Everyone Is a Moon

by Sawney Hatton

  EVERYONE

  IS A MOON

  strange stories by

  Sawney Hatton

  These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Everyone Is a Moon Copyright © 2013-2018 by Sawney Hatton

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in articles or reviews.

  Cover design by Fredrick Richard

  Artwork in “The Dark at the Deep End” by Patrick McGuiverstein

  Published by Dark Park Publishing

  First Edition: June 2018

  Praise for

  Sawney Hatton’s short stories

  “Sawney Hatton is one part Twilight Zone, two parts American Horror Story. If you're looking for twisted, creepy tales that'll burrow into your soul, you've come to the right place.”

  —Russ Colchamiro

  Author of Crossline and Editor of Love, Murder & Mayhem

  “This author has the same delicious darkness [as Stephen King], but with an additional touch of a strange wit and humor… How can something so dark be so addicting?”

  —Jennifer Elizabeth Hyndman

  Author/Blogger of Angels in the Underworld

  “Most of [Hatton’s stories] are so firmly rooted in the familiar, you wonder where the stories are going, that is, until the hard lefts occur. (You can take that as a turn or a punch. Either way works.)”

  —Quentin J. Parker

  Author of Mondo Bohemiano

  “These are unique, fresh, twisted, intelligent stories.”

  —Daniel P. Calvisi

  Author of Story Maps: How to Write a GREAT Screenplay

  “The voices are well created, the story lines are interesting, and Hatton has a good touch as to when to make things explicit and when to leave them below the surface.”

  —David S. Atkinson

  Author of Apocalypse All the Time and Bones Buried in the Dirt

  “Clever, dark, funny, and enjoyable in the best way.”

  —Rodney Gardner

  Book reviewer

  To everybody who

  believed in my words.

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  The Good Touch

  Cutting Remarks

  The Boy Who Cried Alien

  Pet

  In Memoriam the Ostrich

  The Mortality Machine

  The Lord Is My Rocket

  The Beholder

  Mr. Gregori

  FYVP

  The Dark at the Deep End

  Suitable for Framing

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Some Graphic Material Herein.

  Reader Discretion Advised.

  PREFACE

  My memories of my childhood are hazy at best. More often they are blank spots, locked rooms for which I no longer have the key.

  And yet, I do vividly remember snippets and snapshots of certain moments. My father holding me while we peered down the length of the derailed Florida-bound train we’d been riding on. Screaming for my mother while the nurses wheeled me away from her on my way to get a tonsillectomy. Shrinking away from my dying grandfather in his hospice room because I feared he would make me sick too. A railroad safety slide show shown in my elementary school that featured graphic photos of bloody faces and mangled flesh. The decaying carcass of a Dalmatian lying in a snowy woodland beside the highway near where my friends and I used to go sledding.

  These may sound traumatizing, or at least disturbing, especially to a young, impressionable mind. But they hadn’t induced nightmares or phobias in me. Rather, they sparked my captivation with the morbid and macabre.

  From an early age I loved Horror movies and creepy imagery. In my pre-teens I voraciously read Horror anthologies like Shadows and Horror comics like Eerie. As I got older, I became an avid fan of black comedy—Evelyn Waugh’s book The Loved One, Hal Ashby’s film Harold & Maude, the Butthole Surfers album Locust Abortion Technician.

  I saved unusual murder articles from the local newspaper, like the son who killed his mother just because she would not make him spaghetti and meatballs for Thanksgiving dinner. I staged grisly crime scenes using stuffed toy animals. I mounted a paper banner on my bedroom wall that read “Necrophiliacs Like ’Em Cold.” (Disclaimer: I am not, nor have I ever been, a necrophiliac.)

  I was a weird kid, with very indulgent parents.

  Now here I am today, all grown up with adult responsibilities, and I still haven’t gotten that affinity for weirdness out of my system.

  So that, dear reader, is what you’re getting yourself into.

  This collection of what I consider to be my best Dark Fiction short stories represents a twenty-five-year span of my writing career. As the author, it’s interesting to review my works created over nearly half my lifetime. I’m obviously drawn to the darker sides of the human psyche. But I’m also intrigued by those who harbor secrets or suffer delusions, the faces they present to others often masking their perverse thoughts, feelings, or compulsions.

  Hence the title of this collection, derived from Mark Twain’s maxim found in Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar (1897): “Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.” It is a quote that resonates throughout the tales contained herein.

  The Good Touch — This whimsical, irreverent story spawned from my newfound fascination with trailer parks, faith healers, and Jesus making His comeback on burnt slices of toast.

  Cutting Remarks — My stab (or rather, bludgeon) at an Alfred Hitchcock Presents type of tale, one specifically inspired by a Roald Dahl short story. There is nothing a married couple can’t reconcile if they work it out together.

  The Boy Who Cried Alien — I’ve always been a fan of ’50s Sci-Fi alien/monster movies (see my anthology What Has Two Heads, Ten Eyes, and Terrifying Table Manners?). This is an homage to those films, and the people who watch too many of them.

