Dead Reflections (26 page)

I walked around to the side of his house and inspected the dusting of ice and snow that had gathered there. No tire tracks anywhere to indicate the presence of the limousine that had arrived to cart him away. Only after a few more minutes could I force myself to walk back inside his house and call the police, but not before I tucked the rifle under the seat of the truck. All I said was that I’d responded to a call from him that he’d needed help…he wasn’t feeling well, I lied…and I’d arrived to find him already gone. It wasn’t a full lie; the second half of that statement was true. His death was chalked up to an accident; internal hemorrhaging from a fall in the dark and slamming his forehead against the edge of his kitchen table. I knew he’d been running through the dark house when his front door blew open, then shut again, and that something darker had been on his heels.

* * *

We haven’t seen the limousine again since Kenny’s death.

When I lay in bed at night, with my wife’s warmth beside me, I still feel chilled. It isn’t the cold October air. It isn’t the snow crystals or the north-westerly wind that pries at and rattles the eaves trough. It’s the knowledge that the limousine is out there, gathering passengers with its preordained itinerary all over the world, operating at all hours of the day or night. And that it could come back any time.

“I won’t go,” I say into the dark. But still, I watch, fearful for the tiptoe of crimson light along my walls and the hum of a distant engine growing closer.

The End

By

Carol Weekes

They were into their new property a week when their ten year old son, Cory, discovered the well. It sat a good one hundred yards away from the house, a 110-year-old farmhouse that Jan had fallen in love with, but which had pushed them to their limits in affordability. And now that they were here, she’d lost her job. Money was tight, but she loved the place and Terry was determined to make her happy. The well was mostly covered over with planks of silver plywood that had gone rank in spots, making the surface a little spongy and sending a chill up Terry’s back, seeing his son run up to the thing yelling, “Here it is, Dad!”

“Get off that platform,” Terry yelled. Terror seized him. He’d vaguely remembered hearing the real estate agent mention something about an old cistern that had once been used to water the property. But the house had gone on to town water just a few years prior, one of its selling features while still maintaining a quiet, rural location on the edge of town. He hurried and caught up to his son who was busy trying to pump the iron handle of the cistern in an attempt to bring water to the surface.

“I don’t think it’s supposed to work anymore,” Terry said. He reached out and lifted Cory from the platform that sat two feet higher than the soil around a circular concrete pipe that formed the aboveground basis of the well. “These things are dangerous. They can plunge fifty feet or more into the earth and can still contain a lot of ground water. You fall through that wood, you’re a goner. Hear me? You’re not to play on this thing or go near it.”

Cory shrunk back a little over this. “Can you make it pump water, Daddy?”

Terry shrugged and stepped up to the handle. It had once been painted a cherry red, but time and weather had removed most of the paint, leaving only chips of faded red against dark steel. “Well, we can give it a try. But only this time, understand? I’m going to come back out here and cover this thing up more securely than this. It’s a liability, is what it is.”

“What’s a liability, Daddy?”

Terry felt mild amusement override his initial fear. “It’s a problem, where something could happen to someone and they’ll turn around and sue you for it. I don’t like these things. They’re outdated technology.” He grabbed the long, slender handle and began pumping it, again and again, fifty times or more. They heard something inside the well, a soft splash of sorts and the sound of something like air running along a pipe.

“I think we might have a little success, although I expect the water will be rank,” Terry said. Within the next minute a gush of darkness flew out of the cistern spout, spraying the boards with a vibrant red-brown liquid. At the same time, the air around them turned rancid. Terry dropped the handle and stepped back, aghast. He used one hand to hold his son back.

“What in God’s name is it?” He leaned closer to take a better look. Initially, he’d suspected foul water mixed with soil and perhaps the slime of algae, but this stuff was redder than black or green slime. Indeed, standing water had sprayed out from the tap, but bits of raw, meaty stuff floated in it, and upon inspection, Terry saw chunks of what looked like matted hair or fur. Maybe some animal that had fallen through the platform’s gap lay rotting in the water.

