Fourteen
I was soaking in a hot tub of water, which seemed to sooth the intense itching for the time being and using tweezers to pull out the numerous stingers that had pierced my skin when Teri called. “Are you sure you didn’t imagine it, Eve?” she completely dumbfounded me by asking. “Did you fall asleep at the river and dream it perhaps? It sounds pretty far fetched you know, even to me and I’m a firm believer in the supernatural.”
“Teri, how do you imagine a tornado and being attacked by a killer swarm of insects?”
“Good thing they weren’t those killer bees that are supposed to be headed this way from somewhere in South America,” she snorted.
No she wasn’t actually laughing at the ordeal I had just barely survived! “If you could see the bug bites and stings covering my entire body, you wouldn’t think it was my imagination and you damn sure wouldn’t think it was funny!” I snapped, finding it hard to control my rising anger. I mean, honestly, I could have easily died in the cornfield and she found that humorous?
“Oh, chill out. It was just a ghost sighting. That’s practically an everyday occurrence. Why did you make him so mad anyway?”
“Teri, have you been sniffing too many perm fumes?” I screeched incredulously. “What did you expect me to do? Follow him?”
“Number one, I don’t do perms as you well know. And number two, I certainly would have.”
I knew that she indeed would have. Teri is a strong believer in the occult. She consults her Ouija board regularly and, years ago, was a member of a Wiccan Witch Coven.
“It’s glaringly obvious, even to a novice like yourself, that the child wanted to show you something.”
“I didn’t want to see it.” I knew he wanted to show me something too. I wasn’t that dense. I mean he had kept motioning with his chubby little finger for me to follow him.
“Oh, I just had an epiphany! I’ll come down this weekend and we can spend the night at the cabin and see what the child wants,” she announced, using one of her tones that I had tired of years ago. “I thought you knew that when you saw a ghost you were supposed to follow it. Oh boy! This will be the most fun I’ve had in ages!”
“Forgive me, Teri. Unfortunately, I neglected to read What To Do When A Ghost Child Tries To Kill You!”
“He didn’t try to kill you, Eve. For crying out loud, he just roughed you up a little to get your attention. He wants to show you something and we need to find out what.”
“You can cease and desist with this ‘we’ nonsense right from the get go. You will go by yourself, because I can you assure that I’m not going back through those haunted cornfields. I probably already have a raging case of West Nile Virus from all the mosquitoes bites or whatever bugs they were.”
“You don’t have anything of the sort. There you go again, Miss Dramatic. And besides, you have to go. It’s you he’s after. He probably won’t even appear if you aren’t there.”
“Then, sorry, he just won’t be appearing.”
“Come on, we’ll get Tammy and Mallory and have a girl’s night at the river. It’ll be fun. Don’t be such a killjoy.”
Fun! Exactly what part of my tornado and kamikaze insect attack story had sounded like fun? But I had her and I knew it. Mallory scared easier than anybody I had ever known and the girl wasn’t about to go on a wild ghost chase. No way. No how. “If you get Mallory to go, then I will go.”
“Do you swear?” she asked, taking no chance of my backing out.
“I swear.”
“Okay, I’ll call you right back.”
Huh? That was a troublesome response. She had sounded awfully sure of herself for some disturbing reason. And why had I agreed to go if Mallory went? Knowing Teri as I do, her shrewd little mind had probably already come up with a scheme to make Mallory tag along. Teri could probably bribe her with extra highlights!
I was rubbing cortisone cream into my bumpy, intensely inching skin when she called back. “It’s all set for Friday night.”
I knew it! “How did you convince Mallory to go?”
“I told her JoJo was going to be there. You know she has the hots for your son.”
She was right about that. JoJo was definitely a white boy, but Mallory had often commented that she would love to make, yet another, exception in his case and teach him a few of the finer points of life.
“Why on earth did you tell her that? He won’t be home until Thanksgiving and that’s three months away!” I shrieked. And anyway, there was no way I would ever allow my son to get involved with a man eater like Mallory and Teri damn well knew it.
“Oh, what difference does it make if I was off by a few months. You know JoJo wouldn’t even give her old ass a second glance. Just let the girl dream.”
“Huh! It’s her ass I’m worried about. You know how men salivate over it.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot about that.”
“Well, how about remembering it the next time you try to throw my son at her!”
“I will. Anyway, I’ll see you Friday night. I can’t wait!” Teri said excitedly. “Ta ta for now.”
I was trying to reach my back with cortisone cream when Tammy called. “Did you really the the thame little boy your dad thaw?”
“Yes, I did. I don’t know for sure if it was the same little boy, but whether you believe me or not I saw him. And he tried to kill me.”
