by Joe Hart
“Me too,” Jones said. “Shit waits for no man. Wait, maybe it does.”
We walked to the front of the store and I paid for the groceries Nimble had gathered while we’d drank our pop. We bade the storeowner goodbye and stepped outside.
The air had become heavier without warming. It was like walking through a clammy soup, the air dancing with the possibility of lightning. The puddles on Secondary reflected the dark sky and I found myself dreading the point where Jones would turn left onto his own drive and leave me to walk the two miles home alone. When his driveway appeared, he slapped me on the shoulder and started to jog away.
“Thanks for the Coke. And don’t worry, Sara only thinks you’re half a horse’s ass,” he called over his shoulder.
“Yeah, and you’re the other half!” He made an obscene gesture with his hand and then he was gone around the slight turn in the drive and I was alone.
I hurried on, walking as fast as I could without jostling the contents of the paper bag. More thunder rumbled, the sound like a rockslide falling through the clouds. The occasional drop of rain fell onto my shoulder and head, its cold touch making me move faster. The milk sloshed in the bag and clanked against the whiskey bottle. There was something driving me to get home faster besides the threat of getting soaked. It felt like the night before Danny passed away—an impending threat unspoken but heard nonetheless.
Another half mile and I’d be on my own driveway.
I concentrated on my steps, counting them without meaning to as I slipped around the puddles that were beginning to dance with raindrops.
Our mailbox appeared ahead and relief bloomed within me. Another few minutes and I’d be within sight of the house. Maybe I could help my mother take down the laundry if she hadn’t done so already. And if the turkey buzzard was still there, I’d ask my father if I could take a poke at it with his rifle.
Something splashed behind me.
It sounded like a footstep coming down in the center of a puddle and I spun, nearly losing my balance.
The road was empty, its straight stretch unmarred by any shapes of animals or people. The lonely fields to either side were calm beneath the tentative rain.
I waited a beat before turning back toward our drive, not running yet but no longer walking either.
Another splash. Louder this time.
I turned, caught movement out of the corner of my eye forty yards away. When I looked there was nothing there. My bowels were a painful constriction as I blinked against the rain that was falling steadier now.
Something was stalking me. Something I couldn’t see or that was too fast to catch sight of. The image of the two-headed goat emerged in my mind, its horrible shape zipping onto and off the road on its cloven hind legs.
I sidled down the road, keeping my gaze back the way I’d come. My foot dropped into a puddle, soaking my shoe through to the skin.
A hundred yards to the mailbox.
Sixty.
Forty.
Ten.
A dozen paces behind me something dark crawled from a big puddle in the center of the road.
I froze, the grocery bag soaked and soggy in my arms, contents jangling as I shook. The thing was without true shape or definition. It was both there and not there, flickering like a shadow in a lightning storm. One second I thought I could make out long, slender arms tipped with too many fingers, the next it was gone. Then a narrow head with two blank spaces that stared like eyes. A leg, bending, the form insubstantial then boldly there, rising to stand on feet that reminded me of a frog’s.
The thing stuttered in and out of reality, smoke from a campfire drifting toward me, the shine of teeth as it suddenly smiled.
I ran.
My legs wobbled but pumped like adrenaline pistons, thrusting me forward. Our mailbox, cold tin with our name on the side flashing by. Feet churning up wet dirt as I took the corner without pausing.
Puddles splashed behind me.
Thunder growled.
My heart smashed itself against the inside of my chest and my mind tried to reckon what was happening, but there was no explanation. It was simply time to run, run away from the shadow-thing that had crawled out of a puddle on Secondary Road and was chasing me, its webbed feet flopping wetly on the ground not far behind.
I sped up as something grazed my back. A cry flew from my chest, high-pitched, a sound I would’ve been ashamed of making any other time.
“Getcha. Getchagetchagetcha,” a slithering voice said right behind me.
My bowels nearly released then. It was talking to me, taunting me. Another touch on my shoulder, soft and strong all at once.
I screamed again. This time for my father as lightning arced in a forked line toward our house that I couldn’t quite see yet.
My lungs burned and the falling rain tried to choke me.
Something slapped my foot and I stumbled, regaining my balance but dropping the grocery bag.
It was trying to trip me. Knock me down so it could land on me and bite me. Bite me with its shining teeth.
I screamed again, louder this time. A strangled cry came from right behind me, mocking me.
“Eatcha up. Eatchaupeatchaup,” the voice chanted.
My house came into sight around the last bend, the short distance across our yard never seeming so long. But in the next instant I saw the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid eyes upon.
My father was standing on our porch, his double barrel twelve gauge tight against his shoulder.
I knew what to do even before he yelled.
I flung myself to the side and down, diving like a swimmer into a deep pool.
Both shotgun barrels boomed at once and the hot passage of lead swarmed the air above my back.
My momentum tossed me over onto my side. Immediately I scrambled backward, knowing the shadow-thing would be there, all shining teeth and despair.
The yard was empty.
Rain fell on the gravel, dropped through the budding trees.
