Excavation

Chapter 19

That night Reed rode into town with his Uncle Ben, going to Charlie Simpson’s store for some beer and conversation. Reed had never pictured himself doing such a thing in his old hometown, but he found himself generally looking forward to it.

As the old truck neared the store, they could see people gathered all around the front, sitting on the edge of the slab or milling in the street. Several men were climbing the side of the building with flashlights, and once the truck was alongside the store, Ben and Reed could see the cause of all the commotion: they were trying to retrieve Hector Pierce from around the chimney.

Jake Parkey saw them from the doorway and yelled drunkenly, “We didn’t even know the old fool could still walk! Said there was a woman with burnin’ hair out there! Can you beat that? Swear old lady Inez’s gonna have to have the old fool locked away!”

Reed and Ben, once determining there was nothing they could do, turned around sadly and drove back to the house. Neither said a word during the trip. Reed couldn’t understand why the news about Hector Pierce had bothered him so much.

He had a terrible feeling he might soon find out.

That night he dreamed about his wife, locked inside a car with their two kids. They were both screaming, beating at the windows for escape. Carol’s hair was on fire.

Then the car became an enormous black bear, gnawing at their remains.

The bear moved quietly through the forest, standing up on its hind legs occasionally and peering through the low-hanging branches. It sniffed the air, and growled deeply.

The bear had an unusual way of carrying its head: high, like a man’s. It sniffed the air again and rocked its head from side to side, as if it were worried, or frightened. It turned and looked behind it, almost as if it thought it were being watched by something else, some other animal, or man. A thing that was man and not man.

It roared. It squinted, as if it too were watching someone. Someone it could not really see, except inside itself.

The eyes it could not see were like a man’s.

“You can’t just leave me alone, Jake!” Doris Parkey clutched at her husband’s patched jacket, careful to avoid his hands and avoid his stinking breath.

“Get away, woman! I got things to do!” Jake lunged toward the door, but Doris had him in a clawlike grip and he could stagger only a few steps. His wife had always seemed to have the strength of ten men when she was really scared. It frightened Jake; it seemed unnatural. The woman had the body of a scarecrow; she had no business frightening him like that. “Leggo me, goddammit!” Then he slapped her.

She let go instantly, rubbing at her face as if to wipe the red away. “There’s things out there, Jake. Bad things! Don’t let me be by myself tonight! You owe it to me. I’m your wife, ain’t I?”

She infuriated him. She sounded like a damned little kid. He made a motion as if to slap her again, but she scrambled out of his way, standing in the corner of the living room trembling, her eyes blurred beneath the tears.

“Damn…” he muttered, then jerked open the door and stalked out.

“I hope you die, Jake Parkey,” she said quietly, tearfully, then raising her voice to scream at the door, “I hope you die!”

Doris pressed herself against the wall trying to stop the trembling. But she didn’t think it was going to help.

For there was scratching on the other side of the wall. Something moving. Where the slab butted up against her house.

Her hair was burning.

She awakened in the hollow cavity under the slab, with the damp and the rats and the bugs and the snakes, and she was frightened until she remembered what had happened to her, what she had become. Her hair was burning.

She could not remember what her name had been, and that bothered her.

She sifted through the debris inside the slab, the things that had fallen down the cracks and holes over the years, and picked up the dusty things. Pretty things. Bottles and silver spoons and bits of lace and carvings and other things with prettiness under the grime, with brightness under the dust. She remembered that such things had been important to her at one time… when she had been something else.

She heard voices near her, and moved closer to them. One was female, as she had been. She felt something odd inside herself.

A piece of shiny stuff was propped up in the corner. She looked into it. Her hair was beautiful. It glowed.

The little girl had always liked bright things, shiny things. Things to play with. So she found herself floating toward the bright lights, moving through the dark the same way she vaguely remembered moving through the water: her mouth open, her limbs bobbing up and down, her pale dress and pale flesh melting into the dark liquid…

She remembered being in and near this place many times, a long time ago. Before the waters came.

Where was her mommy? She wanted her, she thought… the want was somewhere deep inside herself. Not quite hers. She saw the mother inside herself… the mother’s beautiful red hair. Daddy had always liked that red hair. He’d say it was the only reason he’d married mommy and then he’d laugh. She’d never liked that joke about mommy; she didn’t think it was very funny.

She let herself float over the brush, her feet dangling, but not touching the ground. The darkness moved over her like a coat, but she wasn’t afraid. She hadn’t been afraid of the dark since the Creeks jumped over their house. The dark made her all warm inside.

Her hair was burning.

She slipped out of the slab and let her beautiful, glowing hair lead her down the street. Her hair had become like a living thing, the most alive thing on her body, so she let it tell her what to do. It was more woman than she had ever been.

She floated up to the window and let her burning hair fill the glass. She let the woman see her. She smiled, even when the woman began screaming.

Then she let the beautiful hair lead her inside.

He watched the man and the younger man go inside the house. He felt rage, rage burning up from his feet to his head. He was angry at these two, especially the younger one. He wanted to come to them, lay his teeth on their pale throats, and taste copper. He wanted to do that to all the males of the town, the ugly, evil males. He wanted to rage and tear, gnash their dead bodies to bloody threads.

He was glad the bear and the burning woman, the dead little floating girl were not around just then. They, too, angered him. He didn’t want them around. They made him afraid. He would have to do something about them… soon.

They had Hector Pierce back in his bed in Inez’s rooming house once again. Inez had dismissed them all, angry with them for having seen a member of her family like this, and even angrier with herself for feeling that way. She had grown ashamed of her brother. Sometimes, she discovered, she hated him.

Now he was motioning her closer, his eyes rolling, lips smacking like some animal. He obviously wanted to tell her something, but she didn’t want to be near him.

He smacked his lips and rolled his eyes… popped his mouth and blinked and blinked… beckoning her with a spastic hand, a hand flapping like a beached fish…

Get it over with, she thought, get it over with… and bent over him, her left ear over his popping, smacking mouth.

“Part of him… stayed behind,” Hector whispered hoarsely. Inez drew back. She had no idea what he was talking about, but it frightened her.

“Part of him… he’s been here… all these years…” Hector said, grinning spastically, insanely. “Boy shoulda… stayed and… drowned!”