Dark Hollow (23 page)
The clawing sounds increased, and then the screeching was replaced with a thump. Then another. And then a third, louder than the rest. The plaster cracked. Above us the light fixture rattled.
“They’re beating at the walls,” Dale said. “Trying to get inside.”
Another thud reverberated through the foundation. The floorboards shook beneath our feet. Wood splintered and glass shattered as the branches slammed into the walls. The cracks spiraled through the plaster in a spider-web formation, and pieces of masonry crumbled away. A picture frame fell from the wall. The bed’s headboard rattled, sending knickknacks crashing to the floor.
“Downstairs,” I shouted. “Hurry!”
It was hard to hear one another beneath the racket. We ran down the stairs. The tremors rocked the house, and we clutched the railing just to keep our balance. There was a torturous screech above us as the roof was peeled back from the frame. More glass shattered, and I heard the squeal of nails being pulled from wood. I guessed that they’d succeeded in pulling the plywood away from one of the windows.
The first floor was no safer. We stumbled through the darkness, choking on swirling clouds of dust stirred up by the assault. The light fixtures swung back and forth like pendulums, shelves collapsed, and the house’s frame groaned on its supports. We stared in horror as an entiresection of the living room wall cracked, then exploded in a shower of plaster and wood fragments. Massive tree limbs thrust their way through the gaping hole, their tendril-like branches seizing everything in reach. One of them grabbed a porcelain figurine and squeezed until it shattered. Another speared the sofa cushion, burrowing into the stuffing. A third hooked the carpet we were standing on and tried yanking us toward it. A thin vine grasped at Dale’s arm, and he shrank away.
We ran into the kitchen. Panicking, Merle reached for the old rotary phone hanging on the wall. He put the receiver to his ear, a hopeful expression flashing across his face. Then it died.
“There’s no dial tone.”
“Well, of course there’s no dial tone,” Cliff yelled. “The fucking place has been abandoned for the last twenty years, you dipshit!”
“Don’t call me a dipshit, you son of a bitch!”
“Dipshit.”
Merle’s face turned red. “So help me God, you say it one more time and I’ll knock you on your ass, biker boy.”
Cliff opened his mouth, but I cut him off.
“Both of you, knock it the fuck off! This isn’t helping.”
In the living room the trees smashed the front door off its hinges. It crashed to the floor, sending up another cloud of dust. The wind howled through the opening, whistling into the kitchen. Over the sink a window that hadn’t been boarded up exploded, showering us all with shards of glass. An oak branch, thick as an elephant’s trunk, thrust its way through. One of its branches snaked toward Dale, slithering across the kitchen counter. Dale grabbed it in his hands and tried to break it, but the branch twisted, pulling away. Dale cried out. An ugly red welt marked his palms.
“The cellar,” he shouted. “I saw rags and turpentine down there when we came in. We can make torches!”
Cliff and Dale darted for the cellar door. Merle stood transfixed, watching the bigger tree limb move closer. More branches and vines crawled through the open window and began pressing against the sides. Tiny cracks and fissures spread through the wall.
Merle gaped. “That charm over the door ain’t working.”
“Move it!” I shoved him toward the door. “They’re gonna tear the wall down.”
Merle looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. He blinked twice, and then slowly turned away. His double chins quivered. When he spoke, I had to strain to hear him. His voice echoed with hopelessness and defeat.
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?”
“Think about Tara and Claudine,” I told him. “And all the other women this thing has preyed on. Leslie, Antonietta, Shelly, and Shannon. Should we let this Hylinus fucker keep raping our women? Hell, think about Paul and that guy Leslie went out with—Michael Gitleson. You want it to keep happening?”
That seemed to galvanize him. He hurried for the stairs.
In the cellar, dust and dirt rained down upon us as the house shook. Cliff wrapped his shirt around his fingers and held up the lighter so we could see. We snapped the broom and mop handles in half, then found some relatively dry rags at the bottom of the pile, untouched by mildew. We wrapped them around the sticks and then doused them with twenty-year-old turpentine.
“Is that stuff still flammable?” I asked Dale. I had to shout so that he could hear me over the destruction.
