WHAT
UNCLE HOWARD DID
Uncle
Howard didn’t even bother to hide the door in the cellar. I mean,
how many visitors could he have had way up there in the hills,
surrounded by No Trespassing signs? We sure as hell never went up
there. In fact, I only saw him twice. He showed up at Grand-dad’s
funeral, dressed in a threadbare black suit that was so wrinkled he
probably hadn’t worn it for a decade. I’ll never forget his face:
wrinkled like a relief map of the Caucasus, and his secret smile,
like he was hiding more than moonshine. The second time was at his
own funeral. He had a new suit; my mom had bought it. He was smiling
that time, too, but it was more like a grin of satisfaction.
I
was 40 when Mom died, and in all that time I’d never laid eyes on
Uncle Howard’s property. I probably never would have visited the
land I’d inherited, but my newly acquired step-daughter wanted to
go camping. When she heard Cheryl and me talking about the land,
nothing would shut Lindsey up until I agreed we’d mount an
expedition to see the place. As long as I’ve known her, she’s
been on fire about science and nature, the wilder the better, and I
didn’t want to discourage her. I have to admit, I was a little
curious about it myself.
“Now,
you know my uncle probably never had running water, and the house
itself probably isn’t even standing any more. A couple of decades
of neglect can do a lot in a southern climate.”
“I
know, Rob,” she said, bouncing onto the couch. “We’ll camp
outside, the house is just a cool extra.”
“Don’t
you go in there,” Cheryl warned, “I’m sure it isn’t safe.”
I
think we all knew that Lindsey and I would be going into the house if
it was still standing. When we packed our clothes, Lindsey and I
included a couple of powerful flashlights. We didn’t mention them
to her mom. She gets amazingly excited about stuff like that.
*
* *
We
drove up Highway 47 to where the Esso Station used to be. There’s
almost nothing left of it; I only recognized the place because it was
two miles past the intersection with County Road 14, and that
was still there. Of course, now it’s called County Road 326; why
they keep changing the names of the roads I’ll never understand.
Just past the weedy field that was once the only source of gasoline
in the county, where kids used to buy smoke bombs and bottle rockets
for a nickel, a dirt track turned off to the right. We took it,
winding between fields of brown or black cows, long low chicken
houses, and white-painted farmhouses, placid and uninteresting. The
road started climbing pretty soon after we left the hamlet of Owl
Creek, which is nothing more than two abandoned farms and a couple of
fallen-down sheds. Cheryl started getting nervous, but the Cherokee
didn’t have any trouble, even when the grade jumped to more than
five percent for the last half mile or so, turning into a deeply
rutted track strewn with orange boulders of weathered diabase.
Finally, the path just sort of petered out in a patch of oak woods
choked with underbrush. There at the end were two wormy posts, which
I gradually realized framed the entrance to Uncle Howard’s yard. I
jumped out and scouted on foot. To my relief the yard was full of
chest-high grass and not much else: we were able to drive right up in
front of the house.
Contra
my pessimistic predictions, the house was still standing. It was a
small log cabin with a broad front porch, two glassless windows
flanking the front door, and a rough stone chimney standing up at the
back. A storm must have knocked some bricks from the top of the
chimney; maybe that was how the window glass had been busted out. We
walked all around and found five more windows and a back door.
Peering in through the empty panes we saw three rooms illumined by
the setting sun, clouds of dust motes dancing in the air. The only
furniture was a couple of plain wood chairs and what might have been
a dust-coated chest of drawers.
It
was really too late to go inside anyway, I reminded Lindsey, heading
off her protests with a wink that forestalled any forbidding
pronouncements from Cheryl, who was setting up the tent in the middle
of the front yard. She’d trodden down the tall grass and discovered
an ancient ring of stones where she intended to cook dinner.
Later,
we sat around the old fire ring on folding chairs roasting hot dogs
(mine were veggie because of my heart) and listening to the
whip-poor-wills. “You know,” I said, “legend has it that the
whip-poor-wills call for the souls of those doomed to die.”
“Really?”
Lindsey asked, “Cool! How far south would we have to be to hear
chuck-will’s-widows instead?”
