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Hair of the Dog (Pt. 2)

A Nick & Tess Adventure, Part 2

By Liz ZimmersPublished 5 years ago 15 min read
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Inside, the cabin was dim and musty. Crumbling stacks of newspapers covered every surface. The kitchen counter held a collection of dented coffee cans, some bent and shedding rust. An ancient glass coffee pot sat on a stove burner, burbling like a tar pit. I’d seen the propane tank by the side of the house. There was no electricity or running water. A hand pump rose beside the vast enameled sink. Maudie fished two chipped mugs from the depths of the sink and gave each a rub on her apron. She set them beside the stove and turned to wave a long finger at Nick.

“You can clear a coupla chairs. Just put that stuff over there on the recliner.”

He did as he was told, scooping armloads of newspapers bound in kitchen twine from the vinyl seats of the dinette chairs and depositing them in the sprung lap of a green La-Z-Boy. We sat, shuffling our feet amidst the stacks under the table. From outside came a commotion of chickens, and two black hens rose in heated, flapping debate against the kitchen window. Maudie leaned across the sink to look down on the fracas.

“Goddamn birds,” she muttered savagely, then gave us a wide, toothy smile. “I sell eggs in town. Preston drives me in on his four-wheeler. Them’s my eggs in the cooler at Red John’s. You been there?”

We nodded, Hansel and Gretel bereft of language in the witch’s house.

“I hate chickens. They stink, and they’ve got evil natures.” She whispered this at us as though the birds might hear and take offense. In a normal tone, she said, “Eggs is good business. Everyone wants eggs.”

The coffee pot hissed. Maudie grasped its handle with a corner of her apron and poured the black sludge into the mugs. An intense aroma of burned coffee filled the room. She pivoted and slammed a mug down in front of each of us.

“That’ll put hair on your chest.”

She gave a growling chuckle and poked Nick’s shoulder with her long, yellowed nail. Her gaze slid to me, considering and cool. Her eyes were surprisingly lovely, the green shot through with tawny rays that formed cognac rings around the irises. Sunlight in a forest glade.

“What do you people want over at the lodge?”

Nick took a manly sip from his mug. From his rigid posture and blank expression, I concluded it best to leave mine untasted. I pushed the mug, with its swirling Pythian vapors, from me.

“Claudia Moon is a friend of mine. She’ll be closing on the purchase of the lodge soon, and she asked us to make some preliminary renovation plans.”

The leaf-shadow eyes remained fixed on me. Maudie didn’t even blink. In the face of that stare, the lie felt as believable as Santa Claus. I coughed and tried again.

“Truthfully, she knew we could use a vacation. It’ll be nice to camp for a while, leave the busy world behind.”

“Well, that’s real nice. It’s a pretty place, with the lake just about at the door. Preston’s took good care of it these last years. You won’t find no weather damage.”

Maudie tipped a stack of newspapers onto the floor with a casual shove. She sat on the emptied chair as though it were a strange notion, her muscles bunched and quivering.

“You got all your camping gear in that Jeep?” she asked. “Gonna need it. Old Pepekissimo ain’t had lodgers in a long time.”

“The Jeep?” Nick found his voice, sharp with suspicion despite the rasp put in it by Maudie’s coffee.

She smiled, a long-jawed display of strong, white points.

“I got good ears, son. Real good ears. Know my engines, too. I heard that rowdy old four-wheel drive coming down the holler. Couldn’t mistake it. You gonna drink that, hon?”

She gestured at my coffee mug and pulled it toward her when I shook my head. She lifted the cup and took a deep swallow. Her eyes fixed on me over the steam.

“You know what Pepekissimo means, young lady? It’s an Indian word, or near to it. A Shawnee word. It means One Who Calls in the Dark.” The green-gold eyes narrowed. “You ever heard that before?”

I cleared my throat. “I might have heard something like that once,” I said. The research file in my backpack spelled it out, in fact. “Do you know how it got its name?”

“Oh, I know some about it, I guess. Some says there’s werewolves around the lodge. Some says they’ve seen them, even. Some nights, there’s sounds all right. Cries and howls no coyote ever made. Maybe you’ll hear it.”

Maudie tossed back another gulp of coffee. Her lean frame seemed to vibrate with some bone-deep resonance, a fierce energy held in abeyance through uncanny stillness.

Nick leaned across the table. “Have you ever seen a werewolf, Maudie?”

Her eyes laughed at us, but her face remained expressionless.

“No, sir, and I don’t care to. The stories ain’t about some man all made up in fur to look like a monster. Ain’t no wolf-man running around under a full moon. It’s an old, old tale come down the line in the blood around these parts. Older than the first white settlers. They say the wolves is part of the land Pepekissimo sits on, and sometimes they take people. Take ‘em without a trace, and no one ever sees them again.”

“You believe the stories?” I wished for the vidcam, or even the mini-recorder. “Do you really think werewolves are to blame for area disappearances?”

“Everything eats,” Maudie said. “This is a wild place, and some things is always hungry. Anyway, I don’t know what’s true, or if there could be more than one of those wolf things. Lotsa hunters around here. Seems they’d have seen them if there was a pack.” She pinned her cool stare on Nick. “Don’t you think so, son? A man with sharp eyes, he’d see a thing like that if it was close about.”

