She scoured her eyes with steel wool then slotted old railway spikes in her ears and knocked them deep with a hammer for the terrible things she had known were too far beyond the real.
The faint call of waterfowl became fainter still because the landscape browned in fresh decay and early Autumn was upon the uneven hills of the New River Valley; each year the seasons shifted further on and the cold chill came but snow became infrequent and the olds gathered on storefront rockers to mutter about global warming and how it could be so biting cold on a planet that’s gone warm, but that was a time away yet.
There was an old house which sat in solitude, overlooking Redman Branch, a small offshoot of the New River, and it would’ve been a good old house if not for it being plotted atop a cliff of running clay—foundation cracks sprawled across the cement block foundation that’d been exposed to the elements, untreated, unpainted for the last twenty years or more and the paint from its last coat came off in white chips that fell away like bad fingernails. The forever wet clay beneath the house had since attempted to reject the structure like a rotted tooth, but there it stood, not one of its webbing wounds spaced more than an inch, but those cracks were often and all manner of insects found refuge there and pushed the cracks further in their lodging; birds too took to the gutters where pine needles overflowed; a person could examine the uneven distribution of debris along the roof’s edge where blue jays or cardinals or titmouses may have left and there were new birds too that made residence there—Carolina wrens or the winter birds like that consistent dark-eyed junco, coy, serene in its stuttered trill.
An old house it was and like others of its kind, it sat unquiet as a breathing creature resting there in its ground with sprigs of weeds caught up around its stained white latticework throat, shielding whatever trash caught there; tracing from the unmarked road to that desolate structure was hardly a path, overgrown with wheat-thick grass, flagstones placed ages ago, broken, more loam than rock. Out nearer Redman Branch where mist rose off the stream and collected in the morning dew, there sat a square patch of fenced land no bigger than the house, overgrown with milkweed and angry thistles; the forgotten vegetable garden was as sorry as the rest, a demonstration of nature conquering man again.
Clouds pushed across the sky, gray, and made the air so thick with the threat of a storm, a person couldn’t help but breathe longer. Still, it did not rain.
The house was a singular story against those clouds, against the yellowed greens of half-naked pine trees further beyond the unkempt lawn, and yet its peak forgave an attic with a porthole overlooking the gravel street from a position, inches higher than the porch’s slanted roof, which jutted from the wood paneling of the home, constructed uneven, warped, and unprofessional as any addition by a poor roustabout. Across the mouth of the house stood a cross of tautly lined neon yellow tape.
It was a stain on the incline, a dilapidated artifact, and inside was the body of a dead woman.
A white van in a cloud of blue smoke growled along the gravel street at a crawl, a biohazard sticker was planted across its rear doors, and decals ran either side of its body that read GRAYSON COUNTY CORONER’S OFFICE in thick arial black lettering against dry mud splashed white paint. The van came to a halt at the pathway with tall yard grass overhanging the gravel, reaching for the tires; the vehicle inched forward then turned in four points—as though the driver was nervous about getting it stuck—to reverse itself partially onto the path leading to the house, its back doors facing the home. Two white men removed themselves from the carriage, each looking first to the graying sky with wistful expressions then to each other.
One of the men wore a red baseball cap; the words: Make America Great Again stood across his forehead in threadwork. His face adorned a wiry beard and old acne pock scars dotted his cheeks where they were visible. He reached into the cabin to turn the van dead and removed his mouth-sliding coffee thermos which he held from the rim crane-handedly. Across the left breast of his navy-blue collared work shirt, his name was printed: Bud.
The other man, younger and shorter and skinner, stepped from the passenger seat, spat, and pulled a deck of cigarettes from his jeans pocket and lit one off a plastic Circle-K brand lighter; his thumb was brown with tobacco residue. “Bet there’s ticks n’ chiggers in this mess,” he said, then batted at the midriff-high grass, rounded the rear of the van, and stumbled over knotted places where weeds intertwined thick. His shirt was much the same as Bud’s, but the name on his was C.W.
Bud nodded and met him there at the back of the van, casting another wayward glance at the coming storm overhead. “God, I hope it ain’t gonna rain.” He took a swig from his thermos and looked at the other man. “Smoke it quick—there’s work to do.”
