by Clive Barker
“Sheriff’s Department,” the man said, stating the obvious in a neutral voice. “Got a report of trespassing.”
“The property’s not posted,” Roger said, struggling to remain neutral himself. Aside from a high school pot bust and a close encounter on a “domestic-violence-type situation,” Roger had little experience with cops, either as enforcers or protectors. But having one walk up out of nowhere in the middle of the night had put him off his game.
Again came the steady voice: “You’re not a Rominger, are you?”
Roger debated a bluff, and then realized his photo ID bore his real name. Besides, his license plate numbers were easy enough to trace. “No, I got permission from the family to stay here.”
The deputy stepped forward so his face was in the light. A long flashlight was shoved in his belt. A beard covered his chin and neck, which was odd, since the only unshaven cops Roger had ever seen were undercover drug agents on television. The man’s eyes were the color of frozen steel and seemed not to blink. “Well, I’m a Rominger. I don’t recall anybody asking for permission to stay here.”
“Wonderful,” Roger said, affecting a cheerful manner. “Maybe you can help me with my history project.”
The eyes narrowed but became no less intense. “You from the university?”
Appalachian State University was just over the ridge, though in the next county and state, and was noted for its regional collection. Roger had checked its online resources but had found nothing except what was already recorded in newspaper accounts. However, the granite-faced cop might give a little more leeway to an egghead who probably had lawyer friends. “Sure,” Roger said. “My contact was supposed to get clearance from the family. I’m working on a book.”
“Something along the lines of ‘Murder in the Mountains,’ probably,” the cop said in his slow, easy, but troubling voice.
“All I want to publish is the truth.”
“I been around long enough to know the truth is like a snake in dry well. You leave it alone, and it does you and the snake just fine. But when you poke around, one of you ends up snakebit.”
Roger noted the “dry well” metaphor and wondered how he could work it into the story. “There’s a lot of wisdom in that, Deputy Rominger, but—”
“I ain’t a Rominger. I married into the family.”
“Sure, Deputy, but unless I’m breaking some sort of law—”
“There’s the law of the land and then there’s the law of the Rominger Place.”
Roger almost grinned at the man’s Will Rogers homilies, but those metallic eyes spoke of a grim earnestness. “Speaking of wells, do you mind showing me where the bodies were found? The faster I finish my business here, the faster I’ll be on my way.”
The deputy flicked on his flashlight and played it up the stairs, briefly defeating the gloom. “You hear something?”
This time, Roger did grin. That was the corniest trick in the book. Trying to scare off the stranger with spook stories. “Sounded like maybe a fingernail scratching on the wall.”
“Wonder what words she wrote this time.”
Roger figured “she” must mean Maude, who was believed to have written that afterlife message in the flour. The redemption story was older than Christ. Such myths appealed to people’s sense of justice. This whole gig was starting to shape up as a tired episode of “The Ghost Whisperer.”
“How do you know it was Maude that did the writing?” Roger asked. “Has she ever written anything besides ‘Well,’ or does she just write the same thing over and over?” Roger could relate to that, because some of the most successful paranormal writers, as well as those pimping horror fiction, did little more than repeat the same weary tale. Roger had no respect for the hackwork that passed muster in the juvenile world of giggly spooks and jiggly boobs, but he also understood his chosen genre was one of the few where his own limited talents were acceptable.
“Maude’s gone on to her eternal reward,” the deputy said. “Her spiritual suffering ended the day her account was squared.”
Roger couldn’t help casting a glance up the dark stairwell. “So who is doing the writing?”
“Want to go up and see, or would you rather see the well?”
For the first time in his skeptical ghost-hunting career, he was glad for company. The deputy, though a bit melodramatic, was stoic and calm, bearing the look of one who could deal with “situations,” as they were known in cop vernacular.
“Let’s try the well,” Roger said. “Might be dangerous for me to go stumbling out there in the dark by myself. Better to have a tour guide who knows the territory.”
