Our flashlights came out to spear through the gathering gloom. Something fluttered in front of my face and spun away: a bat on the prowl. Another something scuttled away through the underbrush at our approach, and Ben kept asking, “What was that? What was that?” but neither of us could answer. At last Davy Ray stopped walking, and he shone his flashlight around and announced, “We’ll set up camp here.” It was none too soon for Ben and me, because our legs were whipped. We shrugged the knapsacks off our aching shoulders and peed in the pine straw and then we set about finding wood for a fire. In this case we were lucky, because there were plenty of pine branches and pine cones lying about and those burned on half a match. So before long we had a sensible fire going, the firepit rimmed with stones as my dad had told me to do, and by its ruddy light we three frontiersmen ate the sandwiches our mothers had made.
The flames crackled. Ben discovered a pack of marshmallows his mom had put in his knapsack. We found sticks and began the joyful task of toasting. All around our circle was nothing but dark beyond the firelight’s edge, and lightning bugs blinked in the trees. A breath of wind stirred the treetops, and way up there we could see the blaze of the Milky Way across the sky.
In this forest sanctuary our voices were quiet, respectful for where we were. We talked about our dismal Little League season, vowing that somehow we’d get Nemo Curliss on our team next year. We talked about the Branlins, and how somebody ought to clean their clocks for screwing up Johnny’s summer. We talked about how far we must be from home; five or six miles, Davy Ray believed, while Ben said it must be more like ten or twelve. We wondered aloud what our folks were doing at that very same instant, and we all agreed they were probably worried sick about us but this experience would be good for them. We were growing up now, and it was high time they understood our childhood days were numbered.
In the distance an owl began to hoot. Davy Ray talked with great anticipation about Snowdown, who must even now be somewhere in the same woods sharing these sights and sounds, perhaps hearing the same owl. Ben talked about school getting ready to start soon, but we shushed him. We lay on our backs as the firelight dimmed, and stared up at the sky as we talked about Zephyr and the people who lived there. It was a magic town, we all agreed. And we were touched with magic, too, for having been born there.
Sometime after the flames had died and the embers glowed red, after the owl had gone to sleep and the soft warm breeze brought the fragrance of wild cherries into our campsite, we watched shooting stars streak incandescent blue and gold across the heavens. When the show had ended and we were all lying there thinking, Davy Ray said, “Hey, Cory. How about tellin’ us a story?”
“Nah,” I said. “I can’t think of anythin’.”
“Just make one up,” Davy Ray urged. “Come on. Okay?”
“Yeah, but don’t make it
too
scary,” Ben said. “I don’t wanna have bad dreams.”
I thought for a while, and then I began. “Did you guys know they had a prison camp for Nazis around here? Dad told me all about it. Yeah, he said they had all these Nazis in this camp in the woods, and all of ’em were the worst killers you can think of. It was right near the Air Force base, only this is before it was an Air Force base.”
“Is this for
real?
” Ben asked warily.
“Naw, dummy!” Davy Ray said. “He’s makin’ it up!”
“Maybe I am,” I told him, “and maybe I’m not.”
Davy Ray was silent.
“Anyway,” I went on, “there was a fire in this prison camp, and some of the Nazis got out. And some of ’em were all burned up, like their faces were all messed up and stuff, but they got out, right in these woods, and—”
“You saw this on ‘Thriller,’ didn’t you?” Davy Ray asked.
“No,” I said. “It’s what my dad told me. This happened a long time ago, before any of us were even bora. So these Nazis got out into the woods right near here, and their leader—his name was Bruno—was a big guy with a scarred-up, burned face and he found a cave for everybody to live in. But there wasn’t enough food for everybody, and so when some of them died the others cut up the bodies with knives and—”
“Oh,
gross!
” Ben said.
“And ate ’em, and Bruno always got the brains. He cracked open their skulls like walnuts, scooped out the brains with both hands, and threw ’em down his gullet.”
“I’m gonna puke!” Davy Ray cried out, and made retching noises. Then he laughed and Ben laughed, too.
