Jenny watched for any motion in the dark that might suggest that Ernie intended to leave. The haze had thinned so that the lunar disk showed, featureless, washing the pines in dull light.
From outside the rim of brightness, came a rasping voice. “Know about the Leeds Devil?”
Everyone stopped talking.
Ernie’s thin face emerged from the darkness. “Long time ago.” Flame glinted from the eyes of the others, but in his eyes light sank, became deep embers in a face that seemed pointed and hollowed by moving shadows. “Mother Leeds was in labor.” He coughed, spat, and his mouth twitched with a smile. “Found a hut, not far from here. Maybe I’ll take you there.”
They shifted uneasily.
“Mother Leeds had twelve other kids. She cursed it.” He coughed again, a horrible rattling. “Didn’t do nothing. Wasn’t even born yet. It was hers!” He spoke haltingly and with effort, rage and shyness in his manner. “Understand? It had nobody else!” He shouted but looked directly at no one. “Cursed it!”
Isolated in the dark, they tried to find one another’s faces for reassurance.
“Unborn. Cursed. Torn from her. It clawed, fought its way out of her stinking, bloody hole.”
“Hey!” Jenny’s arm circled little Amelia’s shoulders, as though to shield her from his words. Strange to feel so vulnerable—sophisticated Jenny and her so-grownup-seeming daughter, their eyes big with fear.
“Said its father was a devil.”
“I wonder how she meant that.” Sandy attempted a snicker.
“Little baby. Looked normal. That showed what it might have been, if only she’d fucking loved it!” His voice grated. “Her fault…twisted…grew up, grew…became a fiend.” A tremor ran through him, and he looked as though he were about to laugh or scream. “Ashamed of it, ashamed of her own. Afraid of it, too. Shut it away…locked up. That’s what they wanted. They all wanted.” He breathed deeply, spat again. “The old whore used to pass food through a crack in the floor. Years. Had to live in his own piss and shit. She got old. Stunk—the basement—enough to make you puke. She didn’t know how big he was growing. Never knew.” He stabbed a twig into the embers. “One night, the twelve brothers and sisters heard something, the cellar door splintering. They heard him coming closer. Down the hall. Closer. Fucked and ate them all in their beds.”
Jenny watched him. Pacing now, he moved in front of the fire. Amelia sat very still.
“Ran out…in the dark. Door shut behind. Hung around the yard, cold and hungry. Couldn’t get back in the house. Night after night…call his mother. Begging. She wouldn’t let him in. Stayed in bed. Pretended to be sick, the bitch.” His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “She starved to death. The monster wandered off into the woods. These woods.”
Casey cleared his throat. “Good story.”
“Yeah, real good story,” said Alan, and as he spoke, he fed twig after twig into the embers. They all threw on wood, bringing the fire back to blazing life. The crickets seemed to pulse louder.
“You know, it sure was a long day. I sure am tired. Hey, where’d that flashlight get to? I, uh, can’t see to untie the cords on my sleeping bag.”
They all began talking a bit too fast. “What’s that over there?” Sandy pointed. “It’s like two little eyes!”
“Oh my God!” screamed Alan. “It’s the Leeds Bunny!”
Casey produced a flask of bourbon and passed it around. Ernie had already backed away. As a wind pushed heavy clouds across the night, the moon disappeared for long intervals. They started unrolling their sleeping mats. “What’s that smell?”
“What smell?” But gradually it filtered to all of them, and one after another, they wrinkled their noses in disgust. The odor of putrefaction seemed to come from several directions, as though something corrupt moved through the pines. Then it diminished and, within moments, had faded away, leaving only a thin, nauseating trace.
Jenny listened. Nothing. Crickets. She scrutinized the woods and strained her eyes to find Ernie. The fire flared for an instant, and she saw him, stiffly facing away from them.
“Where you going, Ernie?” Casey yawned.
“Yo, leave him alone,” muttered Alan. “He’s probably just going to piss.”
“Ernie?”
“Back my own camp.” Ernie paused, barely turning.
“What?” Casey stood up. “You can’t leave. It’s pitch dark. Stay here. I mean, we’ll find an extra ground cloth or…”
Jenny held her breath.
But Ernie slipped into the trees. “Not far,” he mumbled over his shoulder. “Rather sleep there.”
Insects whined. For a moment, they all stared at the spot where he’d been absorbed by the woods. Alan broke the silence. “Well, I never.”
This provoked giggles. “I’m glad he went finally. What a creep.”
Untying his boots, Casey looked about to object.
“Ssh, not so loud,” said Jenny. “He may still be out there, listening.”
Sandy shivered. “Don’t say things like that!”
“Mom, he’s not coming back, is he?”
They joked and talked, voices growing steadily lower. Snickering loudly, Sandy teased Casey, poking him in the ribs while he fended her off with one hand. “C’mon, gang. Sleep.” Alan unrolled the twin bags he shared with Sandy, zipped them together. “Fearless Leader will most likely have us up at dawn again.”
“Damn right.” Casey slurred his words, feeling the sugary bourbon a bit.
“Where’s that bug stuff? Next time can we hike north, say, to Alaska?”
“Don’t give him any ideas for tomorrow.”
“I don’t even want to think about tomorrow.” Sandy unbuttoned her blouse. “Ssh, everybody. Look at Amelia. She’s out already.”
They dragged their sleeping bags to various parts of the clearing, and soon all save Casey were bedded down. “Aren’t you going to bed, Case?”
Everything got quiet. Under their pup tent, Sandy and Alan whispered and giggled softly, and later there came a small, brief cry.
In the dimness, Casey sat, yawning and refilling his pipe. He nipped at the bourbon, decided to finish it before climbing into the sleeping bag that lay beside Jenny. Finally tapping his pipe out on a log, he watched the fire die through half-shut eyes.
And blackness closed on the diminishing sphere of light.
Sounds of the night crowded in, louder, nearer. The insects chirped in unison, and overhead the air thrummed as a horned owl dropped down and sank sharp talons into the squirming back of a field mouse that had been nibbling garbage at the edge of the camp. Long feathers flashed again in the moonlight as the great bird regained altitude with a noise like the shaking of cloth.
The stench had returned, stronger than before.
Catching the heavy scent, the owl screeched its terror and rushed off on flailing wings. The forgotten mouse, already stiff with death, landed on the sand with an almost imperceptible plop.
The woods grew hushed. Soon there remained only small noises, tiny clicks made by the insects that spent their lives foraging on the bleak forest floor. They had moved in toward the campers, toward this unexpected source of food, but now even the crickets ceased. Small black beetles sang out with rattles and dry rasps. Yet, one by one, those too dropped off, leaving only the muffled thump of clumsy feet against the sand.
…mad shouts…screams of pain…
Conscious only of the others running in different directions, Casey blinked awake. He hopped up, cocooned in his sleeping bag, then pitched forward on his face. Despairing howls and wild activity surrounded him as he struggled with his bound legs. The zipper stuck. He fumbled with it, and someone tripped over him, crying out. Kicking free, he stood, the bag still tangled around one leg.
A snarl ripped the night.
He was slammed against with fury—something slicing through the flesh of his arm—and thrown, rolling in the black sand. As he groped about him, agony raged, throbbing in his arm, and his hand struck something that
