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t is a lonely road, an’t it? Maybe not all that long when you’re drivin’, all tight up in yer car. If I remember it right, the road is about eight or so miles long. But if yew walk along it at night, it seems to run on forever and a soul needs a light to find their way.
So, yew an’t been to Bragg Road?
Travis and I run this weekly show where we took people down that lonesome road and we were the only ones who guaranteed—guaranteed—people a sightin’ ah the ghostlight. Ever’ Friday fer 26 weeks we took people fer a ride. Ever’ Friday night fer half a year, people bought tickets from us, rode out ah that little town ah Kountze in this van ah ours and we done made certain they saw the light. We were successful in our bidness and it felt good to show people who had been mean to us in the past what we wus capable of.
People want a show. They came to us fer a show, so we gave ’em a show. They came to see the mystery light, so we gave ’em the mystery light. Tourists came from Houston and Beaumont and even far away as Dallas and Shreveport to see the show we offered. We knew we wus doin’ good when ’em folk from Dallas shewed up. They asked no questions and so we tol’ ’em no lies.
I drove the van while Travis done his job out there in the trees and the darkness in that ol’ huntin’ shack. His story might have changed now, but back then he said I didn’t have what it took to make the ghostlight come. On those quick trips from Kountze I chatted with the tourists, and as time went on their got to be more of ’em. I got pretty good at steerin’ the conversations to stuff like the weather or if the Cowboys would ever make Momma proud and go to the Superbowl again. If I had’na done that, then they’d just talked and gossiped about all ’em disappearances ah kids and the elderly that were goin’ on in the area.
The hard work ah doin’ the trick—that hungry, bloody magic trick—to call up the ghostlight in just the right way usually went on in a huntin’ shack. It wus like the work what goes on backstage at a play or behind ’em badly painted panels on the rides at a carnival. The payin’ customer don’t really want to see it, but sometimes they do and they’s always disappointed when they see what it takes to give ’em the show.
The Ghost Road, as some local folk call Bragg Road, is dirt and its dirt and rocks crunch under a person’s shoes or the tires ah vehicles that go down that way. to either side ah the raised road spreads a bayou dense with trees, undergrowth and wet, stinkin’ pitfalls waitin’ fer the unlucky. Spanish moss hangs from tumor-riddled cypress trees growin’ in low areas and pines that are always bleedin’ yellow cluster on what passes fer high ground. Durin’ summer nights, mosquitoes and other bugs hum so loud as to make the trees vibrate. Even on an August day, when the heat and humidity are so great it’s hard work just to breathe, old shadows dominate ever’ thin’ insight. That’s the Big Thicket.
As yew travel down the dirt road through the Thicket, yew might or might not see the mystery light if yew is on yer own and don’t know the proper tricks.
I need to explain some thin’ s I probably take fer granted but that yew don’t know, like about the road itself and the nature ah the so-called ghostlight.
At the start ah the 20th century, oil companies and railroads built a spur that ran close to towns like Saratoga and Kountze, which an’t far from Beaumont. The companies used the railroads to run raw oil down to the Gulf fer refinin’. By the early 1930s they had stopped usin’ the line that got turned into Bragg Road once ’em tracks wus pulled up.
I don’t know where Travis learned the trick ah how to call up the ghostlight. His stories about that have changed. Once, Travis told me he saw it carved into the walls, up behind the plaster drywall, a this ruined church he wus takin’ down as part ah the demolition crew. Another time, he said he got instructions in the mail, on this ol’ yeller paper and with no idea who sent it to him or why. My favorite version wus where he told me this old, scarred fisherman gave him the secret while seekin’ safety from a storm on the oil derrick where Travis worked at the time. If he’s tryin’ to point a bloody finger at me, well, that’s just his latest version ah the tale and an attempt to move the guilt from his shoulders to mine. Yew can rest assured that burden is his and will remain so fer all time.
Men have done what they could to make their presence known, to mark the Big Thicket and make it their own—like buildin’ that old railroad I wus just talkin’ about. Mostly those efforts amount to not much more than kids carvin’ their names into a few rocks on a mountain. The Thicket has not changed much fer thousands of years.
The people who enjoy talkin’ about weird thing’s say that a strange light hovers along the road, and that it may float off past the tree line. They say the ghostlight sometimes changes from yellow to white, and sometimes is even red. These same people say the ghostlight will sway back and forth.
Yew know what? They’re right.
Some ah the stories about it say ah dead railroad worker’s lamp creates the mystery light that some folks seen on the road. In these stories, he died in some kind ah accident or another and now he wanders around the place where he died.
Travis told me that the strange light wus older an’ that. Much older. Travis said he learned that when he learned how to call it.
He tol’ me the ghostlight is a bit like the light what comes outta this strange and hungry fish in the dark places ah the ocean. This fish has a slender tentacle-thing what grows from its head and it hangs in front ah the creature’s face and the end ah it glows to attract somethin’ it can eat. Travis said the ghostlight wus more like that deep fish’s light than anythin’ else he knew ah in the world. But he also said the ghostlight wus not ah this world, not really.
Travis always done the trick to call the ghostlight in this old huntin’ shack not too far from the road. It wus a rottin’ thin’, gradually sinkin’ into the bayou. Thorny vines had mostly overgrown the walls, so a soul could miss it unless they knew where to look fer it. Fer the tour, I done parked the van with the tourists, and there were 13 what came on that final Friday tour, so I wus not too far from the decrepit shack. The tourist ridin’ up front in the passenger seat noticed the compass set into the top ah the gearshift wus spinnin’. I knew the place good enough to know where to stop even in the dark. The spinnin’ compass just meant Travis wus doin’ his thang and I wus in the right spot at the right time. Ah always stuck Kthuthlu by Metalica in the player on the drive out—it just seemed right.
