Catfish Lullaby

by A. C. Wise

  “Hey, at least I’m finally putting my degree to practical use, right?” Kyle put his arms out to keep his balance as his foot caught a root, and he almost tripped. At the same time, a branch cracked, the sound echoing weirdly.

  “Rose?” Caleb swung around.

  “Here, boss.”

  Caleb jumped at the sound of her voice, so close. The sound of the snapping branch had definitely come from farther away. His expression must have changed. Beside him, Rose tensed, her hand going to her hip for a weapon she no longer wore now that she was off-duty.

  “Shit.”

  Caleb hushed her, aiming his flashlight at the trees. Kyle pointed his phone the same way. The beams picked out a shape between two trunks. Catfish John. Caleb couldn’t help the thought. But the shape was wrong in a wholly different way. Melted almost. Caleb couldn’t think of a better word.

  He lowered the light a fraction, holding out his other hand to show he was unarmed.

  “Boss . . .” Rose’s tone held a warning.

  It could be a hunter, maybe there’d been an accident. Or someone who’d gotten drunk and wandered away from their camp. He wanted the rationalizations to be true.

  A digital shutter-click broke the stillness, Kyle snapping a picture with his phone. The man—was it a man?—spun, crashing away from them. Caleb plunged after him.

  The beam of his flashlight bounced ahead of him, catching stuttering glances of the man’s movement. Jerky. Wrong. And it wasn’t just the light. Caleb ducked under branches, but the man plowed straight through them.

  Just as he started to close the gap, Caleb’s foot caught. He went down, swearing as the flashlight flew out of his hand. The beam illuminated the lower half of the man’s leg. He was barefoot. In fact, he seemed to be naked, great ropes of scar tissue circling his legs.

  “You okay?” Rose caught up, reaching to help him stand.

  “Get—” Caleb wheezed, the fall had winded him. He pointed through the trees.

  Rose scooped up the flashlight. The man, the creature, whatever, was gone.

  “Shit.” Caleb managed to get his breathing under control.

  “Caleb.” Kyle joined them, the alarm in his voice mirrored by his expression.

  He held his phone out, screen turned to show the picture he’d taken. Maybe it was the camera struggling in the low light, but there was something blurred about the man. Burned. Caleb’s first impression of the man as melted returned, stronger, like candle wax dripping and reforming.

  “Looks like a bad special effect.” Despite the words, Rose’s voice held an edge.

  “Right?” Kyle turned the phone to look at the screen again. “So, what? Wendigo? Zombie? Bigfoot? Swamp Thing?”

  Caleb could almost see him scrolling through mythology textbooks behind his eyes, adding to that copious amounts of science fiction, fantasy, and horror consumed across multiple mediums as a kid.

  “That wasn’t some dude in a rubber suit,” Rose said.

  “No.” Caleb tested weight on his leg. Tender, but no permanent damage.

  It was a moment before he realized Rose and Kyle were looking to him like they expected him to know what to do. And he should. Not just because he was the sheriff but because he’d dragged them into this, and he was the closest thing there was to a expert. Caleb shook his head.

  “We’re not going to do any good blundering around in the dark. This was a stupid idea in the first place.”

  He turned, limping slightly as he walked back toward the truck. Rose touched his arm.

  “Hey. Don’t beat yourself up, boss. It’s been a weird day.”

  Caleb swallowed, throat suddenly thick. It wasn’t just Kyle; it was Rose too. The look they’d given, waiting to follow his lead, implied trust. That came with barbs. If he fucked this up, it impacted them too.

  Family. The word came unbidden to his mind, and Caleb pushed it away. It was too big to hold right now. He’d lost too many people to Archie Royce, and his shadow still hung over this place. He’d be damned if he lost anyone else.

  chapter two

  In the summer of 1931, a series of killings took place following a rough line along the Mississippi, from the delta to the bayou. Eight confirmed victims: Theresa Harding, Janet Duplo, Teddy Fishton, Raymond Dante, Eleanor Washington, Helen Elgin, Richard Carter, and Alice Haight. Around the time of the fourth killing, newspapers dubbed the spree the “Catfish Murders” on account of the way the bodies were mutilated post mortem. Each had long cuts made on either side of their throats, like gills, and they were also given reverse Glasgow smiles, the ends of their mouths extended down just like a catfish. The killer was never caught. Just another one of the great mysteries of this area.

