Scary Creek

by Thomas Cater

  I didn’t want to believe there were so many misfits living in the world, making life difficult and complicated for the rest of us. I could not imagine how they managed to hang on for so long, or how much better everything would be if men exercised free will over every one but themselves. I ate my sandwich and crawled back into bed.

  I thumbed rapidly through the pages looking for more notes on L. I turned a page and found several scale drawings of enormous brown eyes gazing peacefully out from beneath a furry brow. There were lists of numbers, measurements, written in the margins corresponding to letters and lines surrounding the eyes.

  In the opposite margin, there was a similar list of figures. The two columns matched almost perfectly, but the words and the letters were strange and incomprehensible, as if they had been written in shorthand or code.

  I gazed into the drawing of those two eyes for a long time. If what I suspected had happened, it was something I did not want to believe could ever happen again.

  I forced myself to turn the pages of the journal.

  “We have made a home for it in the tombs. The little people are looking after it. It is rather docile considering its reputation for ferocity.”

  It appeared that Grier was back in control. He may have confided his fears and the discoveries about Elinore’s condition to Samuel. He was taking everything in stride.

  There was an increase in activity at the hospital during those summer and autumn days. On average, more than a dozen operations were performed in a week. Grier was working with renewed vigor, as if he were racing the clock. A deadline of some kind had been set.

  “I am no closer to success now than I have been in the past,” he noted. “Regrettably, L continues to wax round and sleek. There is a wild humor in the eyes of her father. I am glad she cannot see it. The news did not sit well with him.”

  A few days later: “The madness in his eyes has spread to his brain. He asked me to take the child from her womb to insure its demise. How could I have allowed myself to be manipulated by such a superstitious fool?”

  Entries were irregular for the next weeks. A word or a sentence, but nothing definite until he started a new page in November:

  “The decision has been made. Everything is in readiness. I have reviewed the 28 pages of the Voynich manuscript and succeeded twice at what few men have dared attempt. Regrettably, I have succeeded only upon the dead or the dying. The key lies in not removing the eyes, but only the corneas, replacing retinas with healthy cones. If what I am about to attempt succeeds, then my fate is decided. But should I fail, I pray God shed his redeeming mercy upon my soul.”

  Voynich manuscript? It sounded like some kind of medical treatise. The next entry was so hastily written that I could hardly read it:

  “She is still under the influence of opium, but alive! I have renewed my pledge to the Almighty to keep my faith if he will but see us both through this insanity to the end.”

  Evidently, Grier had more to worry about then keeping his pledge; the next few entries rattled his nerves and sent him scurrying for solutions:

  “We removed the bandages from her eyes today, and she began to scream. She screamed incessantly until we sedated her. It was the only way to silence her.”

  His next entry was equally disturbing and desperate:

  “She woke during the night. I was summoned from my room. I could hear her pitiful screams echoing through the corridors. When I reached her, she was still screaming. Her eyes were filled with blood! Red and orange! A hideous color! Her screams were those of a tormented beast.

  “Her eyes have lost all semblance of sanity. They look like the frighten eyes of the wild thing we have stolen them from. I cannot bear to look at her. We sedated her heavily again with a potion and strapped her in bed. Then we transferred her to the chamber in the mineshaft where we keep the pitiful creature caged. I cannot bear to hear her screams when she awakens; they are also having terrible and frightening effects on the other patients.”

  The entries were small and limited for the next few weeks, almost as if he were waiting and pondering his dilemma in silence:

  Nov. 9: “She is still screaming and sedatives are useless.”

  Nov. 10: “She is still screaming. There is a terrible outrage in those orange eyes, as if she is looking through us and into our souls. Oh, what a terrible sight!”

  Nov. 11: “Screaming! Screaming! Will nothing silence her? It is as if the Klikouchy have invaded her mind.”

  The Klikouchy? Maybe there were such things. I went back to the notes.

  Nov. 12: “I have asked her father for permission to operate. I hope leucotomy will help. It is the only solution I can think of to save her sanity, and mine.”

  Nov. 15: “May God forgive me for the terrible atrocities I have committed upon that young woman’s mind and body. I have done only what I thought was best.”

  Nov. 17: It is done and not a moment too soon. I have silenced her screams forever, I hope. She is still unconscious and will remain so for a day or two. At last, a few days of peace.”

  Nov. 20: “Peace at last.”

  Nov 21: “I spoke too soon. It started again. She screams as if Satan is tearing the soul from her body. Is there nothing that can be done to help her?”

  Nov. 24: “She has exhausted herself with screams and has relapsed. The nurses have observed that she screams only when her eyes are open. We have bandaged them tightly.”

  Nov. 28: “It worked! But it was only temporary. She ripped the bandage from her eyes and began screaming again. We have bound her hands and eyes and all is quiet. We cannot keep her this way indefinitely. Something must be done.”

  Grier started making other entries in his journal about other patients, but with only passing references to L. Such as, ‘She sleeps as if at home among the dead.’ Or: ‘somehow she managed to free her hands and removed the bandage from her eyes. For hours, we heard the sounds of her screams coming from the tunnels beneath the hospital. It nearly drove us mad. Two catatonic patients revived and echoed her screams. Something must be done.’

