David Prill is the author of the cult novels The Unnatural, Serial Killer Days, and Second Coming Attractions, and the collection Dating Secrets of the Dead. “The Last Horror Show,” from the Dating Secrets collection, was nominated for an International Horror Guild Award. His short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Subterranean, Cemetery Dance, and at Ellen Datlow’s late lamented SCIFICTION web site. His story, “The Mask of ‘67,” was published in the 2007 World Fantasy Award-winning anthology Salon Fantastique, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. Another story, “Vivisepulture,” can be found in Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories (John Klima, editor). He lives in a small town in the Minnesota north woods.
* * * *
The Heaven and Hell of
Robert Flud
By David Prill
Before he met the farmer’s daughter, the traveling salesman ran into a fellow traveler at a drinking hole named Heaven and Hell in the sleepy corn-fed township of Swedenborg, Minnesota.
“Bob Flud, encyclopedias,” said the traveling salesman, quaffing his suds.
“Nicholas Klimm, Klimm’s Wonder Elixir,” said the other, wiping his sweaty bald pate with a magician-sized white handkerchief. “Cures everything from eczema to excessive nervous agitation.”
“I have neither. Life is excessively swell if anything.”
“Your complexion is perhaps a touch sallow.”
“It’s the lighting in this Heaven and Hell.”
“The thirst for knowledge, then, is present even in this rustic enclave.”
“That’s what I’m about to find out. Just drove over from Watonwan County this morning. It’s been a slow week, but I’ve dreamed up some new pitches I’m going to throw.”
“I wish you better fortune than I have experienced. Several districts have yet to be introduced to the Wonder Elixir, but thus far doors have been shut in my face with alarming regularity.”
“This is all the Wonder Elixir I need,” said Flud, tipping back his glass with fervor.
“And the knowledge of a thousand encyclopedias is contained within,” said Klimm, tapping his temple.
They toasted. “Here’s to my thirst and your brains,” said Flud.
“Indeed.”
Flud drained his glass and set it down on the bar. He peeled a bill from a roll, slapped it down by the empty glass, suds still sudsing deep within, and gave the proprietor a nod. “Save a stool for me in Heaven, bud. I’ll be needing it again.”
“You got it.”
Flud turned to his counterpart. “See you on the road, pal.”
“I look forward to it, best wishes, etcetera.”
“Likewise.”
Bob Flud left Heaven and Hell, heading for his green DeSoto. It was a thirsty-looking street, the late summer sun unforgiving. He wished he had more time to drink and shoot the breeze, but Watonwan had been a wasteland, sales-wise, so he needed to make up for it here.
Settling into the car, he spread the wrinkled road map across the dashboard. Pretty stark country, this Swedenborg Township. Miles of bean fields between here and the next collection of taverns they called a town. He was tempted to skip it and make for a more cosmopolitan destination like Mankato, but sometimes these out-of-the-way burgs produced surprises. He recalled a week last summer in northwestern Iowa when he had three hits in a row, one farm after the other, bang, bang, bang. Volume B, for Beautiful. Volume B, for Bank. A real Babe Ruth day. Afterwards he examined his sales technique in hopes of recapturing the magic, but he never could unearth what he had done differently on those calls.
Maybe there was something special about me that day, he thought, wrestling the map into submission and starting the car. Maybe I was believable, or I just looked like a sad character who as good churchgoing folk they felt compelled to help. Or maybe my tongue was pure silver that day. Or they just got a good price for their corn at the co-op that week.
Flud drove past a parched ball field where some kids were having a pickup game. He felt a melancholy twinge, for his own quickly fading youth, for the settled life he sometimes wished he led. Someday. It didn’t work out the first time, with Jean, but he was older now, more learned in the quirks of the world, more cautious with his heart. He didn’t mind his life. Previously he had been chained to a desk at an insurance agency, took six months before he could cut his way to freedom. He liked being on the move, meeting new people, seeing new things...
Corn fields on both sides of the car now.
Beans.
Alfalfa.
New things.
Mankato, tomorrow, if he didn’t get a nibble today...
