Tom Piccirilli - Emerald Hell

The fervent mind of Deeter Ferris played on the rape of a nameless woman they'd caught four years ago after she'd turned off the highway hoping to buy some gator skins to make into a pair of boots for her husband. She was just driving slow through Enigma hoping to run into somebody who might be a gator killer. Damn near everyone was, but she just so happened to run across the Ferris boys, sitting out in front of Coover's garage while Coover finished reinforcing the suspension on their pickup in case they got into any more chases with the law through the hills while they were driving moon.

The boys took her back to their place and sold her a fine bull skin. No trouble on their mind that day, just enjoying the feel of her cash money in their hands and the gorgeous sight of her. Full-breasted, bleach-headed, the stink of the city on her like a musk. Then she went and fouled it up by talking about her husband, who sounded like a right fine boy until she got to the part about him being a correctional officer in Chadabunk School for Wayward Youths, which was where the Ferris brothers had been sent for nine years after the murder of their parents.

They reckoned if her husband was anything like the guards who'd brutalized them while they were there, then he was one self-righteous, billy club-wielding, ungodly perverted sumbitch who not only didn't deserve himself a fine pair of gator boots, but didn't justify having a right fine full-breasted, bleach-headed, musky wife neither.

She kept asking, What's the matter? as they tugged the gator skin out of her hands and took her purse away and Duffy got out her keys and drove her car away around back, and Deeter took her wrist and gently tugged her into the house. What's the matter? What's the matter? His muscles tightened and ached with remembering those words and how they'd soon contorted into screams.

Jester woke them with some reluctance, sharing in their joy and madness, and said, "It's time."

"Where we goin'?" Duffy asked.

"Into the swamp now. To find my Sarah."

"Pregnant girls in there, they likely gator bait already, bloated and ripening in some mud hole."

"No, they're alive, and we'll reach them tonight."

"And that big ole red fella?"

"If he stands in my way he'll suffer for it."

"We gonna need a skiff," Deeter said. "Ours got sunk the last big rain."

"You were drunk," Jester said, "and spilled moon on yourself while smoking a cigar you stole from a traveling soap salesman. You burned yourself and jumped in the water and the boat sank."

The Ferris boys watched him, the hinges of their jaws throbbing and the cold fear in their eyes, the way it should be.

A minute later Duffy scratched at his soft, golden stubble.

"Plume Wallace got one down in the bottoms that he keep tied outside his shanty, over by Scutt's Landing. He's always on the lookout for crawfish."

"He ain't gonna like us takin' it. And he's got a shotgun."

Duffy opened an unpainted closet door and withdrew a twelve-gauge pump. "Well hell, looky there, so do we."

"Reckon I never liked that old boy much anyways."

"Let's go," Brother Jester said.

A low-lying mist shrouded the emerald hell, coiling upon the green darkness as the sky, the color of a bruise, grew brighter. Quickly the world amassed weight and substance, minute by minute growing in clarity, as if great hands were shaping each detail of life from scratch.

"Wake up, son," Lament said, and shook Hellboy's shoulder.

Hellboy was already awake, still curled beneath the blanket, staring at his stone fist. It was clenched tightly as if he'd been holding onto something. Even now he was a little worried to let go of whatever it was. He'd been dreaming deeply but he couldn't remember of what, and it took a while before he was able to open his hand and see that it was empty.

He sat up and noticed how the swamp not only looked much different in the light of day, but felt it as well. Fertile and vital but no longer imposing, there was a beauty here that he hadn't seen in the dark. Hummocks of scrub surrounded the tongue of land where they camped. Oleander and geranium blossoms added even more color so that the green jungle no longer overwhelmed.

The world around assailed him with so much noise that at first he almost hadn't been able to hear it. There were the sounds of crows, bullfrogs, polecats, skinks, egrets, squirrels, and ducks.

Hellboy was stiff and still sore from mixing it up with the gators. Gingerly he untied his makeshift bandages and was surprised to see his wounds looked clean and on their way to healing. He flexed his leg, did some deep knee-bends, and loosened up.

Checking the special cartridges on his belt, he held one up to the sun to make sure it wasn't damaged.

"What you got there?" Lament asked.

"A blood-soaked splinter taken from the wheel that broke the back of St. Catherine."

"Saints? Son, this is Southern Baptist Country. They ain't afraid of saints 'round here. They're afraid of Revenuers."

Hellboy persisted. "Stops djinn and Ambassadors of Mammon in their tracks, let me tell you. Guaranteed to slow down any member of the infernal order."

"Well, you'll surely hear a hoot of joy from me iffun we come 'cross any infernal order members thisaway."

Cool winds washed over the lake and whispered through the loblolly and catclaw briar. The old lady's ears told him which trees were which just by the sound of their leaves rippling in the breeze.

Pawing through his rucksack, Lament drew out provisions and started cooking breakfast. Hellboy spotted canisters of milk that should've curdled in this heat. He said, "Can I have a drink?"

Lament handed over the milk. Hellboy sipped it cautiously at first, and then drank deeply It was cold and fresh. "Where'd you get this?"

"In town."

"Yesterday afternoon?"

"Tha's right."

"It should've gone bad by now."

"Enigma cows is fit."

Looked like Lament was making eggs, but much larger than those of a chicken. Hellboy watched him crack the shells and pour the yolks into a skillet he placed over the fire.

"Your stomach still distressing you any?" Lament asked.

Hellboy was surprised it wasn't. He was actually hungry. "No. I think I can eat."

"Glad to hear it. Pull up a patch of log here and come have breakfast. We got miles to cover and I fear the weather is gonna change. Now get you some bacon and corn griddle cakes."

"I like pancakes."

It took Lament ten minutes to make breakfast and serve it on tin plates. Until Hellboy took his first bite he hadn't realized how famished he was. The pancakes were sweeter and fluffier than he was used to, covered with a thick honey syrup. He ate quickly, enjoying himself. The bacon was thick and burned just right. The eggs were unlike anything he'd ever tasted before.

He knew he should let it slide, but he just had to ask. "What kind of eggs are these?"

"Turtle," Lament said.

Hellboy flipped his plate over into the dirt."Gah!"

It got Lament chuckling softly again. Then snickering as he tried to hold in his laughter, but eventually it got away from him and he started guffawing, clutching his belly.

"It's not funny!" Hellboy shouted, though he found he was grinning himself. Strange to discover his mood had lifted in such an odd place as this. Still, a few minutes later, he realized he couldn't fully quit staring at his hand, trying to remember the dream.

"It wasn't a nightmare," Lament said, carrying the plates to the water's edge, where he washed them. "Not entirely. He come 'round visitin', Brother Jester did."

Hellboy didn't see any tracks in the dirt besides Lament's boots and his own hoof prints. "When? How?"