It Came from Anomaly Flats

by Clayton Smith

  Trudy took her hand across the lunch counter and leaned in close. “I know you’re in a bad spot, sweetie. But I don’t think leaving—”

  “It’s too late,” Lucy interrupted, shaking her head. “You can’t talk me out of it, Trudy. I’m going. Tonight. After Jake goes to sleep. I just…” She wiped away a tear and clasped her hand over Trudy’s. “I just wanted to say goodbye.”

  Trudy frowned. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, clucking her tongue. “Why don’t you sit down? I’ll make you a plate of eggs, and we can talk about it.”

  “No. It’s done.” Lucy pulled her hands away and walked backward toward the door. “Thank you for everything, Trudy. If Jake ever comes to his senses…tell him, will you?”

  “Tell him what, sweetie?”

  “Tell him I’m sorry. And tell him we went home.”

  Before Trudy could reply, Lucy turned and pushed her way out the doors of the Nite-Owl Diner. She was so full of her own thoughts, she didn’t hear the man at the booth inside who began to cough and choke on his eggs.

  •

  Jake came home earlier than expected. Lucy had just enough time to hide her paper bag full of clothes under the kitchen sink before he barged in the front door. He was frantic, disheveled…his hair was mussed, he was out of breath, and the wild look in his eyes sent chills through Lucy’s bones.

  “I’m in trouble, Luce. Big trouble.” He skittered around the cabin, pressing his back to the wall, peeking out the windows from behind the curtains. He began to cry. “I fucked it all up.”

  “What happened?” Lucy asked, hugging herself tightly in the kitchen. The baby spasmed in her belly.

  “I tried to kill Buchheit,” Jake said.

  “You what?!”

  “He’s a bad man, Luce! We all agreed he needed to die, but everyone’s so scared of him, and I had a plan, I said I’d do it. I fucked up. I fucked up so bad.” He sprinted across the room and grabbed hold of the flimsy couch. He pulled it across the floor and shoved it up against the front door.

  Lucy took long breaths and tried to stay calm. “Jake, tell me what happened.”

  Jake shoved his fingers into his hair and pulled. He began to pace across the cabin as he spoke. “Buchheit, he has eggs every day. For breakfast, from his own special hens. They’re his own hens; he keeps ’em separate from the others. The eggs from the other hens get sold to town, but his special eggs, he keeps for himself. Always. Always, always, always.” He was practically screeching, his voice was so high, and it cracked through his breath as he struggled to get the words out. “I poisoned them. I poisoned the eggs. His eggs. Not the town’s eggs. His eggs.”

  “You poisoned his eggs?”

  “I had a needle. Some of the guys, they…they have needles, and I took one, and I got this—this—this stuff, I don’t know, some poison—”

  “Where did you get poison?” Lucy said, horrified.

  “I don’t know! Some guy! At the Dive Inn! He gave it to me, said no charge for killing Buchheit, he gave it to me, and I got the needle, and I put it in the eggs.” Jake stopped pacing. He leaned his forehead against the front wall and began to pound it with his fist.

  Lucy moved cautiously closer. “You poisoned his eggs,” she said. “What happened?” Jake mumbled something unintelligible into the wall, shaking his head and crying. “Jake, what happened?” she said again, more firmly.

  Jake lifted his head. He looked at Lucy with red, streaming eyes. She’d never seen him look so scared, or so lost. “He knew,” he whispered. “He knew. He took the other eggs for himself. The town eggs. And his special eggs…the poisoned eggs…he gave ’em to the town. He gave ’em to the Nite-Owl.”

  Lucy drew back in surprise. “Trudy’s serving poisoned eggs?”

  Jake nodded.

  Lucy began to cry. “Give me your keys,” she demanded, holding out her hand.

  “Lucy—”

  “Give me your keys!” she screamed.

  But Jake just shook his head. “It’s too late,” he whispered, wiping the mucus from his nose with a sleeve. “It’s too late, Luce. They’re already dead.”