Like Teri, she showed no concern whatsoever for the agony I had endured. What was wrong with these so-called friends of mine? Where was the love? How could they show more interest in my alleged ghost sighting, than in the pain and absolute terror I had suffered? Couldn’t they see that the evil little poltergeist had attempted to, if not kill me, at the very least send me into anaphylactic shock? You would think they would be a tad more sympathetic about my numerous injuries. I was thinking unkind thoughts about the lot of them as I clawed at my extremely itchy skin.
“Do you really think he wanted to kill you?”
“At first he wanted me to follow him. I wouldn’t, and that’s when he got really pissed.”
“Are you going to follow him next time?”
“Who knows? To be honest I haven’t a clue what I will do if it happens again, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t. Run like hell again, I suppose.” At least the next time I went into the cornfields I wouldn’t be alone. You can bet your bottom dollar on that!
“I can’t believe I agreed to go camping down there with y’all. I have no dethire to the him at all. We muth all be crazy.”
“No. Just Teri.”
Mallory beeped in and we had a three-way conversation. “Traitor.” I accused her, after we had discussed the child’s apparent fascination with wind and bugs.
“What?”
“Don’t what me, Mallory! I agreed to go camping only if Teri could talk you into it, knowing full well that you wouldn’t even consider spending a night in those haunted woods. Why did you agree to go?”
“I’m just curious.”
“About what?”
“About the little boy.”
“About whose little boy, Mallory?”
“Well, I am anxious to see JoJo again. Has he changed much? Does he still look as good as he did last time I saw him?”
“Better.” I wouldn’t spoil the surprise. I decided to let Teri inform her that she had been duped. I would just sit back and watch the fireworks.
“Who knows, perhaps the rest of us will get a chance to see the little boy in the corn.”
I knew by the way she said it that she didn’t believe a word of my story. We both knew the day Mallory saw the little boy would probably be the last day she ever drew breath. The only reason she was trailing along was in hopes of spending some quality time, alone, with my son. In a dark cabin! Huh! Over my dead body!
I could only pray that the child in the corn had already made other plans for the weekend and wouldn’t make an appearance, even if it was my only hope of proving that I hadn’t imagined the entire episode. “We’ll see what happens.” Hopefully, nothing!
I tried not to spend every waking moment dreading the weekend but, unfortunately, Friday arrived all too quickly. Right around dusk the girls arrived and we loaded our supplies into the back of Dad’s old river truck.
“I brought the fixings for Dirty Martini’s,” Teri said. “I can get drunk off my ass, and not have to worry about making a fool of myself or getting pissed off by one of Lawrence’s stern lectures on the dangers of alcohol abuse, at the river. That man expects me to be as stodgy as he is and never have any fun.”
“Do I detect a hint of trouble in paradise,” I asked.
“Nope, he has way too much money for me to even think of hinting at trouble.”
“Good point. I brought the ingredients for Bloody Marys. I thought I might need some liquid backbone tonight. We all might.”
“I brought Corona and limes,” Mallory said. “If what you said is true, Eve, and I see that kid, I will have to get intoxicated!”
We looked expectantly at Tammy.
“Y’all will juth have to thare.”
I stopped at the gate and Mallory hopped out to open it, her eyes darting back and forth through the rustling cornstalks. “Where did you see him, Eve?”
“Hop in and I’ll show you.” I drove about a half mile down the road and stopped the truck. “The bugs started right about here.” As I was talking a mosquito landed on my arm and I jumped so hard I almost vaulted out the window. “Ouch!” I screeched slapping at it. Jerking the truck door open, I jumped out and listened for the humming sound of an impending swarm. Thankfully the only noise was crickets chirping.
“Take it easy, Eve,” Teri said with a worried frown wrinkling her arched brow. “It was just one bug. Come on, let’s go.”
I drove a little further and stopped. “The wind started right about here.” I pointed into the cornfield. “The little boy was right there.”
I remembered the child’s blood red eyes vividly. I stared into the corn almost expecting him to materialize and motion for me to follow him and breathed a heavy sigh of relief when nothing happened. I had to fight the powerful urge to slam the truck into reverse and go home. Could someone please tell me why was I here, again?
“Okay, keep going,” Mallory said nervously. “We are surrounded by corn on all sides. I don’t like this, I feel trapped.” Her face was turning an unsightly shade of blue and she seemed to be struggling to get air into her lungs. “In fact… I’m having… difficulty… breathing.”
“Mallory, take a deep breath and chill out,” Teri said. “Why must you get so worked up about every little thing? Eve, start driving so she can feel a breeze before she blacks out.”
