Brimstone

by Tamara Thorne

  “Um, have you ever seen any ghosts?”

  “Here?”

  Holly nodded.

  “No, sweetheart. I’m afraid not. Not even that nice one in the elevator. I don’t think he’s real at all.”

  “Me, neither.”

  “Why do you ask?” Peg leaned closer. “Have you ever seen a ghost, Holly?”

  She hesitated, decided it was best not to say more. “Maybe I heard the ghost cat.” She made a face. “But I probably just dreamed it.”

  Peg smiled over her reading glasses like a satisfied school teacher. “I’m sure that’s all it was. Your imagination. Nothing to worry about.” She paused. “I love cats. I don’t think I’d mind a ghost kitty at all.”

  “Me, too.” Holly moved toward the door. “Well, bye.”

  “Where are you off to?”

  “The drugstore for a root beer float.”

  “That’s nice, dear. Are you riding your bike?”

  “It’s too hot. I’m taking the path.”

  Peg didn’t look pleased. “Don’t talk to strangers. And you should wear long pants. There are snakes.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.”

  There were puddles on the gravel road from the last night’s storm and when Holly came to a big one at the edge of the hotel parking lot, she looked down at her tennis shoes and smiled; she’d worn her old ones, grayish-white and frayed with a hole over one big toe. She jumped right into the middle of the puddle, soaking her feet in three inches of cool water. It splashed almost to her knees and felt so great that she jumped one more time before moving on. A moment later she passed the Grangers’ long curving driveway and paused, half-tempted to go up to see if they’d left yet. But that’s silly. They’d be long gone and probably even had their camp all set up by now. She wondered again why she hadn’t wanted to go with them - splashing around in a creek in her swimsuit would be heaven.

  Sighing, she walked another hundred yards, only slowing when there were puddles to wade in, then crossed the road as she approached the old playground. She’d been half-hoping that Keith Hala might be there so they could walk to town together, but the place was deserted and the swings and monkey bars and slide gleamed in the hot sun, looking ready to burn her if she so much as touched them.

  Just before the playground entrance was a brown sign that said, “Brimstone Trailhead” in dusty white letters. She hesitated, knowing that she would pass fairly close to the abandoned house where that - that thing had gone after her and Keith. But, she reminded herself stoutly, that cold dark mass hadn’t followed them outside. Not only that, she wouldn’t even lay eyes on the house as long as she stayed on the trail that led down to town, so there was no reason not to take the shortcut. It was too hot to do anything else anyway.

  Still not as happy as she wanted to be thanks to that creepy bellboy, Holly stepped onto the path and within a few steps was surrounded by scrub oak and manzanita, creosote and cat’s claw, white and yellow daisies, some small intensely pink blooms with silvery leaves, and an occasional yucca plant. Everything looked bright and smelled fresh thanks to the storm as the wide steps began their sashay down the hillside and soon became the simple path. She moved slowly, trying hard to lighten her mood. She forced herself to pay attention to the plants - to the variety of greens, the shapes of leaves and thorns, the delicate curves of flower petals, the scents of earth and shrub and rain puddles, even the way the sun angled across the trail. She memorized them, promising herself she’d write it all down later. Maybe I’ll write a story about them and how they reach out and grab a creepy bellboy and drag him underground where they all wrap him in their roots and then feed off him until he’s shriveled up like an old apple core and never bothers anyone ever again!

  Holly smiled a real smile at last. Meeks’ words about her mother - and about me! - had shocked her and she’d continued to feel weird, but now her anger was growing, and that helped. A lot. Maybe Steve was right; she should have gone straight to her grandmother the day she caught the bellboy drilling a peephole into her room. But Holly was used to solving her own problems - she took pride in it - and it had felt so good squirting him in the eye with hairspray that she’d been glad she’d handled it herself. She still was.

