The Deadsong
Page 1
THE DEADSONG
by
Brandon Hardy
KINDLE EDITION
NOTICE
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by BRANDON HARDY
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
KINDLE EDITION, APRIL, 2012
For Gary Raines
THE DEADSONG
PART ONE
HEMMING
CHAPTER ONE: DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS
1
Two boys who had been fishing on Goose Creek found the flattened snake in the middle of Highway 7 and immediately noticed it was unlike any they'd ever seen before. Timmy turned it over with a stick and considered taking it home to show his father the odd stripes on its belly, but decided against it. His friend Matthew kept a good ten feet from the snake even though it lay smashed and dried up in the afternoon sun. He thought it might be playing dead, waiting for him to come closer so it could sink its fangs into the soft flesh of his calf. He knew better. This was a snake pancake for the buzzards to nibble on once they spotted it from the air. But he thought it might be one of those snakes. One of the Keeper's snakes. Matt was only nine, and according to the legend, the Keeper would only come for you when you turned eighteen. Nevertheless, he wasn't taking any chances.
When he got home, Matt Cooley told his father, who was a sheriff's deputy, about the snake. His father patted him on the shoulder and assured him the Keeper was just a myth, a local legend, but Matt wasn’t so sure.
2
It was nearly midnight when Ashley Monroe woke to something wet sliding across her ankle. She had cried herself to sleep after a nasty argument with her mother––something about getting a job even though she was planning to drop out of high school and get her GED once she had enough money saved for cosmetology school––but she had run to her room and slammed the door without saying goodnight, and she wouldn’t have the chance to ever say it again.
At first she thought it was just a nightmare––residual sensations manufactured by her brain while in the dream state––but when she threw back the covers and saw tiny eyes wriggling up her leg, she screamed.
Ashley tried to kick it away but her legs wouldn't move. It was on her chest now. She felt it slip under her T-shirt and squeeze between her small breasts her boyfriend always criticized her for having. Its body was cool on her neck, bending around her jaw and silently across her ear.
“MOM OH GOD HELP ME IT'S IN MY HAIR MOM PLEASE HELP ME!!”
Wake up. It's just a dream. Just a dream. You're asleep. You're fine. It's just––
Adrenaline and venom shot through her and she knew it was no dream. It felt like a needle-stick, only ten times worse than she ever remembered, aside from a tetanus shot last year after stepping on a rusty nail in the basement. But this hurt a hell of a lot worse. Her heart beat faster and faster, her breath becoming shallow and out of her control. It was actually happening and she could do nothing about it.
She strained to form words, squeezing all the air she had left in her lungs to say “IT BIT ME IT'S IN MY HAIR MOM FOR THE LOVE OF––”
She could feel more of them swirling around her thighs, up her arms, through her hair. They kept biting.
Mom never came. Ashley's mother was upstairs but awake, sitting in a rocker by the window as her husband slept off his whiskey affair. She tried to cry but couldn't. She thought about saving her daughter. If she ran like hell, there might be enough time, just enough time to get her to Durden Memorial and––
She couldn't interfere. Those were the rules. It was time, and he had come for that which was promised to him.
The Keeper had finally come.
As silence fell and all that persisted was the electric hum of the bug zapper outside on the front porch, Ashley's mother wondered who's child he would come for next…
3
Gina Starkweather always knew she was different, the way most adolescents attempt to justify what their parents consider odd behavior. All her life, she heard things others did not, but as she sat bathing in the afternoon sun with a dog-eared John D. McDonald paperback, all she heard was the usual chorus of jays high up in the trees. The wind began to pick up and carried with it the heavy smell of coconut tanning oil. She had the wealth of her mahogany curls tucked underneath a straw fedora––one that had belonged to her father. It had a crimson band that reminded her younger brother Dylan of how blood looked after it began to dry––a rich scarlet fading into an earthy brown. He had a knack for being tactless and morbid.
Gina was trying not to think about her report on Confederate General George Pickett due the next day. Her books sat unopened in her backpack upstairs, but she wasn’t too worried. Her history teacher Mr. Kessler was an absent-minded goof with a flask of Wild Turkey in his desk. She knew because she had watched him discreetly nip at it once or twice then frantically hide it beneath his day planner. If she got close to him, tilted her head, and batted her innocent eyes, he’d give her an extension––no doubt this flirtatious form of manipulation would give him an extension as well.
Dylan’s Geo Metro sputtered into the driveway. She put down the novel and laced her hands behind her head.
“Whatcha reading?” Dylan asked, walking up to her. The family dog, a shuffling border collie name Fender, bounced at his heels.
“None of your beeswax,” Gina said. “Mom’s not home by the way. She’s visiting Uncle Paul at county.”
Dylan’s heart sank at the thought of having to fend for himself at dinnertime. Again.
