America the Horrific
An Anthology of Horror
Julie Ann Dawson, Editor-in-Chief
Faith Carroll, Editorial Director
Cassandra Ganzak, Project Coordinator
©2011 Bards and Sages Publishing
Bellmawr, NJ
Smashwords Edition
License Agreement
This ebook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the original purchaser and should not be copied, transferred, distributed, traded, or sold to third parties without the expressed written permission of the authors. Please respect the copyright of the authors by not sharing unauthorized copies. All stories are copyright their respective authors and reproduced here with permission.
Table of Contents
Freaks, by Jake Walters
The Curse of Menatey, by C.B. Lovas
The Benson Hut Ghost, by Ann Gimpel
The Cow of Stedland, by Matthew Smallwood
The Curse of Black Wolf Lake, by Ron Boyer
The Country Doctor, by James S. Dorr
Holy Boy Stomp Dance, by G. Miki Hayden
The Believers, by Michael Hodges
Snow Birds, by Tim Lieder
The Web of Perdition, by Mae Empson
Iliamna, by Heather Whittington
Gina looked up from her phone as the cracking thunder shook the bus. At first, she thought they had hit something. But a second eruption of thunder caused the window to shake in its frame. She looked out the window just as a flash of lightning illuminated the highway marker signs.
Sleepy Hollow, 30 Miles
She slapped her boyfriend Nathan’s arm with the back of her hand. “Oh my God, that is a real place?” she gasped.
Nathan grumbled incoherently as he sat up. “Wha—? Where? We there yet?”
“That sign said we are near Sleepy Hollow!” she exclaimed. The thunder cracked again in affirmation.
Nathan remained groggily unimpressed with the revelation. “And? I was sleeping,” he said through a yawn.
“Sleepy Hollow? Hello? Headless Horseman!” Her blue eyes had the wide-eyed look of a child staring at a Christmas tree for the first time. Usually, Nathan found her exuberance endearing. But at that moment, it was keeping him from his sleep.
Nathan leaned back in his seat and turned over as best he could. “Well, wake me when the horseman shows up.”
The driver’s voice came over the intercom system. “For those of you interested, we’ll by driving through the village of Sleepy Hollow shortly. Sleepy Hollow was known as North Tarrytown until 1996, when it changed its name in honor of the classic Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”
“Speaking of sleep,” shouted Jerome from the back of the bus, “trying to do that back here.” A few of the other passengers laughed. The driver placed the microphone back on its rest near the steering wheel and sighed as the rain began to pummel the windshield.
“Hi! You’ve been selected to win an Xbox!” said a voice coming from Carl’s laptop.
“Fuckin’ pop-up bullshit!” he exclaimed as he banged keys on his keyboard to shut down the advertisement.
“Dude, really?” said David as he kicked the back of Carl’s seat. “Use a fucking headset or something. I’m trying to sleep.”
“Fuck off,” said Carl in disgust.
David sat up and leaned forward. His sister Emma put an arm across his chest. “Let it go,” she whispered. “He’s not worth it.” David sat back and kicked the back of the seat a second time.
“And you didn’t want to fly,” said Beatrice to her husband Michael as she watched the exchange from the corner of her eye.
“Don’t start,” he replied as he buried himself in his iPhone.
“I don’t want to be stuck in a flying tin can with a bunch of screaming kids,” she said as she imitated his voice.
“Enough, Beatrice,” said Michael as he checked the game scores.
“No, you were right. It is much better to be stuck in a tin can on a highway in the middle of a lightning storm,” she continued.
“Excuse me, mister?” asked Gina as she leaned over Nathan. “Driver guy?”
The driver looked at Gina through the rearview mirror. “John,” he said. “You can call me John.”
“Oh, OK. So, John, Sleepy Hollow isn’t a real place then? Like, it wasn’t Sleepy Hollow they just changed the name for publicity or something?”
“Oh, no. In the original story, Tarrytown was the name of the village. Sleepy Hollow was what the locals called the glen that surrounded the village. This entire area encompassed what was called Sleepy Hollow, but the story itself was set in Tarrytown.”
“Oh, cool.”
“You are familiar with Mr. Irving’s work?”
“Who?”
“Washington Irving. The author of the story.”
“Oh it was a book? I saw the Tim Burton movie with Johnny Depp. When was the book published?”
John sighed. “1820. And it was a short story.”
“Oh, that’s one of those old stories then from high-school stuff.”
He shook his head. “I suppose you could say that.” He turned his attention back to the road.
The thunder roared again, and the lightning blasted white light into the dark interior of the bus. Those trying to sleep gave up fighting the noise of the storm, and many began to pull out their laptops and phones to entertain themselves.
“. . . So anyway Lori said . . . hello? Hello?” Danica spoke into her phone. She held the phone in front of her and realized she had lost reception. “Stupid Sprint.”
“I just lost my call, too,” Nick said to her. “AT&T.” He put the phone in his pocket.
“Well, I guess they can’t hear me now,” said Andrew as he turned around to face the pair behind him. He held up his phone. “Verizon.”
“Lightning must have hit a tower or something,” said Nick.
Carl’s laptop suddenly went black. “What the hell?” He tried turning it on and off, but the screen remained blank as if the battery was dead. “I just charged this thing before I left the hotel!”
“My iPad just died too,” said Kevin from across the aisle, holding up the device in confirmation. “I just turned it on a couple of minutes ago.”
John’s voice came over the intercom. “Folks, I’ve got no visibility at all up here from the rain. We’re going to pull into a rest-stop area up ahead and wait out the storm.” A collective sigh of discontent echoed through the bus.
John pulled the bus into what appeared to be an abandoned rest stop. The parking lot was barren and the concrete broken in several places, allowing pools of water to form. Boards covered the windows and doors of the building. A single streetlight flickered as the bus rolled to a careful stop. As John turned off the bus, the streetlight blew out. The bus interior went pitch black.
