Strange Magic (2 page)

He’d worn his hat like that, low and tight, for so many years now he actually had a permanent crease on his forehead to mark its position. Of course, with Duke just turning eighty-one years of age, the hat crease was only one of many lines on his wrinkled, barely noticeable brow.

“Damn bird. Gets more sleep than I do, then has the nerve to harp on for hours. Stupid thing would sing all day if I didn’t shut it up.”

It had started this nonsense about two years ago, just after Duke’s wife Jenny passed away, finally losing her battle with cancer. She had always come out and talked to Ricky, telling it what a pretty bird it was. Now the bird continued to sing, not realizing Jenny wasn’t coming to talk to it anymore. Duke knew exactly how the bird felt—he missed Jenny something fierce too.

Ricky strutted around the side of the barn and Duke went back to changing the oil in his 1997 Ford F-150 pickup. He wanted to get it finished because they were calling for rain today. Dark clouds were already rolling in, the heavens getting ready to let loose.

From the looks of things, he still had time before the clouds burst, if he didn’t dawdle. His truck’s red exterior was a bit chipped and rusty, but under the hood the engine still purred like a happy kitten.

“Proper maintenance, that’s the ticket,” he muttered to himself as he labored to crawl beneath the oil pan to tighten the nut back in place.

It took him the better part of five minutes to work himself into position, his age not so much the problem as his ample belly. The lifelong protrusion stuck out over
his belt, stretching his green shirt, pants, and his favorite red suspenders to their limits. Sweat poured down his face, soiling his white mustache and beard, despite the chilly morning breeze. He knew he was dangerously overweight but to hell with it. He’d been heavy all his life, why worry about it now?

A heavy scraping noise down by his feet startled him. Lying beneath the truck, he was unable to see what was making the unusual sound. He tried to peer between his feet but his belly was in the way. He wiggled around a bit to the left just in time to see a pair of dirty black cowboy boots come into view. The well-worn boots walked up to the side of the truck, less than a foot away from him, then stopped.

“Who’s there?” Duke asked. An ominous silence started the old man’s heart racing.

“I said, who the hell’s there?” Duke was trying to sound tough but was failing miserably.

For thirty seconds, nothing happened: neither man spoke, nor moved. Then the black-booted man walked around to the back of the truck. Duke heard that strange scraping sound again and decided he’d better get his fat ass out from under the truck and see what was going on. There was no fear in his decision; he was far too old to be scared. He was more curious than anything. He pushed and pulled, wiggled and squeezed, and finally stood up to see a dark-clothed man starting to heave a large trunk up into the back of his pickup. Duke noticed the trail leading to his truck from the woods. Obviously he’d dragged his trunk from that direction, which explained the weird scraping noises he’d heard, but didn’t help him the least in understanding what was going on.

“Hey, mister, can I help you with something?” Duke asked, his curiosity getting the best of him.

The Stranger set one end of the trunk onto the bed of the red pickup and left the other end on the ground. It wasn’t until he was sure the trunk was well balanced and wouldn’t fall that he turned to face the sweaty old man.

“How you doing, Duke? Long time no see,” the dark man cheerily said, instantly turning on the charm. The trunk had whispered to him the fat man’s name.

“Ahh…okay, I guess,” Duke answered, thoroughly puzzled as to how he knew his name. “Excuse me if I’m being rude, but do I know you? Can’t seem to place your face. Course, my memory isn’t as good as it used to be.”

The Stranger gave the old man his best-friend-in-the-world smile, while listening to the voice in his head.

“Sure you know me, Duke. I used to help out here on the farm. I was a friend of your wife. Used to help Jenny out in the fields.”

The dark man knew he’d been reaching with that last lie but the secret trunk was never wrong, so he’d gone with it. He knew he’d pushed the right button and the lie would work the second he’d mentioned the old man’s wife. The aged farmer’s face lit up instantly, glowing with pride. The Stranger wasn’t even sure if he’d heard the rest of the lie but no matter, he knew this old man wasn’t going to give him any trouble. Through clenched teeth, he forced himself to keep smiling.

