by Rick Hautala
Oh, sure. He still had a ball-busting job at the I.P.P. Paper mill, and there was never enough money, really, to make ends meet. But at least—praise be to God—he wasn’t ever going to hear that shrill voice, nagging him to do this and not do that. Those days were gone … dead and buried out behind the barn.
After breakfast, he piled his dirty dishes into the sink, intending to wash them along with the supper dishes this evening. With his second cup of coffee in hand, he sat back down and considered what he should do about explaining to people around town where Lydia was. She certainly didn’t have many—if any—friends who would miss her, but Hilton was a small town. After a while, people were going to notice that she had stopped coming to the supermarket or whatever. And then people might start asking questions. And if the questions got serious enough, they might catch the attention of the police.
As he sipped his coffee, Merit mulled over several options. For one thing, he could call the police and tell them his wife had gone out last night and not come back. He could tell them he thinks she ran off to God-knows-where. What were the chances they would go snooping around the compost heap?
On the other hand, he could simply let the whole thing slide. If—and that was a huge if—anyone asked him where Lydia was, he could say she’d gone to visit her sister in upstate New York who was sick with “the cancer.” Finally, though, Merit decided that mentioning anything about Lydia to anyone would raise suspicion, so he opted to let it rest … for now, anyway. At least until she was good and rotted away behind the barn. He’d handle whatever came up when and if it came up.
So with that decision firmly in mind, Merit slapped together a sandwich for lunch, threw it along with an apple and soda into his lunch pail, and grabbed his truck keys from the counter. He was halfway to the back door when something—he wasn’t sure what—struck him as odd. He paused in the hallway and shook his head, unable to put his finger on exactly what it was, but something was wrong. The instant he swung open the back door, he saw the problem. The window curtain on the back door had been too dark, and as the door swung open and he looked outside onto the porch, he saw why.
The compost heap was piled up on the front steps and halfway across the porch to the door, blocking the morning sunlight that usually came in through the back door window.
“Mary Mother of Christ!” Merit shouted.
He took a couple of staggering steps backwards, stopping only when he bumped into the opened hall closet door. He hit the edge of the door so hard he dropped his lunch, and it spilled out onto the floor. The apple bounced as it rolled away, but Merit barely noticed. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
It was … impossible.
How could the compost have gotten there overnight?
More precisely, who had put it there?
If this was someone’s idea of a practical joke, he failed to see the humor. Even as he stared in amazement at the compost heap, he could see that it was moving … shifting forward. The thick, rich soil heaved and seethed with a churning action that made loud, wet sucking sounds. A stench as strong as an open cesspool rose from the compost heap and wafted into the house on the morning breeze, making Merit’s stomach churn. The muck steamed in the morning sun. The air around it was buzzing with hundreds of flies.
“No damned way! … This can’t be happening!”
Merit took a few hesitant steps forward, leaning close to inspect the shifting pile. It was bigger than he expected, so big it was framed by the doorway, but Merit figured it looked so much bigger because he wasn’t used to seeing it on the porch.
But how had it gotten here, up on the porch?
That was a serious question, and even more seriously—what was he going to do about it?
Merit groaned as he ran his hand over his mouth, vaguely aware that his freshly-shaved upper lip was slick with sweat. If he left for work right now, he’d get there just about on time. But he couldn’t go to work yet. He had to deal with this … monstrosity. There was no way he could leave it here on the porch all day, rotting away.
“Christ on a rubber crutch,” he muttered as he eyed the heaving mound of black dirt and decay.
He stared at it for a long time … several minutes … fascinated by the squirming, wiggling stuff as it seethed in the shade of the porch. He couldn’t stop wondering what had happened—what was happening right now to the chopped-up pieces of his wife that were buried in there.
