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Eleven
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Devourer of Souls Twelve
TWELVEI squeezed my bike’s handbrakes, slowing to a stop. “Jake,” I said, feeling oddly calm, for some reason. “What’s up?”He shrugged, his face weirdly blank in the yellow glow of the streetlights.“Were you at the movie? Didn’t see you.”He shook his head. “Nah. I . . . uh, had some thinkin’ to do. About stuff. Hey,” he leaned over his handlebars, face finally coming alive, looking eager, nervous, maybe excited . . . and . . .Yes.Afraid.“Listen. I’m gonna do somethin’ tonight. I need help. Someone to watch out. Could . . . could you go with me? I’m sorry for the way I freaked out in the woods Saturday. I just . . . I need your help, man. Need you to watch out for me.”I stared at him: his brow furrowed, jaw firm, a vein pulsing on his temple, eyes wide and glimmering. I knew where he wanted to go but I asked anyway. “Where?”And then I saw it, creeping back into his face as a gradual sneer—that old Jake Burns look, but with something else burning his eyes.Hate.Absol
Devourer of Souls Thirteen
THIRTEENI’m still not sure why I followed Jake out to Mr. Trung’s. Dad had set pretty firm rules for the night. I could go to the weekly movie on my bike alone, so long as I returned home by eleven, allowing for some dawdling after the movie and the ride home. But here I was, flying down Bassler Road behind Jake Burns at what had to be eleven already.Usually Dad went to bed before us because he had to report to the lumber mill by five, but who knew? Maybe he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Maybe he’d wait up and when I didn’t come home like I was supposed to he’d wait up some more, come out looking for me or call the sheriff, even. Worse, maybe Amy had come home early, noticed my absence and in true big-sister fashion, ratted me out. Could be either of those fates was in store.Or maybe neither of them. Maybe Dad had gone to bed as usual—around 8:00, right after his nightly beer—and had fallen hard asleep like always. Maybe Amy was still out with her friends and wouldn’t get home until
Devourer of Souls Fourteen
FOURTEENJake brought his bike to a skidding stop along Bassler Road’s gravel shoulder. I followed suit. We walked our bikes the rest of the way. As we turned onto Mr. Trung’s property, his trailer leaped from the darkness, a dim white ghost partially lit by one porch light.To our left the rows of blueberry bushes looked like dark, impenetrable walls of a maze. On the other side of the trailer lay Mr. Trung’s beautifully manicured flower gardens and his koi pond . . .Mr. Trung, praying in the koi pond.The koi praying to him.. . . and I felt a surge of inexplicable relief that Mr. Trung’s trailer blocked my view of the garden and that koi pond.The koi.Praying to Mr. Trung.“Here,” Jake whispered as he cut off the road, across the shallow ditch and along the edge of Mr. Trung’s property. “Quieter than the driveway.”I followed him—still tugged along by some strange insistence I didn’t understand—looking at Mr. Trung’s darkened trailer. No lights shone in the windows. Only
Devourer of Souls Fifteen
FIFTEENI crouched at the edge of those blueberry bushes, quietly afraid. Jake left his bike with me, hoisted his backpack over his shoulder, hefted his hammer once more and melted into the darkness soundlessly like a cat.I couldn’t help but shiver, thinking about Dad saying James Burns could do the same thing as a kid. That’s why he’d been picked to be a Green Beret, because he could fade into the misty Cambodian jungles like he’d never been there at all. Here Jake was, doing the same, leaving me alone. The night closed in around me, darker than I’d ever seen it, so dark I could barely make out my hand.After what seemed like forever finally it came: the sharp ring of metal striking stone, Jake swinging away at that stone chest under the gazebo. On the first strike every muscle in my body tensed. I gripped the flashlight so hard my knuckles ached, expecting the shrill sound and its echoes to bring something from either the shadowed depths of the blueberry bushes or from Mr. Trung’
Devourer of Souls Sixteen
