The Living and the Dead

by Greg F. Gifune

  “You have got to be kidding me.” She flipped open the phone anyway. The display read: Searching for Signal. “Unbelievable. What about your radio?” She pointed to a unit under the dash with a handheld transmitter.

  “I’m independent, no need for dispatch. It’s just an old C.B. I use for emergencies or breakdowns, that kind of thing. It died on me a couple months ago, haven’t had a chance to replace it.”

  “We have to do something, we—”

  “I’ll check it out. Stay here.”

  Duck stepped into the rush of rain, moved across the already flooded side of the road and carefully maneuvered down the embankment. The SUV’s engine had cut out and there was no smoke or anything signaling fire or a gas leak, so he ventured closer, careful to maintain his balance as he slid along the muddy slope. He didn’t recognize the vehicle but it was a model about four or five years old.

  Must be someone either visiting or passing through, he thought.

  By the time he’d reached the front of the vehicle, he was soaked. Pawing rain from his eyes, he crouched and moved closer. The windshield had blown out and lay intact but was covered in spider web cracks a few feet from the vehicle. Rainwater ran in streams down the incline, and into puddles that nearly reached his ankles before branching off and trickling into the forest. Another few feet and the SUV would’ve crashed into the trees. Duck dropped to his hands and knees, the mud and cold rain squishing between his fingers as he peered into the front seat.

  Empty. The vehicle was empty.

  But there was a single wide swath of flattened grass and earth which ran from the edge of the dislodged windshield to the nearby woods. As his mind worked to process what he was looking at, amidst the usual smells of nature and rain, grass and dirt and leaves, came a foreign odor. A horrible odor Duck had not smelled in years but recognized immediately. Death.

  He regained his feet. “Jesus.”

  Holding an arm over his head to ward off the rain, he staggered toward the woods, following the hastily made path. Whoever had been inside couldn’t have been thrown that far, he reasoned. They’d been dragged. Plucked from the SUV and dragged into the forest. Heart racing, he squinted through the downpour. It suddenly felt like he was alone in the universe, like he’d been transported to some alien planet where nothing made sense and nothing could be trusted, neither sight nor sound.

  It was as if he’d gone back in time, back to the horror of the jungle.

  Behind a steady sheet of rain, it first became visible as darkness between the trees, moving with the sway and rhythm of branches and grass, with the cadence of raindrops falling from leaves. But the more he focused on it, the more he realized this movement was independent, separate. It shifted subtly, enough for him to see, to understand that although it appeared as mere shadow, a smear of darkness, he was looking at something extraordinary… because somewhere within the shadowy blotch, there appeared to be limbs.

  No…something similar to limbs…

  And it was immense, larger than most men.

  Lightning blinked.

  Duck turned and ran for the car, scrambling up the muddy embankment on all-fours until he reached the pavement. He launched himself back behind the wheel and tore away in a frenzied rush.

  “What is it?” Lana asked. “What are you doing? Slow down.”

  “We need a phone. Whoever was in there’s gone, they—something got them. It looked like they’d been dragged into the woods.”

  “What?”

  “Phone, we need to get to a phone and—”

  “Look out!”

  A figure suddenly emerged from the rain, a man holding his hands out in front of him.

  Duck slammed the brakes and threw his right arm out to stop Lana from hitting the windshield as the car screeched to a stop, the backend fishtailing.

  The man stumbled back and braced himself for impact, but the car stopped a few inches from him. He seemed to realize this a moment later, and began waving his hands in the air, motioning frantically for them to follow him.

  “Idiot came out of nowhere.” Duck turned to Lana. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, still stunned.

  Again, Duck stepped into the rain. “What are you doing in the middle of the road?”

  The young man was drenched and in a panic. “I need your help! My girlfriend, she’s—she passed out or fainted or something!”

  “Is that your SUV in the ditch back there?”

  The man shook his head in the negative then stumbled toward the side of the road. “She’s over here, hurry!”