“It seems like he should, Maudie.” He turned to me. “We should probably get going if we’re going to look around before the sun goes down. We still have to set up camp.”

Maudie stood with us. “I’ll tell Preston you’re over there. He’ll stop by in the morning if he can’t get there any earlier. I told him not to go at night, and he don’t no more.”

She lifted a hand toward my hair and inhaled a long breath, as though savoring a scent. Her steady green gaze spoke to me in a language I could almost decipher.

“You got hair like red October. Things like that’ll run in a family, sometimes.”

We clattered over the porch and ducked from under the shade of the wild honeysuckle that overwhelmed it. Nick caught the dangling charm of a wind chime with his shoulder, and the silver sound followed us across the clearing and into the laurels. I turned to express my amazement at finding such a rich source of local folklore, but Nick took my elbow and hustled me along the path, bending to whisper in my ear.

“Just keep going. We can talk when we’re out of this hollow.”

***

Back on SR6, I asked, “Can we talk now?”

Nick gave me a sheepish grin. “Yeah, sorry. That old lady gave me the willies with her ‘I have very good ears, son.’ Damned if I don’t believe her. She nearly poisoned me with that toxic waste she calls coffee, and she seemed quite taken with you.” He laughed, but he looked a little pale under his tan. “You know, the longer I sat there, the more convinced I became that we weren’t going to leave that place. Am I nuts, or what? Didn’t you feel it?”

I twisted in my seat and dragged my backpack from the heap of camping gear. Nick’s assertion jibed with something in the research file. I dug through the papers, maps, and copies of woodcuts until I found it.

“Listen to this. It’s the account of a surveyor named Jacob Rutter. He made camp at Pepekissimo in late summer of 1798 at the behest of Samuel Dobson, a wealthy banker in Philadelphia. Apparently, Dobson had purchased the parcel, complete with Cold Ripple Lake, and wanted Rutter to draw accurate maps. These are entries from Rutter’s journal:

'20 August 1798 - Much astonished to find a few hardy souls scratching a living from this wilderness. They abide in a rough cabin on the fringe of the lake, and care not for news of the land’s new owner. Mr. Dobson may find he prefers to take his chance with the yellow fever that grips fair Philadelphia rather than bring his family to this inhospitable jungle.”

23 August 1798 - My neighbors are strange and make me ill at ease. Evening last, they invited me for supper, and I thought to make some progress in resigning them to the sale of the land. They show no understanding of such legalities, and the women especially maintain such a thing is ridiculous. Their cabin, dark and smoky, grew very close around me as we ate. In a dim corner, by the light of the fire, I saw what I took to be the dressed carcass of a deer stretched from a rafter. The light was so poor, the women so eldritch and the men so silent, that I found myself entertaining the fancy that a man hung there instead. A fear grew upon me that I might never leave, and though I am safe in my camp again, I feel still the oppression of their presence across the lake.'

Nick slowed the Jeep for the turn to Cold Ripple Lake and the lodge. “Jesus. What happened to him?”

“It seems there was a big bank robbery in Philadelphia at the end of August of that year. Dobson found himself in financial difficulties and sent word to Rutter to pack in the project. It took weeks for the message to reach Pepekissimo, and the trapper that took it the final stage said he never found Rutter or anyone else. He found the cabin Rutter writes about, but it was empty and charred as though it had caught fire. What remained of the journal was found there.”

We crested the hill and the lake spread out before us, a jewel shining in the bottom of a green bowl. It wore a deep fringe of hemlock, birch, and alder interspersed with massive tumbles of rock, some jutting pier-like into the clear water. Pepekissimo Lodge squatted on the north shore, long and dark, its big-timbered frame a testament to the arboreal majesty of the early forest. I caught my breath as Nick let his out in a long whistle.

“Would you look at that,” he said. “That is some kind of beautiful. I can see how Claudia fell in love with it. It’s amazing that it hasn’t been bought up and subdivided by some developer.”

“It’s been in the possession of a conservancy group for almost a hundred years. They used it as a retreat and research center until about three years ago. That’s when those ecologists disappeared. I guess after that the conservancy couldn’t justify the cost of the upkeep, and it’s so remote. Claudia didn’t have much competition for it.”

As we pulled up to the lodge, the encroachment of the wilderness became apparent. Vigorous stands of chicory and Queen Anne’s lace thrust their way through the hard-packed gravel of the parking lot. What had once been lawn behind the lodge had reverted to meadow, and white-tail deer bounded away as we bumped to a halt. We climbed out of the Jeep and stood looking at one another over the hood. With the engine silenced, the quiet of the place achieved profound depth.

The sunlight had become sulky and unreliable. Nick removed his sunglasses.

“Well, what do you think?”

I stood listening and trying to sense the mood of the place. The mineral-rich smell of the lake, vast and clean, lay heavy on the air. Even the sky smelled of water, laden with fat, bruised clouds. A sound like a hoarse whisper raced up the shore of the lake, and I turned to see the fluttering leaves of the birches rolling in the breeze to show their silver bellies. I shivered.

