Mr. Shivers

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  The floor turned to rough-cut flagstones and Connelly smelled rot and bleach ahead. They moved through a small passage with an earthen ceiling and entered a low chamber. At the far end was a large stone table, almost an altar, and in the center were those strange, red-rust stains he had seen up above in the sheriff’s confession room. In the center was a short stone stool, covered in the same stains. A pipe was installed in the ceiling just above it, opening onto the seat, and Connelly had no doubt the pipe led to the drain in the confessional. He envisioned men sitting on that stool, eyes shut and palms up, listening to the cries above and feeling the warm rain baptize them for whatever life they were willing to live.

  As they neared Connelly could see there were stars drawn on the roof and walls of the basement, and a symbol was painted above the stone table. It was the snake devouring itself, and its paint was such a color that he could not tell if it was dark red or merely black.

  “They think he’s their god,” said Hammond softly.

  Connelly shook his head. “The gods go begging here.”

  They wound through the sheriff’s labyrinth, staring up through the cracks in the floorboards at the inmates. The variety was astonishing. Some were idle drunks, others raving madmen, several seemed dead to the eye or surely would be soon without attention. Quiet sobs and enraged mutterings tumbled from the ceiling like so much dust.

  Connelly found Pike and Hammond sawed him out quick as could be. The old man climbed down without so much as a twitch of the eyebrow. He surveyed them, looked at Peachy without surprise, and said, “God takes care of His own.” Then he crooked a finger and they followed him through the maze.

  They came under one cell and whoever was above it was whimpering constantly, clawing at the walls and the door. Pike looked up at it and said, “And here is Mr. Roosevelt, I think.”

  Hammond and Connelly shared a look and then began sawing him out as well. Roosevelt shied away from the blade and cried and would not quiet until Hammond stuck his head up. Then he began sobbing and clambered through the hole. When he saw Connelly he collapsed at his feet and pawed at his trousers like an invalid.

  “Jesus, Rosie,” murmured Hammond. “Jesus.”

  “What have they done to that boy?” said Peachy.

  “I don’t know,” said Pike. “I was close by and heard. Whatever it was, it was quite bad.”

  There were no marks on him, though, no wounds or blood of any kind.

  “Connelly,” whispered Roosevelt. “Connelly. Connelly, are you there?”

  “I’m here,” said Connelly. “I’m right in front of you.”

  “He… he came. He was here, just now. Did you know that?”

  “Yeah, Rosie. Yeah, I did.”

  “He came and he spoke to me.”

  “Okay, Rosie. It’s okay.”

  Roosevelt’s eyes grew wide. “Do you know what he showed me?” he whispered slowly.

  “We need to get moving,” said Pike. “Now, Mr. Hammond. I suggest we leave right now. Where’s your tunnel out?”

  “This way,” said Hammond. “Come on, Rosie. Come on, man, on your feet. Come along, now.”

  Roosevelt staggered up and with Hammond’s support they began to hobble through the passageways. Soon Connelly smelled night air, fresh outdoors air for the first time since his capture. They sped up, desperate to be outside again. Wind howled ahead and a breeze flew through the tunnels, speckling them with grit and forcing them to shield their eyes.

  Above them they heard a voice say, “Say, where’s that draft coming from? And that damn noise?”

  They ran forward, stumbling through the passageways, clay earth crumbling about their ears as they moved. They came to a hole in an old brick wall, barely more than two feet wide. Pike went first, then Hammond, then Peachy, then Rosie and Roonie, and finally Connelly stuffed himself into the earthen gap, wriggling through the clods.

  It was tough going. He did not have room enough to work his elbows and he was forced to kick himself forward. More than once dust fell before his face, causing him to cough. He was sure the tunnel would cave in soon. It seemed to last forever and often Roonie would slow down and Connelly would be kicked in the face in the dark. Someone sobbed ahead of him, probably Roosevelt, maybe Roonie.

