My sister thinks mama tried to leave us once. I don’t think she was serious. I mean, we knew she was tired and that her joints ached and expanded with the changing atmospheric pressures. Anyway, I don’t know how many NSAID capsules it takes to kill yourself, but evidently it’s more than eleven. Mama wouldn’t talk about it, and we eventually wrote off the overdose as a simple reaction to pain, not a true suicide attempt. Nevertheless, she swole up like a waterbed for a few days, her eyes almost disappearing in folds of expanded flesh. But on the third day, we found her puttering around the garden deadheading her geraniums, still swollen, but very much alive and mobile.
For the next two months, she seemed to have re-set. She was back to her old self, and by old self, I mean she was back to being a relentless bitch like she has been since the Bush Administration. Sometimes they say that being a bitch is all a woman has left. Since daddy died, she has had only geraniums and bitchiness, not necessarily in that order. Despite her attitude, she has had a pretty good summer. She has attended church every Sunday and Wednesday night, often publicly disparaging and dismantling the preacher’s sermons in the parking lot as soon as the service ended. She even made her legendary mustard-and-pickle-rich potato salad for our Independence day dinner. But, as expected, she complained that it had too many pickles and not enough mustard. All the grandkids loved it anyway.
The last week in August we always have a family gathering to celebrate the inordinate gaggle of birthdays that happen to fall during that month. I once subtracted nine months, and realized that, evidently, our family prefers to screw immediately after the Thanksgiving meal. Mama contributed not only her aforementioned tater-salad but also an exemplary macaroni and cheese casserole. She seemed happy, well, happy by her standards. In fact, I don’t recall her complaining about a single thing. She even kicked a wayward soccer ball back into play. She is normally the first to depart from any gathering. I suppose her geraniums do get lonely. This time she stayed till the last rug-rat-filled SUV left the pavilion parking lot. She even helped me clean the tables and empty the trash before she proffered an unsolicited hug, climbed into her ancient Electra 225, and headed home to her beloved botanical family.
Yesterday, I decided to drop by, unannounced of course, since mama will often leave if she knows you’re coming. Her Buick wasn’t in the yard or in the garage, so I assumed she had headed to the Food Depot. She hates the big box stores and believes Publix and Kroger charge too much. She says she likes shopping with the Mexicans because they are more polite. I told her that sounded kinda racist but I wasn’t sure why. I needed to pick up a few things, and the Food Depot does have better meats, and the folk there are truly very polite. I thought I might run into her there.
I always take the back way to town, that way I can cross the Tallapoosa river we often visited when we were kids. I learned to swim there and to fish there. Daddy even even joked that he and mama had created us down in the opening near the big bend. We didn’t know what he meant at the time. By the time I understood what he meant, I didn’t want to think about it.
As I approached the bridge, I could see Mama’s Buick parked on the overlook. I pulled next to it and saw that Mama was sitting inside. The motor was off, and the sound of Country Gold 93.7 wafted from the open windows. She seemed transfixed. I called to her and she turned to see that it was me. She seemed at first distant, and then embarrassed. She told me she was headed to the Food Depot and stopped to listen to the radio for a minute. I nodded and decided to move on and continue to patronize Publix since I inferred that she wouldn’t want me tagging along.
This morning I decided to drop by again. I waited till after eleven, since Mama is sometimes annoyed by early visitors. The garage was closed, so I assumed she was inside the house. I walked around back to the screened porch where one could usually find her on late summer mornings. The door was latched, so I knocked, and then called out, and then went to the front door, and knocked, and yelled, and rang the doorbell. I finally decided that maybe she and one of the church ladies had embarked on a thrift store adventure. I walked around the Garden for a while. Mama’s geraniums had never looked better, not one darkened petal remained and each head was perfectly round and crimson.
I walked among them for ten or fifteen minutes before deciding to leave. As I passed the garage door, I could hear the Buick idling inside and I knew that Mama was gone.
Alan Caldwell is a veteran teacher and a new author. He has recently been published in Southern Gothic Creations, Deepsouth Magazine, The Backwoodsman Magazine, and oc87 Recovery Diaries.
When they reopened the island, most people didn’t come back. Hard to blame them. Everything along the shore was gone, the mansions, the high-rise condos, the retirement homes. The storefronts weren’t spared either, and it’s not like we were getting tourists back anytime soon. Enough time had passed that most people, the ones that got out, had settled elsewhere. But me? I was on the first boat back.
We took a boat because the causeway wasn’t rebuilt yet. By “we,” I mean the true locals, the ones born on the island, the ones who can recite the history of the Beacon Pointe Light like we’re reading it off the goddamn plaque.
It was built in 1891, by the way, made out of iron with a winding, hundred-foot staircase in the middle. When the sun sets, its light can be seen across the island, turning like clockwork, the soft whoosh lulling everyone to sleep. That was before the storm. Now, it’s caked with sticky mud and algae, a sea-born scarecrow, warding off visitors.
I remember stepping off the boat, the straps of my backpack digging into my shoulders. The dock was brand new, higher than the one before, spared from the elements. Not so much for the mainland.
The smell hit us first, a rotten haze between stacks of twisted metal and crooked palms. The sky was gray, humid, sucking up the heat and wringing it over us like a wet towel. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen the sun since I’ve been back, like it got swept away with everything else.
I decided to walk, stretch my legs, free up a seat on the bus for one of the older folks. It was dark by the time I made it home, dodging puddles and branches along the way. My place was in decent shape, still had some roof left. The inside was a graveyard of debris, with traces of water up to the ceiling. Not too bad, all things considered.
