by Kat Turner
The dead surrendered their souls, their spirits, that mysterious fifteen ounces that came to Eve as golden balls of light. The waste, the corruption of turning meat, remained.
But in a sense, imperfections defined what Eve loved about her work. She dealt in entropy and chaos, striving to bring a modicum of beauty, or at least integrity, to the physical evidence of something intrinsically ugly. The ugly truth of us all.
When facing what we will ultimately become, Eve theorized, we might as well allow ourselves to see the bit of ghastliness, wrongness, that without fail seeps through puritanical attempts to mask it.
Eve smiled at the prepared cadaver. The dead were stubborn, insistent upon showing their grotesque faces. She respected that about them.
And now magic bound her to both facets of the departed, shimmering souls and rotting bodies. Eve chuckled, her voice making an echo against shiny metal walls. She’d been promoted. Go her. She removed her blue rubber gloves with a snap, tossed them in the trash, and washed her hands.
But enough reflection. Duty called. She yanked her purse off its wall hook and slung it over her shoulder. The blue towel, saturated with Jonnie’s blood, weighed about a million pounds in her bag. It was an albatross, her guilty remnant of him.
Her heart thudded as she raced up the stairs, checked the lights, and locked up. A perfect fall day, all robin’s-egg sky, red-kissed trees, and fallen brown leaves blowing across sidewalk, dared her to feel like shit. But as she unlocked her car and threw her bag in the passenger seat, she for sure did.
Get it over with. She ground her teeth and accelerated down the ramp merging onto 65, south. Eve still had Lacey’s parents’ address in her email, and she bet they hadn’t moved. Save for financial crisis, older folks ensconced in the familiarity of rural home life rarely found much reason to leave.
Dread chased through her as she exited onto the highway. Her guts twisted. A force squeezed her chest, impeding her breath. You should have brought Meg. Or someone. But Eve refused to implicate anyone else in her problem.
Besides, what did Lacey’s parents have to gain by harming Eve? She had what they wanted, a solution to their daughter’s suffering. Despite their bluster and bravado over the last few months, hurting her wasn’t in their best interests.
Internal assurances failed to allay Eve’s worry as she came up on their home, a one-story bungalow begging for a fresh coat of puce paint. Tucked an acre back from the road, it gave off furtive and shamefaced energies. Gravel clattered underneath Eve’s tires as she maneuvered the length of the winding driveway. To her left, a ragged willow tree with a tire swing tied to a big branch wept its droopy branches onto a patch of land comprised of more dirt than grass.
A shudder licked up Eve’s skin. The view of the yard evoked a memory of Lacey’s patchy scalp, her pallid complexion and lesions of rot.
Remembering Lacey triggered an awareness of her presence inside of Eve. The girl loomed, unobtrusive and eerily patient, an ever-present passenger lying in wait. But this was Eve’s problem to solve, her obligation, her duty. You should have called Helen. To what end? How dare you burden others, good people, with your curse?
Thoughts warring factions in her weary mind, Eve parked beside a red Ford Fiesta with rust plaques crawling up the sides. Someone had slapped a confederate flag decal onto the back window. A vanity plate read REBEL4LIFE.
Her mouth soured as she jumped out of her car and slammed the door, acutely conscious of her brown skin, her black hair, her Black heritage. Were they bigots? Violent ones?
“Quit being paranoid,” she hissed at herself, balling a fist as she hoisted her purse high on her shoulder. For all their many foibles, Lacey and her family had never shown racist tendencies.
Besides, plenty of Southern yahoos, fattened on vague notions of regional pride but starved for historical facts, displayed the stars and bars because they thought it was edgy or cool. Marshalling her professional comportment, Eve walked onto the porch. Decaying wooden boards groaned beneath her feet. She stabbed a finger into the doorbell before she changed her mind.
“Somebody get the damned door.” Lacey’s mother’s distinctive bellow, frayed from heavy smoking, carried from deep inside the house.
Atrocious feline howling stabbed Eve’s eardrums. Coarse fur coiled around her calf, the animal’s ribs pushing through. She glanced down to see a scrawny orange tabby encircling her leg. Three tiny bugs sprung from its mangy coat. Worse, a socket gaped where one eye should be.
