dull glow extinguished as quickly as it had appeared.
The wind and storm had withered an hour ago. He could now clearly hear the buzzing of mosquitoes and the croaks and pips of cicadas, frogs, and other nocturnal critters. Closing his eyes, Alvin listened for other sounds. The ones people didn’t want you to hear. Whispers, secrets, schemes. Alvin wasn’t born a fool.
As stealthily as he could, he crept away from the shed and toward the house. He eased open the front door and stepped inside. Was it possible they’d busted loose from their bindings? Sure, but even so, they couldn’t get out. They’d find plenty of makeshift weapons to attack him with, but they had already fucked up.
Edward Fuller was dead as fuck. Stabbing the tough guy/would-be hero had been a treat in and of itself, so that left the kid and the woman. Alvin liked his odds.
After picking up his Ruger from the coffee table, Alvin headed out to see exactly what kind of surprise was waiting for him.
Still soaked and muddy from digging holes in the rain, he approached the door to the shed without the guidance of the lantern and with the heightened senses of a cougar stalking its prey.
Slowly, he slid the key to the padlock from his pocket. Alvin tucked the pistol under his arm, caressed the lock, and with the steady hands of one that took great care of the dead, he eased the key into the hole, careful to push it in one notch at a time.
When it was fully inserted, he took a slow breath and turned the key.
* * *
Pat covered Mr. Fuller with a blue tarp they’d found in the corner of the shed. It was the least he could do. He really hadn’t known the man long at all, but beneath the fear and uncertainty of their current situation, it still hurt.
Holding a ball-peen hammer he’d found among other rusted tools, he felt a bit of comfort having Sarah with him. He would do his best to protect her for John. In the time Pat had known her and John, Sarah had never seemed to be the needy-princess type and she sure as hell wasn’t fucking around or backing down now. Standing with her back to the wall beside the shed door, she clung to an ax. Pat thought she looked like she had been ripped right off the screen from Mad Max: Fury Road. She’d make a nice lieutenant in Furiosa’s rebel force. If anything, for Pat, Sarah represented a much-needed sense of hope.
He took his burning thumb from the lighter and they fell back into darkness. “How much longer do you think he’s going to be?” he whispered.
“I don’t know, but it feels like soon, right?”
“Yeah,” he said. He wasn’t just pacifying her. There was an energy present, a raw nerve that felt ready to tear wide open at any second. Pat imagined it was probably what the victims of the murderers he’d ever read or watched documentaries about felt at some point. He always thought learning about so many awful cases would somehow prepare him for one should it ever happen to him. Being in the thick of it now, he realized he was simply scared shitless. It had been a long time since he’d felt like a kid, and right now that’s all he was. He wasn’t even close to being calm and as far removed from being methodical about any of this as a person could get. He just wanted to see his mom and Ada again.
“Sarah,” he said, fighting the urge to cry here now in front of her. “I just want you to know, I mean, whatever happens, you and John have meant the world to me.”
She found his arm in the dark. “Hey, we’re getting out of here, you hear me? Both of us.”
“Yeah.”
He heard the click of the padlock, and then all hell broke loose.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Dr. Soctomah’s story about the evil shaman, the curse of Spears Corner, it all made sense to him now. This reckoning was inevitable. How John wound up in the center of it all was irrelevant. He, Ethan, Sarah, and Pat were all part of it, regardless. He wasn’t about to let the people he cared about pay the price for his sins. Llewellyn Caswell and his reign of intimidation and horrors had to end.
“Do you really think we can stop him?” Ethan asked. His bony shoulders slumped, but there was something tucked in the corner of his voice, the smallest glimmer of hope.
“I won’t bullshit you, Ethan,” Johnny said. “I have no idea how powerful any of this is.”
He looked around the lingering fog and graves. Were there even bodies buried here? Was it all for aesthetic?
“What I can do is make you a promise,” Johnny said.
Ethan met his gaze.
“I am going to go after Caswell with everything I’ve got.”
“But you’re…” Ethan raised his crippled hand toward Johnny, “…you’re no bigger than any of us here.”
Johnny hadn’t thought about that. He was twelve here, physically, but he was still the adult him now mentally. An advantage he’d have to make work for all of them.
“That’s why your part is the most important,” he said. “You gather the other boys. You have to make sure they have confidence in the plan, though. You have to show them that you believe it will work.”
“But I…I don’t know—”
Johnny placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You can do this. This is our only chance to put an end to him. To this place. We have to confront him, all of us, together.”
“But what if he—”
“No buts.”
“What if he kills you?” Ethan asked.
Johnny knew the outcome was just as likely as any other. He had every shot of failing them all, but he’d failed them already, hadn’t he? Johnny had left Ethan in the hands of this sick fuck. He’d screwed up so many things with Sarah, and God, if anything happened to Pat….
“I owe it to a lot of people to stand up and try.”
A slight uptick of Ethan lips warmed his soul.
