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In memory of my father, Andrew Wilds, and my grandparents, Richard and Angela, as well as my uncle Jason
During a torrential storm in the Appalachian mountains, a son and mother by the names of Steven and Clarise Gregor were tending their sheep; in the process of herding them from the northeastern pasture up the hill from where they stood to the southern pasture which was downhill. The rain poured down furiously and whipped past the shepherds’ heads.
While Clarise and Steven walked around with their canes in their hands, a strange feeling came over Clarise but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She was the first to notice the sheep scattered down the hill. Where the sheep had stood was a white object sitting on the hillside. She felt compelled to get closer to the object.
“What the hell are you doing!” Steven shouted while running towards Clarise.
He was confused, that was until he moved closer to his mother. Lying in the field was a blonde woman with curly hair in a dress resembling the American flag. He and his mother were extremely confused by the sight of the woman. He looked at Clarise but only got back a blank stare before she looked back to the woman on the ground.
“We should take her home,” said Clarise. “I don’t know how long she’s been out there but we should take her to the house.”
The cold pouring rain convinced Steven that the notion was agreeable enough. He squatted down and looked at the woman for a second. He did not understand how the woman still looked so healthy despite the weather. The only thing which seemed to be wrong with her was that she had a slightly dirtied face and clothes. Even then she was still cleaner than she should have been, given that she was lying under a flock of sheep.
Steven dragged the limp body up the hill in the soaking rain, confused but felt that he was doing the right thing. He did not know why a woman would come out in an American Flag dress other than for the Fourth of July which was a month away. Even still, he was very far from the towns and cities.
Steven got near the gate which lead to the woods before the clearing with the cabin that he and his mom live in. He leaned the woman up on a fence post while opening the gate, being vigilant so as to make sure the sheep could not escape. He grabbed the woman and dragged her to the other side of the fencepost before leaning her against it.
“She must be hypothermic,” he muttered to himself.
He locked the gate before he took her through a jungle of hickory, chestnut, and beech trees. It made him anxious. The path wasn’t extremely far from the house but it was significantly more frustrating to tread through since the trail was rendered into thick mud by the rain. Meticulously he yanked the woman, trying to get as little mud on her as possible. It was a futile effort but he was at least able to keep it from getting worse. He slipped once and the mysterious woman’s dress ended up deeper in the mud.
“Shit,” said Steven. “Mama’s gonna kill me.”
He looked over his shoulder and was relieved to see the cabin wasn’t far. He heaved her up from the mud and began to make his way up the hill to the cabin. Once there, he took the woman to the porch and leaned her against a wall. He looked down the hill, waiting for Clarise to come and give him instructions on what to do. It really made him nervous; what with how dirty the dress was, he was sure his mother would come and cuss him out, maybe switch him[1]. He shook as soon as Clarise walked out from beneath the yellow birch on the trail head.
Clarise approached with a gate of a vengeful ghost. When his mother was a few feet away from the porch, this nervousness almost took the form of a full blown panic attack.
“What do you want me to do with her?” reluctantly asked Steven.
Clarise looked down from under the hood of her raincoat at her son.
“Get the tub ready,” she said.
“Alright, I’ll be right on it,” said Steven.
He walked inside of the cabin taking off his poncho and hung it up on a hook beside the door. On a table in the living room the radio was picking up a news broadcast mentioning the attempted assassination of James Meredith in Mississippi during a civil rights protest. Steven had, to some extent, kept up with the happenings around the Civil Rights movement but did not really know too terribly enough about it. The few times he showed interest in anything political he would hear the statement from his mom that “Your father would push that union stuff on me all the time when he was alive.”
He ran to the radio and shut it off before he ran into the bathroom and turned on the faucet for the porcelain bathtub. He then ran back outside to the porch and over to where Clarise was standing.
“You get her shoulders,” she said. “And I’ll get her ankles.”
Steven picked the mysterious woman up by her cold shoulders as his mother began to lift the woman’s body by her ankles. They both walked into the house first before they took the woman in the bathroom which was just to the right.
“Lay her down on the ground,” said Clarise.
Both she and her son put the body on the floor as gently as possible.
