Poisoned Soil: A Supernatural Thriller (35 page)

Hidden in the bushes thirty yards behind Angelica stood Ozzie, who had found his way down to the secret garden for reasons that were beyond him. He stood and watched the man and woman speak in twisted tongues, but the man had gone now and Ozzie began to wander. At the other end of the path Blake got into the F100 to ascend the mountain one last time.

Boom! Pow! Belch!

Ozzie stopped suddenly as he heard the monster cry, every hair on his back standing erect. Without hesitation, he spun around and sprinted in that direction. Blake gave the truck gas and ground the gears as he put it into reverse and took off down the driveway. Ozzie bolted out of the bushes and ran straight past Angelica, chasing his monster down the winding path.

Chapter 29

Ozzie burst onto the front lawn just as Blake turned left from the driveway onto Hale Ridge and began driving up the narrow road. As he heard the sound of the truck climb the road and turn left, Ozzie took a shortcut through the woods to intercept the monster.

Blake disappeared around a curve a half-mile above his driveway just as the sheriff appeared around a curve a quarter mile below his driveway. Lonnie turned into Blake’s drive and parked next to Blake’s 2010 F-150. Lonnie got out and knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again. When there was no answer he walked around the house, but found no one. He looked at his watch: 11:10 a.m. Lonnie walked to the front door and took out his pen. He wrote the following note and left it pinned in the kitchen door.

“Angelica, please call my office ASAP. Sheriff Lonnie Jacobs.”

He started walking back to his car. A mile up Hale Ridge, Blake turned left on an abandoned logging road. As he did, the old F100 backfired loudly. Ozzie heard the sound from only a quarter mile away and increased his pace, running through thickets with ease.

In Blake’s driveway, Lonnie stopped at his car door as he heard the faint backfire from up the mountain. Normally it would probably not have registered with him, but it sounded like an old farm truck. He thought about the old farm truck he had seen in the Facebook picture less than an hour before. Lonnie got in his car, and instead of turning right on Hale Ridge to return to Clayton, he turned left to climb toward Rabun Bald.

Blake’s F100 moaned and groaned up the bumpy logging road. The left turn that Blake had made decreased the distance between the truck and Ozzie, allowing Ozzie to close rapidly. Blake made a quick right off the logging road onto a makeshift road that was barely visible to him and probably not noticeable to others. He ground the gears and began the final half-mile climb that would take him to a series of paddocks and curing sheds. As he drove along the bumpy road, if he could call it that, he took a moment to contrast it with the beautiful tranquility of the garden path to Eden that Angelica had created at the same time Blake had made this sloppy, sorry path to hell.

Lonnie drove slowly north along Hale Ridge, not sure what he was trolling for. He rode with the window down, but heard only the sound of gravel under his tires. In the woods the F100 spurted and stopped a quarter mile short of its destination. Blake turned the key. The motor whined, but didn’t turn over. He tried again, but he knew the truck was finished. Sort of a fitting end, he figured, for the truck to breath its final breath on the mountainside where all of his own troubles began.

He grabbed his long hunting knife, got out, and began walking the final quarter mile.

Lonnie came around a curve and stopped where an old logging road veered off to the left. He shut off his SUV and listened. He got out and stood, listening closely for any sound. The forest was quiet, not even the rustling of a squirrel or the song of a bird to accompany him. He looked back at his watch and saw that it was 11:22. “Shoot, I’ll barely make it to the high school,” he said to himself. He got in his SUV, used the logging road to turn around and headed back down the mountain, making a mental note to return.

Ozzie bolted across the logging road and onto the other side. He could no longer hear the monster, but he could smell its breath. And he could smell man. But there was something else he could smell. Something faint, but very familiar. He could smell his mother.

***

The woods surrounding Isabella were silent. As Blake approached, she lay there in the mud, not rising for food, water, or shelter. For two days she had stared into the woods but hadn’t seen the woods. She reflected on her life. Eduardo, so strong and vibrant, was with her, as was Felipe and Ozzie, both babies and both from her first and only litter. Felipe was the oldest, born a full four minutes before the younger Ozzie, and Felipe never let him forget it. Now they were all gone and Isabella was left alone, imprisoned. She knew her fate and just wanted it to all be over at that point.

