by Tim Marquitz
"Hello? Anyone here?"
He waited, listened to the wind rustle through the trees as leaves sprinted across the ground. Pryor had seen this scene before, dozens of times in cheesy horror movies. A person visiting a creepy place alone because either they wanted to do something exciting or they were prompted to by some crazy looking person who talked weird, but intrigued the unwitting victim. Yeah, that was Pryor, unwitting victim number 311 to the Affliction Yard.
He called again and wished he had asked the cabbie to wait for a short time as Pryor went to investigate. The entire situation was appropriate. In the movies, the cabbie would have left anyway.
"Who be on my property?"
The voice came from the blackness within the house. Pryor licked his lips. Running sounded like a good option, but even the oldest of men could have caught him easy enough. He stood his ground, his stomach dancing with the flutters of a thousand moths. If he needed to, he could get one, maybe two shots in with his cane before whoever called to him took him down.
The woman stepped out of the shack, her onyx skin pulled tight around her face and glistening in the sunlight; her bald head shining. She wore a white blouse, stained with several spots and a brown skirt that reached to her dirty shoes.
"Miss Lillie Mae McCoy?"
Brows raised, McCoy stared at Pryor. "What be your bus'ness here, white man?"
He held out the card with a shaking hand. "I was told you could help me."
McCoy went down the steps, each one groaning under her slight weight. She took the note. "Mr. Jacobs done talked to you, eh, white man?" she sighed. "I reckon yah done come this far. May as well, see yah through. D'yah have the pe'ny?"
"Yes Ma'am," he said and fished the coin from his pocket. "It was harder to find than I thought. Had to make the cab driver wait for me while I looked through my penny jars."
Lillie Mae took the penny, held it up to the sky. "When was you born?"
"1974."
"No, white man, when was you born? Not the year, the day."
"October eighth."
She nodded and handed the cent piece back.
"Don't you need this?" Pryor asked.
"No. You do." She walked to one corner of the house. Before disappearing around the side she motioned for him. "Come wit' me."
Pryor limped along, the pain like shards of glass in his knees and spine. His skull pulsed with the extra effort of trying to keep up with a woman that looked old enough to be in the grave for more years than Pryor had been living. He rounded the corner to see a hill. At the top sat a well.
"You're kidding, right?" he said under his breath. The hill was disheartening, but it wasn’t what he focused on. "A wishing well?"
"Some things isn't what they seem," Lillie Mae said without looking back. "You want to be healed, you must have faith. If not, you wastin’ your time here."
Pryor's face flushed. He started up the hill, his cane digging into the dirt path, legs pushing harder than normal. Ice-like daggers rippled through his body, bringing fresh tears to his eyes. He stopped several times along the way, wanting to turn back, but refusing to. If that old lady can make it up the hill with ease, so can I.
By the time he reached the top, Lillie Mae had found a seat on a stump, and whittled on a long piece of wood with an old pocket knife. Pryor leaned against a tree for support, his breathing coming in wheezing rasps.
The well was larger than it had appeared from below. Adobe brick covered with years of dirt and moss extended upwards to his waist and formed a near ten-foot circle. A board, much like a cot, dangled from well-worn ropes hanging from a crossbeam. Two rusty pipes held the board up, their ends jutting from the holes on either side of the well.
"Do I toss the penny in, now?"
"Don' be in all sorts of hurry, white man. You afflicted and you can't see it 'cause you blind. Nothin' go in the well 'til the well be ready."
Pryor nodded, said nothing else.
"Come and sit," she said and motioned to a tree stump. Pryor did as she said. She pulled out a bottle of clear fluid, opened it. The smell of honey filled the air as she dabbed her fingers into the liquid. Lillie Mae closed her eyes and stood over Pryor. "October chil', wastin' “way. Blind eyes keep rest a' bay. Body in pain, bones goin' sour. Lift this curse wit'in the hour. Only faith can clean yah soul. Dip down in and be made whole."
Lillie Mae dabbed the honey water behind each of Pryor's ears and onto the back of his neck. Shivers raced along his body.
"Go on down, now. Come back all fixed up."
