by Brian Hodge
“What about him?” Rolly replied rhetorically, checking his gun to make sure the safety was off. “If he don’t have enough sense to defend himself, he ain’t our problem. If we want to get out of this, we’re going to have to worry about ourselves.”
It’s like that weird comic strip, Mason thought as he studied the ground below for signs of attack. What in the hell was that called? The Far Side. The one where the animals were always talking like humans.
“You know something, Mason?” Rolly asked, a crooked smile on his face. “One can’t help but recognize the irony in this situation, us being hunters and all.”
Mason laughed aloud and Weasel looked up at them curiously. “That’s why I like you, Rolly. No matter how bad things get, you never lose your sense of humor. You lost two wives—your brother was killed last year in that motorcycle accident, Get’s dead. Your mama—”
“Uh, Mason, just now might not be a good time to bring up Mama, may she rest in peace.”
“Sorry, Rolly, I—” he looked down, and bit his tongue. He ignored the pain and the rivulet of blood that seeped down his chin.
A spiked buck and a black bear strolled into the clearing like two friends out for a romp, the bear walking on its two hind legs like a human. Weasel began to chuckle, clapping his hands with glee. He placed a hotdog upon a stick and held it out to his new ‘friends.’
“Bambi want some pig?” he asked, giggling.
The deer leaned down and smelled the proffered gift, recoiling in almost human disgust. It glanced at the bear, who, with a quick swipe of its paw, removed Weasel’s hand, sending it slapping sickeningly into the trunk of the tree that Mason and Rolly were hiding in. Weasel screamed once and then stopped as his throat was removed an instant later. The wet fountain of blood hissed red into the campfire as Weasel, a split second later, joined it, his hair crackling as his skull caught fire.
“Ixtli!” shouted the deer. “Ixtli trat!”
“So what’s ‘trat’ mean?” asked Rolly giving their position away.
“I bet it means Die redneck,” replied Mason, switching aim back and forth from one target to another, unable to decide which to kill first. Rolly solved the problem.
The bear looked up at them and roared, falling over, its head exploding in a spray of red mist.
“Take that you Yogi Bear motherfucker!” Rolly shouted from his branch. “You and Boo Boo ain’t gonna be stealin’ the picnic baskets around Yellowstone anymore, are ya!”
“Ixtli!” the deer shrieked and vanished back into the woods. Mason eyed Rolly, studying his friend. That last line about Yogi Bear was a bit much, even considering the situation.
Rolly glared back at Mason with wild eyes and a huge shit-eating grin. “Hey, Hey, Boo Boo!” He shouted out hysterically. Suddenly, he stopped, his face serious once again. “I just figured out something, Mason.”
“What’s that?” Mason asked, staring at his friend cautiously.
“Bears can climb trees.”
“The bear’s dead, Rolly,” said Mason, his worry over his friend’s sanity escalating.
“Ever read Goldilocks? Everyone knows there’s three bears. We got one earlier. I just killed me one, now. That leaves one more,” Rolly began giggling, sounding eerily like Weasel. “And I bet we taste just fucking right. Human porridge. That’s what we are Mason. Human fuckin’ porridge.”
Mason nodded gravely at his funny farm bound friend. He looked down and patted his shotgun. “Well, he’s not going to be climbing this tree, I can tell you that.”
“Shhh!” Rolly hissed. “Here they come again.”
What looked like the same spiked buck walked into the clearing, this time followed by three others and two bears. As the animals began to talk amongst themselves in that strange language, Rolly elbowed Mason. “See,” he whispered too loudly. “I told you there was three.” His smile was too wide, too happy, too insane.
“Don’t shoot at them,” Mason suggested with a whisper as Rolly nodded. “Maybe they’ll go away after awhile. They may not know we’re here.”
Suddenly, Rolly, who had been shifting position, fell to the ground with a shriek and a loud whooompf.
The animal’s conversation suddenly stopped as each turned and regarded Rolly, sprawled in a lump of arms and legs. There was a few seconds of complete silence before the animals looked over at him and began to cackle, their bodies shaking with mysterious hilarity. It was the scariest sound that Mason had ever heard.