Later that night, I saw my first ghost.
I was on the recliner, still damp in spots, sipping a flat beer, staring at the blown-out TV, imagining a baseball game. It was the top of the ninth, no, the bottom of the ninth. Two outs, two runners on, home team down by three. Up comes the cleanup hitter, the big guy, ready to send the game to extras. Free baseball. Doesn’t get any better than that.
Something caught my ear. The sound of footsteps, wet and slow, trudging through the backyard. I downed my beer, tossed the can into one of the junk piles, and made my way towards the kitchen.
The lights flickered, got dimmer, getting used to electricity again. On the patio door, a black shape emerged. A shadow, rocking back and forth with the wind.
“Hello?” I broached a timid step towards the door. “Who’s out there?”
No answer.
“I can see you,” I said, like it mattered. “Mardi, is that you?” I hadn’t seen Mardi on the boat, or anyone else from my block, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Still no answer. I swallowed a lump in my throat and cracked the door.
An old lady stood on trembling knees, hands locked on her elbows, her head down.
“Ma’am?” I opened it the rest of the way. “Is everything alright?”
Water was everywhere, pooling at her feet, dripping from her forehead, her shoulders, her wrists, draining the color from her hair and skin. She looked up, jaw clenched, eyes shut. Her nostrils flared in and out, in and out, every breath a struggle.
“Hang tight,” I said. “Let me get you something.” I tore through every room, a stranger in my own house, until I found a stack of towels.
When I got back to the door, the old lady was gone. I searched the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, but I couldn’t find her. I circled the house again, stumbling over debris, crushing beer cans under my boots, banging into sharp corners. No sign of her anywhere.
“Ma’am?” I retraced my steps. “Where’d you go?”
Footsteps again, in the backyard. I went outside, the towel slung around my neck. No moon, no stars, no light. I stuck my arms out, let my eyes adjust, crept forward.
I found her by the fence, standing on the fallen pickets, her back to me.
“Here you are.” I draped the towel across her shoulders. It fell to the ground.
The old lady turned. She opened her eyes, opened her mouth, everything glowing white. I shielded my face. A scream rang out, echoed across the yard. Then another. And another.
She wasn’t alone. There were more shadows, more people, drenched from head to toe, a maze of blinding white faces. I stumbled around them, through them, bracing myself for impact but feeling nothing.
I managed to get back inside, tried to lock the door behind me, but the bolt wouldn’t stick. Rusted over. I crawled to the corner, wound up in the fetal position. I might’ve cried, who’s to say.
Next thing I knew, I woke up on the kitchen floor. Daybreak spilled through the windows. The screams were gone. When I built up the courage to check the backyard, the people were gone, too. That’s what I called them at first. People. It made me feel better. But deep down, I knew what they were. And it wouldn’t be long before I saw them again.
Not the same ones. Well, sometimes the same ones. I’ve seen that old lady a few times. Never in my backyard again, but once across the street, staring at a fallen power line, and another time at Deb’s hardware store, wandering through the aisles.
There must be hundreds of them, the ghosts of the island. Some of them I recognize, like Chipper, who used to build benches on his front lawn and yell at people who didn’t stop at the intersection. He still stands in front of his house every morning, what’s left of it anyway, but there aren’t any benches and he doesn’t yell. He just points, opens his mouth, stretching the limits of his face, glowing white.
The worst sighting I had was by the shore, sitting on one of the benches near the dock, waiting for the next boat to come in. I’d just gotten a coffee from the diner, the morning it opened back up.
I wasn’t through my first sip when a little girl ran by, dragging a kite across the fractured concrete. I got up to help, I used to love flying kites, until I saw the trail of water behind her.
She followed me home that day. I wouldn’t turn around, I didn’t want to see her face, pale and innocent, with those horrible glowing eyes. I didn’t go outside for a while after that.
We can all see them, the people who came back. Some of the locals wear silver now, necklaces, rings, belt buckles, whatever they can find. Crazy Larry spread a rumor that silver keeps the ghosts away, but I don’t mind them. They’re not doing anyone any harm. They’re lost, confused, scared, not much different from the rest of us.
Every sunset, the ghosts gather along the shore. At first it was just a few of them, wandering into the gulf until their knees touched the water, shivering, always shivering. Now, it’s all of them, their own little ritual. They wade into the water until the sun goes down, then they disappear into the night. Half the island still doesn’t have electricity, so who knows where they go.
But me? I go back to my house, crack open a beer, and settle in for another baseball game. My team is undefeated this season. I’m feeling really good about the playoffs.
Sometimes, I wonder if I’m a ghost, too. I see the same people, do the same things, day in and day out. No one else has come back. No one comes to visit. The charities are gone, the food banks are gone, the government tents are gone. The relief checks will stop soon. We’re on our own now. It’s kind of like that old saying about a tree falling in the forest. If you rebuild a town, but nobody’s there to see it, did it really happen?
I think about these things as I sit on my recliner, waiting for another ghost to pay me a visit. Sometimes, I end up at my bedroom window, staring out at the Beacon Pointe Light, its shadow lingering under a dim night sky.
I wait for the light to turn on, for the whoosh to come back, for the heart of the island to beat again. It hasn’t happened yet. It may never happen. We’ll be here if it does.
Kevin DG Johnson is a product manager by day and writer of creepy tales by night. His previous work has appeared in several online publications, most recently The Chamber and Elegant Literature. He can be found on Twitter @KevinDGJohnson.
“You sure you want to be dropped off here?” the man asked, his forehead creased with concern.
