Daemon of the Dark Wood (30 page)

“Christ,” he said, wishing he could disown his unwanted erection. “No rest for the fucking wicked.”

* * * *

Fresh from a steaming shower, Knott collapsed naked onto the bed and covered his eyes with a forearm to block the daylight seeping in around the bedroom’s closed curtains. His body was weary but his mind would not rest. It insisted upon replaying grisly images of the search-party fiasco and of the subsequent horror he and Deputy Rourke had witnessed in the cave. Most disturbing of all was the cruel image of Sarah Melton with that demonic dog humping her from behind and the physiological effect that god-awful mental picture was having on him right now.

As much as the act of bestiality shocked and sickened him, so did it now arouse him. The hot shower had coerced a semi-erection from him, and the vivid memory of the dog violating the dazed woman now brought his hard-on to full term and forced him to consider the possibility that he himself was a sexual deviant. (How else to explain why he should be so aroused by such a vile act of perversion?)

He covered his erection with a pillow and told himself that he was still feeling the unnatural effects of his circuitous encounter with a supernatural being. Surely that had to be the explanation. Didn’t it? While it relieved him of some responsibility, the idea was far from comforting; that such an entity could have so devastating an effect on his wife, his marriage and himself (not to mention its effect on all those other poor souls) was in itself shocking and dispiriting. Knott had never before in his life felt so helpless, so defenseless—so at a loss as to how to proceed from this untenable point.

As a man who doubted the existence of God, Knott was duly surprised at how quickly he’d come to accept as fact the existence of a mysterious creature with seemingly supernatural powers. While he supposed it was possible that the entity’s ability to wreak all manner of havoc on human lives was a rare but naturally occurring phenomenon, he didn’t really believe it was. Having been affected by some measure of the thing’s influence and having witnessed its more overwhelming effect on others, Knott was inclined to believe the unknown creature was, in fact, some sort of supernatural being. And even if the thing was not
super
natural, it most certainly was
un
natural—as unnatural as sexual intercourse between different species.

God, but he wished he could get that obscene image out of his mind!

He lifted the pillow for a peek at his penis.
Shit! Still raging hard
. He was tempted to flog the damned thing into submission, to punish it for its lasciviousness, but that would be more of a lewd reward than punishment.

He got up, made himself an icepack and went back to bed with the icy remedy applied to his insistent organ. It hurt like hell at first, but soon enough a cold numbness set in. His erection ebbed, and finally he was able to go to sleep. He took with him the dream-image of Susan as the sweet-natured person he’d married, rather than the coldhearted run-with-wolves woman she’d recently become.

* * * *

Julie Archer read aloud the words she’d just written. The lines of dark characters on the laptop’s glowing screen came alive in her mouth and she tasted each pungent word, slowly savoring the supple language and getting inside the word-spawned images, wallowing in them much the same as she had wallowed and bathed in her lover’s warm blood.

Angela’s blood was cold now. Her eyes were glassy, the left one already gone a little milky, reminding Julie of the clabbered eyes of Mister Whiskers the morning she’d found the beloved housecat dead and stiff as a stuffed animal in a taxidermist’s shop.

Julie so loved the taste and the sound of her own words that she read them again, this time employing drama-queen inflections in her oral presentation.

“‘The demon had me pinned to the floor, using her elbows like vices to keep my bent legs immobile as she buried her face between my naked thighs and nipped the tender lips of my sex with her wretched teeth. She had the ungodly strength of ten bull dykes on steroids and I was helpless in her clutches. She looked up at me over my dewy pubic mound and the pale expanse of my flat belly and said with her Hell-coal eyes burning into me: “You belong to me, bitch. There’s no fighting it.”

“‘There was such evil greed in her eyes that I had to look away. I stared at the door she had knocked half-off its hinges to get at me and I tried my desperate best not to respond to what she was doing to me with her teeth and spirited tongue. But it was no use. Her demonic proficiency had my poor pussy foaming at the mouth with lust and I knew then I was on a one-way slide to Hell, lubricated by my own wanton juices.’”

