The Fiends in the Furrows

by David Neal

  “…need to find him.”

  “How in the hell am I supposed to know where he went?”

  “You spent more time with him than anyone.”

  The footsteps receded, his breath came out in one burning rush, and a bird chirped in the trees. Dawn. Dawn.

  * * *

  He tumbled into the shallow river, and dragged himself across, the coppery water rushing against his face. The wooden birds had haunted his escape through the darkness, those vile, unblinking eyes in every branch that he looked to, while the sound of frantic voices fell slowly more distant. Then the sun eased over the treetops and he had found himself at the river. On the far side, a steep, clay beach, veined with gnarled tree roots rose up above him.

  At the top, he found himself in a landscape like none he had ever seen. The branches of low trees interlaced, bushes grew grey and sickly, the mossy ground pocked with sinkholes from the width of his finger to pits wide enough to swallow him. It was lifeless—no chirps or squeaks or thuds on trees, just a constant shh from all around.

  He pushed himself along, he knew that he had to run into someone or somewhere. Even in its wildness, homes and small towns spotted the forest. He wondered, as he trudged through the half-light, how far he had gotten from the town. At that pace, it couldn’t have been far. He stepped lightly across the spongy soil in a cluster of tight-knit pits, his ankle shivering through pain. The shh was louder, more energetic. Ahead the brightness grew. Ahead was clear.

  From more than twenty feet away, he could see that glistening sand rose up into a massive clearing, he could feel its warmth, smell its cleanness. Near the far edge, something glimmered in one tree, then two. He fell into some exhausted stupor when, through a cluster of trees by the clearing, he saw a strip of orange fabric pass. He knew that fabric.

  “Hey!” he shouted and stumbled through the last of the trees.

  He staggered through the sudden brilliance of light, and into the sand. It felt like the soil below his feet were alive. It slipped and shied. The orange cowl and cloak were faced away, bare arms worked at something on the side of the tree.

  “Hey, umm…” he said, when a jolt of fire exploded in his leg. He looked down, and his mind couldn’t process as a tail slithered back under the soil. When he looked up, she was facing him, the cloak blown open in the growing wind, her naked flesh covered in stripes of black and orange paint. In her hand, dangling from a rope, was a human skull, chunks of shining glass embedded in the eye sockets. He spun his head and in all the trees around him, colored glass glittered in the eyes of hanging skulls. There was another burst of pain and an orange and black snake slithered away and into one of the holes in the ground. He fell back against the embankment and she drew closer, snakes slithering across her feet. Others came forward from the forest, painted, carrying their macabre trophies. He began to crawl back, up the embankment of sand, and the ground rumbled violently. Sand danced up and hovered in the air. His head swam, fat beads of sweat pushed up through his pores, and his legs faded into some memory of feeling. Still, the rumbling grew louder.

  The others waited at the edge of the clearing while she came ever closer. His hands pushed into the sand, feeling scaly skin sliding above and below, those two chunks of ember aflame in the skull, as he pushed himself back. His dead legs left two trails slithering up the hill, his heart a thick, sluggish thud. The shadows growing darker, the light more dazzling. His muscles were a sea of convulsion. He needed to go, but the need was becoming confused. He could see that he was high, but the distance became obscure. She was close, and he smelled roses and vanilla wafting up, could vaguely make out the red shards in her eyes. She crouched and ran her fingers across his clammy skin, but he felt nothing. He pushed himself up on some ridge, and suddenly the sand beneath his hands was gone, and he was tumbling.

  Rocks bashed his muscle and bones, cracked into his face, leaving a spray and trail of blood in his wake. He slid, gravel and sand a fury until they escaped him and only air surrounded his body. He landed with a crunch of things broken inside, and dragged himself with one elbow, until the strain became too much, little streams of red vomit seeping from his mouth, and he rolled onto his back.

