Tom Piccirilli - Emerald Hell

Jester was suddenly startled by the fact that he did not know the name of the family that had raised her. Bliss Nail had hidden her from him. The shadows seemed upset and flowed about inside him, knowing a mistake had been made but unsure of what to do about it. They moved toward the old woman but her strength of mind and resolve seemed to step before them and block their passage to the truth.

"She is nineteen," Jester said.

"There's three Sarahs here that age."

"Then I'll see all three of them now."

"But you won't, it's nigh unto nine thirty-five, and in this house we rise early."

"I can certainly understand your trepidation, but-"

"I don't allow my girls to linger with strangers out here in my kitchen this deep in the night. You got questions, visit during regular hours, just after supper time. We'll be havin' fried bluegill and hushpuppies tomorrow, and you're welcome to share."

"Tater hushpuppies!" Deeter said. "Ain't had them in many a hot summer!"

Jester glowered at the interruption and faced Mrs. Hoopkins again. "I thank you for that, dear woman, but I beg you to make a special consideration for me, in this case."

"And why'm I gonna do that?"

"The circumstances are exceptional."

An infant began to shriek upstairs and Brother Jester's heart both soared and cracked at the sound. He saw the hatchet covered in blood again, and could feel the rope tightening around his throat. The angel of death embracing his body in its freezing arms. He started to tremble, the power rising within him.

In an instant, he began to cry black tears, the motes of energy sparking and floating from him. Mrs. Hoopkins nearly fell over in her chair and Duffy reached over and pressed a hand to her back, holding her in place. Jester started to grin, his teeth fiery, and said, "Because if we don't go outside right this minute and I don't get the information I want, I'll have to drag you upstairs and slay all the girls and their children until I find my daughter. Sarah. Who is pregnant and who is nineteen."

"Lord have mercy," Mrs. Hoopkins whimpered.

"He does," Brother Jester said, "but not for me, and not for you this night."

Ushered outside, Mrs. Hoopkins spoke quickly but with a quiet innate strength. Even now, with the Ferris boys bracketing her in the yard, the lights of the house seeming so far away, with her death at hand, she stood with bold assurance. The shadows could hear her prayers in the back of her mind. With Brother Jester's eyes searing into her heart, she showed no fear at all for herself, but only for the girls and children in her care.

Jester loved the woman as much as he was able, despite what would have to happen next. He wanted to hug her to him and preach words of solace, even kiss her brow. He began petitioning Heaven as he turned away, gesturing for Duffy to put an end to it now.

In Duffy's hand, raised high, was her cutting knife, the edge still covered with briarberry and crumbs. She didn't make a sound as Brother Jester, once again alive with his own death, fell to his knees and began to weep black flame.

After they buried Mrs. Hoopkins out in the peanut patch, Deeter asked, "So who is this big ole red boy anyway?"

"A creature of both light and darkness who chooses not to know himself," Jester said. "Like me."

They would have to go out into the swamps and revisit his past. Not only to regain his daughter, heavy with his grandchild, but also to face his newfound brother-enemy caught in the same web between Heaven, earth, and Hell. Perhaps, Jester thought, they might redeem themselves together.

He let out a mangled stream of laughter from his ruined throat, filled with sorrow and madness.

The Ferris boys looked at each other, cruel men with dried blood beneath their fingernails, doing their best not to tremble in the humid darkness, and failing.

Hellboy had to give credit where it was due. The old lady's eyes seemed to be working just fine.

He could see pretty clearly in the night and he immediately recognized the lengthy stobpole standing in the skiff even though he'd never seen or used one before. A comforting knowledge and familiarity with the swamp engulfed him, as he walked through the ragged cypress, tupelo, sycamore stumps, and watergrass.

He spotted a skink in the branches above him. He didn't know what a skink was. Even now, staring at the thing, he didn't know what it was. But thanks to Granny Lewt, he knew it was a skink. Weird feeling.

A lantern hung on an iron brace at the back of the skiff. He reached into his belt and pulled out his Zippo lighter, lit the wick of the oil lamp, and enjoyed the warm glow it cast across the emerald hell.

He saw a paddle tied into some netting in the aft. He climbed into the skiff and shoved off, using the stobpole to brace and push free from the bottom of the slimy shallows. His movements had a strange grace that wasn't his own. All things being equal, he'd rather have tried it himself without having to eat that damn stew, but at least Granny Lewt's spell made this part of the journey easier.

Darkness somehow came alive with the infinite depths of green, eternal and brooding. He moved in a southeastern course, stobbing through the silent, shadow-strewn slough. The black waters were stagnant and mosquito-heavy, and overhead long vines and thick Spanish moss hung down from branches, fluttering in the slight hot breeze.

The keel bumped a log half-hidden in the weeds and spooked a limpkin awake. The ungainly bird hopped through the shallows using its stork-like legs to limp through the slime, its bill thick with bugs and snails. Its mouth opened and it let out a bizarre cry that carried through the bog, causing a low moaning caterwaul from nocturnal animals in the trees and tussocks all around. A loon's shriek tore through the night. Granny's ears were doing their job too.

Hellboy continued on, almost enjoying the repetitive motion of stobbing the boat, cutting cleanly through the water. Luna moths and mosquitoes congregated around the lantern, the tinny hum loud in his head.

It went on like that for hours, until the moon was high overhead. The whole time he was uncertain he was moving in the right direction, or in any direction at all. There were no clues to follow in this place, no signs that anyone had been here over the last ten thousand years. He almost made to shout into the darkness, see if the girls might answer him from the depths of the brush. But who knew what that might arouse.

The yellow illumination from the lantern lit the right-hand bank as the waterway thinned and he came around a knoll of mud, root, and bramble. He heard something hit the water, flat and heavy. Then there was aggressive action in the shallows for a minute before a lulling silence, and his new ears told him that gators were on the move.

The canal narrowed to a swollen inlet which led to a far off dead-still lake, the banks rising and falling away into a black morass thick with tupelo, titi, and scrub oak. Billowing cypress towered above, casting a greater green glow across the landscape. Hellboy lifted the stobpole inboard and scanned the area. He saw figures converging on him, the ridged, wide-eyed, flat reptile heads coursing toward him.

He drew the lantern off its iron hinge and held it up, seeing more gators on the banks scrambling around in the mud on squat, disproportionate legs, hissing and snapping their long jaws. Ducks took off flapping into the dark and cat squirrels chittered up strangler-fig vines. He brought the back of his hand to his nose as a noxious smell assaulted him. The lantern flame flared and singed his fingers. He snapped it back onto its hook. There must be pockets of methane trapped in the bottoms around here.