Valiant

by Peter Durant

Chapter 1

Summer, 1949

The full moon had climbed over the ragged treetops, sending what little light it could into the full, black depths of the Taber Wood...but it was never enough. Old logging roads twisted and dipped all through the miles of ancient woodland, mazing their narrow way in and through the centuries old stands of silent, black trees.

The creatures of the woodland night quieted as the air was split by the low thrum of a barely moving vehicle, creeping along one of the older and more root-riddled roads, its lights bouncing a mad wash of shadows across the watching trees. The vehicle slowed to a crawl, and then stopped moving altogether, the sound of its engine dying away with the headlights.

In the silence that surrounded the old vehicle, a lone figure stepped from the cab, a large flashlight swinging heavy from his hand. The man moved towards the back of the truck, the light's beam barely enough to part the damp gloom that sucked in all around him. He turned off the light and stared all around at the shadows touched by the sparse moonlight, listening into the stillness. A few heartbeats later, satisfied that there was no one else around - which wasn't all that surprising given the location and time of night - he put his hand atop the canvas tarpaulin and peeled it back.

In the graying shadows of the truck bed, the boy looked older than his ten years, his arms and legs a little more muscular or fleshy than other boys his own age. His hands were still bound with brightly colored electrical wire behind his back - though to be sure, there really wasn't any need.

Not anymore.

Doc looked off into the trees one more time...just to be sure, before dragging the boy to the end of the truck bed and tossing his limp body up onto his shoulder. He grabbed the shovel from the truck back and held the flashlight in the hand that held the boy in place. He stepped away from the truck and towards the road that slid deeper into the black woods, his eyes quickly adjusting to the bare moonlight. After he'd walked under the canopy of branches for perhaps fifteen minutes, he had to turn on the light again. He didn't want to lose his bearings. He was almost there. He could feel it in the air.

The ragged circle of the flashlight's beam caught at a branch just ahead along the roadway, a barely-noticeable strip of green fabric tied around it. He smiled and hefted the boy's body over to his other shoulder. It wouldn't be much longer now. A sound above his head made him snap the light up into the mire of branches, the beam snagging at every branch along the way before flashing off a pair of amber eyes apparently just as startled by his presence, here in the deep of the forest. The owl would be sole witness to what happened here this night; not that it would matter. He smiled and stepped onto the old pathway just under the fabric bow, the flashlight even more necessary here. Shadows pulled in behind him as he stepped carefully along the twisting path.

As he walked, he was aware of the chill seeping from the boy's skin, and into the palm of his own hand. He swallowed down the few regrets his mind dredged up in that heartbeat and swung the light a little to his right, looking for...

The second strip was of the same green fabric, though not as faded as the other one had been - with sunlight being such a rarity back in this pitch hollow. It'd taken him most of one day a few years ago to find this secluded spot along the path and to carefully mark it so he'd be able to find it again...when the time came.

And it always came.

He remembered the face of the boy who'd supplied the t-shirt material for those particular marking strips; a blonde-haired slip of a lad who'd nonetheless put up one of the more valiant struggles at the sudden end of his carefree days. He smiled at the memory of how his fingers had clenched the boy's throat as the last breaths gurgled up and out of his throat.

Yeah, he'd shown him all right. Nobody ever got away from him. Not once.

It only took a few minutes to scrape away enough of the loamy ground to create a long trench, wide and long enough for the small body to be laid out in. He was barely out of breath when he was finished, though his palms tingled a bit from the hard work. He stood and surveyed the trees all around, his ears pricking at small sounds in the wood, but they were only the normal sounds of his blessed, concealing wilderness. He wiped a rag across his forehead and kneeled down to pick up the cold, limp body. Turning slowly, he lowered the boy into the dark gash in the earth and wiped his hands against the boy's chest. He stared down into the young face for a few moments, the moon's light paling the child's skin even more than his sudden death had.

He pulled his knife out of his pocket and leaned over into the hole, his eyes fixed on the boy's face. He'd been such a happy child, his laugh always quick to rise. But all that was over now. After little more than a week, the time had simply come to end things. That's just the way the fates had gone this time.

He grabbed at the bottom of the boy's shirt and lifted it up, his blade slicing a short, ragged strip from the material. He pocketed the knife and the slash of bright, red fabric and picked up the shovel again. As he got to his feet, he stared down at the boy, who looked to be simply sleeping in the dark shallow of ground. He was suddenly overcome by a wash of memories and more regret as he fell to his knees beside the hole and leaned far forward. Pressing his hand against the boy's chest, he kissed him lightly on the lips. The sensation wasn't unlike what he imagined kissing a dead fish must be like. But that was only to be expected, under these circumstances. He stood again, his hand fondling the smooth handle of the knife in his pocket. He rubbed at his temple and looked up at the slash of dark sky overhead.

The headaches were going to be starting again.

He looked around at the watching trees and let a shovelful of the black soil trickle down over the boy's face until all the white skin there was covered. He didn't even look back when his work was finally done; just walked back through the dark woods to his truck and pushed the shovel in under the tarp. It was a short burial for a short life...and an even shorter friendship.

A scratching sound in the branches above pulled his head and he swung the beam up again. Another owl stepped along a branch overhead, its eyes burning down into his. He smiled up at the bird, and whether it was the same bird from earlier on or another of its brethren, didn't really matter. The night was almost over - the morning light soon to break on another day to begin his search for his next little lifelong friend.

After a few minutes, he was back in the cab of his truck, the wide glare of the headlights cutting through the shadows ahead. He let the motor idle for a few moments and pulled the strip of fabric from his pocket. He pressed a dry kiss against it before pinning it to the sun visor above his head, and amid all the other colors and patterns of fabric souvenirs there...the simple, red swatch stood out as his new favorite.

END CHAPTER

Chapter 2

Blades of summer sun sliced down through a web of black tree branches, splotching the new grass for miles across the wooded hills. Blue jays and sparrows grabbed up insects that buzzed or hopped through the long grass and the warm stink of rotting loam pressed up against the subtler scent of wildflowers that lay heavy in the meadow.

Down in a gully that slumbered along a lazy creek, two boys dashed and leaped, poking towards each other with blunted lengths of stick. Branches really, but to Jamie and Jeffy, the sticks were gleaming weapons of a ferocious battle and they were two of the bravest knights of the realm.

"Hey! You're supposed to die when I stab at ya," Jamie shouted, his eyes following after Jeffy's bounding figure. "Ya gotta play right, Jeffy."

"Make me, ya varlet," Jeffy said and swung his stick through the air in Jamie's direction. Neither boy knew exactly what a varlet was, but Prince Valiant always called the bad guys that, just before he defeated them on their favorite weekly radio show.

Today, Jeffy was the good guy - though neither one of them felt up to taking on the mantle of the mighty Prince Valiant himself. It was enough fun taking turns being just the good guy...though some days, of course, it was hard to tell who was who.

Jeffy was always Sir Jeffrey and over-acted his way into and out of every battle, usually ending up making Jamie roll on the grass with laughter at his comical antics.

For his part, Jamie always chose to be Sir Lancelot, the good and brave fair-haired knight of the round table. Partly because he shared the same hair color as the fabled knight, and partly because he didn't much care to be called Sir James – though he never really said why…just Jamie being Jamie.

Jamie jumped up on a stone half-buried into the damp soil that bordered the water, his feet sliding a little upon the smooth surface, before he caught his footing.

"Ha!" he shouted and jabbed the point of his blade down towards his adversary, deftly avoiding the other boy's wide, but powerful swing.

"Hey! Stand still," Jeffy yelled and backed up a little, his hand holding the point of the stick in his palm. "You ain't supposed to be jumpin' all around like that."

"Says who?" Jamie asked and swooshed his stick through the air between them, his free hand resting on his hip.

"Says...” Jeffy replied, his mind tripping for an answer. He frowned when he discovered that he didn't have one, and swung his stick at Jamie's foot, hitting the stone instead. Vibrations from the hit rattled up his arm and he dropped his stick. "Yow!"

"Ha! Ya dropped your sword! I win!" Jamie shouted, his voice filled with sudden pride. "Told ya I'd win."

Jeffy rubbed at his elbow and spat at the ground.

"Yeah, but you didn't say nothin' about cheatin'."

Jamie jumped down on the backside of the big stone, landing on the harder soil away from the water's edge. Still, his shoes sank a bit into the dirt and he had to wipe them along the grass to get them clean again.

"Awwww. Big baby," Jamie said, and held his stick in front of his chest, his body suddenly snapping to attention. "Thought you were one of the brave knights of the realm?"

"Stupid game," Jeffy said and kicked at his sword lying on the ground in front of him.

A rustling in the deep bushes behind them, pulled their attention. Jeffy bent and grabbed up his stick, whirling to face this new threat. Jamie did the same, though he moved a little closer to the stone, keeping the boulder more or less between himself and the noise in the woods.

A small girl, no more than eight or ten years old, burst through the last leaves of the high bushes, her eyes squinted shut. When she felt her arms break free of the pulling branches, she opened her eyes and looked around, clearly disoriented.

"Katie!" Jamie said and let the point of his sword drop against the boulder at his side. "What're you doin' here?"

Jeffy swung his sword through the air and jumped towards her.

"Avast there, Matey!" he said and jabbed the stick at her.

"Hey! You stop!" Katie said and took a step back towards the bushes, the branches pushing up against her back.

"Mom's gonna be mad at you,” Jamie said, lifting his stick away from the rock and pointing it at her.

"No she won't," Katie said and glared at Jeffy who was still hopping around in front of her, his sword tip jabbing out at her. "She told me to come find you."

Jamie looked down at the ground and swung the tip of the stick at the long grass there.

"Knock it off, Jeffy,” he called out and tapped at the side of the boulder with his stick, his eyes looking off past the both of them. "'Sides, ya ain't supposed to be a pirate. We're knights."

Jeffy stood up straight and laid the stick against his leg, glancing from Katie over to Jamie.

"We're knight pirates!" Jeffy said and jabbed his stick into the air over his head, proud of his new occupation. "Ha! an' Ha!" he shouted out, his teeth flashing in a smiling grimace of joy. He brought his arm down and stabbed at the air towards Jamie.

"What d'ya want anyway?" Jamie asked Katie as he continued to hit at the stone. "Why don't ya go play somewhere else?"

"I told ya," Katie replied. "Mom told me to come an' get ya."

"For what?" Jamie asked and let his stick rest against the boulder.

Katie shrugged her shoulders and crouched on the ground, her small hand grabbing up a length of relatively straight branch. She looked up at Jeffy and pointed it at him.

"Ha! Yourself," she said and took up a stance more or less mimicking Jeffy - who was still standing with his sword pointing in her direction. The hem of her dress stretched between her legs making her a little awkward. Jeffy looked at her wobbly stance and blinked at her, his face breaking into a smile as he brought his stick up in a line with hers and moved forward.

"Katie, you put that down!" Jamie called out and moved away from the rock. She glanced over at her brother, the tip of her stick dipping almost to the ground.

"Awww, let her fight," Jeffy said and took another hopping step towards her.

"Knock it of Jeffy," Jamie said and swung his stick at the other boy, narrowly missing Jeffy's shoulder.

"Hey!" Jeffy said and jumped back out of the way as Jamie came closer. Jeffy's feet got tangled in the long grass beside the creek and he stumbled, his knees jamming into the soft muck of the bank. One hand and elbow splooshed in after that, the mud seeming to pull down at his body.

"Yuuuuck!" he said and pushed his stick into the ground beside him, using it to try and lever himself back upright, without much quick success. Jamie looked over at his sister who was standing with her stick still touching at the ground.

"Let's go. I gotta get home," he said to her and then looked over at Jeffy who was still making his way back from the mucky hole he'd made in the ground. One leg from the knee down was soaked black with wet river mud. His hands were caked in the same dark goop that seeped through the soil by the creek. He bent and started wiping his fingers along the long strips of dry grass further away from the water.

"C'mon! I gotta go," Jamie called out and turned towards the way they'd come into the clearing - through the dark woods.

"Yeah, yeah," Jeffy muttered, shaking the bigger clumps of mud off his clothing as he followed after Jamie and his sister.

Katie looked back over her shoulder at Jeffy and when he looked up at her, she stuck her tongue out at him. He returned the gesture, adding a shaking of his head, the mud sloughing off the side of his face and shoulder as he moved.

Katie giggled to herself and turned back towards where Jamie was forging his way back along the rough path Jeffy and he'd come in. There was a soft rustling of leaves off to the right somewhere and Katie turned, expecting to see Jeffy swinging at branches, but there was no one there. She frowned and thought of mentioning it to Jamie, but he was just being so cranky...

"C'mon you guys or I'm leavin' you here," Jamie called back over his shoulder and hit at a clump of high bushes at the side of the makeshift path.

Jeffy stopped cleaning the mud from his clothes and trotted through the grass to catch up. Katie saw him coming and shied out of the way, thinking for a moment that he was coming to smear some of the mud on her, but he just looked over at her and stuck his tongue out again. She looked over her shoulder at where the rustling sound had come from, her eyes digging into the empty shadows there.

"Hey Jamie! Can we come back an' play after?" Jeffy called ahead and hit at the same knight-sized bush that Jamie had just hit. After a few moments of trudging along behind Jamie, with no reply...Jeffy asked again.

"Jamie...can we..."

Jamie whirled on him, his eyes narrowing under frowning brows. Katie stopped dead in her tracks as Jamie snapped around, nearly crashing into her as he stepped back along the path.

"I don't know, dummy! Just knock it off!" he said, his voice a lot louder than it had to be to reach Jeffy's ears.

Katie turned around and looked at Jeffy. His eyes were wide open and stared at his best friend as if he'd just hit him square in the face. His eyes darted towards Katie then looked down at the ground in front of him as he walked - poking at the long grass. Jamie turned around and pushed through the high grass and weeds, heedless of whether or not anyone was following after him.

Shadows pulled over them all as they walked in a rambling single file through the woods, the smell of wet leaves chasing at them from everywhere. Small birds followed each other through the branches overhead, their scolding songs echoing in the dim sunlight.

Katie looked up trying to spot the songbirds but their tiny bodies were hidden in the twisted weave of foliage and shadows far overhead. She couldn't even make out any bits of blue sky anymore. It was all just a mess of green splotches and shadows up there.

Suddenly Jamie pushed through a wall of leaves and they were smothered in bright sunlight again, the warmth falling over them like a blanket. Katie turned to look back along the pathway, her eyes squinting into the relative darkness away from the sunlight.

Jeffy was gone.

Katie stopped walking and just stood there in the clearing, staring at the break in the bushes, waiting for Jeffy to catch up.

"C'mon Katie," Jamie called to her and kept pushing through the long grass.

"I'm waiting for Jeffy," she called back, not taking her eyes off of the bushes for a moment. But the entrance through the green stayed empty of everything but shadows.

No Jeffy.

By this time, Jamie had stopped walking and was just standing, looking back at the wall of bushes, impatiently waiting for Jeffy to show himself.

"Katie. Come on," he called out, overly loud. "Let the baby sook!" He hit at the grass with his stick and spoke more quietly towards her. "We gotta get back."

Katie turned to look at her brother then back at the bushes.

"Jeffffyyyyy!" she called out, her voice echoing into the wall of green leaves and shadowed branches.

"Come on Katie. Knock it off!" Jamie said, louder this time. "He's okay. Just sookin'."

He called out the last word to make sure that Jeffy heard it, wherever he was hiding. Jamie was used to this behavior in his friend. He'd been making a bad habit of it lately.

He turned away and started walking again.

"I'm leavin' Katie," he called over his shoulder. "An' you better be followin' me right now...or you're gonna get lost."

Like Jeffy - lay in the unspoken words. Katie knew.

She turned to follow after her brother, afraid of him leaving her alone out here. Though she was pretty sure he was only pretending, she couldn't be sure. Not when he was in a mood like this. She looked down at the ground as she walked, the breeze making her eyes water a bit at the corners. She didn't want Jamie to turn and see her and think she was crying like a little baby; she was a big girl now, and big girls didn't cry at every little thing. Even if it felt like that was exactly what she should be doing.

She looked back over her shoulder, back at the pathway, hoping to see Jeffy's smiling face coming up behind them. But the shadows stayed the same, shifting over each leaf as the gentle breeze blew.

She looked back towards Jamie who was at the edge of the clearing and just entering into another pathway. They walked in the quiet for a long while, wrapped up in their own gnawing thoughts. The small sounds of the woodland sifted down all around them. Jamie shot a glance back along the path, his look warning her to keep up. He turned away from her and went walking down the pathway even faster than he'd been going before.

"Jaamieeee," she called out and hurried to keep up with him, her legs pulling her through the waist-high weeds and grass. She caught up just as he pushed through this new growth of bushes. "I'm tellin' Mom," she said and reached up to protect her face from the whipping branches.

"I don't care," Jamie said and hit at the leaves with his stick. Katie knew that he probably did care; he was just being mean right now. This part of the path wasn't nearly as dark as the earlier part had been and Katie looked up and saw long slashes of blue sky overhead.

She didn't know why Jamie was so cranky all of a sudden. Maybe he was worried about Jeffy being gone. She hoped he was all right, and really just sookin' like Jamie said.

She tried not to think about it anymore as she finally caught up to Jamie, his arm swinging the stick hard at branches as he passed - even the ones that were almost out of reach, he swung at.

She didn't know what to say to him and so she just kept her mouth shut. In a few minutes they were on the hill that ran down into the long fields that hugged Mr. Reynart’s farm. Just the other side of the meadow was their little farmhouse. Jamie looked back over his shoulder then, making sure that Katie really was still behind him, and not poking along back in the grass, waiting for Jeffy.

Katie looked up at him as he turned and his face didn't look nearly as hard or worried. There was something lying just under the hard shell of him though. But whether it was indifference or worry she couldn’t really tell. She glanced back towards the shadowed bushes along the path, hoping to catch sight of Jeffy’s elfish grin, but there was only graying darkness there.

“Katie.”

She spun back and faced Jamie, words of anger dying on her tongue, burned clean away by his glare. She got to him just as he turned and stalked off through a wash of branches and weeds. Katie looked over her shoulder and threw her arms out ahead of her to catch the swinging branches before they swatted at her face. The day suddenly wasn’t turning out to be so perfect after all.

END CHAPTER

Chapter 3

The sound of the wind ripping through the trees beside Doc’s head tried its best to keep him awake as he drove along. He felt the muscles in his neck tipping his head forward too many times and he thought about pulling over and resting for just a moment. But the thought that the authorities might be close on his trail, waiting for him to do just that made him change his mind. He wiped the back of his hand against a tickle on his cheek and it came away dusty damp. His eyes were sore and the intervals between blinks were getting longer and longer. The world flew by as his gaze drooped over and fell on the side mirror of the truck, the shadows on the road behind reflecting back at him.

Shadows, dark shadows…and more.

Doc’s mind continued to fuzz up as the truck carried on its smooth droning way down the asphalt. He pulled his gaze away from the mirror and back to the road, trying to forget…but images of the boys he’d known - their naked innocence separating them from every other creature on the planet - haunted his thoughts.

A whirl of breeze snaked in through the window and tickled the scraps of fabric above his vision, catching his gaze with their fluttering. He reached up and touched at the soft field of souvenirs, a faint smile creasing his face before he'd even had time to think about it.

His mind chased back through stale memories of too many young, beautiful faces transformed - in the end - by fear, deathly fear of him. All he ever wanted was to be their friend...their special friend. Why did everything and everybody he knew, always end up going to Hell?

He tried to imagine the faces of any of the other boys he'd known...and found that he couldn't quite get them separated from the storm of youth in his memories. A whirling abomination of blond, brunette and red hair with nothing but freckled flesh and an assortment of jutting bones holding it all together. The monster winked at him with dozens of multi-colored eyes as it fell back through his thoughts, into the fiery tar pit buried far back in the darkest corner of his skull. Doc blinked and wiped at his forehead, his fingers running slimy with oil and sweat as he did his best to tear his eyes away from the illuminated blackness ahead.

His eyes pained back against him and he could feel the beginnings of his damnable headaches starting to tear back along the top of his head. He pressed two fingertips against his temple and tried to massage away some of the pain to keep his vision clear enough to drive.

Screaming memories of all the dead boys flashed through his mind again; too many faces to count or even clearly remember anymore. All of them, no longer anything but cold dust and memories now, when once their eternal vibrancy was all he lived for. He closed his eyes just long enough to rub at the soreness gathering atop his eyelids, his neck…

Thump!

His fingers grabbed at the steering wheel as he felt something hit up against the floor of the truck. His boot automatically smashed against the brake, flexing the old truck’s metal floor down under his feet. The scream of the tires was short and in the echoing silence along the dark roadway, the bitter smell of burnt rubber filled the inside of the truck. He glanced over at the mirror again but it was filled with only darkening sky now.

He reached behind the seat and grabbed up the handle of the big flashlight he kept there. The stink of the hot tires was stronger as he stepped out towards the back of the truck and switched the light on. The asphalt shone like dirty pewter under the glare of the light, as he pointed it back into the darkness he’d come through. He walked along the road and almost tripped over the dark, wet lump at the edge of the dirt before the light finally found it.

The raccoon was big. One of the biggest he’d ever seen. And from what he could see, it’d left most of its own cache of blood along the highway before ending up in a ragged wad of steaming fur along the road. He squatted down, the light sparkling amid the pale white froth that dripped from the creature’s mouth. The light caught at something else too; a color that looked very out of place amid the raccoon’s dark, bloody fur. He blinked and moved the light closer, trying to catch the beam against whatever had made the flash of color. A ragged twist of striped yellow fabric lay amid the wet fur, grabbing at the light’s glow.

Doc rubbed at his eyes as he squinted through the darkness. He moved the light again, his mind trying to piece together how the strip of fabric could possibly be attached to this creature. Impossible thoughts twisted through his skull, writhing around the pain of his headaches. Memories of a yellow and white t-shirt, and a child he’d known for the better part of a summer, suddenly screamed through his mind. He glanced back along the empty road and reached for the wavering, bloody strip.

He felt the creature’s teeth gnash against the bones in his fingers a heartbeat before its growling split the air around him. He yanked his hand back automatically, his mind a blazing fog behind his eyes. His own screams were mixed in somewhere amid the blood and growling. He swung the flashlight down towards his hand and felt it connect hard against the raccoon’s skull. And as quickly as it’d all started…it was over.

He fell back off his heels, his ass hitting hard and dragging against the asphalt. He stared at the twisted body of the raccoon, the flashlight’s dimming glow pulling at the shadows around it. He held his hand out in front of the light and saw the damage that a dying old raccoon could do. Two of his fingers were a mess of black, ragged gouges filled with white froth and pink-red-blackness. He could feel his pulse throbbing through the openings along his fingers, his blood surging past his skin with every second beat. He watched in fascination for a few pulses, his mind drifting through the first stages of shock. The flashlight dimmed and then abruptly died away altogether. The shadows fell in upon him then and he felt an icy breeze begin to slide along the road.

