Lucky

By James Noll

Tales of the Weird

A Knife in the Back

You Will Be Safe Here

Burn All The Bodies

Mad Tales (Compendium)

Don't Turn Around (Illustrated Compendium)

Thirteen Tales (Short Story Compilation)

The Bonesaw Trilogy

The Rabbit, The Jaguar, & The Snake

Blood & Gold (Coming 2020)

The Topher Trilogy:

Raleigh's Prep

Tracker's Travail

Topher's Ton

Serialized Novels

The Hive: Season 1

The Hive: Season 2

The Hive Season 3

The Hive: Season 4

Audio Books

Raleigh’s Prep

Thirteen Tales

The Hive: Season 1

The Hive: Season 2

The Hive: Season 3

The Hive: Season 4

The Wounded, The Sick, & The Dead

LUCKY

James Noll

PULP!

Horror, Post-Apocalyptic, and Science Fiction

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This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. I tell you true

LUCKY Copyright © 2019 by James Noll

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. PULP books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, visit www.jamesnoll.net

Book and Cover Design by James Noll

Author Photo by Haley Noll

To my wife, Angie, who has supported me in all of my creative endeavors.  And to my daughters, Haley, Taylor, and Elena, who inspire me everyday with their wit, humor, and intelligence.  Y'all rock.

Beta

Here in the mountains, it starts to snow in early November, so by the time we found one of the local farmers dead in a frozen bank, we all thought it was wolves. Wolves. In January the idea is not as comical as you think.  Wolves howl around our village all winter, and during the long brutal seasons, when we are covered for months at a time in a thick carpet of white, they steal across our fences, feed on our livestock. Our village is not completely isolated. A lake lay only a twenty-minute walk away, we are a few hours ride from the river, and with it the city of P—.  In the summer the hills in the river valley are covered with roses, vegetables, fruit, glowing gold and maroon, blue, green, and red, like a painter dropped thick globs of paint all over the hillside. We have our goats and cheeses and our wool from our sheep. They come highly prized in the valley and lowlands, and the river affords us trade as deep as Mnichov. 

Bednan the Cooper said wolves had killed three of his chickens the week before, and that one of the shepherds told him some of his sheep had disappeared, too. 

He found them halfway to the river, near the old cemetery. Not eaten, but cut. They bled to death. A waste of good wool and chops. He spat on the ground. 

Why didn’t you tell us? someone asked. 

Why should I? It was just a wolf. My son Han and I went out into the woods and hunted it down. We’re not sure if we got the right one, but we killed a wolf.

Some of the older men standing around the dead man scolded Bednan for not staking the head on a stick as a warning to the other wolves, but Bednan waved his hand at them and turned away muttering.

All evidence pointed to wolves. It is a fact. I am an old man now, and my joints may creak and my eyes may water, but back then I was just a boy, yes, and my mind was sharp and my eyes were keen. I remember the poor farmer, his throat torn out, his stomach a rose in full bloom. His face was more horrific, frozen in wide-eyed surprise, mouth half open. A rivulet of blood painted a crooked line from one corner across his cheek. His arms and legs stuck out of the snow bank, and it looked like he was trying to leap out at us, fingers rigid with rigor and cold.

You get the idea. An altogether horrible death. To die like that no one deserves. The curious thing was the lack of blood—like the sheep, the lack of blood. Only with the sheep they’d fallen down, or maybe were just attacked and then left, or maybe they died and bled out before the carrion fowl got to them. With the farmer we expected the snow to be saturated black with it, but this was simply not the case. There were some orange stains around him, some red and maroon splatters, but not near as much as should be.

It’s been a long winter, the konstabl said. 

We all looked to him for an explanation. The konstabl, a fat man with a few wisps of hair stretched over his bald pate and, like the rest of the men, a thick, full beard, pouted his lips and looked around at all of us like we were stupid.

They’re hungry.

The next day was cold and crisp and clear. The konstabl gathered some local men, shop owners, Fleischaka the butcher, Bednan, and a few shepherds, and led them higher up into the mountains to kill the pack that killed the farmer. Bilko the priest blessed their weapons himself, the muskets and swords, the pitchforks and axes, all with rusted red metal or wood-wormed, handles smooth and worn from decades of use.  He pitched holy water in the winter air and it stung their cheeks.

I wanted to go, of course, but my mother forbade it, and my father (who probably would have let me) ordered me to help him in the shop. He was a cobbler, and the long, cold winter created an unusual demand for mending boots and shoes. His little shop stank, and the open hearth and ever-burning fire made it worse. Even now as I tell you this I remember the smell: hot feet and mildew, burning hair where the sparks shot out and singed the wool-covered boots, and beneath that, mud and dirt, always the mud and the dirt. I moped around the shop like a scorned puppy. My long face, stooped shoulders, and deafening silence must have been unbearable because by ten o’clock my father sent me out to retrieve some nails from the kovar’s son, and leather from the kozeluh. He did this because he knew I’d have to go by the Inn, which was where all of the news gathered before disseminating into the village. There I could pass the time and wait for reports from the hunting party. What he didn’t know was the way also brought me past the butcher’s, and the butcher’s daughter, Beta.

Beta was older than me by five years, and at nineteen she possessed a beauty unrivaled in all the surrounding villages. Her skin was milky white, and she had long, blond hair that fell down to the middle of her back, even when she wore a thick parka and woolen hat. Her mouth was wide and lips full, and they were soft pink, and her eyes so blue that they glowed in the night. 

Beta. 

Her name dripped off my tongue like honey. Tasted like sweet red wine.

Every man was in love with Beta, even the married ones (especially the married ones) but the problem was that she knew it. When she walked through the village she held her nose so high as if to keep it above the stench of we lowly rabble, and she spoke very little to anyone, or sometimes not at all. She was also very dedicated to God and spent a large part of her day at the church with Bilko the priest. 

