“Can’t you say that it’s a just gray middle and be fine with it?” Lara rested her tired eyes as she looked out the window. “Why am I even arguin’ bout this… look I'm sorry, it's been a crazy week, you know it as well as I do, let's just sleep on this and figure out things tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Denver held her once more, “Tomorrow.”
— — —
She dreamed of that woman’s cabin. The woman was older now. Her curling black hair hid strands of gray. There was a man asleep in her bed and a child snoozing on a small cot on the opposite wall. The woman, draped in a loose white dress, woke and swiveled off her hay mattress. Lara could see crow’s feet invading the spaces at the corners of her eyes.
“I know why you’re here,” the woman whispered. “Look at this.” She guided Lara outside the cabin, and the two sat on a wooden log overlooking the shelter. The moon was half full. The crickets hummed across the field, and a frog croak echoed. “I’m Althea,” the woman said without looking at Lara.
“Where are we?”
The woman turned, a little confused. “Home? Nearby, Dry Run. He told me, we was in Kentucky.” The woman said Kentucky as ten-tuck-e.
“The man in your house?” Lara scratched the bark of the tree, trying to take in every detail she could of this place.
“Yes.” Althea flashed a confident grin towards Lara. “My love gave me the gift to see, along with the child.” Althea laughed to herself. “He ain’t know I see, I like hidin’ it. Makes me feel special. I’ve been bringin’ you here because I see you.” The woman rose a soft bony hand and tapped Lara’s forehead.
An image flashed in Lara’s mind, more powerful than what her dreams offered. Her view was outside the edge of a dense forest. Dark gray clouds whirled in the sky. Harsh wind billowed, causing water-like ripples through the treetops. It was raining—hard.
Something forged a path through the woods, breaking trees like toothpicks. It huffed out low gargling hums. It was lumbering towards town. As the being drew forward, Lara could almost make out its face. On top of the dark hulking body was a white mask. Just as Lara could make out the details of the face, something snapped. Snap was a soft way of putting it—something exploded. White light blinded Lara’s view as lighting flickered from the clouds above and struck the being.
Althea lifted her finger off Lara’s forehead. “I’ve been bringin’ ya here so I can lend my ability to see. I did it without even knowin’ why… There’s a storm comin’ ya ready?”
Lara woke up.
— — —
Dian made pancakes in the morning. It was hard to earth without an appetite.
Dian’s face faded to a flat, melancholy look as she sat. “So ya’ll wanna do anything for Michael.” silence fell on the group.
“I’ll… break the news to his mother,” Lara felt a sliver of guilt line her words. “We can grab a stone and put it next to the forest… his parents would buy a grave.”
“How long y’all know him for?” Denver asked.
“About… 12 years,” Dian said.
“I’m sorry…”
“It’s fine. He was a brother to us… I still can’t believe he’s gone. It just feels weird, ya know. It’s like someone turned off some light switch… You know it’s off, but you don’t know where that light was.”
Denver found a tall thin rock and placed it in front of Elk Horn Woods. Dian gathered flowers and laid them along the bottom of the makeshift gravestone. Lara found a blue pocket bible at the church and laid it on the dirt. The forest was sunny and hollow. A spirit rustled the treetops and danced with the swirling dead leaves along the dirt floor. Dian and Lara hugged each other.
They left around four. Lara saw a white truck on her drive back to Denver’s.
It’s following her.
Side B Track 9
Operator
Sparks shot from the electrical socket as Harvey plugged in the suitcase telephone and peeked out the motel window. Tangerine light saturated the puddles across the empty parking lot. The words ’S Inn’ lit on a rusting white sign, the second N flicked. Harvey dialed Donald’s number.
“Hello,” he said as he heard someone pick up on the other end. There was no response. “Hello?” There was only a faint murmurer behind the phone, then someone spoke up.
“Is this agent Harvey S. Becket?” A burly voice commanded on the other end.
Harvey froze. “Yes, this is Harvey… who am I speaking with?”
