Scary Rednecks & Other Inbred Horrors (24 page)

As Brooks’ mouth began opening and closing rapidly, I started to scream, pulling away from Caleb roughly.
 
The very thought that Brooks was being resurrected scared me so badly that I felt as if my skeleton was trying to leap from my skin.

Caleb pulled me to the floor as I kicked out, my teeth clenched together.
 
I felt the soles of my feet connect with something solid and my ankle detonated with bone shattering pain.

The wheelchair sailed into the old man.

Maria’s corpse flew out of the chair like a mannequin and landed on the floor stiffly, her head ripping off with the sound of torn paper.
 
It rolled off under the table.

“Daddy!” Caleb screeched as his father howled in grief.

The old man was already crawling around in search of the head as I struggled to my feet.
 
I pulled at my hands, the adrenaline howling through my veins.
 
To my astonishment, the wire actually came loose.
 
My ankle was shrieking at me as I limped towards the stairs.
 
Brooks’ mouth was still flapping open and shut as if he was urging me to run.

I was halfway up the stairs when I ran into
Jobe
.
 
I sent my bloody fist into his face, connecting in a wet explosion of teeth and blood.
 
I spun him around and sent him down the stairs where he collided with his brother.

I limped into the kitchen, grabbing a large knife from a holder.
 
I fought the pain in my ankle as I moved through the hallway and into the living room.
 
The boy glanced up at me, eyes wide.
 
I grabbed the little bastard and pulled him on top of me, knife to his throat.

Caleb and
Jobe
dashed into the living room as the television flashed around us like a strobe light.
 
They froze, not knowing what to do.

“Don’t think I won’t cut his throat,” I threatened, pulling the boy to me fiercely.
 
I felt the boy go rigid and hot blood poured into my hand.
 
In my recklessness, I had pulled the sharp knife too far into his throat.
 
The blade had gone in just like cheese.

The brothers gasped as I let go of the boy.
 
He dropped to the floor with a thud, the nerves in his legs twitching spastically.

“For the love of God, that nigger killed Hezekiah,” Caleb whispered.

For a brief moment we all stood there.
 
The light of the television flashed around us as time stood still.

Then I leapt for the window, landing on the porch in an eruption of glass.
 
Despite the pain, I threw myself over the porch and ran off into the woods.

I ran desperately into the darkness of the trees, ignoring my splintered ankle.
 
If they followed me, I don’t know.
 
I didn’t stop running for hours.

Sometime in the night, I came to a road and flagged down a passing truck.

Here I sit, three days later in a roach-infested hotel room.
 
I didn’t call the police.
 
As soon as my ankle heals I’m going back to that nightmare house with a gun and some gasoline.
 
I’m going to burn it to the ground and send those sick redneck motherfuckers to hell where they belong.
 
I won’t leave until the house is nothing but a pile of cinders.
 
I’ll do it for Brooks.
 
Hell, I’ll do it for the world.
 
It’s a sick world, and I want to make it better.

by Weston
Ochse

“
W
hat a Rush!” cried
Morty
.
 

I tried to ignore him.
 
I concentrated on the blur of gold and green vegetation as we sped into the Cherokee National Forest.
 

Morty
had just gone into the store for a case of beer. When the bastard had run out dripping money from an overstuffed shopping bag, I’d known that we were in trouble.
 
Like so many times before, I tried to remember exactly why we were best friends.

I shifted in the cramped front seat of the Barracuda and gave him my patented
I got laser beams shooting out of my eyes right at your head so you better fucking look at me stare
.
 

But it was no good.
 
Morty
acted like a dog that had finally caught the rabbit.
 
I could almost imagine him hanging his head out the window, tongue lolling from the side of his mouth and drool sailing in the wind.
 
It was as if he didn’t even know he had done anything wrong.
 
Like it was okay or something.
 
He started whistling and banging his hand against the steering wheel in accompaniment.

Finally, I couldn’t contain myself any longer.

“So he says to me,” I began,
“You paid for it last time, Dan. Let me do it.
 
It’s my turn.
 
So I says back to him,
Okay, Thanks
Morty
.
 
Of course I should have added,
and by the way, don’t rob the store
Morty
.
 
We sure need the money, but we already have plans for this afternoon.
 
So robbing the store would kind of cramp our style.”

I could see a twitch beginning near the corner of his left eye as his whistling slowed.

“So,
Morty
?
 
What do you think?
 
Can we go back to our homes in maybe ten—fifty—a hundred years?”

Morty
closed his eyes for a second.
 
I thought I was getting through and smiled in anticipation.
 
I couldn’t wait to hear his brilliant excuse for ruining my life.
 

He sighed, opened his pale blue eyes, calmly reached down into the front of his pants and pulled out his gun.
 
