Free Daemon of the Dark Wood by Randy Chandler Page B

flash of anger had, for the moment at least, checked her fear. If anger was an antidotal defense against another attack of panic, then she was prepared to be one pissed-off bitch. “And stop apologizing,” she added.
    Thorn nodded meekly and seemed to draw himself in. The sight of such a big, strapping male cringing like a scolded animal amused Sharyn, but she didn’t dare let herself laugh; she was determined to maintain her angry edge. It seemed to be her only real defense against the outer darkness and the dangerous thing it concealed.
    “What’s with this sudden fascination with Pan? And what is this ‘verry interesting’ thing you’re so on about?”
    “Ah, it’s nothing, really. You know me. I just—”
    “Don’t bullshit me, Alfred. Tell me.”
    “All right.” He laced his fingers over his lap and regarded her warily. “I’ve been digging into the local folklore and I think I might’ve struck paydirt. It all started with a conversation I had a couple of months ago with Howard Bently, our illustrious historian. You know Howard. A meticulous researcher, when he’s sober. A crushing bore when he’s in his cups. Well, one night over a bottle of his best scotch, Howard regaled me with his knowledge of local history, and to my great surprise and relief, he was anything but boring. He told me he had come upon some documents from the Civil War era suggestive of a hidden history of Widow’s Ridge. The old boy referred to his documents as ‘historical apocrypha,’ and went on for the better part of an hour about some horrendous incident alluded to in one of these documents. He said he found proof that Widow’s Ridge is
not
so named because its married women were widowed by the war. Howard is convinced that story was concocted to hide what really happened.”
    “What on earth does all this have to do with a character from Greek mythology?” Sharyn was having a hard time keeping the lid on her escalating impatience.
    “Nothing, as far as Howard Bently is concerned. He deals in historical facts, not myth. But this is where I enter the picture. When Howard showed me the personal journal of Reverend John T. Waller, I made the connection myself. And since then, I’ve been delving into the local folklore and legend, looking for further connections. You see, Sharyn, when a community—or a society—conspires to hide a certain truth, that truth will inevitably find new avenues into the open. Even if it has to come out in the form of legend. Or myth. And I think that’s exactly what happened in Widow’s Ridge. In short, I think some educated, creative soul back in the eighteen-sixties reinvented a Pan-like legend as an alternative to a scandalous historical incident. The legend survived for over a hundred years, but now it seems that the current crop of elders want it to die with them. I’ve found no evidence that they’ve passed it along to their younger generations.”
    “Why would they want to let a legend die? Folklore is a big part of the heritage of these hill people.”
    Thorn shrugged. “I suspect it may be because we live in a time when myth and legend are no longer necessary. The wonders of technology have replaced the need for mythological wonders. Apollo is no longer a god, it’s a rocket to the moon. The ancient world had all manner of gods, heroes and monsters. What do we have? Big Foot, alien abductions and a reanimated Elvis.”
    “I believe there are still things that go bump in the night,” she said. “Even if they’re just representations of the unknown.”
    “That’s true, but these days it’s the monsters we know that terrify us. The wacked-out kids who walk into their school and start blowing away their classmates with automatic weapons. The family man who kills his wife and kids, then takes his rampage public when he walks into a high-rise building and randomly guns down office workers. A suicide bomber with mind ablaze with religious delusion. The monsters we know are
us
.