by Wile E Young
An irritated squirrel raced up a tree near me as I brushed the moss out of my way and walked up the small hill to the cabin. Cy had never been one for yard work and dirt more than grass held sway now.
“See this Lincoln? An old friend used to live here.” It felt strange talking to the boy. My own voice was like an alien thing to me; I never spoke to myself when I was alone, and even though Lincoln counted I still felt like an idiot squawking to myself.
The boy made gurgling noises and ignored me.
I stepped up onto the porch, a modest-sized area that had been cleared of all the furniture that had once been so familiar. Used to be a grill over by the railing overlooking his long walkway that led out to the river.
Probably sold off to some yuppie now. Cy had never married or had kids… Renee and I had been the closest thing to family, but he had neglected to leave a will. Probably hadn’t seemed important to him until the end.
The man had smoked cigars, and I could still see the tell-tale burn marks in the woodwork from his repeated extinguishing of the burning luxuries.
Tobacco stains and good memories… I missed the man.
Peering through the glass was like staring through time that was missing a few things. Cy’s furniture had disappeared, vanished into the ether of his estate sale, but the appliances, the wallpaper, the little things that had made this place home was still intact. Covered by a fine layer of dust but still intact.
More memories of better times, I sighed and stepped away, picking up Lincoln’s carrier and walking back towards the front of the house. I ran my hands along the ancient wood, savoring the coarse feeling on my skin.
The SOLD sign in the front yard stopped me in my tracks.
Couldn’t be…
Who would have bought this place?
The young thing with the pixie cut and fake smile on the sign told me nothing. Whoever bought this place was in for a hell of a shock when they realized how much their new neighbor wished they weren’t there.
I spit at the base of the sign and turned away to walk into the woods.
Chapter Eight
Watching for snakes is a must when you go into the woods: copperheads hiding amongst the leaves, cottonmouths in the trees or streams, and timber rattlers waiting behind logs. Every step I took I watched for them and spoke to my grandson about the dangers of the woods and river… all the threats he was going to become intimately familiar with as he grew up.
I walked close to the river, maybe a half-mile or so away from my house, enjoying the sounds and smells that came with this place, distant birds, the sweet smell of flowering trees, and the heavy scent of the river.
Despite the seeming peace, I felt uneasy that feeling of being watched like a hot lamp on my face. There were no footsteps, no figures in the trees, no distant sound of dripping water.
But I was being watched.
Not a lot of folks came out this way. The salvinia covering the water and turning the place into a gigantic bog full of dangerous depths and turns. The channels had to be routinely remade as nature crept back in, the only constant the ancient logs with the markers.
One in particular though gave me chills, as it did for everyone else who saw it. Channel marker 158 wasn’t much different than the other markers the state government had erected across the lake, made from oak like the rest, bolted with signs to show the boat roads like the rest…
No other channel marker had quite the body count though.
It was accepted fact that marker 158 had once been an ancient oak that stood on the edge of Jefferson, Texas, a scant stone’s throw away from the lake.
With a twisted sense of justice, it had been used to execute all manner of folks… criminals, degenerates, and the occasional black who got a little too handsy with a white woman for his own good. It wasn’t the law’s justice, it was the people’s justice. And since when does the mob know who’s really to blame?
Then mysteriously, the gallows tree was cut down in the 1997 by parties unknown. Too much shame and blood mixed in its branches for the well-to-do civilized people in town, disappeared and forgotten about.
I remembered reading about the event, how the state government vowed to find the culprits who had desecrated their precious historical site, how nobody had ever been charged.
By all accounts that should have been the end of it.
Until it had mysteriously appeared along with dozens of others. The marker system officially ended at 150, but the placard hanging off the ancient wood told a different story.
It had been the focus of diner talk and speculation for these past twenty-one years. I’d heard everything from government cover up to alien intervention. Nobody knew for sure.
I stared at that channel marker now, wondering if and when it would ever rot away. If it did, it would certainly ease my conscious.
Under the numerous amounts of graffiti and vandalism, odd symbols and carvings had been etched in the ancient wood, symbols that hurt the eye and shaped in ways that didn’t have precise angles or meaning.
I had tried pronouncing a few once since I thought they were words threaded through the carvings, and I found that the odd cadences and rhythms hurt the back of my throat and came out as gibberish akin to a croaking gurgle.
This place made me uneasy, so it was no wonder I felt like I was being watched. It bothered me that I had drifted here in my aimless walking.
Even worse, Lincoln had suddenly become active and was straining with his tiny arms towards the channel marker, sitting ugly in the middle of the river.
“No, no Lincoln, you don’t want any of that. Trust me.”
His mother had been fascinated with this place too. I had forbidden her from coming up here, but she had disobeyed so much I had just given up on it. She had brought her friends to drink and play all, under the watchful eye of marker 158.
I glanced down at my grandson and wondered if history was going to spit in my eye once again. Shaking my head and still feeling uneasy, I turned for home.
There was a light splashing, like a fish biting at the surface of the water.
