The Old Weird South

by Tim Westover

  #

  He sat on the couch, whiskey coating the pin pricks of darkness, which beguiled him these last few days. The big triangle windows in the north wall let in dusk, as if he had to put them there for fear of dusk’s Revealer issuing a decree at his disobedience, as if his log cabin was an unwelcome blemish in what the Revealer had designs for. The big triangle windows were always meant to be at that spot, in this time, just for that specific ray of light. Jansen leaned back and stretched. He would survive the winter without asking for handouts after all.

  “Thank you, Mother Nature,” he said to the room. He raised his glass, chinking the ice, and then sipped the brusque whiskey. Jansen crafted a fine evening meal of venison, asparagus, baked potato, and whiskey on the rocks. He put on his favorite Johnny Cash album, At Folsom Prison. Jansen tapped his fork on the table, playing the drum part. He hummed the melody to “Dark as the Dungeon,” the ambiance of the wild and the alcohol a pleasant mix.

  The phone rang at 9:00 pm, jarring him from his meditative state. He wondered who could be calling him. He only had a few acquaintances left.

  “Yeah, Jansen here.”

  “Hey, it’s Wilkins. You got a minute?”

  “You’re interrupting my whiskey hour,” Jansen said, happy to hear another voice. “Of course I’ve got a minute. You do know who you’re talking to, right?” Jansen was happy to hear another voice.

  There was silence, and Jansen’s smile softened.

  “They finally opened it,” Wilkins said.

  Jansen’s smile bowed into a grimace as his mind reached out into the darkness, picturing the men and the fear.

  “They didn’t find ’em,” Wilkins said.

  Jansen’s stomach churned.

  “Didn’t find them? They were there. I saw them before the earth came down! How could they not be there?”

  “I dunno, but they weren’t.”

  “Wrong shaft. They screwed up somehow,” Jansen said, trembling.

  “No, they didn’t, buddy. They got the right one, trust me. I spoke with Harper himself and one of his engineers.”

  “Bullshit. They had to be there.”

  “Well, they did find something.” Wilkins paused, letting silence grow between them. “On the rocks were four marks. This sounds weird, but they were just two crossed white lines, about six inches or so. The reentry team thought they might have been carved by the men, but no such luck. It wasn’t fingernails or chalk.” Wilkins paused again. “That’s all I got, pal. Sorry to bother you, but I figured you should be the first to know.”

  Jansen dropped the phone, and it pulled the receiver onto the floor. He clutched his thinning hair as his eyes darted around the cabin. Then he ran to the garage and flung open the freezer, gazing into it, the air frosting the tip of his nose. It couldn’t be, he thought. It just couldn’t be, not in a million years. He hurried to the work bench and flipped over one of the drying hides. He ran his fingers through the mark, mewling. Jansen opened the garage door and looked into the woods, breathing deeply, the fresh air calming him. A chorus of frogs sang from some unseen pool. The childlike cry of a bobcat came from the east, up near one of the higher pieces of land. Dusk was evaporating into night, the forest never dormant.

  The Healer

  Josh Strnad

  “It’s a miracle!”

  The crowd cheered, and the organ surged, drowning out the noisy creaking of the frogs and crickets outside. Although it was one of the hottest nights they’d had all summer, the entire town, or all of it that counted, had packed itself into the humble one-room church. It was more crowded that Thursday night than it was on Sunday mornings.

  Ahab Shore ran across the front of the sanctuary, bending and twisting his spine in every direction. He threw his cane away in his joy, and it clattered to the floor. The fact that it didn’t hit anybody was a small miracle in itself, considering how dense the crowd was.

  “I’m healed!” he shouted, jumping up and clicking his heels. His snaggletoothed grin shone from the midst of his greying beard. “The pain is gone! My back is completely healed!” Ahab began to dance a jig, gripping his belt with both hands and stomping his boots on the rough wooden floor. The crowd joined in the pandemonium, hooting and hollering and clapping their hands. Jeremiah Colton was the only one not jumping about. He remained seated in his chair in the middle of the stage, a placid smile on his face.

