Bearing Gifts

“So, what’s the catch?”

“No catch, sir!  Just fill out this contest entry form for your chance to win our very finest hardwood gazebo kit and free professional installation!  But today is the last day to enter, so it’s a good thing you came in today!”

Sunny proffered her cheap blue pen to Frank to go with the index card entry form and tiny clipboard already in his hands.  He looked from the pen to her red and white nametag to her puffy, smiling face before taking the pen and filling in the usual blanks.

“Why the hell not?” he asked himself.  Name, address, phone number, no I’m not giving you my email address.  He returned the clipboard to the Country Corner Hardware Store employee who was eagerly standing by for him to finish.  She bounced in her Keds a little too enthusiastically when she took it back and looked it over.  Before he returned her pen, Frank asked her, “Why are you so excited about this?”

Sunny blushed a little and looked embarrassedly back at the small group of old men clustered behind the customer service counter.  “Our regional manager is here today to pick the winner, and, um, the contest isn’t just for the customers.  Whichever one of us gets the most customers to enter wins a $100 Walmart gift card, and your entry puts me over the top.”

“In that case, I’m glad I could help.  I already get your monthly mailer, so it’s not like I’m going to get more junk mail from you.”  He handed her pen back and walked past the chicken coop supplies and small animal feed.  He never wanted chickens, goats, or anything else some of his neighbors kept, and he wasn’t going to start now.  The irrigation system on his property had sprung a leak last night, and if he didn’t repair it fast his water bill from the county was going to be sky-high.

From the corner of his eye Frank Hoffman saw Sunny sharing the contents of her clipboard with two polyester ties Frank’s father could have worn and a leather vest that must have come from the last blue cow on Earth.  They all nodded their white-topped heads and whispered to one another, apparently pleased with the plump, middle-aged woman’s work.  They were each nearly a foot taller than she was, giving Frank the impression of trees bending under the weight of snow in winter as they leaned in for their private conversation.

“Guess it’s tacky to talk about a contest in the open,” he thought to himself.  Like people in the movies and big cities won’t talk about salaries or how much a big-ticket item costs.  They just write a figure on a piece of paper and dramatically slide it across the table.  Maybe that was Frank’s time in the Army that set his mind about things like that.  Military salaries and bonuses were set by Congress and were public record.  If a man was a private or a sergeant first class, you knew pretty much exactly what he made.  No showy paper sliding necessary.  Frank’s train of thought left this station and meandered through the countryside of his memories, putting him on mental autopilot to acquire what he came in for. By the time he found the pipe fittings, sealant, and replacement pipe length he needed, Sunny and the Country Corner elders were gone; only an acne-scarred teen named Chet remained at the front of the store to ring him out.

Less than a week later, Frank’s burst irrigation was repaired and his yard was looking healthier for it.  He had five acres, give or take, that he had mostly let the surrounding forest swallow up.  Each year the trees got closer to his house and the quarter-acre he called his yard, and that was fine with him.  His dog, Blue, still liked to walk through the field but was getting old enough that he no longer cared to chase turkeys, gophers, or anything else that passed through.  Blue never went into the woods, though, so their encroachment just meant Blue stayed closer to home, and Frank liked that fine.  Mountain lions and coyotes had claimed some of his neighbors’ dogs and cats over the years, and Frank wasn’t interested in commiserating with them.  Gratefully, each of Frank’s neighbors was a mile or so up or down the county road that ran past his place, so he didn’t have to see them any time he didn’t want to.  He wasn’t anti-social or bitter; he just liked the quiet like his property and solitude afforded him. 

That predictable tranquility was shattered Friday morning as his kitchen phone rang.  Frank jumped at the sound, sloshing his black coffee across his weathered thumb.  Swearing under his breath, Frank hastily set the mug down on the counter and looked at the ancient plastic machine on the wall.  It rang again, a mechanical, metallic sound no modern phone makes.  The faded pink device had been in the house as long as Frank could remember, but rang so infrequently that he often forgot what it sounded like.  It rang a third time before Frank answered it.  He had barely gotten his hello out before he was interrupted.

“Mr. Hoffman, it’s me, Sunny!  You won!  You won the gazebo!”

“Well, that’s fantastic,” Frank said warmly.  There was no way he could match Sunny’s excitement, so he thought he might sound rude by comparison.  He repeated himself to dispel the notion. “That’s great news.”

