by Ninie Hammon
He had only spent a few summers working in the mines when he was a young man before they closed, and by that time they had progressed way past the point of using dynamite to blow coal out of the seam. A machine called a continuous miner now did the job dynamite had once done, faster and safer.
Reece’d learned what he knew about blasting from working for TCC, Talbot Coal Co., Inc., in West Virginia, a company that not only distorted the landscape but mangled the language used to describe what they did. TCC engaged in “mountaintop restructuring,” their euphemism for strip mining, where they removed “overburden,” their euphemism for all the mountaintop that wasn’t coal. The amount of explosive necessary per cubic yard of overburden was called “the powder factor.”
What they actually did, of course, was demolish the mountains and plow their remains off into the surrounding valleys. That, of course, leveled the land, totally screwing with the natural hydrology of the region. Given that streams flowed down mountains — no mountains, no downward flow, and suddenly surrounding rivers had no headwaters and no tributaries.
He’d read somewhere that the amount of rock blasted off the tops of mountains in West Virginia would cover the island of Manhattan in 250 feet of dirt.
Reece had become so disgusted with the whole process of strip mining that he’d flipped off his boss one afternoon, walked off the job and never went back. But after five years in the profession, Reece Tibbits knew his way around the most common explosive used in mining — ANFO, ammonium nitrate fuel oil. It was downright scary how easy it was to lay your hands on it because you could literally “make it out of leftover items in the garage.” It was the explosive that McVeigh guy had used to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City in April. Two ingredients — fertilizer and fuel oil. Reece had the better part of a fifty-pound bag of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in his garage — used the pellets on his vegetable garden. The Bashfords down the road used fuel oil for heat in the winter, had a big tank full of it, and they’d been visiting their daughter in Florida on J-Day.
In real-world blasting, you buried explosives in drilled holes, jammed tight so the explosion would rip apart the enclosure. But what if what you wanted to blow up didn’t have solid sides? You couldn’t drill a fire hole in a mirage. That thorny issue had kept him awake for two nights, before he realized he didn’t need a fire hole to get the desired results.
Though lack of sleep had muddied his thinking, his logic was sound. The Jabberwock was some kind of … force field … It wasn’t a solid anything, so blowing a hole in it would be merely blowing up air — right? The force you’d be blasting into had no visible, tangible sides, so it really didn’t matter a fig newton what he put the explosive in.
So he had settled on just setting the barrel in which he had mixed the fuel oil and the ammonium nitrate pellets on a wooden pallet to which he had attached casters and a fifteen-foot length of rope. He had considered making an electrical detonator that he could set off with a garage door opener. But his mother had been a lifelong fan of the KISS principle — Keep It Simple, Stupid. So he fashioned a percussion detonator out of gunpowder that he could set off with a rifle shot. He was reasonably certain he could have triggered the explosion by firing a shot into the barrel itself, but a detonator left nothing to chance.
He was ready.
Chapter Twenty
With his shoulder jammed against the door, Judd unlatched it and let it open just enough for him to reach around it and grab E.J.’s arm to pull him inside. As he did, E.J. screamed. Buster had bitten into his leg and was pulling back the other direction. Judd yanked E.J.’s arm with all his strength, and with the momentum of E.J. lunging forward, the top part of his body fell through the small opening between the door and the jamb. He hit the dirt on his shoulder, but his legs were still outside the door, and Buster was attacking his calf with a fury.
Judd was wearing heavy rubber work boots. They’d protect him against …
He drew back his foot and kicked Buster in the snout as hard as he could, right in the nose, and blood spewed out of it. The dog didn’t flinch, obviously felt no pain, but the force of the blow did knock him backwards off balance and he let go of E.J.’s leg, staggered sideways a little, wasn’t steady on his feet.