“I
don’t know. Georgia? Let’s look it up.” But we hadn’t brought
the bird book. The insect chorus got louder and louder, the
whip-poor-wills fell silent, and we stared up at the stars.
“This
is a peaceful place,” Cheryl said, “I can see why your uncle
liked it. We should take a hike tomorrow. I bet there are beautiful
wildflowers in the hills.” I was grateful that she seemed to be
more positive about the place, but I didn’t share her improved
attitude. A feeling had been growing on me, a feeling of being
watched. By the time we turned in, with the shrill roar of the
insects and my skittish mood, I was sure I’d never get to sleep.
*
* *
I
opened my eyes. What had awakened me? The night was still. I could
hear an owl hooting far away. The insects were silent. A hand touched
my arm.
I
started, and Cheryl mumbled and moved in her sleep. It was time for
the Grand Adventure.
“Let’s
go around to the back,” I whispered as soon as we were away from
the tent. “It’ll be quieter.”
I
put my hand on the corroded metal door knob and felt something like
an electric shock. My hand jerked back and I felt the hair on my head
stir. The owl called. I grasped the knob again, turned and pulled,
and the door jerked open a few inches. Another yank and the knob came
off in my hand. I heard a clunk inside.
“Come
on!” Lindsey hissed, and pushed past me to yank on the door’s
edge. It sprang open about a foot, quivering, and she slipped inside.
I sucked in my gut and sidled after her. Her flashlight beam was
playing over the walls and I knew she was disappointed. There was
nothing here.
“I
guess somebody burglarized the place after he died,” I said, “but
maybe there’s something. Keep your light low so you don’t wake
your mom.” It didn’t take long to ascertain that the room
contained nothing but the furniture we’d seen through the windows,
and a door that was built into a sort of pillar that separated the
rooms from one another.
Lindsey
pulled and the door opened easily. Steps led into inky blackness.
“That’s
what I’m talkin’ about,” she muttered, and stepped down.
“Those steps . . .” I began, and there was a soft creaking. She
paused, left foot on the top step. It held. I sighed, and she
cautiously descended. I waited till she reached the bottom and
followed. I tested each step with one foot.
I
bumped into her when I reached the floor. She was staring at the
door. It was a good ten feet high (nearly the height of the ceiling)
and made of huge, rough-hewn beams. It was bound in metal, and across
the door a log rested on large wooden pegs sticking out of the
earthen walls.
“That
is some door!” Lindsey whispered.
I
tore my eyes away and looked around. No wonder the house was empty;
Uncle Howard had lived down here. Bookcases lined two walls; a large
leather-bound book lay open on a small writing desk. A stub of candle
on a cracked china saucer stood beside the book. The floor was
carpeted with threadbare rugs of all kinds: rag rugs, scraps of
carpet, even an old Persian rug that had some kind of lion or lizard
motif. A lectern stood off to our right, and beside it a butcher
block table, much used. A stained bronze dish stood on that, and some
bones and unidentifiable debris lay nearby on the floor.
I
shone my flashlight on the open book, which appeared to be
hand-written in Latin. I gently turned some of the pages. There were
many woodcuts, and the artistry was fine, but I was troubled by the
subject matter. I quickly closed the book. I did not want Lindsey
seeing the woodcuts.
“It’s
cracked.” Lindsey said. I turned around. She was touching the door
with her fingers, running them along the chest-height beam. “What
could have done that?”
I
came to look. “Maybe the ground settled,” I said, after examining
the crack, which ran nearly the whole width of the door. “Or maybe
it was cut green.”
“Help
me with this,” she demanded, pushing up on the log that was barring
the door.
“I
don’t know, sweetie . . .”
“What?
Some weird monster is caged back there, just waiting to unleash its
fury upon the world? Let’s open it!” I let that kid watch way
too many B-movies.
So
we opened the door. The log was heavy. We dropped it on the floor and
tugged the door open. It swung on silent hinges, and a draft of warm,
moist air flowed into the room. The tunnel thus revealed was floored
with packed earth, the walls were timbered, and it stretched straight
ahead into darkness, farther than our flashlight beams penetrated.
