The Altar. James Arthur Anderson
had tried to tell them not to build here, that it wasn’t safe. But they had refused to listen. Just like they always refused to listen. Now he feared the worst.
Either way, he had to know. He took his old M1 Carbine from its case in the closet, stuck his .45 caliber Beretta Mini Cougar into the waistband of his jeans, and went outside, praying to God that it wasn’t happening again.
CHAPTER THREE
-1-
A sound caught Erik’s attention and he walked over to the window overlooking the back yard, thinking that Todd might have hurt himself. The sun had gone down and the yard was quite dark by now. He couldn’t see any sign of his son as he pressed his face against the windowpane.
“Vickie?” he called, making his way downstairs to the kitchen where she was arranging the contents of her cabinets. “Vickie, is Todd down here with you?”
“No. He went outside to look for rocks.”
“I didn’t see him out there. I’d better check.”
“Maybe he’s in his room.”
“Would you check for me? I’ll look outside.”
Erik stepped out into the crisp night air that had suddenly chilled now that the sun had set.
“Todd? Where are you?” he called
His voice echoed with hollowness in the woods.
“Todd?” he called again, louder. “Are you out there?”
He walked around to the front yard, saw nothing unusual, then returned to the back again. Vickie hurried outside to join him.
“Erik, he’s not in the house. I’ve checked everywhere.”
“And he’s not out here, either.”
“Oh my God,” Vickie whispered. “You don’t think....”
“He probably wandered off into the woods. I told him not to leave the yard! I just got through telling him not to go off into the woods by himself....”
“Let’s find him first. Then you can lecture him. I’ll go get the flashlight.”
Erik nodded, then walked across the yard and stood at the edge of the woods.
“Todd!” he screamed, cupping his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice. He waited for the echoes to die down, and then called again.
The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that the noise he’d heard earlier was a scream. Todd was probably out there frightened half to death in the darkness. At least he’ll never wander off into the woods alone again, Erik thought grimly.
Vickie returned with the flashlight. Its beam bounced up and down over the dew-coated grass as she ran.
“Anything?” she asked hopefully.
Erik shook his head, then realized she couldn’t see him.
“Nothing at all,” he said, finally, and decided not to mention anything about the scream to her.
“He’s all right, isn’t he?”
Erik forced a nervous laugh. “Sure. He just went out into the woods and got lost. How far could he have gone?”
“Yeah,” Vickie said in a trembling voice.
Erik knew she was thinking the same thing as he was. The pastor had told them these woods went for miles. Still, how far could a little boy go in such a short time.
Together they stepped tentatively into the woods, using the flashlight beam to guide them. The moon had come up, a yellow half moon lying low on the horizon, but its light couldn’t penetrate through the treetops.
“Look,” Erik said, sweeping the ground with his flashlight. “A path.”
He knelt down and studied the dirt; though he was no Indian scout, it was quite obvious to him that someone had passed this way very recently.
“He’s been here,” he said, confidently, though he really had no way of knowing for sure if it had been Todd’s sneakers that had disturbed the dirt.
“If he stayed on the path it should be easy to find him,” Vickie said.
“Yeah. It’s got to go somewhere, right,” Erik replied. He laughed nervously.
The darkness hung heavy as a quilt by now, filling the forest with mystery and strangeness. Erik called his son’s name as he walked, as much to bolster his own courage as anything else. Though he hated to admit it, something about being in the woods at night frightened the hell out of him. Despite his dream of living in the country, he remained a city boy at heart, and didn’t know or understand very much about nature. Although a downtown street posed far more danger at night than a rural forest, he was much more at home there than he was here right now.
Growing up in the city had made him street smart. As one of the few academically talented kids in an inner city school, he’d quickly learned how to defend himself. He’d studied a bit of the martial arts, joined the high school wrestling team, and worked hard at building an image of toughness while earning high grades.
At least he knew what to fear from the city—and how to handle it. He knew that the scum who prowled the city streets preferred easy prey to someone who might fight back. As a result, he’d been left alone.
But here in the blackness of this strange forest, his fear was vague and undefined, somehow sinister and mysterious. Although he knew he could be no more than fifty yards from his back yard, he felt as if he had crossed the boundary into some ancient, primitive world where the rules he learned to play by didn’t work.
His concern for his son increased with every step he took. Since the path was too narrow for two people to walk side by side, Vickie followed behind him, clinging to the back of his shirt like a child holding onto her father, while he led the way, holding the flashlight beam low over the path ahead of them while pretending to be totally in control of the situation.
The path gradually narrowed even more until it disappeared entirely. Erik found himself standing in the underbrush looking out at an endless forest that seemed like it went on to the ends of the earth. He remembered what Pastor Mark had told him, and vaguely remembered from the plot map that the real estate agent had shown him that these woods did continue all the way to the Connecticut border, several miles away.
“Todd!” he screamed. “Todd! Can you hear me? Are you out there, Todd?”
He was almost frantic now, and his voice betrayed his panic.
“Maybe we should go back and call the police,” Vickie suggested. “Before we get lost, too.”
She was the calm one, now, and her tone settled him down a bit.
“They don’t have police out here,” he reminded her. “They have a sheriff.”
“Maybe we should call him. Or 911.”
For once, Erik wished he owned a cell phone.
“Who knows,” Vickie said. “Maybe he’s back home right now wondering where we are.”
Erik sighed deeply. “I told him not to go into the woods.”
Part of him wanted to press on, while another part of him trembled in terror when he thought of going deeper into these woods. Another part wondered if Vickie were right, and Todd was home waiting for them. Wouldn’t that be a kicker, he thought, imagining Todd home watching cartoons.
“You should have stayed home,” he said to Vickie.
“It’s too late now.”
“Maybe you could go back,” he said feebly.
“We’ve got to stick together now,” she replied. “Besides, there’s only one flashlight.”
“Yeah.