He shook his head when he remembered that he had to get to the mill. Tearing his gaze away, he rushed back into the living room, grabbed the phone, and hurriedly dialed the number for the mill. When he got the switchboard, he asked to speak to his foreman, Bo Hoskins. Fighting to control a rush of nerves, he told his boss that he was having trouble getting his truck started, and that he’d be a little late. Hoskins offered to send someone out to pick him up, but Merit insisted it was just a bad spark plug, and that he could have it changed in no time and be at work within the hour. Once he had Hoskins’ permission to be late, Merit hung up and went back out onto the porch.
Even in the short time he’d been on the phone, the compost heap had shifted closer to the door. Black strands of mulch seeped out across the floorboards like slowly melting ice cream. Merit studied them for a moment, trying to figure out how the thing was moving. If it had gotten this far, what would stop it from coming further inside?
“Well, by Jesus. I’ll take care of you once and for all, you sum-bitch,” he whispered harshly.
Being careful to stay as far away from it as he could, he edged over to the back steps. Once he was clear of the compost heap, he jumped down to the lawn and ran over to the barn. He was out of breath by the time he grabbed the shovel and wheelbarrow from inside the doorway. A sharp stab of pain slid between his ribs on the left side of his chest, but he ignored it as he pushed the barrow over to the porch and began shoveling the rich compost into it. He grumbled to himself, sputtering with anger as he carted the first load back out behind the barn.
It wasn’t long before he broke a sweat, and the pain in his chest intensified, but he told himself he had to work fast. He had less than an hour. Still, he couldn’t help but pause every now and then, and inspect the compost, wondering with morbid curiosity if, now that it was daylight, he might be able to see a piece or two of his wife mixed in with the muck. All he saw, though, was rich, black compost, crawling with worms and other creepy, crawly things.
It took him nine trips with the wheelbarrow to get it all back out behind the barn. He recalled that it had taken only six trips last night, and he wondered why there was so much more to haul.
Is the damned thing growing somehow?
Hell, compost was supposed to be the best thing to make gardens grow, but Merit had never heard of compost itself growing.
He worked fast, and by the time he’d dumped the last barrowful out back, his clothes were filthy and saturated with sweat. The pain in his side hadn’t gone away, either, but it was definitely lessening.
Flooded with relief, Merit put the tools back into the barn and went back into the house to shower and change before heading off to work. He was an hour and a half late when he got there, but Hoskins never said a thing about it. Merit didn’t give it another thought. He had plenty of other things weighing on his mind … like how, when he was driving out of the driveway, he had glanced into the rearview mirror and was positive he had seen a small strip of the black compost reaching out from behind the barn.
* * *
By the time he left work and headed home that evening, Merit was a physical and emotional wreck. Working as hard as he had last night and then again this morning had taken its toll on him. Hell, he wasn’t twenty-five anymore … he wasn’t even fifty-five anymore. All that shoveling and lugging on top of his usual shift at the mill had taken all he had and then some. The pain in his side had never gone away all day, and he was sure it was going to get worse tonight unless he took some pain reliever when he got home. He’d make sure to stop at the liquor store
on the way home and buy some “pain reliever.”
But the mental strain was much worse than any physical exhaustion. No matter what angle he thought about it from, he simply couldn’t come up with a rational explanation for how the Christ that compost heap had ended up on the back porch.
Was it moving on its own power?
Or was someone moving it—someone who had seen what he’d done to Lydia and was tormenting him, trying to drive him insane so he’d confess?
An even more frightening thought occurred to him that maybe he felt some deep-seated, subconscious guilt about what he had done and, without being consciously aware of it, was carting the compost out into the open where it couldn’t remain hidden … as if his guilty conscience wanted him to get caught.
That struck him as close to impossible because he felt no guilt for what he’d done. And if that was the case, then he must have moved the heap four times, not two. After giving that thought a bit of consideration, he rejected it and decided it didn’t matter—none of it mattered. He was simply going to have to deal with this problem no matter what was causing it. Somehow, the compost heap had gotten there, and all he had to do was make sure it—and Lydia—stayed out behind the barn where they belonged.
