Then he took the lantern and went upstairs.
More candles. Sleeping bags. Stacks of boxed goods. Food. Medical supplies.
Guns.
Guns.
Jesus Christ.
Guns and ammunition.
Hundreds of gallons of water in one, two-and-a-half and five gallon bottles. Cases of soda. Cartons of powdered milk.
Dan was crying by the time he finished checking the rooms.
There were beds for nine people. All of the beds had been slept in.
But there was nobody home.
Nobody.
It made no sense.
Why would they leave this place?
They’d found a way to keep themselves going. They’d found food and clothing and everything they’d need. There was enough to keep them safe for months. Maybe for years.
They’d even cut down and decorated a tree. Wrapped presents.
Cooked a feast.
So where were they?
Why had they left?
He thought of the man in the yard. Granddad.
Okay, so the old man had died. But there was no blood inside the house. No sign of violence. Nothing to indicate that the man had died and reanimated in here. No evidence that he’d attacked and killed his own children and grandchildren.
He was outside.
And where were they…?
Dan stood at the top of the stairs. He held a shotgun to his chest tighter than if it was a talisman. Tighter than if it was Jesus on the cross.
“Dan—?” called Mason.
“Shhh!” hissed Dan as he leaned down the stairs.
“Come on. It’s getting cold.”
Not the house.
The food.
Dan came downstairs.
He pulled out a chair for Mason. He sat in the one next to him.
“Is it Christmas?” asked the boy.
“I … I guess so.”
“Do we get to open presents?”
Dan glanced at the presents. There were so many of them. Surely some would have to be appropriate for a little boy. Maybe socks. Maybe a toy. What did it matter when you had nothing at all?
“Sure,” he said. “In the morning. Presents are for Christmas morning.”
He reached for the carving knife and fork.
Mason looked at him, his eyes wide and filled with light. “Don’t we have to say grace first?”
Dan wiped at the tears in his eyes. He bent and kissed Mason on the top of the head.
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess we do.”
They said grace. It surprised Dan that he could remember how to say thanks.
The words came.
Slowly, in shuffling steps through his mind. But they came.
He said grace.
They said “amen.”
Outside the wind howled and the snow fell. Outside there were moans on the wind.
Inside it was warm.
Inside it was Christmas.
Dan stuck the tines of the fork in to steady the turkey and to steady his own trembling hands. Then he began carving.
Ken Scholes’s tasty tale of terror folds several quirky characters into an increasingly gruesome milieu. It’s a pretty sweet shocker!
And a word of advice: If you’re going to bake for the family this holiday, make sure your ingredients are fresh.
—KO
A World Done In
by
Great Granny’s Grateful Pie
Ken Scholes
It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and everything was going to shit all at once, the way things usually like to. Of course it was a different kind of going to shit compared to, say, last year’s Thanksgiving in Iraq. That one started with flares and shots ricocheting off stone and ended with me slowly heading home on a medical discharge. This Thanksgiving started with the goddamn underpinning going missing and ended with burning Great Granny’s Grateful Pie. And somewhere in the middle was the matter of Mama’s plus one.
“You know, Kay Ann,” Mama insisted in her most saccharine voice, “my plus one.”
I put the pie in the oven. “Your plus one?” I pushed buttons that I assumed were the timer. It was my new stove. In my new kitchen. In my new trailer back home in Reynolds, Kentucky.
“Yes, like them fancy folks do at their parties. A plus one.”
“So you’re bringing a date to Thanksgiving dinner?” The oven beeped at me and I pushed more buttons.
She gave one of her patented sighs of exasperation. “No, no, not a date.”
I offered my own approximation of the same sigh. “Okay, what’s his name?”
“Reverend Franklin T. Seymour. I’m sure you’ve met him.”
Yes. I’d met him. The new youth pastor at her church. This wasn’t the first time he’d come up. “Christ, Mama, you’re bringing the boy preacher to Thanksgiving?”
