No Accident

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

Deputy Delvin Fontenot sees it. slamming on the brakes of his patrol car. A cloud of dust envelopes his vehicle, momentarily obscuring his vision.

He watches the candle flicker from a distance, unable to move, even though his curiosity pulls him toward it.

Despite the warm bayou breeze, Delvin can’t keep from shivering. He smells the scent of a raging fire.

“…Don’t look…,” Delvin says to himself, but his eyes drift to the gravestones of his brother-in-law, Paxton Boudreaux, his sister, Remy, and his niece, Faith.

A foggy, transparent cloud hangs over the gravestones, defying the otherwise clear, starless night.

The cloud begins to dissipate, leaving behind a shadowy figure.

Blue, red, and white balls of light appear in the night sky, illuminating the transparent figure.

A face appears. Or what had once been a face.

The skin on her ravaged face droops like melted candle wax. Her nose is burned away, her mouth a mangled mess, her blue eyes wide with anger.

Remy points an accusing finger at Delvin, her voice whispering on the breeze.

“…No accident…”

The balls of light begin to spin, drifting toward Delvin.

Delvin nearly falls over backward as he runs back to his cruiser. He presses the accelerator, spraying gravel and dirt, his heart pumping like a machine gun in his chest.

Their bellies full of beer and their cooler overflowing with fish, Minton Yalesback and Cooter Collins smile contentedly as Minton’s old pickup truck chugs up Eternity Road.

Delvin’s police cruiser speeds past, churning up dust.

“What heck’s gotten into him?” Minton wonders aloud, spewing tobacco out of his window.

“If that was us speedin’ that long-necked hillbilly would cuff us and melt down the key,” Cooter replies.

“Maybe old lady Mangrum’s dog crapped on the mayor’s lawn again,” Minton replies.

The two best friends share a hearty laugh.

Minton looks out of his window, suddenly slamming on the breaks.

Cooter bangs his head off the dusty dashboard.

“What in the name of Robert E. Lee’s gotten into ya, Minton?” Cooter asks, readjusting his greasy John Deer cap.

Spitting out a spray of tobacco juice, Minton points across the road.

“Good God almighty!” Cooter exclaims.

“You know God’s got nothin’ to do with this,” Minton replies.

Minton opens his door. It creaks loudly, causing both men to jump.

“You smell something.?” Minton asks.

“Smoke.”

Minton and Cooter curse under their breath at the sight of a translucent figure kneeling by the graves of the Boudreaux’s.

“You see him?” Minton asks.

“Yep. And I don’t believe in ghosts, so I know it’s real. You ain’t thinkin’ of gettin’ closer, are you, Minton?”

“I gotta know if it’s him.”

“Well, it ain’t the ghost of Bob Marley.”

“You mean Jacob Marley,” Minton says.

“Him neither.”

Minton pulls up his worn jeans, yanking his holey T-shirt over his pot belly.

“I know all I need to know,” Cooter says, hugging his thin, quaking frame. “That’s Paxton. He come back to settle up.”

“He may have been a powerful man in life, but no one’s strong enough to cheat death.”

“It don’t look like he did,” Cooter replies, reluctantly following Minton.

The two men cautiously approach the cabin, crouching in the tall weeds.

“You know it’s funny, Cooter, I was thinkin’ ‘bout the Boudreaux’s today…”

“Ain’t nothin’ funny about that.”

“I’d put it all out of my mind soon as it happened,” Minton says. “It’s been eight years and I never thought about it once until today. You think it’s a coincidence?”

“Nope. I think it was meant for you to think about it today,” Cooter replies.

“That’s what a coincidence is, peckerwood. Oh, never mind. He ain’t by the graves no more. Maybe he’s in the cabin. You see anybody inside?”

Cooter doesn’t answer.

“You see him, Cooter?”

“Nope. But I don’t like what’s behind us.”

Minton swings his bulky body around.

Half a dozen balls of light hang low in the night sky only a few feet away. Some have a blueish gleam; others are red or white.