A moment later, a green break-and-shake emergency light rolled down the aisle. Followed by a second, and then a third. “Let’s spread these around the bus so we aren’t sitting in the dark,” said John as he broke the fourth of the emergency lights and began shaking it.
Nathan looked round the bus and started to laugh. “I know you mean well, John, but this just made the bus creepier.” A murmur of agreement circulated through the passengers as they surveyed the soft green light filling the bus.
“Well, personally, I prefer candles. But those are a fire hazard in confined spaces,” John replied. “Fortunately, all buses are equipped with an emergency kit for these sorts of situations.”
“Um, John, how long has this place been abandoned?”asked Billy nervously. He opened his personal cooler and took at beer out of it.”
“Looks haunted, don’t it?” replied Nick. After noticing the cooler, he added “Dude how did you get that on the bus?”
“No, not haunted,” Billy lied while ignoring the second question. “Just seems we’re sort of vulnerable.”
Andrew began humming the theme from The Twilight Zone.
An impish grin spread across Nathan’s face. “Hey, Gina. Is that a guy on a horse over there?” he said as he pointed out the window.
“What?! Where!?” she exclaimed as she placed both hands palms first against the window and peered out into the darkness.
“Oh my God! Where’s his head!” exclaimed Nathan. Gina jumped.
Several passengers roared with laughter.
“That was not funny!” said Gina.
“That was awesome,” said Nick.
“Gina, there is no headless horseman. It was only a movie.”
“Irving’s tale was actually based on an old German folk legend that was believed to be true,” said John. There were alleged sightings of a so-called headless horseman in the area long before Irving arrived to Tarrytown.”
“You shitting me, old man?” asked Jerome from the back of the bus. He stood up from his seat and moved up a few rows, bringing the green break-and-shake light with him.
John chuckled. “I’m only repeating what I know. But you would be surprised how many places have such old legends and tall tales. I bet just about everyone here knows at least one legend from their own hometown.”
“My dad use to tell us old scary stories when we were kids,” said Carl as he put his dead laptop in its case. “He claimed a circus use to come through Tudor to snatch kids.”
“What was he afraid you were gonna run off with the bearded lady?” asked Nick.
“No, but apparently my dad did try to run off and join the circus once.” Carl chuckled. “He was going to be a lion tamer or something.” He dropped his head and looked down at the black laptop case.
“You alright, son?” asked John.
“Yeah,” said Carl without looking up. “You just never realize how much you miss those stupid stories until the storyteller isn’t around to tell them anymore.”
“The storyteller may be gone, but the story isn’t. Is it?” asked John.
Carl looked up at John. “No, I suppose it isn’t.” He sighed. “Not like we have anything else to do, right?”
Freaks
by Jake Walters
Patrick could see the front page of the local paper across the breakfast table. His mother was reading it, flipping haphazardly through some middle section, probably Entertainment, making Patrick wait to see what looked like real news, headlined in proud, bold letters: CIRCUS COMES TO TUDOR! Tudor had never even had a fair before, let alone a circus. So Patrick waited, not wanting to betray how badly he wanted to read about it, sipping his coffee in tight spurts which burned his lips. Finally, when it became too much, he asked, “Mom, can I see the paper?”
She looked over the dog-eared top edge of it. “Why? You never read the papers.”
“Maybe I’m looking for a summer job,” Patrick answered. “Can I just see them, already?”
“Suit yourself,” his mother said. “But you got plenty you can do around the house without needing a summer job.”
She let the paper fall limp to the table between them, and she picked up her coffee mug in both hands. It had been a long summer vacation, for her. Patrick’s dad was gone, and now it was only the two of them, which meant the bills were mostly just as high, but the money was low. And her working hours were more. Patrick often wondered what went through her mind, if she wondered if he did drugs, drank, beat up other kids at school, especially without a man to consult about such masculine affairs. He was fairly certain that she did not harbor any suspicion about his true secret, buried beneath baseball cards in an old shoebox beneath his bed, and that, even if his dad were still around, neither would he.
Patrick pretended to only glance at the front page, but he ravenously ate up all the information that he could. This weekend. Elephants, trapeze artists, tightrope walkers. Fire-eaters. And there, toward the end of the article, a guaranteed treat: a collection of oddities from around the world. Come one, come all.
“Thinking of going?” his mother asked.
“What?”
“The circus. Are you thinking of going to the circus?”
“Oh,” he said, pretending to see the article for the first time. “I don’t know. Maybe. If my friends want to.”
“Well, don’t spend all your money there,” his mother said, standing, signaling she would be leaving for another long day at one job and then the next. “You know they’re all scam artists. You’re supposed to shoot a basket, but the rim is bent. You know that’s how they make all their money.”
“Yeah, alright, Mom. See you later.”
“You behave today,” she said, in parting. “I’ll be home around six.”
And she left him alone in the house. He watched out the window, to be sure she was gone. Then he waited ten minutes, as a kind of insurance against her forgetfulness or her need to turn around and tell him one more thing before leaving him solitary for the rest of the day. When she didn’t come back, Patrick ran up to his room, a low feeling like desire deep in his adolescent belly. All the way he could hear the pacing of his heart, anticipating what was to come. The rest of the house was perfectly silent, a kind of invitation to do something secret.
Patrick went down to his hands and knees and scanned underneath his bed for the box. There was a lot of dust, and he nearly sneezed, but after locating the box he lifted his head and reached blindly for it. He pulled it quickly and smoothly from its hiding place. He stopped for a moment, again listening to the stillness of the house. Alone. Safe. So he pulled the top off the package, cleared away the baseball cards, and picked up the slender magazine waiting for him beneath.
