Whispers From The Abyss (13 page)

My devotion will pour outward unto Sky God. The two of us will unite.

Until then I must continue my task undaunted, for I am the Monitor. The Guardian of the Gate. I will trod to the heart of this ancient forest everyday if I must, with watering can in hand, to nurture, to praise my blossoming beauty.

And I hope to watch, like a proud parent, as my offspring grows taller, bigger, stronger, to the very threshold of the sky where I know Sky God dwells behind the veil, aseat upon his fungal throne, gesturing with those hands, uttering His magical invocations.

Shnee, shnee, shnaw. Shnee... Shneu...

I will wait until everything has ripened. And do so without malice or impatience. I’ll not be cursed to wait alone, for throughout all the cycles of time, I will always have... 

...my Stalk.

Things were tough all around, only a bit more so up in the holler.  And getting tougher.  Little Zeb, who wasn’t really all that little anymore, especially considering Big Zeb had died a few years back, him and Big Mama getting washed down the crick by the flood of ‘96, the same one that took most of the shacks in the holler…well, Little Zeb, as I was saying, and Bertha Jean had fallen on some pretty hard times.  Now Zeb and Bertha Jean were first cousins, which in most counties would be a rock solid show-stopper to their getting married, but wasn’t no never mind to nobody up in these parts.  So, married they had got and along came Zeb Junior, Sadie Marie and Willie Earl the mongolian idiot in short order, along with an assortment of hounds, thirteen at last count, a couple of hogs, a cow or three and the brokeback mule Bertha Jean’s gone-to-glory daddy had left behind in lieu of rent the night he finally disappeared for good.

And, now, that banging at the door was very clearly, the door itself being open on account of two of the hinges being broke off, Bertha Jean’s younger brother Caleb, the holy man.  At least as he would have it.  Without waiting for an invitation Caleb stepped across the threshold onto the sagging, foot-worn planks that served as the floor of Zeb’s cabin, a grin as broad as the moon gobsmacked onto his stupid face.

“Mornin’ there, Brother Zebulon.  The Lord’s blessin’s upon ye and all that reside ‘neath yer roof.”

Naturally Bertha Jean was quite pleased, as she always was, to see her younger sibling, oblivious to the slow drip of apprehension that Caleb’s unannounced appearances invariably occasioned in Caleb’s gut.

“Caleb darlin’, where you been to?”

“Oh…here an’ there…just wanderin’ about the earth…doin’ the Lord’s good work…mostly with them Tea Party folks over in Buford City.”

Caleb set down his battered cardboard satchel and dropped the burlap sack he had lugged in over one shoulder onto the floor at Zeb’s feet.  Zeb noticed that the sack’s fabric undulated queerly.

“What’s in the bag?” he asked, suspicious.

“Oh…them’s the tools of the trade.”

“Tools of the trade?  I thought you’z always sayin’ a preachin’ man don’t need nothin’ but the Good Book and the Holy Spirit.” 

Hell, Caleb didn’t even have a church, street corners and city parks affording his usual pulpits.

“Well, things change.  I done seen the light so t’ speak.  A
new
light.  I’z on my way down to Damascus…down there in Tennessee…an’ it struck me…actually it more sorta bit me…but I done seen the light right then an’ there.  It was like the clouds parted in a stormy sky an’ a voice like I never done heared before…the Lord’s voice…beautiful and deep as a bass fiddle…spoke t’ me in a language I din’t understand…but, I knew what He wuz sayin’ to me…what he’z tellin’ me I had t’ do.  So, I done come home here t’ do the Lord’s biddin’.”

Zeb was skeptical.  He nodded towards the sack at his feet, which had continued to billow and ripple during Caleb’s exposition.

“What biddin’s that?  And, what’s whatever’s in that bag got to do with it?”

“Well, fact is I bin snakebit by the Lord.  He done sent me forth like a down home John the Baptist t’ announce His comin’.   And, he’s a’commin’.  That’s a ‘stablished fact.”

Caleb picked up the sack, jerked loose the tightly knotted cord that secured its mouth, and, with a grin that revealed several missing teeth, dumped its contents onto the floor.  Both Zeb and Bertha Jean jumped back as a writhing coil of dusky-banded serpents blossomed at their feet.  Zeb instantly recognized the snakes.

“Lands a’
Goshen,” shrieked Bertha Jean.  “Why you bringin’ a god-damned nest a’ copperheads inta my house?”

“I’m bringin’ the Word a’ the Lord, that’s what I’m bringin’ inta yer house, sister.  The Word a’ the Lord.”

