All's Dark Here

This story contains scenes that are graphic in nature and may affect sensitive readers. This includes bodily harm, violence, and a child's death.

“They say the living ain’t never know what it’s like to be dead. But the dead know what it’s like to be livin’”.

No truer words ever came out of my Mimi’s mouth before that moment. Even as a teenager, I reckoned that whatever happened that summer out in Rutherfordton County would be my opus into adulthood.

My hair had finally grown out from an abysmal bowl cut sworn onto me since I was five, my legs were long, tan, and shapely in polka-dotted skirts, and I could finally wear my padded underwires and dangly bangles without so much as a “See here young lady”, or, “What in the sam-hell do you think your wearin’ young lady?”.

I was without my parents, without school, and out in the Georgia country without so much as a soul who knew what I looked like on the day-to-day basis back in the city. No, this was the summer I would live out my country gothic fantasy and kiss old Jem Highbrook out in the abandoned chapel off Okeehepkee Road. I would be the new and improved Heidi, the 15-year- old that would return to Atlanta sun-kissed, freckled, and de-virginized. Tell that to every blonde- bimboed wannabe who begged and scraped their parents into letting them spend summer in Panama City or St. Simons.

My grandparent’s country estate, a family heirloom on my mother’s side, has since fallen into disrepair. It would never again be the sight of my romantic fairy tales or innocent woodland daydreams. In fact, after that summer, nothing would ever be innocent for a long time.

“Heidi-Jean are you listening to me? It’s nearly 9 o’clock. The dead won’t be waitin’ for long. You best call in old Sammy and Banks to get on in here”.

That was the thing about staying at Mimi and PawPaw’s house during the summer; everyone had to be inside by 9 pm.

Standing up on the rickety wooden porch with a loud groan, I stretched my arms high over my head and yawned loudly as Mimi went inside quickly. Out in the distance across some patches of grass, in between two weeping oak trees, I could faintly make out the shapes of my little brother, Banks, and our grandparent’s old St. Bernard.

The two oak trees must have been there since the confederate days, and in the faint glow of the evening sunset, the trees twisted and warped to the left and to the right, coming together in the middle as if they were holding hands in some sacred dance. I cupped my hands around my mouth and let out a hollering bellow: “BANKS! SAMMYYYY! COME INSIDE!”.

Sammy bounded over first, his floppy ears and lopsided grin balanced by paws the size of snapping turtles. There was never a time when Sammy wasn’t smiling, and he and Banks nearly never left each other’s side during our summers together.

Banks followed slowing, swinging a large stick from side to side and happily mumbling to

himself. Banks was more of the quiet type, but Mimi and PawPaw’s house always brought the life out of him.

“Banks”, I said disapprovingly watching as he attempted to side-sweep past me into the house. With one quick arm I latched onto his shoulders and pulled him in front of me to take a good look at him. Sandy hair, big brown eyes, and a light speckling of freckles across his tiny nose. He looked the same, but somehow different. “You know”, I remarked running my hand through his tangled locks, “seven years is a little too old to be getting so much crap in your hair. Mimi will have a fit”. Twigs, bark, flower petals; you name it, and it was in Banks’ hair. Strands of debris, sticks, and small branches covered the top of Banks’ head, so much so that I almost couldn’t believe he fit that much in to begin with. “Don’t touch it!”, he yelled covering the top of his head protectively, “it’s my crown”.

I narrowed my eyes down at him. “What crown?”. Banks gave an exasperated sigh before pointing his finger and making a wide, over-dramatic loop around the circumference of his head. “This crown. I made it. Supposed to be thorns, but we didn’t got any”.

Without another word, Banks bounded loudly into the house, Sammy on his heels, and shut the screen door with a loud BANG that rattled the windowpanes.

I tried to ignore the drops of blood Banks left in his bare footprints across the deck; kids are strange sometimes.

_________________

If there was one gripe I had about Mimi and PawPaw’s house, it was the iconography. Mimi was nobody’s fool, but she sure was a poor man’s preacher. Every inch of wall space had something on it resembling our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and everyone in the family had long since given up trying to convince her about redecorating.

Even my father, stoic and conservative as he was, felt uncomfortable being watched by so many crucifixion eyes. “My lord honey, that well outside filled with holy water too?”

My mother, ever exhausted in a beautiful type of way, sighed loudly, “Lonnie, it’s just the way she is. Ever since Jedidiah left and all. It ain’t hurting the kids, so just let it be”.

