by Hunt, James
Even with Owen only inches from her face, the woman didn’t move. Owen caught a whiff of her musty clothes, sweat and body odor all mixed together. She shifted her weight on her feet, and some of the bone necklaces clinked lightly against one another like a morbid wind chime.
“You stay away from my family,” Owen said. “And you stay the hell away from me.” He snarled and thrust a finger in her face, then spun around to head back to his van.
“Your son doesn’t belong to you anymore.” The woman’s voice was slow, her accent not as muddled as some of Owen’s coworkers.
He turned around. “What the hell did you say to me?” He marched back in three quick strides, then smacked some of the items off the table out front in a violent blow. “You speak of my son again, and I will come back here with the police. So back. Off.” He gritted his teeth, but while he trembled in anger, she remained still.
Owen stomped back to his van, got behind the wheel, and peeled out of the parking spot.
* * *
Claire sat cross-legged on the couch, laptop open between her knees, and sifted through everything that she could find about snake bites and which types were native to Louisiana. From what she researched, the most common venomous snake in the area was the Cottonmouth. And judging from its description, a black colored or dark-brown with black blotches on its underside, she thought that might have been the snake she saw slithering away from Matt after he was bit.
Aside from hallucinations, nausea, and vomiting, there wasn’t anything else to explain her son’s behavior. And the more and more she read, she realized that whatever was happening to her son went beyond the snake bite. There was something else.
Claire opened another tab on the browser, and she typed in the name of their town and waited for the search fields to populate when the front door opened and she heard Owen’s voice.
“Claire?”
She snapped the laptop shut and set it aside on the couch. “Hey.” The pair lingered in silence for a moment. She was still angry with him, but after a day of being able to digest his words, she understood where they were coming from.
“How’s Matt?” Owen asked.
“The doctor said everything was fine,” Claire answered, waiting for the I-told-you-so that never came, which she was glad to escape. She’d never felt uncomfortable with him, but with what she wanted to say, the feeling was inevitable.
“About this morning—”
“I’m sorry,” Claire said, cutting him off. “I know, you thought you’d be the one apologizing.”
“What I said about your dad, it was wrong.” Owen walked over and joined her on the couch. “It’s just everything that’s happened… I think I’ve let it get to me more than it should.”
“We both have.” Claire leaned her head against his chest. It was still damp with sweat, and he smelled the same way he did coming home from the shipyard in Baltimore. The familiarity was comforting. “But I’m not wrong about what’s happening. Something is off, Owen. I still want to leave. I haven’t changed my mind about that.”
Owen sighed. “I spoke to Chuck. He said he’ll find us a place, but he doesn’t have anything open right now.” Claire started to speak, and Owen lifted her hands. “It’s just one more night, Claire. Just one more. Okay?”
Claire drew in a deep breath. “All right. But we leave tomorrow.”
“Right.” Owen kissed her forehead. “How was your dad?”
“Not good,” Claire answered. “He was himself for a little bit, and then… well, he wasn’t.”
“Putting him in a home is the best way for him to get the help that he needs,” Owen said, doing his best to sound reassuring. “They’ll be better equipped for stuff like that, and I promise that we’ll go and visit him at least once a week. Plus there’s phone calls, and video—”
“I don’t want to put him in a home,” Claire said. “I’ve thought about it a lot, and it’s not what my mom would have wanted.” She straightened her back. “It’s not what I want.”
Owen stood silent for what felt like an eternity before he sat down on the couch’s armrest and nodded slowly. “And you’re comfortable leaving your dad around the kids?” He looked her in the eye. “He’s only going to get worse.”
“I know, and yes, I am.” Claire stood firm, hoping that Owen couldn’t see her trembling. “I still don’t believe that he bit Matt. He wouldn’t have done that. I know him.”
“We’ll talk more about it later.” Owen turned toward their bedroom. “I’m going to take a shower.”