  It was ten long minutes of crawling and struggling. As Roosevelt tumbled out the earth shifted around them and the sides of the tunnel slid down to trap Connelly and Roonie both. Connelly shut his eyes and took a breath as soon as he could and tried to ignore the burning in his sinuses. He felt Roonie fly forward, surely dragged out by the others, and he reached forward blindly, thrusting his hands through the soil. He felt someone’s fingertips graze his and disappear. His lungs burned, he pushed forward again. Then someone felt his hand and grasped his wrist and pulled.

  He spilled out, gasping and heaving. “Quiet,” said Pike’s voice.

  They were covered in dirt, like some breed of warriors camouflaged for wasteland combat. Connelly brushed it out of his eyes and Hammond whispered, “Come on.”

  They ran down the hill and as Connelly looked over his shoulder he saw the jailhouse had been stationed on the very top, allowing Hammond to tunnel straight in. At the foot of the hill a wide figure rose and they heard Monk’s voice softly call, “You got them all? All of them? They all right?”

  “We got them,” said Roonie. “Now we got to—”

  “Bastards!” called a voice from far up behind them. They turned to look.

  Connelly heard the throaty bark of a shotgun and tiny flecks of dirt erupted around them. Hammond dropped to the ground and swore and clutched his ankle. Pike cried, “Run!” just as pistol fire began cackling on the top of the hill.

  Connelly looked over his shoulder. He saw torches weaving down after them, both fire and electric. He ran with the others, not caring what direction they went in.

  “Split up!” called Hammond. “Spread out!”

  A shotgun roared again and Connelly heard someone cry but he could not see who. He dove to his left and grabbed the figure beside him and threw it down. Shot buzzed through the space he had just occupied. The man in his arms cursed and he realized it was Roonie. Connelly lifted his head to look around. He could not see the others. They had run on and taken cover as quickly as they could.

  When he thought it was safe they got to their feet and sprinted for the woods, velvet fir trees swaying gently below them, almost indigo in the dark. Halfway there they took cover behind the skeleton of an old Zephyr tumbled in a ditch. They crouched and looked through the spindly remains of the windows. Muzzle flare glowed here and there, the shooters invisible against the backdrop of the hill. He could not tell if it was the sheriff’s men or if perhaps Hammond and Monk had armed themselves. Behind the crest of a knoll he saw flames dancing gaily, a small fire eager to grow. Shouts of warning, maybe shouts of rage. The dip and bob of heads and rifle barrels as men scrambled over the gravel. All of them, riding thunder down the mountain.

  Nearby a shotgun roared again and buckshot showered the Zephyr, clinking and clanking like hail. Roonie wailed and the two of them ran the rest of the way down to the woods. They crawled through the furry limbs of the pines until the hillside could only be seen through gaps in the treeline. Once there they threw themselves beneath a tree to wait and look.

  “You see anything?” asked Roonie softly.

  Connelly shushed him. Roonie took a breath, then dove across to another trunk to get a better look. As soon as he did the shotgun went off again and Connelly heard shot biting through the trees. Roonie fell behind the trunk and Connelly thought him dead until he saw the man’s face lift up, his cheeks covered in tears, hands shaking uncontrollably. Connelly motioned to get down again and he did.

  They stayed still. They heard the crunch of dirt and gravel, a rain of loose earth tumbling down the slope. Nothing for a while. Then Connelly thought he heard soft branches being bent or needles being crushed, the whisper of a footfall. A dove grieved somewhere, but he was not sure if t
heir stalker was calling for aid or if it was as simple as it sounded.

  Roonie rose to a crouch across from him. Connelly shook his head no. Roonie nodded, pointing down the slope, and in return Connelly motioned to get back down. The little man shook his head, still trembling.

  A branch snapped. Close by, too close, no more than a dozen yards. Something stopped moving and Connelly withdrew farther into the branches.

  A gout of yellow-white flame roared up into the air a few feet away and Connelly knew the man had been closer than he had ever guessed. Roonie leapt up, startled like a partridge by the warning shot. As he tried to sprint away the other barrel fired and Connelly saw the little man’s side dissolve and his cheek burst open. He tumbled in a heap, thin lines of smoke rising into the air, a puppet whose strings had been abruptly cut. A voice cried out in triumph.

