Lara scampered against the right wall and froze as the door cracked open.
An old man wielding a baseball bat hobbled out of the doorway, his face grimaced in a river current of wrinkles. The bat bobbed. His stomach mooned a thin waxing crescent out of the bottom of his white undershirt. The old man was ready to strike as much as his pooling arms would allow. “WHAT DO YA!” His voice rang like rust spreading on steel pipes. Seeing her crying, he took a step back. His blazing sun fury cooled into lunar contempt. “Who did ya call?”
“I needed to call the police, there’s a thing out there, followin’ us, please I only wanted help and…” She wiped her nose and let out a shaking breath. “Then the rain swallowed up my friend, and now I’m-”
He lowered the bat. “They died in front of ya?”
“Yeah, he just, just yesterday.”
The old man dropped the bat and grasped on the counter as a crutch, then let out a long sigh, “Name’s Butch, by the way, yours?”
“Lara,” she lifted her numbed legs off the dirty, checkered tile floor.
“You didn’t smash that window in?”
“I found it like that, I swear.” Lara glanced outside. “Nice car out there.”
He turned towards the harsh glow from the windows, exposing the craters and contours of his face. “Oh, that dirtied-up truck ain’t mine.”
“I wasn’t referrin’ to the truck?” They stared at each other in equal bewilderment.
“That red thing ain’t mine. The hell?” Butch hobbled out of the counter, his black flip-flops slapping with each step. “Grab a drink if ya want, I’ll check this out real quick.”
Lara’s appetite was eclipsed by grief. Butch fiddled with a can of dip in his calloused hands. They sat out in front of the gas station, perched like a pair of birds watching the rain cascade around them. The morbidly beautiful calm of rain clanking on the tin roof replaced silence.
“So, that’s your friend there?” Butch spat a slick green dollop of dip off to his side. It looked like a bug splatted into the pavement.
“Yeah, she done passed out when those things got us,” Lara said as she toyed around with a coke bottle, not taking a sip, only imagining the energy and joy to drink.
“I know where you’re comin’ from. My wife got swallered up by the rain ten years ago.” Butch let what he said resonate as he twirled the dip can. The can flickered as its glossy backside faced the radiant frost white lights. “She went out to go fetch some firewood. I told her to get a damn raincoat, but she told me; ‘I’m fine Butch, I’m fine.’ Of course, she wouldn’t be fine. I went to the bathroom and almost forgot about her but lookin’ into a photo we had on the vanity sent me straight back. She was fading out of the picture.
“She got the wood, only it was poured out around her.” Lara saw that Butch was a stone-walled man, his face blank and emotionless as he spoke. However, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the edge of his mouth twitched, resistant to frown. “She laid face down into the dirt, her long gray hair sprawled out in the grass, wood spilled, a foot-” Butch gulped. “A foot-wide hole burned into her from that damn rain…” He broke, frowning. “I put on my rain jacket to save her, but I stood at the back door and watched that space grow… I still can’t get over those bits of damp, damn red through her white dress.” The rainfall held their conversation as they watched it, unified in disaster. “Betty was her name. Damn fine woman… damn fine.” Butch retreated to his statuesque self.
“Did you try callin’ the police or anybody?” Lara popped the cap off the Coke bottle and gave it a slight sip.
“That’s the thing, It never works like you’d want.” Butch’s face furled. “I called tryin’ to claim she was dead, but the police told me there was no record of her. Then when these are things nearby, they can cut the signal off.”
“The shadow people.” Lara whispered. “That’s just what happened while I was on the phone!”
“Huh, never thought it could happen to anyone else. It makes me wonder how many people we forgot. I walked to her work to tell somebody, anybody, that she was gone. People at work done forgot her too. It was like she was a dream, and I just woke up.” Butch groaned as he stood up off pavement, his bones creaked and rattled like an orchestra of rusty door hinges. “Com’ on up, we needa look at your friend if those things are still around.”
Dip can in his clenched teeth, Butch clicked a silver flashlight into Dian’s eyes. She shot up in response. Her elbow knocked the flashlight, sending it rolling and flickering a good few feet back.
