And then he had looked out the window and found it completely covered by bees, in the middle of the night. When he looked again a moment later, the insects had vanished. As if he had been hallucinating.
He would have preferred that the bees had been real. The possibility that he was losing his mind was terrifying.
“I am not going insane,” he told himself. “I’m too smart for that, I graduated at the top of my class from Emory Law, I’m a top-notch corporate attorney, I earn over—”
“Tony, I thought you’d be ready to go. What are you doing?”
It was Karen. He hadn’t realized that she had approached. She stood in front of their car, wearing a puzzled expression.
He stammered. “Uh, I was—”
“Come on, we have to go or we’ll be late for breakfast.” She plucked the keys out of his hand and pressed the button to unlock the trunk. “Why didn’t you load the bags in the car?”
He had frozen, his gaze riveted on the trunk. Karen reached for the lid.
“Don’t do that!” he shouted.
He was too late. Karen had opened it.
But the trunk held only a couple of small plastic bags, a pair of Karen’s sandals, and an Igloo cooler.
No buzzing beehive.
As was their family tradition, the day after the big cookout, they always had Sunday breakfast for those who would be driving out of town that day. His Aunt Janice hosted the gathering at her home in Hernando.
Tony sat in a quiet corner of the living room, a paper plate heaped with congealing eggs, cold bacon, and stiff grits sitting at his feet. He had no appetite. How could he eat when he was clearly in danger of losing his mind?
He couldn’t wait to get home and lose himself in the familiar world of his law office, where order ruled.
Ever the busy hostess, Aunt Janice spotted him and came over, probably to nag him about isolating himself from the rest of the family, most of whom were enjoying breakfast outdoors.
“I just talked to your wife, Tony,” Aunt Janice said. “She tells me you were having nightmares about Sis Maggie.”
He dragged his hand down his face. Karen could never keep her mouth shut.
“I’m fine, all right? I just need to get back home.”
Aunt Janice’s brow creased. “These nightmares are a bad sign, sugar. You ticked off that old woman yesterday, and I told you that she works roots and holds terrible grudges. She’s worked some kinda evil spell on you.”
“Evil spell? Come on, don’t tell me that you believe that backwoods superstitious crap.”
Aunt Janice shook her head. “Doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not—that old lady’s powerful. You’d best find her and apologize, that’s the only way you might put an end—”
“I’ve heard enough of this nonsense, I’m ready to hit the road,” he said, and stood abruptly. “Where’s my wife?”
“She’s outside—”
Anthony marched out of the house. He found his wife on the patio, sipping orange juice and talking to one of his younger cousins, a girl who was only twenty-three, a college dropout, and had something like five or six kids. Relatives like her were an embarrassment to him. He couldn’t even remember the girl’s name.
Karen was probably blabbing about his nightmares to her, too.
A breeze blew, carrying the aroma of smothered potatoes to him, and his stomach growled, unexpectedly. He hadn’t eaten a thing since last night. He needed to eat something before they left.
I’ll grab a quick bite to eat, he thought. Then we’re getting the hell out of here.
The breakfast food was spread on a long table at the edge of the patio. He picked up a paper plate and reached for the potatoes, which simmered in a lidded silver pot.
When he removed the cover, he discovered that the potatoes were infested with crawling wasps.
He yelped.
Like missles, the wasps launched off the pungent base of smothered spuds and buzzed through the air.
Anthony stumbled backward, waving his arms wildly, violating every rule of how to respond to angry wasps.
But they didn’t attack him. They darted toward his wife.
“Karen, look out!” he shouted, but his voice, strangled by terror, came out in a hoarse whisper.
Probably drawn by the sight of him waving his arms, Karen looked up.
By then, it was too late.
She dropped her glass of orange juice. It shattered when it hit the patio, a nerve-jarring sound.
But it wasn’t as bad as her scream when the wasps attacked her.
