Sixty-Five Stirrup Iron Road

by Keene, Brian

  Arrianne regarded the duffel bag for a moment. The dogs remained seated, looking at her with their soulful eyes. Somebody was in the house with Chuck. She didn’t know who, but her guess was Lucy had something to do with it. Lucy had somehow drawn them to the house.

  Arrianne had to get Chuck out of here. But first she had to set this pressure cooker up out here in the garage.

  “One in the garage, the other in the living room,” she said as she bent down, unzipped the duffel bag, and brought out the first pressure cooker.

  Then she set it up.

  It never occurred to her that she shouldn’t know how to do that.

  ***

  The noise in the attic intensified as Chuck and Lily headed upstairs to the second floor.

  BOOM!

  Chuck paused briefly, heart pounding. That can’t be a bunch of chipmunks.

  Lily was trying to grab at him from behind. “C’mon, Chuck, forget about what’s going on up there. You need to pay more attention to what’s going on down here!” She moved his hand down to the crotch of her shorts and pressed it there.

  Chuck pulled away roughly. “Either come with me, or get the fuck out of my house.”

  Lily huffed. “You don’t have to be such an asshole about it.”

  Chuck ignored her and reached the second-floor hallway. He rounded the corner where the stairway to the attic was and paused for a moment.

  What the fuck?

  Chuck tensed and started up the stairs, determined to get to the bottom of this. Call it intuition, but he had a feeling somebody was up there. Lily followed hot on his heels, and then he was entering the attic. For a minute he was so stunned by what he saw that he stopped.

  Lily bumped into him. “You want to do it here? Sure, we can do it here, stud. Turn around, and I’ll get on my knees and blow you right here.”

  There was another loud boom, and this time he saw the cause of it.

  A stocky guy with short, salt-and-pepper hair was sitting on a large cardboard box, bouncing a large rubber ball on the wooden floor. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  The guy looked over at them. “Finally! Took you long enough to get your asses up here. Didn’t you hear me?”

  Chuck gaped. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Why don’t we wait for Arrianne to finish preparing the second pressure cooker,” the man said. “By then, maybe the other guys will get here.”

  “Oh boy, more guys are coming,” Lily said. “We can have a gangbang!”

  “Really?” The stranger eyed Lily as if she were incredibly annoying, and then he shifted his attention to Chuck. “Your wife’s just exiting the garage with a pressure cooker. She’s just set one up in the garage. Call her up here. This concerns both of you. We need to act quickly if we want to do this right and finish on a high note.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? And who are you?” Chuck asked. He found that he wasn’t angry yet. He wasn’t even scared. If anything, he was confused.

  The stranger stood up. “Let’s cut to the chase. I’m J. F. Gonzalez. I didn’t actually create you, but I helped breathe some life into you. So did my friends, one of whom—Jack Ketchum—has already taken care of Flavia.”

  “Jack Ketchup?” Lily asked.

  At the mention of Flavia’s name, Chuck felt a pit of dread. “Flavia? What about her?”

  Gonzalez clapped Chuck on the shoulder. “You don’t need to worry about her anymore, pal. She won’t be stalking you any longer.” He winked at Chuck. “You horny rascal!” He shouldered his way past Chuck and called down the stairs to the second and first floors. “Arrianne! Come on up here. We need to talk.”

  “What do you mean you didn’t create me but you helped breathe life in to me?” Chuck asked. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s like this, Chuck,” Gonzalez said.

  Chuck noticed he was dressed in black jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black leather jacket.

  “You kinda turned into an asshole. I still have a little sympathy for Arrianne, but the rest of you I couldn’t care less about. Don’t get me wrong; things were moving nicely along, especially with the two bodies here in the attic. Throwaway characters, Zito and Jake. Those were all Keene’s doing, but Keene never does anything without a reason. I’m guessing he meant to bring them back. Both of you would have been prime targets for their mayhem. Arrianne’s already prone to Lucy’s influence. But despite all that—”

  “I don’t understand,” Chuck interrupted. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “That’s the problem,” Gonzalez said, shaking his head. “We don’t know anymore. I’m all for a good gorefest every now and then, but some of the character motivations here are just … it’s just gone all sideways.”

