Fishing in Brains for an Eye with Teeth (Thirteen Tales of Terror)

by William Markly O'Neal

  “That’s why you never rebuilt the cabin after it was struck by lightning.”

  Wendell’s eyes blazed with the fire of the past. “That’s why I burned the cabin down myself. It wasn’t struck by lightning.”

  Kyle shook his head, suddenly very tired. “Why didn’t you ever sell the land?”

  “I thought about it. Didn’t seem right, though, to pawn it off on someone who wouldn’t believe in Joe and might likely become another of his victims.”

  Kyle shuddered.

  Wendell began to cry, an awful thing to witness, since he required way more air than he seemed to be getting.

  “I’m sorry,” said Kyle. “I should go.”

  “No!” Wendell said. “Wait! Please.” He wiped his face, drying his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  Kyle squirmed. He didn’t want to be here anymore.

  After taking another moment to gasp and wheeze, Wendell asked Kyle, “Are you dreaming about him? Do you dream about Joe?”

  Kyle choked up again. He nodded.

  Wendell told him, “It’ll pass.”

  Kyle was comforted by this, the most comforted he’d been since that night. He suddenly felt a surge of powerful gratitude toward this old man.

  “I’ll tell you something else,” Wendell said.

  Now it was Kyle’s turn to lean closer. “Please,” he begged.

  “After you’ve looked Joe in the face— once you get past the nightmares caused by that— you’ll never be frightened by anything ever again.” He smiled for the first time, a smile made perfect by dentures. “Trust me on this.”

  Kyle smiled wanly. “I do.”

  Wendell raised his hands, again looking anguished. “I hate it about John. I really did warn him, even though I didn’t think it was necessary! He wouldn’t believe me!”

  Kyle nodded. “I know.”

  “You know what I think it was?”

  Kyle was confused, not only by what Wendell just said but by the shrewd look appearing on his face. “Think what was?”

  “Joe. Do you know what I think Joe was?”

  Kyle was still confused. “A ghost.”

  “That’s what I used to think but I’m not so sure any more.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve studied the history of this county, son. The Delaware Indians— they called themselves the Lenape people— they did have a settlement on Bullet Lake but there’s a lot of controversy about whether or not they had a burial ground there. Most of their settlements were on the eastern side of the lake, where Flagg City is today. The western side of the lake . . . well . . .” he gasped for a while before finishing, “there’s at least one account of the Indians shunning the western side because they believed evil spirits dwelled there.”

  Kyle knew Wendell had more to say but he had trouble waiting out the gasping spells. He jumped in, asking, “So you’re saying Joe isn’t the ghost of a Delaw— a Lenape Indian chief? Then what do you think he is?”

  “I think maybe Joe is a white man’s nightmare. Maybe even Joe Flagg’s nightmare. You know who Joe Flagg was, don’tcha?”

  “Yes.” Kyle knew Joseph Flagg was the first white man to see Bullet Lake, the first white resident here. He was credited with discovering the Hook River and most of what was present day Trinity County.

  “I think, maybe . . . it was some white man who first found Bountiful Woods. Something evil was sleeping there, something malleable. It might have been a ghost . . . but then again, it might have been a creature. Joe looked pretty solid to me.” Wendell looked at Kyle, who nodded confirmation. Wendell nodded back. “In the early 1800s, people had cause to fear Indians. I think some white man— some pioneer you might say— Hell, maybe it was Joe Flagg— maybe—” He gasped for a bit, and Kyle thought he’d lost his thread, but then Wendell said, “I think some white man who was deathly afraid of Injuns met something wicked in Bountiful Woods. . . something that became his nightmare.”

  “And roughly every twenty-five years, that nightmare reawakens.”

  Wendell nodded.

  Kyle amended himself, “Roughly every twenty-five to forty-five years, I should say.”

  Grimacing, Wendell nodded.

  “I should go.”

  Looking pained, Wendell said, “I should let you.”

