Scary Creek

by Thomas Cater

  “Triplets then,” I said softly. “Do you know the exact date of your births?”

  The orange fires in their eyes suddenly flared brightly and then quickly died.

  “It has been a long time, Mr. Case. We have forgotten a great deal.”

  He was a man after my own heart, good old motor-mouth Quilp. “Do you remember your age when you started working for the hospital?”

  One of them took a step forward. In the dense and shadowy gloom, many unseen things were occurring. The smell of sulfur was going straight to my brain, and I may have been hallucinating. When my nose stopped twitching, the little men were still there, but not in the exact same place.

  “A long time ago,” one said. “It’s in the file,” another said.

  “Is that you, Scratch?” I asked of the last voice.

  “Ballsitch,” the voice replied.

  I decided it was time to see what they knew about the Ryders and Grier.

  “Do any of you remember Dr. Grier?”

  For one brief second their eyes appeared to burst into flame and then just as quickly died out like cold embers. At the same time, the fire in the furnace roared. I wasn’t sure which had caused the other. Their oversized heads were wagging back and forth, and they talked in hushed whispers to each other.

  “He was here in the 20s and 30s,” I said. “He performed many operations on the people upstairs. Do you remember when he died?”

  They stopped moving and stared at me. “He is dead?” One of them asked. I think it was the chatterbox Quilp.

  “Yes, he died in the late 1930s or 40s, about fifty years ago.”

  Their heads started wobbling back and forth anxiously.

  “He is dead … for certain?”

  “Yes,” I said. “He’s buried in the graveyard on the Ryder family estate.”

  There was more weaving and bobbing, but this time with an excess of energy I had not realized the Alberichs were capable of generating.

  “So that explains it,” I heard one murmur.

  “Explains what?” I exhorted.

  “His absence,” another voice replied.

  “Yes,” I said, “I suppose it would.”

  “And the Nibelung King, has he also passed?”

  “The who?”

  “The one with the fire in his hair.”

  “Fire in his hair? You mean, Samuel, of course you do, the one with red hair. Yes, he too has passed.”

  “And what of Lorelei, has she returned?”

  “Lorelei? You mean, Elinore? She’ll return no more, that’s for sure. She too has passed over.”

  The three little guys gathered in a huddle and spoke in whispers. A minute later, they were squaring off with me and back on the line of scrimmage.

  “They had no eyes,” I heard another say after a brief silence.

  “What? Who? What did you say? Who had no eyes?”

  “The ones who came to us; they had no eyes.”

  “Ballsitch, is that you?”

  “Scratch,” the voice replied. “They had no eyes.”

  I was so happy by the fact that I was getting a response that I nearly forgot how to ask questions.

  “Who has no eyes, Scratch?”

  “The ones who came to us; they had no eyes.”

  “What do you mean the ones who came to us…you?”

  I figured he was talking about hospital patients, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. I wanted it spelled out, nice and clear.

  “The ones who came to us, they had no eyes.”

  “Ballsitch, I want to know exactly what you mean by that.”

  “I’m Scratch,” the voice said. “The ones who came from the land above.” He pointed straight up to the hospital.

  “You mean the patients? The patients who came to you had no eyes. Why would they come to you?”

  All three of them turned toward the entrance of the mine and pointed. Shit. Unless I was irrevocably mad, or given to flights of incredible fancy, I was about to discover a vault or a graveyard under the hospital.

  “Are the ones … who came to you … still there?” I asked.

  “The ones without eyes no longer suffer,” Scratch, I think, replied.

  I was relieved to hear that. The last thing I wanted to be famous for was discovering a mass grave filled with unidentifiable bodies beneath the hospital.

  “Where have they gone?”

  “To earth,” he replied. “They have gone to earth.”

  That sounded very much like a common grave to me.

  “Are they inside the mine?” I asked, reluctantly.

  “Beyond,” he said.

  Double damn. “Can you show me?”

  “We will take you there, if you so declare.”

