The Arrival of the Welder Gheist

Today started out pretty weird and only got weirder.

We'd been out of the woods for about a week, my legs finally feeling less wobbly, and I was set to putting everything back to rights. Having been gone about three days, the dust had taken over again, and the house needed to be aired out. Grandpa had helped with the cleaning as much as he could, and now the house is back to its usual presentable state.

When I woke up this morning, though, the sun was high. Normally, Grandpa wakes me up early for some sort of adventure, but no one had woken me up today. I went downstairs, expecting to see Grandpa waiting for me, but he was nowhere to be found. I checked the back porch, the living room, and his bedroom, but it wasn't until I checked the front porch that I found someone.

It wasn't Grandpa, but it was someone.

He was dressed in a long white coat, his round crowned hat as dark as a raven's wing. He had his back to me as he stood looking about the yard, and the backs of his calf skin boots were silver and inlaid with the image of an hourglass in silver. It would have been hard to see if the sun wasn't so high, but I could hardly miss it as the hourglass winked at me from the backs of the boots.

He hadn’t taken notice of me yet, but I could hardly have missed him.

"Excuse me, what are you doing?"

The man turned around, and I immediately wished he hadn't.

To say the man was gaunt would not have done him justice. The man looked like a scarecrow with a human skeleton hidden just beneath the surface. He was a fantastic piece of Halloween decoration that had learned to walk and talk. He looked like nothing so much as some kind of Others idea of what a person should look like.

He was wrong, and he had no place in the light of day.

"Hey there, youngster," and I couldn't hide my shudder as he fixed me with his eyes, his words creeping across my skin like bugs, "I'm a friend of your grandfather. Is he home? I need to ask him something."

"No," I said, the words just sort of spilling out before I could even think them over, "I can't seem to find him. I can only assume that he has taken to the woods for whatever reason. Maybe you should look for him there."

He tipped his hat to me and walked casually off into the woods, his white coat visible in the field of green for quite some time.

I stood and watched him go, making my way back inside when I couldn’t see him anymore.

I couldn't clean anymore, not after all that, and set about making a cup of strong tea with some of Grandpa's whiskey mixed in for good measure.

I opened the cabinet on the little island and jumped back as something pulled it shut again.

I stood there for a few seconds, unsure of what had just happened. Was someone hiding in there? Why was someone hiding in the cabinets? I could think of only one person who could be hiding there, and I was unsurprised to find someone holding it shut when I tried to open it again.

"What are you," I started, but he hissed at me and told me to hush.

"Don't give any sign that I'm here. He'll know, and he'll find me."

"You mean the guy outside?" I stage whispered, still pretending to make my tea, "I told him to check the woods. He's not even...."

"Doesn't matter!" Grandpa said, cutting me off again, "Look, just go about your day and ignore me until dusk. Once the sun is down, I'll tell you the whole story. But for now, just get out of here."

I sighed, figuring this was just one more thing I would have to take on faith, and moved off to try and run out the rest of the day.

I couldn't help glancing out the window as I worked, and that's the only reason I saw him skulking around out there. At first, it was just a glance. I saw that white coat and black hat standing behind a tree, or I'd catch that oblong face out of the corner of my eye and turn to see nothing. Other times, it was harder to ignore. I'd see him walk into the sideyard but not come around back. I would see him walking around the front yard, but he'd be gone when I went to ask him what he was doing out there. As the day progressed and the afternoon grew long, his sightings became more frequent and less friendly. I would often catch glimpses of him behind me or to my left as I worked in the house. I would feel eyes on me and turn to find nothing there. I could feel his hateful gaze on me right up until the sunset and crickets began to tune up.

Then, he vanished as suddenly as he'd arrived.

I was sitting out on the back porch, a beer sweating in my cupholder when Grandpa came slowly from the house. He wasn't his usual put-together self. His hair was mussed, his clothes were dirty, and he kept rubbing his backside as he sat stiffly in his usual porch chair. I handed him a cold beer, and he took a long pull off it before saying anything.

"Thanks, son. It's been a long day," he said as he settled into his chair.

"So," I asked after a few minutes of tactful silence, "Wanna tell me why you were hiding in a secret compartment in your kitchen?"

"Sure you wanna know?" he asked, tipping me a wink, "Once you know, it isn't the sort of thing you can unknow."

I thought it over for a minute and nodded, deciding that I already knew enough terrible stuff and one more thing wouldn't hurt me too badly.

On that score, I was wrong.

"Once a year, I receive a visit from the Welder Gheist so he can collect his debt, and, every year, I manage to avoid paying him."

"So you're welching on debts now? Doesn't seem like you."

