(This dark and disturbing tale begins here; discerning readers prefer starting at the beginning. If you’re one of those who reads the end of the book first: here’s a spoiler: everybody dies. There. Now go read Twilight.)
“Stupid-ass white boys going at night to a place where a man burned himself alive. What the hell are they gonna find there that they can’t find in daylight? Hey, stupid.”
“Not now, GCM.”
Jeremy says, “What?”
“Nothing, Jeremy. It’s … Ghost Child Mary. She’s tagging along.”
He says, “Oh. Oh! Wow. Tell her I say hi.”
“I can hear the damn fool and I don’t say hi back.” Ghost Child Mary says.
“She says hi.”
“No I don’t!” Ghost Child Mary scowls with precision.
Jeremy is fan-girling a little, “Wow, I mean, I know I freaked out when I saw her last night, but I’m kind of amazed to be, to realize that—I’m, I’m talking to a ghost.”
“Oh no you aren’t, dumb-ass. The ghost is talking to you and she says, shut the hell up.”
“Ghost Child Mary, does your Mama know you’re talking like this?” I say.
“My Mama and I have come to an agreement.”
“Oh?”
“She says I can say what I want, long as I help you. She says expressing my frustration is healthy, and it’s good for me, considering the way I died.”
“Wow. Um. May I ask?”
“How I died? You can ask, but I don’t remember. Not sure why, but Mama says it’s bad. So maybe best I don’t remember. But I have to help you.”
“Why? I mean, I’m glad for your help, but I don’t understand.”
“You remember that memory you had, of being in a field, at night, and someone was calling out … ?”
… thick tule fog wreathes the field with its eldritch creep …
“I do remember—but it was brief. I stood up. Someone was calling for their … ”
“Mama. That’s right. That was the first time your crazy-ass girlfriend tried to kill you. You don’t remember?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Well, she got you alone there, in that field, in a specific spot. And she was supposed to spill your blood to lock something down. But you woke up, and I don’t know how: you woke me up.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where I died, stupid. I was killed. I think my eyes were taken to feed something.”
“Why did I wake you up, though?”
“I don’t know. Mama doesn’t know. She says that’s why I have to help you. Because she never knew where I was until you woke me.”
“Wow.”
Jeremy clears his throat, “Okay, so, Edward? You’re having a conversation with a ghost and we’re walking toward a funeral pyre. At night. Does this seem wise?”
Ghost Child Mary manifests, transparent, in front of Jeremy, who yelps: “Which is exactly what I said. Ain’t nobody got time for you to catch up, bitch-ass white boy! Who do you think saved your ass at the Browning Monument? It sure the hell wasn’t old-ass white boy Edward. It was me! … With some help. But if I hadn’t been there …”
Jeremy is unable to move.
Ghost Child Mary looks at me, her empty eyes disdainful. “Is there a way to make him less stupid?”
“I mean …”
“He’s a boy, so it’s a lost cause.” She looks at Jeremy. “Would it help if you can see and hear me in a more solid looking form?”
Jeremy stammers.
“I think that’s a yes,” says Ghost Child Mary. She takes a deep breath and holds it, clenching her fists.
There’s a light puffing noise, like a pilot light igniting, and she appears more solid than before. “This is temporary,” she says. “And no salt. If you salt me, I go away for a long time. Got that, stupid-ass white boys? No salt!”
“No salt,” I say.
Jeremy whispers, “No salt.”
We’ve passed the Pyramid, and a trail leads off the road to the left.
“This is it,” says Jeremy.
“Wait!” says Ghost Child Mary. But it’s too late: we’ve stepped onto the path.
A man sleeps alone on a bare mattress in an apartment given over to self-destructive bachelorhood.
Reginald.
There’s an indistinct form in his room, near the bed. The voice comes from this form; we can hear it, but it’s not spoken aloud. And though we’re standing on the path, in our collective mind’s eye it plays like a movie.
“Who’s there?”
Wake up, Reginald.
“What do you want?”
I want you to be your best self.
“Who are you?”
I’m your friend, remember? We’re oh so friendly, you and I. You’re my palsy-walsy.
“Uh-uh, I’m done, let’s go,” says Ghost Child Mary. But we can’t move.
“I just want to stay in bed. It’s … nearly 3 am,” says Reginald.
Yes, that’s true. And also, you want to wake up, Chum-O-Mine.
“I lost my job. Leave me alone.”
I have a job for you. Chum-chum. Friendly-wendly.
“Fuck off.”
“Seconded. All in favor?” says Ghost Child Mary.
The figure near the bed pauses, turning somewhat in our direction, as if listening.
“What’s going on? Can we stop this?” Jeremy says, sotto voce.
“I think this already happened, there’s nothing we can do,” I say.
“Sort of,” says Ghost Child Mary.
