Chapter 29 The Walk-In
The Walk-in
Deep in my bones, I knew where the Kings of Warsaw Creek had to be going eventually, after dark, where no one could see them.
The Hag Stone.
I drove down twisting two-lane roads as rain began to pepper the windshield. As I got closer to the park, the rain thickened, coming down in sheets.
I turned on the radio. I expected the fireworks to be canceled at least.
“…the National Weather Service in Wilmington has declared a flash flood emergency for Bayern County. Residents are advised to seek high ground and avoid driving through standing water. The Copperhead River is expected to crest at nine feet. Anyone attending any outdoor celebrations along the river is asked to evacuate…”
“Well, at least that’s something in our favor,” I said to Gibby. “No one’s going to be out to see any of this.”
I crawled the car up the access road to the park. The road had been washed out by rain, and the car swam against the current. I finally made the decision to put it in the ditch. It didn’t matter. Nobody was getting out of this.
Gibby’s ears were sharply alert. “Stay close, buddy,” I told him. I regretted bringing him. But Nick was his dad, and there was no leaving him behind.
I stepped out into about six inches of running water. That much was enough to knock a person off their feet if they weren’t careful, especially in the gathering darkness.
I didn’t turn on a light. I didn’t need a light to see. Gibby jogged next to me, and we entered the rain-spangled darkness of that cursed place. Or maybe it was sacred somehow, since Dana had died here. It felt like both.
Mud sucked at my shoes as we moved, and the rain rattled from the sky through the trees. I pumped my shotgun slowly in time with a thunderclap, so no one would hear. We descended into the ravine.
There were tracks in the mud ahead of me, men’s and a woman’s, it looked like—at least four different tread patterns.
I crept slowly to the bottom of the ravine, rain making my clothes leaden.
A flashlight gleamed ahead of me, casting shifting silhouettes on the rocky shore beneath the Hag Stone’s profile.
One man held a gun on another, while two figures were on their knees.
Another was prone. I crouched behind a honeysuckle to get the lay of the land.
I squinted, trying to determine who was who. I was able to make out Nick. Blood was running down his temple, and his eye was swollen shut. He was kneeling on the ground, next to a prone female form that I assumed was Viv. She was covered in a black tarp or blanket. Maybe a black cloak.
Gibby strained forward, and I had to wind my fingers in his collar to keep him from racing toward his dad. My heart thundered to see Nick still alive.
Around the figures was a circle of something black washing away. Could be black salt or soil, or maybe blood. Candles in glass jars guttered around them like dim stars, some flickering out.
Lister was kneeling outside of the circle. He was wearing a black robe with a hood, his hands raised. He was looking at the gunman, at Fred Jasper.
My heart swelled to see him alive. But not like this. Jasper aimed the gun at Jeff Sumner, who was two steps ahead of him, with his hands cuffed at his belly. I suspected Jasper had used Sumner to flush Lister out.
“You can’t do this,” Sumner was saying. “You can’t.”
“Why not? You did this to Dana,” Jasper answered coolly. “You did this to Viv, too.”
“But that was—”
“Different? No, no it wasn’t.”
I straightened up and approached them with the shotgun raised. “Fred, stop.”
Jasper didn’t flinch, just kept his gun aimed at Jeff. “You can’t stop me, Koray. This needs to happen.”
“That’s not up to you or me to decide, Fred.” Rain pounded down on my scalp.
Beside me, Gibby growled. I put my leg in front of him to discourage him from lunging. I wasn’t sure who he’d go after.
“Are Nick and Viv…?”
Jasper gestured for me to come closer, through curtains of rain. I slowly got in front of Nick. Gibby stood at his side.
“Are you okay?” I hissed at Nick.
“Couple of bruised ribs, but I’m okay,” he wheezed. “I was next…”
“Can you walk?”
He climbed to his feet. His hands were bound behind his back with a zip tie. I reached into my pocket for a knife, opened it with my teeth, and cut the zip tie with my left hand. I kept the shotgun at my shoulder.
I turned to Jasper. “You don’t want to hurt him, Fred. Nick’s a doctor. He’s a good man. He saves lives. He loves dogs and planting our garden. He collects baseball caps from minor league teams and reads Roman history…” I let myself babble. It was important that Jasper see him as a person.
“And…and I love him,” I finished. “He’s the best person I’ve ever known.”
Jasper stared at me, his face unreadable.
Gibby whined. Beneath rolls of thunder, I thought I heard singing.
“He can go,” Jasper said at last.
I muttered to Nick: “Take Gibby and go to the high ground, okay?”
