Devil Dead (12 page)

The shed used to be weathered gray from the rain and wind, but one time in the middle of the night, her mommy had started screaming that the shed looked ugly and jerked Diana out of her bed and told her that the Horned God was waiting out there in the shed and had ordered them to come worship him. That scared Diana half to death, but when they got out there and threw open the door, nobody was inside but them. Her mommy had told her then that Satan himself must have come calling at the shed and taken the Horned God away to hell. She told her that she had been down to hell, too, and that she had met many demons and seen all of Satan's evil things and met his huge hell hound dogs and his evil giant birds that clawed and ate human flesh. Diana listened to all of that, but she was afraid of what Luna might do next. Luna was getting worse all the time. She just acted so crazy all the time.

After that day, Mommy started telling Diana that Luna was the Devil Incarnate, whatever that was, and that Diana was a Demon Princess. She sure hoped Mommy stopped being the Devil Incarnate soon. Diana was getting really, really scared of her mommy. She was going to look for an even better hiding place down on the bayou and stay there whenever her mommy turned into the Devil Incarnate and came looking for her. She didn't want to be a Demon Princess. She didn't even know what a Demon Princess was.

Then early one winter morning, well before the sun came up over the trees and the day was still gray and misty and cold, Luna came into Diana's bedroom and jerked back her covers. She grabbed Diana up out of the bed, and Diana screamed with fright. But her mommy seemed herself again, and she was laughing and picking Diana up and twirling around with Diana in her arms, very happy, just like she used to be. Diana clutched her around the neck and held on tight, never quite sure what was going to happen next. Spirit was barking and jumping up on their legs, happy, too, and her mommy put her down and gently cradled Diana's little face between her palms like she liked to do when she was telling her something important, something that she needed to try very hard to remember.

“Good morning, my darling little one, my beautiful little Diana, my Good Princess of the Wiccans. Come, come, today we're gonna learn many new things, wonderful, lovely, miraculous things. I'm gonna take you hunting for your very first time, and we are going to kill some beautiful animals for you to stuff in my workshop. But first we will kneel down and worship them and ask their permission to use them for our taxidermy needs and their permission for us to eat their tender bodies in order to sustain our lives. Just like I have told you many times before.”

“I don't know how to kill anything, Mommy.”

“I'm Luna now, darling, you must remember that. But I will teach you all that you need to understand, sweetness. I will teach you everything I know. I will teach you to use a knife and a gun and how to break the necks of wounded prey so they do not suffer long. I will teach you how to skin and gut the animals, just the right way, so we can stuff them and sell them to our neighbors, for that is our livelihood. That's the way I make our money, and you will make yours that way someday, too. Okay? You will be my little helper in my taxidermy business and in all else that I ever do. You're my life, my only love, my other half, my beautiful Diana. You'll like helping me, won't you, darling heart?”

“Yes, Luna.” But she was pretty sure she wasn't gonna like it. She was pretty sure she was gonna hate all of it.

Luna ran to the dresser and grabbed out some shorts and a T-shirt, the one with a picture of puppies sitting inside a basket on the front. “What kind of animal do you want to start with, lovebug? Huh? Today will be your special choice. You can kill it and skin it and gut it, all by yourself.”

“Okay. Well, a rabbit, I guess, but I don't really want to kill anything.” Diana looked up at Luna, who just kept smiling down at her. There was something that had been troubling Diana for a long time, something she feared very much, and she felt that she had to ask her mommy about it. “You aren't never gonna kill Spirit, are you, Mommy? He's a very good dog, he truly is. He'll be good, I promise. We won't never have to ever stuff him up and put those glass eyes in him and sell him, will we? He never does anything bad, nothing at all. He helps you take care of me.”

“Not if you're a good girl. But there will come a day when we'll have to make him last forever. When he dies all by himself, you know, when he gets too old, or a water moccasin bites him, or something like that. Then we'll fix him up so you can put him in your room right beside your bed, just where he always sleeps, on that little rag rug. Then the two of you can always be together. Won't that be sweet, honey? I have always stuffed all my beloved pets. It's the way to preserve things that you're never ready to give up. That's what Gram did, too.”

