by DC Alexander
Carl showed up on time, he always come over about seven, he come in and looked at me quizzically “You got somebody bathing?”
“I told Earl to clean up and go get some books, I’m going to get him educated and put him to work.”
“Is he gone have enough sense to work somewhere or learn anything? The girls were broken in the head till you fixed them, and they still aint completely right.”
I leaned over close so Earl couldn’t overhear and said “Look, I turned him loose, I fixed him. I aint keepin no damn zombie, I’ll either kill him or make somethin useful outta him. Don’t even tell me how stupid I is, I already told me that, but I done this and it’s over. If you want to get away I got no problem with that, you aint gotta deal with this, I done it.”
He looked at me in shock “You aint got nothin hold that damn man back now? What gone stop him from killin you? Damn girl, you aint right, that’s a bad man there!”
He was a little loud, I said “Carl, keep your voice down. He don’t know he’s cleaned out. You just don’t let on, I’m gone take care of this. You trust me? Let this go.”
“I gotta think about this, I’m gonna get me a gun so I can shoot his ass if he acts up. I aint believin you done cut him loose.” He got up and walked fast to the door, then stopped and teetered back and forth, “You gone be alright till I get back? Won’t take but a minute, shit, what you done went and gone and did?”
“You don’t need no damn gun. I wish I hadn’t said nothin now. You gotta either act cool or get on from here before he comes out, I don’t want to let him know he’s loose, he don’t know.”
“I’ll try but it’s gonna be hard, that man’s like a bad dog, they aint no tellin when he’s gonna snap, and he’s big and strong. I reckon if you gonna do this, I’m with you, I aint runnin away now. I sure wish you had thought about this more before you did it though.”
“I thought about it enough, this the way it gotta be. You just don’t worry about it, I got this. Get on and get yoself together now, he’s comin out.”
Carl come back in and sat down, Earl came out of the bathroom buttoning his shirt. He set down on the couch by Carl and slipped his shoes on, got back up and went out the door. He never looked at either of us, but he was moving better, naturally, and he wasn’t doing the blank stare.
Carl bitched and let me know he wasn’t happy for the rest of the day, every time we weren’t talking about something else he pissed and moaned about it. He’d just have to get over it; the more he complained the more I figured I did the right thing.
Earl came back with a couple books and went on downstairs, Elizabeth took his food down, Carl finally dragged his complaining ass home. I was tired of him worrying and complaining, I took him by the hand to the door, pushed him out, and closed the door behind him. He was still asking “You sure you want me to go, I can stay on the couch, it aint no trouble.”
I would have been glad to have him there, I was a little worried about Earl, but I wasn’t letting on, I told him just go on, I was fine.
Next morning about eight Earl left the house. That bothered me, I didn’t know where he was going and he didn’t ask. By the time I knew he was moving he was out the door. I went out back with my coffee and sat on the ground, tracking him as much as I could to see where he was going. He went on downtown and I lost track of him, at least he wasn’t headed back to the old house, but this was worrisome.
He showed up at noon and came in without knocking. I was in the kitchen talking to someone about their yard, they wanted their grass to grow evenly and they had bare spots. I was giving advice about what it needed. My grass was growing the best anybody had ever seen, I fixed the problems with it and it went nuts, and people seen it and wanted to know how to get theirs to do like that. Carl was listening in, he wanted to make money off of it; he had talked about a lawn service, hiring some people to work on yards and such.
Earl went on downstairs and parked himself down there. I noticed he turned on the light when he went down, that was unusual, and he left it on. I told Samuel what his yard needed, it had several problems, mostly it was too hard and needed breaking up and watering, and he and Carl left talking about what they could do.
I called Earl outside and sat him down in front of me, I checked and he was clean and healed. He looked around, not really alert but at least he noticed where he was.
“Earl, how you feelin?” he focused on me and thought about it “I’m feelin pretty good. I got somethin to eat, and I aint tired and I don’t hurt. This really aint as bad as I thought it was going to be.”
“You give any thought to what you might like to do with yourself? Some sort of job, something where you could make a livin?”
“They aint no use thinkin like that, but yeah, I did what you said. What I could do is truck drivin. I would have loved to drive a big old truck and go places. I think I could have done good with that.”
“You go get whatever you need to get your license, study up and pass the test. Come let me know when you get it and tell me what money you need.”
He looked at me hard a second and said “Rosalee, I shouldn’t be able to think and talk this way. I never saw anybody act like I feel after they got trapped. What you done with me?”
“I cut you loose and healed you.” I waited to see what he was going to do. I was ready to sink him if he jumped me, I’d just close the dirt over him and let him stay there. I don’t think Dirt would have a problem with that.
‘bury? acceptable.’
“You did that? How you able to do that, never mind, you did that after what I was gonna do with you? Shit, I gotta, aw….” He run out of words and sat there looking at me, I could see him thinking about jumping on me, he tensed and I got ready. Then he relaxed, he got to his knees and bent down toward me “Miz Rosalee, I aint never had nobody do nothin like that for me. They knowed I was no good and I knowed it too. You been a blessin to me, and I be good to you from now on. I’m your man, I’ll be there when you need me. Thank you.”
