(Based on an old Irish folktale)
It was just a few days after that huge blow-out with his wife, which had resulted in horrible things being said on both sides and necessitating a visit to the marriage counselor to patch it all up, but Teague was easily led astray yet again by a pal from work.
It was Josh Jackson, the boss’s son, who invited Teague to go have a few at Garcia’s Irish Pub before heading home after the day’s work at the bank.
“Sorry, Josh, no can do,” Teague said with genuine regret. “I promised my wife I’d come straight home after work.”
Josh shook his head and said, “Just how long have you two been married?”
“Seven years,” said Teague.
“Well,” pronounced Josh, who wasn’t married, “I would think that after seven years a man would want to see a little daylight between his wife and him. Just sayin’.”
Teague shrugged. He had felt like that since before he and Alison were married.
“I’m sure glad I’m not married,” Josh continued. “I would rather be dead than be led around by my pubic hairs by some pussy. They call it ‘pussy whipped,’ don’t they?”
“I am not pussy whipped,” Teague said hotly. “It’s just that my wife and I have just patched things up after a big fight, and…”
“And she won,” said Josh. “Sorry, Teague, I’m just pulling your chain. You’re okay. Just go on home and enjoy your wife.”
“I really do want to go with you,” Teague said, squirming. “It’s just that…”
“We can do it some other time,” said Josh.
“No,” said Teague, suddenly deciding. “I’ll do it. I won’t stay long. She probably won’t even notice. If she does, I’ll just tell her I got held up by a train.”
Josh gave Teague a thump on the back, and off they went.
The two guys went to the bar and purchased their fluids and scanned the premises for promising-looking chicks. Teague had already slipped his wedding ring into his wallet. But the prospects didn’t look too good until Josh spotted someone sitting at a table on the other side of the room.
“Hey, there’s someone I know!” he exclaimed, pointing and waving. “And she’s got a friend.” The girl in question grinned and gestured for them to come over. She was a pert blonde and the friend a sultry brunette. They both looked good to Teague, so they made their way through the shoals of tables and chairs to join these two women.
Josh got the blonde because he already knew her, and that left the brunette for Teague. She didn’t look nearly as hot close up as she did from across the room. She was much older, for one thing, and she had the wrinkles around mouth and eyes that women get when they have been smoking for a long time. Sure enough, when she exhaled, Teague could smell the metabolic byproducts of tobacco consumption, and when she spoke, each word emerged sheathed in mucus like a California moray eel.
She thrust out her hand for Teague to shake, and said, “Hi, I’m Alicia!” Teague took the hand but didn’t offer a name in return, but when he tried to withdraw his appendage, she deployed her second hand to keep his hand captive in both of hers.
“I’m delighted to meet you, Tiger,” she said, and Teague didn’t bother to correct her. They went through the usual conversational rituals of the newly-introduced: so, what do you do, are you from around here, do you come here often, what do you think of this weather and so on. The woman was tipsy, and she laughed knowingly at everything Teague said. Teague kept trying to give Josh meaningful looks, but Josh was obviously hitting it off with his girl, so help was not likely to come from that quarter. Teague scanned the room for someone he might know, or even for an unattached female but the field was barren.
“Excuse me,” Teague said, starting to rise, but Alicia seized his hand again.
“Do you play golf?” she asked.
“’Course I do,” Teague replied testily. “In my line of work, it’s kind of required.”
“And with the name of Tiger, it’s kind of required,” added Alicia, and she laughed heartily at her own wit, or in her case, lack of it. Her laugh sounded like she was coughing up glue. Teague retreated to the bathroom. He urinated, sad when it ended, contemplated attempting to poop, but felt that there wasn’t anything down there waiting in the wings. He took his time washing and drying his hands. And then took a peak out the door and found Alicia staring right at him. She grinned and waved him back.
Grimly, he made his way back, thinking that he should at least tell Josh that he was heading out. But Josh was intertwined with his blonde, intersecting his body parts with hers to the extent that is legal in public. Alicia grabbed his arm as he approached. He liberated the appendage and said, “I’m sorry, but I gotta get going. My wife is waiting for me.”
There was perhaps a flicker in Alicia’s eyes at the mention of the wife, but it passed quickly. “Oh, it won’t kill her to wait a little,” she said. “Do you believe in God?”
