Common Curses Over Conversation

“This story should not be told. Though, you have a right to hear it. If you are going to keep your children safe. Considering… you are aware of each other now. Damn technology.” Gregory Mitchel says picking up and putting a flame on a smoldering cigar.

Other cigars that May Thomas had smelled before always made her gag, but the ones her Great grandfather smoked seemed sweet.

“Technology digging up old stuff, 2020 is nosey. Nothing stays buried.” Mr. Mitchel turned in his chair.

“Yeah, DNA testing has a way of pulling people together, finding family,” May said, looking down at uneaten pie. Her great grandfather was old, but healthy, aging slow. No nursing homes or a caretaker. He was hundred plus and his current girlfriend was younger than him by 40 years or more.

“Family, sure? What about monsters?” Mr. Mitchel looked at his granddaughter over the rim of his reading glasses. Then back to the small piece of glass that passed as a phone. He handed it back to her, picking up whisky in its place.

“I was in the war?” Mr. Mitchel said.

“Yes, as a private the entire time. Daddy told me.” Mr. Mitchel nodded his head.

“I was young, too young. I used to tell people it was a matter of survival. Sending money back to my mom, but the woman who raised me was not my mother. I was just taken in, by a responsible teenager as an infant. She never knew where I came from.”

May shook her head, familiar with the hardships of families in the early 1900s.

Smoke rolled around his head from the small ember held in his hand, the glowing eye of a demon in growing gloom. “Getting in was not the hard part. There were many assumptions. A boy from the country, could not read or write was one thing that made it easy. No one asks me about paperwork, more than once, and had none to begin with. I was a warm body, could hold a gun.”

May looks down at her pie, cherry pie one of her favorites, but she has not taken a single bite. “Ok, I don’t know what you think the mystery is, but I think I know, you had a good time overseas despite the war. A fantastic time.”

“They were slow to deploy Negros, and we were not in any hurry to dig trenches. Though many did. Fought bravely and self-sacrifice, all that.”

“Okay, we say African American now,” May says while looking at her plate and stabbing into her pie, but does not eat what she breaks off.

“There was a village in France. This was 1917, but you won’t find it on any maps. My buddies Laces, Shoe, and Heels stayed there as protection. Our commander hid us. I can only assume we reminded him of his own boys. Heels spoke enough French that we met with the people and just lied low. Ordered not to leave, detail ongoing.”

The late afternoon is giving way to evening.

“You might not believe but we thought we found the most peaceful place on the planet. The people were the nicest, they were even teaching me, French.” Mr. Mitchel says laughing then cursing in French. He looked nostalgic too May. This was not the case.

“When did you see her?” May asked, smiling.

“That bright red hair, pale skin like she rarely saw the sun, she was called, Eve. She was Heels age, seventeen maybe. Eve or Evelyn took Heels. He spoke her language.”

“Right! So how does Heels getting lucky help you?”

“We did not see him the next morning. Busy entertaining her sister, Helen, and friends. We didn’t go look for Heels. The village was small enough that we were sure we could find her house or apartment without too much trouble. Not just naïve, but honestly, stupid. When we left, we searched all day and found no one we knew or anyone that could or would speak to us. The nice little village had turned cold.”

“Why do you think? Because you were black?” May asked, pulling a cherry from her pie and rolling on the dish like a child. Compared to his age, at fifty-three, she was a child.

“No, they never cared, negro or not. They might have said when we first arrived. She marked us.”

May looked up for her plate. “The Germans? Coming to the village to kill Americans.”

Mr. Mitchel smiles, showing large K9s. That May believed false. Dentures at this age are part of the equipment. “No, one cared about us being there.”

“Okay, then how?”

“The bones, outside the place we slept. Laces saw them, called them out as chicken bones, but I doubted. The village left us be. No one would speak to us, or cross our path. We searched for Heels and found the redhead’s sister or she came for us and I gave my best French. She kissed me… both were sloppy.”

“You slept with the sister?” May asked, stabbing at a cherry and getting two. The ice cream is melting around the red sauce.

“She was my first. Have you lost your appetite?”

“Yes,” May says.

“While I was bedding her, her friends and mine, Laces and Shoe, got pretty wild. I finished fast, but they had that one-room shack rocking.” Mr. Mitchel took a long pull at his cigar. He’s shadow moved across the room as the evening wore on. “Cheery pie is your favorite, right?”

“Right, but I guess I’m too invested. Go on,” May said.

“Biting for sex play was a thing I only heard about. I had no want to take part and stopped Helen, the red heads sister, more than once. Was it the in thing at the time? Hickeys? I thought, but when they started drawing blood, I was ready to leave.”

