Strange Perceptions (19 page)

The Sinister Smile

Conrad Phillips pulled his ‘74 Ford Pickup to the side of the road and checked his notes.
This is it. Where Barker Road splits into Cherry Lane and Madison Road.

An old cypress tree stood near the road. Its roots branched into thick, brown octopus legs. He grabbed the shovel and a paper sack from the back of his pickup and walked to the tree.

His back to the tree, Conrad consulted his notes once more before marching ten paces. This placed him in the middle of the fork in the road. He started digging.

The ground was softer than he’d expected.
It should be like concrete with all the cars driving over it.
Conrad looked around and chuckled.
What cars? Mine’s probably the first in days.

When the hole was a foot deep he knelt in front of it and placed his notes on one side and the sack on the other.

Here goes nothing.

He took an apple from the sack and dropped it into the hole. “This represents health, for strength and vigor all my days.”

He placed a dollar bill in the hole next to the apple. “Money represents the success that will be mine.”

A small Tupperware container of sand was next. He poured the contents into the hole. “May my friends be as numerous as sand on the beach.”

Conrad spread several spoonfuls of honey over the hole’s contents. “To sweetly bind together all areas of my life.”

He refilled the hole and sat back, waiting.

Nothing.

Now what?

Nothing.

What did I expect? That this Hoo Doo stuff would really work?
He returned the shovel and sack to his truck. Turning back, he noticed the dark man.

The man wore black. His shirt, pants and boots were all the color of night. Atop his head sat a stovepipe hat, like Lincoln’s. He stood at the fork in the road and slowly extended his arm. One long, bone-white finger beckoned Conrad to approach.

Conrad gulped and moved toward the dark man.

The dark man cocked his head sideways. “You enter into this contract of your own free will?”

Conrad’s insides turned sour at the sound of the man’s voice. The voice sounded … rancid. He suppressed the urge to be sick and nodded his head.

The dark man raised his arm once more and slowly extended his finger towards Conrad’s chest. His finger burned through Conrad’s shirt, sending tendrils of smoke into the air. It pressed into the flesh over his heart, hissing, and continued through flesh and bone until it touched his heart.

Conrad fell to his knees. His mouth opened wide, but the scream caught in his throat and wouldn’t come out.

“It is done. I will collect in ten years.” The dark man removed his finger from Conrad’s chest.

The scream finally came. Conrad ripped open his shirt to see where the man had touched him. He was branded with a dark scar. It was a smiley face, but this face didn’t look happy, it looked sinister. As Conrad watched, the smiley face winked at him.

Conrad looked up. The man was gone.

Pact of the Banshee

At night, the Banshee cry
Good men go out to die.
Wee-hoo, wee-hoo,
In dirt we lie.
— Chorus of Children’s Game

Every able bodied man joined the village elders in the tavern to discuss the Banshee. I stayed near the entrance, anxious to listen, but not wanting to attract attention.

Campbell, the most ancient elder and sometimes barber, saw me. He was old and wrinkled and skinny and so tall his neck had a permanent stoop from ducking through doorways. Campbell had been in charge as long as anybody could remember.

He approached me and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Sean Collins, you a wee bit young for the tavern.”

“Aye,” I said, trying not to shudder. “I’ll be fourteen in a fortnight.”

Campbell raised his walking stick, a tall, thin, gnarled piece of ironwood, a reflection of the old man himself. He pointed to the door with it. “Out. This is no time for youth.”

I pulled away from him and leaned against the tavern’s log wall. “So you
are
goan after the Banshee?”

Campbell’s eyebrows slashed a “v” over his wrinkled face. He gestured at the door with his stick again.

“I have a right,” I said. “Family right.”

He craned his long neck downward so his face were but inches from mine. “Do not make me tell you again, Sean Collins.”

I trudged through the tavern door. Not fair. I weren’t there for ale; I only wanted to hear the men’s plans. I had more right to be there than most the village. Last night the Banshee killed my uncle and when I was four, it killed my dad.

Outside, I looked around, trying to figure a way to eavesdrop. The tavern’s side window.

Campbell stood in the tavern’s doorway, neck hunched down, watching me.

I ignored him and headed along the cobblestone path toward my house. I passed the tavern, the sheriff’s office, and the barbershop before looking back. Campbell no longer watched me. I ducked around the barbershop, going behind the buildings and back to the tavern. I crouched low beneath the tavern’s side window. It was open.

Through the window I heard Campbell speaking. “Nay, we can’t send more than two men into the woods at night. Remember ten years ago?”

“If we scare the demon off, so much the better.” I recognized the voice, Shamus Brennan. The Banshee got his son ten years ago, the night before it got my dad.

“We goan to scare her every night?” Campbell asked.

“If we have to.”

“Aye, but the one night we miss, the one night we grow confident, she will compound our sorrows tenfold. Nay, we must attack in small numbers.”