  I was not sure what I was saying or doing, or what I was going to do once I got there. My body was over-dosing on fumes from the furnace and strange secretions from glands that had all but atrophied generations ago.

  “I want to see where they are buried, Scratch. I want you to take me into the mine and show me.”

  They started mumbling among themselves again and eventually focused on me.

  “Come,” a voice replied.

  “Is that you, Scratch?”

  “Quilp,” he replied.

  They turned and started walking into the mine. I ran up behind them. “Do you have a hat or a lantern for me?” I pleaded. “I’m almost blind in the dark.”

  “You won’t need one,” Quilp proclaimed.

  I fell in step at the end of the short line. The one day I don't bring a lantern, you can bet I’m going to need it. As the darkness grew more intense, I could see a dim light illuminating the area ahead. The light looked as if it were coming from their faces and not the lanterns in their hats. I grabbed Quilp or Scratch’s shirttail and stayed close behind, listening to him breath, occasionally stepping on his heels. He had a peculiar smell, the one I was following, similar to mushrooms or some other dried fungus. They all emitted subtle variations of the same peculiar smell. It was not unpleasant, just alien.

  It took about five minutes for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The little orange light emanating from their lamps was not up to the job required, especially in that shaft. The longer we proceeded, however, the brighter the light became.

  When Quilp turned to see how I was getting along, my heart made a leap for my throat. His eyes were as glowing embers pitted with hard black rough-edged pupils that burned inside my head. They made me smell and taste ashes and smoke and awakened memories of goblins and demons dancing around sacrificial bonfires.

  I thought I was going to faint. He could see I was having a hard time coping with his appearance. He turned his face away. It is no wonder those little guys never leave the security of the hospital basement. They would have been murdered and served up as demons if they were ever caught on the street after dark.

  “Thanks Quilp,” I whispered softly, but I didn’t hear his reply, if he made one.

  I don’t know how long we were in the mine, but it must have been at least forty-five minutes. There were things down there scuttling around in the darkness, things that wouldn’t stay put and hated the light. There were steel doors, cages and dimly lit cells filled with swaying shadows, and old splintered wooden boxes that looked like coffins. I forgot how many turns we made. I just knew that I would never be able to find my way out alone. I estimated we had traveled at least three or four miles underground.

  The air in the shaft was nearly stagnant, only a warm subtle movement from furnace. It had been trapped in the mine for years. Ventilation fans were non-existent. To inhale the odor was to smell and taste death and dying. There were lingering traces in the air of long dead mules, canaries, rats, human sweat and blood, industry, anger and violence, manmade and natural.

  I began to notice a slight draft in the distance. I could see a light of such low voltage that it looked yellow. Something occupied the center of the tunnel, something I had seen several times before. As we drew closer
, I recognized the bleak pattern of the wall. It blocked the tunnel completely. It reached from ceiling to floor and the entire width of the shaft.

  “Is this where the bodies are buried?” I asked, and suddenly realized how gruesome that would have sounded outside in the light of day.

  “Beyond,” I heard was the only word.

  “Thanks Quilp or Scratch, thanks a lot.”

  I was delighted to bask finally in those failing rays of dim light. Though I could not detect their source, there was enough illumination to see, or my eyes were also glowing. I decided it was a subterranean extension of the wall surrounding the Ryder mansion. It was equally as sound, but where stone butted against the seam, the coal had begun to oxidize and crumble away. I could feel currents of cooler air moving back and forth from one side to the other. I began to pick at the coal seam and the coal easily gave way.

  “If I had some tools and a little help,” I said imploringly, “I could probably dig through here in about thirty minutes.”

  No one answered. I suddenly turned around to discover that Quilp, Scratch and Ballsitch had abandoned me. “Wait!” I shouted and ran back down the tunnel for about 20 feet, but there was no sign of them. “Quilp, Scratch, Ballsitch!” I shouted several times, but there was no reply. “You little bastards, I’ll get you for this!” I shouted.

