BROOD XIX
A Novella
Michael McBride
Copyright © 2011 Michael McBride
Smashwords Edition
Brood XIX copyright © 2011 by Michael McBride
Previously published in the anthology Sideshow Exhibits copyright © 2010 by Michael McBride, from Sideshow Press
"The Generosity of Strangers" copyright © 2006 by Michael McBride
Previously published in Dark Wisdom Magazine #10 © 2006 by Elder Signs Press
Cover photograph copyright © 2011 by Jeff Thrower
Cover artistic edges design © 2011 by Ron Deviney
Excerpt from Burial Ground © 2011 by Michael McBride
Excerpt from Bloodletting copyright © 2009 by Michael McBride
Excerpt from Innocents Lost copyright © 2010 by Michael McBride
Excerpt from Predatory Instinct copyright © 2011 by Michael McBride
All Rights Reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Michael McBride.
For more information about the author, please visit his website: www.michaelmcbride.net
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Also by Michael McBride
NOVELS
Bloodletting
Burial Ground
Innocents Lost
Predatory Instinct
Vector Borne
NOVELLAS
Blindspot
Remains (from The Mad & The Macabre, with Jeff Strand)
The Calm Before the Swarm
Xibalba
ZERØ
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BROOD XIX
Bonus Material
The Generosity of Strangers
A Short Story
Excerpt from BURIAL GROUND
Excerpt from BLOODLETTING
Excerpt from INNOCENTS LOST
Excerpt from PREDATORY INSTINCT
For Gene, Gord, and Tom...my cohorts in crime
Special Thanks to Gene O'Neill, Gord Rollo, Tom Moran, Jeff Strand, Brian Keene, my family, and all of my loyal readers, without whom none of this would be possible.
BROOD XIX
If you take everything that I love
And you leave me here,
Leave me alive...
If you take everything that I love
And I'm standing here
Waiting to die...
I hear you call
And I promise to you
One day, some day
The pain will go
---Overkill, "Promises"
Jefferson, Texas
Two Years Ago
There were moments made for memory, when the universe aligned just right and granted the briefest glimpse into the benevolent heart it hid so well under the guise of oppression and pain. The perfect moment when one simply stopped doing whatever had seemed so important only seconds earlier in order to take the kind of mental snapshot that would rise unbidden through the years, bringing with it the wistful smile we save only for ourselves.
For Vanessa Snow, this was such a moment.
Time both stood still and raced past. The dishes in the sink vanished beneath the rising swell of bubbles while the faucet continued to run. In her hands, the glasses and plates washed themselves. The window in front of her afforded a view into another world entirely, where the early afternoon sunlight slanted through the shifting, Spanish moss-bearded branches of the cypress trees in golden columns so pure they could have been individual rays sent years ago from hundreds of thousands of miles away with this one occasion in mind. They shined like celestial spotlights onto the young girl kneeling at the edge of the yard where grass gave way to the morass of the Big Cypress Bayou and Caddo Lake beyond. The silky black locks that flowed over her shoulders shimmered in stark contrast to her filthy clothes. She was covered in mud; up her arms, down her legs, smears on her cheeks. Her companion, who was undoubtedly responsible for the mess, pranced around her, paws thick with brown sludge, his muzzle and the better part of his head already beginning to dry into a cracked crust. The Irish setter's tongue lolled sideways out of his mouth as he panted against the heat. The little girl wore a matching expression, although hers was the result of supreme concentration versus the enduring silliness that made it impossible to stay mad at the dog, despite the two-foot-deep hole he had exhumed from the trim behind the garden where once the now-uprooted blue fescue ornamental grasses had grown.
Vanessa turned off the water and wiped the suds from her hands. She opened the back screen door and stepped out onto the porch. The muggy heat swaddled her like a wet blanket. She closed the door silently behind her and swished through the damp lawn in her bare feet.
Buddy saw her first and bounded across the yard to greet her. He leapt up, braced his muddy front paws on her apron, and licked her chin.
"Good boy," Vanessa said, pushing him gently back down.
Emma looked up at her and blinked the sun out of her eyes. She beamed with a grin that lit up her entire face.
"Look what I made for you, Mommy."
She lifted what at first appeared to be a giant divot from the lawn with both hands and held it out in her cupped palms.
Vanessa crouched in front of her six year-old daughter, the center of her world, and accepted the sloppy creation with a smile.
"It's beautiful," she said, turning it over and over in her now-filthy hands.