On the cover was a photo of Elephant Man and a simple title: Freaks. Elephant man wasn’t any larger than a normal man, but his skin was scaly, a gray color, and his hands and feet resembled hooves. Patrick stared for a moment at the contours of the man’s body, and then he started to flip through the book. They were all here. Alligataro, the half-boy, half-alligator. The four-legged woman. The Rubber Man, whose skin hung down from his face and arms in sinewy, fatty flaps which dangled and flopped when he moved. Lobster Man and Lobster Boy. Many bearded ladies. Smokey, who could light up a cigarette and show you the smoke pouring out the hole in his back as he puffed away. And, near the end, Laloo, Patrick’s favorite, a grown man who had a twin growing out of his chest. The twin was only a pair of half-formed arms and legs, but, given more time and genetic luck, it would have been a completely different person. The idea boggled and excited Patrick’s mind.
Perhaps an hour passed, perhaps more. Patrick suddenly felt tired, and he carefully replaced his manual in its box, buried it with the baseball cards, and slid it back into its dusty, dark crevice of the world. He wanted to sleep. It was Friday, and the circus started tomorrow. He laid down on his bed and draped one arm over his eyes to block out the light of the day. He wanted to dream of Laloo and all his buddies, but when he did sleep, it was nightly and without visions.
The sound of his mother’s car pulling in the driveway woke him. He sat up, remembering what he had done with his day, and felt a thin film of shame wash over him. He wanted to take a shower, suddenly, but he heard the front door open and close and so he stretched and walked downstairs.
“Hey, Honey,” his mother said. “You find a job?”
“No,” he answered. “Nothing good in the papers. I guess I’ll just have to live on allowance.”
“Well, we’ll see how much longer I can keep giving you an allowance,” his mother began.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Patrick snapped. They had had this conversation before. “I’m going to go hang out with Jody.” Jody lived a few blocks down the street, and was probably Patrick’s best friend, despite his rarely seeing him. Truth of the matter was, Patrick wasn’t even entirely sure that Jody was in town for summer vacation.
Patrick stepped out into the evening. It was cooler than he thought, so he quickened his pace. The pages of his secret book flipped through his mind as he traveled. He found it difficult to look in people’s eyes as he thought of those pictures—like they would read his mind and lynch him. As a freshmen entering high school, he had had difficulties with some of the older guys. Like anyone, all he ever wanted was to fit in and be left alone, but it was during times like those: when Dan Steele held him against the lockers and pretended to hump him, for example, or when four linemen from the varsity football team held him down and stripped him to his underwear; those were the times he wondered what it would be like to be one of them. Nobody messed with Alligataro, of that Patrick was certain. Or Elephant Man. Or his favorite, Laloo. Rabid dogs would run from any of them. If he could have morphed, if even for one evening, into one of his freaks, he would have visited hell upon his tormentors.
But Patrick was not a freak. He was alone, and he endured his tormentors’ ridicule and he hated himself for not being able to stop it, and for wondering: why me? Why not Jody, who was shorter, and skinnier? Over time, he learned to avoid Dan Steele and the rest of them, and now he hoped that with their graduation, the fall would usher in an easier sophomore year.
Patrick continued walking along the planned path, turning right at Highfield Road, which led all the way to the edge of town. He considered sticking his thumb out, but decided it would be unsafe. He remembered reading about a teenage girl who had been kidnapped the next county over, the summer before. She hadn’t been found yet, but people could assume what the kidnapper had done with her, to her. The only clue had been a blue sedan, speeding away. At the time, Patrick had wondered what was going through the girl’s head, the moment she realized where she was going. She must have hated herself, for being in that place at that time, for being captured.
The houses became sparser, sunken, debris in the front yards, dogs barking. There were beer bottles broken against the curb in this part of town. Men, leaning against the hoods of cars, who stopped their conversations and would only stare as Patrick walked by. He felt like the Elephant Man in this neighborhood. He picked up his pace.
The houses abruptly disappeared, here in the darkness at the edge of Tudor. He could see a congregation of trucks, cars, and trailers in the clearing beyond the neighborhood. It was dusk, but he could make out the activities of several men, carrying boxes, cages, rings, ropes, bowling pins, torches, some lit, some dark, like smoked cigarettes. Patrick couldn’t hear anybody speaking. They all seemed to work in silence. In the near-passing of a burning torch, Patrick made out one man, only standing, supervising, in the fleeting brilliance of firelight. He was wearing what looked like a long black cape, a blood-red shirt beneath, black trousers, and boots. He was bald.
Patrick started walking toward the group of working men. About twenty feet from the man, he asked, “Are you guys setting up the circus?”
The man in the cape appeared to be startled. “That would be correct,” the man said, smiling. “And what would your name be, young man?”
“Patrick.” Patrick wished for a moment that he had lied, but he didn’t know why.
The man nodded, scratched at a stubble of moustache above his lip. “Patrick. Fine name. And what brings you here?”
“I want to see the freaks,” Patrick said, feeling as though he were confessing something, confiding a massive secret much too early in a relationship.
“Ah, the display of rarities from around the world,” the man corrected. “A very interesting exhibit.”
“Are you in charge?”
The man laughed, his cape jolting with his chortles, as though it too found Patrick’s question humorous. “You might say that,” he answered. “Though, in the end, it is the audience who is boss.”
Patrick paid no attention. He asked, “Can I help you set up?”
The man stopped laughing. “No, of course you cannot. It is much too dangerous for a boy your age to work in a circus such as this one. You may come when everyone else does, on Saturday. I recommend the evening show.”
“I don’t want the evening show,” Patrick said. He had never spoken like this before to an adult, besides his mother. “I won’t even ask for any money. I just want to see what it’s like.”
The man appeared to consider it for a moment. “I inherited this career from my father, he from his, and so on,” he said. “Do yourself a favor. Run away.”
“Come on. Just for a little while.”
“Fine, then. You must promise not to touch any of the exhibits,” the man said.
“I promise. I won’t break anything.”
