Slay It Forward

Many rural high schoolers are dying to move away after graduation. But 18-year-old Clem finds that if he does leave, everyone else will be slaughtered.

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The town of Bridgeland, North Dakota lacks a bridge, and holds very little land. There’s no town square, no village hall with signs and lights that say hey-we’re-an-inviting-town-downright-bursting-with-tourism-potential. Yet, very few young people want to leave. College plans are cancelled. Instead graduates favor quick marriages, and children. Lots of lots of children. 

It’s a rural community. Miles away from any paved highways. Just gravel roads. There are no businesses. No gas station. No hardware store. No restaurants.

The empty buildings in Bridgeland have corroded from ravenous winter winds shrieking wild over the flat lands. The stop sign on the north side of Main Street is nearly bleached white from all the years of the sun bearing down on it. Never to be replaced. Never heeded. Always ignored.

On occasion, local cows mosey away from their pasture. They can be seen meandering down Main Street. People in pickup trucks simply drive around. Everyone figures the right farmer will be around to reclaim them at some point. 

College recruiters came to the high school the other day. Nearly all of the kids signed up for admission like they were gasping for air to get out of there. Clem Branson wasn’t among them. He beat the pack and ponied up his signature in June. A community college around two hundred miles east. “They crank out teachers like sausage,” That’s what Clem’s grandpa said.  “Teachers putting crazy thoughts in your head. It’s okay if the white people wrote the history books.” He turned the volume back up on his TV.  

In his mind, Clem was already embracing the idea of escape from all of this. Senior year just started. Nine more months, and a summer, to ride out. Clem contemplated his hands smelling like the sweet, dank odor of cow shit. He hadn’t really paid attention to that until recently. With his life change somewhat close at hand, he started to notice the smell more and more. Not just the hands, but the shit-covered boots sitting on a rug inside the front door of the house.  

With milking wrapped up, he switched to his school clothes and scrubbed his hands hard. Then he set out to walk the mile and a half into town, like he always did. Pre-dawn winds kicked up dust off the gravel road. The sun looked like orange paint spilling over green fields. 

He saw, of all things, a station wagon up ahead. Idling. The decades-old dinosaur sat right in his path. Obviously waiting for him. A hand stuck out, holding a fan of five twenty-dollar bills. Clem bent low to figure out who was inside.  

He could see a window being cranked open and yelled, “It’s you? Aw shit, man.” 

Clem was never one to turn down money, let alone from his Uncle Lodi. Which he hadn’t seen in two years.  Two Christmases blew by, and here he was. On a sanguine autumn-like, summer day. The guy who hammered against his family on social media. Like he was howling over them, like they had left him. Even though no one in his family moved away. Most of the time, when he was even brought up, the rellies (relatives) remembered him fondly, and wondered when he was coming back to them. Sure he had been quiet all his life. He was always quick to smile; they figured he was okay. Until he disappeared.

Now here Lodi was, extending a gloved hand with money in his fist. If his sleeve was any indication, he was wearing a heavy plaid shirt that made more sense in mid-January than early September. Clem saw a glimpse of skin on Lodi’s wrist. As white as liquid paper. The man’s face was shadowed under the bill of his tightly pulled-down cap. He hollered, “Hey, fresh blood, slide on in here.”

Clem jammed the money into his pocket, but wondered what was the hook here? Why meet here, with less than a mile from town? Like a lot of confident teens, he even talked with a swagger.  “Uncle Lodi. Shit, man. How long has it been?” They clasped their right hands together for a vigorous hand shake that would strain most men’s arm sockets. 

Lodi smiled. “Too long, Clemmy. Too damn long. Get in, college boy.”

Clem came around the front of the car, opened the passenger’s side, and swung in. The side sagged. “Station wagon, huh? Never ridden in one of these. Saw pictures though.”

“Yep, little piece of history. History is important,” Lodi said, then waved away at the words, like he was shooing them away like flies, getting ahead of himself. Instead he said, “You and college. Wow. So far away. Exciting.” 

“Thanks, man.” 

“Yep, exciting.” 

Clem couldn’t think of any way to move the conversation along. Maybe, asking where he had been for two years? After reading his rants online, he decided it probably wasn’t the best idea.  Also, he was puzzled over why all the windows in the car were tinted sort of pee-ish yellow and brown.  

Lodi said, “Let’s drive. Bet your old man didn’t mention I have lakeshore property.”

Dad hadn’t. 

“Let’s get you out there. It’s a good place for a talk,” he said.

“About what?”

“Your future, of course. Duh, what else?”

The car smelled like beer. A scent Clem didn’t mind. Another odor hung in the air that he couldn’t quite name. The seat was sticky. Not enough to worry him. Lodi had been gone for two years. Clem didn’t want to make a big deal of anything that would piss him off again. 

