Harlan County Horrors Part 12

McMahon studied Paul for a long second, then turned to his partner, a tall, lanky young man who stood in front of the patrol car. "Grab the Slim Jim, Jasper...and the shotgun."

Soon, both county deputies stood next to the Escalade, looking at one another. They then looked at Paul, pacing back and forth at the front of the vehicle.

"If there's an animal in there, sir," said McMahon, "why can't I hear anything?"

Paul shrugged. "How should I know? You could sure as h.e.l.l hear it fifteen minutes ago!" He shuddered at the memory of those wet, ripping, slurping sounds.

"I'll take your word for it...right now. But you stay put, do you understand?"

Paul swallowed dryly and nodded.

The elder officer turned to his subordinate. "Okay, this is how we're gonna work it, Jasper. You jimmy the lock and open the door. I'll shoot the thing when it comes out." He jacked a sh.e.l.l into his twelve-gauge Mossberg with a metallic click-clack.

"Gotcha," agreed Jasper. His hands trembled as he stepped to the driver's door and inserted the narrow length of the Slim Jim with slow precision past the blood-soaked window and down into the body of the Cadillac's door.

Frank McMahon stepped into the center of the highway and lifted his shotgun, bringing the b.u.t.t securely against his shoulder. "Okay. I'm ready."

Jasper fished around with the jimmy until something within the door went click. "Get ready. Here goes!" Then he grasped the handle and pulled open the door.

At first, nothing happened. Then Deputy McMahon's eyes widened. "What the s.h.i.t?"

Paul watched in horror as the thing burst from the gore-encrusted cave of the Escalade, leaping straight toward the lawman. It was bigger-twice as big as it had been before-and, it seemed, twice as fast. It barreled out of the vehicle with sharp jaws gnashing, a deep, thunderous roar rumbling up from out of its gullet.

Deputy McMahon managed to put a load of double-aught buckshot smack-dab in the center of the thing's chest but wasn't able to jack another round into the breech. The creature landed atop him, seemingly unharmed. The officer cried out as he hit the pavement hard, his eyes bulging as the monster's teeth burrowed deeply into the tender flesh of his throat.

"Do something!" screamed Paul. "Shoot it!"

Deputy Jasper dropped the Slim Jim and nervously fumbled his service revolver from its holster. He held it in both hands, pointing it at the thing on top of his partner. During his hesitance, the thing brought its powerful jaws together in a bone-shattering crack! His victim's head separated from the neck bone, rolling lopsidedly across the highway, stump over balding scalp.

Jasper looked over at Paul in indecision. "I...I might hit Frank."

"Frank's head is in the freaking ditch!" Paul yelled at him. "Shoot the d.a.m.n thing!"

The deputy turned back and pumped the contents of his .38 into the back of the creature's head and spine. Instead of suffering from the gunfire, the thing seemed to regard it as an annoyance. It looked over its shoulder, shook its leering head as if saying, "Stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" then lashed out with its bristly black tail. The blow took Jasper's right hand off at the wrist. Both severed fist and the gun clutched tightly within it crashed through the windshield of the patrol car, leaving a jagged black hole.

"Mama!" Jasper croaked just before the black thing whirled and turned its fury and hunger on him.

"To h.e.l.l with this!" muttered Paul. He turned and began to run down the stretch of Highway 987.

Intending to head toward the farmhouse, he was crossing the narrow road when he heard a great, bellowing roar split the air behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and p.i.s.sed himself. The thing bounded down the two-lane blacktop toward him, its paws shattering the asphalt with each heavy footfall. Its awful hunger had fired its metabolism and started a growth process that could only occur in things not fully of this world. The black-bristled creature was nearly as big as the Escalade now. Its open mouth, full of long ivory and ragged meat, looked large enough to swallow a man whole.

Paul bounded over the drainage ditch at the far side of the road, then scrambled over a barbed wire fence. His left foot became entangled in the strands before he could clear it. As he struggled to kick free, the thing's head appeared. The horrid jaws dipped downward and chomped. As burning agony shot through Paul's ankle and up his calf, he looked back to see the thing rolling something around in its mouth. It was a pocket of Eddie Bauer leather with a meaty morsel of Paul Stinson tucked neatly inside. The thing gobbled it down and winked-dear Lord, did it actually wink?-before it began to skitter across the fence toward him.

