Scary Out There

by Jonathan Maberry

  “How’s that different from, like, a bag bag?” She’s grateful to have something else to focus on instead of a very probably dead woman. Then she wants to kick herself: Stop it. You don’t know anything for sure. The last she’d seen of Ms. Avery, the social worker was striding past the nailed-on boards that scale an old oak to Sarah’s tree house and heading for the immense tamarack bog where her dad was laying his muskrat traps way out in the deeper channels. (He’d explained it to Sarah once: Whatcha do is you lay your line where the rats gotta swim to get to their houses. They take the bait and bam! And what’s sweet? Her dad’s lips peeled from pointy incisors in a grin. Rat saves you the trouble by drowning hisself.)

  Ms. Avery, of course, is not a muskrat or rabbit or any of the critters her dad traps for skins and food. That doesn’t make her any less dead, though. Maybe.

  Uh-huh. Ms. Avery’s tone is dry. Tell me another.

  But you knew Dad might be mad. I told you so. Sarah sneaks a finger to an aching temple. She’s so sweaty she can smell herself. Step outside and she’ll steam. Get accused of abusing kids, and see how you feel. I told you: Falling downstairs was an accident. Even though it’s out of the cast now, Sarah’s right wrist still tingles with the memory. It’s what I told the doctor, I

  (Get the hell out of my way.)

  tripped over my own feet.

  (Christ, I barely touched her! Is it my fault she’s so clumsy?)

  So this isn’t my fault, she thinks to the ghost in the mirror. I didn’t do anything.

  And that’s the trouble. The words bong like doom in the middle of Sarah’s brain. You need to tell the police the truth.

  She doesn’t know what that is. That afternoon, when her dad dragged twenty rats and five rabbits back, he only looked blank when she asked about Ms. Avery. Never showed, he grunted, then flung the rabbits onto planks set up on sawhorses by the fire barrel. Strip out those muskrats first, then get a pot going and do the rabbits. Got my mouth set on bunny stew.

  When the police came three weeks later, Dad told them pretty much the same thing. Never saw her. Her dad’s a stocky, ex–football jock with the neck and shoulders of an ox, so much kinky black hair on his arms and knuckles his buddies say his mom musta married Bigfoot, and a flat face that he knows how to rearrange. It’s real easy to get turned around out here, Dad said, showing the detectives how the path forks after a quarter mile before both feeder trails peter out and the trees close in. Deep enough for a lake in places, the bog stretches five miles east and north. Why, you could yell yourself silly, and no one would hear. If Ms. Avery had a gun and fired off a couple rounds, sure, her dad would’ve heard. But there’d been no shots that afternoon. Sarah told the police that too. Her dad’s nasty-looking Glock, as well as his shotgun and .22, were still in the shed where he kept spare traps, and that was the truth. (Now, the fact that no one bothered wondering why she might be concerned if one of those guns had developed legs . . . well, that was the truth, too.)

  But—Ms. Avery’s tone is stern—that’s not the only truth. Is it, sugar?

  I don’t know what you mean. The ache in her temple is a steady throb keeping time with her heart. The pain’s so bad her brain’s going to run out of her ears any second.

  “So,” she chirps, as bright and OH WOW! as the guys on her mom’s infomercials, the ones that promise tight glutes and rock-solid abs, “what’s a midé”—her tongue works the unfamiliar words—“wayan, Hank?”

  “Special kind of medicine bag. This one’s a big old black bear paw.” Hank’s face folds in a frown. “Odd that a museum had it. A midé’s bag is supposed to be buried with its owner. Of course there’s another reason why the museum people mighta wanted to get rid of it.” Hank digs his nails into his knobby Adam’s apple for a lazy scratch. “If my great-gran really was a sorcerer, that is.”

  “A sorcerer?” Bethie’s mouth is as round as her eyes now. “Like a witch?”

  “Yup. If the old stories are true?” Hank gives a grave nod. “This bag is cursed, inhabited by a restless spirit hungry for the guilty and sick of heart.”

  Of course, Ms. Avery would chime in.

  Wellll, sugar, the ghost drawls, I coulda told you that.

  • • •

  “Here.” Hank’s pulled out an old book: Ojibwe Religion and the Midewiwin. “Says there were sorcerers who knew poisons, black magic, omens.”

