by Tim Curran
“It really fucked me up when I listened to it last night,” Chad explained with an enthusiasm Willy did not know him capable of. “I’m sure a lot of its effect is from knowing that these fuckers killed each other practically during the recording, but something about it gave me hope.”
“You mean ‘un-hope’.”
“I suppose that’s exactly what I mean. Un-hope for meaning to life. If I ever get good enough at guitar to record an album, you can be sure I’ll kill my band-mates. Shit, I’ll do it mid-recording so you can hear them screaming in the last track.”
“Just make sure you give me a copy before you do yourself in, you know I won’t be able to afford it.”
“Oh I won’t be offing myself. I owe Satan my life, and I’m pretty sure he wants me alive for it. By then I will completely be his instrument on earth. Suicide is no longer an option from me, since I refuse to take what is not mine.”
Willy brought the subject to a change, knowing that once you get Chad going on talk of Satan, his soul, life and the after-life, he would go on for the remainder of the walk.
“Sarah Clark talked to me today at lunch. “
“No shit?” Chad laughed. “You’ve been staring at that girl for how many years, and she finally noticed?”
“Actually, I think you finally noticed. She said you had Phys-Ed together.”
“Guilty. She insisted on talking. If I had to talk to someone, it sure wasn’t going to be about me. I told her about your obsession.”
“It’s not an obsession, asshole. It’s just the only fucking thing good in my life. Anyway, she says she wants to stop by and meet my horse.”
“Well look at you, gonna get some pussy are you?”
Willy scowled at Chad, and sighed away the immaturity. “Well, maybe the horse is.”
“Gross.”
The conversation was interrupted by some yelling behind them, as three kids on bikes were pedaling fast towards them.
“Fuck, it’s Tim.”
Tim Roper and his two goons, Mike and Greg twisted their bikes to a stop, spraying Chad and Willy with dirt. Tim was the first to spill shit from his mouth.
“Well, well, well… You fags haven’t found a good bush to fuck in yet?”
Tim, Mike and Greg were, simply put, bullies. They patrolled the roads after school, looking for people to fuck with. For a long time, Chad and Willy would take off-road trails to get home. Today, with the conversation more real than ever (not just about music), they hadn’t really been paying much attention to where they were walking.
Tim grabbed Willy by the collar.
“Give me that fucking player, keep your shitty headphones. If you got any money, you know the drill.”
Mike and Greg stood by, laughing, watching Chad for any movement. A minute went by and not one of them moved, but Chad was the next to speak.
“We’re still looking for the bush with your Mother in it. Get the fuck out of here.”
Tim drew back his right arm and pounded his fist into Willy’s eye. “Every word you say, faggot, gets Lil’ Will here a smack. Now hand over the shit.”
Willy, eyes clouded with tears, face throbbing, cast his glance at Chad, who shook his head and emptied his pockets. Willy handed over the music player, and assured the trio that he had no money. They were well aware of his situation, and did not disbelieve him. Chad gave them his last few bucks, and they gathered their bikes up and pedaled off in search of more victims.
“I think in the past we made it much further down the road before we had to change course. I guess they really wanted to see us.” Willy said through a shaky, pain-laden voice. “Let’s not fuck that up tomorrow.”
“First of all Will, I have an extra player you can have. And second, I will never stray from this road again for as long as I live, and if they pull this shit again tomorrow, I will fucking cut them.”
Willy wanted to remind his friend that he would probably never cut anyone, but wanted more to leave the whole thing behind him. The rest of their walk was uneventful, and only talk of music.
There was no homework that evening. In the time he would have allotted to his schoolwork, Willy was in a panic about a potential visit from Sarah, and his black eye. After an hour or so of cover-up attempts using his mother’s abandoned make-up, he decided that she would not be coming, and sat down in the kitchen to a bowl of beef-flavored Chinese noodles. She rang the doorbell after his third bite.
“What happened to your eye?”
“My eye? Oh, Chad and I exchanged some blows on the way home from school. It’s a boy thing, you should see the other guy. I suppose you are here to see Black Beauty, let me grab my coat.”
