by Catie Rhodes
The sweltering living room smelled like the devil’s butthole after six months without any washing, even with all the box fans Eddie had running. He entered the living room bearing a paper plate piled with smoked sausage, cheese, and saltine crackers. He gave half to his dog, Ugly, who’d been lying on top of one of the mobile home’s floor vents. The dog scooted where he could eat the food, a big grin on his face. I took a good look at Ugly and realized where the smell must have come from. The dog’s patchy coat was covered in black smudges. Gross.
“So what’s up?” Eddie made himself a sausage, cheese, and cracker sandwich and ate it in one bite.
“We’ve got to find the stolen journals and folk medicine book as quickly as possible.” I contemplated Eddie’s hors d’oeuvres and decided against them. “I’ll help all I can with the finding, but I don’t think I can get them back by myself.”
“I feel like I’ve walked into the middle of a movie.” Eddie shoved another cracker sandwich into his mouth whole and chewed as he talked. “Why don’t you tell me what’s got you so upset you changed your mind?”
Shivering, I told Eddie about the vision in as much detail as I could remember. His face lit up as soon as he realized what I’d seen. He set his paper plate on the floor for Ugly. The dog raised his head, waited a beat to make sure Eddie didn’t intend to take it to him, and lazily rose to check it out. He ate the paper plate, too. This close, the smell coming off the dog nearly choked me. Eddie got out a yellow legal pad, scribbling while I talked.
When he finished eating, the dog raised his misshapen head and grinned at me, tongue lolling out of his mouth. I smiled but couldn’t make myself touch his nasty fur. Ugly’s resilience touched my heart. Eddie and I found the dog wandering on the side of the road near death a few years ago. The vet who helped us save him speculated Ugly’d been a bait dog for dog fighters.
“Aw, he’s okay. You can pet him,” Eddie said.
“What’d he get into?”
“Neighbor’s septic tank is overflowing. Ugly found it a few days ago. Figured I’d wait ’til he got it fixed to give old Ug a bath.”
I swallowed my rising gorge and gave Ugly a perfunctory pat. He trotted back to his air vent and flopped down on it. I tried to sit on the couch while touching as little of the ratty floral printed fabric as possible.
“That all you seen in your vision?” Eddie spoke without taking his eyes off the pad.
“Pretty much.”
“Well, ain’t blackbirds you seen. It’s ravens.” Eddie turned his notepad so I could see where he’d sketched a raven while I talked. “I know because I researched ‘em once after seeing ‘em out on Priscilla Herrera’s old place. Only place I’ve ever seen ravens ‘round here.”
I thought of my tattoo, how it matched the picture on the bottom of the box. No need to mention it to Eddie. This whole thing was too big for me as it was.
“I’ll go back in my notes on Priscilla Herrera. See if I can learn anything about her connection to ravens. I ain’t got much information, though.” He made a note on his pad.
“What really matters is what she said when she cursed the treasure.” I worried Eddie would get lost in details and miss the part where removing the curse could unleash hell on earth.
“Right. I was fooling with the dog and almost missed it.” He leaned forward, his gaze fixed on my face. “Tell me again.”
I took a deep breath. “Way I understood, if anybody tries to remove the curse and doesn’t put those demons, or whatever they were, back into the stones or send them back to the dark outposts, Gaslight City’s going to get mashed flat. She said, ‘Level this town and destroy all who live within.’”
Eddie’s mouth went slack, but his eyes didn’t. In their muddy depths, I saw his mind spinning ninety to nothing. “Oh, hell. You seen them things guarding the treasure, ain’t you?”
“Two times, yes.” My body tightened, remembering the experience. “Neither meeting was any fun.”
“You think these…guardians? Ain’t that what she called ‘em? You think they got enough power to do what she says? Level the city? Destroy all who live within?” He chewed on his upper lip.
“Let me put it this way. It’ll be like when you step on one of these roaches I keep seeing run across the floor.” I paused to let Eddie think about it for a few seconds, then continued. “So if you’re right about the thief planning to undo the curse, the shit is about to hit the fan and splatter. But there’s no way I can fight someone so powerful.” I stared at Eddie, waiting for him to tell me how it could all be fixed.
