Heart Rot

Days after we bury Pa beneath the oak tree, strange toadstools break through the bark, winding around the trunk like a staircase leading to hell, where his body tangles with the roots. Already the foliage has shed its discolored leaves into grimy muck. The branches had grayed and peeled like old paint. Peeled like Pa’s flesh when he was close to death.

“Burn it down,” Ma says beside me.

The bruises on her face have begun to heal, yellow now instead of the plum-colored purple they used to be. The swelling over her right eye has shrunk, opening a crack between the lids, splotches of red splattered in the white. A soft wheezing noise whistles through the nostrils of her crooked nose. The cuts on her forehead and cheek are a reminder of the horror we survived. 

A solitary cross planted at the head of the burial mound marks the grave. “What about Pa?” I ask, voice trembling, crippled by doubt of whether I want to hear her answer.

Ma shivers as a wind blows through the forested hills beyond the property. “Burn it too.” That said, she hobbles inside the cabin, leaning on her walking stick, dragging the left leg in its bandages, abandoning me to the duty she’s placed before me.

I glance over my shoulder at the vegetables flourishing in the garden, rising above the fence, and the pile of wood leaning against the pen where the piglets roam. I hesitate to fetch the shovel and ax from the barn, afraid of what I’ll find growing beneath the soil, afraid it has spread to the animals. 

#

A few mornings ago, after awaking with the cock’s crow, Pa and I sat at the table eating flapjacks Ma cooked on the griddle, talking about the fencing he wanted to raise around the pen in preparation for the litter of piglets our sow would farrow in the coming days.

Placing down his fork, Pa addressed me in a manner I had not heard before, a manner that said I needed to pay close attention. “I’ll need you to come with me into the woods this morn to cut trees for the posts. Bring the cart. I’ll show you how to do it properly.” 

As I stuffed my mouth, I couldn’t stop smiling. Finally, I’d reached the age where Pa spoke to me like a man. Ma knew it too. I think that was why she squeezed my shoulder as she threw an extra flapjack on my plate. I tried not to show I noticed.

Once we finished, we each kissed Ma on the cheek. Pa lingered a little longer, hands on her waist, her arms wrapped around his neck, as he whispered something in her ear that made her laugh, a high-pitched giggle she hid behind her hand. As I slipped on my boots, I watched them from the door, wondering if they were talking about me. I touched my ears to feel if they were burning.

We threw the axes in the cart and wheeled them toward a dirt path winding up into the hills. “Take care of the old man, Henry,” Ma said, waving.

I promised I would.

We headed toward the top of the hill where the trees leaned over us like giants. Rain fell through the canopy in big drops. We pushed the cart through the thicket, careful not to slip in the mud. A couple of times the wheels stuck, and we had to lift them from the sludge. An eerie quiet settled over us. I didn’t hear anything but the twigs breaking beneath our feet and the pitter-patter of rain. I glanced over my shoulder at the smoke from our chimney rising into the sky.

Pa pointed to a copse of oaks with slight leans. “They fall easier if the wind has done some of the work for us,” Pa said.

I dropped the cart as he slipped on gloves and grabbed the ax. He cut a pie slice in the bark with the bit of the ax about knee high, then did the same on the other side, about halfway between the empty space of the first notch. “Make sure the tree falls in the direction you want, and not on your old man.” Pa gave me a friendly slap on the arm. But I couldn’t stop my hand from shaking.

Once he’d cut the initial notches, he deepened them further with hefty swings until the wood splintered. His muscles rippled with each stroke of the ax. I wanted to grow up like him, rugged and strong. A man brave enough to handle an ornery bull or slaughter a hog when winter came and the meat supply thinned.

The tree toppled, crashing through the branches of the one next to it, and bounced against the ground. “Alright, now your turn.”

Pa watched my first couple of cuts. Before I could swing a third time, he nudged my feet further apart with the toe of his boot and stacked my hands close together on the handle. I swung as hard as I could and barely nicked the trunk.