That was how most of the conversations went between my parents. My father somewhat critical and weary about the in-laws he tried to forget he had every summer, and my mother looking for some way to keep her own mom at bay now that Jedidiah wasn’t in the house anymore to keep her occupied.

The crucifixes and paintings were an interesting choice, but they never really bothered me, that much I can remember. I tried to spend most of time outside anyways, wooing the farmhand, Jem, braiding flower necklaces, or drinking milkshakes at the local dive bar with Banks and Sammy.

But the one painting I never got over was the one of mine and Banks’ late uncle, Jedidiah. Left untouched in his abandoned bedroom on the third floor, Jedidiah’s oil canvas left a stark reminder of why Mimi was so superstitious, and why PawPaw never talked no more.

I didn’t think about pressing the issue, but looking back, I wish I’d had. Jedidiah was born special, as some would call it, not able to speak or look at anyone in the eyes. Mimi insisted it was because there was a family curse for the women on her side; all the men born to Delacroix loins were bound to face the thief.

I didn’t know anything about a “thief”, besides maybe Sammy when he took your pork chop when you weren’t looking, but Mimi always insisted that the Delacroix women of the French riviera were cursed with a tainted bloodline - a witch doctor named Gisabelle Delacroix had made a deal with a demon at the turn of the century somewhere in the Louisiana bayou, and that the thief took everything from all of their male heirs at some point in their lives: their sanity, their looks, their brains, their life. Even had to escape to Georgia, as Mimi once put it, but the thief followed.

“It’s all nonsense, really”, my mother tried explaining to me the first time we were sent to stay in Rutherford for the summer. “Mimi is going through a hard time right now with my brother gone, and I think she would feel better if her grandchildren kept her company. Besides, don’t you want to see where your mama grew up?”

Truth be told, at eleven years old, I really didn’t. The only thing that changed my mind was seeing a sixteen-year-old Jem at the time riding up on PawPaw’s rusted tractor with barrels of hay for the horses. After that, I figured it was my due diligence to keep poor Jem company too, seeing as though he was living on the farm for free in exchange for helping around the property.

Banks was only three at the time, but he had hardly ever seen my mother. She had what my father called “the blues” after Banks’ birth, and during his toddler years he spent most of the time with my father’s sister out in Duluth. Since he started joining me during that summer I turned eleven, I made it my due diligence to also give him some sense of normalcy.

“What happened to Jedidiah, mama?”.

“He had an accident, sweetheart. Tried to hurt himself. You know how people do sometimes, don’t you? But he ended up going to heaven, and he’s alright now. I think Mimi just hears him a lot, roaming around on the ground outside like he used to, and she gets all nervous like.”

I thought hard and quietly for a moment, and I distinctly remember my mother stroking my hand as we sat in our hummer outside of Mimi’s house, the radio murmuring quietly, the sun slowing disappearing behind the stringent remains of the Delacroix mansion.

“Do you think it’s okay for Banks to be here too? Mimi said she gets nervous with the boys here”.

My mother ceased stroking my hand for a moment, before turning my it over and lightly tapping my palm.

“I don’t see why not. Besides, she’s not a Delacroix anymore, in name at least. Neither is PawPaw. Neither is daddy. And neither are you”.

“I’m a Hendershaw.” “That’s right baby.”

From the front porch, the door slammed opened, and Mimi peaked her gray and frazzled head out.

“Lorraine! You best get going. It’s almost 9pm, y’hear?”

_________________

The nightly ritual I observed at Mimi’s house never ceased to amaze me. At sharply 9pm, every door and window was shut tight and locked. Jem was responsible for handling the barns and his quarters, but the farmhouse would blow out almost like the flame went out of a candle. All lights turned off, curtains drawn, keys turned, and blankets pulled out of the closet.

“Heidi-Jean, help me here will ya?”

Mustering all of the strength I had, I dragged a piled of blankets far across the floor and crowded them around the front door, blocking the slight crack just between the floor and the frame’s lower ridge. Mimi managed to handle the back door with similar eagerness, before gripping the back of PawPaw’s wheelchair.

“That’ll do. Now take this flashlight, and y’all two go on up to bed. Say goodnight to PawPaw”.

I have no idea what PawPaw could have looked like in his younger days. Mimi only kept the crucifixes and portraits of Christ, so there was no reckoning. I remember imagining that he was some young, handsome, and swaggering buccaneer, instead of this ventriloquist dummy doomed to be pushed around by Mimi. Gray eyes, a drooped head, and slight drool coming out of his mouth was all Banks and I ever knew of him.

“Goodnight PawPaw”, I whispered kissing his bald head quickly. Banks hid behind me, only clutching my arm. I could feel a dampness from his hand onto my sleeve.

