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The Collection
By Bentley Little
Signet
Copyright © 2002 Bentley Little.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0451206096
Excerpt
The Woods Be Dark
“The Woods Be Dark” was written in the mid-1980s for a creative writing class. At the time, I was under the spell of William Faulkner and turning out a slew of interconnected Southern Gothic stories all set in the same rural county. I lived in California, had never been anywhere near the South, didn’t even know anyone from the South—but, arrogant and self-important jerk that I was, I didn’t let that stop me.
Momma let the dishes set after supper instead of washing them and came out on the porch with us. She kicked Junior off of the rocker and took it for herself, just sitting there rocking and staring out at Old Man Crawford’s trawler out there on the lake. It was one of them humid July nights and the dragonflies and the bloodsuckers was all hanging around the porchlight looking for a good arm to land on. Petey was up with a magazine, running around trying to kill all the bugs he could.
Momma was out on the porch with us because Robert hadn’t come home before dark like he’d promised and she was waiting up for him. She pretended it wasn’t no big deal. She sat there and talked to us, laughing and joking and telling stories about when she was our age, but I could tell from the expression on her face that she was thinking about Daddy.
I was standing off by the side of the railing, away from the door, by myself, trying to loosen my dress from where it’d caught on a nail. I was listening to Momma tell about the time the brakes went out on her at Cook’s Trail and she had to swerve into the river to keep from smashing into a tree when I heard a low kind of rustling sound coming from the path on the side of the house. I scooted next to Momma on the rocker. “What is it, Beth?” she asked.
I didn’t say nothing. Then I heard the sound again, only this time all of them heard it. Momma stood up. Her face was white. She walked to the railing where I’d been standing and looked off toward the path. We stood around her, holding on to parts of her skirt.
Petey saw it first. “It’s Robert!” he called. He pointed off to where the path met the woods.
Sure enough, Robert was coming out of the woods across the clearing carrying a whole lineful of fish. I heard Momma’s breath start to relax when she saw it was Robert, but then she pulled it all in like someone’d hit her. Robert was kind of staggering across the clearing, weaving like he was drunk or something.
But we all knew he wasn’t drunk.
“Get the shotgun,” Momma said quietly.
I ran into the house and grabbed the gun out of Daddy’s closet. I ran back out and gave it to Momma. She loaded it up and pointed it at Robert without no hesitation.
We could see him pretty clear now. He was halfway across the clearing and the lights from the house sort of lit up his face. He was still staggering around and walking like he was drunk and he was still carrying his line of fish. His face looked real white, like Daddy’s face, and he didn’t seem to even see us standing there on the porch. Petey was calling out to him—Petey was too young, he didn’t really know what was going on—and Junior was holding him back.
Robert stopped about ten yards away from the house and waved. His wave was real slow, real strange. “Hey, Momma!” he said, and his voice was strange, too. “Look what I got.”
Momma kept the gun trained on him. “Don’t you come any closer,” she said.
He shook his head. “Momma...”
“If I’m still your momma you’ll wait there for me ’til dawn. If you’re still there come morning you’ll be welcome back. But until then you just stop and wait right there.”
He took a step forward. “Aw, Momma—”
The gunshot blew his head clean off. His face just exploded in on itself and little pieces of blood and bone and eye went flying every which way. Petey started screaming and the rest of us watched while Robert fell onto the meadow grass. His hand was still holding onto the fish line. Momma reloaded the gun and aimed it at the center of his body just in case, but he didn’t move. His body just lay there, the mash of skin that used to be his head bleeding into the grass.
We stayed on the porch all night. Petey, Junior, and Sissy fell asleep a little while later and I fell asleep about halfway through the night, but Momma stayed awake the whole time.
After the sun came up, we all went out in the clearing to look.
There was nothing there. His body was gone.
Momma spent that morning explaining things to Petey.
We waited on the porch again that night, eating supper early and standing out there before it started to get dark. Sure enough, he started staggering up the path about the same time he had last night. There was nothing we could do this time, so we just stood there huddled together and watched.
“Robert Paul’s come home,” he said, and his voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well. “Robert Paul’s come home again.” We could see his grin even from this far away.
