Gina told him everything. It all came out: Jared’s gym bag, the note, her meeting with Floyd, the snakes in the creek, the deadsong. Dylan’s freckles seemed to darken, standing out like little orange flakes dusted on his nose and cheekbones, but it was only his complexion draining of color.
“What are you, crazy?!”
She hushed him and gripped his shoulders. “You’re not half as stupid as you make out, Dylan. You’re a helluva lot smarter than I am. You can’t stand there and tell me I’m crazy when you know something is seriously wrong here.”
“Well, I just did, didn’t I?”
“Listen you little pukeface––”
“Oh, so you’re gonna start bullying me now?”
“Shut up, Dylan. Shut. Up. Right now.”
He looked down at his feet. “I’m scared, Gina. I admit it, okay. What can we do?”
Gina went to her window. “Well, we can’t just sit around and do nothing.”
Then it came to him. He’d nearly forgotten about Alan Blair since he never got the chance to tell Gina the night before. So Dylan told her now. Alan had mentioned to him at the theatre he’d been trolling through the archives, which meant he could probably be found there. And so they made plans to find Alan and join the hunt for these snakes and destroy them by any means necessary. If this devil-breed of serpent could be eradicated, Pearson would be out of a job, in a fantastical sense. And Gina would have her pigskin-totin pretty boy
(railin and wailin)
and kids would quit dying and Hemming would return to a state of normalcy it hadn’t known for a very long time. Things would be just fine.
Like fine wine in the summertime.
PART two
SHAKERS AND SERPENTS
CHAPTER FIVE: SAND MOUNTAIN
1
“Good evenin gang!”
Reverend Motley stood at the lectern running his sweaty hands along the holy imitation leather. The congregation sat quietly in their pews on flattened tweed cushions the color of faded limes. All nine members had been attending Sand Mountain Church since they were children while their own children had moved away or found comfort in a less controversial place of worship.
The regional presses labeled Sand Mountain’s outspoken elderly outcasts ‘the shakers’ but they were not shakers in a traditional sense. It was because of their fanatical resistance to change as well as their loyalty to shake up the community's peaceful climate when the reaping season rolled around. Many members were respectable contributors to Hemming’s workforce––Margaret Oates, Gloria Webb, Perry Smith (or Shitty Smitty as he was often called), Harley Robinson, Ava Carruthers, and even old Floyd Wiggins made an appearance from time to time. Reverend Carl Motley often spoke in favor of expanding their small congregation, but whenever a visitor was dragged in for a fiery sermon, they never seemed to come back. But that was quite all right. They liked their little family of heavy-handed Christ-pushers.
This was a very special Wednesday night service. Tonight, Motley had grand news to rave about, but he didn’t want to get all wound up straight away. He looked around expecting to see one particular face, someone who wasn't a regular, someone who had a bit of news to tell in the privacy of Motley's office. Floyd hadn’t arrived yet and he wondered if Margaret had given Floyd a good enough reason to show up. He relaxed. Margaret could be very persuasive.
Motley wiped his brow and threw a pair of spectacles up on his face. He scanned over a photocopy and shifted his gray eyes to the crowd.
“I was just lookin over this signup sheet for the bake sale on Saturday and I sure expected a lot more names written under desserts.” A few hoarse laughs echoed across the paneled walls. “Sister Webb, you ain't gonna bless us with that Italian cream cake of yours?”
Miss Webb chuckled. “That’s awful selfish of you Reverend cause I know you just wanna have it all to yourself.”
“Uh-oh, she found me out,” Motley croaked. “All right, well I reckon this'll have to do then. Go ahead and get your hymnals out, but before we begin, I got a few things to get off my chest.”
“Here we go.” Perry Smith rolled his eyes and brushed back all twenty strands of hair on his head. Motley peeled a grin and shook a finger at him.
“I’ll keep it short, Brother, I'll keep it short. You just keep bouncin that book on your belly.” More cheap laughs, then Motley's face grew cold and firm, very serious. “There’s no way around it gang. It's that time of year again. And no I ain’t talkin about the weather here, I’m talkin about you know what.”
