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Part 1
HAY MOON
an online short story..
In the summer of 1932, the undead invaded a rural county in Ohio. More than seven decades later, one man still lives with the memories...
“What’s the scariest thing you ever saw, Gramps?”
It is odd how an innocent question like that can bring back such horrible memories; and even odder in this case, since the question came from none other than Lisa, my little great granddaughter.
Today is Halloween, and Lisa’s mother, Emily, brought her over to visit her sole surviving great grandparent before an evening of trick-or-treating. Lisa was wearing one of those plastic Halloween costumes that parents nowadays buy for their kids at Wal-Mart or Target. This particular one looked like a cartoon ghost character that I have seen on television over the years.
“What’s the scariest thing you ever saw, Gramps?” Lisa was standing in my living room, unable to contain her self-delight over her Halloween disguise. She was holding a trick-or-treat bag that bore the image of a typical Halloween cliché: a witch flying on a broomstick, silhouetted against an oversized full moon. I had just dropped two Snickers bars into her bag---her first of many before the end of the evening, no doubt. Lisa was filled with energy even without all that sugar.
“Tell me what’s the scariest thing you ever saw.” She repeated. “Tell me, pleeeease! You always tell good stories, Gramps.” She stamped her foot once on my living room carpet.
I didn’t answer her right away, because the images that stirred as I considered the question made me lose my breath for a few seconds. Then I struggled to think of a suitable response. My answer would be a lie, of course. Not for a million dollars would I tell my great granddaughter the truth.
“Well, once this scary little ghost came into my living room.” I said, recovering myself. “And I’ve never seen anything scarier than her.” I pulled Lisa gently onto my lap and she began giggling. She is only eight years old, and still light enough so that her weight doesn’t hurt my knees---even though my arthritis has gotten quite bad in recent years.
“Lisa, say thank you for the candy your great grandfather gave you.” Emily said. Lisa responded with an enthusiast thank you and more laughter, her voice muffled by the plastic mask that came with the discount store Halloween costume.
“Will you be alright here by yourself tonight, Grandpa?” Emily asked. Emily is now what—thirty-six?—and it doesn’t seem like so many years since her own mother used to bring her here to visit me, and she would be the one sitting on my knee. (Or I should say visit us—as that was back when my wife Elsie was still alive.)
“I’ll be fine, dear. Don’t you worry.” I said. “Just take this little girl out trick-or-treating before she blows a gasket. And be safe, the both of you.”
They visited for few more minutes, and then bid me farewell. As they were walking out, Emily’s husband Todd called on her cell phone, and made arrangements to meet them both for a quick dinner before taking Lisa out trick-or-treating. Emily invited me to accompany them but I declined. I knew that I would be an imposition; and anyway, I suddenly found myself in a thinking mood---not a talking mood. So I waved goodbye to them from my front porch; and they both waved back at me from the front seat of Emily’s SUV.
And then I was left alone with my own thoughts. From my front porch I could survey the jack-o-lanterns and cardboard skeletons that adorned the houses across the street. The afternoon sun was fading. In a few hours, an army of imposters would descend on the neighborhood: goblins, witches, and more ghosts like my little Lisa.
(“What’s the scariest thing you ever saw, Gramps?)
Every life has its dreadful episodes, its junctions with stark, naked fear; and mine is no exception. I have been profoundly frightened on a handful of occasions. I was in the war—the big one in Europe; and I had several close calls there. But those involved the simple fear of death. And when you cheat death, the feeling afterward is more often relief than dread. That was close, you tell yourself, but I made it out alive. And after you have put the memory sufficiently far behind you, it even makes you feel lucky to be alive—or blessed—depending on your view of the world.
Once, though, I cheated death in another way—and perhaps I cheated something even worse than death. I escaped; but rather than relief, I am left with a memory that still causes me to wake up screaming from time to time—more than seventy years later.
Not that it is always with me. For years at a stretch, it leaves me alone. But then something—usually something casual and insignificant—drudges it up. And then I’m back there again—just like tonight.
I probably couldn’t tell you much about a conversation I had last week, but I can remember the summer of 1932 like it was yesterday. I was eleven years old that year. I remember the Depression, of course. My family was poor—but everyone seemed to be poor then. We lived on a small farm about thirty miles east of Cincinnati, Ohio. All in all it wasn’t a bad life.