When he got to the spot where Momma’d shot him, he stopped.
And his head exploded.
He fell onto the ground just like before, and in the morning he was gone.
We went out to the spot. The grass was trampled and brown and looked like it’d been burned. “That’s all,” Momma said, kicking the spot with her shoe. “It’s over now.”
But I knew it wasn’t. I could tell. I could feel it in my bones. I knew that we’d have to do the same thing we did for Daddy. And I was scared.
Scared bad.
That was one of them weird days when everything was backwards and all the directions was wrong. Our house was suddenly facing south when it’d always faced west, and I stayed close to home. I knew that if I lost sight of the house I wouldn’t never get back to it.
It was overcast the whole day, and in the kitchen things broke for no reason. Momma’d walk out to the living room for a minute to talk to one of us kids and when she’d go back into the kitchen all the silverware would be poured out on the floor or one of her good dishes would be smashed or something. She tried to ignore all this, but one time I caught her saying the Prayer to herself when she thought no one was looking.
I said the Prayer, too. I knew what was happening.
After supper we all just sat around and waited for night to fall. We didn’t sit on the porch this time. We stayed inside. Sissy closed all the windows and drapes and Junior turned on all the lights.
I was almost asleep when something huge crashed against the north wall of the house. I jerked awake. It sounded like a cannon. Everyone else was wide awake too and Petey was crying. Momma held us all tight. “Stay here,” she said. “Don’t go near the windows.” She didn’t say nothing after that and I looked up at her. Her eyes was shut and it looked like she was praying to herself.
Something crashed hard against the wall again, making the whole house shake.
Outside, I could hear voices. It sounded like there was at least six or seven of them out there. Their words was all running together and I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I plugged my ears and closed my eyes but I could still hear the voices talking inside my head.
And I could feel it when the thing crashed against the wall again.
I fell asleep plugging my ears.
I dreamed about Daddy.
We went to see Mrs. Caffrey the next day. All of us. We went into her little trailer out there by the edge of the lake and waited in the tiny waiting room out front. When she came out she was all dressed up. Momma told her what happened and Mrs. Caffrey prayed over her small bag of bones and threw a handful of sticks onto the table. When she was through she nodded. She held her head in her hands, closed her eyes, and sort of hummed to herself. When she looked up she was staring at me.
I tried to look away but I couldn’t.
Mrs. Caffrey reached over and grabbed my arm and I could feel her sharp nails digging into my skin. “You must go to the bad place,” she said. “You must go through the ritual.” Her voice got real low. “But be careful. There are many dangers. The woods be dark.”
She let go of me and I ran out of the trailer. I was crying bad. I knew this would happen and I didn’t know if I could go through the ritual again.
Mrs. Caffrey came outside a few minutes later and put her arm around me. She opened up her Bible, closed her eyes, put her finger down, and made me read. “Walk while you have the light,” I read, “lest the darkness overtake you.”
She closed the Bible, smiled at me, and patted my head. “It’ll be all right, child,” she said. She went back inside to talk to Momma.
No one said nothing on the way home.
It was noon by the time we got back to the house and Momma said there wasn’t enough time to do it today, I would have to wait ’til tomorrow.
I was glad.
They came back that night, pounding on the walls and talking in our heads. All us kids sat on the couch together, holding on to each other. Momma pretended like she didn’t hear a thing, and she worked on a big sack for me to carry the next day.
I fell asleep listening to the pounding and the voices.
Momma woke me up before it was even light and told me I had to take a bath before I went out. “You must cleanse yourself,” she said. I took my bath real quietly, but everyone was up by the time I got out of the tub. It was already starting to get light out.
Momma gave me the sack and told me to be careful, and I said goodbye to everyone just in case. I didn’t spend too long on goodbyes, though, because I couldn’t afford to waste no time. I had to get back before dark.
It was overcast again and the sky was covered with solid gray clouds and I couldn’t see the sun. I walked down the path through the clearing, past the spot where Momma’d shot Robert, into the woods. Momma packed me a flashlight in my sack and I got it out. I needed it. The woods was dark, real dark, darker even than when I went in for Daddy, and it was completely silent. Usually you can hear the sounds of the lake or someone’s car or people talking out by the boat launch, but I couldn’t hear nothing. Even the birds was quiet. My footsteps sounded real loud, and I had a headache from my heart pounding and thumping the blood in my head.
