The Dead Bird Trail Test Chapter

A test chapter for a story I'm working on, and everything may change in it soon.

*Warning graphic language*

(1)

 

1986

 

Hell would be Cody Fitch’s revenge.

                And he found the devil of this Hell in the depths of the woods right outside of the town of Tallwater, North Caroline, the dark spirit sat in a rotten cottage waiting for him. The stone walls of the cottage weren’t rotten, nor were the trees around it or any of its doors, but the person who lived in the storybook building was darker than the eyes of Satan himself.

                Cody Fitch didn’t care about the state of the owner’s soul. He didn’t even care about the state of his own soul - it didn’t matter anymore. He had heard the stories about this house, how children would come near it, but they would never come home. He knew the tales of the Hellhounds who slept under the trees of this unholy place.

                The older folks in Tallwater said the house had been cursed by the devil, if not by God too. They said, sitting on their porches or in the bar talking about the she-devil living in the house in front of him. They spoke in hush whispered fearfully she might come walking.

                The devil b***h had no soul. She practiced the black arts, and even the Native American folks feared her. They said she knew the dead magic of the Crow People, and Cody didn’t believe those stories as a child.

                But now he hoped they were true.

                He started up the stone path in the October winds, a beer bottle in one hand, a bloody bag in the other, and his soul left in the grave with his wife and baby girl.

                He drank down the rest of the beer, something he had given up for Alice when she was still alive. Now - it didn’t matter, either.

                She was dead and his life along with it.

                Her murderer got off scot-free because Dean Cross’s brother happens to be the judge, but Cody would make them both pay. Pay in blood and Hellfire.

                The porch of the cottage was line with Jack-o-Lanterns, all staring up at him, ready for the children to come by for treat and tricking, but they would never show up here, knocking the Gates of Hell for free candy. They might not come home, and if they did, they might be the same.

He didn’t wear custom or mask, but still wore the same suit from the courthouse, dirty with time, beer, and pissed. The glowing eyes of the carved pumpkins cast their judgment on him for the suit, the disrespect given to them for it was their time of year.

                The fiery lights of the lanterns held their breaths before Cody knocked. He lifted his hand, letting it hover over the red door before rapping hard against the wood.

 

(2)

 

“Are you sure you wish to pay this price?” the ugly hag asked.

                Cody couldn’t find his words over the horrible sight before his eyes. The hag had once been a lovely woman, but the tattoo had started to turn her skin a rotten green. Her skin had been smooth and clean but now it looked like chewed up steak cooked too long, and her nose came out to a bloody, snot dripping hook.

                Cody gulp staring at her.

                “Mr. Fitch?” The hag asked. “Do you want your revenge or not?”

                “I-“

                The man of faith in Cody told him to run and run fast! This was wrong, but the flash of the Sheriff coming to his door made Cody no longer care about right and wrong. Heaven and Hell.

                The Sheriff removed his hat,” Cody, I’m sorry -“

                Dean, the town drunk, had got behind the wheel of his car after blowing his paycheck at the bar. He started down the road but passed out before he got home. Dean cut off his car and “I thought, I pulled over to the curve to sleep off the beer.”

                He didn’t pull over at all. He had stopped and cut off his car right in the middle of the damn road.

                Alice had glanced in the mirror at Lacey playing on the phone, trying to call daddy. She didn’t see Dean’s car. She hit it going full speed. The police report said Alice was doing 60 in a 45, it helped Dean get off from going to jail. It did nothing to bring Alice and Lacey back from the dead.

                Alice died that night, not knowing what happens to her.

                Lacey died three days later with Cody at her side, crying for God to save her. He failed him, and now the devil would give him justice.

 

(3)

 

Cody closed his fists, bite back the guilt and utter the words,” Yes, I want my revenge.”

                The hag smiled, her teeth yellow, at least those she still had in her mouth. She stood up from her reading chair using a walking stick to move. The hag moved closer to Cody more smelling him than seeing him, and then took the bloody bag from his hand.

                “Do you wish to carry out the revenge yourself?” The hag asked, leaning in, and the smell of sickly skin washed over Cody. He almost gagged from the rotten milk aroma but steeled himself. The old hag hadn’t bathed in months, if not years. “Or do you wish another to do the deed?”

                “I want to do it,” Cody said.

                His father always said,” Boy, you want something done right, then do it yourself.”

                “As you wish, Mr. Fitch,” the hag said, taking the bloody bag from him and hopping away. “Wait here and you’re more than welcome to have some of those cookies.”

                Cody glanced over at the fresh cookies sitting on the plate, a plate he didn’t see when he came into the house. The smell begging him to take a bite -" just a small little bite. He almost reached for the plate but stopped himself from taking one. He knew better than to eat anything in a witch’s house. Or at least, the child in him knew better than to eat anything in this house.

                He stepped away from the plate turning back to face the hag.

 

(4)

 

The black and golden box sat in the passage seat of Cody’s old Ford truck. The truck his father had all Cody’s life and sometimes loved more than his own children. Now Cody had it, taking care of the truck himself, loving it more than his life. He kept glancing over at the box wondering what was in it.

                When the hag gave it to him, and he tried to open it right then and there, but the old witch had stopped him.

                “I liked Alice,” the hag said. “She was a lovely child, and it is a damn shame what happened to her, which is why I’m giving you one more chance to back away, Cody.”

