Sheriff James Harden was a fifty something, slightly over weight gorilla of a man who was only sheriff because nobody in town had ever been brave enough to mess with him. Politically or personally. Nobody except for Jim and his friends. Harden had been sheriff for as long as Jim could remember and had been just another reason Jim had had for leaving. The place being a small town, Jim and the sheriff had known each other a lot better than either would’ve preferred. Jim’s group had quite a few of close calls with the sheriff back in the day. It was just dumb luck that they’d never been caught doing some of the things they’d done with a big emphasis on the dumb part. The sheriff suspected a lot but was never able to prove anything. Form the look on the man’s face they were about to have another run in Jim wished he could avoid.
“Now what the hell do you want?” The Sheriff demanded angrily before Jim even had a chance to catch his breath.
“What’s going on?” Jim asked ignoring the question. “Where’s Rob? Is he alright?”
“You aren’t supposed to be down here boy. Didn’t you see the roadblock up there?” He shot back ignoring Jim’s question in turn. “I should lock your sorry ass up right here and now for trespassing.”
“You can do that after you tell me about Rob,” Jim answered quickly. “C’mon” he pleaded, “I’m his friend. Tell me what happened to him, then you can throw me in jail all you want.”
“Oh shit!” the man answered as if he’d just remembered he left the iron on at home. “Rob said you were back for a visit. I’d damn near forgot, what with all this shit going on.” He paused trying to decide. “Damn,” he began again as he took of his hat and ran a hand through his hair, “I don’t know how to put this so I’ll just come right out and say it but I don’t want you freaking out of me or anything. You do that and I’ll take your ass down faster than you can spit. You hear me? I have enough to handle as it is.” After making sure he was understood he said two words. “Rob’s dead.”
Jim knew to expect something like this but actually hearing it felt like a slap in the face. There’d been a bad feeling rolling around in the pit of his stomach from the first moment he’d heard the sirens. This was just the perfect ending to a perfect evening.
“I’m sorry to tell you like that but there it is. There’s no reason to beat around the bush when it comes to things like this,” the sheriff explained. “Rob came out here to check on your friend freak boy out yonder but we didn’t hear back for him for a while. Some of us were starting to get worried.” He said this last part like he hadn’t been one of the ones getting worried and Jim almost slapped him. Holding himself back he stood and listened to the rest of the sheriff’s story. “After a while some weird shit came over the radio. Like screaming or something so I came out to check on things. Didn’t know what to expect. The freak could’ve finally went of the deep end and decided to kill his buddy or something for all I knew. Anyways, when I roll up his car lights were flashing, the door light was pointing at the woods and he was lying on the ground in front of it all cut up.” He stopped talking for a few seconds to make sure Jim wasn’t about losing it before continuing. “It’s a sight you sure don’t want to take to the grave with you if you can help it. Real messy whoever or whatever did it. I shouldn’t tell you this but you being his friend and all you might know if someone, you know, maybe had it out for him or something. If not, it sure does look like it. In any case whatever it was seems to have gone at him with an ax or something, maybe even a hatchet. Soon as the Smokies get out here I’m going to see if I can go find anything useful out from freakboy.”
Jim couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He was too afraid that if he did he’d end up in jail. How could something like this happen? This wasn’t a big city or something where things like this were commonplace. This was a small town. Things like this just didn’t happen here.
The town he grew up in was a quiet place. It was a place where people didn’t need to lock their doors at night. It wasn’t this place where murders were committed almost on a daily basis. This town he was in was like some twisted version of the one he’d grown up in. He just couldn’t understand what was going on. The silly theory of Grandma’s about some mythological beast killing everyone was starting to look better and better. At least then there would be someone to blame everything on. Right now there was nothing. No one to blame or take his anger out on. Just his dead friends.
Rob was dead. He would never see him again and Pete had been just down the road when it happened and did nothing to help. Someone had gone after Rob with an axe and hacked him to death not a five minute walk from his friend’s house and now he was dead. First Tommy and now Rob. Both were dead and there was nobody to blame. The two people who’d been his life long friends, the two people who’d been like brothers to him and the two people who were now dead at the hands of some maniac, mythical creature or God only knew what. He didn’t know which was more unbelievable. His friends being dead or how it’d happened.
It seemed like he’d just found Rob again after being away so long and now he was dead. Jim slowly looked down the road and saw the fires burning around Pete’s house. He could see Pete walking from one miniature inferno to another. Back and forth making sure they burned bright to keep his personal demons at bay.
Jim looked blankly at the sheriff and without any words to him turned and started towards Pete’s house. He needed to find out what had gone so terribly wrong with his last remaining friend that he would standby and let someone who’d been like a brother to him be killed.
8
Jim approached the house with a creeping sensation he’d now become familiar with. He was being watched. Praying nothing would be following him in the dark like had happened before he stopped his headlong rush and peered back at the sheriff hoping it was just him giving Jim the uneasy feeling. No such luck. Unfortunately the sheriff had turned away from him to watch two state police cars pull up at the roadblock.
Not happy in the least, Jim looked around. He saw nothing but inky blackness. The woods, for their part, remained eerily quiet offering him no help in finding the reason for his unease. If anything they made it worse. He felt that at any minute one of the branches were going to reach out, grab him and rip his head off. At least that’s what would happen if this had been a movie.
Eyes becoming slightly more adjusted to the dark, Jim found the exact spot where he’d decided to stop was exactly where the road had decided to give up its fight against nature. He could see cracked and rutted pavement with bit of grass forcing its way to the surface, roots of numerous plants criss-crossing the road and nothing but trees reaching for him in all directions. Up, down, left and right. Nothing but the impenetrable, leafy darkness. The forest hadn’t just been making tiny forays into the world of men it had made an all out assault. It was more than obvious this road wasn’t traveled much by anyone other than Pete.
The one bright and somewhat welcoming spot in all the gloom were the blazing fires around Pete’s house. They lit up the night like a beacon. The lighting thrown off from the fires lit the front windows, making the house appear to be an oversized jack-o-lantern grinning at him in sinister welcome. Jim hurried towards the supposed safety the light offered but as he approached he began to wonder if it was safety or something else the house was offering.
Pete must’ve sensed someone coming up the road. He’d stopped his mindless walking from fire to fire and was staring out into the darkness in the exact direction of Jims’ approach. Jim, not knowing what else to do, slowly emerged from the shadows. He didn’t know what reaction he expected but seeing Pete suddenly racing towards him with two burning sticks in his hand definitely hadn’t been one of them. Pete raced at him swinging the brands for all he was worth and shouting like a madman, which Jim was quite sure he was at the moment, at the top of his lungs. Jim was quite sure he was going to die any minute.