by M J Preston
8
Four days later a large black raven tapped at the picture window. I stood there frozen for a moment, and it stared at me - or into me. I knew what had to be done.
I went downstairs, unshackled the scared and confused boy from the water heater.
“It’s okay, I’m letting you go.” I led him upstairs and to the back door, speaking like his protector. “Go into the cornfield. On the other side of that wood line, there’s a house. There you’ll find safety.”
He hesitated, unsure of my sincerity.
“Go,” I urged.
He hesitated only a second more, then ran for his life down the back steps, through the maze of farm equipment, then into my corn. He disappeared from view, but the stalks marked his progress, shaking and shuddering as he grazed them. I watched for something to happen, wondering if Franklin was out there waiting.
He crossed three hundred yards with the speed of a gazelle. Strange as it sounds something inside of me wanted him to make it, even if it meant my demise - but that was instantly killed off.
I heard the flap of a giant bird taking flight from on top of my house. I should have turned away, but God help me, I didn’t. My God, I saw it all.
The big raven flew across the field, climbing in altitude until it was right over top of him. For a second it seemed frozen in the sky - then it dived straight down, spinning as it did. When it entered the corn, there was the momentary cry of surprise, a bone-snapping crunch. Blood sprayed upward into the air, and then there were ripping, tearing sounds that could only be flesh. Before I tore my eyes away, I saw a few of the stalks swaying back and forth sporadically.
I could take no more and went back into the house.
Half an hour passed, maybe a little more.
“Stephen,” a hollow voice called from outside.
I opened the back door and there he stood at the edge of the cornfield, completely naked, his eyes aglow, a glowing aura surrounding him, distorting him. I saw the black silken blood upon his gray semi-transparent skin. He was not a man at all. He looked more like a gargoyle or an alien.
“Clean it up,” he commanded. “Leave no trace.”
Then he turned his back to me and walked into the cornfield and out of sight. There was horrible sound, a shriek like nothing I’d heard before, and then a light flashed from between the corn stalks.
The raven flew up and into the night.
I must have stared up at the sky for better than twenty minutes before I finally snapped out of it. What I have done? I thought. What spawn of hell have I become?
I went out to my barn and gathered the things I would need. A shovel, a wheelbarrow, some plastic bags, and a few other things. Then I embarked on what would become my job description for the next year.
Gravedigger–caretaker-accomplice.
[INTERVIEW ENDS]
9
Hopper leaned back and let out a sigh of relief, his tale told. He doubted Logan believed him, but just the same it felt good to share. Sometimes confession is a good way of cleansing oneself, he thought.
“You know the rest, Logan. I don’t think I have to go into detail. The events are pretty much the same, except in the case of that Parkins Boy.” Hopper looked up at Logan for the first time. “I killed him and the first boy. The rest belong to Franklin.”
Logan glanced at the two-way mirror, then to Hopper.
“Maybe if I hadn’t been so stupid I wouldn’t be sitting here right now,” he added.
The video equipment let out a low whining alarm, then shut down. Logan and Hopper sat there facing each other for over five minutes as Logan tried to formulate a response.
Finally, he asked a question.
“Why did you take a local kid and break your pact?” He felt stupid asking this but wanted some insight into Tommy’s demise. He imagined Pearson and anybody else watching must be questioning why he was entertaining such an outlandish tale.
“After the last boy, Franklin told me I had to lay off for a while. After that, he left and did not return. I guess I gave in to my own urges, thinking he wouldn’t be coming back – and if he did, I would just keep the Parkins boy a secret. Franklin always gave me a schedule. First, he would show up at my house, usually at the oddest times. Sometimes I would walk into a room, and he’d be sitting there – but he didn’t look like he had in the cornfield. He looked like a man. An Indian man dressed all in black. Occasionally he would want to talk; he’d ask me questions about things – but our conversations always ended the same way. He would tell me to start looking for a new boy. That he’d be back in a few days or a week. Then, like clockwork, the raven would appear.”
“Are there any more bodies, Hopper?” Logan asked calmly. “Anything you haven’t told me?”
Hopper shook his head. “I’ve told you everything. There are no more bodies, but Franklin is still out there.”
“You’re absolutely certain?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I am going to be straight with you, Hopper, because if I’m not, I will feel dirty for not doing so.” As he spoke, he showed no emotion, as if instructing a wayward child. “We are finished, you and I. I am no longer your confidante, and from here in you deal exclusively with Detective Pearson. To be quite honest, you sicken me. It is bad enough that you planted seventeen bodies in my county, but you humiliated them before doing so. You snuffed out seventeen kids and have damaged scores of others.”
Hopper stared across the table, expecting the Chief to explode in anger and jump across at him – but Logan simply continued his lecture.
“In three days they will fly you to Artisan Institute for psychiatric evaluation. I imagine you can spin your tale for them as well to try and gain access to a mental health facility, but I will warn you that the people in this field will see you coming a mile away.”
Then Logan looked to the two-way mirror and stood up.
10
Hopper sat in his cell, motionless. He had warned them, and now all he could do was hope to get out of this shithole before Franklin came back. Three days felt like three years. I’m fucked, he thought, then picked up his bible and began to read.