“We’re sending folks over this afternoon to discuss the installation with you, if that’s alright.  That is alright, isn’t it?”

Frank looked at the wall calendar to confirm he didn’t have any conflicting appointments.  It wasn’t on the right month and was, in fact, from three years ago.  “Yeah, that should be fine.  I’ll be here.”

“Great!  If all goes well we’ll have your new gazebo up and ready for you this weekend!  Bye!”

The click and dial tone assured Frank the conversation was over, as brief as it was.  Blue walked up and sat by Frank’s foot, looking up for head scratches or bacon, whichever was more convenient.  Frank gave Blue both before topping off his coffee and resuming his business of staring out the kitchen window at the woods and mountains in the distance.

By one o’clock, the tall men from the store sat on his couch and accepted coffee they didn’t drink.  They explained their plans for the structure and the surveying of his land they’d need to conduct to find the ideal spot.  While they spoke about stone platforms, wooden pillars, and an integrated fire pit, Frank saw a half dozen people striding methodically across his land like they were searching for signs of a dead body.  Some were swinging what looked like pocket watches on chains while others had what couldn’t have been old divining rods for finding water, but sure looked like it.  By the time Frank and his guests stepped outside to observe, the search party had settled on a spot about twenty yards behind his house.

“Oh, perfect!” The blue-vested man clapped his hands once, making a sound like an old screen door slamming.  “We’ll add a brick pathway from your house to the gazebo, no charge.  It’ll be lovely.”

“This is getting awful expensive for a free contest giveaway, don’t you think?” Frank proposed.

“Don’t worry about that,” a wide tie with eagles on it chimed in. “We just want to give back to our community.”  The three smiled knowingly at one another, and Frank noticed the spot they had chosen was an old well which had been capped off long before Frank bought the land.

“You sure that’s the best place for it?” 

“Absolutely.  We’ll convert the well into a fire pit, preserving the existing stone.  It’ll be the perfect tribute to the past while creating something new.”  By the time Frank could grunt his acceptance, the team of workers had already begun clearing the tall grass and outlining the pathway from the house.  They worked well past sunset, using oil lamps to guide their labor in the darkness.  No one talked to Frank or asked him for anything, and just as quietly as they showed up they all got in their vehicles and left until the next morning.

When Frank arose and put his coffee on to boil, the crew was already in full swing which surprised him because he hadn’t heard their vehicles pull up, any talking, or the other noise which usually accompanies a work site.  As he watched from his kitchen window, the laborers barely spoke at all, as if they all knew exactly what to do without any further coordination necessary.  He went about his retired day, busy with not doing much at all, but kept pausing to observe the work underway.  It went on like this for two days straight, until by Sunday night it was suddenly finished.  Everyone had vanished without saying a word, and Frank walked out to observe their handiwork.

The walkway was easily eight-feet wide and framed in a wood border to keep the red bricks in place.  If Frank had been more up on fashion and design, he would have called it a herringbone pattern.  He crouched down to examine the pathway and determined it was level and flat, yet when he stood and looked at the brickwork, it seemed to curve and undulate along its length.  “Must be the heat in the bricks cooling in the twilight,” he said to Blue, as if the dog shared his suspicions about shoddy craftsmanship.  Blue must have suspected something, though, because the hound refused to accompany his master when Frank stepped forward.  Frank regarded his companion briefly, and proceeded.

The gazebo was lit with oil lanterns suspended near the top of each of the five wooden pillars holding up the wood-shingled roof.  The stone pentagon was perhaps twenty-five feet across from point to point with the former well in its center.  A large brazier had been set into the well to make a fire pit, and a neat stack of wood had been arranged within, ready to be lit.  

Frank wondered how much work had been done in advance on this project, because everywhere he looked he found intricate carvings, symbols, and inlays.  Each face of the wooden pillars was engraved in shapes and patterns that in some places looked like a language, in others like a Native American totem pole, and yet not quite either.  The stone floor was composed of river stones smoothed from years of watery erosion, yet laid evenly with one another to form a level walking surface.  Blue and green stones - glass, maybe, they couldn’t be gemstones - formed swirling, tentacular patterns radiating from the fire pit.  Frank felt dizzy looking at them, watching them ebb and flow beneath his feet.

