by Hunt, James
Matt scraped the guts off onto the bark of a tree, then thoroughly patted the rest of his head, relieved after finding nothing else. He then weaved around the tombs, taking a closer look at the swamp that surrounded him.
The trees were dead. Leafless branches reached up toward the dying sky, their bark various shades of grey and black like the rest of the environment.
“Mom! Dad!” His voice echoed, and it sounded as if he were screaming from underwater. His lungs ached, and he leaned up against a tree to catch his breath. He hunched over, placing his hand on his knee. He’d never felt so tired before.
A hiss sounded from above and Matt jerked his head up as a snake slithered down one of the tree branches, its tongue flicking the air, catching Matt’s scent.
Matt jerked backward, but only got a few steps before another snake slithered from the left of him, leaving a serpentine trail through the mud. More followed. Three, then five, soon dozens were chasing after him with their exposed fangs and forked tongues.
Matt sprinted away, casting himself deeper into the swamp. The mud beneath him swallowed his feet and slowed his pace. The hissing faded, but sharp knives stabbed at his sides and lungs from the exertion. He slowed, fatigued, and glanced back into the darkness, finding nothing but fog and trees.
He collapsed to his knees in the mud and clutched his chest. Liquid gargled in his lungs, and when he coughed, a spray of black crud blew over his hand. He examined it in horror and quickly wiped it off on his shorts.
Matt stood, and pressed forward. Mud eventually gave way to water, and he waded through the ankle-deep swamp slowly, unable to see beneath the surface of the pitch-black darkness. But the closer he looked down at the water, the more he realized that there was something different about it.
Despite his movements, the water remained still. No ripples. No splashes. But it still felt like water.
He passed more clusters of dead cypress trees, their thick trunks a collection of tubes reaching deep into the earth. He coughed, a phlegmy tickle in his throat. He used his bandaged arm to cover his mouth, and when he lowered it, more black specks flicked over the white gauze. He started to panic.
Was he dead? Had he gone to hell? He’d heard Tommy McDoyle talking about that one day, saying how if you were bad you were sent to hell and you would burn. Except it wasn’t hot here. But, maybe you froze to death in hell. It’s not like Tommy had ever been.
Matt wandered aimlessly, shivering, unsure of where to go except forward. Slowly, the water receded, and the ground solidified under his feet.
Ahead, between the trees, he saw a clearing of dirt, and on the other side of the clearing was a house. The same one he’d been living in for the past few days. It looked darker, more ominous, but if his family was here, then that’s where they’d be.
Matt broke into a sprint, his feet slinging mud. His lungs still burned, and he wheezed on his mad dash over the dirt field, which felt soft yet brittle against his feet, like ash.
“Mom! Dad!” Matt’s voice echoed as he veered toward the front porch, tracking muddy footprints inside as he skidded to a stop on the groaning hardwood floors. “Mom? Dad?”
Matt walked to the kitchen’s entrance but quickly veered away when he saw a snake slither out of the sink faucet. He ran down the hallway, past the dining room, and toward his parents’ room on the first floor. He found it empty, the sheets on the bed torn and strewn about messily. The pictures on the dresser were broken in their frames, distorting the happy smiles and cheerful moments.
Staring at those pictures, he felt that he might shatter like that glass. Just break, unable to be whole again. Maybe he was like that already.
A drop of something wet landed on top of his head, and with the fear of the spider from earlier still fresh in his mind, he clawed at it, smearing the warm liquid on his fingers and hair. Matt removed his hand and rolled his fingertips together, feeling the slick grime of the substance. He sniffed at it wearily, then quickly pulled away, grimacing from the stench. The scent was akin to an alley dumpster on a hot summer day after having baked in the sun for a week without rain.
Matt turned toward the door, and another drop of the black, tar-like substance plopped directly in front of his feet, freezing him in place. He looked up to the ceiling and saw more black droplets hanging above, wiggling in their struggle to break free.
