The Returning
By F.J. Wilson
A spirit was released the day
the huge virgin pine was felled.
Dislodged from its nesting place in the three hundred year old tree; the
spirit emerged slowly and followed the great tree as it was floated down the
Pascagoula River to the lumber mill twenty miles away. Large muscular men hauled the giant log out
of the water and deposited it on the riverbank. The spirit; confused and angry hovered
around the dead thing that had been its home. It watched other souls coming out
of the water, lingering and mingling around trees that were living one moment
and dead the next. The big spirit
gathered those souls into itself and grew.
It grew in strength and it grew in anger and it vowed to stop the men
who destroyed its nesting place. Some
spirits felt the evil and escaped its power by going back into the big woods to
find new trees and new lives. But the
great Pine spirit was not as easily assuaged as the young and began to take his
revenge on the humans who were murdering the trees on a daily basis; ignorant
and uncaring of the souls being displaced and abandoned. These men, blind to the devastation of the
land, and the little universes living among them, continued making a living off
the misfortune of these unseen worlds.
The
Pine spirit’s first victim was an old man, carelessly working the great saw
after too many years. It was an easy job
for the angry spirit; it took no energy at all really, just a quick breath of
evil and the old man, lost in his own reverie of collard greens and corn bread
for supper, looked up too soon and became part of a lady’s dresser.
The funeral was sweet and
conventional and only the little widow truly mourned. No one suspected foul play.
“It was bound to happen sooner
or later, and don’t we all have to go sometime?
He was too old; he should’ve retired years ago. I warned him, but he wouldn’t listen.” The old man’s boss told everyone at the
funeral.
The young strong workers
thought nothing of an old man’s tragic death.
It made morbid stories, telling of the blood and body parts strewn
around the mill yard. The story was told
again and again over beers down at the local juke joint, until a wreck on the
highway captured their sick attention and the old man became a bar tale forgotten.
So the little mill continued to
kill the beautiful trees and the young men took over the saws from the old, and
no one noticed the number of accidents produced by the big saws and the
logs. No one noticed that the young men
were dying as well as the old, and their wives were dying in childbirth taking
the babies with them.
As the years passed, the Soul
Eater Vigilante as the other trees named him lost his soul to the essence of
evil. What once was revenge was now a
way of life. His evil continued to grow
and continued to be joined by the souls of other trees, especially the old and
confused big virgin Pine, who didn’t make a quick transition from death to
eternity, but were caught unaware by the evil. Their goodness trapped by their
own fear, within the large evil. The
young Pine souls made quick their leaving; in the presence of such powerful
hate, any good strong spirits that could’ve helped to release the caught souls,
were swept away into the Universe to come again as young innocent saplings, but
all remembered the Soul Eater even in their reincarnations.
Over the years, even the
furniture and lumber made from the original Pine of the Soul Eater took on an
ominous feel and began to rot and fall apart; floors began to sag and in the
end, all became compost for a landfill.
But the huge evil kept growing until it spread passed the little mill,
long since deserted due to the countless accidents and tragedies, and into the
surrounding countryside.
Crops began to fail and farmers
moved away, selling their small parcels of land to the modern developers to be
used for large gaudy Mac’mansions.
Little communities and towns talked of the Pine Evil, and scared
children into being good, but only a few believed its true powers. The little communities became deserted and
the young moved into the cities. The old community became known as ‘the
country’.
The evil liked the solitude he’d
created. Going into the cities for his
mischief was too frustrating. The evils
that lived in the great cities were more powerful, and made fun of his country
anger; so he found his victims among the campers and hikers who dared enter his
woods and vowed vengeance on the evil spirits in the cities. Some of his victims lived to tell the tales
of his work, but most found death to be a sweet release from the torture he
gave in large helpings. The Soul Eater
was good at his work. Getting into the minds of his victims, he would discover
their fears. He could produce death by
fright in a heartbeat, or in most cases a stopped heartbeat. Only the very ignorant could escape his mind
play as their minds were too removed from the spirit world to fear it, but they
became easy victims of their own carelessness… around snakes and old well’s
hiding under thick carpets of pine straw and dead leaves.
Lizzie bought the little deserted
farmhouse in the piney woods so she could have quiet days and nights for her
painting. She’d been six years in New
York, and had loved the energy, and taken advantage of the excess. Everything anyone could want she’d had, but
she had to work every minute of every day, of every week of the year, just to
keep herself in the fast lane she’d chosen.
