Sketcher (26 page)

Twenty-Eight

We had left one dog, the scale model Frico built and the second-place map of “New Orleans 2020” in the swamp. The scale model and the map were right where Moms had hung them in the Campbells' house. She forgot them cos she was so focused on those boxes she packed that night after that little squabble with Pa Campbell. Anyway, when Moms and Tony got to the house in the dark, the dog had disappeared and the house was fresh on fire: the source of all the smoke.

Later Tony said Moms just walked into the fire like she belonged in it. She called out for Eleanor and Lobo Campbell a couple times. Only a cracklin' fire responded. He said she grabbed the scale model and the map off the wall and walked out like it had been cool in there, and there was no soot on her white dress and head wrap. Then, when they were hurryin' back past the crab crawl, they saw a doused fire and heard voices. Inside the crab crawl, five men had their hands tied behind them. They'd been stripped down to their boxers and had cloth bags over their faces.

Moms and Tony climbed down into the house and tried to free these guys. When they pulled the cloth bag off one guy, they saw that his mouth and nose were covered with a strip of cloth. Soon as they tried to talk to him, he shook his head and looked wild in his eyes and pointed with his face tellin' them to get out, get out now. Well, Moms decided that it was all too weird, and she'd get the hell out and alert the cops as soon as we got back into the city. She was still worried about Ma and Pa, but Tony said she just grabbed his arm and said: “We're leavin' now and never settin' foot here again.”

So, meanwhile, we're sittin' in the car keepin' our eyes peeled for Moms and Tony, and we're relieved when they appear in the headlights again, walkin' fast from the bend with the scale model and the map in their hands. The smoke, it gets thicker and starts driftin' across the path.

Now, I gotta tell you, that nauseous, drownin' feelin' Suzy Wilson had? Well, we all felt that way, heavy, even though we rolled up all the windows like Moms said. So, at first I thought it was the methane messin' with my head, but then suddenly Doug and Frico, they saw the same thing I saw at the same time I saw it, and in a chorus we all yelled out the first four-letter word we could find on short notice.

“Tony!”

Someone – no, some
thing
– had crossed through the headlights right in front of the car. That boy needed to get in the car and move it right quick.

“Did you
see
that?”

Doug was not keepin' his usual cool, and Frico was halfway out the car door. I didn't blame them. If you saw what we saw in the darkness and the smoke you'd wet yourself whether you had powers or not.

Op'a.

Human form – six feet tall – no face to speak of – vulture skull – big ol' glassy eyes shinin' – a beak that rounded out into a snout – hunchback – walkin' machine-like – leather skin like a bat's wing and jet-black from head to foot. Turned his whole head at the last second to look at us – dead expression – the car lights reflectin' off both of his eyes – before he slipped away into the curlin' smoke.

Tony and Moms walked up. They might as well have been runnin'. They had their hands over their noses. Anyway, Frico, he gets back in the car, and we're chattin' like crazy all at once about the spirit. We're not makin' sense.

Moms turns to us and chucks the map and the scale model into our laps.

“One at a time!”

Then she cuts us off with instructions to Tony on how to drive like hell and cussin' about five half-naked men in the crab crawl. Great, we got spirits collectin' navels and faces and Tony can't start the damn Corolla quick enough. He dips the headlights and we're reversin' out of hell when Op'a, two of them now, appear in the rearview. We look around and they're standin' side by side in the dry river bed beside the footbridge, waitin'.

“ Floor it!” Doug shouts.

He doesn't floor it. In fact, he put the brakes on. Yes, Tony stops the goddamn car, addin' dust to smoke and darkness and gas. Now, Tony is gettin' out of the car – Moms is pullin' him back in – Doug is tryin' to get into the driver's seat. Hell, we're
all
tryin' to get into the driver's seat.

Suddenly voices are all around us, speakin' in bubbles or from the spirit world. Moms steps out the car and starts walkin' toward the Op'a, hands to the sky, callin' on the Lord. Tony takes his chances with the woods. We can't believe he ran away and left his mother. We grab the stuff and get out the car, collect Moms, and we all follow Tony high-tailin' it into the trees. I'm at the goddamn front, no lie. We're safely under the trees when Ma Campbell – yes, Ma Campbell – she appears out of thin air, I swear. Now, that old woman is standin' up straight, floatin' on the surface of the damn creek. This is a nightmare.

