Now I can't say for sure what thoughts raced through his mind, but knowin' Bo as well as I do, I can imagine what he was thinkin'. First of all he'd be surprised that none of the Bowman family had been responsible for the slaughter of his best friend and brother, Clint Pixley. I also know that he'd be wrong on that account. He'd also be thinkin' 'bout that beautiful widow his brother was leaving behind. Especially her with no money and a baby possibly on the way. It deserved a daddy to raise it. And he most decidedly would be tryin' to figure how he could make all this right again. All the while he'd be wondering how in the hell he was going to get his batch of moonshine loaded in the car because, face it, if he didn't get it loaded up and run tonight, it would be near suicide to do so tomorrow. The hills would be crawling with authorities and hunters, including himself, looking for the animal that had killed Clint Pixley.
Bo said, “Holy shit.” He glanced around again. He needed to flee the vicinity. Whatever had killed his brother was big and it could be anywhere. “I'm sorry, Clint. Don't you worry,” he said as he fished the car key out of his brother's blood-soaked jeans. “I'll look after Annie for you.” He closed his brother's eyelids before resuming, albeit much more quickly, his trek to the black Ford coupe.
Bo, flashlight beam leading the way, threaded his way through the woods. His heart thundered in his chest. Brush slapped against his legs while sapling branches whipped across his face. He'd catch some scratches along the way but he refused to slow. He did, however, stop to listen when yet another howl rode the wind.
The sound had originated on his right. The road ran parallel to him on the left. The animal was close. Too damn close. In fact, he could now smell the beast. It smelled like a wet dog, with fetid breath and a coppery scent of blood. Clint's blood. Dripping from muzzle and fur.
Bo ran. He jumped a ditch and raced for the road. There, he could make better time. Within a few minutes he would reach the safety of the car.
If he made it in time.
Arms pumped, legs stretched, lungs burned. He could barely make out the Ford around a curve through the trees. Moonlight glinting off glass. But he could also hear it now, crashing through the woods, undoubtedly closing in on him from the right. Curiosity (if not downright fear) forced him to splash light on the beast.
It loped through the woods with great dexterity; and when it leaped an obstacle, which it did twice, before it resumed traveling on all fours, it would race along several steps on its hind legs. When it did, it stood taller than Bo. Most bizarre, though, shreds of fabric clung to the beast, in what appeared to be ragged clothing.
Bo, terrified, fired his .38 and missed. The furry thing did not slow. If anything, it ran faster, its elongated muzzle gnashing jaws, flashing fangs. Pure hatred burned in its eyes.
Unable to outrun it, Bo stopped still, planted his feet, and took aim. His only chance of survival depended on hitting the animal. The snub-nosed revolver practically required a pointblank shot. So Bo, steeling himself against unfathomable terror, began squeezing off shots one-handed while holding the flashlight. Bullets hit the beast twice, once in the chest as it leaped, another in the side as it collided with Bo. The flashlight went rolling away as the thing bore down on him. The last thing Bo Pixley saw was the full moon laughing down at him through unbelievably long claws before they came slashing down across his face. Warm breath followed by piercing pain touched his throat as it ripped open.
And that, friend, is the real story of the the Moonshine Massacre. Wild animals, despite what locals might believe, didn't kill those Pixley boys. Bowman boys didn't cook that batch of moonshine they sold days later in St. Louis. No backwoods miracle cure treated Joe Bowman's arm. And most of all, Joe didn't die in a hunting accident a month later. Sure, he died from a gunshot wound, but I'm telling you now, I shot that son-of-a-bitch on purpose. With a silver bullet.
Iphigenia
By Gary A. Braunbeck
Gary A. Braunbeck is a prolific author who writes mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mainstream literature. He is the author of 24 books -- evenly divided between novels and short-story collections; his fiction has been translated into Japanese, French, Italian, Russian, German, Czech, and Polish. Nearly 200 of his short stories have appeared in various publications.
