Weirder Than Weird (6 page)

It is interesting to note that to this very day, all three men swear to the fact that as they were leaving the Skippers memorial, they heard a soft and muffled whistling at their feet. They got down on their hands and knees to listen. To a man, they would forever insist that the sound was coming from somewhere under the ice.

THE HAUNTED WOODS OF PAWPAW COUNTY

   
A cloud of dust billowed its way down the road and soon a motorcycle pulled up to a small weathered shack where an old man sat rocking on its front porch. The rider shut down his machine, hopped off, and gestured a greeting to the old man.

   
“Sorry for the dust, mister,” he said, slapping at his powdered covered jeans. “I’ve been choking on this God forsaken stuff for the past three days now.” He stepped onto the porch and held out his hand. “My name’s Burt Nyland. You must be Thaddeus Olsen.”

    
The old man took his hand. “That surely be my name, young feller,” he said, eyeing the rider from top to bottom. “Don’t get many folks a’comin round these day’s but it’s nice to make yer acquaintance all the same.”

   
“Likewise, Mr. Olsen,” replied the young man as he removed a bandana that was tied around his neck and patted away the sweat from his face.

   
“I’m sure you’re probably wondering why I came by to see you today. The truth is, I’m in the process of writing a book and have spent the last four month’s traveling the country trying to track down some stories.”

   
The old man raised an eyebrow. “Stories? Well now, that makes me a tad nervous why someone would come to see me about such things. Just what kinda’ stories we talkin’ about here?”

   
The young man laughed and sat down on the porch step. “Not to worry Mr. Olsen, I’m not investigating anyone. It’s just that I’ve been attempting to follow up on some ghost stories that I’ve been researching for quite awhile now. I’ve made my way from Pennsylvania all the way up to Maine and down the entire Eastern seaboard. I’ve heard some great tales along the way but since the very beginning I’ve been anxious to get here. You see, I’ve been hearing rumors of PawPaw County’s haunted woods for years and the folks in town said that if anyone could explain its mysteries it would be Thaddeus Olsen. I was hoping that you’d be willing to share some of its secrets with me.”

   
The old man turned his head and skillfully spat a stream of tobacco juice into a can next to his chair. “There’s no real secret to it at all, young feller,” he said, wiping his chin with his sleeve. “The hills and surroundin’ woods is haunted, plain and simple!” He pointed to a nearby hill blanketed in a thick pine canopy. “Ya see that ridge over yonder? Well, son, up there aways used to stand an old mansion that was part of a working plantation back in the early eighteen hundreds; there’s still pieces of the main house along with some splinters of wood from a number of slave shacks up on that ridge if’a person would wanna take a looksee. The plantation grave yard is also up there behind the house aways but folks round these parts have good sense not to go up there at night ‘cause that’s when the spirits of them dead people roam the grounds as if they was still alive!”

   
The young man became noticeably excited and quickly retrieved a note book from his vest pocket.

   
“Now it’s perfectly fine to be up there when the sun’s up,” continued the old man, “but when it starts a gettin’ dark then a soul better skedaddle quick from them woods!”

   
After a short while, the young man looked up from his writing. “Could you tell me of any particular encounters that people have had with these, um…spirits, maybe even something that you have experienced yourself, Mr. Olsen?”

     The old man considered the question then leaned forward in his rocker and spoke in a low tone as if to disclose the most confidential of information.

    “My pappy seen them spooks on many occasion, right out yonder,” he said, pointing to the field that spread out wide from his shack and ran to the base of the hills. “Ya see, them folks musta planted the fields out there before the trees took over the land ‘cause I found many a broken spade and shovel in that ground. My old pappy used to tell me stories about walkin’ home from work and seein’ these workers, black they was, from time to time bent over and doin’ some kinda work with the soil. The first time he saw ‘em it nearly scared the bejesus out of him. He hollered out to get their attention but they just ignored his calls. This irritated my old man and he walked up to ‘em so’s he could give ‘em a little of what fer, but when he got close, well sir… they just disappeared right before his eyes! Course, after a time he got used to seein’ ‘em and just let ‘em be. Truth is, I seen ‘em myself every now and then. They’s harmless down here in the valley, but like I said, don’t nobody stay up on that there hill after sunset, ain’t safe by a long shot!”

   
The young man stopped writing and turned to the old man. “This is such a great story, Mr. Olsen…it might even turn out to be the best story of my entire book!” He stood and glanced out towards the woods.

   
“I certainly appreciate your warnings, but now that I think about it, I’d better spend the night up on that ridge just to see for myself what’s really going on.”

