All of a sudden, things intruded on the home, and the illusion of comfort and safety collapsed and went under.
And the implications . . . oh, damn, those are the worst. Someone had to have known about the dog. The coworker didn’t conceal it, he showed up with it sitting in plain sight, wasn’t afraid of it being seen, and then Aldert sees it, goes in to report it, goes back out, and the thing’s gone. No one looked into it further.
Until he went home, and his dogs were attacked.
And he had to finish them off.
***
While on his way to work, many things are going on in Aldert’s head. First of all, this new town called Cadesville: he knew about it before he moved here with Vogel. He’d been in and around it a couple times as he was growing up, but he never imagined living here, considering it had too bad a reputation. To him, it was known as a place run by crazy local yokels. It kept surviving because the people never leave, they just stay and breed new generations.
His wife, in a sense, has tried proving that true. They both met in college; she was pursuing English, he was pursuing business. They stuck with each other, then decided hey, he can get a factory job, and she can teach at the elementary school she attended as a child. Sure, sounded foolproof.
Then, whatever the fuck happened yesterday happened, and now things are weird.
The appearance of the town doesn’t help. It’s filled with brush and dead-looking lots of woods, although, on the plus side, there’s quite a bit of pretty greenery here and there (it is spring, after all). In a way, it’s the type of place he likes. It’s not too different from the town he grew up in, which is two counties over and way more developed. This place is simply more depressing . . . more poverty-stricken.
Many places in the southeast U.S. are like that. You have good towns and nice cities next to small towns where confederate flags wave high in the backs of pickup trucks motored by idiots who are quite sure of themselves and their place in idiot-dom.
But he’s used to all that, it’s not unusual.
What is unusual: weird dogs in the back of trucks; weird dogs running from the forest, attacking perfectly healthy yappers.
Now that’s fucked up.
However, there are some happy points. First of all, he absolutely loves his beautiful, airy, politically correct wife. She’s, in fact, the apple of his eye. Everything she does is perfect. Everything she says is smart. She excretes passion from every pore, and her soul forbids her from not loving life.
Him, he’s not like that. He’s a realist. He doesn’t get lost in his imagination the same way as she. Nope, instead he thinks about real things: he thinks about his job, he thinks about politics. That’s not to say she doesn’t rub off on him, though. Several times, he’s found himself thinking in a sing-song talky voice.
A big part of his happiness comes (or, rather, came) from his new job: right out of college, a job as an assistant plant manager is a big deal. Never mind the fact that his father was constantly having him volunteer in factories and whatnot, and that his dad is a well-respected manager and knew the people at the factory Aldert is now employed by.
That factory’s name is Cruxo. They make different types of containers. They’re small-fry in the business, but it’s a big business, so there’s profit.
And now he doesn’t know if the job is right for him, because he knows something others know, and they don’t want him to know that they know. They want him to be scared and say nary a word, they want him to do his job in fear; they want him quiet.
“This is fuckin’ dangerous,” he says. “Couldn’t even call the cops ’cause they wouldn’t believe me.” That’s the messed up part. It’s such a strange thing, cops have probably never seen anything like it.
When he gets to the cold place of industrial ugliness, he takes note of the brushy, dead looking, tall-ass trees that surround the place. What’s back there, he wonders. Dogs? Hopefully not dogs; hopefully not creepy-ass, gore-dripping, evil hounds.
But that’s probably what’s back there.
He realizes, as he’s about to open his truck door, that the vehicle is both turned on and not in park. “Well fuck me down the middle,” he says, trying to inject awful humor into the mundane, everyday task of parking.
He puts the truck in park, but doesn’t turn it off. Instead, he sits, and lets the air conditioning calm him down.
***
Vogel is in bed, but sleep isn’t happening. Instead, she’s thinking about those pretty dogs and how nice and loving they were. She’s also thinking: I grew up around here, how come I have absolutely NO clue what’s going on?
Things around here when she was growing up were honestly . . . normal. Not much went on. The people were halfway sane, even if they’ve always been quite white-trashy; the businesses have always been lame, save for that one cool antique store downtown; that place is the bomb. Aside from that, this place is just like any other small town.
She always liked the people here. You have two classes: white trash and southern-but-respectable. The latter is what party she’d been in. People like her don’t scream “southern” in any way; only the accent serves as an identifier. Other than that, the people are completely normal. Sure, some of them are overly religious (almost to the point of being cult-like), but that’s the same with any group of people in a small-town.
As for Vogel, she’s Christian, but she doesn’t go to church, she doesn’t say prayers; her relationship with her god is strictly between it and her and things don’t go further than that.
Maybe if she would have attended church services like all the other southern-but-respectable people of her generation, she would have been more “in the know” about certain things. Instead, she chose to stay away. Now she knows nothing about this place.
***
Inside his office, Aldert is relaxed. If he chooses to ignore stuff, then all is fine. Right?
So far, no one has been acting suspiciously. Even the forklift driver who owns the pickup truck didn’t act weird. Maybe nothing happened, Aldert wonders. Maybe I didn’t see what I thought I saw, and the fuckin’ dogs attackin’ my dogs is unrelated . . . wait, no, that’s fuckin’ stupid.
