The BMW rumbled down the driveway.
Paul drew a breath, raised his face to the sky.
Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this?
He turned to look at the deadwood.
He would go inside, and he would think of something. The onus had fallen on him; Christine’s plan to have tree cutters take care of the deadwood would never work. He was the only one who really understood what was going on. He would come up with a plan to handle this, and he would do it before night came. He was afraid to spend another night with that tree looming like a dark tower in his yard.
But evening came, and in spite of Paul spending several hours on the Internet researching extraterrestrials and a plethora of other topics, he did not have a single usable idea about what he could do to conquer the deadwood and its bloodthirsty occupant.
His family took dinner in the dining room, as was their habit. Fried chicken, spaghetti, green beans and rolls. Christine and the kids were hungry from a full day of spending time with friends and family in Memphis, while Paul picked at his food and continually looked out the window, at the tree.
A thunderstorm was predicted to strike that night. Already, purple-black clouds were stacked up in the heavens. Flickers of lightning danced on the horizon.
If we’re lucky, lightning will hit that damn tree, Paul thought. Certainly, a lightning bolt would hurt it. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it could withstand that, too.
“What’s wrong, Daddy?” his daughter, Jamila, said. “Why ain’t you eating?”
“ ‘Aren’t,’ not ‘ain’t,’ ” Christine said. “Good question, though. Why aren’t you eating, Paul?”
“I betcha it’s that tree,” Akili said. He gestured to the window behind him. “The deadwood. Dad can’t keep his eyes off it.”
Christine looked at Paul, an inquiry in her eyes. “Well?”
Thunder grumbled through the night, like massive stones grinding together in the sky. The ceiling light wavered.
Paul drummed his fingers on the table. He had not told her about Glen’s visit, and he hadn’t told her anything about his adventures with the tree. It was not like him to keep secrets from her. He shared almost everything with Christine, because she invariably guided him through his troubles. But she wouldn’t have any answers for this one.
Nevertheless, withholding the truth could place them in danger.
“Okay, I’ll tell you. It’s about the tree,” he said. He looked at Jamila, hesitated. She was only ten years old and scared easily. Once she had watched a horror movie at her cousin’s house, without their knowledge, and had suffered bad dreams for a week. “I don’t know if Jamila should hear this.”
“Tell us, Daddy!” Jamila pleaded. “I won’t be scared!”
“Paul, please,” Christine said, in her I’ll-handle-the-kids-later tone.
“All right. I know what got Eddie’s horse last night,” Paul said. “It wasn’t a man . . .”
He told them everything, concluding his narrative with his opinion of what they were up against.
“An alien?” Christine said. She tapped her lip. “Wow, Paul. Coming from you, that’s something else.”
“I believe it,” Akili said. “I mean, seriously, what else could it be? That tree came out of nowhere, Mom.”
“I believe it, too,” Jamila said, eyes bright. She appeared to be more excited at being included in the discussion than afraid.
“It’s my honest opinion, the only thing I can think of, as crazy as it sounds,” Paul said.
Thunder banged, clinking the dishes in the china cabinet.
“We’ll continue this discussion in a minute,” Christine said. “I’m going to get some candles.”
Paul had a horrible sensation of dread that lay against the back of his neck like a cold towel. They should have left the house tonight—that was the move he should’ve made. They should’ve stayed in a hotel in Memphis and called the FBI. Let the experts deal with it. Like in the X-Files. He needed Mulder and Scully to solve this. He was stupid and reckless for staying here and jeopardizing his family.
Christine probably would’ve thought of that, if he’d told her the story earlier and hadn’t been so intent on handling this himself.
Another rumble of thunder shook the house. Lightning licked the sky.
Then the lights sputtered out. Darkness enfolded the room.
Jamila let out a gleeful scream.
“Be quiet, girl, Mom’s coming back with candles,” Akili said.
Paul pushed away from the table. He suddenly realized he would feel a lot more comfortable with a shotgun in easy reach. His father’s gun cabinet was in the den. He’d wait for his wife to come back and would then go get it.
