He spat tobacco juice again and listened to the silence. Then he walked on. As he wound his way through the trees, he reconsidered his skepticism. He could understand why people told ghost stories about this area. This far in, the woods had atmosphere. The stillness was unsettling. He wondered what it meant. Did the wildlife know there was a predator in their midst? He’d been quiet, had walked lightly, dipped instead of smoked, made sure not to wear any deodorant. He’d even worn dirty clothes rather than clean ones that would smell like detergent. But nothing was out there.
Well, almost. Something was out there. He just didn’t know what it was.
He felt those invisible eyes boring into him again, right between his shoulder blades. When Rich wheeled around, there was nothing there but trees and foliage.
“Come on,” he whispered. “Give me a rabbit. A pheasant or squirrel—anything, goddamn it.”
He was smack-dab in the middle of over thirty square miles of protected Pennsylvanian woodland, zoned to prevent farmers and realtors from cutting it all down and planting crops or building housing developments and strip malls. The pulpwood company and paper mill in nearby Spring Grove had logged a great swath of the forest in years past, but lawmakers, the raging forest fire, and the rising availability of cheaper paper from China had put a stop to that. The old logging roads still existed, however. They were rutted and washed out in some places, but even so, they still provided access to the deeper parts of the forest. The adjoining land on the outskirts of the woods that hadn’t been ravaged by the fire was zoned agricultural and filled with corn, strawberry, and soybean fields. Other outlying areas housed hunting cabins. Beyond the farms and hunting cabins were the small towns of Shrewsbury, Seven Valleys, Jefferson, New Freedom, Spring Grove, Glen Rock, and New Salem. York County’s heartland.
Rich had grown up in Seven Valleys, and other than a four-year stint in the Marines during the early eighties, and a vacation trip to New York City when Tyler was ten, he’d spent his whole life there. Rich had been in these woods thousands of times, but he’d never gone farther than he had today. With the game non existent, he forgot about the unseen presence spying on him and pressed on, ignoring that creepy feeling and venturing into areas he’d never seen before. He wasn’t worried about getting lost. He had his compass and he’d be able to find the road and his truck again. His only concern was not finding some meat in time to get home and watch some TV. He wished now that he’d shot something when he had the chance, closer to the road where he’d parked. At the time, he hadn’t wanted to risk somebody hearing him. But it appeared that all the wildlife had gone deeper into the forest, so Rich did, too.
This close to the center, the woods seemed lifeless.
And that damned sensation of being watched didn’t go away.
The distant drone of a chainsaw broke the silence, and Rich jumped at the sudden sound. The buzz ceased, and was followed by pounding hammers. Rich shrugged. Probably the volunteers from the fire department, building something for the Ghost Walk. It occurred to him that maybe that was why the game was so scarce. Maybe all the noise had scared the wildlife away. He hadn’t realized that he was so close to the haunted attraction’s location. Grumbling to himself, Rich pushed through the foliage and moved on.
A few minutes later, he came across the first of the dead trees. Soon, the tangled undergrowth cleared, replaced with a vast swath of desolate, barren ground. He was nearing what had once been the true heart of the forest: a burned and blackened area known as LeHorn’s Hollow, named after the farmer who’d once owned it. The big forest fire in the spring of 2006 had destroyed over five hundred acres of woodlands and totally eradicated the entire hollow. Several people died in the inferno. Investigators suspected arson or perhaps an accidental blaze, but they were never able to determine the exact cause. In the end, it was speculated that a careless cigarette or an untended campfire had sparked the conflagration. The event made national headlines. CNN and FOX News even sent reporters out to cover it. For five minutes, York County, Pennsylvania, was in the news for something other than the Intelligent Design versus Evolution court case.
A lot of Rich’s friends and coworkers had been relieved to see LeHorn’s Hollow burn down. It had been the main source of most of the ghost stories and legends associated with the forest, including a violent murder in the eighties, a series of cult-related killings in 2006 (right before the fire), and whispers of everything from witchcraft and devil worship to crop circles and flying saucers. Then there was the more recent legend of a Bigfoot-like creature called the Goat Man who was said to haunt the area. All of it was bullshit, of course, but standing here among the burned-out tree skeletons, with no breeze blowing and no sound or movement, and that per sistent feeling of being watched—Rich could understand how folks would believe the old tales.
His stomach grumbled. His tobacco tasted sour, so he spat it out and then put a new dip in. Rich checked his watch and sighed. Then he pressed forward. Burned tree limbs disintegrated beneath his feet. A splintered log crumbled into charred bits as he clambered over it. With each step, ashes and dust shot up into the air, swirling around him and clinging to his jeans and boots. It was like walking through black baby powder. He wondered why the vegetation hadn’t started to come back yet. There should have been green shoots and fragile saplings thrusting upward from the soil. He shrugged. Probably because it was so late in the year. Next spring might bring it back to life. Maybe the lack of new growth to forage on explained why the hollow was empty of wild game. The surface was devoid of any tracks or footprints, except for his.
He was just about to give up and start back to the truck when he came across the stone. It was gray and stood out sharply against the dark landscape. It reminded Rich of a tombstone: knee-high, curved, rounded edges, and covered with carvings. It had definitely been shaped and smoothed by human hands. Despite the fire that had obviously raged around it, the stone appeared untouched. There was no soot on its unmarred surface. No burn marks or heat-induced damage.
Curious, Rich approached the rock and knelt down beside it. The carvings looked weathered, which meant that the stone was probably old. Had it been here before the fire, or had someone brought it here after? And if it had been here before, then how had it escaped undamaged? He studied it closer. There was no moss or lichen clinging to its sides, and no cracks or crevices in its surface. The rock was totally featureless except for the weird carvings. They weren’t like anything he’d ever seen before. They looked like runes of some kind, or maybe Native American symbols, like the ones they showed on the History Channel documentaries. He remembered the cult that was supposed to have been based here before the fire. Could they have carved these? It didn’t seem likely. Rich couldn’t explain it, but the strange symbols felt much older than that.
Maybe it was worth some money. A stone like this, covered with what might possibly be Native American glyphs? That was a pretty big archeological find. Maybe he could sell it to the Indian Steps Museum near Wrightsville. They had all kinds of artifacts there—spears and arrowheads, stone clubs, bowls, and other things. If he remembered correctly, they had some rocks with markings on them, too: displayed in a showcase were several pieces of slate that somebody had pulled from the bottom of the Susquehanna River, each segment containing several ancient carvings. He’d seen it on the local news.
Rich nodded his head and spat again. Yeah, the more he thought about it, the more certain he was. This had to be worth some money; if not to the museum, then maybe to somebody at York College, or maybe even down at the Smithsonian in Washington. How much? He didn’t know. Surely enough to get him out of debt—allow him to pay off the house and credit cards, and stop all the phone calls and letters from the bill collectors once and for all.
