DarkFuse Anthology 3

by Shane Staley

  Shelley grew quiet. “You’re a good person, John.” She said it softly, as if she were talking to herself. She was always trying to fix him. No, that wasn’t it—she was always trying to convince him he didn’t need to be fixed, that he just needed to accept. His mouth twisted. She didn’t know everything.

  Take tonight. John told himself that if she asked him outright, he would tell her about his own experience in the forest. But admitting it out loud felt like giving in. She should ask.

  Shelley blew out an exasperated breath, fluffing her bangs. “What I’m trying to say is, what that little ghost boy said in the woods—it can’t be true.”

  The car drifted near the yellow center line, then back out again. John gripped the side of the passenger seat. “Tell me the rest at the cabin,” he said, and went back to staring out the passenger window at the passing dark.

  * * *

  “Well what did it say?”

  Shelley paced the length of his grandpa’s library. The glow from the fireplace turned the rough pine paneling golden and flickered across the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. John had stripped down to long underwear, and his wet clothes were draped over a drying rack next to the hearth. The firelight cast a reflection of the room onto the picture window. During the day, the window looked over forested mountains. Tonight, John had the uncanny feeling of being watched.

  He popped the top on a root beer and took a long, sweet, carbonated sip. He wiped the condensation from the bottle onto his shirt. “Say something. You’re freaking me out.”

  “You never told me your grandpa fostered kids and brought them out here to the mountains.” Her tone was accusing. “Did you know about it, John?”

  “Sure, what of it? Haven’t we talked about this before?” He knew they hadn’t. It wasn’t something he cared to bring up.

  She ignored the question. “Including your father?”

  “No. My dad was his biological son.”

  “I thought you said your grandpa was a drunk. Why did social services let him anywhere near kids?”

  John twisted the soda can in his hands. “He didn’t get bad until later, I think. It was way before I was born.”

  “I think your grandpa did bad things to those children,” Shelley said.

  “This is what your little ghost friend told you?” John scowled down at his soda. “Why did you have to talk to it, Shelley?”

  “It’s what you do with ghosts,” she said. She didn’t add “obviously” but she might as well have. She wrung her hands. “He also said I have to bring your grandpa to them.”

  John snorted. “Good luck with that. The bastard’s been dead twenty years.”

  Shelley stopped pacing. “Why do you have to be like that?” she said. “I’m trying to help.”

  John stared at her for a long moment. “I told you I don’t like being up here. My parents kept me away from Grandpa.”

  She cupped the side of his face in her small hand. Her palm was hot, burning his skin. “That’s because your grandfather was a monster.”

  * * *

  The next morning Shelley wanted to go for a hike.

  “Are you kidding me?” John said. Shelley should have known hiking was the last thing he wanted to do. He looked out the picture window. The hour was early enough that the mountains were blue instead of green. He needed coffee.

  “Might as well. You’re always stuck at work. Besides, you love hiking, and the whole point of coming up to the mountains was to spend time together.” Her expression was too innocent. “We could look for your wallet and car keys,” she offered.

  John glanced out the window. “We’d never find them. I’ll cancel the credit cards tonight.”

  “I don’t want to waste our time up here,” she said.

  John frowned. They could have spent the car ride together, if Shelley hadn’t insisted they drive up separately so she could leave straight from work. John wanted to point this out, but he knew she would say that wasn’t the point.

  John looked at Shelley sideways. Her cheeks were flushed as if she were already outside in the mountain air, her curls only somewhat subdued beneath the blue bandanna tied around her head. He’d rather drive back to the city early.

  “What about your ghost? What if it’s out there again?” he asked. Just thinking about the little girl made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  Shelley’s gaze slipped past him to the window. “We won’t go back to the forest. We’ll go somewhere else, up near the pass,” she said firmly.

  “My car is still parked at the forest service road,” John said.

