WICKED – A novella by PETER NOLAN SMITH
CHAPTER 1
An early summer breeze rustled through the narrow meadow to a burned circle. The charred grass had been trampled by countless feet. None had worn shoes in their orbit around the crudely-cut pole topped by an animal skull. The bone gleamed white in the afternoon sun, its flesh having been picked clean by crows. Hundreds of the black birds were perched on the withered branches of a lightning-struck tree, as if expecting for another offering.
“It’s a dog’s head like I told you,” The six-foot boy in a leather jacket was big for his age and most adults might have mistaken him for 16, yet any teenager would have guessed him age to the month. 14 and not a day older.
“Yeah, I can see it’s a dog’s head.” His friend’s denim jacket was dirtier than his jeans, because it never had been in a washer. His face was cratered with countless acne scars. No skin doctor could cure the 13 year-old, so he called himself ‘Moon’ before someone else could stick him with the obvious nickname.
“A big one too.” Joe Tully out-weighted his shorter friend by 30 pounds. Most was not muscle, but the last person who called him fat wound up with a broken nose. After three days in Billerica Correctional he realized that the assault and battery on a twelve year old wasn’t worth 3 months of his life, but by then it was too late.
“Probably a Shepherd.” They were the biggest dogs in the suburbs.
“Or a Doberman.” Joe’s uncle had a Doberman. He was almost a vicious as his owner, but not as mean as his father. Both men were cops.
“No, a Doberman is too tough to let this happen to him.” Moon flicked his cigarette at the skull.
The butt-end hit the empty eye socket with a spray of cinders. Killing a dog was one thing. Cutting off its head defiled one of the Ten Commandments. Mark couldn’t remember which one and surveyed the glen. The nearest paved road was a mile away and thickets of thorns camouflaged the entrance to the gully between two steep hillocks. “What were you doing here anyway?”
“I was headed for the quarries.” Joe wiped a trickle of sweat from his forehead. The afternoon was warm for June, but his sweating had nothing to do with the temperature. Early this morning a short-cut through the woods brought him to what seemed to be a dead-end, however hearing the crows he pulled the leather jacket over his head and followed the weaving trail through a maze of underbrush to this neglected pasture.
He was surprised to find a collapsed Quonset hut, then again this part of the woods had been an army base during world War II. A quick peep inside revealed it had been a chapel for the enlisted men training for combat in Europe. No one had prayed there since the Korean War and Joe wandered further into the meadow, wondering what was floating above the ground mist. His eyes weren’t so good, but he refused to wear glasses, so he didn’t recognize the skull for what it was, until he was only five feet away.
He didn’t breathe and nothing else moved in the gully other than the crows’ coal-black eyes. His father called the them bone-pickers and Joe had seen THE BIRDS. He ran from the meadow with his spine chilled by a wintry fear. He hadn’t told Mark about that, because kids like them weren’t supposed to be scared by anything. Man or beast. “I didn’t expect to find this. It ain’t normal.”
“No one ever said the woods was normal.” This part of the Blue Hills was well-suited for behavior deemed unacceptable for the southern suburbs of Boston. The Mafia used the Blue Hills as a dumping ground for their victims. Teenagers watched the submarine races at the Chickatawbut Tower parking lot and queers haunted the rocky trails near the skating rink. None of them could be called nature lovers.
“Who you think did it?” Joe couldn’t think of anyone other than his father.
“Witches, murderers, but my number one choice is Satan worshippers.”
“Satan as in the Devil?” Joe pictured the Devil with horn, a tail, and clove feet, and skin redder than a fire truck.
“You know of any other Satan?” Moon chucked the rock at the skull.
When it thocked off the forehead and the crows flapped their wings.
Both boys froze under their stare, however not one broke from their perch, although several cawed, as if in approval. “Only one true Devil. And He walks the night now. In our hometown.”
“Damn, Lucifer.” Joe dreamed of a fallen angel fighting his battles.
“That’s right, the Prince of Darkness.” Moon glanced side to side for a sign. The devil wasn’t giving any omens for free. “But we keep this a secret for now.”
“Who I tell anything?” Other than his aunt and Moon, Joe had no one.
“What about Sudsy and Animal? You think they like this. We come up here with candles. What you think will happen?” The two wild girls were dying to see something like this. “They’ll love this.”
“Yeah.” Joe could see the flames, the girls, and the Devil. The fire made Satan more yellow than red.
“But they can’t come her until the weekend.”
“The weekend?” Friday was two days away. “What if someone messes it up in the meanwhile?”
“No one’s going to do that.” Whoever had done this wasn’t returning anytime soon, so it was safe for another couple of days. “You did a good job finding this.”
“I thought you would think so.” Joe was happy to have please Moon.
“So we have a little time to kill until then, what about going to the quarries.”
“And swim?” Joe had never learned how.
“Swimming’s for Boy Scouts.” Moon slapped his friend on the shoulder. “We’ll get some gas for firebombs.”
“I know where there’s plenty of bottles near the quarries.” Joe liked fire anytime of the day. It was warm and cleaned the air. The two boys left the meadow and the second after their departure the crows broke from the dead tree to attack the skull. Their beaks tapping on the bare bone sounded almost like Morse Code, although no telegraph operator could decipher the meaning. Not if they were from this world.
For Chapter 2 click on this URL