The Dead Boys.

by Jonathan Curwen.

One.

As his wife slept, Bill watched the devil's face.

It was painted on a birch tree. Red and orange. Mouth open. White slashes for teeth.

Its eyes were red blobs which seemed to stare through him, through the Jeep, and into the forest.

"Huh," he grunted.

Bill shook his head and turned back to his task. He had to let some of the air out of the Jeep's tires, now that they were officially off-road. The Jeep had performed like a champ, its four-wheel drive easily traveling the rough path through the woods. The thing had been a wedding present from his dada*he and Constance had been shockeda*and he was glad to have it here.

The hissing of the air out of the tires was like a huge snake trapped in the Jeep's chassis. In the quiet woods the sound was loud, irritating. The stillness around them had been so profound that it was almost prayerful.

Bill shivered, feeling the devil's eyes in his back.

"Stupid hippie artwork crap," he said.

He screwed back on the tire's valve cap, and moved onto the next one, the right rear. Again, the hiss sounded way too loud, and he felt the disapproving eyes of the devil on him.

He hated the feeling of being watched. You could always tell when someone was staring at you, even if that someone was just a piece of stupid artwork. The feeling was like an itch between your back shoulder blades. In places like the woods, this feeling got magnified....

"Stupid shit," he told himself.

"What are you doing?" asked Constance.

Her voice startled him. He gasped but immediately calmed himself. No good to be jumpy out here in the woods, where Constance would be nervous enough for both of them.

But she was rubbing her eyes and yawning. Probably had not seen his reaction. Bill swallowed his heart, and forced any tremor out of his voice.

"Bleeding the tires," he said. "Better traction that way."

Constance leaned out of the driver's side window, her white-blonde hair hanging down the door. "Thought we were running over a nest of snakes, or something," she said.

"No," said Bill. "No snakes out here." For a moment, he was tempted to add: No snakes, but there are devils, but he restrained himself. Constance definitely would not appreciate the joke. Would probably give him the silent treatment for the rest of the ride, which would piss him off. The last thing he needed on his honeymoon was a pissed-off bride. And he hoped she wouldn't see the devil face, because that would mean she would get freaked-out in addition to being pissed off. He wondered if these were things a husband had to worry about all the time.

"Good." Constance gave him a weak smile. "We almost there?"

"Half-mile, maybe. The trail's rough. Surprised you slept."

"Yes," she said. "Dozing."

Bill smiled. The sun caught the diamond on her left hand, and the white-gold of her wedding ring. The diamond broke the light into rainbow-colored flecks which skittered across her face. Her skin, snow-white, glowed against the backdrop of leaves and trees.

"Hurry back inside," said Constance. She brushed her hair from her narrow face. In the early September sunlight her eyes were sparkling green.

"All right." Bill smiled at her, and his eyes flicked to the devil's face. It looked like it was scowling at his wife, rearing up like it would bite her. Unsettling, to say the least.

"What are you staring at?" she asked.

"Nothing," said Bill, moving his eyes back to her quickly. "Just the woods. Nice, right?."

"Yes," said Constance, and then, before he could do anything at all, her eyes landed on the devil face.

All trace of humor leaked out of her. She squeezed the door. Bill heard her ring scraping the metal.

"Aw, shit," murmured Bill.

"Bill," she said quietly, "what is that?"

He sighed. "Artwork, I suppose," he said. "This trail, I suppose hippies or artists or something. Nature pictures. Stupid, right?" Bill laughed, hoping she'd take the cue and relax.

But she continued to stare, and squeeze the door with her small hands.

"Don't like it," she said. "Scary."

"Really, it's nothing."

Her green eyes were a little wider, and she started to get an expression that told him she was probably going to start overreacting about something. When you got married, he wondered, did you get more sensitive to these things? Like when your spouse was going to freak out? He had lots to learn about shit like that.

"Creepy," she said.

Bill sighed and stood up. He supposed it was his husbandly duty to make sure his wife wasn't freaking out. His father had told him something like that oncea"that women needed a lot more tending than men. That women were like delicate brook trout, who could only thrive when conditions were just right; while men were like largemouth bass who could be happy even if the water was brown with algae and there was only worm-parts to eat. Leave it to dad to compare people to fish.

Of course, his mom had said the oppositea"never to his face, but muttered under her breath often enough for Bill to overhear. In her opinion, men were infants in constant need of ass-wiping and bottle-feeding. They couldn't survive without the steadfast attentions of women, who she called "the mighty sex."

Bill sighed again.

At this point, he knew which parent he agreed with.

He stepped over to his wife and took her hand. "You know," he said, "there's nothing to worry about."

"Look at that thing! It's scary."

"A doodle." He patted her wife's hand and tried to be nonchalant. But he still had the uneasy feeling that the thing's eyes were boring into him like drill bits.

"Is this a good idea, Bill?" she asked. "I mean, we could always wait..."

"No," he said. "We're not waiting." That was another thing his father had told him: men take charge. Women want their men to take charge, even if they deny it.