  In December, Grier made another entry in his journal about L: “I have hit upon a permanent solution, the only solution I dare contemplate: I must remove her eyes, or sew them shut forever.”

  A few weeks later, a note in the journal stated: “It is done and none too soon. The child within her womb is insistent. It wishes to make its presence known.”

  In January, Grier made what appeared to be a rather uplifting note in his journal: “A benevolent god has interceded to save all our souls from damnation. A mental patient has delivered a premature male child into our hands. It is weak and sickly. I feel it shall be short lived.”

  A few days later, there was another brief entry: “A six-pound bouncing baby boy! Perfect in every detail! Samuel need never be the wiser. I have taken the baby away and made preparations for its future care. We can only hope and pray that it is not inflicted with the timeless malady of its brethren.”

  I wondered what that malady might be and who were its brethren?

  Then there were no more announcements of babies and maladies, not another word about Elinore or her child.

  According to the records Constance had uncovered, Elinore was discharged from the hospital on February 28, 1924. However, there was no mention in her hospital record of having given birth to a child. I made a mental note to see if a birth or death certificate had been recorded at the courthouse. From all appearances, it looked as if Zeke had saved the child’s life.

  I stared bleary eyed at the clock. It was after midnight. I had been reading and re-reading for three and a half hours, thanks to Grier, I had acquired some insight into what had actually happened to Elinore. She had gone into the hospital with the hope of having her sight restored and emerged a screaming lunatic with half a brain and only a vague memory of her child.

  I closed the book and rubbed my eyes. I was bone tired, sick and worried about something that had happened to someone 70 years ago, and had died a doz
en years ago. I was getting bent out of shape for nothing. I needed rest and knew I’d probably sleep till noon the following day. I backed the van out of Virgil’s driveway and parked on the street.

  I locked up for the night, turned the lights out and listened in the darkness for a sound; particularly the sound of a cat, but nothing stirred. For the umpteenth time in my life, I was feeling fear, real fear, deep down inside, working its way around in my body like a hungry worm, gnawing at my guts, my heart, my soul. How long was I destined to live with that feeling and those age-old dreams that have been haunting me for more years than I cared to think about?

  Sleep was getting hard to find. I felt as if I had spent the night writhing in a pit. The Alberichs dominated my half-waking dreams. I was dreaming of wandering through subterranean caverns, seeing things that should not be seen. Elinore’s orange eyes kept coming out of the darkness and burning into my brain. I wondered what it was she could see that was “coming again!” Some subliminal horror, or was it some primitive impression made upon a mandrill’s eyes and brain? Something, undoubtedly, that delighted in tearing mandrill’s apart and devouring them slowly, a piece at a time.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  The next day I struggled through a cup of unsweetened coffee. My face hurt when I tried to wash, and the bristles on my hairbrush felt like nails. The van nearly drove itself to the Upshyre County Courthouse. I went along for the ride. I tried to get a grip on the situation. I. likened it to a stage play with living actors and a spiritually dead audience. What happened in the limelight wasn’t real, but it seemed real, and the empty eyes and skull of that silent motionless audience was terrifying.

  I fed a few quarters to the meter and hoped it might choke on them. I tried my best not to trip on the broken pavement, but it was probably predestined. Signs pointed the way to the record room.

  The basement stairs, I noticed, were meant for stumbling. I held tightly to the handrail and it saw me through. I took a deep breath and made my way into the records room, which occupied several offices in the basement.

  The girl behind the desk was myopic, a little obese and suffering from a mild skin condition that reddened her cheeks. She was also pleasant and anxious to serve, which was probably more than I had a right to expect. I asked her about birth and death records on that fateful day in history. I sounded and looked like I needed medical help. I was surprised when she didn’t ask me to leave.

  “Do you have a name?” she asked.

  Ah, yes, the all-important name. I told her my name and tried to make it sound important.

  “I mean a name you want me to look up?”

  I wasn’t sure what name they might have put on the certificate. They could have named the baby after any patient. I tried to explain my dilemma, but she insisted on a name. I gave her the names of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Harmon.

  “The child was a boy,” I said, “a bouncing baby boy.”

  She smiled and excused herself and headed for a row of ancient green ledgers. She delved into one and did not surface again for approximately ten minutes, which gave me plenty of time to familiarize myself with the records room.

  It consisted of three offices, a wall of khaki-colored filing cabinets, several dozen leather-bound ledgers and three wooden desks and one solitary secretary.

  “You run this place yourself?” I murmured, trying to assure her I was human and merely recuperating from a bad night’s sleep.

  “Mr. Bunner is in charge and he has an assistant. I just answer the phone and help out when available,” she said, and dived back into the ledger, thumbed through some more pages and examined another book that lay open on her desk.

  “Is this the child you’re looking for?” She said. “It says he was a no-name infant, and was born January, 28, 1924, at six-pounds, five-ounces to Mr. and Mrs. Frank Harmon, Elanville, West Virginia.”

