THE SLEEPING CLUB- CHAPTER 1

A young man, rail thin, maybe thirty, and oddly toothless, sat in the shade of his front porch. His wife, fat and sweaty, stood in the doorway leaning against the door jam and staring out over the shimmering, sun-drenched fields. An assortment of hand carved canes and walking sticks leaned against the wall between them. Wood shavings littered the porch around the man’s feet.

I put one foot on the second step leading up to the porch and leaned forward, resting my forearms on the elevated knee, waiting for an answer.

The summer sun beat down mercilessly on the yard. Sweat-darkened splotches spread out from under my arms and across the small of my back.

After a long silence the man finally spoke in a sloppy, toothless voice, “The woods is full of demons.”

“Uh-huh,” seconded the wife in agreement.

“Demons?” I said. “What do you mean, demons?”

They both just sat and stared dumbly across the fields. They resembled sailors scanning the sea. I turned half expecting to see something that had caught their attention, but the expanse of fields stretched uninterrupted all the way to the horizon.

“Well? What do you mean?” I asked again.

The man giggled unnaturally, but offered no explanation. The wife smiled broadly revealing discolored teeth like crowded kernels of corn but likewise offered no explanation. I couldn't be sure what exactly had struck them as funny, but something in their demeanor made me feel that I was the punch line.

"These two are unhinged," I thought to myself.

Interrupting the man, who was still giggling, I said, “Well, let’s get down to brass tacks, will you help me or not?”

The man looked up at his wife, but she continued to stare straight ahead, ignoring him.

He shook his head in mock frustration then returning his attention to me said, “Maybe, a hundred dollars?”

The wife shrugged as if to wash her hands of the whole thing and went back inside the house.

“Hundred dollars,” I agreed.

The back seat of their car was covered in an odd assortment of tools, which the toothless young man, whose name was Raymond, shoved roughly onto the passenger side before motioning me to get in. His wife, whose name I had learned was Nina, limped off the porch and slid in behind the steering wheel. Raymond sat close beside her on the passenger side. Inside the close confines of the car the smell of unwashed humans mixed with the more honest smells of grease and sawdust clinging to the tools.

Nina turned the key in the ignition, and with a lurch the car pulled out of the yard and nosed its way down a dusty dirt road. The dirt, dry as baby powder, spewed out from under the car’s tires leaving a long widening cloud behind us as we drove.

Fields stretched away on either side like fabric along a zipper. Whatever had been planted in them had withered under the oppressive sun.

Breaking the silence, I asked, “Are the woods really full of demons?”

Raymond looked over his shoulders and flashed me a toothless grin and began giggling again. 

We drove a little further in silence before Raymond offered more, “I can’t say I’ve ever seen em', but my brother, Bill, swears that one day he was working a tractor close to the woods and he looked over and saw two girls watching him from inside the trees."

"What's so unusual about that?," I asked.

"They was dressed all in white, and their skin was white as paper. Even their hair was white, but Billy said their eyes was black as a pit, and they were watching him. It weren’t natural. No matter where he went they moved with him, staying inside the woods, and all the time just watching him. He just left the tractor and ran off. Old Top Manley had to go out and bring the tractor in.”

"They weren't little girls," said Nina. "They was about the size of little girls, but Billy said they had an old look about 'em. Weren't that what Billy said?"

Raymond gave no answer.

“Tell him about what Scott saw,” Nina suggested.

Oh yeah,” continued Raymond, “maybe two years ago, Scott Peters, he lives over by us, he was out working the fields near the woods, when he saw a whole mess of animals come running out  of there- bears, deer, turkeys, hogs you name it- they was all just running around at the edge of the trees. And even though he was rumbling past on his tractor they wouldn’t run back in the woods. The only thing he could figure was that something real nasty scared them out of the trees."

“Everyone knows the woods the woods is full of demons,” said Nina as though that settled it.

‘That’s why they call it ‘Demon Woods,” agreed Raymond.

Soon the woods came into view, first as a black line on the horizon and then growing larger and more distinct as we drew closer. The road grew narrow and the fields gave way to thin weedy scrub on either side. 

As Nina guided the car into the trees branches scraped across the windows and the overgrown center of the neglected road whispered against the car’s undersides. It vaguely reminded me of a car wash, and I said as much to Raymond who had closed his eyes and was whispering softly to himself as if praying. He either didn’t hear me or was ignoring me.

Approximately two-hundred yards inside the woods the car came to a stop before a fallen tree that blocked the road in an unambiguous way.

“I ain’t going any further,” said Nina, “not on foot anyway.”

Raymond, stopped praying, and opened his eyes to look at his wife, who shifted the car into reverse as if to put an exclamation point on her statement.

“Hey, we had a deal here!” I said feebly from the back seat.

Raymond looked at me and then back at his wife.

“We ain’t going any further, Raymond,” she repeated.

“We ain’t going any further,” said Raymond to me.

“Alright,” I said resignedly, “how do I get there?”

“It’s real easy. You just walk another couple hundred yards down the road. There'll be an old house on your left. Behind the house there’s a trail. Just follow the trail for a ways and it’ll take you right up to the old Indian Cave. You should make it before the sun goes down."

I got out of the car, and shouldered my pack. Neither Raymond nor Nina got out of the car. In fact, no sooner had I exited the car than Nina began backing her way down the road and out of the woods. There were no farewells, no “good lucks,” not even so much as a friendly wave.

I was alone in the Demon Woods.