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  “Tell me more about Martin Levy.”

  “Why?”

  “I think he may be killing people. I think the people are human sacrifices. I think the black masses in the woods are starting again.”

  “Martin Levy was John’s childhood friend. They played together every day. I told you about how his parents were abusive. They would lock him in the backyard shed for hours. Days. He was a strange boy. Mean to animals. Rude. Filthy. Cruel. He used to cut himself. He would cut his own leg with a knife. I think he tried to cut John once or twice, but John ran away.”

  “Did he ever do anything else to John? Did he ever take him anywhere secret? A hidden place? A place where maybe he’s hiding the hikers now?”

  Nicole looked away.

  “Nicole, you need to answer me honestly. We need your help. Did Martin ever do anything else to John?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, Nicole,” he sighed and looked away. “Thanks. Thanks just the same. You’ve helped. You did great.”

  Nicole exhaled a deep breath and forced a faint smile.

  “I have what I need,” said Sheriff Adams. “I’ll talk to you.” He turned and strode back to the car.

  Nicole stood on the porch, watching him leave. As his taillights faded in the distance, she whispered to the dark silence the worst, most shameful part of the story. The part she hadn’t been able to tell.

  “John said Martin raped him. ”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Martin moved closer. For hours, he watched the four campers in silence, listening to the rise and fall of their conversations. He moved closer still, and positioned himself behind a tree not ten yards from their campfire. He could smell the sweet hair of the women and the new nylon of the tents.

  Martin wondered what it would be like to sit around the fire and talk. To be a part of their world. The thought filled him with longing and rage. There had once been a person who cared for him, but that person was dead now.

  Kill. It was safer to kill than to let someone get close to him again. Yes, safer to kill, Martin thought. He should have killed his parents, but he hadn’t been strong enough then. He hadn’t known that killing was an option. A perfect option. The best option.

  He should kill that priest. The priest caused him so much pain. So much desperation. He hated to admit it, but he wasn’t strong enough for that, either. Not because he was physically inferior. He knew he could lift the priest over his head and snap his neck in a matter of seconds.

  No, it wasn’t physical strength. The priest held a power over him. The priest had shaped him. The priest had created him. The priest could destroy him.

  The campfire conversation changed. The tone of the words now suggested final statements and good night wishes. He watched as the blonde paired off with the one they called Scott. The black haired girl, the one he’d watched have sex earlier today, went to bed with the curly-haired man in the other tent.

  Something about the black-haired girl made his stomach grind. She was a sinner, and her sins captivated him.

  Martin chided himself for previously getting too close to the tent. She’d touched his face! It had felt so good. But the priest would be angry. There could be none of that this time. He needed to simply kill them and be done with it. No more standing around and watching.

  The fire was almost out. Only a few red coals pulsated in the darkness.

  If given different circumstances, the black-haired girl might like him. If he had grown up far away from here, far away from Crenson. What would my life have been like?

  He moved closer to the blonde girl’s tent. He listened. No sex. Rather, angry words, desperately restrained to keep their argument private.

  Martin Levy heard all.

  After a while, he crept toward the other tent. Silence. Martin Levy pulled his favorite knife out. His wonderful long hunting knife with the dull green handle. Moonlight reflected off the shaft of the weapon.

  He thought about how he would kill them. He wanted something memorable. Especially for the black-haired girl.

  He felt inside his pockets and found a lighter. He flicked it once and a flame jumped to life. He looked around. The night sounds of the forest echoed through the trees. Owls. Crickets. The occasional bass breaching the black lake and crashing back into the water.

  Martin fingered the end of the tent. He found the strap that was spiked into the ground by a silver stake. Inside the tent, the man rolled over, and Martin heard his steady, calm breathing. Martin held his breath. Remained motionless. Listened intently.

  The man’s breathing continued.

  Martin brought the flame closer to the tent. The fire licked the tent wall and bore a small hole in the nylon. Soon, the flame spread, sending puffs of black smoke into the moonlight.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  The knife slipped into Kim’s belly. The pain jolted her awake. The rush of agony was insane. Kim scrambled for the tent zipper and groped madly with one hand, clutching her stomach with the other. She looked down at her shirt. The blood poured out of her in crimson waves, syncing with her heartbeat.

  She fell backward. The knife penetrated the tent wall a second time, now catching Kim on the side of the face. A third strike ripped flesh from her forearm. Kim screamed, but blood bubbled up and choked her air passages. All that came out was a wet, garbled hiss. She looked down at her belly. Her white intestines wormed their way out of the slick hole in her stomach. Kim pushed the slippery tubes back inside her body, but she knew it was too late.

  Too late for everything.

  The pain dulled, and Kim felt a dizzying weariness come over her. Her peripheral vision filled with darkness. The sleeping bag became saturated with warm dampness. She reached a hand out for the zipper again, then collapsed limply on the tent floor.

