Midnight Grinding Read online

  Well, now, I didn’t rightly know what to do. At first I figured I oughta take it to the county agent down at the farm bureau and see what they made of it. But then I got to thinking. They’d just turn it over to some dadblamed scientist who would likely crack it open and study its yolk and, hell, what would that tell them? Besides, I was kind of curious as to what sort of chicken would hatch out of such a strange egg. So I decided to just keep the thing my personal secret for a while.

  I went to the tool shed and dug out one of the boys’ old incubators that they had used when they were in 4-H club in school. It was a homemade job; just a wooden box with chicken-wire windows and hay in the bottom. I screwed a sixty-watt bulb into the fixture at the top and, after setting that gigantic egg down deep amid the straw, put the whole kit and caboodle at the far corner of the henhouse.

  Oh, another thing I oughta mention. None of those hens in that coop would go near that egg. Acted like they were scared of the thing. And I had me a couple of hearty roosters, too, who seemed even more leery of the egg than those hens.

  For a week, I checked on the black egg, making sure it didn’t get too warm or cold. I fussed over it so, Margret joked that I was so all-fired concerned with the blasted thing, why didn’t I take to sitting on it myself. I had me a good laugh at that and said I surely would have but, with the size of the thing, it wouldn’t do my hemorrhoids a speck.

  A couple of nights later, I was awakened by the most harrowing racket coming from that henhouse. Such a fluttering and squawking it was, that I grabbed my shotgun and a lantern and went out there to check it out. I found the door ajar and figured, well, this time it was a fox or an egg-sucking dog. Stepping inside, I shone that kerosene lamp around. There didn’t seem to be any damage done; no dead chickens or broken eggs.

  Or so I thought. I walked over to the far corner and uttered a curse in spite of myself. That homemade incubator had been ripped apart. The wood frame was splintered in several places and the chicken-wire in the front had a hole the size of a good-sized cantaloupe torn in it. And, down in the hay within, was the shell of that black egg, cracked and lying in two halves.

  I examined that hatched egg and was more confounded than I was to begin with. There was the most awful stench coming from the empty shell, like raw sulfur. And when I stuck my finger to the slimy residue that coated the inside, it burned my skin like battery acid. I had to run out and wash it off under the spigot of the long-handled pump, it blistered me so.

  As I walked on back to the house, I had the strongest feeling that something was watching me from the dark woods beyond the barn. I checked the load in my Remington, but that didn’t make me feel any safer. With a shiver, I ducked into the house and locked the back door behind me.

  I had never, in all my years of living on that farm, locked the doors of my own house. I did that night, however, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I had done so.

  The next morning, over breakfast, Margret asked me about that black egg. I told her that some animal had gotten into the coop the night before and smashed it. I wanted to leave it at that, wanted to forget that it had ever existed…but something out yonder in those woods wouldn’t let me.

  I didn’t think any more about it, until a week later when my redbone hound, String, came up missing. I searched my property high and low and finally found him down by the creek. Poor String was dead. At first I figured he had died of old age, for he was going on fifteen years. But when I got to checking, I found a single wound on his stiffening body…a tiny hole in his right temple, just beneath one floppy ear.

  I couldn’t rightly believe what I was seeing because, you see, I was familiar with that kind of wound, but not in a dog. If you don’t know anything about cock-fighting, let me explain. Just before fighting roosters are thrown into the pit together, the owners attach these tiny, handmade spurs to their feet. There ain’t much to them; just a curved length of steel like a bent nail with leather ties to secure them. The victor of the two cocks is the one who strikes first, driving that metal spur into the side of the other’s head. I told you before, it was a bloody sport and that was one of the reasons I took leave of it.

  After burying String down in a honeysuckle hollow, I went to the tool shed out of pure curiosity. I went to my workbench where I knew a pair of those rooster spurs hung on the pegboard; sort of souvenirs for old times’ sake. Well, you guessed it. Those steel spurs were gone. A cold fear hit me then and I figured maybe it would be wise to keep old String’s death from Margret…and especially the disappearance of those spurs.

