Joe Hart's Blog, page 2

The Exorcism of Sara May

5

 

 

 

They brought me inside out of the weather but it was nearly five minutes before I could speak coherently.

While I rocked and cried to myself, my mother sat at my feet, holding my hands, rubbing them with her own. She kept glancing over my shoulder towards our front porch where my father stood at the window, staring out at the yard, watching the driveway. Finally he came to the kitchen, setting the big shotgun in a corner before pulling a chair close to my own. He studied me for a time, his eyes calm behind his glasses. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and steady.

“Tell us what happened, Lane.”

“I…I drop…dropped the groceries.”

“That’s okay. What was that chasing you?”

“I don’t know.” I looked up into my father’s face. There was always comfort there when I needed it, always a kind word or some type of wisdom from him.

But now there was a hint of fear.

All at once relief flooded through me as I realized something. “You saw it too,” I said. “You sh…shot at it.”

My father stood from the chair and made his way to the kitchen sink and drew himself a glass of water. He drank it down and turned to face us.

“What was it, David?” my mother asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“But you shot at it,” she insisted. “You must know what it was. A bear? Cougar?”

“It wasn’t either of those,” I said, and when I looked at my father for confirmation, his silence was all the assurance I needed. He had seen it too. “It climbed out of a puddle on the road and chased me,” I said, spitting the words out like something sour. “It said it was going to eat me up.”

“What?” My mother rose from in front of me, her eyebrows drawn down. “What do you mean ‘it came out of a puddle’?”

“That doesn’t make any sense, son,” my father said.

“I know, but that’s the truth.” I nearly told them about the goat then, but didn’t. I had evidence on my side now—my father had seen something even if he didn’t understand it. But if I started spouting off about a talking two-headed goat, that he’d killed himself, I was sure it would stretch their belief too far.

“David, tell me what you shot at,” my mother said in her stern voice she typically reserved for me when I’d forgotten a chore.

“It was long and slender,” he said. “Big hands…”

“Big hands? Neither of you are making sense.”

I gazed down at my palms and glanced out of the window at the storm that was in full swing now. Water ran from the eaves of our barn and dripped from the corner of the porch roof.

“If you shot it then where is it?” my mother continued.

“It was there and then it wasn’t,” my father said almost to himself. “Lane, is there anything else you want to tell us?” I shook my head. “Okay. You go to your room and lie down. We’ll call you when supper’s ready.”

I got up and walked to my room as if in a dream. Inside I struggled out of my soaking clothes and crawled into bed wearing only my skivvies. Shivers ran through me and I curled into a ball. My parents’ voices, low but severe, drifted to me, and even though I knew they were arguing, it was a comforting sound. I must’ve fallen asleep because sometime later my mother shook me awake for supper.

The kitchen held the rich smell of fried chicken and baking powder biscuits. My father was already seated at the table when I sat down and I noticed the butter I’d dropped in the driveway was on the platter. He must’ve walked back and got it. It frightened me to think of him tracing my steps alone back to where I’d let the groceries fall.

I paused.

Steps. Footsteps.

“Dad, did you see any prints behind mine?”

“No. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, though, because the rain had nearly washed yours away by the time I went outside.”

“And you didn’t see anything else?”

“No. And let’s not discuss this anymore in front of your mother. She’s worried enough as it is.”

I nodded as she came to the table carrying a bowl of mashed potatoes and sat down. Our dinner was eaten in relative silence, broken only by the request to pass a dish or ask for more milk. Afterwards I helped wash the dishes, throwing glances out to the porch where my father sat with a small glass of whiskey. None of us commented on the fact that he’d brought the shotgun out with him.

I went to bed early, exhaustion weighing me down like a pair of bricks around my neck. When I closed my door for the night my father was still on the porch sipping his drink, looking down our driveway. And I couldn’t help but notice the unmistakable outline of a turkey buzzard perched in the tallest pine tree.

 

 

 

6

 

 

 

Morning arrived with a welcome blade of sun that pierced the edge of my blinds.

For a moment everything seemed normal in that middle ground between sleeping and full wakefulness. But then the events of the day before rushed back in, filling me with a sickening dread. What was happening?

The question hit me like a hammer. In the years since that spring I’ve learned that when you’re in the thick of any situation, a human being can simply deal with what’s occurring. People are remarkable creatures in that sense. The reasonable portion of our brain shuts down and the part that keeps us moving forward takes over. It’s the only way many of us stay alive and sane.

But at the tender age of fourteen I was terribly aware of the events and my young mind couldn’t wrap itself around them. In the end I simply got dressed and readied myself for school because no matter what supernatural situation I found myself in, Mrs. Shawler’s patience only went so far.

My father drove me to school that morning. He told me he had business with one of the Hudsons, but I suspect his reasons had much more to do with the smell of cordite that still emanated from the shotgun in the porch.

On the way I told him about Sara May’s request from her father, and he gave me permission to walk to the Tandy farm after school as long as Jones was going as well. Even with the possibility of seeing Sara outside of school I was still filled with an unease that sickened me. I jumped when a pheasant burst out of cover beside the road as we passed and couldn’t meet my father’s eyes when he dropped me outside the school.

Jones was waiting for me in the entryway, a stem of grass pinched in the corner of his mouth.

“Mornin’,” he said, watching me hang my coat and school bag up.

“Mornin’.”

“And here I thought between my wit and Sara May’s most pleasant company, you’d look better today. Guess I was wrong. You’re still pale.”

“And you’re still an asshole.”

“Least I’m consistent,” he said, leading the way toward our desks. I dropped into mine, weariness a physical weight in my bones. “You got my attention. Spill it,” Jones said. “What’s eating you?”

His words nearly made me cringe. Eatcha up. “Nothing. Might be coming down with a cold. Got rained on last night.”

“Hope you don’t miss out on work this afternoon. Then I’ll not only have to take your wage but it’ll just be me and Sara to pass the time in the field.”

“You wish.”

“That I do.”

“Well, don’t get your heart set on it. I’ll be able to work.”

Sara May entered the room then and some of the dread I was carrying bled away at the sight of her. She was wearing a white dress and her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She smiled in our direction and took her seat at the front of the class. Mrs. Shawler wasn’t far behind and soon we were immersed in arithmetic, history, and grammar.

The school day slid by slowly, the sun making its way up past the windows and out of sight as it climbed to its apex in the sky. By all accounts it was a perfect spring day: not too humid, as the storm had washed most of the moisture out of the air, and not too cool.

When Mrs. Shawler dismissed us that afternoon the memories from the night before had dimmed somewhat. In the warm sunshine, waiting by the road for Jones and Sara May, they didn’t seem quite as vivid or real and I was grateful.

The Tandys lived a half mile south of Ellis Wilmer’s farm on County 7, and after Jones and Sara joined me we walked there, three young people side by side, us boys chucking rocks into the woods every so often, Sara walking in her serene way on the shoulder, commenting on several songbirds perched in the blossoming trees.

She seemed different then, and even now I don’t think it was because of what was going to happen to her in the days to come, what was already happening to her. I don’t know what helped her open up to us that spring but I think it might’ve been a nudge from something none of us could see or fathom. Something that might’ve known what was coming and thought we might need the bond that is so special and ephemeral in children of our age. I like to believe it’s so because there’s always two sides to a coin, and there is no true evil without something good to balance it out.

Even though my parents were quite cordial with Sara’s, I had never set foot in her house, never even been up on its porch in all my years. So when Sara went inside to fetch her father, I took a long look at the Tandy home.

It was two stories and painted a nice shade of faded red with white shutters. The long, wraparound porch put our own to shame and the brand new swing mounted at its far end swayed in the light breeze without a sound.

“It’s nice out here,” Jones said, reading my thoughts. “Peaceful. They got the best plot of land in all of the county.”

“It’s nearly the biggest plot too.”

“Makes our place look like hell.” Jones pulled his shirt away from his chest and sniffed. “Damn. Do I smell like cow shit?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t even smell me.”

“Don’t have to. You always smell like cow shit.”

“Come on, Lane, quit bustin’ my balls here.” He lowered his voice. “I took a fall last night in the barn and hit a wet patch of shit on all fours. Got it in my face, on my chest, in my hair. And to top it off we didn’t have enough hot water for a bath. Had to scrub with that God-awful lye soap that Nimble can’t give away ‘cept to my pa, in some cold water. I couldn’t believe the horseshit timing.”

By then I was doubled over in silent gales of laughter, but managed to turn my head toward him and say, “Not horseshit timing, cow shit timing.”

Jones was winding up to blast me in the mouth when the porch door opened and Nathan Tandy stepped outside with Sara behind him.

Everything about Nathan Tandy was compact. His head was almost completely bald and his features were scrunched together, but instead of making him look simple it gave him a shrewd appearance. Along with how powerfully he was built through the chest and back, he cut an imposing figure. Sara looked diminutive by comparison. She had changed into a pair of gray pants and a chambray work shirt. I thought she looked just as beautiful as in her dress.

“Afternoon, gentlemen,” Mr. Tandy said.

“Afternoon, sir,” Jones and I said in unison.

“Sara tells me you both know how to work.”

“Sure do,” Jones said.

“Good. I got quite a few acres to clear and I want to be able to plant this fall. If you both work out I might talk to your parents about keeping you on longer than this summer since the crops’ll be more than we’ll be able to handle next spring. Couple things before we get started. Be mindful of Winnie, my big workhorse. She’s not partial to strangers and she can kick something fierce, so don’t walk behind her. There’s a few old wells behind the barn and house from the last homestead. They’re covered up but keep an eye out for them. As far as pay goes, I’ll give you each fifty cents for every afternoon, paid before you leave and you’re free to stay for supper if we work late. I want you boys working with Heely, my mule. You’ll start on the east side of the field and I’ll take Winnie to the west. Sara’s gonna pick rocks and run for any tools we need. Sound good?”

“Yes, sir,” we answered.

“Good. Let’s go.”

Mr. Tandy led us to his barn and got us outfitted with Heely and his harness as well as several lengths of rope and a stout chain for pulling the stumps. He handed us each a razor-sharp, two-bitted axe before helping Sara May get Winnie, their white workhorse set up.

“Next spring I’m planning on getting a tractor. Not that I don’t love you, girl,” Tandy said, patting the horse on the side, “but farming’s all about production and tractors are the wave of the future.”

I was listening absently to him as Jones and I began to lead Heely out of the barn, but I was struck by how much Sara May was helping with the horse’s tack. For some reason I’d never pictured her in the fields working with her father. She caught me staring as Jones and I left the barn and my face heated up.