  That’s when she heard the sirens.

  Lucy’s heart sank. “Jake…are they coming for you?”

  Jake nodded. “Buchheit told them. He said I poisoned the diner’s eggs on purpose. He told them about the others…the people I hurt, the bodies in the cornfield. He told them I did it.” His eyes glossed over with a thick sheen of tears. They spilled down his cheeks. “And I did do it. I killed them all, Lucy. I killed them all.”

  “Jake, no. This is not your fault.” Lucy ran across the room and threw her arms around her husband. “You hear me? This ain’t your fault. This is Buchheit’s fault. He did this, not you. You hear me?”

  Jake didn’t reply. He just buried his face in her hair and cried.

  Lucy looked over his shoulder. The flickering ghost stood near the fireplace, gray-black blood oozing down her neck. The ghost clutched her belly, and at just that second, the baby inside of Lucy lurched, and she grabbed at her stomach, too. “It’s coming,” the ghost whispered. Her voice echoed with sadness. “It’s too late.”

  “Jake.” Lucy pushed him back and pointed at the ghost. “Look. There she is.”

  Jake followed her finger and gazed at the fireplace. “There’s nothing there, Luce,” he said. “There’s nothing there.” Then he laughed, a harsh, hollow sound. “I think we’ve both gone crazy.”

  The look in his eyes told her it was at least half true.

  The sheriff skidded into the driveway, his lights flashing, his siren blaring. He stepped out of the car and drew his gun, aiming it at the cabin door over the roof of the car. “Come on out, Jake,” he hollered, “or I’m coming in.”

  The deputy jumped out of the passenger seat and drew his weapon, too. “Come on, Jake,” he cried, his voice shaking. “Just make it easy, okay?”

  Inside the cabin, Jake looked down at Lucy. He smiled. “They won’t put me in jail,” he said. He pushed Lucy aside and walked into the kitchen.

  “Jake, what are you doing?” Lucy asked, alarmed. She hurried after him, but the pain in her belly was sharp, and she had to stop to catch her breath.

  Jake pulled open a drawer and drew out a carving knife. “They won’t take me to jail,” he said again, mostly to himself, as if he were reasoning it out as he went. “They’ll put me in the mine. Or they’ll drag me to the cornfield. I’ll hear the voices again.” His eyes went wide with fear. “I hear the voices so much, now.”

  Lucy’s back stiffened. “Jake. Put down the knife.”

  Jake looked down at the blade in his hand. “It’s not for me,” he said quietly.

  “Jake. Listen. They’ll arrest you, and there’ll be a trial. You can tell your side, they’ll ask the other farmhands, they’ll figure out that Buchheit put you up to it. You’ll get free. Just…put down the knife.”

  “Lucy…” His eyes pleaded with her, or maybe they begged her forgiveness.

  The sheriff kicked in the front door, and Lucy screamed. He rammed his foot through the opening, and the couch went skidding across the floor. He burst into the room, gun drawn, and Jake shot forward. He grabbed Lucy around her chest and held the knife to her throat.

  “Jake!” she screamed. Tears streamed down her face.

  The sheriff cocked his pistol. “Put down the knife, son. You let her go.”

  “Jake, don’t,” Lucy sobbed.

  Jake kissed her temple, and the salt of his tears dripped onto her lips. “I won’t hurt you,” he breathed into her ear. “Come with me. I won’t hurt you.” He took a step back and pulled Lucy back with him. She shuffled backward, nearly tripping over his feet. She cried out, but Jake told her to hush.

  “You’re not walking out of here like that,” the sheriff
warned. His voice was calm, his black eyes were relaxed, and the gun was steady in his hands. “Put down the knife and come on over here to me.”

  But Jake kept moving backward, toward the back door, pulling Lucy with him.

  “Jake,” she whispered through her heaving breaths, “please.”

  “It’s okay, Lucy,” he insisted, his words hot against her ear. “It’s okay.”

