The Unwinding House and Other Stories

by Jared Millet

  “We should head back,” Annie said. “It’s mostly safe, but watch out for snakes.”

  ~

  The next morning Hope was still replaying the scene at the creek in her mind. She’d almost called 9-1-1 after leaving Annie’s house, but she didn’t know what to report. She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a connection between the dead alligator and Mr. Verette, but the gator could have been macerated (to use Ben’s word) by natural means. In the end, she called Ben and asked him for his cousin’s number. If Detective Melançon thought it was significant, then he would look into it.

  Trey Barnett was given detention for his stunt the day before. Randy Jr. was suspended. Son of a councilman or not, beating up another student couldn’t be swept under the rug. Hope had a feeling she should talk to him about Annie, but she didn’t have a clue what to say.

  One thing did bother her. Randy had implied that he and Annie were neighbors, but the Zacharies were rich and there were no houses near Annie’s except for other trailers. It nagged her enough that she decided to look into it after school.

  Whatley Public Library was a one-room building between the fire station and the post office. It had two public computers running Windows 95 and its reference collection consisted of an encyclopedia, a dangerously out-of-date medical guide, and ten years of World Almanacs. Behind the check-out desk, however, was a reverse phone directory of the entire parish. The librarian grudgingly surrendered it with a scowl that promised retribution if it wasn’t returned intact.

  Hope looked up Annie’s street and found a list of names. Two trailers down from “Picou” was “Barnett,” which explained how Trey had come by the skull. No “Zachary” was listed nearby. Hope stared at the page, then asked the librarian for a directory of city officials and a map. She could have gotten Randy’s address from the school secretary, but since he wasn’t in any of her classes it might have aroused suspicion.

  Fortunately his father’s residence was a matter of public record. Hope found it on the map and suddenly understood. Randy and Annie were neighbors of a sort. They lived opposite each other across Hog Creek with a mile of forest in between. It wasn’t a stretch to suppose that they both used the same swimming hole.

  Hope drummed her fingers on the table. It still didn’t make sense. What had Annie seen that she felt she had to hide? And what, if anything, did it have to do with Mr. Verette?

  Nothing. Hope wanted to kick herself. Unless Annie was in danger, which she didn’t seem to be, then her personal life was none of Hope’s business. What happened to the groundskeeper was a matter for the cops.

  What Hope needed, she thought, was a life of her own. She wondered what Ben was doing. She reached to close the directory when her eyes fell on a listing not far down the road from Annie.

  Verette.

  ~

  As soon as she reached her car she called Ben, who invited her to join him at Waffle House. When she arrived he was finishing a stack of pancakes while his cousin Lou slouched across from him. Detective Melançon’s face was hidden behind the Whatley edition of the Weekly World News.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Hope had to ask.

  “Somebody is,” the detective said. “This stuff is hilarious.” He folded the paper and set it by his plate. “Thanks for the tip about the gator, by the way. You ever need a speeding ticket canceled, let me know.”

  “Thanks,” Hope said as she slid next to Ben. He welcomed her with a grin.

  “Bon soir, Ma’amselle.”

  Hope rolled her eyes.

  “Detective, will you please remind this bonehead that he isn’t French?”

  “Il est aussi français que je suis,” Lou answered. “Just because no one speaks the language any more doesn’t mean it’s not in our blood.”

  Hope flushed, but there was a more important lump in her throat besides the foot in her mouth.

  “Look, I know you don’t want me snooping into your case, but I think Annie Picou knows exactly what happened to Sam Verette. I think Mr. Zachary’s son knows too.”

  Melançon straightened in his seat.

  “Go on.”

  Hope repeated what Annie had said about the rougarou. The detective meticulously folded his napkin, but never took his eyes off her.

  “That’s quite a story,” he said when she finished, “but you haven’t got the whole picture. Keep this under your hat, but the EPA is going to be crawling all over town come morning. It seems that some kind of chemical agent was at work. It’s probably in the bayou, but it would also have to be in the groundwater for it to reach as far as the school.”

  “It’s going to be Southwater all over again,” said Ben.

