Free Black Treacle Magazine (February 2013, Issue 1) by A.P. Matlock Page B

Instead, he scooped up the bucket, stuffed the nails into
his pocket, grabbed the sack of salt and sidled towards the door.
It opened at only the slightest touch. A stink like spoiled meat
and rotting eggs swept out, curling around him like fingers.
Holding a handkerchief pressed to his mouth and nose, he stepped
inside, kicking the door closed behind him.
    The sound of
hornets, muted before, grew suddenly loud. Like a thousand small
voices all speaking at once. In the corners of the square room,
shadows coiled in on themselves, thickening perceptibly. Bass froze
for a second, the hairs on his neck dancing and then he carefully
set down the bucket of water and the bag of salt. He then tied the
handkerchief around his face to keep out some of the stink, shoved
the hammer through a belt loop and scooped up two handfuls of
salt.
    The room had
been cleared of all furniture save a few chairs and the big table.
On the table was Jim Clay’s coffin. It was a simple pine affair,
nailed neatly and smoothed to a polish.
    Jim Clay, for
his part, dead as he was, was sitting bolt upright, his cloudy eyes
wide and staring. Staring straight into the horrified eyes of his
sister, Abigail Clay, who sat not five feet away on a
rickety-legged chair, hands folded in her lap, mouth open.
    It was bad
hoodoo to meet a dead man’s eyes. You looked too close they might
just take you with them to the grave. It was even worse when the
dead man had rattlesnake eyes.
    Bass circled
the table and the first row of chairs, spreading salt with an even
hand as he walked. He kept one eye on the corpse and the other on
the room. The sound of hornets grew stronger and so too did the
smell. The shadows spread despite the sunlight falling in through
the windows and lapped at the cuffs of his trousers, sending a
chill up his legs. Something scuffed across the wooden floor,
rasping loudly, though he couldn’t see what. When he’d finished the
circle, he clapped his hands clean and said, “Jim Clay. I know you
can hear me.”
    There was a
sudden pressure in the room, like a great weight had settled over
everything. The floor and the chairs and the walls creaked in a
rough harmony, and Bass felt his heart drop into his stomach. The
hornet whisper grew louder, a thousand voices spitting mountain
curses in his ears. He braced himself on the back of a chair and
said, “Jim Clay!”
    The corpse of
Jim Clay didn’t so much as glance at him, but Abigail made a
moaning sound deep in her throat and Bass saw that her body was
trembling like it had a fever. Her tendons showed thin against her
skin as if she were fighting some dark pull. Bass reached for her
and every floor board gave a sharp shudder, sounding like the
rattles on a snake’s tail.
    The pressure
grew stronger, wrapping around him and the buzz hammered at his
ears. Shadows crawled up his legs as the room grew as dark as
night. He stepped back, teeth gritted, and fumbled for a handful of
nails. He flung them around the chair where Abigail Clay sat and
the house gave a long, low groan.
    “Jim Clay, you
let her go,” Bass said. He pulled the hammer loose and began to
pound the nails into the floor around Abigail’s chair. The
floorboards rippled beneath his fingers and splinters sprouted in
his palm and knuckles. Bass ignored the pain and hammered the nails
one by one. Abigail began to move, thrashing slightly like a woman
waking from a nightmare.
    When the last
nail sank into the wood, she flopped from the chair and the coffin
rocked as its occupant shuddered.
    Bass, eyes
averted, worked his arms up under the woman and lifted her. He
heard flesh and cloth rub against wood and felt his hackles tingle.
“Jim Clay, you lay back down. You loved her and well, though you
loved no one else at all. You really want her to suffer down in the
dark with you?”
    As if in
answer, the coffin fell from its perch with a loud clatter. Bass
was on his feet now, Abigail in his arms. He stepped towards the
door, and could hear