He held out his torch, and Cliff touched the flame to it, setting the cloth ablaze.
“I think so,” Dale hollered. “Let’s move. These won’t last us long.”
Outside we heard the trees striking something metal.
“Adam,” Dale said, “you carry the turpentine. Splash it on every one of those things that crosses our path. We’ll do the rest.”
“What about the rifles?” Merle glanced over to the workbench, where we’d left them. “We can’t carry the torches and the rifles at the same time.”
“The hell with the rifles,” Dale insisted. “They aren’t going to do us any good against these things anyway. We’ll come back and get them after we’re done with the satyr.”
Cliff lit his own torch. “No way, man. I ain’t coming back to this house again. Not in a million years.”
Silently, I agreed with him. It was a bad place, built on bad ground. The atmosphere was spoiled. Poisoned. The best thing the county could do was to bulldoze it over.
I grabbed the can of turpentine, then, as an afterthought, took the plastic gas can too. I shook it, making sure there was still liquid inside, and then I unscrewed the cap and stuck a rag in the opening.
“Molotov cocktail,” I explained. “Saw it on an old episode of
The A-Team
.”
“Good idea,” Dale said. “Now let’s move, before this whole place comes crashing down and buries us in here.”
I tucked LeHorn’s books intomywaistband and nodded. We crept back up the stairs. Scraps of flaming cloth fell from our torches, drifting to the floor.
“What if we catch the house on fire?” Merle asked.
I clenched my teeth. “Let it burn.”
A quick glance into the kitchen and we hurried back down the basement steps. The trees had bashed down both the front and rear doors, as well as breaking through the windows and the walls. A forest was blooming inside the house, as smaller saplings slowly worked their way inside. The bigger trees kept up their assault, circling the home with their towering forms.
“Can’t get out that way.” Dale gasped.
We glanced around the cellar. It occurred to me that we were underground, just like in a grave. The trees began battering the cellar door.
“Too bad LeHorn didn’t leave some chain saws down here,” Cliff mumbled.
“Now what?” Merle asked. “Our torches are getting low and that door ain’t gonna hold.”
Dale nodded toward the storm doors. “We go out the way we came in.”
“You sure about that?” I asked.
“No.” Dale shook his head. “I’ve never been more scared in my life. I can barely think straight.”
Merle stood at the bottom of the stairs. “Just don’t have a heart attack once I push these storm doors open. We ain’t dragging your ass back to the Suburban.”
“Try to keep up with me, fat ass.”
“Old fart.”
They grinned at each other, and then Merle’s expression hardened.
“Let’s do it.”
Bellowing, Merle charged up the stairs and slammed against the doors with his shoulder, pushing them upward. He heaved, grunted, and then the storm doors flew open. Immediately a giant oak tree swung toward us, clubbing at Merle with its limbs. It reminded me of a spider, the way it crawled on its roots. But despite its ferocity, the tree’s girth slowed it down, and Merle was faster. He struck at it with the torch, and something inside the tree screamed.
“It works,” Merle shouted. “It fucking works!”
He struck it again in a different spot. The flames caught hold, flickering across the bark. The tree drew back. Something shadowy swirled inside the smoke billowing off the burning wood.
Dale shoved me forward. “Come on!”
I dashed up the stairs. Merle waved his torch back and forth, holding several trees at bay. Cliff and Dale came up behind me, distracting my attention for a second. When I looked back, a limb snaked across the ground toward Merle. Before I could warn him it curled around his leg like a tentacle and jerked him off his feet. There was a meaty smack as he hit the ground, and the air rushed out of his lungs. His torch rolled away from him, setting the weeds on fire. The tree yanked Merle toward it. Two giant limbs loomed above him, ready to impale him. Merle screamed as roots slithered over his body.
Snatching up his torch, I lit the rag on the gas can and tossed it at the tree. The effect was like a miniature can of napalm. The flames engulfed the trunk, and the frenzied tree released Merle’s leg and thrashed across the yard. Another shadowy form poured out of it and shot into the sky.