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

  ***

  C

  ere crouched in the ruins of her old house, the walls sketched in lines of black rot staining the ground. With the logic of dreams, she appeared to be five or six years old, younger than Caleb had ever known her. Her mouth moved, but Caleb couldn’t understand her. As he reached for her, shadows burst from her skin, lashing around his wrist, pulling him forward.

  Caleb jerked, legs kicking to keep himself from falling, tangling in the sheets instead. He turned to see Kyle with one arm tossed over his head, his mouth slightly open. At least he hadn’t woken him this time.

  Caleb eased out of bed, padding barefoot through the house and out onto the back porch. He’d stayed up for hours after Kyle had gone to bed, skimming through old files of his father’s that he’d brought home from the office. Of course, they hadn’t revealed anything new, not that he’d expected them to. The sky was still flush with stars, so he couldn’t have slept long. Apparently he’d followed in his father’s footsteps with regard to insomnia too.

  Not for the first time, he considered whether the dead end he ran into at every turn was somehow Catfish John’s doing, obscuring himself, obscuring Cere. Caleb stepped off the porch. A faint chill seeped up from the grass through the soles of his feet. If she knew how much he needed her, would Cere come home?

  He listened to the rustle of wind through the trees bordering the property, a dog barking. He marked each and let the sounds fall away until there was only his breathing. Once upon a time, he’d called Catfish John, and Catfish John heard him. He didn’t have the carving anymore, but maybe Cere would still hear him somehow.

  He formed a picture in his mind of the day they’d sat in the back of his father’s truck, eating ice cream, their feet swinging from the tailgate. She’d healed him. She might be an apocalypse bound in human form, but she was more than that too.

  He reached for the memory of Cere fighting Del, her song, and for Catfish John’s song. The notes slipped and twisted away from him, but he understood the feeling. Comfort. Safety. Home. Bracing himself, Caleb sank into the memory of being pressed to the ground, of Cere and Catfish John’s music unwinding him, stripping away his flesh and leaving him bare to the stars.

  Come home, he thought. Come home.

  Cere was there, just beyond his reach. If he could only just . . . it was . . .

  It was stupid.

  Caleb’s eyes flew open. A mosquito whined next to his ear; he slapped at it, breaking his concentration. The song, ragged as morning mist burning off over the trees, slipped away. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What had he expected? He crept back into the house. Exhaustion coupled with disappointment swept over him; for the first time in a very long time, had no trouble falling asleep.

  The smell of mud and leaf rot. The dusty, rich scent of earth, laid over with still water. Eyes—just visible above the water’s surface—watching him. Below the surface lay worse things. A splash put Caleb knee-deep in the brackish water. Another splash. Cere walked toward him. Light coming from her skin and moving eerily over the water as she drew closer. The same age a
s when he’d last seen her; then she flickered and became a full-grown woman, not pregnant as in his other dreams but thin, muscled, like she’d spent a long time running. Threads of gold snaked through her eyes. She took Caleb’s hand in her own, at once large and small—an adult’s and a child’s.

  “We have to go.” He didn’t see her lips move, but he heard her.

  The mud-scent grew stronger, silt and an animal smell. The water surged, a wave slapping him.

  “Caleb, now. It’s time.”

  Cere’s voice yanked at him. Not inside his dream but . . .

  Caleb flailed awake, gasping for air, the second time in how many hours? Cere stood at the foot of the bed, dripping water.

  Caleb scrambled backward, reaching for the light. His fingers brushed it, knocking it over. The crash brought Kyle awake, and Caleb instinctively put a hand across his chest, holding him back.

