TONDER Chapter 2

The truck door opened on my father’s side with a slow creaking reminiscent to the sound of a movie-style coffin lid, adding only to the heavy air of anticipation. My father stepped out and shut the door while inspecting the shack from his distant view. I remained in my seat not knowing if I should follow him or stay.                                   

“Why don’t you wait here for a bit until I tell ya. Just sit tight.”

I nodded my head in acceptance as for once he and I were in complete agreement. I watched through the dust spattered windshield as my father walked easily and cautiously toward the shack. In a tone of authoritative reluctance, my father called out into the open air.

“Emmett? Emmett, are you here?”

I scanned the walls and windows of the old shack while struggling to see through the windshield. The windows showed no sign of movement, and the floor boards of the front porch were coated with a layer of red clay dust. As I intently studied the shack, a shaky and fearful voice bellowed from behind the truck, startling me and causing me to lunge forward in my seat.

“Don’t turn around you, I’ve got a bead on ya, ya sorry mule!”

My father froze in his tracks and did not turn around. His hands slowly rose from his sides reaching outward with his palms up while he faced the dirty shack. I turned to the direction of the voice to see a withered old man through the back glass. His appearance was that of an old prospector from vintage film with tattered boots, disheveled grey beard, and tanned skin. He stood awkwardly shifting his shoulders inside of his faded, ripped, and stained coveralls; the irony not lost on the smiling mascot of the Blue Hydrant Home and Lawn logo of his left chest pocket. His most outstanding characteristic, however, seemed to be the shotgun that he cradled upon his hip while pointed at my father. He was looking directly at me as if studying my face intensely.

“Step outta that truck real slow ya piss ant and don’t turn yer head. I wanna see them eyes real good so ya don’t so much as blink!”

I heard my father in the distance giving me instructions with an eerie calm within his voice.

 “Do what he says, Son. Don’t be afraid.”

I found it difficult to open the door with my trembling hand but slowly made my way out of the truck as the old man continued to gape at my face. I said nothing. He seemed content with my cooperation, but continued with his directives.

“You seem alright, now lay down on tha ground and keep yer mouth shut…and stop lookin’ at me.”

My father broke in startling the old man while maintaining his surrendered pose.

“Balsavoy, is that you?”

The old man relaxed his grip of the shotgun and displayed a curious look of interest in my father’s words as my father repeated them.

“Balsavoy, it’s Doyle…The Chaser.”

The sound of this confused me as I had never heard my father refer to himself this way. The old man found comfort in these words and lowered his shot gun and cautiously walked up behind my father.

“Who you think you are comin’ out here and callin’ yerself Chaser. Chaser I knew didn’t travel ‘round with no sawed-off runt of a boy. Chaser I knew’d stare down the devil and smack his shiny tail all tha way back ta hell. Turn around and let me see ya, but do it slow!”

My father pivoted slowly on his foot while looking confidently at the old man who was studying my dad closely, before his lips shaped into a crooked smile and parted to question my father with a single word.

“Chaser?”

“Yes, it’s me Balsavoy, and that’s my boy layin’ down in your dirt over there. Why don’t ya let him get up?”

“Son of a biscuit-eater! Chaser! Yer still alive! I figured you’d be done and buried by now!”

“Not yet, I’m stayin’ a few steps ahead, so far.”

I laid there, eyes up and chin in the dirt, breathing in the stale bitterness that seemed much worse from this close to the ground. I did not look directly at the old man who my father referred to as Emmett and then Balsavoy. I guess there was some relief in knowing that they knew each other, but still there was something in the air and the way that the old man looked at me; looked through me. It was more than a look from him; it was as if he was searching for something. I raised my head slowly to see my father and the old man embrace and hear the thudding pats of manly acknowledgement. By now I could not hear the conversation, but I could tell that the tension had lifted between them.

“Boy, get your face out of the dirt and get over here. I want you to meet an old friend.”

I picked myself up and walked over to the two men who were both smiling at me.

“Emmett, this is my boy, Sutter.”

The old man extended his dirty hand to me and continued to smile. I could see him much more clearly without the distraction of the shotgun between us. He appeared to be a frail man in his late sixties with lines of living etched tirelessly upon his face. His skin appeared as leather and his worn clothes hung about his lanky frame as if they belonged to someone else at some other time. I reached my right hand forward to shake his, feeling his skin under the pressure of my grip, as wetted onion skin draped over a knotted rope. 