  On the other side of the room, the ghost woman bled.

  “You’re scaring me,” she said. She gripped his arm and tried to pry it away from her chest, but he held her so tightly. “The baby, Jake. The baby.”

  “All right, I’ll tell you what,” the sheriff said. His lips curled into a soft little smile. “You take one more step, and I’ll shoot you right in the head.”

  “Jake, please!” Lucy whimpered.

  Jake pressed his cheek to her ear. “I love you, Lucy. I love you so much,” he whispered.

  He took another step backward.

  The pistol roared to life.

  “Shit,” the sheriff said, lowering his gun. His smile spread into a grin. “I missed.”

  The bullet had torn into Jake’s shoulder. He seized up at the impact, and his arm pulled back, drawing the blade of the carving knife against Lucy’s throat, splitting it open like a peach. Blood squirted out, spraying the air, and as Lucy felt the life drain out of her, she held the ghost in her gaze. The apparition became sharper; she stopped flickering, and her edges took shape. She stared down at Lucy, tears spilling down her face and mixing with her own black blood.

  Lucy gurgled in surprise through the gushing wound in her throat.

  Then she bled out and died on the dusty cabin floor.

  •

  The deputy slammed the car door. “He’s bleeding all over the seat,” he whined.

  “So you’ll clean it up later,” the sheriff said. He lit a cigarette and stared at the cabin. Lucy’s blood had begun to trickle across the lintel; little drops were pooling together on the flagstone outside the door.

  “What about the girl?” the deputy asked, scratching the back of his head. “Full report?”

  The sheriff grunted. “You wanna write a full report?”

  “Hell no,” the deputy said.

  “Me neither.”

  “So what do we do with her?”

  The sheriff took a long drag and held the smoke in his lungs. He stubbed out the cigarette against his heel, then exhaled a stream of smoke into the air. “There’s a well out back,” he finally decided. “Throw her in it, then clean up the mess.”

  •

  Lucy sat at the bottom of the well, a shade of the human she’d once been. Her skin flickered, and she could see the stones of the well through her own flesh.

  She’d been down in the bottom of that well for so long. There was a skeleton down there, too, a woman’s skeleton, her flesh and skin rotted away by water and time. Lucy knew the woman who once belonged to that skeleton, but she couldn’t remember her face. She couldn’t remember her name.

  She’d been down in that well for so, so long.

  Then one day a woman peeked her head over the lip of the well. She was young. Just a girl, really, with messy blonde hair and a little brown mole on her cheek. The girl pulled back away from the opening of the well for a second, then she reappeared, lowering her head down into the stones. “Hello,” she said. She waited for an echo that did not come. “Hello!” she tried again, louder.

  Lucy felt a pang in her heart. This was a bad place for girls. She couldn’t remember why, but it was a bad place for them to be. She knew that. Especially young ones. Especially blonde ones. Especially fresh-faced, smiling girls who had a whole lifetime laid out at their feet.

  This was a bad place for a girl like that. Lucy pressed her flickering hand to the hole in her throat, and with all the strength she could muster, she whispered, “Ruuuuuuuuun.”

  Author’s Note

  If you enjoyed this book, please take a moment to leave a review on Amazon. Reviews really do make or break the success of a book for independent authors, and your support would be truly and greatly appreciated.

  For more information on the specific ways Amazon reviews help make books more successful, visit:

  www.stateofclayton.com/why-review

  Also by Clayton Smith

  anomaly flats

  Somewhere just off the interstate, in the heart of the American Midwest, there’s a quaint, quirky town where the stars in the sky circle a hypnotic void….where magnetic fields play havoc with time and perception…where metallic rain and plasma rivers and tentacles in the plumbing are simply part of the unsettling charm. Mallory Jenkins is about to experience the unique properties of this place for herself when she accidentally sets off a series of events that could unleash the ultimate evil upon the town and wreak havoc on the world at large.

