"I will be seeing you later," said the man. "Settle in and say your prayers. I will come to you after nightfall to get you ready. All right?"

Septimus Smith moved, which made Bill's muscles jerk out of their rigor.

"Don't even fuckinga"" he started, but interrupted himself.

Septimus Smith was gone.

Bill blinked. He clutched Constance's hand.

Both of them stared at the spot where he'd been.

"Wha?" he heard his wife say.

In a panic Bill scanned the forest, even looking at the tops of the trees. But he saw nothing.

Septimus hadn't run away. He was just not there.

"Constance?" he said. "Are you all right?"

Her pale skin had turned a paper-white. Her eyes remained fixed to the spot where Septimus Smith had stood. She wasn't tremblinga"she was still as a stone, which seemed much worse to Bill. His own heart felt like it was about to punch through his chest and flop onto the forest floor.

"Sweetheart?" he said.

"That man," she said. "Didn't see him go?"

"No," said Bill. "No, I didn't."

"He was right there." She pointed at the spot, where even now the leaves were starting to blow over all traces of his footprints. "Right there. Standing there."

"I saw it, too," said Bill. But had he? Had to have. The man wasn't a nightmare, or hallucination.

"He said I was going to die," said Constance. "Three days."

"No," said Bill. "No. Fuck no."

And then, when he looked at his bride's panicked face, he felt rage all over again. He wanted to hunt this tall ghostly fuck down, no matter who or what he was, and give him a couple dozen kicks in the nuts.

"Bill," said Constance. "Do you think he's going to..."

"No.: He would defend his wife to the death, if necessary, but sometimes discretion was the better part of valor. Part of him wanted to stay in the woods, to say fuck that guy, and brass it out. Septimus represented a challenge to his manhood, one that his testosterone wanted to jump out and meet.

But now...no way. Just no way they could stay. Even if the guy didn't ever come back, they would spend the rest of the time in the woods watching over their shoulders, looking out for him or this Terris guy he was talking about. Forget about having a good time. Forget about sex or drunkenness or anything like that. Their honeymoon would turn into an ordeal, whether or not anything else out of the ordinary happened.

Without another word, Bill guided her from the Jeep's bumper, and back to the passenger's side door. He shook with anger.

The fucking nerve of that shithead to interrupt his honeymoon. This was their time, the first together as man and wife. He wanted it to be perfect, but instead it had turned into something potentially horrible.

"It's all right," he said as he tucked her into the Jeep. "Going to be fine."

He shut the door and jogged around to the passenger's side. Part of him expected the man to jump out at any time from behind a tree or behind the cabin, or even to fall from the sky.

Bill opened the driver's side door, slid himself into the seat. He took a quick last look at the cabina"the place where they would have spent one of their first nights alone as man and wife. Out in nature, where nobody could see them but the animals.

"There are still Coke cans on the hood," said Constance. She pointed and he saw them, both upright. Against the dark green of the Jeep's paint the red cans looked garish They reminded Bill of a pair of horns.

He stabbed the keys into the ignition and twisted in the same gesture. He rammed the clutch down and jerked the shifter into reverse. As he drove backward the tires spit leaves and gravel, and the Coke cans tumbled off the hood.

"Whoah," said Constance.

"Getting out of here," said Bill, and brought the Jeep around to the trailhead.

Four.

"Sorry, sorry," Bill said, as they bumped along the trail. "Should have put up the money for the hotel."

Constance just stared out of the windshield. He wondered if she actually saw the forest that was passing them by, or if she'd locked herself up inside of her brain. Sometimes when she got like that, he thought he'd need dynamite to blast her awake again. But this time, he couldn't blame her for retreating into herself.

"It's all right," she said, her voice mixing with the sound of the engine.

Bill shifted into second. The trail was starting to smooth out again. It wouldn't be long before they were at the top of Champion Hill Road, and they'd be able to see houses and civilization again. He'd have to re-inflate Jeep's tires at a gas station again, but that was all right. He'd get them a hotel rooma"someplace nice, in Hartford maybea"where they could spend a proper time together. Inside. He had enough money for the time being, and he could always beg a little more off of dad if he explained the situation. Wouldn't mention Septimus Smith, though. A white lie about Constance freaking out and getting scared of a night in the woods would do the trick.

He felt like a little of his world, his security, had been violated. A day after his wedding he should bea"

A horrid noise interrupted his reverie.

"What the fuck?" he swore.

He popped it into neutral, but the squealing and grinding continued. It got louder and louder, like someone was cranking the volume on a stereo after bashing in the speakers with a sledgehammer.

"Bill?" said Constance. "What is it?"

Bill stomped on the brakes. The Jeep was already slowing down in the middle of the trail. The noise in the engine abated suddenly, and he heard only the sound of the tires mashing through the rocks and the leaves.

