by catt dahman
“What do you mean?” Virgil asked.
“Mama?” Buford interrupted.
“I was in that place tending one of the girls who needed medical help. I couldn’t do much ‘cause there ain’t no medical help for those that are raped,” Abagail said.
“Raped?”
Abagail used a clawed hand to motion to Buford and said, “Him. He did it.”
Amadee scoffed, “She’s in pain, dat talk crazy, now. Macaquerie.”
“It is true. He was in there messing with the young girls and the one he raped, the other, his own sister by marriage.” Abagail pointed as best she could to the small figure wrapped in a wet sheet, the last figure brought over who had stumbled from the flames, “That’s your Tammany.”
Amadee frowned, cut his head to the side, and then went over to kneel. There was no long hair, and the eyes were melted almost closed. Only part of the lips was opened as the rest was charred. Blisters covered the rest of the face, and everywhere was blackened skin, “Tammany, gal, is dat you? Can you speak, child?”
“Dada.”
“You make da two sounds for no and one for yes. Is dat you, Tammany?”
The child moaned, “Ehhhh.”
Amadee began to wring his hands, unable to touch her, “Tammany, oh dis is bad. You hang on, girl.”
The other body was quiet, now. Whoever it was, was dead.
Leonie slapped Buford hard across his face, “What did you touch your step-sister fer? What the hell is in your blood makin’ you do this?”
“Awe, Mama, she’s a nigger liar.”
Leonie slapped him again, “Color of her skin ain’t made a hoot’s difference in her helping me cook and healin,’ now has it? Since when you been taught to call anyone that? I won’t have it, Buford. And did you touch Tammany? Why? What did you do to that other girl?”
“Boys, Leonie. Dey get into de trouble. Tammany could hold her ‘what now’ if she didn’t want him bothering her.”
“She’s ten.”
“And a fighter. Dat’s why she be hanging on now,” Amadee said, “I can handle it later.” He said it as Aye kin hand-laa lay-taa.
“Did the girl die in there?” Leonie asked Abagail.
Abagail narrowed her eyes, “I say so. That’s where the fire began anyway.”
“What’d you do? Start a fire?” Toby tried to get up, but Beau put a hand on his shoulder to restrain him as he went on applying ointment and bandaging Toby’s hands. As taught by Abagail, Beau covered the flesh in tea tree oil, anti- bacterial oil. Not only did it clean and protect a person from infection, but it also accelerated healing. Luckily, the skin wasn’t blistered, just looked like it was sunburned.
“There was an old oil lamp. Who knows how it was knocked over,” Buford scowled. He hated that they all stared his way. So what if he had a strong libido although he didn’t know that word and couldn’t always control his urges? He had been drinking and had come to the room where Tammany, the girl Sarah, and the rich kid Jules were. He laughed and made jokes with them, and then he messed with Tammany.
She didn’t complain as he had done it many times. He got aggressive, and then the insatiable desire was upon him. He had to have release. Tammany was irritable and grimy. She slapped at him when he tried to have her, and she was really too dirty anyway unless there was nothing else.
Buford rubbed Jules’ leg, tried to get a favorable reaction, and wasn’t put off by a male for release; he had messed with boys before, and it was okay, as good as a female at times. Many times, he had done Clovis.
And Belle.
And the rest.
He was equal opportunity. As long as they were complaint, all was fine. Jules didn’t like it and called Buford some colorful names as he smacked Buford. Buford pretended they were wrestling, but he got Jules from behind and snapped his neck deftly.
Buford could force Tammany, do the dead, rich kid, or go for the girl named Sarah. He chose Sarah. He thought that when he was finished, Sarah was dead. Then, the old black woman came in and found Sarah, heard a part of the story, and went to get her husband. Buford told Tammany to get out right before he kicked over the oil lamp.
Flames licked up curtains and raced across the carpet.
Buford high-tailed it out of there, thinking Tammany would be right behind him and sure the old black woman would be trapped. But none of that happened.
“I didn’t do anything,” Buford said, wiping away the handprints on his face and glaring at his mother.