The man smiled. Another lit torch passed by them, and Patrick thought he saw the man bleeding from one nostril in the quick glimpse of firelight. Then it was dark again. The man said, “I don’t mean for their safety. I mean for yours. Follow me.”
The cape swirled as the man turned and began to walk between the large looming tents. This was a new neighborhood in Tudor, one dirtier and scarier than the other on the edge of town. The tents were strangely silent, except for one or two, from which there came a quiet moaning. Instead of wondering whether there were people having sex inside, as his friends would, Patrick wondered which miserable freak called those tents home. He could not think for long, because the bald man walked very fast, just at the edge of Patrick’s vision. He paused a couple of times and waited impatiently for Patrick to catch up, and Patrick hurried, kicking up dust with his worn sneakers as he plodded in the man’s wake. Finally, the man stopped at the mouth of a large, beige tent. “This is the exhibit,” the man said, sounding almost bored. “Remember not to touch anything.”
“I know,” Patrick said. “Open it.”
The man paused with his hand on the tent flap for a moment, and then he winked at Pat. “You’re going to find this most compelling,” he said. “You may not want to leave.”
“Come on, just open it already,” Patrick insisted. “You got the Elephant Man?”
“See for yourself,” the bald man said, whisking the flap open with a fluid motion. Patrick opened his eyes wide. The lighting was dim; many of the torches that had been carried from one of the trucks were set up at the sides of a long aisle. To either side of the aisle, there were cages. “Come in,” the man said, and Patrick realized he was standing alone outside the tent. He followed.
“I keep them in cages overnight,” the man explained. “They only come out for the shows. The ones I even let out, that is. For example, Alligataro, to your left, never comes out.”
He could have been Patrick’s age. He was shorter than Patrick, wore torn blue jeans, no shirt. His flesh was gray, scaly, scuffing off as the boy jumped up and down. He appeared to be happy to see someone that might be a friend, whimpering, perhaps trying to speak. When Patrick looked at the boy’s mouth, he saw teeth that were perhaps two inches long, dripping with saliva.
“Is he dangerous?” Patrick asked.
“What do you think? And the next exhibit is the six-legged woman.” Unmoving, she looked like a decrepit, oversized spider, lying amidst a pile of knees and ankles. Her breathing appeared labored. “I’m afraid she doesn’t have long left,” the bald man said. “None of them live long. Even the healthiest, only a few good years of showmanship, then it’s over. I think it’s the road that does it to them.”
He saw others, too. Everything from his book, and more. This was the difference between masturbating to a Playboy and having sex with a live woman, Patrick decided. He felt sweaty, dirty, full and satisfied. Some, like Alligataro, genuinely tried to get his attention. Others, like Smokey, did nothing but pace their cells and ignore him. Rubber Man, whose skin seemed to cling to his face like thick cobwebs, only laid in the corner of his cage.
“What’s wrong with him?” Patrick asked.
“Oh, him? He died yesterday. Poor Rubber Man. It remains to be seen whether his skin decomposes like the rest of ours.”
“Why is he here? What are you doing with him?”
“My boy,” the man said, “he must be replaced. The day before a big show, and we need a Rubber Man.”
“How?” Patrick asked. “There can’t be anyone left like him in the world. Not in America, anyway.”
The man nodded slowly. “I believe there is.”
Patrick felt the invisible presence of eyes surrounding them. “No,” Patrick said. “Look at me.”
“I know,” the man said, chuckling. “Your biggest skin problem is only a very mild case of adolescent acne.” Now hands around his arms, his ankles, his thighs. They carried him to a table at the end of the aisle, here lit very brightly by some portable electric lamps. Dimly, Patrick could hear the generators buzzing away into the night. Now the bald man was shoving his hand into a thick blue glove. He grabbed a beaker of some green, smoking solution, and held it away from his body. Now Patrick noticed that all the hands holding him down were wearing the same blue gloves. The memory of the four linemen stripping him as he struggled in vain against them flashed through his brain.
“Dangerous stuff. You might want to close your eyes, Rubber Boy.”
At first it felt only like water, but then it began to sting, and the pain morphed into something atomic. Patrick closed his eyes, but he opened his mouth with the most horrified scream he’d ever produced. He heard the rest of the freaks in their cages echoing his shriek, until they sounded like an insane orgy, each with his or her own warbling, scratched, disused voice. He heard one of them pounding at the bars of his cage. Then everything was darkness, and he remembered nothing more.
* * *
Saturday morning. Circus to start, later that afternoon, but for now, a few hours to rest. Alligataro, staring from the next cage over, muttered something unintelligible from the caverns of his reptilian throat. The bald man, walking up and down the aisle, checked out his freaks. Wearing only his boxer shorts. He was a fat, short man, and without his cape, he looked somehow too human.
A woman’s voice from outside the tent. The bald man dressed quickly into his circus attire. Now the woman entered. “Hi,” she said. She looked around nervously, her eyes only skittering over each of the freaks before returning to the man in the cape. “I was looking for my son Patrick. I found this under his bed last night.” She waved a creased and crinkled magazine in her hand, and then let it drop to her side, as if in shame. “I think he might have come here last night.”
The six-legged woman had breathed her last, the night before. Now she lay buried in her own limbs a few cages down from where Rubber Boy stood. At the time, the bald man had seemed resigned to it, saying that when God closed a door he opened a window. And Rubber Boy knew there was a pile of fresh legs, twitching on the table at the back of the tent, awaiting some kind of transplant.
“Perhaps,” the bald man said. “Why don’t you come with me and we can find out?” Rubber Boy thought of trying to warn her, but knew it would only make the man angry. He was no longer kind to them when he was angry. So he watched as the man led the woman down the aisle, a blue-gloved hand resting contentedly on the small of her back.
“After dad passed last year, my uncle finally confessed that the story originally came from grandpa,” said Carl. “Supposedly there was an incident with a circus freak killing some kid back in the 1920s, and gramps embellished it a bit to scare his sons into behaving.”
