by Brian Hodge
Jimmy Lee grinned and practiced his aim on the dozens of crosses the women had painted on the outhouse during the special ceremony they’d had on Ash Wednesday. Some of the crosses he didn’t even recognize, but he’d heard they were ancient and never really used anymore.
“... and so to this day, we always build an outhouse after every battle and the day after Easter is nothin’ but one long party. And it was all ‘cause of your Grandpa, God rest his soul.”
He remembered last year’s party when he and Annie Whitmire had snuck up the slope with their own jug and she had showed him her titties. Even let him touch them — once. He tried to spy her out on the opposite slope, but couldn’t see her anywhere. She was up there though. She had to be. Everyone was. It was the agreement. They was tellin’ the same story over there, being as this was The Tellin’ Time.
“Jimmy Lee?”
“Yeah, Granny,” said the blonde boy.
“See that sassyfras down there? It’s blockin’ your Granny’s aim a bit. Think you can scoot down there and make it go away?
“Be too easy, Granny,” said Jimmy Lee. He laid his rifle aside and readied himself for the run.
“Don’t you let them Whitmire’s get the best of you boy,” said Granny Wheaton eyeing along the blue-metal of the old .44 caliber pistol she held in a two-handed grip.
Jimmy Lee jumped up, his machete held tightly in his left hand, and leapt over the log they were hiding behind. He skipped down the embankment screeching a rebel yell, sending even the most curious squirrel back up and into its nest in fear of being the next tail on a hat. Momentum and gravity soon sent him ass-over-tea-kettle through the sapling sassafras and hip-high ferns. He finally tumbled to a stop, upside down and grinning against the side of the wooden outhouse, somehow managing not to slice off an arm or a leg or an ear with the machete he’d managed to hold onto.
On the other side of the ravine, Granny spied young Quinten Whitmire loping down to meet her grandson, a Louisville slugger swinging in great arcs over his head as he made his way to the bottom.
“Quinten,” she yelled. “You get your scrawny ass back up there and leave my grandson be or I’m gonna put a hole in you that even your Ma can’t sew up.”
“You harm my boy and I’m gonna do the same to you,” came a shriek from the other side of the ravine.
Quinten had almost reached the bottom and even Granny could see the poor boy’s too-close-together eyes dance with excitement. She knew that what he lacked in smarts, he more than made up for in size. Jimmy Lee had scrambled a third of the way back up the hill and was already hacking at the arm-sized trunk of the sassafras that was blocking his Granny’s sight-picture. It was amazing it had grown up so large in a year. Must have been all that shit that made it grow so fast.
Quinten yelled and launched himself up the hill at Jimmy Lee just as the machete separated the slender trunk. Jimmy Lee grabbed the unwieldy bush and hurled it back into the face of his onrushing cousin, then turned and began scrambling back up the slope toward Granny. Quinten was faster and surer of foot, though. He planted his boot in the center of Jimmy Lee’s back and lifted the Louisville Slugger above his head. He was preparing to bring it down when it exploded in a shower of nasty, sharp fragments. The sound of Granny’s shot caught up to it a moment later. Quinten staggered back a few steps, giving Jimmy Lee the chance to crest the hill in a rush, slipping breathlessly beside Granny.
“Quinten!” came the shriek from across the ravine.
The big boy turned and fell to his knees, his hand going first to his throat, then his chest, before his head bounced softly on the loamy earth.
“My boy. You shot my boy!”
Over two dozen men and women popped up from behind the bushes and trees on the other side of the ravine and fired. The thunderous cavalcade of buckshot, subsonic lead and high-powered bullets sliced through branches, bark and logs. Splinters and huge chunks of wood flew from the front of the large log Granny and Jimmy Lee were hunched behind. The fusillade lasted a full half a minute before it finally stopped. Echoes of the assault reverberated back and forth within the ravine until they finally slipped away, leaving only the sound of falling leaves and branches.
