Monday, January 25, 2021

Thirty Miles South of Laramie, fiction by MIchael Penncavage

It was after the sixth pig had come down with the fever that my father made his decision. He was a hard, weathered man whose creased face clearly showed the road his life had taken him. His skin was dark and leathery, his hair sandy and thinning, and his beard grey, curly, and unkempt. A scar from his wrist to his elbow was a reminder of a horse that refused to be broken. He was a man of few words. When he did speak my sister and I listened as if the town preacher was lecturing directly at us.

It was cold that night. Though the days were still long, they were slowly winding down a bit earlier with each passing day. At nights the early autumn air began to creep through the gaps in the doors and windows, reminding us of the long winter nights that were still to come.

Betty lit the fireplace and prepared the stew while outside in the waning light my father and I secured the animals in their pens and stables for the night. We had spent most of the day repairing the wire fencing that protected the goats. Coyotes were smart animals and lately had begun to make attempts at breaching the pens. 

During the day, father had spoken to me less than usual. I could sense something was weighing on him, but it wasn’t until we were seated at the kitchen table that he decided to talk about it.

“I’m taking Henry McMasters up his an offer for work. Going to run some cattle up north near them Tetons. If the weather holds, I should be back in two months time.” He turned to me. “I want you to take good care of your sister and keep them hogs that might have the fever separated from the rest.”

I nodded, saying nothing. Two months made me concerned, but I knew better than to question his decisions.

“The money I’m gonna get from McMasters will help offset what we’re going to lose from those sick animals.” He folded his hands and placed them on the table. “You’re the head of the house until I come back, Owen. You gonna make me proud?”

It really wasn’t a question. He was expecting a nod from me and nothing else. 

And a nod was what he got.

***

Two days later, at first light, he was gone. I watched as he rode off. The rising sun illuminated him with its morning rays until he disappeared over the horizon and was gone.

He had taken one of the Winchesters off the wall rack. The other he left for me in case a coyote had outsmarted the wire and tried to mix it up in the hen house or if any of the pigs that had gotten the fever took a turn for the worse and needed to be put down. Over a meal, a neighbor had once commented to my father about how dumb swine were, but I thought they were the smartest animals we had on the farm. They were quick learners, especially the young ones. But some of them grew mean. And a mean pig that was touched with the fever was an unpredictable animal. The Winchester could kill a man, but a poorly placed shot against a hog would only serve to make it angry. Both rifles were prone to jamming, and for that reason, he left me his Colt as well.

***

Three days after he left, Betty came down with the fever.

At first, I thought she had caught a cold. With the changing seasons, it wasn’t unexpected. But by the second day, her fever spiked in a way that made me realize she had something much worse.

Laramie, the closest town with a doctor, was thirty miles away. We owned horses that were young and hardy and could make the trip even if hitched to a wagon. I considered riding out to my closest neighbor, Wally Thurston for help, but I didn’t see how that was going to help Betty. She needed a doctor, not kind words.

I spent the afternoon getting the horses and wagon ready. By the time evening came around, Betty was in real bad shape, shivering so much that I had to place most of the quilts and blankets we owned over her. The roads between here and Laramie were full of holes, coyotes, and worse, so I decided to keep Betty as comfortable as possible until dawn.

***

The sun had just set when a heavy knock sounded on the front door. For a moment, I thought my father had returned but quickly realized otherwise. There would be no reason to announce himself at his own house.

I picked up the Colt and walked over to the door. It had been a long time since someone had visited in the evening. To do so meant that they would be staying the night. 

I cracked open the door, keeping the pistol out of sight.

A short, stocky man stood on the porch. Even in the twilight, I could make out his toothy grin. His bushy eyebrows met above the bridge of his nose.

“Good evening, good evening, young man,” he said. “My name is Nestor Tilleray. Can I speak to your father?”

“He’s out,” I replied and immediately regretted my answer.

“So late? So late?” he replied. “I’m surprised he’s able to get any work done.”

I was wondering why he was talking funny when the darkness behind him took shape. A second, incredibly large man was standing there. My father was a big man, but this person made him look like a child.

“He’s at my neighbor’s home. They’re fixing a broken wagon wheel.”

“I see. I see.” Said Nester. “And your mother?”

“She’s with him.”

The man nodded. “Very good. Very good. Can you relay a message for your father?”

I nodded and Nester handed me a business card along with some papers. “I am in the business of buying land. These documents are a proposal of what I am willing to offer for yours.”

“I can save you a return trip, mister. My pa is in no mood to sell.”

“Understood, understood. But I want him to hear me out regardless. Many find my offer too good to refuse.” The man smiled, stepped off the porch, and was swallowed up by the darkness. “I’ll stop back tomorrow.”

***

Sleep came slow that night as I considered what to do. Betty needed to see a doctor. Once I overheard my father tell a story about men like Nester. They were thieves who tried to trick people into selling their land. Sometimes they even forced people off their property with threats of violence, making them sign over their deed for only a piece of what it was actually worth.

***

I sat down next to Betty. She was still covered in every quilt and blanket that our mother had ever sewn, but she was still shivering. In the crimson glow of the fireplace, she looked pale. She opened her eyes slightly. “Was that pa that you were speaking to? Is he back?”