"All right," said Constance. She took her hand away, wiped her eyes with it. "But you're going to be my protector, aren't you?" she asked.

"Of course."

"Any Satanists in the forest, you're going to kill them with your bare hands? You're not going to let them take me and use me for weird sex rituals?"

"God, no. Constance. Come on. You really, really need to stop watching all of that shit. No more horror stuff, no more vampire movies or zombie movies or whatever."

She crossed her arms and said nothing. But she smiled at him.

Despite himself, he smiled back.

And for a second he was completely happy.

They'd only been married for what? Less than twenty-four hours? Yesterday at the ceremony, in her white dress, she had nearly made him cry. She looked like an angel, literally, being led down the aisle by her fat-ass dad, who was now his fat-ass father-in-law. Bill had to stick his hand in his pocket and pinch himself in order to keep the tears from coming. Wouldn't do to be bawling in front of her parents or his father or anyone.

And so much had happened in the last year. Both of them had graduated from Short Valley Higha"both of them ranking numbers 192 and 193 out of a class of 300. Bill had proposed at her graduation party, in his parent's basement, beside the bowls of punch and plates of sugar cookies. To nobody's surprise, she had said yes.

Then four short months, and now this.

Their honeymoon, for what it was worth.

Constance pulled herself back inside the Jeep, while he busied himself with the rest of the tires. He was glad to go to the side opposite the tree, where he could hide from the devil's gaze.

The last tire done, he stepped around the the driver's side.

"My mom's tuna salad," said Constance, holding out a half-sandwich.

"Wait," said Bill, even though his stomach growled at the mention of tuna salad. Constance's mom, Phoebe, must have crushed up Ecstasy tablets and dumped it into the stuff to make it so good.

He ran over to the birch tree.

The devil face leered at him. Up close the brushstrokes were visible on the bark, and the paint looked like poster paint: thick and crusty, and brittle like eggshell. He'd used the same paint himself in grade school art class. He even smelled its distinct odor over the general stink of the forest.

Bill reached into his pocket, pulled out his battered Swiss Army knife.

He flicked out the blade and turned to his bride, who gave him a weird look.

"If there are any devils in the woods," he said, already congratulating himself for his brilliant idea, "and they try to take you away for sex experiments or something, this is what I will do to them.

As she watched, he hacked at the face with his knife.

He didn't need to push hard to damage ita"the paint flaked right off like a dry scab, and tumbled to the leaves below.

"I'll scrape them right off the face of the earth," he said. In a couple of more swipes, he'd erased most of the face from the tree.

It was satisfying to take out the stupid thing, which had made him more uneasy than he'd care to admit. And it was a nice show for Constance, too. It earned him a few points without really having to do much.

"Bill..." she said, but trailed off.

Bill kicked the paint-scrapings, and they mixed into the general undergrowth.

"See?" he said, snapping shut the knife and putting it back into his pocket. "Devils don't stand a chance."

Before she could say anything, he leaned in to give her a kiss. She was going to keep on talking but his lips mashed against hers, effectively stifling the conversation. He thought about giving her some tongue, but decided to wait until later.

And then he saw the guy.

On the passenger's side of the Jeep, a gentle hill rose up about thirty feet. Its face was covered in birch trees, and a few tall blue-green pines. Bill saw the guy standing next to a copse of birches at the top of the hill, staring at them.

Bill pulled away from Constance. He knew he had a couple of seconds before she opened her eyesa"for some reason she always kept them closed after he kissed her. He used the time to check the guy out, as he felt all of the skin on the back of his neck turn into a mass of gooseflesh.

They guy was wearing old-school Army camo. It was the type they wore in *Nam and WWIIa"not the modern stuff that looked like it was printed by a computer. He was bald, and the flesh of his head was as white as the tree bark next to him. And he was tall. Even at such a distance, Bill could see that.

And the man was staring at him.

Bill met his gaze. All of the little hairs on his body joined the hairs on the back of his neck and stood up. If the fake eyes of the devil gave him a small case of the heebie-jeebies, then this was like a full-out panic attack.

"Bill?" asked Constance.

He looked to her. She was smiling up at him.

"Bill?" she said again. "What?"

"Nothin'," he said, and forced a smile.

For a second, he flicked his eyes back to the guy. Still standing there by the birch trees in the same position.

Staring.

Not moving.

Bill looked back to Constance. He swallowed his heart.

"Come on," he said. "Tires are fine."

"I know you'd kill all of the devils," she said. "Even if you just had your little pocketknife. You'd shave off all of their faces."

"Yep yep," he said, as he opened the door and shooed her over to the passenger's seat. He kept his eyes forward, on the trail, but he could still feel the man's eyes boring into his head, penetrating even the Jeep's hard top.

He decided right there that he wasn't going to tell Constance. If she was freaked out by a drawing, then God only knew how nervous she'd get about a guy stalking around in the woods. Besides, the guy was probably just a hunter. Even though the woods were big in this part of Connecticut, that didn't preclude the chance of running into someone.