Peculiar Country

by Stuart R. West

  It didn’t surprise me, not a bit, but I acted that way anyhow. Sometimes it’s less work to give adults what they expect. “Oh, my gosh. What’d you find?”

  “Well…I’d guess Hettie’s death happened about twelve to fourteen hours ago.”

  Not too long after I’d left her home last night. The thought I’d barely missed encountering Hettie’s killer—maybe even my own death—dropped the fear of mortality on top of me with the solid load of a piano.

  “Even though her eyes had begun to cloud over,” he continued, “she had small burst blood veins beneath her eyelids. There was also small pressure build-up behind her ears. And I’m afraid to say…she’d wet herself a bit.” Dad looked askance, downright silly the things that could embarrass a mortician. “Now, none of that’s hardly condemning evidence of a murder. Suspect, sure, but it wouldn’t hold up in a court of law. But…I found slight ligature marks—dark brown spots—on her neck and a couple around her wrists. Also, her tongue was enlarged.”

  “What’s it mean?” I asked, but already knew the answer.

  “I believe Hettie was strangled. Coupled with your theory about the lamp being shattered across the room…well… A full autopsy should reveal more.”

  “What’re you gonna do?”

  “I’m gonna call the Sheriff, tell him my suspicions, and recommend an autopsy. Whether I carry it out or the County boys over in Durham take care of it makes no difference to me. Just as long as it gets done.” Carefully, he handed me two bowls filled to the rim with milk. “Here. Go on and tend to Hettie’s friends while I call the Sheriff. May as well get it over with.”

  Dad rolled his eyes, and I well understood. A cantankerous cuss, even Sisyphus himself couldn’t budge the Sheriff once he set his mind to something.

  I rushed outside and set the bowls down, spilling a bit in my haste. Again, Dad’s conversation with the Sheriff was one I intended to hear.

  When I came back inside, Dad had locked down into the living room sofa. Eyes closed—how he dredged up deep concentration—he struggled mightily to keep his voice on an even keel.

  “…I know, I know, Bill. It’ll be costly… But, frankly, it’d be a miscarriage of justice if we didn’t… No, I’m not telling you how to do your job…. No, I don’t want your job… Look, I’m just telling you what I discovered… I know you told me not to… There isn’t any such damn thing as death by natural causes and this sure as hell doesn’t even come close!” Rarely did Dad blow his top, but whenever he did, animals from miles around burrowed back into their hidey holes. “I’m telling you she was strangled!... All I want to do is conduct a little further… Fine! I’ll contact the boys over at County if you won’t… Uh huh… Mm-hmm… Of course you’ll be the first to know… Uh huh… Sure, you betcha. Thanks, Bill.”

  Dad hung up. A litany of curses, nearly poetic in its colorful alliteration and impossible body contortions, flew from his mouth.

  I cleared my throat, announcing my arrival in the room.

  He jumped up off the sofa, turned around. “Oh…sorry, Dibby. I didn’t know you were there.”

  “How’d it go with the Sheriff?”

  “Pretty much as I suspected.” He swat the air, chasing after an invisible fly. “Grigsby never wants to do his job. Laziest damn fool in town. Probably why he took the Hangwell position in the first place.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  Dad fixed me with common sense eyes. “Because there’s rarely ever any murders in Hangwell.”

  Common sense eyes or not, I reckoned Dad had no idea what he was talking about.

  * * *

  The Sheriff relented and gave Dad his blessing to perform an autopsy. The fact Dad volunteered to do it no charge undoubtedly helped sway the decision. The County boys charged an arm and a leg, drawing deep from Hangwell’s tax funds.

  Like a dog with a bone, once Dad attached himself to something, he wouldn’t let go. Over dinner, he grew that far away look, already planning Hettie’s autopsy. Before he’d finished eating, he mumbled an “excuse me,” then vanished into his mad scientist’s lair. The banging and buzzing commenced, shared through the elaborate duct-work of our patchwork house.

  Retired to my room early, I attempted to make sense of the geometry problems swimming in my text book. As my reward, they handed me back gobbledy-gook.

  I crawled into bed. Unsettling thoughts burrowed deep and ripped the bandage off my fear.

