Things You Need Page 5

  I slowly closed The Way.

  Sat there and stared into nothing, thinking hard.

  We only ever have two or three pigs at a time, Doc. Takes about six months for them to grow big enough to butcher, about two hundred pounds or so. The pigs I had weren’t only about four months along, not a hundred-fifty pounds. Butchering them then would be a waste, getting us only half the meat. I think, Doc, right then and there, if I’d been left to my own self, I would’ve tossed The Way in the fire pit and burned it.

  But Betty had to poke her fool head into my study. She sorta sneered and says, “Lookit you. One week of hard work and here you is, sitting on yer ass and reading more trash. Make a hell of a farmer, you do. Sitting on yer fat ass, reading.”

  She shook her head, smiling the whole time, and left. Me, however, I was near shaking to rage. Which is kinda strange, when you think on it. Betty had always sorta pissed me off with her talk about books being foolishness and me being lazy for sitting on my ass and reading, but I brushed it off most the time.

  Right then?

  If I’d had my hand on my shotgun or ax? Think I might have sent Betty right out of the world.

  Thinking back?

  Might have been for the best, all things considering.

  ***

  Doc, does sleepwalking ever happen during the day? Cause after that Sunday when I woke up after reading The Way, remembering nothing; after Betty lit into me, I found myself dozing off and then waking up in the middle of doing things I had no plans of doing at all.

  Take butchering them pigs. One minute I was getting to my feet, mumbling about Betty sassing me and how she’d regret not showing me respect; next minute, I found myself sticking my first pig in its neck.

  You grow up on a farm, Doc? Hell now, you did? Don’t suppose you ever butchered a pig? No? Well, it’s a damn messy job, for sure. First stick in the neck sends a fountain of blood all over. And worse, I wasn’t concerned with getting the meat at all, Doc. All I wanted was blood, so I went to extra efforts to drain the blood into buckets as I went. Getting meat was secondary.

  So pretty soon, I stood there with them carcasses hanging high from my barn (but it wasn’t too long before they was spoiled, Doc, cause spring is the wrong time to butcher pigs), with three ten-gallon buckets beneath, catching their blood. And, though I remember most of what I’d done, I wandered away from the barn and down to the house to wash up in a daze. Even now, I can sorta remember butchering them pigs, but from far away. Like I watched someone else do it. Make any sense to you?

  One thing I do remember. Whole time I was talking to myself. Talking, or sorta singing. Chanting, maybe. But I don’t remember the words. Even if I did, I don’t think they’d make much sense, because from what I do remember?

  They didn’t sound like no words I’d ever heard in my whole life.

  ***

  I was washing the blood off my hands in the sink when Betty came roaring into the kitchen, swearing to raise the roof. She must’ve seen me coming down from the butchering pen and wanted to know what the hell was going on, me butchering them sows so early.

  The kitchen door slammed open hard enough to rattle the pots and pans hanging next to the stove. She says, “Seamus Freely! What the hell you doing, butchering them sows? Ain’t more than hundred pounds each! Won’t get no meat off them worth keeping! Supposed to be our meat for the winter! You lost yer damn mind?”

  I stood there, slowly washing my hands, rubbing them under the hot water. They was glowing red, on account of how hot the water was. Staring at my hands—rubbing, clenching, unclenching—still sorta hypnotized, I mumbled, “Nuff meat there to last us awhile, Betts. Last us just fine.”

  Betty stomped, rattling them pots again. “Hell we’ll be fine! We’ll be outta pork by the end of summer. How we gonna get through the winter, Seamus? What the hell was you thinking?”

  Right then I started rising from my funk, Doc. Her angry words sent hot flashes up my neck. I grit my teeth harder, washing and rubbing my hands faster under the hot water. I says, “Mind me, woman. Don’t you sass me none. We’ll be fine. I’m still head of the household round here. If I say it’s time to butcher the sows it’s time to butcher, and you get no say-so.”

