As they watched, the grass swallowed the trail. Barry shouted, his words muffled and indistinct. Lithe shadows crossed overhead, swooping down toward the path.
“Vultures…” Ben clenched the hiking pole and shifted his weight to climb down the hill.
Nick’s hand wrapped Ben’s left arm. “Don’t. He’s done. They always stay near the grass…the thicker grass down below. They know how to get an easy meal.” Another howl of pain echoed from below.
Ben wheeled on Nick, striking him with the pole across the left shoulder. He swung a second time, this blow cracking against ribs after Nick raised his hand in defense.
“Shit…uhff.” Nick tumbled backwards, landing on his bottom.
“That’s my God-damned friend down there.”
“He’s…dead,” Nick panted. “That’s how it got Andrea…”
Ben drew the pole back a third time, but hesitated. “But you were down there when we found you—you were fighting. You got out.” The pole lowered.
Nick’s head shook back and forth. “I…don’t know how... the grass is a monster.” He sank to all fours. “Too late for us all…only a matter of time.” His chest began to heave, laughs and sobs coming together. “You’ll either starve or…”
With the pole still clenched in one fist, Ben turned. He took a tentative, limping step down the slope toward his friend, but his friend was gone. The trail was empty. The grass waved in the wind, long, sweeping ripples like waves cresting across the ocean. “Barry?” He leaned his weight on the pole and cupped a hand to his mouth. “Barry!”
The vultures flapped their great dark wings and alighted near the path.
“Jesus…”
Nick, still on his hands and knees behind Ben, coughed. “You…and me…trapped. It likes to toy with you…fuck with you.”
Turning away from the trail, Ben limped past the prostrate man and started down the other side. “I saw a car earlier. In the distance. I think it was a car. It couldn’t be ours, but…” He staggered down the slope, pain still radiating from the ruined ankle. His head throbbed, his eyes blurred with tears, his mouth dry and hot in the sun. Nick cried out, but Ben was deaf, focused, driven despite the burning pain.
As he approached the meter-high Bluestem, Ben slowed. He glanced back toward the top of the hill. No sign of Nick. His eyes circled around front again, eyes that must have lied. There, nearly buried in the thick grass, was a car. A silver Honda—just like Barry’s, but wrong. The front windshield spider-webbed from several punctures and scratches marred the paint.
He ignored the pain, and half-ran in a limping, ungainly fashion, closing the distance to the car, sure to stay on what path was left. Nick’s warning, trapped, echoed in his head. He peered into the window, found his cell phone lying on the console, snapped in two. The steering wheel was pulled from the column, wires hanging loose like a disemboweled pig. Dirt and glass fragments littered the seats and dash.
“Fuck,” he pounded a fist against the door with a hollow thunk. The impact shot through his arm. “Barry’s car…it’s Barry’s car…” His mutterings faded past a whisper as the grass rattled in the distance. It was coming, heading toward him, bringing blades like sharp, biting teeth. The roots scratched a foothold on the open path. He tightened his grip on the metal pole and pressed his back against the car.
Trapped.
Bona Fide King of His Realm
Uncle Rego is a giant earthworm. I’ve known for a little while, even though most of the family might think I’m bona fide crazy if I said anything about it. It’s not just the clammy touch of his skin, or the color, or the way his breath always smells like the nice, black dirt they put in Styrofoam cups for the night crawlers down at Jenkin’s Bait and Tackle. No, I’ve seen the pictures that prove Uncle Rego’s an earthworm, and what happened to my aunt is only what some folks might call “icing on the cake.”
I don’t know much about icing, but those pictures do a nice job of putting the chill on my spine. I’ve got them tucked away in the old Converse box under my bed for later. I made the mistake of talking about Uncle Rego to Pa once, and he gave me the back of his hand. Hell of a lot harder than his palm, even with the calluses. When I tell one of my folks about Aunt Tessie, it won’t be Pa.
I figure Mama listens pretty good most of the time.
See, Rego is Mama’s brother—her only kin left on that level since Uncle Garth got killed under his motorcycle last October. Mama doesn’t talk about her childhood often, but when she does, I see the pale-as-potato-grub look on her face at the suggestion of Rego.
“Rather not mention that son-of-a-bitch,” she’ll say, or, “I don’t talk about that dirty bastard.” Once, when she and Pa were having one of their “heated debates”, he said something I didn’t quite understand about Mama and Rego doing “unnatural” things. Mama cried and cried and put that debate fire right out with her tears. When they were cooled off, Mama explained that she was just a little girl and Rego was so strong and he’d gotten into Grandad’s whiskey and she ran off to the river that night with a bar of Ivory Soap and scrubbed and scrubbed until her skin glowed like mercury and even bled in a couple places. At least I remember she said something about blood.
Sometimes I try to shut off my ears because I don’t really want a piece of what they’re talking about.
Still, if I’m going to tell anyone the truth about Uncle Rego and Aunt Tessie, it’ll be Mama. Besides, she’s the one who sent me across town to Uncle Rego and Aunt Tessie’s trailer that afternoon.
I rode my bike because that’s what I always do, and sure enough, I nosed the awful dirt smell when I got there. Rego didn’t have his disguise on at all. I could see the pale-brown slickness of his naked earthworm skin through a window. And, being curious like I am, I made my way right to the sill and peeked in.
Like I mentioned about those photos—ice all over my spine. Felt like I might vomit, too. There he was, curled up on that bed of theirs, pinkish-tan and slimy, and Aunt Tessie reduced to a pile of dirt. Her undergarments poked out of the black-brown lump, so I knew it had to be her. What was left of her. No lesson from biology class will ever stick as well as the one about earthworms and what Mr. Block calls “the ecosystem.” Used to make me kind of sad, thinking about my old dog Max and how the worms must have had at him when he died. Now, I just feel like I want to throw up—either that or get the biggest spade I can and slice old Rego in half and watch him squirm until he dies.
But I don’t have that much courage. Not to face a big, king-of-the-realm worm like that.
Of course, Aunt Tessie just turned up missing. Uncle Rego put on his human skin again and called the police, moaning and bitching about his wife, then getting all frightened like he feared he’d never see her again. Lies and deceit, like Grandma Shoemaker used to say. Lies and deceit.
If—when—I get around to telling Mama, I’m going to dig out those old photos, especially the one from when she’s a little girl and Uncle Rego’s touching her shoulder. I’d swear on Max’s grave, it’s not a hand at all, but his earthworm tail poking through. Mama must’ve known it, too, by the awful, sour-milk look on her black and white face.
Down There
We’d been talking about basements. Joking really, telling silly stories about how basements were the focus of so much childhood trauma and fodder for hackneyed horror stories. Travis, Jerry, and I sat with Heather in her tiny rented house, our heads clouded with a few rounds of microbrew after parent-teacher conferences. Outside, the October wind knocked against the siding and kicked dead leaves down the street.