“No. I was just talking to myself.”

Betty closed her eyes as she smiled. “That’s okay. I do that sometimes.” She began to cough, and I leaned her up to take a sip of water. She drank a little. It didn’t seem to help any.

***

The morning brought overcast skies. Thunderheads loomed in the distance, threatening to make the journey to Laramie even more difficult.

I went outside to saddle the horses for the trip.

“I’ve been watching your house since the sun first cracked over the horizon.” Said a voice from the side of the barn. Nester stepped into view. “And your skinny little ass is the only one I’ve seen milling about. No sign of your papa or mama.”

“They stayed the night with the neighbors.”

“And which one is that?”

“The Thurstons.”

“Is that right? Is that right? Older couple. Man’s got the worst cough I’ve ever heard. Woman’s hair is so grey that it could light up the night sky.” Nester began walking towards me. “They sold to me two weeks ago.” His eyes narrowed. “Now, you ain’t trying to make me out to be a fool, are you?”

I dropped the horse satchel and ran back to the house. Nester called out to me as I hurried through the front door. “You’re just delaying the inevitable, son.”

The heavy front door shut reassuringly. All of the windows had been bolted in advance of me leaving. I felt confident that Nester wasn’t going to get inside. At least not without difficulty. He was locked out.

And I was locked in.

***

Morning turned to afternoon, and Betty continued to grow worse. Time was running out before should she would be too weak to make the journey.

Voices sounded from outside. Through a crack in the window, I saw Nester approach the house. The big man was with him, and in the daylight he looked even larger than he did at night. An ax was slung over his shoulder.

“You’re giving me no choice, son. No choice. Don’t make me have Wallace chop your door into firewood. He might not stop with just that.

“What do you want?” I yelled back.

“I’ll give you two minutes to collect your belongings and git off the premises.”

“That doesn’t give me much time to take anything.”

“You’ll be taking your lives with you. Consider yourselves blessed.”

I didn’t reply as he nodded to Wallace. “I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way. I passed by some pretty pastures on my way here. Plenty of places to bury a body down deep.”

“Coyotes around here will dig up anything no matter how deep it’s buried.”

“That’s good to know. Good to know. I appreciate you saving me all of that work,” said Nestor as Wallace walked up onto the porch and readied the ax.

“All right, mister,” I said. “I’m coming out. But I need you to back up from the house a little so that can leave without having to worry about that ax.”

“Of course. Of course. Like I said, kid, you got two minutes.” 

I unbolted the door and opened it slightly. Wallace was about ten feet away from me. Close, but far enough.

I brought the Winchester into view and fired. It struck the man in the chest but it didn’t send him to the ground. He might have been dead but didn’t realize it. I decided not to take any chances and angled the weapon up and discharged the second round. An instant later, the man’s head exploded into a red cloud of bone and blood. I then aimed it at Nestor and fired.

The rifle jammed.

A scowl covered Nester’s face that became darker than the clouds that were forming overhead. From the scabbard on his belt, he removed a long hunting knife. “You shouldn’t have wasted that second shot on Wallace. He took a step forward, but that was as far as he got. I grabbed the Colt from a nearby window ledge and aimed at the man. 

Nester’s eyes grew wide with fear. “Now hold on, kid…”

Like I had done with Wallace, I emptied the gun into the man. All the bullets found a mark. The man was dead before the last bullet struck.

I closed and bolted the door shut. I reloaded the Colt and looked through the slats for anyone else. But after a few minutes had passed, I didn’t see anyone.

I went to check on Betty. She looked pale. I felt her forehead. It was red hot. The carriage ride to Laramie was going to be difficult for her, but it was the only choice.

She looked at me weakly as I approached. “I heard some noises. Is everything all right?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Are we leaving?”

“Very soon. I just need to do a few final things. But it shouldn’t take long.”

***

The men’s clothing went into the fire pit. It all burned quickly. Anything that didn’t I buried.   I considered placing the bodies into the pit as well, but with the approaching storm, I wasn’t sure if the flames would stay lit long enough. 

I used the horses to move the bodies. It took longer than I had hoped, but I was finally able to get both men into the pigpen that had the animals with the fever One of the pigs tried to make a run at me, but I managed to close the gate just in time. 

Depending on how quickly Betty healed, I guessed that the trip to Laramie and back would take about two weeks time.

The pigs would be done well before then.


Michael Penncavage’s story, The Cost of Doing Business, originally appearing in Thuglit, won the Derringer Award for best mystery. One of his stories, The Converts, was filmed as a short movie, while another, The Landlord, was adapted into a play.

Fiction of his can be found in over 100 magazines and anthologies from 7 different countries such as Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine (USA), Here and Now (England), Tenebres (France) Crime Factory (Australia), Reaktor (Estonia), Speculative Mystery (South Africa), and Visionarium (Austria). He has been published by IDW and Ahoy Comics.


Monday, January 11, 2021

A Long NIght, fiction by John Wolf

Working nights made the job easier. Folks in town appreciated it too. Joe Gosser had a business to run. People understood that, but even 10 miles away they could spy the oily smoke of his crematorium. If the wind was right, they could smell it. Death was hard enough for most without the reminder. 

