Dark Hollow (22 page)

While I walked back to the farm and went to the woodshed, the school bus must have dropped Claudia and Gina off at the end of the lane. Never heard it, but I reckon that’s what happened. The girls come home and didn’t find us in the house. If they hollered for us, I never heard them. The woodshed sits back a way, down between the corncrib and the outhouse that we don’t use no more, but still, I should have heard them. So maybe they didn’t holler. I got no way of knowing what happened next. What went through their minds while I was out in the woodshed, sharpening the teeth and oiling up the chain and making sure the saw had gas? Did they decide to go for awalk, or maybewent to look for their ma? I don’t know.

I fired up the chain saw, made sure it run good enough, and then shut it off again. Stepped outside the woodshed, and that’s when I heard the music. It affected me down below again, and I was ashamed. It was the satyr playing on his pipe. I ran for the hollow. The chain saw slowed me down some. When I was younger it wouldn’t have been no problem, but now I was out of breath and sore and scared for my wife.

I crested the hill and down there, near the tree line, was the satyr. It was dancing around and piping away, and my daughters were following after it. They were…I feel sick. They were taking their clothes off. Just dropping them on the ground. I shouted but they paid me no mind. The satyr slipped between the trees, back into the hollow. So did Claudia and Gina. I run after them and fired up the chain saw. Drowned out that damned music.

My girls. I remember when each of them was born, Claudia right here at home and Gina at York Memorial. They were both so darned pretty, just like their mother. Claudia curled her little fist around my finger and I almost cried. And Gina, she smiled at me. Nurse said it was gas, but I know. A father knows.

The tree branches closed in front of me and I laid into them. Swung the saw upward. Tore through them. The trees, they screamed. I was grinning. Said me a charm from the book and kept swinging the saw. Chain bit wood. Wood hit the ground. Trees got out of my way. But then there was a sharp pain in my leg. I looked down and a limb had punched through my calf. Just a twig, but it had speared me, sticking clean through the flesh. Reached down with one hand and snapped the twig off, and I’m a fool for that very reason. Because when I did a branch whipped out and yanked that chain saw away from me. Then it brought it around and tried to cut my head off. I ducked, screamed, and backed away. My hand brushed up against the bark of another tree, and it bit me. I turned and saw a face just as clear as day, and my fingers were in its mouth. Bit them down to the bone, and if I hadn’t yanked them free, it would have bit them clean off. The branches grabbed at me, trying to hold me in place as the chain saw swung toward me again. I managed to shake them, and jumped back out of the hollow.

I stood there, panting. The trees rustled, but I was out of their range. They couldn’t move. Couldn’t leave the hollow, at least not yet. The claw marks on my shoulder were bleeding again, and that weren’t a good sign. The charm should have took hold and healed it, but it hadn’t. The Book had failed me. The Lord had failed me. And I had failed my family because of it.

Weren’t no help coming from God, so I reckoned I’d have to turn to another.

And I did. Stumbled home, bleeding and crying and cursing God. Snot bubbled out of my nose and the gnats crowded my face, trying to get at it. Bandaged up my wounds as best I could, and then turned to my books. First one I pulled out was
The Long Lost Friend
, and I threw it across the room. Opened the
Daemonolateria
and tried to make sense of things. Tried to understand what the spells were for by looking at the pictures and diagrams. Looked at other books, too. Anything what had to do with satyrs or wood spirits or things of nature. And as the sun went down I got me a plan.

First thing I did was load every bag of lime I had onto the wagon. It was hot, heavy work, and I did it like I was twenty years younger. Then I hitched the tractor up to it and made sure the tractor had gas. Wouldn’t do to run out halfway through this. Gathered all the other things I thought I’d need, the ingredients to make it work, as best I could tell from the pictures. Then I wrote in this journal and studied, studied harder than I ever have in my life. Prayed to the Lord, asked His forgiveness for the things I’d said, explained that I was hurt and scared for my wife and daughters, asked Him for His strength and guidance. But the Lord was silent. Didn’t feel His presence the way I could sometimes, reassuring me when things got tough, like in the old “Footprints” poem. He was not dwelling in my house or in my heart. Can’t say much as I blame Him, on account of who I was going to call upon to save my family.

When things were ready, I climbed on board the tractor, turned on the headlights, and drove down to the hollow. It was dark outside, couple hours after nightfall, but the hollow was darker than the rest. The headlights didn’t seem to cut through it, like the darkness was swallowing them up.

Deep inside the forest I heard the pipes, and Patricia and the girls. Tried to ignore them but I couldn’t. Started shaking. They were in there with that thing, and I knew what they were doing. My wife. My daughters. My two little girls. My babies.