   
The old man’s jaw dropped and the color seemed to drain from his face. “Don’t you be a damn fool now, son, you take a ride up there and look around a bit, but if yer life means anything, ya best leave before dark!”

   
The young man laughed under his breath, “I gotta tell you, Mr. Olsen, I’ve seen some mighty strange things these past few months but I didn’t come all this way just to scratch the surface of what could be my book’s most entertaining story.”

   
The old man shook his head. “Well, son…I spose your mind’s made up on the point but before you go, there’s a story that you might wanna hear…it’s about what happened to a boy that went up in those woods a long time ago.”

   
The young man eagerly nodded his interest and sat back down.

   
The old man turned his head and spit once more into the can. “Ya see…rabbits was as thick as grass round these parts at one time, and the boy found himself up on that ridge just after sundown still a’huntin them rabbits. Well sir, he knew not to be there after dark but he was needin’ to get just one more for the pot back home and he musta lost track of time. The darkness crept up on him and before he knew it, it was black as pitch outside. He finally decided it best to start back toward the main road but all of a sudden, he heard the bark of some old hound dogs in the distance and what looked like lights a’dancin through the trees and comin’ closer.”

   
“He had the idea that the whole thing was some kinda searchin’ party that his folks had sent out to find him, so he stayed put and hollered out to get their attention. Well sir, it was a searchin’ party alright but not what he was expectin‘! A group of men broke into the clearing carryin’ torches and leading them was a bunch of snarling dogs at the end of long chains. One of the men hollered out in an angry voice, ‘There he is!’ and proceeded to surround that poor frightened boy. A tall feller dressed in strange clothing came over to the boy and struck him square in the face with the end of what looked to be an old musket type rifle, the blow caused the boy to lose his senses and the next thing he knew he woke up some where’s else after bein’ doused head to toe with a bucket of cold water.

   
“He laid fer awhile on his back a’chokin out that water til two other mean lookin’ fellers yanked him off the ground and held him firm on either side. He could see a number of black folks standin’ round him, some holdin’ torches whilst others were weepin’ away as if someone had just died. The tall feller came up to him again, only this time he was holdin’ a large wood cutting axe in one of his hands. An old woman latched ahold of this feller’s legs and begged mercy for the boy, but he just threw her to the ground and shot her an evil look, then turned to the boy again and said, ‘Boy! This is the last time yer ever gonna be able to run from us!’ and with one mighty swing, he chopped off the end of that boy’s foot!”

   
“There came at once blood curdlin’ screams from the black folk and a few of ‘em fainted dead away. The old woman and some others started right off bandaging the boy’s foot as he laid there on the ground. This was the last thing he remembered before he passed out from the pain. He woke up next morning midst them grave markers all by himself. He thought for a moment that it was all just a bad dream till he felt a sharp pain comin’ from his foot. When he looked down, he saw the bloody bandages. That morning, he crawled his way back down that hill and swore that he would never return to those woods again after dark!”

   
The young man was smiling from ear to ear and frantically trying to get what he had just heard down on paper. “Fantastic stuff, Mr. Olsen!” he said with a wry smile. It was obvious that the old man had just spun one doozy of a yarn, but still, he would have no qualms about including such a flavorful tale in his book. He looked at his watch. “You know Mr. Olsen, I’ve only got an hour or so left of daylight and it just occurred to me that I should get some pictures taken of the remnants up there.” He got up and shook the old man’s hand once again. “I’d really like to stop back tomorrow sometime if you don’t mind so we can finish our talk. I’d certainly be interested in knowing where I can find the boy whose story you just told, that is, if he’s still around.”

   
“Oh, he’s still around, alright,” replied the old man. “You just remember what I said about getting out of them woods by dark.” There was a steely seriousness now to the old man’s voice.        

   
“I’ll remember. Mr. Olsen, and I’ll make it a point to see you tomorrow.”

   
The young man hopped onto his motorcycle and started up the old dirt road, kicking up a blanket of dust. The old man watched as the cloud disappeared into the thicket of trees at the base of the hill.

   
Sometime that night, the old man was awakened by the hauntingly familiar sound of dogs barking in the distance. He lifted himself up on one arm and peered out the corner of the window beside his bed. He could see small points of light between the trees on the hill where the old cemetery would be. He realized that he had not heard the roar of the young man’s motorcycle coming down the hill all evening long. A moment later, a distant shot rang out and echoed its way down to his shack; a second one soon followed. The old man felt an icy shiver go through him as he eased himself back down onto his bed and stared blankly into the darkness.   

