by Hunt, James
He walked back down to his office and had Veronica try Chuck Toussaint again. The bastard hadn’t picked up his phone all day, and no one at work had seen him. He didn’t like how slippery the man was becoming, and he sure as hell didn’t like the fact that one of his suspects was dead.
Veronica poked her head into his office. “Still can’t get a hold Mr. Toussaint, Sheriff.”
Bellingham slammed both fists onto the table and rattled a cluster of pens and his nameplate off the desk. His jowls flushed red and contrasted brightly against the white mop of hair on his head. “I want an APB for Owen Cooley, Jake Martin, and Chuck Toussaint, and I want all three of those men in my cells before morning!”
Veronica skittered away without a peep and Bellingham reached for the statements again, trying to find something that he was missing. In all of the investigations that he’d conducted over the years, nine times out of ten, the simplest answer was the correct one. If all the evidence pointed to the butler with the candlestick in the library, then by God that’s what it was.
But the simplest answer in this scenario just didn’t make any sense. All the background checks he ran on Owen Cooley revealed the past of your average red-blooded American male. One instant of drunk and disorderly conduct when he was nineteen, where he was also charged with underage drinking, a few speeding tickets, but other than that, he was clean as a whistle.
Then on the other side Bellingham had Chuck Toussaint, known greaser of elections and a profound wealth and power in town, and old Billy Rouche who had been intertwined with the Toussaints for as long as he could remember. Not to mention the family that had suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth twenty-five years ago who lived in the same house as the Cooley’s.
Bellingham thumped his elbows on the table and massaged his temples. Was he actually considering believing what Owen Cooley had told him? Then what? Put out an APB for a creature with large black eyes, long claws, and a mouth full of teeth? He’d have more gators brought in than he’d know what to do with.
Bellingham reached for his truck keys and grabbed his hat. He watched Veronica shoot up out of her chair in his peripheral vision on his way out. “Keep me updated on those APBs.”
“Where are you going?” Veronica asked.
“Monster hunting,” Bellingham answered.
* * *
Owen chugged a half bottle of warm water that Marty pulled from the back of the truck, and while it worsened his thirst, it did provide a needed boost of clarity. The fog of fatigue was briefly lifted and he sat up a little straighter in his seat. “What time is it?”
Marty glanced at his wrist. “Quarter after eleven.”
“How much farther till town?”
“Not much longer.”
Owen drew in a breath, eyes closed, gathering the needed strength to keep pushing forward.
“So,” Marty said, switching his glance between the road and Owen in nervous throws. “You wanna fill me in on what’s going on?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Owen leaned his head against the glass, feeling the vibrations from the road as a car passed in the opposite direction. When he noticed that it was a sheriff’s deputy he immediately ducked lower in his seat. His eyes trailed it in the rearview mirror until it was out of view.
The truck slowed and then rumbled as Marty pulled off the asphalt and onto the gravel on the side of the road. “You wanna tell me why you clenched up like a whore in Church when that cop passed?”
“Your father-in-law is dead,” Owen answered. He blurted it out faster than he intended, but in the essence of time, he didn’t have much to waste.
Marty remained stoic, blinking a few times, that lump in his lower lip nearly dissolved. Owen tensed, waiting for Marty to speak, or to reach across the seats and try and choke him out. Owen had the size and muscle on Marty, but in his tired state, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to fend the man off.
“You do it?” Marty finally asked.
“No.”
“You think it was Chuck?”
“I know it was Chuck.”
Marty nodded slowly and then leaned back against his door. “Shit.” He rubbed his eyes, groaning, and then smacked his palm against the wheel. “Dammit! That stupid old man. I told him not to get too close to those Toussaints. Ain’t nothin’ but a bunch of aristocratic asshats.” He wrung the wheel, the thin cords of muscle along his forearms tensing from the tight grip.
“Marty,” Owen said. “I need to get to Queen’s.”
“We need to go to the police,” Marty said. “I don’t need this kind of heat, Yankee.”
