by Jaye Wells
But that didn’t feel like the real reason she’d been so fascinated by the author.
No, the stronger, more urgent and true sensation was a hunger of the heart. She’d lived in the same town with the same people for all of her living life. Peter West’s arrival had pierced the bubble that kept her trapped inside her small world. She guessed if he could come into her world so easily maybe it wouldn’t be as hard as she thought to visit his world, too.
Sitting in her room with the stars shining in the distance, she let herself imagine who she’d become if she left Moon Hollow.
Jack was too far belowground to know there was no moon. The hostile darkness crept in through his ears and mouth and spread like a suffocating shadow down his throat. The only light in his world was a white-hot spotlight of pain in the center of his chest. The darkness couldn’t penetrate that sharp, electric agony. He knew he’d been unconscious until only a few moments earlier, but he couldn’t remember how he’d been knocked out.
He remembered wandering through maze-like shafts looking for his crew. Somehow, he’d gotten separated from Old Fred and the others. He’d heard some giggles in the dark and suspected it was an initiation rite they imposed on all the rookies. But after several minutes trying to find his way back to them, the laughter had died and only oppressive silence remained.
He’d felt his way through the dark by running his hands along the uneven walls until the surface gave way. Somehow, he stumbled into a new chamber. He recalled the air smelling fouler and a drop in temperature. He’d just been about to turn back when a solid weight slammed him into the rock wall. The blackness had swallowed him for a while, but now that he was awake he felt no closer to understanding what really happened. The only thing he knew for certain was that he was alone and seriously wounded.
Shadows shifted; a whisper of air brushed his cheek. A low, rumbling growl pierced the silence.
Cold penetrated the fog of half-consciousness. Not the cold one would expect so far down in the earth. Not a damp cold of the grave, but a dry chill that began in his center and radiated outward—the creeping blue frost of fear.
His thoughts swam through the dark trying to find relief. If he just tried hard enough, he’d emerge from the nightmare waters to the blessed light of reality. He yearned for the surface toward an image of Sarah Jane’s face. If he were a good boy and tried real hard, he could inhale her sweet scent like oxygen, and taste the salvation of her lips.
From the edges of his hearing, another growl—mechanical in its intensity but too erratic to be anything but animal. Closer now. Moist air hit his face with the acrid smell of rotten eggs and putrefied flesh.
Sarah Jane. Swim, son! Swim harder. There isn’t enough air.
Pressure on his side. More fetid air. Not oxygen, but the breath of death. He swam harder. Sarah Jane!
Another growl knocked him in the face like a fist. He opened his eyes, and through the watery dread he finally saw it.
The beast had two black eyes set in a snowstorm face.
Jack sucked in a breath to scream.
He never exhaled again.
10
The Thirst
Cotton
The bastard sun was coming up. There was no place for warmth in his world now. No desire for light. Cold and dark were his friends—and whiskey. Shadows were quiet, at least. Not like his head. In there, banshees screeched until he burned them away with whiskey. A baptism by fire.
His old coat needed patching at the elbows, but no one was around anymore to do the mending. Ruby didn’t know a needle from her ass, but damned if that child wasn’t looking more and more like his Rose every day. Looking at the girl’s face made black spots block out his vision as if he’d stared straight into the sun.
They said absence made the heart grow fonder, but in his experience, absence only made his heart feel like an angry mule had kicked it.
He pulled his hunting cap farther down to cover his ears. The empty jugs went into the truck bed. If he worked all day, he might get enough moonshine made to last him another week or two. He’d have to keep it stored somewhere safe, though. If Ruby found out he was hoarding whiskey she’d give him lip, and then he’d have to bust hers.
It’s not that he liked hitting women. It’s just—well, it was easier than listening to them squawk all damned day.
