Lonesome by Nathan Sweem

All I wanted was a glass of wine, a Southern vintage to dilute the many foreign sensations that make one feel homesick. If only such a cure for loneliness were permanent.

Mornings in Augusta were swamp-sticky, every surface coated with dampness suggestive of tropical storms passing in the night. Moisture clung to the air, running wet fingers down antique brick facades and walls topped with wrought iron spears, smudging them brown and black and moss-green, boring holes through metal gates and gnawing at rusty edges. Decade after decade of such nights had left the city ragged, withered, and rife with decay.

Yet what wrought constant havoc on the architecture fed the greenery. Great maples and pines the size of clock towers, vestiges of the swamp on which the city was built, drank in the sky and tore up sidewalks with their enormous roots.

By evening light, the city was dull and quiet, every face tired and numb, every other downtown storefront boarded up and abandoned. Antebellum-style manors stood dark and empty, the ruins of a conquered empire. And all day long, helpless cries rang from the bell towers of Gothic Revival churches, whose white spires resembled pointed Klansmen hoods.

I settled for a wine bar a few blocks from the riverfront. After my first glass of Heiress, a full-bodied South African red, the bartender, a thin man with a bushy handlebar mustache, dismissed our small talk and asked, "Why are you really here?"

"To write a story," I confessed.

"Ah, you're a writer." It explained so much. It explained nothing at all.

It gave a cursory explanation for the books I set on the bar in front of me. One was nothing but blank pages I hoped to fill. The other was a collection of essays on philosophical pessimism I'd borrowed from the university library and never returned.

After frowning at the cover of the essay collection, he said, "If you want my advice, try another city. There's nothing in Augusta worth writing about."

I let his counsel smolder, along with my second glass of Heiress, while he polished glasses and hung them from racks. As he poured my third, I spun the question around at him. "Surely, a town this historical has something worth telling. It must not be completely devoid of stories."

"Oh, we all have stories," he conceded. "But they're just that."

I pressed, and he eventually gave ground. Leaning over the bar, glass and rag in hand, he murmured, "There is a place I know full of interesting stories. Ask for my sister. Tell them you're a friend of the family."

He gave a tired grin that was more than ready to be rid of me and slid a scribbled-on piece of paper my way. "I hope she helps you find whatever it is you really want."

***

 Indomitable clouds hid the upper stratosphere behind a sky still dour and grey. A wind rattled the stagnant, tropical air with a chill which, under different circumstances, might have made the beginnings of a tornado.

Church Light Behavioral Health Center occupied a relic of post-Reconstruction architecture, a colonial-white ranch-style school house that had once served residents on the outskirts of Augusta a century ago. Long-since reclaimed and rezoned, complete with modern irrigation and a routinely-manicured lawn, it boasted an eyesore of a parking lot, large enough to accommodate a staff of several dozen and the visiting families of its scores of patients.

But families rarely visited— certainly never all at once— and the staff worked in shifts. Consequently, the parking lot, cracked and potholed, made a blight on the surrounding greenery with acres of empty, worthless pavement, poorly compensated here and there with islands of drought resistant ground cover and shady, nonnative trees which, even to my less-than-familiar eye, were sorely out of place in a Georgia swamp.

My taxi driver dropped me off unceremoniously at the front entrance with a parting remark so heavily accented West African its meaning was lost on me. I returned a simple goodbye for lack of a more creative idea and tried the door.

Locked.

The front desk nurse, a politely cheerful young black woman, hit the door release after I waved awkwardly through the glass. The lobby was graveyard-still, the nurse who let me in frozen behind her desk like a statue with a diplomatic smile plastered across her face, head cocked slightly off-center, eyes locked in an expectant look.

"How may I help you!" she asked. Her cheeriness, maintained at borderline overbearing levels—probably to make up for the oppressive silence suffocating the place—fell short against a protective screen of half-inch clear plastic bolted to the front of her desk. Dark mauve scrubs said she belonged, but her eyes, large and brown, didn't want to believe it. Nor did a slightly tremulous lip.

