The Deadsong (12 page)

He wanted her. She wasn’t like the others. She played hard to get. But she was completely into him. That’s what he thought anyway, and he considered their little romp around Goose Creek to be a means of showing Gina who was top dog, who was better for her. Then those snakes came and scared the ever loving bejesus out of him. Jared could have gotten bit and died and he’d be without his best friend for the first time since he and Jared took turns coloring a picture of a giraffe in Miss Anderson’s kindergarten class. It was a close call, that’s all.

But now he could see Jared was proving to be far more impressive to Gina than he hoped. Duke wrinkled his nose and rapped his knuckles on the table.

He checked his watch again.
Maybe he forgot
, Duke thought. He, Seth, and Roger talked earlier in the week about coming here and had made plans to bowl a few games before the football team met at five to go over tonight’s bloodbath with the Lewiston Tigers. It was past twelve now, and Seth was the punctual one. He should have been here already…

Roger tapped Duke on the shoulder and when Duke saw the look on his face, it was grave. Part of him knew why, but this was the kind of thing you shoved down into the basement of your brain, the place where all things horrible and malicious had teeth, and all the secrets were best kept under lock and key.

After Roger recounted the loss of a friend and fellow teammate, Duke slumped in his seat and felt a sickening gas of dread work its way through him. When someone you knew died because of a snakebite, you grieved, buried them, and got over it. And there were a lot of funerals this time of year. Almost everyone in the county had a closet full of black they picked through while the reaping went on. Tomorrow, Duke would wear his usual getup––black button-down shirt, black necktie, and charcoal slacks––to Prescott Funeral Home where about half of the community would be also. The other half got tired of the occasion and stayed home to kick back in front of the TV with a cold one and dream about what life was like outside of their little slice of hell.

Duke watched as Jared and Gina exchanged their bowling shoes for their own.

“I feel sick,” he said to Roger, who had his face buried in his hands.

Roger slid his hands down and rolled his gaze above Duke’s head. “Hey, Jared. I guess you heard?”

“I did, man. It’s awful.” Jared patted Duke on the shoulder. Duke turned around and saw no hat-wearing hottie standing there. Only Jared.

“Where’s Gina?” Duke asked.

“Said she was going downtown. Errands for her mom, I think.” Jared felt as though Gina hadn’t been completely honest when she told him that, but whatever she was really doing didn’t seem to matter that much.

“Game still on?”

“Talked to the coach about an hour ago,” Jared said, stretching. “The game goes on. Life goes on.”

That remark gave Duke chills, and Duke Pearson was no wuss, no woman. A startling realization hit him like a Mack truck. Hemming was a well-oiled machine that drove on through anything as trivial and as natural as death, passing it by with no remorse. Duke wore an icy cloak that exuded this same mentality. He didn’t want people to like him.

He wanted them to fear him.

Duke had to man up. He pushed away all that sensitivity and fell back in line, taking his seat on that runaway hot rod called Hemming.

He drove on through.

Life goes on.

3

Gina had only been to the archives once while researching the agricultural history of Arlo County for an essay in seventh grade. Most of the files on the twenty years of reaping were gone.

She saw the man sitting by the window, surrounded by towers of books and papers. In front of him sat a laptop computer. To his right: four empty styrofoam cups. To his left: a massive volume opened in the middle to a color photo spread of snakes.

He was handsomely dressed, chewing on an arm of his hornrimmed glasses. He must have felt her staring at him because he looked over his shoulder carefully. His eyes were bloodshot.

“Hi,” he said apprehensively.

“My brother told me about you.”

He squinted and relaxed, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Ah, Dylan. I can see the resemblance. Except you’re not a ginger, of course. What’s your name?”

“Gina.”

“Gina,” he repeated, somewhat startled by this beauty who now stood before him. “I like that name.”

She pointed at the computer screen. “What are you looking at there?”

“What? Oh this.” He put on his glasses and clicked the mouse a few times. “Well, I became rather intrigued with this whole Keeper of Serpents thing you people have been going on about, so I did some research.”

“You won’t find much here.”

