Piercing the Darkness: A Charity Horror Anthology for the Children's Literacy Initiative Read online

  “I trust they’re paying you this time,” assayed Great Uncle Jason with a disgusted air, as though he already knew the answer to that one. They all looked up. Rarely did anyone, let alone Uncle Jason (who liked to play at being patriarch), ever acknowledge that the house they all lived in had been left to Aunt Pandora.

  “Why?” the child inquired. “I mean, why should they pay?” She felt sincerely puzzled. And why take pictures? The house was just the house, after all. She knew of nothing unique or interesting about it. Weren’t all houses shaped like alligators? Admittedly, her experience of other people’s dwellings had been extremely limited. She had almost never been off the island, and as for the stunned horror on the faces of their (very) occasional visitors, well, she had long ago privately decided that it was the sight of her older brothers that provoked this reaction. They were certainly gruesome enough.

  Though quite bright, she remained quite wrong about this. (The house, not the brothers.) Encountering their home for the first time, everyone always just gaped, much like the house itself. Huge claws supported either side of the entrance, molded concrete providing texture and details, as the giant gator reared its head and hunched its back to create the upper story. With the heavy green shutters tightly closed, even the incongruous windows vanished, completing the illusion. Of course, Cassie knew some of the history. They all did. It had been built three generations earlier, lifelong project of an ancestor with more money than sense, and had been known as “the Folly” ever since, especially now with the family fortune decimated and the house itself crumbling. On this point (and no other), the family unanimously agreed: the only thing worse than living inside an alligator had to be living inside a decrepit one. Aunt Dora was forever trying to get the building declared a landmark so they could at least get some funding for repairs, but the response always came back the same—‘bizarre’ did not equate with ‘significant.’ Besides, what would be the point of a landmark in the middle of a swamp?

  Watching her mother pour more brandy into a teacup, little Cassie just shrugged. No one answered her questions, but no one answered anyone around here. Never. They were always too busy squabbling. And this morning’s argument went on for quite some time.

  ««—»»

  They’d taken the news of the photographer reasonably well, thought Aunt Dora. Probably best not to mention that it wasn’t an architectural magazine this time but a publication dedicated to the paranormal. One never knew how they might react. To anything. Even for an inbred clan deep in the swamp, she thought they might well be considered a peculiar bunch, but then the family always had run to eccentricity. Putting her sunhat on backwards, she stepped out into the garden and took a deep breath with every semblance of calm. Breakfast had been far from relaxing. “Crazy as loons, the lot of them,” she muttered to herself. Never mind. To the best of her knowledge, she hadn’t inherited anything like the worst of that. (Suddenly noticing that her blouse was buttoned wrong, she paused a moment to correct it.) What she had inherited resembled her father’s obsessive relationship with his studies. He had been a classicist (like his father before him), and their library bulged with reference works, several of which he had written himself. She knew these books intimately, having grown up with them. With them? Hell, she’d practically grown up in them and possessed barely a single childhood memory that did not involve some imposing tome open on the library desk or the kitchen table or spread out on her bed at night. Never mind that her father, unlike herself, had traveled the world in pursuit of knowledge. The passion felt the same, though she had not herself been educated as a classicist. Or as anything really. (Even in her youth, the family fortune had already dwindled to the point where little could be squandered on the education of a mere female.) Nevertheless, she considered herself an accomplished amateur folklorist, and several academic journals had endorsed this opinion by publishing her monographs. Yes, the passion felt the same. In recent years, however, the primary focus of her enthusiasm had shifted into…well, yes, she admitted it, more eccentric areas. These days (and nights, late nights), she often found herself immersed in reference material pertaining to the Yeti or Sasquatch, to Mothman or the Jersey Devil. And as for interpretations of these myths…

  As in most things, she had her own theories. She knew they were all real. Further, she knew them all to be the same, whether appearing in the Pacific Northwest, a Scottish moor or some remote mountain range in Tibet. It was all the same beast.

