Stupefying Stories: August 2016

by Sarah Read

  “Supplies?” His brows arched. Cathy felt her insides turn over, but this time it wasn’t the good feeling.

  “Yeah. Supplies.”

  “You know what I just heard over the dispatch radio?” He cleared his throat, scratching off a fleck of polish from the claw under his fingers. Fear and exhaustion had taken her words. Cathy could only shake her head in reply.

  “Gord was on the job tonight, checking out the party places in the camp sites and trails. We’ve had a lot of trouble with booze and drug caches. He was going to quit when the rain hit, but he was already at Bigham’s Trail, so thought he’d check it anyway. Well, he called in a report of a guy killed in a car accident. In the bush. In the park. RCMP are there now with Gord.” Now he raised one eyebrow. Wish I could do that, thought Cathy.

  Dave continued. “I’ll be joining the investigation early tomorrow morning.”

  “Really?” Cathy found speech, but her throat was tight, her larynx a dry lump, making the word squeak out. Dave’s expression was a study in blankness. No eyebrow movement. Maybe that’s a good sign.

  “Yeah. Looks like a bear got to the remains awfully damn fast. Too bad about the rain, too. Wiped out most of the evidence. Except for some incriminating stuff in the glove compartment: contact info for a known gall bladder trafficker. Dead guy was a poacher.” Dave spat to the side.

  “No kidding? Organized crime, then? Maybe a gang hit?” Stop squirming, Cathy, he’ll notice.

  “No, probably drunk driving. Wine everywhere. Good riddance, I say. Cruel bastards, poachers.” Dave toyed with the sparkles on another claw, now glancing sideways at Cathy. “I’ve often thought it would be great if we could get the bears to gang up on them, slit their bellies and leave them there.” Dave’s eyes glinted with an edge Cathy had never noticed before. She felt both chilled and hopeful of escape. She also hoped he didn’t see the shiver.

  “Great, yeah.”

  “But, I think you oughtta know that the victim was Bonnie’s boyfriend.”

  “Oh...That’s too bad. Bonnie’ll be devastated.”

  “I figured.” Dave sighed. The steely glint vanished from his clear blue eyes, leaving the Dave she knew. “She’ll be having a tough time the next little while then. I don’t expect we’ll be seeing her around town.” Dave put the tarp back gently, as if covering a sleeping child. He sighed again, and gave Cathy a worried smile, an Old Friend Dave smile. Cathy felt relief flooding from her scalp to her toes.

  Dave said, “You take care of yourself, understand?”

  “Yeah, thanks Dave.” She turned, then turned back.

  “Come visit soon, Dave. It’s been too many years.”

  “Sure. What’s wrong with visiting an old friend? Just not during the full moon.”

  “Moon’s got nothing to do with things, Dave. Never did.”

  “Guessed so, but I’m a cautious man. Don’t like too much strangeness in my life.”

  “Don’t worry. None coming your way.”

  “I bet.”

  ¤

  If the ensuing investigation found anything awry, no one ever heard about it. The provincial park’s office called Cathy the following day as a local bear expert. They wanted her opinion at the now water-logged crash site. Just to confirm the park office findings, they said. No one argued with the park’s choice of expert.

  “Just scavenging activity,” she said, supporting Gord and Dave’s report, “Not a nuisance bear. Not a man-eater. No need for a hunt.”

  If Bonnie was reported to be keeping to herself with bottles of wine in the boat house, it was chalked up to grief. No one even expected her to attend the memorial service once Bob’s wife and kids arrived from Fort Mac.

  And if there were any irregularities between the estimated speed of the car and the extent of the deceased’s injuries, anything unexplainable in the bush around his dwelling, or a suspicious track in the bush behind Old Jack River leading to Bigham Trail, it escaped the notice of the RCMP detachment, the band council, the mayor, and the local press.

  St. Sang was just that kind of place.

  Lynne M. MacLean has had short fiction and poetry published in On Spec Magazine, Tesseracts Fifteen, Horrific History, Deep Sea Monster Hunter: Leviathan and various other magazines and anthologies. She recently completed her first novel. Currently, she is a public and community health research consultant in Ottawa, Ontario, but has also worked as a mental health practitioner in Canada’s far north and prairie regions. She is a married mother of two young adults. She thanks her pharmacist and wildlife biologist experts, DK and NM, for advice on drugs and were-bears. Names have been withheld to prevent hits to their professional reputations (but might be available for a price). Visit her on Twitter @LynneMacLean2, or online at LynneMMacLean.com.

