Five Days of Darkness

by Greg Hall

  He made a promise and now seemed better than ever; he was going to confront the witch.

  2

  Modeste spent most nights sitting out front of her home.

  She heard the whispered rumors of a monster lingering in the night, but she was not worried. At least, that’s what she told herself. There was something about the nighttime that made her feel safe. In the daytime, she could see the monsters, but the night sky cast a blanket on her fears. It brought a calming effect over her. Modeste knew of monsters, real monsters, and she was aware that most didn’t need the night to instill fear.

  There wasn’t much to her house. It was one large room with a bedroom, kitchen and a simple place where she could eat. There weren’t too many places that welcomed someone like Modeste. Most didn’t acknowledge her existence. Even the priest at Holy Trinity seemed to avoid her at all costs, and it was known that he was progressive.

  Six months ago, when she arrived in Morrow, she brought nothing but the clothing on her back, the cane she needed to walk, a few pieces of jewelry, including hoop earrings, necklace and gold headdress, and a small bundle of coins. When Modeste saw the small plot of land and where it was located, she used the coins to purchase it from the owner. Cash spoke louder than anything else, especially to someone who nothing,

  At the time, the owner had questioned why someone of her convictions would want to settle in Morrow. She didn’t give much of an answer. Word had traveled to New Orleans about a priest who had opened his door to the black community. She had heard of a church up in New York that had done the same thing, but it was unheard of down in the South. She had to see it for herself but refrained from telling the owner of the house.

  She hung her cane from her wicker chair. The curved handle wrapped around the armrest perfectly, as though Modeste had picked the chair just for her cane. The spun oak twisted to a point with a grey piece of rubber covering the end. A shiny lacquer enveloped the handle halfway down the cane.

  She always wore her white gown after sunset. The crisp cotton sat softly on her body and brought a cooling effect from the humid air. There was a Cajun that played out from somewhere in the distance. Modeste usually loved the sound,, but right now, it brought an ominous feeling into the night.

  Modeste lifted a glass to her lips. She wasn’t much of a drinker, but sometimes the hard bite of bourbon calmed her senses. She had brought this particular bottle from New Orleans, and it had lasted all this time. Some nights, she would pour some in the glass out of ritual but never take a sip.

  As she let the bourbon burn her chest, she could sense someone standing close to the edge of the broken picket fence. There wasn’t much left of the fence, and Modeste had planned for a while to remove it, but she thought something about the rickety wood gave the area character.

  “You gonna come over, or are you just gonna hide over there forever?” Modeste called out.

  Henri stepped out from the shadows, just enough for Modeste to see him. He kept his gaze away from her. Modeste could sense that the man didn’t want to be there. She wondered how long it would take until he ran away.

  “Do you speak?” Modeste said, then let out a laugh. “Of course you speak. Every Sunday.”

  “I’m here for Betsy,” Henri replied.

  “Well, come on over then.”

  Henri remained where he was. Modeste understood his hesitation. It was night, and he probably wasn’t expecting her to be sitting outside. Nobody liked to be caught off guard.

  “I don’t mean to bother you so late.”

  “I know,” Modeste cut in. She was ready to attack the priest verbally. “I’ve been here for six months, and you still never came by to say anything. I hear about this revolutionary priest who accepts anyone into his parish, and yet, I’ve stopped by several times to speak with you, but you’ve avoided me every time.”

  “Your beliefs frighten me.”

  “My beliefs?”

  “Yes,” Henri said, hesitating.

  “And what are my beliefs?” Modeste asked, but Henri remained silent. “You don’t know what my beliefs are, so how can they frighten you?”

  Henri remained silent. He stood like a stone statue that had been placed in front of Modeste’s home years earlier.

  She didn’t mean to come off as spiteful toward him. She had actually been waiting for a meeting with the, her word, reformist.

  “I speak to everyone willing to listen to what I have to say,” Henri finally muttered.

  “And you don’t think I would listen?”

  “Sure, you might pretend to listen, but you won’t hear what I have to say.”

  Modeste couldn’t help but smile. All the good things she had heard about the empathetic, progressive priest of Holy Trinity seemed to be a lie. Such a man wouldn’t be standing in front of her casting judgment when she had barely uttered a word.

  “You’re not what I expected,” Modeste said.

  “And what were you expecting?”

  “Benevolence.”

  “I don’t want to be here,” Henri stated.

  “And yet, you’re still here.”

  “I’m here for Betsy.”

  “Ah, Betsy,” Modeste said. “She came to see you too.”

  “Yeah. You have to leave that poor girl alone. Stop feeding her lies about monsters. That book did enough to spark fear in Louisiana, and we don’t need people like you continuing to spread the fear.”

  Modeste knew which book Henri was referencing. The novel had been released a few years earlier that many in Louisiana took as fact. The story began with an English solicitor whose intention was to provide legal provisions over a real estate transaction with Count Dracula, who had more sinister plans for the barrister.

  The novel’s inspiration were sicknesses like syphilis and tuberculosis, which were rampant in New Orleans at the time (and still was) of the novel’s release. Both diseases continued to ravage the community. The healthy individuals who witnessed those stricken with such diseases viewed them as vampires.

