by Hunt, James
The walls rattled and Owen pulled Matt close to his chest. He retreated back to the front door, but it slammed shut on its own, sealing him inside. Black water flooded through the bottom crack, and Owen rushed toward it, tugging at the doorknob to escape, finding it locked.
The water rushed inside faster, then started to bubble up from between the floorboards. Owen ran down the hallway and into the dining room, the water rising to his ankles, and then his shins by the time he reached the staircase and bounded up step after step, the swirling black liquid looking more like tar than water.
“Get us out!” Owen screamed, and then spit up another hacking wad of blood, some of it dribbling onto his son. The black water reached the second-story banisters and flooded onto the balcony, and it was here the water stopped.
Noise was sucked from the room, and Owen’s ears popped. He rotated his jaw, the dull throb in his ears turning painful. And that’s when he heard it. The rattle pounded like the tossing of bones on concrete, clanging violently against an unforgiving surface. Owen backed all the way to the wall as the water to his left bubbled. Another rattle, this one louder and faster than before.
The creature’s head appeared from the bubbling water near the stairs, its back to Owen as it ascended the staircase from the black muck, which dripped from its grey, scaly hide. The razor-sharp claws shimmered, and as it turned down the balcony, it set those dark eyes on Owen and his son, its mouth spread wide with all of those teeth set haggardly in its mouth.
The floor vibrated from each of its steps, and Owen’s heart hammered wildly in his chest. Hot tears burst from his eyes, and Owen lifted his head toward the ceiling. “Get us out! GET US OUT OF HERE!” He felt the burn from his throat when he screamed but barely heard his own voice.
With no answer, Owen sprinted to Matt’s room and shut the door, sealing himself and his son inside. He placed Matt down in the corner of the room then tried the window, but it was locked. The door burst open and the creature approached, its raised claws like daggers poised to strike.
One of Matt’s bats rested in the corner and Owen reached for it, putting himself between the monster and his son. “You won’t have him, you hear me?”
The creature opened its mouth wide, saliva dripping from those sharp fangs and a low growl escaping from its throat.
Owen sprinted toward the creature, throwing all of his weight behind the momentum, screaming at the top of his lungs, a father’s rage fueling him like a freight train. The bat connected with the creature’s head but shattered upon impact, a thousand splinters flying through the air.
Bacalou didn’t even flinch from the blow. It hissed and growled, and then spread its claws. Owen looked at the razor-sharp tips of black and took a step back, but he was too slow. The creature rammed its claws into Owen’s body, the sharp knives cutting through bone and organs as the creature lifted him off the ground, keeping him impaled. Bacalou roared, sending a hot stink of breath that blasted Owen’s face.
The pain from the wounds lit up Owen’s mind like a hot flash, powerful but fleeting, and in its place seeped coldness. He glanced down to the creature and saw that the water was rising, consuming his feet, then his legs and stomach, his chest.
He glanced back to where he placed Matt and saw that his boy was gone, swallowed up by the darkness. Tears, red like blood, fell from his eyes and his mouth as the black water reached his chin. And as the creature let out another throaty roar, Owen knew that he had failed. His son was dead. He was dead. And then all was black.
13
Owen lay lifeless on the floor of Matt’s room. It was exactly where the monster had dug its claws into his chest and stomach, and he’d felt those last bits of life drain from him. His body was soaked, his clothes glued to his skin and his hair dripping wet. But the floor around him was dry. The broken boards and peeled paint that had been in that other world were gone. Moonlight drifted in through the window, the clouds parting long enough to illuminate the inside of the house on Cypress Lane.
Owen’s body jerked in a jackknife-like motion, and water spewed from his mouth and onto the floor as he shifted to his side, drawing in a gasping breath. His fingers immediately went to where the creature had stabbed him, but in place of blood and guts, he felt only the holes in his shirt and tiny bumps that rose like scar tissue over his chest and stomach.
