I've Come for My Girl and Two Other Dark Tales Read online

  Comprehension dawned on me. I wondered if she was the one Sister Regina claimed had trapped Molly in the house for so many years.

  “Rochelle called me yesterday and told me they’re planning a blessing on the house. You can’t exorcise a building, so this ritual is the closest thing to it. Very hush, hush because God knows they don’t want the press to get a hold of this story. It’s bad enough a man died, but the work crew refuses to return until they do this.”

  “Will this work?” I asked in a quiet voice, remembering the malevolence that pulsed at the top of the steps.

  “It had better, because I’d hate to be the person who lives in one of those apartments.”

  We parted ways, and it was a week later that she sent me a short text message to my phone. “It’s done, and it was difficult.” The meaning was unmistakable.

  For the next two weeks the construction equipment and the crane stood immobile next to the mansion. I saw no workers on the grounds.

  On the same day the demolition started again, the local news station covered a short story. The company had decided not to build apartments, but instead designed the entire hill into a large park. Another change had been the name. Instead of Jaso Apartments, it was St. Cera’s Park.

  Autumn arrived and the leaves have turned. The park is opening next week. Mrs. Killinger moved to Florida as she planned and today I received a call from her. She made me promise I would never visit the park.

  Railroad Rooster

  The sun sank, shooting off pink and blue streamers across the clouds. Off in the distance, the whistle of a train grew louder as it approached a lonely crossing down the street from my home. Warning bells clanged as the safety arms lowered. The train made this route once per day and at least that often I remember what happened to me ten years before when I was twelve.

  I lived with my parents in an old wooden house on the outskirts of a small rural town. Summer arrived, and my best friend and neighbor had moved away. Her family had been waiting for the end of the school year to complete the sale of their house. In prior years, those days before summer vacation we had already planned all our adventures for the weeks ahead. I felt lonely and argued with my mother over everything, almost blaming her for what happened, when I knew it wasn’t her fault.

  One morning I woke up in a prissy mood. The air conditioner in my room wasn’t working right, and my skin felt hot and sticky. I brushed my damp hair back in a ponytail, put on cutoff shorts, a t-shirt and headed downstairs. When I entered the kitchen, my mom glanced over her shoulder at me as she prepared breakfast.

  She sighed and said, “We’ve run out of milk, and I need you to go to the store and buy a gallon. Your dad took the car, and I don’t know how to drive that truck with its crazy clutch otherwise I would have gone myself. Your breakfast will be ready when you come back.” She eyed me from across the kitchen.

  “Why didn’t dad buy some yesterday?” I muttered as I slumped in a chair at the kitchen table. “Anyway I don’t want milk; I don’t even want breakfast.” My lips pressed together in a stubborn line and I looked away. I knew it was futile to have the last word in this conversation.

  Turning from the counter, my mother looked straight at me. She was trying hard to keep her voice even. “If you don’t want breakfast, that’s your choice; even though I wish you would eat. I can’t bake a cake without milk. Your aunt’s birthday is tomorrow. Money’s on the table by the door. If you hurry, you can beat the noon heat.”

  “Why can’t you go?” I responded, looking at the floor. Her silence showed I was approaching the danger zone.

  She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel, and then crossed her arms as she said, “Because I’m too busy and you’re not doing anything.” I looked at her from under my lashes and knew I could not escape the errand. My impudence would only get me grounded.

  “Okay, okay I’ll go, because I can’t imagine how you know that I have nothing to do.” I stomped out of the kitchen, making my way to the front door.

  From the kitchen she said, “If you don’t want to go, then stay and you clean the bathroom. Your choice, what’s it going to be?”

  I grabbed the money and slammed the door behind me. Anything else was preferable to cleaning the bathroom. The heat surrounded me, and far on the horizon thunderclouds gathered. Large branches overhead shaded the sidewalk leading to the corner. Once I crossed the road, the sun pounded on me. The air was still, and insects droned in the tall grass. The quarter-mile walk appeared to stretch on forever and the road ahead shimmered with heat.

