After the Bite (16 page)

Thy Neighbor

A small dirt road stretched from
north to south as far as the eye could see. In all directions there was little to obstruct the view; all was flat farm land, save for two houses only a few hundred yards apart, marking the only two residents of Buttfuck, Nebraska, as most would call it.

Life was hard in the middle of nowhere. The mail had to be picked up manually from the nearest town (a good thirty miles away) and the school bus wouldn
’t have come out here, had there been any children to pick up. If the power went out or a phone line went down, it could take months to get it back.

Few ever drove by, and when they did, the two houses were little more than a sudden but fleeting change of scenery. No one gave much thought to who would actually bother to live way out here
, but if they did, they might think that people in such similar, poor situations would choose to band together.

This was not the case.

The inhabitants of the two lonely houses hated each other. Five generations of family in each house had hated each other’s guts. And it all started over a well.

The well was nearly impossible to notice. It sat somewhere in the field between the two houses, barely visible through the grass and wheat of the fields.

Sometime in the early 20
th
century, the inhabitants of both houses were good friends. The two families met often; the kids went to school on the same carriage, the husbands and wives went to town together. The mundane, difficult life provided by Nowhere was made much more livable.

O
ne day the children were playing near the well, despite their parents’ wishes. Little Suzy Whitaker, in an attempt to impress her friend Nancy Holmes, climbed up on the side of the well and began to circle its rim. The other children demanded she climb down, but Suzy was off in her own world.

Then, she misplaced her footing, and a lose brick gave. Suzy fell into the well with a
hollow splash.

Since it was
nearly evenly distanced between the two homes, the children had each run to their own to get their parents, who arrived at roughly the same time.

“Don
’t worry, Suzy!” Mr. Holmes had shouted. “We’ll get you out of there!”

Suzy
’s mother, as well as Mrs. Holmes, comforted the shivering, shouting Suzy. Mr. Holmes and Mr. Whitaker rushed to the Holmes barn, as the well was only slightly closer to the Holmes property, and retrieved a rope. They brought it back to the well and lowered it down.

When the two men pulled the girl from the well, she was shivering wildly. She was also holding something. It was a small box she had grabbed on to in attempt to stay afloat. Suzy
’s mother carried her to the house for a change of clothes and to calm her down, and the two fathers inspected the box.

“It looks like it opens up,” Mr. Whitaker said.

“Look at the metal bracing,” Mr. Holmes said. “This thing must be sturdy as a mule!”

“But it looks to be rather old,” Mr. Whitaker said.

“Look, Pop!” Johnny Whitaker said. “There’s something written on it!”

Indeed, there was something scribbled on the front.

“Within this box lies a magnificent treasure. Be warned: the box is cursed, and misfortune is sure to befall any man who attempts to open it, not being the owner of it.”

“Maybe it
’s pirate treasure!” Michael Holmes said.

“Pirates?
” Mr. Whitaker said. “In Nebraska? Don’t be a fool, Boy.”

“Don
’t you call him names!” Mr. Holmes said. He turned to his son. “We’ll just get this home and see if we can’t open her up.”

“What makes you think
you
get to take it home?” Mr. Whitaker asked.

“It
’s on our property, isn’t it?”

“The well is shared by both homes. Besides, my Suzy is the one who found it!”

“How dare you use your own daughter’s misfortune for personal gain!” Mr. Holmes said. “I suppose that’s just like a Whitaker, isn’t it?”

“And it
’s just like a Holmes to steal from someone else’s hands, then?”

“Hold your tongue!” Mr. Holmes
said. “Come then, Michael! We’re not going to have any of this nonsense!”

“You
’re not taking the box!” Mr. Whitaker said.

It was a few hours before the local sheriff was able to get to the well. He listened patiently to both sides of the story.

“Well, this is a pickle, isn’t it?” he said. “I’m going to declare that the box not be moved from this spot until we can figure out which property this well is technically on.”

“
Are you mad?” Mr. Holmes said. “Of course it’s on ours!”

“Watch yourself!” the sheriff s
aid. “Now I’ll have the boys in town look into it. There has to be an official property list somewhere. Whoever’s land this well is on, the box is theirs.”

The sheriff looked between the two men. Mr. Whitaker nodded, and Mr. Holmes spat on the ground and then did the same.

“I don’t want to haul this thing back and forth between town. I got no place for it anyway. You have any poles? Chains?”

The three men worked together to pound a few poles into the ground, and then wrapped the chain around them and the box. The sheriff put a padlock on it, locked it up, then put the key in his pocket.

“There. Anybody tampers with this chain, and you’re tampering with official police property, which is an offense.”

“Of course we won
’t touch it,” Mr. Whitaker said. “But those Holmeses, their grimy hands won’t let off of it!”

“
Grimy
?” Mr. Holmes shouted. “Your brats are the ones who play in the mud, tryin’ to get my kids to join ‘em! Filthy Whitakers!”

The back-and-forth continued long after the sheriff had left. It went on after the children of each family were instructed not to play with the others (to their great dismay)
, and it went on even though the only news that ever came out of town was that nobody could seem to find an official document claiming which property the well was resting on.

It continued through the years,
the only story passed down through each family’s line. Nobody spoke of the brave teamwork of both families that had saved Suzy Whitaker’s life, nobody spoke of the playtimes or the carriage rides or the trips to town. The only story that made it was that of the box, and how the grimy Holmeses or the filthy Whitakers had managed to steal the box away, and make sure no one got it.