“Sort of like when my mom used to say she was going to sell us to the gypsies,” Beatrice said.
“I bet she would have got a nice price for you,” said Jerome as he made eye contact. Beatrice blushed.
Michael scowled. “Yeah, well, you say that ’cause you don’t know her,” he said.
Gina shook Nathan’s arm. “You should tell that story your cousin was telling us at your grandmother’s birthday party! The one about that creepy lake.”
“Why?”
“Because it was scary and we’re telling scary stories now.”
“Now see what you started,” said John to Carl with a smile.
“Yeah, me and my big mouth.”
“Go ahead, young man. The floor is yours,” said John.
Nathan looked at Gina. “Why don’t you tell it? Why do I have to?”
“Because you studied drama so you can voice act it and stuff.”
“Oh so I have to perform, not just tell the story?”
“Drama, huh?” mocked Nick.
“It was one semester,” said Nathan defensively. “I needed the art credits.”
“It’s all good, brother,” said Jerome. “Hey, I signed up for band senior year of high school.” Several eyebrows raised. Jerome shrugged. “Ms. Veronica Lynn Chambers. Band Advisor. Woman knew how to work a flute.”
“So you like older women, do you Jerome?” asked Michael.
“I appreciate older women,” he replied, looking at Beatrice instead.
“Tell the story!” said Gina.
“Fine, fine!”
“Make sure you tell it dramatically,” said Nick.
The Curse of Menatey
by C. B. Lovas
Tim pulled his Chevy into a rain-torn drive that led to their rented cabin hidden among tall pines along a steep wall of a valley nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians. After parking, the men stepped out and stretched out the kinks in their stiff bodies from the long trip from the city.
“Ok, let’s get unloaded. Get a fire going out back,” Tim said quickly, as he carried his short, stout frame toward the trunk.
“Oh yeah. Turn the game on the radio and get some cold ones,” Jeff said while looking down at Tim and pulling bags out of the back seat.
While stepping upon the porch, a feeling that Jeff was being watched from the shadows crept over him. He stopped at the door and peered into the looming shadows of the tunnel of the pines and saw nothing.
He shook his head and entered, and thought, just coincidences. Don’t spook yourself.
He snickered at his reaction to the strange feelings. It reminded him of the strange man dressed in sand-colored clothes—the long black hair in a ponytail, the dark skin, and the distinctive profile. Jeff saw the man not once but twice, tens of miles apart. The man looked directly at Jeff—into his soul. Tim apparently didn’t see him, but he missed a lot that goes on around him all the time.
Tens of miles apart. Couldn’t be the same man. They were dressed alike. Just coincidences. Don’t spook yourself, he nodded to himself.
They discarded duffle bags in the middle of the cabin and tossed stuffed grocery bags on the kitchen counter. After putting away the perishables, they dragged the cooler out the back door and headed for the fire pit. After struggling for awhile, Tim finally got a fire going while Jeff got the radio tuned to the baseball game and set the cooler between two chairs, which faced the dark lake. He disregarded the thoughts of the mystery man, which he will regret, and thrust his hand into the ice water of the cooler.
“There. We have everything we need. Here, catch,” Jeff said while he tossed Tim a beer on the other side of the fire and sat down with a sigh. Tim fumbled with the projectile and finally cradled it around his thighs.
Tim crashed next to him with the same expression. They both unwound with cold beers in hand, watching the flames devour the logs, and the game entered the second inning tied at one. Lake Nihillowen glistened in the distance under the pale moon, and a cool breeze rose off the lake and drifted up the valley and caressed their tired bodies and souls. As the beers take effect, the guys began to talk during commercials and between batters.
By the time the game entered the seventh inning, Tim began to tell Jeff about his childhood in the hills around Lake Nihillowen and fishing and camping along its shores. Jeff just smiled and nodded. He’s from the city, and really doesn’t care. He knew Tim has drank way too many and was going to talk too much, as he usually does after four or five beers. But, he tolerated it, as good friends do, and paid little attention to him while he listened to the game and watched the flickering flames.
“Did ya know this whole valley was flooded in 1943? Part of some civil engineers project. They did it to stop flooding, for drinking water, and stop the flooding of the Nihillowen Creek in the spring,” Tim said with a slur and waved his hand unsteadily over the dark lake before them.
Jeff vacuously stared at the fire, holding his fourth beer, responded, “No I didn’t. I bet your grandfather told you that on one of those camping trips you told me about.”
“Yeah. But, not the last one I mentioned. Everything in the valley was flooded. A small village was drowned. Farms, roads, and even the ol’ railroad tracks that ran through the county before the Depression. All gone. Then he told me about the island . . .”
“They drowned a whole town!”
Tim laughed and then sipped his beer, “There weren’t any people livin’ there. The government made them all move or something. But, yeah, an old country store, a school that one of my relatives went to, and a church.”
“You said something about an island,” Jeff asked, now interested by the flooding of a whole town.
“You can’t see it from here. It’s the top of some important landmark or somethin’. There’s No Trespassing signs all over it. My grandfather and I would go by it, but we never stopped. Somethin’ about respectin’ other people’s wishes,” Tim said, as his country accent comes out further, between the slurring.
“You want to stop tomorrow . . . if no one is around?”
“Yeah, that would be cool. But, there was something else my grandpa said about it I can’t remember. Somethin’ ‘bout Indians. ”
“Indians? What about them,” Jeff asked, disappointed, wondering if Tim has really had too much to drink and the island maybe be made up.
“Well, this whole area, especially in the valley, is where Indians lived for centuries. They built some sort of mounds for something special. That’s what my dad told me. Damn, I can’t remember what Indians have to do with the lake.”
“It can’t be that important. Hey, it’s the ninth, we’re up to bat, and down by one,” Jeff said while gesturing to the radio with beer.
They listened to the team lose another game, put out the fire, and staggered off to bed.