"Shit," he said. "Brand new piece of shit."

The Jeep came to a stop.

Bill clutched the steering wheel to prevent himself from pounding on the dashboard. Fucking thing was less than a week old, just rolled off of the line.

"Bill?" said Constance again. "Bill, what's wrong?"

"Engine, duh," he snapped, and immediately regretted the panicky note in his voice. Constance was staring at the dashboard and clutching it with her delicate hands, as if she were a faith healer trying to resuscitate the engine. Bill put on the brakes, and twisted the ignition key.

Nothing.

"Dammit," he said. "Wait in here."

He popped the door and swung out his legs. Once he was out of the cab, he once again felt the itch between his shoulder blades. He resisted the urge to spin around and scream at whatever was staring at him to fucking stop it already.

Bill turned back to the Jeep, and tore open the latches on the hood. He knewa"and Constance knew, to his embarrassmenta"that he knew next to nothing about engines. But maybe it would be something readily noticeable, a wire or a gasket or hose or something, that could just be reattached or tightened and that would be that.

He opened the hood, expecting the worst. "Fucker," he swore to himself, hoping at least that the thing wouldn't explode in his face.

He peered over the engine, with all of its parts that he couldn't name. But everything was in its place. The engine was as clean and complete as the day it rolled off the lot. A solitary dry leaf sat on top of the engine block, the only sign of pollution in the entire system.

There was nothing wrong with it.

"Shit," he said.

He closed the hood. Constance stared at him expectantly, gnawing at her fingers.

"Nothing wrong," he said, wanting to pound the hood until it was dented into the shape of his fists. "Not a goddamn thing wrong."

"Bill," said Constance. "Oh, God. Bill, look behind you."

He turned around, expecting to see Septimus Smith lurking there, his white clown's head shining in the late-morning sunlight.

But there was nothing but trees and trail.

"What?" he called over his shoulder to Constance.

"The tree," said Constance. "To the left. In front of you. Look."

Bill looked.

When he saw what she was whining about, he muttered, "Fucker."

There was a pine tree on the side of the road, one that he had remembered seeing on the way in, notable because of its size and profusion of branches that spilled into the trail. It sat a few feet in front of the Jeep, off now to their left.

In the past few hours, every branch on the lower trunk had been sawn off. The holes wept sap, which dripped down the trunk in white streams.

And, of course, there was a devil face.

It was about three feet tall, and smeared over the substantial width of the trunk. Its enormous eyesa"these a lurid purplea"stared directly at him. The mouth was full of jagged teeth, and it appeared to be smiling. And of course it had horns, two upside-down V's that stretched far up the trunk. The whole face was a bright white, the paint still shining and wet.

"Bill? That wasn't there before," Constance said.

Bill gritted his teeth and stared down the piece of stupid artwork.

"Nothing to worry about," he said, swallowing hard.

"Bill?"

He reached into his pocket, again pulled out his Swiss Army knife.

The knife gave him something to do. Even if he couldn't protect Constance from psychotic tall guys, or fix an engine that didn't appear to be broken, he could hack this thing up. An outlet for his frustrations, at very least. There was no doubt that fucking Septimus Smith had doodled this fucking masterpiece, and to destroy anything the asshole had made would make Bill feel good.

As he stomped to the tree, he flicked out the blade and ran his finger along the edge.

"Okay, fucker," he said. "Okay. Play this little game with us? I'm gonna fucking..."

Then he stopped, frowned.

"What the fuck?" he said.

His leg muscles, while holding enough tension to keep him upright, would not move.

"Bill?" called Constance.

Bill swore again and tried to pull up his back right leg. There was no pain, but it was as if it had been strapped to the ground.

Then he looked to the face on the tree. Somehow, he knew that it was somehow to blame for all of this. Some force coming from it, as strong as a wind, but motionless. Weird.

Then the face on the trunk moved.

A wave went through the thick white paint, as if the image were floating on oil. Then the movement localized in the mouth of the face, and the jaw opened, as smoothly animated as any computer-generated graphics Bill had ever seen.

Its eyes focused on him. Black pupils formed in the purple irises.

And it said, "No."

Then Bill felt himself turn around, as if he were being remote-controlled.

"What the shit?" said Bill, as he walked back toward the Jeep. His feet were soundless as he walked back across the dead leaves, back to the front of the Jeep.

Then, just as suddenly as it had began, the tension in his legs ceased, and once again he was the master of his own body. The transition was startling, and he nearly fell.

"What the fuck," he said.

He blinked and looked up to the Jeep, to see if Constance had watched the whole thing go down.

She stared at him through the windshield, her expression puzzled.

"What the hell," said Bill.

Constance stuck her head out of the window. "Something the matter?" she asked.

"Yes, something's the fucking matter," snapped Bill. "Did you see that?"

"What?"

"You didn't see that thing move? See that thing talk?"