The bear was on Rolly in a second, a mass of fur, swinging claws and blood sprays. It was then that he finally screamed; a thin whine that went up and up until it was replaced by the wet sounds of the bears feeding on flesh. Mason watched as Rolly’s head, still wearing the John Deere hat, rolled against the broken body of Get, a look of utter surprise still on the unmarred face.
The deer watched, like an audience at a ball game, every once in awhile speaking to each other and breaking out into laughter that sounded like a mixture of a human and a cat. Mason, who had been almost invisible among the leaves and kudzu, leaned down on the branch to relieve the ache in his arm and then watched with queasy fascination as his cigarette lighter fell to the ground below, hitting with an audible thud.
The animals all stopped moving at once. In an almost slow motion maneuver they all looked up, piercing Mason with their hate. He felt the urine run into his jeans with a hot rush, soaking and warming his crotch. He opened fire with his shotgun, getting two deer and a bear before he ran out of ammunition.
“Jesus wept,” Mason whispered, dropping his empty gun to the ground below. “Now what?”
The animals were pouring into the clearing. A pack of wolves, several slim red foxes, a dozen or so squirrels, three white rabbits, a trio of chipmunks and a huge white possum that appeared to swagger with each step. They began to circle the campfire in a strange dance, bumping and grinding, playful bites mixed with nips and barks of glee.
“I’m fucked.”
Mason watched, wishing he had written that great novel, or a book of short stories. Hell, he would have settled on being the best graffiti artist in town; ‘cause he saw that one of the bears had reached into the campfire and was now holding a flaming brand before him, the flames licking promisingly into the air.
“Smoky and his buddies have just discovered fire,” Mason said to his dead friends. He couldn’t help but smile, despite the situation.
“People don’t start forest fires. Animals do,” Mason growled madly in his best Smoky the Bear impression. It was the last thing he said.
BLOOD SAMPLES
Tales of Horror, Crime, and Dark Fantasy
By Jay Bonansinga
“Animal Rites” originally appeared in Cemetery Dance #22, (C) 1995 CD Publications; “Necrotica” originally appeared in GRUE Magazine #17, (C) 1995 Hell’s Kitchen Productions; “Big Bust at Herbert Hoover High” originally appeared in It Came from the Drive-In, (C) 1996, Daw Books; “Obituary Mambo” originally appeared in GRUE Magazine #13, (C) 1991, Hell’s Kitchen Productions; “Glory Hand in the Soft City” originally appeared in Future Crime, © 1999, Daw Books; “Deal Memo” originally appeared in Candy in the Dumpster, © 2006, Dark Arts Books; “Mama” originally appeared in Blood and Donuts, © 2001, 11th Hour Productions; “The Panic Switch” originally appeared in Cemetery Dance #39; “There’s Somebody Down Here Wants to Talk to You” originally appeared in These Guns for Hire, © 2006, Big Earth Publishing/Bleak House Books; “Due Date” originally appeared in Flesh & Blood Magazine; “Stash” originally appeared in Cemetery Dance #44; “Black Celebration” originally appeared in Miskatonic University, © 1996, DAW Books; “Burdette Steagal’s Barber Shop and Smoke Emporium” originally appeared in Amazing Stories – February 2005; “Mole” originally appeared in Shivers 6 © 2010 by CD Publications; “The Beaumont Prophecy” originally appeared in Spooks © 2004 by 11th Hour Productions; “The True Cause of the Great Depression” originally appeared in Die Spannendstein Weihnachtsrimms, German edition on
ly, 2008, Wunderlich Books; “The Butcher’s Kingdom” originally appeared on line, © 2006, Amazon.com, Amazon Shorts; “The Miniaturist” originally appeared in Hardcover, 2011, CD Publications, Signature Series #8: The Miniaturist; all other text © 2012 by Jay Bonansinga/BonaVision.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
I. THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC
ANIMAL RITES
BLACK CELEBRATION
STEAGAL’S BARBER SHOP AND SMOKE EMPORIUM
II. THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT
THE PANIC SWITCH
DEAL MEMO
MOLE
III. KINK
NECROTICA
BIG BUST AT HERBERT HOOVER HIGH
STASH
IV. HAUNTED
THE BEAUMONT PROPHECY
OBITUARY MAMBO
DUE DATE
V. NOIR
MAMA
SOMEBODY DOWN HERE WANTS TO TALK TO YOU
GLORY HAND IN THE SOFT CITY
VI. NOVELLAS
THE BUTCHER’S KINGDOM
THE MINIATURIST
THE TRUE CAUSE OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION
NOTES
FOREWORD
“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” The words are Mark Twain’s but they get at something I have always felt down to my bones. The novel is my home. I feel most comfortable inhabiting its 75 to 100 thousand square word domain. And we’re not talking mansions here. Most of my novels are modest ranch homes with maybe one and a half baths, a fireplace perhaps, some decent paneling in the basement, and perhaps an above ground pool in back. Some of them are sleek and well built, like a sturdy Frank Lloyd Wright prairie special. Others are as awkward and wobbly as an old double-wide trailer. But they’re all my natural habitat. I can spread out in them. Walk around in my stockinged feet. Rest easy most nights.