He was born in Newark, Ohio; the city that serves as the model for the fictitious Cedar Hill in many of his novels and stories. The Cedar Hill stories are collected in Graveyard People, Home Before Dark, and the forthcoming The Carnival Within, all published by Earthling Books.
Gary is an adjunct professor at Seton Hill University, Pennsylvania, where he teaches in an innovative MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction.
His work is often praised for its depth of emotion and characterization, as well as for its refusal to adhere to any genre tropes; some joke that the term "cross-genre fiction" may have been invented to describe his work -- a rumor he does everything in his power to propagate.
“It’s dying without death and accomplishing nothing
To waver thus
In the dark belly of cramped misfortune.”
--Agrippa d’Aubigne
He was checking the seat numbers on the tickets when he heard Mrs. Williamson scream.
"Donny! Watch out!"
He looked down in time to see seven-month-old Julie crawl into his path, her body so low to the ground it would be easy to step on her fragile skull and crush it all over the sidewalk. He pulled back in mid-stride and fell back-first onto the pavement, cursing both the pain and the memory of his sister -- which found him as soon as the cement knocked the air from his lungs. After a moment he managed to push himself up on his elbows to see little Julie--sitting up now-- look at him and giggle, a thin trickle of saliva dribbling off her chin. She looked so cute, so safe.
Safe. With someone to watch over her. Protect her. Trusting was easy when you were that young. Trusting was fun.
So little Julie was giggling.
As Mrs. Williamson ran up to her daughter Donald wondered if, at the very instant of her death, Jennifer Ann had giggled, too, thinking the whole thing somewhat funny, when you Got Right Down To It.
Then he remembered the sound of screams echoing off the stone walls.
And he began to shake.
"You should pay more attention to where you're walking, Donald Banks. You could've --" Her words cut off when she caught sight of Donald's pale and terrified face.
"Donny?" She reached out to touch his arm but he scooted away from her, crossing his arms in front of his face, his shaking worse than before.
"Oh, God...I'm...I'm sorry, Mrs. Williamson, really I am. I should've been...been looking. I'm really s-s-s-s-sorry. Is she all right?" He winced at the sound of his stuttering; it was the first time he'd lapsed back into it since--
--since--
-- since little Julie was giggling then things must be all right, because Mrs. Williamson had the baby in her arms now and was stroking the back of her head.
"Julie's fine. Christ, calm down, will you? No big deal, no harm done. I don't see why you're so --" Once again she cut herself off.
Donald looked up and saw it register on her face; the memory of the police car, of sitting up with his mother while he and his father went to the morgue, of the funeral, the closed casket, all of it.
For a moment she went pale, also.
"Oh, Donny, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to yell like that, I just panicked.
He rose unsteadily to his feet and gathered up the four concert tickets, very much aware of the neighbors who were staring at them from front porches or from behind windows. Donald could feel their eyes drilling into his back, watching him, perhaps holding their breath, waiting.
Expectantly.
"It's okay, Mrs. W-W-W-Williamson. I'm just glad she's okay."
The woman smiled at him, then took her daughter and began walking back toward her home. Donald pulled in a few deep breaths, hoping that the stuttering would stop once he calmed down. He con
tinued in the direction of his house, all the while feeling his neck crawl with the stares of his neighbors.
Maybe they knew. Maybe they sensed it, somehow.
For just a moment there, even with the memory of Jennifer Ann pulsing through him, for just a fraction of a moment before he jerked back and fell, a part of him -- a silent, ignoble part -- had wanted to bear down on little Julie's skull with all his weight and grind her head into the pavement, just to know what it felt like, just to know how it must've felt to all those people, they had to have something when it happened, didn't they, had to know that they were stomping out the life of another human being, and he'd wondered ever since that night what it must feel like to sense a person's head being mashed under your foot, and for just a fraction of a moment there he could've found --
-- his chest started pounding and he slowed his pace. His arms were shaking with such force he could feel it in his teeth.