“Now,” said Clarise. “Get the top part of her dress and cap and I will get the bottom part.”
Steven unzipped the zipper on the back and slid the woman’s arms out of the dress. After he did so his mother then pulled the skirt off the woman. Strangely there was no bra nor underwear under the dress.
“How in the hell was she comfortable like that?” said Clarise.
“I don’t know,” said Steven.
“Oh well. Lift her up!” said Clarise.
They lifted up the same parts of the body as they had before. They lifted her up just high enough to place her in the tub. Steven dumped her into the tub too fast. Clarise’s blood boiled.
“Goddamn boy you’ve got to be more gentle then that!” she yelled.
“Yes ma’am?” said Steven shaking.
“Steven?” said Clarise.
He was now incredibly nervous as this was usually around the time his mom would try to repress her rage before losing self-control.
“Yeah?” said Steven.
“I have it from here,” said his mother. “Go to the living room and listen to the radio or read a book.”
“Mom?” he said. “Are you sure?”
“Yes I’m goddamn sure!” she shouted.
“Alright, I’ll go,” said Steven.
He walked nervously back to the living room and took off his pants which were soaked through before putting another pair on. This pair was once worn by his father before he died. He picked up a book from the table beside the radio which was a novella by the writer called John Steinbeck named Of Mice and Men. The book once belonged to his father and thus Clarise hated it as well the author’s politics to the point that she considered burning it. The only reason she did not throw it into a fire was because her son had protested quite a bit since his dad did not leave a lot behind.
Steven was towards the end of the book not long after Lenny killed Curly’s wife. However, it was hard for him to focus on the book. He was too nervous to focus on the book.
“Steven!” hollered Clarise.
Aggravated, he closed his book.
“What!” yelled Steven.
“Quit reading that book and help me right this instant!” she said.
“Alright, I will,” said Steven.
He put his book flat on the table before walking to the bathroom door. He walked to the edge of the bath tub and picked the woman up by her shoulders. Steven and Clarise walked into the middle of the room before Clarise placed the lady’s feet onto the ground.
“I know you’re not going to like this but hold the woman up as much as you can,” she said.
Clarise’s son did exactly as she instructed him to and she dried the woman off with the towel quickly. They both picked the woman up the same way again and moved her to a bed. The bed itself was a single cot with crocheted blankets and a quilt on top of it. The woman was laid on top of the bed before Clarise placed the blankets and sheets over her. Steven quickly sat in one of the two rocking chairs in the room overlooking his mother who reminded him of a nurse.
The day was long and almost over. Steven leaned back in his rocking chair and began to doze off.
––––––––
He suddenly woke up to the sound of violent wrestling.
“Get up Steven get up!” shouted his mom.
He heard the sound of the washboard being slammed into the ground by his mother. He struggled to become lucid in spite of being startled by the banging in the room. When Steven saw the woman in her bed shaking, he found the sight strange and distressing enough that he ran over to the mysterious woman’s bedside.
“Open her mouth!” said Clarise.
Steven looked up at her, confused.
“Open her goddamn mouth!” said his mother. “She’ll bite her tongue off and choke on her blood if you don’t!”
Swiftly, she grabbed a spoon from the wooden stove not far from the beds. Steven rushed to the bedside to jam his fingers into the woman’s mouth. However, before he could try, the woman violently jolted up, opening her eyes which would then stare directly into his mother’s soul. Clarise ran outside in a panic feeling a supernatural energy coursing through her body.
At first Steven did not understand this until Clarise was outside of the cabin. The mysterious woman turned to leer into his soul. He immediately pulled the gun up from under his bed, attempting to shoot the woman but not before she jumped up and scratched his face before the woman pursued his mother.
Likewise, he ran after the woman in pursuit, rifle in hand, ignoring the bleeding on his face. As blood dripped down his right cheek, he was prepared to do whatever it took to defend his mother. As he ran outside, the rain stung on Steven’s wound and turned the field into mud. By this point the woman was running on all fours, her limbs unnaturally contorted, galloping on the forest path below. Panicked, he didn’t even think of closing the door completely behind him as he ran as quickly as possible.
“Mom!” Steven screamed repeatedly as he ran down the hill.
