Hark! the Herald Angels Scream

by Hark! the Herald Angels Scream (retail) (epub)

  “Nothing I could do if I wanted to,” Vernon said, his eyes still searching Gwen’s as if looking for some cryptic truth. Finally, gratefully, Gwen fell unconscious.

  To Kat’s right, Shep snagged the box from the table. Vernon sprawled to the floor and scrabbled behind Gwen as Shep wrestled the gun free of the box and clicked off the safety.

  “Stupid move, cowboy!” Vernon said.

  Shep aimed for Vernon’s voice and the reemerging arc of his head as it maneuvered to either of Gwen’s shoulders, popping up for a fraction of a second and then disappearing.

  “He’s got his gun out, bro!” warned Miguel. The words no sooner left his mouth when a shot snapped, and a red star blossomed on Miguel’s left cheek. He jolted upright in his chair, as if posing for a portrait, and then slowly slumped forward.

  “You fuck!” screamed Shep, steadying the Ruger with both hands.

  Vernon feinted to the right and then lunged left, putting Kat between them. Shep tried to draw a bead on him, but Vernon repeatedly bobbed from left to right over Kat’s shoulders.

  “Shoot him!” Kat, sure she’d be the next to die, surprised herself by slapping hard at Vernon’s gun hand. The little gun cracked a shot off before careening across the room and settling beneath the Christmas tree.

  Taken off guard, his expression unreadable, Vernon stood with his hands slightly raised. Shep held the Ruger steady, aimed at Vernon’s head, and pulled the trigger, but no shot rang out. Instead, Shep yelped in pain, threw the pistol to the ground, and brought his hand to his mouth.

  A smile spread across Vernon’s dementedly handsome face. He walked toward Shep and stooped to pick up the gun. Holding it with the handgrip toward the ceiling, he pressed the trigger, and a silver needle protruded from the handle directly behind the trigger.

  “I’m proud of this one…an old trick, making the trigger a syringe, but I machined it myself.” He patted Shep on the shoulder, though keeping safely behind him. “You’re in store for an ugly, painful death, cowboy, which really kind of pleases me after the screwing you gave me. Ever hear of an Eastern Brown Snake? Australia has the best critters. The venom is available on the black market, if you’re willing to cough up the cash. I was willing, so you’ll be dead within an hour.” He set the Ruger on the table.

  Gwen’s body released a shuddering paroxysm, and Kat hoped it was her last, for Gwen’s sake.

  “Three dead. Soon to be four. Two to go,” Vernon said.

  “They’ll find you,” Delanna said. “They’ll make the connections.”

  “No, they won’t,” Vernon said.

  His smug confidence disgusted Kat. She couldn’t believe she had once found it appealing. She recognized the certainty of her death, but she couldn’t accept the unfairness that her child would be cheated of a life. When she had told him of her pregnancy three months earlier, he had seemed so pleased and comforting. Beside her, Shep jerked in his seat. A fine sheen of sweat had formed on his brow.

  “Won’t you help him?” Kat asked.

  “Nope.”

  “And you’re willing to let your baby die?”

  Vernon gave a scoffing laugh. “That’s the reason you’re here…well, it was the final straw. I don’t want no fucking kid, and I know you wouldn’t let me walk away, like I wanted to. You’d demand money and other shit and make my life miserable, like the rest of these pricks have.”

  “Who are you?” Delanna said, the thought contorting her face. “You evil bastard. I hope you burn in Hell forever.”

  Vernon snorted. “Maybe if I believed in Hell.”

  “So you feel nothing,” said Kat.

  “Nada.” He gave a sarcastic sorry shrug.

  “And for me?” Kat asked.

  “Especially not for you,” Vernon said.

  “Prove it,” said Kat. “Kiss me.”

  “What?” asked Delanna, unbelieving.

  “I can’t even stand looking at you, why would I want to kiss you?” asked Vernon.

  “If you really don’t love me, kiss me and prove it has no effect on you. You know you still care.”

  Vernon searched her sad eyes and looked behind him. Gwen was no threat. Shep sat across from them, staring blankly forward, his chest rising and falling rapidly. On the table, out of either Shep’s or Kat’s reach, were the Ruger and the box cutter.