  “No it isn’t. I called the tow company this morning.” She nodded at the driveway and the cheery blue roof of his hatchback. “I’ll make you coffee,” she said, and disappeared into the kitchen.

  John clenched and unclenched his jaw. “Fine,” he said. Might as well put an end to a discussion he wasn’t going to win.

  He drifted to the bookcase of local guidebooks. The editions belonged to Grandpa. The covers were faded to pastels, the cardboard backing split at the corners. John leaned his nose close to the row of books, half-expecting to smell booze, but only caught a whiff of musty old book glue and yellowed pages. He sneezed.

  He shivered as his eyes passed All That the Rain Promises and More with its kooky mushroom forager on the cover and The Sibley Guide to Birds. Shelley must have returned both books to the shelf in her annoying burst of productivity this morning.

  The next title on the shelf was a hiking guide for the mountain pass area. John put his finger on the spine and tilted it toward him. The cover showed a drawing of an alpine lake set in a rocky bowl. With a sigh he pulled the guide the rest of the way out.

  John ran his thumb along the page edges, fanning them out. For the briefest moment, he imagined he saw a flash of white in the corner of his eye, a widening maw of pointed teeth. He froze.

  No.

  John snapped the book shut.

  “I’m getting dressed,” he called to Shelley in the other room. “I’ll make wraps for lunch before we go.”

  * * *

  They hiked along the old fire road. John didn’t want to think about ghosts. He wanted to get back to the city and normal life. He wanted to pretend he never went chanterelling. Although, he reminded himself, then he wouldn’t have the mushrooms.

  What if she was right about Grandpa, that he was some kind of monster? Having a drunk in the family was bad enough. John rolled his shoulders. What did that make him? Maybe John did have the potential within himself for evil, maybe everyone did. Didn’t mean he was going to act on it.

  He was pretty sure Shelley had a theory about that too.

  “I thought you said we were going someplace above tree line,” John said. The light spun yellow through the canopy of big-leaf maples.

  “Morrow Hot Springs is just a couple of miles away. A soak will do you good.”

  John was all for getting naked. He just wanted to relax. Forget.

  “You’re a good person, aren’t you, John?” Her face was still flushed.

  Sometimes he wasn’t so sure.

  * * *

  John and Shelley approached the caretaker’s RV outside Morrow Hot Springs.

  “Let’s sneak in,” Shelley suggested.

  John ignored her and rang the rusted-out metal bell.

  The bearded guy who took their money wasn’t looking for a conversation. He collected the day-use fee and pointed them at the footpath to the springs. He mumbled something about an old-growth cedar grove on the way.

  The path contoured along the edge of a ravine. Somewhere below them, a waterfall thundered. When they reached the spring itself, hot water sprang from a crack in the cliff, spilling in a series of pools out of the cave and into the waterfall mist.

  John stripped and piled his clothes on a bench. On top of the clothes, he set the mushroom-and-bean wraps he had made for lunch. The green of the spinach tortillas was bright through the tight layer of plastic wrap, and he had labeled eac
h with magic marker. “J” on one wrap, “S” on the other.

  John’s flesh pimpled and he dashed, feet slapping, across the smooth stones to the first pool.

  The water scalded his feet, then burned his calves, then his thighs. He dipped the rest of his body. The water slipped over his shoulders. He felt every muscle relax. Sweat beaded his forehead, and John poked around until he found a comfortable contour in the rock. He slid his body into the divot. Immersed up to his chin, he watched Shelley.

  He never got tired of the way her body moved, the slide of muscle, the sturdiness in her legs, the softness of hips and breasts. The paleness of skin that never saw the sun. The green of the foliage behind her was so intense it hurt his eyes.

  John ran his hand over the stone lip of the pool, bumpy with wax from burnt-down candles. Candles would have been romantic. He wished he had brought them. He could already imagine Shelley complaining about how unhygienic it would be to have sex in a hot spring, as if sitting in this stinky cauldron wasn’t gross enough already.

