Dark Things IV Read online

  “Sounds like a nice way to spend the day,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind spending my days like that.”

  “It ain’t bad, is it?” said Jake, and nodded at the stream and the field beyond. Rich colors of wild grass rose from the ground and pushed away the tangled, dead weeds from winter. Forty or fifty yards behind it stood more forest, the maples and oaks in full leaf. The sky above was a good, deep blue. It was a pretty scene…made me think about the future ahead, and not in a dark fashion, either, seeing summer ahead just around the corner.

  Then Jake dropped a bit of a slammer. “I go back to work next week,” he said. “Vacation’s almost over.”

  Well that was a fine piece of news! “You about ready, then?” I said, since I could think of nothing else to say.

  “Not really,” he said. “In point of fact I hate the idea. But I’m grateful for the time I was given.”

  “There’s no harm in doing what it takes to get better,” I said. “What you went through…nobody’s saying you didn’t deserve a bit of a break, and it seems you made the best of it.”

  “Thanks,” Jake said, standing up and casting. “I tried to, at any rate. Spent some good time with Donna, and some time alone, too…it’s good to sort things through from time to time.”

  We fished for a while, and Jake caught two nice little trout, I didn’t catch anything, and then I came home. It was good seeing Jake in a better mood. I guess the devil Donna talked about is gone. He just needed time.

  May 14th

  Jake starts back at work tomorrow.

  […]

  November 15th, 1940

  I got some things to write now or I’ll never write them down at all, and I want to because I want to see them on paper, to know they’re real and staring me back in the face. It’s about Jake Marshall, God help me, and I’m drunk or I’d never have the guts to do this.

  Everyone in Still Creek and the outlying towns thinks they know how Jake died, but the truth is they’re all wrong. Only myself and a few others know the true story. In the eighteen months since the day he returned to work and was thought killed, I haven’t been blessed with a single spare hour when I haven’t thought about what I saw. Molly gets mad at me because she thinks I drink too much. But if only she knew, my lord, my lord—I don’t drink enough.

  It’s simple what happened, really. None of it will take long to put down. On May 15th we were ready to take to the tunnel when Jake came along, all calm and smiling. For his first day back I thought he looked pretty good. We slapped him on the back, jibed him a bit, and boy if he didn’t laugh right back. But when we got on the carriage and started down, Jake pulled to a halt at a level no one was working on, and got off. “Be right down,” he said. I went on to the working breast with the rest of the crew, but after about fifteen minutes and Jake hadn’t showed up again, I decided to go back after him and see what the holdup was all about.

  Well I got on the carriage and went up eighty feet and low and behold if it wasn’t the level of the accident. I went in a bit, not liking the look of things at all. Christ, I shouldn’t have gone, but I’dve been a coward not to, and Jake, he might have needed help or something similar, who was I to know?

  And there was some yards of rope across the front of the cave-in, and some steel poles, but the little hole Jake and I’d squeezed through was open like a black mouth, and somewhere close to it I heard a grunting and a rustling. Someone was in there, and there was only one person it could be.

  I called out his name, but Jake didn’t answer. I called again, but nothing but the rustle of dirt and the clack of stone on stone came back. He was in there digging, digging back into the breast.

  “Now Jake you come out!” I yelled into the hole.

  “Go on now, Jim,” he said. “You’re not to come here.”

  “I’m not to come here?” I said. “And you are? Come on now. This isn’t the way to go about a first day back. You’ll lose your job for good. Think of Donna.”

  “I am,” came the reedy voice, fainter now, farther away. “That’s all I think of. It ain’t right, the way things are.”

  “What nonsense are you talking?” I said. “I’m coming in.”

  The carriage clanged to again behind me. It had gone up to the surface and come back down again, and with it was the mine boss on duty, Brian Stockdale, a good man who just wanted to see that things worked right when he was in charge. It was him who helped Jake get his job back.

  “Now why you stop the carriage here?” he asked, clicking on his helmet and stepping off the carriage. “This is off limits, you know that.”

