Justin Pepe

The Swamp

Oh, how the swamp stunk in the sticky humid August night. That sweet reek of the endless purgatory in the marshlands. Somewhere lost in the middle was the shack where Brad Gum lived with his wife. He let his toe dip into the black nebulous of the duckweed plated water and watched as the ripples shimmied outward catching the white moonlight on their crests. The oppressive heat sweltered under the arms of Brad Gum and he shifted on the dock as hot beads of sweat ran down his lower back into the band of his three-day-old underwear. He looked out over the bayou through the vapors of humidity and lights of fireflies that winked as the stars above. A frog trilled from somewhere under the ramshackle dock made of rotting, moist planks. Locusts sawed on from the pitch. Brad’s jeans were ripped into capris above the ankle. Oh, did the swamp stink this time of year. 

The axe which was gnawed and splatted with orange rust was leaning restfully on a soggy, moss-capped, timber that was sunk in near the tall grass at the shore. Brad knew the swamp smelt, he knew that his floundering home in the swamp stunk, but he himself could not smell it. Brad was devoid of all sense of smell. His own stink, the stink of others at the store in summer, and the mildew stench of his homeland, of the swamp, were all but scentless steam in his hair filled nostrils. The light of orange embers smoldering at the end of his smoke, and the moon above was caught up in the silvery pools of the eyes of alligators staring, watching, lurking below him. They were invisible apart from this singular give away and would have otherwise been lost to the backdrop as logs or clumps of dirty weed in the murk. But they, like he, were there, part of the night, part of the swamp, predatory and monstrous.  

His wife was upstairs in the bathtub. Happier than he? As he watched the ripples evaporate into the gloom and blackness of the bayou mists perhaps, perhaps not. He could not find the capacity to care. He breathed in deep in a vain attempt to take in the odious bouquet of the marsh but nothing came to him, nothing more than breathing in the vapors over a boiling pot of water on the stove. The only light in the shabby dwelling was coming down in a warm shaft onto the dock from the cracked bathroom window on the second floor. Brad got up from the end of the dock as he heard the grinding of car tires coming along the long gravel driveway leading to his secluded bit of land in the wild swamp. He threw his smoke down from the dock into the water which hit with a sound like a match dying under a faucet. Something jumped at this and splattered in a large waking wave into the black water. He pictured something with pale eyes and ribbed skin that would be eaten by a largemouth bass or a snake upon making such a debut into the stinking surf.  The headlights cut through the stifling summer mugginess in two long glowing poles before the police car. The car came to a slow rolling stop as Brad made his way to greet the officer. 

“Eve’nin’ Offisah,” said Brad. The officer stepped out from the car which had all the windows down on account of the mug in the air.  

“Evening Brad,” said the sheriff, “The missus home?” 

“Aye,” said Brad spitting a large wad from his mouth, “She be in-dis-posed. In the tub. You need ‘er? I’ll fetch ‘er.” 

“No need to trouble ‘er,” said the sheriff. His expression hardened and he stepped closer to Brad. “But Brad, there’s been some odd complaints from the neighbors down yonder,” he pointed to the Landry’s home a bit to the south. The policeman drew a carton of Lucky Strikes from his breast pocket and lit one with his, as Brad would assume it, fancy city lighter, which clacked and clanged as he flipped the lid open and closed. 

Dumb bastards Brad thought to himself. “Complaints, of wut natchya?” Brad asked. 

“Sump’in’ ‘bout a smell, Brad, something ‘bout a smell like hell. Like a rottin’ animal. They say it waftin’ down on them real bad and they want us to take a look ‘round here,” said the sheriff. “Matta of fackt, place is smellin’ awful ripe tonight.” 

“Swamp,” said Brad as he fingered his mildew ridden bellybutton. He sniffed the cheese that he pulled forth from the cavity with indifference even as the sheriff let his hand casually rest on the revolver strapped to his hip. 

“You got one of dem permits now cher??” Brad said before spitting again. It landed with a loud wet pat on the rocks. 

“I don’t, not yet. Don’t want to trouble you with it, but tell me true, there anything I need to know?” The sheriff asked. Eyes reading Brad’s rather vacant and simple face. 