Matt sprinted into the hallway to avoid the rain, and when he entered the dining room, two gators appeared from the back hallway, jaws exposed and growling in a throaty hiss, their bodies decrepit. Their scaly backs had decayed to bone and their clawed feet oozed bloody prints over the floor.
He spun around to head back toward the front of the house, but found the hallway to his escape blocked with snakes.
More drops of black goo fell as Matt retreated toward the kitchen table, quickly scurrying off the floor as the snakes and gators circled him. He cried, the black substance raining harder now, plopping over his body in heavy thumps, darkening his beloved Orioles shirt, their stink filling his senses.
The snakes covered every inch of the floor, bringing it to life in writhing movements. Thousands of spiders crawled along the walls. The house had come alive with creatures, and Matt knew they would eat him, digging their fangs into his flesh to tear him apart. And then suddenly, the hissing stopped, and the snakes near the hallway parted to form an opening, cramming themselves against the walls.
A pair of stumpy, clawed feet appeared, and Matt fell backwards onto the table when the creature came into full view. It stood six feet tall, and its long, muscled arms led down to a three-fingered hand, each of them armed with six-inch claws that were black as night. Its head was wide, and when it opened its jaws, its lipless mouth exposed an array of jagged, three-inch serrated teeth. They clustered clumsily in the creature’s mouth, but when it closed its jaw, they fit together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.
Its torso was short, but thick like a barrel. A scaly grey skin covered thick muscles, and matted black hair sprouted from the top of its domed head and down its back. One of the long claws attached to a three-fingered hand twitched, and it stood there, unblinking, teeth exposed, staring at Matt.
Cold seeped into Matt’s bones and froze his heart, and he suddenly choked for air. He clawed at his neck and flattened on his back. More drops of blackness rained over him and his eyes bulged in panic. His lungs tightened to the point of bursting.
The creature hovered over Matt, and pressed the tip of one of its razor-sharp claws into Matt’s shirt collar, then ran it down the length of his chest and belly, tearing the fabric and exposing Matt’s pale and tender flesh. Matt couldn’t move, but he felt a light prick from the tip of the claw on his skin as the creature applied pressure.
Matt opened his mouth to scream but emitted no sound. The creature cut a line from the top of his chest to his belly button, just deep enough to draw blood, and Matt’s brain lit up like fire from the pain.
After the first line, the creature then placed the same claw just below Matt’s left nipple. It drew another line, drawing blood like before, and intersecting the vertical line. The pain reached a crescendo and his body went limp. He tilted his head to the side and saw the snakes, gators, and spiders scurrying across the floor.
Matt turned his head lazily back to the creature, catching a glimpse at his chest and stomach and the black cross now carved into his flesh. Blood poured between his ribcage, collecting in tiny pools on the table.
The creature tilted its head back and opened its mouth wide, giving a primal roar that scattered the rest of the animals from the house and elicited a tremor of fear from Matt’s body. It wasn’t like anything he’d heard before in this world. It was like the creature was calling out to someone, or something.
Silence lingered after the creature’s roar, and Matt’s limbs remained useless. He’d forgotten that he couldn’t breathe, this state of suspension growing more normal the longer he was kept in it.
And then, like an echo in the far distanc
e, he heard a voice. It was familiar, and it seemed to answer the creature’s call. But the sounds were human. Someone was calling Matt’s name. Someone he knew. His grandfather.
2
Main Street in Ocoee, Louisiana was quiet. Not even a tumbleweed blew through at this time of night. A few of the street lamps flickered, most of them burned out and never replaced. The town folk preferred the view of the stars and moon over the harsh fluorescents of city lighting. Not that Ocoee qualified as a city. But nobody argued about the view.
Closed signs and darkened windows lined the businesses along Main Street, but beyond the one-story buildings was the auto factory where most of the town worked. It was owned by the Toussaint family, had been for nearly five generations. And the man in charge was Charles Toussaint VII, the firstborn male son and only child of Charles Toussaint VI.