  THE BOO HAG

  By David Bowles

  “Dr. Crow,” he says, terror in his eyes, “Boo hag coming to get me.”

  I pause my grinding and peer over the rims of my cobalt-blue shades. “A boo hag. You sure?”

  “Yaas,” he drawls in the Gullah way. “I seen her, all dripping red and then wearing a skin what she stole. I need your help, Dr. Crow. Get rid of this haint before she kill me!”

  I take a moment to size John Wilson up. He’s about half a foot shorter than me, maybe thirty-five, clothes wrinkled, smell of sweat and marsh strong on him. His fear is real, nigh-on palpable. I push my shades up my nose and regard him closer through the fixed-up lenses. His soul is stained and ravaged with nefarious deeds, and death is blackly edging in.

  Intrigued and concerned, I give a quick nod.

  “Alright. Flip the sign on my door to closed, Mr. Wilson, and follow me.”

  I lay a rag over the mortar and pestle as he moves to obey, then roll the sleeves of my shirt down over the scarification on my forearms and slip my suit coat back on. Dropping my black hat atop my age-rimed twists, I lead the way.

  The back room of my shop is lined with high shelves, all stuffed full of mason jars and sweetgrass baskets containing the accoutrements of my trade. Some of the more dangerous things are locked away in hex-carved cabinets. There’s a rickety old desk there in the middle where I do what research and figures as need doing. Nearby I’ve set up a cot and an old record player.

  Not much else I need beyond my own aging bones.

  “Sit down,” I tell him as he wanders in, staring all dumbfounded at my herbs and implements. He scrapes a metal folding chair closer as I drop into my own, the cracked leather sighing like it’s been hankering for my tall, thin body.

  “Thankee,” he breathes, running his left hand over his face. I notice the fading mark of a wedding band. “My mama sister, she say I need me a root doctor. Now, even a fool like me know you the most respected hoodoo man on St. Helena. Hell, ain’t nobody better in the whole Lowcountry or all the Carolinas, even.”

  “Don’t sweetmouth me, Mr. Wilson. I know what I am. Just give me the story, all of it.”

  He twitches, a mite nervous at my tone. “Yaas, sir. So, lucky me, I got me a right fine gal, clean skin and pretty. Maybe six week back, my gal, she start complain about her bones been achy and she feel tired ever morning, though she sleep sound since dark the light. Once, I wake up long after middle-night and find this horrible haint a-crouch on my gal chest, like a scrawny-ass woman except no skin: all red meat and thick ropy veins pulsing blue. Mama learned me about boo hags when I’s a child, so I reckoned I’s looking upon one. Riding, like the old folk say. That hag was leaning real close, sucking up the air what come out my gal mouth.”

  “Her juju.”

  Wilson blinks, surprised by the interruption.

  “It was feeding off her juju. All that’s holy inside her.”

  He swallows, grimaces, says nothing.

  I make an irritated gesture. “Go on. Crack your teeth. It’ll take forever if you go all silent after every damn comment I make.”

  “Alright, sorry. And me, I couldn’t move a muscle. Like I’s jinxed, understand. Hag look a
t me, snarl, keep on…sucking on my gal juju. For hours, Dr. Crow. Then, just before fowl-crow, it up and fly away.”

  I stroke the bronzed crow skull on my necklace thoughtfully. “And what did you do?”

  “Oh, I got me down to the Sherman-Williams, had them boys mix me up some haint blue for to paint my gal porch and window frame. But that stuff don’t work, Dr. Crow. Didn’t protect a damn thing.”

  Half-closing my eyes in annoyance, I shake my head. “Son, the Sherman-Williams employees don’t know nothing about haint blue. They just sold your ass some knock-off shade of indigo. Wasted your money.”

