The Bones of the Earth- The Complete Collection

by Scott Hale

  “Hi, how’s it going?” Herbert said, breaking the ice so hard he was about to fall through and drown.

  The sheriff looked over his shoulder and spat. “How can I help you boys?”

  Herbert’s eyes went to the corpse at the sheriff’s feet. “We were called here.”

  Sheriff Boone fingered the revolver’s trigger. “By?”

  Seth ignored the question. “We’re investigators.”

  “Of what?” the sheriff snarled.

  “The things that shouldn’t be.” Seth was always vague when this inevitable question was asked, and somehow it was always enough.

  “What do you know?”

  The doctor cleared his throat until everyone was looking at him. He lifted the corpse’s shirt. The drunk man’s stomach had been torn open, and his intestines had been chewed to a paste.

  “Boone, Eddy was dead on his feet,” the doctor said, “and even if he wasn’t, he should’ve been in too much pain to stand.”

  “How long has this been going on?” Seth asked.

  Sheriff Boone rubbed his eyes. “Eddy is the second. Marie Riley… she was last week.”

  Herbert and Seth exchanged glances.

  “She was dead on her feet, too, wasn’t she Doc?” Sheriff Boone said.

  “Other than the fact she had no feet left to stand on… yeah. Her throat had been torn out.”

  Herbert turned around to face the crowd that had gathered again. There were more now. With their worn-out clothes and worn-down eyes, they milled about as they waited to hear something which would make some sense of what had just happened.

  “Marie Riley wrote us. She was the one who asked us to come.” Seth waited for the sheriff to panic, but he didn’t. “Missing kid, and our driver said your wife has disappeared as well.”

  Herbert nodded at his friend, but his attention was elsewhere. Towards the back of the crowd, he noticed a little girl of seven or eight watching them. She was pale, dirty, and despite the heat, shivering. She had long hair that was somewhere between being damp and being encrusted with whatever wetted it. The little girl looked anxious, and like an anxious little girl, she sucked on the tips of her hair. She looked pleased as she tongued each strand, as though fond of the sticky substance that coated them.

  “Herbert,” Seth called.

  “Yeah?” Herbert answered. He turned back around—“Sorry, what?”—but then the little girl was gone, and no one near where she’d been standing seemed to notice or care.

  “What happened to your wife, Sheriff?” Seth asked.

  A murmur worked its way through the crowd.

  Sheriff Boone cracked his knuckles as though imagining they were Herbert’s and Seth’s necks. He leaned in close to the investigators and said, “Why don’t you ask all them gathered around? I loved her. They didn’t.” He leaned back and then said loudly, “Let’s go inside and get you boys caught up on things.”

  “Did you ever find Abernathy?” Herbert droned as he continued to search for signs of the little girl who’d vanished.

  “No,” the sheriff said bluntly. “Never did find Joseph, Cali, Jessica, Maribel, Ethan, or Brian neither.”

  Herbert swatted at a mosquito as it buzzed about his neck. “What? What the hell is going on here? How long has this—?”

  The sheriff interrupted with a laugh. He walked up to Herbert until he was looking over him, down on him—blocking out the sun that shone on them.

  “Aren’t you glad you came?” He smiled, and clamped one large, sweating hand down on Herbert’s shoulder. “I’m sure glad you came. We’ll make it all better, won’t we?”

  Sheriff Boone brought them to the inn, and that’s where Herbert and Seth sat now, their belongings on the table, as the foremost experts on the madness of Marrow bombarded them with anecdotes and theories.

  “We’re a god-fearing people here,” Daniel Nathaniel, the aforementioned doctor, said as he shifted in his lopsided seat. “Marie Riley… she feared enough for all of us.” He made the sign of the cross and mumbled a blessing.

  That doesn’t make sense, Herbert thought and then said, “That doesn’t make sense. A god-fearing woman doesn’t employ men like us. She goes to the church, to the priest, not us.”

  Seth nodded, and Herbert was glad to have his approval.