He looked down at his hand, trying to see it clearly through the cold blanket of shadows lying over him now, and failing. He stumbled to his feet and held his hand close to his chest and above his heart to slow the bleeding. He’d heard that helped - raising the wound above the pumping heart. Maybe it did, but in the surrounding darkness, his hand was nothing but black. Halfway back to the truck he remembered that the flashlight was still lying on the road where he’d fallen. Just as well though. It was as dead as that raccoon was…now. Plenty of time to pick it up later, after he stopped the bleeding. He climbed into the cab and snapped on the overhead light, his reflection looking only half as harried as he felt.

He stared down at his hand as he grabbed up a wad of cloth from behind the seat and pressed it against his skin. The cloth burned into him as it dug against the bloody mess of his fingers and his mind reeled away from the pain. He glanced up towards the rearview mirror beside him and saw the startling pitch of his own eyes staring back at him. The inside of the cab swirled through shifting shadows and darker black as he chased after breath.

He closed his eyes and tried to press the cloth tighter against his bleeding fingers, but the pain was still too sharp; too fresh. The cloth was already little more than a mass of red fabric now. A flash of image showing the yellow and white strip of fabric in the raccoon’s fur came at him again, taunting him with its impossibility.

When he opened his eyes again, the mirror was filled with a sheet of dark sky reflecting back at him. He sat back against the seat and let his pounding heart slow…and slow…his eyelids weighing heavy against his eyes. He took a deep breath and just let them fall. The sensation of dropping away through the seat…through the floor of the truck…and sinking past the dusty, black surface of the asphalt washed over and through him before everything went quiet and dark…dark…dark.

END CHAPTER

Chapter 4

Katie's feet felt sore and her knees were scraped from the branches bumping and sliding across her skin. She looked down at her shins, the skin there all red and stinging. The sunlight fell down through the branches all around them, covering the path in splotches of pure white.

"My legs are sore Jamie," she whined and leaned against a tree. "I wanna stop an' rest."

Jamie turned around, letting the branch he'd been holding for her swing back against itself. She lifted her arm against her face.

"Hey!"

"Katie, ya can't keep wantin' to stop and rest all the time," Jamie said. "We'll never get home before dark if we stop every time ya want to."

"But my feet are sore and..."

"Just come on," he said and grabbed at the same branch again. “It’s getting’ dark.” Katie pushed away from the tree, frowning at her brother as she raised her arm against the branch and followed after him.

They walked along, covered in the silence that'd settled through the woods as daylight began its gentle fade. The shadows deepened and spread further as they walked, the worry over time's passing on both their minds. Jamie slowed his pace, letting her catch up to him.

"You shouldn't have yelled at Jeffy like that," Katie said, her voice quiet as she waited for him to turn angrily on her. But he didn't get mad at her this time. He just glanced back at her, a look of guilt or shame scratching itself across his face.

They walked awhile longer, the sound of their feet crashing against the dead leaves and twigs breaking up through the silence.

"How come Mom gets mad when people ask about Grampa Jim?" Katie asked, the question bubbling up and out of her before she had time to think better about asking it.

Jamie whirled on her then, his face reddening all the way down his neck and under his shirt.

"I told ya before, I don't wanna talk about him," Jamie said, his voice rising and hitting her squarely in the face. He bit at his lip, the way he always did when he was upset about anything. Katie had seen him do that a lot over the past few weeks.

Ever since Grampa Jim had died.

It'd all happened so fast; one day he was at their house talking to Jamie out in the yard about coming to help with some bigger chores down at the farm…and the next day, Reverend Martin was at their door, his long face even longer, pulling down with the bad news.

Katie tried to just let the question fade away; she even started singing a little song inside her head, letting her mind fill up with nothing special at all. Usually it worked just fine...

"It ain't nobody else's business anyway," Jamie said, his voice low and quiet. He swung at a branch, his sword connecting solidly with it but only rattling the leaves.

"Grampa Jim wouldn't want ya talkin' to me like that..." she mumbled under her breath. Or at least, she thought it was under her breath. Jamie stopped walking and turned towards her.

"Well, he ain't here!" Jamie said, his voice rising sharply as he spoke. Little veins stood out at the side of his head, making it look like someone had taken a pencil and traced jagged lines along his skin. "An' I say he wouldn't want ya makin' us late jus' cuz ya wanna stop and rest all the time." Katie frowned at him, angered at the way he talked about their grandfather. It'd only been a couple of weeks since the funeral and Jamie got crankier about it every day. She readied to snap back at him...

A small sound off to the right through the trees stole her breath away and she turned towards it, her smile falling sharply away.

She saw Jamie turn towards it too, the stick in his hand coming up in front of him. He held out his hand and motioned for her to stay still, his eyes peering into the deep shadows all around. She wondered briefly if it might be Jeffy coming back to join them just as a squirrel hopped onto the path in front of them, its eyes going wide as it spied the two of them standing there. Just as quickly as it'd come onto the path, it shot away into the underbrush, its long tail high in the air for balance as it ran. Katie smiled at the frantic movements of the creature, and she was almost certain that she saw a small smile creep onto Jamie's cheeks...just before his face went back to stone.

"Come on," he said and pulled a handful of needles off the nearest evergreen branch, before tossing them against the ground.

A small bird sang in the branches overhead, but it was too far up in the tree for Katie to see it.

"I miss him," Jamie said, his words falling back to her like leaves dripping from the trees all around them.

"What?" Katie whispered, thinking for a moment that he was talking about Jeffy.

Jamie stopped and turned towards her, shadows sliding across his face. His cheeks were wet and smeared with dirt where he'd tried wiping away the evidence of his weakness. His face bore the marks of tears like a warrior painted up for his last heroic battle.

"It was ‘cuz of me..." he whispered and looked down at the ground between his feet. "If I woulda just went and helped him out like he wanted, he'd probably still be alive. It's all my fault, Katie."

Katie stood there with this stranger, wondering what to say to any of what he'd just said. She took a step back along the path, not really knowing what else to do with her feet. Jamie's eyes darted towards her shoes and in that moment he straightened his shoulders and slipped back into his old suit. She ran to catch up, her thoughts rattling around in her spinning mind. Her legs didn't even really hurt all that bad anymore.

"I heard Mama tellin' Mrs. Alders about how it was just one of those things that happens with old people,” Katie said. “Their parts just wear out. That wasn't any of your fault, Jamie."

Jamie stopped walking altogether then and leaned against a large tree beside the path. She could see his shoulders bouncing as he put one hand up to cover his face, his back still turned towards her. The sound of his quiet sobbing rose up between them, the air suddenly much colder against her face. She felt hollow inside and couldn't seem to stop swallowing as she stood there staring at his back.

"Jamie?" she whispered, her throat pulling back at her.

Jamie leaned away from the tree, his shoulders firming as he stood. He wiped his cheeks against his shoulders without turning back around to face her.

"Come on. We gotta get goin'," he said and started forward. Katie hurried to catch up to him, her fingers brushing against the branches of a bush by her knee. She looked down and when she looked up again, Jamie had stopped walking and was standing in the middle of the path, watching her. Shadows fell across his face, covering his eyes and giving him the look of a stranger. She swallowed and pulled her hands behind her as if she'd suddenly been caught doing something wrong. She stopped so quickly, the toes of her shoes dug into the loamy carpet of the pathway, nearly tripping her forward. She blinked and felt her face flushing.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothin'," Jamie said and swung his hand at a nearby branch, his eyes darting away from her. He turned, pulling more silence after him along the path.

But Katie knew. Or she thought she knew. And that was probably as close as she was going to get to a 'thank you' from Jamie. She smiled and hurried along the pathway, the air not nearly so cold against her face now.

END CHAPTER Chapter 5

The sky felt heavy and weighed atop his shoulders as Doc brought the truck in under an old Elm tree. The branches scraped across the top of the cab as the truck slowed and stopped, the scent of new honeysuckle coloring the air all around him here. He turned off the lights and reached behind the seat for the flashlight, out of nothing but ancient habit.

But as he touched at it – and felt its many broken, loose parts- he remembered how he’d used it against the head of that damned raccoon and that it was now as dead as the animal was. He fumbled through a ragged box scrunched down in the narrow space behind the seat until he found the small flashlight he’d bought at a roadside diner a few months back. He still remembered the look of joy on the face of the little boy he’d had with him when he’d agreed to get it for him. He’d shone it around inside the cab of the truck for the rest of the drive up into the Taber Woods, nearly driving Doc round the bend before they got to where they were going.

They’d decided to camp out and had a small campfire – big enough to get warm, but not so big that anyone else would notice – and snuggled under an old blanket until the embers were just right for toasting marshmallows.

He couldn’t remember the boy’s name now, but that didn’t really surprise him; he’d seldom known or kept any of their names for long. It was usually enough that they were together and enjoying themselves for as long as they could…before things fell apart - the way they always did.

He slid the switch forward and was actually surprised when the light cast its oval onto the ceiling of the truck, the slivers of fabric on the visor drowning in a sea of light and shifting shadows. Doc slid his legs from the seat and hit against the ground harder than he’d expected, the light tumbling from his aching fingers. His eyes chased after the strobing glow until it came to a stop against the wheel of the truck. As he bent to pick it up, he heard a scratching in the branches above his head and shone the light up into the weave of shadows there.

An owl - most likely not the same one he’d seen earlier (but who knew?) sat on a branch staring down at him, its amber eyes catching at the light as it turned away, feigning disinterest in whatever it was this human was doing out here in his woods in the middle of the night.

“Fancy meetin’ you here,” Doc muttered and pulled his camping bag from behind the seat and closed the door. The bag was nothing but the old suitcase of his mother’s that she’d had no further use for, when he left home…all those years ago. It was filled with small bits of camping and household items he’d gathered up over the years spent on the road. It was the only reminder he had of his mother – and what he remembered of his youth.

He found an area of ground that was fairly flat and set the case down before going off to find firewood. He swung the light across the loamy ground picking up an armload of dry twigs and branches in no time at all. Almost every part of his body was aching by the time he made his way back to the case and dumped the wood into a ragged pile on the ground. After kicking the bigger twigs into a pile and laying the other branches within easy reach, he stuffed some dry grass into the twigs and lit the whole mess afire. The old grass choked out more smoke than he’d planned, but it quickly burned off as the dry twigs took fire.

Doc looked up into the branches overhead and was surprised to see the owl still there even though his perch was more or less directly in the path of the smoke and sparkling embers.

“Stupid bird,” he muttered and opened the case, the light from the fire casting an orange glow across the contents. He went back to the truck and grabbed the ragged bedroll he kept for emergencies – or for special occasions with his little friends – and laid it out on the ground beside the fire. The twigs had already reduced themselves to little more than hungry embers, and Doc grabbed up a handful of branches and laid them carefully atop the coals. The fire surged against him as he turned back to the case and tried to catch the light from the fire against its contents. He turned off the light and laid it beside his leg; no sense using up whatever battery power was left in the little flashlight. No telling when he’d need its light again.

The owl had apparently finally had enough and flew off in a silent rush that Doc would’ve missed if he hadn’t been looking up along the column of smoke and sparkles just then.

Now, he was alone.

He sat cross-legged atop the bedroll, the case open beside him. He peeled away the old fabric he’d wrapped around his fingers, the cold night air searing deep into the still-fresh wound. He fumbled carefully through the familiar packages and cases with his other hand, not even needing the light to see through the darkness held there.

He knew what he was looking for.

The big pill bottle rattled against his fingertips as he lifted it from the case. He was careful to slowly open and pour out its contents, the needles and small bobbins of thread barely discernable within the flickering shadows of his palm. He picked the shortest needle and a bobbin of off-white thread and slid the rest of the fixins back into the narrow tube.

It took longer than normal to get the thread through the damned needle, but it wasn’t like his fingers were working in anything like top form. His head was aching again as he finally managed to get the needle and thread to work together. He didn’t bother putting a knot in the end; all he needed was for his brain to throb even harder against his skull.

He set the needle and thread down on a stone beside his knee and lay back against the tree trunk, the bark sharp against his skin. He closed his eyes and tried to wish away the pain growing like a storm between his ears. Snapping swirls of color flowed and surged inside his head, sloshing painfully against the nerves in his brain, until he felt as if his skull was tearing straight off.

Soft, near-silent whimpering filled the air around him and as he opened his eyes he realized the noise was coming from him. He felt a short pang of embarrassment but being out in the middle of nowhere, it didn’t last long and he simply shrugged it off and grabbed up the needle again. Beads of sweat tickled down both sides of his head…even though he felt a decided chill begin to creep and pull against his spine.

He leaned forward, catching the light from the fire against his hand, the flames scattering orange-black shadows along the ragged gouges in his fingers. He brought the needle to his skin and poked the tip into the tender flesh at the base of one of the cuts. The pain immediately brought tears to his eyes and he stopped what he was doing and simply sat there, staring at the gore on his hand. He thought about just wrapping up his fingers again and forgetting about repairing the damage for now, but he knew he was going to need to be at his best in order to do what he planned.

A memory of the trip up into the mountains surged in his thoughts and he stared off into the dark trees around him. He remembered a small river – nothing more than a rippling creek really – that ran along the old logging road to this place. It couldn’t be more than a few hundred yards away by his reckoning. He grabbed the tiny flashlight and an old metal mug from the back of the suitcase and started out back along the way he’d come, looking and listening for the burble of water in the darkness.

He hadn’t walked too far before he caught the light across a few yards of rippling silver beside the road. As he made his way down the bank, careful not to get too close to the edge, he caught sight of something winging across the top of his vision. An owl dove down through the shadows chasing after prey that’d slowed too much or not hidden well enough. Doc watched it grab and go, the cycle of life playing out all around him. The strong preyed on the weak and that’s just the way it’d always been.

The hunters and the hunted.

He bent down and set the flashlight on a stone safely back away from the water and slowly dipped his fingers into the stiller waters at the river’s edge. The icy water seared straight to the bones peeking through his wound, watering his eyes with the pain. He pulled in breath and forced himself to keep his hand where it was, the skin numbing deeper with each passing second. Keeping his fingers in the river, he reached over and scooped up a mugful of the icy water and stood up. His wounded fingers felt as if they were burning off as he made his way back to the fire and sat down, the mug of water sloshing quietly as he settled down beside the fire again. He knew he didn’t have much time to do what needed to be done. He broke off a short piece of green branch and put it between his teeth, biting down as he pushed his fingers into the mug of icy water. He left them there while he fumbled the tiny needle against the fingers of his other chilled hand. Turning himself so the firelight shone full against his side, he stuck the tip of the needle against the skin around the wound.

He didn’t feel a thing. Not even when the steel broke through his skin, bringing a black drop of blood around the tip. He angled the needle and pushed it across the bloody chasm of the raccoon bite to the other side and then brought it up through the ragged flap of skin there and pulled…gently. He felt the thread tugging against his skin but the pain seemed to stay just below the threshold where he could stand it. He repeated the stitching all along the cut, putting six or seven stitches across the cut before he felt it was closed enough to heal in a half-assed normal way. He bit through the thread trying not to get any of the oozing mess against his lips and put the needle’s point against the other gash.

He grunted as pain bled out along with the blood around the steel. The fire had likely warmed the chill from his skin while he’d worked on his other finger. He dunked his fingers into the mug of water again, leaving them there until he couldn’t stand the pain surging up along the bones in his wrist. He didn’t wait for the betraying warmth to start seeping in again before he jabbed the point of the needle in along the cut. As he worked, the blood mixed with the ice water and rolled off his skin, dripping onto his knee. There were only a few stitches that pulled against nerves that had resisted the freezing for some reason, but he grit his teeth and pushed the needle through and through and through his skin…until the work was done.

Exhausted, he lay back against the tree, his eyes closing easily against the flickering of the campfire. His mind was a storm of ratcheting thoughts as he tried to get his breathing under control again, the bones in his chest sore from holding his breath while he worked. His mind filled up with images of a dozen sweet, young boys, their faces and naked bodies twisting and twirling through the fire shadows playing upon his eyelids. He felt himself smiling at the memories – even though most - if not all - of the boys, were dead and buried now. There was a moment or two of sadness at the loss, but then the burning thought of this new boy grew like a bad weed in his mind.

More…

He sat up so quickly he felt as if his brain had slammed against the front of his skull, sending sharp spears of pain lancing through his head. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes, his heart hammering deep within his chest as he stared into the shadows all around him.

“Who’s there?” he called out, surprised at the small sound of his own voice. The thought of anyone seeing him come in here - or following after him - came and went through his mind as he got to his feet.

Then he remembered where he’d heard that voice before.

Ahhhh…he recalls…

The ancient voice seemed to fall straight into the jagged space between his eyes, rattling along the bone walls and dragging over every nerve it encountered there. Oh yes, he remembered…

“You said you’d leave me alone,” Doc called out, his voice echoing along the trees like soft, black cotton. “You said you were done with me…”

The air seemed to go still as he listened into the silence, waiting for the demon to speak again. His heart was beating so hard now that it was all he could do to get breath to stay any time in his lungs. A fluttering of shadow pulled his attention to the branches above his head.

The owl was back, sitting on a branch just above his shoulder and staring down at him, its eyes going through to his soul…and further. But something was different about this owl - something in its eyes. As he stared back at the bird, its head swelled and twisted in the deep shadows and suddenly the burning face of the demon leered down at him again.

Have watched you many years now…never forget…

Doc reached up and slowly clawed down against the side of his head, his eyes held fast against the demon’s searing gaze. It was like the inside of his skull was being peeled back as he sat there, his mind screaming out against the impossibility of the demon sitting above him.

“You…promised…” he whispered and closed his eyes against the pain.

You…trusted…

Doc could feel his thoughts tearing against every nerve in his head as he lay back against the tree, his breath rasping against his throat. The wounds on his fingers burned red along the stitches. He knew the demon was somehow responsible for every twinge of pain he was feeling…and then he remembered, what he’d spent the last few years of his life trying so hard to bury…and forget.

He was nine…maybe even as much as ten.

His father had just left his room, leaving behind another bruised and sore little boy. It was then that Doc felt the smallest, the weakest…and surprisingly – the most needy. He knew his mother had heard everything that had gone on in the room, and turned away from it all; the shouting and pleading…the grasping and thrusting, until finally, only the pain and sobbing remained.

The demon had come to him for the first time then. But he hadn’t recognized it that way at the time; it seemed little more than a cluster of shadows that waited silently under his bed each night for the lustful carnage to be done. Sometimes it waited behind the door or just inside his closet for his father to turn away, leaving the boy with a little less of his innocent childhood intact.

Friends were hard for Doc to come by back then, what with his mother needing tending to every day and his father’s demands growing ever more urgent and - unnatural. So it wasn’t surprising that he’d come to expect the visits of his shadowy ‘friend’ at the end of each torturous night. The shadows didn’t communicate so much with him – at first. But that slowly changed.

The demon’s visits soon became the only part of his life that he looked forward to, and that naturally ended up causing him to look strangely forward to his father’s drunken, lustful visits…simply to bring on the demon’s comfort.

The shadows had grown and shaped over time, coalescing into less of darkness and more of…pure evil. But by that time, it was too late; he’d already let the demon become part of his painful and empty existence, filling him with youthful thoughts of righteous retribution…and bloody vengeance.

If nothing else, the demon had given him the strength he’d needed…to do what had to be done.

His mother was pathetically easy.

He’d simply come up behind her while she stared out her window and kept pushing the point of the knife into her back until she’d slumped forward across the table, never uttering even the barest grunt of resistance. Doc imagined, even then, that she was simply thankful for the release from her earthly Hell.

He sat in his room for the rest of that day, talking things over with his demon…and planning…and plotting.

But he didn’t wait for his father to stumble home from the mines and the saloon. He tossed on his darkest coat and went out into the black pitch of the night and crept along the path his father owned each payday night. He heard him dragging down under song and too much cheap wine long before he saw him staggering from tree to tree across the path. Doc waited and watched until the man fell over against an oak and slumped to the loamy ground, taking that moment to rest his drunken body.

Doc crept around in the shadows that swelled and surged among the trees until he was behind the man. He could feel the demon pressed up against his shoulders, offering what support it could as he lunged forward and rammed the knife to the hilt into his father’s back. The man screamed and jumped up, surprisingly agile in his drunken, final moments. The handle of the knife jerked out of Doc’s tiny hands and he fell back into the demon, its shadowy embrace unexpected…and welcome.

It’d taken longer than he’d expected for his father to finally abandon his life, and when he groaned out his last breath on the ground, Doc was there standing above him, the demon-shadow by his side, sated…and proud.

And so it was done. That part of his life was over…and slowly forgotten. He filled up an old suitcase with bits of his life and whatever he could find to eat in the house. He decided to toss an old bed sheet across his mother, out of nothing but ancient loyalty, though the demon whispered that she was as much to blame for the Hell that’d been his life. He went back to his father and took every dollar from the man’s urine-soaked pockets before rolling him into the ditch and covering him over with leaves to delay anyone finding the body; all part of the demon’s plan.

He left that very night, filled with fear and hope and more than a million demon whisperings of what it was going to be like, to be strong…and free.

Doc sat up, glancing towards the branches above his head.

The owl was gone and the voice in his head had quieted, taking with it the pain that’d been eating away at the inside of his skull. He glanced towards the fire, noticing that there were only glowing embers now where there’d been grasping flames only a few moments before. But maybe he’d been asleep longer than he thought. He stared at the splotches of sky through the branches overhead trying to remember if it’d been that dark an indigo before he’d closed his eyes.

He heard the faraway hoot of the owl as he stood and brought more wood over beside the fire. His foot kicked against the edge of the ragged suitcase as he sat down, listening into the smothering darkness. There was another distant hooting – a farewell, perhaps – and then the stillness of the world pressed in against him again. He lay down and pulled the corner of the bedroll across his shoulder and fell into the black pit of sleep again.

END CHAPTER

Chapter 6

The sun was nearly atop the tree line at the horizon, the long shadows dragging a deep chill out of the Taber Wood. The two men had been searching along the edge of the deep woods for the better part of three hours, going on nothing more than an anonymous call that’d come into the station the night before.

“Don’t know what the hell we’re doin’ out here in the middle of nowhere,” the younger of the two men muttered as he took off his hat and wiped a dirt-gray cloth across his forehead. “Probably end up bein’ just some old varmint dead on the road.”

The other man poked the end of a long stick into the thick brush along the ditch, his eyes scanning every shadow.

“You listenin’ to me, Jed?” the first man asked and jabbed the end of his own stick into the soft mud in front of him. Jed – Deputy Jedidiah Booth – turned and tilted his hat back and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead.

“Listen Cal, you didn’t have to come along, y’know?” Jed said. “I coulda done this on my own.” He adjusted his hat and went back to poking the stick end into the thick grass in the ditch. “An’ if I knew you were gonna be such a baby about it, I woulda just left you an’ your beer back at Hank’s.”