  I told about Jake, not seeing a way around it. Truth be, I was getting a bit scared. At the end of what I had to say, Mr. Stockdale was about three shades paler. He went over to the hole in the rocks and bent down and hissed, “Jake Marshall! Now that’s enough, lad. Come on out of there and we’ll have us a talk. I—”

  But just then there came the most horrible sound you ever heard, or I should say that you’d be blessed not to have heard, for it weren’t a sound fit for human ears. I never heard such sadness before. It was like what I’d figure an Irish banshee would sound, only we could tell it was Jake. It lasted a long time, several moments and then slowly died away, echoing away down the shafts and tunnels, and some silt from the ceiling filtered down onto our helmets and into our collars.

  “Jesus wept,” said Stockdale.

  I curse what I did now, but I couldn’t help it, and I guess there weren’t nothing else to do. I slid myself into the dark hole, and crawled my way back into the room where I’d sat for so long with old Colin’s body before Jake found me. But I kept going—back, back into the tunnel Jake had wiggled through to escape from his prison, way far at the end of the breast. And then I heard Stockdale calling my name, but hissing it the way he’d hissed at Jake, as though he was afraid to bring the roof down further. But I weren’t thinking of that at all, and I didn’t answer him. I just kept crawling, and the tunnel just kept getting smaller and smaller, until I couldn’t hardly move, but still I kept forward, I don’t know how, until at last, at last in a tiny pocket of space hardly big enough to sit in, I saw it. Jesus I saw it, and it was horrible. I gagged and let out a noise, and I guess Stockdale heard me because just a few moments later I heard his panting breath behind me, and then he was beside me, and looking at what I was looking at and not saying anything, but when it all came home he let out a low groan.

  The body had been pinned beneath the rock for a long time. There weren’t much left for a face, although hair still clung to the skull and other…other…

  Enough of that. The rock had pinned him—boulder upon boulder, ton upon ton, on his stomach, chest, right arm, and leg. His helmet was shattered, and his clothes…his clothes. His clothes were familiar.

  And Jake, we never found him after that. Never.

  Or maybe the worst part is that we did.

  About the author:

  Gregory Miller’s stories have appeared in over two dozen national publications. His first collection, Scaring the Crows: 21 Tales for Noon or Midnight, was published in 2009 by StoneGarden.net Publishing, and has garnered positive attention from such luminary authors as Piers Anthony, Brad Strickland, and Ray Bradbury. He recently edited the Static Movement anthologies Don’t Tread On Me and Something Dark in the Doorway. He is currently co-editing the Sam’s Dot Publishing anthology Potter’s Field 4. A high school English teacher in addition to a writer, Miller lives in Pittsburgh with his wife and two young sons.

  House of Paintings

  by Anthony Bell

  A feverish intensity bled from his mind and into the brush. Moonlight shone through the stained glass panes of the window and highlighted his motion with kaleidoscope diversity. The canvas came to life.

  Long locks of hair hung over his pale face and he licked sweat from his upper lip. Grunts and moans resonated from deep in his throat as he illustrated his thoughts. The soft, sliding sound of brushstrokes feathered the still air and the painte
r knew of little else.

  The door of the long, high-ceilinged room was closed, locked, and braced by a chair tilted on its hind legs and tucked under. The floor-to-ceiling stained-glass window depicted an angel clothed in flowing robes, with wings spread wide, holding against her breast a sword by the hilt, the blade pointed down. Her eyes were open and a fire unnatural to heaven heated her gaze.

  Glancing at her, the painter seemed devoid of eyelids; his orbs were veined with red and pulsed with blood. A spurt of glee issued from pursed lips and he returned his attention to the canvas, continuing to moan inarticulately.

  Paint clung to the surface and the scene progressed, maturing, defining…becoming. Paint clung to the surface but nowhere else. Sweat marked the painter’s face and his hairless arms, but not paint. His arms sometimes flew in seemingly wild arcs and slashes, but not a drop of paint was on anything except the canvas and his palette, upon which pooled a rainbow of colors.

