Tom Piccirilli - Emerald Hell

He was surprised at the size of the town. Someone mentions a swamp village you think maybe seven or eight shacks, a handful of folks carving out some kind of hardscrabble life. But as he looked about he saw more and more buildings in the distance, larger homes, a kind of main street with stores on it. The hum of gas-run generators thrummed beneath all the other noise.

The channels of swamp water ran between houses, and small bridges had been built to span them. There were stables, chicken coops, and barns. He saw goats and pigs in small corrals. Several skiffs sat at the sycamore-lined bank of a large creek that led back into the deeper bog.

Teens fished beside their fathers. He saw tots pushed along in baby carts. This was a true community, as real as any other town he'd been in, and he knew without asking that it had no name.

When he was sated he turned and saw people still scuttling around Lament, who was lying on a cushioned bench on a nearby veranda. An old white-haired man with a bushy silver mustache and thick glasses, who actually looked like a small-town doctor, turned out to be a small-town doctor. He even carried a black bag. His shirt was buttoned to the collar and he wore a string tie and walked through the crowd with an air of controlled annoyance. When he reached Lament the doc immediately began to examine him.

"Quit makin' such a bother over me," Lament said, "I tell you I'm all right."

"Hush now, we all got our chores to attend and jobs to do. So let me do mine."

"Forget that. Is Sarah here? Tell me she's here."

"She is, and she's fine, so now you just settle yourself."

"I need to see her!"

The old man cleaned his glasses with the ends of his tie. "If you want to see Sarah again you'll hold still. You've got a broken rib poised to enter your lung, and you must've dropped two or three pints of blood already."

"Oh, that ain't so much."

"It ain't much when you're drinking moonshine, but it's plenty to lose from your pulmonary system. You're a mass of lacerations, abrasions, contusions, acute edema, hairline fractures, and exhaustion."

"You just like haulin' out fancy words."

"Hush and lie back or I'm a'gonna conk you with a rock."

Lament lay down and allowed the doc to do his work. Hellboy wasn't sure what he'd been expecting the old man to pull from his bag, maybe leeches and mud packs, eyes of newt and a jar labeled Doc's Gallbladder , but he was impressed when he saw the doc filling a needle with antibiotics. Afterward, he used a staple gun to close Lament's gator scratches and other wounds, and bandaged the busted ribs.

The doc washed his hands in a metal bowl and pointed at Hell-boy. "You next, friend."

"I'm okay."

Doc sighed, threw back his head, and stared at the heavens. "Lord save me from such hardheaded, steely roughnecks." He glowered at Hellboy. "Son, my name's Doc Wayburn. I'm seventy-one years old and I can measure out with a yardstick the distance I've got left before I reach the Elysian Fields. You gonna make me waste my precious remaining days arguing with you too?"

Hellboy was more afraid of the old guy conking him with a rock. "Okay, I'll settle in and try to be a good patient."

He sat beside Lament on the bench and Doc Wayburn inspected his wounds, gingerly removing the torn strips of his coat and prodding here and there.

"You a veteran, son?" the doc asked.

"What makes you say that?"

"These are field dressings. Nicely done too. You been on the battleground."

"I've seen my share of scrapes."

"Of that I'm sure, son."

Doc Wayburn continued his ministrations, taking care of the wounds, dressing and suturing a few injuries Hellboy hadn't even been aware of, considering how battered he was. His left hoof had cracked at the edge, and the doc ran off to a nearby home and returned with a petroleum-based sealant. He said, "It'll take a few months for the split to grow out. Until then, you might consider shoeing it to keep the crack from getting worse. We got a good old boy blacksmith can fix that right up."

"Thanks for your help, I'll be fine."

"As you say, then. I got some more rounds to make." And with that he smoothed down his thick mustache and marched off through town.

The children brought plates of food and Lament and Hellboy sat side by side on the veranda, tired and neatly bandaged, eating and drinking wine. Hellboy didn't know what was on his plate and he was glad nobody told him. He wasn't about to ask.

"Doc Wayburn told me Sarah's fine," Lament said.

"I heard. That's good. Where is she?"

"I don't know, but if she don't show up in the next few minutes I'm a'gonna go lookin'."

A couple more people came up and said hello to Lament, treating him with some reverence, even celebrity. When they'd gone Hellboy said, "I thought you hadn't been here since you were a boy."

"I haven't."

"Then how do they all know you?"

"Some know your name too. You gonna ask them about that as well?"

Hellboy figured that he'd made the papers at least a couple of times even down here. "That's different."

"Mayhap."

"Enough with the mayhaps already."

"I know a good many of these folk from Enigma. Some of 'em have, ah, retired from town life and come out here to live. Others come because of their children. Some you might say commute between Enigma and the village. And some, well, you know-"

"I know? What do I know?"

Lament said, "Some I know from my dreams."

The children began to dance again, and the folk returned to their food and their music. Who knew a washboard and an empty jug and three strings drawn up a broom handle could create such complete and rich songs? More clapboard doors clattered in the wind. The air was full of laughter. Fishboy Lenny just hung in the background, waving his flippers. Hellboy waved back and the kid spun in happy circles.

Hellboy looked closely at the people, seeing the slight mutations in many of them. He saw webbed hands and vestigial gills in several people. Others who had animal-like, reptilian, or insectoid features. Maybe their mutations were just a leap in genetic adaptation to their swampy surroundings.

Pointing up the main street, he said to Lament, "I'm going to take a look around this way."

"I think I'll head in the other direction. Give a shout if you run into any more mischief. It'llbe getting dark soon."

With that they stood and began to move off, Hellboy thinking maybe Fishboy Lenny could lead him around the town, show him the sights, the corn crib and the place where they shucked oysters or caught crawfish, or whatever it was that they did, but before lie took two steps Lament gripped his elbow. "Hold on, son. Town elder is a'comin'."

"Who would that be?"

"This here would be Granny McCulver."

Hellboy thought, Well sure, of course, another granny. What else had he been expecting?

This granny was a hell of a lot different from Granny Lewt, that was for certain. She was young and a stone knockout. She had all her limbs and features. As she moved among her people, the crowd parted to let her by. The music rose and the song grew in strength. He felt the pleasant pressure of her power exerting itself. The great force of her character.

He didn't know where the granny part came into it at all-she looked about thirty on the outside. A very fine and well-endowed thirty. He couldn't figure out exactly how she'd made it to granny status, but decided to put off the question as be stared.

"Son, your tongue is danglin'," Lament said.

"Oh boy."

Her glossy, lustrous black hair fell about her shoulders and swirled in the breeze. Eyes like burnished black diamonds were emphasized even more by her pale, heart-shaped face. She grinned with slightly parted rose-petal lips, her perfect white teeth shining through.