“Hey, you didn’t say what this was gonna be about, y’know,” Cal said. “All ya had to do was say you wanted to come out and look for - whatever it is - on your own an’ I’d still be back there, nice and cozy with my beer.”

Jed looked up and tilted his hat back again, letting the air cool across his forehead.

“You been getting’ way too cozy with your beer lately Cal, an’ I ain’t the only one noticin’,” he said and took a step towards the younger man. “An’ if it don’t stop soon, you an’ me are gonna have us another long talk down by the river. You hear me?”

Cal swallowed and looked down at the ground. He jabbed the point of the stick he held into the soft ground between his feet, deciding what he should say next. But on reflection, he decided against it altogether.

Jed turned away, stepping along the ditch and continuing the search.

“C’mon, let’s get this done,” he called back over his shoulder. “An’ maybe I’ll join you for one of those beers when we get back.”

Cal looked up and smiled at Jed’s back. It wasn’t every day that he and his brother shared anything – let alone a cold beer down at Hank’s. He couldn’t even remember the last time they’d shared a drink together – let alone anything else.

An owl hooted from deep in the forest, its call echoing and fading along the trees. Jed stopped and looked up towards the sound, his eyes digging into every shadow between him and the deeper black of the woods.

Cal had fallen behind and was swinging his stick through the long grass along the ditch’s edge, bored out of his trees and wishing he were back at Hank’s - with his cold beer in front of him. He looked up just in time to avoid running straight into Jed’s back.

“Hell, Jed,” he said and took a step back, his foot tangling in some fine roots just under the water in the ditch. He lost his balance and went over on his side, his foot stuck firmly in the thick mud of the ditch. As he grabbed at the dry grass and pulled himself along the bank, he looked up and saw Jed just standing there looking off into the distance.

“Hey! How ‘bout some help?” he called out and grabbed at a dry root sticking out of the bank for balance. Jed didn’t turn around as Cal got his foot clear of the mud and managed to get more or less upright again. He dug his stick into the bank, using it to finally climb up and out of the ditch. His boots were now covered in black mud with dry grass sticking out everywhere, making him look like he was wearing a pair of porcupine slippers.

He stomped and pulled his boots through the long grass trying to get most of the mud and grass off them as he made his way over to where Jed stood.

A cold breeze slid out of the Taber Wood and pressed back against him as he stepped over to stand beside his brother. He looked off in the direction Jed was staring, but couldn’t see anything but trees – at first.

“So what are we lookin’ at?” he asked and slid his boots back through the grass.

Jed didn’t answer as he moved forward, his eyes fixed on something in the distance. Cal watched him walk away through the field and trotted to catch up. He hadn’t gone more than a few yards before he looked up and saw what his brother must’ve seen.

It wasn’t much. Just an odd bit of light color floating amid the deeper dark of the trees, nearly buried in the shadows there.

Nearly.

But it was as plain as day that it didn’t belong.

Jed was nearly to the start of the trees by the time Cal caught up to him. The air was calm and cold at the edge of the forest, the shadows pulling every bit of warmth from the surrounding ground. Jed stopped so abruptly that Cal nearly plowed into his back again, his attention drawn by the flapping color in the trees.

Cal thought of a dozen stupid questions to ask and managed to swallow down all but one of them.

“You goin’ in?” he asked.

Jed turned towards him, his eyes hard and cold. For a moment, Cal barely recognized him and took a step back, his feet tangling in the long grass.

“Stay here,” Jed said and took his revolver out of the holster at his side. Cal couldn’t remember Jed ever unholstering his gun and the simple, dangerous action sent chills across his neck. The gun alone was enough to keep Cal right where he was.

“What you gonna do with that?” Cal whispered, surprised at the sudden weakness in his voice. But Jed didn’t answer; just turned and crept into the trees, the back of his uniform soon drowning in the deep, black shadows. Cal felt suddenly very vulnerable and exposed as he watched his brother fade into the forest, the gun in his hand somehow casting him under a new and darker shadow. The stick that Jed had been carrying stood upright beside him, its end driven deep into the soft field grass. Cal rested his hand atop it as he stared into the forest, his heart thudding a thrum of worry against his ribs.

It seemed like an hour - but was probably only a handful of minutes - before Jed stepped out of the woods, the gun at his side hanging heavy at the end of his fingers. Even from across the field, Cal could tell that things weren’t good. His brother had changed. Not in a single way that was instantly visible but more in the ways that a thousand bad things had suddenly piled in on top of him, there in the Taber Wood.

Cal rushed forward, his gaze going from the limp gun in Jed’s hand back to the look in his brother’s hard-staring eyes. He came to a stop in front of Jed when the gun suddenly came up between them.

“Hey!” Cal said, his voice nearing tears for the first time in more years than he could remember as he stared down the barrel of the gun. “Jed.” His brother’s eyes softened then, unfamiliar tears crawling down his face.

“Just a kid…” Jed muttered, the gun tumbling from his fingers as he raised his hands to cover his face. “Just a little damn kid.” The last words were muffled as Jed fell to his knees, his breath coming out in soft, wet sobbing. Cal watched the gun fall away into the long grass and looked off towards the trees of the Taber, his heart hammering against the bones in his chest. He knew he had to go see whatever had reduced his brother to the puddle before him, but everything in him warned him to stay put. He stepped away from Jed and felt something pull hard against his leg.

“No Cal,” Jed whispered from the ground, his hand clasped tight along Cal’s pant leg. He gathered himself enough to stand up again, albeit damp and trembling a bit more than before. He took off his hat and reached down to retrieve his gun, the look in his eyes still dark and faraway. “Gotta get the capital boys to come down here and investigate.” He wiped the grass and dirt from his weapon before sliding it back into its holster, taking an overly long time to complete the simple task, Cal thought.

Cal looked towards the trees again, his eyes catching on the now-familiar flutter of color amid the dark branches and leaves.

“So it’s a kid?” Cal asked and felt his insides go hollow as his mind jumbled up with more than enough ragged, bloody images to curdle his mind. “What happened? Critters get ‘im?”

Jed looked across at his brother, the effects of his discovery still evidently prying him open.

“Critters didn’t do what was done to that boy,” Jed said and swallowed so hard, Cal could hear the bones in his neck cracking over each other, there in the silence of the field. “C’mon, we gotta get back.” He turned away and started walking back across the field towards the old logging road and his truck. “I think I’m gonna be havin’ that beer now,” he called back over his shoulder.

Cal started walking, the long grass pulling against his legs as he moved through the field. He looked back over his shoulder towards the trees, the thought of having a beer pretty much the furthest thing from his mind.

END CHAPTER

Chapter 7

The crunch of gravel swelled up along the side of the truck as Doc pulled into the old gas station. The signs in the windows were so faded it was hard to discern the ancient brands that had once blazed out at every new customer.

He sat back in the seat and lifted the brown gauze away from the raw, pussey gashes that split the skin along both sides of his fingers, trying hard not to pull against any of the half-healed scabs along the stitches. It’d been a few days since that damnable raccoon had tried chomping his hand off and even though the bleeding had stopped, the cuts hurt more now than they had when he’d been bitten. The wounds were already rimmed in bright red and even he knew that that wasn’t a good thing.

He wadded up the makeshift bandages and tossed them behind the seat as he stepped out of the truck. An old man buried in gray coveralls came out from the side of the building, the dull snap of a wooden screen door rattling shut behind him.

"Hi. What can I get ya?" the ancient man said, wiping at his hands with an even older looking rag. His smile was nearly empty of good teeth.

"Fill 'er up," Doc said and slapped the worst of the road dust from the sleeves of his shirt. He looked up as a blur of motion slid across the edge of his vision. A young, blond-haired boy was playing in the boneyard of painted and rusting metal out beside the garage, one hand filled up with a length of wide door trim that he swung through the air like a shiny sword.

"You...got a bathroom here?" Doc asked; his mind pulled by twisting, lurid thoughts of the boy.

The old man frowned towards him, apparently damaged by his insinuation that this was anything but the finest establishment of its sort...in these parts at least.

"Yeah. Around the side there. It’s fresh cleaned - an' ya don't need a key..."

"Thanks," Doc said and started walking towards the side of the building, his eyes darting over towards the boneyard. When he was sure that he was out of sight of the old man he slipped around behind the garage. He moved quickly but quietly along the back wall until he was within sight of the tangled carcasses of old metal. He peered around the corner at the boy, watching the way his lithe body moved. His mind was quietly screaming at him to be wary of the old man - that he’d soon be done filling the truck and would be coming around to look for his money. He could feel his heart swelling in his throat with every shallow breath as he watched the child move.

The boy was jumping down from one of the husks of auto, his landing as graceful as a boy of that age was capable of - which really wasn't all that much of course. But still, Doc appreciated the child's beauty and his roiling exuberance, if nothing else. The boy turned and looked over towards the corner of the building where Doc crouched behind an ancient motor crate, the smell of sweet, dirty oil wrapping the air all around him. He pulled his head in and started moving back along the wall towards the other end of the small building, the sense of time passing, chasing at his shoulder. He'd just gotten to the bathroom door when the old man came walking around the front corner of the garage, the oily rag polishing his old knuckles.

"That'll be three seventy-five," he said and glared at the back corner of the garage. "Hey! What I tell you about playin' around here?" Doc blinked and stared at the old man. He could feel his face getting red. But the old man's eyes were focused on a point behind Doc's back and when he turned to look he was surprised to see the boy staring back at him. His eyes were the color of soft, sweet chocolate.

"I'm sorry Mister Jones. I was just pretendin' at..."

"I don't care what you was doin', Billy. You get away to home now, ya hear me?" the old man said and turned back towards Doc like nothing at all had happened. Doc watched the boy disappear around the corner of the building, while pretending that he wasn’t interested in the matter at all.

"Sorry about that. Little bugger's been hangin’ around here like a junkyard mutt since his dad passed on last year. His mom's not a bad sort most times. Jus’ don't keep close enough watch on him ‘cuz she's workin' so much down at the diner, an’ all."

Doc's mind began crawling with excitement as he stood there aching to go off after the boy who was already partway up the hilly path that lay behind the garage. The road he'd come in on ran along the edge of the field and before Doc had turned back around, the boy was walking lazily along it. He pulled out his wallet and passed the old man five dollars, his eyes casually glancing up towards where the boy was walking.

"Keep the change," he said ignoring the old man's wide eyes at the unfamiliar tip.

"Thanks, buddy," the old man said glancing down at the money in his hand. "You have yourself a right nice day now." The old man glanced down at the wounds on Doc’s hands, but with the big tip in hand…that’s all he did. Doc nodded and stepped quickly towards his truck, trying not to appear to be in any sort of rush to be on the road again. But in fact it was all he could do not to just leave the truck and run off after the boy right then and there, before he got too far away.

It was only a matter of a few minutes before he was back on the road, but it seemed like a lot longer than that. He leaned forward over the wheel, his eyes scanning the twists of roadside ahead as he drove along. How far could a boy walk in so short a time? The field dragged off into short scrub grass before diving down below the surface of a span of dusty flatland. His heart was beating far too fast and his breath pushed along his throat in painful lumps.

He pulled on the wheel as the road swerved too sharply to his left, his knuckles white where they pushed up through his skin. He felt one of the gashes on his fingers tear away from its scab and clenched his jaw as he let up on the wheel, just a bit…

And suddenly, there he was.

The length of door trim flashed sunlight along its chrome edge as the boy swung down at long weed bandits along the roadside. Doc slowed the truck until it was barely moving as he followed carefully along behind the boy. He glanced up into the rearview mirror. The highway was clear all the way back to the far horizon, or at least as far as he could see back along the curves. He couldn't even make out the old garage any longer as it pulled in behind turnings in the road. The asphalt dipped away into a long stretch of black up ahead. A long, empty stretch. He looked into the mirror again and patted down the worst of his hair licks, his eyes watching the way his cheeks crinkled up when he put on his best, plastic smile. Yeah, he could be charming when he wanted to.

And he really wanted to, right now. He licked his lips. He really wanted a lot of things, right now...

He pushed his foot down a little harder on the gas pedal and felt the truck lurch forward under him, slowly moving up beside the boy. The boy was so busy swatting his sword at the weeds he didn't even notice the truck until it was square beside him on the road. He stopped walking and turned towards Doc, his eyes blinking away most of the road dust. But he didn't dart away. That was a good start. He probably recognized him from the garage a few minutes before. Doc stopped the truck and leaned across the bench seat towards the open passenger window.

"Hi. I'm lost," Doc said and gave him his best, most disarming smile. He even held up the beat down old map he kept jammed in the seat, for emphasis. The boy just stood there though, his mind almost visibly clicking over what he'd likely been told about talking to strangers and all. "And you look like a smart boy who knows how to find things." And then as an afterthought, "...that's a mighty nice sword you got there."

That did it. The boy's eyes shifted from the truck window to the trim he held in his hand, amazed that someone else could see the great and powerful - and definitely magical - sword he was holding.

"I found it. It's a magic sword. See?" The boy held the trim up for him to see the lightning bolt that was impressed along its metal face, part of an ancient logo for some obscure brand of automobile. It was all new magic to the boy though; Doc could tell by the excitement and pride in his face.

"Wow. That sure is a great sword all right," Doc said and glanced up into the rear view mirror and then ahead along the still-empty road. "You know what? I think I got something magic in here too. Pretty sure it even used to belong to a knight." The boy's mouth fell open and his feet shuffled forward, the piece of trim flashing sunlight all up inside the truck's cab.

"A real knight?" the boy whispered. “Like Prince Valiant?” The reverence that he put into the words brought a smile to Doc's lips. He pretended to search the dark space behind the bench seat of the truck, his eyes darting towards the boy who was steadily creeping closer to the door of the truck. Small, dirty fingers came up and rested on the edge of the open window, the top of the boy's tousled head of hair floating just behind them.

"Ahhhh here it is," Doc said and lifted up an overly ornamented box he'd bought in the Orient, a long, long time ago. He could still see the face of the boy who'd sold it to him. He had perfectly Asian features, even with his face smudged by alley dirt. It hadn't taken more than a few American dollars to get the boy to walk with him along the beach and back to his room. He glanced up at the flutter of fabric above his head and immediately picked out the silkish sheen of the asian boy's pale shirt. "This used to belong to a special knight who was in charge of protecting his emperor. That's like a real important king."

"I can't see it," the boy said and tried to pull his face up along the side of the truck, his fingers turning white-red along the knuckles as he pulled. He eventually got the toe of his sneaker up onto the running board and suddenly his face was framed by the open window. The length of metal trim was somewhere on the ground behind him now, because both his hands were clutching over the door. His eyes went wide when he saw the jeweled box on the seat beside Doc.

"Wow, that's nice," he whispered, not taking his eyes off the spot where the treasure lay. "Can I hold it?" The boy reached one arm into the air above the box, his wriggling fingers not even coming close to touching its sparkling surface. Doc smiled over at the boy, watching the concentration build on his little face as he tried to figure out how to get his hands on the box through the open window. The boy’s eyes touched at the fierce gashes along Doc’s fingers.

“What happened to your hand?” he asked, the way all little boys do; as if it were the most normal question in the world to ask. Doc glanced down at his hand and smiled, readying his next lie.

“I was helping someone who was in some trouble and got my fingers caught in a trap.”

The boy’s eyes were wide as his mind tried to imagine the wild adventure this man had apparently just come through. For his part, Doc had a hard time not leaning over and hauling the sweet boy in through the open window, right then and there.

"Hey, I got an idea,” Doc said. “Why don't you help me find where I'm supposed to be going…and I'll give you this here box. I don’t need to keep it anymore. The person who gave it to me said I’m supposed to give it to someone who helps me out. So, you wanna do that?" The boy pulled back his hand and gripped the door with both hands again, his eyes going to Doc's.

"Give it?" the boy asked and steadied his feet on the running board again. "Like for real?"

"Sure," Doc said. He could see wariness creep over the boy's face, though he doubted even more now that the boy had ever been warned about talking with strangers. It was just a hunch, but he was rarely wrong about things like this. He couldn't afford to be.

"Where you going?" the boy asked.

"Well, where do you live?" This was going well.

"In Haleyville, why?" The boy's face scrunched down as he struggled to hang onto the door.

"Well, that just happens to be near the exact place that I've been trying all day to find," Doc said and smiled. "Do you think you could help me find it?"

The boy pulled his body flat against the door of the truck, one elbow holding himself in place.

"Sure. It's not hard." A wash of pride glowed up his face.

"Well, I'll give you this here box if you help me. Isn’t that a fair trade?"

The boy looked long and hard at the box again, his eyes narrowing with his thoughts.

"Anythin’ in it?"

Doc looked down at the box, pretending to study it. He even picked it up and shook it gently. No sounds came from within, though.

"It's supposed to be magic. That's all I know." He touched at the glass jewels on the top of it. "Only boys who really want to be knights can open it...or so I'm told." He held up a small, ornamental key attached to an old rabbit's foot charm. "With this here key, that is."

That clinched it.

"Okay. I'll help you get there...but I get to hold the box."

"That's okay with me. Seems only right. But you have to wait until we get there for me to give you the key to open it. It's supposed to be part of the magic. All right?"

"Okay," and with that the boy jumped down, wrestled the door open and clambered up onto the bench seat beside Doc. The door trim sword was left on the side of the road, all but forgotten on this newest quest. The boy's body pressed over against the door when he closed it but his eyes kept to the box as he reached for it. He even licked his lips when he lifted it onto his lap, which Doc found endearing...and more than a little exciting. He set the key on the dash in front of him well within sight, but completely out of the boy's reach.

"Fasten your seat belt," Doc said and patted at the belt beside the boy's bare leg. "Have to keep you safe while we're driving." The boy fumbled for the clasp and belt and fastened them dutifully, a look of accomplishment lying over his face.

"What're those?" the boy asked and pointed at the garden of faded colors on the visor above Doc's head. As he looked up, Doc absently laid his hand on the seat beside him again, his finger touching innocently against the side of the boy's hand.

"That's just my collection. I collect pretty colors and put them up there to remind me of things." He glanced at the boy’s light green t-shirt, the habit hard to break.

"Like what?"

"Oh, like places I've been to or people I used to know." Doc looked over at the boy and smiled. "You’re Billy right?” He smiled at the boy’s gentle confusion. “I heard that man say your name back at the garage.” He held his hand out. “Name's Virgil, but my special friends call me Doc."

"Like Bugs Bunny?"

It took Doc a moment to realize what the boy was talking about but when he remembered the cartoon he smiled at the connection.

"Yeah, I guess so. Like that."

"What's up, Doc?" the boy asked and smiled widely. His hand stretched to cover the box lid, his tiny fingers touching at the smooth, glass jewels upon its surface...and poking at the hole of the lock. Doc smiled back at the boy, his pulse quickening throughout his body.

The familiar feeling of boundless euphoria was beginning to well up in him again, his sense of absolute power rising rapidly. There wasn't anything that he couldn't get away with now. No one could stop him from doing whatever he wanted with this boy. Hell, no one would probably even begin to miss the child until he was late for supper. Doc looked at his watch; it was just past noon. Plenty of time for what he had in mind.

He glanced at the rear view mirror and stared at the empty horizon before pulling out onto the road.

"All right, here we go on our adventure. You ready?"

The boy's eyes were moving between the box in his lap and the flurry of fabric pinned to the visor. He nodded and looked out the window on his side, watching the ground begin to blur beside the truck.

They drove along in silence, the boy's fingers tracing along the enameled top of the box. His desire to pry the box open was almost palpable there in the warm cab.

Doc's eyes were scanning the roadside looking for an old logging road or dirt track that he could turn down for a little privacy. It wasn't long before one snaked off to the side of the main road and he took the fork effortlessly. The sun overhead was burning through his jeans again and he wondered how the boy's bare legs could stand the heat.

"Sun sure is hot, isn't it?" he asked the boy and put his hand on his own leg, feeling the warmth radiating through the old denim. His fingers practically itched to just reach over towards the boy's warm, bare legs and...

"I don't think this is the way to Haleyville," the boy said, his body leaning forward to look along the road ahead. "I didn't see Mr. Brown's farm yet or the old cemetery or..." There was an unmistakable tremor beginning in the boy's voice now.

"I just remembered a better way someone told me to get there, " Doc said, still smiling. "It's not going to take very long. You’ll see."

The boy's eyes searched the roadsides for familiar landmarks. Doc's mind was skipping along with barely contained excitement now, the sight of the boy's bare legs fueling his best thoughts and sparking an idea. He needed a distraction for the boy…to keep his mind from itching at the danger he was in.

"Hey, how’d you like to drive for awhile?" Doc asked, knowing what it meant to a boy to have some control over something as big and real as a pickup truck.

"Drive? You mean like, just me?" There was a small twist of fear in amongst the boy's excitement. Doc put his hand down on the seat and inadvertently touched the boy's fingers. It was like an electric shock shooting into him and Doc had to concentrate on the rough road ahead as the wheel nearly slipped from his fingers.

"No, not by yourself. I'll help you.” He glanced over at the boy. “Don't you want to try?" The boy looked down at his dangling legs.

"But I'm not big enough to reach the pedals."

"Oh yeah," Doc said and frowned as if deep in thoughts that he hadn't already anticipated. "Well, I can do the pedal part and you can do the steering part. How would that be?"

"I could probably do that." Excitement and anticipation were gradually replacing the boy's filling fear. Doc leaned forward and reached under the middle of the long seat.

"Hold on. I'm just going to put the seat back a bit, okay?"

The boy tensed as the bench seat slid back half a dozen inches with a heavy thump at the end of its travel.

"All right. Come on over now so you can steer." Doc took one hand off the wheel, the fingers of his other hand holding the wheel's edge as the boy leaned over and held the wheel, his eyes focusing intently on the road ahead. Doc slowed the truck to a crawl and glanced into the rear view mirror. Everything was perfect, the road behind, still clear.

"Like this?" the boy asked.

"Hey you're pretty good at this." The boy's face fairly beamed with absolute pride. "But it probably hurts your arms to drive like that, right?"

The boy nodded and pulled slowly against a turn in the road. The seat belt was pulling tight against his side as he leaned over as far as he could towards the wheel...and Doc.

"Here. Why don't you undo your belt and sit up here behind the wheel? It'll be easier to see where you're going."

"But, what about my seat belt?" Doc pretended to think deeply again.

"I'll put mine around us both so we'll still be safe okay?" And that's as easy as it was.

The boy smiled and reached down with one hand, unlocking his seat belt while his other hand still clutched around the steering wheel. His fingers slid along the edge of the wheel until they were touching against Doc's. The boy’s attention was riveted to the road ahead as he moved over and slid his legs down between Doc's until they were dangling down above the pedals.

"Okay, I'm going to let go of the wheel now, and it'll be just you driving this here big truck," Doc said. "You ready?"

