Catfish Lullaby

by A. C. Wise

  The two images resolved in Caleb’s mind, collapsing into one. It didn’t matter what Catfish John was: Cere believed in him, so Caleb would too.

  Del’s eyes widened as Catfish John stopped in front of him.

  “You.” The word stuttered.

  The blood-red tint left Del’s eyes, going muddy dark. What stories had Archie told him about the creature in front of him, the devil so bad even hell didn’t want him? Caleb surprised himself with a moment of pity for Del. The man who tortured animals, who’d tried to hurt Cere, looked small, lost. Catfish John towered over him, at least nine feet tall and growing. The teeth in that downturned mouth were wicked sharp; those webbed hands could so easily snap Del’s neck.

  Two devils, one human and one not, a holy man and a wanderer from outside the world, battling down through time.

  Del’s mouth stretched in an expression of horror. Caleb struggled to keep his eyes on what was happening, but it blurred. He was underwater. He was drifting off to sleep. His grandmother, mother, father, singing him a lullaby.

  Caleb yawned so wide his jaw cracked. Del swayed on his feet. Catfish John reached out and touched Del’s forehead. Or Caleb thought he did. Space folded and the stars rushed backward. Del howled, a feral sound of rage like the sound that had come over the trees the night Evaneen Milton’s bones were found. The sound the face in the smoke had made the night Archie Royce’s house burned. The sound of loss Cere made when Catfish John left her behind.

  They blended in Caleb’s head. Del dropped, a boneless sack of clay. Catfish John’s hand hung in the air for a moment, his webbed fingers glimmering. His shoulders stooped, shorter than Caleb’s father. How had Caleb ever thought he was nine feet tall?

  “Child.” Catfish John’s voice echoed; Caleb felt it in his bones more than heard it.

  The word might have been for Cere, or it might have been for Del. Or maybe Catfish John hadn’t spoken at all.

  Cere wrapped her arms around her body. She shook but not with sobs. Bits of her skin peeled away, mouths opening to show the darkness within. Catfish John held out a hand to her.

  All the while, his song continued. Singing Cere down, singing her back into herself.

  Cere took his hand. The ground stopped shuddering. Catfish John turned toward the woods, leading Cere at his side.

  “No.” The shout broke from Caleb. He took a step, his entire body aching. “Where are you taking her?”

  “Caleb.” Caleb’s father, unfreezing, caught Caleb’s shoulder.

  Caleb turned. His father looked bloodless in the dark, worn out and terrified. A burst of static as one of the other officers pulled out a radio and called for more backup. The world poured back in all at once.

  Catfish John stopped, and Caleb caught his breath. An ancient thing, a wounded man. The dark of Catfish John’s eyes went all the way to the edges. They made Caleb think of the night sky, speckled with stars. Sorrow, older than he could imagine, and weariness as well.

  Caleb’s father tightened his grip on Caleb’s shoulder, his hand shaking.

  “It’s okay.” Cere’s voice was rough with strain.

  She looked up at Catfish John and slipped her hand from his webbed one. She came toward Caleb and his father. She hugged them each in turn. Heat from her skin soaked through Caleb’s clothes. He could feel her bones and, sliding just under the surface, the nightmares she held at bay.

  Threads of darkness writhed in Cere’s eyes—black against gold. They were the things from under the water, the creature Caleb had seen her become, the thing whose head scraped the sky.

  “It’ll be okay,” she said. “I promise.”

  She turned back to Catfish John, taking in his hand again. She looked over her shoulder, meeting Caleb’s eyes.

  “Thank you.” She smiled, and for once, it wasn’t shadowed with pain. For this moment at least, when Cere burned, it was pure light.

  “Wait!” Caleb held out the carving. He had almost forgotten it, but when he uncurled his fingers, the strange lines of it were pressed into his palm.

  “This is yours.” He handed it to Cere; a shock like an electric spark jumped between them.