“Language, Kay Ann,” she said in her best somber tone. “And I thought it would be real Christianly with all his people in Oklahoma and him all alone out here.”
“He’s not alone. He’s got the Lord, Mama. He’ll be fine.”
“You know what I mean, Kay Ann.” I waited for her to say the rest. He had a steady job that wasn’t illegal, had a sense of purpose and decent personal hygiene. These moved most gentleman callers to the top of Mama’s list. Not for herself, mind you, but for her oldest daughter. I heard gravel crunching in the trailer park’s driveway and looked up to see August Cooper’s big Ford pulling up. When she didn’t say the rest, I saw my opportunity and took it. “Okay. Franklin Seymour is your plus one. Uncle Auggie’s here, Mama. Hopefully to see about my underpinning. I’ll see you Thursday.”
I was off the phone and on the double-wide’s narrow porch before my uncle had grunted his way out of the truck, hiking up his torn Levis to help out his stretched red suspenders. “Sumbitch,” he said, pushing back his Cooper Construction ball-cap to scratch his head. “Where’s the goddam underpinning?”
“In the back of your truck, Uncle Auggie, I hope.”
His face registered surprise and he actually checked the bed, bless his heart, before answering. “Nope. I thought Ernie put them up Sunday.”
Ernie was my cousin, his youngest and about as shiftless as you could get. “It appears,” I said, “that he was waylaid.”
Way baked was more likely, I suspected.
“It does appear so,” he said. He leaned over and looked under the trailer. “How’s the rest of it seem?”
“Sturdy,” I said.
Uncle Auggie nodded. “Good.”
“So any chance I’ll have my skirting up before Thanksgiving?
He scowled. “I sure can try. Have to find it first.”
My phone started vibrating and I checked it, expecting it to be my mother again. It was my sister. I gave my uncle an apologetic glance. “I have to take this.”
“I’ll take a quick walk about, see what’s what, then go see if I can scare up Ernie and your underpinning.”
“Thanks, Uncle Auggie.” I transitioned smoothly into the call. “Hey Sis.”
“Hey,” she said. “Where you been? I’ve been calling.”
“I’ve been moving,” I reminded her.
“Oh yeah. All done?”
“Nope. And Uncle Auggie’s lost my underpinning.”
She laughed. “Ernie sold it to buy weed, I’m sure.”
I laughed with her. “Probably so. Or traded it straight across.”
Then her voice changed and I should’ve known what was coming. “So … what time’s dinner Thursday?”
“I told Mama two but to come whenever.”
“Okay. I’ve got my plus one sorted out.”
I felt the front end of my exasperation sigh coming on. “You’re bringing a plus one, too?”
And how she answered it, her tone of voice and even the volume, told me everything I needed to know. I was being plotted against by my own family. “Oh, are Mama and Bobby bringing plus ones, too? I hadn’t heard.”
“Oh goodness,” she said, as if she hadn’t known all along.
“Yes,” I said. “So who are you bringing?”
“Johnny Alvin. Remember him?”
I did, vaguely. He was a few years ahead of us in high school. He drove a sky-blue 1973 Ford Maverick with a 351 Windsor engine and glass pack muffler and listened to a lot of Rush. “Is he still delivering pizzas for the Pizza Shack?”
I could hear the pride in her voice. “No, ma’am. He’s assistant manager now. Though he’s studying mortuary science at night and interning down at Drummond’s Funeral Parlor.”
“Mortuary science?”
My sister sometimes mistook surprise for ignorance and answered accordingly. “You know, dead people stuff. Embalming. Funeral directing.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. She’d gotten the first two in there. Steady work. Ambition. I decided to help her out. “I’m sure he cleans up well, too. Probably has himself a black suit.”
“Oh yes,” she said.
“Good. You’ll both be very happy together. And I just want you to know I’m fine with you bringing your new boyfriend to Thanksgiving dinner. I’m sure we’ll all love him.”
She was still sputtering when I told her I’d see them Thursday and hung up.
