Chapter 14
“Seriously?” Kaitlynn swats her eyes at me. As if I’m the one who just said something senseless, not Zach.
“Yeah.” Zach shrugs.
His jacket hangs loose around his shoulders, spread open to show a thick red, black, and white plaid collared shirt. It’s cold in the middle of the woods, but the warmth from the flickering firepit has staved off most of the bite for me. I’m still not sure I can sit out here for another half hour.
After the…incident at the Harrel House I had no plans of staying.
It didn’t seem Zach was keen on exploring anymore either.
And I don’t think either of us needed a repeat of the incident, even if I might have liked it, because yes, yes I did and that’s the problem.
We left immediately, once we found a tree close enough to get us back across the fence, hauled Zach’s now soggy and muddy project bookcase back to his truck, and got out of there.
Kaitlynn, the one who got between me and my first ever kiss, noticed a sign for a nearby campground on our way down, so we stopped.
“You don’t know about the demon dog of Valle Crucis?” I lean in, digging into him with an accusing gaze. Fire flicks in his pupils. If I look hard enough, I can even see the pieces of wood in them, little worlds of their own. He grunt-laughs and throws his hands in the air.
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Zach says again.
“You grew up around here though, right?” I lean forward even more.
“Yeah. All my life. But I’ve never heard of it! Sounds made up to me.”
“Excuse me?” I recoil like I’m putting on a Master Class in Shatner Acting 101. A demon-eyed dog chasing all who passed their corridor of Highway 194. Surely not. “Made up? How dare you, sir.”
“Uh…” Zach falters, while Kaitlynn covers her mouth. She better be hiding amusement. I can’t deal with her not knowing either. And yes, I might be overdoing it a little to avoid anything else coming up.
“It’s very real, I tell you. A local legend,” I say, flaring my lips for effect.
“Say that again, slowly this time.” Zachary grins.
I don’t. Instead, I stare him down, one brow raised, all business. Inside, my lungs are dying to burst out laughing, but I’m taking this as far as I can.
“Slowly,” he says again, but even slower this time.
“Fuck you,” I blare and let out a few of the giggles I’d held on to.
“Testy.” Zachary grins.
Kaitlynn’s eyes jump between us. “Flir—”
“It’s a cool story!” I shift to my right and about knock her off the log we’re sharing.
Okay, I kneed her, but she deserved it, and it wasn’t too obvious.
She’ll be okay, because I didn’t tell her what happened, nothing, and I’m about ninety-nine percent sure she didn’t see us in the house.
She was outside. Right? Then again it is Kaity.
She could have been spying through the window or happened to be at the door when we kissed.
Oh shit. No. Just sidestep it. She said she called because she was getting bored. “Really. Like really cool.”
“Oh…” Zachary doesn’t seem convinced. “Okay. Tell me about this ‘demon’ dog then.”
The tension in my shoulders lightens, and I allow myself to lean back so I’m not hovering over the fire, and give Kaity a little room.
“You know where Valle Crucis is, right?” I ask first. It’s a crucial part of the story, both in name and location.
“I’ve an idea. Up above Boone, right?” he asks.
“Depends on how you’re looking at the map,” Kaitlynn says.
“What?” I side-eye her. How you look at the map?
“Yeah, you know.” She shrugs. “Depends on what direction you hold it.”
I shake my head and try to forget what she just said before returning my attention to Zach, who seems enormously amused.
“If you hold the map right,” I stress, glancing at Kaitlynn again for a second, “yeah, sort of, at least. Anyway, it’s up there. There’s this old white church up there too. Think it’s St. John’s something. It’s an old church with a cemetery next to it.”
“Like most,” Kaitlynn mutters.
I grunt but otherwise act like she didn’t just make a sarcastic comment.
“So according to legend, in like the 1700s, no, wait… No. In the 1800s, a bunch of people kept going missing and some of the townspeople found literal dismembered body parts in the woods.” I’m assuming he can stomach this.
Probably should have asked first, now that I’m thinking about it, but he’ll be okay. “Guess wh—”
“Dismembered?” Zachary interrupts, and swallows. “You mean like severed arms and legs and shit?”
“Yeah, probably some heads and hands too.” I shrug and grin.
“And maybe some dicks,” Kaitlynn pooches her lips and fake whispers.
I cough, trying not to let her embarrass me. I know that’s what she’s after. “Yeah, that too probably.”
“Definitely dicks.” Zachary nods and laughs. “Lots of dicks.”
“Okay, back to the story.” I pull them back in. Dicks are great and all, but that’s not the story. “So yeah, they started finding stuff like that—”
“Dicks,” Kaitlynn shouts, but I keep going.
“—and figured… Oh wait! Did I say they found the body parts behind the church?”