“I don’t like to talk about religion,” Teague said, still standing.
“Well, then, how about ghosts? Do you believe in ghosts?”
“No,” Teague said.
“Well, they probably don’t believe in you either.” Teague stalked out of the bar, leaving Alicia laughing and hacking.
The traffic was bad and he did get stopped by a freight train, and when he got home he found his wife, Alison, weeping on the couch and dressed in a sheer blue nightie.
“Darling, what’s wrong?” he asked, sitting down next to her and putting a hand on her shoulder. Trying to sound concerned when all he wanted to do was slap the nonsense out of her. She yanked her shoulder away from his touch.
“You promised!” she wailed.
“Promised?”
“That you would come straight home from work.”
“I did. But the traffic was bad and there was a train…”
“But first you went to a bar! And messed around!”
“No, I didn’t!”
She turned to glare at him with watery eyes. “You think I can’t tell? I can smell it on you. The beer. And smoke. And you’ve taken off your ring!”
Teague glanced at his hand and swore silently to himself. He had indeed forgotten to replace the ring.
“I had to take it off at work,” he said, thinking fast. “I was using this machine, and if the ring got caught in it I could lose my finger.”
Alison snorted. “What machine? You’re a banker, not a factory worker!”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“You are a liar!” And so they were off, tearing each other to pieces.
“…and I bet you don’t even remember what today is!” Alison cried.
Teague had no idea which today Alison meant. It seemed to him that every day was a special today that meant something profound to Alison that he was supposed to remember and celebrate with her. He knew that this today wasn’t one of the big ones: her birthday or their anniversary or Valentine’s Day.
“You’re right, I don’t remember what today is! The anniversary of when you squeezed your first zit? Or when you got your first period? Or when your dog died…”
“Not my dog, my budgie! You asshole! You know how much Mr. Puddy meant to me…”
Teague could feel the fury and bile rising in him. He stood up, and abruptly vomited. Alison shrieked and shoved him so hard that he lost his balance and fell, striking his head against the corner of the coffee table. He blacked out momentarily, and when he came to with his head pounding with pain, all he wanted was to get out of that apartment.
How could I have ever loved this woman? Teague thought to himself. Out loud, he said softly, “I despise you, Alison. I am so done with you. You infantile, navel-gazing, narcissistic, self-centered, manipulative brat. All those hours at the marriage counselor, where I was told how I needed to change.” He waited for Alison to respond, but she didn’t. She had left the room. So he repeated himself, louder, expecting a wail or furious retort. All he heard was a sniffly moaning sound from the bedroom. He took his wedding ring out of his wallet and flung it hard against the bedroom door.
He left the apartment, giving the door a good, hard slam on the way out.
Teague and Alison lived about a block away from a pub called Hook, Line and Sinker. They didn’t go there very often because Alison thought it was low-class and Teague didn’t particularly enjoy the clientele (college students) or their music. But they did serve alcohol, and right now Teague was far more interested in drinking than in socializing. He surged into the joint scowling, like a tiny storm cloud, plopped himself down at the bar and ordered a gin and tonic. After rapidly engulfing the drink, he ordered another and took it a bit more slowly. He was sitting there rubbing his aching head and trying to squeeze every last molecule of juice out of his lime slice when four college girls noisily entered the establishment. They clattered their way over to the bar and commandeered the stools next to where Teague was sitting. He did his best to ignore them, because the very last thing he wanted, at that moment, was to interact with more damn women.
At first they seemed content to ignore Teague; they were focused on the bartender, their drinks, their snacks and each other. They shrieked their laughter and squealed their commentary, poking each other both physically and verbally, scuffling playfully with each other. Teague figured that they were already drunk before they even had come into the pub. He considered moving to a table, but then thought to himself, “No, I’m not letting them drive me away from where I want to be.” He tried to tune them out. It was like trying to tune out a tornado siren, or rather, four discordant tornado sirens, each howling out of phase with the others.
Suddenly they all quieted while one of them told a joke. “What does the receptionist at a sperm bank say to the donors when they are leaving? ‘Thanks for coming!’”
Teague snorted, glanced at the speaker for a second, and then quickly looked away. But it was too late. He had made eye-contact.
For a beat, all four girls were silent at the same time, staring at Teague with shining eyes, lips parted in anticipation of fun. Then they cascaded into raucous laughter.
