to be tranquilized and brought back when it fell into someone’s swimming pool. But you could get hurt there, just the same. It’s never a good idea to go into the woods alone anyway, especially city folk like you.
“Dovecrest tries to scare people away because he doesn’t want people in the woods—and, honestly, you don’t belong on the reservation anyway. He tells people the place is possessed by evil spirits, and talks about the dogs and cats that disappear there. Most of that’s just for show—even the Indians don’t worship evil spirits anymore. They have their own church. These woods are just a large stretch of oak forest. No more and no less.”
Vickie laughed. “I know it’s silly, but the Indian scared me a little.”
Mark laughed. “There are all kind of rumors in New England. Someone’s pet runs off and gets lost in the woods and the next thing you know the place is overrun with vampires. These woods aren’t any more evil than any other place on this earth.”
“Lord knows, I’ve seen enough evil in the city,” Erik said, but he could tell that all of this talk made Vickie nervous.
“Pastor, would you mind blessing our new home?” she asked. “I think we could all use as much of God’s presence as possible.”
“I’d be happy to.”
The family bowed their heads and Pastor Mark led them in prayer.
CHAPTER TWO
-1-
After the darkness came the pain. A blinding, burning pain of fire and brimstone, straight from Dante’s Inferno. The agonizing pain seared the nerves, choked the lungs, burned the tissues from the inside out. It tortured each and every cell—or the memory of each cell, for the actual, living cells had long ago ceased to carry on their biological functions of osmosis, respiration, and division.
His was the awful pain of remembrance, the terrible pain of awakening after three centuries of sleep—of death.
The first sacrifice, accidental, had awakened the pain and with it had come reluctant consciousness. Despite his resolve, he had questioned and protested. He had tried to close his nonexistent eyes and return to the emptiness of sleep, the nothingness of death.
But the pain had invaded his peace, his stillness, rolling over him like endless waves of fire. With shock, he realized that he had no nerves, no lungs, no tissues or cells. Without a body, he should feel no pain. Yet the pain tortured him with its vivid and impossible reality.
Time passed and he imagined himself in hell. Gradually, he became lucid and remembered, despite the pain. The agony never lessened; he merely grew accustomed to it, like a festering, cancerous growth that continued to burn and bloat.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, he learned that he could force the pain into the background while his thoughts flourished. Only then did the memories become more clear and his purpose more focused.
The flames. The rancid black smoke. The awful scent of burned flesh—his own flesh—roasting away as the blood boiled within his veins. The memories returned in vivid, wrenching detail as he relived the moment over and over again.
Then, like a film played in an endless loop, the pain and emotion of the memory faded somewhat, allowing him to recall his purpose.
The curse had emerged from the flames, bright and bold as the phoenix. He would exact vengeance upon them and upon those who came after them. He could see it all clearly now, not only up until the time of his own death, but beyond. He saw the world move on, while he slept. And now the curse had pulled him back, had reawakened his purpose.
Yes, the curse. They would pay with their own lives and their own pain, just as the first one had paid, restoring his power and bringing him back from beyond the very reaches of Hell. There would be more deaths, more suffering. Death and pain would restore him, make him whole, provide life and substance to his anger and hatred and hurt. It would quell his own agony as his consciousness reached out to claim what belonged to him. Fighting against the pain of remembrance, he flexed his power like a muscle and began to reach into this new and different world.
-2-
Todd had trouble sleeping that night, plagued by bad dreams of the old Indian man who had visited them earlier. Twice during the night he woke up crying and had to be comforted by his mother. He couldn’t remember exactly what the dreams were about, but the old man played a part in them. His father tried to tell him it was nothing, just the unfamiliar sounds of the new house and the wind rustling through the trees in the woods out back. But by the time the morning sun had peeked through his window to awaken him, Todd was secretly convinced that the old Indian was some kind of mummy that had been dead for a thousand years.
Todd spent most of the day unpacking his things. He had his own room on the second floor and his happiness in not having to share space with the new baby made him forget his bad dreams as the day wore on. He took special pleasure in helping his father arrange his bedroom and in setting up his treasures and special things where he wanted them. He was happy despite his mother’s constant nagging about how he’d have to keep his room picked up, and by suppertime he’d managed to convince himself that the dreams were silly after all, and that the Indian was just an old man, nothing more. He didn’t have a chance to go outside and really explore the back yard until after suppertime. But he knew this huge and wonderful yard would become his own private playground.
Now, as the sun began to set, he sat on the cool, damp ground beside a small, newly-planted shrub, aimlessly digging the loose dirt of his mother’s future garden with the point of the geologist’s hammer his uncle Mike had given him for his birthday. It was a cool night and the dew had already begun forming on the short, neatly cut grass. Todd breathed deeply, drawing in the crisp, fresh air. He nodded in satisfaction.
But as he looked off into the dense woods behind the back yard, his thoughts returned to the Indian man who had visited them the night before, and the memory of the nightmares returned once again. He shivered, despite himself, as he tried to rid himself of the uneasiness he had felt at the man’s appearance. His palms were sweaty and his mind whirled around like bathwater going down the drain.
Then the memory of the nightmare that had plagued him returned in vivid detail. In a terrible but realistic vision of pure imagination, he had seen the Indian laying spread-eagled on a huge stone slab, bleeding and twisting in agony from a hundred wounds that covered his entire body. Somehow, Todd knew that the man was ancient beyond belief as he lay on the slab like raw meat on a plate.
The vision had been so real, so intense that he’d bolted upright in bed, screaming in terror until his mother and father had come running into the room to comfort him. Just remembering the dream, it was all he could do to choke back a scream and bolt back inside the house and into his mother’s arms.
But something stopped him. He was a big kid now, he reminded himself and he could even read adult books. He liked scary stories best, and had read some Stephen King books, though they were supposed to be too old for him. But he’d been reading them for almost a year now—his teacher said he was “advanced”—and if his mother thought he was frightened she’d blame it on the books and she’d take them away and make him read boring stuff instead.
With a shudder he remembered his father’s words—it was only a dream and dreams can’t hurt you. They’re only make-believe, like in the books or movies, and when you put the book down or left the theater, or turned off the TV or woke up from the dream, it was gone. Just a memory. Of course he still wasn’t convinced that the monsters on TV weren’t real, despite the thing