Uncle Paul––or Paulie, depending on what side of the law you were on––was financially very generous and had helped the family out a great deal, especially after Richard Starkweather had been killed in an accident at the aluminum plant where he worked. The settlement had been decent, but it was only enough to cover Dick’s horrifying gambling debts. As for the rest, Uncle Paul stepped in and said not to worry about it. But now, Paulie was crouched in the corner of a crossbar suite waiting for his sister’s weekly visit.
Gina dozed off until raindrops began kissing her cheeks. She opened her eyes and saw the thunderheads stacking up over the hill behind the house. She reached down for the paperback, but it was gone––Fender was under the porch ripping through it like an anxious child on Christmas morning.
She lumbered to her room and closed the door. She took off her father’s fedora and hung it with great care next to a black top hat––one you might see at a high school prom or a tasteless wedding. There were four other hats of various styles hanging on the rack over her bed, and each of them had a story. The Texan ten gallon on the left had belonged to Brett Carson, an old cinema cowboy who hosted a local television show for children back when her father was a small boy. Her father had bought it at an auction many years after Cowboy Carson went on to be a ghost rider in the sky, and her father had loved it for many reasons––its nostalgia, its ability to transcend time and space, its power to transport him back to the days of fantasy and pure imagination, where he sat in front of the television, mesmerized by moving pictures of horses, shootouts, and poker––the stuff that made a kid want to be a cowboy. He once told her it was a time capsule that opened when you put it on––childhood dreams of adventures out west immortalized in a single inanimate object. As a child and even now as a young woman, she believed him.
Gina enjoyed this. She always had a vivid imagination that sometimes got her into trouble, but this was her escape. She was nearly out of school and would soon be thrown out into the real world to deal with real things like insurance, mortgage payments, and a J-O-B.
She wasn’t ready for that. This was prime time, baby. Time itself didn’t seem to exist outside her little candy-coated world. Everything was hunky-dory. Hemming was a swell place to live comfortably and peacefully away from the neighboring town of Durden where she attended school with people she’d known most of her life. She had her friends, her family, her dog, and…her hats. Nothing else really mattered. But something had crept up in her mind lately, a feeling she hadn’t been able to confidently identify until now.
It was loneliness. Sure she had friends, but this was different. She had never needed anyone else––a boyfriend, for instance––but suddenly she wanted more. Needed more. She craved compassion and desire, longing to be loved by someone who wasn’t obligated to do so.
Gina put the hat back where she’d taken it and looked at her backpack leaning next to the bed. She decided against homework then went downstairs.
A loaf of bread sat on the kitchen table amidst an army of condiment––uncapped mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup bottles lay like wounded soldiers across a battlefield of laminated wood. Dylan stood in front of the window gnawing on a mystery meat sandwich. He was looking out at the backyard watching the birth of a light August shower. The deep shadows made by the evening sun were gone. An overcast sky blanketed the property and the pastures that rolled over the horizon with a dull gray pallor. Gina went and stood next to him. She observed bits of paper scuttling across the yard––Fender’s leftovers, no doubt––and suddenly felt like crying. Not over the tragic mutilation of her paperback or her lack of effort preparing for her report, but…
Why then? Perhaps watching the rain had somehow triggered an urge to switch on her own waterworks––the way a random event triggers a lost memory into the forefront of consciousness.
“Big storm’s moving in,” Dylan said swallowing, “and it’s suppose to get a little rough, they said. That time of year, you know?”
She nodded. He was referring to the unofficial season of severe storms and tornadoes which plagued the tri-county area between March and September. There had been no touchdowns reported in the past three years, which was unusual considering at least a dozen of them touched down every year before then. She had only seen twisters as a small girl. Eight of the bastards had dropped out of the sky at once, writhing up there like huge octopus tentacles. They had danced for a minute or two, and then they were gone.
“Feelin okay?” Dylan asked.
Gina sighed heavily. “Fine.”
“Like fine wine in the summertime?” he asked with a wink. Their father had said it often. It was one of his quirky phrases he’d say to get a laugh even if he was the only one laughing. Suddenly Gina missed him more now than ever.
Together, they watched the raindrops slide down the kitchen window.
4
Linda Starkweather hadn’t seen her brother in almost two weeks. Paulie had finally shaved off his wild tuft of whiskers around his calloused lips, and his arms continued to bulge beneath his issued coveralls. It was okay to hug him, so she did. He reeked of sweat and cigarettes.
“Hiya, sis,” Paulie Monohan said, sitting down on a cold bench across from her. “How are the kids?”
“They’re fine. How are you?”
“I’m okay. Should be out in a couple of weeks. My lawyer’s not pretty to look at, but she’s got in good with the judge, so I’m not too worried.”
Another inmate sitting across from them was bending his gaze to see up Linda’s skirt. She crossed her legs and brushed back her blonde hair.
“You don’t look so well,” Paulie said, folding his arms. “What’s eating you?”