I was scared.
It took me about a half an hour to get to the shack. I could feel it before I saw it and I looked in the other direction as I ran past. I didn’t want to see them open windows and that black doorway. I didn’t want to know what was inside. I made that mistake the last time and I almost didn’t get no farther than that, so this time I just looked the other way and ran by.
There was something inside the shack, though.
I could feel it.
And I thought I heard it when I ran by.
I slowed down when I was out of breath, a good ways from the shack. It was hidden way back behind the trees now, so I didn’t have nothing to worry about. The shack was about halfway to the bad place, I knew, maybe a little less, but the second half of the trip was a lot tougher and took a lot longer. The path ended a little ways up ahead, I remembered, and I’d have to find the rest of the way myself.
No path led to the bad place.
Sure enough, the path just sort of petered out. It got smaller and smaller and harder to see and after a while I realized it had ended some ways back and I hadn’t noticed.
I was on my own.
It was real dark here and it kept getting darker the deeper I went into the woods. I saw shadows of things moving through the trees out of the corners of my eyes, but I ignored them and pretended they wasn’t there. I said the Prayer to myself.
I didn’t really know where I was going but I knew I was headed in the right direction. Tons of moss was hanging from the tops of the trees and it kept brushing my face and my blouse as I went past. I climbed over old dead logs and through thickets of sticker bushes. I started getting hungry, and I pulled out one of the sandwiches Momma made for me. I didn’t sit down and eat, though. I kept walking.
Finally, I came to the ruins and I knew I was getting close.
I remember Momma used to scare us when we was little by telling us that she’d take us out to the ruins and leave us there if we didn’t behave, but I’m the only person I know that’s actually seen them. They used to be part of an old stone fort during the war. A bunch of soldiers was stationed there to protect the county, but something happened to all the soldiers. All kinds of government people came down to check on the fort afterwards, but none of them could figure out what happened.
The people around here knew what happened, though.
They built the fort too close to the bad place.
Now the ruins was just old piles of stone block and pieces of wall with plants and ivy growing all over them. A few buildings were still left, but I got the same feeling from them that I got from the shack and I just ran by.
After the ruins, the trees started to grow weird and the directions got all lost again. I was going south, then all of a sudden I was going west and I hadn’t even changed my course. The trees became all gnarly and twisted, and the moss started to grow into shapes, strange shapes that I knew what they were but I didn’t want to admit it.
It got even darker.
And then I was there.
The bad place looked just like I remembered it. The leaves of the trees was all black and brown and they twisted together to make a roof over the clearing and completely block out the sky. It was always night there. On the sides, small trees grew in between the big trees and made a solid wall except for the entrance where I was coming in. The middle of the clearing was covered with bones and skulls and the teeth of rats, all lain out in little rows, like crops. Dead possum skeletons hung from frayed old ropes in the trees, and they was swinging but there wasn’t no breeze.
Nothing grew in the center of the clearing. It was all dust. Even the plants was afraid to grow there.
In the very center was the open grave.
I swallowed hard and took Momma’s Bible out of my sack. I was scared, even more scared than I’d been with Daddy, and all of a sudden I wanted to run, to run back home to Momma. The noises at night, the voices and pounding, didn’t seem so bad now. Not compared to this. I could live with them.
But I couldn’t run. I had to go through the ritual.
I walked slowly into the middle of the clearing toward the open grave, holding tight to my Bible. The little white wood cross at the head of the grave was tilted and almost falling over. I kept my eyes on that and didn’t look into the hole. Finally, I reached the grave and stood at its foot, trying to calm down. My heart was pounding a mile a minute and I couldn’t hardly get no breath.
I stood like that for a few minutes, staring at the cross, trying to be brave. And then I looked into the hole.
Robert lay on the bottom. His skin was pure white and glowing and his face was smooth and perfect and I couldn’t tell where Momma’d shot him. He was holding his hands up in the air toward me and they was moving a little, twirling in strange little circles.
