by Carol Weekes
Cory shrunk back a little over this. “Can you make it pump water, Daddy?”
Terry shrugged and stepped up to the handle. It had once been painted a cherry red, but time and weather had removed most of the paint, leaving only chips of faded red against dark steel. “Well, we can give it a try. But only this time, understand? I’m going to come back out here and cover this thing up more securely than this. It’s a liability, is what it is.”
“What’s a liability, Daddy?”
Terry felt mild amusement override his initial fear. “It’s a problem, where something could happen to someone and they’ll turn around and sue you for it. I don’t like these things. They’re outdated technology.” He grabbed the long, slender handle and began pumping it, again and again, fifty times or more. They heard something inside the well, a soft splash of sorts and the sound of something like air running along a pipe.
“I think we might have a little success, although I expect the water will be rank,” Terry said. Within the next minute a gush of darkness flew out of the cistern spout, spraying the boards with a vibrant red-brown liquid. At the same time, the air around them turned rancid. Terry dropped the handle and stepped back, aghast. He used one hand to hold his son back.
“What in God’s name is it?” He leaned closer to take a better look. Initially, he’d suspected foul water mixed with soil and perhaps the slime of algae, but this stuff was redder than black or green slime. Indeed, standing water had sprayed out from the tap, but bits of raw, meaty stuff floated in it, and upon inspection, Terry saw chunks of what looked like matted hair or fur. Maybe some animal that had fallen through the platform’s gap lay rotting in the water.
“I think some animal fell in while sniffing around for water,” Terry said. “You head back to the house. I’m going to find something to cover this hole. This is dangerous. Go on now.”
He watched Cory trudge home, his face disappointed and his running shoes kicking up dust along the ground. When the boy rounded the bend in the path, Terry turned his attention back to the cistern. Raccoon maybe, or even a fox or coyote might have taken the plunge. No matter; he didn’t want Cory sneaking back out here to peek into this thing. He went to retreat. When he heard a sound issue from inside the well. Terry froze. He knew animal noise well enough. But this echo that he’d just heard…it wasn’t animal. He was sure he’d heard words uttered, and that the words, echoed and distorted, had been something like ‘chickenshit.’ Couldn’t be. Even if a person had fallen in there and survived, why would they insult him? Call for help, maybe. The pump handle sat still and silent, a tenuous spider web undulating in the breeze. Fetor on the board dried in the sun. Insects crawled over it.
Terry returned to the well and, using a forearm to steady himself, leapt onto the edge of the frame. He strained to listen, wrinkling his nose. Air issuing from the cistern reeked of mud, standing water, and of rot and feces, none of it earthy or pleasant.
“Hello?” he called down the hole. He heard his voice die out. He touched a fingertip to one of the dark, coagulating globs, smudging it between thumb and forefinger. It was softened flesh. A bit of dark hair stuck to it and the smell on his hands was that of road kill in high heat. Gross. He wiped his finger off on his jeans. He heard only a distant drip of liquid. He’d come back with a powerful flashlight. Take a good look before sealing the thing up. Whatever had fallen in and died down there didn’t matter—they weren’t planning on using or improving the condition of the well. As for the words he’d thought he’d heard, it must have been the way the wind can sometimes play tricks on you when it whistles through hollow places. Still, the thing spooked him, and as he walked away, he looked over his shoulder twice, as if expecting to see someone standing back there, watching him go.
* * *
Jan asked him what he was doing when she came out of the house, after stacking the supper dishes, to observe him loading six-foot lengths of galvanized lumber into the back of the pickup.
“Covering up a well Cory found out in the field.” He didn’t lie. “Don’t want him playing around something that isn’t sealed properly. You know how he can be. You tell him ‘no’ and he takes it as three times a ‘yes.’”
“Must have been what Jake Dean told us about,” she said, referring to the agent who’d sold them the property.
