Bishop's Ferry

   
“You not from ‘round’ here, are you?”    
     
Sam turned to find a brown-haired mousy little girl peering over his shoulder.  “How would you know that?”    
     
“I ain’t seen ya before.  That means you ain’t been here.”    
   
“Do you keep attendance at study hall or something?”  Sam shifted in his seat for a better view.    
     
“Or something,” she smiled.  “You from up north, ain’t ya?  Got a weird accent.  It’s kinda cute.  I bet you use a lot of big words.”    
     
“Should we be carrying on a conversation in the middle of study hall?  I mean, aren’t we supposed to be quiet… eh, I’m sorry.  I didn’t catch your name?”    
     
“My name’s Meg, and it’s hard to catch.  Like smoke, sometimes it’s best to breathe it in.  As for being quiet, don’t nobody actually study in study hall.  The term is a guise, as you northerners like to say.  All we do in here is shoot the shit and jerk off.”  Meg leaned over and folded her arms across the back of the seat in front of her.  She peered into Sam’s green eyes.  “Just to be clear, the girls shoot the shit.  The guys do the jerking… unless they need help.”    
     
     
Sam dropped a handful of pencils on the floor and nearly knocked his laptop off his desk.  It took him several seconds to gain his composure.  Megan curiously watched as he collected himself.  “That teacher up front doesn’t bother you about talking in class?”    
     
“Who, Mr. Aardvark?” Meg giggled conspicuously.  “He’s locked into nudes on his cell, oblivious to the world.  I’ve walked up there before and seen what he was doing… snuck up on him just like a cat, scared him half to death.  You could bang me against the wall in here without ever disturbing him.”  The girl gave Sam her best Groucho Marx imitation, working her dark eyebrows up and down.    
     
“You don’t need to be so crass,” he finally responded, firing up the screen on his computer.    
     
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Meg replied.    
     
“It means I didn’t come from up north.  My parents moved here from Texas.  Dad got a new job just in time for my senior year.”  Sam sounded exasperated.      
     
“That’s not what it means,” the girl sneered.  “And you don’t talk like no Texan I’ve ever heard.  Wait, did ya’ll buy that big house on 5th Street… the three-story job?”    
     
“That’s the one,” Sam confirmed.  “The trucks pulled up last week with the furniture.  The weather’s been miserably hot, dealing with all those boxes. The house is a freaking dust bowl.”    
     
“That’s the Lipscomb mansion.  It’s been on the market for years, and everyone knows the place is haunted.  The old man’s wife shoved him and his mistress off the bedroom balcony one night.  Now, their ghosts roam the halls for eternity.”    
     
“I guess they’re banging against the walls too,” Sam chuckled.    
     
“There and everywhere else,” Megan laughed.  Several heads turned to see what she was doing.  She covered her mouth, slightly embarrassed.  “But you shouldn’t be so crass, Sam Nash.”    
     
     
“How did you know my name?”    
     
“You wrote it on the front of your notebook, silly… or did the ghosts write that for you?  Please don’t tell me your mother’s responsible.”      
     
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Sam curtly responded, looking away at his computer and feigning disinterest.    
“Do you believe in banging?”  Megan traced the boy’s hairline on the back of his neck, gently teasing his skin with her fingertips.    
     
Sam spun in his chair, completely flustered.  “How old are you?” he insisted.  “You look like you belong in junior high.”  The lights flickered in the room.  There was a sound of thunder followed closely by a faint, hollow whisper.    
     
     
“I am older than you know, Sam Nash… and tonight, the weather grows cold.”    
   
     
“What did you say?”  Sam could barely hear anything over the rain on the roof.    
     
“Nothing.”  Meg was looking up into the lights before turning her attention back to Sam.  “Lots of guys think I’m younger than I really am.  It doesn’t help that my tits are so small.  I’ll forgive you if you let me take you out.”    
     
“Take me out?  Out where?  I don’t want to go to the Halloween dance, Meg.  I’m not into that crowded scene, and I don’t know anybody.”    
     
“I’m not into it either, Sam.  I’ll take you to a special place for a very special evening.  Tonight is a witch’s moon.  How often does that happen on Halloween night?”    
     
“About every nineteen years.”    
     
“Oh, I’m impressed.  How would you know that?”  Meg’s face gleamed with curiosity.    
     
