Lee had slid onto the rocking chair seat as Daryl and Carl were occupying the car's seat. “Mr. Porter,” he began, picking up on the Willis boy's formality, “I guess you don't know what's been going on in Lenoir these days?"
"You mean the four little girls?” Porter replied.
"Three,” Lee corrected.
"Four,” Porter said firmly, letting the snake's tail drop. “I think another one disappeared yesterday. Only this one wasn't exactly a baby, she's a teenager."
Lee looked at Carl and Daryl, but they seemed as surprised as he felt. “How could you know that?"
Porter laughed and tossed a thumb at the radio. “Ain't nothin’ magical ‘bout it."
Daryl spoke up proudly. “It was Carl who found that dead little negra, more'n a week ago. She was floatin’ face down by the Falls, deader'n hell.” To illustrate, he got up from his seat and struck a floating pose, with his head down and his arms hanging out to his sides.
Carl swatted at Daryl to cut it out. “Lee over there, he saw the dead man they pulled out from behind them houses."
Porter rubbed his lower jaw seriously, his fingers working their way up to his mouth. “Ain't no doubt it's happening again. No doubt to it at all."
"What's happening?” Lee asked.
"You tell me,” Porter came back. “Tell me what you know. Tell me what's got you so scared, you'd come out here to see me."
Lee felt on the spot sitting out here in the bright sun with Carl and Daryl gaping at him, so he tried to organize his thoughts and put things in order. He also felt a bit disconcerted that Porter spoke to him in one manner and to Daryl and Carl in another. Of course, he knew that he had a tendency to “Talk down” as Maggie called it when he spoke to people like the Willis brothers, so Porter was probably doing the same.
"My grandma died a couple of months back,” Lee jumped right in hoping this was a good place to begin, “and me and my family, we moved into her house. We're right next to the Ballard estate in Cherry Heights. One night last June, my step mom sent me to the store, and I swear something mean chased me through the dark down Seminole Road. Scared me like you wouldn't believe."
Lee swallowed, needing another drink from his canteen before he could continue. The way Porter stared so seriously at him made the taste of brass creep back into his mouth. “A little while after that,” Lee continued, “me and a friend were messing around the old train yard, and something came at us laughing and stinking while we were in the caboose of the wreck of the Midnight Flyer."
Porter stretched up, squeezing his thighs with his rawboned hands. “It sure was a shame about that wreck. Y'all know I was friends with the piano player? That train was about the only real entertainment this side of New Orleans.” He seemed to drift away, then said, “All those pretty girls.” Finally he added with a wink, “They were some mighty friendly girls, too."
Daryl raised his eyebrows and nudged Carl.
Porter came back to himself and nodded at Lee to continue.
"Weird stuff's been happening at my house,” Lee said hesitatingly. “We get T.V. shows that aren't on anymore, doors open by themselves, clothes get tied up in knots, light bulbs go out, and one night while me and my sister were all alone, something, I swear it was something, it came into the house and tried to get her away from me.” Lee looked away from Porter, to see if Carl and Daryl were smirking at him. They weren't.
"I know your house,” Porter said. “I knew your grandfather, too. I used to come into his hardware store."
"I know this will really sound strange,” Lee added, “But there's a face in the wood paneling at home—"
"A face?” Porter echoed. “What kind of face?"
Lee thought about it. “It's in the wood grain. It looks like a goat, with horns and a big long snout, the teeth and eyes seem to be real. Someone hung a picture over it, but it's there. It'll give you the shivers to look at it."
"Ain't that some shit?” Daryl laughed. “He gets the shivers."
"You'd do best to listen, boy,” Porter said sternly. “There's things goin’ on you don't begin to know about. As ignorant as you are, you'd do best to keep your mouth shut."
Carl underscored Porter by jabbing his brother with his elbow and saying, “Yeah, shut up Daryl, you embarrass me to have folks know we're kin. Even if you ain't smart enough to be interested in what's goin’ on, I am."
