Midnight Grinding

by Ronald Kelly

  Jud frowned. “Not even enough for the fair?”

  “I ain’t got nothing! Papa says he can’t afford to give me an allowance like the other kids, so I can’t go.” Then with a sudden burst of enthusiasm, he raised his eyes hopefully.

  “That is, unless you treat me!”

  Jud couldn’t help but grin. “Well, I wasn’t planning on staying long…”

  Chigger was suddenly tugging at his hand. “Come on, mister…please? We’ll have a real good time. There’s all kinds of neat things going on down there. Mayor Templeton is judging the pie-baking contest, there’s gonna be a tractor-pull, and after dark the Fire Department is having a big fireworks show. Come on, will you, mister? Please?”

  Jud knew there was no need in arguing. “Sure, Chigger, let’s do that fair up right!”

  He took the boy’s small hand and, together, they climbed the rise that overlooked the fairground. They were greeted by the sights, sounds, and smells of a genuine country fair. Swapping boyish grins of anticipation, man and child descended into the swirling activity of break-neck carnival rides and colorful sideshow tents.

  As afternoon passed into evening and the evening into night, Jud and Chigger had the time of their lives. They rode all the hair-raising rides, played all the midway games, and gorged themselves on junk food. But, as the sun went down, Jud began to feel a little uneasy despite the excitement of the festivities. It was the people who milled around them that conjured the sensation that something was basically wrong. He found himself noticing their faces. Instead of the cheerfulness and joviality that should have been there, he witnessed only tension and underlying fear. But why? He could not understand why they would feel such a way in such a festive place. He recognized a few folks from his distant past and tried talking to them, but they merely nodded and moved on or did not acknowledge him at all.

  And there were other things, like the vendor at the concession stand. Jud had been in the process of buying himself and Chigger a foot-long hotdog and an orange soda, when he glanced up and saw—or thought he saw—the vendor’s face change slightly. One moment the man appeared normal enough, pudgy and middle-aged, and then the next his features seemed to be creased by some horrid torment, the flesh seared and blistered as if by some great heat. Then, abruptly, the puzzling sight shifted back into reality, returning the man to his former appearance.

  “What’s the matter, mister?” Chigger asked.

  “Nothing,” Jud told him. “Nothing at all.” But there had been something and, from Chigger’s sly grin, he gathered that the boy was somehow privy to it also.

  They continued on down the bustling midway, Jud’s suspicions growing stronger as everyone began to prepare for the big fireworks display. His apprehension came to a head when Chigger wandered from him for a moment to watch a parade of cavorting clowns, some riding unicycles, while others sprayed the crowd with seltzer bottles. Jud was standing beside a tent, when a woman’s hand took his arm and drew him into the privacy of the fortune teller’s booth. The gypsy who confronted him stared at him with the same expression of anxiety. “You must leave this place now,” she warned gravely. “While you still have the opportunity to do so.”

  “But why?” asked Jud. Instead of being irritated at her rudeness, he regarded her with an interest born of creeping dread. “What could there possibly be here that could cause me harm?”

  The fortune teller’s fearful eyes stared out the open doorway. “The boy…the one called Chigger. Believe me, he is not what he appears to be.”

  “You’re insane!” said Jud. “He’s just a little kid.” He turned and glanced absently out at the midway.

  The dancing clowns were gone. In their place was a procession of naked humanity, writhing and wailing as they ran a gauntlet of hot coals and broken glass.

  Jud turned back to the gypsy, his eyes questioning, then again looked outside. The clowns were back, walking on their hands, bombarding passersby with cream pies.

  “I do not have time to explain,” said the woman, pushing him toward the rear of the tent. “Just go. Get back to town as fast as you can, get in your car, and drive as far from this place as possible. And never return.”

  Jud was about to protest, when Chigger’s voice came from out on the midway. “Mister? Mister, where’d you go?”

  Jud almost answered, but caught himself before he could make that fatal mistake.

  There was something peculiar about that youthful voice, some dark intent hidden beneath the innocence and boyish charm. And, for one fleeting second, Chigger’s small form flickered like the waves of a desert mirage, giving a subliminal hint of some awful presence in his place. Something ominous and beyond human comprehension.