The field we were working on was to the right behind the barn, about a quarter mile from the main yard. There were dozens of stumps sticking up from the rich soil, their tops sawed within a few feet of the ground. Rocks were also prevalent, some as big as a fist while others looked to weigh more than Jones and I combined.

We started on the farthest stump we could find to the east of the clearing while Mr. Tandy led Winnie to the opposite side of the field. Sara carried a shovel and a five-gallon pail, which she started to fill with the rocks she could pry from the dirt.

If you’ve never pulled a stump by hand beneath the flaming gaze of the sun, it’s not something you’d forget. It is hard, hard work. First the roots must be dug free and chopped as they’re exposed. Then whatever you’re using to pull the stumps has to be lashed to the trunk. Once the stump starts to move in the hole you’ve made, the best route is to try and cut the taproot. The taproot normally extends from the very bottom of the stump and not only holds the most, it’s the toughest to get at.

Jones and I worked as hard or harder than Heely that afternoon. Sweat poured from us. Jones, being completely unselfconscious, pulled his shirt off and continued to work while I sweated through mine, very aware of Sara’s gaze whenever she would turn our way. I saw her look at Jones several times as we worked and a spike of jealousy ran through me. Jones was a farm boy, same as me, but his father worked him harder than my own did. Thus his muscles were slightly more defined than mine and I wondered if Sara May was comparing us. I was still brooding on this when we pulled the first stump free and Sara approached us with a pitcher of ice-cold water.

“Thank you,” I said, taking a long drink from the tin pitcher.

“You’re welcome,” she said, taking the water from me when I was done and handing it to Jones. She was smiling the whole time and I felt the jealousy rise again when her eyes traveled down Jones’s torso but had to choke off a laugh when her nose wrinkled slightly. Cow shit has a staying power that few can miss.

The afternoon carried on that way and Jones and I managed to break another stump free as the sun was beginning to touch the tree line in the west. Sara was working on a particularly large rock, and even with the sweat that was dripping from me, my bladder had become painfully full from all the water we’d drank.

“Be right back,” I said to Jones as he guided Heely toward the next stump in the line. He nodded and began shoveling as I walked toward the nearest tree to relieve myself.

The forest beyond the clearing was quiet as I stood there looking at the dappled layer of dead leaves from the prior fall. My muscles ached but in a good way that told me I had gained strength since last winter. I finished relieving myself and was about to turn back to where Jones was waiting when I saw movement between the trees.

My brother Danny walked through the forest, his blond hair ruffled by the breeze.

I staggered back and bumped into the tree behind me. My jaw loosened and the strength went out of my legs.

It couldn’t be Danny. It couldn’t. I was seeing things. My hands came to my eyes and I rubbed them, sure that I was suffering from heatstroke, but when I looked again he was still there, heading steadily on his little legs toward the side of the barn. He was wearing the overalls he had played in nearly every day when he was alive and his arms were held out in the way I remembered he walked.

When he was nearly even with the rear of the barn he stopped and looked over his shoulder at me before continuing out of sight.

I followed.

As if in a dream I walked through dead grass that reached past my thighs and followed the path Danny had taken. This wasn’t happening. I assured myself that it couldn’t be. It was one thing to hear a dead goat speak and see something climb from a rain puddle, but it was quite another to watch your deceased younger brother stroll through the edge of a forest.

I paused as I entered the yard, not seeing where he’d gone for a moment.

There, around the back of the house, a glimpse of his small form. He was carrying something.

I ran after him, his name pounding in my head, whispered between breaths. How? How could it be? I had attended his funeral, watched the grief nearly crush my mother and father like a giant stone, wept my own tears for the brother I would never see grow up.

Somewhere far behind me Jones was calling my name, but I didn’t stop.

When I rounded the side of the house, Danny was standing in the dead grass off the backyard. Its golden stems hid him to the waist and it was only when he raised his arm could I see what he’d been carrying.

The gas can was a bright red with yellow letters painted on its side. The cap was off, I could see it plain as day in the late afternoon sunshine.

Danny lifted the can up and dumped the gasoline over his head, drenching himself.

“Danny! What are you doing?” I hobbled forward, terror and disbelief hamstringing my strides. He looked at me, dark eyes sad and maybe reproachful. He dropped the empty can at his feet and dug in his pocket, his little hand coming out holding a long stemmed matchstick.

I ran then. Pelted forward with abandon. I could save him, save him this time as I couldn’t from the fever that took him before. This was a second chance.

“I burned up, Lane,” he said then. “It was so hot.”

“Danny stop!” I was a dozen steps away.

He popped the matchstick alight with his thumbnail.

I dove toward him, knowing it was too late.

The impact was monumental. All air left my lungs and the rough, dead grass cut at my face and hands as I skidded through it, through the place where Danny had been. I came to a stop and sat up, sure that he would be an immolated pillar behind me, burning hotter than the fever that had killed him.

Danny was gone.

I sat, dumbfounded on the ground, head barely level with the grass tops. Alone. The breeze shifted the trees behind me. A chicken cackled somewhere in front of the house. Jones yelled my name.

I climbed to my feet and a soft cracking came from below me, the spongy quality of the ground registering somewhere in my subconscious before Mr. Tandy’s words came back, sudden and clear.

There’s a few old wells behind the barn and house from the old homestead. They’re covered up but keep an eye out for them.

The rotted wood of the well cover gave way beneath me and I fell.

The Exorcism of Sara May

 

 

3

 

 

 

I’ve smelled blood plenty times since that wet night in May when I was fourteen.

The first time I killed a whitetail buck on the edge of the swamp behind our property. When I slipped cutting kindling with my father’s hatchet, the blade burying itself into the soft flesh just above my knee. The afternoon my son was born, the hospital disinfectant mingling in an ugly way to create a new, briny odor.

But nothing before or since has smelled like the soaked floor of Ellis Wilmer’s barn as I sat staring at the thing lying in the center of the aisle.

My gorge had risen and fallen so many times I lost count, and I managed to get to the backless chair and sit before my legs gave out. I held the lantern close, its wick extended farther than it should have been, but I didn’t care. The shadows were alive around me, capering in a way that spoke of terrible things just out of sight. My hands shook so badly that the shade continued to chatter until I was able to set the lantern down beside me in the dirt, mindful not to get it too close to the kerosene still soaking in where Ellis had dropped the other light.

The barn was quiet, all of the animals mute in their stalls. I’d expected them to be kicking the holy hell out of the walls and doors in an effort to get free, what with all the racket and stench of blood. It’s what I wanted to do. If I could’ve run from the barn and into the rain, I would’ve in a heartbeat. I would’ve kept running down Ellis’s drive and out onto County 7 and I don’t think I would’ve ever stopped. Only one thing kept me from doing just that.

My father’s orders.

He was relying on me to take care of the carcass of the thing that came out of Josha. I was done calling it a kid or even an animal. It hadn’t been. It was…something else.

The image of it standing behind my father on its hind legs buffeted me again and I turned my head away, sickened by the smell of afterbirth and gore. No. I’d imagined it surely and truly. No way I could’ve seen what I’d seen. Trick of the light paired with the adrenaline and fear of being caught in the dark. That was all, plain and simple.

Rain hammered down, a million drumbeats.

Coffee and acid burned the back of my throat.

I was going to have to pick it up and bring it outside.

That’s what he’d told me to do and I wasn’t going to fail him. Not now, not when his hands were already full trying to save Josha.

I licked my lips, still unwilling to look at the thing lying in the circle of blood. Farther down the alley of stanchions a horse’s head appeared over the side of a stall. It was a rich brown that looked almost ebony in the low light. One eye was trained on me and it snuffed, shook its head, and drew back into the safety of its pen.

There was no more stalling. I had to move and get the corpse out of the barn and then go and help my father in case he needed anything.

Just do it, Lane. Get it over with.

I knew I couldn’t touch it with my bare hands so I glanced around, looking for a shovel or pitchfork.

Both heads of the goat were upright and staring at me.

I tipped off the chair, my foot barely missing the lantern on the floor. A scream bubbled up from inside me but wouldn’t come out, my throat narrowed to a pinpoint.

The goat’s sightless eyes followed me as I floundered backward on the ground. There were matching burnt holes in its skulls where my father’s bullets had done their work. Its lips peeled back from bloodied teeth and the right head’s tongue flashed pale, out and back, as if tasting the air.

“Ssssssssssoooooooooooooooooooonnn,” the heads hissed in unison. They grinned then, horrid glee pulling the corners of the twin mouths back farther than they should’ve been able.

I choked out a moan, tears of pure terror running from the corners of my eyes. A chuckle issued from the goat’s throats, there and gone before both necks went limp and the skulls fell back to their place on the ground with soft thumps.

I shook where I lay on my ass, arms propping me up enough to keep both eyes on the thing that had spoken. No way I could tear my gaze from it now. At any moment I was sure it would leap from the floor and skip toward me, teeth bared, ready to tear chunks from me as it had its own mother.

Something grazed the top of my head and I screamed.

I flung myself to the side and looked up into the face of the horse that had observed me before. It whinnied again, lower, and I could see how much of the whites were visible of its eyes. It was as scared as I was. Why the long face? The old joke flew through my mind and I nearly brayed insane laughter.

The goat thing was still on its side when I glanced again, managing to pull myself to my feet before taking a few deep breaths. I’d wet my pants. I didn’t care. Right then I was examining my options.

Option A: I was crazier than a shithouse mouse, as my grandfather used to say.

Option B: It had really happened.

I prayed for Option A.

After waiting for nearly five minutes, I took a step forward. When nothing moved in the barn except for the animals that were alive, I approached the goat and stepped around it, hurrying to the object I’d spotted earlier leaning against the wall.

The pitchfork felt good in my hands, and I only hesitated a split second before jabbing it into the small, slender body.

Nothing happened.

It didn’t move or squirm on the end of the tines.

It was dead. It had been dead all along.

I was losing it.

I nodded. That was okay with me. Insanity at that point in time was just fine. I hoisted the carcass up and grabbed the lantern with my other hand, keeping my eyes fixed on the goat the whole time. There was no reason in taking chances.

Outside the rain fell. It hadn’t let up since we’d left our house and inch-deep puddles lay on the newly-greened grass of Ellis’s yard. I hurried around the side of the barn to where the longer grass began and the beginnings of forest ended. With a flick of my arm, careful not to accidentally whip the corpse in my own direction, I flung the slender body off the tines and into the darkness between the blades of grass.

Without waiting to see if it would come racing back out at me, I turned and fled, and I didn’t put the pitchfork down until I reached the house.

