The Past Is Never by Tiffany Quay Tyson

Author:Tiffany Quay Tyson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2018-03-02T05:00:00+00:00

We left the sheriff’s office and drove to the field where the quarry used to stand. It was one of those late summer nights when the stars seemed especially thick and close. If you let your gaze go soft, you felt like you could reach up and grab a handful of light. We sat in the bed of Willet’s truck and passed a flask of whiskey between us. We cursed Daddy while toasting him.

“I guess he didn’t have Pansy after all,” I said.

“Sorry sonofabitch,” Willet said. “I sure thought he did.”

“We’ve got to tell Granny Clem. And Chester, I guess.” I didn’t look forward to breaking the news.

“Tomorrow,” Willet said.

“I don’t understand what he was doing in Florida. And if things were so bad he was living on the street, how could pay for a whole month in a motel?” I took a sip from the flask. The whiskey burned my throat. “Why wouldn’t he come home to us? We could have helped him.”

“Don’t it seem like our lives are just a bunch of questions with no answers, Bert?” Willet took a long pull on the flask. “I’m goddamned tired of being all question and no answer.”

In the distance, something howled. It might have been an old hound dog or a banshee witch. The nearly full moon hung behind a fuzzy wisp of clouds. I took another swig of whiskey. My thoughts went soft and my body felt warm. The whiskey helped drown the heebie-jeebies I felt whenever I was near the quarry. I drank some more. “I saw something in the woods the day Pansy disappeared.”

Willet looked at me. “What do you mean?”

“When you left me alone and the storm came, I saw some sort of creature in the woods. A monster. It was carrying something. I think it might have been carrying Pansy.”

“What the hell, Bert?”

“I didn’t think you’d believe me. I was ashamed to be seeing monsters at my age. It seemed stupid.”

“Goddammit, Bert, why didn’t you say something back then?”

Clouds moved over the moon and a star shot across the sky. I made a wish, but nothing happened. The old quarry was nothing more than a pile of dirt even after all those years. It ought to have been overgrown with weeds and vines. Daddy was right about the quarry. If even the kudzu wouldn’t crawl over it, it must be poisoned land. I asked Willet why nothing grew there.

“I mean, I can understand why there are no trees,” I said. “But no wild grass? No pokeweed? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Willet grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “What did you see that day? Because I heard something. I heard someone in the woods.”

“Maybe you heard Bubba.” He shook me again. My head felt heavy as it wobbled on my neck.

“I don’t believe it was Bubba. It sounded bigger than Bubba and it was crashing through the trees.”

“Why didn’t I hear that?” My voice sounded funny, like it was traveling through a tunnel. Willet’s face kept floating in and out of focus.

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