Skulls - Chapter
One
Jacob Rile looked into the face of death. Through a
hundred eyes, death stared back.
His heart thundered in his chest. He stood rigid as
he faced the array of polished white skulls laid out before him.
Shallow niches carved into the earthen walls cradled the skulls.
Each was angled so their blackened sockets cast their sight upon
the narrow entryway to the bunker.
A slick sheen of sweat broke out on his brow and he
wiped it away with a shaking hand. The dark eyes seemed to follow
his movements as he shifted from foot to foot near the ladder,
which led to the quiet forest above.
His huffed breaths loud in the confined space, Jacob
dared a step forward. The air was cool, prickling his skin. The
gentle musk of moist earth tickled his nose. He reached out a
tentative hand and traced his fingers along the nearest skull, the
touch light and fast. Expecting plastic, the perfect shine too
bright to be real, he yanked his hand back as he felt cold bone.
His fingertips tingled from the
contact.
His courage faded under the lifeless scrutiny. He
returned to the ladder just in time to hear a muffled growl filter
in through the trap door above.
To the rhythm of his booming heart, Jacob hurtled up
the solid, wooden ladder. He emerged within the tangled mass of
shrubs and trees that hid the bunker's hatch from sight. He closed
the door and winced at its squeak of protest, shuffling the
concealing web of branches overtop.
Jacob ducked low and slipped from the thick foliage
before he could be seen. He dashed to hide behind a nearby tree as
the guttural snarl erupted again. He smiled at the graveled growl,
almost comic in its distorted deepness.
He darted out again and found a thicker tree further
from the hatch. As he pressed his back against the mossy wood, it
gave a quiet creak. He held his breath at the
sound.
"Jacob?" a tenuous voice called
out.
Caught, he glanced out from behind the tree and saw
Cass's worried face. She stood just past the derelict barbed wire
fence. Her hands went to her narrow hips when she saw
him.
"Damn it, Jake, you're gonna get us killed." Her
voice quavered as she waved him toward
her.
Jacob walked over, his hands out before him, his
gait shambling. "I was trying to avoid being eaten, oh zombie
mistress." He chuckled as he met her at the
fence.
Her brown eyes glared, somehow appearing darker in
the shadows. "I'm not playing." She gestured from the fence toward
the side Jacob stood on. "That's Old Man Jenks's property. You've
been around long enough to know
better."
Jacob glanced back toward the hidden bunker. A chill
crept spider-like down his spine. "Yeah," he muttered, pressing
the wire down with his foot and quickly hopped over. He looked
back toward the bunker a moment, then shook his head as if
clearing it of sleep.
"You all right?" Cass asked, grabbing his
wrist.
Jacob twitched and turned to
look at her, his eyes wide. "Yeah, I'm fine." His voice cracked at
the end and he coughed to conceal it. "Was just thinking about
Jenks. He really that bad?"
Cass tugged him away from the fence and they headed
further down the hill, casting furtive glances behind them.
"Nobody knows for sure what he is, but the dude ain't right. There
have been kids disappearing from town ever since he started living
here, back in the late '80's. Least that's what my dad says." She
shrugged. "But either way, you don't want to get caught on his
land." She whistled low and shook her
head.
Jacob nodded, believing he'd seen firsthand evidence
of Old Man Jenks's cruelty. He started to tell Cass about what
he'd found, but his tongue seemed thick in his mouth. He licked
his lips and felt a strange sense of propriety about his find.
There was a sudden reluctance to tell her, to tell anyone, about
the skulls.
Not seeming to notice his preoccupation, she stopped
behind a huge tree trunk. She peered surreptitiously into the
woods. They'd been playing Zombie, for lack of
anything more interesting to do, when he'd stumbled across the
bunker, seeking a place to hide. The rest of their friends were
either still hiding, trying to avoid Cass, or were out searching
for the rest, having been infected by being caught by
her.
The quiet forests of Ruidoso were the perfect
backdrop for their game. They had the whole mountain almost to
themselves. On summer vacation from school, the rest of the world
rumbled by on the highway at the bottom of the hill, or north of
the Downs where all the tourists gathered.
Out on the western slopes, it was just them, the
birds and the bears, and the crazy old recluse who rumor said was
a murderer.
A quiet growl drifted to their ears from further
down the hill. The thick trees distorted the distance. Cass
pointed and smiled before casting out an answering
rumble.
Jacob chuckled, amazed at how such a little girl
could roar so loudly. He laughed in his head. A Death Metal Diva,
Cassandra Boone would kill him to hear Jacob call her 'little'.
'Petite', 'short', or 'upwardly challenged' she'd handle without
blinking an eye, but 'little' wasn't a word she liked. She said it
made her feel like she was being called a baby. She was anything
but that.
A model's body squeezed into Cass's five-foot frame,
there was no mistaking her for a baby, despite the covering of
loose fitting jeans and concert T. Jacob had seen her in a bikini
once when he stopped by her house unannounced one afternoon when
they were both blowing off school. That image had lingered on long
after that day, never far from the front of Jacob's
mind.
