Sorrow Creek

by Christopher Fulbright

  She slid into the sludgy mire of the swamp, dragging Max with her. An alligator, bumpy and gunk-covered, floated beside them like a giant behemoth only partially visible in the ebon waters. Max felt a scream rise from inside of him, but terror choked it back, holding it in the tight confines of his throat. Magdalena began swimming into the impenetrable ink of mingled night-sky and swamp water that surrounded them.

  9.

  The front door was not locked. She turned the knob and walked inside the house.

  “Max?” Cassandra shouted, dropping her suitcase and purse onto the wood floor in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs. Dried muddy footprints were tracked in two directions up and down the steps and throughout the hall and foyer of the house. Cassi frowned. She had been calling Max every hour to no avail. She dialed his number again and waited. The phone rang repeatedly upstairs in their bedroom. More worried than before, she ran upstairs.

  The first thing she noticed upon entering the room was the rusty knife thrust into the pillow on her side of the bed.

  “What the hell?”

  Cassi circled the bed. The sun was bright and the room was in disarray. Max’s slippers were beside the night table. On the floor was what looked like a gray rag. She picked it up. The thing reeked, and she dropped it, clutching her nose. It was the shredded remains of a very old cotton dress. Cassi cautiously but angrily surveyed the rest of the scene. From the looks of it, she’d surmise someone was having sex in her bed. Homeless vagrants? Maybe that girl Max claimed was always wandering around outside late at night? But, where the hell was Max and where was he when people were having a sexcapade in their bedroom?

  She rushed to the closet in the bathroom. His clothes were accounted for – except his robe was not hanging on the hook behind the door.

  She walked back into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the knife stuck in her pillow. The pillow had been slashed repeatedly and feathers and fabric strips littered the bed and floor beside it. A few stray feathers even clung to the lampshade on the light on the bedside table. Bad thoughts began to creep into her mind. What if something had happened to Max? There was no blood anywhere in the room, nor was there any blood on the knife. That was comforting at least.

  Obviously someone retrieved the knife from the fabric bundle that she had stored in the butler’s pantry. With a grimace, she wondered what her kitchen looked like, if it were ransacked or destroyed. When she last left the knife, rattle and the bundled fabric scrap, she shoved it all into the pantry because of the unexplained strange events surrounding it -- that damn baby crying. There were many other knives more accessible for violent purposes. Why dig out this one? Unless – unless someone was purposely looking for this rusted knife for whatever fucked up reason they might have.

  She grabbed the knife, yanking it from the pillow and out of the mattress beneath, and then ran downstairs. As she made her way to the kitchen, she realized the footprints on the floor were small, like a woman’s feet. Cassi knit her brows in vexation. She entered the sunshine-bathed kitchen and, confirming her fears, immediately saw the butler’s pantry door open. The quilt remnant and contents were strewn on the closet floor. “What is it with this crap? It’s like this shit is possessed!” The recollection of her conversation with mailman Troy about voodoo spells and cursed objects sent a shiver over her flesh. Perhaps these items were cursed.

  Cassi gathered the items together, laid the knife inside and rolled it all up. She returned to where she dropped her purse and slipped the bundle inside. Sitting on a stair, she flicked the caked, dried mud of one footprint and watched a mud flake fly through the air and land on the edge of the baseboard near the bottom step. Who would be walking around barefooted through the mud and then allowed access to her bedroom, possibly her bed? Max had never given her reason to suspect he’d be unfaithful. Of all Max’s craziness, cheating on her just wasn’t something she could see him doing – unless he was coerced into it. Forced to service some mad woman like a stud horse. She wondered if that were even possible, but it must be because she had read things like that in the news. Even under duress men seemed to be able to function sexually. She sighed. The knife? Did someone use the knife to have their way with Max? Make him do unthinkable things? She shook her head. “Good grief.” Her words seemed too loud in the quiet house.

