Dark Hollow (14 page)

Cory and Cliff both scoffed.

“They moved?” Cory asked. “You mean, like, they were smart?”

I looked over at Merle for confirmation.

“That’s what they say,” he muttered. “Don’t know if I ever truly believed it until this afternoon, though. Now I do.”

“Why?” Cliff asked. “What happened today that changed your mind? You drank too many beers?”

“Don’t you worry,” Merle said. “We’ll get to that part in a minute.”

I was discouraged by Cory’s and Cliff’s reactions. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

“Go ahead,” Dale encouraged me. “You’re doing fine.”

“The trees formed a little tunnel over the path with their leaves,” I continued, and went on to tell them about hearing the pipe a second time, along with Shelly moaning, and how the music affected both my and the dog’s libidos again. I described the white stone marker and the nonsensical words carved on it, and how it throbbed when I ran my fingers across it.

“I can verify that,” Dale interrupted. “I touched it myself today, and it was like grabbing an electric fence. But without the shock.”

“I saw it too,” Merle said. “Didn’t touch it, but you could almost feel it humming inside you. Like one of those frequencies that only a dog can hear.”

“That don’t make sense,” Cory said.

Merle sat up. “Adam’s the writer, not me. That’s the only way I know to describe it.”

I drank my beer. Despite the evening’s chill the coldness warmed me as it slid down my throat.

Dale filled Cory and Cliff in on the search party, and how the police dog’s behavior had been similar to Big Steve’s. Then he motioned for me to continue where he’d left off.

I took another long swallow of beer before going on. I wanted to think it over and choose the right words for the next part, because it still sounded fantastical to me, and I’d been there. I could only imagine how it would sound to Cliff and Cory. They were already skeptical. Cory was on his fourth beer by then, and working on a hangover. He’d slumped down low in the chair, and his head bobbed back and forth. The kid was a lightweight—but so was I at that age. For a second I wished I could go back to that.

I picked up the story, describing how I’d seen Shelly on her knees in the hollow, performing fellatio on a satyr statue. I had to pause in the narrative while Dale explained to Cory what a satyr was. Then, when I had his attention again, I recalled every little detail, from the bird shit on the statue’s shoulder to the tattoo on Shelly’s back, even the size of the satyr’s dick. Cliff shifted in his seat when I talked about the statue coming to life, but he didn’t interrupt. I continued with how the creature had spoken to me, asking me to celebrate the season and bear witness while it sowed its seed. And how I’d convinced myself it was just a guy in a costume, which sounded silliest of all to my own ears, now that I knew the truth.

Cliff frowned. “So you thought it was a dude in a suit, but now you think it’s real. You believe there’s a half man, half goat sticking it to Shelly Carpenter out in the woods?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “I do. I know it sounds crazy, Cliff, but it’s true. Ask Merle and Dale.”

“Well?” Cliff lit another cigarette and looked at them. “You guys believe this shit?”

Dale nodded. “I do indeed. As impossible as it sounds.”

“You too?” Cliff asked Merle.

Merle drained his beer and opened another one. “Yeah, Cliff. I do. There’s more to it than what Adam’s told you guys.”

Cory belched, then grinned. “Like what?”

Dale stood up. “Well, for starters, do you guys remember on Tuesday when we were watching the police arrive at Paul and Shannon’s house?”

We all nodded, even Cory, who had been on his way home from work at that point.

“You weren’t there yet, Cory,” Dale continued, “but while the rest of us were standing there, I thought I heard something. It sounded sort of like a flute. I didn’t mention it at the time, but all of us…well, we got erections.”

Cory snickered.

“It’s not funny,” Dale snapped, surprising all of us with the outburst.

Cory’s laughter abruptly fizzled.

“I haven’t had a hard-on in over five years, not even with Viagra. A few years ago I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I survived, but the treatment left me impotent.”

Cory’s face clouded. “I’m sorry, Dale. Don’t take offense.”

He shrugged. “It happens. Just hope that it doesn’t happen to you when you’re my age. It’s no picnic.”

“How come you never told us about the cancer?” I asked.

“I didn’t know you and Tara well enough then. You’d just moved in. Cliff and Cory weren’t living here yet either. And besides, there are some things that you just want to keep private, you know?”