  Catfish John’s attention shifted, fixing on Caleb. He felt seen, picked apart and known. All of his secrets, all of his fears—Robert Lord and Denny Harmon—they were small enough for Catfish John to hold in his hand. He imagined them, stardust in that strange, webbed palm, blown away in a simple puff of breath. Catfish John inclined his head, almost a nod. Caleb felt a weight lifted off his chest, but he was too dazed to speak.

  Then Catfish John turned, leading Cere with him. The moon was still up, the stars—the real ones—still bright, but the sky glowed like the rising sun. A crack in the world. It silhouetted them as they walked side by side—the not-quite-human figure of Catfish John and Cere, looking small and fragile.

  Caleb watched, his eyes burning, until the light went out. The wail of a siren cut through the night. The sky returned to its usual blue-black, slightly hazy, and the house was just a house, not an impossible, ruined labyrinth.

  “She’ll be okay.” His father’s voice was quiet.

  Caleb wanted to believe him. And he wanted to argue; they needed to bring Cere home. His father gave Caleb’s shoulder a squeeze before going to meet the ambulance.

  Lights flashed. Voices swirled around him. Inertia kept Caleb where he was, watching the world happen around him. It was an effort to stay upright, keep his eyes open. Each blink seemed to last longer than the one before. At some point, he noticed Del no longer lay crumpled on the ground. Had the ambulance taken him?

  Caleb picked his way back to the driveway and sat with his back against the reassuring solidity of his father’s car. He watched the sun come up, true dawn. When his head got too heavy, he lay down, curling on his side. Later he was vaguely aware of someone lifting him into the car.

  In half-dreams, things swarmed around him in the water. Cere, bright and round as the sun, stood on the edge of a bridge and held out her hand.

  The sound of the car door opening woke him. Caleb sat up as his father climbed into the front seat, sitting with his hands on the wheel. His shoulders sagged; his face in the rearview mirror had aged five years.

  With a sigh, he started the car, executing a turn back toward the road.

  “What about Cere?” Caleb’s voice felt thick as if the brutal force of Del’s magic or Catfish John’s calming song still clung to him.

  His father tapped the brake as if caught by surprise. The car stuttered before continuing to roll.

  “We’ll find her.”

  In the rearview mirror, his father’s gaze slid away. He frowned like he was trying to remember something. As Caleb watched, the lines in his face smoothed into blank exhaustion. Caleb twisted around to look at the remains of Archie Royce’s house.

  “We can’t just leave her.”

  His father startled again, opening his mouth as if to shape the word who. The lines around his mouth deepened as he closed it, but he didn’t stop the car.

  A faint sense of panic tapped against Caleb’s ribs. Cere. Catfish John. It had happened. He tried to hold onto the image of them walking away, but it clouded at the edges.

  “Hmm?” His father, distracted, glanced in the rearview mirror.

  Cere’s name stuck on Caleb’s tongue, refusing to shape itself aloud. Was that Catfish John’s last gift to her, a way to protect her?

  What had his father seen when Del and Cere faced each other? Had he heard the lullaby? Caleb shook his head like he was trying to dislodge water in his ear.

  His father pulled onto the main road. Caleb could barely keep his eyes open. His chin dipped toward his chest. He jerked back, pulse skittering.

  He had to stay awake. He had to help Cere.

  The thought twisted away from him. Cere was somewhere else. She was safe.

&
nbsp; No. Someone had taken her. She was in danger.

  The thoughts jumbled; he couldn’t pick the threads apart. This time when his head nodded, he didn’t fight it. He let sleep pull him down, away from nightmare visions of the burning sky and the water full of teeth. Even though they were already pulling back into his grandparents’ driveway, Caleb let himself drift away.

  His last conscious thought was of the strange melody of a lullaby.

  part three

  chapter one

  The stories about Catfish John range all over the place, just like the names for him. He’s a genetic experiment gone wrong, something cooked up by the government to fight the Ruskies. He’s an escaped circus freak. A patient from an insane asylum. He’s a man who just wants to be left alone. He’s a devil, cursed by God to wander the earth forever, looking for forgiveness. Some folks honestly believe a human woman and an alligator got together and birthed a creature in-between, a monster.