  “How would you tell?” Sarah asks. “If this is a sorcerer’s bag, I mean?”

  Hellooo, Ms. Avery says. Rotting ghost in the mirror?

  I’m not asking you. “Is it because it’s a bear paw?” she says.

  “Not necessarily. Bags are made from the skin of whatever spirit animal the healer meets in a vision quest. You know, where the initiates fast . . . means they don’t eat,” Hank adds in an aside for Bethie, “and then take themselves to a sweat lodge. Everything that’s unclean comes out with the sweat, and I guess how long you sweat depended on how contaminated you are. Thing is, there are different degrees of midé. Like karate, you know? Different levels? A bear bag means you’ve had a lot of training.”

  “Is there stuff inside?” Bethie asks.

  “Oh yeah. I’m sure there was more that’s gotten lost or stolen or just plain rotted over the years.” Hank gently withdraws items that he lines up on the counter. “But these are pretty interesting.”

  “Rocks?” There are three pretty blah stones as well as a small string of glassy red beads and a black-tipped white feather with a rust-colored splotch. The only really cool item that snags her attention is a tiny bird’s skull, with a black beak and a leather cord running through over-large sockets. Blotting sweat from her cheeks, Sarah says, irritably, “They’re just stones.”

  “Wellll.” Hank fingers a baggy wattle of skin under his chin. “Ojibwes believe everything’s got a spirit, including trees, the earth, water . . . even rocks and crystals.” He fingers the string of beads. “Like these amethysts.”

  “Amethyst is purple.” Without realizing it, she’s stroking the skull. The feel of pits and ridges where veins and arteries and nerves ran fills her with a shivery thrill.

  “Not when it’s got a lot of hematite like these. Then amethyst turns bloodred, a powerful color. And that eagle feather? Red spot means the owner killed someone.”

  “What about the skull?” The bone is so cool, she wants to hold it to her fevered skin like a wet compress.

  “Screech owl. Eyes face forward, you know, and a screech is tiny, about”—Hank pinches off eight inches of air—“yay big.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “Well, for the Ojibwe, owls are bad omens. You hear or see one, death isn’t far behind.”

  Whoooo. At the sound, Sarah snatches her hand from the skull as if it’s gone white-hot. Hoo-hoo, Ms. Avery says.

  Stop that. Sarah’s jaw thrusts in a stubborn jut. I can’t help you.

  What makes you think that’s why I’ve come, sugar?

  “You know, now that I think about it”—Hank’s lips pucker to a rosebud—“this bag holds nothing but death.”

  It pops out before Sarah can think about it. “Maybe that was your grandmother’s special power. Maybe that’s the curse.”

  “Bringer of Death?” The way Hank fingers that wattle, Sarah thinks he really does look like an old turkey vulture. “It would fit with the beads. This design?” Hank touches a cracked fingernail to the primitive outline of a bird. “That’s a thunderbird. Means the bag has a lot of power. But,” he says, turning over the pouch, “these two designs are the ones give me the willies.”

  One symbol’s a gimme: two-legged, clawed, a head like Smokey’s. Horns are weird, but . . . “A bear?” she says.

  “Almost. Ever hear of skinwalkers?”

  “Like mummies?” Bethie says.

  Worse. Ms. Avery’s left eyebrow tents, and that is when the skin tears free from her nose to reveal decaying muscle the color of mud on yellowish bone.

  Oh! Sarah muscles back a shout as green ooze
dribbles down Ms. Avery’s cheek in a sludgy tear. Her stomach churns. Stop that.

  I can’t, the ghost says. I won’t.

  “Oh, much worse than mummies,” Hank echoes as if he’s channeling Ms. Avery too. “They’re Navajo black witches, who use charms or shapeshift into any animal they choose, then stalk and murder their enemies.”

  “Sounds like voodoo,” Sarah says. “Or like a werewolf.” Or her dad, come to think of it, when he’s had one too many or a couple pipes, which is most of the time. Then he’s this raging, raw-eyed maniac. Not that Mom’s much better. Two of them go at it? Spitting, hitting, punching, biting . . . like feral cats in a burlap sack.

  “Every culture has its bogeymen. The thing about the dark path is that evil always returns full force to the place where it was born. That’s why the midés don’t talk about sorcery. Doesn’t mean it’s not practiced, though. I think that this”—he taps the beaded bear again—“represents the Ojibwe version of a skinwalker, only they call it a bearwalker.”

