by Harvey Click
NIGHT CONJURINGS
TALES OF TERROR
HARVEY CLICK
Also by Harvey Click
Demon Frenzy
Demon Mania
The House of Worms
The Bad Box
Magic Times
Text copyright © 2016 Harvey Click
All rights reserved
Cover art by SwoonWorthy Book Covers
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
For Rose, my wife, my muse, and my best friend
Table of Contents
Kadava
The Hess House
Secret Places
How to Write a Horror Story
Doctor Good
The Man in the Moon
I Walk Time
Cathedrals of Blood
Sucker
The Persistence of Memory
Luck for Sale
A Box of Silence: A Prose Poem
Kadava
Going to West Virginia to watch an aunt die didn’t sound like much fun, but Brad wanted to make the best of it since it was the closest thing to a vacation he would have that summer.
At least the twisty mountain roads were a nice change from the straight streets of Cincinnati. They passed through the tiny town of Clarkton, and about fifteen minutes later Mother turned onto a one-lane gravel road with no name and very little gravel. They bounced along it slowly for several miles past a few miserable-looking houses and a deep ravine. She slowed to a crawl as she edged past it, and Brad wondered how many wrecked vehicles lay at the bottom.
She was a nervous driver, and he would have been happier with his father at the wheel, but Father was too busy with his construction work to come along. He would have been a welcome buffer between Brad and the unpleasantness that always hung over his aunt’s household like a poisonous fog. He would have gone fishing and hiking with Brad, anything to get the two of them away from the constant tension, relieved only by screaming matches.
Aunt Jenny’s place suddenly sprang into view around a turn. Though it needed paint, it was bigger and better kept than any of the houses they’d seen for the past hour. It had two stories plus a tall attic with two gables in front of the steep roof and two more in back that faced Aunt Jenny’s two hundred acres of hilly wasteland.
Mother parked in the gravel lot beside the garage. They were getting their suitcases from the trunk when the front screen door banged and Earl stepped out onto the front porch. He watched them with his burly arms crossed. Mother gave him a little wave, but he didn’t wave back.
When they reached the porch Mother said, “Hello, Earl, I hope you’re well,” and he grunted. “Is Katy here yet?” she asked, and he said, “Nope.”
He didn’t offer to take Mother’s suitcase, but at least he held the screen door open. The living room was gloomy with the drapes drawn shut and just one dim lamp turned on. Aunt Jenny was lying in a cot against the wall.
Mother put down her suitcases and gently squeezed her sister’s shrunken white hand. “It’s Jane,” she said quietly. “Brad and I came to see you.”
Brad stared down at her and said, “Hello, Aunt Jenny.” Her lips moved slightly, but she didn’t speak or open her eyes, which were sunk deeply into her withered white face. It was hard to believe she was only forty, just five years older than his mother. The room was hot and stuffy and stank horribly, as if her flesh were already rotting.
“She don’t hear you,” Earl said. “She’s doped up on morphine.”
Brad and his mother moved away from the cot, his mother looking nearly as pale as her sister. Earl was still standing near the front door, his arms crossed and his broad, unkind face devoid of expression.
“When’s Katy coming?” Mother asked, and he shrugged. She said, “She is coming, isn’t she?” and he shrugged again.
“Well, I guess we’ll take our things upstairs,” she said. “Which room should I take?”
“You’ll haveta take that little one down the hall so Katy can have her old room, assumin’ she ever gets here. Brad can sleep in Butch’s room.”
“They don’t always get along.”
Earl shrugged again, and Mother asked, “Is Butch around?”
“Somewhere I guess. He keeps outdoors a lot.”
Earl went to the kitchen, making it clear he’d had enough conversation. Brad and his mother lugged their suitcases upstairs, which was even hotter and stuffier than the downstairs. He was used to air conditioning and wondered how he was going to survive an indefinite stay in this place, which felt more like a greenhouse than a home. Indefinite because nobody knew how soon Aunt Jenny would die, maybe a day from now, maybe a month, and Mother would surely want to stay until she was in the ground.
She had already driven down by herself twice this summer, but that was while Aunt Jenny was still in the hospital in Charleston, and Mother had stayed in a motel. After the chemo treatments the doctors had operated, but when they opened her up they found more cancer than they could cut out, so Aunt Jenny had decided to die at home.
Brad tapped on Butch’s bedroom door and opened it when there was no response. The room was filthy as always, dirty clothes and toys all over the floor and a wad of sheets yellow with sweat and general grime on the narrow bed. Butch was thirteen, the same age as Brad, but he still kept a big dilapidated teddy bear on his bed and other childish toys everywhere you looked. One time Brad had been told to share the bed with him, and ever since then he’d brought along an air mattress—but sleeping on the floor was no treat either because the house had mice and insects.
The one window was open with a torn screen, but no breeze was blowing in and the room was hot and steamy. Brad put his suitcase and duffle bag on the floor and wondered where he was supposed to put his clothes. The dresser drawers were crammed with Butch’s stuff and so was the tiny closet, and the clothes tucked inside them looked just as dirty as the ones on the floor.