They begin to glow so brightly that Minton and Cooter have to squint and cover their eyes in order to see.

“Spirits,” Cooter says.

“Question is, are they good ones or bad ones.”

The balls of light begin to spin, moving closer.

Cooter feels searing heat as several balls of light speed past him. Unable to contain his fear, he runs.

“Come back here, Cooter! It’s just heat lightnin’!”

A trio of red balls of light swoop down at Minton. One brushes against Minton’s abundant blonde hair. He can smell it burning.

Rising to his feet, Minton runs toward his truck, wheezing nervously as he feels the balls of light creasing his pants and burning his shirt.

Minton jumps into the truck. The balls of light crisscross in front of his windshield, lightning up the starless night.

Cooter runs as fast as he can but can’t escape the balls of light. They taunt him, bursting into bright colors in front of him, whizzing past his face and stinging his arms.

Cooter runs into the swamp, quickly realizing he’s lost. The balls of light fade, blending into the fog hanging just above the water.

Relieved he’s finally outrun his tormentors, Cooter tries to get his bearings.

“…Minton…?”

A voice whispers a reply.

“…Not an accident…”

The voice draws closer.

“…NOT AN ACCIDENT…”

Cooter runs deeper into the fog, pushing aside branches and tree limbs to get away.

As he looks back, he slams into a thick cypress tree.

Stunned, he can feel the blood running down from his forehead.

Cooter rubs his blurry eyes.

Staring down at him, his green eyes glowing, his burned, ruined face locked in a grimace is Paxton Boudreaux.

Screaming, Cooter scrambles to his feet.

“You’re dead! You’re dead!”

The pickup’s worn engine finally turns over.

“Sorry to leave ya, Cooter, but I gotta git!” Minton says, stomping on the accelerator.

Staring in the mirror at the pursuing balls of light, Minton speeds down Eternity Road.

He looks up in time to see a man stumble into the road.

The pickup truck runs over Cooter with a sickening thud.

In a state of horror and remorse, Minton turns the wheel seconds too late. The pickup veers off the road, smashing against a tree and tearing in half. The cab, with Minton’s broken body trapped in it, spins down a hill and into the swamp.

The next morning, Sheriff Myles Avalon watches Pulley Deuce drag the back section of Minton’s battered truck onto his flatbed.

“Biggest mess I ever seen,” Pulley says. “What do you suppose happened?”

“We’ll know more when the team finishes examining the cab.”

Myles hopes Pully can’t see the doubt in his eyes behind his mirrored sunglasses. The sandy-haired, brawny, thirty-nine-year-old Sheriff has been on the job for eight years, but being from Burlington, Vermont, he’s still considered a Yankee and an outsider. There are times he wonders why he answered the ad for a Sheriff for Choctaw, Louisiana, a fishing village of fewer than five hundred people. This is one of them of those times.

The two men look down at the County Forensics team examining the submerged section of the pickup.

“Helluva way to go,” Deuce says. “Don’t know which ways worse, gettin’ flattened, or flyin’ through the air in a steel coffin knowin’ the landin’s gonna suck. Delvin was good friends with these two reprobates. Maybe you oughtta spare yourself the task of tellin’ Minton’s and Cooter’s kin that they’re dead and give the job to him. He ain’t much of a lawman, but he’s got a talent for small talk. Say, where is Delvin?”

Having regained his nerve, and emboldened by the daylight, Delvin delays meeting Myles at the crash site, heading for the Boudreaux’s cabin.

Delvin licks his dry lips, keeping his hand on his gun as he approaches the Boudreaux’s cabin. Looking inside, he sees the lit candle, along with Faith’s undisturbed toys, dolls, and books.

Entering the cabin, he yells “Police!” in the hope it will deter the dead.

He’s sighs, pained by the sight of the photos on the walls of the smiling family -- his family. A painting Paxton had commissioned of Remy and Faith hangs over the day bed.

Pictures of the Boudreaux’s lay spread out across the dusty table.

“I hope you find peace, sis.”

