Dark Things IV

by Stacey Longo

  “Probably some new neighbor got a toy for his kids.”

  “Nope. It ain’t like that. You know I don’t have any neighbors. Just me and Annie and whatever lives in the woods.”

  “What does it sound like?”

  “Can’t describe it really because they’re different. Like they are playing tunes that mean something, charge, or Taps, or something.”

  “Really?”

  “I hear them every so often and they’re loud to boot. Annie’s never heard ‘em, but I have. It’s a weird sound too...creepy. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. I think one night when I hear it again I’m going to go out there and see what’s going on.”

  At this point I knew the beer was talking and could tell by his slurred speech he wouldn’t be conscious much longer. Wayne had drunk more than I thought, certainly way more than I had. I decided to go along with him.

  “What are you going to do if you find the bugler?”

  Wayne slapped his knee and laughed. “Got a load of buckshot in my .20 gauge. I’ll make him holler retreat.”

  At that point, Kelly stepped out onto the porch and said, “Let’s go.”

  I didn’t argue when I saw her standing there with her hands on her hips. I told Wayne goodbye and noticed Kelly had already walked back into the house. I followed her in. Annie stood by the front door with a pained smile that made me wonder if she held me to blame for some of their troubles. I smiled back and said thanks for the dinner. Her answer was a thin-lipped nod.

  We didn’t make it onto the dirt road before Kelly started in.

  “Do you know what that son-of-a-bitch friend of yours did?”

  I sighed. Kelly and Wayne never did hit it off and, through the years, things grew worse. Naturally I was always in the middle playing my part, the diplomat. “What?”

  “He hit her. Did you know that?” She glared at me. The question wasn’t rhetorical.

  “He hit her? When?”

  “Last Thursday after his bowling league lost.”

  “What happened?”

  “You’re sure you didn’t know about this?”

  My face warmed with annoyance. “Of course not. Do you think I’d know about that and not discuss it with you?”

  “Actually I do. You’re always sticking up for him. For the life of me I’ll never understand why you insist on hanging out with him. He’s a no good bum who ought to be castrated and locked away.” Her voice was vicious and quite unlike her.

  I cringed when she mentioned castration and I wondered why women always seemed to go there. I could feel the anger trying to burst loose and I held it in check as best I could. Even with the effort, it spilled over the edges of my control.

  “Stop it. Just stop it already. Wayne and I have been friends all our lives. Just because he’s going through a rough patch doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon him. You know that.” I was breathing harder.

  “But you…”

  I cut her off. “I did not know he hit her and I’m offended that you think I would let something like that pass without saying something. What the hell’s gotten into you?” I left out the part about Wayne’s earlier admission. She knows what will happen to her. That piece of guilt rested for the future.

  The hard-edged glare she held softened and she dropped her face. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” She looked up at me. “Really, I am sorry.”

  I saw the truth in her eyes and my anger fled. “It’s okay, babe. Annie’s our friend. I understand. What happened?”

  Kelly searched my face perhaps to see if her apology was really accepted. “Annie didn’t give a lot of detail. After the game, he came home, got drunk, and they got into a terrible fight. She said something and he punched her in the stomach.”

  “Wayne did that?” No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t picture my friend doing such a thing. It wasn’t him despite the fact that he had pretty much admitted it to me. Then I thought about the bugles and a chill ran down my spine. It wasn’t just the beer talking through him tonight. Maybe it was a deeper issue, a darker more sinister one. Was he losing his mind or, at least, his grip on reality? “What’s Annie going to do about it?”

  “Nothing, right now at least. She loves him. I think she’s confused. The question is, what are we going to do about it?”

  “What can we do?”

  “Call the sheriff?”

  “He won’t do anything. Annie has to be the one. Look, I know you want to help, and so do I, but we weren’t there. We didn’t see. Besides, who’s to say if we go to the sheriff that Annie won’t deny the whole thing? Like you said, she loves him. Then what?”