The last year was hard, over bearing and senseless. Her creativity had
stopped and nothing inspired it to start again.
She came home for her father’s funeral and to mend a broken heart by a
man who’d taken advantage, and mistreated her.
For the first time in six years, she realized how badly she’d abused the
beauty of her roots and how returning to them could mend the spirit.
Her soul had to recuperate and the little
farmhouse was the perfect haven. She bought
it with the money left to her by her Father.
She knew he’d have loved it here in the shadow of the tall Pines, they
both loved. His stories of the evil Pine
spirit that roamed the area terrified her as a child, making the “boogieman”
seem harmless in comparison. She’d bury
her head in his chest when hearing the last moments of a man’s life being
filled with the odor of pinesap and fear.
But, with her face buried in his chest, all she could smell was ‘Ole
Spice’; his last cigarette and safety.
She’d forgotten these stories of so long ago, but moving into the little
house brought them all alive to her again, and she thought she might paint the
woods and capture an image of the horrible spirit in the trees. Lizzie always
knew there were souls wandering the earth, but she’d never taken the evil Pine
spirit as truth. It was just a local legend to scare children, and make little
girls feel safe in their daddy’s arms.
Other people believed it though; enough to move away and start new lives
elsewhere. She’d started a new life, but she came from elsewhere to start it
here.
Lizzie used her painting as a
catharsis for her pain and she depended on it to help her now. She was left by her lover, bewildered and
deeply hurt, not understanding how a man can say such wonderful things from his
heart; make you believe you are loved, and then walk away. Times like these a girl could use her dad’s
chest in which to bury her face. Maybe
if her mom hadn’t died so young, Lizzie would‘ve known better how to live in a
relationship, how to watch for the pitfalls, recognize red flags, and know how
to tell when a man lies. But her mom died
young and her dad was not the sort to give advice on romance, so she’d muddled
along on her own, getting hurt more times than not. Her father used to worry that she was too
vulnerable, but he was her dad, he was supposed to worry.
Maybe this little house was
just the place for her. It’d already begun
to smell familiar. The smell of pine straw and a faint odor of old cigarettes
from the last owners wafted around her head as she walked down the hall, or as
she was going to sleep. She knew she
should have the walls cleaned to rid the old house of the nicotine, but she
didn’t want to just yet, at this time in her life she needed the smell of her
dad.
The first night in the house,
she dreamed of her mom’s funeral. She
was walking up to the front of the church, so large to a four year, the box the
adults call a coffin is so big and her mom so small, there must be room for her
to get in and go along too. Then the
black lapel with the white carnation bends down and picks her up and lifts her
over to say good-bye to her mom. Her mom
is asleep and pretty in her beautiful white satin gown and robe that was for
‘special’ times. She is lying in white satin on a little satin pillow, and
someone has placed red roses around her dark hair. Her grandma’s gold cross and
chain are entwined in her hands, folded over her chest, like she’d sit up and
put it on, as Lizzie had seen her do so many times, sitting at her old pine
dresser.
Then
her dad’s voice.
“Kiss
mama, Sugah.”
Lizzie’s dad can hardly speak
for the tears… love… and death, in his throat; all caught there, not knowing
how to escape and release the pain that has settled and made a permanent home. He lowers his little girl over the side of the
open box into the arms of her smiling mom, who takes the little girl and kisses
her over and over, laughing and squeezing her tightly. Lizzie can feel the smooth satin of the robe
and the loving arms of her mother, but she can still smell the elegant, fresh
scent of her dad’s carnation mixed with the fresh smell of his clean suit, and once
more, her life is good and blessed like it was a long time ago. Then the dream changes and she melds into
something resembling a lost fog, seeping through damp matted pine straw
covering the ground in an old woods and she knows it has something to do with
death.
When she woke the next morning,
she expected to feel better. Such a
beautiful dream about her mom should soothe any pain, but she felt worse,
somehow empty for the remembering.
Lizzie began to write each
morning in her journal about her failed relationship, and the first few days
the pain was heightened by the attention it was getting, but then over time… a
soothing release, as the memories began to fade and she could face the wind of
a new beginning. She looked forward each
morning to having her coffee on the little porch, writing in her journal and
letting the truth unfold from her heart.
She knew she had made a wise choice in coming here, close to her roots,
close to the Pines and their soothing whispers in the wind.