The old gang nodded. They knew what he was talking about.
Floyd walked in and all eyes rolled to him. He ambled up the aisle and sat in the back row, folding his hands over the grip of his cane. Motley’s eyes grew wide with selfish delight. The mission he was about to deliver was solely based on his intel from Margaret Oates, but the fine details he would have soon enough.
“Three deaths already. Three. Them little slimy slitherin things done killed three teenagers in our little community. Ashley Monroe, Susan Lubbock, and Seth Willard. Up till now, there ain't been much we could do about these reapins, but as sure as we’re all here in the House of God, amen, we now have a pretty good idea who the Keeper is.”
Muttering, whispering heads turned this way and that. A few broke their naps to join in the throws of gossip.
“All right now settle down.” Motley waved away the chatter. “That’s right. But there's only one problem with that and we all know what that is too, don't we? This person of interest may be flesh and blood, but he has no soul cause he sold it to the devil himself. The same devil that tempted Eve and Job and even Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, amen, the very devil that snares the righteous and turns them wicked. Amen, gang?”
“Mhmm, mhmm.”
“Yessir!”
“Amen!”
Motley had never before felt so grand in the pulpit. He unbuttoned his suit coat and stepped down from his soapbox, leaning back against the altar, pleased with the glittering eyes fixed upon him. “We gotta be sure it's him, this Keeper. Our old bird Floyd has been out there doing his thing and we’ve got him to thank. But I feel it in my gut, y’all. We're close to shuttin this mess up once and for all.”
“Who is it?”
“Come on, Carl, tell us!”
“Pipe down, Harley,” Motley said. “I said we gotta be sure first. But we are close. His well must be within town limits or pretty nearby, and it’s bein looked for.”
“Well?” Mrs. Carruthers asked. “You mean like a water well?”
“Something like that, Sister. But this is a well that goes straight down to the sizzling furnaces of hell. That's where these things sleep. It’s a den, darlin. Where they wait till he comes to get them and carry them out under the cover of darkness to sic them on the little babes born under Lucifer’s contract. I trust this don’t apply to any of y’all, but there are women out there who’ve done this deal. Pray their forgiveness and detest them not for trusting Satan’s clever disguise. We must find these people, gang. We must protect them. We must save them. ‘Rescue the perishing’ as the hymn says. ‘Duty demands it. Strength for thy labor the Lord will provide. Back to the narrow way patiently win them’.”
“Then what, Reverend?” Mrs. Webb asked from the third row.
“We get this Keeper,” Motley said against the growing silence. He removed his specs and burned those smoky eyes, “then we send him straight back to hell.”
2
Duke straddled the remains of a summer issue of Untamed Slutz whittling his morning wood. When he finished, he jumped in his car and got in the wind. He’d never been to the new bowling alley that was put up directly across from the Phillips 66 on the corner of Macklin and Potsdam. It was a great idea to have a place where kids could go unwind and have some clean fun without skipping across into Cullman County where you were just a cheap fake ID away from a frosty mug of carbonated piss called Witch Hazel Draft or something like that. Linda Starkweather had a
pproved Bill and Joanna Bixby for the startup capital––she passed on the behemoth’s pastry shop––because there was nowhere in Durden or Hemming for youngsters to play, and Bixby Lanes sounded like a swell place to start.
The lot was packed, but Duke squeezed into a sliver of asphalt in back of the place. He threw open the double doors and stood there checking out the glossy lanes. The smell of lumber, paint, and drywall still hung lightly in the air, but the mouthwatering aroma of cooking pizza from the snack bar drew him like a moth to a porch light. He bought a slice and a large Coke then sat down in a booth near the shoe rental nook. He checked his watch. 12:03. The afternoon sun shot into the lobby when the doors opened, usually just a couple with their rugrats bound for the lanes with gutter bumpers. He recognized a few faces. Shitty Smitty was sweeping up a pile of cedar-chip-covered spit-up beside lane 6, Susie Grafton from Social Studies was at lane 3 with Rick Watts and Billy Lowell, and in the far corner at lane 12 stood Jared Kemper and that lovely fedora with legs, Gina Starkweather.
