Adventures in Dirt Cove, Part VIII
"Maybe he's just resting," pondered Garland, giving the woodsman's corpse a few exploratory pokes with a stick.
Right, mate. Nothing quite as relaxing as an axe in yer privvies. The woodsman was worm bait, plain and simple.
"Shame to leave a good hammer," he said, crouching down beside the body. He tugged at the axe handle. "She's in dere pretty deep," he observed.
I took a quick snap as evidence while my guide covered the handle of the murder weapon with his fingerprints -- just in case there were any questions, mates.
The hatchet came free with a wet squelching sound. Garland looked at the bloodied implement proudly.
As I watched the gory scene, I noticed a distinct resemblance between the dead man and the braindead one. Come to think of it, Garland resembled half the townsfolk I'd met. The gene pool in Dirt Cove must've been drier than a nun's nasty, backpackers.
My reverie was interrupted by a blood curdling howl. I turned to see a familiar-looking pack of dogs staring down hungrily at us from atop the embankment. The mongrels probably tracked us from town.
"I'm allergic to d-d-dogs!" Garland stammered. "Let's keep going!" He made for the bushes like a lemur on crack.
Word to the wise, backpackers: when threatened by a wild animal, never, ever, run. Especially while carrying an axe.
The dingos trotted down the the hill towards us, but were distracted by the corpse long enough for us to slip away. We were safe for the time being.
"Think the dogs'll eat buddy?" Garland wheezed, taking another hit from his inhaler.
The possibility had occurred to me. I asked who the dogfood had been.
"Oh, him. He owns most of dis land. People are always comin' up here to go to da lighthouse, or go huntin' or drinkin' or ridin' trikes or berry pickin' or gettin' off, whatever, right? He don't like that much. He was always a real prick about it -- yellin' and chasin' people off his land."
The woodsman's death didn't seem to bother Garland much. "He's with Baby Jesus now. My poppy lives there, too. And you can eat whatever you want. And nobody can touch you if it don't feel right or nuddin' ... He's lucky. I wish I had an axe in my special place," he said, swinging clumsily at branches as we trudged along.
All in good time, mate, I thought.
The ground was getting soggier as the trees thinned out, and soon I spied a low, ruined tower squatting in the wilderness like a Mayan temple. I have seen Mayan temples, however, and they are in slightly better shape. At least the Mayans had enough sense not to build in the middle of a bog.
True to its name, the lighthouse was leaning at a precarious angle, and evidently sinking into the soggy earth, too.
"This structure is very, very
old," said Garland, lapsing back into his tour guide role as
he urinated on the side of the tower. "It was moved here in
1926. A ferry from Upper Lower Cove was carryin' passengers
and she was lookin' for da light and she couldn't find it so
she crashed on da rocks and went down. Everybody drowned
from not being able to breathe water and dey haunts the
lighthouse 'cause they're pissed off about gettin' killed. I
think the boat was called the Titanic."
Just then, a muffled moan came from inside the lighthouse.
"Hear dat?" asked Garland, pausing in mid stream. "Dat's the ghost of Leonardo, da captain."
Another sound. I could barely make out a few words. "Come off it ... come off it, girl," the spirit groaned.
A second, female voice emanated from within. "Come on, then," it said in a weary voice. "Nuddin' else to be at." Then it wailed a horrible cry. The other ghost panted for air. Was it reliving its watery death? I couldn't believe it! Even Garland seemed surprised as he zipped his jeans.
"I'm going in for a snap!" I said, climbing in through a window that had sunk to near ground level. A dank, dimly lit stairwell covered in grafitti led up to the next floor.
"I wouldn't do that," said Garland, poking his head through the window. "He'll smack yer face off ... uh, the spirit, I mean."
I ignored him and climbed the stairs, tilted as they were. The wailing reached a fever pitch. I had to see this!
At the top of the stairs was a short landing with a flimsy, rotten wooden door at the end. "Me smokes! Yer on me smokes!" the spirit warned from inside. What was it trying to tell me? I put my hand on the door as Garland shouted from below for me to come back.
The moaning stopped suddenly. I heard a rustling from within. Had the spirits been frightened off? A female voice shouted, "I hears someone, Johnny!"
The door was flung open by a large -- and obviously living -- teenager. His long, matted blonde hair, the victim of one too many cheap Do-It-Yourself colour treatments, stuck out wildy from beneath a ball cap. His girlfriend was sitting on the floor behind him, hastily pulling on her shirt.
"What are you, a perv, are ya?" he
challenged. "You take any pictures of Tammy and me? You
wants a smack in da face, do ya?" The spirits were angry. I
stood my ground.
Garland nervously came up beside me. "What are you doin' here again, Wrongwrub?" asked Johhny. "What did I tell you about hanging around while me and Tammy is courting? Who's dis fella? Your boyfriend or wha?" he leered.
Garland attempted to defuse the situation. "I-I was tryin' to stop him! He's some kinda sicko come up here goin' at himself taking pictures! I told him not to be at it, right? He's mad though! He come at me with with dis axe!" said Garland, hefting the weapon.
"Get the frig away from me with dat!" Johnny yelled, then leaned back and knocked Garland clean on his ass at the top of the stairs.
"Aw, b'y!" my guide moaned, holding his eye. Looked like he'd be sporting a beauty of a shiner.
