The Raven Hill Butcher 04-The Curse of

Raven Hill Nasser Rabadi

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THE CURSE OF RAVEN HILL

Nasser Rabadi
Copyright © 2021, 2023 by Nasser Rabadi

This is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places described herein are purely imaginary and are not
intended to refer to specific places, or to specific persons alive or dead. All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without prior written permission of the
publisher except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews.

ISBN: 978-1-954931-15-2
 Also by Nasser Rabadi
THE RAVEN HILL BUTCHER series
Book one: The Christmas Morning Massacre
Book two: Return to Camp Solgohachia
Book three: Noel Hell
Book four: The Curse of Raven Hill
Book five: The Final Chapter
Book six (reboot of Return to Camp Solgohachia): A New Beginning
Book seven (reboot of The Christmas Morning Massacre and Noel
Hell): Winter Graves
The ENGSTROM HOUSE series
Book one: The Haunting of Engstrom House
Book two: Return to Engstrom House
Book three: The Curse of Engstrom House
Contents
1. 1. Chapter 1
2. 2. Chapter 2
3. 3. Chapter 3
4. 4. Chapter 4
5. 5. Chapter 5
6. 6. Chapter 6
7. 7. Chapter 7
8. 8. Chapter 8
9. 9. Chapter 9
10. 10. Chapter 10
11. 11. Chapter 11
12. 12. Chapter 12
13. 13. Chapter 13
14. 14. Chapter 14
15. 15. Chapter 15
16. 16. Chapter 16
17. 17. Chapter 17
18. 18. Chapter 18
19. AUTHOR'S NOTES
20. BONUS CONTENT!
21. THE FINAL CHAPTER CHAPTER ONE
22. THE HAUNTING OF ENGSTROM HOUSE CHAPTER ONE
 Chapter One
It was a gray bleak summer day, with now and then a hint of rain.
Stunted sickly trees formed the border between Raven Hill and its
sister town of Carpentersvillesville, where Wesley Lawrence and
Wendy Walker lived. The dusty curving roads were empty today,
save for the strange uneasiness that walked them. Terror brooded
with bat wings and traveled to and from over the towns—the towns
so ancient, it was impossible to tell where their dark histories truly
began.
Since the seasons of horror, there hadn’t been many visitors in
Raven Hill—most people kept their distance… and so were Wesley
and Wendy, until today when Wesley stared out the window of his
bedroom, deep in thought, remembering the days when he and Bill
and Daren would play video games at the arcade.
There were tales of witch’s blood and Satan worship, and tales of
murders which all eventually fell into urban legends—there wasn’t a
single concrete fact, aside from what Wesley had found on his own
research. But even if he had told the world, nobody would believe
him.
It was uncommon to hear about unsolved killing sprees until
recently, but many things were uncommon in Raven Hill. For
example: in 1949 there were dozens of reports in a two week span
in February where an unexplained light phenomenon occurred. The
lights were long yellow streaks of unknown origin floating ground
level and lasting for only minutes. Most recently, there was the
twenty-four-seven radio wave discovered that transmits nothing but
20-30 buzzes per minute, each lasting one to two seconds.
The children of Raven Hill cried to their parents at night, frantically
talking about the shadow man, the man with that rusty knife, the
man who was tapping it outside their windows at night—even if their
windows were well out of any normal human’s reach.
 But it was last winter’s headlines which made up Wesley’s mind
about returning: there were more people dead. He had come to
learn that Raven Hill would typically downplay the slayings, tried to
mask them from the outside world as much as they could. As his old
acquaintance Al once said, Raven Hill is cursed, and Wesley was sure
that everyone else in Raven Hill knew it.
Gusts of black winds which seemed to come from interstellar
space slammed into his windows as if warning him at the same time
that Wendy came into the room; she stumbled as if in a dream. He
studied her; her sad dark eyes appeared to have eaten up most of
her face, and her blue nylon nightie stopped six inches above her
knees.
“It’s starting again,” Wesley said. “He’s not gonna stop unless…”
“Oh Wesley you’re scaring me.”
“He isn’t gonna stop. He killed again and he’s gonna keep killing.
Did you know it’s almost the anniversary of when we escaped?”
“We can’t go back,” Wendy cried. “Raven Hill is… it’s dangerous.”
“We know the truth now, love.” Wesley pulled her into his lap.
“How many more people have to die? It’s something we I can put a
stop to.”
“And risk giving up our happy life together? For what?”
“Can we really be happy if that maniac is still out there? Can we
really be happy if I knew I could stop him once and for all? Bill didn’t
sacrifice himself for us so we could forget about him. We got a
chance to live that he never got—we need to do something with our
lives.”
“We are doing something with our lives. Once we’re done with
college, once I’m a nurse, once we’ve finally got our own place…
then we can, you know, have kids… forget all about Raven Hill. We
can even move from Carpentersvillesville too. Somewhere far, far
away from here. Some small town where we’ll never have to worry
about our past catching up with us.”
“I can’t wait to start a family with you.” Wesley kissed her. His
eyes darted back to the drizzles which started again after
disappearing for an hour. “There’s nothing I want more than that.
But… I at least need to warn these girls. I at least need to let them
know.”
“I think they know by now. There were attacks on the anniversary,
I’m sure they know.”
“He doesn’t only kill on anniversaries, but it seems like those are
when he comes with the most vengeance. When he absolutely
slaughters. I think it’s an anger for letting any of us get away…. I
told you, I can feel it. He’s coming back—coming for us, coming for
those girls.”
“We’re not dealing with something human here.”
“That’s the reason to tell them. If they can’t stop it—and I know
they can’t stop it alone—they’re all gonna die.”
“Wes,” she said, staring into his eyes deeply. “What if we die?”
“We’re not gonna die.”
“You’re playing with fire. This obsession, it’s, well, it’s not right.”
“You had an obsession too for a while.”
“For a while. For a while. For maybe a year, maybe two. Oh, why
do you have to be so stubborn? I moved on. It was making me sick,
making me scared to turn my back or go out in public or be alone. I
looked away from those murders, looked away from it all, and it
made me happier when I looked away. But I look at you and I’m sad
—what you’re becoming…”
“What am I becoming, Wendy?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t like it. I don’t ever want to go back to
Raven Hill.”
“Would you go back for me? One last time. Back to Raven Hill.
Just to warn them. It’s not too far from here. Would you go back for
me?”
“I would do anything for you. I love. Even going back to Raven
Hill…”
“And I’d do anything for you, my Wendy. If we could put a stop to
this… shouldn’t we?”
“Okay. All right. We should,” she said stubbornly. “Was I foolish for
choosing my safety over strangers?”
“No darling, not at all.” Wesley did think so, but wouldn’t admit it.
It was foolish. A human should know the value in another human’s
life—which is priceless. You can’t put a price on life. Every second is
a gift.
Then he thought about Camp Solgohachia and he cried. He
thought of Bill and Darren, his childhood best friends, and Al and
Chester and Ralph, who he had only known for a couple of days at
the camp before The Raven Hill Butcher killed them too.