Grandpa chuckled, "Well, to be fair, the Welder Gheist is a tricky creature that only appears when he knows you need his help and charges a pretty steep fee. He came to me in a moment of weakness when he knew I would accept his offer and made me a deal that I couldn't refuse. It was a suckers bet, though, and he knew it. I just hide because I have no intention of paying for something he never delivered on."

"What was that exactly?" I asked offhandedly.

Grandpa opened his mouth but instead just looked off into the woods, "That's a story for another day, or never, maybe."

"Okay, well, why not just pay him?"

"Cause I promised him the remaining years of my life,"

He said it as offhandedly as you might tell someone you lost a watch in a card game.

I spit beer across the porch, "Why in God's name would you do such a thing?"

Grandpa shrugged, "It's not that uncommon for people in the know to make deals with the Welder Gheist. The Welder Gheist will grant people power, but there's always a price. If you're careful and a little bit clever, you can trick him and pay nothing for his gift."

"Is that why you were hiding?" I asked

Grandpa nodded, "Once a year, the Welder Gheist sends you a missive. It tells you when he will come and that your business must be conducted before the sun sets on that day. That means you're safe for a whole year if you can avoid him on that particular day. You were visiting some friends for the weekend when it happened last year, so you probably don't remember me spending the whole day in my hiding spot."

I nodded, taking his word in and rolling them around. I guess it made sense. I knew that Grandpa knew of these strange creatures, but after meeting Glimmer last week, I was coming to understand that he also had a unique relationship with many of them. Grandpa wasn't just some Van Helsing type who fought the monsters. He realized that living in Appalachia meant living with them and adapting to them.

"Still seems like an odd way to live sometimes."

Grandpa chuckled, "I can imagine that it would be. It was strange for me when I was young too. Grandma kind of introduced me to this strange and sometimes frightening world, and then disappeared just as I was getting used to it."

"Wait," I said, "I thought you said your Grandmother died?"

"For all intents and purposes, she did. I suppose it's time I told you about that since it ties in very closely with the Welder Gheist. Feel like a story, kiddo?" he asked, tossing the bottle and reaching for another.

I told him I did, and he popped the top as he looked off into the woods.

"This happened when I was about fifteen, and I would often look back on it as the saddest day of my life."

I was coming home from school when I remembered that Grandma had wanted me over for a lesson that day. I sighed, not really wanting to spend the afternoon in Grandma's kitchen as we poured over dusty books. I was at that age where I guess I didn't really believe in magic like I used to, and this was all starting to feel a little like superstition. That probably sounds weird, given what I've told you I had seen, but it's easy to forget the bad times when you're living through the good ones. I still learned the woodsy ways, and I still went with Grandma sometimes when she did her rounds, but I was older now and thinking strongly about using my afternoons for work or for spending time with my friends.

But, I was a good boy, and I didn't want to let my Grandma down, so I went to her house for my lessons.

Despite my doubts, we had been busy over the last few years. Grandma and I had cleansed a few houses, blessed a few plots of land, and had a nasty encounter with a Boohag one night in Reverend Tucker's house. I don't think the good Reverend had believed in such things before then, but when Grandma pulled the Boohag off him as it attempted to drain his life force, he couldn't very well doubt it. He and Grandma had come to a shaky sort of friendship, despite Grandma keeping her own sort of ways. "Why depend on the Good Lord for everything when you can do for yourself?" Grandma often said, "Poor fella has enough on his plate without me to worry about."

I saw Grandma's house as I came up the road, but it was the man that caught my eye first. I say man, but....well, you've seen him. He’s no man, to be certain. He was dressed in a long white peacoat, his head crowned by a dark hat like a cattleman. He wore these boots, but I saw the silver on the backs before I saw the soft calfskin boots. They had hour glasses on them, their sand almost seeming to run as the sun hit them.

He turned as I approached, and I stopped when his presence fell on me.

He was just....wrong.

His body was like someone wearing another person's skin. His face bulged in places that a normal face shouldn't. His whole posture and geometry made my eyes water a little, and I couldn't understand how he could exist at all. He smiled when he saw me, and the look made me think of a wild animal that's gotten a pair of dentures from the garbage.

"Hey there, youngster. I'm looking for your Grandmother. She's an old friend of mine, and we were supposed to meet to discuss something. You wouldn't know where she is, would you?"

I couldn't find words right away, so I just shook my head.

"That's a shame." he said, sounding bored rather than mournful, "Well, if you should find her." Then he turned away to look around like she might just be standing behind a tree somewhere.

"I don't," but when he turned, I had to force the words past my teeth, "I don't remember ever seeing you before. How do you know my Grandma?"

