Terminal

Steve tugged at the leash, chasing the bad memories away like the good dog that he was. The wet grass soaked my shoes and his paws. I took us around the playground. It wouldn’t do to have the neighborhood children come flying down the slide and land in a pile of dog shit. As if reading my mind, Big Steve dutifully dropped a pile in the grass. Then we moved on. Paul Legerski’s black Chevy Suburban roared down the alley. He blew the horn and I waved. My next-door neighbor, Mike, started his lawnmower. It sputtered, stalled, and then sputtered again. A flock of geese flew overhead, honking out their springtime return from southern climates. But beneath it all there was another sound. At first, I thought I’d imagined it. But Big Steve’s ears were up and his head cocked. He’d heard it too.

As we stood there, it came again— a high, melodic piping. It sounded like a flute. Just a few short, random notes, and then they faded away on the breeze and weren’t repeated. I looked around to see if Shelly had heard it, but she was gone, as if the woods had swallowed her up.

In a way, I guess that’s what happened.

The musical piping drifted toward us again.

Big Steve planted his feet, raised his hackles, and growled. I tugged the leash, but he refused to budge.

“Come on,” I said. “It’s nothing. Just some kid practicing for the school band.”

It occurred to me that it was Monday morning, and all the kids were in school. Then Steve’s haunches sagged and he returned to normal, nose to the ground and tail wagging with excitement over every new scent.

The narrow trail leading into the woods was hidden between two big maple trees. I don’t know who made it, kids or deer, but Big Steve and I used it every day. Dead leaves crunched under our feet as we slipped into the forest, while new leaves budded on the branches above us. I stopped to light up a cigarette while Big Steve nosed around a mossy stump. I inhaled, stared up into the leafy canopy over our heads, and noticed how much darker it was, even just inside the tree line.

Primordial, I thought.

I shivered. The sun’s rays didn’t reach here. There was no warmth inside the forest— only shadows.

The woods were quiet at first, but then came to life. Birds sang and squirrels played in the boughs above us. A plane passed overhead, invisible beyond the treetops. The winding path sloped steadily downward. We picked our way through clinging vines and thorns, and I spotted some raspberry bushes, which gave me something to look forward to when summer arrived. Blue tinted moss clung to the squat gray stones that thrust up from the forest floor like dinosaur skeletons. And then there were the trees themselves— tall, stern, and proud.

I shivered again. Stepping over a fallen log, I wondered again who’d made the path, and who used it other than Big Steve and myself. The most we’d ever gone was a mile into the forest, but the path continued on past that. How deep did it run? All the way out to the other side? Did it intersect with other, less-used paths? Did it go all the way to LeHorn’s Hollow?

I mentioned the hollow earlier. I’d only been there once, when I was in high school and was looking for a secluded spot to get inside Becky Schrum’s pants. I remember it well. 1988— my senior year. We saw a Friday the 13th flick (I can’t remember which one), and when it was over, we cruised around in my ’81 Mustang hatchback.

Eventually, we found ourselves on the dirt road that led to the LeHorn farm. The farmhouse and buildings had stood vacant for three years. Nelson LeHorn had killed his wife in 1985, and then disappeared. He hadn’t been seen since. His children were scattered. His son, Matty, was doing time in the Cresson State Penitentiary. His daughter Claudia was married and living in Idaho. And his youngest daughter, Gina, was teaching school in Brackard’s Point, New York. Because the old man was legally still alive, the children were unable to sell the property. So it sat, providing a haven for rats and groundhogs.

The LeHorn place sat in the middle of miles of woodlands, untouched by the explosive development that had marred other parts of the state, surrounded by a vast expanse of barren cornfields, the rolling hills not worked since the murder. In the center of the fields, like an island, was the hollow.

I’d parked the car near the house, and Becky and I had talked about whether or not it was haunted. And like clockwork, she was snuggled up against me, afraid of the dark. I remember glancing toward the hollow as we made out. Even in the darkness, I could see the bright, yellow NO TRESPASSING and POSTED signs, hanging sullenly from a few of the outer tree-trunks.