Long Chills Page 15

  “Now!” yelled Hot Pappy. “Do it now… while its wits are addled!”

  As the thing thrashed on the ground, Roger jumped on top of it. Knobby elbows and knees drummed ineffectively against his torso, bruising his chest and ribs. He reached down and caught the creature beneath its chin, holding it down. He raised the hatchet, intending on bringing it down.

  But something stopped him.

  “Oh God!” moaned Roger. “It’s eyes!”

  The eyes of the Seedling were not those of an unthinkable monster, but were, instead, his eyes. Hazel green and as human as human could be. Both Tyler and Cindy had inherited Roger’s eye color and, so it seemed, had his latest offspring.

  “Daddy,” whimpered the Seedling pitifully. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t look at its eyes, Mr. Perry!” warned Hot Pappy. “Kill it!”

  “I… I don’t know if I can!”

  The Seedling reached up with a thin hand constructed of knotted roots and twigs. “Don’t Daddy,” it protested. Tears bloomed in those mirror-image eyes as it tenderly stroked Roger’s face. “Love Daddy.”

  “Dear Lord, Hot Pappy, I don’t think I can…”

  The thing turned its ugly head and regarded the old man. “Kill you. Kill Daddy’s friend.”

  Roger felt the thing shaking off the effects of the potion’s smoke. It was growing stronger, threatening to break his hold.

  “KILL IT!” screamed Hot Pappy.

  Roger Perry screamed himself as he reared back and then brought the edge of the wooden hatchet down upon the Seedling. The head of the axe parted the creature’s skull, splitting it in half. A gelatinous black substance – the thing’s brain, perhaps – spurted from the open wound. When it hit the ground, it sizzled and smoldered with a nasty, sulfurous stench.

  “No, Daddy,” moaned the thing. “Don’t. Please…love me…”

  Roger yelled hoarsely as he brought the hatchet down again and again. Finally, he felt the Seedling cease to move beneath him. He leapt up and stumbled backward. The thing’s head was a glistening ruin of splintered wood. The only things that remained whole and intact were those human-like eyes of hazel green.

  “Oh, dear God, forgive me,” sobbed Roger. He tossed the wooden hatchet to the ground, as though it were a smoking gun.

  “Forgive you… for what?” asked Hot Pappy.

  “I… I created the thing. It was my…”

  The elderly man was suddenly there, gripping Roger firmly by the shoulders. “No! Listen to me, Mr. Perry. It was a monster, plain and simple. True, you brought it to life, but that’s as far as it goes. It was never a part of you. Not a true part of you.”

  Roger closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “What do we do with it now? Bury it?”

  A look of pure terror shown in Hot Pappy’s ebony face. “Bury it? Oh, dear Jesus, no! Can you imagine what would happen if you buried… planted… a Seedling? Do you want a whole orchard of these sadistic little bastards sprouting up and going to town, looking for their daddy? Looking for you?”

  “No!” mumbled Roger, trembling. “God help me, no.”

  “There’s a better way. Now stand clear.”

  Hot Pappy bent down and picked up the hatchet. Then he took a can of lighter fluid from his shirt pocket. He removed the cap and saturated the crumpled body of the creature. Then he took a book of matches and lit one from the fold. He tossed it at the Seedling and both of them stood there, watching, as it caught flame and burned.

  “Is it over?” Roger asked, sounding drained, both physically and emotionally.

  “Yes,” the black man assured him. “It’s most definitely over.”

  The two were silent all the way back to Hot Pappy’s shack.

  When Roger stopped the van and let it idle, the old man turned and looked him. Roger sat there, his head drooping slightly, his eyes still moist from crying. He didn’t need to see the expression on the man’s face to gauge his sorrow. It hung inside the vehicle like something alive and palpable… and he knew it would remain that way for some time.

  “It was something that had to be done,” Hot Pappy told him softly. “If you hadn’t, you would have lost your family. A thing like that doesn’t stop until it has its way. Feel fortunate that you had the guts to end it before it was too late.”