I nodded, silently thinking about the miscarriages. Despite the fact that they were my friends, I’d never told any of them about those. We told Tara’s family and some of my fellow authors, but I’d never told them.

“What about me?” Merle grumbled. “Thought I was your friend.”

Dale smiled sadly. “You are, and it’s because you’re my friend that I didn’t tell you about it. Peggy was already cheating on you by then, and I didn’t want to burden you with anything else.”

“Wouldn’t have been a burden.”

Cory slumped further down in his seat. “Wish I was back in college. Things seemed simpler then.”

Cliff clapped his back. “Yeah, but you flunked out.”

Dale reached over the table and shook Merle’s hand.

“Still wish you would’ve told me,” Merle said. “Ex-wives are a dime a dozen. Friends are something else.”

“Well, I’m sorry. The point is that I can’t get an erection. It’s medically impossible. But I got one today, in the woods, and I got one yesterday evening. We all did. And both times we heard the pipes.”

“I’ll give you that,” Cliff agreed. “And now that you’ve mentioned it, I thought I heard something, too. Could have been a pipe. But what does all that have to do with anything?”

“Allow me to explain.” Dale filled them in on Wednesday’s events: my trip over to Shelly’s house and the rest of what we’d all experienced in the woods. Then he sat back down and patted his stack of papers.

“When we got back this afternoon,” Dale continued, “I hopped on line and did some research. First thing I looked up was satyrs. Did you know they have no females? Only males. They lived in woodlands and forests in Greek and Roman mythology. The Romans called them fauns, rather than satyrs, but it’s the same thing. Satyrs served a god named Bacchus, pouring his wine and playing their flutes for him. They were also very fond of females, since they had none of their own. They preferred human women, but would mate with wild animals, livestock, or even pets, if they had to.”

His expression was one of pride and satisfaction. I got the impression that Dale was enjoying the role of our own small-town Van Helsing.

Cliff toyed with his lighter. “So they liked to drink and get laid. Sound like decent enough guys.”

Dale smiled. “Yes, I guess you could say they were the original party animals.”

That made us all groan, except for Cory, who was too drunk to understand the joke. We had to repeat it to him, and then he laughed a little too loud and long. While his attention was focused on Dale, I slid his half-finished fifth beer over to my side of the table. He’d had enough, and I was flagging him.

“Have any of you ever heard of Pan?” Dale asked. I had, but the others hadn’t.

“He was the Greek god of the woods,” Dale explained.

“As well as the god of green fields and the guardian spirit of the shepherds.”

Cory giggled. “Sounds like he was a busy dude.”

“He was. Pan was also a satyr. So even though they served gods like Bacchus, the satyrs themselves were worshiped, too. Some think their animal attributes and wild sex drive reflect the way satyrs embody the ‘uninhibited forces of nature’ or some such. People worshiped them in conjunction with the spring equinox, and farmers asked them to bless the planting season. They were also called upon during fertility rituals and livestock breeding.”

I saw where he was going. “All of this started on Monday, the first day of spring.”

“And satyrs like to fuck,” Merle said.

Dale pointed at him. “Exactly. They like to fuck. Adam saw Shelly having sex with one during the spring equinox. She hasn’t been seen or heard from since. And now there are more women missing.”

“Okay,” Cliff said, tapping ashes into an empty beer can. “Are you guys saying a statue of a goat man came to life and is running around town raping women? Even if Shelly Carpenter was kinky enough to get it on with a satyr, you can’t tell me Shannon Legerski or Antonietta Wallace would do the same thing. That’s
bestiality
, man.”

“Not necessarily,” Dale said. “I think it has something to do with the shepherd’s pipe.”

“I’ve been thinking that too,” I admitted. “But I’m not sure how or why.”

“Well…” Dale shuffled through the papers until he found what he was looking for. “According to legend, Pan invented the shepherd’s pipe. One day he came across a beautiful woman named Syrinx.”

Cliff broke into an impromptu chorus of Rush’s “The Temples of Syrinx.” He stopped when he realized Dale was glaring at him. I suppressed a giggle.

“Sorry,” Cliff apologized.

Dale continued. “Pan tried to rape Syrinx, but she escaped. Pan chased after her until they came to a river, at which point Syrinx turned into a reed.”

“A reed?” Cory squinted. His eyes were watery and his lids drooped. “You mean like camouflage or something?”

