The Old Weird South

by Tim Westover

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  Inside the truck, rumors eat us alive. The other men may as well be retelling the same story. Only the details differ. Kidnapped. Identified. Escaping. Not all of them were picked up one by one like me; many were captured in groups while holding holiday parties. As far as these men know, they are the only survivors. Some say the war is over, that the Californians have won and our precious groves will burn and that we, marked by our orange-stained hands and denim shirts, will be hunted like animals. Others say it is mere retribution, that our side must have gained market share or the Californians lost production capacity, meaning they must restrict our own output to remain competitive. One man claims our masters in Florida and the masters of California are one and the same, that this state of war in which we have always existed is little more than a ruthless scheme to maximize the price an Average-Yet-Discriminating Grocery Shopper will tolerate in the local supermarket. We do not know for sure. We pass the time by asking for familiar faces, trading names, recalling tenuous connections, and searching for something that links us other than orange juice. Our conversations orbit these themes, and we cast our nets wider for some desperate connection. Two men believe they slept with the same woman in Austin, years apart. In the absence of anything else, this makes them almost brothers. I am jealous, but whether of their newfound fraternity or the touch of a woman, I cannot say for sure. The journey back to Florida takes a long time, and we must use back roads.

  As we’re driving through Georgia, something slams into the truck, and the trailer topples onto its left side, bouncing once, overturning those in wheelchairs and injuring those unlucky enough to duck and cover. One man wins the dark lottery of physics and circumstance—a heavy antique wheelchair breaks his skull. Dark blood seeps from the wound as he dies. I hear gunshots. I decide I will not die in this trailer and open the door, ignoring the pain in my foot, squirming from the rear of the truck and squinting in the dying afternoon light. I elbow through broken glass and cigarette butts, adjusting to the sunshine. When I look up, I see an Ingles.

  Not just any Ingles. With a conviction I have never felt before or since, a faint voice whispers that this must be my Ingles, at 100 Fairview Road. I decide I will die crawling toward it, if die I must. Recalling the Bible passages my grandmother told me with the air of a campfire spook story, I feel I must by no means turn to look behind; whether the others make it from the truck or die, my task is not to save them. Whatever passes for my destiny must be in that store. Why else would I have been brought here, I who have killed eight human beings and more than a dozen Californians in our unending war to supply you with premium orange juice?

  I have made the conclusion of all great men—that there is more to this world than accident.

  As I drag myself toward the store, a red Toyota Tercel coasts past me, parking next to a row of shopping carts. A woman dressed for church emerges on her cell phone and gracefully steps over me, switching her purse from one hand to the other.

  By the time I reach the automatic doors, three more people have walked around me, and the sound of gunshots dwindles. Whichever side won must be walking from corpse to corpse, dropping one last bullet into each man’s head. Soon, they will see the missing wheelchair and note my absence. They will know where I am moving. They are not so stupid as to think an ordinary person would notice, much less help, someone who grows oranges for a living. We are as invisible as the rest of the poor. We have probably been in the same room together, you and I, and I looked enviously at your well-kept shoes from a corner. It must have been you. I’m crawling toward the entrance, dragging myself as you hurtle past and around and over. I swear I remember those shoes.

  I gather my strength and lift myself into an electric shopping cart, the kind you can drive down the aisles. No one notices my erratic route, bumping over displays of cheese crackers and canned tomatoes, blinking back and forth into consciousness, cursing how orange juice is always kept on a far side of a grocery store. They’re coming. I can hear them. They’re fanning out in case the toppled crackers are a diversion. And you, Average-Yet-Discriminating Grocery Shopper, if you notice them at all, must assume that whomever they’re pursuing deserves to be caught. I don’t blame you. The Californians are tall and tan, and their sure gait matches their uniforms and posture. They exude authority, and I leave nothing but a lingering scent of citrus so faint it reminds you of a gas station bathroom. But the Californians have been taught to attack on sight and smell. I cannot fault them. If they do not catch me, they will surely die themselves. This has ever been an unforgiving business. They will kill me. I would do the same.

  Do you occasionally feel a surge of goose bumps out of nowhere? They say it means someone has walked over your grave, but here’s the truth: That someone is always someone like me, and we’re not walking over the site of your future burial. We’re careening into you and glancing off, often wounded and on the run. A woman shivers as I turn past her, falling out of the cart and skidding to a stop at aisle 15—dairy products, butter, orange juice, and eggs. Surely, all Ingles use the same layout, but again, somehow I know this is my Ingles. It reminds me of you, Average-Yet-Discriminating Grocery Shopper. I have imagined you here so many times, on the best and worst and most forgettable days of your life, pawing through one product or another but always drawn inevitably to me—to the bright orange promise this juice implies amid the pallid shelves of the dairy aisle.

