Deadman's Crossing (15 page)

“From then on, by the time it was dark, we was inside. I boarded
up most of the windows. In the day, it seemed silly, but when night
come around, it got so we both felt as if something was moving
around and around the house, and I even fancied once that it was
on the roof, and at the chimney. I built a fire in the chimney quick-like, and kept one going at night, even when it was hot, and finally
I rocked it up and we cooked outside durin’ the day and had cold
suppers at night. Got so we dreaded the night. We were frightened
out of our gourds. We took to sleepin’ a few hours in the day, and I
did what I could to tend the garden and hunt for food, but I didn’t
like being too far from the house or Sissy.

“Now, the thing to do would have been to just pack up and
leave. We talked about it. But the house and that land was what
we had, even if it was just by squatter’s rights, and we thought
maybe we were being silly, except we got so it wasn’t just a feelin’
we had, or sounds—we could smell it. It smelled like old meat and
stagnant water, all at once. It floated around the house at night,
through them boarded windows and under the front door. It was
like it was gettin’ stronger and bolder.

“One mornin’ we came out and all the flowers Sissy had planted
had been jerked out of the ground, and there was a dead coon on
the doorstep, its head yanked off.”

“Yanked off?”

“You could tell from the way there was strings of meat comin’
out of the neck. It had been twisted and pulled plumb off, like a
wrung chicken neck, and from the looks of it, it appeared someone,
or something, had sucked on its neck. Curious, I cut that coon
open. Hardly had a drop of blood in it. Ain’t that somethin’?”

“That’s something all right.”

“Our mule disappeared next. No sign of it. We thought it over
and decided we needed to get out, but we didn’t know where to go
and we didn’t have any real money. Then one mornin’ I come out,
and on the stones I’d set in front of the house for steps, there was a
muddy print on them. It was a big print and it didn’t have no kind
of shape I could recognize, no kind of animal, but it had toes and a
heel. Mud trailed off into the weeds. I got my pistol and went out
there, but didn’t find nothin’. No more prints. Nothin’.

“That night I heard a board crack at the bedroom window, and
I got up with a gun in my hand. I seen that one of the boards
I’d nailed over the window outside had been pulled loose, and a
face was pressed up against the glass. It was dark, but I could see
enough ’cause of the moonlight, and it wasn’t like a man’s face.
It was the eyes and mouth that made it so different, like it had
come out of a human mold of some sort, but the mold had been
twisted or dropped or both, and what was made from it was this...this thing. The face was as pale as a whore’s butt, and twisted up,
and its eyes were blood red and shone at the window as clear as
if the thing was standin’ in front of me. I shot at it, shatterin’ an
expensive pane of glass, and then it was gone in the wink of that
pistol’s flare.

“I decided it had to end, and I told Sissy to stick, and I gave
her the pistol, and I took the firewood axe and went outside and
she bolted the door behind me. I went on around to the side of the
house, and I thought I caught sight of it, a nude body, maybe, but
with strange feet. Wasn’t nothin’ more than a glimpse of it as it
went around the edge of the house and I ran after it. I must have
run around that damn house three times. It acted like it was a kid
playin’ a game with me. Then I saw somethin’ white that at first I
couldn’t imagine was it, because it seemed like a sheet being pulled
through the bedroom window I’d shot out.”

“You mean it was wraith-like...a haint, as you said before?”

Norville nodded. “I ran to the door, but it was bolted of course,
the way I told Sissy to do. I ran back to the window and started
using the axe to chop out the rest of it, knocked the panes and
the frame out, and I crawled through, pieces of glass stickin’ and
cuttin’ me.

“Sissy wasn’t there. But the pistol was on the floor. I dropped
the axe and snatched it up, and then I heard her scream real loud
and rushed out into the main room, and there I seen it. It was
chewin’.... You got to believe me, preacher. It had spread its mouth
wide, like a snake, and it had more teeth in its face than a dozen
folk, and teeth more like an animal, and it was bitin’ her head off.
It jerked its jaws from side to side, and blood went everywhere. I
shot at it. I shot at it five times and I hit it five times.

“It didn’t so much as make the thing move. I might as well have
been rubbin’ its belly. It lifted its eyes and looked at me, and...as
God is my witness, it spat out what was left of poor Sissy’s head,
and slapped its mouth over her blood-pumpin’ neck, and went to
suckin’ on it like a kid with a sucker.

“I ain’t ashamed to admit it, my knees went weak. I dropped
the pistol and ran and got the axe. When I turned, it was on me. I
swung that axe, and hit it. The blade went in, went in deep...and
there wasn’t no blood, didn’t spurt a drop. Thing grabbed me up
and flung me at the window, and damned if I didn’t go straight
through it and land out on my back, on top of some of them rocks
I’d pulled out of the well. It flowed through that window like it
was water, and it come at me. I rolled over and grabbed one of
the rocks and flung it and hit that thing square in its bony chest.
What five shots from a pistol and a hack from an axe couldn’t do,
the rock did.