  Roger Covert, Marrow’s mayor, finished off his drink; he held it out until the innkeeper came by to remedy the problem. “You wouldn’t think it, but lots of folk come by here. Strange folk, but nevertheless. They think us a bunch of rubes they can pawn off their junk to. And, yeah, they do, not going to lie, they do. Not much happens around these parts, so even if its shit they’re hocking, it helps pass the time.”

  “No judgment here,” Herbert said as he silently judged the lot of them.

  Dust cascaded onto the table; on the floor above, some god-fearing folk were fearing god all over their bed.

  “It’s not unreasonable to think that someone referred the woman to you all,” Sheriff Boone added as he passed the table, pacing like an animal locked in its pen.

  “The most devout do have a tendency of doing the exact opposite of what they should,” Seth said.

  “They’re my favorite kind of people,” Herbert added, grinning. “It’s such a spectacle to break them. It’s almost cathartic.”

  Seth leaned forward. “Was she in love with the man in the Black Hills?”

  Sheriff Boone stopped, noticed that everyone had noticed that he’d stopped, and then started up again. “Blake was a cannibal. Before all that came out, she’d taken a liking to him.”

  As Mayor Covert drank from his cup, he added between slurps, “She thought she could convert him, change him. Thinking back… I’d call it an obsession, but I’m not sure there’s much of a difference between the two—love and obsession.”

  “I’m not sure, either,” the sheriff mumbled.

  Deep as a puddle, this lot, Herbert thought.

  The doctor picked at the blood underneath his fingernails. “Marie Riley was mighty upset with you Boone when you put a bullet in Blake.”

  “I’m just going to be blunt with you,” Seth started. “Marie said your wife was evil.”

  Sheriff Boone hung his head low and dropped into the nearest chair. He scratched the side of his face, plucked a few loose strands from his hair. “She spread rumors after what I’d done to Blake. Storm blew through… that was Joy’s fault. Kids started going missing… well, what do you know, Joy did it, too. She was a sensitive woman, Joy. All that talking ran her out of here. God, do I miss her.”

  Something’s not right here, Herbert thought as he absently felt at the bagged powders in his pocket. “Did everyone turn against Joy?”

  “They had it in for her as soon as we’d married. Once they’d missed their chances.”

  No concern for the kids, no genuine concern for your wife. Herbert squinted his eyes at Seth, trying to transmit his thoughts to him. It was a tool they’d used since childhood, and it never seemed to fail them.

  “Did you ever find the kids?” Herbert asked.

  Sheriff Boone shook his head.

  “Searched every inch of the swamp,” the mayor clarified.

  Seth spoke up: “What exactly happened to Marie Riley last week?”

  Herbert noted the frustration in Seth’s voice, a combination of the heat and his dislike for enclosed spaces populated by dumbasses.

  “She lived on the outskirts near the bayou. Terrible place to live. Alligators come up from the river there to rest. That’s how she lost her husband.”

  Picking out a splinter from the table, Seth asked, “Was Abernathy her little girl?”

  “She didn’t much look like her daddy, Marie’s husband, but lots of us here come from bad places, bad choices,” the mayor mused. “But yeah, Abernathy was hers. She didn’t mention that?”

  Seth shook his head.

  “That’s strange,” Sheriff Boone said matter-of-factly.

  “That’s one detail you usually keep in if you
want someone to come help you out of a bind.”

  Herbert bit his lip and transmitted “What the fuck is going on?” to his partner.

  Seth shook his head. Transmission received.

  Daniel Nathaniel, the doctor, sneezed into his hands and wiped a trail of snot on his pant leg. “When we found Marie Riley, she was crawling down the road towards town. Blood everywhere. She should’ve bled out back in her garden where she’d been attacked. No feet, like I said. Eddy…”

  “Eddy is the one who found her?” Herbert made the connection for the man.

  “Yeah, and he’s the one who killed her. He said she attacked him, and he hit her with the shovel he’d been carrying.”

  “Something is being spread,” Seth said excitedly. This was his favorite part of the investigation—the part where he got to theorize and be the smartest man in the room.