When I’d got myself under control, I climbed down off the tractor and grabbed the first bag of lime. Cut the top open with my pocketknife and then started spreading it in a line around the hollow. Made sure I stayed out of reach of the tree limbs. They grabbed at me the whole time, but I was too smart for them. The treetops rustled and whispered, swaying back and forth. The sounds kept coming from the center of the woods. Animal sounds, but they were made by my family.

Took most of the night, but I made a circle around the entire hollow. Did the symbols and everything, just like I’d seen in the book. I said the words by what they call phonetically. Don’t know if I got them right or not, but since I don’t read Latin, I’ll just have to hope. If I done right, then the things what are inside the trees can’t spread to the rest of the forest.

But that was just the first part. While looking at the books I’d come across a spell that I thought was supposed to petrify wood. At least, that’s how it looked. I cursed O’Connor for up and getting himself killed, and wished I knew for sure, but I didn’t. Once the circle was finished I stood on the outside and said the words as best I could, hoping I was sounding them out right. Then I stepped back and held my breath. Like someone had flipped a switch, the sounds stopped. The trees didn’t turn into wood, but they stopped moving. The pipes fell silent, and there were no more moans or sighs. Everything got real quiet.

I reckoned it had worked good enough.

And then the screaming started. Patricia first, then the girls, and it all sort of blended together. I stood outside the circle and hollered for them, and after a minute they answered me. They come out of the hollow, stepping over the circle without paying it no mind. I wasn’t worried about them breaking it. The first part of the spell I’d worked was only supposed to affect the things from another plane.

Patricia and the girls looked like they’d stepped off a battlefield, like those fellas that come back from Vietnam. Shell-shocked, they call it. They were naked, and all scratched up. There were twigs and leaves in their hair and stuck to their backs and behinds. The satyr had done the same thing to the girls that he’d done to Patricia. I took one look at the blood on their legs and couldn’t look no more. Threw up next to the tractor and it burned my throat. Didn’t think I’d ever stop shaking.

They couldn’t remember any of what happened. Had amnesia or something. Patricia accused me, thought it was part of the powwow we’d worked that morning. She got the girls pretty worked up with her talk. I got them all calmed down as best I could and then loaded them into the wagon and drove them all home. It took about five minutes. All three of them were asleep before we got back. They slept till this morning.

But not me. When the sun come back up, I went back to the hollow. Said my prayers and drew a sigil on my forehead, but I didn’t need them. Whatever was in that forest was dead. The trees was just trees again, and when I stepped in between them, they didn’t attack me.

In the center of the hollow I found Hylinus. He’d been turned to stone, so I reckon the second part of the spell worked after all. I knocked on him with my fist (the one I’d bandaged after the tree tried to bite it off) and it hurt. He was solid. Petrified. Even down there between his legs. Hard stone.

There was one last thing to do, and I did it. Found a picture in one of my history books. It’s all in Latin, but the caption translated it. It was a marker, a totem to Nodens, one of the Thirteen, who I’d called upon to help me end this. The marker had been discovered by a scientist fella named Machen. I didn’t understand it all, but making a totem of my own was something I reckoned I should do, just to make double sure. The caption give me enough information to know where my name went and where Nodens’s name was supposed to be. I remembered that O’Connor had said we weren’t supposed to say Nodens’s name out loud. I’d written it earlier in this here journal, and maybe that’s when the badness started. So rather than carving his name, I used the labyrinth instead. He’s the god of it, so I reckoned it would work. Figured as long as I copied the rest just like in the book, I’d be okay. I carved it into one of my stone property markers and then I put it in the center of the hollow, right next to the satyr. Here are the words I engraved on it.

DEVOMLABYRINTHI

NLEHORNPOSSVIT

PROPTERNVPTIAS

QUASVIDITSVBVMRA

After I’d put up the totem, I stepped back and looked at my handiwork. I was sweating something fierce, but things soon cooled off. The wind picked up and thunder come rolling in over the hills. Sure enough, it started to rain. I was bone tired and I couldn’t even feel the drops on my skin.

When I come back home, Patricia and the girls had woken up. They were scared, and whatever poison that thing put into them had gotten into their heads. Patricia locked the three of them up in the attic. She was afraid I’d try to hurt them. Said I’d done something terrible to them down in those woods. When I tried to get in, she threatened to kill me. I thought maybe it was some leftover influence from the satyr. Maybe Hylinus was still alive inside that stone. Reckoned I should do something about that.