Joe sat on the stoop and smoked. The car was late, but he didn’t mind the break. A hard week waited inside. If Bill’s call was right, tonight would only get harder. Joe’s gut rumbled, but the thought of food made him grimace. The fridge was packed with good salami and cheese along with some dinner rolls. Two wakes in a week made for a lot of leftovers. The Prescott boy and Salary’s oldest son, both gone with a flash of gunfire in some valley most couldn’t pronounce. Joe and the mothers and fathers got used to it fighting Germany the second time. Others got used to it with Korea. This one was different. No one had an appetite.

He shook out a fresh Chesterfield and blew smoke rings. Anyone else might have enjoyed the night sky, but that part of Joe died nearly 25 years ago in a farm town in France. In exchange he picked up smoking. It made time to think.

If the car were late, it was possible they’d been stopped. It would mean trouble if some country cop, an outsider, snooped around. More work on top of work. This side business never bothered his father, and Joe tried to feel the same. The first time bagmen brought his father a problem, the remains resembled ground beef. Not much skill needed to burn that. Only those late-night phone calls never sounded like this. Bill never sounded good, but there was something else in his voice tonight.

“One stiff, top of the list, need-to-know only.” 

Old-timers in town swore the solid walls of Gosser Funeral Home could withstand a cannon blast. If that were true, Bill might have called again from another payphone without Joe ever hearing. Just as he got up to go inside for the phone, yellow lights crept over the horizon. Joe watched them come. The Studebaker rolled into the drive, gravel whispering beneath its wheels. Joe’s stomach growled again.

Bill hopped out of the passenger seat quickly as his bum leg and hefty gut allowed. He gave a salutary wave instead of speaking. Joe’s pulse quickened at the Old Man’s son in the backseat. He looked so much like the boss. Joe last saw the Kid on a trip to Chicago for a face-to-face with the Old Man. While the Old Man gave sincere regrets for Joe’s father and promised business would continue, the Kid sat on the office floor in diapers and played with blocks. Joe got a fat envelope, a single pat on the shoulder for his loss, and was sent on his way. He hadn’t seen the Old Man or the Kid since. 

“Hey,” Bill wheezed, shuffling forward to shake Joe’s hand. Joe took it despite the bagman’s clammy grip. It felt like handling raw meat, but Bill had come to his father’s funeral. Joe supposed that made a difference. It was more than the Old Man had done. 

“Late night,” Joe observed. 

Bill gave his best laugh and only produced a wet burble.

“Yeah, a long one too.” His beady eyes jittered like grease on a hot skillet. “Old Man said we ought to bring the Kid down. Getting to be that age.”

“Everybody’s getting that age, Bill.” 

Another wet bout of laughter turned to coughing. 

“What am I dealing with?” 

“Yeah, uh, just one tonight. Probably around, I don’t know...” He looked at the Kid, “120 and some change?” The Kid shrugged. Bill turned back to Joe and nodded. 

“Give me about two hours?” Father’s funeral or not, Joe never minded lying to Bill. Joe guessed the man lost a lot of poker games.

“What’s the holdup? Got a line waiting for you?” 

“Something like that, yeah.” Joe silently calculated how long he needed to reduce the body to ash. “Had two ceremonies today. Already burning.”

“Oh boy, that stinks.” Bill’s sentiment sounded thin as his breath. He turned back to the car and shouted, “Get your ass in gear, Kid. Ernie! Lend a goddamned hand!”

The Kid took his time getting out of the car. Ernie stepped out of the driver’s seat without a sound. In his long black coat, black driver’s cap, and black gloves he seemed more wraith than flesh. Joe went to help him. Bill placed a sweaty hand on his shoulder. Joe wanted to snap it at the wrist. 

“It’s okay. They can handle it. Kid’s gotta get his hands dirty eventually.” 

Joe remembered the first time. Eight years old, Bill not even one of the Old Man’s bagmen then. The men who brought the first body were all probably dead now. Dead like Joe’s father, who took the corpse with no argument and burned it to ash in the basement. The ashes went in a barrel, and the barrel went out to the graves, mixed with so much fertilizer. Bill was right: all the kids eventually got their hands dirty. 

“Jesus Kee-Rist, Kid. Thank God your Old Man ain’t here to see this.” Bill hobbled closer to the car. The Kid could barely hold onto the crumpled, wrapped plastic. The round end slammed against the rear door. 

“Watch it!” Bill cried and cleared his throat before a coughing fit could take hold.

The Kid smirked. “Afraid I’m gonna hurt her?”

Bill’s jittering gaze fell back on Joe for a moment. The Kid’s class ring, a golden, gaudy thing inset with a sparkling blue stone, winked on his finger. The Old Man never struck Joe as the flashy gangster. The ring was bold, a new era.

Ernie took the body from the Kid and swung it over one shoulder. Joe opened the cellar entrance and led the way. Bill and the Kid spoke freely all the while. Maybe they weren’t used to the quiet countryside, maybe they thought Joe’s hearing was going along with his vision, or maybe they just saw a tired, overfed, and complacent old man. 

“-never should’ve gotten this far, you little bastard.”

“-you work for-”

“-work for the Old Man, Kid. You got a lot coming. Now get this mess-”

“So what?”

Joe followed Ernie into the dark. 

