The forest was silent. The birds didn’t chirp, the woodland critters didn’t move about in the underbrush and sing happy songs about how happy it was to be a woodland critter, and it was ticking Shane Doyle the FUCK off. Not so much the lack of cheery upbeat beavers and rabbits singing to him (Shane reasoned that not everything in Canada was like the movies) that Shane could deal with, albeit his own singing voice wasn’t up to par with anything you could define as enjoyable. No, the utter silence was the thing that ticked Shane off something awful. It was like a bad cliché, fucked up town, unhelpful and rude townspeople most likely hiding a dark secret… and a silent forest. Donnie Dunagan would be welcome at this point, hell even Jeremy Irons would be welcome anything to take Shane’s mind away from the creeping and frankly disturbing nature of the forest.
Despite the aforementioned disturbing nature of a silent forest, Shane felt completely at ease. He felt like the predator rather then the prey at the moment, stepping into a large opening beneath a giant tree (Shane didn’t know the type and frankly didn’t care) Shane imagined himself as a giant black bear, something he’d thought would be commonly sighted in B.C and was depressed to find to the contrary.
“Rawrrr!”
He stood in the middle of the clearing, Trench coat flapping with the light gusts of autumn air and pretended he had claws, clawing at the edges of the clearing as if to keep the silence at bay.
“Rawrrr! Black bear rawrrr!” he said again, slightly louder than before.
To his enjoyment a bird cried out nearby and Shane relaxed his act chuckling slightly. He dropped his back pack in the center of a pile of leaves, and pulled from his pockets respectfully, a fag, and a lighter… with the words “Fuck Communism” engraved. The mere sight of his lighter gave him a pick me up. The bird call had eased his tensions, he felt like he wasn’t just dealing with a dead audience at the moment, like his microphone had been on the whole time but his joke had just finally hit them. Well, Shane thought to himself. Technically he WAS dealing with a dead audience. But that anecdote didn’t really work at the moment.
“I’m just too awesome, too awesome yessiree, too fuckin’ incredibly mischievous, like Pan I am I am.” Shane happily muttered to no one in particular. He inhaled deeply, slipped the lighter back into his coat pocket and set to work.
The wind was cool but inviting, it hadn’t reached freezing temperatures, and this was an odd time of year, a time when you could forget it had ever been anything different. Shane enjoyed the homey sense of Hartley Bay and the Outelle Forest. Made him think of home baked brownies and 50s white picket fence America. Well it would, if the residents would stop fussing over a few dead kids. Always the little details thought Shane, the little details that fucked things up and made his world more interesting.
Shane pulled from his bag a small, smooth birch stick. It looked like it could be stolen from an IKEA set, and yet the sight of Shane irreverently drawing in the dirt in near silent forest for an odd reason wouldn’t confuse many, at least if they knew what Shane was up too. Not that many people would Shane thought to himself as he drew. Pity on those poor buggers.
As Shane finished making a rough outline of a circle, something perplexing began to occur in the circle. The leaves on the ground, without prior instruction from the wind began to clear, or to avoid the circle drawn in the dirt. Shane satisfied returned the stick to his bag and fetched a small brown pouch and a bizarre jewel, a sapphire maybe. Skipping, not walking over to the circle Shane felt the energy of the scene building up, the ignorant forest from moments ago had changed, he was about to defy nature and all creation in the area was looking in awe now, whimsical and with wonder, it was no longer the creeping terror of Long Trail, Vermont in the 50s. No now, it was for a brief time like the forest from Bambi, all the chipper and incessantly happy creatures’ just mere feet away. And Shane was the ringleader.
It was a pity, Shane thought to himself, that the entire scene would not play out like this. Shane was looking for something far more morbid then a Disney-esque fantasy. No, he was in this for the excitement and the travel brochures to Hartley Bay pretty much guaranteed it.
“COME TO HARTLEY BAY, GREAT FOOD, FUN TIMES, RELAXING ENVIRONMENT, AND 16 DEAD KIDS.”
At least, Shane THOUGHT they were all dead. It stood to reason they would be dead unless things were even weirder then he thought. Shane hoped it was weirder then he thought, not for the kids mind you (it’d probably be worse if they were still alive he reckoned.) but because it’d be much more interesting.
Opening the brown Pouch, Shane reached inside and gathered in his hand a small amount of white powder, gathered from a previous journey in a funny little town called Kutná Hora. Although Shane hadn’t fully recovered from the frankly bizarre occurrences there (or for that matter, understand the full twisted story), the incident had left him in high spirits and with a valuable asset, the white powder. Sprinkling it down in the circle Shane felt the wind blow again, somewhat more powerful this time and Shane grinned, thinking that up there somewhere, an angel was looking down and shooting Shane the finger. With a casual throw, Shane tossed the sapphire-esque stone down into the circle and witnessed it spark against the earth, and begin to bubble and blacken in appearance.
