Ten Open Graves: A Collection of Supernatural Horror

by David Wood

  Instead of replying, she dug around in the pockets of her apron, the one she always wore when she cleaned house, and dragged out a pack of Royal Flush cigarettes and a yellow plastic lighter. Kyle felt another punch hit his middle. His dad had been a smoker since before Kyle was born, but his mom had never touched them, not once. Yet here she was, her thin fingers pulling out a smoke and jamming it between her pale lips like she’d done it all her life. The lighter took a few flicks before a flame caught and turned the end of the cigarette bright red. She blew a few puffs of smoke from the left side of her closed lips and pocketed the lighter. Kyle's stomach turned, and not just because of the cigarette's stench.

  “When did you start smoking?”

  “About ten minutes after you drove off,” she replied without missing a beat.

  He felt like a boxer getting worked across the ribcage. “So you smoking is my fault?”

  “You can take the blame, or you can leave it on the porch.” She took the cigarette from her lips and filling the air between them with a foul blue-gray cloud. “Don't much matter to me either way.”

  The sense of disconnection Kyle felt as he drove into town was nothing compared to what he felt standing before the woman who had once patched up his skinned knees and took all the pain away with a wink and a kiss. Now was just a shadow in the darkness of the doorway. His childhood suddenly seemed like a dream of someone else's life.

  “I'm not here to fight.” He tucked his hands into his pants pockets. “Can I come in?”

  His mother stared at him, her eyes still and unblinking for several long seconds, but then she shrugged, turned from the door, and shuffled away. “Suit yourself.”

  The screen door opened with a rusty grown, and he held it as it closed behind him so that the spring connecting the door to the doorframe didn't slam it shut. The inside of the house was dark and smelled musty. There were a few new pictures here and there on the walls – all of them of Taylor – and a decoration or two he didn't recall being there, but all in all the hallway leading away from the front door looked more or less the way he remembered, as did the small square living room. It was the same, yet like his mother and the rest of the town, it wasn't. Everything, from the wobbly ceiling fan to the brown shag carpeting, seemed dusted in a thin layer of grim. Wide dark stains soiled the prehistoric couch cushions like bruises.

  “Don't bother looking in your old room.” His mom flopped down on the left side of the couch. It was the closest place to sit next to his dad's worn out green recliner. “Your dad stores all his crap in there now.”

  Between the two pieces of furniture stood an end table, on which sat a glass of tea and two ashtrays, each one spilling over with crinkled butts. He noticed the tea didn't have any ice in it, and the glass wasn't sweating. First the smoking, and now lukewarm tea. This has to be a pod person, he thought with a sad chuckle. Has to be.

  “I didn't come to see my room.” He considered taking a seat on the other end of the couch, but the dark stain on the cushion kept him on his feet. “I came to talk to Dad. Where is he? It's after five. He get a second job or something?”

  His mother snorted harshly. “Yeah, right. He's probably still at the mine. They got him workin' later and later every day. He goes in at the same time he's always done, but every night I stand around wondering when he'll finally show. I better see a bump in his paycheck, or there'll be hell to pay, I tell ya that right now.”

  “Working late?” Mine work was nothing if not predictable, at least as far as the hours went. But if it wasn't work, what could it be? Alternatives were limited, and none of them good. “You don't think he'd...?” He couldn't bear to finish the question.

  “What, cheat?” His mother's graying lips broke into a sneer. “Your daddy ain't exactly a man of great passion. He sure as hell ain't gonna be out there chasing around what I can barely give away.”

  Bile burned Kyle's throat at hearing his mother talk about their sex life. It was another sign of how much she’d changed since he left. The woman he'd known wouldn't have said shit if she'd had a mouth full of it.

  “Wow, Mom, that's way more than I needed to know.”

  She puffed on her cigarette. “You asked.”

  “Fine. Is Taylor here then?”

  He tried to ask the question as nonchalantly as he could, but the sentence had barely left his lips before his mother squinted her eyes and stared into the back of his head, her hands as still as an ice sculpture with the cigarette halfway between the ashtray and her mouth. Like a dog sniffing out rats, she'd clued to his intentions directly.