He wanted her. She wasn’t like the others. She played hard to get. But she was completely into him. That’s what he thought anyway, and he considered their little romp around Goose Creek to be a means of showing Gina who was top dog, who was better for her. Then those snakes came and scared the ever loving bejesus out of him. Jared could have gotten bit and died and he’d be without his best friend for the first time since he and Jared took turns coloring a picture of a giraffe in Miss Anderson’s kindergarten class. It was a close call, that’s all.
But now he could see Jared was proving to be far more impressive to Gina than he hoped. Duke wrinkled his nose and rapped his knuckles on the table.
He checked his watch again. Maybe he forgot, Duke thought. He, Seth, and Roger talked earlier in the week about coming here and had made plans to bowl a few games before the football team met at five to go over tonight’s bloodbath with the Lewiston Tigers. It was past twelve now, and Seth was the punctual one. He should have been here already…
Roger tapped Duke on the shoulder and when Duke saw the look on his face, it was grave. Part of him knew why, but this was the kind of thing you shoved down into the basement of your brain, the place where all things horrible and malicious had teeth, and all the secrets were best kept under lock and key.
After Roger recounted the loss of a friend and fellow teammate, Duke slumped in his seat and felt a sickening gas of dread work its way through him. When someone you knew died because of a snakebite, you grieved, buried them, and got over it. And there were a lot of funerals this time of year. Almost everyone in the county had a closet full of black they picked through while the reaping went on. Tomorrow, Duke would wear his usual getup––black button-down shirt, black necktie, and charcoal slacks––to Prescott Funeral Home where about half of the community would be also. The other half got tired of the occasion and stayed home to kick back in front of the TV with a cold one and dream about what life was like outside of their little slice of hell.
Duke watched as Jared and Gina exchanged their bowling shoes for their own.
“I feel sick,” he said to Roger, who had his face buried in his hands.
Roger slid his hands down and rolled his gaze above Duke’s head. “Hey, Jared. I guess you heard?”
“I did, man. It’s awful.” Jared patted Duke on the shoulder. Duke turned around and saw no hat-wearing hottie standing there. Only Jared.
“Where’s Gina?” Duke asked.
“Said she was going downtown. Errands for her mom, I think.” Jared felt as though Gina hadn’t been completely honest when she told him that, but whatever she was really doing didn’t seem to matter that much.
“Game still on?”
“Talked to the coach about an hour ago,” Jared said, stretching. “The game goes on. Life goes on.”
That remark gave Duke chills, and Duke Pearson was no wuss, no woman. A startling realization hit him like a Mack truck. Hemming was a well-oiled machine that drove on through anything as trivial and as natural as death, passing it by with no remorse. Duke wore an icy cloak that exuded this same mentality. He didn’t want people to like him.
He wanted them to fear him.
Duke had to man up. He pushed away all that sensitivity and fell back in line, taking his seat on that runaway hot rod called Hemming.
He drove on through.
Life goes on.
3
Gina had only been to the archives once while researching the agricultural history of Arlo County for an essay in seventh grade. Most of the files on the twenty years of reaping were gone.
She saw the man sitting by the window, surrounded by towers of books and papers. In front of him sat a laptop computer. To his right: four empty styrofoam cups. To his left: a massive volume opened in the middle to a color photo spread of snakes.
He was handsomely dressed, chewing on an arm of his hornrimmed glasses. He must have felt her staring at him because he looked over his shoulder carefully. His eyes were bloodshot.
“Hi,” he said apprehensively.
“My brother told me about you.”
He squinted and relaxed, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Ah, Dylan. I can see the resemblance. Except you’re not a ginger, of course. What’s your name?”
“Gina.”
“Gina,” he repeated, somewhat startled by this beauty who now stood before him. “I like that name.”
She pointed at the computer screen. “What are you looking at there?”
