Dead Men (and Women) Walking (7 page)

Buster was starting to get a
good buzz going by now. I didn’t realize it until then that he had
drank both six packs already. I think he had gone back for a couple
of more beers sometime while we were cleaning away the brush from
the well. Four of those beers were already gone.

“
1803, Buster,” I said,
solemnly.

“
Yeah. That’s it. Way back
in eighteen hundred zero and three. Some bitch got thrown into this
well, right here two hundred years ago by her somewhat pissed off
boyfriend. So, they decide to close this crap hole off to the
public to keep people from disappearing, getting hurt or getting
their asses killed. Well, that’s fine and damn dandy. If all that
crap is true, I wanna see the bitch for myself. I want to see Miss
Catherine.”

I stood listening to his
drunken tirade. I had had about all I wanted to hear when he
started his wishing well chant.

“
Oh, wishing well, oh
wishing well, please do kiss and tell. Bring sweet Miss Catherine
back from Hell.”

“
Buster!” I
yelled.

“
What?” he yelled
back.

Visions of Butch and the
Chihuahua popped into my head again.

Ka-pow. Ka-thump.

Hey, Buster, you’re sauced,
Buster. Do yah hear me, Buster?

Shut-up.

Ka-pow. Ka-thump.

Yeah. . . yeah, sure,
Buster. That’s Buster. He’s my hero. He ain’t afraid of
anything.

“
What?” Buster yelled
again, snapping me away from the vision.

“
Buster,” I started.
“Bobby, you’re drunk. Come on, let’s go. Let’s go home.”

“
I’m not drunk,” he said
defensively. “I’ve just got a good buzz working. I’m
fine.”

“
Yeah, whatever,” I said as
I turned and began to walk back toward the truck.

“
Hey, Johnny, where yah
going?”

“
To the truck, Bobby,” I
said. “It’s after three and it’s going to be getting dark in a
couple of hours. You can stay here as long as you want, but I’m
going back to the truck where I’ll be waiting for you. And the damn
doors will be locked.”

I walked off.

Buster ran up behind me,
grabbing me by the arm. He spun me around to face him. The smell of
beer on his breath hit me hard. I stepped back to get some fresh
air.

“
Johnny, I’m
sorry.”

“
No, you’re
not.”

“
Johnny, I mean it, I’m
sorry,” he said again.

“
So,” I said, trying not to
let him get to me.

“
Can you just stick around
a little longer?”

“
No, Bobby,” I said
quickly. “I’m tired of the way you’ve been acting all day. You go
ahead and stay. I’m out of here.”

“
Wait, Johnny,” he said as
he grabbed my arm again. “Let’s just see the water. Can you do that
for me? Let me see the water? Then we’ll leave, I swear
it.”

It was a rarity that Buster
pleaded with me, which is what he was doing then. I knew he was
being sincere in saying we would leave. He had sworn to it, and for
Buster that was as good as gold.

I stood looking at the
ground. For the first time I realized there wasn’t much light in
the swamp. We cast no shadows anywhere. Neither did any of the
trees.

“
Give me the keys to your
truck,” I said. “Then, we’ll go see the water.” I should have told
him flatly, no.

Buster frowned as he pulled
the keys out of his pocket and put them in my hand.

“
Okay,” he said and popped
open another beer. He chugged it down and walked over to the well.
He tossed it in and waited for the sound of it hitting bottom.
There was no clank echoing up from the well this time. I don’t know
about Buster, but that sent chills down my spine and raised every
hair on my head to standing at attention.

The lake was only about
thirty yards or so away from the well. Buster hacked at the dead
plants and made us another path, this one leading to the water’s
edge. I stood back for a while and watched. Sometimes I had hated
Buster. I felt like, at that moment, I hated him more than I ever
would have. But, I knew it was the alcohol that was making him the
way he was. It was as if I were a woman in an abusive
relationship—always making excuses for why I let him treat me the
way he did.

Here we go again—babble,
babble, babble.

“
John-boy,” Buster called
out. “Come on you’ve gotta see this.” His words were becoming
slurred—a great side effect of too much alcohol.

I walked through the new
path he had made with his maniacal machete swinging. Buster had
reached the water’s edge and was now standing next to the murky
water. It had an almost sulfuric smell to it and no plants were
growing out of it. The trees hung over it like a bride’s veil does
her face on her wedding day. One other thing stood out about the
old Lake Coachi.

“
It’s black,” I said as I
looked down at the water. The water was pitch black as if it were
some sort of crude oil that had sprung a leak and formed a large
pool.

“
It’s. . . black,” Buster
echoed in a stunned voice.

He leaned over the edge of
the water, his hands on his knees. One hand held a beer and his
hat, which he had pulled off of his head when he saw the water. The
other hand held the machete in it.

“
It’s black,” he said
again.

That’s when the bubbles
came—green acid-like bubbles that rose to the top of the water and
then burst. As the bubbles popped smoke came from them.

“
What the hell?” Buster
said as he looked closer at the water. The bubbles began to
increase in number as if someone were blowing air into the water
causing it to bubble like it was.

“
Shii. . .” Buster started
to yell. I don’t remember if he finished the actual word he was
going to say or not. I do remember his face, though. He was scared.
His eyes bulged, his mouth froze. His hair, which was all of an
inch in length, stood on end, and I swear, it looked like it
changed from black to white in a matter of seconds.

The bubbling water grew
fierce until, finally, two bony hands reached out of the
bubbles—out of the water. The hands were reaching for Buster. He
had little time, if any, to react. His head snapped backwards as
one of the bony hands slashed at his face, cutting him across it,
sending blood into the air.

Buster stumbled back and
fell to the ground. He dropped his beer, hat and machete. Both of
his hands went up to his face, grabbing and holding the side that
was bleeding.