I jumped and whirled around my mind conjuring up all kinds of terrible images about what was behind me. I saw a shape in the water, a deep shadow that banged against the channel marker. I tensed, my teeth gritted as I waited for it to breach the surface… had to be an alligator; that was the only thing massive enough to create such shadows.
It turned slowly and bobbed to the surface.
I looked at waterlogged bark instead of scales.
Just a log, probably tossed into the water by lumberjacks up river.
I let out a long harrowing sigh, and Lincoln giggled in his carrier. Little bastard.
Hefting the carrier, I turned for home and screamed, throwing myself to the ground as something massive came flying through the air, crashing through smaller trees and branches before landing with a resounding thump against the ground.
I lay panting on the ground. Lincoln was bawling his eyes out, and I reached out and dragged the carrier close, looking all around me.
The water-soaked log was lying a few feet away, still rocking from its flight.
I scrambled to my feet and looked back at the river.
The formerly still waters rippled out, trying to calm themselves again.
There was a sound, a deep throated croaking…
I picked up my grandson and ran for home.
****
I didn’t stop until Cy’s cabin came back into view. I nearly collapsed when I finally came to a stop.
I was winded, gasping for breath as I dropped Lincoln (harder than I meant to) onto the ground and fell to one knee gasping for air. If my coach from high school could have seen me, old and desperately trying to heave air down my throat, he would have died of shame. As it was his corpse was turning in his grave over at the Marshall Cemetery.
My grandson was bawling his eyes out and I tried my best to comfort him, but all I could manage were a few cooing wheezes that did nothing
to stifle him.
I was afraid, not ashamed to admit it.
The locals down at the bar talked. Everyone usually had a story about some strange thing they or their second cousin had once seen. Devil Monkeys, monster fish, honest-to-God aliens, and motherfucking Bigfoot… gentleman and lady alike all had a tale to spin over drinks. You couldn’t live on this lake and not have a story or two, and I had often been a listener, laughing at the punchlines and calling bullshit at the exaggerations.
Never thought I would be the one with the strange story.
Couldn’t rationalize it and couldn’t think of anything strong enough to throw a log a few dozen yards from the river into the woods. But I still wasn’t ready to believe in Bigfoot. I hadn’t reached that level of crazy yet.
I got my breathing back under control—hard thing to do when you are pushing sixty)—grasping at Lincoln’s carrier and rocking it back and forth. “It’s okay, you’re okay, we just had a little scare is all.”
“Hey… mister you okay?” There was a man waving from the back of Cy’s porch, young with a parcel of unruly brown hair drooping just below his ears.
I waved a hand to let him know that I was alright, The wind still knocked out of me.
He vaulted the railing, landing in the grass, and rushing over and crouching next to me, a firm hand placed on my back. “Just breathe in deep Mr. Pope. You look like you had quite a scare.”
I looked up into the young man’s face. A scruffy beard that looked like he spent the majority of his time trying to tame, piercing green eyes, dirty pants and shirt.
His accent though, Cajun… couldn’t be.
“You… aren’t…” I managed to gasp out; the young man smiled and gently helped me to my feet.
“You haven’t seen me since I was small; found me at the old homestead after...”
He didn’t need to say anything else. It was him. He was back. Last I heard he had been raised by kinfolk down in Lafayette traumatized but alive.
“I owe you my life, sir.”
Luc Robichaude, second youngest son and only survivor of his family, had come home.
Chapter Nine
Luc prattled around in my kitchen, mixing together things he found along with ingredients that he had brought in his car. I had caught my breath mostly, my heart slowing into a steady beat, though I still had some tightness in my chest.
“Keep going at that rate Mr. Pope and you’re not going to make it to sixty.”
The younger man shoved something hot into my hands that I tried to grip; the cup trembled in hand… my nerves were still on edge.
“Drink it up and you’ll feel better.”
I sniffed at it, a bitter scent filling my head. “What is it?”
Luc winked as he settled into the chair across from me. “Momma’s own cure all, guaranteed to settle hangovers and soothe the soul.”
Mumbo jumbo juice; now that I understood. I sipped at it—some kind of hot tea by the taste—and the more I drank the more I calmed down.
Luc watched me with a careful eye. “See something out on the lake Mr. Pope?”
“Monster gator on the loose Luc. Fifteen-footer… man-eater.” I managed to explain the encounter Gideon and I had while I greedily finished off the last of the tea. There was no more tightness in my chest.
“Was that why you were running?”
“Yeah,” I lied.
“Going to have to be careful then when I go down to the dock.”
The clues I hadn’t exactly pieced together fell into place. I was a little slow on the uptake, but it made sense. “You bought Cy’s place?”
Luc nodded. “Couldn’t move back into the old place, you know?”
The burned cabin and the dangling bodies flashed behind my eyes “Yeah, I know.”
“Sammie Jo around? Or Miss Renee? I never did ask you if this little man is yours.”
He must have seen the look on my face as he ripped open fresh wounds without even realizing it. “I’m sorry Mr. Pope.”
I gritted my teeth and tried to hide the tears, staring at Lincoln, my dead daughter’s birth screams replaying in my head.
