by Ronald Kelly
The boy hopped down off the wall and, with a swagger, made his way across the pasture toward her.
As he approached, Cindy’s heart quickened and she felt her spirits sink. The knuckles of her right hand whitened as she clutched the thing she had found half-buried in the earth of the abandoned field.
A moment later, he was standing scarcely two feet in front of her. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.
Cindy’s hazel eyes began to moisten. “Just kiss me,” she replied, her voice cracking.
“Well, here it goes.” Then he leaned forward, directing his lips toward hers.
And, like a mirage, drifted right through her.
Tommy Lang seemed startled. “What… what just happened? I didn’t even feel you.”
“That’s because…” Tears trickled down Cindy’s freckled cheeks. “That’s because you’re dead.”
The boy laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “I don’t understand.”
“Take a look at what I found buried in this spot and you will.” Lifting her right hand, she opened her fingers. Lying across her palm was a rusty, dirt-encrusted harmonica.
Tommy’s eyes widened. “Oh God… now I remember.”
Cindy closed her eyes and saw it all, exactly how it had happened in October of 1933.
Tommy tossed the last shovelful of dirt out of the rectangular hole, then the tool up afterward. He was preparing to climb out of the grave, when he found Bully Hanson standing at earth level, staring down at him.. He had his latest victim with him; a girl named Laura from West Virginia. Her pretty blond hair had been shaved from her head and she was all bruises and razor cuts from scalp to feet.
“Did you dig it deep enough, Tommy?” Hanson asked him. “Deep enough for two?”
The boy stared at his partner in shock. “What the hell do you mean, Bully?”
“It’s time for us to part company,” he replied. He gave the girl a shove. With a shriek, she lost her footing at the tip of the grave and fell into the shadowy pit.
“But… but I helped you get them,” the boy protested. “We shared them, Bully.” An unstable light shown in his brown eyes. “We made them scream, beg for mercy. And you want to turn around and stab me in the back?”
“No stabbing this time, Tommy boy.” Bully Hanson grinned as he withdrew a sawed-off twelve gauge shotgun from the folds of a burlap bag and cocked the twin hammers.
Cindy’s mind was filled with fear, as well as the flash and thunder of the shotgun discharging. She heard Tommy scream out once… then there was only silence.
An hour later, Clayburn Biggs and Abraham Polyak walked across the field to where Cindy Ann sat in the dead center of Potter’s field, her chin resting atop her knees, her eyes dazed and unfocused.
“Baby doll,” Clay said, kneeling next to her. “Are you okay?”
She pointed to where an old harmonica lay on the ground at her feet. “You’ll find two buried here. A girl named Laura Peterson… and a boy named Tommy Lang.”
Cindy Ann and Clayburn Biggs spent two weeks in the little Kentucky town of Millersville. In that fourteen day period, Cindy helped the Federal Bureau of Investigation located thirty-four missing girls; the twelve they had been looking for, plus twenty-two more that they had no idea were even there. They had also discovered the remains of an eighteen-year-old boy by the name of Tommy Lang, which was believed to have been Bully Hanson’s accomplice in the abduction, torture, and murder of the unfortunate victims.
Cindy and her father stood on the platform of the Millersville depot, waiting for the afternoon train to arrive. Agent Robert Upchurch was there, as well as Dr. Polyak.
“Cindy, I appreciate your help in closing these cases,” Upchurch said, shaking the girl’s hand. “And so does the Bureau. You did a great service, especially for the parents of all those poor girls.”
“I’d like to say it was my pleasure, Agent Upchurch,” she replied, “but, honestly, I can’t. There was no pleasure to it at all.”
“Of course not,” he said. “But like I said, we sincerely thank you for what you did.”
Cindy turned and regarded the Hungarian doctor. “Doctor?”
Polyak embraced her tightly, his eyes tearing. “You know how we talked of devils, Fräulein? Well, there are angels as well. I doubted that once, but you made me a believer.”
“I’m no angel,” she whispered. “I’m just a girl with a gift.”
“A gift from God,” he assured her, then stepped away.