“Swamp always stinkin’, this time of year. Shit, might be a deer fell down a sinkhole. I can help ya look in the mornin’ okay?” he said. 

“Well sure, that’d be just fine,” said the sheriff who turned back to his car but paused before taking a step. “Say Brad, got any coffee on? I could sure use a cup on the graveyard shift, only if ye please.” 

Brad coughed up something large and gunky in his throat and held it in his mouth before discharging it into the gravel at his bare feet. “Sure, I’m sure missus got something for ye.” 

Brad did an overly polite bow to the officer and bid him towards the porch. The timber plank stairs yelled in protest as the two ascended them, almost cutting out the shrill trill of the tree frogs and crickets. The screen door flapped open with a simple and misused wheek before clacking back into its lock as Brad and the officer entered the putrid residence. 

Water-stained walls, cabinets left open to expose the chipped china like bone beneath a wound, plates and tins on the counters, two matching rough wood chairs with their arched backs pushed out from the small round table where old coffee was left in metal mugs, the officer sniffed. Stink. Swamp? An old oil lantern hung from the ceiling from some old cabling and was the sole source of light in the room. It rocked on the breeze from the open window and allowed its light to cast odd and sharp shadows around the room giving all a distinctly purgatorial feel. The wallpaper, once painted with bright sunflowers, roosters, and diamond patterns sagged on the walls like an ill-fitted dress on a woman and was bunched and torn by water exposing the ribcage of timbering beneath. 

“Awful quiet Brad, thought you said missus is upstairs?” Inquired the officer. 

“Indeed, she be. Coffee still?” Brad inquired back. 

“Matter a’ fact, think I might have a look upstairs?” Asked the officer. 

Brad turned and poured himself a cup of old cold coffee from the moldy pot. The officer quietly unsnapped the cover of his pistol. 

“Uh sure,” shrugged Brad. 

The policeman made his way around through the narrow kitchen avoiding the dirty walls for the earnest desire not to get the filth on himself. The banister to the stair was unsurprisingly cracked in the pillars and rail and as he assented the dirt smeared steps. The pistol was lifted with a creak from the leather holster as the stained steps quacked beneath his boots. He knocked on the bathroom, no answer. He knocked again upon the door and entered. 

There the maggot ridden corpse of Mrs. Gum stared back. Holes where eyes had been, now just an eggy residue dribbled from the sockets. Skin blackening, lips pulled back around yellow teeth. An undefinable and dark liquid dripped from her mandible. She was mutilated in places and her stomach cavity was a gutted hole revealing nothing but a dark pocket under her ribs. She was not the only, nor by appearances, the oldest one left here. The officer’s eyes scanned over other bodies, reddened with fresh blood and blackened with old. Some missing teeth, others seemed chewed and sawed. A fest of gore. The stench, unmentionable other than it burned with purification, roadkill left to decompose for months was the only comparable testament the officer could fathom in the seconds the synapses of his mind had to fire the thought into consciousness. The bathmat caught his attention as small things seem to do in times of crisis such as this, and even the once floral pattern was almost unidentifiable under the smudge of liquid and tissue that stained it. He turned to the door, Brad was there. He was stripped bare, showing the thick forest of fur that extended from the scruff of his chin to his loins. Brad was looking at Ms. Gum in the tub. 

“Well, hun, they think a God-damn deer is making that stink!” Brad hooped, “But by god come morning, the po-lice dogs ain’t nevah gonna ever find you in that damn stinkin’ swamp!” 

That axe, orange with rust still managed to flash in the light of the single hanging bulb of the bathroom. The axe knocked the bulb but did not break it, flashing strobes of shadow and light in dizzying arrays around the room. The freshest red blood flowed over the black stains of the old and the sawing of crickets, frogs, and the lapping of swamp water took over the night. 

The next morning when more officers came, Brad’s bathroom was as ordinary as yours. Clean and welcoming to the point one wouldn’t actually mind using it, despite the rest of the house. All the while the police searched the grounds around the home, Brad brewed fresh coffee for them from a clean pot, and no one noticed that the police car was missing. Only Brad knew now where the vehicle settled, deep in the stinking swamp.