The butcher was very proud of Beta, and he bragged about her beauty to everyone. His wife had died giving birth to her, so we all gave him leeway with this. There were some who ascribed unnatural things to the pair, but they were shouted down. The idea was unthinkable, and besides, she spent all her free time with the priest. 

I often strolled by the butcher’s whenever I could, just to catch a glimpse of her, hoping she might look at me or even say hello. On that day, slogging through the ankle-deep snow and churning mud that comprised our lanes, the sun bright and blazing but the air cold and sharp, I went by to see if that would be the day Beta acknowledged my existence. It was cold enough to keep everyone in their homes and away from the shops, barring a few of the women hurrying on one or another errand, or the odd shop-owner shoveling snow off his stoop. As I approached the butcher’s from behind, I heard voices from the slaughter yard, where Fleischaka rendered his animals, capturing their blood and inedible organs in a huge stone tub, which he emptied into a fire pit and burned. He kept a barrel there, too, double fortified, in which he sometimes cured the meat. It was huge, and on occasion when he cleaned it, it held hundreds of liters of water. The stench coming from the yard was at all times unspeakable. The voice I heard was high and keening, a whine as if from a child. It stopped me dead cold.

I know I know I know. It gasped and sobbed. Don’t make me do it again. Don’t make me do it.

Could that have been Beta? Were the sick rumors of the old lechers at the Inn true? What had her father done? I’d kill him! But then I remembered that he was out with the hunting party. No. As I listened I knew that it was not her voice. Beta afraid of wolves, afraid of her father who doted on her, was laughable. 

The voice I heard belonged to the priest, Bilko. 

Then another voice spoke up, nothing more than a low murmur. I couldn’t discern anything it said, but I understood the tone, at once calming and threatening, and over that came Bilko’s whining voice, pleading No! Of course, I do! I’ll do anything. Anything at all!

More murmuring, and then I heard a whisper of water, as if someone were stroking his hand on the surface of a pool. I had to know who he was talking to, who had made him so upset. How could it be Beta? Her father, though he loved her so, would thrash her if he found her alone with a man in the backyard. Fleischaka had built a tall, handmade fence. I always thought it was out of deference to the rest of the village so that we wouldn’t have to see the repulsive course of his work, but his designs were not out of respect but practicality. He built the fence to keep as many animals as he could from raiding his fire pit and slaughter tub and befouling his workspace. As I said, the fence was sturdy and tall, but Fleischaka was a butcher for a reason, and some of the slats were misaligned. I found a crack and pressed my eye up to it to look inside. 

There it went wide. My knees went weak. I pushed myself away, and some snow shifted off the top and plopped on the ground.

Ssst! I heard Beta hiss, but I was already running away. 

All of the sudden I never wanted to see her face anymore. I ran as fast as I could away from the slaughter yard and the image that burned my eyes. I didn’t care if she heard me; at least she didn’t know who I was.

The konstabl and his hunting party returned at dusk carrying the carcasses of three full-grown wolves. Fleischaka gutted and cut the meat in his slaughter yard and we held a feast around a bonfire in the middle of the village. The heads were cut off and staked on pikes at three points around the village. Beta sat close to the fire, her cold smile appraising every face of the attendees, meeting their gazes and holding them until they could no longer bear to look, then moving on to her next mark. I did my best to avoid her completely, but at one point she caught me across the fire. My face flushed and I jerked it away. Then, aware of my obvious guilt, I glanced up again. 

She was still staring at me, her smile like icicles. It broadened and broadened until I could see her teeth.

The priest did not attend the feast. Beta went home soon after.

The next murder occurred a week later.

We had gotten arrogant and careless. The new snow piled another three inches into the lanes, blanketing (at least for a little while) the black mud in pure, clean white. The men resumed ice fishing at night and tromped to and from the Inn. Mothers let their children out to chore before the sun came up. The innkeeper stayed open at all hours, working himself around the clock to make up for the custom he lost during the panic after the first murder. He gave me a job, calling me his Assistant, and while the pay was good, being an Assistant innkeeper consisted mainly of clearing the tables of empty mugs and half eaten food, and mopping up the contents of the drunks’ stomachs if they couldn’t make it outside into the snow. Still, father allowed it as it brought in a few extra korunas and gave him an excuse to start training my younger brother as a cobbler. 

They found Bednan the Cooper east of the village, staked through the heart with one of the pikes we used to mount the wolf heads. His throat was torn out just like the farmer’s. His stomach was another rose in bloom.  And there was again very little blood in the snow.

This time with no wolves upon which to blame the murder, the villagers’ eyes turned on each other. I was at the Inn one night after they found his body, working what looked to be my last shift, judging by the sudden drop off of customers. The men whispered and grumbled, casting gossip as carelessly as a cat toying with a bird. 

. . . naturally it’s the butcher. Only he can wield a knife so expertly.

Why not the chirug, the surgeon?

Did you see the wounds? No respectable surgeon would be caught making such ragged filth. A common beggar could have butchered . . .

Ah ha! See a butcher!

No, no butcher. No surgeon.

Why then, do you mean to say it could have been any one of us?

Of course. Where were you yesterday morning?

Me!

I know what it is, growled a voice from the corner.

The men at the bar continued to argue and shout.

I said I know what it is!

The men stopped and turned their heads toward the corner.

It was Martinek, the old blacksmith. His shoulders were wide and round, his chest broad, his hands thick and scarred. He broke his arm at the elbow the year before, and it healed strange. His son had since taken over the iron and anvil, leaving the old man to recover and dissipate at the Inn.

Do I have to spell it out?

We can’t read your mind, Martinek, said one of the others.