  For a moment Kyle didn’t move, however. He just sat there, thinking.

  Wendell misinterpreted this action, apparently thinking Kyle was waiting for something more to be said. The old man blurted out, “I’m sorry.”

  Kyle shook his head, frowning. He didn’t know if an apology was appropriate or not. And so he said, “I’ll see you around, Mr. Womack.”

  They both knew they’d never see each other again.

  At the door, Wendell stopped him, calling his name. “Kyle?”

  Kyle stopped, looking back.

  Wendell said, “You didn’t shoot anything, did you? The others— John and the other three— they all killed animals in Bountiful Woods, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah.” Kyle looked back. “That’s why you survived back in the 60s, right? You never killed anything either.”

  Wendell laughed without humor, a horrible thing to hear. “Not for lack of wanting to. When my group found Bountiful Woods, I had a cast on my arm. I’d broke it playing basketball.” He nodded at the cast on Kyle’s arm. “Kinda ironic, huh?”

  “Yeah,” said Kyle, uncertain if it was or not.

  Wendell insisted again, “I warned John. I really did.”

  Kyle sighed, feeling exhausted. “I believe you.”

  Kyle started to leave again, and then paused a second time when Wendell again called his name.

  “What?”

  “Why did he grab you? That’s what happened, right? Joe grabbed you. Why?”

  Kyle blurted out an answer without thinking. “Oh, I don’t know. Probably because I threw a beer can in the lake and said, ‘Fuck you, Joe.’”

  Kyle expected a laugh, or at least a snicker. Even a shocked look would do. Instead, Wendell just appeared sad as he said, “I’m certain that was it.”

  Kyle turned and heard, “Kyle?”

  “What?” he snapped, turning around.

  “Just one last question, son.”

  “What?”

  Gasps.

  Waiting.

  “If you have a boy, will you warn him? Will you tell him the truth? Will you tell your son everything that happened out there on Bullet Lake?” Wendell’s voice broke up as he asked, “Will you?”

  Kyle answered honestly, “I don’t know.” And he bitterly thought, It’s not my property/responsibility, old man. It’s yours!

  When Kyle left the nursing home, he drove straight to the nearest bar. He was not twenty-one; he had no hope of being served but he proceeded anyway, feeling bold. He sat down, ordered a beer and a shot of whiskey, and much to his surprise, he wasn’t carded.

  After drinking a toast to each of his dead friends, Kyle Cain acted completely out of character. Thinking of Drake Dupree, he approached the most attractive woman in the tavern and struck up a conversation.

  Within an hour, he was telling her the Legend of Bullet Lake.

  He was curious how she’d react.

  He told the story as if it was fiction but, by the end, he was pretty drunk and so into it, he admitted he was the one that left all his buddies behind and ran like the cowardly lion.

  She didn’t believe him.

  He took off his cap and showed her his head.

  She squealed when she saw Joe’s mark.

  They ended up spending the night together, at her apartment, having wild sex. As Kyle fucked her on her balcony, he realized he had never felt more like Drake Dupree in his life.

  The next morning, Kyle stood at the sink in the woman’s bathroom, looking at his ruffled hair in the mirror.

  The woman appeared behind him, wrapping her arms around him, as she said, “So, tell me the truth. How did you do it?”

  “Do what?”

&n
bsp; She ran her fingers through the back of his Beatle mop hair. “This. What? Did you use bleach and a stencil or something?”

  Kyle Cain’s hair was jet black until he met Injun Joe.

  Where the Thing touched him, his hair had turned white.

  There was a perfectly clear white handprint on his otherwise black head.

  “Bleach?” Kyle conceded. He’d never tell anyone the truth again. What happened beside Bullet Lake would forever be a secret that only he knew.

  Sadly Kyle Cain realized that lying was a relief. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s it. Bleach.”

  THE END

  Embarrassing Secret

  ____________________

  It was a creature of chaos. It was a designer of disorder. It was a purveyor of peril. It was an instigator of insanity. It was bad to the bone… but, like everything else, It still had to eat.

