Micah smiled. “Well, I’ll be.”
The bigfoot seemed pleased to receive Mia’s sign of affection.
Ethan looked over at Mason. “Think you know the way down?”
“I’ll get us home,” Mason replied confidently.
“Did you hear that sweetie? Soon we’ll be home,” Mia said to Casey, cradled on her chest. Casey stared up at Mia for a moment then closed his eyes for a nap.
Blu padded over to Alden and licked the bigfoot’s hand. Alden reached down and patted the coonhound’s head. Once Alden removed his hand, Blu went over and stood beside Ethan.
Everyone bid Micah farewell, for the second time, then, one by one, they filed behind Mason and headed down the trail.
Clay couldn’t help noticing the large figures spread out, walking parallel through the trees. Soon everyone was aware.
It was the gray bigfoot clan, giving them safe passage, escorting them down off Stoneclad Mountain.
59
Clay was doing a last touch up on the railing when he heard a car pulling up in front of the house. He put his paintbrush in the can and walked around the side porch.
Ethan gave a friendly wave as an old model station wagon drove over and parked next to his Scout truck. Blu was eagerly waiting, wagging his tail so fast, it was a miracle it didn’t fly off.
A woman in her early forties got out of the car. She had raven black hair tied back in a long ponytail and was wearing a flannel shirt and jeans.
“Ethan, what a pleasant surprise.”
“How’s that sister of yours?” Ethan inquired.
“Hates Porterville like a passion, but she’s been saying that for years.”
She went to the back of the station wagon, opened the rear cargo door, and let out two bluetick coonhounds that jumped down on the ground. Blu immediately ran over and the dogs started their sniffing routine before they started jumping around to play.
Clay walked down the porch steps and approached the vehicles.
“Alberta, I want you to meet my nephew, Clay,” Ethan said.
“Proud to meet you,” Alberta said and put out her hand.
Clay started to extend his hand then noticed it was covered with paint.
“Don’t mind that,” Alberta said and shook Clay’s hand. “So, I take it, you two aren’t working on the roof?”
Clay didn’t know what to say and looked at Ethan.
“Actually, we finished replacing those shingles. Thought we would spruce the place up before you got back.”
“Well, thank you, Ethan.”
The three coonhounds were racing about in the nearby field.
“Are those Blu’s parents?” Clay asked.
“That they are,” Alberta replied. “Samson and Beulah.”
“Blu’s a fine dog,” Clay said.
“How’s Blu been?” Alberta asked. “Anymore seizures?”
“He had one episode,” Ethan said. “But he got over it pretty quick.”
“So, anything exciting happen while I was away?” Alberta asked as they walked up the porch steps to the front door.
“You might say that,” Clay said.
They went inside and walked through the living room into the small kitchen.
Alberta glanced around at the new cabinets and the minor alterations.
“Ethan, you outdid yourself.”
“I was hoping you’d like it.”
“How about I make us some coffee,” Alberta said, filling a coffee pot with water at the sink.
“All right,” Ethan said, pulling up a chair. Clay sat down at the table across from his uncle.
Alberta put the pot on the stove and turned on the burner. She sat down next to Ethan and smiled. “So you two want to catch me up?”
60
Since their return, Mia had bathed Casey three separate times with bar soap in the outdoor shower and scrubbed him until his skin was pink, but after she dried him off, he still smelled. She tried sprinkling him all over with talcum powder, even some perfume from an old bottle that Clay had given her when they were first dating. Nothing seemed to work.
It was if the skunk-like odor was coming out of his tiny pores; a foulness bleeding through a colander.
Mia prayed it would wear off in time as it was becoming unbearable for her to be around her own son.
Mia decided to pull the playpen out on the porch and placed Casey inside. As it was a warm afternoon, Mia thought it would speed up the process of ridding her son of the god-awful smell if she didn’t dress Casey in anything but a diaper.
She kept the front door open to further air out the cabin, and so she could keep an eye on her son while she did her baking.
Mia added some flour into a mixing bowl, a couple eggs, seasoning, and some canned milk. She took a whisk, and after a minute or two, beat the ingredients into a thick batter.
Mia glanced over at the open door.
Casey wasn’t inside his playpen.
She dropped the bowl on the kitchen table and rushed across the room onto the porch.
The pillow—she always used to block off the space with the missing slats—had been pushed out and was lying on the porch deck.
Mia went to the railing and frantically looked around, thinking her infant son couldn’t have gotten far. She raced down the steps.
“Casey!” she yelled, dashing over to the outdoor shower, and then glancing over at the car. He was nowhere to be seen.
Mia tried not to panic but she couldn’t help herself as she sprinted down the side of the cabin. What if it was happening all over again?
She was nearing the rear of the cabin when she saw Casey waddling across the short grass.
Her heart sunk when a giant shadow loomed over her son.
“Casey!” Mia screamed.
Powerful arms scooped up the toddler.
The bigfoot ambled over to Mia and handed over her boy.
“Thank you, Alden,” Mia said. She turned and saw Micah with his crutch, limping out of the forest.
