Editor’s Note: Soon after we announced this year’s Short Story Contest, our publisher (my husband), Jeff Evans, died unexpectedly. Jeff loved hosting this contest, now in its 11th year, and he typically handled the logistics. In my grief and confusion, I postponed the deadline. As a result, we received even more entries than usual. Each story had to be 750 words or less and contain the phrase “the ride home.” There were so many good ones! As judges, the Sea Island Spirit Writers had their work cut out for them. As always, they rose the occasion.
Thank you, Spirit Writers, and everybody who entered the contest. We’re dedicating this one to Jeff. – Margaret Evans
FIRST PLACE
“Nightmare, Jefferson Parrish”
by Jayne Adams
SECOND PLACE
“Soul Caster of Port Royal Sound”
by Charles Mitchell
THIRD PLACE
“Heroes”
by Barbara Garrison
HONORABLE MENTIONS
“The Harmonica”
by Patricia Moeller
“The Ride Home”
by Flo Krandradt
“If I’m Too Honest”
by Emily Davis Fletcher
THE WINNING STORIES
FIRST PLACE
Nightmare, Jefferson Parish
By Jayne Adams
Uhf. I drag myself off the couch, away from the non-stop images of impending weather. Those red circles churning on the screen have held me mesmerized for hours now. Heading to the kitchen for a snack, I’m brought up short by Sarah’s urgent voice: “Bud, the pillows and quilts are all down. Get away from the windows and come to the hallway with me. NOW.” I jam one last bunch of cookies in my mouth, glance outside, and lumber down the hall like some obedient dog. These things always seem to fire up in the late night hours, and she gets hyper-anxious.
We settle into the goose down layers. She spoons me and throws an arm over my shoulder. We lie awake soundlessly, listening to the wind scream around the corners of the house. I remember now. This will go on all night and, when I’m asleep, I’ll dream about the last big one. It’s not infrequent here in Nawlins…we’re kind of used to it.
“I love you,” she says. I snuggle closer, comforting her with my body, and we drift off to the droning sound of wind-driven rain on the shutters.
I’m with a family. Mom, Dad, and a boy….maybe a small baby girl? We tumble downstairs together from an elevated first floor. They head to a truck, load in bags, food, and bedclothes. Dad comes for me last, grabs me by my coat and shows me where I can hide, a place under the stairs by one of the pilings. I give him a look that says why can’t I go? He says sorry, kiddo, no more room in the Jeep. You’ll be safe here. Won’t be long.
I never see any of them again.
Soon the wind picks up, screaming like a pack of howler monkeys. I wriggle deeper under the stairs. When the rain begins, I’m glad I have cover for the oncoming night. The heat had been awful, turned me sweaty and smelly and made my nose drip. But it turns cold as time goes on. From beneath the house, I stare out at the rising water on the bay, getting a whiff of tangled scents brought in by the incoming tide. Dead fish, diesel fuel, seaweed, something metallic. The sky lights up and the crashing sounds begin. I cover my head and try to sleep.
The creeping feeling of water edging up my body wakes me. When lightning cracks open the sky, I sneak another peek at the bay and see a wall of water headed my way. I scramble from under the stairs and climb the first two steps, huddled close to the railing. The water hits the pilings and swirls just beneath me, carrying branches and all sorts of debris. I move up another two steps and hunker down. Again and again it comes in waves until I am on the top step. I wedge my shivering body between the front door stoop and the railing and hang on for what seems like a very long time. I wish I’d eaten a lot more food before we left the house. From the higher place I can now see a few houses around me. Their roofs and shutters are coming loose and banging into the trees. I’m going to be next. I put my head beneath the railing and hang onto the top step tightly. A dead cat floats by on the swirling current, followed closely by a snake. I sigh deeply and close my eyes, resigned to my fate.