* * * *
His first two encyclopedia-bereft households were a miss and a miss. Talk about cold calls. These people must been raised at the North Pole. The next prospect wanted only volume T, for the article on tractors. Flud tried to politely explain to the gentleman farmer that sets couldn’t be split, but the fellow wouldn’t be budged from his position, even when presented with the sorrowful scenario of another family buying a set of encyclopedias that skipped from Skeleton to Universe.
Flud was ready to skip from Swedenborg to the next bar down the road, but preached patience to himself. Every stop was a fresh opportunity, a chance to begin anew. Just do your job and keep your emotions out of it.
* * * *
The farm, from a distance, seemed like any other spread on this isolated country road. However, as he drew closer, it filled Flud with a deep sense of desolation. It looked abandoned. The crops were withered, the buildings in disrepair. Yet the fact that there were crops at all, and that cows grazed in a fallow pasture, meant that it was still a working farm.
Even though the days still had some summer in them, the trees in the grove on the north side of the farmyard, left there to shelter the buildings from dangerous winter gales, were stripped bare, looking like they belonged in Halloween country.
Flud slowed, his attention caught by a herd of sheep gathered in a tight group in a roadside field on the north end of the grove.
Flud stopped. Although his window was partially open, he cranked it down the rest of the way.
The sheep.
Their mouths were opening, and closing.
No sound was coming from them. Not a single bleat.
Just mouths.
Opening.
And closing.
It was a peculiar thing. Flud remembered a sales call he once made to a house in a large city. There was a dog in the fenced yard, a German Shepherd. It opened its mouth as if to bark, but there was no sound, just silence. A mouth opening, and closing. The owner said the dog was a nuisance barker, so he had its vocal chords cut.
Prospects didn’t look good, admittedly. On the verge of not making the final turn that would take him to the farmyard, Flud reminded himself of that odd duck who lived in the roadside shack on the way to Butternut. Happened a couple years ago. Flud wasn’t even pitching; his radiator did the geyser bit and he just wanted to find a phone. The man in the shack babbled about baseball and the Apocalypse, but once Flud spilled about his business, the duck ordered two sets of encyclopedias, paid cash in advance.
So yes, Flud made the turn, at the mailbox that said “Platzanweiser.”
The driveway descended gradually off the main road, past the white farm house, then into a circle that looped around the farmyard, past the granary, barn, chicken coop, the stark empty branches of the grove hanging over the roof, the shuttered brooder house, and back to the farm house again.
Flud parked in the shade at the bottom of the driveway, alongside a dying flower garden, the entrance to the circle. He gathered up his sample volumes, brochure packet, and order book, and left the car.
The farmyard was silent. Not summer quiet. Not the quiet of peaceful, lazy hammock days. Silent. The silence of mouths opening, and closing. The silence of a barnyard occupied by mute chickens and tongue-tied hogs.
Flud had seen dilapidated farms before, but this was different. The granary, workshop, corn crib, barn, the others, weren’t simply falling apart; they were decaying, like roadkill.
The barn for instance, had lost most of its red luster. A pale greenish substance spiderwebbed across it now, mold or some other form of life that suggested decline. Most older barns sagged or caved in on themselves, but not this one. It seemed sturdy enough. It just looked... diseased.
Flud proceeded to the farm house. Going along the ancient stone walk that led to the dwelling, he began to whistle, then just let the air out quietly, feeling like he was doing something wrong. The house bore signs of a more subtle decay. Hairline cracks around the unclean windows. A strange gathering of black mushroom-like growths at the base of the brick chimney. The sunlight didn’t seem to penetrate the interior of the house. It was twilight inside.
A small weather-worn box hung on the door frame. A clock with a moving wooden hour hand, a doll-figure above the clock and the words “We’ll Be Back At...” A tiny knob on a miniature door. Flud opened it, recoiled slightly when a spider scooted away.
He drove an image from his mind of a larger arachnid lurking behind the greater door. Knocked.
Waited.
Again.
Flud turned and headed back into the farmyard. In cases like this he typically found the owner working in one of the out buildings, or busy in the fields.