Beau stood; Abagail’s hands were bandaged. Now that the story was told, she realized her husband, Theo, was not saved and cried with Toby. Beau felt bad and then frowned, “Where is Jules then?”
Abagail shook her head and cried harder, “He was with Tammany and Sarah. He was lying in there asleep, I guess. I saw him.”
Buford smirked. Asleep? Dead.
Leonie saw the smirk and itched to slap him again. She tried to hold back but popped him again.
“Hey, why’d ya do dat?”
“I don’t like your attitude, and I am so ashamed of you, Buford. You are my son, but you ain’t acting it.”
Buford smirked freely now, “I am an Audette. You said my real dad was an evil man. You should have stuck a clothes hanger up your hooch if you didn’t want me,” he said as he looked at Leonie with hatred.
She didn’t hit him, but she felt revulsion and pain.
Her face flamed. All around, people were mourning, and they had all lost children, and Buford didn’t care one bit. He didn’t care that he had been busted for touching little girls, his own sister, no less. He didn’t care about people being burned and suffering. He was a bad child.
“What can we do about Tammany? She in pain, and dat’s bad,” Amdee asked, wondering why they were fighting and arguing around him.
“We need to head to help. She needs doctors and a hospital.”
Amadee nodded at Virgil. He motioned him to get everyone stable and to get Abagail inside with Toby so Amadee could navigate the boat for medical help. What he didn’t know yet was that during the storm as the debris hit the boat and the waves swept onto the decks, the motor was ruined. Maybe, it was an accident. Maybe debris bent and ruined it. Maybe the sharks helped nudge debris that way.
Maybe they had thumped the hull so hard and so often in the cover of the storm that the hull was cracked in one place.
The houseboat wasn’t going anywhere.
Chapter Twelve: Adrift
Frank sat in front of Abagail, tears in his eyes. He couldn’t hold her hands since they were burned so badly; his hand was bitten in half, but he could meet her eyes and sympathize. He cried with her when he learned Theo was dead, lost in the fire. Theo and Abagail had been with him his entire life and were like second parents to him.
“I loved Theo,” Frank told Abagail.
“Oh my, he knew that, and he loved you,” Abagail said softly, “Frank, you need to know this: Jules didn’t make it out.” She thought it best to get all the damage done at once, hating herself for hurting Frank but unable to hold the words back. He had to be told, and she was kind and soft as she said the hurtful words.
Frank howled like an animal, whipping his head side to side.
Toby and Beau, standing outside the doorway, leaned on the walls, crying. They had just told Candy Lynn and Marie about the fire and that the boat was damaged. Virgil sat with them now, avoiding his own family.
In a while, Leonie used the medical supplies she had to make Abagail comfortable and to tuck her into bed in the same room with Frank, whom Leonie sedated heavily. He was too distraught to remain awake with his hand injured so badly.
Amadee sat up front with Buford, trying to figure something out; Ghislaine and Clovis perched atop the houseboat while Clovis endlessly starred at the moon and drooled all over himself. He would come down for food if no one brought him any, but mostly he remained high above, like a gargoyle watching over his domain. Leonie shivered, wondering where the boy’s mind was.
&n
bsp; Leonie sat with Virgil, thinking it was a shame such a smart, handsome young man was here on an ugly houseboat with the last five children of the Audette clan. Of all the children, there was Buford, who liked to forcibly touch girls and was pure hatred and violence, like his real father (and like his step father as well), and there was Clovis who had nothing but damp cotton in his head and never did anything nor thought anything.
Ghislaine was still there, but Leonie couldn’t help but notice how the girl enjoyed the hunt and rendering and was eager to be a part of the Audette lifestyle.
Leonie felt Virgil was all she had left that was good in her world. It was her biggest fear that she would lose him; if she did, she would take her own life.
“Depressed?”
Leonie nodded at Virgil, “Can you read my mind or something?”
“Mama, it’s easy to read your expression. You’re sad and giving up, right?”
“Trying not to, but I can’t seem to get my mind cleared. I still ain’t had time to cry over the babies yet.”
“Sons of bitches. It’s like they were looking for someone to bite, Mama. I should’ve gotten to Belle, but Tammany, I think Buford caused that whole thing. She’s gone now though.”