  Life in a small town is like that sometimes.

  Welcome to Anomaly Flats. Have some waffles, meet the folks, and enjoy the scenery…and if you happen to be in Walmart, whatever you do, don’t go down aisle 8.

  Don’t EVER go down aisle 8.

  apocalypticon

  Three years have passed since the Jamaicans caused the apocalypse, and things in post-Armageddon Chicago have settled into a new kind of normal. Unfortunately, that “normal” includes collapsing skyscrapers, bands of bloodthirsty maniacs, and a dwindling cache of survival supplies. After watching his family, friends, and most of the non-sadistic elements of society crumble around him, Patrick decides it’s time to cross one last item off his bucket list.

  He’s going to Disney World.

  This hilarious, heartfelt, gut-wrenching odyssey through post-apocalyptic America is a pilgrimage peppered with peril, as fellow survivors Patrick and Ben encounter a slew of odd characters, from zombie politicians and deranged survivalists to a milky-eyed oracle who doesn’t have a lot of good news. Plus, it looks like Patrick may be hiding the real reason for their mission to the Magic Kingdom...

  na akua

  Coming September 2016

  Maui was supposed to be a romantic trip for two. But when Grayson Park’s bride leaves him at the altar, a solo trip to paradise seems like just the thing to take him far from his troubles. Then he meets the beautiful and enigmatic Hi’iaka, and his troubles just begin—because when she’s abducted by the sinister Kamapua’a, a savage creature bent on draining her life by the light of the full moon, she calls on Grayson to rescue her. With his loyal, new-found Hawaiian friend Polunu as his steadfast guide, Grayson sets out on an incredible adventure that pits him against the very gods of Hawaiian mythology and leads him to the heart of Pele’s volcano, into the ocean to find the mythical Hook of Maui, and through the strange and brutal upcountry fleeing from demonic mo’o sent to destroy him. But there are only two nights left before the moon becomes full, and Grayson is running out of time to save Hi’iaka...and himself.

  pants on fire: a collection of lies

  A circus performer leaving behind a trail of ghosts; a castle of bumbling nitwits desperate to prove themselves to King Arthur; a world full of deadly mirrors; a librarian who mistakes Death for a very somber wheat farmer; this pesky little thing called “the Rapture.” All these and more pepper the pages of Pants on Fire: A Collection of Lies, a twisted, quirky, macabre world full of hilarious and chilling tales. Equal parts humor and horror, these seventeen surprising stories will leave you thrilled, thrown, and enthralled.

  Being lied to has never been so much fun!

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to Paula, who continues to support my habit of locking myself away and avoiding real-world responsibility while I write a whole bunch of nonsense. Even though she will never read this book because she doesn’t like scary things, it’s important that everyone else knows how wonder
ful she is.

  And a very special thank you to my editor/proofreader/sounding board/cheerleader/very good friend Steven Luna. You’re as reliable as the very ground I walk on, and as you know, I do not live in an earthquake-prone part of the country.

  Thanks, too, for all the fans of Anomaly Flats who expressed such passionate love for that novel that there was really no choice but to keep playing around in that literary world.

  About the Author

  Clayton Smith is a writer of speculative fiction living in Chicago, where he has become exceedingly good at cursing the winters. His work includes the novels Anomaly Flats, Apocalypticon, Na Akua, and Mabel Gray and the Wizard Who Swallowed the Sun; the plays Death and McCootie and The Depths; and the short story collection Pants on Fire: A Collection of Lies. His work has been published in Canyon Voices, Write City Magazine, and Dumb White Husband.

  He would like very much to hear from you. You can find him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as @claytonsaurus.

  And if your computer hasn’t succumbed to the terrible powers of magnetism, you should join his email newsletter! It’s fun there. There’s cake! (There’s no cake.) Find more information at StateOfClayton.com.

  Find these other wonderful titles from Dapper Press at www.dapperpress.com/library and Amazon.com!

  By Steven Luna