  “You’re right…I know. It’s just that I feel so helpless. There’s got to be something we can do.”

  I thought about it and turned off the county blacktop onto our own dirt road. When I pulled up to the front yard, Godzilla, our dog, came running up to the truck wagging his tail and howling as usual. I turned off the ignition and took Kelly’s hand. “I’ll talk to Wayne, okay? Maybe…I don’t know, maybe he’ll listen.”

  “That might help. You are the only person who seems to be able to talk reason to him. Thanks.” She kissed me on the cheek.

  “A cheek kiss? What, are we still dating?” Kelly giggled and planted a serious one on me.

  I was grateful for our few minutes of privacy, enjoying the way her soft face felt against mine. But every time I closed my eyes I could only picture Wayne pummeling Annie. I guess Kelly sensed my distraction. She smiled and put her head on my shoulder. We sat together like that a long while in the darkened silence.

  Outside, Godzilla howled, the moon sailed, crickets chirped, and my childhood friend was drifting into a dark abyss of violence and possible insanity.

  ***

  As it turned out I never had the chance to have that talk with Wayne. I did try calling that next day during lunch and got his answering machine. After that my job picked up and the family and I went on our annual vacation. Perhaps that seems callous. I did feel a little bad about leaving like that, but then we had already prepaid the airfare and hotel for the Orlando package. We had a life to live. At least that’s what I told myself every time Wayne crossed my mind.

  The night we returned home it was late and raining. When we reached the porch, Annie was there, crying and thoroughly drenched. We went inside and I made the boys go to bed while Kelly took Annie into our room and gave her some towels and some clothes to wear. I caught up with them in the living room.

  “…I told him things would be all right, but that just made him angrier. He threw an ashtray at me and knocked all the pictures off the mantle. I told him to stop and he pushed me against the wall and told me if I didn’t like how he handled things then I could get out. He didn’t even give me a chance to pack, just opened the door and threw me out into the rain.”

  Annie broke down sobbing in such a dreadful way it made my heart hurt. Kelly and I looked at each other not knowing what to do. She wrapped her arms around Annie and they cried together.

  Friends or not I had to say something. I jerked my cap off the table and rushed out the door. On the way to Wayne’s house I thought of everything I wanted to tell him and hoped I would be able to leave without it coming to blows. Still, if it did, that would be okay by me.

  At Wayne’s house I banged on the door. After a few angry moments he opened it.

  “Come on in, bro.” His voice was slurred.

  I stormed in the house and slammed the door behind me. “What’s wrong with you, man? Tossing your wife out into the rain like that. Who the hell do you think you are?” I was ready for a blow up. Wayne always loved confrontation. But his reply took me off guard and dissolved my anger in a flash.

  “Remember the bugles?”

  “What’s that got to do with what you did to Annie?”

  “Four nights ago, I was sitting on the bench and I heard them again. This time I got my gun and took off down the field. There I saw them.”

  “Saw who? St
art making sense, Wayne, or I’m gonna bust you up.”

  “What the hell, you ain’t going to believe me anyway.”

  “Spill it.” My anger was returning along with a deepened sense of apprehension.

  “Never mind, bro. Even I can’t believe it and I saw.”

  My mind raced at Wayne’s inability to make sense. Then I looked to the kitchen and saw seven or eight empty beer cans in the trash. For a second I had almost believed that there was someone in the woods. Now I knew better.

  “You have to get some help, Wayne. Let me help you.”

  Wayne gave me a sardonic laugh. “Can’t help what you can’t see, bro.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just tell Annie she can come on back. I ain’t mad no more.”

  “Can’t do that. I know you’ve been hitting her and that has to stop. Right now I’m more inclined to tell her never to come back. At least not until you get a hold of yourself.”

  “Whatever,” he gazed out through the window, squinting toward the gloom of the backyard.

  “Don’t you care?”

