The Reaper of Appalachia

The cool fog settled on Joe’s face as he stepped out the front door. He hastily wiped his hands on his jeans and fixed his bloodshot eyes forward. The sun had only just begun to rise above the misty blue mountains. He took in the sight with newborn eyes, though sixty years of hardship had set deep creases around them. The magic of the Blue Ridge Mountains never faded. If anything, the longer he allowed his roots to grow deep into the rocks, the more they captivated him.

At night, this stretch of Appalachia came alive with terrible sounds that drove even the veterans of the area mad. As the day began to break, the thick fog covered the trails and swallowed the mountain’s secrets. It was a good place to get lost. It was a great place to disappear.

Joe shuffled across the porch, the old boards creaking with every step. His hound waited for him outside the door next to a sun-bleached backpack. “Alright, Rocky, just a minute now. Gotta have a smoke.” He pulled the flattened pack of cigarettes and box of matches from the front pocket on his jacket. He struck the match with trembling hands and breathed in the scent of sulphur that wafted out of the flame. It reminded him of when his mother would light candles around the cabin before the state ran electricity through the holler.

The folks in town had changed as wealthy urbanites priced out of the cities pushed out the families that had called these mountains home for generations. It wasn’t the same town anymore. But he tried to keep the cabin the same as it existed in his memories. That was where his father taught him how to shave with a straight razor and where his mother baked apple pies in the fall. Now, he was the last Walker left. He had gotten used to being alone.

Joe shook his head, as if it would erase the memories. The match had gone out, and the cigarette was now crushed in his hand. He threw them both on the porch and followed his dog down the stairs. His boots stepped onto the mountain soil with a satisfying crunch. All around him, fireflies blinked in and out of existence, trailing into the thick woods. The fireflies in these mountains were famous for their synchronized dances. It was as if all the creatures here were one living organism, bound together by the intimacy of this strange and isolated place.

Joe walked into the woods and left the house behind him, trodding over the blanket of dead leaves and through the ferns. The smell of wet rot permeated the forest. He stopped to catch his breath after a long while, resting his left hand on a moss-covered tree. He whistled for Rocky and heard him bark a long distance away. The bark echoed through the trees and faded out, leaving behind a heavy silence. Even the birdsong had disappeared.

Joe patted the knife in his right pocket. There was a lot to fear in these mountains. There were bobcats and black bears that called them home, and hikers disappeared from time to time here. The locals traded stories about other things, awful things, creatures that were as old as the rock itself and fed on terror.

They never talked about just one monster out there. There were whispers about a howler, something that mimicked the sound of your voice to lure you off trail. Others swore they’ve seen the white buck with eyes like a man’s. Then there’s the shadow of the ridge, something that walks upright but leaves no prints. Some just said there’s something “not right” out there. That’s about the one thing people could agree on. Every time someone disappeared or turned up dead, the legends became even more indistinguishable from the truth.

Joe knew the stories were just that, stories to frighten little children into staying on the paths through the hollow. He knew better than to believe the mountain gossip and whiskey talk. A hard life taught him that there’s more to fear in the world than folktales.

He was all alone now in the still forest. No dog, no birds, no cicadas playing their shrill symphony. The sun had started coming up, but the branches above him formed a thick canopy that fought against every speck of light that threatened to come through. On any other day, Joe wouldn’t have been shaken by a little darkness. But today, the shadows looked twisted and wrong. They played tricks on his mind and made his heart race.

He had no idea how long he had been walking and nothing looked familiar. The air felt heavy on his shoulders, making him acutely aware of the tension rising in them. He was on old land, forgotten land, long stretches of rocky forest that had long been left alone. The woods were silent, watching him, waiting for him.

A sharp bark cut through the silence and snapped him back to reality. Rocky was nearby. He lifted his hand off the moss, making sap and green debris come up with it. He shuffled over to a shallow stream and knelt down to dip his hands in the water. The clear water darkened and washed the night off him.

Joe got up with a grunt and saw Rocky’s silhouette through the gaps in the trees up ahead. He walked toward his dog, weaving through the trunks. He called his name and heard no answer. As he got closer, he could see that Rocky was frozen with his ears pinned back and his tail down. He was hesitantly sniffing a carcass—or, what was left of it. It looked like it had once been a great buck, easily four hundred pounds or more. Now it was sliced and ripped into strips and lumps of flesh.

Joe bent down and saw a pair of glassy blue eyes with his own two, peering up from the detached head. Rocky whimpered. “Nothing to be afraid of, boy,” Joe said. “Things happen in these mountains.”

