Spook Lights: Southern Gothic Horror (4 page)

“How would I know?”

The back door creaked open and slammed. “Maybe I can help out,” Doc sounded rough, the way he always did when he first woke up. “No reason to bother my sister, Edwards. I am far from dead. You start today with no problems.”

“Except for being short a deputy.”

“Ahh, yes. Collins, right? But is that really a problem? He didn’t seem like the law abiding type, if you know what I mean.”

Sheriff’s back got stiff. “You gonna tell me what happened in my jail last night?”

“Not much to tell. Seems your deputy passed out and hit his head just as I was getting up. Now, I would have helped him more if I was able. Lying in the cool earth has such restoring powers. Above ground, with this heat, putting myself back together takes a bit more effort.” He thanked Mama for the biscuit she placed in front of him and kept right on talking. “Possible he might have caught sight of me before I was decent.”

“What about Larry John? Your sister said we needed to talk to him.”

“Grown men run away from responsibility all the time. Probably out doing what every other man is out there doing. Trying to survive.” Doc chuckled, all warm and delighted as he spread sticky molasses on the biscuit and then licked his thumb. “It’s hard for some.”

“Think we’ll see him again around here?” Sounded like Third had already worked things out. I knew I liked him for some reason.

“I doubt it. Highly doubt it.”

“But…” Sheriff said, sounding frustrated.

Doc patted his thick fuzzy beard with a napkin. “You a good man, Sheriff. If you wanted to see Janey, you’d have my blessing.”

“I don’t need your blessing or no one else’s. I do as I please,” Mama said as she took off her apron and tossed it on the table. She stomped out of the kitchen with her nose in the air. A moment later, a door slammed.

“Ain’t that the truth from the Devil’s mouth?” Doc looked over at the taller man. “Janey sure got her ways about her.”

“No secret to me, that’s for sure.” Sheriff looked like he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t.

Doc put on his I’ll-keep-your-spirit-in-a-jar face. “Larry John is gone from here because I found out he wasn’t fit to be around little boys. And I wanted to make good and sure Janey never had to know and feel like she was the cause of it.”

“I see.”

“Now, you, Sheriff. I’d approve of you seeing Janey.” Doc lit his pipe and the smell floated outside, sweet and spicy. “Maybe take her to a picture show. Think on it some.”

“I might just do that, Doc.”

“Anything else, gentlemen?”

“Not at this time.” The men turned to leave.

We scrambled away from the door when we heard the men’s footsteps getting closer. The screen swung wide and out came Third, followed by Sheriff. He ducked to get out the door and put on his hat. Third got behind the wheel, but Sheriff Edwards stood there for a time looking up at our house. Then he got in and the car pulled away, up the long trail to the main road, leaving little dust devils behind.

Me and Jay climbed back on the porch and watched the farm go back to normal. Chickens pecked at bugs in the front yard. Mama was back at the stove. Doc’s chair creaked off and on.

“Thanks, Jezebel. I was mad at you before, but now…” Jay wouldn’t look at me.

I rubbed my hand over his head. It was warm and his short hair felt like the gentle scrape of a cat’s tongue on my palm. “I know. Now is different.”

We sat there watching the police car disappear, hidden by road dust, until Mama called us in for dinner.

Gabe gave a long, productive cough, then scrawled an address on a faded receipt and passed it to the man across the table.

Mike cringed and took the paper with two fingers, glancing at it quickly before slipping it into his suit jacket pocket. “Are you sure about this?”

“If there’s any help for you, it’s there. But I don’t know, man.” He shook his woolly head like a broken puppet left to dangle without a master. Empty coffee cups sat between the men, ignored.

“So, you think this woman can do it?” He frowned at the diner’s laminated menu and tossed it aside. That’s what he hated about the South, you couldn’t get good food here late at night. In New York, you could get any kind of food, any time of day—get anything, really—if you had the money to pay for it.

“Maybe.” Gabe chewed at his cuticles. A strip of dirt lay under his nails. When the waitress refilled his mug, he grasped it with both hands and held the white stoneware against his lips. “So warm.”

Gabe had been his link to the seedy side of the tracks when he visited his grandparents each summer, able to get liquor and cars, and girls who didn’t know better. In all things shady and south of the Mason-Dixon, Mike trusted him. “Look. If I’m gonna get involved in this kind of thing, it needs to work. And fast.”

“I hear you.”

“Thing I don’t get is how did Karen move all those accounts without me noticing? I wonder if she found out about…”

Gabe grimaced. “You didn’t exactly try to hide it.” His voice turned wistful. “You had it so good with her.” 

“You don’t even understand.” The bell on the door tinkled and three squealing teenagers in shorts and flip-flops tumbled into the all-night grease bucket. Mike continued in a hard whisper. “Can this witch—”

“
Mamb
o
,” Gabe corrected, his breath like sour beer.

“What?”

