by Bryan Smith
This man wasn’t like her pursuers, at least not at first glance. He sported no obvious deformities. He looked like a normal hunter. Then he said,“Fucked-up-looking, huh? I reckon you’re talking about the Kinchers. That boy’s one of ‘em. They all look like that.”
Jessica frowned.“You know them?”
“We all know each other ‘round here, darlin’.”
“What’s wrong with them? Why do they look like that?”
The man moved a few steps closer to her, carefully keeping the rifle’s barrel aimed at the back of her head. “Ain’t none of your concern. You’re gonna need to come with me, girl. Once you’re back at my place, the Kinchers’ll have no claim on ya.”
“No!” the boy exclaimed.“She’s for us!”
Jessica glanced down at him.
He was grinning now, no longer afraid.
She thought about what the man had said. And she thought about the boy’s comment. It all added up to a world of shit for Jessica Sloan. The Kinchers wouldn’t have a claim on her, but this man would, and she had a funny feeling he wouldn’t treat her any better than the mutants.
Jessica let the hand that had been gripping the rock settle over the butt of her .38. “My daddy always told me to never trust strangers. I should have listened to him better in the first place, or I wouldn’t be in this fucking mess today.”
She yanked the .38 from her waistband, and rolled away from the Kincher boy. The crack of the rifle resounded in the woods, but she kept rolling and the round missed. She quickly sized up a shot while the man slotted another round into the chamber.
She squeezed the trigger.
The bullet caught the man in the throat and flung him backward.
The Kincher boy got up and started to run.
Jessica got to her knees, sized up another shot, and squeezed the trigger again. This round took the boy square in the middle of his bare back, and he fell instantly dead to the forest floor. She felt a small pang of regret for killing the kid, but was comforted by the knowledge that she’d had no choice. She went over to the fallen hunter and retrieved his rifle. She searched the pockets of his overalls and found a folded Buck knife, as well as some extra shells for the rifle. She put the knife and extra bullets in her pockets, tucked the .38 back in her waistband, and stood up, rifle in hand.
She paused a moment, listened.
She heard something, a soft crunch of undergrowth.
Maybe it was a deer.
And maybe not.
She turned and started running again.
Running for her life.
CHAPTER SIX
The chapter was over. Anxious to know what happened next, Megan Phillips flipped to the next page and continued reading. She read several more pages and reached the end of yet another chapter. The book was really good. She didn’t read a lot of horror novels. This one had been an impulse purchase at a yard sale in Kentucky they’d stopped off on the way to Tennessee. There’d been a meager selection of maybe twenty books available, most of them best-selling thrillers that all seemed interchangeable, nothing that really grabbed her attention. But the back-cover copy for City Infernal had intrigued her, so she’d bought it, figuring if it sucked she was only out a buck, so what the hell?
It did not suck.
In fact, she’d been riveted to the story from page one, to the point of almost completely ignoring Pete over the last couple hours. She paused in the middle of the first paragraph of yet another new chapter and lowered the book to glance at the dashboard clock.
The time was four thirty-five, late afternoon transitioning toward early evening. It was the middle of summer, so the sun would be up for a few more hours yet. They’d hoped to make Chattanooga before nightfall, a goal that was still just within reach, but they needed to get moving soon.
Megan frowned.
She’d been so engrossed in her book, she’d failed to note what time it’d been when Pete went into the store. But it seemed to her she’d read quite a bit since his departure. She flipped through the book and judged it at around fifty-plus pages. She set the book on the dash and sat up straighter in her seat to peer at the store. Right away she saw the “closed” sign hanging in the door. Well, that was troubling. She scanned the gravel parking lot and spotted only one other car, some beat-up black sedan from the seventies or eighties.
She got out of the car and stood there for a moment, a hand on the door as she appraised the situation. The road was devoid of traffic. She heard no subtle hiss of distant tires traveling this same lonely stretch of country road. The musical twittering of a bird was the only discernible sound at all. Leaving the door open, she stepped away from the car and moved toward the store. As she neared it, she saw that a blind had been drawn down the length of the door. The window blinds were also closed. She tried the door’s handle and found it locked.