The Toussaint family had been intertwined with the fate of this town for its entire existence. In the early 1800s, the first Toussaints arrived and cleared farmland to harvest crops. They hunted and traded, they fished and bartered, and from their humble beginnings, they grew into a name recognizable by every man, woman, and child in the great state of Louisiana.
The current heir to the Toussaint throne knew his family’s history very well, better than anyone else, save for one. And while the Toussaints were beloved by the townspeople, who saved them from the crippling Great Depression in the thirties after Chuck’s great-grandfather turned their canning factory into an assembly factory for military vehicles for the efforts during the Second World War, they were also responsible for some of the township’s more unsavory history.
Actions were taken, secrets were buried, and the Toussaints endured on. But while the rest of the town had forgotten what had happened over the years, a few held onto the truth of the past. And none more so than Madame Crepaux.
A patch of broken streetlights cast one particular building into a darker shadow. Above the storefront on the ledge of the roof stood the old worn letters of the shop: Queen’s.
There were always whispers about that store and its proprietor, Madame Crepaux. Say her name aloud amongst the townspeople and they’d harshly tell you to shut your trap. “A devil worshiper she is!” “A no-good woman, that’s for sure.” “A phony. Just a dirty trickster.”
People had whispered about her ever since she could remember. She didn’t care what the town said, because the townspeople had forgotten what had happened. But she didn’t. The circles of those she trusted had passed down ancient knowledge to her, and she practiced and practiced until she grew into her own kind of legend. And finally the time had come. All of the pieces were in place.
The curse had started with fathers and sons, and that’s how it would end, or so she had seen. The future was fragmented, cloudy, like looking through a keyhole.
Inside her shop were items that most people would find repulsive. Animal skeletons, jewelry made from bones, feathers, and furs. Shelves of potions lined the walls, ranging in color from dark blues, blacks, and purples, to light yellows, greens, and blues, packaged in different-sized glass tubes, some in odd, twisting shapes. The walls were painted a dark, earthy brown, and the wooden floorboards were splintered and worn from decades of customers, mostly tourists, browsing her goods.
A cash register sat on top of a large glass case that contained more potions, more herbs, more tokens. Despite her knowledge and devotion to her religion, if she wanted to stay in this town, she still needed to pay rent. So the knickknacks and novelties helped get her along as people passed through on their way to New Orleans or Texas.
But behind the door to the left of the register was another room, one that remained closed during business hours, but was open now. A faint glow shimmered from inside, and there Madame Crepaux watched Matt Cooley be taken by the creature. Her eyes watered, and she quickly wiped them before tears could fall. It was hard watching such innocence be harmed, but what was necessary was rarely easy. And if all went according to plan, the boy would be returned home.
The glow from the large shallow basin slowly faded, and she struck a match and lit a candle. The flame flickered and revealed Madame Crepaux in her baggy, earthy-toned clothes that concealed the harsh realities that time bestowed upon the body. Her long dreads remained thick and black at the ends, but had started to thin and grey at the top. Her joints groaned, and she didn’t move as quickly as she used to, but her mind was sharper than it had ever been. And while well-worn lines were imprinted on her face, revealing the travels and stories of a lifetime, the pair of hazel eyes glowed with flickering specks of yellow. They were bright, intelligent, and the only part of her that was still beautiful.
Behind her was a table with old books and scrolls, their covers and letters faded and worn after almost two centuries of study. They had been passed down from priestess to priestess, from bokor to bokor, and then finally to her.
Much of the world was blind to the practice of Voodoo. Gris-gris, charms, and potions were viewed as nothing more than sideshow attractions. People did not understand the power that it gave, the good it could do… or the bad.
Voodoo was a religion that took from all forms of worships. It possessed symbols from Christianity and from the African tribes of her ancestors. Rituals were passed down by song to connect with the deities and the spirits of this world and the next. These songs also opened gates between worlds, and she had craved to open one gate in particular for as long as she could remember. But she needed something. A powerful amulet that she could not retrieve herself, created by a bokor who had sold out for the material goods of this world.