His temples were pounding.
He thought he might vomit. He looked back to make sure little Julie and her mother were safely inside their home, where no expectant eyes could harm them. He took a few more deep breaths, managed to steady himself, then walked on home, all the time telling himself that he'd just been angered and frightened for that fraction of a moment, that he'd never consciously hurt anyone.
Never.
He hoped his father was asleep by now. Nothing would be dredged up then; about Jennifer Ann's death, about that night at the arena, about his mother's suicide six months after Jennifer's funeral, pleaseGod nothing. Donald couldn't stand it when his father went off on one of his “You- Know-You’re-All-I've-Got-Left" tangents, tangents that never ended well for either of them. He shook his head. Two years. Two years and still his father spent his weekends in front of the television set, drinking himself into a coma, hearing without listening, watching without seeing, talking to people who were no longer there; then, on Sunday night, he'd rouse himself enough to shower, dress for work, pack his bucket, and leave at three a.m. to fill himself with factory foulness for the next eleven-and-a-half hours, come home, eat a little something, drink a lot of something, then collapse for five or six hours, just long enough to give his broken existence a breather before he got up and did it all over again. The thought made Donald wince. Donald Banks loved his father, even with all the man's faults, but there was nothing he could do for the pain the man was in, and it was killing both of them.
A suddenly empty house, a suddenly empty life, a suddenly empty batch of dreams; dreams nurtured for a family of four, revised for a family of three, abandoned for a family of two. The house was just a coffin waiting for the dirt.
Donald reached up and rubbed his eyes, still aware of a few neighbors staring at him.
All because Jennifer Ann had wanted to come along to the concert; because she was only eight and still thought that everything Big Brother did was so goddamned terrific, because My Big Brother Donny's The Bestest--
He paused by the front door, staring at the tickets in his hand.
A small insect was crawling across the porch. It paused by his foot, its feelers searching for him. Checking him out.
"How's it g-g-g-goin --"
Goddammit!
He slammed his foot down on the thing.
And twisted.
He turned away to see some of the neighbors backing away from their windows, no longer staring. He felt their eyes drop away, satisfied.
Stepping through the front door, Donald saw his father heading upstairs, a quart bottle of beer in his hand. He was dressed only in his underwear and his body, once looming and powerful, had given way to a sickening coat of flab over the last few years. His hair was tangled, making the heavy streaks of grey so much more predominate, and his eyes were so bloodshot Donald could barely see the pupils.
"Hi ‘ya," whispered his father. "I was just... goin' up to bed. Shift was a bitch."
"You look pretty b-bushed," said Donald. He caught a moment of hesitation on his father's face, a moment where the man must have asked himself if he'd heard his son right; did the boy stutter again? No, that couldn't be, he hadn't done that for ages, and he only stuttered during the Crazy Time when all the doctors thought he might try to kill himself, and when the stuttering went away so did the Craziness, because his boy was fine now, and fine boys didn't go away forever because they knew they were all you had left in the whole...
"I, uh... I am,” said his dad. “I’m... pretty tired."
They stared at one another for a moment, Donald watching his father's eyes fill with something he recognized but could not name. These were the moments that tore Donald up inside; they'd never had all that much to talk about before, and now that it was just the two of them any attempted conversation was nothing short of torturous. They both tried so damn hard. And they shouldn't have had to.
"How'd that test go?"
"Which one?" His father ran a shaking hand through his tangled hair.
"I, uh, don’t... you know, that one? That one you was so worried about."
"Greek Mythology?"
''Yeah."
"I did fine."
His father gave a smile. A very small one. "That's good."
Donald could feel his stomach tightening. His father blinked a few times, then gave a nod of his head. "That's...that's good. I hate to see you...y’know, worry."
Donald looked away, feeling something hot behind his eyes.
