by Mr. Deadman
Johanna nodded again.
“And… I’ve spoken with your mom about our little meeting. She agreed that you can tell me anything, anything, and I won’t share it with her. What you say is between us. Like a pinky promise.”
“Anything?”
“Yes.”
The clock above the desk on the other end of the room ticked loudly. Ms. Denise seemed nice enough. Older, like Mother, but different somehow. More like a friend.
“Okay,” said Johanna.
“You’ll talk to me?”
“Yes.”
Ms. Denise grinned. “Good. I’m glad. Your mother tells me you’ve been having trouble sleeping…”
“I can’t sleep at all. When it’s night… I hear a voice.”
The psychologist’s lips pursed. “What kind of voice? Someone you know?”
“It’s—” Johanna stopped speaking. The atmosphere in the room changed, suddenly thick and oppressive.
“Do you hear the voice right now?”
“Shh!”
Ms. Denise raised her eyebrows, then put a finger to her lips and nodded. Johanna looked down. She had never shushed a grown-up before. There was a muffled scrabbling sound in her ear, like a mouse’s paws on dead leaves. Then the room was quiet again. Johanna finally spoke. “Not someone I know… it comes from the woods.”
Ms. Denise wrote down something in her notebook. “And does this voice tell you anything?”
“SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND BRING ME MEAT!”
Johanna shrieked. The voice was harsh, deafening. It echoed inside of her skull. She winced, scrunching up her eyes and smacking her palm against her forehead.
“Johanna!” Ms. Denise cried. “Is it speaking now?”
“HUNGRY! HUNGRY!”
Johanna curled into a ball on the couch. She felt a hand on her shoulder and lashed out at it with her fists.
“HUNGRY! FEED ME!” the voice cried. It was louder still. Johanna covered her ears, but it was as if she was right next to a giant speaker. “FEED ME THIS BITCH!”
Johanna shoved Ms. Denise away from her and sprinted out of the room, sobbing. She tripped over a rug in the hall, fell to her knees, and sprang up again. Her feet hammered on the steps. She hurried into her room and opened the closet door. She sat in the darkness, enveloped in her clothing.
She could hear Ms. Denise and her mother speaking rapidly. A car started.
Johanna rocked back and forth until she was startled by a sharp rapping on the door. Somehow her thumb was in her mouth. She pulled it out, ashamed. You’re ten now.
“Hello?” she said, her voice trembling.
“It’s Dad. Come out! Don’t make me ask twice.”
“Is Ms. Denise there?”
“No. Mom is driving Ms. Denise home. I’ve got to take a conference call. You need to play with Luke for a little while. Do you think you can do that, or are you going to cry all day?”
The closet door creaked open.
“Great,” said Father.
His footsteps crossed into the hallway and faded away. Johanna slipped out of the cracked door. She felt so peculiar. As she looked down at her feet, it was like she was a guest in her own body. She imagined her mind floating away, up, up, while her body still moved downstairs like an automaton.
If only she could sleep, a few hours uninterrupted by nightmares or the rumbling voice coming from the bottom of the well. She was just so tired. Is this how adults feel all of the time? She thought of how Father always grunted when he hefted himself out of a chair, or Mother’s sighs when her phone rang in the evening.
Luke was spaced out in front of the TV in the living room. “Joanie, look at Cookie Monster!”
She shuddered. Monsters were all alike—all wanting to gobble something up. And the being in the well was especially hungry. It was trying to devour her mind. She would never sleep again. The monster would drain her energy, drain her sanity, until she was fully unhinged. She would be like one of those lost souls on Boston’s streets, babbling to herself, trying to drown out the voices.
Unless it could be sated with something else.
The meat she’d thrown down the well wasn’t enough. She thought of what the voice had demanded while she sat with Ms. Denise. The monster needed fresh meat. Meat that was human. Too bad Ms. Denise wasn’t here now.
The thought was repulsive, yet she knew what needed to be done.
She looked down at Luke and began to laugh—a strange, throaty chuckle that didn’t feel as if it were coming from herself.