Short stories, on the other hand – not to mention poems — are small, handmade shelters in the wilderness. Tepees on the edge of the frontier. Bivouacs on the side of dangerous cliffs. They’re small and lean and spare, and geared toward the rugged individualist. Perhaps that’s why I so deeply admire those outdoorsy types who brave the elements in their Spartan little strongholds, making very little money, building it for the sheer joy of the medium — especially those authors who are seasoned explorers in the territories known as The Genres. I think some of the best writing in the English language has been done in the short genre story. From Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” to Poe’s “The Telltale Heart,” the short horror story pushes a button in the psyche unlike any other medium. The short horror tale is designed for the campfire, the wee hours of night, the lizard’s ear.
From H.P. Lovecraft to Ray Bradbury to Harlan Ellison to Clive Barker, these pioneers in the speculative frontier have been at their most eloquent and powerful in that taut, clean, sharp-as-a-diamond area between about 2 and 7 thousand words. Their works have shaped my life as a writer, influenced me beyond words, and can be found coursing through the DNA of the following short tales in this collection.
Are my little puppies in this same league? Not hardly. But many of the stories you are about to sample do answer the one question that I’ve always felt defines good short fiction: How personal is the writing?
The answer in the case of this volume is, Very.
Consider this foreword your invitation to crawl inside my little pup tents and spend the night. But watch out for bear traps. And stay away from those spiders. And don’t mind those distant howls. They’re just coyotes… I think. In any event: Welcome to my little shadowy homes-away-from- home.
I hope you enjoy your stay.
Jay Bonansinga
Evanston, Illinois
I. THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC
“Black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. Casual curses are the most effective.”
— William S. Burroughs
ANIMAL RITES
Stirring awake, Daddy Norbert found himself tied to a moldy Lazy Boy in the tool shed out back of the garage. Head felt like a rusty nail had been driven into it. Something sticky was digging into his belly. Would have rubbed his pus-bleary eyes, but he found his big calloused mitts hog-tied to the springs beneath him.
“Whylmmmphrump?” Daddy’s query was sabotaged by stupid lips.
“Good!” The voice popped out of the shadows like a firecracker. “You’re comin’ awake.”
“lllliihhsh?” Although Daddy’s mouth was still asleep, his eyes were sharpening, beginning to make out a faint figure before him.
“Takes it a spell to wear off,” the voice said.
Daddy Norbert blinked. “Lizzy… ? That you?”
“Yessir.”
“The hell is going on?!”
Stone silence.
Daddy Norbert blinked some more, and started putting things together. His teenage stepdaughter Lizabeth must have slipped him a mickey back at the house and dragged him out here to the tool shed. Girl was seriously wrong in the head. Been that way ever since her mama died. Getting skinnier and skinnier, messin’ with that faggotty colored boy up to Little Rock.
Now the girl must’ve gone stark raving screwy. Crouching in the shadows across from Daddy, fiddling with something that sounded like a tin cup with a nail in it. Girl was crazy as a cross-eyed loon.
“Almost ready,” the voice finally said. “Just hold your horses.”