Claire crossed her arms then glanced up to the second floor where Chloe had spread out a series of blank white papers and spilled all of her crayons on the floor. Matt was sound asleep, but Claire made sure to keep his door propped wide open. He’d passed out the moment they got home from the hospital. She’d never seen him so tired, but she figured it was good he was sleeping.
The laptop was still on the couch, the power light glowing and blinking slowly. She sat down next to the computer, looking but not touching, wondering what she would find on her Google search of the town. Just as she was about to open the tabs, Chloe called for her upstairs. Claire left the computer on the couch, making a mental note to check those results later.
* * *
After Owen showered he tried rousing Matt from bed, but he wouldn’t budge, settling for a glass of water instead of dinner and fell right back into his semi-coma. Chloe joined them for dinner briefly, and then returned upstairs to continue her drawings.
Owen cleared the dinner table while Claire helped Chloe get ready for bed. When he walked back to their bedroom he saw Claire sitting on the edge of their bed, picking at her nails nervously.
“Hey,” Claire said, her voice so small and fragile it was like her teeth were made of porcelain and if she spoke too loud they would shatter.
“Hey.” Owen sat down next to her, then grabbed her hand. They hadn’t spoken over dinner, and he’d been avoiding bringing up the subject of her father. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the promise he’d made to Roger. “I know you love your dad. I love him too. And what you said about your mom not wanting to put him in a home if she was still alive, I think you’re right. She wouldn’t have.”
Claire’s expression softened.
“But you have to understand that things have changed,” Owen said. “Your dad would never hurt the kids, but he’s also not in his right mind. We can’t think of him like he was anymore. We can’t—”
Claire sniffled, wiping a tear from her eye. “I’m sorry.” She squeezed his hand, a desperation in her touch that he’d never felt before. “With the move, and everything happening with Matt, it just feels like I’m losing my family.” She looked up at him, her eyes red and watering, the tiny red veins of her eyes irritated from the tears. “I don’t have a dad anymore.”
Owen rested his chin on her head as she leaned into him and sobbed. He held her tight. “But you’re not going to lose your family. I won’t let that happen. I promise.”
Claire took deep breaths, exhaling slowly, doing her best to regain control of her emotions. She shook her head and wiped her eyes. “You can’t promise that.”
“I can,” Owen said, looking at her. “And I will.” He never wanted to see his wife break like this again. “We’ll keep your dad here. We’ll do what we have to do. But he will eventually need to be sent somewhere for care. I don’t want the kids to have their last memories of their grandfather being what he’ll become. And he wouldn’t want that either.”
Claire kissed him, and then wiped her eyes. “I’m gonna take a shower before bed.”
“Okay,” Owen said.
When she was finished, Claire stepped out of the shower like a wet zombie and collapsed into bed with the towel still around her body. Owen helped her out of it, then pulled the thin sheet over her, kissed her cheek, and then turned off the light.
Owen lay in bed with his eyes closed, but his mind wouldn’t turn off. He found himself trying to rationalize
everything that happened. He kept brushing it off as coincidence, but there was something about last night, the way Claire had looked, the spiders, the water, even that Voodoo woman, it was all connected.
Just the thought of her caused Owen to shiver with anxiety. And it wasn’t just her, it was that whole goddamn store. And while he never believed in religion, there was something satanic about the place. Something evil.
Owen tilted his head on his pillow toward Claire. His family was the only great thing he’d done in his life. Growing up, he had dreams, like all little kids did, but there was always something that kept him from ever trying to peek over the edge. It wasn’t fear of failure, just an understanding of who he was at a very early age. He wanted a wife, to own a house, raise kids, work hard to provide for his family, and come home at the end of the day sweaty and satisfied. But now it all felt like it was slipping away.
A heavy thump sounded upstairs, and Owen jolted upright out of bed.
“What was that?” Claire asked, wakening with a violent jerk.
Owen swung his legs off the side of the bed, his eyes watching the ceiling, listening. He kept still, his muscles tense, and another heavy thump echoed upstairs, this one accompanied by a rattling noise.