C.W. carelessly wafted his hand to demonstrate his care then pushed his free fingers across his buzzed head. “Should we offload the board, or?”
“Might oughta check we’ve got a clear path through the house n’ see what the damage is. It’s a hoarder. You’n see the junk piled in the windows, can’tcha?”
C.W. observed the still house then nodded and took a final long drag from the cigarette, shoots of smoke plumed from his nostrils, and he flicked the remnant unseen into the grass. He flung open a rear door of the van and reached into a netted pocket by the bulge spot of the rear right tire.
Bud looked at where C.W. had thrown the cigarette and shook his head. “Might catch fire.”
Without pulling his upper body from the van, C.W. said, “S’gonna rain anyhow.” Then the man slammed the door shut, a white cotton mask obscuring the lower half of his face; he pushed another mask out to his coworker.
The two men marched toward the home, mask strings strung over their ears and the creak of the first porch step gave them pause and Bud tested the step with his weight and then they both angled under the police tape, C.W. quickly then Bud followed with his knees each giving off a pop as he rose to full standing again.
A disconnected bench swing lay across the boards of the unpainted porch, its chains haphazardly strewn and a rusty washing machine sat there too, furthest from the entry, paneling half gone on one side from corrosion and among the rubbish were full, doughy trash bags piled tall, partly torn open to expose innards of cardboard, petrified food, stained linens. Each of the men withdrew latex gloves and donned them.
“Shew,” said C.W., “I smell it from right here.” He shook his head and reached for the front door’s hand-worn oval brass knob.
They pushed through the threshold into a blackened oblivion while shapes remained outlined in gentle light through brackish windows of the home; spiderwebs disbanded hung weakly as laxed garland from corners, and the tenuous grasp for the layout of this new land was abruptly lifted when Bud withdrew a pocket flashlight and pointed it straight up to catch the full place in a harsh white glow. The door swung gently closed behind the men and they scrunched together within the snake path that led onward; C.W. stood ahead and Bud’s breath came heavy behind his mask.
Piles of stale tomes and subscription magazines remained stacked high on either side of the entryway like skyscrapers of a miniature city, spiraled haphazardly in their columns so that stained papers folded out from the collected pages here and there and though there seemed to be a method to their organization—a tower of fishing magazines was separated from a pamphlet targeted at automotive enthusiasts and even a few supernatural tabloids remained catalogued on their own, one of which boldly celebrated the marriage of Big Foot and a gray alien with poorly photoshopped wedding photos accompanying an article discussing the pair’s deformed offspring—as Bud’s flashlight passed over them, neither of the men took more than a brief notice or said a word of them. Across the bulk of the room were more trash bags much the same as the ones the two men had left on the porch, and some were so old sitting and worn in places that holes appeared either by disintegration or infestation. Whatever furniture had once been accessible in the room they found themselves, was long buried under said bags or loose raw garbage that had, in places, dried hard as bone. To the left was a closed door, unopened in ages with a residual splash across its face of a caramel color since dried. Along the wall that sectioned the room inaccessible by that door were a series of fiddles which hung stiffly from ornate, decorative hooks pegged across a six-foot lacquered board that’d lost its shine. Worst of all, in that derelict otherworld, was the trapped aroma of cadaverine.
Bud, the older man, handed his flashlight to C.W. so that he may lead them then planted a firm hand on the younger’s shoulder for balance as they waded through the barely maneuverable trench, discarded items or once sentimental treasures carelessly fell beneath their feet and the two men sallied forth, stepped on whatever thing it was—sometimes a glass picture frame haphazardly balanced atop a stack of books and sometimes it was only an opened envelope that had gone the color of parchment. Flies and gnats, usually comfortable and undisturbed, lifted to life and buzzed among the men’s heads like plague crowns and C.W. blinked through them while Bud precariously covered his eyes with the forearm attached to the hand in which he carried his thermos.
“I see’er.” C.W. shook his head and wiped his eyes for the pungent stench had moistened them.
See the woman lying there, just through the threshold of the kitchen, face down in a circle of smeared dried filth, muumuu floral gown once a veritable collection of vibrant wildflowers now with streaks of brown blood dashed around the collar and the rest remaining in a dull purgatory from years of grime. Her once dark black skin had grayed. Her elderly calves looked as thin as children’s forearms and her calloused naked heels were upturned, cracked, and whitened.