“Hey, you’re cute. What’s your name?” asked the closest girl.
Teague, still sour from his encounter with Alison and before that, Alicia, said the first name that came into his head. “Justin.”
“Justin,” repeated the girl. “Is your last name Case? Justin Case?” The girls shouted their laughter.
“Ha, ha,” said Teague, with a scowl.
Before he could stop her, the girl reached past Teague and grabbed his drink. “What’s this?” she asked. Without waiting for an answer, she took a big gulp and handed the drink back.
“Wow, that’s strong! And delicious. What is it?”
“Gin and tonic,” growled Teague.
The girl called the bartender over. “Set us all up with gin and tonics. Including one for Justin here.”
“See?” she said to Teague. “We’re not so bad.”
Teague had to admit that they were indeed not so bad, and as his blood alcohol levels ascended, so did his opinions of the four young women. He didn’t know any of their names, and they were all blonde, and at first he couldn’t tell them apart. But he came to think of them as the tall one, the chubby one, the one with the big chin, and the quiet one. The quiet one was not quiet at all except in comparison to her companions. She was obviously having a good time, but she giggled rather than guffawed and spoke very little.
Teague was completely and utterly plastered, and was fine with that. At length the bartender announced that it was time for everyone to drink up because it was closing time. Teague soon found himself staggering around outside on a cold, rainy autumn night while the four girls tried to keep him on his feet. “Let’s all go to our apartment,” suggested the tall one. Teague most emphatically did not want to go back to his own apartment and Alison, so he ended up stumbling along in a line of five drunk people spanning the broad city sidewalk as they headed for the girls’ apartment.
The apartment was big and roomy. Teague headed straight over to a ring of couches surrounding a central coffee table and flopped himself down. The quiet girl went and sat in a nearby rocking chair, and the other three girls sat down on the couches with Teague. “Anybody hungry?” said the chubby one. Teague realized that he was ravenous; he had had no supper. So the chubby girl went off to the kitchen and came back with bowls of chips, pretzels and dip, and then went back for some beers. Teague wolfed down the snacks, and it seemed to him that he had never tasted anything better. Likewise, the beer tasted uncommonly good. The three girls sat around telling anecdotes and jokes, and although the quiet girl didn’t participate in this, she smiled and winked at Teague whenever he looked over at her.
But slowly, almost imperceptibly, the tone of the conversation began to change. What had started out as friendly and harmless banter began gradually to become more personal and pointed, as if the girls were tossing little darts at Teague. Finally, after the big-chinned girl asked him how many times a day he masturbated and with which hand, Teague snapped. “Why are you doing this,” he demanded. “Why are you talking to me like this?”
“Oh, we’re just fooling around with you,” said the tall one. “Don’t be so sensitive.”
“Let me put on some music,” said the chubby one. “Alexa, play our playlist.” The music was some of the worst that Teague had ever heard. It was discordant and structureless, with low, ominous thrumming beats accompanied by several offkey, high-pitched voices that sounded more like insects than humans.
“What sort of music is that?” Teague demanded. He refrained from covering his ears because he thought it would be rude.
“What, you don’t know them? It’s a band called The Devil’s Own.” The three girls got up from the couch and began dancing a jerky, spastic-looking dance. The fourth girl smiled at them from the rocking chair.
“Dance with me, Justin,” said the big-chinned girl, holding out her hand to him.
“Sorry, I don’t dance,” replied Teague.
“Aw, come on,” she wheedled.
“No, I’m good,” Teague said. He grabbed a handful of pretzel bits and stuffed them into his mouth. He almost spat them out. They had tasted fine a moment ago, but now they suddenly seemed very stale. He took a swig of beer to wash away the taste, but the beer had gotten flat. He wiped his mouth and sat back, watching the girls dance. The music had gotten faster and louder, and he thought he could feel the return of his headache.
It seemed to Teague as though the girls didn’t look the same way they had at first. The girl in the rocking chair looked the same, but Teague fancied that the tall one was looking more angular and masculine than he had remembered, the chubby one was looking older, and the big-chinned one was looking uglier. He rubbed his eyes and considered going home to his own apartment. He pushed the thought away. He didn’t want to go back there ever.
