Point Pleasant (25 page)

She put her hands on the table and took a breath. Her heavy accent weighed down the g’s on the ends of her words as she spoke faster and more animatedly.

“I started walking back to town. It was a nice night, but it just felt
odd
. I’m walking down River Bend Road, and I just feel this
presence
. I knew I wasn’t alone. Not like, ‘Oh, I feel someone watching me.’ It was like there was someone right there walking beside me. And it wasn’t friendly. It was
dark
.”

“You felt like it was gonna hurt you?”

“Or worse. I got real jittery and started running. I ran toward Bill Tucker’s farm. I’d just come from there to check on one of his calves. I thought I had a better shot of reaching Bill’s first since it was closer than town. Then I heard this noise. It was the damnedest thing. It was like a swirling of the wind carrying radio static even though there was no radio around. I realized it was coming from one of the power lines over my head. There was this crackle of electricity like a bolt of lightning was about to strike down. But there was a voice in all that noise.”

“Did it say your name?” Ben asked.

“It did,” Lewis said, startled. “It was my mama. She said, ‘Evie, Evie turn around.’ Only my mama had been dead for five years.”

Ben thought of Andrew’s voice on the Camaro’s radio and felt cold as Lewis continued.

“I ran faster than I ever had in my life. And then I heard this other noise. It sounded like something flapping over my head. I tried to run faster, but I fell over. It was so dark, and I was scrambling to get up, but I felt this force on top of me. Like someone had sat down on my chest, but there wasn’t no one there. Then it’s all a blur because I saw this big, dark shape descend from the trees overhanging the road. Next thing I knew, I was screaming and could feel the blood pouring out of my eye sockets.”

Lewis took another deep breath and sipped her coffee before she went on. “It all happened so fast, I still don’t quite know how to describe it. But the sounds. I heard all the sounds. There was the static but louder. Then a high-pitched squeal like nothing I ever heard before or want to hear again. There was all this flapping and chaos, but I pulled myself onto my knees and started crawling until I could get up. I don’t even know how, but I started running. Fell over a bunch of times, got up, ran again. The noises stopped after I got down the road a piece, and I just started screaming and kept running and falling and getting up. At some point, I guess I got close enough to Bill’s farm, and he must have heard me because next thing I knew, he had grabbed me and was helping me into his truck.”

“Wow,” Ben said. It was a dumb response, but he could find no other word in that moment.

“What scared me most while I was running and falling all over the place was something I remembered. Something from my family history.”

“Wait here,” she said, standing from the table. “I’ll be back.”

Ben finished his coffee while he waited for her to return from the living room. His right knee shook with nervous energy, and he glared down at it as if to will it to stop.

Lewis returned a few minutes later with a little leather diary just like the one he found in the archive the day before.

“It’s a diary,” she said. “Of Emily Lewis’ last two weeks on this earth.”

“When was it written?”

“1775, the January after the battle. I believe she was about eighteen.”

Lewis took her seat and slid the book across the table to Ben. “You take it, I can’t read it.”

Ben obeyed and opened to the first page. The first line made his stomach clench. “
The thing in the woods is watching,
”
he read aloud,
“
I can feel him, even now
.”

“Go on,” Lewis urged, perching on the edge of her chair.

“
I do not know what HE wants, but I am increasingly concerned for my very soul. HE hovers and looms dark and large against the landscape. HE is always near, HE is never far. Mother has grown tired of my refusal to leave the cabin for my chores. She tried to drag me outside yesterday, but I kicked and screamed until she dropped her hands and cursed me as an ingrate. Phillip has not seen HIM, but I think my brother senses HIM. There is a strange noise in the air when HE is present.
”

Ben flipped to the next page. “
Red-Face sneaked to the cabin yesterday while Mother was down by the river. He knocked on the window and told me he had poured a ring of salt around the property. Salt, he said, ‘keeps the evil out.’ I hope he is right. When I looked past Red-Face, out into the forest, HE was there. Red-Face turned, and I saw the terror in his eyes before he ran away. Red-Face did not come by this morning as he usually does with a delivery of firewood. Mother is convinced he has abandoned us.
”

The next entry, dated three days later, was an illegible mess.