Madame Crepaux hovered her finger over one of the books, searching for the first lines of the words to the enchantment, smiling when she found it. She needed to move the other pieces together quickly. The longer the boy remained with the creature, the stronger it would become, and the harder it would be to open the doorway to its domain.
The father would come to her, that she was sure of. But the grandfather would need help. He had already been marked by the creature, and he was the chosen conduit to connect this world and the next.
She closed her eyes and lifted her arms, a low throaty hum escaping her lips. “Khan-Mah-EEE-Nochtway.” She stomped her foot, feeling the vibrations of the rhythm run through her. “Khan-Mah-EEE-Nochtway.” Another stomp, then a quick clap of her hands.
Madame Crepaux turned back to her shallow bowl, the light glowing once more, repeating the chant as she quickened her rhythm. Roger Templeton stirred as she reached within the depths of the old man’s broken mind.
“KHAN-MAH-EEE-NOCHTWAY!” The light in the bowl flashed bright and Madame Crepaux opened her eyes as she felt Roger Templeton awake in his hospital bed. She felt his panic, his confusion, and then his fear as she showed him what had become of his grandson.
They were only quick flashes, glimpses of what happened, but that was all that was needed. Madame held the connection as long as she could, but the man’s disease made it difficult, and after a few minutes, she dropped her hands to her sides and her knees buckled as she crumpled to the floor.
She gasped for breath, sweat trickling down her sides under her robes. She gathered her strength, focusing on her regaining control of her breathing. When she sat up, her knees popped and she clutched the table for support.
The years had stolen much of her strength, and she longed for the power she felt in her youth. But time cared nothing of the yearnings of the past.
The glow in the bowl faded, and only the candle flickered light. She looked back to her books, to all that she had studied. She clutched the bone necklace around her neck, drawing strength from her own gris-gris. She would need it for what was to come. They all would.
* * *
Owen sat on the edge of Matt’s bed, staring out the single dirty window of his son’s room. Red and blue lights passed in sweeping shades over the darkness outside. The cops had arrived twenty minutes ago, and Owen had come upstairs in a trance-like walk. It all felt like a dream, an
d he thought that if he walked up here, he’d find his son safe and sound in his bed. But Owen found only an empty room.
The sheriff asked questions downstairs that Owen didn’t know how to answer. Every time he moved his lips, he stopped at the absurdity of his own words. His son was taken not by the men who’d come to kill him and his family, which he still had no idea why, but by some… thing.
Owen shut his eyes and massaged them with the palms of his hands, trying to rid himself of the image of his son in the arms of that creature, sinking into the depths of the swamp. He turned his gaze from the windows and cast them over the walls.
A large Orioles poster was plastered at the head of Matt’s bed. A bat stood in the corner. Dirty cleats and a bucket of baseballs sat beneath the window in front of him. A shelf to the right displayed one of his son’s most treasured possessions, a ball signed by every player of the 2012 Orioles team.
Matt’s glove rested beneath his pillow, and Owen reached for it. He flipped it over, the straps of the glove dangling from the thick, flat fingers. The leather was well worn and oiled properly. His mother had shown him how to do it. He got his love of baseball from her.
Voices drifted upstairs, and Owen could hear Claire as she spoke with the officers. It was muffled, and faint, but she was still there, still talking.
The tips of Owen’s fingers whitened as he squeezed the glove harder. How did this happen? The move down here was supposed to solve everything, it was supposed to be a fresh start, an escape from the woes of Baltimore. But the job, the house, it was all too good to be true.
Desperation had a way of blinding you to rational thought. When faced with the prospect of your family being tossed into the streets with no food, no water, no roof over your head, you started to see things differently. And so when he was offered the job down here in Louisiana, he had moved his family without hesitation. He did it to save them. He did it to be the hero.