“Psst. Skid!”

Short, old, dead woman callin' your name in the swamp. Run the other way.

My whole family keeps movin' towards the spirit of Ma Campbell standin' on water. They drag me and the stuff in my hands along with them. But I'm still pointed in the other direction, believe me.

I turn around, and Ma Campbell is actually hoverin' above the hole where Herbert and Orville went to hell. That's even worse.
I knew Ma was headed to hell from that hush-puppy-fryin' incident. My hair is standin' on end like a blowdryer's goin' through it by the time we get right up to this woman floatin' above a hole in the earth – the same hole Moms made us swear never to go near again.

Well, Moms, I thought she had no interest in talkin' to the dead. But she's askin' Ma Campbell's spirit all these questions – meanwhile Op'a are appearin' from behind cypresses, mumblin'. One charges towards us. I cover my navel. Frico swings around. He's got his camera hangin' round his neck. The Op'a is closin' in, and my brother, he's straight shootin' with his camera, poppin' the fluorescent flash all over the place, lightin' up those suckers rapid-fire. You should see spirits duckin' into bushes and gettin' back behind trees to escape the light. By the time my pupils get readjusted from all that flashin', I realize that only Fricozoid and me are standin' at the creek.

A hand reached out of the hole and grabbed my foot. I screamed like a girl. But it was Moms' hand. They all went down into that goddamn hole. She's pullin', Frico's pushin', and I fall into hell with them. When they finally get me down in there, it wasn't all that bad. It was a cave, man, a
cave.
That sinkhole had opened up into underground caverns. Frico's lighter came out. Tony said with all the gas around that's a bad idea. He started blabbin' about limestone caves and groundwater in Louisiana and the fallin'-away of the rock caused by frackin'.

We were sittin' on a rocky ledge, and the creek was pouring past us down into the darkness of the earth. Behind us someone groaned. My breath got stuck in my neck, but it was good ol' Pa Campbell lyin' there on a limestone ledge, shakin' and coughin' his head off. Ghosts can't cry, so I was happy when Ma Campbell burst into tears in the pitch black.

“Valerie, it was horrible. Lobo got wet. We saw all these people come and set up overnight – and they were frackin', and the earth was shakin' and – oh, Lord – suddenly there
were gunshots and voices comin' around the bend. They set our house on fire and we ran out the back. I was pushin' Lobo in the wheelchair when we saw them roundin' up the frackin' men. They stripped them and ordered them into the crab crawl. We got in the truck and got as far as up the road before Lobo's chair fell out the back of the truck and I stopped to pick it up. Then, when they started comin' up the train tracks, we just pretty much crawled into the mangroves and found we could slide down in here.”

“Who was doin' this, Ma?” Moms' voice in the dark.

“Couyon!” Pa Campbell's voice jumped in. “He's back” –
cough
– “him and his goddamn goons attacked the men over at that drill rig. The tower appeared overnight and he was in heah snoopin' around with his punks by noon the next day, for godssake!” –
Cough. Cough.
– “Now they're tryin' ta take over somethin' they don't know jack about. Somethin' that was illegal in the first place!”

“Calm down, Lobo.”

“Go calm your son down, I told you a'ready Ellie.”

The lighter comes on again. Tony is holdin' it – against his own common sense. He just had to get a word in.

“That drillin' is illegal?”

“Yep... Yew all... better believe it.”

We all jumped, cos that answer came out of the darkness deeper in the cave. A voice echoin' from another dimension or somethin'. Frico's lighter went on again. A vulture skull, shinin' eyes and a snout pushed out of the darkness, right beside us.

Pa Campbell threw a shaky punch at the thing. The creature grabbed the old man's arm and dragged him away into the darkness. You could still hear it talkin'.

“Yew... heard your waaf. Take it easy... Lobo. All of yew.”

Familiar voice. This was Broadway's Op'a, for godssake
.
We were screwed.

Everybody held back. But then Pa pushes back out of the darkness with a big leathery arm around his neck followed by Backhoe Benet's face. The ugly O'pa face was now in his hand – and a green logo was on his chest.