  As it turned out, String wasn’t the only victim. Those two roosters I’d bought to look over the henhouse…I found them out back of the smokehouse. They had died the very same way. A single, clean hole through the side of the head. I took my shotgun that afternoon and hunted the woods over…exactly what for, I have no earthly idea. Nevertheless, I found nothing. Not a track, nor a sign of anything.

  Spring passed into summer without incident and then things took a turn for the worse. Someone—or something—tore the back door off its hinges one night and rummaged through the kitchen drawers. Margret took inventory of the utensils the next morning and swore that the only things missing were a couple of old ice picks she used to chip away freezer ice when she was defrosting the Frigidaire. I didn’t grasp the significance of that late night theft until I discovered our finest Holstein milk cow lying in the south pasture a few days later. There was a deep hole in her temple, the wound reaching clean to the center of the brain.

  Whatever had killed my cow didn’t stop there. Farmers all over this side of the county began to lose cows and hogs in the same gruesome manner. No animal was ever eaten, just smitten upon the head and left lying there. A lot of crazy theories began to circulate. Frank Masters, who owns the farm down the road a piece, claimed that devil worshippers were to blame. I began to figure that, indeed, maybe there was something of the devil involved, but I didn’t tell any of the fellas down at the grange hall that. I kept my mouth shut and hoped to God that things would die down.

  But, of course, they didn’t.

  ***

  I was cleaning out the hayloft a couple of weeks later, when I came across something that chilled me to the very bone.

  It was my pitchfork, the one I had bought at the True Value earlier that year. But something had damaged it, something very strong. Two of the four tines had been snapped off. My mind immediately flashed back to the fighting spurs and the missing ice picks.

  That night I took extra precautions before I retired for the night. I checked every door and window in the house, making sure they were securely locked. I even locked our bedroom door and Margret said I was being downright silly for doing so. I wasn’t so sure, though. I lay in bed for a long time before sleeping, turning my suspicions over and over in my mind. If that thing, whatever the hell it was, had graduated from dogs to cows, then what did the missing tines off that pitchfork mean? Did it intend on pursuing larger game now…of the human variety perhaps? The thought so unsettled me that I got up and swapped the birdshot in my scattergun for double-aught buck.

  The following morning I awoke and, much to my surprise, found Margret still in bed. She usually rose an hour before I did, so as to fix breakfast before we did our daybreak chores.

  I reached over and shook her gently. “Wake up, dear,” I said. “It’s five o’clock. We’re running a little behind schedule this morning.”

  She did not answer me, did not even move. When I pulled my hand back it was covered with blood. With a cry of horror, I turned poor Margret over and…

  The doctor said the wound in her temple had been made by a very long, very sharp object thrust downward with inhuman force. “It looks like someone drove a railroad spike through the side of her head with a sledge hammer,” he told me after I demanded his honest opinion.

  I had been a law-abiding, church-going citizen of Crimshaw County for many years and so I wasn’t suspected. But I still blamed myself for dear Margr
et’s death, blamed myself for not doing something to prevent such a thing from happening. I grieved for many days after the funeral and, so, I wasn’t exactly prepared for that horrid night toward the end of August.

  Exactly why I awoke at two o’clock in the morning was unclear to me. All I know is that I came awake suddenly, my heart pounding, my eyes straining against the darkness.

  I felt a strong presence there in the bedroom with me and there was that unmistakable scent of sulfur.

  “Who’s there?” I croaked, but I knew very well what had come visiting in the dead of night. The foot railing of the big, brass bed creaked as something of great weight perched there, waiting for the right moment to strike.

  It was moonlight that saved me. Moonlight filtered through the lacy material of Margret’s hand-sewn curtains and it glinted upon that sixteen-inch spur as it stabbed for my head. I rolled aside, off the bed and onto the floor, as the steel tine ripped deep into the pillow my head had rested upon. I could see it against the light patch of the window then…pitch black and bristling with jagged feathers, its spurred feet clawing that bed to shreds like a grizzly mauling its prey.