  He wished Shelley would hurry up and get in the pool. What was she doing over there, folding her underwear or something? The hot spring was her idea. A little enthusiasm would have been appreciated, and would go a long way toward making the best of an otherwise shitty weekend.

  Shelley approached the pool.

  She walked deliberately, almost floating, her shoulders pulled back and without the usual roll in her hips. She wasn’t going on about how cold she was, or how hard the stones were on bare feet.

  “You’re just like him, aren’t you?” Shelley said. She stepped off the edge of the pool, submerging herself in one motion.

  Distracted, John said, “I don’t think you’re supposed to get your ears—”

  Shelley’s head bobbed to the surface and she swam away from him, disappearing into the back of the cave.

  He tilted his head back and let the waterfall mist collect on his eyelashes. He huffed out an exasperated breath.

  When Shelley didn’t reappear from the cave, John reached over the lip of the pool for his knapsack. “After lunch I was thinking we should hike out along Dingford Creek,” he called. “For variety.” He thumbed open the guidebook.

  He skimmed the trail description, then hesitated, cocking his head. Whispers echoed from the depths of the crack in the mountainside.

  Book clutched in his damp palm, John waded to the mouth of the cave. He placed his free hand on the rock face and leaned forward, peering into the blackness. The pounding of the waterfall was replaced by drops of water plopping into the pool as steam condensed on the roof of the cave. The whispering ceased.

  “Shelley?”

  He heard splashing. The pale oval of Shelley’s face rose above the water.

  “Someone has to pay, John.”

  The keening came then, like a rip in the air.

  Pale forms rose from the black surface of the water. One by one, ghost children emerged from the pool, formed out of steam, the girl from before and half a dozen more. Needle-lined maws gaped holes in their small white faces. They clustered protectively around Shelley, and Shelley, gently, hovered her palm over the shoulder of a little boy.

  “He would poison you,” the ghost children whispered, voices layered like cobwebs. “Like he did us.”

  “What? No, I would never—” John reached toward her, and his hand trembled, unable to bridge the gap between them. One of the ghosts snapped its jaws at John’s outstretched hand.

  John panicked.

  He surged backwards, tripping on the rough surface of the pool bottom.

  The pool erupted in a frothing frenzy, and he sputtered, choking on the sulfurous waters. John flung out an arm. His fingernails scrabbled on the cave wall. A bone-white grasping hand clutched his forearm and pulled him down. He thrashed, his mouth barely above the water. Screamed.

  Shelley’s face, judging.

  A sheet of water rushed over his face, filling his eyes, nostrils, throat. Lungs.

  His head disappeared beneath the surface, and the pool grew still.

  His hand gave one last spasm. The guidebook floated upwards.

  * * *

  Shelley dragged herself out of the hot spring, muscles shaking. She wrapped her hand around whatever clothes were piled on the bench.

  “He’s gone now.” The high-pitched whisper filled the air, echoed. The little boy hovered in the entrance to the cave. His inky eyes were all pupil. His knickers pressed as if sodden against his boyish frame.

  “John?” The tears were heavy against the back of Shelley’s eyes. What had she done?

  “He’s gone too.”

  The boy had seemed so innocent, so in need of protection. It had all been so clear then. Now his face was hard and strange. Who had haunted whom?

  The boy faded, and Shelley ran. Saplings and blackberry brambles whipped lines of fire across her skin. Away from the spring, she hastily dragged on a shirt and pants. She had one sock. She slipped it over the bloodier foot and limped towards the caretaker’s office.

  To Get Past It

  Tim W. Burke

  When I turned the wheel of the company F-150 into my driveway, a guy sat on the steps to my kitchen door. His pale hands and face seemed to glow in the dusk shadows.

  For a second, I thought he might be a cop or parole officer come to hassle me, but no, a cop would be standing when I pulled in.