“Good Morning agent Becket. This is Sergeant Stockwell. We have caught Donald Gladwell trying to reach you… He has been taken care of, but we are not leaving this task. The Pentagon has assigned us to continue. For recent events, they set you to the same task. We should have the army in there in a couple of days to help you out. Is this alright Mr. Becket?”
Harvey spun his finger around the phone cord, “Will I be terminated after this?”
“Oh no… as long as you complete your job. You are on track, right?”
“I’m still searching for the target.”
“Good! Good… We will also toss a bonus bundle of cash for your worries. Becket, I expect you to call every morning at ten from now on to relay a status report. Do you understand?”
“Loud and clear,” Harvey looked at Sal with worn-out surprise. Sergeant Stockwell’s line clicked off. Sal stumbled over to Harvey’s feet and lay down beside him.
At noon the next day, Harvey bought a pistol from Ray’s Bait and Fishing. It looked like a weapon straight out of a western. He tapped the gun barrel on the BMW’s windshield, acting as if he were riding horseback instead of driving. He aimed at a speed limit sign and made a fake shot.
“Bang!” Buried energy rejuvenated Harvey. Every time he was on a job, he would have this sporadic energy that he never knew the source of. Driving along East Broadway gave him time to think this over.
He never considered himself to be a confidant man. No matter how much he faked it, he was still weak underneath. It was only in the right conditions that confidence would strike. All he needed something physical: his gun.
“Shut the hell up.” He whispered with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on his pistol. He murmured another, “Bang…,” and shot a ghost bullet towards a dead skunk blurring past on the side of the road.
Harvey slid the pistol in his black leather holster as he walked towards the biker gang base. The motorcycles were nowhere to be seen. He knocked on the metal door, the hollow knock reverberated down the stairwell. Harvey once again, found it unlocked.
He lurked downstairs and noticed the living room was vacant. Harvey leaned an ear out and listened. He heard nothing but the swelling hum of water from the rusting brass pipes. Maybe one of them is here. He didn’t care who it was. All he wanted was answers for the dead bodies, that glowing red door, and what they were feeding.
He crept forward, this time checking the left and right halls branching off the living room. On the left was a space for food storage. Cans of vegetables collected cobwebs on a metal shelf. The right hall led to two small makeshift bedrooms. Harvey’s then crept into the center hall.
That ominous red door lit brighter than before.
He didn’t have to pull out his lighter. Red light glimmered on the puddles below and gave texture to the brick walls. Harvey raised his gun and inched towards the door. He stopped and peeked at each branching hallway, soft footsteps echo from the living room.
He scurried into a side hall like a rat caught in the middle of the night. The clack of boots sauntered forward, tip tap, tip tap. They passed Harvey and continued towards the red door. He was too focused on hiding to see who it was. He watched the thin shadow of the person bounce from the brash light.
They jiggled the door handle, to no success. Then the jangle of keys echoed through the hall. Harvey glanced around the corner and saw Lucy flicking through her keys. Okay, I could go out and corner her right there, that would make sense, or I could wait and sneak attack her… but then she could attack b
ack and—shit.
Lucy gave up on her exploration of keys and trudged back down the main hall. Harvey listened as her footfalls drew towards him, tip tap, tip tap. She passed by; he crept behind. They walked in almost perfect rhythm, tip tap, tip, but she stopped.
Harvey grabbed her and locked one of her arms back before she had time to turn around. He tapped the barrel of the gun on the side of her head.
Lucy seemed too calm as she spoke, “Hello?” she sounded as if she were talking to a child.
Harvey readied the gun with a satisfying click, “what are you doing with all those bodies back there!?”
“Oh… you found em.” She raised her free hand in retreat. “I can explain, but first…” She slipped out of his grip and into the midnight black darkness of a side hall. He shot into the concrete corridor. The muzzle flash illuminated the hall like a snapshot. A single freeze-frame; her jacket in a full flag flap; her legs raised in her dash; the bullet pierced her back. Harvey flicked his lighter. The flame made moon-shaped glows along her leather jacket.