  She also knew they had one on the island. Not that anyone had ever actually seen it, of course, but the creature had always wintered here, lurking in the most overgrown and secluded areas. Her father had been aware of it and had seemed to relish the knowledge, and her grandfather had known it before him. It virtually qualified as a family legend.

  But this year everything had changed.

  Heavy rains had pelted throughout the winter as hurricanes shredded the coast. Repeated flooding had drastically altered currents and channels throughout the swamp, submerging whole areas, until waters sank to unknown depths. Finally she understood the danger.

  Never had she sensed the creature’s presence so intensely. (Just last week, Uncle Jason had been complaining about the sudden scarcity of game.) Intriguing, she thought, as she passed beyond the parameter of the enormous curved tail that served as garden wall. If the creature remained trapped here in this unprecedented fashion, no one could predict…

  She stopped walking. She stopped breathing. At the edge of a weed-strewn remnant of a flowerbed: a footprint. Broader than a man’s and longer, hooking deeply into soft earth. No mistaking it—the clearest she’d found so far. Must get the camera, she thought. Yet she remained, sunlight pounding down upon her as she stared. At last, she began to breathe normally again and became aware of a bird trilling in the thicket. Then another sound filtered into her consciousness, a shrill, furious yapping. How long had that been going on?

  A vague sort of path strayed through undergrowth, and she followed it into a stand of elms. One of the trees appeared to be emitting all the noise. (Odd, she noted, not even a dogwood.) Around the other side, she encountered the actual source—a fat little spaniel deep within a hollow trunk. “Hey, Circe, what’s going on? How did you get in there? Where are the big dogs?” Most days, sporting an air of disgruntled martyrdom, the spaniel supervised a pair of smelly, noisy and untrained hounds of no particular usefulness. (So similar were their attributes, it often proved difficult to discern which pair of ‘twins’ was being referred to at any given time.) Imperiously, the dog continued to bark. “Oh, you want me to lift you out? Why ever did you climb in there? Hang on.” She crouched and hefted out the squirming, porcine beast. “Heavens,” she said, grunting. “You have got to cut back on the biscuits, girl.” Placing the dog on the ground, she was rewarded with a burst of flatulence, as the small beast scrambled toward the garden, then halted and glared back. When Pandora didn’t follow at once, Circe snorted impatiently. Clearly, the animal had no intention of returning to the house unescorted.

  “I’m coming,” Pandora said. But she continued to survey the woods. “Yes,” she told the dog as a slight breeze stirred the foliage. “I’m worried too.”

  ««—»»

  “What the devil is the matter with that bitch?”

  Grandmother started to object.

  “I’m speaking of the dog.” Great Uncle Jason sounded annoyed—another breakfast ruined. “She’s been hiding behind that damn stove since yesterday.”

  “Perhaps she’s smarter than she looks,” muttered Pandora.

  “Almost have to be,” said Jason as he leaned both elbows on the table. “And where are the twins? And I’m still speaking about dogs.”

  Pandora poured herself a cup of coffee. “Gone, I’m afraid.”

  “What?” No one had noticed the child enter the room. “Where have they gone to?”

  “Don’t worry, sugar.” Uncle Jason kept his voice low and comforting, while he glowered at Pandora. “We’ll go look fo
r them later.”

  “You won’t find them.” Dora stirred her coffee.

  “Just what do you mean by that?” He pounded his fist down hard enough to make all the plates jump. “I believe I’ve had about enough of this nonsense.” Horace and Virgil giggled expectantly.

  “I saw a footprint in the yard yesterday. Wait. Don’t say anything. I knew you’d never believe me so I sat by my window all night. Almost missed it. If it hadn’t moved, I would never have seen it. It must have been watching me the whole time, which made me feel pretty stupid. Perhaps it’s always been watching. I got a pretty good shot though. Infrared. Telephoto lens. And I spent this morning in my darkroom.” She slid the print across the table. “You can see it pretty clear.”

  The explosion she expected never occurred, only a soft “Jeez, look at that” from one of the twins, followed by a low whistle. The silence continued for a long moment. Everyone stared at the photo. For the first time in her life, Dora had their undivided attention.

