The Bayou

by Arden Powell

They had a wildness about them, something beyond the guns and the way they laughed in the sweltering heat, their teeth white like animals’.

Everybody died, after all. Some just went out meaner than others.

So instead, he bit his tongue and cycled through the same lesser sins week after week. He had disrespected his mother; he had envied some other child at school. His real sins, he kept between himself and God.

As they should be

She looked so tired. The lines under her eyes were tender and dark, and her resemblance to Eugene’s mother was suddenly striking. That same faded appearance, like her exhaustion was eating her alive.

“Oh, he’s killed folks, for sure. He’s even killed some for me, specifically. I bet he’d kill for you, too. If you asked him.”

So romantic

“I suppose I should thank you for not killing me yet," Eugene said finally. "You ask me, putting a bullet in your head would be the kindest thing I could do. But I’m not going to kill you, dollface. Johnny likes you.”

You were just a boy, last time I was around. Louisiana is so different from where I was before. Seems the kind of place made for haunting, doesn’t it?”

“What was that old line about how children are innocent, so they demand justice, while adults would rather pray for mercy?” “I prefer justice,” Johnny said. “I like the taste of it.”

He looked less like the devil then, his eyes wide and earnest, but Milton wrote that Lucifer knew how to cry.

"God," Eugene breathed. "Say my name, not his." "Johnny," Eugene corrected himself,

"Tell me you're mine," Johnny said into Eugene's neck. "I'm yours," Eugene panted. Johnny came with his teeth pressed to Eugene's jugular, sharp incisors biting deep and stopping just short of drawing blood.

“They say the devil comes dressed as everything you’ve ever dreamed of. I never really imagined what it meant until I met you."

“Hell has no claim on me, but if it did, it wouldn’t be on account of who I take to bed. There are plenty of more important sins to choose from if they want to drag me down to the fire and brimstone.”

“When you found Mary Beth,” Johnny repeated. His eyes were dark like coals, but when the dying light caught them at just the right angle, they glowed like honey whiskey. “I remember. You played together in the yard. You made daisy chains before he killed her.”

Dun dun dun!!!

“I predate the devil, Eugene. I’ve been alive for eons, born long before the hills of Ireland rolled into shape. I came to America with the Byrnes; I was tethered to that family for generations, wings clipped. I would have watched Mary Beth grow up, and then I would have watched her children, and her children's children, if she hadn't died so young and set me free.

The gators had taken chunks from him: his torso was ripped open from chest to groin, his intestines hanging out like ropes, glistening in the filtered light, but he was alive.

Mary Beth had delivered the justice that he had been too cowardly to manage; he owed it to her to look on her work without flinching.

The humming was back, urging him to return to the water. A hundred voices whispered over one another, calling his name, coaxing him back to drown with them.

Johnny leaned in close, their lips brushing. His teeth gleamed white, sharp and deadly like the smile of a predator. "You're mine. You said so. You belong with me." Pressing their mouths together, he forced life back into Eugene’s flooded lungs. The humming went flat for a second and then died, like a radio being abruptly turned off. As Eugene turned his head and spat out the last of the bayou, he saw Johnny’s eyes, flat and gold like coins in the dark, glowing down at him.