LET US DO EVIL (CHAPTER ONE)
The glade in the woods scared Jeremiah more than any place he could recall, more even than the house when his father came home drunk. He was ready to believe that a place like this might not only harbor evil spirits, but they could easily possess an unsuspecting soul.
He wouldn't be here if Timmie Wrather hadn't told Beans Crudello that her brother had tried to rape her. After only a month in Santa Inez, Jeremiah was already falling in love with the fourteen year-old with the funny name, Timothea, and he would do anything for her.
The whole gang had rousted him out of bed an hour ago with a sense of urgency and purpose he'd never seen in any of them before.
* * * *
"What's up?" Jeremiah had asked.
"We got problems," Beans had said, his handsome sixteen year-old face grim and determined. "Timmie's got problems," he clarified, flipping a thumb in the girl's direction.
Jeremiah had looked at Timmie and noticed for the first time that her eyes were blood-shot and red-rimmed, her delicate, soft blond lashes, still wet with tears.
"What the hell's going on?"
Timmie had shaken her head, unable to talk.
"Let's get to The Special Place and we'll talk about it," Beans had encouraged, picking up his pace.
"What's The Special Place?" Jeremiah had asked, puzzled.
"You'll see. Come on."
Without effort, Jeremiah had increased his pace to match Beans' and stay abreast of the girl. Behind them, Melvin Spurling, whose round, twelve year-old, pie-shaped face (responsible for his nickname, the Pieman) was already slick with sweat, double-stepped in an attempt to keep up. His little brother, Petie, easily kept up from a distance.
Hesitantly, Jeremiah had touched Timmie's shoulder just to acknowledge her distress and let her know that he would stand by her--whatever the problem.
He had been partially gratified by her wan smile of acknowledgement.
The cool mountain mists of mid-June in the foothills of the Sierra Madres vied with the warmth of summer for a foothold in the air, but the bright sunlight that had greeted Jeremiah when he had left the house gave way now to a fog rising up from the damp ground between the trees. Just four blocks from his neighborhood, the edge of the woods crept up to the abandoned railroad tracks and a different world lay before them.
Behind Beans' lanky form, the small group had picked its way up the gravel embankment and marched along the tracks into the misty forest. They'd clambered quickly across the old wooden trestle. For once, the Pieman and Petie caught up as they'd compacted themselves into a rapidly moving scurry of feet until they were over the trestle, down the embankment and into the trees.
Although they all knew that the tracks had been long-since out of use, the thought of phantom locomotives on that unforgiving bridge had still been frightening.
Brush and foliage masked the path Beans had seemed to sense rather than see. Without hesitation, he'd left the tracks and picked his way trough the brambles into the forest.
Jeremiah had noticed rabbit and other small game trails crisscrossing their own. If it hadn't been for Beans' guidance, he would have been tempted to follow one of the animal tracks, supposing it had a greater purpose than the seemingly arbitrary direction of the tall boy leading them.
Single file through the thick brush, the trees growing close together, Jeremiah had followed Timmie, who followed Beans. He hadn't been able to see the older boy, but assumed that Timmie could. And if she couldn't, hopefully she knew their destination. Behind Jeremiah, the Pieman snapped twigs and stumbled over dead branches and exposed roots as he bulldozed through the brush, leaving a path of noise for his younger brother to follow.
Beans had led them across a number of brackish creeks, hopping from rock to rock or tightrope walking across fallen logs and Jeremiah had imagined that somewhere far down the mountains these small tributaries all emptied into Lake Cachuma.
They'd cut a path of undisguised noise through the woods and, until the group came to silence them with the threat of human presence, birds sang, frogs croaked and insects sang songs of undisturbed solitude. As the sound of crashing feet faded, the creatures of the woods had reclaimed their habitat and resumed their incessant chatter.
Almost half an hour into the forest, Jeremiah had been brought up short when he bumped into Timmie. He had been looking at the ground, concentrating on not letting the vines, dead branches and thick brush trip him up.