“But I don't wanna stuff him. He wouldn't like it. He likes to run and play. He wouldn't want to sit in my bedroom all day.”

“You will like it, darling, once you see how lifelike we can make our dear dead friends.”

“I don't want to.”

“Come along now. Don't make Luna angry. She doesn't like to get mad, but sometimes you make her very angry. Please don't do that, Diana.”

“Yes, Luna.”

Then Luna looked very serious and she knelt and held Diana by her slender shoulders. “Sweetie, you must listen and try to learn all that I am going to teach you. Remember, you are special and you don't always learn things so well, but you must learn how to be self-sufficient and take care of yourself, because I won't always be here with you. You will be all alone, and you must know how to live on your own and kill meat to eat and grow vegetables in the garden and take care of everything around here.”

“But where are you going, Mommy? I mean, Luna.”

“I will die someday, just like the animals we hunt. But the Moon Goddess will still be here, and she will guide you in the right path to follow. Someday, when I am gone, a man, or perhaps a woman, might come to check on you. If they see that you are all alone out here, then they will take you away and put you in a place for orphaned children or some kind of foster home. You don't want to go to any of those places, darling. When I am gone, you must hide from everyone and take care of yourself. Some of our neighbors will help you, too, if you ever get hurt or in trouble. I will ask them to check on you. Okay, Diana? You think you can remember all of that?”

“I guess so. But I don't want you to die.”

Luna smiled and pulled her close for a nice tight hug. “It won't be for a long time, sweetie. You'll probably be a big girl when it happens, okay?”

“Okay.”

After that, Diana was really confused about what was going to happen to her. She didn't understand any of it, but she obediently followed Luna downstairs and then out to the shed where Mommy stuffed all the animals that she hunted for their meat and for their hides. Diana didn't like the taxidermy shed, not at all. She thought it was spooky inside, with dead animals hanging up by their tails on the tree branches outside, and other ones from the rafters inside, their blood dripping slowly into two-pound Folgers coffee cans. Some of them didn't even have any skin on their bodies, anymore. Luna had cut it all off. So the ones they didn't eat just hung there, naked and rotting and dead until Luna threw their carcasses into the fire pit beside the bayou.

Inside, the shed didn't have all the pretty Wiccan symbols on the walls or the bright candles, so it was really gloomy and dark. The pentacles and candles in the Sanctuary always made Mommy act nice. It was cool and dark inside the shed because the sun hadn't come up yet. But it wasn't the night of a full moon, so they wouldn't be having their sacred Wiccan rituals, and that was too bad. She liked what happened to Luna when the moon was full. That's when she was real nice to Diana and Spirit.

“Okay, sweetness. Today, we're gonna go hunting with our bows and arrows. I bought you one just the other day when I was in Walmart. See, look here, it's just your size.”

Diana took hold of the bow and felt how tight the string was. She kinda liked the way it felt. Mommy's was much bigger and longer and called a compound bow, and Mommy showed her the long arrows with the feathers on the ends and the sharp steel points. Then she showed Diana how she could dip the tips in a certain kind of poison that acted real fast so that the animal would die quickly. She said that would make it easy for them to track it and cut off its skin and pull out its insides so they could stuff it and display it on their porch and sell it down at the swamp store that catered to the tourists. But they could never eat one they killed with their arrows.

That sounded like a lot of awful things all in a row for Diana to have to think about, but she smiled and nodded, afraid not to act happy about her first hunting trip. Mommy might turn back into Bad Luna if Diana didn't do what she said. She didn't want that to happen. No telling what Bad Luna would do this time. So she followed her mommy down the little gravel path that ran alongside the bayou until they passed the one shallow swimming hole where it was okay for Diana to wade without fear of the gators, and then onto the weedy and overgrown trail that led deeper into the swamp.

