"When can I be added to the circle of trust?"

"I wish we were in that movie instead of Nightmare on Elm Street."

"Which Nightmare? Weren't there like twenty of them?" I ask, trying to make a joke.

"Does it matter? All of them."

We reach the turn into the woods and head right onto Heartland Trail. To the wonderful and welcoming New Beginnings Church.

I'd like a new beginning myself, starting with burning this church and town down.

Signs have been pointing me here, starting with Jocelyn's picture and poem. If there is any kind of significance, it's time to find out.

"So are you coming with me this time?"

Poe just smiles.

We stand on the edge of the turnaround where she's parked her car. Light is draining out of the sky even though sunset isn't for another half hour or so. I'm holding my heavy flashlight in my hand.

Poe brushes her messy dark hair away from her face. She's not wearing as much makeup these days, and I notice that it makes her a lot more pretty. Her lip ring has been gone for some time. I wonder again why she needs to hide behind all that stuff.

She pulls a backpack over her shoulder. "Ready?"

"You're really coming?"

"I'd rather go with you than wait on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. You know where you're going?"

"I know the general direction. I just don't know if we're going to find anything."

But general is really just that: general.

We enter the woods.

It seems there's something in these woods that someone wants me to find.

Either that or they're warning you to stay away.

I feel the dread covering me as I start into the woods. Just a few steps in, the air feels colder.

I'm about to ask Poe if she feels it when she says, "The temperature just dropped like ten degrees."

"It's the shade."

She gives me a look that says she doesn't quite believe it. I don't either.

I grip the heavy flashlight as hard as I can. It helps. A little.

We keep walking straight into the woods, through trees and over leaves and dead, split logs and untouched bushes. It's so quiet my own breathing seems loud. The steps we make on the forest floor seem to echo, the trees around us smothering and ogling, this place for some reason feeling unwelcoming.

That's in your mind, so stop it.

I turn around and see Poe a few feet back. "Am I going too fast?"

"No." She scrunches up her shoulders and hugs herself.

"Here," I say, zipping off my running jacket and handing it to her.

"I'm fine."

"No, seriously. It's getting a lot colder. I'm fine."

It's not true, because I'm freezing, but so is Poe in her short-sleeved shirt. I slow down a bit to let her walk with me.

"What are we looking for?"

I shake my head. "Anything. Anything that looks like part of an old town. Mr. Page said that it was in these woods."

"But what then?"

"I don't know. I just-there's something in here. Something in that old town. Something I need to find."

"Like what-owww!" Poe stops for a minute and holds her foot.

"What happened?"

"Nothing, just-I just bent my ankle the wrong way."

As my mind starts to tell me what that means, that if we suddenly have to bolt out of these woods and she can't run ...

"It's nothing, seriously. It's fine. See. Look, fine."

"Okay."

"You don't have to worry about me slowing you down. If we see something-anything-then I'm going to make you look like the slowest person on your track team. You got that?"

I smile. "Sounds good to me."

We keep walking, listening to our steps in these silent woods, while the light continues to drip away into the evening.

79. In the Middle of Nowhere I smell them before I see them.

And the fact that I'm using plural is not good, not in this case.

If it weren't for the stench, I don't know if we would have spotted them.

I'm already using the flashlight because there's maybe ten or fifteen minutes left of light in the sky. The beam is bouncing over the trees in front of us when I hear Poe moan.

"Do you smell that?"

A few steps later I do. It reminds me of the garbage in the back of a restaurant back home where me and a few buddies would hide out and drink beers. The dumpsters were full of rotting food that baked in the sun and ended up smelling worse than vomit. We held our noses but went there anyway because we knew nobody else would be around.

Somehow, what I'm smelling here is even worse.

If smells can produce pain, then I'm in agony.

I think of the trip to see Aunt Alice and of the poor groundhog that I saw on the road and also saw in the bathtub don't forget about that!

and I remember that stench.

I suddenly start sweeping the ground in front of us with my flashlight.

"It's getting worse."

It almost feels like we're stepping into a pile of animal carcasses. But there's nothing unusual on the forest ground beneath us.

I hear the buzzing of flies near my head and swoop my hand to make them go away. That's when I see it. The thing near my head. The thing hanging on the tree.

Poe screams.

I bolt backward and fall to the ground, all while aiming the light at the furry thing in the tree. It's gray and black, and I swear it's getting ready to spring.

"That's a cat!"

I see beady eyes reflecting the light. Poe's right. It's a cat.

A cat that isn't springing anywhere anytime soon. It looks-attached to the tree.

I don't even want to know how.

"It's dead oh gross it's so dead." Poe curses and comes behind me as I get up and try to act like the brave guy again.

"How's it just hanging there?" I get as close as I'm going to get and examine it. It's attached by its chest, which seems to be nailed into the tree.

"That was done recently," Poe says.

"Yeah."

Thanks for the obvious and for adding to the nightmare.

I glide the flashlight around and examine other trees. I think I spot at least three more dead animals.

"Let's go," I say. I don't want her to see any more.

"Go back?"

I shake my head. "No. We're far enough out here. Whoever did this-there might be a reason why."

"I don't think I want to know a reason. I can think up a few myself."

"Come on."

We keep walking and we reach a small hill with an old, crumbling wood fence at the top. I kick it in, and the wood disintegrates. Then I look ahead and see the opening.

Even in the shadows I can see the outlines of what used to be buildings. Old houses, cabins, small one-story log cabins that now only seem like massive and grotesque building blocks in the evening light.

"This is it."

I nod at Poe and grab her hand and hold it tight. I think I just want to make sure that I have something real and normal to hold on to. Her grip is tight as we walk down what appears to be an old street, now overgrown with brush and weeds.

A handful of half-erect buildings are on each side of us. Small trees and weeds the size of me fill them in. The flashlight reveals the scarred black on the building, a kind that can only come from fire.

I see the building in front of us before Poe does. The shape is what first gets my attention. It's a rectangle, a couple of stories tall, intact. Then I see something that chills me even more than those dead animals. It's a sharp steeple pointing high in the sky.

This building is wood and stone, and it looks brand-new.

"What's a church doing here?"

The road we're on has suddenly become flat and clear, as if vehicles have driven over it recently. We see sawdust and mud and tire tracks and ruts in the ground.

"Who's building a church here?" Poe asks.

It's crazy, because we thought we were in the middle of nowhere.

The windows aren't in, but the roof and the walls are solid and stable. I can't see anything inside except darkness.

"You think Pastor Marsh is building this?"

I nod. It makes sense. At least as much as anything else makes sense in this crazy town.

"But it's right next to his church."

"Yeah."

There's a door on the front, even though the main entry is still only dirt. My flashlight shows the cross on the door.

It's inverted.

"I'm not going in there," Poe says.

"We have to."

"No way. Uh-uh. You see that?"

"Nobody's here."

"How do you know?" she asks.

"I have to go inside."