  Modeste knew the novel well, and having spent her own time around bloodsuckers, she knew they were nothing like the story created. She tried to read it, but there were too many inaccuracies to what bloodsuckers were that she chose to put it aside.

  “You think I’m poisoning her mind?”

  “There’s no other explanation.”

  “What she told me was that God spoke to her,” Modeste said with a grin. “Said only you could stop the monster.”

  “Why are you smiling? This is very serious.”

  “I agree.”

  “Then why are you so happy about it?”

  “I’m laughing at the thought of you hunting a bloodsucker.”

  “I knew this was a mistake.”

  “Then why did you come here?”

  “I had hoped to have an honest conversation with you. I had hoped I could convince you to leave Betsy alone,” Henri said, turning to leave.

  Modeste couldn’t help but wonder where their conversation went awry. She was happy to discuss anything with anyone, but the supposed tolerant priest didn’t want to have a conversation. He wanted to say his piece and not let her speak in response.

  “Betsy looks up to you, you know. It’s why she went to you first.”

  Henri stopped in his tracks. It appeared as though her words made an impact. “Anyone her age, under such stress, is very impressionable—hence why her mind shouldn’t be contaminated with heretic ideas. She needs support from the community. Everyone. If you can’t provide her proper support, maybe you should leave.”

  “I don’t know what you think I did, but I only listened to what she had to say.”

  “Yeah, so you didn’t tell her about monsters? Bloodsuckers? Like you just told me?”

  “She brought up monsters on her own. Said God told her.”

  Her words seemed to annoy Henri. Modeste wondered why he hadn’t walked away from her yet.

  “I only called them bloodsuckers because I have seen this b
efore. It’s happened before, and it will happen again.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The same thing happened in Maringouin and Melville,” Modeste said, observing the surprise on Henri’s face. “You didn’t hear about those murders?”

  “Murders?”

  “Two other families went missing from both towns. Their bodies came back five days later,” Modeste said, taking another sip of bourbon. She watched as the priest seemed to be overwhelmed with the information. “You’re more than welcome to have a seat,” she added, motioning to the second chair across from the table.

  Henri swiftly moved to the chair as if he needed to sit immediately. Modeste noticed that color in his face dissipated, and had become quite pale.

  “This happened in Maringouin and Melville?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “When my people go missing, I know about it,” Modeste said sternly.

  “Right,” Henri said, as the fiddle in the distance stopped. The player must have finished for the night. The sudden ominous silence was all that was left to haunt them. “If, and this is a big if, what Betsy says is true, I don’t know what she’s expecting me to do.”

  “God works in mysterious ways,” Modeste said.

  “And what would you know about that?” Henri asked.

  Modeste smiled. She had struck a nerve with him, and it pleased her a little bit. He came here attacking her without knowing a single thing, so it felt good to have the tables turned.

  “Enough. He’s what brought us together, even if what Betsy said didn’t happen. We were meant to be here at this moment,” Modeste said, her smile coming back, “whether you like it or not.”

  Henri appeared to ease a bit. Modeste knew using a ‘God’s plan’ comment would trigger something within him. He wasn’t the first priest to be offended by her beliefs, but he was the first priest to sit down beside her and listen to what she had to say.

  “Even so, if you care for Betsy, you would stop feeding her lies.”

  “You care for her, don’t you?”

  “I care for everyone in our community.”

  Modeste noticed his eyes were focused on the bottle of bourbon. She reached over, grabbed the bottle, and offered it over to him. He waved it away. He looked out as if embarrassed by the fact that she noticed his lingering eyes.

  “Do you believe in fate?” Modeste asked.

  “I believe that we all have a path we need to follow. A path created for us.”

  Modeste smiled at him. “Me too.”

  Henri’s head jerked to the side. His eyes locked into hers. “So you believe we were supposed to sit here and have this conversation?”

  “I believe we were supposed to meet. That Betsy was called to bring us together.”

  Henri shook his head and looked away. “Brought together so I could tell you to leave our community alone.”

  “Our community?” Modeste exclaimed. Her eyebrows were raised, and she was shocked by Henri’s assertion.

  “I mean the town of Morrow,” Henri said.

  Modeste picked up a hint of embarrassment in his voice. It was a change in octave on the first syllable of Morrow that alerted her.

  “They’ll be back, you know,” Modeste stated, changing the subject.

  “Who?”

  “They came back to Maringouin. They came back to Melville. They will come back here,” Modeste said, ignoring Henri’s question.

  “Who came back?”

  “The bodies,” Modeste said.

  And almost on cue, a piercing scream cut through the silence.

  3

  A crowd had formed in front of Betsy’s house.

  Betsy herself was on her knees in front of the entry. Henri pushed his way through the crowd to get to her. As he made his way, he saw Modeste lingering close to a neighboring home. Her cane was seemingly holding her up, and it didn’t look like she could walk very far. Henri couldn’t help but wonder how someone with such notoriety around Louisiana could seem almost feeble.

  “Betsy?” Henri asked.

  “Father. My family… they’re inside,” Betsy said in between broken gasps.