He raised back up and sat back facing me, “You mean all that about the job and the truck? You gonna help me do that?”
“Yeah, you got to make a livin. You get it done right, legal, and you do right when you workin and we call it even.” I just wanted him out of the house and not thinking of any mischief to do me.
“Alright, I let you know what it costs and then I’ll pay you back soon as I make some money.” He got up and walked back in the house, I breathed a sigh of relief. I had to watch him because he might change his mind.
He moved on out and I didn’t see him till he come around the next day, he needed money to pay for the drivin course. I gave it to him, three days later his GED come in the mail, he passed.
Carl hired some of his friends and neighbors to do lawn work, bought a couple lawnmowers and went into business. He took me to look at places, I would see what was going on with them and tell him how to fix whatever was wrong or off, and he had the crew take care of it. That was all working out and we had contracts, steady money coming in.
Earl got his license and went to work, he sent me money with a letter. He asked if he could come by and visit. He got religion and started going to church regular, asked me if that was ok. I told him that was great, yes he could come and visit, and I was proud of him, and by all means go to church. I wasn’t sure if he was asking about that or not but I was all for it, it would help keep him away from me and busy.
He showed up dressed pretty well and we sat on the porch and drank coffee. Carl made sure he was there; when he heard about it he had a fit, but I got him to calm down and we all had a nice visit. It seemed to me that Earl wanted my approval, and I did approve so I told him he had done good. He asked if there was anything he could do for me, I told him not right this minute, and he left. I felt good about the way that worked out.
Chapter Thirteen
T he lawn business took off and was taking a lot of Carl’s time. He only called me in if there was something he didn’t recogn
ize on a job and he needed my input. Dirt was happy, we were fixing things. Carl had a cell phone and he stayed on it all the time, he came by the house once or twice a day, sometimes he would spend an hour or two there, mostly just sitting and talking.
He got a job out Schillinger’s road, a big house with a twelve acre yard. It had a cemetery on the grounds they wanted cleaned up and maintenance set up. The cemetery was buried in weeds, graves sunk in, fence rotted, markers fallen and stolen. The yard was in bad shape, shaded by trees so the grass was patchy and covered with pine straw. Nothing he couldn’t handle, nothing strange.
Carl had some business cards printed, we were now RC Landscaping. When we planted a tree or a bush, it took off and did well. We didn’t have trouble with erosion or pests, water didn’t wash our landscaping out, our greenery didn’t get diseased, we had a good reputation and grew fast.
We still had the occasional strange job but that had tapered off and I was glad. It was a lot of trouble and too much interaction with people. With the landscaping, I could go out and look at a job, take my time, and get a good walk out of it.
Carl took me out to the Schillinger’s road job. It had a lot of trees masking the house from the road and a long, winding asphalt driveway. The side of the driveway was washed out about halfway down, the trees were crowded and weeds had taken over the yard. The house was a two story brick with a sharp roof. The brick was faded and dirty, the windows were clouded over pretty bad, and there were shingles missing off the roof.
The little cemetery sat behind the house, it might have been a half acre. Most of the markers were wood and had rotted, some had been vandalized. There was a nice stone vault in there, weeds grew all over it where dirt had accumulated enough for them to take root. The ground sloped down toward the back, enough so that the board fence on the back of the cemetery was half washed out and fallen where it wasn’t rotted. It looked like it had been abandoned for a long time. The entire place was deserted and run down. When we walked over it, I couldn’t feel anything other than animals and they were scarce, no nests, no moles, no deer bedded down.
There wasn’t anything fundamentally wrong, it needed some care. Nice house, once it was cleaned up, strange they let it get this run down. We walked the cemetery to look at the markers that were left, and checked out the vault. It had a large angel with wings in the middle on top of a large square base taller than me. One side was polished and had writing on it, but it was some strange alphabet we couldn’t read. The other sides were left rough. I never had any dealings with something like that and I found it interesting that there was a large hollow in the vault. I could feel the walls and the empty space. There was a long room running off of it, I walked along the top of the room looking at the ground and the long room just kept going. I looked up and I was halfway back to the house.
“Hey Carl, check this out. There’s a long skinny room under here and it runs back toward the house. He come over and walked with me as I continued to trace it out. I didn’t have to stand on it, I expanded my reach and I could feel the empty went all the way under the house.
“Hey, it’s a tunnel and it runs under the house. I think it’s too straight to be a washed out place or a creek, somebody built a way to that vault underground. Now that is some strange shit!”
He said “It’s gotta be old, I bet nobody knows anything about it now. I wonder if there’s a way to open it from out here. They aint nobody ever been here when I got here, I think the place is deserted. Want to look?”
“Hell yeah, let’s see if it opens.” We went back over to the vault and examined it. The smoothed side had a border around the writing and there was dirt in the border. It was large and square and might be a small door.