“You’re right about that. I ran a search through a historical text database. Thousands of books and manuscripts are digitally archived there and best of all, they’re searchable. See?”

Alan put his finger on the screen. “I just came across this when you showed up.” He clicked some more and a color photo appeared. It was a book with the words

Custos Serpentium
and an illustrated snake embossed on the cover. It was old. Very old. Gina thought it looked like it had been to hell and back, and part of her wondered if it wasn't far from the truth.

He looked at her, reveling in his discovery. “Know what that is?”

“It’s Latin, right?”

“Right you are. Know what it says?”

“We don’t have Latin at our school, Mr. Blair.”

“Alan,” he corrected and drew his finger under the subheading. Gina leaned in closer to read the caption in its entirety. Her abdomen tightened. Air whooshed from her lips until her lungs were emptied…

Text Title:
Custos Serpentium

Translated Title:
The Keeper of Serpents

Author:
Sir Hugo Piersonne

Date:
1874 (month of publication unknown)

Source:
University
of Glasgow, Special Collections

Digital reproduction courtesy of the

International Preservation Society

There it was right in front of her. Alan scrolled through the text, keywords highlighted throughout.

“I printed off two copies. One to take back to the motel and one for my boss. Here.” Alan handed her one of the manuscripts bound with a large metal clip. “I can always print another.”

Gina was ecstatic. Alan closed his laptop and sighed. “I’m calling it a day. Might head over and grab something to eat. Want to join me?”

“I can’t, thanks. I gotta get back home soon anyway. Going to the football game tonight.”

“Really? Me, too.”

“Great! Well, maybe I’ll see you there.”

“Look that over. You know what’s been going on better than I do. If something stands out, make note of it. I can use all the help I can get, so if you and Dylan want to help me, I’d very much appreciate it.”

Alan was particularly excited about the possibility of being spoon-fed a whole den full of these reaper snakes, that is, if this Wiggins cat wasn’t completely off his rocker. Then again, the whole cast of peculiar country folk he’d met since his arrival sent a flurry of distress from his toes to his overworked brain. If there was indeed a crazy man running around in the night using snakes to kill children, then he might have bit off more than he could chew.

Alan Blair’s ambition and optimism became stifled with childlike trepidation as he grew ill with an unexpected and possibly lethal case of the heebie jeebies.

CHAPTER
SIX
:
MAN
NAMED
THADE

1

Gina had made it up the stairs and into the lobby of the archives when a framed black and white photo caught her eye. In it was a gaunt-faced man of about thirty leaning against an old car. In his hand, a glass jar with XXX written on the side.

His name was Rip Taggart. Back in the sixties, he could be heard barreling down the back roads of Hemming in his Hudson Hornet evading Constable Cloyd Green and his son Mikey who often rode with his father when he wasn't in school or picking cotton for the Gilbreth family. Cloyd had first heard Rip was running moonshine over from Cullman County to the local billiards hall on Main Street. Cloyd had been off-duty, walking past the the place when Gerald Inslet came out with a bulge in his wool coat. He asked Gerald if he was toting a bottle of what the old-timers called Crazy Clear. He was too trashed to come up with a solid lie, so Gerald gave up the owner, Eddie Raulston at the time, and said Eddie had indeed been buying it from Rip, boxes of the stuff, each bottle wrapped in burlap, and he would sell you a bottle for two dollars. Cloyd chased Rip down nearly every week because the people of Hemming expected him to, but it was mostly role-play. Cloyd confiscated as much Crazy Clear as he could to promise re-election, but he himself sipped the stuff without much guilt. Cloyd Green died of tuberculosis in 1986, but Rip Taggart could still be seen at Avery's every morning eating fried eggs with Floyd Wiggins. He still had the Hudson. He kept it in Bill Traver's Junkyard out towards the Cullman County line.

Gina waved to the lady at the front desk and walked out of the archives. The dense smell of rain hung in the air, the sky taking on a gross, decayed look. She sighed and checked her front pocket for cash. She would need it for the football game later tonight. Dylan was going with Garrett Eucher but she needed to make an appearance. Jared would be expecting her.

