by Wile E Young
How was I going to explain this to my neighbors? It wasn’t like I could just trot him into church tomorrow. “Hey Rev, this is my grandkid and I need him dedicated, growing boy and all. Did I mention he was born Thursday?” They’d burn him at the stake and stone me for raising such an abomination.
Or at the very least think I was crazy.
I sighed, and it was enough for Lincoln to wake up from his short nap. He looked around and smiled. I smiled too as he frantically pointed at the river.
“Yeah I’ll take you out there, you’re going to be one hell of a fisherman.”
“Papa!”
I froze, and my hands tightened around Lincoln’s small body. “What?”
My grandson giggled again and grasped desperately at the sliding screen door. “Papa!”
I dropped him into the crib as gently as I could and whirled around, not knowing what I expected to see at that glass door.
The clouds were obscuring the moon and casting the night in eerie half-light and shadows, but I could still see the outline of someone at the top of the hill. He was tall, tall enough to scrape the ceiling with the top of his head. I couldn’t make out a face or anything descriptive, but even that outline looked wrong, the head oddly shaped, dangling limbs that ended in something wide and club like, thick legs like miniature tree trunks.
He raised a massive hand that widened enough to create a small umbrella of darkness. There was a low throaty vibration, and I felt afraid. I crouched close to Lincoln, shielding him from seeing the man.
“Papa, Papa!”
There was deep groan, like ancient boat timbers rocking, and then suddenly a louder bark. That booming bark came again, and the misshapen silhouette of the man’s head turned to look up the hill.
The stranger wheeled away, and I rushed to the glass window. The man moved lightning quick, his form doing an odd hopping gait before vanishing into the shadows and water.
I then saw a gigantic white form prowl by the window and a deep growling. Mojo on patrol. Thank God. The dog disappeared down the hill in pursuit.
I rubbed Lincoln’s head and whispered an old hymn until he was asleep. Envied the boy; there was no way that I was going to be catching any sleep that night.
Chapter Eleven
People notice when you don’t show up to places that you had frequented near every day since you were thirteen. Folks get worried, and when folks get worried, they come to check on you.
I should have expected that, should have prepared. but when that nine in the morning knocking on my front door rattled in my ears, I knew that I had screwed up.
Lincoln lay asleep in the crib and I had spent the night watching the moon rise over the trees. The knocking made me jump and stare before I heard the self-confident voice of Davis Trucker. “Grady, the missus was worried. Thought I’d come by.”
Sometimes that neighborly spirit bit you in the ass.
I stumbled over to the door and braced myself against it my tired bones doing little to keep me on my feet.
“Yeah…” I coughed, my voice a little hoarse. “Feeling kind of under the weather… thanks for coming by.”
“Ah shit…” I could practically see the big man’s face turning down in an expression of sympathy. “Need some help? I mean I know you have the kid with you and—”
I cut him off. “No, thank you. I’m good. Just going to make some of that herbal tea Renee liked and rest for the day.”
“You’re not feeling too good, are you?” He replied, his deep voice rumbling.
“No not really…” I was practically sweating. I had never known Davis to be a paranoid man, but I thought from the tone of his voice that he could sense I was hiding something from him. He knew where the emergency key, was and if he wanted he could have opened up the door despite my protests, just to make sure I was safe and sane of course.
After what felt like an eternity, there was heavy sigh on the other side of the door. “Well holler if you need me. Also, Scott was in the restaurant this morning. Told me to remind you that he needs you to come by the funeral home when you get a chance.”
I told him that I would and that I appreciated him stopping by. The panic inside me began to subside and I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the old Buick engine backfire and trundle away.
I nearly slumped against the door in relief and turned around to find Lincoln staring at me in the hallway. “Stranger?”
His words were getting better.
“Yeah it was a stranger, buddy.”
The boy laughed and smiled those big black eyes staring in wonder. “Friend?”
“Yeah, kid, he is…”
****
The car seat that I had brought him home in was now useless. I didn’t really want to go into town, but what choice did I have? If I didn’t go to town, then the town would come to me and see things that I preferred to keep hidden. Taking Lincoln into town wouldn’t remove suspicion, but it could diminish it. I couldn’t readily explain a two-year-old at my home, but I could pass him off as a relative.
I took a deep breath before I opened the door. Lincoln walked passively beside me, his eyes scanning the trees like they were alien things that he was experiencing for the first time.
“What that, G’mpa?”
I looked down, and in the bright light of day realized that my grandson looked more unnatural than I had initially thought when I had brought him home. It was almost like looking at a character from an old black and white movie. His skin was so pale, eyes and hair as black as the night.
The boy grimaced at the sun. I walked him as quickly as I could to my truck and strapped him into the front seat.
I quickly climbed into the driver’s seat. “Ready to go?”
My grandson wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the distant muddy river behind the house, his eyes a glistening sheen as his mouth flopped open, bits of drool slopping out of his mouth and onto his shirt.
I suppressed the shudder that ran up my spine and keyed the ignition, heading towards Uncertain.
****
I hadn’t realized the weight that had been hanging over my mind until we left the cabin behind us. I felt relieved, like the river that I had spent my life on was an infected vein that I had cleansed from my system.