“I have an interest in astronomy.”  Sam hesitated, listening to the downpour.  “But I don’t think you will see the moon tonight.”    
     
“The clouds will clear by late evening.  I will come for you then.”    
     
Suddenly, the bell rang at what sounded like one hundred times the usual volume.  Sam held his hands over his ears, dipping his head in agony while students around him grabbed their belongings and headed for the door.  When he turned, Meg had mysteriously vanished as quickly as she had appeared.    
     
     
Sam swirled through boxes and furniture as he traversed the foyer making his way into the family room. The screen door slammed behind him, bouncing against the wooden frame.  He was soaked from the deluge outside and headed towards his downstairs bedroom, changing into sweats with a T-shirt. Willow, his mother’s Border Collie, followed.    
 
In the kitchen, he heated up a cup of hot cocoa to melt away the October chill.  “The temperature certainly changes quickly around here,” he remarked, passing through the maze of stacked items yet to be sorted.  “We’re not unpacking this shit tonight,” he announced defiantly.  “Mom and dad won’t be home until midnight, and I’m not spending Halloween stocking cabinets.”    
     
Sam and Willow looked out the screen door together.  “The good thing about storms is they will certainly cancel trick or treating.  We should have a quiet evening to ourselves.”  The two of them laid down on a couch facing the door, Sam comfortably sipping his drink.  The rain pummeled the tin roof and a hypnotizing fog descended like a cloud across the yard.    
     
     
Sam awoke to Willow barking, a shadow behind the screen in the mist.  “May I come in?”  It was a feminine voice, a soft southern drawl.  She entered the room cautiously.  “Well, hello,” she said sweetly to Willow, patting her on the head to sooth her agitation.  “Are you ready to go, Sam?”    
     
“Go where?  Who are you?”    
     
“You don’t remember me from school?”  Meg shuffled through the commotion of scattered articles and sat down on the couch next to Sam.  She placed her hand on his thigh, squeezing gently.  “You promised to go with me to a special place.  It will be our own private Halloween adventure.”    
     
Sam shook the cobwebs out of his brain.  Of course he remembered.  “Where is this place?  It’s 9 pm; did you notice?”    
     
“Folks round here call it Bishop’s Ferry, but they don’t run the ferry no more.”    
     
“What’s so great about it?” Sam inquired.    
     
“It’s quiet, a little spooky, adventurously romantic.”  There was something about her smile that was just too inviting.  Before Sam could blink, they were strolling hand in hand down the riverwalk, dim lights on lampposts haloed in the luster of midnight.    
     
“I told you the clouds would dissipate, Sam.  There it is,” pointed Meg.  In the center of the river was an island.  On the island was an enormous, dark house.    
     
“I thought this was a ferry.”  Sam tugged at Meg’s arm, signaling he had gone far enough.    
     
“That’s the old Bishop place,” she explained.  “Mr. Bishop operated the ferry back in the day.  The house has been abandoned for decades.”    
     
“And it can stay abandoned.”  Sam pulled Megan’s arm a little harder.  “To be sure you’re not planning to…”    
     
“Of course we’re going out there, Sam.  I didn’t take you down here just to look.”    
     
“We don’t even have a boat.  How do you plan to…”    
     
“Of course we have a boat.”  Meg pointed at the shore where a canoe was tied to a tree, two paddles in the bed, pretty as a picture.    
     
“This isn’t right, Meg.  People don’t leave boats on the riverbank like this.  What’s going on?”    
     
“Maybe some Indians left it.  I told you, it’s a magic night, Sam.  Untie it and get in.”  The two of them paddled across the Tombigbee with Meg on her knees in the front, her pink thong poking out of the top of her jeans.  “You liking that view back there, Sam?”    
     
“It’s pitch black.  I can’t see anything,” he fibbed.    
     
“That’s why I gave you a flashlight.”      
     
     
In the distance, Sam spotted what he thought was a pile of dead tree limbs.  Upon closer inspection, the limbs glistened in the moonlight like a mountain of sun-bleached bones.  “What the hell is that?  It looks like skeletal remains.”    
     
“Calm down the melodrama, Sam.  Trash washes up by the river all the time.  The moon is playing tricks on you.”  Meg guided the vessel to the edge, then hopped on the bank where she pulled the bow into the grass littered with signs to KEEP OUT… NO TRESPASSING.    
     