At a medical center in town, Karen lay on a bed, pumped up with drugs to counteract the wasps’ venom. Her face was puffy, as if her skin were made of self-rising flour. She hardly resembled the pretty woman that he had married.
Karen was asleep, and had been for over an hour. Anthony paced across the room. Numerous relatives, including his Aunt Janice, were huddled around the bed, speaking in hushed tones.
In his rational mind, Anthony had dismissed the wasp attack as coincidence. The things just happened to be in the potatoes, and they were drawn to his wife, maybe because of her perfume. It was a terrible occurrence, but there was nothing particularly unusual about it.
You’re lying to yourself, a pesky voice in his mind whispered. Those wasps were the work of the root woman. She sent them to torment you. Admit it. You don’t know what the hell you’re dealing with.
He put a lid on that voice. It was nonsense. He was an educated man and ought to know better.
At least his wife’s prognosis was encouraging. According to the doctor, she should be recovered and ready to leave for Atlanta by tomorrow.
Still, he hated the thought of spending one more night in this wretched place of suffering, one more night of bad dreams about that old woman—
Anthony caught a snippet of his family’s conversation. He stopped in his tracks.
“Did you say something about Sis Maggie?” he asked.
Aunt Janice bobbed her head. “You’ve got to apologize to that woman, Tony. She did this to you and your wife.”
Hot blood surged to Anthony’s face.
He pointed to the door. “Everyone, get out. Now.”
“But—” Aunt Janice started.
“Out!” Anthony was trembling.
His family quietly shuffled out of the room. He shut the door.
“Apologize to Sis Maggie,” he mumbled. “I don’t apologize to anyone. Sis Maggie can kiss my ass.”
Karen’s eyelids fluttered. He rushed to her side.
She said something in a whisper. He leaned down closer, to hear her.
“What did you say, honey?” he asked.
“This is ... your fault, Tony,” Karen said in a weak voice that nevertheless carried an undercurrent of anger. “Do ... what your aunt says.”
He rose, his back rigid.
Karen blinked slowly, but resentment glinted in her red-rimmed eyes. Even his wife agreed with his family. Okay then.
“Fine,” he said at last. “I’ll find out where the old heifer lives and get this over with.”
Anthony was deep in the country, driving on a narrow, bumpy road. Aunt Janice had given him directions to the old hag’s house. No one offered to come with him. They were scared.
“Ignorant fools,” he muttered. He drew to a halt at a STOP sign, and consulted the directions that lay on his lap.
He was about to turn left, when he looked in the rearview mirror and saw a black cloud rolling toward him.
A swarm of bees.
His fingers clutched the steering wheel in a death grip.
I can’t take any more of this. Why won’t they leave me alone? I’m on my way to apologize to the old heifer!
The buzzing was thunderous. The Mercedes hummed in unison with the insects.
He jammed the accelerator. The tires shrieked, and the car swerved crazily to the left. He barely avoided plunging into a ditch.
The bees chased after him.
Y
ou bastards aren’t going to catch me. I didn’t spend seventy grand on this car for nothing.
Teeth gritted, he kept the gas pedal mashed to the floor. The engine roared.
The swarm receded, and soon became a black dot in the mirror.
But the bees were still out there, pursuing him. He had to take advantage of his lead.
Thankfully, Sis Maggie’s place was around the next bend. He veered around the curve, and found himself in a long, dusty driveway. An old black Cadillac was parked in front of the tiny house.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said. He rocked to a halt beside the Cadillac, and hurried out of the car.
He glanced down the driveway.
The dark swarm rumbled around the corner. Hundreds of bees.
He was certain that they would sting him to death.
He raced to the front door. He twisted the knob.
He didn’t bother to knock. To hell with good manners. He didn’t have time.
The door opened. He plunged inside, slammed the door behind him.
He found himself in a cramped, dark living room. A shadowy shape sat in an overstuffed chair in the corner.
The air smelled strongly of exotic spices and herbs. Stuff he couldn’t even name.
