Gilchrist: A Novel

by Christian Galacar

  Hooch lay facedown on the ground, not moving. Ricky stood over him with a bloody stone in his hand. He looked at her and smiled, his yellow teeth winking at her from behind his thin, liver-colored lips. “Hiya, Gracie. Glad you’re awake. Now I want you to keep those eyes open so you know what’ll happen to you if you don’t listen. Okay?”

  “Help! Somebody help me!” she yelled, falling away to a sobbing whimper. It was pointless. She was surrounded by woods and farmland. “Somebody… please… Why are you doing this to me?”

  Ricky cocked his head to the side, an animal watching its meal struggle. “Because I’m here and you’re there. I decide, not you.”

  She screamed until her face was purple and her vocal chords felt like they had torn.

  When she was done, Ricky laughed at her. Then very simply, he said, “Knock it off, Gracie. No one can hear you, and you’re giving me a headache. Keep it up, and this’ll be you next. You watching? Keep those eyes open. No cheating.”

  A soft moan issued from Hooch, but he didn’t move. Grace looked on in horror as Ricky dropped to one knee and repeatedly brought the rock down on his friend’s skull until there was nothing left but a pile of mush.

  By the time he was finished, Grace was in shock. She was too scared to cry or to call for help, not that it did any good. Whatever hope she had been holding on to was completely gone. All that remained was a subdued numbness.

  Ricky tossed the rock into the water, then made his way over to her. His arms looked as though they had been dipped in blood.

  He pulled a pistol from his waistband and squatted beside her. He pushed the barrel into her cheek, then ran it across her lips. “Now I want you to listen to me, Gracie. Your old man went too far today, and left me with no choice but to teach him a lesson. He needs to know that I’m the judge around here. I decide, not him.”

  She pulled her head away but said nothing.

  He grabbed her hair and dug the gun harder into her face. She could smell gun oil and spent gunpowder. She remembered it from when her father had shown her how to shoot. They still went every once in a while, but not nearly as often as they used to. Sadness ripped through her when she thought about how she might never again.

  “You and I are gonna take a little boat ride and have some fun. If you behave, maybe I let you go. If you don’t—if you piss me off”—he dug the barrel into her swollen eye until she saw red—“then things aren’t gonna go well for you, Gracie. Wait here.”

  Ricky stood and tucked the pistol behind his back. He went over to Hooch and dragged him by the feet to the edge of the river. He patted his friend down and took a few dollars and a pack of cigarettes out of his pockets. Then he rolled Hooch into the water, waded out a few feet, and let the current take the body downriver.

  When he was finished, he splashed water on his face and arms, washing off the blood. Then he walked out of view, moving in the direction of the woods that separated the river and the road. Grace turned and watched over her shoulder as Ricky pulled a canoe out from behind a bush and headed back toward her with it in tow.

  5

  After his experience in Big Bath, Peter spent the morning on the couch in a dreamless sleep. When he finally opened his eyes, it was almost two thirty, and he felt as if he had the world’s worst hangover. The euphoric feeling had worn off, and his mind had the sensation of having been pressed in a vise.

  He sat up and glanced around Shady Cove. “Syl? Syl, where are you?”

  For the second or two she didn’t respond, panic tickled him and he looked toward the lake. But the fear was short-lived.

  “I’m on the porch,” she said. “It’s nice out. Come join me.”

  He got up, stretched, and went to her. She lay in the love swing, slowly drifting back and forth. On the ground beside her was a half-full pitcher of lemonade and a plate with sandwich crusts on it. She was still in her nightgown, a white, nearly see-through linen number that Peter jokingly referred to as her “Bohemian bed dress.” It was the kind of lazy day Shady Cove had likely been designed to provide. And it was providing just that, but also, it would seem, so much more.

  “I’ve been asleep for a while, huh?” He dragged a tired hand down his face.

  “Almost five hours.”

  “Make room.” He picked up her legs, sat down on the swing, and let her feet drop in his lap. He could feel the short stubble of her leg hair against his inner arm.