“She is
a
mamb
o
, not a witch. A priestess, a vessel for—”

“Whatever you wanna call her. Can she bring Karen back?”

“I think so. You just have to pay.” Gabe pulled the wrinkled coat closer around his thin frame and shivered. “But I dunno how much it will be.”

Mike stood and threw a twenty on the Formica tabletop. “Go get yourself some rest, bro. And a shower. You reek.”

Back outside, Mike programmed the address into his car’s GPS. Gabe’s scribbling made the words look as though they read:
9 Mystery Rose.

“It’s ‘Road’. Damn drunk.” Mike relaxed into the plush interior of the midnight blue coupe as it slid through the half-lit streets. Litter danced macabre steps with the wind in the shadows of the abandoned buildings.

A silhouette darted in front of the car.

“Holy shit!” Mike stood on the brakes. A symphony of screeching tires and florid curses severed the silence. The hunched figure skittered away and faded from view.

Unable to locate address.
The guidance system blinked, as if confused.

“Piece of crap. You had it a minute ago.” Mike pressed every button on the screen built into the dashboard, but the machine refused to respond. He looked around. No one in sight to ask.

A cloud shifted, leaving the moon exposed and brighter than the flickering streetlights. “There it is.”

Number nine crouched at the end of Mystery. A lonely lamp fought to illuminate the shop’s front window. Mike parked illegally, on the double yellow lines, sure no cop was anywhere near this place. He hopped out of the car and jogged the few steps to the storefront. He peered inside, and a fluttering movement made him jump back. The door opened and the sweet heat of oranges and chilies wafted onto the balmy air.

He walked into the shop, ducked under the bundles of dried herbs hung upside- down from the ceiling. One wall displayed amber bottles in various sizes, all without labels. A large crow swung on a stand in the corner, its black eye following him as he moved. A single white candle glowed next to the bird and Mike could see his reflection in its unblinking eye. He took a step back toward the entrance.

A nut-brown woman motioned him deeper into the murky room. Her skin, while no longer taut, remained unlined. Two salt-and-pepper plaits escaped from the patterned headscarf wrapped into dizzying spirals around her head.

“What can I do for you,
mon fils
?” She didn’t smile as she settled her stooped frame onto a stool next to an antique secretary’s desk covered with what looked like sheets of parchment.

“Um, yes. I was told to come here for—” Words failed him when he saw her slice the pad of her thumb and deposit a few drops of blood into a ceramic bowl. This shit was crazy.  Even Karen wasn’t worth this. “Actually, I’m just looking.” Mike slid backward a step. Two.

Her rheumy eyes turned sharp and pinned him like an insect. “Everyone come here for something. You don’t find Zéphyrine less you need her.”

“My wife died and I was told you could…could…” He swallowed with difficulty. The woman seemed content to wait through his discomfort. “Bring her back to life. I need to talk to her one more time.”

Zéphyrine didn’t reply, but added a few spindly dried twigs to the blood in the bowl. No other sound moved in the hot shop except the rustling of bird’s wings. “Gabriel tell you this?”

Mike nodded, then spoke when the woman frowned. “Yes, ma’am.” He pulled his shirt collar away from his neck, then unfastened the top button.

“What else?”

“He said I had to pay you.”

“Always payment.”

Mike rocked back and forth on his heels while the woman continued to add pungent items from the drawers in the desk to the bowl, heedless of his impatience. Unused to waiting, he tamped down his budding frustration and surveyed the store. A bowl of pomegranates rested on a window ledge, their coarse skins dried and tight. Rolls of parchment similar to the ones on the antique desk were tied with twine and piled seven deep into wine racks. Drawn to the supple finish on a ring box covered in pale, soft leather on a side table, he reached for it.

“Don’t touch that.”

He yelped and spun around. The mambo, fists on her generous hips, stood toe to toe with him. The top of her head came up to his shoulder.

“How did your wife die?”

“She got sick and—”

“You killed her,” the woman interrupted.

Mike’s jaw dropped and he looked around him, as if he could locate a camera hidden among rows of incense cones and twirling dreamcatchers. “No, I didn’t! Of course not. I loved her.”

She flicked her tongue at him. Thick and black, it left the scent of wet ashes on the air. “I can taste your lie.” She advanced on him and he banged against the table behind him in an effort to retreat.

A high, weedy screech came from the box as it fell to the stone floor and cracked open. Thin, dark liquid seeped from the damaged corner. “I’m sorry.”

“
L
a verité
, Michael.” Her accent deepened; its richness covered him, mesmerized him, lulled his tongue to loosen. “I will hear only the truth
.
”

Mike’s vision swam and he swallowed hard, turning away from her searching eyes. “I never could keep a job, but I need money for my lifestyle. Clothes, cars, trips. I was drowning in debt when Karen came along, with her convertible and her trust fund. She spent a fortune on me.” His eyes locked with the crow’s unblinking gaze. “When we got married, it changed. She put me on an allowance. Said I was burning through her family’s money. Said I needed to be a man and get a job and stop bleeding her dry. That set me off.”