The boy looked over his shoulder towards Doc and then back to the road as he gripped the wheel tighter within his palms. He nodded and smiled widely as his eyes darted everywhere ahead of the slowly moving truck. "Yup."

The sloppy swerving Doc had expected, never happened though as the boy focused hard on keeping the wheel steady. Doc was hard-pressed not to think about what the boy's body was doing to his as he searched along the logging road for a suitable place to pull over. Up ahead, he could see an open area along the side of the road, a wall of deep forest backing it up with shadows. He reached up beside the boy's side and gripped the wheel again and gently began to pull the truck over to the side of the road. The boy's eyes darted away from the road ahead and towards Doc's face.

"Am I still doin' good?" he asked.

"You're the best driver I've ever had in this truck," Doc said. "Exceptin' me of course."

The boy smiled widely through the praise, apparently unaware that the truck was slowly coming to a stop beside the road. By the time they'd stopped moving upon the road the boy's hands were sliding loosely around the wheel. Doc's eyes were fastened to the rearview mirror as the truck pulled under the heavy canopy of branches. He hadn't really expected to see any other vehicles along this bare stretch of logging road anyway; it was just too isolated, which was just fine with him.

"Why we stoppin?" the boy asked and looked along the hood of the truck, his hands clutching the wheel again as he pulled himself upright, frowning at his surroundings. "This ain't Haleyville."

Doc put his hands on the boy's waist.

"Time to get out and stretch our legs, is all. We're probably close to where we’re supposed to be goin’," Doc said and lifted the boy up, helping him to settle back onto the seat beside him. The boy put his hand on the jeweled box at his side and looked out the window again. The shade brought on by the thick copse of trees gathered them deep in shadows.

"Sure is dark," the boy said and pulled the box closer to his side.

"Nothing to be afraid of out there," Doc said, realizing how sweetly true that statement was. All the peril was nearer at hand than that. “Especially for a brave knight like you.”

He smiled his best smile. "Come on. We'll just go outside here and I can walk around a bit and stretch these old legs and you can show me some of those great sword-fightin' moves you were doing back at the garage. You looked pretty brave when you were doing them. Almost like a real knight." Doc opened his door and kept talking until he was standing outside the open truck window on his side looking back in at the boy, who hadn't moved yet.

"Really? Like a knight?" the boy whispered and reached for his own door handle. The box stayed clutched within his arms as he joined Doc at the back of the truck. Doc was already sitting on the opened tailgate, waiting for the show to begin.

"Go ahead. Do your stuff," Doc said and pointed at the basically flat area between some trees in the clearing.

"But I ain't got my sword no more," the boy said and set the box down on the tailgate. He huffed his shoulders theatrically. Doc smiled and turned around to look in the back of the truck. He picked up a length of galvanized pipe about as long as his arm and thick as his thumb. He briefly wondered what it was doing there and then like a shiver of icy cold wind, he remembered.

His eyes scanned the surface of the pipe, coming to rest on the dark, ruddy blotch along one end. He looked towards the boy, remembering the lad he'd used it on a few months ago back in Burleigh. A feeling of sad deja vu swept through his mind as he handed the pipe over.

"Here you go. This can be your sword," Doc said, his fingers dragging through the smudge that'd been the other boy's bloody brains only a little while ago. A chill breeze rose, knifing through the trees around them as the child took the pipe in his hands. He smiled and Doc's mind reeled away to all those other times he'd given gifts to boys and made them smile. If only those times of gratitude could’ve lasted longer, before they all…turned away from him.

The boy bounced and lunged with all his little might, his new sword even better than that old door trim had been...even if it wasn't as shiny. The pipe flashed dull sunlight around the shaded clearing scattering shadows everywhere. As the boy continued playing in his own little fantasy world, Doc stepped along the side of the truck. His eyes clamped on the folded gray tarpaulin in the far corner. Dark stains that looked like dirty oil - but weren't - smattered the dull surface. The long handle of the shovel he kept under there was sticking out, the same dark stains ruddying its surface as well. Flashes of memories sliced at him again and he closed his eyes trying not to focus too hard on his painful past...though lately it seemed those memories were all he had to hold onto. Flashes of his father’s face stabbed into his mind, slicing away what was left of his free will as it blended and twisted through his mind.

He opened his eyes and tried to keep his gaze on the bounding boy, but the more he concentrated, the more he felt the green-black world around him press in tighter against his skull. He felt the wild euphoria that came with having so much youth all to himself - to do with whatever he wanted – wash over him like a heated torrent. He blinked his eyes dry, trying to gather the sliding world in closer against him…but he felt it was mostly a losing battle.

The boy and his sword bounced within reach and Doc leaned forward, his fingers sliding against the boy’s skin and grasping at the air behind him as he went past. He could feel the world shifting past him as his ass moved away from the truck and the black ground came racing up towards him.

END CHAPTER

Chapter 8

“…and so I told Millie if that’s what she wanted people to start thinking about her, well then she should just go on doing what she’s doing and to blazes with what the Reverend says about it.”

The old woman fidgeted with her dress around the seat belt across her lap, her face creasing with frowns that pulled and split against her many wrinkles.

“Watch out for that branch on the road, Herb,” she said, pointing through the windshield at the wide road ahead. “Now who’d go and leave a big branch like that across the way?” she asked, continuing to fuss with the way her new dress was being strangled under the seatbelt.

For his part, Herb gently swerved the big car around the branch – though it was really just edging against the side of the road. He was softly humming one of his favorite songs from the radio, his wife’s voice reduced to little more than a steady droning against the side of his head. The sun was shining down, warming the tops of his pants through the material so he rolled down the window and let the cool breeze slide past his head.

“You’ll catch your death with that window rolled down all the time,” his wife said, frowning towards the barely-open slit of glass. “You’re going to end up sick in bed and then who’ll be taking care of you? Me, that’s who. You’ll have me running up and down the…”

The sound of squealing tires, coupled with the lurching of the car interrupted her and she grabbed onto the edge of the seat to steady herself. Her eyes were wide as she turned towards her husband.

“What in the world?” she exclaimed as she pulled herself more or less upright in the seat again.

Herb was staring straight ahead through the windshield, ignoring his wife for the most part. He didn’t say a word as he got out of the car and went around to the front side – over towards the ditch.

A small boy was crouched down in the grass at the road’s edge, his eyes wide and teary and filled with desperation and fear. Herb squatted down on the side of the road, trying to make himself appear less threatening to the child.

“Hi boy. What ya doin’ out here all alone?” he said, and made sure he gave the boy his best smile. “Do ya need some help?” The boy simply sat there, weighing his options about this old man. Herb could see the boy trembling, his bare arms drug through with bright red scratches and dirt. Tears started to flow more freely from the boy’s eyes, scoring flesh-colored tracks through his dirty cheeks as he crept forward through the grass.

“I wanna go home…” the boy whispered, his voice drowning in his throat.

“Well, where do ya live?” Herb asked; staying right where he was and letting the boy come to him.

“Hayleyville,” the boy answered and stood up, his eyes going towards the parked car. He darted back down as the door of the car opened and someone got out.

“What you doing over there, Herb?” his wife called out, standing beside the car and trying to see through the shadows that crowded along the side of the road in the long grass.

Herb kept right on smiling at the boy and nodded towards the car.

“It’s all right, boy,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “She won’t hurt ya. Just talks a lot, is all.” He smiled again and reached out his hand towards the boy. “Why don’t ya come on out of there so we can get ya home?” He held his hand out to help the boy out of the ditch. “My name’s Herb. What’s yours?”

The boy looked towards the car and then at Herb’s hand as he crept forward. His knees were nearly black with damp mud from the ditch as he stood up and stepped through the long grass towards the man.

“Billy…”

“What ya got there, Billy?” Herb asked and nodded towards the dirty lump clutched tight under the boy’s arm.

The boy took a step back into the ditch and turned away to protect his prize.

“It’s mine,” he said, his tiny eyebrows frowning down over tear-sparkled eyes.

“Hey, it’s all right,” Herb said, raising his hands in defense. “Ya can keep it, boy. No one’s gonna take it on ya. I promise.”

The boy pulled his arm across his eyes, dragging a swath of flesh through the dirt on his cheeks.

“Promise?” he asked, his voice cracking through his big-boy façade. He was still shivering but whether it was from the chill in the air or the fear that’d been stalking him, Herb couldn’t say. He only knew the boy needed help.

“Herb? You answer me,” his wife called out and took a step away from the side of the car, her hand still touching at the door handle ready to bolt back inside at the slightest sign of trouble. “You sick or something?”

Herb heard his wife talking but just let her words slide past him – the way he usually did – and focused his attention on the boy.

“Come on boy. We’ll take ya home,” he said and put his hand out again. “Here, take my hand and I’ll help ya up.”

The boy didn’t wait this time. The cold of the ditch and the promise of getting home were simply too strong to put off any longer. But he kept the dirty lump clutched tight against his chest as he stepped forward and grabbed onto Herb’s hand.

“There ya go,” Herb said as he helped the boy out of the ditch and up onto the side of the road. “Let’s get ya over to the car where it’s nice and warm, all right?”

The boy simply followed along hanging onto Herb’s hand as they walked along the roadside leading back to the car.

“What in the world?” his wife said as she caught sight of her husband walking back towards the car, leading a small - and very dirty - boy behind him. “Herb, what’s going on?”

“Get back in the car, Hetta,” he said and opened the back door. “Just a minute, boy,” he said and leaned into the car across the seat and grabbed at a folded blanket that’d obviously seen better days. “Just get this across the seat for ya, to keep some of that dirt off, all right?” The boy nodded and glanced towards the woman as she got back in the car. He looked up towards Herb, his eyes filling with fear again.

“It’s all right, boy,” he whispered. “She’s just scared, like you. But it’ll be all right. You’ll see.” That seemed to be all the boy needed to hear because he climbed in atop the old blanket, his eyes deliberately staying on the dirty prize in his lap.

Herb closed the door and went around to the driver’s side, his neck chilling against the breeze that swelled out of the woods.

But the chill from across the front seat wasn’t much better as he got in and settled behind the wheel. He could feel his wife’s eyes boring in against the side of his head as he started up the car and pulled back out onto the road.

He knew it was only a matter of time…

“Herb?” Hetta said, staring straight ahead through the windshield, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

“Just takin’ the boy to where he lives in Hayleyville,” Herb said. “Seems in a right state. His name’s Billy.”

Hetta turned around in her seat and looked back at the boy who glanced up at her movement, his eyes still more or less teary and filled with fear. She saw the dirty lump in his lap and turned back around.

“What’s that he’s got in his lap?” she whispered to Herb as they drove down the road. “Looks like he dug it up somewhere.” She turned around again and looked more closely at the lump. She glanced up into the boy’s face, her heart softening as she watched a tear sluice down through his dirty cheek. “What you got there, sweety?” she asked, nodding towards the chunk of dirt in his hands.

The boy wiped his hand across his cheek and pulled the lump closer against his belly.

“It’s mine,” he whispered and looked away from her eyes. “You can’t have it.”

Hetta pulled her head back, the shock of the boy’s words catching deep in her throat. She turned back around and tugged her dress closer in against her.

“Well, I never…” she muttered and turned towards her husband, who was busy staring straight ahead, trying to keep the smirk from growing on his lips.

The boy rolled his thumb over one of the dirty rises on the lump, revealing a sparkle of red glass and gold where the fake gem was set into the lid of the wooden box. He glanced up towards the two people in the front seat, who seemed to be real nice – but so had the bad man he’d been running all day from. He moved some of the dirt from the side of the box and pushed it up and over the shiny glass, hiding his treasure again.

The world outside slid past in a long blur as he stared through the window, his eyelids getting heavier with each shallow breath he pulled into his lungs. He thought back to the adventure he’d had over the past day or so…about the bad man and how he’d tried to catch him before he fell from the truck - and died. And then he thought of his mother, and how much he missed her. He could feel more tears coming as he turned his head and closed his eyes, exhaustion finally drifting him over into sleep.

END CHAPTER

Chapter 9

When Doc woke the next morning, awash in a sea of pain and cloudy skies, the sun had slipped down further behind the rolling hills all around. His face felt on fire where he'd fallen against the debris and dirt of the roadside and his fingers were losing bloody pus along the stitches. He rolled over and pushed himself to his knees, his head throbbing a loud protest. It wasn’t the only time he’d passed out from pain, but it was the first time it’d happened before he could have his fun with whatever young friend he happened to be with.

The boy was nowhere to be seen, which didn't surprise him all that much. But it probably meant that he didn't have much time to get on the road and away from this burg before someone came looking for the little bastard. Might be the boy's mother. Might be the police. It didn't matter. In the long run, he'd be better off getting back out on the highway and putting as much space between him and here as fast as he could. He got to his feet and wobbled over to the back of the truck, his hands clamping over the tailgate as he stumbled forward. He caught a glance at himself in the big side mirror as he pulled himself along the truck, the scraped skin, blood and dirt giving his face a dark, insanely feral look. He reached through the open window and grabbed at a rag that didn't look too far from clean and touched it gingerly to his cheek. His face exploded in a flood of pain and he cursed under his breath.

"Little bastard," he muttered and tossed the reddened cloth onto the seat of the truck. His head was crashing through one foul thought after another as he continued looking at his face in the mirror. Suddenly, the sky in the reflection lurched to black, and a familiar - but no less reviled - gaze stared back at him. The demon’s eyes had something more of his father’s withering gaze in them this time, and the words that fell from that evil sneer even sounded like they might’ve belonged to him.

You’re slipping, Virgil boy...

You should’ve been able to handle a bitty child like that...

The snarling voice rattled and dragged through his mind like rusty barbed wire, tearing at nerve ends and flesh with every sound. He shook his head, trying to clear the damned, evil fog, but it wasn’t working. Memories of his vanished youth came at him, slicing down the center of his skull.

"Shut up!" Doc shouted and pressed his fingertips against his temples as a new wave of pain sliced down through his skull. "I’m bigger now. I don't need you to..."

But it was only his own ragged face staring back at him from the mirror now, the demon's – or his father’s - vicious gaze gone as quickly as it'd arrived. He opened the door and got behind the wheel, his head still feeling like it was being tossed around inside a blender. He looked down at the seat beside him.

The keepsake box was gone. So was the key with the rabbit's foot charm. Well, at least the boy had gotten away with something for his troubles; his own sort of macabre souvenir of this day's adventurous events. Doc reached up to his cheek and touched at his own special memento of this time, knowing that this flesh memory would last much longer than that old trinket box.

Forever, even.

The sun had broken through the gloom and was just past overhead as he got back out onto the open highway leading off towards the west. He'd always had his best luck heading west and maybe tomorrow would be a better day. Maybe he'd even find a new, little friend - someone who wouldn't run away or laugh at his foolish dreams.

It was easy finding little boys to play with. Like wildflowers that spread across the hillsides in summertime, the little beauties were everywhere. He touched at his cheek again, his fingers sliding over the torn skin, staying just this side of the pain. With his face messed up like this, it wasn't going to be as easy to charm the little buggers into his arms, but that was something he could work around. He just had to come up with another plan - that was all.

Cash…or candy and sweets again, maybe.

His eyes darted towards the mirror, seeing something flinch across its shiny surface. But the reflection was nothing more than his own now-ghastly face, twisted and darkened by the ground and the shadows of the afternoon. The road fell out ahead of him, pulling him along its winding curves until there was a hundred miles between where he’d been and where he’d ended up. His face felt only mildly afire now, the ragged skin a somewhat paler shade of horrible. Thoughts of the sweet boy from the garage came and went through the tangle of his mind as he drove along, the green-gray blur of the endless trees forming a deepening dark hallway to either side of him. He pulled the steering wheel around a dust-sharpened bend in the road, the tires screeching softly under him before he got control again. His head felt as if it were on fire, even though the skin on the back of his neck itched with icy cold.

He glanced towards the rearview mirror and saw the twisting, dark reflection sneer at him, the face there looking only barely like his own more familiar one. The deep scrape along his cheek didn’t help matters at all, of course. He reached up and touched at the edge of the wound knowing it would hurt – but doing it anyway.

He’s going to tell…

“I don’t care!” Doc shouted at the windshield, his cheek paining as it contorted around his shout. The voice definitely had more of his father’s rage within it, blended in with the echoing evil of the demon. He could feel his chest tightening as he fought against the urge to try and stare down the evil face in the mirror. But that hadn’t worked when he was little and he had no reason to believe that it’d work now…

They’ll get you this time…

“No they won’t,” he said and clenched his fingers around the steering wheel, his knuckles pressing up white through his skin. He looked down at the seat next to him, remembering the boy and the way everything had been so filled with promise only a few short hours ago – before it all went to Hell. He tried looking towards the mirror without actually staring into the dark face of the demon, but the angle was all wrong and all he saw was dark blue sky reflecting in the glass.

They’ll catch you…and they’ll fry you…

The pain in his head throbbed and swelled as the words spilled out the side of his skull, dripping down to burn against his neck. He reached up and rubbed at the skin there, trying to soothe the heat that’d suddenly begun washing against his body. The image of his body racketing against the leather restraints of an electric chair vividly filled his thoughts – courtesy of the demon, he knew.

His eyes were so filled with tears now that he pulled the truck over against the side of the road, the tires dragging through the fine, dusty gravel and kicking up a cloud that washed over against the side of his window. The silence inside the cab itched against his skull as he opened the door, glad for the small sounds of nature that wrapped in against him.

But there were other sounds there. Familiar sounds of youth blending and echoing back through the trees. So faint they barely rose above the soft shrill of the wind that fell in against his head…

But he heard them…

He held his breath and closed his eyes, focusing his hearing towards the faraway sounds. At first, there was nothing but the soft din of the smaller animals, birds and bugs polluting the air and filling up his skull. But as he concentrated, he heard the distinctive trickle of children’s laughter slide through the shadows and trees of the deeper woods.

It was like the call of the Sirens to his ears and he felt his heart kick back at him, as he turned towards the sounds. The pain in his skull had dropped away, leaving his head feeling lighter and emptier than it’d been in weeks.

He stepped away from the side of the truck, his boots sliding through the fine gravel and into the beginnings of long grass that led up the bank and into the wall of black trees. Glancing back once towards the truck, he made certain it was far enough off the road not to attract attention and pushed through the thin saplings at the forest’s edge.

He’ll tell…

Doc hadn’t even given a second thought to going after the junkyard boy, once he heard the sounds of the children playing in the woods. He shook his head trying to scatter the voices rattling along every nerve in his skull and let his eyes adjust to the sudden, falling darkness.

“I don’t care,” he muttered, and felt the twinges of pain returning to punish him again. He waited for the inevitable slicing down the center of his brain – but it never came. Surprised - and grateful – he pushed forward through the trees, the sound of the children playing and laughing leading him deeper into the darkness.

He’d been creeping forward through the trees and the shadows for more than half an hour, silently careful of where he placed each step - when suddenly…

There they were, not thirty yards away through the thinning trees.

Two boys and a little girl were jumping and lunging at each other with sticks – playing at swordplay, no doubt. Doc stopped moving and squatted beside a large stone, his gaze fastened on the three children at play. He could feel his chest tighten against him as he leaned forward into the stone trying to get as close to their energy as possible without being seen.

He took in the scene before him, his eyes going automatically to the smaller and more exuberant of the two boys. The bigger boy was of little interest to him except as a possible foil to the plan that his mind was pushing together - and the little girl never entered his thoughts at all.

He watched them play for the better part of the afternoon, listening to their laughter and shouts, ignorant of the dangers that lurked and waited in the deep woods. He only stole away back into the shadows when his legs cramped up late in the day. But he could hear the calls of their laughter all the way back through the forest to his truck. He drove the hour or so back to the edge of the Taber and laid out his bedroll for the night, his thoughts sliding over what he planned on doing with this new boy once he got him alone.

The next one?

He let the demon’s voice echo and burn through his skull, his eyes watering with the pain - and more than a little new excitement. A smile crept across his lips and he nodded, not needing to bring to voice his growing fantasies about this new friend.

The demon knew.

END CHAPTER

Chapter 10

Jeffy sat in the sun, his back pressing up against the trunk of an old apple tree that'd long ago stopped springing fruit. Gnarling branches twisted down above him, splitting shadows all around where he sat. He frowned, stabbing a sharp piece of stick into the bare ground beside him. Memories of Jamie yelling at him yesterday rolled over in his mind as he worked the end of the stick into the soft soil. He could still see Katie staring at him, her eyes wide and shiny. He felt small and stupid in her eyes and not at all like Jamie's best friend. He picked at a line of dried mud flaking away from a clump still attached to his pant cuff, his mind a tumble of useless, black anger.

A low, droning sound began to fill the air around him and he sat up a little straighter and looked off into the hazy distance. He held his hand across his brow shading what little sunlight fell below the branches. A dark lump dragging a tail of dust sped down the dirt road that wound along the base of Kinney's Mountain. He tried squinting his eyes to see better through the wavering, summer haze, but it didn't help much. A sliver of dust swelled and floated away on the breeze as Jeffy watched the vehicle approach, though it was still a long way off. The whining roar of the motor spilled along the mountainside long before the shape was near enough to see clearly, the sound like a great giant's snoring.

Jeffy sat up straight trying to see it better, but the vehicle dipped along a low patch of roadway dropping away altogether from his view, though its insistent drone still hung in the air. He got to his feet and was swiping the dirt and grass from the back of his pants when the sound suddenly creased through the air towards him. He turned in time to see the truck slide up and over the bend in the road and pass by him like a roaring wall of black steel. He dragged in a faceful of dusty exhaust through his open mouth and spent the next few moments of his life trying to catch at the breaths he was missing. He turned away from the storm of dust and wind and more dust, and tried to wipe the grit from his eyes without getting any inside.

By the time his throat and eyes had cleared, he was nearly exhausted.

He turned his head in the direction the truck had gone and saw two red pinpoints push through the gray dust towards him. He jumped out of the way as the truck backed up and off the roadway, the tires grinding gravel to a stop in front of him.

"This here the road to Blackport?" the man inside called across the wide seat, squinting as the sun hammered down upon his face. The inside of the truck seemed nearly as dusty as the air outside and the man’s face seemed to be covered in oily sweat. Jeffy coughed and stepped back away from the truck, his eyes locked on the man's face - or rather - on the patch of scabbing skin that fell like a scarlet gouge down his shiny right cheek.

"Hey boy! I'm talkin' to ya!" the man yelled and frowned so hard at Jeffy, his bushy brows met in the center of his high, wrinkled forehead. "What are ya, stupid?"

Jeffy took another step back away from the man's wrath this time, his mind tumbling over whether or not to answer him. The truck's motor was still idling and the stink of the exhaust swirled over and wrapped around Jeffy's throat and he coughed again. He nodded and pushed his hand across his mouth trying to keep the foul smoke away.