“Monster yelled like the fire of hell had been shoved down its
throat, and it ran straightaway for the well faster than I’ve ever
seen anything move, its body twistin’ in all directions, like it was
going to come apart, or like the bones was shiftin’ inside of it. It
ran and dove into the well and I heard it hit the mud below.

“I climbed back through the window, rushed into the main
room, tryin’ not to look at poor Sissy’s body, and I got the double
barrel off the mantle and lit the lantern and went back outside
through the front door with the lantern in one hand, the shotgun
in the other.

“First I held the lantern over the well, got me a look, but didn’t
see nothin’ but darkness. I bent over the curbin’ and lowered the
lantern in some, fearin’ that thing might grab me. The sides of the
well were covered with a kind of slime, and I could see the mud
down below, and if the thing had gone into it, there wasn’t no sign
now accept a bit of a ripple.

“I hid out in the woods. I went back the next mornin’ and got
Sissy’s body and buried it out back of the place, and then before it
was dark, I boarded up all the windows good and locked the door
and I got the shotgun and sat with it all night in the middle of the
big room. I knew it wouldn’t do me no good, but that was all I had.
Me and that shotgun.

“But didn’t nothin’ bother me, though I could hear it and
smell it movin’ around outside the house. Come morning, I was
brave enough to go out, and Sissy’s body had been pulled from
the grave and gnawed on. I reckon animals could have done it
in the night, but I didn’t think so. I buried her again, this time
deep, and mounded up dirt and packed it down. I cut some sticks
and tied a cross together and stuck that up, then I walked into
town and told my story. They didn’t even think I was a murderer.
They didn’t question if I might have killed Sissy, which is what I
thought they might do. They locked me up for bein’ a crazy, and
wasn’t no one cared enough to come and see if her body was at the
cabin or not. They wasn’t interested. I done taken Sissy off and
wasn’t no man wanted her back now that she had been with me,
which considerin’ the kind of women they was usually with didn’t
make no sense, but then there ain’t much about Wood Tick that
does make sense.

“And then you come along, and you know the rest from there.”

 
CHAPTER
3

THE THING DOWN THERE

The sun was starting to slant to the west, but there was still plenty
of daylight left when they arrived on horseback. The house was
built of large logs and it looked solid. The chimney appeared
sound. The shingles were well cut and nailed down tight. It was
indeed a good cabin and the Reverend understood the attraction it
held for those who passed by.

Norville slipped off the back of the horse and hurried around
behind the cabin. After the Reverend tied up his horse, he too
went out back. Norville stood over an empty grave, the cross
turned over and broken. Norville and the Reverend stood there
for a long moment.

Norville fell to his knees. “Oh, Jesus. I should have taken her
off somewhere else. He’s done come and got her.”

“It is done now,” Reverend Mercer said. “Stand up, man. None
of this does any good. Let’s look around.”

Norville stood up, but he looked ready to collapse.

“Buck up, man,” Reverend Mercer said. “We have work to do.”

No sight or parcel of the body was found. The Reverend went
to the well and bent over and looked down. It was deep. He took
out a match and struck it on the curbing and dropped it down the
shaft, watched the little light fall. The match hissed out in the mud
below.

“Do you believe me?” Norville said, standing back from the
well a few paces.

“I do.”

“What can I do?”

“Whatever you do, you will not do alone. I will be here with
you.”

“Kind of you, Reverend, but what can you do?”

“At the moment, I’m uncertain. Let’s look inside the house.”

The cabin, though not huge, had two rooms. A small bedroom
and a large main room with a kitchen table and a rocked-in fireplace and some benches and a few chairs. There was blood on the
floor and on a rug there, and on the walls and even on the ceiling.
The Reverend paused at the rocked-up fireplace. He bent down
and looked at the rocks. “Did you notice a lot of these rocks have
a drawing on them?”

“What now?”

“Look here.” Reverend Mercer touched his finger to one of the
stones. There was a strange drawing on it, a stick figure with small
symbols written around it in a circle. “It’s on a lot of the rocks, and
my guess is, if you were to pull the ones without visible symbols
free, you could turn them over and the marks would be on the
other side. They came from inside the well, correct?”

“Nearly all of them. It’s a very deep well.”

“As I have seen. Did you not notice the marks?”

“Guess I was so anxious to get those rocks out of there I didn’t.”

“It is only visible if you’re looking for it.”

“And you were?”

“I was looking for anything. This is my business. When you
said you hit this thing with a rock and it fled after shooting it and
hitting it with an axe had no effect, I started to wonder. I believe
these are symbols of protection.”

The Reverend began walking about the house. He looked under
the bed and at the walls and checked nooks and crannies. He
bounced himself on the floor to test the boards. He stood looking
down at the bloodstained rug for awhile. He picked up the edge
of the rug and saw there were a series of short boards that didn’t
extend completely across the floor.

Sliding the rug aside, the Reverend used his knife and stuck
it under the edge of one of the boards and pried it up. There was
a space beneath and a metal box was in the space. The Reverend
removed a few more boards so he could get a good look at the box.
It had a padlock on it.