THE OILY
By E. A. Black
Blurb
Lara and her brother Nate are clearing
out their father's house following his death. The house is a Victorian eyesore
that backs up to Strangeman's Swamp, a five-mile pit of reeking desolation on
the island of Caleb's Woe, just off the northeast coast of Massachusetts. The
Oily is the wettest, most desolate marsh in Strangeman's Swamp. Animals
wandered in there and were never seen again. A child name Scotty Shaw had gone
missing and presumably ended up in the Oily. Lara had been babysitting him when
he wandered off. She was wracked with guilt over his disappearance, which
brings us to this scene. Lara goes to the second floor of her father's house to
gather furniture to take home.
Excerpt
Lara climbed the steep staircase until
she reached the second floor. Four bedrooms stood on the right side of a narrow
hallway. The tapping of her shoes echoed on the wooden floor. She wanted to put
as much distance between herself and the second floor as quickly as possible. Clear
out that dresser, roll up the rug, and get the hell downstairs as fast as you can.
As she passed
her old bedroom, she thought she heard a sigh from behind the closed door.
She stopped
dead in her tracks, listening, her heart thumping so hard it hurt.
She heard
nothing.
She turned the
doorknob and opened the door. The hinges creaked so loudly she jumped as she
stepped into the room. Stop being so skittish! There’s nothing to be afraid
of.
Believe that
if you wish, Lara. You know you have good reason to be afraid.
Dirty lace
curtains that had once been white hung from the windows like loose flesh.
Sunlight illuminated clouds of dust motes floating about the room. Stale air
hung around her, a dirty blanket covering a quaking child. Memories lurked in
the shadows, on the walls, and in the floorboards; painful snippets of times
past.
Storm clouds
roiled in the distance, casting shadows on Strangeman’s Swamp. Wind blew strong
and hard, tossing the tree branches that danced a frenzied tango. Gnarled
branch arms reached into the afternoon sky, grasping at ravens that steered
clear in fear. As the sun hid behind cloud skirts, shadows lurked in the
underbrush, off in The Oily. Lara raised the window to let out the stale air
and a gush of marsh wind blew into the room, rustling the dirty curtains. Dust
billowed around her, making her sneeze.
She leaned
against the windowsill and stared out into the dank afternoon, watching
Strangeman’s Swamp, as if demons lurked in the bramble far below.
No demons lived
in Strangeman’s Swamp, though. No ghosts, either. Only creatures born of rock
and wood, sticker bushes, vines choking the life out of trees, mud, water and
wild flowering shrubs. Nothing human lived in Strangeman’s Swamp, or The Oily.
Whatever lurked there felt nothing for humanity, and only wanted to end
mankind’s encroachment in its territory.
Lights flashed
in the distance. What were cars doing on the road so close to the swamp?
Especially during a thunderstorm?
Then she
remembered that no road ran along the swamp’s edge.
Lights blinked
on and off like fireflies, but she'd never seen fireflies on Caleb’s Woe. She
watched the glowing pinpricks and wondered what they were. Will o’ the wisp?
Saint Elmo’s fire? Swamp gas? Phosphorescence?
Corpse candles?
They migrated
from the edges of the swamp to meet in the center, circling each other like
ravens fighting over a carcass. They danced and twirled, some only inches above
the muddy waters and others high in the trees. They met in the center of the
swamp. Once they reached The Oily they stopped moving.
Then they began
to creep towards the house.
Lara stood
riveted to the window, unable to move. Dread coiled at the base of her spine,
whispering to her in a voice harsh with terror. She could only watch the
spectacle taking place below, wondering what intelligence moved those lights in
en mass like a swarm of angry bees.
The lights
floated on the breeze until they disappeared beneath the covered porch. Lara
waited until the glow from below crept up the screen. Heart thumping and mouth
dry with fear, she froze to her spot, unable to lower the window despite her
desperate urge to slam it down. Knowing something horrible was about to happen,
eyes wide and unblinking, she stared out the window at the growing glow,
waiting. Fetid air hung around her, smelling of low tide and dead fish. The
stink clung to her skin, was absorbed into her pores. In disgust, she scratched
her arms to scrape it off, but its grip only tightened.
The wizened
hand that crept up the screen shriveled in a dirty, tattered sleeve. Fingers
crawled along the screen like a gnarled pale spider, seeking entrance.
Mesmerized, Lara could only watch as the hand felt along the edges of the
window, long ragged nails picking at the wood to break through.
Below the arm
was a small body, capped with a head full of matted brown hair. Mud clung to
the tresses and caked on the shoulders. The body of the boy gripped the side of
the house, clinging like a spider on a wall. Spiders terrified Lara. Those
hairy limbs and those eyes…
The boy lifted
his head. When Lara saw the face she recoiled in horror, backing up enough so
that if it reached that arm through the screen it wouldn't touch her. Scotty
Shaw’s skin was shrunken against his skull. A hole gaped where the nose should
have been. His mouth was contorted into a gruesome frown devoid of tongue and
teeth, a gaping maw of cracked, blue lips. The anguish in that battered face
tore at her heart.
‘'m sorry…
I’m so sorry I left you alone up here when I was busy downstairs making out
with my boyfriend…
Worst of all
were his eyes. Where Scotty Shaw’s blue eyes should have been there were only
two gaping sockets, seeing nothing yet watching her intently, blaming her for
not catching him sneaking out the window on the night he disappeared. Mud tears
poured from those sockets, to fall down high jutting cheekbones.
Lara fled from
her room, not once looking back as Scotty Shaw picked his way past the window
frame and into the room. She ran outside through the hot afternoon haze, not
knowing her brother stood in the cellar beneath the house, battling his own
nightmare.
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