  Even if Max had been assaulted at knifepoint, where was he now? The knife was left in her pillow – thrust deep into the mattress. So, whoever it was that used the old rusty thing as a weapon had left it behind. What happened to Max then? Did he go with the person – this woman whose muddy tracks were dried all over the floor? If the knife was left behind, did that mean that Max went willingly with whomever it was he had sex with in her bed?

  Cassi ran out the front door, down the front steps and out to the carriage house. The doors were closed. She ran through the side door and flipped on the lights. Max’s truck was still there.

  He hadn’t left in his own vehicle. So, did this knife-brandishing person also abduct him? How could a woman do that? Maybe she had help, or maybe she drugged him.

  “Max? Where are you?” she shouted. The noise caused some birds roosting in the eaves to squawk and take flight. Cassi jumped, clutching her chest in surprise.

  “Knock, knock?”

  Cassi jumped again, this time letting loose a shriek. She whirled around in the direction of the voice. “Oh, my god. Dammit, Troy! It’s just you again!”

  Troy looked confused. “I’m sorry. Were you expecting someone else?”

  “I wasn’t expecting anyone!” she snapped.

  “I—I—just brought yer mail.”

  Cassi put a hand to her head and then ran it through her hair. “I’m sorry, Troy. God, I didn’t mean to bite your head off like that.”

  “Sumthin wrong, Miz Cassi?”

  “Well, you know I had to go back to the university for the weekend--”

  “Yes ma’am I came and saw Max on Saturday jest like you asked me.”

  “--and I’ve been calling Max constantly with no answer--”

  “Sumthin wrong widt his phone?”

  “No, no, nothing’s wrong with his phone. I found it on the bedside table up in our bedroom. I called it when I got here and it rang just fine.”

  Troy opened the door wider as Cassi came out, flipping off the light behind her. “He must’ve forgot it. Went into town or sumthin. Probably jest went to get some donuts. It’s two-fer-one day.”

  “Truck’s in the garage.” She pointed over her shoulder back at the carriage house.

  “That is a mess of sumthin wrong then.”

  “Uh-huh. Phone’s in the bedroom, truck’s in the garage, the only clothes missin’ is his bathrobe and there’s muddy, dried footprints all over the floor in the house. Looks like a woman’s prints.”

  Troy was quiet.

  “I know what you’re thinking and it isn’t that,” Cassi said.

  “Even if it were that,” Troy said, “doesn’t explain where he is right now.”

  “Unless she had a car and they left in it.”

  “Could be. Woman would have to get out here somehow, I s’pose.”

  “And I also found that old rusty knife -- you know, the one I found in the wall out in the summer kitchen? Found that knife stabbed into my pillow up in my bed.”

  Troy let out a whistle. “Why didn’t you tell me that part first?”

  “Just thought of it.”

  “I told you that stuff might have a cunja on it.” Troy held out her mail.

  Cassi took it, absently thumbing through the return addresses as her mind cranked out new scenarios to explain Max’s whereabouts. She stopped at a handwritten address that tilted slightly to the right and was written in fountain pen ink. She pulled it out and put it on top of the other envelopes. “That’s crazy. It’s just an old knife.”

  “Naw it ain’t. That shit was hid away in that wall o’er there for a reason. You should put it back.” Troy pointed toward the summer
kitchen.

  “I--” She started to show Troy the strange writing, to ask if he knew the sender.

  “Anythin’ else happen widt that shit you found?” Troy’s fear had tossed all of his professional mailman behavior right out the window.

  “Yeah. Stuff that probably has a good explanation.”

  “Like?”

  “Oh, hell, Troy. Babies crying when there wasn’t any baby – a strange woman cutting across our property on multiple occasions.”

  “I told ya!”

  Cassi sighed loudly, her exasperation showing. She turned her attention back to the handwritten envelope. “You know a Jeroboam something? Can’t make out the last name; it’s all swirly and slanted.” She showed the writing to Troy.

  He took it and moved it closer to his eyes. “Never heard the name before. Address is here in town though.”

  “That’s why I thought you might know who sent it.”

  Troy shook his head. “Open it.” He handed the envelope back to her.