Blake cut the power to the fence for the final time and walked to Isabella’s paddock. She was a big sow.
Would have made some great hams,
Blake thought, as he took in her prodigious size. He would have preferred to shoot her, but couldn’t risk a loud noise given all the attention surrounding him. She had to be dispatched quietly and then left to die and rot, morphing back into the soil and taking with her the final breaths of Blake’s sins.

With his electric prod in hand, Blake walked behind Isabella, who lay still. He stuck her in the rump, the shock proving too much for Isabella to resist and forcing her to her feet. Still, she gave no resistance. With no difficulty he walked her into the entrance cage and used a half sheet of plywood to push her against the side. She slumped quietly and looked out through the open gate, already seeming as lifeless as a living creature could be. She had no desire to run, flee or live.

Ozzie approached the widening entrance of the cul-de-sac just as Blake slammed the board against his mother. He stopped just long enough to see Blake extract a long, steely knife from his side. The blade reflected the midday sun brightly into Ozzie’s eyes, kindling a series of horrific memories. Memories that had always haunted and paralyzed Ozzie, but now, they fueled his rage. He pawed the ground and grunted a deep, menacing sound. Isabella tensed her body. Her eyes rose as she saw Ozzie, the mirage, charging from thirty yards away.

Blake felt Isabella’s tension and turned to the sound crashing through the brush. His eyes and mouth opened wide, and so terrified was he by Ozzie’s size and speed that the knife slipped from his quivering hands. Isabella, with all the strength a mother can muster, leaned against the plywood and pushed Blake back against the other side of the cage, momentarily pinning him with plywood. Trapped against the inside of the cage, Blake froze at the sight of the gleaming tusks on the wild boar that now blocked his exit. Every hair on Ozzie’s body bristled and stood erect like an enormous cornered porcupine. But he was no porcupine. He was 350 pounds of solid muscle and tusk, deadlier and more menacing than any defensive end that had ever pummeled Blake into the turf.

Isabella moved to block the entrance to her paddock as Ozzie blocked the only other way out. With renewed life she stood there, her immense four hundred pound frame looming and holding Blake in place. She looked past Blake to her baby, her son who she feared was dead along with so many others. “Ozzie!” Isabella said, wanting to embrace him, to feel his warmth against her shoulder. Ozzie, too, had wanted the same thing for so long. But now, in this moment, he was not his mama’s boy, and he didn’t acknowledge Isabella. Instead, he guarded the cage opening, his shoulders taking up the width of it as he pierced Blake with his eyes. The man who had denied them their freedom, their lives together, now stood trapped before him.

“This is the monster,” Ozzie told himself. “The monster of all monsters.” Ozzie opened his mouth and flashed his gleaming tusks. Blake’s eyes widened at the sight of the rippers. Tusks nearing six inches in length that looked sharper than any weapon Blake had ever seen. Ozzie moved his lower jaw left and right, back and forth. As he did, he tilted his head left then right as if he was in a trance, all the while never taking his eyes from Blake’s. Back and forth Ozzie swayed his head, a pendulum of death that hypnotized Blake. He lifted his feet, his hooves, and pawed at the ground. Blake felt that he was being taunted. That if he made a move, ANY move, Ozzie would shred him. That if he stood there, Ozzie would attack him just the same.

With nothing else to protect himself, Blake held the flimsy half sheet of plywood in front of him. A mature, wild hog stood on each side of him. He knew the board was no match for one, let alone two. There was nowhere up or around to go. Looking down at the knife on the ground, Blake wished he had it, but had no idea what he would do with it now if he did. Ozzie saw Blake’s gaze and took one step forward to loom over the knife, mocking Blake in a language that he couldn’t understand, as if to say, “Is this what you want? Why don’t you reach for it?”

Ozzie taunted him, dared him, begged Blake to make a move. He wanted Blake to charge just as the coyotes had charged. Blake pressed his back against the long side of the cage and felt his heart pound so hard that he glanced down to see if it had beaten through his chest.