Lindsey
trotted eagerly down the passage, shining her beam alternately to
right and left. Disappointingly, the walls were bare except for some
horizontal grooves scored into the wood at about head height. Judging
from the color of the wood, the damage was quite old. I caught up to
Lindsey and we covered about a thousand feet before she stopped.
“How
far do you think it goes?” she wondered.
“Turn
off your light.” As soon as the flashlight beams died, utter
darkness enveloped us. We might as well have been sealed in a tomb.
“I
see something,” she said. I looked down the tunnel, shifting my
gaze to prevent a blind spot from forming. I saw something, too. A
faint gray patch. A light at the end of the tunnel.
“A
train!” I said. “Run!”
We
both laughed, then walked silently hand in hand towards the small dim
speck. Could the tunnel debouch into a cave open to the night sky? I
tried to remember if the moon had been visible. As we walked, the
patch of lesser darkness brightened, its growing radiance revealing
that the tunnel opened into a wide area lit by some unknown source.
We did not turn on our flashlights, and so our eyes adjusted to what
must in reality have been the faintest of glows. We could not see
what lay beyond the doorway.
Finally,
we stood on the brink of a subterranean world, a spectral cavern
whose floor fell away before us like a cataract. The ceiling far
above glowed – it was apparently encrusted with a phosphorescent
fungus, as we could see from examples growing on the walls near at
hand. We could see no farther wall, though I have since examined
topographic maps and ascertained that the abyss, unless the elevation
of its roof declined considerably beyond our sight, could be no wider
than about 20 miles. Still, that was large enough. The floor was
carpeted with growths whose aquamarine and emerald hues somewhat
simulated grass, but the verdure consisted of several species of
stiff, upright fungi. Here and there tall red-and-white toadstools
uncannily resembled flowers, and a field of poppies appeared to
blossom nearly a half mile below us, where the toadstools were
abnormally thickly clustered. In the center of the cluster some
larger reddish object rose above its surroundings, but at this
distance I could not see what it was.
Flying
things danced above the fungous
fields, chiefly moths, but several pallid varieties of insectivorous
birds and bats plied their trade in the hazy air. It was quite humid
in the cavern, which, no doubt, contributed to the luxuriant fungal
growth.
Lindsey
broke the silence. “Awesome,” she breathed. “It’s a hidden
world. Do you suppose Uncle Howard visited this place?”
“He
had to have known about it,” I said. Without volition I began
walking away from the wall, heading towards the rust-colored mound,
which was the only thing breaking the homogeneity of the subterranean
landscape. I stopped when I realized that I was following a path, one
that bore, here and there, the unmistakable traces of human feet.
Lindsey noticed the trail about the same time I did, and we fell to
speculating on its nature. It must have been made by Uncle Harold, we
decided, or at least used by him. We didn’t know what the reddish
protrusion was, and so had little idea of scale, but it towered over
the surrounding carpet of faux grass like a toad among tadpoles. I
don’t know why it took me so long to recognize the significance of
its peculiar shape, though its orientation played a role.
As
usual, Lindsey was quicker on the uptake. “It’s a statue,” she
whispered, and I suddenly recognized the semblance of a squatting
man, somehow fashioned from the red fungus that elsewhere simulated
fields of flowers. I thought I even knew who had been thus
immortalized. For once I beat Lindsey to it, because she had never
seen him in life. “It’s Uncle Howard,” I gasped, breaking into
a trot. I wanted to see the face. I ran around to the front of my
uncle’s effigy. It was him, all right. He had been portrayed as if
resting a moment, eyes shut, before resuming some arduous task. It
was even more humid out here than it had been at the tunnel mouth. I
took out my handkerchief and mopped my brow.
“Incredibly
lifelike, Rob,” Lindsey said, coming up beside me, “hairs, moles,
the creases around his eyes, everything.”
“This
is unbelievable. We’ve got to get your mother down here. Too bad we
didn’t bring the camera.”