  Why would someone have killed Hettie? Probably because of what she knew about the Saunders’ boy. I harbored no doubt Hettie and Thomas’ murders were connected. And I was smack-dab in the middle of it all, maybe even the reason for Hettie’s premature death. I imagined it wouldn’t be long before the killer came a’calling for me.

  Which meant I had to move the urgency of my investigation up a hair.

  I tossed and turned for what seemed like hours, but only amounted to minutes. The room’s stuffiness kept sleep at bay. I bounced out of bed, trod toward the window, and flung it open. A light breeze lifted the curtains, sent them waving at me.

  Satisfied, I dove back under covers. And knew full well why I’d opened the window, nothing to do with having nature at my call. Maybe Thomas would make another nocturnal appearance and I surely didn’t want to sleep through it.

  But the real reason?

  James.

  Why couldn’t I let go? My mind kept circling back to the stupid, arrogant, cheating, lying jerk. The very cute and charming and irresistible jerk.

  I came around to wondering if I’d been a little harsh on him, two punches worth of harsh. And maybe he’d mounted a solid defense for his heinous crime, one Perry Mason himself couldn’t have presented better.

  Still…what kind of mettle did he consist of, if he immediately fell back on the monstrous Suzette just because I hadn’t given him a fast answer regarding our movie date? The girl he swore he had no interest in other than as a friend. And who would want her as a friend any ol’ how?

  I sighed. Whipped down the bedspread so just the thin sheet provided cool coverage. A breeze rolled in, sailing me off to slumberland.

  But every time I nearly dozed off, stupid images of James snatched me back from the brink.

  Some foolish part of me wanted James to pay another late night visit. To come calling at my window at midnight, the way Romeo courted Juliet. A tragically romantic relationship. A tale as old as…

  Snurk!

  Clear thoughts jolted me awake.

  Then my round-robin thoughts started bob-bob-bobbing along again…

  Of course, I couldn’t just flat-out forgive James. Not yet. Well…not completely. Maybe a little.

  Dang it, I wanted him to chase me, beg me for forgiveness, plead his undying love toward me. Prove himself. Earn my trust. Be my…my…

  Donggg…

  Somewhere a bell chimed. A deep clang that resonated long after the clapper had stilled.

  Slowly, I rose through the cloudy, thick muck of sleep, swimming to break the shoreline of consciousness.

  Donggg…

  With an abruptly violent intake of air, I bolt up in bed. A strand of saliva trailed from the corner of my mouth. I wiped my chin, rubbed sleep from my eyes. Blinked. Confirmed my surroundings. Looked at my bedroom window where the curtains whipped back and forth at a mad rate.

  In bare feet, I stumbled toward the window, poked my head out. Beneath a full and bloated moon, the Saunders’ cornfield appeared at peace. No unusual movement, definitely no heart-aching pleas from Thomas.

  So what shook me from my sleep?

  I thought I’d only dozed a few minutes at most. But the clock spoke a different tale. A little after two in the morn, several hours had passed since I’d last looked.

  Most definitely something had stirred me out of my dreamless slumber, though. Sleep cobwebs draped over my mind, obscuring clarity.

  Something about a bell…

  Ting-a-ling…

  Barely a sound at all, really, not worth a second thought
. It could’ve been the wind playing outside. Maybe a bell tied around a distant cow’s neck. Probably nothing at all, just—

  Ding!

  There! I didn’t imagine it. Faint as a final drop of rain into the gutter, it formed a solid, if slight, sound.

  Ting…

  Down by my slippers, coming from the vent. On my knees, I placed my ear on the cold, hardwood floor.

  Ding-ding!

  The sudden sound, sharp as a hand-clap, brought me to my feet. My full bladder pressed against my pelvis. I danced into my slippers and quietly scurried down the hall to the bathroom.

  The bathroom’s layout memorized, the light stayed off. I sat down to conduct my business. A whiff of air blew through the vent and chilled my feet.

  Ching…ding…

  I finished, yanked up my pajama bottoms. For now, I left the toilet unflushed. Once put into motion it sounded like a dinosaur with a toothache, a sound capable of waking even Dad.

  Taking my time, I washed my hands. Procrastinating.

  Because I knew what caused the sound, knew it deep down, my dread unbearable.

  Down below, way below in Dad’s workshop, the bell chimed again.