“Pleased ta meet ya, boy. Name’s Emmett Caine from Fritzville. Don’t get a lot of folks through here unless they’re lost or…”

He paused upon his words and looked to my father as if searching for the next thing to say. My father finished Emmett’s sentence.

“…lost or crazy.”

“That’s ‘bout right, Doyle! Lost er crazy. Hell, anymore I’m mostly both. I’m ‘bout the only guy I know that can hide his own Easter eggs!”

“Pleased to meet you too, sir” I said shyly.

“Light-o-fire, Doyle, he’s a good lookin’ boy. Ain’t much to him though. Kinda frail fer yer stock.”

“He makes up for it in brains, Emmett. I never seen a boy so smart in my life as Sutter is. Get’s it from his Mom I’m sure.”

“Ah, hell, look at ‘im. Mean as a snake, best I can tell. I’d bet he’d soon as whoop yer tail as ta look at ya!”

My father smiled proudly and put his hand on my shoulder.

“Who is Balsavoy, Dad? And why do you call him Balsovoy and then Emmett?”

The old man turned quizzically toward my father with a sternly confusion glare; mouth wide open and eyebrows lifted.

“You ain’t told ‘im anything, Chaser?”

The look of worry returned to my father. I did not understand the strange names being exchanged between the two friends. My father looked down at the dusty ground and spit. From his pocket he produced another cigarette and lit it with ease.

“I haven’t explained anything, yet. I wanted to come out here and look around before I jumped to any conclusions. Everything might be fine, but it seems that there is a change in the air and I am afraid that I know what it is. I’ll fill him in after I see your back yard.”

“I know what yer thinkin’, Chaser, and yer right about her. You’d best follow me.”

The old man turned awkwardly and started toward the shack in a limping gate without looking back. In my mind I was thinking that the old man was certifiably crazy and that my father would visit for a short time and we would go home and find my mother in the kitchen frying chicken. We would have a good lunch and the summer would continue on as usual: quiet, hot, and safe. Those days were now over. As we rounded the corner of the shack, several steps behind the old man, the back yard came into my full view. It was not what I would normally call a back yard as there was no back porch, no grill for Sunday barbeques, and above all no grass or trees. The ground was as the rest of the terrain; lifeless, foul, and charred with fear.

Ten feet behind the shack was amassed a large pile of rocks; what I would imagine to be the only rocks on this small plot of ground. The rocks lay in disarray, but a pattern was evident to be a broken tower of some kind; one that had been disassembled and scattered around a twenty foot radius. Some rocks still bore traces of old mortar that continued to cling relentlessly to the edges.

“This is where she was, Chaser, jus like we put ‘er twenty years ago. I did everythin’ that tha Tonder told us ta do, everythin’ down to tha letter. I didn’t miss a thing, Chaser, I swear. Not a thing!”

“Emmett, did you notice anything unusual in the past few months at all? Any kind of change?”

“Well, a couple months back I did noticed she was hissin’ a lot. Like some kind of copperhead er somethin’, but I said tha verses jus like the Tonder said and she’d calm down. Next day; a hissin’ again! Then she started ta smellin’ real bad ta where I couldn’t stand ta get close ta her. A stench you wouldn’t believe! So I jus said the verses again, just like tha Tonder said, but she kept stinkin’! Next thing I know, I come out this mornin’ and she was gone! I didn’t do nothin’ wrong and I followed tha rules just like tha Tonder said.”

“Have you seen her at all, Emmett? She can’t be moving too fast, I mean she’s gotta be tired.”

“Haven’t seen ‘er at all, but there lays ‘er trail off toward tha woods. I figure a fella might find ‘er down toward tha bottoms close to tha tree line by now. Hell, I was gonna go get ‘er, Chaser, but you know that ain’t my job. I didn’t even know you was still alive but I figured some other runner might get ‘er if she got too far. Ain’t my job ta run em down ya know! Never was!”

My mind was racing much too quickly to understand what the men were discussing. A surreal feeling overcame me as I looked at the trail in the dirt leading over the land and out of sight toward the tree line. The trail was cut through the earth about six inches deep; as if something extremely heavy was dragged unwillingly across it. It frightened me to think of what could have carved such a path.

