The One Where Todd Fucks (RB Vs. The Shadow God, Chapter 20) · 3:12pm Jul 13th, 2022
Previously, on The Shadow God:
Just stay dead, would you?
And now:
Only five chapters to go, folks!
We begin with Craig and Todd, who have just exited the library. Even after all they've been through, Todd doesn't want to go to the Dead Woods.
Seriously, though, when your dad was talking about his dreams, did it never occur to you that the woods he was seeing might have been the spooky, cursed woods?
Craig's mind turns to Kristy. Specifically, to the time he almost ran her over with his truck.
Though in that last image—just before he swerved to miss her—her face was illuminated by the truck’s headlights. He saw or thought he saw something there he had never seen before. White waxen skin, her eyes not their cool blue color, and her fingers not their smooth texture. Instead, he saw someone else’s face screaming in torment. He saw fire in her eyes, her fingers long and bony, her nails yellowed and pointed—talons at the ends of her fingers. Had he seen all that?
“Kristy is gone,” said a voice somewhere outside Craig’s head.
Craig shook his head, but the voice continued.
“Kristy’s gone, Kristy’s gone, Kristy’s GONE!”
“NO SHE’S NOT!” Craig screamed inside the small car.
So Craig's hearing voices now. I'm sure that's a good sign.
They arrive at the woods. They manage to find a flashlight in the trunk of Mark's car.
“Sure,” said Craig. “I told you we don’t have a choice. We have to find this thing. It’s what Tiffany said.”
“Fuck Tiffany!” blurted Todd, shivering and now burning with embarrassment from using the f-word.
Craig cocked his head at him. “Todd!” He paused for a moment. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use the f-word.”
Todd hung his head shamefully.
Congratulations, Todd. You're a man, now.
Todd met his gaze, then nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what’s come over me. I’m just having flashbacks at what happened the last time I went into the woods.”
Ignorant! Craig felt like knocking himself upside the head. Todd and the werewolf! How could he have forgotten? He stepped toward Todd. “Oh Jesus, Todd! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I’ve completely forgotten about that. Jesus! I feel like a shit!”
Well, at least he realizes it now.
“If there is something in there that’ll mess us up pretty bad, you will protect me, won’t you? Seeing that you can’t get hurt and all?”
Craig smiled. “Of course,” he said, wrapping his arm around his friend’s neck and leading him toward the woods. “So does that mean you’re coming with me?”
“As long as you’re there for me,” said Todd. Craig rapped knuckles with him. “Friends till the end.”
“Friends till the end,” said Todd, his knuckles meeting Craig’s.
Craig and Todd turn towards the tree line. They approach the woods and meet a small stream.
To Craig, the water that ran along the stream didn’t look very deep. After all, it was only a stream. But he also kept in mind that these were the Dead Woods and Spiers had probably planted something vicious in its waters. Like a type of piranha.
He's a werewolf, Craig, not a Bond villain.
The two ford the stream without incident. They head into the woods.
Cut to Mark. He's calling Ridley using a payphone. Ridley tells him to go to the Church and hangs up. Out of nowhere, a young man shows up and calls him a motherfucker. It's Billy Wagner, the bad seed from the guy from the boys' high school. So Mark shoots him. Right in the forehead. I guess Mr. Rayburn was grasping for ways to increase Mark's bodycount.
Then, this happens:
But as soon as Mark turned to climb back into his truck, he heard the heavy panting of someone else behind him. He turned to look and saw an old man running toward him along the sidewalk. Mark casually crept his hand back inside his jacket pocket. The man came closer and as he did, Mark saw that he was old, but full of life—as if he had been rejuvenated. There was a spring to his step and a twinkle in his eye.
The old man came up to Mark and leaned in on him. “My name is James Eckers!” he exclaimed, looking first at Mark, and then down at the deceased Billy Wagner, lying between the curb and the truck’s front tire. He gazed back into Mark’s deformed face and grinned. “I’ve just kilt me one, too!” he exclaimed. “And I’ve got two more to do! I’m making my way down to Florida, but don’t go telling no one! It’s supposed to be a secret!”
James saluted Mark, then hurried off into the distance, claiming, “Wait till the world meets James Eckers! Just they wait! It’s going to be a revelation!”
If this seems random to you, that's because it is. It's a reference to The Scavenger, a story in Mr. Rayburn's short story collection The Devil's Children. Which was published three years after The Shadow God, leaving this scene a complete mystery between 2005 and 2008. For those curious, the story is about a homeless man with a mental disability getting his testicles cut off, then gaining powers from maybe-Satan and getting revenge twenty years later.
Welcome to the Rayburn Cinematic Universe.
Mark gets back in his truck. He drives over Billy's dead body and heads to the church. Ridley, Sledge, and Father Spiers are there waiting for him. Spiers brings out another photograph (where are they getting these photographs from? Spirit photography?) and tells Mark he's to kill the man pictured.
“Your first order of business is to get the person in the picture and when that’s successfully completed, the picture will automatically change to your next victim. And you are not to drive your truck simply to avoid detection. Do you understand?”
Mark heads out.
Cut to Detective Underwood. He goes home, takes a shower, and goes to bed. That's the scene in its entirety. Thank you for the important update, Mr. Rayburn.
Cut back to Craig and Todd, who are following a narrow path into the woods.
The boys quickly trekked the last twenty yards up the slope and were amazed to find that the librarian was telling the truth. The land leveled out and expanded over a vast amount of earth. It was amazing, but there. A big grassy field on top of a heavily wooded hill. Amazing.