"I'd better hit the sack," said his father. The phone was ringing in the kitchen. When Donald spoke again he did it very, very slowly, not taking any chances the Craziness would come back.
"You look pretty tired," he said. So far, so good. He took a step toward the kitchen. "Good night."
"...‘night," whispered his father, turning on the stairs and slowly making his way up. Donald vanished into the kitchen as quickly as he could, grateful that he'd been spared the sight of his father stumbling away. He answered the phone. It was Laura.
"Hey, sexy," she said. "You get the tickets?"
"Yeah, no problem."
"Good seats?"
"The guy’s a scalper, of course they’re good seats--they ought to be, for what we paid for them.”
“Where are they?”
“Tenth row, main floor."
"That's great! Main floor!" Donald found the sound of her enthusiasm unnerving. Jennifer had been excited, too.
"Jim and Theresa'll flip!"
"I hope not," said Donald. "Jim's d-d-driving." He bit into his lip and cursed under his breath. On the other end he heard Laura take a small breath.
"Donny? Is everything all right?" He took several deep breaths again, trying to calm himself. It did no good to let it get the best of you, that's what the Craziness fed on. He swallowed, released his breath slowly, and spoke again.
"Everything's fine. Really. I’m just a little...nervous."
"Don't be," said Laura. "We'll stay together, all of us, and everything'll be fine."
"Listen, Laura, I really gotta tell you, it's been...I, I mean...I 'm not real sure that I'm up for this."
"You are, you know it."
"It's just that...Dad's not looking real good and--"
"He never does," said Laura. That caught Donald off-guard. He and Laura had been dating for over a year now, and in all that time she'd never once made any remark about his father; she'd listened to him about Jennifer, about his mom and dad, but never once had she --
"What's that supposed to m-mean?" He bit his tongue.
"It means you have to stop blaming yourself, Donny. There's nothing you can do for him, and the sooner you let go of that the better you'll feel."
"What about him, huh? What about the way he feels?"
"Don't start in on me, Donny. I know you care about him, but I care about you. Can we drop this, please?”
"Yeah. Sorry." He heard her silence see the smile of relief on her face.
"Good," she said. "We'll pick you up at six." He thought he heard his father laughing. Maybe it was laughing.
"See you then," he said.
"Donny?"
"What?"
"You're okay. Everything's okay. You lived--that’s nothing to feel guilty about."
He smiled, said good-bye, and hung up. She was right, she was always right, he just had to relax, had to think about what he had now, not what he'd lost, he just had to--
He caught sight of Jennifer's picture on the hall table. Second grade, dress, black shoes, chubby cheeks, stupid-cute grin. The burning behind his eyes worsened.
"Ah...hell," he whispered.
He hurried up to his room, where he closed the door and sat on his bed, cursing his trembling arms.
From across the hall he could hear his father talking, heard his mother's name mentioned once or twice.
He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the chill left from the neighbors' stares.
He removed his shoe and looked at the remains of the insect he'd crushed.
He looked across his room at the small statuette of Perseus brandishing Medusa's head.
"Why don't you really exist?” he whispered to it. "Why couldn't you have been there, huh? Tell me that, Purse. Why couldn’t you have swept down on ole Pegasus and pulled her out of it? Once they opened the doors she never had a chance. I just couldn't...keep h-h-hold..." He looked away from the statue and down at his hands.
They were still shaking.
He heard his father drop something and curse.
He remembered Mrs. Williamson's scream and wondered -- as he always did whenever the memory assaulted him -- if Jennifer Ann had called his name, believing that Big Bestest Brother would swoop down and save her.
But the crowd had been too big, had waited for too long in weather that was too cold --
-- and Jennifer should've let him pick her up and hold her like he wanted, but she said no because it made her feel like a baby --
-- and he should've been paying more attention to her when the crowd started to push --
Widowmakers: A Benefit Anthology of Dark Fiction Page 40