by Kevin Lucia
And with a click the door swung open. Without hesitation, I stepped inside. The door closed behind me, and I gotta tell you, it shut soft as a whisper. No cliché slam. A soft click, nothing more.
Right away I sensed something different. I can’t explain it, not even after all this time. All I can say is the air inside felt heavier. Everything was blanketed by an oppressive silence. Y’know how it sounds inside a building when it’s empty? Or maybe how it feels is a better way of putting it. The store didn’t sound empty so much as it felt empty.
Which didn’t make sense. Even assuming there was a rear exit for the shopkeeper, I hadn’t stood on the sidewalk for long. No way he could’ve closed the store and left.
Glancing toward the counter confirmed my suspicions. All the lights were still on. And, sitting where I’d left it, was that hokey Magic Eight Ball.
I’m still not sure what pushed me forward. Why I didn’t turn around and leave. Crazy as it was, the guy had obviously closed and gone home. It seemed weird for him to have left the front door open and the lights on, but maybe those were security lights, right? Maybe the door’s lock stuck as old ones do. Maybe he’d thought he’d locked it, but hadn’t.
I meandered forward, glancing around the cluttered shelves. My gaze didn’t settle on anything in particular, gliding over used tools, old board games, discarded dolls and other cast-offs. By the time I reached the counter, most of my unease (okay, fear) had passed. The human brain is interesting, if you think about it. It doesn’t want to be afraid or think about things hiding in the shadows. It hates ideas that don’t make sense, or things that trouble us deeply inside . . .
like the .38 under the bed
. . . so our minds slide around these things, winking at them, nudging them softly aside. That’s what my brain was doing, I guess. I’d gotten over my nerves and figured I was right. The shopkeeper had thought he’d locked up, but the front door’s lock was broken or didn’t work right. Or, maybe he was out back and hadn’t heard me come in. Either way, so long as I didn’t think too much about the weird heaviness of the air in the store . . .
or my .38
. . . I felt fine. It was a weird night in a weird little town. That’s all.
I stopped at the counter, placed my hands flat down and leaned over. I tried to peer around the corner. All I saw was a dimly lit corridor reaching into darkness. I supposed it was possible someone was back there, but I heard nothing. All I could see was a vague suggestion of shelves, and boxes piled on the floor.
“Hey,” I called, “anyone back there? Mr. We-Have-What-You-Need? Hello?”
Silence.
And the weird thing was, my voice didn’t echo at all. I wasn’t expecting an echo, of course. Place wasn’t a cave or anything. But I expected to hear something, I guess.
I got nothing.
I grunted, dismissing it. So my voice sounded weird. So what?
My gaze fell on something I hadn’t seen before, to my far left on the counter. An old tape recorder. One of those big reel-to-reel jobs. And the odd thing was: the power light glowed an eerie green.
It was on.
I stared at it, frowning. I didn’t remember seeing it only ten or fifteen minutes before, when I was talking to the shopkeeper. Of course, I hadn’t looked around much, either. Was mostly focused on the guy and his weird ramblings. But I would’ve bet my bottom dollar it hadn’t been there when I’d first approached the counter.
And it was on.
Which bugged me most of all.
Why would it be on?
I found myself reaching for the “play” switch before I even understood what I was doing. I stopped short, clenching my hand, gripped by strange, conflicting emotions. I couldn’t understand why I felt compelled to press “play” and at the same time, I didn’t understand the feeling of . . . foreboding? . . . which checked my hand.
It was an old tape player. What could possibly be on it? Disgusted, I pushed aside my strange reluctance, reached forward and pressed play. I heard nothing but clicking, hissing static as the reels turned, then, a deep voice cleared its throat and . . .
THE WAY OF AH-TZENUL
Everything got strange when the new moon cycle started last April. Course, things always get strange when the moon changes. My goats and chickens act up, coon dogs howl more than usual, cows won’t milk. It figures, I suppose. We’re all tied to the moon more than we think. Farmer’s Almanac says so, same as John George Holmnan’s Long Lost Friend. Hell, moon pulls in the tides and such. Makes sense it messes with other things too.
