by Dan Foley
Wolf’s Tale
A novel by
Dan Foley
Necon Modern Horror #25
Cover by Duncan Eagleson
A digital edition published by Necon E-Books
This Edition Copyright 2016 Dan Foley
Cover Copyright 2016 Duncan Eagleson
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For my good friend Alan Strong, who's been there since the beginning.
Part One: Old Ben
1 – 1968, Leaving Home
Grandmere Leritz knew something was wrong as soon as her grandson came into the house. He was practically shaking. “What is wrong mon chere? You look like something terrible happened.”
“I saw something in the bayou — an old black man with fiery eyes.”
“Mon Dieu,” Grandmere whispered and crossed herself. “Tell me what happened.”
“I was coming back to our landing when I found an opening in the bank that I’d never seen before. It shouldn’t have been there, but it was. I almost passed it by, but it seemed to call to me. I thought there might be a big gator in there, so I cut my motor and poled my way in. The entrance was shallow, but no problem for my jon boat. After ten yards or so it deepened and opened up into a good size slough. I turned the motor back on, and that’s probably what saved me.
“As I moved into the slough a mist started to rise up off the water. I’ve seen fog on the water, but it wasn’t like that — and the air was getting cold. Not chilly, but cold. It doesn’t get cold in Louisiana in June. I shone my light on it and that’s when I saw the eyes. Gator, I thought, but the color was wrong. A gator’s eyes are green in the light. These were red, a glowing, blood-red, and they were moving toward me. I had no idea what it was, but it sent chills up my spine. I must’ve grabbed Pa’s rifle — I don’t remember doing that, but I must have. I put a slug between its eyes. I hit it dead center — I know I did. I could see the splash it made. The eyes never blinked. Then it got really cold. I could see my breath in front of my face. The eyes started rising from the water. It was a man; a skinny old black man dressed in rags. I panicked; all I wanted to do was get out of there. I dropped the rifle, grabbed the throttle and cranked the motor up. I had to spin the jon boat around and he almost got me then. Luckily, I managed to get out of the slough without shearing my prop in the weeds.”
“That’s Old Ben you saw,” Grandmere said, blessing herself when she said his name. “Boy, you got to get yourself out of here. If that old haint want you, he’s goin’ to get you.”
Old Ben — Melvin had never heard of Old Ben. But his gandmere had lived on the edge of the bayou all her life. She knew things about it. “Who is Old Ben — and why do I have to leave? I don’t want to leave. Where would I go?”
“Don’t know where you should go, but if you stay here, you can never go back in that swamp again. If you cain’t do that, you got to leave da bayou. You got to go where Old Ben cain’t never get you.”
“But why? Who is he?”
Grandmere crossed herself again before answering. “Ben Thompson was a black man that lived in da bayou when my papa was a boy. They say he never came out, just lived in there by hisself. A bunch of white men found his cabin and hung him from da rafters. Then they burned the cabin. No reason for it — other then he was a black man living free in da swamp. He’s been takin his revenge on white men ever since.”
“Why does he want me? I never did anything to him.” Melvin demanded.
Grandmere was afraid she knew why, but she couldn’t bring herself to admit it. Instead she said, “Don’t matter why, he just do. Maybe it’s because you spend too much time in that bayou. Maybe you found his old house. Maybe he just seen you. Don’t matter, he just wants you. You gotta’ go.”
“Don’t worry Grandmere. I got away from him once, and now that I know who he is, I’ll make sure to stay away from him and his slough,” Melvin truly believed he could. He was seventeen. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. He would find out differently the next time he ventured into the bayou.
The next evening, Melvin headed into the swamp to check the trot lines he had placed the day before, and to bag a gator if he could. The trot lines were for Grandmere’s catfish. She dearly loved them. She’d also get a piece of the gator, but Melvin would sell most of it to Billy Bodie. Without the gators, Melvin would have to get a real job, and that would suck.
Old Ben’s slough appeared in front of him as soon as he was out of sight of his grandmere’s cabin. What the hell? he thought, as he twisted the handle of the jon boat’s motor to idle. This is not right. There should be open water here. When the mist started to appear, Melvin spun the boat around and twisted the throttle to full open, leaving the slough, and Old Ben, behind — until he rounded the next bend. The slough was waiting for him there and the mist was thicker.
Melvin swung the boat around — only to once again find the slough, with a pair of blood-red eyes rising from the water in front of him. “Get away from me!” he screamed, and aimed the prow of the boat straight at the face rising above the bayou. Old Ben’s head had just cleared the surface when the jon boat slammed into it. Melvin braced himself for the collision, but it never happened. The boat sped through the specter as if it wasn’t there.
Melvin could feel the temperature drop and hear the apparition’s scream in his head as the boat passed through it. A cold fear gripped him, and he fought not to vomit. Then he was past it and motoring through the swamp. He was starting to think he had escaped when the slough once again materialized in his path. This time, the ghost was half-way out of the water. Now Melvin was frantic to find a way out of the bayou and away from the terrifying black man with the burning red eyes. Finally, he recognized the bend in the river that would lead him back to his grandmere’s. But now, Old Ben was floating above the water between him and the way home, grinning at him. This is it, Melvin thought and, calling up what courage he could manage, headed straight for the specter.
