Underworld

My name is Gregory Carter, and I'm here to tell you that things like
that are out there.

This is where you say, "like what," as if that were the response I was
looking for. You know what. You know exactly what, it's just that you
don't want to say. You don't want to think about it. It scares you. You
don't want to sound nuts now, would ya? Start talking about things like
that, and they lock you up in a rubber room.

And I know where you're coming from. I used to be like you. Ignorant.
And there's no negative connotation with that word. You ever hear that
"ignorance is bliss?" Fuck that, ignorance is life. Ignorance, sweet
ignorance, I knew you so diddly-damn briefly, and I miss you.

So what kind of person are you? Ignorant to the fact that the universe
is infinite, and that there's millions upon countless millions of other
life forms out there? Are you that ignorant? God, to be you. To be so
closed off of the obvious truths as to enjoy life again. Well, I'm not
here to tell you about what's "up" there, I'm here to tell you what's
"out" there. I mean right outside your window. Right now. When you're
driving home and you look in the woods or in the fields next to it and
you see the eyes gleaming. Coyote? Deer? Ask yourself-do you really
know what those eyes belong to?

How about this for evidence. The ocean, right here on good old planet
Earth. Everyone wants to see the ocean before they die, swim in it,
take a bottle of it home. Think about this. The ocean is so deep that
we haven't fully explored it. We can't make a vessel powerful enough to
handle the massive amounts of pressure, cold, and darkness that the
ocean holds. There's enough water pressure to turn the Titanic into a
tin fucking can down there in the deepest parts. It's cold enough to
turn an ice cube purple. It's so dark that some of the fish that we
know of actually have working lights as a part of their body.

Now think about a creature that could live in that environment. You
know there's a few down there. Do you really think the ocean floor is
dead? And whatever's down there . . . do you think it would be happy to
see you?

What I'm getting at is that our world is full of secrets, some of which
will never be found out, probably because we don't want to find them.
But they find us sometimes, and we don't even know it until it's too
late. Why? Because it creeps up on you.

In the meantime, let's try and get to Mars and beyond while we haven't
even uncovered every nook of our own planet. You know why? There's
probably intelligent life out there. In the deepest recesses of our
world, there isn't intelligence, only danger. Only terror. If only they
were all were as cuddly as Bigfoot.

We don't want to find them, but sometimes, if things go just right,
they find you. It happened to me, and it hasn't let go of me yet.

Today, when I was at work, I realized it will never let go. Ever. These
are the long nights at work. I'm a park ranger. Been one going on
thirty years now. I know, you're thinking of some fully armed
forest-cop complete with sidearm and fedora hat, patrolling the deep
rustic parts of Yosemite, fighting off bears and protecting
eagles.

Far from it. I'm a park ranger with the US Army Corps of Engineers, and
I patrol a hole in the ground flood control lake that just happens to
have a few campgrounds on its shores. Instead of a gun and a hat, I
have a nice white patrol truck and a huge roll of keys. I'm like a
janitor, roaming around at night with a big clump of keys, only I don't
clean floors, I clean problems.

This time of the year, there aren't any problems. Only me. It's
October. The campgrounds are closed, our stay-in-school rangers are
getting drunk and laid at their colleges, and they've forgotten all
about me and their job until next summer.

So I drive around to all the boatramps that are empty and campgrounds
that are closed. The sun sets early, about the time I get to work.
There's this maddening haze, especially this week. It's like rain and
fog fucked and had big fat kid that sits on my windshield. Drives me
nuts, I can never seem to get the wipers on the patrol truck to stay at
a speed that can fight it. It's either too fast, squeaking against a
dry windshield, or way too slow and I can't see anything in front of
me. The entire lake area is so empty that I can worry about those
things. I put on the AM radio and listen to old music, and I drive
around, and I think. I can't help it but I think.

For one thing, I think about my nickname. Cast Iron. When we get a new
ranger, some new kid with a fresh face and a big smile, he'll ask how I
got the nickname. Probably asks someone else why I wear such strong
cologne. No one really knows. I do. It just developed over time. It was
no single incident, but a series of them. When you've been out at this
lake as long as I have, you've dragged in your fair share of dead,
bloated bodies.

Most of them are kids, and you get to see them mother's faces shatter
just before the bag gets zipped up. One guy got caught near the dam
base, his face bashing into the concrete over and over again with the
current. When we pulled him up, his face was a hollowed out bowl of
red, raw meat. Everyone gagged but me if I recall. I've seen ripe dead
animals, and dragged them away. I always walk right into the moment-and
been shot at, spat on, screamed at, and complained about. All when I
was doing my job right. When you do all of this, and you do it with a
straight face, never once pulling what the young guys do-they puke,
choke, cry, or get the fuck out of there-you tend to earn the nickname
Cast Iron.

