by Mark Tufo
Chapter Three
The inside of the house remained immaculate but antiquated. The furniture stood covered in cloth and appeared about as uncomfortable as it did when he visited as a child. The family photos of the Zaun clan still hung in the foyer, some of them dating back to the 1800’s.
He pulled down his school picture from second grade and put the photo face-down on the small table that held his grandmother’s ashes and the dish where his grandfather used to place his keys and change. He hated the picture and it had been a game for him to try to get the photo off the wall and hide it. His grandfather always caught him in the act. He would laugh and mount the picture on the higher nail for the rest of the visit. The next visit the picture would be on the lower nail. The huge ring of keys was there–minus the house key the realtor obviously came inside to get–and a pile of loose change. Michael, curious, counted out sixty-five cents. He pocketed the coins and glanced around sheepishly, waiting for his grandfather to catch him in the act and scold him.
As Michael walked from room to room he made some mental notes about changes he’d need to make: the master bedroom–his grandfather’s room–would become his room; the last bedroom at the end of the hall would be Larry’s room when he visited. The great room downstairs would be modernized, with the television and some new couches. The kitchen would eventually need a makeover, Michael recognized the refrigerator; the appliance had been old when he was born. The cabinets would need a re-facing and a new kitchen table purchased, since the current one was about the size of a TV tray and the old, wooden chairs would never hold Michael’s weight.
The pantry held canned foodstuffs and a healthy supply of bottled water, as well as enough paper towels and napkins to supply an army. He assumed his grandfather made sporadic trips into town and hoped a Sam’s Club or Wal-Mart was nearby so he could also bulk up on needed items.
“I solemnly swear to not buy candy bars,” he said, and bowed his head in mock reverence. He wondered if Cove Springs had a consignment shop or used furniture store. If he got lucky they’d have a treadmill or a Bowflex.
Michael patted his large stomach and sighed. Just moving around the house made him sweat and feel winded.
He checked the fridge but came up empty. The whole thing needed a good cleaning; some unnamed gunk was stuck to the bottom and something, possibly a soda, had exploded on the top shelf thirty years ago and never got wiped up. Groceries are needed. Michael realized he needed food tonight since he hadn’t packed the boxes of Twinkies, Pop Tarts and cookies that made up his staple sustenance. Now he wished he had, at least they would have been something to tide him over until the morning when he went into town. Luckily he had found the pantry yesterday and feasted on the canned peaches.
A cursory glance back into the pantry helped him decide a meal of canned peaches and canned okra would work for tonight. He knew better than to drink from the faucet, but the well out back would yield some decent water once he boiled it in the big black kettle like grandfather used to.
Four jugs toward the back of the pantry made him laugh: grandfather had been an avid distiller of his home brew and Michael supposed the jugs marked ‘GOOD’ held his moonshine supply.
He palmed the smallest jug. “Aged moonshine. Do I dare?” He thought back to his childhood and helping his grandfather out in the woods with the still. He wondered if the apparatus still stood out there. To Michael, it always seemed easier to just go to the liquor store and buy yourself a six-pack. But to his grandfather, making moonshine had been an art form. He never really remembered his grandfather drinking what he made after the first test sip.
His grandmother always looked down on grandfather for making the moonshine; she was a proper Northern lass to hear the tale from her lips. Born in Connecticut, she fell in love with Michael’s grandfather when they were sixteen and he was stationed in Groton for the Navy. When his military time came to an end, they married and headed south, buying the property from grandfather’s grandfather Zaun.
The Zaun Farm had been in the family for over two hundred years. Stories, passed down from generation to generation, told of Indians living on the property and a slave quarters decaying in the deeper woods. Michael had been too young to search for himself his last visits. He supposed he could do that now, if he wanted to. He had all the time in the world.