Then finally, her mother turned around and placed her forefinger against her lips. “You must remember to be very quiet. We're goin' out and hide in the thickets and wait for the rabbits and squirrels to start stirrin'. Those rabbits love it here in the shade. I'm sure you'll get one for your very first kill.”

Diana did as she was told and leaned her back against an oak tree and practiced putting the arrow against the string. Mommy told her that was called notching the arrow. But then, she made a real terrible mistake. She accidentally let go of the string and sent her arrow flying and it hit a tree trunk and fell to the ground with a little
thunk
.

Luna jumped up. “You stupid little brat! I told you not to do that! You never listen to me, do you? You hear me, Diana! Are you listenin'? You want me to throw you in the water for the gators! That it? That what you want? I wish the alligators would eat you up so you'll leave me be. You're more trouble than you're worth.”

Then Mommy slapped her hard on the cheek, and Diana tried not to cry. Her mommy stared at her a moment, and then she seemed to wake up and realize what she'd done. “Oh, sweetness, what happened? Did your arrow hit you? You poor little thing, you little darling. Look at that big red place on your cheek. You have got to be more careful or you won't be able to come out huntin' with me. I don't want you to get hurt. I love you too much for that.”

“Yes, Luna,” Diana said, holding her palm against her stinging cheek. She just wanted to go home and hide under her covers. She didn't know who her mommy was anymore, but she sure didn't like her much, either.

When Luna finally got tired of shooting the little animals for her daughter to learn to stuff, she made Diana carry them home by holding on to their little soft bunny tails. Diana just felt sorry for them, because that sharp arrow cut right through their little hearts and made them die. But after they fetched the dead bunny, Mommy had said prayers over it and thanked it for giving its life so they could stuff it and sell it, and Diana supposed that was a good thing. Mommy said they would take the rabbit she found in her trap by the bayou and make rabbit stew for supper with carrots and potatoes and onions and a special kind of chocolate cake for dessert, and it would all taste just so very delicious that the rabbit would feel good about dying so they could eat him up and live their lives.

Then she took Diana into the shed and began to carefully skin the poor little bunnies with a great big sharp knife. It wasn't the athame, though, because that was sacred and not to be used except to direct positive influences toward them. Mommy made the incisions carefully and in just the right spots, and made Diana watch her pull and tug the rabbit's hide right off, like she was stripping off its little tight shirt. When she was done with that and had its skin hanging up to dry out a bit, she made Diana take hold of the second little baby rabbit and peel off its hide. It was horrible and made Diana cry and made her stomach roll around inside her belly.

“I know you don't like this part of the process, lovebug, but you just wait now, little one. When we're all finished up and it looks like it's still alive and lookin' back at you, you'll love what we're doin' here. You can keep it in your room, too, so you can remember your very first try at taxidermy. I know you're goin' to love doin' this as much as I do. I just know it. It's our family business, you know. All of your family's done taxidermy work for years and years, stretching back, well, just forever.”

Diana wasn't so sure that she'd ever love any of it. She stood obediently by the table and watched her mother jerk and pull off more rabbit's fur. It looked sickening. Her mother never stopped talking, explaining, as she ripped off more hide and slit it so it would come loose. “You listenin' to me, dear? To stuff it so it will last, you will need to scrape out the brains with this little silver spoon. Gram used this same spoon, too. See how I'm doing it, diggin' it in real careful-like? We'll put the brains in our next milk bath so we can commune with the rabbit's spirit, or I can use it in our summonin' spells. You should always preserve the brains of the animals that you bring home. Now let's take out his little eyes and scrape his little bones so that you can work with them.”

“Mommy, I feel kind of sick, I think I'm gonna . . .” but that was the last thing Diana remembered before she ran outside, fell on her knees, and heaved up every last bit of her breakfast. She hated it, hated everything, hated her whole life. She wished she was just dead like all those poor little rabbits.