Terror Tales

MUD

It were black like tar, and the plants that sprung from its murky edges grew darker than anything else in the bayou. The first and last time I seen it were on that day. It weren't a quarter mile from the house and amazingly I had grown fifteen years and never once runned across it before. It were black mud and downright ever bit as dangerous as quicksand, course I didn't know it at the time.

Papa just always seemed to favor her more, my sister Elina that is. She were four years younger than me to the day. "That girls as bright as sunshine" papa always said of her. I hated her, I admit it, and she were a nuisance. Hell, Elina followed me round like an old hound ever where I went and this day were like any other, except I was going to see Tommy Dalbret and I didn't need no kid following me round. He was a feller I liked and he had even given me a silver heart locket which I wore around my neck. I seen her coming and I cut out through the brush and round the polder with her quick on my heels. I ran as fast as I could through briar patches and round tree stumps, heck anything to slow her down or stop her altogether.

"Come on Emilie, I just wanna come along?" She hollered from behind me.

"No Elina, go home, I don't want you along."

Then I turned round this tree and crossed some thick black grass and hunkered down hiding within its tall leafy stalks. As I looked out I saw what looked like a small water pocket in the middle of the dark grass, but it wasn't. I watched there from my hiding spot and saw its thick sludge oozing and bubbling around the black swamp grass. Almost in the same moment, I heard Elina not ten feet from me suddenly call out.

"Help me Emilie" she screamed. I looked through the grass and I could see her, she were caught in the mud and, at first, I thought she were kidding. Then I saw she were sinking, slowly mind you but she were sinking. I stood up and she saw me.

"Oh there you are, help me, Emilie, I can't get out."

I took a couple of steps toward her, I could almost touch her. I don't know what it was, anger, resentment, jealousy, but I just stood there.

"Please Emilie, she screamed, Help me!"

But I just watched, then she reached out in a desperate attempt and grabbed my shirt, pulling tugging practically tearing the shirt from my body, trying to free herself and I pushed her away. I then saw it in her hand, my locket, she had pulled the chain from my neck and was holding my locket.

"Emilie what are you doing? Help me" I watched as she stood in the muck more than waste deep, holding her arms up trying to gain some footing. Her shirt almost completely covered in the sticky sludge.

"Emilie, what are you doing, don't just stand there, Help me?" But I just stood there a watching, watching as she slowly sank, deeper and deeper all the time screaming my name until finally, there was a shimmer of silver in the sunlight as the black water just sucked her down. I never told no one, nor papa and he searched and searched for her for the next six months. After that, he went into a depression that I guessed lasted the rest of his life. That's been almost thirteen years ago.

Emilie Legault hadn't been home to Fargo in a long time, ten years to be exact. She claimed Fargo as her home, but in truth she'd never even been there, it had been the closest city she had known as a child so it was where she had just always said she was from. Her family in truth were swamp people, something she was always ashamed of. They had a small house just off the western shore of Monkey lake just above the Florida state line in the Okefenokee. There were no roads to her house the only accesses were some real rough and dangerous trails and of course by water. Her grandmother and uncle were the only families she had left now that papa had died. She wasn't even sure why she came to the funeral. Her family didn't have funerals in the normal sense of thinking, and he didn't like her and she didn't like being here, but here she is. She had rented a small boat and now pulled up to the old dock, looking up at the tattered house she had been raised in. It looked much smaller than she remembered. Her Uncle was standing on the dock to greet her and pulled her bag from the boat as soon as it was moored.

"You're late," he said not even looking her in the face.

"I know, traffic was a mess"

"No, I mean" he went on, "Your late we done buried him last night."

"What? You knew I was coming" she replied.

"Hell Emilie he was getting ripe, and we weren't sure you were really even coming."

'Where?" she asked

"Where what?" he replied.

"Where did you bury him?"

"Out at the north point." He said turning to point in the direction.

Emilie was off, she knew where the spot was, she had to just go there say her peace and get the hell out of here forever.

"You'll never get there before dark" he hollered out at her.

She ignored him and made her way across the wet ground crossing a long polder and then off in through the trees. Everything looked so different, and she kept getting turned around. The skies slowly darkened above her till there were only the stars and half a moon to give her light. She was about to give up and turn around when she saw it there near the shadows. A rough sewn cross and fresh ground, cautiously she walked toward it. The darkness pulling at her. The trees rustled around her in the night air as she moved closer and closer. She stood there above it ready to confess her life to her father then there in the dirt at the head of the grave was something shimmering, sparkling in the moonlight and as she knelt to pick it up, the swamp suddenly became eerily quiet. Slowly she pulled it from its earthly waste and gasp in horror it was her heart locket. "But," she thought, suddenly she heard a noise behind her. Her hair stood up on her arms and she began to shake. She dared not turn around, then the name just fell from her lips.

"Elina" she said out loud, "Elina is that you?" she whispered as she began to turn then suddenly something grabbed her, biting into her leg and she screamed.

The next morning her uncle came out looking for Emilie. There she lay white with fear and cold beneath the old rough sewn cross. Still holding a dirty heart shaped locket with a bit of briar caught around her ankle, she was dead...