Black Beauty turned around in his stall at the scent of approaching carrot. Not a word passed between Willy and Sarah en route to the barn, and she was just as speechless when she stood before the massive horse, black as night. There was a slight gasp from Sarah, and Willy shivered with pride that his own horse could be so beautiful as to captivate such a girl.
“Will, she’s beautiful…” Sarah whispered.
“It’s still a he…”
“I’m sorry, I am just predisposed to thinking of horses as ‘she’. Plus, with a name like Black Beauty…”
“I was six, I saw the movie and wanted my own Black Beauty. He’s a boy in the movie. I don’t see how ‘Beauty’ makes it a girl’s name by default. Do you want to ride him?”
“Could I? It has been years since I have ridden, can She... He... hold us both?”
“Could he, yes. But he doesn’t want to. But you are welcome to a ride. There are trails all through the woods, B.B. knows them all.”
Sarah agreed and after Black Beauty was saddled, she climbed onto his back. Willy explained everything he could think of to make the ride a safe and pleasant one. He encouraged her to ride as long as she wanted, explaining that Black Beauty would come home when he was ready. Sarah, though giddy with excitement, looked down at Willy with a bit of disappointment, and said something that changed his whole life in a moment:
“You should also suppose that I came here to see you, Will. “
His horse and his favorite girl left him standing there, feeling the first bit of joy in his life that was not obtained from the back of the horse. He blushed and smiled, threw some metal on the speaker system in the barn, and cleaned up the stall.
Sarah was in a heightened state of enjoyment, like a dream you didn’t want to end. From the back of Black Beauty, she felt almost as though they were flying. It was a calm ride, for the horse was well aware of its rider and her comfort, though there were a few stretches he could not resist picking up the pace and jumping a stump here and there. There was a bond between the two, Sarah could feel it, and she tried her best to reciprocate the feeling to the horse.
The rain started about a half hour into the woods, but it didn’t slow Black Beauty, and so Sarah did not care. They were soaked, but both still enjoying themselves to the fullest. It wasn’t until another half hour or so that the trails became so muddy that Sarah noticed the horse’s difficulty traversing the paths.
At the point that they had been close enough to the edge of the forest to see a building, Sarah offered for the horse to wander off the trail, into a grass field. It was still difficult to manage, though nothing to the mud. Black Beauty picked up his pace a bit and pounded down tall blades of grass, until Sarah saw the road.
“There we go Beauty,” she told the horse, “get yourself on the road, and solid ground.”
The rain was coming down so thick and heavy at this point, though the sun was not yet set, the sky was nearly as dark as the dead of night. Visibility was limited to only a few feet in front of them as they reached the road, but Sarah could feel the relief in the horse as its hooves hit a more solid surface.
“Do you know which way is back? I bet you do.”
The horse never questioned direction, and set course for shelter. The biggest problem with the visibility, however, was that it also seriously affect
ed the oncoming truck.
Terry was lost in thought, taking in the similarities of this rainy night to the one when the tragic loss happened. His eyes were on the road, but his brain was preoccupied with flashbacks of the event so clear, it felt almost as if he had been driving the truck on the night past. More similar it became when he caught not a glimpse of the horse, but a buckle on the boot of the rider, and his reflex thrust his foot to the brake pad. However quick his response, his grill smashed into the legs of the mount, and its body came nearly through his windshield. The truck hit some thick grass a bit off the road, on that same curve not so long ago, where the grass matted previously had not yet managed to catch up in growth to its neighboring grass.
Shock grabbed Terry, and his head thumped the steering wheel. An indefinable amount of time went by before he remembered the shining buckle.
