Midnight Grinding (38 page)
Authors: Ronald Kelly
“What are you doing over here?” someone asked her and Rebecca felt her fright melt away at the sound of her husband’s voice.
“I thought I heard something,” she said, catching her breath.
“So did I,” replied Jasper. “A noise and a light. But doesn’t look like nobody’s here now. Must’ve been an old hobo messing around or something.”
Rebecca crossed her slender arms against the night chill and was escorted home by her husband. When they finally settled into bed once again, Rebecca glanced at Jasper’s pocket watch lying on the bureau and saw that it was only a few minutes past the stroke of midnight.
***
During the next few weeks, Rebecca couldn’t shake the dreadful shadow of that night on the back porch of the Lee house. During her daily chores she found herself casting an uneasy glance at the dark, empty windows, as if expecting to see a wild-eyed, whiskered face leering out at her from amid the broken panes.
And it was even worse at night. Her dreams were filled with the threat of Green Lee. Sometimes she would find herself running across a snowy field with Mitch and Millie in tow as a dark form pursued them, fistfuls of honed steel flashing wickedly in the cold, winter moonlight. Sometimes she would dream that she heard the whimpers of children drifting through the ebony night, along with the smell of cooking meat, and she would go into the kitchen and find Green Lee standing over a vast iron pot on the wood stove. From the boiling waters he would drag the bodies of her children, holding them aloft and cackling insanely as the blistered meat slid limply from their naked bones and fell like pale suits of dead gristle into the steaming cauldron.
As if the horrid nightmares weren’t enough, Rebecca began to have suspicions that her husband might be playing a part in her sudden uneasiness. She came to the realization that he was acting strangely and not at all like the man she had married.
Lately, Jasper had chosen to spend his evenings sitting by the door of the big, iron cook stove, smoking his pipe and staring into the glowing slits of the grate, as if searching for the clue to some inner mystery. He also began to talk in his sleep. Not coherently, but in low whispers, reminding Rebecca of the breathy pleas of that lunatic handyman she had once known.
And objects around the house began to mysteriously disappear. One morning in December, Rebecca noticed that Jasper was shaving with a new razor. When she questioned him about the whereabouts of his old one, Jasper grew defensive. “I reckon I just misplaced it, that’s all,” he said curtly. Also, the hand-axe she used for chopping kindling vanished without a trace from the stump outside.
There was the matter of the bed linen as well. Sometimes when she did her washing, she would find some of the sheets filthy with mud and dank leaves, as if someone had gone for a nocturnal stroll and then climbed back into bed without wiping their feet.
***
It was on a cold and snowy night in the middle of February that all of Rebecca’s fears and suspicions suddenly came to a head and she found herself lying awake in her bed, filled with a sensation of overbearing dread.
Her hand moved to her husband’s side of the bed and found the space unoccupied. She rose and instantly smelled a sickening scent in the air. It reeked like spoiled meat cooking in its own fetid juices. Uttering a silent prayer, Rebecca stepped into the hallway and checked the bedroom of her children. Mitch and Millie were both gone. Their beds were empty and their blankets had been violently flung across the floor. She looked down the dark corridor and, from the kitchen, thought she heard the boiling of water…and the low, giggling mirth of an unsound mind. Then came the sharp slap of the back door slamming shut.
Bracing herself for the worst, Rebecca Howell entered the kitchen. Despite the cold winter night, the interior of the room was sweltering hot. The stove had been stoked. A crackling fire raged within its iron belly. The narrow slits of the grate winked at her like crimson eyes, privy to some evil knowledge that she was thankfully ignorant of. But not for very long.
As she walked nearer, Rebecca saw that her largest iron pot was on the stove and that plumes of acrid steam drifted from the bubbling waters within. The odor of cooking meat was stronger than ever and Rebecca fought the sickness that threatened to seize her. Taking a step closer, she peered through the warm mist and into the torrid waters beneath.
Something danced in the dark depths, a couple of small, pale objects rising and falling amid the swirling currents. At first she didn’t know what they were. Then, as they rose to the boiling surface, she recoiled in horror.
They were clumps of flaccid skin. Pale blossoms of lifeless flesh that had slipped from the understructure of human bones. The objects waved at her like disembodied gloves. Tiny nails, bitten to the quick, graced each fluttering finger.
Rebecca moaned with terror. “My babies! What has he done to my babies?”
She recalled the slamming of the back door and, from the darkness of the night beyond, again heard the low chortling of maniacal laughter. She grabbed a heavy stick of firewood from the box, then opened the door and stepped out onto the porch.
It was a frigid night. The ground was inches deep with fresh snow, and moonlit icicles hung like jeweled fangs from the eaves of the overhang. Rebecca breathed frosty plumes of winter air, then, raising the stick of wood overhead, stepped off the edge of the porch. And instantly felt her bare foot sink into the cooling sludge that had once been her husband’s brain.
Before Rebecca could give way to the scream that rose in her throat, she heard the rasping sound of tiny voices.
“Which one must we kill…next?”
Then, from the dense shadows beneath the back porch, came the flash of sharpened steel and youthful bone.
AFTERWORD
I’ve been gone for a while…ten years to be exact. So I have a lot of folks to thank for kicking me in the seat of the britches and urging me to give this storytelling gig another try.
First and foremost, to the good Lord, through whom all things are possible. Thank you for blessing me with this second chance.
To my wife, Joyce, who has been my strength and comfort for the past sixteen years. Thanks for your love and support through the good times and bad—especially those post-Zebra years—and for showing me that there is much more to life than sitting behind a keyboard.
To my precious daughters, who God has gracefully blessed me with. Reilly, my superhero and monster-loving buddy, whose interests in art, music, and writing show great promise. And my little Chigger, Makenna, a bundle of energy with fiery red hair and an Irish temper to match; a lover of baby dolls and fairy princesses, of which, in my eyes, she is both. And to our newest addition, my son, Ryan Alexander.
To my good friend, Mark Hickerson, who stuck with me throughout the years and, eventually, won me back to writing. I’ll be forever grateful for your friendship and tenacity. Most of all, you were influential in orchestrating my comeback. And to Shannon Riley, my small-press pal, who went to bat for me and got the wheels turning. Much thanks to my present and future publishers: Richard Chizmar at Cemetery Dance Publications and Stephen Lloyd at Croatoan Publishing, for your confidence, friendship, and support, and for presenting my work in a way it has never been presented before. I look forward to many wonderful projects together.
To my biggest fan and best friend, Rob McCoy, to whom this collection is dedicated. And to the following folks: James Newman, Katie O’Neil, Mark Johnson, and Alex McVey, for regarding me as much more than simply a name on a book. Thank you for blessing me with the privilege of being your friend.
To my good friend Hunter Goatley, whose generosity and expertise has been phenomenal in bringing the Ron Kelly website to life. Thanks for making this dream a reality. For more info on me and my brand of Southern-fried horror, y’all stop on by at www.ronaldkelly.com and make yourselves at home.
And, last but not least, to my fans, who never forgot me and forgave me for going AWOL for a while. I promise you, folks, the twilight only gets darker from here on out.
Y’all come on back and see me. There is always an empty rocking chair on the ol’ front porch and plenty more tales to be told.
Ronald Kelly
Brush Creek, Tennessee
July 2007
Cemetery Dance Publications
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