He immediately looked behind him and saw Matt lying on the floor. In a panicked scramble, he crawled to his son on all fours. His son’s skin had warmed, and he checked for a pulse. As he did, Matt gargled and bucked from a cough just like his father had done and vomited up the same black water.
“That’s it, get it all out,” Owen said, patting his son’s back.
Matt caught his breath, and when he looked up, he blinked, his eyelashes still wet, and Owen stared into those beautiful blues that he was convinced he’d never see again. “Dad?”
Owen pulled his son close, squeezing tight and clawing at his boy with a father’s hunger. He kissed Matt’s head, sniffling from the tears starting to come, and then cried.
Matt squeezed back, though not as hard, and Owen loosened the hold on his boy and the pair remained seated on the floor. He looked down at his hands and arms, examining them and then giving them a poke, as if he expected them to not be real. When he looked back up, Matt’s eyes filled with water. “It’s not a dream. I’m home?”
“Yeah,” Owen answered. “You’re home.”
“Hello?” The voice echoed from the front of the house, and both Owen and Matt jumped from the sound. “Mr. Cooley?”
Owen helped Matt to his feet, and the pair walked out to the balcony just as Sheriff Bellingham entered through the hallway to the dining room below. The men locked eyes, both in disbelief at the sight of one another, and then Bellingham noticed Matt.
“My god,” Bellingham said.
Owen walked with his son toward the staircase. “He needs to go to the hospital.” Matt flinched at the word, but Owen gave him a reassuring pat. “Just as a precaution, buddy.”
Bellingham watched the pair walk all the way down the steps, and when Owen reached the first floor, he saw the sheriff place his hand on the butt of his pistol. “Mr. Cooley, I’m going to need you to step away from your son.”
The air grew still between them and Bellingham repeated the order, which Owen continued to ignore. “Whatever you think I did, it wasn’t me.”
“Mr. Cooley, I don’t want to have to do this the hard way,” Bellingham said, his body tensed, his knuckles white against the black of his pistol handle. “Not in front of your son.”
Matt had his face buried into Owen’s shoulder now, and he felt the boy trembling. With effort, Owen pulled his son off of him and set him near the base of the stairs. “Hey, Matt, look at me.” The pearly whites around those blue eyes had flushed red from tears that streamed down his face. “You’re safe now. Nothing’s going to hurt you. Understand?”
Matt nodded and then wiped his eyes.
Owen turned back around to Bellingham, who still had his hand on the pistol. “I need to get my wife over here, so she can be with our son.”
“We’ll drive him—”
“No,” Owen said, his tone stern. He watched Bellingham fidget nervously. “He’s not going anywhere in the back of a squad car, and he’s not staying with anyone but family.” Owen clenched his fists and placed himself between Bellingham and his boy.
Slowly, Bellingham nodded. “All right, Mr. Cooley.” He removed his hand from his pistol, his shoulders relaxing a bit. “I can make that happen.”
* * *
The bedroom was large, and a ten-thousand-dollar painting hung on the wall where the bed’s headboard was propped against. The painting was a knock-off Jackson Pollock. Some imitator who thought they could recreate the same textures and color schemes of the famous abstract expressionist. Chuck had thought the man had pulled it off quite well. Any art critic would have disagreed.
A pair of socks flew across the room and landed onto t
he bedspread that was already piled messily with clothes, money, jewelry, credit cards, and legal documents. A suitcase was open and empty on the floor, and Chuck paced around the room absentmindedly, moving toward something, and then forgetting what he was doing halfway to his destination.
He was shirtless but still wore the same pants that he had in the swamp. His bare chest was covered with specks of dirt and mud, his hair dry but sticking out in wild directions. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying to stem the flood of panic that was consuming his movements and thoughts. He had to think straight. He had to move quickly.
Ever since Owen had taken that amulet from him, he’d felt like he had a target carved on his back, and he couldn’t remove it no matter how many times he clawed at it.