“Yup. It still works, but the water’s rancid and not even good for watering plants. No point in not covering it.”
He waited until she returned to the house, then grabbed a powerful laser flashlight, a 100-foot length of nylon rope with a grappling hook, and his hunting rifle and ammunition. He didn’t know what was down there, but he’d take a look and he wanted some protection, just in case. He drove the pickup out to the field. It was going on eight o’clock at night and the sky had deepened to a rose hue along the cloud line. The well’s silhouette looked dark and barren in the fading light, its handle hunched like a giant praying mantis. Terry stopped the truck and cut the engine. He sat for a moment, listening to the night. A few crickets, a heat cicada, the sound of his own breath. He lit a cigarette and inhaled softly, blowing the smoke out into the breeze while his eyes never left the well and his ears remained alert. He decided to watch for a few minutes. Let the landscape go still. A small groundhog waddled along the barren part of the track near the well where the grasses thinned out. It paused, unaware of Terry sitting in the truck watching it, then with curiosity it leapt onto the surface of the well cover. It sniffed at the refuse coating the wood. It went very still.
Stinks, doesn’t it, Terry thought. Terry ground the filter into the truck’s ashtray and went to open the cab door, unconcerned with the groundhog, when something dark bore its way through the well’s broken boards where Cory had played only hours before. With incredible speed and impact, it seized the groundhog. The groundhog shrieked in pain and terror. Blood dark as ink shot into the air, coating the boards and surrounding grasses. Something large shook the groundhog repeatedly until its body went limp.
Terry felt his lower jaw fall open. So taken by surprise was he that he could only stare, still gripping the steering wheel. He watched as whatever had snagged the gopher emerged with shoulders that were hunched together in order to fit through the hole. A dark arm spread out against the backdrop of the sunset, followed by the second arm. A man’s shape hoisted itself through the well cover. It held its catch between its teeth. The man’s hair was long and matted. A fresh stench floated through the air. The man was naked, but covered in slime and filth.
“Oh shit…” Terry blurted. His voice caught the man’s attention.
The man’s head swiveled and Terry was met by the most malevolent pair of luminescent golden eyes he’d ever seen. What looked like a cross between a human face and something beyond simian regarded him. Its upper lip quivered, dark and livery skin that trembled in the way a dog’s mouth will when menaced. It was ageless in the ripple of its muscles set against the sheen of its colorless hair. It squatted on the rotting boards of the cistern, and when it saw Terry looking at it, it dropped its now-dead meal and leaned forward on its haunches, its gonads oscillating beneath its buttocks, its broken nails gripping the boards, its toes wide and splayed. It lost interest in the groundhog as it concentrated on the man sitting rigid in the truck’s cab. If it had once been a man, it had mutated for reasons Terry couldn’t understand. His mind raced. Chemicals or toxins in the soil, a birth defect…
“What in God’s name are you?” Terry felt horror looking at it, thinking that while Cory had played down here alone earlier today, this thing had slept below him. It could have been his son that had been grabbed like the now-mutilated groundhog. He couldn’t fathom how or why, but Terry understood one thing—he had the choice of running for the rifle, or stepping on the gas and reversing. If he ran, the thing would pursue him; he felt certain of it. He threw open the driver’s door and rushed to the rear of the pickup, grappling for the rifle. He got the weapon and flipped the safety at the same moment he heard it coming fo
r him, its feet tearing up stones and bits of grass in its wake. Terry whirled in time to see the beast-man leap at him…and over him, knocking Terry backwards onto his ass. It still held the groundhog in its mouth. The rifle fired a shot into the sky. In the time it took Terry to catch his breath, roll over, and to bring himself back up onto his feet, he saw the beast disappearing into low scrub to his left. A rustling noise, then everything went quiet.
