Laymon Laymon - The Woods Are Dark

“Actually,” said Sherri, “I think we’ll die of thirst long before we starve.”

“We’re not gonna do either.”

“What do you plan, a mass suicide?”

“I plan to get us out of here.”

“Rotsa ruck.”

He stepped into the sunlight. Squinting, he looked through the weirdly tilted crosses and mounted heads.

Must be two dozen Krulls out there. Not doing a damn thing. Just lounging around, like it’s a picnic.

Picnic.

Robbins made a grim laugh.

A few of the Krulls perked up when they noticed him. Some pointed. One young fellow ran forward, stopping at the edge of the pikes, and hurled a spear. Robbins watched it soar, knowing it would fall short. It did. It tore half the face off an impaled head. The head twirled, its black hair swinging behind it.

Angry voices broke the silence.

Two Krulls attacked the boy. They threw him down. They stomped and kicked him.

Because he flung his spear at an impossible target?

Or because he damaged one of the heads?

Maybe the area’s sacred, Robbins thought. It would explain why the Krulls hadn’t entered.

He walked along the front of the cabin to its corner. More Krulls along the side. He counted eight. They could be reinforced, though, by some from the front.

He moved to the rear. More there. Thirteen or fourteen wandering idly beyond the barrier of heads.

He gasped at a noise behind him. Swung around. Found his rifle muzzle inches from Neala’s belly.

For an instant, she looked terrified. Then a smile came to her face. “Don’t shoot,” she said.

“Wouldn’t think of it. What’re you doing up?”

She shrugged. “Too hot in there.”

“It’s hotter out here.”

“But you’re here. What are you doing?”

“Looking for a way out.”

“Any luck?”

“Not yet.”

She squinted across the field. Wet hair clung to her forehead. Her face was sweaty. The tiny, moist specks below her eyes glinted sunlight. A drop rolled down toward a corner of her mouth. She licked it away, then dried her face with the front of her shirt. She let the shirt hang open.

“Why don’t they come for us?” she asked.

“I’m not certain. I think we might be in the middle of a sacred area, or something. They always stop at the edge of the heads.”

“I would’ve, too, if I’d had a choice.”

“It’s more than just revulsion. Has to be. These Krulls think nothing of tearing people limb from limb. They must have a damn good reason for staying out.”

“Like if these are their ancestors?”

“Yeah.”

“That’d be nice for us.”

“Except.”

Neala nodded. She leaned back against the wall, and hooked her thumbs into the pockets of her corduroys. Her throat and chest and belly were glossy with sweat.

“What’ll we do?” she asked.

“We can’t stay here forever.”

“We gonna make a run for it?”

“I guess we’ll have to. We’ll wait till after dark, and sneak out. This way, I guess. The crosses aren’t quite as dose together, back here. If we can manage to crawl through without knocking any down…”

“Everybody decent?” came Sherri’s voice.

Neala quickly pulled her shirt together and tucked in its front. “Yeah,” she called.

Sherri stepped around the corner. “What’s cooking?” she asked.

“We are,” said Neala.

“Maybe that’s what they’re waiting for.”

“We’re planning to get out of here tonight.”

“How do we manage that?”

Robbins explained it. As he talked, he saw Sherri look toward the heads. She gazed at them. She seemed lost in her own grim thoughts. “I know it won’t be easy,” he said. “I don’t want to go out there, either. We can’t just stay here, though.”

“I think I will,” Sherri said. She tried to laugh. It sounded more like a sob.

“It won’t be so bad,” Neala said.

“What it’ll be,” said Sherri, “it’ll be fuckin’ ghastly. Better than sticking around here, though.”

“We’ll leave as soon as it’s dark,” Robbins said.

Sherri nodded. “Which gives us all day to look forward to it.”

A man entered the hut. An old, lean man. He spoke, and the creature scuttled away from Cordie.

“I am Grar, he said. “Our companion is Heth. Your name is?”

“Cordie.”

The man came forward on hands and knees; the hut was too low for standing. He wore a skirt of hair that hung to the ground as he crawled. It was many colors: brown, red, blond, and raven black.

He sat in front of Cordie, and crossed his legs.

“You are one who escaped the trees, last night.”

“Yes.”

“I understand that you wish to become one of us.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Was the question a trick? She saw no malice in Grar’s eyes. “So I won’t be killed,” she said.

“Joining us is no guarantee of that. We have many.

She nodded.

“Are you appalled by our ways?”

“I don’t know.”

“We live apart from the civilization you know. We despise it. Our fathers and forefathers despised it.”

“Why?” she asked, and hoped the question wouldn’t anger him.

“Laws. Rules. They’re hateful to us, just as they were hateful to our founder. He fled to this region of woods to escape the laws of civilization. That was long ago—a hundred years before your country’s birth. Savages inhabited these woods, but he was more savage than they. He slaughtered them, and ate their flesh as a token of his power.

“Only the women did he spare. He took them to his bed, and they gave forth progeny.”

“Progeny?”

“Children, offspring, sucklings. They grew, and were as fierce as their father. They killed their enemies, and ate them after his manner.

“Now the father had a woman he favored above all others.”

Nobody talks this way, Cordie thought. He must’ve got his English from a Bible.

“She was lean and fair, a woman of rare beauty. She bore him many sons. When the sons became ripe, the one named Raf went to her in the night. He took no care to conceal his act. It is our custom, you see, to bed whom we will, without shame or secrecy. But when the father learned what Raf had done, his cry filled the night. He raged through the village. All those who saw his anger fled before him, and hid in the forest. His wrath was terrible. He tore the heads from every son, and every daughter, and every living thing. And he took the heads away. He built himself a home far from the village he hated. And he surrounded his home with the heads of those he had killed.

“Two survived his savagery. They mated, and their numbers grew. Though many were slain in the years after the great slaughter, many survived. They lived like fearful beasts, hiding in the treetops at night to escape the avenging father.

“At last, they had a great gathering and decided to take his life. While the women and children took refuge in the tallest trees, the men went forth. The forest trembled, that night, with howls of rage and pitiful, tormented cries. Morning came, but the men did not return.

“Among the women, one was brave. She climbed down from the safety of her tree, and traveled through the woods to the home of her father. When she returned, she told of finding the head of every man mounted on a cross of wood before the father’s door. Then she broke her own head open with a rock, and fell dead.”

“How many did he kill?” Cordie asked.

“In that one night, he took the lives of thirty-two.

“How could he?”

“Because he is the Devil, Manfred Krull. Cordie stared at Grar. The old man’s eyes held fear. “The Devil?” Cordie whispered. “That’s who Lilly said I saw, last night. The one who killed my boyfriend.”