  A young woman in a flimsy dress was lying on her side in the grass, an open umbrella propped near her face to shield it from the rain. On the ground just beyond her left hand were a large floppy hat and a pair of sandals she’d apparently been carrying. As they reached her, Duck saw she was barely conscious. “Did she hit her head or hurt her neck?” he asked. “I need to know if it’s OK to move her.”

  “No, I caught her before she fell. We were walking, and an SUV went by and all of a sudden her eyes just rolled back in her head and down she went.”

  Duck knelt next to the woman. “Miss, can you hear me? Are you all right?”

  She attempted a nod but was quite groggy.

  “Let’s get her to the car.” With one arm beneath her knees and the other supporting her head and neck, Duck lifted and carried her to the cab. “We’ll lie her down on the backseat. You get in first so I can rest her head in your lap.”

  The man retrieved the umbrella, hurried along behind them then did as Duck had instructed.

  Lana recognized them as the couple she’d met earlier. “Hi, what happened?”

  “Hey, it’s Lana Turner,” Perry said, managing a worried smile. “Lennox fainted.”

  “Is she OK?”

  “I think so.” He ran his fingers through her wet hair, brushing it back and away from her forehead. “You OK, baby? Good thing you guys came along, I was trippin’.”

  “We’ll go to my place.” Duck slid back behind the wheel and quickly pulled away. “It’s just up the road a ways, and I’ve got a phone there.”

  “I don’t think she needs a doctor or anything, just—”

  “She can rest there, but we need to get to a phone,” Duck told him.

  Perry looked at Lana quizzically.

  “There was an SUV back there,” she explained. “It crashed and—”

  “Must’ve been the same one that passed us.”

  Duck nodded. “No sign of the people in it. Looked like someone had dragged them into the woods and—shit—I don’t know what the hell happened, all right?” His mind searched for answers to what he’d seen and felt back in that ditch. “There was something there between the trees. I saw it but—I don’t know what the hell it was, it—it was just a shadow really.”

  “A shadow,” Lana mumbled, remembering what she assumed she’d imagined moving through the woods earlier that morning. A chill shook her. “Like an animal?”

  The taxi sped along the winding, desolate road, cutting the flooded pavement. “It wasn’t an animal.” He held the wheel tight. “And it wasn’t a man.”

  The surrounding forest flew past the car windows, watching with silent indifference.

  And the rain continued to fall.

  PART TWO: Bringing Up The Dead

  “And when the moon rose windily it was

  Black as the beast and paler than the cross.”

  —Dylan Thomas, “Incarnate Devil”

  16

  He’d had visions like this before. The night stories had revealed glimpses where he’d seen himself moving through the rain, clothes drenched and stuck to him like a second skin, hands clutching his old shotgun while something inhuman watched from just beyond the shadows of nearby trees. Here, on his own property. Yet this plot of land, muddy driveway and decaying building felt nothing like home. Wrong. It was all wrong. Nothing had been as it seemed in this decaying and lonely place for years, but it had become even worse th
ese past few hours. Sitting in his truck, watching the battered sign advertising cabins and his own rundown cottage beyond, Dempsey felt no sense of safety or security whatsoever. Base familiarity perhaps, but no warmth or joy, no sanctuary, only darkness seeping from deep within him, slithering free like slowly spreading vines, tentacles crawling from every orifice in his body, overlapping and intertwining to form a lattice, a web-like cocoon that gradually smothered everything it touched. And at its center his soul pulsed like a beating heart, the life force of an embryonic organism gone mad and evolving into that which it was never meant to be, something profane, corrupted and slowly dying.

  Dempsey inched the old truck ahead then stopped.

  Not too close now, not too close.

  Everything looked the same as he’d left it, but nothing truly was. He no longer had to rely on blurred dreams or tainted thoughts and memories gliding through his mind like pieces of a puzzle in need of assembly. He knew his fears had been realized. Those that had haunted him for so long were now coming to fruition—becoming—and none of it could be stopped. Except…

  Kill yourself.