  I ran toward the wall and threw myself against it hoping it might cave in, but it stood undisturbed. I returned to the edge of the coal seam and picked at it with my fingers. I could almost get a finger through to the other side. It could take several hours or days for me to make it large enough to squeeze through. If my fingers held out, I could do it, but I did not know where it went, maybe to more of the same. I dug furiously at the coal, skinned a knuckle and watched it bleed. I saw the smeared blood from my finger vanish into the mortar with a slurping sound, as if it were swallowing.

  “Jesus, a blood-thirsty wall!”

  I began to search desperately on the mine floor for some kind of tool and found a broken pick handle. It was hard and splintered and the broken wood had created a sharp point.

  “Oh, thank you, Lord,” I whispered, and attacked the coal seam with the jagged handle. The coal split and flaked away. In twenty minutes, I had a hole big enough to shove my arm. I kept poking and jabbing, cursing and crying at the seam, occasionally taking a reckless swipe at the wall. It delighted in my weak, ineffectual jabs and drove the handle back into my hands, bruising my palms and opening new wounds. I grew more desperate with each jab. I focused my attention on the seam. An hour later, I had carved a hole in the seam large enough to squeeze through. It took an effort, but I done it. Dazed and exhausted, I was shaken by the whole experience.

  In a sudden rush, it occurred to me that I might be no closer to getting out now than I was an hour ago, but desperation helped. When I touched the ground and felt cold flat concrete, I knew I was safe.

  My new surroundings were not as dark as the mineshaft. I noticed a sliver of light fading through a tiny crack in what appeared to be another wall. I hoped it was daylight; I hoped it was not another long-life bulb, burning indefinitely. I felt solid concrete beneath my knees, and then I felt the wall sucking blood from my wounds; it was like a thirsty vampire. “Jesus,” I shouted once again and pulled my hand away, feeling for tooth perforations in the darkness. I climbed to my feet and staggered through the darkness toward the gray light.

  Through a dust-laden window, I saw a fading glimmer of twilight beyond a row of hedges, and then I recognized the odor. I was in the Ryder house basement. I examined each darkened corner where I believed stairs ought to be and saw them outlined vaguely in that uncompromising light.

  I tried to remember if I had bolted the cellar door the last time I stood there with Virgil. He was behaving like a coal miner and trying to walk through the wall of the sealed shaft I had just breached.

  I crept toward the ancient stairs stumbling over god knows what; I did not intend to find out. On the steps, I felt my way to the top, loathing the feel of dust-laden stairs on my fingertips and in my lungs. I pushed open the door and collapsed on the floor.

  To see my hand in front of my face was a miraculous event. At that moment, I feared nothing: not man, beast, or ghost. I was simply delighted to be back in familiar territory and have my sight fully restored. I was also overwhelmed with compassion. Elinore's nightmare was far worse than any I could imagine. For her, every living moment was a journey into madness.

  I looked worse than any coal miner finishing a double shift imagined. Covered from head to foot with coal dust, my nasal passages were stuffed. I felt as if I were going to gag if I did not get water. I had no appetite however for the black stinking kind in the Ryder house. I did not have enough stamina to crawl out the door, much less then walk to town, but the alternative was not attractive … to spend the night in the house.

  I was cautiously making my way toward the front door when I heard her speak: “Frank. …” I stopped and turned a full 180 degrees and saw nothing. Then I heard the voice again: “Frank, I’ve been waiting ...”

  I felt a chill against my arm and the weight of a hand upon my back. I heard her voice again. It was as if she were whispering in my ear.

  “I’ve been waiting …” My heart sounded like a kettledrum. Not only could I hear, but I could also sense the presence of a young woman. The air and her presence were so cool I trembled.

  “It’s been so long,” she said.

  Coming so soon after everything else, I doubted nothing. I wanted her to be sure in the knowledge that Frank wanted and missed her, too. I said what I believed she wanted to hear.

  “I miss you to, Elinore; I miss and want you to be happy.”

  I could feel the touch of a hand upon my shoulders and a warm presence near my cheek, I would have preferred to feel the warm touch of young woman in my arms, but I received nothing but chills.