  I paused and then, in calm, cool words, I says something I wasn’t planning on, the words spilling right outta my mouth. “Besides, The Way of Ah-Tzenul says to invoke the spirit of Ah-Tzenul in your harvest, you gotta give an offering of . . . ”

  “Books,” she says, grumbling. “Yer damn books. That’s where you’re getting this foolishness from? Hell, I should’ve known. You sitting around all day on your fat ass, reading them damn books, stuffing your head with fool ideas about nothing at all. Why, I oughta drag them books out to the burn pit, pour kerosene over em, and burn em up, and another thing . . . ”

  I can’t exactly tell you what happened next, Doc. And I can’t exactly tell you why. Betty and me, we’ve had some knock-down drag-outs over the years, some real screamers. She’s threatened to burn my books before. Said worse things, too. So why everything went so hot and red, I don’t know. Maybe I was embarrassed, because after all, she was right, Doc. Was a waste to butcher them pigs so early, but The Way of Ah-Tzenul had called for sow blood, and I couldn’t say no. I was invoking the spirit of Ah-Tzenul on my field, on my crops, especially on my pumpkin patch. I had to grow pumpkins this year, Doc. Had to win that damn contest.

  Also?

  She was disrespecting The Way of Ah-Tzenul. I can handle her disrespecting me. Hell, even when things was good between us she was always a smart ass. But she was disrespecting The Way of Ah-Tzenul and all it’d taught me. For some reason, that I couldn’t abide.

  The butchering knife I’d used to stick them pigs was in my hand in an instant, and I covered it in spurting red again. And yeah, Doc. It was this knife, the one I got right here.

  ***

  Now, Doc, you sit tight. Ain’t gonna stick you with this if you sit still. Sure as hell didn’t call ya here to gut you in my living room. And no, Betty ain’t gone. She’s the reason I called ya here in the first place. But you let me finish my story before you judge me. Don’t you try getting up and running neither.

  Actually, you come this way, Doc. We’ll head up to the garden, out back. Only way you’re gonna understand everything. You walk before me, and don’t make any moves. I been sharpening this knife every day since I butchered them sows and stabbed Betty in the neck.

  Every. Damn. Day.

  ***

  Turned out that night was a full moon. Don’t know if I knew or sensed it, but it’s why I chose to butcher them pigs. Maybe it was all coincidence, but something inside me says that ain’t so. None of this has been coincidence. The frightening thing? I think it was bound to happen the moment I found The Way in the dumpster at the Webb County Landfill.

  Anyway, that night.

  By the light of the full moon.

  I dumped them buckets of sow’s blood all over the garden, softly chanting them same strange words I can’t remember, as The Way of Ah-Tzenul said to. Like with them dead fish, somehow the last drop didn’t get spilled until I’d covered the whole field. And here’s a strange thing. You’d think a whole garden covered in pig blood sitting in buckets since midday would stink to high heaven.

  But it didn’t, Doc. Smelled a little coppery but mostly smelled of freshly-turned earth and Adirondack pine. The blood soaked right into the soil, just like my seed did. Wasn’t a drop left on the surface, except now I don’t think “soaked” is the right word.

  Drank.

  That soil hadn’t soaked the blood up. It drank the blood. Cause I had invoked the spirit of Ah-Tzenul in my garden, and as it says in The Way of Ah-Tzenul, when Ah-Tzenul’s been invoked to bless your crops . . . Ah-Tzenul is always hungry, and apparently thirsty, too.

  ***

  Watch your step there, Doc. Up this little rise, and here we are.

  Yep. Ain’t it a beaut, Doc? Best garden I’ve ever had. Gonna be abl
e to can and freeze enough to last me through the winter all the way into next planting season, for sure. And I ain’t ever seen such corn or potatoes. Those alone are sure to fetch a fine price at the farmer’s market in a few weeks. Fact, I’ve got no worries about the coming winter at all, Doc. The Way of Ah-Tzenul says things about blessing the hunt, starting bee hives, everything else you can possibly think of when it comes to gathering your own food. Got some new young sows and they’re already hundred pounds each. By the time I need to make another offering, they’ll be plenty large enough for me to get all the meat I need.

  What’s that?

