asked, trying to sound skeptical. My voice quavered.
Both men shrugged.
Dale got up from his chair. “I’ll go get us more beers.”
He crossed the yard slowly. He seemed exhausted, as if talking about the woods had drained him. I chalked it up to arthritis and the unseasonable heat.
When he was gone Merle said, “It’s no bullshit, Adam. People have vanished inside those woods.”
“When? How many?”
“Oh, couple of dozen that I know of, over the years. Deer hunters. Hikers. Kids out to get laid. Even a logger for the pulp wood company. Some were found, and some…well, some weren’t. They pulled one guy out about two years ago, fella by the name of Chalmers. You remember him?”
I searched my memory, and after a moment it clicked.
“Craig Chalmers? The child molester? The one who kidnapped that little girl in Seven Valleys three days after he’d made parole from Camp Hill?”
Merle nodded. “That’s him. They should have never let that son of a bitch out of prison in the first place. Remember how, after he’d kidnapped her, he took the girl into the woods, and the state police tracked him down? Well, when they found him he was babbling about demons. Said the forest was full of monsters and they were trying to kill him.”
As I considered this, something occurred to me. “When they caught him, hadn’t he been holding the girl at a campsite in a hollow?”
“Yeah, but I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. It wasn’t LeHorn’s Hollow. Same forest, but a different place. Those woods are full of hollows, and if you ask me every one of them is a bad spot. I said before, LeHorn’s Hollow has got roots through that whole place. Maybe it infects the rest of the forest.”
I thought about the hollow I’d been in today. How many otherswere there, I wondered, and did each of them have a satyr statue or a weird stone marker of some kind?
Merle grew silent, and I marveled again how fear could move my rustic, blue-collar neighbor to speak so eloquently.
I asked the next logical question. “Other than Patricia LeHorn, has anybody ever died in there?”
“Like I said, folks have disappeared. You mean have they ever found a body?”
I nodded.
Merle whispered, “I had a good friend, Frank Lehman, die in there a few years ago, actually. As for his body…”
He cleared his throat, spit onto the ground, and leaned back in his chair. I got the impression Merle was gathering his thoughts. He asked me for a cigarette and I gave him one. I hadn’t seen Merle smoke since his last heart attack. He lit it up with the flair and familiarity of an ex-smoker who still misses the habit. Finally he continued. His voice was rough and thick with emotion.
“Frank and I went to high school together. Played football our junior and senior years. We were pretty good buds. Used to drink together down at the Maryland Line on Friday nights. A few years back he went deer hunting with his sons, Mark and Glen, and their friends, Smitty and Luke. Frank got hosed down with Agent Orange over in Vietnam. It left him alone all those years, but then all of the sudden he got cancer. He was dying. Doctors couldn’t do shit about it. So they went deer hunting. It was supposed to be their last, great trip together. Frank had a hunting cabin about a mile from the LeHorn place. They drove up there on a Friday night, and that was the last time anybody saw them alive.”
He took a drag off the cigarette. “Damn, I miss these things. Fucking doctors…”
“You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” I told him. “If it’s too hard—”
“It’s okay.” He waved his hand, cutting me off. “They got to the cabin on Friday night. We know that because one of the boys, Mark, used his cell phone to call his wife and tell her they’d got there safely. That was the last anybody heard from them. By Saturday night fire companies from six different towns were called to the cabin to fight a forest fire. Took
Both men shrugged.
Dale got up from his chair. “I’ll go get us more beers.”
He crossed the yard slowly. He seemed exhausted, as if talking about the woods had drained him. I chalked it up to arthritis and the unseasonable heat.
When he was gone Merle said, “It’s no bullshit, Adam. People have vanished inside those woods.”
“When? How many?”
“Oh, couple of dozen that I know of, over the years. Deer hunters. Hikers. Kids out to get laid. Even a logger for the pulp wood company. Some were found, and some…well, some weren’t. They pulled one guy out about two years ago, fella by the name of Chalmers. You remember him?”
I searched my memory, and after a moment it clicked.
“Craig Chalmers? The child molester? The one who kidnapped that little girl in Seven Valleys three days after he’d made parole from Camp Hill?”
Merle nodded. “That’s him. They should have never let that son of a bitch out of prison in the first place. Remember how, after he’d kidnapped her, he took the girl into the woods, and the state police tracked him down? Well, when they found him he was babbling about demons. Said the forest was full of monsters and they were trying to kill him.”
As I considered this, something occurred to me. “When they caught him, hadn’t he been holding the girl at a campsite in a hollow?”
“Yeah, but I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. It wasn’t LeHorn’s Hollow. Same forest, but a different place. Those woods are full of hollows, and if you ask me every one of them is a bad spot. I said before, LeHorn’s Hollow has got roots through that whole place. Maybe it infects the rest of the forest.”
I thought about the hollow I’d been in today. How many otherswere there, I wondered, and did each of them have a satyr statue or a weird stone marker of some kind?
Merle grew silent, and I marveled again how fear could move my rustic, blue-collar neighbor to speak so eloquently.
I asked the next logical question. “Other than Patricia LeHorn, has anybody ever died in there?”
“Like I said, folks have disappeared. You mean have they ever found a body?”
I nodded.
Merle whispered, “I had a good friend, Frank Lehman, die in there a few years ago, actually. As for his body…”
He cleared his throat, spit onto the ground, and leaned back in his chair. I got the impression Merle was gathering his thoughts. He asked me for a cigarette and I gave him one. I hadn’t seen Merle smoke since his last heart attack. He lit it up with the flair and familiarity of an ex-smoker who still misses the habit. Finally he continued. His voice was rough and thick with emotion.
“Frank and I went to high school together. Played football our junior and senior years. We were pretty good buds. Used to drink together down at the Maryland Line on Friday nights. A few years back he went deer hunting with his sons, Mark and Glen, and their friends, Smitty and Luke. Frank got hosed down with Agent Orange over in Vietnam. It left him alone all those years, but then all of the sudden he got cancer. He was dying. Doctors couldn’t do shit about it. So they went deer hunting. It was supposed to be their last, great trip together. Frank had a hunting cabin about a mile from the LeHorn place. They drove up there on a Friday night, and that was the last time anybody saw them alive.”
He took a drag off the cigarette. “Damn, I miss these things. Fucking doctors…”
“You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” I told him. “If it’s too hard—”
“It’s okay.” He waved his hand, cutting me off. “They got to the cabin on Friday night. We know that because one of the boys, Mark, used his cell phone to call his wife and tell her they’d got there safely. That was the last anybody heard from them. By Saturday night fire companies from six different towns were called to the cabin to fight a forest fire. Took
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