  Cassi picked at a corner of the envelope flap, then slid her index finger underneath and tore the paper across the crease at the top. She pulled out a piece of paper and unfolded it. “It’s a map.”

  Troy took a look at it. “Oh shit! I think you need to call the sheriff.”

  Cassi frowned.

  “I bet someone’s done snatched Dr. Max up and sent you a map to some place they want you to dump off money at.” Troy’s voice got louder and he began to fidget with his mailman badge.

  “There’s some writing in the corner.” Cassi held her breath, fearful of what the writing might say. “It just says: I know what happened to your husband. Follow the map.”

  “That’s real helpful,” Troy said sarcastically. “Time to call the sheriff.”

  “What if this is one of those cases where if I call the law in, the person hurts -- or worse, kills Max?”

  “Doesn’t say nuthin’ bout that.”

  Cassi grabbed the sides of her head, the letter gripped in the one hand. “God, Troy! What am I going to do?”

  “You said you saw a woman walking around at night outside the house?”

  “Max saw her, not I, or, well, I might have seen her.”

  Troy’s eyebrows arched inquisitively. “Either you saw her or you didn’t.”

  “It wasn’t that simple. Strange things – just things didn’t seem, I don’t know, right.”

  “You said Max saw the woman on multiple occasions?”

  Cassi nodded. “Yeah, out by the swamp’s edge.”

  “Might be where the muddy prints came from.” Troy looked toward the swamp. “Lot of mud out there.”

  Cassi started marching toward the swamp.

  “Where you goin’?” Troy followed along behind her.

  “To see if there’s anything over near the swamp edge where Max was always goin’ on about seeing this god damned chick. I don’t know, like evidence or something.” Cassi continued her rush to get to the shoreline. As they neared the edge, she saw Max’s red plaid bathrobe tie caught in a cypress branch. She ran to it and yanked it from the tree. “It’s Max’s!”

  Troy huffed and puffed to where Cassi was standing. He took the bathrobe tie and examined it. Half of the fabric tie was stained dark-reddish brown. “Looks like dried blood.”

  Cassi snatched back the robe tie. “What? Where?” She looked at it, moving out of the tree’s shadow to see the stain clearly in the full sun. Her hands began to shake, eyes blurring with tears.

  Troy looked along the swamp’s edge, looking in the trees for any further evidence of Max’s having been there, but he dared not go any nearer to the swamp’s shore. “Jest like you said to me when we was talkin’ ‘bout all the dead men in yer house – probably a plausible explanation for all this. Maybe he jest dropped it, that’s all.”

  “Like what? Max came down here to enjoy the god damn scenery and a gator ate him? That’s why there’s blood on his robe tie?” Cassi let out a wail and fell to her knees sobbing.

  “What am I gonna do, Troy? Oh my god. What if something has happened to Max?”

  Troy pulled Cassi from the muddy ground. “I’m sorry, Miz Cassi. I only see two choices here.”

  “And what would those be?” she waited, still bawling. “Max might have run off with some gaienne – or worse, what if someone has abducted him and wants money? I don’t have any money! We’ve sunk everything into this god damned property!”

  “It’s damned alright. Cursed. The whole lot of it.”

  “Well, gee, thanks a hell of a lot, Troy. That really helps. I don’t have any choices here. I don’t even know what is going on!”

  “Well, you can either call the sheriff and wait for him to investigate this whole mess, or you can follow that map this Jeroboam fella has sent you. Whoever he is, he says he knows sumthin’ about Max and where he is. You might as well go find out what that sumthin’ is.”

  Cassi sniffed, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. She turned the map over and studied it more closely. It showed Sorrow Creek emptying into the bayou about where they were standing. Then it was a winding, watery path through the swamp to a classic X which marked the spot of a square with windows that Cassi surmised was a swamp shack where this Jeroboam lived. “I don’t have a boat.”

  Troy was quiet. The crickets chirped around them. “My daddy’s got an old fishin’ boat. Ain’t much to look at, but it’s got a motor.”

