Briar Moon

 

Dr. Smalley likes it when I come early. He says that it means that I’m engaged with the need to make smart and proactive choices about my mental health recovery. He also likes when I write in my journal because he says that journaling is one tangible way of working on that recovery. 

Today, I arrived before he even got to his office and it was a little frustrating that he wasn’t there yet, but he said hello and went inside and I waited on the porch until he came to get me. Dr. Smalley is a nice man, but he doesn’t like when I break the unspoken boundaries of our professional relationship, but I don’t really have anyone else to talk to about this, so he’s the only person I can trust. The hypnosis sessions are helping, too.

◯

‘Have you been having dreams again?’ Dr. Smalley is a small man, sitting in an overstuffed leather chair and he is not writing like they do on TV. He’s just listening. I am facing him and I can see through the big picture window behind him into his small garden surrounded by a tall green hedge. There is a dogwood tree with one of those little green cages with suet in it for the cardinals. I like to watch them flit around while we talk. Dr. Smalley says it is okay for me to use that view to help me talk.

‘Yes.’

‘Are they the same as the ones you were having before or are these different?’

We always start with dream talk. It’s just how things go. Sometimes I don’t have any dreams, or, none that I can remember, but when I do have them, he likes to know.

‘This one is different, but also, a little the same.’

‘Tell me, if you want to.’

◯

I am walking in the woods. It is early Autumn and the trees are just starting to lose their deep summer green. To my left, I can see a line of electric barbed-wire fence and beyond that, green and muddy grass, like a field for livestock. Ahead, the woods stretch on into mist. To my right, the ground rises toward a ridge and there is a standing stone with a pattern etched or carved into it. All around the base of that stone, which is tall, are coiling briars. They are slowly moving, roiling and undulating and the thorns are long and sharp. On top of the standing stone is the moon. Not like it appears in real life, like a white light, round and rough in the sky. No, the moon is balanced on top of that standing stone and there is blood dripping from the top of it and the moon is turning red and I know that I have to walk toward it and climb up there and I have to go through those thorns to get the moon. 

I look down and I notice that I’m not wearing any clothing at all and that my skin is already being scratched and pricked by the briars and I’m not feeling it, but it is happening and I suddenly feel different, like my skin is impervious and I move toward the stone, through the briars and I reach up to the moon and it starts to spin and as it does, I notice that it is fading or falling away into dust and by the time I get to the stone and start to try to climb, the moon is gone and I have to get back through the briars and thorns and I start to wail and cry and then I wake ...’

◯

‘... up and that’s all I remember.’

‘What does that dream make you think of?’

I don’t want to say. Dr. Smalley is smart and he always seems to have an answer for me, but sometimes he makes me feel stupid. I wish he would just tell me. I wish he wouldn’t just assume that I know.

‘I watched a thing about the moon last week. Maybe ...’

‘I think you probably have a sense of what this is about, don’t you?’

‘I guess,’ I say to him and I know that I’m being difficult, but I feel so stupid. I want him to just tell me. It makes me so angry when he plays with me like this.

‘Do you remember what we spoke about last month when you were having these dreams before?’

‘I think so,’ I say.

‘What did we arrive at, do you remember?’

‘Dreams are ... uh ... symbolisms.’

‘Symbolic, yes. Dreams are symbolic and they represent real life but they do it figuratively, like some poets do. They make you have an image in your mind. Your dream is the image and the things in the dream are your subconscious trying to get you to see something that you don’t or won’t or cannot see.’

‘Yes.’

‘So what does this dream want to tell you? Break it down if you have to.’

‘I don’t really know.’

‘Just try. No wrong answers!’

‘The woods are my desire for peace and privacy and the rock and the briars are like an obstacle or something and the moon is what I’m trying to get at. When it dissolves it means that life is full of disappointment.’

‘That’s an interesting first guess, but let’s take it a bit further.’

◯

Dr. Smalley wants me to do these exercises before bedtime every night. I have to focus on the things I think I learned that day and make a list of the things I need to be better about tomorrow. I like to write in my journal, so I make these lists there, so I can keep up with it all. I need to learn a lot of things. I need to learn why I have scratches all over my legs and back and arms, like I really walked through the briars. I need to learn why I am so tired today and why I feel as though there is a heavy burden in my heart. I need to learn why I woke up in my backyard with no clothes on and why I was covered in blood. 

◯

‘The woods do represent your desire for things to be the way that they used to be,’ he says. ‘They show up a lot in your dreams and you’re always in the woods, but close to civilization, but just outside of it, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think that means that you feel like a person who is a bit of an outcast like you don’t fit in with your peers. What do you think?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay. The standing stone represents an idol. It is something that you admire or desire, but you cannot get to it, because the briars have thorns. What do the thorns mean to you?’

‘They are my fear?’

‘They represent your anxiety. And your nudity in the dream?’

‘That’s my sense of vulnerability? My shyness?’

‘Very good.’

‘But what about the moon, though?’

◯

I can see it very clearly, even now. The moon on top of that standing stone is like a white-hot drop of molten steel in my heart. I don’t just go to it. It pulls me. It pulls me with its gravity, its magnetism. My blood is a tide and the moon pulls it and me to itself and it pulls something out of me that glows in that searing light. It pulls the thing that dwells in me out, and ...

◯

‘Today is a full moon, by the way,’ Dr. Smalley says with a smile. I suddenly don’t feel well.

◯

‘Let’s try hypnosis again, okay?’ This is the part of the session that I like because I don’t feel anxious when Dr. Smalley puts me under. I like the feeling of being aware and not being aware, too. His voice is soothing and ...

◯

‘ ... get to one, you will hear me and answer ...’

◯

There is something here with me in the darkness.

◯

Are you there?

Can you hear me? 

Yes.

Where are you?

I am here. 

What do you see?

I see the world as it should be.

What does that mean?

I see the world as it should be.

What does that look like to you?

Wild.

Wild how?

Forests and rivers and trees and rocks and ...

And?

The moon.

What about it?

It is everything.

Tell me.

I cannot.

Show me.

Yes.

◯

The thing with me in the darkness moves and I follow it.

◯

I hear the screaming and I come to and I realize what is happening. I see the truth of it. The voice in my head and the dreams. They aren’t analogies or metaphors. They are literal. They are all. It is the moon and it is calling to me. Calling to the true me. 