  Oh, Betty. Well, let’s come to the far end of the garden, Doc. Here we go, follow this path along the side.

  Look at them pumpkins, now. That one there has to be near forty feet round, all shiny orange and near perfect. Definitely take first place in the Halloween Festival in a few weeks. I reckon I can charge a pretty penny selling the rest for jack’o lanterns, too. I don’t know for sure, but I wager making jack’o lanterns out of pumpkins grown with the essence of Ah-Tzenul might make for a special Halloween indeed.

  I see you’re looking at the other pumpkin. The one behind my sure prize winner. Yep, yer right, it’s the biggest in the whole garden. Guinness Book size, sure enough, if I called anyone up here to see it, but I ain’t gonna do that.

  Why?

  Well, to be perfectly honest, this is where I ended up planting Betty after I stuck her. I been sorta lying and telling everyone she ain’t been feeling well and been resting, and I feel sorta bad, but I couldn’t tell folks the truth, now could I? It’s a real good thing Betty never got along with folks down in town. If she had more friends, I might not have been able to . . .

  Hold on there, Doc! You stop right there and don’t struggle, or your gonna get this knife right in the belly. See, I wasn’t lying when I said Betty wasn’t gone. The part about the spirit of Ah-Tzenul taking a treasured vessel when invoked? Well, don’t matter what you think, don’t matter that we fought and she hated my reading and I stuck her in the neck, my Betty was treasured by me, she surely was. That’s where I buried her, Doc. Right in my pumpkin patch, and considering what she thought about my pumpkins and the Halloween Festival it’s right ironic . . .

  You hold still!

  C’mere! See this ridge here, long the bottom of this here pumpkin? See how it’s sorta quivering? The Way of Ah-Tzenul was right, Doc, it surely was. Once you invoke Ah-Tzenul’s blessing on your crops, it’s always . . .

  Now you stop that! My Betty’s hungry and if she ain’t fed right quick . . .

  Ah, hell, Doc, now ya done it! She gets right mean when her food ain’t alive . . .

  4.

  I stared at the reel-to-reel as it fell into a soft hissing click-click-click. After several seconds of listening numbly, I reached out and pressed stop.

  Silence rushed in, even more oppressive than before. I stuck my hands into my pockets and glanced around the store. No shopkeeper. He must’ve gone, I decided, because there was no way he could still be around and not hear the tape playing.

  And what had I heard on the tape? At the time I leaned toward an old radio drama of some kind. I’d listened to plenty of those over the years on the road between magazine gigs, on the AM stations. Re-runs of ‘The Shadow,’ ‘Suspense,’ and ‘Inner Sanctum Mysteries.’ They were corny as hell but entertaining. I especially loved how the hosts always shoe-horned their sponsor’s advertisements into the show. “Tonight’s tale about sex, murder, and revenge will give you a delightful chill . . . just like the kind you get from sipping a refreshing Lipton’s Ice Tea on a warm summer day!” Made me grin every time.

  Thing was, the longer I stared at the old reel-to-reel, the less sure I felt about my instincts. There hadn’t been any theme music, any host introducing the story, no corny sponsor’s advertisements. Nor did I hear any voices other than the guy telling the story, or any special effects, though I had caught the sound of scuffling and a shout at the very end, and the weirdness of the story would certainly fit in an episode of ‘Inner Sanctum’ or ‘Suspense.’

  I decided not to worry about it. Really, it was the least of my concerns. For some reason I’d been compelled to come back into Handy’s Pawn and Thrift instead of going back to my cabin . . .

  and the .38

  . . . and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. Or maybe I was still in denial about how much I’d grown to hate my life. Regardless, the urgency I’d felt on the curb outside the store faded. I figured enough was enough. Time to leave and go to bed.

  But I think I knew, somehow, the only thing waiting for me was my .38. I’d had it for a year or so (maybe longer?), and it had never been anything more than a stray thought in the back of my head. It had swelled, however, into an unrelenting pressure. An undercurrent surging beneath my thoughts. I wasn’t exactly thinking, I can’t go back because if I do I’ll kill myself, but subconsciously, I think the option had somehow become a real possibility.