  Henri didn’t know how to respond. His eyes bounced around a few of the crowd people, but no one offered any suggestions. Finally, he knelt to her side and placed his hands on her shoulders.

  Betsy broke down even more. She turned to Henri and buried her face into his chest and let it all out. Henri wrapped his arms around her in a warm embrace. He didn’t know what to expect in her home, but he knew her family was dead.

  Henri looked over to the blackness that was staring at him through the open door. He had been inside the Boyd home on several occasions, and it was always filled with joyous sounds and a happy family. Now looking at the home’s darkness staring back at him, he felt an agony that he had never experienced in Morrow. Everyone around him seemed to disappear, and it felt as if the door was pulling him in. The humidity of the night and the severity of the situation brought beads of sweat to his forehead.

  Henri found the nerve to stand and enter the house. He locked eyes with a few of his parishioners in the crowd. He hoped that one of them would offer to enter with him, but they all averted their gaze when Henri’s eyes met theirs.

  As Henri stepped inside, a cold, crisp air hit him and sent a chill through his body. It was an odd sensation, since only moments ago, the humid air from the exterior was making him sweat. Now, the air caused a shiver. He could feel the hair standing up on the back of his neck.

  Even though he had been in their house many times before, the place felt alien to him. Unrecognizable.

  A pungent odor stung his nostrils. The smell choked him. A wave of nausea rushed over him, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t ignore the smell. He wanted nothing more than to be back at his garden, breathing the fresh scent of spice bushes and azaleas.

  As he stepped over and reached for a lamp, his foot caught something, making him pause in the space. He used his foot to push whatever was on the floor and felt it move with ease. It knocked into a small side table. He lit the lamp.

  The living room floor was littered with body parts. Limbs, torsos, and heads. He stumbled back in shock. His mind flashed with the few memories he shared with Boyds. This was a family he broke bread with, and now, their bodies were dismembered in front of him. Arms stacked by the coffee table. Legs appeared to have been thrown near a loveseat. A torso here, a torso there. The heads of all three were sitting like stumps on the coffee table. Each head had its eyes removed, leaving nothing but gaping sockets. The empty sockets staring right back at Henri.

  Henri was frozen to the spot, paralyzed with fear. He had never witnessed something so vile. Who could have committed such an act? He reached out for the wall to steady himself as nausea rolled through him, thick at the back of his throat. His head started to spin, and he stumbled out of the room and out of the house.

  It took everything in Henri’s power not to vomit when the night air hit his face. He had to remain strong in front of his community. The images of the body parts fluttered through his brain. The arms were cut at different lengths. Some just below the elbow; some cut lengthwise down the arm.

  The images would not leave his mind. A new, more grotesque realization hit him like a brick to the head. There was no blood, not a single speck anywhere. Each wound or severed cut was free and clear from any signs of crimson.

  Henri stood motionless for what felt like an eternity. He didn’t realize that all the gathered townspeople were watching his reaction to what remained inside. His eyes bounced back and forth over the crowd. They finally landed on Modeste, who already knew.

  “What happened?” an unseen voice called out from the crowd.

  “We have to call the Sheriff,” Henri said.

  Sheriff Randy Vickers wasn’t much for traveling. He was stationed in Baton Rouge and rarely left the city. The only reason he arrived this particular morning was the paycheck
attached to it. When Henri notified them of what transpired, the state offered a price for each victim brought back.

  For the time being, everyone seemed to forget about the current situation with the Boyd family. Most were intrigued by the Sheriff’s car. The Cadillac he was driving was the first car to feature an electric start. Before this, cars were hand crank, and everyone in Melville had only ever seen the hand crank type. The Cadillac remained parked out in front of the Boyd residence, leaving the crowd to stare in awe.

  Henri wondered why the groups of people were more intrigued by the car than the lifeless bodies torn apart inside the house. Only a few community members consoled Betsy, and Henri quickly released what the glaring difference was between the two groups; it all came down to the skin.

  Henri waited patiently on the front porch while Randy was inside the home. He didn’t want to have to look at the bodies again. He couldn’t get the image out of his brain. Henri had convinced Betsy to sleep at the church, since she would be safe at the Holy Trinity. He didn’t sleep that night. All he could think about was the bodies in the house, and as he had listened to Besty’s whimpers most of the night, he knew she was plagued with the same horrible imagery.

  Randy stepped out into the daytime air. He took a breath and exhaled loudly. He had to grip the rotting railing for some support. He made sure not to look at anyone. He was pale and visibly shaken. His eyes never left the ground.

  “Happened last night?” Randy asked, finally.

  “They had been missing since Wednesday.”

  “Was it reported?”

  “Of course.”

  “We have no record of missing persons from Morrow,” the sheriff nonchalantly.

  “How do you know?”

  The sheriff just stared right through Henri. It was as if Henri didn’t just ask a question.

  Letters were given to messengers to take to the state department to file missing persons. Usually, a sheriff or deputy was deployed to assess the situation. Henri had sent word the next morning after the Boyds went missing. He had yet to hear a word from the state. He guessed it took the bodies of the missing persons to be deemed worthy of their trip.