Mountain Dead by Jason Sizemore
* * *
“It was Sunday, quiet. I don’t remember the date no more. Been too long, you know. Been too long.
“The news said it was gonna be sunny, warm, so I planned to go down to Shaker’s Hole, have a few cold ones, catch a couple trout for the skillet. But them clouds rolled in quick, all bruise-colored, not natural, see. That’s when the sky opened up. Spat death, I guess you could say. I thought it was rain…but it was no rain. No, sir.”
A long finger of ash crumbled from the cigarette and hit the table in a tiny puff of gray. Garret absentmindedly wiped it away.
“Lindsay called it the Apocalypse, the beginnin’ of the end, she said. I scoffed, of course. Silly end-times stuff, you know. I wasn’t raised no religious type, the Rapture and all that crap, but Lindsay believed. Yes, sir, she did. She believed it all—God, Satan, Bigfoot, aliens, that sea monster in Ireland—”
“Loch Ness,” Jack said, “in Scotland.”
“Wherever. Scotland, Ireland, Disneyland.” He shrugged. “Ain’t no difference when you’re talkin’ make-believe monsters, right? But she swallowed it all. Ate it right up. Believed all that stuff. She said she was coverin’ all her bases. If there was a Heaven or a promised land, she wasn’t hedgin’ her bets. But that damn rain that wasn’t rain set her on a tizzy. End times, right. She went on and on and on. Drove me crazy, you know.
“See, the rain didn’t matter at the time. There had to be a meteorical explanation, I said. But she was right. Lindsay was dead on right. Dead on…”
He paused a moment, cleared his throat. His bottom lip quivered slightly.
“As the day went on,” Garret continued, “the rain—a deluge, really—continued nonstop. The beatin’ on our roof was relentless, you know, and the more it rained, the more I knew Lindsay was onto somethin’ with her crazy talk that didn’t seem so crazy now. Life in Orby had gone astray. I could feel it. I have a shirt I bought on vacation years ago that says AUSTIN IS WEIRD. Now I want one that says ORBISONIA IS WEIRDER.”
He laughed at that, but it was a cold thing, devoid of mirth.
“But we were oblivious, really. Believin’ in unbelievable things and believin’ unbelievable things are happenin’ right before your eyes is…well, hard to believe, if that’s makes sense to you.”
Garret stubbed out his cigarette and folded his hands on the table in front of him.
“Lindsay and I went from window to window, just starin’ through the oily liquid—that was the rain, see. Everything was stained by these blackened dollops that fell from the sky. It stuck to everything like molasses.
The sharp edges of my ‘81 Buick Rustbucket—a silly nickname, of course—was all smoothed over with the dark slick stuff. Tree branches hung heavy, drippin’ with it. Sounds like poetry, right? I’m a big Stephen Crane fan. You know him? Red Badge of Courage is his claim to fame, but he wrote poetry, too. Good stuff. Anyway, sometimes the world needs a little poetry, even in dark times…”
Silence filled the space between them. Detective Jack Olson, thirty years on the force, fifteen years a detective, the lead on a hundred cases, found himself for the first time ever at a loss for words. He had to hand it to Mr. Denny—he had Jack hooked. Hooked real good.
Like a well-rehearsed dance routine, Garret shook a smoke from the pack, Jack flicked the lighter, then watched as Garret inhaled.
“Behind our home, the Blacklog Creek swelled into a river and crept slowly up the hill toward our back deck. I know rivers can’t speak, Detective, but this one did, in a way. Maybe not words, but it had a message. Everything did, see. And it wasn’t good news.
“But we kept watchin’, dumbfounded, almost like we was hypnotized, because with it all came a sorta curious beauty. Like I said, poetry, you know. What else could we do but watch, right? Well, we found out.
“We remained spellbound, see. Right until the grounds of the old Cromwell Church Cemetery beyond our driveway, across the street, right, began to churn from below. The earth pulsed. Kid you not, sir. Centuries-old headstones toppled like they was plastic Halloween displays. The weeds and grass rolled around like charred bones. And hell, maybe they was.”
