Keep in a Cold, Dark Place

by Michael Stewart

  “Shh . . .” Dylan hushed her as the ladder rungs creaked beneath her. “Something’s . . . out . . . there.”

  Limpy’s heart raced and she hauled herself higher. Hands slapped at rungs and boots scuffed. Finally her head poked above the level of Dylan’s feet. The rifle was at his shoulder and he aimed down and out the window. Limpy wrenched the flashlight from her pocket and, as his muscles tensed to take his shot, she switched on the light.

  The gun jerked with the crack of the gunshot. She cried out as he turned to face her, eyes blinking and cheeks purple with rage.

  “Turn it off,” he shouted and when she did, everything disappeared but the outline of the small door in the barn wall. “Wrecked my night vision,” he said. “I missed . . . I never miss. Why’d you go and do that?”

  Limpy was glad to shut the light off so that he couldn’t see her relief. “Sorry.”

  “Go away,” he said.

  “Came to keep you company,” she replied. Her plan had been to disrupt his shooting. He had one bullet left.

  “I’ve got my gun for company.”

  Her eyesight had already improved to the point that she could see Dylan staring out the window once more.

  “It’ll have run now,” he said.

  There came a sharp snap and a sudden discordant twang like a piano had been dropped from a height. “What in all that’s good was that?” Dylan demanded, shoving her back down the ladder with his hand on her head. Then his boots nearly crushed her fingers at each rung. On the second floor, he pushed her so that she toppled into a bale of hay, the straw poking and itching, and Dylan slid down the final ladder without touching a rung. As quick as possible, Limpy followed, not knowing what could have made that sound.

  She sprinted after her brother through the barn door and out toward the henhouse. Dylan had pulled up fast at the sight of the tripped bear trap.

  “Pa’s not gonna like this,” he said.

  Limpy knew that her brother had never spoken truer words. She switched the flashlight on, the glow glinting from the remains that lay in the trap.

  Caught in the jaws wasn’t a bear, not a coyote, and most certainly not a chupacabra. “This ain’t no coyote’s work,” Dylan said, his eyes hunting the darkness. “This is evil.”

  Shattered into splinters of finely wrought wood and twisted brass wire was their mother’s harp.

  Chapter 20

  Her father stared at the fragments of harp on the kitchen table. A tear tracked down one cheek.

  “Who did this?” he demanded. “Which one of you was it?” His glare moved from Dylan to settle on Limpy.

  “She made me miss my shot,” Dylan said by way of confirmation.

  “You think I did it?” Limpy cried. “How could I do it, if I was up with Dylan?”

  “You have an accomplice,” her father said, head nodding as if everything suddenly made sense. “Same person who sabotaged the tractor.”

  “Why would I? I’d never . . .” Limpy shook her head.

  “Been complaining about helping on the farm. Wanting to get out? Go to an artsy school? I saw your letter on the dresser.”

  Limpy flushed. Connor looked on from the doorway.

  “You’ve any more bullets?” her father asked Dylan.

  “Just the one,” Dylan said.

  “Don’t miss this time.”

  “Wouldn’t have missed the first time.” Dylan gave Limpy a punch in the arm and she cried out.

  “To your ma,” her father said.

  Limpy shook her head. “Please, no, Dad.”

  “We all know that one way off the farm is to see it ruined. To your ma, and don’t be moving until you hear the first snore.”

  “I don’t want to ruin the farm.”

  “You want me alone in a folks’ home? That what you want? Where would Connor be without the farm?”

  “Yeah, and where’d I be?” Dylan asked as he gripped his stomach, as if the thought made him ill.

  “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t. I wouldn’t.” She gritted her teeth. She had to tell them. “Gremlins, you even said, gremlins chewed the tractor parts. I . . . I can prove it. They’re called chupacabra.”

  “You can prove it, can you?” her father demanded. His eyes were slits.

  She nodded, fearing what would come out of her mouth, if she spoke.

  “All right then, I’d like to see your gremlins. Show your pops.” Accusation laced his voice. He dared her.

  “In the barn,” she said. “It started in the barn, when I was moving the potatoes.”