The summer began much like any other for me. When there wasn’t work to be done, I went fishing in nearby brooks and ponds. Sometimes I borrowed my father’s twenty-two and went hunting. Our farm was hemmed in by scores of creeks, hundreds of open meadows, and thousands of acres of thick forest. These were my domain during the summer vacation months. I sometimes left the house at eight o’clock in the morning, and didn’t return until the fireflies came out.
Therefore, I was more than a little disappointed on the day my father told me to stay out of the woods. He called me aside one afternoon in July when he was working in the corner of our barn that served as his workshop area. The barn doors were propped open, and he saw me running off with my fishing pole and wicker creel.
“Paul!”
I stopped dead in my tracks. It was a perfect summer day, and I had bass fishing on my mind. My father’s voice hit me like a bucket full of cold water. What chore had I forgotten to perform? Or what new chore could he possibly come up with?
“Yes sir?” I called back.
He laid the sickle he had been sharpening on his workbench, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a folded up handkerchief. He was a big, burly man with wide shoulders and a narrow waist. “Come here for a minute, son. We need to talk.”
I tried to conceal my chagrin as I trudged toward the barn, somehow knowing that my afternoon plans of fishing were going to be derailed. What did he have in mind? Weeding the vegetable garden behind the house? Or perhaps he wanted me to begin setting posts to fence in a new tract of pasture. He had casually mentioned something about that a few weeks ago.
I stepped into the hot, claustrophobic shade of the barn. The smells of manure and hay mingled with the oil and metal smells of my father’s workbench. He had taken a seat on the little stool that he kept beneath the workbench but seldom sat on. That suggested that this could be a long talk. He motioned for me to sit on a nearby bale of hay.
I had barely sat down before I felt Calvin Coolidge brush against my calves. Calvin Coolidge was a tomcat that had wandered onto the farm that spring. I kept the cat supplied with water and table scraps from the kitchen, and he had stayed around in return. I leaned down and gently stroked the top of Calvin’s head. His moist sandpaper tongue tickled my hand. I was pretty attached to that cat.
“Well, Paul,” my father began, scratching his beard as he talked. “You’re not going to like this. But you have to listen to me and promise that you’ll do what I tell you.”
I nodded silently. My father was not an overly harsh parent by the standards of the time, but he was a rigid disciplinarian in many areas. My compliance with his instructions was seldom a matter of doubt. But now he seemed to need reassurance that his own son would obey him.
“Do you promise that you’ll listen to me and do what I say?”
“Yessir.”
“Paul, we’re in the middle of summer; and I know that this is the time when you like to run loose in the woods. And there’s nothin’ wrong with that—provided you get your chores done first. But for a little while, you’re goin’ to have to stay within sight of the house.”
I usually didn’t dare question my father’s orders, but the enormity of this one compelled me to speak. “What did I— ”
“You didn’t do anything,” he said. “It’s not a punishment. It’s for your safety.”
“Safety?”
Then neither of us spoke for a few seconds as my father looked up at the ceiling and exhaled loudly. I could tell that he wanted to think before he explained it to me—whatever it was.
“There was a jailbreak over in Lucasville last week, Paul. And some bad characters got loose. They don’t know for sure where the men are headin’, but it’s a good bet that they’ll head west, toward Cincinnati. And since we live close to the main road to the city, they could be passin’ through these parts. ”
I nodded. The Lucasville state prison was located in Scioto County, about thirty-five miles to the east. Once in a while, a potentially dangerous inmate would get loose, and there would be a heightened state of caution in the surrounding counties. But the escapees were usually recaptured within a day or two. And these situations had never before prompted my father to restrict me to the vicinity of the house.
“Some really bad guys?” I asked, hoping for more details.
“Yes.” My father said.
“Bad like John Dillinger?” I persisted. The famous criminal’s name had recently been in the newspapers and radio broadcasts a lot. This was the heyday of the flamboyant, big-time bank robbers. The thought of a bad egg like Dillinger—or perhaps Bonnie and Clyde—happening upon our farm frightened the bejesus out of me. Every boy living during that era must have been gripped by a dark fascination with those characters. I had sudden, involuntary images of my entire family being cut down with Tommie guns during a robbery of our home, or being taken hostage and shot one by one during a botched police standoff.