Chuck reached for the Wild Turkey that was half gone and chugged a few gulps straight out of the bottle. Two lines of the dark bourbon dribbled down the sides of his mouth as he scrunched his face from the burn of the liquor.
The phone rang and Chuck jumped from the noise, dropping the bottle of bourbon where the glass smacked with a dull thud before falling to its side and staining the white carpet brown. He flung pants and shirts off the bed until he found the phone. It was Nate. “What?”
“What the hell is going on?” Nate asked, his voice quiet but still conveying a sense of panic. “The police just showed up at my place.”
“Listen, just tell them you were with me all day drinking at my place. You just got home a little bit ago, and you left me passed out at my house. Got it?”
“Does this have to do with what’s going on with Jake and Billy? I thought you said you were taking care of that?” Nate asked.
Through the speaker of the phone, Chuck heard the faint knocking of the police at the door and another voice that sounded far away. “I did, but I need you to tell the police what I just said. All right?”
Another series of knocks, these ones more vicious than the ones before. “Y-yeah, yeah, all right, Chuckie, all right.”
The call ended and Chuck collapsed onto the side of his bed. If the police were at Nate’s, then it wouldn’t be long before they were here. He dug at his eyes with his palms, a storm of a headache coming on from the day out in the swamp and the liquor he’d drained.
If Jake and the old man had just done their job, then he wouldn’t even be in this situation. They only had to do it this one time, and he would have been good for another twenty-five years. One fucking time, and they fumbled it at the last second.
Chuck was so angry, in so much disbelief that he actually started to laugh. He caught his reflection in the mirror and he just completely lost it. “Well, Dad,” he stopped, wiping his eyes. “Looks like your boy fucked up again. Just like you thought I would.”
There was a picture of his father on his dresser. He looked like he always did. Stern. Unhappy. He couldn’t recall a single memory of his father smiling. Not even when things were going right. Chuck recalled a time when he brought home his report card in grade school. He had gotten straight As. It was the first time he’d ever done it, and he was so proud that he ran from the school straight to the factory to tell his father.
On the way there, Chuck imagined that his father would hold it up and show everyone in the factory what his boy had accomplished, beaming with a pride that only a father could show. But when Chuck arrived at his father’s office, the reception was less than welcome.
“What are you doing here?” his father asked, not looking up from the papers on his desk, too absorbed in his work to even acknowledge his son’s presence.
“Dad,” Chuck answered, holding up the yellow card that showed all of his high marks in every subject listed. “I got my report card.”
His father compared different sheets of paper on his desk, then scowled, shaking his head and crossing out a series of figures. He turned toward his door away from Chuck. “Bernice! I need the projections for next quarter!”
“Dad, look.” Chuck extended the report card and placed it on top of the papers his father was working on. He stepped back, a smile on his face, and waited for the praise he so desperately wanted.
But as his father examined the card, the scowl on his face only intensified. “What is this?”
“My report card,” Chuck said, his tone timid. “I got straight As.” He looked down to his feet, and suddenly the card was flung at his legs and knocked against his shins.
“Why the hell would you bring that to me?” His father’s tone thundered loudly in the office. “You wanted to have a celebration? You wanted a new toy for this?”
“No,” Chuck answered sheepishly, trying to keep the tears at bay. “I just thought you’d be proud of me.”
And then his father actually laughed, the heavy vibrato of his voice slapping Chuck’s face like a wet towel. “School is your job. Do you think I give my employees a bonus for doing their job? No. Excellence is expected, Charles, not celebrated.” He returned to his work. “Come back when you actually have something noteworthy.”
With silent tears streaming down his face, Chuck picked up his report card and quickly and quietly left the office. He cried all the way home and all night, skipping supper. And his father’s words stuck with him for the rest of his life, and like the words, he continued his quest to find something noteworthy for his father to finally speak the words he’d wanted to hear his entire life. But he never did. And they never came.