“Shit!”
She turned away from the door and kicked the ground in frustration, sending several pebbles skittering across the dusty lot. She stood with her hands on her hips and scanned the surrounding area again. The emptiness and silence were eerie. She began to feel paranoid. She could almost believe she was the last person alive on earth, the lone survivor of some mysterious apocalypse that had occurred while she’d been reading. Or maybe the fucking Rapture had finally happened, sweeping up all the pure souls and leaving behind only sinners like herself. But that made no sense. If the Rapture had happened, she felt certain Pete would still be here with her. He was a sinner, too. In fact, they’d done quite a bit of fun sinning together.
She liked sinning with Pete.
In fact, she just plain liked Pete, the man, a lot.
It was this thought that made her spin back toward the door and try the handle again. It still wouldn’t budge. She shook it harder, and the door rattled in its frame. She then banged on the door with the base of a fist. “Hey! Anyone in there? Open up!”
She banged her fist against the door several more times, then stepped back and waited, hoping—praying—she would hear approaching footsteps from the other side.
Nothing happened. No one came.
She moved to the closest window and tried to see around the edge of the blind. The store’s interior was dark, but thanks to the sun she was able to make out a single aisle and a shadow-shrouded counter at the far end of the store. She couldn’t make out much beyond that, but the darkness told the story—there was no one in the store. She started to really panic now. It was clear something very wrong was happening. She held in a whine, worked hard to make herself calm down. She wouldn’t have a hope of finding or helping Pete if she gave in to hysterics.
She tried to think.
The way she saw it, she had two options. She could fetch her cell phone from the car and dial information for the local sheriff’s number. Or…
Fuck it.
She walked to the end of the building and began to move carefully along its garbage-strewn left side. Here there were overflowing plastic garbage barrels, stacks of old tires, and assorted bits of automotive detritus. As she picked her way through the landscape of junk, she began to hear sounds from the rear of the building. At the corner, she crouched behind a stack of tires and saw a thin, gaunt-looking man in a flannel shirt and jeans standing with his arms folded at the back of an old van. The van’s rear doors stood open. The man seemed impatient, as if he was waiting for someone else. He stood slouched to one side, tapping a foot and scowling at the back of the store. She watched him unfold his arms and insert an index finger in a nostril. She wanted to approach this man to ask him if he’d seen Pete, but some instinct held her back. Even from this distance, the man projected a creepy, ingrained malice.
The man straightened as a door at the back of the store banged open. And in a moment Megan was dismayed to have her instincts proven correct. Two men—one thin and haggard like the first man she’d seen, the other hugely fat—emerged from the back of a store. They carried an unconscious Pete between them, the toes of his shoes dragging through
the gravel as they approached the van. Megan sucked back a helpless whimper and pressed herself closer to the wall, praying they wouldn’t spot her.
Oh, poor Pete.
The first man she’d seen said,“About goddamn time.”
The other thin man snickered as they reached the van. “Would’ve been a lot sooner, but you know Gil, had to have his fun with the boy first.”
The first man sneered at the fat man.“Ya old pervert.”
Megan’s heart sank.
Anger like nothing she’d ever known possessed her. A molten, murderous rage. She wished she had a gun. She would run out there right now and kill them all. She had always been a pacifist. And she hated guns. But now…
Yes.
She could kill them all.
Without blinking a fucking eye.
But knowing this did her no good at all. Did Pete no good. She would have to use her mind to figure a way out of this nightmare for both of them. She watched the men toss Pete into the van’s dark interior as dispassionately as other men might heave a rug. After a moment more of additional conversation, two of the men got in the van. The engine started. The third man started moving toward the store.
Toward her.
Megan’s breath caught in her throat.
Oh, shit! Oh, Jesus!
