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Devourer of Souls Eleven
ELEVENI’d always loved Creature from the Black Lagoon, even though I’d already seen it several times before on Channel 34’s Sunday afternoon cinema. It was campy and a bit silly, overacted, and I was well old enough to know the monster was a guy in a rubber suit . . .But despite that, something in the beginning gave me a bad turn that night. After Dr. Maia (played by Antonio Moren), discovered the petrified hand-fossil of the Creature’s ancestor, the live Creature reached menacingly out of the Amazon’s waters to scrape its claws on the bank. It was an amazingly effective shot despite the brassy musical score accompanying it. The only thing shown is that webbed claw, looking terribly life-like in black and white (to an imaginative fourteen year old, anyway), reaching out of the water and clawing the bank, almost as if it was marking its territory.But the jolt I suffered that night had little to do with cinematography and to do more with the images conjured in my head of something
Devourer of Souls Twelve
TWELVEI squeezed my bike’s handbrakes, slowing to a stop. “Jake,” I said, feeling oddly calm, for some reason. “What’s up?”He shrugged, his face weirdly blank in the yellow glow of the streetlights.“Were you at the movie? Didn’t see you.”He shook his head. “Nah. I . . . uh, had some thinkin’ to do. About stuff. Hey,” he leaned over his handlebars, face finally coming alive, looking eager, nervous, maybe excited . . . and . . .Yes.Afraid.“Listen. I’m gonna do somethin’ tonight. I need help. Someone to watch out. Could . . . could you go with me? I’m sorry for the way I freaked out in the woods Saturday. I just . . . I need your help, man. Need you to watch out for me.”I stared at him: his brow furrowed, jaw firm, a vein pulsing on his temple, eyes wide and glimmering. I knew where he wanted to go but I asked anyway. “Where?”And then I saw it, creeping back into his face as a gradual sneer—that old Jake Burns look, but with something else burning his eyes.Hate.Absol
Devourer of Souls Thirteen
THIRTEENI’m still not sure why I followed Jake out to Mr. Trung’s. Dad had set pretty firm rules for the night. I could go to the weekly movie on my bike alone, so long as I returned home by eleven, allowing for some dawdling after the movie and the ride home. But here I was, flying down Bassler Road behind Jake Burns at what had to be eleven already.Usually Dad went to bed before us because he had to report to the lumber mill by five, but who knew? Maybe he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Maybe he’d wait up and when I didn’t come home like I was supposed to he’d wait up some more, come out looking for me or call the sheriff, even. Worse, maybe Amy had come home early, noticed my absence and in true big-sister fashion, ratted me out. Could be either of those fates was in store.Or maybe neither of them. Maybe Dad had gone to bed as usual—around 8:00, right after his nightly beer—and had fallen hard asleep like always. Maybe Amy was still out with her friends and wouldn’t get home until
Devourer of Souls Fourteen
FOURTEENJake brought his bike to a skidding stop along Bassler Road’s gravel shoulder. I followed suit. We walked our bikes the rest of the way. As we turned onto Mr. Trung’s property, his trailer leaped from the darkness, a dim white ghost partially lit by one porch light.To our left the rows of blueberry bushes looked like dark, impenetrable walls of a maze. On the other side of the trailer lay Mr. Trung’s beautifully manicured flower gardens and his koi pond . . .Mr. Trung, praying in the koi pond.The koi praying to him.. . . and I felt a surge of inexplicable relief that Mr. Trung’s trailer blocked my view of the garden and that koi pond.The koi.Praying to Mr. Trung.“Here,” Jake whispered as he cut off the road, across the shallow ditch and along the edge of Mr. Trung’s property. “Quieter than the driveway.”I followed him—still tugged along by some strange insistence I didn’t understand—looking at Mr. Trung’s darkened trailer. No lights shone in the windows. Only
Devourer of Souls Fifteen
FIFTEENI crouched at the edge of those blueberry bushes, quietly afraid. Jake left his bike with me, hoisted his backpack over his shoulder, hefted his hammer once more and melted into the darkness soundlessly like a cat.I couldn’t help but shiver, thinking about Dad saying James Burns could do the same thing as a kid. That’s why he’d been picked to be a Green Beret, because he could fade into the misty Cambodian jungles like he’d never been there at all. Here Jake was, doing the same, leaving me alone. The night closed in around me, darker than I’d ever seen it, so dark I could barely make out my hand.After what seemed like forever finally it came: the sharp ring of metal striking stone, Jake swinging away at that stone chest under the gazebo. On the first strike every muscle in my body tensed. I gripped the flashlight so hard my knuckles ached, expecting the shrill sound and its echoes to bring something from either the shadowed depths of the blueberry bushes or from Mr. Trung’
Devourer of Souls Sixteen
SIXTEENSomehow I made it in the house undetected. Dad had gone to bed, sleeping soundly as always. Amy hadn’t come home yet from hanging out with her friends. Mind and body numb, arms and legs limp, I managed to stow my bike against the garage, sneak inside without waking Dad up, and somehow crawl into bed without a sound.Believe it or not, I fell asleep almost instantly. I’d expended all my energy in my mad dash home. Overloaded, my mind also shut down. I burrowed deep into the covers, closed my eyes and dropped into the black abyss of sleep.But it was not restful.I dreamed. Worse yet, I couldn’t wake myself up. Instead of dreaming and jolting awake, my mind slogged through a nightmare that I couldn’t drag myself free of. A nightmare of being Jake and swinging at that stone chest under the gazebo in Mr. Trung’s flower garden . . .***I swing and swing, repeatedly hitting the lid to the stone chest under Mr. Trung’s pagoda, hating that goddamn gook bastard with every breath
Devourer of Souls Seventeen
SEVENTEENFor several days afterward I stumbled about half-aware of the world around me, hard at work convincing myself that I certainly hadn’t seen what I’d thought I had. I couldn’t have. There hadn’t been legions of bullfrogs croaking in Mr. Trung’s koi pond, it had only sounded that way. That hadn’t been a strange pale green mist floating up from the pond and filling the flower gardens. It had been a motion lamp from the back of Mr. Trung’s trailer, tripped by Jake skulking around in the flower gardens, and the lamp had lit up the fog and mists.Most importantly, there hadn’t been something squishing its way out of the koi pond. Jake hadn’t been screaming. I hadn’t glimpsed something wet and glistening in the light. Obviously Mr. Trung had moved his car and hid, waiting for Jake to make his move, and had jumped out and surprised him. That’s why Jake screamed.Obviously.Regardless, I spent Thursday and Friday drifting from one activity to another. As luck would have it, Dad had
Devourer of Souls Eighteen
EIGHTEENJake Burns was never seen in Clifton Heights again. The news broke in the churches that Sunday morning, the local pastors requesting prayer for James Burns because it appeared that his only son Jake had ‘run away.’ Kevin called me about it later that afternoon.Amazingly enough I felt nothing at all, initially. I’d returned from my journey along the railroad tracks Saturday exhausted, drained, my mind emptied. I passed a restful night after a quiet evening listening to old re-runs of The Shadow on AM radio while cooking hotdogs over the campfire with Dad and Amy.I knew Jake hadn’t run away (or at least I thought I did) but something had happened in my head on that long, mostly forgotten ramble along the railroad tracks. The terror had leaked away, leaving only vague images and impressions. I never shared with my friends what I thought I’d seen that night. I agreed with their assumption that Jake had finally decided to flee the domestic abuse all of us so tactfully never di
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