Snake Girl VS the KKK

by Peter Joseph Swanson

  “And they shot him?” Bernard scratched his head. “That makes no sense.”

  “They used up all their black magic bullets on him and he went to God. Sometimes he hops on that wooden horse on the merry-go-round of life and death to swing around back to this side again… when he’s invited… even if you don’t mean to send out an invitation.” Lunar Oblique gave the black candle a withering glare.

  “How? What? When? Why? Please help me!” Bernard shook his notebook.

  “A candle makes a fire of hell to those who see the carousel,” Lunar Oblique recited in a singsong. Then fearing that he sounded dorky, he quickly added, “Oh! That little bit of ditty was just something I found written once on an envelope in the garden. It was stuck down in the straw of the melon mulch. And it looked like somebody had stepped on the vine. It was all dead from there on out. Melons are touchy that way.”

  Bernard gave a dirty look to the black candle that was still burning a greasy orange flame. “Something else to scare me? God, I need a stiff drink!”

  “I don’t know?” Lunar Oblique shrugged. “The last guy who came out here was some kind of meddling ghost hunter. He lit the candle and should have known better. He left little poems all over the place, it seems. Then he was ripped to shreds just at the edge of the woods and they never did find his arm, and so now the bits of paper just blow around.”

  “I’ll put them in my article so I have some kind of a word count. Now what do the bits of paper mean?”

  “And, ‘The boy was smote for wearing Joseph’s dreaming coat’, it also read.”

  Bernard shook his notebook again. “Just Republicans? Or who this kid thinks is Republicans? Why them?”

  The man shrugged and fidgeted with one side of his skirt. He pulled it up a bit and showed Bernard his knee. “Who can tell the difference these days. Bad hair is bad hair.”

  “My photographer told me we were going to cover a ghost story. Not a shot up gay scarecrow. And not a hick drag queen crocked on cheap beer. And not NRA politics or Republican hair!” Bernard forcefully blew the black candle out again but it relit again as before. “What’s with this? How does it do that? Is it like those trick birthday candles? But they spark a lot. This smells pretty bad. What is that smell?”

  “It’s a black candle,” Lunar Oblique said. “Melting black wax is as sharp as an axe. You lit it. It stays lit until the black magic is finished.”

  “Finished?”

  “The spell has come through. Your soul comes due. Boo hoo hoo!”

  “There’s a spell?” Bernard impatiently poised his pen to his binder. “Spell it.”

  “Skull to skull, man to wax, skulls alive and dead. Bone killed then, bone still alive, the carrousel climax.” the grounds keeper whispered, seeming to go away to a daydream.

  “Why keep the candle around?” Bernard asked. “Why not throw the damn thing away? Or are you one of those people who think Linda Blair is neat?”

  “The skull doesn’t even have to be real bone.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Sam busted through the bathroom door and scrambled up the short narrow hall on his hands and knees. “What’s shaking the trailer?”

  “What? Nothing is shaking.” Bernard looked up from his doodle in irritation. “Get up off the floor.”

  Then they all heard the pounding of hail on the metal roof. Sam cautiously opened the front door to peek out and saw that it wasn’t raining at all. The overhead clatter abruptly stopped.

  “It’s the swarm.” Lunar Oblique nervously fussed with his gloves again. “The bullet swarm. Always trying to shoot at us.”

  “What’s that?” Bernard asked, flipping to a new page.

  “It’s the demon bullets, or something.” Lunar Oblique smiled tensely. “The neighbors down the road get it too. They call it witch’s hail but it never ruined no crops. It’s just noise… and sometimes you see it… it looks like a glowing swarm of white bugs.”

  “Just say what it is!” Bernard ordered.

  “The magic bullets just fly around forever! They just try to drive you out into the open so they can get a good shot at you. Or drive you out of your mind.”

  “The thing in the silo?” Sam asked.

  Lunar Oblique slowly nodded, knowingly. “The thing.”

  “I saw something there!” Sam said. “What is it? What did I see? A puppet? It had no head!”

  “You’ve seen somebody?” Bernard asked.

  “As clear as day. I’m going crazy!”