Black Beauty had tossed Sarah just before the impact, and when she hit the ground a few feet away, the wind was knocked from her chest and her lightheadedness kept her from reacting for a small time. She pulled her face out of the mud and coughed some sopping dirt from her mouth. When she put her arm down to prop herself up, it slid quickly along a muddy rock and brought her face slamming to the ground again. Between tears and the rain, she could see nothing. She lifted her head and screamed into the night sky. Rain washed the mud from around her eyes, though water leaked into her nasal passage and forced her coughing. She opened her eyes to find the lights of the truck shining on the body of Black Beauty, twisted and broken, face smashed, and most definitely, literally, lifeless.
When Terry finally did remember that it wasn’t just an animal he had hit, he pushed open his door and stumbled into the mud. He saw his lights on the horse, and shook his head. The horse was dead, and without its flesh to hold it together it would have been smashed into a hundred pieces. He quickly shook his sight around until he saw the girl in the road.
He helped her to her feet, and shook his head at another death on that curve.
Part 2: In the Mouth
In the pitch dark of the night, a goat lay writhing on a table-like rock, its legs bound together with duct tape. Two boys stand on either side of the rock, one armed with a book in one hand, a knife in the other.
Willy was always skeptical of Chad’s obsession with Satanism and occult rituals, but having been robbed of his only bond to a life worth living, he was willing to try anything to bring Black Beauty back. He missed two days of school before Chad realized how upset over the loss Willy actually was, despite Chad doing his best impression of cheer to liven the situation. Sarah made a visit on day two, a cast on one arm and stitches across her face, and did her best as well to convince Willy that all was not hopeless.
Here now, they stood, as Chad prepared to read from his texts, the same found in his brother’s closet just a week before. He knew it would work. He had devoted his life to evil within bounds of the law, and he knew that whatever dark forces were responsible would come to his aid this day. If not, he had done everything he could to help Willy, and would continue support. Willy was Chad’s Black Beauty, the only living being keeping him from withdrawing completely into loneliness, with hatred for all living things. Given the same situation, Chad would be out here in attempt to raise his friend, perhaps with a higher level of offering. Maybe a cheerleader tied up on the rock, instead of this screaming goat. For a moment, lost in this thought, Chad heard the wailing of the cheerleader, and something inside him sparked motivation to continue.
Black beauty lay in the sleep of absolute death on a tarp next to the rock. Willy cried next to him, anticipating the far shot that Chad’s ritual might succeed. Chad had lectured Willy a couple of times already on the topic of crying.
“We’re here, reaching out for help from all that is evil. You need to turn those tears into hate, Will. The demons will respond better to a ritual fueled by hatred or sin. They are not a very sympathetic bunch, and I fear the sadness will drive them off.”
Willy kept this in mind, of course, but the pain of seeing his greatest friend in its current state was too great. Every time he imagined putting a carrot to the mouth that was now lifelessly agape with a swollen tongue pushing at the teeth as if trying to escape, or the eyes that were filmed over with a cloudy, dry mucus that seemed to attract every buzzing fly in the county, he was unable to fight the sadness. He did make his best attempt for Chad, since he wanted to take this whole event as seriously as possible, in the unlikely event that it should succeed.
Chad performed his chanting, eyes rolled to the back of his head, a self inflicted cut across his forehead oozing blood across his face. The self-inflicted cut could have apparently been on the hand or anywhere, only a small amount of human blood was supposedly needed for this ceremony, but Chad was so deeply into his believed reality of the situation, he thought a more dangerous, severe cut would help convince the Un-Gods of his serious commitment.
His words were not of any language Willy recognized. The clouds above them seemed to close in as the ritual went on. Rain started again. There was more rain this year than Willy could ever remember, and gave him hope that the winter was cold and bleak. Since he spent most of his time indoors and alone, he appreciated the scenery outside when it looked inhabitable. When there was snow and ice covering leafless trees and the roads and wires, and the sky was always gray, Willy felt a bit less alone when he thought of other people not leaving their houses either.
Black Beauty was in rough shape. It was a short time since the accident, but he was a stiff heap of broken limbs. He could be mistaken for a stuffed horse, if not for the expression of anguish across his equine face, and a couple of patches of missing hair where meat and bone were exposed. There was a particularly large chunk of it missing on his chest, exposing a few ribs. Willy wondered if these wounds would heal in this resurrection, but did not care to dwell on it.