  “This could make our fortune,” Uncle Jason announced finally.

  “Restore our fortune,” corrected Grandmother.

  “As you will,” he conceded, “but catching the monster would certainly...”

  “Don’t you understand the importance of this?” Nothing in their faces encouraged her, so Pandora changed her tactics. “Besides, it could be dangerous.”

  “That’s just why we need to set traps.”

  “That…might be a good idea,” she conceded.

  “I thought you’d think so, once you calmed down. Then, after we sell it…”

  “That’s not why we’re trapping it. I’m a scientist.”

  “You’re not.”

  “You ain’t.”

  “In my own way, I am, and…”

  “Would you rather we shot it then, dear?” Grandmother inquired. “Had it stuffed maybe?”

  “We will do neither,” insisted Pandora. “We are not a circus family.”

  “Of course not,” Grandmother explained. “We’ll sell it to a circus family.”

  “Don’t be an idiot all your life, Dora,” advised Uncle Jason kindly. “Besides, we won’t sell it to a circus, necessarily. We’ll sell it to the highest bidder.”

  Even Daphne looked interested now.

  “But I want to observe the creature, study its habits,” objected Pandora. “This is a priceless opportunity to…”

  “To make a lot of cash.” Grandmother rose from the table and drew herself up to her full height—an impressive four foot eight. “You are being inexcusably selfish. The family needs this, and I cannot allow you to jeopardize it.”

  “Don’t be too harsh on her, Grammy,” suggested Virg.

  “Don’t dare call me that, you lout.” She threw a piece of toast at him. Though most people found it difficult to distinguish between the boys, Grandmother apparently perceived sufficient differences to justify doting upon Horace while remaining as indifferent (if not downrightly hostile) toward Virgil as she was to the rest of her family.

  Uncle Jason cleared his throat. “Maybe we can work out some deal so’s the buyer gets poor Dora as well—you know, like an expert thrown in. That way she’d get to do her little research or what have you,” he went on. “After all, no particular reason she shouldn’t be happy too. Maybe she’ll finally meet some man.” This provoked loud guffaws as Uncle Jason leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his gut. “Now, here’s how we’ll catch it…”

  ««—»»

  From the kitchen doorway, Pandora watched them stroll down the garden path with shovels and picks. Knowing she could do nothing to stop them, she kept busy in the kitchen, amazed by the number of things she found to occupy her time (if not her thoughts). First the spices required alphabetizing, then the stemware needed to be sorted by size and type.

  Throughout the morning, laughter occasionally drifted back to the house, and from time to time Uncle Jason’s voice boomed, shouting orders as usual. Finally, she abandoned her labors and just stood at the backdoor.

  “This will be bad,” a voice said.

  Not having heard the child creep up behind her, she jumped a little. “Yes,” she agreed finally. “It is going to be bad.”

  ««—»»

  Dora gazed out her bedroom window. A smear of moonlight blotted the prehistoric shadow of the house across the sodden trees. “You know, don’t you?” she whispered. “You see everything.”

  She could sense a difference in the woods. All her life, she’d imagined an affinity with the elusive creature. Her father and grandfather had allowed themselves the same fantasy, believing that—because they took notes and drew sketches—they had somehow befriended the beast. Madness. Even if over the years they had achieved some sort of rapport with it, what would happen when the creature felt… betrayed?

  This would be very bad indeed.

  ««—»»

  She came down early to find the boys already up, gulping cups of foul-smelling coffee and attempting to make toast. (Smoke filled the room, and the kitchen appeared to have been ransacked by chimps. Evidently they’d prepared the coffee themselves.) Before she’d made much of an inroad on the mess, the twins headed out, having first equipped themselves with a baseball bat and an old fishing net.

  “Where are you going?” she called from the backdoor.

  “Checkin’ the trap.”