“SHIT! She’s up.” Butch called.
Dian scampered down the wide front seat of the truck. “LARA!” She fumbled out the driver side door and would have busted her head on the concrete if Lara hadn’t swept in to catch her.
“I’ll explain it all to ya later,” Lara said. “This is Butch,”
Butch gave a slight nod. “Well, good mornin’ miss,”.
Dian glared back, confused with a sliver of frustration, “Who’s he?” Dian asked as she leaned up.
“He works here.”
“Need any gas?” Butch said, wobbling over to the pump.
“No, no, we really should be headin’ out.” Lara said.
Butch shrugged, “It’s on the house.” Lara nodded, then checked Dian. Butch flipped the ivory truck’s fuel lid and pulled on the gas nozzle. The sharp scent of gas snuck into the air. “Jesus, they done beat up your truck. You got any means of defendin’ yourself?”
“I gotta pocketknife.” The thought of self-defense never crossed Lara’s mind, though, to her credit, meeting some odd demonic shadow was never on the top of her to-do list.
“You know where Country View Court is, down that road Wild Rye’s on?” Lara remembered Wild Rye all too well. “If ya free meet me there tomorra afternoon at three or so, I’ll give you a few pointers.”
“Sure thing, see ya then,” Lara waved to Butch as they turned onto the highway towards town. Dian and Lara kept quiet, the radio on the entire way back to Dian’s house. It wasn’t that they had nothing to say, in fact, that was far from the truth. Their minds were brimming with questions.
They snuck into Dian’s cabin; the fireplace was reduced to embers. The door to her father’s room remained shut. Their silence persisted as they set up for the night in Dian’s room. Lara broke the silence like some small clearing in a storm.
“Look, I’m sorry I just-”
“Lara,” Dain sighed, and slipped into her bed. “Let’s just talk about this at stone bowl.”
“Yeah… sure.” Lara looked towards the wooden wall. She pulled the scant bit of bedsheets over her, closed her tired eyes, and felt the warmth of her breath heat the back of her hands. She dreamed that night.
— — —
The moon hid behind the trees. She was back with that woman, only this time far from the cabin. The woman wore a tattered white dress and was much older than before. The cabin stood a hundred feet away. A faint orange glow flickered from its cramped windows. Lara glanced at the cabin, then back to the woman standing in front of her. Lara opened her mouth to speak, but no sound left her lips. The wind hushed through the naked trees as the woman crept towards Lara.
“Why do you come here?” the woman asked as she studied Lara. Glancing at her loose-fitting pajamas. The woman crossed her arms and stepped back as if Lara could jump towards her and attack. “You and the man. Why do you come.” The woman’s face seemed so familiar, yet so distant. Lara tried to speak, ‘I don’t know!’ but the words came out in a soundless spill. “I see…” The woman looked back towards the cabin. A tear came to her eye. “I’m thankful that you’re here.”
She wanted to ask what man but woke up instead.
— — —
The next morning, Lara and Dian sat at Stone bowl. The car-sized crater in the center of the concrete was filled almost to its brim with water. They sat on the rocky edge and watched the swaying wall of trees that surrounded the clearing.
When they were
younger, they would dip their feet into cloud gray water. If you waited a day or two, any pool of rain would be safe to step in. It was a bit too soon for it to be safe, and they were a bit too old to be dashing and circling at each other like a pair of vultures, little arms flapping, and cawing middle school gossip. They were in their twenties, now vultures on a wire, chirping opinions, and woes for days to come.
“I get how you reacted... it’s alright,” Dian said. “What are we gonna-”
“Hold up, you really don’t remember Johnathan a bit?”
“Not… not that I can recall,”
Lara cradled herself in a mix of discomfort and chill from the slight nip of newborn autumn wind, “I still can’t get over that, how the hell does he just disappear out of my life and then out of everyone’s minds.”
“Were ya’ll together?” Dian said.
“First guy I ever went on a date with. Don’t think I’d ever find a guy like em.”
“Lara, there are probably plenty of guys out there.” Dian pulled a fist-sized piece concrete out from under her and tossed it into the murky vessel, awakening ripples.