I nodded and opened the car door, dry grass crunching underfoot on the side of the road.
“I’ll return at sunset,” he said.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said, but he drove off as soon as I closed the door.
The blazing sun beat down on my black hair and sweat prickled on the back of my neck. I needed to get into the shade. The wind spun howling dust devils across the dead field, spitting up grit that clogged my throat. It ground against my teeth, putting me on edge.
The locals at the diner had looked at me funny when I asked about Tara, my only daughter. We look nothing alike since she takes after her father. I’m dark and short; she’s tall and pale.
“What you want to go out there fer?” a toothless old woman asked. She exchanged a glance with the waitress who remained silent when I showed her the photo of Tara and I.
“She’s been missing for six months.” I was desperate. The police were no help so my mother and I had been searching on our own.
The woman seemed to take pity on me, drawing a crude map on the back of a napkin, volunteering her husband to drive me out. I called my mother from the pay phone; she was staying at a motel on the other side of the state, following a lead.
Sweat beaded between my shoulder blades, evaporating almost immediately in the broiling heat of the afternoon sun. Shading my eyes, I walked towards a rusty shack—the only building on the property. There was nothing else out here for miles. The horizon was dead flat, marked by the occasional mesquite tree or stray cloud.
Dust kicked up as I walked through dead planting rows; the locals had told me it hadn’t rained here in weeks. As I got nearer to the shack, an eerie wind whistled through gaps in the walls, carrying the scent of a distant wildfire. The rough door, held closed only by a simple latch, opened with a screech. I hesitated, afraid of what I might find inside.
There was a distinct smell—not of rot, thank God, but something fragrant—incense? Rags were piled in one corner and against the back wall, an altar with candles and crude figurines. Under the wind I heard a deep sigh, as if a spirit had blown through. The pile of rags moved.
Tara’s blond head raised up from the shadowy pile, banded with sunlight coming through the rafters. I cried out with relief and ran to her, pulling her into my arms. My tears had dried up long ago and none came, even as I hugged my baby girl.
“Oh God, Tara. I finally found you.”
She was groggy and seemed confused by my appearance. In my arms, her bones felt like sticks—collarbones and shoulder blades sticking out beneath a thin cotton dress. She smiled up at me, recognition registering behind her glazed eyes. Her cheeks were ruddy with dried, flaking skin and her hair felt like matted straw. She hadn’t bathed and her body stunk, layered in weeks of grime.
“Mom?” She clutched at me, shivering despite the stifling heat.
I examined her body for track marks but she was clean. “Who did this to you?” She pushed me away with feeble arms, so I took her by the shoulders.
She resisted my attempts to get her to her feet, falling back to the pile of rags. My mind rattled with panic. I needed to get Tara to a hospital. I hadn’t thought to ask the woman’s husband to stick around, figuring he would return before dark.
I forced Tara to drink some of the water from my canteen but she refused the protein bar. She slept, her eyes flitting back and forth under dark lids. There were no lights in the shack and it quickly grew dark as the sun set.
In the fading dusk, I saw bowls with food still in them around the altar; evidence that Tara had been eating something at least. There was also an empty milk jug that must have held water at some point.
When I went outside to escape the strange atmosphere in the shack, the sky was banded in ribbons of red and orange. Under the hiss of the wind, cicadas shrilled.
Mosquitoes pricked at my skin, drawn to exposed flesh. Slapping them, they burst, filled with my own blood, leaving red streaks on my arms and legs. Welts raised where they’d landed and I resisted the urge to scratch them with anxious hands. There was no sign of my ride in either direction.
What was that sound, under the wind?
Then I saw the lights. They came towards the shack in waves, kicking up a dusty haze lit by hundreds of candles. They were humming, the tune carried by the wind. I hurried inside to find my daughter already awake, sitting in front of the altar on her knees. She hummed the same song, low and deep.
“Tara, what’s going on?”
She didn’t answer me; glassy eyes rolled back in her head as she entered a trance. The first of the procession opened the door and they filed in, forcing me against the altar. When I tried to push my way out, they collectively surged forward, preventing escape. I put my arms around Tara, in some feeble effort to protect her. Each person held a candle raised reverently towards Tara. I recognized the man who dropped me off and his wife, along with the waitress from the diner. I could hear more people outside the shack, pressing against the walls. The humming rose to a crescendo before dying out.
A young girl lit fragrant incense and set the sticks on either side of us. The smoke made my eyes and nose itch as it filled the shack. A little boy placed a flower crown on Tara’s golden hair and she shook my arm free to thank him with a kiss on each cheek.
Between the press of the people and the narrow space, it felt like the walls were closing in on me. I fought down the panic that roiled in my stomach. We had to get out of here.
The people stood, silent as the dead, swaying back and forth as if they were in church. Someone touched my hand and I jumped, but it was Tara. She held her hand in mine.
Every nerve in my body was telling me to flee. But I couldn’t leave her behind with these people who had obviously harmed her, making her live in this desolate place.
The waitress bowed down before Tara, her forehead on the ground. She offered Tara a bowl of what smelled like pungent tequila that made my nose burn—moonshine.
“To bring the rain, my goddess,” the waitress announced, loud enough for those outside to hear. Before I could stop her, Tara drank the liquor then offered it to me. The locals turned, waiting. I had no choice. I swallowed a small amount, coughing as it burned my throat. Anything to get us out of here. A murmuring approval went through the crowd.
The liquor was potent, making my head swim; the candle light smearing into gashes of light across my vision.
I tried to get to my feet and was held down by several pairs of hands—including Tara’s, whose iron grip kept me by her side.