“Bud! Bud! Wake up! It’s morning. We made it, Buddy. Sun’s out!” Sarah leans down and hands me my favorite biscuit. “Good boy!” I look up at her with my best sneezy smile. It always makes her laugh when my upper lip gets caught in my canines. Usually good for a pat and a second cookie. I snuffle her toes, get up, and do one of my huge yawn-stretches, ready for the day.
Sometimes I think of how she knelt before my cage and breathed the name “Buddy” through the bars––as if it were just our secret that she saw me through all the filthy fur––and my tail gets to wagging so hard it goes in circles and won’t stop. She let me ride up front with her on the ride home from the rescue place. I only remember the nightmare now when the wind howls.
SECOND PLACE
The Soul Caster of Port Royal Sound
By Charles Mitchell
The late November low country tide slipped out, exposing vast stretches of thick marsh grass and muddy oyster ridges, crisscrossed by legions of fiddler crabs evading passing seabirds chasing the setting sun.
“Big Daddy, tide’s out,” whispered the young boy, clutching his trusty old cane pole while eyeing a wide, jagged oyster bed a few yards out.
The old man grumbled, stretched his lanky frame, and proudly turned his aged eyes on the boy standing at a life crossroads. He then glanced at the century-old message of the timeworn sign to their left.
“Warning! Tainted Waters! No Fishing! No Gathering! By Order of the Parish Church.”
“Ready, boy?” the old man asked, in a deeply resonant Carolina drawl.
The youth nodded, eyes riveted on the darkly glistening oyster bed.
The old man smiled, tugged at his hip high boots, and slowly squished his way out to the looming oyster bed. He took a small bottle from his coat pocket and, opening it, poured the contents over the ridge. He then stepped back closer to his grandson.
For several minutes, only the sounds of the retreating seabirds broke the calm.
Abruptly, just as the sun began to dip, the oyster bed moved.
A gasp from the boy was gently hushed by the old man.
Deliberately, as if the ridge of oysters was stretching and testing its collective muscles, the muddy bed writhed and then, with a jolt, bounded up, turning toward the two onlookers.
The mucky figure presented as a mud pile with arms and legs, a rounded head, and a slim body, topped by small oysters that served as hair. Seagrass gave the impression of clothes.
“Who calls, old man?” came sharp, gurgling words.
“Ezra, old one. Son of Jules’ son, sir,” the old man replied, with the highest respect his grandson had ever heard.
Nodding, the figure stepped closer, keeping his feet in the low, murky water. He leaned down and, blinking back small blobs of mud dripping off his jagged forehead, peered into the youth’s clear eyes.
“Ah! This one’s time, is it?”
“Yes. He turns the age tonight, Saint Andrew’s feast night.”
“Know you the code, boy?” the figure demanded, his deep voice a mix of hope and melancholy.
“Yes, sir.”
The figure and the old man waited. The boy then spoke.
“Blue fright, stay thy might. Touch not this bend. Forever we defend. Justice amends.”
The figure stared at the boy, then quickly turned, waving his dripping hands over the darkening marsh.
Suddenly, dozens of other shadows rose up out of the gloomy waters and stood, waiting.
“My brethren thank you. Doomed to roam these waters for our sins, we can only send one on the ride home, every seventh year. Cast your line, youth of our fathers! Harvest that soul, that he or she may finally rest with our ancestors.”
Unspeaking, the young boy, after a squeeze of his shoulder by the old man, stepped deeper into the water and, spying an older woman silhouetted against the dying sun’s orange rays, flicked his cane pole and let the line fly.
The line, weighted only by a bit of twisted silver and no hook, sailed across the water and just touched the old woman’s arm.
Light!
Brilliant, nearly blinding light flashed for an instant.
The old woman, her angelic image vibrant and smiling at the youth, hugged those near her, and then ascended some sort of vague carriage pointed to the east.
Gone!
The woman and the entire crowd of other shadows vanished.
The grim figure turned, smiling down at the boy.
“You did well, son of Old Jules’ line. ‘Til seven years hence.”
