Posted by Larry Winfield on September 16, 2009 at 8:37pm
(Note: this Sci Fi/Horror/Neo-Southern Gothic Fable is explicit and for mature audiences only...)Chapter 1Augustus Wainwright was having an old familiar dream, of when he was thirteen and caught the dark chocolate upstairs maid smoking in his mother's bathroom, her private sanctuary. He'd fancied that gal all summer, and now he had her, close enough to touch. His face stretched into a goofy grin, he ordered the maid to his room near the back of the mansion. He bent her over his desk, slid down her panties, undid his pants and just watched, breathing in the faint new aroma, entranced by his first real look at a woman's vagina. The best part of the dream came when she, realizing her position and resigning herself to it, reached back and took matters in hand. He shuddered in anticipation, and then an irritating noise, an itch he couldn't scratch, ice-picked its way from...where?He looked up, out through the window where he expected to see Mother bent over the azaleas in the garden, instead, he saw her standing, wearing an old-time plantation ball gown, passionately kissing a shirtless, barefoot black man. The noise scratched itself into a banjo being tuned, then strummed. It jarred him awake. He heard a murmur behind him on the bed, sat up and looked over to see Rebecca Sandiford, the girl from last night's party, curled up beside him. Damn, he groaned. She didn't leave when the cops ran everybody off. Downstairs, he heard a banjo being strummed. He blinked his eyes, looking over at the clock on the nightstand. 3:02 AM. "He'll come at three in the morning, the day after your birthday." Auntie Aggie's words spilled from his lips, underscored by the banjo...He slowly got out of bed, his heart beating faster as he watched the girl sleeping. He heard the first verse of "Dixie" softly playing and then repeating, at once coming from the parlor downstairs, and as if from miles away, bringing a heaviness that settled around him and squeezed. He fought to calm himself, force his breathing a little closer to normal. He went to the window, looking up and down the street in front for the county sheriff's car. It was parked outside when he told Rebecca to leave with the rest of his friends, half an hour later he'd passed out after finishing off another bottle of Jack Daniels alone. She must've hid, and no deputy either, he worried as the song began again, a dreamy echo outside the room.That goddamn cable show he'd been watching immediately sprang to mind. "The File Room...” He hated the show, though he'd watched every week for the past year, growing more and more alarmed as they proved this supernatural crap was real. Each episode that had a ghost in it filled him with sick dread. This will make one hell of an episode, though, he thought.For Augustus Wainwright, a life of luxury, parties, privilege, and being spared the burden of inheriting the family business, ended as his 20th birthday approached. A week ago, he was dragged from a beach bar in Rio and deposited in this small family-owned house on the west side of Liberty Plaines, in the kingdom of Wainwright County. It was his turn as the latest first-born son to go through this ordeal or be disowned. He was only 19 when brought before his Auntie Aggie, Agnes Wainwright, the matriarch of the family. She first spoke the names Jacob and Polly, and told him about the curse that afflicted the Wainwrights and the LeChettes, another old prominent plantation family in the county. She shared with him the part of the family history that had been kept from him his whole life.She looked deeply embarrassed as she told him that Jacob was a runaway field nigger who was caught by Justin Wainwright and Lucien LeChette in 1832. As they were bringing him back he put a curse on them and they killed him. Polly was just a crazy old kitchen slave who died when Justin was a boy, but she appears as a little girl and haunts Wainwright Park. Augustus could tell there was a lot more to it than that, but Auntie wouldn't say, though her face tightened with the knowing of it.His Auntie showed him manila folders containing the original sheriff’s reports for his late uncle Jeffrey Wainwright in 67 and Oscar LeChette in 83. The obituary pages folded inside listed their deaths as 'heart attack' and 'stroke' the morning after their 20th birthdays.Augustus never heard of Uncle Jeffrey. The family members never mentioned him, far as he could remember. He supposed the LeChettes never mentioned their first-born sons either, as if they didn't matter and would be forgotten soon enough. At 19 he realized that he was never challenged or encouraged in school like his siblings; he was indulged and