F. Wilson - Secret Circles

“Hey, what time‟s the smoker start?”

“Oh, guys start wandering in around seven-thirty, but things usually don‟t get rolling till about eight. Why? No way you can get in.”

“Just curious.”

Jack glanced at the little window above the TV. He knew where he‟d be come eight o‟clock.

But before that, he and Weezy had a date with a pyramid.

4

They rode toward the Pines, each with a short-handle spade-shovel from his garage held across their handlebars. The sun was sinking but they had better than an hour and a half of light left. Plenty of time.

Passing the lightning tree, he saw Gus Sooy‟s pickup. He and Walt were leaning against the rear side panel. Walt wasn‟t drinking and wasn‟t getting a bottle filled, just seemed to be talking. They both waved and Jack and Weezy waved back.

Was this where Mrs. Clevenger had told Walt to hang out? Was this where he‟d be

“needed”? For what?

He shook his head. He‟d probably never know.

As they neared the spong they picked up speed—they wanted to be a swiftly moving target if that piney started throwing rocks again. But as they passed, Jack saw no sticks jutting toward the sky.

“That piney must have reset his traps,” Weezy said.

“And it looks like Mrs. Clevenger hasn‟t got to them yet. Think we should … ?”

Weezy shook her head. “Maybe on the way back. We‟ll need all the light we can get at the pyramid.”

Jack wondered again what would happen if the piney caught Mrs. C springing his traps. She was just an old lady, but that dog of hers, even with three legs, looked like he could inflict a world of hurt on anyone messing with his owner.

They reached the burned-out area and made their way past the ruined mound to the pyramid.

The clearing was eerily silent as Jack checked out the ground for fresh tracks. He found none of any sort, and even the old ones they‟d seen before were gone, erased by multiple rains.

They hopped over the low stone wall and squeezed through one of the gaps between the megaliths.

The floor of the cage—if that was what the pyramid was—was no longer underwater, but the sand was still wet. Any trace that he and Weezy had stood here on Saturday was gone. Weezy walked to the four-foot stone post in the center and again traced her fingers along the six-sided indentation in its top.

“If we had the little pyramid we could fit it in here and see what happens.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe the sunlight during the equinox hits it at a certain angle and …”

“What? We go back in time?”

She smiled. “Never know.”

“Until then …” Jack looked around. “Where do we start?”

She shrugged. “Anywhere, I guess.”

He chose a random spot near the center post and began to dig straight down. Weezy did the same a half dozen feet away.

“I‟ve got a suspicion about this place,” she said. “If it‟s modeled on the little pyramid we found, it should have a base. With all the sand in the Barrens‟ soil, water percolates through pretty quickly. The standing water in here back on Saturday tells me something was slowing its absorption.”

Sure enough—four feet down Jack hit granite. The seventh side. And no doubt carved into its surface somewhere was the seventh symbol—just like on the baby pyramid.

Panting a little and sweating a lot, he took a break. He hadn‟t paid much attention to what he‟d been digging out of the hole, so he turned to that now. Using the side edge of the spade he ran it back and forth over the excavated sand, slowly smoothing it out. And as he did, little bones began to appear.

“Hey, Weez! Look!”

She hurried over and picked up a few for a closer look.

“Not bones. Just pieces—splinters, really.”

“How—?”

Then he noticed a larger fragment in the wall of the hole he‟d dug. He scraped away the sand packed around it and found it bigger than he‟d thought. He yanked on it …

And came away with part of a leg bone.

“Ew!” Weezy said, recoiling.

“It‟s okay. Not human. Deer.”

It ran about eighteen inches long and was very slim. During the course of his countless trips into the Pines, Jack had come across a number of dead deer rotted down to their skeletons. From its angled, ball-tipped end he knew what this was.

“A thigh bone. But look. The lower end‟s broken off.”

Weezy leaned closer. “Hey, that looks gnawed off. See those scrapes into the bone? They look like teeth marks.”

Jack looked around. “How did a deer get in here?”

Weezy gripped his arm. “Jack! What ever was caged here needed food. It would have been fed by its keepers. The Pines were full of deer. What ever it was must have eaten every last lick of flesh and then gone after the marrow.”

Jack looked at the shattered bones and deep teeth marks.

“Strong jaws, sharp teeth.”

No question about it now—this structure had been used as a cage. But why so massive?

What had called this place home? Obviously a carnivore, but had it been native to the Pinelands, or had someone imported it? And when? This cage had been here a long time.

Weezy‟s eyes danced with excitement. “Let‟s keep digging. No telling what we‟ll find.”

But after half an hour or so, shifting their dig sites three times, they‟d found nothing but more animal bones. He‟d gone about two feet down in his latest dig when the tip of the spade hit something—something bigger than the small bones he‟d been finding. He widened the hole and dug around it.

It seemed to be curved, like some sort of arch. He worked his fingers around it, got a grip, and pulled. With a wrench it came free and he found himself holding a jawbone.

He dropped it when he realized it was human.

“Weez! Check it out!”

She hurried over and together they knelt and stared at it. Jack found himself nowhere near as grossed out as he‟d have thought he‟d be. But then again, this wasn‟t the first time he‟d been through something like this. Yeah, he‟d felt a shock, but nothing like when he‟d pulled that skull from the mound.

Funny how he‟d been thinking just last night about how things seemed to be going in circles, all revolving around the little pyramid, and here he was inside the big pyramid doing the same thing.

With this skull—or part of one—another circle had closed.

“Wh-who could this be?” Weezy said. “It looks so much older than the one in the mound.”

Yeah, it did. Not a shred of flesh left on it. And the teeth—browned, cracked, and not a single filling.

For some reason he thought of poor Cody. Chances of finding him alive seemed about zero.

Someday someone might be digging in the pines and come up with his little skull.

Jack thrust the thought away and focused on the bone before them.

“Where‟s the rest of it? And what‟s it doing in here?”

He dug further and only an inch or so down found upper teeth and the roof of the mouth—the skull was buried upside down. No fillings in the upper teeth either. He cleaned more off, then worked his fingers around it and pulled the skull free.

“Oh my god!” Weezy cried as he turned it over.

Both stared in shock at the ragged hole in the top of the cranium. Whoever this had been, it looked like his skull had been crushed—cracked open.

She pointed to the edges of the opening. “Are those … ?”

Jack looked closer and felt his gut writhe when he saw the gouges around the hole. Just like the tooth marks on the deer bones.

Something had been gnawing at this skull—maybe even ate the brain inside. Sure. Why else chew on a skull?

Now Jack was grossed out. He dropped the skull back into the hole and rose to his feet.