Clay glanced around. “Where are Miss Sandra and Agent Moore?”
Suddenly, a peculiar expression crossed Cindy’s face. “Will you gentlemen excuse me? I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”
Quickly, she left the railroad platform and made her way into the long structure of the train depot. She passed the rest rooms and emerged from the door at the opposite side of the lobby. Cindy stepped onto the boards of the building’s long front porch and turned to her right.
There, at the far end, next to some crates and luggage, Nathan Moore had his wife cornered. The look of terror in her pretty face told Cindy that he had found out about her most recent pregnancy.
“So when were you gonna tell me about it, huh?” he demanded, his massive frame dwarfing Sandra’s small stature. “Didn’t you think I had a right to know?”
“Of course, dear,” she said in a timid voice. “I… I just wasn’t a hundred percent sure that I actually was, that’s all.”
Moore’s tiny eyes darkened and he blew cigarette smoke from his nostrils. “You know very well that I don’t want any kids.”
“There’s nothing we can do about it now.”
He took a lumbering step forward. “I can take care of it… the same way as last time.”
Sandra cowered between two stacks of crates. “Please, Nathan… don’t hurt me. I want these babies. I really do.”
“Babies?” Moore’s face reddened in rage. “I told you I didn’t want children, Sandra.” He took the cigarette from his thin lips and brought it up to her face. “I warned you before, but apparently you didn’t get the message.”
The woman with the auburn hair flinched, waiting for the sensation of burning pain… but it never came.
Instead, the big man’s eyes widened and he shook his hand, sending the cigarette to the floorboards of the depot platform. He stared at the back of his hand and saw the flesh grow pink and pucker. A wisp of blue smoke drifted from the hole in his hand as the circular wound first turned crimson red and then blackened.
“Leave her alone,” warned a voice from behind him.
Moore turned to find Cindy standing several yards away. “This ain’t none of your damn business, girl!”
The sixteen-year-old’s eyes were stone cold. “I’m making it my business.”
The FBI agent took a single step toward her and then began to scream. Half a dozen burns surfaced across his body, one after another, each the size and shape of a cigarette butt. He dropped to his knees, his breath hissing between his clenched teeth.
Cindy walked over and knelt before him. “Listen to me and listen good. You will not raise a hand to your wife or your two children. And you’ll not take a cigarette to them either. If you do, it will come back to you tenfold. Believe me, it will. I’ve already planted the seed inside you. If you suffer because of it, you only have yourself to blame.”
The girl heard footsteps behind her and then her father’s voice rang out. “Cindy… what’s going on here?”
“Just having a heart-to-heart talk with Agent Moore here,” she said, standing up. “Isn’t that right?”
Grudgingly, the big man nodded and, painfully, rose to his feet. He glanced over his shoulder at this frightened wife. Except that she was no longer intimidated by him. Her eyes were stern as she regarded him. He knew then that his hold on her was gone. If anyone needed to watch their step now, it was him.
Fifteen minutes later, the train headed for Tennessee pulled out of the Millersville station. Cindy waved at
them all from her window, then settled back in her seat with a sigh.
“Glad to be getting back home?” her father asked her.
“You better believe it,” she told him. Cindy sat there quietly for a long moment. “Pappy?”
“Yes, Pumpkin?”
“Do you think I could… you know… keep on doing this?”
“Doing what?” he asked, although he knew exactly what she meant.
“You know, helping folks,” she said. “Like I did Agent Upchurch and all those families who suffered because of Bully Hanson’s evil ways.”
Clay was amazed. “And you would actually want to do it? I know how hard this was on you.”
“Yes… but it was also extremely satisfying. Almost like I was called to do it, the way some men are called to preach.”
Clay shrugged and tipped his hat over his eyes, intending to get a little shut-eye on the long trip home. “I reckon the police could use a girl like you every now and then.”
Cindy stared out the window at the lush green countryside rushing past her. She smiled at her reflection in the pane of glass, which appeared more woman than child. If they call me, then I’ll come, she thought to herself. After all, how can the devils get their just dues if the angels sit on sidelines and do nothing?
