The floor of the compound was like a field of dying men—all black slaves. Lottie could see they’d been shot, and at the far wall stood several dozen white men with big rifles. They weren’t soldiers, though. They looked like rail workers.
Lottie stalked between the fallen slaves and gathered up their clothes. At one point she noticed a well-dressed man in coattails looking on with the rail workers. Their eyes all seemed to have a yellow glaze.
Someone shouted, “one’s got out! Don’t let him get away!” and then several soldiers ran to a window. Lottie got one glimpse outside as she hauled a basket: she saw a black man running in the distance, then—BAM!—a soldier on horseback dropped him with a pistol shot.
When all the clothes had been gathered, Lottie helped transfer it all outside, where another wagon waited.
That’s when she began to hear the screams.
They didn’t sound human; they sounded like rough animals.
Lottie and several of the other younger women were raped yet again by more soldiers. She wished she could die now, but she sensed that there was something here—something in the air—that wouldn’t let that happen.
Then a solider grabbed her from behind. “Here’s some payback fer Fort Donelson,” he said, and then began to sodomize her. That’s when Lottie passed out.
When she regained some facsimile of consciousness, she was back inside the compound, but she noticed that all of the fallen slaves were gone. Shrieks and chuckles fluttered about like birds. Then her head lolled to the other side. She stared for a moment and thought, I’m in hell…
With pitchforks and bayoneted rifles, soldiers were feeding the other naked prisoners into the furnace. One young pregnant girl caught a pitchfork in the belly, was raised for all to see, then pushed back-first into one of the fiery openings. Several other soldiers skewered bloody babies with their bayonets, then heaved them in. When numb fingers touched her stomach…it wasn’t there anymore. That’s when Lottie noticed that her belly had been sliced open, the fetus pilfered and similarly incinerated.
“Here comes the next load,” a voice called out. “Don’t forget that ’un there.”
Steam, blasting heat, and a smell like cooked pork hung like fog about the compound. Two fingers popped Lottie’s eyeballs, then began to drag her by the sockets toward the furnace…
That’s when she awoke in her bed, shivering in sweat. Had she screamed her way out of the nightmare? She thought she’d heard a shout from Jiff’s room, too.
Yes, every now and then she had nightmares that were utterly horrific. She knew about the history of the town, and Harwood Gast, and she also had an idea what the power of suggestion was. “Everybody has bad dreams,” her mother had told her in the past. But the one Lottie had suffered through last night was positively the worst.
She felt as though her entire body had been sucked by something vile; even her sweat felt evil. She showered desperately, scrubbing herself raw…
“The hell’s wrong with you?” Jiff asked her later. She sat glum on her bed, still shaking a little.
“Huh? Looks like someone shot yer dog, and you ain’t even got a dog.”
Her eyes felt bloodshot when she peered at him. Bad dream, she mouthed to him.
Jiff’s upbeat demeanor faltered when he read her lips. “Yeah, well, join the club. Last night I had me the worst of the bunch.”
Lottie had no qualms about sitting naked before her brother. As gay as he was, why should she…just so long as he wasn’t horny and there were no pictures of handsome men around. It’s the house, she mouthed.
“Huh?”
The house. Sometimes I hate this HOUSE!
“I know, Sister. Like Ma told us a long time ago. Everyone has bad dreams here sometimes. Always been that way, since…back then.” The low mood in the room felt dense as the summer humidity outside. “But check this out.” Jiff tried to change the temper; he whipped out a check. “J.G. laid a hunnert on me. Kinkiest trick yet, but, shee-it.”
Lottie sat limp in a lotus position and shrugged.
“You seen Mr. Collier this mornin’?”
Lottie shook her head.
“Still don’t know what to make’a him. Yesterday he’s drinkin’ it up in the Spike with half’a my tricks, and now Ma tells me he borrowed her truck to take Dominique on a date—”
Lottie smirked.
“Still don’t rightly know if he’s bi, queer, or straight.” Jiff chuckled. “A’course, he’s got another think comin’ with Dominique. Poor bastard’ll need knockout drops and a crowbar to get into her Holy Rollin’ panties.”
Lottie errantly diddled her fingertips through the bedsheets. It’s my day off, she mouthed. What are you doin’ today?
“Ma tolt me to weed the whole motherfuckin’ garden out back.” He popped a brow at her. “How’s about givin’ your brother a hand?”
Sit on a gerbil, she mouthed.
“Funny. Come on, I’ll give ya…ten bucks.”
Eat a pile of corny shit, you homo whore!
Jiff glared. “Yeah, yeah—hey, Lottie, don’t talk so loud. Someone might hear ya.” Jiff ripped out an uproarious laugh, slipped out of the room, and slammed the door in her face.
Fucker! Lottie thought. III
“Thanks very much for making the time, Mr. Sute. I’ll be over in a half hour,” Collier said and hung up. His eyes swept the bedroom for a reason he couldn’t identify, and he quickly felt chilled, but the chill magnified when he looked at the bed and recalled not only the noxious nightmares he’d had on it, but the obscene hallucination last night. Nergie, he recalled the detestable mutt’s name.
“Oh, hey there, Mr. Collier,” Jiff greeted the instant Collier stepped into the hall. “How’d that inline handle?” “Inline?” Collier asked, miffed.
“My ma’s inline 235—her old Chevy pickup. She tolt me ya borrowed it. Bet there’s a million miles on that baby. Like to see them Japs do that with one’a their Toyoters.”
“It ran great, Jiff.”
“Anything I can help ya with?”
“No, thanks. Right now I’m on my way to Mr. Sute’s—”
Jiff looked at him weird.
“—to look at one of his book manuscripts,” Collier finished. He’d mentioned Sute on purpose.
“Oh, you mean one’a his books about Hardwood Gast.”
“Right. Don’t really know why but I’m becoming intrigued by the whole town legend. I’ve even had a couple of nightmares about it.”
Another weird look. “That so? Well, funny as it might seem, I’ve had a few myself and so’s my sister. It’s mainly just ’cos this house seems a lot creepier once ya hear all them stories.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Collier said. “But I’m still really fascinated. What do you know about Harwood Gast’s children?”
“Aw, his kids? Nothin’.” But the question clearly knocked Jiff off center. “I don’t know that much about it. I gotta get started pullin’ weeds out back…but have a great day,” he finished and rushed off.
Collier smiled at the reaction he’d come to expect by now.
A leisurely walk took him back through town, which seemed to brim with more tourists than ever. Much spun through his head during the trek—the dreams, the mysteries of the Gast legend, his outrageous sexual ponderings—but most of the thoughts invariably returned to Dominique.
God. What I wouldn’t give.
She contradicted his most apparent motivation—lust, essentially—or could it be true that Sute’s cryptic impressions were more on the mark: that many folk who stayed at the inn experienced a rampant upsurge in libido? Can’t be true. Ridiculous, he thought, yet a few minutes later he found himself matching the address on the business card to the numbers on the transom of a handsome Federal-period row house right in the middle of Number 1 Street.