From behind a large boulder came a tall man dressed in a black turn-of-the-century priest’s robe, which fit tightly from shoulders to hips, flaring like a dress to the ground.
“Stop this nonsense, you fools. Look. The boy’s fine.”
All eyes went to Quinten, who was dusting the leaves off his pants and picking up the fragments of his bat. They watched as he stacked the broken segments, like pieces of kindling, in the crux of an arm and headed back up his family’s side of the ravine.
Granny chuckled and spit out a thin stream of tobacco spit. “If I was gonna shoot the boy, Gladys, I would have shot him. You know I don’t miss.”
Gladys rushed out from behind her tree and met her son as he crested the rise.
“You okay, boy?”
“Yeah,” said the boy with a wide, toothless grin.
“Don’t yeah me, boy. And don’t you scare your ma like that again.”
The smack of Gladdys’s hand on Quinten’s face sounded like another gunshot, bringing out every hidden cousin on both sides of the ravine — almost a hundred people aiming weapons and hateful grins at each other.
“Enough of this. Jacob, you over there?” said the priest, standing imperiously behind Granny.
“Sure am, David,” said an identically dressed man from the Whitmire side.
“Then let’s get this started. It’s almost time anyway,” David said eyeing the outhouse fearfully. He cleared his throat and climbed onto the log. Men, women and children knelt and lowered their heads solemnly. David cleared his throat one more time and eyed the kneeling figures of the families before he began.
“Our Lord God has once again brought these two families together in his time of need. By his great wisdom and divine understanding, he selected these clans for a higher purpose. A purpose that has caused them to, for a short time, lay aside their differences and their hates. A purpose that holds the fate of the world as hostage. A purpose that has brought these two mighty tribes here this day to fight evil as one family. Let us pray... ”
Jacob continued from the other side, his voice carrying clearly in the crisp mountain air.
“Dear Lord, bless us as we, your humble servants, are about to embark on a mission of destruction.”
“Lord hear our prayer,” came the reply from every mouth.
“Dear Lord, bless us on the day of your Son’s death, for the great weakness of the human spirit that has crippled the barriers between this, your holy place and the other unnameable one.”
“Lord, hear our prayer.”
“Dear Lord, bless us on this day of rejuvenation and give us the strength to conquer the great evil.”
“May the Lord be with us.”
From both sides, everyone stood and moved to their respective priest who laid hands on each person, each weapon, until even the smallest child had received the blessing. Then as one, all trained their weapons on the lonely outhouse hunched on the empty floor of the ravine and waited.
The first indication was when the birds and the bugs and even the cicadas fell silent. Then it was ten more minutes of waiting, where the loudest sound was your own heartbeat and every trigger finger quivered in anticipation.
Suddenly, the entire outhouse began rattling for what seemed a full minute, threatening to burst the boards. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stilled.
Jimmy Lee peered down the length of his 30-30.
He wasn’t aiming at the outhouse. He had his own sector to shoot in at the base of their side of the ravine. And if any of them evil bastards entered it, he was gonna make them wish they hadn’t.
The door flew off its hinges with a loud shriek and the tiny ones poured through. They were about two feet high and hard as hell to hit. When they landed on the ground, they shrieked like crows and headed in ever
y direction. From the corner of his vision, Jimmy Lee figured there must have been at least a hundred of the little bastards. The first several shots rang out, but Jimmy Lee didn’t look. Ten of the little devils were heading towards his sector and he felt his lips go dry.
The sounds of gunfire increased and Jimmy Lee added his own beat to the deadly staccato song. He worked the lever of the old rifle like a wild-west cowboy, taking the first in the head, the second in the throat and the third in the stomach. Each one threw up its tiny hands just like a real person. When the bullets passed through their tough little bodies, they were hurled back and black smelly shit bubbled out of their smoking husks. It was their blood and the thick stench was already drifting up and out of the killing ground.
Regular bullets didn’t work. They’d found that out the first battle and their lack of preparation had almost killed them and sent the hordes crawling across the Earth. It was the silver that had been soaking in holy water for nearly a week that did the damage.