Lucy picked herself back up again, “Har, Harv!” she gargled.
Harvey heart raced; he saw her in a trembling push up stance. He heard her breath, loud, heavy, and weak. Without thought he shot again. The leather groaned as she dropped.
Harvey kept his eyes glued to where Lucy’s body lay as he retreated into the living room. He sat onto the couch, his pistol shook in his hand and his teeth clattered. I didn’t kill someone again… I was just trying to scare her. I knew one day I would… shit I killed her, no, I-.
A sound like a water fountain trickled within the pitch-black hall.
Lucy coughed, spat, and then leaned against the doorway between the main hall and the living room. A bullet passed through her stomach and stained her black-and-white striped shirt. Blood streaked her face. The second bullet pierced through the back of her skull and out of the top of her forehead. Blood pooled down the tip of her chin.
Lucy opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything, a gulp of blood splashed out. “Hue-Huck in, ie-it!” Harvey couldn’t understand a word that spilled from her lips. The wound at her stomach healed, “Ahhe-hit-hat-heels-ehher.” He could almost hear her, but the words still mumbled out like 2-year-old babble. The hole in her forehead miraculously vanished. Harvey flinched at the sound of her clearing her throat. She raised her hands in surrender “Okay, you wanna talk, I’ll talk.”
“Wha—how the—are you?”
“Bullets don’t work, Harvey…” Lucy grinned and pulled out a wooden chair from a corner of the room, then sat on it backward, facing Harvey. “Don’t you pull any of that shit on my boys. That fuckin’ hurt.” She wiped the blood off her face with her shirt collar.
Harvey stood up off the couch. “The bodies. Why are you keeping those? I saw a dead old woman in one of those.”
“What about her?” Lucy said through blood-stained teeth.
“Did you kill her, whats your motive? What are you all feeding?”
“We don’t got a motive; we got a need.”
“A need to kill!?” Harvey stepped forward, “What kinda sick monsters are you guys.”
“Sick?” Lucy leaned forward, holding the back of the chair, “says the person who shot someone twice and made a woman kill herself. We’re tryin’ to help this town.” She licked the blood off her teeth and thought for a moment. “Here! Think spiders: you may not want spiders, hell, you would love to shoot a spider’s guts out, wouldn’t ya.” Harvey groaned. Lucy snickered. “You can’t deny that spiders are a needed thing, though. Remember those creatures out in the woods.”
Harvey slid his pistol back into the holster and cocked his head, “Pretty vividly… are you working with those things… more importantly, how are you still alive?”
“We ain’t workin’ with em, and we’ll get to the whole bullet thing soon enough. Those things out there…” Lucy paused and turned as if she had heard someone call her name. “You believe in God, don’t ya?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Well,” Lucy stood up, popped her neck, and felt the skin where the bullet hole once was. She tapped it as if it could burn her and then let out a sigh. “Those things are from Hell. That hole you saw yesterday was Hell’s outhouse… Those things that come up are the livin’ dead. The town is stuck in spiritual turmoil.”
Harvey sat back down and glanced at the dirty rug below his feet, “Spiritual turmoil?”
“It’s more like two families fighting over a kid, and they just dropped it at the center to fight. Those livin’ dead feed off people, and ya can’t kill em. They’re like weeds, you gotta pluck away. We’re zookeepers to these animals. Bout once a month, we go out and feed one of them. They are some collective bein’, so that’s about all it takes. We don’t go around killing random people. We get only people we know are about to die. Joselean Springs gotta lot of forgotten elderly.”
Harvey rubbed his mustache, “Why not just let things naturally happen?”
“Naturally happen?” she mocked. “You wanna know why Collin takes care of Cain? It just so naturally happened to their parents. Cain was only seven. Their parents had a good number of years left to take care of em. But oh, no, no, no! We gotta have things happen the natural way. We formed this gang so we wouldn’t have that anymore. Why use the people who are needed in this town when you can use the ones who ain’t?”