  “Character motivations? What are you talking about?”

  From downstairs, Arrianne called, “Chuck?”

  Gonzalez called down. “We’re up here! Come on up.”

  Arrianne sounded hesitant. “Chuck? Is someone up there with you?”

  “It’s okay, hon,” Chuck said, keeping his gaze on Gonzalez.

  Arrianne crept up to the attic. When she saw Gonzalez, her eyes widened. “Who are you?”

  “Here’s how we’re going to play this.” J. F. Gonzalez stepped forward. “I might not have created you two initially—that was Lee’s doing. He set this whole thing in motion, and a bunch of us got in on the fun. And it was fun for a while. Most important, it’s for a good cause. But like I said, the story’s gone sideways, and it’s not like we have an editor with us to redline the hell out of us, so we’re going to have to fix things ourselves. Jack was right.”

  “Jack Ketchup?” Lily asked again.

  Gonzalez corrected Lily. “Jack Ketchum.” He reached into his jacket pocket. “Don’t you fucking listen?”

  Lily was fidgeting. Her eyes flicked from Gonzalez to Chuck and then to Arrianne. “I like girls too. We could do a four-way. Right here.”

  Gonzalez shook his head. “I’m married, sweetheart. But Harding, Southard, and Smith are single. And I imagine you wouldn’t be their first four way, either. Now be still. Grownups are talking.”

  “They sound like fun,” Lily insisted. “Invite them over.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ on a pogo stick, will you shut up?” Gonzalez looked like he was becoming more disgusted with Lily as time went on.

  “I don’t understand,” Arrianne said. “What’s going on?”

  “You said this Jack Ketchum person already took care of Flavia,” Chuck said. “Is she okay?”

  “Flavia?” Arrianne asked. She looked at Chuck suspiciously. “Who’s Flavia?”

  “She can join in too!” Lily said, her smile wide and eager with the anticipation of sex.

  Gonzalez pulled a black semiautomatic handgun out of his jacket pocket, pointed it at Lily’s face, and pulled the trigger. Lily’s head disintegrated in a spray of blood, bone, and brain matter, and she dropped like a slab of meat. The resounding boom caused Chuck and Arrianne to cry out and stagger back. Arrianne almost fell down the attic stairs.

  “You—you just shot her!” Chuck exclaimed. His heart was pounding, fueled by the adrenaline running through his system.

  “Yeah, I did.” Gonzalez placed the handgun in his jacket and turned to Chuck. “She was getting on my fucking nerves.”

  “Please don’t hurt us!” Arrianne said.

  Gonzalez shook his head. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. Did you set that second pressure cooker yet?”

  “How did you—”

  “It’s a simple yes or no question, Arrianne.”

  “No.”

  “Good. Where are the dogs?”

  “Downstairs in the kitchen.”

  Gonzalez nodded and cocked his head slightly, as if trying to listen.

  Chuck’s ears were still ringing from the gunshot, but he thought he could hear the dogs going bonkers downstairs, barking their heads off.

  “They’re fine,” Gonzalez said. “Which is good. Ketchum
would have our heads if anything happened to the dogs.”

  Chuck began to cry.

  “Stop that,” Gonzalez said. “Why don’t we go downstairs and finish this?”

  Chapter Eighteen - J.F. Gonzalez and Nate Southard

  When they reached the kitchen, Gonzalez looked at the dogs and nodded. They immediately stopped barking and settled down. He turned to Chuck and Arrianne and motioned to the breakfast bar. “Have a seat. We should talk.”

  Chuck and Arrianne pulled up seats at the breakfast bar. Gonzalez sat opposite them. “Now, I would have preferred to have killed Lily as gruesomely as possible, but she was just too goddamn annoying. I’m hoping my friends have some ideas as to what to do with the rest of you, especially that Wally Ochse guy. God, he was a revolting character.”

  At the mention of the man who’d sold her Lucy Pearson’s diary, Arrianne flinched. “Did you follow me? How did you know about him?”