Julie liked that last line so much that she had to read it again. She knew a tight-assed editor would accuse her of overwriting that last bit, but Julie knew better now than to ever heed the advice or give credence to the opinions of ignorant editors, snooty critics or detractors of any sort. It had happened just the way she wrote it. She was
there
, for God’s sake, she ought to know! This wasn’t fiction. This was real-life reportage, gussied up in fictional trappings, of course, because it was going to be disguised as a novel—not presented as a true and felonious confession. Her poor pussy
had
been foaming at the mouth. And she
had
nearly lost herself (her writer’s self) to Angela’s bullying seduction. But in the end it was her orgasm that saved her. It was the orgasm that had released the dark power within her and allowed her to fight back with deadly vengeance. She had seized Angela’s head with both hands and gave it such a powerful twist that it felt like she’d wrenched the bitch’s head off her neck. She could still hear the loud snap it made when Angela’s vertebrae ruptured. Her orgasm went on long after Angela fell limp between her legs. She rode those dark orgasmic waves like a cosmic surfer tapping the deepest source in all creation.

What she’d done to Angela’s body later was done strictly for the sake of her art. For
story
. The story she was then already composing in her head. To make sure the demon stayed dead, she had to cut out its heart and eat it raw.

So she did. With a kitchen knife, a metal meat tenderizer to crack the ribs, and tongs to remove the heart. Her detailed graphic description of that anatomical dissection was sure to become the stuff of hardcore horror legend. What other horror writer had sacrificed so much for his/her art?

Julie pulled a stringy bit of cardiac tissue from between two lower molars, flicked it at the wall, and then went on with her dramatic reading.

Thorn braked in front of the Leatherwood house and killed the engine. He hopped out of the Triumph and threw up a hand in greeting. Liza Leatherwood was sitting dead-still in her front-porch rocker. She was dressed in black, as if waiting to go to a funeral. Even though she’d obviously taken pains with her makeup, the heavy application of cosmetics could not hide her haggard countenance. Thorn couldn’t help thinking that the old woman looked like she might be a stand-in for a fanciful funeral’s guest-of-honor corpse.

She rocked forward and gave him a severe look. “Did you do it, professor? Did you keep your promise?”

Stepping onto the porch, Thorn said, “I did.” Then he remembered she was all but deaf, so he vigorously nodded his head. He pointed to his wristwatch and then held up three fingers. “Three o’clock. He’ll be here.” He pointed down at the ground. “Right here. In about ten minutes.” He held up ten fingers.

She rocked back and nodded.

Thorn had been obliged to offer the man at the tree service a hundred dollars extra to do the job today rather than get to it later in the week. He figured it was a good investment, as he was eager to get at the ground beneath the “haunted” tree. The actual archeological dig wouldn’t begin until tomorrow, but Thorn had recruited two male students, Todd Beasley and Jason Darby, to meet him here and be ready to start digging up the dead roots as soon as the Tip Top Tree man felled the tree and removed the stump. They were hearty, strapping young lads and should be able to get the roots out of the way before nightfall.

A dirty white Toyota pickup truck came up the driveway. Jason Darby waved from the driver’s window as he parked beside Thorn’s Triumph.

Before she had a chance to ask, Thorn told Mrs. Leatherwood (in words and pantomime) that the boys were going to help dig up the roots.

The Tip Top Tree Service truck arrived a moment later, towing what Thorn assumed was a stump grinder. The tree man had explained on the phone that the stump grinder could reduce the stump and underlying roots to mulch in a matter of minutes. All Jason and Todd would have to do was shovel that mulch out of the way and dig up any peripheral roots, preparing the ground for tomorrow’s more careful dig.

“You want to ride with me?” Thorn asked the old lady, pointing at her, then himself and finally at his car.

With a nod, she stood up and started—wearily but with great dignity—toward his vehicle. He offered his arm but she ignored it and went down the porch steps unassisted.

When she was settled in the passenger seat, she said, “I’ll tell you how to go. It’s not far. Is this little car safe?”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, and then remembered to nod.

“I thank you for getting rid of them dogs.”

He nodded again. He hadn’t taken time to bury them but instead had dragged them into the woods and left them for the buzzards.

The three vehicles caravanned down a two-rut road that wound its way along the mountain’s outer contours and deeper into shady trees. Ten minutes later they were there, and Liza Leatherwood pointed a bony finger at a tall, all but leafless tree, its limbs black and twisted against the summer sky.