  Ting-a-ling…

  Summoning me.

  As much as I wanted to wake Dad, revert to a scaredy cat little girl and ask if he’d accompany me, I knew I had to make the journey myself.

  Dad’s snores sawed out from his room. With care, I lifted my feet, acutely aware of every little sound now. My slippers shh, shh, shushed, muffling my footfalls.

  Halfway down the stairwell, the temperature dropped. Not by much. But cold enough to raise a goose farm on my flesh.

  I followed the hall, tread by the kitchen. Every time I passed a vent—supply or return, high or low, it didn’t matter—the bell rang again. Guiding me ever forward.

  In the added wing of the mortuary, I pushed through the first set of swinging doors. Behind me they swung silently, well-oiled. A backlash of cool air urged me on.

  Heavy darkness filled the hallway. Blind, I prospected along the wall for the light switch. I found it. Overhead, the three dim bulbs sparked into half-life, a jaundiced color. Alien and hard on the eyes.

  Dinggg…

  As I descended closer to the source, the bell rang a bit louder. The after-effect resonated longer, a tiny gnat persistently buzzing at my ear.

  On the wall, three generations of Caldwells posed in yellowed, framed photographs. A sudden draft, alive, rushed up and lifted my hair. Above, the bulbs swayed on their cords like pendulums. Shadows flitted back and forth across Grandpa’s photo, setting him to dancing a jig. One second his foot high-kicked, then falling shadow set him right again. I knew it couldn’t be real. But I didn’t care to investigate, just in case reality and me had recently parted ways.

  At the end of the hall, my foot crunched on a floor-set vent grate. I yelped, stepped back. Cool air whiffed up from it. An orange light flickered beneath the metal grid, burning like a match before it snuffed out.

  Ting…dinggg…

  Around the corner, I descended the first ramp. My slippers fairly acted like a toboggan and propelled me down the slope at a fast clip. At the landing, I turned my shoulder to take the brunt of my impact into the wall.

  Ding! Ding! Ting…

  The bell chimed louder, more demanding. Temperatures kept right on dropping, too, but didn’t manage to quell my sweat.

  The next ramp likewise hurried my descent. My feet slapped the bottom floor. To the right, the furnace. To the left, the swinging doors leading into Dad’s workshop.

  Zing! Ding-a-ling! Chinggg…

  I didn’t need the bell to lead me through the right door. Just like in the ol’ story, I chose the door with the tiger behind it.

  I pushed through the doors. They swat at my backside, squeaking with mischief. Eee-hee, eee-hee…

  Down in the workshop, the cold really packed a wallop. I rubbed my arms, stamped my feet. I rode my hand along the wall, searching for the light switch.

  Tik…tek…tik…

  Fluorescent ceiling lamps sprung to life, duller, deader than usual. Instead of providing warm luminescence, they cast everything in an odd light, everything touched in artificial tints.

  Immediately, the strong, familiar odor of ammonia enveloped me. But I couldn’t place the other smell, couldn’t describe it. If pressed, I suppose I’d catalog it somewhere between sweet and metallic. Sorta the way blood tastes when you prick your finger and suck on it. I’d never smelled anything like it before, not in Dad’s workshop or elsewhere.

  An overriding smell rode in like fog. A strong, wrong odor that brought to mind mold and rot. A primal scent from a different time or place.

  Ching! Ding! Ting-a-ling!

  Impatient as a hungry baby, the bell-ringer called.

  Click.

  The walk-in refrigerator door handle swung up.

  Chumpf!

  The door released its seal and opened, just a few inches. A pale blue—hardly blue, more like moon-white—cone of light fell across the floor. A swirl of frost slivered out, twirled in the bare luminescence.

  Ding! Ding! Ching! Ting-a-ling-aling—

  Cut off in mid-ring, the bell silenced. Everything hushed. No sound, not a peep, a tick, a drop. Just the silent shroud of death.

  Slowly, I crept toward the refrigerator. Which didn’t make a lick of sense as I knew Hettie waited for me. There didn’t seem to be any real sense in maintaining silence either. But any noise—even my own—made me want to scream.

  Above me, the light flickered off, on, then sizzled like bacon before settling on dark.