  “One of my friends created him. Did a great job with the whole backstory too. But we’ve got to get this over with and end the story as gruesomely as possible. By my count, this Ochse guy is the only scumbag left. Eric, Nicci, Flavia, and Lily are dead. It would be nice if we killed Wally off too. Then we’ll have to make a decision about the two of you. Only thing I’m certain of is we’re not going to hurt the dogs.”

  The front door opened and shut. A voice called out. “You sure? I wouldn’t put it past Shane. Dude might do it just to mess with people.”

  A man entered. He was bald, with tired eyes and a beard flecked with gray and red. His jeans were a little too baggy for someone in his thirties, and he wore a green shirt that featured two cartoon kittens playing with a hand grenade. A sack of groceries filled one arm.

  Chuck stared. “Who …?”

  “Hiya. I’m Nate.” He waved. A goofy grin appeared on his face and then vanished. “You guys like Thai food? I was thinking I could make some Tiger Cry before everything goes apeshit again.”

  Arrianne looked at Gonzalez, who nodded. He looked hungry. She asked, “Seriously, what in the hell is going on?”

  Nate placed the bag on the kitchen counter and then waggled his fingers at her. “Your lives are not your own. Oogie-boogie.”

  Gonzalez chuckled. “Nate, what are you doing?”

  “Well, we’re racing toward the end. I figured these two should get a last meal. Besides, I like to cook. Not gonna say I’m really good or anything, but I’m getting better.” He stooped and reached into one of the cabinets, retrieved a wok Arrianne didn’t realize they owned. “See, that’s the trick. If you like doing something—if you care about it—you always try to do better every time out. Cooking, writing—I see too many assholes who are just content to churn out the same mediocre shit time after time. It’s annoying at best.”

  “Shit,” Gonzalez said. “Here comes a rant.”

  “Sure, I rant now and then. Shit happens.” Nate turned on the burner and adjusted the flame to just shy of its highest setting. Reaching into the paper bag, he pulled out various storage containers. Arrianne noticed sliced beef in a dark marinade, cherry tomatoes cut into quarters. “I get frustrated about the state of the genre sometimes.”

  “The genre?” Arrianne asked.

  “Yeah, the genre. What, did you think we were making literature? Slobber in a bowl? C’mon, you’re not an idiot. Shit, maybe you are. Horror isn’t kind to female characters, at least not at this level.”

  “I think we did okay,” Gonzalez said.

  “Maybe, but the rest of it? Seriously? I can’t believe I wrote that dog bowl shit. You think Laird Barron would do that? Or Lee Thomas? Or Sarah?”

  “Which Sarah? Langan or Pinborough?”

  “Either.” He measured a spoonful of oil and dumped it into the wok, followed it with the beef. It sizzled at once, and Arrianne smelled something spicy and appetizing almost immediately. “Okay, well maybe Pinborough would, but you get my point.”

  Nate grabbed a curved metal spatula and got to work, shaking the wok with one hand while stirring with the other. “I’ll admit it: sometimes I’m scared I’ve pigeonholed myself. Just like Hell made a splash, but then I was that guy who writes brutal stuff. You know what I mean, Jesus. Now, I just … I don’t even really like gore. It’s boring, but there’s this whole segment of the audience that craves it. Why? Like, why would anybody be a fan of those Human Centipede movies? ‘Imagine eating poop.’ There, that’s your entire plot, and people act like those fucking things are genius!”

  Gonzalez frowned. “Nate, you get to write books for a living. People like them. Why are you bitching about that?”

  “For a living? Not even close. I’m still day-jobbing it, working overtime as much as I can just to afford the next convention. Shit is tiring, man. Okay, yeah. I’m bitching. I’ll admit it. Just … sometimes I think we should be trying harder. Mutant rednecks, zombies, fuck demons … shit, just about every last one of us has competed in something called The Gross-out Contest. Where’s the contest for compelling characters or solid atmosphere? Nah, forget that artsy shit. Let’s just have some woman in a chambray shirt get her ass plowed by a radioactive cannibal with a two-headed dick. Ta-dah! It’s the McDonald’s of horror.”