  Then the voice replied, “I think he knows …”

  The tone of her voice made me shiver.

  “Soon, Frank, he will come … and we will know ….”

  My very nervous response to those words must have alarmed her. I stiffened, felt the air grow wildly chill, and I heard her desperate voice declare ... “He mustn’t see you!”

  I felt I was in the midst of wild confusion, heard the savage growl of a wild animal mixed with sorrowful sighs, and then a slight nearly silent weeping voice intruded.

  I spoke her name in the darkness. “Elinore?” The sobbing stopped. “Elinore, do you hear me?”

  I saw a shapeless vaporous cloud and heard the voice of an older woman speaking. “Are you the one who has lost his way?”

  Before I could reply, I fell to my knees. I knew the voice was not the least bit attentive to my words. “I’m Charlie Case!” I shouted. “I need your help!”

  The unseen force whipped passed me and blew across the floor; followed by a terrifying scream. I could feel blood pumping in my head and through my veins.

  “The screaming ones!” she cried, and her voice became suddenly silent.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  When I awoke, I could hear Scary Creek babbling in some lunatic language. Little patches of moonlight filtered through the trees and glanced off rippling currents of water. The night insects and frogs were hibernating in the chill silent air, with the exception of a single bird that seemed to derive satisfaction from the surrounding darkness.

  I could think only about my financial loss and the sad fact I was never going to move into my house. My second thought was that I was unable to end whatever pain the nightmare was inflicting on so many spirits wandering through the mansion. My body ached when I tried to stand. It took several minutes to work the rheumatic kinks out of my back and stand erect. I was not sure what hurt most, my back, or the fact I had been lying unconscious on the cool ground.

  The darkness beyond the house looked hungry. I was glad once again to be conscious but outside the wall. I bade farewell to the house, which seemed to be waiting
for me to re-enter and try again.

  I picked myself off the ground and started limping down the road. I realized the hospital was much closer than town, but it would involve traveling over an abandoned gravel road with few prospects of expecting anything but a footpath. Still, the van was there. To leave it sitting over night in the parking lot might not be the best idea ever.

  I followed Scary Creek around and beyond the house. I continued in the dead of night for at least three miles down an orphan road not fit to walk, much less drive.

  I remember reading recently in a historical account that the county, at one time, was home to 160,000 souls, but now it contained less than 20,000 …’ and ‘more than 70 percent of the population were on some sort of government subsidy. I could not imagine what kind of calamity happened, but then maybe I could.

  *

  Another hour passed before I discovered the far end of a hospital service road closed to traffic. Thirty minutes later, I saw my van sitting in the parking lot, a vision of familiarity. Connie’s car was nowhere in sight. There was a note stuck beneath the wiper blade: ‘Don’t forget to feed your cat! Love, Connie.’

  Where was that damned cat? It was living with me in the van, but I couldn’t find it. It was just another shining example of my extraordinary skills as a preternatural investigator.

  I managed to hang on to the van’s keys, but didn’t know how. I fished them out, opened the door and crawled inside. I stuffed my soiled clothes in a garbage bag and tried to wash my face in the van’s tiny sink, but it did not work. I was spreading coal dust and debris over everything. I stepped into the tub and stood there until my limbs were water soaked. I toweled off, evaluating the extent of my injuries. Finding only a few scratches and bruises, my anxiety began to lessen. I began to enjoy the subtle feeling and thrill of success. I prepared a cup of hot tea that I would waste an hour drinking.

  It was after 2 A.M, a pitiful time to be up and around and parked near a mental institution. I could think of a few places I would have preferred -- Miami -- for one. I had not been there since the last hurricane, whose name, I think, was Zelda. I figured if I were in Florida, I’d probably want to be here in the primeval beauty of West Virginia’s haunted hills and valleys. Who knows, maybe I could learn to like ‘ghost spotting’. Poorly rationalized excuses, I thought, and poured boiling water over a chamomile tea bag.