“You knew Jenny? Well, why didn’t you say so?” Duke beamed, always happy to talk to anyone who’d known his beloved wife. This guy was a bit weird-looking and Duke still couldn’t remember seeing him around, but any pal of Jenny’s had to be okay. He stuck out his hand to the tall visitor, who shook it eagerly.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr…?” Duke paused in midshake. “Don’t remember your name. What was it again?”

“You can call me Mr. Black if you’d like.”

“Mr. Black it is,” Duke said amiably, although he thought to himself it was a bit formal for his liking. Around these parts, most people liked to be known on a first-name basis, but to each his own. “You can call me Duke, everybody else does.”

With the formalities taken care of, Duke steered back to his original question. “Now, can I help you with something?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the large travel trunk sitting on the edge of his truck bed.

The Stranger cranked up his fake smile as high as it would go, really laying it on thick. He said, “Yeah, matter of fact, you can. I’m really in a big hurry and I don’t want to bother you, but I’d sure appreciate it if you could give me a lift into town. This trunk’s hard to travel with and I could sure use a break from lugging it. I’m not as young as I used to be.”

“Makes two of us, partner,” Duke laughed. “A lift? Sure, no problem. I was heading into town anyway. You’ll have to give me a minute though; I was just in the middle of changing the oil. Won’t take long.”

“No problem, take your time,” the Stranger replied. Things were moving along just fine, just fine indeed. He waited for the old man to top off the oil and slam the rusty hood back into place before moving on with his plan. His
I’m your pal for life
smile was back in place. “Sorry, Duke, but could you help me back here for a second? This trunk’s not so bad to drag, but it’s a bit heavy for one guy to lift. Can you give me a hand?”

“Sure I can.” Duke smiled as he grabbed an end, happy his new friend didn’t consider him too old and useless.
“Man, you’re not kidding, this thing
is
heavy. What have you got in here?”

The Stranger tried to act surprised; as if that wasn’t the exact question he’d been waiting for.

“Well, I don’t know if I should tell you, Duke. You see, it’s kind of a secret.” He paused for a moment, strictly for dramatic effect. “You any good at keeping secrets?”

“Secrets?” Duke asked, noting the fading sign on the side of the trunk advertising “The Greatest Show on Earth.” That got his curiosity really cranked up and running wild. He’d always enjoyed a good secret. Mind you, he wasn’t too sure he was good at keeping them. With his fingers crossed behind his back, he quickly replied, “Yeah, sure I am. No worries. What’s in the trunk?”

“Something wonderful,” the Stranger purred in a dreamy whisper. “Let’s get it all the way up on the truck and I’ll show you. Deal?”

“Sounds good, let’s do it.”

Together they labored to move the trunk into place at the front of the truck bed, just behind the passengerside cab window. It was too long to fit straight on sideways, across the truck, but still wedged snugly on an angle between the side rails tight enough that it wouldn’t tip or slide around anywhere.

“There,” Duke wheezed, wiping sweat from his brow again. “That ought to do it. Can I have a look in it now?”

His fake happy demeanor was now replaced with a genuine smile of pure evil that spread across the dark man’s face. He said, “Sure, Duke, be my guest.”

Duke seemed to shed about seventy-five years of age as he began undoing the thick leather straps on the antique trunk. He worked at them in a near frenzy, an excited child unwrapping his biggest Christmas present.
In seconds, he had the trunk lid open and was peering inside. His childish grin vanished from his face. He was disappointed.

“Hey, what’s going on? This crate’s got nothing in it. It’s empty.”

“It’s
what
?” the Stranger gasped in mock disbelief, ever the showman.

He knew the trunk was far from empty. He knew for a fact he’d put his dirty dishes and blankets in there less than an hour ago. Somewhere in there was also a small dead dog probably looking less and less like Benji by the minute. There was another magnificent thing in the trunk too, but like the others, it was somewhere else at the moment. Not to worry, the Stranger was sure it would make an appearance fairly soon.

“You see?” Duke said. “Empty.”

“Well, so it is,” replied the dark man pretentiously. With a flare, he held up one skinny finger, as if an idea had just occurred to him. “I know what’s going on. You opened the lid wrong. You forgot to knock.”

“I forgot to what?” Duke asked, confused but curious once again.

“To knock,” the dark man said, closing the lid of the trunk as he spoke. “You have to knock on the lid three times before you open it up.”