I took a sledgehammer down to the hollow. Reckoned if I smashed him to bits maybe his hold over them would be broken. Walked through the rain. Thunder and lightning was crashing all over the place, but I paid it no mind. Didn’t even notice the rain had washed the circle away until it was too late. The lime and salt were just blurry smudges, spread out all over the ground.

The satyr was gone. Escaped, even as a statue. My marker was gone, too. And the trees inside the hollow were different trees. The whole hollow had moved. Shifted. Escaped. Gone somewhere else. I don’t know where. Maybe from wherever they first come from, or maybe just to another part of the forest. They hid from me.

They’re screaming upstairs again. Gonna go up and try to talk to them. I love my wife. I love my family. I just want things to be normal again. I want us to be a happy family. Everything I done, I did for them. If I can make them see that, then maybe we can get through this.

I want them to love me the way they used to.

Will write more later. Put this back in the chest with the other books, so that it stays safe.

Going up to the attic now. Try to make things right.

It’s funny. I been up in that attic a million times, but those stairs have never seemed steeper than they do right now.

Lord, I’m tired.

FOURTEEN

I closed the journal. Nelson LeHorn’s final words seemed to hang in the air, echoing in the darkness. My throat felt raw, and I wished I’d brought some water with me. The guys were quiet, each of them mulling over what we’d learned.

What had happened next? I wondered. What had ultimately led to Patricia LeHorn’s fatal plunge from the attic window—the same attic we were sitting in now, twenty years later? The official account was that Nelson had pushed her out the window. His own daughters had testified to that. But I was beginning to question it. According to the diary he’d loved Patricia. I almost felt sorry for him. Poor, rustic farmer, uneasy with the effect that encroaching modern life was having on his family, unable to stop its advance, at odds with the culture of the Reagan years, the era of yuppies and greed and heavy metal and video games, the beginning of the postmodern techno-sex revolution. He’d loved his wife, would have done anything to make her happy—to save their marriage. It didn’t seem possible that he could have written those words and then murdered her immediately after. So what really occurred in this attic? And more important, what happened to LeHorn after Patricia’s death? Gone before the cops arrived and never seen again. Somewhere in the state police barracks in Harrisburg, or maybe hanging in the corner of a post office somewhere, was a wanted poster with Nelson LeHorn’s picture on it, a picture from twenty years ago. He’d disappeared, fallen off the face of the planet. I wondered if he was even still
on
the planet. His journal had spoken of doorways to other places, other worlds. Had he gone through one of those portals, never to return, and leaving us to clean up his mess?

While I’d been reading it had grown dark outside. No light came through the cracks in the plywood around the attic window, and I wondered just how long we’d been up there. Merle sat silently, his head in his hands. Dale looked thoughtful. Cliff smoked and said nothing. None of them seemed to notice the change in lighting.

“So,” Dale whispered. “Now we know.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “We do indeed.”

Merle shifted the rifle on his lap. “I remember Saul O’Connor. It was all over the papers when they discovered that kid in his house. Think I might still have a copy of the
Evening Sun
with that headline.”

“Yeah, I remember that, too.” Cliff sucked his cigarette down to the filter and sighed. “So it really is true. All of it. The goat man ain’t a guy in a suit.”

“You’re a believer now?” Merle asked.

Cliff shrugged. “That was pretty convincing, dude. He wrote that shit twenty years ago, but a lot of it matches up with what you guys have been saying. The pipes. The stone. Hylinus—it’s the same…thing. It got his wife and daughters just like it has Shelly, Leslie, Shannon, and the Wallace woman. Can’t believe I’m saying it, but I’m sold on the idea.”

Merle clapped him on the shoulder. “Glad to have you aboard.”

“Well,” Dale said, “now that we’re all on the same page, what do we do? I hate to say it, but despite everything in that journal we still don’t have the proof we need to convince Ramirez we’re not crazy.”

“No,” I agreed, “but at least we really know what we’re up against. We’re not guessing anymore. LeHorn managed to trap the trees in the hollow and turn Hylinus into stone. But then the rain came and washed away his magic circle before he could come up with a more permanent solution, and the trees got loose. Somehow they moved the actual hollow into the forest, marker and everything.”

“But the hollow is still outside,” Cliff said. “We saw it when we drove in. How can it be in two places at the same time?”

“Different trees,” Merle suggested. “LeHorn said a lot in there about things moving from one world to the next. What if these things replaced themselves with other trees?”

“You mean they teleported to another part of the woods? Exchanged places with regular trees?”