“Gas mask. Oil-company hazmat suit. Thought so.” Tony took less than ten words to destroy the O'pa.

Backhoe Benet let Pa go and rearranged himself in the cave. The leathery suit squeaked.

“I told yew, Valerie. It was time to go. I sold this place... a little while back. Then the people... the company that... bought it... said they'd work somethin' out with the occupants.”

“Well, they sure did.”

“Anyways, after they acquired it... they heard that the State wanted to turn this whole stretch into conservation lands. Well, from experience... I know there warn't much gas under here to speak of, but the company, they thought the opposite... so they came in and started without any preparation and after just a few tests. Matter of fact, the deal hadn't even been sealed yet when they started.”

“So... you just
happened
to turn up here today, Cap'n?”
Cough.

“I came ta see for maself if they'd gone ahead with... frackin' the place. People been complainin'... for months on the east side of the swamp. I'm partly to blame. Now they're right here in the west. When I got here t'day, the company's men were in these gas masks and suits... cos of the methane in the air... and the frackin' chemicals they been floodin' the damn place with. Well... I got here just in time to see James Jackson ambushin' the whole operation and takin' the suits. I hid in a company truck and put one on. Was the best way to hide. Soon as I could, I went down a hole before he could count his gang members again. Crawled on my belly and found myself here.”

“Well, Benet, I haven't trusted you in years – and I still don't – but you just said theah's a hole out of here?” Pa was ready to get out.

We crawled for a couple of feet underground until we could stoop, then we could stand and carry Pa Campbell. Benet had a light on the hazmat suit that showed you a few inches in front of your face. I couldn't believe this big cavern was under our feet the whole time we lived there. I could have stashed a million things down there.

Tony and Benet were up front with Pa Campbell. Tony held him under the arms. Pa would only let Benet hold down at his legs, and he watched him the whole time. I thought about the friends huggin' in the picture up in that volcano. I reckon it was like a photo torn in the middle that couldn't be put back together.

Well, by this time we're all not doin' so well, especially when we walked around a small underground pond and it bubbled with gas. We had to feel our way around it while carryin' the old man.

It wasn't easy, but right after that we could smell the smoke from above ground again. Soon we popped up into one of the dry shrimp ponds over at the Lam Lee Hahn side, about a hundred yards from where we went down the sinkhole. If you saw us, you'd high-tail it out of there, cos we were comin' out of a hole in our funeral suits and Moms was wearin' white.

Pa Campbell was babblin' about the cave when Benet gave Moms the mask to put over her face. She gave it to Pa Campbell instead. Frico stopped for a second at the hole we'd just come up through. He flicked on the lighter and dropped it. With a whoosh, a tall column of blue fire leapt out of the hole like a genie. In a split second the flame sprayed out of the hole and then curled at the top like it was a wave. The base of the flame disappeared, leaving only a ball of pure blue fire hangin' above Frico's head. You could smell his hair singeing. Moms grabbed his shoulder, and he grinned. She was worried the flame gave away our position. We could see the old Ford truck through the trees. There was no sign of James and his gang.

We scrambled up the slope into the truck. Tony was in the driver's seat. Ma and Pa were in the front with him. Moms flung in the wheelchair, and when we were all tumblin' into the back of the truck, Tony, he just floored it and took off.

We saw Couyon and his thugs coming out of the mangroves and climbin' up onto the road and runnin' behind the truck. In the night, they looked evil in those hazmat suits, worse than O'pa, cos now they had guns out.

I could tell which one was Couyon. You couldn't tell who any of the others were without seein' their faces. They looked funny, like a bunch of vultures. It wasn't a joke when they cranked those pistols, though. “Condition One” is a sick sound. Especially when you can hear it from afar – and cocked in a chorus. Everybody lay down in the back of the truck. Everybody 'cept Skid, who was still not on board.

As soon as I was climbin' into the truck, Tony took off, and I had the scale model in my hand. So I couldn't dive in, or I'd prob'ly crush the thing. So I'm runnin' beside the truck, holdin' the scale model with one hand while Couyon and his fools are behind us, and Tony is speedin' up. All of a sudden, everybody has a goddamn suggestion, but I'm hardly hearin' them above my heartbeat blowin' up in my ears.