She was just a cow. Sooner or later she’d be killed and eaten anyway. The only difference here was that she’d be devoured in the darkness of the root cellar instead of at the local McDonalds. It was her destiny. She was born a cow and she was preordained to meet this kind of end. Hopefully it would be quick. At the very least, it would be honest.
That didn’t make it any less hard. Seeing those rheumy eyes of hers looking at me, seeming inquisitive. Almost like she was asking me “who are we going to visit?” She was a living, breathing animal now…not just burger meat on my plate. That made it much more personal than I wanted it to be. I stroked her wet nose, trying to give her a little comfort in these last moments.
We’re going to visit death, old girl.
That’s where this journey ends.
The swampy overgrowth was closing in. I fought through brambles and ragged branches. The old girl’s hooves splashed through little pools of stagnant water. I pushed aside a curtain of dying willow leaves and saw that we had reached our destination. The door of the root cellar loomed ahead, looking both ominous and hungry, much like the being that dwelt below.
The door was small and I was hoping the cow would fit through the opening. My concern was her width not passing through the threshold. The last thing I needed was for her to get stuck in the doorframe. I got close now, pulling on the rope while reaching out for the door…and for the first time the old cow showed signs of trepidation. She struggled a bit, lowing sadly from deep within her throat.
It was almost like she sensed the wrongness behind that door. That keen animal intuition kicking in, telling her that something horrible waited for her in there. I never thought the moo of a cow could affect me on an emotional level, but hearing the old animal make that kind of sound damn near broke my heart. It sounded far too close to human pleading for my liking…
I reached out again, my hand stroking her nose. She calmed a little, those big, milky eyes staring up at me. Her breath came out in little panicked gasps against the flesh of my hand. My voice came out in a whisper, a poor attempt to soothe the fear awakening within her.
“I’m sorry, old girl.”
I started to lead her again, proceeding to push the door open with my free hand. She came willingly enough, but her legs seemed almost to tremble. She lowered her head to clear through the frame, and as I worried her sides scraped deeply against the sides of the doorframe. There was one stressful moment when I was sure she was stuck, but she managed to finally squeeze the entirety of herself into the root cellar.
I noted that a rusted nail had dug a little groove into her flank, the blood droplets already starting to drip down against the earth. She was lowing again now, the same sad, hopeless note escaping from her throat.
I closed the door behind us.
The air was thick and suffocating in here. The hole awaited us, gaping and expectant. I could feel the other presence there immediately, the vibrations in the earth indicating that something gargantuan was crawling and slithering towards the surface.
M was waiting.
M was watching.
M was coming up to feed.
Chapter 30
Roman
Little clouds of dust puffed up from the hole. A hideous scratching sound invaded my ears, causing the cow to lose control of her bowels and leave a steaming pile of shit next to my feet. I barely noticed. All of my attention was focused on the chasm in the earth. I’d forgotten to breathe. I didn’t dare blink.
M was coming…and I was mortified at the thought of actually seeing him.
All motion in the root cellar abruptly came to a halt. The sound of ragged claws digging through the soil abated. The quiet seemed to pierce through me like little sharp blades digging into my perspiring skin. I could see into the hole but there was still nothing to be glimpsed except for yawning darkness. M was down in that darkness somewhere though. I could sense him just beyond the scope of my vision lurking along those earthen walls. He was close. Dangerously close.
“She’s lovely, Roman. Good choice…”
M’s voice echoed up from the deep, and it was the darkest purr I’d ever heard come forth from whatever M had for vocal cords. The sound of that voice made me want to swoon and drift through the warm waters of the eternal. M’s pleasure was contagious and I could literally feel it infecting me.
“Bring me what is mine.”
I was complying with that request without even thinking about it. The cow came easily and without any kind of struggle. There was a glaze over her eyes, a dumbfounded look. It seemed M was having the same hypnotizing effect on her as he was on me. She walked so willingly towards her ruin…
I brought her to the very edge of the pit, her hooves pushing against little crumbs of dirt and causing them to fall down into it. She stared down into that abyss, a rivulet of drool dripping from her open mouth like slow molasses.
“That’s perfect. The next part is crucial, child of flesh and sinew. Listen well.”
I was listening, full of tranquility and letting that purr sink into every fiber of my being.
“I’ll be coming up to take her. I’ll be squeezing a section of myself up into the world of the surface. I’d prefer it if you didn’t see me, Roman. Not yet, anyways.”
A brief pause, the cow still drooling down into the hole.
“I’m a little shy.”
I found myself nodding my head. I barely even realized I was doing it.
“I’d like for you to turn around and step into that far corner. Keep your back to the hole and close your eyes. You’ll count down from ten…and then it will be over. A short feast and that will be all.”