Beans and Timmie had stood quietly, side by side, neither of them looking at Jeremiah. Behind them, the foundering Pieman, breath rasping, had finally caught up and Petie had approached closer than he was usually allowed.
Gazing ahead between Beans and Timmie, Jeremiah had seen that they were on the edge of a small glade, probably a hundred feet in diameter, almost perfectly round. The ground was covered with small grass-covered hillocks that looked like undulating waves of a minor, velvet green sea.
In the center of the glade, a gnarled, silver tree looked almost fossilized as it stood lone guard over the bare clearing. It had been many years since this tree had known the warmth of sap or the youth of leaves. Around the trunk of the misshapen tree, a sprinkling of wild flowers made a sharp contrast to the rolling green around it.
Along the circumference of the clearing a number of brown, rotting tree stumps stood like the broken teeth of an old man; some had been cut and hewn from the surrounding woods, others were evidently the remains of trees corrupted from within and torn apart by the elements.
With the exception of the Pieman's hoarse breathing, everything was quiet. It was as if the denizens of the forest—the birds, insects, small animals—had all agreed not to intrude on this place.
Here too, the mists of fog that had accompanied them almost all the way from the train tracks, refused to invade; it stopped short of the open glade, hovering among the trees.
Even at a first glance, Jeremiah felt that an ominous miasma of dread pervaded this primeval place. The clearing could easily have been a peaceful refuge, a place of solace and comfort away from the outside world, but it wasn't; it was a setting of dread.
* * * *
"Petie," Beans called softly to the youngster hovering closely behind the rest. "Petie, you stay here and stand guard. Let me know if anyone comes."
The Pieman's mother had saddled him with Petie for the summer: "You want to go out? Bring your brother." "Aw, Mom..." "Don't 'aw Mom' me. Take your little brother with you or stay in the house."
Petie nodded at the older boy, a grin spreading across his face at this assignment of responsibility. Beans didn't acknowledge Petie very often, even though he was always hanging around now, and Jeremiah could tell the boy was eager to please.
"Come on," Beans' hushed voice instructed the rest of them as he picked his way around the circumference of the glade, leading them single-file.
Jeremiah followed Timmie, noting that Beans was very deliberate in his efforts to stay on the edge of the grass, out of the glade. Their shoulders brushed the limbs of the bordering trees as they wound around to the opposite side of the open space.
Here, a cluster of tree stumps made a natural amphitheater where they could stop and finally sit. Across the brightly lit glade, in the dimness of the woods, Jeremiah could barely see the swatch of color that told him Petie was on duty at the head of the path.
"I don't want Petie to hear this," Beans began. "He's too young to understand. And he don't need to know about such things yet."
The other three waited in silence. Jeremiah looked at his companions. The Pieman, busy wiping sweat out of his eyes with the corner of his moist, filthy shirt, was still struggling to regain his breath.
Timmie sat, her hands folded between her legs, looking at the ground as if afraid to raise her eyes and confront the rest of them.
Timothea Wrather. Such a God-awful name for a girl. Parents sure knew how to fuck up a kid's future. Jeremiah could r
elate to that! At fourteen, the same age as himself, and a year older than the Pieman, Timmie was just beginning to show the promise of future womanhood, but for now, it was still well-hidden by loose jeans and a floppy flannel shirt all topped off by a pretty freckled face and a cap of short-cropped blond hair.
Jeremiah wanted to reach out and comfort her, but sensed it was neither the time nor the place.
Beans beamed with the effort of their trek and the task at hand.
"We got a problem," he said, looking at Jeremiah and the Pieman. "A big problem,"
The two boys waited.
Beans' voice softened. "It's Timmie. Her brother tried to put it to her last night."
"Put what to her?" the Pieman asked, still wiping the moisture from his guileless, chubby face.
"Jesus!" Beans barked. "Are you stupid or something? Gary tried to stick it to her!" He saw the blank look still on the Pieman's face and clarified: "Gary tried to screw Timmie--to rape her!"
