“Hold on,” she said. “Hold on.”
She could see Megan’s tiny face contorted in effort as she gripped her hand, her jaw set tight, teeth clamped together, eyes wincing in concentration.
“Don’t let go, baby. Just don’t let go.”
Calendula went sweeping by them, pin-balling against rocks and boulders, looking bent and broken like a discarded doll. His head bobbed above the water line, the dark silhouettes of his stubby dreadlocks giving him an absurd and clown-like appearance. Was he looking at her? Staring at her as the black water swept him away?
Megan’s hand began to loosen in her grasp and a surge of terror ripped through her. She strained to hold it—slick, slippery and wet—squeezing, locking eyes with her little girl, panic flooding her body. And then the tiny hand was gone and she was watching in horror as Megan disappeared into the rushing maelstrom.
Desperation overwhelming her, she threw herself into the freezing, black water, yearning to somehow save her baby, but knowing it was too late, that she was gone.
29
Diesel pulled the old 30.06 out of his truck and stumbled through the rain and dark to his house. Once inside, he gathered up some oil and some rags, sat down on the couch and began to clean and polish the rifle.
The piles of baby clothes and toys made him sick and sad in a strange, fucked-up way that tasted of defeat. The feeling made his eyes go wonky and everything felt distorted and fake. Like this was all a dream. He wanted to cry. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wept. Maybe when his father died? Did he cry when his father died? He couldn’t remember.
He packed his glass pipe with a huge shard of speed and watched it melt, inhaling deeply as the flame danced around it. His heart rang out and sweat beaded on his forehead, running down into his eyes, but it didn’t give him that jolt of hope he’d been looking for.
He ran the grease-soaked rag up and down the barrel of the gun till the metal gleamed.
The police would be here soon, asking questions. He was sure of this.
He should empty out his safe, get all the crank, pills, money and guns out of here, to his hiding place in the woods, those old fifty-gallon barrels he had buried on the far side of the hill.
But what was the point?
What did anything matter anymore?
His dreams of a new start and a family were gone. His son hated him. His grandson dead.
The girl, Katie, would probably end up in prison for killing her little unborn baby. He’d heard of cases like that before. Prosecutors always went for the jugular when it came to dead babies and meth.
He was tired. He couldn’t go back to prison. But didn’t have the strength to keep up the fight to stay out. He was just tired. Down in his bones, deep in the sockets of his eyes. In his fingers and arms. His aching fucked-up leg. Tired. So tired. Sleep. He just wanted to sleep.
He looked at the rifle, the gun his son had tried to kill him with. The gun he had inherited from his father. That had belonged to his grandfather. He envisioned sitting in a tree stand with it. Remembered being a kid and lining up a buck in his sights for the first time. Hidden behind a mesh of barren branches, high above the animal that had stopped to lap at the saltlick his father had secured to the earth with a tent stake. The ring of the shot and the moment before it fell. It looked so beautiful dead there. The proud laughter of his father and uncle. Hanging it by its feet in an old shed. Using a sharp knife to release all its guts.
He went to his bedroom, the gun held lightly in his hands, pulled the sheets back, and lay down on the big bed, his muddy logging boots leaving clumps of dirt on the white sheets. No, he wasn’t going back to prison. Never. He was going to sleep.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and put the barrel of the gun in his mouth, the cold steel resting on his lower teeth—taste of grease and dirt—the front sight jammed up against the back of his throat.
With his arm fully extended, he was just able to reach the trigger.
EPILOGUE
“Sometimes I live in the country,
Sometimes I live in town,
Sometimes I have a great notion to jump in the river and drown . . .
Good night, Irene. I’ll see you in my dreams.”
—Song, circa 1932,
Sung by Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter
Author unknown
“Duck, duck, goose!”
—Children’s game
1
Doctors speculated whether the severe hypothermia Rebecca experienced—lying washed up on shore all that time, half in the river half out—had caused some brain damage, but they were never able to either prove or dismiss this.
Calendula was dead. Sunbeam. Ivy. Coyote. But these were nothing. Mere drops in a pond, compared to losing Megan. This loss, this gaping hole in her life, this sad abyss that threatened to swallow her whole, was what now defined her. A cavern and ache that was always with her and would never let her go. That now gave form and definition to her being, made her what she was.
She thought nothing could be worse than watching that tiny coffin being lowered into the ground, but it wasn’t until the police investigation that she truly began to feel she was losing her mind.
Sitting on that hard chair between her mother and her lawyer, answering the detective’s questions, his implications and grave stares. Her mother wept the entire time. A Kleenex permanently affixed to her face. She said she was there for support, but her presence provided only guilt. Rebecca knew she blamed her for everything. Had warned her and told over and over her it wasn’t safe there.
She wanted to tell them about the ghosts.
How the land was haunted and determined to take them all.