“There it sets,” she said hoarsely. “The ghost tree. You’ll find your bones under it, but the poor souls left their bones a long time ago and are trapped in the tree. Bones don’t matter to nobody but you.”

Thorn cut the engine and opened his door to get out.

Mrs. Leatherwood said, “You brought your gun like I told you?”

He opened the glove box and extracted the .45. “Thanks for reminding me,” he said by way of humoring her. He didn’t expect that he’d have to use it again. Just the same, he was glad to have it. Those spooky dogs had thrown him quite a shock in the way they’d tried to attack him. He could almost believe Mrs. Leatherwood’s characterization of them as devil dogs.

“I have to do something before he commences to cut it down,” she said, opening her door.

Thorn moved quickly around the car to give her a hand out of the passenger seat. She took his hand and stood with a groan. Then she moved stiffly toward the tree, which stood forlornly on a weedy shelf of mountain ground.

While the Tip Top man got his chainsaw from the back of his truck and Jason and Todd unloaded picks and shovels from the Toyota pickup, Liza Leatherwood walked out onto the narrow lip of land, reached out her hand and rested her palm lightly against the tree’s thick trunk.

She muttered words Thorn couldn’t make out, and then she pulled what looked like a pruning knife from the folds of her black dress and used both hands to stick its curved blade into the bark. She withdrew the blade, placed her palm on the cut and shut her eyes, looking as if she were trying to commune with the tree—or with the spirits allegedly trapped within it.

Todd and Jason joined Thorn in front of the Triumph. “What’s she doing?” Jason asked.

Thorn said, “Showing respect for the dead. Which is exactly what I want you boys to do when you start digging. As far as you’re concerned, this is hallowed ground.”

“Aye, aye, Skipper,” said Todd, leaning on the handle of his shovel.

Mrs. Leatherwood leaned in closer to the tree and kissed it, then she turned and walked back to the car.

As Carl the tree man approached the tree with his chainsaw, Thorn suddenly had the feeling that unseen eyes were watching them from the shadowy woods. He touched the butt of the pistol stuck in the waist of his jeans and kept his eyes on the woods beyond the haunted tree.

* * * *

Sharyn no longer felt the fear that had driven her to seek refuge in the hospital. The fear had been usurped by intense anticipation, a bone-deep expectancy, born of the furtive knowledge that a momentous event was impending, hanging over her like a fierce blade—not a sword of Damocles, but rather a sword of shining truth. If the truth turned out to be terrible, then
tough shit, deal with it.

She knew she could. Deal. With anything. The thing that had happened between her and Susan Knott was a revelation. Mental doors had slammed shut behind her as spiritual doors opened in front of her. Whatever was going to happen, it was going to happen soon. Tonight. It had to. She couldn’t remain on this razor’s edge of anticipation much longer.

Her skin nearly jumped off her bones when the ponytailed med nurse knocked on her door and came in with the dose of lithium Dr. Knott had ordered. “Your lithium levels were good,” the nurse explained, “so we’re starting you back on it.”

Sharyn cheeked the medication and discarded it after the nurse left the room. When the call came again, she would answer it unimpeded by the mind-dulling drug. This time, nature would take its course. She would follow her nature, if not her
bliss
. She and Susan would go together into that dark night of bright possibilities, and no manmade psychotropic concoction was going to stop them.

Before the med nurse had left the room, she told Sharyn that Dr. Knott would be in to see her again later in the evening. Sharyn had smiled with the tablet chipmunked in her cheek. Was it too much to hope for? That the good doctor would be here when the last call came? How fitting that would be! How salaciously seductive! The unkindest cut of all, yes. Karma comes calling, Doc, and you’d best not be standing in the way when it does.

She went to the window and looked out. Harsh sunlight gave everything a sharp edge. The dark green leaves on the magnolia tree were leafy blades thirsty for blood-rain. The lawn below was a blanket of tiny blades, sunny green teeth to chew you up and spit you out before the ground drank your blood. The natural world was a cruel world. Red in tooth and claw. It demanded brutality. Survival depended upon it. Victory belonged to the quickest, the cruelest. That was the way it was, would ever be.