  “What about this?” Grimacing at the brush of thin, decrepit fur against her hand—it really is nasty, like rangy dead possum—Sarah fingers a weird beaded figure with horns and wings that sprout from naked ribs. “What’s the flying skeleton about?”

  “Maybe it’s a black witch-angel or something,” Bethie says.

  Hank consults his book. “If I’m reading right, this is a maji-aya`awish, a real powerful, evil manidoo with skin so glassy you see its bones, and eyes that glow like fire.”

  No. Sarah meets Ms. Avery’s gaze, which is red, steady, and hot. “What’s its name?” she asks, not knowing why she needs to know. She palms sweat from her neck. “What do they call it?”

  “Longfellow said it was Death in that old Hiawatha poem. The Ojibwe call it ‘Baykok.’ But me?” Hank bobs his head, that vulture’s wattle wobbling. “I think Murderer ’bout sums it up.”

  • • •

  There is a gush of icy air. “Kids.” Their mother, face pinched, hangs in the open door. “Time to get going.” She sucks a cancer stick, then jets twin streamers of blue smoke from her nose. “Got to hit the food pantry before it closes.”

  Normally, Sarah’d be embarrassed, but she’s desperate to leave this stifling little station. For the first time, though, she wonders: Will Ms. Avery follow? Hang with her forever, like Hank said about hungry spirits? Oh, don’t be stupid. You’re not Ojibwe, and she’s a ghost. She bets that bag is the only reason she can really see Ms. Avery so clearly. Leave the midé wayan behind, and she’s home free.

  You keep telling yourself that. But Ms. Avery doesn’t sound angry or even amused. Just tired, like a teacher waiting for a slow student to finally catch on. We’re not quit yet, you and me.

  “Hold on there, kids.” Hank’s rummaging in a pocket. “Got a couple coins need a home.”

  “Hank, you shouldn’t,” Mom says.

  “My shop, my rules.” To Sarah and Bethie: “Go give that jawbreaker machine a workout, why don’tcha?”

  Sarah has never felt less like having candy in her whole life. “Sure!” Plastering on a grin, she leads Bethie to a trio of old-fashioned candy dispensers full of M&M’S and gumballs. Behind, her mother begins: “Hank, about the bill . . .”

  Hank: “Now, don’t you fret, Jean. Let’s go outside and . . .”

  God. Slipping in a dime, Sarah cranks the jawbreaker handle hard. Can you please just stop begging, Mom? Be a grown-up for once.

  “I don’t like the white ones.” Bethie gives her candy a forlorn stare. “I want cherry.”

  “Luck of the draw.” There’s a cruel lash to her tone that sounds a lot like Dad. But she’s not a fan of the white ones either. They look like fish eyes. As Bethie’s lower lip begins to quiver, she snarls, “Oh, fine, fine!” Snatching up the white jawbreaker from her sister, she deposits their second dime and gives the dispenser another vicious crank. Of course, what rattles out is red, which means cherry, and that’s way better than the ooky, white, fish-eyeball variety, and what a gyp.

  “Here.” Furious, she almost throws the candy at her sister. Suck on it and choke, you little . . .

  “You don’t have to be so mean.” The jawbreaker is so huge Bethie looks like a chipmunk with a toothache. “Aren’t you going to eat yours?”

  “Yes.” Sliding the white jawbreaker onto her tongue, Sarah wrinkles her nose. The candy’s so ancient it tastes like an old chicken bone. Through the station’s windows she can see Hank listening patiently as her mother talk talk talk talk talks. Sarah knows the litany by heart: bills for this, expenses for that, and kids these days, they grow so fast, always needing new clothes, new shoes and . . .

  That’s right. Blame us. Eyes stinging, she turns away, absently smearing sweat from her cheeks—and then she is standing over the midé wayan, her fingers tracing its beaded patterns, tangling in its long wiry fur that is not so unpleasant now but somehow softer.

  “Baykok.” She tries that out, lets its weight sit on her tongue. “Skinwalker.” A good word. “Bearwalker.” That feels even better.

  Bethie, at the door: “Are we going?”

