Women and Other Monsters Read online

  Mr. Rutherford brought in the finest craftsmen to carve Clarissa a wooden leg that would attach to her stump. The household’s seamstresses fashioned a wide skirt for her wedding dress that would hide the contraption when she stood. She used a cane to walk down the aisle to where Francis Jennings stood waiting, passing a long line of attendees who attempted not to look at her with pity.

  Mr. Rutherford was barely strong enough to stay awake during the dinner after the ceremony. It was a sparse affair, attended by the white members of the house and several rough-looking men that Francis had brought over from his family’s company to help run the plantation. Clarissa heard Mr. Paul say to another overseer, “Look at these bastards. They think nothing of handing out beatings until our darkies are half-dead. But our slaves have been through worse, and they don’t fear much.” He glanced in Clarissa’s direction and said, “Unless she’s around.”

  Clarissa turned to him and said, “Why is that, Mr. Paul?”

  Paul smiled nervously and said, “I am sure I have no idea what you mean, Mrs. Jennings.”

  Clarissa found him later in the stable, catching her breath as she balanced against the wall. “What is it about me that the slaves are afraid of?”

  Paul continued stroking the mane of one of the horses and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Is it my deformity?”

  Paul turned and looked at her sharply, “You check your tone around me, young lady.” Paul had worked for the Rutherford’s since he came off the boat from Ireland, when Clarissa was still a child. He’d taught her to ride cart horses and slid her sips of whiskey during long, boring holiday dinners. These things crossed his mind as he said, “You are still a beauty, leg or no, aye?”

  “Well, what is it then?”

  “Some old witch is saying you’ve made some sort of compact with one of their African devils. It’s getting the others all stirred up.”

  Clarissa laughed quickly and touched her chest when she said, “What rubbish.”

  “Don’t fret about it, love. I put a beating on the ones who were making the most noise about it. I don’t expect any more trouble.”

  ***

  The next day, one of the youngest field negroes was caught stealing a chicken from the hatchery. He was not even twelve but he fought like an animal as Francis’ men dragged him toward the chopping block. A crowd of hardened, dark-skinned faces looked on, speaking to one another in urgent voices.

  The workers held the boy down and stretched out his arm across the stained wooden surface of the block. One of them picked up an axe and pumped the pedal on the sharpening stone, filling the air with the sound of screeching metal and sparks that popped in the disappearing daylight.

  Mr. Paul broke through the ranks and shoved the man with the axe away from the stone, “This is an outrage. You touch that axe to that boy and I’ll kill you myself.”

  The axeman grinned at him and told him he had the permission of the master.

  “Mr. Rutherford would never disable his own worker. It makes no sense. The boy will be useless.”

  “Aye, but Mr. Jennings is in charge now,” the axeman said. “And he is willing to sacrifice one thieving darkie to keep the other scum under control.”

  The boy’s mother pushed Paul out of the way and went after the axeman. “Don’t you hurt my boy! Don’t hurt my boy!”

  Paul grabbed her and dragged her back toward the others. “They will do worse to you next. Stay back!”

  The axeman lined up his weapon just below the boy’s elbow. The boy gritted his teeth and cursed at the men as the axe blade touched his forearm. He raised the axe high overhead and was about to swing it down when Clarissa’s voice boomed “Stop!”

  Henry Jim hurried across the field with Clarissa on his back. He huffed and caught his breath while the slaves parted to allow him through. “Let go of that boy immediately,” Clarissa said.

  “But Mrs. Jennings, we caught him stealing.”

  “I said let him go. That is my property and if you harm one hair on his head, I shall see you lynched.”

  The workers released him and glared into the crowd as he ran toward his mother. Clarissa told Henry Jim to let her down, and she balanced on one foot when she said, “Every white man here is to leave immediately. Go back into the house until I return. That includes you, Mr. Paul.”

  “Absolutely not,” he said. “And leave you alone with these animals?”

  “Henry Jim will stay with me. He will make sure nothing happens.”

  The field negroes eyed Henry Jim suspiciously, but he stood firmly at Clarissa’s side and extended his arm for her balance against him. Once the others left, Clarissa said, “Who among you says I have been consorting with this African devil?”

  “Him is not a devil,” a voice called out. “Him is tasked with taking souls across to dey other side.” An old woman limped past the others to face Clarissa. She wore a necklace of carved ornaments and beads that rattled as she walked. “You was meant to cross too, but Lord Gauna refused to take you.”

  “Don’t you listen to none of their mumbo-jumbo,” Henry Jim said. “They just stupid mammies. We should go back now-”

  “Why did he refuse me? I did nothing to him,” Clarissa insisted.

  The old woman shook her head, “Maybe to teach you a lesson. Maybe because him have other interest in you. That don’t matter. All that matter is that if he don’t want to do his job, we must make him.”

  “Then make him,” Clarissa said. Henry Jim’s eyes widened and he began to protest, but Clarissa spoke over him, “Let us go at once.”