  I brought up my pump shotgun, jacked a shell into the breech, and squeezed off a shot. The force of the blast knocked that hellish thing off the bed and plumb out the upstairs window. By the time I reached the window, the moon had gone in behind a cloud and I could see nothing but darkness. Hurriedly, I struggled into my overalls and, shotgun and lantern in hand, went downstairs to check it out.

  Nothing lay on the dewy grass but shredded curtains and shards of glass. I was beginning to think the awful critter had made its escape, when a noise caught my ears. It had come from the chicken coop.

  The walk I took across that dark barnyard that night was the longest one of my life. When I reached the henhouse, I found the door open and heard nervous clucking and rustling inside. I gathered up my nerve, jacked a fresh shell into the scattergun, and, holding the lantern ahead of me, stepped inside. After a few moments, I realized that, except for the regular inhabitants, the coop was empty. Just bins of hay-filled nests bearing frightened chickens. I was turning to leave, when the trap was sprung.

  It came through the open door, so tall that its fleshy comb scraped the top of the doorframe. If it had been knee-high, I would have said it was a rooster. But since it was well over six feet tall, I could only describe it as being something horrible and demon-like. It strutted into that henhouse with an arrogance that reeked of pure evil. Its wings and tail feathers were oily black, like that of a crow. In fact, it was pitch black from head to toe; the comb and beard, the scaled feet, even the beak was dark as sable. Only its eyes glowed in contrast, burning like red-hot coals. Its fury was unmistakable, as was its intent.

  It came for me as I backed toward the far wall and, this time, its aim was more true. It struck savagely, the long spur piercing the muscle of my left bicep, pinning my arm to the weathered boards of the shed wall. The pain was horrendous. The lantern slipped from my fingers and shattered on the hay-strewn floor. The flames spread quickly and, soon, the henhouse became an inferno.

  With a hoarse crowing that signaled its triumph, it reared back with its other talon, intending to pin my skull to the wall. I remembered the shotgun then and, raising it one-handedly, stuck the muzzle into that hellish rooster’s belly and pulled the trigger. It lurched backward with the blast and the spur withdrew from my arm, releasing me.

  I knew I had to get out fast. Flames lapped at the walls like dry tinder, catching the hay of the nests afire. Soon, the whole damned coop would go up. So I fired again and again, driving the horrid thing back into the far corner with a hail of buckshot. It slumped to the ground, flapping and hollering, but I didn’t take any chances. I left the henhouse, bolted the door behind me, and stood a good distance away to watch.

  The boards of that old henhouse were bone dry and the structure went up quickly. I could hear the demon bird inside, shrieking, battering against the locked door in desperation. But my buckshot must have weakened it, for the door held firm. I watched as the coop became a bonfire, completely consumed in flame.

  I figured that was the end of the evil thing, when the corrugated tin roof exploded skyward. Like a great Phoenix that devil cock rose. Its feathers were ablaze, its crow of agony shrill enough to shatter a man’s nerves and drive him to madness.

  I raised my shotgun, but did not fire. I watched as the fowl climbed into the dark twilight as if trying to penetrate the very heavens. Then it swung off course, heading over the peak of the barn and toward the open pasture. I ran to the split-rail fence and, before my eyes, it seemed to disintegrate and break apart into a million tiny cinders. They drifted earthward like crimson fireflies, then vanished before hitting ground.

  With a flashlight from the truck and my scattergun in hand, I searched the field over that night. I found nothing…nothing but a few scorched feathers.

  And, by morning, they too were gone, like ashes upon the wind.

  BLACK HARVEST

  The rural South is steeped in tradition. Some of those traditions are observed solely within the confines of family gatherings, while others can encompass an entire community.

  The tradition of finding the first red ear of the harvest dates back a hundred years or so, before John Deere and the concept of industrial agriculture turned the autumn harvest into something sanitary and impersonal. Back in those days, folks would come from miles around for a square dance and a corn shucking. It was a time of fellowship among friends and neighbors; a time of celebration.