“Renee passed last year sorry to say,” I managed to get out moving on to my most recent pain. “Sammie Jo was kidnapped, or ran off, couldn’t say which yet… then she came back…” I couldn’t go through the whole story, not again. I just gestured to Lincoln. “This is her son.”
Luc didn’t draw attention to the tears or my feeble attempts to hide them; polite boy. His focus was entirely on Lincoln.
He wiggled a finger above the newborn’s face. “Hello there, little guy. Your mom and I were friends… went way back…”
He was a year younger than Sammie Jo. Though I couldn’t tell, I thought I could see the vague hint of tears on his face, but it might have been a trick of the light.
Lincoln’s head lurched all of a sudden, mouth snapping around Luc’s outstretch finger, an innocent growling cooing from his lips as Luc snatched his hand away. My grandson giggled, and I smiled at his spirit. It was only then that I noticed that Luc looked troubled, a small frown adorning his face.
“What’s wrong?”
The Cajun man looked at me and the frown disappeared, happiness returning. “Oh nothing I’m just not used to kids.”
That was a fair reason. I wasn’t exactly used to the boy myself.
Luc stood up, wiping his finger clean of Lincoln’s drool. “Well I think I’m going to get back to moving in my things, making that place livable… holler if you need anything Mr. Pope.”
I grunted and set the tea aside, struggling to rise out of my chair and shake the man’s hand. “Luc, you’re old enough now that I think Grady will just do fine.”
He shook my hand, firm grip. “Grady, then.” The younger man smiled, promised to check in later, and left.
I sighed and sat back down in my chair. I’d have to feed Lincoln later. That way he wouldn’t scream to high heaven and keep me from enjoying what little peace I had.
The thoughts of the alligator consumed me. I couldn’t leave Lincoln alone to go hunt. If anyone stopped by, child protective services would be all over my ass… or, knowing my luck, the house would burn down from a freak brush fire.
Couldn’t push Gideon too hard to go with me. He needed time to recover. If I had to hunt it myself I would, but the old muscles weren’t what they used to be, and the reptile’s newfound bloodlust would make it ten times more aggressive.
It wasn’t going to stop either. When an alligator got that size there, were only four things it could eat to satisfy its hunger: deer, cows, other gators, and people.
Which one do you think is the easiest to grab?
It would kill again, and soon.
I’d get Luc to watch Lincoln tomorrow, hunt it on my own. After the word went out today there would be plenty of other folks out to make a quick buck.
Whatever my new neighbor had put in my tea soothed me. The warm spring air crept into the room around me and I felt at ease… I couldn’t think about what had happened at marker 158, the event becoming the furthest thing from my mind.
Instead I thought about my new neighbor, grown into a man from the scared little boy I had found with bruised knees and tear tracks down his ash-covered face staring at the charred carcass of his home.
****
The sound of creaking wood woke me. Warm air and my chair had a way of luring me to sleep faster than anything else. It was sometime in the late afternoon. The light had shifted across the walls and made interesting patterns of shadows across the wood.
My annoyance grew as I wearily tried to shut my eyes again, figuring that the wind was blowing and my old home was just breathing to let me know she was still standing.
It didn’t go away, though. The creaking continued.
I grunted in annoyance, Lincoln must have been up and ready to be fed. It was a little surprising that the boy wasn’t crying, but what did I know? Sammie Jo had been quiet many times when she had been hungry.<
br />
I opened my eyes and looked towards the crib and yelped in surprise, practically falling out of my chair.
Lincoln was standing in his crib, hands grasping the rails, eyes wide with excitement. When he saw I was up, a mouth full of teeth cocking into a wide grin.
This wasn’t a newborn; this kid could have been two or three years old.
“G’mpa, G’mpa.” The kid blubbered the words and pounded at the edge of the crib with his two meaty hands.
I found my voice. “Lincoln?”
The little boy laughed and jumped up and down in the crib. His skin was more pallid, so pale to be nearly grey with a dark head of hair unlike his mother, eyes that were so dark I didn’t think he had an iris until I saw the dark green around those black pupils.
He was naked, the little diaper and onesie Vicky had put on him in tatters by his feet.
“What the fuck?”
The little boy giggled at every word I said, relishing my voice.
He reached out his hand towards me. “G’mpa!”
I felt like I needed to vomit as the world swirled around me. This couldn’t happen…
But that feeling that had itched at the back of my mind had been right. My grandson was a fucking freak and had killed my daughter. This only confirmed it. Screw mercury poisoning and whatever other tripe Scott could peddle. This thing had killed her.
“G’mpa!”
“Shut the hell up!”
The little boy looked shocked for a minute, his eyes widening, mouth trembling in fear as he started to bawl.
“No, no, you don’t get to cry!” I shook the edge of the crib. “Shut up! Shut up!”
The kid just screamed louder and shirked away, huddling at the edge of the crib.
I wondered what I would have done in that moment if a rhythmic knocking hadn’t diverted my attention.
The pounding at the door startled me, and I glanced at the kid squalling in the crib. I wrestled down the fear, anger, and disgust I felt before grabbing my .357 revolver from the gun cabinet.