  “Heal me too!” Delilah O’Connor shouted from the crowd. People moved aside to let the heavyset woman pass. “For the love of God, heal me too!” She coughed violently into her handkerchief, leaving a bright red stain. As quick as they had begun celebrating, the people quieted down, turning their eyes to Jeremiah.

  The young man said nothing, but that didn’t surprise anybody. No one in the town had ever heard Jeremiah speak. They had thought him a bit touched. Maybe he was, for all they knew. It didn’t make no difference. He had a gift.

  Jeremiah nodded and gestured for Delilah to come forward. Hacking and retching, she sidled out of the pew and waddled toward the stage. Jeremiah watched her come, his quiet steady gaze never leaving her pained features. When she had climbed the steps and reached the chair, she knelt with some difficulty so that she was at eye level with Jeremiah.

  A hush fell over the congregation as Jeremiah Colton reached out toward Delilah. She shook with another coughing fit, but he managed to catch her shoulders, holding his hands there with purposeful intensity. He shut his eyes, and his face took on a strained expression.

  It was over in a moment. That was all it took.

  Delilah jumped up, radiant with joy and practically glowing with health. She drew a deep breath and released it slowly, savoring the air. Everyone could tell she was not the sickly woman she had been just seconds before. She threw back her head and laughed. Many laughed with her. Organ music swelled through the sanctuary. Shouts of joy rose from every corner of the room.

  “She’s healed!”

  “Praise God!”

  “Praise Jesus!”

  Chaos ruled for the next few minutes. The windowpanes rattled with the noise. The room sweltered like an oven.

  In the midst of the celebration, the people almost didn’t notice Cain Riggins, leading his ten-year-old daughter Martha by the hand through the throng. They were almost to the stage before people saw them at all. When they did, an immediate hush fell over the crowd; the noise died so suddenly that it was like flicking off a radio. Slowly, carefully, Cain led his blind daughter to the foot of Jeremiah’s chair.

  When they stopped, Martha reached out to touch Jeremiah’s face, reading his features with her soft small hands. He let her. The only noises were the insects and frogs singing outside and the flutter of people fanning themselves with pieces of paper.

  Jeremiah looked up at Cain, who nudged his little girl in the back. “Please,” she said, her small voice full of hope, “I’d like to be able to see. Can you do that? For me?”

  Jeremiah nodded, shut his eyes, and placed his hands on Martha’s shoulders. The expression of strain flitted across his features and was gone.

  Martha’s vacant stare underwent an instant transformation. Her pupils dilated, and she looked first from Jeremiah and then to her father. “Pa!” she shouted, her face a perfect display of wonder and delight. “It’s true! I can see!”

  Cain, laughing and weeping at the same time, scooped his daughter up and looked deep into her eyes. “She can see!” he shouted. “My little girl is healed!”

  The crowd went crazy. The organist didn’t even bother to play any music but joined the others in shouting and dancing in the aisles.

  “Praise the Lord!”

  “Hallelujah!”

  Jeremiah just sat in his chair, peaceful and quiet amid the overjoyed townspeople. Cain bent down and grabbed Jeremiah’s hand between both of his own. “Thank you,” he whispered, all but inaudible beneath the shouting congregation. “Thank you.”

  Jeremiah said nothing. He smiled and inclined his head in acknowledg
ment.

  The celebration in the little church lasted for hours. It was late at night when, at last, the party began to wear down. One by one, the people returned home to their beds, where they would dream about the marvelous things they had seen that night.

  When everyone else had gone, Jeremiah Colton was left alone, still sitting on the stage—the first to arrive and the last to leave. With a heavy sigh, he rose from his chair, hunching over and putting a hand on his back as white-hot pain shot through it like molten lead. As he started toward the steps, he let out a terrible rattly cough from deep in his lungs. He turned his head aside, choking and unable to breathe, and spat a mouthful of phlegm and blood onto the floor. He had to stand still for a moment, focusing in order to recover his breath. Then careful not to fall, he began feeling his way blindly along, first, the stairs, then the rows of pews, making his way toward the church exit.