He shoved his rifle into the passenger’s side floorboard and blew heat into his hands before turning over the ignition. The truck coughed and wheezed in the damp air. He didn’t worry about the racket waking the kids. Ruby was already awake. He knew she thought she fooled him into thinking she was still asleep when he looked in on her. Her eyes had been closed, sure, but her hands had been clenched into fists on the quilt. Girl never was any good at playin’ possum.
The truck’s engine finally rumbled to life like an old man waking from a nap in his favorite chair. He patted the dashboard, threw the gear into Drive, and took off down the gravel road.
His hands shook on the steering wheel and the pounding in his head sounded like a hammer beating on a metal barrel. He wasn’t sure if his body was paying for the bender he’d enjoyed the night before or if it was anticipating the new one he was about to begin.
He wasn’t even sure what day it was or how long it had been since Rose died. He rubbed at his stinging eyes. Too many, that’s how many. Ever since he’d come home to find the county ambulance in his driveway, time had warped and folded back on itself and wrapped around him until he suffocated. But he was sure the time that had passed had nothing on the hell of days stretching before him until he could join her in the grave.
Swiping at the wetness on his cheeks, he muttered, “God damn it.”
The banshees screamed again. He needed a drink, but all he had was a truck full of empty jugs. The sun continued its steady climb. The bright streaks of orange and yellow shouting over the ridge stabbed his eyeballs. The dashboard clock told him it was coming on six thirty. It would take him another half an hour to the logging road and another twenty minutes of climbing to reach his refuge.
The banshees kept hollerin’. The pounding behind his eye sockets provided a rhythm section for their devil’s song.
He couldn't wait an hour.
Six thirty in the morning.
Too early for the liquor store. But old Edna would be open and ready to serve muddy coffee to the early risers of Moon Hollow. Old Edna used to take a shine to Cotton. Maybe if he smiled and asked real nice, she’d donate a beer or three for his journey.
He turned his truck toward town.
The Wooden Spoon sat on the opposite end of town from the church. Thank God for small miracles, he thought. He didn’t want to get anywhere near that church and risk running into Deacon Fry. Lord knew the man would probably hear he’d stopped into the diner, but by the time he found out, Cotton would already be in his hidey-hole and the alcohol would be simmering in his gut.
Just as he’d hoped, the lights were already on in the diner. No cars were parked in front, though, which meant none of the regulars had made it in yet. Perfect. He could get in and out without having to see the pity in their eyes and know that the minute he left they’d start whispering.
Cotton parked the truck on the side of the diner instead of the front. Before he got out, he took a look in the rearview. His hunting cap was pulled down low over his eyes and made them look like two dark voids on his face. Black holes.
He ripped off the cap and tried to finger comb out the worst of the cowlicks. He hadn’t showered in—how long had it been? Anyway, the grease helped plaster the strands to his skull. There wasn’t anything to be done about the whiskers or the deep pockets that sat under his eyes. He ripped the old pine tree air freshener from the rearview mirror and rubbed it under his armpits and over his shirt. Satisfied he no longer smelled like a three-day dead critter, he jumped out of the truck.
His ankle buckled under him. Damned thing. Probably he’d just stepped wrong. He hadn’t had a drink in about four hours so he was
n’t drunk at all. Or drunker than his baseline, he amended silently, and saluted the rising sun with his middle finger.
Catching his breath, he straightened up and focused real hard on walking a straight line to the front door. Through the window, he saw Edna behind the counter refilling napkins into metal dispensers. He grabbed the door handle and pulled, but the door didn’t open.
The rattling glass caught Edna’s attention. She started and jerked around with a hand to her ample bosom. When she saw it was him, she hurried around the counter. Cotton smiled and waved. Nothing to see here. Just a friendly neighbor stopping in to beg for some predawn hooch.
She worked the dishtowel over her hands as she walked. Her smile was polite but curious. Cotton wasn’t surprised by her surprise. Ever since Rose died, he hadn’t come to the diner. Hadn’t gone anywhere, really, except his moonshine shed and the house.