On half a foot, Paul limped toward the farmhouse, gibbering, crying, even laughing for some awful reason he couldn't figure out. "G.o.d, G.o.d, G.o.d, oh, G.o.d," he sobbed out loud. Funny that he would call upon that name so freely now...since the only way he had used it in the last few years was with the word d.a.m.n tacked to end.

But, then, Paul Stinson had "gotten religion," as the old folks called it.

That awful kind of Harlan County religion preached by things that posed as harmless roadkill at the side of deserted country roads.

As he ran, shrieking, toward the old farmhouse, Paul sensed that the thing was toying with him. It would dart out in front of him, then circle him, allowing him to get a head start and then begin the torturous cat-and-mouse game all over again. He was almost to the front porch when the thing's long tail lashed out and struck him across the lower back. Paul wailed as his kidneys ruptured and the lower vertebrae of his spine were pulverized into jagged splinters.

He hit the ground hard, facing the house. An old woman opened the screen door, looked out, then retreated with an expression of panic and horror. That door isn't going to help you, lady, he thought. That whole d.a.m.ned house isn't going to protect you. He doubted that the vault of the Harlan County Bank & Trust would hold up against this demon's ceaseless hunger.

As the thing pounced and landed atop him, Paul thought of his mother and some of the quirky sayings she used to pa.s.s on to him. One came to mind as he felt the thing's claws meticulously, almost tenderly, separate the back of his leather jacket and the cloth of the shirt just beyond. Curiosity killed the cat?

No, that wasn't it.

It's best to let sleeping dogs lie.

Yeah. Oh, h.e.l.l, yeah...that was it.

Paul Stinson felt the thing's long, grey tongue-peppered with taste buds the texture of sandpaper and broken gla.s.s-run the length of his back, from the nape of his neck clear down to the cleft of his b.u.t.tocks. It somehow tickled and hurt all at the same time.

Paul began to laugh.

He laughed wildly, madly, straying far beyond the limits that humor tastefully allowed...until, finally, he could laugh no more.

"Inheritance"

Stephanie Lenz.

Stephanie Lenz lives in western Pennsylvania with her husband, daughter, son, and two black cats. She has published short fiction in Quantum Muse, Journal of the Blue Planet, Flashquake, Northpoint, and other journals and is managing editor of the literary journal Toasted Cheese. Her web site is piggyhawk.net.

The kitchen reeked of lilies and Jania's diaper. I scrubbed Becca's lasagna pan with steel wool and stared through the window at a patch of early-turned leaves.

Becca thunked a laundry basket onto a clear s.p.a.ce of kitchen table. "Baby needs changed," I said.

"You can't do it?"

"I'm washing your dishes."

"So? I was washing your shirt."

"Where is it?" I half turned to look at the laundry basket.

Becca scooped up her youngest and tickled her. "In Mark and Tommy's room."

"Is that where I'm sleeping?"

"Unless you want the attic."

"No," I replied too quickly.

"You still afraid of the attic?"

"Not afraid," I said, running fresh, steaming water over the pan. "The stairs are too narrow. Too steep."

"I put the boys up there," she said, turning her back to me.

"Do they go up there much?" I tried to cover the crack in my voice with a cough.

"You are still afraid of the attic."

I began to protest, but she'd already taken Jania up the stairs.

That night, I read while the boys watched an obnoxious movie on DVD. Becca knitted a sock, her first, and she constantly wrinkled her nose at the book providing the instructions. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her sigh, close the book, and coil the half-knitted sock around its needles. She stashed everything in a canvas bag and popped back the recliner.

"What're you reading?"

"It's for work," I said, not looking at her.

"About what?"

"Selkies."

Her sons turned around. "What's a silky?" Tommy asked.

"Selkie, not silky. It's like a woman with a seal skin she can take on and off, kinda like a mermaid."

"Never heard of that," Becca said.

"We got a report of some sightings in Scotland." I decided to keep my transfer to myself. The timing was perfect and I'd been raised too superst.i.tious to do anything to jinx it.

