9 Tales Told in the Dark 3 Read online

  9TALES TOLD IN THE DARK#3

  © Copyright 2014 Bride of Chaos/ All Rights Reserved to the Authors.

  First electronic edition 2014

  Edited by A.R. Jesse

  Cover by Turtle&Noise

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  9TALES TOLD IN THE DARK#3

  Table of Contents

  THE PATH ----- By Daniel J. Kirk

  BICYCLE GAME----By Thomas Anderson

  SKIN OF A WITCH -----By Rik Hunik

  REDMAN----By Sara Greene

  AMONG THE HOODOOS-----By Jeffery Scott Sims

  BESS-----By John Grey

  THE LONELY-EYED STRANGER-----By Jason Palmer

  PARTY SHIP OF DEATH-----By Rik Hunik

  LAKES AND SHADOWS----By Bennett Durkan

  TALES

  TOLD

  IN THE

  DARK

  #3

  THE PATH ----- By Daniel J. Kirk

  Game trails run all through these woods. It is something you have to be careful when trekking back to camp late at night. You might think you are on a path, but deer don’t think like we do. They have their own reasoning for going the way that they do in the woods.

  You see deer are very much aware that they still have predators, but perhaps technology and convenience has made it easy for mankind to forget his.

  Spend a night out in the woods, look at how dark it is ten feet from the fire. Pitch black. Anything could be out there waiting. Oh it would be disconcerting if you could see what hid in the shadows, or maybe it would be a relief. But man’s enemy is not a bear or boar.

  It is a hunter with patience and poise.

  It wasn’t all that long ago that my friend moved out into the mountains. He had found a cabin real cheap that he intended to fix up. He took a small camper up there and would park it on weekends and work all day long before spending the night enjoying the stars and a campfire. He would work himself until his arms couldn’t swing the hammer anymore, or his old knees felt as bad as his lower back. Then he would plop down and have a cold adult beverage until he was good and warm and ready to pass out.

  He did this every weekend, obsessed with creating the perfect cabin to retire to within the next year or two. He would come back each weekend and share pictures of sunsets and sunrises and the improvements he had made.

  At work we joked about how he was going to become a bearded hermit who spooked hikers by day, and his snoring would drive away all the wildlife in the area. He wasn’t too far from the Appalachian Trail but he said there was no trail connecting his cabin to it, nor to the creek that ran just below him. But it was all part of his plan once fall came around and all the leaves were off the trees.

  Fall came and true to his word, my friend was deep in the woods cutting paths. He returned one week with pictures of the scenic spot he had uncovered.

  “It’s on my property,” he told me. “Realtor never had a picture of it, would’ve made the cabin worth double what they asked for.”

  He was so excited, “Funny thing is, I can see the remnants of a trail. Like the original owners had one and never kept it up.”

  I warned him about it being a game trail but he was certain.

  “It leads straight down from the cabin. When you look back up the hill you can see it clear as day. The trees on the edge of the path were much older than the saplings which had sprung up.”

  A week or two later he was obsessed with plant life and had bored me to tears listing all the trees he’d identified in his woods, but the note of interest was that the saplings he’d cut up on the trail were not native to that part of Virginia. He even found a tag on one of the trees from a nursery.

  “They’d actually covered up the trail. Makes no sense.”

  The property had been fenced all around afterwards. There was no gate leading down to the creek until my friend had fashioned himself one. He had assumed it was because the previous owner had dogs, as they had also left behind a couple of pens and igloos.

  “Why have a place in the mountains, with a scenic few at a creek and fence it off?”

  I told my friend I had no idea, maybe it was just a hermit who wanted to be away from town and didn’t want to bother with the upkeep of the trail.

  “No, they had a family.” He told me, “They move a few years ago and let it fall apart a little, but they didn’t move far, just closer into town, big lot, no trees at all. Plenty of mowing and upkeep.”

  I agreed it was odd because that’s what you do in polite conversation, but I doubted my friend’s concerns. He seemed obsessed with how he had managed to find the cabin at such a cheap price now. Like there would be some big secret when he found out why the owners had moved.

  The next time I saw him he was a different man. He looked old enough to be retired. His body moved like a limp sail on a boat and his eyes seemed deeper set, like his eyelids had fallen back behind his face, unable to be closed ever again.

  And I only believed his story because he had never given me any reason to doubt him. What he thinks happened may not have happened, but I believe he believes it happened.

  Now, like any other weekend he left straight from work, driving three and half hours into the mountains just south of Lexington. He arrived at dark and unloaded tools and supplies as he always did. By this time he had renovated the cabin so that it had working plumbing and a wood stove. But the weather on this particular weekend was going against the preconceptions for December temperatures, as the low was only expected for be fifty degrees overnight. So he had every intention of getting one more night out by the campfire.