Then his eyes jerked open and he smiled. His eyes was pure red and evil and I started to shake. “Robert Paul’s come home,” he said. “Robert Paul’s come home again.” It was all he said. It was all he could say.
His voice was just a whisper.
I reached around to my sack and took out the page with the Words written on it. The grave was deep, I was thinking. It was deeper than last time. The sides went down maybe ten feet to Robert at the bottom. I put the Words on the Bible. “Lord protect me in this ritual,” I read. “Keep me safe from harm. See my motives not my actions. Keep me safe from harm. Give this tortured soul his rest. Keep me safe from harm. Guide me through this and preserve me. Keep me safe from harm. Amen.”
I folded the paper and put the Words into the Bible.
At the bottom of the grave Robert was moving even more now. His head was rolling from side to side and his arms was still twirling in the air and he was grinning even worse. I could see all of his teeth. They was glowing.
I took a deep breath, said the Prayer, held the Bible to my chest, and jumped into the open grave.
I fell, fell and landed with a soft thud on Robert’s body. His grin got bigger and his eyes got redder and I could see them right next to my face.
He started laughing and his voice changed.
He was no longer Robert.
And he took me.
I woke up by the ruins. My sack was gone and the Bible was gone and my clothes was all torn up and half hanging off me. I still felt kind of dopey or sleepy or whatever it was, but I knew I had to get out of the woods before dark. I didn’t know what time it was so I just started running. I ran past the ruins and somehow found the path again.
Something was standing in the doorway of the shack when I ran by but I didn’t look at it. I kept running.
It was broad daylight when I came out of the woods. The clouds had all burnt off and the sun was shining. Everything was okay. Momma was waiting for me and she ran up and hugged me as I came down the path. I could see she was crying. “You went through the ritual?” she asked.
I nodded and told her I did.
She led me back to the house where I slept for two full days.
Two weeks later my belly started growing.
It was just a little bit at first. But a month later it was obvious.
People didn’t bother me none about it though. Folks around here understand about the bad place. A lot of women around here’ve got pregnant the same way when they was my age. No one talked to me about it or paid me no never mind.
Two months later I was ready to give birth.
Momma took me to Mrs. Caffrey’s. She didn’t tell none of the other kids about it, she just said that we was going into town for the day and for Junior to keep an eye on everyone else and not let them leave the house.
It was just like before. The thing was all slimy and pink and wormy. It made horrible squawking noises and tried to claw up Mrs. Caffrey as she held it.
It had Robert’s face.
“Do you want to see it first?” Mrs. Caffrey asked me.
I shook my head. I could see it good enough as it was, and I didn’t want to see no more of it. I sure didn’t want to touch it.
“I’ll take it outside then.”
“No,” I said. “Wait a minute. Let me do it.”
Momma shook her head. “No. You’re too weak.”
“It’s all right,” Mrs. Caffrey said.
Momma helped me out of the bed, and Mrs. Caffrey took the baby outside. She put it on the ground by the trailer and it started squawking and twirling its arms in circles.
I searched the ground and picked up a boulder. I held it up as high as I could and the creature looked up at me and spat.
I smashed its head.
It lay there twitching for a minute, a small trickle of black blood flowing out from beneath the boulder, then it was still.
I watched as Mrs. Caffrey took the dead thing into her trailer. She cut it up and burned it and put the ashes into a stew. I ate a bite of the stew and said the Prayer.
Momma drove me home.
That night, Momma was inside washing the dishes and all us kids was out on the porch. Petey was trying to kill bugs, and Junior and Sissy was fighting on the rocker, and I was standing by the railing looking out at the woods when all of a sudden I heard a rustling sound coming from the meadow. I looked back quickly at the other kids but none of them’d heard it. I held my breath and looked closer, leaning over the rail to see better, saying the Prayer to myself. But it was just a scared little jackrabbit, and it stopped and stared at me and then ran across the path and disappeared into the bushes and meadow grass at the side of the house.
Excerpted from The Collection by Bentley Little. Copyright © 2002 by Bentley Little. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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