Whispers From The Dark (14 page)

Somewhere in the woods, an owl hooted aimlessly over the chirping cacophony of crickets and tree frogs.

Leon was glad his little girl could experience the splendor of the woods, even though she was still too young to appreciate it.  Years from now, he knew, she’d look back on these camping trips with fondness.  And as long as he had his way, she’d end up inheriting this property when he died.  Hopefully his grandkids would be able to carry on the camping tradition.  The thought made him smile.

At the fire, Missy laughed as Gail’s marshmallow caught fire and turned to a crisp black wad of goo.

In the middle of the field, too far away for any of the campers to see or hear, the kudzu shifted as something beneath it moved.

***

Roscoe wouldn’t let them sleep.  Leon could hear him pacing outside; making his way back and forth alongside the camper and truck, every few steps punctuated by a growl or bark.  He’d started it just as Leon had extinguished the fire and joined his family in the camper, and hadn’t stopped since.  Missy had been asleep for at least a half-hour before the dog started, and he thankfully hadn’t woken the youngster up.

“I wish he’d just chase whatever the hell it is off or catch it,” Gail muttered through the pillow she’d drawn over her head.

“I’ll yell at him again,” Leon said as he slid out of bed.

“Yelling at him isn’t going to shut him up.  Just bring him inside.”

“And deal with him doing it while he’s in here with us?  No thanks.”

Halfway to the door, Leon heard a loud rustling noise as Roscoe charged through the kudzu.  The dog let out another bark, and then fell silent.

Leon opened the door and peered out into the night.  The moon and stars illuminated the field, giving it a menacing grayish glow.  Forty feet from the camper, the kudzu was shaking.  Leon could hear quiet growls and guttural noises coming from the dog as it chased whatever animal was out there.

Satisfied that the dog was finished keeping the family awake, Leon closed the door and made his way back to bed.

He and Gail were both fast asleep within minutes.

***

Leon’s bladder woke him at the crack of dawn.  He lay in bed a minute, wishing that the camper wasn’t too small for a bathroom.  He tried to fall back asleep, but his aching bladder and the morning sun slipping through the windows wouldn’t permit it.

Groggy, he stumbled from bed and slipped on his shoes.  He opened the door, careful not to wake his wife or daughter.

A heavy dew had fallen, glistening on the grass and the leaves of the kudzu.  The sun, just cresting the mountains in the distance, hadn’t yet burned away the fog, and a heavy mist hung over most of the field.

He stood just outside the camper for a moment, taking in the peacefulness of the morning, and then headed for the nearest tree. 

 Once he’d finished he squatted beside the fire pit and stirred the coals with the stick Gail had used to roast her marshmallows.  Several glowing embers emerged from the ash and he tossed some kindling on and watched with a smile as the flames returned to life.

With the fire up and going again, he grabbed the metal coffee pot and headed to the creek to fill it.  One of his favorite things about camping was the first cup of coffee in the morning; just instant Folgers coffee, but sipping it beside a fire as the forest sprang to life with the morning was a simple comfort for him that he never failed to enjoy.

As he returned from the creek with the water his eyes caught a flicker of light, shooting across the field from beneath one of the large mounds of kudzu.  He paused, angling his head back and forth.  The light came again.  It looked like light glinting off of something.

A truck.

The realization crept into his mind, defying logic.  It was the only thing that it could be; last year there had been nothing in the field that was capable of reflecting light, or that would allow the kudzu to grow over it.

Leon glanced to the other tall mounds of vine.  They all resembled one another in shape and size, though he could see no flashes of light coming from them.

 Leon set the coffee pot beside the fire and walked to the edge of the kudzu, surveying the ocean of giant green leaves.  The plant’s sudden conquest of the field still made him nervous, but the unease was taking a backseat to his curiosity.

The most logical explanation was that somebody was hauling their junk cars to his field and leaving them for the elements.