  I trudged on, engulfed in self-pity. I thought of the trip back, weighed down with a gallon of milk and my mood got sourer. Round and round my thoughts chased each other. Then an awful reek drifted over to me. I walked up the incline that led to the railroad crossing and the odor became stronger. I stood on the tracks and squinted against the sunlight. Further down, a paper bag surrounded by a halo of flies plopped between the railroad ties. A lonely feather stuck out the side. Under other circumstances, I would not have gotten any closer, but imagining my mother’s disapproving face propelled me forward. As I got near, the busy droning of the swarm intensified. Some of them had landed on the bag that appeared damp with a brownish stain. A rusty colored liquid dripped on the tracks. I got closer, wondering why someone had left it here.

  In the heated stillness, a chill enveloped me, and a shiver ran up my spine. The stink was terrible, and I couldn’t understand why I felt compelled to squat beside it and with the tip of my finger poked a hole in the damp paper. An unblinking eye stared back. When I tore the hole a little more, I saw a rooster’s severed head lying on top of its mutilated carcass. Bloated flies billowed out, and I stumbled backwards, wiping my finger on my shorts.

  “Who would do this to an animal?” I thought in outraged shock.

  A sense of unseen danger nipped at my heels as I hurried back and kept walking along the edge of the road. I glanced back once, half expecting to see what I felt staring so intensely at me. The midday noises that had disappeared drifted back in, and I dreaded the thought of crossing the tracks on my way back home.

  A few minutes later, the coolness of the air-conditioned food store surrounded me, and I leaned against a stand as a wave of dizziness overtook me. A few seconds passed, and I took the milk from the refrigerated section. I set it down on the counter, and Jessi the cashier looked at me and asked, “Are you okay? Your face is pale.” I nodded, but she insisted, “Do you want me to call your mother?”

  “No, don’t do that.” I responded quickly.

  She eyed me up and down, “Did something happen to you when you were walking over here?”

  “No, not really.”

  Jessi was a few years older than I was, but she had a street-smart air about her. She said drily, “Let me translate your answer… Hell yeah, something happened! So out with it, tell me or I’m calling your mother right now.”

  I swallowed back my fear and told her what I found on the tracks. “Did you touch it?” she asked.

  Like an idiot I lied. “No, it was full of flies and blood.”

  “Good” she said, “because that is bad juju. You never want to touch something like that. It’s a sacrifice made for someone who’s having a mean streak of luck, or fear they’re cursed. Whoever left it on the tracks was waiting for the train to obliterate it into smithereens. That way it won’t make its way back to the poor son-of-a-bitch it latched on to.”

  I wanted to ask her how she knew this, and what happened to someone who had touched it. Fear churned in my gut expecting her answer, and I stayed quiet.

  She looked at me with concerned eyes, “You look like you might pass out, and I don’t think you should walk back. I’ll give you a ride home. Tim in the back can hold the fort down for ten minutes.”

  I tried to change her mind, but she insisted, whispering to me as we exited the building, “It’ll give me a chance for a smoke.”

  She cranked up her beat-up car, rolled the windows down and lit a ci
garette. I sat next to her as she hummed along with the radio. I looked at the floor of the car as we approached the railroad crossing. She glanced sideways at me, and asked in a quiet voice, “Are you sure you’re ok?”

  I nodded, and as the car crossed the tracks, she didn’t glance to either side and drove straight to my home. The car pulled into the driveway and I got out. Jessi leaned over and looked up at me through the open window. “You can come and talk to me about any worries you have. You told me that nothing happened, but I’m no idiot, and you can’t bullshit a bullshitter. Nothing you say will shock me.” She winked at me, straightened up, put the car in reverse and eased out of the driveway.

  Once inside, I put the milk away and climbed the stairs to my room. My bed welcomed me, and I switched the TV on. Later my mother came up with a sandwich and a glass of juice. She said nothing and left the food next to me. My body draped on the bed as if all the energy inside me had evaporated. I ate dinner in my room, leaving most of the food untouched. Long before sunset, I fell asleep.