  I’m pulling myself up, my hands squishing into plastic-wrapped blocks of sharp cheddar, Monterey Jack, and mozzarella.

  I’m pulling myself up to the second row of shelves, and I’m knocking away cartons of juice, their paper sides slippery from condensation. I hear the shuffle of footsteps and the shouts of the Californians and wonder if they will shoot me here, like this; and they’re running toward me, and I’m reaching in, and my god, in this moment, I am you, Average-Yet-Discriminating Grocery Shopper; and you are me, and we are both this distance between us, and therefore, the hand reaching toward me—the unseen warmth against my bloodied fingertips—must be my own, by which I mean yours, by which I mean we can never fear death in a moment like this, orbiting, turning in widening gyres, moving in circles around a world that never ends.

  Contributors

  Camille Alexa was born in California, raised in Texas, schooled in Toronto, and currently lives in the Pacific Northwest, down the street from a volcano. Her stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s and Ellery Queen’s mystery magazines, Fantasy, Machine of Death, and Imaginarium 2012: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing. Her short fiction collection, Push of the Sky, was an Endeavour Award finalist and a Powell’s Books Science Fiction Book Club reading selection. More about her work and about her superexciting supercoedited superanthology, Masked Mosaic: Canadian Super Stories, at www.camillealexa.com or on Twitter @camillealexa.

  David Boop is a Denver-based single dad, returning college student, temp worker, and author. He’s had one novel, the sci-fi/noir She Murdered Me with Science, and over thirty short stories published. The latest, an urban sci-fi, appears in Aliens among Us. He tours the country attending conventions and speaking on his specialty genre, weird Westerns. His hobbies include film noir, anime, the blues, and Mayan history. You can find out more at DavidBoop.com or www.Facebook.com/dboop.updates.

  Ben Bowlin was born in Nashville; his family hails from the Melungeon haunts and hollers of Eastern Tennessee. He’s lived in Atlanta and Quetzaltenango, where he investigated the worship of a local deity named Maximón (or Hermano San Simón to his friends). Swing by @BenBowlin or BenBowlin.org if you feel like saying hello, and as always, thank you for reading.

  Meriah Crawford is a writer, an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, and a private investigator. After the Louisa quake, Meriah spent hours helping her mother clean up the tremendous mess at her home in Mineral. Though the USGS and others provided an enormous amount of really valuable information during the aftermath, Meriah felt it was important to write this story to set
the record straight at last. Meriah’s published writing includes short stories, a variety of nonfiction work, and a poem about semicolons. For more information, visit www.mlcrawford.com. Or if you buy her a glass of port, she’ll tell you some of the stories she can’t put into writing.

  Janice Croom has been writing for fifteen years. In 2013, she will release the Kadence MacBride mystery series online. African American couple Kadence and Terrence, best friends since college, have supported each other through twenty years of failed marriages and dead-end relationships. Despite their strong mutual attraction, they’ve been unwilling to risk their friendship for a chance at love—until now. They find that friends really do make the best lovers and would be well on their way to “happily ever after” if they could just stop stumbling over dead bodies. To learn more about Janice’s writing, visit https://janicecroom.wordpress.com.

  Chris Dezarn is a writer from the American South. Dezarn writes in a variety of genres, but his is a new voice making noise in the world of horror. Dezarn’s twisted tales are usually dark, often shocking, sometimes humorous, but always entertaining and demanding attention. Dezarn is just getting started and hopes you’ll join him for more trips to the dark side. Dezarn currently dwells in East Tennessee, where he spends his time thinking up ways to induce nightmares.

  Lara Ek is an English teacher living in Harbin, China, who graduated from George Mason University with degrees in creative writing and Chinese and has previously been published in Crossed Genres, Nanoism, and Volition.

  Megan Engelhardt is a lapsed librarian who knows better than to make crossroad deals. She has previously been published in Daily Science Fiction, The Drabblecast, and Crossed Genres, among others. She can be found online at www.megengelhardt.com and on Twitter @MadMerryMeg.

  Sherry Fasano lives in Rembert, South Carolina, with her husband and dog named Daisy. She has been writing family stories and fiction for several years. Daisy is her #1 critic.