The shape across the room shifted.
“Sis Maggie?” Anthony asked, hesitantly.
“What do you want, boy?” the elderly woman asked. Her voice was brittle. “Did you bring me a plate of ribs from yesterday?”
“Uh, no.” He struggled to find words—a new experience for him. Usually he knew exactly what to say to get what he wanted from someone. “I’ve been having, uh, this problem ... with bees.”
Sis Maggie leaned forward on her cane. “You think I worked some roots to make them bees and such give you hell?”
He shrugged. “My family seems to think that’s the case.”
“I wanna know what you think.”
I think it’s a bunch of backwoods superstitious bullshit, he wanted to say, but didn’t. And I think they believe you’re some kind of witch, but in reality you’re just an old, ugly woman who badly needs dentures. But he didn’t say that, either.
What he said was this: “Honestly, I don’t really know what to think. But I know why I came. I’m here to apologize, Sis Maggie. I treated you badly yesterday, and I’m sorry. I hope that you can forgive me.”
Sis Maggie cackled, as if he had said the most humorous thing in the world.
Her anorexic-looking guide girl appeared in the hallway, glanced at Anthony, and looked at Sis Maggie with concern.
Wiping her eyes, still laughing, the old lady waved her away; the girl withdrew.
“I’ll take away the bees,” Sis Maggie said. She chuckled. “I know they were scaring you somethin’ terrible. Everybody’s scared of somethin’. Some of us are scared of a whole bunch of things.”
“Thank you,” he said. He blew out a deep breath.
Sis Maggie giggled, like a child. He didn’t see what was so funny. Maybe she was just plain crazy.
“Well ... good-bye,” he said. He bowed slightly, and turned to the door.
She was still giggling when he stepped outside. Old, demented woman. He doubted whether she really possessed any magical powers at all. She was just strange. Here in the Deep South, ignorant people probably equated strangeness with someone having supernatural gifts—being able to give the evil eye, work roots, or some such nonsense.
However, the swarm of bees had vanished.
He climbed in his Mercedes. He drove out of the driveway and rolled back onto the road.
No bees followed him.
“It’s over,” he said. He laughed, but it was a stress-relief laugh. “I can’t wait to get the hell out of this place.”
He reached to crank up the air conditioner. Refreshing, cool air hissed from the vents.
Then he frowned.
Something behind him was hissing, too.
He looked over his shoulder.
He immediately felt as though someone had poured ice water down his pants.
An emerald green snake was coiled on the backseat.
Cursing, he wrestled the steering wheel, forcing the car to the shoulder of the road.
Before he could reach for the door handle, a creature—long, black, and serpentine—slipped out of the dashboard air vent. Hissing.
Snakes, snakes, oh, shit, there’s nothing worse than snakes, not even bees and wasps and hornets can compare to snakes.
And he knew then, in a horrible instant, why Sis Maggie had been laughing when he’d left. She had not lifted the spell. She’d only changed it. To torment him with his number-one fear in the world.
Something warm and oily slithered up his leg.
Another one wriggled under his shirt collar, slid down his back.
Anthony lost all conscious thought, forgot all his years of fine education and legal training. He opened his mouth, and screamed ... and screamed ... and screamed ...
After the Party
When Terry was halfway along the twisting, dark country road, he looked in his rearview mirror and saw a frightening sight: the flashing blue lights of a police cruiser.
“Damn, I don’t believe this,” he said. “He better not be coming for me.”
But at two thirty in the morning, his was the only vehicle on the desolate road. It was a pretty fair bet that the cop was coming for him, and him alone.
Terry took one of his hands away from the steering wheel, blew into it. His lips curled. The sour smell of alcohol was thick on his breath.
“Shit,” he muttered. But he wasn’t surprised. At the Halloween party, he’d had a lot to drink. Three Heinekens ... two Rum and Cokes ... two Hennesseys . . . and more. His memory of exactly what he had drunk was foggy—as it always was when he was smashed.