  “Quickly, through the back way. You haven’t got much time!”

  Without hesitation, Jud took the fortune teller’s advice, ducking through a flap in the canvas wall and making his way swiftly along the back lot of the carnival grounds. He ignored little Chigger’s inquisitive calls and made it to the wooded rise undiscovered. His heart pounding, Jud topped the knoll just as the first of the fireworks shot skyward, filling the starry night with bursts of heavenly brilliance.

  He looked back down at that swirling maelstrom of shows and rides and fun and felt as if he had just been had. You’re nothing but a damned fool, Jud Simmons! he told himself. You’re just letting your imagination run away with you. There’s nothing wrong…not with this place, not with these people, and certainly not with sweet, little Chigger!

  He was just about to go back down and rejoin his little friend, when he happened to glance over his shoulder at the town behind him. Jud’s panic flared anew and he leapt down the steep rise, running toward the collection of quaint buildings that he had lived among so many years before.

  In the eerie light of the skyward explosions, Jud witnessed what truly existed before him. The town of Jackson Ridge was in shambles. The picturesque storefronts were now dilapidated and decayed, their windows hanging in jagged shards. The paved streets were littered with debris and fissured with deep cracks. What few vehicles stood on the street were no more than rusted hulls, while the grass of the square was scorched an ugly brownish-black.

  Jud felt as if he might pass out. This can’t be for real, he thought, although he knew it was. Then he heard a voice call out from behind him, from the top of the wooded rise. It was the voice of little Chigger…but, then again, it was also the rumbling voice of something that could not possibly possess the soul of an innocent, nine-year-old boy.

  “Hey, mister!” it thundered, the tone hitting highs and lows virtually impossible for the human voice to manage. “Where do you think you’re going? Come back, will ya? Do you hear me? I said…COME BACK!”

  Jud Simmons almost turned around and, if he had, would have surely been lost right then and there. He stood stone still for an endless moment, acutely aware of something coming down the rise toward him. Something very big, something very evil. A fetid heat prickled the nape of his neck and the sulfurous stench of brimstone and burnt flesh assaulted his nostrils. Jud knew that if he turned to face the thing, its appearance, perhaps even its very presence, would surely drive him insane. Resisting the overwhelming urge to commit mental suicide, Jud began to run as fast as possible up the cluttered avenue of Main Street for the town square and his car.

  A hoarse roar shook the air around him, nearly shattering his eardrums. “WHERE ARE YOU GOING, MISTER? DON’T YOU WANNA GO BACK TO THE FAIR? EVERYONE’S WAITING FOR YOU…CAN’T YOU HEAR THEM?”

  Yes, he could hear the sounds coming from over the rise, but it was no longer the toot of the calliope or the excited voices of the crowd. The awful screams of tormented souls drilled through the night air, enhanced by the crackling flames and explosive dishevel of wholesale Armageddon. It was the sound of an agonizing hell on earth.

  As he ran past the battered shops and stores, a strange thing happened. The town began to shift. Brief flashes of normality replaced the devastation. Ben Flanders was giv
ing Charlie Walsh a haircut in the big window of the barber shop, the elderly Stokes brothers were playing checkers outside the hardware store, and a teenager in a Future Farmers jacket was selling Grit papers in front of the post office. Then, just as swiftly as it had appeared, the deceptive camouflage returned to death and destruction. The clever and well-maintained illusion that had been conjured for the benefit of those outsiders who happened to visit Jackson Ridge from day to day abruptly bled back into grim reality.

  Jud cut across the eastern side of the square for his car. God, oh dear God in heaven, let me make it! But what if he did make it to the Lexus? Would it make any difference?

  He now saw the rusted wreck of Joe Bob’s 4x4 pickup truck where it hadn’t been before, hanging on the lip of the square, its front bumper stuck in the split stone of the cistern. It looked as though the windshield imploded from some terrible force. Jud suddenly knew that his car would be no protection whatsoever from the thing that pursued him.