  —Myths, History, and Legends from the Delta to the Bayou (Whippoorwill Press, 2016)

  ***

  C

  aleb followed the footprints sunk deep into the mud, just like he had when he was twelve years old. He passed the ruins of a house that no longer existed and went into the swamp as the sun was rising. Flat pools of water gathered around cypress knees caught the light, gleaming like liquid fire. A line of gold at the horizon spread, not the sun but a crack in the sky. A shadow emerged, and the mud around Caleb’s feet bubbled as something rose.

  Gold eyes. Scales, rough as the bark of an ancient tree. A gator bigger than any he’d ever seen, standing on its hind legs like something human, cradling its heavy belly in clawed limbs.

  “It’s time,” it said in Cere’s voice, mouth doubled and trebled, speaking as a child, a woman, a thing with too many teeth.

  “It’s time.” Kyle nudged him.

  The shrill of a strange swamp bird became the alarm on Caleb’s phone.

  “I’m awake.” He fumbled to swipe the alarm off and let his arm fall across his eyes.

  “You could call in sick.” Kyle poked him in the side; Caleb squirmed away.

  “Can’t.” Caleb didn’t lift his arm. “Wouldn’t do for Lewis’s youngest-ever sheriff to start slacking off less than a year into the job.”

  He forced himself to sit up, squinting.

  “Not to mention its first queer sheriff.” Kyle poked him in the side again.

  “Wait’ll they find out I’m black too.” He untangled his legs from the sheet and stood.

  “I’ll never tell.” Kyle put both hands over his mouth and then lowered them with a grin.

  “How did you get elected?” Kyle reached for the jeans crumpled on the floor.

  “I told them I was a Republican.” Now it was Caleb’s turn to grin.

  Kyle grabbed a towel slung over the end of the bed and tossed it at Caleb’s head.

  “Blasphemy.”

  Caleb caught the towel but felt his grin slip, a nerve struck.

  “Honestly I’m afraid I’m just trading on my father’s reputation, and it’s only a matter of time before someone comes to tell me it was all a mistake and kicks me out of office.”

  “Hey.” Kyle’s voice softened, and Caleb looked up. “You’re a good sheriff. You’ve done a lot for this town in just a few months.”

  “I guess.” Caleb slung the towel over his shoulder, trying to put his smile back in place, even if he didn’t feel it. Kyle didn’t look convinced.

  Caleb couldn’t help his doubts. Even if he single-handedly saved the whole town from burning down, he’d never live up to his father’s reputation. Of course, with most of Lewis’s offenses being traffic tickets, petty vandalism, and one property line dispute between neighbors that had come to blows, Caleb wasn’t exactly saving the world, which didn’t help his confidence either.

  He ducked into the shower, letting needles of hot water scrub away the green rot of his dream, trying to send the feelings of self-doubt with it. Both lingered. Even standing on the shower’s slick tile, Caleb felt mud squelch between his toes. The dreams had been getting worse lately, more frequent, and from the way Kyle looked at him some mornings, Caleb knew he wasn’t hiding it particularly well. That worried look, the one he caught Kyle at when he thought Caleb wasn’t looking, came more and more frequently these days too.

  When they’d first met, Kyle had just moved from Kansas after dropping out—burning out, he’d said—of grad school, working odd jobs while he tried to figure out his life. He’d been studying comparative religion and mythology with the idea of eventually going into teaching, but after what he’d described as a series of low-level panic attacks, he’d decided to hide himself in a town where no one knew him.

  Their actual meeting had been almost a rom-com meet cute, at least a rom-com meet cute for rednecks. Without thinking, Kyle had cheered a Chiefs touchdown against the Saints in Woody’s Bar amidst a sea of black and gold jerseys, and Caleb had swooped in like a knight in shining armor and saved Kyle from getting his ass beat. Of course, on their second date, Caleb had made Kyle swear up and down that he would never cheer for any team playing against the Saints in Caleb’s hearing ever again. That had been almost three years ago, before he was even Sheriff, and Caleb was still amazed Kyle had stayed instead of leaving Lewis in his rearview mirror.