"I'm here to visit a patient," I said. "Addison Daniels. I'm a friend of the family. Her brother sent me."

Do you have the code? Sign here. About a ten-minute wait. Been a while since she's had a visitor, I'm sure she'll be— It'll be good for her to speak with somebody new.

I waited on the lobby couch until another nurse, summoned via intercom, emerged from a set of double doors that appeared ordinary but were treated with the utmost respect and reverence by the staff. A middle-aged white woman dressed in peach scrubs, she spoke with a drawl more bent than any I'd heard since I'd arrived.

I followed her through the double doors, glimpsing an empty stretched corridor before quickly veering into what appeared to be a cafeteria. "Sit wherever you like," she said, then disappeared.

I was alone. That ominous silence followed, muffled but still present, hovering over my shoulder whichever way I turned. I chose the table near the far corner, pinched between frosted windows, and waited. Formless shades moved over the glass as a sinister wind whispered into the trees on the other side.

The doors swung open again, and the nurse walked in escorting a young woman with long brunette hair, sunken brown eyes, pale skin, and a wiry frame that brought into question the quality of food served there. She had oval head balanced awkwardly between gaunt shoulders on a pencil-thin neck. The furtive glances she gave around the room, and the way her folded hands picked nervously at each other with a mind of their own, made my hackles raise. Her white hospital gown swayed in the tense stillness of the room almost as if it contained no body at all while she glided over to my table and sat down.

The nurse remained by the door, as if she was a gargoyle standing watch.

"What do you want?" Addison asked, unwilling to make direct eye contact.

I started at the beginning, telling her of my trek across the country and unexpectedly prolonged stay in Augusta, to which she listened apathetically. When I mentioned her brother, she animated—readjusting herself in her chair, she craned her neck and probed me with her troubled orbs for eyes.

"Alex sent you? Is he okay?"

Before an answer could spring from my mouth, her face twisted in agony, her whole body writhed and contorted with emotional turmoil. She whimpered. Tear-filled eyes averted their gaze.

The nurse watched stoically. She'd seen it all before.

"He's well," I attempted to reassure.

With those simple words, her countenance softened with a kind of innocent gratitude. However, I sensed a sort of obtuse restlessness stirring underneath.

"He's very proud of you," I continued, which drew her into me like a moth to flame. Her anxiety all but visibly melted away down sunken cheekbones and bony shoulders, lingering only in fingertips which subtly persisted in their fidgeting. "He said you might have a story."

Now she was more than intrigued. Something welled up inside her and took charge. Not with angst but with surety.

"He said that? Did he say which one?"

"He thought you would know."

Tucking her limbs inward, she perched on her chair, twirling the ends of her long brunette hair as she toyed with her thoughts, a pale spider coiling a paralyzed victim with its spinnerets.

"I know the one." A hint of a smile. "The Headless Mother." Back to serious. Anxious. Urgent. "Have you seen her?"

"I'm sorry. Have I seen who?" I began to feel the twinge of embarrassment, that a practical joke had been played at my expense. I squirmed in my seat, and my cheeks flushed. That is, until the morbidity of the place toppled onto me from all sides: the unnaturally sanitary conditions, the unnervingly obvious lack of anything sharp or metallic, the tortured, emaciated soul across from me, the ever-watchful nurse standing sentry at the door. This was no joke.

Addison extended a shaky hand—not to me, but to some invisible thing against which she might brace herself. She leaned as closer.

"The Headless Mother. Tell me you've seen her. Please," she begged, quivered.

I tried my best to remain neutral, gentle, to not excite her.

"This is the first I'm hearing of her."

Eyes watery, she was on the brink of total emotional collapse.

"Then why are you here?" she pleaded. "Why did he send you?" Spindly fingers picked wildly at chapped lips.

In spite of my better judgment, which suggested I leave at once, I leaned in.

"Perhaps he wanted me to hear it directly from you," I offered.

"You'll listen?" Her eyes glistened with a fleeting cheer; no sooner did it rise to the surface than succumb to the profound sadness constantly swimming through her insides.