“It was gonna drink me,” he squealed. “Those roots…”
He clambered to his feet, panting for breath. Without a word I handed him the torch and then splashed turpentine in each direction, flinging it on every branch within reach. Cliff and Dale thrust their torches forward, and dozens of small fires erupted. The air grew thick with the smell of burning leaves.
Angered, the trees closed ranks, coming at us from three sides. The ground shook with their advance.
Dale shouted, “Get to the Suburban!”
Except that the vehicle wasn’t there anymore. We screeched to a halt. The trees had bludgeoned it almost beyond recognition. The roof was flattened down to the dashboard, the hood creased and buckled, the windows broken. All four tires were flat, and one of them had been wrenched from its rim. Oil, gasoline, and antifreeze pooled beneath the wreckage.
I poured the remaining turpentine in a C shape behind us, making a magic circle of my own. Cliff touched his torch to the liquid and it erupted into flame, cutting us off from the marching plants.
“Jesus.” Merle stared at his Chevy in disbelief. “I’ve still got three years of payments left on this thing.”
“Head for the road,” Dale said. “Nothing else we can do now except run.”
“What about you?” I asked, alarmed.
“I’ll be right behind you. Now get going.”
We didn’t argue. Cliff, Merle, and I fled down the dirt road, stopping at the crest of the hill. When we glanced back, Dale tossed his torch beneath the wrecked Suburban and ran after us. There was a whooshing sound, and then the vehicle was a ball of orange flame. The fire quickly spread, merging with the one I had started and jumping from tree to tree. A tall pine went up like a Roman candle, while a sturdy oak smoked and sparked. The fire lapped at them hungrily. The trees screamed in unison.
We continued down the road to the bottom of the hill. Out of the tree’s menacing shadows daylight returned. The sun hung high in the afternoon sky. Behind us the flames roared. We kept running until it was clear that we were out of reach. Then we stopped to catch our breath in front of the burned-out remains of Merle’s friend’s hunting cabin, a grim reminder of fires past.
“My fucking Chevy,” Merle groaned. “They wrecked it.”
Cliff lit a cigarette with his still-flickering torch. “You got insurance, right?”
Merle nodded.
“Well, just tell them you ran into a tree.”
Merle stared at him. Cliff snickered and tossed his torch to the side of the road.
Slowly a broad smile spread across Merle’s face. “You’re an idiot, Cliff. You know that?”
“Yeah.” Cliff grinned. “But you love me anyway. Sorry I called you a dipshit, man.”
“Don’t sweat it.”
Dale and I were silent. I was thinking about Tara, and I’m sure he was thinking about Claudine.
“Try your cell phone,” he suggested.
I patted my pockets and came up empty. My stomach lurched. I double-checked: my key ring, loose change, a wadded-up tissue, and LeHorn’s books (in my waistband)—but no cell phone.
“I must have dropped it back at the house.”
The words hung in the air, felt like an epitaph.
Dale tossed his fluttering torch aside, then stomped on it until it was out.
“We’ve got a long walk ahead of us,” he said. “Might as well get moving.”
Exhausted, we shuffled down the road. My feet hurt, and my throat was dry and scratchy. As we walked I watched the sun drift steadily toward the western horizon. My heart sank with it. I prayed we’d be in time, and knew we wouldn’t. On foot we’d never make it home before dark. Nightfall would bring the sound of pipes.
And only Cory and Big Steve—a stoned college dropout who worked at Wal-Mart and a cowardly dog that ran from squirrels—stood between Hylinus and our wives.
For the next two hours we walked along the lonely dirt roads, winding past fields and woods, making our way back out to the main road. We’d cringe each time we passed a section of forest where the trees loomed over the road, expecting an attack that never came. Each time the branches swayed with the breeze we fled beyond their reach. We saw no one, and not a single car passed us. We couldn’t call for help. Houses were scarce. We stopped at two different farms, looking for assistance. There was nobody home at the first, and a nervous-looking housewife greeted us at the second. She refused to open the door, obviously wary of four strangers.
“My husband’s not home,” she yelled. “You’ll have to come back later!”