The deputy blinked and raised one corner of his mouth in a gesture that might have been a smile. “Got an extra flashlight?”
Roger nodded. He’d packed a high-powered pen light as a backup. He fished it out of his pocket as the deputy drew out his own flashlight as if it were a battle-ax.
“Follow me,” the deputy said.
Roger let himself be led off the porch, around the house, and down a weedy trail between leaning outbuildings. A sallow slice of moon hung in the sky, dimmed by a gray wreath of clouds. Despite the October chill, crickets worked the night air and dead leaves rattled against bone-dry fence posts. Roger realized one sound was missing: most cops let their car engines idle while making a call, in case an emergency required a fast response.
The deputy’s flashlight beam bounced ahead, throwing a pumpkin-colored pall on the weedy farmyard. Roger’s own light did little to penetrate the black wool of darkness, but it gave him a measure of comfort. He was about to call Deputy Rominger, and then remembered he wasn’t a Rominger. On reflection, Roger realized the officer wore no brass nameplate above his shirt pocket, nor insignia of any kind besides the badge.
A killer. Exactly the kind of crap those best-selling horror writers would dream up. Creep dresses as a cop, pretends to make a welfare check, gets the victim’s guard down, then performs a Hannibal Lecter on his ass. Then—insert creepy synthesizer riff—blame it on the Curse of the Rominger Place!
The idea was so outlandish that Roger was thinking of a way to work it into his article—“The Mysterious Stranger who showed up at the crack of midnight”—when the deputy drew to a halt.
“Here it is.”
Roger stayed close to the deputy, expecting to find a band of yellow tape blowing in the wind, a remnant of a crime scene investigation, though Maude’s death had been investigated long before the era of modern forensics. Instead, a rusty sheet of tin lay on the ground, covered by brown weeds and red briars.
“Too cold for rattlesnakes,” the deputy said, booting the piece of tin to the side. The kick revealed a wedge of blackness deeper than the night, and a moist, fetid aroma arose from the crevice. Another kick and the gap grew wide enough to hold a man.
“How deep is it?” Roger asked.
“Depends,” the deputy said, and Roger expected him to add some somber witticism like “What’s the bottom of a human soul?” but instead he said, “In the melt, the water rises and it’s about twenty feet down. Right now, in the dry times, I’d guess thirty feet.”
Roger thought that wasn’t so deep for a murdering hole. Of course, Maude had been chopped up like a slutty extra banging the director of a low-budget slasher flick, so she had been dead long before her meat hit the water. The children, on the other hand—
“What about the two other skeletons?” Roger asked, for the first time realizing how isolated the Rominger Place was. Too far from the liquor store for bums, too squalid for hippie hikers. Even with their flashlights fixed on the well, which swallowed the beams as if thirsting, no porch lights were visible against the surrounding hills.
“They were fished out long ago,” the deputy said. “A smart fellow like you would have read up on that.”
The deputy stressed the word “smart” with the same subtle sneer he’d used in questioning Roger’s interest in the house and its history.
“No charges were ever
filed, and their identities were never verified.”
“According to the newspapers and court records.”
Roger tilted his light up, sending eerie shadows crawling along the deputy’s face. “But you know something that wasn’t put down in the report, huh? A family secret, maybe?”
“Family secrets stay in the family, even if it’s a married secret,” the deputy said. “But, no, it’s nothing like that.”
“Okay, how much do you want? I know our fine public servants never get adequately rewarded for all the risks and hardships they endure. I’m willing to compensate—”
The eyes didn’t flinch, and seemed to absorb the light in the same manner as the well. “Bribing an officer is a felony in this state.”
“No, sir, you misunderstood. I meant, after you go off duty. Personal, not professional.” Despite the autumn breeze and the cool, sinuous draft rising from the well, sweat ringed Roger’s scalp.
“I don’t go off duty,” the deputy said, motioning toward the opening with the flashlight. “You want a look or not?”