I stepped towards the corner, letting the rope slip from my fingers. The cow was left there all alone with only the monstrous unknown to keep her company. I took a deep breath…and I closed my eyes. I didn’t know what to expect. I had no idea what was coming. I had no time to prepare for what happened next…
That sound came again, intensifying…something of great size digging and scratching and clawing against the earth. My lips were moving in a silent whisper.
“Ten.”
Dust was sprinkling down into my hair. The earthen floor was shaking violently. A stench hit my nostrils and almost knocked me to my knees. It was the odor of some deadened thing buried for centuries and being exhumed.
“Nine.”
The cow’s false calm had dissipated. She was not calm now. She was bellowing and the terror conveyed through those bellows made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
“Eight.”
Something was pushing upward out of the pit. My eyes remained closed but I could feel it behind me, a darkening of the root cellar. The shadow of eternity washed over me and it was so very cold in the shade of it, my blood seeming to turn icy in my veins.
“Seven.”
I was trembling now. I felt silent tears washing down my cheeks. I felt my heart hammering in my chest to the point where I thought it might burst straight through the ribcage. I could hear mounds of dirt falling off of a section of M’s unearthed body.
“Six.”
I didn’t know cows could scream. That’s the only way I can describe the sound that came next, drilling into my ears. It sounded like the bovine was destroying its own throat just by making that kind of sound. The sounds that followed were even worse. I heard flesh tearing like paper. I heard sinew snapping and bones cracking. I heard wet splashing sounds and teeth so incomprehensibly large chewing and chewing and chewing…
“Five.”
I heard a strange chattering like mandibles clicking together. I heard rattling and hissing and a lengthy slurping noise that threatened to make my entire skull explode. I was dimly aware of the fact that liquid was splashing around the root cellar at an alarming rate. My clothes were soaked, the liquid dripping down my back.
“Four.”
Pieces of that animal were hitting the walls. Wet, fleshy chunks smacking against the confines of the root cellar. It was being ev
iscerated. It was being torn asunder. Blood was hitting the ceiling and then falling back downward like scarlet rain.
“Three.”
I never should have opened my eyes. It was one of the worst decisions I ever made. I didn’t turn around, merely opened my eyes to little slits and looked at the wall. I saw only the shadow of M. Only a portion of his shadow…but it was more than enough. I saw freakishly long limbs that ended in thin fingers with ragged fingernails the size of railroad spikes. I saw teeth that seemed to spin like a circular saw. I saw masses of skin and tumor lumps and sacs of exposed organ meat drooping low and I saw all of these things simply through the shadow cast across the walls.
I closed my eyes once again and felt the warm piss dripping down my thighs as my bladder betrayed me.
“Two.”
Swallowing. The remnants of the bovine were being swallowed. The bones were being sucked of marrow. Tongues were lapping up blood. Too many tongues to understand. Too many tongues…
“One.”
The dirt was moving again. The soil was shaking and grinding as M descended back into his familiar prison. His voice returned to me, gurgling and satiated.
“I’ve cleaned my plate. You can open your eyes now, Roman.”
I did as I was bid.
I opened my eyes to an abattoir.
The walls of the root cellar were splattered with gore. Hot blood dripped from the ceiling, the coppery smell of it still fresh. I took a step backwards and squelched down against a chunk of liver. I was soaked in the remnants of that old cow. I was splashed in bile and the little pieces of shit that remained in the animal’s stomach before it was consumed.
I turned to the hole, already starting to hyperventilate. The mouth of the pit was even worse. Loops of intestine trailed down into the deep. A severed leg overhung the edge, the hoof dug into the dirt like in the final moments the cow had tried in vain to pull itself back up to the surface.
The world was turning gray all around me. My vision was dimming. All the strength went out of my knees and I dropped down against the dirt. Consciousness was fading. I looked down at my own hands, grimed with blackish blood. I fell directly on my face, puffing out air against the dust.
I dove towards peaceful nothingness and away from this blood-smeared reality. I swam deeper and deeper into the darkness. I kicked my feet to escape the nightmare of it all…
The whole world fell away as I fainted. I was so thankful for that.
Chapter 31
Roman
Partial consciousness found me sometime later. My vision was bleary and nothing was tangible. I tasted dirt in my mouth. My eyelids were practically glued together with dried cattle blood. The darkness was still close and I knew it wasn’t done with me just yet.
Something was singing to me. It was the softest, darkest lullaby I’ve ever heard in my entire lifetime. I couldn’t understand the lyrics. I didn’t even know if the ululations of that lullaby could be described as actual words or not. It was voiced in a language I knew nothing about, spoken in a tongue older than anything I’ve ever known. It was pulling me back down into the gray world of nothingness. I was content to go back there again.