“He insisted we visit,” Micah said. “Damn if that ain’t a long trip.”
“Oh my God, you must be completely worn out.”
“That I am,” Micah replied.
“Come inside and I’ll fix you something.”
“We could use some grub.”
“Clay and Ethan should be back soon.”
As Micah and Alden headed around the side of the cabin, Mia glanced back at the edge of the forest. A breeze had picked up, shaking the bushes and rattling the leaves on the trees. It was as if the mountain had suddenly come alive.
She held on tight to her son and watched nervously, afraid of what might be coming out of those woods next.
THE END
Read on for a free sample of Lord Of Stone
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gerry Griffiths lives in San Jose, California with his family and their five rescue dogs and a cat. He is a Horror Writers Association member and has over thirty published short stories in various anthologies and magazines, as well as a short story collection entitled Creatures. He is also the author of two novels, Silurid and Death Crawlers, both published by Severed Press.
Chapter One:
The Court of Public Opinion
“Fuggin’ go awuh,” Trudy Hollis muttered at the incessant buzzing in her head. For a moment, it did. Then it came back, and after several more bleary seconds, she realized the obnoxious noise wasn’t in her head at all. It was her doorbell. It had been so many months since anyone had been around to use it, coupled with the alcohol-induced haze she’d been in for pretty much that whole time, that she’d nearly forgotten what it sounded like.
She raised her head off the carpet, only vaguely aware of the wet puddle of drool her cheek had been in and the rough, scratchy imprint of the carpet on her skin. She wasn’t worried about anyone seeing her like this, though, since she had no intention of opening the door.
Trudy slowly pushed herself up into more or less of a sitting position on the floor, checking as she did t
o make sure that the floor around her crotch wasn’t wet again. There would have once been a time when the great and famous Trudy Hollis would have been mortified at the idea of wetting herself. Now she was just relieved that she didn’t have to clean the smell out of the carpet yet again.
Again the doorbell. She almost screamed for whoever kept pushing it to just stop already, but caught herself at the last moment. That would do nothing but confirm to the person that she was indeed in her apartment. Maybe if she was quiet, they would eventually think she wasn’t here and go away. Sure, she had a little curiosity about who it could be after all this time, but most likely it was just some two-bit journalist that had suddenly remembered she existed and thought she could give a few comments to some three-paragraph follow-up piece on some tabloid website. It would be better to just keep her mouth shut, at least until she could find a bottle that still had some whiskey or something in it and she could return to her haze.
She thought all this as she stood up, or tried to stand up. It was more like pulling herself up using the furniture in order to keep from toppling over again. The hangover was bad this morning (or was it afternoon?), but at least there was no visible sign that she had vomited on anything last night (this morning? Seriously, what the hell time was it?). Her first stumbling steps, though, knocked over a couple of empties that had been next to the couch. There was no way her uninvited guest didn’t hear it.
Still, for several seconds Trudy stood absolutely still, hoping the person had somehow missed it.
“Mrs. Hollis-Nelson?” a man’s voice called from beyond the door.
“For God’s sake,” she muttered to herself. Then, loud enough that her intruder could hear her through the door, “No soliciting!”
“Mrs. Hollis-Nelson, I need to speak with you. My employer…”
“Go away or I’ll call the cops!” She started toward the door, only getting about halfway before her world started to spin and she had to stop to regain her balance.
“My employer has a proposition for you,” the man continued.
“Tell the bastard to learn how to use a phone.” And that way, too, it would be easier for her to turn it off and ignore him.
“We tried. Apparently, your service has been turned off?”
Oh. Right. Trudy had forgotten about that. She’d stopped paying her cell phone bill altogether after her fifty-third death threat, the same thing that had caused her to completely abandon the internet. She was still paying her cable bill, but only because all the TV news outlets had moved on to more recent scandals to exploit. To them, Trudy’s shame was old news. If she just kept in hiding for another five or six years, maybe she would be able to show her face in public again.
Then again, maybe not.
“That should have been your first clue,” Trudy yelled, even though she was standing right at the door now. “Whatever you want, I’m not interested. No comment. No photos. And no more God-damned stalkers. Seriously, go away or I’ll call the cops.”
There was the audible sound of the man trying to repress a laugh. “And how do you plan on doing that without a phone?”
Oh for Christ’s sake. “Just go away. I’ve got…” She was going to say she had a gun, but that was the image the media had pasted all over the place of her, wasn’t it? Her, a rifle in her hand, and a “cool and uncaring demeanor” on her face, as one national rag had worded it. The last thing she wanted was to use that as a threat and bring that whole mess back to this person’s mind.
“Mrs. Hollis-Nelson, if you will just let me come in and speak to you…”
She leaned against the door and sighed. All the fight drained from her voice. “Tell you what. I’ll let you in and give you ten minutes, but only if you stop calling me that.”
“I’m sorry, stop calling you what?”
“Hollis-Nelson. It’s just Hollis now.”
There was a long pause from the other side. “I’m so sorry. I should have remembered. Please, Miss Hollis, may I come in?”