Roger gulped, glanced at the man’s packed side holster, and nodded. He’d come this far, and no doubt he’d find enough adjectives to wring out his Horror Hood article, despite the deputy’s reticence.
Just one look, for the sake of first-person narrative.
He knelt, half expecting a shove from behind as he played his thin beam into the inky hollow. The deputy drew closer, shining his own light over Roger’s shoulder. Despite the deputy’s assurance about reptilian hibernation, Roger thought he heard the faint scraping of scaly skin over stone.
“See ’em?” the deputy said, in an almost reverent tone.
Roger saw nothing but blackness, the glint of moist rocks, twin dots of light reflecting from the water far below. “No, I—”
And then he did see them. Two tiny skeletons with mossy bones half submerged. As he tried to steady his shaking light, the dark water rippled. A stalk of white bones lifted, water dripping from the cracked and bent calcite. The second form also rose from the water, shaking water like a gaunt dog in a storm.
Then they were climbing, reaching with brittle fingers, skulls tilted back and staring upward with eyes blacker than the Devil’s bowels.
Roger drew back, dropping his light, and the clatter echoed for a couple of seconds before a distant splash marked its watery grave. He fell against the deputy’s knees, scrambling, and the deputy put a boot down on the fingers of his writing hand.
“Got a good mind to kick you in there with them,” the deputy said. “Like he did with Maude.”
“Please,” Roger said, summoning enough strength to rip his hand free and roll away in the crisp weeds, briars tearing at his clothes. From the hole arose a high-pitched wail, the cries of lost and frightened children. The sound grew louder, with less reverberation, marking their progress up the slimy sides of the well. Roger imagined those thin, sharp phalanges probing for chinks, jaws hinged open and grinning, eyeholes fixed on the lesser darkness that beckoned from above.
“Hollis got his peace, too,” the deputy said. “Can you imagine being married to a woman who called these things up night after night? A lonesome, heart-broke woman who couldn’t bear children of her own? Somebody who maybe got a little crazy in the head?”
Panting, Roger scrambled along the trail, heedless of the rusted barbwire tugging his flesh, the branches slapping at his face.
The deputy was right behind him, marching, taunting. “You want answers, Mr. Smart University Man, or do you want me to lay the tin back over the well and close it off?”
Roger, unable to regain his legs, flopped against a rotted shed. “Close it! For God’s sake, close it!”
The deputy stomped away. Metallic thunder boomed, the tin stomped into place with a sure, heavy boot. Roger could barely hear it over the hammer of his own pulse in his ears, the windstorm of his own breath. Then the flashlight beam was on his face.
“You maybe want to go see what’s wrote on the walls?”
Roger squinted against the force of the light and shook his head.
“Maude didn’t leave that message. Hollis did. And he didn’t write just ‘Well.’ The witchwoman got that part wrong, because the flour had sifted down a little bit and smeared the words.”
Words?
“It really said, ‘All is well.’ Like Maude had finally paid for her sins.”
“How do you know?” The flashlight burned his eyes, and Roger could no longer be sure a man stood behind its all-consuming brilliance.
“Romingers don’t take kindly to trespassing.”
“Please, deputy, just let me get my gear and—”
“You won’t be doing no writing here. Not about this place.”
“No, sir, of course not. But the laptop is valuable and I left—”
“I can move that piece of tin if you want. I don’t know how fast the twins are, but they ain’t got nothing but time.”
Roger raised a palm to ward off the glare. He thought he heard a rattling thump of rusty sheet metal. “Okay, I’m gone. I’ll keep your secret.”
“Ain’t my secret. Now it’s yours.”
Roger rose, wiping at a bloody scratch on his cheek. His car was a couple hundred feet away. He could make it in the dark, assuming he was pointed in the right direction. Turn the key, put the Rominger Place and its strange guardian in the rearview mirror, find a clean, well-lighted hotel, get out the telephone note pad and an ink pen—
For the first time, he’d be able to spin an unbelievable tale without lying.