“Just wait.” I laughed, a sound that lacked even a trace of humor, when I saw that Mallory’s breathing had returned to normal. “You think you’re having difficulty breathing now? You ain’t seen nothing yet.” I drove to the river and parked beside the cabin.
“Oh, I’d forgotten what a lush, tropical paradise this is!” Teri grabbed a baby wipe from her bag after climbing out of Dad's dirty old river truck and daintily scrubbed her hands.
I still didn’t know how the diva was going to survive a night at the river without a single luxury, although the cabin was comfortable. It had two sets of bunk beds with regular size mattresses and a tiny kitchen. The one room house on stilts had all the amenities, except a bathroom. You still had to go to the outhouse for that. I couldn’t wait to see her face after her first trip to the latrine.
“Let’s walk to the Almond House and the graveyard before dark,” Teri said after we had unloaded the supplies. “He is, or was, a little black boy so I assume his parents were slaves on the Almond Plantation. Right? Wouldn’t you think that’s probably where he hangs out?” She clapped her hands together. “I can’t wait to see him. I’ve only seen one ghost.”
“You did? When?” Tammy asked, while at the same time looking like she wasn’t really anxious to hear the answer.
“Oh, it was during my drug days. I was high on coke, so I can’t swear what it was that we saw. But the fellow members of the witch coven and I were having a séance and a dark figure was looming, well, actually floating, in the corner. I don’t remember him carrying a sickle though. However that was the night I overdosed, so it was probably the Grim Reaper just waiting to swoop me to the fiery pits.”
“Oh, thit!”
“That’s exactly what I said, well… almost,” Teri said with a shudder. “I haven’t touched an illegal substance since that night.”
I could tell Mallory and Tammy were fast rethinking their hasty decision to tag along. I was having serious second thoughts myself.
“Why do you want to go to a graveyard?” Mallory’s voice was taking on that whining note that none of us particularly cared for. “And what’s so special about the Almond House anyway?”
I didn’t exactly know why, but everyone in the area would agree that there was something sinister about the old plantation house. It just felt haunted. “You’ll see.”
The Almond House was once a thriving cotton plantation. During research at the library, I had discovered that in its heyday the plantation had produced more cotton than any other plantation in the area and the Almond’s owned practically the entire town. The family graveyard was in the woods situated across from the plantation house and the slave graveyard was behind it. The house was about a half mile from the river. I was wondering if we could walk there and back before sundown or if I should drive the truck.
“Come on, Eve.” Teri joked, sensing my hesitation. “I’ll protect you from the wicked witch and her winged monkeys… I mean the little boy and his evil bugs.”
Teri made my decision with that comment. I could have chosen to drive the truck or walk up the road. But, nope! Let’s take Miss Fashion Icon through the woods and a couple of wild, red bug infested blackberry patches! Trust me, you won’t understand the true meaning of the word itch until an entire community of chiggers relocates under your skin. I was definitely going to take her on a walk to remember. “And who is going to protect you?” I asked, falling in step beside her.
Tammy and Mallory hesitantly walked behind us as we parted dense vegetation and headed through the forest. Teri quickly lost her holier than thou attitude and complained every step of the way.
“My shoes will be ruined!”
“Probably.” I agreed, perhaps a bit to cheerfully.
“Oh! I just know I’ll have permanent scars from all these briar scratches.”
“Most likely.”
”Ouch! Oh, shit!” she cried, slapping at a mosquito. “Didn’t you bring any insect repellent?”
“Yes, I sprayed.” I said innocently. “Didn’t I offer you the can of bug spray before we left the cabin?”
“No! You didn’t, you twit! As a matter of fact you failed to mention that you even brought any.”
“Watch out! That’s poison ivy!” I warned, pointing to several vines snaking through the forest.
“Oh, dear Lord!” Teri squawked. “How do I know which green thing is poison oak?”
“Be wary of anything with five leaves.”
“Thit!” Tammy fretted, eyeing the many five leaved plants.
I actually saw sweat glistening on Teri’s brow. She was nervous. Good! At one point we had to crawl on our hands and knees through a tangle of thorny briar bushes. You can just imagine how thrilled Teri was with that indignity. Teri? On her knees? Without a single man in sight? Please.
“Oh, now this is simply absurd! You didn’t tell me we were going to have to walk through a briar patch. I feel like Brier F*cking Rabbit.”
“You didn’t ask.” I was stilled pissed at her, so I grabbed a small tree limb as I walked. When she got right behind me I let it go.
“Ouch! Watch what you’re doing, Eve. You did that on purpose, didn’t you? Girl, don’t make me put a hurting on your narrow ass.”