entertained, treated more like a child with a terminal disease. Soon to be covered over and forgotten, like something shameful, like he was a part of the curse, just accept it and die and let them all move on.Well, two months ago he hired an attorney outside the family's influence and shared the shameful family history, and gave him a letter with instructions.He glanced over at Rebecca and grimaced as the music downstairs paused. In 83, Oscar LeChette had a young woman with him when the ghost twins visited. She didn't survive. The girl being here was bad...August Wainwright took a deep breath as the banjo playing started again, the sound crawling up and down his spine. He slipped on a night robe and walked slowly to the door. Opened it as quietly as he could, watching for any movement from Rebecca, he then eased himself out and closed it with a muffled 'click,' slowly crept down the hall then, paused at the stairs, the music drifting up from the parlor below. He started down, close to the wall but staying clear of the paintings and portraits of the proud lineage of Wainwrights through the past two hundred years, And down the wall were the smaller solitary portraits of the firstborn sons at age ten. Eight of them since the Northern Aggression and only two ever lived past the age of 20. His picture wasn't there yet, but there was space for it. The grim chain was begun by Beau II, the unfortunate first son of Beauregard T Wainwright. Augustus passed his portrait as he reached the bottom of the stairs, facing the entrance to the parlor.The banjo playing stopped abruptly. Upstairs, the sudden absence of sound stirred the girl awake. She reached out lazily for him, opened her eyes, finding the bed empty. She looked around the dark room, shadows draped over the Victorian and Colonial furniture. "Gus?"She'd hid in the upstairs closet as the deputy was breaking up the party, then went downstairs to the kitchen until Gus fell asleep. She had decided at the party that the ghost story was romantic, it made her like him even more, even though she'd never met him before tonight, but they both felt an immediate attraction when they met in the kitchen. On impulse, she decided to stay and give him a wake up present, then go with him wherever he would jet off to, whether it was Rio or Prague or Timbuktu. Rebecca was taking a year off from college and exploring all of her wild impulses. And she discovered Augustus liked to travel and party. But where was he?In the middle of the parlor, Augustus saw a young, powerfully built black man, the man who invaded his dream, barefoot, shirtless, his face sweltering from the sun. There was no sunlight in the room, but he could see it glinting off his back and arms as he swung a hoe in short, sure, down strokes, with a phantom blade that chopped into the fine oak floor, but made no damage. Old Jacob.... Augustus winced as he felt his heart squeeze again. It passed after a few seconds. He grunted, then straightened up, breathing hard as Jacob stood upright, letting the hoe slip from his hands and fade away as it fell.Augustus shivered as Jacob calmly studied him. Jacob himself looked no more than 19 or 20, his dark skin still shining from the hot sun of some long gone day in the fields. His face was calm, serene, but the eyes reflected all the ugliness and inhumanity captured those few years."You know who I am?" the ghost said. Augustus tried not to show his fear. "Yes," he said just as calmly. Jacob smiled. "Yo Uncle Jeffrey pissed hisself 'fore he could even speak." In a split second, Jacob was standing a foot in front of him. Before he could react, Jacob placed his broad dark hand squarely on his chest. "Time to see, Wainwright! See if you get a taste, or take a ride."The girl walked slowly from the bedroom to the top of the stairs, wondering did she really hear a banjo playing? She finished tying up her robe and, as silently as she could, quickly made her way downstairs, stopping at the landing. She saw Gus standing in the doorway of the parlor, shaking. There's somebody else in there, but she couldn't see. She inched around Gus, craning her neck to see into the dark. Rebecca and Jacob saw each other in the same instant.Jacob froze her in place with a forceful wave of his hand. He clawed the air in front of him the way you'd catch a fly, and she was instantly standing before him, immobile and trembling. Jacob turned to Augustus, his face registering disappointment. They know better than to have anybody else there, but they still do it. He looked around at the remains of a party decorating the parlor. Wainwright first born don't deserve birthday parties either, even one so sickly.He continued reading them; they weren't nowhere