Jack sighed, shaking his head. “Mr. Denny,” he said, “you’ve spun a helluva good story so far—”
“With all due respect, Detective Olson, there ain’t nothin’ good about this tale.”
A wave of anger flashed through Jack’s veins, threatening to heat his cool. But he quickly calmed himself. Garret mashed another filter into the ashtray, spilling ash and butts across the table. Something had changed in him. Jack hadn’t noticed at first, but in the telling Garret had grown confident, animated. This was his story—a crazy, messed up lie of a story—and by God he was going to tell it.
“My apologies,” Jack said. “Please continue.”
“The cemetery did happen like that,” Garret said. “I know it sounds unbelievable, but that’s what I meant before. It was hard for me to believe and I was seein’ it with my own dang eyes. I’m not blind, sir. And I may not speak like those uppity folks up north, but I’m no dummy neither. It happened. And it went from worse to worser.
“See—and let me finish here before you cut me off, okay, because it gets completely gonzo-nutso from here on out…
“The cemetery grounds, there was some kind of upheaval goin’ on underground. Satan come a-knockin’, Hell on Earth, what-have-you, right. It was then, right when the hand—a bony hand—rose up from the ground, that Lindsay’s previous declaration of apocalypse rang true. Yes, sir. Ding-ding ring-a-ling. What crawled out of that muddy mess was not just the bones of a long dead and forgotten soul—as if that woulda been normal, right—but a creature, some vile perversion, coated and drippin’ with the same rank stuff that fell from the sky.
“I see you lookin’ at me with those fuck-you-me eyes, pardon my French, but it’s the truth—God or Bigfoot or flippin’ Disneyland monsters as my witness, it’s the truth.”
Jack nodded once, conceding the point, and said, “Of course.” He’d learned long ago that it was always best to let the suspect tell their side of the story first, as absurd as it may be, with little interruption. It was a trap, of course. Jack motioned for Garret to continue.
“Well, Lindsay screamed and screamed, as you can rightly imagine. ‘You sound like a cat bein’ skinned alive,’ my daddy used to say to my mother whenever she was screamin’ about this or that, but I never heard Mama sound like Lindsay did that day. No, sir. Screamed so loud she attracted the attention of the first thing that had crawled out of the cemetery.
“ ‘Undead’ is what they call ‘em, yeah? When the dead ain’t so dead no more. There was only one fully out of the ground, but it still scared the bejesus crap outta me. I’m talkin’ true dread, see. The thing moaned so loud…so loud, all guttural, like wind howlin’ down Blacklog Valley. You ever hear that? Ain’t nothin’ durin’ the day, but if you ever go out there campin’ on a windy night, it’ll put a ticklin’ down your spine, for sure. Like it did me and Lindsay that long-ago Sunday.
“The thing started toward the house. Lindsay made a vague noise—maybe she said some words, I don’t know—then she ran to the bedroom, slammin’ the door behind her. I called out, but she didn’t say nothin’. Kind of abandoned me, now that I think on it.
“Anyway, I backed away from the window, right. I resisted the urge to run like Lindsay’d done. Instead, I guess some sort of inborned instinct kicked in, and I pulled the couch away from the wall, and shoved it against the front door like a barrier. The creature was still comin’ forward, with others behind it now, and still more clawin’ their way up from the mud, all shamblin’ toward the house. Some were missin’ parts—bits of skull, lower jaws, hands, arms, ribs; one even clawed and flopped its way along, little more than a torso and an upper arm—all of ‘em animated by some odd-godly manipulator.
“I stood in awe of it all, part of my mind still refusin’ to believe it was real, as if I was bein’ hypnotized b
“At some point, that instinct again, or maybe fear whispered to me and I realized that the windows would not hold ‘em back for long, that them creatures wouldn’t stand outside just lookin’ in, wavin’ a good neighborly wave. Hell no.