I look down at my hands and I see that they aren’t my hands, they are his. I am here and I can see, but I’m not looking through my own eyes, but his. This is his time. I look down at Dr. Smalley and I see fear on his face, but it is frozen there because his time is now over. He wasn’t ready for what he called out of me. It’s too bad. He was a nice man. His body slumps to one side like a boned fish. 

Just over the rim of the hedge, I can see the moon. The moon. It is calling me, pulling me. Dragging me. Dragging us.

Thank you Dr. Smalley, I say. Thank you. I am free.

◯

It is calling us and we must go to it. The chill air sings in my nose and I smell prey.

Hephziba Returns

    The thing that appeared before her was unspeakable. It was unlike anything she had ever imagined and as it rose above the table, swirling with tenebrous malevolence, her mind teetered on its pedestal of reason and skepticism. Smoke-black tentacles of some vile nightmare substance swept across the room toward her and her nostrils filled with the acrid stench of blistering flesh and death. Two points of venomous light peered at her. They seared into her mind, flashing with sinister greed.

Maggie James coughed out oily smoke, then fainted and knew no more.

    ◇

    The ‘Old Hargrave Place’ as locals called it, ought to have been the most sought-after mansion in all of Whitby. It was the only mansion that still stood for most of the last 290 years, though subsequent owners had added on and renovated it causing it to be a pleasant mixture of all of the major architectural styles since the Georgian era. 

    Each floor was not quite on the same level as the others, stairs rose and descended through the house to the tower or the dank cellar, to the balconies and widow's walk that overlooked the small town, as did almost fifty windows. The floors creaked and the radiators screeched. Hargrave had a lot of personality. Especially since it stood empty most of the time. Many of the last several generations of owners had claimed that the house was haunted. Most of them came by degrees to be convinced that it was haunted by the original owner, Hephziba Greaves. 

    Greaves was something of a celebrity in Whitby and had driven the tourism trade ever since witches and witchcraft had become popular again on social media. There were tours past the house, ghost walks that revisited the pre-revolutionary period, with appropriately dressed tour actors and a jump scare at the end, and all the town restaurants had some sort of meal or sandwich named after her. She had drawn a lot of attention in her own time, too. Hargrave had been Hephziba’s home and from there she had served the people of Whitby Village poultices and compresses, cures and potions until the local cleric, a zealot and sadist called Elder Gethsemane Smythe took it upon himself to have Hephziba Greaves tortured and burned for a witch in 1733. 

    The records of the trial were extant. Smythe had gone to Hephziba Greaves for a toothache and had come away still in pain. The pain worsened overnight until by dawn, he was in a fever. A neighbor had pulled the tooth and at length, Smythe was on the mend, but he became convinced that Hephziba had put a curse ‘of Satan and Hell’ on him. After a trial in which she was bound hand and foot with iron-forged manacles and gagged and so could not answer in her defense, Smythe sentenced her to torture to get her confession of collaborating with the devil and then had her burned at the town square. She had been either 18 or possibly 23. Records differ.

    Her home passed to her brother, Goodman Thomas Greaves and when he died childless and forlorn, the town drew the lot and the house and sold it at an auction. By the time of the Revolution, several families had used Hargrave as a starting point, but none stayed long. No family had ever lasted more than nine months in Hargrave, despite renovations and fix-ups. For nearly three decades, it had been rented out by an owner who lived in Jacob’s Mill, but even the tenants didn’t stay long. 

    The last owners, the Olsons out of Paulbury had quit the place just before mid-July, claiming unbearable smells from the cellar and a tendency for their possessions to move or go missing. After the first two weeks, their dog refused to come inside and ran off several times. For most of the summer, the Olson family had suffered headaches, bad dreams, lost or broken items, strange burns that occurred in their sleep and, finally, intense hallucinations in which they dreamed that they were being burned alive. The youngest daughter had suffered complications of smoke inhalation though there was never any residue of smoke found in the house. The Olsons put the house up for sale and went back to Paulbury.

    ◇

    Maggie James of James Realty, took the Hargrave account, not only because everyone else in Whitby and the surrounding towns was tired of it but because she had a reputation with ‘haunted’ houses in the area. Many of them had auspicious reputations, too. She had sold the Portman “Poltergeist Palace” mansion to Kirk Lundergard five years ago, despite the house supposedly being one of the most ‘spiritually active’ homes in the nation. Kirk loved it and had yearly ghost parties where extremely extravagant ghost-hunting games were a regular part of the attraction. Almost all of its ‘poltergeist’ activity could be chalked up to an old house with creaky floors and a very outdated coal furnace that had more octaves than an opera singer.

    She had also sold Thorne House, the infamous dwelling of Abigail and Sebastion Thorne who had been celebrity serial killers in the 1970s and who made the news for filling their home with all kinds of depraved art. She had overseen the cleanup and sold it to the Fernandez family, who had lived there now for three years and with no complaint.

    Hargrave’s reputation was nothing by comparison, Maggie thought. Haunted houses were old and sometimes full of bad memories, but mainly they were quirky fixer-uppers that upset people with sensitive and overactive imaginations. Maggie James had neither.

    ◇

    Despite her reputation as a closer, Maggie James had to rethink her approach with Hargrave after six weeks on the market. She might have been wrong about selling it ‘as is’. No one locally wanted to even look at the house. People who had come from Carston or Jacob's Mill or Paulbury to look at the Hargrave place were immediately put off by it. There was a sense of tension in the house, almost a feeling of unwelcome, they said. After two months on the market, Maggie James decided to buy it herself.

    The house, she thought, needed someone to come in and love it and give it a good once-over. Nothing superior could be appreciated unless it was staged just right. She had invested in homes before and then flipped them. She could certainly afford to fix and flip Hargrave. She couldn't spend the time necessary unless she was there, so after the paperwork was completed she moved in to start the cosmetic overhaul.