Evolution Ridge
When they reached the brink of starvation, they went to the garden.
Lenora hesitated at the gate. “I’m scared, Papa.”
“Just be careful,” Jubal Hayes told his children. “Don’t go blundering in the way Ol’ Rusty did last time.”
Seth shuddered at the thought. Their redbone coonhound hadn’t lasted long in the cornfield. He had been skinned and gutted within a matter of seconds.
“Do you really think we oughta chance it?” asked Cassie. His wife stood there with a metal bucket in one hand and a hatchet in the other.
Jubal turned around, a bit peeved. “What do you think, woman? Damn, can’t none of us sleep at night for the sound of our bellies complaining.”
Cassie looked fearfully toward the garden. “If we’ll just take it to the Lord in prayer, Jubal, ask him to –”
Jubal’s laugh came out harsher than he intended. “Pray? I’ve prayed till I’m blue in the face!” He glared at her, wanting to hold his tongue, but there was something about hunger that brought out the worse in a person. “Face it, Cassie, there ain’t gonna be no manna raining down from the heavens. If’n we want it, we’ve gotta take it for ourselves.”
Lenora and Seth stood there quietly, afraid to utter a word. Cassie simply stared at her husband. “Put your faith in yourself if’n you want,” she told him. “But as for me, I’ll put my faith in God.”
“Suit yourself.” Jubal tightened his grip on the crescent-shaped scythe in his right hand. “You can stay on the safe side of the fence. I’m damned hungry and I know these poor young’uns are, too.”
Seth’s stomach gurgled loudly. Embarrassed, he shifted his hoe to his left hand and pressed his right against his belly, trying to make it stop.
Lenora’s eyes pleaded, large and brown, like a doe’s. “Mama… please.”
Cassie sighed. “Then let’s get on with it.”
Cautiously, Jubal opened the gate of the split-rail fence. “Come on, but keep your eyes open. Let’s get ’er done, then get out. At the first sign of trouble, run like hell.”
Cassie regarded him with disapproval. She’d never much cared for his cussing.
“Sorry.” He led the way down the center row of the cornfield.
The stalks were tall and plentiful, but like everything else on the Ridge, they simply weren’t right. The leaves were a peculiar orange color and the stalks themselves were a streaky yellowish-pink. The corn silk sprouting from the head of each fat ear was not silky and pale, but coarse and jet black in hue. And there was a smell in the air. Something putrid, like decay.
They said nothing as they quietly made their way along the center aisle. Jubal went first, scythe in hand, followed by Cassie and Lenora, with their cutlery and buckets. Seth brought up the rear, holding the wooden handle of his hoe tightly in his fists. The ten-year-old stepped on something brittle. It crackled beneath his boots, drawing a hard look from his father. Seth looked down to see bones scattered across the earth. The dusty bones of Ol’ Rusty, stripped clean of flesh.
Silently, Jubal pointed toward two large stalks ahead. Cassie and Lenora separated, preparing to do their part. Off to the east a crow – or something that might have been one once – cawed loudly. The four held their breaths. When nothing happened, they continued. The womenfolk neared their appointed stalk, knife and hatchet held aloft, ready for the harvest.
The long, orange leaves of the cornstalks began to flutter. But there was no breeze that afternoon.
“Now!” hollered Jubal.
Cassie brought her hand axe down, separating a fat, yellow-pink ear from its place on the stalk.
It screamed as it dropped into the bucket.
Hands shaking, Lenora did the same. She had to hack several times with the butcher knife before her ear came loose. It missed the bucket and laid on the ground, bucking and wiggling, mewing like a baby kitten taken from its mother’s tit.
“Pick it up!” demanded Jubal. A long leaf from a nearby stalk swung toward him, swiftly, barely missing his right shoulder.
“No!” screamed Lenora. Like a slug, the ear was slithering away into a neighboring row. She clenched her eyes shut tightly and tossed her knife and bucket aside. “I can’t do it!”
Cassie’s hatchet flashed again and again. Three more ears dropped into her bucket. They rattled and rolled inside, attempting to escape. “Snap out of it, daughter!” she called sharply.
