The Woods Are Dark

  “It’s all right,” he said.

  The women stood and looked back. Sherri covered her mouth. Neala quickly turned away.

  Robbins walked to the cabin door. It had no knob. A leather thong hung out. He pulled it, and heard a squeak of wood inside as the latch lifted. He pushed the door. It swung open.

  “Hello?” he called into the darkness.

  No answer came.

  He stepped through the doorway. The air smelled gamey. It felt warm and damp. He peered through the darkness. He could see nothing.

  Reaching into his pants pocket, he found his book of matches. He flipped open the cover, tore a match loose, and struck it. The head flared. He squinted against the sudden brightness, and turned in a full circle. Satisfied no one was lurking in the small room, he shook out the match and returned to the door.

  “It’s okay. Come on in.”

  Neala and Sherri entered. Robbins pulled the door shut, cutting off the moonlight from outside. The wooden latch dropped into place.

  “Well, here we are,” he said.

  He struck another match. In its fluttering light, he quickly searched for a lamp. He found a candle in a holder protruding from a wall, and lit it. Each wall had a candle. He lit them all. Their tips guttered, filling the room with shadows.

  “Must be a bed,” Sherri muttered, looking down at a nest of fur pelts. She sat on it, rubbed her hands cautiously over the top, then lay back and sighed.

  Neala stood in the center of the room. She turned slowly. Her eyes moved up to Robbins’s face.

  “I think we should get out of here,” she said.

  “We need the rest,” Robbins said.

  Sherri raised her head. “I’m not going out there again.”

  “This place…,” Neala said. “Whoever lives here, he must be the one who put up the heads.”

  “I don’t want to hear this,” Sherri said.

  “What if he comes back.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Lander, perched high in a tree, heard the chatter of voices. They weren’t far away. Near the stream, probably. The words made no sense, but some sounded excited, some angry. A woman’s voice made a comment that caused general laughter.

  Someone spoke with a commanding voice. There was a short discussion. Then all the talking stopped.

  He heard the leafy sounds of people moving through the woods. He heard them far to the left, far to the right. They had spread out.

  They’re looking for me, he realized.

  Shit oh shit.

  He hugged the thick branch tightly, and squeezed it with his thighs as his bowels cramped with fear.

  On the ground below his tree, three figures appeared. One woman, two men. Armed with spears and knives.

  Lander began to tremble.

  Calm down, he told himself.

  I can take them, if I have to.

  I’ve already killed…how many? Plenty.

  And I’ll kill plenty more.

  They think they’re hunting me. They’re wrong.

  I’m the dangerous one. Danger knows full well that Caesar is more dangerous than he.

  Fucking right.

  We are two lions littered in one day, and I the elder and more terrible.

  Fucking-A right!

  But look what they did to Caesar.

  Fuck it.

  Let them just try to get me. Let them just try.

  The three were moving on. They vanished into the trees. He heard their feet crushing twigs and dead leaves.

  Quickly, he climbed down from his tree. He stood motionless, listening. He could barely hear them, now. Perhaps he should hunt them down, sneak up behind them, one at a time, and cut their throats.

  Show them just how dangerous Caesar can be.

  No no no, he would be at a disadvantage stalking them in the forest. Bad strategy.

  So he turned away from them, and went to the stream. He waded in, swam, and climbed ashore.

  The wet vest clung to him like a second skin. It is, it is, he thought, and laughed.

  Get hold of yourself!

  He grabbed his cock.

  That’s not funny, he thought.

  Nothing, goddamn it, is funny.

  I’ve got to keep calm, keep cool, keep my head. Or surely I’ll lose it.

  Soon, he found himself at the edge of the village. He worked his way to the left, staying among the trees, until he could see the place where he’d found Ruth.

  Ruth.

  Dead.

  But that’s okay, I’m dead myself, am I not?

  Mr. Kurtz, he dead.

  Lander Dills, he dead.

  Not quite yet, he’s not.

  He angled away from the village, looking for the place where he’d left Ruth’s body, but not really expecting to find it there. After searching the area for a few minutes, he gave up.

  He returned to the village. He crouched beside a hut. From there, he saw a dozen figures lying near the embers of campfires, and maybe twenty busy near the main fire. The twenty seemed subdued, as if they didn’t want to disturb the sleepers.

  Standing, he slipped the knife and hatchet under his vest, and walked directly toward the group. His heart thundered and he had trouble breathing, but he continued to walk, slightly hunched and limping.

  A woman glanced at him. Casually looked away.

  He came to the rear of the group and peered into their midst. Several, kneeling, were busy with knives. Cutting arms and legs off bodies. The body of the man he’d killed by the stream. The woman who’d worn her knife in front. The man he’d taken the hatchet from. The one who’d speared Ruth. And Ruth herself.

  One arm already off.

  As he watched, a woman finished severing Ruth’s other arm, and tossed it onto a stack of bloody limbs near the fire.

  Two men were cutting her legs.

  Lander staggered backward. He turned, head spinning, afraid he might throw up or faint. Breathing deeply, he walked through the middle of the village.