“Out there?” Lara scoffed. “I’m surprised all the men ain’t dead yet from how they are around here, you know what…” Lara clung to a basketball sized chunk of concrete, heaving it in the pond, erupting a prismatic uproar of water. “Men here ain’t shit, that ‘out there’ you’re on about ain’t nowhere here, it’s lost behind a wall of rain. There might not even be an ‘out there’ We could just be stuck in some hell of a snow globe, shaken about by some creepy-ass shadow people.”
“You could just accept it, you know… not sulking in some controllable daydream, not pent up in some rain-soaked soapbox you set up. Maybe just once break out of it. Life here ain’t so shit when you come to understand it.”
“I’m just sayin’, you know as well as I do that this town is dyin’. everyone here is losin’ hope.” The wind flailed another chilling sway nudging the trees that surrounded the patch of land.
“Well, then do something to help it out if you’re so worked up about it.”
“Well… yeah, I guess you’re right” Lara said. She never knew how to start or end a feud. They merely happened. She looked deep into the cataract-gray pool and saw something horrifying.
“What’s that you got twiddlen’ in your hands there?” Dian asked, nodding at the silver key that Lara fumbled with.
“Almost forgot about this thing, the only thing I had found back when I had woke up, that and some tire tracks.”
Dian picked it out of Lara’s hands. “It’s got some markin’s on it. Don’t know what you could make out of it.”
Lara plucked it back and slid it down the small pocket of her jeans. “Guess we just gonna find out then,” she grinned. The grin withered like the harsh change of seasons. She tried to ignore what she saw in the water. “Dian, you see that out there?” Lara pointed to the pond, hoping she was hallucinating.
“What!? the water?” Dian said. Lara could see the brim of a body wading within a murky cloud—a shadow. For a second, Lara swore she saw its eyes, but thought it might have been the sun rippling in the water. It clung along the surface like a spider, back arched, and fingers sprawled like loose roots.
“Yeah…” Lara forced a smile, “The water. Do you think it just goes down forever; I don’t think we ever could see a bottom?”
“Its gotta have a bottom.” Dian flicked a pebble into the water. “How would water pool up if it didn’t have one?” Lara rose a hand over her eyes and scanned the sky.
“Hey what time is it?” Lara glanced back at the water. The shadow was gone.
“Three thirteen, why?”
Lara spun back. “Shit. We gotta go!” She shot up, concrete stained the back of her jeans. “I’ll drop you back off, I’m gonna be late.” The two strode back through the woods, towards Lara's truck.
“SHOOT!” Butch hollered. Lara fired the Smith and Wesson Model 41 pistol. A bullet pecked off a nub of bark from the log, rocking a brown-hued bottle of Miller Lite on top of it. “Now… just a bit higher!”
Lara rolled her eyes. She cocked the pistol back. With one hand raised, she pulled the trigger. The gun jolted in her hand, sending her stepping back.
“Havin’ fun there, cowboy?” Butch called from his front porch, he heaved himself out of his rocking chair, leaving it in a slight totter. Lara saw the slight golden sway of the half full beer bottle tucked into the front pocket of his worn-down overalls. “Okay, heifer wrangler, hold it.” He hobbled down the wooden plank stairs leading out to his vast yard. He examined the barrel of the gun. “Ya papa ever teach ya how ta shoot.”
“Naw,” Lara went back to practice aim. “Never was there enough to teach me much.”
Butch kicked a bit of dirt and pressed his hands against his waist, “Welp, ya wanna talk about it?”
Lara paused, scratching her chin with her free thumb.“Doesn’t really matter.” She slung the pistol back and felt a remarkable power holding it, a semi-automatic energy with a wood grain grip.
“Well, if ya ever feel the need I’ll be here. Use both hands, yer costin’ bullets.”
She grasped the handle tight, imagining her next encounter with one of those shadow beings. Its bright gaze lurking to the storefront, or maybe some night walking to her car. A moment where she would only have the hush of trees and the slosh of her footsteps to accompany her. Then another set of steps would emerge, this time slipping and gushing, and she would wait for the right moment to turn back, “Nice weather, huh!”