Holding onto the door with his right hand, Judd grabbed a handful of E.J.’s shirt with his left. Judd was a brute, thick and muscled, but even he was surprised at the adrenaline-fueled strength that enabled him to yank E.J. through the doorway opening. He literally threw him into the room and then tried to close the door behind him.
Buster lunged at it before Judd could get it shut, hit it with such force it opened enough for the dog to insert his snout and front paws, snarling and growling, pawing at the dirt with his claws.
Judd’s boots slid in the dirt and Buster’s whole head came through the opening. Judd kicked again, caught Buster this time in the eye and the dog lifted his head up so he could bite into the boot. That shifted his weight backward and Judd again threw all his weight against the door, digging his boots into the dirt for traction.
The opening between the door and the jamb closed enough that Buster’s huge head would no longer fit through it, but his snout was still jammed into the opening and his front paws clawed the dirt.
Only then did Judd see that E.J. was beside him, shoving with him at the door to close it.
Judd kicked as hard as he could at one of Buster’s paws, had thought about slamming his boot down on it but clearly the dog felt no pain. The blow knocked the paw backward, he and E.J. shoved the door closed another inch and suddenly the dog removed his snout and remaining paw and the door slammed shut. Judd engaged the latch, turned with his back leaning against the door and braced his feet as the force of Buster jumping at the door rattled the latch and the hinges.
Bam!
Buster hit the door.
Bam!
He hit it again and the force of the blow jarred Judd and E.J. forward. But the door held.
Judd looked down at E.J.’s leg. Blood was gushing out of it. Buster had bitten his left calf, got the meat firm in his teeth and yanked. The wound was so gory, Judd couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like the dog had bitten a hunk of E.J.’s leg out of it.
Bam!
The dog hit the door again, but with both Judd and E.J. leaning against it, the door held. The men tensed, awaiting the bam of Buster’s next lunge. But it didn’t come. Panting, neither said anything, just kept their backs firm against the door. Waiting. They could hear the dog snarling.
“What’s he doing?” E.J. asked, his voice breathy with pain. Judd turned and looked through a crack between the slats of the door. He could see Buster, ripping at the body of the goose he’d killed, tearing it apart, snarling and barking.
Buster had given up on the door, at least for the moment.
E.J. began to slide down the door, his legs giving way under him. With Buster lunging at the door, Judd had had all his attention focused on keeping the door closed. Now, he stepped away from it and picked up a shovel off the floor, the one he used to muck the cow dung out of the barn. He turned the shovel upside down and jammed the business end of it into the two-inch-wide space under the door, like a door stop. By itself, it wouldn’t hold the door closed, but it would help.
Then Judd knelt on one knee beside E.J., who was sitting with his back against the door, his legs splayed out in front of him. E.J. didn’t look right. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. Must have gotten knocked off.
“What are you doing here?”
“I tried to call. Buster missed his rabies booster.”
Judd thought, “Ya think?” but didn’t say it. Instead he said, “I need to see to that leg.”
“Water. You got any water?” E.J. was leaned over, trying to get a good look at the wound.
Judd looked around, his eye falling on a wooden bucket. There was only about six inches of water in it.
“It’s filthy.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’ll help to w
ash away …” He didn’t have to finish.
Judd got the bucket and set it down beside E.J., who was instructing him to “use my tie for a tourniquet.”
Judd had trouble getting the knot undone. His hands were shaking. E.J. reached up one hand, grabbed the knot and slid it halfway down to loosen it and Judd pulled it the rest of the way. When he started to wrap it around E.J.’s calf, E.J. said, “No, I’ll do it. You stay away.”
“You saying I can get … it … from touching your blood.”
“No, but Buster’s saliva … just keep back.”
Judd felt helpless, but did as E.J. instructed. E.J. wrapped the tie twice around his leg just below the knee and tied it.
“Get me a stick.”
Judd looked around, couldn’t find anything he could use, then spotted a piece of wood about six inches long that Buster had torn loose out of the hole in the wall of the barn. He handed it to E.J., who wrapped the tie around it and then twisted it to tighten the tourniquet.