They slept in and the invading noon sun finally woke them. They staggered around the cabin waking from their drunken slumber and gathered their gear to go fishing. Soon, they stepped outside and the bright sun provoked headaches in the men, and then they staggered down the steps. Tim guided the way to a shadowy trail that led from the Mottaka Cabins to the lake. From the distance, Jeff towered over the short and chubby Tim, who stumbled over a protruding root and nearly dropped his gear. It appeared from behind that dear old dad was taking his son fishing. In the shade, the headaches lessen and the hike down water-torn trail to the lake encouraged them to rise from their haze.
At the bottom of the steep hill, a boat awaited them overturned and covered with a tarp. Tim dragged off the tarp, flipped the boat, and pushed the ancient weather-beaten vessel into the water. Tim gestured for them to board and soon they were out on Lake Nihillowen rowing
“Do you remember us talking about the island last night? Maybe we could go by it,” Jeff said while paddling and anticipating looking for the small plot.
“The island. Oh yeah . . .” Tim said hesitantly. “We could go by I guess,” he continued, looking unsurely at Jeff, as he remembered all the superstitions his grandfather told him about the isle—about the Native Americans.
Tim guided them around a huge hill that protrudes into the lake and left the protection of the cove. As they clear the obstacle, the lake came into view; an expanse of acres of pristine blue water nestled in a bed of lush green trees that blankets the valley walls, but it was deserted—no one. Jeff felt unsettled about a beautiful place left abandoned and silent. Remembering Tim mentioned the lake was isolated, he asked where everyone was on such a gorgeous day. Tim explained people usually fish, ski, and sail around the bend at the other end of the lake near the dam.
“No one really hangs out up here near the island or the coves. All the fun is at the other end of the lake. A few miles that way,” Tim explained while pointing past another tall valley wall.
Tim steered them into the shadow of the valley and pointed ahead to the valley wall, “There’s the island. See it?”
Jeff looked but just saw trees and dark shadows, no island, “Can we get closer. I don’t see anything.”
As Tim maneuvered the boat around the island and still nearly 25 yards away, “There . . . is that better? It blends in to the background really well.”
As the boat turned, Jeff saw it emerge from the shadows as if it were a mirage in the desert, “Wow. It came from nowhere. Can we get closer? Hey, better yet, can we get on it,” Jeff said, as he squirmed in his seat.
“The shadows and trees can play tricks on you . . . What, get on it?! I don’t know. . . . My grandfather told me—” Tim said with hesitation but Jeff interrupted.
“Yeah—your grandfather. I heard a lot about him last night. Too much. Let’s get closer.”
Afraid his longtime friend would poke fun at him for believing in old superstitions, he turned the boat closer. The trees and the shore of the isle distinguish itself from the valley behind it. It’s as if the island doesn’t want to be seen unless up close.
They steered along side, and Jeff was the first to grab a projecting tree trunk and jumped out. Tim fumbled with his oar and nearly fell into the water, jumping out to catch up with his friend. When he found him down shore behind some thick trees, they stopped and gazed out over Lake Nihillowen that extended before them.
“Hey, we can fish right here. Get the gear,” Jeff said, as he headed back to the boat.
Tim stood motionless with his head down, as dread overwhelmed him. He frantically tried to find a way off this forsaken isle, as an archaic wooden sign stared at him with scrawled black letters, No Trespassing.
Then it came to him, “I know a better fishing spot out on the lake. Its deep and the bass really hang out that way.”
Jeff shrugged and grabbed the fishing gear, “This is fine. We can sit on that log over there and look out over the lake.”
Tim took his stuff from Jeff and sat on the log shaking his head, deciding if he should say anything to Jeff about the legends. He knew Jeff doubted ancient legends and superstitions, but this one was big, since they were sitting on it right now! He’s afraid Jeff will think he’s stupid, as everyone has always thought of him—the dumb, clumsy screw-up. They casted out and sat quietly with their feet dangling over an ancient fallen tree, gazing over the sparkling water in the afternoon sun. A gentle breeze caressed their faces and tossed their hair.
As the time goes by, Tim looked out over the lake and remembered a conversation with his grandfather, as they entered this cove over a decade ago. His grandfather pointed to this island, which Tim could not see, and told the legend of this small plot—the top a hallowed hill, flooded by the white men years ago. As the boat drifted closer, the island appeared for Tim, as it did for Jeff, mysteriously from nowhere. His grandfather continued with the tale about the mound that no white should step foot on—not out of fear but respect. White man had desecrated the sacred hill by flooding the valley where the Native Americans lived and worshipped for centuries. They revered this mound and fought for the valley to be saved, since many sacred sites resided around this hill they called Menatey. Yet, the government went ahead with their plans and the Native Americans lost a part of their history and religion. However, a chief placed a curse on the lake and Menatey, which Tim and Jeff sat today. Part of the curse killed many men on the dam project and killed people from time to time in the lake, but the other part was what worries Tim—the curse of Menatey, the hallowed hill—the island.
Tim glanced over at Jeff who was staring blankly at the water lapping at the shore. His apprehensions overwhelmed him, “I got to tell you something. I remember what my grandfather told me about the island—”
“Oh! Not your superstitious grandpa again. Tim, please we can talk about something else, like why we haven’t caught a thing yet, but not about your grandpa’s stories.”
“Well, if we went out to the spot I mentioned; but you chose here. We should just pack up and leave before—”
“Before what? The boogeyman gets us? Come on. What are you afraid of?” Jeff taunted Tim with tone of condescension.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. We should just leave.”
With that, Jeff abruptly stood up, towering over Tim, and pointed to the dark forest behind them, “Is it in there? This dinky piece of land isn’t bigger than a football field. Hell, it is barely half of one. You know what? I’m going to prove you wrong and go exploring.”
