The Bayou

by Arden Powell

Johnny Walker met Eugene’s gaze through the lens as Eugene pressed his finger to the trigger and snapped the shot. It was over in a fraction of a second, but his heart stuttered and skipped a beat at the look they shared, as if Walker knew him. He didn't.

They had the same magnetism as any other charismatic criminal, and that was all.

Walker and Monnet turned up a few months later, as if somebody needed to fill the gap that Bonnie and Clyde had left. Like America needed somebody to mythologize, then tear to shreds.

The flu had come creeping right up to their doorstep before deciding the town was too small to bother with.

The summer was wet and thick then too, the air rippling when the sun shone through it.

The stranger, Mary Beth’s silent, nameless friend, watched them from the bench, all but invisible to the other adults who walked through the courtyard.

They sometimes found company in each other, two shipwrecked souls drifting side by side, but never for very long.

“You have a good night, Mr. Rêveur. I expect we’ll meet again soon.”

His real sins, he kept between himself and God.

It had been such a long summer, the sun so bleak and unforgiving, and at the end of such a wearying decade. He prayed there were no heroes left.

No heroes, only martyrs.

Finally, hollowed out and empty, Eugene turned and walked out of the church.

Walker’s hand remained on Eugene’s arm like it belonged there.

It was the sort of place where one might drown on dry land if he lingered too long.

It wouldn’t take much to kill him.

Eugene felt he had slipped into some other world, halfway between waking life and dreaming death.

“You had plenty of opinions the last time we met,” Walker said. “You hadn’t pointed a gun at me yet.”

It had never even occurred to him to run.

and his hair—that was what caught people up, even more so than his features, which were too pretty to ever be called handsome.

Eugene wet his lips and Walker followed the motion with his gaze.

“There are other rumors.” Walker smiled like something feral and a shiver crawled up Eugene’s spine, that strange spark of familiarity again. “Tell me.”

He turned just enough to acknowledge Walker’s parting words, and caught a glimpse of his eyes in the dark. They gleamed gold, the irises flat and round like coins.

He couldn’t imagine a time before the water seeping into Chanlarivyè.

Behind them, the bayou simmered like something ancient and terrible and dead.

“Oh, I know Johnny from way back, since I was a little girl,” she said vaguely. “A friend of the family. He knew my sister, back before—before she moved away.”

“What you need to know about Johnny, Mr. Rêveur, is that he’s not like you or I. The laws don’t apply to him. Not moral laws or natural ones. Do you understand?” Gold eyes and sharp teeth, gleaming in the dark.

"Anybody can say that. Seems to me, most folks die running away from something, scared to the end.

"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.”

But Eugene had no proof. He had nothing but the memory of Mary Beth's eyes, wide and frightened as Father Latimer spat exorcisms over her, making the sign of the cross again and again in short, jerking movements. The torn seam of her dress, his hand on her head and the way he said her name.

“Do you have anything to confess?” Father Latimer finally asked.

"Do you?" Silence reigned.

Everything had been washed away by the dark waters.

They were here first, after all. I never did like colonizers.” “Aren’t you English?” Walker smiled. His teeth gleamed white and far too sharp. “No, I’m far older than that.”

“This is my home.” “Still?” Eugene didn’t answer.

The devil was alive and well in Chanlarivyè, just as he was all through the South. Folks didn’t need so many churches unless they had something that needed praying away.

He didn’t know if he believed in the devil beyond the wicked things people did of their own accord, but if the devil had a face, it would look like Johnny Walker’s.

“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.

"Your heart's beating so fast," Johnny murmured against his mouth. "What are you afraid of?"

"Everything." "You can be afraid later."

They wanted to come out as prayers, a blasphemous litany of the sacred and profane.

"God," Eugene breathed. "Say my name, not his."

“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.

“I knew a girl who died, a long time ago.” Eugene fell to his back, his hands on his ribs. Everything felt underwater. “Am I dreaming?” “Go to sleep, Eugene.”

“The devil is just the word you give to humanity’s darker impulses. You’ve seen the devil, but it was never me. And it’s not you, either.”

"Children have disappeared." Mary Beth shrugged. “I was a child.” “They called you their little angel.” “I was an angel. Then I was dead. Now I’m something else.”