  So instead of heading straight for the door, I glanced around the sales counter some more. My gaze fell on the Magic Eight Ball again. I thought what the hell? I picked it up and shook it. “So. Am I stuck here for the night? Is this where I’m gonna finally find what I need?”

  I gave the damned thing one more shake. Held it, and watched the milky fluid inside settle.

  THE OFFICE

  John Pinkerton knelt before the bookshelf in the rear of his office. He searched the bottom shelf for something to read while toying with his old Magic Eight Ball, the quirky fortune-telling toy recognized by any child of the eighties.

  He’d been searching for what felt like hours. This happened often (more so these days), and he couldn’t honestly say it displeased him. Browsing his overflowing bookshelves presented him with an infinite selection of journeys waiting to be taken. Every book he’d read represented old friends he loved revisiting. The ones he hadn’t, new friends in waiting. Choosing which to read was a pleasing difficulty.

  He shook the eight ball with one hand, smiling. “What’s it going to be?” he whispered, running his other hand along the spines of books on his tightly packed shelf. “Some ghost stories, today?”

  The white polyhedron, suspended in liquid turned murky with age, jiggled as it revealed: Future is Hazy.

  John chuckled as he returned his attention to the books before him. “Story of my life,” he whispered. “Story of my . . . ”

  Something whisked along the floor outside his office.

  He slowly stood.

  Turned and gazed at his office doorway.

  Saw nothing but darkness beyond.

  Which was strange.

  Because he’d left the light in the hall on. His office was in the basement, which consisted of the washroom, furnace, and the playroom. By nature it was dark. A subterranean space with no windows. He always left the lights on outside his office because he didn’t like the dark. Never had. Beth fussed about his little quirk (saying it wasted electricity) but she’d long ago resigned herself to his habit, and now offered her half-hearted complaints mostly for show.

  He’d turned the hall lights on when he came downstairs. He was sure of it. But he saw only darkness beyond the office doorway.

  “Beth? Hey . . . Beth? I’m down here, honey. In my office? Could you switch on the stairs light?”

  Maybe Beth hadn’t realized he was down here. Frugal as she was, she’d shut off the lights. But that didn’t make sense. There were two sets of lights on the way to his office. The stairwell lights and the lights in the hall. Beth would’ve had to descend the stairs, at least, to turn the hallway lights off. He’d heard a noise, of course, which maybe had been her . . .

  But it had sounded different. More like a swishing sound. The hem of a dress whispering against the floor. Beth wasn’t prone to wearing dresses, even for formal occasions.

  “Beth?”

  Not a sound. He stood in the middle of his office and listened for a moment, directing his senses
upward, searching for sounds of life. The floor, creaking as someone walked from the den to the kitchen. The more distant creaks of either Marty or Melissa ascending the stairs to their bedrooms on the second floor. The distant murmur of the television in the living room or the radio in the dining room, or water running in the kitchen or bathroom sinks, down through the pipes . . .

  Nothing.

  Nothing but dead silence. Which was odd, because he’d heard sounds only moments before. Hadn’t he? Hadn’t Beth called to him, saying they were heading out for a bit? Hadn’t he nodded unconsciously as he searched for something to read?

  It wouldn’t have been the first time. Over the past few years (especially since the kids had turned into teenagers and therefore strange aliens from distant planets who wanted little to do with him) his office had become his refuge. He’d spent increasing hours there channeling his youth building car models, or relaxing in his old recliner, reading.

  He’d always been an avid reader, showing little discrimination in his diet. He loved all genres. He’d majored in Business Communications at Webb Community College and now worked as a Customer Service manager at Dine-a-Mate—a small company which published a yearly coupon book—but he was rarely without a novel. Whenever he had a spare moment, he was always reading. A novel during breakfast. A different one before bed. Another sat propped open on the exercise bike in the kids’ old playroom (long unused, as they now preferred to hole up in their rooms with their WiFi tablets, watching God Knew What on Youtube). In fact, it was hard to think of a time when he wasn’t building models or reading.