  She looked at him curiously from beneath the forearm she had draped over her eyes. “Everything all right?”

  “I’m a little out of it, that’s all. Tired, I guess.”

  “You gave me quite a scare earlier,” she said.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Can we make a deal?”

  “What?”

  “From now on, no swimming without one of us to be on lifeguard duty.”

  He nodded. “That’s probably a good idea.”

  “You think we should find a doctor?” she asked. “I’m sure there’s one in town. It might not be a bad idea to get your lungs checked out. You don’t want to end up with pneumonia or something.”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “You sure? You don’t need to pre—”

  “Syl.” He sighed and looked at her good-naturedly. “I’m fine. Really. I just choked on a little water.” But it was more than that, he thought.

  “Okay. I’m dropping it,” she said. “Want some lemonade? I just made it.”

  “Sure.” He poured himself a little in the cup she had been using, and took a sip. It was the perfect balance of sweet and tart. “It’s good. I forgot what this tasted like without vodka.”

  He blinked and stretched his face a few times to push away the tiredness. He looked out over the yard, his mind a simmering pit of sap. All the debris from the thunderstorms had been cleared away, the grass mowed and raked.

  “It’s hard, isn’t it? We were drinking a lot. I didn’t realize it until these past few days. Everything used to be with a drink.”

  “Yeah. It’s kinda nice, though,” he said distantly. His thoughts were elsewhere, dealing with apprehension.

  Sylvia smiled after a moment of brief silence. “I think I’m in the mood for a hamburger.” An afternoon breeze swept through the porch, rattling the screens. “I thought maybe later we could go to that place you were telling me about on the way up. I know it’s a bar, but I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’m okay if you’re okay. Then maybe we can come back here and watch the sun set on—”

  “Something happened, Syl,” Peter said abruptly.

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  He looked at her. “I’m going to tell you, and I want you to promise me that when I’m done, you’ll just say ‘okay’ and leave it alone, no matter what you think of me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I need you to know what I saw, Syl.” He shook his head in disbelief, tears welling in his eyes. “It was… I don’t know. Maybe the most unbelievable thing I’ve ever seen. But it sounds—no it is—absolutely crazy.”

  He knew she would believe him; Kevin Dooley had poked a hole in any preconceived skepticisms either of them had about what was and was not possible. For Peter, that poke had started a slow leak in his mind that had quickly built to a deluge. Everything he thought he knew was being undermined and washed away. In the process, new, strange things were being unearthed. The problem he envisioned was that once he said what he was about to say out loud, then it would hang out there as unpredictable knowledge… and that could be dangerous. Knowing, he feared, might be worse for her than being kept in the dark. But she had a right to know.

  Confusion crept down her face. “What are you talking about?”

  “Just promise me you’ll say ‘okay’ and that we’ll get past this.”

  He knew that asking this guarantee of her made no difference, but he had to say it for his own peace of mind.

  “How can I promise you that if I don’t know what you’re going to say?”

&n
bsp; “You can’t. But I need you to, just the same. Please, Syl.”

  “All right. If that’s what you need, then I promise,” she said. “Now what is it? You’re scaring me.”

  Peter finished off the lemonade in his glass, then set it down on the porch beside him. “When I was out there, when I almost drowned, I saw something. I went somewhere, Syl. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but I swear it’s true… and I saw him, Syl. I saw Noah.”

  Her face steeled over. He had her undivided attention.

  And for the next ten minutes, Peter told his wife in great detail about what had happened to him when he had gone under in Big Bath. He told her everything… except he never mentioned Jackson Hill or anything related to it. He didn’t know why, but something told him not to.

  When Peter finished, Sylvia was sitting up straight, looking out over the water. She didn’t say anything, only stared ahead, her finger picking the side of her thumb.

  “Syl, it was real. I swear it was. And you know I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t believe it. I’m not the type. I’m an evidence guy, and this was too close to a dream. But… I swear it was real somehow. Aren’t you going to say something?”

