Ancient Exhumations +2

by Sargent, Stanley C

  The couple kept to themselves exclusive ‘cept for Mazrah’s monthly supply trips to town. On rare occasion, Pritchy’d call on her folks, but Asaph said she looked kind of peaked and down in the mouth, like she’d lost her spark, rather than like a blushin’ bride. He had to admit, however, that never once did a bad word pass her lips either about Mazrah or his treatment of her. ‘Ventually though, Asaph and Mazrah got in a big blow up and Mazrah forbid Pritchy’s folks to visit. Pritchy was stuck in the middle and when she chose to stand by her man’s wishes, Asaph up and disowned her, sorry to say.

  The first sign of other trouble came about three years after the weddin’. Folks reported weird glowin’s up in the night sky directly above Toad Loop, glowin’s brighter than a harvest moon. And at April’s end, Quent Swiggart swore he seen a big circle of brightness, round as a dinner plate, floatin’ over the island about level with the tops of the trees. Now, mind you, this was decades before anybody claimed to see flying saucers.

  Most didn’t take it all that much to heart. It was only logic that Mazrah would clean up the Loop sooner or later, and the lights was thought to be stump-burnin’ fires reflected on the night fog or clouds. Still, there were some who whispered about the dangers of tinkerin’ with the Circle.

  The Circle wasn’t nothin’ but six rough pillars of limestone, each a foot thick and nearly tall and wide as a man. Though the better part of the island was flatter than a pancake, it raised up right in the middle to a hump ‘round which the stones roosted like fenceposts. None ever knew their purpose or who put them there in the first place. The Injuns claimed the Circle was built for some kind of unearthly critter that come down from the sky on occasion. Toadaggwa, they called it, sayin’ it put the stones to questionable uses at certain times of the year. Truth is, they were scared shitless of the place without really knowing why. They gave the Loop the widest possible berth, swearin’ the stones were the works of demons here long before any of the tribes. None of the whites confessed to belief in such savage superstitions, yet we all steered clear of the Loop just like the redskins did.

  The crap first hit the fan when some school boys claimed they heard weird singin’ and chantin’ comin’ from the Loop. Their curiosity got the better of them ‘til they went and got themselves an eyeful — of Mazrah and Pritchy blatherin’ a raft of gobbledygook while cavortin’ naked as jay birds betwixt the Circle stones. Word of such carryin’s-ons spread and set tongues a-waggin’. It soured most folks on Mazrah, so’s they steered clear of him when he came to town after, though he paid ‘em no never mind. The younguns was warned to stop cuttin’ didoes anywhere near the Mazrah’s land.

  Things quieted down after a time, mostly ‘cos there was little to be done otherwise. Hell’s fire, nobody was gettin’ hurt by such carryin’-on, and Madland County done away with witch laws decades ago.

  It was that durn Simmons kid, Steve was his name, that kept things buzzin’ by rattlin’ on about how the Circle was all fixed up with the fallen stones raised and tilted ones straightened. He carried on about holes the size of a man’s fist havin’ been bored through the stones about a foot from the top for ropes to be tied off and strung to the Circle’s middle. Such things worried them that listened.

  It all might’ve just all blown over if it weren’t for that Simmons kid, who was a smart aleck bully of a redhead as I remember him. He went and dared three of his cronies to hike out to the Loop with him, promisin’ ‘em a gander at Pritchy in her altogether. Least that’s what he spouted later, though if you ask me, he was hopin’ to catch sight of Pritchy and her man doin’ things a lot more vulgar than naked dancin’. Whatever the call, however, them boys sure as hell got more than they bargained for when they accepted that dare!

  They waited ‘til after dark on Halloween as most likely for festivities. Once they waded the creek and were on the island proper, they swore it was rainin’ real hard, which struck the Sheriff as mighty peculiar when he heard it later, ‘cos he recalled it being clear as a bell that whole night.

  The way they told it, the four of them hove up through the mud to hide behind a crop of cat tails about ten yards from the stones. They kept just back from the light of the bonfires Mazrah had lit at the foot of each stone in spite of the rain. What little they could make out didn’t make much sense to the gawkers, but it sure as hell stopped them dead in their tracks.

