by Harvey Click
Aside from the sunken features and the gray, slimy skin, the body didn’t seem to have decomposed, and the odor around the pit wasn’t like a rotting body but more like some sickeningly sweet flower. Brad held his bandana against his nose.
Child or woman, it didn’t look altogether human, and Brad suddenly realized it was probably a plastic dummy that had been used in a carnival sideshow. He wondered how Butch had gotten his hands on it.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“She ain’t an it, she’s a she,” Butch said quietly. “Her name is Kadava.”
“How do you know that?”
“She told me.”
“You’re nuts. That thing’s not alive.”
“Wanna bet?”
Butch held the cage trap above the pit and unlatched the door. The figure’s eyes snapped open as the terrified rabbit fell, and the small hands shot up and snatched it out of the air. The rabbit shrieked, but the sound was cut short when one of the talon-like fingernails sliced its neck open.
The little gray woman held the rabbit’s gaping throat to her mouth, slurping and swallowing noisily as the blood poured into her mouth.
Brad backed away from the pit and let out a loud noise, halfway between a groan and a scream. Then he was dashing through the darkness, stumbling over rocks as he ran toward the narrow crevice of outdoor light glowing in the distance.
***
“Kadava comes from another world,” Butch said.
He and Brad were sitting at a dilapidated picnic table behind the house so they wouldn’t be overheard. Evening was approaching, and the mosquitoes were thick.
“You mean like a different planet?” Brad asked.
“I don’t know. She just says it’s a different world.”
“Did she come in a spaceship?”
“She don’t need no spaceship. She can go anywhere she wants. She knows how to slip through the doorways of space. Them’s her own words.”
“You mean she talks to you?”
“Of course she does. She don’t have to move her lips. I can hear her talkin’ inside my head and I don’t even have to be close to her. She could start talkin’ to me right now and I’d hear her.”
“Maybe you just imagine she’s talking to you. Like your teddy bear.”
“Fuck you. Did you just imagine what she done to that rabbit?”
Brad sipped his Mountain Dew and swatted a mosquito. “So what’s she doing in that cave?”
“That’s where I brung her and that’s where she’s stayin’ till she gets better. She’s sick right now. I think it’s ’cause the air is different here, not what she’s used to. But I’m feedin’ her every day, and she’s gettin’ her strength up, and when she gets good and strong there’s gonna be hell to pay.”
“How’d you find her?”
“I didn’t find her, she found me. I started havin’ dreams ’bout her every night. They wasn’t ordinary dreams, and I remembered them perfect after I woke up. She told me how I could bring her here, so I did exactly what she said. First I took some modelin’ clay and made it look just like her. I worked on it for days and days till I got it just right. She told me she’d need a private place to rest up for a spell, so I took my clay model to that there cave, where nobody could find her, and I set it down in the pit. There wasn’t no snakes in there at the time—she drew them to her later on.
“I spent a whole afternoon kneelin’ over that clay model, sayin’ the words she taught me over and over. I ain’t tellin’ ’em to you ’cause the words are meant just for me, but it was hard work sayin’ ’em just right over and over, and when I was done I was so tired I couldn’t hardly walk. I went home and the next day when I come back, there she was.
“She was awful weak then and couldn’t hardly move. For a few days I had to cut the throats of the animals for her and feed their blood to her like she was a baby suckin’ on a bottle. But now she’s gettin’ strong and pretty soon she’ll be able to come here to the house whenever I call her.”
“And then what?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out. And don’t even think about rattin’ me out. She knows your face now, and she’ll kill you if you squeal. She don’t like you anyhow. Remember, she can slip through the doorways of space, so you won’t be safe even if you’re back home in Cincinnati. One night you’ll be sleepin’ in your bed and you’ll feel her fangs on your neck.”
Brad felt cold despite the heat. He shivered. “She has fangs?” he asked.
“Yep. Didn’t you see them?”
“No, I ducked out pretty quick.”