He turned back towards me, and I suddenly wished I had just let him leave. He came closer this time, bending down so he could come to eye level with me. He was pretty tall, or I was short for fifteen, and when he bent, I heard a sound like tree limbs groaning in a high wind. It was an unhealthy sound, the kind that bones make just before they break.

"That's an interesting question," he said, his breath smelling like something rotten, "I suppose your Grandma and I met when she was about your age. She needed something, and I had it, so we made a deal. Your Grandma has tried to escape that deal for a very long time, but I'm sure I'll collect what I'm owed one day."

He was very close to my face, and I felt like a rabbit trapped in the sight of a predator. I was not a small teenager, five foot five and muscled from working in the woods and helping my dad, but this man made me feel like a toddler. Even bent at the knee, I felt like he could unhinge his jaw and simply swallow me up. As he smiled at me, I felt sure I could see something moving beneath his skin. Not bones, but something like bugs or...hell, I don't know. I was young and full of myself, but this wasn't the first time I had been face to face with something I could neither fight nor understand.

Suddenly I was a young boy who was watching a monstrous cat as it peeked at him through my front door, and I didn't like it.

"Maybe you'd like to make a deal? Is there something you desire, youngster? Maybe a woman you fancy who won't give you the time of day? Maybe you require wealth, prestige, power?" he said the last like it was something both sexual and dark. The word felt like the things I sometimes thought about late at night as I lay in bed, it felt like the decadent cake my mom made sometimes, and I wanted to roll in it as this terrible stranger watched. Suddenly, the man didn't seem so terrible to me. I could see myself with Kathy Marty on my arm, the prettiest girl in the valley, with a pocket full of money and a brand new Ford to parade around town in. More than that, I could see myself living without the fear I had held for spirits and woodland devils and all the other things that went bump in the night. Behind that power, I could see this creature hunkered, and the idea was no longer so terrible.

"I can make all that possible. I can bring it all to you, make it yours, but only after we make our deal."

He had extended a hand to me, and I had reached shakily to take it.

That was when my Grandmothers voice cut across my foggy mind like a cleaver through a calves brain.

"Get away from him," she growled, and I saw that she was standing on the porch. Had she always been there? Had both of us just completely missed her? She was dressed in a long black dress, a sundress of some kind, and even at her age, she stood tall and proud. She stared at the thing, the thing I had no name for at that time, and seemed to dare it to lay a finger on me.

"Why Elizabeth Gretchen Chambrey, if it isn't my old friend. I'm so glad that you have agreed to come and conclude our business. Let's go inside then and see it put to rest."

"Very well," she said, stepping off the porch and between us, "I would like a word with my grandson first, however."

"Of course," he said, walking onto the porch but keeping a careful eye on Grandma. as he went, "Do hurry, though. Places to be, people to see."

Grandma wrapped me in a hug, her smell enveloping me as she whispered into my ear. Her voice was the most frantic I had ever heard it, and she seemed to be trying to tell me as much as possible in as low a tone as possible. It was clear that she didn't want the man to hear us, and I couldn't blame her one bit. All the haze had fled from me, and I was aware again of his dubious geometry.

"Run home, run home right away, and don't look back. If that man comes to you again, don't let him trap you like he's trapped me. I love you, boy. Keep your studies, and make me proud. Now go, go, and don't look back."

I ran then, showing my heels up the road and not stopping until I was back inside.

I was crying on the front porch when my mother found me, and I wouldn't tell her why.

A powerful assuredness had come over me, and I knew what I would find next time I went to Grandma's House.

A night bird sounded off in the woods somewhere, and the return call sounded spooky amidst the sounds of crickets. Grandpa launched another bottle into the woods, and I heard it shatter as it hit a tree somewhere out there. I expected he would reach for another, but he just sat there and stared at the woods.

"She had been hiding from him for years, but it was my fault that he caught her. She could have lived for years and years, but I had to get involved. As far as I was concerned, I had killed her. I found her sitting at the table the next day. She was just sitting there, looking so peaceful, her eyes staring and glassy. They wanted to bury her, but her will was very clear. I placed her ashes in the valley next to Renuarde's tree. That was the summer I started drinking, about a year and a half before the lights killed my friends."

The two of us sat there in silence, listening to the forest hum.

"If you knew what he was, why did you make the deal?"

Grandpa didn't seem to want to answer, and I had decided that he wasn't going to when he finally whispered, "You wouldn't understand. Until you've lost someone, like I had, you can't know what you would trade."

He got up then, saying he was tired and heading off to bed.

I sat out on the porch and mulled that one over for quite some time.