One For the Road

            Mind if I buy you a drink?  It’s just that, well, I was sitting alone, and I saw you here in the corner, also sitting alone.  And I figured, you and me, we could sit alone together.  So whatever you want to drink, you let me know.  It’s on me.  Spare no expense.

            I’m not sure if you’re from around here or not, but have you heard about all the strange things that’ve been happening?  I’m sure you have, everyone has by now.  Weird stuff, let me tell you. 

            For instance, two weeks ago, the cows from McCreely’s farm started giving black milk.  Black as nightfall.  Every single cow.  They had a vet come out and look at them, and the vet couldn’t figure out what was wrong.  Then one by one, over the course of three days, the cows started dropping dead.  Every cow on that farm, gone.  McCreely is ruined. 

            Last week, the clock on the tower in town hall, it started running backwards.  They tried just shutting the damn thing off, and that didn’t work.  It just wouldn’t stop running backwards.  Did that for two days straight.  Then it stopped dead, and they haven’t been able to get it working since.  I mean, that clock is over seventy years old, so I guess age could have something to do with it, but I don’t know.  Seems strange.

            Are you sure you don’t want that drink?

            Anyway, Nativity Of The Blessed Virgin, that’s the church over on Riverline Ave., well, they have this old bell tower, see.  And one night, around one a.m., the sound of loud clanging bells starts screaming out of that tower, and doesn’t stop

until sun up.  The fact that the bells wouldn’t stop ringing isn’t the strange part.  You see, there aren’t any bells in that damn tower! There haven’t been for fifteen years!  But everyone heard them.  Hell, I heard them.  They kept me up all night, and I had just gotten off of a double-shift.  It was awful.

            Where did you say you were from again?

            Did I mention the woods by Bindlebottom Lake?  Bindlebottom Lake is this huge lake we have, at the edge of town, and it’s surrounded by thick woodlands.  Woods that go on for miles and miles, up into the mountains.  Well, there was this group of trees near the lake, and all of them were stripped of their bark.  And not just a little bit.  I mean, entirely.  About fifty trees stripped clean.  And there were these weird...symbols carved in them.  I don’t know what they were, I’ve never seen anything like them.  Some professor or something, in the newspaper, said

that they were Pagan symbols.  Ancient. 

            And it’s cold.  I mean, it’s fall, so it’s supposed to be cold.  But I don’t remember a fall ever this cold.  It’s a biting, stabbing cold.  It seeps in through your clothes, cuts through your skin and wraps itself around your bones.  I wake up covered in ache.  No matter how many layers I put on, I still get the chills.  Thought I was getting sick or something, so I went to see the Doc.

            He couldn’t find anything wrong with me, but he said almost the entire damn town had come in to see him complaining of that same coldness. 

            Folks are saying this town is haunted. I don’t know if that’s possible, for an entire town to be haunted.  I’ve never heard of that. Maybe a house, or a whole block of houses.  But an entire town?  And if it is, is it all one ghost, or is it a ghost in every home? Can one ghost haunt an entire town? Of course, that all depends on if you believe in ghosts, I suppose.

            Last chance for that drink...

            Okay...

            Everyone’s scared now. That’s understandable. Strange things like this are bound to make anyone frightened. The thing about fear is, it leads to desperation.  And desperation, well, I’ll be honest, it leads to sex. Nothing makes people feel safer than sex. Takes everyone’s mind off of things. So I’m just putting it out there, that I want you to go home with me tonight.

            I don’t care that your arms are broken branches, or that your hair is constantly dripping wet. I don’t care that I can see through your skin to your bones underneath. And I don’t care that you don’t have any eyes, just two empty sockets glowing red.  Tonight, to me, you’re lovely. 

            And I need some company. 

            I’m too afraid to walk home alone.

The Coffin

Two days shy of her sixteenth birthday, Mae caught the fever. It had been spreading through Hawthorne County faster than a brush fire, and everyone—especially people like Mae’s family, who were poor farm folk and could not afford the best medicines—was terrified.

Mae, being a bit too headstrong for her own good, had laughed at her Pa’s over-protectiveness.

“I’ll be fine!” she had insisted. But one night the fever walloped her like a horse kick to the head, and she was in such pain that even crying for help sent terrible agony shooting through her body. Her limbs ached and burned, and she was so hot to the touch that you’d near scald yourself if you felt her forehead.

Pa sent for Dr. Crawford, but the doctor lived almost twenty miles away from the farm. Mae was delirious—she insisted she saw shadowy figures in the bedroom, and once she swore she heard her mother singing to her, even though her mother had been dead for almost five years.

Pa wept at Mae’s bedside, and begged her to fight—to not leave him. Mae had tried to smile, to reassure him, but her pain was too intense, and she lost consciousness. Strange fever dreams took hold of her; dreams filled with slithering things from the darkness, and horrible blood-streaked faces with screaming mouths.

Mae awoke with a start, and an overwhelming feeling of confusion took hold of her. She no longer felt sick; in fact she felt better than she had in her whole life—rejuvenated. And while she was positive she had opened her eyes, she saw nothing—total darkness. Even when all the lamps in the house had been blown out, there was always a little light somewhere—from the moonlight shining in. But this was total, impenetrable darkness.

I’ve gone blind! she thought with sickening panic. The fever has made me blind!

She was laying flat on her back, and she quickly tried to sit up, and only banged her head against something solid above her. Mae cried out in pain, clutching her forehead and moaning. Confused, she reached her hands up into the darkness and felt rough, solid wood a few inches above her. Her heart began racing in confusion and fear. She reached down and felt her own clothing, and could tell from the material she was wearing her finest dress—the dress she only wore to church, or on those rare occasion when Pa would take the horse and cart into town.

The realization came screaming through her body: she was in a coffin. She had been buried—alive!

“NO!” Mae screamed, and began pounding on the lid of her coffin. She beat at it with her fists until her hands went numb. “Somebody help! I’m not dead! I’M NOT DEAD!”

She began to cry and hyperventilate. How long could she last like this—buried six feet beneath the earth? Already she could feel the air growing thick, and her lungs were struggling to take it all in.

“PLEASE!” Mae sobbed, kicking at the coffin lid now. “Please, somebody! I’m still alive!”

Mae paused, because she heard a sound, and it was like sweet music to her ears: digging. Someone above was digging into the grave. She was saved! They had realized their mistake, and were rushing to dig her up!

“Yes!” Mae cried with joy. “I’m here! Please, hurry!”

The digging sound increased. She heard the dirt being shifted; heard the sounds getting closer and closer.

Mae closed her eyes, smiling and weeping, relieved that she was going to be rescued from her premature burial. There were scraping sounds at the coffin lid now—the shovel was inches away!

“Oh, thank you, God!” Mae cried. A splintering, cracking sound followed her words—the coffin lid was being broken open. And it was then that her relief began to turn back into panic. No light was flooding into the coffin; neither from moon or sun. If the lid had been broken open, surely some sort of light would be coming in. And the air wasn’t changing either—there was no blast of fresh air; only the stale air scented with wet earth.

Mae tried to say something, and then let out a scream. She felt something crawling on her body. In fact, she felt several things crawling over her. A wisp of matted, dirty hair brushed against the bare skin of her hand, and Mae began to shriek in terror as she realized who her “rescuers” were: rats had found her coffin, and were ready to feast.