  On their way, she talked about what she had seen on the internet.

  “Far darrig,” her father said as they approached the door to the barn.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Back on the Isle, we had stories of leprechauns to be sure, but the Far darrig were different, like leprechauns, but more devilish.”

  “So what do we do?” she asked. Her father’s sudden understanding seemed like a ray of light.

  “Nothing,” he roared. “Far darrig aren’t real! Leprechauns aren’t real. And neither are these abracadabra-whatevers.”

  He opened the door to the barn and stepped inside. Standing on the wooden planks, Limpy was about to argue, but decided they’d see the evidence for themselves soon enough. When the door banged shut they stood in silence for a moment and listened. The boards groaned against the wind, but nothing moved.

  Limpy felt eyes on her. Hungry eyes. “Downstairs,” she whispered.

  Dylan went first, easily swinging onto the ladder and shimmying to the bottom. Her dad climbed down next and then Limpy. Connor stayed near the barn door. Even surrounded by her family, Limpy fought the desire to run. Dylan’s light flashed as he searched the cellar.

  “I don’t see nothing,” he said.

  “There,” Limpy said. Her father crouched at the potato bag and stretched it open. Dylan inspected the bag with the light, and wordlessly her father pulled from it the box and fragments of eggshells.

  “Just a box and someone’s Easter eggshells,” her dad said.

  “No, no, chupacabra shells. Four of them,” she replied. “I promise. The chupacabra!”

  “Limphetta O’Malley,” he said, his tone a heavy blend of exasperation and disappointment. “Off with you to your ma. Off with you and there will be no more talk of Hillcrest.” It was like a sentence from a judge. “You will not be going to that school.”

  “Off with you,” Dylan agreed.

  “On the box, it says to beware the chupacabra!” she cried.

  Her father hurled the box against the wall where it splintered. Tears flooded her eyes, but she managed to climb the ladder and throw her arms around Connor’s neck.

  “Oh, Connor, they don’t understand. It is my fault, but the gremlins or whatever they are, they’re real. I freed them. Chupacabra, they’re called. Most of them are nice, but there’s one . . . one that’s not.”

  Connor reached behind his neck and unclasped her hands, pulling her away from him. Then he gave her a strange, confused look and, gritting his teeth, he pointed out the barn door. Limpy shook her head. Connor placed his massive hand on her shoulder and shoved her toward the farmhouse.

  “Isn’t such a thing as a chupa—schutzpa—whatever!” her father called from below.

  The barn door banged shut behind her. She stumbled across the yard, nearly falling, and then with her eyes blurry she ran the remaining distance to the house as if a chupacabra loped after her. She’d always thought she could depend on Connor, but even he had his limits and she had reached them. Her cheeks heated with the shame.

  Did she secretly want to destroy the farm? She wasn’t sure. Deep down she had the sense that should they lose the farm to the chupacabra, it wouldn’t free her. In fact, it might trap her more than ever. Inside the house, she settled onto the cool floor of the music room threshold and stared at the unsmiling eyes of her mother.

  An hour later, she heard the crack of a rifle shot and the cry of ce
lebration. At least now, with a dead one, they might believe her. She swallowed the guilt of the thought. She’d failed to protect her buddies.

  She clenched her eyes, but couldn’t keep the tears from escaping. In her mind she pictured Chup, Tufts and Podge scurrying about the hope chest, rolling, somersaulting and cooing. She still felt the soft warmth of them at her chin.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered to the darkness.

  Then the boys were in the kitchen and talking animatedly about the difficulty of the shot. Backs were slapped.

  “Not going to make much of a hat,” her father said and Dylan laughed.

  “A bit mangy,” he agreed. “Can we eat it?”

  “No, if you eat a chupa-whatever you turn into one,” her father joked, and Dylan broke down into guffaws.

  “Nah, just tastes like chicken,” Dylan said, voice wheezing with barely controlled mirth and then exploding back into laughter.

  “What’s you doing in there, Connor?” her father called. But of course Connor didn’t respond. A tearing came from their bedroom. “Don’t be removing any more of that wallpaper.”