Anxious to get home, he forgot all about stopping off at the liquor store. When he turned into his driveway, his truck rattling in the ruts, Merit realized he was so tense he consciously had to ease up his grip on the steering wheel. He pulled to a stop in front of the barn, killed the engine, and got out of the truck cab. He’d been holding his breath so long his side ached worse than before. He knew he had been expecting to see the compost heap back on the porch. When he saw that the porch was clear and there wasn’t a trace of compost anywhere, he let the air out of his lungs in a long, slow sigh. Shaking his head and rotating his left arm, which had stiffened up something awful at work, he started up the weed-choked walkway to the door. Halfway there, he stopped and looked, amazed, at the door.
It was open, and small piles of black soil littered the carpet in the entryway.
He was positive he had locked the door on his way out, but maybe not … Maybe he had been too shaken to do it this morning. Regardless, he kept moving forward, slower now, toward the steps.
What if someone had broken into the house while he was at work?
Or maybe a friend had stopped by and opened the door after knocking and not getting an answer?
But—no, Merit was positive he had locked the door.
He mounted the steps and paused once he was under the shade of the porch. Cautiously, he poked his head into the house and glanced into the living room. The TV was still there, so that ruled out a break-in. As he eased into the hallway, though, a powerfully pungent aroma assailed his nostrils. The stench of rot mixed with a rich, loamy aroma lingered in the air. It smelled like fresh overturned soil.
When he cocked his head to one side to listen, he was sure he could hear a faint buzzing sound … like dozens if not hundreds of flies had congregated somewhere in the house.
“S’anyone here?” he called out, surprising himself with the strength of his voice. “Al—? That you—?”
Maybe his brother had stopped by to see if he wanted to go fishing before it got dark. Merit knew the only time his brother dropped by was when he wanted to drink Merit’s beer and eat his food, freeloader that he was.
Then another thought struck Merit.
What if all of this was Al’s doing?
What if this is some twisted practical joke he’s playing?
It’d be just like Al to think something like that was funny.
He called out again to Al, but no reply came. Everything was silenct except for the buzzing sound at the edge of hearing. Merit took a deep breath, adjusted his belt, and then walked boldly into the kitchen and placed his empty lunch pail beside the sink as he looked around.
He’d been right about one thing. The buzzing sound was flies, all right. The window screen over the kitchen sink was crawling with them. The sound rose louder as they beat their wings furiously and darted back and forth, seeking escape. Grumbling under his breath, Merit reached into the mass of flies and slid the screen up. Most of them flew away, and the few that didn’t, he crushed with his thumb and cleaned up with a napkin before pulling the screen back down.
Merit decided that a shower before supper would help him relax. All in all, it had been one hell of a last twenty-four hours. Maybe a blast of hot water would ease up the stitch of pain in his left side, too. Moving slowly, he walked down the hallway to the stairs and slowly climbed them. When he was halfway down the hall to his bedroom, he realized that the dense loamy smell was getting much stronger.
“What in the name of …?” he said softly, but he couldn’t say anything more when he opened the bedroom door and saw the compost heap piled up high in the middle of the bed. Black clumps of moist soil had stained the bedspread and pillows, and the seething mess littered the floor all around the bed.
Unable to tear his eyes away from the sight, Merit started backing up until he bumped into the bedroom wall. The compost heap surged as if agitated by his presence. Huge chunks of rotting black earth shifted and started moving toward him. The strangest thing of all was, the compost heap no longer looked like a simple pile of rotting vegetation and soil. Damned if it didn’t look like the thing was a human body that had been lying down and was now struggling to sit up.