“Why not?” Merle stood up and brushed off the seat of his pants. “It’s no more unrealistic than any of this other stuff.”

Cliff shrugged. “You got a point.”

I continued. “So all this time they hid inside the forest, safe from prying eyes. Occasionally they killed somebody. That would account for some of the people who have disappeared over the years. But for the most part they stayed in hiding. Maybe they move around during hunting season, when the woods are full, so they won’t be discovered. Until Shelly came along and woke the satyr up by…well, we already know how she woke it up.”

Cliff nodded. “The blow job.”

“But why Shelly?” Dale asked. “And why now? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe the time was right. Maybe the stars were aligned and all that. Could be the spell wore off after two decades. I heard the pipes before Hylinus came back to life. Maybe he sent out a psychic summons or something like that.”

I thought about my own encounter in high school, when Becky Schrum and I had heard something in the woods. I had a good idea now what it was, and how incredibly lucky we’d been. Then something else occurred to me, something terrible. What if it had been our own teenage lust that had actually awoken him? What if it was me that had set this whole thing in motion back then?

Merle shook his head. “Seems like for every answer we get, there are still more questions.”

Dale stood up, wincing as his knee joints popped. He looked tired and pale. I was worried about him. Worried about us all.

“Fuck the questions,” Cliff said. “We know enough. All we have to do is repeat the spell, turn the fucker back into a statue, and then smash him into tiny little satyr bits with a sledgehammer.”

“Easy enough,” Merle whispered. Cliff nodded. “So what are we waiting for?”

“Do you know Latin?” Dale asked. “Because the spell is in Latin. And besides, the journal doesn’t tell us which spell LeHorn actually used. There must be hundreds of them in this
Daemono-
whatever. It’s a thick book. We could study it for the next week and still not be sure of the proper incantation. And we know what happens if you mix them up.”

I got to my feet. “Silver. LeHorn’s silver knife blade worked against the trees, and he seemed to think it would work against the satyr as well. I say we try that.”

“Where you gonna get silver?” Cliff asked.

“Tara’s got silver earrings and stuff. We can use those.” Dale nodded. “So does Claudine.”

Cliff laughed. “You’re gonna stab it with your wife’s jewelry?”

“No,” I said. “But we could drop the silver jewelry down the barrel of a gun and shoot it.”

Dale shook his head. “Wouldn’t work. When the bullet goes off with the jewelry in front of it, it’s going to hit the silver and screw up the trajectory. You’ve got dissimilar metals coming into contact under high force. Not a wise combination, especially if we’re facing down Hylinus.”

Merle clapped his hands together in excitement. “I’ve got it!”

“What?” Cliff smirked. “Herpes or the crabs?”

“A shotgun,” Merle said, ignoring him. “We cut open the top of a shotgun shell, pull out the pellets and keep the wadding, then replace the pellets with the jewelry, seal it back up with duct tape, and load the shell into the gun. I’ve got a double-barreled twelve-gauge at home that will do the trick.”

“I’ve got a shotgun, too,” Dale said.

“Duct tape?” I was doubtful.“Wouldn’t that fuck it up?”

Merle grinned. “Duct tape is a miracle of modern science. It can do anything. Seriously. Friend of mine cut his leg open with a chain saw one time. Almost down to the bone. He bandaged it up with duct tape until he got to the hospital. And I once took off a wart with duct tape.”

I winked at him. “Merle Laughman, high priest of the Cult of Duct Tape. Let us pray.”

“Hey,” he said, smiling, “I’m a big believer in the stuff.”

“Kind of like your own personal powwow?”

Merle paused, considering. “Yeah, I guess it is sort of like that.”

“Actually,” Dale said, “that’s not a bad comparison. None of us knows the first thing about casting spells, but maybe we can use magic of our own against this thing. What is powwow—or any kind of magic? It’s just a belief structure. Folk remedies and folktales. Things that people once believed would heal them and protect them. Maybe we can incorporate some of our own beliefs—like Merle’s duct tape. Might make for good magic.”

I shrugged. “Anything’s possible. What else do we have?”

“My wedding ring,” Dale said. “I love Claudine, and I’ve never once taken this ring off my finger since the day we were married. Not even to go swimming. I was in an accident about twenty years ago, and the paramedics were going to cut it off my hand, and I wouldn’t let them. I believe in what this ring represents. Hylinus went after Claudine. This gold band is my power against that happening again. It’s my talisman.”

I saw where he was going, and came up with some powwow of my own. “Big Steve. LeHorn said in his journal that dogs were close to God. I’ve always thought the same thing. Big Steve has been my rock through this entire thing, and he’s just as involved as the rest of us. Maybe more. He’s been in it since the beginning. I’m drawing power from my dog.”

