Titan

The Woods

"Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."

– Romans, 12:21

Bathed in darkness, filled with light, Titan went against the night. At a glance in the slick moonlight, he seemed to reflect like steel. The glimmer of a "T" flashed across his chest. In a blink, he was just a man. He had boyish features once.

He approached the church at the edge of the trees, surrounded by a black forest choked in twilight. There was evil in these woods. Old, elemental, and dry. Long neglected. Titan knew this; it thrummed deep in his bones. It was a curious sensation... and true.

He climbed the stairs leading up to the church's thick, carved oak doors. The knotted wood beneath his feet absorbed each step, creaking beneath his weight and the weariness on his shoulders. The small building was on holy land. It was built to channel God to keep the evil in the woods at bay. It had worked for a time. All things change over time; this too.

Titan did not want to go inside. God's messenger waited inside—the priest. It was time to confront the truth.

The people in this town were kind, peaceable folk. They worked the land, worked machines, and worked to live. They raised their children to do the same. This life wasn't sad or pitiable, just honest and true. Simple, like things used to be. It was possibly the last place like this in the United States—a land of much luxury, freedom, and evil.

These simple, God-fearing people came to know Titan as James. He was a stranger here. He had walked down Main Street one day wearing worn tuxedo pants a few sizes too big, logging boots, and a weathered tee shirt, and holding a ratty tuxedo jacket over his shoulder. James wore a ratty, patchy young man's beard. His hair was slick with sweat, rain, and the elements. He stank of musk and the road. The people here were mostly kind folk, though. And when James collapsed outside Lennie's Diner, a few of the staff and patrons went to him. They brought him to Doctor Wolfe's house. And it was there he stayed.

The Doc surmised that James hadn't eaten or slept in days. With some care and some food in his belly, James recovered fast. Healed and refreshed from his long journey, James went to work in town doing what needed doing. He was not very skilled at first. But he followed instructions and worked hard. And people quickly realized that if something heavy needed moving, James could do it. And he did so, quietly, without a complaint or a harsh word. Frankly, James didn't talk much anyway.

James tilled fields, unstuck tractors, dug ditches, and attended to every other menial task there was. He succeeded initially because he would do a thing until it was done, no matter if it took minutes or hours. He needed to be taught how to shingle roofs, put up siding, and replace windows, but he learned quickly and got better at doing them. He said that his dad had taught him things like that. Some folks asked about his family and friends, but James wouldn't speak to the subject.

Sometimes when James tilled the fields or mowed lawns, he would take his shirt off. The girls (and women) in town were quick to swoon over his lean, etched muscle and just as quick to recoil from the scars that pocked his back and dashed along his chest and stomach. Freshly pink and bright, the scars were not old and they told the story of a young man who had been through something horrible. James did not say where or how he got them. The priest would soon learn.

Not long after James had come to town, terrible things began to happen. They were the kinds of things simple, hardworking people did not understand and would not abide. No one knew why these things had happened, but some suspected James was behind them. Of course he wasn't, but the timing was unfortunate.

The evil in those woods was old but not dead and it was coming. It escalated its plans because it knew Titan and what he could do. And it had waited long enough.