“I’ll get them to the house,” Ethan said. “But why don’t you come with me? We should all do this together.”
Johnny shook his head. “No, I’ll need to keep him distracted. You said he sees all here, he’s always looming over everything. If I go to him, maybe it’ll provide a chance for you guys to come funneling in and we can catch him off guard.”
“You’re right.”
Johnny stood up, offering a hand to Ethan. “Go on.”
“Be careful,” Ethan said.
“You, too.”
He watched Ethan disappear into the fog, then Johnny turned toward the dim light glowing in the darkness. Caswell’s house.
He was ready to give his life for theirs.
Whatever it takes, he told himself.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The door smashed inward, and Sarah swung the ax as hard as she could at the shape blocking their escape.
The blade caught part of him but skipped through too easily. She’d overswung and was off balance as the sharp edge bit into the door frame.
Pat rushed to her side to catch her as Caswell cried out.
“Oh, you fucked up now, girly,” Caswell said.
All the air in her lungs escaped when Caswell punched her in the solar plexus.
“Sarah!” Pat cried.
She doubled over and couldn’t do a thing as she watched Caswell’s fist fly forward and knock Pat to the ground behind her.
A light burst to life above them.
Caswell stood leering at them, his clothes dripping wet and covered in filth. He was enjoying the hell out of this.
“You two are something all right,” he said. He reached back, yanked the ax from the wood frame and tossed it to the ground outside before closing the door and returning his attention to them.
Sarah saw the gun in his hand and turned to see if Pat was okay.
He was on his hands and knees; blood dripped from his chin, his lip busted wide open from Caswell’s punch.
She saw the anger in the boy’s eyes and watched him clutching the hammer in his hands. She caught his gaze and shook her head, trying to convince him not to do it.
He began to rise.
“Did I tell you to stand up?” Caswell said.
“Fuck you,” Pat growled, holding the hammer at his side and out of Caswell’s sight.
“Oh, now you’re a big man, huh? Where was this bad boy when you came to my doorstep the other day? I seem to recall a scared little shit, running for his life, crashing his bike in my driveway. That was you, wasn’t it?”
Pat saw the gun in his hand.
Caswell turned it sideways.
“Oh, you think I need this?” He set the gun atop a milk crate to his right and held his meaty paws out, beckoning Pat to bring it on. “You think you got the sack now, boy? Come on. Come on, I said!”
Everything happened in a heartbeat.
Sarah darted forward for a low blow, but Caswell’s knee met her chin. Pat swung the ball-peen hammer, but Caswell easily ducked the swing and used Pat’s momentum to grab hold of him and slam him against the wall. Caswell pulled Pat into a chokehold. The hammer fell.
Sarah’s hands trembled. The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth. Searching with her tongue, she found that Caswell had knocked out one of her front teeth.
She spat blood as she backed away.
“Sorry for messin’ up that pretty face, girly, but it ain’t really gonna matter where you’re goin’.”
“Let him go,” she pleaded.
Instead, Caswell tightened his hold on Pat’s throat. Pat’s feet kicked outward, his eyes bulging, his hands clawing at Caswell’s forearm.
After a few seconds, Caswell let up, but still held on to him.
“I don’t need a gun to end this pathetic piece of shit,” he said.
“Let him go and take me,” she said.
“Oh, ain’t that sweet, huh, boy?” Caswell said in Pat’s ear. “She’s willing to trade herself for you.”
Pat’s head flew backward into Caswell’s face.
“Ugh,” the bastard moaned.
Pat shrugged free of his arm and made a play for the pistol.
Caswell caught him by the limp Mohawk and roared as he pulled Pat around and slammed him face first into the unforgiving door. He did it twice before Sarah broke free of the shock and rushed forward to save him.
She unloaded her bony fists upon Alvin Caswell’s face, smashing him in the eye, the cheek, and the nose, swinging as hard and fast as she could.
He opened the door, raised an arm to defend himself from her fierce blows, and tossed Pat out into the night. Hopping out of her range and onto the back lawn, he started to laugh.
Sarah stumbled past the door and into the misty rain outside.
“Pat,” she said, “are you okay?”
He lay on the ground not moving.
“You fucking monster!” she yelled at Caswell.
He had the gun trained on her. At some point he’d grabbed it again. Blood streamed past his grin from where Pat’s headbutt had busted his nose.
“Go ahead,” Sarah said. “Just fucking do it already!”
“Oh, I like you,” he said.
“If he dies I swear I’ll find a way to make you fucking pay,” she said.
“Oh, he is going to die, but not until I have a little fun with him first.”
“Please,” she said, kneeling next to Pat and reaching for him. “Pat, can you hear me?”
He was still breathing, but Caswell had knocked him out.
She screamed when Caswell clutched her hair and dragged her away from Pat.
He bent down and punched her in the face so hard it spun her around and dropped her to the mud.
Caswell kicked Pat back inside the shed and put the padlock back in place.