  Blood spilled from her mouth. Outside the tent, the knife continued to probe the nylon walls from all angles. The person with the knife laughed. The last noise Kim heard was the laugh, and then blackness closed in.

  “Shit!” Kim said, sitting up and clutching her stomach. No blood. No wounds. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “That felt so real.”

  She looked over at Jack.

  “What?” he asked lazily, halfway to sleep.

  “Nothing.” Kim took a couple of deep breaths to calm down. What caused that nightmare, she wondered. Was it that story Scott told, about how he killed that kid in college? Maybe Kim shouldn’t have asked the question. Susan had shot her a nasty look as soon as Kim brought it up, but Kim had really wanted to know.

  Or was it something else? Kim thought about the face she had touched through the tent wall. She knew it was a face. She didn’t care what the others said. It was a face, and she had felt it.

  Perhaps what troubled her the most was the gun. Where the hell is my gun? Did someone take it? And if so, why? Jack had denied taking it. Susan and Scott hadn’t known it was there. Had the mysterious “face” taken it?

  Kim rolled over and tried to fall back asleep. She usually slept well in a sleeping bag. She liked the way the whole bag wrapped around her body, enshrouded her, and kept her warm. An old boyfriend said a sleeping bag was like a womb, and he claimed the whole thing had “Freudian implications”…whatever the hell that meant.

  She hated dating college guys, really. She hated the smart-ass way they acted. The way they used a fancy word, and then studied her face for a flicker of recognition. The way they all went to college to be something different, to make something of themselves, and the way they all ended up working for their daddy doing the same thing.

  Jack was sort of like that, although the thought of him being a doctor like his father was laughable. Jack was too dumb to be a doctor. Too unfocused. Too…Jack.

  But in a way, that’s why Kim liked Jack. He didn’t make her feel like an idiot. Hell, he couldn’t make her feel like an idiot. Kim found this comforting.

  Scott made Susan feel like an idiot all the time. Kim had noticed that he constantly worked subtle,
little put-downs into his stories. Little shots. Taken individually, they didn’t amount to much, but compounded over the course of a marriage, they turned into misery. She could tell that Susan was sad and about to break. Susan was starting to despise Scott. Kim could see it in the way Susan’s attention drifted when Scott had told stories around the campfire tonight. She could see it in the way Susan’s face turned slack and hollow immediately after she flashed a smile at Scott.

  Susan was caught in hell. Scott was a real bastard.

  But Kim could train bastards. She’d done it before. The rich, smart college boys that came up to Vermont for a good education were all a bunch of bastards, but she’d managed to change the ones she got her hands on. Secretly, she laughed at the thought of her being their “real” education.

  The thought of training Scott pleased her enormously. She drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face.

  She did not even smell the smoke from her burning tent.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Father Glick watched as the parishioners filed silently into the old church. The only audible sound was the swooshing of cloth from the heavy black garments they wore. The members of his church were common people, workers, laborers, housewives. Some, not so common—police officers, doctors, local government officials. At some point the town of Crenson had caught a disease, and the people inside the church were the afflicted.

  Father Glick stood behind the altar. He wore a black robe, identical to the others, except for a red pentagram embroidered on each shoulder. He studied the children as they walked down the aisles. He licked his lips.

  Once everyone had settled into the pews, the priest cleared his throat and began. “We gather here tonight to revel in all that is wretched, to rejoice in all that is wicked. We ask that the spirits of hell watch over your town of Crenson, and give us energy and power. Tonight, we offer a humble sacrifice.”

  He shook as he spoke and his eyes rolled back in his head, as if the words came from some ancient place in his soul. His deep baritone ricocheted off the walls and returned to the source in a series of echoes.

  Slyly, he studied his followers. Some wore animal masks resembling goats and sheep. Others simply covered their faces with their black cloaks. Still others wore no masks at all—proud to be a part of the ceremony, completely unafraid of exposure. The windows of the church were black moonless pits in the shadows of the walls.

  Glick looked around for Bryson. He was not there. That concerned Glick. He knew that Sheriff Adams would ask Bryson about Martin Levy’s latest victims. The hiker, the old couple…who else?

  He shouldn’t worry. Bryson wouldn’t talk. At least, Glick hoped Bryson wouldn’t talk. But Bryson drank. Not like the sheriff—Adams…but Bryson drank. And drunks can’t always keep a secret once the bottle hits their lips.

  “Hell spirits,” Glick intoned. “Thrust upon us all of your lust, your greed, your evil. Give us darkness! Give us rage! We, in turn, offer you innocence and light. Innocence we will destroy in your honor tonight!”

