After Death (13 page)

***

The distance was obviously further than Ricky had figured it would be and his patience was all but gone. The trail had ended a while back and Eli and Blackie had pushed on, leading him (and Burt and Frank behind) through now dense undergrowth and trees.

Ricky’s face was dirty and scratched from sharp thorny branches and he was just about to dig his heals in and cry when they came upon a clearing with a giant old oak tree growing in the center. The oak was enormous and tall and had three enormously thick branches that twisted towards the sky like a pitchfork. Eli looked down at Ricky with a great smile.

“Not far now!” he said.

He tugged Ricky past the forked oak and again into the brush — but only for a few moments, before they came to the rocky face of a large hill that blocked their path. Vines and ivy and shrubs grew against the outside of the rock and Eli stepped forward and pulled them aside with practiced ease — they were like green interlocking fingers hiding something from uninvited eyes. Magically, a cave opening was revealed — all but invisible — No one would know it were ever there unless they knew exactly what to look for… and how to expose it.

Eli smiled proudly down at Ricky.

“Thought I was foolin’ with you, didn’t you?”

He gave Ricky a long look and Ricky wagged his head side-to-side; questioning his honesty was serious business to Ricky and he responded to the accusation with the utmost sincerity and an unflinching stare back.

“Naah — I believed you,
honest
!”

Eli laughed at Ricky’s seriousness. “Okay, I believe you back!” he finally replied.

Relieved that this test was past, Ricky looked at the cave entrance for a long moment — it was dark and somehow resembled a mouth, a few odd jags of rocks on the sides seeming like teeth. Ricky finally took a half step towards the cave and then stopped.

“We goin’ in there — looks kinda creepy…”

Eli cocked his head at him.

“You aren’t scared, are ya? ‘Sides — we got Blackie for protection.”

Eli extended his hand towards Ricky and left it outstretched.

Ricky was still skeptical. He stared at the open palm and the fingers that were capped by short sharp fingernails with the traces of dirt or grease underneath. He looked up and searched Eli’s face — It was so warm, so sincere, there was certainly nothing to be afraid of with him by his side...

“C’mon — it’ll be fun.” Eli said smoothly with just a trace of challenge to the words.

Ricky swallowed and tried not to look at the cave again. He finally smiled and placed his small hand in Eli’s.

“Okay.” He said as Eli swept some last overhanging growth out of the way and led the boy into the darkness.

Frank watched with every sense on fire, every instinct sounding a warning bell. The implications were horrific — but he needed to see for himself —
What did Eli really have in mind for poor Ricky!

Frank had every intention of following — He literally tried to force his legs to take a step — only to find them locked to the ground like tree roots. For a moment he was confused as to why — and then he saw Burt hiding behind a nearby tree, crying into his hands. Slowly, he understood.
This was not his story
, he remembered —
He was not in control at all
.
The elder Burt was telling what he witnessed as a child and the story was from his point-of-view — Of course Frank couldn’t follow Eli and Blackie and Ricky — He would have to do what Burt did, which was wait outside — These were the confines of the story — Burt was not describing what happened inside the cave because he didn’t know.

Such was also to be Frank’s fate.

Once Frank realized his actions were directly tied to Burt’s, he moved closer to Burt and waited beside him. It was odd — Frank knew exactly how Burt felt — because he now felt that way himself.

When Burt got tired of standing and sat down in a hidden position from which he could still view the cave mouth, Frank did the same. When the strain of waiting got to be intensely nerve-racking and Burt began biting his fingernails, Frank did the same. And when Burt’s energy finally gave out after waiting what felt like hours and he slipped off into a deep sleep, Frank did the same.

***

When Burt and Frank awakened with a start after an unknown amount of time, they were at first both hazy and unclear on where they were. The sun had begun to set over the forest and the shadows were thick and ominous and it took several moments for them to get their bearings. It could have minutes or it could have been hours. They both shivered simultaneously and Frank realized that the air had become chillingly cold. Like magnets, their eyes were immediately drawn to the cave mouth, and the fear that had temporarily left them in their sleep quickly crept back in with renewed strength.

What had awakened them?
Frank thought.
Something loud, but distant — He was almost sure it had been a voice but his subconscious hadn’t picked it up clearly
… The hairs on the back of his neck slowly rose again and he felt the cold trickle of fearful sweat run down his back between his shoulder blades. He tried telling himself that he was only imagining this — there was nothing to fear — that it was only the elder Burt telling a grotesque story — one that may or may not even be true given the state of the bizarre guy… But the thought fell flat and ineffectual against what he was experiencing in the moment — Everything was too detailed, too real, too
exact
to be false.

Still…
Frank forced himself to think further,
If Burt was in this story and he was the one telling it to Frank years later, he had obviously survived. And Frank was not really there so he was in no real danger…
The situation
was
creepy — Yes, Dangerous — No
.

He exhaled gratefully with this knowledge and had almost reconciled himself when Ricky’s panicked voice rang out from somewhere deep inside the cave.

“No, I wanna go home, I wanna go home…”

And then Ricky screamed louder, a shriek that crossed the edge of hysteria —

“I WANNA GO —“

His voice ended abruptly leaving only an empty stillness.

Burt held his breath, face white in the growing darkness, tears running down his face. Frank was paralyzed, his mind blank with fear. The calming notions, the logical explanations — they were all gone as quickly as Ricky’s voice.

The moment dragged on and Frank desperately wanted to run — He was blinded with fear — a deep primal instinct to get away for his own survival — but he was frozen in place next to Burt, powerless in this world that was not his own.