“Mother, be welcome.” Tara’s voice rang clear in my head even though she hadn’t opened her mouth. They held me down and poured the moonshine down my throat. My daughter floated above me, her corn-silk hair waving in the wind blowing through the shack. Thunder rumbled in the distance and I could smell dry earth dampened by falling rain. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, streaming down my cheeks.
The crowd pulled back as Tara positioned us in front of the altar. Locals brought us homemade fruit pies, sumptuous kolaches, and other rich foods that we gorged on. The incense smoke filled the shack, wreathing the crowd in haze as the humidity rose. Sweet smelling rain pelted the roof, dripping through the loose slats onto our overheated skin.
My daughter’s face was no longer pale and wan, but radiant with life—glowing by an inner power that had awakened. It echoed within myself and we held hands until dawn, when the celebration of the rain finally stopped. We slept entwined on the bed of rags, until the next night when it would begin again. I hoped my mother would join us soon, following the directions I had given her over the phone.
Rachel is a filmmaker and writer living in the Florida panhandle with her husband, two children, and two black cats. Her work can be found in PulpCult’s Unspeakable Vol II and Suburban Witch Magazine. To view Rachel’s films and news on published works, visit agirlandhergoldfish.com
Jim Nash sat in the backroom at the Keno machine looking on as the wrong numbers lit up, confirming his continued failure. He grabbed the bottle of Budweiser sitting next to the machine, its beading moisture dampening his hand, and took a heavy swig, swilling it around in his mouth, savoring the carbonated bubbles as they popped on his tongue. He put the bottle down and grabbed a half-smoked cigarette from the adjacent ashtray, inhaling and exhaling like a monk meditatively calming his ever-accumulating nerves. Jim was as bald as a monk, that was for sure—all his hair was on his face.
Jim wasn’t from White River—he was an out-of-towner. No one in town really knew him, and that was the way he liked it. That was why he moved out here to bumfuck South Dakota in the first place, out near the reservation, where the population was sparse. He loved it.
Grabbing another beer from the cooler and making a gesture to the cashier as if to signal his intention to pay for it later, Jim walked back into the gaming room and slid another five-spot into the hungry mouth of the Keno machine, which subsisted on a healthy diet exclusively of leafy greens. Jim didn’t give a shit whether he won, he just enjoyed sitting there, drinking beer and smoking cigs as the numbers lit up. He scratched at his long, scraggly, salt-and-pepper beard, rubbing away the collected alcoholic moisture collected on his moustache.
Jim lost again. He didn’t have much luck when it came to Keno, or gambling in general for that matter. He patronized all the numerous local gambling establishments, even the Rosebud Casino, but he couldn’t win the big bucks anywhere. He would win the big bucks someday, though—he felt that in his ageing bones. He could wait until then; it was no problem for him. What he would do with the big bucks, he had no idea. Maybe move to Colorado, build a house on top of a lonesome mountain.
Jim lifted himself from the barstool next to the Keno station—an indent of his ass remnant on the cushion—and paid for his beers. He walked out the door—out onto the gravel road. White River, being as small of a town as it was, had narrow gravel roads everywhere other than Main Street. Jim twisted the key in the ignition of his green, 1993 Ford F150, pulling out of the parking lot onto the road. He drove from the side street out onto Main in the direction of Mission, the adjacent, small Lakota-Sioux reservation town. From there, he would drive to the other side of the reservation, to Rosebud Casino. It was Friday evening—that’s what Jim did on Friday evenings. He lit a cigarette and continued down the road.
Turning up the AM radio, Jim caught the staticky action of the Todd County Falcons, who were playing the neighboring—though out of state—rival Badgers from Valentine, Nebraska. Jim liked football; his eyes widened hearing the excited voice of the commentator.
Jim stared out the opened window as he sped down the road, cool wind from the outside autumn air brushing against his face. He smiled. Jim had no real human relationships—he connected with nature: with the wind, the rain, and the trees. That’s what he told himself, at least. It didn’t matter, anyway—he didn’t need any friends. That’s why he had moved out to bumfuck South Dakota in the first place—to escape people; especially people who were ‘invested in his life’. He hated that. He wanted to be left alone.
It was halftime. Jim, annoyed with the lengthy commercial for the local Buche Foods grocery store, switched from AM to FM, to the indie rock station, and turned up the volume. It was Svefn-g-englar, bySigur Ros. Jim leaned back, enjoying the ambience. It was such an amazing song—it fit in so well with the naturally bleak, endless dry plains of South Dakota.
The streets of Mission were empty. They were always empty—the only places anyone went downtown were a small coffee shop and an amazingly shitty pizza place. Jim wasn’t sure how anyone could truly fuck up pizza to the point that it was nearly inedible, but this place managed it. It tasted like soggy dough topped with semi-solidified, overly sweet ketchup. The streets were even more empty than usual, though, because everyone was up at the high school watching the football game. Jim put the pedal to the metal and exited the small town, onto highway 83—that straight road through the beautifully barren South Dakota steppe; its tall, golden grass waving in seemingly endless unison, like an Elysian hay-sea.
The radio continued, now playing Your Hand in Mine, by Explosions in the Sky. Jim liked emotional, ambient music. He wanted the music itself to make him feel something, not the words. Sometimes, when he got good and drunk, music could be powerful enough to make him cry. He would sob like a bearded baby. Not even for any real reason, either—just the beauty of the organized chords.
