Redneck Eldritch

by Nathan Shumate

  Staring at the woods several hundred feet away, the large man rattled the totems tied to the top of his staff, muttering softly again. Billie felt a static charge push through her, but without a storm cloud in the sky.F rom the direction of the woods a rush of wind swept out at them, tossing Billie’s hair. The stench of rotted flesh, far worse than the contents of the big man’s pot, made her gag against bile rising to the back of her throat.

  Billie heard the big man grunt against the wind’s impact and saw his feet stumble back a couple inches on the hard-packed earth.

  A moment later, the violent wind switched directions, creating a swirling dust devil which grew in seconds to more than an arm’s length wide, then burst apart, bending the field grass, striking the area of the woods where the wind had originated. The tree branches twisted back violently, accompanied by a much louder, heartfelt howling.

  Then the space between the huge man and the edge of the woods seemed to come alive with movement in the grass and from the edge of the wood, a flickering of shadow and debris in the conflicting wind currents.

  Though the dust storm and flurry of raging breezes lasted less than a minute, to Billie it seemed to go on forever, especially when she saw the large man react to a particularly violent blast by falling to one knee. His breath came in labored gasps and sweat streamed down and dripped from his scruffy chin. His exertion had caused his skin to flush, accentuating the pale, thin scar that ran from the corner of his right eye down to the right side of his chin. Though he looked winded and worn, his vision was clear and with a mighty grunt, he stood and pushed out with his staff, sending a large energy blast outward.

  The electricity in the air spiked and Billie almost applauded when a single sphere of ball lightning flashed from the clear sky and crashed into the woods; the sickly halo began to flicker. She ran over to the man and said, “Now’s your chance! Kill it!”

  A weird crackling sound began to emit from the woods.

  “Kill it!” Billie nearly screamed in terror.

  Flicking her fierce gaze on her, the man growled, “No killin’!” And instead he grabbed hold of her arm and stood upright, his staff raised over his head. His shout came out sounding to Billie like a mix of several different languages. The moment his bellowing ceased, a jolt ran through her fiercer than what she had already felt, this time taking most of her strength with it as it passed. She swooned for a second, but never diverted her eyes from the glowing woods.

  An animal shriek unlike anything she’d ever heard flowed around them, then with the roar of a cloudless thunderclap, the ominous glow winked out of existence.

  This time the large man dropped to both his knees, his staff resting across them, his head forward so his chin rested on his collarbone.

  The silence around them felt so enveloping Billie declined to speak for fear of shattering the moment. Just as she reached out to touch his shoulder, the faint sound of a dog barking reached them and the man’s head snapped up. He immediately whistled in response, which sounded like birdsong mixed with delicate wind-chimes.

  A moment later, motion at edge of the trees caught Billie’s attention and she watched in stunned silence as a small white animal raced down the path, disappearing in the tall field grass.

  The whistling continued until several seconds later a tiny white dog emerged from the grass and leapt into the man’s cupped hands—so tiny, it almost disappeared in his massive mitts. Billie couldn’t believe this little creature had been the cause of so much distress.

  “Where ya done been, Precious?” the man asked, softly caressing the small dog with a meaty finger.

  The dog yipped up at him and Billie watched as he carefully extracted a handmade talisman that had become tangled in the dog’s collar.

  “I done told ya not to play in my stuff,” he said, but his scolding held no anger, only affection. Without looking at Billie, the big man stood, turned and walked over to Stan. The young man’s eyes were clear, without any sign of pain or discomfort.

  After setting the small dog on top of what looked like a floor-standing heater but had a white glow pulsing inside the two-foot-tall metal cylinder, the huge man pulled his long hair back behind his shoulders and squatted down to scrutinize Stan’s foot. Nodding to himself, the man slowly removed the smelly wrap and this time he took Stan’s foot and moved it, bending it left, right, up and down. It seemed tender at the extreme angles and Stan flinched as a result, but other than that, and a disturbing green stain thanks to the noxious concoction, nothing seemed amiss.