  Two women and a man were asleep in front of the farthest hut. The man’s head rested on the flat belly of the younger one. A fat, older woman slept on her side, her breasts drooping sideways. Bones lay scattered about.

  Lander dropped to his knees. Taking out his weapons, he crawled past the fat one and through the fur-draped entrance of the hut.

  He crept slowly in the darkness.

  Someone was here. He could hear the breathing. He stopped to listen. Two were here. Clamping the knife in his teeth, he reached out.

  He touched a foot. It moved, just a bit, and he heard a sleepy moan. A man’s moan. Sliding his hand up the leg, he felt moist, flaccid genitals. Another moan, this one almost a sigh of pleasure. He moved his hand up the man’s belly and chest. He found the neck. He found the mouth.

  Setting his hatchet aside, he jammed a hand against the mouth and slashed the man’s throat.

  Warm liquid sprayed his face. Arms and legs flailed, but only for a few seconds. The wet gurgling sounds were loud.

  “Onich?” A woman’s voice.

  Lander reached through the dark, and touched a bare shoulder. He crawled closer. He touched a small, firm breast.

  A hand trailed down his body. The fingers lightly jiggled his scrotum. They encircled his growing shaft. Abruptly, the woman gasped. Her hand vanished. Her body lurched, but he held it by the breast and swung the knife down. It plunged deep. The woman cried out. He groped for her mouth, found it, muffled her cries with one hand, and shoved the knife into the side of her neck just below the ear. Her body went rigid under him, quaked, and finally stopped.

  He lay on top of her, listening.

  How loud had her outcry been? Had it awakened others?

  For a long time, he didn’t move. Then, satisfied that nobody had heard, he silently climbed off.

  He sat between the two bodies, wondering what to do next. Perhaps he should mutilate them. Cut off their heads, maybe. Cut off the guy’s cock, and stuff it in the woman’s mouth. Stick something u
p her twat.

  Thinking about it, he got an erection.

  No. Shit no.

  I’m not a beast, for Godsake.

  An avenger, not a beast.

  An avenging angel.

  The Angel of Death!

  Again, he laughed, and muffled it. When he was done, he touched himself. The erection was gone.

  Good thing.

  I’m an avenger, not a raving sex maniac.

  He crawled through the darkness and pushed open the fur flap of the entrance. Air from outside came in, cooling his sweat. He crawled out.

  He crouched beside the dead fire where the man and two women still slept. He scanned other figures sleeping nearby. The closest were two men, about fifteen yards away. The group near the main fire kept working. They had built up the fire, and were suspending several arms above it from a tripod.

  Cooking the meat before it goes bad.

  Lander raised his hatchet.

  Here’s more for you, he thought. I’ll keep you fat and happy.

  With a single swift stroke, he broke the head of the older woman. He leapt, crouched, and swung. The ax bit into the man’s forehead. He pulled it out. The young, thin woman opened her eyes. She squealed. Lander aimed for her nose, missed, and cleaved the left side of her face, splitting her eye.

  A spear whished past Lander’s face. He saw a crowd coming toward him—the whole bunch.

  He stood up straight. Waving the hatchet overhead, he yelled, “Cry havoc, you fuckers!”

  And then he ran.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Neala sat under a candle, her back against a wall, and watched Johnny search the cabin.

  He checked the walls, first. They were hung with deerskins, probably to keep the winds out. He lifted each pelt, and looked beneath it.

  When he finished the walls, he stepped to the fireplace. A black pot hung over the dead coals. He swung it out, took off the lid, and sniffed. Gagging, he jammed the lid into place.

  Sherri, asleep on her pile of furs, groaned and rolled onto her side.

  “What is it?” Neala whispered to Johnny.

  “Spoiled.”

  He returned the pot to its hook. He pushed his hand into the ashes beneath it. “Cold,” he said. Brushing off his hand, he stood. He hefted a metal fireplace poker. It looked solid and heavy, to Neala. He swung it a few times as if testing its weight, then put it back. For a few moments, he inspected the sooty billows, a broom, a stool with a wicker seat. Then he turned away.

  He wandered the cabin floor, his feet silent on the thick layers of fur that covered it.

  “What’re you looking for?” Neala asked.

  “Anything we can use.” He shook his head. “The place is bare. Except for that.” He nodded toward the covered pot.

  “What do we need?”

  “Food and water. A couple of guns would be nice.”

  From the corner came Sherri’s voice. “While you’re dreaming, how about a chopper to haul us the fuck outa here?”

  “Maybe there’s another room,” Neala suggested.

  “I already checked. No other doors.”

  “Another shack? Out back, maybe?”

  “I’ll take a look.” He went to the door, picked up his rifle, and raised the latch. He pulled the door open.

  His body was a black, strong shape against the pale darkness outside. He looked alert and dangerous, peering into the night. Then he glanced back. “See you later,” he said, and Neala heard in his voice the bravery of a frightened boy.

  He reached in to pull the door shut.

  “Just a second,” Neala said.

  He waited while she got to her feet and joined him outside.

  Her eyes wandered over the dozens of frail crosses and heads. She saw the path Johnny had battered through them.