Should have listened to that instinct and run far away. Should have taken Lincoln to the middle of the damn desert far away from the strange shit that had seemed to infest my life since my grandson had come into it.
Scott ran an old school funeral home, with living quarters over his mortuary where he worked. We had played cards a few times over at his place. I had never felt quite at ease whenever I went there. Always creeped me out that there were dead people in the basement.
We weren’t far away from the old Longhorn Ammunition Plant, an old factory that the U.S. Army had operated until the nineties, when they had discovered that different toxins were leaking into the groundwater.
Good riddance; the place had always been an eyesore and had practically poisoned the lake before they had started cleaning it up. Now it stood like an open wound, sinking into the swamp slowly but surely, scavengers combing the old ruins for every scrap of value that was left.
I glanced at the old place through the trees. Lincoln seemed fascinated, his small hands and face pressed up against the glass and mewling and grasping as the faded grey concrete vanished from view.
I turned into Scott’s driveway, black asphalt leading up to the two-story house that backed up against the cypress trees and steep embankment leading back down to the river. Scott kept his lawn well-manicured, the grass a shimmering green, and Misty had procured all kinds of decorations in shades of red and blue that made the place seem much more hospitable than it actually was. A sign proclaiming CARTER FUNERAL HOME sat on an island that the drive circled around. I circled the drive until the tailgate was pointed towards the house and killed the engine.
“Lincoln listen to me.” The boy was enraptured with the trees and didn’t lo
ok at me until I repeated myself more forcefully and grabbed his chin, which was covered in slobber. “Lincoln, I need you to stay here. Do not leave the car, okay?”
The boy nodded. “Okay, G’mpa.”
I was damn sure that the kid was just repeating what I said so I had brought a distraction. The stuffed animals had been his mother’s, a pink horse and a grey elephant… I handed both to the boy. “Play with these until I get back.”
Lincoln laughed and eagerly grabbed the toys out of my hands, making gibberish noises that I couldn’t decipher. I shrugged and suppressed a grin. I stepped out, locking the door behind me, my grandson oblivious in the cab. Didn’t intend on being here long for the grim task of deciding how I wanted to bury my baby girl.
Dead ivy as brown as fall leaves clung to the white edifice, making it look like the windows of the house were crying muddy tears. I walked up the cracked brick steps and knocked on the front door.
There was a blurring motion behind the black window and a click as Scott opened the door. “Morning, Grady.”
I was taken aback. Scott usually looked cleaner cut than this. He had heavy bags under his eyes, and his normally well-maintained goatee was beginning to show the hint of a five o’clock shadow as whiskers crept across his cheeks. I had expected him to be wearing his Sunday best, ready to head on into church and receive a touch of the Holy Ghost. Instead he was dressed in a long-sleeved, dark grey shirt and black sweatpants.
He must have seen my questioning look as he attempted to force a grin, but there was something more, something he wasn’t telling me. “The missus isn’t feeling well so I think we are going to skip out on the service today.”
“Brother Arnold will be upset.” I grumbled. The younger pastor had been a point of contention amongst some of the older parishioners, who grumbled that a city boy like him didn’t know how thinks really worked out in the sticks.
“He’ll just have to admonish us next Sunday. Besides, Misty’s vomiting up her guts this morning. I had the worst dreams, if you couldn’t tell.”
Oh, I could tell, but it would have been rude to comment. Instead I simply asked him if we could get down to business so I could get my own tail to church. I had no intention of examining the Good Book today, but it made a convenient lie to get my friend moving. I’d ask for forgiveness in my nightly prayers. The Lord was just going to have to understand.
My friend looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but standing in front of me. That nagging sensation that had been chewing at the back of my neck since he had come to the door practically screaming at me.
“Scott, what’s really wrong?”
He sighed and gave me the most apologetic look that I had ever seen in a man. “Just brace yourself, Grady.”
I didn’t ask what he meant as he let me in and we walked down the dimly lit hallway towards his basement door. His home was old with drab wood furnishings and carpet that had once been the height of refined, but now looked like it had come from era before Civil Rights. Scott and Missy had decorated the halls with old family photos that displayed scenes from distant childhoods long gone.
I had already been a young adult by the time these pictures were taken, but I remembered the time very well. A time before everyone walked around with a phone chirping in their pocket, a time when the world hadn’t seemed so vile and decrepit. Often thought that the older you got the more you realized how much of the muck and shit you had to crawl through to get anything worthwhile and then by chance or reason it broke your fucking heart.
Scott led me down into the basement, and every step was heavier as I descended, like little gremlins were running around adding weights to my feet. My heart pounding in my chest as my friend reached the bottom and clicked on a small bulb that bounced on the end of the cord.
Muddy water covered the floor and a massive hole in the wall a little taller than me split the linoleum to the left. I could see the faint shimmering of water and dangling roots; a tiny cave beneath the trees behind Scott’s home. Could have happened to anyone, but Scott’s face told me that this wasn’t the end of it.
“Think the storm weakened the wall from the extra water, but it didn’t cave in until last night.”