 

 

 

4

 

 

 

The rain stopped early the next morning.

I knew when it did because I was still lying awake in my bed, staring up at the white-washed ceiling of my bedroom. There was a rumble of thunder, the first I’d heard all night, then the patter tapered off like someone was shutting down a spigot, and it got quiet.

I preferred the sound of the rain.

Without it my mind had nothing else to focus on as the night wore through into a gray dawn that barely lit my windows. I saw the goat-thing tearing at Josha’s leg. Saw it standing on its own. Heard its hissing voice.

At one point I got up and went to the toilet, sure I was going to be sick, but nothing would come up. I knelt there, staring into my dark reflection in the bowl water, and waited for another hallucination to appear. I’d strengthened the theory of my insanity on the drive back from Ellis Wilmer’s farm.

I hadn’t spoken a word when I entered the porch where my father and Ellis were tending to Josha, and neither of them had looked up. Josha was calm under my father’s careful and steady hands, and soon the wound in her haunch was stitched tight with a disinfectant salve spread over the entire area. He’d packed his satchel, washed thoroughly in Ellis’s sink, and we’d left, but not before he’d poured Ellis a half glass of whiskey and murmured something to him while the other man sat catatonic at his kitchen table in his empty house.

The ride back had been silent save for the swish of the windshield wiper, my father stoic as a wooden Indian. I hadn’t trusted my voice to speak. What I’d seen ran on an endless loop in my mind and at no point did it falter or become hazy like a dream. I could find no flaw in it, no missing time for myself where I may’ve passed out or hit my head.

Without sleep, my imagination continued to churn up hideous and new images, like bloated bodies rising from the bottom of a disturbed riverbed. Around the time daylight cut the edge of the land, I fell into a fitful slumber and fought nightmares with perfect square teeth growing from blackened gums.

Our rooster, Doodle, woke me sometime later. It was near noon as far as I could tell, the old bird’s habit of crowing well past dawn a bane of my father’s existence. The sound brought no smile to my lips as it typically did on any other day.

When I rose, I found my school clothes had been washed and my mother had placed them on the chair beside my door. I dressed, both thankful and depressed that I’d been allowed to sleep in. Maybe the normalcy and boredom of school would’ve leveled out my troubled thoughts.

My father was at the table when I stepped into the kitchen, a newspaper open on one crossed leg. He was sipping coffee and slid a plate of eggs and bacon toward me without looking up as I sat down. The food looked as appetizing as roadkill, but I made a solid effort, downing almost all of it as to not bring attention to myself.

My father shifted on his chair and turned another page, shaking out the wrinkles. He was normally like this after a late call. He would rise nearly as early as usual, but the work he typically did around our small farm was pushed off until the afternoon so that he could recoup from the night before. Gathering my courage I wet my lips and glanced outside.

“Where’s momma?”

“Hanging laundry. Trying to beat the rain.”

“Think it’s going to again today.”

“Yep. Probably around four or so.”

I let a healthy gap form, then plunged forward. “Why was that kid like that last night?”

He took a last swig of coffee and set the cup down on the table before folding the paper neatly beside it. “It happens from time to time, Lane, you know that. Something goes wrong during gestation and the animal comes out malformed.”

“I know. But why did it bite Josha.”

“I don’t know. I would assume the same aberrations it underwent physically also affected its mind, made it violent. Its mother’s haunch was the first thing it saw and it simply attacked out of instinct.”

I saw the thing rising up on its hind legs behind him in the flare of the match and suppressed a shudder.

“Can animals ever make sounds that are like words?”

My father frowned. “Well, you know as well as I do they can. You’ve heard some coyote song that sounds like a man’s voice. And a cow bellowing in the distance can sometimes be confused for a shout. Why do you ask?”

I swallowed a lump of egg that wouldn’t seem to stay down. “No reason.”

“Look, I appreciate your help last night, you did well. I’ve seen strange things as a vet, and last night was up there on the list, but it’s nothing to concern yourself about. Mother nature is cruel. Every so often it eats her young.” I nodded, wishing he hadn’t said that. “Now, you go help your mother finish hanging the clothes, then you can walk into school.” He picked up a handwritten note as well as several dollars and passed it to me. “Give this to Mrs. Shawler and pick up a jug of milk, some cheese, and a pint of whiskey from Nimble’s on your way home.” 

“Yes, sir,” I said, standing up. The gladness I felt at having a simple and easy errand to run must’ve shone through because my father smiled and handed me another quarter.

“And get yourself a Coke too.”

“Thanks!” I said, and couldn’t help but hug him. He seemed a little surprised since most of our affection was limited to a firm handshake or a pat on the shoulder now that I was becoming a young man, but he embraced me back nonetheless.

“Now get going,” he said, giving me a slap on my hip.

I found my mother standing out in the yard beneath the clotheslines studying a turkey buzzard that was perched in the top of a dead birch tree. When I stopped beside her she jumped and I realized she hadn’t heard me approach.

“Lord almighty! Lane David Murphy, you scared the bejesus out of me.”

“Sorry, momma. Didn’t mean to.”

“It’s all right. I guess I was lost in my own little world there. Turkey buzzard is acting awful strange. Caught my eye earlier and it hasn’t moved since.”

I looked up at the humped shape of the scavenger. Across the distance its featherless, red head was clear as day against the clouded sky. The bird’s skull looked skinned and bleeding, just like every other of its kind that I’d seen, but this one’s beaded eyes didn’t move from where we stood on the lawn.

“Shoo!” I yelled, whipping my arms over my head.

“Lane, you don’t need to scare it away.” She said the words halfheartedly and I knew she wanted it gone as much as I did. I bent over and retrieved a rock from the ground, wound up, and pitched it as hard as I could.

My aim was good back in those days since throwing rocks was a regular pastime, and the rock missed the buzzard by less than six inches. It didn’t move a muscle.

The urge to find another projectile was strong but my mother’s hand on my shoulder stopped me from moving. “Don’t, Lane. Leave it be.” She was staring at it again. “It’ll go away on its own.” She seemed to come back to herself and smiled, digging in the apron she wore. “Here. Your father gave you the grocery list I assume?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Get me an extra pound of butter, and buy yourself and Jones a Coke,” she said, placing fifty cents in my hand. I could’ve told her my father had already given me enough for several bottles of pop, but I kept it to myself. I had a little stash of coins stowed away in a can under my bed. I was saving up for a rifle to hunt deer with that I’d seen in the Arbor hardware store on our last foray into the nearest “real” town. Mentally I calculated how much I could put away as I bade my mother goodbye and hurried down our drive to Secondary Road, the normality of the thoughts such a welcome distraction I actually whistled a tune as I jogged along, avoiding the puddles still dotting the lane.

It was a little over three miles from our drive to County 7, but I didn’t have to go quite that far to reach the schoolhouse. The white, two-story building sat a quarter mile back from the main road on the top of a small rise between Alfred Hagen’s little feed store and Missy Arnold’s trinket and clothing shop, the latter of the two being nothing more than an ancient woman’s shed filled with musty clothing and rusted baubles from before the turn of the century. Missy herself sat in her customary chair before the entrance to her “shop,” the wrinkles on her worn face beneath the red bandanna she wore over her hair clear even from the street I walked on.

“Come on in, Lane Murphy, buy somethin’ fer yer pretty mum,” Missy said as I passed by. One of her eyes followed me while the other stared sightlessly at the ground near her feet. The old woman had always given me a slight case of the creeps. My best friend, Jones Dunley, and I had joked when we were younger that she had practiced witchcraft in England before being driven out of the country to America along with her husband, who now lay in the cemetery across the road from the post office. We’d laughed at the thought of Missy stirring a bubbling cauldron in the dead of night, chanting incantations to the moon, but neither one of us wanted to admit how well the scene actually fit her.

“Sorry, not today, Mrs. Arnold.”

“Maybe a pretty for yer other pretty.”

Her words stuttered my steps and I nearly fell. “Uh…no thank you.”

“Sara May, sweet as hay, young Laney wants to play.” The old woman cackled and rolled her bad eye.

My legs worked on their own and I raced up the stoop and four steps to the school’s door, looking back once my hand was on the iron handle.

Missy was gone, her chair empty outside the doors that were slowly swinging shut on her shop. No one knew how I felt about Sara May. Not even Jones. In fact, he was the last person I wanted knowing. A chill rippled through me as Missy locked her doors loudly and I ducked inside the school.

Our schoolhouse was one room with an entry and coatroom separated by a heavy oak door. The second floor was Mrs. Shawler’s residence, the aging schoolteacher and her husband had both been born in Rath shortly after its township had been granted by the state and had never left, to anyone else’s knowledge.

I slipped in through the door and into our classroom, Mrs. Shawler’s voice ringing out as soon as I was inside.

“Lane Murphy. And what is the meaning of this interruption? I thought you either sick or dead since you missed the English test this morning. Since you apparently aren’t dead you’d better be on its doorstep or I may have a hand in putting you there.”

I couldn’t suppress a smile. Mrs. Shawler’s threats were typically colorful, always inventive, and never truly serious. For every empty admonishment she gave there were two kind words to follow. She sat at the head of the class, perched in her usual place on top of the barstool she preferred to the chair behind her elephantine desk in the corner of the room. Her hawk-like face was narrowed but I saw a gleam in one of her sharp, blue eyes.

“Sorry, ma’am. Here you go,” I said, hurrying to give her the note. When she began to read it, I scanned my classmates.

There were only two other boys besides me in town. One of course was Jones, who sat with his too-big feet stuck out from beneath his desk, one dark eyebrow hooked up in the way only he could do that said, aren’t you a sorry sight? The other was Mills Sigler, a bookish and waifishly thin boy two years my senior. If you didn’t have text written across you, Mills didn’t have time for you.

The rest of the class consisted of girls. Darlene Jacope sat at the rear of the class, the next oldest below Mills. She always had a bored look on her wide features as if she’d figured out the world already and found it wanting. Next were the Yelston twins, Alice and Avie. They were three years younger than me and always dressed identically so that you could only tell them apart by the colored ribbons their mother tied in their hair: Alice was white ribbon, Avie was yellow.

And in the front row sat Sara May in all her quiet glory.

She wore a faded brown dress that was frayed at the collar and cuffs. Her feet were tucked beneath her chair and her hands were folded over one another on her desk. And her eyes, her beautiful hazel eyes, were trained directly on me.

I felt myself wither.

I have to admit, all of the trepidation, horror, and fatigue I’d felt since the night before evaporated like a light dew beneath the sun while I looked back at her.

Love. That’s what it was. And I’ll swear it until my dying day.