As Chad’s voice got louder, he raised the knife above his head with both hands. He looked like a fucking warlock out of a horror fantasy. Of course, instead of any ritual robes, he was wearing his usual all-black outfit , save the chrome studs and spikes. He was yelling now, screaming incoherence, not at the top of his lungs, but more from the bottom. On what became the last word, he carried out the last syllable, shouting it into the sky as he brought down the knife into the goat. Willy swore a sole bolt of lightning came out of the sky and struck the blade before its descent, but dismissed it as hope and did not mention it.
Terry and Janet sat at the dinner table. Janet ate slower than ever, her eyes up towards the corner of the ceiling, as if watching a bug. Terry enjoyed a steak and most of a baked potato, and washed it down heavily with whiskey. He spent most of the day driving around town looking for the goat. The goat had been like a yard-gnome before it went missing, just a decoration that ate more of the lawn than Terry would have liked. Now that it was gone, however, he too stared off for most of the meal, wishing he could have it back. He mentioned it once during the meal, and for a second he realized how it must sound as Janet sit there wishing for something they both wanted back more than anything. For a moment, he pondered the possibility that he was the cause of her silence. The rest of his thoughts on the situation were kept strictly to his head.
I’ll bet it was that fucking Marsh kid. Trying to get back at me for running down his horse and girlfriend. As if the score were evened out, much less toppled into the Marsh’s favor. At least your girlfriend didn’t die, you little prick.
By the end of the evening and the bottle of whiskey, Terry had convinced himself that William Marsh was butt-fucking his goat in that barn of his all day, and tomorrow he would do something about it.
Sarah had gone to Willy’s again that night. He wasn’t there. She felt responsible for the death of his horse, and she was sure he hated her for it. It was so obvious that Willy would only ever care for his horse, yet that drew her to him. Something about the commitment was attractive to her, and before she had taken it away from him, she thought maybe he had some to sh
are for her. He was a good looking kid, though not as hygienic as people might like. He had a general bad attitude about things, but it seemed realistic after the shit he had been through. She knew about his dad, everyone did. Even though he was entirely at fault for killing that little boy, he was under the influence and ill equipped to make any sort of judgment to change either of their fates. She, and a lot of people in town, were sympathetic to this on some level. They were all guilty of drunk driving, a lot of them more often than not. Leroy Marsh had been unlucky, and had a disadvantage living out on that curve. The event straightened out some people for a couple months. The bar was almost vacant every night for the duration, and people just got drunk at home. Time goes on. They forget, and life has a way of reverting back to normal, for most people.
She walked around the yard and went into the barn. It was exceptionally clean. Much cleaner than when she had been by yesterday. She imagined that poor Willy was obsessively cleaning his empty barn, unable to stop thinking about the horse. She stepped into Black Beauty’s stall. A nice bed of fresh hay lay in the corner. The smell of horse hovered in the air, and Sarah lay in the hay thinking about Black Beauty, and Willy, and started to cry.
Chad had lost consciousness almost immediately after burying the knife into the goat’s gut. He lay on the ground, the rain washing the blood and make-up off his face. Willy had run over for an attempt at catching him or breaking the fall, but had not gotten there in time. He shook Chad a bit, and gave him some pats to the side of the face. Once satisfied by finding a pulse under his neck, he shook his head at Chad, and went to the horse.
The first thing he saw was the black of the horse’s eye moving around in its socket. He lost his breath, fell to his knees next to the horse, and lost himself in tears. The horse moved its head very slowly, and Willy could tell that it was entirely unaware of its surroundings. Upon investigation of the wounds, he found that the fleshy holes had not closed, but the damage to the face had been lessened, the tongue withdrawn back into the mouth. The hair that remained, reflected a moon that was not seen on this evening in its blackness. The legs were straightened. Willy was shaking with joy. He would mend the open wounds somehow, it was of no concern while his horse lay before him once again amongst the living.