Evil Heights, Book IV: In the Pit

by Michael Swanson

  Lee felt a chill, and with it the hairs along the back of his neck were standing on end, and a shiver of apprehension tickled his spine. Out here in this sea of darkness it seemed he was so utterly alone. Again, as in that terrifying night when he was forced to run for his life there came upon him that sensation of feeling so small, so exposed, so hopelessly alone. The light and the music from amid the swamp were gone. With the moon and stars concealed by a thick blanket of clouds there seemed as if there was no other light in the world apart from that coming from his headlamp.

  Lee lost no time in getting back up to speed, and at the pace he was making in a few minutes he was aware of darker shadows evident to the right and the left, subtle shading of black on black hinting at the beginnings of the ruined houses hiding their sad faces back from the road under the cover of the darkness.

  Lee's breath was coming harder, and despite his plan to stay calm he was pedaling so fast the gravel road was a streaming blur under the illuminating stab of the bike's little headlight. He almost wasn't sitting down on the seat any more. He was gripping the handlebars, leaning forward, plunging headlong through the night.

  Lee knew it when he was nearing the house where Boyd had sought safety. In a flash, he felt the lingering remnants of Uncle Boyd's terror hanging in the air like a stain on the very fabric of the night. He had that flash again, and could envision the terrified man, tucked in a fetal position, crying hysterically, babbling and pleading to the thing standing mercilessly over him.

  He didn't dare look to either side; he kept his concentration on the beam of light racing down the road. He'd come a long way in from the highway, more than half way home, and for a brief moment, Lee let himself feel that everything might be alright.

  There was a rustling noise, and a whisper blew past his ear, actually startling him as it came up from behind. With the wind in his face the sensation of something blowing up from behind was extremely disquieting. If it hadn't been there a moment ago there was definitely something there now. He could feel it coming on. And just as before, Lee reacted to the burn of adrenaline in his stomach and the taste of bitter brass at the back of his mouth. Cleverly, it had waited; fooling him into thinking he was safe, just as it had with Boyd.

  Lee stood up on the pedals. Coming off the saddle, he pumped as fast as he could, the bike wobbling from side to side with the effort of each stroke of his legs. Now going as fast as he was, burning through the darkness, Lee felt as if he were immersed in a mad dream, flying, the wind screaming, tearing at him, daring him to lose his balance for but a second. He knew the best thing if he were to go off the road would be if he was to hit a tree; it'd be quick, and hopefully he wouldn't feel a thing.

  His shirt was stuck to his chest in the front, and he was completely soaked in sweat. His heart was pounding and his thighs were burning. And there was that heat. That awful, all-encompassing heat. Just like in the caboose, or in his living room, it was a searing acrid blast as if whatever it was had just risen up from the furnaces of hell.

  Splitting the air, a whistle blast shrieked from just behind. Lee was so startled he almost lost control. Instantly, with the heat there was light all around. The little stab of his headlight disappeared in a flood of blinding light, and Lee could see his own dark shadow spread out ahead, cast out on the road.

  From just behind came the clack of the rails. He was on the road, the gray gravel and potholes streaming past in a blur. But from behind came a billowing blast of steam. It poured out all around, obscuring everything. Except now he could see the road had changed. There were two lines of polished steel tracks and black railroad ties emerging from out of the cloud of steam as he flew ahead.

  The whistle shrieked again violently. It was flying up on him, racing up from behind.

  This was insane. The road was gone. Lee was pedaling for everything he was worth. He knew surely he had to be flying past the Ballard house. With this break-neck speed he'd surely left the ruined houses well behind. From his calves to his thighs Lee's entire legs were on fire, that terrible stitch was back in his side, and his mouth was stone dry. He knew he was going too fast, but with what he felt was coming up from behind there was no way he could possibly slow down.

  It's drawing closer. Again. It's right up behind. A steam whistle shrieked, so close, Lee nearly jumped out of his skin.