“So I rushed from the livin’ room, stumbled down the basement stairs, somehow managin’ to flip on the light as I went. The basement was my workspace, see. I had a small TV down there, a radio. The smell that day, though, was strong of must and rot. In areas where the grout had come loose, the stone wall seeped, like, this black stringy stuff. I coulda turned on more lights, but in the dim glow cast off by the stairwell bulb, I coulda sworn that black stuff moved. Maybe it was the shadows, I don’t know. Anyway, I had some hard plywood down there. It was meant for a new shed I’d been plannin’ to build, you know. Lucky, that, right? It took three trips, but I muscled seven planks up the stairs, then flicked off the light and locked the door. I got a hammer and a box of nails from the storage closet off the kitchen.”
He paused, cleared his throat. “Say, would you mind if I got some water or somethin’, maybe a Pepsi? A soda would be nice, or coffee. Black. Actually, anything but water. I haven’t had nothin’ but water in so long.”
Detective Olson leaned back, opened the interrogation-room door, and shouted, “Hey, Alex. Grab us a couple drinks from the fridge. Sodas, juice. No water. And a coffee. Black.”
A few minutes later, Deputy Alex Boden, resident rookie, glorified desk clerk, leaned in and handed Jack two Cokes and an apple juice—which Jack transferred to the table—and a steaming cup of coffee.
“You know what,” Jack said. “The soda and juice is fine.” He didn’t think he had anything to fear from Garret Denny, but given what he’d done to his wife, Jack would rather not give him the chance to prove this theory wrong by tossing a scalding-hot cup of coffee in his face.
“Sure thing, boss.” Deputy Boden took the coffee and closed the door.
“Many thanks,” Garret said, twisting the cap off one of the Cokes and taking a long swig. He grabbed another cigarette, and they did their dance.
“When I went back to the livin’ room, four of the monsters was beatin’ at the flimsy window screens, tearin’ holes in the wire mesh. They snarled at the sight of me despite havin’ no way to make sound, let alone see. As if they should be movin’ at all, right. Did I already mention how shit-my-pants scared I was? Pardon my French. Because I was. Like you wouldn’t believe.”
Jack leaned forward in his seat, but Garret didn’t give him a chance to speak.
“The rain…it was like a skin, see, and it clung to their bones like real flesh, and all inside it I could see small white things twistin’ around. Like baby mosquitos in puddles of stagnant water, you know. Behind the creatures at the windows, dozens more hitched and stumbled down the drive. The skulls seemed so bright, Detective, like lights shinin’ under that dark stuff.
“Without thinkin’—I guess because I was shit-my-pants scared, right, and that instinct kicked in again—I slid a board in place over the first window, propped it with my knee, and started poundin’ nails. They didn’t like that. No, sir. With each bang of the hammer, the swarm of dead slammed against the windows with a ferocity I ain’t never seen in the livin’.
“As I put the final nail through the board coverin’ the second livin’-room window, I heard the glass shatter. When Lindsay screamed again, louder, you know, more distraught, I realized it was the bedroom window that had shattered, not the window I just done boarded up.
“I ran down the hall and burst through the bedroom door, almost takin’ it off its hinges. Lindsay was frantically tryin’ to press herself further into the corner, you know, as if, like, she could melt into the wall and find shelter from the unholy thing that was crawlin’ through the window. Hammer in hand, I swung my best Roberto Clemente swing at its skull. He was my favorite as a kid. Roberto Clemente. ‘Sweetness,’ they called him. And swingin’ that hammer was all kinds of sweet. It struck hard, all wet soundin’, and severed the head from the thing’s body. Then it fell from sight. Blood was rushin’ through me like crazy, see. I felt like a madman and a hero at the same time. But immediately more filled the space the other had left behind.
“I shouted to Lindsay, told her I needed the nails and a board from the livin’ room. I had to keep shoutin’ for her to go before she did. She was scared, see. Real scared. She crawled from the room like a dog.