Carl said “Can you get a feel for it?” I slapped my forehead, “Shit, aint I just a dummy!” I felt into the stone and the ground. There were two large flat pieces of the same stone on top of each other under the statue of the angel. I traced them out walking. Carl called it about ten by ten feet. There was space between the two pieces. When I zoomed in I found round pieces of stone like pipes between the two pieces. I was telling Carl about it as I went, showing him where they were; “They’re all the same size, they’re this big around” I showed him with my hands about the size of my wrist, “and they run almost to the edges. “The top has a lip hanging down a couple inches and it almost meets the bottom slab.”
“There’s a piece of rock right here” The edge of the platform the angle stood on “and it sticks down through both pieces of stone. Oh! I bet it’s a lock that’s holding them in place.”
Each corner of the angel’s platform had a small decorative post on it. They had grooves above them, where they ended. Carl grabbed the post and pulled up on it and it moved a little. He wiggled it around and it come on up about a foot and stuck, it exposed a slightly smaller tongue of rock that had filled the hole.
The part we stood on moved a little, just enough to make us sway. “The whole damn thing moves, look at that. Get off it and let’s push it out of the way. I took a step and the slab of rock moved a couple inches, I staggered and Carl caught my arm, “Watch it, this thing moves easy.”
Carl pushed on the angel and it slid easily, at the same time the part under his feet moved back exposing a crack a half foot wide and ten feet long. He caught his balance and I helped push, we opened the thing apart and a set of steps was exposed going down into the dark, the opening was easily four feet wide.
“Damn, look at that. That is the coolest thing I seen all day!” Carl was happy as he could be, I was thrilled too. Maybe there was buried treasure down there. It looked like this had been there for a long time unknown and forgotten.
Carl started down the steps and I was on his heels. It reminded me a little of the house, I got a respect for places underground. The sunlight lit the steps up nicely all the way down, and the bottom looked like stone. Carl made it to the bottom and said “Whew, shit, they is a stink down here.”
“It’s a graveyard Carl, what you expect? They might be dead folks in here.” He stopped and looked around and I had to wait on him before I could go any further. I could smell the stench and it reminded me of the cellar where the vampire laired and the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I got a chill.
“You know, after thinking about it, maybe this aint such a good idea, Carl. This aint our place, they might get pissed we went in here if they found out.” I was going in there, but I wanted to be sure Carl had thought about it, I didn’t want him to get in trouble and not see it coming.
“I aint never seen nobody out here, I think the house is abandoned, they getting it ready to move back in. You can see aint nobody livin here. And I want to see what’s down there.” Yeah, he was on the same wavelength.
“Alright, but we aint got a light and I don’t want to stagger around down there feelin our way around. Shouldn’t they be coffins? I don’t see anything.”
“They some little doors on the walls, that’s probably where the coffins go. That would be the smell too, I guess.” He was moving off away from the light, feeling on the walls; I heard him scuff, then a soft curse.
“You ok? Come on back out where I can see you, or wait till I get down there.” He was moving too quick.
He said “You got any fire? Here is a torch, look at this!” He shoved a stick with a rag wrapped around the top at me, it stank like kerosene.
“Damn, man, don’t stick it in my head. No, I aint got a fire, there ought to be some matches in the car though, you think?”
“I’ll go see” he ran up the steps past me and ran on to the car, he was pretty excited. Truthfully, I was too. I went down to the bottom looking for the little doors he mentioned, the stink of decomposition was worse. Something long buried ought not stink like this. Maybe burial in a vault kept it from rotting fast. Damn sure nasty smelling, no doubt about that.
The door to the tunnel had an arch over it, but it wasn’t carved or nice, it was a rough chunk of wood with the middle torn roug
hly out. Big posts on both sides held it up. This work didn’t match the stuff up on top at all.
Carl came back with the torch lit and pushed me aside to take the lead. I said “Damn, man, you gone trample me? Go a little easier, what you think?” and he grunted “sorry, sorry!” He would have apologized but he was too excited. He went down the tunnel and I followed. The walls were covered with boards running from the floor to the ceiling. The floor was concrete and the ceiling was covered with boards.
“Hey, Carl – how long you reckon boards like this last underground? Shouldn’t they be rotten?”
“Well, they bury people in board coffins and I guess they last pretty good, when they have to dig somebody up the coffin is always in good shape, right?”
“I guess so, yeah, ok maybe so. That stink is gettin worse, aint it?” It was, no doubt about that. There were spots where dirt showed through the boards, next one I found I pressed my hand to it and reached.
“Anybody there?” I didn’t know if Dirt was around here, or just back by the house. The familiar presence answered me, “Fix? Good. Blank spots” Some other stuff about water tables, nests, and poison and snakes came through.
“Yeah, I’ll get to that stuff just as soon as I can, let me find those blanks first.”
“Blanks bad, etc etc.” It really wasn’t fond of those things at all and was basically ranting in images and feelings, it came across pretty well.
“Hey Carl, wait up!” I hurried to catch up with him, trying to stay alert for those mindless nasty things.
I grabbed his arm and pulled on him, he was at the end of the tunnel looking up some concrete steps. The torch smoked and didn’t put out light that was useful, it was jumping and making more shadows than anything else, and the smoke was awful, a thick cloud of burnt oil and kerosene.
“Carl, let’s get out of here right now. We might have some problems here, come on, now!”
