Scary Rednecks & Other Inbred Horrors (38 page)

She watched the yellow bait drift by, and toyed with it, tugging gently on the line.
 
She watched through the prism of water as the boy jerked his pole and inspected the now-empty hook.
 
She smiled at her game and knew she would soon add another.
 
She made a few bubbles, each drifting languidly to the surface, enticing the child to her spot.
 
Tempting.
 
Luring.

I had a few nibbles, but nothing serious, probably just some stocked fingerlings.
 
When I was little, I loved catching them.
 
Like my Grandpa, I was a serious fisherman, now.
 
I was a trout man: brown, rainbow, brook,
splake
, cutthroat.
 
Cutthroats
.
 
Now, there was a mean sounding fish—a fish that could meet a man in an alley and make him stop fishing.
 
I had never caught one before, but with a name like that, they had to be pretty mean.
 
Even deadly.

It was cooler near the water.
 
I attached a bobber to my line and let it drift towards the middle.
 
I laid back and stared at the blue sky through the long pine and imagined my corn dangling above a
lunker
like a bone held high above a dog.
 
I kept my grip on the pole and closed my eyes, waiting for the fish to leap up and swallow the kernel so I could show up David and Derek and prove that I was the world’s greatest fisherman.

She saw the feet, young and tender, moving slowly through the mud of the shallows, the toes wiggling as they contacted small rocks, crawdads and a snail.
 
A boy’s fleshy hand dove and pierced the mud like a bird searching for food.
 
She slithered closer until she could examine each fine blonde hair on the boy’s leg.
 
All she needed was to reach out and touch, drag a fingernail along the instep and the child would dance with fear.
 
She glanced toward his concentrating face, and grinned as his eyes passed over her, blinded by the glare of the sun upon the mirrored surface and his disbelief in her truth; never knowing that she was so near.

“Hey, Jeffery!
 
Look, I got a big one.”

The yell jerked me upright and my shoes splashed into the water, soaking them.
 
The chill of the creek cleared my head of daydreams.
 
I checked my still bobber and then glanced over to where David was wading.
 
He held up a
crawdaddy
big enough to be a lobster, its claws snipping at the air and attempting to take off a few of David’s wiggling fingers.
 
It finally managed to snag one and David’s scream was followed quickly by a splash and then a high pitched, “Damn.”

I smiled and laid the pole carefully down, placing my butt upon the reel so if a
lunker
did hit, I’d have a second to keep my pole from going in.
 
I untied my shoes and removed my soaked socks and laid them out to dry on the long grass beside me.
 
Mom wouldn’t be happy if I had wet clothes.
 
She probably wouldn’t let me down to the creek for months, if then.
 

I dangled my feet in the water and held the pole in my lap.
 
The coolness ran up my legs and sent shivers of
goosebumps
along my skin.
 
I watched as David splashed and fell in the shallows, chasing his Mountain Lobster.
 
The funny scene tore through the lingering strangeness of my dream—a dream of a woman, just beneath the water watching us and waiting.
 
My feet stilled their wagging, dead and
wakeless
like my bobber and I fought the urge to jerk them from the water.
 
The urge to run.
 
But I was a fourth grader now. The dream was just a dream.

She felt the tug of belief and allowed it to pull her down the creek and into the place where the children swam; the place where she teased their legs and toes, tickling them until they screamed with fearful laughter, each unsure if it was a leaf, or a fish or a snake, never once knowing the truth.
 
This was the one.
 
She felt his thoughts lurking upon her existence and sent feelers into his soul, massaging his memories and divining his needs.

When the bobber disappeared, I was so surprised at
the hole
having a fish that I stared like I was stupid.
 
The second time, however, I jerked the pole and felt the hook set.
 
I stood up, almost slipping into the water and held the tip of the rod high, ready for the fish to jump and lower it.
 
It was all about being calm, my Grandpa had said.
 
Too many as they are reeling in their catch get excited and lose.

Be calm.
 
Breathe deep.
 
Play it slowly
.

The fish pulled hard and visions of Derek’s disappointed face were foremost in my mind.
 
This one was a
lunker
.
 
Definitely the biggest I had ever hooked.
 
Its jerks and pulls inched me forward as my wet feet slipped on the grass.
 
There was no way I would let go, though.
 
This was not the mother of all fishes, it was the father of all fishes and it was all mine.
 

Patience.

I screamed for David, but didn’t look.
 
I knew the picture of my struggle was enough information for even his dense skull.
 
I traded tugs and whatever was at the end of my line was an equal.
 
Maybe it was a cutthroat— one of those fish my Dad talked about.
 
I dreamed the dream of all fisherman as they played with unknown catches.
 
I was ready.

But I wasn’t.
 
It was a tremendous tug that jerked me into
the hole—
a tug by something immensely more powerful than me.
 
A tug that didn’t even allow me a chance to let go.
 
Before I hit the water, I heard David’s scream and then the silence of the water.
 
As I hit, I let go of the rod, but I’d already fallen deep.
 
My Mom was going to be so pissed.
 
She’d made me promise never to swim here.
 
And no matter how much I argued, she’d never believe my fish story.

I kicked up, my clothes heavy and dragging.
 