  They surrounded him from above at the edge of the quarry: fifty, maybe a hundred. He had to think each breath into life, it was like his body was being slowly swallowed into some void. The walls surrounding him were strewn with a honeycomb of blackened caves at least eight feet high. He could barely hear over the gurgling sounds that his heart made. Loose rocks were shaken down the quarry walls toward his head, the sand became loose beneath his body. The sun crested the lip of the quarry, a stunning flash that brought the sand around to glittering life. Skulls rained down around him, hitting the soft soil with muted thuds. A great cloud of dust and dirt flowed from the caves, washing over him like a wave, and some motion was seen from its billowy innards. He tried to squeeze his eyes shut against the dust, but found that he couldn’t. He could only sit and stare, while the dust settled, at the festering, orange and black flesh slithering by through the cave system—coming closer with each pass.

  *

  Shards of sunlight sliced through the trees as Callie sprinted barefoot through the roiling sea of bodies packed into the forest clearing. The men and women of the Clearwater Assembly had gathered with their children under the sugar maples to hear the Sunday sermon. Callie weaved through them all with dust clinging to her hair and a plexiglass box cradled in her arms. She was small for nine, and snapping skirts and flapping hands ushered her out from underfoot as the Reverend’s voice filled the thick August air.

  “Brothers and sisters, we are a chosen people in an age of iniquity. We have been appointed by the Most High to proclaim the Word of salvation to this wretched world!”

  Callie’s foot snagged on an exposed root. She chose to skin herself on the dirt rather than let go of the box, and yelped as her kneecaps struck against the earth. Callie hauled herself back up and balanced the box on her lap, cracking the lid so she could peer inside

  “Alright, Georgina?” She asked. “Alright, Petunia? Edgar?”

  The sleepy tangle of copperheads inside flicked their tails, and Callie smiled. Her grandfather’s church owned twelve snakes and she had named every one. They were her friends if she ever had any, and she counted it her special station in life to ensure that they were comfortable and cared for.

  “You best not let your granddaddy see you consorting with those serpents, Callie Ann!”

  Callie snapped the lid shut and threw her eyes around the clearing. One of the wizened old women of her grandfather’s congregation was marching towards her. Callie attempted to find her footing, but the old woman took her tightly by the upper arm and hauled her to her feet. Her rheumy eyes and long white hair did nothing to distinguish her from any of the other venerable deaconesses and prayer warriors who had been members of the church since before Callie was born. Callie had been haunted by their eyes through Sunday school and often heard them whispering her name when she passed the offering plate down the pew.

  “Those are the Devil’s creatures,” The old woman hissed. “And we are called to subdue them, not take up association with them.”

  Callie Ann twisted in the old woman’s grasp.

  “I meant no harm by it, ma’am.”

  “No harm need be meant for harm to come, girl. I see you during service, muttering strange things to yourself. I see.”

  “Please, ma’am, the Reverend is calling.”

  The spinster made a derisive noise but turned the girl’s arm loose.

  Callie’s face burned as she continued her trek towards the cedar platform in the middle of the clearing. None of the other holy rollers gave her any trouble, but she could feel their eyes searing into the tops of her shoulders and the crown of her head. Callie pressed her lips together and reminded herself to ignore them. She was used to being stared at.

  Callie clambered onto the stage behind the swaying gospel quartet and set the plexigl
ass box down with a grunt. Her father was waiting for her, wringing his hands and moving his lips in a silent plea for protection. Josiah Clearwater was spindly and tawny-haired, like Callie, but she had her mother’s pale eyes. At least her father told her that she did. Callie had been four when her mother died; she couldn’t remember much of her. Just the elusive scent of rosewood and the way she always mixed cinnamon and sugar together to sprinkle on top of Sunday waffles.

  Callie knelt before the plexiglass box, craning her neck to catch her father’s eye. She pressed her hands, clammy from the humidity and excitement, on the lid. Then she tightened up her stomach muscles and called his name as loudly as she could. Even through the din, Josiah heard her. He always heard her, somehow.

  Josiah moved toward her as though in a dream, and Callie popped the latch on the plexiglass box and swung the lid wide open. Josiah thrust his arms into the writhing mass of copperheads and took up handfuls of their sleek, muscled bodies. Then he turned to the audience and displayed the contorting serpents looped around his arms.