Bud blew a gush of air heavy through his nose. “See the head?”
“Nah.”
“Gimme me some room, step around her n’ let me get closer.”
C.W. awkwardly stepped to meet the small opening between her feet then pirouetted gently, clawing the threshold’s edge to step into the kitchen. The linoleum could hardly be seen, but the places where it stood bare of the hoard were frays and plyboard could be spied beneath. “C’mon then,” said C.W.
Bud angled into the doorway, into the space between the corpse’s feet. “I knew there’d be spikes in ‘er head, but I almost didn’t believe it.”
C.W. sighed, “Yup.”
The kitchen, the same as all else, had a sepia blanket of color, though the transparent blue curtains tacked over the window above the sink let in a dimness. The younger man, nearer the counter, whipped the left curtain panel open, letting in what sunlight escaped the clouds; he clicked the flashlight off then pocketed the tube. Tupperware containers with smatters of residue, stacks of boxes, and more trash bags were piled there in the kitchen too; the sink was high with bowls, plates, utensils, and a few curious cockroaches raised their antennae from the crevices therein, hesitant as cave-men looking out from their strange porcelain abodes—one even leapt from the counter to the floor making the same sound as dropping a cracker and C.W. watched it and casually planted a foot. The insect exploded; custard innards squirted from underneath the man’s boot. Shiny brown carapace flakes and twitching legs clung to the floor there.
A decrepit gas stove sat in the far corner, grimed, each eye stacked high with used pans—some still contained the crisped edges of fried eggs or burnt spices or congealed lard; up the side of the wall adjacent the stove was a rack for hanging mitts and potholders, and the wall itself looked stained from past explosions of grease, uncleaned.
The older gentleman hovered partly over the body, holding himself upright by a hand on the wall and shot his coworker a look. Bud shook his head. “Imagine goin’ out without a person to care. This is hell.” Examining the clutter both behind and in front, he shivered then caught C.W.’s eyes.
“Pfft. Look around. Nasty bitch. If I had family like this, I’d leave ‘em to rot in the mess too. Makes my skin crawl. Look a’ that.” C.W. pointed to a place in front of the fridge and Bud craned forward to see. “That’s ‘er throne.”
Angled cockeyed beside the fridge’s closed door was a medical commode resting in a frame like that of a walker; its lid refused to close entirely. Blue and white plastic checkout bags were stuffed along the toilet rim and splattered with feces and urine and dots of black mold grew up its legs and reached to the object’s armrests.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Bet she roosted there every night.” C.W. started to gag but refrained.
“If you need to,” said Bud, “Go on.”
C.W. shook his head.
Bud searched for a place to put his thermos, shrugged, then sat it by his feet.
“Should’a left it outside.”
“C’mon. Gimme a hand.” Bud hunkered precariously and grabbed the dead woman’s ankles.
C.W. reached down and helped to twist the body so it would be face up. With the corpse lying the way it was, blood pooled into the front of it to solidify, leaving behind trace outlines of purple and sickly yellow bruising; the bones had gone loose within the body. The woman’s face was terrible to behold, soft tissue of the eyes gone, and each lid torn free from scrubbing. An incredibly thin cockroach antenna protruded from her left nostril like a whisker then disappeared. The rusted railway spikes, one pushed into each of her ears, surely the thing that had killed her, oozed syrup upon her coming to rest in her new position. Her belly beneath the muumuu stood round and heavy as if with child, but she was far beyond that in years. C.W.’s eyes stuttered blinks and he let go of another dry retch; his mask had gone wet and clung to him. Bud watched him and asked again if he needed to excuse himself but was offered the same reply as before.
“Should’ve got the fire department on this one,” said C.W.
“We’ve got it,” Bud waved the protest away.
Due to the shifting of jellied organs, liquid erupted from beneath the muumuu and diarrhea puddled around Bud’s feet; a mess of earwigs swam from the hem of the gown and the older man, in a panic, lifted his left foot then his right foot then his left foot again then accepted his fate. He held the wall, hat tilted to his crown, forehead lain against his raised forearms which exposed a sliver of his hairy chubby stomach. His shoulders shimmied up and down quietly.