I looked through the green water to the sun shining brightly above and made that my goal.
 
I was almost there when the hand grabbed my ankle.
 
It pulled me, reeling me in.
 
I kicked and fought for the surface, my lungs about to pop.
 
I wanted to cry, to scream, but I knew if I opened my mouth, I would surely drown.
 
The hand pulled down and down until I felt the muddy silt bottom.
 
With one leg perched, I used my hands to spin me around and see what had grabbed my leg.
 

Of all the things I’d imagined in nightmares and dreams of dead things, the woman who gripped my leg was the worst and my last.

She hovered just above the bottom, her long red hair catching the small currents as her body wound behind her.
 
Eyes as round and milky as dead fish examined me.
 
Her face was old, like a great grandma, but without the necessary love.
 
Her smile was more of a frown, but even so, I could tell she was happy—happy that she’d reeled me in.

It was then that I screamed and my lungs filled with water.

My Mom visits the spot, now.
 
She comes almost every day.
 
I call to her and tell her I love her, but she is closed to me.
 
When the sun is perfect, it pierces the depths to my face and I feel
its
far away warmth and remember life.
 
Especially David, Super Nintendo and my Grandfather’s tales of things that couldn’t be.
 
Other than when the kids come swimming, their legs dangling just a few feet from where I sit, my Mother’s visits make me the happiest.
 
I know she doesn’t understand.
 
I know she doesn’t know that I’m still here.
 
She believes that I’m really dead—lost.
 
It is the witch.
 
It is her doing.
 
She keeps me and the others so she won’t be so lonely.
 
I have spoken to them in my forever dreams and they tell me their stories.
 
They are all like me.
 
They believed.
 
They were good.
 
It is what the witch needs, what feeds her.
 
It is our dreams of things we can’t have, things dead to us.
 
It is our dreams of dead things that allow her to live.

by Weston
Ochse
& David Whitman

“
S
o then I says, ‘Well, go on then, girl, see if I give a shit,’”
Rolly
said, staring into each and every eye around the campfire like a born storyteller. “And then she ups and throws the goddamn hammer right into the brand new television screen. She looked at me like she done caught a five foot bass—like I’m supposed to be all
fuckin
’ impressed, and put her hands on her hips.”

Mason smiled at his friend and punched him in the shoulder. He liked
Rolly
. The man was much smarter than he played himself to be, but tended to wear his ‘Southern Boy’ like a second skin. “Damn,
Rolly
, you’re never going to be married,” he said, throwing the last of his burnt venison to Get,
Rolly’s
white poodle. “You might as well marry that damn mutt.”

Rolly
grinned crookedly and slapped Get’s rump. “And you know something, she’d make a pretty good bride, too. That’s one bitch who sits when I tell her to sit, begs when I tell her to beg, and rolls over when she wants a good
rubbin
.”
Rolly
grinned, stared off into space for a moment and seemed to ponder the possible domestic qualities of a four-legged bitch as opposed to his normal two-legged ones, but snapped his eyes straight, then spun and glared at Mason. “Hey, Man, don’t be
interuptin
’ while I’m
talkin
.” He scratched his balls. “Now, where was I? Oh yeah, so she’s
standin
’ there with her hands on her hips, the brand new television set
smokin
’ behind her
makin
’ it look like it was
comin
’ from her ears and the top of her head—a regular demon. So, not to be intimidated, I leaned back against the wall, smiled, and said, ‘It’s a good goddamn thing I used your credit card to buy that set.’ And then I got my fat ass out the door before she could get me with the hammer too.”

The faces around the campfire, primed with grins throughout the story, erupted into howling hysterics at the newest tale of their friend’s never-ending battle against the opposite sex. Billy Bob erupted into his trademark guffaws, his immense belly shaking up and down as he roared. Weasel giggled insanely. Forever
Rolly’s
moveable laugh track and sidekick, Weasel was already so drunk his body couldn’t decide which way to lean. Mason shook his head and grinned, laughing on the inside.

Just to the right of the campfire was the carcass of the bear that they had poached, its thick tongue sticking out of the side of its mouth with indignity. It had taken eight shots to bring her down and then about a dozen whacks from the baseball bat. Hunting was something that they all felt was their God-given right to do, despite any law that said otherwise. And Billy Bob, known as BB Spotlight by the sheriffs of thirteen counties, new every law there was going back to the state’s reintroduction to the Union after the Great War of Northern Aggression.

The close circle of friends were still rubbing the tears from their eyes when Get stood up, yelped once, and then darted off into the woods, almost knocking Billy Bob from his log.

“Get!”
Rolly
shouted, staring into the dark trees. “Get your ass back here, girl!”

Mason started laughing, this time on the outside and
Rolly
flashed him a look of irritation. “What in the hell you
laughin
’ at, Mason? This
ain’t
goddamm
funny, there’s wild animals out there,” he said pointing to the dead bear as an example. “Besides, the last time she ran off in the woods she got sprayed by a
fuckin
’ skunk.”

Weasel jumped in with squeaking titters, “And that
fuckin
’ dog was
flamin
’ pink for a month after you bathed her in tomato juice. You had to walk her at night, just
so’s
the other dogs wouldn’t laugh at her.”