  The congregation exploded.

  Callie watched with bright eyes while her father passed the snakes from hand to hand, his face serene as their tails snapped like whips through the muggy air. In these moments, Josiah was the whole sun to her, the stars and magnolia trees and summer cicada song. She knew she would never be allowed the handle serpents during service—she wasn’t clean enough for that, the Reverend had told her—but in these moments, she could pretend.

  “Stop gawking, girl.”

  Callie jumped. Her grandfather was standing behind her, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. He was thin as a rail and composed entirely of hard angles, from his jutting chin to his knobby knees.

  “Keep your eyes on them serpents. If they get loose into the congregation and someone gets bit, that’ll be on your head.”

  The Reverend had been the greatest handler in the state when Josiah was a boy, but once his son had come of age and started displaying an even greater gift for the taming of snakes, the Reverend began testifying that he was being called to cast out infirmities, and that he would take up serpents again as soon as the Spirit ordained.

  Callie Ann had never seen her grandfather take up serpents.

  “Yes, Reverend,” Callie said. She expected him to move past her, to cast his eyes above her head to someone more worthy of his sustained attention. But the Reverend lingered at her side, watching his son with narrowed eyes and a pursed, pensive mouth.

  “Lovely sermon, Reverend,” Callie said, because that was how she had heard adults speak to him after service.

  The Reverend glanced down, and for a moment Callie thought he might speak to her. But he was looking at Edgar, left alone in the box while Petunia and Georgina rode raucous and free on Josiah’s forearms.

  “The Spirit sure is moving today,” Callie tried again.

  This time he did look at her, the corners of his mouth pulling tight as though he had tasted something bitter.

  “What would you know about the Spirit, girl?”

  Ignoring or perhaps not caring enough to register Callie’s crestfallen expression, the Reverend waved towards Edgar’s box.

  “Lock that thing up,” He said, and then took to the stage to shout out the altar call while Josiah spun again and again in the rapture of something Callie could taste but never quite name.

  * * *

  That night, Callie’s father fried up green tomatoes to go with his standard Sunday meal of collard greens and pulled pork. Callie was averse to all green foods as well as pork (she considered pigs too sweet-tempered and smart to be eaten) so she focused her appetite on the tomatoes. As she snagged slice after slice of the crunchy fritters from a platter in the middle of her grandfather’s table, he spoke.

  “Eyes were wanderin’ today during the service. It’s been happening more and more lately.”

  “New sermon series, maybe?” Josiah ventured, splashing his pulled pork with spiced vinegar. “Something on the mission of the church, or the call to charity?”

  The Reverend shook his head into his glass of sweet tea.

  “Folks need clear doctrine: belief, baptism, and salvation,” he said. “I don’t want to get anything muddled for them. It’s hard enough to keep them from sinning like Sodomites at every turn.”

  Josiah didn’t offer any more suggestions, and the soft clink of silverware filled the small house Callie shared with her father and grandfather. She didn’t know why her father kept suggesting things like series and mission projects when her grandfather, who made all the decisions, only ever cared about signs and wonders.

  They ate in silence a moment more, night breezes curling into the muggy kitchen through the screened back door, then the Reverend continued:

  “I know the Miller boy’s been running around with one of the townie girls—it’s just a matter of catching him and talking some of the Lord’s sense into him before a bastard turns up.”

  Callie’s stomach knotted up. There were a word in that sentence that she knew well enough to understand they ought to be avoided in polite dinner conversation.

  “Dad, please,” Josiah said mildly.

  “What?” The Reverend asked, his voice as sharp as every other bit of him. A muscle in Callie’s neck tensed so tightly it hurt.

  “Not in front of Callie. Please.”

  “There’s no use shielding a child from the way things are. Especially with her upbringing.”