As the figure shuffled back to rejoin the oyster bed, the boy reached up to tug his grandfather’s weathered hand, a question on his lips.
“Why wait, sir? So, so many. Can’t they all go up together?”
The old man gently turned the boy and moved toward the deserted path that would take them back into town.
“They sacrificed their own peace to save their families, son. A devil’s deal, but was the only one they had. The talker, for only he speaks, will never go up.”
“Never?”
“Never! He made that crossroads deal with the devil, so his fate is to guide others. He will forever miss the ride home, while ensuring others don’t.”
As old and young quietly faded into the palmetto-lined, oyster shell path, only the distant sounds of fleeing seabirds followed the two from that lonesome shore.
THIRD PLACE
Heroes
By Barbara Garrison
His name was Curly and you had to be a complete dunderhead to not see why. Mama says don’t say ‘dunderhead,’ but I’m just sayin,’ that dog’s tail was as spiraled as a cinnamon roll. When he was young, Curly would carom through the neighborhood like a pinball bouncing off the bumpers. I wasn’t even born back then, so have no memory of Curly being perky, but that’s how mama put it. A furry pinball, careening all over God’s creation with that crazy tail of his bouncing above his haunches.
By time I arrived on the scene, Curly’s running days were over, but he always found a way into my bedtime stories. I loved when mama’d tell how Mr. Brian — that’s Curly’s person — was feeling lonely one day, so he went to the pound to look for a smallish dog, and, instead, came home with Curly. You could describe Curly in many ways, but smallish is not one of them.
Mr. Brian was a genuine war hero, which I got to witness with my own eyes when I fell off my bike in front of his house and skinned up my knees something terrible. Mr. Brian hollered for me to come inside to clean me up with iodine and band-aids and what-not. He ‘bout had to drag me down the hall due to my ogling all the Purple Heart and other medals hanging on the wall.
I had just started middle school when Mr. Brian’s house caught fire and burned to the ground. Every chance I got, I asked Mr. Brian to tell me about that night. He’d take a pull on a cigar the size of a Melmac dinner plate and recount how he was sound asleep, dead to the world, and Curly wouldn’t stop licking his face until he woke up. The fire department said Curly saved Mr. Brian’s life and gave him a big ‘ole medal, which the mayor hung around his neck, calling Curly a hero. It sure was something to see. One hero saves another hero’s life and vice-versa. I mean, how wild is that?!
Mr. Brian died when I was away at summer camp. When mama picked me up, she told me all about it. How unexpected his passing was. How Curly was flat-out refusing to leave the yard, despite everyone trying to take him home until it could be determined what to do with him. Oh, he was getting fed and petted and such by neighbors, but the thing is, nobody spoke Dog, so there was just no explaining the dire circumstances to him. There he’d been for five days and nights now, sitting at the end of his driveway, waiting for his dead master to come home.
“It’s enough to break your heart, Jimmy,” mama said in the car.
“But what’s going to happen to him?” I all but shouted at her. “Where will he live?”
I felt mighty bad about the shouting, because none of it was mama’s fault. But I was an angst-ridden twelve-year-old and the world just made more sense to me if I could blame her.
Fortunately, mama said there was something I could do, which was help her get Curly to the vet so they could figure out why his hair was coming out in clumps. That afternoon, we tried to coax Curly into our car. But there was no treat big enough — no bone juicy enough — to convince that dog to leave his post at the end of the driveway. He intended to wait for Mr. Brian til the cows came home, and that’s all there was to it. Finally, mama told me to run inside and get Mr. Brian’s keys off the kitchen table, which was where the entire world apparently knew he kept them. Together, me and mama cajoled that old dog into Mr. Brian’s car, which I felt plum awful about. There I was, tricking a dog, a hero dog, and, sure, it was for his own good, but you know and I know that Curly thought we were taking him to see Mr. Brian. I cried all the way to the vet’s and the ride home.