“
Red-Face is dead. Some of the soldiers found him by the river. His eyes were missing. The rain will come tonight. The salt will wash away. I do not know what will become of me.
”

Ben cast another furtive glance over to Lewis. Her lips were pursed into a tight line.

The final entry was dated the next day, the tenth. “
I have not seen the thing since yesterday. The rain was heavy, and I am certain that the ring of salt is no longer in place. I have procured the bag of salt from Mother’s food storage. She has gone to gather berries with Phillip. She told me to sit in the corner and say my prayers until she returns. I have asked God for strength. I will go out now and replace the ring of salt around our home. I will continue this entry when the deed is done.
”

Ben thumbed through the rest of the diary, but there were only blank sheets of parchment.

“That’s it?”

“They found Emily by the river,” Lewis said. “Her heart was gone. Ripped clean out of her chest.”

The twitch in Ben’s knee refused to allow him to sit still any longer, and he stood suddenly.

“Jesus,” he whispered.

“There was no Jesus there that day, not for Emily,” Lewis said as she reclined in her chair. The overhead light reflected on the shades of her sunglasses.

Ben read the final page again, and his eyes lingered over one word in particular. “Salt,” he said. “Why would salt work?”

“I looked it up once. Salt is known for its purification properties. It’s long been held as a kind of deterrent for dark forces. It’s why you toss a pinch of it over your shoulder if you ever spill it. Keeps the evil spirits off your back. They can’t cross over a line of it, supposedly. Too painful, I guess.”

“You believe that?”

Lewis’ smile was rueful. “I had a new foundation poured a few years ago,” she said. “I had the workers mix in salt. My entire house is sitting on a bed of concrete and rock salt.”

“That’s really smart.”

“It’s superstitious. But there’s nothing like having the boogeyman steal your eyeballs to make you want to invest in a lifetime supply of holy water.”

“People are seeing it again, you know,” Ben said, resuming his seat.

“How many?”

“Enough. Every time someone sees it, something bad happens. The Battle of Point Pleasant, the collapse of the old Silver Bridge, car accidents, unexplained deaths. It’s a bad omen.”

“So does that mean something bad’s about to happen?” Lewis asked.

“I hope not. But I’d avoid the Harvest Festival next week.”

Lewis’ brow furrowed with concern. “You think something’ll happen there?”

“I do,” he said. “You should stay home. With your salt.”

“Good Lord.”

“Listen, I’d like to show this to someone. The diary, I mean. Can I take it with me if I keep it safe? I’ll return it, I swear.”

Lewis considered the request and then nodded her consent. “Just take care of it.”

“I should be going,” Ben said. “I have some more research to look into.”

Lewis stood with him and led the way to the front door. “You be careful, Wisehart. Get yourself some salt. Some silver. Some holy water. Anything they say works against this kind of thing. You might need it if you’ve seen it once.”

“I will,” Ben replied. “Thank you for talking to me about this so candidly. And for the coffee. It’s the nicest I’ve had since I left Boston.”

He jogged out to the Camaro and slid inside. He checked his watch and saw that he had spent nearly an hour with Lewis. Rain blotted the front windshield, and the wipers squeaked against the glass as Ben drove out to Echols Avenue.

When he parked outside Charlie Warren’s single story brick house, rain poured from the sky in heavy sheets. Ben turned his coat collar up high, grabbed his bag, and made a run for Warren’s front porch. He leapt up the stairs and shook out his hair before he knocked on the door.

“Ben Wisehart!” Warren exclaimed, throwing open his front door. “I just saw you in the paper!”

Warren looked much older than Ben had remembered him, but he still wore the same horn-rimmed glasses that Ben could recall him sporting throughout his stint as the history teacher at Point Pleasant High.

“Hello, sir,” Ben said and stuck out his right hand.

Warren shook it and peered at the rain. “You must be soaked. Come on in. I’ll take your coat.”

Ben wiped his shoes on the mat on the porch before he entered. “Thanks,” he said as he slid out of his coat. “It’s really coming down.”

Warren nodded as he closed the door. “You want a coffee or something to warm you up?”

“No, I just had one, thanks. You go ahead though.”