  Cere couldn’t be here. But she was, no longer wearing a dress clinging to her legs with the weight of mud but jeans and a T-shirt. No water soaked the rug under her feet. She looked fully human, tired and worn.

  “Hi,” she said.

  A simple word, but it landed like a blow. The air left him in a rush.

  “Caleb?” Kyle’s voice mixed confusion with an edge of fear. Caleb felt an absurd relief that Kyle could see her too.

  “It’s okay,” Caleb said. Was it?

  “Are you really here?” He turned his attention back to Cere. His voice came out smaller than he would have liked, his twelve-year-old self watching her disappear into the swamp again.

  “Who—” Kyle started and stopped, his eyes widening. “Oh shit.”

  “I was a long way away, but I came home.” A smile touched the corner of Cere’s lips, sad, apologetic, acknowledging the inadequacy of her words. But the one word that mattered rang in Caleb’s head: home.

  “Where were you?” Caleb lowered his hand. Kyle put a hand on his arm, steadying him, grounding him. “This is Kyle. He’s . . . you can trust him,” Caleb said finally.

  Cere sat on the edge of the bed but didn’t look at either of them full on.

  “I went outside.” The way she said it, Caleb knew she didn’t mean outdoors.

  “Catfish John took me somewhere my father and brothers couldn’t reach me.” A faint tremor shivered Cere’s skin, the suggestion that safe wasn’t necessarily pleasant.

  “You came back.” Caleb couldn’t help staring at her, still trying to process her presence.

  Family left, they died and disappeared, but sometimes they came home again too.

  Cere finally turned to look at him. The gold in her eyes looked like fractures now, tiny fissures in glass. The darkness was closer to the surface. Cere was more dangerous than she’d ever been before. And in more danger too.

  “Del,” Caleb said.

  And at the same time, Cere said, “He’s trying again.”

  “Will someone please explain what’s going on?” Tension made Kyle’s voice sharp.

  “Sorry.” Caleb turned to him.

  “Cere.” As she spoke, looking at Kyle, Caleb thought of her offering the name years ago in her smoke-roughened voice.

  There was a new hardness to her features, an impatience. She’d been gone, outside, for a very long time. Maybe she didn’t have the will to shield those around her anymore.

  “It’s really you.” Kyle let out a breath. “What changed? Caleb’s been looking for you all these years.”

  “Catfish John . . . his song is weaker. He’s fading. I was outside, and I felt Del looking for me. Then I heard you.”

  Cere shifted her gaze to Caleb; guilt kicked in his chest. Had he put her in danger?

  “How much has Caleb told you?” Cere turned back to Kyle.

  “As much as I could remember,” Caleb answered, ashamed of the details that had slipped from his mind, even for a minute.

  Cere pursed her lips, dismissing his guilt. She addressed them both now. It struck Caleb again how much more willing she was to talk, including Kyle automatically even if it put him at risk. What had it been like for her outside? Had being that long in the dark, or wherever she’d been, worn away her humanity?

  “Catfish John protected me,” Cere said. “He taught me to protect myself. For a while, it was easy. Without me, there was no point in bringing our father back, so Del went into hiding. I should have come back to finish it long ago. I was . . .” Cere shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m back now.”

  “What exactly is your brother trying to do?” Kyle asked.

  “Bring my father back from the dead. End the world. The usual.” A wry smile touched her lips but faded quickly. “All of Del’s life, my father only had one concern: making sure I was born and filling me with everything necessary to ensure I birthed the end of the world. It’s all Del has ever known. It’s all I knew for a long time too.”

  Her gaze moved to Caleb, and he thought he heard a note of pity in her voice. He tried to picture Del as anything other than a monster, as a little boy, desperate for his father’s love. What if he’d had someone like Caleb’s father to take him in or someone like Catfish John to guide him?

  Would it have changed him? Caleb doubted it. Del had taken what his father had given him, turned it into even more cruelty. He had Archie Royce’s fanatic vision but worse. He wanted to see people suffer for the sake of suffering. And he wanted his father there to witness it.