She’d been in the little house
a few weeks when the dream came again, but this time she was in the coffin and
a little girl was crying over her, tears falling onto her face and ruining the
make-up so meticulously applied by the undertaker’s assistant. She was
irritated that the make-up was itching and running onto her pretty satin
pillow. Then her dad was looking down
into her face with so much worry and pain that she woke immediately and turned
on the light. She hardly had nightmares,
but the look on his face had really knocked the breath out of her and she needed
reality in huge doses. Lizzie turned on
each light as she made her way to the kitchen.
Her heart still pounding, her hands shaking, she reached up into the
liquor cabinet and pulled down the brandy.
She picked a juice glass out of the strainer by the sink and poured it
half full. She had all intentions of
downing it in one swallow, but the fire that came with the first taste held her
in check for a single sip. The second
sip was easier, and the third was beginning to do the trick. Not enough Xanax in the world to calm what
she just felt from her father’s face, only the liquid power in the brandy
bottle. The soothing smell of the carnation on her dad’s suit came up from the
bottom of the juice glass as she downed the last bit of brandy.
Sitting in the little rocking
chair on the front porch of the little house feeling the effects of the drink,
losing the effects of the dream, she began to form another painting of this
place as she’d been pleased with the first one.
As she rocked, she wondered if spirits still lingered and why. The breeze moved the old swing on the porch
and it took on a slight and ominous sway that was not of the breeze, but she
was too lost in her ideas and brandy as she rocked and thought. She noticed neither the breeze nor the evil
that sat so close to her, there, on the swing, next to her rocking chair. The moon frowned at the mist of the bile
colored Pine evil moving the old swing,
smiling and playing with Lizzie’s very soul.
How many would have to die before the moon could look down and not see
pain on this land? But, the moon and the
smell of the woods and the brandy had done their jobs, and Lizzie could return
to sleep and dream again. She had not
noticed the Pines had stopped whispering days before.
So, the weeks passed and the
dreams came more frequently and the ghost filled paintings found a good market,
and were sold. She painted more and more
and the paintings became so terrifyingly real that the public went crazy over
them and couldn’t get enough. She began
to write instead of paint and over the years, the books were made into movies
and they all had the same ending; evil always won. People said it was a new expression, a new
art form. Lizzie didn’t know anymore
what it was; because it’d been so long since she’d had a thought of her own,
she wasn’t sure she was writing. She felt she was just the fingers on the
keyboard. The computer had taken on a
life of its own. She didn’t know when or
why, but she was as much a slave to the little gray box as she’d been to the
lover who abused her and made her so unhappy.
But Lizzie wasn’t unhappy anymore,
she was ecstatically happy. She lived in
a state of euphoria, in love with a feeling that came so naturally and so
lovingly to her bed each night; she trusted it with her soul. It made love to her in her sleep; a handsome
succubus, and kept her drugged with pretty words, beautiful images and good
feelings, and promises of more. She had
no reason to eat, and no reason to take time for anything but writing the books
on the wonders and sexual beauty of evil.
There were bad things happening
in the world relating to her stories and books.
Young people unhappy in their own lives from body and mind-changing
hormones began to act out from the written evil in the books and on the
screen. The evil was so lovingly
portrayed and promised a better world to these loved starved teens that many were
killing their parents, because one of her characters told them to. They were
killing their classmates, because the books said, “Yes, do it.” The parents became outraged at the
irresponsibility of the writer; the schools banned her books; and the churches
banned her movies, and her sales doubled.
Lizzie was very rich and very
ill and no one could contact her. She stopped
answering the phone and wouldn’t answer the door. She hadn’t bathed nor combed
her hair in weeks and she was down to ninety-eight pounds. Her teeth were rotting and her fingernails
were misshapen and broken. The house
smelled of rotting food, urine and un-flushed feces. The cat died from starvation and was lying
halfway out of the bathroom window, decaying and awful. The bedroom, however, was pristine white with
an un-worldly quality of freshness. Her
beautiful white satin sheets and pillows were perpetually clean and fresh with
the sweet smell of pine, as was she when she entered the room. She became a goddess for the evil spirit,
just for the walking over the threshold. She was cleansed and made beautiful
again each time she entered the room, the sweet vestal virgin going to her
rape, surrounded by the sweet intoxicating smell of fresh pine and the safe
smell of carnations. Each time she left
the room, she became, again, the scum of her own undoing.