He set his booted right foot on the tangle of snakes, holding them in place.  They frothed and hissed and one sank its naked fangs deep into the leather protecting Caleb’s right ankle.  He winced but kept his foot where it was.

“Ye see…the Lord’s protectin’ me.  These serpents can strike at me till kingdom come.  But, they cain’t do me no harm.  Cuz I’m shielded by the Lord’s mighty hand.

That evening Caleb didn’t show up for supper even though Bertha Jean had whipped up her signature dish—a casserole of mashed yams, canned mushroom soup and chopped Vienna sausages topped with miniature marshmallows. 

“It’s a French delicacy,” she had announced as she always did whenever she served up this particular concoction. 

There were also a bowl of green beans stewed in hog fat and a great heap of hot fluffy biscuits and a plate of freshly churned butter and several pieces of cold fried chicken.  Zeb opted for the chicken having had enough of the casserole by this point to last him a whole bunch of lifetimes. 

While the family ate, Bertha Jean just picked at her food and glanced off occasionally toward the woodshed out back beyond the privy where Caleb had been put up for the duration of his stay.

“Think he’s alright?” she finally asked as Zeb reached for the last drumstick.  “I’m concerned that snake got ‘im good an’ might be he’s got the juice in him.”

“Dunno,” was all the answer she got as Zeb bit into the chicken leg.

All afternoon the sound of Caleb’s preaching to whoever or whatever might be within earshot rang from the shed.  Even inside the house with the back door shut he could be clearly heard if not understood.  For years Caleb had performed much of his ministry under the influence of tongues and the family was accustomed to the sound of his unintelligible babble.  But, what they had heard that afternoon was strangely different.  Before his barking had simply been gibberish, collections of syllables and odd sounds and canine howls snatched out of thin air and strung together for the duration of his lungs’ ability to exhale.  But, today he had seemed to be actually speaking a coherent language, one governed by a rationalized grammar with certain words and phrasings repeated at purposeful intervals.  But, it was certainly a language none of them had ever heard.

And, then, for the last hour there had been only silence.

“Zebulon, honey, would you please step out there and have a look after ‘im?  I’m worried he’s taken sick from what that damned copperhead done stuck in ‘im.”

Zeb dropped the chicken leg, the bone now picked clean, and took a last bite of a butter-soaked biscuit and commenced to sucking on his teeth to dislodge the bits of food trapped there.

“Got any a’ them wood picks?” he asked as he shuffled to his feet.

Bertha Jean fetched him the box from the cupboard next to the stove and he jammed one into his mouth, twisting it sharply to free a bit of gristle that he spat into the sink.  He stared at the toothpick.  There was blood on it.

“Need to get these teeth looked at, I reckon,” he allowed. 

“Next time we’re into town, sweetheart,” his wife reassured him.  “Now…please…check on my little brother and see that he’s alright.”

Well, Caleb was not in the shed.  And, neither was the burlap sack in which he had carried the snakes.  Nor were the snakes themselves for that matter, Zeb being at pains to verify that condition before risking anything more than a few inches of his head inside.  What there was, was a trail of trampled grass that rambled up the mountainside away from the back of the shed toward the cave where Zeb had the family distilling operation tucked away.  He followed it and, sure enough, there just behind the hedge of gooseberry and laurel he and Zeb Junior had planted to screen the cave’s mouth lay Caleb, his back propped against the rock, a half-empty mason jar in one hand and the empty burlap sack next to his right leg, which Zeb could see was swollen to the point his trousers were fairly bursting at the seams.

“Wha’d ya do with them copperheads?” he inquired.

Caleb looked up at him pie-eyed and nodded toward the still set deeper in the cave.

“Put ‘em in yer brew back there.  That’s where the Lord wants ‘em.  Told me so hisself. 
Put ‘em in the pot, Caleb
, he sez.  An’ I sez,
why in the pot, Oh Lord?
  An’ he sez,
Caleb, my faithful servant, ain’t I always done ye straight?  Now do as I say and put them serpents in the god-damned pot
.  So, they’z in the pot.”

Zeb walked to the kettle, noticing that Caleb must have restarted the fire under it.  The liquid inside simmered at a slow boil.  Zeb put on the gloves and climbed the three wooden steps that rose up the side of the kettle.  He lifted the lid to look inside but the snakes couldn’t be seen. 

“Cain’t see ‘em, Caleb,” he called to his brother-in-law.  “How sure’re you they’s truly in the pot?”

“Oh…they’z in there.”

The words came out more as a low, pitiful moan than an actual sentence.   The pain was evident on Caleb’s face.

