Bliss Hill

I’m jus’ sittin’ here on my front porch in the dark lookin’ at Bliss Hill. Under the blanket of a full moon, I’m thinkin’ back to another time—the time before “it” came. My old wicker rockin’ chair creaks as I rock back and forth in time with the music that’s playin’ on my old radio. Right here next to me is my granny’s double-barreled shotgun, loaded and ready. Fer an old fart, my vision ain’t too good no more, but I ain’t missed a target yet.

I jus’ waitin’ here fer it to scream again or finally find the courage to come down that hill and face me, but it ain’t. It’s jus’ gonna stay right up on that there hill yonder ’cuz it’s too scared to come down. Sooner or later, it’ll scream, jus’ how it does ev’ry night since it hap’ened. That sound jus’ sends chills up and down my spine and makes my blood curdle. Hell, it makes the hair on the back uh my neck stand straight up jus’ thinkin’ ’bout it.

To this day, I still remember when it all started. The spring uh ’42 it was, jus’ a typical humid spring down here in Vicksburg, Miss’sippi. The weather gits all sweet with heat and humidity; then, them clouds git uppity an’ bus’ wide open, soakin’ ev’rythin’ in sight. After that, we gits us another cool spell.

Back then, we had us a farm up on Bliss Hill. My mama, she done made the paper a few times ’cuz uh her cannin’ fruits and vegetables, and Daddy, well, Daddy took care uh the farm and our livestock. Didn’t have much, jus’ a few head uh cattle and some old chickens. We had ourselves two fine calves we was fat’nin’ up so we could take ’em to git ’em kilt and cut up, so we’d have us some good meat to put on the table. I had me an older sister named Charlene, but we called her Charlie, and a younger brother we called Glenn. My sweet ole granny Maple lived jus’ a little piece down the road from us. Daddy’s looked after her ever since Granpappy died in the big flood on the Miss’sippi back in 1927.

Way back then, ain’t none uh us worryin’ ’bout lockin’ doors. We knew ev’rybody, and ev’rybody knew us. We ain’t never had no enemies, not ’til that spring, that is. That’s when it all started.

I went to git some fresh eggs fer breakfast from the chicken coop we had out back in the woods. Now, that chicken coop was real secure ’cuz in ’41 Daddy and I done caged in that chicken coop with some cre’sote poles and chicken wire. We had to ’cuz we had ourselves a panther that’d come out at night and try to eat up all them chickens. Daddy had shot at him, but he musta missed ’cuz the scoundrel kept comin’ back. When I got to the coop that mornin’, the door was open. When I looked inside, I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that. They was busted eggs and bloody feathers hangin’ outta all them nests, but I ain’t found no dead chickens, jus’ them bloody feathers and busted eggs.

When I got back to the house, I hated to, but I jus’ had to tell my daddy what I’d found. Daddy started rantin’ and ravin’ ’bout how he was gonna hunt that cat down, wring his neck, and hang him out to dry. Daddy knew the scoundrel would be back, so that night, Daddy took his shotgun with him and shinnied up a tree so’s he could get himself a real good shot at him. If it was the last thing Daddy did, he was gonna git that panther onest and fer all.

’Bout midnight, we heard the shotgun blast. We stayed holed up in the house, jus’ a itchin’ fer Daddy to git back after he checked on Granny. Right ’fore he came in, we heard this dreadful scream that weren’t human, but it weren’t like no animal I’d ever heard neither. Jus’ then, Daddy busted through the front door with Granny at his side lookin’ like she was ’bout to have a heart attack.

“I done shot him,” Daddy hollered, “and he better not come back neither!”

“You mean the panther?” Mama asked.

“Naw, some tall, burly man I caught headin’ tor’d the calves. I shot him in the leg!”

“That scream came from a man?” Mama asked jus’ so’s she could be sure she’d heard Daddy right.

Daddy told Mama, “Aw, that prob’ly was the panther in them woods.”

“It sho’ didn’t sound like no panther I ever heard,” Mama replied.