11
The sun was just coming up as Logan made his way out to the cruiser to finally head home. He told Pearson that he would meet for dinner later in the day after he picked up Doctor Kolchak from the airport. They would discuss things then: right now he was too tired to rationally discuss Hopper’s crazy story. He could not wait to get this ghoul out of his county.
He had broken an old rule of police investigation. He had alienated the perpetrator. But he didn’t care anymore: he was tired, and he wanted him gone.
It was going to be a long time before the people of this community healed, Logan among them.
***
Chapter 9 - Jackanoob
1
Was he dreaming, or was it a vision? Blackbird did not know; he only knew he was bearing witness to something from the past. If this was a dream, it was surreal, almost a hallucination, lacking the disconnectedness he often felt when dreaming.
Inside a substantial shelter, he was surrounded by ten native people all standing in a circle. He was there, but invisible to their eyes. At the head of the ring stood an old man who looked somewhat like Grandfather, but much older. Outside the wind howled, blowing drifts of the snow against the sides of wooden and stone shelter. He could feel the cold in his bones, a cold that was akin to Spirit Woods.
As the natives spoke, he picked up the ancient language of his ancestors, and suddenly he understood it perfectly. It was the same dialect as his Grandfather, and the other members of the council shared.
This is amazing, he thought. I understand it all.
He remembered the story recounted by Grandfather embedded deep in Chocktee heritage. There was no food, and they were starving. Winters cold had cut them off, and the animals
were scarce, hiding from the boney fingers of blizzard-kill. With starvation came sickness and disease. The temperatures outside were so cold that to venture out for a prolonged time was a death sentence. The Chief Elder, whose name was Jackanoob, gathered the Chocktee council to tell them of his decision.
“Go outside, take two bodies and prepare them. The children must not know. Tell them it is wild boar,” Jackanoob ordered.
A stern looking man stepped forward; he was a warrior whose prime had almost passed. “It is a sin to eat of a man. We will summon evil spirits.”
The others shuddered at the outburst. It was not customary to question the judgment of the Chief Elder. And to do so publically was unheard of. Such questioning was only to be done in confidence and with good judgment.
The warrior looked around at them all, then to the Chief Elder Jackanoob. “Forgive what you might think as disrespect, Chief Elder, but this is a decision which will affect everyone. You know I would follow you to the ends of the earth, I would sacrifice my life for Chocktee – it is only out of deep concern that I raise my voice now.”
The others looked on in silence as the Chief Elder chose his words carefully. He knew it was a sin, but he feared for his people more than he dreaded the tales of evil. He could not let them fall victim to the cold. “We will die otherwise, Igasho! Do as I say.”
“Elder Jackanoob is right,” a younger member of the council, named Mongwau, agreed. “The spirits have forsaken us. We must survive the winter. We have a responsibility to our people.”
Igasho turned his eyes upon Mongwau, sharp and angry, but he held his tongue.
Blackbird could hear Grandfather’s words. “The biting cold of winter had come almost a month early, and they had not completely stocked their food supply. Early on, a fire tore through two of the shelters, burning up the dried fish and venison. With two months of winter still at their door, they knew that our people would not live to see the spring. So the Elders took counsel and determined that they had no choice but to consume the dead. There was little division, except for Igasho, but the ultimate decision rested with the Chief Elder, Jackanoob.”
“I will bear the responsibility if the spirits are angered,” Jackanoob said, interrupting Blackbird’s memory. “I take it upon my shoulders.”
There were grunts, but no one challenged the Chocktee Elder.
Blackbird turned left and right in awe of this piece of history unfolding before his eyes. As he did, not one of them looked his way. He was invisible.
The Chief Elder gazed upon his council one after another. They lowered their eyes in respect and to acknowledge his decision. All agreed until he reached Igasho, who stared back at him austerely.
The electricity between the two men was intense. Jackanoob and Igasho were locked in an argument without language. Words were not necessary. Igasho’s eyes burned with the fire of disapproval. These two men were the titans of Chocktee history, spoke of in many talking circles and during what Grandfather called palaver. The great warrior Igasho understood the sin, but there was something more, something that Grandfather related to young Blackbird in the many stories. Something he might not know had Grandfather not told him and Johnny Proudfoot.
“Finally, with great trepidation, elder Igasho, the leader of the clan of five, lowered his eyes and when he did his heart broke for his people and his friend Jackanoob. For all his influence he could not stop the Chief Elder from making this decision, but at that moment he prayed to the Spirit Mother that she would make Jackanoob relent. They were like brothers – not unlike you, Young Daniel and Little Johnny,” Grandfather told them. “Igasho was hard like stone, a fierce warrior, while his blood brother Jackanoob was a man of the people. Easy to approach, kind in words, and soft in the heart.”
Grandfather made the comparison between him and Proudfoot, but Blackbird likened them more to Grandfather himself and that of Old Jake Toomey.
The atmosphere around him suddenly rippled, and there were clanging echoes as everything began to speed up. The people in the shelter moved in time lapse.
Time is shifting, he thought.