Pa bent over laughing but stopped when he saw my reddened cheeks. “Again,” he said.

After a few more swings, I slowly started to catch on. Pa squeezed my shoulder then left me alone while he hacked off the limbs, sliced the trunks into post-size lengths, and stripped the bark. My arms soon tired, complaining with aches whenever I lifted the ax. Still we continued working well into lunchtime.

It was while catching my breath that I noticed white spots twisting along the trunk of an oak. “Pa, what’s this?”

He came over to have a look. “Some kind of toadstool,” he said, crumbling the fungi between his fingers. He peeled a strip of spongy bark. Brown moss devoured the wood. “Whatever it is, the tree’s no use to us. Chop her down and throw her to the side.” 

I lifted the ax over my shoulder, straining, and put my waist into the swing. A big hunk splintered into pieces. The tree toppled in the wrong direction, toward where Pa was stripping bark. “Look out,” I shouted. Pa glanced up, eyes wide, and raised his hands. The tree landed on top of him with a crash, leaves and branches shuddering.

Pa groaned. I rushed around his side. Spit flew from his mouth as he gasped. The bough had trapped his left arm. He pushed with his right, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Pa, are you okay?” I sobbed.

“I’m fine. Just stuck.”

“It was all my fault. You warned me to be careful.”

“Stop that now. I need your help lifting it off my arm. You pull while I push. Got it?”

With Pa only able to use his right arm, it fell to me to carry the load. I grabbed the truck and, on the count of three, lifted. The tree was heavier than expected. It took four tries before we could hoist the bough high enough for Pa to slide his arm from beneath and roll away before it dropped.

The bark had scraped Pa’s forearm from elbow to wrist like a skinned potato. Blood seeped to the surface and splashed the leaves. Pa removed his shirt and wrapped it around the wound; the cotton soon soaked red.

I helped Pa to his feet. “Everything is going to be fine, son,” he said. “What do you say we call it a day? Stack what logs we can in the cart and head home.”

I did as I was told but felt ashamed. Though he’d never admit it, I’d let Pa down.

#

It takes me nearly all morning to chop down the oak. I wear the gloves Pa gave me, dried blood coating the splits in the leather. I tell myself not to cry. He would’ve wanted me to stay strong. Not only for myself, but for Ma.

I catch her standing in the doorway of the cabin, leaning on her walking stick. Hand on the Bible, she had promised if I got infected she’d grab Pa’s shotgun and finish it. I hope it doesn’t come to that.

I chop the tree into shorter pieces. The insides are hollow but rimmed with nets of black fungus. I tie the handkerchief from my pocket around my nose and mouth. I don’t want to find out what will happen if I breathe the stuff. Careful not to touch the bark, I stack the wood on a pyre.

Standing over Pa’s grave, my stomach feels nauseous over what I’m about to do. It was hard enough burying the body, or what remained of it, wrapping him in a bed sheet and lowering him into the hole I dug, a hole deep enough to prevent scavengers from digging him up. Now I’m digging him up. I’m afraid to see what the hours have done to him. 

I pull the cross from the mound, grab the shovel from the cart, and dig. After I get about knee deep, a bubbling slime pools around the shovel blade and the stench of spoiled fruit wafts into my face. I leap from the hole, crawl to the edge of the woods, and vomit. By the time I return, the entire hole is filled with sludge. I yank the handkerchief from my pocket and cover my face again, but I’m unable to deaden the stench. I kneel at the edge and poke around with the shovel. The deeper I plunge the more slime oozes forth.

Tiny stones float to the surface. I scoop a couple with the shovel and bring them close to my face. But they aren’t stones. They’re Pa’s teeth. I drop the shovel, along with the teeth, and back away from the hole.

Ma hobbles into the yard, confusion wrinkling her brow. “What’s wrong?”

“Pa, he’s…rotted.”

She takes another step. “What do you mean rotted?”

I hold up my hand for her to stop. She doesn’t need to see this. She’s seen enough. We both have.