    That had been in mid-October. Whitby was settling into golden days and the leaves were beginning to change. It was sweater weather and in anticipation of the coming holidays, Maggie decided she would forgo Halloween and its fascination (especially in Whitby) with Hephziba Greaves and witches, and start making the house up for Thanksgiving by emphasizing harvest themes. Lots of burnt ochres and browns, multi-colored pumpkins, corn stalks, hay bales and a friendly, inviting and generous vibe rather than a scary one was what was needed. Inside and out Maggie spent a lot of money (which she would recoup with a 6% commission when she eventually resold Hargrave) to make the place look and feel better.

    Initially, too, she had been very happy with the updates. Each of the rooms was painted and themed and in pristine condition. She lived in the older back part of the house, less modern and bright and far more utilitarian, but she appreciated the plain kitchen and servant's quarters-feel of the main floor rooms.

    ◇

    The first few nights had been quiet, except for the creaking of the old house and the screeching radiators. Yes, a door had slammed upstairs, and Maggie had jumped, but then she had remembered leaving windows open to get some cross-ventilation going and to clear out the wet paint odor in the place. There had been other sounds though, and a moment where she felt as though she was being watched while she was taking a shower though no one was anywhere around. She chalked it all up to the nerves of staying in a new place and the rumors she had heard. So much for not having an overactive imagination, she thought, chiding herself for her silly reactions.

    By the end of the first week after the painting and staging had been completed, Maggie was having serious doubts about the house. Three separate times, she distinctly felt someone lightly pinch her arm or her thigh, though no one was there. 

    One night over the weekend, she had gone out to meet with some other realtor friends for dinner and had walked back to Hargrave from downtown because she had enjoyed too much wine. Once in her nightgown, she had brought a tall glass of ice water to the nightstand in her back bedroom. As she scrolled her phone and finished up the group chat with her friends, she watched in disbelief as, reaching for the glass of water, the glass rose off the nightstand and dripped condensation on her sheets,.The glass tipped upward and splashed ice-cold water across Maggie and drenched her bed. The glass floated there for just a moment and then smashed into bits on the headboard just above her head.

    Maggie went down and tried to sleep on the couch, after turning on all the lights.

    ◇

    Early the next week, and after a prolonged cleanup of glass shards and using her hairdryer to dry her mattress, Maggie had decided to schedule an open house. In the lead-up to the event, she considered that the stress of buying Hargrave and staging it had overextended her finances and her psychological health. She was obviously having a prolonged anxiety attack. Maybe she had been more drunk than she realized and she had heard that hallucinations could occur like that. Her brain corrected the illogical rationalizing. The shattered drinking glass and wet mattress and bedclothes posed troubling corroboration of what had actually happened that night. All she knew was that she wanted out of Hargrave. The only way out, as her father used to say, was through. Once she had the house sold, she would be able to get out of Hargrave, and maybe out of Whitby.

    In preparation for that eventuality, Maggie had set up the house to be exquisite for those who might wish to come in during the open house. More than any other part of the house, the massive dining room was decked to an impressive degree. As they came in the front door, just to their left, they would see the massive and beautifully designed dining room, set up as if at any moment, Grandmother would be bringing in the turkey and stuffing.

    A runner of dusky autumn orange draped the center of the table, lengthwise, punctuated by large, silver candelabra with honeycomb candles. A large platter with a matching gravy boat and carving utensils was precisely displayed in the center. Along a sideboard, chafing dishes and tureens of expensive make were buffed to high gloss. Each plate had a gold charger and the flatware was gold-colored. There were glasses for water and wine. Each place setting had every possible utensil and was topped by a goose-folded orange napkin that matched the autumn-colored themes. As a final flourish, Maggie James had woven lengths of bittersweet with golden red berries all around the centerpieces. 

    ◇

    The doors of Hargrave were set to open at noon. After three hours of waiting and no one showing, Maggie had put vanilla extract on foil in the oven to liven the welcoming house smell. She lit the gas logs, put on soft jazz music and called Denny at the tourism development board offices to remind him that Hargrave was open and for sale.

    Still, no one showed.

    By six p.m. Maggie had begun to get downright discouraged. She was preparing to dismantle everything and pack it all up, open a bottle of wine and have a long bath when the lights flickered.           Outside in the twilight, thunder rumbled in the distance and the wind swept swirls of leaves before it.

    “Damn you, Hephziba Greaves,” Maggie James said aloud.

    In the next moment, a feeling of slick fear rose in her chest. Turning to gaze into the dining room, she saw the lights flicker and increase in brightness. In the glare, she watched as the table shook and juttered as if an earthquake had hit Whitby. Decorative plates and chargers shimmying off the edge of the table went crashing to shards on the oakwood floors. The honeycomb candles flashed to light and burned like searing torches. The table broke open and spilled apart in opposite directions and the floor beneath it caved in. Below the jagged wooden floorboards was a stone altar dripping with gore lit by the blazing fixture. Chained to the altar was a woman writhing in agony and screaming though no sound came to Maggie's ears. Unseen hands slashed and cut and pierced the woman's flesh as she fought her iron bonds. Maggie, feeling nausea rising at the gruesome display, pitched forward onto her knees at the edge of the hole in the floor and wretched. Glowing cherry-red iron pokers were pressed to the woman’s chest, thighs and buttocks. She was convulsed by the excruciating torture, quaking and rolling away from the attacks. Each time she shook, the house rumbled and tossed. 

    The scene suddenly changed. The woman, cut and burned and slashed, bent with exhaustion was affixed to a ring high on a tall stone obelisk. All about her feet were piles of wood that had been doused with oil. An unseen hand thrust a flaming torch into the bundles. The wood smoldered and smoke billowed upward into the house.

    The woman’s feet and legs began to char and blacken as the flames devoured her lower extremities. At first, she had coughed but now she was screaming and fighting the chains that kept her in this nightmarish pandemonium of pain and asphyxiation.

    The stench of burning skin filled the house in plumes of onyx smoke and Maggie wretched and coughed, trying but unable to move away from the horror below, her eyes streaming with tears.

    As it filled the room, the smoke formed the shape of a massive woman's head in the dining room. The floor was whole and the table was unmoved, but the smoke-black hair of the head reached out to her like writhing tentacles. Blackness filled Maggie James's lungs and obscured her mind. She knew no more.

    ◇

    When she woke, her hands automatically went to her face. Her hair fell in silken locks about her shoulders. Her skin was smooth, not charred or lacerated. Her legs were firm and whole. A slow sigh of relief escaped her lungs and there was no smoke or fire there.