On the stereo, an Outkast song thumped at a bone-jarring volume. Listening to loud music was one of his tricks to make it safely home after he’d had too much to drink. It kept him alert.
But the music wasn’t enough to save him tonight. He should have known better than to be out on the road in a drunken daze on Halloween night. Johnny Nabb (his uncle referred to all cops by that dubious name, and Terry had picked it up) would surely be out in force, cruising for suckers like him.
He’d fallen right into the trap. Shit.
The cop car veered up to his rear bumper, and sounded a sharp horn that made Terry jump. The beacon’s blue lights whirled around, shining into Terry’s car like some crazy disco strobe light.
Biting his lip, Terry slowed his Nissan Maxima. He pulled to the shoulder of the road.
With a trembling hand, he shut off the stereo.
The last time he’d been pulled over was two years ago, for speeding. He’d gotten away with a fine and a slap on the wrist from the judge. He’d never had a DUI, in spite of driving home drunk at least a dozen times. DUI was a serious trespass in Georgia.
But if you got away once without being caught, you always thought you could pull it off again. His apartment was only twenty minutes away, after all, and the country road was a shortcut, and it wasn’t as though he was falling-down drunk. He floated in that dreamy, slow-motion world that existed somewhere between Tipsyville and Truly Wastedland.
But he was definitely over the legal limit, and he knew it.
He should have accepted Nikki’s invitation to stay at her place for a while, to sober up. But she’d gotten on his last nerve at the party, following him around as if she were a lovesick puppy and getting all in his mix while he tried to hang with his boys. He couldn’t tolerate another minute of her company. Clingy females like her made him sick. They reminded him of his mother.
Still, her company would’ve been better than his upcoming date with Johnny Nabb.
Behind him, the police car waited like a hungry beast, headlights glaring. The cop was probably running Terry’s license plate through the system. He wouldn’t find anything, but the thought didn’t comfort Terry. Driving While Black was
enough to land your ass in jail for something—anything Johnny Nabb could dream up to nail you. And his being drunk didn’t help his case at all. Although he was rapidly sobering up.
The worst part was that he was still dressed in his costume. He’d gone to the party as Blade the Vampire Slayer. He had the long black-leather jacket, the boots, the gloves—all the gear. Instead of a real sword, a plastic blade dangled from a loop on his belt.
He could only imagine being hauled to the county lockup dressed like this.
He never should’ve gone to the stupid party in the first place. He should’ve rented some horror movies and stayed home. But he’d been excited about showing off Nikki, who, for all her clinginess, was fine as hell, and looked great in her tight, black-leather vampiress outfit.
The fellas had asked him about her all night, and it had stroked his ego to respond, “Yeah, man. She’s mine, I’ve got that girl strung out on me ...”
What the hell’s taking that cop so long? he asked himself. The asshole still hadn’t gotten out of the car. He was probably sitting back there chomping on a doughnut, knowing that he was making Terry sweat and enjoying every second of it.
God, he hated cops.
Not a single vehicle had passed since he’d been pulled over. Thick, dark woods crowded both sides of the road. There were no streetlamps out here, and a cape of purple-black clouds concealed the moon. The only light radiated from the police car’s headlights.
Anything could happen out there, between him and the cop. And no one would know.
Okay, don’t think about stuff like that, he warned himself. You’re freaking yourself out. There’s still a way out of this.
He remembered the Certs in his cup holder. His hands shook so badly it took three tries for him to pop the mint into his dry mouth.
He might not fool Johnny Nabb into thinking he was sober, but he had to try.
Behind him, the cruiser’s door finally swung open. A tall, beefy cop climbed out. He strutted toward Terry’s car, as if he had the world on a leash.
Remember, be respectful, and enunciate crisply, Terry told himself. You can talk your way out of this. You’ve got to convince this cop that you’re sober.
Twisted Tales Page 4