“Listen,” Dale pleaded. “We’ve been in an accident. If you won’t let us in, could you at least make a phone call for us?”
“Phones are out. Been out all morning. Happens a lot around here. Weird things with the phones and electricity. Messes up our TV reception, too.”
Thick black smoke rose from the direction of LeHorn’s Hollow. The fire was obviously spreading. Despite that, no fire trucks arrived. I realized just how totally cut off from civilization we were, walking in a remote area where even a forest fire didn’t attract attention.
“What if they find Adam’s cell phone inside LeHorn’s house?” Merle asked, suddenly sounding frightened. “Or my rifles? They’ll know it was us.”
“Who’s going to find them?” Dale rubbed his knee, wincing in pain. “It doesn’t look like anybody is responding yet. With luck, by the time they know about the fire there will be nothing left of Adam’s cell phone and your guns.”
Merle stopped walking. “What about LeHorn’s steamer trunk? The charms kept it protected from fire, right?”
“So?”
“Our fingerprints are on it. Adam’s got some of the books. They could trace it all back to us.”
Dale shrugged. “Doubtful they’ll take fingerprints off that old trunk. Even if it didn’t burn, chances are they won’t find it beneath the ashes—or if they do, they won’t think twice. Why would they? You’re being paranoid.”
“Maybe,” Merle said, sounding unconvinced. Then he hurried to catch up with us.
The dirt road seemed endless. With every mile Dale’s age and Merle’s weight caught up with them, slowing their pace, but every time Cliff suggested they stop and rest both men refused, insisting that we keep going. To be honest Cliff and myself, though both younger and more physically fit, weren’t in much better shape than they were. The events of the last twenty-four hours had taken their toll on us as well.
We stumbled on. I found an empty plastic bag lying in some weeds. I put the books inside it and continued down the road.
Once we’d reached the main road, traffic picked up and we had to walk single file along the side. Cliff and I stuckout our thumbs, begging for a ride. Several cars sped past, choking us with exhaust fumes and spraying us with gravel and dust. One guy in a pickup truck honked his horn as he swerved around us, either saying, “Sorry I can’t give you a lift,” or, “Get out of the road, you idiots.” A few cars slowed down as they drew alongside us, and each time my spirits lifted, sure that we’d found a Samaritan. But then they’d speed up again. I didn’t blame them. The four of us must have looked pretty rough.
“Doesn’t anybody pick up hitchhikers anymore?” Cliff complained. “It’s not like we’re serial killers or something.”
“It’s the hollow,” Dale said, breathing hard. “Its aura is following us—like a cloud. Can’t you feel it?”
“All I feel,” Merle gasped, “is tired.”
The sky grew darker and the sun began its descent, slipping lower toward the horizon. Now Cliff and I gestured at passing traffic, clasping our hands together like we were praying, and shouting out pleas. Still nobody stopped.
Please
, I prayed for real.
Please, please, please make somebody stop. I’m sorry I doubted you. I’m sorry for all the shit I said after the miscarriages. Just let somebody stop and pick us up.
The sun sank lower, its bottom half gone for the night. Blue twilight deepened. The warm temperatures vanished with the daylight.
“We’re not going to make it,” I said.
The words caught in my throat, choking me. What was it Leslie had said to me when we were discussing Shannon’s and Antoinetta’s disappearances?
You’re beginning to sound like one of the characters in your books, Adam.
She’d been right. If this were a novel my heroes would have arrived just in the nick of time and saved the day. But real life didn’t work like that. Real life had no happy endings. Despite our best efforts, despite my love for Tara and my determination to protect her, and after everything we’d been through at the LeHorn house, fate conspired against us. We were still nine or ten miles from home, and night was almost upon us. By the time we got there it would already be too late. I fought back tears. I had the urge just to lie down in the middle of the road and let the next car run over me.
“We’re almost to Seven Valleys,” Cliff said. “I’ve got a buddy that lives there. Carl, a dude I work with. Maybe he can let us use his phone or give us a ride.”