"Absolutely."

Relaying the story required her utmost concentration, straining ever faculty to its fragile limit. She spoke with the urgency of someone run out of time. Each sentence rattled with terror. Her furtive glances around the room redoubled, as if utterance of the thing's name might summon its malice upon her.

"The Headless Mother comes for children on their deathbeds. She collects them, drags their souls by her apron strings to her own personal corner of hell."

Dredging up whatever terrible thoughts plagued her mind clearly pained her. She gazed with such intensity, she trembled.

"They took her head for what she did. But she didn't stop. Death made her stronger. She won't ever stop. She—she—SHE TOOK THEM! SHE TOOK THEM!"

The nurse swooped down and clutched Addison be the arms before she could claw and pound herself into a horrid mess. Escorting her into the corridor, she couldn't get a word in over Addison's gut-wrenching wails.

Ghost stories. Worthless drivel. Kernels of truth butchered beyond recognition.

"I hope you at least got what you came for," the front desk nurse told me with sincerity. "Addison might not be able to see visitors again for a while."

Out of pure ghoulish curiosity, I sauntered over to the county library to dig through their periodicals archive.

Addison Charlese Daniels was one of Church Light's more infamous residents, found not guilty by reason of insanity for the murder of her two children. The only one home the night they were strangled to death in their sleep, Addison claimed a headless ghost visited her in a dream and forced her to watch the abduction of her children, helplessly. When she awoke, according to her testimony, she found them deceased, tucked into their beds—she called the Sheriff immediately, screaming that a demon had killed her kids. True or not, Addison had no choice but to stick with her version of events, lest the judge reconsider her insanity plea.

Quite a story.

I decided I needed a drink.

***

Rambling down Broad Street after midnight, most places were closed except for smoke shops and the rowdiest of dive bars, giving the downtown strip an even more abandoned appearance than usual. At least one Sheriff patrols remained in the area in anticipation of the fights which inevitably broke out every night. Cars sped unmolested down the vacant street, windows tinted black, emanating heavy bass rhythms, some with dizzying multicolored light shows illuminating their undercarriages. It was an inconvenient time for hunger to strike and tempt me to meander much longer than I should have in search of a meal, especially alone.

A not-so-small gathering in front of a fry house, as well as a bright neon OPEN sign, gave it a deceptively inviting look. Several vehicles were parked along the curb with their engines running, headlights on, interiors all masked by windows tinted beyond any legal limit.

The handful of people loitering outside hovered in and out the glow of a single porch lamp. Some conversed in voices raised over music emanating from the vehicles while others just smoked, leaving the whole area partially obscured by a sickly-sweet haze.

One man—at first invisible to me—rose to his feet as I placed a hand on the door. Judging by his uniform and the apron around his waist, I took him for an employee. Yet his stance suggested he didn't want me there.

"You open?" I asked.

"Yeah, we're open," he said. Then he shook his head. "Don' go in, though."

I chuckled uncomfortably. "Don't go in?"

Shaking his head, he shuffled a step or two in my direction. "No, don' go in there."

I was close to ignoring him. The lights were on, but every table empty, and no one at the register. The back kitchen, partly open, was oddly vacated. The idea of crossing the threshold gave me the strange feeling of one on the verge of trespass.

"I'm serious. Don' go in there." He shuffled another step, face cold and black.

I let go of the door and stepped away. Returning to the sidewalk, I continued the way I had been going, now with the unsettling feeling of eyes at my back.

Muttered behind me, I heard, ". . . with your white people bullsh— . . ."

The passenger window of the nearest car rolled down as I passed. A pair of mirthless eyes leered from the black interior. Gold teeth glinted in a twisted smile, and the music emanating from its stereo rattled my heart.

I slipped into the nearest alley, queasy at the impression that I'd only narrowly avoided danger. On the other side, after a glance over my shoulder to confirm I wasn't followed, I picked a direction, turning away from the neon halo of downtown and towards shadowy neighborhoods off the beaten path.