Jim stared out the opened window, letting the cool breeze invigorate him. It was sad. There should be bison grazing in these fields. Jim knew there were still bison in other nearby places, but there should be more. Colonizers had destroyed the life and land of the bison, just as they had the indigenous peoples. Tatonka meant bison in Lakota Sioux, Jim had spoken to enough people around the reservation to at least learn that.
About halfway to the casino, Jim pulled off the road into a drive-in fast-food restaurant called Moonlight Diner, his favorite place. Looking at the menu, his truck idling in its parking spot, Jim considered his options. He still hadn’t tried the Rocky Mountain oysters—he wasn’t sure that he would ever be able to bring himself to do that. Jim wasn’t at all a picky eater, but eating testicles was too much. He settled on fry-bread taco, a bag of flaming-hot Cheetos, and a banana milkshake. That would be plenty to fill up his stomach—soak up the previously consumed booze so he could level-headedly consume further.
The rest of the way from Moonlight Diner to the Rosebud Casino was a breezy drive. Looking up, Jim saw the Sicangu Village water tower, which stated that Water is Life. Jim always used the water tower as a signpost, alerting him that he had made it to the casino, otherwise—considering how much he enjoyed staring out into the fields—he might miss it.
“Water is life, and casinos are money,” Jim said to no one as he stepped out of the truck onto the cracked asphalt of the parking lot. “Supply casinos with water, and you’ve got both life and money.” Jim chuckled at himself, walking inside.
After grabbing a couple Budweiser’s and an ashtray, Jim went straight to his favorite slot machine, called Sky Rider. It featured artwork of several women who rode dragons. Dragons were good at collecting gold, Jim knew that from reading The Hobbit so many years ago. He trusted them to handle his money.
Jim never played poker, craps, or blackjack—he lost all his money too quickly doing that shit. Plus, he had to talk to people to play those games. Jim just wanted to sit back, relax, drink a few beers, and smoke several cigs—just like he did at the gas station Keno machine, though in a different location.
Jim slid a ten-spot into the greedy, squealing machine, subsequently mashing the BET ONE button again and again to no financial avail. Eventually, he leaned back in his black, fake-leather chair, taking a momentary break. He would lose all his money too quickly at this rate—he needed to pace himself if he was going to spend the whole evening in the casino. His meager pension only went so far; if he spent much more, he wouldn’t be able to afford Buche’s overpriced ham, eggs, vegetables, and cheese the following week. Jim was never happy when he didn’t have the necessary supplies to make his morning Denver omelets; it was one of the most important parts of his day. He had been using the same frying-pan for years—a chipped nonstick pan that was light as a feather. Jim loved it—he could cook anything with that pan, especially omelets. Fluffy omelets, too—American style—not that rolled, gooey French mess.
Jim blinked. He had been zoning out. Sometimes thinking about food caused him to do that. He downed the last of his bottle of beer and lifted himself from the seat, walking toward the bar to get another round. The victory bells were dinging, the lights were flashing, it was Friday night at the casino. The sights and sounds always made Jim so happy. It didn’t matter to him that he never won—he didn’t give a shit about that—he just wanted to witness the atmosphere, to silently participate, in however small of a way, in the local culture.
“One bottle of Bud, please,” said Jim sliding a five-spot across the counter. The bartender took it, shoved it in her drawer—which dinged excitedly, just like the slot machines—and handed Jim his one-dollar change, which Jim subsequently dumped into the tip jar.
“Thanks, honey,” said the bartender. Jim hated it when people he didn’t know called him shit like ‘honey’, but he was in a good mood, so he let it slide. Normally, he would’ve been prone to do some serious bitching and grumbling.
He turned away from the bar right into the short barrel of a Glock G45.
Jim blinked. The needles of sudden onset terror and anxiety pricked his face and the back of his neck. He blinked again, now registering what was in front of his face. He felt so weak. His vision blurred. He moved to get the fuck out of the way, but he was too late.
The gunman lifted the pistol and whipped the hell out of Jim’s wrinkly forehead, bruising it black instantly. Jim fell hard to the red-patterned, dirty carpet. He was out cold.
* * *
Jim blinked. Everything was dark and foggy. He felt tired. Lifting his head, he again almost passed out, though forcing away the drowsiness and planting his elbow into the carpet, he lifted his body forcibly. Jim couldn’t tell if he was truly tired or not. The blow of the gun had fucked him up bad; that could be causing his drowsiness. Jim also more simply felt tired in stressful situations, and he was at the current moment stressed the hell out.
He got up and looked around the casino. No one was seated at any of the machines. It at first looked like the place was empty, but upon further examination Jim noticed that it wasn’t. There was a collection of people kneeling on the ground on the opposite side of the room, near the free soda and coffee station. Their eyes were sad and uncertain—they looked afraid. Another group of people were squatting near the glass of the front door, looking out into the parking lot. Jim limped over to where they were.
“What the hell’s going on?” he said, rubbing at his throbbing head.
“Fuck, dude!” said a younger man, who introduced himself as Curtis Kills-in-Water, “We didn’t think you were going to wake up anytime soon! We noticed you were breathing—we were checking on you! But no cops or EMT’s have been able to get in here yet.”
“Why not?” said Jim, removing a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it.
“Damn, bro!” said Curtis, “Look the hell outside!”
Jim peeked through the glass, seeing outside a black-masked figure encircled by several cop-cars; their lights flashing more brightly than even those inside the casino; their sirens wailing like they’d just won a million fucking bucks.
“Coppers got him, huh?” said Jim, chuckling under his breath while massaging his wound.