Emma had packed mud into a shape that reminded Vanessa of a plump gingerbread man and wrapped the long blades of the blue fescues around it to hold it together. There were small knots where the grass had been inexpertly tied. Two shiny pebbles were pressed into its face to approximate eyes and bound in place with more tangled blades. Heart-shaped leaves had been affixed to the sides of its head to form ears. It was roughly a foot tall, and while a single drop from any height would undoubtedly destroy it, Emma had done a remarkable job of constructing it.
"It's a teddy bear," Emma said with evident pride. "I made it just for you."
Her smile grew even wider.
"It's amazing, honey. How did you know this was exactly what I wanted?"
"Every girl needs a teddy bear, Mommy. You can put it on your dresser just like the ones in my room."
Vanessa smirked. Lord only knew what kind of bugs and germs were crawling around inside that thing.
"Maybe the front window where we keep the plants would be a better place. That way it'll be the first thing people see when they're coming up to our house."
"Okay," Emma said. She smeared her hands across the front of her dress.
It's only mud, Vanessa told herself. It'll wash right out. There was no point in getting upset about it. Besides, how could she even consider being mad at such a precious, thoughtful little angel.
"We need to hurry up and get you in the bath," Vanessa said. "Your daddy's going to be home soon...and he has a big surprise planned for you tonight."
"A big surprise? What is it? Tell me what it is!"
"If I told you, then it wouldn't be a surpris
e, now would it?" Vanessa lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "But it must be pretty exciting if your daddy's taking off work early for it. I think you can probably even wear your new dress."
"All right!"
Emma whooped and ran for the back door with Buddy at her heels.
Vanessa followed, the filthy bear held at arm's length. It was slick and slimy and smelled faintly of marsh gasses, and yet still it was now one of her most treasured possessions. At least until it started to decompose.
* * *
Marion County Sheriff's Deputy Trey Walden had drawn the short straw as usual. He had already seen the sheriff and the other two deputies wandering toward the carnival with their families, while here he was, patrolling the broad dirt parking lot like some kind of minimum-wage rent-a-cop. The uneven rows passed to either side, packed with dusty pickups, older model sedans, and even a smattering of rusted tractors. Men and women strolled hand-in-hand toward the path leading down the hill through a grove of magnolia and cypress trees toward where the traveling carnival had risen from the marsh, seemingly overnight, in the seldom-used Marion County Fairgrounds. Some towed children in strollers and wagons, while others carried wide-eyed kids on their hips and shoulders. All of them were dressed for a night on the town. Women even wore dresses and scuffed high-heel shoes, as though an evening at the fair passed for high society in this remote section of Eastern Texas, mere miles from the Louisiana border.
His own girlfriend was somewhere down there in the crowds as well, drinking foamy beer from a clear plastic cup and eating funnel cakes with her friends, while he cruised aimlessly through the rutted lot, the tires rising and falling awkwardly over clumps of ambitious weeds on the cruiser's stiff suspension, waiting for someone stupid enough to attempt to break into one of these cars with nothing of any real value locked inside.
Trey sighed and rolled down his window in hopes that the evening air would help keep him alert. Unfortunately, it was every bit as hot and stifling as that inside the sweltering Caprice.
Music and a riot of voices drifted uphill from where he could faintly make out the blinking white and red lights through the trees. He heard laughter, clanging sounds, and the rumble of a rickety roller coaster. This was going to be all everyone talked about for the next few weeks, two nights of fun and games, and all he would be able to add to the conversation was that he had ensured the safety of their vehicles so they could have the time of their lives without him.
He paused at the end of the main aisle so that his headlights washed over the wide path through the shadowed grove. A line had formed at the ticket booth under a large hand-painted sign. Crowley's. No one was about to mistake it for Ringling Bros., that was for sure.
A tapping sound on the side of his cruiser made him flinch.
"Hey, baby brother," a familiar voice said. "Keeping the world safe for democracy?"
"Very funny, Vanessa."
"Uncle Trey!"
He had to crane his neck to look up to where Emma sat on her father's shoulders, her legs hanging against his chest. Warren was more than six feet tall. Piggybacking around the doctor's neck must have been like a ride in itself.
"Hiya, munchkin. Are you ready to have some serious fun?"
"They have elephant rides, you know. Have you ever ridden an elephant?"
"Can't say as I have, but I expect you to tell me all about it. And make sure you get some of that cotton candy all these people are walking around with."
"I want one of those huge suckers instead."
"Call me on my cell if you're able to take a break," Vanessa said. "We could grab a beer or something."
"You suck."