Sidestepping a grouping of cluckless chickens, Flud scoped out the coop, wiping the webs from the filthy windows, moving along to the chicken wire door. Wooden roosts in the middle of the floor occupied by molting, disordered hens, wooden nests on each side wall. A rooster strutting along the dirt floor, beak opening, and closing. How to wake up in the morning when the rooster does not crow? Then on to the barn. The side door was open. A meowless tomcat skittered between a stack of hay bales. Flud took a tentative step inside and called out, “Hello! Anybody home?” His voice sounded harsh, unwelcome, alien even to him.
He wandered further down, to the hog house, where the dumb pigs jostled for a spot in the shadows alongside the tainted building, the only sound their heavy bristly bodies thumping down onto the cracked earth.
The granary next, which sat alongside a narrow creek. Like the other structures, discolored and decrepit. He climbed the steps and reached for the latch that would enable him to slide the door open along its rollers, then saw that it was padlocked.
“Get off my land.”
Flud dropped his samples. It wasn’t so much the tone or content, but the fact that there was a voice on this voiceless plot of earth at all.
He turned.
And dropped his brochures and order book.
A farmer, in blue overalls, work boots, faded green feed company cap. Across his eyes was a piece of glass. Not eyeglass. Red glass. A narrow band, not curved, held in place by baling wire.
“Uh, excuse me, ah, Mr. Platzanweiser, isn’t it?” said Flud, coming down the steps and picking up his sample volumes and brochures from the parched grass. “Is the, uh, lady of the house in?”
Silence.
“Bob Flud’s my name,” he recited, back up. “You know I was just talking to your neighbors down the road, the Sufflows, nice folks, and they were saying what a fine family you had and how much they thought your lives could be improved, ah, with the gift of learning.” Jeepers it’s tough when you can’t make eye contact. “Now I just happen to represent the world-renowned Canning Encyclopedia Company, and for a very modest monthly payment you can own a full set of encyclopedias, from A to Z. If you order today you will receive, free of charge, the Official Canning Atlas of the World, see the entire globe from the comfort of your favorite easy chair, and if you—”
“I said get off my land.”
“Think of the opportunities for your children to expand their—”
“Ain’t no children here.”
“But just think of the opportunities for you and your wife to—”
The farmer took a step forward. “Ten seconds.”
Flud was on his way before the countdown began. “Thank you for your time, sir, and best of luck to you on this most glorious summer day.”
Flud glanced back as he reached the DeSoto. The farmer stood rooted, facing the door to the locked granary, the late afternoon sun glinting off his ruby red visor, facing the door as if the salesman were still there. A moment passed, and then the farmer turned and walked with a stiff gait in the direction of the barn.
Climbing into the car, Flud unloaded his stuff on the passenger seat, put the key into the ignition, and hesitated. He dug through the pile. His order book appeared to be missing. Must have forgotten it when the friendly farmer made me jump, he thought.
Flud left the car again and made for the granary.
When he spotted the order book, he knelt down, brushed the dirt off it, and rose...
“You heard it too, didn’t you?”
Flud found himself facing the shielded farmer again.
“Heard it...”
“You came back. You heard it. You heard it, too.”
Flud’s instincts kicked in, seeing a deceased sale unexpectedly sit up on the slab.
“Sure, sure, pal, I heard it.”
“Wasn’t cow or cat or sheep or pig or chicken.”
“No...”
“You heard it. Stay for supper. Tell me what you heard. Chicken supper.”
Flud looked at the red glass, unable to see the eyes behind.
“You heard me, didn’t you?” the farmer asked.
A sale, possibly. Another odd duck. Cash in advance.
“I’d be happy to join you for supper, Mr. Platzanweiser.”
* * * *
The farmer collared the hen and hauled her over to the stained stump in the grove. He positioned her neck on the stump, her mouth opening and closing, the bird strangely rigid in his grip. He brought the ax up high and then down hard. The head went flying, the scene painted in red. The body, blood spurting from its neck stump, landed on its feet and dashed madly through the grove, disappearing into a thicket of wasted weeds. The farmer corralled another candidate, the ax a blur, pinning her down before she could flee, scaly yellow feet going through the motions of escape anyway.