He spent a minute looking at the clay figures on the dresser, mostly horrible animals you wouldn’t find in a zoo. Sculpting clay was about the only indication that any sort of intelligence lurked in Cousin Butch’s head, but judging by the grotesque figures it wasn’t a healthy sort of intelligence.
Brad got his air mattress from the duffle bag and began inflating it. He was feeling dizzy from all the blowing when he heard a sound and turned around to see Butch standing in the bedroom doorway with his arms crossed just like Earl’s.
“Hey,” Brad said.
Butch just stared, his dark blue eyes looking more like polished stones than flesh. His round face was sunburned almost the color of his greasy red hair, and a pink blotch was visible on his pudgy nose where the skin had peeled off. He was wearing dirty blue overalls, which made him look like a fat little hick, and beneath them a filthy white T-shirt.
At last he pulled his lip up in a kind of snarl, showing his jagged teeth, and said, “I don’t want you in my room.”
“I don’t want to be in your room either,” Brad said. “Stinks like a toilet in here.”
“Then move your shit somewhere else.”
“Earl told me to sleep here.”
“Fuck Earl. I’m telling you to sleep somewhere else.”
“Afraid I’ll steal your teddy bear?”
“Fuck you.”
Brad turned his back on Butch and continued inflating his mattress. Suddenly he was shoved from behind. He landed on his hands and knees and rolled just in time to avoid being kicked in the head. He pulled Butch down to the floor by the bib of his overalls and they rolled through the toys and dirty clothes, punching and kicking until Mother yelled, “Stop it!”
/> She was standing in the doorway, her small fists doubled with anger and dismay. “What’s wrong with you boys?” she yelled in a small voice, as if hoping no one else would hear. “Jenny’s dying downstairs, and you’re up here fighting! What on earth is wrong with you?”
She stopped her quiet yelling when Earl pushed past her into the bedroom, a thick black belt doubled up in his right hand. He grabbed Butch by the front of his overalls and flung him face down on the bed.
“Get ’em down,” he said.
Butch unbuckled the straps of his overalls and pulled them down to his knees. He wasn’t wearing underwear, and his plump butt was already covered with fresh-looking welts. Earl whipped him furiously until Brad’s mother yelled, “Stop it, Earl! You’re going to injure him.”
Earl turned and glared at her. “Don’t you ever tell me what to do in my own house,” he said. He didn’t raise his voice and didn’t have to; it was like steel.
“It’s not even your house,” Mother said weakly. “It’s Jenny’s house.”
“It’ll be my house right soon, once she’s in the ground. That’s what her will says.”
Earl strode out of the room and headed down the stairs. Mother began to cry. “Are you okay, Butch?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. He had already pulled up his pants and was sitting on the bed, his pudgy round face impassive. After a few seconds he lay down with his back to them and hugged his teddy bear close to his chest.
***
Fistfights with Butch weren’t uncommon. He’d always had a sudden and violent temper, even when he was little more than a toddler. One minute he’d be quietly pouting, and the next minute his fists would be flailing.
Mother was in the kitchen making a grocery list. Brad looked in the refrigerator, hoping for a bottle of pop, but there was nothing except beer. He filled a glass with tap water and was heading out the back door when Mother said, “Wait a minute. Your nose is bleeding.”
She tried to hold a paper towel to his nose, but he snatched it away from her and went outside. He sat on the steps of the little back stoop, dabbed his nose and then blew it. That stopped the bleeding.
He was sipping his tepid water and wishing he were back in Cincinnati when the screen door slammed behind him and Butch said, “Hey, ain’t you gone yet?”
Brad looked back over his shoulder and was pleased to see a trickle of blood coming out of his nose. Butch sat down beside him as if they were the best of friends.
“I guess maybe you can sleep in my room if you promise not to fart,” he said.
“It stinks so bad in there you wouldn’t know if I did.”
Mother stuck her head out and said, “I’m making a grocery run. Want to come with me, Brad?”
“Nope. But get me some Mountain Dew.”
“Are you boys going to be all right?”
“Yeah, we’re okay.”
“What about you, Butch? Coke, root beer, Seven-Up?”
Butch didn’t answer right away. Brad glanced at him and saw that he was surprised, maybe even confused by the question.
“Any of them sound real good, Aunt Jane,” he said, “and I thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Butch. You boys behave yourselves while I’m gone.”
The screen door shut and a minute later Brad heard her car pulling onto the road.
“Is she gonna want me to pay for that pop?” Butch asked. “I don’t have no money.”
“Of course not. Does your mother make you pay for pop?”
“My mother’s too sick to buy pop. She’s dying.”
“I know she is. I mean, did she make you pay for it before she was dying?”
“Nope. Earl didn’t allow her to buy no pop.”
“Does he always beat you like that?”
“Sometimes. Don’t make no difference to me.” Butch lowered his voice to a whisper and said, “He ain’t gonna be doing it much longer anyhow.”
“Why’s that?”
“He just ain’t. So you just wanna sit here all day or you wanna see some cool stuff?”
Brad followed Butch into the unmown backyard, which soon descended into a swampy valley with tall hills on both sides. Trees and scrubby brush grew in tangled profusion, and the high weeds were full of tree roots and fallen branches to trip over. They stopped at a handmade cage trap hidden inside a grove of gnarly honeysuckles. It was empty except for a rotting carrot.