“He’s your brother.”
“We have the same mother. He ain’t nothing like me.”
Leonie sighed, “No. He ain’t. Ghislaine ain’t either. They…Virgil, they’re more Audettes than anything. They’re…Family.”
“I guess so since they eat the meat, and we know what the meat is, don’t we?” Virgil hesitantly asked.
“That’s the Audette way,” Leonie said, disgusted.
“I’m done with helping hide it and watching it happen. It makes me sick, and I’m not gonna be a part of it,” Virgil said, “and it ain’t a secret no more. Everyone knows.”
“They do? Who does?”
“Everyone. Candy Lynn, Marie, Beau, and Toby. I figure by now they’ve told Frank and Abagail so if Buford or Amadee gets close to them, they’re gonna take ‘em out and fight back. Hard. It’s over, Mama.”
“Buford is done gone crazy…crazier; Virgil, he won’t stop, and he’ll do worse. Amadee will, too. You go against them, and it’ll be a fight for sure,” Leonie worried about her son. Amadee and Buford were big, strong, and mean. “He called Toby a name and touched that girl and touched his sister; it ain’t right, and Amadee don’t care.
“I don’t care. There’s gonna be no more eating people. The meat is wrong, Mama.”
Leonie laid a head on her son’s shoulder and sighed, asking him what should be done and what he was going to do now, whispering her questions and shivering with worry.
Outside the doorway, Frank had been on his way to the bathroom but stopped to hear the conversation. He thought he must be having a nightmare or imagining things since he couldn’t believe what he had heard. The meat. The never-ending stews and sausages and side dishes full of meat, and they never ran out. His mind whirled. They never ran out because there were always people around to use.
His stomach felt as if weasels were fighting in there, landing heavy in places and ripping claws. He wanted to vomit. His entire body felt violated and ill. It felt as if oil coated his throat, stomach, and bowels and could never be scrubbed away.
He thought about Landry.
Frank barely made it to the back deck to throw up over the side. He felt as if his insides were boiling up, as if he were turning inside out; he didn’t care if he did. He could puke up his entire digestive system and wouldn’t care.
When it was over, he rested before going in. His hand throbbed and felt as if glass were being pushed into his flesh; that pain was from the tattered and broken bone shards. His hand was getting much worse since it couldn’t heal with the damage there.
He was going to lose it but didn’t know how since Abagail was too burned to do a proper surgery.
It was a long time before he went back inside, and when he did, he checked on Emeline. He knew she was hurt, burned in the fire, but no one told him her condition. He knew they were protecting him.
He was weak and shaking.
He opened the door and saw a small light. He didn’t see Emeline. On the bed was a hairless figure with limbs curled up and parts charred away. It smelled like roasted pork and with what he had just heard, the scent made him sick all over again.
There couldn’t be anything left to vomit, but there was.
The figure made a faint hiss as it breathed. It. Her. It dawned on Frank what he was looking at. The burned thing was Emeline. His legs went to jelly as he imagined her pain and misery. How could she be alive and be burned like this?
One eye blinked.
Frank was surprised there was an eye left, but there was, and it grew wet as a tear formed. Somehow, that was, by far, the worst part of everything. When she was treated, as much as she could be, a knife was used to brush away a little of the char and to rip a sheet to wrap on Emeline’s poor blistered and burned leg.
He knew what was right. He knew mercy.
He took the knife and tilted his head, asking what she wanted. He didn’t know if he could do it, but he had to try, “Emeline, give me a sign. If you can’t stand the pain, give me a signal, and I’ll do this. I’ll make you stop hurting.”
The pitiful eye blinked, and the noise was, “Yyyyyyuuusssss.” That wasn’t a ‘no’ of any form, so Frank took that as Emeline’s deciding to be free of the pain.
He didn’t know if he cared about her now since he had seen her true soul, but he told a small, but forgivable lie, “I love you, Emeline, Sweetheart. I love you.” With the knife, he cut her throat through the black and red tissue and through the painful wounds. He struck hard and fast, opening her neck, and then he stepped back as blood poured out.