Wesley felt sick; perhaps it was guilt. He always felt guilty when
he thought about it. All those boys had to die, but what did he get?
He got to live and he got to fall in love. He got to go to college. He
got to move on with life, while they all rotted in the ground.
Wesley ran his hands thorough Wendy’s long blonde hair which
she still wore parted down the middle just like she did all those years
ago. “It’s going to be all right.”
“Do you promise?” she asked.
“I promise,” Wesley said. “I promise.”
 Chapter Two
Wesley’s room, which was in the attic, and which he now shared
with Wendy, was reminiscent of his childhood room that was full of
videogames and broken board games. The newer things, the things
younger Wesley would never in a million years dream about having,
were all the books. True crime, unsolved mysteries, the histories of
Raven Hill and Carpentersvillesville. Wesley was well-read, primarily
in non-fiction, but occasionally reading the gothic tales of Poe and
the cosmic stories of Lovecraft.
Sometimes he felt like the man in The Tell-Tale Heart, hearing
things from under floorboards that made him guilty. Sometimes he’d
dream of Darren and Bill—sometimes Al, Ralph, and Chester—
reaching up with zombified hands through the boards ready to drag
him down with them. Every time he woke up from it, his body was
slick with sweat and his heart would race. It was hard for him to fall
asleep when he was scared. His body was more awake and he was
on edge. But he was never more scared than when he figured out
what happened…
…when he figured out who The Raven Hill Butcher really was.
Understanding who he was, was complicated. Wesley’s two
separate theories had both twisted together. He took pieces from the
legends, rearranged them, and cut whatever he thought might have
been bull crap.
The probable: he was just a man.
The unlikely: he was a camp worker that supposedly died in 1947.
The even more unlikely: the belief and fear of all the citizens of
Raven Hill had brought The Raven Hill Butcher into existence
sometime in the 1970s after that second girl was killed.
And the absolute most unlikely possibility: all of the above.
Through lengthy research into the history of Camp Solgohachia—
which had more urban legends than he originally was led to believe
—he found the story of a man named Job. A man whose cabin,
when it was new, looked strikingly similar to the one he and Bill
raced to—the one that was boarded up, falling apart, and looked as
if it were constructed by a crew of blind men.
When he read of the man named Job, he thought of Job from the
Bible. They were nothing alike. Job in the Bible had everything, lost
everything, then gained it all back—even more than he had
previously. This Job was orphaned, very poor, and went around from
awful job to awful job until he settled on being the camp’s caretaker.
That was, until his mysterious disappearance in 1947.
Job might’ve been a drunk and might’ve been scary looking, but
from what Wesley could find he wasn’t bad with kids at all. It was
hard to find details about Camp Solgohachia—it wasn’t like people
were lining up to write essays on the place, but Wesley got lucky
that somebody from that time, a congressman from Raven Hill who
was long since dead, wrote extensively about his childhood in his
autobiography. The congressman had been a camper in the 1940s,
and wrote about the pranks Job used to pull.
It was only a couple paragraphs dedicated to Job in the
autobiography—most of the section about camp had been filled with
the camp myths about werewolves and whatnot—but it gave Wesley
a lot of information: Job would hide in the trees during the bonfires
—back then it was one bonfire, and the camp was much smaller
back then than when Wesley and Wendy were campers—and wore a
black mask and held a long knife. When the counselors told scary
stories of what went bump in the night, he’d emerge and holler and
the campers would go wild.
It was a fun thing for Job—he seemed to like it from what Wesley
read, which, again, was not much. Wesley’s mind filled in the blanks
—he felt he had a good enough picture of the camp back then as it
was. A small, loose camp. Everyone was close. Very few campers.
Very different time.
Wesley found a newspaper article from 1947; Job had gone
missing. It wasn’t much—just had his date of birth, a crummy
picture, and said he worked at the camp. But Wesley knew it was
something deeper than that—something not so cut and dry. The
man might’ve been weird but he didn’t just vanish.
 It was on a warm night, a happy night, when Wesley wouldn’t
have expected to have a nightmare.
Wesley wasn’t in the dream; in some ways, it didn’t feel like a
dream. He was seeing it from outside his body—watching it through
a lens. It was the only experience he ever had where he was not a
character of his own in a dream, but merely an observer, like a spirit
floating across the earth observing whatever it willed.
He was back there—for a minute, he truly believed he had
teleported back to 1947. Everything in the dream was black and
white, as most films from the times were. He saw a few campers—a
group of boys—playing soccer while the others swam. It was those
same boys, the same close group of friends, who would take the
secret to their graves.
Wesley had his doubts. It was a dream—only a dream, was it not?
He tried to explain it away, say that the research he had done was
stamped into his mind for eternity, and that the Lovecraft stories had
given him a scare, and that maybe somehow they connected in his
subconscious during sleep… but it was more than that. It had the air
of reality to it. The threshold was so close he could almost feel it,
poke holes in it, tear through it, snap the space-time continuum
itself.
That night, the darkness was tighter than usual—closer to earth’s
surface than it had ever been, as if earth was about to be sucked
into space, sucked into a black hole, and that would be the end of it.
Wesley wondered if things would’ve been better off that way—but
that was foolish to think.
He tried to yell no, but the boys in his dream would not listen. He
tried to tell them to turn back, but they could not hear. The
threshold between times—No, it was a dream, Wesley thought—was
not broken enough for them to hear. If they had heard, maybe he
would’ve had time to stop them from lighting off those fireworks
inside of Job’s cabin.
There was a tall body—reminiscent of Al, he was their leader—
who had them and lit them while his other buddies opened the
window. Wesley’s heart thudded loudly—he wondered if the boys
could hear it—and he gave his final scream. It was too late. There
was no going back. The Al-looking boy threw it in, and that was how
the fire started and how Job died.
Wesley did not see inside the cabin, did not see where it landed,
but he did not need to see. Job was screaming instantly.
The boys ran inside. Wesley shut his eyes—he did not want to
take the chance at seeing it. He had seen enough gore for one
lifetime, just the thought of blood or burned flesh made his stomach
turn.
But he heard them. He heard the boys screaming. Then he heard
those screams become whispers—it was a miracle they weren’t
caught…. Or were they? After all—it was just a dream. But a dream
unlike any other Wesley had felt before.
Only once through the vulgar events did Wesley open his eyes,
and that was for a brief few seconds to see the group—at another
point in time—burying Job in a shallow grave by the cabin. Wesley
noticed that the ground surrounding the cabin was full of fallen
branches, and it was not hard to cover up the soil. Grass did not
grow well here, and so it was not suspicious to see only dirt.
Out of sight, out of mind.
But when he woke up, pondered it, and compared it to his notes…
it did make sense. It did seem right. It felt right.
But it was too stupid. Too easy to get away scot-free.
It was only with his next pieces of research a year later when the
idea made sense.
 Chapter Three
There was a story Wesley Lawrence had read, and in all his time
spent researching and going over his notes, he could not for the life
of him find it again, but he knew it perfectly.
The story was set in 1955 and a wealthy lawyer and his wife had a
twelve-year-old son who was always afraid of the basement. They
had taken him down there many times; the lawyer would turn on the
lights, go down with his son, show him around, but the boy was
terrified.