  “Fine,” Vernon said, too arrogant to refuse the challenge.

  Vernon pressed his lips to Kat’s and she spit heavily into his mouth. She simultaneously dropped her left hand and drove her balled right fist into his throat. Even though the chains enfeebled the blow, it worked. Vernon stumbled backward, the impact of her small fist causing him to swallow both her spit and the little capsule she had popped into her mouth.

  Vernon recoiled, shocked, disgusted, and clutching at his throat. He collided with Gwen, swerved around her chair, and staggered away from Kat, trying to cough. Leaning his left hand on the back of Gwen’s chair, he glared at Kat, who was spitting repeatedly onto the floor, praying she would be able to get rid of at least most of the residual poison.

  Vernon reached to gain his balance, but Shep, rattlesnake quick, grabbed his wrist and yanked, pulling him onto his lap. The Texan wrapped his arms tightly around Vernon, trapping him.

  “Can either of you get to the blade?” Shep asked, his face contorting with the effort, his body shaking.

  “Just hold him! He swallowed cyanide!” Kat said.

  “No shit?” Shep asked, managing a grin despite his struggle.

  “He’s reaching for the stun gun!” Kat warned, noticing Vernon’s fingers working at his jacket pocket.

  Shep clamped his teeth into Vernon’s shoulder and bit down hard. Rewarded with an agonized wail, he clenched harder and held Vernon until his breath became labored, his limbs twitched, and ultimately his body went limp. Shep let him slide to the floor.

  “How in the hell did you pull that off?” he asked.

  “I was counting on his ego and that he’d look to see if he could reach the box cutter, and he didn’t disappoint. That’s when I popped the pill.” She spat on the floor again.

  “I think you’ll be okay. Those were capsules and the poison’s inside,” Delanna said.

  Kat looked at the inert form of her fiancé sprawled on the floor and spit again. The betrayal, the emotions, and the utter horror of what had transpired finally grabbed hold of her and she burst into tears.

  “Shep, oh my God, are you okay? Is it starting to affect you?” Kat asked, guiltily pulling herself out of her grief and back to the present.

  Shep flexed his hand. “Got the nervous sweats and a little burn where the needle bit me, but feeling no worse for wear. I’m thinking Vernon got played by his black market friends. Either that or I’m nastier than that old snake. ’Course, he said an hour, so maybe it just hasn’t set in yet.”

  Kat pitched forward, bouncing her chair and herself toward the table in diminutive increments.

  Shep watched her for a moment, then asked, “Where you off to?”

  “The hacksaw,” Kat said. “Might not cut metal, but if it’ll cut a bone, it’ll cut wood. We got to get out of here and get you to a hospital.”

  The saw lay on the table in front of Gwen’s slumped form, but at the rate Kat was moving, it would remain there a while longer.

  Shep took up after Kat’s lead, bouncing forward in small hops toward the table.

  “Don’t! You’ll speed up your circulation!” Delanna warned him, and started bouncing toward the table, too, but Shep was quickly within reach of the box cutter and Ruger. Delanna and Kat both stopped bouncing.

  “I’m going to try to knock the saw closer to you,” Shep said to Kat. He took aim and slid the box cutter across the table. It careened off the side of the hacksaw, only managing to nudge it closer to Gwen. Delanna rolled her eyes, and
despite the nightmare they had endured, Shep laughed aloud.

  “Well, that wasn’t worth its weight in shit,” he said. “Hang on.”

  “You the one needs hanging on,” Delanna said.

  “I’m good,” Shep said. He repeated the process with the gun, which again missed the mark. “Fuck!” he shouted as the Ruger shot across the table, knocking the hacksaw even farther to the left.

  The gun plunged over the edge of the table, but Kat hooked the trigger guard with the tip of her ring finger in an impressive display of athleticism. She was saved from tumbling to the floor by the arm restraints, but not without a substantial dose of discomfort to right herself. Shuffling a bit closer to the table, she set the gun flat, aligned her sights, and pushed. The gun hit the intended target squarely, and the hacksaw ricocheted perfectly into Shep’s waiting hands.

