Soothing the Savage Swamp Beast

  Copyright © 2019 by Zakary McGaha

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Bizarro Pulp Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

  Bizarro Pulp Press, a JournalStone imprint

  www.BizarroPulpPress.com

  The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-947654-89-1

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-947654-90-7

  Printed in the United States of America

  JournalStone rev. date: April 12, 2019

  Interior Formatting: Lori Michelle

  www.theauthorsalley.com

  Edited by: Sean Leonard

  For Sweetie. Love, peace, and the understanding type of quiet are all synonymous.

  BOOK ONE:

  WHEN PASSIONS CONFUSE

  PROLOGUE

  Cadesville is an interesting southern town. Its outermost edge is right on the ocean, yet the people are no different than Appalachian rednecks. It’s filled with brush trees, greenery, and, within the trees and greenery, swamps.

  One of these swamps is called the Holy Snake Swamp.

  People don’t go to there, typically.

  Currently, something large and scaly breaches the surface of the swamp’s mucky water. Suddenly, a rodent of some kind is projected upward. It flies through the air, then lands on soft ground. Green sludge drips from its mouth, nose, eyes, and ears.

  Within the rodent is a burning need to kill.

  ***

  Hicks Galore: Southern Proud. That’s the name of the show. The crowd is yelling for more. They want to hear Junior Hicks’s inventive-ass fiddle go through the rounds a second time. They want that guy with the hat to pick the hell out of his banjo. They want that dude slapping the fuck out of the upright bass to slap it some more, slap it like he would his sister’s sweet ass.

  Unfortunately for them, the show’s over, and Junior Hicks exits the Baptist church, humming his favorite of all his tunes. The gig tonight went well; decent bit of cash to spend at the music store.

  He gets in the band’s van, ignites the engine, and hums softly to himself as the rest of the players enter, set down their equipment, and get buckled in.

  On the drive back, he continues humming, not saying a word.

  Eventually, tired of the silence, Hicks’ banjo player says, “So, you think we’ll be goin’ back there a lot? They seem to really like us.”

  “They’re nothin’ but stupid yokels. They’ll eat anything up that has ‘South’ stamped on it.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “Damn right I’m right.”

  Junior Hicks is proud of himself tonight. Yokel after yokel times three was basically handing him money, saying, “Here, give us some of your fiddlin’ magic,” and he’s taking the dough, thinking to himself the entire time: I hope you meant ‘magik’ with a ‘k,’ for Junior Hicks is a man who’s found something in life: beauty.

  A special kind of beauty that he intends to eventually share with the entire world. If you find something out, share it, don’t be selfish; being selfish is the worst thing an enlightened person can do. If Junior Hicks is one thing, it’s enlightened.

  Most people think it’s the music he plays that’s magic, but they’d be wrong. He, himself, views his music as simply derivative. It speaks to a dead culture that’s now entirely composed of wannabe young’uns putting on their ancestors’ clothing. The whole redneck thing is a step back in time; a devolution (one that’s way too proud and smug). However, it’s proven to be profitable. Meet the demands. Take the funds. It can’t hurt.

  Junior Hicks doesn’t know how his players see it, though. They’re probably serious about this shit.

  But more power to ’em because, if they are serious, that only helps him get more money.

  He drops each player off at their respective abode, then heads to his small shack near the Holy Snake Swamp. He’s never taken anyone there because, quite simply, normal people can’t (and shouldn’t) go there. You need to be more than human to bask in the glory.

  When he arrives at his shack, a new pet is waiting on his doorstep.

  ***

  It’s storming, but Harold is perfectly content under his RV’s awning, picking on his guitar, getting ready to sing a song of slaughter.

  A loud MOO breaks his concentration, and he notices a cow that somehow breached the old, dangerous looking barbed fence separating the slaughterhouse’s property from the campground’s.

  I gives you my loves. Does you gives me yours?

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” says the old man, rising from his lawn chair. He heard the mind-voice. No doubt about it.

  He walks to the cow, disregarding the downpour of rain. He gives it a fatherly pat on the head, scratches behind its ear, and says, “I gives you my loves.”

  The cow licks his hand.

  It looks like it’s smiling, but it probably isn’t.

  CHAPTER 1

  Vogel and Aldert

  The taste of Wintermint gum is in her mouth, and she’s watching him through the grimy, greasy window. He’s digging next to the house. His skinny back is no doubt cracking and popping with every hard shove on the shovel. Beside him lie three dead dogs, wrapped in a white bedsheet.

  She can tell it’s driving him crazy: he’s a lover of animals. She wants to calm him down, pat his back, fetch him a bit of tea, something, anything to get him feeling close to well.

  When he starts grabbing at the rolled-up corpse-pups, she looks away. Blood stains the dingy white of the bedsheets. She can’t bear to see those pretty, happy, doggy faces, forever frozen in time, soon to decay away and transition into skeletal beings.

  She retreats to the darkness of the house, clasps her hand over her mouth, and thinks about times when things were going right.

  Things were going right once. When she was a graduate of a state college, set to be married to the man who’s now outside burying dead canines.

