Ghouljaw and Other Stories (33 page)

The thing’s head was shaped like a bulbous helmet skirted with writhing tentacles connected by glistening webs of black flesh. Its huge round eyes glowed beneath the surface of the water like two blue-green lanterns.

I shook out of that semi-trance and reached down to grab Harper, but the sucker-studded tentacles spasmed and recoiled, pulling the still-mumbling soldier into the pool. The luminescent glow grew more intense as water sloshed and Harper’s body disappeared.

A furtive movement to the left pulled my attention from the creature. About fifteen yards away lay Meadows, face down near the muddy rim of the grotto pond. A dark, cloak-covered shape was draped over him, squirming over his throat and torso.

I raised my weapon and strode forward. “Get the fuck away from him!” I screamed, my voice ricocheting around the cave. As I closed in, the black-robed figure slid off my friend’s upper body and stood, rising up to full height. The thing raised some sort of appendages beneath the fabric, though too snaky to be actual arms. The narrow slit of its mask exposed the emotionless eyes and pale, pickled skin. I aimed the machine gun at its chest and squeezed the trigger, not releasing until I’d depleted the clip.

I stumbled forward and grabbed Meadows’s vest, dragging him away from the bank, his nose was bleeding, his face and mouth streaked with some sort of black liquid. But he was breathing.

And then my friend opened his eyes. He no longer had pupils or white sclera—they were glassy and black. Meadows took in a sharp breath, his open mouth exposing the black stub of tentacle where his tongue should be.

Then came an explosion, and my world swirled to darkness.

Everything that followed exists in my mind as a slashed, hastily edited reel-to-reel film: Flashlight beams. Smoke. Ricketts and Strauss screaming . . . someone dragging me by the collar of my uniform . . . the maze of the cave. And then I hear Flood, our translator, shouting at Strauss. The village . . . soldiers firing on burkha-covered figures . . . vibrations and thrumming from a helicopter . . . a spotlight casting brilliant light throughout the village. (I realize it was the witnesses, perhaps even Flood—along with my insistence that I remembered nothing—that saved my life.)

I feel my body being loaded into the chopper. My eyelids flutter as I struggle to remain conscious. And just as the pilot begins to take off, I look over and see Meadows being hauled on a stretcher by two soldiers. Both of us are on our backs, and even at this distance I can see that he’s staring directly at me. His eyes are normal again, but his features are all wrong. Hollow. At the last moment, just as I lose sight of him, a malignant grin stretches across my friend’s pale face, and I see his sharp teeth begin to part in what was certainly a laugh.

While this confession is a manifestation of my coping, it is also, like most of my earnest scribblings, an exercise in futility. If Meadows is in your school, it’s too late. And if you’re still reading this, it’s too late for me. I plan on pressing the SEND button seconds before lifting this 9mm and punctuating this whole thing with a worthwhile gunshot.

Wayne Wilkinson has read enough. With an expression of contempt, the principal nudges the keyboard away and scoots his chair back, swiveling around to search for solace in his aquarium. Though the message is obviously indicative of some post-traumatic stress, Wilkinson feels foolish for allowing this young man, Craft, to occupy so much of his time and attention with this bitter nonsense. Wilkinson nods to himself absently—he’ll contact the police department and notify them of a threatening e-mail he’d received from a former soldier, quite likely suffering from PTSD. Hopefully, someone will be able to get Will Craft the help he needs.

Still, something lingers.

The secretary is on the phone as Wilkinson approaches the counter. “Brenda,” he says.

The interruption, along with the rare use of her first name, causes the secretary to place the caller on hold. Twitching a frown, Mrs. Welch says, “Yes?”

“I’d like to see the sign-in sheet from this morning.”

Still frowning, the secretary reaches over and retrieves a clipboard. “Certainly. Is there a problem?”

Wilkinson flashes an unsteady grin. “No, no,” he says, sliding the clipboard closer and inspecting the names there. “Just curious about something is all.” The principal squints at the list, his eyes hanging on the names Noble and Santana.

“Are you looking for one of the recruiters?”

Wilkinson raises an eyebrow, answering her question with a question. “Funny you should ask. Did either one of them act strange to you?”

