Earthly Powers: The Adventure Begins

by DC Alexander

  I pushed on the stake hard. It slid down the chest to where the belly meat started under the sternum and pushed in, the thing made more noises and its eyes were turning red. It pulled me closer by my arm, the other hand zipped out fast and caught me by the hair and it pulled my head down to its mouth. Damn it was strong and it was getting faster. When I pulled away I picked it up with me.

  I gouged the stake in and angled it up toward the head so it would hit the heart. I pushed as hard as I could. The way the thing pulled on me helped get the stake in, I felt it ‘pop’ as it went through stuff, some tearing, it couldn’t have felt good but the thing never let on it didn’t like it. There was one last ‘pop’ feeling as the stake must have pierced the heart. The thing stiffened up and turned loose of me, it stretched out its arms and legs as far as they would go and trembled hard, then it went limp. It didn’t catch on fire or turn to dust or anything dramatic, it just quit moving after a few twitches and its eyes glazed over.

  When it went limp William kept the light on it for a second, then the light moved, he said “Come on” and started out. We didn’t need to discuss anything. He had the light and the boy but that man could move. He gave me about a tenth of a second to get with him and he headed for the door. I didn’t need nearly that much time; I was waiting on him to move for most of it. I don’t know how we didn’t get a nail in us, we were focused on getting out to the light and air and we never slowed down.

  We shoved past people on the stairs and they said things to use, asked questions, but we didn’t either one of us look to see who they were or to answer them. It didn’t seem important. We got back outside of the house to the front yard and Amanda grabbed Eddy from William and smothered him up hugging him and looking him over. He still wasn’t moving. She cried “Eddy, Eddy! Say somethin, Eddy, baby, come on now, momma got you” but he was limp, I couldn’t see that he breathed. Damn I felt bad about that, if we could have been a minute or two faster we could have saved him.

  He was just a little thing with his neck bloody and tore up and still leakin blood slowly. The tears weren’t just on the side of his neck, his windpipe was partially exposed with a flap of skin hanging. His belly had bite and suck marks on it that welled blood. He had little pants on, they were dirty and he had shat himself and he was wet and pitiful. It hit something in me, the indignity, the helplessness or something, it enraged me to tears.

  I Looked with that internal sight at him, I saw he still had circulation and an aura. Amanda was sitting on the ground with him. I sat down beside her and pushed her hard and she fell over, “Amanda, lay him on the ground!” she would have fought but she was too slow, I put my hands on him, shoved him on the ground to make good contact and poured the strength in.

  He hadn’t seemed to have been breathing but he must have been at least a little. He took a big breath and moved his legs, said “momma? Momma you there?” and twitched. Inside the little body his blood vessels were limp and flaccid, almost empty, he didn’t have anything extra in him to make blood and he needed it. I helped his body tie the edges of the wounds together. He didn’t have anything in his body to supply the raw materials so I melded them.

  “Amanda, he needs blood. Get him a transfusion or go feed him up with stuff to make blood and plenty of water and he’ll be ok.” She had stopped fighting me and looked at the wound on his neck. I’d pressed the flap down and encouraged it to grow there. It had stopped seeping, I’d gotten the wounds fixed but it was very temporary.

  Dirt wasn’t concerned with healing Eddy or how I was doing or any of that. It wanted to know about the thing in the basement. I told it I killed it, and Dirt was happy. It did the ‘bad, not natural, ruin and thievery, discontent’ rant about the blank spots but in a more relaxed way.

  Eddy was breathing steadily, his chest moved, he cried and his eyes opened. He still had the wounds but they’d hold till he healed.

  Amanda grabbed him as soon as I moved my hands out of the way. She’d been holding herself back to not knock me aside and she let me finish. She squatted back on her heels crooning “My baby, my baby, it’s gone be ok now Eddy, momma’s here, I got you.” I sat back and watched.

  Some of the other people came up to us talking and I smelled wood smoke.