“What you mean? You faster’n two-dollar pistol when you set your mind to something.”
“This person’s way ahead of anything I can learn in time to help.” I barely resisted the urge to scream the words. There was no way I could do this. It wasn’t like some miracle was going to come along and transform me into someone who knew about this kind of crap. “Whoever this is can control ghosts. If we’re right, they know enough magic to think they can undo Priscilla Herrera’s curse. It’s beyond me.”
“Tell me the vision again from the beginning,” he said.
“How many times do I have to repeat it?”
“When’d you get to be such a smart ass?” He furrowed his bushy gray brows. “You used to have better manners.”
“Gee, I wonder where I learned bad ones.” I went through the vision again, this time stopping to answer Eddie’s questions and repeating bits and pieces until he had them straight.
“Now, I don’t know much about magic, so I might be wrong.” He caressed the stubble on his cheeks as he thought. “But you said Priscilla Herrera put the demons into the little box with the raven on the bottom.”
I nodded.
“My thinking is if someone wanted to undo the curse, they’d need the little box.” A smile grew across his grizzled face. “So what you got to do is find the box, Peri Jean Mace, before they get to it. You don’t need to be no ace magic practitioner to do it, either.”
I snorted. “The box is gone. Got lost a hundred years ago when those assholes hanged Priscilla Herrera.”
“You saw her put it in the pocket of her dress, did you not?”
Frustrated, I nodded.
“Either it’s with her dead body or whoever buried her took it.” He patted the loveseat next to him, and Ugly ran over and jumped on it. The smell hit me again. It was all I could do to stay still. Eddie patted the dog’s head, either used to the smell or not caring. “Thing is, the little box sounds so familiar to me. For the life of me, I can’t remember where I heard about it. The mind is like a rubber band, munchkin.” He tapped his temple. “It loses its snap as you age. Give me some time to think about it. I got another plan we can try first.”
I hated to ask what.
“I want you to contact the ghost we seen on Miss Hannah’s surveillance video.”
I actually groaned. For all the wiggling and dancing I’d done on this awful, long day, I was right back where I started. Forgetting where I was, I sat back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. What I saw there gave me an idea what to get Eddie for his birthday—a house cleaning.
I tried to picture the ghost I’d seen on the video and sorted through everything I knew, which wasn’t much at all, about contacting the dead. The black opal sent a little tingle of magic into my skin, as though telling me it would help. I drew in a deep breath of the foul air and called up the ghost’s voice begging for help.
“My friends. Can’t do this. Please make it stop.”
I recalled the desperation and sadness I’d felt when I heard the voice, trying to pull those emotions to me, in hopes they’d make the ghost come.
The humid air in the trailer cooled, chilling my sweat-dampened skin. I shivered and pulled my arms tight around myself for warmth. The black opal warmed on my chest and waves of its power radiated through me.
Don’t let her come. Don’t let her get hurt.
The ghost’s voice. Was it talking about me? I might not
like visiting with ghosts, but they rarely did me any lasting harm. I pushed harder and reached out my mind to latch on to the spirit connected with the voice. It was like chasing myself through a maze. Down one row and up against a dead end. Around another corner, but the shadow stayed ahead by a fraction of a second. This ghost asked for help. Why wouldn’t it let me help?
The black opal, which had become my only source of heat as the room grew frigid, suddenly stilled, growing cold as a block of ice against my chest. I gasped, my eyes flying open, and pulled the awful thing out of my shirt. I looked around for Eddie but found myself back in the dark place where I’d gone before I had the vision. Priscilla Herrera stood watching me, hands on her hips.
This time the dark wasn’t as dark, and I looked around. I was in a room with a wood floor and no windows, bare of furniture except for a rough table and chair. A few toys lay scattered on the floor. I could see two doors, one on each side of the room. Where am I?
