Grimoire Diabolique

“There! There he is!” Maxine shouted. She pointed right to Rosser, who was in the decline but his head showing. “Get him! Make him pay fer the horrible crime he done to my baby!”

Several figures began to run after him. Rosser hightailed it faster than he ever had in his life.

Lower into the decline, the woods began. He thrashed through brambles, leapt over tree stumps, tore through the forest. Deeper, it occurred to him that he had no idea where he was going, only a general inclination of direction. It also occurred to him, quite quickly, that he was not in the greatest physical condition. His heart hammered, he grew winded, and his knees and ankles began to ache—My God, I’ve got to rest!—but a surge of adrenalin dumped into his blood when he heard more thrashing behind him, the rapid footfalls of several men.

“Daggit, Jory. I’se think I see the monster, right down yonder past them trees!”

“Shore’s shit do, Judd! We’se’ll tune that sick bastard up real good!”

If those hayseeds catch me, they’ll lynch me right here in the woods! Rosser kept running.

The tear through the woods seemed endless. As he progressed he felt more and more lost; he’d deliberately been zigzagging, hoping to lose them. Spider webs stretched across his face, bugs covered him, including masses of mosquitoes. At one point he slipped on something and fell flat on his face: a rotten woodchuck. At another point, when he thrashed through some vines, a yard-long green snake fell on him. Somehow, though, he managed to fling it off without shrieking. Within these woods, the humidity doubled, sucking sweat out of his skin.

Rosser kept running.

He stopped when it felt as though his heart would pop, leaned behind a tree. He wheezed in deep breaths that simply didn’t seem to suffice; for a few seconds he feared he might pass out from exhaustion. The most dreadful notion told him that he’d soon be able to hear his pursuers, gaining on him, strong, young men, men who weren’t winded at all but instead bent on vengeance.

Please, please, God. Don’t let them get me, or if they do, please let it be quick…

Hugging the tree, he held his breath.

Listened.

Nothing.

Thank God…

His pursuers had branched off in the wrong direction. A few shouts in the distance verified the absolving observation: the shouts were getting further and further away, until they disappeared.

Yes, yes. Thank God.

Finally, luck seemed to be on his side. Another thirty yards through the woods showed him an open field beyond the trees, and the modest valley in which Luntville had been built. When he squinted he could even see Mrs. Doberman’s rooming house!

Twenty-minute walk and I’m home!

It would be difficult, but he thought he could make it. He couldn’t stay in town, of course, not with crazy Maxine accusing him of child molestation, but with just a little more luck, he could get in the house, get into his room and retrieve his money, then slip out again and hike to the next town and catch a bus somewhere else.

It was the only plan he had and it didn’t sound too bad. Maxine had been the only one to see him, and he hadn’t told her his name, nor his address. I’ll get my money and run, he reasoned. And I’ll NEVER solicit a prostitute again!

He was just about to exit the woods when sharp voices rose. He jumped to the ground behind a fallen log.

The voices blared with rage and urgency. Male voices.

“Kin ya believe the sick shit that people do?”

“Shee-it, brother. A baby, a little baby!”

The voices…were grimly familiar.

The Harkins boys.

The quadruplets….

“Maxine even said he butt-fucked the baby!”

Rosser nearly pissed in his jeans.

“Yeah, boys, he’s one sick piece of shit, but if he thinks he’s sick…we’ll show him sick…”

“Yeah, man!”

All Rosser could think after that was two things:

A mallet-job…

And a dick-snagglin’…

“Bet he went in the woods. Let’s go!”

No!

“Naw, why would he do that? Bet he went up the main road, to hitch a ride.”

Yes, yes!

“Anybody know what the fucker looks like?”

“Naw, not his face ’er nothin’. Shouldn’t be hard ta spot though, ’cos Maxine said he was wearin’ a button-down white shirt.”

“Come on, yer right. Let’s head to the main road—”

Rosser let out the longest sigh of relief when they stomped off. Luck kept blessing him, that or God. He’d most easily be recognized by his shirt (which still reeked of infant excreta, by the way) but he still had his dollar-store bag, with t-shirts in it.

He changed shirts, waited until the Harkins boys were gone, and crept back to town.