  “Show-off,” said Shep.

  * * *

  —

  The saw was indeed dull. By the time Shep made the four cuts necessary to free him from the multiple binding points on the chair, his arms and hands shook and throbbed, and a clammy sweat covered his brow. He sat back to rest a moment.

  “Still feeling all right?” Kat asked.

  “Yeah.” He flexed his hand again. It felt weak and was still vibrating, but he attributed that to the sawing. “Maybe Vernon’s venom was a dud, after all.”

  “Clearly, after exerting like that,” Delanna said. “You’re a lucky guy.”

  Shep rose, flipped his chair, and freed the chain. Fighting a bout of vertigo from rising too fast, he gathered the restraint over his shoulder and asked, “Who next?”

  “Forget that! See if you can find a phone,” Kat said. “Call the police.”

  “Maybe there’s a better saw around here somewhere, too,” said Delanna.

  Shep looked at them and huffed. “Smart ladies,” he said.

  He headed for the kitchen; if there was a phone, it would be in there, he figured. Legs numbed from sitting too long, he stumbled through the doorway and scanned the room, which was cluttered in a haphazard way that was indicative of intrusion, not of residence.

  A computer backpack lay open on the counter beside an opened laptop. To the left of the laptop, near the door, a landline phone was mounted to the wall, and to the right, two open clamshell containers, one of them still half full of Chinese takeout food, an empty bottle of Corona, and a mostly full bottle of Diet Coke. Shep found this especially disconcerting.

  Dinner for two.

  He stood silently still and listened for evidence of another soul, then decided the best action was to get help as quickly as possible. As he reached for the phone, a sudden dizziness washed over him. He staggered to the counter, knocking the laptop’s mouse to the floor and awakening the computer display to a disturbing split-screen image of the dining room from either end, one facing Kat, the other facing Delanna. The cameras were black-and-white, which gave everything an ethereal, indistinct hue. The women’s eyes shone silver and Shep was taken by their vulnerability, chained to the chairs as they were.

  With a shaking hand, Shep lifted the handset, which slipped through his numbed fingers and fell to the countertop. His left leg defied him next, folding beneath him and dropping him to his knees in front of the laptop. The strength in his legs had diminished with unsettling speed, but it wasn’t his legs that stopped his effort to rise.

  On the small computer screen, Shep watched as a monochromic Delanna stood before Kat. Short lengths of untethered chain dangled from both of Delanna’s manacles, dragging across the tabletop as she picked up the box cutter.

  Shep corralled the phone handset closer to him and jabbed the break button. Once he heard the dial tone, he managed to depress 9-1-1 with barely responsive fingers.

  Ringing…

  On the screen, Delanna moved toward Kat. Shep’s chin hit the counter, and as he fell to the floor, awkwardly clutching the phone to his ear, Kat’s screams emanated from the dining room. He heard a voice that sounded miles away.

  “911, what’s your emergency?”

  HONOR THY MOTHER

  ANGELA SLATTER

  Snow is falling and Agnes is sure she can hear it whisper through the air and land with the softest of sighs on tree branches, cars, outdoor furniture, and on the layer of flakes already deposited on the ground. She loves how it looks, loves that there is a season that can be relied upon. Christmas in Salem will always be white.

  Everyone is here this year. She insisted. In the past, one or other of her sons would make the call, sheepish and apologetic: This time we’ll be with Jill’s family—or Amy’s or Rebecca’s. Next holiday season, Mum, we’ll come to you and bring the kids. We’ll stay a whole week, I promise, you’ll see.

  And in truth that one generally kept his word, but then another would fall by the wayside, calling while his wife waited in the background, not saying anything, but glaring, Agnes knew, as her boy’s voice faltered, made excuses. She wondered if her sons drew straws: Who would it be this year, freed of duty to Mother, so another could be done to Wife?

  Agnes peers out the tall window into her front yard. The blocks are large in this neighborhood, the houses vintage and venerable, all of them dragging their history through the centuries. It’s Salem, it’s always a witch: a witch lived here, a witch lived there. One appeared in the bedroom of this home, yet another disappeared up the chimney of that. This parlor was infested by dozens of glowing blue jellyfish, in that barn a spectral woman sat astride the beams and laughed as she rained nails down on the head of a man who’d offended her.