“After a long time—like two years—Bruno was the only one left, and he was bigger’n ever,” I continued. “But his face never healed up from the fire. He had one eye on his forehead and the other eye hung down on his chin.” This brought more gusts of laughter. “So after all that time in the cave, and eatin’ the other Nazis up, Bruno was crazy. He was hungry, but he only wanted one thing to eat: brains.”
“
Yech!
” Ben said.
“Brains was all he wanted,” I told my audience of two. “He was seven feet tall and he weighed three hundred pounds, and he had a long knife that could slice the top of your head right off. Well, the police and the army were lookin’ for him all this time but they never could find him. They found a forest ranger with the top of his head cut off and his brains gone. They found an old moonshiner dead and his brains gone, too, and they figured Bruno was gettin’ closer and closer to Zephyr.”
“Then they called in James Bond and Batman!” Davy Ray said.
“No!” I shook my head gravely. “There wasn’t anybody to call in. There was just the policemen and the army soldiers, and every night Bruno walked through the forest carryin’ his knife and a lantern, and his face was so ugly it could freeze people solid like Medusa and then
slash!
he cut somebody’s head open and
splatter!
there were the brains down his throat.”
“Oh, sure!” Ben grinned. “I’ll bet ol’ Bruno’s still in these woods right now, eatin’ people’s brains for supper, huh?”
“Nope,” I said, formulating the conclusion of my tale. “The police and the soldiers found him, and they shot him so many times he looked like Swiss cheese. But every so often, if you happen to be out in the woods on a real dark night, you can see Bruno’s lantern movin’ through the trees.” I spoke this in an icy whisper, and neither Davy Ray nor Ben did any more laughing. “Yeah, you can see his lantern movin’ as he wanders in search of somebody’s brains to eat. He casts that light all around, and if you get close to it, you can see the shine of his knife, but don’t look at his face!” I held up a warning finger. “No, don’t you look at his face, ’cause it’ll drive you crazy and it might just make you want to eat some
brains!
” I yelled the last word and jumped as I yelled it, and Ben hollered with fright but Davy Ray just laughed again.
“Hey, that’s not funny!” Ben protested.
“You don’t have to worry about ol’ Bruno,” Davy Ray told him. “You don’t have any brains, so that lets you off the—”
Davy Ray stopped speaking, and he just sat there staring into the dark.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“Ahhhh, he’s tryin’ to scare us!” Ben scoffed. “Well, it ain’t workin’!”
Davy Ray’s face had gone white. I swear I saw his scalp ripple, and the hair stand up. He said, “Guh… guh… guh…” and he lifted his arm and pointed.
I turned around to look in the direction he indicated. I heard Ben make a choked gasp. My own hair jittered on my head, and my heart kaboomed.
A light was coming toward us, through the trees.
“Guh… guh… God a’mighty!” Davy Ray croaked.
We all three were struck with the kind of horror that makes you want to dig a hole, jump in, and pull the hole in after you. The light was moving slowly, but coming closer. And as it came closer it broke into two, and all of us got down on our quaking bellies in the pine straw. In another moment I could tell what it was: a car’s headlights. The car looked like it was going to roll right over our hiding-place, and then it veered away and we watched its red taillights flare as the driver applied the brakes. The car kept going, following a winding trail that was only fifty yards or so from our campsite, and in a couple of minutes it had disappeared amid the trees.
“Did you guys see that?” Davy Ray whispered.
“’Course we saw it!” Ben whispered back. “We’re right here, aren’t we?”
“Wonder who was in that car, and why they’re way out here?” Davy Ray looked at me. “You want to find out, Cory?”
“Probably moonshiners,” I answered. My voice trembled. “I think we’d better leave ’em alone.”
Davy Ray picked up his flashlight. His face was still pallid, but his eyes shone with excitement. “I’m gonna find out what’s goin’ on! You guys can stay here if you want to!” He stood up, flicked on the flashlight, and began to stealthily follow the car. He stopped when he realized we weren’t with him. “It’s okay,” he said. “I won’t think you guys are scared or anythin’.”