  The bare, sweaty soles of his feet made sucking sounds every time he shifted his weight; sweat rolled in lazy advance down his naked chest and stomach.

  A crow, perched on a branch of an evergreen cawed once. He cawed back, never taking his eyes from the painting.

  His breathing intensified, as did the lines of sweat down his body; he was finding it harder to keep his lips together. It was building inside and would soon have to burst, he knew, but it was a welcomed release. Completion.

  The bird cawed again, and he again reciprocated, favoring the angel a quick glance. He breathed even harder, and harder, his chest heaving and abdominals contracting.

  The brush caressed the canvas, kissing and kissing in a passion of strokes, slashes, and dabs.

  He mumbled, “Construe, imbue, I color you.”

  Sweat puddled on the ground around him and sparkled across his skin as it streamed down. Whimpers struggled in his throat—in his need—and his lips parted just enough that his brush hand shot to his mouth to cover the premature eruption. He breathed a few long breaths, inhaling the rich smell of paint.

  More paint upon the canvas; more muffled noise in his throat.

  The moonlight seemed to spotlight his painting until the borders around it faded in a blur of shadow, a blackened void in which it hung alone.

  Yet more paint; lips parted, and through glistening teeth, a hiss escaped. The bird cawed again; ignored.

  Finished.

  Using one lanky arm, he swept hair from his face. His chest rose and fell in tight spurts and his legs trembled, but he hardly noticed; all he saw was a fat man, balding with eyes that appeared pinched between chubby cheeks and a thick forehead. A silent scream went unheard from his open mouth, but large spots of spittle could be seen flying from his thick tongue. His head was turned.

  He was looking at the bus that would run him down.

  The painter dropped his palette, bent his back in a curve, and tilted his head. The scream he held inside throughout escaped his lips and rose until human ears could no longer hear it.

  Outside, the crow took flight from the branch, but got no farther than ten feet when one of its eyes burst. It fell to the ground, dead.

  ***

  Charles walked along the sidewalk and skeleton trees lined the way. Crows fluttered and cawed overhead in the dank air of fall. His duffel bag was unzipped and filled with newspapers.

  Charles was an artist, and when asked, would reply that he was rather good, with neither vanity nor modesty. He enjoyed the time it took him to deliver papers. Many of his drawings had been inspired from ordinary scenes and objects passed on his route. Under his deft hand a streetlight had become a giant, gray serpent bursting through the sidewalk; with cement chunks raining around it. A big blue mailbox had become a futuristic jukebox. A front lawn had become an acidic pit into which bird after bird flew, drawn down to their demise by an unheard, hypnotic calling. This drawing made him think of that black and white movie by that guy Hitchcock. If only one of those poor characters could’ve used his drawing.

  The crows continued to flutter and utter their raucous calls as though agitated by his passing. Maybe they felt his thoughts.

  The overcast sky was replete with whistling winds and bloated clouds that shadowed his way. Everything took on a shade of gray, and he could see himself stepping from reality into a black and white movie. Thinking this in light of all the birds made him shiver.

  He walked up the driveway of a house and tossed a newspaper onto the porch. He hummed to himself and eyed the crows. For ten more minutes he delivered papers, until only three were left. He continued to hum and neared the last two houses of the cul-de-sac.

  Third to last. Second to last. His stomach began to flutter, as it always did once he neared, but not with nervousness. An intent look played across his young face. Hector and Allen said they’d seen the man walking around town in the middle of the night with a scythe. Hector and Allen also tried to fly off their roof with a blanket last summer.

  He zipped his duffel bag and held the remaining paper. He stared at the last house, the one with the stained-glass window of an angel holding a sword. He quit humming.

  Instead of walking through a side yard and up the low hill upon which stood the grand structure, he walked out of the cul-de-sac and around, onto soft soil as yet untouched.

  The houses included in his paper route were maybe ten years old at most. The last house on his route, however, was much older, some eighty years from what he’d gathered from idle conversations while collecting pay. It sat on a wide knoll surrounded by a forest of evergreens that had been thinned during the last decade in preparation for development.