On those Cast Iron days, the shift report gets filled out pretty damn
full. Ah, the shift report. Dig up those and you'll have almost every
hour of my life chronicled down to the hour. Just a bunch of blank,
black lines and at the top it says "Activities Performed During Tour of
Duty." In the summer, it gets loaded up. Parking violations, underage
drinking, humping on the beach after dark, and the occasional death.
It's all just part of the shift report, brother.

Start shift. Patrol of West Campground; site 59 owes money. Fuel post
102. West beach; noise complaints, alcohol on beach, drag dead kid out
of the water and tell mom that her three year old is a big green
blister of seaweed and freshwater. Patrol of Dam; ok. Office. End
Shift.

In October, things are different. Start shift. Drive around all night.
Think. Think. Listen to radio. Think. It creeps up on you. Things are
out there. I want to kill myself. End shift.

Have I beat around the bush long enough? Let me mention one more thing
before I get to it. You ever see a guy whose nickname is Tiny? Fuckin'
huge isn't he? How about a dog named Spike or Killer whose a two pound
puppy? Reggie White is black, Clint Black is white. People tend to be
named opposite of what they really are. I knew a fat guy in high
school. During conditioning for basketball, we were running a three
mile stretch. The guy shit his pants after a mile. I think it was on
purpose because he looked like he was about to die after the first
quarter of the run. You know what his nickname was? Speedy.

The same goes for Cast Iron. I can go into any situation and seem
tough, but inside I'm scared as hell. Not at what's going on, at what
haunts me. If you've seen what I've seen, a dead kid ain't too bad. At
least when they drown, at least then you know what happened to them.
When we get a missing kid report, everybody gets a grave look on their
face, and they think "drowning." I hope drowning, because I know one of
the alternatives.

There's an awful lot of woods around here.

So here I am, Cast Iron Carter, about as far from iron as you can get.
By bad knee clicks something horrible, especially this time of year.
Whenever a kid is missing, terror strikes me so hard, with so much
force, I can't speak. All I can think about is . . . and they, my
co-workers, think it's a "gameface." They haven't noticed that in
thirty years since, I've never gone in the woods. Faked sick once in my
life, to get out of boundry duty. I'll never go in the woods again. Oh,
and I sleep with the lights on. Those things are out there, remember,
and sometimes, they sneak up on you. They won't sneak up on me, not
again.

And I live in that one moment of true fear, that fear where you don't
quite know. Let me tell you: think of a time that you jumped because
you were scared. You were locking up the house or the office late at
night, and something moved. You jumped, yelped, were scared shitless .
. . then you realized it was a shadow, and everything was alright
again. In the movies, that's a "false alarm," where the killer makes
his move just after you were scared by something innocent. You've seen
it a hundred times. Of course, there is no killer in real life, is
there. Is there? I'm asking because in my life, that moment of shock is
perpetual. Time hasn't made it fade. When my moment of realization
came, there was no shadow, no frolicking cat. It wasn't even a clean,
explainable mad slasher. It was the unexplainable. It was horrible. It
was my curse, is my curse, and I'll never forget it.

Jesus, I don't want to tell this story. Can you tell? It'll never
reasonate like it did to me, when it happened. It'll come off like a
crazy old coot spinning a yarn, and no matter what I write, how
carefully I try to remember, it'll never have the impact that it did on
me, when I was there. I'm going to try, though. I'm going to try so
that you don't think less of me.

Tonight, my shift report: Start shift. Radio on, truck warm. Patrol
entire, empty lake. Listen to radio. Think. Can't hear radio. Think
about how it's time to put it all down, evacuate it from my mind like a
good shit. How it's time to do something about my curse. I've got it
all figured out. Fuel truck. Office. End shift.

Who will read this? I don't know. But know this, whoever you are. This
is the truth. If you don't believe this . . . then you're a lucky one,
and if a day comes that you do believe it . . . well, a day like that
is the reason that I carry a marble sized tablet of rat poison whenever
I'm out of the house, and I ain't no goddam astronaut-you just never
know when you're going to need it.

It was the fall of 1972, and I had just finished my first summer with
the Corps. What a fucking time it was that fall, with the community
college so close, I could stay home and still hang with my high school
friends. I was in love, only she didn't know it yet. Her name was Anne.
Now, the memory seems to make things out to be better than they
actually were at the time. That 20 yard touchdown run with a minute to
go becomes an 80 yarder with three laterals and no time on the clock,
if you get my drift. Memory was powerless to make Anne any better than
what she was-perfect. Long, red hair. Big brown eyes. A body that made
all the girls love / hate her, and her personality! How sweet was she?
Even though I stumbled through it, she said yes, she would go for a
walk with me that day.