  Agnes’s house is conspicuous by its lack of witchy history. That’s why she chose it: without a past that’s both picturesque and grotesque, an abode garners no great interest from tourists; no one wants to see a place where neither witchcraft nor murder occurred. Others feel it as a lack—Agnes knows several of her neighbors have made up their own stories, and there’s a man in Boston, a fine forger, who’s happy enough to create “historical” documents to support their claims—but she’s never wanted anyone to knock on the door and ask to be shown the bewitched kitchen or spectral outhouse. She likes her privacy, knows it’s integral to her safety; her husband used to joke that if she could have got away with it, she’d have put a plaque on the front fence that read, “Nothing ever happened here.”

  The building is First Period, in the Chestnut Street District; on the outside it’s tidied and maintained in proper architectural style so no busybody can complain that she’s had it painted hot pink or added Gothic gables or an Italianate balcony. On the inside, however, it’s been renovated to within an inch of its life for maximum comfort; the decor is modern and she doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. Agnes has no love for antiques, finds them uncomfortable things to have around, and the chairs and lounges impossible to sit upon for long periods; forget sleeping in those beds! Such things gather too much dust and she’s got no love of excess housework. She’s seen the pinched lips on her daughters-in-law when they catch sight of the La-Z-Boys scattered through the house, but she doesn’t care; comfort above all. Agnes has always had her idiosyncrasies, and her late husband—she does miss him sometimes—was smart enough to give way in most things, which was probably why they got along so well.

  It doesn’t take night long to fall, and the sky has gone from pale blue to icy gray to black while she’s watched. Now there are just the tasteful luminous Christmas decorations (which strikes her as a contradiction in terms) on facades and in trees, and the expensive light fittings inside the houses across the street, which are dimmed, for she seems to be the only person in the neighborhood who likes them bright at night. She likes the darkness kept at bay. Mood lighting is, she thinks, the correct word for it; it puts her into a mood all right.

  In the front sitting room, she’s curled in an ungrandmotherly fashion in an armchair by the hearth. The Christmas tree, with mounds of pr
esents beneath, is in the corner, far enough away to avoid a similar meltdown to the one that had occurred forty or so years ago, when she and Phips were young, newly married, and inexperienced in the ways of tree placement. It had been a much smaller tree—they couldn’t afford much, having stretched themselves to buy the house, and she was only twenty-four hours away from giving birth to Brian—but, Lord! Didn’t it go up quickly? She chuckles at the thought of how fast Phips had got the damned thing out the window and into the snow.

  Then, the room was filled with acrid smoke from the presents that had been scorched; now there’s the scent of pine and wood smoke. The angel on the top of the tree scrapes the ceiling, and Agnes looks at it with fond mockery. The outfit is all wrong, she thinks. Flowing fabrics, buttons and bows: imagine flying in that. Besides, the wings are too small by far.

  From the kitchen at the back of the house comes the sounds of her daughters-in-law preparing a Christmas Eve meal, talking among themselves, whispering things they think she can’t hear—and she shouldn’t be able to, either—holding their little gathering of bitterness and bile. Complaining of how she’d won this year, how they’d much rather be with their own families; the irony of telling each other how much they didn’t want to be with each other was apparently lost. Agnes had got them here by abdicating her reign over the feast: she was an old woman, tired and alone, wouldn’t her good daughters come and help? Amy’s turkey will be dry, Rebecca’s fruit cake insufficiently alcoholic, Jill’s mashed potatoes lumpy and her sprouts bitter, but it doesn’t matter. The family is in full attendance: Brian and Adam and Bailey, little Walter, baby Phips, Adeline, Sarah, Abigail, Mercy, Talbot, and Erin. She likes the little ones, they’re still quite sweet, not yet soured by contact with their parents. They’re all here, she thinks.

  All those bearing her blood, and some who don’t.

  All those for whom she gave up everything.

  All here.

  * * *

  —

  “Mom?”