  Bernard asked, “Did you get any pictures?”

  “Oh!” Sam gasped. “My camera! That’s right!”

  “You dimwit!” Bernard yelled. “Go back out there and take pictures of anything! And I’ll make up some damn story so we can just get out of here before we find out some inbred hicks are trying to shoot us!”

  “I’m not a combat photographer!” Sam said. The look on Bernard’s face sent him fleeing, anyway.

  Lunar Oblique went to the fridge and pulled out two warm beers. “I think you need one of these.”

  Bernard drank the beer quickly then tried to blow out the candle again but the stubborn flame came back. “If I have Sam snap this, he’ll just get a big fat picture of me screaming bloody hell!”

  “My sorry stars, I keep telling you.” Lunar Oblique sighed. “It ain’t gonna go out on you. Not until the demons are fired.”

  “Fired?” Bernard inquired. “As in out of a job or out of a gun?”

  The grounds keeper stood up and smoothed his floral dress where it had crinkled in his lap. “Follow me, I want to show you something. And don’t be afraid.” They stepped out and walked to the edge of the backyard to a small root cellar that smelled like mildew. “Here’s where they kept the stuff for their black magic. They kept it underground where it can take root.” Lunar Oblique grabbed a gold-painted human skull off a shelf. The top of it removed like a cookie jar lid. “In this they put their bullets and they sang all unholy heck to Satan and Jesus, not knowing the difference between the two at all because they have the wisdom of a three year old in a candy store… and the bullets became demonized.”

  “Why isn’t the black candle down here?”

  Lunar Oblique sadly shook his head. “The last man died and couldn’t put it back. I put it back but it don’t mind me. It returns to the trailer somehow all by itself. Maybe the scarecrow does it.”

  “But he was shot.”

  “They shot the scarecrow with all the bullets and the magic backfired. Black candle magic always backfires. Evil destroys itself.”

  Bernard gave up writing and shook his head. “This makes no sense.”

  “Sense is for this side of the circus. But clowns dance on both sides.”

  “Talk sense!”

  “The gun people did it. What you send out over a black candle comes back threefold, of course. That’s just an old black magic rule. Naturally.”

  “What rule?” Bernard asked. “Magic has rules?”

  “Of course. Everything does.”

  “Like what?”

  “If I curse you to gets zits then I get boils. If I curse you to stumble and skin your knees then I fall and break them. If I curse you to be unhappy then I will soon wish I’d never been born. Every black magic curse bounces back three-fold.”

  “And you’re not worried about these old curses bouncing around out here?” Bernard looked at the door.

  “City people like you guys, reporter types, have paraded by here from time to time.” Lunar Oblique shook his head, not looking concerned. “And so far I’ve been, by far, the most darn liberal. Ever since they shot Paris’ head off, that is. Paris outdid even me in his day. He would stand up on the hay wagon and walk all over it like he was in a huge fashion show. And one day he gave one of the gun men a blowjob. The man followed Paris into the woods and that’s where the deed occurred. The rest of the men found out about it and it made them so mad. So they did their ritual of evil, with this very skull, against poor Paris.
Then they took those bullets and shot him with so many guns at once that his head just good as evaporated. Then every time one lit the black candle, to do the evil ritual again, to try and undo what they had done because they felt haunted, Paris came back as the scarecrow and killed them off.”

  “Because they lit the candle again?”

  “Once it’s lit, there’s no stopping it. Magic is lazy that way; it flows over cliffs. Once you push something over a cliff it just has to fall until it hits bottom.”

  Bernard glared at the skull, suspiciously, wondering if it could be real. It looked to him like a plastic model kit. “Well, I guess I’m just going to have to go out and look around for myself and take some notes and try to write copy that won’t laugh itself off the press.”

  “But first… I want you to realize we’re all alone down here.”

  Bernard lowered his eyebrows. “So?”

  “You can kiss me and nobody will see. Don’t you think I’m hot?” He pulled his dress up to show off his knee.

  “I’d rather kiss a hot steaming corn-spotted turd.”

  Lunar Oblique frowned. “Don’t you remember?”

  “Remember what.”