The barrel stopped about three inches from my face and as I gazed down its length, I had the distinct impression that if I leaned forward just a little bit, I could fall right into the quickly expanding black hole and never be seen again.
 
I sat very still, my only movement to carefully change my smile into a frown.
 
This I did slowly, as not to startle him.
 

I was the brains of the team, which left
Morty
the expert on violence, robbery, sleaze and, of course, guns.
 
What he was pointing at me is what he called his
Magnum Baby
.
 
I’d always thought it a silly name, but he’d said it fired large pieces of lead capable of making fist size holes in a body.
 
I tried to imagine the damage a fist-sized hole could make to my face.
 
I quit when I succeeded.
 
At this range he didn’t even need to aim.

I gulped down my pride and tried to keep my courage from doing anything stupid.
 
I shouldn’t have worried.
 
That old friend fear had already thrown a wet blanket over my courage and was efficiently smothering it.

I should have known
Morty
would eventually do this to me.
 
He had been my best friend since we were in high school and was always getting into trouble.
 
And I was always being blamed for it.

Like drinking for example.
 
The man was diabetic.
 
His doctor continually told him that drinking was going to kill him.
 
So of course he drinks like a wino at a wine tasting party.
 
Usually the night would end with a trip to the hospital — the alcohol eventually causing a reaction resulting in shock.
 
I’d call his dad to let him know his son’s condition and be judged, convicted and executed because
I
am the responsible one and
I
should have stopped him.
 

Trying to stop
Morty
was like trying to stop a runaway train with a paper
mache
’ wall.
 
The best thing to do is let him run his course and hope he runs out of fuel before plowing into the station or derailing along the way.

It seemed that while I had been growing up,
Morty
had been acting like we always had when we were kids.
 
Most of my friends at work were married and had families and I was kind of looking forward to settling down.
 
Most of all, I was getting too old for this shit.

Morty
seemed satisfied that I understood his point and replaced the Magnum back into his pants.
 
There was no going back, either.
 
Morty’s
spur of the moment thrill was probably being played on every station.
 
Where we were going could only be better.
 
Maybe when we reached North Carolina, I’d find a way to settle him down.

“You know what steams me about the whole thing?” he asked.
 

I rewarded him with a shrug.

“What steams me,” he continued, “is that after all the robbing and money and shooting and car chasing, I forgot the beer.”
 

A sheepish smile slowly crept up the length of his face.
 
One of those special smiles only shared between best friends.
 
This was his way of apologizing.
 
He looked over at me and burst out in deep throaty laughter.
 
It was contagious.
 
Pretty soon I joined him, but one side of my brain was trying to tell me something.

I hadn’t been in the Cherokee National Forest since I was a kid.
 
My father and I used to go fishing and rafting down the rivers.
 
Even in those happier days, the woods were remote enough that if a car were to break down we wouldn’t have been found for hours, if not days.

I was consulting a map from the glove box and trying to find a back road through the mountains.
 
The police would be looking for us pretty soon and it would be suicide to stay on the highway.
 
I plotted a way and gestured for
Morty
to make the turn.
 
It was an unimproved road, but should be easy to make in the dryness of the summer.
 
It wasn’t long, however, before we encountered a fence blocking our way and stretching off into the trees on either side of the road.
 
What a fence was doing in the middle of nowhere, I had no idea.
 

Morty
seemed to agree.
 
He looked at it as if it was a girl with three heads.

“What do you make of this?”

“It looks like a fence,” I responded only realizing the stupidity of my words a few seconds after I spoke.

We looked at the chain mesh and antique lock wondering who would have put up a fence.
 
Well, I was wondering that. Evidently,
Morty
was wondering whether the car could make it through without sustaining much damage, because a split second later we were at full power and heading towards it.
 

We crashed through with a squeal of protesting metal and the fence soon folded up and lay on the ground behind us.
 
Morty
let up on the accelerator and the car coasted around a turn.
 
About twenty wooden shacks lined both sides of the road.
 
Several people paused momentarily to glance in our direction, then continued on their way.
 

Morty
slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop.
 
The people were dressed in an odd assortment of mismatched, bright colorful clothing.
 
Not a single outfit looked like it had even seen the inside of a K-Mart—definitely homemade.

Morty
glanced my way and I looked back at him.
 
After we were tired of that, we looked at the road again.
 
The experience was like walking into a twisted Wild West movie where all the townspeople dressed like hippies.
  

I couldn’t stand it any longer.
 
I unbuckled, opened the door and stepped onto the street.
 
Red clay dust eddied around my black work boots coating them in a fine powder.
 
I stretched the kinks out of my shoulders and glanced back in the car.
 
Morty
patted the Magnum in his lap and grinned.