They passed the empty and supposedly haunted Klenke house that had been for sale ever since Jack could remember, and then the home of the town‟s supposed witch, Mrs. Clevenger. Jack had heard stories about the weird smells and noises in the Klenke place, but he‟d never been in there himself, so he couldn‟t say if they were true or not. He had, however, come into contact with Mrs. Clevenger on a number of occasions since the summer, and though she was strange and never gave a straight answer, she wasn‟t a witch. Who believed in witches and hauntings anyway?
They approached the place where Quakerton Road ended and the Pine Barrens began. Jack recognized Gus Sooy‟s pickup parked by the lightning tree. A lot of folks said Gus‟s moonshine—known as applejack—was the best in the Pinelands. Jack also recognized the guy buying from him.
So did Eddie. “There‟s Weird Walt,” he said from behind Jack. “Stocking up.”
“Hey,” Weezy called as she brought up the rear on her banana-seat Schwinn. “Don‟t call him that.”
She and Walt had a strange bond, and she always took his side.
“It‟s gotta be eighty degrees out and he‟s wearing leather gloves and you‟re telling me he‟s not weird?”
Jack glanced over to where Walt was watching Gus Sooy fill a quart bottle with water-clear liquor from one of his big brown jugs. Hard to argue against him being weird. Folks said Walter Erskine hadn‟t been right since he‟d returned from Vietnam. He said weird things and wore gloves day in and day out.
“He‟s a good guy,” Jack said as they turned onto a firebreak trail and followed it into the Pines.
Weezy moved up beside him. “How would you know?”
“He comes into the store every now and then and we talk. He—”
A helicopter, heading southeast, did its wup-wup-wup thing overhead and Weezy stopped for a moment to stare with an anxious expression.
Jack understood her reaction. A few weeks ago, late one August night, government men—at least Jack assumed they were from the government—had used black helicopters to fly backhoes into the Pines and dig up the mound where he and Weezy had found the pyramid and the corpse.
Who had told them about the mound? Who had sent them to tear it apart? These were questions he doubted he‟d ever answer.
“It‟s not black,” he said. “And it‟s not headed our way. Probably some high rollers headed for AC.”
Gambling had been legal in Atlantic City for half a dozen years now and was enormously popular.
Weezy said nothing as she pulled ahead to lead the way. She always rode point when they were in the woods. Made sense. She knew this corner of the Pine Barrens backward, forward, up and down. She never got lost.
As they rode, the forty-foot scrub pines thickened on either side, stretching their gnarled, green-needled branches overhead as they lined the path like sentinels guarding their woodland domain. Jack checked the overcast sky through the needled canopy. This was the kind of day when people got lost in the Pines and were never seen again. But no worry about that with Weezy along.
Weezy led them along the dipping, deeply puddled trail onto Old Man Foster‟s land. Foster was something of a mystery. Nobody had ever seen him or seemed to know who he was, but he kept his land heavily posted with signs warning against fishing, hunting, trapping, and trespassing.
Jack ignored them. He figured obeying the first three out of the four was good enough.
At least he wasn‟t trapping like a certain someone was doing around a spong they‟d be passing along the way.
When they reached the spong they saw Mrs. Clevenger standing with an armload of sticks. She wore her usual long black dress and a black scarf around her neck—which made as much sense in this weather as Walt‟s gloves. Her three-legged dog sat to the side, watching their approach.
The big, floppy-eared mutt had the thick body of a Rottweiler but with lots of other breeds mixed in. Its right front leg was missing as if it had never been—not even a scar.
Weezy stopped and waved. “Hi, Mrs. Clevenger. Need any help?”
“No, dear. I‟m doing fine.”
Some Piney had been setting leg-hold traps around the spong—the local term for a wet low spot—trying to catch coons and possums and such when they came for a drink. Mrs. Clevenger had been coming out regularly and springing the traps with sticks. Jack wondered what the trapper would do if he ever caught the old lady at it. What ever it was, he‟d have to get past her nameless dog, and that wouldn‟t be easy.
Eventually they reached a burned-out area deep in the Pines. They knew the place well. Maybe too well. Here was where they‟d dug up the little pyramid and the corpse.
After they‟d leaned their bikes against some trees, Jack stood in the shade and pulled out their aerial photo of the area. Judging by the position of the midmorning sun, they‟d been following the fire trail eastward. The mound lay to the right of the trail, which meant south. The strange-looking thing he‟d spotted on the photo was to the right of the mound, which meant farther south.
He pointed to the burned-out area. “This way.”
As they walked a weaving course around the blackened tree trunks, Jack saw green branchlets poking through the charred bark. Hard to kill these pines. Fires were common in the Barrens during the summer and fall, mostly the fault of campers and lightning. With all the recent rain, he doubted they‟d see any fires at all this season.
“Think anything‟s left in there?” Jack said, pointing to the ruins of the mound as they passed.
Weezy shook her head. “Look at it. It‟s not even a mound anymore.”
She had a point. The government men had left little more than a twisty-turny trench, now filled with stagnant water.
The pines thickened past the burned-out area, slowing their progress.
“This better be worth it,” Eddie said.
Jack had known it was only a matter of time before he‟d start complaining. He was kind of surprised he‟d held off this long.
“Shouldn‟t be too much farther now. According to the photo, we should hit a clearing any …”
He stopped and stared as he spotted an open area dead ahead.
“… minute.”
The clearing hadn‟t surprised him, but what stood in its center stopped him cold.
Weezy pushed past him, then stopped, saying “Oh my-god!” over and over.
Jack couldn‟t speak. The Pines were full of secrets and surprises, but this … this was over the top. Way over.
3
“What is it?” Eddie said from behind.
“Some sort of … pyramid.”
At maybe fifteen feet tall, it had nothing height-wise on the ones in Egypt, but
this was definitely a pyramid, and unlike any Jack had seen or heard of. He wondered if anyone alive today had ever laid eyes on it. Weezy finally stopped saying, “Oh my god!” and the three of them approached the pyramid. The closer they got, the odder it became.
As Jack neared he noticed it wasn‟t solid. Huge, elongated triangular stones stood in a circle, their bases buried in the sandy soil with their pointed ends jutting skyward and leaning toward each other.
“Look like Godzilla pizza slices,” Eddie said.
A typical Eddie comment. If he wasn‟t thinking about video games, he was thinking about food.