  His feet left the plot of soil and carried him along the dirt road that looked older than God and had been the only passage, up until a few years ago, for the few homes amidst the forest. The flutters in his stomach began to subside as resolve settled.

  The house was a huge, two-story rectangle. There was a cobblestone pathway that led from a circular driveway to the front door, upon which was attached a heavy iron knocker sculpted in the face of a gargoyle. Several newspapers were piled at the door; he picked them up. A polarized window that ran the length of the door on one side reflected part of him. As far as he’d seen, it and the stained-glass window were the only ones of the house. He couldn’t recall ever seeing a place with so few windows, except for maybe a cabin. He considered placing his face to the glass, but didn’t, afraid he’d be caught while doing it.

  After three claps of the knocker, which resounded inside the house like a giant heartbeat, Charles gathered up the bundled papers and stepped back. Maybe he would answer today. Maybe he wouldn’t.

  Thirty seconds went by and the situation began to feel wrong. Charles glanced around. Crows were an expected sight on the evergreens that shadowed the house, but he wasn’t prepared for thousands, still and silent. A great black swath marred the sky. He inhaled to scream, fast enough to take in too much air and become light headed without making a sound. Gray dots speckled his eyes. Coughs racked him and he placed a hand on the door for support, falling to one knee.

  He imagined this was what an asthma attack felt like. His vision and hearing dulled so that he saw only vertigo and heard only a ringing. His muscles tensed and he hunched down, sure that the birds were descending upon him and any second he would feel their talons dig into his body.

  But that didn’t happen. There was no fluttering and screeching followed by pain. His coughs turned into gasps and them into labored breaths. His eyes and ears cleared, and he realized he made the only noise on this gray day.

  Black birds perched on various branches at various heights, bent forward and staring down at Charles like eager spectators at an old coliseum, waiting to be entertained by violence. Their beady eyes were orbs of ink with nothing nice inside, and their gaze made Charles question what he was doing.

  This guy stays in his house all the time for a reason.

  He wrinkled his face and stuck his tongue out at the crows, envisioning them as birds of his
drawing, bound to the acidic pit.

  They continued to stare, unmoving.

  The ground beyond the front porch contained many rocks; he felt the urge to grab one and hurl it at the birds and make them pay.

  (olor u)

  The silence held thick in the fall sky and in Charles’s mind. His attention was distracted from the crows as he wondered where that had come from, that “ollur you.” It had been whispered into his ear as though from a lover’s lips.

  The surrounding landscape appeared normal—that is, there were trees and bushes, and glimpses of other houses seen below—but he had the distinct feeling that appearance was superficial.

  He sought something other than the birds that would look unordinary. The stillness was now heavier than it had been with the awareness of the birds’ silence; there was something more, something out there that added to the aura like moisture to a cloud, filling and bloating it. His thoughts were suddenly very loud in that soundless moment, and his mind began to panic, because the “ollur you” screamed at his mind, in some deep archaic area he couldn’t access; it screamed that—that what?—he would—

  A sharp rasp issued from behind him—he turned at the sound, fumbled and dropped the newspapers. His breath caught because he didn’t at first recognize the sight before him, thought it was a ghost. Thought that he’d made a very bad decision and wished he could just take it back; it was innocent curiosity, honest. He’d head straight home and never return, never talk or think about this day; straight home, play video games, not skip class, throw away that porn magazine.

  A great flutter alerted him to the crows once more; they were taking off as one in the same direction…and that direction was away.

  Charles released his breath as quietly as possible so that the man (not a ghost, he saw) he faced would remain unaware that he held it, and might confuse his shock and goggling for frank curiosity, because the man had to know.

  Bare feet with pedicure toenails; hands manicured; a crisp, white jumpsuit, the top half rolled down to the waist; a plain white shirt; a pallid face so white that the network of blue veins below was quite noticeable; locks of slick, matted hair—this is what greeted Charles. It brought a frown to his mind because what the man wore was clean as could be, as were his hands and feet, and while his face didn’t necessarily look dirty, it didn’t look clean. It looked unhealthy, stolen from another body or something.