  “Which is?” Hope asked.

  “Toxic waste site up around Percy,” he explained. “Chemical plant dumped all kind of stuff in the ground. Not leaked or spilled, now – dumped. There was a huge class action suit. Mr. Zachary was from there. His company did the clean-up.”

  “When was all this?”

  “The dumping must have been thirty years ago. The lawsuit, about fifteen.”

  “Any chance Zachary’s been dumping on his land?”

  “What,” said Melançon, “because he’s rich, he must be some evil corporate polluter? Don’t be silly. His business is cleaning toxic sites. He’s got a research lab, but it’s miles from the river and there aren’t any chemical plants around here at all. No, if there’s something in Hog Creek it came from upstream. We’re going to look into it but don’t go pointing fingers, especially at Zachary. He could probably have you fired in a heartbeat.”

  Hope nodded and inspected her placemat, feeling like a scolded schoolgirl. She was about to apologize for wasting their time when Ben raised his hand.

  “I still don’t get why this stuff only affected Sam. If it’s reached as far as the school, why hasn’t it dissolved anyone else?”

  “That’s the other thing I found out,” Hope said in a whisper, suddenly afraid of speaking in front of the detective. “He and Annie were almost next-door neighbors.”

  “No they weren’t,” Melançon said. “Sam Verette lived on Hatchell Road. I’ve been there.”

  “But…” Hope felt like an idiot. The street directory had only listed last names. She’d just assumed that the Verette near Annie had been the groundskeeper. She explained her mistake and Melançon asked for the address anyway. While he called the Sheriff’s office to check it, Ben tapped Hope on her shoulder.

  “Look, Lou’s a tolerant guy, but after this I think we better leave it to him.”

  Hope nodded and the detective flipped his phone shut.

  “Does the name ‘Russell’ Verette mean anything?”

  Hope hiccuped.

  “I think that’s the man I saw at Annie’s.”

  “He was Sam’s brother. Do you think Annie would talk to you again?”

  “She might.” Hope prayed she wasn’t wrong.

  ~

  Hope led the way while the other two followed in Lou’s unmarked car. Ben had offered to ride with her, but she used the “too much mess” excuse to have a few minutes alone with the turmoil in her gut.

  They parked several houses down from Annie’s trailer. It was late in the afternoon, but not so late as the first time Hope had been there. In daylight the trailer park looked even shabbier than she remembered. Old clotheslines sagged between several of the houses, and tin shacks served as tombs for disused gadgets and furniture.

  Lou’s radio squawked, but Hope didn’t look. She practiced a smile as she walked to Annie’s home. One visit from a teacher was enough to spook anyone. Two teachers and a detective might silence Annie completely. Her mother answered the door.

  “Hi,” Hope said. “I’m Annie’s teacher? I’m here to drop off her assignments.” It was a bad lie and Hope didn’t know why she said it. Annie peeked around her mom.

  “Miss Fish—” she started, then stopped when she saw the two men. In a flash Annie was gone, and Hope heard a door slam on the far side of
the trailer.

  The detective ran, shouting Annie’s name. Her mother looked bewildered and angry. “What’s going on?” she demanded, but Hope couldn’t come up with an answer. Without saying anything, she jumped down the steps and ran with the others to the woods.

  Annie was already too far ahead for Hope to see between the trees. She could make out Lou’s broad shoulders, but instead of following him she looked for the path Annie had shown her. She heard a crack and a cry of pain, and in a matter of steps she overtook the limping detective, who’d tripped over a fallen pine. She sprinted past him.

  Ahead, she heard a splash in the bayou. Behind, Annie’s mother shouted her name. Hope stumbled to a halt at the edge of the creek to see Annie crawl up the opposite bank. The girl took one look behind her, then vanished into the woods again.

  “Annie!” Hope didn’t know what to do, but panic pushed her on. From the sound of snapping undergrowth, someone was just behind her. She didn’t wait, but kicked off her shoes and jumped into the bayou.

  Her feet plunged into the mud with an ominous sucking noise. She fought back a squeal and yanked one foot out of the mire.