  That was baffling. I hadn’t thought about it, but that child and I were born on nearly the same date, only more than 50 years apart.

  “Who was the attending physician?” I asked.

  She followed her fingers over the document and finally stopped. “Dr. Ezekiel Grier.”

  Somehow they managed to get Frank’s name from Elinore, or maybe it was part of public information in those days. Everyone knew everyone else’s business. Like the proper gentleman Frank was, he may have stepped forward and demanded to see his wife, which probably did not bode well for him.

  “Does it give the mother’s maiden name?”

  She shook her head.

  “Anything else of interest?” I asked.

  She began to speak of possibilities “There were lots of people there in the old days, especially murderers and suicides; lots of people committed suicide.”

  You’re quite a student of the ledgers,” I said. “Do you know any other dark history?”

  She thought for a moment, but drew a blank.

  “No, but if you like, I can make copies of these documents.”

  I agreed with a nod. While she was making copies, I asked about death certificates.

  “Let’s start with Samuel Ryder and then Ezekiel Grier, Frank Harmon, and let’s see if there is anything on infant Harmon, particularly during the month of January 1924.

  She cringed and made a face of protracted ugliness.

  “You think the baby died soon after its birth?”

  “Could be,” I said. “It would be helpful if I knew how and when.”

  In less than ten minutes, she returned with Samuel Ryder’s death certificate. It stated heart failure as the cause of death. Dr. Ezekiel Grier had died suddenly in his sleep of unknown causes. There was no death certificate for Frank Harmon, but there was one for infant Harmon, January 30, 1924. The cause of death was listed as ‘natural’.

  I was sadly disappointed, but not surprised. I hoped that perhaps Zeke had been successful in his attempt to save the child.

  “Natural,” I said dubiously. I asked for a copy of the babies’ death certificate. While she was copying, I asked if it provided interment information.

  “Good Shepherd,” she said. I examined the form but found no such name.

  She pointed to the name of a funeral home while explaining that everyone they buried at that time wound up in Good Shepherd.

  “It once belonged to them, but it’s abandoned now and belongs to a de-sanctified church.”

  I drove to the Good Shepherd cemetery. It was a barren overgrown field on the side of a hill speckled with ancient gray stone monuments moldering with age. There was no caretaker, no gatehouse and no gate. I examined each stone marker, trying to group them according to dates. I was standing in the midst of the 1790s and 1800s.

  There were a few small monuments chewed up by shotgun shells and bullets, but not so that you couldn’t make out names. Groundhogs had also moved into the cemetery. There holes were everywhere. Not, I hoped, in the coffins or vaults, if they constructed vaults in those days.

  Among the markers dated in the 1920s and 30s, I started reading names: Wards, Leeches, Browns, Griffins, Carrs, Steeds, Clarks, Hamners and Hamiltons. After two hours, the date on a tiny marker caught my eye: ‘Infant Harmon’ it declared in very small letters, Jan. 30, 1924.

  I couldn’t believe it! I had found Elinore’s baby. I don’t know what I expected to happen, but I knew that something should have happened.

  I would never know if Grier had acquiesced to Samuel’s wishes and murdered the baby, or if Samuel Ryder had taken care of it. It may have actually died of natural causes and remained in the care of a benevolent deity.

  The grave was removed from the main area of the cemetery, which led me to suspect Samuel had something to do with the site selection. There may be records of the purchaser, but that would make little difference now.

  I stood there for several moments wondering if Elinore had ever known her child, felt it at her breast, nursed it or, even heard it cry. Was she trying to see through failing eyes what fate Grier had provided?

  Somehow, it di
dn’t seem right. The child belonged with its mother, even in death. I speculated upon the difficulties that would be involved in trying to have a 70 to 80-year-old grave opened and the remains transferred to another cemetery, another abandoned bone yard.

  I knew nothing about local politics, but if I had to explain, I would spend the rest of my life in Vandalia’s infamous mental health resort.

  I decided to do it; take full responsibility. Even if I were caught red-handed, but from appearances, it would not be likely. Weeds were growing well above my knees and there were deer and possum droppings on the overgrown footpaths.

  I could open the grave at high noon and not be seen, but decided to wait until dark, before it got late. I put some weight on my feet, testing the ground. It was not dry or compact. In fact, the earth was soft; it would be easy digging.

  *

  I drove to the Stamper house. Both cars were gone. I parked in the drive. I noticed previously there was a garden in the back yard and that meant more tools. The garage door was open. I let myself in and began ransacking the corners for a pick and shovel. I found them and started back to the van when Virgil drove up. I waved with my free hand. He frowned, gave me a distasteful look and fixed his eyes on the tools.

  “No, don’t tell me,” he said

  There was a lot of nervous energy in my response.

  “Yeah, I’m going to open up another grave,” I said. I was not sure how he would respond.

  “What are you, some kind of ghoul?” He asked, the patience gone from his voice. “Whose is it this time?”

  I told him what I had read last night, and re-discovered this morning.

  “What do you expect to gain by digging up that dead baby?” He asked. “It doesn’t sound right. In fact, it sounds illegal.”