  “So that's it.” She stamped out the cigarette in the ashtray and rose from the couch. “What, did she call you? Say that life here was gettin' too hard? That we wasn't lettin' her go out there and sin herself straight to hell? Is that it? 'Cause if it is, you can just climb back into that shiny Jeep you got out there and get the hell outta here. She may be a dyke, but she's still my daughter, and if anyone is gonna make her right with the Lord, it's gonna be me.”

  Feeling like a roundhouse punch socked him straight in the jaw, Kyle staggered back a step and shook his head. “Dyke? What are you talking about?”

  A dark light lit up his mother's eyes, and the smile spreading across her face disturbed him. “Oh, she didn't tell you? And here I thought you two was so tight, just thick as thieves. Surprise, surprise.”

  The sickness that rolled around in Kyle's stomach started burning, and the anger felt better, felt easier, so he latched onto it for strength. “Maybe you could stop being a bitch for two seconds and tell me what the hell is going on.”

  His mother either didn't understand what he'd said, or it didn't bother her, because she kept on smiling that sick smile. “Your sister's a dyke, son. A lesbo, a...what do they call it...carpetmuncher. She's gay as a rainbow, and apparently she don't care who knows it, 'cept you maybe. Funny about that.”

  “Just shut the fuck up.” Kyle shook his head and held up his hands. He'd had enough, and he wasn't going to listen to one more second of his mother's haranguing. “Taylor hasn't said a word to me about being gay, but even if she is, so what? She's still my sister, and I'm not going to have you talk that way about her.”

  “Oh, now that's funny.” His mom laughed and put her hands on her hips. “I'd have thought a big bad Army boy like you would be more horrified than we were. Don't they keep faggots out of the military, condition all you boys to kill 'em on sight or somethin'?”

  Kyle snorted and rolled his eyes. “No.”

  “Well hell, then we should probably just roll out the welcome mat for those commie chinks then.” His mother pulled out another cigarette and lit it. “Or, is that why you joined up? You and your sister more alike than we thought?”

  The fire in Kyle's stomach exploded, and he took two thunderous steps toward his mother. Instead of cowering or showing fear, she laughed, her pallid face like a gargoyle’s. That stopped him in his tracks. She looked so small and petty to him, so unlike the woman he remembered, and it sickened him to see what had been lost.

  “Mom, I don't know what happened to you. If it was me leaving that turned you into this, then I'm really sorry. But whatever the fuck is going on, the only thing I care about is seeing how Taylor is. Either you tell me, right now, or I'll go drive around until I find her. Cut the shit and try being a decent human being for a minute, if that's possible.”

  For a fleeting moment Kyle saw pain and a hint of the person she'd once been filter through his mother's eyes. It was there, like a break in the clouds, but vanished just as quickly, and in her darkness she puffed on her cigarette and tucked her left arm under her apron covered breasts.

  “Hell fire, I sent her over to Cubby's to get a carton of cigarettes. Happy now?”

  Cubby's Convenience Store was a couple miles away on the other end of King Street. Not the cleanest place in the world, but back in the day it'd had a Street Fighter cabinet in it, and he'd dropped more than his fair share of allowance into its mechanical guts. The
idea that his mother had sent a minor over there to get cigarettes, though, was nearly enough to make him blow his top.

  “What the fuck were you thinking? She's not eighteen yet! They won't sell her shit. They might even call the cops and have you arrested for having her try. Not that that sounds like a bad thing.”

  His mother rolled her eyes. “She's been gettin' us smokes for years now, so you can stop with the drama. 'Sides, Cubby's son Beau runs the register now after work, and he's sweet on her, so he cuts her a few extra packs. Stupid sombitch thinks she wants what he's got.” She laughed until it turned into coughs and her face turned red as she got control of herself again. “That dumb nut didn't roll far from the tree, let me tell you.”

  Knowing there wasn't any further reason to be there, Kyle shook his head and turned to leave. Over his shoulder he said, “Tell Taylor I'll be by later to see her.”