  The woman looked at her and said, “First get me that chicken.”

  ***

  “Lord, have mercy,” Henry Jim muttered, lifting a lantern over his head. He stumbled in the darkness, following the old woman through a narrow alley of makeshift huts. Clarissa was clinging to his back and Henry Jim turned his head to say, “I don’t like nothing about these people.”

  “Stop sounding foolish and be silent, Henry Jim. These are your people.”

  “No, ma’am. I’m with you folks up there on the hill, through and through,” he said.

  The old woman took them toward one of the last dwelling and threw back the blanket covering the entrance. She ducked inside and waved for them to follow. Henry Jim bent his knees to go in and said that it smelled, “Worse than a hog house in August.”

  There was a rusted pot on the floor, set above a smoldering fire. The old woman told them to sit and asked for the chicken. “We must call Gauna to us in order to bind him,” she said. “It is him that blocks your path to the next world.”

  She held the chicken over the pot and wrenched its neck, twisting until its head came off in her hand and chucking it past Henry Jim’s ear. She stifled a laugh when he flinched. Blood from the flapping carcass went into the pot, bubbling on the surface until white smoke rose from the broth. The old woman pulled out a bottle of whiskey and yanked the cork out with her teeth, pouring the bottle into the cauldron. She dipped a ladle into it and brought up a spoonful of steaming muck. “Drink,” the old woman said. “This potion make you irresistible to Gauna. Him come running.”

  Henry Jim put his arm around Clarissa protectively. “Ain’t no way. That’s enough of this mess. I’m taking you back up to the house, Miss Clarissa.”

  Clarissa shrugged him off of her and took the ladle from the old woman. It smelled foul and tasted of iron, but Clarissa slurped it down quickly. She passed back the ladle to the woman and wiped her mouth with her shirt sleeve. “What now?”

  “You must finish it.”

  Clarissa grimaced and said, “Let me do it then.” She leaned over the pot and scooped as much of the soup into her ladle as it would hold. There were living things inside the drink that slithered into her mouth and squirmed inside of her stomach. Small bones rattled against her teeth but she crushed them and swallowed.

  “All of it. You must drink all of it.” The old woman picked up the chic
ken carcass and slit it open with a knife. She pulled out the animal’s heart and squeezed it in her hand, making blood drip onto the dirt floor of the hut. She drew a circle with the blood, making symbols inside of it then sprinkling powder from a rusted can along the borders of the circle. “Stay back, stupid,” she shouted at Henry Jim.

  There were screams outside and the sound of something crashing toward them.

  The old woman looked up, startled, “Him not supposed to be here so soon. Hurry!” She began chanting and ordering Clarissa to drink faster.

  Clarissa finished another ladle and her head began to spin. Bile spooled up from her stomach and into her mouth, but still she swallowed more. Finally, the ladle scraped the bottom of the pot and the old woman grabbed Clarissa’s hand. She sliced Clarissa’s palm and shook out a few droplets of blood onto the dirt at the center of the circle.

  A pearl white hand grabbed the fabric of the hut at the entrance and tore it aside. Henry Jim rose up in defense, but the pale man swatted him aside. The old woman raised her fist and said, “You cannot keep her! She do not belong to you!”

  Gauna rushed forward to grab her, he stepped inside the circle and instantly stopped moving.

  “Now, child, out of the tent while he is bound!”

  Clarissa crawled past his legs for the entrance, sliding out of the tent and collapsing in the dirt. The old woman scurried out behind her and lifted her dagger over Clarissa’s heart. “Are you prepared?”

  “Yes!” Clarissa begged. “Do it!”

  ***

  Francis Jennings stampeded through the tent city, yelling for his wife. He raised his voice high over the screaming slaves running past, trying to escape the worker’s. Jennings looked at the far end of the encampment and screamed. An old negress stood over Clarissa, stabbing her repeatedly. Jennings lifted his rifle and fired, sending a bullet through the old woman’s skull, but Clarissa did not move.

  The next morning, they hanged ten slaves from the branches of the tallest trees on the plantation. All went to their death swearing they had not even been at the camp during the incident. The house negro, Henry Jim, was lashed until the muscles of his back were exposed. The overseers hanged him upside down by his ankles and left him for the carrion crows to finish.

  Clarissa Rutherford Jennings was buried at the edge of her father’s tobacco plantation near an apple orchard. Mr. Paul told the mourners that it was the first place she had brought him to when he arrived there fresh off the boat, and longing for his family. He told them a story about watching Clarissa dance around an apple tree in a way that made him believe he’d found a new home. He wept too bitterly to finish the story, and was escorted away. As he passed Mr. Rutherford he patted the old man on the shoulder, but there was no response. Mr. Rutherford remained silent until he asked to be taken back to the house before the service was finished.

  Francis Jennings touched the cross erected over his wife’s grave and lowered his head, saying one final prayer before leaving. He did not look at her grave again as he returned to the house.

  An hour later, Clarissa awoke.