    The memory was fresh. They had come to her home, convinced that she was a witch and taken her to the center of town, performed a sham trial, stripped her bare for all the village to see and tortured her before burning her at the obelisk. In her last few moments, when the fire had seared her nerve endings, she made a silent vow for vengeance to the old gods. As the flames devoured her, part of her living mind went into the smoke, so powerful was her need for revenge.

    For centuries, she had terrified the residents of the old Hargrave place, once just a tiny house, now a mansion, feeding on their fear of her until she was strong enough. Her power had grown until now.

    She opened her eyes. 

    The home place had grown, yes, but she was unmoved. Her heart had but one motivation. She would now seek her revenge on those who had ended her life.

    As she stood and balanced on her new legs, she looked about. A mirror was hanging from a wall just at the head of the feast room. She went to it. 

    The woman in the mirror was not someone she recognized, but it was all the same to her. Her own face had been seared off by hungry flames. She would get used to this face.

    She wandered to the front door, and as she did, a chill wind brought her the slow echo of a coming storm. She began to remove the garments that impeded her movement.

    Hephziba smiled in her new face. Out there somewhere was Elder Smythe or perhaps his offspring. She giggled as the last of the garments came off and she was free again. It was a unique and pleasant feeling to not have her lips split and slough away as she grinned.

    She stood there, outlined in the light from the front door and gazed out at Whitby Village. Soon, they would know her wrath. She laughed and it was a higher, more musical sound than her own laugh had been. A person walking by the house looked over and waved to her. 

“Hi, Maggie!” they said, before gasping and looking away in horrified embarrassment.

Maggie is gone, Hephziba thought. I have returned. Flames danced in her eyes as she cackled. Lightning lit the night. 

“I have returned,” Hephziba Greaves said and shook with furious laughter. "Vengeance will be mine."

                                     ◇

Pond Fishing

‘I'm going down there tonight and I'm going fishing. You're bringing the beer and your lantern,’ Judd Hinshaw drawled. His eyes were glassy and red-rimmed. Junkie Judd, as they called him in Virgil Springs, stood a little cockeyed, which might have been because of his bad leg or because he was already drunk at seven in the morning. 

Bud “Tuber” Langford cussed under his breath then agreed. ‘Fine, but I ain't getting Bud,’ said Tuber, ‘I'm just getting a twelver of Natty. If you want more'n that you gotta bring it yaself.’

They parted having sealed their plans with a filthy handshake.

As he walked down George Street, Tuber Langford grumbled under his breath. He knew it was a bad habit. But he couldn't seem to stop. Everyone made fun of him. Everyone bossed him around. Especially Junkie Judd. One day he was gonna find out. Tuber Langford was fifth in line for a big payout from his Uncle John, who was the oldest mayor living in the whole state. Uncle John told him, way back, that Tuber was gonna get some money one day and make something of himself. Tuber nodded emphatically as he walked. He reached into his dirty overalls and pulled out a flask bottle of Black Bird liquor and swigged it. When he got to Pine, he crossed and walked down into the kudzu to where his shack was.

Around six, Tuber woke up and rolled out of his army cot. He looked in the bit of broken mirror hanging on a nail on the wall. He pulled his red cap down over his erratic hair and turned his head to admire his profile. ‘Yessir. I'm a Langford,’ he said to no one.

He stepped outside and had a long and slightly painful pee and then checked for his money. He kept it in a ceramic mushroom by an old stump. A good hiding place, he thought as he stripped three damp and dirty fives out of a big roll of cash and deposited the rest back into the mushroom.

He hobbled back up the hill and trundled down Pine to the wine and spirit store. There he bought another bottle of Black Bird and a twelve pack of Natty. He also bought a few tiparillos to keep the skeeters away. Tuber hated skeeters.

He strolled down Pine to Elmhurst and went along until the houses started to get sparse. He wandered up to the driveway of Rubicon Enterprises and looked around the well manicured grounds for cops. It was dead. So he wandered along the fence to the treeline and disappeared under the eaves. 

It took his eyes a minute to adjust and when they did he took out a tiparillo and lit it and puffed at skeeters that were starting to swarm. 

‘Where ya been?’

Tuber yelled out and dropped the twelver and the cigar.

‘Jeezzuss Aytch Jumpin’ Cheerist!’ Tuber puffed and bent double gasping.

Junkie Judd giggled and clapped Tuber on the back repeatedly until he stopped coughing. Tuber stooped and picked up the beer carton and his cigar, which he relit.

‘You eejit. Where's her damn lantern?’ Junkie Judd scowled at Tuber.

‘Sheeeyit. Well, I brung the beer!’ he bellowed.

‘Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh’ Junkie Judd said, drawing out the shushing. ‘I got us a good place at the pond. And I got us a lantern coz you'd fergit her ass if it wasn't taped on yer forehead.’

The men shuffled through the trees, toward a cool glint of water ahead.

‘How you know this is legal?’ Tuber asked again.

‘I told ya, eejit. Rubicon Enterprises (he said it Ruby Cong) done pulled up stakes and went running. They got sued and they're gone. I sat up here last week and watched em go. Nothing and nobody.’

Soon enough they came to a chain link fence that was at least ten feet tall, but a big section had been torn out of it. It looked to Tuber like something big, maybe a truck, had burst through it.

‘How far we got to go, Juddy, huh?’

‘Shut yer damn whining. We's almost there.’

They stepped through the fence and headed down toward the water.

Junkie Judd had come down here before, it seemed to Tuber Langford, future heir apparent of the Langford millions. There was an old card table with three legs and a broken branch where the fourth leg would have been and two aluminum folding chairs and a lantern and a foam cooler. Two rods lay against a tree and a small tackle box was set down there.

‘You did it up, right,’ said Tuber.

‘Damn straight I did,’ replied Junkie Judd, not taking the compliment.

The two men moved down to the water and Tuber started putting the beers into the cooler.