“But
I did!” she exclaimed. “Thanks for reminding me.” Lindsey took
out the digital camera and focused on Uncle Howard’s face. She
pressed the button. The flash nearly blinded me, showing me just how
dim the ambient light really was. When my vision returned, the hairs
literally stood upright on the back of my neck. The thing’s eyes
were open. For a moment I wondered if I just hadn’t noticed this
before. Then its mouth opened, and a sort of rusty bass gurgle
emerged. It took me a while to realize that it had actually spoken.
It tried again:
“Welcome,
nephew,” it rasped, “to my humble abode. I’m surprised to see
you visit in death what elicited no interest from you in life.”
I
had nothing to say. I couldn’t even move.
The
thing uttered a basso profundo cough that shook the ground. The top
of its head stood at least eight feet above the ground.
“Welcome,
I say. Better late than never. Do you like my new body? Vastly
superior in many ways to the original, I think. Though I haven’t
quite got the hang of walking.” It coughed again, emitting a cloud
of yellow vapor.
I
finally regained the use of my muscles and took a step back to avoid
the dust.
“How
did you . . .?”
“I’m
glad you asked, nephew. It’s been lonely down here, because I
forgot to unbar the door before I made the transfer. I couldn’t
open it.” Here a thought obviously struck the giant, and I had the
same thought myself.
“Run!”
I shouted, and sprinted around the creature, which I somehow could
not think of as my uncle. Lindsey was right behind me. An
inarticulate bellow emanated from the animate fungus and the ground
shook. I risked a glance behind and saw Uncle Howard struggling to
his feet.
“Come
back!” he shouted. I put my head down and ran. Soon I was panting.
Although I jog a couple of times a week, I haven’t kept in shape
like I should. Lindsey passed me, legs pumping. The anthropomorphic
fungus’s shouts diminished behind us, so I knew we were still
gaining on the thing, but I also knew that if it ever got its immense
legs working right it would catch us in no time. A glance over my
shoulder showed it stumbling awkwardly, still not far from where we
had found it. Lindsey and I were half way to the wall.
Uncle
Howard’s ever fainter shouts had gone from demands, to pleas, to
imprecations, to unintelligible howls. The grass fungi quivered with
every step of the gigantic creature, almost as though they were
sympathetic to it. Suddenly the monster seemed to have found its
rhythm, because I could see the quivers settle into a steady beat. A
slow beat, but one increasing in tempo with each step.
“Run,”
I wheezed, and put on a burst of speed that I didn’t know myself
capable of. The chase went on, Lindsey pulling farther ahead, and
Uncle Howard drawing nearer with each of my tortured breaths.
Suddenly,
the pursuing steps ceased. I was so surprised that I stopped to look,
hands on knees, trying to catch my breath. Sweat was pouring down my
face and soaking my shirt. Uncle Howard was standing stock-still,
gazing back the way we had come. At first I could not see what had
drawn his attention, but then I noticed a tiny spot in the air. The
spot expanded appallingly—it was some sort of huge bird, flying
towards us at great speed. No, it wasn’t a bird, I realized, it
looked more like some kind of flying lizard. Its cylindrical body
flashed with iridescent scales, and its wings resembled those of a
bat. The hind limbs were folded up along its torso and I couldn’t
see them well, but I was sure they terminated in gigantic claws. It
was a dragon, or near enough for my taste. I thought I knew now why
the huge door had been barred, and I started running again. Lindsey
had never stopped, and had nearly reached the tunnel. I hoped the
dragon would lose enough time dealing with Uncle Howard to permit me
to make it to the tunnel. No, I had to make it all the way back to
the heavy wooden door. Shit!
Behind
me I heard a cacophony of screams, roars, and a thunderous cawing
that might have come from the dragon. The din rose to an
ear-shattering crescendo, followed by silence. I didn’t look back.
I didn’t know what had happened to Uncle Howard, but I knew the
dragon had won, because as I entered the dark passage I could hear it
flapping behind me like a gigantic bat. I turned on the flashlight,
blinking against the glare and desperately trying to keep to the
center of the passageway. I could see Lindsey’s light ahead of me,
and I could hear the beast cawing behind me. It sounded like it was
reluctant to enter the tunnel, but I was sure it could fit, and would
be after me soon enough. My vision blurred and I reeled on, counting
the steps in my mind. Now I could see the end of the tunnel. Lindsey
was closing the door! No! Then I saw her leave it open just a bit.