The lakeshore property was a gravel lot. He wondered if his uncle actually owned this area or not. Surely once beautiful, Clem thought. Lodi talked wistfully about the wooden sentinels that once stood here. “Elms, oaks, pines. Whole bunch of family trees were once out here. Bet you didn’t even know that. Blood in that soil. I mean that too. Literally.” 

They watched the sunrise. Clem, while sort of appreciative, had school in less than an hour. And also had twenty ounces of Mountain Dew pulsating in his bladder. 

“I miss feeling that sunlight,” Lodi said, and sighed. “Let’s get to the meat of it.” He turned on the overhead light. “Hold your cookies in, bud. This is going to be brutal.”  

Lodi’s eyes were red. His pupils orange. His skin pasty white, with black prickly whiskers as dark as a rural night. Clem wanted to write it off as some weird Halloweenish joke. 

Lodi said gravely, “I want you to stay home. Screw college.”

So there it was. It was the first time someone had literally said, “Don’t go.” From the guy who left his life a long time ago. 

“What? I can’t stay,” Clem sputtered. His mind only halfway wrapped around what he was seeing now. “I’m not going to stay here and be a farmer. There’s no money in it. Not anymore.”

“There’s family.”

“Really, Uncle Lodi, family? I haven’t seen you for two years.” Clem winced a little, fearing his uncle would scream in his face.  All the media posts were in capital letters. He figured Lodi was a screamer. 

“Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter,” Lodi said with grand gestures, as if what he was about to say required such big drama. ”We are farmers too. You can’t leave us, Clem.” He hit the “us” particularly hard.

“Who are ‘us’?  The family knows I’m going, even if almost no one is talking about it.”

“No, meaning my real family. Cannibal vampires.”

Clem chuckled nervously. It was too much for him to believe. Still, looking at his uncle’s face. “Ha ha, funny joke?”

“No joke. We don’t stop at the neck. Just like the animals around here, bodies can be used up in a variety of ways. You should come to our butcher shops. Jewelry, clothing. The brains are delicious.”

Lodi put both his thick hands on the sides of Clem’s face and said, “Accept this as reality. Because it is.” The fingernails were thick and hard, like talons. The hands felt parched, and also extremely cold too. Like his uncle had spent the last two hours holding a block of ice in each hand. Clem curled his toes when anxious. He squeezed so hard, his feet were cramping up       

Uncle Lodi then let go.      

“Let me continue.” He said, “You’re like cattle too. All you youngsters. But unlike those butter-brains out there, you keep moving away. Fifty-eight is the average age in this county. In ten years, we’ll have a serious food shortage from people dying of old age. So, new blood is gonna be needed. We have ten years to revitalize the supply without having to start a war with nests from neighboring counties. Trust me, we are outnumbered. 

“Stay home, have babies. Raise them until eight, nine years old.  Give them to us. We’ve already talked to several of your classmates, and we plan to talk to the rest. Promise that. Consider it a slay-it-forward. Ensure a future food source, and I can keep our family, the one we share, safe.”

“What the hell you talking about? Safe from what?”

“Well, from me mostly.” Lodi chuckled and reached under his seat. “I’m venturing out in the business world.” 

He presented a colorful laminated menu and handed it to Clem. There were dishes named after every member in his family. Such as Abe Apple Pie. Chipped Tina on Toast. Scrambled Steve. Marmalade Melinda. Most names he knew. Clem found his.

“Read that one out loud,” Lodi said, baring teeth like a smirking, poker-playing shark holding a royal flush. “I still bust a gut on that one.”  

“Clem Chowder. Really?” The dish cost twenty-five hundred dollars. “The hell is this?” His voice quivered ever so slightly. Now his fingers curled too. Not in a fist, instead out of fear. He had no intention of throwing a punch.  

Lodi cackled. He put something on his head. A chef’s hat. “I’m a vampire and a businessman too.” He produced a wooden mixing spoon. “If others want to feed in this county, they have to order through me. This is my menu. It’s new. You can keep that copy, I have more. Lots and lots more. Share them with friends.”

Clem knew he wouldn’t be doing that at all. 

“And the menu. So anyone who can afford twenty-five hundred dollars…?”

“Shit, kid. You’re just worried about yourself? Yep, for twenty-five hundred, I will let my chefs prepare you to be eaten. I will hand you over for profit.” He smiled a toothy grin and produced a wad of five hundred bills. “The right amount right here. Payday!  Twenty-five hundred dollars. Son of bitch, this menu isn’t even a week old.  I can discontinue them after you agree to stay home.  I’ll revise the menus to reflect the people already eaten. I can’t offer you twice.”

Rustling and creaking came from the backseat. Clem could swear he had not seen or heard anyone back there before. “Or,” Lodi said, “It will go like this—

“--Supply meet Demand!” He threw the money in the air just for the heck of it. 