Christine returned. “Never fear, candles are here.” She struck a match and lit the wick of a tall white candle.
That was when they saw the creature watching them through the window.
Jamila screamed, for real this time, and Christine was so startled that she almost dropped the candle. Akili shouted, too.
Paul got his first good look at the thing. It resembled a man-size spider. Covered in thick, blue-black fur, it had three beady, greenish eyes set in a round head and large, deadly pincers.
The creature screeched, a sound like chalk being dragged across a blackboard. It vanished from the window.
“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” Christine said. She put her hand against her chest. Quickly, Paul went to her.
“Honey, I want you to take the kids to the basement,” he said. “You’ll be safe down there.”
“What?” She shook her head, dazed. “Paul . . . no . . . what about you? You can’t handle this by yourself.”
Her lack of confidence in his ability hit him like a blow to the stomach. But he recovered.
“Maybe I can’t, but I’m sure as hell going to try,” he said. “Now, let’s go. We have to hurry!”
More than anything, he worried that the creature would get inside the house. It possessed a frightening intelligence, the cunning mind of a predator. He was certain that it was attempting to find its way in. Every second was precious.
He ushered his family into the hallway. Blackness had swallowed the entire house. The only light came from Christine’s flickering candle.
The door to the cellar was at the back of the kitchen. But to reach the kitchen, they had to go past the breakfast nook, and there were glass patio doors over there—large portals that the creature could easily crash through. Darkness crowded against the glass, concealing whatever might be lurking outside.
“Hurry, don’t stop for anything,” Paul said.
They hustled past the breakfast area and into the kitchen. Akili ripped open the basement door.
Behind them, glass shattered: the patio doors.
Paul pressed his family toward the cellar. “Don’t look back. Just get down there! Stay until I say it’s clear.”
The kids rushed down the stairs. Christine started down the steps, found something on the wooden shelf beside the staircase, pressed it into Paul’s hands. A yellow utility flashlight.
“Be careful,” she said. “Do what you’ve got to do.” Nodding grimly, he closed the door and engaged the deadbolt.
He switched on the flashlight and swung the beam around the kitchen.
He was alone.
A knife block stood on the counter. He pulled out a butcher’s knife. It wasn’t a shotgun, but it was better than fighting empty-handed. The blade gleamed in the light.
He stood, listened.
The house was graveyard-silent. The only sounds came from the storm: rain pounding against the roof and rumbling thunder.
Holding the knife in one hand and the light in the other, he crept across the kitchen. He peered around the corner, toward the patio doors.
A big, ragged hole had been smashed through the doors. Shards of glass covered the carpet. But the alien arachnid was gone.
It had to be somewhere in the house. The damn thing was hunting him.<
br />
Perspiration seeped from his palm and saturated the wooden knife handle.
He had to get to the gun cabinet. Battling an extraterrestrial beast with an ordinary butcher’s knife was the epitome of foolishness.
Stealthily, he moved past the breakfast nook and into the hallway. He checked both ways. Clear.
Where had the creature gone? Had it run back outdoors, perhaps injured by the breaking glass? It could not have simply disappeared.
The den was at the end of the hall, on the left. He tiptoed to the doorway.
The creature was hunkered in front of the oak gun cabinet. Its eyes glowed with what appeared to be malevolent joy.
Oh, shit. This thing’s outsmarted me.
It squirted a jet of yellow fluid at him. Paul ducked. The sticky substance hit the wall with a wet splat. It was like a thick rope of taffy, and if it had captured him, he would’ve been like a fly trapped in a black widow’s web.
Panting, Paul dashed down the hallway.
The alien screeched. Its hairy feet pattered across the hardwood floor.
It was coming after him.
Not wanting a stream of that icky mess to hit him in the back, Paul raced into another room, and slammed the door behind him. He was in the guest bedroom. There was absolutely nothing of use to him in there, but it was a safe refuge—for the moment.