  A True Story about the Devil and Jamie’s Shoes

  Megan Engelhardt

  One Saturday, my brother Jeff and our pal Jamie and I were coming home from a day’s fishing. Our poles made shadows on the road, and the laces on Jamie’s shoes were flapping, kicking up little puffs of dust.

  Since it was summer, Jamie was the only one wearing shoes. He never went barefoot, even though his mama tried to make him save his shoes for school and church and threatened his life if he ever lost them. We asked what was wrong with squishing through mud and marsh like the rest of us, and he took off the shoes and showed us the paper that lined the insides. Turned out that Jamie was superstitious. Last year at the county fair, an old woman told him to write the names of the apostles on a piece of paper and put it inside his shoes for good luck. Now Jamie is also sloppy and couldn’t keep his shoes tied tight. He always had extra scraps of paper ready in his pockets just in case the ones in his shoes fell out.

  We came up on the crossroads where Main Street runs out of town and all the way over to Durham, and there was old Peg Barnes, leaning against the telephone pole. His wooden leg tapped against the crutch he used, and his grizzled hair stood out all around his face. As we went past, he grunted, “This is it.” We looked around.

  “This is what?” I asked.

  “This is where I met the devil.”

  Jamie got a little pale.

  “They say never make a crossroads bargain,” Peg said. “But I wanted my leg back. So I came down here at midnight and shed my blood, and when he came, I made a deal.”

  Jamie was listening with wide eyes, and Jeff was too.

  “What kind of deal?” I asked.

  “Old Scratch needs someone,” Peg said, “to stoke the furnaces away down in hell. That’s what he wanted—two men to do his bidding. I told him I’d bring him his men, sure, right here to this crossroads. And here we are. I figure a boy’s as good as a man to the devil.” He looked over at Jeff and winked. My brother started to cry.

  “You stop,” I told Peg. “It’s gone far enough. Say you’re joking.”

  “No joke,” Peg said. “I made the deal, and I’d do it again.”

  The wind kicked up, and the sky got dark. We blinked the dust from our eyes, and when we could see, there was a man.

  I tell you, the devil didn’t look like much. I’ve seen finer men, but he wasn’t shabby; and I’ve seen uglier men, but he wasn’t handsome. He looked like every other fellow on the street. I could tell he was the devil, though. It was all around him.

  “Afternoon,” he greeted us. “How was the fishing?”

  “Never mind that. I’ve got what you asked for,” Peg said.

  “Boys, not men,” said Mr. Scratch, studying us.

  “They’re strong boys, big enough to do a man’s work,” Peg said. “I don’t care which two you take. Just give me my leg back.”

  The devil looked at us and opened his mouth and said, “I choose—”

  “Wait!” Peg said. “Give me my leg first, or else you don’t get any.”

  Scratch gave him a look but waved his hands. Peg dropped his crutch, and the peg fell off as his leg filled out. Peg stared down at his two good legs and then took a few steps and whooped. He ran in a circle, laughing.

  “My turn,” Scratch said and pointed. “You and you.”

  First, I thought, Thank the Lord because it wasn’t me or Jeff. Then I thought, Poor Jamie, and then I thought, Good because the devil had also chosen Peg.

  Peg stopped running the moment the devil’s finger tagged him.

  “Well, boys,” Scratch said, “it’s time to go.”

  He gave a raucous laugh. With a whoosh of dust and the rush of hundreds of wings, he turned into a giant crow that picked up Peg in one claw and Jamie in the other.

  Now this is where Jamie’s shoes saved the day. As the devil flew into the air, Jamie’s shoelaces wrapped around the telephone wire that hung over the crossroads. The laces tangled and caught, and there was Jamie, hanging from the devil’s own claws, stuck on the wire.