The sun disappeared, and night descended. The blue-gray sky was littered with cold pinpricks of starlight. Each one felt like an accusatory eye. The moon seemed huge. I beat myself up over losing the cell, and kept hoping that we’d find a pay phone, but there were no stores or garages or even factories this far back in the country. We were on our own and running late. Too late.
I closed my eyes and whispered, “I’m sorry, Tara.”
Merle squeezed my shoulder. “Cory’s a good kid. Sure, he’s scatterbrained, but we all were at that age. He won’t fuck up.”
Behind us, Cliff snorted. “Who are you kidding? Cory would fuck up a wet dream.”
Merle spun around. “I don’t think that’s what Dale and Adam want to hear right now, Cliff.”
A car rounded the curve, spearing us with its headlights. I stuck my thumb up until it passed us, then watched the taillights fade.
“What do you guys think happened to Paul?” Cliff asked. “You think he knew about any of this?”
“I imagine Hylinus or the trees killed him,” Dale said.
“So then where’s his body? We didn’t find it.”
Dale shrugged. “Out there in the woods somewhere. Yes, we didn’t find it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not out there somewhere. Remember, the hollow has the power to move—to camouflage itself. It could have hidden Paul’s body, hidden the evidence, so that nobody would interfere with the satyr’s plans.”
“But why would Hylinus go after Paul, anyway?” Merle asked.
“I don’t think he did,” Dale said. “More likely Paul went out into the woods to look for Shannon on his own.”
Stopping, I bent over to tie my shoe. “You know what else is bothering me? If the hollow could teleport, then why did it let us find the marker when we were with the search party?”
“Maybe its power weakens the farther away it is from the original spot,” Dale suggested. “Or maybe it was too busy hiding Hylinus. Maybe it can’t do both at once. If he was in a separate location at the time, maybe it focused on him.”
“How do you know that?”
“I don’t. I’m just guessing. This is magic we’re talking about, Adam. I’m a retired engineer. I don’t know the first thing about the supernatural.”
Standing back up, I pulled LeHorn’s books out of the bag. “We do now.”
Dale frowned. “I wouldn’t fool with those if I were you. Better that we stick to the plan. Create magic of our own.”
“At this point I’ll use anything I can.”
Tired and depressed, we let our conversation turn sporadic. We focused on putting one aching foot in front of the other. Blisters had formed on my toes, and my heels felt like balls of flame. My calves cramped, and my mouth was parched. As bad as I felt, Dale and Merle looked like they were in even worse shape. Merle’s tongue stuck out of his mouth, and rivulets of perspiration ran down his red face. He stank—smoke and sour sweat. We all did.
I paged through the books as we walked, squinting in the twilight, and it occurred to me that I’d yet to read them in broad daylight. My only other exposure to their contents had been under the flashlight’s beam. Now I studied them under the sun’s last dying embers.
The Long Lost Friend
was more of what I’d expected: folk remediesand cures, some of them intriguing and others…odd: glyphs, wards, and sigils to protect against everything from evil spirits to slander; recipes and remedies to cure fevers, heal sore mouths, relieve toothaches, and catch fish. The
Daemonolateria
was different. There was no publisher or author listed, and the font and layout changed from page to page—giving the impression that it had been compiled from various other books. I couldn’t read it, but some of the illustrations filled me with dread. They weren’t cartoonish
Tales from the Crypt
–style monsters, but hideously detailed renderings of depravity, torture, and what I guessed were demons. Some of the caricatures had names next to them: Ab and Meeble, Leviathan and Behemoth, Kandara and Shtar, something called Kat, which looked like anything but its namesake, and Purturabo, who appeared almost human. Shuddering, I closed the book. Maybe Dale was right, I thought. It might be better not to use them.
About twenty minutes later we heard a siren in the distance, drawing closer. Soon a fire engine raced past us, its tires humming on the asphalt. A ladder truck quickly followed. Both of the emergency vehicles had SEVEN VALLEYS VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT painted on their sides. We paused, watching them rocket by.
“Wonder if they’re going to LeHorn’s?” Cliff asked.
“Should we flag them down and ask?” I suggested.
Merle frowned. “And tell them we started the fire? I don’t think so. Let’s keep moving.”