  Amanda stood up with Eddy and walked back the way we’d come. A cop car pulled up, then another one, the police were here after it was all over, they came up telling everybody “Yall move on back now, there is a fire, we got a truck comin.” They came over and brushed me aside so they could check the boy and Amanda out, they asked questions and people told them we found the missing boy.

  The cops didn’t know the boy was missing but they were happy he was found. The people moved out of the way, I doubt anybody went home. Amanda took Eddy and went home with him, I hope she intended to take him to the hospital and get some blood but I didn’t know. I’d check back and see if I could help. William came up “We went back down there and checked, and there was nothin else down there but bones and rotten shit, I poured gas on it and set it afire. Nothin else is gonna move in there. We ought to burn all these damn empty houses down, they aint nothing but askin for trouble.” I agreed with him but I wasn’t lighting any houses on fire.

  I was totally wore out and I was ready to go home and get clean. I walked out to the main road and Carl pulled up in the car. I got in and he took me home. He’d missed all the excitement, I told him about that nasty thing. He exclaimed “Hell, Rosalee! That was a vampire, you done killed a vampire!” Maybe he was right. I’d never seen or heard of anything like it.

  Carl took me back to the house and I collapsed on the couch. Carl offered to make coffee, I agreed because it was too much trouble to disagree. I didn’t have anything left in me at all.

  Chapter Ten

  P eople showed up at my house and wanted me to do things for them. I’d become real popular, I couldn’t get a minute to myself, somebody always had something they needed right then. I had Carl put out the word to everybody that I was going to take a day off. No point calling or coming over. I was gone and I wouldn’t have a phone with me on Wednesday.

  Amanda came over with four hundred dollars and some change to pay me for finding that boy, she said “I don’t know how you did it but I seen what you did, my boy was good as finished and you found him and pulled him right back from the grave and fixed him up. This aint much but it’s all I got right now, I’ll get you more next month, and if there is anything I can do for you all you got to do is say it.”

  “Amanda, I aint gonna charge no four hundred dollars for something like that. Don’t tell anybody and we’ll just call it even; if I need something I’ll call on you and that’s better than money. There aint many people willin to go in a hole like that with me. Is Eddy doin’ ok now? I intended to come over and check him out.”

  She said “Eddy’s doin fine, still a little tired but none of them places you fixed are even red. The people in the neighborhood took this money up, it aint mine and I aint gonna keep it. Here, this here is your money.” she pushed the wadded bills at me.

  “I’ll take a hundred then, and you use the rest for medicine and stuff for them kids. I know you need it. Far as anybody knows, I took it all, and that’s the way it is, just hush about it now.”

  She got up and come over and handed me some money and hugged me, then she left. I could always use a hundred dollars.

  I made it through the next couple days. It finally came up Wednesday. I didn’t intend to do anything for anybody on my day off. Carl didn’t come over and I wasn’t going to answer the door. I went out back and enjoyed the peace and quiet, barefooted and feeling good to just stand there. The birds made bird noises, I couldn’t hear any traffic. It was like I was out in the woods.

  My back yard was big, I could have another house back there if somebody was crazy enough to want it. There was a shed back there at one time; I remember they used it to work on cars when I was real young. It got so bad off and rotten Grammaw had it torn down to the ground.
It left a bare spot where it used to be that still hadn’t grown over like the rest of the yard.

  Variegated hedges grew big and wild all around the yard, better than a fence, twenty feet tall and more. The remnants of a fence lurked in there somewhere but you couldn’t see it. It was private and secluded. Lots of weeds, I hadn’t taken the time to fool with the grass and cut it or make it pretty.

  I scrootched my feet down in the weeds and dirt and enjoyed the feel of it. I opened up and thought, “hello?” there wasn’t anything there. I tried a couple more times and I got a feelin something was listening but I got no answer. It let me know it was there but that was all.