I recognized some of the toys as ones I’d played with as a kid but hadn’t seen in years. The table was cluttered with a tangle of junk. I made out a pack of cigarettes, the extremely strong ones I’d smoked during a dark time in my life. My wedding ring, the one I’d thrown in the Trinity River after my divorce was final, sat beside the cigarettes. My heart thudded dully. What is this place? How can I leave?
I walked toward the door closest to me, but a cold hand grabbed my arm. Priscilla Herrera shook her head no and gave me a light push toward the other door. I hesitated, wondering if she meant me harm since I knew her secrets. She smiled as though I’d asked the question out loud, shook her head again, and shooed me toward the door.
I took halting steps to the closed door, hand reaching for the worn brass knob. It felt warm under my hand as though heated by a hot summer day. Maybe it would take me back to Eddie. I turned the knob and opened the door and took a step into the blackness. I fell fast and came down on something soft, sucking in air and half screaming.
“Peri Jean, you all right?” Eddie’s hands gripped my arms. His face was so close I saw the veins threading their way under the skin of his nose. Ugly barked in the background. Eddie gave me a hard shake. “You okay? Want me to call the ambulance?”
I forced myself to come to life. “No. No. Don’t want the ambulance or a doctor.”
“Hush, Ugly, and come here.” Eddie held out his hand and the dog came to him. His horrid odor hit me like smelling salts. I woke up in a flash.
“Didn’t see anything useful. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Jesus wept, your eyes rolled back in your head, and it scared the shit out of me. Never realized you’d roll up your eyes like that. Won’t never stop seeing it, don’t imagine.”
I stood, wanting to get away from Ugly’s stench even though I usually loved him.
“We’ll just focus on getting the box,” Eddie said.
I nodded, my head swimming and my knees weak.
“Give me long enough, and I’ll remember where I saw it or heard about it.” Eddie kept petting Ugly. I noticed his big hand shook. I had scared him, and I owed him an apology.
“I’m sorry I scared you, Eddie.” My voice sounded sluggish like I’d been asleep.
“Never apologize for doing what I asked you to do, Munchkin. You caught me off guard is all.” He tried to laugh. It came out flat and insincere.
My cellphone buzzed, indicating I had a text message. It was from Hannah.
Where the blazes are you? Dean is frantic you aren’t here yet.
The campaign barbecue. People’d been reminding me all day. It was scheduled to start in ten minutes, and I looked and smelled like hell.
“The barbecue,” I said to Eddie. “I’m going to be late.”
He ushered me to the door and said something nobody but Eddie would have said or thought. “Just go like you are, baby. You look all right.” We hugged, and I gave Ugly a goodbye pat. “Tell Dean I’m feeling a little under the weather but I’ll make the debate, I promise. I’ll stay here and research and think on this box, see what I can remember.”
We said our “I love yous” and I went to my car and looked down at myself. There was no way I could show up at Dean’s barbecue in dirty jeans and a t-shirt. I started my car and headed toward Memaw’s.
I hadn’t gone a mile before my cellphone dinged again. Couldn’t Hannah give me a few minutes to get it together? I’d have to wait to look at it. I pushed the button on the side of the phone so it wouldn’t keep alerting me.
A sound came out of the phone’s speaker, a low hiss. Had I somehow turned on video or music? The message bell dinged again. Then again. And again. I whipped off the road, the car leaning on the gravel shoulder, and grabbed my phone. If this was Hannah Kessler acting a fool, I’d get her good.
The hiss played again over the phone before I could get it up to eye level, so I went into my messages, automatically tapping Hannah’s name to get her message thread up. To my surprise, there was nothing since she’d asked where the hell I was. The messages button at the upper left of the screen indicated I had ten messages. 10? I clicked the button. All the messages were from an unknown number, and all of them were videos. I tapped one of them.
The video started, and it looked like nothing more than static on a TV screen. I was getting ready to shut it off because I really did need to get to Memaw’s and get fixed up for the barbecue. Then movement in the static caught my eye, and I held the phone’s small screen close to my face, trying to figure out what I was seeing.
