Cannibal Corpse, M/C

Albert was terrified and particularly because there was not another soul around. Just him and the Skeleton Man. He claimed he went down to his knees and begged that his life be spared. But the Skeleton Man was disinterested. He stared down the street with his pink eyes and said, “This village appeals to me. Each time I come here I enjoy it. How ready is it for the reaping, the harvesting. Too many dark places tucked away in too many hearts. Too many secrets under the surface and too many closets filled with bones. I bid you good day, sir. Tomorrow I will be back and you will wait for me.”

So, far as I can tell, Albert was the only one that day that spoke with Chaney the Skeleton Man and lived to tell the story.

Anyway, Chaney was at the house on Grassy Hill. He stepped out of the Roadrunner, lit a filterless cigarette with a finger that burned sulfur-hot like a matchhead and waited. As he told Albert, he liked Crabeater Creek. He had been there before and he liked its lines and curves, the smell and taste of it. Like a seductive and exotic woman, he was anxious to put his hands and mouth on it, to run his tongue over its hot, perfumed flesh.

But that would be later.

For now, Chaney was content just to be there. He pulled a briefcase from the backseat and, whistling like a man on his way to work, he moved through the gate and up the flagstone path to the vacant two-story frame house with an apple tree in full bloom out front. He plucked a FOR SALE sign out of the overgrown yard and went up the steps and in.

Inside, there was silence and echoes. A darkness that clung too readily beneath stairs and behind half-shut doors. His face pale and his eyes shining, Chaney looked around, seeing that there was no furniture to be had save a card table and a folding chair.

A car door slammed outside and Lona Whitebird, the local reservation real estate agent, came through the door smiling brightly even though she did not like this man called Chaney. For reasons she did not fully understand, he reminded her of the snake house at the Chicago Zoo. There was that same coiling vitality to him, that vague musky, reptilian odor that seemed to waft off him. But he had the proper paperwork, proving he was an enrolled member of the Spirit Lake Sioux, so she could not deny him even though she was certain he was no Indian. She was, in the back of her crowding little mind, not even sure he was a man.

“Well, Mr. Chaney,” she said. “I see you’ve taken down the sign. I think that means you’ve made a decision.”

“I have,” he said.

“And?”

“This will do nicely.” He nodded his head, but did not smile. “I will make a fine and secret work here.”

Lona did not know what he meant by that and was not sure she wanted to. Chaney was always saying things like that, she discovered in their earlier meeting when he inquired of the house, things loaded with innuendo that you did not dare question. There was a concrete ambiance to him, an appetite she did not like. He reminded her of something stark and cold like a slaughterhouse. When she looked at him she could only think of winds blown through October cemeteries. His eyes did not emote, they were dead things waiting to be filled with something. His face was the color of bone, a pallid canvas of scar-tissue set with draws and hollows that coveted shadow.

Nothing good could come of a man like Chaney, she thought.

And she was right. For he was just a gnawed shell, an empty drum of giggling darkness and scratching midnight. He was no more human than a bag of cobras.

“Well, then,” Lona said. “I guess we have some papers to sign.”

She sat at the card table and opened a folder of documents. Chaney stood behind her and she could feel his shadow that was cold and blank. His own briefcase was open and she could see it held nothing but a hammer and a bag of long nails.

“All set to do some home improvement, I see.”

“Yes,” he breathed. “Oh yes.”

She turned to look at him, smelling his breath which was like thawing meat, and seeing that he was grinning. His teeth were long and overlapping like those of a crocodile. He had something in his hand. A six-inch blade sprung from it.

He handed it to her and although she shook her head, she took it in her hand and immediately began to shake and tremble.

“Use it,” he said. “There’s a good girl. Let us sign the pact.”