“Your kind has been through here before,” the deputy said. “All of them came to the same deal. And all of them lived to not tell, if you catch my drift.”
Roger longed to put distance between himself and the well, and now he hurried on aching, limp legs, as if balanced on the extended slant of the flashlight’s beam. He was still undecided on how much he’d give to Horror Hood, but his asking price had just tripled. He sprinted past the open doorway of the house, his lantern inside painting a yellow rectangle against the warped boards. He was nearly to the car—
No sheriff’s cruiser on the overgrown road—
when the flashlight beam switched on, fifty feet in front of him.
“Some stories don’t got no end, Mr. Main. Don’t you forget that.”
He’d not given the officer his name.
By the time he’d slid behind the wheel and fumbled with his keys, dropping them twice like they always did in horror movies, the light had bobbed closer. The engine caught and he pumped the gas, yanking the transmission into gear. He navigated toward the swelling circle of light that blocked him from the highway.
The light might have been the tip of a great cigarette, a monstrous out-of-season firefly, or a portal to hell. Whatever its nature, he would ram through it. Twigs scratched the chassis, or maybe it was small bones. The air tasted yellow again, the light piercing, and Roger wondered if crime scene tape would mark off the tire tracks leading away from the corpse of an officer killed in the line of duty.
But he went toward the light (just like those phony mediums suggested to fictional lost spirits on television), then through it, and there was no thud of meat against the bumper, no grunt of pain, no spray of blood on the windshield.
The wheels spun in the mud and weeds, and he fishtailed away, giving one last glance in the mirror, half expecting the deputy to be sitting in the back seat like a legendary hitchhiker.
Only darkness stared back.
It continued staring all the way to the Tennessee line.
Sleeping with the Bower Birds
Kaaron Warren
Flowering trees reached over either side of the driveway, forming a tunnel Serena felt nervous to walk through. She heard the high buzz of bees and a chorus of birds, and hoped they wouldn’t be attracted to her. The clothes she wore belonged to the store and her boss would make her pay for them if they got shat on.
Next to the driveway, the front lawn stretched green
and manicured.
There stood a naked marble woman, posed with a hand resting over her pubic bone. The other arm was lifted, holding a bowl; here, birds fluttered in the water. Serena, thankful of the excuse to put her heavy bags down, touched the cold marble, admiring the lifelike pose.
Stones in diminishing sizes lined the path across the lawn to the front door, and she walked up the steps wondering if she’d brought the right selection of clothing. In the store, mother and daughter, Rachel and Ava, had seemed shy, unsure of themselves. Rachel was tiny and could wear almost anything, as long as it was adjusted to her height. Ava was much larger, but clothing was made for her size these days. It was the coloring; she was pale. And she lacked confidence, so any new clothes had to build on that, not make her feel more self-conscious. So nothing showing cleavage, nothing too tight. Serena’s boss had left the selection up to her. “I can’t deal with any woman fatter than size ten,” her boss had said.
Serena hefted her bags again, hoping they’d like what she brought.
“You came!” Rachel said, throwing open the front door. “Let’s go round the back. Ava’s in the granny flat. Well, she calls it the den. We call it the granny flat.” She stepped out, strained her head towards the driveway. “Where’d you park?”
Serena stammered, not wanting to admit she’d come by public transport. She was trying to appear professional, as if she did this for a living.
“What, d’you come by bus? Don’t worry, my brother’ll give you a lift home.” She led the way down the driveway and around the back, through an ornate gate that seemed to sigh as she opened it. The granny flat looked half the size of the house itself. “Ava!”
The girl opened the door sullenly, as if she was expecting the dentist rather than a woman bringing bags of clothes for her. She was about the same age as Serena and they’d bonded in the store over the awful muzak playing.
Inside, the granny flat was neat but dull, and far smaller than it had appeared on the outside. It was stuffy and warm. Thick walls and plenty of insulation, Serena thought.