Harlan County Horrors (17 page)

“
Mama!” Jasper croaked just before the black thing whirled and
turned its fury and hunger on him.

“
To hell with this!” muttered Paul. He turned and began to run
down the stretch of Highway 987.

Intending to head toward the farmhouse, he was crossing the
narrow road when he heard a great, bellowing roar split the air
behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and pissed himself. The
thing bounded down the two-lane blacktop toward him, its paws
shattering the asphalt with each heavy footfall. Its awful hunger
had fired its metabolism and started a growth process that could
only occur in things not fully of this world. The black-bristled
creature was nearly as big as the Escalade now. Its open mouth,
full of long ivory and ragged meat, looked large enough to swallow
a man whole.

Paul bounded over the drainage ditch at the far side of the
road, then scrambled over a barbed wire fence. His left foot became
entangled in the strands before he could clear it. As he struggled
to kick free, the thing’s head appeared. The horrid jaws dipped
downward and chomped. As burning agony shot through Paul’s ankle
and up his calf, he looked back to see the thing rolling something
around in its mouth. It was a pocket of Eddie Bauer leather with a
meaty morsel of Paul Stinson tucked neatly inside. The thing
gobbled it down and winked—dear Lord, did it actually
wink?
—before it began to
skitter across the fence toward him.

On
half a foot, Paul limped toward the farmhouse, gibbering, crying,
even laughing for some awful reason he couldn’t figure out. “God,
God, God, oh, God,” he sobbed out loud. Funny that he would call
upon that name so freely now…since the only way he had used it in
the last few years was with the word
damn
tacked to end.

But, then, Paul Stinson had "gotten religion," as the old
folks called it.

That awful kind of Harlan County religion preached by things
that posed as harmless roadkill at the side of deserted country
roads.

As
he ran, shrieking, toward the old farmhouse, Paul sensed that the
thing was toying with him. It would dart out in front of him, then
circle him, allowing him to get a head start and then begin the
torturous cat-and-mouse game all over again. He was almost to the
front porch when the thing’s long tail lashed out and struck him
across the lower back. Paul wailed as his kidneys ruptured and the
lower vertebrae of his spine were pulverized into jagged
splinters.

He
hit the ground hard, facing the house. An old woman opened the
screen door, looked out, then retreated with an expression of panic
and horror.
That door isn’t going to help
you, lady,
he thought.
That whole damned house isn’t going to protect you.
He doubted that the vault of the Harlan County
Bank & Trust would hold up against this demon’s ceaseless
hunger.

As
the thing pounced and landed atop him, Paul thought of his mother
and some of the quirky sayings she used to pass on to him. One came
to mind as he felt the thing’s claws meticulously, almost tenderly,
separate the back of his leather jacket and the cloth of the shirt
just beyond.
Curiosity killed the
cat?

No,
that wasn’t it.

It’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.

Yeah. Oh, hell, yeah…that was it.

Paul Stinson felt the thing’s long, grey tongue—peppered with
taste buds the texture of sandpaper and broken glass—run the length
of his back, from the nape of his neck clear down to the cleft of
his buttocks. It somehow tickled and hurt all at the same
time.

Paul began to laugh.

He
laughed wildly, madly, straying far beyond the limits that humor
tastefully allowed…until, finally, he could laugh no
more.

“
Inheritance”

Stephanie Lenz

Stephanie Lenz lives in western Pennsylvania with her husband,
daughter, son, and two black cats. She has published short fiction
in
Quantum Muse
,
Journal of the Blue
Planet
,
Flashquake
,
Northpoint,
and other journals and
is managing editor of the literary journal
Toasted Cheese
. Her web site is
piggyhawk.net.

T
he kitchen reeked of lilies and Jania’s
diaper. I scrubbed Becca’s lasagna pan with steel wool and stared
through the window at a patch of early-turned leaves.

Becca thunked a laundry basket onto a clear space of kitchen
table. “Baby needs changed,” I said.

“
You can’t do it?”

“
I’m washing your dishes.”

“
So? I was washing your shirt.”

“
Where is it?” I half turned to look at the laundry
basket.

Becca scooped up her youngest and tickled her. “In Mark and
Tommy’s room.”

“
Is that where I’m sleeping?”

“
Unless you want the attic.”

“
No,” I replied too quickly.

“
You still afraid of the attic?”

“
Not afraid,” I said, running fresh, steaming water over the
pan. “The stairs are too narrow. Too steep.”

“
I
put the boys up there,” she said, turning her back to
me.

“
Do they go up there much?” I tried to cover the crack in my
voice with a cough.

“
You are still afraid of the attic.”

I
began to protest, but she’d already taken Jania up the
stairs.

That night, I read while the boys watched an obnoxious movie
on DVD. Becca knitted a sock, her first, and she constantly
wrinkled her nose at the book providing the instructions. Out of
the corner of my eye, I saw her sigh, close the book, and coil the
half-knitted sock around its needles. She stashed everything in a
canvas bag and popped back the recliner.

“
What’re you reading?”

“
It’s for work,” I said, not looking at her.

“
About what?”

“
Selkies.”

Her
sons turned around. “What’s a silky?” Tommy asked.

“
Selkie, not silky. It’s like a woman with a seal skin she can
take on and off, kinda like a mermaid.”

“
Never heard of that,” Becca said.

“
We got a report of some sightings in Scotland.” I decided to
keep my transfer to myself. The timing was perfect and I’d been
raised too superstitious to do anything to jinx it.

“
Cool,” Matt said.

Becca threw her feet over the edge of the chair. “How do you
study all these things and you don’t believe any of
them?”

“
Because I study them.” I turned a page I hadn’t really
read.