“
Johnny,” he yelled. His
voice was not slurred this time. Fear took its place.

I was scared still as I
watched a body surge from the lake’s black water. The body was clad
in the remnants of an early 1800’s dress. I think at one time the
dress had been blue and maybe even white. The body’s hair was long
and tangled, dangling from about middle of the skull back. It was
tattered and worn, eaten away by time. The front of its skull had a
gaping hole in it staring out like an all-seeing third eye. The
body moved in herky-jerky movements at first, then quick and
graceful. I guess it had to get its bearings straight or something
like that, you know, shake out all the cobwebs.

“
Miss Catherine?” I
whispered, or so I thought I had whispered it. I had really
screamed it at the top of my lungs. I am convinced of
this.

“
Miss Catherine?” Buster
yelled back at me in disbelief. “Miss Catherine?”

Miss Catherine was now out
of the water. Her bodice was a grisly sight of bones and, believe
it or not, flesh.

“
No,” Buster yelled as Miss
Catherine moved toward him. I ran to him and grabbed his arm. I
pulled him up and tried to run. Buster started screaming
hysterically. Another bony hand had reached up out of the ground
next to Buster and grabbed his ankle. I looked at the lake and saw
several more bodies rising from the depths of the murky black
water. They were all lurching, walking and crawling as they rose
from the water.

“
No, no, no, no, no, no,” I
could hear myself screaming. The arm that had come out of the
ground and grabbed Buster was now joined by its body as it rose
from the ground, bringing with it the wet mud it had been lying in.
The body began to pull Buster into the water. I wrapped both of my
hands around Buster’s forearm and began to pull with all I had in
me.

Miss Catherine was now right
in front of us. I could smell the stench of her and the other dead
people. My stomach began to roll as I felt the vomit trying to come
up. I swallowed hard and looked at her. Through the hole in her
skull I could see a snake, I guess a moccasin. I saw the snake
shoot out of the hole and toward Buster. It struck him in the face,
sinking its fangs into his flesh at just above the nose and between
the eyes. Buster screamed louder this time as the snake sunk its
sharp teeth deeper into his face. Buster began to shake his head
violently, making the snake’s body snap back and forth in the
air.

He screamed louder. And
louder. And louder, still.

I screamed with him, tears
stinging my eyes. My arms were growing weak as I continued to pull
on his arm.

More bodies were crawling
out of the water, clawing at Buster. I could only think that these
were the bodies of the 67 people that had died here and waited
patiently for someone like Buster to come along.

The dead man that held
Buster’s leg was now half in the water and was biting down on
Buster’s calf. Blood spurted from his camouflage fatigues. Once
again, he let out a pained howl.

I continued to pull on his
arm as the snake whip-snapped back and forth with the violent
shaking of Buster’s head. Blood sprayed from his face and his leg.
Then the machete came from out of nowhere. It was Miss Catherine
who had brought the machete down on Buster’s arm at just above his
elbow.

I fell to the ground,
Buster’s arm still in my hands. Blood poured out from the severed
arm. I watched it as it poured all over me.

Buster screamed
louder.

I screamed
louder.

The dead made no noises,
which goes to show that you can’t believe everything you see in the
movies. They did not moan and groan at all like the movie zombies
do.

They pulled Buster toward
the water. He was kicking and flailing as they pulled him. The
snake was still writhing on his face as he flung his head back and
forth. There were a couple of them biting into Buster, eating him
as he screamed.

I ran.

I ran, leaving my best
friend to die (very much like that fellow, Abraham, had done to
Miss Catherine). I could hear him screaming as he struggled to get
away from the bony, water dwelling dead.

“
Johnny,” he
screamed.

I ran.

I ran through the dead trees
and vines and briars. I ran, trying to stay on the path,
unsuccessfully. I ran passed the well. It looked like blood was
seeping through the cracks in its bricks. Blood poured from over
the top of the well. I know. . . I know I saw a body hauling itself
out of that damn well.

I was scared.

I was covered in
blood.

I was still holding Buster’s
severed arm.

I screamed as I dropped his
arm and kept running. I never looked back. By the time I reached
the truck Buster’s screams had stopped. The only real noise was my
own breath that was coming out in the form of screams.

Jumping in the truck I
pulled the keys out of my pocket. I cranked it up, pulled it out
and drove down the dirt road toward Sumter. Buster’s screams still
rang loudly in my ears. “Johnny,” I could hear him yelling over and
over. Tears streamed down from my eyes.

“
I’m sorry, Buster,” I
cried. “I’m sorry.”

I turned off the dirt road
and onto the interstate toward Sumter. A hand came from my right,
the passenger’s side. I screamed. Buster’s tattered, blood soaked
body was in the seat beside me. A deep rustic voice came from its
snake bitten face.

“
Why did you leave me,
Johnny?” he yelled. White foam flew from his mouth and hit me in
the face. I screamed a hoarse scream.

Buster reached out with his
left arm and grabbed my face. “Why did you leave me?” he asked
again. “Where’s my arm, Johnny?”

The truck swerved, ran off
the road, back on and then into on-coming traffic. Finally, the
truck smashed into a tree on the other side of Interstate
378.

That’s all I remember about
that day. I was told by the Sumter County Police that I had busted
into the police station, blood drenched and screaming about Buster.
I was screaming about him being torn from limb to limb, being eaten
by dead people out at the swamp. I’m sure they weren’t too happy
about me doing that.

Now, here I am, in this jail
cell, convicted of killing my best friend, Bobby “Buster” Lennon.
They never found his body. They never found his arm. They never
found that machete or his Dale Earnhardt cap. They found all the
beer cans, though. And a whole hell of a lot of blood.