  The heat from behind was beyond intense. Seething and scalding, it drove him along. Right up behind. Big and heavy, some kind of engine of death, with God-only-knows-what at the controls, it was driving him headlong on a wave of delirium, ready for the second he fell.

  Lee could see it in his mind's eye. Torn torsos in the cars were hanging out of the windows, watching the race, betting on the outcome with the longest odds in Lee's corner. Spilling out with the infernal heat and crackling light came the music, the laughter, and the reek of death, dissolving out into the night air as they hurtled forward like a comet leaves traces of its tail.

  Faster! Lee was going as fast as he could! The ties blurred into a solid black stream, the rails hissing past and writhing like snakes.

  He knew it. The curve was just ahead.

  The dead in the back were screaming out now. The smell of fresh blood driving them to a frenzy. The whiskey flowed, and the whores gave of themselves. No Candy Pants on this night's ride, boys. It was the Midnight Flyer squeezing in one more thrill, one more luscious sin before the coming of the curve. The piano player tore at the keys, flesh shredding from his dead fingers as he drove them all forward to the time of a raucous rag.

  Inches. The steel jaws of the cowcatcher was right up against his back tire. Only inches between life and joining the party. Last call. No more bets. Down to the wire.

  It must have miscalculated; its greed, once again its fatal flaw. Lee could feel it struggling, the stokers at the tender killing themselves to close the final gap. Risking it all in stealing the flash of a glance back over his shoulder, Lee caught a glimpse of the train stretching out behind, the cars’ windows lit, revelers pushing forward, squeezing in between the others, eager to glimpse his doom.

  It was almost fatal. He drifted in taking that glance. A split second from going off the edge, Lee just barely caught himself in time to keep his bike from falling.

  It gained on him. One more mistake and he would be dead.

  There was nothing left to give; he was flat out, his heart bursting in his chest as the muscle strove to keep blood in his furiously pumping legs. Lee was pitched fully forward and was gripping the handlebars so tightly his hands had gone numb.

  The seething steam was closing in all around, billowing in. With it the acrid tang of fiery brimstone, sour whisky and boiling blood stung and burned his nose and tainted his lungs.

  That same laughing voice, mean and selfish taunted from behind. She tickled his ears letting him know just how close she was. “Give in,” it breathed. “Join the party."

  The clouds of steam were all around, only inches to either side. The tracks were moving so fast they had begun to flow, seething and shimmering, the curve dead ahead.

  The laughter dissolved into a violent hiss, only to grow into a terrible scream, the train's whistle was tearing itself apart, shrieking for him to give up. Give in.

  There was the curve. He'd never make it.

  The whistle! It was one long, terrible, continuous scream.

  Lee slammed back on his peddles locking up the rear brake.

  It ran up over him, the heat tremendous, the light, blinding and white. Lee steeled himself, sure he was going to be crushed, mangled, torn under the wheels, tons and tons of steel hurtling ahead at more than a hundred miles an hour.

  Around, over and through the maelstrom roared past carrying all to their doom.

  Lee saw it. The train hit the curve. The engine teetered, hanging up on one set of wheels before going over and dragging the rest along with it.

  He saw it all; they died. They all died. A gambler, the dice still in the air, crapped out, his body being flung thro
ugh the glass of a side window. A whore in the sleeper car, her legs wrapped around her john, her face as sweaty and red as her thighs, both were crushed but moments before she'd earned her due. Lee heard it, heard the bones breaking, felt them tear free and snap as the bodies rolled over and over when the gambling cars broke free, hurtling end over end. The smell! He could smell the cooked flesh of the victims in the front cars, scalded by the exploding engine, flash boiled, nowhere to hide.

  The Midnight Flyer had missed the bend, again.

  Lee was stopped. He was out on Seminole Road, the scream of the whistle dying away.

  There was light way off ahead and to the left. It was coming from his porch. Phoebe's house, dark and alone, sat off by itself to the other side of the road. He was aware of being so tired, it was as if he couldn't gasp air quickly enough, and the stitch in his side burned as if something had torn.