Martinek muttered under his breath and took a swig of beer. Finally, he said, "In my village when I was a boy we had several such murders. We, too, thought it was wolves; we, too, hunted a few and pegged their heads on sticks. But the deaths continued. Our konstabl questioned everyone. Jailed a few drunks and travelers. Still the murders continued. Every time the same. Throats torn out. Intestines yanked like yarn. 

A godless old crone, she never went to church, she said it was a monster, an Upir, pah! He spat on the ground. "We all laughed at her. The konstabl would have jailed everyone in the village but it wouldn’t have done a thing. We would have all died in our cells. A girl was found dead on the church stoop, only twenty years old, just married. Finally, we started to think about what the old crone said. Some wanted to kill her but she couldn’t be found, so we searched the graveyards, the mausoleum beneath the church, the ruins out in the woods. We found it in a tomb in an old, desiccated cemetery hidden behind the church by an old copse, sleeping in an iron casket in the middle of the day.

"It had two-inch fangs like a snake in front of its mouth, and long, brown, curled fingernails with blood and dirt-crusted under them. Its hair barely covered its withered scalp, it was long and greasy and ran down its back. We pulled it out of its tomb and drove a stake through its heart, cut off its head, and set the body out in the sun.

"Upir, pah!

It burned to dust in seconds.

There was a shocked pause during which I heard the Innkeeper, his eyes searching the room for signs of trouble, rub a glass squeaking clean. The fire popped and crackled. Then the group at the bar burst out laughing, clapping each other on the back. They ordered another round and gave one to Martinek for the story. He took it begrudgingly and cursed their disrespect as he drank, and when they were done the Innkeeper threw them out because one of them broke a chair.

That night a storm dropped half a foot of snow on the village. 

In the light of the next morning, as the winter sun burst through the snow heavy clouds, the Miller’s daughter, only nineteen years old, was found gutted by the creek. The Miller swore she’d been in bed the night before, before he went out to the Inn, insisted over the howls of his wife and sons that she’d been safe and sound. No, he couldn’t remember when he’d gotten home. Nobody recalled seeing him at the Inn. They buried her immediately and cleared the murder site then set a bonfire there to cleanse it of evil.

The konstabl took the Miller to jail but had to let him go the next morning when they found another man, a traveler nobody knew, lying dead on the ashes of the bonfire. 

The hunt for the vampire started the next morning.

It was led by the men who’d laughed at Martinek the blacksmith at the Inn. They stayed up all night, first at the Inn drinking beer after beer, then after they were thrown out, at the ringleader’s house in the village. They asked for Martinek to come with them, but he refused.

This time the priest didn’t bless the weapons. Nobody saw them off, bid them farewell. They merely stole out of the village in the near dark, five drunken men slipping and cussing in the churned-up mud snow, axes resting on their shoulders. We stayed in all day long. Mother wouldn’t let us out, not even father to go to the shop. By dusk, he’d had enough, and he ordered me to the Inn for news of the hunt. I slipped out before mother could object and slogged my way through the lanes, trying to avoid the icy puddles that formed as the sun set. 

It was dark by the time the Inn came into view, only five minutes since I’d left home. The village was deserted; no lights warmed the windows, only smoke from chimneys trailed in the air. The wind howled down the lane as I trudged forward, and then I heard other footsteps behind me. I stopped and turned but could see nothing in the darkness. 

Who is it? That was a mistake. Now they knew I didn’t know. I have a knife! I didn’t have a knife.

A whisper of sound came from behind me, and as I turned again something hard and flat struck me hard in the face. My vision went black and I was on the ground. Snow and ice shot down my jacket. I heard commotion all around me, footsteps and cursing. A hood was shoved down over my head, and rough hands gripped me by the armpits and feet and then we were moving.

I cried Help! but my voice was muffled by the hood, and no one answered.

We jogged forward three more feet and I struggled, went stiff, kicked out and lashed around like a fish in a net. My kidnappers cursed and hissed but neither spoke. Finally, I freed my right foot, pulled back, and launched a hefty kick out into the air, hoping it would connect. I hit something solid, my kidnapper grunted, and my other foot was free.

You oaf!

My other captor’s voice was high and thick and gruff and I couldn’t make out who it was. 

Then I heard other voices, manly voices, boisterous and loud. They were singing victoriously. The hunting party. I reached out to grab my other captor and felt my fingers grip onto an arm. He grunted in disgust and pulled away, but I didn’t let go, even as I was dropped to the icy lane. I held on as he yanked and yanked. His shirt ripped and I fell free. Footsteps chunked in the snow, then another blow struck my face. I fell unconscious to the sounds of the shouts of the hunting party as they ran to my aid.

I woke on the floor of the Inn. My head was bandaged, and someone had placed hunks of snow in an old rag and rested it against my temple.  My mouth was sore where I’d been kicked, my lips swollen. One eye wouldn’t open.

The hunting party sat at a table, hunched over plates of food. Their eyes were red from hangover and effort, and their faces long and pale. A sack hung from the ringleader’s belt. It was brown and oily, and something round hung low in the bottom. A dark, black stain infused the burlap. I watched as some kind of thick liquid gathered to a head and dripped to the floor.

Well? Martinek growled from somewhere. Did you find it?

The men in the hunting party dropped their eyes to their cups and planted them at the bottom. Only the ringleader stared straight ahead, sipping froth off the top of his drink.

Yes, we found it.

The others’ eyes shook up at him in doubt, then a few over at me. I quickly closed my one good eye. Catch what? I thought. A vampire? There was no vampire. The murderers are among us!

The ringleader read their unease and put his mug down on the wooden table with a clunk. He stared around at his friends in disbelief. Most kept their eyes glued to the table, though one or two glanced nervously up at him like guilty dogs.