  She looked over at him, the faintest smile on her face. “Okay.”

  Peter snorted a small laugh. “Really?”

  “What? You said that’s all you wanted me to say.”

  “I know. But I didn’t mean it quite so literally.”

  “I think we both know that there is something going on around here that neither of us really understands.” She looked at him earnestly. “But I couldn’t tell you if it’s good or if it’s bad.”

  Then he told a lie. “I don’t know, either. I think it just is.”

  He was afraid if he said what he truly thought, it would lead to them leaving, and he wasn’t quite ready to go yet. There was something special about Gilchrist, even if it was dangerous. Peter thought that maybe whatever qualities the town had, they were somehow causing his eyes to finally open.

  “Do you think I might’ve imagined all of it? Be honest. I know it sounds more like a hallucination than anything else.”

  “You’re telling me you slipped down some rabbit hole and saw our dead son. Should I believe he exists out there in some other reality? Probably not, no. But do I?” She reached over and took his hand. “I think I need to, Peter. Not for you… for me.”

  “I love you, Syl. You know that, don’t you?”

  She slid over and rested her head on his shoulder. They sat in silence for a long time, watching the afternoon sink lower on Big Bath and listening to the loons.

  6

  Grace spent twenty minutes on her back in the bottom of the canoe, watching the sky snake through the treetops as Ricky navigated down the river. It was silent, save for the slap of the canoe hull cutting water. Occasionally, steel-colored clouds drifted across the afternoon sun and dulled the day. Crepuscular rays, what her mother called Fingers of God, broke through and then faded. She saw it all, but she felt nothing besides a vague detachment from the world.

  At some point they reached their destination. In the dense section of swampy woods where the river went narrow, the air felt crypt cool and smelled sharp. Ricky got out and dragged the canoe from the water with her still in it. Then they were moving again. He was pulling her in the canoe through the woods, the bottom scraping against the dirt.

  Another five minutes passed. Then he stopped. The jarring drop of the canoe hitting the ground sent a gasp of pain through her whole body.

  “We’re here, Gracie. Home sweet home.” He kicked the side of the canoe. “Get up, c’mon.”

  She sat up, which was hard to do with her hands still tied behind her back. It was thick woods as far as she could see in every direction. To her left was a little shack. Though old and falling apart, it looked as if perhaps someone had done a few minor repairs to it. She didn’t know what the place was, but she could feel it seeping dread.

  “I said c’mon. You’re already pissin me off.”

  She looked at him, a feeling of stubborn disobedience rising up in her. “You broke my foot. How am I supposed to get out? I can’t walk.”

  “Goddammit. Listen when I tell you to do something.” He grabbed her by the top of her hair. The canoe tipped and spilled her onto the ground. He started dragging her into the shack.

  “Let go of me!” she screamed. With her upside-down view, she could see the pistol sticking out from the small of his back. If her hands were free, maybe she could…

  But your hands aren’t free, Grace.

  “Shut up. Knock it off,” he said through clenched teeth as he tugged her inside. The smell of death and rancid meat hit her. She could hear his boots scraping against a grit-covered floor. Then he was dragging her across it, abrading her legs.

  He pushed her into something hard and knobby in the center of the room. He let go of her, leaving her to sit upright against it. The rusty pipe came up through the floor about three feet high, then did a ninety-degree turn and ran out a little hole in the back wall.

  He went over to a corner and stood with his back to her. “You like my place? It ain’t much, but it’s all mine. I don’t usually have guests, so you’ll have to ignore the mess.” From his pocket, he took the cigarettes he had lifted off Hooch and put them on a little shelf in front of him. A necklace with a pendant hung from a nail below it. There were a few things on the shelf, but Grace couldn’t tell what they were.

  She looked around, her eyes adjusting to the dim interior. It was worse than she could have ever imagined. At first she didn’t know what she was seeing. Then she did.