#

We had barely made it halfway home when Pa collapsed on the trail. He slumped against an oak, hacking breaths puffing hazy clouds, as if his lungs were smothered in mildew. I took a few steps backwards. Grainy seeds floated from his lips into the sky. Sweat slicked his fevered skin. His eyes flickered as he tried to speak, the words withering on his dry lips. I peeked at the wound beneath his shirt. Fungus billowed from the scrape into a clustered mass and his arm stunk like pond sludge.

“Pa,” I shook him.

His eyes fluttered open, momentarily, then his head flopped to his chest. I dumped the logs, and wrestled Pa into the cart.

The wheels bumped along the rutted path. Pa groaned when jostled. In the patches of light flickering through the canopy, the fungus spread up his arm above the dressing and down toward the wrist. I hurried, ignoring the ache in my calves and the tightness in my back as I tried not to slip downhill. I knew I was almost home when I saw puffs of smoke from our chimney rising above the trees. 

When we reached the woodland edge, I shouted for Ma, my voice echoing with fear. She came running from the barn. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of Pa slumped in the cart, skin a grassy green, the fungus spreading to his shoulder.

“Get him inside now,” she said, taking one of the handles.

We crossed the yard, plopped the cart in front of the porch, and carried Pa inside, Ma holding his legs, my hands slid around his waist. We laid him on the bed. The fungus had soaked through the dressing and swelled around his neck.

Ma touched his forehead. “He’s burning up.” 

She reached for the dressing. I grabbed her wrist, “Don’t touch it,” and handed her my gloves.

Ma slipped on the gloves, unwound the dressing, and threw it into the fireplace. We covered our noses. The skin on Pa’s left breast flaked like wilted leaves. His fingernails crumbled from the cuticles. 

“Heat a pot of water,” Ma said. 

I fetched water from the well and hung the kettle over the fire to boil. Ma dashed to the root cellar and returned carrying a sack of flour over her shoulder, a bucket of sweet milk, and an onion. While I peeled the onion and mixed the ingredients, Ma dipped strips of wool cloth into the boiling water and cleaned the infection.

Pa trembled like ants were marching beneath his flesh. His fingers curled into claws. He popped his jaw, clacking his teeth together. I told him to hold on, God was watching over him, and soon he’d feel better. But the quiver in my voice betrayed my faith.

From a sheath, Ma pulled a patch knife.

“What are you doing?”

“We need to bleed the infection.”

Ma stabbed the tip of the blade into Pa’s forearm. Yellow pus squirted on the mattress.

Pa’s eyes snapped open. He grabbed Ma by the throat and squeezed, lifting her as he rose to his feet. The blade slipped from Ma’s fingers and clattered to the floor. Her feet pedaled the air and her arms flailed.

"Let her go, Pa, you're hurting her," I begged.

I ran over to the woodpile, grabbed the thickest log I could find and, just as Ma’s body fell limp, swung as hard as I could and struck Pa over the head. He fell face first, unconscious, on the bed.

Ma pulled from his loosened grip and fell against the wall, sucking for air. Bruises marked where Pa’s fingers had gripped. I wrapped my arms around her shoulder. “Are you okay?” I asked, holding her tight.

“I’ll live.”

“What’s wrong with Pa?”

“Fever.” Ma sounded uncertain. She removed herself from my embrace. “Let’s finish cleaning him up.”

#

I make sure to light the fire far away from the cabin. Wood crackles beneath the flames, ashes floating heavenward. I burn the bed, too, and anything Pa touched. I shovel the dirt back in the grave and place stakes around the area. I try not to linger too long, thinking about what I’ve seen. The infection may have taken Pa’s body, but I pray his soul rests with God. But even of that I’m uncertain. How can the Lord blame him for the sin he committed when he was possessed by a devil?

Ma has stayed inside all day. She’s scrubbed every surface of the cottage with soap and hot water. I think the chores are something to keep her busy. Keep her mind off the thing Pa became.