“Nah,” Warren said and waved away the idea. “What brings you around these parts?”

“Well,” Ben started, “I remembered you’re a bit of an authority on Point Pleasant’s history, and I thought you might be able to answer some questions I have about the Shawnee and Mingo tribes.”

Warren’s pale, wrinkled face lit up with interest. “Of course, come on, have a seat,” he said and led them to a sitting room that had not been redecorated since some time in the seventies given the sparring floral patterns that covered the floors, walls, and curtains. The house was redolent of aged paperbacks, and Ben appreciated the familiarity of the scent.

“What did you want to know? Is this for a book?” Warren asked.

Ben sat down on one of the sofas. “Kinda. I’m investigating some potential ideas.”

Warren grinned. “I went on the Amazon, earlier,” he said. “Ordered all your books. I’m looking forward to reading them.”

Ben smiled at the man’s use of a determiner before ‘Amazon.’ “That’s kind of you, sir.”

“Nah, it’s nice to hear one of my students did something worthwhile,” Warren replied and brushed a wisp of white hair from his forehead.

A slight swell of warmth filled Ben’s chest at the man’s words.

“So what did you want to know?” Warren asked.

Ben took out his notebook. “I’m interested in some of the lore they attached to the land,” he said. “The forest around the TNT factory, especially.”

Warren raised an eyebrow. “Ah, you want a ghost story.”

Ben laughed and kept his demeanor pleasant and conversational. “I guess I do.”

“Well, it’s a doozy. The Shawnee, in particular, were wary of the whole area. Refused to settle here. The Mingo lived on the outer edge of the forest, down by the river. But they kept clear of the forests too.”

“Why, exactly?”

“They believed a spirit lived there. The Shawnee had a whole story about it. Said a great firebird fell out of the sky, its wings burning as it crashed to the ground. They said it left a great crater where it landed. And when it got up again, its fire went out and its wings decayed, but its eyes still glowed like they had when it was aflame.”

“So they thought it was some kind of god?”

“They did.”

“So what made them come to think of the area as ‘rotten?’”

Warren hummed with excitement. “You found Emily Lewis’ diary?”

“Yeah, it was an interesting read,” Ben said, thinking that was an understatement if he ever uttered one. Warren nodded in agreement.

“Well, the Mingo tribe’s account of the story is a little different. They said it rose up from the ground, not that it crashed from the heavens. But both versions of the story, you see, they’re each connected to the earth in a visceral way. Their idea was that it seemed to have to climb
out
of the ground where it either came from beneath or had to dig itself out of the impact crater after it fell.”

“But if they thought it was a god, why would they think the ground had become tainted?”

“Gods are cruel in myth, aren’t they?” Warren waxed rhetorically. “Members of the Mingo tribe started to disappear. The shaman, well, he decided that if it was a god, it was one to fear and respect. So they started leaving it animal offerings in the hope that the gesture would sate its appetite.”

“But it didn’t?”

“No, it seemed to make it hungrier. More members of the tribe disappeared. Their bodies were never found. So the Mingo evacuated the area, certain that they had done something to anger the ‘spirit.’”

“And the Shawnee, they never lost members of their tribe to it?”

“Not as many. They kept away mostly, which seemed to save them. Perhaps their shaman was a bit more wary of it from the start. The area, apparently,
changed
.”

“Changed?”

“The legend behind it says the forest became darker and colder. The trees seemed to grow closer together than ever before. Every season, the forest was said to swallow up all the life in and around it like it was some kind of a, I dunno—” Warren paused as if to mull over a decent comparison, “—a Venus Fly Trap closing down on a big, juicy fly. The spirit, or god, or whatever you wanna call it for the sake of storytelling, it sucked the life out of the area. It was a plague.”

“So they just stayed as far away as possible?”

“Mostly,” Warren said. “I suppose they could before the invasion of the Europeans. After, they had less and less land to escape to if the need arose. They lingered around the river for obvious reasons. It helped them defend themselves, but it also gave them a constant food and water source. Of course, it meant being close to the forest where the ‘spirit’ lived. They believed it was bound to the area because its wings had gone out, lost their fire.”