  He opened the front door with a hard twist and a yank, then threw the screen door wide open. His mother followed him down the hallway, and he hoped the screen door would slam in her face. He half turned as he stepped off the small concrete porch, then frowned as his mother caught the door.

  “Don't bother.” She waved the cigarette around, leaving zig-zagging smoke trails in the air. “She may be your sister, but I'm her mother, and I say what goes on so far as she's concerned. You been out of our lives for six years, and we don't need you back in it, so get gone. We won't open our door to you again.”

  Kyle opened his mouth to tell her what he thought of that bullshit, but the rattling of bike tires over cracked asphalt caught his attention. When he turned toward the sound he saw a familiar young woman rolling toward him on a bike too small for her, a carton of cigarettes in the front basket and a plastic bottle of soda in her left hand.

  “Oh my god!” Taylor coasted into the yard. “Kyle? Is that you?”

  Just as his mother was someone he barely recognized, so was his sister, but with Taylor it was completely different. He'd left a chubby little girl behind, her hair usually a rat's nest of curls and her hands always covered in dirt from playing outside, but the young lady she'd grown into was nothing like that. Even seated on the bike he could tell she was nearly as tall as he was, and a bit too thin. Her reddish blond hair was still curly, but she'd learned how to wear it so that it framed her round, pretty face. Gone were the Osh Kosh B'Gosh overalls, and instead she wore faded jeans that rode too low on her hips and a t-shirt with a picture of Lady Gaga covering the front of it. Her hands were long-fingered, and her dirty nails were replaced by alternating pink and black polish. She was as precious to look at as a baby bug, but the best part was her eyes. They were clear and blue and clean, everything their mother's weren't. She still had light in her, still had life. It was a relief.

  “Hey, baby sister.” He opened his arms.

  Taylor stopped the bike five feet from him, jumped off it, and ran into his hug. When he held her, he felt some of the darkness of Stillwater lift from him. She smelled wonderfully of vanilla and sweat. A bit of his heart broke when they eventually parted, but it healed again when he saw her smiling up at him.

  “You came.” A wry smirk curved her lips. “You really came. That's awesome.”

  Behind her Kyle saw their mother stomp across the yard and bend over the front of the ditched bike. When she stood back up she had a carton and several loose packs of cigarettes in her hands.

  “Enjoy this little family reunion, 'cause it's gonna be the last one you get for awhile. Kyle was just leavin'.”

  Panic blossomed in Taylor's eyes, and she clutched her bottled cola tightly in her hands. “What? But...but you just got here. I—”

  “You've got homework that needs doin'.” Their mother broke in. “That's what you got. And then you got school tomorrow, and then more homework, and I know there's plenty you need to tend to around the house. You ain't got time for your brother or nothin' else. Now get inside and get to studyin'.”

  Taylor barely opened her mouth before her mother grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the front door. Kyle was furious, but there was little he could do. He wasn’t her guardian or had any legal right to stop them. Instead he caught Taylor's attention and held his hand up to his head in a I'll-call-you-later gesture and then crossed his heart when their mother turned away to open the screen door. Taylor nodded as her mother pushed her inside.

  “And I'll only say this one more time.” His mother stood in the doorway, her apron heaving from her sudden exertions. “Leave. You’re not wanted here. The town doesn’t want you!”

  Her feelings made perfectly clear, she stepped into the house and slammed the front door closed. The screen door clattered in the doorframe.

  Part of Kyle wanted to laugh at her strange pronouncement – The town doesn’t want me? – but it was crushed beneath the part that wanted to cry over how wrong everything had turned out. He'd left Stillwater because he wanted a better future than what the mines had in store for him, thinking that whatever ills their father's apathy delivered to Taylor would be made up by their mother's love. Instead, both of his parents had spiraled out of control, and Taylor had been left to find a way to survive them both. Kyle felt torn to his soul, and he hated what his selfishness had wrought. The only thing he could do now was make right what little he could, and if that meant petitioning the courts for Taylor's custody, he'd do it. Oh yes he would.