"What ya sayin'? That ya know the way or that yer stupid?" the man asked, and didn't wait for an answer. "If this is the road, how much further to Blackport?" The man put his hand above his eyes, shading them from the sun. A flash of light burst from the man's finger as a huge ring caught and reflected sunlight into Jeffy's face. It looked like something a knight might wear...or maybe even a king.

"It's...just up over the hill a ways," Jeffy answered and pointed up the road, but his eyes kept pulling towards the ring. His mind was a whirl of maybe's and what if's and he could feel his heart beating deep down in his throat. The man didn't really look like a knight...but maybe he was just in disguise...or on a secret mission for some distant monarch.

The man just scowled back at him as if he hadn't the foggiest idea of what a ways might mean. Well, Jeffy didn't really know either...but he knew it wasn't too far on foot. Even less of a trip in a truck, he was sure. The man caught Jeffy's eyes picking at the ring on his finger.

"You like that boy?" he asked and Jeffy's stomach lurched against him as he was caught staring. His gaze darted to the man's face, the eyes there clearly stabbing straight through Jeffy's. Jeffy didn't know what to say to that. Was this man serious or just playing with him? It seemed safe enough to just nod again...and so that's what he did. The man looked down at his hand, turning the ring to face him better. "Got that in Singapore..." he said, his voice quieter now. "...off a guy who didn't need it no more - if ya get me." Suddenly, his eyes jabbed over at Jeffy. "You know where Singapore is, boy?"

Jeffy shook his head and glanced both ways along the roadway, hoping for someone else to be coming along. But the road was clear of dust and noise now, the creeping buzz of flies the only sounds around them. It made him feel kind of scared being here all alone with this man. The screaming scabs along his face weren't helping his roiling fears any either.

The man turned his head, looking up the roadway in the direction that Jeffy had pointed. The engine roared suddenly, scaring Jeffy so badly he was sure he'd wet himself. So sure in fact, that he had to look at the front of his pants to be certain that he hadn't. When Jeffy looked up, he was almost sure he saw the man's gaze rising up along his body before looking him square in the eye.

"Your name, Bailey?" he asked, the name meaning nothing at all to Jeffy, but the man's dark tone scaring him to the very soles of his feet, nonetheless. Jeffy couldn't even think of anyone he knew with that name, but it wasn't really all that surprising considering the size of Blackport. It wasn't like it was the state capital or anything; he was pretty sure he knew just about everyone who lived in or around the town. Jeffy shook his head and took another step back. The man's eyes stabbed into him again.

“Well, you sure look like a kid I used to know named Bailey,” he said and wiped along the scar on his face. He shook his head and touched at his ear.

"You say somethin’, boy? I can't hear ya too well," the man said and leaned across the seat. "Why don't ya open the door and come in here and we can have us a nice little chat?" The words dragged over Jeffy's skin like prickle branches. His knees locked him where he stood and his pulse pained against his chest with every beat. The truck engine growled sharply again as the man lunged over and hit at the door handle, swinging the passenger side door open. For the first time, Jeffy noticed the ragged sprigs of colored fabric dripping down from the sunvisor above the man's head. Some of the colors looked like they could be part of a knight's uniform...but others were so faded that they were almost the color of the road dust that covered them in a thick fuzz.

I...I gotta go," Jeffy said, the words squeezing up and out of his dry throat. He kept his feet in place however, not wanting to provoke the man to move out of the truck. But he kept his body ready, his muscles twitching for release into a blasting run over the hill and safely away.

The man was leaning across the seat now and looking at him in a way that made Jeffy squirm. Staring down at his legs and his stomach…and his lap. It was like his eyes were picking at Jeffy's clothes and digging into the flesh...and deeper. A prick of tongue slid across the man's cracked lips as he watched...and waited. A dark car began to crawl noisily up the road, moving slowly over the hill towards them. The man looked up, away from his study of Jeffy. His frown returned as he sat up straighter in the seat, clenched the wheel in both hands and glared at the approaching vehicle.

As he stared at the car, Jeffy got a good look at the man’s other hand. A couple of his fingers were wrapped too tight in a dirty bandage and it looked like there was some blood pushing up through the layers. Jeffy imagined that to be the reason the man was so cranky. Or maybe he was just a normally cranky man.

"Yeah, well...if ya see anyone around here named Bailey, you tell 'im I'm looking for 'im, ya hear?" the man said and sat up straighter in his seat, his eyes sliding slowly over Jeffy's body one more time. "Jus' tell 'im Doc's lookin' for 'im. He'll know what it means." The other vehicle crawled past in a trail of dust, the old man behind the wheel concentrating on the unfamiliar road ahead and barely giving them a second, tired glance.

Jeffy wanted to turn and run, right then and there and just put all of this behind him, but he knew he probably wouldn't get very far. The man kept looking at him across the seat, making the hairs on the back of Jeffy's neck push out into the breeze. And then just as suddenly as he'd arrived, the man and his truck were roaring away down the dirt road again, a long, rising plume of dust chasing after him. The truck was back on the road a few moments before the door was hauled shut again. Jeffy waited until the truck had gone around the bend in the road and out of sight, before he chanced to move, his feet scuffling through the gritty dirt at the roadside. He listened to the fading roar of the truck as it slid further up the road and deeper into Kinney County.

As he started moving back along the roadway towards home, Jeffy rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, smoothing the hairs and prickle-skin there.

He was suddenly very, very glad that his name wasn't Bailey.

END CHAPTER

Chapter 11

The next day, the three of them were out in the meadow again, the boys unwilling toters of Katie this time. But it wasn’t as if they’d had a lot of choice in the matter. Jamie's mother had told him - in no uncertain terms - that he was to allow her to come along with them to play - whatever they were playing. And that was that. But the boys had come up with a plan along the way to make their afternoon of babysitting a little more enjoyable. Of course, the argument between the two boys had dissipated over the past few days, the way it always did with true buddies. Well, most of it had burned away, though some embers still warmed beneath it all.

"Okay Katie, but if you're gonna be the maiden, ya gotta stand like this." Jamie stood facing her, spread-eagled against a tree at the edge of the meadow, his arms wrapped around behind the trunk. Katie frowned at his movements, her eyes crawling over him.

"What for?" she asked and stood her ground, no longer so eager to play this foolish game. "That's stupid."

"Hey! You wanna play or not?" Jamie asked, straightening up and grabbing his stick from the top of the rock beside him. "We don't care either way, ya know."

Katie looked over at Jeffy standing quietly beside the big boulder in the middle of the clearing. Long grass pushed up against the backside of the stone, while the front had been reduced to a trample of mud and dirty weeds by the boys' playing. Jeffy wore a wide grin, waiting for her to go along with the game, or to back down. Either way, she knew he'd be ready with something smart to say. Katie looked over at Jamie, her jaw tightening in resolve. She stepped carefully through the long grass and pushed her back against the rough bark of the tree, her arms folding in behind her.

"Oh. Oh. Please save me brave knights," she said, her voice mimicking the heroines she'd listened to on the radio serials that the boys listened religiously to every Saturday afternoon.

She swooned her head back and peeked through her long lashes at the two boys. Jeffy glanced over at Jamie and giggled, the stick in his hand coming up to defend himself. The game was afoot again.

"Ha! Come an' rescue her if you dare," he called out to Jamie, who was scything his sword through the long grass around the boulder. He snapped his stick up and smiled.

"Ha!" he called out. "You can't stop me, Sir Jeffrey," and he swung his stick at Jeffy's, the two pieces of wood connecting with a dull crack of wet bark on bark. Katie let her head bend over a bit and opened one eye, just enough to peer at the battle playing out ahead of her. She watched the way Jeffy jumped around, his free arm swinging through the air when he hit at Jamie's sword. An idea for something new crept into her mind.

"There's a dragon coming!" Katie called out, the words echoing in the closeness of the trees all around them. The two boys stopped their movements, their eyes darting into the deep woods all around them. Jeffy looked over at her and gave her a small smile. She liked the way he looked at her, and her chest got tight - the way it always did lately. Jamie stopped swinging in mid-thrust and frowned over at her.

"Katie, there ain't no dragons. You're just supposed to be in distress," Jamie said, his stick hitting at his leg as he spoke. "Ya can't just keep on talkin' and makin’ stuff up."

Katie put her head back in another swoon of faint, when she heard Jamie talking.

"It's just playin', Jamie," she said. "'Sides...how am I supposed to be in distress if there's no dragon?"

Jamie's face twisted and he tapped the point of his stick against a nearby tree trunk.

"C'mon Jamie. You an' me can beat some stupid ol' dragon," Jeffy said and glanced over at Katie. "An' my arm's getting tired, anyway."

"Well how're ya gonna beat a dragon with a sore arm?" Jamie asked.

"I didn't say it was sore," Jeffy replied and looked down at the ground. "Jus' tired is all."

Jamie glared at his friend. "Well, if yer arm's tired...what're you gonna do? Talk it to death?" Jamie poked his stick into the air between them.

"You can use magic," Katie said and both boys looked over at her as if she'd just screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Magic?" Jamie asked. "We don't know magic." He swung his stick through the air in front of him. "We're knights!"

Jeffy looked back towards Jamie, his smile returning again.

"I get to be the wizard!" he shouted and stood up straight, his eyes shifting from side to side, theatrically. He let the straight haft of branch fall to the ground at his feet.

Jamie looked over at him and then back at Katie, still leaning back against the tree trunk, but her arms were crossed over her chest while she waited for him to decide what they would play now.

"Well, what am I supposed to be?" Jamie asked and looked down at the stick in his hand - like it was somehow just a stupid old piece of wood again.

Jeffy looked over at him, a wide smile creasing his freckled face.

"Hey! You can be the dragon!" he said and picked up a narrow, bent piece of twig from the ground, holding it up like a magic wand. Katie smiled and returned her hands behind the trunk of the tree, trying her best to play the part of the helpless princess captured by the dragon - for whatever reason they did that sort of thing.

Jamie hmmphed a bit, deciding it probably wasn't all that bad to be a dragon…for a while, anyway. He tossed his sword into the grass by the boulder and raised up his hands, his fingers clawing the air, menacingly.

"Rowwwwwr!" he roared, trying his best to get into the dragon character. Jeffy stepped back away from him as the dragon neared, his new super-powerful wand rising up in front of him.

"Pretty good there, Dragon," he snarled and turned the wand through the air between them. "But not good enough."

Katie watched Jeffy swirl and jump through the long grasses and trampled ground of the meadow, the dragon harassing his best efforts to rescue the fair and beautiful princess.

Almost an hour later, Jamie and Jeffy were near to exhaustion from casting spells and terrorizing maidens and playing half a dozen other make-believe scenes, there in the half-clearing. Sometimes the big boulder they played around was the castle wall, other times it was an island in a sea of terrorizing monsters that the boys took turns defending against. For her part, Katie tried as long as she could to keep her arms pinned behind her back, playing her simple role with relish. But gravity, time and boredom worked to do her in and she was soon reduced to sitting at the base of the tree with her arms at her sides - looking suitably...distressed as she watched the knights and dragons and wizards do battle. Jamie glanced up at the tree line, noticing for the first time how dim the sky was getting.

"Hey! It's probably gettin' late," he said. "We better get home."

Jeffy stood off to the side still playing at casting spells on dangerous monsters - which were apparently all around him now.

"But I didn't get to fight no dragons," Katie said and got to her feet. Her arms were beginning to tingle with the afternoon's chill, but she didn't say anything about that. Jeffy looked over at her.

"Girls don't fight dragons," he said. "You're just supposed to get captured and rescued."

"Yeah," Jamie said and looked back at the lowering sun. "'Sides...we ain't got time."

Katie frowned at her brother. Then back at Jeffy.

"That's not fair," she said. She turned away and kicked at the grass at her feet. “And it’s stupid too.” Jeffy chuckled and looked over at Jamie.

"Maybe next time you can be the mean ol' dragon, Katie," he said. “You sure look cranky enough for it.” He picked up the sword he’d had earlier and swung at the tall grass at the edge of the clearing.

She rounded on him then, her tongue stabbing out better than any sword she might've held.

"Come on. We gotta get," Jamie said and swung at the long grass beside him. "Mom'll be waitin'."

Jeffy looked over at Katie again and she frowned at him, her eyes cold and slitted. Jeffy only smirked back at her, thinking she'd probably make just the best and meanest dragon ever.

Jamie turned and glanced at his little sister as he swung his sword at the long grass, his thoughts pulling him away somewhere again. Jeffy walked over to a tree and started hitting at the trunk with his stick, the wood thunking sharply with each sword swing. Jamie's eyes darted towards the tree where Jeffy was hitting.

"Knock it off Jeffy," he said. "You're gonna wreck your sword doin' that."

Sure enough, the next whack at the tree snapped Jeffy's stick, the dry wood breaking clean in half in his hand.

"Damn!" Jeffy said. Katie's eyes flew wide as she looked from Jeffy back to her brother.

"Jeffy! You're not supposed to say that word," she said and glanced at Jamie for back up, but he was looking at the ground again. "Right Jamie?"

"It don't matter," Jeffy said and threw the rest of his sword at the tree trunk. "Nobody's out here but us." He turned towards her and swung at the air with his empty hand. "Don't be such a damn baby."

"I'm not a baby," she said and took a step towards Jeffy. "You take that back!"

"Will not," he said and put his hands on his hips, his chest puffing out like that made any difference at all.

"Jamieee?" Katie said and turned around towards her big brother. But Jamie was looking away again, his face turning sharply towards the woods.

"Shhhh!" he hissed, and squatted down low in the grass. "I heard somebody."

That was all the other two needed to hear to push their arguing aside. No one else was supposed to be out here; this was their secret place. They hurried over, moving to where Jamie squatted motionless near the bushes. Jeffy and Katie dropped down beside him, their gaze sweeping through the trees.

"What?" Jeffy whispered and looked into the sheltering blackness of the trees in the general direction Jamie was looking. "I don't hear nothin'."

Jamie darted a look towards Jeffy but before he could say anything to him, the muffled crack of a breaking twig shot at them from the shadows. They all crouched down lower in the grass, their eyes wide and searching the forest. Katie leaned into her brother's arm, her body trembling into him. He put his arm around her shoulder and held her still.

"Probably just a bunny or somethin’," Jeffy whispered, his voice carefully only loud enough for them to hear - just in case. He sat up a little higher trying to appear braver than he felt at the moment. Jamie tapped at his shoulder and frowned, his finger pointing at a place just over Jeffy's shoulder. Katie's eyes were as wide as Jeffy had ever seen them and he felt his heart stop dead in his chest. A fading rustle of leaves tapped at his ears and he had to force himself not to spin around. Jamie's hand went to his sister's mouth, clamping hard against her cheeks. He whispered something into her ear that Jeffy couldn't hear, but she went stone still after that, her eyes frantic and quivering and filling with glaze.

Jeffy turned slowly, his body spinning lower into the surrounding long grass as he looked through the heavy branches.

His eyes focused on a shadowed figure hunched over in the darkness of the low bushes twenty or so yards away from where they crouched.

Jeffy could just make out the face of the man who'd stopped to talk with him beside the road - just yesterday. The scrape on his cheek was still red and fierce along his face, even with the cold shadows pulling over his skin. His eyes stared through the shroud of foliage towards the clearing where only a few moments before, they'd been playing - blissfully unaware that he was on his way to watch them.

The man's eyes narrowed, scanning the view in front of him and all ahead. His hand came up slowly, pushing a leafy branch away from his face.

A fierce length of silver blade poked out of his fist. It looked like the sharpest thing Jeffy'd ever seen and he swallowed at the deadly look of it. He couldn't take his eyes off of it, and wondered if the man used it for gutting fish – or other things.

He didn't dare even breathe, and he could sense his friends were in the same state of solid fear that he was. The knife blade reflected the sunlight back into the shadows behind the man, his face twisting through the darkness and light. Satisfied that the clearing was empty, the man stood slowly and sighed, the knife blade in his hand falling alongside his leg as he moved. He stepped forward, pushing through the wall of branches, any pretense for his stealth, completely lost now. He took a few steps and stopped beside one of the large stones that they’d played upon just a few minutes before, the grass around it trampled into a muddy, gray mush. His eyes lowered as he bent and picked up the stick that Jeffy'd broken on the tree trunk. He brought the branch up slowly to his face and pulled it across under his nose, carefully sniffing the wood - caressing it with his senses. His eyes flickered closed and a wicked grin began to snake across his face. The tip of his tongue licked out and slid slowly along the smooth bare wood.

Jeffy turned his head just enough to catch Jamie's eye, the shock and fear trembling between them both now. Katie's wide eyes jerked towards Jeffy, her tears wetting her long lashes. Jamie's hand was still pressed across Katie's face, her tears and frightened breath wetting along his fingers.

Jamie turned back and saw the man silhouetted against the deep shadows of the trees, his face turned away from their hiding place. A small sound suddenly pushed out of the trees, barely disturbing the still, moist air really...but it pulled Jeffy's gaze so hard, his neck hurt. The man crouched down in the grass again, staring at the space where the sound had come from, his body still, but poised for rapid movement. The blade was back in his hand, the metal shimmering as his fingers rested lightly against the leaves.

Jeffy's eyes caught a brown hare hopping slowly along beside the wall of deep bushes far to their right, its small body barely visible among the gray-green shadows there. The hare turned its head and sniffed at the air, its head swiveling towards where the man crouched...and then around to where the three of them were huddled amid their own copse of dense bushes. A painful wave of fear slid around Jeffy's mind as he watched the small creature twitch its nose against the air. Their bodies stopped moving entirely in that moment as they all watched the creature look over towards them. Jeffy's gaze darted over towards where the man was crouched, his body a shadowy lump amid the deep greenery.

With a sudden movement the man turned more towards the hare, his eyes seemingly staring straight at them. The hare turned its head, and possibly sensing the danger so close at hand, hopped noisily away into the undergrowth.

Jeffy stared back at the man as he watched the hare bounce away, his breath still held tightly within his chest. The man stood up again, his body rising slowly up out of the grass. He turned his head and looked off in the direction of the clearing again, the knife blade rolling within his hand as his fingers fidgeted with it. Jeffy's heart ached to run away, with or without the rest of him following along. The whites of the man's eyes flashed in the shadows as he scanned the trees and deep greenery of the woods, searching for things he might've missed as he turned away from them.

Jeffy felt his leg sinking towards numbness where he sat upon it, his weight squishing all the life out of it. He pressed his hand to the cramped muscles there, rubbing the aches carefully away. If they had to take off running, he was going to have a rough time getting his legs to work properly.

He glanced over to where Jamie and Katie lay and his eyes went wide.

A spider - a really big one - was calmly crawling up along the edge of Katie's dress. She hadn't seen it yet, but Jeffy knew that she would. And when she did...

He shifted his gaze away from the insect and tried to focus on getting Jamie's attention, without letting Katie know what was happening. Or anyone else, for that matter.

Jamie finally turned his head away from the man and caught the urgency in Jeffy's gaze. Katie looked up at Jamie's sudden movement but Jeffy saw her move and looked away for that moment. When he turned back Katie had turned away towards the man again, but Jamie was still staring intently at him, waiting for him to explain his searching look.

Jeffy took the moment to dart his eyes repeatedly towards the spider on Katie's dress and Jamie caught the movement and followed his look. His hand pressed tighter against Katie's face as he shifted his leg slightly, careful not to make any undue noise. She was used to his hand being there now and went along with the movement easily. His other hand swept up and over her lap, casually brushing the spider off her dress and back into the leaves around them, before she could follow his actions.

Jamie's eyes swept past Jeffy and into the clearing, watching the man as he walked away from them, heading for the path that led back into the forest and to the dirt road that wound beside the twist of the river. The flash of the knife blade stabbed at the air as he put the edge to the length of Jeffy's sword, slicing off chip after chip of it as he walked.

A deep, reedy whistle echoed back across the clearing as the man parted the branches and stepped up onto the narrow path. The song wasn't anything familiar to them, but it didn't last long enough anyway before it faded away into the forest.

Jamie slid his hand off of Katie's face and wiped it against his pantleg.

"Geez, Katie. Ya slobber like a dog."

Katie looked at her brother and then at Jeffy, her eyes frowning into them both.

"Who was that, Jamie?" she asked, wiping slobber and dirt from around her mouth. "He had a real knife. A big one. Did ya see it?"

"Yeah I saw it," Jamie replied and looked off in the direction the man had gone in. "It wasn't that big." He picked up his stick and turned back towards his sister. "It don't matter now anyway. He's gone."

"Let's get outta here," Jeffy said and glanced at Katie, the worry in his eyes saying far too much. She knew when he looked guilty…

"You know him, don't you?" Katie whispered. Jamie's eyes darted back towards Jeffy, waiting for his reply. "Maybe he was out here looking for you," she pressed. Jeffy stared at Katie, wishing he could just keep looking at her and make her words suck back into her pretty, freckled face. But he knew that Jamie had heard them too. He looked over at the other boy, answering to him - and not to Katie.

"I...I don't know who he is," Jeffy began, then looked at the ground. "He jus' stopped an' talked to me yesterday, that's all." He kicked at a stone and sent it hopping away into the blackness along the edge of the bushes. "He was bein’ really creepy to me then, and..."

"He probably came here lookin' for you," Jamie said, quiet fear creeping into his words. His anger at their secret place being found out seeped into his actions as he tapped the stick hard against his leg. No one else was supposed to know anything about where they played. But apparently...someone else did.

Someone really scary…

With a knife…

"Naw," Jeffy said and scuffed at the dirt on the ground. "He didn't care who I was. He was just askin’ if I wanted to get in his truck and go for a drive.” He looked at the ground and kicked at another rock, not wanting to look up at either of them.

“A drive?" Jamie said and swung his stick through the air. “More like he was lookin’ for somethin’ to ride.”

Katie turned and looked at her brother. “Why would he need a ride if he was already driving a truck?”

Jamie and Jeffy exchanged glances but didn’t give her any answer other than to frown and shrug their shoulders as they looked away.

"Anyway, I told him I had to go and that was that,” Jeffy said. “A car came by and he got real mad and then he just drove off, real fast.” He looked over towards Jamie as if he'd only done exactly what the other boy would've done, back there beside the road.

Katie pushed herself to her feet and brushed the forest debris off of her dress.

"Well, I agree with Jeffy," she said. "He was definitely bein' real creepy."

"Maybe he was just out for a walk in the woods and wanted to see what all the noise was about," Jeffy said and turned towards the break in the bushes that served as their secret path home. He turned back suddenly towards Jamie. "Hey. Let's follow him and see what he's doin’. Maybe we can jump out and scare the crap out of him for a change.”

Jamie turned back towards the trees, his eyes filling with the green of them and that was all. He swung his stick through the long grass at the start of their secret path.

"Let's just get home," he said and connected his sword with a standing squad of green bulrush soldiers. "It's gettin' late."

"Geez Jamie. Yer gettin' to be an ol' stick in the mud," Jeffy said and followed loosely after the other boy, hitting at the same broken reeds. "You don't want to do nothin' fun anymore."