Although he didn't know the details as well as he professed, Junkie Judd was right. Rubicon Enterprises had been sued and had pulled up stakes, but it wasn't quite that cut and dried. No one knew what the business did. It was zoned for industrial use and it did its work quietly and without much disturbance, except it donated a lot of money to the Virgil Springs chamber of commerce and rotary club. James Foster, the president of Rubicon, often showed up at official events and paid for drinks. He wasn't the CEO or even on the Board. He had an unofficial capacity as a public agent who could speak knowledgeably without actually saying anything about the business plan. He had an excellent sense of revenue streams and employment numbers, but he did nothing and said nothing. People were content to think he was the boss and he was content to allow them. Driving the Mercedes E-450 4Matic helped to cement this idea.

In the Fall of last year, things had started to go sideways with Rubicon. James Foster had to field a lot of odd questions at dinners and community fundraisers. The questions always centered around the ponds on the expansive fenced and guarded grounds on Elmhurst Street. The ponds had always been there, but when the company bought the property, it closed off the area to the public with tall fences and, in some cases, high walls and roving, armed security.

Then, one day, no one saw James Foster anymore. Money stopped coming in from Rubicon Enterprises. Someone said they saw his 4Matic on the street out by the Virgil Springs High School, and it looked like he was ushering out his teenage daughter, at ten o'clock in the morning.

For a few weeks before that, people who lived on Elmhurst or on the Buttonwood extension that ran along the west side of the property, said they heard strange noises and saw lights and several calls to the Virgil Springs P.D. were made claiming there had been lightning in a clear sky and automatic gunfire.

Junkie Judd Hinshaw and Bud “Tuber” Langford stopped wondering why the fence was busted out around their second beer. Junkie Judd had gone to some A.A. meetings and he knew that it was the first drink that got you drunk, but he couldn't remember when he had had that first drink. 

Tuber was likewise toasted and they sat there, reeking of alcohol and dirt and unclean armpits and dank, filthy clothes. Tuber was puffing at skeeters and Judd was starting to doze. His head lolled to one side and then he would snap it back up. Their bobbers both floated placidly on the smooth water. 

Both of them had slipped into alcohol induced stupor when their bobbers started to jounce and make tiny ripples. Had either of them been awake, they would have seen something large and fast-moving surge beneath the water.

The first thing that Tuber noticed when he fell awake was the stench. It smelled for all the world like Juddy had shit his pants. It wouldn't have been the first time. The stench was thick and pungent. 

‘Jeeezuss, Juddie, ya shit yerself,’ he said, though it was muzzy and muffled by his cottonmouth. He instinctively reached for his flask bottle of Black Bird to wet his tongue, when he heard muffled sounds to his left. 

Maybe, he thought placidly, Judd was having a seizure. It had happened before. Too much drinking—or not enough—could cause that.

Then he turned his head. Something—Tuber couldn't have said just exactly what—was crawling up Judd's body. It was large and shiny black, and it stretched away into the water. The thing was actively forcing itself over Junkie Judd's head and Judd was flailing as his folding chair flounced over. The stench was unbearable, and after several seconds, Tuber stood and backed away. He was sure that he could hear Juddie screaming, but then, suddenly it was cut short and his body went limp.

Tuber had a moment to think that at least he wouldn't have to be bossed around anymore when Judd and the thing sailed into the water with a significant impact. Tuber looked around at his surroundings and decided he had to try to run. He wasn't sure he had everything he needed, and he wasn't sure what he was going to tell the police, but that was someone else's problem. A thought came into his mind with stark clarity: he wasn't going to say anything to anyone. He hadn't seen Judd. Junkie Judd was an asshole of the first water.

He high stepped back up toward the fence, leaving the card table, the folding chairs and most painfully, the foam cooler of Natty.

As he sloshed unevenly up the hill, he heard something behind him.

The tendril caught him by the buttock and hamstring and flipped him around, like a child winding a string top. He was wrapped in the black, dripping mass of a muscular tentacle in seconds. He fell over and as he was being dragged to the water, he saw something that made his mind (what was left of it) rock on its pedestal of sanity. A head, like a man's but huge and with burning black eyes rose out of the pond, dripping ichor and slime.

The tentacle drew Tuber off the ground and he felt himself considered by another consciousness, and he understood how a fly must feel right before a little boy tears off its wings.

Then, there was a gaping maw, filled with shiny silver teeth, like knives and he was being slung toward that opening. 

He had a brief thought that filled him with a delightful sense of hope. When this was over, his Uncle John would be sending him some money. This was gonna get him in the newspapers, and he would finally be rich and then Juddie would see. Then he remembered what had happened to Judd as he disappeared into that nightmare gullet.

Ripples receded. Mosquitoes hummed. A can of Natty, freshly opened, had foamed over into the fine dust at the pond edge. As the sun went down on the scene, anyone stupid enough to approach would have seen two rods, a couple of overturned folding chairs and a bent up old card table with one leg missing.

Coyote

Author's Note:

The Belknap Route, which was supposed to be next, and which I wrote several years ago and reworked to fit this blog, turns out to hit too close to home for the events surrounding Hurricane Helene in the western part of North Carolina. I consulted my son, who lives in Western NC, but who is staying with us while that tragedy is unfolding. He thought it was too much like Helene's ravages and much too soon.

Therefore, I have substituted this story, which I think is timely, but not so painful in the same way. 

It is dedicated to my Aunt MJ who wrote a short horror story about a woman kidnapped and forced to donate an organ against her will and with no recourse. I imagine this tale was awakened by that story and takes place in that same universe.

“Patrols come through here about every twenty minutes, “ Bobby McTiernan whispered, as they lay looking across the invisible border. “It won't feel that long, but they are regular as hell.”

Fred Benjamin Hall nodded and turned to look at the weather-beaten man next to him. “What happens if I'm caught?”

“It will be very bad. There are detention centers every twenty miles and guard shacks every five. All along this border. It's a constant stream of well-armed traffic in both directions. You have to time it exactly right. If you have a straggler, you have to leave them.”

Fred nodded again and glanced back across the hills behind him. Nestled in the trees was a stolen charter bus with eighteen people needing to get across the border. 

“How many at a time?”

“The most I have ever managed is five, but you could take two groups of nine, as long as everyone can go fast enough.”

Ben thought it could be done, but there was a pregnant woman who looked a shade past well-done on the bus. If the stress of crossing didn't start her labor, her waddling size would slow them down.

He had twenty minutes to get the group from the bus across the border and get back before starting again. 

“What about hornet drones?”