  The devil glared back, but no matter how he flapped and pulled, Jamie wasn’t going anywhere. It didn’t make sense how he stayed in those floppy shoes. The only thing we could think was that those apostles’ names held him fast. He wasn’t coming out of those shoes, though, and those shoes weren’t coming off that wire. Scratch thought for a moment and then flew under the wire, giving the laces some slack, hoping they’d come unstuck and let him carry away his prey. He shook Jamie a little, and a scrap of paper came floating out of Jamie’s pocket. It hit the devil square between his eyes.

  Scratch squealed, shaking his head to get it off, but it was stuck fast. Jamie wiggled a bit, and another scrap came down, and then it was snowing paper, a white blizzard of apostles’ names swirling out of Jamie’s pants.

  You know how sometimes you’re so scared you come out the other side where it hits you as funny, and you laugh because there’s nothing else for it? That’s what happened to us when Jamie’s scraps kept falling.

  So there’s the devil, and there’s Jamie, stuck, and there were Jeff and me, laughing. The devil hates being laughed at, and those papers must have hurt him something bad. Faced with that, Mr. Scratch must have decided that one man was good enough. He gave up on Jamie and left, Peg still hanging from the other claw. The papers stopped falling as soon as the devil let go, and Jamie dropped, barefoot, to the ground.

  No matter how we tried, we never could get those shoes off the wires. Jamie got a hiding when his mama found he’d lost them, though. You can laugh at the devil, but there’s not much you can do about mothers when it comes to shoes.

  Murdock

  Chris Dezarn

  The first time wuz an accident. Hell, the whole deal wuz an accident when yuh git right down to it. We weren’t lookin’ fur this place. No, sir. We’s jus’ a couple dumb ol’ country boys tryin’ to dig a well on Scottie’s property. Lookin’ fur water, yuh see?

  Course, water ain’t what we found. But I’ll git to that in a minute.

  Yuh see, when the economy went to shit, Scottie decided to start tryin’ to save every nickel he could. And that wuz one a his ideas.

  Yeah, that wuz Scottie, all right. He wuz jus’ full a ideas. Git-rich-quick stuff, mostly. Course, none a his schemes ever worked out. Figures he’d luck into this here bi’ness like a blind man pickin’ his favorite color socks—by mere chance, that is.

  It wuz actually Duke, Scottie’s ol’ bluetick hound, that found the hole. Yuh see, we’s drillin’ fur an old aquifer Scottie vowed wuz down there in the ground sum’ers. Then we hit sumthin’ harder’n Ol’ Scratch’s heart. We couldn’t be sure, but we jus’ figured it wuz a boulder or sumthin’ stoppin’ us.

  But anyways.

  Scottie’s daddy wuz a miner once upon a time, yuh see, and it jus’ so happened that he’d left sum a that old dynamite tucked away in a shed when he up and left this world fur the next un. So we decided to blast through. Well, when that boomstick went off, it musta jarred sumthin’ loose down there in the earth ’cause right then, this big ol’ dust cloud mush
roomed up from the ground ’bout sixty feet from where we’s standin’. Then the ground kinda gave way underneath that geyser a dirt and rock, sorta like how a cake yuh’re bakin’ll fall into its pan if yuh bump the oven or stomp the floor at the wrong time. We jus’ reckoned we’d shook open a sinkhole or sumthin’.

  Well, to be completely honest, we didn’t know what the hell we’d found. I tell yuh, we’s pretty durn speechless there fur a minute or two. So we went over to check out this big crater in the ground that hadn’t been there a minute ago, Duke trailing by Scottie’s side like he always done. There wuz this real strong smell comin’ up outta there—a kinda vinegary smell that put me in the mind a moldy root cellars and what my pappy always said wuz a sure sign a the dirt goin’ sour. Prob’ly sum kinda gas, I s’pose. I know, it don’t smell now; it’s had plenty a time to air out, I reckon.

