Tom Piccirilli - Emerald Hell

"Does she know you're coming to help her?" he asked.

"No, me and Sarah ain't talked in a couple months."

"Why not?"

Lament blinked a lew times, like he couldn't believe the question. "I been adrift."

"But you somehow knew Jester was coming for her."

"I knew. I felt the shadows on me more than once, and I knew their intent."

Hellboy watched the hillbilly, thinking, Jesus, suspenders in this day and age. He felt oddly uneasy at the way Lament seemed to put him at ease. Humming along with that stupid mouth-harp, what was up with that? He knew he had to watch himself. Granny Lewt's spell might be working on him too well or the wet heat of the swamp was baking his brain, but something was having its effect.

Lament caught Hellboy's eye and said, "What?"

"I can't figure you out."

"Son, ain't we all got more than enough to do with figurin' on our ownselves? Without needin' to do it for other folks too?"

Sudden surface ripples broke against the side of the skiff. Drops of swamp water flew into Hellboy's face.

"We're coming to a bad spot," Lament said.

"A bad spot? What's that mean?"

"Can't you feel it?"

"No."

It would be nice to be able to feel a bad spot, Hellboy thought. Then he could step left or right instead of just plowing ahead the way he usually did. So no, he didn't feel a damn thing, and never did until some creep or another was trying to kill him.

But he could smell rain in the air, and he sensed how the swamp was beginning to hush and muse. "A storm's coming."

"It's already here," Lament told him.

A moment later the rain burst down upon them. One of those torrential downpours so powerful and immediate that they were both instantly as wet as if they'd fallen overboard. The wind rose and waves kicked up and washed over the bow. It was like they were lost at sea in a dinghy. Acres of watergrass waved about as if alive.

Hellboy realized they didn't have a pail and would very soon need to start bailing if they were going to stay afloat. Otherwise, they'd have to beach on one of the hummocks.

"I see a shack," Lament said. "Shore's closer than it looks."

"Is it the swamp village?"

"No, I don't think so. Just a loner out this far on the blackwater."

"We gonna knock and ask directions?"

"I reckon we will at that."

"But didn't you just say this was a bad spot?"

"I did," Lament said.

"Terrific."

It always came down to this. Heading into the place where you knew you shouldn't head.

Lament pointed to an area on the far bank of a small lagoon-like cove that eased away to a slimy shore covered with leaves and dead branches. The turbulent waters bubbled violently with rain. Lizards ran along the weeds as Hellboy brought the boat to a stop and he and Lament slogged to shore, dragging the skiff behind them.

The gray hanging mossbeard flapped and danced in the wind. Lightning skewered the skies. Lament parted the cypress streamers and climbed past the massive trunks. Strangler-fig vines as fat as garden hoses tangled around his legs and he nearly fell over. Thunder pounded. Hellboy reached down and clutched a mighty handful of the fibrous jungle vine in his right fist and tore away great lengths of it.

"You've got my gratitude," Lament said.

"Sure."

They continued on for another fifty yards on a slow incline until Hellboy saw the shack. It was a little larger than Granny Lewt's place but just as ramshackle and desolate.

Lament drew his wet curls out of his eyes and said, "It's Granny Dodd's place."

"She Granny Lewt's sister?"

"So I've always reckoned."

"Well, I'm telling you right now," Hellboy said,"I'm not eating anything, and if she tries to make me or if she's got a big brute of a son who aims to push me around, I'm going to knock somebody through the roof."

"I thank you for lettin' me know your intentions," Lament said. "But Granny Dodd's been dead a few years. Only her granddaughter Megan lives out here. 'Leastways I think so."

The storm kicked up another notch and the wind heaved the trees around, dead branches whirling and flying by, lost in the surrounding titi brush. Wind roared and wailed, alive with purpose. Rain pummelled like the angry hands of children. Lament turned to look at Hellboy "There's evil will in the air." He pointed east. "Sun's still shinin' a mile or two off. Storm's breakin' right on top of us."

"Pretty standard where I go," Hellboy said. "Let's get inside."

They fought their way to the shack, both of them searching the heavy brush and mire for whatever they could see: pregnant girls, gators, walking shadows, who the hell knew what. Thunder shook the hanging willows and tattered beards of moss. Finally Lament got to the door of the shanty and pounded on it with the side of his fist.

A terrified woman's voice responded. "You go on and get away from my place now! I got me the two barrels of this here shotgun pointed right at you belly-high!"

"That you Megan Dodd? It's me, John Lament. You might remember me from some years back, when I used to sing in these parts as a child."

"You gotta be gone from here!"

Okay, Hellboy thought, so here it comes. The reason why this is such a bad spot.

"Why?" Lament asked.

"My man is gone. My husband… he… he gone away. He's been taken from me."

"Taken?" Lament asked. "By who? Who gone and done a thing like that, Megan Dodd?"

"You get on out of the blackwater now, you hear! Go on now!"

"Ain't no need to fear me or my friend here. Fact is, if you want a good belly laugh, feed him some turtle eggs."

"Hey!" Hellboy said. "Don't go starting any rumors."

"Ain't a rumor, it's a fact."

"What you want at my door?" Megan cried.

"I want to know if you've seen my Sarah and some other young ladies come through this way. They left Mrs. Hoopkins's home two days ago and I been trackin' them through the blackwater."

"No," Megan said, and that seemed to be the end of that.

"These are strange hours, and I need to find them."

"If they come this way they likely dead."

Lament froze in the rain and the wind hurtled and broke against his form at the door. He'd been bridling it well so far, but Hellboy could see how worried he was about Sarah and his unborn child. "Why do you say that? Who took your man, Megan?"

"Iffun you don't steer clear you gonna get took by Mama's girlies just as quick!"

"What are these girlies she's talking about?" Hellboy asked.

Lament shrugged. "I never heard tell of them before."

Hellboy could just see it. Roving bands of teenage girls, flaxen-haired and with their blouses knotted at their midriffs, wearing ragged jean shorts, glowering with cornflower blue eyes, running around in the swamp causing all sorts of damage. Men screaming and waving their arms in the air, ruffian girlies smacking them around. He turned up his ragged collar against the rain and scratched between his horns.

"Megan, let me in," Lament implored. "You gotta hold on now, and tell me what you're so afraid of. I felt it in the air, the cold and the cruel. What is it that's happened here since the last time I passed through."

"The Mama growed strong in the woolly patch," Megan whimpered. "I don't dare say she was never there before, 'cause Granny Dodd, she knowed about it, kept the Mama at bay. But when Granny died, her spells grew weak and the swamp gone bad."

Lament tried the latch on the door and found it jammed. The resistance caught him off-guard and he spun in the silt and slime frothing beneath her shack, pitched sideways, and nearly dropped into it. Hellboy caught him and righted him, and their faces burned gold and then white in the flare of another eruption of lightning.

"Don't you come in," Megan Dodd whispered, her face pressed to the slats, the glint off her eyes and wet lips shining through the cracks in the planks.