Only one possible course of action: find someone who is willing to talk.
CHAPTER 2
80’s Boy
Jensen is quite pleased today, because a sub is filling in for Mrs. Vogel (a.k.a. the eccentric English teacher who has everyone call her by her first name instead of last, which is complete bullshit).
Jensen is in eighth grade, so he’s picked up on the relative dumbness of teachers. Not that they’re full-on stupid or anything like that, but that they assume kids are slower than they are. For instance, Mrs. Vogel still reads to her children, even though they’ve been forced to read on their own for years. She’d said, “I know you kids are fully capable of reading by yourselves, and I’m sure most of you read frequently, but I don’t want your childhoods whisked away, so I’m going to read stories to you; it’ll be just like the good old days.”
Jensen thought that was stupid for two reasons: first off, who the fuck reads when they don’t have to? Secondly, no one liked being read to in the earlier grades. Her statement failed completely.
To Jensen, the entire education system has failed completely. He sees no reason for it, outside of money. Everyone needs the cha-ching in their pocket, apparently, and the best way to procure cha-ching is to learn a bunch of shit you wouldn’t otherwise learn had the incentive for cha-ching been absent.
This particular sub looks . . . interesting. Very, very interesting. He dresses in the most eccentric manner possible. The way he carries himself is . . . strange. Flamboyant, perhaps? A little feminine, yet the masculine undertone, no doubt, is there.
“He’s one of them,” says Jensen under his breath.
By “them,” he means a hipster.
“Today,” says the sub, “normal studies will be postponed, because, like, your teacher isn’t feeling well. So . . . who’
s ready to learn about stuff?!” He has two thumbs in the air, his teeth are shining brightly white, and he’s emanating hope.
But it’s the same hope all the others emanate.
The movie the sub picks for the class to watch is Remember the Titans. “Observe how coming together in this movie helps, like, these football players of, like, different color.”
Javier, the token artsy kid, smirks and raises his hand. “What about Babel? Can you get on Netflix and pull that movie up? It’s about race, too, but it’s way cooler and more complex.”
“Babel? I don’t think I’m familiar with that one,” says the sub. “Like, is it school-appropriate?”
“We’re in eighth grade. We’re about to be high schoolers.”
“Well, I know that, little man, but, like . . . ”
“Babel is a better film.”
“Like . . . ”
“Babel is a better film! Plus, it has Brad Pitt.”
At the mention of the too-famous actor’s name, the other kids start saying things like, “Yeah, listen to him,” and, “Yeah! We’ve seen this dumb movie fifteen friggin’ times!”
Eventually, the sub gives in and searches for it on Netflix. He reads the synopsis and says, “Like, I don’t know. Like . . . ”
“Come on, man,” says one girl. Another says, “Yeah. Come on. Or, can we just all be excused or go outside or something?”
“I don’t think I’m allowed to do that, ma’am.”
The kids groan and whine, but eventually, when the new movie starts playing, they’re happy, save for the classroom’s several grunts (all of whom are football players who would greatly enjoy watching a movie about football).
***
When Jensen goes home that day, he does the usual walk behind the school. Most of the other kids, they wait as car riders or bus riders out front. He’s the only one who lives close enough to walk, and behind the school. Sure, some kids live in his area, but most are high schoolers. The majority of the homeowners in the area are older, so they’re not too keen on having little tykes around.
The dividing line between the school and the property of the people who live directly behind it is a little creek. The bridge over is a piece of land that Jensen and his old fellows used to call the Land Bridge. The creek runs under it, right through this metal-tube thing, leading everyone to assume the creek is manmade. “Probably sewage run-off,” is what most kids used to say.
On either side of the creek, it’s fun to walk and skip-out from recess. There are a lot of cool places to be: this one old tree that’s perfect for climbing; the tangle of thorns where, every other week or so, there’s something new caught in the mess. Everything from a bike to basketballs to, once, a portable CD player has been caught within. Recently, though, everyone’s declined to check.
“Well, old place,” says Jensen nostalgically, “I won’t be seein’ you soon. I’ll be at the big kid school. God, look at me, gettin’ all sappy like a fuckin’ wuss.” He walks away, through the backyard of the old German lady who has the cool dogs. Then he’s on his street, heading for his cozy little house that’s got a really long driveway that his parents have considered another street unto itself for years.
***
Jensen’s older brother is in a boxing club for troubled youths. They beat the fuck out of each other for thirty minutes, but not before they talk about the lord and shit. He’s not around a whole lot, so Jensen usually messes around at home by himself.
He’s grown to love it this way. When things are quiet, things are better, but he won’t pretend he doesn’t crave a woman. Recently, he’s taken to masturbating six times a day, which is three more times than he did it on average last year. Nothing wrong with it, he thinks. His brother told him he used to do it all the time . . . especially a lot in the shower everyone uses. It’s a nasty fact, but a fact nonetheless. People who pretend they don’t do the occasional unsanitary thing are usually assholes. Who hasn’t urinated while in the shower? Everyone has, right?