  But anyways.

  We’s standin’ by the rim a this crater, right—me, Scottie, and Duke—when that ol’ hound dog starts goin’ off! And I mean go-in-off! Actin’ like he’d done spied a critter and aimed to have it! And all the while lookin’ down in this here pit.

  Me and Scottie, we didn’t know what to make of it. Scottie yelled fur Duke to shut up, but yuh know how dogs is once they git riled up; there ain’t no pacifyin’ ’em.

  So next thang we know, Duke’s heading down in that crater, runnin’ right down the loose dirt that sloped to the bottom, movin’ like his ass wuz on fire and his head wuz a-catchin’. Well, Scottie goes after him, pickin’ his path real careful like—he weren’t as nimble as Duke, yuh see. And then there I go after Scottie.

  Well, we git to the bottom, right, and Duke’s already made the distance to the other side a the bowl.

  That’s when we noticed the cave. Yeah, that one right over there. Don’t look like much, does it? Barely big enough fur a man on his hands and knees to wiggle through. But it’s plenty big enough fur an ol’ bluetick hound that thinks he’s on the trail a game. And yuh know that’s jus’ what happened. Duke shot into that hole without even pausing to think it over, all the while Scottie yellin’, “Come back here, yuh dumb sum’bitch!”

  Well, Duke didn’t come back. But he found what he’s after. Yes, sir. ’Cause we start hearin’ Duke barkin’ and growlin’, that kinda ruckus yuh only hear dogs make when they finally git a hold a what they’re after. And fur the next few minutes, that’s all we heard—Duke fightin’. We could hear what he’s fightin’ too, though I don’t rightly know how to describe what it sounded like. I guess, maybe if you’s one a them genetic fellers and you’s to cross a mountain lion and a Chihuahua—and yes, I’m aware a how silly that sounds; don’t even go there—well, it might sound sumthin’ that.

  Anyways, ever’thang went all quiet again after a minute or two.

  When Duke didn’t come out right away, Scottie started hollerin’ fur him. When he still didn’t come—didn’t bark or nuthin’—Scottie wanted to crawl in there and git him. I had to hold Scottie back, make him realize jus’ what a dumbshit idea that wuz.

  That’s when we hear sumthin’ shufflin’ round in the loose rocks near the cave’s entrance. But whatever it wuz, it stayed in there. It didn’t so much as poke a toenail outside those shadows clustered round the mouth a that cave—and after ever’thang I’d jus’ heard, I weren’t too sure I wanted to see it anyway.

  But what happened next really threw us.

  All of a sudden, sumthin’ come flyin’ at us outta the darkness. I ’bout turned tail and runned right then ’cause I didn’t know what wuz a-comin’ outta that hole. I jus’ knew that if Duke couldn’t handle it with his teeth and claws, I sure as damn it wasn’t gonna hurt it with the handful a nuthin’ I had on me.

  But it weren’t no swarm a angry little critters.

  And it weren’t dislodged rocks signalin’ another collapse in the earth neither, which is what Scottie later admitted he thought it wuz.

  It wuz coins. ’Bout a handful of ’em. Wet with Duke’s blood. Once we started really lookin’ at ’em, we noticed the Confederate States of America stamp on ’em. They’s Confederate coins, yuh see, datin’ back to the War between the States. Some copper, some silver, pennies, half-dollars—all kinds. Good condition too, considerin’ their age and that they’d just been coughed up outta the ground; in fact, the only thang we could tell was wrong with ’em was a little dirt and dog blood.

  Where’d they come from? Yeah, that’s what we asked ourselves too. We tossed round sum ideas in the days that followed, tryin’ to figure out what’d happened. Scottie wuz tore up ’bout Duke, a course, but I think his curiosity—and them coins—helped relieve sum a that grief.

  Anyways, after takin’ turns shootin’ down each other’s suggestions, we decided we needed to run an experiment, see if it happened again. So we went to the stockyard and bought a hog—a nice un too—all fattened up and ready fur slaughter. Then we went back to the cave.