Preacher Man said their bodies couldn’t take it.
Preacher Man said they was like werewolves that way.
Jimmy Lee missed with his next two shots, but found his aim again and brought five more down. When his sector was empty he stole a look at the rest of the battle and saw the little demons getting thrown back — twisting, dying and finally transforming into obscene piles of hell-spawned fertilizer.
Granny said it was what the white men did when they came that had started everything. She said the Injuns had been one with the land. And then the white men came and started killing everything and everyone. It was a Cherokee Chief that had finally gotten fed up and worked some strange magic. It was supposed to clear the white men out of the hills. And it did — but it also unleashed a demonic horde that killed everyone who had set foot in them for a hundred years. It was a long time before the land had finally been freed of Satan’s Horde.
A piercing scream erupted from the depths below the outhouse and Jimmy Lee winced, his ears threatening to pop. He tightened his grip on the Winchester and tried to keep his aim on his sector.
Finally, the roof splintered and blew apart as dozens of large winged creatures surged toward the sky. Their green skin was pulled tight over human-shaped bodies and oozed pus that fell back to the earth in sizzling patches, killing everything it touched. Their immense batwings glowed as the noon sun poured through them detailing each vein, artery and delicate bone.
Granny emptied her pistol into one attempting to fly over and drop its gelatinous acid. The creature fell with a multi-octave scream and Jimmy Lee joined his Granny in a smile at the satisfying crunch the ground provided the demon’s delicate, deadly structure. Granny jerked a speed loader from her cleavage and reloaded the smoking chambers. She shot a wad of tobacco spit toward the downed demon and rejoined the fray.
Across the ravine Ernie Whitmire was running in a circle, succeeding only in fanning the flames of his shirt. Beside him was a dead avian demon that had erupted into its own unholy bonfire. Jimmy Lee felt Granny’s hand push him low and he heard the explosion of the one she’d shot.
He yelled his thanks, then rose and took out two more of the little ones, who had been sneaking up the hill in a low crawl. They tumbled back down, turning into rolling mounds of shit before they squelched to a stop at the bottom.
Jimmy Lee heard a new humming below the gunfire and demonic screams. He shuddered and realized the Super Maggots were coming — big horkin’ maggots covered with ugly purple fur that were deceptively fast. “Like corn through a coon hound,” his Grandpa had said. They could squirm up to you and take your leg off with their acidic mucus before you even had chance to feel the pain. Jimmy Lee’s older brother, Josh, had lost an arm last year pulling one off his already-dead cousin, Odd Todd. And if you listened to their hum long enough, you were sure to become hypnotized. Preacher Man said it was like sonar — like what bats do.
The first Appalachian Cocktail arced through the air from the Whitmire side and hit the outhouse. The glass shattered and the crumbling wood was suddenly coated in a sheet of white-lightning fire. Soon the air was filled with dozens of the glistening bombs and the floor of the ravine was a lake of burning moonshine. Jimmy Lee stared as fifteen of the Super Maggots escaped and headed straight for the log he and Grandma were using as cover. He fired round after round into the hairy beasts until his chamber clicked empty. Cursing, he fumbled for his box of shells. He started reloading his last six as Granny and the rest of the clan alternated their fire from the air to the ground and back.
Without warning, Granny screamed and fell face first into the log, shattering the left side of her bifocals. Jimmy Lee swung his Winchester around and fired twice, downing the avian that had somehow made it through the barrage and dropped a handful of acid on Granny’s back. The dead avian fell behind Jimmy Lee and started smoking immediately. He rolled his body over his Granny’s and let the ground smother the fire on her back. He felt hope when he saw her chest move, but he had no time. He had to get Granny away before the avian exploded.
Jimmy Lee dropped his rifle, grabbed her under her arms and started pulling her backwards, wondering how the hell such a small woman weighed so damn much. He got only a few feet before he tripped and fell back hard, bouncing his head on the hard Tennessee clay. And then the humming became seriously louder.