I’m rambling like an old fool. Happens when you get my age. Take a seat there on the sofa, son. Didn’t catch your name.
Ah. You’re the new fella, ain’t you? Fresh in town from medical school. Pleased to meetcha.
Anyhow Doc, I’m much obliged, you coming to see my Betty. Dr. Jeffers, he’s on vacation. He recommended you. Said you was a fine sawbones, which is fortunate. My Betty, she’s in a bad way. Has been since last April. As I said; moon pulls on all of us, but this business with my Betty? Well, that’s something else altogether. Something unnatural.
What’s that?
Oh, she’s resting now. We’ll go see her by’n by. Lemme catch you up with everything, first. Things got strange around the new moon last April. Right when The Way of Ah-Tzenul said to start planting, but like I said, the moon always brings out strange things. If I think back, it all started with The Way itself. Everything started changing after I found it. Wish to God I’d left the damn thing where it was. Maybe none of this would’ve ever happened.
Too late now, though. Here’s how the whole damn thing started.
***
I wasn’t looking for nothing in particular the day I found The Way of Ah-Tzenul in the recycling dumpster at the Webb County Landfill. Now, don’t get the wrong idea. I ain’t no garbage picker. No, sir. I ain’t one of those fellas who drives round town the night before garbage day, going through junk on the curb. I’m as curious as the next fella, though. When I was dumping our paper into the recycling dumpster at the landfill, something caught my eye. Two cardboard boxes. One of ‘em spilling a mess of pamphlets, papers, and letters stuffed into opened envelopes. The other was stuffed full of old books.
The one full of books drew my attention. I talk a little rough, but I ain’t dumb. Did fine in school, wanted to attend Webb County Community but couldn’t cause of Daddy dying and me having to take over the farm. By the time Momma passed I was married with a little one on the way, so my chance for college had passed, too.
But I never stopped reading. Got me a nice little library out back, filled with all sorts of books crammed on bookshelves made by my own two hands. Books like Tom Sawyer, Edgar Allen Poe stories, Huck Finn and The King in Yellow, (that last one I don’t read much cause it always gives me strange dreams), some old mysteries, a clutch of Lovecraft’s books (they hurt my head, too, so I don’t read them much neither), my Hardy Boys books from growing up, and a whole bunch of newer ones by Stephen King and Dean Koontz.
Got some heavy thinking books, too. The family King James, The Book of Mormon, Long Lost Friend, also got The Traveler’s Gate and The Witch Book of Throop.
Anyhow I love books, so when I saw that box in the recycling dumpster at the landfill I couldn’t resist. I dumped my load to the side, leaned in, snagged the box’s flap, and dragged it out. Didn’t take time to look through em right then, just pretended I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. I needn’t have worried cause there wasn’t no one around so early anyway. I got into my truck and headed to The Skylark for my usual Saturday morning pancakes.
In the parking lot I rooted through the box for something to take into the diner and read. Didn’t find much of interest at first. Only a few books with plays by Shakespeare and a book by Melville called Benito Cerano. Past those, I came across something promising. An old journal. Name on the inside cover read JEREMIAH BASSLER, which of course caught my interest, Bassler being an important name round these p
arts, what with Bassler Road, old Bassler House and Bassler Memorial Library. Flipping through it, I saw it was written in other languages and such, maybe Latin, which I can’t read. But I knew some hill folk—especially a hoodoo man named Clive Hartley—who could read Latin, so I put it aside for later.
I looked back into the box and of course, that’s when I found it. The book that’s caused all this trouble. The Way of Ah-Tzenul. Course, that’s not what’s printed on the cover. There’s a picture of some sorta tribal man squatting down with both hands raised to the sky etched into the cover and traced in silver. Otherwise, it’s a plain-looking book, all bound in pebbly black leather.
The title was printed on the first page. See, this book was also handwritten, but a whole lot neater than the diary. All in English, too. Under the title, whoever had written the whole thing wrote an explanation of who Ah-Tzenul was. Apparently he was the Aztec nature and harvest god. Another name they had for him was “He Who Brings Life from the Earth.”