After a long time, the chains and poles grew rusty, but the official decree
held strong. The only time a Whitaker and a Holmes were close to each other was when checking on the box to make sure the other hadn’t taken it. If this transpired within earshot, a flurry of insults was sure to be yelled. If not, it was sure to be muttered, and the ground sure to be spat upon.

T
his was how it came to be that Andrew Whitaker and Chris Holmes had grown up, hearing legends of the other family’s betrayal, and never trusting each other. Despite how difficult life was, neither one would ever count on the other for anything, even as the families began to die off and spread out. Neither Andrew nor Chris had taken a wife, and both were alone, though neither would have ever discussed it with the other.

It was a morning in late June when Andrew noticed something was wrong.

The TV reception was never very good out here, but today, nothing came in at all. There appeared to be no signal whatsoever.

“God dang dish!” Andrew s
aid. He decided to make the trip outside and see if he could move the dish around to better his reception.

When he opened his front door, he saw Chris Holmes standing there, ready to knock.

“What’re
you
doing here?” Andrew said.

“Believe me, I don
’t want to have to ask you anything,” Chris said, “
ever
. But I don’t have any TV. No phone, neither. Before I make the trip to town to get somebody out here, I was wondering if you were having the same problems.”

“No,” Andrew said, “I don
’t have any TV. Haven’t checked the phone yet. But if it’s working, I ain’t letting the likes of you use it.”

Andrew closed the door in Chris
’s face, then headed for his phone. There was no dial tone. He headed back to the front door and opened it to find Chris still waiting there.

“Nope, phone don
’t work,” Andrew said. “I was just on my way to town.”

The whole thing was strange; not just the lack of phone and television, but that it had been troublesome enough to bring a Whitaker to the house of a Holmes. Andrew and Chris had spoken more on this morning than they had in their entire lives. Andrew didn
’t like it.

Regardless, he stepped off of his porch, brushing hard against Chris on his way down the stairs, and started for his truck around the back of his house. He stopped as soon as he got a look at his back yard.

“What the hell?” He said. Chris rushed to see what Andrew was shouting about.

Just behind the house was a wrecked minivan. It had gone off the road and slammed into the telephone pole that ran wire to the Whitaker and the Holmes residence
s. The pole lay on the ground, and the van had evidently continued on, eventually coming to a stop when it ran into the well.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Andrew asked Chris.

“Are you kidding me?” Chris said. “You didn’t hear a van come driving through your own yard?”

“Somethin
g’s fishy here all right, but it ain’t me,” Andrew said. “How come you didn’t notice this on your walk over here?”

“I drove,” Chris replied, pointing to his car in front of Andrew
’s house. “And I had enough on my mind just trying to psyche myself up to deal with your presence.”

“It
’s a trick, ain’t it?” Andrew said. “You wreck a van into that well, and while I go out to town, you get your grimy hands all over the chest, and then blame it on the clean-up crew!”

“Ha!” Chris
said. “That kind of dimwitted plan could only come from the mind of a Whitaker. And look at you, going to treasure first. Someone could be injured!”

Chris headed for the van, and Andrew followed, feeling a little bit ashamed. They reached the crumpled mess shortly.

“Think anyone’s alive in there?” Andrew asked.

“The doors are open,” Chris
said. The two approached the van and found it completely empty.

“Hmph!” Andrew
said. “I knew it was some kind of trick. If you really think I’m going into town now, you can forget… it…” Andrew stopped talking as a small boy shambled out of the tall wheat behind Chris. Chris, seeing Andrew’s face, turned to face him.

“Are you all right, kid?” Chris asked. The boy had blood all down his front. Andrew already felt bad about what he had said, but that didn
’t distract him from noticing that it looked like the blood trailed straight from the boy’s mouth.

“Unnnghh,” the boy groaned. He started to walk toward Chris.

“It’s okay, kid,” Chris said. “Are you hurt? Where’s your family?”

“Shit! Look out!” Andrew
said. Chris turned to see him, and then turned back to the boy. As he emerged from the field, it became horrifically clear that he was dragging behind him a dismembered human leg.

Chris would
’ve assumed the boy had experienced some trauma, found the leg of some family member, and decided to carry it around, but the true story, difficult as it was to accept, was more obvious. There was no body around the car, and the area around the stump of leg had definitely been chewed.

“What the hell
?” Chris said. The boy dropped the leg and pounced at Chris, making a strange grunting noise as he thrashed around, his hands tearing and clawing at Chris’s legs. Chris, being a grown man, didn’t have much difficulty holding the boy off, but the boy was persistent. Chris shoved the boy as hard as he could, and the boy fell to the ground, but he quickly got back up and attacked again.

“The boy
’s nuts!” Andrew said.

Chris tried to talk to the boy between thrashes.
“It’s okay! I’m here to help you!”

“He ain
’t listening, Holmes,” Andrew said. “He’s completely insane!”

The boy continued
lunging and grasping at Chris, even trying to bite him. Chris shoved him down again, but the boy just got back up. He pounced again, and in stepping back Chris lost his footing and fell over, the boy landing atop him. Chris searched frantically for a moment between gnashing teeth that he could let go of the boy’s arms and shove him off, but this proved more difficult than he had thought. He turned to Andrew, who had taken off running toward his house.

“Help me
, please!” Chris shouted, but his cries seemed to roll right off of Andrew, who continued running.

Chris wrestled with the boy, trying to keep his cool, still searching for that vital gap in which he could overtake the crazed thing and throw him off, perhaps get away, but it didn
’t seem to come. Every chance Chris tried to take led to the boy getting those teeth or nails closer to Chris’s face or throat.