“Oh my god.” Claire jumped out of bed, the towel she fell asleep in falling to the floor as she rushed around the end of the mattress before Owen snatched her arm to stop her from leaving. “That’s the same—”
“Just stay here,” Owen said, reaching for the Louisville slugger he kept behind the nightstand. He left Claire to dress and stepped into the hallway, the heavy thumps and rattling growing louder upstairs as he sprinted toward the kids’ rooms.
He dashed through the dining room and looked up to the second balcony. Oddly shaped shadows formed on the walls in the darkness, but Owen felt his heart skip a beat when he saw one move into Matt’s room.
“Hey!” Owen sprinted to the staircase, his body in such a hurry that he cracked the side of the dining table with the bat as it dragged behind him. He leapt up the stairs, but the moment his foot hit the first step of the staircase, the ground trembled.
Owen’s foot slipped against the wood, and gravity body-slammed him awkwardly on the steps. The staircase shuffled him side to side, the whole damn house shaking like they were in an earthquake. “Matt!”
The rumbling worsened as Owen ditched the bat and was forced to crawl up the stairs on his hands and knees. The noise blared like a freight train speeding through the house, and Owen’s bones rattled more violently the closer he reached the second story.
But as Owen climbed, there was another noise among the freight train, an undertone that he’d heard before. It was a whisper, a chanting, and he could have sworn he heard the woman’s voice from that voodoo shop.
The trembling ground thrust Owen into the wall, then the bannister, his legs twisting beneath him on his serpentine sprint to his son’s room. The door was shut, and the vibrations of the house were so intense that Owen’s vision blurred. “Matt!”
The whispering undertones grew louder, and they were accompanied by a rhythmic rattling that grew as violent as the tremors.
Owen stretched his arm and reached for the knob, pulling himself toward the door and shouldering it open in one motion. The moment he stepped inside, the trembling stopped.
Owen stumbled a few steps, his legs wobbling on steady ground, and found Matt’s bed empty, the sheets messily strewn about the mattress. Owen’s heart plummeted toward his stomach and he frantically searched the room. “Matt! MATT!”
“Owen!” Claire screamed from downstairs, her voice cracking.
“He’s gone!” Owen pressed his hands into the side of his head, the panic overwhelming him as he spun in circles in the dark.
Moonlight filtered through the dirty bedroom window, and Owen passed his eyes over it so quickly that he nearly missed the figure in the tall grass. He rushed to the window, his hands plastered against the dirty glass like a mad man trapped in an asylum.
Amidst the tall grass he saw something carrying his son toward the swamp. “Matt!” Owen smacked the glass and then sprinted out of the room and back toward the spiral staircase, passing Claire on her way up.
She grabbed at his arm, but he was too quick for her to stop. “What happened?”
“Someone took him!” Owen jumped the last three steps of the staircase, landing hard on the balls of his feet, breaking into a sprint toward the front of the house. The heavy thump of his feet echoed loudly through the house and ended when he slammed into the wall of humid Louisiana swamp air outside.
Owen cut a hard left that sank his feet into dirt and mud, causing him to trip. “Matt!” The tall grass in the clearing tickled at his legs and waist. He pumped his arms and legs hard, ignoring the tingle in his bare feet and the growing numbness of his body.
The clearing ended and Owen smacked aside the hanging Spanish moss as dirt morphed into mud that splashed up his legs with every step, sucking his feet into the depths of Louisiana swamp.
The overhanging branches of trees blocked the stars and moonlight and while the air had been hot and muggy when he first stepped outside, Owen felt a crisp chill run up his back.
“Come out here!” Owen screamed at the top of his lungs, stumbling through the mud like a drunkard. Rage coursed through his veins, laced with the fear of losing his son and the unknown of the darkness he saw take him. “Matt!”
The rattling noise sounded to his left, and Owen snapped his head in that direction. He lifted his foot, and the mud gave off a low suction noise as he stepped forward. The darkness thickened, and water started to bubble up from the mud the farther he walked. “You can’t hide out here forever!”