Three worms suddenly appeared atop the log, their eyeless heads lifting as if smelling his incapacitation. Jimmy struggled to rise, but his Granny had fallen on his legs. He hunted desperately for the rifle and spied it laying by Granny’s feet — too far and out of reach. The worms descended hungrily, heading straight for the two of them.
Jimmy screamed like a girl.
A long black cloak brushed past, temporarily blocking his vision. The Preacher Man aimed from the hip and streams of holy water shot from the end of an orange and green Super Soaker. Each worm burst into a gout of purple fire as the Preacher Man screamed divine condemnation. Their savior fired until his plastic cannon was empty then paused to admire his handy work. Jimmy’s mouth, still opened in an unleashed scream, closed as the Preacher Man turned, winked and headed for another part of the battlefield — just a little too wild-eyed for a man of God.
There were four more waves of demons, but Jimmy Lee hadn’t seen them. Everyone was too busy and his Granny was weighing him down, so he had just lain there and prayed. He heard the Ground Pounders come, but they were such big targets that even his little six-year-old sister Suzy Lee had no trouble hitting one. She even stood on top of the log, firing her Uzi like she was a Middle Eastern-born rag-wearing terrorist. Since they couldn’t aim too good, the automatic weapons were always given to the little kids. And after Jimmy Lee shot Uncle John John in the ass that time, the kids were placed up front.
The sun had set hours ago and just a few still-smoking trees were the only signs of another successful battle; not to mention the hundreds of piles of shit that covered the ground like mines.
Jimmy Lee finally found Annie Whitmire. She was already a little tipsy and he grinned in anticipation. Maybe he’d get more than just a feel this year. Maybe they could roll in the weeds.
She stood in the growing crowd of cousins surrounding the brand new outhouse that had just been placed over the hole. About a dozen banjoes and at least three dulcimers were hammering out a version of Go Tell Aunt Rhodie. All the cousins wore different sized smiles — winning was never a sure thing. Everyone was relieved it was finally over.
A hush fell on the crowd and a path opened near Jimmy Lee. Granny walked stoically by, pausing to give him a big hug. She stood back and smiled and he felt warm pride well up in his body. She was proud of him for saving her. Everyone loved Granny, and no one more than him. Maybe they’d write a song about him. Maybe he’d be famous.
Jimmy Lee smiled back, then doubled over in pain as she sunk a tiny, hard fist into his stomach. As he gasped for breath and fell to one knee he heard her reprimand, “Never leave your rifle, boy.”
&nbs
p; The crowd erupted with laughter and all Jimmy Lee could do was grin sheepishly. Granny continued toward the outhouse, pausing only once to hitch up her gun belt then entered the small structure. It was her due as the oldest surviving member of the clans to consecrate the victory.
Uncle John John limped to the front of the door and raised his arms. The two clans silenced and waited solemnly.
Then, like the imperious voice of Satan himself came the clear, thunderous sound of his Granny. The noise of her defecation filled the ravine and surrounded the two clans in a warm embrace. The older ones remembering Grandpa Wheaton, nodded and smiled.
Granny exited with a hitch of her jeans and a face filled with pride. She received congratulations from Whitmire and Wheaton alike. This was the true end of The Feud. The line formed to the right and people started pushing and jockeying for position. Many had been saving up for days and were dancing with impacted plumbing. Jimmy Lee eyed the line and guessed he had at least a two-hour wait. He headed off for a jug of the Whitmire Special.
It wasn’t long before he saw Annie standing alone. She leaned against a tree trying to act innocent and vulnerable and coy. Jimmy Lee smiled a little drunkenly as he watched her twirl her long yellow pony-tails. His Granny had told him to watch out for this kind of stuff. He almost turned and left, but the memory of last year’s feel took control of his feet. Just then, however, Quinten stepped squarely in his path. Jimmy Lee watched as the bigger boy’s mouth struggled to form words.