  And, every so often, it could also be a time of sacrifice.

  Well, there it is fellas,” Elliot Leman said, gesturing toward a waist-high pile of newly harvested corn. “Get it done by midnight and we’ll have us a late supper and a barn dance that’ll ring long and loud throughout these Tennessee mountains!”

  It was an old-fashioned corn shucking just like they’d had back in the olden days. In fact, there hadn’t been a decent shucking in Cumberland Valley for nearly fifty years. But Elliot’s yield had been so plentiful that year that he figured, what the hell, might as well make a celebration of it for the entire township. The Leman family had done it up right, too, orchestrating the gathering to the most authentic detail. The menfolk wore flannel shirts and denim overalls, while the ladies came in knitted shawls and ankle-length dresses of calico and gingham. Coal oil lanterns hung from the barn rafters, casting a warm glow over the nostalgic proceedings and putting everyone, young and old, into the mood for the hoedown to come.

  Elliot stepped aside and the men lit into that pile of dried corn. They sat and peeled the shucks from the hard-kernelled ears, which they then tossed into a sturdy crib constructed of hand-hewn logs. Some of the women joined in, too, to speed the pace, while the rest prepared for the feast that would await at the end of their work.

  One of those who took to shucking was Elliot’s eldest son, Curtis, a strapping boy of eighteen years. Curtis was a senior at the local high school, a straight-A student and athlete who had hopes of winning a football scholarship and going away to college. He was an intelligent boy, Curtis was, but he had never begrudged his father his eccentric ways of farming: planting by the signs and such as that. No, Curtis enjoyed the ways of simple country living. He cherished the fellowship and warm feelings that abounded in his papa’s barn that night as most of the tiny township of Cumberland Valley sat around the corn heap, just shucking and spinning yarns and tall tales, some of the men smoking cob pipes and chewing Red Man tobacco.

  Halfway toward the midnight deadline, Curtis yanked the brittle husk off an ear and, much to his surprise, found the kernels along the cob to be a brilliant crimson red.

  “Well, will ya’ll lookee there!” called out their neighbor, Charlie Walker.

  Pete, the youngest of the Leman clan, laughed in delight. “Look, Papa…Curtis found himself a red ear.”

  “Let me take a gander at that, son,” Elliot requested. He took the ear in hand
and held it in the light of the nearest lantern. He turned it slowly and a big grin split his face. “Why, it surely is…a pure red ear. No spotted pokeberry corn there…it’s plumb blood red, through and through.”

  “You know what that means, don’t you, young man?” asked Grandpa Leman with a wink.

  “Yes, sir, I sure do.” Curtis blushed as red as his newfound ear.

  “Tradition has it that you get to kiss the prettiest girl at the dance later on.”

  “Who’s it gonna be, Curtis?” pestered Pete, nudging his big brother in the ribs. “Louise Varney or Emma Jane Betts? All the Abernathy girls are here tonight, each one of them prettier than the one before.”

  “It’s my red ear, brother.” Curtis grinned, sticking the corn into his overalls pocket for safekeeping. “I’ll do the picking myself, if you don’t mind. Anyway, we’ve got a heck of a lot of shucking to do till we get to that bottle underneath.”

  “Amen!” echoed several of the menfolk and, in anticipation, they continued to shuck and toss.

  It was a quarter till twelve that night when Elmer Baumgartner let out a hoot and a holler. In triumph, he withdrew a gallon jug of corn liquor from the midst of the dwindling pile. The jug was passed around until the very last ear was shucked clean and the celebration began. Everyone grabbed a china plate and piled it high with fried chicken, sugar-cured ham, and plenty of homemade fixings.

  A few of the guys were warming up with fiddle, guitar, banjo, and mandolin, ready to pick a little bluegrass for the big barndance, when Curtis finished his meal and joined a couple of his friends near the hayloft ladder. He surveyed the impressive abundance of pretty young ladies who gathered at the far wall, waiting to be asked to dance. He tried his darnedest to determine the loveliest of the bunch, but was constantly perplexed by the next one he laid eyes on.