Tom Piccirilli - Emerald Hell

Mrs. Hoopkins said, "You ain't eatin', son. Why ain't you eatin' my pie?"

"Sorry, had a big dinner at Bliss Nail's house."

"Nobody in that house can cook the way I can."

"No, ma'am."

"Give it here," the sheriff said, pulling the plate to him and digging in.

Another toddler stepped into the kitchen and went for Hell-boy's tail. Mrs. Hoopkins came flying out of her seat and shouted, "Lolly Mae, ain't you got a boy needs some changin' and feedin'?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well then, get him off that big fella's posterior and get on with it. We all got to pull our weight, and tomorrow gonna be a big day on the farm."

"Yes, ma'am."

Lolly Mae picked up her son, did a little curtsey, and raced upstairs.

Flailing her arms, Mrs. Hoopkins said,"These girls got to get them some rest. Those who can got's to harvest peanuts on the morrow."

Hellboy had seen a lot across the world, but he'd never seen anybody work a peanut farm before. He wished he had time to watch such a thing. "I understand."

The sheriff finished his other slice of pie, stood, and followed Hellboy to the door. "You wanna wait until morning and I'll send some men with you."

"I can't wait," Hellboy said.

"Then you be safe, son."

Mrs. Hoopkins pressed a hand atop his own. "You think you can find them three girls out there in the slough 'fore any danger befalls them?"

"I'm going to try."

"I got me a bad feeling in these old bones."

Hellboy thought, Me too, but said nothing.

Tapping at the driver's window, Hellboy waited while Waldridge snorted awake from his nap. He told the houseman that he was going to go off and look for the bog village.

"You want I should go with ya?"

"No, that's okay. I was just hoping you could point me in the right direction."

"You just gonna set off walkin'?"

"Yeah." He knew that something would be along to shove and prod him on the way. Ever since he'd been let off in Enigma he'd felt he was being watched.

"Swamp that way," Waldridge said, angling his index finger south-east down a dirt track. "They say it's eight hundred square miles. Heard it on the radio once."

Only about 450,000 acres. "That's not so bad."

"You don't know your way 'round these black waters."

"Do you?"

Waldridge considered the question. "No man does fully, but it's better to have someone with ya. In case'a… well, snakebite… and to keep an eye out for gators."

A tough old feisty dude, all right. Hellboy said, "Thanks anyway. I appreciate the offer, but there's things I'm better off doing alone."

"I s'pect you're right about that. Hope to meet up with you again soon. If not, you'll always have my prayers."

Hellboy knew what they were worth, but it was nice to hear anyway.

People had been dying out here by the dozens since the beginning of the world, swallowed by the bayou without a ripple. Or found hanging in the cypresses after a week of being lost in the maze of green, tormented by swimming snakes, alligators, and half-pound spiders.

Tourists came for the gator farms, tent revivals, hootenannies, and jamborees. Hellboy still didn't know what he'd come for, but he was glad he had a reason now to do the only thing he knew how to do.

As he walked the empty road he sensed the scrub around him beginning to encroach, the night growing heavier and blacker, reaching for him. He stopped, stood still, and watched as the tree branches whirled and clawed past the moon. The ground shifted, alive, advancing and somehow taking him along with it. In the distance ahead he watched as… as the distance itself came closer without real movement. The road began to flood, abruptly filling not only with rising water but with cypress, titi, and hard-packed earth. The marsh prairie came alive and rushed forward to meet and surround him.

Before him now stood a small one-room shack.

"Now that was a pretty neat trick," he said. Stepping over, he waited for someone to come out. No one did.

Hellboy thought, All of that and they're going to make me knock.

So he knocked.

The thin pineboard door of the dilapidated shanty slowly opened, answered by a hulk of a man who managed to tower even over Hellboy. The giant looked back over his shoulder and said, "Mama, Satan hisself is at the door."

"Then let him on in, Luther," an ancient, but oddly powerful voice, called.'"Fore he get up to any mischief out there."

"Come on in, O Lucifer, Son of the Morning!"

Well, Hellboy thought, this is going to be fun.

Lit from the glow of a blazing fire within, Luther's eyes burned a strange bronze. He stood nearly seven feet tall and went at least three hundred pounds of hard muscle. His enormous head was crowned by a small tuft of wispy yellow hair. In his left hand he held two dead rabbits, and hooked on his huge pinky was a jug of moonshine.

"Satan," Luther said, "don't stir no strife in this here house."

"Luther, if you don't start any crud with me, I won't with you. Deal?"

"I reckon that's as fair an offer as I'm likely to get from the Devil."

"Probably," Hellboy admitted. "At least today."

Luther moved aside and Hellboy stepped in, bis upper lip curling in response to the overwhelming stink of cooked meat.

Tucked into her small wooden wheelchair a crone sat, smoking a corncob pipe. She was missing both legs, her left arm, right eye, and both ears. Long white hair grew in crazed clumps, some braided, some knotted into a pattern he recognized as a Litany Web. Powerful mojo.

Behind her, against a shack wall abundant with cracks stuffed full of mud and sawgrass, he saw numerous jars filled with amber fluid and dark floating matter. Labeled in a childlike scrawl were: Granny's Left Thumb, Granny's Right Big Toe, Granny's Shinbones, Luther's Wisdom Teeth, Boysenberry Jam, Granny's Anterior Margin of Pancreas, Granny's Celiac Ganglia with the Sympathetic Plexuses of the Abdominal Viscera, Luther's Kidney Stones, Peaches.

"I'm Granny Lewt," the woman said."We got business together, you and me."

"We do?"

"Tha's right."

Drinking his moonshine, the hulking Luther tossed the rabbits onto a broad wooden kitchen table and began to skin them. He was very adept with the thick cutting blade, and Hellboy didn't want to think about what that might imply, considering the old woman's current state.

"Let me hear what's on your mind, lady."

"You showin' up like this only gonna make bad matters come together that much faster."

"Usually does."

"Ayup. You put fear into the things that ain't afraid'a much in this world or the next." She plucked out her pipe and pointed the end at Hellboy. "Wish there were more like you around."

"Be careful saying things like that," Hellboy said. "You never know who might be listening."

In the center of the stone hearth a black pot of stew bubbled. Luther gutted the rabbits, chopped the meat and some vegetables, several of which Hellboy didn't recognize, and threw it all into the cauldron. Some of the liquid boiled over and splashed the inside of the fireplace. The flames heaved. A heavy draft swept by, moaning and wheezing through the perforated walls and up the chimney.

"You heard tell'a Brother Jester?" Granny Lewt asked.

"Yeah, him I heard about already. Can I go now?"

"Don't you shrug that one off too lightly."

Holding onto the pipe with her remaining two fingers, Granny Lewt snaked her right hand-her only hand-through the air for emphasis. Then she sat back and puffed deeply, enjoying her smoke.

The old woman said, "He's out there in Enigma right now. I don't know his meaning. He's got power, and he's sly."

"They all are. Don't worry about me, I've been doing this a long time."