“Looks to be the case, my man,” said Curtis. He began laughing as well, but before he could get very far into it—before his sides could really begin aching with the cramp of true elation—a bullet pierced the glass. It then pierced Curtis’s skull, squirting blood and bone all over the screen of a flashing nearby slot machine.
Jim, screaming involuntarily like a rabbit cornered by a coyote, and fell back to the ground, though this time on his ass. He looked back outside. Pops from guns rang out in the parking lot, mixing horrifically with the blaring sirens and the music playing inside the casino, which no one had yet turned off. Come and Get Your Love, by Redbone played loudly throughout the gaming room as if it were oblivious to what was going on. The slot machines, also unaware of the severity of the situation, continued ringing, dinging, and singing—even the one covered in blood—advertising their games.
Jim clutched at his chest, which was quickly tensing up. He again felt weak—his arm had gone numb. He started blacking out, though through the shifting fog of his deteriorating vision he saw the gunman sprinting back into the casino.
A hail of bullets trailed the gunman, but none hit him. Turning behind his back, he fired a shot, striking and killing a police officer instantly. The bullet pushed into the cop’s sweaty brow, through his brain, and then outward, flying into the air and taking his policeman’s cap with it, which spun through the air like one from a Mario video game Jim had seen local kids playing.
Blood and brains painted the parking lot.
Jim fell onto his back, struggling to maintain consciousness. He wasn’t successful.
* * *
“We have to help him!” shrieked the voice of a middle-aged woman. She was pointing to the floor at Jim. She was wearing a casino employee’s uniform, but Joe-Ben didn’t give a shit about that. Joe-Ben was frantic; he had fucked up his plan. He had merely wanted to rob the casino; he thought he was doing something good by doing that, anyway. Casino owners were thieves themselves when you really got down to it.
Joe-Ben wasn’t from the reservation; he lived in nearby Valentine, Nebraska. He had played linebacker for the Badgers, playing every year against the Todd County Falcons of the reservation. Joe-Ben liked the reservation—he thought Mission was a nice enough little town—he just hated the Rosebud Casino. His father had spent the majority of Joe-Ben’s childhood at the casino, blowing his money and ruining his liver. He never came to any of Joe-Ben’s football games, and now he was dead, buried back in his hometown—back in Omaha—miles and miles from his wife and kid. It was a fitting resting place. Joe-Ben, feeling robbed by the casino, wanted to rob them back. Plus, he was broke as a fucking joke—he needed the cash.
It was the casino’s fault; that’s why he had never had a relationship with his father. That’s what Joe-Ben thought, at least.
Joe-Ben blinked.
“We have to help him!” again yelled the lady. Joe-Ben looked at her. She was wearing a manager’s nametag which read Sarah Afraid-of-Horses. Joe-Ben then looked to the ground, where Jim lay writhing, detached from reality though still in pain.
“I don’t know what the fuck to do for him, lady,” said Joe-Ben.
“You have to let the EMTs in here so they can get him to a hospital.”
“No can do,” said Joe-Ben.
Sarah turned away.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said Joe-Ben, pointing the pistol at her, but Sarah didn’t listen. She returned a moment later with a glass of water, which she tried to give to Jim. Jim sloshed the water around in his mouth, only capable of swallowing a little from within whatever subconscious realm he at that moment inhabited. He smacked his lips, sticking his tongue in and out like a rude child. Then he again passed out.
Sarah Afraid-of-Horses knelt by Jim, doing what she could to keep him alive. Joe-Ben stood stone frozen, unsure of what he should do.
“Fuck!” he eventually yelled. “I can’t go out there, lady! I just killed a fucking cop!”
“That’s on you,” said Sarah, “You need to face the consequences of your actions. You can at least still do something good by allowing this old man to continue living. If you don’t leave soon, he’s going to die.”
“Aw, fuck that old man!” said Joe-Ben aggressively, though his cracked tone of voice communicated doubt and intense guilt. Without another word, Joe-Ben dropped the gun and exited the casino, his hands above his head. The police, which had now converged in force in the parking lot, quickly tackled and cuffed Joe-Ben, grabbing him by the back of the head and shoving him into a nearby cop car.
EMTs rushed into the casino, lifting Jim onto a stretcher, and wheeling him to an ambulance.
Sarah Afraid-of-Horses looked on as the ambulance pulled away. She wondered where they would take the old man. He probably wouldn’t last all the way to Rapid City, but that was probably where he needed to go. Sarah then saw a cop walking toward the casino entrance. Sarah hated cops, but she knew she would have to talk to this one. She wondered whether he had seen his friend get blasted; she didn’t want to have to explain all of that to him.
She looked across the gaming room. Casino patrons were still mostly cowering in the corner, though they had begun to emerge back out into the open. Sarah noticed the blood sprayed all over the nearby slot machine. It was one of the most popular games at the casino—Sky Rider. They would have to get that cleaned up ASAP, she knew; it was a real money-pit, that one. She breathed heavily; it was going to be a long night.
* * *
Jim Nash awoke only briefly on the way from the Rosebud Casino to the hospital. His chest still hurt; his breathing was heavy. He was confused.
“Wha… where the hell am I?” he said to no one.
“Stay with us, sir,” said an EMT, “We’re going to get you to a hospital.”
“A hospital?” said Jim, “Why?” Jim couldn’t remember a thing; his memory had been wiped clean—a tabula rasa. That was okay with him, though. He didn’t like knowing things; he didn’t like being acquainted with people. He was only comfortable in quiet, foreign places where people left him alone. He didn’t even dwell on why he was in the ambulance—it would sort itself out, soon enough. He was sure of that.