The temperature dropped even further and Old Ben seemed to swell as Melvin sped toward him. Then, at the last moment, Melvin swung the boat left, bounced off the bank and managed to just avoid Ben’s outstretched arms. This time when he rounded the bend in the river, the dock at his grandmere’s cabin was there. She was sitting in a lawn chair, waiting for him.
“You got to leave this place,” was all she said before she walked back to her cabin.
Melvin left to join the U.S. Navy the next day. It was the only place he could think to go.
2 – 1972, Coming Home
Melvin “Wolf” Lobo had a decision to make: reenlist for another four years, or walk away from the service and go back to Louisiana. He’d have to face Old Ben again if he went back to Bayou La Pointe. The shade had terrified him, and he had run from home like a whipped dog. But now, after his encounter with the ghost of a German U-boat sailor aboard the fleet ballistic submarine, USS John Hancock, the old spook didn’t instill the same terror in him that it had back then. The way Wolf looked at, he had a score to settle in the bayou. Going home also meant he would see his grandmere. And, even though he didn’t admit it to himself, not then at least ... Charlotte Arquette.
If he reenlisted for another four years, Wolf would have invested over eleven years in the navy at the end of his next commitment. Plus, he’d
probably be a chief by then. He knew that as a chief with eleven years in, he’d be hard pressed not to stay nine more and retire. So Wolf’s decision wasn’t really whether to sign up for another four years; it was whether he was going to stay for another thirteen. If he did stay, Old Ben would still be there when he went back, but his grandmere might not. He thought about it for a while, but in the end, home and his grandmere, won out.
When Wolf drove out of the main gate of the sub base in Groton, Connecticut, he was leaving the life of submarines and forced discipline behind. That life was as far from the one he was returning to as it could possibly be. He was trading steel, recycled air and strict routine for the bayou — gators, catfish, the open sky and millions of stars on a moonless night. Old Ben might be waiting, but having already faced one vengeful spirit, he was ready to do battle with another.
The twenty-four hour drive from the Sub Base to Bayou La Pointe took Wolf from the world of his present to the world of his past. In Pennsylvania, the crowded, metropolitan northeast gave way to the less sparsely settled hills of the Appalachian Mountains. In Virginia, the feel of the south started to peek through. In Tennessee, Stuckey’s and Piggly Wiggly’s replaced the Food Mart’s and Shoprite’s. By the time he reached Mississippi, Catfish Cabins and signs for boiled peanuts made their first appearance. When he reached Lake Pontchartraine, he knew he was home. Two more hours and he would be there.
When Wolf pulled up to the front his grandmere’s cabin on the edge of Bayou La Pointe, it looked exactly how it had on the day he had left — sitting on the edge of the bayou, one story, four rooms and a screened in porch. When he stepped out of his air conditioned — an option he had insisted on since he knew he might be coming back to Louisiana — 1968 Ford Torino GT Fastback, the rich, earthy smells of the bayou hit him. Sea birds circled overhead. A snake bird sat on a Spanish moss festooned branch drying its wings. The fecund smell of the swamp filled the air. Wolf stood transfixed, taking it all in for several minutes before he could approach the cabin.
When he stepped through the door, the inside hadn’t changed either. It was immaculate, of course. A couch and a single easy chair almost filled the small living room. There were two bedrooms he couldn’t see, both barely big enough for a single bed and a dresser. A small bathroom with a shower and a surprisingly large kitchen completed the cabin. An open door on the other side of the living room led to the cabin’s best feature, the screened-in porch that ran its entire length.
“Mon Dieu, what you doing here boy?” Grandmere asked when she saw him. The shock of his arrival showed on her face as he came across the room to hug her.
“I’ve come home, Grandmere.”
“But what ‘bout da Navy? They let you go?”
“They had to Grandmere. My time was up and I decided not to reenlist. I wanted to come home. I would have called if you had a phone.”
“You may be home,” she said, stepping back from him, “but Old Ben, he’s still out there waitin’ for you. You cain’t stay here.”
Wolf listened to the cadence of her Cajun dialect, remembering just how much he had missed it. “Grandmere, you have to let me worry about Old Ben. The next time I see that old ghost we’re going to come to an agreement. He’s going to leave me alone, and I’m going to leave him alone.”
“You crazy, boy? That old haint never goin’ to leave you alone. That old haint goin’ to kill you if you go back in that bayou.”
“Don’t you worry Grandmere; I can take care of myself. I’m not the boy I was when I left.”
Grandmere stepped back and took a good look at him. At six-feet, he towered over her. He had filled out since leaving home. His chest was deeper, his arms were bigger, his face more chiseled. The youth she had known had been replaced by a man.
“Is that old jon boat of mine still around?” he asked while she was examining him.
She glanced nervously toward the door before answering. “That old thing? I got rid of that thing a long time ago.”
“You sure? I thought I saw it peeking out from the shed when I pulled up.”
His grandmere gave him an annoyed look. “All right, it’s out there, but da motor’s gone. I gave that to your old friend Bobby when his motor broke.”
