“And what do you think of that now, mija? Now that you have seen with your own eyes that I cannot be killed.”
Maita lifted the big revolver. Five shots, point-blank, and her mother was still walking, clawing, and bitching.
Good thing there was a Plan B.
Even if it sucked.
“That’s true,” Maita said, “I can’t do anything to you, but you need me to survive.” Maita raised the barrel of the gun to her forehead. “And you don’t have me anymore.”
Lidia’s tail raked back and forth at a frenetic pace, shredding the wall behind her to pieces. She reached out, then withdrew her hand, seeming unsure if she could cross the distance before Maita could pull the trigger.
“Must you hate me so?” Lidia wailed. “You wish for my death so much you would kill yourself?”
“Yeah,” Maita replied, lips curled into a knowing smile, “I guess I do.”
“Selfish, brutish child! Ungrateful child! You should love your mother. After all of it, you are still the only one who can hurt me.” The monster slowed, ceasing its frantic motion and coiling its muscles, a huge, unnatural snake preparing to spring.
“I cannot even sleep. I am cursed to lie awake and cry for the children I have lost. I only wanted to kill you to spare you an eternity of torment.” She lowered her hands and sighed. “But you may pull your trigger. I will mourn you. Just as I will mourn poor Artemia after I dine on her soul and take her beautiful young body.”
A wave of fear washed across Maita, obliterating her thoughts and plans. How was this possible? Lidia should not even know about Artemia. More than anything else, this was the thing she had tried to protect. This was the reason she hadn’t called her daughter back on the phone.
This monster heard everything.
Through the door window, Maita saw the headlights of her van enter the driveway, carrying Artemia and Reggie into the jaws of the beast. She heard the engine stop.
“Guests?” Lidia asked with a snakelike flick of her head. “We can do the ceremony later. I will take your body and your soul now.”
She glided across the floor on hissing scales and clicking claws.
Maita’s head shot up. It made sense. The scar on her mother’s cheek from the broken jar, the ineffective bullets from Craft-Lady’s handgun, and the gypsum-crusted blood covering Lidia’s injured foot.
Maita really was the only one able to hurt her mother.
She whirled the handgun at her surprised demon-mother’s face.
“I never loved you.”
The last bullet flew through her mother’s skull, just above her left eye.
BOOM.
The hasty fires were beginning to lick against the ceiling when Maita ran out the front door and into the arms of a frantic Artemia. Reggie had yanked the skinny teenager back into the van when he spied Erik’s corpse, and called the cops. Tomorrow he would have the bruises to show Artemia’s difference of opinion.
Maita was already planning a tale for the police, and the fire would obscure the details enough for it to fly. That would be the easy part.
“Oh, Mom, I was so scared you were hurt.” The girl babbled.
Stupid child.
The sirens arrived and policemen flooded the scene. Maita and Artemia were ushered to the back of an ambulance and given blankets.
No, the hard part—as ever—would be planning Artemia’s future. Ensuring she made something of her life. Something a mother could live on. And that the brat had a child of her own.
Preferably a girl.
Kevin Pettway is a long-time fan of good fantasy as well as being a smartass. He brought together these two burning passions to create the Misplaced Mercenaries series, the first of which, A Good Running Away, is available now.
Kevin lives in Florida with his wife of twenty-six years and two Firefly-themed dogs—Book and River. He probably spends too much of his time worrying that he will someday be introduced to the world as “Florida Man.”
You can find Kevin on Facebook or his own website at www.kevinpettway.com. Fair warning—he is a smartass there, too.
Progress Grows Out of Motion
A Drowned Horse Chronicle
David Boop
Progress Grows Out of Motion
Arizona Territory
Retirement from bounty hunting didn’t suit Hal Turk too well. The part about not getting shot at was fine with him, but the challenge of knowing a man; predicting his actions? Of pursuing him wherever he went? That part he missed.