The farmer plucked her, white feathers riding the air currents like snow, then dressed her and took her out to dinner. Inside the house, a pot was boiling on a wood-fired stove, and this is where the hen was laid to rest.
The farmer and the traveling salesman rested on the porch while supper cooked, the farmer softly playing a harmonica.
A strange melody, haunting, ripe with a pure and unbecoming splendor, as naked in emotion as the farmer was occluded in conversation.
He finally stopped playing, the last note trailing off into the early evening haze.
“You sure know how to handle that thing,” said Flud. “Never heard anything like it.”
The farmer tucked the mouth organ into the vest pocket of his overalls and said, “It’s the only music I can take anymore. The rest—squeezebox, fiddle, washboard—like knives in my head, knives.”
“That’s too bad,” said Flud.
“You’re probably wonderin’ about my glasses. Took it from a welder’s mask. Can’t stand the light, any kind of light. I’m sensitive to everything these days.”
“You should see a doctor maybe. Long trip into town, though. You know, there’s a lot of information contained in a single volume of an encyclopedia. You might pick up something that could help you with your condition.”
This was met with silence, which extended into chicken, potatoes, carrots, all cooked into profound blandness.
Flud was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the silence. He was afraid if he talked at his usual clip, or pushed his pitch with too much vigor, the farmer’s sensitivity would make any sale impossible. Could he close this sale without speaking? Maybe if he just shoved the order book at him, he would sign. Supper would be over soon, so he had to act quickly. Get the conversation going again, let him do the talking, keep leading him down the path to Canning Encyclopedia Heaven.
“So,” said Flud, picking at his meal, the image of the headless hen escaping into the woods like the late edition in his mind, “have you farmed here long then?”
“Platzanweisers have plowed and planted our land for generations. I was born on our land, and I will die on our land, as it should be. I haven’t set foot outside our land in twenty years. The land sustains; the land is life.”
Have you looked around this joint lately? Flud thought, while nodding sympathetically.
The farmer abruptly left the table, the kitchen itself, out of sight, boots on steps.
Flud pushed back his chair, taking the opportunity to snoop around. There was a heaviness in the house, as if the dim light itself was pressing down on him. Nothing out of the ordinary among the dusty bric-a-brac and simple stick furniture. On a writing desk, a faded family photo in a tarnished frame. The farmer and a younger female: wife, daughter, or sister. No betrayal of their relationship to the camera. A stoic pose in front of the farm house, faces grim, sky leaden, heavy. But in the background, the garden flourished, flowers in bloom, beautiful even in black and white.
When Flud heard the thud, thud, thud on the steps, he retreated back into the kitchen, although he didn’t sit down. His mind was working, trying to get an angle, but when the farmer reappeared, the problem solved itself.
“Encyclopedia,” said Platzanweiser. “You have them with you?”
Sale!
“Sure do. Always carry samples with me.”
“Do you have... S?”
“Why yes, I think I do. Just wait here. Don’t go anywhere.” He laughed self-consciously at his joke, and then hurried out to the car.
When he returned, the farmer was seated on a wooden rocker in the living room.
“Every volume features a genuine gold-tooled binding, handsome Italian leather cover, matching marbled end papers—”
“Read to me,” said the farmer.
Flud fumbled with the book. “Uh, read to you?”
“You have S?”
“Yes.”
“Read to me about... Sin.”
The customer is always right, thought Flud, fanning the pages. Suddenly, reflexively, he clapped the book shut and eyed his watch. “I’m sorry, I have to leave,” said Flud. “I’m late for an appointment in town. Here’s a brochure. Feel free to give me a call if you decide you would like to purchase a set of encyclopedias, all the letters of the alphabet, for your very own. Thank you for your time and good night.”
Flud hustled outside, his breathing shallow. The atmosphere in the house had produced a feeling of panic, anxiety, apart from the farmer’s last request.
No sale was worth this, thought Flud, hurrying over to his car, the sun beginning to melt into the corn fields on the horizon, shadows more bold now, arms of darkness reaching across the yard. He climbed in, again dumped his materials on the passenger seat and gave the key a twist.