Uncle Auggie let himself out of the trailer as I slipped the phone back into my pocket. “Everything’s working,” he said. “Heat, water, electric.” He took a light jump on the porch. “Everything’s solid, too.”
He’d put half the trailers into the Shady Grove Mobile Home Park over the last thirty years. Mine was the newest, though it wasn’t brand new. Just new to me and new to the park. He’d helped me find it and then he’d moved it for me at a price we both could live with. “I sure do appreciate it, Uncle Auggie.”
He tipped his hat. “Thank you for your service to our great nation.”
I tipped my own ballcap back. “And yours.” He’d served in Vietnam. He’d not been excited to see a niece joining up, much less going overseas into that clusterfuck but now that I was home, he talked to me differently, looked at me differently. Respectfully.
“I’ll see to that underpinning,” he said as he climbed into his truck.
The phone vibrated in my pocket again. But I knew who it was. My brother. Calling about his plus one. Though I don’t think Mama or my sister had any idea just how different a direction my brother had taken things.
By the time we were off the phone, I was pretty sure Thursday was going to be both hysterically fun and maybe the worst Thanksgiving of my life all at the same time. I had no idea, truly.
When I got back into the trailer, it was already filling with smoke and a terrible stench that made my eyes water as I ran into the kitchen gagging.
Something had gone badly wrong with great Granny’s pie.
Of course, I saw that as the least of my problems and fed the burnt offering to the park’s community pig before locking up and heading back into town for another load of boxes.
And again, I had no idea, truly. But that damn pig sure was happy about his pie.
I spent Wednesday unpacking and making pies.
I thought about last year and how I was making pies then, too, down at the mess hall. After cleaning my rifle. I’d been in for two years and had already saved up enough for the trailer. I was working on setting aside enough park fees and taxes to keep my costs down while I used that GI Bill and figured out my own sense of purpose.
Last year, I was shot in the ass on Thanksgiving morning. This year, it looked I’d be ambushed by my family and their good intentions.
And Mama wasn’t letting up. Her voice boomed in my Bluetooth while I broke down the empty boxes. “And he’s such a polite young man,” she said, lauding another of Pastor Frank’s many shining attributes.
I ran the cutter down the line of tape and loved the power I felt collapsing the box upon itself. “I’m sure he is, Mama.”
“And the board’s really happy with his work. I expect he’ll be getting a raise soon.”
I put the flattened cardboard onto the stack and picked up another box. “I’m sure he will, Mama.” I decided to have some fun with it all. “So it sounds like Johnny Alvin turned out fine and dandy. I’m real happy for Jessie Lynn. You think they’ll get married?”
Mama sounded like she was choking. She didn’t say anything. I couldn’t resist; I just kept straight on. “Say,” I said, “Pastor Frank could do the service. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Mama found her wits and her words. “I don’t think Jessie Lynn’s all that smitten with Johnny.”
“Oh,” I said in my most incredulous tone. “Why I can’t imagine why she’d bring him around to Thanksgiving if she wasn’t.”
I picked up the stack of flattened boxes and moved across the shag carpet to the front door. “Well,” Mama said, “I’m sure she’s just being kind-hearted.”
“I’m sure she is,” I said. Now, I navigated the steps down. I’d awakened to an inch of snow and now more was drifting down slowly, dusting the driveway and lawns.
Mama changed the subject quickly. “So how did Great Granny’s Grateful Pie turn out?”
I glanced at the pig’s pen as she asked. I couldn’t see him in there. “It didn’t,” I said. “Went to the pig.”
“You have a pig?”
“Folk at the trailer park share one. Cuts down on the trash bill.”
She snorted. “You’re coming up in the world.”
I ignored the sarcasm. “It’s okay. I’m making more pie. But Great Granny’s was a loss.” Her pie was put together from her own butter crust recipe—this year was Jessie Lynn’s turn—from ingredients that still grew wild up in the holler where her shack squatted, abandoned now, in a dilapidated heap. It had been a Thanksgiving tradition all the way back to the days of outhouses and dirt roads. There was no time for a do-over on this one so I was substituting with sweet potato, pecan and pumpkin from recipes I’d learned cooking mess for Uncle Sam.