  “COME ON BACK, MISTER! YOU SAID YOU’D TREAT ME TO THE FAIR. YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD!” The horrid voice was strangely infantile, yet as old as time itself. And there was an underlying evil, a gleeful cruelty in every syllable it spoke. Whatever dark realm the demon had originated from, its very presence exuded a foul sense of utter depravity that made Satan’s threat seem pale in comparison.

  The thing was gaining on him. He could hear its approach, like a thousand pounding feet in hot pursuit, growing ever nearer. It’s going to catch me, Jud thought wildly. It’s going to grab hold of me and…what? What in heaven’s name will it do to me then?

  He could sense the thing’s vast bulk as it shifted to his right. It was heading toward the car, trying to cut him off! Jud’s legs felt like rubber. He knew he couldn’t possibly beat it to the car. Abruptly, a crazy idea crossed his desperate mind and he acted on it. He veered sharply to the left, past the historical marker, and squeezed through the gaping crack in the lid of the cistern.

  Cool darkness met him, as well as empty air. He fell for what seemed to be an eternity, before hitting the smooth hardness of the reservoir floor. The breath knocked from his lungs, Jud lay there for a long, silent moment. Even after regaining his senses, he stayed put, staring up at the fissure eight feet overhead. He awaited the inevitable, but it did not come. It appeared as though the demon was somewhat reluctant to enter the place that had entombed it for over two centuries.

  Moments passed. Jud sat up, his eyes still glued to that jagged black slit with its sparkling backdrop of firework-filled sky. When the ogre finally appeared, Jud was not at all surprised to see the innocent, freckled-face of the boy staring down at him.

  “Come on, mister,” begged little Chigger. “Don’t be an Indian-giver. You said we were gonna do the fair up right. We can still have loads of fun, you’ll see. We’ll eat buttered popcorn and those big salty pretzels and we’ll see the freak show and we’ll ride the Wild Mouse and the Tilt-a-Twirl and…”

  Jud listened to the innocent voice for a long time, reeling off the simple pleasures of the county fair. He could even hear the music and the crowd again, could smell the rich fragrance of roasted peanuts and sawdust. He wanted to go back, he truly did, but he knew what awaited him if he dared succumb. The crackle of hellfire would mask the pops of the firing range, the pungency of cooked flesh would overshadow the sticky sweet smell of cotton candy, and his screams would join those of the damned.

  PAPA’S EXILE

  Alcoholism was rampant in my family at one time. The demon liquor turned kind, good-hearted folks into sadistic, mean-spirited ones. This brought about violence and heartache, even resulting in one uncle killing another in a fit of drunken rage. That is why I’ve never taken a drink in my life. Not trying to sound judgmental; it was just a personal choice I made to avoid that horrible disease from sinking its thorny claws in me.

  This story is short, but certainly not sweet. It deals with an alcoholic and the physical and emotional havoc he wreaks, as well as the way he is “cast out” from the family that he victimizes.

  Will Papa ever come home again?” asks Stephanie, her face staring hopefully from amid the snug safety of her pillows, blankets, and plush stuffed animals.

  “No, baby,” says Mother. “Never again.”

  Stephanie begins to ask why, but the dousing of the light curtails that simple question. “Sweet dreams,” Mother whispers and leaves her with a kiss.

  Thunder rumbles, echoes of a distant storm, as Mother walks the darkened halls of the old house. Her daughter’s question brings a thin smile to her lips and she pauses by the parlor window. The persimmon grove crowds against the northern wall. Skeletal sentries stand tall and somber, as if ever watching.

  No, never again. Not her dear, half-blind husband. Never again would his drunken voice resound within their peaceful household, eliciting fear and dread, nor would there be the fleshy blows of anger. And his mustachioed face would never glare hatefully across the dinner table, one eye livid, the other emotionless, unreal.

  Never again will you rule us, she had told him that night long ago, a night laced with pain and the raw stench of liquor. Never again will you find comfort before the warmth of the hearth, nor in the folds of our marriage bed. Never again shall you savor the scent of my perfume or relish the softness of my skin. She had declared all of these things and they had come to pass. After that night, Papa no longer filled the gabled structure with his troublesome presence, no longer darkened the cobbled walk with his weaving, drunken shadow.