That it was a miracle she survived. That she wished in her heart that she hadn’t been washed up to shore unconscious but breathing. That she wished she was there still, with her daughter, even in death.
She wanted to tell them about the little boy she’d seen. How he told her that he and the river would be waiting. She wanted to say so much, but her lawyer told her to just say that all she knew was that there was a landslide. That’s it.
And so, that’s what she did.
It seemed men weren’t attracted to her anymore. Her hair grew in weird, it was always trying to tangle itself back up into dreadlocks again and she’d get frustrated and brush it all out so that it had a wild, bird’s-nest look.
But most likely it was the desperation in her eyes, the sadness and edge-of-panic look that lay within them.
It was scary.
Those eyes which once held such determination and stubborn strength now radiated only madness. The madness of a drowning swimmer who in her flailing and desperation to survive will surely take you down with her. She often thought of the little girl who lived in a boat in the bathtub. She’d tried to change the ending of that story, but she couldn’t. It was fate.
Church bells.
Rebecca could hear the sound seeping in from outside the bar. It was noon and she was falling-down drunk, leaning heavily on the brass rail, dangerously close to toppling off her stool. The ground looked very far away.
“You hear them church bells?” she said to the balding guy sitting two stools down.
“Yeah, I hear ’em. They ring all the time. Especially Saturdays and Sundays. All damn day. Catholics and their bells.”
“Church bells,” she said. “Church bells.” Their ringing conjured some distant memory, like a puzzle piece whose awkward sides refused to fit into the rest of the picture. What was it? When had she heard church bells like that? When she was four? Before her dad left. God, could it have been then?
Easter Mass. She put her head down into her hands and began to cry.
“Fuck, lady, relax.” The guy stood and started away with a disgusted shake of his head.
“Hey, where you going?” she said, looking up, startled. Then shouting, “Don’t you leave me. Don’t you fucking leave me.”
The guy stopped before the door. “Lady, you must have me mixed up with someone else. I don’t even know you.”
“You bastard. Bastard!”
And then, as the blinding-white-light of the afternoon came streaming in she was falling, falling down off the stool, a slow-motion tumble to the floor, where she lay with the taste of blood in her mouth.
The bartender came around from the bar, a short, older guy with a graying beard and big hands. “Come on,” he said to her, “let’s get going. You’ve had too much and you’re scaring away the customers.” He pulled her up to her feet and walked her to the door. “That’s it. That’s it. Let’s get going, Miss It,” and he shoved her out into the heat of the day where she floated down the street like a ghost.
She was somewhere in downtown San Diego and the church bells were ringing for Sunday Mass. She didn’t know how she’d gotten here. She’d lost her phone, or broken it, or just thrown it away. She couldn’t remember anymore. Lost her glasses, too, so that everything was an unsteady blur.
She briefly wondered where she was going to sleep that night, though dusk was still far off. She was tired and needed a rest. Just a little rest. A nap. She veered off down a residential alley that seemed quiet, stumbled down past some trashcans and leaned up against an old brick building, sunk down against it, slipping towards the ground as the church bells chimed a terrible cacophony, something distorted and wrong, playing at the wrong speed, horrifyingly strange-sounding.
She put her head between her knees and covered her ears with her hands, rocking back and forth, strange images blooming up before her eyes.
A homemade birthday cake with only a handful of candles.
A Christmas without a tree.
Making out with some boy in an Iron Maiden shirt in the dark corner of a roller-skating rink.
And there were songs. Phish and the Grateful Dead, Charlie Manson and the themes to sitcoms and soap operas: Friends, Seinfeld, Days of Our Lives. And through it all, entwining all the notes and melodies, was that old sixties song Megan used to sing: “California Dreamin’.” And with it all those other songs of California as well: “Hotel California,” “Estimated Prophet,” “Mendocino County Line,” “Promised Land,” “Going to California.”
And everything smelled of earth and rain and piss and garbage and tasted of blood.
Curses and fights, doors slammed and walls kicked, digital photos posted and lies told on Facebook. She realized she’d never loved Calendula. Just a lie she’d told herself in order to get to some place she wanted to be. Had never loved her mother either. No one. She’d loved no one. No one but Megan. She was the only thing she’d ever loved. The only thing that ever mattered or meant anything to her. The only beam of light in a world of darkness. And she was gone. Gone, gone, gone.
She heaved and spit up bile. Drenched in sweat, she put her head between her knees and tried to vomit. But there was nothing left inside her.
2
The land went for sale on a one-day online auction. DJ sat hunched over his laptop and waited for the bidding to slow down. He wasn’t stupid. When it grew to a reasonable pace he started bidding. He had plenty of cash. He’d cleared his father’s coffers after he went there and found the old man in bed with his muddy boots on, his head in pieces, brains splattered all over the headboard. He had everything now: tweak, guns, cash. And land. He’d even inherited his father’s land. His granddad’s old hunting cabin turned into a tweaker palace by his so-called Pops. He was a rich man. And now, now he’d have the neighboring land as well. He ended up casting ten bids. The last one sat for the final three minutes of the auction and the land was his.