His surroundings rippled, darkened, then transitioned to the outside of another shelter somewhere else in the village. Snow blew on a forty-five-degree angle. Blackbird was impervious to the bitter cold of this vision, but he fully understood the discomfort it caused these men as they went about their work. They were taking the two bodies from where they had been laid amongst a group of 10 who had succumbed to winter’s cruelty.
Time shifted again.
He was in another shelter, watching as they unsheathed their knives and began to butcher the now thawing dead, cutting long strips of meat. This was a secret activity, away from the eyes of the Chocktee people. Igasho, for all his objection, made the first cut, his face filled with angry determination.
Grandfather’s voice was becoming clearer now, speaking inside Blackbird’s head, narrating the vision as it unfolded. “Igasho did not agree with the Chief Elder’s orders, but he carried them out. Young Mongwau vomited and fell backward, his eyes filled with fear, the weight of what they were doing too much for his shoulders to bear.”
Igasho stopped his work, reached down and lifted Mongwau up with one mighty hand. He slapped the blade back into the Elder’s hand. “It is too late now to have a weak heart! Get busy!”
Mongwau’s eyes bulged with fear. Blackbird needed no narration from Grandfather, although he wondered what the Chocktee man was more afraid of. Butchering the dead and angering the spirits? Or the wrath of Chocktee’s fiercest warrior?
Time was shifting again, but now he was accompanied by Grandfather’s soothing voice. The images splashed by in liquid ripples, moving with comic speed while Grandfather whispered.
“Watch closely, Young Daniel: there is a lesson here.”
He snapped his head right to look. This had not come from his memory. He could not see Grandfather, but he felt the old man beside him.
More darkness, fading, then light and colors converged into focus. Now Blackbird was in the Long House, surrounded by his ancestors, accompanied by the voice of Grandfather and bearing witness to the past. The Chocktee Elders were eating the meat from the two dead men they had butchered. They ate cautiously at first, with a heavy heart, but once committing it became easier. Their hunger was being sated. No matter the sin, their bodies took the much-needed nourishment.
“As they ate, beating away their hunger, smiles fell onto their faces, and the dread was swept away – but it was short-lived,” Grandfather continued.
The Chocktee people smiled and laughed as they ate – all except those who knew what it was they were eating. The warrior Igasho looked from Jackanoob to the children of Chocktee and then back to the Chief Elder. His chiseled chin, which was strong and proud, trembled slightly.
He knows, and he is powerless to stop it, Blackbird mused.
“Yes, he knows,” Grandfather echoed.
Another time shift.
“The Chocktee slept, their bellies full, their hunger is gone. All except the Elder Jackanoob and the warrior Igasho. The two stood vigil over the sleeping children of Chocktee and waited in the hope that the spirits would ignore their sins and that winter gales had blinded the guardians of Spirit Woods to the sins of the man. They would not be so fortunate.”
A shriek cut through the village like shards of broken glass. Igasho was the first to stand up and look to the door that held the winter cold at bay. Blackbird recognized the shriek, even though it differed somewhat from the one he had heard.
The warrior muttered grimly, “Now we pay for our sins.”
Igasho unsheathed his knife, ready to meet the beast.
A second shriek tore through the village waking the Chocktee, terrifying the children and a hush fell over them. “Move the children from the door!” Igasho commanded.
“What is it? Wendigo? Who goes there
?” Mongwau shivered.
“The Spirits who have forsaken you! Now shut your mouth!” Igasho took a breath, then waved upon his Warrior Party of Five to move toward the door. The Chocktee people moved to the other end of the Long House, including Mongwau, who cowered with the women and children.
Jackanoob waited to see what evil they had awakened.
“Ready yourself!” Igasho commanded. His warriors moved into a half circle around the door, their knives at the ready.
He reached for the latch, slid it over. A child cried behind them.
Blackbird held his breath.
Reaching down with his left hand, Igasho pulled the door open. His teeth were clenched so tight that his jaw ached. The Chocktee warriors held their blades up high, ready to strike in unison. They were a single cell at this moment, and Igasho was their nucleus.
The unlatched door suddenly door blew open, and with it, another shriek came out of the blowing snow and into the shelter.
Igasho and his warriors were transfixed, waiting to do battle.
“Something, not of this world, had broken through the walls of time. It brought with it death,” Grandfather narrated.
Then, from behind, Jackanoob called out, “Igasho!”
Mongwau suddenly shrieked, his eyes washing out – and with lightning speed, he was on one of the children with murderous rage. The child had no time to cry out before his life had been extinguished, then his belly was opened to dine.
Chaos. Screaming. Before Igasho or his warriors could react, a woman who had also been cowering in the corner let out a similar shriek, then tore out both her eyes and popped them into her mouth. As she chewed, she cackled madly.
Igasho jumped on Mongwau, set his blade against his throat. Pulling his head back Igasho slew him in a single cut. Blood spurted out across the Long House floor the as eyeless woman continued to laugh maniacally, clawing out at the others surrounding her.
“Some called it the fever. Others thought our people were possessed. It took hold in them and made them do things that no sane man or woman would do,” Grandfather continued.