  My eyes snapped opened and judging by the quietness I guessed that my parents had gone to bed. My mother had turned the television off. My ears searched for the noise that awoke me but the familiar hum of the air conditioner started to lull me back to sleep. A large tree shaded my bedroom window; but no branches were close to it. When I heard a scratching noise coming from the glass, I came wide-awake once more. The sound became louder and more persistent, moving from one end of the sill to the other. I rolled off the bed and walked to the other side of the room far from the window. The palm of my hands became slick with sweat, and a weird pressure built inside my head and against my ears. The low gurgling started, like a rooster’s muffled crow. Then a peck, peck, peck against the glass. A filmy curtain covered my window, and I made out the shadow of something moving back and forth, while the scratching, gurgling and pecking continued.

  In that moment, I experienced true terror. My first, bitter taste of the fear portrayed in horror films, but this time I was living the nightmare. To reach the door, I had to pass by the window, and such a short distance appeared to stretch for miles. The inside of my mouth felt dry and tacky, and I said the only thing that came to my mind, “Stop!” Even though I meant to shout, what came out of my mouth was a croak.

  Stillness enveloped me. I should have known this was the proverbial calm before the storm. A stink filled the space, the same one I smelled coming from the bag on the tracks. Next came the sound of buzzing. What I saw next turned my legs to jelly, and it took all my strength to keep standing. A large hooded figure stood in the corner of my bedroom. The top of its head touched the ceiling. The stench poured from the simulacrum and flies buzzed around it. Yellow eyes glinted in the semi-darkness from a skeletal face. Sickly, greenish light glowed from the folds of the shroud draped over the bony body. A necklace of chicken heads adorned it. Tattered flesh hung from an emaciated arm stretched towards me with the palm up, in the universal gesture when someone wants something from you.

  A thin, high scream consumed the silence, and I didn’t realize I was the source of the wail until my parents burst through the door, switching the light on. They kept calling my name. I glued my vision to the corner where I had seen the hooded apparition. The space was empty now. My mother grabbed my head and made me look at her. Fear and concern filled her face. My father kept running his fingers through his hair, asking my mother, “What’s wrong? Is she okay?”

  My parents took me downstairs and gave me cool water to drink. My mother shook her head at my father as he kept asking what was wrong. Once he made sure I was unharmed, he shuffled back to bed. My mother stayed with me.

  She asked, “Did you have a bad dream? What made you scream?”

  I didn’t sleep walk or cry out when I had nightmares. The truth begged to spill from my lips, but I feared appearing childish and stupid. This admission would lead to other questions that I didn’t want to answer, and I suspected my parents would not believe me. They would dismiss the episode as a vivid dream. Lying was my only option until I spoke to Jessi.

  “I’m okay now. Can I sleep in your room?” I asked my mother in a quiet voice.

  My mother put her palm against my forehead checking for fever and nodded her head. She made up a cot on the floor next to her side of the bed. I instantly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  I woke up, changed my clothes and headed downstairs. My breakfast waited for me, and from the kitchen, I overheard my mother speaking on the phone in the living room. I swiped a piece of toast from the plate and nibbled on the edges. On a small table in the entrance foyer, my mother’s cellular phone peeped from the top of her purse. I took it and stepped outside, dialing the number to the mart where Jessi worked.

  She answered on the second ring, and I heard the murmur of voices in the background. When I said my name, the banter left her voice. I asked to speak to her in person.

  In a low voice, she queried, “About yesterday?”

  “Yes.” I replied, and the silence stretched between us. “I lied about not touching what was on the tracks. Something horrible came to my room last night. I think you’re the only one who will believe me.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath before she said, “Be here at 4 PM when I get off, and don’t tell anyone. Anyone!” Then she hung up.

  I was thinking of ways to fix my bike, which stood propped on the side of the shed with a flat tire, when fate intervened on my behalf. My mother asked me if I wanted to accompany her on a shopping trip.