Well, fer the next couple a nights, we had us some heavy-duty rainin’. At that time uh year, we knew we was gonna git another cold spell. That first night after the rain quit, the cold rolled in and brung the evil with it.

Daddy slept with a loaded shotgun right next to his bed jus’ in case. On that chilly spring night, we all got woke up by our two calves who was jus’ a screamin’ and a squealin’. Daddy figgered that panther mus’ be back, but then we all heard that horrifyin’ scream. Daddy bolted right outta bed, grabbed the shotgun, and ran outside and started shootin’. We all heard the gunfire and then one final scream.

When Daddy came back in, his face was ghostly white. He couldn’t believe what he’d jus’ seen. When he told us, we thought he was jus’ spinnin’ another one of his tall tales. He told us a stranger had carried off both uh our calves that weighed more than five hundred pounds a piece. Mama asked him what kinda’ man could pick up a pair uh calves weighin’ that much and run with ’um, but Daddy couldn’t answer that. We tried to git back to sleep, but Charlie and I stayed awake, wonderin’ if whatever had got the calves would come back for us.

That next day, Daddy and I went out huntin’ fer the thing. We only found the dead calves that had been gnawed on and left with heapin’ hunks uh meat and flesh missin’. I asked Daddy if we should dig us a hole to bury what was left uh the calves. He shook his head and said that we’d better not ’cuz if that thing got hungry, it could come back after the leftover meat instead of us. Daddy promised me that when it came back, he’d be ready fer it.

After supper that night, Daddy filled his pockets with shotgun shells and told us he was gonna go back where the remains was and wait. Mama tried to stop him, but he promised her he’d be hidin’ in a tree so it couldn’t see him b’fore he could git a good shot at it. That night, Granny stayed with us. Charlie and me jus’ tossed and turned in our beds, wonderin’ what was hap’nin out there.

Well, it was ’bout middle uh the night when we heard Daddy’s shotgun go off and that awful, blood-curdling scream. We heard Daddy scream several times, and then it got real quiet. Charlie and me knew our Daddy was gone. Mama tried to run out the door to git to Daddy, but all uh us, even Granny, held her back. We knew that whatever was out there would sure ’nuff kill Mama too if it got the chance.

Back then, we didn’t have no phone, so come mornin’, Charlie and me, we went into town to git the sheriff. We told him ev’rything, and even though he didn’t really believe us, he still came out to see ’bout it. It was our mama that finally convinced him to go into the woods to see fer himself.

The sheriff went out in them woods and come back with his eyes all bugged outta his head, and his hands was just a shakin’. He told Mama he ain’t never seen no body torn apart like that, not even when little Timmy got tore up by that bear while he was playin’ outside his mama’s house.

The sheriff took me back to town with him and got his men together to come git my daddy up. He gave me some money to go buy locks and bolts to put on our doors since we didn’t have none. I put all them locks and bolts on the doors that night while Mama was cookin’ supper.

Mama didn’t eat anything that night, said she was too busy. After she tucked us in, she kissed us goodnight and said she loved us. Mama stayed awake until after we done fell asleep, and then she took a walk outside on Bliss Hill. That was the last walk Mama ever took.

Come mornin’, Charlie and I searched fer Mama while Granny took care uh Glenn. We went all the way to the back uh them woods, down by the pond where our cows drink. All we could find uh Mama was a torn slipper, some dried blood on a handful uh hair, and a few teeth. Right near them were some uh the biggest footprints I ever did see; they had to be at least a size 20 or better. Our eyes followed them tracks around the pond and seen them trail off into the bottoms, which, even in daylight, were dark and dank. We was both too scared to follow ’em, so we went back home and told Granny what we done seen.

Fer the next few days and nights, Granny wouldn’t let us leave the house. Each night the screams came, they got closer and closer. By the end of the week, I figgered all our cattle was dead ’cuz they weren’t mooin’ no more. That thing on Bliss Hill was gittin’ hungrier; and we knew sooner or later, it was gonna come after us.

