Point Pleasant (28 page)

“Holy shit,” Ben said to himself. “Listen without your ears.”

If it had broken into Tucker’s message while Ben was talking to Marietta, perhaps around the same time she had delivered her cryptic words, maybe it really did want to tell him something.

Emboldened, Ben tossed his phone to the side and started up the car. He drove out to River Bend Road with his hands gripped tight around the steering wheel, though a part of him wondered what the hell he was thinking going out to ground zero alone.

Something is stirring. We won’t survive, none of us will, if you don’t trust it. Break it. Figure out how to listen, and it will tell you how.

Ben passed Tucker’s farm and steeled himself. The road, as always, stretched out in a serpentine crawl of asphalt bereft of other vehicles. He rolled the Camaro to the shoulder and parked in the place he had come to identify with the creature.

The forest was still. He rolled down the window and listened.
There was no sound.

Ben took a breath, climbed out of the car, and popped the trunk. He grabbed the bag of salt and dug his fingers into the plastic to tear a hole in the top. Large chunks of salt scattered against the dark interior of the trunk when he shifted the bag and pulled it up into his arms.

Ben edged around the perimeter of the Camaro with the bag tilted downward and poured a thick ring of salt around the vehicle, though he left about five feet of walking room on all sides. He returned the salt to the trunk and took his laptop from his messenger bag on the backseat and his phone from the front.

Ben propped his laptop on the hood of the car. He glanced at the forest around him to ensure he was still alone as the computer started up. The little half-eaten apple logo disappeared, and his desktop loaded. From his dock, he clicked on an icon for a dictation program he sometimes used for translating his handwritten notes into a digital format. It also featured a recording function. He clicked the little red ‘Record’ button and sauntered to the border of the salt circle where he waved his phone in the air.

“This is probably the
dumbest
thing I have ever done in my life. But what the hell, right? Ben Wisehart, present and accounted for.”

The line of trees on either side of the road was clear. Ben was certain this was the same area, thereabout, that he and Nicholas had burst from on their bicycles so many years ago.

“Hello? Anyone home?”

Ben checked his phone. Nothing. “Look, I’m not gonna stand here all day. You wanna talk? Let’s talk, asshole!”

Silence met him, but he had expected nothing else. “Who are you?
What
are you?”

The wind blew sharp and chilly air against Ben’s face. There was a delicate vibration from his phone. He had a voice message even though the phone had not rung.

Ben took a deep breath and tapped the ‘Call’ button. He held the phone to his ear and listened to the robotic woman’s automated message.

The line changed, and Ben heard the sound of the wind blowing in the recording. After a few seconds, there was a loud sizzle of static, and the voice from before spoke again. It was deep at first, then high as if it had been recorded on auto-tuning software. The distorted voice spoke a single, concise sentence.

“
You are asking the wrong questions
.”

Ben tapped ‘End’ and stared out into the forest. “Then what question should I be asking, huh?” he called out. There was no response from either the woods or the phone. He clenched his jaw. “Why are you here?” he asked with a raised voice. “And what do you want?”

The phone vibrated once more, and Ben checked the message. The voice was mellower with lilting hints of an elevated pitch. “
I fell,
” it said. “
I want to go home.
”

“Where the
hell
is home?”

The phone buzzed. Another message. “
Not there.
”

Ben felt his skin crawl. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Then go home. Trust me, you won’t be missed.”

Buzz.
He played the next message.

“
I need your help
.”

“Oh, sure,” Ben said, uttering a mirthless laugh. “What do you want, a ride?”

Buzz.
“
You are insolent.
”

“And you killed my father, you asshole. You think I’m going to help you? I’m going to find you and put a fucking bullet through your head. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll find another way. But I’m not helping you, so you can go straight back to wherever the fuck you came from.”

Buzz buzz buzz
. “
I warned you
,” it said, and the anger of its tone made Ben blench.

