She’s in the kitchen one day, running the faucet, knife in hand, peeling a peach. She’s losing hair from the chemo. It never dawns on you how bad it is not only to have cancer, but to know you earned it from the stress of dealing with your husband who also has cancer and who hides in his room, never bothering to check on his wife who’s caught cancer from him like the goddamned flu.
Anyway, she’s in the kitchen, peeling that peach, and you want to talk, to share with her how you’re feeling.
“If it’s so bad, just go back to Birmingham. No one said you had to move home,” she says, and her voice is cold and foreign. Not the Mom who kissed your tears away or held you close after your first dog got hit by a car.
There are words you want to say, aching words that fill you up like a helium balloon and make you come off the floor. You choke on them and something inside you snaps because she doesn’t know how much you’ve given up for her.
You lose control. The balloon is airborne, no ceiling to hold it near the earth. It flies toward the hateful sun. And you close your eyes and let it take you.
What can make you hurt this much?
Mom and Dad.
You can’t see anything except your anger.
When you come to your senses, you are on the floor in the hallway. Your hands and arms hurt from pounding on the carpet with your fists.
Your mother looks at you as if she doesn’t recognize you anymore.
It gets worse before it gets better.
Scene 3
The moon is out tonight, full and bright and it sees you sitting in the car at the park, drinking your slushy.
You and William. Planning the trip.
“Memphis,” William says. “That’s the first stop.”
“Beale Street,” you say. “You ever been there?”
“No. Arkansas after that. Little Rock. You think Alfred’s going to come?”
“He’d better.”
“What if he backs out?”
“Then we’ll go without his sorry ass. His loss, missing the trip of a lifetime.”
William nods and tosses his half-consumed slushy out the window. You watch the moon, never wondering what will come after the trip. Perhaps you assume it will never end, or there will be other trips to equal it or maybe it is like a salve, and once rubbed, it will cool all of your scrapes and cuts and make them recede so not even the scars remain.
“Lubbock,” William is saying. “We’ll see the Hidey-Ho where Buddy Holly played his first show. Then we’ll hit New Mexico . . .”
You decide to remember this night forever.
Scene 4
At work, there’s a woman over by soundtracks who needs help. You help. She talks to you for a long time about Bette Midler. You don’t bother to listen. Instead you think about the Grand Canyon, and the summer. You think about moving back to Birmingham. You think about your friends. You don’t think about your mother.
The lady buys six CDs. Leartis, the shift manager, checks her out and tells you to vacuum. “We’re closing early tonight,” he says. “I got a gig.”
You vacuum.
And think about the Grand Canyon. When Leartis goes to the back, you put on the Jayhawks. Tomorrow the Green Grass. It’s kind of become like your theme song. Except it’s the whole album. Listening to it makes you sad and happy at the same time. As long as there’s happy, you think, as the opening chords of “Blue” ring out across the store, you can deal with sad.
Leartis comes back out and locks the door. It’s fifteen minutes until ten. He doesn’t care.
You don’t either. You vacuum. And think about the Grand Canyon.
You’ve been home almost five months.
Scene 5
Mom is better. The cancer is gone. Radiation, chemo, surgery. It all worked. Three months cancer free.
Mom is better.
After the trip, you’ll move back to Birmingham for good.
Mom is better.
Tomorrow the green grass.
Scene 6
Memphis, The Ozarks in the rain, and now Red Rock Canyon State Park in Oklahoma. You grill hamburgers and hike. You go to sleep in a tent before eight o’clock, listening to the sounds of freedom and the rest of your life rolling out in front of you like a galaxy of stars, unending and bright with promise and mystery.
If you think of Mom, it is only a brief, half-formed thought, and it gets lost in the steady summer thrum of cicadas and bullfrogs.
And anyway, she’s better now.
Scene 7
You buy a postcard at a gas station on the side of the road somewhere west of Monument Valley. The picture on front shows a stark view of Monument Valley at sunset. Plateaus are shrouded in shadow, as the sun burns like a photograph flash beneath heavy gray clouds. You write
Mom,
Yes, the views here are really this beautiful. We are having a blast. So far the highlight was Red Rock Canyon in Oklahoma. Being here makes me so thankful you have your life back. One day, when you get stronger, I am going to bring you out here. I promise.
Love,
John
Scene 8
You hike down three miles. Your legs are strong, your canteen full. Life may work out after all.
“Should we be thinking of heading back?” Alfred says. He’s the smart one. Valedictorian. Med school.
“We’ll be all right,” William says. He’s like you: tall, dark haired. More interested in sports than grades.
You agree. “Further,” you say, though your legs are finally beginning to ache, and your back hurts beneath the weight of your pack.
Maybe you sense the half-way point looming near. The ninth day on a seventeen day trip. Middle of the day. Middle of the hike. When you turn around, you’ll be moving away from the Grand Canyon, moving into the rest of your life. It scares the shit out of you.
