Laymon Laymon: The Woods Are Dark

She was finished.

Dead.

Oh Christ.

At least, if she didn’t move, the Krulls might not notice her. She could die here, and save herself from them.

Time passed.

A long, long time.

Longer than Cordie thought a night could last. Then the sky turned pale blue, and finally the sun came up.

Hearing a sound, she raised her head. And saw Heth swinging his legless torso through the crosses. His eyes met hers.

“No,” she whimpered.

A strange noise filled her ears, a fluttering whup-wbup-whup. She raised her eyes. At the far edge of the clearing, a helicopter sped over the treetops.

“Jesus,” she muttered.

She glanced at Heth. His hideous, bloated face seemed to grin.

She scrambled to her feet. She raced toward the cabin, waving her arms high, not giving a damn about the crosses she bumped, the heads that tumbled before her.

The helicopter set down in front of the cabin.

The passenger, a tall woman, stepped out. She wore a red jumpsuit. She carried a rifle.

“Sherri!”

Cordie rushed toward her.

Sherri shouldered the rifle.

“No! Please! I’m sorry!”

The shot smashed through the roar of the rotors. Cordie spun around. Heth, a yard behind her, teetered on his outthrust arms.

A hole in his forehead.

He fell facedown.

“Get your ass over here!” Sherri yelled.

Cordie ran to her.

“On the local front, a Mariposa County Sheriff’s posse has failed to return from their search of a wilderness area west of Barlow. The eighteen men entered the rugged forest terrain on Tuesday to investigate reports of multiple killings…”

“What ho! What ho!” Lander sang quietly as he limped through the dark woods. His gunshot leg had nearly healed.

“What ho! What ho! Sing merry-a-day!”

He carried the girl through the clearing, and dropped her at his feet. She groaned.

Not dead?

“Passing strange,” he muttered. “Soon fixed.”

He slid the hatchet from his belt.

Her eyes opened. She reached up, and clutched a handful of hair, nearly pulling down his nice new skirt. “Please,” she said.

“Please? The King’s tongue?” He knelt beside her. He gazed at her moonlit body, a body he’d taken such pleasure from, earlier, after bashing her head. A young, lithe body. “What do they call you?” he asked.

“Lilly.”

“Lilly. Oh, Lily sweet and fair, how like a flower you are.” He touched her small breasts. “Buds and petals. Sweet nectar. Shall I spare you? Shall I take you to my palace?”

Her hand slipped through the hanging hair, and touched him.

“Perchance I shall.

He put the hatchet away, and lifted her. He kissed her breast. “Come, let’s away. We shall be God’s spies.”

He carried her into the forest of impaled heads.

“Grar,” said the girl, looking at one.

“You knew him? A fellow of infinite jest. Quite chapfallen.”

“A prick” said Lilly.

Lander laughed. “What ho! What ho! So merry-a-day” he sang, and carried her toward the cabin.

“On the local front, a twelve-man search-and-rescue team has failed to return from the wilderness area west of Barlow where, last week, a sheriff’s posse vanished without a trace…”

RICHARD Laymonis the author of over 30 novels and 65 short stories. Though a native of Illinois and a long-time Californian, his name is more familiar to readers in Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, as well as much of the rest of the world where he is published in fifteen foreign languages. He has written such acclaimed novels as The Beast House, The Cellar, After Midnight, The Lake, Into the Fire, Come Out Tonight, Body Rides, To Wake the Dead, No Sanctuary, Island, Among the Missing, One Rainy Night, In the Dark, and Bite. The Traveling Vampire Show won a Bram Stoker Award for Novel of the Year in 2001. Two of his earlier novels (Flesh and Funland) and a short story collection A Good, Secret Place) previously had been nominated for Bram Stoker Awards as well.

Check out the Richard Laymon Kills! Web site at http://www.ains.com.au/~gerlach/rlaymon2.htm

CUTS

TRIAGE (Anthology)

THE MIDNIGHT TOUR

THE BEAST HOUSE

THE CELLAR

INTO THE FIRE

AFTER MIDNIGHT

THE LAKE

COME OUT TONIGHT

RESURRECTION DREAMS

ENDLESS NIGHT

BODY RIDES

BLOOD GAMES

TO WAKE THE DEAD

NO SANCTUARY

DARKNESS, TELL US

NIGHT IN THE LONESOME OCTOBER

ISLAND

THE MUSEUM OF HORRORS (Anthology)

IN THE DARK

THE TRAVELING VAMPIRE SHOW

AMONG THE MISSING

ONE RAINY NIGHT

BITE

The Woods Are dark

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Original edition copyright ©1981 by Richard Laymon

Restored edition copyright © 2008 by Ann Laymon

Introduction copyright © 2008 by Kelly Laymon

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