Каарон Уоррен - The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2018 Edition

“You hold on to that. I’ll end up shooting myself in the foot,” he said.

On the opposite side of the factory, they came to another door cast in shadow. This one opened into a storeroom with no window, but larger than the first. In the middle of it, surrounded by shelves holding various bottles and tools, was Mavis Kane, bound to a straight-backed chair with her arms joined behind her. Boyle noticed immediately that she was awake and alert. She too had blood on her black dress, but her hair was still in a single knot. He found another chair in the corner of the room and moved it around so he could sit facing her. He found the resemblance to her sister distracting. As he set his bag on the floor, he said, “Miss Kane, how are you feeling?” She was placid, expressionless. She stared straight through him. Her lips moved, though, and she answered.

“I’ve a fever,” she said. “An infernal itching down below.”

“Your sister is also ill. When did she begin not feeling well?”

“After we met the woman out by the salt marshes.”

“Who would that be?”

“An old woman, Mother Ignod, the color of oak leaves in spring. She wore rags and told us she was a witch who had been put to death by settlers almost a century before because she spoke to the deer and they listened. She found magical power in the lonesome, remote nature of the barrens.”

“How did they dispatch her?”

“Drowned her in a bog.”

“And now she’s back?”

“‘For revenge,’ she told us.”

“Upon whom?”

Mavis remained silent.

“Do you recall your sister being afflicted by a bad case of chiggers?”

“Yes.”

“What about you? Did you also have them on your legs?”

“Yes.”

Boyle retrieved from his bag at his feet a blue bottle with a cork in the top. “I’m going to give you something to drink. It’s going to cure you,” he told her.

Mavis didn’t say a word, didn’t look at him when he stood from his chair and came toward her, pulling the stopper from the blue bottle. “Drink this,” he said, and handed it to her. He was a little surprised when she took it, put it to her lips, and did as he commanded without a question, without spilling a drop, without grimacing at the bitter taste. What he’d given her was a tea made from the witch-hazel blossom, toadleaf, and ghost sedge. She drank till her mouth filled and overflowed and dribbled down her bloody dress. He let her finish the entire bottle. She handed it back to him; he put the cork in it and returned it to his bag. As he sat in his chair, he reached back into the bag and took out a different bottle, this one brown. Black Dirt Bourbon, Boyle’s self-prescribed cure-all. He sipped and mused while he waited for his elixir to work.

In his notes on the case, the doctor stated that he believed the invading parasite had caused swelling of the women’s brains, which caused their psychotic behavior. The witch hazel was an anti-inflammatory, and the other two ingredients had what today would be called antibiotic properties. Although he’d been trained at the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school, a few years living in the barrens and he’d combined his formal knowledge with the teachings of folk medicine. He writes, “The two of them must have been under the influence of the disease for weeks as it slowly grew within them. Gillany was further along for some reason, and I had lost hope for her—feverish, catatonic, birthing worms, wandering through a labyrinthine wilderness.”

Shaw woke Boyle from a sound sleep. Though there was no window in the room, immediately the doctor could tell it was night. The factory owner held a lantern. Mavis was sleeping peacefully, her eyes closed, her bosom heaving slowly up and down at regular intervals. Boyle got out of his chair and walked across to her. Lightly slapping her face, he spoke her name, rousing her. Before long her eyelids fluttered, and she made a soft moaning noise.

“She looks better,” he said to Shaw.

“Remarkable.”

“Her sister?”

“The search party just returned without her. They combed the woods, twenty men and Chandra O’Neal, the tracker, and not a trace of her.”

“Even if you could find her, and I could administer my cure, she’s no doubt too far gone,” said Boyle.

Shaw was about to admit defeat as well when Mavis opened her eyes and murmured something. Boyle put his ear down to her lips. “What was that?” he asked. She mumbled some more, and Shaw asked, “Is she speaking?” The doctor nodded.

Boyle went back to his bag and pulled out another blue bottle full of the witch-hazel elixir. He slipped it into the pocket of his coat.

“What did she say?” asked Shaw.

“She said to get the dog, Brogan. The dog will track Gillany if you speak her name to him.”

Heading out into the Pine Barrens at night, even with a torch and a gun, was daunting. People who knew how unpredictable the wilderness could be usually stayed close to home at night. Still, the doctor, the factory owner, Fate, and three other workers most loyal to the Shaws headed out with guns loaded. There were two shotguns and two pistols among the party. Fate carried an over-under, double-barreled pistol, and the doctor went armed only with his elixir.

The night was cold as the world moved toward winter. There was a strong breeze, and the leaves from scarlet and blackjack oak to maple and tupelo showered down around them. The moon was a sight brighter than on Halloween, and in the clearings it reflected off the sugar sand, glowing against the dark. They found the black dog, Brogan, a powerful beast with a thick neck and broad chest, chained up next to the outhouse beside the sisters’ home. He was happy to see them, having gone unfed since the morning of the day prior. Fate thought to bring a cut of salted venison from her kitchen for the beast. This made her and the dog fast friends. Shaw undid the collar from Brogan’s neck while he devoured the meat.

“Find Gillany,” said Fate in her most soothing voice. “Find Gillany.”

The dog looked from one member of the party gathered around him to another. Mrs. Shaw repeated her order one more time. Brogan barked twice and padded down the path into the pines.

“Stick together,” said Boyle, and they were off at a slow jog trying to keep up with the dog. The torches crackled and threw light but also made it difficult to see anything near the intensity of the flame. They passed down a sandy trail all of them were familiar with and then the dog dove into the brush and all followed him winding among the pitch pine and cedar. Luckily, there were no chiggers or mosquitos still active. The doctor heaved for breath as they moved quickly along, wishing he’d brought another bottle of bourbon. An owl called far off to the west. He knew from the direction they were heading that the dog was leading them toward the marsh.

It wasn’t long before the doctor found himself alone in a meadow of marsh fern gone red with the season. He’d lost the others a good twenty minutes earlier but could hear the dog barking not too far ahead. The ground was soggy, and he moved slowly, knowing that in a moment he could be in water up to his neck. At first, he intended to call out, but on second thought he realized that Gillany might be somewhere close by with a sharp weapon of some kind. He thought silence a better strategy. It’s then that he heard the dog yelp and whimper in a manner that could crack ice. A gun went off. There was a human scream followed hard by a splash.

A brief moment of silence and then more screaming, more shots. The din of the commotion sparked Boyle’s adrenaline, and he so wanted to run away. Finally, he called out, “Shaw!” at the top of his voice, and then stood still, listening to the night over the pounding of his heart. He shivered in the breeze for a long while, and then he heard the crack of brittle twigs and the crunch of dry leaves. “Shaw? Is that you?” he called. But it wasn’t Shaw. A pale figure staggered through the marsh ferns toward him. He backed up into a clearing of sand, wanting to flee but was unable, as fear robbed his energy.