Disappearance at Devil's Rock (13 page)

Arnold said, “Welcome to Devil's Rock, guys. Cheers!”

Tommy: “Cheers, sir!” He looked to Josh and Luis for a reaction. His goofy smile dimmed, and his sip was nowhere near as enthusiastic as his first.

“Yeah, let's hear it.” Josh sat down on the rock, totally fish-lipped his beer and put it down, hiding it under his tented legs.

Luis was going to stay standing and make sure he would take bigger sips and be the first one to finish his beer. Maybe he'd even crush the can with his hand, or better yet, stomp it flat under his heel. His next sip was too big and hurt his chest going down.

Arnold stayed standing, too, and he stood in the middle of the triangle of the three boys, the split in the rock as a boundary to his left.
“This is a good story. It gets a little long because I like to tell it, but we'll deal. It's a story about an old friend, of course: the devil. Or Old Scratch. He has lots of names but that one's the coolest. Old Scratch sounds sexier, meaner.”

Josh said, “Old Scratch,” in his deepest voice. “Hey, he's right.”

Tommy laughed, but Luis cringed at the self-proclaimed future politician trying to be . . . what? Political? Luis couldn't really put into words how it was Josh acted around adults, but it annoyed him. Why couldn't Josh be normal, or at least normal around this guy? Luis dismissively threw “Hardo” at Josh from the side of his mouth and pointed an open, karate-chop hardo-hand at him, too.

Arnold says, “This story goes back to the Puritans, yeah? They were always screaming about the devil and blaming him for everything bad they did and everything that went wrong. Which was fine by him. The devil's in the coincidence? Right?”

Josh: “Isn't it ‘the devil's in the details'?”

Arnold: “Same thing. And I like my saying better. It's more accurate. You'll see. Anyway, without the devil even doing anything, they could already see his hand in every action, hiding behind every tree, crouched in every shadow. No deer in the woods, bad year for crops, unfaithful husband, sick and dying kids, all his fault, right? Those Puritan dickheads were the perfect marks. And sometimes Old Scratch would make things more interesting, stir up a little chaos, you know. Tell them what he could see.” Arnold arched his eyebrows and took a sip of beer.

Luis took a sip, too.

Josh, again: “Like what?”

“He'd tell 'em how their neighbor was the one who stole potatoes or a chicken, or that guy over there, he poisoned your crops and was saying stuff about your wife, too. He'd tell 'em what should be done about that cute minister's daughter, or that so-and-so's wife wanted
to fuck you and if she wouldn't, no worries, you could accuse her of being a witch and stay in the Lord's good graces. He's good at pushing you into doing stuff that you only daydream or think about, yeah.

“There are stories about the devil everywhere you go in New England, but these woods in this area here were feared more than any other. Especially the old quarry. You guys been there yet?”

Luis answered for the group. “No.”

“You should go. So cool. Almost two hundred years ago, when a local railroad company used the granite from the quarry to build a huge bridge, the workers told stories about seeing the devil hiding in the surrounding woods or down in the rocks, peeking out through the gaps. They said he had secret caves and he would whisper to them, telling them terrible things. Everyone was spooked. Except Oakes Eastman.”

Josh: “Oakes? What kind of fucking name is Oakes?” He laughed that fake, little high-pitched laugh, a combo of voice crack and fake stoner.

Luis sighed. A little buzzed and too annoyed to feel guilty for wishing that they had left Josh at home.

Arnold: “One of the Eastmans, the famous Eastmans, you know, the same one who bought all this land and built the estate. He was a weird guy; a botanist or some shit like that—with a name like Oakes, guess he was destined for that bullshit, huh? No such thing as coincidence, boys. Like I said, coincidence is where the devil lives, man. And hey, his wife was an artist and into drawing freaky stuff, too. The perfect couple to buy up a bunch of creepy woods and call it
Borderland
.

“Before he built the mansion Oakes went for walks all up and around the ponds to do whatever a botanist does, and he saw the devil watching him. He could only see the devil out of the corners of his eyes. You know what I mean? You know how to look out of the cor
ners of your eyes, right? You can only see him when you're not really looking at him.” Arnold turned so that he wasn't looking directly at any of the boys. “But Old Scratch was there, dancing around in the edges, and getting closer. On one of Oakes's walks he found this boulder, the one with the split in it like it was a door to Nether, right.” Arnold stopped and started coughing. “Dry throat. Anybody want another beer?”

Tommy and Josh said no. Luis could tell their cans were still practically full. He had maybe a quarter left. Luis said, “Almost ready.” He took a deep breath to gird himself up for the big finish.

Arnold grabbed himself a second beer. “So, before they moved limestone one to start building his mansion and the natural pool and all the rest of it, Oakes decided he'd fix his devil problem, and he came up with a plan. He invited anyone and everyone who said they could help. Priest or rabbi or pagan or one of his folklore Harvard professor friends, didn't matter, and like I said, Oakes and his wife knew a lot of weird people. He took them all to Split Rock when the sun was bright and as high above their heads as possible and he had all of them bless or put spells, not on the rock, but on the ground, the dirt between the split, down there. You can't bless or un-devil—” Arnold laughed at his own made up word, and Luis did, too “—a rock. But you can bless dirt and clay, though.”

Josh chimed in again. “Why not?”

“Ever heard of consecrated ground?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Ever heard of consecrated rock?”

Josh shrugged and made a face. “No. I don't know, I have no idea. I—”

“Dude. It's just a story. Almost done.”

Arnold walked over to the split, the four-foot-wide gap between the calved boulders, and pointed down. “No one really knows which
one out of all the prayers or rituals or spells exactly worked. It doesn't matter, I guess. What does matter is that Oakes like napalmed the ground down there with all sorts of hocus pocus.”