His grandparents had one child, Michael’s father. They raised him on the farm, but at eighteen he left Cove Springs for good and moved to New York to attend NYU. It was always with reluctance his parents let Michael visit the Zaun Farm. He understood his father and his parents had a decent relationship, with birthday cards and the short phone calls for holidays, but his father had distanced himself as far away from the Zaun Farm and his past life as possible.
At Michael’s high school graduation, his father, never much of a drinker, had a few beers with the other parents and berated his ‘hillbilly’ upbringing on a farm, even going so far as pulling out Michael’s U.K. Sub cassette and playing “Down on the Farm.” Michael had been impressed his old man even knew the song, and horrified for the other parents due to the coarse language and graphic depiction of the song.
When his father choked out the lyrics, ‘Are you born in a fucking barn or what,’ several females groaned and Larry’s dad snickered and made a sheep noise. Michael’s mother had been mortified and he’d never seen his father take another drink.
Michael preferred the Guns N Roses version of the song and made a mental note to blast the song tonight for his old man.
The air was cloying in the kitchen and Michael decided some open windows would do the house good. The small kitchen window over the sink had been painted over and he struggled to tap enough around the edges to unstick it. He decided he would get every window cracked and let some of that pretty country air swirl around and clean out the dusty odor.
A gentle breeze, blowing directly into the now-open window and across the back porch, slapped Michael in the face. Instead of flowers and corn and dirt, he smelled death. The fucking dead cows. He sighed and closed the windows.
Chapter Four
Jim Rutan stood in the doorway of the tool shed and watched the lights go out in the kitchen of the Zaun Farm. “That fat fuck is living there now?”
“How should I know?” Gary DeMantis asked from the workbench, where he concentrated on rolling joints for those in attendance: Butch Reed lounged in the corner trying desperately to fondle Trisha Smith’s breasts and failing, while twin sisters, Samantha and Alyssa Grant, appeared bored and whispered in the far corner.
“I hope he doesn’t tear down this tool shed. I like it here,” Jim said.
“This place gives me the creeps.” Trisha pushed away from Butch’s pathetic advances and went to Jim at the door. “If my parents knew we came out here they would kill me.”
“If your parents thought you hung out with friends who smoked weed they’d kill you, too, I’m guessing.” Gary passed the joint to Jim, who took it eagerly. When he took a sizable hit, he held the joint out for Trisha, who declined.
She never smoked weed but that never stopped her friends from trying to get her to start. It was no big deal to her. She was content to hang out and talk with her friends and try to stay active. Even at seventeen she was bored of life in this small town and couldn’t wait for senior year to begin so she could do well in school and get into one of the fashion institutes in New York City.
“We should teach that guy a lesson for giving us the finger,” Butch said.
"I gave him the finger, dumb-ass," Gary said.
Jim laughed and shook his head. “I’m glad he didn’t have a shotgun like the old guy used to have. Remember that time the old man shot at us?”
“And you thought you were hit because you ran through the thorn bushes and got your legs cut up.”
Jim punched Gary in the arm. “I could have died.” He grinned. Jim turned back to the house. “I wonder if he’s related to the old guy.”
“It looks like he ate hi
m,” Butch said.
The twins joined everyone else cramped in the doorway. “Can we leave?” they both asked. They thought saying things at the same time came across as cute, but after so many years their friends were getting sick of the tactic.
Jim had once told Gary and Butch about sneaking into Samantha’s room and fucking her and listening to Alyssa moaning in her bedroom at the same time, like they were joined at the brain.
The fact he never even kissed Samantha didn’t matter, as his friends ate up the story and retold the tale as gospel to the other guys at school. Jim supposed eventually the lie would blow up in his face, but he didn’t care. It was a cool and easy way to get his rep up around the locker room and keep everyone from thinking he was odd.
“Can we leave now? This is boring doing this every night.” Butch glanced at Trisha and motioned with his head to leave. She looked away.
“No one is keeping you here.” Jim took another hit. “I just hope the headless corpses don’t follow you home alone.”