  “Whatever is attacking these people, these children, is passing something on.” Herbert paused for a moment as he heard a door crack back against a house outside. “It’s hunting, and then whatever it feasts on is changed.”

  “A disease of some sort,” the doctor added.

  “Something in the saliva or its teeth.” Seth stood up and, just to be dramatic, started to lay out his weapons on the table. “Probably meant to paralyze, to make sure the corpse stays relatively put, so it can come back to it later on.”

  “Nethers will do this, but they are extremely rare.” Herbert came to his feet as well. “Never heard of them this far south, and I’m hoping it’s not them, because they are a pain in the ass to kill. Incredibly impervious for some incredibly obnoxious reason.”

  Outside, feet shuffled across a porch. A word was uttered, and then lost.

  “I’d suggest ghouls, but the victims are too slow, too dimwitted, to be ghouls.” Seth twisted his mouth in thought. “Goredrinkers, maybe.” He smiled as the manly men of Marrow cringed. “But there’d be less left of them if that were true.”

  “It could be an orphan… not what you think, gentlemen. They’re little pale kids who like to drink—”

  “Sheriff, you need to watch yourself,” Seth warned. “I think this thing, whatever it is, may have attacked Eddy because he killed Marie. It doesn’t seem to like anyone who gets in the way of its food—”

  Again, outside, there was a commotion: shouts, followed by footsteps, followed by a growl and screams.

  “Christ Almighty, what the hell was that?” Mayor Covert sprang to his feet and grabbed one of the investigators’ weapons from the table.

  That was fast. Herbert transmitted another thought to Seth—this is it—and bolted across the inn’s first floor. He pushed through the front doors, pushed aside the wide-eyed, slack-jawed pedestrian standing behind them. The humid slush that was Marrow’s air formed around him. His head darted back and forth between the houses and the streets, searching for the turmoil.

  We can’t track this thing out here. Can’t let this fucker get away.

  Another scream, and breaking glass. Herbert followed the inn’s wraparound porch to the left and then paused, his mind halted by what he saw. In a small alley, a woman lay upon a bed of glass, the shards that blanketed her protruding from her body. The body was twitching, and for a moment, Herbert thought the woman was alive. But then he saw it—the huge red worm stretching away from the corpse—and realized the body was moved by its feeding.

  “Seth is this a new…?”

  Herbert didn’t have the chance to finish his question, because the further his eyes traveled up the worm, the quicker he realized the worm wasn’t a worm at all, but intestines. Several feet from the woman’s body, near where the woods began, a little girl, the same he’d seen earlier, was walking away. She was holding the guts like a ball of yarn, and as she moved, they unspooled and spilt across the ground.

  Realizing she’d been spotted, the little girl ran for the woods, clinging desperately to her bloody spoils while Herbert and Seth chased after her.

  Joy

  Joy liked strong men. She liked how hard they fought, even when they had no chance of winning. She liked the way their bodies looked when they were covered in sweat or drenched in blood. There was something about the texture of strong men that excited her. Perhaps it was the realization that beyond all the flesh, there was power.

  Boone hadn’t been her equal, as she had so foolishly hoped, but he was strong. Joy appreciated this, because as he carried her through the swamp, she knew he wouldn’t drop or drag her. He’d draped a sheet over her body, placed a crucifix upon her chest. In the past, some men, usually the weaker ones, had cut her up or left her to fester beneath a tree or in a basement. That’s the other reason she liked strong men: once they broke something, they became almost childlike in how they took care of the pieces.

  He was bringing her to their secret place, their special place—a small island in the darkest part of the swamp, where under a thousand firefly lights, they first made love. He’d been so considerate then; he’d even finished on the dirt just to be safe.

  It’s probably still there. Joy thought back to the damp patch of soil, and her magnificent husband panting over it. I can use that.

  Boone struggled to walk as he trudged forward into the water. Joy looked down and through the sheet and watched his pained reflection on the lamplight-lit surface. It didn’t have to end like this, but she knew, if she was being honest with herself, it always would.

  “Why’d you make me do it?”