“They bit y’all that hard?” May asked.

“One bit shoe on the neck hard enough to coat her face. That’s when the yelling started.”

“What did you do?”

“I ran over to pull her off Shoe. He did not seem to notice. Laces had blood pouring down his back. I see could my breath in the air as it got colder and colder in the little shack.”

“What are you talking about?” May asked, looking around as the temperature in the room dipped.

“Helen flew across the room to bite me, but went after Shoe instead. Surprising me. The sight of the blood made her drop any pretense. Standing watching them attacked Shoe caused me to freeze.”

May’s eyes shined while looking at the uneaten pie in front of her.

“I had my sidearm in my clothes on the floor and went for it. When I pointed it they stopped and I pulled Shoe away and moved to grab Laces but when I turned the gun, Helen tried to rush me.”

“What are you talking about? Do you believe…?” May stopped speaking, looking into his eyes and at the white long-toothed dentures. He stared back at her across the table, unblinking.

He smiled, but not with his eyes.

“You will too, believe. Soon, by the look, if not already?” May adjusted in her seat. Noticing how sharp his vision was, he did not need Reading Glasses. They seemed like costuming.

“Well, anyway.” He paused. “Shoe and I were unclothed, and he was in no positions to fight. The other girl was taking Laces out the door. Watching them turned my stomach because they were still doing things. Shoe bent down at his clothes and grabbed what I thought was a shirt or his sidearm. We tried getting our clothes on and keep our eyes on the girls. A second gun made sense, but this guy grabbed a book.”

“The Bible?” May asked.

“I did not catch him reading one that I knew, but people bought plenty of religious things with them overseas. Something of home.”

The late afternoon light was gone, just an orange crest of a dying sunset.

“Mr. Mitchel?” May said. He stopped speaking to look out the window. Maybe he needed a caregiver after all. “Granddad?”

“Carrying Shoe out of that shack with him holding that book and with his Johnson warm on me leg. Why he didn’t grab pants? Wanting run, but the ground was slippery and he was leaning on me more and more. The shack’s now sits in the middle of a frozen lake. Village was gone. The shack sat on the lake on stilts and surrounded by a deep wood.”

He leaned forward, looking at May over his glasses. Studying her, taking his time with his cigar. His nails around the cigar are sharp at the ends of dark fingers wrapped in gold rings.

“The cold hit us, the deepest cold I ever felt. My skin burned in the wind. The tree line was a mile, but we would freeze halfway. The shack for shelter was the answer, but the door had the girls in it, watching us, tempting us to come back.”

“Full dark came to that land but is was no longer France. We had been taken elsewhere.” May bites her lip as she hears this.

“There is a slouching sound of water and breaking ice. Shoe held his book out on our way across the frozen lake. As we moved, we found others.”

“Other people, that had been bitten?” May asked.

“They were the people of the village. Standing, frozen in the lake under the ice, Dead. Falling to a knee under Shoe’s weight just above a man that had blond hair and green eyes. He stood under the ice, looking up at me. His arms were raised in supplication. There were men, women, and children with him. They all were looking passed me. A blur under the ice and when the eyes of the man shifted to mine, and a woman turned her head and pointed at me, I screamed. Dropping Shoe and almost my gun, but my hand was near to freezing around it. The girls in the shack darted for us and I saw Heels for the last time, right then. He was in the air with our redhead floating. There were other floating objects in the darkness below a sky that was dark, squirming… thinking,”

Silents fills the room as the sun gives way to the dark. Lights come on outside. May bites her lip harder and harder.

“Why tell me this?” May sits on the verge of tears.

“We interrupted a ritual but did not stop it. I dream of them, switching dimensions like humans visit the grocery store.” Mr Mitchell watches her bottom lip. Her teeth might break through.

“Shoe is asleep, but I stand with him. Pointing my sidearm at the girls, we head back to the shack. I turn when something splats on the ice behind us and that flowing red hair is rushing toward me. My gun aims, but my finger won’t pull.”

“An icy hand wraps around my gun hand and helps me aim and pull the trigger after engaging the hammer. The blast was tremendous and stopped Evelyn on the ice. Helen throws me into the shack. I held Shoes’ hand. The door slammed, that was all that came with me. Pushing the door back open, I was in the village again, alone.”

“Sure, why tell me? If this story should not be told?” She bit into her lip, drawing blood.

“The only common curses are passed though family. One soul tie to another. You no longer hunger for human food and you are the second of my offspring to become like me…”

“Like you?”

“They used the war to hunt but we use our love.”