I said we found it, the ringleader said. We found the vampire.

Did you burn the body?

The ringleader glanced at him and returned to his beer, but not before letting his eyes fall on me. 

Yes.

Did you cut off its head?

A pause.

Yes.

Martinek eyed the innkeeper who shook his head. He nodded at me.

Then let’s see it.

The ringleader set his mug down again and sighed. Then he stood abruptly up and disengaged from the table. The men there continued to eat in silence, didn’t move, fixed their eyes even more permanently to their food. He strode over to Martinek, sitting at his place by the fire, the sack swinging at his side. It bumped his leg as he moved, dripped down his trousers. There were red tracks in his wake. He pulled the rope that cinched the sack shut off his belt and, gripping it by the top, set it on old man’s table with a thud.

Here, he said, turning his back. You look.

Martinek eyed the sack and the stain and puffed on his pipe. The smoke drifted out of his mouth, past his dry, cracked lips and over to the fireplace, where the night’s heat glowed orange and red. It turned over and over, gray as stone, and mingled with the wood smoke and was sucked up into the chimney and up and out into the night. 

The konstabl would not commit to the theory that my attackers were the murderers.

Probably just common robbers. It’s no secret that we’re under siege here. They’re just trying to take advantage of our terror.

He took the patch of clothing I’d torn off one of them but I could tell he’d do nothing with it. It was just a swatch of cloth to him. Oh he hauled several men in for questioning, but they were soon released. The vampire hunters left the village after on a legitimate hunting party, looking for meat to last the rest of the month, and into their vampire hunt, the konstabl probed no further.

Still, no one relaxed, and for good reason, too. In the darkening final days of winter, there were three more murders. The first happened two weeks after my attack. A woman was found hanging from a tree near the church. She died of strangulation, that much was clear, but her blood had been drained, too. All that remained were the splatters blossoming in the snow under her brown, swinging boots, and leading away into the woods like fairy footprints. No one knew her, where she came from, and no inquiries were made about her in the days that followed. We left the body hanging from the tree. It disappeared the next day. The second murder was only assumed. A farmer disappeared during the night, his body, too, never recovered. And finally, finally, old Fleischaka the butcher. His was the worst. They found his head staked on one of the wolf pikes, his body burned in the snow beneath, charred and black, as if mocking the hunters who’d left the village. They hadn’t returned either, by the way, and their wives and families frantically petitioned the konstabl to put together an armed search party. It was assumed their bodies would show up in the woods after the thaw.

And that was it.

The thaw came early in March. By April the lanes of our little village were black again with mud. The hunters were never found.

I tried to avoid the butcher’s as much as possible since the day I heard the priest crying and the low murmuring voice alternately calming and provoking him. In fact, I didn’t want to see Beta at all anymore, which was easy as she, like the rest of us, stayed in-doors for the rest of the winter.

But one night my father killed a deer nibbling on mother’s vegetable patch, and he sent me to the butcher’s to get some tools so he could process it. 

No. I said it before I knew it was coming out of my mouth.

He smacked me across the face so hard that it echoed in the spring night. 

Go, he ordered, and that was that.

I approached the house from the front this time. All of the windows were dark. The sun had just set, and the cool spring mountain air raised the goosebumps on my arms. In the winter the wind whooshed down the middle of the village, bringing with it snow dust and dead leaves; in the spring it is flower petals and fresh pine. Noise from the Inn up the way wafted down toward me: men shouting, a fiddle high and merry, the clink of mugs. I thought about returning home without the tools, telling father that nobody was home, but father would have seen through the lie, and the beating I would receive would leave more than just the red welt of his handprint on my cheek. 

I took a deep breath and cast a glance at the Inn. Maybe Martinek was there? A raucous shout answered my thought, followed by breaking bottles.  No. If he was there he’d be drunk by now. A useless old man.

I heard the unmistakable sound of water as I crept around the side of the house. My spirits sank. I’d hoped the house would be abandoned, and perhaps I could have stolen the tools father needed. But no, there it was again, like someone was taking a bath. The butcher had set stones in the mud as a path around his house and I used them, thankful that my feet wouldn’t make the sucking sound in the mud and give me away. The moon was high and bursting, illuminating the night in its eerie, pale light. 

There were no voices this time, not at first. I found the slat in the fence I’d peered through months ago when I saw them the first time. I’d had my doubts, but after she looked at me during the wolf feast, and after my attack, I was sure it was them. 

They were there again.

Beta lay in the large tub her father used to render the animals, to catch the blood. The moon painted the water dark and opaque and cast shadows all around the slaughter yard. Bilko the priest stood at the head, looking down at her. As I watched he produced a ladle from his sleeve, a silver ladle with strange markings on it. He whispered something as if praying, then dipped it into the water, swirling it around as Beta waited patiently, her face serene, a cold smile played across those pale, pink lips. Her hair was wet and dark and spilled out over the back of the tub. Bilko withdrew the ladle and poured its contents over her face, and she let it wash over her. Even in the moonlight, I could see.

The liquid left dark red trails across her pale skin.

The unholy Triumvirate

Just . . . just get your leg up there and . . . whoa, whoa! Got a kicker here!  Maybe you should just calm down and listen to the story, huh? Okay? Hold on, hold on. I gotta feed the kitties. 

Okay I’m back. Let’s start from the start, huh? 

See, Frankie was this guy, he was like . . . he was this tough guy in the neighborhood. Lived around the corner with his Pop what ran the newsstand, you know, where you can buy gum and smokes and, uh, newspapers, right? That kinda stuff. His pop’s name was Giuseppe. Real old school old like. Real old country. Come over here in what? ‘96, ‘97? Been here forever. When the Hindenburg went down? And when they lost that Lindbergh baby? Tragic, tragic. And this Frankie was a big guy, you know, no slouch. Told everyone he got them bulging biceps hauling around all them crates of merchandise and stacks of papers for his old man, who was a boozer by the way, and he’d racked up some pretty big debts playing the ponies, playing the boxers, playing the pretty much anything what could be played. And the guys he owed? Bad news.