She scooted backward, felt her back strike a trash barrel, making it wobble. She turned and straightened it. Then she got to her feet and ran. She stumbled once. Then a second time. But somehow, through some miracle, she remained upright as she threaded her way through the junk at the store’s side. Terror and desperation pumped adrenaline into her bloodstream, and she was able to move faster as she reached the front of the store.
She spotted the Jetta.
It was close.
The approaching rumble of the van told her there’d be no time to get in the car and make a run for it. She’d have to come back for it after the van was gone. The road next to the store was still empty of traffic. She crossed it and plunged through the line of trees beyond. There, she crouched behind one of the larger trees and watched the store. The van appeared and rolled across the gravel to the edge of the parking lot. After a moment’s hesitation, the driver pulled the vehicle onto the paved road, turned to the right, and accelerated.
She watched the van disappear and thought, Oh, Pete. I’m coming for you, baby. I swear.
Just as she was about to step out from behind the tree, she saw the third man appear. This was the first one she’d seen. A gaunt man with hard, pitiless eyes. She moved back behind the tree and watched him approach the Jetta. He moved to the passenger’s side of the vehicle, pausing a moment to frown at the open door.
He turned away from the car and scanned the line of trees beyond the road.
Megan’s heart slammed.
She slid down the tree and hugged its base to keep from falling onto her back. She was certain he would sense her location, that he would cross the road to collect her any moment now. Then they would take her to wherever the other men had taken Pete.
Oh, God.
But the man just shrugged and threw the door shut. Then he moved to the other side of the Jetta and got in the car. Megan remembered that Pete had left the keys dangling in the ignition. Tears stung her eyes as she watched the man start Pete’s car and drive it away from the closed-up general store, following the path of the departed van.
Then it was gone, her only obvious means of escape from this redneck hellhole.
She let go of the tree and sat with her legs folded beneath her on the forest floor.
She cried. Her body shook with the force of her sobs.
And she thought, Oh, Pete. What am I going to do? Oh, God. Please help me…
CHAPTER SEVEN
The snuffling, squealing sounds of pigs woke him up. Hoke’s eyes fluttered open. A round, pink creature on four stubby legs waddled by him. Another, larger pig followed close on its heels.
Hoke groaned.
He ached all over.
The ground beneath him was wet and mushy and strewn with hay. He groaned again as he summoned the strength to roll onto his back. Above him was an arched wooden roof. Sunlight blazed through the wide gaps between the slanted lengths of age-stained lumber. He sat up and took a look around. He was in some decrepit old barn. Maybe a dozen pigs of varying sizes wandered aimlessly about its interior. He saw stacks of hay against one wall and various pieces of farm equipment against another. There were two horse stalls, but they were empty. Damn the luck. Hoke had never been on a horse in his life, but he’d seen his fair share of cowboy movies. How hard could riding a horse be? Just jump on, kick the four-legged fuck’s hindquarters, holler YEE-HAW! and ride like the fucking wind, right?
But horse or no horse,he meant to get the hell out of this backwoods cesspool. Like right now. None of the monster men who’d taken him seemed to be around. So no time like the present. The big barn door stood wide open. All he had to do was walk out and keep on walking.
That goal in mind, he hauled himself up and started walking toward the door.
And came to an immediate halt as one of his abductors walked into view. Hoke gulped. It was the first one he’d glimpsed back in that clearing, back again to scare the ever-loving crap out of him. The mammoth dude with the big red eye and the trunk nose. Fuck. Look at the guy. He didn’t look like he could be real, like he had to be a hallucination, some flashing nightmare thing glimpsed during the very worst moments of a monumentally bad acid trip. A really, really, seriously, like, incredibly fucking-bad acid trip.
Like, the worst acid trip ever in the entire history of tripping on acid.
Times ten. Times a hundred.
Hell.
Times the highest possible number known to man or God.