And the storm continued its roiling overhead.
5
They brought me inside out of the weather but it was nearly five minutes before I could speak coherently.
While I rocked and cried to myself, my mother sat at my feet, holding my hands, rubbing them with her own. She kept glancing over my shoulder towards our front porch where my father stood at the window, staring out at the yard, watching the driveway. Finally he came to the kitchen, setting the big shotgun in a corner before pulling a chair close to my own. He studied me for a time, his eyes calm behind his glasses. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and steady.
“Tell us what happened, Lane.”
“I…I drop…dropped the groceries.”
“That’s okay. What was that chasing you?”
“I don’t know.” I looked up into my father’s face. There was always comfort there when I needed it, always a kind word or some type of wisdom from him.
But now there was a hint of fear.
All at once relief flooded through me as I realized something. “You saw it too,” I said. “You sh…shot at it.”
My father stood from the chair and made his way to the kitchen sink and drew himself a glass of water. He drank it down and turned to face us.
“What was it, David?” my mother asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“But you shot at it,” she insisted. “You must know what it was. A bear? Cougar?”
“It wasn’t either of those,” I said, and when I looked at my father for confirmation, his silence was all the assurance I needed. He had seen it too. “It climbed out of a puddle on the road and chased me,” I said, spitting the words out like something sour. “It said it was going to eat me up.”
“What?” My mother rose from in front of me, her eyebrows drawn down. “What do you mean ‘it came out of a puddle’?”
“That doesn’t make any sense, son,” my father said.
“I know, but that’s the truth.” I nearly told them about
the goat then, but didn’t. I had evidence on my side now—my father had seen something even if he didn’t understand it. But if I started spouting off about a talking two-headed goat, that he’d killed himself, I was sure it would stretch their belief too far.
“David, tell me what you shot at,” my mother said in her stern voice she typically reserved for me when I’d forgotten a chore.
“It was long and slender,” he said. “Big hands…”
“Big hands? Neither of you are making sense.”
I gazed down at my palms and glanced out of the window at the storm that was in full swing now. Water ran from the eaves of our barn and dripped from the corner of the porch roof.
“If you shot it then where is it?” my mother continued.
“It was there and then it wasn’t,” my father said almost to himself. “Lane, is there anything else you want to tell us?” I shook my head. “Okay. You go to your room and lie down. We’ll call you when supper’s ready.”
I got up and walked to my room as if in a dream. Inside I struggled out of my soaking clothes and crawled into bed wearing only my skivvies. Shivers ran through me and I curled into a ball. My parents’ voices, low but severe, drifted to me, and even though I knew they were arguing, it was a comforting sound. I must’ve fallen asleep because sometime later my mother shook me awake for supper.
The kitchen held the rich smell of fried chicken and baking powder biscuits. My father was already seated at the table when I sat down and I noticed the butter I’d dropped in the driveway was on the platter. He must’ve walked back and got it. It frightened me to think of him tracing my steps alone back to where I’d let the groceries fall.
I paused.
Steps. Footsteps.
“Dad, did you see any prints behind mine?”
“No. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, though, because the rain had nearly washed yours away by the time I went outside.”
“And you didn’t see anything else?”
“No. And let’s not discuss this anymore in front of your mother. She’s worried enough as it is.”
I nodded as she came to the table carrying a bowl of mashed potatoes and sat down. Our dinner was eaten in relative silence, broken only by the request to pass a dish or ask for more milk. Afterwards I helped wash the dishes, throwing glances out to the porch where my father sat with a small glass of whiskey. None of us commented on the fact that he’d brought the shotgun out with him.
I went to bed early, exhaustion weighing me down like a pair of bricks around my neck. When I closed my door for the night my father was still on the porch sipping his drink, looking down our driveway. And I couldn’t help but notice the unmistakable outline of a turkey buzzard perched in the tallest pine tree.
6
Morning arrived with a welcome blade of sun that pierced the edge of my blinds.
For a moment everything seemed normal in that middle ground between sleeping and full wakefulness. But then the events of the day before rushed back in, filling me with a sickening dread. What was happening?
The question hit me like a hammer. In the years since that spring I’ve learned that when you’re in the thick of any situation, a human being can simply deal with what’s occurring. People are remarkable creatures in that sense. The reasonable portion of our brain shuts down and the part that keeps us moving forward takes over. It’s the only way many of us stay alive and sane.
But at the tender age of fourteen I was terribly aware of the events and my young mind couldn’t wrap itself around them. In the end I simply got dressed and readied myself for school because no matter what supernatural situation I found myself in, Mrs. Shawler’s patience only went so far.
My father drove me to school that morning. He told me he had business with one of the Hudsons, but I suspect his reasons had much more to do with the smell of cordite that still emanated from the shotgun in the porch.
On the way I told him about Sara May’s request from her father, and he gave me permission to walk to the Tandy farm after school as long as Jones was going as well. Even with the possibility of seeing Sara outside of school I was still filled with an unease that sickened me. I jumped when a pheasant burst out of cover beside the road as we passed and couldn’t meet my father’s eyes when he dropped me outside the school.