  There was something it wanted but I didn’t know what it was. I closed my eyes and walked around a little bit, maybe there was a better place to be than where I was. I got over where the shed used to be and it pointed out the scraggly grass and the bare spots by drawing out attention to it. That was wrong. Nothing grew well there because it was tainted. It wanted me to fix it, there was a problem. I opened myself up to it and it pointed out what needed to be done to fix it, that was my job and it was a little put out I didn’t already do it but it understood that I wasn’t going to do it and that was ok.

  That puzzled me. If I was supposed to do things and it expected me to do things, why was it ok if I wasn’t going to do them?

  We were supposed to be workin together. It had been wondering when I was gonna do what I was supposed to; it’s my job to move around and fix things so they work right, and it will help me.

  Having one of these conversations was strange. I had to pay attention to know the difference between it thinking and me thinking. When I got images and chunks of knowledge I could tell where it came from. When it was a back and forth conversation I was having trouble telling if I thought it or it thought it.

  I thought about the alter ego. Maybe that would help. I put the mindset out there; a separate part of me that I could stand back and watch. I imagined it said “Why would you be ok with me not doing what I am supposed to do after I agreed to do it?”

  I imagined Dirt replied “You were going to take Wednesday off and do nothing for anybody.”

  I quit with the imagining and just did it.

  “That didn’t apply to you. That was for the people who want me to do things for them.”

  I was getting a lot explained with the under and over currents of the communications.

  I was supposed to have a rock or somethin like a rock, why didn’t I have it?

  I didn’t know anything about a rock. Nobody gave me one that I know of; I was here with what I had on me.

  It wanted me to get closer to the ground, so I lay stretched out on the ground. It was way more comfortable than I thought it was going to be. I fit the spot or it fit me perfectly. I could sleep there and get some good rest.

  I got cozy and I realized I was covered with a blanket, of dirt. It was dry and warm and comfortable. It didn’t bother me at all, no sensation of smothering or constriction or weight. It seemed to be right and natural that I sank down and got covered up. There was something poking me in the palm of my right hand. I closed my hand on it and it was the rock.

  There was supposed to be somebody who worked with Dirt to keep things working right and protect it. Normally when the old person/entity wore out it would introduce the new one. A new one had not been introduced and the old one was gone.

  I could focus on details and expand them. By using the alter ego filter I avoided the immediate overload. ‘Supposed to be’ expanded to ‘A contract was agreed upon between [people] and [Dirt and those like Dirt]. The contract specified that people would prevent certain extinctions and take action as required to keep the natural order of things working and protect dirt from [evil].

  There was a load of information, I didn’t mine it now, but I was interested in Dirt and those like Dirt. I expanded, Dirt was a force of nature, the closest thing I could find to match the description was an elemental.

  It was glad I finally showed up and got back on the job, especially with the blank spots around. They just weren’t right and it was a little pissed that they were trashing everything and it couldn’t see them. It was talking about the vampire things; it didn’t have a name for them. They were a bad thing that had no flow of continuity. It didn’t like them at all. I caught on that it was bitching about them.

  I always thought vampires had capes and turned into bats and talked with accents and they were smooth talkers and dressed well. The thing I found in the basement was nothing like that. It was a vicious animal shaped like a person.

  I got interrupted, no it wasn’t an animal. Animals have continuity, flow through existence with a beginning and an end to the mobile phase, then return and get used again. Animals were right, it had no problem with animals; the vampire things weren’t natural and it couldn’t see them, materials were taken in the wrong way, never returned for reuse, and that really pissed it off.

  I agreed that I’d see what I could do about them. It was very happy with that, we were through talking. I got ready to get up, I was rested and back on the top of the ground. I felt good. No dirt stuck to me and I didn’t have a single bug bite.

  I looked at the rock, it wasn’t anything special, just a little piece of sandy rock that would break easily, sandstone I think. It had a connection to the land and let me talk with Dirt easier. It fit easily into my palm, thick as a cookie. I should get it put on a chain so I could wear it around my neck and keep it close.

  I went through the house and thought about it was the fourth of the month, I should have got a check on the first, I bet I lost it. I hadn’t been watching the mailbox and somebody probably stole it.