"Go down?" Pryor asked.
"Yup. In'a the well. Go down."
His mind screamed horror movie moment. This is where the poor lonely victim dies. He wanted to run, but what good would that do him? He wanted to lift his cane and swat at the old lady, but what if he missed? Worse still, what if she were a demon and all that did was anger her? His death could be torturous, but worse if she were mad. He scrambled for an excuse, seizing on the one that seemed less like a lie and closer to the truth.
"I can't get up there. My legs—"
"You can if you believe," she snapped. "Get on up there, white man. Or go home."
Go home? This is your chance, Pryor. Hobble your happy ass out of here and let’s go. You can call a cab from the bottom of the hill. Just go.
Pryor stared at the well. His chest tingled, the moths returned. Sweat formed on his face, hands and armpits. The thought of crawling onto the cot nauseated him, the pain it would cause, and the ache that would linger. But what was it the woman said? He had to believe? Was that what it's all about? Believing in something you have no right believing in? The only thing he had faith in was waking up each morning to unrelenting pain. That was real, not make believe, like the voodoo the lady hack on the tree stump professed. Believe? Seriously? But turning back after going so far.
Again, he was the horror movie victim, pondering his life and what it meant and really, is it living or just going through the motions? There would always be pain and the quality of living had dropped considerably since the accident.
This isn’t living. This is dying a slow and painful death.
"Okay," he said, took a deep breath. "What do I have to lose?"
Pryor pushed himself onto his feet, shuffled over and sat on the edge of the well. The platform moved slightly as he inched onto it. It rocked from side to side after he had slid all the way on. Lillie Mae pulled the two pipes away and gripped the rope in both ancient hands. There was a moment where Pryor’s heart and lungs seized up and he knew he was going to plummet to his death.
"Take the pe'ny down, make your wish, toss pe’ny in, and wait."
"I can't just toss it in?"
Lillie Mae shook her head. "No. The pe'ny be paym'nt, but the body be the sa'rifice."
"Sacrifice? But—"
"'Nough talk."
“No! Wait!”
Pryor tried to scoot off the platform, but it descended quicker than he could move. He grabbed at the wet, moss-covered brick, but found nothing to hold onto. He yelled for her to stop, to pull him back up, he didn’t want to do this after all. The cot came to a stop above a pool of black water. The damp smell of moss and rotten wood clung to the walls. Above him, Lillie Mae spoke in soft whispers. He strained to hear, but couldn't make out anything. His heart thumped. A lump formed in his throat.
Pryor peeked over the edge of the cot, and stared into the murky black water. No reflection looked back, winked or made a silly face to ease the tension. Above him, Lillie Mae continued her soft words, a chant that Pryor couldn't make out at all.
As he studied the water, he realized he still held the penny tight. He opened his hand. The penny sat, head side up. It had a shine to it, like it could have been brand new, if not for the date on it.
Pryor kissed it, took a deep breath and whispered. "Show me my affliction. Take the pain away." The penny made a hollow plop and sank into the murky water.
Nothing happened, and after less than a minute, Pryor began to
feel stupid, as if he had been snookered. And what if he had been? There was no way he could pull himself from out of the well. He would die in there. This much he became certain of. Then the water began to ripple. Then it began to boil. Bubbles popped, sending hot water onto Pryor's skin. He flinched several times, let out a yelp of pain. The horror movies were real.
"Mrs. Lillie Mae? Something's wrong down here." He tried staying composed, but his nerves inched closer and closer to panicking. The boiling grew intense, bigger bubbles appeared, bursts and casts splatters of steaming liquid onto Pryor, singeing the hairs on his arms and leaving angry blisters in their wake. "Pull me up," he yelled. "Pull me up!"
When she didn't respond, he grabbed one of the ropes and tried to pull himself out. He managed to stand on the wobbly cot. With both hands he reached above him, his legs shaking and pain searing from ankles to skull; heart hammering, skin burning. Pryor pulled himself up a few inches, tried to hook one damaged leg around the rope, but it wouldn't bend.
He looked down and saw a slithering tentacle surface, its pink and black skin edging along the side of the board.