"Cool," Matt said.

Becca threw her feet over the edge of the chair. "How do you study all these things and you don't believe any of them?"

"Because I study them." I turned a page I hadn't really read.

Matt opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Becca announced that it was bedtime. The boys groaned. "We have to get up early for Grandma. I don't want any fighting or sa.s.s tomorrow."

As soon as the three of them headed to the attic, I flipped off the TV and followed their footfalls. The boys settled in the back of the attic, near the door for the steps. That was good. It was the front of the attic that concerned me. I hadn't yet figured how to get Becca to allow me to poke around, but I needed to see the trunk. Better yet, I needed to see that it wasn't there.

Becca had a couple of drinks before we headed to the Baptist church in Evarts. I drove her van and made extra sure the kids were buckled before we headed out. Matt asked me to turn on the radio, and when I told him no, he pouted the whole trip. Tommy played some kind of little video game and Jania kept setting off some electronic musical toy.

Our brother and sister were already at the church. When Becca crumpled into a chair in front of the urn that held our mother's remains, Sissy asked me if she was drunk. I said that she'd had a few.

I hadn't seen JR in a couple of years, since Gertie had closed and he'd started driving trucks. I thought he'd turned manager at a Wal-Mart or something, but I wasn't sure. His boots didn't have a trace of dirt. None of them ever understood my job so we never talked much about what we all did.

"Came on quick," JR said, like he was the authority on our mother's cancer. "She didn't want no treatment but she could've if she'd wanted it."

I swallowed hard and pushed my hands into my pockets.

"How's she doing?" He nodded toward Becca.

I shrugged. "Couple shots this morning, but that's all she's had since I been home. Boys look good. Baby's healthy. Place is clean."

"I'm glad it's over," Sissy said from behind me, holding our niece on one hip. "Mama being sick, I mean."

"Same here," JR said.

"Becca's glad too, even if she won't say," Sissy added. "I'm glad Mama didn't drag it out. She said to me, 'I want this over and done with' and it was. Just the way Mama wanted."

"Reckon we should sit down," I said, sliding in beside Becca. I draped my arm over the back of the pew, and she took it as a sign to curl toward me. I spent the first half of my mother's memorial smelling Jack Daniels and handing Becca balled-up Kleenex out of her purse.

By the time we were to sing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," I whispered to Becca that I would find Sissy and Jania, see if the baby needed anything. JR slid over toward her when I rose and inched my way along the pew.

I found them in the otherwise empty nursery, Sissy watching the crowd through a one-way window.

"Nice turnout," she said when I closed the door. "Mama'd be happy."

"I had a h.e.l.l of a time talking her out of having Mama laid out." I wanted to add that our mother must've told me a thousand times, begged me even, to have her cremated.

"You want a drink of water, Peter? You don't look so good."

"I...I just want to make sure everything's how she need...wanted it."

"Well, we done the best we could. She didn't leave us clear instructions. She just told you everything. Always did." Sissy crossed the room and popped a paper cup out of a dispenser. "You coming to the will reading?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Suppose." She filled the cup with cool water and brought it to me. "So you gonna tell me all her secrets now?"

I smiled to avoid lying. "Sissy, let her rest."

Sissy nibbled her lip for a minute and considered. I could see the thoughts flashing before her eyesthe insinuations, the blame, the rumors.

Her voice calm, she said, "Tell me Poppa was my daddy."

"Oh he was, he was," I said, filled with relief. "You never believed that rumor, did you?"

"Course I did."

"Pop didn't...what he did had nothing to do with you. Hear?"

Sissy sat on the floor beside Jania and started building a tower of blocks for her to topple.

"Things weren't...he was so different when he came back from that second tour, Sis. He wasn't...the man he became, it near about killed Mama. If he hadn't done what he did, she'd have died thirty years ago. You'd never have remembered her."

"Sometimes I wonder if that might've been better."

"It wasn't anything about you, Sissy. She went through an awful lot. Married at sixteen, pregnant with me and JR not a year after. Pop being drafted. Helping with the strike. Pop coming back and going into the mine. Becca and then with you on the way, Pop re-upping and coming back. It was hard going, Sis."