“Now the water.”
Judd poured water over the wound. In the instant the blood was washed away, Judd caught sight of it. There were two huge gashes that ran down E.J.’s calf, eight or so inches long, all the way to his ankle. And a hole, in the meat of the back of his calf, a ragged …
Judd felt bile rise up in the back of his throat but he swallowed it back. Buster had bitten a chunk out of the back of E.J.’s calf, pieces of skin and tissue were dangling from it. Then the blood rushed back in and the hole was gone.
“Hold it,” E.J. said, indicating the piece of bloody wood. Judd took hold of it. “Tighter.” Judd twisted it, like the spigot on a garden hose, and watched the blood flow instantly diminish.
Then all the strength went out of E.J. and he collapsed back against the door, panting, his face the color of a bedsheet and covered in a thick sheen of sweat.
“Are you … wearing … a tee shirt?” E.J. was forcing the words out between teeth clamped shut to keep from screaming in pain.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Take it off … use it for a bandage.”
Judd yanked his chambray work shirt open without unbuttoning it, the buttons pinging off the door like shrapnel. He pulled it off and tossed it aside, then pulled off his tee shirt, revealing his big round belly and — he’d always been self-conscious about it — an outie navel that protruded so far it was probably a hernia.
“What do I do with the tee shirt?”
In gasped words and half sentences, E.J. told Judd how to rip strips of fabric off his shirt and then ball up a big piece of the tee shirt.
“There … put it there … in the … hole,” E.J. said, and Judd did as he was directed, jammed the wadded-up cloth into the hole, then wrapped the strips of fabric around and around it to hold it in place.
“My belt.” E.J. nodded toward the leather belt around his waist. It was thin, only about an inch wide. “Get it.”
Judd unfastened the belt and slid it out of the belt loops.
“You got a knife?”
Judd fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a worn, well-used pocketknife.
“We’re going to replace the tie with the belt and when we get it tight enough, I need you to poke holes in the leather so we can fasten it in place. Won’t have to hold it like the piece of wood.”
“Don’t I got to release it, I mean aren’t you supposed to—?”
“No!” E.J. barked. “Two hours. No muscle damage in two hours. Six hours and … amputate. I’d rather not bleed to death.”
Judd did as he was instructed, wrapped the belt, let E.J. pull it as tight as he thought it should be, then poked a hole there and they fasted the tourniquet in place with the belt buckle. Then E.J. told Judd to release the tie tourniquet, and use the tie to wrap around the wound along with the pieces of fabric to hold the pressure bandage.
Once the tourniquet and bandages were in place, E.J. shoved Judd out of the way and vomited, heaved and gagged, then collapsed back against the door, panting. Judd got up and used a hoe to scoop up the vomit, dumped it in a corner and covered it with hay. He could still smell it, though, and had to fight his own gag reflex as he knelt back beside E.J.
The younger man finally opened his eyes, still panting.
“He got me good,” he said.
“Yeah. You gonna have to take them shots in the stomach.”
“They’re not given in the stomach. That’s a myth. And I won’t be taking them anyway.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t have any. I don’t keep human PEP — post-exposure prophylaxis — in my office. You get that at a doctor’s office. I’m a vet, remember.”
“But you’ve been vaccinated — right?”
E.J. just looked at him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Charlie hadn’t driven half a mile from Abner’s house when she rounded a corner and mist sat on the road ahead of them. Almost like it’d been waiting for them.
She braked, slowing, reluctant to drive into it, though it seemed ephemeral and gauzy — she could see the road ahead beyond it.
“Stop!” Harry said. “Turn around.”
She stopped, reached to put the car in reverse.
“It’s coming,” Malachi said, and she looked up to see the mist gliding toward the car like fog rolling in off the sea. It swallowed the car and as soon as it did, Charlie could no longer see through it. It was a solid white mass.