Butch opened his mouth to show off his jagged, pointy teeth, which were so badly in need of braces that he usually kept his mouth shut. “They’re sorta like mine only sharper,” he said.
“What is she, a vampire?”
“Nope. Vampires are kid stuff. She eats vampires for dinner.”
They heard a car pull into the driveway, and a minute later Mother stuck her head out the back door. “Come in, boys,” she said. “Katy’s here.”
After the door shut, Butch said, “Katy’s one more person I can do without.”
“But she’s your sister.”
“Half-sister, and she’s a total bitch. I don’t need that kind of trash ’round here.”
They found her in the living room lighting a cigarette just a few feet away from the sickbed. She glanced at the boys but didn’t say hello.
“You shouldn’t smoke around her,” Brad’s mother said. “She’s sick enough already.”
“It’s not your house,” Katy said. She glanced at her sick mother for a few seconds and then turned away. “Is there anything around here to eat?”
“Supper’s almost ready.”
Katy was wearing a short skirt and a lot of lipstick, and Earl wasn’t trying to hide the fact he was ogling her. She was nine years older than Butch and looked nothing like him, maybe because they had different fathers. Aunt Jenny had married when she was just eighteen and gave birth to Katy five months after the wedding. Her husband soon won half a million in the lottery and died a year later in a car accident, leaving Jenny enough money to live on ever since. She’d had a string of lovers, including Butch’s father, who’d disappeared before Butch was even born, and then for some reason she’d made the mistake of marrying Earl.
“I’ll take your suitcase upstairs,” Earl said.
He let Katy start up the stairs first and stared up her short skirt as he followed. Brad turned his attention to Aunt Jenny, who was murmuring something faintly in her morphine stupor. He tried to make out what she was saying but couldn’t.
She looked nothing like the aunt he remembered. Chemo had left her skull hairless, and her whole body seemed to have shrunk. Not only was she bone skinny, but she looked shorter too. The sickly white skin of her face was stretched tight over her cheekbones, and her shut eyes were sunk deep in their sockets. Her hands, which were quivering slightly on the quilt, looked like bones painted white.
She reminded him of something, and it took him a minute to realize what. She looked like a paler version of Kadava.
For supper Mother had baked frozen fish sticks and frozen French fries. Earl washed his down with beer, and he smelled as if he’d been guzzling it all day. Katy was pouring down white wine so fast it seemed she was trying to catch up with him. Mother never drank much unless she was feeling under stress, but she had her own bottle of wine in front of her and was already working on her third glass.
“How soon’s she going to die?” Katy asked.
“Nobody knows, of course,” Mother said. “The doctor said it could be right away or another month.”
“Well, if she’s not dead in three days I’m going home,” Katy said. “My job don’t pay for family leave.”
She pushed her plate aside and lit a cigarette. Mother had bought an apple pie, and after the boys finished eating their huge slices, Butch said, “Come on, Brad, let’s go sit on the front porch and watch the bats fly ’round.�
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“You don’t get up from the table till you’re excused,” Earl said.
“Please excuse us,” Butch said.
“All right, and keep out of the house for a while. We got things to discuss in here.”
The boys went out the front door, but before Brad could sit on one of the porch chairs Butch grabbed his arm and said, “Shh!” He led Brad around the side of the house to the back kitchen window, and they sat in the grass beneath it.
“Well, that’s the way it is, whether you like it or not,” Earl was saying. “You’re gonna see the will soon enough, so you’ll know I’m not lyin’.”
“It’s not fair,” Katy said. “I’ll get a fucking lawyer. I’m her daughter and everything should go to me.”
“What about Butch?” Mother asked.
“Butch don’t need money,” Katy said. “He belongs in an institution.”
“You can get all the fuckin’ lawyers you want,” Earl said, “but it won’t do you no good. Jenny was in her right mind when she wrote the will, long before she had cancer, and she ain’t in her right mind now to change it. Right now she’s what lawyers call non compos mentis.”