“You cryin’?” asked C.W.
Bud shook his head, pulled his mask down while looking away, then vomited into the room they had come from, glazing a nearby trash bag. He pinched the collar of his shirt and popped it twice before returning the mask to his face.
C.W. pointed to the thermos Bud left on the floor, bottom flooded with feces.
Bud shook his head. “She can have it.”
“Should we get the board?”
“Aw hell—I need air. I’ll suffocate in this.”
Bud was gone from the house in crazed, tripped strides, the door shutting from the tilt of the house before the younger man could even catch up.
Standing on the porch, the two of them wore the cotton masks around their throats, chuffing into their fists or cupped hands; their faces were deep pink.
“Feels like I’ve got shit all over me!” said Bud.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe we should’ve called the fire department anyway—goddamn you’re right. Let them deal with that!”
“Yeah.”
Bud leaned off the railing of the porch, putting his hands together and spat a glob he found in the back of his throat. “Ugh.”
“Yeah.”
“Can’t you say anything more ‘an ‘yeah’?”
C.W. smiled and ran his fingers through his buzzed hair. “Nah.”
“Ain’t that some shit.” Bud removed his hat and slapped it against the handrail before returning it to his head.
“Sure was.” C.W. spat in the same general direction then lit a cigarette. “Looks like you’ve been walkin’ through mud.” There was a moment of quiet while C.W. drew off the tobacco. “Shew boy.” He shook his head.
Arriving upon the unmarked gravel street, appearing from the tree line which obscured the road further on, and headed in the direction of the stream, came a young girl in buttoned coveralls without a shirt; beneath the straps of the jean coveralls was the dull beige color of an old bra. She was skinny and pale black and wore a domed straw hat with a frayed brim. In her left hand she carried a blue tackle box which sometimes bumped her knee and under her right armpit were stuffed two long fishing poles. As she got closer to the scene, her gaze went slow across the van then the two men on the porch there. She walked to the edge of the yard where the land rose to afford the clay cliff where the house was. “Hey!” she called.
C.W. waved absently while Bud kept his hands interlocked on his head, elbows winged.
She examined the scene, eyes remaining on the yellow tape more than anything else. “Bailey’s dead, yeah?”
“Yeah,” said Bud.
The girl looked at the sky then back at the men. “How long?”
“Least three days. You knew her?”
The brim of the hat came slowly up then down in a hesitant nod, but she stopped. “Well. Some. She come to church sometimes. When someone’d drive her. I ain’t seen her in weeks. She hollered to me from her porch when she was out—I live just up the way a scooch—and she’d let me come and fish over yonder. I guess it’s her land.” She pointed to Redman Branch. “Had cops come ask me and mine yesterday about if we saw anybody suspicious in the area past couple of days. Figured somebody murdered her, I guess. She go quick?”
“Yeah,” said Bud.
“Good.” The girl adjusted her hat with the arm carrying the fishing poles. “I’s hopin’ to catch somethin’ afore it rains—if it does. Can I fish?”
“We ain’t the police,” said C.W.
This seemed well enough because the girl said, “Thanks,” then continued her march.
She traced down the way, circled the house wide then the overrun garden, then pushed on through a thicket by the stream and went out of sight of either of the men.
Bud sighed, “You get the feet when we go back in.”
“The hell, you say. You’re already caked in it.”
“Exactly, I had my turn. Now it’s yours.”
“Nah.”
“Boy, don’t sass your elders.”
C.W. flicked debris from the end of his cigarette where it fell to the porch, and he pushed the clump into a crack in the slits. “I ain’t doin’ it. ‘Sides, you the one that wanted to come out here just the two of us in the first place. ‘Won’t take much effort. We can do it quick—just you an’ me,’ you said.” His voice grew to a mock falsetto upon imitating the other man.
Bud pointed an index finger close to C.W.’s face, “You get that attitude from your mama, don’tcha?”
The young man held a wry grin. “What you know about my mama?”
“She never mentioned me?” Bud pantomimed a vulgar thrust with his pelvis while gently pumping his fist alongside his hip.
“Mhm. Goofy bastard.”