“Cotton!” Edna said as she opened the door. “Ain’t seen you in a coon’s age. How you doing?” Her overly cheerful tone was one he’d heard from every woman in Moon Hollow since the funeral. The happiness was always tinged with rust-colored pity.
“Mornin’, Edna. Can I come in?”
She hesitated, but the smile remained firmly in place. “I don’t open for another thirty minutes, but I don’t see why not. Can I get you some coffee?”
Only if it’s got whiskey in it, he thought. “Sounds good.”
He followed her inside. Her ample rear end stretched the bonds of her polyester pants and her orthopedic shoes squeaked on the linoleum tiles. It was a damned shame the way she’d let herself go over the years. Back in high school, all the boys chased her like hounds in heat. Now they just wanted her for her blue-plate specials.
His Rose never let herself balloon up. Not even after giving birth to his daughters or Ruby. He remembered how proud he always felt to have her on his arm as they walked into church each Sunday. He loved the way her slim hips swayed under the simple homemade dresses she preferred. He knew it wasn’t right to lust after her in church, but his hand always found its way to her inner thigh during that self-righteous prick’s sermons.
“ . . . Ruby and the girls doing?”
He looked up, realizing he’d missed the first part of her question. Didn’t matter much. Every time he ran into one of Moon Hollow’s women, they asked about the children. Their questions always held a hint of judgment, as if they didn’t believe he was capable of taking care of his family without a woman around.
His hands were shaking again. He shoved them under his thighs on the stool at the counter. “They’re doing good,” he said, giving his pat answer.
Edna nodded, as if he’d answered correctly. “I’m sure Miss Ruby is a big help.”
An image of Ruby’s stricken face after he’d grabbed her arm the other morning tweaked his conscience. “She sure is.” His tone was forced even to his own ears.
Edna set a mug of coffee in front of him. “You hungry?”
He licked his dry lips. “I’m good,” he said. “Listen, Edna. I—” He stopped himself, wondering if he’d jumped the gun. Edna’s expression was open and trusting, but it didn’t hold that eager-to-please sparkle he was looking for.
“Go on,” she prompted.
“How are your cats?”
Edna’s smile grew. She launched into a story about how one of the little fuckers had fallen into the toilet. Cotton eyed the counter behind her for anything that might have a kick. She used to serve alcohol after five o’clock to the dinner crowd, but a year earlier Deacon Fry, in his other role as Moon Hollow’s mayor, encouraged the town council to pass an ordinance outlawing the sale of spirits in Moon Hollow town limits. Since then, the bottles that used to line the back of the counter had disappeared.
But Cotton knew Edna had to keep a stash somewhere.
“ . . . and then Stumpy—that’s my bobtailed cat—jumped on top of the sink and turned on the tap himself!” She chuckled. “I swear that cat’s a genius.” She beamed as if her cat’s intelligence was inherited from her side of the family.
“That’s great,” Cotton said with forced enthusiasm. “Tell me, you got anything to warm up this coffee?”
Edna looked at his still-steaming mug. “It can’t be cold already.”
He leaned in with a conspirator’s smile. “No, I meant something a little . . . stronger,” he whispered.
Edna glanced toward the entrance as if she expected to see Deacon Fry darkening the doorway. When she looked back at Cotton, her expression was wary. “’Course not. Stopped carrying the stuff last summer. You know that.”
Not the answer he wanted, but he wasn’t disheartened. “You sure you don’t have a wee nip of something stashed somewhere ’round here?” He smiled the same smile he used to flash his Rose whenever she pretended to be mad at him.
“Cotton,” she began, “have you been drinking already this morning?”
He snorted. “‘Course not! What do you think I am?” An alcoholic, am I, maybe—who cares? “It’s just nippy outside and I have to head up the mountain this morning to check on some land. Thought a little shot of something might keep me warm.”
Edna’s wariness dissolved into something colder, unwelcoming. “Can’t help you. Maybe it’d be best if you left.” Her voice shook, but her expression didn’t waver.