And Frankie? He loved his pop and all, but he didn’t know what to do about it. Probably because he had his own problems to worry, especially them rumors. What kinda rumors? I dunno. I mean, you know, it was just . . . kinda personal rumors about the guy and, well. . .  some people thought he was a . . .  that he preferred . . . .

Well . . . I’ll tell you later.

So look, the day he disappeared, it was like what, three, four in the afternoon? And little Ronnie Resnick was messing around in the street, chucking a baseball at the steps of that old abandoned townhouse, and . . .  What? No, it wasn’t little Ronnie what disappeared. Frankie did. Pay attention.

Little Ronnie came up to Frankie at Frankie’s pop’s newsstand with tears just streaming down his face, a freakin’ busted fire hydrant this kid. Frankie looked around to see if his Pop was anywhere in sight, and he wasn’t, so he said, Hey kid. Whatsamatta? And the kid, Ronnie, he just kept on crying and crying, I mean who would have thought such a scrawny little kid had so much water in him? Don’t they fast for Hanukkah or something? Anyway, Frankie said, Hey, you want some candy? I mean, really, but the kid fell for it, and Frankie snuck a Hershey from the stand and handed it over to little Ronnie, who was sitting on The Widow Mrs. Feldman’s front stoop now. 

So Frankie sat down next to him and kinda looked around real quick.  One of them cats that was always around in the neighborhood came sauntering over and rubbed up against his leg, and Frankie just pet it a little. And then he licked his lips and he put his arm around the kid. Ronnie didn’t even notice. He just chomped away on his Hershey’s, chocolate smeared all over his mouth like a, like a, like a kid . . . eating a big chocolate bar. You know, getting it all over his face. Then The Widow Mrs. Feldman opened up her window and stuck her head out and Frankie’s arm whipped off the kid’s shoulder like a snake bit him.

What’dja do, Frankie? The Widow Mrs. Feldman asked, kinda shocked.  What’dja do?

Nothin’, I-I didn’t do nothin’. He just come here like this.

What, with his face all swole up and cryin’? You beat that kid up? He steal somethin’ from you?

Nah, nah, he didn’t . . . hey, Ronnie. Why you crying like this?

So the kid told him. He was over there throwing the ball against the stoop when some big goombahs came riding through and took the ball and when he put up a stink they threw the thing through the window of the old abandoned house. 

Oh, look! It’s widdle schnookums. See this little kitty? Started hanging round lately. Can’t blame him. Got about ten out there. They like to prowl around the backyard. 

So at this point in the narrative, it becomes necessary to describe our old abandoned townhouse. It looked like any other townhouse on the block except for the fact that it was empty. And that emptiness weighed on it like, uh, like eating too much hamburger lasagna on a hot summer day.

No. That’s an awful comparison. 

How about, it weighed on the house like a wet, wool straightjacket?

Eh, not perfect, but better. 

It was just, I dunno, it was just the fact that the windows was all the time dark, you know? And not just your ‘the lights is out and it’s midnight on Halloween’ dark, but black. Pure black. Opaque. Is that the right word? Just nod if it’s—oh, that’s right you can’t. Just blink your eyes twice if it’s—yeah, I thought I’d heard that word before. Opaque. The windows was opaque. Blacker’n asphalt, deader’n lead.

During the day they seemed to stare at you, them windows. And the door was all stripped and gray, and there was moss and vines all creeping all over the stoop like friggin’ snakes. It was like the house’d been transported all the way from a swamp or something. Real ju-ju Louisiana stuff, you know? And all kinds of rumors spun around about the place, too. Blood oozing out the walls, knives slicing through the air. Friggin’ nightmare.

Well, back to Frankie. He was sitting there with that poor kid just bawling and bawling about the ball. Said his dad gave it to him, and the old bastard kicked the bucket in the war. And Frankie was sitting there, and all the old pluggers on the block what hung around his Pop’s newsstand all day started to show up, shuffling around with their canes and such, and they was looking at him all funny, and so finally he said, Alright, alright I’ll go an get it.

Thing was, it was getting dark all the sudden. The setting sun cast shadows of the houses on the street, and the old townhouse was all covered in them. And there Frankie stood at the stoop, lookin’ up at the windows, and them windows was just staring right back at him. He folded his arms across his chest, not ‘cause he was trying to look tough, though looking tough was exactly how he was trying to look, but more cause he was cold, standing there in his white tee shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and his brown trousers and his newsboy’s hat. And them windows was just daring him to come in. Yeah, that’s right, they whispered. Put your foot on my stoop. Lay your hand on my door. Come on in, Frankie. Come on in.

What? What happened to him? Whaddaya think happened to him? He never come back out, that’s what. They never found his body. Never found his clothes. Not a peep. Nothing. His pop raised a ruckus with the peelers, but this place was well-known to anyone with half a brain, and most of the coppers grew up around here, so there was no way any of them was gonna set foot in it.

Hold on a minute. Gotta get this thing rolling here. It’s pretty heavy, you know, and if I don’t keep the stainless steel bleached and shining it craps out on me. Believe you me, it’s no picnic.

Anyway, about a month later there was these guys, right? Couple of thugs in real nice suits. Herringbone. Italian leather shoes.

Hey, the tall one said. Gray, wool long coat. Look who it is.  Giuseppe Malone! He kinda held out his arms, palms up, expecting a hug or something.