“In her right mind she wouldn’t give everything to you. I’m her daughter!”
“Well, that’s what she done,” Earl said. “Jenny was good and fed up with you, and she’s always been fed up with Butch. He ain’t in his right mind, and from what I hear he never has been. The day after the will’s read I’m puttin’ this place up for sale, and you’ll have to get your pretty asses outta here.”
“So what happens to Butch?” Mother asked.
“Hell if I know,” Earl said. “I sure ain’t gonna take care of him. That boy ain’t right in the head.”
“Don’t look at me,” Katy said. “I got better things to worry about than a half-wit half-brother.”
“Guess that leaves you, Jane,” Earl said. “Or else an orphanage can take him.”
“This is the most fucked up conversation I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” Mother said. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to any more of it. I’m going outside.”
The boys hurried around the side of the house and were sitting on the front steps when Mother came out to the porch. She sat on one of the chairs in the shadows and said nothing.
“Are you okay, Mom?” Brad asked.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
She’d brought her bottle and glass out with her, and Brad watched her refill the glass and drink, staring out at the darkness.
***
The next day there was a big raccoon in one of the traps. “Brilliant!” Butch said.
Brad followed him up the slope to the ledge but refused to go into the cave.
“Are you turnin’ sissy-ass on me?” Butch asked. “Just remember, if you say one single word ’bout this you’re dead meat. It don’t matter where you go, she’ll find you.”
He lit his gas lantern and disappeared into the crevice. Brad didn’t want to wait on the ledge, not with that creature in there, so he climbed down the hillside and sat on a log at the bottom. He was more frightened today than yesterday. Yesterday there’d been the shock and novelty, but today the horror was sinking in. He wanted very badly to go back home but knew that was impossible until Aunt Jenny was buried. He thought of pretending he was sick, but his mother would send him to a local doctor and his lie would be found out.
What if Butch wasn’t lying about Kadava being able to slip around through space like some kind of hobgoblin? Brad would never be safe again, not if he ever did anything to make Butch angry. Nor would anyone else who pissed him off.
He hoped Mother wasn’t planning to adopt Butch. Before she made any decision, he needed to warn her about Kadava. But he didn’t dare to, and even if he did she wouldn’t believe him.
Finally Butch emerged from the crevice and climbed down the hill. “She’s lookin’ real strong today,” he said. “I think she’s ’bout ready to go to work.”
Brad followed him through the weeds and watched him reset the empty trap. He baited it with a carrot he’d stolen from the refrigerator to lure another unfortunate creature, some new blood to feed the horror.
“I don’t know what you and that thing are planning to do,” Brad said. “But whatever it is, I hope you wait till I’m back home.”
“Kadava waits for no one,” Butch said.
He headed to the garage, saying he needed to build another trap because she was going to be hungrier now. Brad sat on a folding chair and watched while Butch used Earl’s tools to construct some wood frames and nail chicken wire onto them. Earl’s tools and worktable took up so much space there was no longer room for two vehicles. His own pickup truck was parked in there, but Jenny’s Toyota sat outdoors.
Mother stuck her head in the garage doorway and said, “It took me forever to find you boys. Katy and I are going to get some groceries. Do you want to come along?”
“No thank you, Aunt Jane,” Butch said. He was being more polite than usual, and Brad figured he was hoping to be adopted. “We’re kinda busy.”
Brad wanted to go, wanted to get away from this nightmare for a while, but Butch shot him a look that said don’t. “I guess not,” he said, and a couple minutes later Mother’s car pulled away.
Butch pounded the last nail into his trap and headed out of the garage, leaving the tools in disarray and a mess of sawdust on the worktable. He set up the new trap near the others, and the boys were about halfway back to the house when Earl appeared from behind a blackberry thicket. He was peeling a long slender branch with his pocketknife.
“We better run,” Brad said.
“Won’t do no good,” Butch said, and he didn’t move.