You keep walking.
Finally, William gets winded and you turn around, start the journey back to the top, back to your life.
Now, it gets tough, and though you had been warned again and again, hiking down was the easy part and how it would be wise to turn back before you start feeling tired, you’re still surprised when the uphill grind kicks in, and your legs go dead and you begin to doubt yourself.
Alfred sits down to rest, sweat pouring down the sides of his face. He grimaces and unstraps his pack.
“I can’t carry it anymore,” he says. “I got to rest.”
William paces. He’s always got such energy.
“I’ll carry it,” you say and pick up Alfred’s pack.
Ten minutes later, when the sun tops out overhead and your legs have turned to jelly around your bones, you wonder why you are always trying to carry so much.
Scene 10
You are thankful for the dark when you hang up the phone. William and Alfred do not see the tears that streak your face. Silently, you pull your shoes and shorts on. You leave the motel room without speaking.
The night greets you with a blast of warm air. Music and voices from the Riverwalk drift up to the third floor where you stand looking at the Space Needle as it towers over the city.
You walk, half hoping some happy person will approach you and demand to know why you have been crying, why your face is so broken and distraught, why your fists are clenched at the ends of you arms like tiny coiled hearts. You don’t care about anything. You walk to the river.
Couples stroll by, laughing and smiling. Your life is over. “Over!” you want to scream. But you don’t. You keep walking.
After a while you hope you are lost. After a while it is easier to get mugged or killed or abducted than to go back to that motel room and the rest of your sorry life.
Because your dad is dying of cancer and Mom had cancer and it went away but then she had a stroke because
it came back in her brain, and oh shit. . . .
Just keep walking.
A long tunnel off the Riverwalk opens on your right. You turn into it without thinking. It’s empty. Steps loom in front of you. You take them two at a time. On the other side you see a man wearing a trench coat, unshaven, with big, glazed eyes. They see you.
You keep walking. Maybe he’ll have a gun. Or a knife. Or maybe he’ll grab you and take you to his house and beat and torture you. Or . . .
But he staggers past, trying to focus on his own journey, trying not to fall. And you, you do the same.
When you return, at last, to the motel room, the one overlooking the Alamo, William and Alfred are sitting on the bed. They’ve waited up for you.
You tell them about the stroke. She can’t speak. Probably from a tumour in the brain.
But they know all of this, already.
William’s father has called. You’re due at the airport at six. Your flight back to Dannelly Field in Montgomery leaves at seven.
Tomorrow you begin your new life.
Scene 11
She’s frail. Like a baby. When she speaks, her voice sticks on the same word: “Just, just, just . . .” It is like the beginning of a plea: Just help me please, just make it go away, just let me be healthy again, just, just, just... Or perhaps it is justice she wants. Lord knows she deserves it. Living with Dad had been hell on her, but she never wavered, never complained, always put him and the children before herself. And where, exactly, had it gotten her?
You hold her hand. Tell her it will be okay. You tell her she beat cancer once, she will beat it again. It’s a lie. She knows it, but maybe she thinks you believe it. That would be something.
“Just . . .” She wants to speak, but her brain will not send the words.
You tell her the doctors say this is normal right after a stroke. It takes months, they say, to regain verbal skills.
You neglect to tell her she’s only got six left to live.
“I’m going to move back to be with you,” you whisper. She strokes your hair.
This cancer will be efficient, the doctors say, speaking in solemn, almost reverent tones.
Chemo won’t help.
Radiation?
No, no.
Surgery?
Out of the question. Best to let her ease into that good night with as little pain as possible. She’ll need prescriptions of valium, ambien, Demerol, all the drugs that make you forget you have cancer.
You try to understand the words they say.
You’ll want to bring a hospital bed in, of course, and contact hospice. Yes, you’ll want to do that immediately.
You hear all of this, but all you comprehend is Mom is dying. Mom is dying.
Scene 12
You are somewhere in the middle of the fourth month, listening to your mother breathe and murmur over a baby monitor. You’re in the den. Mom’s in her room. She’s had her meds. Maybe she’ll sleep.
Dad’s in his room, too. The television too loud. He’s watching a war movie. Everybody’s dying.
Mom’s voice comes over the monitor, a whisper hidden among the static and buzz of voices from some house a block or so over, where enthusiastic voices cheer Junior as he rolls over or sits up or maybe experiences gas with a satisfied smile. But Mom’s voice grips you. The static drops away until you hear her voice like a clear bell chiming out the secrets of the universe. You listen to a prayer.
She prays, not for herself, wasted to bone by cancer, but for her children. Three of them: Reg, John, and Anne. She calls them by name, prays for their lives when she is gone. She never asks God for her own.
There is a lesson here.
Scene 13
All day long, you know. The hospice nurse, Lou, arrives at nine that morning and tells you to be ready because today will be the day.