“He lives down there.”
“Who?”
“The boogeyman.”
“Well perhaps you might just be able to tell me what he looks like,
won’t you?”
“He’s got the face of a gargoyle. Matted hair, and huge twisting
horns…”
That was all the boy said, but he pictured the rest: the monster’s
rancid old cheese smell, three rows of teeth, and claws like hooks
that could sink through cement as if it were water.
Every night haunted his dreams, and every day, if he had to pass
by the basement door, he’d run, envisioning it shooting open and its
grizzly arms reaching for his soul.
The boy’s parents were tired of the paranoia and were tired of his
cries. And it was after many long talks with close friends that one of
them suggested a trick that worked on him when he was a kid,
when his parents wanted to “unscare” him of the basement: they
left him in the kitchen, alone, with only the kitchen light on, and the
basement door wide open.
It was drastic, indeed, but a month later, when their little boy
wouldn’t shut his mouth about the thing in the basement that was
out to get him, they set it in motion.
 Date night. The reservations at the restaurant were made. It was
a warm night, a beautiful night. The lawyer shut off every light in
the house, his wife opened the basement door, and they left their
poor son alone in their kitchen.
The expression on his face would be glued on their minds all
night. All throughout the date, talk returned to their child—was it
cruel?
No, it wasn’t, because people had to face reality sometimes. The
wife recalled her terror of bugs, which did still linger, but was only
overcome when her mother put a paper towel in her hand and
forced her to clean the dead cockroach off the stairway.
It was disgusting. She almost puked working the napkin around
the bug’s carcass and knowing there was only a thin sheet of napkin
between her and it—but at the end of the day, it was dead. A gross
ball of slime. And when she tossed it out she washed her hands and
all was well in the world. Wouldn’t it be the same for her son? He
didn’t even have to throw anything out—he only needed to face the
darkness and open the door.
After dinner, the couple ran into an old friend—a psychologist—
when they went out for a smoke. While they caught up, they told
him what they were doing to their son. They asked for a second
opinion, and the psychologist told them they had a better chance of
traumatizing him than curing him.
Full of guilt, they rushed home.
What they found were shredded strips of clothes, a trail of blood
leading to the open basement door, and the lingering scent of rancid
cheese.
Was that open door all that caused it?
Our beliefs—primarily our fears—could bring things to life.
If we believed in them, they were real.
And that was the other theory, that belief had brought The Raven
Hill Butcher to life.
But that was not all.
The book of Z’ygdoth was in the back of a mom-and-pop bookshop.
The edges were uncut and its pages were delicate; its surface was
bumpy red leather, and a black cloth bookmark stuck out from the
binding. Wesley bought it for fifty cents, and it was the best
purchase he had ever made—it filled in quite a few blanks.
Z’ygdoth was one of the earlies and truest American urban
legends. It was a blanket term—the name for the evil things that are
brought to life by both belief and fear. But the Z’ygdoth weren’t so
very cut and dry. The Z’ygdoth were formed by human minds but
could not pass through to our existence without a carcass.
The book contained reports of cults and covens of the Z’ygdoth.
Worshippers gathered in the nude over fires, singing the praise of
the ancient beings, the beings with no true name, shape, form, or
home. The cults and covens sacrificed their own members—slit their
throats and drank from the blood which flowed—in sadistic rituals to
summon the beings. The rituals continued after the slaying of a
member, with the mutilation of the cult or coven, in hopes that the
pain and fears would help to raise their own Z’ygdoth—in hopes to
gain favor with them when the Z’ygdoth would all escape the
dimension in which they thrived and take over earth.
Similar creatures existed in other folklores from around the world.
Wesley came to find that many different creatures have strikingly
similar counterparts in other mythologies, even from recently
discovered peoples, who existed on the other side of the planet
thousands of years before and after other civilizations with which
they had no contact. How would so many different peoples have
identical stories? Were the story ideas floating through the air,
shared by man, and transcribed in that person’s tongue? Or were
they true beings, seen and experienced by all, and now extinct and
the stuff of legend to modern man?
It was similar to the floor story—why did every civilization have a
worldwide flood story?
Wesley believed in God. So did Wendy. It was hard for both of them
to swallow the possibility of the Z’ygdoth, since it went against their
own personal understandings of how the universe worked, but
Wesley and Wendy both felt another hand working here. All the
pieces had been brought together, from that of the camp caretaker
named Job, to that of the story of the lawyer, to the Z’ygdoth, to,
well, everything. If he pieced it together, it all made sense.
Wesley thought, But I’m missing so much—I’m missing so many
facts. I know almost nothing of Job, I don’t know if those campers
really hurt him, I don’t know if a being like the Z’ygdoth could
possibly exist—that changes everything I know about earth. And I
can’t even remember where I heard that lawyer story…
He hated how much of it made sense even with pieces missing.
Wendy put it like a movie: some movies, if you muted the audio,
made sense without the words. Even with missing all the dialogue
from Psycho, one could still understand that movie perfectly. And
after all, silent films made sense without dialogue, so why shouldn’t
Wesley’s theory make sense while lacking a few pieces?
Because normal people—logical people—did not jump to such
drastic conclusions.
On the day they discussed this, back when Wendy was also
obsessed, Wesley presented it as such: “Somebody did kill Marie and
somebody did kill Elizabeth. Whether it is the same person, or two
different killers, it doesn’t matter, because everyone treats him as
one. Everyone calls him The Raven Hill Butcher.”
“Those poor girls.”
“So what if like the lawyer’s son and the basement monster, and
like the Z’ygdoth, the belief and fear in him made him real?”
“But Wesley, where was the carcass to bring that boy’s fear to
life?”
“I’m not saying either that that was a Z’ygdoth, I’m giving
examples. Get my point?”
 “Yes. Their belief in The Butcher brought him to life, he took Job’s
carcass, the one they buried near to the cabin… they covered it up—
oh God I’m gonna be sick thinking about it.”
“Job’s body, an evil creature from another plane of existence
reanimating it. I sound crazy saying it out loud, but the
unexplainable happens. There are so many things in this world we
can’t explain. Like who killed Kennedy?”
“A few too many. A few I think we’re better off not knowing. This
is… a lot to process… and we know the government killed Kennedy.”
“Me and Bill were scared of a snake at the cabin. Was that it? The
final bit of belief he needed?”
“But you weren’t believing in him.”
“The fear. He needs belief and fear. Me and Bill gave him fear,
Darren and Ralph gave him belief. And if the Z’ygdoth was feeding
off our fear… and the corpse was nearby… who knows how long it
was waiting there to reanimate the corpse. We gave it power. We
gave it life.”
As years ticked by, Wendy lost interest in fully uncovering it—she
would be happy to go the rest of her life without hearing the word
Z’ygdoth. Wesley, however, was not the same case. He was
obsessed, and his obsession increased when the reports came in.
The Shadow Man. That’s how the kids described him. The Raven Hill
Butcher.
There were articles in the news and in books about groups of kids
who had all somehow dreamed up the same image. And it was the
same image that the survivors would come to describe him as—
exactly how Wesley and Wendy had seen The Butcher.