  This isn't over by a damn sight, he thought.

  Since he had nothing else to do at the moment, Kyle walked to the Jeep and started it up. If he was going to be in Stillwater for a while, he needed a place to stay. Since Stillwater only had one motel, the choice of where to go was fairly easy. He hit the gas and steered toward Tazwell Street and the Smoky Mountain Motel.

  Chapter 3

  As Maya crested a hill overlooking Stillwater, she pulled over to the side of the road, making sure she didn't run over any glass or sharp pieces of metal. Below her, Stillwater looked like a decaying fish in a green sea of basswood and white ash trees. Along the western edge of the town ran a narrow river that once upon a time – according to everything she’d read before starting this little adventure – had been much wider, with half the town sitting where it used to flow. That had been before the dam was built, which she could just barely see several miles north of town. Beyond the dam lay the Stillwater Reservoir surrounded by deep forest that blanketed mountain after mountain for as far as the eye could see. It was a breathtaking sight, even with the heavily overcast sky and spattering of rain.

  Hidden somewhere in those mountains, though, concealed behind the beauty of trees and waters, was a secret. Even if weeks of internet searching and phone calls hadn’t told her things were wrong in Stillwater, being this close to the town she felt the malevolence of it in her bones. It felt like a song played out of tune, the hum of it vibrating inside her, making her sick to her stomach. Something was very much wrong with this town, and she planned on finding out just what it was. Discovering secrets was her mission; not just for Stillwater, but her life.

  Now that she had a basic lay of the land she put the car back in DRIVE and continued north. The closer she got to town, the more she sensed the darkness beneath it. Far away it sounded like a distant hum, but quickly it became more than that, more than she’d ever experienced before. She could practically smell it, a sickly sour scent that made her think of animal carcasses covered in fungus. After a few minutes the smell was nearly forgotten, as a bad scent often was when a person smelled it long enough, but the hum in her bones remained.

  Rain turned the town into a ruined painting in her windshield as she crossed a set of railroad tracks and turned onto Tazwell Street. Before Maya drove too far she parked in front of a closed down store, HURLEY'S HARDWARE barely legible on the cracked sign resting above the storefront, and pulled out a Google Map of the town she'd stuffed in her purse. On it she'd marked places she wanted to visit, among them the library, the town hall, and the cemetery – they were the usual locations a person could g
et local area information from.

  She checked her cell phone – she had one tiny bar of service – and saw it was almost five in the evening. That took the town hall and library off the list since both of them closed at 4PM according to the people she'd spoken with before making the drive to Stillwater. That narrowed her options considerably. But, when you wanted to know the history of a place beyond what you could find online, there were other ways to get it.

  Maya looked up from the map to scan the street. A couple blocks down she spied half a dozen rusting vehicles parked in front of a brick building. WOODY’S DINER was painted on the windows in flaking broad strokes. It was just the place she needed.

  Finding a parking space wasn't hard, so she slid into the first available spot. Before getting out of the car she reached into the backseat and grabbed a digital recorder. According to its display she had plenty of battery life and enough memory for twenty-six hours of recording. She slipped the device in her purse, careful to make sure it stayed powered on and that the microphone was pointing up, and then opened her car door. The metal squealed sharply, setting her teeth on edge. With her car locked and secured, she drew her purse strap over her shoulder and walked the short length of cracked sidewalk to the diner.

  When she opened the diner’s door, a cloud of anger and hatred billowed over her like smoke from a burning building. She nearly fell over from it, but she managed to hold herself up long enough to see what had caused it. Inside the diner were eight white people – four split into two booths to the left, and the other four seated at the counter running along the diner's right side. All of them turned to look at her as she stepped over the threshold, and for a fleeting moment she swore their eyes were black empty sockets surrounded by deathly gray faces. To hide her fright she closed her eyes and shook her head. When she reopened them the diner patrons had eyes once again, but their skin had a nauseating pastiness, and the storm cloud of animosity still whirled in the air of the diner. She wasn’t entirely sure what caused the negative atmosphere, but she figured she might have an idea about part of it.