  Satisfied, the man stood, gently retrieving Precious as he did, then waved in the general direction away from the woods.

  “Town’s bein’ that-a-way,” he growled, then he reached down and flipped a switch on the side of the odd cylinder. As the light powered down, Billie felt static that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up, then relax. In her pocket, her mobile phone chirped, indicating it had a signal.

  Excited, she took out her phone, satisfying herself that it had a full signal. Then she glanced from the cylinder to the large man, standing beside the motorhome’s doorway.

  “Not evvethin’s magic,” he slurred.

  “Um…” Billie said, then hesitated. “Could you give us a ride into town?”

  The large man gestured to the back of the rig with his free hand.

  The motor-home was supported on blocks under all four wheel hubs, and there was no other vehicle in the yard.

  With a final, gentle smile, the huge man took Precious into the motorhome, causing it to sway a bit, closing the door behind him.

  With a smile of her own, Billie turned and walked over to where Stan stood, testing his weight on his injured foot.

  “Amazing,” he said. “Who’d have thought a miracle man would be camped out by the woods?”

  Billie helped Stan turn, so he wouldn’t tweak his foot at an odd angle again, and the two of them headed toward the mouth of the path that looked like it snaked toward town.

  “Gotta admit,” Stan said as they walked, “that was a pretty exciting second date.”

  Laughing, Billie nodded. “No argument, there.”

  After a few more steps, Stan said, “What’d’ya think—third date?”

  Billie smiled up at him and nudged him with her shoulder.

  “We’ll see, Romeo,” she said. “We’ll see...”

  Hand-in-hand, they walked into the starry night.

  ***

  Inside the motorhome, Bubba-Ray watched the teens as they slowly made their way down the path that lead to town. His initial feeling of pride at fending off the dark entity in the woods paled now as he spotted a flickering shadow that had attached itself to the young couple. He had done what he could. It would be up to others to take care of the rest.

  He turned his attention away from the teenagers and crossed down to the back room, to the window where Precious stood on the small counter, staring out to the woods. With conscious gentleness, he scratched the small dog behind her ears. She leaned into his touch, but didn’t take her eyes off the edge of the wide field.

  “You done good, this time, Precious,” the big man rumbled, causing the dog to look up at him with big, soulful brown eyes.

  “Too bad we ne’er saved t’others,” he said and as if the dog could understand his thick drawl, Precious looked back out across the wavy tan grass. There, among the regular shadows of the trees and foliage, even darker shadows could be seen, swaying among the trees.

  Bubba-Ray knew it wouldn’t be long before those same swaying shadows would stand swaying among the high field grass at the perimeter of his campsite, the only bastion of defense for the distant town.

  “We best be gettin’ ready,” he said.

  Precious looked up at him and yipped in agreement, then they both turned their attention back to the deep darkness of the woods.

  LAKE TOWN

  Garrett Calcaterra

  Jody dropped the tailgate on her K5 Blazer and hoisted herself up to enjoy her Slim Jim
and Red Bull in the Gas’N’Go parking lot. “Breakfast of champions,” she muttered, but mostly because she didn’t feel bad about it. She’d earned it. Besides, it was too damn hot to be doing coffee and donuts. It was only 9 and pushing ninety degrees already. In November. Earthquake weather, if you believed that sort of shit. Jody didn’t.

  “Hi, hi, Jody.”

  It was Ted shambling through the parking lot, looking rougher than usual, gaunt and clammy, his nose and lips all red and chapped to hell. You’d never guess by looking at him that he was only a couple of years out of high school.

  “Hey, Ted. You’re up early this morning.”

  He gave a high-pitched wheezy imitation of a laugh. “Oh yeah, I guess. Hey, what are you doing?”

  “Right now, I’m just having my breakfast. What’s it look like to you, Ted? You high?”

  “Oh yeah, I guess.”

  Jody shook her head. Ted had been a nice kid when they’d been in school. They’d even dated for a while and gone to formal together their sophomore year. Now Ted was just another Georgebrook casualty.