“You did your research,” the older man said, giving Fred a sideline look. Did Fred see respect there? He couldn't tell. “Hornet drones will be random and persistent when they're in this area, but the other side will shoot them down if they get too close to the border sensors. That is an advantage for you.”

“An advantage? They’re deadly.”

“Sort of, yes. If they break out the drone killer guns on the other side, they could also hit crossers. That hasn’t ever happened on my watch, but it could happen. Once the drones start popping, our side gets really interested. That could be a distraction for you.”

Fred sighed. He imagined getting everyone across and going back for the pregnant mother only to get her killed because this side sent drones.

The other man patted him hard and pointed through the sparse trees below. A transport painted in camouflage bursts of green and brown and grey was topping a rise to their right. It came along slowly. Fred looked through his monocular. Five men, all armed, stood on the running boards of the vehicle. The transport had a human-sized cage on a trailer at the back. His stomach lurched. Inside the cage was a badly burned body, strapped to the top of the cage. It was a deterrent, he knew. Psychological warfare. Eighteen souls on that bus behind them. If they saw that body, it would cause them to lose heart and falter. If any dragged or slowed the group, they would be brought to a detention center and processed or worse. If caught and allowed to live, they would be tagged with a chip like a dog. If they were stupid or desperate enough to try again, they would be caught and shot or tortured on sight. These days, Fred knew, things were trending toward torture.

Fred Benjamin Hall lowered his monocular before its reflection could be noticed. As the transport passed, Fred and the older man held still. Fred tried to slow his heart rate.

◇

After the transportation of border crossers, which was illegal, if Fred or any of the other smugglers were caught, they would each get the death penalty without trial. There was no appeal process. Last year, a priest had been caught trying to smuggle his elderly and infirm mother across. They had been tagged and immediately brought to a detention center on this side of the border. They allowed the old woman to live long enough to execute her son in full view on live broadcast and capture her reaction. Later, they were both hanged from the walls of the detention center on the inside so that those who had been caught attempting the crossing could see their fate. 

The detention centers on this side of the border were rife with disease, assault, brutality and constant disappearances. Fred knew well the consequences of being caught by this side and yet he also knew how badly these folks had it as regular citizens. He had served in the Unified Military Forces and so was exonerated from the other “civil requirements” like mandatory community cleanup, mandatory organ donation and mandatory conjugal services.

 Regular citizens, who had not served in office or the UMF were expected to participate and do so joyously. Each of them was considered a convenient tool of the state. They could be used and abused as necessary. Organ matches were detained for their kidneys, hearts, livers and T-cells, to be given to any of the wealthiest elites and political heroes. There was no deferral and no appeal. The leadership didn't see names or faces, but only pieces in a long game of building power and wealth. Here were just eighteen would-be defectors. He had seen tens of thousands who stayed who were daily trampled under the ruthless boot of tyranny. 

As for his reasons, though, Fred had told no one. Not even Bobby McTiernan. Some of the others, he knew, thought he was hoping for the glory of success. Some thought he hadn't ever really gotten enough hero worship from his days in the war. Some thought he was an action junky, trying to get back to the adrenaline boost of war. A few thought he was on the brink of desperation and they were the closest. 

He had been considered a ‘state hero’ and was highly decorated for his part in solidifying the regime that now stood on the throat of human rights and liberty in this country. When he was younger, patriotism and the code of military service had been his motivation. When he developed pangs of shocking guilt for his deeds, he reminded himself that he had only been following orders. Later, as the guilt transmuted into acid in his mind and heart, he discovered that he had given over his ability to think and reason to a uniform, a rank, some metal pins and a few paltry “rights and privileges”. It all made him sick with impotent fury and shame.

Smuggling people into a hopeful future outside of this once great land was his chance to make all that right and maybe heal his bad conscience. Leading people out of tyranny wouldn’t undo his crimes. He understood that. But he needed to do something. Anyway, maybe he would do this until caught or until killed. When either happened, he would eventually be free again. In the meantime, at least he would be moving against the regime’s power structure. 

He hoped.

◇

On the bus, eighteen filthy, frightened and unhappy faces looked back at him. Most were middle-aged. All were physically mobile. All had paid him the money necessary to buy a way into freedom and asylum. Seventeen faces looked at him with something approaching reverence. One face looked at him with agonizing fear. It was a countenance that told him that he was really only taking one person across tonight.

That the decision had already been made didn’t shock him. As soon as he had glimpsed the girl at the back of the bus, he knew it was inevitable. He would be taking her first.

Her face was puffy and pallid. Deep red splotches shaded her cheeks and her eyes were sunken and glassy. Prenatal care for unwed mothers or widows of the war was non-existent. She obviously hadn't seen a doctor in months. Care was available to her on the other side of the border and she needed it. She sipped from a water bottle. Perspiration pebbled her forehead.

He gestured to her and she rose delicately and made her careful way toward him. She was young, maybe twenty-five, and she had been pretty before this country neglected her. He escorted her down the steps and pushed the doors of the bus closed. Her face was a mask of abject fear. It made his heart ache. It was an unfamiliar sensation.

They stood there, each of them looking at the other. Her hands were shaking as she rubbed them together in the brisk air.

Finally, Fred broke the silence.

“We will only have twenty minutes to cross about a mile from this side to that side. That means we have to be moving the whole time. We will wait for a transport to cross, then we will go. Once on the other side, you will be taken into the care of a family who will get you to a medical facility. Because you are pregnant, you will be given asylum and granted automatic citizenship. Focus on that. The alternative is not something that you want to consider.” He saw the cage and the burned body in his mind and had to blink it away.

He looked at her. She was looking more and more unwell.

“If you think you cannot make it, now is the time to tell me.”

She looked at him for a long time. “I have no choice,” she said and cradled her belly.

◇

In a moment rare for a man who had faced many dangers, Fred went over to Bobby McTeirnan and his group and asked them the question that had been brewing in his heart. He felt trepidation and a concern for how they would see him.

“We can take the others, yes,” said Bobby. “It won’t be tonight, but we can bunk them in the caverns over those hills,” he gestured to a group of bare, grassy knolls to the west. He seemed resigned but his rough face didn’t betray any emotion. Fred wondered why he was looking for disappointment in those features, now. He handed over a messenger bag with seventeen rolls of ten thousand dollars each. Maybe tomorrow, he would be responsible for getting those others across. Tonight, it would just be that girl.