Earl folded his knife and came closer, swishing his switch back and forth. “You been messin’ in my garage, boy,” he said.
“It ain’t your garage,” Butch said.
“It will be soon enough. It’s my wood you cut up, and it’s my chicken wire. Get your pants down and bend over that there log.”
Butch just stood there. He had his eyes shut and Brad saw his lips moving but couldn’t hear any words coming out.
“I said get them pants down.”
Earl swung his switch. It whistled through the air and caught Butch across the face.
Brad was staring at the angry pink welt on Butch’s cheek and didn’t see where Kadava came from, whether she leaped out of a tree or fell from the sky, but before Earl could swing his switch again she was riding on his back. Her talons sliced the veins on one side of his neck, and then her mouth was pressed against them, slurping noisily as she sucked the spurting blood.
Earl let out a fierce roar like an enraged bull, but Kadava cut it short by slicing his windpipe open. Now there was a wet gurgling of air and phlegm through the slit trachea, and Earl tottered and reeled with the naked creature hanging on his back, still sucking and slurping. He fell face forward, and as he thrashed on the ground in his death throes she kept her mouth plastered to the gushing blood, not wasting a precious drop.
Brad ran and hid behind the blackberry thicket. Through the thorns he saw Butch rubbing his hands together with glee and heard him yelling, “Brilliant! Brilliant!”
Kadava rolled Earl’s body over and straddled it, her movements quick and jerky like a reptile’s. She crouched forward, popped out one of his eyeballs and ate it. She did the same with the other and then began to devour his face.
“Brilliant!” Butch yelled.
Terrified and sickened, Brad backed slowly away from the blackberry thicket. He was trying to be perfectly silent, but the back of his foot caught on a vine and he stumbled to his knees. The creature tore her face away from her feast and stared at him with her bloody mouth hanging open, and for a moment he stared back, too frightened to move.
Then he was racing frantically through the thorns and brush, and when he got in the house he locked the kitchen door. He grabbed a long butcher knife from the counter and ran to the front door to lock it too.
Mother and Cousin Katy were still gone. The only other human in the house was his dying aunt, and he pulled up a chair and sat beside her cot, preferring her company to no company at all. The knife was trembling in his hand, and his whole body was shaking inside and out.
Soon Butch was pounding on the back door and yelling to be let in. Brad ran to the kitchen and stared out the window in the door with the knife raised, and even though he didn’t see Kadava anywhere he had a hard time forcing his shaky hand to turn the lock.
Butch barged in with a wild look on his face, grinning and grimacing and letting out shrill peals of laughter. “You think that stupid knife’s gonna help you?” he said. “If you piss me off, nothin’ in the world’s gonna save your ass.”
Brad could barely speak. “Is she going to come in here?” he managed to ask.
“If you piss me off she will,” Butch said. He let out another spurt of crazed laughter and grabbed a set of keys from the counter. “Come on, we’re gonna drive Earl’s truck down the road and push it in the ravine,” he said.
“You can’t drive a truck.”
“Can too. When Earl ain’t ’round I drive Mom’s car all over the place. She’s too sick to know what I’m doin’. Hurry up, them women will get back pretty soon.”
“Why do you want to push his truck in the ravine?”
“So the cops will think Earl got drunk and drove off the road.”
“But there won’t be any body.”
“So they’ll think a bear drug him away. At least they won’t be snoopin’ ’round here. Tomorrow we’ll hide his bones where nobody’ll ever find ’em.”
Brad didn’t know if he’d be in more danger going with Butch or waiting for his mother. “I better wait here,” he stammered as he followed Butch out to the garage. “Mom might go looking for me if I’m not around, and you don’t want her to see what’s back there. Just please tell that thing to leave me alone, will you?”
“She’ll leave you alone if you keep your big ugly mouth shut. You rat me out and you’re dead meat.” Butch got in the truck, started it, and scooted the seat forward. “If them women get home ’fore I do, tell ’em you don’t know where Earl went.”