  “Hot damn, I got you!” shouted the sheriff’s voice. “I got you, you big son of a bitch, I told you I would! I told you I would!”

  The sheriff skipped over to the fallen man with the spryness of a child and looked down on the corpse. The mere action of murder made his face more boyish than it had ever been. He smiled and put a foot under it and turned the body over. Then he grunted in surprise.

  “What?” he said.

  Connelly sprang out from the cover of the tree.

  He carried him deep into the forest, a quarter mile at least. It was hard going. The sheriff was not a big man but he was not light either, and the odd times that he resisted slowed Connelly considerably. But he kept on.

  Connelly dragged him far away from his town, far away from any roof or hut or home. He did not cry out. Connelly had seen to that, having broken his jaw at the onset. When he judged he had carried the little man into the heart of the forest he sat down and went to work.

  He broke his knees, his shins, his feet and hands. He broke his elbows and his wrists and put fractures in his pelvis. Connelly could not say for sure but he felt he broke the little man’s eye socket and maybe a few of his ribs.

  Bones crushed to dust, grinding in the sockets. The little man writhing under his grasp, unable to strike back. To relish it was an evil thing, he knew, but he found resisting it difficult.

  As he worked Connelly whispered, “This is the world I make for you. This right here. This is the world I make for you.”

  He did not kill him. He would not give the sheriff the dignity of murder.

  When he was done Connelly was covered in sweat from his toil and he turned and continued down the gentle slope of the mountain. The sheriff whimpered behind him, his limbs shuffling in the pine needles. Connelly did not look back. Soon the whimpers and noises faded and he could not hear anything at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Connelly walked for more than a day. He guessed he could not go back as all the woods close to the jailhouse were probably hunting ground, and besides, he knew if he followed the slope long enough he would eventually find water.

  He did not realize how weak he was until three hours in, when he stumbled and fell down a gully. He twisted his ankle and tried to pry a dead branch off a tree for a crutch but found he had lost most of his strength. The starvation and sickness and lack of water had taken their toll and then some.

  He saw and heard no animals, no other people. When the dawn rose it wove a silver forest world of mist and gray-green undergrowth. The air was fresh and thin here, perhaps due to the elevation, but Connelly was no longer sure where he was. Perhaps New Mexico, maybe Colorado. Maybe it was no state at all, just an empty land with no allegiance or creed. As all states were, if one walked long enough.

  The silence was unbearable and soon the cold matched it. As the day wore on the frost wormed into his bones and his shivering made every step uncertain. He was still barefoot. He had done his best to keep his feet uninjured but now he could barely feel them.

  He looked up as he stepped across another small gully and saw a thin, gray stream of smoke rising into the sky. He studied it and guessed the distance and changed his course.

  He came to a rocky stream and examined the smoke again and decided they had to be camped next to the river. He stripped and washed himself first and drank deep, the water so cold it stung his lips and face. Then he limped along and saw the smoke was coming from a crumbling chimney whose snout poked above the tops of the trees, just off the river. He heard singing and he looked and saw there was a woman washing clothing in the water. She was old with skin like molasses and her voice warbled like a man playing a saw. She lurched back and forth between the stones, scrubbing down her laundry, and as Connelly approached she glanced up and grinned hugely.

  “What you doing there, dead white boy?” she called.

  “I’m not dead,” said Connelly.

  “Sure you are. Just don’t know it yet.”

  “Ain’t really a boy, neither.”

  “Well, what you going to do to prove me wrong? Take your pecker out and wave it at me? That’d raise a few eyebrows, white fella doing that in front of a colored woman, wouldn’t it?” She cackled gaily.

  Connelly leaned on his crutch and hobbled closer. The old woman stood up and looked him over.

  “You seen some shit, white boy,” the old woman said.

  “I’m… I’m hungry, ma’am. I don’t mean to interrupt, but—”

  “But you going to anyways.” She sighed and clucked her tongue. “Oh, well. Set you on down by the bank there and try not to die anytime soon. I won’t have no corpse-water dirtying up my stream. You just set there and wait.”