As soon as the money was transferred, the other men with McTiernan started drawing the worn and weary people off the bus. They shot Fred many confused and worried looks as they were brought out, and he did not look away. It might be that they lost their trust in him for this. It might be that they paid him a hundred and seventy thousand dollars total to make this trek. But something impelled him toward the girl. Right or wrong, he had to get her across no matter what. He spent no time weighing it further in his mind.

◇

Dusk was settling as Fred raised his monocular to his eye and looked down into the valley. The young woman was beside him. She was frowning and breathing heavily with the effort of climbing this hill. As he scoped the road, he caught the faint glint of metal to his left. A transport was coming. He nudged her and she struggled to her feet.

◇

As the drab green truck (that had no cage) passed, Fred helped the girl stand and walked her very fast down the slope toward the road, staying close to the darkness under the eaves of the pines there. 

He had a heart-stopping moment when a high-powered searchlight on the truck swept its beam right across where they had been a moment ago. He waited, panting, for it to stop and turn, but it kept going. Cold sweat chilled his forehead. As the transport followed the road into a winding curve that took it out of sight, Fred ushered the girl to the edge of the gully along the side of the road. It was then that he heard the wasp-like buzz of rotors.

◇

Hornet drones were the newest and dealiest weapon in the arsenal of the anti-defection forces. Drones had been used for decades, of course, but these weren’t airplane-like drones that could drop missiles or use infrared cameras to track heat signatures. Hornet drones were small, no bigger than a football and they were solar-powered, so they never needed to land or refuel. Rather than being controlled by some person in a bunker, they operated with an algorithm that allowed them to sweep and scan areas of the border almost constantly. The only things that affected their success was bad weather and the automatic sharpshooters across the border. Because hornet drones were designed to single out targets, once they locked onto something that met the criteria for a target, they flew down, like a hornet ready to sting and detonated with a proximity mine filled with ball bearings. Some genius had even loaded some of the newer models with acid capsules that would break on contact and brutally burn victims. People who were within a fifty-meter radius would be devastatingly burned, if they weren’t maimed by the bearings. 

Luckily, the newer hornet drones with acid balls were still out east. Here, in the western part of the country, old junk had to do. That was acceptable to Fred who had seen the drones to their dastardly work in other arenas of battle.

Hornet drones usually flew in swarms. Here at the border, they would pair off and zoom into groups trying to cross. Once one detonated, though, the automatic sharpshooters stationed in the hills across the border would take out the drones. That usually meant that they would explode and fall into the trees. 

As Fred ducked into the gully with the girl, a swarm of ten drones approached the frontier. They would get to within fifteen feet of the established line and then fly in pairs east and west without encroaching, always hunting for movement. The good thing was, Fred had a deterrent for the hornet drones. The bad news was, the deterrent could also make the drones detonate.

This, like everything else this night, would be a problem of timing. He said, “Right now, drones are approaching. They will move on but we’ll have to sit here for a moment. Once they fly past, we will be able to move. However,” he looked at his watch timer; ten minutes had already elapsed, “that means we’ll really have to hustle”. 

The girl was unable to catch her breath so she nodded vigorously. 

Overhead the whine of drone propellers buzzed grew louder. They were fifty feet over the level of the ground, programmed to follow precise topographical maps. Fred and the girl had crawled to some low bushes and tucked under them. Only movement triggered the attack programming, so if they were still, they would be okay. 

The girl was shivering. It was cold and soon the temperature would descend below the freezing point. They would have to contend with hypothermia, but he was also prepared for that. Just a half mile across the border and she would be home free. He would be able to get back on his own and regroup near where the caverns were. 

First things first, he reminded himself.

◇

Once the drones had flown off east and west, Fred got the girl up. She was shivering. He pulled her coat up around her shoulders and took a scarf out of his pack and helped her wrap it around her neck and face. Then, they hunkered toward the edge of the road. He looked at his watch. Five minutes. A transport would be by and they would be in open view. 

“It’s time,” he said. 

The girl nodded and said, “Okay.” Her voice was barely a whisper through the fabric. Again, she cradled her belly and he helped her up onto the road.

They had barely made the line of ragged weeds in the middle of the rutted dirt road when the buzzing became louder from their right. An icy sensation of fear erupted around his heart. He had timed it wrong. He had not waited long enough. One of the drone pairs was headed back their way. He pushed the girl across the road and down into the brown weeds and bracken on the other side. “Stay down!” he said to her in a harsh whisper. In the pale twilight, he saw two shapes flash into red light as the onboard LEDs lit the exteriors of the hornet drones in threatening posture. He stood in the middle of the road and raised his hands, facing them. He twisted at the waist to see if the girl had gotten into the gully on the other side. He caught a glimpse of her ducking under some gorse bushes there. 

He turned back and shouted, “NO! PLEASE NO!” As the words echoed off the hills, he heard a second sound that filled him with dread. Tires on the road to his left. Another transport was approaching. He had no time.

◇

During the war, he had worked with robotics engineers who were developing anti-surveillance technology. What they had come up with was ingenious. Tiny, quarter-sized EMP charges that were highly magnetic. They had a built-in sensory processor that detected the buzz of a drone and all the soldiers on the ground had to do was toss them up in the air. The tiny magnet would smack into whatever they were near and detonate their pulse. It would fry the circuits in the drone and hopefully do so without detonating them. It would alert the other drones, when they determined that their swarm was damaged, but it would give just enough time to get under cover.

He had seen them work almost a hundred percent of the time and he kept several rolls in his backpack for just such a contingency. 

◇

The drones homed in on his words. As they approached he flipped two of the EMP charges into the air with either hand. They snapped onto the hull of each drone and within a few seconds, both went black. As they fell, Fred leaped toward the edge of the road and tumbled over the edge. The first drone fizzled as it fell. The second hornet drone exploded in a bright plume as the transport approached. Fred heard the whizzing scream of ball bearings hitting metal. He felt a searing bite in his lower back as he rolled down into the bushes next to the girl.

