CHAPTER TWO [indica]
The truck vanished down the highway in a twirl of putrid black smoke, leaving Ozzy, Byron and Nell in the shade of a leaning oak tree.
“Maybe we should’ve asked him which way it is from here,” said Byron.
Nell snorted. “We’ll be fine.” She set off at a march into the dense clustered woods that lined the side of the road. “He said it’s twenty minutes north, right?”
“He said south,” said Ozzy.
“You sure?”
“He said south. Twenty minutes south.”
“Well…” Nell paused. “Do either of you know which way south is?”
Silence.
“Great.” Nell pulled a joint and a gleaming silver Zippo out of her pocket. She stuck the joint in her mouth and lit it—sucked in a deep drag and blew out several rings of smoke. She smiled sheepishly and proffered the joint to Ozzy. “Toke?”
Out of habit, Ozzy shook his head. Nell offered it to Byron. “No,” Byron grumbled cantankerously.
Nell’s expression betrayed her disdain. “Squares,” she muttered, raising the joint to her lips again—
“Actually,” said Ozzy, “I’ll try some.”
Byron flinched. “Oz!”
“Shut up,” Nell snapped as she handed Ozzy the joint. Ozzy thought of Lily Sarlock, and the look of disdain she would’ve given him if she’d seen him then, placing the joint experimentally in his mouth and pulling hard. Then he started coughing violently, and spat the joint out onto the ground. “Oh god.”
He bent down to pick the joint back up, but Nell had already snatched it.
“First time?” she said in a low, amused simmer.
“No.” Ozzy shook his head. “Yes. It burns.”
“That’s how you know it’s good stuff. Have another hit.”
But Byron intervened, snatching the joint from Nell and pulling a hard drag from it. He started hacking almost immediately. “Christ,” he gasped.
Smirking, Nell took the joint back from Byron. Then she tipped her head to the side and said, “D’you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“That.”
Ozzy listened. The subdued rustling of the woods. Birds chirping. And…
“I hear it,” he said. Music, drifting out of the trees. A fluttery voice weaving a slow, sad melody, a guitar gently strummed beneath it.
Without another word Nell wandered off in the direction of the music. Ozzy followed. He noticed that he wasn’t walking but gliding several inches above the ground.
“Nice,” he said to himself.
“It’s called Summer Daze,” said Nell absently. “Or Summer Haze, I can never remember which.”
“What?”
“The pot you just smoked. Summer Haze.”
The woods drew them in, a latticework of dappled greens and golds. The music wormed its way into their ears. “I recognize this song,” Ozzy murmured, half to himself. “I swear I heard it on the radio, the other day—”
“You’re right.” Nell began humming under her breath, half-sung words. “Well you know how summer drags and drones…”
“…the worst time of year to be alone…” Ozzy continued.
“Are we even going the right way?” said Byron.
Nell shrugged. “Is there a wrong way?”
“Yes! We’re going to Marauder’s Cove! There’s only one Marauder’s Cove! Every direction that doesn’t lead there is the wrong way!”
“I think we’ll be all right.” Nell laughed, which made Ozzy laugh, which made Byron scowl. Then they all lapsed into silence, and walked without speaking for a few minutes, following the music. Nell continued puffing on her joint until it was just a smouldering stub, which she flicked onto the ground and crushed underfoot.
Soon they came to a signpost jutting at an odd angle out of the ground, bearing four wooden arrows pointing in four different directions.
The uppermost arrow said, in scorched black letters: MARAUDER’S COVE.
The arrow beneath it said: MARAUDER’S COVE.
The third and fourth arrows said the same thing, in the same scorched black lettering: MARAUDER’S COVE.
“What the fuck?” said Byron, his voice edged with rising panic.
“Hmm.” Nell frowned, cautiously approaching the signpost. “I think”—she spoke slowly, guardedly—“the forest is playing games with us.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, maybe not the forest. But something’s playing games with us.”
“Let’s turn back,” said Byron. He was sweating in the afternoon heat, shifting his balance from one foot to the other. “I say we get back to the highway.”
“Relax, dude,” said Ozzy. Secretly he thought that Byron had the right idea, but he wasn’t going to admit that in front of Nell.
“Relax?” Byron demanded, gesturing to the enigmatic signpost. “Is this really the kind of situation that calls for relaxing?”
Nell rolled her eyes. Ozzy opened his mouth to say something, but closed it without saying a word.
“Come on,” said Nell.
She started walking again. Ozzy and Byron hurried after her. After another few minutes the trees parted before them, and they stepped into a sloping glade lined with violet delphiniums. Ozzy shivered, though the forest canopy had receded above them, allowing the midday sunlight to fall on them. Ozzy, Nell and Byron froze, and shielded their eyes, and squinted, and stared.
Later, when Ozzy and Byron tried to remember what they’d seen in that clearing, all they’d recall were splintered fragments, like half-forgotten nightmares. As if someone had crept through their minds and smudged the memories until they weren’t memories anymore, only faint impressions that something had happened. They’d remember the aroma of woodsmoke, the crackling of a bonfire’s flames, an empty blue sky overhead. They’d remember the trees lining the clearing, pines, beeches, maples, their leaves rustled and tossed by a wind that wasn’t really there. Ozzy would even remember the large black boombox sitting against the tree stump, blasting that familiar music that’d led them there.
Nell, though… Nell would remember everything.
She’d remember the roaring bonfire belching smoke into the clear blue sky. The tall, sallow-faced man with long greasy black hair standing near the fire, and the three children kneeling in the grass before him, their hands pinned behind their backs, bound with rope: two older ones, brown-haired teenagers, and a younger girl with dirty blonde hair.
The black-haired man held a rabbit in his hands. It had brown fur spotted with white, and it was squirming.
Nell would remember the rabbit.
She’d remember the knife, too, slitting the rabbit from belly to throat. The steaming blood and guts spilling onto the children’s heads and dripping down their bodies.
She’d remember the black-haired man looking up and pointing across the field, pointing directly at her.
“Run,” Nell gasped. Her voice was hoarse, her eyes bulging with terror. “Run!”
The tall black-haired man was striding toward them. Nell was already spinning on her heel and running back into the woods. “Nell!” Ozzy shouted, turning to sprint after her.
“Fuck this,” Byron grunted, and he ran too.
J. Herrera Kamin 