“I think some animal fell in while sniffing around for water,” Terry said. “You head back to the house. I’m going to find something to cover this hole. This is dangerous. Go on now.”

He watched Cory trudge home, his face disappointed and his running shoes kicking up dust along the ground. When the boy rounded the bend in the path, Terry turned his attention back to the cistern. Raccoon maybe, or even a fox or coyote might have taken the plunge. No matter; he didn’t want Cory sneaking back out here to peek into this thing. He went to retreat. When he heard a sound issue from inside the well. Terry froze. He knew animal noise well enough. But this echo that he’d just heard…it wasn’t animal. He was sure he’d heard words uttered, and that the words, echoed and distorted, had been something like ‘chickenshit.’ Couldn’t be. Even if a person had fallen in there and survived, why would they insult him? Call for help, maybe. The pump handle sat still and silent, a tenuous spider web undulating in the breeze. Fetor on the board dried in the sun. Insects crawled over it.

Terry returned to the well and, using a forearm to steady himself, leapt onto the edge of the frame. He strained to listen, wrinkling his nose. Air issuing from the cistern reeked of mud, standing water, and of rot and feces, none of it earthy or pleasant.

“Hello?” he called down the hole. He heard his voice die out. He touched a fingertip to one of the dark, coagulating globs, smudging it between thumb and forefinger. It was softened flesh. A bit of dark hair stuck to it and the smell on his hands was that of road kill in high heat. Gross. He wiped his finger off on his jeans. He heard only a distant drip of liquid. He’d come back with a powerful flashlight. Take a good look before sealing the thing up. Whatever had fallen in and died down there didn’t matter—they weren’t planning on using or improving the condition of the well. As for the words he’d thought he’d heard, it must have been the way the wind can sometimes play tricks on you when it whistles through hollow places. Still, the thing spooked him, and as he walked away, he looked over his shoulder twice, as if expecting to see someone standing back there, watching him go.

* * *

Jan asked him what he was doing when she came out of the house, after stacking the supper dishes, to observe him loading six-foot lengths of galvanized lumber into the back of the pickup.

“Covering up a well Cory found out in the field.” He didn’t lie. “Don’t want him playing around something that isn’t sealed properly. You know how he can be. You tell him ‘no’ and he takes it as three times a ‘yes.’”

“Must have been what Jake Dean told us about,” she said, referring to the agent who’d sold them the property.

“Yup. It still works, but the water’s rancid and not even good for watering plants. No point in not covering it.”

He waited until she returned to the house, then grabbed a powerful laser flashlight, a 100-foot length of nylon rope with a grappling hook, and his hunting rifle and ammunition. He didn’t know what was down there, but he’d take a look and he wanted some protection, just in case. He drove the pickup out to the field. It was going on eight o’clock at night and the sky had deepened to a rose hue along the cloud line. The well’s silhouette looked dark and barren in the fading light, its handle hunched like a giant praying mantis. Terry stopped the truck and cut the engine. He sat for a moment, listening to the night. A few crickets, a heat cicada, the sound of his own breath. He lit a cigarette and inhaled softly, blowing the smoke out into the breeze while his eyes never left the well and his ears remained alert. He decided to watch for a few minutes. Let the landscape go still. A small groundhog waddled along the barren part of the track near the well where the grasses thinned out. It paused, unaware of Terry sitting in the truck watching it, then with curiosity it leapt onto the surface of the well cover. It sniffed at the refuse coating the wood. It went very still.

Stinks, doesn’t it, Terry thought. Terry ground the filter into the truck’s ashtray and went to open the cab door, unconcerned with the groundhog, when something dark bore its way through the well’s broken boards where Cory had played only hours before. With incredible speed and impact, it seized the groundhog. The groundhog shrieked in pain and terror. Blood dark as ink shot into the air, coating the boards and surrounding grasses. Something large shook the groundhog repeatedly until its body went limp.