  It wasn’t too long ago.

  The man’s name is Aldert.

  Her name is Vogel.

  And together they’re going to face this, this thing called adult life. But they probably won’t win.

  ***

  He packs the dirt tight and vows that tomorrow he’s going to plant something there. They were good pups; they deserve some sort of grave marker. What better than a sweetly scented flower?

  He wipes away his forehead sweat with his arm, but it doesn’t help because his forearm is sweaty, too .

  He needs a shower, yet he’s afraid to leave Vogel alone, even for just a minute. Back in his youth, all the old Dutch men would tell him things: they’d tell him to make sure his woman was taken care of at all times.

  A solution: tell her to use the bathroom while he’s showering. Everyone has to go, sooner or later; it’s not pretty, but it’s a fact of life.

  No, that’s crazy.

  You can’t live in fear, fool.

  Images pop into his head. It’s a sunny day; he’s back in his old schoolyard. The pups he just buried are chasing him and his friends (all of whom he hasn’t seen since high school). The pups are decaye
d and whatnot, but there’s a ferocity about them; they’re strong; they’re fast. Oh hell no says one of the kids, just before a dog jumps him and begins tonguing his ear with a snotty, rot-drenched licker.

  Aldert shakes his head, slaps his temples, tries to make himself stop dwelling on this shit. Suck it up; it’s a fact of life (things are fucked the hell up), deal with it, because if you don’t, the world will screw you over and over again, then you’ll be butt-hurt, disenfranchised, and depressed as an edgy, Millennial film student.

  Men suck it up; that’s what men do. Aldert, he’s a man, and he’s going to let it be known to all the people in this small, rural-ass town: men take care of their women.

  Those puppies, though. Those puppies were so sweeeeeet. Yet, he had to kill them, had to bloody their bodies, wrap them from view, and shove them into the ground. They were all sweet creatures, all so great. They’d get giddy when he arrived home from work, and they’d lick him and then lick him some more. And the yapping, oh, the yapping was sooooo cute.

  No more yapping; things can’t yap, especially if they’re just beneath topsoil.

  ***

  She assured him she’d be okay while he was washing digging-grease from his pores. She’d stay inside, perhaps go to the darkened living room and read that really old book they found. Read it by the lamp where the light’s that yellow kind of light—not harsh fluorescent—yellow light is easier on the eyes.

  He’d told her okay before stomping off through the house, dirtying things up. He doesn’t walk delicately, he doesn’t keep things clean, he leaves grease smudges on all her nice, old-world kitchen utensils and various knick-knack decorations.

  But she’s okay with that; it doesn’t matter. In the thick of things (in the thick of life), nothing is clean and smudge-free. Only in death are things spotless, at least until stuff starts returning to dust. Cleanliness is just a human-created illusion.

  When the shower’s turned on, you can hear it all through the house; it’s an old house, so the pipes are like that. It’s comforting, really. You can’t hear much on this property, save for cars driving on some of the rural backroads; there’s also an interstate if you walk through the woods far enough.

  She sits in the recliner by the lamp and sets the book on her lap; it’s an antique book, there’s no publisher information, but there is a year identifier: 1890. The book was written by “I.A.” On another page, she found those to be the initials for “Intentionally Anonymous.” If anything, the large, six-hundred-page book is intriguing. It’s the story of Intentionally Anonymous: he lived somewhere near here, as evidenced by names specific to the locale. He had problems with other townspeople; the other townspeople had problems with him, some thought him to be a witch, kind of, some thought him to be a prude because he claimed the neighbor’s dog was a wicked-ass beast—Fuck that wicked-ass beast, he’d said, in his typical 1800s way—some others thought he was simply paranoid.

  Vogel has done her research, she’s looked up the book on Amazon, several antique book sites, etc. Nothing. Nada. Probably an early example of self-publishing.

  Strange parallels to this story and her current life exist, but she’s chosen to write them off as mere coincidences. That’s probably what they are.

  When the high-pitched shower pipe sound stops, she’s sad. She liked that sound; when it fills the house, she’s happy because it fills her with warm thoughts. It makes her think of getting in the yellow, dingy shower, letting the water heat her skin.

  When Aldert enters the living room in pajamas, his hair is wet, and it looks like he’s feeling light years more relaxed. He sits on the dark blue couch and stares at the Christmas tree they’ve still yet to take down. “That thing’s stayin’ up,” he says. “It kind of makes me happy. It’s just . . . nice.”

  “It makes me happy, too,” she says. “It’s like the May Pole.”

  “The what?”

  “It’s in a Hawthorne story. These people in the woods worship a tree. It makes ’em happy. I mean, it makes them really happy.”

  Aldert nods his head; he’s never been much of a reader. Of course, he had to go and marry a stinking English major.

  Vogel stares at the tree with the Hawthorne story in mind. It makes her happy; the tree is a symbol of peace, but, of course, it’s a symbol of peace that’s not grounded in anything. You can’t have peace without chaos, that’s what those people in the story should’ve learned.