Getting into the dense foliage, he could see his mom running in the distance. They began to panic as the woman’s head twitched around to look at both of them rapidly, twisting in ways that would normally break a person’s neck as the woman continued to chase after Steven’s mother.
He let a quick shot out from his rifle but missed entirely, only chipping a pine tree limb. This made him realize that if he wanted to kill this beast, whatever it is, he would have to stand still. He didn’t want to think about this too much because if he did stand still, there was the risk that this thing would catch and kill his mother immediately.
Then as he ran through, his mother, in a panic, decided to run off the path and down the mountain. The woman-thing galloped on all fours towards the same mountainside. Steven ran down the same path but ended up sliding down thanks to the mud. Every rock, branch, and limb on the way down scratched into him until he would eventually land onto the base of an oak tree, chest side first.
It was a surprise the young man was not knocked unconscious, though it lead to many broken bones which he could not feel at the moment from an adrenaline rush. As he laid there, his vision was blurry from the rain and mud in his eyes. It took at least half a minute before Steven could make out any objects. As he looked around he noticed that there was a small alcove on the side of the mountain. This alcove had mountain laurels under the trees as undergrowth. He crawled into this nook very slowly, trying not to make any sound in an attempt to avoid the creature’s attention.
Thus every rustle of leaves he could hear through the rain sent his mind into full paranoia. He didn’t know whether or not he was being watched and was sure that if the creature did find him in the alcove, it would probably finish him off since there was nowhere he could go. He then noticed as he got closer, there was an object on the ground in the recess. It was revealed to be a torn white cloth.
His mother lied under the alcove as bloody and bruised as Steven. He grabbed and clawed at the Earth more furious than before to get to his mother. Crawling closer, his mother barely reacted. She gargled out the words from her bloody mouth “Steven.”
“Mom,” he said.
He looked around realizing that he had spoken too loud. He still had the rifle slung over his shoulder. He squatted and looked over at his gun to see how damaged it was from the fall. The wood of the stock was splintered in parts but the metal of the barrel was only scratched up. Instinctively he began to point the gun in front of him, waiting for the creature to come after him and his mother.
There was no sound in the area except the rain slamming down onto the mountainside.
“Son,” said Clarise.
Steven looked down at his mother who was bleeding severely. She was on the edge of death, but he did not want to acknowledge this as it would mean he was about to lose another parent; first his father from a mining accident, and now his mother from the wounds inflicted by this thing.
“Save yourself,” said Clarise. “It’s too late for me.”
Steven shook his head in denial. While she had words in her mind, his mother did not want to speak them as it might reveal the location where both of them were hiding. She looked up and mouthed the words “Please”.
From above the alcove the bushes shook. Steven turned around with his rifle and shot a round at the rustling. The other mountain laurels began to shake, which lead to him shooting in bursts of fire around him, ready to kill whatever was in the laurel bushes. Then there was a moment of silence.
The malevolent entity leaped out in front of him from the mountain laurels. He instinctively pulled the trigger. The body of this demonic thing fell over at his feet, bleeding golden blood. Steven knelt down and touched the liquid gold, wondering what he’s even looking at before walking towards his mother.
“I did it mom!” he said.
However, when he looked down, he was horrified to see that what he thought was his mother was in fact “the woman” which he and Clarise had saved. Worse yet, when he looked at the body of the beast he had shot, it was not the beast itself. He had managed to be deceived into killing the only other surviving parent in his life.
“Mom!” said Steven, falling to his knees.
He began to weep as he cradled his mother’s body, her blood seeping into his white long sleeved shirt as he hugged her.
“No, mom!” he said. “Don’t go! You can’t go! It’s not fair!”
Steven wept even more, his tears mixing into his mom’s blood. As the horror and grief of what he just did had set into his brain, he did not pay attention to the blonde human-like creature creeping up behind him. His head slumped down across his mother’s neck, giving the creature the perfect opportunity to cut the jugular veins.
He ended up bleeding to death beside his mother’s corpse as the thing which they tried saving had killed them both. Once the creature was done, she flew in the air, her true form floating like a cloth independently of the wind’s direction.