Something longingly licked the back of Clem’s neck. The tongue was wide and flat with bristles; it left the back of his head slobbery wet. Clem pitched forward, and turned his head. There were two others alongside the licker. Looking just like his uncle. The drool from the three in the backseat glimmered off the little light that the tinted windows allowed in. They cackled like maniacal hyenas. 

Clem, the ultra-cool defensive lineman, honor student, State Choir baritone, screamed. “Let me off, Lodi…please.” His door wouldn’t open. He had tried to pull the handle while keeping his eyes on his wild-eyed uncle.  

Lodi squeezed Clem’s shoulder. “I control the locks. Soon done, sport.” 

Clem wondered, did this man ever love him at all?  

Lodi then chortled dryly. “It’s going to be worse.” He then tossed a piece of hair and skin on the dashboard. Its tip was moist with fresh blood. Clem knew who it was from. Abe. His nine-year-old, red-haired brother. 

“Jesus,” Clem said. “Tell me you didn’t do that.” His toes hurt. Cramping up. 

“A little scalp. Just to show you I’m not screwing around.  Did it in his sleep. Slipped through the windows, crawled on his ceiling. Lowered my hand and snagged my prize. By the time he woke, I was already gone.” Lodi shrugged.

Clem remembered his brother screaming in his room less than an hour ago. But the kid screamed a lot. He didn’t even need a reason. Dad sometimes said that the boy was off a bit.

Lodi held up a baggie. Also full of scalps bits, and finger tips. “This is from last year’s class. Did you notice fourteen blew off college and stayed home to raise babies?”

“There were fifteen of them.”

“Yeah. One eaten,” Lodi said, clapping his hands once. The eternal sign for we’re-done-here-kid. “I’m dropping you off here. You got a phone, you’ll get a ride. Damn daylight, I’ve been out too long.”  

Clem didn’t dare look away. He felt all over for the door handle. He wanted to launch right out of there.

“I’ve always loved you, Clem. You’re a hell of a nephew.”

“Fuck you.” 

“You can probably buy your grandparent’s house someday. They are almost knocking at that eternal door. Cancer is subtle, but I can smell it coming.” Lodi pushed a trail of drool back into his mouth. “In both of them. It’s practically romantic.”

“Just one last thing. There’s a local rumor you might have livestock in another county. A daughter, right? Something I don’t feel the need to taste anytime soon. But, she’s up there. Isn’t she?” His grin stretched wide. “You don’t get to leave, Clem. You don’t get to go away.”

“What?” Finally, the door creaked open, and Clem fell out. 

Lodi whipped his car around so sharply, the door slammed closed again. He then rumbled back onto the gravel road. He honked his goodbye and hollered, “We’ll talk later!

Now alone, Clem scanned the menu in his hand. There were no dishes starting with the letter H.  “She’s not on here. Oh thank you, God. ” Hayley, his daughter, borne with a flame from another town. Easily a three-hour-drive. The only ones in his family who knew about her were his parents.  So he thought. 

He pulled out his cell.  His other hand clenching his nervous gut. When a voice on the other end spoke, he stopped her cold and said, “Danielle? Hey, hey, look. Where’s Hayley?” 

Clem couldn’t hear his secret nine-month-old daughter in the background. A baby, the next generation. He whispered to no one there, “You can’t have her, Lodi.”

“What’s the deal, Clem?” Danielle was a one-time hook-up that led to a knock-up. 

“Have you had any weird visitors lately? Any open windows?”

“No. I haven’t. Why?”

“I’m not trying to sound like a dick, but don’t come here. Not on holidays. Never.”

She chuckled ruefully. “Trust me. We don’t plan to. ”

“Put her on the phone. Please!”

“Okay.”

And she said the only word she had for him. “A do do do.” 

He smiled, his eye watered. “Honey, daddy loves you so much it hurts.”

Clem set his future right there. College was out. Raise new kids. All to keep Hayley off Uncle Lodi’s menu. Yeah, sacrifices could be made. Just not this one.  The next one for sure. Maybe the next several.  But not Hayley. It was only her future he cared about now. He knew classmates staying home to raise families. He’ll be one of them, he decided.  So many women around town. There will be someone willing to be his wife.       

He looked down the road. He saw a familiar station wagon parked along a field. Uncle Lodi honked one last time and drove away.  

Clem tried to calm down.  A whiz in a bush helped with the bladder.

Eventually, he reached town. Cows were tromping down Main Street again. He walked past them, patting each one like they were casual friends. Down a grassy hill and to the high school. He, and his classmates, were cows too, he reasoned. They don’t run off too far. He thought in their minds the world was just one big pasture. And they never truly escape. That you can always find fences that keep you in.  

                                                                                                                      …end

By Steven Roisum

From: United States

Facebook URL: www.facebook.com/steven.roisum/