  He turned to me and the look in his eyes showed a mixture of anger and fear. “Care about what? This house? My marriage? This shitty life? There’s worse things going on in this world to worry about. And it’s right…out…there,” he gestured toward the back.

  “Look, Wayne. I want to help. Just let me…”

  “Get out,” he said in a soft voice, “and tell Annie to come back or not, it’s up to her.” With that he walked out and a few seconds later I heard the bedroom door shut. I stood alone in his living room with just the ticking of the clock above the mantle to break the silence and tried to make sense of what he’d said. I felt a little too much like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole. It would do no good to try and talk to him further. That I knew from experience. So I scratched my head and looked out the window beside the fireplace and wondered about the bugles. Why would he make that up?

  When I got in the truck, I shook off some of the rain and thought of what I would tell the girls. The rain came down harder on the trip home and the roads felt like wet glass. By the time I arrived I still hadn’t come up with anything creative. I told them what had happened and we discussed it and discussed it until I thought I’d pull my hair out. No matter how I approached it, nothing made sense and I could not come up with a single thought that might help.

  Kelly, my little hothead, kept insisting on calling the sheriff, but Annie, stubborn as ever, wouldn’t hear of it. No matter what, she loved Wayne and was determined to go home. That’s pretty much the way it went day and night. It got to the point that Kelly and Annie weren’t speaking and Annie moved out in a huff. That was on the fifth day. The last time we saw Annie. The last time anyone saw Annie alive.

  ***

  For the next few days, Kelly cried, usually on my shoulder, and sometimes alone in the bedroom, but her heart was broken. Annie wouldn’t return her calls and I’d had no luck getting a hold of Wayne. After about a week, Kelly seemed to get better and the tears slowly stopped. We got our lives back on track, yet there was always that nagging feeling in the back of our minds, that piece of unfinished business, that kept us up late at nights. Mostly, we worried for Annie. And I worried for my friend.

  About three weeks later at three in the morning, there was a pounding on my door. I told Kelly to stay in bed and grabbed my pistol. We lived so far out in the woods that any knock on the door was cause for concern, let alone a banging one that shook the frame past three in the morning.

  I peeked through the window and saw Wayne standing under the security lights. His eyes were wild looking and he kept twisting his head left and right as if looking out for something. I opened the door and started to speak, but he cut me off.

  “You gotta help me,” he grabbed my hand and pulled me outside.

  “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

  “Come to my place. I need your help, bro.” He pulled me toward the truck.

  “Hold on. Let me tell Kelly where I’m going and get some pants on.” He didn’t want me to until I insisted it was my way or no way. He acquiesced and I rushed in to tell Kelly. She wanted to call the sheriff, but I told her to wait until I knew what was going on. I hastily dressed, tucking my pistol in my belt, and ran outside.

  Wayne didn’t say a word until we got to the house. He just sat there the entire time, shaking uncontrollably. When we got there he grabbed my arm just as I was about to open the door.

  “Bro, careful. They might still be here.”

  “Who?” I asked and pulled out my pistol. I scanned the darkened woods.

  “The soldiers. Put that away. It won’t do you any good.”

  “Who? What?”

  We got out of the truck and I followed Wayne who crept through the grass like a man being hunted. There was nothing around and I didn’t understand. Everything was relatively quiet. I heard wind rustling through the pines and a couple of bullfrogs bellowing and crickets. Nothing else. Despite that, fear rose in my throat, and I coughed. Wayne gave me a look of complete terror and held his finger in front of his lips as he opened the door.

  The house was trashed.

  I stumbled as I witnessed the complete devastation. Everything in the house had been smashed. The furniture lay in pieces, stuffing ripped out and strewn, torn pictures littered the floor, his stereo broken to the last circuit board, and even the walls were gouged with what appeared to be knife markings.

  I called out, “Annie. Annie, are you here?”

  Wayne practically jumped on me and clamped his hand on my mouth. “Are you crazy? Shut up before we’re both killed.”