He threw up his hands. Damned unreasonable woman didn’t have to get all uppity. “Well, shit, Edna. We were just having a friendly chat.” Maybe she kept it in the storeroom. Or the office. If he could just get her back there—
“I said it’s time to go, Cotton.” She’d moved toward the phone next to the cash register and placed a dimpled hand on the receiver.
He knew she wouldn’t be calling the law. No, she’d call Deacon Dickhead and have him come to give Cotton a talking to. No doubt, the bastard would love the chance to shepherd Cotton back into his flock. And suddenly sobriety was a lot less scary than sticking around for that torture.
He pushed off the stool. “Relax. I’m goin’.” He heard the petulance in his tone but didn’t care.
“You need to git yourself back to church, Cotton.”
Cotton pictured her as a ventriloquist’s puppet. His mind flashed an image of Deacon Fry reaching a magical arm all the way across Moon Hollow and shoving his hand up Edna’s backside to control her mouth.
A high-pitched cackle escaped his lips. Edna’s mouth froze open and her eyes widened, as if, too late, she realized she was alone with a man who could easily overpower her and force her to show him where she kept the secret stash of liquor. Her hand spasmed on the receiver and it was at her ear before the echoes of Cotton’s laughter disappeared from the air.
“Go!” Her sausage fingers stabbed at the buttons.
His skin felt cold and hot. Shame and anger mixed like grain alcohol and flame in his gut. He wanted to tear her skin off. He wanted to shower the diner’s walls in her blood. He wanted to kick her face in until those eyes looking at him with fear and disgust were destroyed. He wanted to burn down the diner—hell, the whole fucking town. He wanted to stomp the mountain into ash and piss on the pile.
He wanted to die.
He didn’t remember running out the door. He didn’t remember opening the truck’s door or turning over the engine. Tires spun out on loose gravel and the truck’s rear fishtailed through a sharp curve on the road out of town. He snapped to just in time to right the wheel. Heart clawing up the back of his throat, he pointed the truck toward the road leading up-mountain.
But instead of seeing the sun rising over the peaks in a riot of color that celebrated the glory of God Himself, Cotton only saw Edna’s face reflected in the windshield. Her fat fucking face.
That bitch, that bitch, that BITCH!
His hands shook with sober palsy and his eyes felt as if they were vibrating in their sockets. He just needed to get to his shed and then everything would be fine. Maybe he’d be able to find a jug with a little bit of hooch inside. Yes, just a few drops. That’s all he needed.
Didn’t they understand? No, of course not. No one understood.
While Ruby and the girls cried and carried on at the funeral, he’d had to be the strong one. A man had to keep it together. A man had to be strong for his family. It was only afterward that the pressure of his grief fractured him from the inside. The only glue keeping those shards of himself together was 90 proof, and the longer he went without a drink, the larger the cracks and fissures grew. He knew that if he allowed sobriety to take hold, he’d shatter.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
There’d be nothing left of him to bury beside his Rose. The pieces of him would just rise into the wind and be swept away—gone forever. And wouldn’t they love that? For him to just disappear.
He white-knuckled his hands on the wheel and closed one eyelid to be able to focus on the road.
But inside, in the secret dark hole sitting next to his heart, a lonely voice chanted the same words over and over just as they had for the last month.
Come back to me, Rose. Back to me, Rose. Rose, come back to me comebacktomeROSE. Rose? Come back!
11
Pauper’s Breakfast
Deacon Fry
The next morning, dreams from a restless night’s sleep chased Deacon Fry down the stairs. Vague images of dark caves and screams alternated with scenes of him at the pulpit wearing a devil’s costume. He’d spent a portion of his night reading the contents of Peter West’s most recent novel, Devil’s Due, which was likely the source of the disturbing dreams. After witnessing the sick contents of that man’s head, he was more determined than ever for their meeting that morning to mark the end of Mr. West’s tenure in Moon Hollow.