But Hoke was stone-cold sober and knew the thing was no hallucination. The fucker was real all right, large as life and ugly as sin. He felt a strange awkwardness as he met the thing’s livid gaze. How did one interact with a genuine monster on a social level? Hoke had no idea, other than to bluff his way through. He forced a smile and said,“Hey, dude.”
The creature bared its teeth and hissed at him. It tilted its chin upward, opened its mouth, and said something that might have made sense to one of the other monster men. Some kind of hillbilly gibberish interspersed with the odd recognizable snippet of English.
Hoke nodded. “Uh-huh. Right. Listen, I’ve got a gig tonight. A little showcase thing at the Bluebird Cafe. You’ve heard of that, right? It’s world famous. There any chance one of you guys could give me a ride back to Nashvegas? I’m good for the gas, no problem.”
“Yash hippen okra chinka dork!”
Or something like that.
Hoke cringed. He held up his hands in a placating gesture and moved back a step. “Right. Okay. You’re busy. I understand. Maybe check with your buddies and get back to me about it.”
The man raised the shotgun and pointed it at Hoke’s head. Hoke kept his hands up and retreated a few more steps. He was plenty scared, but he was also more than a little annoyed. There was altogether too much of this pointing-guns-at-his-head business going on today. First that snooty bitch. Now this ugly motherfucker. A guy could get a complex. What had he done to deserve this kind of treatment?
The deformed man strode into the barn, shoved the shotgun in Hoke’s direction, and roared at him. “YASH HIPPEN NO WAY CHINKA SHAH!”
Hoke cupped his hands around his mouth. “HEY, LOOK! I CAN YELL, TOO! GUESS WHAT, UGLY? I DON’T UNDERSTAND A SINGLE FUCKIN’ THING YOU’RE SAYIN’!”
“You got a death wish, son?”
Hoke spun about and gaped at the vaguely defined form of a tall, slim man standing in shadows at the rear of the barn. The inadvisability of turning his back on a shotgunwielding mutant redneck in close quarters occurred to him a moment too late. He glanced over his shoulder and was relieved to see that the monster man was still standing just inside the open barn door. He decided to risk focusing his full attention on the mystery ma
n.
He squinted, tried to see the guy a little better. The man was wearing jeans and dusty cowpoke boots, but the shadows made it impossible to make out anything else. “Who the fuck are you, and where the blue hell did you come from all of a sudden?”
The man struck a match and applied the flickering flame to the end of a cigarette. The light cast by the match failed to illuminate the man’s features. He drew deeply on the cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Me?” he said at last. “I’m Garner. And I’ve always been here, boy.”
A tickle of dread started at the base of Hoke’s spine. He took an unconscious step backward. He wasn’t sure why, but he was suddenly more afraid of the shadow man than he was of the monster with the gun. A primal unease settled deep in his gut. Every nerve ending tingled with the need to be a thousand miles away from Garner. But he couldn’t just run. The monster would intercept him with ease. Maybe unload both barrels of that shotgun on him, cut his sorry ass in half.
Hell, maybe that’d be for the fucking best at this point.
Garner chuckled.“Jebediah won’t kill you for running. Not without my say-so. But you would most certainly regret the attempt anyway.”
Hoke was unable to restrain the whimper that came then. “What do you want with me? What the hell’s up with this godforsaken place and these fucking monsters?”
Garner dragged on his cigarette again. “I have a very specific purpose in mind for you, son. But we’ll talk about that later this evening. These monsters, as you call them, are the Kinchers, the living descendants of Isaac and Gladys Kincher.”
Hoke scowled. “The fuck is that supposed to mean to me?”
Garner laughed.“Why, just everything, son. You see, the Kincher clan was involved with a dispute with my own people long, long ago. They raped and killed my closest kin. It was left to me to exact revenge. And that I did.”
Despite his fear, Hoke was curious.“But…how? And how long ago was this?”
Another draw on the cigarette. The tiny red ember danced in the shadows. “The answer to your second question is 1872. And I did it by laying a curse on their bloodline. It was me who turned the Kinchers into monsters, son.”