The other one was as short and squat as the first one was tall. Wore a wool long coat, too, but it was black. His fedora was black, too, just like the other one was gray. Couple of fancy dressers, them two. The fat one didn’t say nothing, just grabbed a Hershey’s off the stand, unwrapped it, and chucked the trash on the street.

What’s this? The Widow Mrs. Feldman said, leaning out her window.  Ain’t you got enough sense to find a trash can?

The tall one eyeballed her out of the corner of his eye, kinda like this. He didn’t say nothing for a second, and the fat one just looked at him like a dog waiting for directions. Finally the tall one hissed something in Italian at his partner, and the little one said, What? What’d I do?

Just pick up the wrapper, huh?

Frankie’s pop just stood there, and he looked a billion years old since Frankie’s went missing. Sure he was bald before, but now his skin was all . . . chalky? Is that the right word? Jus blink if . . . yeah, chalky. And his wrinkles’d grown wrinkles, and he had a hitch in his step where there wasn’t one before, and he was all the time sighing and breathing heavy for no reason at all. A real Job.

The tall thug tried again.

Giuseppe! Haven’t heard from you in a long time, huh?

Giuseppe gave him this withering glare, you know, like he didn’t really care. Then he leaned on the stacks of newspapers on his counter and said, "Che cifai qui, Basilio?  Te l’ho detto prima, non ho nulla per te."

The smile on Basilio’s face fell just a little, but his hands stayed up.

Nothing? He made this grand display, like he’s—oh don’t mind this,  it’s a little cold—like he was just seeing the newsstand for the first time. He peered at the rows a Hershey’s, ogled the newspapers all bundled up in brown paper, squinted at the boxes a smokes. Nothing? What’s all this, then? Peanuts?

Meanwhile, the short little guy came back from the trashcan clapping his hands like he just built the pyramids or something, and Basilio said, Arko, you hear that?

Hear what?

Giuseppe. He says he ain’t got nothing for us today.

Suddenly Arko was all concerned. His eyebrows bounced up, and his mouth dropped open a little. Vincent’s gonna be pissed. 

Then Giuseppe did something really stupid. He waved his hands at them like they was one of them urchin’s come begging for candy. 

And then he turned his back.

Basilio’s bemused smile quickly dropped into a snarl, and with a grunt and a growl he lunged over the counter, and he grabbed the old man by the collar, pulled him back over, threw him on the street and . . . well, you get the picture.

When they was done, Basilio, and he was breathing all heavy, and his coat was all ruffled and his hat lay in the gutter, Basilio screamed, That’s right! You got nothing! And you better have all that nothing by the end a the week or you’ll have even more nothing than you already ain’t got!

Arko leveled a kick right at the old man’s ribs, just to rub it in, like a rim shot at the follies, right, ‘cept there wasn’t no minstrels, there wasn’t no go-go girls shaking their cans, and there wasn’t nobody laughing.

And then they just left him there, newspapers soaking up the rain in the gutter, his teeth all bashed in and bloody, jagged gashes crisscrossing his face from where Basilio’s rings cut him, and now in addition to not having his son Frankie no more, he lost the sight in his left eye, not that he’d notice on account of his eye was swole up to the size of a grapefruit: big, black, purple, and yellow.

Monday came and went, and Giuseppe didn’t do nothing. He set up his stand, he sold his newspapers, he made jokes with The Widow Mrs. Feldman, but he didn’t do nothing else. If he got a gun he wasn’t showing it around. If he planned on skipping town, nobody seen no suitcases.  Other’n that pumpkin for an eye, you wouldn’t have known anything happened.

‘Cept this.

Every night he just stood there on the sidewalk outside the old abandoned town house, looking up at it. It was creepy, just him and the house, staring at each other. Some people thought they seen his lips moving, like he was talking to it or something, hands hanging by his sides, the full moon hanging in the sky like a fat spider sack, casting his black shadow on the street.

Then it was Wednesday, then it was Thursday, and Friday morning rolled around cold and clear. You could see your breath fogging the air. Dew froze on windows in leopard spots, and the puddles of muck was skimmed over with a stained glass layer of ice. Fall in the big city. Basilio and Arko showed up right after sunrise, and Giuseppe was the only one out on the street.  The Widow Mrs. Feldman’s curtains twitched, and little Ronnie Resnick’s ma paced by her window. Even the peelers, strolling by at the top of the street, hands clasped behind their backs, disappeared as soon as them two goombahs showed up.

Giuseppe didn’t say a word, just stood there when they walked up.  Basilio said, You got your nothing for us today, Giuseppe? Or we gonna have to wipe the gutter with your face again?

My son, Frankie.

Giuseppe’s good eye wandered over to the townhouse.

Basilio and Arko exchanged a look.

Your son Frankie what? Arko spat. That fruitcake? He slapped the back of his gloved hand on Basilio’s chest. I hear he hangs out down the docks during fleet week.

Giuseppe’s face went dark, and a sneer swiped across it.

"He won’t let you do somethin’ like this. He won’t let this happen maggio le vostre anima per sempre camminano la terra nel dolore."

Them two guys just burst out into laughter. And not just a few giggles neither, but full-on belly laughs. Basilio hit Arko in the shoulder with his gloves again. Giuseppe remained stone-faced and cold. Then without warning, Basilio slapped him across the face three times real quick, like a machine gun that one, and grabbed him by the back a the neck and slammed his face into the stack of newspapers on the counter. Poor old Giuseppe cried out something horrible, but there wasn’t much he could do except flail his arms. Arko pressed his thumb into the old man’s grapefruit eye.

Frankie ain’t here no more, is he? That friggin’ homo’s burning in hell now. It’s you you should be worried about. Now you gonna give us your nothing or what?