  Now I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to git a hog into a cave, but let me tell yuh, they don’t like it. This one didn’t anyway. Maybe he sensed what wuz down there. Or maybe hogs is jus’ clausterphobic by nature. I don’t know. But it took me and Scottie the better part a an hour to wrestle that bastard into that hole.

  And what happened next?

  Well, after the squealin’ finally stopped, more twinklin’ coins come flyin’ out. And more of ’em too—’bout two fistfuls a copper, silver, and even a few gold uns mixed in this time, all drippin’ with pig blood.

  And that pretty much settled it. We’s bein’ paid. Paid fur . . . well . . . fur bringin’ lunch. We figured that whatever’s down there don’t git out too much and don’t have a whole lotta options as to what it gits to eat. Also, it probably ain’t got no use fur them coins. Maybe it jus’ thinks ’em purty and sees it as fair trade. Maybe it’s been jus’ familiar enough with man long enough to figure out a little bit a what makes men tick. I don’t know. Any exp’anation’s as good as the next, I s’pose.

  And that’s how it started.

  Scottie found this guy in the city who dealt with coins and was just as happy as a flea on a dog’s ass to buy all we could bring him. Fur a good price too—nuthin’ that’d make us millionaires, mind yuh, but enough to keep us both mighty comfy and let us quit our jobs at the factory. Hell, a few a them 1861 Confederate pennies brought ’bout ten thousand each! So three or four times a week, we’d hit the stockyard, buy a pig, calf, or half a dozen chickens, come back, feed our newfound friend, and collect the payment. Me and Scottie had more money than we’d ever had in our lives, and the critter in the cave wuz gittin’ fat off all the stuff we’s bringin’ him.

  Oh, there were a few other details to work out, a course. My ol’ lady wuz the biggest problem, I guess. She’d git suspicious sumtimes, wonder how I’s gittin’ all that money—’cause she eventually heard I quit the factory, but I didn’t tell her ’bout my new buddy—but she’d let it slide when I’d hand her a few hundreds.

  Scottie dubbed the thang in the cave Murdock, after sum creatures in a H. G. Wells story ’bout time travel we’d had to read in high school. I vaguely remembered the story, but Murdock didn’t sound quite right to me—close, but not quite right. But I’d read that story when I’s jus’ a youngun, so I didn’t say nuthin’. Besides, the name didn’t matter none no ways—we jus’ wanted to call it sumthin’ besides “that thang in the cave.”

  And it went pretty smooth like that fur a while.

  Then Scottie got greedy.

  Yuh see, Scottie wuz always talkin’ ’bout Murdock. Wonderin’ what he looked like. Sayin’ he wanted to see him.

  Me, I didn’t care what he looked like. Far as I cared, Murdock could look like Miss America or sumthin’ right outta one a them zombie movies. I’s jus’ fine with the way thangs wuz a-goin’. And I told Scottie as much too. I tried to esplain that we’s a-makin’ out like bandits. As it wuz, only me and him knew ’bout Murdock and that served all parties involved mighty righteously. I said we jus’ ne
eded to leave thangs the way they wuz, keep on doin’ what we’s a-doin’, and not take a chance on spoilin’ ever’thang.

  Well, that seemed to work. Fur a while more, anyways. But like I said, Scottie always had one git-rich-quick scheme or another swimmin’ round in that head a his, and he eventually fished up a doozie. He started talkin’ ’bout how we’d probably make a fortune if we could sell a picture a Murdock. A damn picture!

  And the way he said it . . .

  I think it wuz really more curiosity than greed. Curiosity, and him tryin’ to justify it the way men justify jus’ ’bout ever’thang—with money.

  I tried to make him see how that could backfire, how tellin’ people ’bout Murdock might be a bad idea. Told him only a damn fool would trade the cow fur the milk.

  I tried . . .

  But honestly, I guess I knew he’d already made up his mind.