The engine tried to turn over, but didn’t fire up.
Again, weaker.
Once more, a whisper.
Flud removed the key, not wanting to flood the car.
He waited a minute, two minutes, and gave it another go.
The spark had gone.
Flud slugged the dashboard and got out of the car, lifting the hood. He peered at the inner workings of the DeSoto, leaning close, strange, seeing a pale green mold-like substance throughout the engine area.
How could this be? he wondered. How could this be? He was afraid to touch it. He got a stick and tried to scrape it off, but there was so much. Flud did his best and then went around and tried starting the car again.
Dead.
Flud pulled out the key and looked toward the old house.
* * * *
“She won’t start,” Flud told the farmer, who already had the back door open.
“Probably got damp. Happened to my tractor a while back.”
“Could I use your phone? I’ll call into town.”
“Don’t have a phone. Never saw a need for one.”
“Can you drive me into town then?”
“In what?”
“You don’t have a car?”
“Broke down years ago.”
Flud glanced out at the accelerating darkness. Twilight seemed to give in too easily to the fullness of the dark hours. The wind picked up, carrying an unreasonable chill.
“I’ll walk to one of the neighbors.”
“This time of night, in these parts, walk up to a house unannounced and you’re just as likely to get greeted by a shotgun blast as a...”
The farmer broke off, cocking his head slightly. He suddenly grimaced, bending over, moaning pitifully, clamping his hands to his ears, retreating, stumbling back into the kitchen.
Flud followed him in, the screen door banging shut behind him.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
The farmer knelt on the floor, head bowed. “Just shut the door, boy,” he said with a strained voice.
Flud closed the inside door, and the sound of the latch bringing the farmer back to his feet. His eyes were still hidden; the welding goggles gave up nothing.
The farmer didn’t speak, just shuffled into the living room, wearily lowering himself into his rocker. Flud sat down on a hard chair that was positioned against the oil stove.
Breathing steadied now, the farmer said, as if a prayer, “The land sustains; the land is life.”
Flud felt shadows fall.
“She was born on our land; she was meant to die on our land, as I am, as it should be.”
“What do you mean? Who are you talking about? The woman in the picture?”
“Adeline.”
“The woman in the picture. Your wife? Your sister? Your daughter?”
The red visor turned his way, and dipped slightly. “Yes. Adeline.”
Shadows crawled.
“What happened?”
“An accident. She was in the granary, the feed pouring through the chute in the ceiling, everyday farm work. Something got stopped up. She climbed into the bin to clear it...” His hand went to his visor and he lifted it. The eyes were still red. Bloodshot, swollen.
“It’s like drowning. The grain is no different than water.”
“I’m sorry,” said Flud. “When did this happen?”
“Never saw a need for one.”
“What?”
“Broke down years ago.”
Flud couldn’t make sense of him.
Visor back in place. “You heard it, didn’t you?”
“I... I’m not sure.”
“You heard her cries, from the granary. Her cries. You heard them, too.”
Flud heard the wind, the wind and the old house, the protestations of straining wood, inside and out, and nothing more.
* * * *
“You can sleep in the upstairs bedroom,” said the farmer. “Hasn’t been used in years. It was my room when I was a boy.”
Flud thanked him for his hospitality, the emotion in the pit of his stomach far removed from his surface civility.
He’s a batty old-timer who hears voices, Flud told himself, turning back the covers. Nothing of the boy remained here. A crack ran from the window-side wall, along the faded flowered wallpaper, across the ceiling, ending at the door frame.
Just grab what sleep you can and maybe hitch a ride back into town with the mailman, or walk to the next farm and make a call, bribe them if necessary.
Flud sat on the edge of the bed, the stiff stained curtains sleepwalking in the wind, offering glimpses of the impenetrable night, like a black wall beyond. He stretched out on the musty chenille bed spread, grateful to be locked away, thankful for a silence that wasn’t overflowing with distress.
Then: a sound from within the walls, from downstairs, from somewhere. A harmonica. Playing a heavyhearted refrain.