It was a rather simple magic the “Baba Ramdevji” had taught Shane, simple as in no words spoken until the summon was complete, and it required three ingredients (The stone, stick and powder) although they in itself were harder to come by. It didn’t matter to Shane though, as long as it worked (Which Baba Ramdevji had shown first hand…) it would suffice for Shane. The earth inside the circle began to shake and blur, drawing from its depths the earth sighed a breath and the laws of psychics and nature took a vacation, as a strange white plasma began to leak from the circle. Shane grinned and puffed on his cigarette as the plasma began to take shape, take shape into… a hand? Shane frowned. Fucking hell, maybe he should have used more powder…. But his momentary anger gave way as the plasma continued to shift and bubble…. And soon a small and somewhat asymmetrical face appeared in the circle, staring up at Shane.
“Righty-o then. What’s your name lad?” Said Shane rather causally as he inhaled on his fag.
The face bubbled in response, trying to formulate a reply.
“Suhhh…. Sah… cold…”Shane chuckled at the image; he could almost feel its pain and its uncomforting situation for himself. “Course its cold; you’re either dead or something far worse. Now gimme’ a name.”
“Wh… why….. why did you bring me babbb… is… is… mommy here?” The image garbled. Shane was growing impatient, it was just his luck to summon one of the younger victims… due to the face’s elementary appearance it was impossible to tell who though.
“No you’re twat o’ a mother ain’t here. Fine, if you won’t gimme’ a name. Tell me what happened. You went missing didn’t you?” Snapped Shane.
“I just let go for a minute….. it…. It seemed nice enough…. It was nice to me….. just let go for a minute…. Need to find mommy’s hand, she’ll be angry with me….”“You let go of her hand? Come on, be more specific kid, I’m on a tight schedule.” Shane puffed on his cigarette. Alright he was rushing it, and from the looks of things it didn’t seem like he’d get much information from it.
“She’s gonna be mean. I know it; she’ll never talk to me again. It promised me candy, candy and my friend back, and toys and a trip to a moon and all the things I knew but never knew. But now we’re both lost, and I can’t find mommy. Can you find mommy? Tell her to bring me my blanky. I’m cold. ”This. This was something interesting. It? Shane grinned, It. Not like the book he hoped, he hoped for something much worse. A trip to the moon, anything a kid could want. Sounds like a top rate pedophile at the moment.
“Well. Sorry to break it to you kid, but you’re probably not gonna get any warmer anytime soon. Now, stick to what I’m asking you. You said you let go of her hand? And it promised you things? What’s it?” Shane prodded onwards.
“IT. You know. It was really happy to see me. It said it was waiting, like I was someone important to it…. it said the sun never set….”Now THIS was getting interesting. The sun’ll never set. Why promise a kid that? Shane exhaled and considered his options. A few more questions. Not much more it could tell he reckoned.
“Do you remember pain?”
“ahh….ahuhh….hnk…”The image garbled and choked back tears… obviously Shane had hit the sweet spot, something had happened alright and he doubted the kid could come back even if he was still alive.
“So you do? Do you remember anything more concrete? Places, people, things? ….do you remember dying?” This was a stretch, but he might as well go for it.
“I-I’m not dead, mommy’d be upset if I was dead.”“Fuuuuuck, fine. Do you remember anything specific?”
“Spec….specific… it said. Said…sai….why did it say that? Why did I deserve that? He made it cold and colder still and I can still feel it even though I feel numb…”The conversation was dull now, he didn’t want some bloody angsty kids spirit trying to make him feel like a ton of shit. And there wasn’t much more he could ask, it would be his luck to call back one of the younger kids…
“Well. You’ve been a fuckin’ big help. Dismissed.”
The outer edges of the circle began to glow and the wind picked up blowing Shane’s trench coat. The face began to dissolve back into the earth, the plasma inexplicably returning to the soil, the laws of the universe coming into effect again.
“my blanky… tell mo- blanky….i…. I just… I’m cold…. I just….”The face was near finished now; its lips began to tear apart when something odd happened. Even as the lips began to crack and split apart fading into nothingness, the boy/girl managed to slip a final sentence through.
“I want to be a soldier like my father.”And then it was gone, the circle was a dirt circle again, the mystical force disperred. And the birds began to chirp again. However Shane was too occupied. He looked down at the circle an odd expression on his face. This was something big alright. Something really big. Grabbing his bag Shane headed for the town, he needed a stiff pint.
Things were shaping up to be quite interesting....
((Leaving Thread; going to Cafe next))
