James Daniels - Ring of Knives

Matt stepped behind a large pine trunk and gently set her on her feet. He drew the long carving knife from his belt. He put his hand on her bare shoulder and pressed her back against the tree. They stood in silence like that, neither one moving a muscle.

Another soft rustle in the undergrowth. Closer this time

And closer still.

The tree they were standing against had a split trunk. As the rustling came nearer, the blonde soundlessly turned her face toward the gap, to see what was coming.

Matt did the same.

They saw branches moving. Heard the crackle of twigs. They could half glimpse a shape in the fog, but it was darkness on darkness and meant nothing to them.

Just then, the moon slid free of the clouds, and a few slants of pale light filtered through the branches nearest them.

When she saw what it was, the girl sucked in a harsh breath.

Matt’s hand snapped around her mouth the second before she could scream. To spare her the sight, he pressed her face into his chest. He could feel her hot breath against his palm, could feel her screaming silently into it.

He wanted to do the same, but he was frozen in place, watching the thing materialize out of the fog. She had understood what it was before he had. He hadn’t recognized it without its black robe. Or its head.

But then, as the fog parted, he had seen the wide eyes carved into the torso, above the jagged, jack-o’-lantern mouth, and he knew it for what it was…

Rotting Jack.

It came even with their tree, moving slowly, the feet taking measured steps, a hand rising mechanically to push a dead limb aside. With it came the stench of a shallow grave, of a slaughterhouse in July.

It moved two steps past their tree and paused.

Matt stared into the upside-down eyes of Jesse Weston. They, like the rest of his bandaged head, hung from the truncated neck by a strip of skin no thicker than a Fruit Roll-Up.

Matt saw the frozen madness in those eyes. It’s an honor, after all, to quench the thirst of a god. Jesse had given in to the beast, and it had eaten him alive. It would do the same to Matt if he let it. Looking into Weston’s eyes was like looking into a mirror-a mirror of what could happen to him.

Those dead eyes drew Matt’s gaze hypnotically, like a cobra transfixing its prey. Staring into them, Matt could almost imagine Weston’s oily voice pressing through those upside-down gray lips, saying, To tell the truth, the act of biting another human being is surprisingly habit-forming…

The remembered words had a weird effect on Matt: he was suddenly aware of how much bigger he was than Annica, of how he held her face effortlessly in his hands. He swallowed, feeling the peach fuzz along her delicate jaw. Something in Weston’s twisted death gaze seemed to advise him that no one would ever, ever know if Matt chose to lay the blonde down among the pine needles, climb on top of her, and bite and screw her to his heart’s content, like a mantis devouring its mate.

But Matt knew that he was who he chose to be. And who he chose to be was not that.

A light breeze blew through the fog, dispersing it for a moment and making the boughs lift and fall.

Rotting Jack took a step forward, away from the split pine, and Weston’s head swayed like the lifeless appendage it was. The spell, if that’s what it had been, was broken.

Matt blinked, his eyes watering at the stench.

Rotting Jack took another step, and another, pausing only to turn its torso this way and that, as if the carved face were capable of sight.

Then the moon began to slide back behind its cloud, and the headless corpse shambled into a darkness made of equal parts fog and shadow. But long after it vanished, Matt could hear the rustle of its relentless, dead feet softly crushing the ivy, needles, and pinecones that covered the forest floor.

It was the flashing blue and red lights that finally led them to the highway. Annica saw them first and pointed them out to Matt. Even then he had trouble focusing; his entire body ached, and his mind was going gray with fatigue. He stumbled twice, trying to hurry. In the end she took him by the arm to support him as they climbed over tree stumps and underbrush and finally came to the road.

The car had state trooper markings, and a trooper-wearing the Smokey the Bear hat-was on the other side of the highway, with a flashlight in hand, talking into a mobile phone. He was looking at a car that was upside down in a ditch, surrounded by smashed ferns. The macadam was littered with pieces of glass and red plastic. It was unclear what had caused the wreck.

“Wait here,” Matt said. Halfway across the highway he started to get a tight feeling in his stomach. He saw that the flipped car was a red Toyota Corolla.

“Maloria? Maloria!” He ran painfully to the edge of the road, fell into a crouch. But it was too dark: he couldn’t see if there was anyone trapped in the driver’s seat. “The driver-is she still in there?”

“Sir,” the trooper said, “I’m afraid she’s gone to her reward.”

“Oh my God,” Matt said. “What happened?”

“Eyewitness testimony has it that she was leaving Carthage MHC at top speed with a flat tire in shreds, sparks flying off the rim. Apparently she was followed by an unidentified vehicle that drove her off the road.”

Kneeling in the grass, Matt put a hand over his eyes. He couldn’t believe it. After everything else: this. And he was the one who had sent her back to the parking lot, alone…

“Where was she taken?”

“Well, I don’t rightly know, but if I had to guess, I’d say it was to that big Kanye West concert in the sky where all good little South Siders go.”

Matt turned.

The trooper tipped his flashlight up, gruesomely highlighting his pointed chin, hooked nose, emaciated cheeks, and deep-set eyes.

Mr. Dark grinned at him. “How’s tricks, Matt?”

Matt rose quickly. Without even thinking, he whipped the carving knife from his belt and flung it.

The second before it hit him, Mr. Dark split into two Mr. Darks, and the knife sailed harmlessly between them.

“Asexual reproduction, Matt. Highly underrated.”

“Get the fuck out of here.”

“What’sa matter, handsome? Three’s a crowd?”

Three. Matt flashed a look back to Annica. She was still standing there, arms crossed against her chest. He couldn’t see her expression in the fog.

Mr. Dark’s four eyes followed his. “Nice little morsel you’ve got there.” He slid the flashlight farther under his chin, so that everything disappeared but his cruel, clown-slit mouth and the hook of his nose. He looked like the skull of Mr. Punch. “Tell you what,” he whispered. “I know a nice little culvert near here. Lots of atmosphere. Whatta ya say we show her a night on the town, then split her fifty-fifty? Heads for me, tails for you.” He gave Matt a whoremaster’s grin. “Deal?”

“The only deal I’ll make with you is this,” Matt said. “Listen carefully: if you divide yourself into a cop and a construction worker and an Indian chief, and do the YMCA? I will give you fifty dollars, cash.”

Mr. Dark’s red eyes got redder.

“You’re pretty funny for a dead man, Matt.”

“And you’re pretty skinny for a windigo, or whatever the fuck you are.” Matt took in Mr. Dark’s hollow cheeks and his tight, white skin. Remembered Dindren saying, The Otherworld, Matt, has rules like ours. Under special circumstances, its citizens are required to answer truthfully.

Mr. Dark stared at him, the twin fires in his eyes glittering patiently. Like he’s waiting for me to ask him something, Matt realized. But what?

The answer came to him immediately. Matt had to know if he was Mr. Dark’s locus or his host. Had to. Dindren may have been bat-shit crazy, but if there was even one chance in a million that he was right, and there was a way to stop this carnage from happening, Matt had to take that chance-whatever the cost.