I'll love her even more for that smile-the smile that told me, yes
Gregory, I know you like me, and it'll be ok to tell me during the
walk. We might even kiss Greg, what do you think of that?

Yeah, that smile said a lot. I wish I could say a lot, but trying to
describe how beautiful she was with a bunch of metaphors is like
putting heavy ornaments on a tree that only weigh down it's perfect
branches. Holy shit, was that a meta-pun?

See, even in times like these, thinking of Anne puts me in good
spirits. Thinking of her when she was whole, at least.

So we walked, me in my finest jeans and my father's Stetson wafting up,
and the place where all the people walk to hang out was down the
trestle. We lived in a shitty town called Sentinel, where the railroad
used to do a lot of business in the roaring twenties. Now, when someone
says "railroad tracks" they mean the gravel path that you can follow
outside of town and into the woods, where the trestle used to span a
large creek. It was a nice, quiet, scenic place. A nice place for a
picnic or to camp, or when it's in season, to hunt deer.

It was just Anne and I, and Sentinel was beginning to fade behind us.
The mouth of the path is easy enough to find-it's right on the edge of
town near the old grain elevators. As we walked, the brush on the sides
of the path rose as the path itself sank, angling down into the woods
that were about a half mile outside of town.

What were we talking about? I have no idea. The only thing I remember
is bumping into her hand with mine as we walked, over and over again.
As we entered the woods, she'd had enough of my shyness and latched
onto it, sending a shiver up my spine. By the time we got to the
trestle itself, my palm was sweaty with nervousness but I was filled
with joy.

Then, she let go of it and scampered forward.

"It's so beautiful!" she yelped. To us, the chasm looked like the grand
canyon. I'd been back there several times, but it always looked big and
ominous. A large concrete pillar rose from the center. It used to be a
support, but now, metal support tubing jutted out of it, gnarled in
every single direction.

When Madusa was turned to stone, I'll bet she looked a lot like that
pillar.

Near the edge, the dirt and gravel turned into a flat, stable concrete
section that was another pillar. She was already standing on it,
looking down. To our right side, the path turned into a steep hill that
led to thick woods, on the left, it was a grassy hillside that led to a
large meadow that was surrounded by even more woods. We could see the
entire creek, pushing out of the mess of trees and right below us,
carving into the woods again, not to be seen unless you crossed it on
the highway about six miles East.

The creek wasn't just below the dropoff. It was about thirty feet from
ledge to water, but it was only twenty or so feet from the dropoff a
large, Earthy bank that had a steep ten foot drop to the water all it's
own. It was a narrow strip of dirt with a large black scar on it, no
doubt where people had camped out near the water, fishing, having the
cover of the rising pillar behind them. The strip was easy enough to
reach from the pasture.

I was caught up in looking around too. She kept yelling out, "hello,"
listening to her own echo. I was just smiling.

Soon, we were sitting on the ledge, our legs dangling. Yeah, it was
kind of dangerous, but I think that was a bit of a turn-on too. Dear
God, the way she looked at me! Our feet were free, our hands entwined,
our eyes locked. To this day, I know I could've kissed her. If I had
the balls to, I might've been able to make love to her right on the
spot. Coulda woulda shoulda, right?

Well friends, not to be. That concrete was old as all hell, and before
we realized what was happening, it was too late. I for one thought that
the moment was literally carrying me away, making me feel like we were
on air. Soon, we were because the edge of the concrete crumbled
away.

The fall felt like forever. She screamed so loud that I can't even
remember if I was. Then, darkness.

It's hard telling how long I was out, but when I woke up, the pain was
immediately unbearable. I couldn't even make a sound, my face just
scrunched up and I reached for my leg, trying to pull it free from the
hundred or so pound chunk of concrete that had landed on it. Thank God
that the ground was soft from rain. Thank God that it wasn't my head.
Either way, the piece drove my leg into the ground a good couple of
inches, but that's not to say it didn't damage it beyond repair. I was
lucky to make it out of surgery with a leg at all, or so I'm told. Even
though I couldn't see it, two pieces of my lower leg were jutting out
of the skin and into the mud (later I did, and it's weird with that
white bone having a chunk of mud on the end of it, believe me). What's
worse, my kneecap was crushed into powder.

So I was pinned into the bank, and after I got over the initial shock
of the pain, I looked around for Anne. I can only assume that she had
rolled down the bank about twenty yards, but I knew she was alive
because she was moaning. Dirt was all over her face, and I couldn't see
her lower body because it was blocked off by a log.

