by Hunt, James
And now his son was gone. His family nearly dead. And he had no idea what to do next.
“Owen?”
He turned and saw Claire standing in the doorway. She was still wearing her robe, though she’d added a shirt and shorts beneath it.
“Hey,” Owen answered, still holding his son’s glove.
Claire entered the room softly, not even the floorboards groaning from her steps. She joined him on the bed’s edge and placed her hand over his. “They want us to come down to the station. Fill out some paperwork and make a statement.”
Owen nodded, rubbing the inside of the glove. “Do you remember his first game? He was four, wasn’t he?”
A smile waned over her face, and she nodded. “Five.” She gestured to the glove. “We got that for him at the stadium.”
“We bought him his own seat, but he just sat on my leg the whole game.”
“Owen, we need to go and speak with the officers,” Claire said, her voice kind, but the patience thinning.
“The jersey we got him was like a dress.” Owen’s voice cracked and he felt tears gather in his eyes. “That was a good day.” Owen glanced out the window to the edge of where the swamp began. Where that creature had disappeared with his son.
“Owen—”
“I lost him, Claire,” Owen said, his voice trembling as a tear fell to the glove, darkening the leather. “And I don’t know how to get him back.” He turned to her, the same desperation in his voice when he came home with that pink slip from the shipyard six months ago. “I don’t know what to do.”
Claire pulled him close, struggling with his size and weight, his body engulfing hers in the darkness. He sobbed into her shoulder and she whispered into his ear. “None of this is your fault. We’re going to find him. We’ll get him back.”
Owen held onto her words, climbing them like a ladder from the depths of despair. His head broke the surface and he took his first breath of strength. That’s what she was for him, that perpetual engine that pushed him forward.
“The sheriff’s downstairs?” Owen asked, wiping his eyes.
“Yeah,” Claire answered.
Owen gently set the glove back on the bed before taking Claire’s hand, and they walked down the stairs together.
Dozens of officers scoured the dining room while others searched the rest of the house, tagging random items for evidence, combing the place for anything that would help them in their investigation. But how would it bring his son back from the clutches of that monster? He had no idea.
“I want a clean sweep of the whole property!” The sheriff bellowed his orders from the front porch over to the line of deputies walking through the tall grass from the house to the trees on the edge of the swamp.
Dogs barked in the back of squad cars as their handlers prepped them with a few items of Matt’s clothing. Owen thought about giving them the glove but wasn’t sure if the hounds could smell past all of that oil.
Sheriff Bellingham turned when Claire tapped him on the shoulder, his belly surprisingly flat for a man of his age and size. He was eye level with Owen in regards to his height, but his shoulders were a little broader, and the senior authority figure kept his fists pressed into his hips, giving himself a superhero-like stance.
“Ma’am,” Bellingham’s tone softened. “You folks ready to head to the station?”
“How long will this take?” Owen asked, remembering Chloe still upstairs in her room.
“Not long, Mr. Cooley.” The sheriff’s voice offered a thick but articulate twang, his lips bristling the bushy grey mustache that sprouted from his upper lip. “I just want to make sure we cross all our t’s and dot all our I’s. It makes it easier in the long run.”
Owen gestured to the line of deputies, who had now reached the edge of the swamp. “That’s all you brought?”
“I’ve coordinated with some of the sheriffs in the other parishes,” Bellingham said. “They’re sending men over so we can put together a search party.”
“And you think that’ll be enough?” Owen asked, an unintentional hardness to his voice.
“If the man who took your son—”
“It wasn’t a man.” Owen stiffened.
“I know what it might have looked like, but—”
“No,” Owen said. “You don’t.”
“Some of these guys like to wear masks,” Bellingham said. “It’s a psychological game they play. About ten years ago, I had this fellow taking kids dressed up like a woman. And let me tell you, he didn’t look like no woman. Taller than me, and just as wide. He shaved three times a day to keep the stubble off. Wore wigs, dresses, makeup. It’s easy to get caught up in it all when something like this happens.”