Merit grunted and doubled over when the pain between his ribs suddenly intensified. The jab of cold was so intense he cried out. He eyes began to water as he stared, unblinking, at the compost heap which now, undeniably, had gathered itself up into a pile with a large rounded knob on top. From either side, thick clumps that looked like horribly deformed arms protruded. Defying gravity, they curled up, rising to the top of the pile, which now—most definitely—looked like a distorted head. Two dark ovals opened up where the eyes should be, and a squat nub formed into what looked like a squashed nose. Below that, a long, wide gash widened, looking like a distorted mouth.
“No … no,” Merit whispered as he slapped his hands uselessly against the wall, trying to will this sight to go away.
But the compost heap continued to shift until it clearly assumed the rough outline of a human. The gaping opening where the mouth should have been dripped thick clots of dirt and slime that looked like dark, stained mucous or blood. Twisted lips, wiggling with maggots and worms, opened and closed as though it was struggling to speak. And then, with a sound that froze Merit’s blood, a voice distorted by a bubbly gurgle rasped, “Hello … Honeybun …”
“No! … No, this is not happening,” Merit said, his voice twisted into a low moan of abject terror.
He shook his head and rubbed his eyes as though he could make the illusion go away, but the pile of rotting muck on the bed continued to seethe upwards as it assumed a more distinct human shape.
“I … thought … you … might … miss … me,” the pile of moldy earth said, its voice a distorted, watery rattle. “I … was … so … lonely … out … there … behind … the … barn …”
Unable to move or even breathe, Merit gaped at the monstrosity as two large chunks shifted to the edge of the bed and clumped down onto the floor like thick, black-crusted legs and feet. The bedsprings creaked horribly beneath the shifting weight as the compost heap shifted forward as if to stand. Merit finally broke through his amazement and moved swiftly to the closet door where he kept his shotgun. He flung the door open and reached inside for it, feeling around blindly for it because he didn’t dare take his eyes away from the horror that was getting up off the bed. The instant he felt the cold metal of the gun barrel against his hand, the thing heaved itself up from the bed and stood to its full height. The top of the quivering mass of lumpy black earth almost touched the ceiling. Maggots rained down onto the floor like spilled rice. The only difference was, this rice was squirming around on the rug. The stench of rot ballooned in the bedroom as the thing lurched forward with its arms spread
wide.
“Didn’t ... you ... miss ... me ... Honeybun ...?” the black pit of a mouth said thickly. “Aren’t ... you ... sorry ... for ... what ... you ... did ... to ... me...?”
Merit experienced a momentary flood of relief when his fingers closed around the smooth barrel of the shotgun. Raising it quickly, he opened the chamber to make sure it was loaded. Then he snapped it shut and raised the gun, taking careful aim at the compost heap. His hands were shaking so badly his aim kept wavering, but he fixed it on the distorted head of the thing.
“You can stop right there,” he said, his voice wavering. “I ain’t sorry ‘bout what I done, ‘n if you don’t stop right where you are …”
“But ... Merit ... Honeybunny …” the compost heap said in a low rumbling voice that sounded vaguely like Lydia’s voice. “I ... want ... you ... to ... come … with ... me...”
“No way in hell!” Merit shouted. “Now you git!”
He jabbed the shotgun at the compost as it continued to slide across the floor toward him. The stench grew stronger and almost overpowered him, but he raised the shotgun to his shoulder and narrowed his left eye as he aimed and then unloaded both barrels.
The twin blasts slammed into Merit’s ears like hammer blows. He opened his eyes to see clumps of black earth spray into the air and splatter against the wall behind the bed. Shotgun pellets ripped into the wallpaper, shredding it and making large divots in the plaster beneath. Black smears of wet ooze dripped down the wall to the floor in wide ink-splash swatches. For an instant, the compost heap staggered. Then it righted itself and started moving forward again.
“Now ... that ... wasn’t ... very ... nice ... now ... was ... it ... Honeybunny …” the black hole of the mouth said, widening to the size of a basketball.
“You keep away from me!” Merit shrieked, his voice so strained it was pitched two octaves higher than normal.