  “Listen here,” Ted said. “There’s a big party tonight down by the lake, at Spider Camp. Gonna be a bonfire. Everyone is gonna be there. Come.”

  It wasn’t so much an invitation as a command. Not exactly the way to win Jody over. Still, Ted was a good guy. Lost, maybe, but not a bad person, and she didn’t have the heart to reject him flat out.

  “I’ll think about it. But do me a favor, Ted, will ya? Take it easy down there. Pace yourself.”

  Ted stared back at her blankly. “Come,” he said again, and then the Gas’N’Go door jingled as someone else walked out, and it was as if Jody no longer existed. Ted shuffled toward the man. “Hey, hey,” he said. “There’s a big party tonight.”

  Jody had seen enough. She hopped down from the tailgate and walked to the driver side, safely out of sight from Ted. Poor fool, she thought as she fired up the Blazer. She guzzled down the last of her Red Bull and slapped her cheeks to make sure she was fully awake, then gunned it out of the parking lot onto Main Street, headed for home to put in a few hours on her psych term paper before crashing out.

  “The Pride of the Mountains,” read the engraving on the stone archway out front of the Town Hall. Jody rolled her eyes as she cruised past it and all the other historic buildings lining Main Street. Georgebrook might have been the pride of gold country back in the 1850s, but these days it wasn’t the pride of anything. Apart from the architecture in old town Georgebrook, there was nothing here that interested her anymore. She couldn’t wait to get out. One more semester at the JC and working nights at the animal hospital, and she was gone.

  Once clear of old town, she laid into the throttle and sped past Georgebrook School, where she’d attended grades K through 8, and then Georgebrook High right alongside it. A mile beyond, she slowed as she turned onto Oxbow Spring Road, and then she was in the thick of the evergreen forest. Evergreen was another misnomer these days. More than half the ponderosa pines had succumbed to drought and bark beetles and stood brown and brittle, ready to go up like a tinder box at the slightest provocation.

  The dead trees made Jody think of Oxbow Lake, itself withered away over the last several years of drought to finally reveal its forgotten secret. She considered driving out there again, but then she thought of what Ted told her, about there being a party out that way tonight. She remembered, too, how disappointing her last visit to the lakebed had been.

  “Nope, going home, gonna knock out a few pages on my paper, and going to sleep.” She wasn’t even self-conscious about talking to herself out loud anymore. She’d grown accustomed to talking to the dogs and cats at the pet hospital as the only night attendant, and it had just sort of carried over into her daily life.

  “It’s time to go out and pee, Jack boy.”

  “Looks like that bandage is leaking, Dobie. We best change it out.”

  “I’m right here, Ms. Mittens, washing my hands. I hear you.”

  “Why is my mother texting me at two in the morning about praying for me? What doesn’t she understand about the word ‘no?’”

  “The u-joint on the K5 has been clanking pretty loud the last week or two. I best swap it out this weekend. Won’t do myself any good if the axle busts loose.”

  “Gonna knock out a few pages on my paper, and go to sleep.”

  It was like she was narrating her own life. Once she said something out loud, it became reality. That was certainly the case now—she was going home and straight to her room, hopefully without having to speak to her mother. Even so, the thought of the dried lake made her slow down as she came to the turn-off for it. She peered out the passenger window down the dusty tract between the trees, and was surprised to see two figures standing there, no more than twenty yards away. They waved their arms when they saw her.

  Jody pulled to the shoulder and braked hesitantly, figuring it was meth-heads, but these guys weren’t the local flavor. The older guy—middle-aged, graying, with the start of a gut—was wearing a pink polo shirt, khaki cargo shorts, and some serious-looking hiking boots. He even had trekking poles. The other guy was a skinny Asian dude in just a t-shirt, jeans, and Converse sneakers. He had a big DSLR camera hanging from his neck. The two of them couldn’t have been more out of place in Georgebrook if they’d tried. Jody rolled down the passenger window as the Asian guy trotted toward her.

  “Hey, thanks,” he said. “You think you could give us a ride back into town? Our car is stuck and phones aren’t working. Can’t get ahold of Triple A.”

  Jody regarded the two of them. No way she could leave them out here to fend for themselves. Most of the other locals would probably help them if they happened to pass by, but not all of them, and not many passed by at this time of day. So it looked like no sleep for a while.

  “Cellphones don’t do much good out this way because of the hills,” she said. “Tow truck would take pretty long to get out here, anyway. I have a tow rope in the back. If you want, I’ll pull you out for twenty bucks.”

  The Asian guy glanced back at the older guy, who pulled out his wallet and checked it. “Sure,” the old guy said. “That thing you’re driving is big as a tow truck.”

  Jody smiled and motioned for the two of them to hop in. The Asian guy deferred to the older man and let him take the front seat. Jody was still trying to figure out what their relationship was.

  “Thank you,” the old guy said. “We truly appreciate this, young lady.”

  Jody turned down the dirt road. “No problem. You stuck out on the lake bed?”

  “No, we didn’t even make it that far, I’m afraid.”

  He wasn’t lying. Jody rounded the first bend and there was a late model VW Bug sitting halfway off the dirt road.

  “Yeah, not very far at all,” the Asian guy said with a laugh.

  Jody had to laugh, too. She pulled over in front of the VW and killed the engine. “So who the hell are you guys?” she asked as she hopped out to assess the damage. She’d had a brief glimmer of hope they were with the BLM, but no way, not in that car.

  “I’m Doctor Hallward and my associate here is Steve.”

  Jody got down on her hands and knees to peer under the VW. “Like a doctor doctor?”

  “Not an M.D., no. I’m a professor of anthropology at University of the Bay. Are you a real doctor? A nurse?”

  “I’m calling ‘dental hygienist,’” Steve, the Asian guy said.

  Jody stood up and brushed herself off. She’d forgotten she was still in her scrubs. “Ah, no, not a doctor either. Just the night attendant at the animal hospital. Name’s Jody. Looks like you got yourself high-centered on that berm.”

  “I told you,” Steve said, eying the professor.

  “No, I believe you ‘called’ I was a dental hygienist,” Jody said.

  “No, not that. I told Dr. H he was going to get high-centered and that he should have let me drive. I may be Asian, but I’m actually pretty good.”

  “No matt
er. You should have brought a different car. You’re never going to make it down to the lake in that thing. The road gets pretty rough.”

  “What makes you think we’re headed to the lake?” the professor asked.

  Jody hefted a stone from the side of the road and wedged it under one of the VW’s front tires. “Because that’s the only place this road goes. Besides, you’re an anthropologist, and he fancies himself a photographer. Where else would you be going but Lake Town?” She wedged another stone beneath the other front tire of the VW.

  Steve shot a glance at the professor. “You know about Lake Town?”

  “Everyone in Georgebrook knows about Lake Town now. Here, take this end of the rope and crawl under the front of that Bug.” She handed Steve one end of the tow rope and attached the other end to the tow-hitch on the rear bumper of her K5.

  Steve did as she said and laid down in front of the VW to peer beneath it.

  “There should be a hook mounted on the frame somewhere back behind the bumper,” Jody told him.

  “Yeah, I got it.” He pulled himself up and dusted off his hands. “You by chance know someone who goes by the handle ’LoreMiner?’ You know, on Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, that sort of thing. Not sure you’ve got the Internet all the way up here.”

  Jody turned away from him, half-annoyed, half-excited by his question. He knew about the LoreMiner posts. First things first, though, she reminded herself. “Hop in your car, Professor. Turn it on and put it in neutral. When I start tugging on you, steer yourself to the left, back into the center of the road.”

  “Okay, sure, but shouldn’t I put it in drive?”

  “No, don’t put it in drive and keep your foot away from the gas pedal. Just steer and then put on the brakes once I pull you loose. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  She hopped into her vehicle and the professor into his, leaving Steve to scramble off to the safety of the opposite side of the road. It took only one good tug to pull the VW off the berm onto the road again. The professor was all smiles as he got out of his car. He reached for his wallet and the twenty dollars as Jody removed the tow rope.