  Bony wrists rested on his knees. The dark blue windbreaker hung off him. Wrinkles in his jeans showed the bones of his legs. Drawn and pale, looking as sick as my dad in the hospital, the white stick of a sucker rested in a smile of anticipation.

  I sat in the truck, motor rumbling. The radio announcer talked about a back-up on the freeway.

  That smile made me think of the piece I had hidden behind my dresser. I wasn’t supposed to have it, and Samantha and Dad would be pissed off about it. But I didn’t feel safe without it.

  My mirror on my passenger’s side showed just my picket fence and tree in my front yard. My rearview showed a shiny red sedan parked across the street. Its windows reflected the streetlight.

  On the passenger seat, my cellphone still showed “5:37 PM.”

  My daughter Samantha still hadn’t called. She was supposed to call me before she went to see my Dad in the hospital.

  The guy on the steps took a breath. His shoulders pushed up into his windbreaker like someone lifting a wire coathanger.

  I parked the truck and stepped out. The October cold stung my nose along with the truck exhaust. Leaves from my maple tree crunched under my workboots.

  The trumpets for Channel Six News played faint from the neighbor’s window. Everybody could hear everything in the suburbs.

  I stopped at the front of the truck. “Help you with something?”

  His voice was nasal and a little slurred. “You’re Glen Steiger.”

  Sitting there, he looked five-nine and had maybe half-a-head of height on me. I had forty pounds on him easy, and he did not look fit for much.

  Still no one creeping up in the front yard. No feet crunching up the gravel driveway behind me.

  The truck engine ticked as it cooled.

  I asked, “What do you want?”

  “Just to talk. Do you recognize me?”

  “No,” I said, because I didn’t.

  “Look hard, Glen.”

  Someone who wants to settle something. I did not need this today.

  I walked up to the steps, staying out of his arm’s reach.

  He swallowed sucker spit. The air around the steps seemed warmer, like he’d been sitting there waiting for hours. The air smelled like chalky, chewable candy, like cherry-flavored medication.

  I asked, “What do you want?”

  His smile came back. His eyes fringed with burst capillaries.

  “Well, I’ve looked better. You look great, Glen. You still have your tan. You haven’t changed much.”

  That annoyed me. I’d changed a lot.

  Since Samantha’s mom died eight
years back, I’d gone straight but I still had parole hanging over me. I got back in touch with Samantha again, who had grown up beautiful and smart and very angry at me. It took all of my begging, but I’d started working things out with her. Dad got me a job with his landscaping business, and that was more than I deserved.

  The guy shifted on his seat. A bony butt would be sore on those steps.

  Despite looking ill, his neatly trimmed hair held little gray.

  I told him, “I don’t need shit today. My father’s in the hospital.”

  He nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. This should only take ten minutes. Everything will go on the way it’s supposed to.”

  That was a weird thing to say, so I made a point of looking him over one more time. A gun would have stuck out on that skinny frame, even in that jacket, or tucked in a leg holster. If he reached behind him, I’d get him quick.

  He looked like he wanted to talk, and it might be quicker if I just let him.

  “How did you find me?” I asked. I’d kept a low profile since I got out. The few friends I’d had I didn’t want anymore.

  His smile opened proud and wide, showing bright red gums.

  “I’d been looking for you for years off-and-on, but there you were on Facebook.”

  Samantha got me online.

  He leaned forward. My squeaky porch step groaned.

  “Glen, you always looked so sad. Pissed-off and sad. Even in those nice pictures on Facebook. On vacation in the Pocanos with your dad. At the beach hugging your daughter. You still look like somebody slapped the happy out of you.”

  My father lay on his deathbed. His hand used to be so big. When he placed his new hand, his shriveled death hand, veined and birdlike on my forearm, I wept.

  I told the guy, “Get out of my way.”

  Pushing past, the sweet chalky smell gusted as he exhaled.

  He stayed sitting as I unlocked my kitchen door and closed it behind me. The alarm beeped until I punched in the code.