“Fuck you,” Ben said and kept his voice low and spiteful.

The phone vibrated once more. Ben considered throwing it to the ground to smash it into pieces. The wind blustered, its whip strong and biting, and grains of salt scattered across the blacktop. He scowled and pressed the voicemail button.

“
Stay in the circle, Benjamin Wisehart. Do not leave the circle
.”

The air grew colder, and Ben jumped as the Camaro’s radio roared to life in a blare of static and shrieking screams.

“What the fuck?” he called out as the radio’s static cleared enough for a single word to resound throughout the shrill noise.

“
Benji,
” said the voice of Ben’s dead father. And it laughed.

“Fuck you! Just FUCK YOU!” Ben yelled as he spun to face the forest behind him. The wind continued to howl and the static from the Camaro grew louder than what should have been possible from the car’s old speakers.

The phone buzzed, and Ben held it to his ear.

“
Not me,
” the voice on the phone said, its tone low and dark. Ben’s heart sank at the words. “
Stay in the circle, Benjamin Wisehart,
” the voice repeated. “
It will protect you.
”

Ben’s eyes widened with steady horror. “Not you? Who the fuck is it, then?”

Andrew’s wraithlike laughter continued from the Camaro’s radio until it descended into a torturous scream. Ben backed away from the car. The wind blew harder, and the air seemed to grow heavier.

His phone buzzed again, and Ben stilled at the edge of the circle as he fumbled to press the correct button. “
It is manifesting.
”

Ben’s grip on his phone faltered, and he nearly dropped it as he spun around to try to see what exactly was
manifesting
. What if not the thing he was communicating with on his phone.

“What the fuck is that??” Ben called out. The phone hummed once more.

“
You must leave. Get in your car. When silence falls, drive. I will hold it back. Now, Benjamin Wisehart!
”

Ben leapt forward, grabbed his laptop off the hood of the Camaro, and tossed the computer and the phone onto the passenger seat. He slid into the car and winced at the loud, endless shrieks and screeches that rose from the radio as he slammed the door. He covered his ears with his hands in an attempt to stifle the deafening shrill. The branches of the trees on either side of the road shook with the force of the gale.

Everything
and
nothing
seemed to happen all at once. The wind ceased just as the noises from the radio came to a sudden halt. All was silent.

Ben cranked the engine, threw the car into gear, and U-turned out of his spot on the shoulder of the road. The Camaro’s tires screeched in loud protest, but Ben hit the accelerator and sped down River Bend Road with his hands gripped around the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles paled.

“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck,” he mumbled to himself as he zoomed past Tucker’s farm. “What the everloving fuck?!”

Ben forced himself to slow down when he made a left onto Main Street. He drove all the way to Cardinal without once looking in his rearview mirror. His thoughts lingered on a story from Sunday school about the wife in the Old Testament who turned to spy the devastation of Sodom only to end up a pillar of salt as punishment for her curiosity.

Ben pulled into the driveway and leapt out of the car. He grabbed his laptop, his phone, and the bag of sage and deposited his belongings in the entry hall before he raced out to the car to retrieve the bag of rock salt from the trunk.

When he reached the front walkway, Ben angled the bag of rock salt downward. He hunched over and scuffled through the bushes and around the full perimeter of the house until he was back at the front porch and a thick line of salt now circled his home.

He threw himself inside and slammed and locked the door before he slumped against it. Ben put his head in his hands and remained still until he felt sure his knees were in no imminent danger of buckling.

“
Jesus Christ
,” he said. “Jesus Christ,
okay
??”

A thought occurred to him, and he dove for his phone. He scrolled through his received calls menu and tapped ‘Return’ on Tucker’s number.

“What?” Tucker’s gruff voice answered after two rings.

“Tucker,” Ben said, unable to control the shaking in his voice. “Listen to me. Listen. Get up and leave. You have to get away from those woods. Grab some salt, some iron if you got it, get in your truck, and drive to me. Do it. Just do it.”