“Damn it!” he exploded. His pulse pounded in his veins. Now the thing was out there. Had it been coming and going like this regularly, and would it return to the well, he wondered? Terry ran in the beast man’s direction, the rifle ready. He found himself standing in waist-high grass and alder. The creature could be anywhere, huddled in the tall grasses, watching him search for it. Night went silent around him again with the exception of a distant train rattling along tracks.
“Terry?”
Terry screamed and spun about, the rifle coming up to his shoulder.
Jan faced him, her face drawn, her eyes wide with concern. “It’s me…what are you doing with a gun? What’s wrong?”
His mind raced. What could he tell her? Would she even believe him?
“I…I thought I saw a cougar in the field. Something big—I’m concerned about Cory playing out here.”
He saw her relax a little; cougars could be a concern, but they were natural, a part of the landscape here.
“Oh hon, you’re a good dad. Still…do you really think it was a cougar?”
He felt his shoulders sag as he brought the rifle down to his hips. “I don’t know,” he said, ashamed to lie to her but knowing her reaction if he’d said a thing that looked part human, part gargoyle had just crawled out of their abandoned well.
“I’m not sure what it was.” At least that much was truth. He saw her move past him to regard the well.
“What’s all over the wood?” She edged closer.
“Don’t go near it!” he exploded.
“Terry, take a pill, for God’s sake. I’m an adult here, too. I can make decisions for myself. This is fresh blood! Did you wound something?”
“I—” he began, not sure what to tell her. “I might have. I took a shot, but I thought I’d missed.”
“Where was it hiding?” she wanted to know. “Was it in the grass?”
He shut his eyes, then opened them again. The evening, a pale indigo now, urged him to get her home. Given the stress they were already under, they didn’t need this.
“It came from the vicinity of the well,” he snapped. “Stop asking me questions. It all happened so fast. We need to go home. I’m not sure where it is, but it might still be close. It had a smaller animal in its mouth. That’s where the blood comes from.” He took her hand and pulled her towards the truck. “Get in and lock your door.”
She shook her head, got in, but didn’t lock the door. “What’s gotten into you? I know whatever it was frightened you, but since when can cougars open truck doors?”
“Lock the door, Janet,” he insisted. When he used her formal name, he meant business and she knew it. She locked the door without taking her eyes off him. He did the same, then started the truck, the rifle behind their seats.
“You’re not telling me something,” she said, pressing him. “I know you well enough after twelve years of marriage to know when you’re keeping something back. What is it? Hon, I know we’re both under pressure, but we’ll make do until I can find work again. Honest. I think you’re being a little jumpy.”
“Trust me, I’m not.” He flipped on the high beams and drove slowly as he observed the dark landscape, the headlamps cutting a yellow path ahead of the truck. Other than a jackrabbit sprinting across the track, they saw nothing else. Yet he felt it close by, watching them. He lit another cigarette, his hands shaking. “You wouldn’t believe me,” he said. He saw from her face that she felt both guilty and incredulous. He shook his head. “Never mind,” he said. “We’ll work it all out.”
* * *
He contacted Jake Dean the next morning by phone, and caught the real estate agent in his office just before he stepped out the door to meet a client.
“What do you know about the well on the property?” Terry asked him.
Dean paused for a moment. “Only what I told you about already; that it hasn’t been used in years. It’s original to the house, almost ninety years old. It was upgraded a couple of times, and then the water began to turn rank after a while. Too much copper apparently, a problem in these parts. At least, that’s what the owner told me when she put the place up for sale. Something in the pump had finally broken, but the water that was coming up wasn’t useable. She had someone board the thing up after an inspector deemed it too toxic to drink. She didn’t want to spend the money to drill a new well. Then when the town brought the water line out this way two years ago, she opted to go onto municipal water. She’d been purchasing bottled water prior to that. I’m not sure how she managed or did laundry or bathed. Why do you ask?”
Terry weighed his next words with care. “Did she ever mention anything odd happening with the well? Any strange smells or anything unusual?”