You got it right, Doc. From what I was reading, The Way was a planting book for ancient folks, like the Aztecs. I didn’t read all of it while sitting there at The Skylark, just flipped through. From what I could see, the book was an older version of the Farmer’s Almanac, which was mighty interesting, seeing as how planting season was coming on. Every year, I raise one of the best pumpkin patches round. I usually get one monster in the top three of Clifton Height’s annual Halloween Pumpkin Contest. Our other produce Betty cans and freezes for the winter months.
Unfortunately, last year’s crop of pumpkins was one of the worst I’d had in years. Only a third turned out, and they was just little blobs which rotted on the vine. First time in ten years I didn’t have an entry in the contest.
Anyhow, I finished up them pancakes, closed The Way, and headed back to the farm. Soon as I was pulling in the driveway, my old lady—Betty—she come out and lit into me as she always did about wasting my Saturday morning at The Skylark chewing the fat with the other old codgers, instead of plowing and getting things ready for planting.
One thing you gotta understand about Betty and me, Doc. We have our tussles now and then. She’s a good country woman, my Betty is. Raised the kids right and proper. The boy is attending Cornell University studying Agricultural Science and my girl is down at Broome Community College in Binghamton, working on her degree in Social Services. They turned out right cause of their momma.
Betty also runs a tight ship. Leastways she did before her troubles. Time was, she had dinner on the table around five, clothes were always washed, mended and folded in my drawer, the house neat as a pin. She had several flower beds around the property she tended with about as much sweat and blood as I poured over my fields.
Thing is, Betty has a temper (still does, in a way). Came with her red Irish hair, I suppose. She got something on her mind, she said it, and she didn’t spare no one’s feeling about anything. She’d light into you or Sheriff Baker or anyone else, she get her dander up.
Ain’t always a bad thing. My girl and boy learned their manners and did their schoolwork. They minded their mother because if they didn’t, she’d bring down hellfire on their heads. Even I can admit to a strain of shiftlessness. Suppose if I was left to my own devices I’d putter around town all morning, chewing the fat with the boys at The Skylark. Sometimes, it’s good for the soul to know you’re gonna catch hell at home if you don’t get work done.
Problem is, there’s a few things about Betty that really chaps my ass (used to, anyway). One: Much as her fire was good for the soul, she didn’t rightly know when to quit. Especially when she found her groove. Whole week coming up to the Saturday when I found The Way, she was riding my ass. Couldn’t let last year’s bad harvest rest. Every minute I spent doing something other than plowing the field or turning the mulch she was hammering away about how I needed to get my ass moving, or we’d have another poor harvest. That Saturday morning she was pushing me to my limit because I’d heard the same riff all week long.
Another thing is, she hates books. Hates me reading them so much, too. Now, she don’t hate school learning, else she wouldn’t have been so hard on the kids, driving them so hard they got the highest marks in their classes and got scholarships for college. No, what she can’t stand is the idea of reading for pleasure. She never took to school herself. Quit at age sixteen. And though she made our children attend school and college so they could someday have better lives than us, she didn’t cotton to the idea of a grown man sitting around for even ten minutes reading something for enjoyment.
According to her, I was a farmer and nothing more. I was to spend all my days with my hand on the plow, not on a book. Fact, she went so far as to never clean my study. Kept the rest of the house spotless, but she never cleaned my study. Said she hated being near some of the strange books I kept, claiming they gave her the heebie-jeebies cause they was Satan’s own words, bound in evil and lies.
Mostly, I think she couldn’t stand the thought of me sitting in there reading them heavy thinking books or a Stephen King yarn for fun. She wasn’t ever much of a reader. Meaning my old lady no disrespect, Doc, but I’m not sure how much she could read herself. I think a lot of her ire came from being jealous of all the simple pleasure I took from it.
Lastly, Betty always did poke fun at my pumpkins. Said I spent too much time fretting over them, claiming last year’s harvest was so bad cause I wasted too much time trying to save the pumpkins. For true, might be something to what she said. Got a bit taken with the pumpkins last year and probably did spend too much time trying to save them.