  “Goddamnit,” he mutters. “Them sumbitches. Anyways, I tried to protect her, but that boo hag come back, and this time she stole my gal away. Drug her right out the door, into the night. I reckoned she’s dead, and next day I’s prepare myself for tell the police or somebody, when I seen her walking down Sea Island Parkway, like nothing happen. Only, it wasn’t my gal, you see. Not as tall, skin all baggy like if it didn’t fit her good. Look right at me as I pass in my old car. She smile with teeth what ain’t my gal teeth, eyes what ain’t hers, neither. And ever couple days? I see her again, elsewheres. Like she stalking me. Each time a little closer to my house. I steered clear of her place, case she try and kill me. Then this morning, just past day-clean, I step onto my porch, and there she was—standing on the other side of the street, staring at me. I like to crap my pants when she start to cackle, like a crazy-ass witch from hell. Then she like make a sign…ah, can’t bring the word right now. Nasty too much. ”

  “Okay,” I say, drumming my fingers briskly on the desk. “Here’s what you’re going to do, Mr. Wilson. I want you to go down to Cootah Flea Market, out there where you live, close to Hunting Island. You know the place. Old Mo Frederick, he’s got a booth there, and he’ll sell you some genuine haint blue. Get your porch roof and window trim painted. Then put your broom and a strainer, if you’ve got one, on either side of your bedroom door. If the hag gets in, she’ll have to stop and count the straws and holes, and we can do what needs doing when she’s thusly occupied.”

  Wilson’s face lights up. “So you coming to rid me of the haint?”

  “I’ll show up when the sun gets red for going down. Got a few tricks up my sleeve, as you can imagine. Cost you a hundred bucks, though.”

  Reaching into his trousers, he pulls out a couple of wrinkled twenties. “I can get you the rest at the house, Dr. Crow. That alright?”

  We shake hands, and he hurries out to take care of his part. I sit in the gloom for a few minutes, thinking. Then I pull out an old battered flip-phone from my coat pocket.

  I’ve got the Frogmore PD saved to my contacts. A dispatcher or receptionist or somesuch answers. A woman. I ask to speak to Detective James Barnwell. She connects me.

  “Detective Barnwell.”

  “Mr. Bailey! I’d recognize that creepy-ass voice anywhere.”

  “Detective, please. Mr. Bailey was my father. If you can’t bring yourself to call me Dr. Crow, Kenneth will do just fine.”

  We’ve had this conversation several times. Brother’s okay, just a little too hipster for my taste. Thinks he’s funny, too.

  “Okay, Kenneth, what can I do for you?”

  “Well, I’m going to mention a name, and I suspect you’ll recognize it right off. Hoping you can give me the lowdown on him.”

  “Maybe. Who’s the dude?”

  “John Wilson. Geechee. Lives down almost to Land’s End, near the marshes.”

  There’s a choking sound, like the detective is taking a sip of something when I startle him with the name. “Oh, yeah. I know him, alright. Mechanic. Long history of domestic violence. Neighbors used to call us up all the time about him whaling away on his wife.”

  The tense gets my attention. “Used to.”

  “Yes, well, Merlene Wilson went missing three months ago, Kenneth. John claims she ran off with some fellow, but can’t give us any details. He’s definitely a person of interest. No evidence, though. If he did it, he covered his tracks really well. Did he, uh, use hoodoo or something?”

  “Nah, this fool wouldn’t know rootwork if it bit him in the ass. Says he’s got an unwelcome visitor.”

  After an uncomfortable silence, Barnwell mutters, “A haint?”

  “Yup. Boo hag.”

  “Damn, Kenneth, weren’t you bragging about how you’d rid St. Helena Island of boo hags, how they all had to go ride the poor sons of bitches up in Charleston for their juju now?”

  “Yeah, well, I’m pretty certain this is a new one, Detective. Just a few months undead.”

  I can almost hear him thinking. “I see. So, you got this, then? I’m expecting justice all around, Dr. Crow.”

  That’s how I know he’s serious. Giving me his tacit approval. Don’t need it, but it’s good to know a lawman trusts the rootworker.

  “It’s coming, friend. I’ll make damn sure.”

  ¤

  Except for the fresh blue paint daubed here and there, John Wilson’s old house has been scoured down to bare, cracked clapboards by salty winds. The tang of the marsh fills the warm summer air, and I wish for a moment I weren’t about such dark deeds this evening. Would be lovely to sit on his porch, drink some whiskey, watch the red sun die out there beyond Savannah.