Armed with our light source, I brought Banks quickly upstairs to scrub him and put him to bed. Yet as I placed him carefully onto the marble counter in the washroom, the blood I had noticed before now seeped into the underpart of Banks’ feet, soaking the soles of his feet in crusty, black coagulate lumps.

“My lord Banks! What is happening? How did you hurt yourself?”. “I didn’t do it; they just happen”.

This was not the first time something like this had happened with Banks. Every summer he would get these strange wounds all over him, but never did he want to talk about them.

But now, the mess he had gotten into while playing was too much to ignore.

“I’m getting Mimi.”

“No”, Banks said quietly, almost shamefully. “Thump-thump drag man says not to tell”. I stared at my brother in disbelief. “What are you talking about, Banks?”.

Wordlessly, Banks lifted his hands, upturning his palms towards me. There, in the middle of each of his palms, was a small, circular wound, leaking blood slowly down his forearms and gathering onto the floor.

Turning white, I quickly grabbed his hands, attempting to wipe away the blood, only for it to seep through my fingertips, as though my body was nothing but a sifter.

“Banks, Banks”, I cried, suddenly falling to the floor to lift up his feet. There, on each of the soles of his feet, the same small, circular puncture wound, leaking blood.

“Thump-thump drag man says to cut them off, my hands, my feet. It will make it stop”.

From downstairs came the large blow of the front door banging wide open. Sammy, immediately ferocious, let out a series growls and terrifying barks towards the blackness on the outside lawn. Suddenly, wind screamed against the side of the house, shaking its planks and threatening to upturn the foundation. Wind like I had never heard before; it sounded as if a tornado was sending a train through our second floor.

Jumping up, I grabbed Banks and held him to me.

Mimi on the first floor, shaking her fist, ran out into the grass in near hysterics.

“Begone, you devil! You spirit! Leave us alone! What blood, is this blood I see? It can’t be!”. Still holding Banks, I ran to the foyer of the stairs to look out the large window to watch the scene before me. Between the wind’s howling, I saw him, and heard him, lurching through the grass.

Thump-thump draggggg.... Thump-thump draggggg.... Thump-thump drag.....

The picture, the man from the picture, Jedidiah, dragging himself with his elbows across the

lawn, a corpse with no hands or feet.

“Mama, mama, mamaaaaa”, the zombie moaned, dragging himself as much as he could towards Mimi, “Help me, pleaseeeeee. I cut them off, but I can’t go.... It hurts...I’m no thief... PLEASE!”.

I watched as Sammy bounded at the door, taking a hold of Mimi’s dress and attempting to pull her back inside. Downstairs, PawPaw in his bedroom, let out a scream of horror unlike I had ever heard. His gurgling cries were drowned in saliva, and I pulled Banks to my chest, feeling the blood from his hands and feet but unable to quench it.

“This is no life! Rest! Repent! Begone!”

Mimi’s eyes bulged from her head, and she clutched the rosary hidden around her neck. Foam dripped from her mouth, and her teeth chomped up and down in sheer panic.

With the corpse still moaning, and PawPaw screaming, and the wind howling, I sank deeper and deeper into the floor.

Banks was dead the next morning. From what I remember after that night, he was found out in the lawn, laying in the indent of the grass from where the dragging corpse had been before. I don’t know how he escaped my arms. His hands and feet displayed the stigmata, but his brown eyes had been plucked from his skull.

The farmhouse was in shambles, and every crucifix on the tattered wallpaper was turned upside down. Jedidiah’s portrait was missing.

Jem, the farmhand, was found underneath the intertwined oak trees, his hands and feet missing. Apparently, he had left a window cracked in his cabin, and in a desperate attempt to escape whatever tortured us outside last night, fled towards the house’s gate.

Mimi and PawPaw were taken away, but to where, I’m not sure. Mimi screamed the whole time as she was loaded into the patrol car, “le voleur renie le Christ, sur son côté gauche. Oh quell homme!”

Sammy and I returned to my parents, and never again did we visit the farm after that night. Never again did I have a summer fantasy. Never again did we mention Banks.

But what I do remember, I often think about.

It’s been ten years since that night, and I haven’t been able to tell my parents that I’m pregnant, or that I’m pregnant with a boy, or that I did something that night the wind howled and the man with no hands or feet 

thumped 

and dragged across the grass.

I feel fear, and shame. Such shame.

Because when I blocked the door that night, with the blankets, I reached up and unlocked the front lock, just to see what would happen.