The older man sighed, planting his hands into the shape of a diamond over his mouth, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fore fingers. “Fine. Let’s get it done. Suits?”
C.W. nodded. “Should’ve from the start.”
Bud met him with an agreeable flattish smile.
Thunder sounded far off still and the pair froze there for a moment, each peering closely for rain, but none came and C.W. tossed the cigarette butt and they tore through the police tape, leaving it to catch on the breeze, and moved through the tall grass again, opened the rear doors of their work van completely then began removing equipment: a stiff, orange plastic board—seven feet in length—with black harness straps, a folded body bag of thick material, two yellow onesies with hoods, two pairs of glasses, and another set of masks. The two men dressed in the onesies, pulled their hoods over their heads and the elastic kept tight around their faces, framing them round; Bud tossed his hat into the back of the van and so when they each lodged the plastic frame of the protective glasses behind their ears and donned fresh masks, they seemed strange twins ready to embark across that alien landscape again, one taller with beard plume around the chin of his face hole and the other small, wiry, agile through the narrow path, body bag clamped tightly by his ribcage with a forearm and the flashlight outstretched in his other hand as he reembarked into the house. Bud lifted the board and followed, careful to slip it through the doorway longways. He stumbled through the mess, trading color on the rear edge of the board with the doorframe but found his footing and continued.
The house groaned from the wind outside and there the body was.
The men moved the dead woman so they could place the body bag open beside her; C.W. took her under the arms and lifted the top of the body from the floor while Bud took the ankles, and they shifted her into the bag before zipping it shut. Bud took the board from the resting spot where he’d angled it against the doorframe leading into the kitchen and laid the bag there, cinching the harnesses tightly. Neither man said a word. Only a catching of one another’s eyes and a swift nod while they lifted their respective ends of the board. They maneuvered the body through the house—Bud gently wobbled on his feet as he walked backwards while C.W. held the head-end with measured patience.
“Hang on,” said C.W.
“Arms gettin’ tired?” asked Bud.
The pair stood in the living room, holding the board at chest height.
“Nah.” There was a pause filled with the moldering house’s protests. “You hear a buzzin’?”
“Yeah. There’s about a million flies in this bitch. What about it?”
“Nah. It’s worse ‘an that. Like a hum.” C.W. cocked his head as though to listen. “It’s like vibratin’.”
“Shit-fire, we can talk about all the buzzin’ and vibratin’ after we get her out of here. The hell’s a’matter with you?”
C.W. nodded.
They went on in their way till Bud met the front door where it had swung shut on its own again; the man palmed the bottom of the board with one hand, to refuse it shifting, then reached blindly behind himself for the knob with his other. Bud remained fumbling for the handle for moments.
C.W. sniffled then asked, “What’s ‘at?”
“What’s what?” asked Bud, struggling to hold the board with a single hand.
“That buzzin’! It’s deep somewhere like hummin’—deep like a machine er something.”
“Will you quit that? Hush.”
“Nah, I mean it. Makin’ me lightheaded. There a gas leak?”
“There ain’t no damn gas leak. Shut your mouth and hold her steady dammit.” Bud’s gloved fingers snagged the door open smally, and he planted a foot in the crack then shoved with his rear to widen its mouth. “C’mon.”
The men wavered from the house then came the rain—it was an immediate wall of shower that pushed from the north and in seconds, everything on that hill by Redman Branch was drenched and with the morning dew remaining as thick as it was, visibility beyond much was impossible; the two men sighed and sat the board on the porch slats and then took up by the rail again where they swept off their hoods and wore their masks like necklaces.
Trees far off became impressions of trees and everything was gray.
C.W. spoke louder for the rain or something else, “You can’t hear that? It’s louder out here now. Mechanical like a engine.”
Bud stiffened and chewed on his tongue for a quiet moment. “I hear it,” he said.
The younger man rubbed his arms. “S’cold.”
“Yeah.”
The pair stood on the porch without speaking with the corpse bag lying at their feet, instead they watched the gray outskirts of the high yard, the faint outline of their work van at the edge of the road. A thing beyond the real emerged in the downpour, initially hardly a silhouette placed in the center of the road, but neither man said a word; Bud let out an audible breath and it caught as a mist before his face then was gone. They remained squinting, fists balled by their sides, neither daring a glance from that thing out there. The thing defied examination, but the men tried and although every chemical compulsion compelled them to move, to flee, they were glued there like miniature models no more than imitating life.
