Why me? Why him? I asked the darkness.

Well, hell, because it’s fun, the darkness answered.

At that moment, 31 October 1994, 11.11 pm, the darkness had six heads, twelve arms and twelve legs. The woods were all around, already knowing everything and swollen with our secrets.

You know that record Rumours, the one with the gaylord in tights on the cover that everyone’s parents have? Well, that’s how it all started. Someone said something to someone and someone’s mother heard it and then it’s all over the school, the PTA and later, the news: Satan worship, group sex, animal sacrifice.

West Cypress Road Woods have a soundtrack. In the daytime, it’s all Disney: hummingbirds and red-headed woodpeckers, the light footfall of deer. At night, the deepbellied hoot of barn owls and nightjars and more sinister rustling deeper in the dark. There was an occasional homeless guy wandering through, kids parking, getting high, fooling around. Wildcats, you think; wolves, you imagine. Another layer of the soundtrack: the noises he made in the dark: gurgles, snorts, moans. Feet shuffling in dirt, the crunching of sticks under boots and canvas sneakers…

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