  “Let’s go around back,” Johnny said.

  They walked close to the cabin. At its corner, Neala saw more crosses, more heads. At the rear, still more. But no other buildings. The small, square cabin stood alone.

  They completed the circle, and stopped by the door.

  “I’ll stay out for a while,” Johnny said. “You go on in, and get some sleep.”

  Neala hesitated. Maybe the man wanted time by himself. More likely, though, he was just trying to be nice, offering to stand guard while she slept.

  “I want to stay with you,” she said.

  “Well…”

  “If you want to be alone…”

  “No, it’s all right.” He grinned. “You think I want to be alone with all this?” He eyed the field of heads. “What if they start talking to me?”

  “Do you think they might?”

  “Not if we keep the conversation up.”

  “Can we sit down?”

  They sat on the ground. Neala crossed her legs, and leaned back against the logs of the cabin. They felt round and scratchy through the thin cloth of her shirt. She kept her eyes down as she talked. “I want to thank you,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on, or why you did it, but you saved our lives.”

  “Well…”

  She waited for him to continue, but he said nothing more. “Why did you come back for us?”

  “Who knows?”

  “You must.”

  “Yeah. I guess I do.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I guess I didn’t want to see you die.”

  She eased sideways until she felt him against her shoulder. She was strongly attracted to this man; it confused her. He was part of the scheme that brought her into this nightmare. Perhaps she ought to loathe him for that. She couldn’t. He was powerful and deadly, but vulnerable in a way that made her want to hold him close.

  “Why me?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. There’s something…I knew what they’d do to you. The thought of you being hurt…”

  “What about Sherri? Suppose I hadn’t been alone. Would you have left her to be killed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s the way things are done in Barlow. It’s the way we’ve always done things, from the start.”

  “How did it start?” She looked at him. He met her eyes, then turned away to scan the area.

  “I’m not sure anyone knows,” he said. “The Krulls were here first. Nobody seems to know where they came from. Plenty of theories, though. Some say they’re the Devil’s children, some say a Stone Age tribe of some kind.”

  “If they’re Stone Age, where’d they get the steel weapons?”

  “From us. We give them what they want. Except guns.”

  Neala shook her head.

  “Anyway. My high school history teacher had a theory that the Krulls are descendants of a band of Vikings that came up the Pacific coast and worked their way up the delta.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think they might’ve descended from some crazy old mountain man—a demented Daniel Boone.” She saw a wry grin as he shrugged. “What the hell, nobody knows. I’ve got a neighbor, Joanne Early, who thinks they’re Martians. Whatever they are, they’re in control. They used to raid town about once a month, but then our forefathers got smart and started delivering strangers to them. That worked out nicely, because the townspeople robbed the folks before taking them out.”

  “They’re still at it,” Neala said, looking down at one of her bare, bloody feet.

  “Both sides get something out of it. And as long as the Krulls get eight or ten victims a month, they leave us alone.”

  “Hasn’t anyone ever tried to stop them?”

  “There’ve been a few attempts. Not many, though. A fellow named MacQuiddy went in, once, with a bunch of men from town. They called themselves the Glorious Fourteen. That was back in the thirties. For a time, back then, word was out that Barlow was a good place to avoid. Travelers stopped coming through, and our people stopped taking victims out to the forest. So the Krulls came into town, one night. They snatched a dozen of our women and children. The Glorious Fourteen went in
to rescue them, and never came out.”

  Neala watched his eyes roam over the field of heads. “Nobody ever comes out,” he said.

  “Will we?”

  “We’ll sure give it a try.” Johnny put an arm across her shoulders, and she leaned her head against him.

  She felt good, being with Johnny.

  Better than she’d felt with any man since Derek. That was nearly two years ago. The breakup had left her stunned. She spent six months living like a hermit: hating Derek, hating all men, yet dwelling on the times they’d had together and dreaming of his return as if she enjoyed the twist of pain that such thoughts brought.

  When the loneliness finally drove her from the house, she met only desperate men. They wanted her body close to them in the night, because they had the loneliness, too. Many tried to be cool: they talked big, and drove Porsches, and pretended. Others displayed their sensitivity like a raw wound, whiners pleading for attention. Few and far between were the normal guys, the confident ones she might want to know better.

  She suspected most were already married—busy raising children and dogs.

  And now, here was Johnny Robbins. You couldn’t say he was normal, not after growing up in a town like Barlow and doing the terrible things he’d done. But he was strong and confident. He could be gentle. And he spoke straight.

  He was so different from those other men—so solid. Someone to rely on.

  Someone she might love.

  Her eyes filled with tears. She sniffed, and Johnny looked at her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Don’t be sorry.”

  “It’s just all so horrible.”

  “I know.” His hand stroked her hair, the side of her wet face.

  “We’ll never get a chance to know each other, Johnny. I mean, to spend time and do things.”

  “We’ll get the chance,” he said.

  She shook her head. A sob wracked her body.

  “We will. You can count on it.”

  His face moved close to hers. He looked into her eyes, and smiled gently, and pressed his mouth to hers. They kissed for a long time. Neala wanted it never to end.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN