by Dan Dillard
*****
“What do you want, little one? Are you lost?” she asked.
Her voice cracked and had a saccharin tone. She leaned out the door to see the commotion at my house. Her teeth weren’t pointy, but rotten and I could smell her litter-box stench, cat piss and body odor. It stuck to me like I had walked through a spider web.
“There’s quite a bit of hubbub going on up to your place. Are you some kind of outlaw?” She giggled at her joke. It was a horrible sound. Not a laugh or a chuckle, but an actual cackle—a wicked witch noise. It sent a sharp pinch through my nerves and I shuddered. I’m sure she noticed. She squinted one eye and ducked back into her doorway.
“You must be in some trouble t’ come see the crazy lady. Devil Woman. That’s what you kids have taken to calling me, isn’t it?”
She knew. How could she know?
“It’s not a very nice thing for a young boy to say about an elderly woman. Oh, but I understand how the imagination can run wild. I too was young once.”
It must’ve been centuries ago.
She tsk-tsk’d me with her bony fingers and smiled a crooked, rotten-toothed smile. Then she did the most horrible thing of all. She stepped fully outside and put her hand on my shoulder. It felt like dry twigs resting there and the weight of it was immense—more mental than physical weight.
“Don’t be scared, son. Obviously you have questions for old Eunice. If not, you wouldn’t have been staring over here and spying on me all summer long. Come in. Let me get you somethin’ to drink.”
It was the worst idea I’d ever heard but some sick curiosity drove my feet. Either she ate my brother or she didn’t and needed the truth so I could put it to rest. The door creaked closed behind me and I vibrated with fear. She patted my back gently, like a grandmother comforting a little one.
We walked into a sitting room where she offered me a seat with a wave of her hand. I was relieved to see normal furniture, covered in fabric instead of skin, and not a bone in sight. I thought for a moment we’d misjudged her. She left to get my drink and was back in a flash. Her speed surprised me.
“I guess I might be frightening to child,” she said as she placed the store-brand soda on the end table to my right. I picked it up and took a drink, although I wasn’t thirsty. The sweet and bubbly liquid eased the knot in my throat, but only a little.
Eunice’s hands had a slight tremor. It increased in intensity as she spoke. “I’m a sickly old woman, always in this ratty black dress. You understand I just can’t take care of myself like I used to–that I don’t get much help?”
I nodded. I didn’t understand, but I nodded. She sat down in a chair across from me.
“I can’t remember when I last left this house.” Her tone was genuine and her eyes seemed kind enough. On another day I might have forgiven her all the nightmares and apologized for our prying and nastiness, but Kevin was still gone and she had explaining to do. Explaining to me. She smiled and I saw slices of those green teeth between her liver-colored lips.
We sat and silently watched each other and anger swelled inside me. I imagined Adam and Erin running to my house to tell my parents. I thought about how it would feel to lose both children in one morning. They would be devastated, angry at me for leaving. Or maybe Adam and Erin had just run across the street and were watching from the corner at the Collins’ bus-stop house. They wouldn’t wait long before they told, and even if the story was crazy, one thing would be true. I was here and my parents would know where to come find me. Even if I was a dead me.
I blurted out, “Why’d you scream at my brother that day?”
She nodded. Or perhaps it was more of a shrug performed with her face. “My medicines sometimes make me act up is all. I didn’t mean to startle anyone.”
My grandmother took pills—lots of them. Eunice probably took a dozen pills a day. I believed she could forget one here and there. I was starting to believe she was nothing more than a lonely old woman.
“It sounded awful,” I said.
With a guilty look, she apologized. “I’m sure it did and I’m sorry for that.”
“How do you get food? Who brings you things if you never leave?” My tone accused. She was less scary, less intimidating. I felt I had the upper hand. I saw her rotting teeth and smelled her rotten smell. She couldn’t bite into a ripe tomato with those teeth, much less a person.
“Now, settle down boy. One question at a time,” she said with another cackle.
“Well?” I gave her my sternest look.
“I have a handyman that brings me my things. Have you met Rollie? I know you’ve seen him cuttin’ my yard. He also does odd jobs and brings me my groceries about every week.”
Eunice looked from the corner of one eye which didn’t set right in my gut. That red-rimmed eye was trying to will me into buying her story. Something besides Eunice stunk. I thought about what Jason and Kevin had said that day in the clubhouse. Kevin with his bad southern accent. Kevin who was now gone…perhaps tied up somewhere in that very house.
“Rollie told my brother he never spoke to you, he said he worked for a company and they called him to come here and cut your grass.”
She leaned forward and put her hand on mine and patted it. Her skin was icy cold. She wasn’t crazy. Her eyes were clear and bright and they stared deep into mine. This wasn’t a senile woman who just didn’t remember who brought her groceries, she was toying with me. I didn’t understand that at ten, all I knew was bile was bubbling in the back of my throat. Her thick, hairy breath covered me as she spoke.
“So you do know my secret,” she said. “I was hoping you didn’t. Hoping for your sake…but you do.” She leaned back in her chair and the hunch in her back straightened with a faint popping noise. Then, Eunice blinked with two sets of eyelids. The once round pupils in those old bloodshot eyes changed shape. Not dilated, but altered and became something hideous.
“Yessss,” Eunice hissed. “I fooled that policeman who asked if I’d seen your brother. He took me for a kind, sickly old woman. But I can’t fool you, can I?”
I didn’t answer—couldn’t. She smiled and her teeth were no longer rotten, but jagged and sharp– just like in my dream–just like in Kevin’s story. I watched Eunice change into the creature we knew she was but hoped she wasn’t. Her skin stretched smooth and turned from the gray papery look of a feeble old woman to red. She lunged and unfurled long fingers which landed across my throat. I gasped and ducked to one side slipping her grasp, then stood up to face her. She bobbed like a snake, anticipating and blocking any exit I had.
“I ate that Rollie Suggs. Gobbled ‘im right up because he wasn’t giving me what I needed.” The words oozed with a raspy sound, still cracked like the voice of a cartoon witch. But it wasn’t a cartoon, and the sound was neither endearing nor cute. My eyes darted, looking for escape. Instead they found the soda can. One bloody thumbprint stood out amongst the beads of condensation. As they dripped through it, they took on a pink quality. Kevin’s blood. It had to be. She’d given me the same can she gave him. Oh God, my brother.
Her gaze was steady and she moved fluidly now, rather than the careful twitchy motions of an ancient woman trying not to get a catch in her joints. I let out a whimper.
“Oh yes, I ate Rollie. I’ve eaten hundreds of your kind…and last night I ate your brother.”
She–It–snapped at me with rows of shark-like teeth. I jumped and the Eunice-thing pounced on me. I strained to get away from her jaws. “He’s tasty, still young and tender and full of wonderful blood,” it said.
I wriggled free, landing the couch where she had been sitting. Jumping to my feet, I fell over the back of the couch and into a sitting position. My tailbone screamed. The creature swiped with one clawed hand just as I ducked, missing me with an audible swish. I moved forward and it walked around the couch. I dodged and it matched me. The can with the bloody thumbprint was the closest thing in reach and I picked it up and hurled it at the monster
, but Eunice darted and was already behind me. The can crumpled against the wall, sending a spray of dark brown liquid and foam splattering on the wainscot and carpet below. One of Eunice’s hands grabbed around my midsection and the other was on my face, stroking my cheek like a lover. My stomach lurched.
“He fought Eunice, your brother did, and he screamed until there was no blood left,” it said as it lowered its face to mine and licked my ear. It leaned against me and I sat down under its weight. My tailbone screamed again.
“Mmm. He tasted just like you.” It grinned with its pointy teeth and bloody goat’s eyes. I felt warmth as piss ran down my leg, irritating my skin and wetting the chair where I sat.
“Rollie told your brother something about me that day, and he told that Walker boy too. He’s on Eunice’s menu tonight, Jason Walker, already good as dead. He still knows something, just like you know something. When I’m done with him…I’ll come for the others. Those two little ones that ran. They ran and left you to die, my boy. Good for me…bad for you.”
Eunice’s eyes rolled back into her monster skull and she clacked her jaws at me. It sounded like a slate marking a new take. Sam’s demise, scene one, take one! Okay, that’s a wrap on Sam. Cut and print.
My mind gave way like a weak dam and every emotion rushed in. I jumped up screaming, enraged and terrified. The devil woman blocked each escape I attempted and smirked. Her fangs glinted in the daylight. Dark drool poured from her mouth and dripped onto the floor. Using the furniture to shield her advance, I ran deeper into the house.
Bolting into the kitchen was a mistake. The smell of blood was overwhelming and the cabinets and floor were smeared with dried remnants of terrified children. One handprint stained the refrigerator door. It glistened, still fresh. I backed into the sitting room with my eyes closed. It was laughing. The Eunice-thing lingered by the entryway giggling in that spine numbing cackle from my nightmares.
In a flash she struck, missing me with her teeth but still knocking me down. I rolled under the table and out the other side where I pushed myself up to a standing position. With a few steps I was back in the sitting room, but she blocked my path to the front door, my only escape. My eyes were wild and I grabbed for anything that I could use as a weapon. This time it was a table lamp with a sturdy metal base.
Eunice stood tall and its jaws gaped in an ear-busting shriek. Its long, thin arms splayed out like a bird of prey swooping in for attack. I gripped the lamp and swung for the fences. All of my fear and hatred went into that swing and I aimed to knock her head over the center field wall. She dodged with another queer, snakelike motion. Strike one. I swung again. Strike two.
The cord sparked as I jerked it from the socket and the lamp’s momentum threw me off balance shattering the bulb against the wall and darkening the room. I righted myself and propped the lamp back on my shoulder, ready for the next pitch. Her eyes glowed yellow-green in the light from the single window.
“You’re meat, Sssam. I can smell your fear. Feed me,” it said. The voice was no longer human at all, but a mixture of growls and hisses. I swung again, off balance. Strike three. The Eunice-thing continued to metamorphose and saw scales and muscular arms that ended in claws. There were more jagged teeth and not hatred in those eyes, but the scary confidence of a predatory animal. I planted my feet, raised the lamp up high, and the creature stepped into the light, just as my club made its arc across the sitting room. Thank God baseball rules didn’t count.
The fourth swing connected just above its left eyebrow with a wet thump. As the monster fell to the floor, I saw an oily black substance weep out of the wound and ooze down its face. It let out another wailing cry. I don’t know if the Eunice-thing was downed by the blow or just startled by a blast of pain. A celebratory laugh escaped me, “Ha ha!” but I didn’t gloat any further than that.
Screaming, I sprinted for the front door and burst through. Sunlight blinded me and I leaped from the porch missing every step on the way down. I shouted again and hit the ground in a tumble. As I stood back up, my feet digging for traction, still running, I risked a quick glance backward and found nothing was chasing me. Once I was across the street, I fell down and lay in my neighbor’s yard. From inside the Stubbins’ place, I heard another awful shriek.
One of my knees and the opposite elbow bled from scrapes and my tailbone throbbed. My other wounds were physically invisible, and though I’d won the battle, I still knew my brother was dead and that evil thing’s belly was full. When she appeared in her doorway, she was Eunice again, just an old woman in a black dress, but there was a cut on her forehead and blood trickled down her cheek on that side. Her eyes were on me, and her lip was curled up into a grin.
I ran with wings on my heels and prayed that somehow I had gotten lucky and done enough. That I had proven I was a worthy enough opponent. I prayed she would find a new hunting ground and leave Walker’s Woods. That my friends would be all right. I prayed, but I could feel her glare burning holes in my back.
When I got home, I wanted to warn everyone and tell them what I saw. I wanted to, but couldn’t. Instead, I sobbed uncontrollably, and no words would come. I found my parents blank-faced and standing in the doorway to Kevin’s room as the police continued to investigate. They didn’t even ask where I’d been which meant Adam and Erin hadn’t come to tell them where I was, that I was in danger. They didn’t even try to help.
The police detective moved us to my parents’ room. “We don’t want to disturb the evidence,” he said.
I heard him mention blood stains on Kevin’s bedroom floor as we walked away. I guess everyone knew now, at least in their hearts that Kevin was gone. I sat on my mom and dad’s bed while mom silently stroked my hair. Dad sat on a bench at the end of the bed and stared at the floor. The longer I sat there in that maddening quiet, the more I withdrew.
We left to stay at a hotel that evening. Mom said she couldn’t stay in the house. I don’t think any of us wanted to. Eunice was in the window as we drove by. She stood in her old-woman mask and held the curtain back, smiling at me with her dead eyes. I spent the next few weeks sitting on a pillow and the next year of my life in silence.
If any good came out of the events of that weekend, we left Walker’s Woods. My mother and I moved to an apartment in the city where there were no spooky houses and there were no crazy old women living down the hall, feeding on the residents. Dad stayed behind to wrap things up.
*****
I lived through a memorial service for a brother who never came home. After three years of searching, my parents ran out of money and sanity and they filed for bankruptcy. The case was closed and Kevin was assumed dead by the authorities. Mom and Dad felt he was still alive. They talked about it all the time. Maybe he would come home…maybe the worst hadn’t happened.
It had. They just couldn’t continue any longer. If only they’d known—as surely as I did—that Kevin was dead, that he wouldn’t be suffering anymore. If they had known that, they might have found peace. Or maybe not. I knew the truth. He was dead and he had suffered terribly. It took decades and another obituary to bring me peace.
I grew up with pills, therapists, and doctors but told them nothing. They wouldn’t have believed me. What good would it have done to be crazy? That was just another way for Eunice—or whatever she was—to win. I quietly survived the divorce of my parents and my mother’s love affair with alcohol. I also survived my own love affair with alcohol, an equally difficult demon to defeat.
For years I wished I’d let Eunice take me that day to meet the same fate as my brother. Some days I still do. Then I wish she’d have taken Jason Walker instead of Kevin. She could’ve destroyed their family. My single strike with that lamp may have been enough to save Jason’s life. I will always hate him for that. I will always hate myself for being too late.
I’ve heard from Erin from time to time over the years, Christmas cards mostly, but I never heard from Adam again. I cut all ties with the old neighbor
hood. I thought I’d never forgive her or Adam for leaving me alone on that porch, but I have. They were ten and they were scared. We were all scared. I wish them well—especially my girl with the magical green eyes. I picture her with a strong family of her own, something I would never have dreamed of interrupting, or infecting with my nightmares. Maybe I’ll visit her sometime and maybe I’ll look Adam and his brother up. Maybe we can all talk about Kevin and Eunice and that summer and fall. Or maybe they all moved on and don’t want to think about that part of our lives.
I remember it all. I’ll remember it for them. Some people just have a tougher road. Some people have to do more to get the same results. Her death should’ve freed me of that, but I can’t help but wonder, are there more out there like you, Eunice? Is there one in every street in every town?
Only the children know for sure.
..ooOOoo..
About the Author:
Dan rides this rock through space with you. His wife navigates. His kids provide the adventure.
Other books by me:
WHAT TANGLED WEBS
THE UNAUTHORIZED AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ETHAN JACOBS
LUNACY
HOW TO EAT A HUMAN BEING
GIVING UP THE GHOST
THE TOOTHLESS DEAD
THE WICKED
DIG
DOWN THE PSYCHO PATH
Find them all here: www.amazon.com/author/dandillard
Talk to him at any of the following places:
[email protected]
www.demonauthor.com
@demonauthor on Twitter
www.facebook.com/demonauthor
https://gplus.to/dandillard