She smirked, gave his left arm a squeeze through the window, and headed out of the parking lot with her family. With a flippant wave over her shoulder, she merged into the crowd funneling down the path.
Trey sighed again.
Two-thousand and thirty-two people in town, and it appeared as though every single one of them was down there around the big top.
Everyone but him.
* * *
Vanessa slipped her arm around her husband's waist and leaned her head against his upper arm. Myriad colors flashed all around her from the lights strung overhead between the roofs of the claptrap attractions. The mosquitoes were out in full force, but no one complained. She smelled spilled beer, sugar, manure, and the sour scent of body odor from the masses packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the narrow aisles. Bells clanged and alarms rang as giant stuffed animals were won in games of chance. Ticket-takers hollered over the chaos, summoning ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls to come right on up and see breathtaking and terrifying sideshow attractions and oddities. Rides grumbled. Children screamed. Every dozen feet she had to hop over a mound of animal dung.
It was an amazing night. Vanessa had never really been the kind who enjoyed carnivals like this. They always felt so dirty, as though anything she touched would make her sticky. And yet she was absolutely loving every minute of it. Not the rides or the curiosities. Just being with her husband and her daughter, doing something outside of the normal routine into which they seemed to have settled. They didn't have to talk about how the recession was slowly killing Warren's practice or about how Medicaid disbursement fell by nearly ten percent annually or about how the rising cost of private health insurance had become so exorbitant that fewer and fewer people were able to afford it. They were able to relax and enjoy the moment, each other's company, and the excitement positively radiating from Emma, who scampered ahead of them through the crowd, dodging legs and whipping her head from side to side to absorb everything there was to see. Her new dress was already dirty and her new shoes were covered with Lord only knew what.
She had never looked happier.
"This was a wonderful idea," Vanessa said. "Thank you for doing this."
"Nothing but the best for my ladies," Warren said. He hugged her around the shoulders as they walked. "Besides, you know I've never been able to resist the opportunity to lay siege to my arteries with a full frontal assault of fried food. I take it as a kind of personal challenge."
"Don't even joke about that. I don't know what I'd do if you ever left me."
"You couldn't get rid of me if you tried." He kissed her on the top of the head and pulled her closer. "Although there are much worse ways to go than death by corndog."
She pinched the skin above his hip and gave it a solid twist.
"Ow!" He goosed her ribs in retaliation. "I was just kidding, you know. Sheesh."
"You're just lucky I didn't go after my first choice of targets."
"Ouch. I think that would fall under the category of cruel and unusual..."
His words trailed off, leaving the clamor of hundreds of voices, all vying to be heard. He stopped and the crowd channeled around them.
"What?" she asked, but she already knew. She could feel the tension in his arms, in the way his posture stiffened. It raced through her like an electrical current. Bodies shoved past them from both directions. Faces flashed past, familiar and unfamiliar alike, stained by the winking lights, eyes recessed in shadow. Someone clipped her side in an effort to squeeze past and nearly sent her sprawling.
"Where's Emma?" she whispered.
Warren stood on his toes in an attempt to see over the restrained bedlam.
"She was just here," he said. He released her shoulders and turned a slow circle. "She was right in front of us."
"Emma!" Vanessa called.
"She can't have gone very far." The note of panic in his voice only served to amplify her own. "I'll go this way. You check over there."
He ducked away from her through the crowd toward the ring toss. She turned her back on him and shoved in the direction of a mobile home with a plywood façade painted with a two-headed goat and a mummified dwarf.
"Emma!" she screamed. Her eyes darted left and right, scanning faster than her brain could rationalize. People became blurs. She was bumped and jostled from all sides at once. "Emma!"<
br />
She watched for a fleeting glimpse of her daughter's black- and indigo-striped felt dress, of the red bows in her hair, of her chubby cheeks.
Nothing.
"Emma!"
She grabbed the nearest man without looking at his face.
"Have you seen my daughter? She has long dark hair and a---"
The man jerked his arm out of her grasp and rushed away from her.
"Emma!"
She turned and ran back to where she had left her husband. He met her halfway. She could tell by his expression that he hadn't found Emma either.
"Stay right here," he said, taking her by the shoulders and looking directly into her eyes. "This was the last place we saw her. She's a smart girl. Once she realizes we've been separated, she'll come back here. In the meantime, call your brother and let him know what happened. I'll keep looking. I have my cell phone. If I find her first, I'll call you immediately. And you do the same."
He tipped up her chin and wiped away her tears with his thumbs.
"We'll find her," he said more softly. "You believe me, right?"
Brood XIX Page 1