  Pritchy was nowhere in sight, though Mazrah stood out clear in the drizzle, standin’ clingin’ onto a rope for dear life. The oglers couldn’t determine right off just what he was strainin’ to keep ahold of, just that it was bound up in the ropes running from holes in the stones. Their ears told them that whatever he’d snagged was madder than a hornet; though it screeched and bellered loud enough to make a body deaf, they couldn’t get a gander at it ‘til Mazrah finally stepped aside, allowin’ the light to shine on his catch direct.

  Well, them boys was like to die of fright upon seein’ what Mazrah’d snared! One fainted right off. The others claimed they saw a giant toad, ten foot long and taller than a man, sloshin’ in the mud, tryin’ to free itself of the ropes. That’s hard to swallow, but they swore to the truth of it on the Bible. They said it had a mane of long black hair trailin’ down its back and didn’t croak like a toad, but let fly with screams and roars the likes of which nothin’ could compare.

  Up in the sky above all the commotion, they claimed a big, glowin’ hole was floatin’. They said it looked like an upside down twister or a cyclone with a light inside its spinnin’ innards, only there wasn’t no wind like accompanies a regular twister.

  All of a sudden the great toad reared up on its hindquarters, like to jump, but the ropes held it fast to earth. It cut loose with a stream of what Steve swore were words in some nasty-soundin’ foreign language. Whatever it was, it had an effect.

  Frogs by the hundreds poured down from the whirlin’ hole, peltin’ Mazrah like a plague straight from the Bible. They slammed into him or plopped down on the ground only to bust wide open like gut balloons! I’ll hazard it was a hell of a mess!

  Old Mazrah, well, he slipped in the muck ‘til he lost footin’ and fell flat on his back. He lost hold of the rope in fallin’, givin’ the toad an opening. That rope must have been the key, ‘cos the toad snapped the other ropes once Mazrah lost his grip.

  The toad turned and reared up right quick on Mazrah, pinnin’ him down in the mud. They said a look of pure evil joy came over its bloated face, it’s eyes shinin’ all red, cuttin’ through the rain and dark like fire brands.

  The damn thing bent down and wrapped its big ol’ black tongue around Mazrah, then sucked him up like a bug! Half his body dangled out the side of its mouth for a bit, thrashin’ and floppin’ up and down like a raggedy doll in agony, while the toad just squatted there, lookin’ for all the world like it was fast asleep. Then, with one quick jerk of its head, it snapped up the rest of Mazrah and gobbled him whole! Must have been awful sickenin’!

  Well, them boys took off at a clip, ‘cept for Steve, who was so scared he couldn’t budge. The way he told it later, the toad let out another stream of them weird word-noises to bring the lip of the cyclone down low enough for it to jump inside. The hole raised up, closed in on itself, and disappeared, just like it hadn’t never been there at all.

  With that, Simmons found his legs and skedaddled at such a pace that he nearly trampled his buddies in passing them up. He made a bee line straight for home.

  Now, keep in mind that I can’t vouch for any of that part ‘cos I wasn’t there in person. ‘Though it defies belief, wait ‘til you hear the rest before making your mind up final.

  Anyways, Steve’s daddy was waitin’ up for him, and as you can imagine, he was madder than a stick! But when the kid came in soaked to the skin and scared half to death, the old man backed off. He listened to the boy’s tale, then marched right over to the Sheriff’s. The Sheriff wasn’t all the way convinced it wasn’t a case of high jinks, but he fetched old Doc Jefferys nonetheless, and tog
ether they high-tailed it out in the Doc’s cutter to take a look.

  They run into heavy mud as soon as they crossed to the island and saw the ground ‘round the Circle was rife with frog guts, broke rope, and the ashes of several fires. There wasn’t much in the way of tracks left in the drying mud, but they could make out where somethin’ had been dragged from the Circle up towards the Mulltree farm. The trail led ‘em right up and into the house.

  Turned out it was Pritchy’s pitiful path they was followin’, where she’d crawled and dragged herself through the mud. She was in real bad shape, but Doc fixed her up. Problem was she couldn’t seem to talk — she was in shock as Doc put it — so she couldn’t say what happened. Mazrah was nowhere to be seen, which added more credence to Steve’s story. The Sheriff eventually went home, leavin’ Doc there for the night in case Mazrah didn’t show. He never did.