“Ain’t never seen the mist this thick,” Harry said. A statement of fact with no indication of emotion in it whatsoever. Charlie knew it had taken a heroic act of will to seine the scared out of the words.
White … except there seemed to be shadows in it that shimmered with black light. Black light was impossible, but they’d all seen it before. When they rode the Jabberwock they’d been blinded by flashes of black light that sparkled like glitter. More and more shadows formed out of the nothingness of the mist, twinkling black shapes so obscured it was impossible to tell what they were. All that was discernible was that they were different sizes, some as small as a dog, others four or five feet tall. Their shapes seemed to change but maybe that was just the swirling of the mist, but the sizes remained the same. The shapes glided through the air, floating just far enough away so you couldn’t make out details.
“Do you see …?” Charlie was surprised she had the air to speak.
“The shapes — yeah,” Malachi said.
Even though the mist was pure white, it was so thick it blocked the sunlight and the interior of the car had grown darker and darker until the reflection of white off faces was all you could make out.
“What are they?”
“The haints,” said one of the Tungates. Charlie didn’t know which one.
“What do they want? Why—?”
Whispers.
Charlie jerked her head toward her window. Somebody out there had said …
“What?” Roscoe asked from the backseat.
“You don’t hear it?”
“Hear what?” Harry asked.
“I hear it,” Malachi said and when she turned to look at him the shadows on the planes of his face gave it a sinister look. “Whispering, like people talking in the next room and you can’t quite hear what they’re saying.”
“I hear it,” said Roscoe. Harry said nothing. “I can’t make it out, though, the words, can’t—”
“I don’t want to know what the words are,” Harry said.
Charlie made a connection. “Remember the whispering we heard that day we were lost in the mist?”
“I just remember the voices sounded like other children to me. I thought I was hearing the kids from down below.”
There was a cry then. An otherworldly wail that was so chilling Charlie couldn’t draw in a breath. It seemed to be some distance away. There was another then, closer. And another. It sounded something like distorted crying, a crude approximation of sobbing. Like the baby dolls she and Sam used to play with — when you moved them a certain way they’d let out
a waaahhh sound. The sound grew louder, but somehow didn’t drown out the whispers, the almost-words that seemed like different voices speaking urgently, like what they were trying to say was important.
“Did you hear crying that day?”
“Yeah, I was crying. Sam was, too, but I didn’t hear her.”
The wailing grew more plaintive, sorrowful, but Charlie sensed no genuine sadness. Like the heartbroken, inconsolable sobbing that Merrie could turn on and off like a spigot. And the dark shapes got closer, their black light sparkling, twinkling, not close enough to see but only barely obscured by the puffy white of the mist. They began to circle the car, just out of sight, making that pitiful wailing sound, or maybe something else was making the sound and they were whispering. The twinkling became flashes of light, the shapes floating around and around the car, strobes of light that left an afterimage like a flash of lightning.
The whispers became more and more urgent, then began to change into grumbles. Angry grumbles, like whoever or whatever was whispering was mad that nobody understood the words.
The tone of the sobbing changed, too, no longer despairing and forlorn. Now, there was an element of anger in it, too, like the crying might transform into shouting. Yelling.
Something thumped on the back of the car. Charlie squeaked out a pitiful sound, not even strong enough to call a scream. The men looked around, their eyes huge.
“What was that?” she asked.
Useless question.
“A thing that goes bump in the night, only it’s broad daylight,” Malachi said.
Then the car … moved. Charlie could feel it. Her eyes snapped from one to the other of the men in the car and didn’t have to ask if they felt it, too.
There was a small creaking sound as the weight of the car began to lift up off the shocks, which were just about bottomed out with the load of passengers the car was carrying.
Then the car began to move forward.
Charlie slammed her foot down on the brake to stop the movement. But it did no good because the wheels weren’t turning. The car wasn’t rolling forward, but it definitely was moving forward.