Was he foolish for wanting to go back? To kill him? To put him in
the ground once and for all? There might’ve been ways to kill the
Z’ygdoth—those pages of the book, Wesley found, had been torn
away, and nowhere in his search could he find a complete copy of
the book. It was as worthless of a search as it would be to find the
real Necronomicon—that book, at least, was fiction. The book of
Z’ygdoth was not.
It at least kept one thing in it—one solution. An urn. The urns the
book described were both traditionally shaped ones with narrow
necks and a rounded body, and box-shaped ones. This was the
closest means to death left inside of the book—kill the carcass it has
chosen by whatever means the body it is attached to is vulnerable
to, open the urn and place it over its dying body, and that Z’ygdoth
would be trapped forever unless the box was broken in half and the
ancient unknown words whispered. The more people who trapped it
in the urn, the stronger its seal.
It reminded him of the Dyvek boxes he read about in ghost
stories.

The urn needed certain symbols carved into it, and Wesley did this
the day after the drizzles. It was hot out. Bright. Cloudless. Wendy
had gone with her friends for a swim, and he sat in his room and
carved. The box was a basic wooden piece a friend put together for
him on short request—his friend’s dad built things from wood as
hobby and built it for Wesley no problem.
He hunched over his desk, moved his knife carefully, engraving the
symbols to the perfectly square beech tree box.
The first symbol, which went on top where the lid was connected
by a small, simple hinge, was a giant cat’s eye.
There were other shapes—hieroglyphics—in the book, and Wesley
shuddered as his hands traced their patterns. He didn’t dare look
any longer than he needed to, for he could sense these symbols
came from a dark, evil time. A time of cults, witchcraft, and
Satanism. A dreadful time.
He was going to kill The Raven Hill Butcher. He didn’t know how
he’d find him, but he would. He swore he would.
 Chapter Four
Christy Morrison needed happy thoughts on a gloomy summer day.
She laid in her bed—her real bed in her real home, not the family’s
mansion; she’d never set foot in there again—and felt horrible. She
was sick; her nose was stuffy and every four or five seconds she had
the urge to cough or clear her throat. “Waitjustasecond. Christy, we
can stop him. Once and for all. But I need your help. There’s a way
to stop him. That’s all I can say. Please, will you help me?”
A funny memory, perhaps her favorite with her best friend Julia
Holt, came to her—it was the best memory in the past year and a
half since…
She and Julia had been walking around the college campus one
day when she had carelessly run her hands over a bench and
couldn’t possibly have seen the WET PAINT sign.
Christy had shrieked, and would never forget how badly Julia
jumped in terror.
Christy looked at her hands. “They’re blue.”
“Geez,” Julia had said, “you scared the hell outta me.”
“Oh no I got paint all over my hands.”
“And they don’t even match your outfit.”
Whenever one of them brought it up again, they still laughed as if
it just happened moments ago. It was a nice memory, a happy
memory, one she was glad to revisit and be lost in instead of
thinking about that day like she had done all morning.
What if he comes back for me?
She tried to force those thoughts out and think about the paint
from months ago, but it wouldn’t leave her mind. Raven Hill was
cursed. She knew this. She had seen it in the headlines that got
smaller and smaller. Murder went from frontpage news to small
sections before or after the comic strips at the centerfold.
The thoughts always came when she was home alone. Mom and
Dad were each at work, and the door to David’s old room across the
hall would taunt her if she glimpsed it. She missed him. She wished
she could’ve been nicer to him—she should’ve been nicer to him,
especially near the end. She had no way of knowing that was the
end, but she still felt tremendous guilt. She felt guilty about it all—
about living.
Christy cried again; she didn’t want to but did a little anyways. It
was constantly on her mind, and severe guilt always pounded in her
heart. Even during all the happy moments in her life in the year and
a half since that night, she still couldn’t shake that awful feeling.
That filthy feeling. That feeling she desperately wished and prayed
to go away but it never wavered. It bogged down every happy
moment of her life, it filled her mind during every exam or
assignment of the past year of college, and she wished she could
get away from it for five minutes. It was tattooed on her mind and
her life.
It’s only going to drive you crazy to keep thinking about it.
I should’ve known.
No, you couldn’t have.
The door to the back yard was open, there were footprints—
How should you have figured what any of that meant?
I should’ve made sure he was dead. I had him… The Raven Hill
Butcher… Christy shivered at the thought of him. And he got away.
She pushed the thoughts from her mind—the fact that she was in
a coughing fit helped distract her too—and she sat up slowly, then
stood up even slower so she wouldn’t be dizzy, then went to the
kitchen and found the plastic bottle of vitamin C tablets. She took
one, coughed again, then poured a cup of water.
She was refilling the cup, leaning on the kitchen sink for support,
when the phone rang and startled her and the cup slipped out of her
hand. Christy stared at the phone and her guts twisted like wire
through flesh. She did not have a good feeling about it.
She looked back into the sink to discover a trail of red spinning
down the drain with the water. Some of the glass had sliced her
thumb open. Scarlet pumped; it was so thick she could see her
reflection in it.
 She looked at the phone one more time, ignored it, then ran her
hand under the water. Pain ebbed from her thumb into her palm.
By the time she was done putting hydrogen peroxide on it, then
wrapped it with a Band-Aid, the phone rang again.
She nervously answered. “Hello?”
“My name’s Wesley Lawrence, is this Christy Morrison?”
She was silent for a moment. “What do you want?”
“A few years ago my friends were killed by the same creature that
killed your friends.”
“Is this some joke?”
“No. Christy, what we’re dealing with isn’t human. I’ve spent years
studying him, and there’s a way to stop him. I need your help. You
and the other survivors—”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Christy, just give me a minute. Don’t you want to kill him?”
Christy was silent.
“Are you still there?”
“Yeah. But I don’t know why I am. Why should I listen to you?”
“Because I believe you, Christy. I believe everything you said
about that night. I believed you when you said that no blood came
out when you stabbed The Butcher. I believe what happened
because I’ve been in his presence and it’ll never leave my mind. I’ve
been running for a long time now, and either he’s catching up with
me or I’m catching up with him.”
She gulped. “What do you want from me?”
“You’ll need to trust me. I must tell you in person with the others.”
“Are you kidding? I’m not meeting up with some… stranger.”
“My girlfriend Wendy and I are going to be back in Raven Hill in
two days. We’re approaching the anniversary of the Camp
Solgohachia murders. The Butcher will be back—he’s always back.
But we can stop him.”
“I’m not meeting up with you.”
“Listen, you might think I’m some sort of—”
“I knew I shouldn’t have answered. Goodbye.”
“Waitjustasecond. Christy, we can stop him. Once and for all. But I
need your help. There’s a way to stop him. That’s all I can say.
Please, will you help me?”
 Chapter Five
Madison Kaplan’s life had been changed forever, and she was
learning how to be happy again. She wondered how anybody could
ever be happy after the events which took place roughly six months
ago—she wished she could find somebody that could help her
understand. Her therapist understood, but Madison felt that that
didn’t count when it was your job to relate to someone.