  Cassi looked at him. “Would he let me borrow it?”

  Troy laughed. “Hell no -- but he’d let me borrow it. I ain’t lettin’ you and yer city self go out there in that swamp by yerself. That’s jest stupid. Besides, you’d probably mess up his boat an’ then he’d be all pissed off. He’s peculiar ‘bout his stuff.”

  “Probably no more stupid then us goin’ out there in the first place.”

  “Probably not, but better I go with you than you go out there alone. That map – you’d never find anything widt it. I’ve been fishin’ out there all my life. We’ll find this Jeroboam whatever his name is. I’m good at findin’ places an’ people. I ain’t a mailman for nuthin’.”

  At that, Cassi smiled weakly. She sniffed. “I’d be grateful to your father and to you if you help me.”

  “Lemme go git the boat. I’ll come up right here,” he said, pointing to where Sorrow Creek met the bayou. “You go and get sumthin better on for water travelin’, some camping lanterns, and some bottled water. I’ll be back within the hour. We burnin’ daylight right now. Don’t wanna get caught in no swamp at night if we can help it.” Troy turned and started trudging back to the house.

  Cassi changed clothes, loaded up a backpack with water, and took with her the bundle of items she found in the summer kitchen as well. She didn’t know who this Jeroboam was, or what he knew, but if Troy’s hunch had anything to do with Max’s disappearance, this Jeroboam might also know something about the troublesome collection of junk. Knowing the conditions of the swamp were not conducive to paper and ink, she scanned the hand-drawn map, printed out several copies, inserted them into plastic sleeves and put one in the pack, one in her back pocket, and one she’d give to Troy. That way if something happened to one of the maps they still had back-ups. She had no desire to be lost in the bayou without any clue of how to get back – not that the hand-drawn map was completely reliable, but it was better than nothing at all – which is what she’d have if left mapless. Although Troy knew his way around the parts, if something were to happen to Troy, she’d be screwed. She didn’t know jackshit about how to get back home from wherever it was they’d be going.

  She locked the house and stamped back to the swamp’s edge to wait for Troy and his daddy’s fishing boat.

  10.

  The little wood boat puttered up to the swamp’s edge. Cassi heard it coming before she saw it through the tangle of moss and tree branches. Troy was seated at the back of the boat dressed in tan camo with a matching ball cap. He pulled up alongside the shore as close as he dared get without t
angling the motor up in vegetation. “Yer gonna have to either jump or wade out. Ain’t that deep right there.” He pointed to a log and a clump of mud.

  Cassi scowled, but delicately felt her way through the mud, willing herself not to look at the ooze and the tarry-slime pulsing around her feet and ankles. The thought of snakes made her want to run back to the house shrieking, but she had to do this. She had to get Max. God knew what sort of mental state he might be in during all of this. She loved him. That meant she was doing this regardless of the dangers or insanity. She threw a leg over the side of the boat and climbed in, pants legs dripping with foul swamp sludge and water.

  “I made copies of the map,” she said, handing a plastic-sleeved copy to Troy.

  “Good thinkin’ on the plastic.”

  Cassi smiled and shrugged. “Made sense.”

  Troy turned the boat in the direction they needed to travel.

  “You know where this map is taking us?” Cassi asked after they had moved downstream aways.

  “General idea.”

  Cassi twitched her lips. That didn’t sound too positive. “This Jeroboam person. You think he lives out here, in the swamp I mean?”

  “I’m sure he does. Probably in an old rickety wood fishin’ cabin more in the water than outta it.”

  “Why do people live out here?” Cassi watched a huge turtle slide from a log into the swamp. “It’s just so – so desolate.”

  “Got no place better to go. Always been here. Family here. Lots of reasons.” Troy made their way around a downed log and then got back on path. “Maybe he jest likes to fish.” He laughed.

  The boat continued on, following the route charted on Jeroboam’s map. The path narrowed, so much so that thickets of moss brushed the tops of their heads as they passed beneath sloping tree branches. Troy pushed the larger of the branches away.