In the three years since his left eye had gone fuzzy, Turk tried to fill that void by taking up big game hunting in Maine, but found that animals—even the biggest and smartest—were too dumb to be much of a challenge. He tried his hand at gambling, but decided he’d much prefer being the house. He even took out one last, small bounty, but that nearly cost him his other eye. Luckily, Diaz, who, despite being a lousy shot, distracted the prey long enough for Turk to get the upper hand by shooting off six rounds without hitting nary a thing. To top it off, the money they got for that swindler weren’t nothing like he was used to.
So, Hal Turk, freshly re-retired, figured it past time to head back west on the Topeka & Santa Fe Line. He and Diaz had chased men throughout the territories, and even so far as up into the Canadian Rockies, that it would be almost like going home—if such a thing existed for Turk.
He’d only heard rumors about the town of Drowned Horse, located in the nicer part of the Arizona territory. Sure, it’d been doing fine thanks to a large copper strike in Jerome, least according to the papers, but many a failed settler returning East had spoke nonsense about the place having demons.
Everyone had demons, Turk especially, but he’d never known a town to have one that didn’t come from the people who lived there.
That was also something familiar to Turk: people and what drove them to do evil. As a newly christened faro and poker dealer, Turk could work with that.
In the seat next to him, Diaz annoyingly fiddled with a new compass Turk had gifted him.
“I think it is broken, Señor Hunt—I mean, Señor Turk.”
Diaz still had the nasty habit of calling Turk “Señor Hunter.” Even after five years together, Turk’s translator and tracker occasionally slipped and called him that damn nickname. While they hadn’t started out as friends, escaping countless near-death experiences had won over the tired bounty hunter, who’d never really had a friend before.
“What makes you think so?” Turk responded.
“The compass, it keeps pointing to the east, when we are clearly heading west.” Diaz directed Turk’s gaze to the cabin’s window with his index finger. “It should be pointing that way, no?”
“That might be my fault,” came the voice of the third person in their compartment.
The older gentleman had not said more than an occasional greeting since they’d switched trains in Indiana. He mostly slept, but seemed cordial enough during their comings and goings for dinner.
“How so?” Turk asked.
The man lifted his cane, something he always had by his side, and lightly rapped the large spherical, silver end against his head.
“Metal plate, you see. Got it from a carriage crash. Lucky to be alive, they say. Others say it caused me to go crazy, but I tell them that I was already crazy before the accident.” He laughed in a way that suggested more truth behind the joke than he let on. “I find that, occasionally, after waking from sleep, I’ve created some sort of electric charge in it. No idea what causes it, but I bet Edison could figure it out.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Turk replied.
Diaz moved the compass closer to the old man’s forehead and, sure as anything, the compass pointed right at it! Satisfied that his new toy was not broken, Diaz put it away. “What takes you to Arizona, Señor …?” Diaz let the question hang.
“Eadweard Muybridge.” He extended a hand to Diaz and then to Turk. “I’m heading to San Francisco to pick up some equipment I left before returning to Chicago in
time for the Columbian Exposition.”
That interested Diaz, as he’d traveled through most of South America. “I have read about the upcoming World’s Fair in the papers. They will have replicas of Columbus’s ships. I heard even Little Egypt will perform.” Diaz blushed at the thought of the belly dancer. “It sounds increíble.”
Turk, however, thought it all just a money grab as bad as a bank robbery. The organizers had denied Buffalo Bill a place in their precious faire, and that irked him. Bill was a friend.
“It certainly will be increíble, my good man.” Muybridge leaned forward conspiratorially. “In fact, because of my time exploring America de Meridianol, they’ve designed a whole hall in honor of me.”
That sounded too increíble for Turk. “So what does one do to warrant such an honor? Capture wild animals?”
Muybridge stroked his long, white beard and grinned in a mischievous way. “Well, one could say that I have done that, after a fashion. I’m a photographer, and I’ve captured such creatures in a way no one else has … with photographs.”