“Shit,” Butch said.
He continued to another trap nearby. A fat brown rabbit was huddled inside it, sniffing the air and looking depressed.
“Brilliant!” Butch said.
“Is that for dinner?” Brad asked. He had never eaten rabbit before and didn’t think he wanted to.
“Not for your dinner.” Butch looked at him intently and said, “Can you keep a secret?”
“Sure I can.”
“I mean keep it with your life. Keep it even if somebody’s tryin’ to torture it out of you.”
Brad could never read what devilment was behind his weird blue eyes, but their fierce determination made him hesitant to answer.
“Well, can you or can’t you?” Butch asked.
“I guess I can.”
“Guess ain’t good enough. You gotta swear you won’t squeal or I won’t show you.”
“Show me what?”
“Do you swear?”
“Okay, I swear.”
“That still ain’t good enough. You gotta swear to God and everything you care about.”
“Okay. I swear to God and everything I care about that I won’t squeal.”
“I still don’t trust you,” Butch said. “But I gotta show someone. It’s too much to deal with all by myself.”
He picked up the cage trap by a wire handle at the top and headed through the weeds toward the tall hill to the south. Unlike Butch, Brad was wearing shorts and had a hard time pushing through all the thistles, thorns, and stinging nettle while also watching out for poison ivy and snakes. Especially snakes.
“Hey, wait up a minute,” he called.
They reached the base of the tall hill and climbed for a while through scraggly brush sprouting from rocky dirt. Brad was soaked with sweat when Butch stopped at a ledge a short way up the hill.
“Remember what you swore,” Butch said.
“I remember.”
“Remember you swore on your life. If you tell anybody you’ll die.”
Above them the hillside was nearly vertical. A thick berry bush grew on the ledge, and Butch squeezed between it and the steep bare hillside. Brad followed him reluctantly, worried rattlesnakes could be hiding beneath the thorny bush.
Butch had disappeared.
“Hey, where are you?” Brad called.
“In here.”
Butch’s voice sounded hollow because it was coming from a tall crack in the rock, barely wide enough to squeeze through. Beyond the crack was darkness, but then a match was struck and a moment later a white light appeared as Butch lit a gas camping lantern, making his round face glow like a strange florescent mask inside the dark cave.
“Come in,” he said.
Brad didn’t like caves and didn’t trust Butch. Maybe Butch was planning to club him to death in there, where his body would never be found.
“Come in, I said. Don’t be a sissy ass.”
“What’s in there?”
“Somethin’ you never seen before.”
Brad turned sideways and edged through the crevice. A large adult wouldn’t be able to get in there, certainly not Earl. He wondered if that was why Butch liked this place—it was an Earl-free zone.
It was like a different world inside; the air was cool and damp, and all the outdoor sounds were gone. The cave was a deep cleft in the rock about four feet wide, taller than their heads and deeper than the light reached.
Butch turned and strode farther into the cave, the cage trap in one hand and the bright camping lantern in the other, its stark shadows swaying madly as he walked. Brad kept close to him, not w
anting to be left in the darkness.
He stubbed his toe on a rock. “Hey, slow down,” he said, and his voice sounded deep and weird.
“Quiet. This is a holy place. It ain’t meant for talkin’.”
The passageway ended in a roundish cavern about eight feet in diameter. There was a pit in the center of the floor maybe six feet long and three feet wide. Butch held his lantern above it so Brad could see inside.
It was no deeper than a bathtub. A large number of snakes were writhing inside it, and beneath them was something that looked like a child’s body.
Butch set his trap on the cave floor and handed the lantern to Brad. “Hold it up so I can see what I’m doing,” he said. He spoke quietly, as if loath to break the silence of this holy place.
Kneeling at the edge, he reached down and grasped one of the snakes and threw it out of the pit to the other side. It looked to Brad like a copperhead.
“Damn, those things are gonna bite you!” he said.
“Hush! I know what I’m doing, I do this every day. Snakes like her—she draws them like a magnet.”
He threw out another one and another, seemingly oblivious to the fangs as his hand darted down again and again to grasp yet another. Brad saw a growing carpet of snakes writhing angrily on the other side of the pit, and he was afraid they’d slither through the shadows over to the side where he stood. He was so intent on watching the floor near his feet that he scarcely glanced at the body lying at the bottom of the pit.
Butch threw out the last snake, stood and took the lantern from Brad. He held it up high and gazed down at the horrid figure. At first Brad thought it was the body of a naked girl, because it was female and no more than four feet tall, but the breasts were womanly.
It appeared to have been dead for a while because the skin was slate-gray and looked slimy, as if it was seeping some sort of putrescence. The face was sunken, its skin stretched tight over the cheekbones and the shut eyes sunk deep in their sockets. The skull was hairless and oddly shaped, the cranium large and the chin small and delicate. The lips were black or maybe dark purple, the nose was small and childlike, and the ears were large and pointed at the top. The small hands were crossed above the belly like hands in a casket, their nails long and black like talons.