So Jensen is yanking his meat-stick on his bed when an audible screech outside his window sends him the shivers. He rises, erection leading his way, and opens his blinds a tad (hoping that whatever’s out there can’t see him).
Of course, he sees nothing, but several things are running through his mind. The old people in his family, as well as this girl that he’s tried SO hard to bang in the past, have said things along the lines of this: “Sometimes, you’ll hear a scream, and won’t nobody be there who made it. When that happens, it’s almost always one of them shadow people.”
To Jensen, this is a step above freaky. He’s grown up around superstitious weirdos his entire life, and has always written certain things they said off as pure ignorance (and maybe rationalizations by people who want proof of the supernatural so they don’t have to face the fact that their god isn’t there).
Anyways, he ignores it and gets back to yanking. But it isn’t entirely successful. The yank-dream now isn’t as pretty as it was. In fact, it’s kind of lame. It’s hard keeping the boner up when the hotness is gone.
He decides to think of nothing and yank as fast as he can. It works, he cums, and then he’s back to the window, watching for things that go yell.
Down there: an opossum, walking around, sniffing at things . . . laughing? Is that thing laughing? Can animals laugh?
“I need to get stoned before I encounter this shit,” he says to himself, then he’s dialing up his only acquaintance in the world who he’d even consider hanging around outside of school, the boy whose father sells weed (also known as the boy who’d got him hooked on the stuff in fifth grade).
CHAPTER 3
Ponder
Vogel peers through the pages of the old book. Intentionally Anonymous either had a fucked up imagination, or reality is much weirder and deeper than she’d ever conceived.
The serpent in the swamp, wrote Intentionally Anonymous, had teeth and scales and a big, mean ego. It turned things into what it wanted. Once it had them in its grasp, I found out, it changed them. The change was on the metaphysical level, that much is sure. This was far more than a “simple” biological incident. No, the serpent did something to the souls of its victims. Why? I often times wonder that myself.
Alas, wondering will do no good. This thing, whatever it may be, has already changed several once-docile creatures into evil, thriving, conniving minions. I’m not the only one who has been affected. Many people have had pets and children mutilated by these things. And, as I’ve alluded to already, several humans have taken advantage of these changed creatures and have used them to do their bidding.
She wonders if it’s even possible. Could a serpent in some swamp be responsible for what happened to her dogs? And are people using the creatures? It’s a lot to think about, and, truthfully, she’d rather not think about it.
She’d rather have fun with her life. Do her job. Teach impoverished kids what it means to live. Let them know they can have the world at their fingertips. Inform them that imagination is the key to salvation. All those things. But apparently, reality decided to implode, and now she needs someone to teach her.
So far, Intentionally Anonymous has done a so-so job at that. Whoever they were, they had a flare for language and a burning passion to get their story out there. Up front, she would assume the tale was fictional. However, given the recent occurrences, and the attention to the real life detail of the locale, she’s super convinced otherwise.
Tomorrow she’s got to return to school. Eww, the level at which she doesn’t want to do that is striking, especially considering she wasted an entire education to get certified. And for what? To have a low paying job in a school system full of redneck children who strive to do nothing more than grow up to be hellions?
Was it worth it?
She’d had fun in school, no doubt. She’d learned many a great thing as an English major. Originally, she had planned on pursuing a PhD after college. But all her professors informed her, “Don’t do it.” “The jo
b market is bad as it is, and it’s only going to get worse.” “I could count on three hands how many PhD holders I know who are out of jobs because they can’t get hired at universities and they’re overqualified to work elsewhere.”
Eventually she had backed out of her original plan and settled on getting the license for high school. Honestly, she enjoyed getting the degrees. It was a lot of hard work, but the memories are priceless.
Well . . . almost priceless. No doubt a PhD would have been better. They could easily live off Aldert’s income (albeit cheaply) while she waited to get hired at a college somewhere. But that’s out of the question now.
She’s going to die without a PhD, probably. But what the hey? Doesn’t matter, right?
Who needs a doctorate to tell themselves they know their shit? Makes no sense; you can read the same books on your own.
But the people she met in academia—the cool ones were going to get doctorates, while the homebodies were going to get high school certifications. Seems weird.
Seems like the homebodies (you know them: the people who have certain eccentricities, like frizzy hairstyles, yet they’re kind of shy; the people who have that dumpy appearance; dumpy, as in not fat or skinny, but in between) would get PhDs so they could have prestigious positions. That way, they could leave their homes (where they are, no doubt, happiest surrounded by their books and curious artifacts) and stroll up to the university with gaits reflecting self-confidence and an objective sense of importance.
At one point, she thought she’d do that. But, nope, her beautiful, movie star material body is giving new generations of hick-ass eighth grade boys boners. She’s going to inspire no one.
She’s going to look like a fool.
It’s hard to believe, but truth is truth, reality is reality.
But sometimes you can be wrong about that.
***
She’d always look at how they were, the other people in her college classes. Cravings for the normal, the mediocre, bland action composed their “guilty pleasures,” and then they read obscure poets and declared themselves geniuses before going on to even higher ed. Some of their favorite writers were people like Hemingway. They spouted politics, they were the future.
Soothing the Savage Swamp Beast Page 2