Cringing, Eve trained her gaze back to the ripped screen door and the brown one behind it. Claw marks and mud marred the bottom half, evidence of some poor neglected pet shut outside.
Soft footfalls advanced, Eve deflating more and more as the steps approached. God, there was nowhere she wanted to be less than on the threshold of this fucking house.
The cat launched into a chainsaw purr as it twisted around and around her leg. Eve ground her teeth until her jaw hurt.
The door creaked open a sliver, revealing the skulking form of Susan Mudd. She looked roughly the same, skinny as a scarecrow, with bleached blond hair and a wrinkled smoker’s face like a topographical map. In her younger years, the woman had probably been hot in a trashy way.
The cat purred, meowed. Out of nowhere it hissed. Sharp claws stabbed into the top of Eve’s sandaled foot, four penetrations of stinging pain. Next came the lingering itch unique to a cat scratch. Sometimes Eve swore the little devils inflicted a bit of venom or poison when they lashed out.
“Nice to see you again, Mrs. Mudd.” Eve spat out her lie, miserably failing an attempt at vocal authenticity as she fought an urge to kick the crazy cat.
“Harrumph.” Lacey’s mother swung the door wide. A bandage dress the color of a wino’s vomit stretched across her saggy skin and bony figure, its color obscene against pallid flesh. Sunken eyes slathered in blue eye shadow slid over Eve’s body as they sized her up. “You look chubbier.”
You look like a whore who could charge five dollars. Tops.
“It’s tough to find the time to work out. I have something you want.” Get this over with. Get this over with and call Jonnie.
Susan grunted, turning around and walking barefoot back into the house.
Eve wiggled her leg and shook the starving cat off her, sweaty palm clutching her purse strap. She entered the Mudd residence, the screen door banging shut in a tinny, ominous portend.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
A mordant laugh morphed into a cough as stale cigarette fumes invaded Eve’s lungs. Translucent smoke seemed to float in the air, a formless apparition permeating every cell of the home and fouling its energy.
Jolts of bovine snores issued from behind a door at the end of a short hallway. Lacey’s father worked the night shift at a factory and slept during the day.
Susan ducked into a kitchen marked by cracked linoleum tile.
Eve shifted on her feet, posture stony and rigid with discomfort. She appraised her surroundings. Dusty bookcases stuffed with knickknacks and trinkets, those bug-eyed, ceramic religious figurines, ringed the walls.
Plastic sheeting covered a couch matching threadbare golden carpet. Blackout drapes, drawn tightly, imbued the smelly house with a morbid vibe that, in an impressive show of irony, was a hundred times more dim and dank than Eve’s funeral home.
A boy, tall and developed enough to be seven or eight, yet clad only in a saggy diaper, wandered into the room. His mop of sandy blond hair had perhaps seen one home haircut before his caregivers had given up on the notion.
He held a revolver in one hand, his other absently spinning the chamber that hung loose. It made a faint click and whir noise. “Mama, I wanna play with the Pollyannas.”
A sizzle and freeze chased over Eve’s chest at the sound of that name. She wracked her brain, grasping for clarity as something important and familiar floated below the surface of her awareness. Stock still, she made eye contact with the kid.
He sneered at her, showing
missing front teeth. “They’re real fun to play with.” The child pushed the chamber back into the gun, aimed it at nothing, and pulled the trigger. “Pew. Pew.”
No bang sounded, nothing but a harmless snick. Thank God. She swallowed a gasp.
“Rustin, you git.” Susan hustled back into the living room, two bottled beers in one hand. She smacked Rustin upside the head. Whining, he ran off. A backdoor slammed.
Eve looked at a candy wrapper on the floor. Heat crawled over her cheeks. Poor kid.
Pollyannas. The name stuck, sticky and thick as snot. She scanned her inventory of memories, hunting for where she’d heard it before.
Susan handed Eve a beer, locking her stare. Mrs. Mudd’s pupils ate her irises, evidence of some habit that Eve didn’t care to know about.
“You brung my blood, right?” Susan licked her lips, a flash of pink tongue drawing attention to her uneven lip-liner tattoo. It painted two mahogany peaks above the natural line of her top one, a poor attempt on the part of an aesthetician to create the illusion of a fuller pout.