Halfway down the street, a strange shop caught my eye with a window display full of artifacts in various African styles, wooden masks with faces too long and wide, idols and figurines of carved ivory and mahogany, multicolored dashiki-style shirts and headgear. Alongside them, the glass distorted my own reflection into something grim and unfamiliar.

I made note of the cross street and returned to my lodging, hoping to sleep off the encounter. Nightmares haunted me instead, of being lost in a sea of black, being chased by an otherworldly terror I could not see.

***

Come daylight, I retraced my steps to the same storefront. A sign above the door which I had been too inebriated or spooked to see before read WINSLOW'S GOODES in ren-faire lettering. I also noticed, for the first time, a set of placards with bible quotes intermingled with the other curios and a series of Rastafarian artwork, as well as a hand-painted sign promising "Rare Books Inside".

In I went.

A bell jingled.

Incense and cannabis perfumed the air, complemented by a reggae playlist in the background. Shelves wrapped around the walls and turned the interior into a maze of relics. I traipsed through the aisles admiring intricate details carved into unique figures and masks. Some were humanoid.

The shopkeeper stared from behind the counter wearing a pair of circular retro sunglasses with lenses almost black. He had a straight white beard and short-cropped whitish hair topped with a maroon beret. A loose-fitting African shirt decorated his person in vertical bands of yellow, green, brown, and black, with geometric patterns woven along its seams. Not as cheerful as one might expect from a salesperson, he greeted me with neutral tone and expression, mouth relaxed in a bed of wrinkles.

"How can I help you today, young man?" he asked. He was Winslow, the store's namesake, longtime collector of antiques and oddities from around the globe.

"Everything here is a handmade replica by local artists," he said. "Although, if you're looking for the genuine article, I can find it for the right price." He lifted a necklace from underneath his shirt, a string of shells and glass beads culminating in a triangular centerpiece. "This here was made by a Dogen high priest in Mali," he boasted.

Just looking. In town for a few more days, then back to the West Coast. Oregon.

"Feel free to look around. I'll be here if you have any questions." His gaze vanished behind the inscrutable shades of his lenses as his attention seemed to wander.

Tucked into an alcove to the left of the counter, through a split curtain imitating the same mask pattern in dizzying columns, was a hidden trove of books. Tall bookcases wrapped around the walls, giving the alcove a sequestered library feel. The simple partition managed to keep out most of the muggy heat and fragrant smoke, leaving the area coffin-cool and pregnant with an ancient book smell. Walking into the intimate presence of so many ink-filled pages, like stepping onto an altar dedicated to literary arts, stoked the smoldering embers of inspiration in my heart.

Classic novels filled much of the top shelves, though all of a darker bent—Leroux, Radcliffe, Shelley, Stoker, Wilde—along with a plethora of crumbling volumes I didn't recognize. Not a cover wasn't worn, not a spine uncracked. Every name brought with it macabre thoughts which kept that cozy bookstore feeling from settling. Instead, I was soon haunted by the dire suspicion that I was dipping my toes into waters I shouldn't.

My stomach gave another turn as I browsed further down the shelves. The selection veered into obscure myths and legends—things never taught in school—then delved into tomes of witchcraft, ceremonial magic, courses in demonology, leather-bound grimoires penned and sewn by hand, and into all manner of grotesque esoterica.

Flipping through pages of these imprinted too many sordid flashes for comfort. Before leaving, I plucked a compendium of Mvskoke folklore, presumably less disturbing, only to immediately regret doing so. After returning to my room, closer examination revealed it to be a collection of their people's most unpleasant of their traditions, including some more dreadful than any campfire story of our time.

"A bit of a book worm, are we?" Winslow chatted as he rang me up.

"Guilty."

"Better not read this before bedtime," he joked, "or you'll never sleep."

He carefully transcribed the title, price, and exact change on an old-fashioned receipt. On a whim, I asked, "Have you ever heard of the Headless Mother?"