“What the hell is wrong with you, son?”

“There’s something else out there!” Ben yelled. “This whole thing, it’s not what we thought. There’s something else, and it’s out there right now. You need to get away. I was just on the road, and I can’t even explain it, but just get away. I’m at 40 Cardinal Lane. Do you understand me?”

Ben was not sure if it was the fear in his voice or his actual words, but Tucker agreed.

“Alright, I’ll leave.”

“Good. Do it fast.”

The connection ended, and Ben collapsed against the stairs. He dialed Nicholas’ number. It rang five times and then went to voicemail.

“Fuck,” Ben said and hung up.

He stood and strode into the living room to pace. He glanced over at the mantle and the happy photographs it boasted while he tried to process what just happened to him.

Not me. It is manifesting. I will hold it back.

He grabbed his laptop from the hall and returned to the living room where he opened the computer and placed it on the coffee table. The dictation program was still open, but it had ceased recording when the lid had slammed shut during his drive home. He moved the cursor across the screen and hit ‘Play.’

Ben listened to the sound of his own voice. The recording was clear enough that any other voices should have registered as well.

There was no answer to his first question just as he had received no response on his phone. Then he heard it; the voice sounded the same. It was all distorted tones and frequencies as it spoke.

“
You are asking the wrong questions
.”

Ben listened to his exchange with the creature in the woods, and his throat tightened even before the wind started to howl. A crackle of
something
preceded the Camaro’s radio as it blared to life, something that Ben had not heard in real time. It sounded like the sick buzz of a faulty transmission tower.

“
Benji,
” the radio said, but the recording had not captured the familiar drawl of Andrew Wisehart’s West Virginian accent.

Ben receded from the laptop as if distance could somehow protect him from the voice that put Mercedes McCambridge to shame. It was ghoulish and cruel and filled with a sickening amusement as it taunted him from the Camaro’s speakers.

The empty laughter that followed flooded Ben with the urge to vomit. It was even worse than the thing using Andrew’s nickname for his youngest child. Ben squeezed his eyes shut as it screamed and cackled with hysteria.

He realized he had backed up all the way to the doorframe like he intended to run from the room.

The laughter died out as the voice from Ben’s phone spoke words that Ben had not heard on the road, words that he could not understand. It took him a moment to realize that the voice was speaking in another language. Its tone swelled high and furious as it seemed to recite some kind of incantation in which the words were repeated three times over.

The voice from the radio hissed and spat out something that sounded almost like Latin before it laughed wildly at whatever it had said to the other voice.

“
You must leave. Get in your car. When silence falls, drive. I will hold it back. Now, Benjamin Wisehart!
”
the voice from the phone urged.

The radio carried more strange, foreign curses from its voice, which seemed louder and more
present
as if it had been standing just a few feet away from where the laptop sat on the hood of the Camaro. The first voice continued to chant its strange language in a tone so filled with righteous anger that Ben was almost comforted as he cowered in the doorway.

The whine of the wind and the awful screeching from the radio ceased on the recording just as it had in real time. The Camaro’s engine purred. Tires squealed. “
What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck
,” Ben heard himself say as he sped away from the two disembodied voices at the end of River Bend Road.

The recording ended abruptly, and Ben gaped at the laptop in silent horror.

He recalled the Shawnee and the Mingo accounts of the creature in the woods’ origins. One tribe said it fell from the sky, the other said it crawled out of the ground. Ben felt sick as realization crashed through him.

The accounts were not two versions of the same creature’s arrival but rather two accounts of two very different creatures.

The so-called Mothman of Point Pleasant had fallen from the sky, but whatever had crawled up out of the earth was something
else
. Something
other
. Something dark and malignant.

The winged creature in the woods was not the curse that rotted the very ground on which Point Pleasant had been built; it was the sole barrier between the town and the wretched
thing
that had crawled out of the soil and tainted the land with its very presence.