Only something was strange about the whole deal. Logic wasn't working
too good with the leg pain, but I figured that it was possible for her
to roll down there . . . but to roll over a log?

The log itself was wet and muddy looking, and was right next to the
bank. I could only see from her hips up, and thought it was impossible
for her to roll over the log in such a fashion as to block off her
entire lower body from my view.

Then, things began to make sense. The wet, slippery bark of the log,
all at once, flared out. Each little piece went from lying flat against
the log into becoming a small perpendicular point, and then, all at
once, they returned.

But the log moved, and as it did, something snapped out of the front of
it . . . not a head or a face, just a mouth with thin, ivory teeth and
a red strip of gumming around it. It was attached to a blackish
membrane, and moved in perfect unison with it's tiny bark-legs.

It happened so lightning quick that I couldn't believe what I was
seeing. I yelled for Anne, but she was still moaning, not quite
conscious. And then, just like that, it happened again. Whip-snap, and
just like that, I realized that I couldn't see her hips anymore. It was
moving up the line, and a worse realization came, dulling the pain in
my leg more than a shot of morphine could.

She wasn't behind the log, she was inside of it. The fucking thing was
eating her.

"Anne!" I screamed. I wanted her to wake up and shake loose because I
didn't know exactly what it was doing . . . it was eating her, but was
it EATING her?

Then . . . whip-snap. Another inch of her was gone. There wasn't any
blood, but from what I could see, the mouth was attached to a flexible
membrane and might be doing the damage inside of the log-body. The bark
was little caterpillar legs that no doubt helped it move.

I wished so bad for Anne to wake up. I looked around me. There were a
few hand-sized chunks of rock laying around me, and my arm was accurate
enough to get it close-I'd either wake her up with a good shot or maybe
scare the thing off.

Two throws later, a rock hit Anne in the abdomen. She warbled off
another slow groan, and then her eyes shot open. Her mouth shot
open.

In the history of screams, this one set the standard. Not for length,
but for the sheer emotion and pain that came out of it. She only
screamed for about ten seconds, but it was so pure, so real, so
genuine, that the reason she stopped had to because she tore up the
flesh in her throat with it.

But that didn't stop her from making the horse, gargling sounds. Her
brown eyes were bulging out, looking almost black. It made another
whip-snap, and she tried to muster another scream, but could only sound
like she were gagging. Her head wheeled from side to side, and then she
saw me.

I can't be sure what she said, but it had something to do with how bad
it hurt, that much I'm sure of. She was telling me that it hurt and
wanted me to help, but what could I do?

The next whip-snap was accompanied by a sizzling noise as it sank it's
teeth into her abdomen. She again tried to scream, but this time, a
geyser of thick, blackish blood sputtled out. A coil of white foam
sizzled up from where the log met her stomach. I don't think it was a
poison, or she would've stopped screaming. I think it was the thing's
digestive juices doing the job, if you ask me. That's what I think, and
it's a horrible thought to have.

Yeah, I was crying. Didn't even realize it until later, when the
stickiness was still on my cheeks. I was also aimlessly tossing pieces
of rock towards them, and I didn't want to hit the thing, I wanted to
hit her, right in the head. I wanted to kill her before it could digest
her alive. I wanted to stop her suffering and mine by shutting her
up.

Not once did I hit her or the log, but it whip-snapped again and again.
Soon, I was out of rocks and could only sit there and watch. It made a
crunching sound that actually echoed when it hit her sternum, and I
thought that would be it. Somehow, she was still groaning. Barely
there, but still feeling it, even though most of her body was
inside.

I really can't describe what it was like to watch those teeth come down
on her forehead. That was a loud pop too, but more wet. More of a
thump. I think she was quiet then and only then, when her red hair was
left dangling from the end of the log.

So it was over. Only it wasn't. I hadn't even given it a thought, but
soon, those bark-legs were out, moving forward and backward in complete
unison. It moved slowly, the log-thing. It moved really slowly and
digested slowly and ate slowly, but no doubt about it, it was heading
for me.

If it were a coyote that dashed at me, it wouldn't have been so bad.
But this thing . . . it was pure Chinese torture to have that black end
of the log staring at me, especially when I knew that the circle of
teeth was perched in there, waiting to strike. At the very least, it
would have to eat me head-first. It was little consolation.

It moved forward, little by little, leaving behind mashed grass and
making not even a sound. I struggled to free my leg. I was young enough
and strong enough to move the rock, but any shift of it sent a
shockwave of pain that made me see black spots and brought me
dangerously close to unconsciousness.