"That face isn't your imagination,” Porter said softly. “Spirits from bodies buried in the soil can get trapped in the wood of trees. People've known that since before the Romans. Trees are powerful forces in the natural world with strong ties to the supernatural. Look what Walter Ballard did to his. Do you think what he did to those cherry trees was an accident?"
"I don't know,” Lee replied quietly.
"It was madness,” Porter said his eyes even brighter. “Pure madness, cruelty, and evil. Those trees stand as a warning to those who know and a source of power to the evil that caused their destruction. Misery in any form is what it feeds on. You remember that. It could save you."
Porter sat back, and the fire in his eyes died down slightly. “Now what you described in your wall is a manifestation of the beast. It keeps near and watches you. The best thing you could do would be to rip that panel out and bury it. Don't burn it, that would set it free into the air. Bury it, and you return it to the earth."
"I can't rip a section of paneling out of my house,” Lee replied incredulously. “My folks would kill me. Besides, we keep it covered with a picture."
"Doesn't do any good to cover it up,” Porter said shaking his head. “You could paint over it or even try to sand it off. But it'd still be there."
"It's not just the face or the crazy little things, Mr. Porter,” Lee said trying to get back to the root of matter. “It's getting stronger. I think Mrs. Ballard dying had something to do with it. Like it's free now. I think that whatever it was that chased me a while back was only fooling with me, but I can't be sure. But I know it killed Boyd Riley, and I think what got him is what's getting these little girls. And it's getting worse. It's not just playing around anymore. It's doing something awful to the girls it catches. I know it is, ‘cause I heard one of the girls screaming."
Porter sat forward. “What do you mean you heard screaming?"
"I've been digging a pond out back of my house for my duck, and I ran into a rock slab. It has this crack in it.” Lee held his arms out to illustrate the size. “I could have sworn I heard someone crying and screaming, screaming something awful and it was coming out of that rock."
Daryl's eyes were wide. “You're shittin’ me?"
Lee shook his head. “Oh, I forgot. When I was working for Mrs. Ballard last month I found a glass eye. A couple days later, I saw faces trapped in the glass of the little house out back of the main place. It's like they were trying to get out. Mrs. Ballard would go out and sit in that queer little house out back, all day. She had to be suffering terribly. After I saw the faces, she came to the window, and her face had changed. And I'm telling y'all, it about scared me to death."
Porter didn't appear to pay any attention to the last part. “An eye? You found an eye?"
Lee nodded. “A glass eye. My dad has a friend whose wife knows about history, and she said she believed it came from Captain Limpkins."
"Who the hell's Captain Limpkins?” Daryl groused.
Carl, who was intent on listening, hadn't said a thing.
"A monster. A cannibal,” Porter replied. He looked at Lee seriously. “I guess you've got that glass eye somewhere?"
"It's in my desk at home."
"You get rid of it, you hear!” Porter was stern and serious, the skin on his forehead wrinkling. “When you get home, if it ain't dark yet, you go and toss it in the river. But don't you go outside with it if it's dark."
Lee found his throat was going dry. “Why's that?"
"Because Limpkins will be wanting it back.” Porter pierced Lee with the intensity of his gaze. “He's the one who's been coming into
your house. That's why the doors are open. He's been looking around, that's why the clothes are knotted. He's been scaring you just for fun. But the fun is about to stop."
Lee exhaled. “Captain Limpkins is dead!"
"He died, yes. But he's not dead.” Porter leaned in and knotted his fingers. “To quote someone from a long time ago, ‘There's the rub.’ There's a secret spot, somewhere around the Ballard house. I'd imagine it's under the little house or right near by. It may have all started with old Osia, but maybe it was there even long before him. All the horrible acts ever committed there, all the pain and suffering, all the selfishness and brutality has stayed there. It's in the earth itself."
"Look,” he said crossing and then uncrossing his leg. “Osia was killed by Two Twigs and his men. Old Two Twigs foolishly thought he could make an end to it with fire, but he didn't understand it wasn't so much the person, but this particular spot that holds the evil. Like a sickness that can be caught if you get too close to it, you can become infected by it. That's what happened to Limpkins. It's happened to lots of others there, too. Some, only a few, have the strength of will to resist. Others, it drives them mad. And still others it takes over and uses. Those are the ones that are truly lost."