  “But… but its eyes!”

  “I know. It’s a grievous thing to dwell on. But it wasn’t human and it wasn’t actually your child. And what you did could never, in a million years, be considered an act of murder.”

  Roger turned and stared at the old man. His eyes were feverish and haunted. “Couldn’t it?”

  Hot Pappy reached over and patted the man’s shoulder. “Take care of yourself, Mr. Perry. Maybe we’ll run into each other around town. Or maybe not. If you’d rather not acknowledge me should we cross paths, then that’s okay. We’ll just pretend that it never happened.”

  “Please,” said Roger dully, “just take your bottle and go.”

  Hot Pappy nodded, took the brown bag bearing the bottle of Johnny Walker Black, and left the Dodge. Almost immediately, Roger Perry took off. A moment later, the red taillights of the van disappeared over a rise in the road and was gone.

  The elderly man sighed, feeling ancient and exhausted. He made his way through his junky yard, mounted the porch, and let himself into the shack with a key.

  Hot Pappy tossed his cap on the table, then plopped into the recliner. As he uncapped the bottle of Black and took a long swig, he stared at an old, yellowed photograph hanging on the wall. A pretty, young black woman wearing a calico dress and a white apron. She was holding a tiny girl with her hair tied up in cornrows, while a boy of five or six stood next to her, decked out in overalls and a big old toothy grin.

  Something scratched at the bedroom door.

  He took another drink of the liquor, feeling it burn going down, trying hard to ignore the sound.

  The door creaked as it opened.

  Hot Pappy tensed – as he always did – when it approached.

  He stared at the wooden hatchet lying on the table a few feet away.

  Feel fortunate that you had the guts to end it before it was too late, he had told Roger Perry. He felt ashamed… giving advice that he had been too cowardly to take to heart himself.

  His skin crawled when it laid its knotty, gnarled hand upon his shoulder.

  “Papa?” a voice whistled in his ear, cold and lonesome, like winter wind through a hollow log. “Papa… come home?”

  Devil’s Creek

  The baying of Old Boone rang throughout the August darkness. It started deep down in the hound’s throat, escaping his gullet hoarsely and filling the backwood hollows. A short silence followed, then another fit of triumphant howling was unleashed, heralding the end of that night’s lengthy pursuit.

  Clinton Harpe grinned as he headed south though the black tangle of the Tennessee forest. The hound was closing in for the kill; he could tell by the frantic pitch of the dog’s voice. It wouldn’t be long before Old Boone treed the coon that had eluded them both for the better part of two hours. In his mind’s eye, Clinton could see the Bluetick hound, lithe and lathered, stalking the shadowy woods like a pale ghost. The dog’s nose would be close to the ground and filled with the scent of its prey, its bright eyes peering into the darkness, eager for the first glimpse of furry movement shimmying its way up the trunk of a black oak or sour gum tree.

  The hunter kept his ears keen. With the double-barreled shotgun tucked safely beneath his armpit, he scrambled down a slope of fragrant honeysuckle and hit the wet channel of Devil’s Creek running. Moonlight filtered through the heavy foliage of the surrounding trees, glistening on the surface of the book, turning the rushing water into rippling currents of quicksilver.

  Clinton wondered where he was at the moment, for that night’s coon hunt had taken him on a long and winding trek through the southern reaches of Bedloe County. It had been a while since he had traveled the heavy woods along Devil’s Creek. It was a land tha
t possessed a dark past, a God-forsaken stretch of wilderness in the truest sense. Most folks preferred not to venture into its rambling labyrinth of blackberry bramble and dense woodland in broad daylight, let alone in the nocturnal hours following sundown.

  If Clinton Harpe hadn’t been so caught up in the chase, he might have thought better than to plunge head-long into the dark forest, alone and without the company of others. But the fever of the hunt was within Clinton’s blood, the same as with Old Boone. He could no more halt his mad scramble through the darkness than the dog could put the brakes on his own instinctive nature.