From this distance, it was soothing.
Flud felt his body relax, his mind settle into an easy space.
Flud slept.
* * * *
The wind rose sharply, the house’s laments transforming to shouting as someone burst into Flud’s bedroom. The farmer caught Flud by the shoulders, jostled him, shook him, rousted him.
“Do you hear it? Do you hear it? Adeline! She was buried alive! Can’t you hear her cries, her hands clawing at the grain, the grain pouring down her throat? Can’t you hear it?”
Flud groggily pushed back the farmer, scrambling out of bed.
“You crazy old man, there’s nothing to hear, nothing, nothing!”
“You said you heard it, you heard it too!”
“I never heard anything, I just wanted a sale. You think your sister or wife or whatever your inbred family calls it is buried alive in the granary and is calling out to you? Fine, then I’m going to give you the gift of learning, now!”
Flud stormed out the door, taking the stairs in three bounds. The farmer was after him, tugging at him, begging him to stop. Flud broke free, charging out the screen door and into the farmyard. He didn’t look back.
Halfway to the granary, something came out of the grove, at a dead run.
Something white.
Lacking something, what?
The no-headed chicken frantically sprinted through the yard, blood no longer spraying from its neck stump. Yet it persevered. A real Horatio Alger story. It seemed to be zeroing in on Flud, using some kind of unnatural radar, then abruptly veered off and dashed between the hog house and the corn crib, disappearing again into darkness.
Even though the granary was padlocked, the door was rotted and the wood broke apart easily. Flud heaved open the door along its creaking rollers.
A trickle of light tiptoed in. Flud joined it.
Mice fled across the warped wooden floor.
The interior of the granary had a large empty area in the middle, flanked on the left by a huge feed bin and on the right by two smaller bins.
Not surprisingly, it was quiet as church in the granary. No voices, no cries for help, no one buried alive. This made Flud feel better, as if he had swung the night back around to his own version of reality. Getting out of that suffocating house had helped, too.
Flud stood up straight, eyes adjusting to the darkness, and looked around the granary. The equipment hadn’t been in operation for a long while, taken over by the dust of disuse. It smelled like grain, the rancid variety.
Going over to the big bin, the mountain of grain rising halfway to the ceiling, Flud reached in and scooped up a palmful of grain, and let it run through his fingers. It was a pleasing feeling, so he did it again, reaching deeper into the pile. Once more, and that was when his hand touched something solid.
Flud frowned. What was it? A bin divider? A piece of equipment that accidentally fell into the heap?
The object was smooth, cool.
Flud moved his fingers across its surface, until they slipped into a pair of holes. How in the world did a bowling ball get in there? he thought.
Flud pulled.
Heavy with grain, the object came out slowly, slowly.
Flud kept pulling.
Finally it was free.
The traveling salesman met the farmer’s daughter. Or was it his sister?
Fingers in eye sockets.
The skull he held in his hands was one of the few things on this farm that wasn’t taken over by mold.
Flud knelt and gently set it down on the floor, then thrust his hands into the bin again. Compulsively. Again and again. More smooth, solid objects, long and short, curved and straight.
When he was done Flud gazed at the pile of her for a moment, then ran. Ran crazily, this way and that, like a chopping-block chicken, back to the house.
“She’s dead! She’s dead!” Flud screamed as he tore up the stone walk and arrived at the greater door, to the farmer, whose red visor was missing. “There’s nothing left, you old fool! She’s been dead for years! There aren’t any voices, no cries for help, nothing, she’s dead, dead, do you hear me dead!”
The farmer, eyes bulging now, looked at Flud plainly and said in a calm voice, “Don’t you hear it?”
Flud gaped at him.
The farmer shut his eyes and his face got all twisted up, just twisted and not plain at all.
“Listen to me, Platzanweiser,” said Flud. “It’s over. Adeline is dead. She’s been dead a long time. Just bones in there, I saw them with my own eyes.”