  Caleb opened his mouth when something else struck him, a thought that had been nagging at the back of his head. Thinking about Del looking up to his father and the way Ellis had looked up to Del. And Cere had said brothers before, not brother.

  Caleb’s pulse quickened.

  “We went to your old house last night. We saw something. I think maybe . . . I think Del brought Ellis back with him this time.”

  “That thing we saw in the woods?” Kyle said.

  Cere’s shoulders lowered a fraction, but she didn’t seem surprised. She closed her eyes, tilting her head back; her whole being flickering. She went from a tired woman sitting on their bed to the woman with glowing skin and a huge belly to the child she had been and then something else entirely. Shadows leaked away from her, a drop of ink spreading in water. Her outline was there, faint, but she unfolded, spreading, growing thinner. Caleb jumped up, and his foot splashed in water. He yanked it back. A swamp filled the room.

  “What the hell?” Kyle moved to the center of the bed.

  Just as it had arrived, the water vanished. Cere diminished back into herself, opening her eyes.

  “Del is stronger now.” She spoke as if nothing had happened.

  “What do we do?” Caleb asked.

  “I’m a monster.” Again the sad smile. Cere’s eyes were pure gold now like a harvest moon. Her expression changed—unapologetic but not hard. Pragmatic. Caleb wondered again: what had it been like for her outside?

  “Sometimes you just have to be scarier than the other monsters to win.”

  Caleb thought of her standing up to Denny Harmon and Robert Lord. It seemed like a lifetime ago. This was different, something completely outside his realm of experience. Except it wasn’t. He’d seen her face down Del before. But Del wasn’t alone now, and he’d had years to prepare. Then again so had Cere.

  “Do you want to understand?”

  It was a moment before Caleb realized Cere was talking to Kyle who stared at her wide-eyed.

  “Don’t.” Caleb shifted to put himself between Kyle and Cere, but Kyle moved around him.

  “I can make my own decisions.” He didn’t sound angry, rattled maybe but with curiosity winning out. “If I’m going to help, I want to know.”

  Cere reached for Kyle’s hand, her fingers hovering just short of touching him. Her inhuman eyes asked for certainty one last time, and Kyle nodded. Cere took his hand, pressing it against the flat of her
belly.

  Flat but with potential. All those nightmares her father wanted her to birth, monsters that would wipe clean the earth. Kyle sucked in a breath. Caleb tensed, waiting for blood to pour from Kyle’s nose, but it didn’t. His nostrils flared, and the tendons in his neck strained but nothing else. Cere let go of his hand.

  It took a moment for his eyes to focus, and when they did, he looked at Cere. Caleb saw a new respect—the kind of respect one would have for a poisonous snake. Kyle stood, brushing his hands on the boxers he slept in as if to wipe away the traces of what Cere had shown him.

  “You’ll stay with us.” It wasn’t a question. “I’ll make up the guest room.”

  Caleb’s heart flipped, squeezing tight. Just like that, despite what Cere had shown him, Kyle had accepted her, was willing to take her in. Just like he hadn’t hesitated to say, If I’m going to help . . .

  “I don’t deserve him.” His cheeks warmed as he realized he spoken out loud.

  Cere tilted her head to one side, the shadows lifting from her expression. For a moment, Caleb could pretend she really was his sister come home to visit after a long time.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “All this.” Caleb waved vaguely. “It’s . . .”

  “A lot?”

  Caleb nodded and immediately felt guilty. If he was having trouble coping, how must Cere feel? She’d been outside the world. She seemed less human than ever and wearier of trying to hide it. She’d let nightmares slip from her skin so that Kyle could see what she was, what she might be. How much longer could she hold it in?

  “What happened to you?” he asked softly.

  Cere shifted closer to him and laced her fingers through his, resting her head on his shoulder.

  “Catfish John taught me songs to calm the darkness, to make me stronger. And I had this.”

  With her free hand, she reached into her pocket—a pocket nowhere near big enough to hold it—and drew out the wooden carving.

  “It kept me safe. It helped me focus on being human when I wasn’t.”