  “Yeah.” No. She is sweat-slicked and very hot, but now she really doesn’t want to leave. She is aware of Ms. Avery in the mirror and

  (Murderer)

  Baykok against her skin, and she thinks, I want you.

  That’s right. Those fiery eyes laser words into her brain. We’re meant for each other. We’ll make a really good team.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she says, around candy that doesn’t taste right and feels . . . strange. “Team?”

  “What?” Tonguing her jawbreaker to the opposite cheek, Bethie’s doing the freezing little kid two-step. “Come on, Sarah, it’s cold.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” But, as she turns, she quickly sweeps a hand over the counter and then into her pocket, the movement automatic, almost unconscious.

  Or maybe she can’t let herself really think what this means just yet.

  • • •

  They are hauling open balky doors on rusting hinges when Bethie asks, “Who were you talking to, Mommy?”

  “My lawyer.” With a weary sigh her mother backhands hair from her forehead. “Your dad made bail.”

  “Wait.” A butterfly that might be both dread and hope flutters in Sarah’s throat. Things were never great, but with Dad back, they’ll have more money. If Sarah never sees another food pantry box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, it’ll be too soon. There is Ms. Avery, of course, but she’s only a bad memory, a ghost in a gas station mirror. Of course . . . she dips a hand into her pocket to caress something small, smooth, not quite like stone . . . maybe some ghosts are like bad pennies and turn up no matter what, even though you’re old enough to know better than to want them to stick around. “He’s coming home?”

  “He’s not supposed to. That restraining order’s still in effect.” Her mother socks a key into the ignition. “For all the good it will . . .”

  At that moment, the station’s door bangs open, and there’s Hank. “Girls?”

  Oh boy. That flutter is definitely dread now. The candy in her mouth is odd, weird, strange. He knows what I did. Shit—this is a word she’s never let herself actually say—shit, what’s wrong with me?

  “Here you go.” Trotting up, Hank proffers two foil-wrapped packets, each roughly the size and shape of a giant beef brat, and then a small paper bag. “Napkins, ketchup, relish, mustard. Now, don’t.” Waving her mother off. “I don’t want to hear it, Jean. Those brats have been turning since July. They’re probably rubber by now.”

  Bethie is beaming. “Thanks, Hank! I love brats!”

  “And they love you, sugar.” Hank’s tousling Bethie’s hair, but his eyes tick to Sarah. “Why, you’re whiter’n a ghost, honey, and sweating to beat the band. You coming down with something?”

  “Yeah . . . I mean, no.” The words ride a breathless gasp. She needs a shower, and this jawbreaker is awful. She’s going to spit out the stupid thing as
soon as she can. “Thank you, Hank.” Before he can respond, she practically dives into the car and slams the door. Reaching around for her belt, Sarah hauls it across her lap and—

  And Ms. Avery is there.

  In the car.

  No. Sarah’s eyes bug. Nonono!

  Ms. Avery smells like the inside of a deer that Sarah’s dad’s just gutted, its liver and lungs and intestines and bulging blue colon mounded in a steaming, putrid mess that reeks of dying blood and new shit. Her eyes are fire.

  Hey, sugar. When she smiles, Ms. Avery’s mouth splits into a wide clown’s grin. Mottled with decay and Coke-bottle green, the flesh from cheekbone to jaw peels away to hang in ragged flaps. Dead-white maggots squirm from Ms. Avery’s ears and nostrils. That brat smells so good. Can I have a bite?

  “No!” She doesn’t know if she screams this out loud. Later, when she has time to think about it, probably she doesn’t scream, because her mother keeps driving as Bethie munches a brat drippy with ketchup that squirts like blood from the bun. “Go away!”

  Now? We’re just getting started. Skimming a blue-black tongue, Ms. Avery flips maggots into her mouth, then grinds down until they burst in snotty, white spurts of maggot guts. Mmm-MMM, the ghost says.

  Oh my God. Sarah suddenly remembers the jawbreaker, how odd it feels and tastes and . . . “Guh!” Spitting out the candy, she looks at the gluey orb in her palm . . .

  And it is an eye.

  Soft. Trembling. Milky white, with tiny green veins. Its iris is cloudy with death, but not so much that she can’t tell that its color was once deep brown, like fine chocolate.

  Oh jeez. Picking at her teeth, Ms. Avery sucks the remains of a maggot from a fingernail grown long as a talon. I wondered where that got to.