The farmer’s eyes suddenly opened wide. He was looking at Flud, really seeing him, fixed on him, for the first time since he arrived. “There’s only two of us here so it must be you. It isn’t cows or sheep or pigs making that sound, must be you, stop it, stop saying help me, help me, stop screaming for your life, yes I fixed it so the grain would bury you in that bin, you shouldn’t have tried to leave, we can never leave, we were born on our land and we will die on our land, we are bonded together forever, brother and sister, husband and wife, father and daughter forever, it was you all along, the voices have to be coming from somewhere, no cows and sheep or pigs, quiet, quiet, quiet, no more voices!”
The farmer grabbed Flud by the shoulders and shoved him backwards, down the steps, down, down, the back of the salesman’s head thudding heavily against the stone walk, a heavy darkness taking him down, down, down.
* * * *
There were no sounds, too many smells.
Up, the traveling salesman woke. Dizzy, swimming in a semiconscious state, hurt in his limbs, his head, his throat.
Especially his throat.
He felt like he was being watched.
Opened his eyes.
Chickens stared at him in the dim space, eye-to-eye. A filthy floor. The smell burned his nostrils.
He tried moving away, but something snatched his ankle and wouldn’t let go. His bound hands traveled along his bare leg, knee, shin, ankle, the chain. Heavy chain. Thick enough for farm work. Wound around a beam on the back wall, chained to the building itself.
The traveling salesman felt cold. He wondered what happened to his clothes.
Dirty floor, dirty chickens. Still dressed.
Foul sunshine filtered through the dollhouse-like windows.
A noise at last.
From out there, beyond the chicken wire door.
A car door, slamming.
Through the chicken wire, the salesman could see the farmyard, the circle.
A car, not his own. The DeSoto had departed.
Two men standing at the end of a stone walk.
The farmer, no longer wearing his red visor.
Another man, bald, gesticulating with a green bottle. His face was animated.
Klimm’s Wonder Elixir.
Cures everything.
From eczema to excessive nervous agitation.
The knowledge of a thousand encyclopedias is contained within.
Nicholas Klimm, my friend!
He would help; they were brothers in the art of selling, fellow travelers. They would have a beer and a good laugh at Heaven and Hell after this day was over.
My friend.
The farmer appeared to shake off the sales pitch with a smile, as if indicating his excessive nervous agitation had already been cured.
The traveling salesman smiled, too, as he opened his mouth to call out to his friend...
S is for sin.
For silence.
Mouths opening.
And closing.
After the elixir salesman left, the farmer strode over to the chicken coop, bucket in hand.
He went inside. As he gathered the eggs, he noticed that several members of his quiet brood had become non-productive, not laying a single egg, due to illness or... injury. He still had to pay for their feed, so that was money out of his pocket.
Tonight, there would have to be a culling.
My first encounter with Mr. Poe came on a Halloween afternoon at a grade school in Bloomington, Minnesota, back in the 1960s. One of the teachers led us without explanation into a dark room and shut the door. Strangely, the only light came from a small blue bulb in the corner. The teacher began to read to us, his face illuminated by that dim blue light, the presence of which I soon began to understand. This wasn’t the usual Little House on the Prairie milk-and-cookies story time, this was “The Tell-Tale Heart,” in all its lurid glory.
It was a powerful, thrilling experience, and either later that year or the next I wrote a pair of ghastly horror stories for Parents Visitation Night, and dutifully taped them to the wall outside my classroom with the other artwork. One had the creative title, “Midnight Horrors.” They were, in fact, “inspired by Poe,” as only a young boy can be inspired.
A bit older now, and we come to “The Heaven and Hell of Robert Flud.” More inspiration, thanks to “The Fall of the House of Usher,” my favorite of all his tales. Going from Gothic to American Gothic. I have some rural roots, and Usher always reminded me of the occasional odd duck you find in America’s tucked away places. Isolated, a bit weird, peculiar family relationships, possibly never traveled more fifty miles from the place he was born. Just a general sense of slow suffocation. More sad than horrible in reality.
Hopefully teachers are still reading Poe to grade schoolers, and aren’t put off by overprotective parents with their intellectual bicycle helmets in hand. Read Poe aloud, preferably in a dark room, the more wide-eyed kids present the better. It would make a nice birthday present for him.