Two empty gurneys waited in the corner. The Retort stood silent, empty, and cold. If Ernie saw or cared, he gave no sign. Joe guessed he lied to Bill a few times too. He brought a third gurney forward without a word. They worked the body onto it, and long strands of bleached hair dangled from the torn tarp. Joe froze. At that, Ernie smiled, raised a long finger to his lips, and headed upstairs.

The front door creaked as the visitors made themselves at home. Joe reminded himself the front door needed oil; he’d let it slip for a little too long. On top of that, the screen was almost falling off. The staples holding it in were nearly old as him. He’d been halfway done replacing it when Bill called. Now, it would have to wait. 

Lists. Joe’s whole life could be stretched out as one long list. Everybody started with the same to-do list: Born and Die. Only sometimes their final rest came with a gunpowder sendoff and one-way trip to the furnace. Sometimes a body got mourned. Sometimes people drank and made speeches. Sometimes they were just meat. An ache grew in his throat. Joe choked it down and got working. 

As the Retort heated up, Joe looked over at his desk. A Silver Star shone behind its glass frame. Next to it, a photo of his unit. He doubted the young men in the picture would recognize him now. Joe spared only a glance to the scuffed and battered footlocker. He went to the desk, thinking he really ought to clean up all the clutter. Dead flowers, dried to nothing, littered the surface beside faded cardstock. He tried not to read the words as he filed them away, but he couldn’t ignore them any better than he could ignore the long, blonde hair falling from the body bag. Or the weight, “120 pounds.” Someone’s sister. Someone’s daughter.

His hands, rough and worn like his father’s, wavered over the lone photograph of a younger Joe at the lakeshore. A grinning, drooling toddler bounced on his knee. Carol stood behind them, fine and pretty in her floral dress, laughing at her two boys. Soot smudged their faces now, forever staining the memory. 

Joe rubbed his fingers, but the ash stayed put. Suddenly the darkness wore into the grooves of his hands and burnt like hot wax. Some pumice soap ought to have done the job, but the burning remained. The Retort rang, ready for its third meal of the day — the fourth for the week. The chime brought Joe back to Earth. He needed this done. That thing in the plastic, it was just another item on his list.

A gust of wind blew through the cellar door and shook the plastic completely free. He sighed. Sleeplessness and bad vision were certainly Gosser family crosses to bear, but so was being bullheaded. 

Joe stared into the girl’s face. Only face was a stretch, and he reflexively ran an estimate how long it would take to make her presentable. Only this girl’s family would never get the bill. Her service would just have four attendees: her gravedigger and her executioners upstairs. The skin shone porcelain-white but shattered partway up her face. Half the left eye was gone; some of her tangled, greasy hair was scraped away in a shallow divot. Joe bet if he looked close enough, he could make out the imprint from the Kid’s class ring. Her right arm flopped from the bag like a dead fish, bits of broken elbow grinding in the joint. Track marks wound up the inner side. 

Whistling mortars and the screams of the dying had never left Joe, and they always grew worse at night. But now, they were replaced with something else, something like the steady, shrill cry from a boiling kettle. Muffled laughter came from upstairs.

He laid the girl’s arm back beside her, closed the remaining eye. No prayers came. Joe believed the funeral director had no say in the preacher’s business. Then came heat as he pushed the girl into the flames. Joe never watched them burn. His father did. He always sat on a worn barstool, fiddling with his glasses, as the Retort consumed its next meal. The stool remained nearby, coated in dust. Joe passed it without a second’s thought. He went and opened the footlocker. 

***

“What’s his deal anyway?”

“Talking shit about our man helping you out?”

“Yeah, old guy’s weird.”

“Jesus, leave it, Kid.”

“Come on, the guy hangs around dead people all day.”

“It’s his family business, something you ought to take notes on, you uppity, little shit.”

“Yeah, family business. You got to listen to me-”

“The hell I do. We could’ve just given your dad a call. We’re doing you a favor. If you even make it someday, you’re better off remembering- The hell was that?”

Joe stopped halfway up the stairs. His foot wavered above the next rise. He reconsidered and took the left side up to the door.

“What’s that?”

“You hear it too?”

“What’s that?”

“Silver Star.”

“And the purple one?”

“Jesus Kee-Rist. The purple one is a Purple Heart, moron.”

“Some kind of G.I. Joe-”

“Ain’t mine.” The Kid shrieked in surprise before he knew better. Bill started from his spot on the couch. Ernie just went back to looking out the window. 

“What?” The Kid sat on a side table and strained to be casual.

Joe leaned in the basement doorway. “Off.” 

“What?” The Kid said again, dumbly.

“Sorry, Joe.” Bill rolled forward, “Kid’s got mud in his ears. Get off the man’s furniture!” Joe remained in the doorway, his right side obscured. 

Bill leaned back and took a bite of sandwich, mustard dribbling out the sides and onto the carpet. In between smacks, he asked, “So uh, you take care of it? It’s taken care of, right?”

“What happened?” 

Bill titlted his head. “That question for us, Joe?”

Joe shrugged. “Curious, maybe.”

Bill nodded, but the Kid spoke up first. “My dad says you aren’t the questions type of guy. What gives?” This time, Bill refused to rein the Kid in or yank on his invisible leash. His eyes went dead as Joe’s. 