“Nope,” Zachary says matter-of-factly and smacks his lips. “Damn.”
“Yeah. Well, so they all thought it was, like, some wild animal. You know, how else are people getting ripped to shreds and left in the woods? But they didn’t know what animal or why it was near the church.
Eventually someone claimed they’d seen a massive black, smoldering red-eyed dog.
It was taller than any normal man. Horrifying and vicious. But it never went past the bridge.”
“Wait, it’s a demon dog, but it couldn’t get past a bridge?” Zach shifts and one of his cheeks draws up toward his ear.
“Yeah,” I say like it makes perfect sense and start back. “It—”
“Why?” Zachary isn’t done yet.
“If you’ll let me finish, I’m going to tell you—it’s sort of a big part of the story,” I tell him.
Zach puts his hands up in surrender and purses his lips. It’s actually cute. I wish he didn’t though, because now I’m hyper-focusing on them. The soft texture. The taste of…nope. No. Not going there again. Story. Get back to the story.
“So yeah, the church where they found the bodies, the priest guy picked up on it and started preaching that it was Satan coming to kill the unrepentant, the sinful. Which is funny to me, because I swear Satan isn’t the bad guy in the Bible. That’s God. Like who else—”
“Demon dog,” Kaitlynn spurts. She knows my fascination with religion, especially the controversial parts that just don’t make sense to me. And oh shit, I didn’t even think about Zachary probably being Christian. I make a mental note to be more thoughtful.
Thanks, Kaity.
“Right, demon dog,” I say. “Supposedly the demon dog still haunts the cemetery and chases down the sinful when they pass by. Until they get to the bridge, of course.”
“Ah,” Zach sighs. “Interesting. I was thinking something way more scary, like them being stuck there forever, never to leave.”
“How would they tell the story if they were stuck there forever?” I ask.
“Not everyone would get stuck, right?” Zach argues. I guess that could happen. “Anyway, you didn’t explain why the dog couldn’t cross the bridge. Like, it’s a bridge. Dogs can cross bridges, and even if it couldn’t for some reason, they can swim. And it’s also a demon dog.”
“Oh, right!” I say, remembering what I’d forgotten to tell him. “Valle Crucis.”
“Uh…” Zachary squints at me. I can feel Kaitlynn staring at me.
“Valley of the Cross. Sorry, Valle Crucis. It literally means Valley of the Cross.” I fill in the main blank.
“Ah, okay.” Zachary nods. “And?”
I drop my head and sigh. I’m going to have to spell it out for him.
“Like holy place. And it’s a devil dog. So the devil can’t go to holy…
You know what? Let me start over. The town gets its name from three rivers that intersect with each other, making a type of cross.
So it’s like, supposedly holy water or something.
” I think it’s called an archbishop’s cross.
One of those with an extra line across it, but I personally have never seen it.
Like, I’ve looked on the map and still don’t see it.
“The main river runs under the bridge. So the idea is that it’s like a wall for the dog because it’s possessed, demonic, and the cross is all holy. So it can’t cross.”
“Now that’s a little cooler.” Zach nods. “Definitely would make for a crazy escape. Trying to get to the bridge before it gets you.”
“Yeah, and people say it’s so fast, it can keep up with cars too,” Kaitlynn chimes in.
I nod. She’s right. That’s what they say. “Of course, it’s all dog shit. See what I did there?”
Kaitlynn rolls her eyes, but I get a smile and laugh from Zachary. Take that, Kaity.
“Lame,” Zachary says, but I don’t care because he’s still laughing.
He’s adorable when he laughs. He gets dimples in his cheeks and they bunch up under his eyes and make him squint.
“You laughed though,” I clap back. “Guess you’re lame too, then.”
“Someone’s brave.” Kaitlynn side-eyes me as if Zachary isn’t sitting right in front of me, and I hadn’t kissed him just an hour ago, and I’m supposed to be dating his brother. Gods. I’m screwed.
“Maybe I am.” Zach grins coyly at me, ignoring Kaitlynn entirely.
It’s everything I can do not to let my eyes blast open wide, and I don’t think there is anything I could do that would stop my cheeks from blooming red. I can feel them already. It’s not what he said. It’s the way he said it, the way he looked at me. That head wobble and smooth cadence.
I’m so absolutely screwed.
“Did you hear that?” Kaitlynn interrupts my self-destruction.
“Hear what?” I ask. Don’t be trying to spook me now. I’ve had enough of that tonight.
The only thing I’ve heard the past half hour has been her and Zach, the crackling of the fire, the wind whistling through bare branches and pine needles. The occasional chirp and caw, and the growl of my stomach. I forgot to eat before we came up here. I should have known to bring a snack.