Luke looked up at her. His face knitted in confusion, nervousness, until he started laughing, too.
Like a needle pulled from a record, she went quiet.
Snips and snails and puppy dog tails… Johanna could feel the fine, light hairs on the back of her neck raise up. The walls looked closer than they had been seconds before. A wave of nausea began in her stomach and rumbled in her intestines.
“Luke,” she said abruptly. “D-do you want to play a game outside?”
***
Luke sat in a red Radio Flyer wagon, decked out in a baseball cap and sunglasses.
“What game we playin’?”
“It’s called, um, ‘Westward Ho!’ You and your teddy are Lewis and Clark, and I’ll be your faithful Native American guide, Sacagawea. We’re going to explore the woods, okay?”
“Okay, Sack-a-wawa,” Luke repeated.
Johanna pulled the wagon down the driveway. The air was sweltering. As they reached the road, sweat had gathered under her armpits and on her back. Johanna paused, expecting to hear Father calling out to them.
The two trundled down the road. She listened for the sound of cars, terrified that one would take a blind corner too quickly. In some ways, if they were run over, it would be a relief. But they were alone.
On the path to the well, the voice, so familiar to her, drifted out from the lush thicket.
“Feed me…”
Johanna looked back at Luke to see if he had heard, but her brother stared at her blankly.
“Okay, Luke—I mean, Lewis. You ready to start the journey to the Pacific?”
“Yeah! Yeah!”
Johanna anticipated having to struggle with the wagon to get it past thick underbrush or ruts in the earth, but the pathway was straight and smooth. The front axle of the wagon creaked. A breeze came from behind them. Johanna thought it sounded like the creature inhaling from down in the black void of the well, trying to detect the scent of their flesh.
When they reached the fallen tree trunk marking the end of the pathway, she gasped. It had been split in two. She could see the rotten interior of the trunk squirming with grubs and spiders. The space between its two halves was just wide enough to permit the wagon to pass through.
It knows why I’m here, she thought, and then the voice echoed its refrain:
“Hungry… snips and snails and puppy dog tails… sugar and spice and everything nice… BRING ME MEAT.”
She walked into the clearing, dragging her baby brother behind her.
***
Father had finished his conference call, satisfied he’d managed to take partial credit for a project he hadn’t even worked on. He could be a smooth talker when he wanted to be—it was how he won over his wife.
From outside the room, the television was still blaring. The electronic babysitter never failed. Knowing the kids were occupied, he considered locking the door of the office and opening some porn. He’d just resolved to do so, plugging a pair of earbuds into the computer, when the door burst open, and Johanna stormed in.
Her face was slick with tears and sweat. Her hair was greasy, her skin pallid and sickly. My God, Chris thought, she really is disturbed.
“DADDY!” she wailed.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” He tried to hide his annoyance. They said it would be easier once one of them got older.
“It’s Luke!”
“Luke? What happened? Weren’t you two watching TV?”
“W-we went outside to
play in the woods…” she blubbered.
“You what?”
“And-and Luke slipped and fell into the well!”
“What well? What in God’s name are you talking about?!”
“Hurry, Daddy! Hurry!”
Johanna raced out of the room, and he followed.
They ran from the house and down the road. Father overtook his daughter and yanked her along. She thought he was going to pull her arm out of its socket. When they reached the forest, he scooped her up into his arms and ran down the twisting path. Branches lashed his face. In the midst of a stride, his foot slipped into a small indentation in the earth, and he stumbled, nearly toppling over. He regained his balance and continued on.
They reached the massive fallen tree that marked the end of the trail.
“It’s past there, Daddy!”
The two entered the clearing, Father taking in the squalor of the shack and its surroundings. Johanna pointed to the low stone wall.
Her father approached it.
“Luke?” he called. “Luke, buddy?”
After walking to the well’s lip, he leaned forward, hands on his knees, staring into the black depths. The well sucked the sound out of the air as he called for his son again. He leaned over further, trying to make out its bottom.
The shove of small hands on his back was so quick, his fall so abrupt, that he didn’t have time to scream.