◇

He heard the thunder of boots and then men talking as they gathered around the fallen drone and the smoking ruin of the other. Two men had been hit with ball bearings. They were screaming. Someone was shouting for a medic pack. Fred knew that at this moment, they were too preoccupied to go looking for anyone. The driver of the transport swung the vehicle so that the headlights were turned toward the fallen drone. In the darkness behind the bright beams of light, Fred and the girl attempted to scuttle into the dark trees without drawing attention to themselves. More shouts broke out behind them as the other eight drones approached from east and west to probe the situation. He could see their bright red lights as they came in hot. Hornet drones sometimes attacked anything, even their own side.

He pushed the girl up the hill. She was sobbing, tears cutting streaks in her dusty face and every few steps she groaned. “My baby,” she said. “I think my baby is coming!”

Fred pushed her hard up the slope. Automated sharpshooter fire flashed over their heads taking out the drones. As they struggled up the slope, Fred noticed that his left leg felt stiff and numb. There was the distinct chill of something wet on his back. He pushed these things out of his mind and caught the girl under her arms and dragged her the rest of the way up the slope. 

Now there were the distinct sounds of helicopter rotors coming out of the west. Somewhere to the south, a grey-white dust plume against the deep blue twilight signified the federal forces coming to see what the fuss was. They would want to have the destruction of their drones accounted for. There could even be a firefight if this side’s troops came down to see. That meant that no one else would be crossing the border going north, tonight or possibly for a few weeks. Border skirmishes were more and more common. They made smuggling people even more difficult.

The girl groaned and doubled over in pain. She wobbled and he propped her against a nearby tree. They were behind the rise, but he went back to the top and pulled out his monocular and switched it to night vision. Below, technicians had already broken open what was left of one of the hornet drones and were plugging it into a laptop. One of the men was looking intently at the screen. He turned and pointed almost directly toward Fred and the girl. The patrol woul dprogram the drones to fly low and in stealth mode to find them. They would probably follow with special incursion troops. He heard her as she stifled a scream. They had to keep going.

Before he went back to her, he opened his field jacket and felt around to his back. There was warmth and wetness back there. He pulled his hand away quickly. He tightened a small backpack that he was wearing under his jacket and felt a surge of pain and then closed his coat. He hoped he wouldn’t need that smaller pack, but it was good to have it.

◇

Full darkness had come down, now and though he could still hear the voices and the distant whirring of the hornet drones from the border behind them, it was growing dim under these dark pines. He had zigged them hard to the east, following a rocky ravine and small dry stream for several meters and then turned back north. The land evened out and the girl seemed to be in less pain. She kept moving as much as she could, but when they did stop, she looked ragged with exhaustion. She was shivering hard, now. He pulled a flat packet of water from his pack and gave it to her.

After a quarter of an hour, she began to groan with pain again and he looked at his watch GPS and saw that they had less than two hundred meters to go before they were at the rendezvous point. He pushed her now, almost cruelly and felt a throbbing ache in his back that he was having trouble ignoring. His left leg was completely numb and he felt that he was thirsty himself, but refused to drink his provisions. 

The girl was begging him to stop, mumbling, almost she seemed incoherent.

At the bottom of a shallow gulch, Fred Benjamin Hall helped the girl to sit and lay back against a hillside.

“Wait here,” he said, then he hobbled up to the top of the low knoll and looked around. There, just before them was a narrow back road and on it was a black shape that glinted in the starlight. He reached into his field jacket and removed a red laser pointer. He took a deep breath, wobbled on his feet and then flashed the pointer three times. He waited and then saw a green light flash six times from inside the vehicle. He flashed twice more and then turned and went back down, but as he did, he stopped. He’d heard something. Trying to stop the blood singing in his ears and slow his breathing, he listened carefully. The girl grunted and barely contained a wail of agony below him. Then he heard someone yell and the pounding of feet coming closer.

◇

He almost fell as he ran down the gulch. She turned and vomited as he got to her. “I’m sorry,” she said, sounding disoriented. 

“It’s okay. Look at me. I need you to run. You have to run that way. Run! NOW!”

Her eyes wavered as he pulled her up. “Go now!”

She turned up the hill, her gait unsteady and staggering. He lurched twice, reaching out to stop her falling as she staggered, but then she was gone into the shadows and distance.

He turned and watched the top of the rise. The voices were getting closer. 

◇

As the girl struggled up the hill behind him, Fred turned away from her and opened his jacket and pulled a small length of plastic-covered cable from the corner of his smaller pack. Three men came over the rise just as he heard the sound of a closing tailgate behind him. They aimed their guns at him and shouted at him to get down on his knees and raise his hands. As they approached, the yelling got louder and louder. The chopper was still too far away.

“Who are you?” One of the voices was bellowing at him. “Identify yourself!”

Fred didn’t answer. He just stood there and waited for them to get close enough. Just a few more steps.

When they were in range, he pulled on the cable.

◇

The girl felt herself born up in strong yet gentle arms. She was placed on a flat surface and strapped down. A woman with a hard, kind face took her hand and whispered to her. 

“You’ll be okay, now, my sweetheart. We’ll help you.”

“Th-the-the man,” she stammered. “Where? Where is he?”

“He’s right behind you,” the woman said as she gave a meaningful look to another person the girl couldn’t see.

She was loaded into the back of an old truck with a cover and the woman got in with her. The girl groaned with a contraction again and then said, “No, the man! That man! He needs to be here!”

As the words left her mouth, the night outside the right side of the truck lit with red-orange fire. A second later the blast bounced the side of the truck, rocking it. Then she was pulling away. As the truck moved up the road, the girl’s perspective changed and the fireball rising into the sky became visible to her through the back window.

She looked at the woman and saw that there were tears on her face.

◇

Mary Jordan sat in her small apartment, looking at her hands on her knees. A small baby boy was playing with blocks on the floor. The woman on the seat across from her was writing on a tablet.

“He saved my life,” Mary said. “If he hadn’t gotten me to that truck, I would be dead and so would he.”

The woman looked at the boy, playing contentedly. “What’s his name?”

Mary looked at her son and smiled. She remembered the small man with close-cropped, greying hair. She had known him for less than a day and yet, he had given her more than anyone else ever had. He had smuggled her across the border into Canada, he had helped to save her son and he had given his life to keep them both safe.

“His name is Coyote,” Mary said.

◇