When she finishes, she joins me on the porch, walking stick and rifle resting across her lap. We sit in chairs on either side of the door, like we are protecting our home from whatever evil lurks in the hills. An owl screeches, warning us of danger. Branches snap beneath footfalls and eyes glow beyond the darkness of the trees. It could be bison or a mountain lion. I picture them bursting out of the hills with those strange growths splitting open their flesh, charging us with their jaws open or their horns lowered. I grab a heavy log from the pile. It isn’t much, but better than no weapon at all. 

“We should leave here. Burn this whole place to the ground,” Ma says. 

“What are you talking about? We can’t leave here. Leave Pa.”

“Pa’s not here anymore. And you seen what it did to him, Henry. For all we know it has spread through these hills. It gets in the animals, or us, we’re done for.”

“Then aren’t we safer staying put? We don’t know what’s out there.”

Ma thumbs the butt of the rifle. “In the morning, we’ll pack what we can and ride to Custer. Take the animals. We can stay with my sister and her husband if they’ll have us.”

“And if they won’t?” I cannot quell the anger rising in my throat. The thought of deserting our home, the place Pa built with his own hands, the place where he’s buried, sets my foot a-tapping.

Ma nods, as if she’s decided something without conferring with me. “Then we’ll sell the livestock. It will give us a start until we can find work.”

I stand abruptly, knocking over my chair. “You can go on without me then.” I storm into the cabin as Ma calls my name and flop on the soft feathered mattress. The bed across from the space where Pa and Ma used to sleep. When I see Ma’s dark figure leaning on her walking stick in the doorway, rifle clutched in her other hand, I roll on my side, facing the wall, unwilling to speak on this any further.

I hear the chair creak as Ma sits again. I don’t know how long she stays out there. I fall asleep.

#

Through the night, Pa’s condition got steadily worse. We watched him from the table, both of us afraid to look anywhere else. Ma held the rifle like it was the only thing that would pull us through. I prayed to God she wouldn’t have to use it.

After she had cleaned and bled the infection, Ma applied a poultice, made from sweet milk, flour, egg, and onion. It smelled like curdled cheese, and squeezed tears from my eyes, but was an improvement over the stench oozing from Pa. While Ma spread the boiling hot poultice on his skin, Pa didn’t twitch. If it weren’t for his ragged breathing, I would have thought him dead. Ma said the poultice would keep Pa’s skin moist and draw out the infection. I wanted to believe in its healing power.

But as the sun lowered behind the hills, the fungus continued to spread across Pa’s body. Mushroom shaped tumors bloomed a forest of its own across his blackening skin. I lit the fireplace. Ma heated a sewing needle, the metal tip burning bright red, and pierced one of the growths. Sludge spat onto the floor. 

Ma wiped it clean with a cloth then wrapped the wound. “He needs a doctor.”

“About a half day’s ride to Custer. I could leave at first light.”

Ma hung her head. “You’re too young to have to deal with something like this.”

Tears fell down my cheeks. “It’s my fault this happened. If I had notched the tree properly, the tree would’ve fallen away from him. He warned me about it. But I didn’t listen. I didn’t listen and now he’s going to…”

Ma squeezed my hand hard enough to hurt my fingers. In the shadow of the firelight, I couldn’t see her expression, but I knew she was looking at me with sympathy. “We are not going to let that happen. You will ride to Custer at first light and bring back the town doctor. I will stay here and do my best to keep the infection from spreading. You understand me?”

I nodded.

Ma lay her cool palm on my cheek. “You’re going to grow up to become a good man, Henry Meek, just like your Pa. He would be proud of you.”

Pa screamed, a deep guttural bellow that lifted his torso off the mattress and shook the cabin. We rushed over to his side. Pa’s eyes were no longer the bright calming blue I had always admired. They were now two pieces of shiny coal. 

#

Ma hollers, stirring me awake. She’s joined by a chorus of neighs, bellows, snorts, and squawks. The cabin is dark and empty other than the square of light the sun traces on the floor. I breathe in that familiar odor of spoiled fruit seeping through the cracks between the lumber. Still in my trousers and boots, I tug on my suspenders and stumble after Ma’s voice.