  The Sheriff had talks with the other boys and their families after that, and asked them to keep to themselves ‘til he got Pritchy’s side of the story, but that didn’t last long.

  Doc took supplies out to Pritchy on a regular basis after and even got one of the neighbors, Oly — that’s short for Olivia — Johnson, to look in on her daily. But despite all, Pritchy’s mind didn’t heal up in tune with her body. Whatever’d happened must’ve been more than she could bear, causing her mind to just close up shop permanent. When she finally started talking, she didn’t make much more sense than a child, and she never did get any memory back.

  A month or so later, Doc realized Pritchy was in a motherly way, which didn’t bode well what with her no longer havin’ a man around. I think old Doc felt sort of fatherly toward poor Pritchy; he kept a careful watch over her for the rest of her pregnancy like one’d only do for a daughter of his own. He paid Oly to help care for Pritchy the whole time while providin’ food supplies himself. Pritchy’d set her mind on havin’ herself a little girl, so Doc bought her a pretty little doll that was all dressed up fancy like a princess for when the baby arrived.

  When Pritchy’s time finally come, Oly fetched Doc herself, but as she told later, she refused to stay and help with the birthin’. She claimed Pritchy’d been heavin’ up seaweed and foam, which scared Oly silly. So Doc sent her home, knowin’ she wouldn’t be any help while in such a state.

  Nobody ever saw Doc alive again after that. It appears sometime near dawn, he slipped an envelope under the door of the Sheriff’s office, then went home direct and shot himself dead. He put a 12-gauge to his head and, well, that’s all she wrote! Ain’t that a fine howdy-do?

  Unbeknownst to Doc, the Sheriff was out of town, though, and the deputy didn’t feel he should read the letter since it was marked “personal” for the Sheriff. So he just cleaned up the mess over at Doc’s and waited for the Sheriff to get back.

  A week later, I come into town and heard a bit of what had happened. I’d known Pritchy all through grammar school, though we was never close, so I couldn’t allow for her being all alone out there with a brand new youngun. I loaded some food goods in my wagon and headed out to see how she was copin’.

  I s’pose you could say the situation hit home with me. When I was just five, my own mother died givin’ birth to my sister Marcella. When we lost Marcella too, a few days later, it hit me so hard that I wasn’t right for months. ‘Though there was nothin’ could’ve been done, I felt I should’ve done more to save little Marcella at least, like I’d let her down. So when I heard about Pritchy and her new baby, it struck a close chord.

  I knew somethin’ was wrong as soon as I passed the barn and saw livestock strewn out on the ground like they’d been slaughtered, the dead bones picked clean as a whistle. The Simmonses were my neighbors, and Angus had told me some of what his son said about a monster toad. I got to admit to sweatin’ a mite more than usual recalling that story while standing there in the yard lookin’ at them bones.

  When nobody answered my knock, it was plain somethin’ was wrong. The door was part way open, so I let myself in, callin’ out so Pritchy’d know who it was. The baby was whimpering somewhere in the back part of the house, which took some of the edge off my nerves, at least at first.

  The minute I pushed the door wide, the most sickenin’ smell I’ve ever known hit me right in the face. It was enough to gag a maggot! I right quick stuffed a hanky over my nose, hoping I could keep my lunch. I swear it was gawdawful!

  The curtains were all drawn tight in the sittin’ room, so I found myself stumblin’ through in only half-light. The furniture was all smashed and tossed ever’which ways, which gave another real sickenin’ pull to the pit of my gut.

  I came upon what was left of Pritchy in the bedroom. Lord, what a hellish sight! It was obvious she’d been dead for days, with half of her layin’ draped off the side of the bed. The way her arms and legs was splayed-out all a-kilter, it looked like she’d exploded from the inside out. Before I could cover her up with one of the bloody sheets — and I ain’t proud of this — the sight and the smell got me so bad that I barely made it outside before gettin’ sicker than a dog. It must have been fifteen minutes before I could drag myself back in there, and only then ‘cos I heard the baby squallin’ somewhere towards the back of the house.

  I still felt mighty queasy, but I just had to find that child. So I went ‘round to the back of the house, feelin’ a mite too unsteady to go inside again.