“Purple Heart and Silver Star ain’t mine. My medal’s downstairs.” The Kid nearly gave himself whiplash glancing between the mantle and the man in the doorway. “My boy, David’s. He’s dead.” Flat and plain as a paper plate. 

Bill set the sandwich down, his eyes going wide. “David’s dead?”

Joe nodded.

Bill wiped a sudden sheen of sweat off his face. “Jesus, Joe. I’m sorry. Truly.”

“Who was she?”

Bill shook his head, “You looked inside? That’s not good, Joe. Old Man was always real clear about that.”

“Kid ripped the tarp, Bill.” Joe locked eyes with the Kid. The oily smirk was like a stain. “Who was she?”

Bill sighed, weak breath rattling in his broken lungs.

“Old Man said we ought to bring the Kid and make the rounds, you know, get his head in the game for once.” The Kid stood up straight as possible, his smirk now a full-blown grin. The only one who seemed indifferent to this new bump in the road was Ernie. The driver stood still and dead-faced as a cigar store Indian. 

Bill resumed eating, “We were at the Mills, and things got a little nuttier than usual. Things got said. Kid got a little too carried away, but I mean, come on, Joe. Kid’s got spirit, you know? Anyway, there was a little…mix-up with the girl, and things got out of hand.”

“Who was she?”

“Hey!” The Kid burst forward, smile gone, “None of your business! You deaf? You talk like a busted record!” 

Silence suffocated the whole room.

“Joe,” Bill started and sighed, “Joe, I’m sorry about your boy. We hadn’t heard. Never should’ve brought this to you.”

“Where’s it stop, Bill?”

“What?”

“The killing. My boy, I told him what we do here. For you. For the Old Man. For your family. Figured it was time he get his hands dirty.” The Kid sat back down on the end table. Bill said nothing this time. Joe went on:

“He asked if Carol had known. I couldn’t tell him. So you know what my boy did? Stormed right out and went to Vietnam. So, Bill, when’s this stop?”

Bill shrugged, “We all got orders from the Old Man, you know? Nothing stops this.” 

Joe wasn’t sure if he imagined it, or if maybe the other killers failed to hear: a final click as the door swung shut.

Joe asked, “You going to serve, son?” 

“Nah, man, I ain’t doing shit.” The Kid crossed his arms. “Got a deferment. My feet hurt.”

“You ever serve, Bill?”

“No, I mean, you know that. Polio kept me out-”

“So just Ernie then?” The driver acknowledged the funeral director with a steel gaze. “Korea, right? Unsan?” 

Ernie nodded.

Joe brought up the 1911 and shot him in the face. The quiet world shattered. Ernie fell back through a red cloud. Then came the inevitable Joe counted on. The other two men’s wide eyes were the same as Joe had seen in countless foxholes and blasted buildings. Eyes that couldn’t comprehend the violence erupting around them. In Joe’s experience, it only lasted a second. He took the second.

Bill pulled the revolver from his coat pocket pretty quick. Joe’s second bullet smacked into the wall as the big man dove for cover. The third took his target in the shoulder as he fell. Bill screamed but kept crawling for the kitchen. The Kid came off the table and wrestled Joe to the floor. He was small but strong. Joe probed for an eye. The Kid bit down and ground Joe’s thumb like a tough steak. He tried bucking the Kid off him, eyes rolling back.

The staple gun lay beneath the couch. Joe squirmed one knee beneath the Kid and drove it hard into his stomach. Air rushed out of the Kid in a sharp gulp. Joe pulled free before his thumb was bit clean through, took up the staple gun, and squeezed it against the Kid’s ear and temple.

The wind knocked out of the Kid came back in a strangled squeak. Joe bolted up and met Bill standing by the front stairs, revolver raised. He shouted something; Joe guessed it wasn’t surrendering. He leaped behind the nearest wall, but not before a bullet caught him in the calf. Adrenaline surged, and he returned fire. Bill hunkered down by the door, firing wildly like his revolver would never run dry.

The Kid still struggled and screamed between the firefight raging around him. Joe wanted to pop him just to shut him up. Bill clicked onto an empty chamber. Joe breathed, turned the corner, and fired twice before retaking cover again. The wood banister by Bill’s head exploded into splinters. The hallway filled with more screams. 

The old thrill of it all rushed back through Joe, stuck to his ribs like a good meal. His heart beat faster. There was sweat on his brow but nowhere near his palms. He smoothly ejected the first magazine and loaded his second, racking the slide without thinking. He took aim. The Kid could go first. 

Ernie slammed into Joe from behind and hurled him towards the basement door. They cleared it without even touching the first few steps and crashed down hard. Joe struck the side of his head on the wall, stars blazing across his eyes. Something cracked in his hand and the 1911 disappeared behind the stairs. Then Ernie was on him, hands around Joe’s throat.

Half the man’s scalp peeled away, one eye gone entirely red and bulging with hideous pressure. Joe saw a lot of bodies, on and off the battlefield, but never anything like this. Blood and spit flew from Ernie’s feral face as he tightened his grip on Joe’s neck. 

Ernie howls and screams belonged to a madman. “Kill you! Kill you! Killyoukillyou!” 