Delvin leans down, blowing out the candle.

Leaving the cabin, Delvin stops to look at the Boudreaux’s tombstones.

The earth covering their graves has been disturbed.

Delvin rushes back to his cruiser.

A voice calls out his name.

“….Delvin…. No accident…”

It’s Remy’s voice.

Delvin looks back at the cabin, shaking when he sees the candle is lit again.

Remy is standing next to the candle, beckoning him.

Delvin rushes to the Duvall brother’s boat. The twins are preparing to spend the morning checking their traps.

“I seen her!” Delvin yells out the window at them. “I seen Remy!”

The twins shrug as Delvin speeds away.

Rulon Duvall signals to the bartender to bring more whiskey. It’s past the bar’s one o’clock closing time, but the bartender knows there’ll be a good tip in it for him if he lets the Duvalls drink themselves blind.

Dark-haired, scruffy, and fun-loving, twins Garland and Rulon Duvall toil as fishermen. They’ve often relied on their friendship with Deputy Fontenot to avoid jail time for poaching, petty theft, and public intoxication. Inseparable, the only way to tell them apart is to get a good look at their hands. Rulon is missing the tips of his middle and index fingers on his right hand, the result of holding onto a rope while trying to reel in a fifteen-foot alligator. Rulon can also outdrink and outthink his brother.

“I think Delvin’s gone loco,” Garland says.

“Yeah, what he saw was swamp gas,” Rulon says, slamming down a shot of Jack Daniels. “He’s just gettin’ nervous about Minton and Cooter. And their deaths ain’t got nothin’ to do with the Boudreaux’s.”

“It’s eight years to the day,” Garland says.

“So what?” Rulon counters.

“Faith was eight years old.”

“Yeah, and it’s a conspiracy ‘cause Kennedy and Lincoln were both replaced by men named Johnson,” Rulon counters. “It's pure coincidence. C’mon, anything’ll make sense if you let your imagination run wild.”

“Faith deserved better,” Garland says remorsefully. “Nobody should suffer like that.”

“I know you feel bad, brother, but they lit the match, so to speak. It was an accident.”

“It ain’t the way I see it no more. They was good people done wrong and done wrong by us. I can still see the way Faith’s face would light up whenever we came into the room. Remember? She’d yell ‘Twin!’ like seein’ us made her day. And Paxton, he was always good to us. He lent us the money for the boat and paid for the specialist that saved your hand.”

‘You forget he also cheated us,” Rulon points out. “And that haughty wife of his, Delvin’s sister, always stuck her nose in the air whenever she passed us like we was skunks or worse.”

“You still sound upset that Remy chose Paxton and never gave you the time of day.”

“Shut up and drink, Garland.”

“We shouldn’t have done what we did,” Garland says. “We invited the devil into our lives. Maybe Minton and Cooter would still be here if we hadn’t…”

Rulon downs another shot as the bartender brings over a fresh bottle. “You know Minton and Cooter liked to argue when they got in their cups. Minton probably got pissed at Cooter, and Cooter found out you don’t play chicken with no truck. The good news is with them two dead the Choctaw Oil Company now belongs to just three of us,” Rulon says.

“You call that good news? The wells dried up the day Paxton died. Choctaw’s money is in escrow ‘til the court puts the company in our names. And with Minton and Cooter dead it’ll take even longer to sort out.”

“I like the size of the cut. When it comes to division and money, three is better than five,” Rulon says. “We’re gonna be in high cotton when those wells start poppin’ again.”

“If we live long enough,” Garland replies.

Delvin barges into Mama Vilma Berque’s reading room.

The boisterous, beautiful, redheaded practicing witch gives Delvin a withering stare.

“I told you I ain’t goin’ out with you. Bad habit of all you boys in Choctaw. None of you can take no for an answer.”

“I ain’t here to ask you for a date.”

“I didn’t fleece that couple from Wilmington,” Mama Berque insists. “I run a legit business, I read the cards, help people contact their loved ones, and put spirits to rest.”