“Yeah. I brung, I brought…the blood. I think I found a spell that will be effective in neutralizing the negativity attached to Lacey’s spirit. So she can rest in peace.” All she had to do was hand over her rag, convince Susan to give her something of Lacey’s to focus on, and she could give it a shot. She wasn’t positive the incantation from her spell book would work, nowhere near so, but she’d try. Do her best to heed her obligation and then get the fuck out of here.
Susan took a long pull of beer and snickered. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Girl, y’all sure speak in a lot of big words.” A guffaw tore from Mudd’s throat as the woman unleashed her mockery in full force.
Irritation bolted through Eve in a frying current. “I need something of hers. For the spell to work.”
Susan shrugged, gulped the remainder of her drink, and released a belch so mighty, Eve swore the air trembled in its wake. “Come on out back, then.”
Out back?
“Don’t you have something in her old room? A piece of jewelry or an article of clothing—”
Susan got in Eve’s face, close enough to trigger her gag reflex by way of a mingled stench of cigarettes, beer, and drug store cologne. The hatchet lines in her cheeks were deep enough to secret away loose change. “I said, come on out back, witch girl.”
“Alright.” Eve took a step backward, relief to her nostrils transcending offense at the derogatory coating slathered over the words “witch girl.”
Susan laughed again and set her empty on a mantle. Full ashtrays and orange prescription pill bottles with other peoples’ names on the labels crowded the shelf. “Damn uppity city folk.”
Eve bit down on her tongue and put her bottle beside Susan’s when the woman wasn’t looking. No way would she consume anything offered here.
Susan led the way, walking the pair through a grungy kitchen. Mountains of crusty dishes erupted from both sides of a metal sink. Flies buzzed over them, landing on gobs of uneaten food. More bugs spotted strips of flypaper, asymmetrical black buttons down a yellow placket.
The women passed through a covered back porch stinking of ripe kitty litter and cluttered with piles of tin cans and glass bottles.
Some critter, wild or feral, had built a substantial nest in the corner. Shredded newspaper classified ads, and a pornographic magazine from the eighties, judging by the hairstyles, were stained light brown.
Empathy for Lacey pricked Eve’s heart. I would have run off and joined a cult, too. Anything but this, damn. And now, she could help this girl find eternal solace.
As she traipsed behind Susan’s emaciated form into a grassless slab of yard, Eve concentrated on the girl’s presence, that silent specter within her. Lacey was there, though mute and uncommunicative. Eve wondered why her spirit was closed off, mum. She sighed.
“What?” Susan barked. They walked beneath a big tree blotting out the cheerful sun. A dead baby bird, featherless with bulging eyes, lay facedown in the dirt.
Like everything else in this hell hole, the victim of premature flight played the role of bad omen.
“Nothing. Just tired.”
“Lazy fucking millennials.” Susan spat onto the ground, rickety shoulders hunching to her earlobes.
The woman’s sudden outburst of hostility threw Eve for a loop. As the absurdity of the situation caught up to her, she strangled a sardonic laugh in her throat. Hope you step on a rusty tetanus nail, bitch.
Inside her, Lacey giggled. Whoa! Energy crackled in Eve’s veins. Lacey had come online.
“Ouch!” Susan hopped on one leg, leaning against the tree. Face contorted in pain, she cradled a dusty, unshod foot and brushed it off. Susan dug a tiny chunk from her dirt-caked sole, a blob of red appearing on the area as she flung the offending detritus aside.
Interesting. Mentally, Eve high-fived Lacey. The girl giggled again. Intriguing new development.
Susan growled, scowled, and resumed her walk.
Hidden behind the enormous tree was a rickety, pea-green shed the size of a two-car garage. The roof sagged, and a dusting of paint chips littered the perimeter of the structure like shed scales.
Thick chains secured two doors. Susan pulled a lone key from her bra and fumbled with a rusted-out padlock.
Oh, no. A realization hit. Lacey slept out here. Eve’s heart broke for the poor, abused girl who had taken her own life. Out of despair, in a final desperate grab for freedom and independence from the nightmare she was trapped in, she’d killed herself. And perhaps an act of aggression, a final “fuck you” to the hag who kept her confined to this backyard prison in the middle of nowhere.
Eve pictured herself holding Lacey’s hand. Quite possibly a return to this vile place could trigger the young woman. Spirts had feelings, too.