The arachnid monster clattered down the hall. It did not so much as pause at the door to the guest room. As though it were not really interested in him . . .
“No,” Paul said. “That sneaky bastard.”
He tore open the door. He swung the flashlight toward the kitchen.
The beast was in front of the basement door. One of its furry tentacles tapped at the lock.
Paul remembered that the alien had been clever and agile enough to unlock the door to his neighbor’s stable to get at the horse. A simple deadbolt lock was the only mechanism that separated this abominable thing from his entire family.
“Stay away from them!” Paul shouted.
With the deadly swiftness of a quick-draw gunslinger, the spider-thing shot a stream of fluid at Paul, and this time, he didn’t move fast enough. The slimy stuff hit his arm.
He dropped the flashlight. It smacked the floor and rolled, creating wriggling shadows.
Paul tried to wrestle out of the web, but couldn’t. It was like superglue.
Worse, trying to get it off only tangled him in it more. Within seconds, his arm was wrapped behind his back. He lost his balance and fell to the floor, and then his legs became ensnared, too.
But he still had one free hand. In it, he clutched the butcher knife. He didn’t dare lose it.
The arachnid-thing emitted a wail of murderous delight. It scrambled toward him through the shadows, wicked pincers flexing.
Above the creature’s trio of glowing eyes, a raw, pinkish pad of flesh pulsated, like an exposed heart. Paul understood nothing about this alien’s anatomy, but he recognized an Achilles’ heel when he saw one.
So when the alien spider pattered up to him, reeking of death and uttering a strange hum, Paul raised his free arm and rammed the knife in the center of that throbbing hunk of flesh in the thing’s head.
The blade plunged in, deep, all the way to the hilt, with the ease of sinking a spoon into a bowl of warm jelly.
The creature shrieked. Blind with agony, it teetered away, smacked repeatedly against the wall. Greenish blood leaked from its head wound, dribbled onto the floor.
Repulsed, Paul rolled away from the injured beast.
The alien continued to bounce against the walls, wailing, steadily losing strength. At last, it hammered the wall one final time and then fell against the floor on its side. Still. Silent. Dead.
Paul released an explosive breath of air.
The web loosened its hold on him; the substance had lost its strength. He brushed off the slimy ropes, lips curled in revulsion.
The lights came back on. Paul unlocked the basement door and invited his family to come out.
“Is it over?” Christine said cautiously. Her eyes were red.
“It’s done,” Paul said. He took her hand. “I did what I had to do. Finally.”
“Look!” Jamila shouted. She pointed outside the kitchen window, jumping. “Fireworks!”
Puzzled, Paul looked.
The deadwood was on fire, but it was not like any kind of fire that Paul had ever seen. Luminescent green flames lapped hungrily at the trunk, traveling quickly from the base all the way up to the crown. Paul worried that the conflagration would spread across the property, but strangely, the fire seemed to be confined to the unearthly tree.
“They were joined together biologically,” Akili said matter-of-factly, as if he had studied the phenomenon in a science textbook. “The deadwood and that spider thing. When one dies, so does the other.”
“How do you know?” Christine said.
Akili shrugged. “Just makes sense to me, Mom.”
And the craziest thing, Paul thought, was that his son proved to be correct. From the patio, they watched the deadwood burn itself up, until all that remained was a heap of stinking ashes.
“Now all we’ve gotta do is get that monster’s dead body out of the house,” Akili said. He looked at Paul.
Paul smiled at Christine.
“Let’s see what your mother thinks about that,” he said.
A week later, Paul was driving his Chevy Blazer on I-55 South, returning from Memphis.
“The meeting with Glen went well,” Paul said to Christine, on his cell phone. “He’s agreed to sell his stake in the company to me, and he accepted less than what I thought he’d ask for. I honestly think he only wanted to get out of the business altogether.”
“I’m so proud of you, honey,” Christine said. He could hear the smile in her voice. “The kids will be so excited to hear that we’ll be moving back home.”