Jones was waiting for me in the entryway, a stem of grass pinched in the corner of his mouth.
“Mornin’,” he said, watching me hang my coat and school bag up.
“Mornin’.”
“And here I thought between my wit and Sara May’s most pleasant company, you’d look better today. Guess I was wrong. You’re still pale.”
“And you’re still an asshole.”
“Least I’m consistent,” he said, leading the way toward our desks. I dropped into mine, weariness a physical weight in my bones. “You got my attention. Spill it,” Jones said. “What’s eating you?”
His words nearly made me cringe. Eatcha up. “Nothing. Might be coming down with a cold. Got rained on last night.”
“Hope you don’t miss out on work this afternoon. Then I’ll not only have to take your wage but it’ll just be me and Sara to pass the time in the field.”
“You wish.”
“That I do.”
“Well, don’t get your heart set on it. I’ll be able to work.”
Sara May entered the room then and some of the dread I was carrying bled away at the sight of her. She was wearing a white dress and her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She smiled in our direction and took her seat at the front of the class. Mrs. Shawler wasn’t far behind and soon we were immersed in arithmetic, history, and grammar.
The school day slid by slowly, the sun making its way up past the windows and out of sight as it climbed to its apex in the sky. By all accounts it was a perfect spring day: not too humid, as the storm had washed most of the moisture out of the air, and not too cool.
When Mrs. Shawler dismissed us that afternoon the memories from the night before had dimmed somewhat. In the warm sunshine, waiting by the road for Jones and Sara May, they didn’t seem quite as vivid or real and I was grateful.
The Tandys lived a half mile south of Ellis Wilmer’s farm on County 7, and after Jones and Sara joined me we walked there, three young people side by side, us boys chucking rocks into the woods every so often, Sara walking in her serene way on the shoulder, commenting on several songbirds perched in the blossoming trees.
She seemed different then, and even now I don’t think it was because of what was going to happen to her in the days to come, what was already happening to her. I don’t know what helped her open up to us that spring but I think it might’ve been a nudge from something none of us could see or fathom. Something that might’ve known what was coming and thought we might need the bond that is so special and ephemeral in children of our age. I like to believe it’s so because there’s always two sides to a coin, and there is no true evil without something good to balance it out.
Even though my parents were quite cordial with Sara’s, I had never set foot in her house, never even been up on its porch in all my years. So when Sara went inside to fetch her father, I took a long look at the Tandy home.
It was two stories and painted a nice shade of faded red with white shutters. The long, wraparound porch put our own to shame and the brand new swing mounted at its far end swayed in the light breeze without a sound.
“It’s nice out here,” Jones said, reading my thoughts. “Peaceful. They got the best plot of land in all of the county.”
“It’s nearly the biggest plot too.”
“Makes our place look like hell.” Jones pulled his shirt away from his chest and sniffed. “Damn. Do I smell like cow shit?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t even smell me.”
“Don’t have to. You always smell like cow shit.”
“Come on, Lane, quit bustin’ my balls here.” He lowered his voice. “I took a fall last night in the barn and hit a we
t patch of shit on all fours. Got it in my face, on my chest, in my hair. And to top it off we didn’t have enough hot water for a bath. Had to scrub with that God-awful lye soap that Nimble can’t give away ‘cept to my pa, in some cold water. I couldn’t believe the horseshit timing.”
By then I was doubled over in silent gales of laughter, but managed to turn my head toward him and say, “Not horseshit timing, cow shit timing.”
Jones was winding up to blast me in the mouth when the porch door opened and Nathan Tandy stepped outside with Sara behind him.
Everything about Nathan Tandy was compact. His head was almost completely bald and his features were scrunched together, but instead of making him look simple it gave him a shrewd appearance. Along with how powerfully he was built through the chest and back, he cut an imposing figure. Sara looked diminutive by comparison. She had changed into a pair of gray pants and a chambray work shirt. I thought she looked just as beautiful as in her dress.
“Afternoon, gentlemen,” Mr. Tandy said.
“Afternoon, sir,” Jones and I said in unison.
“Sara tells me you both know how to work.”
“Sure do,” Jones said.
“Good. I got quite a few acres to clear and I want to be able to plant this fall. If you both work out I might talk to your parents about keeping you on longer than this summer since the crops’ll be more than we’ll be able to handle next spring. Couple things before we get started. Be mindful of Winnie, my big workhorse. She’s not partial to strangers and she can kick something fierce, so don’t walk behind her. There’s a few old wells behind the barn and house from the last homestead. They’re covered up but keep an eye out for them. As far as pay goes, I’ll give you each fifty cents for every afternoon, paid before you leave and you’re free to stay for supper if we work late. I want you boys working with Heely, my mule. You’ll start on the east side of the field and I’ll take Winnie to the west. Sara’s gonna pick rocks and run for any tools we need. Sound good?”
“Yes, sir,” we answered.
“Good. Let’s go.”
