by Dan Dillard
*****
Each time Rollie Suggs came to mow, he first looked for us and waved if he saw us. When he did, he laughed. And if we continued to watch him—and we always did—he chuckled again. I was glad the greasy bastard was having a good time. I hoped he enjoyed the hell out of it, because then, maybe he would slip up. Maybe he would fall prey to the devil woman instead of us. He was big and could keep her fed and full for a few weeks before she went hunting again–this time for kid meat.
I secretly hoped he would trip and fall under the lawnmower, spewing his greasy-grimy-gopher-guts all over the sidewalk. I had grown to dislike Rollie Suggs for no reason I could pinpoint. Maybe it was his awful name or his greasy hair. Or maybe it was because he seemed to be happy that we were scared and to me, that was a bad way to be. Erin said he was a minion to Eunice the Devil Woman. A Renfield to her Count Dracula. Maybe she was right.
We kept our distance from both of them and recited our poem each time he cut the grass as our means of taking her power away.
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.
It was our talisman.