  But she’d thought that was the end of the problems with the creep until she caught him coming out of Cherry’s room. She’d felt good about how she’d made him put her mom’s underwear away, and how she’d forced him to go to his room and stay there, using the newfound power that came when she got mad and her eyes changed color. But this morning, it hadn’t happened.

  A rattlesnake lay sunning itself on a smooth stone near the trail and she passed by so cautiously that it never even moved. Why did Arthur Meeks say those things? Why didn’t my eyes change at the elevator this morning? She knew the answer to the second question even as she thought it - she’d been too upset to get mad. He’d frightened her. “I can’t ever be off guard around that creep,” she told a yellow daisy. “Never ever.”

  I won’t let him get me again! I’ll get mad instead. And I’ll write that story about plants dragging him underground and eating him! That’ll feel good. Maybe Steve would like to read it.

  She smiled again, her mood lifting another inch. Maybe she’d really better tell her grandmother what Meeks said, like she’d promised Steve. Gram would fire him for sure. But then what would happen? Holly didn’t think he could be arrested, so would he hang around waiting to get revenge? To do something to me? To Cherry? To somebody else? Sheesh. Holly knew about bad things men did because Cherry had explained to her why the school teachers always said not to talk to strangers. In fourth grade, Holly had raised her hand and asked Miss Piper that question after the teacher had given the caution, but Miss Piper sort of hemmed and hawed and finally just said it was dangerous and not to do it. So Holly asked Cherry, who was always forthcoming, and found out that bad men liked to touch little girls and boys on their privates, and sometimes forced them to do things - nasty things - with them. And they might kill them, too.

  Holly hadn’t needed to know more than that but now she stopped cold. Arthur Meeks wants to do things to me. Her stomach lurched. She stared at the ropes of jimson weed and their beautiful poisonous white flowers. With a start, she realized she was at the cutoff to the haunted house.

  She shivered despite the heat, then took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. Glancing around, she thought that if Arthur Meeks had followed her today, she’d march right into that house and shove him into that cold black mass. He wouldn’t just wet his pants, he’d poop them, too. Maybe I’ll write a story about that!

  Holly grinned, feeling better, braver. She turned off the main path and took one step toward the haunted house. Then two, deciding she’d like to take another look at it. Just the outside; no way was she going near it, of course, but since whatever was in there hadn’t followed them out before, she figured that it had to be safe to look from a distance.

  She arrived and stepped just a foot beyond the shrubs and flowers, onto the dead, poisoned land where nothing stood but the two skeletons of the trees standing guard in front of the old house. She looked up at the second floor windows. Vacant blind eyes stared back at her, and she shivered, thinking she saw movement, then realizing it was just the reflection of a dead tree limb trembling in the warm breeze.

  She stuck her tongue out. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  The rusty-gray house just sat there, staring, silent as a tomb. Then there was a creak - the old wooden screen door - screen long gone - moved just a little. Holly stepped back, staring. It had to be the breeze, but there wasn’t very much, probably not enough to make the wooden frame move. Maybe the house is settling.

  It happened again. The door frame creaked and softly slapped the jamb as if someone was getting reading to go in.

  Or come out.

  “Crap.” She stared at the house, at the big first floor window with its raggedy drape. There was nothing to see. She glanced down, spott
ed a stone the size of a plum, and picked it up.

  The door creaked again. Holly took aim and flung the stone at the mostly glassless big window. It went in, missing the framing and drape shreds, and she heard the rock hit an interior wall. “Take that!” she called.

  One second passed. Two.

  She stepped sideways, thinking she’d find another rock to throw.

  Three.

  The plum-sized stone came flying back through the window and if she hadn’t already moved, it would have hit her. She stared at the stone and started to reach down to touch it. Then the screenless door slapped against the jamb again. Hard.

  Holly ran.

  “Holly!”

  Out of breath, she emerged from the trailhead onto Main Street’s sidewalk and pulled up just short of plowing into Keith Hala. “Keith! Sorry.”

  Keith stared at her. “It’s okay. This is my grandpa, Abner Hala.”