BANG!
Lara fired inches away from the bottle, leaving a hole in the back rim of the log.
“Wooo!” Butch called. “Closest you got today. How bout’ callin’ it quits and stop by for some tea before heading’ out.” Lara unloaded the gun then strolled up the porch, placing a bit of badass pep to each step.
Butch’s place almost looked pristine if not for the peeling butter-yellow paint and the infestation of dark ivy that sprawled along the house’s sides. They sat in a pair of rockers, as the sun hung low enough to grasp the tops of trees off in the distance.
“So how did ya know he died?” Butch began, trying to call back to what Lara said about her friend melting to the rain.
“All he did was runoff.” Lara sipped a little of her sweet tea “I know my dad… he ain’t dead yet”.
Butch leaned back, confused, then realized his mistake, “You weren’t that close, were ya?”
“He left when I was about three. Mama’s hung up bout em. He had a problem of leaving the house every night endin’ up in odd places; parking lots, stores, even a tree once, sometimes not comin’ back for days. She kept on tellin’ me, at least once a week, that he was a no-good, wet ragged, son-of-a-bitch. He done walked out on us a good ten times. At least that’s what she told me.” Lara watched the sweet tea whirl as she spun the glass. “They would sleep together then the next mornin’ he’d be gone. She would always go searchin’ for him. On a night, when mama was drunk, she told me they found him rung up at the Kin’s house.
“Ms. Sonya Kin woke and stumbled to the bathroom. The second she opened the bathroom door, she screamed. Her husband Mike came runnin’ up the stairs thinking she had cut herself or somethin’, but he found her steppin’ back from the door and pointin’. In the bathroom was the fabled no-good, cowardly, son-of-a-bitch Danny Glass. Dad woke up to the scream and grabbed to the shower curtain. But, he done lost his grip and slipped back, his head smackin’ against the porcelain tub. The curtain rod fell along with him, smackin’ against his forehead.”
Butch leaned in. Lara glanced at his pale, raisin-like face as she sipped more tea. His eyes widened as he waited for Lara to continue. “He makes it out okay?”
“They took em’ to Hathway Hospital. Me and mom visited him and…” Lara looked back towards the yard, gazing at the road 40 feet in front of them.
“And?
“And that was the last time I saw him. My mom told him th
at she never wanted him to come back… and he never did. He left the hospital, a ghost in the night, no trail, no nothin’… like someone leaving a restaurant bill. He’d usually return a day later, but that was it… gone.” Lara placed her glass on porch railing and crossed her arms. “Momma’s drinking problem blew up after that. She kept their room with bedsheets untouched in case he ever done think about comin’ back. I wonder if he made it out. You can’t go far in town.” Lara let out a soft breath. An engine roared in distance. “Maybe he somehow did it. You think he coulda made it out there?”
Butch creaked the rocking chair back, and gritted his teeth, “Ya know, I tried that once as well. I heard stories over drinks at Deerfields. There ain’t no sense about it… is that?” Five bikers cruised down the street in front of the house, a flock of crows in matching black leather gliding across the road. “Lara, head out, quick!” Butch stood in front of Lara.
“What? It’s just that little ol’ group. They don’t do much.”
“Little ol’ group my ass,” Butch said. “Lara, that band of bullshit does far more damage than you think. All of em out means somethin’ dark is happenin’.”
Lara gazed down the street, “Well, they’re headin’ away.”
“You heard what I told ya, go on, get!”
Lara rushed down the front step, leaving the chair in a wobble. “You think I can come round soon?”
“Stop on by anytime before 6.” Butch looked back to the long stretch of road ahead. “Now, get!”
Lara got in her truck and rushed out of Butch’s driveway. She turned down the main road, hoping she was safe. The second she looked into the rear-view mirror, her security melted.
A biker stood on the road behind her. The noon sunlight glimmered off their helmet and their oil-black leather jacket made muted reflections of the sun. The biker wondered from the pact and leaned against their bike as if-
Out There: A Rural Horror Story Page 5