“This is illegal,” Sam warned.    
     
“So is this.”  Meg turned, facing Sam, plopped his hands on her ass, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him.  “You shouldn’t be making out with junior high girls,” Meg sniggered, bounding up the creaky, oak stairs to the porch.    
     
Sam followed incredulously until they stood before the ominous front door, studying a rusty knocker with faded initials.  “C.B.,” Sam read aloud.    
     
“Charon Bishop,” Meg clarified.  “Should we knock to see if anyone’s home?”  She grabbed the heavy metal bar and slammed it down repeatedly.  The noise echoed like gunfire through the hollowness of the building.  Sam cupped his palms over his ears, the decibels of the racket hugely magnified in the quiet darkness.    
     
“Your hearing is so sensitive,” Meg chortled as the door squeaked open.  There were boxes and old furniture smothered in dust.  “Looks a little like your living room, doesn’t it?”    
     
“That’s not funny, Megan.  Can we leave now?”    
     
“We just got here, cowboy.  Now, it’s time to explore.  Hold my hand so you don’t get lost.”    
     
     
Sam shivered as Meg guided him through a maze of narrow hallways, disheveled rooms filled with dilapidated furnishings, a long dinner table beneath a candle chandelier, dishes and silverware in front of every chair, a kitchen littered with pots and pans atop a wood burning stove.    
     
“Are you cold, baby?”  Meg’s voice sounded deeper in the emptiness as she reached for an oil lamp, sparking it with the flame from her lighter.  “Our batteries are dying.  Save the flashlights for later.  Hey, you wanna take a hit?”  She pulled out a tightly wrapped blunt from her pocket, then fired up the tip before taking a drag.    
     
“I don’t.. do.. drugs,” Sam stammered, shaking violently.    
     
Meg blew smoke from her nostrils like a Game of Thrones dragon, regarding him with a lustful gaze.  “I bet your blood tastes like a virgin,” she whispered with a smirk.    
     
“What?”    
     
“Come here,” she insisted as she sucked in another lung full of heat. The tip of her joint was a glowing red ember.  She kissed him hard, exhaling her charred breath down his delicate windpipe.  Sam coughed until tears filled his eyes.  “That’s how you catch my name, Sam Nash.  The deeper you breathe it in, the warmer you feel.”      
     
She kissed him again.  Her tongue tasted sweet.  His chest burned with every gasp like a bubbling black cauldron.  “I feel dizzy.”    
     
“Of course you do, baby.  That’s some serious prime shit.  Maybe I should build you a fire.  There’s wood by the stove and fireplaces all through the house.”    
     
“You’ll burn the whole place down,” Sam objected.  “This place is a tinderbox.”      
     
“You worry too much,” she said, gathering up chunks of kindling and walking towards the front of the home.    
     
“How do you know your way around so well?  Have you been here before?”    
     
“You know,” she yelled back from the game room, piling her wood on the felt of a billiards table, “it feels like I’ve always been here.”    
     
Sam stumbled into the room as the fire started crackling.  “Have a seat in this chair,” Meg suggested. “I’ll start a few more fires elsewhere and light up some sconces on the walls.  I’ll make this place seem like home in no time.”  She kissed Sam on the cheek and was off on her mission as he was closing his eyes to rest, comfortably warm at last.    
     
     
Sam awoke with a start, the fire almost ashes, the time on his watch 4 AM.  As he stood from his chair, he couldn’t believe his eyes.  The deteriorated mansion had morphed into elegant opulence – gorgeous tapestries, Persian rugs, fine linens and mahogany.  Every room was embellished with the flicker of a hundred candles.  “Meg!” he cried out, but his voice only echoed in solitude.  “Meg, where are you?”  He rushed up the stairs, searching diligently through luxurious guest bedrooms, rich and cozy and immaculate.  “Megan!!!”    
     
From the window, he saw it, the shudders pulled aside, the north wind cool on his face.  “What do you see, Sam?”  She was standing behind him in a sheer hooded cloak, an adult woman’s body underneath – nude and glistening, firm and pronounced, beautiful and mysterious.  “What do you see?” she repeated.    
“He’s out there,” Sam pointed.  “Bishop’s coming on his ferry.”    
     