“Mr. Murphy.”

I broke the eye contact that was like a solid thing, noting with elation that Sara had quirked one corner of her mouth in a smile right before I did, and glanced at Mrs. Shawler, no doubt wearing the face of a fool.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I said you’re excused. Unless you’d like to take my place on the stool and tell the rest of the class all you know about the Magna Carta, which I’m sure would take upwards of all of five seconds.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Yes you’d like to tell us? Or yes you’re excused?”

“Uh, excused.”

“I know you’re excused you dolt. Now get from my sight before I have Mr. Shawler get the switch for me,” she said not unkindly.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, hurrying away. I mouthed, Nimble’s, at Jones quickly, not sure if he’d caught it, and threw one last look at Sara May.

She was still smiling at me.

The happiness followed me out the school doors and nearly a hundred yards before the wind came up and cut its way through the trees surrounding Hagen’s feed store. The sound of the breeze became the two-headed goat’s voice and the bright feeling of having Sara smile at me drained away.

I ducked my head low into my coat, the wind cold for May, and walked as fast as I could out to 7 and then to the low shape of Nimble’s. Several chickens pecked at the ground before the general store and they barely moved aside as I strode through their number.

The covered porch was empty, a few rocking chairs swaying slightly with the wind. The sight disturbed me and I pushed through the door quickly, leaving the gray skies outside.

Nimble’s was roughly twice the size of our house, the floor plan open save for a slight alcove in its south end that held the woodstove and sitting area that now housed three old-timers, crouched forward, heads nearly together in discussion. The air smelled of chocolate, grain, and drying wood that lay in two large stacks near the rear of the store. Behind the long desk that served as a counter sat the store’s proprietor, Arthur Nimble.

He was a tall man, almost as tall as my father but thicker through the chest and arms. He wore a silver, handlebar mustache and had a ruddy complexion of a man who worked outside or partook in regular drink. Rumor had it that when prohibition had been enacted, Arthur and two of his brothers had run a still somewhere east of Rath and that Nimble’s had been the only place within a hundred miles where you could get a drink. Of course rumor also said that Arthur’s youngest brother had gotten killed in a shootout with the deputy sheriff from Arbor, which I was almost sure was untrue.

“Lane Murphy. How you be this shitty afternoon?” Arthur said, swiping a wet cloth across his already spotless desk.

“Fine, sir. How are you?”

“Stronger every day, my boy. What can I get you?”

“I’ll need milk, butter, whiskey, and cheese.”

“Aren’t you a little young for the firewater?” It was an old joke that Nimble never got tired of.

“I’ll leave some for my dad.”

“Atta boy.”

“But first-”

“You’d be wanting a Coke, I’d wager.”

“Yes, please.”

Nimble’s mustache rose in a wave and he pulled a frosted bottle of Coke from the cooler behind the desk. I pushed across the dime my mother had given me. “Keep it all. Jones’ll be in in a little while. I’ll pay for his.”

“As you wish, Master Lane,” Nimble said.

I took my Coke down through the store, stopping short of where the old men sat talking. Chinks in the woodstove glowed with a low fire, and their arthritic hands were held out toward its warmth. Two of them were the Hudson brothers, Ernie and Daryl. The other was Vincent King, the brothers’ senior by more than ten years. King stooped the lowest and held his hands the closest to the hot steel. They hadn’t noticed me yet and I stood there, holding my pop, listening.

“No sense. Never heard of it before,” King was saying. “Newborn like that takin’ a chunk out of its own mother? Never.”

“Member that batch of garter snakes we found in the spring of aught five? That mother was eaten her young plain as day,” Ernie said, cocking his head.

“Ain’t the same and you know it,” King said. “Young get eaten. They don’t do the eaten. Ain’t natural.”

“Whatcha looking at, boy?”

It had been Daryl Hudson that spoke, noticing me lingering near the wall of the alcove. His fleshy, hooded eyes, bloodshot and rimmed yellow, stared with a bit of anger. I had never seen the man smile. He had always been grouchy and irritable, which only increased tenfold when his son-in-law, who had been a banker in New York City, took a twelve-story high dive into the street on black Tuesday. Rumor held sway that Hudson’s daughter and grandchild had disappeared with a Spanish handyman shortly thereafter. I always thought this was insult added to injury since Daryl was biggest bigot I knew.

“Nothing,” I managed, trying a timid smile.

“Move along then if nothin’s what you’re lookin’ at.”

“Yes, sir.”

I skirted the alcove and found another small grouping of chairs at the far end of the store near the southernmost window. The old men watched my progress until they were sure I couldn’t hear them anymore before they resumed their conversation.

They knew about the abomination. Word had traveled fast. Fast even for Rath. Ellis must have been in this morning and told someone. Maybe Nimble who passed the information on. Information was almost as good as currency in those dark days. Stories and gossip were sometimes the only thing that kept people from taking the route Daryl Hudson’s son-in-law had opted for.

I sipped my pop. It was cold and so sweet it made my tongue tingle. The beverage helped settle my stomach some and I looked out the window. The clouds had darkened more since I’d left home and a slight wind tipped the tops of the budding trees. It looked like my father would be right about the coming rain. A man riding a wagon pulled by a horse rolled by on 7.

I tried unsuccessfully to keep my mind on the here and now. The taste of the Coke. The smell of wood smoke and vanilla. But the low murmur of the old men kept knocking aside more pleasant thoughts.

Something was happening. And whether it was happening solely in my head or in reality was unclear. I could feel it pressing down like a giant palm from above, inevitably coming lower with a crushing weight of doom.

When a hand touched my shoulder, I jumped, slopping a little of my Coke onto my pants.

“Calm down, jackrabbit,” Jones said, dropping into a seat beside me. He had a pop in his hand and he tipped it at me before taking a drink. “Cheers, and thanks for buyin’.”

“No problem.”

“What’s on your mind, truant? You look like complete hell.”

“Do I?”

“You’re pale. But I guess that’s to be expected from a dirty mick such as yourself.”

I smiled. Jones. Always able to bring up my mood no matter what. I slugged him in the thigh and he grinned. “Just tired.” I lied.

“Up late with your pa again?”

“Yeah.”

“Wish my pa kept me out all night so I didn’t have to go to school.”

“No you don’t.”

“Sure do. Know what I have to look forward to when I get home?” I did but I shook my head. “Shit,” Jones said, taking another long drink of pop. “Shoveling shit, hauling shit, spreading shit. You could almost say I’m a connoisseur of shit. I can tell you, blindfolded, how fresh a cow pie is just by smelling it and what cow it came from.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Maybe there’s a career there for you in the future.”

“Shit smeller? Yeah, it’s called farming.”

Jones joked when something bothered him. It was his way. His parents weren’t well-off even by Rath’s standards. His father raised beef cattle as well as turnips. Jones had stated before he didn’t know what he hated more, the smell of cow shit as he shoveled out the barn or how his house smelled when his mother boiled turnips, which she did several nights a week for dinner.

We fell into a comfortable silence and gazed out the window. My spirits had raised a little bit just by Jones being nearby. I considered telling him about the goat-thing and quickly dismissed the idea. Not because Jones wouldn’t believe me, I thought he would, it was the thought that speaking what I’d seen out loud would make it more real. And right then I wanted it to be a hallucination more than anything in the world. I was about to ask Jones if he wanted to come by for supper that evening to get him out of eating mashed turnips again when I spotted movement over his shoulder at the front of the store.

Sara May Tandy had just walked in and was looking directly at me.

My heart stuttered.

I’d only run into her in Nimble’s a handful of times over the years. Nearly always they were awkward encounters with both of our parents in close proximity, our eyes brushing then darting away, maybe a quick ‘hello’ said that was barely audible.

Now as she walked toward us, brown dress swirling at her ankles, her steps seeming to make her glide, a new terror overcame me. Jones saw my reaction and threw a glance over his shoulder.

“Watch out, Lane, she’s gunnin’ for you.”

“Shut up.” And that was all I had time to say because then she was there beside us.

“Hi, Lane. Hi, Jones.”

“Hi,” I said too loudly.

“Afternoon, Miss Tandy,” Jones said, tipping an invisible cap.

She smiled. “You weren’t in school today,” Sara said to me.

“No, I…ah, was helping my dad late.”

She nodded. “I assumed.”

“You know what assuming does,” Jones said, eyes alight. I scowled and shook my head.

“It makes an ass out of you,” Sara said, shocking us both. Jones looked stunned for a second then crowed laughter and I joined in. Sara tipped her head prettily and I’d never been more in love with her than at that moment.

“Quick one she is,” Jones said.

“What can we do for you?” I asked, immediately regretting it. What can we do for you? Are we private dicks and she’s a helpless client come to ask for our services? Damnit.

“Well, my father asked me to talk to the both of you. He’s expanding our barley field this summer and he’s already cleared about three acres himself. He’d like to hire you to come pick rocks and pull stumps if it suits you.”

An invitation to Sara May’s house? Working within sight of her home with the chance of her bringing us a cold pitcher of water in the field?

“Yes,” I said so quickly Jones’s head snapped around and it was his turn to scowl at me. “I’d be happy to.” She smiled.

“I’ll have to check with my pa,” Jones said, still giving me a scathing look. “It’s our busy time too, cleanin’ out the barns and outbuildings from winter.”

“I understand. He said he’d pay fifty cents to each of you for every afternoon you worked.”

Jones spit a little soda out. He coughed. “Fifty cents? I’m in.”

“Me too,” I said, slapping my forehead mentally at having agreed for a second time.

“Great,” she said, shifting her shoulders back and forth. “Can I tell him you’ll come tomorrow if it’s not raining?”

“Absolutely,” I said. We traded smiles again and she licked her lips before motioning toward the door.

“Well, I’ll get going now. See you in the morning.”

“See you then,” I said. She did a little wave and spun away, her dark hair lifting from the back of her neck. There was something there on her fair skin, something dark and blotchy, but I couldn’t make it out before her hair shifted again. Then she was walking away, calm and serene as a summer day.

When she had left the store and I was still staring after her, Jones spoke. “You’re a fuckin’ moron, you know that?”

“Was it that bad?”

“No, considering that’s the most I think I’ve ever seen the two of you talk.”

“Really?”

“No. You sounded like a shithead.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean that in the best possible way.”

“Appreciated.”

“You like her, don’t you?”

“What? Well…she’s nice and all, I just…”

“Can it. Anyways, fifty cents an afternoon! Pa won’t even bat an eye at letting me work for Tandy.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty generous.” We both knew the Tandy’s were one of the better off families in the area. Sara May’s father owned the second most acreage in the county and had had a bumper crop the year before. I wasn’t surprised he was clearing more land.