The signal we had arranged fer wus when I killed the engine and shut off the headlights—Travis could see us from that shack. That’s when he wus supposed to finish workin’ his magic trick, that bloody trick to call the ghostlight, the trick he learned from God only knows where.
Like I always done, I stopped the van, walked around it and opened the side door. The tourists always piled out, to stand in the dust ah the road and darkness ah the bayou night.
That last night it wus particularly still—at least at first wus—and the tourists, once they were standin’ on the road, could just hear Travis as he went through his trick to call the ghostlight. At first they thought it wus just somethin’ the insects were doin’, which an’t surprisin’ because the sound the bugs make out in that wet forest would change as Travis went through the steps of his hungry trick.
Then the customers started pickin’ out words out ah the darkness ah the bayou beyond the road and guessed there wus someone in the darkness. Some ah the tourists asked me if that wus part ah the show but the others, who had been out with us before and had persuaded some ah their friends to go with us, said they hadn’t heard them last time. The whole group talked about it and tried to puzzle out the words.
They picked “Yog” and “Sothoth” and “aii” and “gate” out ah the sounds ah the bayou that night, among a few other thang’s that can be called words only with a shaky definition ah the term. The tourists began repeatin’ it, almost like a low and sloppy chant as they stood on that dirt road in the darkness, waitin’ fer the ghostlight. That made my hair stand on end—those an’t things yew can just say without having somethin’ to offer to what it is you’re callin’ on my name.
Come to that, It took somethin’ special, a lot of work to offer up somethin’ in just tha right way, to call up the ghostlights and I always told Travis that wus a spot where if somethin’ could go wrong, it would. He never did listen to me proper.
It wus easy to get old folks and kids to come with us, even at first. Later, when we got ourselves a reputation about lettin’ folks see the ghostlight, it got even easier to get some mark to ride out with us. And ’cause we didn’t tell no body about it, nobody wus on to us ’til that last night.
It wus Travis’s idea to take from the people who pissed on us in the past. It wus his idea to visit with the people later, to look ’em in the eye and to say we were lettin’ bygones be bygones and to offer our condolences fer the loss of their son or mother or what not. If he says anythin’ but that it were his idea, then that’s just another ah his lies. We offered some ah ’em folks free passes and a few ah ’em took us up on the offer. In fact, three ah ’em were along on the final ride on the last night. Anyway, if ’em cast off old people and latch key kids had mattered in the first place, then they’d never been cast off or latch key.
We all heard the scream. A woman’s scream. We could hear the screams from the darkness and the sounds ah someone movin’ in that darkness and the wet.
The tourists began complainin’ and callin’ out. I ran around and jumped into the driver’s seat ah the van, so I could get the walkie-talkie. I had one and Travis had the other. When I opened the door to jump in, the interior light came on. That wus the only light on the road just then but it wus enough. This old and bleedin’ and screamin’ woman ran up the embankment ah the road, out ah the bayou. The tourists were shocked, some ah ’em screamed.
He tol’ me later she’d just gotten away from him and run outta that ol’ shack.
Travis wus comin’ onto the road as the van’s light automatically went out and I blinked at blackness. The tourists, that castoff old woman, Travis and the trees were black silhouettes against the deep bruise purple ah the sky. Some in the crowd shrieked again when they saw Travis’s figure raise somethin’ they had to know wus a hatchet.
When he brought the axe down on the old woman none of ’em could see no more, but they knew she wus there, the sounds ah the bayou and the road died. No livin’ soul could hear anythin’ just then, except the sounds of her screams and the axe hitting her and then the axe stopped her screams for good but went on hittin’ her. That wus all supposed to go on in that huntin’ shack. But one way or another, the trick had been done. So then the tourists saw what they bought tickets to see. They saw the ghostlight.
As it came down the road, its colors changed. It wus different this time, and if I’d say it had feelings, then I’d say it wus gleeful. Somethin’ had gone wrong with the trick Travis used to call it up in that particular way, to make it behave itself fer just long enough fer us to complete our Friday night tour.
I wus starin’, pulled into a trance by its glow. I could see the tourists wus all in the same shape. Then the van rocked and that broke my trance. Ever’ thing was quiet as dust. I turned and looked at Travis as he wus gettin’ into the van, his face yellow in the light and with only a little blood on it from that old woman.
He made a gesture, pointin’ at the van and then me and then down the road. I got what he wus gettin’ at, started the engine and we drove into the night, leavin’ ’em folks fer the light they paid to see. I never felt ’em tourists were much ah our responsibility anyhow.
As we run down the road, that thunderstorm broke, all ferocious and silent as ah tombstone.
Even though we got back to the office easy enough, after that night, things fer us just fell apart. They just fell apart. The next day the families ah the tourists began callin’ us wantin’ to know where they wus. We didn’t answer the phone and the machine filled up. When that didn’t work, ’em people done called the police.
When they went down that road, they found the storm had shattered that shack. And the police found the remains what Travis had stored in the shack wus now scattered in the brush, weeds and pools ah muck. The humidity and vermin ah the bayou all done took their toll on those remains but I guess they’ll use dentists records to identify what belongs to who.
I can’t tell yew where ’em 13 tourists are because I don’t know. If I were to make a guess, I’d say they’re in the same place as the ghostlight when its not hauntin’ Bragg Road. Travis admitted that wus somethin’ he never learned.
It’s a pity yew missed the show. |
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