It didn’t make sense for some local rednecks to decide that his field was a great spot for a goddamn junkyard, as far out from civilization as it was.  But then again a lot of what the locals did didn’t make sense to him.  Most of them still treated the forests as if they belonged to everyone, and for the most part Leon didn’t mind that attitude.  The land was beautiful and unspoiled; if a camper pitched a tent in the field when Leon wasn’t using it, if a farmer wanted to cut the grass for hay, if a hunter wanted to try and bag a deer or turkey on his property, no big deal.

But leaving a bunch of rust buckets for him to deal with was a little much; the mere thought of it set Leon’s blood to boiling.

He had to investigate.  As much as he hated to wade through the sea of kudzu, as nervous as the ferocity of the plant’s growth made him, he owned this land and he had to know what was being done to it when he wasn’t here.

And even if the mounds didn’t cover vehicles, he still felt he needed to know just what they were.  Something metallic was beneath the vine; something that hadn’t been there during the family’s last camping trip.

His morning coffee temporarily forgotten, Leon stepped into the kudzu and headed towards the closest heap of kudzu.

Walking was difficult; the thick tangles of vine caught on his feet, wrapping around his ankles with each step.  It took several minutes to cover the couple of hundred feet to the mound, a trip that would have normally taken a fourth of the time.

Leon reached the large heap of kudzu and studied it, unable to see beyond the emerald leaves aside from a small area near his knee that was more sparse than the rest; there he could make out a sliver of something metallic, and was sure that had been the source of the glimmer that had drawn him out into the field.  Finally he thrust his hands into the mass, gripped fistfuls of the vine, and spread them apart, peering into the cavity he’d made.  His assumption had proven to be true.  The plant had completely devoured it, and although he could only see a few feet of the vehicle there was no mistaking the cherry red paint or the chrome bumper below.  Someone had dumped a vehicle here--three of them according to the pair of similar mounds--but something about it wasn’t right.

The small area that Leon could see looked new.  Too new to be a junk car.  The red was vibrant and the chrome was still polished to a sheen, as if the kudzu had preserved a pristine vehicle within its green cocoon.

Leon wrestled with the kudzu, ripping it from the metal until he’d revealed the back half of a Ford pickup.  It was new—definitely not something someone would just abandon for no reason.  The bed of the truck held a five gallon gasoline jug, a pitchfork, and a few crushed beer cans.  The license plate was still attached to the truck, not yet expired.  Beside it a bumper sticker asked the question “If it’s called tourist season…why can’t we shoot ‘em?”  At the sight of the sticker, Leon chuckled to himself.  It was a common sentiment amongst the locals here, he knew.  He was pretty sure he’d even seen the sticker before, on…

A chill swept over him as Leon realized that he recognized the truck.

He’d seen the sticker before, alright; on this very vehicle.  It belonged to Bud Bowers, the man who, along with his son and brother in law, cut hay from this field twice a year.  Leon had only met Bud twice, but he remembered the cherry-red truck and the anti-tourist sticker proudly displayed on the chrome bumper.

Leon glanced again to the other mounds of kudzu.  A sick feeling trolled its way through his gut as he realized that if he investigated them, he would most likely find a farm tractor and another truck buried beneath the kudzu.

Fear gripped him like a vise, his head swimming as he fought off what he was sure was an oncoming panic attack.  He knew he’d made a mistake, not listening to his gut instincts yesterday.  As soon as he’d seen the kudzu he’d felt that something was wrong, now he knew he‘d been right.  Between the plant and the abandoned truck, Leon knew that somewhere beneath this sea of tangled vine and deep green leaves were the bodies of Bud Bowers and his extended family members, overtaken by some unknown force…likely the same force that had birthed forth this ungodly plant.  Now, like a damn fool, Leon had doomed his own family to the same fate as Bud.

Leon shook off the thoughts, focusing on his breathing and trying to calm himself.  It seemed to take an eternity before he was able to ignore the terror that was assaulting him and concentrate on what to do.  He could be wrong.  He was letting fear get the better of him.

“We have to go.”  He said to himself, barely able to hear the words over the pounding heartbeat drumming through his head.