“She’s not eating,” you say.
“That’s because she’s not hungry,” the nurse says.
“I just want her to be comfortable.”
“Don’t worry.”
But you worry because that’s all you have now.
Around four that afternoon, somebody suggests it would be good for all of the children to go in one at a time and say goodbye. Reg first, followed by Anne. You watch as they both come out red faced and swollen-eyed.
It is your turn. The room is dark, the shades drawn. Mom can’t speak anymore. You sit beside her bed, hold her hand and talk.
At first the words won’t come, but then they flow more easily and you are telling her everything you always wanted to tell her. You tell her no one else ever mattered in your life like her. You tell her you believe in heaven and God because of her. You tell her you will do everything you can to live a life that honours her.
Finally you break and lay your head on her emaciated belly. Her hands find your hair and caress it in a way you will always remember, and through the long days and nights that follow without her love, you will miss this caress more than anything else. There is communication in her fingers. They speak to you in a way that makes words irrelevant.
When you leave her, she is still. You go to your father’s room and tell him it’s his turn.
He looks at you for a moment, perplexed, before he rises and slowly makes his way down the hall.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
These stories represent about five years of my life. Best I can recall, the first of them was “Chicken,” which I finished in 2006, and the last of them was “The Best Part” (finished in October of 2011). Along the way, I had a lot of help and met a lot of nice people who were willing to accept me and my ragged batch of stories unconditionally. The most important of these are the people in my writing group—Sam W. Anderson, Kim Despins, Kurt Dinan, Petra Miller, and Erik Williams. These five read most of these stories numerous times and were instrumental in helping me get from first draft to something ready to send out into the world. I owe you guys a huge debt.
And now, a list of others who helped out in one way or another: Laird Barron, Jason Bickell, Doug Clegg, Ron Currie, Ellen Datlow, Boyd Harris, John Hornor Jacobs, Joey Kennedy, John Langan, Nick Mamatas, Alfred Newman, John Rector, Mary Rees, William “Hank” Richardson, Ian Rogers, Erik Smetana, Ben Stokes, Paul Tremblay (thanks for answering all the emails!), Kevin Wallis, and Lawrence Wharton (Larry, I hope this book reaches you).
I’d also like to thank Brett Savory, Sandra Kasturi, and my editor, Helen Marshall. Brett and Sandra—thanks for taking a chance on me and for all the love you put into the process. Helen—wow, you’re amazing. You made these stories so much better.
Thanks to Danny Evarts and Erik Mohr for the gorgeous art. You guys “got” the stories, and it shows.
Also, I’d be remiss not to mention my fabulous agent, Beth Fleisher. Thanks for all of your hard work, Beth.
And last, a resounding note of appreciation to Becky, my wife. You’ve been so incredibly generous to allow me the space and time to write. It takes a special person to be married to an aspiring writer, especially one as single-minded and stubborn as I can often be. Thanks for being that person again and again.
PUBLICATION HISTORY
“Halloween Comes to County Rd. Seven” originally appeared in Thuglit (May/June, 2009).
“The Water Tower” originally appeared in Fantasy Magazine (July, 2009); reprinted in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror (2010, Prime).
“Long Fall into Nothing” originally appeared in Crime Factory, Issue 6 (May, 2011)
“Shoebox Train Wreck” originally appeared in Haunted Legends (2010, Tor).
“Walk the Wheat” originally appeared in On Spec, Issue 80 (Spring, 2010).
“On the Mountain” originally appeared in Shroud, Issue 4 (Fall, 2008).
“Chicken” originally appeared in Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Is
sue 0 (Spring, 2007).
“Litany” originally appeared in Shimmer, Issue 3 (Spring, 2006).
“This is Where the Road Ends” originally appeared in Tales from the Yellow Rose Diner and Fill Station (2011, Sideshow Press).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Mantooth is an award-winning author whose short stories have been recognized in numerous year’s best anthologies. His short fiction has been published in Fantasy Magazine, Crime Factory, Thuglit, and the Bram Stoker Award-winning anthology, Haunted Legends (Tor, 2010), among others.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Danny Evarts is an illustrator, editor and graphic designer, and currently holds down the role of Art Director and Technical Editor for Shroud Publishing. He has been attempting to perfect his obsession with layout and design since the mid-1980s. Danny abandoned a career in journalistic and fiction writing in the early ’90s as he came to realize that his visions were better suited to illustration, first for underground magazines and mini-comics. He soon fell in love with relief printmaking, and after a brief stint as a designer in the music industry, his works—most often original prints made through carving into wood or linoleum—now pepper the pages of books and magazines. He is also the illustrator of the Unchildren's Book It's Okay to be a Zombie, and is fomenting further adventures in this series alongside many other projects. Danny lives with his partner in the Maine woods, where they spend most of their time working on their property and fleeing from irate wildlife.
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