Yes, yes, Giuseppe whispered. He’s got their money. And so they let him go and said, Where? and he said, Follow me.

And where did he lead them? You guessed it. Right over to the old abandoned townhouse. He slogged up the stairs to the door, but Basilio and Arko didn’t go no farther than the sidewalk, staring at the place like the whole thing was a joke.

You gotta be kidding me, Basilio said. You think this is funny?  Come here. I’m gonna close your other eye. 

Giuseppe put his hand on the door.

You want your money, you come in here.

The other two didn’t say nothing. Basilio nodded, grimacing. Arko frowned, confused. All right, old man, Basilio finally said. But if there’s anything—

Giuseppe didn’t let him finish. He opened the door, went inside, and gently shut it behind him.

You never seen two old garlic cloves move so friggin’ fast! They charged up them steps and burst into the house like a herd of elephants. You could see them standing there, looking around for the old man, then a shadow passed by the door and slammed it close.

For a minute there was nothing. Then the heaters started firing like lightning through the windows.  It went on and on, then the door flew open and fat little Arko fell out. Didn’t run, didn’t walk, but fell out, flat on his face. He was covered in blood, and his hat was gone, and you couldn’t tell if the blood was his or not. He just lay there for a second, and then he started to crawl forward, pulling himself along with his pudgy fingers, inch by inch, trying to make it to the steps.

What’s he gonna do once he gets there nobody knows. Blood dripped off his face, and his greasy hair fell in his eyes. He opened his mouth to cry for help, but he was only able to gurgle a little. Then something pulled him back a foot, almost all the way into the house. Arko dug his nails into the concrete, leaving red marks and skin. He stopped long enough to let out a broken sob, and then whatever was on the other side of that door pulled him all the way back in and slammed it shut. 

A few minutes later the peelers strolled by and waited for a while next to Giuseppe’s newsstand. Then The Widow Mrs. Feldman came out of her house, picked up some of the papers that’d blown into the gutter. When one of the cops puts a nickel down on the stack, she handed him one.

Here. Raise your head. There you go. Just a sip, okay? Don’t want to choke it all back up.

So that’s the way it stood for a while. The house was like the, uh . . . the whatchamacallit? The monkey in the oven. You know, everyone went about their business, going to school, going to work, and everybody knew it was there but nobody wanted to admit it. Politicians lied and paid the rich; businessmen lied and paid the lobbyists, lobbyists lied and paid the politicians. Nothing ever changes, and nothing ever will. Only thing different on the street was who was screwing who. And there sat the old abandoned house in the middle of it all, black eyed and dirty and covered in moss, daring anybody to come near. 

What? What’s that? Yeah! The elephant in the room. That’s what I meant.

Huh. Monkey in the oven.

Anyway, then the kids started disappearing and everything went to hell.

Someone set fire to the place, but the flames didn’t do nothing more than blacken the foundation, burn away some of the moss and clear the weeds. The funniest thing was when the guy who did it was standing there, watching it burn, and wouldn’t you know it? A window fell out of the top floor and impaled the jerk right through the head, like a spear, killed him dead on the spot.

And after that, they called you.

You.

A priest.

They sent a priest.

In here.

With me.

It’d be funny if it wasn’t so stupid.

‘Cause, I mean, take it from my perspective. There you was in your vestal robes and your funny hat and your holy water and your silly little book. And you’re chanting and reading in the living room, sprinkling water all over the brown stains on the carpet, your feet crunching on all the dirt and stuff, and you’re trying to ignore that stench floating up from down here in the basement. I could see it in your face, you was thinking, What does that smell like?

That’s when I sent widdle schnookims here at you, and while you was distracted by the sight of this perfect little kitty cat in all this filth, you didn’t even hear the whisper of my footsteps coming up behind, did you? Didn’t know there was anybody there till the cloth was over your mouth and nose, huh?

What’s that, pop? Wha . . . hold on a minute. I’ll be done down here soon.

That’s my pop, he don’t hear so good since them goons did a number on his ears. Looks like he won’t have to worry about them no more, huh? And pretty soon I won’t have to worry about you. Nobody’ll ever have to worry about you again, huh father? You remember me yet? Huh? Yeah, I bet you don’t. But I remember you. And here we are. I wish I had someone like me around when I was a kid.

The three biggest scourges of the Earth is violence, vice, and veneration. All three of them in some way responsible for all the wrongs done to all the people in all the world. Think of all the brutality done to poor children by the people who should have been taking care of them, and the stupid church that said it was okay.

Well, look up there on the wall. See that? Good old Arko. Well. Just his head. He was the first one so it was a little rough going on the skull there.  Had to do some patching up in those bare spots. Next to him you got your standard goon, Basilio. His face got a little . . . how to say this . . . exploded?  Don’t blame the artist.

And in about a minute or two you’re gonna join them there, father. The Unholy Triumvirate. A masterpiece, complete at last.

Whaddaya think? Oh that’s right. You should be losing feeling in most of your face right about now.

Anyway, this won’t hurt a bit. Just a little pinch in the arm and . . . no, no, don’t worry about those.

I sharpened them up nice just this morning.

Salvation

We was all setting out on the porch, it being evening and after dinner and all, and everybody was sipping tea and telling stories. There was me, of course, my sister Bonnie and her husband Cherish, and Daddy and Mama, and his daddy and Mama, my Grandaddy and Mamaw. Then there was my best friend since we was little, Miranda, and her husband, Joe. Sun was red behind the trees, and in the distance I could hear old John Walters, Mr. Kennedy’s black lab, barking to raise the roof.

Mama said, Why don’t you tell about that time you found that ol’ bum out by the fence?

I flapped the fan Daddy made me right up to my face.

Naw, Mama. I don’t wanna tell it again. Everybody already heard it before.