***
Johanna backed away from the hole in the earth and entered the crumbling shack. In a corner stood an antique wardrobe, the only piece of furniture. Johanna gently pulled its door open.
“You can come out.”
Her little brother crawled out. His face was a mixture of emotions: unease, confusion, pride.
“Did I do a good job of hide-and-seek?” he asked.
“Yeah, a super job.”
“Where’s Daddy?”
“It’s his turn to hide back at the house. Let’s go, too. Come on.”
She lifted Luke into her arms and stepped out into the clearing. It seemed brighter. All she could hear were the sounds of the forest. The thing at the bottom of the well had been fed. Hopefully, it would stay full for a long, long time. As for what to tell Mother, well… Johanna would think of something. She was ten now.
About the author:
Philip W. Kleaver is a writer of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. He lives in Baltimore, but was raised in a small, Massachusetts town somewhere in Lovecraft country. He is the co-author of Psychodelic: Strange Tales of Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll (available on Amazon). His work has previously appeared in Shotgun, Deadman’s Tome: Trumpocalypse, Deadman’s Tome: The Ancient Ones, and Zero Flash Fiction. Follow him on Twitter @pwkleaver, or check out his website at pwkleaver.wordpress.com.
Eclipse at Wolfcreek
Sylvia Mann
Monsters exist. Some fiends are so tiny that they only show up on MRIs or in bloodwork—silent predators that alter cells and eat memories. Others manifest in neighbors and loved ones as addicts, abusers, pedophiles, and killers. The aforementioned are heartbreaking and scary, but the third kind—the ones who appear in full regalia with red eyes, claws, and razor teeth, those who’ve winged their way through your nightmares into reality—well, a meeting with one of those boogeymen is a piss-your-pants-fetal-position kind of terror.
Truth be told, if you survive, each beast leaves its own unique scars. I should know, because all three had visited me by the time I was 13. Back then, Daddy and I were still living on Wolfcreek Mountain in West Virginia with Grandma. We moved out there in ‘79 after my own mother had left me locked in a dog kennel while she went out to score drugs. Daddy found me. “You were just 2 years old and sitting in your own crap, but smart enough to push most of it through the grate. And you weren’t crying. You’re tough, boy! Walsh tough!”
I’m pretty sure I was screaming and bawling, but Daddy, God bless him, spun every tale to make us look good.
So, Grandma raised me while Daddy was out driving trains for CSX, but by the summer of 1988, the tables had turned. At 72, Grandma was in the full throes of dementia, a horror accentuated by alien baldness, save for a few bug-like hairs that stuck out between the blue veins crisscrossing her scalp. Even though I loved her dearly, she gave me the heebie-jeebies. Still, I couldn’t let on I was afraid because Daddy wouldn’t hear it; I had to stay strong.
We couldn’t afford home care. Daddy helped her when he could, but that spring he started taking longer shifts. When he left for 2 to 3-day stretches, he’d slip me 50 bucks, and he didn’t have to say a thing. I knew what the money entailed. I’d have to hose Grandma off in the stand-up shower downstairs and wash the places that no grandson or son should ever have to see on a woman who raised him. I got through it by pretending I was just washing a pruned doll, not a real live woman. Then, I’d put on her adult diaper and dress her in a fresh housecoat, or a gown at night. When it was time to eat, I spooned baby food into her wrinkly old mouth or held up a nutritional shake so she could drink through a straw and not choke. Sometimes, I plucked her nose hairs or painted her nails, even though all she ever did was eat the polish off and scare the hell out of me when she flashed those yellow dentures flecked with red chips.
Often, Grandma was like a zombie, barely able to walk and make words; but other days, she was strangely lucid, like that second week in June when Daddy had to leave for 5 days, his longest work trip yet.
“Keep an eye on Buddy,” he said to Grandma, when he came downstairs with his bag, winking at me because she was already blind by then. It was hard to tell if she was listening, or if she thought the joke was funny, because she was facing the wall in her rocking chair, rubbing her nose, and staring at the wallpaper like she was watching a show.