“At the window, I got all Thor-like—we just saw that movie, see—and slammed and smashed and crushed with the hammer. Strange how something so unbelievably frightenin’, bringin’ death to the dead, could also be so exhilaratin’. But it was.
“Lindsay came back with the stuff, and I slid the board into place, pounded nails as if they was skulls. I’m gettin’ poetic again. Sorry. She helped me secure the bathroom and kitchen windows, though she never uttered a word. I pried up a few thick floorboards from the livin’ room and nailed ‘em zig-zaggy across the door frames. Then we holed up in the attic and sat quietly among our old, forgotten things, and waited…”
“Mr. Denny,” Jack said, sitting back in his chair, only then realizing he’d still been leaning forward, strangely captivated by Garret’s outrageous tale. “You’re spinning a wild one here. I’ll admit, it’s entertaining, but I need you to tell me why you murdered three—”
“One. I killed one person, sir, and it kills me to admit that. But it was self-defense, like I told the dispatcher when I first called. Like I’m tryin’ to tell you now.”
“Anna and Olin Howland—”
“Never saw ‘em,” Garret said with a dismissive wave. “Not really, anyway. But I heard it happen. I told you all.”
“Right. So why didn’t you call the police right then and there? Or at any time, for that matter?”
“We tried callin’ that first day and every day after, until the electricity went out, but all we got was a message sayin’ the circuit was busy. Got that every time, anybody we called. There has to be a record of that.”
“You’re testing my patience, Mr. Denny.”
“The TV was out, too. All static. You should be able to check that.”
Jack sighed, flipped to the third page of the transcript attached to his clipboard, and turned it toward Garret. He pointed to the sixth entry on the page. “Here. You told the dispatcher that you spoke with Anna Howland—”
“Not on the phone,” Garret said, shaking his head. “I never said that. Later that afternoon, while we was still in the attic, too afraid to go back downstairs yet, we saw a light flash outside—once, then two more times. I went to the window (we didn’t cover the attic windows), and saw that it was comin’ from Uncle Olin’s place. The houses are close, you know. So I opened the window slowly, and there was Anna—and before you ask, Anna got that same circuit-busy message, too.”
“Convenient,” Jack said.
“Not a thing convenient about it, Detective. You see, she and Uncle Olin—he was sick, right, had been for a long time—she said they was takin’ refuge in the upstairs bedroom. Her voice quavered, or maybe quivered, whatever the word is—she sounded scared. But they were safe, she said, because the way she seen it the livin’ dead—that’s what she called ‘em, like in the movies—they only had an appetite for us. She said it just like that, too. Appetite. She said the dead things were doing loops around the house, just kinda wanderin’. Anna promised to be our eyes on the outside, as she called it, and then she closed the window real fast when Uncle Olin began coughin’ loudly.
“That was the last time we spoke, I swear. But we heard her screams. That’s the night when I knew, really knew, that Lindsay had changed.
“I promised Lindsay that whatever hell had come down upon us, that we would wait it out, we’d be okay. I promised, see. But she didn’t believe me. I could tell. Shoot, I wasn’t sure I believed it myself.”
Garret pulled another cigarette from the pack, and J
“See, while our defenses seemed enough to hold back the dead, our old rundown home had flaws, and the poison water—that’s what Lindsay called it—exploited ‘em. Mold grew, right, just exploded to life in fuzzy blacks and whites and blue-greens. We moved from the attic to the downstairs part of the house, but the mold followed. Mold like I ain’t never seen before. It was in all the cracks and corners, runnin’ down the walls. I promised everything would be okay, but it wasn’t. We began to cough and sneeze; it just raked our throats raw, bloody, you know, felt like it was destroyin’ our lungs. Like cancer, right, with that same kind of…I don’t know…like malignant indifference. Blood spatter was everywhere, on the walls and floor, everywhere.
“We were alive, though, so I tried to be positive, hopeful, you know.
“We rationed our food like responsible doomsday survivors; boiled and potted tap water in every container we could find. When the electricity went out a week into the ordeal—you can check that, too, Detective—we huddled on the floor by the light of candles, until the candles were all gone.
