Devil's Creek

by Todd Keisling

  “Uh huh,” Maddy said, half-listening, half-reading the pulp novel in her hand. “What’s the trouble now? Mr. Frederick eating out of his bedpan again?”

  An exasperated laugh swelled from the phone receiver. “No, uh, it’s Ms. Tremly.”

  Maddy Ross dropped her book. She gripped the receiver and focused on the panicking nurse on the other end.

  “What is she doing, Darlene?”

  “She’s…well, she’s, uh, floating.”

  Maddy blinked. “Floating?”

  “That’s right. Floating. Now would you please get over here?”

  Maddy didn’t wait. She hung up the phone, grabbed her badge and keys, and jogged down the hall toward B Wing. She was no stranger to that side of the ward, having done her time monitoring the special cases and administering their meds as needed. Out of all the patients currently interned in B Wing, Laura Tremly was the only one who’d been there when Maddy started. The poor woman was little more than a vegetable at this point, having suffered spells of hysteria, delusions, and night terrors. Especially the night terrors.

  As her white sneakers clapped down the tile hallway, Maddy remembered many occasions on which she’d had to restrain Ms. Tremly, for both her safety and the nurses who attended to her needs. The restraints remained a necessity in the ensuing years, for she usually experienced bizarre convulsions and seizures in the night, often attributed to her manic dream state.

  Only in the last few years had she finally calmed down, and the sudden swing in her manner caught the attention of various medical professionals. Laura Tremly was a classic subject for study, exhibiting symptoms and traits that refused diagnosis, earning her no less than four observations in the last year alone from doctors around the globe. And now she’d finally decided to wake up from her catatonia. Maddy Ross could almost believe it, more so than Nurse Nichols’s claims of levitation.

  Maddy swiped her keycard and waited for the automatic lock to disengage. She heard the laughter echoing down the hall as the doors swung open. Nurses Nichols and Dwyer stood outside Ms. Tremly’s room, gawking in stupefied horror at what they saw. She pushed them aside and peered through the glass, working up a tongue lashing for the ages.

  “Ladies, I should remind you, this hospital expects you to maintain your professionalism no matter—”

  What, she wanted to say, but the word stopped short of her tongue. A dark ruby streak filled one side of the observation window. Through the other half of the safety glass, Maddy saw the restraints sitting in lifeless coils on the unkempt hospital bed, the bands frayed where they’d been chewed apart, the sheets stained blackish-red in thick spurts.

  Maddy joined her subordinates, gaping at the gruesome impossibility before her.

  Laura Tremly hovered before the grated window of her room, her arms held out to reveal the tears in her wrists. Thick shoestrings of blood dripped from her open wounds, but gravity held no sway in this room. The dollops of precious lifeblood fell upward, pooling on the ceiling in a viscous puddle boiling with an impossible heat.

  The moon hung over Laura’s shoulder, and she laughed with unsettling glee like a child, her chest heaving in deep convulsions. Her figure bobbed in the air, held afloat by unseen hands, and treading invisible waters.

  “He lives,” she cried, cackling madly at the light of the moon.

  The trio stared in awe as Laura ripped at her gown, pulling it from her body in long shreds of linen. Bleeding, hovering, she clawed one hand down her naked thigh and between her legs.

  “Oh my God,” Nurse Nichols gasped. “Christ, shouldn’t we—”

  “My father, my lover, my apostle, accept this blood from me now. I rejoice with you for now you live! You live!” Laura Tremly spun in place, exposing herself in bloody display to the gaping nurses outside. Blood lined the contours of her ribs, forming a semi-circle design across her stomach. The blackish lines sizzled with heat, burning into her flesh, but if she felt pain, she gave no sign. No, she laughed and writhed in ecstasy, rubbing one hand between her legs while offering her blood with the other.

  Nurse Dwyer turned her head and vomited, and Maddy covered her mouth for fear she might join the poor woman.

  “He lives,” Laura cried, rubbing herself so hard blood leaked down the side of her thigh. “Rejoice, sinners, for He lives!”