“Won’t be much longer now.  You’ll be seein’ ‘em soon enough.  Everone’z gonna be seein’ ‘em.”

Zeb sat down next to Caleb and took the mason jar from his slack hand.  He took a pull and then offered it back to Caleb.  But his brother-in-law just smiled weakly at him.

“Them damned snakes done got me, Zeb.  I don’t understand it.  They bit me afore this and I din’t feel nothin’.  But, they got me good this time.  I just gotta make it to midnight t’ see this thing through.  Thaz all.  I want ye to stay with me t’ keep me here till then.  Can ye do that, Zeb?  Can ye do that for me?  It’s the Lord’s work we’re doin’.  Ye gotta stand with me.”

Zeb reached down and patted his brother-in-law gently on his left leg and then snatched his hand back, afraid he might cause the man pain; but Caleb’s expression never waivered.

“It’s okay, Brother Zebulon.  I ain’t really in any pain.  At least not much.  My danged leg here hurts a bit.  But, thaz all.  I’m gonna be alright.  Fixin’ to go home I am, Zeb.  Goin’ home.”  He paused and glanced out the mouth of the cave to where the stars were beginning to sparkle in the darkening sky above the treetops.  “We’re all gonna be goin’ home…real soon.”

Zeb followed his gaze.  There appeared to be a bit of a mist gathering among the pines, a strange amberish glow that flickered across the needles like the electrical manifestations he had sometimes seen shimmering about the rocks around the mountaintop during thunderstorms.  But, there was no storm gathering that he could see.   The sky was vast and dark and unencumbered with clouds.  In fact, it seemed to be possessed of an unusual vibrancy in the way the stars seemed larger, brighter…closer.

“You started up the fire.”

“Eh?” Caleb turned to look at him.

Zeb nodded toward the simmering kettle.

“You started up the fire under the pot.”

“Yeah…Needed t’ get them serpents up t’ a boil.  They should be cooking away right nicely ‘bout now.”

“Looked in there.  Din’t see ‘em.”

Caleb nodded, looking at nothing in particular.

“Well…no…I guess you wouldn’t.  They’z in there, though.”

“Ya know, you’ve ruined the batch.  Gonna have to dump it out, snakes an’ all, in the mornin’.”

Caleb chuckled to himself.

“I wouldn’t be a worryin’ none ‘bout the mornin’, Brother Zebulon.  The Lord hisself’s gonna be a comin’ in ridin’ on the lightnin’ afore then.  An’ we’z gonna see it…gonna see Him ridin’ that blazin’ bolt a’ lightnin’, Zeb.  You and me, we’z gonna see it.”

He reached for the mason jar.

“Ye know…thinkin’ I will have ‘nother tug a’ the devil now, if’n ye don’t mind.”

Zeb handed him the jar and he drank.  He wrinkled his face as the liquor drained down his throat.  He looked at Zeb.

“Ye know…I never really understood about the tongues.  Oh, it was easy enough t’ do the talkin’.  All ye had t’ do was babble a lot of noise and shake a bit and maybe roll ‘round on the ground if you really wanted t’ make a show of it.  Hepped a bit t’ be a little lit up on the whiskey.  But, I always knew I was makin’ it up.  This here’z differnt.  I swear t’ the Lord, Zeb.  This here bizness’z real.”

Caleb hacked out a raspy cough and began shivering violently.  Zeb scooted closer and put an arm around his shoulders to comfort him. 

“Maybe I should make a run down the holler to town and fetch back some help.  The clinic down there surely’ll have the medicine fer yer snake bite.  I can get Bertha Jean back up here to sit with you whilst I’m gone.  You ain’t lookin’ fit right now, Caleb.”

“No…don’t leave me, Brother.  I gotz the Lord’s work t’ finish here.  I’m his chosen one and this is just sumpin I gotta do.  Here…let’s sing the hymn together.”

Caleb commenced to intone a droning dirge of plainsong in a language neither he nor Zeb understood.  It consisted of a single phrase repeated over and over.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Zeb recognized it as the same chant he and Bertha Jean had heard resounding from the woodshed through the better part of the afternoon. 

“What language you speakin’?” he asked suspiciously.  “Where’d them words come from?”

“Them’z the Lord’s own words, Brother.  Them words’z in the Bible.  Only that Bible ain’t writ in the king’s English.  It’s writ in God’s language…the Holy language.  And, we’z got t’ sing it so’z he can come.  It’s kinda like the resurrection only this here ain’t no resurrection on account a’ God ain’t dead.  He’z just been sleepin’.  But these holy words gonna wake ‘im up and bring ‘im back to us in Glory.  Sing with me, brother…sing with me.”