“Sorry if it’s a sore spot for y’all.”
“A sore spot? Oh, you took a sore spot outta my head as soon as you walked in.You don't got any room to talk about being sorry for sore spots.” Lucy pointed to her head, “You wanna know how much of a fuckin’ headache it is to be shot through your skull!?”
Harvey raised both hands in retreat, “Okay, okay, I get it… speaking for that, how did you survive.”
“Hang on a second,” Lucy opened over to a drawer on a small table near the couch. Harvey tried to contain his fear, but his eyebrows betrayed him. “What? You can shoot me up if I pull some shit on you.”
“Does that red door got anything to do with this?” Harvey said.
Lucy froze as she dug through the cabinet. “That’s got everything to do with this. I lost my goddamn key two days ago! All my books and shit are in there. Inside there is this little machine. My dad gave me the key while he was still around. Never told me what it was. Over the past year I’ve been makin’ a pool in there so that I can baptize the demon.” Lucy slid out a book from the back of the drawer.
“Why baptize it?”
“Not really baptize, more like burn away with rainwater. It’s one of the only ways.” Lucy held a book in her lap, “This ain’t gonna fit well with the whole killin’ people thing but hear me out.” She passed the gold-engraved book to Harvey, “I study Satanism.”
Harvey nearly dropped the book, “You what?”
“You know, witchcraft and all that. I wanna find out more about them demons out in town. Why not study them? I’m gonna sacrifice the demon to the underworld. Think of it like bringin’ em back home.” Lucy pointed to the cat claw-like scar on the back of her hand. “I read in the Demonium that you could sell half your soul.” Harvey’s mind could hardly catch up on what she was saying. “I read the chant. That red room became almost pitch black. I had a light on, but it was like somethin’ came into the room and just sucked it all away. Since then, I can’t die to any wound. Leonard says I lost a good chunk of my compassion along with it, but he don’t know what he’s talkin’ about.” Lucy pondered for a while and picked up the book. “You can read through this one to learn more.”
“No, I’m, Hold on… if you believe in all that stuff then why are you hunting down the devil in the town? Don’t you like them?”
“I don’t get friendly with em and shit. I just wanna know more so I can stop em. If it means doin’ a few deals-” She turned away and shrugged. “Sure, why not, as long as I’m closer to findin’ what’s out there.”
Harvey got in his car at four o’clock.
Lucy knocked on the window, “Hey, I forgot about this, you should figure out what the mayor knows about everythin’, ya know. We did a little deal with him at one point to stop a drunk. It seems like a good place to look.”
“Yeah… uh, will do.” The biker’s shack faded in the rear-view mirror as Harvey cruised out of the park.
Side C Track 9
To Get Around
9/7/77
I missed doing these log type things. There’s something so comforting about telling your tale, setting off your journey, and omitting where need be.
So back to where I was. I went to the motel to walk Sal. After that, I was off to the mayor’s office. It’s pretty easy to spot being the only three-story building in this entire town.
When I got in, I told them I was a news reporter, and they just waved me on in. The place had that offsetting smell you could only find at an office, the scent of papers with hints of some souring chemical. I could never put my finger on what it was, but just about every place I worked at had it.
I found some town records and wrote stuff down in my folder. Hardly anyone was around. I didn’t have enough time to track down that “devil” person. The population of Joselean Springs is 5,876, and all I got is a photo.
The death records have a noticeable spike for the past 5 years. So Lucy was telling the truth. I went up to the third floor to greet the mayor. He was a large man, yet rather soft and inviting. He didn’t look like the kind of person to lead a demon-infested town; he looked like he could have led a church or a bank if he got lucky.
We had a nice chat and asked if we could meet at a bar. He said sure. We met up at Deerfields Bar later in the afternoon. Everything went downhill after that.
Side D Track 9
On the River
Out There: A Rural Horror Story Page 14