The damage didn’t look too bad. A thin layer of algae covered the floor and some of his equipment, but nothing that didn’t look fixable.
Scott’s ashen look made me realize that it was much more serious, and the realization hit me like a bag of hammers.
“Where is she?” I managed to croak out, my voice hoarse like my vocal chords had been scraped bloody.
My friend had tears in his eyes as he blinked twice. “The water was over my head when I found it and when it drained out…” He could barely continue, his teeth gritted like he expected me to hit him. “She’s somewhere in the river now…”
I blinked, and I felt the hot tears spill unheeded from my eyes. I turned, saying something about needing air and stumbled up the stairs, my feet pounded on the floor, echoing a staccato beat like a demon’s laughing.
I burst out into the humid air and vomited all over Scott’s porch. It came bitter from my throat, and vaguely I was aware of Scott’s footsteps and his repeated, “I’m sorry!” I couldn’t tell if he was crying or not. All I knew was that my baby girl was now a nest for minnows and fish… that is if the gators hadn’t gotten her.
Scott was quiet, and I straightened myself tall. Never let them see you bleed had been a mantra for a long time, and my friend had just seen me at one of my most vulnerable moments. He wouldn’t dare pity me it had just been a moment of weakness.
I turned slowly, and Scott glanced at the pile of vomit. “I’ll clean that up, Grady. I understand that you’re upset and I’m sorry… I didn’t know this would happen.”
Maybe it was a blessing that what came next happened, or else my mouth would have said some things that I would regret down the line.
Whatever anger I had was lost by the sound of my truck, open door alarm pinging. I turned slowly, revelation anointing me before I saw the open truck door and the discarded grey elephant and pink horse.
“Lincoln…” I breathed out before I tore down the brick stairs, sprinting to my truck.
“Grady, what is it?”
I ignored Scott as I scanned the ground, looking for any sign of where my grandson had disappeared to.
There was nothing.
I prayed, closing my eyes and mumbling platitudes to the Lord, hoping for an answer.
“Is it Lincoln? Was he in here?”
I continued to ignore my friend and pray… then came the sound of splashing. It was faint, but I could hear it: rhythmic and repeating, and I thought I heard a small voice speaking in stilted little words.
I sprinted towards the sloping riverbank, grasping at the trees for balance as I hit the edge of the slope.
“Lincoln!” I screamed at the top of my lungs and was rewarded by a splash of water so loud that I was sure the kid had fallen out of a tree he had climbed into the water.
Then I heard the muffled sobbing and splatter of water. I took a deep breath and climbed down the embankment. Lincoln was at the bottom, obscured by old driftwood, tree roots, and water grass. His back was to me; clothes caked in the grey mud and clay.
“Lincoln?”
The boy splashed the water with his hands like he had lost something, frantically grabbing at the mud. An ancient and dry reed snapped under my foot and the boy whirled around.
I recoiled.
His eyes were dilated so extremely that the white wasn’t visible, just the massive black pupil and the olive green iris around it.
Gigantic night crawlers wriggled in his mouth.
The worms twisted and turned, and Lincoln smiled at me as he chewed. Thick black guts oozed out of the worms and ran down the boy’s chin in filthy brown rivulets.
I rushed forward and grabbed the boy’s chin in my hand. “Spit it out!” The boy snapped at me, his teeth chomping down on my finger, drawing blood as he greedily gul
ped down the worms and made sucking noises that sounded vaguely like croaking.
A bullet would do right about now, pressed against the little monstrosity’s eyes, a trigger pull and more blood in the muddy bayou.
The boy finished gulping down the last wriggling night crawler and stared into my eyes with those gigantic black orbs. A weight passed between us like an itch on the inside of my head.
My anger and fear melted away, and as the boy reached up to me I took him into my arms. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Grady?”
I froze in my tracks; blood running cold in my veins as I slowly turned and saw Scott standing at the top of the hill.
“Is that Lincoln?”
I could lie, but what would be the point?
“Yeah, yeah it is.”
Scott seemed in awe as I climbed back up the embankment with the boy in my arms. “Wow, he’s gotten big since the last time I saw him.”
This wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.
“Listen Scott you can’t tell anyone. Folks around here aren’t going to be so understanding.”
Scott looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
I gestured with my shoulders at my grandson. “He’s grown two years in two days; how can you not notice!”
Scott’s look of confusion darkened his eyes dilated and his voice came out in a dead drone. “Grady… you’ve been raising Lincoln for two years. He didn’t just magically grow up overnight.”
I was stunned, amazed at the ridiculous bullshit that I was hearing… I was old not senile. “Don’t feed me that horseshit Scott, I was here to fucking arrange for my daughter’s burial!”
Scott kept that same smile, bland and alien on his face as he repeated the same thing. Lincoln giggled in my arms; the boy was looking intensely at Scott, almost enraptured by the man. Scott kept repeating that Lincoln hadn’t aged overnight, that it was all in my head.
He followed me to the truck repeating it.
The words were echoing as I put Lincoln in the car and drove away, Scott disappearing in the rearview mirror… I could still make out the words.