Each time Ernie tightened his hands, the basement grew darker and wider. Joe floated away from the pain into the void. Then the Retort rang out, finished with the girl’s body. Weak flames danced through the dark. Joe looked up into Ernie’s ruined face. Something glinted in the firelight, something metal behind the dangling flesh that used to be Ernie’s ear. Joe shot up, found Ernie’s weak point, and yanked. The loose scalp ripped away from Ernie’s skull. 

Joe struggled to his feet, gasping for breath, head ringing like a fire alarm. Ernie forgot all about him and knelt, trying to hold the rest of his skull together. Joe slammed the driver face-first into Retort’s side. There came the crackle and spit of frying meat as Ernie fused with the searing metal. Joe tore back the driver’s head and wrenched it to the side. A gristly pop, and there was silence again. Joe blinked, clearing stars from his eyes. The 1911 was lost, but luckily he found his glasses in one piece. The footlocker still stood open. He took the Garand and charged back upstairs. 

Two pools of blood sat in the hallway. A set of footprints led from each. Joe paused, listened. No sirens on the horizon. It seemed the old-timers in town were right about the house after all. Good, old-fashioned masonry could silence anything.

Joe followed one set of bloody footprints into the kitchen. The Kid jumped out from behind the table, something flashing in his hand. The knife whirled through the air and clunked uselessly into the wall. Fear blanched the Kid’s face as he stared down the Garand’s barrel and those flinty eyes behind it. 

Bill fired from the front door. This time he aimed better and grazed off a chunk of Joe’s left shoulder. Joe’s glasses fell away as he went down. Bill took the spooked Kid by his collar and hauled him outside. Ernie wasn’t going to be joining them, that was clear, and now was time to beat a hasty retreat. Joe respected that. It’s what he would have done. 

He picked up his glasses and winced. One lens gone, the other cracked. It would have to do. The screen door clung to one hinge now; Joe added it to his to-do list and drew a bead on the roaring Studebaker. He fired twice into the windshield before giving two more at the engine block. Bill and the Kid scrambled out from the car, using the erupting steam as cover. The Kid sprinted down the road, and Bill went for the plots outback. Now it was every man for himself. 

The Kid wove and ducked as he sprinted towards town. Joe bet he picked up the idea watching too many war movies. At least the Kid’s feet weren’t giving him much trouble now. Joe’s shoulder burned, his leg felt cold, each heartbeat warned him of his probably fractured skull, and he was near-sighted. He aimed through the broken glasses, breathed, fired, and planted one bullet square into the Kid’s back. He dropped into the dirt and lay still. Joe came off the porch and went around the house.

The graveyard made for better cover. Bill scuttled from one tombstone to another. It was a smart idea, but his wheezing didn’t help. It might have just been Bill’s ill health, but Joe thought he might’ve clipped a lung. He walked, rifle at half-ready, and trailed Bill to the Vauntwood plot near the property’s far right corner. It was a good spot. The Vauntwoods picked it for the shade in the summertime. Bill bled over one of their graves and watched Joe come for him. 

Bill struggled for breath and finally choked out, “Why?”

Joe sat atop a grave opposite his old associate.

Bill repeated, “Why?” 

Joe shrugged.

“Psycho. Dead as that whore.”

“Guess so.” Joe cradled the Garand in an easy rest across his leg. The injury to his calf felt far away now. “Can I use your belt?”

“Fuck yourself,” Bill burbled but handed over his belt anyway. Joe nodded thanks and tied off his wound. 

“What was her name?” A middle finger for his answer. Joe prodded Bill’s wound with the barrel. 

“Jesus! I don’t know.” Bill shook his head, wheezed. “You know the Mills. The girls don’t got names there. Just dollar signs.”

Joe took in the starry sky. “People tell me David died fighting for something right. But he didn’t. He went because of me. Because of you. To get away from this. Maybe he thought it could change him the way it did me. But I think I was always like this. Me and dad both.” A mosquito buzzed in Joe’s ear. He let it bite. “Why’d she die? Tell the Kid his prick didn’t work?” 

Spasms racked Bill’s body. “Mistake.” 

“Yeah.” Joe looked at the ground, “Guess so.” Bill lurched forward. Joe caught him by the other shoulder; let him down easy. Bill hauled himself up with one hand on the Garand’s barrel so he could look Joe in the eyes. 

“Sorry,” he managed.

Joe’s finger left the trigger and rested against the guard. He counted, waited for the death rattle. Bill let go and crumpled to the ground, leaving a bloody smear on the Vauntwood tombstone. 

Joe sighed. “Sorry.”

***

The girl’s ashes went in a small, green box like Prescott and Salary. Ernie, Bill, and the Kid waited on a plastic tarp beside the fertilizer spreader. Joe calculated, set a goal for nine, and got to work. He brewed coffee and set about repairing the house. The Studebaker went into the garage. He filled buckets with Lysol and hot water, scrubbed the hallways and walls. The hinge and broken screen were an easy fix. By then, Ernie and the Kid were gone. Bill got his own turn.

While they burned, Joe made himself a sandwich, brewed more coffee. Plaster did for the bullet holes. He couldn’t do much for the paint or the ruined banister. Halfway through this chore, he discovered the Silver Star and Purple Heart on the floor. Joe picked through the broken glass and put the medals in his breast pocket. 