Mrs. Welch exhales and casually crosses her arms. “Well, which one? The blond one or the one with the tattoos?”

Wilkinson feels a rill of ice trickle down his spine.
Tattoos
. His eyes dart down to the clipboard and search for the room number to which the recruiters had been assigned.

“Mr. Wilkinson, is there a problem?” repeats the secretary, but he ignores her as he rushes out of the office.

And then he’s jogging down the hallway, his polished loafers squelching over the high-gloss floor.

Principal Wilkinson reaches the classroom door just as the first screams issue forth.

He falters for a split-second before yanking open the door.

Most of the students are running toward him, others are on the floor, clawing at the carpet as they attempt to escape the thing at the front of the class. Unblinking, his mouth hanging open, Wilkinson steps into the room even as students bump and rush past him. He absently notes the blond recruiter, Noble, slung over one of the desks, thick cords of his insides snaking out from beneath him. But it is the thing that had once been a soldier named Lonnie Meadows that occupies his attention now.

It’s covered in Army fatigues, but most of the flesh, as if a castoff cloak of skin, is sloughing away in sinewy clumps. Barely recognizable are the tattoos on the outstretched arm. Branches of slender tentacles have escaped through the lacerated and split tissue there, and several of those oily appendages have wrapped around the legs and torsos of several screaming teenagers.

Surrounded by shrieks and pleas, Principal Wilkinson shuffles to a stop, paralyzed by the glowing eyes of the thing that was Lonnie Meadows. Blue-green light begins escaping through the thing’s slowly opening mouth.

With a graceful, almost erotic uncoiling, one of the glistening tentacles slithers across the floor and wraps around the principal’s calf. Wilkinson tries to scream, but instead feels himself fall to the floor, collapsing not with a bang, but a whimper.

This. Is not. A ghost story. Although the town of Deacon’s Creek, despite having evolved in more insidious varieties, is a sort of ghost when compared to the vistas of our collective zeitgeist. No, this is not a ghost story. What you are receiving is more like a transmission—static-lashed and insubstantial.

According to the bucolic bylaws of this community—which mechanically championed earnest work, conservative values, and a pious terror of the Old Testament omnipresence—Luther Hume, at his age, should have already graduated from an upstanding university, should have moved out of his dad’s house, and should be honorably maintaining a job that could lead to a reputable career that, in turn, could in time sustain a steadfast marriage and support a nuclear family. You know the script: the children here would then be instilled with the regional litany of previously listed values, and the cycle would begin again, again. And if you deviated from the Deacon’s Creek conformation (as so few had)—well, that was yet another sort of story.

Instead, this is where we find Luther Hume: it’s midmorning, July, and our young man is nursing a lukewarm hangover, occasionally squinting against the brutal blue sky as he skims debris, dead insects, and a discarded condom from an in-ground pool in the back yard of an opulent, Craftsman-style bungalow located just a few blocks off Main Street. The surrounding tree-lush streets are lined with affluently similar homes—aesthetically arresting exteriors, meticulously manicured lawns, and fussy landscaping. Again: you know the script.

After taking another lethargic swipe with the long-handled skimmer, Luther paused, running his fingers through his disheveled hair. He looked as if he belonged skulking around a skate park, except Deacon’s Creek had nothing that resembled a skate park and Luther loathed skaters and all species of hipsters. His hair was crewcut petulant—high and tight on the sides but topped by bladed bangs, sort of a malignant but ultimately reluctant Mohawk. And to accent the air of anti-community militance, Luther wore a pair of his dad’s old dog tags (which his father had long ago allowed, although he had also long ago acknowledged that the adornment was far from sincere) that evoked a quiet sort of hostility, honoring an anti-authority irony.

Though the home’s resident was not currently occupying the upscale dwelling, the house was owned by a widow named Irene Crawley. The condom, for a brief period the night before, had been owned by Luther.

Misty
. He might call her later, see if she wants to play house again later tonight.

Was he a criminal? Not really, just your average, small-town parasite.