Gnats and flies buzzed around his head, and despite the growing chill, sweat oozed from Owen’s skin. The water level rose to his shins as he followed the rattling and then a quick, heavy swoosh sounded to his left. He jumped from the noise and watched the ripples wrinkle the still water. “Matt?”
Dark patches of grass and debris floated lazily over the black water, and the cypress trees grew more frequent the deeper he waded. He couldn’t stop shivering, and when the water reached his knees, that’s when he saw it.
It wasn’t human, though it had legs and arms and stood upright. Thick cords of matted black hair sprouted from the top of its head and traveled down its back. Its head was large, its torso short but muscular. Its entire body was covered in a scaly grey flesh that glistened and shimmered under the moonlight. It held Matt in its arms, six-inch black claws stretched out from three stubby fingers on each hand.
“Let him go,” Owen said, doing his best to keep his voice steady.
The creature didn’t answer. It just stared at Owen, holding Matt, half its body below the waterline. Then, slowly, it opened its mouth, wide. A throaty croak escaped ending in a long, drawn-out hiss. The sharp teeth were pointed toward Owen and the creature hunched forward while it held his son.
Water rippled to Owen’s left and right, and he saw something gliding through the water just below the surface. He turned back to the creature, and it slowly lowered into the water, taking Matt with it.
“NO!” Owen lunged forward, erupting the still, rancid swamp water. Quick, thrashing movements to his right stole Owen’s attention, and those croaking hisses grew louder. It wasn’t until the gator was less than a foot away that Owen realized where the sound was coming from.
He jerked to a stop, backtracking as the pair of gators blocked his path toward his son. He splashed the water, trying to push the gators back, but they wouldn’t budge. “Matt!” The creature was submerged to the chest now, sinking lower. His son’s head was nearly underwater, his eyes closed as he lay unconscious against the creature’s body.
The gator to the left lunged and snapped, and Owen fell backward, his arms and legs flailing wildly on his retreat as the creature finally disappeared beneath the water’s surface.
“NO!” The scream rivaled the gator’s fierce hiss as both a
nimals pressed forward, pushing Owen from the water. The pair followed him all the way up the mud, Owen’s backside sliding in the thick muck as he kicked his legs. The gators slithered on their bellies over the dark mud, water dripping from their jaws as they exposed the hundreds of short, jagged teeth that still had bits of flesh on them from their last meal. Owen got to his feet, backpedaling, and the gators ended their pursuit. Mud and water dripped from Owen’s body as his mouth hung slack.
This wasn’t real. This was a bad dream and he’d wake any minute. “Matt!” His voice echoed off the water and bounced through the swamp until it disappeared into the darkness like that creature.
Headlights caught his attention toward the road. They turned down the long driveway to the house, and Owen immediately sprinted toward the truck, waving his arms in panicked frenzy, his legs cramping. “Hey! Help!”
The truck’s headlights bounced up and down over the encroaching cypress roots that curved over the dirt path to the house. It slowed to a stop, and the lights and engine remained on as Owen drew closer, the adrenaline that fueled him nearly gone. “My son! Something took my son!”
A pair of shadowed figures said nothing as they stepped out of the truck, and Owen slowed. The truck looked familiar, but before Owen made the connection, a gunshot thundered from one of the silhouettes.
Owen ducked, and sprinted to the back of the house. Three more gunshots fired, each making Owen flinch. His heavy legs and arms suddenly grew light in his flight, and he didn’t stop until the house was between him and the shooters.
Gasping for breath Owen hunched over, resting his hands on his knees. The gunmen shouted at one another, their voices carrying in the night, and then Owen heard the front door groaning as they stepped inside. His eyes widened. Claire. Chloe.
Quickly, he snuck through the back door, gently closing it behind him while the men up front stomped loudly through the front living room.
“We know you’re here!” The voice echoed down the hallways but was slightly muffled from the walls. “You’re just going to make it harder on yourselves!”