Terry felt his lower jaw fall open. So taken by surprise was he that he could only stare, still gripping the steering wheel. He watched as whatever had snagged the gopher emerged with shoulders that were hunched together in order to fit through the hole. A dark arm spread out against the backdrop of the sunset, followed by the second arm. A man’s shape hoisted itself through the well cover. It held its catch between its teeth. The man’s hair was long and matted. A fresh stench floated through the air. The man was naked, but covered in slime and filth.

“Oh shit…” Terry blurted. His voice caught the man’s attention.

The man’s head swiveled and Terry was met by the most malevolent pair of luminescent golden eyes he’d ever seen. What looked like a cross between a human face and something beyond simian regarded him. Its upper lip quivered, dark and livery skin that trembled in the way a dog’s mouth will when menaced. It was ageless in the ripple of its muscles set against the sheen of its colorless hair. It squatted on the rotting boards of the cistern, and when it saw Terry looking at it, it dropped its now-dead meal and leaned forward on its haunches, its gonads oscillating beneath its buttocks, its broken nails gripping the boards, its toes wide and splayed. It lost interest in the groundhog as it concentrated on the man sitting rigid in the truck’s cab. If it had once been a man, it had mutated for reasons Terry couldn’t understand. His mind raced. Chemicals or toxins in the soil, a birth defect…

“What in God’s name are you?” Terry felt horror looking at it, thinking that while Cory had played down here alone earlier today, this thing had slept below him. It could have been his son that had been grabbed like the now-mutilated groundhog. He couldn’t fathom how or why, but Terry understood one thing—he had the choice of running for the rifle, or stepping on the gas and reversing. If he ran, the thing would pursue him; he felt certain of it. He threw open the driver’s door and rushed to the rear of the pickup, grappling for the rifle. He got the weapon and flipped the safety at the same moment he heard it coming for him, its feet tearing up stones and bits of grass in its wake. Terry whirled in time to see the beast-man leap at him…and over him, knocking Terry backwards onto his ass. It still held the groundhog in its mouth. The rifle fired a shot into the sky. In the time it took Terry to catch his breath, roll over, and to bring himself back up onto his feet, he saw the beast disappearing into low scrub to his left. A rustling noise, then everything went quiet.

“Damn it!” he exploded. His pulse pounded in his veins. Now the thing was out there. Had it been coming and going like this regularly, and would it return to the well, he wondered? Terry ran in the beast man’s direction, the rifle ready. He found himself standing in waist-high grass and alder. The creature could be anywhere, huddled in the tall grasses, watching him search for it. Night went silent around him again with the exception of a distant train rattling along tracks.

“Terry?”

Terry screamed and spun about, the rifle coming up to his shoulder.

Jan faced him, her face drawn, her eyes wide with concern. “It’s me…what are you doing with a gun? What’s wrong?”

His mind raced. What could he tell her? Would she even believe him?

“I…I thought I saw a cougar in the field. Something big—I’m concerned about Cory playing out here.”

He saw her relax a little; cougars could be a concern, but they were natural, a part of the landscape here.

“Oh hon, you’re a good dad. Still…do you really think it was a cougar?”

He felt his shoulders sag as he brought the rifle down to his hips. “I don’t know,” he said, ashamed to lie to her but knowing her reaction if he’d said a thing that looked part human, part gargoyle had just crawled out of their abandoned well.

“I’m not sure what it was.” At least that much was truth. He saw her move past him to regard the well.

“What’s all over the wood?” She edged closer.

“Don’t go near it!” he exploded.

“Terry, take a pill, for God’s sake. I’m an adult here, too. I can make decisions for myself. This is fresh blood! Did you wound something?”

“I—” he began, not sure what to tell her. “I might have. I took a shot, but I thought I’d missed.”

“Where was it hiding?” she wanted to know. “Was it in the grass?”

He shut his eyes, then opened them again. The evening, a pale indigo now, urged him to get her home. Given the stress they were already under, they didn’t need this.

“It came from the vicinity of the well,” he snapped. “Stop asking me questions. It all happened so fast. We need to go home. I’m not sure where it is, but it might still be close. It had a smaller animal in its mouth. That’s where the blood comes from.” He took her hand and pulled her towards the truck. “Get in and lock your door.”