  “Wait, I’ll come with you,” she said. Letting the screen door slam behind her, she shuffled quickly along the garden path in her slippers and robe. “Where’s Uncle Jason?” The boys already ranged far ahead of her, laughing and hooting, and she yelled after their broad backs. “I said, where’s Uncle Jason?”

  “Ain’t up yet, looks like.”

  “We’re gone surprise him with monster for breakfast.”

  “Should a made more toast.” Evidently, this was hilarious, and both brothers guffawed and fell against each other as they headed into the woods. In the dawn light, birds warbled and insects hummed.

  She joined them at the edge of the pit.

  “Jeez,” remarked Horace, staring down.

  Virgil blinked rapidly. “Is that…?”

  “Uncle Jason,” Horace conceded. “Right?”

  “Most likely,” agreed Pandora.

  They continued to stare. At length, Virgil ventured another utterance. “Where’s the rest of him at?”

  Pandora shut her eyes.

  ««—»»

  A long day ensued, full of arguments and hysterics. Their voices rose and then subsided into exhaustion, only to soar again, riding each fresh gust of outrage. Dora wanted to call the authorities, but Grandmother proved very insistent. “Have state troopers and the press and whatever else down here, getting it all for free? I think not.” Daphne just kept drinking, while little Cass lingered on the sidelines, pale and somber. To no one’s surprise more than his own, Horace took charge. Uncle Jason had just been careless, he decided. In a few days, surely they would catch the beast. (Grandmother backed him up. Of course.) And so it went. Hour after hour.

  Day after day. Night after night. “Madness,” insisted Pandora.

  Daphne vanished first, whether into the woods or the water no one knew… until Pandora discovered their launch missing from the boathouse. Then Cassie noticed bits of the little boat floating nearby. After that, the child became even quieter and more withdrawn.

  “We should have known even Daphne wouldn’t just abandon her child,” said Aunt Dora.

  “No?” Grandmother made a face. “Well, you may be right. I couldn’t say, I’m sure. But more importantly, now none of us can leave.”

  “No,” agreed Dora. “We’re as trapped here as it is.”

  Cassie disappeared next. She simply didn’t come down to dinner, and no one could remember where they’d seen her last.

  The day it got Horace, Pandora found Grandmother on her back in the garden, her expression still seething with outrage. Apparently, she’d seen more than her old heart could bear. Possibly just
as well. Blood had spattered everywhere.

  ««—»»

  The next morning, Pandora wrestled with Virg in the kitchen. “Please, don’t do this.”

  “I’m on kill it,” he slurred, weaving drunkenly toward the door while loading the rifle. She made one last attempt to block him. He shouldered her out of the way, and she hit the wall hard, slumping to the floor as the screen slammed behind him. Straightening her glasses and rubbing a bruised arm, she did not even try to get up.

  A single scream followed the gunshot… then that terrible silence.

  At last, she rose. Latching the screen, she bolted the inner door and stumbled slowly into the parlor, pausing only to retrieve an old shotgun and a box of shells from the gun cabinet. “Well, old girl, it’s just us now.” As she sat heavily in an armchair, she felt the dog press close to her legs. “Last living things on the island.” In the hallway, the grandfather clock ticked loudly. “Except for the monster.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “No!” When the momentary paralysis faded, she rushed to the door and screamed at the wood. “You don’t get in that easy!” She clutched the shotgun to her chest, while Circe barked fiercely (from behind the sofa). “I’ll blow you to pieces.”

  “Beg pardon?” came a muted reply.

  She fumbled with the latch and flung open the door. “Who are you?”

  The woman stammered, “Umm… my name is…”

  “You have a boat? Yes, of course. Where is it? The dock of course, yes. Hurry.” She grabbed the other woman by the arm. “Come on!”

  “Hold on there.” Brandishing a metal tripod like a club, the woman tried to pull away. “What’s with the rifle?”

  “It’s a shotgun,” she said as though that explained everything. “Drop that. And the case. Just run.” She practically dragged the woman out under the jaws of the house, and they jogged down the path toward the dock. The dog scrambled along behind, keeping up remarkably well on little legs but barking all the while. “Circe, shut up!”