Miranda said, Nonsense girl! You know we all love that story! You go ahead now and tell it.

Well, rest of them people all started raising their voices and hollering for me to tell it, so I don’t see how I couldn’t have said ‘yes’. And right then was the first time it hit me: I was going to have to tell this story till I was old and gray, setting in a rocker like Mamaw does all day, telling the story telling the story. I took a deep breath and let out a weary sigh. 

All right. I’ll do it. Y'all go ahead and stop me anytime, though. Must have heard this about a thousand times.

Everybody just sort of mumbled along in agreement, staring at their shoes like they did every time, so I went ahead and started telling it. 

Y’see, I saw that ol’ Raggity Man first, not Jimmy Walts like he’ll tell you even today if y'all ask. I saw that old Raggity Man lying right there in a heap of shredded up Federal soldier clothes. He was curled up on the dead brown grass around the electric fence at the edge of the compound. It was summer of ‘56? ‘57? I can’t remember if I was ten or eleven. Don’t matter.

Anyway, Mama was always telling me to look out for strangers when we was playing out Fence Line way, especially around that time. We had news of all them refugees coming from the north. Federal soldiers. And by God Himself there was one right there breathing right beneath my nose, not fifteen feet from where me and Jimmy and all them other kids was playing ghost in the graveyard! He was laid up against the fence so his clothes pushed through the holes. That meant that the electricity wasn’t working, and somebody had to go and tell somebody about it, and that somebody had to be me. 

I stole a look over my shoulder at them other kids. 

Fat Maynard was running away from Jimmy, and Jimmy, who was bigger than Maynard, caught him up in about two steps and pushed ol’ Maynard right down on his face in the dirt. 

Keeping my eyes on  Jimmy, I reared back and kicked that Raggity Man real hard through the fence, hurling my leg into it like I was kicking Jimmy himself. Fence shook and made a jingly noise, but ol’ Raggity? He ain’t move or make a sound or do nothing. Dumb Jimmy was chasing the little kids round with a stick held over his head, and them kids was screaming like he’d bash them straight to hell! Miranda glanced over at me, frowning, so I turned around real quick and glared at the Raggity Man again. I thought he might have been dead, so I kicked him harder. Pretended his rear was dumb ol’ Jimmy’s face. Raggity Man moaned and stirred.

Then Jimmy called out, What you doing, girl? 

Oh Lord. 

If you couldn’t tell already, I hated Jimmy Walts. He beat me up twice when I was little, and he did it just because he could. But he sure was dumb. I mean real dumb. One time, me and Miranda, we saw him tie his shoelaces together and fall down twice before he realized it.

Jimmy and Maynard came on over to where I was standing, and I swear they all let up a gasp like they’d seen Jesus strolling out Savior Bay, a grimace on his face, wrestling a shark.

What is it? Jimmy asked.

Fat little Maynard said, What you think it is, Jimmy? A cat?

Jimmy shot him a look like he was gonna beat him up, but Maynard wasn’t afraid of Jimmy neither.

Shut up, Maynard. 

Let’s see. It don’t look like no cat—

I said, shut up!

I giggled.

And it ain’t look like no Hoop Snake. 

Jimmy just shot me a look, but he didn’t say nothing. I’d like to say that he was afraid of me because I’d hit him, or because I’d kicked him, or beat him up once, but that wouldn’t be the truth. Truth was it was around that time that I’d cured Missus— of the blisters, and people had already started talking about me. Jimmy wasn’t scared of me. He was scared of The Witch.

I bent over and picked up a stick and poked the Raggity Man through the fence.

What you doing?

Maynard said, She going to wake that fool up, fool.

Then he picked up a rock and threw it at the fence. Jimmy started kicking the bum, and between the three of us we all finally got the Raggity Man to hollering and crying.

Leave me be, leave me be!

We all backed away, and Raggity Man rolled over. His eyes was red and shot through with pain, his face was all scrunched up, and the way he grit his teeth reminded me a dog caught in a trap. I had to force myself not to run while he took us in.

Maynard stepped up to the fence.

Who you? What you want here?

Raggity Man’s left leg was all twisted up under him, broke right in two, so he propped himself up on his elbow best he could. Then he pulled that broke leg up from under him an set it out in front, screaming as he done it.  He was weeping by the end. 

If I was you, I’d be gone, said Jimmy. And he was serious. More serious than I ever seen him. It was almost like he was afraid for the man.

Leg’s broke, Raggity Man groaned. I ain’t going nowhere but here.  I’m gonna die here lest you youngins go an get me some help.

I said, Ain’t nobody going to help you here.

Raggity Man fixed me a look, and he said, very patient, like I was deaf or stupid, Girl, I broke my leg. I’m in a horrible pain. Now one y'all go an get your mammy before I climb that fence and give you a whopping.

Jimmy’s back was already ramrod straight, but now he puffed out his chest, and his eyes set hard. Me and Miranda shared a glance, but Maynard, he seemed to relax a little. His eyes softened.

You ain’t know where you at, do you?

Raggity Man didn’t said nothing after that, just sat there, thinking. After a while, he lay back down in the leaves.

What we gonna do? Jimmy hissed at me.

I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to run on back an get Mama, and we going to get some people out here.

Now you’re talking, little girl, Raggity Man called out, still on his back. You go on and get your mama. Get me some people out here.

You ain’t telling yo mama, Jimmy said. "Get all the credit. You ain’t going to watch. Nuh-uh, I’m going to tell my mama. I’m going to get all the credit."

And then he was off, and that’s when the race started.

Out Fence Line way it was all winding dirt roads and pine trees. Us kids’d cut paths through the woods at certain spots for short cuts, and me and Jimmy knew them pretty good. But we ain’t never run through them before, and now we