Jeremiah looked at Timmie. With her head bent, he couldn't see her face, but he could see the tears that fell from under her brows. Helpless, he watched as they splashed unheedingly on her hands and knees. This time he didn't resist. He reached out and touched her shoulder, squeezing it gently, acknowledging her pain.
Jeremiah recalled an image of Timmie's brother. Gary was a big, gangly boy of seventeen. Afflicted with acne and an obnoxious, aggressive personality, Gary had a reputation as a real party animal. His drinking was well known by everyone except his mother, who had long ago given up trying to control her son. It was evident the woman had abandoned the boy to his own ways in favor of a daughter who was not yet beyond redemption.
"What happened?" Jeremiah asked, directing his question to Timmie.
It was Beans, who answered. "Gary came home late last night while their mother was working a late shift, and he was drunk as a skunk. I guess he didn't get his girlfriend to put out for him, so he went looking for Timmie instead. She says he came into her room while she was sleeping and tried to climb on top of her."
Jeremiah could hear Timmie hiccupping back tears as Beans recounted the event.
"Timmie kneed Gary in the balls and knocked him off the bed. She was barely able to push him out into the hall. Then she locked herself in her bedroom until this morning."
Jeremiah was shocked. He had little concept of incestuous urges. He thought of his own eighteen year-old sister, Jodi. Definitely a good-looking girl, but he couldn't conceive of being sexually attracted to her. Oh sure, there had been the few furtive glances at her in the bathroom, or as she prowled around in her bra and panties. But he'd had enough guilt for even this healthy curiosity to know what was right and wrong. Rapidly, his shock turned into a flash of anger.
"The goddamn son of a bitch!" Jeremiah exclaimed. "I'd like to cut off his pecker."
"Yeah, cut his pecker off," the Pieman echoed.
"Sure," said Beans calmly. "Cut his pecker off and throw it to the dog. Then the asshole will bleed to death and you'll be in jail for the rest of your life for murder."
"It's worth it." Jeremiah insisted.
"No it's not," The Pieman said.
Jeremiah jumped up, ready to fight. "That was our Timmie he was after!"
"Hey, J.C., I know, I know. But it's not as if he actually did anything." The Pieman held up his hands to defend himself.
"He tried!" Jeremiah couldn't get too mad at the Pieman. After all, the boy had called him J.C. instead of Jeremiah, which he hated.
"Yeah. You're right, he tried," The Pieman finally nodded in agreement.
"And he might try again," Beans pointed out, watching Jeremiah’s hand move back to Timmie's heaving shoulder.
Jeremiah wanted to wrap the girl in his arms and protect her from anything in the world that could harm her.
"Yeah, he might attack her again," Beans mused aloud, repeating himself. "That's just what I'm afraid of. We need to do something. That's why we came to The Special Place, to The Haunt."
"The Haunt?" Jeremiah asked.
Beans waived his hand at the open glade before them, now warm with noon sunlight. "This place is haunted. That's why I call it The Special Place. I come here whenever I've got a problem. The spirits of this place will give you answers, if you just ask them.
"Is it really haunted?" Jeremiah asked.
"Nobody ever told me we were going to a haunted place. It ain't haunted. There ain't no such thing," the Pieman said, still worried.
Beans winked at Jeremiah before answering. "Oh, yeah, it's haunted, all right."
"You mean real ghosts?" The Pieman looked ready to run.
"Spirits. The place has spirits. It's their place. They let us come here. Like I said, The Special Place can help us take care of things that need taking care of."
"What kind of things?" The Pieman wanted to know.
"Like this problem with Timmie's brother. You'll see. Before we leave here we'll know just what to do and how to do it. The Special Place takes care of things like that."
"But how..." Jeremiah began.
"I'll tell you all about it later," Beans interrupted. "Now we got us a problem to solve."