  She looked up into the man’s sun-seamed face and put her hand out. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Hala.”

  His big hand engulfed hers and he shook it solemnly. “Call me Abner.”

  Holly smiled, still breathing a little hard. “I’m Holly.”

  “I know. My grandson has told me about you.” He raised an eyebrow. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”

  “Oh, um, I was going to the drugstore for a root beer float.” Her heart continued to pound even as she tried to calm down. “I’m really thirsty.” She felt foolish.

  Abner smiled. “You look very thirsty. My grandson and I are, too. Perhaps we might join you?”

  “I’d like that,” she said, still panting. “A lot.”

  “Good.” Abner gestured at a bench beneath a shady cottonwood tree. “But why don’t we sit a moment first so you can catch your breath?”

  Grateful, Holly sat, Keith perching on her left, Abner on her right. She saw now that the old man wore his salt and pepper hair in a long braid that hung down his back. He saw her looking, and gave her a small, quiet smile.

  “I’m glad you guys were here.” Embarrassed, she spoke quickly. Her bangs were stuck in a sweaty sheet to her forehead. As she pushed them away, the breeze felt good.

  “Why were you running?” Keith blurted. “What happened?”

  “Well, I ... I guess I spooked myself. It was silly.”

  Abner spoke softly. “Did you go back to that house?”

  “House?”

  “I told him what happened. It’s okay.” Keith paused. “Did you? Is that why you were running?”

  Holly hesitated. “Kind of.”

  “What happened?” Abner’s soft voice calmed her.

  “Did you go inside?” Keith’s eyes were wide.

  “No, of course not!” She glanced at Abner. “I’ll never go inside again!”

  “Very wise,” he said. “It’s a bad place.”

  She nodded. “I just looked at the outside. And then, well, I threw a rock at the window … It was already broken,” she added quickly.

  “Why did you throw it?” Keith asked.

  “I don’t know. Because the house was staring at me, I guess.” That was true enough.

  “So, what happened?” Keith sat forward.

  “Something threw the rock back at me.” She told them about the screen door moving. “Probably there was someone in there, some creep or something.”

  “Maybe.” Abner studied her. “If it was a person in there, he could have been more dangerous than any old spirit. But it might have been a spirit. We can’t know that so easily. But our hearts know some things. What does yours say about that place, Holly?”

  She honestly didn’t know what she thought about who - or what - threw the rock, but she realized that Abner was asking about the house itself and he was right - her heart knew the answer to his question. “It’s, well, it’s wrong. It’s bad.”

  Abner nodded. “I thought you probably figured that out.”

  “Do you know why everything around the house is dead?”

  “Well, according to my tribe’s legends, that land is cursed.”

  “Cursed?”

  “Indeed. You yourself sensed it’s a bad place. So did my ancestors.”

  Holly nodded, and looked to Keith. “Did you know it was cursed before we went in?”

  Keith shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “I doubt Keith connected it,” Abner said. “Do you remember the story of the great flood?”

  Keith nodded. “How the first people came here from under the ground?”

  “Yes.” Abner looked at each of them in turn. “It is said that our tribe once lived under the earth. A flood came and to save the people, they turned to the daughter of the leader, a beautiful and powerful young woman with a name that’s very hard to pronounce.” Abner smiled. “We’ll call her White Hare. They put White Hare and her great love, a young shaman named Inyapa, in a canoe and sealed it with pitch so that it would float. But there was a very powerful, very bad sorcerer named, Nezochi who was outcast by the tribe. He wanted to marry White Hare and rule the new land at her side, so he tried to kill Inyapa. He failed and the entire tribe united to stop him. Nezochi turned himself into a creature whose name translates loosely into ‘Hellfire Serpent’ - and in that form, he would kill many, many times.” Abner cleared his throat. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. Or maybe you’re bored with this old story?”

  “No! I’m not bored!” Holly said.

