The Altar

2

Seti dragged the girl through the woods by the arm, ignoring the briar bushes and the undergrowth that pulled at them. It was pitch dark and he didn’t have a flashlight, but he knew exactly where he was going. The voice guided him, and all he needed to do was follow. The voice had told him where to find her, had instructed him to bring a roll of duct tape to stick across her mouth and stifle her whimpering, and had told him what to do with her when he found her. A couple of hard smacks to the face had taken the fight out of her.

He had wanted to kill her right then and there in the woods and probably would have, if the voice hadn’t stopped him.

“Not yet,” the voice had instructed. “Bring her back with you and be patient. I will tell you when the time is right.”

So now he dragged her back towards his car, an old Taurus which was parked on Route 102. He slapped her in the back of the head and tossed her in the passenger’s seat, then quickly tied her hands behind her back with a short length of twine. Tears rolled down the girl’s face as she whimpered, but the duct tape did its job and he didn’t have to listen to her. Not that it would have mattered. When they cried it only stirred him up. He never felt sorry for them, no matter what they did. And this one was a slut anyway, he decided. A little cock-teasing slut. He locked the door, then went into the driver’s side and climbed in.

The girl looked at him accusingly through a blackened eye, but he just grinned.

“I’m taking you home with me,” he said to her. “And we’re going to have some fun. You’re gonna like it!”

Then, with anticipation, he pulled out onto Route 102 and headed down the road to his makeshift campground in the woods. The voice had told him to be patient. But it hadn’t said he couldn’t amuse himself with his new victim in the meantime.

3

For the second time in a week, Erik found himself tramping through the woods in the darkness with a flashlight. Only this time, at least, he wasn’t alone. Several State Troopers from the Scituate barracks, Pastor Mark, and about a dozen volunteers from the village fanned out on either side of him, spaced 25 feet apart as they moved carefully forward through the thick forest. Each of them carried a portable walkie-talkie and a compass to keep them walking straight.

Erik felt about as comfortable in the woods as zebra would on a tight rope, but he really hadn’t been able to refuse when the sheriff had asked for volunteers. It could have been his own kid out there-in fact, if Dovecrest hadn’t found Todd when he wandered off, it would have been his kid.

He walked slowly forward, sweeping the ground with his flashlight beam. He still couldn’t help thinking about what Todd had said-the rock got her. And he couldn’t help remembering the last post he’d read on the Satanic web site-“those who oppose him will suffer misery and death at the black stone.”

Then there was the graveyard with the headstone made out of a meteorite. Could that be the black stone? Was there a connection? He wanted to ask the sheriff these questions, but the man had looked at Todd as if he were crazy when he’d said that the rock had got the girl. He’d laughed it off and told the boy he’d been watching too many movies. Then he’d asked Erik to go to the shopping plaza and meet up with the other volunteers.

Pastor Mark had already been there when Erik arrived, but he had not had the opportunity to ask the preacher any questions. He wondered if the pastor would think he was crazy, too. It was funny, he thought, how the Bible dealt with Satan and demons and people believed, but such things weren’t accepted in the modern world.

The forest was darker than everything he could imagine, and he looked to the right and the left and was comforted by the flashlight beams to either side of him. Whatever moonlight that shone was completely obliterated by the canopy of leaves overhead. There were no paths here, so the going was very slow as he pushed himself past and through bushes and around tree trunks. It looked as if no one had passed through this section of woods in decades.

Vaguely, he wondered what it was about these woods that attracted kids into them-first his son, and now this teenager. It didn’t make sense. Then he reminded himself that the actions of kids seldom did. Like the time he, as a little boy, had stuck a bean in his ears so he couldn’t hear the teacher, and then had been unable to get the thing out without a painful and embarrassing trip to the emergency room. That hadn’t made sense either.

He pressed forward, not knowing exactly what he was looking for. Occasionally the searchers would call out the girl’s name, but there was no response. He wondered how far into the woods she could possibly have gone. And that black stone-that still haunted him.

Then, just ahead, he caught sight of something white in his flashlight beam. He charged through a rhododendron bush and there it was, right at the base of a large oak tree.

He recognized it immediately-it was a girl’s white sneaker, and it probably belonged to the missing teen.

“Over here!” he called. “I’ve found something.”

Everyone on the line stopped as the word was passed down. The State Trooper on his right edged over to take a look.

“I’d say it’s probably hers,” he said. “Don’t touch anything. We may be looking at a crime scene.”

4

Todd woke up sweating, his heart beating a mile a minute. It was just a nightmare, he thought with relief. But it had been so real.

He had been in the dark, huddled in a tiny space with his knees up to his chin and his hands tightly tied behind his back. The knots hurt his wrists and his feet hurt with pins and needles where they had fallen asleep, as his mother called it. A thick piece of tape held his mouth closed and it was hard to breathe through his nose. Something had hit him in the nose, he realized, and in the eye, which was swollen almost shut. He also hurt in his private places, but he couldn’t even think about that because what had happened was just too scary and too disgusting.

He could sense the presence of the man who had done this to him-he was very close but he couldn’t see him in the dark. He knew this man would kill him. It was only a matter of time. He sensed it and he knew it.

Then he had woke up and realized it was just a dream, a horrible, frighteningly real dream that still echoed throughout his entire being. Yet he also knew that it was not a dream. At some level, it was real and either was happening or would happen in the near future.

Then, with sudden shock, he realized that he was dreaming about Melissa, the missing girl, and that for her, it was not a dream at all, but a terrible, terrible reality.

Todd wanted to tell someone about his dream and tell them the girl was in trouble. But he knew they wouldn’t listen. The sheriff had laughed at him when he’d mentioned the rock, and even Mom and Dad thought he was imagining things.

He rolled over and wished that Faith were here with him to curl up in his arms. He didn’t expect to get much more sleep that night.

5