  The monster walked like a man and talked like a man but It was actually an unnatural abomination clothed in the rough rags of normality. It was gross abnormality at Its core. It was a nightmare wearing a manly form. Its face was handsome; Its humanity was never questioned; It was charismatic and amiable; but underneath the thin veneer of a gentleman was a thoroughly malevolent devil that could smell suffering from six miles away, like a shark scenting blood in its waters.

  It hunted as a man but it fed like an extra-dimensional savage. It ate in the ‘nude,’ shedding Its three-dimensional form for something less confining. When anguish was ripe and agony abounded, the monster lost Itself to gluttony. When disasters happened— the most terrible calamities— the stomach of a human being wasn’t nearly big enough to contain all the horrors.

  Nightmares made the creature hungry. Torture made It ravenous. Whenever someone moaned in their sleep, it was like ringing a dinner bell. Whenever someone screamed in pain, it was like dangling red meat in front of a starving tiger.

  The monster was a parasite that feasted on misery, madness, and mourning. It was a terrorist that thrived on anger, vengeance, and fear. It gorged Itself on the envy of the coveting masses. It feasted on the criminal intent of the wicked. It lapped up the furious swill that was secreted by people’s most private perversions.

  Immorality made Its stomach grumble. Bigotry made It thirsty. And hatred was the finest delicacy of all.

  Murder was Its meat. Disgust was Its drink. And Its favorite dessert was despair.

  The infernal creature generally ate healthy but It did have one embarrassing weakness.

  It was also cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

  THE END

  She Dreams of Murder

  In the middle of the night, Frank Farnsworth was awakened by his wife, Faith. He rolled over toward her and, without opening his eyes, he murmured, “Z’ong?” which translated to, “What’s wrong?”

  Very clearly, his wife said, “I can’t take it anymore. I swear to God, I don’t know why I married him in the first place. Sometimes, I just wish he were dead.”

  Frank woke up completely. He was confused. Is she talking to me? He opened his eyes. The room was dark, the shadows deep, but their digital alarm clock bathed his wife’s face in a dull green glow. She was lying on her belly, facing him, and Frank could clearly see her eyes were closed.

  As he looked at her, Faith said slightly louder, in a whiney tone uncharacteristic of her, “I do too mean it! Living with him is hell! I’m trapped and he’s my jailer. I dream of ways of killing him so that I can be free.”

  Faith had never talked in her sleep, not in nineteen years of marriage. Upset and agitated, he laid a hand on her shoulder and gently shook her, asking, “Faith? Are you awake?”

  He saw no change in her sleep-placid expression but her voice took a sharper tone when she said, “I’m absolutely serious. The only reason I don’t put arsenic in his coffee is because they don’t sell it at Wal-Mart. I’d use rat poisoning if I thought I could get away with it. But I just know they’d convict me and lock me away for the rest of my natural life. Going to prison would be worth it . . . if it didn’t mean being locked away from you.”

  Frank grabbed the alarm clock off the nightstand and brought its light closer to his wife’s face. He confirmed Faith’s eyes were closed and darting around behind her lids. Frank had read about R.E.M. sleep, which stood for Rapid Eye Movement, the state of unconsciousness when a person was dreaming.

  He still couldn’t believe this was happening.

  Faith had never talked in her sleep.

  “Oh, well,” she said, still sleeping, “I can always dream, can’t I?”

  After that, he heard nothing from her but even breathing.

  Upset, Frank wondered who Faith was talking to in her dream. Annie probably, her best friend. Faith always confided in Annie about everything.

  Was she talking about me?

  Frank’s cynical (realistic?) side fired back an answer, Who else would she be talking about?

  But it made no sense to him. His wife wasn’t discontented. Quite the contrary. If anything, she seemed happier than ever the last couple years. Her job was a breeze, no stress there. The kids were great, no problems there. Faith went out occasionally to Victoria’s Secret parties with her friends. Faith and Annie had at least one Girl’s Night Out every week.