Jamie turned around and looked at him and then at Katie, her face still smudged with damp soil from his hand. Her eyes held him, waiting for him to say something to Jeffy - and it probably wasn't going to be nice either.

"Jus' come on," he said and pushed through the thick, leafy branches ahead of them, the other two hurrying to keep up with his longer steps.

Katie looked over her shoulder towards Jeffy, her eyes going past him and searching the far side of the clearing for any sign of the man returning. Jeffy took her look as a personal one and stuck his tongue out at her. Katie's eyes darted back to Jeffy's face at the movement and she frowned at him.

"You're such a brat, Jeffy," she whispered and turned back around to keep up with Jamie.

She fought against the tremendous urge deep inside her to spin around and stick her tongue out in return. But she was better than him. She could act her age even if he wasn't going to try. And all the while the two boys swung swords and batted their way through the forest, she was acutely aware of Jeffy being right there behind her, his tongue probably still sticking out at her. Maybe even dragging along the ground by now, picking up the dust and dirt of the pathway.

The thought and the image made her smile. A secret smile all to herself there in the leafy darkness between the boys.

END CHAPTER

Chapter 12

The next afternoon was cloudy and a solid chill crept and rolled through the hills around the playing field they called their kingdom. Jamie was in the lead - which was where he usually was – with Katie behind him and Jeffy swinging his sword and defending the rear. Most of the preceding day’s events with the strange man had already been forgotten, buried under the excitement of a new summer day – but some memories lingered.

“What we gonna play today?” Katie asked and picked up a good-sized sword from the ground beside the matted path. She swung it slowly across in front of her, careful to keep it away from her brother’s back and legs. She had no reason to think that they’d be playing anything other than what the boys always played…but it never hurt to ask.

“You get to be the old cow that the dragon chases after and roasts with his fire,” Jeffy said and made the motions of spewing fire towards her as he swung his sword for emphasis. “An’ I get to chop off its ugly head and save the day, right Jamie? That sound good?”

Jamie turned around and looked towards Jeffy, his eyes catching on the stick in Katie’s hand.

“I told you you’re not allowed to have a sword,” he scolded and hit the sword from her hand with his own stick, the impact rattling along her arm.

“Ow!” she said and let the stick drop silently into the grass beside her. “Jamie!”

“See? That’s why you ain’t allowed,” he said and turned back towards the path, his eyes searching the ground for the way ahead to their secret place. “Always whinin’ about every little thing.” He pulled aside a thick curtain of leaves and peered through into the shadows. “Come on. Let’s go this way,” he said and held the branches up for Jeffy and Katie as they passed through. Katie frowned up at her brother as she passed below his arm, her eyes glancing at the fine sword in his hand as she went by.

“It ain’t fair,” she muttered and put her arms up to protect her face from the few whipping branches that Jeffy let loose behind him.

“Yeah. So,” Jamie said and moved in behind her, his head down to keep away from the low branches that fell in along the sheltered path. With Jeffy in the lead, there was no telling where they might end up in the woods and so Jamie made his way forward past Katie until he was just behind Jeffy.

“I gotta go,” Jeffy whispered, turning towards Jamie as he went by and retook the lead. He glanced back towards Katie who was struggling along the path, her arms flailing against the thin branches in front of her.

“Well, we ain’t gonna wait,” Jamie said and pushed past, his hands grabbing and pulling the branches out of his way. Jeffy just nodded, knowing that Jamie would say exactly what he had, and ducked through a wall of green and shadows, leaving the other two back on the path.

Katie opened her eyes in time to see Jeffy push his way through the branches and disappear into the darkness of the forest.

“Where’s he goin’?” she asked her brother who was already pushing against branches far ahead near the turn in the path.

“To have a piss,” he replied, knowing how his words would affect her.

“Jamie. You’re not supposed to say stuff like that,” she said and looked away into the trees, searching for any sign of Jeffy. “Mom’ll be mad.”

“She’ll only be mad if you tell her,” he said and turned around to face her, his body blocking the narrow way ahead. “An’ you ain’t going to tell her, are ya?”

She stopped moving forward and stared up at him, trying to show what a big girl she was – and definitely not a tattletale.

“None of her business,” she muttered and looked away back towards the woods, her eyes frowning at the shadows gathering everywhere. “Shouldn’t we wait for Jeffy? He doesn’t know his way around as good as you do.”

She didn’t know much in her young life but she knew some of the things that mattered to her brother. Taking care of his friends was one of them – even if he always pretended like it didn’t matter at all.

Jamie stopped walking and looked back along the path, his eyes digging into the darkness and shadows there. He nodded and hit his sword a few times against a nearby tree trunk before speaking.

“Yeah I guess,” he said and looked at where he was hitting at the tree. “If that’s what you want to do.” Small chips of thick bark disappeared into the green and black of the bushes as they waited.

And waited.

“How long’s a piss take?” Katie asked, forgetting for a moment that she wasn’t supposed to say that word either. Jamie turned towards her when he heard the black word fall from her lips, a smile creasing across his face. Katie was almost certain she heard a chuckle bubble out of her brother for the first time in weeks, but he swallowed it back down, letting gray thoughts cloud over his mind again.

He shrugged his shoulders and hit at the tree again, his eyes going to the place along the path where Jeffy had disappeared.

Without saying anything else he moved ahead, his sword pushing through the branches and waiting. He glanced back at her, waiting for her to pass through and lead the way, for once. The shadows bit against the narrow shafts of sunlight as she moved through the longer grass and waited for Jamie to fall in behind her.

She felt very important being in the lead for the first time and as she took each careful step she felt a little braver and less like a small girl in a big forest. The fact that her big brother was at her back probably had a lot to do with that feeling, but that didn’t really matter right now.

All that mattered was that she was the leader for once – and it felt good.

END CHAPTER

Chapter 13

The next morning dawned gray and cold and no matter how Doc pulled and tugged the blanket closer, it didn’t bring any more warmth to his body. He rolled over and stared at the canopy of green branches above his head, gray slivers slashing through the dark shadows there. He thought back to the day before when he’d been spying on the children. It’d taken everything he had not to look over towards where they were crouched down within the bushes then, thinking they were hidden so well. He could only imagine their terror when he'd reached up for the branch, intentionally flashing the blade of his knife over towards them. He’d actually heard them all breathing from where he stood in the woods, the sounds filling him with the familiar surge of power that came with stalking prey.

His heart tripped over thoughts of the sweet, younger boy hiding there in the deep shadows, his smooth body terrified beyond measure. He longed to be able to reach out and put his hand on the boy's shoulder and tell him everything would be all right...but in the end, of course that would all be just another lie.

He knew nothing ever lasted long with him – and relationships with his little play-friends were no different. The authorities had almost caught him once before when he'd grown too attached to one of his little beauties. The plans he’d made for the two of them back then had unraveled quickly after the discovery and even when he’d done his best to tie up loose ends and set the boy’s cold body deep into the Taber ground, his fate had been sealed.

His mind suddenly pictured the boy's face from all those years ago. His dark hair and the few freckles across his nose had initially endeared him to the man and the rest had been simple chemistry. He could no more have stayed away from the boy, than he could have stopped the seasons from changing.

He looked down at the grass at his feet. The seasons had, of course, gone on and on since then, the boy nothing but another fragile, tragic memory within him now. He looked up at the faded patch of fabric in the cab of his truck at least once a day and thought of him. If only he hadn't felt the need to take him along on that last trip up into the mountains. In the end, the boy had been just like all the others, ungrateful and whiney and threatening to tell. Well, the boy had soon learned that there were ways to make that sort of thing go away. He glanced down at the flashing blade in his hand.

Even if he was the sweetest tasting boy...

When he'd started whistling as he walked away, the song that sprang to his lips was one that the sweet boy had always liked listening to on the radio. It was one by that new Elvis kid. It was called Tender Love...or something like that. He thought on the irony of that for a heartbeat, as he wondered if the children were back in the woods yet…or still at home.

Home.

He swallowed down a knot of memories that twisted and cut like a razor down through his belly...

Father coming home from the deep, black mines, grabbing at liquor, and anything - or anyone - within reach, for his urgent, demanding comfort.

Mother sitting by her bedroom window at home, just staring and staring at the seasons fading by...blissfully unaware of the cold, evil world spinning out of control and writhing down around her.

Him, wandering home after spending as much time away from it as he safely could, trying to hang onto what little sanity remained to him. But it was never enough…

Never enough.

The handle of the knife was biting into the palm of his hand when he blinked the black memories away and looked down at the pain gathering there. He didn’t remember how the knife had slipped into his hand and opened his fingers just enough to allow the pain to slip away as he looked at the trees around him. He knew the way to their secret place; that'd been easy. The sounds of their play had been easy to follow yesterday, the trees reverberating with their whoops and hollers. The noises were as distinctive out here as bear roars would be back in any town. All he had to do was double back on the trail he’d taken to here and somehow get the smaller boy away from his friends. It wouldn't take any time at all then, to get back to his truck and away.

He knew no one would follow him to his own secret place, deep along the ages-old trails of the Taber Wood. No one ever went there these days, the trapping and fishing areas long ago used up or polluted away. And it didn't hurt that folks in the surrounding counties tended to believe that the forest was actually haunted now. But he didn't believe in ghosts...even if he'd helped send more than his share of young spirits to that dark and cold netherworld.

He crouched down in the shadows swelling under the trees, getting his bearings as he planned the direction the three children would likely take on their way to the clearing. He knew from watching their movements the last few days that they usually took the exact same path to and from their secret place, but he couldn't be sure that they'd continue that trend after seeing him in the woods. He smiled at that memory, remembering when he'd crouched in the bushes and watched them playing, oblivious to his nearness...and plans for this newest sweet boy.

As he stood up again, he closed and slid the knife into his coat pocket, the familiar weight of it tugging down softly against his shoulder as he walked away from his camp. He looked back in the direction that he'd come, wondering how far the three children had hurried back along the path. He could imagine their fear as they scurried along, looking back over their shoulders to see if he was following them. Well, he was following them...but he wasn't going to let them in on that part of his plan as he pushed his way through the deepest part of the wood, his mind focused on keeping his body moving forward in roughly a straight line.

He heard them long before he saw any of them, their voices carrying along the breeze like new wood smoke. He stayed downwind from them, to keep their voices - and their young-musk scent - firmly wrapped within him. All he had to do now was get up close enough to grab the boy and make a dash for his truck back where he'd hidden it. The other two children would be too frightened to offer any sort of chase, but even if they did...there was no way they could keep up with him...even carrying a small boy over his shoulder.

Especially once he got into the sweet safety of his Taber Wood over in the next county. And by the time they made their way back home and got anyone to come and help, he and the boy would be long gone.

The bigger boy was the only child who gave him a moment's pause. He was almost as tall as the man, if not nearly as strong. He carried the stick in his hand as if it really was some sort of sword. The man's hand slid into his pocket, the smooth handle of the knife touching at his fingertips. A surge of...something, roiled up his arm and settled around his chest, the feeling as palpable as if it'd climbed over his trembling skin. His heart began to race as he became aware of his eyesight blurring and dimming...dimming down to...

Wait.

A movement of light snagged at his vision and he turned his head through the darkness of shadows that suddenly surrounded him.

It was all happening again.

"I don't need your help! You hear me?" he growled out to the darkening air that settled amid the shadows at his back. "Leave me alone!" The whirling mass of black mist sat at the edge of his vision, threatening to rush in and take over his mind again.

Take him...now...

The demon’s words burned through his mind, setting the inside of his skull ablaze. The headaches that had been hovering just at the edge of his consciousness came crashing in squarely between his eyes. He flinched away from the machetes slicing down through his head and tried to focus on simply moving ahead through the trees. The children would be nearly to the middle of the forest now. He would just get in and grab the one called Jeffy and spirit him away to the middle of his own private corner of the world.

The Taber Wood was a very deep and uncompromising keeper of secrets - many of them his own now. He turned towards the center of the forest and took a step, his brain throbbing madly against the inside of his skull. The demon’s voice was little more than a whisper within him now, a scathing echo of emptiness…and burning need.

He felt a trickle of sweat bead down the side of his face and he wiped at it absently, the back of his hand sliding along days of stubble. He looked down at the back of his hand and saw a motion through the trees at the edge of his vision. As he lifted his head, a familiar throbbing began to pulse at his temples. He closed his eyes and tried to will the headaches away by sheer desperate wishing alone, his mind filling up with pleas for forgiveness and memories too far gone. The pain ebbed for a moment and he opened his eyes, chasing after whatever movement had caught his gaze to begin with. He took a careful step and made his way slowly through the thick undergrowth of bushes and low trees, trying to make as little noise as possible and making far too much as usual. A flurry of movement rustled the leaves perhaps ten feet ahead of him. He stopped moving and squatted down beside a bush, his mind filling up with memories of when he hadn’t been cautious enough. His eyes dropped to the mangle of raw skin and scabs hanging along the stitches on the fingers of his right hand - courtesy of the raccoon. He hadn’t been cautious then either.

He sat still for a few minutes, his chest sore from breathing so shallowly. A small osprey flew down from a branch not ten yards from where he crouched and pinned a lump of dead leaves against the ground with its talons before flying back up into the trees. The bloody head of a mouse or vole dangled down, flopping through the air as the bird disappeared into the shadows high above. Doc couldn’t help wishing that he’d been born a predator like that, swooping down from the shadows and taking away what he wanted with no one caring one way or another.

It was simply the nature of things.

He turned and looked off through the trees towards where he imagined the children were still playing. He closed his eyes and took a long sniff at the air trying to imagine that he could catch their scent floating like smoke through the woods. He couldn’t, of course, but for a moment he felt what it must be like to be a predator dependent on keened senses for finding prey.

A small sound echoed back through the trees, barely catching along the side of his skull. He cocked his head trying to ready himself for when the sound came again…but the woods stayed silent. He wondered if he’d only imagined it - but held his breath, listening into the silence just the same. When the sound came again, it was closer. Still far enough away that he didn’t really have to worry about discovery, but near enough to make him wince down behind the bush.

He pulled the knife from his pocket and let the handle fill up his fist as he stared into the deeper black of the forest. He thought he could hear – something – off in the distance, but it was so faint that he was certain he’d only imagined it. He moved his legs out from underneath him, letting the blood flow back into his muscles. Glancing down into his hand, the pale handle of the knife caught his eye…

A definite surge of sound came drifting out of the trees, pushing him nearly down to the loamy ground. His heart hammered against his ribs and his breath caught and held against the back of his throat as he stared into the shadows. A flash of something caught at a ray of sunlight deep in the trees, his eyes catching at the sudden movement.

The boy was moving through a new growth of slender trees, the pale skin of his arms catching at what little light there was amid the branches. He didn’t seem to be looking where he was going as he swung the stick he carried at anything that moved in the long grass. Doc held his breath as the boy came closer, the sound of his approach echoing along the trees all around him. He let out his breath and tried to silently adjust his body behind the bush so that he could get a better look at the boy. A few twigs bent and broke quietly underneath him as he moved, but the boy was still too far away to hear the sounds. When he’d situated himself into a better position behind the bushes, he finally got a good look at the boy.

Of course, it was the boy called Jeffy. Who else would be out here in the middle of nowhere wandering around and swinging a stick? Doc reached over into his hand and silently flipped open his knife. He felt the blade thunk and lock into place against his palm and tried to control the sudden rush of excitement that surged up his arm and wrapped itself around his heart. He glanced down at the blade, careful to keep it shaded away from any reflecting light that might startle his…prey.

The boy stopped walking and looked all around, his eyes scanning the forest. Doc watched him turn and look in his direction and instinctively crouched further down against the ground. He held his breath again and waited. Had the boy somehow heard the knife clicking open? That seemed unlikely, what with all the noise he was making swinging the stick and hitting at imaginary foes. But as Doc watched, the boy continued simply looking into the shadows all around, even conveniently turning his back towards the spot where Doc crouched and waited.

The boy dropped his stick and faced the biggest tree he could find, his hands busying themselves in front of his pants. It didn’t take long for Doc to realize that the boy had simply been looking for a suitable spot to take a leak. Far enough away from his friends for privacy’s sake, but not so far that he felt afraid and alone in the woods.

Doc smiled and let his thumb flick across the blade in his hand. He knew all about the dangers of the woods; knew when to wait for danger to pass…and when to move.

As Doc watched the boy begin to darken the bark of the tree, he slipped from his hiding spot behind the bush and started creeping forward, his legs quickly adjusting to moving again. The boy was staring at something in the branches above his head and not paying attention to anything else going on around him, as Doc crept closer.

Thirty feet…became ten, and then…when he was nearly within arm’s reach, the boy glanced over his shoulder and froze. Doc surged forward and clamped his hand against the boy’s mouth, knocking his head back so hard against the trunk of the tree, it rattled along Doc’s arm up to his shoulder. He felt a panicked spurting of warm piss hit against his leg as the boy’s body spun towards him…and as he stared into the boy’s fear-crazed eyes he felt a familiar surging in his own body.

But there wasn’t time for that now. The boy was stronger than Doc had imagined him to be and pulled and tore against his grip, blindly struggling to get free. But this wasn’t Doc’s first time handling this sort of situation and he simply pushed his other arm across the boy’s neck and waited…

Jeffy’s eyes started to roll back in his head as he fought for air, his body growing limp and heavy against Doc’s arm until all his weight sagged down against the trunk of the tree. Doc knew that there wouldn’t be much time before the boy’s friends started to miss him and came looking, so he hefted the boy’s unconscious body over his shoulder and started back through the woods. He’d only gone a few yards before he heard the low sounds of someone talking in the woods behind him, and then…

Jeffffyyyy!

He couldn’t tell if it was the girl or the bigger boy calling out for Jeffy, but it didn’t really matter; there was no way they were going to be able to keep up with him. If there was one thing he knew – besides charming little boys into his arms - it was the Taber Wood. But rather than take the chance that the bigger boy might be able to catch up to him, Doc made a calculated choice. He squatted in the long grass beside a copse of trees - and waited. He pushed the body of the small boy off his lap and into the shadows and squatted lower against the bushes, staring towards the path. He glanced over at the boy, who looked so peaceful lying there, surrounded by the long grass.

The bigger boy came out of the shadows first, followed by the girl. It didn’t take them long to realize that their friend wasn’t where he was supposed to be. The bigger boy picked up the stick that Jeffy had dropped and stared into the trees and shadows all around. The bigger boy started moving away from the tree, the stick from his friend hanging loosely in his hand.

Jefffffyyyy!

Doc slid his leg out from under the smaller boy’s shoulder and waited. The bigger boy was pushing through the long grass, his eyes searching the trees for any sign of his little friend. He was almost to the trees where Doc waited when the little girl called out to him.

“Jamie? Wait up,” she called out as she wrestled her way along the grassy path after the boy. As the bigger boy turned back towards the girl, Doc pulled his legs in underneath his ass and jumped out from behind the trees, startling the boy before he could bring that big stick up. Doc backhanded the boy’s face hard, spinning him back into the girl, who’d by now nearly caught up to him. The big boy went down in a heap at the girl’s feet, the stick he’d held, nowhere to be seen now. The girl’s eyes were wide and teary and she appeared to be frozen in place, like a tiny, startled animal. Doc took a step towards her…

He saw the smaller boy move slightly in the grass beside him and decided it’d be easier to simply grab up his prize and be off before the boy roused further. It wasn’t like the little girl was going to give him any problems, and the bigger boy would be out of commission long enough for Doc to get a good and safe distance away.

The girl had started to sob quietly now and was squatted on the ground beside the other boy as Doc picked up Jeffy and dropped him down over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He glanced once towards the girl, before pushing through a stand of narrow saplings, and didn’t look back until he was within sight of the mountain pass that ran along the edge of the woods and back to his truck. It would only be a short drive back to the Taber Wood.

He was nearly home.

END CHAPTER

Chapter 14

Katie closed her eyes against the sharp winds blowing across the wide, grassy fields. All around her the low bushes and thin trees leaned and swayed within the slowly gusting winds. The sunlight was hot against the back of her neck and when she rubbed at an itch there, she found that her sweating skin had been burned by the sun.

"Jaaamie? I got sunburn," she whined and looked at the sweat on her hand. Jamie didn't even turn around as he trudged along the narrow path that wound like a mad snake up the side of the hill. The smell of dust and rotting leaves filled the air as they passed the swampy area that lay in a gully formed by three hills.

"Katie, come on. We can't stop 'cuz of that," he said and clutched at the long, straight branch he'd grabbed up after...after…

He raised his head and looked off in the direction the man had gone after he’d grabbed Jeffy. The images and sounds of the whole terrifying scene echoed through his mind. He felt along the side of his face for the stinging welt that the ring on the man's hand had raised. It'd been all he could do to stay conscious after that, the world around him spinning and dipping away for what seemed like hours...though he knew it'd only been a handful of minutes.

Jamie slowed and turned towards Katie. She stopped walking and looked up, her eyes going to his face. For a moment it almost looked to her as if some of the low sunlight was reflecting upon his cheeks, but then he turned away again, his hand going to the gash on his face. He drove the staff into the soft earth beside the path and pushed downwards as he moved forward.

"Come on. We gotta find him, Katie. That bastard's gonna hurt Jeffy. I just know it."

Katie didn't know if she was more shocked by what Jamie had said about the man hurting Jeffy, or by the cursin' word he'd used. It made her stomach sore to think about Jeffy being hurt by anyone - especially that creepy, bad man from the woods.

And his big knife.

"Let's just go get help," Katie said. Her eyes were watering but she told herself that it was from the gusting wind and not really because she was afraid. Jamie was already a few yards ahead of her up the path, his steps grabbing at huge chunks of ground, compared to her shorter ones. She forced the whining words back down her throat as they leaped to her tongue. Mom said she was a big girl now and not supposed to whine about every little thing. But this was not every little thing - this was the biggest, scariest thing ever.

"No time for...that," Jamie sighed and grabbed at a root arcing out of the ground just ahead of his foot. The staff he was carrying slapped down against the ground as his foot slipped on the long grass. "We gotta do it...ourselves. Before he gets away."

Katie was almost sure this time that Jamie's cheeks were wet - and not with sweat either.

"Just us?" she whispered, amazed that he was even entertaining the thought of them acting as any sort of cavalry. She was just a girl. And he wasn't much better than her, when it came to dealing with adults - especially scary ones with big knives. It was one thing to be jumping and running around a rock swinging branches, and another thing altogether to go chasing after a crazy adult out in the woods. Katie tried not to think of how scared she was - or how frightened Jeffy must be by now.

Jamie was almost to the top of the hill now. The back of his shirt was streaked with wide lines of sweat and there was dirt and deep, green stains all over his pant legs. Katie grabbed at the long grass as she climbed the hill; her feet sliding back a step with every few steps forward. The ground leveled out suddenly and she hauled in a deep breath as she stood upright again.

