By Robert Pettus
“Wake
up and dance, you old bitch!” came a booming, slurred voice. The sound of it
reverberated off the thin walls of the now closed dive bar.
Mikey
nudged the bartender, Elliot, who was sleeping in a Windsor-back side chair in
front of the counter. He was snoring, sliding slowly from his seat. Elliot,
being the only bartender, also owned the bar.
Mikey
kicked Elliot, he thought gently, in the shins. Elliot lunged forward, snapping
awake:
“What
the fuck!” he said.
“Wake
up and dance,” repeated Mikey, now boot-scooting across the hardwood flooring
of the dark bar. The place was closed. Elliot wasn’t sure how Mikey got in, but
he knew that it would be damn-near impossible to kick his ass out.
Mikey
brought more money into the tiny town of Grayslick than all the other 200 or so
residents combined. As soon as he moved in two years prior, he began growing
the biggest field of grass you’d ever seen, and no one batted an eye at it. Not
the local cops, not even the Kentucky State boys. Hell, Grayslick residents
loved him. The old ladies at St Anthony Catholic Church – the only church in
town – conjured up some home-cooked goodness for him damn-near every day of the
week. Chicken tetrazzini, cherry cheesecake, banana croquette – everything he
liked. He never had to go to the grocery. He was a local celebrity.
“Get
the hell out of here, Mikey,” said Elliot, “You goddamn, spaghetti-eating
motherfucker.”
Elliot
called Mikey a spaghetti-eating motherfucker because Mikey was Italian. He was
the only ethnically Italian person in Grayslick. Elliot didn’t know any racial
slurs for Italian people, so he made up ‘spaghetti-eating motherfucker’. He
also liked calling him ‘Tommy Mozzarella’ – spoken in what he thought was a New
Jersey accent. It didn’t sound very Jersey, though – he couldn’t completely
mask his rural Kentucky drawl when making vowel sounds. It got under Mikey’s skin, sometimes. Not
tonight, though.
“Hey
now, hey!” said Mikey. He was in a jovial mood, “I got no intention of getting
out of here. I’m not done partying tonight – not quite yet. Them fuckers up in
the field were too puss to get more beers once we killed the case, so I figured
I’d see what in the hell you were up to. You fuckin’ sleepin’!”
“Yeah,”
responded Elliot, “I was sleeping because I had a long day and I was fucking
tired.”
“Aw,
shut the hell up. You wasn’t tired. You and I both know there wasn’t nobody in
this fuckin’ place. I know about it any time there’s a party at The Comfy
Corner. I would have knowed about it if there was anything popping off here.
You just a lazy old bitch!”
Mikey
stepped over to the jukebox. Wrenching free a collection of quarters from his
jeans pocket, some of which fell jingling to the floor, he slid a handful
conveyor-like into the machine and pressed through the available tunes,
flipping the selection of ‘45 records. It was an old jukebox, which was one of
the main draws of the bar. The locals loved it. So did the out-of-towners, on
the rare occasions they patronized The Comfy Corner. Mikey pushed the button
impatiently, finally settling on Slow Train Coming, by Bob Dylan.
“Hell
yeah!” he said, “Slow train comin’ ‘round the bend. That’s the truest shit I
ever heard.”
Mikey
dumped a heaping line of blow onto the counter. He sniffed it glutinously,
snapping his head skyward – sweat flung from his long, black hair dampening the
floor – screaming like a rabid raccoon. He finished the beer he had snagged for
himself – a bottle of Schlitz, free of charge – and smashed it on the counter.
He stumbled backward from the counter onto the dance floor and kept dancing,
now livelier, though more belligerently. Elliot squinted at him in frustration.
He didn’t feel comfortable kicking him out. Mikey was too well loved by the
community; he was also crazier than shit – Elliot didn’t want to get on Mikey’s
bad side. Nobody did. As much as they loved him, everyone in town knew it was
true.
“Hey!”
said Mikey, “Check this shit out.” He swaggered out the front door into the
night. Elliot thought about closing the door and again locking up, but he knew
he didn’t have enough time. It wouldn’t matter, anyway – Mikey would force his
way back in. He returned a couple of minutes later, a sawed-off shotgun in
hand:
“Look
at this shit.” he said, flashing its barrel one-handed across the barroom as if
scoping out what to blast. “We was hunting earlier,” he continued, “Couldn’t
find a goddamn thing – not even a doe. Not even a goddamn dove. This bastard
here is still fully loaded. Never hunted with it before today. I was looking
forward to pointing it one-handed – like this – down the nose of a big-ass
ten-point, just blowing its fuckin’ brains out all over the side of some tree.
I don’t need no mounts for my walls, you know what I mean? I just need fuckin’
burgers for my grill. I need fuckin’ bacon wrapped, cream cheese stuffed birds
for my belly.”
Mike
was massaging his stomach, glaring in cocaine-addled excitability. He then
started rubbing the barrel of the gun like he was jerking it off. He swayed it
around the room, pointing it outward from his crotch as if it were his dick.