He ran, or at least tried to.  A half-dozen steps from the truck and the kudzu tangled around his ankles again and he slammed face first into the thick vine, cussing himself and the hellish plant

Pulling himself to his feet, Leon saw movement in the kudzu, a hundred or so feet to his right and halfway between him and the campsite.  The green vines rustled slightly and then heaved upwards and back down, as if the plant were taking a deep, asthmatic breath.

Leon froze, his eyes staring at the kudzu.  Nothing moved.

Roscoe?  Leon said a silent prayer that it was the dog as he began to make his way back to the camp, trying to hurry but knowing that another attempt at running would result in a second fall into the kudzu.  As he approached it, he scanned the campsite for any sign of the mutt.  His mind had been sidetracked this morning, and he had completely forgotten about Roscoe.  Normally the dog would be trotting around at his heels as he made coffee and breakfast, begging for a strip of bacon or a belly scratch.  This morning he was nowhere to be seen.

As he waded back towards the camp, Leon whistled sharply and watched for the dog to come crashing from the kudzu.

Other than Leon, nothing moved.

Leon clucked his tongue rapidly and whistled again, but Roscoe was nowhere to be seen.  Odds were he was off chasing a squirrel or rabbit; he may not have even returned from his pursuit of whatever he’d been after last night, for all Leon knew.

But even if that were true, it left an even bigger question.  What the hell was underneath the kudzu that would make it move like that?

Groundhogs, raccoons, even Roscoe wasn’t large enough to make an entire section of the plant swell and recede the way it just had.

A deer, maybe?  A black bear?  Or something worse?  Something that had killed Bud Bowers and his family and left their vehicles to be swallowed up by the kudzu?

Leon gave up on trying to call the dog and concentrated on getting out of the overgrown section of the field.

The sound of rustling vine sounded out again, forcing a glance back to the spot he’d just seen the movement.  The kudzu heaved upwards again, but instead of receding it lurched forwards.  Leon couldn’t see what was beneath the plant; the movement of the green leaves was his only clue as to where the thing was, the kudzu rising and falling like a mole trail as the thing barreled after him.  .

He let out a short, terrified yelp and tried to pick up his pace.  The thing was quicker, obviously unimpeded by the kudzu’s tangles.

Panic overtook him and he broke into a run, though it was cut short after only eight steps as he tripped again, pitching headlong into the plant.

As he pushed himself to his knees, a low rumbling sound came from the rustling kudzu and the vine gave way, splitting in half as large chunks of earth flew upwards as the creature charged out of the earth.

Leon froze, rooted to the ground, shocked at what he was seeing.  He tried to run, but he couldn’t will his body into action.  All he could do was stare.

A black, legless, thing slithered up from the kudzu, glistening in the sunlight.  It looked almost exactly like a garden slug, only the size of a car.  There were no eyes that Leon could see, only two small bumps on the top of the thing’s head.  Beneath the bumps a toothless, gaping maw opened and closed like a fish’s mouth.

Something in the body of the thing moved, pressing outward from it.  Leon recognized the slender snout of his missing dog, still alive and trying to push his way out of the hellish monstrosity's gelatinous body.

The thing was upon in him in an instant, working its mouth in silence as Leon disappeared into its belly, too horrified to even manage a scream.

***

Missy woke her mother with a gentle shake, whispering “Mom” as she did.

Gail opened her eyes and smiled at her daughter, angelic in the glow of the light coming through the camper windows.  The sun was high, judging from the brightness and heat.  Leon had let her sleep in, as usual.

“Hey baby,” Gail whispered back at Missy.  “Good morning.”

“I’m hungry, Mom.”

Gail nodded.  “Okay.  Where’s Daddy?”

“Haven’t seen him.  I looked out the windows, but you guys said not to go outside unless one of you could watch me.”

Such a good child, Gail thought.  Most kids would have been out of the camper in a flash, yelling for their parents or just playing by themselves, throwing rocks in the creek or poking sticks into the fire.  She sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Let’s go find him, then.”  Gail said as she crossed the camper and slipped on her shoes.  “Maybe he’s already got breakfast ready for you.”

Missy smiled up at her mom.

Gail returned the smile and opened the door and the two of them stepped out into the warm summer sun, ready for whatever the day held in store for them.