“Bad enough, I’d say.” It seemed that my father wasn’t going to elaborate. “But don’t you be worryin’ about that none. Just stay near the house ‘til I tell you different. Do we have a deal?”
My father was asking for a lot. But what choice did I have? He was my dad, after all. So I told him that I would do what he asked. And I told myself that this was going to be the worst summer of my life. But within a few weeks, I would vow never to go into the woods again, anyway.
It must have been the evening of the second or third day after my father issued his injunction that I saw Dad and my older brother David gathered out in front of our house with guns. Jake Metzger, our neighbor from across the road, was with them.
They were congregated at the place where our gravel driveway joined the road. It was impossible to miss them as I stepped out onto our front porch. They had set out empty wooden fruit crates to sit on, and a kerosene lantern burned at their feet, a bright glow in the summer night. They were sitting around and seemed to be chatting idly, but at the same time they were vigilant. As they talked, each one was pausing at intervals to look up both directions of the road, as if they were waiting for someone.
Their position enabled them to effectively set up a little roadblock between the two houses. I instantly connected their makeshift guard operation with my father’s talk about the jailbreak in Lucasville. This meant that the situation was now more serious: perhaps one of the escapees had been sighted in the area.
I was watching all this from our front porch. Calvin Coolidge had nestled up against me. I stroked the cat’s back and he purred like a little engine. The fading twilight was filled with a symphony of crickets.
I felt a little tenseness in my belly. I had to know more. I was going to get closer.
“Stay here,” I commanded Calvin Coolidge, giving the cat a final pat. “And I’ll bring ya some good table scraps later.” I arose and tiptoed down the front porch steps. Although Calvin Coolidge was doubtlessly ignorant of English, he stayed obediently behind.
As I was walking down the driveway, my feet crunching on the gravel, I overheard Jake say: “Maybe we ought to be watching around Hayworth.” He had to be referring to Hayworth Baptist Church, which was about a mile up the road.
“No,” said my father, shaking his head. “When it happens it ain’t like that. It would be someone that’s gone just recent.” I was now close enough to identify the gun laid across his lap. It was the twelve-gauge shotgun that usually resided in our downstairs hall closet.
I had no I idea what the reference to Hayworth Baptist Church might have meant, and my father’s last remark was completely inscrutable. Jake was about to say something else to my father when he noticed my approach. “Howdy, Paul,” he said. His weapon was an old revolver of some sort. It was tucked into a holster, and laid beside him on the surface of the overturned crate that he occupied. “Thought you’d come down to help us, didya?” He was a tall, lanky man about the same age as my father.
“Naw, he won’t be no help,” my brother David blurted out. I felt a predictable and now familiar resentment well up in my belly. David was only four years older than me; but the difference between my eleven and his fifteen was vast. Whereas I was still on the short and scrawny side, he was already over six feet tall and had to shave with a razor practically everyday. And David never let me forget it. Not for a second.
He stood up, holding a twenty-two rifle with an air of self-importance. “I think Mom needs your help in the kitchen,” he said. “Better run along.”
My father glared at him. “That’ll be enough, David. You don’t have to turn everything into an excuse to beat down your brother.” Then to me: “Paul, I want you to go into the house.”
Since I hadn’t been invited in the first place, I had expected as much. But I had to have an explanation of what they were doing and why. Were the bad men heading towards our farm?
Then it occurred to me that sneaking up on our house at night wouldn’t have been all that difficult. A tumescent three quarters moon had come out, but the road was overhung with trees in both directions, so we were surrounded by darkness beyond the light of the kerosene lantern. I looked up the road in one direction and I couldn’t even make out its gravelly surface beyond a stone’s throw.
“Is this about the jailbreak?” I asked quickly.
“Paul, this isn’t the time,” my father said. “Now go inside.”
I could have sworn I heard my brother snicker just then, and I whirled suddenly in his direction. It was a futile, half-hearted gesture. I would never have dared to defy my father by actually taking a swing at David; and anyway, my brother would have smacked me aside like a kitten—if I was lucky.
But that little half-lunge was enough to arouse my father’s ire: “Paul. Now.”