  I went out to the mailbox, I didn’t want anybody to see me, it was my day off. There was mail packed in the box till it was about to burst open. The check was in there. Nobody had messed with my mail even though the door to the box was standing open so anybody could see there was stuff in it.

  The car was setting out in front of the house and nobody messed with it. The windows weren’t busted out and nobody even painted on them. That’s status there, I was impressed with me.

  Wanda was setting out on her porch with a cup, she waved it at me made a ‘come here’ motion so I walked over there. She said “You want a cup a coffee? I just made a pot, come on up here and set down and I’ll get it.” She went in waving me at the rocker.

  She come out with a cup for me and handed it to me. I didn’t want weak, dishwater coffee. I had rather do without than drink weak coffee. It soured on the stomach and made me have indigestion and just wasn’t worth wasting time with it.

  That coffee was strong enough to float a spoon. It was damn near bubbling hot, it had the cup hot, if I spilled it on me it was gonna take the hide off.

  I got a little sip and I smelled honey in it and it smelled just right. I got comfy and thought about that. I was noticing all sorts of things I never thought about before; I can see where a mouse lives by the steps, there is a family of them in there. A possum in the hedge waited for dark to raid the trash cans, it was relaxed but ready to run if somebody scared it. This was the way things were a long time ago and I had missed it.

  Birds in the cornice of the house were quiet but I could hear the babies peeping, a nest of four and they were almost ready to fly. They ate bugs and spiders. The noise, cars going so fast on the roads and pollution have been makin them sickly and lots of the babies don’t make it but some do. They had nowhere else to go. There was stuff in the ground, I could feel the moles and the earthworms the moles were eating, the roots they were tearing out and chewing.

  Wanda leaned up close to me, she’d been talking to me and I hadn’t noticed. “Damn, sorry about that” I shook myself “I was just thinkin and I got caught up in it. Seems like everything is alive and having babies and busy. What was you were sayin?”

  “Yeah, it’s that time of the year. I was just askin how you doin, and I was wonderin about what yall found in that house over yonder,
I heard some bad stories about that, when that young ’un went missin.” Ah. She wanted the lowdown. If anybody deserved to be in the know it was her, I owed this woman.

  I told her everything I knew about it, and what I guessed about what that thing was. I didn’t see a need to keep it a secret and she might need to know, she has young ’uns.

  She asked “you figure it was laired up and sleepin durin’ the day or it couldn’t come out in the daytime?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. I got no way of tellin, I never run up on anything like that before. It wasn’t just no homeless though, that thing was something different, I do know that. The way it came to, it was hibernating or something. It acted like it was dead. It was slow to start movin or it would have been a lot worse. That thing was strong as a horse.”

  She said “you reckon theys more of them out there? Do we need to go lookin’ for them?”

  “I aint got no idea. I don’t know if it was made or born that way. If it was made, there’s gonna be more of them, and if it born there is a momma and a daddy one, so yeah, there’s probably more of them out there. Unless they spread out apart from each other as they grow up. There are a lot of bones down in that hole, probably four or five people worth, and from the smell they been there a while.”

  “It has probably been grabbin’ people that nobody would miss. Runaways, and homeless, and people just passin’ through, don’t you think?”

  “I imagine so. I aint had nobody askin’ me about finding no people before so maybe it wasn’t takin people from around here, at least not nobody that would get noticed.”

  She said it; “I wonder if they was more rooms down there, if they is something that didn’t burn that tell us more about that thing, where it come from, how long it been there.”

  I been thinkin all day I ought to go over there and look through that mess and see if there was anything to find. I just didn’t want to do it, I reckon I was waitin for somebody else to do it, but there wasn’t anybody else. I guess I got to go over there and look. Damn. “Yeah, I reckon I’m goin over there and look around. I appreciate the coffee, that was good, and I’ll see you later.” I got up and handed her the cup, she said “I send Carl over there, he can go with you.”