Jim Nash wondered if he had a family. He then closed his eyes, this time never to open them again. The stretcher was quite comfortable, really.
Robert Pettus is an English as a Second Language teacher at the University of Cincinnati. Previously, he taught for four years in a combination of rural Thailand and Moscow, Russia. He was most recently accepted for publication at Allegory Magazine, The Horror Tree, JAKE magazine, The Night Shift podcast, Libretto publications, White Cat Publications, Culture Cult, Savage Planet, Short-Story.me, White-Enso, Tall Tale TV, The Corner Bar, A Thin Line of Anxiety, Schlock!, Black Petals, Inscape Literary Journal of Morehead State University, Yellow Mama, Apocalypse-Confidential, Mystery Tribune, Blood Moon Rising, and The Green Shoes Sanctuary. Money Games is one of the stories he recently wrote. He lives in Kentucky with his wife, Mary, and his pet rabbit, Achilles.
Lisa followed Duncan up the road, shining her torch beam down to dodge the clumps of horse manure. The thrill of sneaking out of their house in the middle of the night was fading; they walked up this road every morning to catch the school bus.
“This is a stupid idea,” she mumbled.
Duncan’s torch was fixed on the tall, shaggy hedge beside them, and when he stopped she stumbled into him.
“It’s a superb idea,” he said, covering his hand with his jacket sleeve and tearing at the brambles and nettles in the hedge. “Ha! Found our portal.”
Lisa watched him pulling away more clumps of vegetation and snapping back brambles and branches. When he stood back, and she could see the hole in the hillside, its earthy edges fringed with torn leaves.
“It’s smaller than I expected,” she said. “Are you sure this is it?”
He nodded and snapped off another tendril of bramble. “It’s exactly where Tom said it was, he came up here with his stepdad last summer.” Then he grinned, holding the torch under his chin to make his face gargoyle-ish. “Let’s go inside!”
They had to bend almost double to squeeze through the opening, but after a metre or so the tunnel opened up into a small cavern which they could stand up in. Two arched passageways branched away from the cavern ahead of them. It was dry and cool, and the rich brown earth of the walls and floor was packed solid. A fine dust like cocoa came off on Lisa’s hands where she touched the wall. She wrinkled her nose and wiped her palms on her jeans.
Duncan rummaged in his backpack and pulled out a tent peg and a ball of bright orange twine. He drove the peg into the ground of the entrance passageway with his heel, and tied the end of the twine to it before walking backwards a couple of paces, letting it unravel.
“So we won’t get lost,” he said, pleased.
“What about the roof?”
“Well, it’s been there for two hundred years, I don’t see why it would fall down now.”
Lisa looked uncertain.
“It’ll be fine,” he said brightly and started down one of the passages.
“What about your bag?”
“Just leave it there, no one’s going to nick it are they?” he called over his shoulder. “I want to see if we can find part of the actual mine.”
Lisa followed him, treading gingerly on the packed earth. “Is this not the mine?”
“No, just an adit. They cut them to drain the water away. The mine proper is further in.”
Lisa tried not to trip over the twine that he reeled out behind him like plastic spider thread. She thought about people digging these tunnels by hand, burrowing into the hillside.
“Grandad was a miner, wasn’t he?” she asked, hoping Duncan’s cheerful chatter would fill the gloomy corridors.
“Yeah! Well, Great Grandad. Bill Bennett. He was a hero.”
“Tell me the story again.”
“There was a cave-in up at Boswellen, and three men were trapped behind a wall of rubble, and Bill took his lamp and his pick and he dug them out. Took three hours. One had died but the other two survived. They were all in the paper, Mum got that photocopy from the library.”
The passage had started to grow narrower, and Lisa had to turn sideways so that her shoulders didn’t scrape the dirt from the walls.
“Duncan-”
“Hey, look – I think this is where the adit joins the mine!”
She looked over his shoulder and saw the passage ended in a rounded wall with a slanting, oval-shaped hole about half a metre wide and a metre high. Duncan crouched down, shining his torch through the crevice.
“It is! The walls are rock, and I can see the supports. Look!”
She crouched down beside him and peered through the hole at jagged walls glistening in the torchlight, logs jammed in at odd angles. She looked down.
“Train tracks?” she said, frowning, and Duncan tilted the torch beam downwards and laughed in excitement. “Did they have trains down here?”
“Yeah, kind of. Not engines. They had tracks like these and they’d run carts up and down to get the copper up to the surface.” He stood up and stepped back, sizing up the hole. “We can get through there.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?” she murmured as he knelt down and reached into the crack, twisting his torso to fit the slant. He didn’t answer, wriggling through the gap until his legs and then his trainers disappeared. She crouched down and peered into the hole. Duncan’s face appeared on the other side, bleached in her torch beam.
“See? Easy! You’ve got to come through, Lise, it’s wicked.”
As Lisa stumbled to her feet on the other side she coughed and brushed at the earth on her arms and her legs, then stepped carefully out of a loop of the orange twine they had brought through with them, like threading a needle. It was colder here, and when she reached out to touch the rock it was damp. It looked black, streaked with dull greens and reds and she tapped it with her fingernail. She couldn’t imagine how anyone had carved a whole tunnel into something so hard. How could a man, someone tall as their Dad maybe, even swing a pick in this cramped space? She thought about Bill Bennett and the miners trapped behind a wall of rubble.
“Did lots of miners die in the mines?” she asked Duncan, who was inspecting one of the wooden supports a few feet away.
“Oh yes,” he said, picking at a bit of sodden wood. “Thousands.”