"Come on, Tammy," said Johnny, glaring at me as he passed. "We goes out behind the store where we can rut in peace." The young lady emerged, tucking in her shirt. Beneath a heavy layer of makeup, I could tell she, too, shared a fair bit of genetic material with Garland. She sized me up briefly as she lit up a rollie, then followed down the stairs after her intended.
Garland sat up and leaned against a tilted, heavily graffitied wall. "Shagger," he muttered. "I thought dey was ghosts, b'y, honest," he lied. "I thought they was! The ghosts must be gone out or something."
He produced a tuft of grass he
must've just
plucked from outside and placed it in the rolling papers he
was carrying. "You don't mind if I smokes grass, do ya? I'm
a hard ticket,
b'y. I'm always smokin' grass," he said, rolling clumsily.
"I hears dey do it in the city. I never been farther than
Frigger's Cove, though. I knows what goes on, though. I
hears people talking." He struggled to light the damp
vegetation. "People from town buys grass and
everything. I figure dey mustn't have much 'cause
everything's paved, see? So one day, I'm gonna go to town
with a garbage bag full of it and I'll be rich!"
He managed to get the thing aflame and sucked uselessly on the end. "I'm not stunned, b'y. I hear that weeds are good, too, and when my Poppy got decapitated by that cow wire that time, he left behind a whole garden of 'em. So, now who's an idiot?"
Before I could answer, the smoke irritated his badly bruised eye. "Aw b'y," he exclaimed, then began coughing a loud, dry, hacking cough. The rollie was burning quickly, causing a great deal of smoke. He dropped it and stepped on it, his eyes watering. "There was nothing left to dat for me anyway," he said. "I don't get much off a little joint like that, no more. I'm after building up too much of a tolerance, right?"
Yes, I'd say he's be raking quite a while to get a decent buzz at this rate. Hard-core ocker, this one. Too right!
"Well, thanks for the tour, mate," I said, getting up to leave. I needed some rest and some food, backpackers.
"Wait!" he protested. "You haven't even seen the real spooky stuff yet!"
Spooky? As if being chased by an axe wielding maniac, menaced by a pack of bloodthirsty hounds, and assaulted by a long-haired head banger wasn't real adventure tourism stuff.
"No, no. Follow me," he winked.
He led me back outside around to the other side of the lighthouse. It may have been a trick of the light, but the bloody thing seemed to have sunk another few centimeters while we were inside.
A narrow path led away through the underbrush. We strolled along in silence for a few minutes and came across a small, faded sign tacked to a tree. Wallys Pub, it read, with a arrow. Through a gap in the trees I could see the side of the clapboard bar, a stone's throw away.
"This is da shortcut to the lighthouse ... da long way is more spookier," Garland said defensively, seeing my expression.
He crouched in the bushes, still clutching the axe. "Shhhh! He should be comin' along any minute now, when da bar closes. You gotta be quiet!"
I glanced at my Tilley Titanium Swiss Army Global Positioning Water Resistant Fire Retardant Time Tracker and noticed it was 6:15 AM, Newfoundland Time. The bar was still open?
"Wally closes early on weekdays," explained my bruised friend. "Legend has it that each night, after da bar is closed, a sad old spirit wanders dis path. It cries out, lamenting its wasted existence. I heard him one time ... freaked me out."
I was skeptical but seeing as my options were limited, I figured I'd make camp. I lay back on the grass as Garland harvested the crop around us.
A short time later, just as I was dozing off, he shook me. "I think I saw something," he whispered. "Over dere in da bushes! Something moved!" he pointed.
Probably more randy teens, I thought, figuring I'd mind me own beeswax, thank you very much.
"There it is again!" he hissed. Sure enough, I caught a glimpse of something running through the bush. A moose? A man?
Garland looked frightened. "S-s-shag. I thought it was just stories. I never thought it was true!" he whimpered.
"What is it, mate? What are we looking for? Sasquatch? Evil leprechaun? What?"
"The Drunk Man o' the Woods," he said in a low voice. Almost on cue we heard a distant wailing.
"Iwantsa beeerbye! Iwantsanudder beerbye! Iwannna blakherths! Iwanna mole sonz!" It spoke some unintelligible language. "Openyer doorz! Igotta tabbye!" it groaned.
Garland was quivering beside me, gripping his axe tightly. "Oh shag ... oh shag..." he whined.
Without warning, something crashed through the bushes just a few feet away. Garland screamed, covering his eyes. For a brief moment I saw the beast as it stood on its hind quarters and howled.
"Gimmeadrinkbye!" it wailed, then turned and disappeared into the underbrush. Man? Creature? My mind playing tricks? A blurred photo was my only proof.
Garland eventually stopped crying and we headed back towards town. We had just passed Uncle Wally's when we were met by a large group of Dirt Covians heading towards the woods. I recognized Big Bill and his son, the resident garbologists.
"G'day mates. What's up?" I asked.
"Dis is a search party," said Bill Senior. "Chuck Hookey is gone missing."
"He lives in Boggy Gulch," offered a rat-faced youth. "He's a champion outdoorsman. He was out chopping wood and never come back."
"You haven't seen 'im, have ya?" Big Bill asked.
Garland dropped the blood stained axe to the ground. "I never killed him," he replied.
Related Links:
Dirt Cove Home Page
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Shagwater Peninusla to get full-time Mountie
Dirt Cove News:
Lighthouse leans forward to the future
Dirt Cove News:
Woodsman gone missing