“Put your hair hat on, Mama!” he shouted. “You want me to bring it to you?”
“Oh, Ronnie!” she yelled, rocking hard on the runners. “Go fuck yourself!”
Daddy laughed and hung her silver-blonde wig on the bannister newel.
I forced a smile and handed him a hot thermos of coffee.
“She’s still got spunk, right kiddo? Never used to curse. Yes, sir, you’re gonna have a good time with G-ma. Remember, no visitors.” He shook his finger at me, trying to be funny.
“But, Daddy, it’s my birthday tomorrow.”
“Quit your whining.” He slipped me some cash and pulled an envelope out of his jacket. “This card is from Grandma and me. What have you saved?”
“Two hundred.”
“I’ll pick up a cake, and we’ll celebrate when I get back. I don’t want people around here when I’m gone. Boys can be cruel. You have to protect your G-ma.”
“Alright,” I said, but I had already invited Prez over for the weekend. I figured Grandma wouldn’t remember, and as long as I disposed of the evidence, no one would be any the wiser.
Daddy threw a punch, stopping just before my face. I winced with imagined pain.
“Made you flinch!” He smiled and mussed up my hair. “You gotta work on your moves, boy.”
Once his truck pulled out of the driveway, I went outside and waited. Grandma’s place was on the front side of the mountain, built at the foot near the creeks with a clear view of Route 3, but her house was so far back that the cars driving past looked matchbox size from where I stood. To get to the property you had to turn off the main road and drive almost a mile on gravel shaded by a canopy of tall trees. At the end, the rocks turned to dirt, forcing you to take a left and cross over a low-lying logging bridge laid directly in the juncture of three creeks: Wolf, Muddy, and Wares. When it rained in Pocahontas or Greenbrier Counties, the water rose and swallowed the banks, making it impossible to get in or out by car. You could hike in from the other side, which Daddy and I had to do about 10 times a year, but it was a long trek. Daddy kept a shed with a truck and a three-wheeler at the backside of the mountain, just for such emergencies.
Beyond our 750 was 2,000 plus acres of forest where I was never supposed
to go. “We can hunt on our land, but we can’t go on that state property. We’ll get fined,” Daddy warned. He marked our line with flat river rocks, which was about 100 feet from our shed, and told me it was best to just keep off, lest I got tempted. Mainly, I heeded his warning.
Prez’s mother drove in just as it started to rain. “Preston Rennick, you call me if you need to come home early. And you stay out of trouble, hear?”
“Yeah,” Prez said, getting out and slamming the door without saying
goodbye. As her car pulled away, the rain started falling in sheets, and Prez and I ran for cover. We ended up spending that first afternoon inside, playing cards and spending time with Grandma, if you could call it that.
Sitting at a table behind her, Prez had a clear view of her back, while I had a clear view of him. I was the dealer, because I knew Prez was a cheat. Everyone knew. I cut the cards.
“Your grandma looks like Pinhead,” Prez whispered. He’d taken her wig off the newel and was twirling it on his finger. “You seen Hellraiser yet?”
“She can hear you, you know.” I snatched the wig from him and took it over to her, placing it on her head. “G-ma, you gotta cover up. Company.”
“Who said you could have company?” She yanked it off and threw it against the wall. “Where’s your daddy?” She rocked hard, almost going over my foot before I stepped out of the way.
“Daddy told me I could. He’s at work.” I gave her a little pat on the back. “It’s okay, G-ma. I’m going to get your snack real soon.” Out the windows in the dining room, it was still raining. It had been dark all day, but night was moving in. I went back to the table and picked up my cards.
“Doesn’t it get weird?” Prez asked. “I mean, this place is way out and you’re alone with her a lot. Don’t you get scared?”
“Never,” I lied. “My Grandma’s tough, and so am I.”
She made a clucking noise like she approved.
Truth be told, I was often terrified. Each night, I locked my door, and even if I heard her wandering around out in the hall calling for Grandpa Walsh, I never got up to put her back to bed. Just the sight of her after dark could render me sleepless until dawn.