  Oh, Scottie . . .

  Well, I went over to Scottie’s a day or two later to pick him up and head to the market. We’d already decided to start raisin’ animals out on Scottie’s property, but we weren’t to the point where we could forgit ’bout the stockyard jus’ yet. His truck wuz in the drive, so I checked inside the house and round, but I didn’t find him. I looked fur him fur ’bout fifteen minutes before I remembered his crazy picture idea.

  Rememberin’ that, I started toward the hole, my guts twistin’ into tighter knots with each step fur fear a what I’d find.

  And when I got here? Well, I found what I’s afraid I would.

  Sorta, anyway.

  Near the entrance, there wuz Scottie’s old Polaroid camera, the casing cracked in a couple a places and specked with dried blood.

  And there, hangin’ out the front—lookin’ like sum kinda weird tongue lollin’ out an even weirder-lookin’ head—there wuz a picture. Now I know yuh want me to tell yuh that that picture finally showed me what wuz in that hole, but it didn’t. It wuz jus’ shadows fur the most part, although there wuz these white streaks blurred across the middle a the shot—what coulda been a pale hand takin’ a swipe at the camera, I guess.

  Confederate coins wuz scattered ’bout the ground too. The only difference wuz there wuz more of ’em. A helluva lot more. There musta been six or eight handfuls spread over the ground round that camera. And a few looked like they hadn’t never even been touched! Yuh shoulda seen the look on our coin guy’s face when I brought him those!

  But yeah. That’s what happened to Scottie. I wuz a might troubled ’bout it, a course, but what could I do? Murdock . . . he didn’t know no better. He’s jus’ actin’ the way we’d more or less taught him to. It wuz Scottie’s fault, really, but yuh can’t blame a man fur his curiosity neither, ’cause men are jus’ as addicted to their curiosity as junkies are to drugs and politicians are to power.

  So that’s why I say the first time wuz an accident.

  But the second time . . .

  Well, when my ol’ lady started runnin’ round with this feller a few towns over . . . yeah, that weren’t no accident.

  Prosperous, but no accident.

  Yuh see, before Scottie . . . yuh know . . . we’d git just a couple handfuls a coins at most. It wuz only after Scottie . . . yuh know . . . that the real payout started. Seems like ol’ Murdock’d found sumthin’ he really likes, and he don’t mind payin’ top dollar fur his favorite dish. I can’t rightly say as I fully understand his pricin’ philos’phy or how or where he got all them coins, but he’s a shrewd devil, I tell yuh.

  Anyways, that feller my wife wuz a-seein’ came nosin’ round a few weeks later, lookin’ fur the cheatin’ bitch.

  Eh . . . let’s jus’ say he found her.

  And now here you are, lookin’ fur Scottie, wantin’ him to answer sum damn tax questions and talkin’ ’bout takin’ his land if he don’t. And seein’ as how Scottie can’t exactly meet with yuh to do that . . .

  Well now, I jus’ can’t have that. I’ll have to think up sumthin’, I guess, but—

  Here now! Quit that! Yuh ain’t shuckin’ outta that duct tape; I don’t care how much yuh squirm. This ain’t my first rodeo, so to speak.

  Oh, and I’m real sorry yuh gotta be awake fur this—truly, I am—but Murdock . . . well, he likes his meals fresh and wigglin’. I tried a bucket a KFC once, but . . .

  Uhmm . . .

  Yuh like the bell? It’s sumthin’ I added to call Murdock when supper’s ready. See? It echoes through the cave real nicelike, don’t it?

  Now don’t worry. It’ll be quick. It usually is, anyways.

  Come on, Murdock! Supper’s a-waitin’! I got yuh favorite!

  Underwater

  Erin Mundy

  In 1959, the newly created Lake Lanier reached its normal level of 1,070 feet above sea level for the first time, covering 38,000 acres. The government bought land from over seven hundred families in that area for twenty-five to seventy-five dollars per acre.