Lerong Ajang - Scrawlings

Name: Lerong Ajang

Title: “The Rakers”

The cold rain had just stopped.

Auger Toll stood peering through the tall window of his home, watching the encroaching fog swallow the most distant houses on the block. He was sure that he had seen something, perhaps someone, in the thick vapor, but, within the jaws of those earthly clouds, nothing was discernable. Maybe it was Howard Sham, the local pastor for the newest church in Scary Hollow. Sham and his congregation were always active on the community streets, tidying up the littered garbage on the sidewalks or planting small trees in the local parks. Some of them made house calls to disabled citizens to do the dishes and the laundry. In the autumn, they came out to rake the leaves.

While Auger expressed initial discomfort with the pampering nature of the neighborhood religious institution, he gradually became accustomed to it. It was nice to never have to trudge out into the cold to rake leaves or shovel snow. Better yet, they each seemed overly happy to complete the task. In fact, they were insistent. Howard Sham would curl a long, crooked smile upon his face and say, “Thanksgiving for acceptance into this wonderful town!” In the fall, when Auger stayed home to write and paint, he rarely had to leave the house thanks to Howard Sham.

He turned and dropped the local newspaper on his office table. The headline ominously stated, “More Gone Missing,” with several columns of portrait pictures neatly stacked below, small paragraphs bordering each. Sipping coffee from a mug, he finished reading the last few bits of the article as it lay on the desktop, a puzzled look frozen upon his face.

“Now Christie Duckworth?” he thought wearily. “Last week it was Mike Kim.”

When he returned to the window, the fog had overtaken all, and nothing was visible through the grayish barrier. As he neared the portal, frothy bubbles, more like slender fingers, of white breath jabbed out from the mist, prodding at the window seams. He placed the mug on the distorted circle of moisture stained on the table coaster. His eyes were narrow indicating his contemplative state. He gazed into the gray and white abyss.

A shattering crash erupted as he jerked around to view the intruder. On the table, beside the newspaper, sat his cat, looking playfully toward the floor where the coaster and splintered coffee mug lay.

He sighed.

“Thanks, Ash,” he groaned, grimacing at the wide-eyed feline.

He ambled to the kitchen and pulled out another coffee mug from an upper shelf; poured himself a glass, sipping from it nervously. With his free hand, he snatched a towel and returned to the mess. Upon entering the room, the unexpected sight in the window chilled his senses, and, without thought, his hands relaxed, allowing the new mug to crash to the floor.

Ash looked down at the mess and slyly looked back up at Auger’s disgruntled face. The cat’s home keeper dazzled at the portrait outside: the immense wall of fog had vanished completely and several houses lining neighboring sidewalks had gone with it. A slight rain had begun to fall, spattering upon the sidewalks like wet crystals of dark sky. A balding man wearing a tattered, grey hoodie toiled with a rake on Auger Toll’s front yard.

Auger rushed out to question the man, saying, as he hopped from the front steps into the yard, “Excuse me are you with Howard Sham?”

The man sluggishly looked upward, revealing his pale face and the deep lines of stress that were carved like trenches in his forehead. A broken yet enthusiastic smile lurched over his protruding jaw.

The man said, “All praise to Pastor Sham, sir!” He pulled a few more bundles of leaves into the heap. “Just here to rake up the stragglers.”

Auger looked down at the neatly pulled heaps. A great unease began to boil in his stomach, which became worse when he noticed the gleeful wickedness in the man’s eyes.

“Where did those houses go?” Auger asked, pointing at the vacant lots of grass.

“It’s strange that you never noticed all the others,” the man said smiling, the rainfall running currents under his soaked hoodie and down his titled skull. The man gestured with his head.

All the lots on west side of Scary Hollow were gone. As the drizzling rain stopped, the fog returned. Ash meowed from the window. The hooded man raised the metal rake into the air and whipped it through the blood-scattered fog.