“He’s telling the truth, Sheriff,” Claire said. “The things that have happened in this house, they’ve… defied normal.”
The sheriff gave them each a look up and down, then clucked his tongue and raised his eyebrows. “Well, the sooner we get your statement down, the sooner we can start pressing charges against the people responsible.”
Owen searched the squad cars out front and finally spotted the one carrying the old man. He had his hands cuffed behind his back, and he was staring straight at Owen. The wrinkly, white bearded face snarled and revealed a single, silver-capped tooth. The second man who attacked his family, Jake Martin, had disappeared into the swamp when Owen rescued Claire and their daughter. Both men worked at the factory where Owen had just started his new job.
A deputy stepped out of the house, holding up a cell phone. “Sheriff? This kept going off in the bedroom. It’s got eleven missed calls.”
“That’s mine,” Claire said, frowning. The deputy handed it over to her and she scrolled through the missed calls, then looked at Owen, her cheeks as white as the robe she wore. “It’s the hospital.”
Claire turned her back to them as she returned the call, her head down. Owen couldn’t see it, but she was biting her nails, chewing the ends nervously while she waited for someone to answer.
Like Claire, Owen already knew what the call was about. Owen’s father-in-law was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s four months ago. But after the move from Baltimore, his condition worsened, so they admitted him to the nearest hospital. At least Owen had made himself believe it was the disease. However, after what he saw last night, he wasn’t so sure.
Claire lowered the phone then spun back around, stuttering a bit before she found her rhythm. “They said my dad won’t stop screaming, that he keeps asking for me. They want me to come down to the hospital and talk to him, but I don’t—” She shut her eyes, inhaled a deep breath, and then exhaled slowly. The breath rattled with an anxiety that made her lower lip tremble. White knuckles clutched the phone, and she shook her head.
“I’ll handle the police report,” Owen said. He turned to the sheriff. “You can get her statement after?”
“Sure,” Bellingham said. “We’d be able to get the ball rolling as long as we have one of you on record. But we’d still eventually want to get your wife’s version of the events.”
Owen took his wife’s hand, feeling the sweat on her skin. “Go. I’ll see you right after.”
“I’ll take Chloe with me,” Claire said, tossing a glance to the old man with his silver-capped tooth in the back of the squad car. “I don’t want her being around the station with those people.”
“I’ll have one of my deputies drive you over to the hospital,” Bellingham said, then turned out to the field, pressed his fingers to his lips, and let out a loud whistle that turned every officer’s head. “John!” He followed the name with a big, sweeping motion of his arm, and one of the deputies broke from the pack and jogged over.
The young man’s face dripped with sweat and he panted steadily upon his arrival. “Sheriff?”
“I need you to escort Mrs. Cooley and her daughter to the hospital,” Bellingham answered, then turned to Claire. “You think you could answer a few of Deputy Hurt’s questions on the way there?”
/> “Sure,” Claire answered.
“Mr. Cooley?” Bellingham asked.
“Hm?” Owen snapped his head away from the staring contest with the old man.
“Do you want to ride with one of my deputies to the station downtown, or will you be taking your own vehicle?”
“I’ll drive,” Owen answered.
“All right then, we should get going.”
The sheriff and Deputy Hurt started the walk to their cruisers, and Claire leaned into Owen as he wrapped his arms around her. “I’ll call you when I’m done at the hospital.”
Owen kissed the top of her head. “I’m sure he’s fine. And you’re right. We will find him.”
“I know,” Claire said, and she walked back into the house to grab Chloe.
On his way to the van, Owen tossed one more glance toward the squad car with the old man, but he’d turned away.
Owen didn’t know why the old man and Jake had attacked him, but he was willing to bet it had something to do with that thing that took his son. He climbed into the van and just before he started the engine, he glanced at the house through the windshield.
