ANGST AND ICE

I don't believe in Halloween, or ghosts or the paranormal. But I was bored...bored to death, pun intended. So I let them talk me into it.

There isn't much shaking in Leonardville, Maryland, not even on Halloween. So after school, Jake, Brett, Chad and I piled into my old van and headed for Moll Dyer Road. For those of you who don't know the story, it goes something like this: An old woman named Moll Dyer lived outside town. She mostly kept to herself, roaming the woods around her cabin. In the winter of 1697, an epidemic of some sort tore through Leonardtown and some of the townspeople got it into their heads that Moll Dyer was to blame. A group of men marched into the woods, set fire to her cabin and forced her into the woods on one of the coldest nights of the year. She died from exposure. The legend says that her frozen body was found the next day with one hand frozen to a rock and the other lifted above her head, outstretched toward the sky. Legend also says that she cursed the town with her dying breath.

The rock was located sometime back, the 1970s, I think. It sits outside an old jail that's now the St. Mary's County Historical Society. There are some indentations in the rock. With a little imagination they look like a handprint and maybe the print of a knee. How did they know they had the right rock? I always wondered.

People say the woods where she died are haunted. There's even been a special about it on the Weather Channel this past week for Halloween. Seems that people have seen all kinds of weird things...columns of mist, storms that arise on calm, sunny days, that kind of stuff.

So here we are, cruising down Moll Dyer Road, four teenage guys with some beer, some tunes and a serious desire for something to happen to break the tedium. It's Friday night, Halloween night, we four losers don't have dates, so we gotta do something.

"How are we supposed to know where to park and go into the woods?", I ask Chad, the brainiac who came up with this plan.

"Near the place where her cabin stood. Dude, pull over right here. This is near the spot."

I maneuver the van off the road and cut the engine. We all grab flashlights from the back and head out following Chad.

"Man, it's pitch black out here," Brett says. He isn't the brightest in our group, but we've all been friends since first grade, so we're used to him.

"It would be. We're in the woods," I mutter, picking my way through the leaves and sticks and limbs on the path.

Eventually we make our way to a small clearing. I shine my flashlight beam on my watch and am surprised that we have been trekking through the woods for over half an hour. It's a few minutes til midnight. It's dead still. I realize then that I haven't heard any sounds since we started into the woods. Shouldn't there be animals in the woods? Night birds? Owls?

While I'm thinking about this lack of noise, this stillness, I realize how deep into the woods we are. The trees are so thick that they block out the moon. Hell, they block out the whole sky. Good thing Chad knows where the path is because there's no way I can find my way back to my van.

Where is Chad? I suddenly remember that I don't know the last time I saw him. I don't remember when I lost sight of his red plaid jacket. I'd been keeping my eyes glued to that jacket since we started down the path. When and how had I lost sight of him?

My heart beat speeds up a little. I push my panic down. How far ahead could he be anyway? Then I realize I haven't heard the other guys either, not even Brett's dumbass remarks. I shine my flashlight beam in a wide ark and see nothing but trees.

"Chad!" I yell as loud as I can. I yell a second time. And a third. I wait. Nothing. I yell for the others. I wait. I wait for what seems like several lifetimes. No response. No sound.

Then I see her. There is a sort of glow around her, like she's backlit, the way they use special lighting in horror movies. She is walking towards me, gliding across the forest floor, the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. There's something familiar about her. Then I remember. She's the new girl who just moved here this summer. I've seen her in the hallways. Caught sight of her in the cafeteria once or twice. Unapproachable. Out of my league.

She reaches me, stops short a few inches from my face. My heart is pounding and I realize I'm holding my breath. Her arm moves and her fingers brush my cheek, caressing it like she knows me. No, like she owns me. Her touch is like ice, so cold on my skin that it burns. She steps closer. Her lips are inches from mine. I want to kiss her like I've never wanted anything in my life. I close my eyes and feel her cold lips on mine, feel her cold embrace. I sense her move away, taking a step back. I don't want to open my eyes but I open them anyway. Her dress is stiff, the folds hanging like the folds of a statue. Her hair is white, covered with hoary frost. My gaze is drawn to her eyes and in them is horror. Death. Oblivion. I see her death... and mine.

They'll say I died of exposure, hypothermia. They'll find me frozen in the clearing, although the temperature never fell below 40 degrees that Halloween night. My story will be added to the others and the legend of Moll Dyer will grow.