Katie was in prison. She’d pled guilty to manslaughter and gotten five years. He was lonely, but he didn’t really miss her that much. She was a good girl. Kept her fucking mouth shut. About him, about everything. Never pressed no charges or said a thing. Just quietly doing her time.
Did he wonder about the landside? Care about all the bodies found there, encased in a tomb of dirty mud and red clay? No. Did he question why Coyote’s head was missing? Ripped off his body? That the coroner had found conclusive evidence of induced trauma? Fuck no. Not at all. None of his business. This was his inheritance. His birthright. Why should he question any of it?
He grinned and slapped his hands together. Hell-motherfucking-yeah, dog, it was all his now. All of it. Homicide Hill was all his.
3
Spring. Megan and the little boy walked hand-in-hand down the river bank. The rain was long gone, just a distant memory. The sun glared across the earth, bright and blinding. The sky was an impossible blue, vast and infinite. The tan oaks and whitethorn were flowering and gusts of yellow pollen danced through the air, caught on a warm breeze.
They followed the path up the hill, the lush grasses—cocksfoot and oat straw, plantain, fescue and junegrass—a gleaming ocean of green about them, dotted with the fuzzy, yellow heads of blooming dandelions.
A butterfly fluttered by, its flight erratic and fitful. Megan chased after it, lifting her tiny pale hands in the air, laughing happily as it beat its wings crazily and was whisked away into the trees. The boy watched her and smiled. They passed the garden, which was now a dense tangle of fava bean stalks, heavily laden with plump seedpods.
Stopping in front of the chef house, they watched the man unloading equipment: huge lightbulbs, long, black coils of wire thick as snakes. Tanks, buckets. Trays of tiny green plants with fang-like serrated leaves.
A raven swept past, its shimmering, black wings beating loudly against the air. It perched high atop an oak and stared down at them.
Megan turned to the little boy, her magic owl. “Will we stay here forever and ever?”
He grinned and blinked his large, dark eyes. “Yes.”
ACKNOWLEDMENTS
To my darling wife, Tara, who read this chapter by chapter, draft by draft. I couldn’t have done it without you. To my son, Roland, who gave me lots of creepy ideas and allowed me to use his story “The Little Boy who Lived on a Boat in the Bathtub.”
To the entire Southern Humboldt community. A strange and wonderful place like no other.
To Amanda Blaine who read my rough drafts and gave me incredible suggestions.
To my dear friends, Laurel and Tanner, who beta read the rough drafts. And Laurel’s amazing parents Fred and Leah.
To Darryl Cherney for giving me permission to use lyrics from his and Judi Bari’s song “Trim a Bale of Ganga.”
To the LitReactor community, both members and teachers. In particular, David Corbett whose classes on the craft of character changed how I viewed the art of novel writing, Chuck Palahniuk who showed me how “creative” creative writing can be, J. David Osborne who gave me great advice on my rough draft, and John Skipp who helped me choreograph my violence. Also, Ania Ahlborn, Suzy Vitello, and Emily Schultz.
To the Creepypasta Wikia community whose help and support has been such a boon to my writing. ShadowSwimmer77, Empyrealinvective aka Travis Kuhlman, Mr. Dupin, RuckusQuantum aka Charles Resurreccion, Jay Ten, Diexillius aka Alex Niţescu, Thomas O, Banningk1979 aka K. Banning Kellum, Blacknumber1 aka Michael Waight, Umbrello, Dr. Frank N. Furter, Tiololo/Rinskuro13, ChristianWallis, SoPretentious/TenebrousTorrent, Dorkpool, The Koromo, DerpySpaghetti, Doom Vroom, KillaHawke, Natalo, ShawnHowellsCP, Ameagle aka Jasey Roberts, GarbageFactory, SnakeTongue237, Underscorre, Raidra, Mmpratt99, Supersatan25, FrenchTouch,
Rainboh, AGrimAuxiliatrix1, Hopefullygoodgrammar, Atonal Anthem, Spoopy Christie, RisingFusion, RomanRage, HawkWD and the site’s founder ClericofMadness.
To Mark Spencer, who helped me with my rough draft and let me use his comments as a blurb.
To my writing group: The Circle of Darkness, an incredibly talented bunch who not only helped and supported me, but talked me through the nervous breakdown I had during a rewrite, lol. Repo Kempt, GD Dearborn, Kristen Peterson, Brian Asman, Johnathan Nash, Wendy Maxon and Claudia Quint. Thanks so much, guys.
To my best friends in the whole world: Kalab Tye and Keith Casey, who have always encouraged all of my artistic endeavors.
And to my wonderful parents, Roland and Lorraine. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for everything. I love you so much.
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