A raspy, menacing breath came from Ozzie’s mouth as he flared his nostrils at Blake.

“Ozzie,” Isabella called, gently.

He kept his gaze on Blake, ignoring his mother’s call. He was intent on tearing into Blake so badly, ripping him to shreds for what he had done to everyone. Feelings he had never had before brewed inside him like a hurricane of rage and hatred.

“Ozzie! Don’t do it!” Isabella was louder now, pleading with him.

Ozzie stepped closer to Blake, close enough to touch the board with his snout. One half inch of plywood was all that separated Ozzie from Blake’s legs, the half sheet only rising to just over Blake’s knees. Ozzie stuck his snout a foot away from Blake’s groin and sniffed.

Blake panicked. He raised the sheet and kicked the plywood hard into Ozzie’s snout. Infuriated, Ozzie rammed right into the board, just as he had rammed into the stump, and penetrated the plywood as easily as a needle going into a balloon. Blake held on for dear life, taking splinters in his palms as he gripped with all his might. He looked down to see that one of Ozzie’s rippers had come clean through the board and tore his pant leg above his knee. Blake felt a sudden burning sensation and saw blood seep through his jeans.

“Shit!” Blake said. He panicked even more, and lifted the toe of his steel-toe boot to support the board so he could push the board down to the ground. Ozzie freed his tusk and retreated slightly to reassess his attack.

A blurry black mass suddenly swooshed in front of Blake’s face from above as a raven descended and besieged him, shrieking and tormenting him in his cage of hell. Blake tucked into a fetal position behind the board and found his face only inches from Ozzie’s. His eyes widened at the sight of Ozzie’s right ripper, the tip smeared red with Blake’s blood. Ozzie tasted the blood, smacked, and began swaying at Blake once more as his breath smothered Blake’s face. Blake lunged back against the cage.

The taste of blood crazed Ozzie. He pawed the ground and kicked up dirt.

“OZZIE!” Isabella pleaded once more. “We’re NOT like them, Ozzie. We don’t torture others. We just want to be left alone.”

Isabella’s pleas penetrated Ozzie’s concentration. Ozzie broke his gaze from Blake and dropped his eyes to the ground. He snorted and turned his head slightly, enough to see both his mother and to see Blake.

“Let’s just go,” she repeated.

“Where’s Felipe?” Ozzie asked sternly, keeping his gaze centered on Blake, who stood nearly breathless between two wild, black hogs that were grunting to one another, as if they were talking. As
if
they could communicate, share ideas, and plan an attack.

Isabella hung her head and began to cry. “He’s dead, Ozzie! Everyone’s dead! We’re all that’s left. But you can’t—”

Ozzie fumed and started panting quickly. He turned back to Blake, to let him see the hatred in his swirling eyes. “But nothing, mom! This is the monster that killed my father, that killed Felipe.” Ozzie pawed the ground and prepared to blitz.

“OZZIE, it won’t bring back your father!” Isabella shouted. “It won’t bring back Felipe. It won’t bring anyone back! It will only make you like them.”

Ozzie panted, pawed and swayed.

“Ozzie, I won’t have it! I want no part of any more killing, any more oppression. Any more hatred! I’m leaving this place with or without you.”

Ozzie fumed and lurched forward. Blake flinched and pulled back. Ozzie hit the board, but stopped, not ramming it with much effort as his mother’s words had momentarily thwarted his attack. He was only toying with Blake, taking delight in scaring him.

Blake still had his head turned with his eyes flinched as Isabella pushed past him and shoved Ozzie back. She walked through the gate and tasted freedom for the first time since she was kidnapped from Ossabaw Island, almost two years before.

Ozzie lunged forward again and pinned Blake between the board and the cage. He turned to see his mother walking away, alone. Ozzie stood eye level to Blake’s meaty thighs, easily within reach over the torn sheet of plywood. He looked up at the man who stood before him, seeing not a terrifying monster, but a terrified, quivering man. He looked back at his mother and slowly took a step backwards. Then another. He turned, walked through the gate, and stood on the other side, turning to shoot Blake a final look, a final warning.