The chubby girl gyrated her way over to Teague and held out her hand. “Dance with me, Justin,” she said.
Teague said, “No, I’m no good at dancing. I like just watching you dance.” She shrugged, looked away, and then gyrated back to the other side of the room.
Teague grabbed a chip and a glob of dip, and stuffed it into his mouth. This time he did spit it out, into his hand. What the hell? It tasted downright moldy, the dip rancid and spoiled. He looked longingly at the bottle of beer, but was afraid to try it. The grinding base beat of the dreadful music sped up and slowed down, and it seemed to Teague that his heartbeat sped up and slowed down with it.
One of the girls lowered the lights to a pulsing glimmer. Teague squinted at the three dancers and could swear that they did indeed seem to be changing. The tall one appeared to have a mustache and the hint of a beard. The chubby one’s hair looked more white than blonde, and she had deep wrinkles around her mouth and eyes. The big-chinned one’s chin had grown longer and curved upward toward her now hooked and enormous nose.
Suddenly, Teague wondered if they had spiked his beer. He staggered to his feet.
The tall one noticed. “Ah, Justin,” she said, her voice deeper than before, “so have you decided to dance with me?”
“No!” exclaimed Teague. He turned to look for the door out of the apartment, and his eyes fell on the food sitting on the coffee table. Instead of chips, dip and pretzels, the bowls convulsed with writhing cockroaches, maggots, and worms. He gave a shout of dismay and headed for the door.
The tall one moved quickly to block his path. She definitely looked like a man now, with long, straw-colored hair, beard and mustache. “You can’t leave now, Teague,” he said.
Teague felt a spike of fear when he realized that the tall one had used his real name. “J…Justin,” he stammered. “And I am leaving. Now.” He attempted to push his way past the tall one, to make his escape. But six pairs of arms seized him and threw him to the floor.
“You can’t leave now, Teague,” repeated the tall one. “You belong to us now.”
“You accepted our hospitality,” said the chubby one, her voluminous flesh sagging off her face in a cascade of wrinkles.
“You ate of our food,” said the hideous one, whose nose and chin almost met like the cartoon drawings of a witch. Great patches of skin appeared to be missing from her face, revealing raw muscle underneath, and her hair was missing in patches.
“You drank of our beer,” said the tall one.
“And yet, when we asked you to dance with us, you said no,” continued the ancient chubby one.
“You said no three times,” added the hideous one.
“And therefore you belong to us…”
“Until your debts to us are repaid.”
“Repaid…how?” Teague quavered. “I can dance with you if that’s really what you want. But I’m not a good dancer.”
“The time for dancing is past.”
“No, you must perform one task for each of us.”
“What sort of tasks?” asked Teague. He tried to inch his way toward the door, sliding on his backside, but the chubby old one braced her legs against his shoulders and stopped him.
“My task for you is for you to pick up the corpse and carry her on your back,” she said.
“OK, I’m out of here,” said Teague. He tried to jump up, but the three grabbed him and flung him back to the floor, hard. He lay there, aching and gasping for breath.
“My task for you is for you to pick up the corpse and carry her on your back,” repeated the old one.
“What corpse?” moaned Teague.
The three pointed to the fourth girl, the one sitting quietly in the rocking chair. Teague looked where they pointed, hoping somehow that this was all a joke. After all, the girl certainly had not been a corpse the last time he had looked at her.
But she definitely was a corpse now. And she looked as though she had been one for a while. Her sweet smile had changed to a rictus grin, and Teague could smell corruption and hear the buzzing of flies. As Teague looked on, a fly landed on her face and walked across her staring, sightless eyeball. “What happened to her?” Teague stammered.
“She died. So you must lift her onto your back.”
“No way!” he shouted, charging to his feet, and again they seized him and flung him to the floor, so hard that he lay there stunned.
“You are wasting time,” said the old one. The three of them dragged him over to the rocking chair, forced him to sit on the corpse’s lap, and then wrapped her arms around Teague’s neck and her legs around his middle. Then they hauled him to his feet. Teague felt the corpse’s limbs tighten around his body as he swayed on his feet, and crying out, he attempted to pull the girl’s arms off his neck. But the harder he pulled on her arms, the tighter she gripped him until he couldn’t breathe. He would have fallen if the three creatures hadn’t held him upright.
