Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
The hills in West Virginia are some of the prettiest around because they are covered edge to edge in thick trees. And while this certainly looks nice when you’re gazing out a window, it’s actually not that easy to walk through. Especially when you’re going uphill.
When Mercy gets to the top of the first hill right behind my house, she stops and sniffs the air again. There’s a lot of forest up here, but typically I didn’t go much higher up as a kid because all the interesting things, in my childhood opinion, were to the left.
The river winds around Disciple in a horseshoe, but it curves back and forth like that in hundreds of places up in the hills. That’s how you can have a view of it from the front porch of Lowyn’s house, another view of it from the back end of the Revival grounds, but still have to cross it when you venture up this way. Goin’ left was the best part when we were teenagers. Because there’s a waterfall up here. That’s where all the high school kids gathered back then, and I’m pretty sure they probably still do.
But Mercy doesn’t go left. She goes across a meadow and into the next bit of forest. I lose sight of her quickly and I find myself wishing she had a bell on, but once I get back under the canopy of leaves, I see her ahead. Waiting for me in a clearing.
As soon as she sees me coming, she takes off again, going straight up a hill, and there’s no path at all this time. She makes it to the top in thirty seconds. But it takes me ten whole minutes to pull myself up the steep incline and come out into another mountaintop meadow.
Mercy barks. She’s all the way across it, waiting to go into the next set of woods and trek up the next fuckin’ hill.
I look out across a cliffside and figure I’m about done with this. But when I look over at Mercy to call her back, she’s gone.
“Mercy!” I call her, then wait. I expect her to come back because she’s not a pet, she’s a protection dog. And she has spent every minute of her short life learning how to follow commands.
But she does not come back.
I call again, “Mercy!” Louder. But still, no dog appears. “Fuck.” I let out a long breath and follow her. I certainly can’t leave her up here, Amon would throw a fit.
When I get into the next level of forest the hill is not as steep and there actually appears to be a slight deer trail weaving through the underbrush. Then I hear barking. It sounds far though. “Mercy!” I call, loud as I can. Then wait, straining to hear anything up ahead.
I take a step forward, trip over a root or something, and almost fall, only just barely catching myself on a nearby tree trunk. I look down to see what it was and have to shake my head and blink.
What the fuck? I bend down, pick it up, and hold it in my hands, feeling like I just stumbled into my own personal Blair Witch Project.
Because it’s not a root. It’s a fuckin’ bone. Like a leg bone. Like a human-sized leg bone.
That’s when I look up and see skulls. One, two—at least ten. They are hanging from the tree limbs, more than ten, dozens of them, strung up on vines. Hanging down like a curtain of horror.
When I look around some more, there are more bones hidden in the dirt and leaves.
Mercy, the cadaver dog, brought me to a boneyard and I’m guessing that if I were to look at the map and trace my steps, this is exactly where that map leads.
Yep, I’ve seen enough. “Mercy!” I yell it as loud as I can. “Mercy, come here!”
I grew up here in these hills so of course, I’ve heard the stories about the mountain men and the granny witches and such. But they were ghost stories. Never in my life did I ever see any evidence of them.
“Mercy!”
The sound of an animal coming through the brush fills the air. I know it’s probably Mercy, but it could be a boar, or a bear, or a bobcat, and I reach for my sidearm.
Except it’s not there. Because I haven’t carried a gun since I got here.
The sharp cry of a dog fills the forest and my gut sinks. “Mercy!” I run forward, my boots crunching over bones with every step, and come out into another cleared circle inside the forest. This time there is a definite pattern to the hanging bones. They make a circular curtain around a cleared patch of dirt. And inside that circle is Mercy, strung up in a net.