It began to rain.

She groped for the elusive satisfaction, the comfort of knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that this would be the last time, the last reaping season. There was no more hope or longing left in her bones that quaked beneath her flesh. It would be the last, she thought. And part of her wondered if she might be the grand finale. Unless she disappeared, went away to where the Keeper couldn’t find her. The dark shadows of the passing season would falter and dissolve like a feathery cloud broken by the summer sun. She would gather her things and simply blink out. Hemming would forget her and the bounty on her life.

And Dylan. What about him? He would come with her, of course. She knew he would. She was sure of it.

Wouldn't he?

She crossed over to Main Street. The wind had grown fierce and unforgiving. She pulled down the hood of her slicker and splashed through the quickly growing puddles on the sidewalk. Charlie Douglas's camera shop was still open. She went inside.

“Girl, you're gonna catch cold hopping around out in this mess!”

Charlie was standing beside the door watching the color drain out of the world beyond the store windows. The yellow neon signage of the pharmacy across the street was doused in a heavy metallic downpour, flickering twice before the electricity ran out of it.

“The sun was out twenty minutes ago,” Gina said brushing the dripping curls from her forehead.

“Well, that's Tennessee weather for ya.” Charlie went into the back room and came back with a towel. “Here.”

Gina took it. “Thanks, Charlie.”

“No sweat, kid.” He rocked back on the display platform behind the store window. “Seen your mom this afternoon. Pretty as ever.”

“At the bank?”

“Nah, saw her at the Billy Burger. She dating somebody?”

“Why, Charlie? You wanna phone her up for a date?”

“No ma’am. I've known your mother since she was in diapers and besides, it seems like she already has a fella.”

“What do you mean?”

“She was with a man. Thought he might have been a boyfriend or something like that. Guy named Sam.”

“She hasn't mentioned anything to me about meeting anyone. If you didn't recognize him, he must not be local.”

“Looked familiar, but I can't place his face. Tall guy with thinning hair. Sharp looking, though. Pinstripe suit and the works. Shoes shined so well you could use em as shaving mirrors.”

She thought hard but couldn't come up with anybody named Sam who might have flown under the radar and won her mother's heart. “You’re sure his name was Sam, Charlie?”

Charlie's forehead wrinkled. “Yes ma’am, I'm dead sure of it. She introduced him as Samuel Thade. Didn't mention what business he was in, but from the looks of him, I'd say he's doing well for himself.”

Gina chewed her bottom lip.
Who the hell is this guy?

Charlie flipped the sign on the front door to Closed. “Tell you what, Gina, I'm gonna go ahead and close up for the day. Give me a minute and I'll take you home.”

2

“This here is Mr. Samuel Thade.” Linda’s cheeks rouged a bit, but she didn’t give a damn.

Mr. Thade drew back his lips in a toothy smile and stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you both. Your mother’s already shown me your baby photos and I must say I feel like I know you already!”

“That’s terrific,” Gina said.
Oh brother.

The look on Dylan’s face. His eyes told Gina everything she needed to know. Whoever Samuel Thade was, he had come quickly and without welcome. But their mother’s face…

She was floating on a cloud, dreamily lost and completely consumed by this stranger who now stood in their living room.

Thade unbuttoned his pinstriped blazer and plopped down like he owned the place. “This is so great! You both seem like really wonderful children!”

“Thanks,” Dylan bumped the heel of Gina’s foot with his own.
Let’s get outta here.

Linda went into the kitchen and came back with coffee. She handed a mug to her guest––Dick’s favorite mug he got as a door prize from Avery’s.

“Do you want milk or sugar?” Linda asked as though she’d be waiting tables all her life.

“No thank you, muffin,” Thade replied. “If it wasn’t black, I’d give it back.” He burst into a fit of wild laughter that was so shrill and unnerving, Gina and Dylan both nearly plugged their ears.
Muffin. What’s next? Sugar bear? Sweetie pie? Honey Bunches of Oats? Come on over here, plum dumpling! Lemme give ya a big old smackeroo in front of your little darlings!