"But lots of people have lived in the Ballard house,” Lee came back. “And not all of them went crazy and murdered people."
Porter stood up and spread his hands, almost like he was pleading. “It depends on the person, how strong they are. The strength of their soul.” He touched his chest. “It's what's inside that counts. You're born with it. Like I told you before, Lee, there are different kinds of people, and the reason they are different is because of their souls. The worst, those like Osia, Limpkins and,” Porter hitched a thumb at the radio, “this monster on the radio, are those who don't have any soul at all. They're dead from the moment they're born. That's why they have no conscience. That's why they do the most horrible things and never think a thing about it except for their own enjoyment of it."
Porter settled back and crossed his arms, the blue veins stood out, seeming to ride on top of his skin. “But, if you've got a good soul, you can withstand the evil, for a while. But no one can last forever. If it can't have you, it'll end up driving you mad. Those who are weak or without a soul succumb entirely and their power is consumed by the original evil. What's around at Cherry Heights is stronger than any one man, because it's taken the power from everyone it's ever hurt. It feed off of pain and fear. The best thing anyone can do is to just stay away. It infects everything around it. You mentioned the train."
Porter was becoming too animated to sit any more, and he began pacing back and forth. “That was a sorrowful thing the wreck of the Midnight Flyer. The worst thing they ever did was bringing those cars back into that rail-yard. It was the damned worst thing anyone could do!” He resoundingly slapped his hand on his thigh. “All those souls, trapped between life and death, most not even knowing their dead. They're a part of it now, whether they want to be or not."
"But what about all the years since Limpkins?” Lee asked. “Nothing much has happened. My mom's family has lived there for years. No one ever went crazy or killed anyone."
"That's not true. Not true by a long shot.” Porter came over, and stood directly in front of Lee. “The Ballard house couldn't keep an owner for years. People would move in, and then move right out. After the turn of the century, the latest owner came home to find his young wife had slaughtered her twin boys and then disemboweled herself with the same knife. She'd done horrible things to their bodies. After that, no one would touch the place. When I first came to Lenoir, I rode in an empty boxcar along with some other men who'd come looking for work. I spent part of a night in that house. I saw a man kill another man with a knife for no good reason. For nothing at all."
Porter's eyes cast about as he recalled it. “It was bright that night. I was playing my harmonica, and there was this smell. This awful, rotten smell and I jokingly blamed it on the man who was sleeping. The man next to him, they'd been traveling together, just got up, and without a word, shoved a knife in his chest, and laughed while he shoved it in again. And the way the man laughed as he twisted while the man screamed. He didn't give him a chance. He just ripped him."
Porter pantomimed a slashing upper cut with his arm. “You boys ever seen anything like that?"
Even Carl shook his head.
"Then he came at me.” Porter rubbed his lower jaw again, his hand shaky. “I'll be damned, but that man's eyes had gone yellow, yellow as a dog's."
Carl spoke out for the first time in along while. “What'd ya do?"
"He wasn't able to surprise me, like he did his friend. And I had a knife, too.” Porter let his hand fall from his face, his fingers rubbing against one another like he was trying to remove something sticky. “I was the only one of the three of us who went in to spend the night who walked out of that house, and I didn't ever go back."
"You felt it too, didn't you?” Lee said this quietly.
Porter nodded somberly. “And I know you've felt it too, haven't you? You felt it when it chased you, when you were in the train yard, and when it came into your house?"
Lee nodded. “You're right, it's powerful,” Lee said. “It's terribly strong."
"You have no idea,” Porter agreed. “But, it's controlled by a set of rules. The problem is that only it understands what they are. And remember, it's a liar, always a liar. The best defense you have is knowing that at the root of it all, it's all lies."
Daryl fidgeted, swallowing hard. “Do you know what they're talking about?” he asked Carl. “I'm getting’ the willies just sittin’ here."