  Moments later he was sitting by a hot fire, drinking a cold beverage. The moon was particularly bright, but not full. Through the leafless trees he could see just about every constellation. It wasn’t a sight he hadn’t seen before, but that night he said it felt different.

  Like the universe was wide-awake gazing back at him.

  The sensation spooked him, he’d never believed in ghosts or the supernatural, not since he was little. But he didn’t feel alone that night. Every time he brought his eyes down to the pitch-black woods surrounding him his heart raced a little. The hairs on his neck stood up and his eyes played tricks on him.

  There was something in the woods standing at the start of the trail to creek. He knew it was there. He said he couldn’t really believe his eyes, but he could feel it like its breath had traveled the 100 feet to his campfire.

  He made noise as you should for most bears, but he thought it too small to be a bear. Still he banged on a pan and talked nonsense at it.

  He knew it didn’t move. It had no reaction at all and because of that he was certain it was just his mind playing a trick on him, a shadow of a shadow.

  He remembered yelling one final thing at it before dousing his campfire and going inside his cabin. He said, “Come on out, coward!”

  The next day he woke up laughing at himself as he made coffee and breakfast as he always did. He figured it was a sign he was getting closer to needing to retire, just a senile
old man. To further prove his point, the hook he used to close the screen door was unhooked and he must’ve tracked some mud in as he followed it all the way back to the cot he had set up next to the wood stove.

  He swept it up before he noticed his boots were not muddy. Well he was determined not to believe in anything spooky happening so he chalked it up to the previous weekend and getting in late last night and not taking a notice at all. The excuses came to him rather easily.

  He went about his day working on the cabin, adding a bookcase I believe. He was indoors most the day, but by lunchtime he had to get out in what was for December, still exceptionally warm weather. He decided he’d investigate his visitor by taking the trail down to the creek.

  There were no tracks to cause any alarm and by the time he reached the creek he felt like he had just been spooked the night before, nothing to worry about at all.

  But he was wrong.

  He told me he had never been more wrong in his life. And he knew he was wrong because nothing in his mind or body prepared him for what happened next. His body had told him, everything is okay. Everything is fine.

  That night he even stayed outside again, having a cold beverage or two and roasting hot dogs. Not a care in the world as he waxed nostalgic about his days before having such a fantastic getaway.

  He went to bed around 10 o’clock or at least tried. It was a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from. Something was in the cabin with him. Something mocked him with echoes and stirrings. Every time my friend found the cause of noise, a banging pipe, a fallen book, then a new sound would occur, luring him elsewhere in the cabin until he was certain he had been running around in circles all night. He told me in confidence that he lost his wits that night. He had gone near feverishly insane as every little sound aggrivated him. His heart shook in his ribcage like it wanted out and finally in a panic unlike anything he’d ever experience he got in his truck and drove the three and half hours back to his home. Leaving his wallet among other items he had intended to take home with him at the end of the weekend.

  Now he didn’t tell me about this weekend right after it happened. It was a couple of weeks at least. We had kind of grown tired of seeing pictures of the cabin and hearing him talk so poetically about retirement that we didn’t even notice he’d stopped feeding us updates every Monday morning. We were simply grateful.

  But when he finally did tell me, he told me he had not been back to the cabin since. He told me he had tried to contact the previous owners and had finally decided to show up at their front door unannounced hoping not to sound so crazy.

  “It makes sense, don’t it?” he asked me after every revelation. “Why else would they have abandoned such a great spot at that price if it wasn’t haunted?”

  I wondered if my friend was having buyer’s remorse, but one thing my friend was, was good with money and I couldn’t imagine the cabin had brought him to ruin. But perhaps the amount of work he’d given himself now felt too daunting.

  I reminded him that his realtor had to tell him if the cabin was haunted or a murder had happened there. But that’s not true in Virginia. You don’t have to say anything at all. Just remember that when you are getting ready to buy a house. You might just want to investigate it a little before you plop down a deposit, if you believe in that sort of thing.

  My friend was a true believer now. And I could tell there were events of that night that he did not share. That he would never share.

  Still I wasn’t the only one who tried to talk some sense into him and keep him from scaring the family he’d bought the cabin from. But there was no stopping him and I was only surprised by the fact that he called me at home the night after he confronted the family on their doorstep.

  “They called the cops,” he told me as he headed back to the cabin. “They didn’t tell me anything.” I could hear how upset he was and I told him he should just give the cabin another rest this weekend. But he was determined.

  Now I know I couldn’t have stopped my friend. But guilt is a funny thing and if you don’t know that you’ll learn it at some point. I still wonder to this day if I had the words in me to tell my friend to take it easy, to go see a doctor, I would’ve. But I didn’t think I needed to at the time.

  I was wrong. When work didn’t hear from him they called the police and sure enough his body was found at his cabin. He’d had a heart attack and died.

  I was wrought with guilt and so when we were asked by the police to come up and collect his things since he had no next of kin, I felt required to help out.