  Boone laid her down on the island and then lifted himself onto it. He took off her sheet—there, in the grass, the candles from last time, and her underwear—and sat.

  “God damn it, Joy,” he said into his palms as he wept.

  Joy rolled her eyes. Enough ceremony. Get on with it, so I can get out of here.

  But then something happened she hadn’t expected, at least not from Boone. He hit her. He balled his hands into tear-streaked fists and punched her. He split her lip, broke her nose. He kicked her side until she flipped on her stomach, and then he turned her over and brought his foot down into her gut. She could feel his heel working its way down to her pelvis, and that’s when she understood the depth of his hate for her infertility.

  Joy didn’t need to be human to know anger. What is this? She felt her skin become sweaty and hot. Boone, what are you doing to me? Her body tensed, and her mouth worked itself into a sneer. She started to clutch the earth, dig her fingers deep into it. Her husband must’ve noticed the changes, because he stopped his assault and went still. But it was too late. Death was one thing, but desecration was another matter entirely. He’d killed her out of necessity but dishonored her out of desire.

  In a panic, Boone picked up the sheet and threw it over Joy. Using the fire from the lamp, he lit the remainder of the candles and placed them around his dead wife’s body. He muttered a half-hearted apology, turned his back, and fled into the night. Joy listened and watched for a while until his trampling couldn’t be heard, and his light was swallowed by the dark. She ripped off the sheet, but lay where he left her, and considered killing the whole of Marrow.

  You want children?

  Her white satin dress began to lengthen across the ground. She licked her lips at the thought of the boys and girls she’d eaten. For the perfect child, she had needed the perfect ingredients. Her dress tightened, wove into the soil itself; the cuffs and hem split and searched for the semen that had been spilt there.

  You wouldn’t accept them then, but maybe you will now.

  She brought her legs back as she felt her womb quicken.

  And if you don’t, I’m sure we can find someone who will.

  The white satin dress continued to stretch outward, so that it covered the island completely, while still leaving the candles upright. Her breasts grew heavy, and her nipples became engorged.

  I’ll show you Marrow as it is, and once you see it, you’ll come back to me.

  Joy took a deep breath, spread her legs, and pushed dead, rotted perfection into the world
.

  Herbert

  “Nightfall comes quick!” Mayor Covert shouted after Herbert and Seth. “Slow down, damn it!”

  Herbert whipped around, ripped the torch out of the mayor’s hands. “Doctor, our gear,” he yelled as he turned to face the woods. “Seth, don’t lose sight of her!”

  Seth hurried onward, his revolver readied. “Don’t plan on it.”

  As Daniel Nathaniel retreated towards the inn, Herbert plunged into the thick of the woods. The little girl was quick; she dodged and wove through the trees as though she’d known this place all her life.

  Is this one of the missing kids?

  He could feel Sheriff Boone at his back, holding up the rear, as though he were coming along only because his station required it.

  Herbert took out his gun and knife and ran as fast as he could. Branches slashed his cheeks as bushes bit at his ankles. The muddy ground sucked on his feet as he splashed through puddles and pools. Because of the torch, it took him a moment to notice the phenomenon, but with every step he took, the woods were growing darker. Was it night already? How had so much time passed?

  Seth fell back to join in his light. “There, where the swamp begins,” he panted, his skin a pale blue in the unnatural evening glow. “She’s gone in there.”

  Herbert craned his neck. The doctor had never caught up with them, and Sheriff Boone was gone as well. “This is stupid, Seth. We don’t know what she is or how to kill her.”

  “Hold on there just a minute,” Mayor Covert panted as he regrouped with the investigators. The smell of tobacco rolling off him, he grabbed his chest, as though to stop his lungs from leaving in search of a better body. “She’s just a little girl,” he finally managed to sputter.

  “I’m no parent myself, but little girls don’t usually go digging in people’s stomachs,” Herbert said, shaking his head.

  He recalled the little girl standing amongst the crowd hours earlier. He remembered how she stood alone but ignored, free to do as she liked, because she was a child, and no child could be capable of such cruelties.