"Help," he yelled, and tried harder to bend his leg around the rope. "Get me out of here. There’s something down here."
Gray steam rose from the water's boiling surface, bubbles floating higher, bursting all about him, stinging his bare arms and face. Pryor reached further up with one hand, lifted himself a foot higher.
The tentacle whipped the cot. One rope snapped and Pryor swung to one side, bounced against the well's mildewed wall. The tentacle gripped his ankle and yanked. Pryor screamed. He kicked at the limb, but the efforts were too weak to do any good. With a quick jerk, the tentacle pulled him into the water, one arm and his head striking the plank. An explosion of heat engulfed him.
Tentacles crept up his body, tiny suckers pulling at flesh, burrowing into his legs. He opened his mouth to scream and a rush of hot water filled it, burning his tongue, gums and throat. Air left his lungs, replaced by mire. His eyes snapped open and sludge filled them. His head hummed, as if there were thousands of wasps angrily stabbing at his skull. His ears rang and pressure built up behind his eyes.
Pryor's body grew heavy and he sank deeper into the well. The tentacles ravaged his body, one of them tearing into the skin of his lower back, another one creeping along until it reached his mouth, slithered in and slid down his throat. His feet touched bottom, but by then, Pryor couldn't think straight. His eyes hurt behind clinched shut lids, his head throbbed and his chest was tight and felt like it was swelling. The only thing he knew was he was going to die, suckered into thinking he could be cured by a voodoo witch who was old enough to have cheated Death many times over.
Affliction. The word popped into his head, and if he could have laughed, he would have. His thoughts became muddled; his body felt as if someone was squeezing it. Consciousness faded and he was somehow…
#
…traveling along a side road, driving home from Wade Brown's house. His mind hung in a cloud. He rolled the car window down, cool air rushed in, helping him to stay awake. Pryor shook his head several times, trying to force away cobwebs. His eyelids slid closed and he wavered behind the wheel.
Lights from an oncoming vehicle appeared from the darkness behind closed lids, snapping Pryor awake. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he held the steering wheel tight and flicked his lights several times, hoping the driver would get the hint and turn his bright lamps off. The car swerved and Pryor grabbed the wheel with both hands, jerked it to the right and slid along the gravel shoulder. Pulling to the left, he over corrected and his vehicle went into the other lane.
The other car slammed on its breaks, veered off the road, struck one of the few street signs on that stretch of blacktop. The woman driver jerked forward, her head hitting the steering wheel.
The back end of Pryor's car lifted off the ground and flipped. The top crumpled, the hood flew off, sparks danced along the road as metal grooved blacktop, and windows shattered. He was tossed about in the car, his seatbelt flapping around instead of locked in place. The car came to rest on its top. Screams echoed in his ears and then there was heat…
Hands gripped him beneath the arms, pulled him. Glass scraped across his body, his legs hung limp, bones broken or shattered. Each jostled movement sent lightning bolts throughout his body until he passed out from the pain.
#
He snapped awake. He lay on the ground next to the well, the grass cool beneath his body. The stars hung overhead, shimmering in the night sky. He put his hands over his face as tears wet his eyes. "It was my fault.” He said. “It was my fault. I fell asleep behind the wheel. If I had—"
"Yah be healed, white man," Lillie Mae said from her stump. She held a long stick in her hand, intricately carved into a tentacle, complete with suction cups encircling it. At her feet lay an impossible amount of shavings from the branch she had been carving on before Pryor went into the well.
Pryor sat up. "But it was my fault. I caused the accident. I'm the reason I got hurt. I'm why my legs—"
"Do yah not be listenin'?" Lillie Mae asked and stood from her stump. She braced herself on Pryor's cane and her face screwed up into an expression of agony. "I say, yah done been healed. Stop yah yammerin' and be leavin' now."
He nodded and pushed himself to his feet. His eyes widened. He pulled his pants legs up—the dimple in his knee was gone, as were the scars from the many surgeries. Pryor put all of his weight on his right leg, and then switched to his left. "There's no pain. The wounds, they're gone."