“Sometimes I think your business is as legit as that phony New Orleans accent you use. Your real name is Wilma Burke and you’re from Brooklyn.”

“But my talents are real. You here to arrest me?” Mama Berque challenges.

“No. I got a job for you.”

Mama Berque and Delvin stand by the Boudreaux’s graves.

“This here’s consecrated ground. Ya’ll should get a priest.”

“I already asked Father Benoit. He laughed me outta his parish.”

“He’s no fool. It ain’t right to mess with the creator.”

Delvin hands her an envelope. “Here’s two thousand reasons that say otherwise.”

Stuffing the envelope in the pocket of her jeans, Mama Berque reaches into the small canvas bag hanging from her belt. Pulling out a handful of dust, she blows it in Delvin’s face.

“What the hell?”

“Exactly. My gris-gris dust’ll chase the hellhounds from this place.”

Delvin brushes the dust off his uniform. “I’m beginnin’ to regret askin’ you to do this. Cut the tourist act. If you ain’t up for puttin’ this family to rest…”

“Sendin’ folks to the next world is my specialty, Deputy.”

Mama Berque reaches in her bag, blowing dust over the graves.

"Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace."

“That’s it?” Delvin raves. ”I could’a said that!”

“I’m just gettin’ started darlin’. Now I gotta negotiate with the dark realm.”

Reaching in another bag attached to her belt, Mama Berque produces a live snake, waving it at Delvin.

Multi-colored balls of light appear over the graves, circling around them.

“What are those things?” Delvin asks.

“Hoodoos. Protectors of the dead. These spirits are strong. They’s angry and they want somethin’ from you.”

“What?”

“Your life.”

Mama Berque’s body stiffens. Dropping the snake, she spreads her arms, her shocked expression indicating she’s not acting on her own.

Her head snaps backward and her body shakes.

Mama Berque groans as blood pours from her mouth, eyes, and ears.

“…Murder…,” a voice says. “No accident…murder.”

Paxton Boudreaux’s figure appears next to his grave. He raises his arm, pointing at Mama Berque.

Mama Berque screams as flames break out on her clothes, engulfing her.

Her burning body collapses to the ground.

Mama Berque’s screams echo in Delvin’s ears as he runs away.

Garland and Rulon stagger towards the marina, laughing.

Rulon stops short.

“What?”

“Somebody’s standin’ at the end of the pier.”

“So?” Garland slurs.

“I get the feelin’ he means us harm.”

A whisper catches the twin’s attention.

“…No accident…”

“You say somethin’, Rulon?”

“That wasn’t me.”

Several balls of light appear above the man in the shadows, glowing blue, red, and white.

The man in the shadows raises his arms. The glowing balls of light illuminate his disfigured, transparent features.

“PAXTON!” Garland shouts.

Paxton points at the twin’s boat. Three of the glowing orbs swoop down on the boat, setting it on fire.

Rulon raises his stubby middle finger in defiance.

“We’re next,” Garland says. “RUN!”

The twins race back to town. Turning to look behind them, they can see the bright balls of light are zeroing in on them.

Gasping, sweating profusely, they barrel down the tight alleyway between Cutty’s bar and Rochon’s Crab Shanty.

Sparks fly as the balls of light invade the alleyway bouncing off the building’s concrete walls. The twins scream as the balls of light wash over their bodies. They can hear their skin sizzle. Busting out of the alley, they run to the police station.

Bewildered, Myles looks up from his desk as Garland and Rulon run past him. The brothers run into the jail cell, pulling the bars shut behind them.

“It’s not Saturday night. What are you two doing here?”

“We wanna report a murder,” Rulon gasps.

“A murder? Who?”

“Paxton, Remy, and Faith Boudreaux”

“That was eight years ago, and it was…”

“Ruled an accident,” Rulon continues, “But it weren’t no accident. We done it. Me, Garland, Minton, Cooter, and another fella.”

“Go on.”