She had been fine until she heard the news about the Monroe girl. The snakes were coming again. That time of year. She almost laughed at the absurdity of it all, but she knew. She knew what was coming.
Her insides turned over as Paulie’s gaze became hot and threateningly curious.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I have a rowdy client coming in tomorrow morning. Not looking forward to it, that’s all.”
“Anyone I know?”
“That big lady we use to see at Avery’s buying all the doughnuts in the case by the register. She wants to start her own sweet shop on the town square.”
“As if we don’t already have enough garbage-peddling yahoos on the square. It’s not like it use to be. Hell, the place is practically deserted now.”
“That’s Hemming for you.” Linda wondering if he could see right through her lies, the way their father had. It wasn’t entirely a lie. She would be meeting with big Barbara Crenshaw come sun up, but there was something else, something in his eyes that frightened her, and always had.
Paulie looked around and pushed a small envelope across the table. Linda took it and began to open it.
“Not here,” he said. “It’s for Gina.”
She nodded and put the thing in her purse without saying anything.
“You tell her Uncle Paulie says hello.” He winked at her and tried to smile, but his mouth twisted wryly into an odd shape. This was a man who looked like he’d forgotten how to smile.
The blood began to pump madly in her ears. She returned the smile best she could, then checked out at the visitor’s station and headed back to the farm on Highway 7. As she drove, she thought about Dick.
After Linda and Dick were married, they had rented a four-room apartment above the local billiard’s hall on Main Street. It had been a hellish six months listening to fighting words and wooden cues breaking balls game after game. Sleep was an elusive experience not permissible until well after two in the morning when the last patron stumbled out onto the sidewalk. A man from Texas had bought the place and had planned to convert it into a hip diner for younger patrons but had abandoned development of the idea shortly after the newlyweds moved out.
Linda’s father had grown ill and asked them to move in with him. They did. Dick was hired on at the aluminum plant on Industrial Park Drive and worked four days a week from three in the morning until three in the afternoon. His pregnant wife worked part-time as a teller at Hemming Savings & Loan while he slept.
On Christmas Eve, Linda’s father had died in his sleep of a brain aneurysm. The usual activities brimming with Christmas cheer rotted away to the bittersweet process of burying a loved one and initiating a legal uproar that would decide which of his five children would inherit his home and fourteen acres on Highway 7. At the reading of the will, his estate was bequeathed to his only daughter, Linda Gail Starkweather, and her husband, Richard Lewis Starkweather. The house was theirs.
On Labor Day, their daughter, Regina, was born––eight pounds and eleven ounces of pink flesh wrapped in a soft blanket. A nurse had told Linda she’d give anything to have a child so beautiful. Linda looked into her daughter’s eyes mirroring her own––a vibrant electric blue––and thought of the price she herself would pay. The fresh joys of motherhood became rancidly infected with the horrific reality that one day, someone or something would come to collect. One day without notice and without warning, it would come.
She was damn certain of it.
5
Gina groaned and kicked off the sheets. The morning sun was irritatingly bright. The house was empty. Dylan would be on his way to school by now, and her mother would be at her desk listening to a behemoth explain why another pastry shop in town was a good idea. B
ut all that was far from her mind. Jared––the star quarterback who gave her a telltale wink of interest––took center stage in her mind's eye, which made her stretch with a smile. The warmth felt good, and it was one of those days she could afford to lie around another hour or so before sneaking into class.
But she wasn't alone. She could feel eyes moving over her exposed body. She lay perfectly still and listened for shuffling or the shallow breathing of some pervert that might be standing over her. A shot of adrenaline-drenched paranoia gushed through her and popped open her eyes.
It was a snake. She froze and immediately scanned over the glossy scales and the diamonds on its back. Dylan, I'm going to kill you, she thought. Surely that pecker-headed twerp had put that damned rubber thing on her bed, but it wasn't of the run-of-the-mill, made-in-China variety. It came from the desert, forged by the mighty hands of God himself––or perhaps by someone else or something else entirely.
But it was a snake. Its black tongue flicked out at her.
“Hey there, baby girl. You smell terrific.”
Gina almost thanked the snake before she realized what had happened. It had spoken to her.
She had to be mistaken. Surely it was a dream. She had a flash of what little she remembered from the Bible––a serpent comes into the Garden of Eden and tells Eve to eat an apple from the tree of life. Just eat the damn thing it might have said like a drunken brute sliding an apologetic meal under his wife’s blackened eyes. Sorry, honey, but you had it coming.
“Hello,” Gina said. It was all she could say. The snake lay flat with its head tilted up at her. It seemed to smile, but it couldn’t have. Snakes can’t smile. This one was smiling.
“Sorry if I woke you. I hadn’t planned to visit until much later this week––after that pigskin-totin pretty boy has had you bent over this bed, railin and wailin in your snatch patch.”