“You have completed my task,” said the chubby one, “and now your debt to me is paid.”
“My task for you is this,” said the hideous one. “I bid you to take that corpse to a holy burying ground where it can be put to rest. There are four such places in this area, but I don’t know which one is right for this corpse. You will have to try each place until you find one that will accept it.”
“Right now? In the middle of the night?” cried Teague.
The third one, the male one, stepped up to Teague and roughly grabbed his arm. “I bid you to bury the corpse when you have come to the right place. You must dig a good grave, place the corpse within, and cover it with the cold clay and place everything back the way it was so that no one will be able to tell that anything was done. And yes, it must be done now, for if the sun rises before that corpse is buried, you are lost and will not see your home again.”
Suddenly Teague wanted very much to see his home again. Even with Alison in it.
The three women then seized him roughly and thrust him through the door. They pushed and shoved him out of the building and out onto the street, where they harried him and hurried him as he staggered under the weight of his burden. Sometimes they shoved him too hard and he fell heavily, and they prodded him with their toes until he rose and staggered on. For blocks they drove him until they came to an old, abandoned church. The church’s windows were boarded up, and a big padlock fastened the door shut. The front of the church was covered with graffiti.
They stopped on the sidewalk in front of the church. “Here is a burying place,” said the hideous one.
“Take it in there and bury it, if you can,” said the male one.
“We can’t follow you in there, so now you are on your own,” said the old one. “Now remember, have it interred by sunrise.”
They gave him a final shove that sent him staggering onto the church steps, where he fell to his knees. When he got up and looked around, the three women were gone. He tried once again to remove the corpse, but again it gripped him tighter. Resigned, he looked at the padlocked door and had no idea how to get in. He pushed the door to see how sound it was, and it didn’t yield at all. He took his jackknife from his pocket and poked half-heartedly at the hinges and handles of the door, but the door was plainly too stout for such an implement. Putting his face in his hands, he moaned with frustration. “I have no idea how to get in there.”
“Reach up your hand to the top of the door frame and feel around up there. There is a key to the padlock up there,” said a nearby voice. Startled, Teague looked around but saw no one. The voice repeated, “Reach up your hand to the top of the door frame and feel around up there. There is a key to the padlock up there.”
“Who’s talking to me?” cried Teague. “I can’t see you!”
“It is I, the corpse on your back,” replied the voice. “Now, reach up your hand to the top of the door frame and feel around up there. There is a key to the padlock up there.”
So Teague reached up and felt about for the key and found it. He unlocked the padlock, pushed the door open and entered the dark church. He could see absolutely nothing, and it took almost no time for him to stumble over an irregularity in the floor of the old church. He crouched down, despairing.
“Light a candle,” said the corpse.
“What candle?” Teague cried, but the corpse didn’t answer.
Teague took out his lighter and struck it. In the light of the flame, he saw several candle holders lying about; one of them had a candle stub still in it and he lit it. The dismal light flickered in the moldy air of the old church, making shadows dance all around him. He couldn’t see what was casting the shadows, and their movements reminded him of the chaotic dancing of the three women.
“There is a spade next to the pulpit,” said the corpse. Teague fetched it, but then hesitated, unsure where he should dig. The church floor was covered with huge flagstones.
“Use the spade to pry up a flagstone,” said the corpse.
Teague did so and found dirt underneath it. He dug into the dirt with difficulty, with the weight of the corpse hindering his movements. He dug down for a couple of feet, and then abruptly the point of the spade plunged into something soft and yielding.
Peering into the hole, Teague saw that he had encountered a body already buried there. The head and shoulders of a man were just visible sticking out of the dirt. The realization that he had plunged his spade into a human body made him gag. He staggered back from the hole for a moment to recover and to ponder his next move.
“Can I bury you along with this fellow?” Teague asked the corpse on his back, but it doesn’t answer. However, the corpse in the hole sat up suddenly and began scratching at the air, trying to seize Teague.
“Don’t you dare put anyone in with me!” screamed the old man. “You monster! You beast! Get out of my grave!”
Terrified, Teague began throwing dirt onto the old man’s corpse, and to his intense relief the corpse subsided as soon as it has a bit of dirt on it. Teague quickly filled in the hole, being careful to scrape all the dirt back in, and then he restored the flagstone to its former position.
