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Member
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Pennsylvania, Land of Taxes
Gender: Male
Posts: 17
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Flip's Notch (Short Story)
Flip’s Notch
Flip’s Notch, an elongated pond folded into a crease between two fingers of the Appalachian Mountains running northeast to southwest through central Pennsylvania, witnessed two murders, a suicide and two disappearances since the Civil War.
The pond, fed by underground springs and watershed runoff, seems never to ebb or flow. No fish inhabit its brownish-orange waters, made acidic by underlying pyretic bedrock, but biting flies flourish in black clouds among the tall rushes in the swampy shallows near its banks. Local people whisper stories about Old Man DiFilippo, for whom the place is unofficially named. Old Flip, they said, came home to his wife, Charity, and his small farm by the pond after a stint with the Union Army after the ruinous Civil War.
The reunion reaped a bitter harvest. Old Flip walked into his cabin unannounced, expecting a tearful but joyous welcome from Charity. Instead, he found Smitty Malone, shirtless, sitting at the table eating breakfast with his wife. Flip shot them both dead on the spot, or so his written confession said. In the letter, he claimed to have thrown their bodies into the pond; then he hanged himself from the center beam of the cabin where he was found, fly-blown, days later by a tinker looking for a job sharpening tools. Despite repeated searches of the pond and the surrounding area, the bodies of Charity DiFilippo and Smitty Malone never were found.
Local lore eventually deemed Flip’s Notch cursed or haunted and neighbors avoided the place as though it were infected with Plague. A few years later, the cabin mysteriously caught fire and burned to ashes. Local hose companies refused to go near the place, even though the blaze threatened to spread into the forest. Because the day had been calm with light breezes blowing toward the water, the forest of oak, maple and some scrubby pines was spared.
Although pale-faced European settlers of the region remained spooked about Old Man DiFilippo cursing the waters and about three ghosts haunting the dreary environs of Flip’s Notch, local Susquehannock folk said the pond was neither haunted nor cursed. They said the pond harbored a spirit, a very bad one, an insane one, and that it’s always been there, since Creation. It’s nearly unpronounceable name in the Susquehannock tongue means, roughly, Soul Trickster in Blood Water.
Whites laughed at such fanciful notions; Susquehannocks laughed at such insouciant white folks.
Flip’s Notch lingered uninhabited and rarely visited by human beings for nearly a century. The property deed turned brown in the county seat archives, but state and county officials never moved to annex the neglected property. Then, in 1941, Brian William Taylor and his wife Nora paid off commonwealth tax arrears and claimed Flip’s Notch, 16.3 acres, as part of Nora’s family legacy and inheritance. In June, Brian and Nora began work on a bungalow by the east bank of the pond. It was near the still visible stone rubble of the original DiFilippo home’s fire place and chimney.
The couple completed the one-story abode late in August of 1942. A year later, Brian’s luck with the Draft Board ran out and he joined the United States Navy to do his bit to win the war, but at least on a full stomach. He came home from the induction center in Pittsburgh, singing a ditty he’d picked up from Navy recruiters, “GI beans and GI gravy, Gee I wish I’d joined the Navy.” And so he did. After a brief leave following basic training and technician school, Brian shipped out in 1944 and found himself in the Pacific under Admiral William “Bull” Halsey.
Brian saw combat aboard the destroyer USS Spence, and his letters to Nora, though periodic and often short, filled her with hope that America was winning and that her sailor boy soon would return. Her letter to him, announcing her pregnancy, however, probably never reached Brian.
In December 1944, the Spence sank, not from Japanese gunfire or bombs or torpedoes, but from a modern-day uprising of the divine winds of original kamikaze fame. A typhoon capsized the Spence and two other ships of Halsey’s fleet. Spence sank with nearly all hands aboard, but Brian beat the odds and the raging sea and, though grievously hurt, was rescued.
The Navy misinformed Nora that Brian had been lost at sea and was presumed dead. Meantime, Brian recovered enough from severe injuries that cost him the use of his right hand, leaving him with burn scars traversing his right side from the neck to his midriff, to be granted leave pending discharge from service. Brian arrived in Pennsylvania filled with gratitude to God for his deliverance and for this once-in-a-lifetime chance to give his Nora the surprise of her life.
Dexter VanLandingham owned the Esso station in town. Dex and Brian had been friends since high school, and Dex was delighted to see his old chum, not dead afterall (although dressed in Navy Whites) returned from the war, a hero. They had a quick lunch together at Midge’s diner in town and made plans to go hunting together that coming Saturday. Brian asked if he could borrow Dexter’s 1937 maroon Studebaker Dictator, and Dexter was happy to oblige.
“I’ll use the truck for a few days” Dexter said. “Just bring her back in ship shape, sailor. Oh, and take this with you. I’ll see you in two days, Bri. You got 24 hours to sharpen your aim.” Dexter handed Brian a 12-guage double-barreled Winchester shotgun and a box of ammunition.
“Hey Dex, thanks. Thanks for everything. I’ll see you at Midge’s for breakfast, Saturday morning.”
“Roger that, Sinbad!”
“And this time, I buy.
***
Flip’s Notch lay two miles down a narrow dirt lane off County Road F-66 north. Most of the track was surrounded by red oaks and a few clearings populated by wild grasses, goldenrod, hawthorn bushes and clumps of multiflora rose. Evening raced hard on the heels of the dying afternoon. Shadows deepened in the forest around Brian, and the fragrant multiflora blossoms perfumed the cooling air, sweet and pleasant. Brian breathed it in and smiled in expectation of the surprise he had in store for Nora.
The hills around Flip’s Notch swallowed the sun as Brian coasted almost in silence near the house. It was hard to see in the purpling twilight, but he resisted switching on the headlights. He parked and walked to the wooden door, carrying the Winchester in his good hand. He heard Nora’s sweet voice through the thin door. Who is she talking to, he wondered.
“Oh baby, baby, I love you so much,” she said. “Billy-baby, you know I do.”
Brian’s heart thudded dully in his chest. A cool thin mist slowly curled in from the pond, carrying an ancient stench, not overpowering but there, cloying. Brian strained to hear more, to hear the voice of … Bill.
“Hey, you’re not eating, sweetheart. What’s the matter, Billy? Got something else on your mind? You do, don’t you, you bad boy?”
Brian bit his lip. He grimaced and listened harder.
“Okay, sweetie. Are these what you want? Huh? The last man to see these was Brian, you know?”
Critical mass! Brian kicked the door open and leveled the shotgun. “You bastards!” he screamed.
Nora began to scream back, but as she recognized him, her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell on her face in a dead-out faint.
Brian looked at the guy sitting by the table. His head almost exploded in a shocking mixture of confusion and instantaneous comprehension. He ignored Nora’s groaning and stared transfixed in disbelief.
“Oh, dear sweet Jesus ….”
Behind him, Nora stirred and spoke. “Welcome home, Brian. Meet your son, William.
The little boy smiled at Brian. A breeze caught the door and gently closed it behind them.
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©Hesperus April 2007
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Odi Vulgarum Profanum
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