At the end uh that week, I went to the sheriff agin and told him where I thought the thing was hidin’. When the sheriff brung me home, he made us stay inside and told us to lock and bolt all the windows and doors while he went lookin’ ’round a bit. ’Bout thirty minutes later, he come a runnin’ back all bloody, beaten, and outta breath. Granny let him in and gave him a seat. First thing he told us was that it weren’t human, and it weren’t animal neither. He told Granny he followed the bone trail to the bottoms and found the thing. It kinda’ looked like a man, but then it looked like an animal. He said it looked like it was created from little parts of ev’ry creature on the face of this earth, so he couldn’t tell us what it was.

Granny gave me a beatin’ that night. She said that thing coulda got me on the way to the sheriff, but I ain’t ever hear it in the daylight, and that’s why I went then. That next day, the sheriff sent a small huntin’ party out to Bliss Hill to try to kill the creature. All five uh them men come back scared half to death, but no one said they’d had any luck killin’ it.

After that, many days and nights passed with nothin’ really hap’nin’. We figgered the huntin’ party musta scared him off, but jus’ when we b’ginned to think it was all over with, that thing came back with a vengeance. This time it was right outside our house. It was so close we could hear it walkin’ ’round the house and yankin’ ev’ry doorknob, tryin’ to git in.

Granny made us go to our room and wait. She stayed in the livin’ room with the shotgun ready to blast him with both barrels. That night, Granny would make sho it would all end.

While we waited in the bedroom, our eyes kep’ goin’ back to the window in the far left corner of the room. My little brother, Glenn, had ran to the bed by the window and hid under it, but Charlie and me, we stayed by the bedroom door puttin’ all our weight ’gainst it to keep it out. Then the beatin’ and clawin’ ended at the front door. Seconds later, we saw the beast lookin’ in our winda with hungry orange eyes. Charlie screamed as the creature broke through the winda, sending wood and glass flying all over the room.

We yanked the door open and yelled for Granny to come with the shotgun. By the time she got there, Glenn had started cryin’. In an instant, the beast reached under the bed, snatched Glenn up, and went right back out the way he’d come in. Glenn was jus’ kickin’ and screamin’, tryin’ to git loose, but the beast jus’ squeezed him tighter.

Granny ran out the front door jus’ as Glenn took his last breath, and we heard her unload on that beast with both barrels. When we got outside, all Granny could say was “RUN!” The beast done turned away from Glenn and was hunched over Granny, breakin’ bones with its ev’ry bite.

We didn’t hesitate and took off down Bliss Hill as fast as our legs could take us. With that thing after us, we knew we were goners fer sure. Charlie and me had jus’ crossed the bridge over the creek at the bottom of the hill when we realized that the monster had stopped chasing us. It jus’ stared at us, bared its fangs, and let out one more of those blood-curdling screams; then, it turned and ran back up Bliss Hill. Now, I can’t tell you what stopped that thing when it got to the creek, but it stopped dead in its tracks, jus’ like it hit a brick wall or somethin’. Maybe it sensed some danger, or maybe it feared the unknown. Hell, I don’t know what stopped it. Maybe it was afraid uh what was beyond the creek. Who knows? One thing I do know is that it ate everything it came in contact with up on that hill. I wonder if there’s anything left on that hill now.

Some time later, my sister and I had a small house built ’cross the creek from Bliss Hill so we could guard it. A year ago, my sister had a heart attack and died; now I’m dyin’ of cancer. I know I gotta die one way or ’nother. I jus’ can’t make up my mind if I wanna die on my own front porch or in them woods uh Bliss Hill, facin’ down that beast with Granny’s double-barreled shotgun. As long as that creek surrounds Bliss Hill and the bottoms, I don’t think that beast will ever come off that hill. Soon though, I ain’t gonna be here no more to guard it.

While I still can, I jus’ wanna warn you. Don’t go up on Bliss Hill ’cuz that beast ain’t dead yet, and I don’t know if I can kill it ’fore I die.