  All around the silence in the night closed back in around him. Wildly, he tried to think. It wasn't over. He was not alone. Sulfur burned in the air, but there was something else, too. It was as though the darkness itself was now coming alive. There was that presence, strong, ugly, malignant. And there was something new in the night air. To nobody, Lee caught his breath enough to say it out loud: “Aqua Velva."

  With the taste of it as strong in his mouth as much as in his nose, Lee came down on the pedals so hard he spit gravel out from the rear tire ten feet or more.

  It was drawing itself in, drawing back around. The frightful ride only just the beginning. He had to get out of here. Get out of here now!

  Lee pumped, his thighs burning, his heart pounding in his throat.

  The tree line was passed; he was on his side of the road.

  The feel of the presence was becoming almost overwhelming. He'd have to get off his bike. There was no way around it. He remembered the goat thing he'd seen prancing out on his lawn. He had no doubt it was out here, it and something more.

  It was time. He knew it. He had no choice. Slamming down on the pedals, Lee locked up the brakes, skidding precariously, gravel sliding like ball bearings beneath the tires.

  There it was his driveway. Lee let off the brakes, and leaned in somehow making the turn onto the drive without the bike sliding out from under him. He stood up out of his tuck and pulled the right leg over, balancing on the left pedal, still with a good amount of speed.

  It was coming for him, closer than he'd like to know.

  Lee let both feet down, almost stumbling as he was going faster than he'd judged. He caught himself, using the bike momentarily for support and ran with it up to the front steps. In a move as insanely desperate as to jump up in a falling elevator the spilt second before it smashes down, Lee managed to lay his bike down and leap up onto the porch all in the same moment.

  Holding the screen open with his knee, he got his key out of his pocket, fumbling it at the lock. The damn key! It wouldn't go in the lock. Whatever it was it was out there on the lawn. And it was much more serious than the ghostly hallucination of any train.

  His fingers shaking, finally it slid in. The lock clicked. But it was coming, rushing up at him from out of the darkness. Lee had no time left. He pulled the key out and jammed it into the deadbolt's slit, twisting so hard he blistered his thumb when it clicked over.

  In the space of a breath, he had the door open, bursting in and frantically slamming it shut.

  Just behind an enormous thud impacted the wood, followed by a hideous shriek which poured around the house and echoed from around every eave and window.

  Lee turned the deadbolt, keeping his back to the door. He thought he was safe, but was jolted from this brief respite by a furiously violent pounding to the wood behind his back.

  "Leave me alone!” Lee screamed. “Goddamnit, leave me alone!” It pounded twice more, two, big, heavy blows. Then it died away; a hysterical cackling passing through the air, seemingly coming from within the walls themselves.

  "No!” He closed his eyes and swore to himself, but screamed it aloud: “I won't let you! I won't! You won't have me! I'm as strong as you. What's in my soul matters, too!"

  It pressed down. Letting him know it was there, demonstrating a taste of the power it could wield when it chose.

  Under the thumb of such a powerful malevolence, Lee felt like a single grain of sand defying a mountain, his will against its will. But it was all he had, and he wasn't going to give up. He would never give in, no matter what the advantage. He screamed out, not with fear but with anger. He cast out, hating it. He could hate it, too. In that, they could be equals.

  It stopped.

  As before, it was just over, the overwhelming pressure of the presence suddenly gone.

  Lee slumped to the floor, only now realizing how chilled he'd become. On the bike he'd thought he was being scalded. Now, despite the sweat and the heat all around him he felt frozen.

  He wanted to get up and turn on the light, but he was satisfied to be still, to let his heart slow. In time the beat and pulse in his ears subsided, and he realized he was only listening to the clock ticking on the wall.

  After a long time, he got up and flipped on the light switch, realistically expecting the light not to go on. But, the room looked back at him, normal in every regard despite what had just happened.

  Tentatively, he stepped over to the front window and peeked out. It took everything he had to do so, as he was sure this was what it was waiting for.