She swallowed. “Are there ghosts, then? Do you think?”
“Probably! Let’s go a bit further.”
As Duncan started walking down the track and whistling, picking his way between the rusted sleepers, she felt a pit in her stomach as cold and dark and damp as the one they were standing in. She picked the twine up from the floor and let it run through her hand as they walked. It made her feel safer somehow to be tied together like mountaineers.
They reached a sharp curve in the track and Duncan stopped. He turned around and said “Hey, I have an idea. Let’s switch our torches off. Just for a few seconds. It’ll be completely dark, really pitch black!”
“I- I guess. Can we go back after though? I don’t really want to be down here any more,” she said quietly, trying to sound casual. Duncan looked surprised.
“Sure. Yeah, ok. We can always come back.”
She nodded.
“All right,” he said and held his torch aloft, thumb on the switch. Lisa did the same and squeezed the twine with her other hand. “On three: 1… 2… 3!”
Lisa screamed as a pale face swam out of the blackness where Duncan had been standing moments before. Then it was Duncan again, in the torch light, worried and holding her arm, the twine dropped at his feet.
“Are you ok? What happened?”
“I saw one! A ghost!” she cried, hot tears prickling in her eyes.
He squeezed her shoulder. “What did you see? Exactly?”
“His face,” she said, miserably. “Right where you are. It was really close!”
“Was it definitely a face?”
“Well,” she sniffed. “It was kind of blurry.”
He smiled. “It’s ok, I know what happened. I think you saw an after image. You were looking at me, right? When we switched the torches off? It’s kind of an echo in your eyes. An optical illusion.”
“An illusion?”
“Yeah. Nothing to worry about. I’m sorry, I should have thought.”
“S’ok,” Lisa said biting her lip and staring at her trainers. She felt like a little kid.
“Let’s get out of here,” Duncan said and swung the torch around the passage one more time. “Goodbyyye!” he called out in a spooky voice. They listened to the echo until it had faded, then stood in silence. Lisa noticed a sound she hadn’t heard while they were walking, the sound of water ticking on stone. Drip drip drip.
It seemed to be getting louder. Or maybe closer.
She glanced at Duncan, who was frowning. So he’d heard it too. Around the noise the silence was stifling. She wanted to say something – or rather, she wanted Duncan to say something – but the words stayed curled in her throat. It was louder, and longer, and the drips didn’t sound clean and clipped any more, but more like ragged crunches.
Footsteps, she realised, as her stomach twisted. They were footsteps.
She opened her mouth but no sound came out and she clutched at Duncan’s arm in the dark. They stared ahead to where the tunnel curved away. Now they could hear other sounds accompanying the trudging steps: a low rumble, the scrape of metal on metal, the faint squeak of a wheel. They waited, watching down the trembling torchlight beam, unable to move, unable to blink. As the steps reached the corner of the tunnel Lisa felt her heart stop.
She saw a boy, a little boy. His hair stood out in damp tufts, and he was naked from the waist up, skinny body smeared with grime, sweat, and bruises. He was in a kind of harness, pulling a cart loaded with rocks. Behind him and behind the cart was a girl, even younger, dressed in stained rags with hair hanging down in oily strings beside her sunken face. Sweat beaded on her brow as her small arms strained, pushing the cart forward. They looked at Lisa and Duncan with hollow eyes, but they didn’t stop.
“Run,” Lisa said, grabbing Duncan’s hand. He stared at her blankly, mouth hanging open. “Now!” she yelled and tugged him backward. He seemed to come out of his trance and they ran back down the track. The scraping, creaking, rumbling behind them never stopped, and never slowed, and they didn’t look back.
When they reached the crack in the wall into the adit Lisa pushed Duncan into it and he scrambled through. She wriggled through the gap as soon as his trainers were clear and they pelted along the tunnel. Lisa could see the grey glow of moonlight ahead and with a new surge of energy she dived through the entrance, brambles scratching her cheeks and catching at her hands. Then she was out in the air again under the fresh bright stars. Duncan emerged from the hedge too and they stood panting on the tarmac.
He grimaced. “My bag!”
Before Lisa could say anything he ducked back into the brambles and disappeared.
She shifted her weight from foot to foot as she counted out the seconds, and the minutes, and started to feel panic rising in her throat.
There was a rustle and Duncan reappeared, clutching his bag. He started walking fast down the hill. When she caught up with him she tried to catch his eye but he just looked ahead.
“What happened?” she asked, finally.
He said nothing.
“Duncan!” she demanded and he flinched.
“When I grabbed my bag,” he started to speak, not looking at her. “I tried to get the twine too, I hadn’t noticed I’d dropped it. So I started pulling it back along the tunnel. I’d reeled up a few metres of it and then I couldn’t get any more,” his voice dropped to a whisper. “Like someone was holding the other end.”
They walked on in tense silence. Soon they could see down the hill to the cluster of houses that made up their hamlet. She could see a light was on in their house. That meant they wer in trouble, but right now she didn’t care. She even felt glad. She was just happy to be out of the ground and walking away from the adit.
She glanced at Duncan, who was still hurrying and looking at nothing.
“The twine was probably just stuck. Maybe it got caught in the tracks or something,” she offered. “No.” Duncan shook his head and turned to look at her, eyes lit with fear. “When I tugged on it, something tugged back.”
Sarah Jackson writes gently unsettling stories. Her short fiction has been published by Wyldblood Magazine, Ghost Orchid Press, and Tales From Between. She lives in east London UK and has a green tricycle called Ivy. Her website is https://sarah-i-jackson.ghost.io.