  Shaking that began in Dempsey’s hands spread quickly up into his wrists and arms then cascaded down through his entire body. He pushed open the door and fell out of the truck, splashing mud. He managed to land on his feet, but wasn’t entirely aware of this until he’d staggered away from the truck. He caught his balance over by a group of battered trashcans he kept nearby, amidst an array of assorted junk and the rotted and rusted out carcass of an old Chevy. Lucille’s car, he remembered. She’d loved that car. Though he’d moved it from the driveway to a spot in the yard a few days after her death, he’d never been able to bring himself to dispose of it. The car hadn’t been driven since.

  Rain lashed the cottage, sprayed across Dempsey like a liquid whip. He blinked his eyes until he could better make out the porch. His old rocking chair swayed in the wind, the rungs creaking as they pitched back and forth across the wet and aged porch. The tracks from earlier had long since washed away, but with their memory came a surge of terror that stiffened the old man’s posture and froze him in the rain for a time.

  The cottage was dark and looked rundown and neglected as ever. Two small windows faced the driveway, each dressed in tattered and soiled curtains he hadn’t cleaned or changed in decades. He could just imagine how upset Lucille would be to see her home in such disarray. What a dump.

  Something moved in the window. A shadow…a phantom…or was it just a trick of the rain and dying light?

  Despite his fear, Dempsey moved closer.

  Thunder crackled, exploded in the heavens as if to warn him.

  The earth shuddered.

  Don’t trust your eyes, he thought, can’t trust anything now.

  He took the steps up onto the porch one at a time, climbing them like the cripple he’d become, his aching hips and sore back shooting burning pain into his spine and across his pelvis.

  Once through the door, Dempsey shook the rain off best he could then let his eyes adjust. It was darker inside, and a musty smell engulfed him. He closed the door and leaned back against it, legs trembling. How he hated being old and weak and no longer able to rely on a body he’d once taken for granted. Like some sort of helpless pup, he thought, wandering around in the woods and hoping nothing comes along and eats my sorry ass. Useless, that’s what you are, a useless bundle of rickety old bones that don’t know enough to lie down and let the other side take you.

  The constant rain on the roof was louder inside the cottage, accompanied by a pitter-patter sound as it sprayed the windows in brief intervals, hitting the thin glass with such force it seemed likely the panes might crack at any moment. With each gust of wind, the tired building creaked and moaned. The humidity remained. The air within these walls was still thick, stagnant and hot. Dempsey pulled an old rag from his back pocket, but soon as he’d wiped the rain from his face and neck it was replaced with perspiration.

  Lightning flashed. He looked to the windows but the water along the panes was so thick he couldn’t see out.

  Dempsey moved across the main room and through the clutter. How long had it been since he’d cleaned or even straightened up in here? He couldn’t remember. As he slipped through a narrow hallway and into his bedroom, he imagined the low ceiling coming down on him and the dark walls closing in and trapping him there, the cottage imploding around him and collapsing into a heap in the mud, sucked down into the depths of the earth and him along with it.

  Leaned against the bureau he found his best shotgun. He’d purchased it years before, but hadn’t fired it in months. Hands still shaking, he retrieved a box of shells from his sock drawer and dutifully loaded the weapon.

  Kill yourself.

  He nodded, and in doing so, caught a glimpse of himself in the filthy mirror over the bureau. Abel Dempsey hadn’t taken a good look at himself in a very long time, and the image reflected back at him froze him in shock. Christ, he thought, ain’t much of me left, is there? He swallowed, leaned closer, and brought a hand to his face, tracing the lines and crevices, the loose and leathery skin with fingers caked with filth and grime from years of working on engines and such, from handling garbage, dirt that had become a stain that would never wash out. Not completely. Like the night stories, he thought. Like sin. It never leaves you. Not really. It stains. Forever.