“After you drop me off at the shop, you can do whatever the hell you want,” Owen said. “I just need to get there.”
“I don’t know—”
“He’s ten!” Owen’s voice thundered inside the cabin, and the strength in which the words escaped surprised even him. “He’s afraid, and alone, and wondering why his father hasn’t come to find him.” Desperation clung to those last words like morning dew to grass. His eyes watered and when Marty kept silent, Owen reached for the door handle.
“Hold your horses,” Marty said, waving at Owen’s hand. He shifted the truck back into drive and both men bounced in their seats as he pulled onto the road.
“Thank you,” Owen said.
“Yeah, well, you’re just lucky I never liked that old bastard,” Marty said. “Though my wife is going to be upset. Damn, you Yankees sure do love causin’ a mess for us boys down South, don’t you?” Marty looked over, but there was a hint of a smile on his face.
When Main Street finally came into view, Owen jolted upright in his seat. He pointed toward Queen’s, but Marty waved him off.
“I know where it is,” Marty said. “Not that I’d ever go there willingly.” He slowed as he approached, and as Owen’s eyes adjusted to the dark patch out front of the voodoo shop, Owen saw why. “Looks like someone else had your same idea.”
The pair of deputies looked toward the headlights of Marty’s truck, which he had stopped conspicuously in the middle of the road. Owen ducked below the dash and smacked Marty’s arm. “Drive past and park down at the end of the street. I’ll circle around back.”
Marty bid as he was told, giving a wave to both deputies on the way past, the cheesy smile spread across his face anything but natural. He found an open spot at the end of the street and parked, killing the engine as Owen kept low on his exit.
“So what the hell am I supposed to do now?” Marty asked as Owen was slipping away.
“Just act like you’re walking up toward Crawl Daddy’s and say you’re going in for a beer.”
“If I’m going to Crawl Daddy’s, then why the hell did I park all the way down here?” Marty asked, exasperation in his voice.
“You wanted the fresh air,” Owen answered, and then slipped around the back of an insurance adjuster’s shop before scurrying up the backside of the strip of buildings.
He glanced down at the rock in his hand and saw that it glowed even brighter now, the green light escaping through the cracks of his fingers. Owen tucked it into his pocket to keep himself hidden in darkness, and when he arrived at the back window of Queen’s, he tapped the glass, hoping everyone was still inside.
After the first round of poking, no one answered, and he tapped the glass harder. He stole quick glances of the darkness around him and saw a rat scurry out from a hole at the bottom of a trashcan. A few A/C units hummed quietly farther down the road, but he heard no footsteps or shouts from the deputies out front.
“Claire!” Owen whispered, this time knocking on the glass. “Claire, open—”
A suction noise popped and the window pulled inward. “Owen?” Claire kept her voice a whisper, and then the window pushed outward even more, and she lunged through the open space and wrapped her arms around Owen’s neck, squeezing tight. “Thank god.”
Owen kissed her cheek and brought her face in front of his. “Everything all right?”
“It
’s fine,” Claire said, still keeping her voice down. “The deputies have been out front for a while. What happened?”
Owen held up his hand, then briefly revealed the amulet, the luminescent glow filling the back alleyway, before closing his fist. “Do we still have time?”
“Yes.” Madame Crepaux appeared next to Claire, her yellow eyes flickering in the darkness. “But we must hurry.”
Both of them stepped back and Owen pulled himself inside, his muscles quivering from the exertion, and then landed awkwardly on his feet, his ankles giving way. Claire caught him before he fell.
“Christ, Owen, you’re shaking like a leaf,” Claire said, helping him through the room toward the door and across the shop to the second room where Roger was being kept.
“I’m fine,” Owen said, doing his best to ensure that his voice didn’t quiver. A small heavy thump smacked against his leg as Madame Crepaux closed the door, then lit a candle, revealing Chloe latched to his leg. He bent down and picked her up. “Hey, bug.”
“Daddy, you stink,” Chloe said, wrinkling her nose, and then kissed him on the cheek. “But I’m glad you’re back.”