The figure moves in our direction, pausing again right in front of her. It moves its hands, like it’s trying to swat or summon her.
Ghost Child Mary puts her hands in front of us, protective, saying, “Shhhh.” My heart breaks a little. We hold still, barely breathing.
After a moment, the figure turns back to Reginald, leaning in and whispering, sing-song.
Are you sure you won’t help me, Chummy-Wummy?
“I’m sure you can fuck off,” Reginald pulls a second pillow over his head.
But I know where you can sleep the coziest.
“Fuck. Off.”
The figure reaches down and tugs at the sheet near Reginald’s hand, lifting him to float, in only boxer shorts and a bedsheet, drawing him through the wall. We’re pulled with them, through walls and houses and yards.
Reginald, you’ve lost the day;
You need to sleep, to sleep to dream:
In dreaming, you can burn away
The waking pains that make you scream.
Sweet Reggie, come with me outside:
You’re sad and lost, but I’ve a path
To pop the pain since Sarah died
And abdicate your throne of wrath.
“Wait, how did we get outside? It’s so dark.”
We are indeed outside, on a road next to a grassy embankment with a trail running into trees.
You need release from troubled woe,
Your heart is aching more and more;
Take up that canister and go
Through yonder gate to open door.
“‘Sunset Gate’? What the hell is this? Where am I? There’s no door … ”
Reginald has walked through the gate, though it’s not a traditional gate at all, and as instructed he’s picked up an old-fashioned canister of gasoline that was sitting on the embankment. Now the figure follows him; we trail along in their wake. True, there’s no door, but it feels like we’ve entered another place. I know we’re in Joaquin Miller Park, but it feels significantly darker.
You’re on your way to bliss and peace,
To cease regret in lasting sleep:
The Keep of Dreams is sweet release,
Submerged in Lethe so dark and deep.
Reginald is trying to read the canister, but he can’t turn it in his hands. All he can do is walk forward. He tries to stop, but can only slow.
“Are we in Tilden? Why am I carrying this? It smells like … gasoline? I don’t want to start a fire.”
We follow down deer trails, into a canyon, across a creek and up the other side
Keep walking, Palsy, down the trail;
The time is near when we will wrap
Your sheets like shrouds to seek the grail
In Shadow’s unrelenting trap.
“Did you say trap? Is this a trap? Are you fucking with me?”
Who traps a friend, my lonely pal?
What gal or guy will mend a tear
By ripping only mucho mal
In Friendship’s sails on seas of Care?
“Mucho mal … Do you speak Spanish? My wife was a Latina. Latinx. I guess? Sorry. Christ, I miss her. I’ve fucked everything up.”
We’ve arrived at a hill with a stand of tall, spindly pine trees. It feels familiar, but flipside-dark. And now that we’re here, we slip right back to where we stepped onto the trail from the road, before this odd vision began—only now it’s playing out in front of us in real time.
“Let’s go,” I say.
“Yes, please,” says Jeremy.
“Don’t have to ask me twice,” says Ghost Child Mary.
We turn as one, walking back toward the road.
Except we’re walking the other way, toward the Pyre, watching as Reginald and the figure arrive at the other side.
“Let’s walk forward,” Jeremy says.
We try, moving to the right of the Pyre, aiming to walk past them and down the other side of the rise … only to be floated back to where we were.
Look up, look up! And there behold:
You nevermore shall be alone;
I promise you will not get old,
On final bed of mortar’d stone.
“That’s … a funeral pyre.”
“He’s not wrong,” Ghost Child Mary and I murmur, simultaneous. Jeremy turns and looks at us. Mortified. Neither Reginald nor the figure react.
The Moon is Leonine in wax;
Though void-of-course, she soon corrects:
Her Virgin Full cuts like an axe
Each sacrifice that one … erects.
As he speaks, green will-o’-the-wisps float up out of the ground one by one, lighting the area with their eldritch glow. From the trees beyond the Pyre steps a familiar shape: female, old-fashioned clothes, hair in a bun. Reginald is staring at his junk.
“I’m … hard. Why am I hard?”
“Don’t nobody want to see that, bad enough I gotta be around actors all the time,” Ghost Child Mary whispers.
“Close your eyes,” Jeremy whispers.
Ghost Child Mary turns and stares her empty-sockets at him. After a moment, he realizes.
“Yikes, sorry,” he says.
“That’s what your mama said when you were born,” she says, then turns back to the bizarre pantomime we’re being forced to witness.
As the figure tells Reginald what to do, so he does: herky-jerky, a fleshly marionette.
Now mount those steps and settle in;
This lady’s here to wrap your shroud:
She needs your seed to chop again,
To make them scream so very loud.