By quarter past nine, the three men were spread with the fertilizer among the graves. The gears of the spreader jammed over the Snyder plot. Joe pulled a misshapen metal lump from between the plastic blades. The words “Class of ‘66” glinted in the morning sun. He pitched it towards the trees, the golden band winking one last time before dropping from sight.

The girl’s green box waited on the porch. Joe sat beside it and afforded himself a few moments of rest. The sun stayed cool in the early morning. But there was still too much to do. He walked to the Gosser plot, box in hands. He stopped at David’s marker. 

“I don’t think,” Joe sighed to the green box, “I don’t think they’d mind.” The remains scattered on the wind and were gone. Joe shook the box a few more times to be sure. The box sat evenly between David’s marker and Carol’s tombstone. Fit just about perfectly.  

Joe limped back to the house. The kitchen floor shone, the hallway was absent of blood. The Retort cooled in the dark, its work done. Joe wasn’t sure if it would ever fire up again. He checked the wound on his leg. If he still served in the Army, it would have earned him a Purple Heart like his son. Only David took a mortar along with the rest of his squad. Joe’s bullet went through and through. Worst outcome: he wouldn’t be doing wind sprints any day soon.

He took a seat on the couch where Bill sat hours ago before their night took a real nosedive. The medals burned in Joe’s pocket like another wound while the kitchen clock counted down the time. The burning traveled from his pocket outward to the rest of him. 

Joe went to the hearse. Chicago would be a bit of a drive, but his fighting spirit felt up to it. In a way, Joe knew it was the only outcome. He had always cleaned the guns out of habit, but a habit for what? The Garand sat across the backseat with four extra clips, a blanket thrown across it. The 1911 went on the passenger seat; Bill’s revolver was tucked within easy reach in the glove compartment. The road beckoned. 

Somewhere beyond the trees and sunshine awaited the Old Man, no doubt wondering where his driver, right-hand man, and son ran off to. Joe could give him the full story. He pinned David’s medals on the visor. They looked good there, swaying with the movement of the car —Chicago in an hour. 


John Wolf is a librarian lurking in the Pacific Northwest. When he’s not shelving books or processing holds, he likes making things up and putting them on paper. A graduate of Washington State University – Vancouver, John has been writing and publishing for 10 years. His work has appeared in the Coffin Blossoms anthology, The Wicked Library, Electric Spec, Bards & Sages Quarterly, and others. He subsists on a strict diet of coffee, bad movies, and good podcasts. You can follow his Twitter @JohnTheEngMajor.


Monday, January 4, 2021

The Myth of the Centaur, fiction by E.A. Aymar

Tom Davidson locked the door to his home office and headed upstairs to join his family for dinner. His wife Ruth and their two daughters were sitting at the dining room table. Three men he’d never seen stood behind them, wearing masks.

One of the men held a gun. That man wore a horsehead mask.

The other two held long knives. They were disguised as American presidents, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

Everyone in the room turned toward Tom.

The man in the horse mask pointed with his gun to the empty chair at the head of the table.

“Sit down,” he said. “And tell us where your safe is.”

But Tom was rooted to the floor, fear gnawing him like he was a crumbling statue.

“Is that my mask?” Tom managed to ask, and then he remembered he’d actually left his own horsehead mask on the floor in the office, moments earlier. His wife, Ruth, gave Tom a confused look.

“What do you mean,” one of the men asked, “your mask?”

Tom couldn’t remember the exact moment that the copious amount of online pornography he watched began to bore him, but he could absolutely remember the moment it excited him again – it was when he started watching while wearing a rubber horsehead mask. Something about locking the door to his basement office, slipping the mask on, and adjusting it so he could peer through the nostrils gave him an exciting rush, like the sensation of a first teenaged kiss, or suddenly leaping into the air and realizing he could fly.

The mask itself had been a surprise, forgotten by some neighbor at their house after a Halloween party and discarded to his office. Tom had ignored it until one day, out of boredom, he put it on and saw himself in the mirror. And what he saw moved him.

Gone was the slumped, pudgy body of a fifty-year-old most people would correctly assume worked in insurance. Tom looked at himself and saw a mythical beast staring back. The horsehead, with its wild eyes and open mouth, looked to be in mid-gallop, perhaps rearing on hind legs. Tom had slowly unbuttoned his shirt, slid it off. Undid his pants and let them drop to the floor. His hands felt like he was holding lightning.

After that experience, it was as if pornography and the mask possessed Tom. He thought about both obsessively at work, missed family meals, took days off to spend online. Once, he shared his interest with Ruth. They gamely sat next to each other, naked in his office while he brought up a video, wondering if he should pull out the mask from the closet. But a minute into the video, Ruth asked, “Is that really what you like?” And despite the smile on her face, Tom sensed her strain.

After that, he stopped involving his wife.

Two years later, Tom couldn’t remember what that video had been, but he knew it was certainly tamer than what he watched now. His obsession had refused to rest, and what he watched had turned darker, disturbing, occasionally distressing.

But he couldn’t stop looking.

“Dad,” his daughter Katelyn said, a knife at her throat. “Please.”