"Maybe we should talk to Timmie's mom," Jeremiah suggested. "Timmie, did you tell your mother?"
The girl shook her head and wiped her nose on the back of a sleeve. "No. She won't listen."
"Just tell her what happened."
"Listen, J.C.," Beans said, "Timmie's mom gave up on Gary a long time ago. She works double shifts and doesn't have time to deal with this bullshit." He turned to Timmie. "Didn't your brother hit your mom the last time she tried to chew him out?"
Timmie nodded, the tears beginning to dry up. "Yeah. He gave her a black eye. She said she fell down in the garage, but I knew he hit her. She's been scared of him ever since."
Jeremiah shuddered at the thought, his mind racing to home to his own abusive father. His anger increased and he focused it on the girl's absent brother. "We can't let him get away with this."
"Oh we won't," Beans assured.
"No we won't," the Pieman echoed.
"What are we going to do?" Jeremiah asked the open air, looking out at the woods surrounding them and the serenity of the spooky glade.
"Hey!" The Pieman jumped up, excited. "Maybe we can make him wear a big red "A" like that lady in the book we had to read last year in school."
"The Scarlet Letter," Jeremiah said, automatically. He loved reading and devoured everything, even school assignments. "That's The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne. We had to read that too."
"It's bullshit," rattled Beans, who read as little as possible. "I saw that flick on cable and Demi Moore didn't even take off her clothes like she did in Striptease. We ain't gonna get Gary to sew a big fat "A" on all his shirts and walk around town like that. Besides, we'd have to use an "S.H." for shithead."
The conversation degenerated into a number of fantastic schemes for retribution, each one a bit more far-fetched than the previous.
"Come on," Beans finally interrupted. "Let's get real. We've got to take care of this. That's why we came here: To take care of things."
"I have an idea," Jeremiah said. "I think I know what we might be able to do. And, we can get away with it too."
"I know we brought you for a reason," Beans said. "What's your idea?"
"It's pretty simple..." Jeremiah began.
As he talked, Jeremiah looked across the glade. With a portion of his mind he noticed that, although the birds flitted back and forth in the nearby trees, none flew over the open space. The glade was silent except for his voice, to which the others listened with rapt attention.
As he unfolded his scheme, Jeremiah was pleased to see Timmie's face become more animated. Soon she was smiling as widely as Beans at his suggestion.
"See, I told ya," Beans exclaimed. "Come to The Special Place, and everything gets taken care of. It inspires you."
"Do you really
think we can do it?" Timmie asked.
"Sure, why not?" Beans nodded. "But we need to work together as a team. All of us."
"Petie too?" the Pieman asked, concern on his face.
"Yeah, Petie too," Jeremiah said. "As I figure it, we need all five of us. Any less and we can't control the asshole. And if we can't hold Gary down, someone could get really hurt."
"I don't know." The Pieman hedged at the mention of possible injury. He looked across the glade at his younger brother, still sitting quietly on duty by the path. "Mom would blow a gasket if she ever found out."
"She's not going to find out," Beans insisted. "No one's going to find out. This is just us, okay?" He held out his hand, palm up. "Okay?" he insisted again.
"Okay," Timmie said, placing her hand on Beans' open one.
"Fine by me," Jeremiah chimed in, placing his hand over Timmie's, feeling its warmth for the first time.
"I guess," the Pieman conceded, adding his hand to the group. "Yeah, okay. Petie and me are in."
A slight breeze came up and rustled the tops of the trees, but didn't seem to touch the ground. Jeremiah heard it whisper overhead as the four comrades sealed their bargain.
"Now," Beans said. "The offering."
"The offering?" Jeremiah questioned.
"Yeah. We need to leave an offering. It insures our success."
The Pieman looked nervously around the glade and the surrounding woods. "Who...who...what are we leaving an offering for?"
Beans shrugged. "For the spirits."
"What spirits do you keep talking about?" Jeremiah asked, forgetting about Beans' earlier wink.