It could have been her—she had narrowly escaped the grim
reaper, and she would forever be scared of hotels.
Today her house was scorching hot, and it was raining outside.
Madison sat at her desk, sipping water, tapping her pencil on her
paper. She wiped sweat from her forehead, then turned on her little
desk fan, then doodled in the margins of her spiral notebook. She
wanted to write a story of some sort. Writing helped her deal with
her trauma. It helped ease her mind. It allowed her to escape for a
while.
Madison wrote happy stories, mostly with a fantasy setting. She
wrote stories where things always turned out okay. She wished she
could run her fingernail through the page, tear it open, and phase
through to that other realm—that other place where things are okay.
A place where she could be happy forever, because she knew that
once she put her pencil down and shut the notebook, she’d be back
in hell.
Today her mind was blank; her characters wouldn’t budge. A story
wouldn’t come.
She put her pencil into the margin and drew a circle, then traced
over it again and again. She drew zigzags inside of it for goofy teeth,
then two smaller circles above it for eyes. She gave it squiggly arms
and legs, then the first line of a story came to her—it was always the
most fun when it just came to her instead of forcing an opening line
down.
But before she could write the first word, her phone rang.
 Madison stood up, cleared her throat, then answered.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is this Madison Kaplan?”
She sat back at her desk, toying with the cord and wrapping it
around her finger. “May I ask who’s speaking?”
“Wesley Lawrence,” he said. “Look, I know things are tough right
now but I think we can help each—”
“I swear to God,” Madison said, “if this is another prank call I’m
calling the police.”
“Listen for a second. My name’s Wesley and I know exactly what
you’re going through. My friends were the victims at the Camp
Solgohachia murders. I’m calling you because I need your help.”
“My help? Are you kidding me?”
“Let me explain. I’ve been studying The Butcher for years with my
girlfriend Wendy. She was there too at the camp. There’s a way to
stop The Raven Hill Butcher from ever harming another person. I
know how to kill him but I need your help.”
Madison was chilled. “To do what?”
“Me and Wendy are coming to Raven Hill in two days, and I can
show you in person once and for all how we can stop him.”
 Chapter Six
Julia Holt came home from the grocery store, opened a box of
chocolate chip cookies, then poured a glass of milk. She was about
to call Christy to check up on her, and to see if she should come by,
when the phone rang. Julia wasn’t expecting anyone, and assuming
it was Christy, she answered the phone.
“Hey girl. Feeling any better?”
“Is this Julia Holt?”
“Oh I’m sorry I thought you were my friend calling. Who is this?”
“I know what it might feel like right now, but there’s a way we can
stop The Butcher from ever hurting anyone again. I’m Wesley
Lawrence, and the same man who killed your friends killed mine at
Camp Solgohachia.”
“What?”
“My girlfriend Wendy and I have spent years researching The
Raven Hill Butcher, and researching Raven Hill, and we believe
there’s a way—actually, we know there’s a way—to stop him. We
can’t do it alone, but all of us together—look, I need to discuss this
in person. In two days, me and Wendy will be in Raven Hill…”

Later in the day, when Wesley and Wendy were having dinner, she
asked, “How did it go?”
He didn’t have the heart to tell her they all said no. “They agreed.”
“They did?”
“Yeah. You surprised?”
“Well, it certainly is a strange offer.”
Wesley shrugged. “Well they did.”
Wendy nodded.
“You look scared,” he said.
 “I didn’t have much sleep.”
“You had, what, eight hours? Seven?”
“Last night, sure.”
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared too.”
“You’re not sure if it’ll work, are you?”
“I’m not.”
“I never thought our lives would come to this, coming back to
Raven Hill. It’s been years. Oh, I don’t like this one bit. I don’t want
to go back.”
“Once it’s over we’ll never have to ever return.”
“Are you gonna chuck it into the ocean?”
“What?”
“The box. The urn. When we…. Are you going to, you know, hide
it in the bottom of the ocean?”
“No. I’d be scared a diver might find it. I’m going to seal it with
cement then hide it someplace nobody would ever find it.”
“Somewhere more unsearched than the ocean floor?”
“Yes.”
“Where? Pluto?”
“My lips are sealed. Not telling a soul.”
Wendy pouted then brushed her hair from her eyes. “Not even for
me?”
“Sorry, nobody else can know. I’m taking this to my grave.”
“Whatever,” she said. “Oh and you better not get any ideas about
those other girls.”
“Well you better not be looking to reconnect with any old flames in
Raven Hill.”
Wendy rolled her eyes. “You were the first person I met in Raven
Hill. I have no old flames.”
Wesley laughed. “Yeah, I got pretty lucky, didn’t I? Showing you
around feels like yesterday. You were so fed up with me. I had just
shot that kid with my slingshot—”
“If it hadn’t been for that jerk move you pulled with that slingshot,
I’d never have talked to you. You were such a jerk, I had to say
something.”
 “I thought you were an angry person, but look how sweet you’ve
become.”
“I’ll cut off your fingers with a chainsaw and make you eat them.”
She smiled. “Oh Wesley I love you.”
“I love you too, Wendy.”
“You make me feel less scared.”
“If this doesn’t work, if my plan fails, all of us could die.”
“That was a great three seconds of relief, now I’m scared again,
Wes. But he doesn’t know we’re coming, we’ve got the upper hand.”
“I wish I knew that for sure.” Wesley rubbed his eyes. “I wish I
knew that for sure.”
 Chapter Seven
The next morning was a beautiful day in Raven Hill, but Christy
Morrison couldn’t stop from feeling jittery. Her sickness was leaving;
she took medicine after waking up and it was kicking in right away.
She put on her new jeans, a t-shirt, then put her hair into a messy
bun and left home. The bright light that morning was rejuvenating.
The sky was devoid of clouds.
Christy yawned, and somehow that triggered the pain in her
thumb again. She rubbed the little scar—the monstrous amounts of
blood had made it seem worse than it really was. But the pain in her
thumb was throbbing. It throbbed almost in rhythm, as if trying to
send her a message.
Christy, this is your thumb, you’re in danger.
She wondered about what Wesley said on the phone—what more
was there that he couldn’t tell her unless they met face to face? No
way was she meeting strangers, so she’d never know what he had
to say.
She had to admit he sounded genuine. Not necessarily convincing,
but genuine. As if he really could stop the monster from striking
again. The nerves in her stomach twisted—she hated to think about
the monster.
He’d never kill again. There’d never be another massacre.
Just because someone sounded genuine, should she believe
them? Hell no. He offered to meet at a library, a public place, but
nope. He could have been a deranged psycho for all she knew—she
had gotten calls from many people like that. Prank calls from people
pretending to be the killer, people taunting her over her dead
friends. Did people have nothing better to do?
Still, something tugged at her heart. Something told her she
should hear him out…
Then part of her mind told her that everything was going to go
wrong if she listened to him. They’d all die if she listened to him.
 At Julia’s house, she knocked then waited. Julia let her in and they
went to her room. Her curtains were closed and the lights were off.
They sat on her bed, and Julia turned on the TV without saying a
word. Christy could tell her friend was worried.
“Are you okay?”