Tom came back to the present, hurried to the empty chair at the head of the table.

“Where’s your safe?” Reagan asked.

“It’s in the office,” Tom said.

The office, he remembered, that he wanted to return to after dinner. The office he planned to stay in until the girls went out and Ruth went to bed. The office where he wanted to slip his sweaty mask back on.

And the office where he hadn’t turned off the pornographic images on his computer.

“There’s not much in the safe,” Tom said, truthfully, trying to steer the men in a different direction. “We don’t have a lot of money.”

“We’ll take whatever you have,” Clinton said.

“What did you mean,” the man with the gun and horse mask put in, “about this being your mask?”

“Yeah?” That from his wife.

“I really don’t want to get into this now,” Tom said, worried. “Can you guys just please leave? You can have everything in my wallet. I’ll even drive you to an ATM.”

“Nah,” one of the men said. “We want the safe.”

Tom cast desperately about. “What about my wife’s wedding ring? Would you take that? It’s the most expensive thing we own. You wouldn’t even need to go to the safe.”

“Tom!” Ruth exclaimed.

“You can have mine too,” Tom said, twisting off his ring. “But hers is worth more. Mine’s just a fake gold band.”

He’d lost the real band years ago.

“Fake?” Ruth asked.

“Listen to him,” one of the men said. “Trying to distract us.”

“The mask is something you wear?” Clinton asked, and he pressed the knife against Katelyn’s throat. “Why?”

She squeezed her eyes closed.

“I wear it when I watch porn.” Tom’s voice was small. “I like how I look in the mirror.”

“Ew,” his daughter Monica said. Monica was his older daughter, and she was breezing through her teenage years with a confidence Tom had never understood but admired. “Dad, gross.”

“You got, like, a horse thing?” Reagan asked. “Like, you jack off to the movie Seabiscuit or some shit?”

“No,” Tom said, helplessly. “It’s not that.”

“I mean,” horse mask said, “I want to hear more about this, Seabiscuit.”

“I don’t,” Katelyn put in, even with the knife shining against her throat, and she also added a, “Ew.”

She’s such a bitch, Tom automatically thought, and the thought deeply shamed him. His own daughter, her life at risk, knife at her neck, and he’d thought of her as a bitch. Yes, Katelyn had issues with authority and, yes, she often was a bitch and, yes, with her shitty grades and constant trouble she was no Monica, but what kind of father would think that at a time like this?

The man with the knife against Katelyn’s throat moved it away.

Tom was relieved that he was relieved.

“You wear a mask like this when you’re strangling your cyclops?” the man with the horse mask and gun asked. “What are you even watching?”

“Please,” Tom said. “I really don’t want to talk about this. Can’t you just take our stuff?”

“Hey Seabiscuit,” the man replied, “tell us everything, or we’ll kill all of you.”

At that, the world inside Tom dropped. He started to speak but couldn’t. At his pause, horse mask laughed loudly. “Really?” he shouted. “You won’t say anything, even with…”

He laughed so hard he bent over, hands on his knees.

And faster than Tom realized she could move, Ruth turned and grabbed his gun. The man cursed. They struggled.

The gun went off, a deafening sound, like a shout from a god.

The man slumped to the floor, the wall behind him red.

Tom could see the damage to his head, his mask and head like the right half had been smashed by a hammer, one rubber horse eye dangling down.

Ruth pointed the gun at the men with the knives, fear and anger on her face like war paint.

“Monica,” Ruth said to their older daughter, her voice shaky but determined. “Call 9-1-1.”

Ruth wouldn’t look at Tom.

Years later, Monica would, without a sense of irony, go into veterinary medicine and end up running a successful, quiet practice. Both Tom and Ruth were proud of her and kept in touch with Monica after their divorce, Ruth more frequently than Tom.

Katelyn didn’t have as successful a path. She couldn’t shake off the home invasion like her sister had. The trauma from the knife against her throat, and the sight of the dead man sprawled against the wall, haunted her. Panic and anxiety had always overwhelmed her, but the emotions grew stronger as Katelyn grew older, the twin emotions like two hands dragging her to hell. And she was desperate for an escape.

Two years after her divorce from Tom, Ruth remarried a police officer. Not one of the police officers that came by that night, but a neighbor in her apartment building after she left Tom. This police officer was also divorced. They never discussed their pasts.

They didn’t talk much about their present, either. When Katelyn died from a drug overdose, Ruth grieved with Monica, not her husband. With her new husband, Ruth kept her suffering private. And she was proud of herself that she did.

As for Tom, he ended up living in a small apartment in a different town. He never remarried or even dated much. The night Katelyn overdosed, Tom was online in a corner of his apartment, wearing the horsehead mask and nothing else in front of a web camera, asking people what they wanted him to do.

Desperately giving them whatever they desired while the phone rang.



Anthony Award-nominated E.A. Aymar’s most recent thriller, The Unrepentant, was published in 2019. His next thriller, They’re Gone,was published in November under his pseudonym E.A. Barres.

He has a monthly column in the Washington Independent Review of Books and is an active member of Crime Writers of Color, ITW, MWA, and SinC. He also runs the D.C. Noir at the Bar series and has hosted and spoken at a variety of crime fiction, writing, and publishing events nationwide.