“Well, I’d better go bring her back, Emmett. Are you comin’?”

“Light-o-fire, no! Ain’t my job to run em down. Ain’t my job! Never was!”

“Son, I know this makes no sense to you. I have lived my life hoping that I would never need to explain any of this; that it would all be over by now or just something handed down to your great grandkids without you even knowing. Maybe even something that would leave this family all together and let somebody else fight this fight.”

My father squatted down and remained in a seated position, resting atop his worn work boots. He dragged a small rock through the dirt and affixed his eyes somewhere far away; beyond this tree-lined circle of stench, and far beyond my realm of understanding. When he spoke, his voice was low and stern. His chin rose in a prideful jut and his legs straightened as he lifted his body while speaking.

“For now, just take it as it comes and forget everything that you know that is real. I’ve raised you strong and have been preparing you for this for some time. I just didn’t know that the time would be at sixteen years old. I will explain it further when we get home, but for now suck it up and be strong for me. I know that you got it in you.”

My father’s words were deafening to me. I could not guess what he might be preparing me for or what waited for us near the tree line. I only knew that I was a kid who was scared and wanted to go home to my normal life; not this strange world of hissing “she’s” and the babbling of an old man about a Tonder. I felt my reality slipping away.

“Do you understand me Sutter? I need you with me right now.”

Nervously I replied, “I’m with you.”

But the words fell out of my mouth and bounced over the tops of my trembling feet like a balloon poured full with hardened steel.

“I knew that you would be. Just let me get something out of the truck.”

I walked a few steps behind my father as he opened the truck door and removed his rosary from around the rear view mirror. He kissed the feet of the crucifix before placing it around his neck tucking it under the collar of his sweat stained t-shirt. With me still swimming in his wake, he started toward the rock pile in the back yard once again. As we approached the collection of rocks and mortar, the man my father called Balsavoy stood there waiting. He extended his shotgun to my father.

“Take it, Chaser.”

“You know that this gun ain’t no use to us.”

“I know, but take it anyway, ya never know.”

“You keep it, Emmett, I would feel better if you had it. Sutter, let’s go.”

My father and I started out over the unforgiving ground following the deep cuts through the land. The morning sun had heated the air to a point of intolerability. I thought that by now I would have grown accustomed to the smell, but with each step closer to the trees the strength of the stench intensified. We crested the slope of the land and figure came into view in the distance. My heart began to race with fear and the thought of turning back became ever-present. I could not clearly see what this figure was and my father’s footsteps slowed until we both stopped. We had been walking for ten minutes without speaking and my lungs burned with agony. My father began to speak slowly and clearly.

“Well, there she is.”

From my vantage point I could not tell of any markings on the object that would lead me to believe that this hideous thing we were to soon approach was a she. About one hundred yards from us moved a gelatinous substance that resembled a semi-transparent pile of sticky flesh. Two gnarled and boney arms protruded away from us and were slowly clawing at the ground beside the fleshy pile as if blindly searching for something that was not there. With every motion, clods of earth were expelled behind the mass only accompanied by the sound of slow scraping in what is best described as a sporadic four- count. The creature made no other sound except for the rhythmic scraping and clawing as fingernails on a dry chalk board. My muscles stiffened and I realized that I must tell my body to breathe, as painful as it seemed. I felt a sour burning in my throat and recognized the bitter taste of adrenaline. My eyes remained steadily fixed upon the abomination and the strength to look away was not found within me.

“Dad, I want to go home.”

“Son, we’ve got a job to do right now and I need you. Stay with me for just a while longer.”

“What is it…what is that, thing?”

“Right now, just know that it’s our job. We’ve got to get this back to the rock pile so Emmett can contain it again. Don’t think too hard, Son, just do what I tell you.”

I followed a few steps behind my father and we began moving forward slowly. As we approached the beast my eyes began to burn and tear from the odor and apparent heat culminating from what laid before us. I was more afraid than I have ever felt and reluctance had taken over my senses. My father removed a white handkerchief from his back pocket and handed it to me. I quickly placed it over my nose and mouth. A realization came over me and replaced my paranoia with a sense that we were approaching evil.