   
“Poor young fool,” he said to himself and immediately the memory of his childhood trauma came flooding back to him as if it had just occurred; his foot responded by throbbing with a pain he had spent a lifetime desperately trying to forget.

REVENGE IS VERY SWEET

     His name is Sal Berringer, aka “Sal the Bug Man.” In fact, that very title is boldly stated in faded burgundy letters on the side of a rusty heap of a van, one that groaningly transports his ponderous frame one infestation to the next. You see, Sal had found his life’s calling more than thirty years ago as a result of a … well… an unexpected event.

   
As it was, the enchantment of a nine-year-olds birthday was forever ruined as an army of voracious black ants milled about in a playground of Marzipan that was intended to be a special birthday cake… for a special boy… on his special day.

   
He can still remember looking on with utter dejection as his mother scraped the ravaged remnants into the trash with the empty consolation, “Don’t you worry Sal, there will be other birthdays.”

   
Most of us would be hard pressed to ascribe one instance in our lives that was the impetus for a true life changing event, especially one so seemingly insignificant, but for Sal this was it.

   
It can honestly be said that two life-long obsessions were formed that day as a result of his birthday trauma, for one, he would forever associate himself with sugary concoctions… pies, cakes, candies, virtually anything sweet. For this unhealthy indulgence psychologists would use the phrase “over compensating” and Sal certainly did that, in fact, he would eventually overcompensate himself past the three hundred pound mark.

   
As for the other obsession, simply put, he hated bugs! Hate was even too mild a word to describe how he felt, he actually despised them, all of them, not just the black ants that ruined his day many years ago, he developed a deep loathing and aversion for any and all of God’s creepy crawlers. But of course, as sometimes happens, an obsession can be transformed into something useful and maybe even profitable. This is what ultimately happened to Sal.

   
Out of his bug hatred was born a very prosperous exterminating business. For years he enjoyed all the work he could handle and received high praise from his clients for his bug killing prowess. He once even received a plaque from the mayor’s office thanking him for his efforts in eliminating the Great Cockroach Infestation of ‘89 at the courthouse.

   
Yes, Sal was on top of his game for many years but unfortunately over time, the constant snacking and exposure to the toxic fumes he worked with took its toll on the old boy and now a’days  he found himself working less and less. In his progressive lethargy, he became exceedingly careless and on this particular day he arrived home not feeling well. As it turns out, it totally slipped his mind to change the filters in his gas mask and that old familiar tingly feeling was coursing through his body once again. Only this time the effects were much more pronounced. He had become somewhat disoriented and increasingly unsteady upon his feet. His solution for feeling better however had always been the same… PANCAKES!

   
He got to work whipping up his favorite dish and in no time was holding a fluffy stack of “mouthwatering magic,” as he liked to call it. He poured close to a whole bottle of syrup upon the dish as he smacked his meaty lips in anticipation. He made his way to the table but after a few steps a faintness suddenly overtook him and he began to swoon. He grabbed for something to steady his house size frame but it was too late. Sal the bug man hit the floor with an Earth shattering explosion.

   
He lie there upon the floor among a scattering of cakes and broken plate, his left foot and leg covered in a sticky syrupy mess. After a few moments of regaining his senses, he took inventory of his person. “Nothing feels broken,” he thought to himself. “As a matter of fact…” An unsettling realization suddenly crossed his mind. “I can’t feel a thing… I can’t even move!” He broke into a cold sweat. “I think… I must have broken my neck!”

   
The thunderous vibration from his fall caught the attention of the tiny inhabitants of the house and they came running to see what had caused the sizable earthquake. Sal looked on with horror as a stream of red ants made their way across the kitchen floor. The golden brown nectar seemed to send them into a wild frenzy and soon there were thousands of tiny eating machines pouring out from every crack and crevice imaginable. In no time his leg was fully engulfed by the swarming mass and he let out a scream in desperation.

   
“Oh, that’s just great!” came a tiny voice, seemingly out of nowhere. “Sal the bug man, the great Sal… King of the Exterminators cries out like a little girl!”

   
“What? Who’s there?” asked Sal, rolling his eyes trying to see who was talking, “Please go get some help,” he implored the voice. “I think I broke my neck!”

     “Is that so, fat boy!” came a sarcastic reply.

    Sal frantically rolled his eyes once more.

   
“No Shamu, down here! Look down, you big bag of cookie dough!”

   
Sitting upon his chest was a large black ant intently staring him in the face. “That’s right, I’m talking to you, bug killer!”

   
Sal focused his attention on the little creature. “No!” he said to himself, “this can’t be… I must be dreaming!”

   
“You think so, do you tubby? What do you guys think?” the ant cried out as it looked around the room. “Is this a dream my friends?”