Photography wasn’t new anymore. It’d been around since before Turk was born, and he said as much.
“Oh, but not my photos, mind you. My photos move. People, animals, even a train like this—captured forever—in motion.”
Hal Turk no longer just thought Muybridge crazy—he reckoned it to be so.
“Ah, I can see the skepticism in your eyes, Mr. Turk. Let me show you. Mr. Diaz, would you kindly draw the shades?”
Muybridge reached up to the luggage rack for a large container as Diaz drew the blinds. The shades allowed enough light for the old coot to set a box upon a small tripod. Taking out a candle, he lit the wick and placed it inside the box. The light from the candle shone upon the wall across the compartment.
Muybridge motioned Hal and Diaz to join him on his side as he installed a disc-shaped object into a slot in front of the candle. A photo of a horse projected onto the wall.
Muybridge cranked a hand lever on the side of the box. As he did, the horse photo was replaced by similar one; the horse in a slightly different stance.
And then another one.
And another.
As Muybridge spun the crank faster, the photos blurred together, making the illusion of a running horse. So simple, and yet Turk had never seen anything like it. A tiny horse ran in place on the wall. He and Diaz slumped back in the seats, flabbergasted.
Having proved his point, Muybridge stopped cranking and re-opened the curtains.
“This is the traveling version of my zoopraxiscope. The much bigger version I left in San Francisco will be able to show my moving pictures on a much larger scale.”
The “less-than-crazy old man” put his equipment away. “And what do you gentlemen do?”
Diaz answered for them. “We have just taken up table stakes in a town called Drowned Horse. They were very happy to offer us five tables.”
Too happy. It worried Turk.
“My, that is a fascinating endeavor,” Muybridge said. He stroked his long beard. “From what I hear, gambling takes a fast and steady hand. Do you have such a thing?”
Diaz shook his head. “No, but Señor Hun—um, I mean Senior Turk, he does. Very fast hands.”
Turk didn’t like it when Diaz bragged about his skill. It gave people ideas.
Muybridge studied Turk in an appraising way that unnerved Turk. He certainly hoped the man had no interest in drawing on him.
“Could you show me?” Muybridge finally declared.
“How?”
Muybridge thought on this. “How about dealing cards? We can use the zoopraxiscope stand as a table.”
Resigned to his fate, Turk nodded.
Diaz got out the deck of cards Turk used to teach his partner card tricks.
Hal was no magician, but having skill in sleight-of-hand came in handy as a gambler—more so as a hunter.
Turk dealt the cards and then showed Muybridge a few simple tricks, like three-card Monte, and such. He didn’t however, demonstrate the best techniques he’d acquired from other dealers. Those cheats. Those subtle movements which would allow him to keep an edge over the people at his table. The type of cheats he and Diaz had to watch out for, or be victims themselves.
Seemingly impressed, Muybridge clapped. “You do have an amazing hand, sir.” Then sitting back, he pronounced, “I have a proposition for you. In the freight car, I have my cameras for taking zoopraxiscope pictures. I would love to capture your skill on film. I think it would be an amazing addition to my library.”
As Diaz put the cards away, Turk steeled himself to decline just as Muybridge added, “And I’ll pay well for the honor.”
How could Turk say no after that?
As it turned out, Drowned Horse was not nearly the boomtown Turk and Diaz had heard. Quite the opposite. The notion that “word travels fast” didn’t factor in the distance from Arizona to Pennsylvania. The Jerome mines had indeed taken off, but so had the new town of Jerome, reneging on promised prosperity of Drowned Horse. Others, such as Cottonwood and Clarkdale, had also sprung up in the area, siphoning off potential growth.
Plus—as Turk and Diaz discovered soon after arriving—there was the curse.
“Curse?” Turk asked the owner of the Sagebrush Saloon, the only saloon still open in the town. He hadn’t gotten the man’s name, but everyone around the bald man seemed to call him Owner.