The meadow spread out below them like a wide, green bowl and she stood on the edge of the path and thought briefly about walking the long way down to its bottom. Then the image of Jeffy stumbling through the long grass, his face dirty - maybe bloodied too - hit at her and she swallowed down a sob that began to well in the back of her throat. Jamie stood straight and tall, the staff held close beside him. Katie thought - just for a second - that he looked like a very brave knight standing there in the sun like that. She thought of Jeffy being in trouble again and was surprised to feel a tear slide along the side of her cheek. She wiped at it and hurried to keep up with Jamie, who was already walking down the path towards the bottom of the hill. A ragged line - broken through the long grass - disappeared into a wall of dark trees and bushes.

That's where they had to go. The thought made her stomach hurt and her eyes started to water, but she reached up and wiped at them without Jamie seeing.

"Jamie?" she asked, her voice coming out of her all quiet and small. Jamie stopped walking and turned to face her. His face looked all red and splotchy as if something had been rubbing at his cheeks for a long time.

"What now?" he asked. His face colored even deeper with his frustration. She felt sorry that she'd even bothered him and didn't want to say anything further, but...

"Jeffy's gonna be okay. Right?" she asked and took a step towards him, her stomach tensing against his answer.

She was surprised when Jamie's face creased into a small grin. It wasn't a happy grin though; it was more like the ones he gave her when he was trying to fool her about something. She knew those looks.

"Yeah he'll be fine...we just gotta...catch up to him, is all..." Jamie said and looked back towards the wall of trees. "Maybe he got away and he’s just waitin' for us down there in the woods." He'd turned completely away from her by now and was starting down the path again. "Come on."

It didn't take as long as she thought to reach the level ground at the bottom of the gully. The dark wall of tangled branches and green leaves rose up at the far end of the field, waiting for them to pass into that shadowy place. This was the first time they’d ever stepped foot in the Taber Wood and years of rumors and campfire tales swelled like black rot in their minds. Katie's mind filled up with too many scary thoughts and before Jamie had arrived at the trees, she'd already decided that Jeffy was probably in real trouble. The bad man wouldn’t have taken him away without a reason. Her eyes began to water, but more with anger now, than fear.

Jamie waited for her to catch up and then he moved slowly through the first growths of narrow trees, being careful to hold them with his arm so they didn't slap back against his sister. Katie stepped into the dark grass, her feet disappearing into the deep shadows all around her. She felt the air turn cold against her neck as she stood next to Jamie. He put his hand on her shoulder and just left it there as he stared off into the trees.

"They can't be far," he whispered, his voice falling away with the slight breeze that snaked between them. He reached out and fingered a handful of newly broken branches. "Come on."

The world dropped away from her as they moved further into the trees, her eyes filling up with nothing but the dark greens and blacks of the forest. It was far too quiet for her liking; even the birds had gone silent since they stepped into the woods. She tried to stay close to Jamie, but he kept lurching and stooping under branches and over roots and before long she was simply satisfied to stay within sight of him, if not quite as close to him as she liked. He looked back at her every few steps though, which made her feel a bit better, but still...the shadows were getting pretty dark around them.

The sound of quietly cracking branches dripped back against them as they slowed their pace and Jamie's face shot through with red. He clenched his fingers around the wood of his stick, his knuckles looking like white stones against his tanned skin. He turned towards her, his finger going to his lips before he crouched and began to creep slowly forward through the grass.

Katie could feel her heart hammering inside her chest, preparing to leap out of her throat if she left her mouth open too long. She clamped her lips shut and tried breathing through her nose as they moved forward...but that just made her start to feel dizzy. She crept forward a few more steps, copying Jamie and being extra careful not to step on any twigs in the grass as she moved. Her shoulders began to ache from hunching forward as she touched at Jamie's back where he crouched in the bushes. He snapped around, his eyes going straight through her in that moment. His glare settled as he saw her though, and he turned back around, his head bobbing slightly as he strained to see through the thickening darkness created by the branches all around them.

The soft breeze that'd followed them into the woods had fallen away now and they huddled amid the shadows in a quietly fearful world. Katie tried to keep her breathing quiet as she moved closer to Jamie's back, her knees pressing into the soft earth of the forest. She reached down to brush at some of the pine needles that stuck against her skin and when she looked up...

She saw Jeffy, stumbling from behind a big tree that leaned out away from the others in the woods off to one side of them and her throat tightened as she readied to call out to him. And then her breath caught in her throat as the man appeared behind him, his hand wrapped too tightly around the collar on Jeffy's shirt. The fading sunlight flashed off the blade jutting out of the man's other hand and Katie had to clamp her mouth tight against the urge to cough as she swallowed down her fear. She tapped Jamie's shoulder and pointed past the bush, but he was already turning his head towards the sound of them moving. The man’s voice carried through the still air around them, chilling straight through her bones as she remembered the way he’d looked at her not long ago when he’d taken Jeffy.

"You don't stop that squirmin' boy, I'm gonna stop it for ya. Ya hear me?" the man said and shook Jeffy so hard the boy's arms spun away from his sides for a moment. Katie felt Jamie's shoulder tense under her hand as the man shook Jeffy. When Jeffy raised his head, his cheeks were brown where he'd been wiping at tears with his dirty hands.

"Bastard..." Katie said under her breath and Jamie turned his head and looked at her, his mind clearing of its anger in that moment.

"Katie," he said, his eyes watering from the stiff breeze suddenly blowing through the trees. But the fury within him returned quickly as he turned his head and watched Jeffy and the man stumble along through the greenery. "We gotta do somethin'," he whispered.

She was so surprised to be included in whatever plan he was hatching that tears began to form at the corners of her eyes. She wiped at them angrily and watched the man push Jeffy ahead of him, his hand never leaving his collar. Jamie leaned forward through the tangled branches of the big bush, trying for a better view.

Just then, Jeffy tripped and went down in the grass, the man's arm yanking to keep up with his fall, his fingers still tangled in the boy's collar. He managed to hold on though as his knee thumped to the ground beside Jeffy, the knife slicing down through the air as he fell. The blade thunked hard into the big root that must've tripped Jeffy, the knife bare inches away from Jeffy's face. The man glared down at Jeffy, his chest heaving after every breath.

"Ya...stupid piece o'..." the man shouted at Jeffy as he got up and yanked the boy to his feet. Whatever the man said next was drowned out by another gust of breeze that swung up out of the field behind them, and raced past Katie's ears. A thought began to form in Katie's mind and before she thought better of it...

"I'm gonna be a 'straction," she whispered to Jamie's back. "Like the knights have when they’re bein’ sneaky on the radio."

Jamie was almost flat against the ground now, his body nearly hidden by the thick clumps of branches all around him. He didn't seem as if he'd heard her at all as he squirmed forward until only his shoes and part of his legs were showing from under the bush.

Without thinking too long about it, Katie stepped away and looked around on the ground. She bent and picked up a short length of dark wood, letting it swell her with courage. The branch nearly filled up her small hand and was just a little longer than her arm. It felt good in her grip, and she brought it up and tapped it against the side of her head. But even that gentle tap sent pain stabbing through her skull. She got to her feet and moved the stick slowly through the shadows hoping it would look scary when she swung it at the man. She rubbed at the small bump on her scalp and peered through the long grass and branches, trying to catch sight of the man and Jeffy.

She fought against the urge to tap Jamie on the shoulder and tell him what she was going to do, but she knew he'd probably just tell her to stay put and do what he was doing...which didn't seem to be helping Jeffy at all - not nearly as much as her plan would anyway. Jamie wasn't paying any attention to her at all now.

Maybe he just hadn't heard her getting up.

The patches of sky overhead darkened as she stood there, a wall of gray clouds sliding across the sun and chilling the air.

She turned away and pushed softly against the wall of branches to her right, hoping to find a way over behind the man and Jeffy. Then she could just sneak up and hit the man in the head with the stick and he'd let Jeffy go.

Yeah, that was it. That was a good plan.

She imagined how it was all going to play out as she crept through the green shadows, trying to step as lightly as she could so as to not crack any twigs on the ground. The big stick began to weigh on her hand and so she crooked one elbow and carried it that way for a while. It still felt good to have something with her that she could swing at the man. She could just make out the flits of color that pierced the green as Jeffy and the man moved through the trees far ahead of her.

The realization that she didn't really have a plan about how to hit at the man's head when he was so much taller than her began to gnaw away at her though. But maybe he'd fall again and she could just jump out and swing the stick down and...

Crack!

She looked down at the long grass at her feet, trying to will the sound back into the sudden stillness around her...but it was too late for that she knew. Her eyes darted towards where she'd last seen the man and Jeffy walking...but there was only a wall of deep green darkness there now. She felt sick to her stomach as she tried to shrink back into the shadows that suddenly seemed to be all around her now. She looked back towards the bushes where Jamie had been laying, but couldn't quite see the area well enough, and she wasn't going to call out to him...even though that's exactly what she wanted to do. She clutched the stick to her chest and crouched back into the wall of thick brush, being extra careful not to step on anything but the long grass this time.

She closed her eyes and wished that it was morning again and that they were all back at the clearing, just playing...and that the man wasn't real, and Jeffy was all right, and...

Crick!

Her breath stopped altogether now, catching against the trembling walls of her chest and refusing to budge. She could feel her head whirling as she held her breath and peered through the leaves and branches all around her, searching for the source of the new sound.

She knew it hadn’t come from her; she’d been too careful after the first time.

The stick was touching against her skin now, her hand trembling so badly it was actually hitting the wood up against her cheek. The air seemed to get very cold as she crouched low to the ground, the grass scraping against the soft skin on her arms. She tried to fight against the tears that came to her eyes, but in the end she just let them fall. She closed her eyes and felt the tears tickling down her cheeks.

"Hey!"

Katie's eyes snapped open, her heart hammering hard in her throat as she turned towards the shout in the woods. It sounded familiar, like...

Jamie

"You let him go, right now, mister," she heard Jamie call out across the green space between him and the man. She couldn't see either of them clearly from where she squatted, but she wasn't in all that much of a rush to come out and get a better look at them either.

"You might want to be thinkin' that over boy," the man called out. His voice was loud and didn't sound like he was scared at all. Not like Jamie's did. "Me and the boy here...we just got us some...private business to take care of. He’ll be fine stayin’ with me so you can just run along home now."

Katie let her body slide forward through the trees, now that she knew the direction the man was talking from. She wondered what sort of private business the man could have with Jeffy, but she was sure that Jeffy didn't want anything to do with it. She wanted to go to Jamie and stand beside him and help if she could, but she knew he'd just tell her to go back and hide. That it was none of her business. He was probably already pretty mad at her for going off on her own as it was.

She clenched her jaw and felt the stick's solid weight in her hand again.

"Mister, I'm not tellin' ya again. You let him go." Jamie's voice was louder and didn't sound so afraid that time. Katie wondered what was going through his mind now as she crept forward through the dark shadows, the stick held tightly in both of her hands now. She could just make out where the man was standing now, his back against a big boulder like the one they played around all the time. Jeffy looked like a rag doll hanging from the man's wrist, his feet barely touching the ground at all sometimes.

"Jamie, run an' get help!" Jeffy shouted. The man suddenly cuffed him across the side of his head with his free hand - the one with the knife in it. Katie could hear the whack of the man's hand as it connected with Jeffy's skull. From where she crouched it looked as if Jeffy's feet lifted clear away from the ground as his body leaned over with the hit. She felt the sharp jags of broken branches press into her palm as she gripped the stick even tighter and took another careful step towards the dark gully that dipped down through the trees to her left. She lifted her foot and stared at the ground, searching for twigs and branches that might give away her movements, and then she set her foot slowly into the well of long grass. She said so many silent prayers as she made her way towards - and then into - the shadowed gully, that her head was swimming in pleasegods by the time she squatted in the long grass and took a slow, deep breath again.

The man had moved a little since Katie had started towards the gully behind him; she could make out the bright yellow stripes of Jeffy's shirt and the man's hand where it gripped his collar. The skin on the back of Jeffy's neck looked red and sore and she felt really scared for him - and then mad at the man. Jeffy hung limp from his arm, his head lolling loose like a rag doll's.

"Jamie, is it?" the man called out, his pale hand gripping against the wild redness of Jeffy's neck. "I don't much go for you older boys, but you seem like a smart one.” He smiled and nodded. “How’s that gash on your face feel? Hurts like a bugger I bet.” Katie watched as the man took a step forward, his knee shoving Jeffy's limp form along ahead of him. “Why don't ya just turn around and save yourself a whole lot more hurtin', boy?"

Katie peered out from behind a tree that was bigger across than she could reach. She felt safe and more or less protected huddling so close to the huge trunk, the sour musk of the mossy bark filling her nostrils. She swallowed and leaned out, trying to catch sight of where Jamie was standing now.

Jamie's eyes caught at her movement as her arm reached forward around the tree, his eyes stabbing quickly into her, then back towards the man. The man wasn't looking towards Jamie though. His head was turned away from her and Jamie both. Katie hoped he was looking for a clear path through the woods to make his getaway - without Jeffy in tow. Jamie didn't look towards her again, not wanting to let the man know where she was hiding. Katie could see his face pull to pale though as he turned away from her, his fingers clenching at the stick in his hands.

"Jamie..." the man called out as he continued to scan the forest around them. "I'm gonna make you a deal now, boy... an' you ought to be thinkin' it over before you say anythin' against it, right?" Jamie fidgeted the shaft of the stick within his hands as he stood there, his eyes fastened on where Jeffy was hanging from the man's grip.

"You let him go first," Jamie called out.

Good thinking, Jamie

Katie slid her body a little bit further around the tree, the bark rasping silently under her palms. The man didn't let Jeffy go though and after she'd taken a few steps, she couldn't see Jamie anymore. Her heart began to pound deep within her.

"Now listen to me boy," the man said and held the knife in his hand so close to Jeffy's head that the point of it parted the sweaty mat of hair at the back of Jeffy's neck. "I'm takin' this boy up to my favorite playin' spot...an' your welcome to come along and watch if ya want...maybe even take yer turn…" The man turned and took a step towards Jamie, the long grass parting ahead of his legs. "But if ya try an' stop me again, there ain't no way in Hell, you an' that little stick o' yours is gonna stop me from walkin' over an' drivin' this here pretty blade into your eyeballs a couple o' times. You hear what I’m sayin’ now, boy?"

The man hoisted Jeffy up into the air like he weighed nothing at all and tossed him down over his shoulder. Jeffy's arms flopped against the man's back, his face still wet with splotches of dirt.

Katie watched as Jamie shifted the stick within his hands, the look on his paling face definitely smeared with a lot more fear this time. She put her cheek against the tree, letting the cold bark press into her face a bit as she wondered what she could really do against the man...and his knife. She pulled her body back amid the long grass and branches as quietly as she could, careful not to let the stick hit against the trees as she went.

There just wasn't enough time to do...anything!

She could hear the distinctive snap of branches being carelessly cracked underfoot, as Jamie stepped forward towards the man. She felt her chest tighten as she thought about the knife...and Jamie's eyes.

There was a sudden crashing in the trees off to her left and she had to slap her hand over her mouth to stifle the scream suddenly swelling in her throat. The man, with Jeffy's body bouncing against his shoulder, rushed through the trees a few yards behind her, the dark of his jacket flashing through the gaps in the forest. Jamie came around the side of the tree where she huddled close to the ground, startling her breathless again. His look alone silenced her completely.

"What are ya doin' Katie?" he hissed at her as he squatted beside her and grabbed at her shoulder. His whisper was so sharp it blew the strands of hair off her forehead with every word. "Are ya stupid? He's gonna kill Jeffy."

"He's...gonna kill you too Jamie," she whispered, the tears starting to swell again. "I heard what he was sayin' too, y'know..."

Jamie looked off in the direction the man had barreled through the woods. The sound of branches snapping freely underfoot still filled the air around them, the sound fading with every heartbeat. Jamie turned and glared at her, his eyes sparkling at the corners.

"It's gonna be all right, Katie," he said quietly and put his hand on her shoulder. A heavy sigh fell from his lips. "He ain't gonna hurt anybody."

"But..." Katie started and quieted as the sound of cracking twigs suddenly stilled in the woods.

Jamie looked up sharply, his fingers tightening around the shaft of the stick in his hand. He half-stood and stared into the deepening shadows, his other hand settling on her shoulder again.

"Come on," he whispered and patted her shoulder. "I ain't gonna leave you alone again. You just get into trouble."

She looked up at him and was surprised to see a small smile creep across his lips, then it was just as suddenly gone. She stood up and brushed the grass from her knees as Jamie started walking quietly off through the shadows in the direction the man had gone. She grabbed up her stick and stepped carefully upon the grass, her eyes scanning ahead for more twigs. Jamie looked back over his shoulder at her, his eyes softening a little at the corners...

A sudden rush of branches and leaves grabbed at Katie's eyes just as Jamie was turning back around. There was a blur of movement and a loud bonk sound...and suddenly Jamie was lying in a crumpled heap amid the tall grass. She didn't have time to even catch her breath to scream out before the man had turned and was rushing towards her, his knees hiking high as he strode through the high weeds. He knew he had plenty of time to get to her.

"C’mere girl," he seethed and pointed towards her. She could see the red welt of scrapes dragging down along the side of his face, making him look as if his head were somehow peeling off. He pointed towards where Jamie was laying, with the hand that held the long knife. "Don't worry. He ain't dead girlie, but he's gonna be if you don't come..."

She took a step back and fell over a root buried under the long grass. As she went down on her back, she heard something hard, hit against something harder...and then everything was suddenly quiet. The man's body suddenly pitched forward and went down - hard - in the long grass beside her. Her breath was cold within her chest and she could feel tears on her cheek, but she didn't raise her hand to wipe at them. She glanced wide-eyed towards where Jamie was laying on the ground, his body completely still. She looked back at the clearing in the grass where the man had fallen. The long grass was still, the tops not even bent low by the breeze. She took a tiny step forward, her stick gripped white-knuckle tight in her hands.

"Jamie?" she whispered and looked over in the general direction of Jamie's body. She stepped slowly away from the place where the man had fallen, but kept the spot well in sight...just in case. She stared at the patch of flat grass as she moved forward, her eyes wide and clear now. Her feet slid carefully along the ground now, her heart thudding madly within her. She clutched the stick in her hands closer to her chest as she moved.

"K…Katie..." a voice whispered from the trees, shocking the breath and tears clean out of her this time.

She jerked over towards the sound, the stick in her hands swinging around to aim roughly at the spot in the shadows. Her eyes had suddenly filled with tears again and she wiped one trembling hand across her face, the other clasping the stick so tightly her fingers hurt. Her mind threw the image of the man's scarred face at her, then the knife flashing through the dark air...all before she'd had the time to remember that the man probably didn't know what her name was.

Then she saw a flash of yellow stripes through the green shadows and felt her heart skip a beat deep inside her chest.

"Jeffy?" she said, her throat paining as the harsh whisper tore out of her. She squinted into the darkness until she saw the side of his face peering at her from the bushes. “You got away.”

Jeffy just nodded and looked back towards the forest, his eyes filling with awkward tears that he turned and quickly wiped away.

"Where's Jamie?" he asked, his voice not sounding any better than Katie’s had. .

"He's on the ground," she said, looking back towards where Jamie lay. "He got hit by that man, but...I think he's mostly all right." Her eyes fell on the spot in the long weeds where the man had fallen and before she could think better of it, her feet were carrying her towards the flattened area under the tree. She gripped the stick in both her hands again, the heft of the weapon filling her with probably far too much false courage.

She moved forward a very small step at a time, her fingers squeezing the wood tight and tighter as she got nearer to the spot.

"Katie...what ya doin'?" Jeffy whispered from his hiding place, the urgency in his voice not helping her own rapidly rising level of fear. She turned and looked back at him, to get him to just shut his mouth for a second. A few birds in the trees above her head began to squawk at her and she looked up and wished bloody silence upon them too. By the time she got to the shadowed area in the grass, her hands were damp with sweat and her fingers were just beginning to slip down along the stick's surface. The area was a gully with a root lying across the top, the grass flat and broken all around. Katie held the stick high on her shoulder, ready to let it swing at the first sign of movement from the grass.

A long, green-black shadow filled up the gully...

and nothing else.

She looked back over to where Jeffy was hiding but couldn't see him anymore.

"Jeffy?" she whispered into the shadows. As her eyes swung back towards where Jamie was lying, she saw a long shadow slide through the trees. But before she could will her throat to scream out his name...

The man was suddenly straddled atop Jamie's back, one hand clenched in Jamie's hair. The long blade of his knife stuck out of his other hand pressed tight against the pale skin of Jamie's neck. Jamie's eyes were still closed, his unconscious body limp and unresponsive. Katie could see where the blade was creasing a red line across her brother's throat, and she tried not to cry but it was all just too much for her and she fell weeping to her knees in the grass, the stick thudding to the ground beside her.

"What were ya gonna do with that big stick, girlie?" the man asked. His chest heaved after breath and a lazy sneer pulled across his face as he looked down at Jamie. "This one thought he was gonna be the hero. Now look at him." The man's face twisted with pain as he moved his knee against Jamie's back. There was a dirty red welt swelling upon the man's other cheek and a thin trickle of blood slid down his neck while she watched; the whack of Jeffy’s stick and the fall must've hurt him more than he was letting on. He looked off in the direction of the forest that he’d lost Jeffy, his eyes drifting through the shadows there.

Katie's eyes cleared enough to see a thin trail of blood begin to trickle from the blade at Jamie's throat.

"You let him go!" she screamed and picked up the stick beside her. It felt solid and good and hard enough to really hurt the man; if only she could get closer...if only Jamie wasn't hurt...if only...

The man was smiling at her now.

"I guess there ain't nothin' else to be done now but to take you over to my special place, instead. Seems my other sweetie got scared and finally run off on me." The man's eyes darted all over her body. "Never know, it might be some new kinda fun for me, right?"

Katie got to her feet and held the stick in both hands. She didn’t know what kind of fun the man was talking about, but she was pretty sure she didn’t want any part of it. She stared at him, her eyes sending watering daggers straight through the front of his head. She felt a shiver tremble up her back and through her arms, ending with a tingling in her fingers that rattled her knuckles against the hard wood. She took a step towards the man, her legs slowly parting the long grass. The man's smile faltered for a heartbeat as he watched her move towards him, his eyes darting towards the big stick. He smiled again though and pulled up on Jamie's head, his mouth falling open as the blade slid slightly across his neck.

"You gonna be the big hero now, girlie? That it? Think you're big an' strong enough to hurt the bad man?" He let go of Jamie's hair, and stood up, looking even bigger from where she stood. His eyes burned straight into her heart. Jamie's head dropped, thumping against the soft, loamy ground and the knife came up to point towards her. "Well, come on then, sweetie. Let's see what you got..."