  Pet — Here is your typical “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy keeps girl’s pet” Science Fiction story. It was inspired by the sad end of classic Hollywood movie actress Marie Prevost.

  In Memoriam the Ostrich — Hypocrisy is one of my favorite themes. And cannibalism. What does the Bible say about cannibalism? Turns out, pretty much nothing. Which does not make the pastor’s job in this piece easy.

  The Mortality Machine — A love story of sorts that poses the question: if you say you’ll love somebody forever, can you mean it literally? If you’re a genius, maybe there’s a way.

  The Lord Is My Rocket — This is my satirical poke at religious zealotry, wherein the devout Christian caregiver of a developmentally disabled man vows to save his soul by taking him to a unique monastery. Moral: you can’t save everyone.

  The Beholder — The first draft of this character study about a man who finds beauty in everything he encounters was written back when I was in high school. Though edited substantially since then, all versions have retained its original theme.

  Mr. Gregori — In this Horror tale, a man cursed by a demon becomes infatuated with the new tenant of his apartment. Maybe she would love him in return… if only she could see, hear, or feel him.

  FYVP — This is a nasty little teeth-clencher about body modification and those who get a thrill out of it, made a bit classier by the literary reference at its climax.

 
; The Dark at the Deep End — Loosely (very loosely) based on some of my own teenage experiences, this conte cruel (“cruel tale”) chronicles a budding serial killer before he acts on his sadistic impulses.

  Suitable for Framing — With a plot salvaged from one of my earliest unproduced screenplays, it’s a commentary on art, artists, and their fans. How much you enjoy this story perhaps says something about what kind of fan you are. Not judging; just putting it out there.

  I hope readers will find these pieces entertaining. They are the cream of the rather limited crop of short works I’ve written to date, representing a warped window into my weird mind.

  There are, I suspect, worse places to be.

  —Sawney Hatton

  THE GOOD TOUCH

  You’d think when Jesus did His encore, we’d get the whole enchilada, right? I mean, after a 2,000 plus year wait, He could’ve at least played us a full set with wicked sound and trippy lights and hot new moves we’ve never seen before. But as the angel explained to Les, the Lord is a very busy dude and has to divvy Himself up. Fair enough.

  But damn… this?

  Yeah, I know. I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with that night, when the angel paid Les a visit.

  Me and Les were sitting in Les’s trailer, pounding back a case of PBR, shooting the shit. I was bitching about the usual: being chronically unemployed and poor as a possum and still living in my mom’s garage. Les groused about the Kiwanis canceling their annual bake sale for cancer kids.

  Yeah, you read that right.

  Les and me had been best buddies since grammar school when we’d bike over to Sawmill Creek to fish for perch. In middle school we drew superhero comics and played war games in the woods. In high school we partied with the chicks from Sunny Willow Girls School. Now it’s ten years later and we Two Stooges (as Principal DeMott dubbed us) are still tight.

  I’d like to think the reason Les still chums around with me is because he enjoys my company. But sometimes I think he just feels sorry for me.

  See, compared to myself—who’s always had this dirt cloud hanging over my head raining mud down on me—Les has a charmed life. He’s the night manager at Stu’s Market, getting paid enough to afford his own double-wide. He’s got a 50" flatscreen TV with an Xbox 360. Girls say he’s got a great smile. Everybody likes him. Not only is he sweeter than SoCo, he shows bottomless compassion for every living critter. Les is always willing to lend an ear to someone in distress, offer a hand to a worthy cause. He volunteers all his spare time during the day at the hospital, or the senior center, or the animal shelter. Joins those walks to find a cure for whatever.

  Guy’s a friggin’ saint.

  So forgive me if I sometimes feel I’m nothing but a sinner in Les’s eyes in need of saving.

  Anyway, that night I tell him what I really need is a break.

  He tells me I gotta want something to break into.

  How ’bout a bank? I say. I was joking.

  Les didn’t laugh. Just gives me that “oh c’mon” face of his.

  I then say I wanna win the lottery.

  Les suggests I should come help out at the hospital. Or the shelter.

  I say no. That would only bum me out more.

  It’ll make you feel better, he says. About my life, I guess. Make me less of a loser.

  But I’d never be Les.

  I tell him I’ll think about it, but I’d forgotten all about it well before I drain my last beer. I leave his place sometime after 3 a.m. Walk home, take a leak in the bushes, crash out on my futon in mom’s garage. The usual.

  *****

  In the morning Les rings me on my prepaid cell. He sounds like he’s buggin’ out, begs me to come over right away.

  My head’s hammering and my gut’s killing me, so I was in no mood for Les’s burning puppy orphanage or whatever nonsense.

  Is it really important? I ask him.

  Mike, he answers, something happened to me last night after you left. Something mondo bizarro.

  This stokes my curiosity. Of course he won’t tell me what it is over the phone. He has to show me. So fifteen minutes later I’m back at his place. Les’s face is paler than vanilla ice cream, and he’s got this haunted, I-just-took-the-biggest-dump-in-human-history stare.