The taillights and sirens faded into the darkness. Far away, over the hills, we heard another siren, probably from the Fire Hall in either New Salem or Jefferson or Spring Grove (it was hard to tell in the dark).
“If they are going to the hollow,” Dale said, “then I hope they’re too late.”
We reached Seven Valleys around eight o’clock. Immediately we headed for Cliff’s friend’s house. That took us another fifteen minutes. His friend, Carl, lived on theother side of town in a ramshackle trailer. It squatted on a small lot, sandwiched between two other trailers, and looked like it had been new back in the sixties. A gray-primer-colored Trans Am and a rusty minivan sat in the driveway. The Trans Am needed a new state inspection sticker and registration, and the minivan needed its engine block lifted up and a whole new van shoved beneath it. The side panels and tailpipe were rusted out, and a large crack ran across the passenger’s side of the windshield. The yard was full of trash: junked cars, bald tires, broken children’s toys, a chipped ceramic deer, empty beer cans (Old Milwaukee, the discriminating Pennsylvanian redneck’s beer of choice), and other debris. The only thing missing was a big Confederate flag hanging from the porch. Inside the trailer somebody had the television turned up as loud as it would go. They were watching wrestling.
I stepped in a pile of cat shit, and it did nothing to improve my mood. I wiped my heel off in the grass.
“Nice place,” Merle cracked.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Cliff said. “Unless you’d rather keep walking?”
“No, this will be fine.”
I grabbed Cliff’s arm. “No small talk, okay? Dale and I need to call home right away.”
“Adam…” Cliff looked offended. “Trust me.”
He knocked on the screen door. There was no answer. Cliff knocked again, louder and more insistent. The television’s volume faded.
“Who is it?”
“Cliff Swanson, from work!”
“Who?”
Cliff frowned. “It’s Fuckstick!”
There was a brief pause, and then heavy footsteps plodded across the floor. The trailer creaked and groaned on its supports. Merle, Dale, and I glanced at one another, then at Cliff.
Merle grinned. “Fuckstick?”
Cliff scowled. “Don’t ask.”
The four of us were good friends, as close as neighbors could be, but it amazed me sometimes how little we knew of one another’s lives outside the neighborhood. The others were oblivious to the publishing business; we had no clue where Merle bought all of his antiques; had had no idea Dale had suffered from prostate cancer a few years ago; and now, apparently, Cliff had a nickname we knew nothing about.
The trailer door swung open, revealing a prodigious beer gut clad in a white, pizza-stained wife-beater shirt. I couldn’t see anything else fromwhere I stood—just the gut.
“Fuckstick,” the man greeted Cliff. “The hell are you doing here?”
“Hey, Carl.” Cliff grinned, then glanced back at us. “We had an accident, man. We were hoping we could use your phone?”
“Shit. You okay?”
Cliff nodded. “We’re fine. But my buddies really need to call their wives. They’ll be worried about us—we’ve been gone a long time. I called off work today.”
Carl leaned out the door and eyed us. The man was a walking stereotype, and none of it good—ruddy complexion, two days’ worth of whiskers, a bulbous, red-veined nose. He clutched a can of beer in one meaty hand and waved at us with the other. The way he was weaving in the door frame, I suspected this wasn’t his first beer of the night.
“Meetcha,” he grunted.
We nodded back.
“There but for the grace of God go I,” Merle whispered. Carl held the door open. “Come on in.”
“Thanks, man.” Cliff beckoned us when we hesitated, and then followed his friend. Merle, Dale, and I glanced at one another and then did the same.
The trailer’s interior was even worse than the yard. Mounds of garbage lay everywhere, and there were skinny pathways running between them. The air stank, and the surfaces of the furniture and walls looked greasy.
“You took off today?” Carl asked Cliff. “So did I. Decided to get drunk instead.”
He heaved his bulk into a stained recliner, and Cliff took a seat on the soiled couch. Cliff introduced the three of us and then asked about the phone. Carl pointed it out, and I threaded my way through the debris. I dialed my house. Dale stood beside me, looking as anxious as I felt. Carl turned the television back up, and I put a finger in my ear so that I could hear.