  ***

  The bottom of my boat bounces on the riverbed beneath and I know that we are close to shore. There are warnings carved into the trees along the bank, telling travelers to go no further. Swollen bodies float past my boat and I push them away with my oar, sickened by the sight of them.

  “My father came here once before,” I say. “He told me about this place. The Christians heard of it from a local village and sent word home. White men came, dressed like princes. I have never seen such men, but my father described them as draped in gold and the furs of strange animals. They had soldiers with them. Some of them brought their whole families. They paid riverboat men ten times what it cost to be anywhere else on the river.

  My father only took the journey once, and made more money than he could earn in a whole year. He asked the man why he wanted to go to such a terrible place. This man say he heard that Gauna walked the earth here, and would grant eternal life to whoever was brave enough to seek it.

  My father called this man a fool and told him Gauna does not grant requests.

  ‘He will for me,’ the white man say. ‘He will for me.’

  My father let this white man off at the shore and waited for him to return until evening came. The white man did not return. My father left and never went back. He was stopped on his way home by bandits who knew he had money, and beat him until he could not see. He could never be a boatman again.”

  I stuck my oar in the mud beneath the boat and said, “I can go no further, and I will not wait for you. If you have changed your mind and want to come back with me, I will return your money.”

  The hooded one pulled herself toward the edge of the boat, about to fall into the water. I lifted her over the side and set her down carefully on the beach. She wormed her way up the beach like an animal crawling on its belly. I pushed away, sloshing through the water with my oar, rowing for awhile until I chanced a look back.

  At first I thought it was a white man walking toward the woman, but then I saw that it was not. She reached up to him, and Gauna bent down to lift her into his arms. He removed her robes and threw them into the water, touching her face as if he were her lover. Then he carried his woman into the dark shadows of the jungle.

  When I was a boy, my father told me that in the days of his great grandfather, the white men came and traded gold with the kings of Africa in exchange for the people who lived here. The white men treat these people like cattle, but forget that Africa is old. Her people are an old people, and their Gods are old Gods. The white men not know that some of the Gods follow their people onto those big boats too.

  I think about this bag of gold at my feet, enough to buy me anything I could possibly imagine. I wonder how this woman got so much, and think about those ancient Kings taking bags of gold in exchange for so many of my people.

  I picked up the sack and threw it into the water, watching it sink below the surface. The splash created ripples that sent the white flowers floating away from my boat.

  Codename: Omega

  Episode One: SUBJECT 129 (1918)

  Technical Sergeant James Scott planted his foot on an injured German soldier’s helmet to launch himself up the trench wall. Someone shouted, “Go, go, go! We’ve taken their front line!” Mortar bombardments sent clumps of dirt flying into his face as Scott scrambled up the traverse, when a German bullet punched through his right shoulder.

  Scott dropped to the dirt. He struggled to get back up and stay in the fight, peering through thick artillery smoke, trying to see how far he was from the next trench. I’ll find it if I just keep moving, he thought. A bullet bounced off the brim of his helmet, searing his face with chunks of hot metal. German rifles cracked and bullets slammed his torso, stinging like hot knives. Scott gurgled and dropped to the ground. He rolled over the lip of the next trench and slid down the dirt wall.

  Allied soldiers pouring over the ledge landed on top of him, crushing him with their boots in the unseen panic of the assault. Scott died underneath his fellow soldiers. He was twenty-three years old.

  ***

  Medical personnel evacuated the dead from the trenches at night. They placed James Scott’s bullet-ridden corpse in a covered Army transport and drove it to a secure staging area in Bellicourt. Scott’s body was laid on the floor beside dozens of others in long lines, and female nurses walked up and down the aisles of corpses, checking their dog tags.

  An Army Major walked behind them, jotting down each soldier’s rank, battalion, and cause of death. His charts went to a clerk in Washington DC, who checked another chart that listed which medal to send the soldier’s family on behalf of their sacrifice in America’s Great War.

  The Major came to the body of Technical Sergeant James Scott, making a quick notation and about to move on when something moved. The Major stopped cold. The dead man was sitting up.

  ***

  The dead man ran screaming through t
he facility, smashing into trays of medical supplies as guards and doctors raced after him. A guard ran in from outside and dove for Scott’s knees, but Scott shook him off like George Gipp driving through a defensive line to score a touchdown. Scott leapt onto the back of the same military transport that had brought his dead body to the base. He clung fast to the bumper while the guards beat him over the head and hands with clubs.

  They piled onto him until he finally collapsed. The guards stomped him with their boots but Scott roared and pressed up from the floor, lifting twenty men into the air. He grabbed the nearest guard and picked him up off the ground. The guard screamed as Scott hurled him across the facility, smashing him into a support beam with a sickening crunch.

  A doctor raced toward the crowd with a dripping morphine needle, screaming, “Hold him still!” He wrapped his hand around the collar of Scott’s bloody uniform and jabbed the needle forward at the bulging vein on the soldier’s neck, when the entire group of guards and doctors collapsed on top of one another.