The gun waved back and forth chaotically, out of tune with the stuttering,
drunken step of Mikey’s boots. Out of rhythm with Bob Dylan’s prophetic,
screaming vocals. He continued dancing to the music. He was struggling to
maintain balance.
“Shit.”
said Elliot, “Don’t fuck around with that thing. You could wind up…”
Mikey
waved the shotgun back across the barroom, in his intoxicated state
accidentally pulling the trigger. The canon erupted. It wasn’t a direct hit,
but it was close. The deer slug struck and pierced Elliot just above his
pelvis. The aging man slid from his chair, slithering involuntarily across the
floor, leaving a necrotic, slug-like trail of blood, thumping his fist to the
floor, and screaming as the thick, metallic liquid pooled.
Elliot
was in agony. He could make no discernable language. He continued writhing.
Mikey realized what he had done. He ran to Elliot, asking him if he was okay,
stroking his thin gray hair. Elliot gave no response. Mikey turned and ran from
the barroom, heading across the gravel street to St. Anthony Catholic Church,
its steeple towering high above the surrounding central Kentucky wood – Cameron
Wood, as the locals called it.
The
angry spirits of a long-ago murdered family haunted the wood. Everyone in town
knew that.
Mikey
banged on the door, screaming for Father Dickey. Father Dickey would open up –
Mikey knew that – Papa Dick was always there. Father Dickey lived next door; if
he for some reason weren’t in the church, which he always was, he would still
hear the noise from his adjacent, dainty hovel.
The
creaking double front doors of the church sprung ajar:
“What?”
said Father Dickey, rubbing his drooping, wrinkled eyelids, “What do you want,
brother Mikey?”
“The
bar!” said Mikey, “Come to the bar! Elliot been shot.”
“Shot?”
said Father Dickey, “Do you think I can provide medical support? I can’t!”
“I
know, I know.” said Mikey, “Ain’t know where else to go. Ain’t no hospitals in
Grayslick, is there? Come on, let’s go – he fuckin’ dying in there!”
Father
Dicky paced briskly into the bar, clothed in his black priestly garb. It was
far too late for Elliot, who was bleeding out all over the floor. Who knows how
long it would take to remove those stains from the wood; they may never fully
clear.
The
priest glanced backward, scowling at Mikey. Dickey wouldn’t say anything to him
– Mikey was far too much of a hot head for proselytizing – but he thought Mikey
understood his point, just from a look. Mikey could be dumber than hell,
sometimes. He was a hell of a farmer and a natural businessman, but in all
other facets of life, he was an idiot.
“It’s
too late for him,” said Father Dickey, beginning to administer the last rights.
“Wha…
what? What the hell do you mean it’s too late? The old bastard was just sitting
there all grouchy-like just ten minutes ago. I shot him with a dull-ass deer
slug; you can’t kill a man with a fuckin’ deer slug.”
Mikey
was speaking frantically over Elliot’s babbling final confession. Father Dickey
couldn’t understand a word – Elliot was far too incoherent – but he nodded, as
if understanding. Elliot’s incoherent gurgle, combined with Mikey’s paranoid,
childish raw emotion, filled the barroom with an unnerving, grating soundscape.
This abysmal noise fused with the still-playing jukebox, which had continued
the Bob Dylan album, now playing Gotta Serve Somebody.
Elliot
gobbled up the body of Christ lip-smacking like an infant yet to learn manners.
He was struggling to keep the unleavened bread in his mouth – pushing it out
involuntarily with his uncooperative, dying tongue. He finally swallowed it,
washing it down with the wine – a bottle of Gato Negro cabernet – Father Dickey
had grabbed from behind the bar. It wasn’t standard, but he didn’t have any
sacramental wine on him, so it would have to do. He blessed it. He thought
Jesus would understand, considering the circumstances.
Elliot
died. Father Dickey closed the bartender’s eyes with his shaking, wrinkly
hands. Blood covered the entirety of the floor. Mikey, horrified, ran sprinting
from the room, out the door, across the street, and toward the wood.
The
streets were dark and barren – there were no streetlights in Grayslick. Mikey
ran out of the bar, past the church, and through the adjacent Idle-Hour Park on
his way to the wood. He hopped the chain-link fence of the baseball field,
scrambling and flailing across the infield like a clumsy second baseman as he
bolted through the dusty, cobweb-lined dugout, up the concrete steps, and into
Cameron Wood.
The
wood was black. It was always dark – darker than anyone thought it should ever
be. Most Grayslick locals said it was because of the haunted presence of the
Graves family – out-of-towners who had moved to Grayslick generations ago, back
during the Great Depression, looking to open a business. Locals hated The
Graves’, moving to such a small town like Grayslick and stealing commerce from
in-town families during such an unfortunate economic time.