“Of course not.” I fibbed as we finally emerged from the woods. “Oh my God! Would you look at that?” My anger dissolved immediately as I witnessed the breathtaking panorama before me.
We all stopped dead in our tracks and gaped at the magnificent spectacle.
“I have never seen anything like it,” Teri cried. “This has to be a mass hallucination.”
“Have you ever theen anything tho beautiful?”
“No, I haven’t!” Mallory whispered nervously. “This has to be some supernatural shit! Eve, I want to go home now.”
It was unbelievable. Actually, it resembled a landscape painting more than real life.
The decaying remains of the Almond House stood in the midst of a fluffy sea of creamy yellow on all sides. A magnificent array of buttercups in full bloom as far as the eye could see. It was like the poppy field in the Wizard of Oz, only with buttercups.
Most people call them daffodils, but I grew up hearing them called buttercups by my mom, and they look like cups of butter, so I have always referred to them as buttercups instead. Sure, over the years, teachers, friends, neighbors, boyfriends and even my children have insisted I call them daffodils, but to me they will always be buttercups. I don’t really know why.
They jutted up against the edge of the cornfield, all the way to the porch of the deteriorating house. The flowers spilled from stumps, over fallen trees and obliterated the driveway that had once been on the property. The lawn was about two acres and there wasn’t one square inch of earth without a gorgeous, yellow buttercup sprouting from it. It was a plethora of color the likes of which none of us had ever seen.
“Breathtaking!” Teri marveled as we waded through the knee-deep flora.
I had been coming here to pick blackberries for almost forty years and had never seen more than a few flowers scattered randomly among the waist high pasture grass, wild blackberry bushes, and cow patties.
Tammy bent down to smell a flower and then she plucked the stem. She would forever attribute that simple act as being the single worst mistake of her life!
Suffice it to say all hell broke loose!
As soon as she snapped the stem on the exquisite flower an unnatural clanging seemed to fall from the sky. It was loud, rattling and deafening and I can only compare it to the sound of thousands of tin cans falling to the ground around us and beating against each other at once. The sound was horrifying beyond belief!
Why, why, why did I come back here?
Even the air around us seemed to buzz with a static current of electricity. Mallory was on her knees with her hands over her ears screaming hysterically, and nonstop. Tammy stood, paralyzed with fear, as every ounce of blood seemed to drain from her pale face. She threw the flower from her hand like it was a venomous snake and clutching her chest started backing away from the flower with a look of stunned disbelief. The instant she dropped the flower the deafening noise stopped and all was quiet. Still. Calm. Deadly quiet. Not even a butterfly fluttered or a bee buzzed over the fragrant flowers.
“What in the hell was that?” Teri cried.
“I told you,” I said, shaking violently, but feeling somewhat vindicated. “Maybe you will believe me next time! The kid’s got a mean streak a mile wide.”
“But why did he do it?”
She wanted answers that I couldn’t give. “You tell me.” I shuddered as I put a steadying hand on Mallory’s trembling shoulder.
She jumped, screamed louder and then realizing that the unearthly noise had stopped, looked up at me. “He’s going to kill us, isn’t he?” She whimpered with tears of absolute terror streaming down her face. “That was a warning, wasn’t it? He intends to kill us!”
“Of course not.” I forced myself to smile, trying to calm her down. “Come on, let’s get out of the flowers. I don’t think he wants us bothering his buttercups.”
“They’re daffodils, Eve.”
Then I looked at Tammy. Her eyes were wide as saucers and she looked like she was having difficulty breathing. “Tammy, are you okay?”
“No,” she said with a tremulous voice, seeming to choke on the word. “Hell no, I’m not okay. What wath that?”
Even Teri appeared to be slightly rattled, but she didn’t want to show it. “Maybe it was an airplane breaking the sound barrier or something.”
“That was no freaking airplane!” Mallory jumped up flailing her arms and screaming. “And you know it!”
“She’s right, Teri,” I agreed. “That was not an airplane.”
“I know it wasn’t. Damn, Eve, I was trying to calm them down before they go into cardiac arrest.”
“Oh, sorry.”
We turned and walked carefully out of the field of flowers placing our feet strategically among the clusters and trying desperately not to crush one, but it was impossible since they were everywhere. I glanced over my shoulder at Teri.
She was deep in thought trying to get her mind around what had just happened. And like a dog with a bone she couldn’t let it go. She squatted to her knees and all you could see were her shoulders and head surrounded by an ocean of velvety yellow.
“Don’t!” Tammy and Mallory cried simultaneously when they saw her reach for a flower.
The supreme dumb ass picked one anyway.