  Callie’s ears were starting to ring with a far-off tinny sound. Soon, she knew, her body would start to feel clammy and numb, as though she was slipping right out of her skin and watching herself from across the table. It was a familiar sensation, one that accompanied Josiah’s frequent conflicts with her grandfather, and the subsequent shouting and slamming of doors. It was always hard for Callie to tell who started these fights, but they always seemed particularly bitter when she was in the room.

  “Callie, eat your collards,” Josiah said. “Everyone can see you’re just pushing ‘em around your plate.”

  Callie happily obliged, thrilled that her father had decided not to push the issue further. But then, as she chewed a salty mouthful of greenery, Josiah said,

  “There’s nothing wrong with Callie’s upbringing.”

  His voice was quiet and made no threats, but Callie heard the challenge in it. She swallowed hard, willing her father to stop, drop it.

  “When I was her age I didn’t have anyone to straighten me out, and I ran buckwild without strong discipline. Lord knows I didn’t do a good enough job rearing you, what with your indiscretion with that waitress. I almost lost you to her superstitions, and I blame myself. I don’t want to see the same happen to Callie.”

  “You didn’t stand to lose anything,” Josiah said, a hard edge on his voice. “You just refused to accept Victoria, or her faith. If you had married us like I asked there would have been no ‘indiscretion’.”

  The Reverend pointed his butter knife at Callie as though providing damning evidence.

  “If that girl doesn’t get a clear picture of what’s right and what’s wrong, she’ll end up just like her whore mother.”

  Callie’s face burned as though she had been struck, and the pulse roared so loudly in her ears she felt as though she were underwater.

  Josiah’s mouth screwed up as though he were going to spit something nasty out of it. But after a moment he took a swallow of iced tea and the expression vanished.

  “Callie, did you feed the snakes today?”

  Her father’s voice was so gentle, so dismissive of everything that had just been said, that for a moment it didn’t register. Callie blinked.

  “Callie Ann, I asked you a question.”

  “No,” She said.

  “I’ve told you before, you don’t eat until those snakes do. They’re livin’ things; they get hungry like you and me. Go on now.”

  Callie’s fingers stayed locked around the edge of her wooden seat. Everything felt disconnected, like time had s
kipped as easily as one of her grandfather’s Gaither Gospel Hour records. Surely she had missed the rattling silverware, the raised voices. Surely her father wouldn’t just let something like that go.

  “Now, Callie,” Josiah said, eyes fixed on his dinner.

  Callie got up from the table so quickly the legs of her chair screeched against the linoleum. She didn’t look back as she trotted out the kitchen door, letting the screen slam behind her.

  The shouting started before she was all the way down the porch steps into the dirt yard.

  Scrubbing at her stinging eyes with a grubby hand, Callie traipsed through the dark to the wooden shed at the edge of her grandfather’s property. The electrical buzz of the cicadas swelled up around her ears as she retrieved the heavy iron key from the chain around her neck and slotted into the padlock on the shed door.

  Inside, the compact earth was cool beneath her bare feet, and the silhouettes of the snake boxes slotted into wooden shelves were dim in the moonshine from a single skylight. The chirrup of crickets had joined the cacophony of night noises. She was sweating, sickly beads that trickled down her back towards the waistband of her secondhand shorts.

  “My mama,” She whispered vehemently to herself. “Was no…whore.”

  She grimaced around the obscene vowels of the word. Her father had told her the truth—her mother had been kind as the day was long, and she could skip a rock farther than any boy, and even though she went to a different kind of church than Callie’s family, she went every Sunday. Callie wanted to march right back into the house and tell her grandfather that he was a liar and she knew it.

  A door slammed in the distance, and Callie jumped.

  She hauled a plastic tub of freshly-dead mice off a shelf and began to deposit them by their tails into each snake box, careful not to open the boxes wide enough to encourage escape. It wasn’t that Callie was particularly afraid of dealing with wayward snakes; she was certain they wouldn’t bite her or wander too far from home. She just wasn’t certain they wouldn’t take offense to a chance encounter to someone else. That, Callie knew, would mean the end of the church, and the end of her family.