Craig feels like he recognizes the place from his dreams, but there's no cave or lake to be seen, so he's not sure. Todd physically shakes him out of it.
“Are you all right?” Todd asked.
Craig put a steadying hand on his head. “Yeah,” he said. “I think so.”
“You want to go on or do you feel like going back?”
Craig focused in on Todd’s eyes and then shook his head. “I want to go back,” he said.
“You can’t be serious,” said Todd.
Yeah, ditto, Todd. Doing all of this was your idea, Craig! Just a minute ago you were calling Todd a coward for not wanting to go into the woods, but now that you're here, it's too much for you?
He began toward the other end and Todd put his hand on his shoulder, stopping him. “Where are you going?”
“I’m getting away from this madness,” said Craig.
“Everything we’ve done—everything you’ve done … you’re just going to throw it away? Just like that?”
Craig nodded. “The Shadow God is coming,” he said. “And there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”
Just then, Todd smacked him across the face. Hard.
Craig stared askance, measuring him. He waited for Todd to immediately apologize, but he didn’t. He stared at him as if he was ready to do it again. Craig charged him, battering his body into Todd’s sore stomach, sending him to the ground.
Todd grabbed two handfuls of Craig’s cheeks, wrenching them back and forth, his nails digging into his flesh. Craig screamed, feeling pain. He instantly backed off, dabbing the soft tissue of his face.
His hand came back with blood on it. “Oh my God!” he mumbled.
“Look!” Todd nodded. “I knew it.”
“How?”
“Because I have the blood, too,” said Todd. “Of course not as much as you, but some. And that’s enough to cause you pain.”
So what I think has happened, here, is that Mr. Rayburn needed to work in the detail that Craig can be hurt by those who share blood with him. And in order to do that, he wanted Todd to attack him. And the only way he could think of to do that was have Craig suddenly 180 on his entire motivation for the scene.
They figure that Mark and Cain would probably also be able to hurt Craig. And Kristy too, for some reason, despite them not knowing about her seeing the blue light or working with Ridley or anything like that. Does Mr. Rayburn think blood is mixed through sex? I don't know.
Craig theorizes that Nod might be Hell (which I don't think is true?) and that Cain might be Satan's right-hand man.
Anyway, Craig returns to his earlier character motivations and decides to press on. Cut to, of all people, Ginny Cook. Ginny finds Mark's car parked outside the Dead Woods. She breaks into it and hotwires it, driving it away.
Cut back to Craig and Todd. They suddenly notice that a pair of coyotes are staring at them from a short distance away. Then, a pair of wolves join them. Then a boar. Then a grizzly bear. Get an elephant out here and we'll have a full circus.
The boys figure the Shadow God is controlling the animals. Then, they spot a pair of glowing blue eyes watching them from the trees.
The two decide to run for it.
If they could find the blue-lit well or hole or whatever it was, then they could jump down it and escape the animals.
Oh yeah. Just jump into a mysterious pit you know nothing about. Another banger of a plan by Craig.
The pair jump down the hill, lose their footing, and begin to tumble. Craig's mind goes back to his dream from earlier, and he realizes that the neanderthal had blue eyes, too.
Craig, of course, comes out of this unscathed. Todd is a bit worse for wear, but he'll live. Craig looks for the animals and sees them keeping their distance, as if scared of something. Todd and Craig realize that they're inside a circle of logs, a circle that the animals seem unable to enter or perceive. They begin to sift through the dead leaves to see if something else is in the circle with them, too. Craig notices that the leaves are wet, despite it not having rained.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not,” said Craig. “But something very strange is happening here.”
No shit, Sherlock.
The two continue to dig through the leaves. Eventually, they uncover a wooden door set into the ground. They open it and find a set of stone steps. With trepidation, they head down.
Cut to Underwood again. He's had a dream.
The dream was about the current case he was on; the one with Craig Johnson. Everyone Jim had come into contact with in the past week was in it and there was some kind of blue aura that enveloped Craig’s head. This signified to Jim that Craig was a scheming, conniving liar. How he hated that boy!
But Underwood knew his dream wasn’t just a dream. His mind or someone was trying to tell him something. He remembered the dream taking place at the Williams’s house. There was something in the basement the forensics team had missed.
He heads out to see what it was.
Cut back to our favourite duo, Craig and Todd, still descending. At the bottom of the stairs is a door. The two manage to push it open. They emerge into a stone cavern, with passageways leading in every direction. They head down it and find themselves at a fork. They decide to go left, and see a blue light ahead of them.
And that's the end of today's chapter.
See you tomorrow, folks.
Fun fact: yesterday’s post may have unearthed a long-standing site bug. I guess I’m good for something after all.
WHY?! WHY CAN't IT END?!
XD
please, no
"Friends till the next plot convenience!"
5672185
Ooh, what was it? :O
5672292
Y’know how when someone comments on your blog, you get a notification with a link to the comment? Well, for whatever reason, because the blog’s title starts with a url, when I click on the title in the notification, I get taken to “www.shadowgod.biz” instead.
I might be able to replicate it for you by replying to your comment on the post in question to generate a notification on your side. Want to try it?
5672295
that's amazing :O try it
5672295
ah, yup, that went right to the URL instead!
5672393
It’s a bit of a bizarre bug. Also a very exploitable one. I reported it on the discord, so hopefully it gets fixed soon.