But Betty, she never though my winning one of the top three spots at the Festival was much to-do. Never mocked me outright, but was always sarcastic about it, see? This past year, after all my pumpkins died on the vine? Well, she was in hog heaven, for sure.
Don’t get me wrong, Doc.
I love my Betty. But she nags, sometimes. Leastways she used to, before all this. Hell, I’d trade it all back to catch some of her nagging.
So anyway, you can imagine her consternation. There she was, standing in the front door, wiping her hands on her apron, scowling, and she says, “What the hell kinda trash you dragging in now, Seamus?”
I open my mouth to speak, but she holds up her hand and says, “No, lemme guess. Some fool dumped a box full of those useless books yer always reading and you fished em out and brought em home so you can waste more time reading instead of plowing the field. Ain’t gonna have nothing to eat, winter comes.”
Now truth be told, there was something for her to be frustrated about. I had dawdled a bit all week. Hadn’t plowed the field as I should’ve, especially my pumpkin patch. I’ll admit I spent a patch of time in my study, reading the Farmer’s Almanac and The Long Lost Friend to see if I’d missed anything that could help with the crops.
Still, much as I love my Betty as only a man could love his God-given wife, sometimes she can’t get it through her head how much gets in the way of plowing and planting, come spring. For example, that whole past week, besides reading the Almanac for planting ideas, I had to re-shingle the roof on the backside of the house. I also spent a whole Tuesday repairing the fence around the goat pen. Wednesday, Betty had me fetching mulch from the landfill for her flower gardens. The tractor’s engine broke down Thursday. I spent the better part of the day fiddling with it until I finally threw up my hands and called Jeb Hawkins (mechanic who runs a little shop up in the Heights) to come fix it for me. Of course with the tractor out of commission all day I couldn’t plow, but I didn’t tell Betty that cause she’d just get her dander up and accuse me of lying to get the day off.
So anyway I was behind in my plowing, but not because of loafing around, as Betty said. When she lit into me about those books I’d scavenged from the dumpster, I scowled and says, “Don’t start. If I don’t figure what went wrong with last year’s crops it ain’t gonna matter how soon I get the fields plowed, same thing as last time’s gonna happen.”
Betty folded
her arms, scowled and says, “Hell, ain’t no mystery why the crops failed last year. Went in with Cletus Smith on them cheap seeds he found in Booneville. Got taken for a ride, Seamus. Which I told you last year, if you remember.”
Thing is, Doc, Betty wasn’t exactly wrong about that, neither. I did throw in on a deal with Cletus Smith to buy some wholesale seed from this place he’d heard of in Booneville. Folks around those parts swore on the place. Well, they may have sworn so, but the seed Cletus bought grew some of the weakest plants I ever seen, no lie there.
Even so, the subject was still sore despite her being right. You show me a man who don’t mind being proved wrong, I’ll show you a man who ain’t got much in the way of balls. I snorted and says, “Ain’t nothing wrong with the seed we got from Booneville. Something else went foul. Soil, mulch, weather. Something. And if I don’t figure out what, same thing is gonna happen this year. Then we’ll be up the creek. Plus, I ain’t missing out on the Halloween Festival two years in a row. No way in hell.”
She shakes her head, wiping her hands on her apron the whole time. “You gonna spend the whole day reading them damn fool books you dug outta the dumpster, trying to figure out how to save yer precious pumpkin patch? Or are you gonna get on yer tractor and do some plowing today?”
Now, plowing wasn’t what I wanted to do right then. Truth be told, I wanted to hole up in my study and start flipping through The Way. Of course, I couldn’t say so to Betty without riling her up even worse, but an idea came to me, quick as flash. “Depends. We got any venison left in the freezer for dinner?”
She thought for a minute, then shook her head. “Used it up in a casserole night before last.
“We got any meat at all?”
Her face scrunched up. “Nope. Was planning on spaghetti tonight.”
“Well then,” I says with a smile, “best head out to Clifton Lake, hook me some bass for dinner. Can always plow Monday.”