Matt opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Becca
announced that it was bedtime. The boys groaned. “We have to get up
early for Grandma. I don’t want any fighting or sass
tomorrow.”

As
soon as the three of them headed to the attic, I flipped off the TV
and followed their footfalls. The boys settled in the back of the
attic, near the door for the steps. That was good. It was the front
of the attic that concerned me. I hadn’t yet figured how to get
Becca to allow me to poke around, but I needed to see the trunk.
Better yet, I needed to see that it wasn’t there.

Becca had a couple of drinks before we headed to the Baptist
church in Evarts. I drove her van and made extra sure the kids were
buckled before we headed out. Matt asked me to turn on the radio,
and when I told him no, he pouted the whole trip. Tommy played some
kind of little video game and Jania kept setting off some
electronic musical toy.

Our
brother and sister were already at the church. When Becca crumpled
into a chair in front of the urn that held our mother’s remains,
Sissy asked me if she was drunk. I said that she’d had a
few.

I
hadn’t seen JR in a couple of years, since Gertie had closed and
he’d started driving trucks. I thought he’d turned manager at a
Wal-Mart or something, but I wasn’t sure. His boots didn’t have a
trace of dirt. None of them ever understood my job so we never
talked much about what we all did.

“
Came on quick,” JR said, like he was the authority on our
mother’s cancer. “She didn’t want no treatment but she could’ve if
she’d wanted it.”

I
swallowed hard and pushed my hands into my pockets.

“
How’s she doing?” He nodded toward Becca.

I
shrugged. “Couple shots this morning, but that’s all she’s had
since I been home. Boys look good. Baby’s healthy. Place is
clean.”

“
I’m glad it’s over,” Sissy said from behind me, holding our
niece on one hip. “Mama being sick, I mean.”

“
Same here,” JR said.

“
Becca’s glad too, even if she won’t say,” Sissy added. “I’m
glad Mama didn’t drag it out. She said to me, ‘I want this over and
done with’ and it was. Just the way Mama wanted.”

“
Reckon we should sit down,” I said, sliding in beside Becca.
I draped my arm over the back of the pew, and she took it as a sign
to curl toward me. I spent the first half of my mother’s memorial
smelling Jack Daniels and handing Becca balled-up Kleenex out of
her purse.

By
the time we were to sing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” I
whispered to Becca that I would find Sissy and Jania, see if the
baby needed anything. JR slid over toward her when I rose and
inched my way along the pew.

I
found them in the otherwise empty nursery, Sissy watching the crowd
through a one-way window.

“
Nice turnout,” she said when I closed the door. “Mama’d be
happy.”

“
I
had a hell of a time talking her out of having Mama laid out.” I
wanted to add that our mother must’ve told me a thousand times,
begged me even, to have her cremated.

“
You want a drink of water, Peter? You don’t look so
good.”

“
I...I just want to make sure everything’s how she
need...wanted it.”

“
Well, we done the best we could. She didn’t leave us clear
instructions. She just told you everything. Always did.” Sissy
crossed the room and popped a paper cup out of a dispenser. “You
coming to the will reading?”

“
Yeah. You?”

“
Suppose.” She filled the cup with cool water and brought it
to me. “So you gonna tell me all her secrets now?”

I
smiled to avoid lying. “Sissy, let her rest.”

Sissy nibbled her lip for a minute and considered. I could see
the
thoughts flashing before her eyes–the
insinuations, the blame, the rumors.

Her
voice calm, she said, “Tell me Poppa was my daddy.”

“
Oh he was, he was,” I said, filled with relief. “You never
believed that rumor, did you?”

“
Course I did.”

“
Pop didn’t...what he did had nothing to do with you.
Hear?”

Sissy sat on the floor beside Jania and started building a
tower of blocks for her to topple.

“
Things weren’t...he was so different when he came back from
that second tour, Sis. He wasn’t...the man he became, it near about
killed Mama. If he hadn’t done what he did, she’d have died thirty
years ago. You’d never have remembered her.”

“
Sometimes I wonder if that might’ve been better.”

“
It wasn’t anything about you, Sissy. She went through an
awful lot. Married at sixteen, pregnant with me and JR not a year
after. Pop being drafted. Helping with the strike. Pop coming back
and going into the mine. Becca and then with you on the way, Pop
re-upping and coming back. It was hard going, Sis.”

“
And no different from any other Harlan woman’s story either,
Peter. But they don’t use it for an excuse to treat their children
like dirt underfoot.” Sissy held her anger for a few moments, then
sighed. “Guess it’s over now. Don’t do any good to hold on now,
does it?”

I
hid my grimace behind the cup, already empty, and pretended to
drink.

While the family hosted the post-funeral dinner at the church
basement, I excused myself and said I needed to take care of some
things. I spent the drive over to Harlan biting my thumb and
letting the “scan” feature run endlessly on Becca’s
radio.

I
passed the old company houses, including the one where we’d lived
until Sissy was born, and drove through Fisher’s Hollow. I glanced
down the road toward Gertie, her rusting tipple poking through the
pines. I rubbed my eyes with one hand and accelerated.

With Becca and the kids at the church, I figured I wouldn’t
get a better chance to go into the attic so I took it. I didn’t
stop at the front door, just bounded up the steps and then up into
the attic, walking sideways to fit my feet.

The
boys had two camp mattresses set up under the window in the back. I
stepped around the puddled blankets and inched toward the front of
the room. The stuff there hadn’t been moved for ages. Trying not to
raise too much dust, I sifted through the piles of junk until I
spotted the rotting steamer. Its rust-speckled latches creaked as I
flipped them. I brought my keys out of my pocket and found the one
Mama had sent me. It slid into the lock with surprising ease,
clicked, and the trunk seemed to sigh with release.