  Laura Haddock lives in Memphis, Tennessee, with her husband, two technically grown-up daughters, and an assortment of odd animals. She grew up in a family full of old folks, and their stories and experiences inspire much of her work. Laura’s stories can be found online on Postcard Shorts and SQ Mag. When she’s not writing about ghosts and aliens and such, she volunteers as a moderator on My Writers Circle and works a desk job to keep the lights on. Laura often has a faraway blank look on her face because she’s busy thinking up new stories.

  Michael Hodges lives in Chicagoland but often dreams of the Northern Rockies. Camping and animal nut. Represented by Laura Wood at FinePrint Literary. His two most recent short stories are “Grangy” at AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review and “Seven Fish for Sarah” at Penumbra Magazine. You can always read more at MichaelHodgesFiction.com. His Twitter handle is @MichaelBHodges.

  Wenonah Lyon is a retired anthropologist, born in Atlanta and currently living in the UK. She has published short prose and poetry in In Posse Review, Quantum Muse, Flashquake, Gator Springs Gazette, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, New Maps, Ajax, and other online and print publications. Some of this fiction has been reprinted (City-Lit series, Berlin) and sold for audio downloading (Escape Pod). Links to some of her published fiction and nonfiction can be found on her website, www.wenonahlyon.com.

  Peter Mehren, a Californian living in Toronto, could have been a son of the Confederacy had an ancestor not taken some relatives and some slaves and moved from Alabama to California. Peter’s beautiful and brilliant wife, Kay, has enabled him to be happy while indulging hobbies which some might have considered jobs: teaching, editing, acting, writing, managing farms while in the Peace Corps, managing offices, and so on. Neither Peter nor Kay has, to our knowledge, seen a ghost; but we did have an article in Fate Magazine about a definitely haunted house where Kay worked, and we’ve heard a few ghosts, and Peter had his head flicked by something where nothing could have been—probably his late mother wanting him to get a haircut. He acted in a docudrama, a film called The Wicca Tapes: Ghosts, and in a ghost-plagued and commercially unsuccessful pilot for a series about haunted places. He has sold nonfiction, fiction, and semifiction to several publications, an activity he continues to pursue.

  Kristina R. Mosley lives in Kensett, Arkansas, a small town that provides a great deal of writing inspiration. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including Scifaikuest, Tales from the Grave, Eschatology, and MicroHorror. She blogs from time to time at https://kristinarmosley.blogspot.com, and she tweets too often at twitter.com/elstupacabra.

  Erin Mundy is a student at University of North Georgia (formerly North Georgia College and State University) majoring in English. Her previous works include papers for her classes, but this is her first published story. When not studying in the hopes that she will graduate soon, she enjoys being a leader at North Georgia’s BCM. Having grown up with Lake Lanier in her backyard, she cares about the lake and the people who love it.

  Steve Newton is an associate professor of English at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey. He was a Fulbright Scholar in 2005–2006 at the Institute for American Studies at the University of Graz in Austria. As a younger man, he pumped gas in Alamosa, Colorado, drove a forklift in a cement factory in Cleveland, was a night shift janitor at the Grand Ole Opry, and one memorable Christmas was Santa Claus in a shopping mall outside Nashville.

  Daniel Powell teaches a variety of writing courses at a small college in Northeast Florida. His work has appeared in Redstone Science Fiction, Well Told Tales, Brain Harvest, Leading Edge magazine, Everyday Weirdness, Something Wicked, Dead but Dreaming 2, and Weber: The Contemporary West. Visit him at www.danielwpowell.blogspot.com.

  Lewis Powell IV is the creator and writer of the Southern Spirit Guide blog (https://southernspiritguide.blogspot.com), a blog covering the ghosts and hauntings of the American South. A native Georgian, Lewis is an actor, writer, and researcher with a BFA in theater from Columbus State University, Columbus, Georgia. He was also the contributing editor of In Order of Appearance, a history of the famous performers who have graced the stage of Columbus’ legendary and haunted Springer Opera House.

  Jay Rogers was born in the Tri-State area of the Southwest Ozarks in 1935. His first decade, he was told, “Hush up ’n’ listen” to the family’s storytellers. He was in awe of those folks but never imagined “oral recitin’” in his destiny. He told his kids those tales as they were growing up, and they “begat” more kids who heard the tales. The storytelling and the “begattin’” continued until the supper table couldn’t seat all the generations if they showed up at the same time, so Jay began writing the stories for all. Someone dared him to submit a written story to a publisher who might accept it, which would mark Jay as a professional writer. He commenced “rootin’ around the trough” and chose one called “The Spook Light.” Long story short: He did. They did. Now he are one.