The police lights bathed the old wood blue and red, but the windows remained dark. Unnatural shadows engulfed the structure greedily, and Owen felt a chill run through him, his mind kept circling the one question that he couldn’t answer. Why his family?
3
The bourbon inside the crystal bottle at the wet bar in Chuck Toussaint’s office was gone. Most of it disappeared into Nate Covers’s stomach, but a fair amount was currently working its way through Chuck’s liver. He’d stayed awake as long as he could, but the liquor’s foggy haze eventually won out and he’d fallen asleep on his desk, his empty crystal glass near his limp and outwardly stretched hand.
Papers were strewn about his desk, a few new contracts that needed his approval before shipments could be sent out to his distributors. A large window exposed the guts of the factory that Chuck owned. He inherited it from his father, and his father inherited from his father, and his from his father, and so on all the way back to the factory’s conception at the turn of the twentieth century.
And so Charles Toussaint VII’s fate was sealed generations ago as he was to inherit the family business that had been the staple of Ocoee, Louisiana’s community and economy.
But the business wasn’t the only thing Chuck inherited. Underneath the wealth and status that his family held, there was a secret that had been forgotten since his ancestors first settled in this godforsaken piece of swamp land. It haunted his dreams. Especially tonight.
Chuck spasmed in his drunken slumber, groaning as he shifted to a more comfortable position on the desk. He figured that thing would visit him tonight, and he’d put off sleep as long as he could to avoid it. But the liquor and fatigue had finally caught up.
He’d seen it once in person. When he was eight, his father took him to that house on Cypress Lane. His father hadn’t said anything on the ride over. His mother had cried when they left, and that alone frightened him.
The anxiety only worsened when they turned down the gravel road and Chuck saw that house in the distance. Clouds drifted over the moon and shifted the shadows, bringing the darkness to life.
A freezing terror struck at Chuck’s heart, and he looked to his father in that moment, whose gaze was straight ahead as he slowed the truck and parked.
“You said we weren’t supposed to come here,” Chuck said, his eyes wider than a full moon. “You said it was dangerous.” Tears rolled down his cheeks despite his best efforts to control them. He hated crying in front of his father because he knew how much his father detested weakness. But the fear ran wild, and he couldn’t contain the sniveling whimpers that followed.
“You need to see something,” his father said, still staring at the house while the seat underneath them vibrated from the truck’s engine. “Something that you’ll have to face as a man. Like I did.” His father was colder and more distant than usual. “Get out of the truck.”
“W-why?” Chuck asked.
His father turned to him and his expression hardened into steel. The same steel that the machines were made of at the factory, the same steel of the factory itself. It was immovable, unswayable. “Now!”
Chuck jumped at his father’s bark and quickly unbuckled his seat belt and pulled the door handle. The door groaned as it opened, and he slid off the bench seat and his knees buckled when he hit the bumpy gravel. He looked up to his father, the tears still streaming down his face. His dad gestured to the field and then pointed to the swamp beyond it.
“Head to the cemetery. You stay there until I come and get you. Understand?”
Chuck slowly turned and looked to the trees and swamp across the swaying tall grass and reeds. He shook his head. “I-I don’t w-wanna go.”
His father’s expression remained hardened and unyielding. “Do as I say, boy.”
Chuck didn’t bother controlling the sobs now as he turned away from the truck and placed one wobbling foot down in front of the other and stepped into the field. He thought his father would leave him here to rot, and he kept wondering what he had done to deserve it. He turned back only twice, and each time he saw that his father’s truck was still in the drive.
The tall grass tickled the exposed skin of his arms, neck, and the back of his legs. And each time he jerked and recoiled from the grass’s touch, his imagination and the darkness got the better of him. The tall grass finally ended, and the large cypress trees sprung up from the thick mud that sucked his shoes down with each step.