  Frank had never stood in the way of any of that.

  She couldn’t have been talking about me. Faith loves me.

  He reminded himself, It was just a dream, man. Get a grip. We say and do all kinds of wacky things in our dreams. For all you know she was talking to a penguin about her uncle.

  His concerns crumbling under the weight of his weariness, Frank fell back to sleep.

  ******

  Over breakfast the next morning with Faith and his two boys, as Frank slathered honey on his toast, he asked, “Since when did you start talking in your sleep?”

  Faith mistakenly thought Frank was talking to Blake, their oldest son. She looked at Frank and asked, “When did you hear him talking in his sleep?”

  “Not him,” Frank clarified with a point of his butter knife. “You.”

  “Me?” Faith looked surprised, then disbelieving. “I don’t talk in my sleep.”

  “You never used to, no. But you sure did last night.”

  Bobby, their youngest, asked, “What did she say, Dad?”

  “I didn’t say anything, Bob. Daddy is teasing me.”

  Frank let the subject drop.

  ******

  That night in bed, after the lights were out, Faith asked him, “Were you serious this morning? About me talking in my sleep? I’ve never talked in my sleep.”

  Frank told her, “I was serious.”

  “What did I say?”

  He didn’t know why but he was suddenly nervous about telling her the truth. The lie was fabricated spontaneously. “I couldn’t make out much. I got the impression you were talking about me, though. Do you remember having any dreams” about me “last night?”

  Frank’s mind raced ahead. This is where you tease me and tell me if you dreamt about me it wouldn’t be a dream, it would be a nightmare. Only you’re not teasing, you’re secretly harboring resentment.

  Faith yawned before answering. “You know I never remember my dreams.”

  A moment later, she said, “If I do it again tonight, tell me to stop.”

  Instead of telling her how he tried to wake her last night, he just said, “Okay.”

  They went to sleep.

  ******

  The next few nights passed without incident. Both Frank and Faith forgot about her talking in her sleep.

  Then, once again, in the middle of the night, Frank was awakened by his wife’s voice, “- driving me crazy! I hate my marriage! I absolutely hate it!”

  Frank was immediately upset. It’s happening again.

  “Yes, I do. I know it sounds callous, maybe even psychotic, but I really do fantasize about killing him. I’ve been watching those true crime shows on T.V. just to get ideas. I saw one the other night where some woman was able
to get away with murder for nearly thirty years. She used insulin to kill her husband and made it seem like an accident. Of course, my husband isn’t a diabetic, damn his hide.”

  Lying on his side, watching his sleeping wife talk, Frank thought bitterly, No. I’m not.

  After a long eye-darting pause, Faith continued, “Oh, don’t worry about that! He’s clueless. Hell, even if he did find out about us, he probably wouldn’t care. He doesn’t give a damn about me. He never has. I was a fool not to realize from the beginning how self-absorbed he is.”

  His heart hammering, Frank broke out in a sweat. He considered waking Faith up but decided not to.

  Faith sighed. “If it wasn’t for the time I spend in bed with you, I swear to God, I’d never be able to get through the week.” Faith sighed again, then rolled over, away from Frank, pulling the covers up to her sleeping chin.

  Frank lay awake most of the night. He no longer believed Faith was talking to Annie in her dreams. Hearing her say she was glad for the time she spent in bed with her confidant caused him to speculate, She’s having an affair. Every vibration of his soul rejected this idea. Faith wasn’t the type. And even if she was, there was no reason for her to have an affair. She was happy.

  He thought about their sex life. True, it had been less than spectacular lately— he generally made love to her about once a week— but it wasn’t like they were kids anymore. Certainly, Faith had never complained about anything in bed.

  He wondered if that was a bad sign instead of a good one. Maybe she has complaints but doesn’t feel she can voice them.

  That idea annoyed him. Well, if she doesn’t voice them, then how am I supposed to know? I’m not a goddamn mind reader!