SIXTEENSomehow I made it in the house undetected. Dad had gone to bed, sleeping soundly as always. Amy hadn’t come home yet from hanging out with her friends. Mind and body numb, arms and legs limp, I managed to stow my bike against the garage, sneak inside without waking Dad up, and somehow crawl into bed without a sound.Believe it or not, I fell asleep almost instantly. I’d expended all my energy in my mad dash home. Overloaded, my mind also shut down. I burrowed deep into the covers, closed my eyes and dropped into the black abyss of sleep.But it was not restful.I dreamed. Worse yet, I couldn’t wake myself up. Instead of dreaming and jolting awake, my mind slogged through a nightmare that I couldn’t drag myself free of. A nightmare of being Jake and swinging at that stone chest under the gazebo in Mr. Trung’s flower garden . . .***I swing and swing, repeatedly hitting the lid to the stone chest under Mr. Trung’s pagoda, hating that goddamn gook bastard with every breath
Devourer of Souls Seventeen
SEVENTEENFor several days afterward I stumbled about half-aware of the world around me, hard at work convincing myself that I certainly hadn’t seen what I’d thought I had. I couldn’t have. There hadn’t been legions of bullfrogs croaking in Mr. Trung’s koi pond, it had only sounded that way. That hadn’t been a strange pale green mist floating up from the pond and filling the flower gardens. It had been a motion lamp from the back of Mr. Trung’s trailer, tripped by Jake skulking around in the flower gardens, and the lamp had lit up the fog and mists.Most importantly, there hadn’t been something squishing its way out of the koi pond. Jake hadn’t been screaming. I hadn’t glimpsed something wet and glistening in the light. Obviously Mr. Trung had moved his car and hid, waiting for Jake to make his move, and had jumped out and surprised him. That’s why Jake screamed.Obviously.Regardless, I spent Thursday and Friday drifting from one activity to another. As luck would have it, Dad had
Devourer of Souls Eighteen
EIGHTEENJake Burns was never seen in Clifton Heights again. The news broke in the churches that Sunday morning, the local pastors requesting prayer for James Burns because it appeared that his only son Jake had ‘run away.’ Kevin called me about it later that afternoon.Amazingly enough I felt nothing at all, initially. I’d returned from my journey along the railroad tracks Saturday exhausted, drained, my mind emptied. I passed a restful night after a quiet evening listening to old re-runs of The Shadow on AM radio while cooking hotdogs over the campfire with Dad and Amy.I knew Jake hadn’t run away (or at least I thought I did) but something had happened in my head on that long, mostly forgotten ramble along the railroad tracks. The terror had leaked away, leaving only vague images and impressions. I never shared with my friends what I thought I’d seen that night. I agreed with their assumption that Jake had finally decided to flee the domestic abuse all of us so tactfully never di
Devourer of Souls The Skylark Diner
THE SKYLARK DINERFather Ward closes the journal but doesn’t look up for several minutes as he taps its cover with a fingertip. His expression looks similar to the one I’ve always imagined wearing after finishing Gavin’s latest batch of stories: one of incredulous, amazed unease.Of course, neither Father Ward nor Fitzy has read many of Gavin’s stories. They apparently decided early on there was a limit to what they wanted to “know” about this town. It’s become understood that Gavin’s stories are strictly for him and I. This story, however, felt intended for Father Ward. At the very least, he figured so largely in it I believed he needed to read it.When Father Ward still hadn’t spoken after another minute, I broke the silence. “When’s the last time you saw Nate Slocum?”Father Ward glances at me, his expression thoughtful. “Months. Think maybe I ran into him at The Great American one day, buying groceries. We chatted briefly about nothing in particular. He seemed okay. I mean, not
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Devourer of Souls Coda