A low rumbling of thunder rolled across the sky and I saw the old-timers glance out the window just as Jones and I did. The clouds were darker, lower.

“I better get going,” I said, finishing my Coke and standing.

“Me too,” Jones said. “Shit waits for no man. Wait, maybe it does.”

We walked to the front of the store and I paid for the groceries Nimble had gathered while we’d drank our pop. We bade the storeowner goodbye and stepped outside.

The air had become heavier without warming. It was like walking through a clammy soup, the air dancing with the possibility of lightning. The puddles on Secondary reflected the dark sky and I found myself dreading the point where Jones would turn left onto his own drive and leave me to walk the two miles home alone. When his driveway appeared, he slapped me on the shoulder and started to jog away.

“Thanks for the Coke. And don’t worry, Sara only thinks you’re half a horse’s ass,” he called over his shoulder.

“Yeah, and you’re the other half!” He made an obscene gesture with his hand and then he was gone around the slight turn in the drive and I was alone.

I hurried on, walking as fast as I could without jostling the contents of the paper bag. More thunder rumbled, the sound like a rockslide falling through the clouds. The occasional drop of rain fell onto my shoulder and head, its cold touch making me move faster. The milk sloshed in the bag and clanked against the whiskey bottle. There was something driving me to get home faster besides the threat of getting soaked. It felt like the night before Danny passed away—an impending threat unspoken but heard nonetheless.

Another half mile and I’d be on my own driveway.

I concentrated on my steps, counting them without meaning to as I slipped around the puddles that were beginning to dance with raindrops.

Our mailbox appeared ahead and relief bloomed within me. Another few minutes and I’d be within sight of the house. Maybe I could help my mother take down the laundry if she hadn’t done so already. And if the turkey buzzard was still there, I’d ask my father if I could take a poke at it with his rifle.

Something splashed behind me.

It sounded like a footstep coming down in the center of a puddle and I spun, nearly losing my balance.

The road was empty, its straight stretch unmarred by any shapes of animals or people. The lonely fields to either side were calm beneath the tentative rain.

I waited a beat before turning back toward our drive, not running yet but no longer walking either.

Another splash. Louder this time.

I turned, caught movement out of the corner of my eye forty yards away. When I looked there was nothing there. My bowels were a painful constriction as I blinked against the rain that was falling steadier now.

Something was stalking me. Something I couldn’t see or that was too fast to catch sight of. The image of the two-headed goat emerged in my mind, its horrible shape zipping onto and off the road on its cloven hind legs.

I sidled down the road, keeping my gaze back the way I’d come. My foot dropped into a puddle, soaking my shoe through to the skin.

A hundred yards to the mailbox.

Sixty.

Forty.

Ten.

A dozen paces behind me something dark crawled from a big puddle in the center of the road.

I froze, the grocery bag soaked and soggy in my arms, contents jangling as I shook. The thing was without true shape or definition. It was both there and not there, flickering like a shadow in a lightning storm. One second I thought I could make out long, slender arms tipped with too many fingers, the next it was gone. Then a narrow head with two blank spaces that stared like eyes. A leg, bending, the form insubstantial then boldly there, rising to stand on feet that reminded me of a frog’s.

The thing stuttered in and out of reality, smoke from a campfire drifting toward me, the shine of teeth as it suddenly smiled.

I ran.

My legs wobbled but pumped like adrenaline pistons, thrusting me forward. Our mailbox, cold tin with our name on the side flashing by. Feet churning up wet dirt as I took the corner without pausing.

Puddles splashed behind me.

Thunder growled.

My heart smashed itself against the inside of my chest and my mind tried to reckon what was happening, but there was no explanation. It was simply time to run, run away from the shadow-thing that had crawled out of a puddle on Secondary Road and was chasing me, its webbed feet flopping wetly on the ground not far behind.

I sped up as something grazed my back. A cry flew from my chest, high-pitched, a sound I would’ve been ashamed of making any other time.

“Getcha. Getchagetchagetcha,” a slithering voice said right behind me.

My bowels nearly released then. It was talking to me, taunting me. Another touch on my shoulder, soft and strong all at once.

I screamed again. This time for my father as lightning arced in a forked line toward our house that I couldn’t quite see yet.

My lungs burned and the falling rain tried to choke me.

Something slapped my foot and I stumbled, regaining my balance but dropping the grocery bag.

It was trying to trip me. Knock me down so it could land on me and bite me. Bite me with its shining teeth.

I screamed again, louder this time. A strangled cry came from right behind me, mocking me.

“Eatcha up. Eatchaupeatchaup,” the voice chanted.

My house came into sight around the last bend, the short distance across our yard never seeming so long. But in the next instant I saw the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid eyes upon.

My father was standing on our porch, his double barrel twelve gauge tight against his shoulder.

I knew what to do even before he yelled.

I flung myself to the side and down, diving like a swimmer into a deep pool.

Both shotgun barrels boomed at once and the hot passage of lead swarmed the air above my back.

My momentum tossed me over onto my side. Immediately I scrambled backward, knowing the shadow-thing would be there, all shining teeth and despair.

The yard was empty.

Rain fell on the gravel, dropped through the budding trees.

And the storm continued its roiling overhead.

Novella Serialization

So Halloween is a short time off and since it's my absolute favorite holiday of the year, I thought I'd do something special.

From now until October 26th I'll be posting one or two chapters of a brand new novella I wrote earlier this summer. If all goes according to plan I'll release the complete story as an ebook on the 27th. 

So stay tuned to the blog and keep up with the eerie goings on in a little town called Rath a long time ago...

 

 

The Exorcism of Sara May

 

1

 

 

 

Stories always begin somewhere. And I suppose if I had to say what led to Sara May’s exorcism in the spring of thirty-six, it would have to be the night when Ellis Wilmer’s prize goat gave birth to a kid with two heads.

Now for those of you who didn’t grow up in a rural area, or have a short understanding of farm vocabulary, the goat didn’t give birth to a human child. A kid is what you call a baby goat, one of the many things I learned early in life what with being a country veterinarian’s only son.

My father went to veterinary college in a time when most kids his age never walked out of a high school holding a diploma. First in his family to graduate both high school and college, there was some resentment, but more pride floating around when he opened his practice right out of our farmhouse on Secondary Road. Not that there was a sign stating what road we lived on. In the little northern Minnesota town of Rath there were only two roads: County Road 7 that ran past the post office and Nimble’s Store—the only two prominent businesses—and Secondary, which jutted off to the side like a narrow afterthought.

Now Nimble’s was where most days you could find the elderly men of town gathered, either under the awning in the shade if it was summer or in a half circle around the glowing woodstove if it was winter and most likely below zero. A bottle or two of whiskey was almost always circulating their number since the shadow of prohibition was still fading and Arthur Nimble invariably kept several cases of booze on hand now out in the open.

Secondary Road ran on for several miles before petering out in a stand of marsh and swampland that butted up to the fields most made their livings from at the time. Our farm was near the very end of Secondary, right-hand side, and a considerable jog down a lane my grandfather had cut by hand with a simple axe some sixty years prior when Rath was only a gathering of farmers living in proximity, possibly for safety out of fear of a rogue Chippewa attack.

Our home was a simple one story, three bedrooms, bath, kitchen, and living room. We’d only gotten indoor plumbing when I was ten and I still used the outside toilet most of the time. Old habits die hard they say.

Typically our house was a home, in which I mean to say it was full of love, laughter, and the smell of my mother’s baking bread that she made from scratch every week. The only time it became a house was when my brother Danny’s bedroom door would open in a draft as it was sometimes prone to do. My mother would see it wide open and I’d catch a glimpse of his little bed still made, and my father would close the door gently and stand by it for a time. Danny caught a fever when he’d been only four, something my father thought was harmless, as did the doctor visiting from Arbor township some thirty miles to the south when he’d stopped through on his monthly rounds. But it hadn’t been. The fever took Danny in the middle of the night while my mother rocked him in her chair that she’d hauled into his room and taken to sleeping in since he’d fallen ill. The sound she made is something I can still hear. It echoes in my mind to this day some seventy years hence.

You can see things in people’s eyes sometimes if they don’t hide it, and most can’t hide everything all the time. You catch glimpses of a void there, not a color, mind you, but more of a change in the depth. When someone pulls through something terrible, it plumbs them like a well digger pounding his sand point down into the earth. That deep place is hollow and empty but for what they keep there, for it is always too painful a thing to be brought into the light.

In nineteen thirty-six most had the beginnings of that deep look in their eyes. The depression hadn’t released its stranglehold on the country, hadn’t followed through on any of the promises the politicians made. I had just turned fourteen in March, and even with the inexperience of my youth I could hear a hint of desperation whenever we’d catch a speech being made over the radio in our living room. Truth be told I felt sorry for the people in charge then. I imagined they were like the captain of a ship that had an irreparable hole in the hull and was sinking faster than the crew could bail it out. To me it sounded like they were just wondering when the water would slip over their heads.

But as much as I pitied the politicians and the people of Rath, who at times went hungry and were lean in both pocket and cheek, I can’t deny I was happy. You see, being a country boy and growing up having a vast forest as your playground, a dirt road that never seemed to end if you wanted to walk it with a friend, or maybe an ice-cold pop on Nimble’s porch on a hot day was just too much to be unhappy with.

And it didn’t hurt that I was in love.

I know what you’ll say to yourselves. Love isn’t love at fourteen. It’s infatuation at best. Someone the mind can’t let go of no matter how tired you are at night. Well, I’ll tell you love is love. When your body tingles the moment you see the person you’ve been thinking of, even if you’d seen them an hour before, that’s love. When you lose train of thought so much you walk right past your own driveway more than once on account of recalling a word they said to you, that’s love.

Sara May Tandy was the most beautiful girl I’d ever laid eyes upon. We had shared a one-room schoolhouse for the better part of our lives, and I’d always thought she was pretty with her dark, curly hair and hazel eyes. But it was only after those magical things called hormones kicked in that I realized there were other sides of her I hadn’t seen before. Now don’t go throwing your mind in the gutter, when I say “sides” I’m not talking about her body, though I couldn’t completely ignore that either. The things I noticed applied more to the way she moved through the world. I’d never seen someone so quiet and serene. She made a hayfield in early autumn seem like a tempest by comparison. I guess it was her serenity that drew me to her. Simply put, I wanted to know what she was thinking.