  I told her no, but to drop me off at the gas station since there were magazines I wanted to buy. She agreed, but reminded me that later that night they expected us at my grandparent’s home to celebrate my aunt’s birthday. We left the house at 3:45, and when she dropped me off, she reminded me again to be ready to attend the party that night.

  Inside the mart, Jessi stood behind the register smiling at a customer. She said, “Wait for me by my car”.

  She left a few minutes later lighting a cigarette as she walked towards the vehicle. Her carefree ways disappeared and her face seemed troubled.

  Once inside the car, she said, “I will not ask you what happened, because soon you will tell another person and I’ll hear the story then. Before we go, promise me to keep quiet about where we’re going. If you can’t, then we must figure something else out. This person will meet with you because I said you‘d keep your mouth shut. Will you?”

  Jessi’s eyes drilled into mine as she spoke. I promised to keep quiet. She said, “We’re going to Granny KeeKee’s house.”

  She didn’t switch on the radio, and just puffed on her cigarette as we drove in silence towards the outskirts of town. The car slowed down and turned off the main street onto a narrow, rutted road. We came up to a wooden gate with a black and orange “No Trespassing” sign nailed at the top. I hopped out, pushed it opened and stood to one side. A rosary hanging around the rearview mirror bounced as the old car creaked over the unpaved, rocky road. I swung the gate close behind the car. Tall trees and overgrown bushes crowded against the narrow lane, and then the underbrush gave way to a clearing. Contrary to my morbid imagination, a tidy, pre-manufactured home stood in the middle. A gazebo and several bird feeders decorated the yard.

  We stepped from the car, and an older lady came out of the house. As we came closer, I realized she wasn’t that old, but her hair was all white. A long, thick braid hung down her back. She indicated we should sit at a rough-hewn table and chairs placed under the gazebo.

  She turned to me and said, “I won’t waste time, because I don’t think you’ve got any to waste. Just tell me what happened and the truth please”.

  Her blue eyes stared into mine as I told her everything, from the moment I left my house until the terrifying vision materialized in my bedroom. To her credit, she didn’t appear fearful or worried.

  She asked, “Can you keep this between us?”

  “Yes.” I whispered.

  My imagination was galloping headlon
g into the most gruesome scenarios about this undisclosed secret I had promised to keep.

  I asked, “What is it?”

  “You shouldn’t be asking what it is, but what it wants, because that is the key to its existence. The sacrifice you found lured away the darkness, the evil, the misfortune that’s been haunting some poor unfortunate. Left on the iron tracks bound it until a train could scatter it to the four winds. Along you came and that dark, folk magic that offered it a rooster became undone. Now it found something much more alluring than a fowl. It’s got itself a sweet, little girl.”

  “What does it want?” I whispered.

  “What it always wants; blood, pain, sacrifice; nothing less than this.”

  I gulped because her words rang true to me as I recollected the yellow glitter of the creature’s eyes.

  “There’s one thing in your favor, though.”

  I looked from her to Jessi, who sat stone-faced, puffing on another cigarette.

  “This happened yesterday,” she continued, “it hasn’t claimed ownership over you yet. You have no time to waste.”

  She stood up, and said, “I’m going inside to prepare something, and when I come back, you need to tell me what you will sacrifice. Nightfall is the deadline.”

  “Sacrifice, a sacrifice?” I babbled, “What can I give, money, another rooster, what?”

  “No child, no rooster will act as a substitute for you. This thing wants your blood and your pain, and nothing else will appease it.”

  She walked away and left me staring in silence at Jessi. I held my head in my hands, trying to wrap my mind around the last twenty-four hours of my life. Jessi rubbed my back, and she said, “Ah shit; there’s no easy way out of this.”

  Granny KeeKee came back fifteen minutes later. She carried a burlap bag, and a small wooden chopping block. She sat next to us once more.

  I felt the blood drain from my face. “Granny KeeKee, can’t I go to church and ask for help?” I asked her.