Katie looked over at Jamie. He lay there, still as death. She saw the red line across his throat and hoped that it wasn't a bad cut. She knew he wasn't dead...

He just couldn’t be...

The man took a limping step away from Jamie, tossing the knife casually back and forth between his hands. He was smiling at her again, letting the fear build between them. He winked and pursed his lips in a long kiss towards her.

"I'm not one to be picky about who I do my playin' with..." the man said, his voice dropping down as he approached. "...long as they're young...and fresh."

Katie still wasn’t sure what the man was talking about, but she was sure it wasn't a good kind of playin’. She gripped the stick tighter and moved back a step, her feet tangling loosely in the long grass. She didn't dare look down to see where her feet were moving, just as long as she was moving...away. Her eyes locked on the knife blade, flashing silver-white in the fading sunlight. The man's face softened abruptly and he lowered the knife and stared straight at her.

"Tell ya what, Girlie. You put down that stick...an' I'll let ya go. How about that?" Katie could feel the blood leaving her face even as her heart began to thump madly against her. She glanced over towards Jamie. “An’ you can take him with you,” the man said, nodding to where Jamie lay in the grass.

She let the heavy stick sag a little at the end of her arms - just a bit - letting the weight of it move down against her. The man's eyes glanced at her hands, the knife handle fidgeting within his fist.

"That's it. No reason we can't just get along, right?" he said and let the knife blade tap against the side of his leg. "What's your name anyway?" Katie looked over towards Jamie again, the stick jerking up into her hands again.

"You hurt Jamie!" she shouted and took a step back again. "Stay there!"

The words pulled against her dry throat, sending a spasm of coughing out of her mouth. The man's hand came up; it was filled with the long blade again. "Don't...come any...closer," she wheezed, struggling for breath. "Hellllllppp!" she screamed out, but she knew that no one was ever out here in these woods. No one ever...except them.

And now...him.

The man's face went hard as stone as he took a step forward, the knife blade slicing at sunlight seeping down through the branches overhead. He raised his hand to the welt on the side of his face, his eyes narrowing against the pain he felt there.

"Jaaaamieee!" she called out, glancing towards the dark lump on the ground that was her brother. The man looked over his shoulder to where Jamie lay.

"There's only us now, girlie...an' that little stick ain't gonna hurt me near as much as this blade's gonna slice you right down yer middle. But we gotta have our little bit of fun first, right? Are ya ready for that? Don’t ya want to feel like a big girl?"

He was smiling now, his low chuckles filling the air between them. He was moving slowly, his leg dragging a bit behind him at every step. Katie's eyes began to well with tears, but she blinked away the worst of them and gripped the stick even tighter within her grasp.

"Stay away..." she said, her voice a little louder - and shriller - than she'd planned. The man stood up straight and let his leg stretch out a bit behind him. His face twisted in pain with every flinch of movement. He grunted and rubbed at his leg, shifting the knife to his other hand. His eyes stabbed hard into her.

"That's it. We're done here," he said and clenched his jaw as he started towards her again. "You been about as much trouble as I..."

Yaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!

Katie was so frightened by the sudden sound that she let go of the stick she was holding and fell backwards, landing flat on her bottom, the long grass sweeping up around her shoulders as she fell. She could just make out the man's head and shoulders from where she sat. His body was turned away from her, the knife rising up through the shadows and sunlight.

There was a sound like rushing water and then the sudden, solid thock of wood hitting at something almost as hard. By the time Katie got to her feet again, the man was crumpled on the ground again, his face buried in the torn-up forest floor. Katie could see where blood was matting the hair on the back of the man’s neck. Jeffy stood beside him, a stout length of branch grasped within his scraped, bony hands. He was breathing hard, his shoulders rising and falling as he chased after breath. He held the big stick straight out towards the man's skewed form, his eyes wide and ready for the man to get up and come at him.

But he didn't get up.

Katie didn't think the man was even breathing. She stepped through the grass, the sound of her movements startling Jeffy. He brought the stick up sharply and stared at her as she came near, not seeming to recognize her at first through the shadows.

"K...Katie?" he whispered, his lips trembling the words out to fall softly at his feet. "You okay?"

Katie nodded and came closer, her eyes staring at the man's back, ready for the slightest flinch from him to send her back away into the shadows. A damp splotch of dark wetness spread under the man's head, the blood soaking quickly into the deep grass.

"You?" she whispered, but before Jeffy could answer she looked over towards where her brother lay. "Jamie..." she said and ran over through the trampled grass.

She fell to her knees beside him and tried to get him onto his back, but he was too heavy for her. She pulled against his shoulder, hoping to roll him over but it was no use; she was just too small to do it herself.

And then, as if he'd been reading her thoughts, Jeffy came over and knelt beside her. He put his hands next to hers and pulled back against Jamie's shoulder. As Jamie turned over in the grass, Jeffy got to see the long, red line of open cut that spanned the entire width of Jamie's throat. He pulled his hands back and gasped as his eyes took in the dark scarlet of the real wound.

"I...I think he's all right," Katie said. “It’s not a deep cut.” She started gently slapping her hand against Jamie's cheek. "Jamie...Jamie...wake up!" she said, her voice rising with every unanswered tap. She tried to focus her gaze on his face, but her eyes kept dropping to the shallow cut on his throat. Her heart was thumping against her as she stared down at him.

"What happened to him?" Jeffy said and leaned forward. His face was pale and twisted as he stared down at the cut.

"He did it...with his knife," she said and glanced over at the man in the grass. She wiped at her eyes and shook Jamie's shoulder. Her brother's head rolled over onto his shoulder and Katie pulled her hand back, her eyes going wide.

"Come on Jamie. Wake up," she said. "You can do it." She couldn't help but smile down at him, even though her eyes kept picking at the ruddy cut across his neck. He didn't really look much like her brother anymore; not nearly as bossy as he usually did. His face was pale and still, like he was just sleeping and waking up really slowly.

"Jamie?" she said and patted at his shoulder. She looked across at Jeffy, his face still skinned over by fright. His lips were trembling, and his forehead was shiny with sweat. "Thanks for helping Jeffy," she said and put her hand atop his. His eyes went to her fingers as he nodded and took a deep breath.

"He's gonna be fine, right Katie?"

"I...I think so," she whispered. "But we gotta go and get help." She looked over towards where the man lay. "And Sheriff Jones, too."

"We have to go together," Jeffy said. "I...I don't think you should be out here alone, y'know?" Katie glanced over towards where the man lay, his body just another shadowy lump in the forest. She looked down at Jamie and swallowed down her rising fear.

"I can't just leave him here, Jeffy," she said and touched at her brother's cheek, her eyes snapping at the ruddy cut. "What if an animal comes along or..."

"Katie. We can't take him. He's too big," Jeffy said and stood up. His eyes darted towards the stranger's crumpled form. A look of worry swept across his features. Katie was staring up at him.

"It's not your fault he came lookin’ for ya Jeffy," she said and touched at his pant leg. "He was bad, is all. And you stopped him. Jus' like a real knight."

"Yeah," was all Jeffy said as he bent down and picked up a narrower length of stick, deliberately avoiding the bloody club he'd used on the man's head.

"It's gonna be all right," Katie said. Her eyes locked with his. "We just need to get some help, that's all. You can do it, Jeffy."

Jeffy's face was paler than she'd ever seen it and for a second she thought he might faint and go crashing to the ground like everyone else around her today.

"You're sure you'll be all right?" Jeffy asked. His gaze swept over the entire battle scene around them, his face if anything, going paler.

"Yes, Jeffy. Just go..." She was starting to get worried about him. She was more than a little worried about herself too, but she didn’t let on to him. "It's probably not far to the road and all ya gotta do is follow it to town or old man Barrow's place. He'll come an’ help us."

"Katie...I'm scared," he whispered in the smallest voice she'd ever heard from him. She stood up and without thinking too long about it, wrapped her arms around his shoulders in a big hug. She felt strange about being this close to him, like this...but it felt right too. It must've been what he needed though because his arms wrapped around her and squeezed her back. After awhile, when his arms fell away from her back, he looked away towards the trees, his eyes deliberately avoiding hers. She saw how uncomfortable he was.

"Thanks Jeffy," she said and sat down in the trampled grass beside Jamie again.

"For what?” he asked, unaware of her ruse.

"For the hug. I...I was scared."

Jeffy smiled then and looked at her again, his eyes only shy now.

It was only a little lie. Mama would forgive her for this little one. After all, it was for a good cause.

"I'm gonna go and get help," Jeffy said, his voice more sure now as confidence swelled in him again. He looked over towards the man on the ground and clenched the stick in his hands a little tighter. "You're sure you'll be all right?"

A thought struck at Katie and she bounced to her feet, startling Jeffy.

"I got an idea. Come on," she said, and looked over her shoulder to make certain he was coming. The man's body lay in the hollow in the long grass, the blood on his head darkening the dead grass underneath him. She looked down, almost pitying him for a moment...until she remembered the things he wanted to do to them. Not to mention what he'd done to Jamie. Tears started to well in her eyes at that, until she sensed Jeffy stepping up behind her and she hurriedly wiped them away.

"Don't cry for him, Katie," Jeffy scolded her. "Bastard was gonna kill us all."

The unspoken thought in his head about what the man was going to do to him before that final act scratched itself deeply across his face.

"It's not for him...I.." she wiped at her face again and began searching through the long grass. "Help me find his knife," she said and swept her hands through the shadowed grass. "Then I'll have it, for when you're gone."

"Good idea," Jeffy said and started kicking through the grass all around the fallen man. He kept his gaze aimed at the ground and avoided the man's bloody form altogether as he searched. A ruddy flash caught his eye and he kicked at the metal. "Here it is."

Katie stepped over and lifted the knife from the trampled grass. Jamie's blood was still smeared along the blade's length, bits of dead grass and leaves sticking to it now. She held it gingerly, staring at the mess of it. Her stomach bounced and she swallowed it back down.

"Here. Give it to me for a sec," Jeffy said and took the knife from her and went over to a tree trunk and dragged the blade back and forth against the bark until it was mostly clean of the bloody mess. He kneeled down and wiped it against the deep grass at his feet before handing it back to her. "There. Good as new."

Katie took the knife and stared at her reflection in the shiny blade. "This was never good," she whispered.

Jeffy looked down at Jamie and then back at Katie, his eyes welling with his own tears.

"You're sure you'll be all right?" he asked and laid the long stick up against his shoulder, rifle-like. "I mean I can..."

"You have to go get help, Jeffy," Katie said and kneeled beside her brother. “Jamie can’t do it…and I’ll just get lost.” She forced down more tears. "I'll be fine...We'll be fine." She looked at Jamie's still form beside her, the bloody collar around his neck not nearly as fearfully scarlet now. She set the open knife by her knee and touched at his cheek.

"All right. I'm going," Jeffy said and turned towards the pathway that meandered through the dark woods towards the road. He'd only taken a few steps upon the dead, beaten grass of the path...

"Jeffy?" Katie whispered.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for saving us today. It was very brave."

"I...I don't remember bein' brave," he said quietly, kicking at the grass at his feet. "I just didn't want nothin’ bad to happen to you...” He looked up sharply. "...or Jamie, I mean."

"Well, thanks..."

"I'll be back real soon, all right?" he said and clutched at the stick in his hand. "An' I'll bring help." With that he slipped through the low branches across the path. He glanced back at her over his shoulder once before he was quickly lost to her view. She picked up the knife and held it so tightly at first that it left a deep impression across her palm when she opened it. She listened to Jeffy moving quickly away through the deeper woods, until the sounds were so faint she had to hold her breath to hear them. The small sounds closer to her became a wall of noise stretching in every direction around her. She moved closer to Jamie's body, feeling a little better with his nearness, even though there really wasn't anything he could do if any trouble arose.

She put her hand on his chest, feeling his heart thumping strongly against her palm. That had to be good. She tried to keep her eyes off the red mess across his neck, but her gaze was inevitably pulled to it. It didn't seem so bad now; just a drying slash of red upon his throat, like he'd gotten dirt there somehow. She looked over towards where the man's body was...

Wasn't...

The forest air wrapped in like a chilling vise around her throat then and she could feel her heart thudding within her throat. She stared at the spot in the grass where the man's body had been lying - up until a few moments ago, the emptiness of the shadows there filling her thoughts up completely. She moved closer to Jamie's side - though for what reason she wasn't sure. It wasn't like he could do anything to protect her at the moment. She stared at the rough path that Jeffy had gone down only a few moments before and thought of shouting out to him to come back. But that action was quickly shoved down as she imagined the man running off after Jeffy, once he was alerted to where he was...and then that would be the end of Jeffy. Or he'd come running over to where she was. She didn't know which would be worse at the moment.

She winced at a sharp pain in her hand and looked down into her palm where she'd been clenching the handle of the knife - too tightly again, apparently. The blade shone with a cold, silver light sending flashes up into her eyes. She moved it over into her other hand and scanned the wall of trees around her, but she couldn't see any sign of the man. Maybe he'd simply wandered off into the forest, his head filled up with dough after the two hits that Jeffy'd got him with. Or maybe he was crouched down in the grass, watching her...right this minute!

She put her hand on Jamie's chest and shook him gently.

"Jamie? Jamie? Come on. Wake up," she whispered into his face, trying to keep her voice from carrying past the shoal of grass around the tree. But he didn't move. His chest still rose and fell with his shallow breathing, but that was all. A small sound off to her left yanked at her head and she turned towards it, the fingers of both hands clutching the knife painfully now.

"That belonged…to my granddaddy,” the man said and glanced down at the open blade sticking out of her hands. His breathing was ragged and wheezy as he shambled forward, leaning heavily on the slender trunks of the new trees around the clearing. The side of his face was sheathed in a wash of blood, matting his hair against his scalp. His gaze never strayed from her eyes and seemed to be trying to drill down through her head by sheer, evil will alone. “It don’t belong…to you.” This last was punctuated by a swinging grasp that really didn’t come anywhere near to her at all. The man staggered a few steps and closed his eyes, his arm pushing hard against one of the trees. His hair fell against the side of his face, a slap of red dampness coloring his cheek.

Katie pushed the knife out to the end of her reach, the blade jabbing at the empty air between them.

“Get away! You hear me? Just get!” Katie’s eyes pained from staring at the man, but she didn’t want to chance anything by looking away again, even for a heartbeat.

The man opened his eyes and gathered what wits he could as he smiled towards her. The smile wasn’t nice or easy, but it was probably the best he could manage in his state.

“Come on now, girlie. You don’t mean that now. You don’t wanna be left out here all alone do ya?” He pushed himself away from the tree, the leaves shushing above his head as he moved. “Jus’ give me the knife an’ I’ll be on my way, all right?”

“You just get away!” Katie shouted and glanced off towards the path that Jeffy had gone down. The man stepped towards her in that moment, his feet tangling within the long grass between them. Katie jerked her hands towards the sound, her arms straight and the blade clutched tight. The man fell against her, his face coming at her in a twisted, dirty-red mess. She gasped after breath, unable to scream and felt his arms hit against her. Suddenly she was flying back through the grass, her head and ribs hitting hard against something on the ground. Somewhere in the suddenly shifting black of her mind she realized that her hands were empty again and fear fell over her entire body as she lay on the ground. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and tried to see above the grass, her vision swimming around her head.

The man lay on his back, his eyes staring up at the wickerwork of branches above them. Sunlight found his face, splotching it with wavering shadows. The knife was sticking straight up out of his chest, the pale handle wavering with every ragged breath he struggled after. Katie shifted her arms until she was almost up on her elbows, her gaze fixed on the trembling knife handle. The man’s head rolled slowly over until his eyes were fixed on hers. Tears rolled down his cheeks, but whether they were from the pain or…something else, she didn’t know. His breathing was barely perceptible now save for the bloody wheezing that filled the air between them. She watched his arm slide limply across his chest, his fingers trembling towards the handle of the knife. Without taking his eyes off hers, he gripped the handle, wincing at the pain. A sudden smile pressed itself against his lips as he clamped his fist and twisted the blade sharply within his heart.

The tears she’d been pushing down for too long rose up then, and it wasn’t that she was sad or even all that scared anymore. She mostly just felt bad for letting Jamie down. Her vision wavered and swirled behind her tears and shadows crept in around her throbbing head. A bird far up and unseen in the branches over her head, sent its scolding down towards her and she tried to get upright but the shadows were just…too dark.

Too…heavy.

END CHAPTER

Epilogue

“Katie?

Katie?”

That was her name. Someone knew her name.

The bad man knew her name…

Her eyes clacked open and she tried to get up but as she raised her head a sharp pain between her shoulder blades yanked her back down. It felt as if whoever was calling her name from so far away was somehow trying to peel her head away from her neck at the same time. She opened her eyes again and tried to focus on the shadows moving above her head. She could just make out the man’s dirty-red face hovering just out of her clear vision and her heart kicked at her. She swung at the face, feeling her fingers connect against something.

“Katie!”

She felt her head being lifted away from the hard ground and she tried to fill in the blanks of what her mind was missing. She remembered the man’s face rushing towards her; that much she was certain of. After that, it was all a murk of maybe’s. She could hear faint voices swelling and fading in fragments around her head.

“She’s not…

…but maybe that’s a good thing…

…for the best.”

Katie blinked and tried to raise her head to try and see who was speaking, but the ground came up and thumped against the back of her head, sending whirling dizzies to the front of her skull again. She closed her eyes and felt something touch against the side of her face; something warm and soft.

“Katie? Sweety? How you feelin’?”

She knew that voice.

Jamie.

She forced her eyelids open again and concentrated on her shaded surroundings. It was Jamie, sitting there on the ground beside her, his face a mess of blood and black dirt. Twin cuts of pale flesh dripped down through his dusty cheeks and he wiped away tears when her eyes found his.

“She’s gonna be all right,” he said to someone standing in the shadows beneath the trees. Katie tried to look but her neck stabbed through with pain and she closed her eyes against her whirling vision. She could feel someone else coming near to her now, on the other side of where Jamie was. Her throat was sore and it hurt to swallow, and so of course that’s all her body kept trying to do. She coughed at the dryness swelling in her chest and tried to sit up again. She could feel a hand on the back of her neck and shoulders raising her up slightly.

“Careful,” someone said, but it wasn’t Jamie.

She turned her head towards the voice, blinking her eyes to try to clear them a bit more as she looked up into the branches above her head. Her gaze fastened on the face of a stranger. She pulled back away from the man, her arm rolling painfully underneath her as she moved.

“Hey, hey. Easy there, girl. Ya gotta lay still now.” She tried to grab a memory of who this man might be but her mind was blank. She bumped up against Jamie’s knee and turned towards him, her face apparently filled with the question.

“It’s all right. That’s Sheriff Jones’s new deputy,” he said and patted her shoulder as he got slowly to his feet. He looked over towards where the bad man’s body lay, his face filled with nothing but sheer hatred.

“Hey, maybe ya should sit back down here for a bit,” the deputy said. “Ya don’t look all that great yet.”

“I ain’t great!” Jamie shouted and stomped over through the long grass towards the man’s body. Before he could think any better of it, his foot kicked out and buried his boot deep in the side of the man. The body twitched in simple reaction, a small gasp of dead breath pushing up and out of the man’s bloody mouth.

“Get away from that!” the deputy called out as he jumped to his feet and strode over towards where Jamie was standing above the man’s body. Katie tried to raise her eyes enough to follow after him, but her head began to throb down into her shoulders and so she just lay back down to rest. She could hear them arguing over and around her somewhere but the voices soon faded away.

Her eyes snapped open at a sound near her head and she realized that she must’ve dozed off again. But she didn’t really feel all that tired. Not anymore at least. She looked up and saw a face she remembered.

“Jeffy,” she said, but her voice came out all cracked and soft and she wasn’t sure if she’d even heard herself say it at all. But then Jeffy smiled and squatted down beside her, his hand touching at her shoulder.

“You were right,” he said and patted her shoulder. “You did need that knife.” He looked over at the body of the man and her gaze followed after his, her head not nearly so sore as it’d been. Jamie and the deputy weren’t standing by the body anymore. She turned her head and saw them standing over by a big tree near the old path. Jamie seemed to be staring at the ground a lot while the bigger man was talking.

“I couldn’t get Sheriff Jones,” Jeffy said and hit at the grass beside his leg. “Gone fishin’ or somethin’, but this guy seems pretty good. He drove up here real fast. It was kinda crazy.”

Katie reached up and felt at the back of her head to make certain it was still attached to her neck. The pain seemed to swell and ebb with every heartbeat and she closed her eyes against the aching.

“Still sore?” Jeffy said and reached out to touch her shoulder but ended up touching the bare skin of her neck instead. His face shot through with bright redness as Katie’s eyes popped open and looked down at his hand.

“I…Uhhh,” Jeffy began as the redness in his cheeks deepened. The other two people in the clearing came back over to stand next to them as Jeffy tried to gather his embarrassed wits about him again.

“Well there’s no reason for any of you to stay out here…with this mess,” the deputy said and looked back over his shoulder towards the man’s body, crumpled amid the tangle of ruddy grass. The knife was still sticking straight out of the man’s chest, blurs of bloody mess along the pale handle.

The deputy turned back around. “I called yer parents and told ‘em not to worry. I can take ya all home now,” he said and wiped his forehead with an old rag from his pocket. He looked towards Katie. “You gonna be all right, girlie?”

Katie’s mind clamped down around the same name that the bad man had called her, and she could feel her face reddening and pulling down into a frown.

“Don’t you call me that!” she shouted, sending stabs of pain creasing across her forehead and down the back of her neck. Jamie came over and squatted beside her, his hand settling softly upon her shoulder.

“Hey, Hey. Easy. He didn’t mean nothin’ by it, Katie.” She looked up at him and felt her face relaxing. Her gaze went past him to where the man’s body lay. She felt a chill wash over her neck. It was all over. The man was really dead this time. And even if she hadn’t actually meant to push the knife into him, it’d still been her hand that’d held the blade when he fell on her. She swallowed and looked up at Jamie. Then over at Jeffy, who was still looking towards the man’s body, his hand clutching the same stick he’d gone up the path with. She fought down tears again, wanting to stay the big girl, for just a while longer.

“I wanna go home,” she said, her voice barely rising above a whisper as it left her throat. Jamie helped her to her feet, not rushing her at all this time.

“We are,” he whispered and put his arm around her shoulders and held her close. They started towards the pathway that led back along the fields toward home.

“Hey. I said I’d drive ya back home,” the deputy called out and then looked over towards Jeffy who was still staring towards the body in the grass. Jeffy turned and saw Jamie and Katie walking towards the path and hurried after them. He spun and swung his stick through the air in the direction of the deputy. “Heeya!”

“Thanks, but we don’t need a ride,” Jamie called over his shoulder. “We’re brave knights of the realm and we can do this ourselves. Right, Sir Katie?” and he looked down at her and gave her shoulder a squeeze that hurt a little bit, but mostly felt like the best thing in the whole wide world to her.

END STORY