near as bad as some Wainwrights, so they would get off easy. He only had mild charms on him this time, as concession to the tearful pleas of Agnes Wainwright. Jacob pulled 'Gus closer until they were nose to nose. "You takin' a ride alright, but you might just make it. Only on account of your weak heart and her."His body glistened as he built himself up, his hands clutching the front lapels of the helpless pair's robes. Two specks of sunlight appeared before them, bright glowing embers. They began to shine and Augustus stared into its bottomless light, his eyes beginning to shine. A flash as his speck exploded and he suddenly gasped and began struggling against unseen bonds. Jacob released his grip on Augustus, watched him slowly fall backward, land gently on the floor.Jacob watched Rebecca's eyes as they glowed in reflection of her speck of light. After the flash he was completely caught off guard when he saw which ride she began. Not Emma Jane, an older woman caught alone working in a slave patch at dusk, forced to service two local town boys taking a shortcut to Maison Road. This was Annie's ride, one of the worst ones he had, but he wasn't carrying... He felt his pants pocket for the pouch, and the two bones within, then he felt it resting on top of the pouch. Annie's bone. He groaned, "Dammit, Polly..."Jacob pulled the girl close, shaking with anger and regret. This girl didn't deserve Annie's ride. Holding her head still, he whispered in her ear, "I'm sorry. I hope..." He released her, watched her settle gently to the floor beside Augustus Wainwright, who twitched like a fish on a hook.Jacob closed his eyes, began to search the surrounding countryside for his companion, sweeping his gaze through the small town, past the square, and out beyond the town to the farms and the old Maison Road that once connected three great plantation houses, to the park where the third and most beautiful mansion used to stand. There, on the swings beside a gazebo, a young teenage girl wearing just a shirt was in the middle swing, long dark legs kicking out as she swung forward. "What are you up to now?" he muttered. Just then, a car sped past, skidded to a stop on the road past the gazebo, then roared away. Polly smiled, jumped off the swing and started walking toward the road. When the car appeared back on the road approaching the park, Jacob waited, wondering who Polly was playing with.-------------Augustus spun, lost his balance, but didn't fall. He looked up, dazed, and saw his hands, feeling funny, smaller than before, bound to ropes. His arms were spread apart and tied to the large overhead branch of an old tree. The high sun dappled through the leaves. His eyes finally focused. His name was Samuel. And his skin was black as shit."...Tole you what I'd do if I caught you scratching on the ground again, Samuel. Young miss ain't here now, nigger!" Augustus felt the spittle of tobacco juice splatter against Samuel's bare back. The heaviness in his chest returning, he tried desperately to yell out, beg, scream, but the mouth had a mind of its own, refusing to open. He felt Samuel straining against his bonds until an ear-splitting crack exploded just behind his head. "Hold still, nigger..." Samuel froze. Augustus was reduced to shallow gulps. The frayed end of the whip exploded between his shoulder blades, two, three times. He writhed between the ropes as the overseer put just the tip of the whip next to the skin..."...Now you see why I run the yard for Master Beauregard, boy! He says 'don't make no long ugly scars, make little pretty scars, like spring blossoms..." Crack! Four and five split the air at Augustus' right ear. His head snapped away. Six snapped just above the base of his spine and his legs went numb. Augustus was in agony, struggling as a wave of pins and needles cascaded down his legs, then the maddening mix of intense pain and complete numbness swept in fading waves over his body. His mouth finally opened, and Augustus screamed out, but it didn't sound like him, but like a young boy. It was getting harder to breathe the dry, hot air. He slumped to one side, looking like a marionette dangling from its strings. The heavy weight on his chest allowed him small, gulping breaths.Seven, Eight. The overseer enjoyed this part of the job; it was why he was hired. Master Beauregard detested the long, ugly scars many slaves carried on their backs. He considered it a failure in livestock management. Still, slaves had to be corrected and trained. "Make the scars smaller," he insisted, firing three overseers until he found one with a deft touch and deadly accuracy.Nine.Ten snapped sharply at the base of the boy's skull. Augustus gasped in shock, inhaled too quickly and swallowed his tongue. He flailed, desperately, his blocked throat silent. He passed out at lash no. 13. He was dead by the time the overseer untied Samuel from the tree...