Course I never could get up the courage to ask her. Even by sitting only a dozen feet from her, day in, day out for years on end, the fear still overshadowed the love. I suppose that’s the only difference between who I was before the spring of thirty-six and who I was after. After I would’ve died for her. And in that wet, wet spring, I nearly got the chance.

 

 

 

2

 

 

 

The call that would forever change my life came in on a Tuesday night, a school night since there were still three weeks left of the dastardly stuff before our group of seven children who lived in Rath would be set free for a glorious three months.

The phone line had been installed not long after our indoor plumbing and its jangling still made me jump whenever the handset began to vibrate in its cradle. When it rang on that Tuesday I was sound asleep in bed, a copy of Jack London’s Call Of The Wild open like a bird in flight on the wood table beside my covers. My eyes came open and a cold hand gripped and twisted my guts. Call it what you will, instinct, intuition, premonition, I don’t know. All I remember is that I awoke afraid. The phone shouldn’t  have been ringing at that hour and I didn’t want my father to answer it. I heard my grandfather say once that all bad news arrives in the darkness, and now being almost as old as he was when he said it, I’d have to agree with him.

The ringing stopped and my father’s low voice floated to me from where the phone was mounted near the kitchen door. There was a long pause before he said something affirming and hung up. A light turned on and footsteps came down the short hall to my room. I nearly hid beneath the covers then. Not because I was afraid of my father, but because I knew what he would ask, I wouldn’t deny him, and it would lead to something awful.

His familiar shadow darkened my doorway, his voice reaching out like a soft touch.

“Lane? You awake, son?”

“Yes.”

“Get dressed. There’s a call.”

Calls came in sometimes for a country veterinarian. Sometimes late at night. I knew this. I shouldn’t have been frightened. But I was.

My jeans and shirt were crumpled beside the bed. Wash day was tomorrow and these clothes, only one of three sets I owned, had started to smell. I pulled them on, searching for my socks for nearly a minute before finding them. In the kitchen our old kettle began a low whistling. By the time I entered the small room with the little table that could seat four but only ever sat three, the smell of coffee was strong in the air. My father stood at the counter beneath the only burning light.

He was forty-three then, a tall man some would call skinny, but those people had never seen him pull a breeched calf out of cow single handedly, or snap a solid chunk of oak clean in two with a twenty pound mall. The light picked out the gray hairs that had started turning up after Danny passed away, making him look like he’d been out in a snowstorm.

“Want a cup?” he asked without turning around. He’d never offered me coffee before, not even on the last late call we’d gone to earlier in the year.

“Sure. Thank you.”

“Small payment for coming out in the middle of the night.”

“Where we going?”

“Where are we going,” he corrected. “To the Wilmer farm. His goat’s giving birth and having trouble. Wear your rubber boots and get your gloves.”

I saw why we were wearing the knee-high boots when we stepped outside. It was raining again. A cold, insistent rain for early May. It came straight down soaking everything in sight beneath the yellow glow of our porch light.

We hurried through the downpour to my father’s twenty-eight, Ford Model A pickup. It was an indiscriminant color during the day, something between rust-brown and black. Tonight it was only a smear in the dark. The rain drummed on the metal over our heads and I was again thankful we had a vehicle, unlike several of the other families in the area who still relied on horse and wagon. We were not rich by any means, but being a veterinarian in a time when keeping your livestock healthy meant your family would eat for another season, meant we had some spoils that others did not.

The truck started with a short protest and the single windshield wiper thunked the moisture away. We rode in silence through the night, tires hopping and snapping water up from potholes, headlights cutting a swath through the rain no farther than ten yards.

My father handed me a porcelain cup, not one of mother’s good ones, and along with it a small thermos he never left the house without. I poured a healthy amount of coffee into my cup and did the same with the other he handed me. The smell of roasted beans filled the cab and for a moment everything felt normal and natural. I was on a ride with my father, safe beside him in our truck, and not even the inky depths outside the windows could change that fact. I sipped the coffee, only the second time ever tasting it, the first being when I was ten after having snuck a drink from his cup when he wasn’t looking. It was better than I remembered, less bitter with a hint of vanilla. My spirits rose further as he began to hum beside me, his eyes calm behind his glasses.

But as we rolled to a stop at the intersection of the two roads, the same disquiet from earlier blanketed me again. The sight of Nimble’s store as well as the post office so dark and foreboding was like another admonition. We turned right heading south and my father brought the truck up to twenty miles per hour. We were the only lights on the muddy road. Possibly it was partially due to the fact that with the large amounts of rain that spring, County Road 7 was washed out about twelve miles to the north. But in the back of my mind I thought it was because we were the last souls on Earth, trundling along towards something inevitable.

The Wilmer farm was a plot of two hundred acres of barley and hay. Ellis Wilmer and his son Gerald had served in the first World War, as had my father. Ellis had come home with a limp where a German bullet had lodged in his hip. What they could recover of Gerald came home in a pine box and was buried at the back of the property behind the house. I thought of poor Gerald, blown to pieces by a mortar round on a battlefield across the ocean, and wondered what they’d been able to find to put in the coffin.

A shiver went through me as my father guided the pickup onto a narrow dirt track marked only with a crooked mailbox. Soon our headlights picked out the twisted remains of a gate sloughed off to the side of the drive and beyond it the squat farmhouse that Ellis had shared with his wife Patricia until a terrible bout of pneumonia had put her in the ground beside her son two years prior.

Lights burned in the house’s windows as well as a kerosene lantern that hung from the great barn door off to the left where the darkness deepened. Ellis stood smoking one of his hand-rolled cigarettes on the lowest step of the porch, rainwater spilling off the brim of his leather hat.

We climbed from the truck, the cold rain embracing us immediately, and my father pulled his satchel from the rear of the bed. Ellis waited until we were within several feet before speaking.

“Thanks for coming so quick, David, much appreciated.”

“My pleasure, Ellis.”

“And you brought yer assistant I see.”

“Always good to have an extra set of hands.”

“Hello, Mr. Wilmer,” I said.

“Evenin’ Lane.”

“How’s she fairing?” my father asked as we started for the partially lit barn.

“Josha’s not well. Thought she’d hold out ‘til tomorrow, but late this evening she laid down and wouldn’t get back up. Big kid is all I know. Might be breached, can’t tell.” Josha. There’d been talk around town of Ellis losing some of his grip after Patricia died. Some said he named each and every one of his animals, whether they were to be slaughtered or not. I guess now I knew the truth.

“We’ll get her through,” my father said, putting a hand on the older man’s shoulder.

The barn loomed, more of its shape becoming clearer. It rose and rose above us until I lost sight of its peak. I’d never noticed it being so large in the daytime. The smell of kerosene soaked the entryway as Ellis pulled the lantern from its hook and cranked the wick higher sending shadows skirting away. The front of the barn was storage, stacked high with several hand tools, feed, and empty gunny sacks. Beyond it were two alleys of wood stanchions, nearly all of them occupied.

There was an undercurrent of noise in the barn that ran just below the constant patter of rain on the roof. It was the sound of agitated animals: the scraping of a hoof, the bellow of a cow, the snapping nicker of a horse. All of it combined into something unearthly that raised the wetted hairs on the nape of my neck.

A glassy eye of a horse stared out between two wood slats as Ellis led us down the right alleyway, its owner huffing and grinding its teeth as we passed. The swaying light from the lantern twisted normal shapes into bent and broken things that skittered away in patched shadows, and the air over our heads was an abyss, the support beams and roof slats I knew were there, lost to us. Farther down the aisle, littered with hay and dried manure, was another soft glow. It came from a second kerosene lantern turned low that sat on an old wooden chair missing its back. When I saw what the light revealed, the muscles in my legs locked tight, refusing to move me closer.

Josha the goat was lying in the center of a mound of straw in an open space at the end of the alley. She was a large animal made only bigger by her pregnancy. My mind instantly conjured an image of a spider I’d accidently stepped on in our entry the day before, its abdomen swollen with eggs. I shook away the thought and followed my father closer to the prone animal.

“More light if you will, Ellis,” my father said as he knelt down. The wick flared white and broadened the circular glow.

Blood shone on the straw behind Josha’s hindquarters and she kicked feebly, letting out a sick bleat. One translucent hoof poked from her, a clear fluid matting the fine fur on the upper part of the leg.

“Shit. It’s breached,” my father said. “Water, I need water.”

“Here,” Ellis said, pulling a pail of clean water closer.

“Lane, hold the light over my shoulder.”

I took the free lantern from the nearby chair and did as he said. My father was talented. I’d seen him save many more animals than not, and at fourteen I considered him one of the most capable human beings in the world.

He dipped his right hand into the bucket of water and gently fed his fingers in beside the unmoving leg. His face remained placid but the muscles in his jaw tightened.

“Is it one or two?” Ellis asked, his voice quavering.

“Can’t be sure yet,” my father said, readjusting his position. Now his arm was gone halfway up to the elbow within the animal and Josha kicked her hind legs, flinging dust and straw into the air.

“Easy, girl,” I said, the calmness of my voice surprising me. For all the trepidation that hounded me since I’d woken, I was calm, the prior fear forgotten in lieu of the excitement of the life that would soon be in the room. Sound and sight became crystalline.

My father dropped lower to the ground and issued a low grunt.

The kerosene sloshed in the lantern.

A horse whinnied.

Ellis groaned in the back of his throat.

The smell of blood and birth permeated the air.

“There,” my father said. And with that one word I knew he’d worked his magic. Two legs now extended from Josha, and with a gentle and steady pull, he drew the kid from her in a seamless slip of fluid.

What came out of the goat sapped all the strength from my hand and I dropped the lantern.

It fell at my feet and I knew in that moment I would be burned alive. The lantern would shatter and spray kerosene up my length, the dying flame igniting the liquid with a grace owned only by fire.

But the baby goat. It had two heads.

Four staring, white eyes. Lips bared over teeth.

The lantern clanged against the floor.

I held my breath, waiting for the pain.

Nothing.

“Lane!”

I opened my eyes to see the lantern still whole at my feet, its light out, the top drizzling kerosene. I jerked it up from the ground, my entire body growing hot with shame.

“I’m sorry. Lost my grip.”

Ellis had stepped forward, bathing the squirming thing in the straw with light.

“God almighty,” he whispered.

The infant goat writhed in place. Its pale hoofs raked the floor. Its heads strained up from the dirt. It mewled out something barely resembling a goat’s bleat. Until then I’d never realized how serpent-like goat’s heads are. Looking back from the vantage of all the years, it makes perfect sense now. But then, staring at the thing on the floor of Ellis Wilmer’s barn with the steady rain thrumming down overhead and the darkness on all sides, I was stricken with amazed horror.