  Herb Shallcross graduated from Drexel in 2007 with a BS in psychology and a certificate in writing and publishing. His poems and stories have appeared online at Apiary Magazine and Eclectic Flash and in anthologies from Elektrik Milk Bath Press and the Bards Initiative. Herb lives in Queens with his wonderful wife.

  Josh Strnad is a small-town guy from North Carolina, a lawn-equipment wrangler, an audiobook addict, and a sand sculpture master craftsman. When not guzzling hot tea and typing stories on his battered desktop computer, he dabbles in filmmaking, writing music, and drawing cartoons. He’s currently working his way through graduate studies to become a high school English teacher, writing his second novel, and illustrating his children’s book in his copious spare time. Check him out on Facebook or at www.joshstrnad.com.

  Sean Taylor is an award-winning writer of stories. He grew up telling lies, and he got pretty good at it, so now he writes them into full-blown adventures for comic books, graphic novels, magazines, book anthologies, and novels. He makes stuff up for money, and he writes it down for fun. He’s a lucky fellow that way. He’s best known f
or his work on the best-selling Gene Simmons Dominatrix comic book series from IDW Publishing and Simmons Comics Group. He has also written comics for TV properties such as the top-rated Oxygen Network series Bad Girls Club. His other forays into fiction include such realms as steampunk, pulp, young adult, fantasy, superheroes, sci-fi, and even samurai frogs on horseback (seriously, don’t laugh), and he has appeared in short story collections alongside such writing heroes as Joe Lansdale and Nancy Collins. However, his favorite contribution to the world will be as the writer/editor who invented the genre and coined the term “hookerpunk.” For more information (and mug shots), visit www.taylorverse.com.

  Ken Teutsch is a writer, performer, and videographer, born and raised in southern Arkansas.

  DL Thurston lives in Annandale, Virginia, with his wife, daughter, and cats. His stories can also be found in the Steam Works and Memory Eater anthologies. He is a proud member of the Cat Vacuuming Society of Northern Virginia and can be found through his blog, DLThurston.com.

  Tim Westover lives in suburban Atlanta. Born in the north, educated in England, and a frequent visitor to Russia, he found his home in the North Georgia mountains, where his first novel, Auraria (QW Publishers, 2012), is set. In addition to writing, Westover busies himself with programming, playing the clawhammer banjo, and raising his one-year-old daughter to be a modern American eccentric. He is also an established writer in the International Language Esperanto; his short story collection Marvirinistrato (Mermaid Street) was published in 2009, and his stories appear in translation in the anthology Star in a Night Sky (Francis Boutle Publishers, 2012). Visit his blog at www.timwestover.com.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed

  in this work are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  The Old Weird South

  Copyright ©2013 by QW Publishers, LLC

  QW Publishers, LLC

  Grayson, GA USA

  www.QWPublishers.com

  Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9849748-1-8

  First edition published in 2013 by QW Publishers

  Introduction ©2013 by Tim Westover

  “Ghost Dog of Georgia” ©2013 by A. Camille Renwick

  “To Gnaw the Bones of the Wolf-Mother” ©2013 by Sean Taylor

  “Yalobusha County, 1862” ©2013 by Ken Teutsch

  “Yankees in Georgia: Chasing Ghosts and the General along the Old W&A Railroad” ©2013 by Lewis Powell IV

  “A Hunnerd Dollars, Gold” ©2013 by Peter Mehren

  “The South, Rise Again” ©2013 by DL Thurston

  “The Dragon and the Shark” ©2013 by David Boop

  “Matty and the Grey Man” ©2013 by Lara Ek

  “Railroad Bill” ©2013 by Janice Croom

  “Passage” ©2013 by Daniel Powell

  “The Devil at the Crossroads” ©2013 by Wenonah Lyon

  “A Busy Day for the Bayou Banshee” ©2013 by Herb Shallcross

  “The Spook Light” ©2013 by Jay Rogers

  “That Damned Game” ©2013 by Kristina R. Mosley

  “Tennessee Ghosts” ©2013 by Stephen Newton

  “The Gift of Understanding” ©2013 by Sherry Fasano

  “Bradford House” ©2013 by Laura Haddock

  “Storm Fronts” ©2013 by Michael Hodges

  “The Healer” ©2013 by Josh Strnad

  “A True Story about the Devil and Jamie’s Shoes” ©2013 by Megan Engelhardt

  “Murdock” ©2013 by Chris Dezarn

  “Underwater” ©2013 by Erin Mundy

  “The End of Grace” ©2013 by Meriah Lysistrata Crawford

  “Florida Natural” ©2013 by Ben Bowlin