Jeff turned his back on the shadowy woods and glared at Tim, daring Tim to challenge him. Tim glanced at Jeff’s fiery stare and then at the ground. He kicked a tuff of dirt while he collected his thoughts. As Tim was about to speak, he looked up to Jeff and was horrified at the sight. The shadows of the woods came alive. Black, ghostly arms slithered out and grabbed Jeff. The blackness transformed into the shape of man. With ebony snakes as arms wrapped around Jeff’s neck, it pulled Jeff to his knees and then dragged him into the lush underbrush. Before Tim opened his mouth or flinched, the wall of leaves swallowed him with only the sound of rustling leaves and snapping twigs.
In the distance, Tim heard more leaves and twigs snapping moving toward the center of the island. Without hesitation, he ignored any fears about superstition or legends and thought only of his friend’s life. He bolted through the bushes to run after the silent, ebony assailant. He ran through the dense forest dodging trees and thrusting branches from his view. As he forced his way, he stopped to listen to his concealed quarry. No screams or faint audible sounds. The only thing Tim followed was the sounds of rustling leaves and branches, the snap of a twig here and there. He chased the sounds, forcing his fears out of his mind.
All he thought was that his best friend was snatched by this legendary entity. He gasped for air. This was the most he ran in years. An ocean of sweat streamed down his forehead stinging his eyes. The thought flickered in his mind, What are you doing? That thing could get you! But, he must save his best friend. Only if, the people, who have made fun of him, could see him now hardly the dumb, clumsy screw-up. He ducked and dodged through the dark forest after that something and his friend.
Then Tim stumbled over a log hidden by some high grass and fell face first into a clearing, skidding on his stomach on the sandy surface. As he stood and brushed himself and tried to catch his breath, he peered up and saw the otherworldly shadow, pulling his friend to the center of a strange stand of trees. The trees grew in a circle around an eerie sandy clearing. The trees were stripped of all its branches and stood as straight poles, but they appeared sturdy and healthy without leaves and limbs. Carved in the trees were strange pictograms he had never seen before.
Tim watched as the creature dragged his friend across the center of the circle. The black entity possessed the form of a man, a youthful, muscular man, with the distinct profile of a Native American with a ponytail. But he noticed something very odd. Yes, having a slithering shadow grab your friends was strange enough, but there was something odd about the attacker’s feet. Tim didn’t expect it to leave tracks in the fine sand, but at least the feet should come close to the ground. When he gracefully entered the clearing in that dive, the creature was touching the ground. But now it seemed to float upward, as if climbing an invisible staircase to the center of the circle, effortlessly dealing with the struggling goliath, Jeff.
Jeff’s flailing legs left slashes in the sand that filled slightly as the sand fell back into place. Tim stalked toward the center slowly, gauging his adversary’s next move. He glanced down at Jeff’s thrashing feet again and noticed his feet don’t leave slashes any longer. They went into the sand up to his shins. Then, as they drifted out further, the sand went to his knees. The black beast slowly lowered Jeff into the ground and glided out of the circle into the shadows in the far wood.
“QUICKSAND!” Jeff screamed, as the ground swallowed him to his waist.
The scream was like no other that Tim had ever heard. The panic, the terror that rang in that blood-curdling scream made Tim’s skin crawl. Tim froze in his tracks staring at Jeff while the ground slowly devoured his pants and started on this shirt. Tim slowly peered up to the shadows in the woods and saw the figure watching, and then it stepped back and faded into the background. He blankly stared at the blackness for a moment until Jeff’s screams return Tim to the situation at hand.
“QUICKSAND! I’m being pulled down. Help!”
Tim quickly studied the ground to see where the slashes ended to find the end of the sand pit. He found it and stepped to the edge. He looked out at Jeff who was about ten feet out. He’s too far to reach.
The earth has consumed up to Jeff’s chest.
“Don’t move. You will sink faster. Reach your arms out to me. I’ll be right back,” Tim explained and ran back to the woods to find a branch that will reach.
Frantically, Tim searched in the underbrush and on trees for a limb long enough. The sense of being watched overwhelmed him. He stopped and slowly peered into the shadows of the forest. He searched for the slithering figure. He waited to be ambushed but there was nothing but silence. He saw nothing but motionless shadows and trees. Jeff’s terrified screams break the horror driven trance of Tim.
“It’s over my shoulders. Hurry the fuck up!” Jeff’s voice cracked.
Tim shook his head to clear the spell. He grasped a limb more than long enough on a nearby tree and bent it around the tree until it snapped. He twisted if off the tree. He sprinted back to the clearing, leaping over the hidden log. He found his friend up to his neck in quicksand with two arms protruding from the hungry ground. For a moment, the sense of being watched returns—the feeling that he was about to be attacked. His hair stood on end over his entire body and chills crawled from his legs to his head. Tim searched the nearby shadows for the sinister creature but saw just leaves and shadows.
His sinking friend screamed with the sand up to his chin, “What are you waiting for? Give me the damn branch!”
Tim swung the branch out to Jeff and he snatched it. Tim backpedaled and pulled his friend from the earth. He doesn’t stop until he cleared the circle of bare trees. Jeff got to his feet and sprinted past Tim.
“Run! Run as fast as you can back to the boat! It told me what it’s going to do to us,” Jeff yelled disappearing into the lush undergrowth of the forest.
Tim followed the swinging branches and the moving leaves, attempting to keep up with his terrified friend. While running and dodging branches and bushes, he noticed that sounds were following them. More leaves rustled behind them. Branches snapped and cracked. Tim glanced over his shoulder to see what pursued them. The ghastly sight compelled him to run even faster. He disregarded the limbs that slap him in the chest and scratched his face. He just ran. Then limbs grabbed at his clothes, as if trying to stop his escape.
He pulled from them, ripping his shirt and snagging his jeans, yelling, “Run, Jeff. Run! There’s more this time. So many more. RUN!”