  When I opened the back door, somethin’ about my own size shot out of nowhere and busted ass ‘round the corner of the house towards the barn. It must have been hiding in the spring room off the kitchen. Damn thing was so quick I hardly got a decent look at it, but I did note it was trailing a blue blanket from somethin’ it was totin’. I tried to fool myself into believin’ it’d been a young bear or great big ol’ dog, but I knew it was somethin’ a lot worse. And I knew too that it had the baby ‘cos the cryin’ sounds was now comin’ from out by the barn.

  I’m ashamed to admit I took my time chasin’ after it. I wasn’t about to stroll right into whatever might be lurkin’ ‘round that bend, so I strode clear of the house to get a good look before goin’ any further.

  There wasn’t nothin’ waiting there, so I figured it must’ve gone on into the barn to hide. I wasn’t too all-fired inclined to traipse in after it, but I kept hearin’ cryin’, this time from the barn. I knew I’d have to bite the bullet sooner or later, and I feared later’d be too late.

  All I could figure was that the Simmons boy’s toad must’ve come back. Seein’ somethin’ like that could well cause a body to suicide, though Doc had never been the type to leave a helpless mother and child alone. I guessed the toad had ate the livestock in the yard, then went for what was in the house. After tearin’ poor Pritchy up, it must have been full, or maybe it had other plans for the little one. Regardless, I was bound and determined nothin’ bad was goin’ to happen to that child.

  The barn stood quiet as a stone inside. I should note the stink didn’t trail from the house into the barn. And all I could hear was the squeakin’ of the plank boards as I stepped, and believe you me, I was scared plumb shitless.

  Being that time of year, the barn was chock full of hay, and that meant scores of hidin’ places. The best places to hide were in the loft, where it’d be dark and hot as hell what with all that fresh-cut and packed hay generatin’ a shitload of heat up there.

  So I hove up my courage and climbed the wood ladder I’d nailed to a support beam while workin’ on the barn just three years before. The sun was settin’ and, what with failing light and hay dust, it wasn’t an easy search. By the time I got to the back of the loft, all I had to go by was a few pencil lines of light comin’ in between the boards of the walls. Lucky for me, I managed to find a workin’ lantern, otherwise I might have fallen through the trap door down twenty feet or more from the loft to the cattle stalls below; probably would’ve broke my damn neck in the process.

  Mazrah’d known enough to allow tunnels through the bailed hay for ventilation, so I ended up pokin’ my he
ad down a bunch of dark holes while listening for any kind of noise anywhere around me. Considerin’ the bails were stacked twenty high, there were lots of tunnels. When my ears caught some whimperin’ noises, I crawled through a dark square of tunnel right to the heart of the hay pile to look for its source. Breathin’ wasn’t any too easy in there and, on top of that, I had to keep movin’ for fear of catching the hay afire with my lantern.

  After crawling straight towards the back of the barn for a while. I came to an empty space that by all rights shouldn’t have been there. I held the lantern up high and saw a scene I could hardly accept!

  I can see it in my head just as clear as glass even now. Lord Almighty, I never seen the likes of such a thing! It must have been ten, twelve feet from top to bottom and at least fifteen feet deep and long. It brought to mind a mud dauber’s nest, hanging there from the back wall of the barn like that.

  The more I looked at that conglomeration of mud and hay, the more it ‘minded me of a mud dauber nest; a wasp nest hangs free, but this thing didn’t. From where I was standin’, I counted three rows of cells, six to a row, tunnelin’ up and inside at an angle. The entrance hole to each cell looked big enough for a man to crawl through, but I wasn’t about to find out! Like I said, I ain’t never seen nothin’ to compare.

  I parked my lamp on the end of a pitchfork I’d found propped up against the wall and shoved it up into the holes one at a time, figurin’ I’d find out what was inside without puttin’ myself at risk. All ‘cept the last hole held a chicken that looked dead, though they was still breathing. Next to ‘em lay a group of what appeared to be frog eggs like one’d see in a pond; the difference bein’, these were bigger than basket balls. They were all wrapped in some sort of gut sacks, and things was movin’ around inside ‘em. In the final cell I recognized Old Champ, a good ol’ neighbor dog, layin’ there in place of a chicken. It was terrible troublin’ to me.