Julia frowned. “Kinda.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Did some creep call you yesterday?”
“Yeah, somebody did. You got a call too, huh?” Christy said.
“Something about meeting up at the library?”
“Yeah. Can you believe it? How long do we have to put up with
these phone calls?”
“I dunno, Jules, but I changed my number three times in the last
six months alone and somehow every weirdo in America seems to
get their hands on it. I wonder if the person at the phone company
who hands my family’s account is selling it or something.”
“Yeah, they probably auction it off at Weirdos Anonymous.”
“I still feel so bad about my past mistakes. I should’ve been nicer
to my brother. I should’ve know that something was wrong.
Especially when I saw that the door was open and somebody had
come in. I should’ve know. Our friends died because of me…”
“None of that was a mistake, you couldn’t possibly have known.”
“So…” Christy said, then took a long pause. “What if this… ‘Wesley’
knows what he’s talking about.?”
“Waitasec, are you considering his offer?”
“No, Jules. Well, I dunno. I guess he, I dunno, I guess he just got
to me is all.”
Deep down, Christy longed for revenge. She wanted to lift the
irritating guilt from her soul. She’d always miss them, and revenge
wouldn’t bring them back, but…
It would make things easier, Christy thought… or maybe she only
hoped.
She was torn.
Suddenly, Julia laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
 “I was just remembering something funny David had said. He was
such a dork. We were asking each other what we wanted for
Christmas that year, and I told him socks. And he said he didn’t ask
for anything up until then when he wished were outside. And I said
something like ‘Outside the house? In snow up to here?’ and he said
yes, and I asked why, and he said because there was a mistletoe he
had hung there.”
Christy laughed until she cried. “Ah, good ole David.”
“I’m glad I still have you in my life, Christy.”
“And I’m glad I still have you. I don’t know what I’d do without
you. Oh gosh, I was just thinking earlier about the time I got blue
paint on my hands.”
“Remember when we went back inside to wash your hands and I
tried to make you open the doors?”
“Yeah you jerk. That was a great day, the paint incident, our next
class was canceled, we went to the movies at the mall instead.”
“More great days are ahead.”
“You sure about that, Jules?”
“Positive.”
“It doesn’t feel like it. Ever since… Wesley called yesterday I’ve
been so torn.”
“Will you forget about him? I’m sorry but we can’t go our whole
lives feeling guilty about the massacre. And why should we believe
him? What did he actually say to convince you?”
“I dunno. I’m guilty. We lost everybody, but we got to live, and I
just don’t want that to happen to anyone again. But I don’t know if I
can trust him. And I don’t want to drag you into this. And I don’t
know what I’d do if you were hurt. The thought of you in the
hospital haunted me for so long, not knowing if you’d make it out
alive. I lost so many people and I didn’t want to lose one more. You
being there for so long sort of made every day feel like that day
again.”
“I don’t want to lose you either, but we’re here, we’re living. And
after everything, I’m just happy to be alive.”
“I’m happy to be alive too. I just want to stop feeling so guilty
about it.”
 “I do too, but that guy is not gonna help. If he’s gonna be here
tomorrow like he said, I hope to God we don’t run into him.”
“Yeah,” Christy said. “Me too Jules.”
 Chapter Eight
The dark Carpentersville sky changed abruptly to clear and blue at
the forest border of the two cities, where demented twisted trees
grew and where leafless branches clutched the air. Wesley Lawrence
wondered what the accursed macabre woods held; what secrets
were within their depths?
A cool breeze blew into the cracked open windows of the van. His
worry was stronger now—as soon as they passed the border, it
became real again. Camp Solgohachia was not far from here, being
back home in Raven Hill wasn’t going to take much more than a
couple hours with how good of time they were making and how
clear the streets were from other cars.
Wesley hoped he knew what he was doing. The other survivors
had all told him no but he and Wendy couldn’t do it alone. The more
people that trapped the creature in the urn, the stronger their hold.
And could he possibly stand a chance against The Raven Hill Butcher
face to face? When the time came, could he do it?
He almost felt like a coward hiding behind a bunch of girls. What if
they got hurt because of him?
Maybe he should forget about them and do it on his own. Leave
Wendy alone in a motel room somewhere and fight the monster
alone.
“Can you feel it?” Wendy asked.
He didn’t have to ask her what she meant. “Yes.”
Her fingers tapped on the box; Wesley peeked at it then looked
back to the road.
Fear came over him in fistfuls. A black cloud hovered over his
mind and masked his thoughts. Even when he tried to think of the
good, it all returned to the dread. He had his doubts now more than
ever, wondering if he had made the correct decision or if this was
the work of a madman.
You’re not mad.
 “You’re red.”
Wesley only nodded. He couldn’t wait to be done with The Raven
Hill Butcher and anything to do with Raven Hill.
When we’re done with this, I’m buying a beer then hiding this
thing where nobody will ever find it—where nobody will ever guess.
I can’t believe I’m coming back home. I can almost feel the winds
again—the cool touch of the night when they all died. I can almost
feel the sweat pouring down my face again. I’d say I can almost feel
the reaper again, but it’s never truly left.
I can still hear their screams. I can still see Bill—poor Bill—
jumping on The Butcher’s back, falling to the ground with him,
struggling with him just long enough for me and Wendy to get away.
The madman’s footsteps followed us all the way back home. I kept
thinking the whole trip home, this is it, this is it, he’s right behind us,
he’s going to grab us, goodbye world, but every time I looked
around, the footsteps stopped and there was nobody there. Nobody
but me and Wendy.
I don’t know what I’d do without her. I don’t know what I do if he
hurt her… and there’s that chance that he will, because I’m bringing
her right back to him. But we all need to be there. The more people
capturing the Z’ygdoth, the more powerful the seal. The presence of
all of us survivors together will form a bond over it. But there’s
always that chance—there’s always the chance of failure. And if I
fail… if I can’t protect her… I don’t want to think about it. I don’t
know how I’d go on.
After this I’m done. I’m dropping it once and for all. I’ll move past
the obsession and I’ll move on with my life because he can’t hurt
anyone anymore, and me and Wendy can live our happy life. That’s
all I want. A happy life.

“Sorry, I just had to see it.”

“I thought so,” Wendy said, holding his hand tightly as he drove.
 Wesley pulled in front of his childhood home. It was a humble
house, and looked a lot worse than it had when he lived here. The
sidewalk had cracked sometime in the past five or six years, the
paintjob they had given the place was horrendous—it looked like
some group of kids were hired to paint it instead of actual painters—
and weeds littered the lawn.
Memories flooded back. Dozens of them.
The first one was from just days before leaving for Camp
Solgohachia: the boys set up glass bottles in the alleyway and had a
slingshot competition. Wesley won, of course—he always did against
Bill and Darren. Bill kept it close, but Darren was a loser every time
and never came in higher than last. At least Bill had won a time or
two.
He wished he could have gone back and told his younger self to
cherish it—that it would be the last time… he also wished to go back
and tell his younger self not to go to camp and not to let his friends
go.
