Dead Man's Song

his own nervous reactions and explain them away, using weather, lack of sleep, bad coffee, and cold air as culprits for each individual emotion. He tried, in short, to be a reporter and slant the story in a way that would favor a totally rational explanation for everything. For most of the trek he was happy with that, but as the shadows got deeper and the air got colder the farther into the Hollow they went he kept having to remind himself of his own logic. He really didn’t want to openly acknowledge the grim and oppressive atmosphere of Dark Hollow, because to allow it to be a fact, or even a possibility, would be to accept that the place itself possessed some kind of negative energy, and to him that was preposterous. Crow was the one who believed in this freaky shit, not him.

Eventually even Crow’s pace faltered and he stopped and leaned his back against a hemlock tree; he dragged his forearm across his face and examined the dark stains of perspiration on the sleeve. His chest was heaving, though he looked less like someone who was exhausted from exertion than someone from whom breath had been robbed by illness. His skin color was bad and his dark eyes looked faintly feverish as he sucked at the air like a gaffed fish.

“Jesus,” he breathed raggedly as he unclipped his canteen and took a long pull, “this is like fighting your way through a jungle. Never seen such dense brush.” Crow wiped his face again. “Man, I’m sweating like a pig.”

“Pigs don’t sweat,” said Newton distractedly as he looked around at the high walls of shadow that climbed the steep sides of the hill.

Crow shrugged. “They would if they were down here.”

There was a squawk from the branches of the hemlock and Crow looked up to be a half-dozen ragged black birds clutching to the bare branches. Mostly female crows with their blue, green, and purple iridescent wings, and one fat albino male that was a sickly ash-gray. The jury of birds watched them with black intelligent eyes, and the albino squawked again, softly.

“Tell me something,” said Newton, finally reaching for the canteen. “How come you never tried to come down here before? I mean…why now?”

Not taking his eyes off the birds, Crow said, “Thought about it a million times. Even drove out here twice, once got as far as the top of the pitch, and chickened out.”

“You looked like you wanted to bug out today, when we were about to start down.”

Crow looked at him, and though he laughed there was little humor in it. More of a nervous chuckle. “I came close, Newt. If I’d been alone—well, let’s just say that Mike could have used some help at the store and I would have been fine believing that’s why I turned around and went back to town.”

“But you didn’t. I find it hard to believe that you feel safer with me here.” Newton said, and when he saw Crow’s lip twitch, he said, “Yeah, it’s okay to laugh at that.”

“Nah, it’s not that I need someone to protect me and hold my hand…it’s just that I think I would have felt too ashamed to cop out with someone watching.”

“You hardly know me. What would it matter if I knew that you copped out?”

Crow flicked him an appraising glance. “It’s not that you specifically knew, it’s that anyone would know.” He sighed and took another hit from the canteen. “I’m the guy who killed Karl Ruger. I can’t pussy out of climbing down a hill to visit a haunted house.”

“Who’d think that?”

“Me. Oh, and don’t give me that look, buddy boy, ’cause it’s no great revelation that we have to believe in our own hype sometimes.” He nodded toward the northeast. “Let’s get moving.”

“Well…I’m no psychologist, that’s for sure,” Newton said after they’d gone a dozen yards, “but I think you’re being way too hard on yourself.”

“I have a lot of personal work to do regarding my feelings about the guy who used to live down here. I’ve got enough personal baggage to open a luggage store, believe me.”

“I know, you told—”

“Newt, ol’ buddy, I’ve only told you part of it, and I’ve got to work up the nerve to tell you the rest.” Crow gestured as if trying to grab the right words out of the air. “I’ve got to prove to myself that my fears and superstitions are as silly as Val insists they are. You see, she doesn’t believe most of the stuff I believe. Oh, don’t get me wrong, she believes that he was the killer all those years ago, but she thinks it ended there and then.”

“And you don’t?”

“And I don’t.” Crow shrugged. He tried to make it look lazy, offhand, even careless, and failed. “You see, it doesn’t matter which of us is right, it just matters that I get this shit sorted out up here.” He tapped his temple with a finger. “Besides, there’s this old samurai axiom about facing your fears. If you’re afraid of ghosts, sleep in a graveyard.”

“Very pithy. So, are you afraid of ghosts?”

“Mostly, no.” Sweat trickled down Crow’s cheeks. “Sometimes, yes.”

“One ghost in particular? Ubel Griswold’s ghost?” asked Newton.

Crow stopped and turned, but for a moment just looked up above Newton’s head at the leafless branches of the tall, black trees. “I would appreciate it,” he said with exaggerated calmness, “if you would refrain from using that name while we’re here.”

Newton laughed. “Oh, come on! You’re not going to tell me you’re afraid of saying his name?” The reporter studied him. “You’re…serious.”

“As a heart attack.”

“Then you’re scared, is that it? This isn’t just an AA self-realization exercise, is it?”

Crow looked all the way up to where sunlight dazzled the very tips of the trees, a pure light that did not have the reach to warm the shadow-darkened valley. “Newt, ol’ buddy, I am so freaking scared right now I could cry. For two pins I’d run all the way back up the hill, get back in my car, and drive to the first bar I could find and drink it dry. That’s how scared I am.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you.”

“Why not? I’m just an ordinary guy, you know, not Captain Amazing.”

“Even so…You took on Karl Ruger. You have all those black belts.”

“Doesn’t mean jack. Karl Ruger was just a man. This is…him, you dig? This is my nightmare for thirty years. This is the reason I started drinking, the reason I sometimes want a drink so bad I get the shivers and shakes and want to scream. This is the reason sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night so terrified that I want to eat my gun just to stop from seeing his face every time I close my eyes. You don’t understand, and I hope to God that you never do, but what’s out there, the thing that used to live out there, was a monster. Don’t you get that? It was a monster! Not a man, not even an animal, but something unnatural, something that killed my brother, man. It ripped his throat out and tore his head off and… and…” Crow stopped and turned away, breathing hard, fists clenched at his sides. He drew in a long, steadying breath and tried it again. “You’re right, I’m out here just to get some kind of Twelve Step closure. Newt, I’m out here to try and save my own sanity.”

“Crow, I—”

“Hush. Just listen, man,” Crow said and they started walking again, slowly, side by side. “I’m out here to try and exorcise some of my personal demons, and I have to admit that I brought you along as kind of a witness. Maybe I need to prove to myself that I really did this. Who knows, maybe it’ll make a good sidebar for your feature. Maybe when we get out there all we’ll find is some moldering sticks that used to be a house and nothing else. Man, that would be so nice! But I needed to come out here, out to his house, just to see where he lived, to walk the earth he walked on, to touch things that he might have touched.”

“But…why?”

Crow drew in a deep breath and held it and Newton could see that he was steeling himself for something. What he finally said was, “Because I think Ubel Griswold might still be here.”

“What?”

“Yeah. How crazy does that sound? Now, you want to hear the really crazy shit?”

“I’m thinking no.”

“Want to know what Karl Ruger said just before he died?”

“Not anymore. I think I’d rather climb back up that hill and find that bar you were talking about.”

Crow stepped close and Newton could smell his sweat. “Right before he died…with his last breath, Ruger pulled me close and whispered ‘Ubel Griswold sends his regards.’” He stepped back. “What do you think of