Trying another flagstone, Teague began to dig again. No more than a foot down he encountered the body of an old woman. She began to thrash around and moan. Not waiting, Teague threw the dirt back into the grave and restored the flagstone.
Trying yet again, this time Teague saw the hand of a corpse sticking up as soon as he removed the flagstone. He replaced the flagstone and then started to cry. “I guess this isn’t the right place,” he moaned, “but I don’t know what to do or where to go.”
At these words, the corpse on his back flung out an arm and pointed to the door.
Numbly, Teague followed the pointing hand to the door, leaving the spade and the candle inside the church.
When he stepped outside, he found that the rain had returned, a cold, stinging, miserable autumn rain, and that the wind had picked up. “Now which way do I go?” he asked. The arm pointed again, and Teague began staggering in that direction. He was more tired than ever, and he began shivering under the assault of the wind and the stinging rain.
He struggled through the thick, wet darkness it seemed forever, hoping that he would recognize “the right place” when he saw it. The uneven sidewalk made him stumble and sometimes fall. He wanted to just stay there, lying on the ground, until someone could come along and find him and rescue him. But if he lingered supine too long, the corpse on his back started to tighten her grip until he couldn’t breathe.
Finally he espied a cemetery, an urban cemetery in the middle of the city. “Maybe this is the place?” he suggested, but the corpse did not respond. From a distance, he thought he could see vague human figures milling about within and around the cemetery. At first their movements seemed random, but once he was about a block away, they took notice of him. The figures lined themselves up along the cemetery wall, facing him. He came a bit closer, and they began shimmying back and forth, and a hissing sound arose from them. He could make out frowning, threatening faces.
Clearly, this was not the right place.
He turned back and continued in the direction indicated by the corpse. The temperature continued to plummet, and now bits of ice were mixed in with the rain. If Teague had ever felt more miserable in his life, he couldn’t remember it.
Eventually he came to another church, this one with a small graveyard. In the graveyard was a mausoleum with its door invitingly ajar. Feeling hopeful, he hurried into the mausoleum, but something… he never saw what, but it was huge… something picked him up and flung him out of the churchyard with such force that he flew across the street and struck his head on the curb. He lay there trying to catch his breath for as long as he dared. Then he got up and continued on his way.
He staggered through the streets of the city while the buildings around him grew smaller and he was in what appeared to be suburbia, with little white houses and neat yards. The sidewalk disappeared and he was obliged to walk in the street, wading through vast puddles.
And finally, he saw another cemetery. “This must be the right place!” he cried. He entered the cemetary and met with no resistance. And then he saw an open grave, with a pile of dirt next to it! He hurried over, half-expecting to see a corpse in the hole, but the grave was empty. As he leaned over, looking in, the corpse slid off his back with a sigh, and landed in the hole. He began shovelling the dirt over the corpse, and had gotten most of the grave filled in by the time the sun rose.
He remembered what the masculine woman of the trio had said to him. The corpse had to be buried by the time the sun rose, or he would never return home. He wondered if he had made it. On the one hand, the corpse was entirely covered, and the grave nearly full of dirt. Did that count as “buried”? Teague thought it did. On the other hand, there was still some dirt left. Teague quickly shoveled in that last bit, and then stood up and stretched.
It was over. Now he had to figure out how to get home. He had no idea where he was or how to find his way home. His phone had disappeared from his pocket long before.
He staggered out to the street and began trudging back the way he had come. The rain had stopped and the sun was up and he felt much better.
A police car came down the road and slowed, then stopped. The cop turned on his lights and pulled over, then got out of his car to approach Teague.
“Are you okay?” asked the cop.
“I’m lost,” said Teague.
“You’re covered with dirt,” noted the cop. “You been in the cemetery, digging up a corpse?” The cop said it lightly, like a joke.
Teague laughed. “No,” he said, “actually, I’ve been burying one.”
The cop put handcuffs on him and had him sit in the back of the patrol car. It felt so good to sit in a warm, dry place that Teague didn’t mind. He wasn’t worried. After all, if the cops dug up that corpse, the three women would be angry at them, not at Teague. Teague had done what he had been told to do.
More cops came. They exhumed the corpse, and then brought Teague over to look at her. “Tell us who this is,” they ordered him.
He was about to say he didn’t know, but then realized he was looking at Alison.