“What’s ‘at?” whispered C.W.
Bud shrugged.
“You ever see anything like it?”
Bud shook his head. “That engine sound’s loudest now.”
“It’s comin’ from that?”
“Maybe. Don’t move. Don’t call out for it.”
“Think it sees us?” C.W. pushed a gloved pinky into his left ear and jostled the canal. “S’loud.”
“Mm.”
C.W.’s finger spasmed near violent in his ear while he took his other gloved hand and began massaging the soft flesh directly beneath his eyes with his forefinger and thumb.
“Quit touching your face. You were just handling her,” Bud nodded at the corpse bag.
The younger man stood straighter and replaced his hands to his sides; a shiver danced off his shoulders. “Look at it out there.”
Bud already was.
The thing was not human, was not creature, was not plant nor fungi nor anything natural of the material world, but rather an amalgam of all places through time collapsed within a single entity—hideous, vile. Dazzling multicolor lights erupted from it while objects resembling levers, unattended, rose and fell on their own, throbbing tumorous bulbs exhaled wind from pores while wild metal limbs extended then retracted in rhythm like an arachnid in pulses of death. It was there and did not speak for there was no language for it—no mouth either.
The rain went as quickly as it had come and the sun unmasked from a cloud, sent golden refractions through droplets caught on the grass in the yard; a low faint rainbow hung across the path to the work van and the two men said nothing and went to the board with the body. In quiet, besides the overwhelming whippoorwill calls of the forest beyond, the men loaded the corpse into the rear of the van, undressed from their hazard garb then rounded the van to the cabin on their respective sides; Bud strode with a puffed chest like a cartoon pigeon, his hat returned to his head, bill cocked oddly, while C.W. pushed his pinky into his left ear again, perhaps digging for brains for the first knuckle was gone in his head and he scraped with his nail while blinking furiously.
They sat in the van and as it came alive with Bud twisting the key, the two of them flinched, their eyes scanning the road, the thickets out by the stream, the trees of the stripping forest.
Rubber ground against soil and gravel as the van kicked from the path onto the street and blue smoke rose from the exhaust and took the road from Redman Branch—at a pace faster than it had arrived—through a forest where houses or outbuildings stood spaced in clearings sometimes acres from another; the van turned onto Englewood Road and continued. Bud’s hands trembled whenever he relaxed them on the wheel, so he held on with both hands properly. C.W. pushed deeper into his ear canal and hissed through his teeth; upon removing his hand from the side of his face, Bud shot him a look. Thin blood collected on C.W.’s fingernail and the younger man wiped it on his jeans, down his thigh. A dribble of blood collected on the young man’s ear lobe. He pushed his fore knuckles into his closed eyes, rotating his fists on their wrists.
“Stop,” said Bud.
“I feel sick or somethin’.”
“Stop.”
“Woozy.” C.W. raked his clawed fingers down his eyes.
Instantly, the van came to a sliding halt and its left wheels left the ground for a moment before it rocked gently on the righthand shoulder of the way where the trees had been cleared for grazing land; taut barbed fencing stretched across posts on either side of the road where cows gnawed cud and watched without fascination. Bud erupted from the carriage with it still running—the driver’s side door remained open. His hat left him so that his thin hay-textured hair stood sweaty off his round head. The man galloped from the vehicle, arms pumping madly in the dash.
The passenger door of the van swung out and C.W. spilled on the shoulder blindly, landed knees first, and blinked his partially destroyed eyelids. He crawled on elbows, slick fingers madly entering his ears.
Bud ran till the van was out of sight, till he caught a coughing fit; the man spat and looked back the way he’d come while wiping his mouth with a forearm then his gaze settled further up Englewood and he took a measured pace in the direction opposite where he’d left his coworker.
The older man stopped on the side of the road after perhaps fifteen minutes and leaned against a fence post where his breathing went softer then he angled back to look at the sky; he took a palm across his head to flatten his wildered hair.
He tilted his head like a curious dog at a noise then cupped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes closed.