Consecration
By David M. Bachman
Copyright 2014 David M. Bachman
****~~~~****
“Is that it?” Chad asked as he slowed the SUV. Zoey offered no reply. “Hey, c’mon. Is that the place or not?”
Reaching from the back seat, Gina laid a hand upon her shoulder from behind. “Zoey?”
“Yeah,” she finally said with a sigh, letting out a breath that she hadn’t realized she had been holding in. “Yeah, that's the place. That’s … that was where it happened.”
“Just looks like a little forest in the middle of friggin’ nowhere. You can’t even hardly see the house from the road,” Mike commented from the back seat. “Sure doesn’t look haunted to me.”
Zoey shook her head lightly. “It’s not supposed to.”
Chad brought the Explorer to a halt in front of what was supposed to be a house, but what now resembled nothing more than a huge pile of closely-knit poplar and oak trees tangled with an overgrowth of weeds, vines, and shrubs that had been neglected for decades. It seemed almost as if it had been deliberately obscured from view because, as Zoey believed, the cursed site was closing in upon itself in the shadow of its very own darkness. That, or perhaps the earth was making a gradual effort to swallow the building whole, to smother its evil with the green substances of life, thereby returning it to the soil from whence it had arisen. Everywhere else, in all four directions, there was nothing to see but clear blue skies and ripe fields of wheat that rippled in small waves with the breeze, like an island of green sticking up in the middle of a golden ocean.
Zoey was torn between wanting to stare out the side window at what she knew was a dark den of foul karma, or straight ahead to the place where her brother’s life had been snuffed out at the age of seventeen. Both sights, in spite of the degree to which they had changed over the years, were equal sources of unpleasantness, the source of so many memory-filled nightmares over the years. For her, a decade ago, it had taken only about an hour of one day to make those into very personal, very terrifying images.
Zoey lagged behind the other three as they approached the house with a sense of curiosity that far outweighed Zoey’s dread. Like the rest of the property, the driveway was far overgrown with knee-high grass, only giving the barest hint of two tracks in the vegetation to indicate where tires had worn a path leading up alongside the right-hand side of the place. To the right of the drive, there were hulking masses of old, rusted, broken-down and abandoned farm equipment – antique plows, balers, and an incomplete tractor with spiked wheels of iron. The house, itself, was barely visible to the left, even as they knew they were standing right beside it. Vines and trees had obliterated it from sight so thoroughly that it looked more like a giant greenhouse than a farmhouse.
There was some joking and snickers as they rounded the rear corner of the house and spotted the outhouse, a completely authentic, old-school little structure of weathered old wood with a crescent moon carved into the door and side-by-side holes affixed with rusted white metal toilet seats. Neither Chad nor Mike were the least bit shy about demonstrating that the outhouse was perfectly functional as they took turns relieving themselves in it. It had been a long drive across Kansas from Wichita to this site on the outskirts of Plains, and nature was calling strongly to each of them. The guys’ only issue with the old dilapidated crapper was a nest of wasps that sprang to life as Mike apparently did something to set them off. He hurried out of the outhouse with a yell, stuffing himself back into his pants in a bow-legged run while Chad and Gina laughed.
Zoey barely even reacted, instead fixing her gaze upon the short, broken-down set of stairs leading up to the main entry door. The rustic, frail-looking back porch seemed more like the maw of a giant, rectangular beast than the foyer to an antiquated farm home. Of course, it only looked that way to her; to everyone else, it was just a run-down old house. Zoey only felt this way because she knew of the history contained within that house … upon these grounds.
“I’m thinking it might be safer to cop a squat on the other side of the house,” Gina told her.
Zoey snapped out of her daze only as Gina crossed directly in front of her view. “Watch out for snakes.”
“Snakes?” she echoed with sudden alarm. “There’s snakes out here?”
“Snakes, spiders, raccoons, mice, and whatever else lives out in the wild,” Chad told her as he moved to stand beside Zoey. “Mother Nature’s done a pretty good job of reclaiming this place over the years, so be careful where you’re stepping.”
“I’d be more worried about poison ivy than anything else,” Mike added. To Gina he called out, “Make sure you don’t wipe with any of the leaves!”
Gina turned with a grin, reaching into the canvas bag slung over her shoulder. She dug out a roll of toilet paper and held it up for them to see. “This ain’t my first camping trip, y’know!”
Chad readjusted the straps of his backpack before gently putting an arm around Zoey’s waist, pulling her close to his side. She looked up to him with her eyes narrowed against the glare of the bright mid-day October sun, brushing a few strands of her dyed black hair out of her face. Chad looked down to his petite girlfriend with an expression that was loving, but concerned.
“You sure you wanna do this?” he asked her in a hushed voice, apparently not wanting to be overheard by Mike. “I mean, are we even supposed to be out here at all? I don’t want to get arrested for trespassing.”
“I told you, I’ve already looked into it. This place hasn’t been lived in for almost a century,” she said. “There’s nothing but fields and farmers for ten or twenty miles around here in every direction. And Plains, Kansas isn’t exactly a metropolis. It’s not like cops are going to be cruising by here on an hourly basis or anything.”
“I know, but … well, say one of us gets bit by a snake or something?”
She allowed herself a smirk. “Y’know, you’re really hung up on snakes for some reason.”
“Worms with teeth,” he said. “Yeah, I’ve got a phobia, okay? But what if?”
“Poisonous snakes aren’t really a big thing out here. This isn’t a forest and we’re not near a river.”
“Okay, but still, if someone gets hurt…?”
“We’re not that far from Meade, okay? And Dodge City is like an hour away,” she said. “Worst-case scenario, someone busts an ankle, so we borrow some ice from the cooler and make a quick run back there. Otherwise, we’re fine.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly at her. “Then why are you so tense? This whole trip was your idea, but you look like you’re fighting the urge to hop in the car and run away.”
She frowned. “Seriously, Chad? Even if you don’t believe what I said … I do. So, can you really blame me for being a little stressed about this?”
“Then why do it? Why put yourself through this?”
“Because I have an obligation to do it,” she said, looking away from him toward the house. “I need to face my fears.”
“Zoey … babe,” he said, pulling her close and kissing the top of her head, “Zach is gone. It’s been ten years now, and you’ve had time to heal. You said so, yourself. What happened to your brother was an accident.”
“I need closure, okay?” she said. She looked up and around, watching the autumn-blazed leaves rustle and fall from their branches in the gentle breeze. “This place needs closure. It needs to be cleansed. Then I can move on. The world can move on.”
He turned her to face him more directly, lifting her chin with his finger before briefly meeting her lips with a gentle kiss. “I’m with you all the way. I love you, babe. I just want you to be happy.”
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“Ugh … you two,” Mike groaned from a few yards away. “Can we save
the make-out session for later? If we’re gonna have a four-way, then I’d like to at least get a few drinks in me before I’m forced to see Chad naked.”
“Dude! Seriously? A little tact?” Chad responded with a scowl.
Mike shrugged, holding up the large insulated cooler full of ice and beverages. “What? I thought half the reason we came out here was to have ourselves a freaky little Halloween party. Music, beer, boobs…?”
“The only boob here is you,” Zoey grumbled under her breath.
“Look, can we get inside this place so we can set up, already? This thing is getting kinda heavy,” he complained. “I told you we should’ve brought the one with wheels on it.”
As if on cue, Gina rounded the far corner of the house, carefully stepping through a few tangles of weeds. “There’s a whole window busted out on the other side on the second floor. Looks like someone boarded it up with plywood, but they left all the glass all over the