Sarah tried to get back to her feet.
Caswell spun, his awful laugh filling the space between them as he rushed at her.
The butt of the gun slammed into the side of her head again and again.
She tried to stay conscious, but the blows kept coming.
Sarah fell into the black.
* * *
Alvin hadn’t killed the boy yet, but in all the excitement, he’d almost gotten carried away. Luckily, his closest neighbors were mostly six feet under, and the rest were half a mile down the road. No one would think anything of the woman’s screams even if they heard them. Probably just think it was the storm.
He’d come back and take care of the boy after he finished Llewellyn’s bidding.
“Come on, girly,” he said as he hefted her up and slung her over his shoulder like a bag of sod.
He considered the lantern but decided he could finish this in the dark.
After setting her down beside the grave, he slid the ladder into the muddy hole and climbed down. The coffin lay open. It was wet from the light rain, but he didn’t think it mattered. He reached up and dragged the unconscious woman down with him. He couldn’t imagine she’d wake up, not after the beating he’d just given her, but he was gentle just the same. He lowered her into the empty casket, her purpled and bloody face that of a bruised angel.
“Sweet dreams, girly,” he whispered as he maneuvered around so he could close the lid. He climbed the ladder, pulled it from the hole, and on his knees, began scooping armfuls of wet dirt on top of the casket. Once the lid was covered, he got to his feet, grabbed his shovel and worked as fast as he could to fill the hole.
* * *
By the time he’d finished, he was exhausted and ready for a good stiff drink. He needed to fill in Llewellyn’s grave, too, but he’d come back before daylight to do that. He’d earned a quick break before going back to deal with the little punk prick.
Alvin crossed through the line of trees separating his property from the cemetery and hoped Llewellyn and his spooky little friend would be satisfied with his work.
Chapter Fifty
Johnny walked across the yard. A foul wind accompanied the ever-present fog as he stepped before the red door and knocked. The house was exactly like the real one where he’d had his uncomfortable interaction with Alvin Caswell, the Ghoul’s cousin.
“Shit,” Johnny muttered.
He looked over his shoulder at the land of graves stretching out into the ground fog beyond. He remembered yelling at Pat for using the moniker for this monster. Well, if the murderous prick had ever earned the nickname, this macabre spectacle probably counted for something.
As he turned back to the house, the door creaked open. The sound wrapped bony fingers around his spinal column.
“Well,” Llewellyn Caswell said in a raspy voice, “look who finally showed. The one that got away.”
Johnny was face-to-face with the Ghoul of Wisconsin.
“You and your little one-eyed buddy the ones that threw that rock through my window?”
Johnny barely remembered that trip here. But he recalled thinking it would get this monster’s attention.
Johnny nodded, unable to find his voice just yet.
“Get your ass in here.”
Stepping over the threshold, Johnny closed his eyes and took a deep breath and hoped Ethan would do what he never could. Johnny opened his eyes in a room set up like some sort of sick pervert’s torture porn hideaway. There were whips hanging from hooks by the window to his right, a rust-stained, soiled mattress on the floor near the far wall, and gay porn on the giant television across the room. There was no traditional living room furniture in sight, but a giant bed at the center of the room instead.
The moment had arrived, and Johnny swallowed hard, sick to his stomach. After what he’d allowed Ethan to go through, he deserved whatever this monster wanted to do to him.
Tears filled his eyes as he turned to face his past.
Ethan owed him nothing. I
f he decided to leave Johnny at the hands of this beast, Johnny knew he had it coming. All of it.
“We’ve never got the pleasure of being introduced,” the Ghoul’s voice slithered in his ear. Johnny smelled the scent of rot and decay. This was not a place of the living in any manner.
“I saw you,” the Ghoul said.
“And…and I saw y-you,” Johnny managed.
“Yes, and you never, ever told anyone. What a pathetic excuse for a friend.”
The guilt and shame boiled over, threatening to swallow Johnny where he stood.
“I’m curious,” the Ghoul said. “You could have told anyone. Your mom, the police, some idiot kid from school, but instead you just swallowed…” The Ghoul licked the back of Johnny’s neck. “…it all.”
“I was too afraid….”
“Yes?” the Ghoul said, circling him.
“I was afraid you’d…you’d come for me next.”
“You thought I’d find out where you lived and what? You’d wake up one night to find my face in your window? My hand on your thigh….”
The Ghoul clutched the back of Johnny’s neck and forced him over to the bed in the center of the room.
“Oh, Johnny, we’re going to have eternity to play out each and every one of your fantasies.”
He tossed Johnny down.
Johnny scurried back on his rump, placing his back to the headboard.
He needed to try and stall as long as he could.
“Why did you do it?” Johnny asked.
“Do what? Take your friend?”
“Why did you take any of them?”
“Is this where you try to psychoanalyze me? Really? It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?”
“I bet you were raped by a priest or something,” Johnny said.