He could almost see Jake Dean shaking his head. “Nooo,” Dean enunciated. “Have you had something occur with it?”
“I thought I saw something large hanging around it yesterday; something that took down a small groundhog. I didn’t catch full sight of whatever it was because it was getting dark,” he lied, “but I was wondering if she’d ever seen a large…animal…lurking around.”
“Well, we do get the occasional black bear out here,” Dean told him, chuckling a little. “And the county just reintroduced some cougars a few years back to keep the fisher and even the deer population at bay. Too many farmers complaining about fishers attacking and killing chickens and young livestock like lambs and such. As for the deer, the highway accidents are the reason to introduce a natural predator.”
“Hmm,” Terry said. “Nothing else?”
“Nope. I know the cover of the thing was going rotten. Getting someone to seal it permanently with a concrete slab would be a good idea, but I’m not following why you’re concerned about the well in conjunction with local animals of prey. I don’t believe the well water would attract them for any reason.”
Terry felt desperation.
He’d told Jan the only logical thing he could think of saying: that he’d thought he’d seen a deranged person with an animal…maybe a hare or a groundhog.
“Could be a street person that trapped something,” she’d said. He’d let it go at that, but even she hadn’t liked the idea of a stranger loitering nearby and he couldn’t bring himself to tell her what he’d really seen and that it hadn’t been completely human. He could imagine her reaction: you’re as stressed as I am, Terry. Money’s tight, but we’ll work it out. There are no monsters out there. It was just a deranged person wandering through the neighborhood.
* * *
The night passed, uneventful. Cory was strictly instructed not to wander out into the fields. Terry felt afraid to let the boy out of the house, but knew that, should he try to restrict him too much, Cory would revolt. Terror ripped at his imagination…his son being late from school…his son not coming home for lunch when called…
He considered placing the house back up for sale again and bringing his family back into the safer confines of the big city where crowds kept you safe, but he knew that Jan would protest, as afraid as she was of the bills coming in. She hadn’t given any more thought to Terry’s sighting of ‘an odd person’ on their property, leaving him alone with his concerns to the point where it interfered with his ability to concentrate on much else.
He grabbed the rifle and drove back to the well that afternoon, determined to take some kind of action. He spent two hours hammering new boards over the old and securing them with dozens of nails. He also set out a chunk of fresh beef on the ramp and moved the truck back, to watch. He kept his doors locked and his window rolled down a few inches to allow a breeze to
circulate. Half an hour passed and nothing occurred. He remained patient, his gaze focused on the cistern, convinced the beast would try to return to its den. The well had been its safe spot.
Something banged on the driver’s window, making him scream. He lashed at the rifle, twisting about in his seat to peer through the glass. An old woman with long, thin hair that pooled over her shoulders regarded him. She must have been in her eighties, her face thin and lined, her pale eyes and skin giving her a drained appearance. She wore a baggy, ill-fitting blue sweater over a faded house dress.
“You Mr. Terrence Cobb?” she asked.
He had to swallow hard before he could catch his breath. He almost wept, convinced he’d see the face of the beast, its lips glossy with blood, its eyes lit like twin lanterns, waiting for him on the other side of the window before its fist would smash through the glass.
“Yes, I am? Who are you?”
“My name is Emily Gerhard. I sold this house to the person before you. They didn’t stay long. I didn’t think they would. I had a call from your agent, Mr. Jake Dean earlier today, asking me if I’d ever had anything unusual happen around the old well. Apparently, he didn’t get anything out of the previous owner, who just hung up on him. I’m not surprised. I hear you have a young boy lives here with you. Your son?”
“That’s correct,” Terry said, terse. “I just sealed that well today. I didn’t want him playing over it with its rotten wood.” He decided he’d let her lead the conversation. “What’s wrong with that well?”
“Covering it won’t do you much good. Tried that already m’self. What have you seen?” she asked, and her eyes held a kind of acknowledgement, as if she could read his face.