“It won’t be Thanksgiving without Granny’s pie.”
“It was Thanksgiving for the pig.” I dropped the boxes into the recycling dumpster and headed back across the lot. “Besides something smelled awful in that one.”
Walking back, I noticed the gate to the pen was open. “Well,” Mama said, “at least the pig enjoyed it.”
I wandered toward the pen. The pig was nowhere to be seen. “Shit. I think the pig’s run off.”
Mama chuckled again. “I better let you go chase it down and get back to the rolls. We’ll see you Thursday. Wear something pretty.” She thought about it. “And proper,” she added.
I rolled my eyes at the phone. “I will. And we can check Pastor Frank’s calendar for a June wedding. I think Johnny and Jessie Lynn are going to be real happy together.” Now, I smiled. “Oh, and Mama?”
“Yes, Kay Ann?”
“Did you hear about Bobby? Ends up he’s got himself a plus one, too.”
“Oh really?”
“New girl at the college. Dana Evans. From Illinois I think.”
I could hear the stammering before it started. “Dana Evans? I thought he was bringing Tommy—” She caught herself and backed up. “I thought he’d mentioned that his friend Tommy Ray needed a place to go this year.”
“I don’t know about that,” I told her. “But maybe two of your kids have finally found true love.” I grinned into the phone and hoped she could hear it. “Maybe Pastor Frank can pull off a double June wedding.”
Of course, I didn’t bother telling Mama what I already suspected about Bobby’s plus one. It was better letting her think that maybe her baby boy was bringing a true plus one to Thanksgiving rather than someone to set her oldest daughter up with. It was going to be too fun letting her discover the truth for herself.
“I’ll see you Thursday, Mama. Sure do love you.”
“Sure do love
you, too.”
I paused at the bottom of my porch and glanced back to the pig pen again. Shivering against the cold in my brown army t-shirt, I started off toward the manager’s trailer.
Hank Summers was standing by his shed with a shovel as I approached. “I think the pig’s run off,” I said.
He shook his head. “Nope. He’d dead. Just buried him.”
“That’s a shame,” I said. “What got him?”
Hank shrugged. “Don’t know. Something he ate, I reckon, though that pig sure could eat.”
The big man’s lower lip started to quiver and I wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m sorry about your pig, Mr. Summers.”
Now his eyes filled up with water. “Oh, Wilbur was everyone’s pig.”
I blinked. “You named him Wilbur?”
He nodded.
I wasn’t sure what else to say so I apologized again and then went back to my trailer and the last of the boxes. I tried not to think about Wilbur again but later in the day, bagging up the leftover scraps of sweet potato peels and apple peels, I thought of him again. I glanced again to his pen as I trudged across the gathering snow and wondered if maybe it had been Great Granny’s pie that did him in.
If so, that pig might’ve saved my life. And maybe the lives of my family and their respective plus ones. I wasn’t certain of my gratitude regarding this salvation.
I dumped the bag of cuttings into the trash and turned back to my trailer and its open door in time to see something small and filthy come snarling around the corner, ramming full force into the tire of a parked truck. It fell over in the snow and growled before scrambling back to its feet.
It was a pig. And not just any pig, but the pig. Wilbur.
“Hey!”
I saw Hank coming around the same corner, huffing and puffing, with a length of looped rope in his hands.
The pig was off and running again, this time smacking into the wood skirting of trailer next to mine.
“Stop that pig,” Hank yelled.
As if seeing me, Wilbur growled again and launched himself in my direction. And something about him didn’t look right. It might’ve been the bloody foam around his snout or the glassy stare of its little pig-eyes. I side-stepped him and listened to the satisfying clunk of the pig’s head striking the metal dumpster and falling over again.
A Fantastic Holiday Season Page 16