He chuckled at the thought and tried not to dwell on
the memory. Cass glanced back at him, one eyebrow raised below the
frame of her wild black hair. He put his hand over his mouth and
looked away as he felt his cheeks growing warm. He laughed again
to cover his embarrassment.
A sudden shout drew her attention down the hill and
Jacob sighed grateful. There was a loud growl, followed by a girly
shriek, both morphing into amused laughs, octaves
apart.
"I got her," a voice called out. The words echoed
through the trees. "Zombies win
again!"
"They always do," another voice shouted from nearby,
startling Cass and Jacob.
They turned to see Dennis Jones amble through the
trees toward them. He was breathing heavy. His hair glistened
moist and lifeless in the flickering light under the canopy of
trees. It hung limp over his eyes. "I've been up on that hill for
an hour since you caught me, Cass, only to find out everyone is
way down here. Man, I hate this
game."
Cass laughed. "You're just a lazy
zombie."
"Screw climbing around in the mountains to find
somebody to eat. No wonder the dumb shits are always screaming
about brains. They need them because they're stupid." He poked his bony
chest with his thumb. "Me, I'm a smart zombie. I'd just go to
school and chomp down on Miss Foreman." He mimed gnawing on a big
chicken leg. "Now she'd be a meal."
Cass rolled her eyes. Her hands on her stomach, she
reeled side to side. "Thanks for the visual." She shook her head
and moved off down the hill.
Jacob laughed and followed her down. "I'd check the
ingredients on that package, man. She's at least 85% bitch, and
that can't be good for you."
Dennis stumbled along behind. "I don't know what
you're talking about. She's always nice to
me."
A voice further down the hill cut in. "That's
because you're special,
Dennis. The law says she has to be nice to
you."
Dennis muttered something under his breath as the
rest of the group laughed. Coming together in the middle of the
trees, Jacob, Cass, and Dennis met up with Chris Mason and Dee
Palmer.
"When'd she get you, man?" Chris asked Jacob. His
bright blue eyes shined in the gloom. "We know when she got
dipshit over there; first, as always." He motioned toward Dennis
with his chin and sneered as Dennis flipped him
off.
"Just a few minutes ago. She caught me over by
Jenks's property."
"Not by; on," Cass corrected. She bumped his thigh
with her hip.
Dee's eyes went wide and she pulled her wavy blond
hair out of her face. "You were on Old Man Jenks's land?
You're brave."
"Stupid's more like it," Chris corrected as he
pulled a Marlboro from the pack in his shirt pocket. "That old
dude's a stone cold killer. Unless you're looking to get your head
chopped off, you better stay the hell off his property." He lit
the cigarette and took a deep pull, continuing through a cloud of
willowy smoke. "You'll end up like that one chick whose body they
found in the canal. What was her
name?"
"Katie," said another young man as he walked up
alongside the group. The name rolled off his tongue
slow.
"Yeah, that's it. I remember now, Katie James.
Thanks, Glenn."
Glenn Dover nodded. His shaggy mop of dirty brown
hair bounced in rhythm to the motion of his head. Prematurely
mature, Glenn's face was a patchwork of rampant black fuzz, a
garden grown amok. His eyes were narrow slits under thick eyebrows
and he smelled like the forest. A musky, leafy odor lingered
around him all the time.
"Leave it to Glenn to know her name," Cass said with
a mock look of disgust. "Mister serial killer
himself."
"Nah. There's no way Glenn could be a serial
killer," Jacob countered. "He'd wander off in the middle of
stabbing someone to go looking for a
brownie."
Everyone laughed. Glenn just nodded his head.
"But damn, once the bodies were hidden, there'd be
no finding them, huh?" He joined in with a chuckle, his voice
gruff. "No sir, officer, I don't remember where I buried them,
seriously. Did they have cookies?"
"Can you imagine the news report?" Dennis asked
cutting in from behind the group. "We're here with the father of
the notorious Ruidoso Slasher. Mr. Ben Dover...can I just call you
Ben?"
Jacob hid his laugh behind his hand as Glenn turned
straight-faced to look at Dennis.
"Oh hey, man. You're still here? I thought you left
already."
Dennis shoved Glenn, but the older boy just grinned
and played with the sharpened point of his scraggly goatee. Jacob
spotted Dennis's watch as he blustered. The glowing red time sunk
in.
"Shit. It's almost seven. I gotta
go."
He gave Cass a quick hug, slapped hands with the
rest, and barreled off through the trees.
"Don't forget the party on Friday!" someone shouted
from behind him.
He waved and kept going. His father having wanted to
talk to him before he left for the night, Jacob ran full out.
Their trailer on River Trail, in Paradise Park, deep in the Downs,
was a good twenty-minute run.
His lungs on fire, Jacob made it in
fifteen.