“It got cold at night, right, so in the small fireplace we burned our things for warmth, that unimportant stuff, whatever wasn’t securin’ the doors and windows, basically. But eventually we had to burn our most precious things. All of it went up in dark sooty smoke.
“As all of those things from our life faded to ash and memories, so did Lindsay. Again, probably too poetic for this conversation, but that’s what happened. The love of my life just slowly disappeared. What was left of her at that point, at least.”
At this, Garret Denny showed the first sign of true emotion since Jack began this interrogation, if it could even be called an interrogation: He wept. His chest hitched in great big gasps and sobs. Cigarette finished, Garret reached for another. Jack lit it for him without thinking. For a moment, Jack wondered who was trapping whom, here.
Mr. Denny cried on, and Jack sat silently, waiting with what could only be called anticipation. It infuriated him.
“She cried constantly,” Garret said abruptly, “just withdrew further within herself. As the weeks stretched on, she shrugged off my attempts to embrace her, to soothe her fears. Everything will be all right, I said. She didn’t respond, didn’t hear. Didn’t seem to care anymore, see.
Soon our food began to disappear. Lindsay no longer complained of hunger, didn’t eat as fast and messy when we had our meals, so I knew she was stealin’ food. Probably when I slept. One day I found her lickin’ a picture of a pizza burger on a to-go menu from Hidd’n Valley Restaurant, our favorite place to eat in Shade Gap. We stopped by there every other Saturday after the flea market. How the menu managed to escape burnin’, I don’t know, but by the looks of all the missin’ ink on most of the pictures, I think Lindsay had been lickin’ it for a long time. So I selfishly squirreled away my own stash of food, though I told myself it was for both of us. I knew better.
“Two days later, the food was gone—all but my personal stash.
“Lindsay went from bad to worse to worser after that. She embraced a newfound obsessive-compulsive disorder: rummagin’ through the empty ‘frigerator and dusty cabinets we didn’t burn yet; flippin’ light switches and pushin’ buttons; changin’ TV channels that no longer worked. She did this over and over, mutterin’, scratchin’ her skin till it bled. She lost it, Detective. She was there, but she was gone.
“Days and nights bled together. I knew it was day when the gray lines of light sorta shined along the boards coverin’ the windows, but it didn’t make a big difference. It was always some kind of dark inside. I tried to ignore the never-endin’ pitapat on the roof and all the groans of the dead and the rat-scratchin’ of their fingers as they tried to find their way in, but it was a constant, maddenin’ presence. I don’t know why they never moved on. The sky and the dead never rested. And I hated what all of it meant.
“I missed my wife, see, I missed her love; but I crazily held onto hope—until Anna’s wailin’ woke us late one night. It echoed through the house. It was like she was right there in the room with us.
“But it was a death knell, the ringin’ of the bells, as they say. ‘Rest in peace, my friend.’ I said that, I remember, just whispered it to the darkness. Uncle Olin hadn’t been long for this world before it all went to hell, see. Strong man in his day, factory worker, you know. He had grit. Tough S.O.B. But I was surprised he’d lasted so long, to be honest, given how sick he’d been. Anyway, Anna screamed again, but it was different this time. Like…there was no sorrow; it was full of pain, or maybe agony. Are those the same? That’s what it was, though; and when it all stopped, I knew. Knew that old Uncle Olin didn’t remain dead—or Anna alive—for long.
“And that scared me more than anything. Maybe the rain or the mold got to ‘em, or maybe not. Not sure if it even did anything to the living. But that’s when I cried. Right there in the absolute dark, I cried for the first time.
“Then Lindsay leaned in close. I didn’t know she was awake, see, and she leaned in real close, and her breath was cold—I swear, it was—and rotten-smellin’, too. Her teeth chattered in my ear. I don’t know if it was because she was cold or excited. Both maybe. Because then she said the craziest thing: ‘Help her, Garret. She shouldn’t be there alone with Olin’s body.’ I agreed with her sentiment, but knew Anna was no more, right. I told Lindsay this, but she didn’t listen, and she wasn’t askin’ that I bring Anna away from Uncle Olin’s body, anyway; she was askin’ that I take his body away from Anna.