Burt trembled in small erratic spasms and somehow Frank knew... The boy’s mind was cracking… This is where it had begun…

Gradually, a faint sound invaded the stillness of the dark forest; footsteps and the soft humming of an odd little ditty, that same ditty that Frank had hummed earlier and that he had heard from the elder Eli and Burt as well…
What was it about that tune?

The melody was soft and light — with a gentle lilt, and in other circumstances it might have been pleasantly quaint. But not here… Not now…

Burt quaked again, red-rimmed eyes glued to the cave mouth, pulse at his neck moving at jack-rabbit speed. Frank’s head was also angled in that direction, eyes straining, neck aching…

Eli causally emerged with Blackie at his side and their eyes, both those of man and dog, seemed to twinkle in unison — an odd reflected light turning their pupils a momentary glossy white.

Then it was gone and Eli’s shadowy figure paused at the cave mouth to replace the growth across the opening. His hands moved deftly as he continued to hum and soon there was no trace of where the cave had been as though it had only been a dream… a hallucination. He knelt down and let Blackie lick something dark from his hands and Frank’s mind reeled.

Was that blood?!? Please no — Not blood!

Only now was Frank’s mind beginning to unlock — beginning to absorb the
grotesque horror
of the situation…

Blood! I think that’s blood!

His intestines twisted in revulsion and he felt a sharp shooting pain rack his gut.

Eli stopped humming and there was only the wet sound of Blackie’s tongue… a soft lap… lap…. lap… against his fingers. Frank’s nausea was building —
Blood! Oh my God, BLOOD! —
when suddenly Eli spoke in that Mr. Rogerish sing-song voice to no one in particular:

“I know you won’t tell… I know you woooon’t..?”

Eli stood up and his head slowly swiveled until it locked onto Burt’s exact position and Frank’s right beside him. Again, for a moment, his eyes glittered intensely with that odd white opaque gleam.

“You’re too smart for that…” He said with a thinly veiled menace coiled tightly around the words.

“
Aren’t you..?
”

Frank thought he saw the hint of a gargoyle smile, light reflected off Eli’s teeth and an icy shiver rippled down his spine to the tips of his toes.

His stomach lurched once more and he bent to be sick — and emptied his stomach next to the urine puddle forming on the ground at the bottom of one of Burt’s trouser legs…

***

Frank gasped for breath and popped open his eyes. It was as if he’d been held underwater too long — He felt oxygen deprived, his head throbbed, and his stomach was still roiling from his most recent experiences.

As his vision cleared, Burt’s scruffy face gloated over him and he realized he was back on the ground against the leaning towers of newspaper in Burt’s house.

Burt wasn’t at all concerned about Frank’s condition, too puffed up with the pride of his story-telling ability and the obvious effect on his captive audience.

“Not a bad tale told, if I say so myself, eh?” He said with a wide toothed grin. “Well described detailin’, pretty much put ya right there in it, didn’t it?”

Frank swept a shaky hand through his hair and it came back completely wet. His stomach jolted again and he suppressed the urge to get sick for real and teetered to his feet. His heart was pumping in his ears and his head felt like it might split.

“This is true?” He asked, still trying to steady himself. “What you told me… Showed me…?”

Burt lifted his chin with a bit of a smirk.

“Nothin’ truer.”

“And you never did a thing? Never said a word?”

His voice was shrill in the room; accusatory. It raised Burt’s hackles instantly.

“Like you don’t know the rules! Gotta look after number one — Lotta people go missin’ over the years — don’t wanna be one of ‘em!”

There was angry spittle growing at the corners of Burt’s mouth. Frank was about to verbally attack, ask how Burt could live with himself — how he could see an innocent murdered right in front of his eyes and not lift a finger? — but Burt spat over any of Frank’s objections, answering as if he’d heard Frank’s thoughts.

“I never actually saw nobody git killed — Fer all I knew, coulda been a trick.”

“Now you’re changing your tune.” Frank threw back.

Burt looked on the verge of going berserk. His already ruddy face seemed to engorge with blood.

“You ain’t a judge and you ain’t my conscience — Yer ten minutes is up — I want you OUT!”

He shook with rage and it made Frank remember the expression on young Burt’s face, the mental strain at what he’d witnessed.
He’s not all here — He’s not completely responsible for his actions.
Frank thought. It made him soften his tone.

“Just tell me why? Why would he do it to innocents? What was his motive?”

Burt went eerily calm and his lips stretched into a thin smile — seemingly half amused, half disgusted.

“You ‘spect some neat lit’le package and I could tell ya about the great relationship our pa had with our ma…”

Frank flinched as a frenzied shadowy man appeared suddenly next to him and kicked savagely at an unconscious woman in a heap on the floor. Their images were indistinct, features undefined, almost as if made of smoke or soot…

He rubbed his eyes — The image overlapped the present like a projection — The man moved easily
through
the leaning stacks of debris without making contact until he reached the woman…

What is this hold Burt has over me!
Frank thought.
My connection to Burt’s stories must not have been broken! I just have to get through this and I’ll be okay…
I’ll be okay…

The idea helped him relax slightly and he tried to get a better look at the brutal man that continued to grunt and curse with every violent thump into the prone woman until he was panting heavily. As Frank moved, the man also shifted in sync — and always managed to avoid all but the briefest of glimpses.

The man paused bent over to catch his breath and made a stiff beckoning movement with his hand. Frank recognized the gesture instantly.

Two small boys, features also indistinct, came towards him from their places against the wall and immediately joined in, viciously kicking and punching at the woman on the floor…

Frank strained to see — One of them certainly looked like young Burt but the shapes were blurry and continued to move and Frank couldn’t be sure…