Wesley remembered going to the arcade with them too. He
remembered stopping at the gas station for Jolt Cola while Bill
grabbed the latest issue of X-Men from the spinner rack; Darren
bought two chocolate bars and a soda.
Here Wesley was, the first time returning to Raven Hill since the
move, standing in front of his old home. Tears swelled in his eyes.
Why did they have to die?
In a twisted sense, he almost wondered if he should be thankful
for what happened, since it brought him and Wendy so close
together. Would she have even bothered with him after camp ended
if the murders never happened? They had traveled back home on
foot from the camp—it was a long journey and their parents were
furious, but they bonded closely, and it was one of Wesley’s favorite
memories, even if it was mostly spent mourning and being fearful.
If the murders didn’t happen, how would camp have played out?
Would she have fallen for someone else? Would he and Wendy have
never seen each other after camp? Wesley didn’t know—he almost
didn’t want to know. He liked to think that murders or no murders,
certain people were destined to end up together… but was that
really the case? He was torn—he hoped that his friends’ murders
weren’t the only reason that Wendy stuck by him.
“It’s okay, it’s all right.” Wendy hugged him. “It’s all right, it’s
okay.”
Wesley wiped his tears. “Let’s go.”

They checked into their motel room, then went to the nearest drive
through and brought back lunch. Wesley didn’t pay much attention
to whatever it was he ordered or ate—he was nervous, too nervous
to eat, but forced himself to anyways.
He didn’t take his eye of the box. They kept it at the little table in
the motel while they ate. Wesley kept his eyes more on that box
than he did his food or on Wendy. He was really going to go through
with it. They came all the way here. He was going to kill him, going
to imprison him…
…but how?
The girls had all said no… should he see them? Talk to them?
Convince them? What would be convincing enough?
He ran over a few difference scenarios, but none of them seemed
to flow right. They all ended with the girls saying no. How could he
convince them that this thing—that he needed their help to defeat
it?
Wesley downed his Pepsi. “What did that fry ever do to you?”
“Huh?”
“You’ve been crushing that fry for two minutes. What did it ever
do to you?”
She looked down and saw her French fry had been turned into a
mash.
“What’s on your mind, Wendy?”
She said nothing.
He knew what was on her mind. She wanted no part in this. She
did not want to be here. She did not want to come to Raven Hill. She
had wished they could’ve both forgotten about all of this. She wiped
away tears. Wesley felt awful—maybe he should turn around now,
pack up the car, go all the way back to Carpentersville, throw out all
his notes—no, burn them—and start over. A new day, a new chance
to be who he always should’ve been.
No, Wesley knew he could not do that. He had to kill the creature.
That was what they came here for, and that was what they were
going to do. Even if he had to do it alone, even if his life was on the
line, there were other lives out there, and all of them together were
worth so much more than his. He’d do it for them—for everyone else
in Raven Hill. For all the people at risk, who would die if he didn’t
stop The Raven Hill Butcher.
“We could still go back,” she said.
Tempting. Very tempting. He wanted to give in. He wanted to turn
back now… everything inside of him told him that that was the smart
thing to do, to turn back now, to forget it all…. But could he live with
that on his conscious, if others died after he had the chance to stop
it?
“We can,” Wesley said, “but I need to do this.”
“What time are the girls expecting us?” She asked. “The library
at… at two? At one? What was it again?”
“I told them one, but it’s neither…” Wesley couldn’t look her in the
eye, knowing he was about to reveal he had lied. “We aren’t gonna
see them.”
“Huh?”
“Wendy… none of them wanted to meet with us. All three girls
said no.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I—”
“You lied to me. You lied to me to—to what, to drag me here for
what?”
“We can fight him on our own.”
“Our own? Our own? We almost died, Wesley. This isn’t a game.
This—this isn’t some—”
“Keep your voice down.”
“No you keep your voice down,”
 “Wendy, look, Wendy, you don’t have lift one little finger. I’ll do it
all alone, you don’t have to get hurt. I’m doing this all alone.”
“What are you going to do? Wait around in the middle of the
street with a giant neon sign pointing at you that says COME AND
GET ME!?”
“I’m scared. You’re scared. He goes where people are terrified of
him, and it’s the anniversary now. You know that? Today’s the
anniversary. I don’t know if he’ll be here, I don’t know I could
summon him to the camp, I just don’t know. We need to find a way
to do this.”
“You’re going to get us killed.”
“It’s no different than if we had their help. We can do this without
them, don’t you think?”
“No I don’t think. I don’t think we could’ve done this with them
and I don’t think we can without them. I only came along because—
because well I thought you had something here waiting for you,
some people that could help you, then we could move on. Why did I
ever agree to come down here? We should be home, we should be
happy, we can be happy if you just listened to me.”
“But I told you, what’s it matter if we’re happy and—”
“And what’s it matter if we’re happy if the whole world still goes to
hell? The whole world isn’t dependent on Wesley Lawrence. We’re
not sending the world to hell.”
Wesley didn’t know what to say.
“Now what do we do, huh? Do we go down to the camp and wait
like sitting ducks? Do we sit around here and wait? You said he only
exists because people believe in him, and I think you believe in him
a little too much. You’re practically the thing keeping him around.
And you spent all this time trying to convince those girls what he
was, trying to… oh I cannot believe you.”
“So what can I do?”
“Listen to me Wesley. I already told you what we should do. We
should go home and drop it all and maybe I’ll forgive you.”
Wesley ran his hands through his hair. “I want to stay.”
“Of course you do.”
“Fighting is getting us nowhere, my love.”
 “Don’t ‘my love’ me.”
“Fighting is getting us nowhere, brat.”
“Oh shut up.”
“Wendy, it’s not. Let’s be reasonable, you—”
“You threw reasonable out the window days ago—no, years ago.”
“Okay Wendy. Just—just how about this, how about we just stay
tonight? Look, you’ve got your parents here, they always come up to
Carpentersville to visit, but we never ever come down here. Why
don’t we go visit them, stay the day, maybe stay the weekend? Let’s
cool down then we can talk about this when we aren’t screaming.
I’m surprised the police haven’t show up yet, the way you’re
shouting bloody murder.”
“My parents… yes, we should visit them, shouldn’t we?”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
“They’re going to be pissed.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because we just ate, and you already know they’re going to offer
us the whole fridge.”
“That’s true. I’m sure they’ll at least love the surprise.”
 Chapter Nine
Wendy tried to think of a way out of it. Was there one? The last
thing on earth Wesley was was a quitter. He still played the same
video games he was playing in the mid ‘80s. Wesley never gave
anything up. Sometimes he still seemed like the immature boy who
had showed her around camp all those years ago.
She wished things could be different, and she hoped that all the
trouble they went through today—leaving Carpentersville, going to
Raven Hill, setting up this plan with the girls—could be wiped clean.
Who am I kidding? Wendy thought. Life doesn’t have an undo
button.
Later, at her parents house, she knew she shouldn’t have let
Wesley out of her sight. Not long after they were hugging her
parents and catching up with them, he said he had to go back to the
car…
…and then he was gone.
She had a bad feeling about it.
She looked out the window of the living room, hoping he’d come
back any second and tell her he changed his mind.
