Canoochee County: Whispers in the Dark

They moved together, retreating step by step as the thing advanced. A scream tore from the boys as they stumbled backward, feet tangling, shoulders colliding. Brennan shoved Corky behind him and planted himself in front, arms slightly out, body shaking but set.

The thing stood fully formed now. Its body was shriveled. The skin was a cracked, blotchy tapestry of rot and death, stretched tight over a skeleton that seemed to twitch with unnatural life. The face—if it could be called that—was a ghastly skull, scraps of putrid flesh clinging to it in ragged strips. Blackened muscle peeled away from the slack jaw, which yawned open in a silent, endless scream. Its empty eye sockets fixed on them with malevolent hunger.

The smell hit next. The stench of death was suffocating, a rancid pall. It filled Brennan’s mouth, burned the back of Corky’s throat, and made them both gag. Their hands flew to their faces.

The creature shambled forward with a grotesque, lurching limp, each step a sickening crack of brittle bones. Then it lifted one skeletal arm, the skin splitting and curling back from the bone, revealing glistening bone beneath, and pointed a trembling finger straight at the boys.

The air pressed inward, heavy. Corky backed up blindly, hit the wall hard enough to rattle the frame behind him, and panic surged through him, hot and blinding. A scream ripped out of him.

Brennan hurled himself at the desiccated figure. The impact nearly buckled him. When he struck it, a jolt of agony shot up his arm and shoulder—a sensation like plunging his limb into a sturdy tree. The contact was wrong, yielding and yet unyielding, as if he’d slammed into rotting meat packed too tightly to give. Something under the ghoul’s papery skin squelched wetly, and a cold, viscous fluid oozed onto Brennan’s skin.

Brennan’s shoulder drove deep into the creature’s ribcage with a sickening, muffled crack. The blow knocked both of them to the ground, but Brennan’s momentum carried him over the abomination. He landed hard, his back scraping against the cold, damp ground. The thing’s foul residue clung to him—a gelatinous, black slime that reeked of open graves. The stench hit him in a wave, so thick and putrid it seemed to crawl down his throat and choke him from the inside. He gagged, bile rising, his vision swimming.

Brennan scrambled upright, but the horror of what he’d touched lingered—his skin crawled as if something alive were writhing just beneath the surface. The ghoul, impossibly fast, was already on its feet. Its empty eye sockets fixed on Brennan with ruinous fury, and from its chest erupted a whip-like appendage, black and glistening, that lashed through the air and coiled around his ankle with unnatural strength. Cold dread knotted in Brennan’s gut, twisting tighter with every heartbeat. The tendril pulsed, tightening, and Brennan felt the icy caress of death creeping up his leg, numbing flesh and bone. Brennan went slack for a heartbeat, shocked into helplessness. For one horrified instant, the only thing louder than the ghoul’s breathing was the roar of his own pulse in his ears.

Corky had never felt fear like this. Instinct took over, and he dashed across the room, found his wooden bat, and swung at the figure. “Stop it!” he hollered. The thing raised a hand and sent Corky across the room like he weighed nothing. He struck the floor hard; breath blasted from his lungs.

The figure released Brennan and turned to face Corky, who was already back on his feet. When it turned, the horror of it shifted. Before Corky stood a handsome man with brown hair and startling blue eyes, almost beautiful in the half-light. The change was so sudden, so impossible, that Corky’s fear twisted into stunned disbelief. For a heartbeat, he just stared, certain his mind was playing tricks on him. A shiver ran down his spine. He blinked hard, half-expecting the ghastly creature to return, but the handsome stranger stayed. Corky swayed between terror and a flicker of hope—was it possible this was the real face beneath the monster? Maybe this was what the ghost wanted them to see all along. Or maybe he was losing it entirely, and none of this was real. He rubbed his eyes, feeling his grip on reality blur and sharpen by turns.

“What did you do to ’em?” Corky shouted.

“Do not fear. He is unharmed,” the figure said, voice smooth and thin. “I just needed to draw a little energy from him so we could have a conversation.”

Corky took a cautious step forward, bat still raised but lowering slightly. “I don’t have anythin’ to say to ya,” Corky hollered, his voice shook less now that the thing looked human. “What are you?”

“I am… a man… I mean… I used to be a man. Before he killed me.”

“Who killed you?” Corky couldn’t help but ask.

“I don’t know.” Its expression tightened, almost pained. “I can’t remember his face.”

“Then why are you hauntin’ me?” Corky cried.

“I am not haunting you. I need your help,” he said. “Now that you can see me. That means you can help me finish what I could not in life. It is not by chance I came to you.”

Corky stared, breathing hard. “Help you? With what?”

“To find the one who killed me.”

Corky shifted his weight, glancing briefly past the figure toward Brennan lying behind him. “How am I s’pose to do that if you didn’t see who it was?” Corky asked.

The figure’s outline began to thin, the edges of his body loosening back into mist.