  He lets me in, his eyes jerking nervously across the darkening horizon before he shuts the door. I take in the simple parlor, which opens onto a kitchen on the one side. A hall appears to lead past a bathroom and guest room to a master bedroom at the end. Wilson’s set up the broom and a sieve on either side of the door.

  Though he’s scraped and redecorated the place like a palimpsest, putting up a flat screen and some generic prints, I glimpse the ghostly traces of a woman’s touch. Curtains. Wallpaper in the kitchen. Walking through the house, I sense Merlene Wilson everywhere. This was her home. She spent long, lonely hours making it hers.

  Wilson calls me back to the kitchen.

  “Swung by my mama sister house. She made Frogmore stew for me. Want some?”

  “I could eat, sure.”

  We sit across a small dining table from each other, peeling shrimp and drinking beer as night falls outside. It’s hard to gauge a man’s heart, so I probe a bit.

  “Your gal fix this place up before she was taken?”

  His hand quivers halfway to his mouth. “Uh, no, sir. Had me a wife, once. Run off.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “That so? She catch you with the other woman, or did she find herself a man more to her liking?”

  Anger flashes in his eyes as he clenches up his jaw. Haints scare him, but he’s quick to take umbrage. If I weren’t a hoodoo man, he’d probably come at me. Younger, heavier.

  But he leans back, wipes his hands on a paper towel, takes a deep breath.

  “Dr. Crow, you know how it be. Man gets him a lawful lady for she can give him sons, keep his house clean, make him feel a little important. Sometimes, though, a woman racktify in the head, get to thinking there more to things than that. Decide she ain’t ready for no children. Start to long-eye all she ain’t got. Mess up a marriage. Then one day among all, she figure she going to make a change.”

  I take another sip of beer. “There are men as wouldn’t allow that from their wives.”

  “No, I reckon not. Most of us wouldn’t. Most of us, we try and put them in they place.”

  “Like you tried to.”

  His eyes sort of glaze over with a mixture of hate and memory. “And failed. Had us a right ugly quarrel. She run off with some jackass. Ain’t seen her since.”

  “And now, to add insult to injury, your gal’s been killed by a haint that’s wearing her skin. Can’t catch a break, huh? Alright. We’re going to sort this out, Mr. Wilson.” I pull a vial from my shirt pocket, grab his beer bottle, sift some of the powder in.

  “What you doing, Dr. Crow?”

  “Well, I need you to go to sleep as soon as you can so we lure the boo hag in. But right now? You’re a bundle of frant
ic nerves. You’ll just lay in your bed, tossing and turning. This’ll let you relax quicker, send you right into the Sandman’s arms.”

  He reaches for the beer, cocks his head thoughtfully. “Where you going to be?”

  “Sitting in a corner of your room. I’ll darkle the air around me, deepen the shadows so she can’t see me if she makes it past the wards. Once she’s inside, the end will come soon.”

  Wilson takes a deep draught, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “At last, I’m a be at peace.”

  “Yes,” I agree darkly. “Yes, you will.”

  ¤

  It’s just after midnight. Wilson is snoring lightly in his bed. I’ve fallen into a sort of trance, slumped in the kitchen chair I dragged to his room. The violence perpetrated in this house can’t be scrubbed out like the bloodstains were. I take it all in, let it leech my compassion away.

  There comes a sound like wind creaking in the eaves. Windows rattle lightly. Something inhuman scratches at the clapboards, seeking purchase. Wood groans, splinters.

  As the temperature begins to rise, I hear footsteps coming down the hall, light wet slaps against the floorboards. A gagging stench of rotten meat and scarlet swamp hibiscus floods the room as the movement stops just outside the open door.

  She giggles then, a childlike chuckle that deepens into spine-tingling laughter, gleeful and mad and hungry for death.

  Then the boo hag bursts into the room, carrying the broom in one hand and the colander in the other. Stripped of skin, her muscles gleam slick and red in the moonlight that spills through the window. Pulsing blue like unspeakable alien tendrils, thick ropey veins crisscross her flayed flesh. Her breasts and hips are marbled white, and her ivory teeth snaggle fierce as she snarls.

  With a growl, the boo hag leaps onto the bed, hunkering down on the chest of John Wilson, whose eyes flutter open and look upon her in utter horror.