"Hush,” said Carl. “Shit yeah! Yer damn right I know what they're talkin’ about. I've felt it too. It was there, hovering around when I found that dead little nigra girl.” He looked from Lee to Porter and then back to Lee. “And it was definitely in that ghost house I ran across back in Broaddus Marsh. And I'm tellin’ y'all, it scared the shit out of me."
Lee couldn't believe he was hearing such a revelation from a guy with Carl's reputation. He filed it away as even more evidence of reality of who people really are so often being different from perception.
"Carl, you ain't scared of nuthin',” Daryl shot back.
"I'm scared of this,” he said soberly.
"Smart man,” said Porter.
Porter stopped his pacing back and forth. “For some reason, though, and I don't know why, but for a while, it lay dormant. Like I said, it's got rules it obeys only it knows about. The Ballard's bought the place and moved in, fixing up the house. They had a couple of kids. One was a pretty little girl. But she didn't last long. She died in the back yard while playing with her older brother. I never heard a clear explanation of what happened exactly, but I've got my suspicions. I do know the brother was sent off somewhere. And I know Walter Ballard was a good man. I worked for him on his plantation west of here for more than ten years. But it eventually got to him."
Porter shrugged. “Maybe he let it loose when he dug that bomb shelter? I don't know for sure. I'd already taken to living out here, by then. But it was right after that, that he had the tree limbs shorn, and only a few months later he fried himself."
"What do you mean fried himself?” Lee came back incredulously. “He hung himself is what I heard."
"You mean fried as in drinkin', right?” Carl chimed in. “Shit, I've gotten fried a time or two myself on your moonshine."
Porter shook his head. “I said fried himself, and I meant fried.” He moved in close, leaning down, his eyes wide. “He got a big pot of lard going on the stove, probably four hundred, maybe five hundred degrees. It was one of those big pots, the kind they use for scalding hogs. Then Walter casually pulled a chair over to the stove, stood up on it, and stuck his whole head in, clear down to the shoulders."
Lee's mouth hung open. “You're kiddin'?"
Porter stood back, his hands up, his fingers spread. “No I ain't. Can you imagine what it would tak
e to make you stick your own head down in that grease and then hold it there?"
Crazy as it was Lee thought he could envision it happening in old Porter's eyes. It was like his vision of the family up in that room, he could see it. There was the kitchen, the checkerboard of black and white squares on the floor, copper pots and pans hanging from a wooden rack above the stove. The dour old man, wearing a white dress shirt and green and red striped tie, quiet and resolute, watching the remaining lump of grease melt, the oil beginning to swirl and bubble. In his imagination Lee could smell it; the grease was so hot it filled the air of the kitchen with its fumes. He had stood up on the chair and momentarily seen his own reflection in the oil looking back up at him. He took a breath and held it. Burning his hands on the rim of the pot, he didn't hesitate as he plunged his head down in, screaming, his eyes and mouth opening reflexively from the horrendous shock of the contact with the grease. And somehow, Lee knew Mr. Ballard had even seen something for a brief moment before his eyes were burned away.
That's what Brenda wouldn't tell me about, Lee realized. No wonder. Every kid knew Walter Ballard had committed suicide. He'd always heard he'd hung himself from the second story banister. This was something new.
Lee came back to himself and spoke up out of the blue. “He's back."
"Who?” Porter asked. “Walter Ballard?"
"No,” Lee replied, his hands locked between his knees. “Ridley Ballard, the son."
Porter walked up close. “When?"
"Just a couple of weeks ago.” Lee was surprised by the intensity of Porter's face. “Phoebe—I mean this girl I know and me, we saw him on a Sunday a couple of weeks ago standing on the riverbank while we were floating by."
Porter was so intense. “Was that the same Sunday the two little Negro girls disappeared?"
Lee thought about it, and then realized it was. “I believe so, yes."
"Don't you think that's a fine coincidence?” Porter couldn't stay still, he'd pace a step or two and then turn back to face Lee, and then pace, and then turn back again. “Ridley Ballard comes back to Cherry Heights, and suddenly little girls start disappearing. Do you know if the Sheriff's been over to his place?"
Evil Heights, Book IV: In the Pit Page 15