CODAThe welcome sign for Tahawus is up ahead on the right. A glance at the dashboard clock on my JEEP shows that, indeed, it is only about forty minutes away from Clifton Heights. I find that hard to believe. It feels like we’ve been driving for hours. Of course, I’ve learned in my few years in the Adirondacks that the back roads feel endless, surrounded on both sides by thick, seemingly impenetrable stands of Adirondack pine. A thirty minute drive to Old Forge feels like an hour and half, most days.As I slow for the turn-off, I glance at Father Ward in the passenger seat. He sits with Nate Slocum’s journal in his lap, staring out the window. He’s been quiet for most the trip. I don’t blame him. His encounter with Stuart Michael Evans sounded harrowing. Of course, he’s now telling himself that clicking sound from Stuart fleeing the confessional booth must’ve been his walker, and not . . . something else. That Stuart had suffered some sort of hysterical break instead of . . .Chang
Devourer of Souls Twenty-Three
TWENTY-THREENowFortunately not everyone in town was at church that night. A scattered few—those devoted non-attendees our faithful little town tolerated—had of course been at home. Some of them were volunteer firemen. They were the ones who found me in the basement the next morning.“Somehow I didn’t break my neck falling down those stairs. The heat and the smoke of course rose and enough of the floor held and didn’t collapse on me. I ended up spending only a week over at Clifton Heights General for mild injuries and smoke inhalation. I did, however, suffer ligament damage in my knees and ankles from the fall, exacerbated because of my CP. For several weeks I got around first in a wheel chair, then with a walker.”I sat back in the confessional booth, speechless, deeply concerned for the poor man’s soul, wondering about his sanity . . .Except.I distinctly remembered the burning of Tahawus Methodist Church, the summer after my senior year in high school. My father had helped o
Devourer of Souls Twenty-Two
TWENTY-TWOEver see the movie Backdraft, Father? By the summer of my senior year, everyone including me had. A good enough movie, it was mostly forgettable, except there’s this scene in which one of the fireman characters mistakenly opens a door without checking the knob for heat first. When he opens the door, his ass gets fried by a huge gout of flame. A backdraft, caused by the sudden rush of oxygen.Now, I’m not exactly sure if that’s what I was trying to accomplish. Point in fact, I didn’t end up causing a backdraft. For that you need a smoldering fire that’s used up all the oxygen in a room. But hey—I wasn’t a firefighter or arsonist. I was a scared and pissed off (but mostly scared) eighteen year old trapped in a room with no way out. The door was guarded and it didn’t matterby whom, because I wasn’t gonna be waltzing by them any time soon.That chanting was getting louder. Weirder. The words all jumbled and mixed together, like from my nightmare of what I’d seen in that clear
Devourer of Souls Twenty-One
TWENTY-ONEThroughout his entire talk with me, the muffled sound of hymns had drifted from the sanctuary through the storeroom door. When he left, the hymns rose into a crescendo, exploding into a chanting the likes of which I’d never heard before. His voice boomed in that strange language I remembered from my dreams. I imagined him striding up onto the stage, arms spread high into the air, yellow suit blazing with unnatural light, the flesh on his face hanging loose as the thing that hid behind it got closer to finally coming out.I hauled myself to my feet, gasping at the pain exploding in my ankles and knees, gritting my teeth against a sudden surge of bile. Somehow I managed not to puke, leaning back against the shelf, gasping for air, trying to gather my resources for one last final . . .What?What could I possibly do? The man in yellow had covered all the angles. Had obviously planned this whole thing out long before he’d come here. Hell, he’d done it before, apparently, in
Devourer of Souls Twenty
TWENTYWhen I awoke I found myself lying face first on a thinly carpeted floor. My head pounded, feeling about twice its normal size, throbbing behind my eyes. I licked dry, cracked lips and felt my stomach heave.I felt enormously tired. Fuck it all, right? I didn’t understand any of this. Didn’t understand why it was happening. How it could happen so fast. How apparently a quaint little Adirondack hamlet had turned into a compound full of crazed cult members in just several days . . .Of course, you’re assuming it didn’t start quietly, long ago.. . . I barely understood what was really going on beneath the surface of things . . .We’re going to be over into His Unknowable image.. . . and I wasn’t sure I cared much, anymore. My best friend or what remained of him was good as gone. My preacher Dad had not only gone full-on religious-nut-loony, he’d apparently set Bobby and me up as targets or even (fucking unbelievable) sacrifices to invite the man yellow into our town. If the
