Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young Adult Fiction, Horror, Short Stories; Collections & Anthologies, Fantasy, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781101442654
Google: 0r6LeHl7JgkC
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2010-09-02T16:47:41.833216+00:00

PINEY POWER

▼ F. PAUL WILSON ▼

▼ ONE ▼

Old Man Foster had the signs posted all over his land.

NO FISHING

NO HUNTING

NO TRAPPING

NO TRESPASSING

No kidding. And no big deal.

Jack never paid them much attention. He figured since he wasn’t involved in the first three, he deserved a pass on the last. No, what caught Jack’s eye was the bright red object tacked to the bark just below the sign.

“Hey, check it out,” he said, hitting the brakes. His tires skidded in the sandy soil as his BMX came to a stop. “Who’d put a reflector way out here?”

Weezy stopped her bike beside his. “Doesn’t make sense.”

Her birth certificate said Louise, but no one had called her that since she turned two. She was older than Jack—hit fifteen last week, while Jack still had a few months to go. As usual, she was all in black—sneaks, jeans, Bauhaus T-shirt. She’d wound her dark hair into two braids today, giving her a Wednesday Addams look.

“Never noticed it before.”

“Because it wasn’t there,” she said.

Jack accepted that as fact. They used this firebreak trail a lot when they were cruising the Barrens, and if the reflector had been here before, she’d remember. Weezy never forgot anything. Ever.

He touched the clear sap coating on the head of the nail that fixed it to the tree. His fingertip came away wet. He showed her.

“This is fresh—really fresh.”

Weezy touched the goop and nodded. “Like maybe this morning.”

Jack checked the ground and saw tire tracks. It had rained last night, and these tracks weren’t washed out in the slightest.

“Looks like a truck,” he said, pointing.

Weezy nodded. “Two sets—coming and going. And one’s deeper than the other.” She looked at Jack. “Hauled something in or took something out.”

“Maybe it was Old Man Foster himself.”

“Could be.”

Foster had supposedly owned this chunk of the Jersey Pine Barrens forever, but no one had ever seen him. No one had ever seen anyone posting the land, either, but the signs were everywhere.

“Want to follow?”

She glanced at her watch and shook her head. “Got to go to Medford with my mom.”

“Again? What’s this—an every Wednesday thing?” She looked away. “No. Just works out that way.” When she looked back, disappointment shone in her eyes. “You going without me?”

Jack sensed she wanted them to go together, but he didn’t think he could hold off.

“Yeah. Probably nothing to see. If I find anything, we can come back together.”

She nodded and offered half a smile. “Sure you won’t get lost without me?”

He glanced at the sun sliding down the western sky. Every year, people—mostly hunters—entered the Barrens and were never seen again. Folks assumed they got lost and starved. No big surprise in a million-plus acres of mostly uninhabited pine forest. If a vanilla sky moved in, you could lose all sense of direction and wander in circles for days. But with the sun visible, Jack knew all he had to do was keep heading west and he’d hit civilization.

“I’ll manage somehow. See you later.”

He watched her turn her Schwinn, straddle the banana seat, and ride off with a wave.

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