  I notice he’s wrapped up his left hand in a white T-shirt.

  You hurt yourself? I ask him.

  Les then tells me what happened:

  “I was just dozing off. Or maybe I was already asleep. It was still dark out, I remember that. And then this amazingly bright light fills the room, as if somebody pulled a tarp off a searchlight in here. And then this light takes the shape of this long-haired, bearded guy in a white robe. Of course I’m like ‘holy crap,’ but for some reason I wasn’t scared at all. The guy says ‘Hello, Lester’ and I say ‘Who are you?’ And he says he’s an angel named Efram—no, I wasn’t that drunk. I’ve never been so drunk I was seeing things—Efram tells me I’m one of the chosen, that the Lord was giving me a special gift… a piece of Him. The angel told me a bunch of other stuff, mostly rules about using the gift. When I woke up, it was daytime, and I had this—”

  Les unravels the shirt from his hand and shows me what it was covering.

  My jaw drops and bounces off the floor.

  Les had sprouted, between his thumb and pointer fingers, a sixth finger. It is almost a full inch longer than his tallest finger, and much darker than the skin of the rest of his hand. And it isn’t sewed on or attached with glue or anything. It looks to be part of him, like he was born with it. He can bend and wiggle it by itself. It’s perfectly manicured.

  That’s freaky, I tell him.

  Les agrees.

  So Jesus gave him one of His fingers. What for? I ask.

  Les tells me it can heal people.

  I’m skeptical. Why’d He pick him to get it?

  The angel said he met certain qualifications.

  Of course Les met them. As I said, guy’s a friggin’ saint.

  Still, I want to see proof of these special powers.

  Let’s check out what that freaky finger can do, I say.

  We step outside and, as luck would have it, eight-year-old Billy Meijer had just fallen off his skateboard, scraping six inches of hide off his forearm. We find him bleeding and blubbering on the driveway neighboring Les’s.

  There ya go, I say to Les. Fix him.

  He kneels down beside Billy and says some calming words to him. Tells him he’s gonna try to make him feel better. The kid spots Les’s coffee-stained extra finger and cries harder. Les tells him don’t be afraid, it’s his new magic finger. Then he touches the kid’s raw wound with it and, sure enough, the bloody patch disappears like a magic trick. A miracle I guess you’d call it.

  Wow! yells Billy.

  That’s awesome, I say.

  Les seems impressed too. And kinda weirded out. Can you blame him?

  I tell Les to do somebody else.

  We trot over to Louise Bollinger’s trailer. She’s got emphysema and can’t stop coughing. Magic finger does its work and POOF! No more hacking. Then we visit Eddie Frapper. He’s stuck in a wheelchair, both legs crippled from a motorbike accident. POOF! Dude can dance again. Then we hit Sol Hockenfeifer’s, who’s blind. POOF! Sol can catch a movie tonight.

  By the end of the afternoon Les has healed the ills and injuries of all the citizens of Green Glades mobile park. We hear a lot of Hallelujahs and Praise the Lords. People weep, thank Les and hug him, offer him their cash and valuables (which he declines, being the good neighbor he is).

  But that gets me thinking. This is our golden ticket, I say to Les. With his J-wand and me managing him, we’d be rich!

  Les shakes his head. Can’t, he says.

  Why not? I ask.

  It turns out to be one of the rules. He can’t receive any payment for healing people. No money, no goods, no services.

  I say, you’re kidding me.

  No, Les answers. The angel said if he breaks any of
the rules, he loses His gift.

  So what? I say. If you can’t make a buck of it, what’s the point?

  Without missing a beat he says, I can help people.

  Of course. It’s Saint Les.

  *****

  When somebody has the supernatural ability to heal anybody’s sickness or handicap, word about it travels faster than a hooker making the rounds at a political convention. Within a day, folks from all over town were pouring into Green Glades and lining up at Les’s door. Those with arthritis—POOF! Asthma—POOF! Heart disease or hemorrhoids—POOF! and POOF! Diarrhea, deafness, diabetes—POOF! POOF! POOF! All cured by the bona fide finger of Christ, retrofitted to my pal Lester Earl Tewlinski III.

  I put myself in charge of crowd control, making sure Les’s eager patients didn’t try to elbow ahead of each other. Like Les, I wasn’t getting paid a penny for it. But I had to admit, while not healing my undernourished wallet any, it was pretty exciting having a friend who could make people’s lives better, who could save a life so easily. Everybody left his trailer happy and healthy and grateful. It was touching.

  Dozens turned into hundreds by the end of the week. They arrived from other towns, then other states, even other countries. Members of the Wrath of Angels motorcycle club signed on to help me keep the growing mob peaceful and orderly. We put up a chain-link security fence around Les’s trailer and set up rope stanchions to corral everybody in the vacant lot next-door. Kicked to the curb anyone who tried to cut in line.