The sound of shrieking vegetation was more than the sixteen-year-old could stand. She pressed her palms against her ears, trying to seal out the mayhem. Tears squeezed from beneath her dark lashes and trickled down her face.
Suddenly, the stalks attacked. The leaves – their edges razor sharp – slashed and hacked at the four invaders. Jubal cried out as one sliced across his forearm, drawing blood. “Get a few more, Cassie, and then let’s get back to the gate!” Another leaf, low down on a stalk, nicked his left ankle, trying to hamstring him.
Cassie lopped off a couple more. A slender leaf slashed out, drawing a thin line of blood across her forehead. She stumbled backward, nearly dropping the bucket. But she held fast… for her family’s sake.
“Papa!” screamed Seth. “My eye! My eye!”
Jubal turned to see his son standing in the center of the corn row. He had dropped his hoe. His hand was clamped tightly against the left side of his face. Blood trickled between the cracks of his fingers.
“I’m coming, boy!” called the farmer. Angrily, he swung his scythe and brought one of the stalks down. It shrieked shrilly, bucking and rolling in agony.
“Let’s go, Lenora!” demanded Cassie.
Her daughter was rooted to the spot, however. “I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it!” she screamed hysterically.
Her mother slapped her violently across the face. “Snap out of it, girl! Stay here and these things will cut you into a dozen pieces! Now gather up your things and get going!”
Together, Cassie and Lenora ran. Jubal had picked up Seth and slung him over his left shoulder. As he slashed and hacked at the vengeful cornstalks, he felt something warm and wet dampen the back of his shirt. He knew it must be his son’s blood… or the gelatinous contents of his ruptured eye.
Before long they finally made it through that awful gauntlet of deadly vegetation. They didn’t stop at the gate. They continued to run, past the smokehouse and the barn, to the two-room log cabin they called home.
Jubal set Seth down on the front porch swing. “Let me take a look, son,” he said. Gently, he pried the boy’s blood-stained fingers away from his face.
“Dammit!” he cursed in spite of himself. One of the leaves had sliced the boy’s eyeball cleanly in half. It was no more than a def
lated and bloody sack within the crater of his eye socket now.
“It hurts, Papa!” cried the boy. “It hurts so bad!”
“Cassie! Get something to fix him up, will you?” he said.
But his wife was already running through the cabin door. First she headed toward the woodstove. A big kettle of water was boiling on top, ready and waiting. She dumped the bucketload of mewing ears into the scalding water, feeling a pang of cruel satisfaction in doing so. When they hit the water, they began to shriek wildly.
Cassie turned and went to a bureau drawer next to her and Jubal’s brass bed. She took peroxide and gauze, and an eye patch that Grandma Hayes had used after her cataract surgery shortly before she had passed away last spring.
When she reached the porch, Cassie shut the door behind her. She looked over to see Lenora sitting on the front steps, rocking back and forth, her hands plastered tightly over her eyes. She reminded her of those confounded monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. The sixteen-year-old seemed to spend a lot of her time like that lately.
“Let me tend to him, Jubal,” she said calmly. She knelt and examined her son’s ruined eye. It grieved her to no end to see that the wound was permanent… that he would be blind on that side for the rest of his life. As she applied the peroxide and secured a wad of cotton gauze to the nasty injury with the eye patch, Cassie felt the sting of her own injury. She looked over at Jubal and saw that he had been sliced by the angry leaves of the stalks perhaps half a dozen times. “Lordy Mercy, Jubal, they’ve cut us both! What if we…?”
Jubal stared at her. “What if we what? All turn into a family of walking vegetables? Woman, sometimes I believe you’re getting a mite touched in the head!”
“I’ve seen stranger things happen in these mountains lately,” was all she said.
Jubal found that he couldn’t argue the point with her. So had he… much stranger things.
Inside the cabin, they could hear the ears of corn cooking in the big kettle. They screamed shrilly like newborn babies being scalded to death.
The Hayes family sat silently on the front porch for a long time, until that awful commotion faded and grew silent.