Luis said, “Hocus pocus? Was the guy Harry Potter or a kid's birthday party magician?” and he gave Arnold a wiseass smirk. His chirp was cool, well timed, not annoying like Josh. Josh was like the auto-correct on his cell phone.

Arnold returned Luis's smirk. “Abracadabra?”

Luis groaned and shook his empty beer can at him.

Arnold didn't ask Luis if he was sure he wanted another or if he could handle another, and he didn't suggest that Luis slow down because he wasn't a
big
guy. Arnold laughed, slapped Luis on the back, and handed Luis a second can. Luis turned so that his back was to Arnold, puffed himself up, and flexed his arms for his friends. He said, “Come get some.” Tommy and Josh rolled their eyes, but they were also visibly uncomfortable while looking at their own still-not-empty beer cans and not really doing anything with them. Luis had the wild urge to jump one of them, slip behind them and put them in a headlock, and then roll them off the rock and be king of the hill. He stayed close to Arnold, sitting a few feet away, then opened his beer and took a greedy sip, big enough that he felt a little dizzy after.

Arnold continued his story. “Later that night Oakes went for a hike in the woods. He carried a lantern”—Arnold held out his can in front of him, pantomiming
lantern
—“and a walking stick, and made his way to Split Rock. The whole way there he felt Old Scratch nipping at his heels, and he heard him whispering into his ear, telling how he could make sure his family was rich forever, how he could make him governor like he made his father governor—that one freaked the hell out of Oakes—promising Oakes anything he wanted; make him stronger”—Arnold held his beer in front of his crotch—“or longer, all he had to do was say the word. Oakes was careful not to say anything, and he
walked straight to Split Rock. He climbed up to the top and stopped right before the split. Old Scratch followed, and his feet sounded like they were scratching up the rock. Might be one of the reasons why they call him Old Scratch. I'll show you later, but there's a spot down there that looks like one of his footprints in the rock.” Arnold paused and walked in a circle, then he put one foot over the split, straddling the gap. “Oakes turned around to face the devil, like this. He made sure to keep the split between his feet.

“He told the devil that before he agrees to anything, he wants to know if the offer is legit. Oakes said he's heard stories of the devil cheating folks. The devil heard that kind of stuff all the time, so that didn't bother him. He laughed and said that a deal was a deal, his word was his word. Then he said, ‘I can show you.' Oakes asked him how he could show him. And the devil said, ‘I'll come over there and make my eyes your eyes. Oh, the things I can show you.' Oakes could
feel
Old Scratch say that, like the devil was already inside of him this whole time. Oakes was shaking scared but held his ground as the devil came closer and closer, and then the devil reached out for him, and right as those cold claws were about to touch him, Oakes shuffled his feet back quick—” Arnold moved backward, too, hovering his torso above the split “—and with the devil leaning forward, off balance, Oakes swiped the devil's feet out from under him with that walking stick and he fell down into the split. He landed hard but got right up and started scrabbling around down there like a trapped animal, and he was screaming and yowling, so loud, the worst sounds ever. The devil wasn't hurt, but he was stuck. Couldn't climb up the walls and he couldn't just walk out between the boulders into the forest. It worked. Whatever spell it was they put down there, or the combo of all of them together, it worked. The devil was trapped.

“That night everyone who lived in Ames could hear his howling and crying all night long. The next morning, Oakes went back and the
devil was gone. There was nothing there.” Arnold walked away from the split and sat down in the middle of the boulder, held his beer can up, and took a long sip.

Luis said, “That story is
the
awesome. Should be a movie.”

Tommy: “Okay. Devil's Rock it is then.”

Josh said, “That's it? The devil just went away?”

If Luis's can was empty, he would've thrown it at Josh.

Arnold said, “Sort of. Oakes built his mansion and cut the walking paths through Borderland and everything was fine for years, decades even. Then, later when they were both old, Oakes and his wife started seeing someone peeking into their windows at night, watching them sleep. They could see it out of the corner of their eyes, but when they went over to the window and really looked there was nobody there, and no footprints or nothing outside below their window or anywhere on the grounds. His wife even thought she saw someone standing actually inside their bedroom, standing there and watching. Oakes, when he was an old, old man, like a year or so before he died, went back to the rock for the first and only time since that night he tricked and trapped the devil, and he found this tree, right there, reaching up and out above the crack like a claw.”

Josh: “Pfft. That tree isn't a hundred years old.”

Luis: “Shut up.”

Arnold held up his hands. “I'm telling you like I heard it. And legend has it that you need to keep away from the tree. If you touch it, it's like you're calling the devil, inviting him for a visit.”

Luis said, “Josh loves to touch it.”

Luis and Josh exchanged a volley of masturbation and small dick insults, each one with a little bit more of an edge to it than the previous.

Tommy said, “Who told you this story?”

“My uncle. The Rev. Well, he used to be a reverend. He was always
filling my head with stories about the devil. When I was little, he had me convinced the devil was following me around, that he followed everyone around. I was scared shitless all that time. But now I know.”

Tommy: “Now you know what?”

Arnold: “That it was all bullshit.”

Luis was in the giddy grips of his first full-on buzz by this point. His head hummed pleasantly and his tongue was sluggish and imprecise. “I'll drink to that, yo.”

“‘Yo'?” Tommy cracked up laughing. They all did.

Two days later the boys trekked back to Devil's Rock, as planned. The trip out was arduous, as they were still all nicked up and sore from their epic, drunken crash-and-ride out of the park. Tommy's front bike tire was a little warped. He'd tried to bend it back into shape before they left, but it still had a wobble, and the tire would intermittently rub up against the brake pads, slowing him down considerably. Luis led the way, driving them harder and deeper into the woods, until the boys got to Devil's Rock and got there early, before Arnold.