Dale waved him away. “Yes, just like the ones that lined the bank of the river. Pan grabbed a handful of reeds, hoping to capture Syrinx, but he couldn’t find her. So he sat down beside the river and started tying them together.”

“Thus inventing the shepherd’s pipe?” I guessed.

“Bingo.” Dale winked at me. “Also known as the Pipes of Pan. The pipes were supposed to be magic, giving Pan control over people’s minds, especially females. He even defeated Apollo, the god of music, with his shepherd’s pipe. Pan’s music swayed the mind of King Midas, who was judging the contest.”

Merle pushed his beer aside and sat up straight. “So the satyr’s pipe can take over people’s minds?”

Dale nodded. “At the very least it affects people’s emotions. Pan used it to seduce females. Stands to reason that it would work on males, too. It worked on King Midas. And what happened each time one of us heard the pipe?”

“We got hard-ons,” Cliff said. “So the satyr wanted to fuck us too?”

“Not necessarily,” Dale said. “Maybe our arousal keeps us docile while he rapes our women. Or could be it was just some kind of side effect. Adam said that Shelly looked like she was in a trance, and that he was starting to feel it too. And, Cory, you said earlier that your coworkers were horny. What did you mean?”

Cory glanced around for his beer. “They’re all hot to trot, man. Seems like over the last few days more people are fucking each other. Wayne Taylor banged Stephanie Ennis in the warehouse, and Connie Miller gave Joey Potter a blow job out behind the Dumpsters—and Connie strictly likes other chicks.”

“It’s affecting the whole town,” Merle said. “Just like my damn wife.”

His face clouded, and I suddenly pitied him. For Merle this whole situation was just another reminder of his Peggy’s infidelity, and was probably stirring up emotions that he’d tried to lock away.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Dale cautioned. “But it’s a good bet.”

“So how does the stone marker fit into this?” I asked.

Dale ruffled through his papers and slid several sheets across the table.

“Earlier I said it looked familiar? Well, I saw it on the History Channel. Wasn’t until I’d started my research that I remembered.”

“What are these?” I asked, picking up the sheets of paper.

“Photos,” he said, “taken inside amuseumin Caerleon.”

“Where?”

“It’s a town in Wales, county of Monmouthshire.”

“Never heard of it,” Cory said. “Is that near Iceland?”

“No, dip shit,” Cliff corrected him. “Wales is part of England. See what happens when you flunk out of college?”

“Fuck you, Cliff.”

“Will you two idiots shut up?” Merle growled. “Wales is a separate country.”

Cory pouted. “Where’s my beer?”

I tuned them out and studied the photographs. They’d been printed out from a Web site, and the black-and-white images were grainy and dark. The pictures were mostly Roman artifacts, according to the text beneath each one—coins, jewelry, sculptures, weapons, coffins, and even a chunk of ancient pavement. I flipped through them, and one sheet near the bottom of the stack caught my eye. It showed a small, square pillar, carved out of white stone.

Dale whispered, “That was discovered in Wales by an archeologist named Machen. He found it in some woods alongside an old Roman road. According to the Web site, some of the letters had been defaced, but Machen was able to restore them when the stone was moved to the museum. Next page has a close-up.”

Cliff, Cory, and Merle leaned closer, reading over my shoulder. I passed the papers I’d already looked at over to them, and then studied the next one. Sure enough, it was a close-up shot of the block-lettered inscription carved into the Roman pillar.

DEVOMNODENTI

FLAVIVSSENILISPOSSVIT

PROPTERNVPTIAS

QUASVIDITSVBVMRA

I handed the photograph to Merle. “It looks kinda like the one we found, but some of the letters are different. What does it mean?”

Consulting his notes, Dale translated. “ ‘To the great god No dens, Flavius Senilis has erected this pillar on account of the marriage which he saw beneath the shade.’ ”

“Who was Nodens?” Merle asked, staring at the paper.

“According to several Web sites,” Dale said, “No dens was the god of something called the Great Labyrinth.”

Cliff sipped his beer. “Is that like hell or something?”

Dale shook his head. “It’s not hell. Or heaven. Some ancient cultures believed that the Great Labyrinth existed alongside those places, along with something called the Void and the Great Deep. No dens lived in the center of the labyrinth.”