It climbed the hill. I was leaned forward, my arms hugging the rock.
The way I figured, I would either move it or pass out-either way, I
could save myself a lot of pain. With a lurch, the rock moved about six
inches up on one end, and I thought I had enough in me to roll it off.
I was so goddam close . . . the vessels in my head were about to pop as
I gave her one last push, but it wouldn't roll. It came back down on my
leg, jamming it into the ground, and of course I screamed.

I seemed to move faster when I wasn't looking because when I turned
back to check on the thing, it startled me it had gotten so close. I
could see the circle of teeth laying in wait, surrounded by the shadows
of it's opening. Soon, it would be in striking distance. I need to make
one more attempt at the rock. It was time to nut up or shut up.

Clamping on as tightly as I could, I remembered my PE coach telling me
that breathing out added ten pounds to your lift. I screamed out,
deflating my lungs as I tried to tilt the rock. Again, six inches of
space appeared. Then eight. Then ten. I was on the threshold of moving
the rock . . . just one more turn . . .

Then, the teeth were right in my face. I let go of the rock and coiled
back. The rock slammed into my leg again, and I fell back in a heap. It
was right on top of me, and the circle of teeth had made it's way out,
and that's exactly what it was . . . a perfect circle of needle thin
teeth at the end of a fleshy membrane. They were right in front of my
face. I was back as far as I could go, teeth clenched, too scared to
try and beat it back with my hands.

And then it drew back into the housing of the log-body. The bark-legs
shot back out, and it moved. Backwards.

Now, I won't make believe that I saw a nose, because I didn't. But that
log smelled something that it didn't like on me, and to this day, I
think it was my Daddy's Stetson. In reality, the only thing it could
smell was fear. It might've only liked dead or unconscious victims
because of tender insides. Maybe it preferred women, or maybe it was
full. But I still think it was the Stetson. That fucker went through a
lot of trouble to check me out if he weren't ready to take a bite out
of me, and even though there were no nostrils, he smelled something he
didn't like. He smelled the Stetson.

So I watched him scuttle along, slowly but surely. Slow and steady wins
the race, don't you know? With my lovely Anne fizzling into nothing
inside of it, it slid into the creek, floating for a few yards and then
disappearing underneath the smooth green water.

I tell you, if you could tell the difference between that hungry
bastard and a real log, you're a better man than I. If you even suspect
a log of foul play, you're a more wise man than I.

Would you believe that I actually got the rock off? Great timing, huh?
With my shattered leg, I made it up to the top of the tracks, terror
driving me more than anything else. Just when the sun was about to go
down for good, my friend Kevin found me. My mother was worried and sent
him to check on me, is what he said. I think he wanted to see if I was
getting laid since I'd been gone so long. Needless to say, I was never
happier to see his ugly face.

That night, in the hospital, I told them I woke up and never saw Anne.
They assumed that she fell into the creek and drowned. They searched
that creek for days and days . . . but I'll bet they didn't check
inside of any of the logs. And I'll bet that they might've seen a
little bit of blood on the grass here or there and decided that she had
injured her head during the fall. Something like that. Something
logical.

Here's something logical-don't fear the guy around the corner of your
house, waiting, perched to attack with a hockey mask and a big axe.
He'll drop that fucker between your eyes and you won't feel anything.
Things that go bump in the night aren't scary. Don't fear them. Things
that jump out at you aren't cause for concern. They're all show.

But there are those rare and terrifying things in life, the worst
things. They creep up on you.

So I kept working out at the lake. My athletic career was over, and the
work paid good. But here I am to tell you that working out at the lake
all those years, I couldn't help but think about it. All the time. You
see, that creek flows right into the Kaskaskia River, which is a part
of the lake that I work at, which is a part of the Missisipi River.
That one log, even if it were the only one out there, could be
anywhere. Could be right in my backyard while I'm on patrol.

Trouble is, I'm damn sure that there's more of them. Perfect little
machines. Invisible, unsuspected, and they move on prone prey. That
would be enough to assume that there's more of them, but I drive over a
lot of creeks and rivers. You know what they're saying now? They're
saying we've got a beaver problem. There's a lot of log jams and
natural dams popping up here lately. Well I've noticed that those logs
look awfully alike when I go over those bridges. What's worse is that I
don't see any sign that a beaver's chewed on them. Not a one.

It's just another case of everyone being ignorant, not that I really
blame them. I envy them. I hope they don't find out otherwise.

You see, I might be the only man alive to ever see one of those things,
but that's enough. That's enough for me to turn in my last shift
report.

Go to work. Patrol. Think. Go home early. Write. Write. Write. Take off
sock on left foot. Load. End shift, brother. End shift.