The thunderous din from the shadowy pursuers drowned out any noise Jeff was making or the advancing sounds of the lake. Tim now ran blind hoping he headed in the correct direction, fighting the forest and ultimate panic. As the sounds of breaking limbs and trampled bushes closed in, Tim gasped for breath and his heartbeat pounded in his ears. He dared not look back at the wall of slithering blackness that pursued him. The trees blinded him, but he ran straight ahead hoping the lake found him and he’s not running in circles.
As the sense of being ambushed returned and an image of a black hand grasping his arm, Tim broke through the trees and halted nearly falling into the forsaken lake. He searched the shore for the boat and Jeff. He saw Jeff already in the boat frantically waving at him. He ran, as if on a tightrope along the shore to the sanctuary of the craft and fell in, rocking the boat and nearly capsizing it.
He yanked out an oar and pushed off the cursed isle. The boat rocked and floated far enough so Tim could frantically begin to row. Moments later, Tim felt they’re far enough away to look back. Jeff watched his heroic friend and peered over his shoulder. The island’s shore writhed and crawled with a living blackness, countless souls, that shrouded the entire shore. A living black shadow devoured the coast, blocking out the bushes and the trunks of the trees. As the men rowed, the black shore and ghastly island faded into nothing. Menatey disappeared, as it appeared, as if was a mirage in the desert. It was as the island didn’t want to be seen any longer.
Jeff looked straight at his best friend, stunned, “Holy shit! You saved my life.”
All Tim thought was what was going to happen now, as he remembered his grandfather’s words from years ago, “The mound that no white should walk on again—not out of fear but respect. Respect their wishes.”
The men rowed in silence—stunned—back to the protective cove. Soon, they landed and were pulling the vessel back to its home. With a fearful quickness in their steps, they climbed the rough trail back to the cabin. As the cabin came into view, relief overwhelmed both of them, and they finally spoke for the first time since their ordeal.
Jeff put his arm around Tim in a friendly hug, and with an astonishing laugh, “You saved my life. I can’t believe it. You did it, man. Now, let’s get out of here!”
Tim placed his arm on his friend, shaking him slightly, “No problem. That’s what friends are for. You owe me one. Now, do you believe in my stupid superstitions?”
With a fearful stare, Jeff nodded his head. They continued back up the hill, hesitantly talking about the nightmare. They quickly stepped in the cabin and, without a single word, grabbed all their gear. Moments later, they backed down the driveway with the car carelessly packed. The tires squealed on the pavement and the car sped away, as they departed without looking at the captivating view of the sun setting over Lake Nihillowen and the shadows crept up the valley wall.
Jeff stared at Tim from the corner of his eye, grinning. Shadows slithered around inside of the car, as the sun slipped behind the hills. A glint of a shadowy emptiness gleamed through Jeff’s eyes. The car sped out of the valley of shadows, carrying dark entities from the island—the cursed Menatey.
As shadows slithered out of under the seats, Jeff whispered with a grin, “I never told you what they were going to do to us. Do you want to know . . . now?”
“THAT is not a true story!” said Danica. “Wait, is it?”
“I don’t know,” said Nathan. He turned to Gina. “Was that dramatic enough for you?”
“Yes,” she said as she hopped in her seat, satisfied with his dramatic performance.
Nathan smiled and licked his lips. “Save that jiggling for later,” he whispered in her ear. Gina giggled.
“So has anyone ever seen a real ghost?” asked Beatrice. “Not ‘heard about a ghost from someone else’ but actually seen one?”
“Ghosts aren’t real, Beatrice,” said Michael as he leaned back in his seat and folded his arms.
“Um . . .” said Billy. As soon as the sound came out of his mouth, he dropped his head as if hoping nobody would notice.
“Do you know a real ghost story?” Beatrice asked Billy. “Have you seen a ghost before?”
“Well . . .”
“OK, you’re turn!” exclaimed Gina at Billy. She shook Nathan’s knee. “This is fun.”
The Benson Hut Ghost
by Ann Gimpel
Billy Morton looked around him at a veritable sea of faces. They looked . . . predatory somehow. The silence was becoming uncomfortable and, indeed, someone poked him. “Oh, my turn, is it?” he responded, eyes fixed on the ground. Hearing a susurrus of affirmations rising and falling around him, a part of him—his courage—scurried deep inside. I can’t tell them about that, he thought. Shit, I’ve spent the past twenty years trying not to think about it . . .
But it’s the only true ghost story you know, another inner voice interrupted. And everybody else has been spilling their guts. Billy straightened his thin shoulders and ran bony big-knuckled fingers through his thinning gray-blonde hair. Hazel eyes brimming with trepidation, he agonized over how he should start his tale.
“S-see,” he stammered, “This whole thing, it happened just over twenty years ago. I was a young man then . . . or, younger anyways.” His voice ran down. He noticed that the crowd had bent toward him and he reached up to claw at the neck of his shirt, suddenly feeling as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in the smallish room.
“I used to be a mountain guide,” Billy said haltingly, still feeling like it was a struggle to suck air into his lungs. “That’s how I earned a living until about five years ago when I fell and broke my back. Learned to walk again, but couldn’t carry a heavy pack anymore. It wasn’t easy adjusting to a life that didn’t include long trips in the mountains. In fact, I had a hell of a time with it. Still do. Uh, sorry, got off track there for a minute.” He tried to gin up a half-smile, but the faces that stared back at him weren’t buying it.
“Okay. Okay.” He held up both hands in the universal gesture for surrender. “I give up. See, there’s this place a ways out of Truckee in northern California. It’s a ridge that goes from Mount Lincoln along a high escarpment to a hut on the flanks of Mount Andersen about six miles distant. Been a popular back-country ski route for years. Folk, they can go from Sugar Bowl resort to Squaw Valley in about a day on skis. And, if things get rough, well, there’s this old two-story cabin called the Benson Hut round about the midway point.