I round the corner of the cabin and slip in muck. At first, I think it’s mud until I wipe my trousers and smear my leg with wilted leaves and grass. Our entire property has decayed into sludge. A dark path leads from Pa’s burial ground to where the animals mewl in their stalls, agitated.

Ma stands just outside the fence, clutching the rifle, staring at the vegetables rotting inside her garden. White growths mushroom from the potatoes, squash, and radishes. Mold devours the green beans, cucumbers, and peas. Thickets of huckleberries and chokecherries wrinkle and split into mush. Flies feast, buzzing as they fill their bellies. I swat them away, afraid they too are now infected.

Our sow squeals like she’s being gutted alive. Ma and I glance at each other. We’re scared to know what is happening, but we must know, if any of us are to get out of this place alive. 

We inch past the garden toward the wallow outside the barn. The sludge creeps beneath the unfinished fence. The sow nudges the piglets with her nose. They all lie on their sides, eyes closed, mouths open. Their trotters are bent inward toward their burst bellies, insides spilling into the mud, festering with mold. The chickens peck around them, squawking, but don’t come near. The other pigs cluster in the corner of the pen, grunting. The same growths bud along the sow’s sides and her belly droops as if she’s pregnant with another litter of piglets. Udders leak rancid clumpy milk. Her cloven hooves crumble with every tottering step. 

“Give me the rifle,” I say to Ma, holding out my hand. She has enough sins to repent for. She’d taken Pa’s life. Shot the devil back to hell.

She relents without argument, handing me the gun along with three bullets from her coat. I step into the mud, raise the rifle, and peer down the long barrel at the sow. Once I have the sow in my sights, I take a deep breath to calm my shaky hands, wrap my finger around the trigger. I hear Pa whispering in my ear, “Steady now, Henry. Steady.” 

From inside the barn comes the painful bellow of the heifer and the sound of splintering wood. She burst through the doors, slides to a stop, huffs a black cloud of spores, then turns her head in our direction, milky eyes staring right at us. She too is covered in growths. Snorting, she shakes her head, swishes her tail, and paws the ground with her back hooves. I pivot toward the heifer and shout at Ma to run.

The cow charges.

I fire.

The bullet rips a hole in the heifer’s shoulder. Ma wheezes behind me. I shout at her to get out of here as I backpedal, fumbling with another bullet. The cow barrels down on us, hooves pounding the mucky ground, nostrils flaring. The bullet slips from my fingers. I watch as it tumbles to the ground. The cow lowers her head.

Ma shoves me out of the way.

The cow’s horns pierce through her stomach. She coughs a spray of blood. The heifer tosses Ma over her backside. She twists through the air like a sheet whipped from a clothesline, and lands with a crunch.

“Maaaaa!” I shout.

The cow charges across the clearing and into the hills.

#

Pa lunged from the bed and caught Ma with a bone-snapping punch, bending the bridge of her nose crooked. He grabbed her by the hair and smashed her face into the wall, painting the logs in a splattering of blood and teeth. I grabbed the gun and aimed, but I was scared I would shoot Ma, so I gripped the barrel and swung it like the ax. But Pa caught the stock inches from his head, yanked it from my grasp, and tossed me over the table.

Shuffling, Pa dragged a trail of muck behind him. He opened his cavernous mouth. Black spores swirled like a tiny tornado. I covered my face and begged Pa to stop. “You have to fight it,” I shouted. But there was none of Pa’s soul left inside that thing. Only the devil.

From behind, Ma stabbed the patch knife through the thing’s cheeks. Dropping the rifle, it wrenched the knife through the corners of its lips, spraying gunk onto the floor. Its jaw unhinged and flopped ajar. Spores poured from its mouth, drenching the floor in a puddle of mold. Ma snatched for the rifle, but the thing stomped on her shin, snapping the bone like a branch. Her scream echoed throughout the cabin. I crawled to the fireplace, avoiding the mold, snagged a burning log, tip smoking red, and drove it into the thing’s back. Flames leaped up to its shoulders. The thing roared as it slapped at the fire and scuttled out the door. 