“Yeah, I shoulda probably mentioned that in the letter I sent ya.” Owner’s head was as smooth as a river rock. A long, graying mustache draped down to either side of his mouth, which currently held a smile. “But I’d inquired about you before replying to your request, and it seemed like you were the sort to be able to handle a touch of the dark in your life.”
Indeed, Turk had run across more evil than was to be believed.
Diaz crossed himself upon Owner’s initial proclamation, but seemed to have settled in with the notion. “In what way, Señor Owner? How does this curse behave?”
Owner, who wiped the bar and talked about the macabre as if it was just bad weather, explained, “Oh, we get the occasional demon or mythological monster from time to time. Hell, we recently even had ourselves some aliens from Mars or some sort. Can’t remember rightly where they said they was from. Cost our current sheriff his right arm, but he shoots with his left, so no worries there.”
Turk looked at Diaz who looked back at his partner with an incredulous expression.
“Why would anyone come to this town, let alone stay?” was the only response Turk could think of.
Owner tilted his head slightly, and with a straight face, answered, “The challenge, of course. Haven’t met a settler that didn’t think he was smarter than the devil himself.”
As if that said it all, Owner asked if Turk and Diaz still wanted the offered table stakes, as originally planned.
Turk considered his options. He and Diaz could leave for another town nearby, or maybe continue on to California where they would also have the ocean to their backs. Or go south to Tucson or Tombstone, each of which came with their own set of troubles.
But then Turk thought of Owner’s promise of the potential for danger. Being in a cursed town and all, could be a hook he could use to his advantage. Maybe this was destiny calling, giving him what his soul sorely needed.
Turk leaned over to Diaz and whispered an idea, which made his partner chuckle.
“We’re going to need to increase our share,” Turk finally told Owner. “And, we want to advertise in such a way to draw miners back into town. ‘Gamble at the Sagebrush! Where the winnings are worth betting your life on!’” Turk waved his hand as if his words were written on a banner.
Owner reached down and pulled out a contract that already had Turk’s adjusted share filled in. “I thought you might say that.”
Diaz sucked in breath. “Señor Turk. We should have asked more.”
Zhu Jun, known to the people of Drowned Horse as John Chew, because gweilo did not bother with
pronouncing his name correctly, carried an armful of clothes he’d gathered from the line outside. The young man felt grateful the weather had been mild enough to dry clothes outside. His wife, Ling, hated having Westerners’ clothes draped over every surface of their apartment which sat above Jun’s shop. She understood that working for greedy gweilo rail bosses had given Jun enough money to bring her over to America. She also accepted that washing disrespectful Westerners’ clothes kept food on their table. But that didn’t mean Ling had to like any of it.
Jun, on the other hand, liked most of the citizens of Drowned Horse. He had heard stories of how immigrants were treated in other towns, especially the bigger cities. His people were called many derogatory names and spat upon. However, the worst thing he was called by his neighbors was “Chewy,” which was not too bad.
Jun climbed the back stairs to the room they had to themselves. His wife had not produced any children in their time together, which suited Jun. While he would have appreciated the eventual extra helping hands, or someone to leave the business to, their small room was crowded enough with ironing boards, extra wash tubs, and supplies for the shop below.
The one thing that seemed to please Ling was Jun deciding to open a stable behind the shop. It only housed three horses, but, as a child back in Zhōng Guó, Ling had ridden horses. She had been the daughter of an influential and wealthy politician. Despite Jun being a commoner stable boy, Ling fell in love with him like a story told in books.
Unfortunately, Ling’s father married her to a horrible man. Jun knew she could not be happy. He came to America to make money to bring her over, knowing the risk he was taking. Finally, when he had enough, he found her and stole her away. He knew one day, Ling’s husband, or her father, or brother, might seek them out, but for now, they were happy.
Monsters, Movies & Mayhem Page 10