  “Don’t you remember me at all? Look at me and think hard.”

  “I see a fucked up nobody white trash drag queen.”

  “Don’t you remember me? I was your first gay sex.”

  Bernard raised his eyebrows. “What?”

  “Remember… in the back corner of that barn during that farm sale, behind all that old hanging horse tack. Remember? I gave you such a nice blowjob.”

  “No! You? You!” Bernard jolted from sudden recognition. “That was long ago. I forgot about those times! I’ve changed! I’m not the piece of white trash I was before. Forget about me. I don’t owe you anything! Stay away from me you disgusting freak!” Bernard pushed his way out of the root cellar and headed towards the woods. “God, I need a stiff drink!”

  Bernard skirted a bed of orange daylilies, stepped over a low squashed barbed wire fence, then passed a small pile of tombstones. They seemed like early settler tombstones that had been later tossed into the woods to make more room for the plow. After he was a few trees in he noticed yellow baling twine strung low along the branches. It led to a stone circle that was the start of a narrow overgrown path. It led to a culinary knife that was tied to a branch. He grabbed it for himself and he cautiously hiked further down the trail.

  It stopped at a headless scarecrow nailed to a tree. It was made up of dirty long johns stuffed with leaves and twigs. He gingerly poked at it with the knife until he spotted a piece of white paper. He pulled it out to see that it was an envelope with writing scrawled on the back of it. “Bad candle lit, bad candle dripped. And now bad candle gone. Once it smells the heat of blood the flame will linger on. Like a candle to the sun the candle doesn’t matter. It’s more or less a state of heart and the degree of splatter.”

  When he shoved it in his pants pocket, hearing the crisp paper crackle, he finally realized there were no bird sounds. Then something dripped on his cheek. When he wiped at it he saw it was red and smelled like metal. He stepped back for a clear view through the leaves until he saw a ripped-off arm caught high in the branches. It was covered in flies. A piece of white folded paper fell out of the sleeve and blew away.

  He swore and then he tripped over a branch and fell. He tried to get up but the woods seemed to spin violently. The leaves inside the scarecrow sounded like they were crunching together and the entire woods around him made splintering sounds. His arms went numb and fell lifeless at his side. After he stopped trying get up he just concentrated on breathing. Bernard felt himself pee in his expensive designer pants. Then he blacked out.

  Meanwhile, unaware of any trouble with Bernard, Sam snapped “fashion” pictures of the grounds keeper languidly lolling about behind the trailer home, posing to an imagined symphony, posing at the lawn mower, pretending to inspect the garden weeds, pretending to guard the land with a hoe.

  Sam said, “Maybe this story can make a good horror movie someday. Like that Amityville thing.” He added under his breath, “A fake.”

  “Oh my sorry stars! That’d be great!” Lunar Oblique pretended to point out something interesting until Sam’s camera aimed and snapped. Then he pointed out another direction. “Then I’d be really famous. I wonder who would play me? Do you think we could interest Morgan Fairchild? Hey, look around. There’s nobody here but just us. You and me. You can kiss me. I like it when a man has a beard. I’ve never been kissed by a beard.”

  Sam nervously looked around. “Hell no.”

  “But you smell so nice.”

  “Hell no.”

  Lunar Oblique lifted his skirt to show off his knee.

  Bernard came running at them, swinging the knife, kicking out of his damp pants. “Stay away! Stay away!”

  “You can’t use the trailer!” Lunar Oblique reminded. “The pipes aren’t hooked up!”

  “Crap!” Throwing his clothes down on the grass, Bernard quickly locked himself in the outhouse.

  Lunar Oblique turned to Sam and stated, “The powder room inside isn’t a very good place for much at all.”

  “Yeah, right,” Sam muttered, feeling embarrassed, remembering when he’d hid there. “Let’s leave him alone. When he comes down from whatever scared the jeepers out of him he’s going to be so embarrassed that he lost it like that.”