I felt my hair being stroked away from my sweaty brow. I caught the barest glimpse of thin fingers that ended in jagged fingernails. It looked like there was fossil sediment encrusted beneath those fingernails. Ancient earth.
I was lost in the lullaby, being stroked like a little baby fresh out of the womb. That’s what I felt like, covered in blood and meat gristle. I’d been born again into a life now scarred by hellish memories. The long fingers kept brushing through my hair. The smell of them made me want to gag.
The lullaby stopped for a moment. M whispered into my ear from somewhere behind me.
“Your kin will prosper.”
I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t find the strength to even open my mouth. It seemed too difficult a task…
“Sleep deep…rest long.”
I wanted to sleep. More than anything I wanted that. The lullaby began again and I let the strange melodies carry me away. Nothing mattered but the nothingness.
I slept.
I slept deep.
Chapter 32
Roman
I don’t know how long I slept. I awoke alone, M’s presence somewhere down in the deep now that he’d been momentarily satiated. Dawn was breaking when I finally staggered out of the root cellar and into the harsh light of a newborn sun. I shielded my eyes against that light. I didn’t want to be illuminated; I didn’t want any part of my disgusting, blood-drenched form to be exposed right now.
Somehow I made it back into the house and went directly to the bathroom. My folks were still asleep and I was incredibly thankful for that. I locked the door and just leaned up against it for a moment, trying to get my breath back.
I didn’t want to look in the mirror but I had a grating compulsion to do so. I slowly approached my own reflection, my eyes reluctantly taking in my own face. I looked like I had been bathed in blood and painted crimson. Little chunks of sour meat were stuck in my hair. My clothes were saturated and smeared in dirt. There was so much grime beneath my fingernails that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to dig it out. I abhorred the sight of myself. I looked like a deranged murderer back from a night of endless butchery.
I peeled the clothes off and it was like peeling off actual skin, the layers so gummy and sticky against my flesh. I made a mental note to dispose of them later. I was certain no amount of laundering would remove the stain or the stink of them…
I turned the shower on, blasting the hot water as much as I could possibly stand it before stepping in. I washed and I scrubbed and I tried so hard to become clean again. I lost track of time in that shower, my skin pruning up and becoming like mush. I scrubbed the soap so hard against my skin that it was becoming painful. I just had to get clean…I had to wash the previous night away and bleach these fuckin’ memories right out of my mind too.
By the time I finally stepped out and toweled off I felt mentally and physically gutted. I was raw and drained and I needed actual restful sleep more than anything else. I was afraid of closing my eyes though…
It seemed like every time I blinked the darkness showed me that abattoir again. Scenes played behind my eyelids. I heard the sounds of death; saw the mutilated bits of that cow flying all around me, the blood baptizing me in foulness…and worst of all, the sound of M going about his gluttony.
I slogged into my bedroom and I pulled a pack of Nyquil caps out of the cabinet, proceeding to pop several of them into my mouth one after another. Not enough to do any harm but enough to send me down into a dark abyss. Hopefully a dreamless abyss…
I stumbled and fell face first into my bed, naked and exhausted.
I drew the blankets up and pulled them close all around me, creating a cocoon to curl myself into.
My eyelids felt heavy and I was happy to give in to the weight of them.
The last sight I saw before drifting off again was that there was still dirt beneath my fingernails.
Still dirty.
Still unclean.
Chapter 33
Roman
The next few days passed in a haze. I felt like a zombie staggering through a fog enshrouded world, everything coming to me from a great distance away. I found myself staring blankly ahead while people attempted to engage me in conversation. I barely had any kind of appetite. I felt as weak as a kitten and even holding that valuable ruby hidden away in my room couldn’t bring me back to life again.
My memories from those few days lack clarity, but several very important things happened. There were certain pivotal events that broke through the haze and hit me hard. One of them was the night my father came home and sat down at the dinner table with a conflicted look on his face. It was hard to read that expression but it looked like a mixture of happiness undercut with grief.
My mom had to work hard to get him to finally give us the news. I lost a
ll interest in my plate of macaroni and cheese when my father finally spoke.
“Davis had a heart attack last night. He couldn’t get to the phone in time…we found him laid out by the jukebox this morning.”
Braham wiped a calloused hand against his lips before continuing.
“He’s dead, Helena.”
My mother’s mouth fell open and they went through a little back and forth exchange about the death of my dad’s boss. I didn’t pay attention to much of it. The only word that mattered to me at that particular moment was “dead.”
Dirt Lullabies Page 8