“Ellis, it’s an aberration,” my father said quietly. “It would be cruel to let it suffer. If it doesn’t die tonight it-”

My father’s calm words were lost in the screech of the two-headed infant as it kicked itself forward and clamped both mouths onto Josha’s right hind leg.

Ellis dropped his lantern with a curse and the dark rushed in.

Josha blatted, a deep and painful sound that vibrated in my chest. My father yelled something I couldn’t make out and bumped into me as he rose. There was another high-pitched shriek that was so unearthly it turned me toward the door, muscles twitching, ready to run. But what kept me from fleeing was my father’s voice yelling at Ellis, Matches, Ellis! Give me the matches!

The tang of kerosene was everywhere, and I knew Ellis hadn’t been so lucky when his lantern had fallen. Something brushed my legs and I shrank away, recalling how the two-headed beast’s teeth had glinted in the lamplight. Then a hand gripped my shoulder and I nearly screamed, but recognized its slender strength.

“Lane, hold the lantern steady,” my father said. I did, the trembling in my arms making the glass shade rattle in place. Something growled like a tomcat and there was a wet tearing sound followed by another anguished bleat from Josha.

A match popped alight, blazing like a miniature sun.

In the glow, the two-headed kid stood behind my father on its hind legs, mouths crimson and dripping.

I did scream then.

The wick caught and darkness shrank away, leaving the scene before us naked in the light.

Blood seeped in slow pumps from two ragged wounds shaped like half moons on the back of Josha’s leg. They looked like the craters a child might make in a ripe watermelon slice. Ellis was up against the nearest empty stall, eyes wild and rolling in his skull.

The infant goat was on its side, heaving laboring breaths in and out, mouths stained red, eyes milky. It kicked and some dark excrement shot from its back end, nearly spraying Ellis’s work boots. Ellis opened his mouth but he said nothing, his jaw bouncing as if hooked to an elastic band.

My father stared down at the thing on the floor for maybe two seconds before pacing to his satchel and pulling something from it. He returned, bent over the two-headed goat, and shot it between both sets of eyes with the .38 revolver in his hand.

The blasts were short and deafening, concise in their death punctuations. The kid flopped in the dirt, several short spasms running through its length before it laid still.

Silence rushed into the barn. Filled it up.

My father stood over the kid for a long moment before turning back to Ellis, who looked as if he were trying to shove himself through the gaps in the pen behind him.

“Ellis, Josha’s going to bleed out unless we get her somewhere I can stitch her shut. I need more light. Do you have room on your porch?”

Ellis took a moment to come back from wherever he was and pried his eyes away from the motionless thing on the ground.

“Y-yes. The porch’ll work.”

“Good, carry my satchel for me. Lane, take care of this,” my father said, bending low to scoop his arms beneath Josha. He stood, hoisting the animal’s considerable weight up with him. Josha blatted quietly.

“What do I do with it?” I asked. I was in shock. I knew it and was grateful for it.

“Throw it out behind the barn. Coyotes and wolves’ll take care of it. Come with me, Ellis.”

And with that he walked swiftly down the aisle with Ellis close behind, the older man carrying my father’s bag and moving as if he were in a dream. They melted into the darkness and I was alone with the blood and the two-headed corpse.

 

Halloween Reads

October is always a great time of year to dive into a haunted book and I've been asked a few times what some of my favorite reads are for the season so I thought I'd make a little list. No particular order whatsoever, just some recommendations from a guy who loves horror. So let's get started! 

The Shining, by Stephen King- Now this is one of my favorite books of all time so I might be a little jaded here, but this one will scare the hell out of you. Empty hotel in the middle of winter that isn't so empty after all? Yeah, leave the lights on folks.

 

Master of the Moors, by Kealan Patrick Burke- Like creepy, foggy moors with things slipping into and out of sight that don't look quite...right? How about an ancient curse handed down through a bloodline, the origins of which aren't completely clear? Throw in atmospheric scenes of dark and stormy nights where any number of monstrous things are waiting outside. Yeah, it's like that.

 

A Head Full of Ghosts, by Paul Tremblay- Just recently read this one and folks, it's really something. Combining elements of The Exorcist, reality TV, and a haunting familial dynamic, Tremblay coaxes out a nightmare from a regular suburban setting through an examination of a common social crux of American daily life. And the ending? Oh boy.

 

Titanic With Zombies, by Richard Brown- The title says it all. You like history? Like the Titanic? Enjoy zombies? Dig right in. Brown's research of the famous sinking won't leave you with a feeling of inaccuracy. On the contrary the story creates a well-told picture of the last days of the doomed ship. And of course there's zombies. A lot of them.

 

Run, by Blake Crouch- This is another of my all-time favorites. If you've never read Crouch, look him up on Amazon and just buy everything the man's written, you won't be sorry. Run sets the stage with an aurora phenomenon changing everyone who witnesses it into homicidal maniacs. Good thing only the majority of the U.S. is affected...

 

Usher's Passing, by Robert McCammon- It's so hard to pick a single book by this man. He is one of the authors who influenced me growing up and shaped me into the writer I am. Needless to say his work is held closely to my heart. Usher's Passing is a twisted, supernatural, gothic thrill-ride that doesn't hold back an iota when it comes to creating chills. Brilliantly done novel. Oh, and did I mention it's based on the fictional descendants of Roderick Usher from Poe's short story. Yeah, there's that.

 

Mr. Shivers, by Robert Jackson Bennett- First off, Robert Jackson Bennett has so much talent it should be illegal. I'm serious. The guy's won more prestigious awards than any person his age has right to. He needs to quit and give everyone else a chance. Ahem. Anyways, Mr. Shivers is a brilliantly done novel set in the depression era which follows a man hunting someone or something that violently took his daughter's life. Tones of Faulkner and McCarthy shine through in this one. Also, it won the Shirley Jackson Award for best novel in 2010. 

 

The Monstrumologist series, by Rick Yancey- I know, I know. I'm recommending more than one book here, but seriously, this series is pretty amazing. Imagine a brilliant doctor, akin to Sherlock Holmes, who's adventures take him all over the world in the late 1800s, and who primarily deals with horrible creatures whose only purpose is to consume or destroy human beings. Now imagine he has a young apprentice named Will Henry, taken in by necessity and exposed to a world he never knew existed. And that's only the first layer of this phenomenal series.

 

Earthworm Gods, by Brian Keene- This is the epitome of post-apocalyptic novels. I've read great books that set an excellent end-of-the-world tone, but this one surpasses them all. Keene weaves the average life of an old man stranded on a mountain into something much darker and deeper, but always manages to keep a hold on the heart of the story, which is its characters, a trait the author is known for. Excellent read to dive into while it's pouring rain out. Or maybe wait for a sunny day. 

 

The Passage, by Justin Cronin- What can I say. The storytelling in this book is on par with some of the greats. The world doesn't end in fire or ice in this one. It ends with fangs and a whimper. 

 

The Mountain Man series, by Keith C. Blackmore- I know, another series. But if you dig zombies, this is a great set of stories to dive into. Keith tells the gritty side of the the zombie apocalypse. You'll laugh with the main character, Gus, cry with him, get plastered with him, and fight off undead hordes in new and inventive ways. 

 

These are just a few of the great books I could think of, I've got tons more that I didn't have time to list. Hopefully some of you will check them out, and if you do, let me know what you think. I'd love to hear your thoughts! 

 

 

 

Short Story

In my spare time I like to mess with ideas that aren't novels or novellas. Sometimes one of them grabs me enough to write the whole thing out just to see where it goes. This one did.

Anniversary

 

The snow fell in careless circles that drifted to the ground around him, catching softly on the worn fabric of his coat and the frayed hat he wore.

He blinked up through the yellow halo of light thrown from the streetlamp, its glow staining the snowflakes before relinquishing them to their true virgin white. It was cold but the wind wasn’t blowing. For that he was thankful. His hand holding the roses was nearly numb though he tucked it close to his chest inside the open flap of his jacket. He’d bought the flowers from a shop on Thirty-Sixth an hour before, having marked it weeks ago. He always liked to get roses for her from a different place. For some reason it made him feel mysterious though he couldn’t say why.

The snort of air brakes made him turn his head and gaze down the street. The seven o’clock bus wasn’t living up to its name, though he was glad of its tardiness. The two trains he’d had to catch to make it across town after his shift on the docks had left him running for the bus stop, sure that all he would see when he arrived was the final blink of taillights and the flash of the amber letters spelling out its schedule.

But now it was here and he was the only one getting on. He waited until the doors hissed open, giving the silent park behind him a last look, its hedges and bare trees decorated with snow, before climbing up the steps slick with moisture. He flashed his pass and kept balance as the driver pulled away from the curb, making him lurch to the right before finding an empty place on a bench seat. He brushed the melting accumulation from his hat and coat before drawing out the flowers.

They were beautiful.

Roses this year. Last year it had been daisies. Lilies the year before, and posies before that. The shops he bought the flowers from weren’t the only things he kept changing.

He noticed a woman his age riding across from him. She had dark hair and eyes to match that were soft with small lines where crows had danced around them. She gave him a smile and looked at the flowers.

“Someone’s special tonight,” she said.

“Special every night,” he said, giving her a smile back.

“Very sweet. Wife?”

“Yes.” He paused. “It’s our anniversary.”

“That’s nice. Congratulations. Going anywhere special.”

He simply nodded and gazed down at the flowers. They were so deeply red they were nearly black at their edges. Fading from beauty to darkness like everything else alive.

He rode the rest of the trip studying the flowers. He didn’t want to talk to the woman across from him anymore even though she’d been nice. He flexed his fingers, the feeling coming back into them as well as the ache from unloading crates for nine hours. He spun the wedding band; silver, polished to a mirror from the snow.

His stop approached and he rose from his seat, nodding once at the woman.

“Enjoy your night,” she said.

“Thank you.”

The air seeped through his clothes as the bus drew away, leaving him in a swirl of snow. Traffic was light here, the occasional car flowing past, tires muttering across patches of ice, exhaust drifting through the air, noxiously sweet. He hunched his shoulders as if he could flex the cold away, but it caressed him like a lover as the first gust of wind he’d felt all night came down off the hill and poured a curtain of snow across the street beside him. He looked at his watch. They had some time before his sister would want to go to bed. Their kids would have no doubt ran her ragged today. He smiled at the thought and began walking. He still had a ways to go.

The moon played a game of hide and seek with him as he walked, its pale face sliding out and behind clouds stitched to the night sky. It gave him some light and he was grateful for it, savoring it as he had the warmth of the bus heaters.