  7

  The full moon crept slowly above the small town of Stauford like the watchful eye of a silent sentinel, casting a pale glow over all who slept and dreamed. For some, the moon’s presence was a welcome comfort, an open eye of God watching over them, a symbol of His loving brilliance and protection. For those fortunate few, their god was in His heaven, shining a light over all His wonderful sinners even when the sun was gone. The light of the moon was their security blanket, and they lay tucked in their beds, sleeping peacefully knowing their lord was watching from above.

  What angry, jealous being would grant them light even in the dark? A light by which man would find his way in the wilderness. A light to comfort him even in a valley of shadows. The moon would never betray them. The moon, like their lord, always was and would always be.

  But as the moon rose to its zenith and began a slow arcing descent toward the horizon in the twilit hours, the people of Stauford were haunted by troubling visions and restless dreams. They tossed and turned in their beds, chased through impossible hallways by pale-faced phantoms and creatures of the dark. Beasts with blue eyes and black worms protruding from their skin. Faceless men and women with shrouds over their eyes, their bloated lips ruby red, and their cheeks marked in black spider veins.

  That night, the people of Stauford slept with the primal fear the moon had betrayed them. The moon, once their silent guardian, withheld a secret none of them could possibly know. Its light dimmed, its pull on the earth now maligned by old words not spoken by a mortal tongue in a millennium.

  And somewhere above, their god was no longer watching from His golden throne.

  Their god looked away, and the moon ushered in the very shadows which now plagued their weary minds.

  The people of Stauford rolled in their beds, for they knew in their dreams their god had never been, His glorious kingdom above nothing more than fiction. That god of fantasy was one they didn’t deserve.

  No, the god they deserved was far below, sleeping beneath their feet, nestled among the crawling worms and roots of the earth, cradled by bedrock and shale, and blanketed by centuries of lies and legends.

  They trembled, for one of his apostles now walked the earth.

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF IMOGENE TREMLY (2)

  1

  From the Landon Herald’s Morning Edition, May 19th, 1996

  LOCAL PROFESSOR’S NATIVE RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTED

  LANDON, KY – The recent work of Dr. Tyler Booth, professor of anthropology at Sue Bennett College, will appear in the quarterly edition of the Journal of Southern Anthropology this summer.

  The feature highlights his studies of Native American burial mounds in the eastern and southeastern Appalachian regions during the 1993 school year. Dr. Booth’s expedition was funded by a grant from the Thomas R. Trosper Foundation, awarded for efforts of furthering research and understanding of regional tribes.

  “It’s an honor,” Dr. Booth said. “I’m grateful for the support from the college, the foundation, and the staff at the journal.”

  Dr. Booth’s full thesis will be published by Sue Bennett’s Keystone Press later this fall. The Journal of Southern Anthropology’s summer edition will be available next month.

  2

  Excerpted from the Journal of Southern Anthropology, Summer Ed., 1996

  […] most well-known among local anthropological and archaeological circles for his continued efforts of preserving known Adena burial sites, Dr. Tyler M. Booth of Sue Bennett College confesses he is also something of a romantic.

  “I love the mystery,” Dr. Booth said. “Consider this: even the name ‘Adena’ is a Hebrew title thrust upon this group of hunter-gatherers,
based on nothing more than a former Ohio governor’s whim. The name has been adapted by modern scientists out of pure convenience, perhaps to occult the fact that we know very little about them.”

  (The Ohio governor mentioned above is one Thomas Worthington, whose estate contains the first documented burial mound attributed to the Adena culture. – Ed.)

  Fellow anthropologists may be scratching their heads at the professor’s remarks. Modern records indicate a great deal of information gleaned from more than 200 known burial mounds, ranging from hunting habits to agricultural progress and artistic tendency. We raised these points with Dr. Booth, and he had the following commentary to add.

  “I’m not discounting prior discoveries. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m saying that while we have recorded evidence of what these people left behind, we know very little about who they were. The name given to them is something the anthropological community did for their own benefit. I’m driven by the mystery of who they were, and in my opinion, I believe that mystery can be solved by more in-depth research of their ceremonial rites.”