“I refused, of course, on the grounds that the dead were not quite dead and that we was surrounded by monsters. But what she said next confused me. She said, ‘Just take a leg, or an arm, or even just a couple goddamn fingers.’
“Just a couple goddamn fingers. Exact words, just like that.”
Garret took another sip of Coke and chased it with a long Newport pull.
“At first I was baffled, right, but then I knew. God, I knew. I no longer recognized her voice, see; that soulful Pennsylvanian drawl had become a husky, croakin’, inhuman thing. The hunger and isolation played her, you know, just ate away at her. I laid awake all night. And the next day, when there was enough light so that I could see her eyes, they were all crazy, right, haunted. She looked dangerous. I saw it, then; saw what had made her ask those things of me the night before. I was just as Olin Howland’s body had been to her—meat, survival.
“That night, when the cracks of light along the boarded windows went black, I could still see her starin’ in my mind’s eye, that wicked desire floodin’ her veins and corruptin’ her heart…
“More poetry for you, Detective.”
“I don’t need your poetry,” Jack said, a bit more irritably than intended. He was about fed up with Mr. Denny’s campfire fantasy. Then again, he was fairly certain he was more annoyed with himself for allowing this ridiculous tale to ensnare him so tightly. “What I need, is your confession on record.”
“Soon enough, Detective. Soon enough. Hear me out. I think I need this more than you, to be quite honest.” He reached for the cigarettes. “One more.”
“One more,” Detective Olson said, flicking the lighter.
“The rain stopped two weeks later. Two weeks. She just had to wait two dang weeks. That’s it. The clouds disappeared, right, and the sun came out for the first time in nearly two months.”
“And no one stopped by in two months?”
“Sometimes no one stops by in six. That’s why we live out there, Detective. Anyway, I knew the sun had come out because the light at the edges of the boards was so bright, and it got hot. Real hot. And it was quiet. I moved the couch and removed the floorboards crisscrossin’ the front door, and slowly opened it. The dead seemed to have gone away with the clouds and poison rain. All of it was gone, like it never was, you know. It was beautiful at first—until I remembered I had no one to share it with.”
&nb
“I loved her so much,” Garret said, ignoring him. He exhaled a plume of smoke. “Loved her so much. But it wasn’t enough, see. She wanted me dead, wanted to eat me. My wife! Christ. She wasn’t like those monsters outside, but she’d become a monster all the same.
“She hit me with the ceramic lamp right when I stepped into the bedroom the night after she begged me to steal Uncle Olin’s body. I saw the brightest light I’d seen since we boarded up the windows. An explosion of white, you know, then felt blood pourin’ down my face—”
“So you murdered her.”
Garret shook his head. “No. I killed her. And it’ll haunt me for long days to come.” He rubbed the deep wound on his forehead.
“Semantics. You also dismembered her body.”
He winced at that, but nodded. “I did. So that she wouldn’t return, like Uncle Olin and Anna.”
“Anna never returned,” Jack said. “Her body was found by her daughter, mutilated, dismembered—by your hands, Mr. Denny.” He pulled a photo from the manila envelope and slid it across the table. “Look at it.”
“No,” he said, “I didn’t do it. I swear to you.”
“Where is Olin’s body?”
“I didn’t do it, Detective.”
A heavy knock on the door interrupted them. Jack sighed. “What is it?”
The door opened, and Officer Boden peeked his head in. Sheepishly, he said, “Sorry, sir. Sheriff needs to see you.”
“In a minute.”
“‘Now,’ he said. Sorry. Says it’s important.”
“Of course, it is.” Jack gathered up his clipboard, pen and lighter. He left the photo of Anna Howland’s mutilated body. “I’ll be right back.”