  Arrianne gave Chuck a look, but he just shrugged. Apparently he didn’t know what the hell was happening, either.

  “You’re overthinking it,” Gonzalez said. “What about fun? That’s supposed to be part of the equation too.”

  “Yeah, I know. Fun is different things to different people, I guess.” Nate pointed at the wok. “This is fun for me. Telling a good story without going over the top is fun for me. Shit, getting drunk and jerking off to pictures of Kelly Clarkson is fun for me. Different strokes for different folks. Heh. I made a funny.”

  He pulled the wok off the burner and snatched two plates from the pantry. A little too carefully, he placed several slices of beef on each plate, surrounded them with pieces of tomato and cucumber. Finally, he produced a squeeze bottle and drizzled a light sauce over each before sprinkling them with fresh cilantro.

  “Here ya go. Be careful. It’s spicy.” He placed a plate in front of Arrianne, the other in front of Chuck, and then gave them each a fork. “Eat up. Maybe don’t turn on the TV or computer for an hour afterward. There’s probably something gross on.”

  Arrianne stared at the plate in front of her and then flicked her eyes to Nate and then Gonzalez. This couldn’t be real.

  “We out of here?” Nate asked Gonzalez.

  “Don’t you think we should explain—”

  “Nah, they’re not gonna get it. I say give ’em a clean slate and wish them well.”

  “Okay.” Gonzalez shrugged and headed toward the door. “I still think it was a rant.”

  “That’s because it was. Sorry. It got away from me. I have my issues, but my therapist says I’m getting better. Of course, she also says I should stop staring at her feet, so …” Nate wagged a finger back and forth between Arrianne and Chuck. “You two have fun. Remember, that’s an important part.”

  “Dick,” Gonzalez said.

  “Yeah, kinda.”

  Arrianne shared a confused look with Chuck as she listened to the pair leave the house.

  She heard the door open, and then Nate shouted, “Aaaaaaand, action!”

  Then the door slammed, and they started eating.

  Chapter Nineteen - Nate Southard and Shane McKenzie

  Washing her plate in the sink, Arrianne knew there was something she’d decided to do. It was something big, maybe even important, but it hovered just beyond her thoughts, taunting her from the shadowed corners of her mind. She could barely remember why she was washing the plate in her hand. Had she made lunch?

  Chuck sat at the breakfast bar, staring at his plate. “What the fuck is going on here? My head’s all fucked up. How did we get in the kitchen? When did you even get home?”

  “I … I don’t know.” Arrianne had been somewhere. Had done something. Dickie and Lucy sat on their ha
unches, glaring up at her as if waiting for something.

  Lucy. Her diary. Wally Ochse.

  Brad Zeller. Oh, God … I killed him. I took him out to those woods and I killed him.

  Chuck still stared at his dish, scooting bits of what looked like cilantro around. “Why is there a plate in front of me? Did you cook something?”

  “Cook? I—” Like a slap in the face she remembered the pressure cookers. She’d set up the one in the garage already but couldn’t remember what she did with the other.

  I must have left it out there. The detonator too. How in the hell did I end up in the house? And what detonator? Was there even one? Why can’t I remember?

  It didn’t matter anymore. The only thing that mattered was ending this—blowing the house at fucking Sixty-Five Stirrup Iron Road into oblivion, and Lucy’s curse along with it.

  But would it end there? Arrianne wasn’t so sure. Lucy’s influence had reached her way out in the woods. Turned her into a monster. Made her do things she would never have the ability to even imagine otherwise.

  What if Lucy is inside of me? What if it’s not the house that’s haunted … maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s been me all along.

  “What if I’m becoming her?”

  “What?”

  Arrianne hadn’t realized she’d spoken out loud, and just as she was about to elaborate, Dickie growled, now facing the front door. The hair stood up on his back, tail tucked between his legs. He barked three times, licked his chops. Lucy whined, hid behind Dickie’s hind leg, visibly shaking.