Winslow dropped his pen. Two glassy black discs stared for a moment before he finally asked how I knew the name. "From a crazy woman," I told him, unable to completely suppress an unkind smirk.

"Maybe not so crazy," he remarked, coldly watching and judging my attitude.

"What do you know about her?" I asked, doing my best to maintain a front of solemnity.

He shifted his feet and averted his gaze before tearing the receipt from its booklet and handing it to me, ruminating for a moment as we both held it.

"I know she was a witch," he said, "tried and executed across the river in Aiken County, right in front of the old courthouse. They beheaded her, and now she works for Old Sam."

I asked who Old Sam was, and he took a few more awkward moments to gather himself.

"I'll tell you this now, because I think it'll convince you to move along. Old Sam isn't his real name, it's just one that he uses. He isn't even a he. He's not a person, or even a thing. He's not confined to any one place, or even by time. They say he's from the swamp. But really it's the swamp that's from him.

"I can tell you this safely here, because I have certain protections in place." He motioned to talismans hanging from the ceiling, the walls, above the doors and windows. He brandished the Malian necklace again. "But trust me, you don't want to go around asking about Old Sam, or the Headless Mother—Margaret was her name. They say she found him in the swamp and asked him to give her children, since she couldn't have any herself. Other people's kids started going missing, and the whispers behind her back became outright allegations. She didn't survive long after that. Everyone felt at ease for a short while after they put her in the ground; they took her head and incinerated it. When people started seeing her again, all over, they realized killing her had only helped her.

"But it's Old Sam that gives her power. Every child she takes is a soul she gives to him, and his swamp grows. It's been growing ever since before the first person found him in his bog and struck a bargain, since before time. It's him you should fear more than her. She's just one of many. He has others.

"Now, I've told you enough for you to go back to wherever you came from and not ask about him anymore. Or her. Because as soon as he catches wind you want something from him—he can damn near give you anything—he'll find you. Once he does, you won't be able to tell him 'No'."

I left Winslow's, and the question burned: if I met Old Sam, what would I ask for?

Strangely, I don't remember where I went after that.

***

Next I recall, I was in a drainage ditch on the side of the road. Everything was dark, blacker than night, and I heard nothing but the sloshing of my own feet through ankle-deep water.

I didn't know where I was. All I knew was I wanted to be home. I didn't want to be alone anymore.

Then I was in a swamp, water to my knees, struggling through muck and snags in search of something. It was close, and I wouldn't wake up until I found it.

It was a mangrove forest, roots twisted in hoops and bends above the waterline. The trees looked like giants trying to wade after me, frozen in time. Moss flowed down their necks and dangled like scarves. Arms reached down to dip elongated fingers into clouded pools of brackish water at their feet.

Once I heard his voice, I stopped. He was a shadow rising from the bog. Face and neck were void-dark, but I wasn't afraid, and a crown of jagged branches adorned his head, looped with rings of moss and budding fungi. Serpentine shapes whipped circles the water around his feet with their tails. His voice rumbled low and soft like an alligator growl.

"Come, my lonesome."

He reached at me without moving—simultaneously near and far—and clasped my shoulder. His grip was stern as oak. Mist gathered under the rattle of his breath. A quiet gurgle. The babble of an eternal spring. The sound brushed past me and took me to a hidden vales of shadow.

"Tell Old Sam what you want."

But he already knew.

***

And now, dear reader, I give him you. The swamp grows first in the mind, then leaks out through orifices into the waking world. Every unspoken whisper of him is a mire incubating in the consciousness. Out of it he blooms like a flytrap, a corpse flower, a pitcher plant, calling you, insect, to nourish him. Hold his name in your throat, and he'll burst through it like a worm. Run from him, and he'll snare you within your own dreams. He is the elder swamp, older than the serpent, with more patience than the choking vine. This world is his. His roots go deep. And every man and woman who seeks his mystery, he has them, just as he has you.

Nathan Sweem writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from his home in Southern Oregon. His work has appeared in The Literary Hatchet, Diet Milk Magazine, Land Beyond the World, and others.