Owen smiled, kissed his daughter, and then squeezed her tight, a few tears leaking out of the corner of his eyes. He set her down and Madame Crepaux brought a candlelight to his face, her eyes wide.
“Let me see it,” she said.
Owen uncurled his fist with the amulet, and Madame Crepaux released a low gasp as she gently plucked the stone from his palm, holding it close to the candlelight, her eyes reflecting the green glow.
“Powerful,” she said, whispering to herself. “The bokor who forged this did his work well.”
“So what now?” Owen asked.
The woman closed her hand around the amulet and then turned to Roger, bringing the stone and setting it around his neck. “He will open the portal into the creature’s world. It will be small, and it will be brief, but you will have entrance.”
“How does he get out?” Claire asked, holding onto Owen’s arm. “How does he come back?”
Crepaux walked quickly to her table and cabinets of herbs and solutions. She emptied a handful into a bowl, which glowed with a white light, and the water moved and danced across the ceiling. “The house will be the strongest point in the creature’s world, and the most human. It is there you will be able to find the door back to this world.” She turned around, bowl in hand, and set it down between Roger’s ankles on the table where he was still strapped down.
The front door rattled with fists, and through the closed door of the side room, they all turned their heads toward the commotion of the deputies out front. “Open up! Search warrant! Open up!”
“We haven’t much time,” Madame Crepaux said, and quickly grabbed hold of Owen’s hand and linked it together with Roger’s, who was still unconscious. “Keep hold of him, and hang on tight.”
Claire picked up Chloe and took a step back as Madame Crepaux raised her hands high and tilted her face toward the ceiling. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth, a low, throaty moan escaping her lips as the pounding on the door out front grew louder.
“Search warrant!”
Madame Crepaux swayed back and forth, the throaty hum steady as the light flickered in the bowl and the amulet around Roger’s neck grew brighter. “Demallah-Ooo-Nah!” She stomped her foot and clapped her hands, both noises echoing loudly in the room and dwarfing the pounding on the front door.
“Sherriff’s department, open up!”
Owen looked back to Claire as he held onto Roger’s hand. She kept Chloe close to her chest, and in the glow of the green and white lights, he saw that she was crying. “I will bring him back.”
“Demallah-Ooo-Nah!” Another stomp and clap, the rhythm growing faster.
“I know,” Claire said.
A crash of glass and the stomping of feet snapped Claire’s attention to the closed door, which quickly rattled. Feet shuffled, and another fist pounded violently on the other side.
Owen squeezed Roger’s hand tighter, the light inside filling up the entire room now, a clash of green and white so blinding that Owen lifted his free arm to shield his eyes.
“Demallah-Ooo-Nah!” Stomp. Clap. “Demallah-Ooo-Nah!” Stomp, clap. “Demallah-Ooo-Nah!” Stomp-Clap. “DEMALLAH-OOO-NAH!”
The ground rattled under Owen’s feet and he felt a harsh tug at the center of his chest, yanking him forward, and suddenly he was falling, the world around him still blinded by light. His skin grew cold, and with his eyes still closed, he caught a whiff of death, like road kill that had been baking in the afternoon sun.
Owen stepped back from the smell, and he stumbled, his mind disoriented from the sudden stopping motion of falling. He felt the ground squish beneath his feet. He blinked a few times, the brightness fading and replaced with shades of grey.
Trees sprouted from the swamp, their trunks broken and cracked, their branches void of leaves, with scraggly-looking pieces of moss that looked as dead as the trees they hung from. The leafless branches spiraled toward a sky void of sun, moon, stars, or clouds. It was a pitch black that Owen had never seen before, looking as dead as the world beneath it.
Owen paced in a half circle, getting his bearings, and then saw the house through the trees. He took a step toward it when a voice echoed from above. It was inaudible, nothing more than a water mumble, but it was enough to cast Owen’s stare toward the cemetery.