The
Graves were allegedly murdered, but no one knew why. That case was never
closed. They simply went into the forest one day for a picnic and didn’t
return. Days later, when local folks had finally decided to recognize the
bizarre nature of their stores continued vacancy, they checked the woods. They
found the family dead in a clearing previously thought to be the most serene
spot in Cameron Wood. The bodies weren’t peacefully deceased – they had been
completely mutilated; limbs twisted morbidly in every unnatural direction;
cracked bones split out from the skin. Their faces were drained pale, wide-eyed
and screaming. Cameron Wood was decided haunted, after that, whether because of
the presence of The Graves family, or of their twisted killer. Nobody went there;
nobody besides Mikey.
Mikey knew that story was a bunch of old
horseshit. The wood was dark because it was old. It had never been chopped,
never been plowed – it had grown thick, mostly undisturbed, for thousands of
years. Crop rotation had yet to shift to that dark collection of ancient
foliage. That’s why it was so dark. Mikey thought it was comforting, being in
the wood. He liked the darkness, sometimes. It allowed him a mental escape.
Mikey
continued sprinting. His heart – already beating at full blast thanks to both
the adrenaline from the previous situation, and the remnant, chaotic energy
from the coke – seemed to stabilize the more he ran. This helped Mikey calm
down. He ran and ran, through the heart of the wood into a perfectly circular clearing.
He knew the place well – he always came here when the cops pretended to be
suspicious about his field of bud. It was an excellent place to escape.
Mikey
sat kneeling on the soft ground, his breath heaving as he struggled to catch
it. Even in the heat of summer, even in years of drought, this inner sanctum of
the wood stayed somehow well-hydrated. Mikey felt refreshed simply being there.
He continued panting, his hands clutched firmly to his thighs – his now dirty
jeans sticking like glue to his chafing, sweaty legs.
The
wood further darkened, which Mikey considered strange. He didn’t spend much
early-morning time this deep in the dewy thick of the trees, but he knew that
it should be brightening outside. Morning was breaking, only not in Cameron Wood.
Mikey
looked around the clearing. A wind was kicking up, rustling the dry leaves and
dirt of the forest floor.
A
circular, tornado-like gust abruptly blew spinning about the clearing. The
brittle leaves ruffled from the ground skyward. Mikey noticed the leaves
briefly taking a humanoid shape. They then fell back to the earth. The
towering, old trees shook and groaned as if in otherworldly communication. No
light shone in from outside their enclosed canopy. Mikey was afraid. He stood
up and backed away, making to exit the wood. He didn’t care about the damn
cops; he didn’t care about Elliot or Father Dickey – not anymore – he would
risk it. This fuckin’ place was giving him the creeps. He turned his back to
the forest clearing and darted in a frenzy toward the wall of dense foliage.
Before
he could make it out of the clearing, he was swept up, legs first, hanging in
the air. He was spun around, upside down, through the trees. Apathetic
nocturnal wildlife gazed at him from the shaking branches – bats, raccoons,
opossums, and owls looking on without care. Mikey shrieked in terror:
“Ahhhhhhh! Fuck; Fuck!”
His body leveled; he was no longer
upside down. His belly was facing the ground as if to fall the fifty feet back
to the forest floor; a crushing belly flop. The possessed wind dropped him. He
fell hard, hitting the soft dirt and immediately twisting uncontrollably,
writhing in pain. The wind picked him back up. He was again upside down,
revolving faster and faster as dead leaves swirled as if to encase him in a
mummy-cocoon. Out from within the visual blockage created by the swirling
leaves, he saw the ghostly figures of four people – a mother, a father, and two
young children. The Graves family. They stood staring without care at what was
happening. They weren’t creating the chaos – Mikey could feel that – but they
also had no interest in stopping it.
The pressure from the force of the
spinning wind was crushing. Mikey could feel it splitting his skin and bruising
his bones. His eyeballs were pressed to at any moment dislodge. His teeth
cracked, continuously buffeted by the supernatural weather. In his final
moments, Mikey saw the red-tinted shape of Father Dickey run into the clearing.
The priest expressed a knowing look; frantic, though unsurprised. Lifting a
bible, he began yelling verses at the growing havoc. Mikey’s time had come.
With the wind and the leaves still swirling around him – with the pressure
finally becoming too much – Mikey’s body was split, literally. Blood and bone
sprayed outward from the cyclone, coating Father Dickey, his bible still thrust
forward in defense. The thick, red, life-sustaining liquid saturated the damp
dirt of the clearing and the thin, waxy pages of Dickey’s ancient text.
Father Dickey knelt to the earth and
sobbed. It had happened again. Looking forward, he saw the family – the first
known family taken by this mysterious, demonic force. They looked at him and
turned, without care, back into Cameron Wood. Mikey would soon join them,
wherever they went.
Father
Dickey wept, heaving in the clearing, inhaling dirt and dust. Above the canopy,
a new day brightened.
About the author:
Robert Pettus is an English as a Second Language teacher at the University of
Cincinnati. Previously, he taught for four years in a combination of rural
Thailand and Moscow, Russia. His short stories have been published in numerous
webzines, magazines, podcasts, and literary journals. His first novel, titled
Abry, was published this spring by Offbeat Reads. He lives in Kentucky with his
wife, Mary, his daughter, Rowan, and his pet rabbit, Achilles.