Duke thought his new friend might be a bit odder than he first thought, but again his curiosity got the best of him and he soon found himself knocking on the wooden lid like he’d been told. After the third knock, the tall man gave him the nod to open the trunk again. When he did, his eyes almost popped out of their sockets. The trunk was no longer empty.

“How in hell…?” was all Duke could manage to say
as he stared down in awe at the collection of things that had seemingly appeared out of thin air.

The Stranger smiled at the old man’s reaction, amused by the look of wonder on his wrinkled face. It was only his blankets and dishes back again, but to the farmer it must have seemed like something amazing had just happened. He was just starting to wonder where the dead dog was, when he spotted it in the far corner. It had changed. The small mutt had been completely stripped down to the bone. Every ounce of hair, skin, fat, and blood was gone, leaving only a few greasy muscles and tendons to hold together the skeleton’s shape. The bones of the small, broken-necked skeleton were so incredibly white they almost looked bleached. Its appearance even caught the Stranger off guard, so it was no great shock when the old farmer noticed the bones and gasped in surprise.

“What’s that thing?” Duke asked, pointing with a shaky finger toward the small skeleton.

“What thing?” The Stranger played stupid, closing the lid of the trunk again.

“Right there in the…” Duke started, but left the sentence unfinished as he opened the trunk to find it completely empty again.

“You forgot to knock again,” the dark man giggled. He was actually starting to enjoy this.

Duke wasn’t enjoying it nearly as much. He was confused. Taking a step backward, as if a wider view might aid him, he stopped to think this through. Here in front of him was a trunk that, according to the sign anyway, was from “The Greatest Show on Earth.” Inside the trunk, things could appear and disappear right in front of his eyes and beside him stood a mysterious darkclothed
man. Although Duke was old and maybe a few ticks slower than he used to be, it didn’t take him too long to add these things up.

“Hey, I get it. You must be some kind of magician or something. Right?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Can you do it again for me?” Duke asked excitedly, pointing back at the trunk. This was by far the most excitement he’d had in ages.

“Do what, Duke?” the Stranger asked, back to the showman routine. “I didn’t do anything. It was you who knocked on the lid, not me.”

This really started Duke’s juices flowing. He literally pounced on the lid of the trunk, showing more energy than he had in decades. He rapped loudly on the lid, bruising his knuckles in the process, but was too excited to notice. He threw the lid open without the slightest hesitation and laughed like a loon when he saw that, indeed, the magic trunk was full of dishes and blankets again.

“Well, if this isn’t the best goddamnedest trick I ever seen! I never even saw you move. You didn’t touch the trunk, did you?”

The Stranger gave him one of those
I can’t reveal my secrets
kind of shoulder shrugs, but said nothing. Duke returned his attention to the trunk and remembered the tiny skeleton he’d seen in the corner earlier. It was gone.

“Say, where’d that skeleton go? You know…the little thing in the corner, kind of looked like a dog or cat maybe. It was fake, wasn’t it?”

“It’s still there, Duke, you just haven’t looked hard enough.” The magician pointed at a lump underneath
the dirty blankets slowly moving up and down. “See what I mean?”

“Holy cow!” Duke shouted, truly amazed. “Now I get it. First you show me a fake skeleton. Then, somehow you swap it for the real thing. I’ve watched these live animal tricks on television before. I’ll bet there’s a puppy or something underneath that blanket, isn’t there?”

The dark man offered no response, and Duke didn’t wait for one. He tore off the dirty blanket with one strong yank, a grin spreading across his face that would have made a great white shark jealous. His smile never did fully form though, his lips freezing in place like a department-store mannequin. Moments later, he started screaming.

Under the blanket was definitely
not
a puppy.

Under the blanket was something so hideous Old Duke Winslow’s mind began to snap. Insanity was a far more attractive alternative than trying to deal rationally with the nightmare his eyes beheld.

The Stranger had been waiting eagerly for this moment. He waited a few seconds to let the true horror of the moment sink in, then rushed at the farmer’s turned back. He hit him with all his strength, a two-fisted hammer blow on top of his head, driving the screaming old man down and on top of the impossible monstrosity lying in the trunk.