“What’s wrong?” Her mother asked, entering the room.
Wendy turned. “Nothing, Mom. Um, Wesley just went to see an
old friend.”
“Come on, we’ve got pie in the fridge.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Why not?”
“We just ate.”
“What did you eat?”
“A burger.”
“I’m sure you’ve still got room for pie.”
“No thanks. I don’t feel that good.”
“Well what’s wrong?”
“Just nothing. I’m okay.”
“Now what?” Wesley asked himself.
Saying it was strange to be back in Raven Hill was an
understatement—the place was completely alien, yet familiar. Like
visiting a place he had seen in a dream. Being back just didn’t feel
real, not for a while.
The box was in the seat next to him. He couldn’t wait to use it.
There was a shift in the air; something was changing, something
was happening, but he couldn’t tell exactly what. Something was
going to happen—something wicked was coming. Wesley made a
right, went down Ottley Avenue, passed the library, and kept on
going with no real destination in mind.
The day was warm and the sun was bright, but a chill writhed on
Wesley’s back.
He was terrified—somebody was watching him, somebody was
near. Eyes drilled into the back of his skull. He turned to look into his
back seat, saw nothing, looked back at the road. Somebody was
around, somebody was going to get him, and he was as frightened
as he was on that night in the forest at Camp Solgohachia. His heart
beat so rapidly it was about to explode.
He thought of his mission. It was too big for him. He was going to
need help. He was going to need to talk to the girls again. There
was nothing he could come up with that would convince them—but
if they felt even remotely what he felt, they’d listen to him.
They had to feel it, didn’t they? The feeling always lingered… the
feeling that he was out there and he was going to come back to
finish what he started. Any survivors wouldn’t be survivors for long.
He wanted them dead.
A chill crawled on his back again.
Back by the library, there was a payphone, so he turned around
and parked. Nervously he slid in two quarters then opened his
pocketbook for Christy’s number and dialed it.
It rang; there was no answer.
 He called Julia, tapping his foot nervously, praying she’d answer,
praying they’d help him. If he had do, he’d do it all alone—but there
was strength in numbers, strength in sealing him away with all of
them together.
It rang for a while.
She didn’t answer either.
Wesley didn’t leave any messages for them, he went back to his
car and drove away, still with no clear destination in mind. He had
come all the way back here, knowing the girls didn’t want to help…
and what for? Why did he so desperately want to come back here?
What was here that could help him?
He told himself he had to think, but hadn’t he done enough of
that? Wasn’t that all he had done for years? Wesley wondered how
he could come here so underprepared, come here after lying to
Wendy, then to leave her alone with her parents while he drives
around doing who knows what.
“Where do we go… where do we go now…”
No idea where he was going, he turned right, turned left, turned
right, turned left. Anywhere would do.
Maybe he should’ve tried calling Madison, but he had a feeling she
wouldn’t have answered either. Maybe the girls had all remembered
he was in town today, so they avoided all incoming calls. Maybe it
was a sign to do it alone. Maybe he did not need anybody, anybody
at all. Maybe he was right all along—maybe all he needed to do was
face The Raven Hill Butcher like a man. Face to face. Him and him
alone.
 Chapter Ten
Wendy wasn’t angry with him, she was furious, and yelling his ear
off after they left her parents’ house. He had returned, they had
stayed a little while, and then they left, and she saved all her anger
for the car ride back to the motel.
“Why don’t we leave here right now? Go back tonight?”
“Tonight? We told your parents we’re staying the weekend at
least. I’m gonna at least need to sleep a little bit before we set out
again.”
“Whatever.”
“I’m sorry, okay?”
“You’re not sorry.”
“Wendy I can’t talk to you when you’re being like this.”
“Then don’t talk to me.”
“Wendy, come on…”
“Let’s turn around now and get out of here now, okay?”
“Without any of our things?”
She didn’t say anything. Wesley drove them back to the motel,
and they went inside silently. Wendy sat at the table after Wesley sat
down on the bed. Her arms were folded, and she faced her back to
him. He had never seen her so mad—he should have known that
this would have been a disaster.
Wesley went across the faded carpet and put his arms around her.
“Come on, Wendy.”
“Whatever.”
“Stop being so mad.”
“How can I?”
“We have each other.”
She said nothing.
“I know exactly what you’re going to say but we’re in a little motel
room in another city. Think of it like a little vacation.”
“This is not a little vacation, this is—”
 “I know. I know. Look, we’ve… I got something I need to do while
we’re in town, I need to kill The Butcher. So let’s have the rest of
this night to ourselves. Can’t we enjoy ourselves tonight?”
She kissed him. “I guess we can.”
He took her by the hand and led her to the bed.

While there was still sunlight out, Christy and Julia went for a walk.
The sun was beginning to set, and the sky was streaked with
orange and purple, and there might not have been anything prettier.
Cool summer breezes washed against them; it was pure and
relaxing, and Christy was happy for a while. For a while, she was
happy.
They went to the park. They went down the path, kicking small
rocks, smiling at the other people who were out tonight—the place
was packed as usual.
“Did I tell you I had a missed call? I think it might’ve been from
Wesley. Nobody left a message…”
“I had a missed call too. Maybe it was him. Are you still
considering his offer? Tell me you’re not…”
“No not really,” Christy said, but inside she was torn.
“I can tell when you’re lying. You’re getting all red. You haven’t
talk to him again, have you?”
“No, not at all.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes I’m sure.”
Julia nodded. “What do you think Wesley’s gonna do? What could
anyone do against an unstoppable killer?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anyways… it’s so pretty tonight. Summer nights—is there
anything better than summer nights?”
“Look at everyone, they look so happy.”
“Do you think they’ll forget this day?”
 “Huh?”
“You know,” Julia said, “do you think they’ll forget this day. You
don’t remember ever day, do you? Do you think they’ll forget this
day ever happened?”
“I dunno. I guess they might.”
“Don’t you think it’s sad how many days we forget?”
“I do.”
Julia shrugged. “Look at that puppy.”
A puppy ran excitedly when its owner threw a tennis ball.
“Adorable.”
They walked around the park’s pathway, moving for people on
bikes, and Christy wondered if she really would forget this day one
day. What made some days more important to remember than
others? There were thousands and thousands of days forgotten—
how did she choose to remember what she knew right now?
The girls sat on a bench for a while, but when it got too dark they
left. They never stayed out too long when day gave way to night.
Nothing good could ever happen at nighttime in a place like Raven
Hill.
“Good thing that bench wasn’t wet, huh?”
“Too bad. Blue would’ve matched my outfit tonight.”
“Yep, blue hands and that pretty black skirt. Totally.”
“Oh gosh.”
“I think I’ll always remember this day.”
“What’s so special about it?”
“Everything. Every day’s special. Look at the sky, right there, look,
orange and black.”
Christy looked where Julia pointed. “Look at that star over there.
When I was little I always tried to reach them with my hands. It just
made me dizzy, trying to reach, you know?”
“Totally,” Julia laughed. “Sometimes I wonder if I can still reach
them.”
“Well, maybe you can.”
“How?”
Before she could answer: “Christy? Julia?”
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