“What in the wide friggin’ world of sports is going on?!”
“Be still.”
“What did you slip me, girl?”
“Called Tranxene. It’s temporary, so just shut up and sit still for a minute.”
“Don’t you sass me!”
Skinny little bitch didn’t even react, just kept on working with that rattling box of metal. Daddy’s eyes were adjusting to the dark. He could see strips of old duct tape wrapped around his massive girth. Something leather was holding his head in place like blinders on a plough horse. Smelled like wet dog fur.
Daddy swallowed hard. “Lizzy why you doin’ this?”
“It’s a secret.”
“Whattya mean, secret?”
“You’ll see.”
“I’m sorry,” he told her all of a sudden. His bowels were beginning to burn, his mouth going dry as wheat meal. It was dawning on him, this girl could very easily hurt him. Maybe hurt him a lot. “I’m sorry for what I did to you and your mama. You hear me? I’m tellin’ ya how sorry I am.”
No answer.
“Lizzy?”
She switched on the light.
The sudden glare of an old aluminum scoop light exploded across the shed. Blinking fitfully, Daddy saw the shriveled carcasses splayed across his work bench to his left. His future projects. Parts of a rabbit, a young fox, the hind end of a bobcat. Rusty traps were arrayed across the walls. Behind him, mounted on a shim of hardwood, a deer looked on, its lifeless eyes glimmering.
Daddy looked down at Lizzy and drew in a sudden breath.
She was on the floor, securing one of Daddy’s favorite guns, a custom Roberts rifle, into a weird contraption of metal and wood. Looked like a spring loaded skeet shooter. The rattling sound that Daddy had heard must’ve been the bullet. Lizzy was loading a .219 Zipper into the gun’s chamber. The Zipper was Daddy’s favorite brand. A 90-grain, heavy powder compression load, the bullet would take down an adult Elk bull at two hundred yards.
The barrel of the rifle had a bead drawn right smack dab on Daddy.
“Now hold on, child!” Daddy Norbert started breathing hard, fighting his restraints, electric current shooting up his spine. Fear made his sphincter contract. “Yyyyyyyyyyyou ain’t gonna shoot me just simmer down now!”
“There,” Lizzy said softly to herself, finishing the load as though she had just put a cake in the oven. She stood up and gazed at Daddy emotionlessly, her eyes rimmed in dark circles. She looked like a person who had just come home from a funeral. Drained and wrung out. She was holding a jury-rigged triggering device the pull-st
ring from an old push mower. It was tethered to the Roberts. Underneath Lizzy’s sleeveless blouse, a tank top had the letters P.E.T.A. imprinted on it. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Daddy had never seen that before.
“Taste it?” she calmly asked him. “The fear?”
“Let-let-let-let-lllet go of that thing,” Daddy stammered, “we can talk this out.”
“Like the deer?” She bored her gaze into him. “You talk things over with the deer?”
“Wwwwwwaitwaitwaitwait! Just tell me wwwwwwwwhat you want me to do? You want me to say I’m sorry? I’m sorry!
Awright? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
Lizzy didn’t answer. Instead, she closed her eyes, bowed her head, and began mouthing a secret litany. Daddy Norbert started to say something else, but he stopped abruptly when he saw the objects in her other hand. Lizzy was grasping a handful of objects twined together with string. Sprigs of herbs or weeds or some other kind of nonsense that her Jamaican boyfriend had probably given her. Strands of hair, human hair maybe. A silk ribbon, a bookmark from Lizzy’s old Concordance bible, and some other strands of unidentifiable fabric. But none of it currently seemed as important, or made as much of an impression on Daddy Norbert, as the tiny black objects hanging from the bottom of the thing.
The broken beads of her dead mother’s rosary.
“Hold the phone!” Daddy Norbert barked at her. “You ain’t mad about no deer! You’re still steamed about your goddamned ma! For God’s sake, it ain’t my fault she up and died! Already told you a million times, I’m sorry I hit her! You’d think I planted the goddamn cancer in her goddamn cervix myself! It weren’t my fault! Now Lizzy, just stop it! STOP IT RIGHT NOW!”