by Dan Dillard
*****
Levi parked the old yellow Cat back inside the shed and dismounted with a grunt. Snapping the padlock shut, he wandered back to the office. As he navigated the steps to the door a strange feeling came over him. His forehead beaded in drops of cold sweat and his stomach raged like a storm at sea.
An unseen hand whirled him around to face a misty creature. As he stared it materialized into a black fog. It leaned in close to his face.
“Show me what I seeek,” it hissed.
Its breath smelled like fresh-dug soil and rot. Levi couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe and couldn’t speak.
“Show me what I seeek,” it repeated.
It swirled and came in and out of focus like a cloud of tiny gnats.
“I d-don’t know what y-you want,” Levi stuttered, more nauseous than before.
Is this the Shadowman?
“You have one of my childrennn,” it said, “give her back to mee.”
“Y-you’re the sh-shadow m-man?”
“Show meee,” it said.
Demonde’s mother. It wants Demonde’s mother.
“I make dem all wanderrr till you show meee what I seeek.”
“I should’ve dug the bitch up,” Levi said.
He stumbled down the steps and attempted running away. He sprinted to the grave sites looking for any name that might be her. Twenty five years he’d been running that land and he couldn’t recall burying anyone who wasn’t local, anyone he didn’t know, or at least know their family—recognize a name.
He scrambled, brushing away grass clipping from the markers and glancing at each headstone. Every so often he caught a glimpse of the black mist as it stalked him, but keeping a slight distance. It seemed satisfied that he was looking.
Row after row he searched. Johnson, Smith, Andrews, Jacobs, Stubbins. All people he’d gone to church with. Folks who invited him and Aggie to their children’s weddings, cookouts, nothing was out of the ordinary aside from the specter that watched his every move.
“Find herrr,” it said on the breeze.
“I don’t know who I’m looking for!” he shouted.
It was on top of him then, covering him in the smell of moist death.
“Thennn I will help youuu.”
He had no idea what that meant. In a flurry, the Shadowman disappeared under the ground beneath a cross-shaped headstone. The earth exploded in a burst of dirt and chunks of sod. Levi was blown back by the blast, falling on his backside and losing his breath momentarily.
Propping himself on one elbow, he wiped at his eyes, trying to clear the debris. Through the dust, he watched a body crawl out of that hole. It was a man, but decayed beyond recognition, its hair grown long and gray. The black mist swirled around the undead being before darting off.
Levi stood and brushed himself off unable to take his eyes from the zombie.
BOOM!
Another explosion of dirt thundered several rows away. The grave digger staggered away from the shambling monster and looked toward the new sound. Another body crawled from the earth. There was another explosion…and another resurrection…and another.
Levi ran in the opposite direction of one noise only to be herded by another. Mayhem circled him and the Shadowman’s undead minions closed in. They moaned as if in emotional pain, mourning either the loss of their own lives or perhaps the loss of their eternal rest. Skeletal hands reached for him and bones rattled and clacked as they walked stiffly toward their target.
There were dozens now and more exploding grave sites every second. Levi was frantic. Every way he turned, another shuffled toward him until they had him in their clutches. He fought, kicking his feet and flailing his hands. He screamed. Brittle limbs snapped and shattered under the weight of his boots. Stinking teeth bit at the skin of Levi’s face and arms, and rotting hands tore at his denim jeans.
He broke free of them, but only to be caught by others. They were thick and swarmed him like a school of hungry piranha, jaws clacking together, bones shaking, moaning. The sound built into a symphony of dread, a chattering 1812 Overture of decay.
When the explosions stopped, Levi looked into the distance and stopped screaming. The sound dwindled down to the rattling of bones and the crunch of grass and leaves from undead footsteps. Demonde stood on the hill with a woman in a dress. They watched as the first shambler’s teeth broke Levi’s skin. Then they turned, arm and arm, and disappeared from his strained viewpoint.
Levi first screamed in agony…until his scream became a laugh. That laugh turned first into a gurgle, then silence as the swarm closed in.
..ooOOoo..
THE DEMON OF WALKER’S WOODS
Every town has one, the haunted house, the creepy neighbor, that place that exudes darkness…For us, in the town where I grew up, it was Crazy Mary.
“Eunice Stubbins, Devil Woman, never shows her face.
Those who see her disappear, gone without a trace.
She smells of death and wears all black and sits alone at home,
On cushions made of children’s skin and furniture of bone.”
- The Children of Walker’s Woods