   
A clamor of small voices immediately broke out and soon fell into a steady chant of “BUG KILLER! BUG KILLER! BUG KILLER!”

   
The entire room was awash with ants, grasshoppers, crickets, cockroaches, spiders and every type of insect imaginable, their families all having felt the merciless sting of Sal’s vile methods. The ant raised one of its legs and the crowed soon quieted.

   
“Damn all of you creepy slinkers!” Sal screamed in protest, his face reddening, “If I could move I would squash each and every one of you into oblivion!”

   
They all laughed mockingly at the impotent bug killer.

   
The ant moved a little closer to Sal’s face. “Kind of plucky for a motionless fat man, don’t you think? How horrible it must be for you to be at the mercy of the tiniest of creatures!”

   
Sal responded by attempting to blow the ant from his chest, only he was soon panting from his efforts.

   
The ant laughed out loud. “How truly pathetic you are, old boy!” It turned to the crowed once again. “What do you guys think we should do with this beached whale of a bug killer?”

   
“EAT HIM!” came a singular shout from the kitchen counter. The rest of them picked up on the words and a resounding chant was intoned once again. “EAT HIM! EAT HIM! EAT HIM!”

   
The ant again turned to Sal, “We hold all the cards now, Sal! How does it feel, old boy? The shoe’s on the other foot now, isn’t it? Oh, that’s right!” said the ant, followed by a maniacal laugh, “My mistake… you don’t have a foot!”

   
It then looked back at Sal’s foot and Sal followed its gaze. A grizzled look of horror suddenly flashed on Sal’s face. The ants had thoroughly picked his flesh clean and only a skeletal foot remained. He then let forth the mother of all screams… “AHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

   
“Calm down Mr. Berringer,” said a soft and soothing voice floating on the periphery of his senses. “Please, just relax sir, you’re in the hospital and we’re taking good care of you.”

   
Sal groggily awoke to a figure standing over him wearing a cap, mask and gown. “What… what happened? I can hardly see a thing!”

   
“Are you having difficulty focusing, Mr. Berringer?” asked the nurse bending closer.

   
“Yeah… you’re all blurry, what’s going on here?”

   
“Well sir, your neighbor spotted you lying on your kitchen floor in a pool of blood and fortunately for you called an ambulance.”

   
Sal tentatively wriggled his fingers and lifted his arms, a look of relief passed over his face.        

   
“The doctor is pulling pieces of a plate from your foot right now.”

Sal glanced down and a second later saw a masked face pop up from behind a tented apparatus at his feet.

    “Good to have you back with us, Mr. Berringer! I’m Doctor Tapinoma, I’m just taking out some plate slivers from your foot… it’s quite a mess down here. I’ve given you a local anesthetic so you shouldn’t feel a thing. You’ve lost quite a bit of blood, but you’ll be fine. As for your impaired vision and any paralysis you may have experienced…well… it’s the result of an overexposure of the chemicals you use in your work. Perhaps you should consider another line of work, sir!” The doctor’s voice had suddenly changed, sounding quite serious and judgmental.

   
“Ha! Yeah right!” Sal replied. “As soon as I’m able I have a score to settle at home!”

   
Just then he felt a little foolish; had it not all been a wild hallucination as a result of his exposure to the chemicals? He laughed out loud at his own silliness.

   
“I suppose it’s all just a big game to you, huh Mr. Berringer?” the doctor held a long cold stare over the top of the tent, his eyes were oddly shaped, dark and menacing. “Well then!” he blurted out, “In that case… I’ll need your assistance here, nurse!”

   
Sal looked perplexed. “Did I say something wrong?” but there was no response, he only heard the doctor say to the nurse, “Now for a generous amount right there… now some on this area…fine, that should do it.” An arm appeared momentarily from the side of the tent and placed a bottle on a tray at the foot of the bed. Sal’s vision was starting to clear, he looked at the bottle, it was somehow familiar. Two objects that looked like masks were suddenly tossed to the side then what appeared as four black spikes could be seen bobbing up and down behind the tent. Despite the anesthetic, an aggressive tugging on his foot could be felt, as well as an increase in pain.

   
“What the hell is going on down there!” Sal screamed. His vision was almost back to normal now and he finally recognized the bottle on the tray as sweat poured down his puffy cheeks.     

   
“That’s… that’s Log Cabin Syrup!”

   
He then remembered something that literally stopped his breath… the doctor… his name… Doctor Tapinoma… Tapinoma…TAPINOMA!

   
“MY GOD!” he screamed out loud. “THAT’S A SPECIES OF ANT!”