----------------Rebecca came to running, stumbling to a noisy stop inside a line of trees, from the glow of the full moon into pitch darkness. She leaned unsteadily against a tree, her head spinning from being at Gus' mansion, then flashing eyes and sudden terror, and the sudden knowledge slammed into her head that she was also a Wainwright house girl named Annie, with a white man's blood on her hands, with her own blood staining her thighs. She looked back through the trees to the LeChette House, grand in its own way, but not as majestic as her Massa's House. Screams inside and four men tearing out the back door almost made her scream as she froze behind a tree. When they went back inside she turned and ran quickly and silently through the woods. South. Wainwright house is two miles south at the other end of Maison Road, Annie whispered to her. The three remaining cousins of Lucien LeChette, the Stonehill brothers, would be on her soon enough if she didn't keep moving. And they knew where she'd be running to.Rebecca had no control of the body as Annie worked her way well off the roads south to Wainwright House, but she saw, and felt the young house girl's terror of being caught again by those boys. She'd already been violated by Master Franklin Stonehill, him still roughly pounding into her on the floor of the upstairs bedroom by the time she got one of Mistress LeChettes' knitting needles into his neck. She pulled herself off of his rigid, trembling penis as she stabbed him a second time in the neck, shoving him onto his back on the floor, pushing down her dress and watched him, wiping the blood from her hand on his undone pants. He shuddered and came, arms flailing, grasping at the large needle, sputtering loudly as death throes increased the intensity of his last orgasm. The other brothers, still downstairs in the billiard room, laughed at Franklin's garbled outcry. He stopped gurgling and struggling finally, and bending over him, she took out the knitting needle. Blood sprayed from his neck, splashing across the front of her dress, sprinkling her face and neck.She sprang off him in a panic, scrambling to her feet. Heart pounding, she took the dress off, wiped the blood from her face, then tossed it on Franklin's exposed crotch. She found a plain yellow dress in mistress' wardrobe and put it on, panic clawing at her fingers as she struggled with the buttons. The other Stonehill brothers were just downstairs, any of them could come up any moment to join Franklin in "gittin' some high yella nigger juice...." Annie spent a long minute biting down on her terror, remembering the advice of Old Ruth: "If you ever wind up havin' to kill some damn white boy cause he won't leave you alone, only two things you can do. Run, and don't stop. If you can't run, child, use this..." Old Ruth reached into her bosom and took out a small leather pouch containing a single-shot pistol and five bullets. "If it comes down to it, save the last one for yourself, child..." The pistol, hers now that Old Ruth passed over last year, was back at the cabin, hidden underneath.She moved steadily, walking fast through the woods, running full out across the moonlit open fields at crossroads, until finally she reached the cabins back of the Wainwright smokehouse. No time for goodbyes or nothing, she thought, as she crept to the rear of Old Ruth's cabin and felt around for the hidey-hole. Make my way to New Orleans and disappear. In the city she could pass...Rebecca felt the anger that flared up in the girl at the thought of 'being able to pass', the monumental insult that being 'high yellow' was what drew the attention of the damned cousins in the first place. Two days before they were visiting young master Julius at LeChette House, stopping their game of billiards when she walked pass the doorway carrying a parcel for Mistress upstairs. They marveled at how similar she was to Alexander Wainwright's dear sister Athena, who was a lovely girl, but spent far too much time with her mother and her bible to be available, but this young lass was very available and couldn't say no...Annie found the pouch with the gun and bullets in a hole covered by a rock. Clutching it in her shaking hands, she crept around the cabins, scanning the yard between the cabins, the smokehouse and the main house. Her satchel, with all her worldly possessions, was in the upstairs sewing room. She dashed for the back door, praying the Stonehill boys weren't already at the front door...
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