The Deadsong (10 page)

“Yep, had a hundred and five acres. Mostly hills and rocks. Had a dog like the Starkweathers’. You met them yet? Anyhow, he fought snakes, the dog. Got bit all the time. Swelled up, thought he'd die. Swelled up pretty good once after getting bit by a copperhead. I don't know how many times he got bit. One come into the yard one night, Daddy went out there and killed it. Later on we had some brush piled up on some cleared land and Blackie, that was my dog’s name, started barking at this hollow log on top. Daddy bust it open and there were baby rattlers inside. Killed em all. Had to be careful because there was all woods in back and in front of the house. Had this path behind the house, I remember. Led down to Goodman’s Branch. We had milk stuck down in the water to keep it cold. When it came up a cloud we'd have to go get it out, afraid it'd be washed away. Daddy use to take us into town after he got the A model. I'd go to the picture show at the Hemming Theatre, but “Tarzan” or “The Durango Kid” didn't last as long as Daddy’s pool games. Most of the time he’d play nine-ball or pill pool. Eddie Raulston use to have people in there on Friday night and everybody smoked. It was so blue in there. Packed place. Up front selling hamburgers and hot dogs was Piper Nix who later got killed while picking up a quarter right in the middle of Main Street. Right out there.”

Floyd pointed towards the front door.

“Yep, Piper was a good fella,” Margaret chirped in.

Floyd nodded and went on. “Use to run around with Rip Taggart. Ran from the law a lot. Had a Hudson Hornet that could out run them new Durden patrol cars. I'd see Rip in town. They never could catch him. Especially that Constable. Can’t remember his name right now.” Floyd laughed. “Old Rip would be cutting around them crooked roads doin a hundred and twenty in that Hudson. It could go.”

Alan was dizzy from Floyd’s nonstop history lesson.
Wowzers, this old man can
talk.
Maybe if I ask Mrs. Oates for more tea…

“Rip was courtin old lady Gilbreth when she got killed. Took a shotgun and blowed her head off. Police arrested him on that. I never did know the details. He told the cops she did it to herself. Another fellow was staying there with them, a fellow named Bill, some say he did it. Uncle Harold use to tell about it a little bit. I never could get the full story, though. It’s all here in the archives somewhere.”

Floyd leaned in on his elbows.

“Point is, Mr. Blair, snakes haven’t always been the problem here. Crazy things happen everyday all over the world. The difference is this: in Hemming, all bets are off. What piece of reality you brought with you, you’d better leave it on the floor because it won’t do you any good here. Science don’t figure into it. You gotta understand this, too:  there’s common snakes and then there’s
these
snakes. These…
reapin
snakes. And they ain’t of your reality. You get me?”

Alan nodded, taking it all in, processing it, more intrigued with the label
Reaping Snake
, and imagining variations of it that might look good when he finally caught a Reaper Snake (
Yeah, that’s it)
and got to boast about it to his colleagues.

How about “Hemmingreaper?” Nah, too much like “hummingbird”…

Floyd looked over at Margaret, who was sewing back a button on her blouse, and then turned to Alan again. “What exactly are you planning to do while your here? You gonna stay curled up in the books until it’s time for you to mosey on back home? Or do you wanna get out there and catch a critter?”

Alan folded his arms and sighed.

Floyd said “Why don’t you meet me after the high school football game tomorrow night and I’ll show you where he keeps em.”

“Who’s he?” Alan asked.

“The Keeper. I’m guessin you’ve heard about him by now.”

Margaret dropped the button from her hand. “You know where it is, Floyd? The den? You’ve known all along and kept your mouth shut while all this has been going on?”

“Shut up, will ya? I ain’t tellin you, I’m tellin him,” Floyd said, feeling more carefree as he pumped up this stranger seething with curiosity. “I seen him go up there while I was out collecting cans on Highway 7 one night. He had a big bag full of them reapin snakes. Heard em in there. Got a little shack off in the woods.”

“The snakes are there, you’re sure?” Alan asked.

Floyd nodded.

4

Margaret had left the men in the research room downstairs. She was now in her office with a bakelite phone pressed to her ear, chewing on her nails with excitement.

“Floyd knows, Reverend,” Margaret said quietly.

She listened.