“What? Oh this.” He put on his glasses and clicked the mouse a few times. “Well, I became rather intrigued with this whole Keeper of Serpents thing you people have been going on about, so I did some research.”
“You won’t find much here.”
“You’re right about that. I ran a search through a historical text database. Thousands of books and manuscripts are digitally archived there and best of all, they’re searchable. See?”
Alan put his finger on the screen. “I just came across this when you showed up.” He clicked some more and a color photo appeared. It was a book with the words
Custos Serpentium and an illustrated snake embossed on the cover. It was old. Very old. Gina thought it looked like it had been to hell and back, and part of her wondered if it wasn't far from the truth.
He looked at her, reveling in his discovery. “Know what that is?”
“It’s Latin, right?”
“Right you are. Know what it says?”
“We don’t have Latin at our school, Mr. Blair.”
“Alan,” he corrected and drew his finger under the subheading. Gina leaned in closer to read the caption in its entirety. Her abdomen tightened. Air whooshed from her lips until her lungs were emptied…
Text Title: Custos Serpentium
Translated Title: The Keeper of Serpents
Author: Sir Hugo Piersonne
Date: 1874 (month of publication unknown)
Source: University of Glasgow, Special Collections
Digital reproduction courtesy of the
International Preservation Society
There it was right in front of her. Alan scrolled through the text, keywords highlighted throughout.
“I printed off two copies. One to take back to the motel and one for my boss. Here.” Alan handed her one of the manuscripts bound with a large metal clip. “I can always print another.”
Gina was ecstatic. Alan closed his laptop and sighed. “I’m calling it a day. Might head over and grab something to eat. Want to join me?”
“I can’t, thanks. I gotta get back home soon anyway. Going to the football game tonight.”
“Really? Me, too.”
“Great! Well, maybe I’ll see you there.”
“Look that over. You know what’s been going on better than I do. If something stands out, make note of it. I can use all the help I can get, so if you and Dylan want to help me, I’d very much appreciate it.”
Alan was particularly excited about the possibility
of being spoon-fed a whole den full of these reaper snakes, that is, if this Wiggins cat wasn’t completely off his rocker. Then again, the whole cast of peculiar country folk he’d met since his arrival sent a flurry of distress from his toes to his overworked brain. If there was indeed a crazy man running around in the night using snakes to kill children, then he might have bit off more than he could chew.
Alan Blair’s ambition and optimism became stifled with childlike trepidation as he grew ill with an unexpected and possibly lethal case of the heebie jeebies.
CHAPTER SIX: MAN NAMED THADE
1
Gina had made it up the stairs and into the lobby of the archives when a framed black and white photo caught her eye. In it was a gaunt-faced man of about thirty leaning against an old car. In his hand, a glass jar with XXX written on the side.
His name was Rip Taggart. Back in the sixties, he could be heard barreling down the back roads of Hemming in his Hudson Hornet evading Constable Cloyd Green and his son Mikey who often rode with his father when he wasn't in school or picking cotton for the Gilbreth family. Cloyd had first heard Rip was running moonshine over from Cullman County to the local billiards hall on Main Street. Cloyd had been off-duty, walking past the the place when Gerald Inslet came out with a bulge in his wool coat. He asked Gerald if he was toting a bottle of what the old-timers called Crazy Clear. He was too trashed to come up with a solid lie, so Gerald gave up the owner, Eddie Raulston at the time, and said Eddie had indeed been buying it from Rip, boxes of the stuff, each bottle wrapped in burlap, and he would sell you a bottle for two dollars. Cloyd chased Rip down nearly every week because the people of Hemming expected him to, but it was mostly role-play. Cloyd confiscated as much Crazy Clear as he could to promise re-election, but he himself sipped the stuff without much guilt. Cloyd Green died of tuberculosis in 1986, but Rip Taggart could still be seen at Avery's every morning eating fried eggs with Floyd Wiggins. He still had the Hudson. He kept it in Bill Traver's Junkyard out towards the Cullman County line.
The Deadsong Page 9