The shadow moved toward me fast, its face coming into view and then too close for me to really see.
“What the?” I yelled and flinched back from the phone, tossing it into the passenger seat.
A wisp of shadow came from the phone, gaining in substance as it grew in length. The top of a head covered in some sort of shroud became visible.
“No, no, no, no.” My voice sounded like a sick car alarm, blaring the same stupid sound over and over. I stopped shouting and got hold of myself. I had to get out of this car and away from this thing at once.
I reached for my door handle, pulling hard on it several times. The door handle moved, but the door didn’t open. I whined like a little animal about to get gobbled up by a bigger, meaner animal, yanking the door handle as hard as I could. The door stayed closed. My bladder turned into a heavy, hot rock, and I just knew I was going to wet my pants.
A scratching, crawly sound came from behind me. Gasping, unable to get enough oxygen to breathe, I twisted in my seat. The vapor birthing itself from my phone had expanded to nearly touch me. I went still. If I stay here much longer, it’ll be able to touch me. What then?
I turned to the door and reared back my fist to hit the window. Then I looked at the little silver knob that locked the door. It was pushed all the way down, flush with the door. The relief felt as sweet as sunshine on a cold day. I used my thumb and forefinger to pull on the old-fashioned lock, almost giddy. It wouldn’t move.
A light breeze caressed the back of my neck. My stomach clenched into a tight, hard ball. It was too late. I’d failed. I twisted in my seat, muscles nearly slack, thinking I didn’t have any fear left in me to invest in this horror. I stared at what shared the car with me and opened my mouth to scream. A little hiss was all that came out. The mist formed into a cracked and scarred forehead, and black soulless eyes appeared below it.
The black opal came to life on my chest, heating to a burning temperature in seconds, and searing the skin underneath. I writhed in my seat and made animal sounds. The door lock popped up on its own. Moaning, I grabbed the handle and pushed open the door, letting myself slide out head first and cracking my forehead on the pavement. I glanced back into the car. The thing’s misty, wavering face showed a hole where the nose should have been and a gaping mouth full of matchstick teeth.
“Help me,” My plea echoed in the darkness, and I knew deep down nobody was there to hear me. I got my hands underneath me, preparing to scoot backward.
The
thing whipped out a hand wrapped in dirty cloth and grabbed my ankle, clamping down. I heard and felt something inside me snap. A bolt of pain shot up my leg. I screamed like a prissy little girl and moaned, “Please, don’t,” through my sobs. Blood from my ruined ankle pattered onto the pavement and ran up my leg.
I looked around at the empty night. I was going to die out here alone, and nobody would ever really understand what happened to me.
The thing yanked on my leg. Pain flared through my body, and I screamed again, reflexively grabbing the black opal in hopes it would come back to life. The gemstone had gone cold on my chest. Exhausted? I cursed myself for not knowing but kept trying to crawl, not really sure how I’d go anywhere with some monstrosity hanging on to my leg. Nothing mattered except getting away from whatever it was trying to hurt me.
“Peri Jean Mace.” The thing’s voice sounded brittle and dry, so quiet it was hard to hear. “Look at me, Peri Jean Mace.”
I flopped over on my back and stared at the awful thing. It had grown shoulders and a torso, the lower half of its body still fading into the mist coming from my phone.
“If you fail in your duty, I will be the last thing you and your loved ones see.” Its hand clamped down on my leg again.
I clawed at the pavement, kicking my legs, a terrified groan coming from my mouth. The thing’s black eyes locked on mine. The sound of a thousand voices screamed inside my head. I grayed out.
The roar of a motorcycle snapped me out of my fear fit. It bore down on me in seconds, its lone headlight blinding me. I put my arms over my head and waited for impact. It never came.
“Peri Jean?” Huge hands spread out on my back, hands I knew. Wade Hill. I leaned into him, scooting as far as possible away from my car and pulling my injured leg to me. He stroked my hair. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Unable to do more than gibber, I raised one arm and pointed at my leg. Wade leaned over and looked at the wound and hissed through his teeth.
