Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Devil's Club

Along this part of the road, a quarter mile from the nearest neighbor, Douglas fir grew in abundance and the broken asphalt gave way in stages to gravel and dirt. There was alder springing up in the gullies, and Western hemlock scattered at the outskirts of the forest.

This was where the boy and his schoolmates were never supposed to go. Only the poorest families lived beyond the junction, where the road split and one branch ran downhill to this place, the corner of nowhere. Everyone said this was where kids from the trailer parks laid traps year-round. They killed almost anything unlucky enough to cross their path. The boy's father said that killing animals out of season and without a license was a sin. Something terrible would happen to those boys one day, he said...

Read the entire story at The Absent Willow Review.

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