  A scuffle erupted in the back of the church. A man wearing a crude burlap sack over his head grappled with a young boy. The man thrashed the boy back and forth, causing his head to swivel violently. The boy wept. The man grabbed the boy by his neck and dragged him down the center aisle. The congregation turned and watched the boy twist feebly in the grasp of the man.

  “We give you innocence. You give us power.”

  The boy’s whimpering continued. Father Glick stepped from behind the altar and withdrew a rusty black dagger from his cloak. He fingered the ornate metal handle, the iron cross, the skulls.

  “We give you destruction. You give us protection. We give you destruction. You give us protection.”

  The parishioners repeated the phrase in a low, murmuring chant.

  “We give you destruction. You give us protection.”

  The man wearing the burlap mask heaved the boy onto the altar and quickly tied his wrists and ankles to poles at each end of the table. The poles were brown with dried blood.

  “We give you destruction. You give us protection.”

  Father Glick raised the dagger above his head. He inhaled deeply. He could smell the sweat pouring out from the boy’s body. The priest tightened his grip on the dagger and looked out over his disciples.

  A beam from the sheriff’s flashlight shone through a back window of the church and fell full upon the face of Father Glick.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Jack never slept well in a tent, unless he was drunk. He had managed to drink fifteen Yuengling Lagers before he retired for the night. After the others went to bed, he had remained by the campfire for an hour, drinking and staring at the stars. Finally satisfied, he stumbled into the tent and sprawled on top of his sleeping bag.

  Regardless of the tent, Jack usually drank before bed. Alcohol helped him relax and calm his nerves. Booze drowned his racing thoughts. He didn’t like the things he thought about. He didn’t like thinking about his situation. No job. No real girlfriend. Still borrowing money from his parents.

  He had begged his old man for two hundred bucks before he left Vermont to visit Scott in Pennsylvania. He was pathetic. Being around Scott and Susan and their stable married life made him feel like even more of a loser. How will Susan ever like me, ever take me seriously, if I borrow money off my parents?

  Drinking. His mind often wandered to thoughts about his own drinking. And smoking pot. In college, he had smoked and drank in hopes of discovering insights about life. To “break on through,” as the wasted Jim Morrison once bellowed.

  Did I really gain any insights? Did I really break on through?

  Certainly he had been wasted a lot. The alcohol and pot took the edge off social situations, and made it easier to talk to girls. But he’d never discovered anything profound about himself.

  The only thing Jack had taken away from college was a collection of hangovers and a notebook filled with his bad poetry.

  What a fool I was.

  College was over, but his drinking wasn’t. He had noticed how the others looked at him tonight during their campfire conversations. He could feel them silently noting how many beers he put away—how much pot he smoked. Everyone else was content with catching a little buzz…but not Jack. Jack had to get wasted. Had to get trashed. Had to get loud, and utter the same drunken opinions he’d been uttering since freshman year of college. He was like a wind-up toy. Just add alcohol and watch him spin in circles.

  He was starting to fall asleep now. Drunk again. Asleep in this tent. What did I say tonight? He was sure he’d acted like an idiot. And why would I blow it, after that beautiful kiss with Susan this afternoon? Why would I turn around and act like a fool? He wanted to impress her, show her he changed. Instead, he showed that he was the same stupid drunk that he was in college.

  He rolled over in the tent and took a deep breath. He could hear Kim breathing next to him. He also heard a quick snapping sound. Jack opened his eyes and saw that the front side of the tent was on fire. Angry orange flames lapped the walls of the structure. Black smoke spiraled upwards, escaping into the moonlit sky.

  Jack stared dumbly at the fire for a long moment.

  “Fire! Holy shit! Kim! A fire! Wake up! Wake up!” He turned to Kim and frantically beat at her sleeping bag with his fists. “Wake up! A fire!”

  Kim woke up, looked at the flames crawling across the roof of the tent, and screamed.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Sheriff Adams peered through the church’s dusty window. God, I wish I’d brought backup, he thought. He looked at the boy tied to the altar, the gaunt visage of the priest in the flickering candlelight. He’d never thought he’d have the horrible misfortune of witnessing a black mass in person.

  But here it was, right in front of him—the hoods, the chanting, the sacrifice. This time the mass was not even hidden in the slumped stone construction deep in the woods, but brazenly set in the center of Crenson, in the old abandoned church that sat o
n the hill. This meeting felt strong, established, nefarious. He could almost physically feel the surge of evil radiating from the building.

  The videotapes had shown eight members being present during that first mass, years ago. He counted over twenty forms huddled in the shadows, anticipating the homicide.

  Who are these people, Adams wondered. Hell, Crenson wasn’t that big of a town. There’s no way that the folks gathered here tonight were strangers, or traveling occultists from different parts of the country. No, they were Crenson people. His people. Adams swallowed hard.