When the haze of truth lifted, he returned his eyes to Zéphyrine and she was nodding. “How long ago?”

“About three months.”

“And you want to know how she hide the money from you? Where it is now? So you don’t have to hit a lick at a snake for the rest of your days?” Her skinny plaits wiggled as she shook her head. “I never understand a man don’t want to work.”

“But I—”

She held up a hand. “Don’t matter. Don’t care.” Zéphyrine went back to the desk and poured the contents of the ceramic mortar into a woven pouch and secured it around her neck. “Payment is due when I do the work.”

“You don’t care that I killed her?”

“Judgment is not mine. Can you pay?”

What was the going rate for a resurrection? Gabe had said that it had cost him everything he owned, which wasn’t much—a few thousand dollars and probably his piece of shit car. Ten thou wouldn’t make a dent in Karen’s cash. They’d had close to fifteen million the last time he peered over her shoulder at the summary statement from their accountant. He looked around the shop with a careful eye. Although with the state of this place, the witch woman—mango, mambo, who knew?—a couple of grand would be like winning the lottery.

“I’ll pay whatever. As long as you’re not wanting a pound of my flesh.” He quipped, hoping the only Shakespearean reference he knew wouldn’t become a portent of his fate. 

She didn’t share the joke, didn’t even react, instead pointing to a dim corner. “I am not in the skin trade. Let us go.”

He took the shovel she indicated. There was no sign of the box, save for a smudged trail of dark liquid where it had fallen.

***

Mike followed the old woman as the full moon guided her through the cemetery. She navigated the weary tombstones with grace, making sure her steps never fell on a grave. The moon stopped and hovered over an unmarked section of the well-kept graveyard where the grass had just begun to grow in.

Zéphyrine snorted in disgust. “You didn’t buy a stone for her?” A thin metal frame plunged into the ground held a piece of paper with a woman’s name written in with black marker.

“I didn’t have time. I was waiting until I had the money to do it right.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Dig.”

Mike took off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves. Piles of earth grew higher behind him. His back throbbed, but thoughts of instant financial security drove the shovel deeper. Sweat poured from him. Fine-grained dirt abraded his face and arms. He was aching, ready to stop for a breather when he heard a metallic thud. A few more scrapes of the shovel and he forced the blade of the shovel into the corner of the casket and wedged it open.

Karen lay in the unlined casket, hands folded on top of her prim charcoal suit, her dusky skin ashen. Lank black hair rolled in waves past her shoulders.

Decomposition had yet to eat away all of her serene face, but the skin on her hands had tightened and shrunk them into claws. Zéphyrine leaned in and sprinkled the contents of the pouch onto the body as she murmured in a melodic French.
“
Réveill
e
.”

Karen’s eyelids flipped open. A hazy film covered her no-longer-bright eyes, but the orbs rotated in their sockets until they found Mike’s cringing form.

Mike pressed against the back of the hole to reassure himself of an escape route. “K-Karen, honey?”

Her jaw opened with a pop and she struggled to sit up. Her right hand caressed her left, then wandered up to smooth her disheveled hair. “Where is…my ring?” Her voice was painful to hear, ragged and unused.

Terror sliced his flesh and crawled in. “I had to sell it. You were gone so fast.”

“What…do you…want?”

He thought of what he would do if Karen lunged at him. He could use the shovel. Or if he couldn’t get to it in time, he knew his hands fit around her neck.

“The dead do not breathe, Michael.” Zéphyrine said, her accented English crisp and dry.

Shit
.
He turned his attention back to his late wife. “Karen, I miss you. I can’t be with you, but I need to ask you a question.”

The corpse waited.

“Where did you move our money, baby? I went to settle up some bills and it was gone. Our accounts had barely enough for your funeral.” Sweat ran down his face, but he wouldn’t wipe it away, in case Karen mistook it for tears.

“I moved it… I thought you were…cheating. Stupid...”

“You know I’d never do that to you.”

Karen’s face contorted in a rictus smile. “Central Credit…Union. In my…maiden name.” She creaked her head to look at Zéphyrine. When she faced her husband again, the smile turned knowing and the wheezing was no more. It was the voice of disdain he’d hated so much that he’d choked it out of her. “Don’t worry, my love. We’ll be together soon.”

Mike slammed the coffin shut. As he clambered out of the dank hole, he could hear Karen’s cackling laughter. Free from the hole, he brushed dirt from his slacks and tried to catch his breath. “I’m getting as far away from this freak show as possible.”

“There is still the matter of my payment.”

“Right. When I get the money tomorrow, you’ll get paid.”

“Payment is due when I do the work.”

“Look, I don’t have it right now. You heard her; it’s in the bank. But I’ll get you your payment, I swear.”

“You already have it.”

She reached out to him and he knocked her hand away, then pulled out his wallet. “Here’s thirty bucks. That’s all I’ve got on me.”