  Ricky had nailed dozens of dead, eviscerated animals to the walls. Their bodies were pinned open like the dissected frogs from her seventh-grade biology class, and their entrails hung out like withered balloons. Some were dried and leathery looking, as if they had been there for quite some time.

  He’s been at this for a while.

  “Ricky, why are you doing this? I didn’t do anything to you.”

  He squatted and rummaged through a burlap sack on the ground below the little shelf. He pulled out a long length of rope and turned around, his face cold and calm.

  “Your old man needs to learn he can’t act any way he likes,” he said, coming toward her. “And now that I think about it, I didn’t really like the way you yelled at me the other day. I was only playin around with those folks, and you had to make me look stupid downtown in front of everyone. I wasn’t actually gonna hit them. You had no right. That big mouth of yours is no good. It must run in the family.”

  “I didn’t mean it. You scared me, is all. I’m sorry, Ricky. Really. Please just let me go. I swear I won’t tell anyone about this.”

  “I know you won’t. I believe you. Really, I do. Now, time for some fun.” He grinned at her as he came closer. Then he was standing over her, his legs straddling hers. He dropped the rope beside her and started to unbuckle his belt. Icy, jagged fear tore Grace’s stomach. This was it—what she had feared the most.

  She recoiled against the pipe behind her, tucking her legs up despite the pain. “Please, no. Kill me, just kill me.”

  Ricky started to laugh. “Oh, you should see your face, Gracie. It’s precious.” He backed away from her and buckled his belt. “Is that what you think this is? I ain’t that kind of man.” He cocked his head to the side. “At least, I don’t think so.”

  Crimson rage flashed in her head. “What’s the matter with you! Get the fuck away from me, you sicko!” With her good leg, she kicked at him as hard as she could. She managed to connect a few inches below the knee, but it came at a cost to her as a great gouge of pain reported in her foot and ripped through her body.

  Ricky’s hand went to his leg, and he hopped back so she couldn’t get in another shot. “Well, well, Gracie, aren’t we full of surprises,” he said, grimacing. “Didn’t think you had it in you. You forgot about this, though.” He reached behind his back and flashed the pistol at her.


  Before she knew it, he lunged at her and caught her in the temple with the heel of the pistol grip.

  7

  When she regained consciousness, her situation was worse. She was kneeling, her knees raw from the grit of the floor. All she could taste was sour metal. Her mouth was full of it, and she couldn’t move her jaw. Her teeth scraped against something hard and rough. Then she understood the situation.

  He had secured her to the lateral section of pipe as if it were a pillory device (she had learned about these on their school trip to the witch museum in Salem), but her mouth was stuck open around it. The pipe was like a giant horse bit, and her head was bound tightly from the neck so she had no chance of removing it.

  She tried to speak but could only make muffled sounds. She waited for Ricky to appear, to tell her what was next. Just get it over with already, she thought desperately.

  Five minutes passed. Ten. Then after what felt like an hour, but could easily have been twenty minutes, she knew he had left. She could see through the shack’s open doorway. Outside, wind soughed through the trees. Trunks creaked as they swayed. And she heard the crows again. So many of them.

  Had they come to feed on her?

  No. Not yet.

  8

  Ricky was back in downtown Gilchrist by six o’clock that evening. He was feeling pretty damn good, too, as he walked up the sidewalk. The grin on his face was at least a mile wide. He’d fed the dark thing, and it was paying him back. That was the deal they had struck long ago. But if he was being completely honest, he couldn’t remember when exactly. In fact, so far as he could tell, the arrangement had always been in place, not that it mattered one way or the other. As his old man always used to say when he didn’t understand something: Don’t waste no whys on it, Ricky. Just is.

  He figured someone would realize Grace was missing before long. She had only been gone since noon, but the idea that something might be wrong would probably set in right about now, when she didn’t show up for dinner. Of course, there were other scenarios of how it could play out, but this one struck the truest chord inside him. The Delanceys seemed like the kind of family that respected dinner times.