  We asked the professor to expound on that statement, and he was admittedly coy with his answer.

  “I can’t give everything away here,” he said. “All I can say is that my team uncovered evidence during my last expedition that suggests there’s more to the ‘Adena’ puzzle, especially regarding their burial rites. A full rundown of my findings will be published in a few months from Keystone […]”

  Maybe he’s my guy. Get copy of thesis. –Genie.

  3

  Highlighted passages from “A Puzzle of Rites: Discerning the True Nature of the Adena” by Dr. Tyler M. Booth

  […] began with the discovery of a former ceremonial site on the property of Jasper Goins, a tobacco farmer from East Bernstadt, Kentucky. Mr. Goins happened upon a sinkhole at the far end of his field while tilling in preparation for the planting season. The sinkhole, he discovered, was roughly the size of an inground swimming pool and no deeper than six feet. He would’ve filled in the pit himself except for one detail: the collapse had exposed skeletal remains along the north-facing wall […]

  […] nine such bodies were pieced together, four male and five female, estimated to have been between the ages of six and ten when they met their demise. The remains exhibited signs of various trauma, ranging from notches in the bone (suggesting blunt force from cutting tools) to scratch and gnaw marks from either human or animal origin. Carbon dating on the remains placed their lifetime well within the period of known Adena habitation in the area. The mystery, then, revolves around the nature of the site itself. To date, no prior Adena burial sites have suggested human sacrifice or cannibalism. […]

  […] However, the most compelling find within the Goins site concerns carvings etched in a stone marker found within the center of the pit itself. The stone stands approximately one foot tall and is roughly the size of a tree stump. Its surface is riddled with various notches and cavities, suggesting the stone was used as a rudimentary cutting board or sacrificial altar. Marking its rounded edges are etched symbols of unknown meaning, and on the western-facing side is a crude painting of a figure with blue eyes […]

  Definitely my guy. Will visit college next week. –Genie.

  4

  Notebook entry following Dr. Booth’s essay. Date unknown.

  Met with Dr. Booth this morning. He was skeptical but didn’t say no. With any luck, the idol is still there, and I can continue my research. I should hear from the professor within the month.

  I hope so. He’s handsome.

  PART THREE

  SEEDS OF BABYLON

  Stauford – Landon, Kentucky

  Present Day

  CHAPTER TEN

  1

  Jack Tremly read until dawn, wading through the many notes and newspaper clippings stuffed inside the notebook’s pages, until his eyelids hung heavy in the gray morning light. He felt drunk with knowledge, his mind tilted askew by the burden of weight his late grandmother set upon his shoulders, the room shifting in the haze of a hangover tinged with understanding and terror. The confusing puzzle in his grandmother’s notebook set his spirit alight.

  But despite the thoughts racing through his head, sleep found him.

  Sleep always found him, and so did the things waiting in the dark.

  2

  The nightmare is always the same. He is well-acquainted with its twists and turns, the vividness of its depiction, the sensory effects hyperreal in the dream space.

  Sunlight beaming through the passenger window of his grandmother’s green Cadillac heats his arm to an uncomfortable degree, so much the skin reddens in the morning light. Summers in Stauford are always sweltering, a haven for flies and mosquitos, the trees drooping in depression. Outside, a forest passes them by in a swirling green haze, and the floor beneath his tiny feet rattle from gravel kicking and spitting up in the wheel well.

  He can’t remember his age but guesses he’s somewhere between four and six years old. He’s dressed in dark leather sandals, neatly pressed khakis, and a green checkered button-down. Without looking, he knows his hair is slicked back and parted to the side.

  Mamaw Genie drives in silence, leading them along a forest path in the morning sun. Her hair is pristine, a silvery dome coiffed and immaculately sculpted into a perfect bouffant by the finest artists at Arlene’s Beauty Shop. She wears her favorite earrings: a pair of dangling butterflies adorned with emerald jewels. A gift from her late husband, Jack remembers, although he can’t recall his grandfather’s face. He died in a car accident when Jack was a baby.