  He was even more amazed Kyle had stayed after the first time Caleb had woken up screaming from a nightmare. But he had, and he’d been infinitely patient, even helping Caleb chase down legends about Catfish John. That crease of worry between his eyes never quite went away though. Caleb suspected part of Kyle’s willingness to help stemmed from a hope that somehow, if they could find a real historical basis for Catfish John, the obsession would go away. The nightmares would stop. Caleb would be “normal” again.

  Caleb scrubbed his hands over his face, shutting off the water. He stood dripping, letting his skin cool. He’d tried to explain to Kyle how the dreams felt realer than real, how he wasn’t even sure they were dreams, how they might be visions, and how he couldn’t shake the certainty Cere was out there somewhere. Still alive. And it was only a matter of time before she came home.

  He stepped out of the shower and toweled himself dry. The image of his father, lying in the hospital bed and looking so much like Caleb’s grandfather had at the end, rose sharp in his mind. Maybe Caleb should have tried to talk to him about the night Cere disappeared one more time before the end. But it had seemed pointless. His father could barely remember Cere by the time they’d pulled out of Archie Royce’s driveway. What would be the use of dragging up her name when his father was hooked up to machines, the x-rays of his lungs an eerie echo of Caleb’s grandmother’s and grandfather’s before him.

  The few times over the years Caleb had tried bringing up Cere only got him further from the truth. His father might vaguely recall a few details if Caleb prompted him, but Caleb could never tell whether those were true memories or his own suggestions working their way into his father’s mind. It was eerie. His father had an almost photographic memory for cases years old; he could still recite word for word books like The Lorax, which he’d read to Caleb as a kid. But with Cere, it was like something had taken her completely out of his father’s memory.

  When it came right down to it, Caleb could barely trust his own memories. If he left them alone too long, they changed. Had it been Del or Ellis in the house that night? Was Catfish John’s skin grey or green?

  That was the other thing he couldn’t quite explain to Kyle—if he didn’t keep obsessively telling himself the story of Cere, searching for fragments of Catfish John’s story to back his memories up, then he would lose her completely. It would be as though she’d never existed at all. The rest of Lewis had moved on, the wound scabbing over. Even the remains of Archie Royce’s house had been razed. Now only an empty lot stood where it had once been.

  Caleb swipe
d condensation from the mirror and picked up his razor. No matter how the land changed, no matter the worry in Kyle’s eyes or the dreams that plagued him, he wouldn’t let Cere vanish a second time.

  “Morning, boss. Coffee.” Rose Jackson, Caleb’s chief deputy, handed him a travel mug as he climbed out of the car.

  “I can’t help noticing it’s to go.” Caleb frowned as Rose steered him back toward the car.

  “That’s the bad news. Call came in while you were on your way. I figured I’d give you ten minutes grace and wait until you got here. A body was found out by Emmett Hawkins’s place. Emmett’s out of town visiting his great-granddaughter. The kids he was paying to keep an eye on his house found the corpse.”

  “That’s the bad news. What’s the good news?”

  “You have coffee.” Rose gave him a wry grin.

  Caleb sighed and started the car as Rose climbed in beside him. He pulled out of the lot, flipping on the siren as he did. Despite Rose’s words, her expression was grim, her humor armor against the less savory aspects of their job. In their time together, Caleb had had the opportunity to see many versions of Rose’s armor, and each one made him like her more.

  A month after he’d appointed her, they’d been at the Hilltop, picking up sweet tea, and had chanced to overhear Nathan Hawley grumbling to Sheila Hannerity at the register about the “type” taking over law enforcement in Lewis. Obviously Nathan hadn’t seen either of them, but Rose had stepped right over to Nathan, wearing a smile sharp enough to draw blood. She’d stuck out her hand to shake, standing in a way that made her height advantage over him clear, and in a honeyed drawl nothing like her normal speaking voice, she’d said, “I surely hope I can live up to the reputation that must have preceded me in order for you to be putting me in a class with our fine sheriff here.”