Her
publisher was frantic to hear from her.
Other than the manuscripts and movie treatments that kept flooding into
his e-mail, he’d had no contact with her in months. Her friends gave up months before, assuming in
her newfound fame and fortune; she had snobbishly ‘outgrown’ their friendships.
The great evil Pine soul was
happy living in the little gray box on the filthy desk in the little house by
the big Pinewoods. He’d found a home to
replace the great Pine he was forced to desert and he was winning over the city
evil which made fun of him hands down.
He could reach more people through this system, and all he had to do was
keep this human happy and satisfied in her own unhealthy need for romance and
abusive love. He could enjoy this
vessel, but she’d been getting weak and her fingers were not as strong as
before. He doubled his attempts at
seducing her, he’d even added her father’s carnations to keep her off her
guard, but she was getting weaker in the beautiful bedroom he preserved for
her. He had to get her to eat more food,
but the rats and birds he killed and brought to her made her sicker. If he could only get her to eat something, he
could continue his work. He’d have to
think on this and decide what to do, and he knew he’d have to do it fast. But the great evil had not counted on God’s
wisdom and mysterious ways of fighting his nemesis.
The Baker family had lived in
these Pine woods since deserting the militia in the Revolutionary War. Two brothers, John and Arnold ran through
Virginia and across the mountains of Tennessee in their desire to get away from
their responsibility and the fear of being shot by the British. They hadn’t stopped, except to sleep and eat,
nor looked back until they were safely hidden in the great Pine forest of South
Mississippi. They found wives among the
Choctaw… propagated, and became known over the generations as fore fathers of
the country and veterans of the Revolutionary War. As their fore fathers before them, the sons
came down in the bloodline, thieves, deserters, cowards and drunkards until the
last generation had I.Q.s lower than the catfish they tried to raise and
couldn’t.
Jake and Zeke Baker were double
first cousins and brothers. No one asked
what that meant for fear of the real answer.
Suffice it to say, they were the two stupidest men in the world. They’d taken Zeke’s car on this particular
venture driving up to see what mischief they could find at the little deserted
house on the edge of the woods. Neither
knew why, nor questioned the strange need,
just felt strongly compelled to take this little journey. Jake wanted to take his pick-up since there
could be things to sell from the little house, but he asked while Zeke was
cutting his toenails with his big hunting knife, the one he used on people who
crossed him, and would hear no more on the subject, so Zeke was driving. Zeke’s trunk was full of junk and stolen
contraband, all cluttered in together for so long, some of the sellable items
had rusted and ruined and blended in with the old food cartons tossed in with
his fishing gear and the old clothes picked up on the sides of highways. Zeke was always defending the things in the
trunk, as valuable and worth a lot of money.
“Things
back thar is valuble, and I don’t want’um stole out the house while I’m
gone. Now shutup bout my things.”
Which
usually brought about the end of the argument, as Zeke outweighed Jake by a
hundred pounds.
“You
aint got no clue what’s in ‘arre.” Jake
whispered to himself as he spat a long stream of tobacco juice out the window
at a stray dog on the side of the road.
Zeke drove half way up to the
little house and turned off the engine to coast the rest of the way into the
neglected yard. Jake got out quietly
first.
“Jesus
God, Zeke, whatchu been a eatin? You
rotten.”
Zeke
laughed, thinking Jake was trying to blame him for one of his own horrible
just-ate-possum-yesterday, farts.
“First
hen that cackles, Jake.” As he stepped
out of the driver’s side door, the smell nearly knocked him down.
“Damn,
Jake, what’s that smell?”
There
is no danger more frightening to a stupid man than the smell of death and rot.
Lizzie had crawled to the
bedroom door before she died, just two feet from the beauty and love waiting
for her in the wonderfully sweet smelling room. One hand reaching for the illusive
love and safety that she’d sought all her life.
She died looking up, seeing her mother lower the lid of the beautiful
white satin coffin over her, safe in her mother’s love. The evil one had been thinking of his next
book and hadn’t noticed that she hadn’t been near the desk in awhile. He knew how to summon her when he needed her
though. He wasn’t worried; he just
needed that next plot, the next great American novel, the Pulitzer Prize that
had eluded him until now. He knew this
next one would bring followers and the prize.
He just needed the right venue.