  Limpy heard a grunting and the slap of fists into flesh. In the reflection of the windowpane, Dylan and Connor fought.

  “Giver to me,” Dylan shouted as he wrestled with his brother. Connor gripped something in his hand that Dylan and her father pried away. Finally her father had it and held it up to the light.

  He burst out laughing. “Get this . . . ‘Puerto Rican Family Warns of Deadly Chupacabra Threat,’ April 1st, Flesherton Herald, by Hal Smith. Was talking about José senior, everyone knows José’s bat-crazy.”

  “Prolly where Limpy’s getting this chupnutty stuff put into her head.”

  Connor snatched the article back from her father, who made no attempt to retrieve it. A minute later, the crumpled ball of it landed on Limpy’s lap. Her brother’s eyes watered with emotion.

  She picked it up, the newsprint faded yellow by the sun. Pieces flaked from it and some of the creases had torn. Limpy held it up to the thin light eking through the living room darkness from the kitchen:

  To meet Emmanuel José, you immediately feel the anxious energy that surrounds him. He comes to Flesherton by way of New York City, previously of Puerto Rico where he owned a convenience store. Why did he come to Flesherton? A better life for his wife and future family? The prospect of healthcare, or education? No—Mr. José is tracking a deadly foe, one of legend, los Chupacabra—vampiric creatures that can grow to the size of a bear and which drain the life of their victims.

  El Chupacabra means “Goat Sucker” for the creature’s penchant of bleeding livestock of their blood supply. Often mistaken for sick coyotes, these are animals of the night and difficult to hunt due to their high intelligence. When I first meet Mr. José, he grips my shoulders and shakes them as if to shake some sense into me.

  “I let it go in Puerto Rico, follow here,” he says. “Be careful.”

  I smile and he grins like he has made a new friend, knuckling my shoulder like we are sharing a good joke, but then his face goes flat and he squints. “Be strong. Stay. Fight.”

  I’m not sure I always catch Mr. José’s meaning; his English isn’t good, but he sure knows one thing for certain.

  “They is here,” he says. “In Flesheatin (sic).”

  Mr. José tells me that they cannot be killed. The prospect of bloodsucking, immortal bears strikes fear in my heart. So shut your doors. Hold tight to your children. And keep an eye on your goats. Beware los Chupacabra!

  Hal Smith

  The kitchen lights went out and with them vanished Limpy’s ability to read. She folded the article carefully and slipped it into her pocket. She returned her mother’s spectral smile. Even if her father dismissed the chupacabra’s existence, the article was vindication. Her father might not believe her, and Mr. José might be crazy, but her pops would believe the former editor of the Herald, wouldn’t he? Hal Smith lived in a room above The Bar. Tomorrow she’d ask the old man for his help.

  No Chup comforted her. And no one snored yet. She worried that Dylan might have shot one of her friends, but she had hope too. Connor believed her, and Hal Smith would convince the rest of her family. In the dark, Limpy didn’t know when she drifted off to sleep, but it took a long while and, when she did, she wished she hadn’t.

  Her mother was waiting for her.

  Chapter 21

  Her mother’s fingers had lost most of their flesh. Bone shone beneath. Limpy peered at the living room walls and could just make out the weave of the potato sack. The coarse fabric sheathed the entire room, even the large window. Limpy traced the burlap upon which she lay. She knew what would happen next and desperately urged her dreaming-mind to give her a pair of scissors, a knife, anything with which to cut through the sack.

  Keep in a cold, dark place, her mother whispered, drawing through the ceiling a huge needle threaded with heavy rope. Then, more nimbly than should be possible with mere bones, her mother sewed. The rope rasped through the wood with every stitch.

  “Stop!” Limpy shouted, but her mother didn’t.

  Limpy tried to lift a leg, but she couldn’t move. Great weights rested on each of her arms. Her mother chortled, but kept working. Finally, the fingers stopped, the fingernails hanging on by bits of gristle, and pointed down at Limpy.

  Then the living room’s contents drew up to press against the ceiling. Limpy with them. Caught, cold, trapped.