Though Eve expected a reply, Lacey offered nothing.
The lock clicked, and Susan muttered a triumph. Huffing and wheezing, Mrs. Mudd freed the chains with a big yank, sending them clamoring to the ground in heavy clinks. She sniffed and tugged on two wooden handles, bat wings of loose skin flapping beneath her triceps.
It’s okay, Lacey. I’m here.
Lacey giggled. You sure are.
Eve’s legs locked. Lacey sounded as nasty as her mother.
Pulse slamming in her skull, Eve spun around and prepared to run. But the diapered boy faced her. At some point, he’d slunk up on the women’s heels and followed them. Now, instead of his unloaded revolver, he held a deer rifle. Pointed at Eve’s face. He advanced, butting its hard end into her sternum. “Git on in now.”
Eve swallowed her panic. She had something they wanted. She held the upper hand. Hands up, she turned and followed Susan into the shed. It smelled so bad that her eyes watered. She plugged her nose.
What the fuck was that smell? The distinct tang of bodily waste and a rotten assault of fishy water assailed her senses.
But something else, alien and scary, lurked in the atmosphere. A musk, animal, the effluvia of an animal you didn’t want anything to do with.
Susan walked to the middle of the room, stood on her tiptoes, and pulled a string. From the ceiling, a single bulb flickered, casting the space in a menacing, shadow-filled light.
A sustained hiss tore through the air. The distinct, dull sound of flesh whacking against something hard followed. More hisses came.
Gun butting rudely into her back, Eve fixed her eyes on the poorly rendered dolphin tattoo staining Susan’s left shoulder blade. Because she didn’t want to see anything in this awful room.
Rattles buzzed. Ice water shot through her veins. Something alive squealed. Dust filled her mouth. Her knees went to jelly, knocking into each other as they shook.
“Herpetology,” Susan announced, puffing out her chest as she stood tall and proud.
“We’re gonna be rich.” This from the boy, an ejaculation of venal greed.
“Shut up, Rustin,” Susan snapped. She swiveled her head over her shoulder, he
r teased blonde crown immobile. Her hard and aggressive eyes betrayed a single, mercenary focus. “You brung my blood, witch girl?”
Eve surveyed the enclosure, nausea and terror blasting her as her surroundings came into revolting view. Her skin crawled. She shivered in the muggy air.
Stacked floor-to-ceiling in metal cabinets, aquariums lined the walls. Creatures of unknown taxonomy writhed inside them, the colors of their hairless, leathery skins ranging from slate gray to dark brown. Tan or olive splotches dappled the backs and blunt faces of some.
One, caged alone, stalked its empty home, back and forth in predatory frustration. It walked low to the ground, supported by an excess of tiny cricket legs. More so than its brethren, it moved with a self-aware gait. This thing was mad, pissed off.
Others pressed scaly, dishwater-pale bellies into cloudy glass. In one tank, several of the things lounged in a fleshy pile of light tans and muddy browns.
Eve blinked, clawing at the far corners of her comprehension. She struggled to determine what in the actual fuck squirmed and slithered and loafed in the cages before her.
Their bodies were long and sinuous, the tubular shape of a snake though notably fatter.
Each one had a zillion short, itty bitty legs and a broad back that looked tougher and hardier than their quivering underbellies.
Scales covered them head to toe. Stout feelers twitched on wedge-shaped skulls. Unlidded eyes the color of dehydrated urine were set deep in viper-like heads. A vertical, blood-red sliver bifurcated each yellow orb.
“You like my big boy, dontcha.” Susan made a kissy face at the tank with the loner and ambled up to it, her baby talk a horrid, stunning incongruity.
The woman crouched and pressed her lips to the glass. The monster inside reared back, coiling as it hissed. Its entire body vibrated, emitting a distinct rattle-and-buzz. Susan tapped the glass in provocative bangs. The animal maintained its aggressive posture, mouth dropping to reveal two full rows of pointy, hooked fangs.
“What is this?” Eve whispered, the spectacle commanding her surrender to unholy terror.
“Come on, stupid.” Susan stuck her tongue out at the angry beast. Growling in frustration, she leaned down, dragged out a Styrofoam cooler shoved underneath the shelving unit, and popped the lid. Stacked bags of red fluid filled the container, and Susan grabbed one.