“I’m not leaving you,” he said stubbornly.
“I need you to get Gibby away. This water is too high for him…he could drown. I’ll be along in a bit,” I whispered, as convincingly as I could. Truth be told, I didn’t want him to see what I was going to do next. Because it was going to be something my father would approve of.
“I can’t leave you,” he insisted.
“Nick, please.”
He reached out and kissed me, his lips cold in the rain. Nick and Gibby slowly retreated up the trail.
I turned my attention back to the scene before me.
Just yards from where Dana had been killed, Viv lay on the bank.
I could tell she wasn’t breathing. She was curled in on herself, as if she occupied an invisible egg.
Her throat was bruised. Her hands, tangled under her chin, were pierced by railroad spikes, and more spikes prickled from her feet.
Blood trickled into the sandy soil. I was too late.
“What the hell did you do?” I turned on Lister, wrath boiling in my throat.
Lister looked up at me. He choked on his snot before answering. “Jeff and Quentin and I…when we were in high school…we killed a girl. It wasn’t my idea, I swear! And now…again…”
“Tell me,” I hissed.
“It was Dana Carson! It was Dana Carson!” he burbled.
“Why?” I demanded.
Snot bubbled in his nose, and it was like a dam broke when he started babbling. “When we were kids, we messed around with the occult. At first, it was just fucking around with a Ouija board in Jeff’s parents’ basement. Stupid shit. Lots of drinking.”
“Go on.”
“So…this one time, when Jeff’s parents were away, we tried to do a ritual at the creek behind Jeff’s house. We’d been reading about the Order of the Golden Dawn, and we tried some shit.”
“What kind of shit?”
He grimaced. “We found some stuff in Jeff’s basement—black candles, and shit written in old books. Jeff said he could channel spirits. It was…I guess it was good, creepy fun at first, but I think we summoned something. Something…Jeff called it the Forest King.”
I stopped breathing. “What did it look like?”
“Like…like a shadow with antlers.”
My grip on the shotgun trembled. This couldn’t be. It couldn’t be my father’s Forest God, Veles, could it?
“I thought I was drinking too much. Fuck me, I definitely was.” Lister’s words came out in a panicked rush, and I let them wash over me.
“We were all sort of fucked up then, you know? Jeff’s dad had declared bankruptcy.
Quentin was moving away. My parents were divorcing.
Our worlds were coming to an end. Maybe that’s why we were willing to believe in crazy supernatural shit, and that if we made an offering…
so the Forest King would do our bidding. ”
“So you…sacrificed Dana?” My voice sounded remote, hollow.
“Shut up, Mark!” Sumner shouted, and Jasper kicked Sumner in the back of the knee, knocking him to the dirt.
Lister babbled. “Jeff…Jeff said we could make a sacrifice, and everything would turn out all right. We found Dana Carson on the Fourth of July. She was by herself, and we didn’t think that anybody would…would miss her. Especially not twenty-five years later.”
“She was a person. She mattered.” I kicked him in the ribs. He grimaced and clutched his side. “How did you do it?”
He wheezed. “Urk…Jeff…he drugged her with a chemical, and we took her to his house.
We did a ritual then. We needed blood…We drew blood from her hands and feet with railroad spikes.
Quentin read from one of the books while Jeff choked her.
We thought she was dead. Jeff said we should burn her body—deep in the woods, so the King of the Forest would see.
“We put her in Quentin’s car, took her to the river. We drove past the fireworks, to here. This place was magic.”
I stood over Lister, listening. In the distance, thunder rolled. Water had pushed the candles in jars away, and they floated into the swelling river.
“But Dana woke up when we took her out of the trunk, and we freaked the fuck out. She was half-awake, crying, wheezing…Jeff’s dad…
he kept some chemicals in the basement, and we took those.
Jeff dumped her in the grass on that island in the river.
He told me to throw the chemical on her. And he told me to set her on fire.
“I did it. I fucking did it. I threw a match on her. It was…horrific. She went up in a blue flash, screaming, and then lay down in the grass. When the fire burned out, I knew she was dead.
“I didn’t tell a soul. But I told Jeff and Quentin I wanted no part of any of this shit again.”
I exhaled. “Then what happened?”
“Things got better. Jeff’s dad’s company got a last-minute investor. Quentin didn’t get sent to boarding school, and my parents didn’t get a divorce. We had all of those things. Everything we ever wanted, and more.
“I thought this all was in the past, but weird shit started happening. We sort of figured out that Viv had cursed us, that she’d summoned something, just like we had years before. But whatever’s here…it wants more blood. It wants our blood.”