Zeke went around back to see
what was dead. Jake went up on the front
porch, both men frightened of finding something that’d make them vomit. Dead bodies couldn’t scare them as they both
knew ghosts didn’t exist; they had robbed enough fresh graves to know
that. But a rotting corpse, now that was
different, that could make you lose a nice lunch and a few beers to boot. Jake walked in the front door and called to
Zeke. The smell was the house itself,
the fresh body stunk from being unwashed and the death stink hadn’t settled in
as yet. Zeke came around to the front
door pulling his shirt tale over his face and stepped inside.
“Jesus,
some people sure live like pigs, look at ‘is mess. Anything worth takin?”
Jake
didn’t want to take anything. This smell
would linger on anything in the house for a long time and he was already
beginning to gag.
“Naw,
man, let’s get the hell outa here ‘fore they blame us for that.” Jake pointed to Lizzie lying almost in the
bedroom.
“What’s
a matter wit at?” Zeke was looking into
the fresh clean bedroom and comparing it to the rest of the house.
“I
donno man, but I’m gonna puke if ‘n I stay here.” Jake was out and taking deep
breaths before Zeke even crossed to the desk.
The
computer was sitting open and idle with the moving stars saving the screen,
keeping life going in the machine. He
reached down and typed with two fingers, searching for the right keys.
“M,Y, D,O,G, H,A, S, F,L,E,A,S, hey this could be
fun. C’mere Jake, look at this
computer. I myte just tek me a lesson or
two one day.” Zeke closed the little lap
top computer and reached for the plug; pulled it out of the serge protector and
wrapped it around the little gray box.
The great evil, fearless and
strong felt, before he saw, someone other than Lizzie handling the
computer. He released the toxic odors so
familiar for driving off unwanted visitors.
But they came back on himself; there was no escape for the smell. It’d been trapped with him in the box. Just as in the great virgin Pine, he was
encased again, but with no escape and no power over this man who was so
impertinent as to handle him and entrap him and defy his great evil. The great soul, was dazed, how had this
happened? Where was Lizzie? But his powers were fading, becoming soft and
wispy; he couldn’t remember who Lizzie was or why he needed her. He was drifting off to sleep. He’d come back, as soon as he got out of this
box, he’d be back. Someone would open it
and he would be…
Zeke
stepped over Jake vomiting over the side of the porch and opened the trunk.
“I
got myself a ‘puter, Jake. I’m gonna take some lessons.” He tossed the gray box into the back of the
trunk where it landed next to an old typewriter, with no keys; that he was
going to fix and sell one day.
“Get
in Jake, and try not to hurl.” The two
drove down the lane and Jake wondered if a beer would make him feel
better. He picked up an old flannel
shirt from under the seat and blew his nose, trying to get rid of the smell in
his nostrils.
The state of Mississippi took
Lizzie’s estate, which was considerable.
The National Fan Club bought the little house from the estate and made a
museum: The Elizabeth Wallace Museum,
but there was always the question of Lizzie’s computer. It’d been reported missing from the house the
day they found her body. The board of
directors of the little museum knew there must be other stories and even a
novel left in the computer, so they offered a large reward for its return and
advertised it for a solid week on the local TV and Radio stations.
Zeke was drunk again, watching
the news on the Friday of the last announcement of the lost computer, and had
just raised himself on one elbow to see what the reward was about when his wife
came in from the bedroom (the resemblance between the two was uncanny, they
looked like twins, though no one ever mentioned it) and stood in front of the
TV.
“Hey,”
she screamed loud before his head could adjust to her volume.
“Don’t
you ever wanna screw me nomore? You just
gonna set round an drank the rest of yore life?” And with that, she turned off the TV and went
back into the junk filled, filthy bedroom and shut the door. Zeke, farted and went back to sleep.
The first blast of thunder
didn’t wake Zeke or his wife. The rain
came down like water poured out of a bucket.
A tall Pine sapling swayed and bent almost double in the wind in Zeke’s
yard. It swayed so hard it finally
snapped and hit the old car, crushing the trunk. The rain began to pour in on top of the little
gray laptop which in turn began to fill with water puddling in the floor of the
trunk. The storm stopped soon after and
the whole woods felt clean and safe. The
moon smiled.
Zeke eventually took the
computer to the museum for the reward, but the rain had destroyed it. Once again in his life, he was the object of
ridicule and laughter for trying to pass off this mildewed mess as Lizzie’s
valuable computer holding stories not yet published, never knowing he was a
hero to the world for the stealing.
The End