Devourer of Souls Nineteen
NINETEENBobby’s front door slammed shut in the wake of my frenzied escape, a sharp crack disrupting that quiet July morning. Not caring if anyone saw me, I stumbled to a stop on the front walk, covered my face with my hands and breathed in deeply, trying to quiet the pounding in my head.What the hell had I just seen?In all respects, I’m thankful that to this day only distorted, fragmentary half-images remain of what I saw flopping in that water-filled bathtub. Those fingers, fish-belly white and slimy, had sprouted from a hand and arm of the same color. It had reached up from a body the same as it. Huge, bulging and reptilian-fish eyes had glared unblinkingly from beneath the water, and . . . and . . .Gills.Several rows of them, slits on either side of that . . . thing’s neck, from its ears to its collarbone. Gills, puckering in white skin, pink around the edges, fluttering open and shut in rhythmic pulses, bubbling . . . breathing underwater.Thankfully I remembered no more
Devourer of Souls Eighteen
EIGHTEENIt didn’t take long to figure out why Dad hadn’t heard me scream, if indeed I had. The house was empty. Six-thirty in the morning—way too early for VBS to start, but the house was empty. I had no idea where Dad was. I assumed the church. Where else would the pastor of the town’s only church be during VBS? He’d left no note, however, and I had no idea when he’d left. For all I knew, he could’ve gone two hours ago, thirty minutes ago, or maybe he’d even snuck out last night after I’d fallen asleep. He always made his bed in the morning, so that didn’t offer much in the way of evidence.All these things tumbled through my head as I sat at the den table, staring into nothing. I didn’t know what to think or feel. Three days ago, Bobby and I had skipped the opening Sunday night services of our annual VBS to get snacks from the gas station and to chill. On the way back to the church we stumbled across those two dead dogs and that weird alter with the symbol carved into it. Both of
Devourer of Souls Seventeen
SEVENTEENAmazingly, Dad didn’t wake when I screamed. In fact, I’m not sure whether or not I did scream aloud. All I really remember is jerking upright, heart banging, head pounding, sweating bullets and what sounded like a scream fading in my head.After about fifteen minutes—during which my heart hammered like I’d just finished a marathon—no sounds came from Dad’s room next door. No stirring of bedsprings, no creaking of floor boards, nothing.Eventually, my heart slowed down and my hyperventilating faded. I managed a shaking breath and ran a hand through my sweat-damp hair. I tried to piece together my second nightmare that week. Like last time, only blurred fragments remained. I’d been on the path in the woods heading toward that clearing, from which had come a strange and unsettling but also arousing medley of growling moans, grunting, hissing and yowling . . .The man in yellow.He’d been there. His face had looked different, however. Like a loose-fitting rubber mask. I reme
Devourer of Souls Sixteen
SIXTEENIn the dream I was walking down the path again, this time at night. I shouldn’t have been able to see much, but the moon above seemed strangely large and bright. It cast an odd luminescence that filtered through the trees, bathing everything in an eerie yellow glow. The path seemed different. Alien. As if I didn’t belong there. It looked like the path running through the woods from the gas station to the church, but it also looked like it led elsewhere, somewhere different . . .Somewhere beyond.Up ahead on my left, I recognized the break in undergrowth leading to the clearing where Bobby and I discovered those two dead dogs and that weird altar. As I quickened my pace, compelled toward that clearing, I felt myself moving along the path smoothly, quickly, with purpose, strength and ease. I was walking with a rhythmic, even gait. I felt no pain in my extremities or my lower back at all.I didn’t look down at my legs, however, just marveled at how fluidly I was moving down t