I carried Ma with one arm slung over my shoulder toward the door. She hissed with each step, unable to put any weight on her right leg. In my other hand, I carried the rifle. Writhing in pain, the thing burbled as mold spewed from its shredded mouth. Its disfigured body flailed, a lumpy potato of smoking tubers.

When we were a few feet away, the thing tried to say something. Its voice sounded like Pa. I swear it said, “Henry.” My finger slid off the trigger as I lowered the barrel.

“Give me the gun, Henry,” Ma said.

I handed her the rifle.

She whispered a tearful prayer and pulled the trigger. The thing’s head exploded into chunks.

I wrapped my arms around Ma’s waist. She stroked my hair while we wept. “Pa would’ve wanted us to take mercy,” Ma said. “Let’s pray to the Lord he’ll welcome Pa’s soul to the Kingdom of Heaven.”

#

I drop my ear to Ma’s chest, listening for the heartbeat that never comes. I squeeze her hand, as if I can pump life back into her body, but she doesn’t move, doesn’t take a breath. “Please God, do something,” I shout to the heavens, but only the wind answers back. My pain rustles through the trees and up into the hills.

With Ma and Pa gone, and no one to ask for advice, I think about what Pa would do. In the silence, I swear I hear his voice, whispering to me.

Clutching the gun, I lumber into the pen and shoot the squealing sow through the ear. She flops next to her piglets and bleeds out into the mud. The chickens and other pigs scatter to the edges of the fence. None of them look infected. Not yet anyway. But how long until we all are?

The horses whinny and the cows bellow inside the barn. The animals stir in their stalls as I shuffle down the aisle, all of them gnashing at the growths sprouting from their flanks. The shattered pieces of wood where the heifer broke through are scattered around the milk house.

After bolting them inside, I go back to the cabin, rummage through Pa’s trunk at the foot of the bed and find his ammunition and tinder box. I flip the latches on the case and open the lid. There are only five bullets; not enough to kill every animal. I slip them into my pocket, cradle the tinderbox under my armpit, and wheel a cartful of lumber. 

I drop the supplies in the barn, walk to where Ma lies, pick her up beneath the armpits, and drag her to a comfortable bed of hay, crossing her hands atop the wounds in her stomach. I drag the sow and carry her piglets and place them in a pile in the aisle. Then I shoot the biggest of the horses and cows in their heads at close range and cover them in hay. I drop the gun in front of the last stall.

I herd the rest of the pigs into the barn. They stare at the carcasses and tremble and screech. It will be over soon, I tell them.

As I’m walking back outside, a harsh scratchy feeling climbs up my throat. I cough, spraying black mold onto the hay. A tingling sensation spreads through my lungs. I take a deep breath and cough again. Spores float into the air.

I tell myself not to be afraid. My folks wouldn’t want me to be afraid.

I slide the door closed and stack the lumber in separate corners of the barn and strike the flint with the steel over the tinderbox. The click-click-click sound agitates the pigs further. But the thing won’t catch. “God damn you!” I give it one last good wallop. A shower of sparks pours onto the charcloth. I blow on it until the cloth ignites, the tiny flames warm against my skin. I breathe the smoke deep into my lungs. 

I touch the flames to the hay, the stalls, the piles of lumber. Fire leaps up the walls to the ceiling in waves of popping kindling. Smoke swallows us in a cloud. My eyes water, scorched like they have been branded by an iron. I choke, my lungs heavy with soot, and fall to my knees, where the air is still clean. The horses kick their stalls and whinny. The pigs scratch their hooves against the door and scream. I beg their forgiveness.

I sit next to Ma and wind my fingers through hers. I wish Pa were here, so we could all be together. But God willing, we will be together soon.