All three girls insisted on being walked home by the boys after these trips. They all agreed the woods of the Zaun Farm were creepy and very dark, even during the daytime. Trisha commented more than once about how utterly quiet they stayed.
Jim stepped outside and cocked his head to the side. “Did you hear that?”
“Shut up,” the twins said in unison.
“The old man has come back to life to find his head.” Jim pointed in mock fear at the woods. “The headless girls are with him.”
Trisha ran at Jim and pushed him. “Cut the shit, Jim!”
Smiling sheepishly, Jim put up his hands in submission. “Just having some fun.”
“It’s not funny and you know it.” Trisha went to Samantha and Alyssa. “I’m going home.”
“We’ll go, too,” they replied.
Butch winked at Gary. “I’ll take the girls home.”
“What if we were all leaving?” Gary asked.
“I just thought you guys were staying here,” Butch said with a shrug. “Are you coming?”
“Hell no.” Jim leaned against the tool shed. “We’re going to stay here until the headless chicks get here. I’m hoping they carry their heads with them this time. Easier getting a blowjob from an actual head.”
“Sick bastard,” Trisha scoffed. Without waiting for anyone else she started moving.
“Hey, wait up,” Butch said.
“Butch!” Gary called. When Butch turned, Gary was fished in his pocket. “You and Trisha need a condom? Oh, no, wait… she thinks you’re an asshole.”
“I think you’re the asshole.” Butch hurried to catch up with Trisha and the twins.
“Ha-ha that was too funny.” Jim went back into the tool shed and sat on the floor and closed his eyes.
“Not again,” Gary groaned. Every time the others left, Jim would do the same ritual.
His had this idea to channel the ghosts of the dead that had been murdered here, and talk to them. Gary thought the whole thing corny, but while Jim was busy in his position, Gary could finish the second joint by himself.
“I can’t wait until senior year. Man, we are gonna rule the school.” Gary sat down next to Jim. “This is the year when all of the pussy is – “
“Shut up, dickhead.” Jim opened one eye. “I can’t concentrate with your bullshit.”
Gary snickered. He thought the whole thing might be the stupidest bullshit he’d ever been involved in, but even this crazy shit was better than going home. By now his mom would be home and wanting to talk or have a late dinner together or watch TV. His life sucked.
He glanced at Jim and sighed. While Gary hated his home life because his mom was so overprotective, Jim had it really bad. His father happened to be a Sheriff’s officer and his mom a dispatcher. Jim had told Gary that’s where they’d met. Jim wasn’t allowed to do anything and his parents always harassed him for the people he hung out with and the music he listened to.
Unconsciously Gary fidgeted with his growing hair. Jim had a crew-cut thanks to his dad. Jim wanted to be a rebel but his old man wouldn’t let him.
I’m a fucking rebel, Gary thought and ignored the punch from Jim. He put his back to the rear wall and closed his eyes, taking a long drag from the joint.
It was so quiet and so peaceful here, away from reality and his mom’s insistence he go to church with her and wear the new clothes she bought him from the mall. He preferred his ratty Slipknot T-shirt and his dirty jeans. He’d take his beat-up Vans over the pricey kicks his mom bought any day of the week. “I’m the fucking rebel,” he repeated and waited for Jim’s punch. He liked to bust his friend’s balls sometimes, bring him back down to Earth.
Gary didn’t believe for a minute Jim had nailed Samantha or his bogus story, but he liked hearing it over and over. He got that Jim was a cherry the same as Butch and the same as him, but if Jim needed lies to make himself feel better so be it. Gary wanted to get in Trisha’s pants anyway. This afternoon, while they were hanging out in front of the Huddle House after a cheap meal, Gary had glimpsed Trisha’s red thong sticking out and got an instant hard-on. He was sure Jim noticed as well, since he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her ass the rest of the day.
“I know you saw Trisha’s thong today.” Gary laughed. He opened one eye and waited for the punch. “Huh?”