The crowed murmured and grew silent. I waited.

Campbell thwacked my head with his walking stick. The instant before it connected I looked up and it hit my forehead with a loud “dnckk” sound. Even though I crouched on one knee, I fell to the ground.

Campbell laughed, a surprisingly deep laugh came from his thin frame. “Young Collins. You are as much a mule as your father was.”

I scrambled away from the window, away from his stick. My forehead throbbed.

“Run away, Sean Collins,” Campbell said. “I catch you again I won’t be so gentle.”

I hotfooted it away, back down the cobblestone path, past the sheriff’s office, past the barbershop. Then I stopped. I wasn’t going to let crusty, old Campbell stop me. I owed it to my dad and my uncle to find out the plan against the Banshee and help.

I went behind the buildings again and stopped at the tavern. The window was still open but I couldn’t hear from behind the tavern. If I went round the corner, Campbell might see me. I looked around, trying to figure out how to listen in. A tree grew close to the tavern’s back side.

Nobody in the village had my skill at climbing trees. Most our trees were tall lodge poles, trunks not more than two feet across. They went up thirty, forty feet before any branches. The trees were perfect for buildings, but hard to climb unless you had the knack. By looping your belt around the tree and holding onto each end, you could climb by digging your boots into the trunk and pulling yourself up. Some people put spikes on their boots but I didn’t need spikes. My friends and I once had a contest to see who could climb
upside-down
. I won, making it almost thirty feet.

I removed my belt and used it to climb twenty feet up the tree, level with the roof’s peak. I couldn’t quite reach the rooftop, so I leapt, landing as softly as I could on the bark shingles. I flattened myself on the roof and listened if anyone had heard me. Undetected, I crept along the roof to above the window. I lay down, head close to the edge, and listened.

“Who will join Doyle tonight?” Campbell asked.

“I’ll go,” said Shamus Brennan.

“Let’s meet back here at nightfall.”

The meeting was breaking up. I moved away from the window and rolled off the side, grabbing the eave with my fingertips. I dangled for a second before letting go and falling five feet to the ground.

Just before nightfall, I positioned myself inside the woods, far up in a tree, sitting on a branch and waited. Ryan Doyle and Shamus Brennan would enter the woods near here. Once they passed, I’d follow them and be ready to help with the Banshee. I had my iron dagger, the only thing I had from my dad. Legend said iron weapons could kill a Banshee.

From my perch I could see most the area from the tavern to the woods. Shamus and Ryan came out from the tavern. A group of men gathered around them. There was much hugging, back slapping, and gestures of encouragement. The crowd cheered a “hip, hip, hoorah” before they entered the woods.

Ryan Doyle led the way, carrying a torch in one hand and a large knife in the other. Shamus followed with two long, iron-tipped spears.

The crowd watched the men disappear into the woods and I realized my folly. I couldn’t slide down the tree until the crowd dispersed. I cursed myself and waited for the crowd to leave.

After ten minutes I slid down the tree, keeping the trunk between me and the few stragglers outside the tavern. On the ground, I moved through the woods the same direction the men had headed. The moon, filtered by treetop branches, provided barely enough light to travel.

Shamus and Ryan had a good lead. I moved quickly, sacrificing stealth for speed. They could have turned any direction once they were in the woods. How would I know where they went? I panicked and moved faster, becoming noisier. This was a stupid idea. What if I came upon the Banshee alone? Could I survive with just the knife? Uncle Nolan had been armed with more than a simple iron dagger last night and it hadn’t helped him.

I heard a noise, a “crick.” I froze, not daring to move a muscle, and strained to listen. The noise happened again, the snap of branches breaking, as if somebody moved through a thicket without trying to be silent. I stepped close to a tree and peered around it. Twenty yards in front of me was a glow. I saw two men, the front one carried a torch. Shamus and Ryan.

The men moved across a clearing in the woods.

“Let’s take a break,” Shamus said.

They sat on a stump near the clearing’s center, back to back, watching the woods around them. I stood behind the tree, afraid my slightest movement would cause Shamus to throw a spear.

Why didn’t Campbell allow the men to bring muskets? Maybe he thought repacking the load between shots would take too long. I inched my head around the tree to watch the men and almost cried out at what I saw.

An old woman stood next to the men, all white from hair to feet to tattered dress. She glowed, lit by an otherworldly light, and seemed translucent. The Banshee.

The men rose up from the stump and stood before her, transfixed. One of them—I couldn’t tell who because their backs were to me—fell onto his knees. The other strangled out a scream; it sounded as if his tongue got in the way and only a gargling sound came out.

I couldn’t move, paralyzed by the horrific scene before me.

The specter slid to the men and her body expanded, stretching wide, each side moved out and around the men, circling them. The lower part of her body became a tent engulfing the men. I could see the men’s shadows inside her, arms flailing, attempting to claw their way out of their ghostly prison. I heard their muffled screams.