  Clinton thought of the history of Devil’s Creek as he moved onward. There had once been a small settlement of gypsy farmers a half-mile further on, a tight-knit community of drab houses and barns built along the clear-water stream. As a group, they worked and associated solely with their own kind, living in what might be considered a commune of sorts. They were a swarthy race of people, dark of hair and eyes, as well as of character. Unlike their European counterparts, these gypsies were a brooding lot, as silent and somber as a granite tombstone. They did not sing or dance with the gaiety of those brilliantly-clothed vagabonds that most folks identified with the gypsy myth. When they came to the rural town of Coleman for their monthly supplies, they had walked the streets with an air of disdain and contempt, speaking only when necessary, then heading back to their farming community on the fertile banks of Devil’s Creek.

  They were a religious people, although their devotion was completely opposite of what most folks’ spirituality consisted of. They belonged to an organization known as the Church of the Alternate Father. It didn’t take an educated man to figure out exactly who that alternate father was… Beelzebub, Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness. One only had to catch a glimpse of their place of worship to know that they were in league with the Devil. The steepled church house was painted jet black instead of pure dove white like most, and the high-peaked windows were darkly shuttered, bearing the blasphemous symbol of an inverted cross on each. It was said that on nights when the moon was round and high, the sound of chanting could be heard inside the shuttered building, soon followed by the aroma of burning flesh and the cries and moans of carnal acts being committed within. Every once in a while, a hunter’s dog would end up dead or a Coleman farmer would find a prized hog or cow slaughtered in its pen or pasture. In each case, only the head of the animal would be missing. The rest of the body was left, whole and intact.

  Then, one night in 1938, the Church of the Alternate Father caught fire, along with most of the other buildings along Devil’s Creek. A good portion of the gypsy population died in the blaze, while the survivors scattered to the four winds afterward. Although it was never said out loud, most suspected that the fire had been set by folks whose tolerance of the blatant midnight rituals and wanton atrocities had finally reached its limit.

  The legend did not sway Clinton in his quest for raccoon hide and meat, however. He continued on, splashing through the center of the creek bed, partly out of urgency, partly out of need to cool himself off. The summer night was sweltering and humid, despite the lateness of the hour. Clinton removed his hat, dipped it into the cold current, then dumped the contents over his head, nary a step of his long-legged stride faltering as he did so.

  He was nearing the gathering of dilapidated, burnt-out buildings, when he became aware that Old Boone was no longer barking. Had he lost the coon? Whether he had or not, the dog would have still been howling to the high heavens. Clinton slowed his pace as he reached the edge of the forest, and it was a good thing that he did, too. He stopped stone still, hidden within the concealment of a heavy pine grove, and watched through the prickly boughs at what took place in the clearing beyond.

  Dark figures gathered around the ramshackle hull of the long-abandoned church. It was difficult to make out their features, for the moonlight was all that illuminated them. They seemed to be dressed in hooded robes, similar to those worn by the Ku Klux Klan, though completely black in color. The shape and size of the mysterious forms varied.

  Some were men, while others appeared to be women and children. All were silent as they filed, one by one, through the open doorway of the fire-gutted structure.

  A chill ran down the spine of Clinton Harpe, for he was sure that he was witnessing the ghosts of those who had worshipped there some twenty years ago. But such thoughts of haunting spirits vanished when he saw a group of men standing beneath a nearby tree. Old Boone was with them, jumping playfully, sniffing around as though he were among friends. “Good dog,” said a big fellow, crouching down. He hugged the hound close to him and scratched behind the Bluetick’s floppy ears.

  Clinton’s apprehension eased up at the sight of the man’s friendliness and he nearly stepped from the shadows to retrieve his misguided hound. But before he could, he watched in horror as the man grabbed the dog roughly by the ears, yanking the animal’s head back and bringing a yelp of startled surprise. Moonlight flashed on honed steel as the blade of a knife appeared, slashing horizontally across Old Boone’s throat, slicing deeply, drawing a fountain of dark crimson.