The headstones and tombs he smashed in with the sledgehammer were still whole in this place, and he found himself drawn to it. Owen jogged over and his breaths stung with each inhale. He only made a few feet before his muscles ached and he clawed at the dead bark of the trunks to stay upright.
The cemetery widened the closer Owen moved through the trees. Another watery echo sounded from the darkness above, but this time he recognized the voice. It was Roger.
“The tomb.” Roger’s voice rang in clearer now, and Owen understood. He picked up his pace, and each labored breath sent a series of daggers into his chest.
“Matt!” Owen’s voice echoed, and he cast a quick glance at the first grave he passed, wondering if the dead would rise again and what the hell they’d look like in a place like this. He saw the barren tree branches were clouded with thick spider webs. Tiny black dots crawled along them, moving together in a synchronized wave.
A pea soup fog rolled in thick around Owen’s ankles, and he sprinted toward the mausoleum centered in the graveyard. He swung open the wrought iron gate, this one not chained like the one in his world, and a mind-numbing rush of cold air struck him as he stepped inside. The stained glass windows at the top of the walls were broken, the beautiful artwork transformed into dagger-like shards.
A large concrete slab covered the top of a coffin that rested on a pedestal. Owen placed his fingers underneath the slab and lifted, his muscles straining, and he only moved it an inch before his grip gave out.
Owen sucked in another ragged breath, and he doubled over in a fit of coughing. The hearty hacks rattled his lungs and burned his throat. He spat on the ground, and his eyes widened from the bright sight of blood on the concrete. He’d been here only a couple minutes and that was what was happening to his insides?
He forced himself to stand and then repositioned his grip, and pushed this time instead of lifting. The concrete slab scraped against the pedestal and slowly exposed the coffin inside. Owen’s arms shook, and his back and shoulders burned. His lungs ached, and he coughed up another spray of blood over his chin and shirt as the slab finally crashed to the floor.
Owen reached for the coffin’s lid, and ripped it open. Inside, Matt lay on his side, his skin grey and clammy, curled up in a ball. He took sharp, wheezing breaths, and when Owen rolled the boy to his back, he saw that blood had crusted around his mouth and chin and stained the front of his shirt.
“Matt!” Owen scooped his boy out of the coffin and cradled him. He felt like a block of ice, his little chest rising quickly from his fast, panting bre
aths. “Matt?”
Matt’s eyelids fluttered open, revealing blackness where his once vibrant blue eyes had been. He opened his mouth like a fish sucking water, finding the strength to speak. “Dad?”
Owen kissed his son’s forehead, his lips burning from his son’s icy touch. He pulled him closer and then stepped toward the mausoleum’s exit. “I’m getting you out of here. Just hang on.”
Shadows covered the sky above when Owen jogged out of the tomb, his son heavy in his arms as he weaved around the graves. The world darkened, and when he looked up to the spiders in the webs, all of them scattered toward the trunks, chasing him.
His feet splashed in ankle-high water, and to the left and right of him, growling and snapping their jaws, were gators. One of the gator’s mouth was split down the middle, and another had large, gaping wounds exposed on its back and sides.
Owen pushed through the pain and fatigue and the life-sucking nature of the world around him, and focused only on getting his son to the house. More creatures emerged from the swamp on his sprint: rats, snakes, spiders, lizards, gators, all of them decrepit and dying. They chased Owen through the trees, nipping at his ankles, a few scratches slashed on his calves. But when he broke the tree line and his feet padded into the dead soil of the field before the house, the animals didn’t pursue him.
Hundreds of dead creatures lined up at the edge of the field, their glassy eyes staring at Owen, their animalistic calls both of this world and some other that he had never heard. Owen hobbled up the front porch steps and shouldered open the door, stumbling inside, barely able to keep Matt in his arms.
“I’m here!” Owen screamed toward the ceiling, the inside of the house a near replica, save for the fact that everything had aged horribly inside. The wood had rotted along the walls, boards were missing in the floor, what paint there was had been stripped and torn away. The house resembled the carcasses of those animals outside.