Jim was gone.
Gary suddenly felt cold despite the heat, even at night. He realized he was alone and hated the realization.
“I know you’re trying to mess with me, Jim. It’s not going to work.” Gary picked up a shovel hanging on the wall and moved slowly toward the door. “If you try to jump out, I’ll bash your head in.” Gary swung the shovel outside to either side, lunged out, and rolled clear of the door.
Jim didn’t spring out from the roof or the side of the tool shed.
“Where the fuck are you?” Gary glanced around but he couldn’t see much in the dark. He shivered. “I’m going home. Catch you tomorrow, asshole.”
Gary kept the shovel as he started toward home by himself.
The woods were silent and every step he took crashed below him with snapping twigs and dried leaves crunching.
He didn’t notice Jim shuffling toward the Zaun Farm house.
Chapter Five
When Dir of the Earth sensed the faint call above him he struggled to hear it again. Am I dreaming of the world above again? Can it be time so soon to walk among the trees and feel the sun on a human face?
He remembered times when the call had been nothing more than a memory or too far off from the tool shed. The calls had come few and far between in the years since his prison had been buried here, under the ground and further blocked by the human structure. He yearned for a few scant moments to stretch another’s legs and caress the dirt with their fingers.
In human terms, only days had passed since he'd been called, since his escape, and subsequent re-banishment by the Zaun descendant. Now the call again, so soon? Impossible.
Despite not having a mouth or vocal chords Dir laughed. He yearned to spend infinite decades walking the land and living and breathing. Dir also knew the Zaun human had sacrificed himself and others in the binding spell. He was no more.
His brethren laughed at him. They couldn’t understand why domination of the species– especially the lowly humans–wasn’t his master plan. He had tried many times to instill a basic understanding of their short-sighted plans.
To destroy the human race would destroy their only means of permanent escape and deplete them as an energy source. But they didn’t understand and couldn’t understand. The release from their prisons was a temporary reprieve before being pushed back down either due to their own negligence or stupidity. Once the humans found them living in a host body, they found a way to get them back into their prisons. Simple as that.
Dir of the Earth wanted to run in the fields and drink spring water and sip the great liquors of the world man had created. He loved their temptations. He especially enjoyed
sex.
He heard the call again, faintly, from above in the tool shed, and realized with disdain the call was weak because the caller was weak.
His initial impulse advocated ignoring the call and waiting for another, but he knew hesitation was foolish. It was so much easier to gain a weak host and then switch to a more powerful one when the opportunity presented itself. He just needed to be careful: many of his ilk and brethren had been destroyed quickly in a weak shell, the power so bad it drained them before they could switch. He didn’t necessarily want a strong host. He remembered what had happened when he tried to overtake the old man last …
With a tentative grasp he reached out and probed the mind of this weakling. Jim Rutan, a teenager from a middle-class family with no real redeemable skills or problems. He had no real strengths to use, no real weaknesses to exploit. Jim Rutan was … dull. He would have to do.
Jim Rutan called to him, which startled Dir. This inferior human had no idea what lurked below, yet he called out in his mind to the one who sacrificed the female humans not long ago. It made no sense, and yet…
With ease, and quite a bit of disappointment, Jim Rutan and his body were possessed, his awareness and mind pushed to the far corner of the host. Some of his brethren liked to break the owner’s soul and will first, leaving nothing inside, so when the next host was taken the last host’s body would simply die. Dir usually let the mind and awareness remain until the very end, before switching, and then taking care of the host with the new one. His method seemed less barbaric to him.
He scanned the meager memories and ideals of Jim Rutan and came away with almost nothing. Dir made a mental list of all of the humans in Jim’s life and used his memories to figure out who the most likely new host would be.
As he grew accustomed to Jim and his body, he rose slowly from his squatting position and was startled to find another human in the tool shed with him. A quick scan told him this was Gary DeMantis, someone Jim thought of as a friend.