Lillie Mae smacked her lips together several times. "You be no longer afflicted, white man. If ya don't be mindin', I'm gonna head on back to my house. You need to be leavin' soon."
Pryor's heart lifted, and a smiled formed. "Thank you so much," he said. "You don't know how long I've been in this pain. I'm going to tell everyone about you."
Lillie Mae turned on her heel, bracing herself with the cane. One yellow nailed finger poked out at him. "You be tellin' nobody, ya hear? I don' want nobody in here that ain't be needin' to be."
"But there are some really sick people out there. They could use this…this…healing well or whatever it is. You could help a lot of people."
"I help many. You can' be choosin' who yah help—and I can' be helpin' ev'rybody. Now, if yah don' mind, you can leave now."
Lillie Mae turned, put the cane out in front of her and hobbled down the hill at a snail's pace. Pryor frowned. She hadn't limped on the way up the hill, and she hadn't been bowlegged and hunched over. He didn't notice it when he came to, but as she walked away she left droplets of water behind her, spilling off her skirt. Dumbfounded, he stood for a minute longer before walking to the edge of the hill. He looked toward the house. Lillie Mae was already down the hill and out of sight—an impossibility with how slow she had been walking.
Pryor headed down, following the trail of wet ground. It didn't go up the steps and in the house. Instead, it went around the porch and to the other side of the shack, stopping in a pool at the foot of the headstones. Pryor knelt down, his knees not popping or groaning; no aches flared up and down his legs or along his spine; his head didn't pitch him off center from a surge of blinding pain. He pushed aside a few dried up vines, and read the name: Jacobs McCoy.
A jolt of electricity surged through him and he felt as if he stood outside of his body for a brief second. Then he was back inside himself, brushing away the vines from the second grave.
"Lillie Mae McCoy. Died September 1856."
Pryor brushed away the rest of the dirt and dead weeds, revealing a single word: AFFLICTED.
A tentacle pushed from beneath the hard soil. Pryor fell backward, scooted on his bottom for a few feet before standing. The appendage slipped back into the ground. The date on the headstone had changed: Died October 8, 1974.
Pryor glanced toward the house and the hill beyond it, then back at the stone. The date had reverted back to 1856. Pryor stumbled backwards, then stood and r
an, his new legs pushing as fast as they could. He bolted up the rutted road, his affliction behind him…
A Little Bit of Soul
Craig Cook
Isaac was having a good day. He had sold that pistol as well as the three rolls of silk that the old Chinamen had left with him. He ought to close early but you should never turn your back on luck. His father had taught him that. When the old black man with the saxophone case walked into the pawn shop and said, “I’d like to pawn my soul, please,” Isaac simply replied, “How much were you hoping to get?”
“Whatever you’re willing to give,” the man said, and Isaac finally looked up to see his eccentric customer. The man donned a white sport coat over a plain white shirt, and khaki pants, accentuating his dark skin. His thin white hair only added to the effect.
“Your soul, huh? Is that how you think of that thing?” Isaac asked, pointing to the case.
“Oh, this? No, no, no. I’ve had this here Buescher sax since ’23. Still sounds mighty fine, too.”
Isaac suppressed a grin, and pushed his glasses back up his nose. A saxophone that old would be a nice addition to the shop. This was turning out to be a very good day, indeed.
“I’ll give you a hundred fifty for the saxophone, provided it still works, of course.”
“I didn’t ask about the sax. I said I wanted to pawn my soul.”
“Fine, one-fifty for your soul and the saxophone,” Isaac said. This better be worth it, he thought, because this guy is muy loco.
“Deal,” the man said. He sat the saxophone case on the counter, keeping both hands on top. Then he began chanting in a language Isaac had never heard before. What the hell? As the old man stood before him, his features changed. His skin started sinking into itself, melting away as if he were a wax candle. The chanting continued, but not through the man’s mouth, which was now dripping onto the tile floor, but from deep within. His clothes caught fire, fingers of flame stretching to the ceiling, yet no smoke appeared. The skeletal frame of the man collapsed into a scattered pile on the floor, burning until there was nothing but a pile of ash remaining.