Chuck dodged the hanging moss that swayed in the breeze, reaching for his shoulders like monster’s fingers. The squish of the mud grew wetter the farther he ventured into the swamp, and through the trees he saw the pieces of concrete that comprised the cemetery. He veered along the edge of the muck and water toward the raised tombs, his new shoes now completely ruined with grime up to his knees.
The hot stink of the swamp filled his lungs, and by the time he reached the graves, the muscles in his legs had turned to jelly and his shirt was soaked with sweat. He remembered his father telling him that this was his family’s cemetery. And that one day, like the rest of the Toussaints, he would be buried here with them. He just hoped it wasn’t tonight.
Death terrified him. The idea that he would no longer exist, no longer feel, or think or see or hear, it was too overwhelming. How could things just stop? How could he just end and not even realize it? He expressed those fears and questions to his best friend Aaron Jessup. And Aaron told him that you never die if you know Jesus. He’d get to go to heaven and see his whole family up there and he’ll never get scared, or tired, or hurt ever again.
Chuck didn’t know who Jesus was, but that night at the dinner table he’d told his father what Aaron had said, and his father pounded his heavy fist against the thick oak and rattled the plates and silverware.
“The only things in life that matter are what you can see, feel, hear, and taste. If you can’t hold it, then it’s not worth your time. If the Jessups want to spew that shit to their kid, then fine, but I won’t have you become a weak-minded fool like their boy. You hear me?”
Chuck nodded and never brought it up again. But he sometimes still thought of what Aaron had said, and it made him feel better. He’d like to see his grandmother again. Beside his mom, she was the only other family member that he liked. Every visit to his grandparents’ house was like an escape, as long as he didn’t have to be around his grandfather very long. The old man was meaner than his father and looked scarier because of the saggy skin and wrinkles. Mammie had wrinkles, but she didn’t have his grandfather’s scowl.
Chuck found his Mammie’s grave among the dead and pressed his back against the firm concrete of her tomb as he sat down. If there was a safer place to wait, then he couldn’t think of one.
Cicadas and insects buzzed in the night air, and every once in a while, the water would swoosh from a gator or snake. Chuck kept himself tucked int
o a tight ball, hugging his knees tight against his chest. The longer he lingered there in the dark, the less frightening it became, and soon he grew sleepy. He released his knees from his chest and lay down along the side of his Mammie’s tomb.
Eventually, Chuck dozed off, and he wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep, but he awoke to a low growl and high-pitched hiss echoing from the depths of the swamp. He pushed himself up on his elbows and wiped the sleep from his eyes. He shivered from an unearthly chill in the air, unheard of at this time of summer. Even in the nighttime.
The cold worsened as Chuck sat upright, the growl and hiss growing louder and coming from different directions. Chuck backed himself into the tomb as a rattle knocked the air. It was slow at first, but then grew into a steady rhythm, vibrating the air with each clackity-clack.
Chuck retreated from the graveyard, the cold seeping into his bones now and chilling every breath. His heart hammered in his chest, and he tripped over his own mud-crusted shoes and smacked into the muck face first.
The rattling grew louder and Chuck panicked, rolling in the thick mud that refused to let him go. The more he struggled, the quicker he sank. He crawled on all fours, his arms and legs burning as the rattling grew louder.
Another low growl and hiss echoed to his right, then another to his left, and Chuck burst into tears again. He couldn’t even see what was out there, and he knew that his father had said to wait until he came and got him, but he didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to be cast into darkness forever. He wanted to hear his mother’s voice again. He wanted to see his friends. He wanted to feel the warmth of the sun on his face.
The rattling stopped and Chuck’s ears popped as the air was sucked from his lungs. Panic took hold and he flailed more violently in the mud. And when he finally flipped to his back he saw the creature standing over him in the darkness.
Black good dripped from the wide mouth full of jagged teeth. Scaly grey skin covered its body, and long claws extended from its hands. But out of all the menacing features, it was the creature’s eyes that frightened him most. It was like they were staring into his soul, sucking the very life from him every second their gazes were locked together.