  He did so. He looked behind and saw a wide, low cabin hidden back in the trees. Its windows danced with the warmth of a hearth fire and on its porch sat three empty rocking chairs. A winding path led up through the trees to the front door. At the mouth of the path was a pile of loose odds and ends, shoes and fishing poles and even cheap jewelry. He listened to the old woman sing and toss her clothes into a wicker basket. Sometimes she would peer into the stream and dart her hand in and fish out some piece of junk, a shiny bauble that was no more than trash. Then she would caw happily and bring it over to the pile and carefully place it on the mound.

  “You live here by yourself?” said Connelly.

  “With my sisters,” she said. “I’m the only able one, though. They old. They old as hell. You know?”

  “Sure.”

  She laughed. “You don’t know.”

  “Sure.”

  “Boy, you every woman’s dream, agreeing with whatever fall out of her mouth.”

  “I try.”

  “Give me a second,” she said. “I’ll give you something that’ll put a spring in your step, maybe your trousers too.” She cackled again and shuffled up into the cabin. She returned with an old tin cup, plumes of steam pouring out the top. She handed it to him. “Careful, now. It’s hot.”

  He took it and looked at it. The fluid it held was thick and brown-green and smelled strongly of mint and herbs. “What is it?”

  “Pine needle tea. With mint. And wormwood. All sorts of good shit. It’s my sister’s recipe. Give it a whirl, you been freezing for God knows how long, I can tell. It lets you know you’re alive, white boy.”

  He blew on it and sipped. As it dripped down his throat his insides turned cold and hot all at once. He breathed out and it burned but seemed to burn away the fatigue as well.

  “God,” he said. “It’s… it’s…”

  “It’s awful,” she said cheerfully. “I said it was good for you, I never said it tasted good. Things that’s good for you are never fun to swallow. Ain’t that the way,” she said to herself. “Ain’t that the way.”

  She shuffled back down to the creek and picked up her basket of clothes with a grunt. Connelly rose to help her.

  “Oh, sit down,” she scolded. “You in worse shape than me. Them clothes are all that’s holding you up and there ain’t much of those, neither. ’Sides, I need the exercise.”

  She strung a line from the window of the house to the cedar across from it
and draped her clothes over it, humming tunelessly. She stepped back, brushed her hands, and nodded in satisfaction. Then she turned to Connelly and looked at him with a keen eye.

  “You been causing some serious trouble, ain’t you?” she said.

  Connelly did not answer. He readied himself to run if he could and attack if he had to.

  “Oh, come on now,” scoffed the old woman. “I just served you some damn good tea. Secret recipe, too. I don’t waste that on just anyone.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Smoke told me,” she said with a grin, and she gestured toward the chimney. “Rose on up into the sky, looked over the mountain and said, ‘Say, old Nina, I see a lot of hubbub down south of here and there’s a man coming your way carrying a lot of trouble.’ ” Her grin faded. “A lot of trouble,” she repeated solemnly.

  “Yeah,” said Connelly. “I know.”

  “That’s just it, ain’t it? You don’t,” she said. “Here, come on up to the house, boy. We’ll let my clothes dry and we’ll get you close to a fire. You can rummage the junk heap too, if you want. Try to find shoes. Come on.”

  The old woman led the way, clucking whenever Connelly tried to help her up. As she opened her front door she shouted, “Dexy, we got company!”

  “Oh?” said a voice even older than Nina’s. He rounded the corner. A shrunken old woman sat in an overstuffed chair before a guttering fire. She was so bent double her chin almost touched her chest. In her lap she was doing her best to crochet but her knuckles and wrists were swollen with arthritis. She was blacker even than Nina, her skin like cracked volcanic glass at the edges of her eyes. She stared into Connelly’s waist, then grunted and looked up at him. She worked her lips, tonguing her toothless gums, and said, “Good gods, you’re a big one. I don’t know what they fed you but they fed you too much of it.”

  “He’s been starved, Dexy,” said Nina.

  “Oh, no.”

  “Yeah. Wandered on out of the woods like a wild child. Raised by wolves, maybe.”