  “Very well. After the Serpent was imprisoned, the canoe was launched and White Hare and Inyapa floated up and up, through a hole in a long sacred rock. I guess you could say it was a sort of a tunnel, a portal to this world. They arrived safely and wove long vines and sent them down so the people could climb them and escape the coming floods.

  “Nezochi, the Hellfire Serpent, remained beneath the earth, imprisoned not only by the tribe, but by the serpent flesh he had chosen. You see, try as he might, he could not change back into his human form thanks to a powerful spell that Inyapa and White Hare cast together. Because of the nature of the spell, he soon lost his human mind and became a dark element of nature intent only upon death. As the last of the tribe fled to the surface, he finally escaped and in his serpentine form, chased after them. At the portal above, Inyapa, White Hare and the warriors helped the survivors escape the rising waters and fought the Hellfire Serpent back with the help of Inyapa’s magic. They knew they could not destroy him themselves, so their goal was to keep him from escaping the underworld, knowing that he would eventually drown.

  “The last of the tribe escaped, and the portal was covered to keep the Hellfire Serpent imprisoned beneath the earth, but he would not die. First, they used skins and woven bark mats and had to replace them almost daily, such was his strength. Eventually, a stone cover was fashioned and set into place. It is told that after a time, the Hellfire Serpent drowned, but even water could not kill its spirit. The Hellfire Spirit had become a thing of nature, of the earth, of water, of wind and fire. It had become a powerful elemental, which would not be so bad if it was an ordinary elemental.” Abner paused. “In our lore, elemental spirits are neither good nor bad, they just are, and they respond to the good and evil in men’s hearts. But because the Hellfire Serpent was originally the dark spirit of a very evil and powerful man, that made it different; it would never respond to goodness in kind as a natural elemental would.

  “So, the Hellfire Spirit continued to plague the people. Whenever it came near the surface, the earth trembled and shook and Inyapa and White Hare did what they could to stop it. But it cost many lives and before it was done, only a handful of the People of the Sun survived. White Hare and Inyapa did medicine to put the Hellfire Spirit to sleep, but sometimes he awakens, and to this day, attempts to escape. Whenever he does, the earth trembles.”

  “So the earthquakes are the bad spirit trying to get out,” Holly said. “I get that, but I don’t understand what that has to do with that creepy house.”

  Abner chuckled. “I took the long path to answer y
our question. You asked why nothing is alive around that house. It is because it sits in a dead place where nothing grows.” He looked from Holly to Keith. “But it is not the house that makes the place dead; it is the portal.”

  Holly was riveted. “It’s under the house?”

  Abner shrugged. “Maybe. Or perhaps simply under lots of earth - it’s been many, many centuries since this supposedly happened.” He smiled the smallest bit. “And you must understand that what I’ve told you is a myth - but more often than not, there is truth to be found in such myths. Fairy tales are myths, too, and they teach us certain things.”

  “Don’t eat candy houses in the forest.” Keith smiled.

  Abner nodded. “Is there really an opening and a powerful angry spirit haunting it? I doubt that, though anything is possible. I do know that our people have considered that spot a bad place and have avoided it for as long as the tales have been told. There are very few of us here now - we began moving away during the days of the copper mines. And I don’t just mean when the white man came, but before that, when my people were the miners.”

  “Why?” Holly asked, her fears forgotten. She burst with questions.

  “Why don’t we go get those drinks now?” Abner rose and putting his hands to his waist, stretched his back to one side then the other with a satisfied grunt. “It’s too hot. I’ll tell you when we get there.”

  Holly and Keith stood up and Holly spoke as they began their walk to the heart of town. “How did you know I was going to come down the trail when I did?”

  “I didn’t,” Keith told her. “I mean, you said you would come today, but I thought you’d be on your bike.”

  “So, it was just coincidence that you were there?”

  Abner cleared his throat. “That was not a coincidence, young lady. That was synchronicity.”

  “Synchro-what?”

  “Synchronicity. The universe saw to it that we met when we were supposed to.”

  Holly nodded. She liked that idea very much.

  40