“I bet you’re just laughing your ass off, huh, Dad?” Chuck asked, staring at that hard face. “I bet you never felt anything, did you? No fear. No joy. You weren’t anything but a black hole, weren’t you?” He snarled. “Well, fuck you, Dad.”
And just as the words left his mouth, an icy chill hit him, followed by the rattling of bones. Chuck shot up from the bed like the piston of an engine and then reached for the pistol lying on the pillow. With shaking arms and quivering legs, he aimed the gun in the empty space of the room, jerking left, then right, searching for the noise’s source, but saw nothing except the spilled bottle of bourbon that had soaked into the carpet.
Another rattle, this one louder than before. Then another, and another, the noise falling into a rhythm. A playful laughter flitted through the air. It was a woman’s laughter, mocking and wicked.
“You think that black magic can stop a bullet?” Chuck asked, maneuvering his aim around the empty room, the rattling and whispers growing louder. “Why don’t you come on out and we’ll give it a try!”
Another laugh, this one deeper, calculated. “I see you, son of Charles Toussaint. I can feel the fear carved into your soul. You are not safe anymore.”
Chuck backed up to the wall, his arm extended straight out like a piece of steel. Sweat had broken out all over his body, the sheen of liquid reflecting off of the fluorescent lighting of the room. A groaning noise echoed at the door, and Chuck pivoted his aim toward it.
A dark shadow crept into the doorway, pausing for a moment, then spread inside. Chuck’s finger twitched over the trigger, but he didn’t pull it. Fear had frozen him, and it kept him there as the shadow took form into the shape of a woman. Madame Crepaux.
“You have murdered, Charles Toussaint, and you have cheated,” Madame Crepaux said, her legs nothing more than black, wispy clouds, her eyes glowing yellow and hot. “Your family has sipped from the cups of others and given nothing in return. But now I will come for your cup, and I will drink until there is nothing left!” The apparition thrust her head back and laughed, a cackle so wild that it shook apart the woman herself.
Chuck screamed, then shut his eyes as he pulled the trigger. The recoil of the weapon shuddered against his body. He pulled the trigger until the magazine emptied. He opened his eyes and saw only the bullet holes in the wall on the other side of the room.
The black woman was gone, and Chuck slid to the floor, crying like he did on the way home from his father’s office. But unlike the despair of never having a father’s affection, the despair that filled him now was hopeless. The amulet
was gone. The creature was free. And it was all because he couldn’t kill Owen Cooley. But that could change.
* * *
Strange machines beeped, and a mixture of fear and hope lingered in the air of the hospital. People wanting to know whether or not their loved ones would survive, doctors delivering good news, bad news… final news.
Owen wasn’t sure why he was thinking about all of that now, but it could have something to do with the cuffs around his left wrist that tethered him to the hospital bed while a deputy watched him from the door and a nurse drew his blood.
“All right, Mr. Cooley,” she said, carefully removing the vial of blood from the needle, and then disposing of the gloves and needle in the medical waste basket marked by that awful orange and those half-death circles. “That should be everything. We’ll have the tests back in a couple days, but everything looks normal so far.”
Owen nodded his appreciation and then left. He’d told the nurse, as well as the doctor, about the three scars on his chest and stomach where the creature had stabbed him, though he chose to leave that last part out. Now that Matt was back, he didn’t think it necessary to continue his tale of the creature from the black lagoon.
He reached for the spots and rubbed the raised scar tissue with the tips of his fingers. It felt cold. The whole damn hospital was cold. He looked to the deputy who stood straight and alert at the door, watching him intently.
The exchange between him and his wife was short when they reached the hospital. He managed to learn that Madame Crepaux had disappeared, but there wasn’t much chance for conversation after that as he was whisked away. The sheriff had questioned him, but only for a little bit. The fact that Matt wasn’t missing anymore seemed to vex the old sheriff. But what vexed Bellingham gave Owen relief.