  My hand gripped the handle. Arctic cold, I wrenched my hand back. I flagged it ‘till the stabbing needles of cold left. With my shoulder, I nudged the door. It pushed open half-way, then stopped. I followed with a mighty mule kick.

  The door opened about as far as its hinges would allow.

  I took a deep breath, held it. When I exhaled, I spouted out a frozen, visible vapor.

  “Hettie?” I whispered.

  I entered. To the left, the metal shelves on the wall were unoccupied. On the opposite side, all but one sat empty. A rumpled plastic cloth lay across the bottom shelf.

  The eerie blue light had no visible source, but it provided ample light to see by. Maybe too much, considering.

  “Hettie?” I repeated a little louder.

  In the back of the unit, where Dad housed his supplies, a hanging shower curtain billowed out. Plastic crinkled. Something moved, fluid behind the curtain’s rippling waves. Not exactly flesh-colored, not much of anything.

  Tinggg!

  My heart urged me to turn back. Traitorous feet wouldn’t comply.

  White snails of fingers crawled around the plastic and gripped it. Slowly, the curtain pulled back. Rusty rings on a rustier rod squealed screeeeeee.

  Hettie stood exposed, naked. Except for the black “X” stitching up her innards. Varicose veins twined her legs. Toes exploded into corns the size of thumbs. Her scrubbing pad of hair stood up on end, a static raised brush of black and white.

  Clouds had moved into her eyes, milkier than when I’d found her, yet intently focused on me. She showed that awful cavernous smile again. Barnacle-like teeth jabbed out of her gums.

  Her lower jaw wobbled, then dropped ajar. Not an involuntary movement caused by gas either, the way sometimes happened to corpses. She gasped, a hissing radiator.

  She took a doddering step toward me.

  Ding!

  The bell tied to her toe tolled.

  Ding-a-ling!

  Each step forward took great effort. A kind of ghostly arthritis hampered her dead limbs, encased them in cement. When she moved, wood cracked. More wood splintered, her body falling apart. She raised an arm. Dark veins spiraled around it, swimming upstream with determination. They rode toward her sagging bosom, traveled north up her neck, snaked beneath her chin, and set up house on her face.

  And still she kept coming.


  I managed a step back, nearly stumbled.

  Ding!

  “Hettie? It’s me…Dibby.” My voice retreated into a Betty Boop squeak.

  But she stopped. Her mouth narrowed. Her eyes swam clear, then clouded again.

  “Hettie, I’m mighty sorrowful this happened to you. Can…can I do anything for you?” I didn’t know what to say, no experience well to pull from.

  Hettie gasped again. Not the spooky hiss from before, but a sudden intake of air as if startled. The noise cut off abruptly, ended in a ghastly wheeze. After all, she no longer had breath to call upon.

  “Hettie… Who did this to you?”

  Her arm still upraised, a finger cracked out. Pointed at me.

  “No… I didn’t do any—”

  Then I realized she wasn’t crooking her digit at me, but rather over my shoulder. Her mouth strained into agony, she continued to gesture toward the wall.

  “What? What’re you trying to tell me?”

  Anger flushed her eyes from cloudy to full-on thunderstorm. And she just kept on motioning that crooked finger.

  The air dropped another notch, near intolerable. My breath blew out great streams of frozen vapor.

  Behind me, the refrigerator door slammed shut with a whumpf.

  “No!” Terrified I was sealed inside a frozen coffin, I whirled around.

  The back of the refrigerator door crystallized. Ice particles formed and migrated toward the middle. An invisible finger scrawled something inside the ice patch.

  A straight line darted up at an angle, another one came down. The line crossed over, and several more built on it until a star stood revealed. A six-pointed star like the one I’d seen Hettie sitting in the night before.

  Suddenly, the temperature rose. The image melted away.

  “Hettie…I don’t understand what—”

  When I turned back around, she was gone. The blue light faded. The refrigerator’s usual wan yellow light ticked on.

  Against the wall, on the lower shelf, a body formed ski-slope bumps beneath the plastic blanket. Hettie’s wild hair stuck out the top, her corn-riddled toes the bottom.

  The bell had stopped ringing.

  The seal on the door clumped. The door swung open. Incoming air provided warm relief with an almost human, yet hushed, sigh.