“Good,” Ben answered, “’cause I’m stickin’ right here.”
I stood up. If Davy Ray had enough courage to go, then so did I. Besides, I wanted to know who was driving a car way out here in the woods myself. “Come on!” he said. “But watch where you step!”
“I’m not stayin’ here alone!” Ben hoisted himself to his feet. “You two are damn
crazy
, you know that?”
“Yeah.” Davy Ray sounded proud about it. “Everybody stay low and no talkin’!”
We crept from tree to tree, following the trail that we hadn’t even seen when we’d set up camp at nightfall. Davy Ray kept the flashlight’s beam aimed at the ground, so it couldn’t be spotted by anyone up ahead. The trail wound back and forth between the trees. The owl was hooting again, and lightning bugs blinked around us. We’d gone a couple of hundred yards more along the trail when Davy Ray suddenly stopped and whispered, “There it is!”
We could see the car ahead of us. It was sitting still, but its lights were on and the engine was rumbling. We crouched down in the pine straw, and I don’t know about the others, but my heart was going a mile a minute. The car didn’t move. Whoever was sitting behind the wheel didn’t get out. “I’ve gotta pee!” Ben whispered urgently. Davy Ray told him to squeeze it.
After five or six minutes, we saw more lights coming through the woods from the opposite direction. It was another car, this one a black Cadillac, and it stopped, facing the first car. Davy Ray looked at me, his expression saying we’d really stumbled into something this time. I didn’t particularly care what was going on; I just wanted to get away from what I figured was a meeting of moonshiners. Then the doors of the first car opened, and two people got out.
“Oh, man!” Davy Ray breathed.
Standing in the crossing of headlights were two men wearing ordinary clothes except until you got to their heads, which were covered by white masks. One of the men was medium-sized, the other was big and fat, with a belly that flopped over the waist of his jeans. The medium-sized man was smoking either a cigarette or cigar, it was hard to tell which, and he angled his masked head and blew smoke from the corner of his mouth. Then the Cadillac’s doors opened, and I almost swallowed my heart when Bodean Blaylock slid out from behind the wheel. It was him, all right; I remembered his face from when he’d looked across the poker table at me, same to say he had my granddaddy and wasn’t about to let him go. A slim man with slicked-back dark hair and a jutting slab of a chin got out of the passenger side; he was wearing tight black pants and a red shirt with cowboy spangles on the shoulders, and at first I thought it was Donny Blaylock but Donny didn’t have a chin like that. This man opened the Cadillac’s right rear door, and the whole car trembled as whoever was still inside started to climb out.
It was a mountain on two legs.
His gut was tremendous, straining the front of the red-checked shirt and overalls he wore. When he rose up to his full height, he was maybe six and a half feet tall. He was baldheaded except for a wisp of gray hair circling his acorn-shaped skull, and he had a trimmed gray beard that angled to a point below his chin. He breathed like a bellows, his face a ruddy mass of wrinkled flesh. “You boys goin’ to a masquerade party?” he growled in a voice like a cement mixer, and he laughed
hut-hut-hut
like a big old engine starting to fire its plugs. Bodean laughed, and the other man laughed, too. The men wearing the masks shifted uneasily. “You fellas look like sacks of shit,” the mountainous bulk said as he shambled forward. I swear his hands were the size of country hams, and his feet in their scuffed-up boots looked like they could stomp down small trees.
The masked man with the bulbous belly said, “We’re incog… incog… We don’t wanna be recognized.”
“Shit, Dick!” the bearded monster said, and he guffawed again. “Have to be a blind fuckin’ fool not to recognize your fat gut and ass!” Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, I thought.
“Awwww, you’re not supposed to recognize us, Mr. Blaylock!” the man who’d been called Dick answered with a whine of petulance, and I realized with a double start that this man was Mr. Dick Moultry and the other was Biggun Blaylock, the fearsome head of the Blaylock clan himself.