“Yes sir.” I turned toward the house, resigned, already contemplating possible ways to take my revenge on David, who I knew had snickered at me. As I headed toward the lights of my mother’s kitchen, I heard more bits of conversations, and then I heard David laugh conspiratorially with the two grown men. What could they be talking about?
I had taken perhaps five steps in that direction when I heard Jake yell: “Who’s there? Identify yourself!”
I turned back and saw my father, Jake, and David all clambering to their feet. David knocked his fruit crate over and kicked it out of his way. He drew the twenty-two up to his chest. My father and Jake also had their guns ready. Jake fumbled his pistol out of its holster and held it aloft in front of him.
“I said who goes there?” Jake repeated loudly. The three of them were looking down the road, in the direction that I had surveyed just moments before. They were completely absorbed on whatever Jake had seen. They didn’t notice that I had stopped to watch them.
David leaned forward, straining to see into the darkness.
“There’s no one there,” he said.
“Yes there is,” Jake insisted. “Look.”
I ventured closer to the road, where I could join the three men scanning the roadway. The overlapping shadows had indistinct beginning and end points, all melting into a field of solid black. If there was a person in the middle of the road, I couldn’t see him. It appeared to be as David had said; there was no one there.
Then there was the slightest movement where a break in the tree line had created a window of night sky. Something shifted and covered up a sprinkle of starlight that had been visible a second earlier. I refocused my eyes, and I could make out the outlines of a figure that might have been the head and torso of an adult man. It shifted again, ever so slightly, and I was sure that it was not a tree or a trick of the overlapping shadows.
“I see him!” David shouted. “I see ‘im right up the road there!”
David started forward but my father grabbed his shoulder. “Hold on,” he said in a tone that left no room for argument. Then Dad bent down and picked up the kerosene lantern by its wire loop handle. He held it up level to his shoulder.
“Who goes there?” he asked, repeating Jake’s words. “Identify your self.” A pause. “We have guns.”
There was no answer; but the man-shaped shadow shifted again.
Dad slowly walked toward the figure in the road, with the lantern in one hand and the shotgun in the other. He had not gone far before the light from the kerosene flame turned the shadow into the definite outlines of a person. Then human features—a face, clothing, and limbs—emerged from the murk.
The young man standing in the middle of the road with my father was trembling. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.
“I—I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean no harm. I was just passin’ through on my way home.”
“What’s your name, son?” my father asked, not unkindly.
“Tommy Fenwick,” he replied.
“Check his eyes,” Jake said.
“It’s okay,” Dad said. “The Fenwicks live just up the road.”
“Just check his eyes,” Jake insisted.
Dad brought the lantern up so that it illuminated Tommy Fenwick’s entire face.
“He’s fine,” Dad concluded. Then he said to Tommy: “Why didn’t you answer us, son? We could have shot you.”
Tommy shrugged. “I didn’t—”
Dad leaned closer to him and sniffed. “Damn, boy, you smell like a still. You been out drinkin’. Hadn’t ya?”
“Yessir,” Tommy replied with his head down.
“Well, that’s between you and your ma. But drinkin’ might be the least of your problems out walkin’ tonight, Tommy. You oughtn’t be out here by yourself. Haven’t you heard? Don’t you know that the Hay Moon has turned bad this year?”
Then Tommy looked up at my father. There was the slightest edge of defiance in his voice: “My ma don’t believe in the Hay Moon, Mr. Hammers. She says it’s all a load of bunk.”
I don’t know how I had expected my father to react. He didn’t tolerate any lip out of David or me, and I wouldn’t have believed that he would have tolerated that kind of talk out of Tommy.
But to my surprise he laughed. “I hope she’s right,” said Dad. “I surely do. But you’d best be careful out walkin’ drunk on the road at night, anyways.”
That last line of Dad’s seemed to put Tommy in his place. He hung his head down again and replied “Yessir.” Then Dad let him pass. He shuffled forward, his feet dragging pebbles as he walked.
I took this as my cue to sneak back to the house. The show was over. And anyway, I had enough for tonight. Tomorrow I would press my father for more information. It was clear that he had been holding something back.
Copyright 2008 by Edward Trimnell. All rights reserved.