“Yessir, he knows
who
it is and
where
the… Oh yes, yes, Reverend, I will. Praise be to Jesus indeed.”

As Margaret replaced the phone in its cradle, she went over what she had to do now. Her task was to bring Floyd to Reverend Motley. She had to get him to Sand Mountain immediately.

CHAPTER
FOUR
:
THE
CALLING

1

Gina took it upon herself to do some reconnaissance work. She called up Duke, and he invited her over for dinner––snubbing his flavor-of-the-week, Lindsey Stevens. Gina didn’t mind taking one for the team in order to infiltrate the lion’s den, and besides, Jared would be here later and she wanted to see the surprised look on his face when he arrived.

The Pearson house hid behind a cluster of willow trees close to the street. It had cream-colored siding with blue shutters and a red door. There was a crushed stone driveway curving around in front of the house like a horseshoe with three cars parked at the end: Ellis’s station wagon, Mrs. Pearson’s Honda Civic with a foam tennis ball capped on the antenna, and Duke’s short-bed pickup which had a dent in the tailgate and a
SLAYER
sticker plastered on the bumper. She pulled in and put on her best face as she went to the door and rang the bell. Duke flung the door open and ushered her in the house.

He led Gina across the hardwood floor to the kitchen. The fragrant smell of pipe tobacco and cooking pot roast filled the house. She could picture the tender rump in the oven, simmering in broth with cut carrots and potatoes. And pie––yes, there were subtle traces of warm apples and cinnamon, a mouth-watering aroma that brought a gurgle of hunger in the pit of her empty stomach. She saw Mrs. Pearson covering the pie with a checked cloth.

There was something else in the air though, faint and barely there, but it was there, like something that clung to your clothes after a long night by the campfire. There was no fireplace that she could see, but there was the lightest hint of something…

Fire. That was it. The ashen, wilted smell of a fire that had swallowed the back wall of the kitchen where she now stood. The Pearsons probably haven’t noticed it for almost twenty years, but it was Gina’s first time in the house, and the smell was as obvious to her as the cotton bandage over Duke’s right eye.

It was a lovely kitchen. It was so inviting she had forgotten all about the ghostly smell of smoldering sheetrock and timber. An heirloom wallpaper border ran along the top walls, wooden caricatures of the Pearson family sat on the windowsill with their Pinocchio legs dangling above the sink, a large dining table on claw feet stretched out beside the backdoor. Michelle Pearson looked up from the stove and smiled at Gina.

“Hello, Gina,” she said, offering a dainty hand. “I’ve seen you around town before, but I had no idea you were Richard and Linda’s daughter! How’s your mother?”

“She’s doing all right these days. Stays busy at the bank dishing out those hefty loans, but I’m lucky to get lunch money out of her.”

They both laughed at this. Mrs. Pearson wasn’t at all what she’d expected. She was very pleasant and exceedingly cheerful. Not in a plastic, Stepford Wife sort of way, but genuine and sincere.

Duke had gone into the living room to chat with his father. Gina craned her head to get a better look at Ellis Pearson as he was outside of school.

He was sitting in a wingback chair near the window. He pulled a pipe from his lips and when his gaze turned from his son to Gina, his slight smile flattened into a thin line, which made her uneasy. She dodged back into the kitchen and asked Michelle where she could find the bathroom. Michelle briefly abandoned meal preparation and led Gina to a door off the main hall.

“She on the rag, Mom? Need to powder her puss or somethin?” Duke said in the doorway connecting the kitchen and living room. Michelle rolled her eyes with that
oh, silly kids
expression.

“Son, you need to save that trash talk for your buddies. Your mother doesn’t want to hear that shit,” Ellis said. He went into the kitchen and grabbed a glass from the cupboard. “God knows she hears enough of it from me.” He smiled and stole a kiss from his wife.

Duke felt a bit grossed out then said “Hey Dad, you think we could set up the tennis table upstairs above the garage?”

“Sure,” Ellis shrugged, pouring whiskey over the ice in his glass. “Get Jared to help you set it up. My shoulder’s bothering me tonight.”

Gina reappeared wiping her hands on her corduroy slacks––an endearing trait of a tomboy at heart. She passed Mr. Pearson and forged a smile that never touched her eyes. She slipped out a faint hello then asked Duke if Jared was still coming over tonight.