  Trying to see out through the cracks in the outhouse door, Bernard pressed against the inside of it, culinary knife still in his sweaty fist. He thought he heard odd distant monotonous music. It sounded to him like carnival bells. He slowly opened the door and looked for his underwear and pants out on the grass but they were gone. “Sam!” he hollered. “Give me back my clothes! Damn you!” He locked himself back inside again and wondered if maybe Lunar Oblique had taken them to wash them. He tried to calm his breathing but could only hear odd carnival music coming closer and closer as if from a parade.

  After staying inside for what seemed forever, Bernard slowly creaked the door open. He timidly stepped out again and peered around. He saw dozens of white moths fluttering across the lawn. Then something blue caught his eye on the distant hill. When he got down on his hands and knees he saw it was an old-fashioned wood-frame canvas-topped merry-go-round—the kind that was so old that it needed to be pushed around by hand. When he stood back up, it was gone, but a shadow moved behind him. He heard leaves crunching together. His arms felt numb again and he dropped the knife. He smelled the candle.

  He turned and saw it was the headless scarecrow wearing his pants. Bernard fell to his knees and vomited as the scarecrow grabbed him by his neck and yanked. Bernard heard a sickening tear and felt his own blood pour down his chest. As he had a passing sad thought for his ruined expensive shirt, his world went dark as his head ripped completely away from his body. The scarecrow cradled his head like a baby.

  Inside the silo, Sam clicked more pictures. “This is where I saw something up there.” Sam pointed. “But I was probably tricked. It was probably you holding up a dummy! Can I get just one of you up there? Kick up a leg and look happy.”

  “Sure,” the grounds keeper said and they went to the ladder that ran up the outside of the silo.

  “That last journalist who disappeared out here had written a famous book about horror movies,” Sam commented. He blew on his lens to get a piece of dandelion fluff off it. “He said that horror was little more than tantrums of the patriarchy… as opposed to tantrums of the matriarchy, which were romances.”

  “Sick love and sick death.” Lunar Oblique sighed, posing off the ladder, wildly arching his back, pointing a mud stained white ballet slipper out into the air. “If that’s all he saw the world as then I can see why he had to go.”

  Sam grumbled, “You’re doing something tricky. This whole place is just a paper plate theme park. You drugged me somehow! Tricked me. Hypnosis. That’s how I got confused!”

  Lunar Oblique sluggishly
climbed off the ladder and walked up to Sam. “I only have one trick.” He pushed Sam up against the silo wall, got on his knees, opened his pants, and gave him a rambunctious blowjob.

  After Sam came, with lots of noise, Lunar Oblique asked, “Do you remember me?”

  “I’m trying to remember. But I don’t know. From where?”

  “Do I look pretty?”

  Sam nodded. “Sure.”

  Lunar Oblique smiled. “I still look pretty?”

  Sam raised his eyebrows. “Still? Hey, wait a minute. You do look familiar. Where have I met you before? I have met you before!”

  “How could you forget? I was your first blowjob. Your first is always the most special.”

  “You! Yes! I see it now! You weren’t in a dress, before. And you look different. Oh god that was so long ago!”

  “You weren’t in a beard, before. We both have changed. Our lives have taken different paths but we must not ever forget when we were young and together and we were once on the same path in life. Our disparate paths have now come back together again.”

  Sam walked to the trailer home. Lunar Oblique triumphantly followed. When Lunar Oblique finally stepped up into the door he saw that Sam had fainted away on the carpet now glistening red with blood. Dozens of wet moths fought to free themselves from the morass. The grounds keeper gagged, smashing his white gloves into his lipstick.

  Bernard’s ripped-off head was sitting on some magazines with unresponsive eyes going off to nowhere. His hair had some old straw stuck in it. The candle was extinguished but a thin cord of smoke still hung in the air.

  The end

  Chapter fourteen

  Michael took a black candle from where he had it hiding in the weeds and he walked up to the campfire. He thrust the wick into the flames, loudly saying, “Like a candle to the sun the candle doesn’t matter. It’s more or less a state of heart and the degree of splatter. Now who here hasn’t been a very good homo!”

  A wildly animated headless scarecrow charged out of the woods. Everybody screamed until it finally came close enough that they realized a man with a black robe and hood was holding it out in front of himself. Someone ran up to him and tackled him. The man holding out the scarecrow yelled out in surrender.