“They swarmed to the migrators, didn’t they,” Bob said. “That’s what we saw.”
“Yup,” Buster said. “When one of them stops to rest, that’s when you smell it. The flies flock to that smell. I saw the cloud of them on the other side of the lake. I didn’t go fetch any of my brothers. I figured that I’d find a fish or some other animal with its skin gone, like Gordie said. I thought I’d find sign that the migrators had already been through. I pinched Gordie’s little raft and poled my way across the lake the best I could. Out there in the marsh on the other bank of the lake, I saw that black phantom. It was covered with flies.
“I was smart enough not to touch it, but I studied it for awhile. It was like half-man and half-fish, except for one part. One part of the thing resembled the undercarriage of Paul’s draft horse, if you catch my meaning.”
Buster gave a wink to Alan.
“I suffered through the stink so I could memorize as much detail as I could. I wanted to give a full accounting to my brothers. Just before dinner, we gathered on the east side of the barn—near the little headstone—to discuss. I told them what I’d seen. Hooker didn’t believe a word of it, but Skip told him to hush. Paul wanted to keep working until something more happened, but Gordie just about blew his top. Gordie said, ‘They’re here, Paul. We best hole up until they move on. We’ll be lucky if they don’t hunt us down just because we talked about them.’ That’s when the brothers split. Me and Skip sided with Gordie. Paul, Hooker, and Hubie thought that as long as we didn’t mess with the migrators directly that they probably wouldn’t bother us.
“Paul was wrong. He was the first to pay the price, too. A few days later, he went out to the shed where he kept Mack, his big Perchie draft horse that hauled the logs. What was left of Mack wasn’t much good for hauling anymore. Somehow he was still alive, and he was crazy. The big fella was down on his side, flopping and fighting. Somewhere around his shoulder and flank is where the flesh ended. Below that, where his big feathered legs used to be filled out with thick muscle, there were just bones and tendons. The bones were white and pink and they flopped around as poor old Mack twisted in the straw of his stall. The things took his face. Everything from the eyes down to the teeth was just bleached white skull. His tongue was still in there and the insides of his gums, but the outside was gone. It looked almost like he’d been dipped in acid and then pulled back out. At the time I thought I’d never see anything that terrible as long as I lived.”
“At the time?” Bob asked. He wiped his bottom lip.
“I was wrong,” Buster said. “Never been more wrong, I think.”
“So without any flesh below the torso, and its face eaten off, this horse was still alive?”
“Yup, and there wasn’t a drop of blood in the straw to show for it. Not for long though,” Buster said. “I put a bullet through his skull and then he bled plenty. Hubie used one of his machines to dig a plot in the hay field and the six of us dragged that horse’s body back to that hole. Hubie was crying the whole time it took to bury old Mack. I never thought he cared much for that horse, but he was the only one who cried.
“Paul said, ‘That’s the end of it. We’ll never talk of them again.’ Gordie wanted to know if we should keep working. Paul said we should. He said, ‘We paid our price, why shouldn’t we?’ You probably figured already—he was wrong. I kept watch. I didn’t see any more swarms of flies, or black mermen out in the weeds. Everyone just kept their mouth shut and kept on working. Dad never asked us why we were working in October. By then I’m not sure he knew what month it was. He spent most of his time with his buddies. Us brothers kept the house going and Mom was quiet as ever. Paul bought a broken skidder from Dickie Bowman and Hubie fixed it up. Paul used that skidder to drag the trees in place of Mack.”
“What’s a skidder?” Alan asked.
“It’s like a big tractor you use to drag things,” Bob said. He looked at Buster for confirmation. Buster nodded.
Buster continued. “Halloween was still a couple days away when I woke up in the middle of the night. It must have been a Saturday night because we’d had beans for supper. You could barely get a wink of sleep on a Saturday night. We had four boys in that one little room and the stink would put you out. I woke up and saw that Hooker was gone. Now I wasn’t even old enough to shave at this point, but I could track a field mouse down a stretch of asphalt road if I had to. I had a sense for tracking. I went out to the privy and I saw that Hooker had gone down the path towards the shore. I wasn’t wearing anything but nightgown, but it was a warm night so I ran down the path after him. I had a bad feeling. I saw him in the moonlight. He was bare naked and looked white as a ghost.
“The leaves were kicking up in the wind—wet leaves, the kind that stick to your legs. As I got closer to Hooker, I noticed he wasn’t moving right. His arms were sticking out to the sides and his back was pointing straight up. His head was bobbing up and down with every step, and his legs jerked up and set down. If you attached strings to his limbs and then jerked him down the path, that’s what he would look like. I caught up to him and grabbed his arm. I told him to get back to the house. I said his name right in his ear. His eyes were closed.
“Nothing happened to me until I tried to pull him back to the house. As soon as I tugged, I was thrown back by the wind. I went at him again, and this time the wind picked me up in a little cyclone. I spun around about fifty times, and it flung me a couple-dozen paces into the woods. I crashed into some scrubby bushes with my nightgown up over my head.”
“You’re kidding,” Alan said.
“What possible reason would I have to lie to you?” Buster asked.
“Stories grow over time,” Alan said. “Sometimes—no offense—a story is warped to alleviate guilt.”
“I’m sorry for what happened, but I’m not guilty. I didn’t call those phantoms down on our house.”
“So what happened after you landed in the bush?” Bob asked.
“It took me a minute to get my bearings. I was still dizzy when I spotted Hooker. He’d left the path and was jerking his way towards the water’s edge. Over at that spot, there was a bunch of rocks we used to lay on to dry off after swimming. Hooker walked over top of those rocks and then started down into the water. Like I said, it was a warm night, but the lake is cold in October. It should have woke him up. Even after the wind knocked me away, I still thought that maybe Hooker was just sleepwalking. But once I saw him going into that chilly water, I knew he was in deep trouble. That’s when he started screaming.
“I ran to him and grabbed his arm when he was only knee-deep. I pulled and pulled, but the water had a grip on him. I looped my elbows under his armpits and I fell back, pulling him with me. I felt the ripping and tearing and knew I was making progress in pulling him away from whatever had ahold of his legs. He screamed so loud. Brothers would be running from the house any second. We collapsed back on that rock and I actually gave a little laugh. I laid him down and told him to hush up. His eyes were open. The first thing he did was push himself up and look down at his legs. I looked too. They were missing from the knee down. Well, missing the wrong word. We could see where they were. They were just bones, but they were still in the water. I had pulled him back so hard that I’d torn his legs off just below the kneecap. The bottom of his legs looked like Chinese noodles, strung out across the rock.”