  “Ms. Fisher!” Det. Melançon shouted. “Stop!”

  Hope looked back and suddenly understood. If whatever had killed Sam Verette was in the bayou, then she was knee-deep in it already.

  “Come out,” he told her, but she shook her head. If Annie could make it across then so could she, and she wasn’t going to leave a terrified child alone in the forest. She pulled her other foot out of the muck and trudged across the creek.

  The detective caught up and climbed the bank behind her. Ben joined them moments later, sloshing loudly. Both had kept their shoes, which were now caked in mud. Lou glanced back the way they’d come.

  “Where’s the mother?”

  “Calling the cops,” Ben said. “When I told her you were a cop, she said she was calling the News.”

  “Wonderful.” He pointed at signs nailed to trees along the bank that clearly marked the area as Posted and Private. “I’ll have you know, Ms. Fisher, I could arrest you for trespassing.”

  “Fine, but after we find Annie. And keep back. You’ve already scared her enough.”

  The land was boggy on the Zachary side. The trees were more cypress than pine, and the underbrush turned the forest into a labyrinth of brambles. The three of them kept to the drier patches, skirting muddy hollows in the gathering dusk. After wandering back and forth between dead-end paths, Hope wished for a ball of string to mark their way.

  “Sst,” Ben called. He stopped her and pointed.

  In the branches of an oak twenty yards ahead were the boards of a treehouse. A makeshift ladder of two-by-fours had been nailed into the trunk, and a tire swing hung on a rope. At the base of the tree stood Annie.

  Hope took a step forward, but Lou held her back and put a finger to his lips. At that moment, a voice called out in the distance. The boards of the treehouse creaked, and a barefoot boy climbed down.

  “That’s Randy,” Hope whispered. She recognized his hair and his bowlegged gait. Annie looked over her shoulder and Hope, Lou, and Ben crouched for cover. Hope peeked through the brush to see Annie hug the boy and pull him by the hand farther into the woods. Hope gave the kids a moment’s head start, then followed.

  It was hard to keep up, since Hope was taking pains to be quiet and the children weren’t. When she came to a well-trodden path, she sacrificed silence for speed, crouching as if that would hide her from view. She heard the others follow, but the twilight made it hard to see the low branches. Behind her came the crack of someone’s head meeting wood, and Ben cried out in pain.

  Hope stopped. So did the children in front of her.

  “Annie, wait. I can explain. We…”

  Her mouth froze in shock and then widened in horror. When Annie’s companion turned around, the face that stared back barely looked human.

  The left side did. The left side looked just like the Randy Jr. she saw every day at school, but the right side was a mass of bulbous flesh, completely obscuring his eye and twisting his mouth into a disfigured snarl. His arms were twisted as well – strangely-muscled appendages with arthritic claws in place of boyish hands. His legs were abnormally skinny and his toenails looked like they hadn’t been clipped in years.

  He screamed, but it came out of his misshapen mouth as a howl. Hope barely had time to react before he twisted out of Annie’s grip and flung his right arm toward her. She saw a metallic flash, then Ben West threw her to the ground.

  A claw as thick as a tree erupted from the air and closed around the math teacher. He only had a second to scream. In the flashing instant that Hope saw it, the claw stretched into a tentacle that wrapped around Ben like a snake. A heartbeat later it was transparent, as if made of nothing but dust. Ben shrieked as his flesh melted off, and his bones and clothing fell to the ground. What was left of him sank into freshly-steaming earth.

  Acrid tendrils burned Hope’s throat. She tried to scream. Her mouth hung open and her lungs pounded and her hands tore at her hair but no sound would come. She collapsed against a stump, still howling in silence, not taking her eyes from Ben’s smoking corpse.

  Lou stumbled up to the smoldering bones. Neither Annie nor the creature were anywhere near. Gun in hand, the detective scanned the forest, on guard for another attack.

  “What the fuck just happened?” he demanded. “What was that thing?”

  “Ben!” Hope croaked. She couldn’t believe it. Something metallic caught her eye in the light. Just past Ben’s body lay a canister the size of a pickle jar.