  The storm comes, forceful and born of vengeance. Dark clouds boil overhead, advancing, engulfing the land with their surly discontent. Beside the house, the grove dances, swaying to and fro, trees animated. Deep in the torrid darkness, something winks in whipcrack flashes of heavenly brilliance. Then, as a violent thunderclap shakes the earth’s very foundation, it falls like a lone hailstone, bounces, rolls across the sodden ebony carpet of night.

  ***

  The following morning reigns supreme.

  Young Stephanie skips cheerfully beneath the dripping branches, down the winding center path, through Mother’s flower garden and into the grove. She jumps an obstructive puddle, then is teased by an earthward sparkle. Stephanie spies a glistening orb lying at the foot of an ancient tree, hollow and dead from the ravages of time. Picking up the peculiar object, she polishes it against the cloth of her blouse, marveling, a treasure to behold. She stares at it and it stares back. Familiar, yet unreal.

  Curiously, the girl regards the old tree, for the trunk’s gaping seam has been rent by the angry passing of the storm. As she draws nearer, something within the hollow shifts and falls forward.

  Stephanie squeals, but not in delight.

  Papa has come home.

  THE HATCHLING

  Back when I was a kid, dog-fighting was popular in the area where I lived. Before that, cock-fighting was the favorite illegal pastime of my Grandpa’s generation. I don’t hear much about either anymore, but they are still around. Men with money to wager and a hunger for violence never grow weary of such a sport.

  I’m sure there are those who participated in such dealings—including the training and competition of pitting one of God’s creatures against another—who now regret those bloodthirsty days. The Lord forgives us of our sins, but the Devil isn’t so quick to forget.

  “Not so fast, hoss,” he’ll say with a chuckle, then heap the misery of those past actions upon you a hundredfold.

  I reckon a couple of things could have brought it about. Maybe it was that new corn feed I bought wholesale down at the co-op or maybe it was simply some unforeseen deformity. Such things happen on the farm occasionally…two-headed calves and the like. But, then again, I always figured there was some strange and sinister intelligence behind the whole ugly business. Something unspeakably evil. Sometimes I wonder if old Lucifer himself hadn’t seeded that hen and caused the sudden appearance of that godawful egg.

  I’ve been a farmer here in Crimshaw County since I was fo
urteen and that was some sixty years ago. I’ve planted and harvested all types of produce: tobacco, corn, soybeans.

  And I’ve dabbled in livestock, too, but most particularly chickens. Folks from all over the county drive for miles to buy my eggs and poultry. But when I was a younger man my association with chickens was not so innocent. There was a time when I had quite a reputation among the local sportsmen as a first-class breeder of champion fighting cocks. However, I sickened of that blood sport as I grew older and wiser and, much to the relief of my wife Margret, gave it up for honest work.

  Anyway, it was a chilly morning in early spring when Margret hollered at me from the chicken coop. “Jake…come out here and take a look at this.”

  I had been slopping the hogs, so I set my pail aside and crossed the barnyard to the henhouse.

  Margret was standing there in the shadowy coop, a half-full basket of white and brown eggs in her hand and a puzzled look on her face. I glanced down at her feet and saw one of our best laying hens stretched out on the earthen floor. I stooped down and picked at it for a while. At first glance, I thought maybe a fox or a weasel had gotten into the coop and laid waste to the poor critter. But, upon further inspection, I saw that it hadn’t been eaten at all.

  “This is mighty strange,” I told the wife. “Almost looks like this hen was split in two…from the inside out.”

  “No doubt it was,” Margret agreed. “Take a look at what it laid here in its nest.”

  I stood up and regarded the long, laying bins that went three levels high along the back wall. In the nest that the Rock Island red had always occupied there was the damnedest egg I’d ever laid eyes on.

  The thing was big, the size of a coconut. And it was as black as sin. It didn’t have that flat, slightly granulated texture to it like a regular hen egg. Instead, it was slick as a black pearl. You could see your reflection in its surface, the shell was so shiny.