“That’s fair. It wouldn’t run anyway after seven years of sitting in that shed. I’ll just get myself a new one.”
“So you goin’ back in that bayou? There’s nothin’ I can say that make you change your mind?”
“That’s right.”
“Then, before you do that, I want you to go see Mose up in da Quarter.”
“Who’s Mose? I’ve never heard of him.”
“Mose a man knows all ‘bout ghosts. If you goin’ back in that bayou, you see Mose first. You promise me that.”
Some things never change. She won’t stop until I promise to do what she wants. “Fine, Grandmere, I promise.”
“When?” Grandmere demanded, and Wolf sighed. He wasn’t getting off that easy.
“Soon, I have to do some things first.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. You go see Mose, today, right now.”
“It’s too late, Grandmere. I’ll go first thing in the morning. I promise.”
She frowned at Wolf and poked him in the chest with a boney finger. “Tomorrow then, an’ I make sure you do it. You bet on that.”
“First thing,” he agreed.
“All right then. You eat dinner yet?”
“Nope. I was hoping for some catfish and hush puppies like you used to make.”
Grandmere snorted, “Used to make, hah! I still make em. You want some?”
“I’d love some. Fried catfish, hush puppies and a cold Dixie beer. I’ve been looking forward to that since I left Groton.”
“Catfish and hush puppies I can do, but I ain’t got no beer,” she told him.
“That’s why I stopped and got a six-pack on the way down. It’s in a cooler out in my car. I’ll get it and you can start on dinner.”
She gave him a disapproving look, and said, “I don’t drink no beer, you now that.”
Wolf gave her a wink. “I know that. I have a little bourbon for you.” She started to protest until Wolf told her, “You think I don’t know about that bottle you keep under the sink? I found that when I was fourteen.” That got him another frown.
When he got back from the car, Grandmere told him, “You go set on da porch while I get to cookin’.”
“That sounds good to me,” Wolf answered. Then he took a beer from the six-pack and put the rest in the refrigerator.
When Wolf reached the porch, he popped the top of the Dixie and sat down to enjoy the bayou. Something’s missing, he thought as he stared out over the swamp. Then it hit him, the dock was gone. All that remained of it was four wood pilings sticking up out of the water. “Grandmere, what happened to the dock?” he called out as he stared at the place it had been.
“That damn hurricane took it back in ’69. This whole town was a wreck. I’m lucky this cabin still here.”
When Grandmere came onto the porch she was carrying two plates. Wolf wasn’t surprised to see they were the same ones she had had when he left, and they were old then. She placed one in front of him. “You want hot sauce, or you give that up since livin’ up there with them Yankees?”
“No. I still use hot sauce,” he answered, and reached for the bottle.
After dinner they sat on the screened-in porch and watched the sun sink toward the horizon. Wolf had a cold Dixie. Grandmere had given in and was sipping bourbon. “What makes you think you can mess with Old Ben? That’s just foolish.”
Wolf finished the beer he was drinking and reached for another. “There was a ghost on my last sub. We fought it, and we beat it. If I can beat one ghost, I can beat another one.”
Grandmere put her bourbon down and shook her head. “Old Ben, he ain’t just any ghost. He’s been round a long time. He’s been killin’ a long time. Some ghosts stronger then ot
hers. Ben, he be one of them. You don’t want to be messin’ with him. You talk to Mose, he tell you.”
After that they sat in silence, watching the sun set and the mosquitoes gather on the screen.
3 – Grandmere
Is Mose still alive? Grandmere wondered as she lay in bed trying to sleep. If he was, he was well into his eighties. No, I’d know if he was gone, she thought as she clutched the gris-gris he had made her before she left the Quarter. Mose, I’m sending mon chere to you. Teach him well. Sleep was a long time coming as Grandmere fingered the gris-gris and relived her time in the New Orleans with the voodoo man.
At twelve, Rose had been a child of the Quarter. Her Papa was long gone. She spent her nights alone in their one room apartment while her Mama worked in a speakeasy. Her days were spent wandering the streets while Mama slept. She knew most of the Quarter’s residents on sight, the ones to avoid, and the ones who would slip a young girl a bit of cheese or piece of fruit. The first time she saw the black man in the white suit, he was sitting in Café Du Monde sipping coffee.
Rose had followed the man for the rest of the day. Fool, walkin’ round in da Quarter like that. Like he special, like he some kind of king. Come da nighttime, someone goin’ to kill that boy for sure. They goin’ to string him up from a light post.
Rose stepped into a doorway when the man stopped and turned around. She should have been lost in the shadows, but the man stood as still as a stone and stared directly at where she stood. Neither of them moved for several minutes. She was about to bolt from her hiding place when he nodded at her before turning the corner onto Royal. When he was out of sight, Rose stepped out of the shadows and ran to the corner to see where he had gone. When she turned onto to Royal to follow him, the street was empty.
For the next week the black man seemed to be everywhere. Rose would turn around and he would be across the street watching her. Every time she tried to follow him, he would disappear into a crowd, or around a corner, only to reappear behind her or in a doorway staring at her. Then, one day, he was standing directly behind her when she turned around to look for him.