He thought the knife wound hurt far less than the rest.
She blinked again, “Annnk. Yaaaaa.”
Frank decided that was her way of saying thank you to him.
Standing back up and glad he had two chores done, as bad as they were, he thought hard. His Jules was just a kid, and Remy was so wonderful, smart, and brave. Nita was a lovely girl, his brother’s daughter.
Theo was like a father to him, a man he almost worshipped at times. How funny was it when he was little and Theo and Abagail would take him places, and there he was, a little white boy with African American chaperones? He loved going places with them, and when Toby was born very late in life (Abagail was well past forty when she gave birth, and Frank was grown, married, and had sons of his own), Toby became like a brother to Frank’s children.
Frank felt as if he had lost a father, he had lost two sons and a wife. He knew he should have died when he fell into the water. All along, Frank had eaten human flesh. He wasn’t going to make it, and his children would watch him die slowly or be butchered for food by that damned Amadee Audette.
It might be that he would have to watch Marie, Beau, and Toby being cut apart and cooked.
He would rather die.
Needing to get the scent of charred flesh out of his nose and lungs, Frank stumbled back to the far deck. The moon was a huge ball of shining light, and Frank could see water, everywhere, water. There was no end to the water, and the sky was getting cloudy again with big purple and black storm clouds. The storms never ended, now. They went away only to be replaced by a new one.
When he looked up, there was Ghislaine sitting and humming some tune, lost in her own world, and sleepily glancing at Frank. Clovis sat by himself off to one side. Clovis, his greenish eyes alight in the night and focused, watched Frank.
“Hi, Ghislaine. Hello, Clovis,” Frank said clearly.
Ghislaine waved as if she didn’t care if Frank were there or not. Clovis, however, despite his slack jaw and empty gaze, seemed to stare hard at Frank.
“What’s up, Clovis? I always see you sitting up high and watching, but you never seem to react. You look as if it’s normal business. Funny, how the snakes bit everyone but you. Isn’t that strange?”
Frank was sure Clovis’ eyes glittered and that the child was not only listening and taking it all in, but also that he fully understood what Frank said. He went on, “Clovis, what do you think about those snakes and the sharks killing everyone. We’ve lost over half our group now. What do you think?”
“Balance. Like the storm, the good and the bad perish.”
Ghislaine turned. She hadn’t heard Clovis say that much over the course of a year. She didn’t know what he was talking about, but it was curious.
“It’s a cleansing, isn’t it? Thousands are dead, and New Orleans is wiped off the map. We’ve been cleansed; only some of us survived. We aren’t supposed to make it, are we?” Frank asked.
“Balance.”
Frank was surprised the child spoke this well and knew those words and their meanings.
From Ghislaine’s expression, she was equally as shocked, “Why’re you talkin’ funny? What ya saying, Clovis?”
Clovis kept his hands in a flat way but spread his arms as if to include everything and everyone, “Équilibre. Tout le monde doit passer et nettoyer cet endroit. Ils ne sont que des instruments de la cause. Trop longtemps, nous avons besoin d'un nettoyage….”
Frank made himself think of the words in French and take the meaning. It was again about balance and cleansing, but there was also something about them being instruments, “Who are the instruments? Us? Are we?” Frank wondered how the child, who probably never went to school often and was raised by Amadee who spoke broken French at best, could speak the language so perfectly.
It was impossible. Clovis. Audette didn’t speak perfect French.
Ghislaine frowned and looked flummoxed.
“Saldo. Todo el mundo tiene que pasar y limpiar este lugar. Ellos no son más que instrumentos de la causa. Demasiado tiempo hemos necesitado una limpieza.” Clovis almost smiled,“Υπόλοιπο. Ο καθένας πρέπει να περάσει και να καθαρίσει αυτό το μέρος. Είναι όμως μέσα στην αιτία. Πάρα πολύ καιρό χρειαζόμασταν μια κάθαρση. Balance. Jeder muss mithelfen um diesen platz sauber zu halten. Aber dies muss im zumutbaren raum sein. Diese Reinigung is schon lange noetig.”