He switched hands that held the flowers to keep his knuckles from stinging and hurried onward, looking up only when the moonbeams struck the ground before him. The snow was a memory now, wisps of frost fluttering in the light like ghostly moth wings. He turned the last corner and strode without stopping, heavy boots crunching snow and after several more minutes of walking he slowed.

There she was.

He moved forward, coming closer to her and a smile pulled at his face chapped by the wind. When he spoke he felt his lips crack at the corners.

“Hi darling. Sorry I’m running behind. I hope you’re not angry. Doring showed up late for shift and the manager wouldn’t let me leave until he clocked in. Lisa’s got the kids like I told you last week. She said there wasn’t any hurry, but you know her. I hope you didn’t think that I’d forgotten. Especially tonight.” He smiled wider and laughed a little. “I know I forgot our second anniversary, but I’m pretty sure I made it up to you. Remember? I got you an orchid.” He hesitated, the smile slipping from his face. He looked down, fingers burning. “I brought you these,” he said, holding out the roses. “They’re from that shop on Thirty-Sixth, the one with the white Christmas lights in the windows year-round. I saw them last week and knew I’d be getting them for you. Couldn’t believe they were the last ones when I went there tonight.” He tried to smile again but failed. “Like it was meant to be.” He hesitated a moment, the air becoming so cold around him it seemed to freeze in his lungs. He glanced up as the moon returned, burning the clearing with its frigid light.

“Happy anniversary, honey,” he said quietly, stepping forward. He laid the bundle of roses on the frozen ground and leaned in, kissing the headstone gently. “I love you.”

He brushed away the single tear that he’d promised himself earlier wouldn’t fall. And he didn’t let it as he turned and walked through the fresh snow to the waiting street beyond the gates.        

Running Away - New Book Release!

So my most excellent friend, and internet roommate, Julie Hutchings has a new release out today! Running Away is the second book in her paranormal romance series. Take a look at that beautiful cover!


Now read the description and see if you can keep from buying it! My guess is you won't be able to! 


Eliza Morgan is desperate to escape the horrors of her mortal life and understand why death follows her, leaving only one man, Nicholas French, in its wake. He’s the one she loves, the one she resents, and the one fated to make her legendary among the Shinigami– an ancient order of vampires with a “heroic” duty to kill. He’s also decaying before her eyes, and it’s her fault.

On the ghostlike mountaintop in Japan that the vampires consider home, Eliza will be guided by the all-powerful Master for her transition to Shinigami death god. When Eliza discovers that sacrificing her destiny will save Nicholas, she’s not afraid to defy fate and make it so—even when Nicholas’s salvation kills her slowly with torturous, puzzle-piece visions that beg her to solve them. Both Nicholas and his beloved Master fight her on veering from the path to immortality, but Eliza won’t be talked out of her plan, even if it drives the wedge between Nicholas and her deeper.

Allying with the fiery rebel, Kieran, who does what he wants and encourages her to do the same, and a mysterious deity that only she can see, Eliza must forge her own path through a maze of ancient traditions and rivalries, shameful secrets and dark betrayals to take back the choices denied her and the Shinigami who see her as their savior. To uncover the truth and save her loved ones, Eliza will stop at nothing, including war with fate itself.
How about that for an enticing hook? Now what are you waiting for? Go buy the book! And don't forget to pick up the first in the series too- Running Home
Running Away - Amazon
Running Away (book  #2) on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23263587-running-awayRunning Home (book #1) on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17977192-running-home
About the Author:Julie’s debut novel, Running Home, giving you vampires with a Japanese mythology pants kicking is available through Books of the Dead Press. Julie revels in all things Buffy, has a sick need for exotic reptiles, and drinks more coffee than Juan Valdez and his donkey combined, if that donkey is allowed to drink coffee. Julie’s a black belt with an almost inappropriate love for martial arts. And pizza. And Rob Zombie. Julie lives in Plymouth, MA, constantly awaiting thunderstorms with her wildly supportive husband and two magnificent boys. Julie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HutchingsJulieJulie’s Blog: http://deadlyeverafter.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeadlyEverAfterBlog Julieon Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7104966.Julie_Hutchings

The River Is Dark re-release!

So today my thriller, The River Is Dark is out from Thomas & Mercer! Really excited about the re-release and wanted to say thank you to my excellent publishing team- Kjersti Egerdahl, Jacque Ben-Zekry, Tiffany Pokorny, and everyone else over at Thomas & Mercer. Also wanted to give a shoutout to one of my very favorite authors, Blake Crouch, who read River and gave it a shining review! Really appreciate everyone's help and support! If you haven't taken a peek at River yet, go check it out!


THE RIVER IS DARK

Writers Never Say Die

"Write without pay until somebody offers to pay you. If nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for." -Mark Twain. 

I'd like you to re-read that quote. Back? Okay. Now tell me if it pisses you off or not.

No? Then you're a traditionally published author, a hybrid author, a successful self-published author, or ultimately contented with your work and don't care whether you're paid or not for the words you put down.

If it does upset you, you haven't made much money from your writing, you've queried agents until your fingers bled, or you're like me who thinks Mr. Samuel Clemens was either being facetious, or truly believed that's what an author should do.

Either way I think the quote is a load of complete horse shit.

How many great authors would we have if the writing world was some sort of dystopian society and after three years of toiling in the word mines a person was required to hang up their shovel and go sell Orange Julius. FOREVER.

Orange Julius is pretty good...

But still! How many fantastic books would we miss out on if a person limited themselves to a timeframe for success? Becoming a successful author is not a four-year graduate degree. There is no guarantee that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. There is no healthcare. There is no retirement plan. No promise of anything that will come to you.

You know what else there isn't?

There's no pedigree.

No writer, NONE, has sat down and created a masterpiece without toiling away, without chipping out the words that sometimes are moored in the subconscious marble. No writer opens a vein and bleeds a great novel onto the page without looking where the hell they're going.

Guess what writing is?

It's renewable wonder. It's perspective. It's magic and joy and torment and horror and love and pain and driving without headlights down a highway studded with hazards and pitfalls.

And you know what else it is?

It's sawing wood.

Everyday you sit down and type or scribble with a pen or pencil and you put the words down. If you really love it you put the words down and know someday, someone will appreciate what you've written. You read, you learn, you strive to be better because no one is ever as good as they can be, they always have the potential to be better.

There is no 'given' in writing. There is no sky for a limit. There is only the words to create and string together into a chain that leads you somewhere. If you're an author you might write a year before getting paid for your work, you might write a decade.

But if you're truly in love with the written word, with being a storyteller- if you are a writer in the very catacombs of your heart, you don't follow another's roadmap for your career.

You fucking draw your own.

And you never say die.

Dream Come True

So this is the year for really cool things to happen to me!

On top of Thomas & Mercer picking up my thriller, The River Is Dark, I'm now allowed to tell you guys about a blurb it just got from one of my most favorite authors of all time. The one and only, Blake Crouch!

Here's what Blake had to say about River:


“Hart approaches every sentence with a precision and care that armors the entire piece with a welcome sturdiness. More than anyone else, Hart’s delicate touch with landscape and character reminds me of the great James Lee Burke...If you love stories that get your pulse racing and dump adrenaline into your bloodstream, there is so much to love within these pages.” —Blake Crouch, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Wayward Pines Trilogy
Holy God, I'm just going to sit here for a minute if that's okay with you? 

Okay, I'm back. If you're an author and have received kind words from one of your literary heroes about something you've written, then you know the kind of elation I'm feeling right now. 

I've been reading Blake's work for years now and have always admired his style, the blistering pace of his stories, and his incredible imagination. The first book I read by him was his thriller RUN. If you guys haven't read it, quit reading this and go buy it, I'll wait. 

Okay, back? Good. Also his Wayward Pines series is by far the most exciting and viscerally written trilogy I've ever read, you should really check it out if you haven't done so already. 

So there it is. Unbelievably happy right now and can't wait for River to be re-released. Thanks goes out to Blake for taking the time from his busy schedule to read the book and to Jacque at Thomas & Mercer for putting it on his radar, appreciate both of you very much!     

Meet My Character Blog Tour

So the very talented Steven Montano tagged me for a blog tour. Normally I don't do these but since Steven's an awesome guy and a great writer, I thought I'd make an exception. Go check out Steven's work here.

So without further ado, let's get to it!

1) What is the name of your character, is he/she a historical or fictional person?

My character's name is MacArthur Gray from my newest novel, Widow Town. He is fictional.

2) When and where is the story set?

The when is 100 years in the future. The where is southern Minnesota. The easiest way to give everyone the rundown would be to post the synopsis:

In the future there is no such thing as a serial killer. 

A breakthrough research project has detected an active gene present in all known psychopaths and developed a vaccine to make it completely dormant. People are inoculated at birth. Society has rejoiced the extinction of the sociopathic mind. 

There hasn't been a serial killing in America in over forty years.

Sheriff MacArthur Gray resides in the future but lives in the past. His world views have chased him from a large metropolis to his home town, but there is no sanctuary to be found after he arrives. 

Because people are dying and only he can see the truth. 

A sociopath has somehow survived and is thriving in the new world. Soon Gray is thrust into a nightmarish race against the killer where no one is safe, and everyone is a suspect. 

3) What should we know about him/her?

Gray is a complex character because he's so guarded. He's suffered a major personal loss and has a view of the world that isn't widely accepted. He's tough as nails but has a soft side for those less fortunate.

4) What is the main conflict, what messes up his/her life?

Gray is the sheriff of his hometown. He's not convinced that the vaccine that ensures against serial killers is foolproof, especially when people begin to die in his county. Besides a well meaning, but rookie deputy, he has no allies in his quest to prove the impossible.

5) What is the personal goal of the character?

Gray wants his life back in order, but he also wants the truth, and he has a very hard time gaining both. His theory about the vaccine not working is not well received and his central purpose is to stop those responsible, but to do that he's got to convince others of the extraordinary.

6) Is there a working title for this novel, and where can we read more about it?

The novel is Widow Town, and you can find out more information or purchase it here.



Thanks Steven for tagging me! And now I'm happy to pass the tour on to a great author by the name of Dylan Morgan, who writes excellent dark novels and short stories. He happens to have a new novel coming out tomorrow, August 1st. It's called The Dead Lands, and I had the honor of reading an advance copy a short time ago. This book is a fantastic journey through a post apocalyptic wasteland filled with so much danger and horror, you'll be frightened to turn the page to see what happens next! When it is released, don't hesitate to pick up a copy.