  I shook his hand off and stepped back. “Stop it, Wayne. Tell me right now where Annie is and what the hell happened.”

  Wayne went to the back window and looked out. After a couple of moments he said, “I told you about seeing them.”

  “Who?”

  “The soldiers.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Tell me now where Annie is or so help me I’m going to the sheriff.”

  He took a deep breath. “One night when I heard the bugling I grabbed my gun and headed out back. Like I told you, remember?”

  I nodded, not sure where this was leading, more or less playing along until I knew what happened to Annie.

  “That night as I headed out I heard voices. Only they weren’t like normal voices, bro. They was all dried out, kind of like dead leaves scraping together, and had a strange echoing like sound. I hunkered down and crept up until I saw them. A whole army. A dead army.”

  “A dead army? What do you mean?”

  “They were ghosts every last one of ‘em. At first I didn’t believe it, but I couldn’t doubt what my eyes were seeing. The soldiers were transparent and made out of smoke or fog. I knew by their uniforms they were Union even though I couldn’t make out their regiment.”

  “Union army ghosts? What makes you think…?”

  “Bro, you know I’ve studied the Civil War since we were old enough to read. I know what I’m talking about. Now are you going to let me finish?”

  I nodded and wondered if the phone still worked.

  “I was stone frozen out there, watching them all moving and acting like they was still alive. Long about the time I started thinking they was never going away, I heard some more bugles and gunshots. Then the whole lot of them shot out of there like lightning, fixing their bayonets and screaming bloody murder. As they left, the camp started going dim and the tents vanished. By then I was running scared back to the house. The last part I can recall is their yells and the sounds of gunfire getting softer and softer until it was gone. Scared me so bad I pissed myself, bro. Ever been that scared?”

  I listened with a growing sense of incredulousness and wondered if he really thought I would believe his nonsense. That’s when I noticed blood in the hallway, a lot of blood.

  “Where’s Annie? Wayne, stop a moment, calm down, and tell me where Annie i
s.”

  “That’s what I’m doing. I’m getting to that. When I got home, Annie was already asleep so I locked the doors and stayed up all night watching the woods. I told her about it the next day, course she didn’t believe me. Made me madder than hell, too. She just started crying so hard I had to backhand her.”

  “What happened tonight? Where is Annie?”

  Wayne started trembling and he pulled off the rain slicker he wore. Blood was all over his shirt. My body went cold. “Oh my God, Wayne, what did you do?”

  “What?” he said, then looked at his shirt. “It ain’t what you think. I butchered a deer I shot the other day. It’s still hanging out back.”

  I started walking backwards to the door.

  “Where are you going? You can’t leave me now. I need help.”

  “I’m going to get help, Wayne. Just wait here and I’ll be back.”

  He drew a gun on me. It was the .357 magnum his daddy had left to him. “You can’t leave yet. I ain’t finished.”

  I stopped and froze. Even if he wasn’t the marksman I knew him to be, no one could miss at such a close range. The pistol resting in my belt felt heavy, begging to be pulled. A bead of sweat ran down my temple and tickled my jaw line.

  His voice changed, becoming calmer and slower. “They’ve been coming back. Naturally, Annie never seen them. But I have. I’ve been watching late at night over by the back shed. Every night they creep a little closer.”

  “Put the gun down, Wayne. It’s okay, we’ll figure something out.”

  “You don’t believe me. I can see it in your eyes.” He wiped the tears and left a bloody streak across his face.

  “I believe you, bro. Just put the gun down and we’ll talk.”

  “No. This ain’t her blood, I’m telling you.”

  “Wayne, I…”

  “Come on. Go out the back door. I’ll show you the deer. Then you’ll have to believe me.” He motioned me with the revolver to the back door and I walked with shaky knees. The feeling of the muzzle pressed into my back chased away intelligent thought. I couldn’t think about trying to escape, my mind was blank. Though I did have a chance to think of Kelly and the boys and hoped I had told them I loved them recently.