  Shock gripped Clinton in its numbing grasp, followed by the heat of mounting anger. He was about to raise his twelve-gauge and confront the sadistic dog-killer, when he noticed that several of the robed men carried rifles and shotguns. He restrained his urge to step into view and watched the big man saw back and forth with the knife, slashing through the tender muscle of Old Boone’s neck, as well as the hardness of raw, white bone. Soon, the blade had completed its grisly work and the dog’s body fell away from its head. It dropped to its side on the summer grass, paws and tail twitching as the last of its lifeblood ebbed from the fatal wound.

  Clinton felt a gorge of bile rising into his throat. He swallowed hard and fought off the nausea that threatened to overcome him. He watched as one of the men, tall and lanky beneath his hooded robe, turned and glanced his way. “Thought I heard something over yonder,” he said in little more than a whisper. His eyes glittered within the dark eyeholes, as he cocked the lever of a Winchester rifle and took a curious step toward the edge of the woods.

  As quietly as possible, Clinton retreated into the darkness of the thicket. The last thing he saw, before he turned tail and ran, was the big man heading for the old church house, holding the severed head of Old Boone by its ears.

  The next morning, Clinton rode out to Devil’s Creek with Sheriff Boyce Griffin. They took the main highway out of Coleman, then headed down a turn-off that was little more than two rutted tracks of bare earth with weeds growing high in-between. It looked as though no one had traveled that lonely road in years, let alone the night before.

  Clinton honestly believed that Boyce was making the trip simply to put his mind to ease. The sheriff was a good, level-headed man, an outsider who had moved into Bedloe County a few years ago and earned the respect of the local citizenry. He had been a deputy on the county force for awhile, then was elected into the position of sheriff when the previous constable, Taylor White, had died of a heart attack in 1952. Since then, he had proven himself to be a fair man and one thereabouts had ever found cause to complain about the performance of his job.

  They arrived at the charred ruins of the Devil’s Creek settlement around nine o’clock.

  It was a beautiful day and the cleansing rays of the summer sun shone upon the burnt buildings and the surrounding land, easing the severity of the sinister events of the night before. Boyce parked his Ford patrol car next to the abandoned church. Then they got out and walked around a bit.

  “Where you say this fella killed your dog?” asked the sheriff, prying specks of ham and eggs from between his teeth with a café toothpick.

  “Over yonder, beneath that tree.” Clinton headed in that direction and Boyce followed.

  When they reached the spot, there was nothing to be found. Hide nor hair of the Bluetick’s body remained, not even a trace of blood on the grass. “This was where it happened,” swore Clinton. “
This was where that bastard done in Old Boone.”

  Boyce shrugged his beefy shoulders. “Well, no sign of the dog that I can see.” The sheriff eyes the lanky farmer with a trace of suspicion. “You sure you didn’t tie one on down at the Bloody Bucket last night and dream the whole thing up?”

  Clinton was irritated by the insinuation. “I’ve had nary a drop since last weekend. I didn’t imagine what happened here last night, Boyce, and you know it.” Clinton knew for a fact that a strange rash of missing animals had hit Bedloe County recently – mostly lost dogs, but also a few stolen hogs and calves.

  “I ain’t ready to believe all this bull I keep hearing about devil worshippers in Bedloe County,” Boyce told him flat out. “I know that it happened here once on Devil’s Creek, but that was pert near twenty years ago. And from what I’ve heard tell, all those gypsies either died in the blaze or left the county with their tails betwixt their legs.”

  “Mind if we check out that church?” asked Clinton.

  The lawman shrugged. “I ain’t got nothing better to do.”

  They approached the black hull of the building that had once provided services for the Church of the Alternate Father. All four walls were intact, but the doors and windows had burned away, leaving narrow openings in the scorched building. They stepped inside the rickety structure and strolled amid the ash and debris. Most of the original pews stood upright, as well as the pulpit at the front of the building. The charred rafters of the great pitched roof stood starkly against the pale blue of the morning sky like the exposed bones of an enormous ribcage.