  She reached for it, but a gnarled hand grabbed her wrist. The barefoot grotesque that almost looked like Randy wrapped an arm around her throat and held another open canister to her face. The detective raised his gun, but the boy hid behind Hope and mumbled through his twisted mouth.

  “No! Keeb vack.”

  “Son,” the detective said, “whatever’s in that can, you need to lower it to the ground and step away from Ms. Fisher.”

  Hope glanced down and saw that the container was full of something that looked like dirt but crawled like ants.

  “I kiw ‘er,” the boy said. “Go ‘way! ‘Eave us awone!”

  “Eric!” a new voice shouted. Randy – the real Randy – came running down the trail with a flashlight, Annie on his heels.

  “Stay back,” Lou warned them, never taking his gun off the monster. Hope shook, but not with cold. The twisted child’s touch was repulsive, as was the smell that came from whatever he was holding.

  “Eric, what did you do?” Randy said.

  “Hey were affer Annie,” the other boy said, his voice cracking.

  “Eric?” Hope said. “We don’t want to hurt her. We don’t want to hurt anybody.”

  “Liar! You gwone-ups. Aw you do is hur’ people. You take ‘em away ‘n lock ‘em up fer good!”

  He shoved her to the ground and moved to fling his canister. A gunshot and flash took her hearing and sight. Instinct kicked her legs out and she threw herself sideways as far she could. The world came into focus as metal hit a tree, followed by a chorus of shrieks – two from Annie and Randy and one from Eric himself. Hope rolled over to see the twisted little boy melt in a shower of dust.

  “Eric!” Randy ran forward, but Lou grabbed him, careful not to touch him with his still-smoking gun. Annie fell to the ground and wailed. In shock herself, Hope grabbed Annie and pulled her to her chest.

  “Son,” the detective said, “I don’t want to cuff you, but I will if you make me.” That was enough to get Randy to stop struggling.

  “Good. Now, I’ve just watched two people die and I still don’t know what killed them. You think you can enlighten me?”

  “It’s something Dad’s lab cooked up. A super-bacteria that’s gonna ‘revolutionize landfills.’ None was supposed to get out, but Eric stole it from the lab. I thought I’d found most of it.”

  “Randy,” Hope asked, “was Eric your br
other?”

  He nodded.

  “He was born like that because of that toxic shit where we used to live. No one’s supposed to know. Dad never lets him out. I had to teach him to sneak under the fence.”

  Hope could see rage behind Lou’s clenched teeth.

  “Son,” he said, “are you telling me your father’s known all along what killed Mr. Verette?”

  “Well, yeah. He thinks it got loose from ‘industrial espionage.’ He turned the lab upside down, but he can’t figure out who to fire.”

  “And you didn’t say anything either.”

  “Of course not! If I did, what would happen to Eric? No one knew he existed. If Dad had half a reason, he’d have fed him to the bacteria himself.”

  “And now it’s in the bayou,” Lou said. “Now it’s as far as the school, and that’s miles away! Son, do know how big this is? We’ll have to evacuate the town!”

  Randy shook his head, but didn’t say anything else.

  “Whatever,” the detective said. “We’ll sort this out later. Right now I’m going to talk to your father.”

  ~

  Det. Melançon called for backup as they walked the path to the Zachary estate, a fenced-in compound with a manicured lawn. The large house shared a driveway with a concrete building that Hope assumed was the lab.

  Several armed officers accompanied the detective into the house. Randy was led to a police car, and Hope and Annie were allowed to wait in another. Hope kept remembering Ben’s smile and his ham-handed attempts to flirt with her.

  The whole time, Annie sat in silence. At first Hope tried to hold her hand, but the girl had pulled away. They were both covered in mud and scratches. The squad car would need a good cleaning in the morning.

  After a long while, Mr. Zachary walked out of his house under police escort and joined his son in the back of the other car. As it drove away, Lou checked on Hope and Annie.

  “My boys and I need to secure the scene in the woods,” he said. “You two hang tight. I’m going to need statements. Annie, I’ve called your mother. She’ll be waiting at the station.”