  I was there three hours, boxing up his things when a pickup with a trailer arrived. A bunch of young Latinos jumped out of the truck followed by an older white man who introduced himself as Pastor Crosby or something. And I just figured he was from my friend’s church and was there to help as well until I noticed all the trees in the back of the trailer.

  I asked him what all the trees were for and he pointed at the trail my friend had made down to the creek.

  He told me, “You should never make a path for evil to find you. Trees have always confused dark forces. They toil in circles as they should, and they leave us alone until we are foolish enough to guide them back to us.”

  I asked him what he meant but he seemed irritated to be delayed so what he said was terse.

  “There is a hunter waiting for each of us. Our own personal predator, remember that. All it has to do is find you.”

  It found my friend. I decided to not let it find me. I drove home. But I’m certain something followed me.

  THE END.

  BICYCLE GAME----By Thomas Anderson

  Barnaby DeFrance looked carefully down the long, straight stretch of road, saw no sign of cars coming. With one foot on the road, one on a pedal, he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. A car appeared behind him. Bearing down hard. Barnaby held onto the cig and jumped on both pedals, changing gears furiously. The car was already beginning to swerve, obviously a player. As the car got closer, it swung completely off the road right for the cycler.

  Barnaby pulled out his handgun and shot out the windshield. The car skidded past Barnaby as the sightless driver futilely braked, slamming past the guardrail and down a steep embankment. He peeped over the battered rail to see the smoking heap of scrap metal below. Took a picture with his phone, dialed 911 as he drew on his cigarette and proclaimed,

  "Goddam, I love this road."

  He hadn't always been a cycler. When he invented the game, its raison d'etre was pure, sweet road rage. The arrogant bastards in their spandex suits and shiny helmets, slowing traffic to a crawl with their shit-eating grins. And Virginia's legislature had just passed a law demanding cars give bicycles three feet or face thousands of dollars in fines. Bicycle Game covered all the bases: righteous gratification, anger vent, outlet for loathing, and consummation of bloodlust. And of course, competition. Bicycle Game was every game a man could want. Win-win-win. Unless you lost, of course. In its first year, the game spread from rural Virginia across the US, coast to coast. By its third year now, Bicycle Game was a global phenom. Barnaby was rich. Didn't even care about the money.

  With another long drag on his cig he looked down at his latest score, took the mandatory second picture and muttered,

  "Goddam, I love this game."

  The winding curves up ahead brought back memories. It was here where the game began. He would never forget his first score, the cocky asshole. Smug, self-satisfied smile. Barnaby nearly wrecked his car trying not to hit him. By God's grace no one was coming the other way, or he would have hit them head on. Or, would have taken out the cycler....

  That was when it hit Barnaby: why next time? Take him out on his terms. This jack-ass had no care in the world, as if he wasn't pedaling on a 55 mile per hour country road with no shoulders, tight curves making a driver slam on brakes or swerve into oncoming traffic. And the cycler was always right. The law gave him three feet no matter how ridiculous. That made Barnaby's blood boil. The fucking hypocrites. He had thrown
the car into reverse and run over the clueless cycler before he realized what he was doing. In awe, he got out and looked down at the carnage. Took pictures. Then went home to his wife and beloved daughter. Went to his room and beat his dick.

  The next day Barnaby had savored the headlines. His score was the son of a rich man, died so pointlessly because some mad driver, probably drunk, had gone across the lanes and hit the dude head on (the media had no idea he got him in reverse). The public outcry was invigorating, and Barnaby couldn't get it out of his head. All he wanted to do was run over somebody again. When "Anonymous Citizen" offered a hundred thousand dollars for information leading to the killer, Barnaby created a fake email address and sent pictures to prove he did it. Called himself "Founder." Said it was time drivers took America's roads back.

  To his surprise, Anonymous Citizen wired the hundred grand. Agreed with Founder completely. Said it was about time to get the bicycle menace off the streets, with deer next. Anonymous Citizen confided to Barnaby he was old and dying, and just didn't give a rat's ass anymore. He had always wanted to run over some smirk-face cycler in spandex suit and shiny helmet. Advised Barnaby how to set up a safe foreign account -- "Never mind the Swiss, the British have the best Jews outside the fucking Holy Land." -- and encouraged his alter-ego, Founder, to run with it. Thus, the conception and birth of Bicycle Game.

  A cop sped by and waved. Barnaby wondered if they knew he was Founder, or if they even cared. They completely knew he was a player. They waved and smiled every time they sped by on their way to a wreck. But then, Barnaby knew the cops were playing Bicycle Game. All over town, all over the country, all over the world. Cops loved Bicycle Game. But who didn't?

  Growing up, Barnaby always dreamed of being a cop. But he wanted to leave the country. His hometown was no place to kill people, and the boy was dying to find out if it was good as he imagined. So he quit school and joined the Army, best job anywhere. They taught him how to do it.