The white light of the full moon shone directly onto the fire pit through the smoke hole in the roof of the gazebo.  The polished brass of the brazier captured the light and radiated it back up to the rafters, which Frank discovered were as ornately etched as the upright pillars.  There were no benches or seats, but Frank had camp chairs he could use until he came up with a more permanent seating arrangement.  Or not.  A folding camp chair would probably do just fine for him and the company he never had over.

Frank finished his assessment of his prize gazebo and nodded his approval.  “It’s a hell of a thing, Blue.”  The faithful dog said nothing in reply, and Frank peered through the darkness to see his pet lying in the grass at the far end of the walkway where Frank left him.  “Blue?”  The dog had his favorite spots on the porch, by the fireplace in the living room, and by the kitchen door but a random patch of grass was not one of them.  “Blue?”  Frank gave a beckoning whistle as he walked back to his closest friend in life.  Blue did not respond.

The brick pathway seemed three times as long heading back as it did leading out, and Frank’s knees were past the assistance of ibuprofen by the time he hurried to his dog’s side.  They snapped like gunfire when he dropped to Blue’s side and found the bloody gash across the animal’s throat that ended his life.  “Blue!”  The dog’s name was the only epitaph Frank could muster before he found himself silently, suddenly surrounded by people in dark, floor-length robes.  

“What the hell did you…”  Frank struggled to his feet and to sound vengeful.  It wasn’t easy, though, as the tall shadow in front of him was waving a smoking brass censer exuding an oily, perfumed smoke.  The vapors penetrated Frank’s brain, giving him a blend of disorienting sensations - the drop in his guts from a fast elevator, seasickness from choppy waves, and plain motion sickness like he was facing the wrong way in a moving car.  He fell to one creaking knee.  “You bastard…”  Frank held himself off the ground with his hands and was spared the embarrassment of tasting his new brick walkway by the other shadowy figures that lifted him up and carried him senselessly back to the gazebo.  He stared into the eternal starriness of the night sky only for a moment before losing himself in the darkness.

When he came to, Frank was suspended by his wrists over the well in the center of the gazebo.  He planted his feet on the stone ring to alleviate the pressure on his arms and shoulders, looking down into the black hole beneath him.  The brazier was gone, and the moonlight above him couldn’t reveal the bottom of the pit threatening to swallow him.  All around him were the hooded cultists, some flashing knives and swords at the sky, some swinging their nasty incense chains, all chanting nonsense: Stell'bsna k'yarnak kn'a ooboshu ch' 'aior nafl! Chaugnar Faugn uh'e Hastur, 'fhalma vulgtmoth mgnyth!

Only three were up close, and from their heights Frank guessed they were the tall men who had smiled from his own couch not three days ago.  A dozen more in dark robes with hoods over their faces were in a circle around the gazebo, though Frank realized ‘gazebo’ was the wrong word for it.  This was an altar.

He yanked at the shiny metal chains holding him, but they were just as new and strong as the rest of this construction.  The only thing giving way was the skin around his wrists, and blood made watery and thin from his heart medication began trickling down his forearms.

The outer ring of cultists began circling the altar, voices rising in unison: Fhalma y-sgn'wahl vulgtm nilgh'rioth nilgh'ri kn'a, naflsyha'h h'geb shogg tharanak c'ai shagg gotha!   The moonlight shining on Frank’s balding head turned an emerald green, and the light emanating from the smoking censers glowed blue, creating an eerily underwater experience to accentuate Frank’s disorientation.

Despite the escalation of their chant, Frank heard a loud CRACK echo up from the bottom of the well.  He looked down into the inky hole, but only heard squelching and slapping, like someone was throwing raw meat against the walls of the well.  Within moments, pale tentacles arose from the darkness, climbing up the well towards Frank.  “What the hell!?” he screamed.  He kicked the slithering arms away as they explored the space and found his feet, but there were soon a dozen grabbing for him, and he had nowhere to escape.  They encircled his feet, clamoring for grip up his calves and thighs.  When they found sure purchase, the slime-coated tentacles pulled all at once.  For a second, Frank wondered if the manacles holding him would pop out of the wood before his hands broke.  He received his answer when most of hands were left behind and the rest of Frank disappeared into the ground.