Good girl, I called silently, get that bar ready. I hoped we could
lift it up onto the pegs. I heard scratching noises behind me, as
clawed wingtips scraped along the passage walls. Finally I stumbled
into the basement, dropped my flashlight, kicked the door shut, and
grabbed one end of the log. I guess there’s some truth to the
notion of hysterical strength, because we practically threw that log
onto the pegs. Something slammed into the other side of the door, and
I heard a creak from the wood, but it held. Dust jumped out of every
crack.
We
dragged all the furniture over in front of the door. I could hear the
monster puffing and snorting, which meant it probably wasn’t
backing up for another run . . . yet.
“We’re
getting out of here.” Up the steps, out the front door. “Get in
the car,” I shouted, and dove into the tent. I jerked Cheryl to her
feet and hustled her out and into the Cherokee. She shuffled along,
blinking, but not really protesting as I stuffed her into the front
passenger seat.
“The
tent,” she said.
“Forget
it.” I jumped in, started the engine, spun around in a tight half
circle, and roared out of the yard just as a muffled shriek came from
beneath the house. Maybe the bar had held a second time, but I wasn’t
waiting to find out.
I
don’t ever want to even see
anybody drive the way I went down the mountain that morning. I
couldn’t see where I was going, but I felt some branches hit the
car, and some huge stones that I’d seen in the road coming up the
mountain the day before just about shook my teeth out of my head. The
Cherokee needed $3,600 worth of body work alone after that ride, and
it’s a miracle that we survived.
When
Cheryl finished waking up, I had some explaining to do. She didn’t
believe a word of it, of course, and she got pretty angry, screaming
(quite rightly) about how I had nearly killed all three of us and she
was sorry she’d married me. Finally we got her to look at the
camera. Lindsey had taken a bunch of pictures—not just the one
frontal view of Uncle Howard, but several more over her shoulder
while running, and a couple from the tunnel mouth, showing me running
from Uncle Howard and the dragon. In the end I think Cheryl decided
to obliterate the entire incident from memory, and she has never
spoken of it since.
*
* *
I
guess the door in the basement held. At the very least, I haven’t
seen any tabloid accounts of a flying dragon in Appalachia, nor any
reports of people and livestock being carried off or devoured. I
think I’ll go back up there soon with a truck load of cinder blocks
and some ready-mix cement. I want to reinforce the door because it
won’t last forever.
I’m
more worried about Uncle Howard than I am about the dragon, though
I’m not absolutely certain he’s hostile. He was kind of crazy
even before he arranged to be reincarnated as a giant mushroom, and I
don’t think I want him running around loose. At first I figured
that the dragon had torn him apart and that was that. But then
Lindsey pointed out the significance of the dust he’d been coughing
out.
“Spores,
Rob, that’s what that stuff was,” she said, “and spores aren’t
released until they’re mature. He was, um, procreating while we
were listening to him.” There might be millions of small Uncle
Howards growing down there now. I remember the numerous red “flowers”
that clustered most thickly around Uncle Howard, and I wish I had
taken the time to examine them more closely while we were in the
cavern. It’s bad enough if they all have his memories, but if they
grow up wild, there’s no telling what they’ll be like.
And
there’s more. When I finally pulled the Cherokee over at a Shell
station after our wild ride down out of the hills, Cheryl brushed off
my shoulder and asked me how I had gotten pollen on my shirt in the
middle of the night. I didn’t think anything about it then, but now
I wonder. What did I carry with me, all unknowing, down from the
mountain? It rained pretty hard last Wednesday, and yesterday I
noticed a big crop of red toadstools in the yard. Some of them had
mighty peculiar shapes, and one almost seemed to have a familiar face
on it. I broke them all up with a hoe before the spores matured, but
the mycelia are in the ground, now. The toadstools could come up
whenever the weather’s wet enough, and what if I’m not home to
smash them? I could drench the front yard with herbicide, but I
really don't see the point. We probably shed spores all the way back
from Uncle Howard’s place. He could be growing out there now, all
across the state. And he might not be in the best of moods.
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