  While he stared into his own bloodshot eyes, Dempsey failed to notice the figure moving past the open doorway behind him.

  But he heard it.

  Whatever moved down the hallway had been dragging its feet, shuffling along the old floorboards like…

  Dempsey clutched the shotgun tight. Had it always been this heavy?

  His heart smashed his chest, and the thin sheen of perspiration coating his flesh grew worse, trickling from beneath his hat in thin streams down each temple and across his cheeks. He knew that sound. He hadn’t heard it in years, but he knew it.

  Slippers…Lucille’s slippers…the sound they made when she’d move around the house, always shuffling her feet and scuffing the floor.

  The evil’s loose.

  “Who is it?” he asked the dark hallway, leveling the shotgun. His voice was weak and frightened. It sickened him. “Somebody’s there, I—I heard you.”

  It’s gonna bring up the dead, ain’t it?

  He swallowed so hard he nearly gagged.

  “Come out.” Dempsey crept closer to the door. “I know you’re there.”

  Kill yourself.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes.”

  But as he began to turn the shotgun back toward himself, he remembered the beach and how Duck had found him…saved him…

  What if putting myself down doesn’t end this? What if Rae’s right and it’s bigger than only me?

  Dempsey swung the shotgun back toward the hallway and followed it into the darkness. The limited light from outside illuminated the front room enough for him to see that no one was there.

  He stood quietly in the cottage a moment, bathed in sweat and struggling to hold the shotgun steady. He had to warn Duck. He’d always been a good friend. He owed him.

  Then he’d end it.

  He’d end it and hopefully stop this madness once and for all.

  Behind him Dempsey heard the slow release of breath, an exhale coming from just behind his right ear, the warmth brushing the back of his neck.

  A chill clawed through the blanket of heat.

  “Lucille?” he asked without turning around.

  A strangely familiar scent swirled around him in the otherwise dormant air. That same hint of deodorant soap she’d used, the one he sometimes smelled in the night, had found him again. He breathed it in and felt his body convulse with emotion.

  “It’s a lie,” he cried, tears clouding his already deficient vision. “Just like the night stories, it’s—it’s all a lie.”

  You’re a lie, Dempsey.

  The floorboards behind him creaked beneath the weight of someone
walking slowly down the hallway toward the rear of the cottage, the distinctive sound of slipper soles shuffling as they went.

  You’re whole goddamn life has been a lie and a cheat, a story you’ve told yourself to make it through the night...

  As though fitted with blinders, Dempsey looked straight ahead and walked forward, continuing to the front door of the cottage without looking back.

  As he stepped out into the storm he heard laughter, the hideously demented, cackling laughter of the hopeless, the damned.

  But it wasn’t until he reached the truck and found his rain-distorted reflection in the driver’s side window that he realized the laughter was his own.

  17

  Lana and Perry helped Lennox, who was conscious but still groggy, from the cab to Duck’s cottage. She allowed them to lay her down on a couch in the main room, where Perry joined her, sitting on the edge of a cushion and holding her hands, his face laced with concern. As Lana attempted to question Lennox about what had happened, Duck threw on the overhead light then grabbed a bottle of water from his refrigerator and passed it to Perry, who held it for her so she could take a sip. After having some water, Lennox began to offer soft responses to Lana’s questions while Duck switched on a standing fan in the corner, aimed it at the couch then headed for the telephone in the kitchen.

  He dialed the police to alert Wendell of the SUV crash, and while waiting for the call to connect, he craned his neck until he could see the cat’s house through the windows. No sign of them, which meant they were inside, safe and dry. Good, he thought, one less thing to worry about. He pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the digital display. He’d dialed correctly but still no connection. He checked again. “Hello?” But for a faint hissing sound, silence. He dialed again as Lana joined him in the kitchen. She stood tentatively in the doorway, her clothes and hair still soaked from the rain. “I think the phones are down,” he told her. He disconnected and listened. “There’s a dial tone but the call won’t connect for some reason.”