“The five of us was partners in the Choctaw Oil Company,” Rulon says. “All of us had second jobs but we was losin’ our shirts. Paxton was a lawyer, so he was more flush than the rest of us. He offered to buy us out, so it seemed like a good deal.”

Garland grimaces as he touches his burned arms. “Then he hit a huge oil deposit.”

“We all felt cheated,” Rulon continues. “We wanted back in, but he said no. We told him he was gonna cut us back in or he was gonna regret it. We decided to scare him. He may have been an oil man, but his house still ran on propane. So, Garland and me opened the valves to his tanks.”

Shaking, on the verge of tears, Garland adds, “Nobody was supposed to be home. They was supposed to come home, smell the propane and call the police. They didn’t smell it. It was Faith’s birthday. She liked candles. There was a cake in the dining room with eight big candles. I don’t know how many Faith and Remy got to light before…”

Garland collapses into sobs. Rulon picks up the story. “Paxton was at the office. By the time he got home, both floors were burnin’. We tried to hold him back, but he broke loose and ran inside. When they brought him out, his body was burned black. He cursed us with his dyin’ breath, sayin’ ‘They’ll be a reckonin’. Now I know what he meant.”

“We saw him tonight,” Garland says.

“What you saw was a manifestation of your guilt,” Myles says. “All right, boys, get comfortable. If this is one of your tall tales…”

“It ain’t,” Garland sobs. “I can still see that little girl’s smolderin’ body when they brought her out. It weren’t no accident. We done it. We’ll take whatever punishment the law says we got comin’. Just protect us from Paxton.”

Beau St. Cyr, the mayor of Choctaw and a part-time fireman, rushes in.

“The marina’s on fire! We need your muscle!”

“Take Delvin. I’ve got to watch the prisoners.”

“These two jaspers? They ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

“They just admitted to murdering the Boudreaux’s.”

“I don’t care if they admitted to assasinatin’ John Kennedy. If that fire spreads, the whole waterfront will get burned up. C’mon!”

Myles locks the cell. “Behave.”

“Don’t leave us!” Garland shouts. “Paxton’s gonna get us!”

“You smell that?” Garland asks.

“Smells like smoke,” Rulon replies. “Like death.”

“Smells like vengeance to me.”

A hazy cloud appears in front of Garland and Rulon’s cell.

Paxton appears his body a mass of burning flames.

Delvin looks out of his window, watching the smoke rising from the marina rise into the opaque sky. He finishes the quart of rye he’s been drinking.

The overbearing smell of smoke grows stronger.

He turns to face his sister’s mangled translucent form.

“…Why...” she asks. “…You didn’t try to save us… You let us burn…Why did you kill me?”

Remy reaches out for him, her hand a burning torch.

Choking back a scream, Delvin passes out.

Delvin’s hand trembles as he struggles to write a note. He balls the message up, tossing it across the room.

Taking off his badge, he places it on the desk in front of him.

“You covered up their murders, destroyed the evidence,” he says. “You traded their lives for money. You can’t buy forgiveness.”

Opening the desk drawer, he pulls out a photograph showing five beaming fishing buddies standing on the dock of the marina, showing off their record-setting swordfish.

Reaching for his service revolver Delvin places it against his head and pulls the trigger.

Myles returns to the police station.

“We finally got the fire out,” he shouts. “Would you boys like some coffee?”

Getting no response, he walks back towards the cells.

“I said would you-“

Garland and Rulon are gone.

Myles opens the cell, wondering how the Duvalls were able to escape.

His boots scrape against two small piles of ash.

Myles is driving along Eternity Road toward town early the following morning when he notices a candle burning in the Boudreaux’s cabin.

Passing the ruins of the Boudreaux’s home, he pulls his car up to the cabin.

A lingering fog hangs over the cabin even as the sun begins to rise on the horizon.

Three transparent figures of a man, woman, and a girl pass by the Boudreaux’s graves. Balls of light dance above them.

The three figures drift inside the cabin.

The man blows out the candle.

The balls of light shoot into the brightening sky, vanishing.

Smiling at one another, the family disappears