Luther was in mid-movement, taking another pass at the debris with the skimmer, when he glanced up at the house, involuntarily cocking his head as he gauged the certainty of what he was seeing. Through the kitchen window, in that area where the kitchen sink would be, a dark form materialized, graying into a substantial figure as it moved closer to the sun-glinted glass. And now as Luther focused on the figure, faint definition emerged—pale skin, a nimbus of white hair . . . the flash of spectacles reflecting sunlight. An old woman. Mrs. Crawley (only recognizing her from photos and in-town encounters over the past two decades). She was not smiling.

Luther swiftly arranged the scenarios, skimming through a potentially problematic script. But the fact of the matter was that he was currently doing the job he’d been asked to do. Even so, he was ready to deliver as many ad-lib lies as possible to get on this old woman’s good side.

As Luther registered the presence he was instantly vigilant about appearing outwardly innocent—he produced a wide smile, raised his hand in a cheery wave—
just your friendly neighborhood Boy Scout, ma’am
. An awkward span of seconds passed before the woman responded by raising her own hand—what was certainly her hand but, because of the misty reflection, appeared nothing more than a gray branch of arthritic talons, and those talons beckoned Luther toward the house.

Luther set down the pool skimmer on the concrete walkway and began sauntering toward the house, accidentally catching his sneaker on the stack of cleaning equipment and chemicals, cursing under his breath when he remembered—too late—the condom.

Even as familiar as he’d become with the house in the past few weeks, he still marveled at it with covetous contempt. Luther’s grandmother used to call this mannered part of town “Ersatz Evanston.” Luther had once asked what she’d meant by that, and Gladys Moira Hume, his dad’s mom, had explained that the neighborhood resembled some of the housing pockets on the northside of Chicago, in the hamlet of Evanston.

Luther, in his twenty-three years of existence, had never been to Chicago, and had only occasionally traveled to the nearest big city. Caught in the Midwest murk between Cincinnati, Louisville, and Indianapolis—in a vague spot a more creative tongue might have termed the Bemused Triangle—he’d passed through large cities before, but Chicago was out of his depth. He did not go on to ask what “Ersatz” meant, but had the sense that his grandmother laced it with a large dose of good-natured sarcasm.

And impressive as all this was, Luther had often suspected that some underlying self-consciousness impelled this immaculate profusion, as if something fundamentally necrotic existed in the collective core of Deacon’s Creek, and this architecture was all merely an anaesthetically manifested antidote. For Luther, the problem was very simple: everyone here was afraid. Everyone clung to a pastoral codependence on a mediocre status quo. Again—not Luther’s words. Inebriation fostered an atrophy of articulation. Luther, in the best way he could privately convey, thought of the town’s backwardness as an illness, but lacked the lexicon to directly call it a bucolic cabal.

And Irene Crawley was one of the predominant elders in Deacon’s Creek. He knew that solely because of his own grandmother, Gladys Hume, who had also been one of the community’s influential matriarchs and who was now flanked by other bygone townsfolk out at Evensong Cemetery.

Luther’s father was co-owner of one of the town’s more established real estate agencies. Last spring Luther had begun overhearing snatches of conversation about the Crawley house—the old widow woman, Mrs. Crawley, was going to live with her son and his family down in Alabama. The short version: the old woman moved out and the house was put up for sale. Luther’s dad got the gig as listing agent to show the home to potential buyers.

So far, no bites, just a few nibbles. “You’d think somebody could convert it into a bed-and-breakfast or something,” Curt Hume commented, standing at his desk in the den.

One afternoon a few days later, Curt stopped Luther as his son was walking out of the house. “Got a second?”

Luther shrugged but kept shuffling toward the door. They hadn’t spoken in a few days, not since their last nasty verbal tussle. “Sure, but I got to split.”

Curt was a craftsman when it came to engaging potential buyers and sellers throughout town and in the outlying communities, but he regressed to a boot-camp awkwardness when interacting with Luther. “Yeah, well, I won’t keep you. I just—well, I’ve been so bogged-down about showing this Crawley house. I was wondering if you’d like to make a few extra bucks.”

Being several states and hundreds of miles away, Mrs. Crawley’s son had proposed that the agent (Curt) arrange for someone to act as a temporary caretaker for the property. Crawley’s son had made it clear that there would be no compensation, but Curt would secure his position as the listing agent.