“I don’t know, I kind of like staying in my dad’s place,” Paul said. He chuckled.
“Then you can stay here by yourself,” Christine said, and then she laughed, too.
They kept chatting while Paul pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of a BP gas station. He parked beside a fuel pump.
A knot of people stood off to the side, talking and looking around.
Paul climbed out of the Blazer. Frowning, he looked to see what held these people’s attention.
The cell phone dropped out of his hand.
He saw them. They towered like giant soldiers in formation across the countryside, all the way to the rim of the horizon.
Deadwoods. Everywhere.
Smoked Butt
Brian Egeston
First time I saw it, he was howlin’, hollerin’ to the dark like screamin’ was gonna heal him. Through the night shine, I could see sweat runnin’ over big shoulders and arms.
Just across from the barn, near a rickety outhouse, a barrel was steamin’. Smoke curled out and rose into the night. Looked like ghosts runnin’.
I figured he was evil. Anything make ghosts run, gotta have some devil in him.
Wasn’t thick white smoke like I saw when leaves burned or charcoals flamed in a pit. But it was faint and gray. Made it seem like ancestors was comin’ back inside of thin clouds.
Behind a tree, I crunched dead leaves where I walked. Didn’t figure I’d bother nobody, ’cause he was howlin’ so.
Smoke from the barrel danced soft and slow like a party was endin’ and people was growin’ tired of jiggin’.
He quit howlin’ and tugged at his feet. Had one of them club shoes people wear if God ain’t finish making one of they legs. Boy in my school had one of them legs. We called him Pogo.
The man flapped down his suspenders, yanked at his shirt like it was filled with chigger bugs.
Moon lit up the ground, and I saw him, naked as a jaybird. Closed my eyes for a minute, but couldn’t help lookin’ to see what else was gonna happen. He howled again, then hopped his naked self on top that steami
n’ barrel. Started bouncin’ on it. He started breathin’ heavy. Smoke blew out from under him, then it seeped out whatever cracks it could find. Smoke puffed like they say them Indians used to do with smoke signals. I thought maybe that’s what he was, some kinda Indian or witch-doctor man. Read about them kinda folks in some books my cousin brought me from the city.
I watched him for a good long while. Seem like somebody let the air out of him or the ghosts inside that smoke had done left. Clouds rolled by, stars moved on about they way and the man lumped over like he was just about dead. I went in the woods, crunchin’ leaves and sticks fast as I could run, ’cause I was supposed to be at Auntie’s house ’fore the sun quit work-in’.
“Parthenia Phillips, you lost yo’ mind, girl? Where you been?” Auntie screamed at me time I come through the door.
“Been where I been, I guess.”
Auntie gave me that look. Same look I got ’fore I woke up on my back when I sassed her about eatin’ pecans out her icebox.
“Got lost in the woods tryin’ to find Ms. Jessie ’nem place.”
“Next time I send you out and you get lost, don’t come back. You messin’ wit’ my money.”
Auntie cooked for the sick and shut-in. Church paid her to make plates and deliver them to folks who couldn’t do for theyself. Trouble was, she had so many plates to make, she ain’t have time to deliver ’em. So she had me walkin’ all over tarnation to take them folks they food. I ain’t care for it too much, until I saw that man on the barrel. Then I had reason to wander out and get lost.
Second time I saw him, he was runnin’ in the field. Well, man with a pogo leg can’t really run, but he was makin’ a go at it. He’d skip and hop and skip and hop, then do a little jump. I had took a plate of greens and dumplins to Ms. Hatchie Lee. It was some biscuits in there, too, but they ain’t make it.
The barrel was smoking somethin’ awful this time. I mean, look like one of them volcano things was coming up. And the man had a whole lotta evil in him that night. He was pogo-runnin’ all over the place. Just a runnin’ and skippin’ and hoppin’ and tryin’ to jump with that club shoe. It was a cold-water well a little ways inside the field, so I ran to it and ducked down behind it to get a better look.
Voices From The Other Side Page 12