“So he is,” she agreed, despondently gazing at the boat with its dull, golden lantern and the menacing figure at the rudder.  “We still have time.”    
     
“We should run for the canoe!”    
     
Megan smiled.  “You should lie down on the bed, Sam.  I can make you feel better.”    
     
“But he’s coming!  Can’t you see?”    
     
Meg sighed out a puff of smoke.  “Do you like this body, Sam?”  She slithered up against him, her hands roaming across his anatomy, her breasts pressed against his chest.  “Breathe me in,” she demanded as she kissed him.  A gust of wind blew out the candles, and the room was somber and gray.    
     
Sam found himself strapped across the bed, spread Eagle in four-point restraints.  Meg was at the foot, undressing.  “Do you like this body?  Show me.”  With a wave of her hand, his clothes shredded spontaneously into pieces.  The tattered strips and scraps floated across the room, falling into a fireplace full of smoldering cinders.  They ignited with a poof and disappeared.    
     
“You like what you see, don’t you?”  Meg stroked Sam’s firm manhood as it towered and bobbed in explosive readiness.  He tried to speak, but his voice completely failed him.  “Shhhh,” Megan motioned with her finger across her lips.  “No talking.  Just sucking.”  Then, she leaned over and took him in her mouth.    
     
“You’re so close, Sam.  I know you must be aching for release.”  Meg stalked up his body, dangling her hard nipples like bait above his mouth and allowing him to crane for them successfully.  She moaned as he suckled, holding the back of his head in her hand for assistance.  The front door downstairs slammed open.  Sam jumped with horror.    
     
“Our time is short,” she said, sliding her sweaty body into position.  Sam hopelessly struggled against the ligatures.  “Put it in me,” she whispered, slipping softly down over his hard, eager shaft.  Her undulating motion was like a foamy sea of pleasure, the sloppy sounds of slickness invading the room. The bed squeaked as she rocked with more urgency.  “Yeah, fuck me, Sam!  Fuck me!”    
     
Heavy footsteps slowly pounded up the stairs, proceeding at a zombie pace, agonizing and determined. “Bones to the pile.  Bones to the pile.”  The voice had a rough granite edge.  Megan kissed Sam’s protuberant clavicles, then licked the pulsations on his neck.    
     
“Time to taste you,” she murmured.      
     
The bedroom door opened with a gush of frigid air. “Bones to the pile. Bones to the pile.”    
     
“No daddy, he’s mine.  You can’t have him yet.”  Megan growled like a cougar and flashed her long canines. Sam’s eyes almost popped from their sockets. His young heart was racing. His sweat glands were pouring. Meg peered at her prey empathetically.    
     
“This is going to feel so good, Sam. You can come now, baby. Let it go.”  She buried her fangs and ripped open his neck as his testicles unloaded inside her.  In a glorious floating moment, Sam felt all his lifeforce flood out of him as if a dam had somehow imploded.    
     
“Watch, daddy.  Watch me.”  Megan lapped up the blood as it spurted, warm like a shower across his shoulder and chest… and the feeling for Sam was nirvana.      
     
     
BAM!!!!    
     
     
Sam woke up on the floor beside the couch, Willow licking the remnants of hot chocolate that had spilled across his shoulder after placing his cup on the arm of the furniture. “What’s going on in here?” asked the girl at the door. “You’ve had ghosts and goblins banging on your screen all night.  You haven’t handed out the first piece of candy. Your yard’s been rolled about five times.”      
     
“Who are you?”    
     
“I’m Meg from across the street.  You know, the girl you’ve been ogling with your telescope all summer sunbathing in her backyard?”    
     
“But we just moved in a week ago.”  Sam scanned around the room, not a box in sight.    
     
“Excuse me? You’ve been micro-scoping my ass for a year.  Looks like your dog enjoys the taste of hot chocolate.”    
     
“Didn’t I meet you in study hall?”    
     
“Since when does high school have study hall?  You been smoking something?” Meg giggled. “Look, I just wanted to ask you out, give you some respite from your hermit lifestyle.”    
     
“Ask me out where?”    
     
“There’s this place by the river I want to show you.  It’s quiet, a little spooky, adventurously romantic.  You know, tonight is the witch’s moon.”