He patted the dog’s head and stood up. As he turned to find the trail again, a roar erupted through the mist and rumbled through Joe’s chest. It rattled him to his bones like no bear or cat he had ever heard. The trees all around him shifted, branches snapping left and right. Heavy footsteps pounded the ground in the distance and moved closer. Closer. Impossibly quickly. Rocky let out a panicked yelp and bolted down the trail.

Joe stumbled over his boots, struggling to keep up. He swore under his breath and wheezed. He glanced back for a moment, but all he could see were tall shadows moving between the trunks. Darkness was crawling out of the forgotten depths of the mountains. It snaked its way around the trees and through the branches, leaving the kiss of death on every plant and animal in its path. It was much too large to be a man, much too precise to be a less intelligent being. The woods parted like a black sea as it came.

There was a light up ahead. He tried to scream for it, but no words came. All he could do was pray to a long-abandoned God that his legs wouldn’t give out. The light grew as Joe and Rocky whipped past thorny bushes and hickory trees toward it. They were coming up on a clearing in the hollow. Joe ran out onto the grass and collapsed to his knees panting. The forest behind him had gone eerily silent.

The setting sun cast its glow on the grass, turning its dry blades a deep orange. How long had he been out here? Joe craned his neck up toward the sea of twinkling stars.

Rocky came over and licked the gray stubble on Joe’s face. “Ain’t nothin’ out here but stories, right, Rocky?” He scratched Rocky’s head.

Rocky pulled his head away and trotted off. “Where are you going, boy?” Joe called out. He looked up and saw his dog heading toward his dusty blue truck. Somehow, he had ended right back where he started.

By the time he got back to the truck, he had almost caught his breath. His trembling hands fumbled around in his pockets to find the key and when he found it, he could barely get it into the rusted lock. Joe let Rocky into the passenger seat and plopped down behind the wheel, slamming the door behind him. There were wicked things in these woods, that much he always knew. Joe drove away, his truck rocking back and forth with the rocks and grooves in the dirt. As he looked at his rearview mirror, the forest seemed to exhale behind him.

—————

Back at his cabin, Joe reached for a fourth beer. He took a hearty gulp and rubbed his aching calves. They were a painful reminder that he wasn’t a healthy young man anymore. Sooner or later, he’d have to slow down. There were some risks he couldn’t afford to take anymore.

He headed for the door with Rocky at his feet. There was one last thing he had to do tonight. He built a fire behind his shed and fed it items from his backpack, watching them wither to ashes in the flames. Joe reached into the backpack, felt the frayed edges of an old photo, and stuffed it in his pocket. He reached back in and grabbed a glove out of the bag, dropping it in the flame. Rocky whimpered and backed away from the fire. Joe turned to face him. “It’s nothing that’ll be missed, bud.”

Suddenly, Joe heard the sound of tires on gravel. He peered his head around the shed and saw a polished, gray truck roll up the driveway. He scrambled to stomp out the fire, jumping to his feet. By the time he reached the truck, he realized it belonged to his neighbors, the Peters—as much as you can call someone a mile away your neighbor.

The truck’s driver side window rolled down. “Evenin’, Mr. Walker,” a young man called out. “Sorry to bother you.” He paused and waited for Joe to interject that it wasn’t a bother at all. Joe said nothing. “Well,” he continued, “I just came by to see if you’d heard anything. I heard some sirens down by the state road. Turns out a young couple from Ohio never checked out of their rental.”

Joe shrugged. “Nothing out there that wasn’t already here."

The neighbor gave a nervous chuckle. “I guess you’re right, sir. Well, I’ll let you go now.” He turned around in the dirt and sped off.

Joe turned around and walked back toward the cabin through the blinking fireflies. Something on the mountain howled into the night, and he picked up his pace. Rocky was frozen in place outside the shed with his hair standing on end. Joe smiled. The hound was probably scared of his own shadow.

Joe pushed the shed door open. His grandfather had built it with his own hands during the Great Depression. That was back when people made themselves useful. Now, they lived their lives online and turned all the good families’ homes into vacation rentals. He missed the days when television was the great threat to society.

He walked over to the far wall. Various photos and accessories had been collected and displayed over the years. Some photos showed bright, happy families enjoying their hikes through the Blue Ridge Mountains. Some were in black and white, with moonshine stills in the background. In a way, they were the stories the Walkers had passed down over the generations. Joe pulled the photo out of his pocket and pinned it up on the wall, stepping back to admire the new addition. A fresh-faced young woman in a big, floppy hat smiled at the camera. A man in a red hoodie had his arm around her and was planting a big kiss on her cheek. Joe traced his finger over the letters on the man’s hoodie: “Ohio State.”

Somewhere in the holler, a dog barked. Somewhere else, a child asked their father if monsters were real. And somewhere deep in the mountain, a legend moved that didn’t have claws, or horns, or glowing eyes—just a rusted truck, a steady hand, and all the time in the world.