It took a surprisingly long time for Trudy to fumble the multiple locks open. She had to still be a little on the tipsy side. That, or she was subconsciously still trying to keep the world out even as she let it in. When she’d finally managed to unlock all four, she let the door swing open a few inches and then walked away, trying to make it look like she didn’t actually care who had come calling on her. In truth, despite her blazing hangover keeping her from thinking too clearly, her curiosity was piqued. This man had been more persistent than any attempted visitor she’d had in at least three weeks. He had to be here for something special, at least in his mind.
As she wandered in the direction of her kitchen, hoping to find a beer or something in the fridge that she had previously missed, she casually looked over her shoulder at her visitor. He was African-American like her, but also short and bald. The deep creases in his forehead suggested either a life long-lived or a life short-lived except with lots of frowning. He wore a long, dark coat and tailored suit that brought to mind some kind of government agent, but the suit was of too high a quality for that. Whoever this guy worked for, it was someone who could pay the hired help decent money.
“Drink?” she asked him as she opened the fridge.
He sniffed the air. Although Trudy herself had grown used to it, she was sure the apartment reeked of alcohol and body odor. “Uh, no. Thank you.”
That was just as well, since the fridge was empty. As soon as she got rid of this guy, she was going to have to take another trip to the liquor store. Assuming her credit card didn’t finally get rejected. She wasn’t sure when the last time had been that she’d paid it.
She closed the fridge and turned to lean on the counter, doing her best not to look like she cared that a man was in her apartment wearing a suit that probably cost more than her rent. “So? Go ahead and talk. The sooner you do, the sooner I can tell you to leave.”
Instead of saying anything, the man walked further into her apartment and went right for the bookshelf next to her couch. Trudy stiffened. She had the mind often in the last two months to pack away every single thing on that shelf and hide it in the back of a closet. Or maybe even burn them. She’d never gotten around to it, though, as she was often too busy being passed out on the couch.
He reached up to a shelf near the middle, carefully ran a finger across the spines of several books, then stopped with a smile when he seemed to find one that pleased him. He pulled it out and began flipping through it, standing at an angle as he did so that clearly allowed her to see which one it was. Up Among the Giants, by Trudy Hollis. One of her earlier works, long before she had temporarily added Nelson to the end of her name.
“I read this one, oh, I think about twenty years ago?” the man said. “The prose was obviously the work of a beginner, but the subject matter was fascinating.”
Trudy didn’t speak, didn’t even look at him. A lot of people had thought the same thing. Although Up Among the Giants hadn’t been the first book about her work, it had always been the most popular. Or at least it had been before the public turned on her.
He put the book back on the shelf before bending down and looking down at the rest of the books on the shelf. The shelf he’d first been perusing had all been her own books, but the rest of her shelves consisted mostly of reference works, everything from her old college biology textbooks to tour books for the various countries she’d visiting during her travels and studies. He seemed to linger on a Moon Handbook for Uganda before he stood back up and looked her in the eye.
“Quite the life you had,” he said. “And quite different from what you’re doing now.”
“I’m sorry, but who the hell even are you?”
“My name is George Axton.”
“Aaaand is that a name I’m supposed to know? Because you came sauntering in here as though you expected me to be impressed or something. And I have to say, it’s not happening yet.”
“Of course not. I’m just a messenger. Among other things. It’s my employer t
hat you’ve probably heard of. Marvin Irving?”
The name rang all sorts of vague bells in Trudy’s head, although it took a while for all the facts to line up in her hung-over brain. “Isn’t he… uh, the Bouncer?”
Axton smiled. “He was known as that once. He’s better known for other things now, of course.”
“Like?”
“Have you ever seen the show Sell Your Soul?”
Suddenly, she could put a face to the name, a dark, serious face belonging to a giant of a man in an impeccably tailored suit that would make Axton’s look like a garbage bag with holes cut in it for arms. “Oh. He’s one of the Buyers, isn’t he?”
“That’s what he’s best known for right now, but I’m sure you know…”
“He’s got his hands in everything,” Trudy said. “So what, he’s sent you here to make some kind of deal with me? Trust me, I don’t have any deals for him to get in on the ground floor on.”
“I’d be surprised if you did,” Axton said. “That’s never been your kind of thing. If I remember correctly, you’ve had opportunities to cash in on your work in the past, haven’t you? Wasn’t there an offer once to put your name on a line of plushes?”
“Yep. And I told the toy corporation to go fuck themselves. I wasn’t going to cheapen what I do just so they could have a famous name on the next version of Beanie Babies.”
“And if I still recall correctly, those were your exact words. ‘Go fuck yourselves.’ And you said it on national television. You ended up losing money thanks to the massive fine the FCC gave you.”
“Best couple hundred thousand dollars I ever spent,” Trudy said. There hadn’t been any more beer in her fridge, but there were a bunch of butter packets left over from the last time she’d gotten fast food. She peeled the foil off several and popped them in her mouth. Axton stared for a second but didn’t bother asking.
“So no, Mr. Irving would know better than to expect you to put your name on any of his products. Not that your name is worth anything these days.”
The Beasts Of Stoneclad Mountain Page 15