  The nightmare shifts here, a rapid jump-cut to a different scene, one projector switched out for another. Mamaw Genie holds his hand and leads him into the forest. The path is overgrown with weeds and wildflowers. Stones older than time lay embedded in the earth, covered in patches of moss and etched with crude symbols.

  Deeper into the forest, the world is a kaleidoscope of light and shadow, the sun filtering through the trees in a shadowbox display. Mamaw Genie leads him down a small slope into a gully overgrown with ferns and dandelions. A creek slices through the gully in an erratic line, its waters babbling over stones and under deadfalls. Birds chirp overhead, and the trees whisper about this pair of visitors wandering beneath their branches.

  Jack stops at the wooden footbridge and tugs on his grandmother’s hand. “Why do they call it Devil’s Creek, Mamaw?”

  This is the only detail of his nightmare that changes. Imogene Tremly turns to him, and sometimes she’s smiling, sometimes she’s laughing, sometimes she’s crying. Sometimes, like this time, she doesn’t have an expression, her lips a single thin line across her face.

  “The waters split up ahead,” she says, pointing out toward the forest, which now seems so dense it’s like a thick green curtain draped over the world. “They split off like the Devil’s pitchfork, so old timers called it Devil’s Creek. But we both know there ain’t no Devil. Ain’t that right, honey?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  They continue deeper into the forest, where a village of shacks is being constructed. Tools and supplies strewn about the foliage, hammers and saws and nails and beams of lumber and sheet metal, a town grown from the old stones of the earth beneath them. The village smells of rotted meat, and Jack understands why as they near the clearing. Animal carcasses hang from the limbs of trees at the foot of the clearing, odd sacrifices lifted to the sky in offering to gods Jack can’t pronounce with his elementary tongue. Flies swarm around the rotting limbs in thick black clouds, and Jack’s stomach churns as the stench hits him. He vomits a breakfast of milk and cereal all over his shoes, and Mamaw Genie scolds him for getting his clothes dirty on their way to church.

  Another shift in scene, another projector reel swapped out, and they’re at the summit of Calvary Hill. The Lord’s Church of Holy Voices stands before them, and the lilting sound of the choir seeps through the old white beams. Mamaw Genie runs her fingers through Jack’s hair until
she is satisfied with how it looks. She takes his hand once more.

  “Now,” she says, “be quiet. We’re late for the invocation.”

  She opens the door and leads him into the single room of the old church. The pews are shoved back against the perimeter walls, and motes of dust dance in the beams of morning light piercing through the windows. Straight ahead, the lectern lies on its side, and the upright piano sits against the wall, forever out of tune. The room is vacant except for the sounds of the humming choir rising from a hole in the floor.

  Mamaw Genie leads Jack to the edge of the hole where they peer into the depths. There’s a light down there, flickering orange flames fill the cavern with shadows, and Jack resists his grandmother’s pull.

  “We’re late,” she whispers, and releases his hand to descend the ladder before them. He watches her, helpless as she sinks into the shadows, and in a moment of terror, Jack considers fleeing for the door.

  “Jackie,” his grandmother whispers, “are you coming?”

  His cheeks flush with shame. He doesn’t want to let her down, doesn’t want to earn her scorn, and descends into the dark.

  The reel changes again, and they’re in an open cavern far below the foundation of the church. Dome-like, insulated in the depths of Calvary Hill, the cavern walls are lined with cracked stone plates upon which are carved symbols that hurt Jack’s eyes when he looks at them. A pillar of earth rises from one end, circled with steps carved from stone. The center of the cavern is lit with torches positioned around the perimeter, illuminating mounds of dust and bones. In the infinite wisdom of dream logic, Jack knows there are countless bones buried beneath their feet if they would only dig a little further, and he scrapes the heel of his foot in the dirt. A gray jawbone protrudes from the dirt, its baby teeth caked in dark soil and worms. Hello, it says, won’t you join me?