  Good for her, she’s got plenty of chaos. Mostly of the internal variety, of course.

  ***

  She’d been on this property before, when she was a kid. Vogel always loved it: This place was like a fairytale land. Something about the trees and ever-so-distant sounds of cars. And the sunlight. For whatever reason, the sunlight’s always prettier here, probably due to how it filters through the trees. Also, the house is always dark on the inside: it’s good when you need a place to hide.

  Retreat to the darkness. Let it engulf you. Yeah, that’s right, let yourself ease into it. It’s better this way.

  These days, she’s fully eased into the darkness. She married Aldert, they looked for homes, this one was for sale, and she said, “Hey, let’s move there. I used to hang out there as a kid.” They’d gone out, looked at the house, and decided it was right.

  If only things went well, according to plan, and even.

  Instead, things got messed up. Life got complicated. Grief hit hard. Aldert, he lost his father, mother, and grandmother to a car crash. One day, out of the blue, he gets the phone call informing him that his entire family is gone.

  Sure, he knew he’d outlive them all, but he expected it to be a gradual thing. Not an all-at-once, just-when-you’re-starting-your-life ordeal. So, that was strike number one against happiness. The second came with the plant job. Sure, they needed someone to work the office and manage things. That’s fine; the pay is well, not super-well, but well. Then things happen, so ugly, so wrong. Now, three dogs lie dead outside the kitchen window, buried in the future spot of bright pink flowers.

  ***

  It’s dark out now, and some stars are visible. Not like you can see many these days.

  Aldert is flipping through TV channels, contemplating getting a streaming stick, and Vogel is still reading on Intentionally Anonymous’s book. Neither have spoken in hours; things are decompressing.

  The three dead dogs’ memory stinks within both of their skulls. For a while, the smell had been getting riper, more pungent; now, it’s receding, the stink’s going bye-bye. In Aldert’s mind, it’s worse, because he was there, he smelled them himself. Vogel, she could only imagine. In her case, the more distant the scent of decomposing bodies that once held beautiful doggy souls, the better.

  Vogel knows one thing: When you’re young, death doesn’t hit you hard because you’ve not seen much of it, hopefully. But when you get older and start experiencing the passing of loved ones, things get real, and the world starts seeming a lot darker, a lot colder, and a whole lot more dangerous.

  Childhood: you’re fucking safe, and you can poot around and let your immature imagination run rampant. Adulthood: your imagination’s more mature, and, if you’ve learned how to live right, just as active, but reality starts getting realer, and imagination seems less important. Childish things remain childish, and nostalgia dies because it was all lies.

  When Aldert’s parents died, Vogel comforted the hell out of him. Eventually, he got better, but that’s because he realized it couldn’t get any worse; emotions plateaued, and he eventually started taking joy in things. Now, the harsh pain’s gone, and more joy has returned, but the dull, unfeeling pain is there.

  They both learned something: you can be in pain without hurting, no matter how used to it you get, it’s still there. Ignoring is only a short term benefit.

  Vogel’s started to feel it: fear. Not too long from now, both her parents will die, and it’ll be her and Aldert, all alone. No big families, no get-togethers. As of now, no children.

  No
dogs, either.

  ***

  The alarm clock goes off, and damn, Aldert is scared. He knows what’s at work, but no one believes him. Or maybe they do, maybe they don’t want him knowing they know.

  Lazily, he gets ready for work. He slips on his clothes, combs his hair, and thinks about food, but it’s kind of sickening: lately acid reflux has been a real thing. Vogel watches him from the toilet as she takes her morning pee; she’s stopped caring about decency.

  “You know, I could make you breakfast,” she says.

  “I thought you didn’t do things like that?”

  “Normally, I don’t. I’d tell you to make your own damn breakfast. But, I mean, you’ve been through a lot.”

  “It’s true, but I’m not hungry. Food would probably hurt the fuck out of my stomach.”

  “Yeah. Well, I’m just having cereal and coffee. I don’t think I’m going in today. Gonna call in a sub. I’m just not feeling it.”

  “I’m not feeling anything.”

  And that’s that. Aldert is out the door, in his car, and driving to the plant. Vogel is on the phone, calling a sub, faking sick sounds, and promising to tip.

  ***

  Things are so peaceful and serene, it’s hard to imagine the events from yesterday, and the day before that. Snapping little dog-things; mean-ass laughing (of the human kind) from the woods. Yeah, that was all bad, it was madness, but it fit with Aldert’s crazy accusations.

  One day, he’s home early from work, and he’s saying his coworker had this dog in the back of his truck; it was all slimy and green and red with pus and drippings, and he could have sworn the damn thing was chewing on a human leg.

  Then, lo and behold, while he’s trying to make sense of what he saw, from the woods come dogs—evil-looking dogs—and they’re eating the hell out of his own dogs before retreating. All while some lunatic in the woods is laughing.

  The weirdest thing is this: the dogs dripping green pus only did the dirty deed out of malice; they did it to kill. What kind of animal does that? And the maniacal laughing . . . it was, simply put, the scariest moment ever.