“I think we’re going to get a storm soon. I wish we’d found the caretaker at home. We need to get the gear inside.”

We hauled bedrolls and lanterns, a camp stove and a cooler full of provisions, onto the wide porch that ran the length of the lodge and overlooked the lake. Peering in the big, many-paned windows, we could make out little of the dark interior besides a prodigious fireplace constructed of stones worn smooth by the lapping water. The hand-hewn lodge sign stood on end by the door, tall as a totem pole. The locked door was tall and broad enough for a giant. Nick put a tentative shoulder to it but shook his head.

“This must have been built to keep out bears. No way I’m going to budge it.” He looked up as the breeze off the lake grew stronger. The transom above the door quivered at the touch of the wind with a dry rattle. “I think that thing is open,” he said, pointing. “If I boost you up there, do you think you can slide through and unlock the door?”

“I’m willing to try.” I eyed the narrow window. I would fit through it, but it was a long drop on the other side. “Let’s drag those bedrolls over to the door. If I can get the window open, I can drop them in first to give me something to land on.”

We stood the rolls of sleeping bags, blankets and pillows against the door. We stared at each other for an awkward moment, and Nick laughed.

“Okay, this is just like in the circus. You get on my shoulders, and I’ll steady you so you can stand. Piece of cake.”

“I’ve never been in the circus, and I’m afraid of heights. Other than that, yeah, it’ll be a snap.”

I went to the railing and shook it. Solid. I climbed up on to it, clinging to the scarred tree trunk that acted as a porch post, and stood in a half crouch on the four-inch wide rail.

Nick presented his back to me. “Just sling a leg over my shoulder. I won’t let you fall.”

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” I muttered, but did as he said.

He gripped my knee and held up his free hand to help steady me as I seated myself on his shoulders. I clutched his hair when he stepped toward the door.

“Ow! Haven’t you ever ridden piggyback before?”

“Not since I was about five. Don’t move so fast.”

At the door, he took a deep breath and said, “You’re going to have to stand up to reach the transom. Just hang onto the doorframe and take your time. I got you.”

I crept up the doorframe, placing one shaky foot, then the other, on his shoulders. I tugged at the transom and it swung toward me. “It’s open. Pass me one of the bed rolls.”

I propped open the window with the stick lying on the sill and shoved the soft mass through it. The second followed.

“I’m going through now,” I said, and hoisted myself onto my belly on the sill. I wriggled sideways until my feet dropped inside and I was looking down at Nick’s sweaty face. “Was I heavy?”

“Like a goddamn moose. Now get in there and open the door so you can fix my broken neck.”

Laughing, I pushed myself backward until I hung by my fingers from the sill. I looked over my shoulder and saw the heap of bedding on the floor below me.

“Geronimo,” I whispered, and let go.

I dropped through several feet of dusky air and spinning dust motes, thudding onto the sleeping bags and rolling to my hands and knees. The lobby of Pepekissimo Lodge echoed with the sound of my landing. I stood, combed my hair out of my eyes, and squinted into the dimness. The rustic bulk of the fireplace climbed the far wall, the chimney soaring into the raftered shadows. The firebox was big enough for a bear’s den and contributed a smoky note to the phantom of lemon oil and the dominant aroma of abandonment. The floor was a smooth slick of flagstone, dark and glossy as eel skin. The madly revolving dust motes clung with devotion to their sunbeams and refused to mar the perfection of the floor, yet in the corners were nests of dry leaves. Near one of those nests lay something curious.

“Hey, are you okay in there?” Nick knocked on the door.

I focused on the immense iron lock. An equally gigantic key on a ring, like that of a jail cell in an old western, hung from a spike beside the door. I took it down and thrust it into the lock, expecting to wrestle with it. It turned with ease, and I swung open the door.

“There’s something weird in here,” I said.

I pointed to the heap of leaves washed up against the chestnut panels of the reception desk. Something like a brown skin lay among them.

Nick strode over to it and prodded it with his toe. “It’s just an old flannel shirt. Pretty ripped up. It’s probably Egolf’s, tore it on a nail or something.”

He bent and picked up the shirt by the collar. It hung in rags from his hand.

“It looks like a tiger clawed it,” I said.

“Or a werewolf?”

“I didn’t say that. But you have to admit that’s more damage than just catching your shirt on a nail would do.”

Nicolas regarded the shirt in silence. He laid it on the reception desk and arranged it as though it were forensic evidence.

“Maybe you’d better get a picture of this. It can’t hurt.”

I retrieved my camera and took a few shots of the shirt. “There isn’t any blood on it. Maybe he caught it in some machinery.”

“We can ask him tomorrow morning. I’m starving. How about we go get a couple of those burgers you mentioned earlier?”

I looked down at my grimy tank and jeans. “How about I wash up in the lake a little bit first? I look like I crawled through a filthy transom.”

...to be continued

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About the Creator

Liz Zimmers

Liz is the author of two collections of dark fiction: Wilderness, A Collection of Dark Tales and Blackfern Girls. Visit her website at lizzimmers.com and her blog, The Palace of Night, at elizabethzimmers.wordpress.com

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