Dale and Merle nodded, looking pleased with my choice.

“And if we’re using Tara’s and Claudine’s silver jewelry,” I added, “that has to be good for something, right? They’ve been affected by this, too.”

We looked expectantly at Cliff.

He scowled. “What?”

“Come on, dude,” I urged. “Merle’s got a roll of magic duct tape, Dale’s got his wedding ring, and I’ve got the dog. You need a talisman of your own before we go up against this thing.”

“This is stupid. You guys know that, right?”

“Yesterday,” I reminded him, “you thought the satyr was stupid, too.”

He stood up, shook a cigarette from the pack, and put it in his mouth. He clicked the lighter, and once again the darkness seemed to surround the flame. He touched it to the cigarette, inhaled, and put the lighter back in his pocket.

“These.” Cliff pulled the cigarette from his mouth and held it up, the tip glowing in the darkness. “These are my magic. I always figured smokes would be the death of me. I mean, I know they’re gonna give me cancer, but I don’t quit. Never even really tried. They’re going to kill me someday.”

Dale looked puzzled. “Cigarettes are your personal powwow?”

“Yep. If the cigarettes are gonna kill me, then that means the satyr can’t. So I’m safe.”

I began to feel hopeful. For the first time since this whole thing had become a reality I felt confidence—confidence in myself, in my marriage, in my friends. Nothing else mattered now. We would beat this thing.

Then the flashlight batteries died, plunging us into total darkness.

Cliff said, “Oh, shit.”

I shook the flashlight and banged it against my hip, but the beam did not return. As if in response the rustling sounds in the walls suddenly increased. Something banged downstairs. The house shook slightly.

Merle gasped. “What was that?”

“Just the wind,” Dale said, keeping his voice calm and steady. He stood rock still. “Knocked something over downstairs. That’s all.”

“And that rustling noise?” Merle whispered. “That the wind, too?”

“Just mice. Nothing to be afraid of. Still, Cliff, maybe you could get out your lighter again?”

Cliff flicked it on, and the rustling sound stopped.

“Scared it off,” Dale whispered.

“Okay, can we get the hell out of here now?” Merle’s eyes darted around the attic nervously.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to hide my own apprehension.

“Let’s go satyr hunting.”

“Wait a minute,” Dale said. “What about the trees? We haven’t discussed how to deal with them.”

“We do it on the way home,” Cliff whined. “This lighter is getting hot, man. I’m burning my damn fingers.”

“I’ve got stuff in my woodshop that will take care of the trees,” Merle said. “Right now I agree with Cliff.”

We fumbled down the darkened stairs, back into the bedroom. Merle and Cliff carried the rifles, and I carried LeHorn’s journal, his English copy of
The Long Lost Friend
, and his tattered
Daemonolateria
.

The shadows were just as solid on the second floor. There was no hint of daylight outside.

“How long were we up there?” I asked.

“Maybe an hour?” Merle guessed. “Don’t worry; we’ll be home before dark.”

“It’s already dark,” I pointed out. “It’s only around noon, but I don’t see any daylight between those cracks in the boards.”

Dale crossed the floor. There was a small knothole in the plywood covering the bedroom window, and he peered through it. Gasping, he pulled away.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Take a look.” He sounded terrified.

I put my eye to the hole and peeked outside. It was pitch-black, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. When they did I saw tree branches.

Behind me, Dale whispered, “There were no trees in the yard when we got here.”

He was right. The yard had been devoid of plant life, save for scraggly weeds and overgrown grass. Now there was a forest out there. Giant, old-growth oaks and maples and elms and pines clustered together, encircling the house, pressing against its sides, close enough that I could smell the pine trees’ sap and needles. There was another stench as well: rotting vegetation. I’d smelled it when Big Steve and I first encountered Hylinus, and here it was again.

As if sensing my presence, the branches of a dogwood leaned toward the window and scratched the side of the house. They scraped along the wood, searching for a way inside. The sound was unnerving, like fingernails on a chalkboard.

I looked at the others. “We’re trapped.”

Cliff dropped the lighter and sucked on his burned fingers. “What are you talking about?”

“The trees. They’ve surrounded the house.”

“Oh, shit,” Merle said. “They know what we’re up to! They know we’re trying to stop it.”

Cliff gingerly picked up the hot lighter. “How? How can they know?”

“Because they’re magic, stupid!” Merle punched the wall in frustration. “They’re possessed by fucking demons. You heard what LeHorn said.”