  Limpy screamed herself awake and smacked her head on her mother’s chair so that it rocked backward and then forward, sending the bag of her mother on top of her. Limpy rolled, gripped her head and moaned. Her neck and back ached from the bed of floorboards. Her mother stared facedown. Limpy seemed only to have gone from one nightmare to another, but at least her mother was gone and Limpy wasn’t stuck in a potato sack.

  She remembered last night. Her brother had shot something. Sitting forward, but careful not to hit her head again, she hefted her mother-sack back onto the chair. It was still dark, the moon high. Even with her shout, no one had woken. She stumped past the harp lying shattered on the table. She had to see. Had to know what they’d hit. And she knew exactly where they’d have kept the kill.

  The freezer was in the front entry with the muddy boots and coats. At the far end of the foyer buzzed the small, white chest where they stored meat. She placed her fingertips on the lid, the metal cool beneath. She feared to see Chup. With a deep breath, she opened the freezer. The hinge groaned. A cloud of frost billowed from the depths and enveloped her for a moment before dissipating.

  She caught the sparkle of eyes staring back at her and gasped. The lid shut with a whump. It wasn’t Chup. Again the lid creaked open. Inside was nothing like what she’d seen on the computer screen. This was a coyote. It might have patches of missing fur, and its teeth jutted up out of its lip in a perpetual snarl, but this was no chupacabra. She sighed with relief and then frowned. Without physical proof of the chupacabra’s existence, more than ever she needed Hal Smith to prove she was telling the truth. Only then might her father change his mind about Hillcrest.

  Back in her room, she glanced at the clock. It was still early, well before sunup. Two more tasks remained. First, the completion of her tapestry. But was there a point? Why finish it, if her father had said she’d never go? Her gaze traveled from the intricately stitched box of the farm, to the fields and hills, and trees. The town and the slow wind of the road. Why finish? Because she was proud of it. Because she had never been able to express in words what this tapestry explained in twine. And that in itself was a form a freedom, but only if she finished it.

  She set to work.

  With the burlap canvas pinned to the wall, she stitched the final piece—the road out. It took the better part of an hour, looping large amounts of twine to create a thick road that rose up to meet the thorns. When she was done, she knew it was the best work she’d ever completed. Maybe even a work of artistic merit.

  From her dresse
r she selected a dozen of her teddy bears and dolls. Then she gathered her twine, her needles and thread, a pair of heavy scissors, and began the stuffed version of the chupacabra she’d promised Emmanuel. The dolls and teddies had been her brothers, handed down to her over the years. But that didn’t mean she loved them any less. In the stories they’d shared, in the clothes she’d sewn for them, and in the tears their thinning fur had soaked, she’d made them her own. To cut off one’s arm, a bit of cheek here, a tail there, it pained her. It felt as though she were cutting away her childhood.

  Still, she stitched. She sewed until dawn lit the cobwebs strung between the bulbs of her ceiling light. And she was done.

  She lifted the replica of her pets up and inspected it. She had taken her favorite features of each and combined them to make one. It had a Mohawk tuft on its head. An overlarge round mouth and eyes. Chubby like Podge and pinkish like Ghost. She cuddled it to her chest and then changed into her better clothes, which meant a hand-me-down boy’s collared shirt and the skirt she’d made of old drapery.

  A muffled sound gave her pause.

  Chup.

  She clapped her hands together. When she turned around, she caught Chup staring at her creation. For a moment, she almost called out to her family to come see Chup. If they met Chup then they’d have to believe. But although that might help her, it certainly wouldn’t help Chup. It would probably join the coyote in the freezer. No, Hal Smith would explain everything.

  Big, liquid, trusting eyes asked her for help. For love. It had called to her from the cellar, because it had needed a mother, just like Limpy had needed a loving mother.

  “Chup!” she cried and couldn’t keep the tears from coming. “You have to leave. Get out of here, they want to hurt you. They’ll trap you and kill you all.”

  Chup cringed from her and hopped down to the floor, but there it remained, quivering. It had grown a little and some of the fuzz had sloughed away, leaving short gold fur. Then Podge and Tufts pushed back the lid of the hope chest and slid to the floor beside Chup.