“Yup,” Duke said, shoveling in a mouthful of M&M’s. “Last I heard.”

Waves of excitement washed over her. She knew the very mention of Jared deflated Duke’s ego just a tiny bit
and that was just A-okay with her. She more concerned that she’d put everything in the medicine cabinet back in its proper place.

You can tell a lot about a person––or a family, in this case––by the contents hiding in their medicine cabinet. There had been nothing unusual; nothing that screamed Ellis Pearson was a psychotic or sadomasochistic creep (or the Keeper of Serpents for that matter). Just the usual collection of deodorant, mouthwash, shaving cream, antacids, and pain relievers. There was a small tube of personal lubricant stuck behind a bottle of hair tonic that disgusted her at first, then it amused her. She supposed Mrs. Pearson must be drying up and needed something to cut down the friction when they did the undercover boogie, or maybe old Mr. P dug it out when he needed to relieve some tension, when it wasn’t quite late enough for a whiskey and Coke.

No evidence there. The young amateur detective had no leads, no clues. She had no case. But she had an appetite, and the meal on the table was enough to pocket her motives for a little while, at least.

An orange cat with a blue collar jingled across the dining room.

“That’s just Percy,” Duke said. “He’s not as friendly as the other two.” He pulled out a chair for Gina.
A gentleman disguised as a bully
, she considered,
or the other way around
? She couldn’t be sure. She was too hungry to think about such things. The telephone rang and Michelle answered it. It was Jared calling to say that he was waiting in line at the fireworks stand and to start without him. After Michelle rejoined the dinner party, Mr. Pearson said grace, and they ate heartily in silence.

The rest of the evening staggered by without much excitement until Jared arrived. They watched television and made idle chitchat. He had a sack of roman candles and bottle rockets to shoot off after the Pearsons retired for the evening. When Michelle and Ellis said good night, that’s what they did.

The three of them went out in the backyard with the fireworks. Gina lit a bottle rocket and quickly passed it off to Jared who dropped it into a soda bottle. The fuse sizzled, shortened, then the rocket whizzed into the night sky, white smoke drawing behind it like a line of chalk.

They took turns battling with roman candles until Duke snuck into the house and came back with half a case of Pabst. They drank and laughed. Most of the fireworks were spent within the hour. Afterward, they went into the garage which smelled like gasoline and cut grass, and then climbed a flight of stairs to a small room above the garage. It was brutally hot. Gina sat on a huge purple cushion cradling her beer, watching Jared and Duke set up the tennis table. A sudden wave of comfort flooded through her, dissolving the looming conspiracy that was all but consuming her. The low ceiling and narrow space should have been claustrophobic, but in that moment, she was perfectly as ease. The camaraderie felt good and the atmosphere was sublime.

This tightening trio had been conceived amiably and with little effort. Gina found herself slowly becoming a part of something she wanted to keep her distance from. She had to remain alert. As long as she kept an eye on these two tonight, she knew Jared wouldn’t be out there…reaping.

And Duke. Duke was a sonofabitch––truth be told and no offense to Mrs. Pearson––but he seemed like a boy that had been raised properly by decent folks, and he carried an air of honesty that went into hiding while he was busy maintaining his bully-jock facade. He had a nice family, although somewhat odd in their ways, as Floyd had implied, but something must have gone sour in Duke’s adolescent years, the way serial killers made a hobby of unzipping stray cats when they were children.

Granted, nobody’s perfect.

2

Duke, Jared, and Gina found themselves at Goose Creek after walking nearly an hour. Gina stuck her phone and keys in her hat and jumped into the water. She came up for air fast and watched as the boys drunkenly stripped down and follow in after her. It took a while for Duke to find his footing, but he splashed around until his feet found purchase on the shallow creek bed.

Jared didn’t spring up like Gina had. She watched the surface ripple away from her like a pool of black ink spilling out into the horizon, moonlight slowly receding as clouds skidding past. Something swam by her ankle. She screamed and reached out for Duke then Jared’s head popped out of the water like a secret agent. He brushed the dark locks of hair from his face, laughing.

“Did I scare you?”

“You ass!” Gina pushed him over. “Is this where you jocks come to escape when you’re not pummeling other jocks in padded tights?”