The entire area is lit by the eerie green will-o’-the-wisps now, and we can see the woman clearly. It’s Axe Lady. She climbs the steps of the Pyre, standing over Reginald. Her eyes glow white, obscuring, from where we stand, the rest of her features. She makes a few gestures and he is wrapped tight in the sheet. Odd: his arms are still free.
“Oh my God her face! I don’t want to be here, let me go!”
Axe Lady is pulling her dress up over her hips, grinding in the air as she crouches over Reginald.
Jeremy and I put our hands in front of Ghost Child Mary’s eyes.
“Thanks,” she says, “but I can see through hands. I can tell this makes you both uncomfortable. I’ll shift away.”
Ghost Child Mary snaps her hands open and with the sound of a gas burner going out, pfuhf, she’s indistinct; she plugs her nose, jumps in the air and plunges into the ground, out of sight.
Jeremy looks at me, gesturing what I interpret as, “Where is she?”
I shrug, the universal gesture for, “Fuck if I know, Trump is president.” A cry comes from the Pyre.
Reginald is trying to push Axe Lady away and she pins his arms down. She’s grunting and cooing as she mounts him. He’s struggling, begging, whimpering.
The lady’s strength will more than match
A man so close to cold embraces;
And now she latches on to snatch
Your seed with teeth from deathly faces.
“No! No! No!”
She rides and bites with mouth uncouth
Upon which sit so many lasses;
But speak now, Lady, as his youth-
Ful seed into your belly passes!
Reginald picks up the canister of gasoline, shaking; it’s clear he’s trying to resist, but he’s pouring it on himself.
“What am I doing? I can’t control my … arms! Pfaughhh! The fumes! My eyes! Somebody please help me! Help me help me help me!”
Axe Lady, grinning, grinding, says,
“Your pain is such, you can’t deny:
It better were to quickly die.”
We hear a tearing sound. We wince.
“Aughhhhh!”
From deep underground we hear Ghost Child Mary, “Nasty.”
Reginald is screaming, garbled, unintelligible, as the figure intones:
Your screams they fill her drooling crave
And thus increase her riding speed;
Ignite yourself, embrace your grave!
Relinquish all your greedling need!
Reginald’s hands are flopping about the edges of the pyre, scrabbling; he finds a box of matches, struggling to light them.
Axe Lady is giggling,
“My other teeth, they raise your hackles
But wait until I cum in cackles!”
The figure is growing more solid.
Your hands they shake to strike the match?
Ohio Blue-Tip eases cares:
But try and try again, my friend—
Ah! Thus one spark can answer prayers!
Reginald bursts into flames, screaming. The Axe Lady is unaffected by the fire, cackling,
“No flame can bite, no spark ignite
Me: I’m a hag of Deepest Night!”
In the light of the flames, the figure is a well-dressed gentleman. Reginald’s screams give him solidity.
“Sweet Reggie, how your screams they smoke!
And now, at last, your life: it matters;
For we shall silence what was spoke
In slashing screams with messy splatters!”
Gasping in pleasure, the Axe Lady manages,
“I’ll ride you til the Reaper spills
The contents of your Manly Frills!”
The well-dressed gentleman walks up the steps of the Pyre, speaking to Reginald like a proud father,
“And thus your Dead Man’s Seed will grow
Like kudzu, creeping all about
To smother what they think they know;
Replacing thought with sinking doubt.”
Axe Lady cries out, riding hard and fast, cackling high and mad on the vowels,
“O! Here he comes, his scythe has swung!
(I’m glad that you were so well hung!)”
She grunts a heinous orgasm, equal parts creaking door and Thurl Ravenscroft; the trees sag, like their life force has been drained. It feels like a ripple of sadness and loss has blasted out through everything in the park.
The well-dressed gentleman reaches into the fire to the point of unholy union between hag and burning cadaver. He withdraws his hand and tastes his fingers, then walks around the pyre, marking each corner as he says,
“As here you’ve died, so here you’ll stay
No rest, no bliss, no peace for you;
Unless you do just as I say
To feast, to tear, to drink the goo
From in the brains of all I mark
To be removed and quite forgot;
You’ll wait them here in deepest dark
And pull them down to whisp’ring nought.”
Axe Lady steps off the pyre, her legs too long, insectile; setae grows around her knees. Easily over nine feet tall now, she caresses her already-distended belly as she wobbles, unsteady, drunk with pleasure,
“I’m fed, I’m fill’d, I’m sated quite;
We’ll scatter now, afore the light.”
She’s twenty feet tall now; a fleshy tendril drops from between her legs. The well-dressed gentleman bites onto it, devouring upward like Pac-Man on spaghetti as Axe Lady stilts off down the rise into the dark forest beyond.
The last thing I see before they’re gone: the well-dressed gentleman turning to grin, his jaw distended where he hangs from the tendril.
He points at us.
And winks.
e. w. hightower 