The Noxious Neighbors Part 3
PB waits around the corner of the building for Owen to walk to his car on the street. He hears the car start and then he runs to his own rusty Honda to begin the pursuit. The adrenalin is making its way through his veins but he can’t help but feel slightly foolish. For all he knows Owen is making a late night snack run or an emergency trip to the store.
The clock on his dashboard says it is two twenty two in the morning. The break lights of the Volkswagen look like two evil eyes staring back into the night. PB follows them cautiously, staying an even one hundred feet behind as Owen drives off of the city streets and up into the hills above the east bay. There are no other cars on the road and PB is worried the other man will easily notice the tail. The unrelenting curiosity and worry from the last twenty four hours spur him on and keep him navigating the car up into the hills, staring into the two evil red eyes.
Owen’s car pulls over onto a dirt turnout on the side of the road and PB continues passed him and watches the rearview as the headlights of the Volkswagen turn off behind him. He continues to drive until he gets to an extended shoulder along the road and he turns the car around. He waits for a few moments, keeping an eye on the rearview for any on coming cars and then eases the car forward and down the road until he can see Owen’s parked car in his headlights. He pulls over and parks as well.
He approaches the car slowly, walking along the asphalt almost on his tip toes. When he gets within fifteen feet of Owen’s car he pauses, dropping down to a crouch. He can see from the light of the half moon that the car is empty and he looks along the shoulder for some kind of movement. He sees nothing but he can hear a noise, what sounds like the rustling of fabric, and he creeps along the shoulder and into the high grass off of the road.
He crouches again and he can see Owen under the trees just ahead of him. It’s hard to make out in the darkness but it looks as if Owen is pulling some sort of bag or shroud over himself. He has the thing completely around him and then pulls what looks to be a hood over his head. He straightens and flattens the shroud around his body and then walks quickly on passed the trees and PB follows closely and quietly behind.
They make their way up through a shallow canyon, one man slinking along like a hooded ghoul, the other stepping gingerly along, one foot after the other, trying to keep his heavy breathing controlled and inaudible. The canyon goes uphill between two rocky cliffs. There is a trail but PB can not make it out in the darkness, he simply follows the ghostly shape in front of him and pauses behind bushes momentarily. The trail becomes rocky as it reaches the summit between the two cliffs and PB is climbing the rocks almost vertical, trying to make out the shape above him.
He is at the top and he finds himself looking into a field. There is a bon fire burning in the middle of the field but it is obscured by a line of cloaked figures that surround it. There is one cloaked figure standing outside the circle and PB thinks it must be Owen. PB crawls through the field on his belly, trying to keep his body below the high grass and out of the light coming from the fire. The same low hum that was keeping him awake at night is now coming from the circle of cloaked figures but the volume is increased ten fold.
He crawls all the way to a clump of overgrown bushes that sit thirty feet beyond the fire. He slowly sits up and peers through the sharp leaves. He watches and one of the cloaked figures breaks from the others and steps into the circle. The figure holds up one of his arms and the low hum stops instantly. He points the arm towards Owen and the circle breaks, allowing Owen to enter. Owen removes his hood and the other man does as well, revealing a bald head and a face whose thin mouth is surrounded by dark black handle bar mustache.
“How is your progress in the raising of your shadow?” the bald man bellows at Owen.
“Not good. I have failed but I came close.” Owen replies.
The bald man’s eyes converge into a squint. He nods solemnly.
“Did you read from the book?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Did you draw the symbol?”
“Yes.”
“Did you use the blood of an animal?”
“I found one dead on the road and used it.”
“It was already dead?”
“Yes.”
The bald man laughs heartily into the flames between them.
“Well, there’s your problem,” he motions with his hand and three of the other figures break away from the circle “Will you join us as we raise the night shadow now?”
Owen nods and pulls the hood back over his head. He joins the rest of the figures in the far side of the circle and the three that had broken away return lugging a large flat rock into the circle and place it next to the fire. A fourth person brings up the rear pulling a small goat by a rope wrapped around its neck.
The bald man takes the rope and drags the goat over to the flat rock. He holds the goats between his legs and the goat braes and screams out into the night. PB can feel a long line of sweat making its way down his back. He is confused and frightened and wants to run but he can not look away. The bald man begins to bellow out strange words and the circle repeats them, one after another. The words are grotesque and ugly but they are no language that PB can identify.
The bald man pulls a large dagger from out of his cloak and holds it up to the moon. He begins to scream the words, saliva spurting out from his lips and dissolving into the fire. The goat is screaming and the circle is repeating the words. The bald man is hysterical and brandishing the knife and then he reaches down with the goat between his legs and slices open the animal’s throat. He holds the riving goat’s head steady so that the blood splatters and covers the flat rock.
PB tastes bile in his throat. He begins to crawl backwards, away from the bush. He looks out into the field, trying to spot the crushed grass of his earlier route. He lies down and begins to make his way slowly in the general direction of the trail down to the valley. He will go home and he will finish the tequila. He will sleep until morning and then he will go out and find a new place to live. He will forget this night and all of its freakiness.
A human scream stops him. He can’t move. He turns around and crawls back to the bush and he looks through the leaves. Two of the cloaked figures have dragged a young woman into the circle and they are pulling a gag over her head and into her mouth. The bald man is raising the dagger and says:
“Now let us spill the blood of the sinful and raise the night shadow!”
To be continued in Part 4.
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