                “What do you mean?” He asked, holding the box and staring in those pale blue eyes. The eyes of a wolf in a thick snowstorm about to find him as dinner.

                “Once, you open the box,” the hag said. “There is no -" how does it go? Putting the cat back in the bag.”

                “I understand.”

                “No, you don’t,” the hag said, “but you will.”

                He hadn’t opened the box yet, but his eyes came falling to it. He wanted to know what was in it, but more so how it would give him his revenge.

                “You’re drinking again,” Alice’s voice said.

                He looked up from the box to see the ghost of her staring at him, but not her real eyes, eyes of the dead. And yet, those eyes were of her when she was eighteen years old in her blue summer dress. The one they made love in after their first date. She didn’t wear any panties that night planning on having nothing but a good time, she fell in love instead.

                “Sorry,” Cody said.

                “No, I understand,” Alice said. “The last few weeks had been rough with me gone.”

                Alice had been the only one who could keep Cody’s devils at bay. She brought out the better angels of his soul and never blamed him when he went palling around with those old monsters.

                Sometimes, you just have to let them out of the pit, she would say as Cody lay on the bath floor hungover, sick, and vowing never to drink again. He kept the vow until her death.

                “Alice,” Cody said, “I miss you.”

                “I miss you too,” Alice said,” and soon we’ll see each other again. Lacey and I are waiting for you in Heaven.”

                Cody glanced at the box and then up to the ghost. He smiled at her, wishing he could kiss her goodbye, but you can’t kiss a memory. Send me an angel, by the Scorpions started to play on the radio, and a tear took a nose dive off of Cody’s round jaw.

                “What I’m about to do, Alice,” Cody said, looking ahead at Dean’s small house,” means I won’t get to see you again.”

                He looked over to find the ghost gone, and only the black and golden box sitting there, waiting to be open.

 

(5)

 

“Judge Cross,” Cody said, stepping through the wall like the ghost of Alice, but no ghost wore a golden and white face mask. A mask you might find in a theater, but this mask had bird wings on its edge and wore a face of hate over Cody’s.

                The fat judge's gray eyes went wide in shock, awe, and disbelief. Odd, Cody noted how so many people of faith, who believed in God, are therefore, believers in something beyond this world, almost s**t their pants when faced with a true thing of supernatural power.

                “What the Hell?” The judge tried to ask.

                “I’m the Ghost of Vengeance,” Cody said, and his hunter knife smiled in the judge’s study. “I come for your many sins, Judge Cross.”

                Cody pointed the knife at him. “I already got your brother for his transgressions. The death of a mother and a daughter.”

                “Oh my God,” the judge cried.

                Cody took a step forward, and the judge pulled a pistol out from his desk, but he didn’t have time before the knife started to drink his blood. Cody had no idea how many times he stabbed the fat a*****e. All he knew was when he stood up, he was covered in blood. The red dripped off the steel of the blade, and the judge had a few air bubbles popping up from his chest. His life leaking out in red.

                Cody dropped the knife and tossed a dead bird on the dead man. He went to take off the mask, but the door to the study flew open and a little boy of four-years-old came sleepily into the room.

                “Daddy,” Samuel yawned. “Daddy, I need a glass of wa ---“

                He stopped looking at the masked man and his dead father. Cody spun on his heels, dashing for the wall, running through it making the boy scream and pointed at him in terror.

 

(6)

 

“I want to give it back.”

                “I want to give it back, damnit,” Cody cried into his hands, sitting against the door of the hag’s cottage. The red door now was rotten and old with the paint pilling. The Jack-o-Lanterns, once bright in their candle glow, were putrid and black, decaying from the wraith of time. The house now seems to be falling apart as if not a soul nor a devil had lived in it for centuries.

                Cody beat his head against the door crying over what he had one.

                He wished -

                This time prayed -

                The little boy didn’t see him. Worse, he saw the death of his father.

                “I’m sorry, Oh God, I’m so damn sorry,” Cody cried, pulling his hands away from his face to see the dreadful mask staring back at him.

                The dead -

                Empty holes of the mask -

                Whispered to him about all the evil deeds Cody had carried out this night. His hands dripping in blood. His soul cast into fiery pits of Hell. He now understood why the hag had warned him about opening the box.

                “God, what have I done?”

Author's Note

If you had made it this far, then I appreciate it, and before you start to tear my work apart (which doesn’t bother me too much), let me explain something. The most common critique I see is about my spelling and grammar. It is an understandable critique, and I do not blame you for pointing it out. After all, spelling and grammar are the tools in which we use to craft our work, like a paintbrush or a chisel. The artist must know how to use these tools well, but like an artist who has a tremble in their hand's somethings will never be perfect.
My tremble in my hand is caused by my dyslexia. It is something, no matter how much I learn, study, or works on, it will never go away. It is the reason you will find a good bit of spelling and grammar mistakes in my work. I ask you to keep this fact when you are about to write your critique.
Also, I feel the need to point this out, this website is like a journal for me. A messy journal I used to work out problems in my stories or to simply warm up before digging into my novels. I do not hire an editor for the work here. I do not spend hours and days pouring over these stories to make them perfect, that energy is saved for the project I plan on taking to market. Everything on this website is my world-building exercise or sketches for other projects.
I do hope you enjoy my work, but this website is not a publishing house for me, and it shouldn’t be for you either. Something to keep in mind as you write your critique.