  On the other side of the window the leaves of the oaks fluttered, illuminated as much by the light of the newly risen moon as by the light from the porch. Apparently the earlier dense blanket of clouds had dissipated, and the lawn stretched out to meet the grey edge of Seminole Road; but nothing was there.

  His bike was out there, and despite anything, Lee wasn't going to just leave it outside. He went to the door and put his hand on the knob, but couldn't bring himself to go outside just now. It was clever. He knew it had fooled Boyd. He could be patient too.

  Finally, Lee settled on taking a shower and then rubbing some aloe on his burns. Once done, he kept every light on, though he knew it didn't really matter. In the kitchen, he filled a glass with grape juice from the refrigerator and went into the living room, turning on the T.V., determined to wait up for his dad, Maggie and Patty to get home.

  The late night movie was a Revolutionary war film. Washington's men were standing out on an open field, trading volleys with the Red Coats. Of course, on the black and white screen, Lee couldn't tell if their coats were really red, but they wore these stupid, pointy hats, and their suspenders stupidly formed an X at the center of their chests.

  After watching only a few moments, he remembered to check the T.V. guide they now religiously kept on the coffee table to verify the programs they were watching were real. Lee was relieved to see the listing and know that he was watching something that other people could see too.

  Every now and then he looked around, drawn to the figure of the Indian illustrated in the wood grain of the yellow pine paneling. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it did seem different, like it had moved slightly. For a brief moment he teased himself about the possibility of going over and looking at the face under the reunion photograph to see if it had somehow changed or moved. Immediately he threw that idea out, deciding it would be better to leave well enough alone.

  With the war for independence won, the movie's credits had rolled. The station was signing off and the Stars and Stripes were bravely flying in the wind, accompanied by the National Anthem, when Lee heard the car. He rushed over to the window, knocking over his empty glass on the coffee table, and was relieved to peer out of the window to see the Ford's headlights arc around on the garage and the car follow them in down the driveway.

  Lee opened both locks and stepped out, feeling the delicious cool of the night air.

  His dad was already out of the car and had just hefted Patty over his shoulder like a slumping beanbag.

  "I can't believe Lee would leave his bike out,” he heard his d
ad say.

  Maggie replied, “I've told you Ted, that boy's a—"

  Lee came down off the steps. “Hi y'all. I was just going to put my bike away."

  He ran over to the garage and opened the door. Once inside he stood the bike on its kickstand and closed and latched the door, arriving back at the porch just as Maggie had gone inside.

  She held the screen door open for him. “I thought your father said you called and you said you were spending the night at Ronnie's?"

  Lee ducked in under her arm. “They're leaving tomorrow real early, so I had to come home."

  Maggie closed the door and latched both locks. “You know I don't like you riding down that highway at night. Some of those people drive worse than your father."

  With lights on and people home, Lee suddenly felt the luxury of his exhaustion. “I didn't have any choice,” he replied.

  She pointed to the coffee table. “Is that your glass over there?"

  Before she could comment on the T.V. being on, too, Lee swooped around to pickup the glass and went right over and switched off the set.

  "The new furniture will be in next week.” Maggie had her back to Lee as she walked down the hallway. “If I see a glass on our new table—"

  "Did y'all have fun at Uncle Ed's?” Lee cut Maggie off.

  She stopped and turned on the switch for the attic fan. Turning back she showed him the tight line of her bitter smile. “Your father and Ed and all those other bozos drank way too much."

  Then, without saying goodnight, she reached down and plucked off her shoes. Carrying them together in one hand, she went down the hall, her skirt swishing as she walked.

  Lee was just going in his room when his father backed out from Patty's room. Standing before Lee's doorway and with the hall light behind him he cast a crazy shadow down the hall which ran along the floor and angled up the wall. In a whisper he offered, “I just put your sister to bed."

  From his slur and the redness of his eyes, Lee figured Maggie had been right and his dad must have drunk at least half a case of beer. Lee came back with, “I hope you had a happy Fourth of July, Dad."