Hot in December

by Joe Lansdale

  Kevin ran around the side of the dozer blade, and as Booger was backing the machine off, letting the Cadillac fall, Kevin positioned himself so he could shoot at Booger. I yelled, “Asswipe.”

  He turned and I cut down on him with the shotgun. A blast from the twelve gauge hit him a little off center and tore into his side and he made a grunt and went to one knee. That’s when Booger, still on the dozer, fired a handgun, hit Kevin in the back of the head, knocked his eye out and about half his face off.

  I was running by then. A shot went by me, nipping at my coat collar. I leaped and dodged behind the black Suburban. Shots took out the glass and tore through the metal as easily as punching an ice pick through a sheet of paper. But I wasn’t hit. That’s when I heard Cason’s rifle snap. I dropped under the Suburban as I pumped a fresh round into the shotgun’s chamber. I saw Cason had hit one of the other men and he had fallen and lay face-down in the dirt. I did a mental calculation. Kevin, two others. That was three down.

  Creeping around the rear of the Suburban, I almost had a stroke as Cason came around the back end. I brought the shotgun up, but he shoved it aside with his hand. “Wrong asshole,” he said.

  We were running together then, dodging toward another car parked to the side of the wrecked building. As we slipped behind the car, Cason said, “I heard someone go out the back. You can check that out or take the building.”

  “I’ll go around back,” I said.

  I did that, but didn’t see anybody. Not at first anyway. Then I saw the Anthonys halfway hidden by the trees, moving like ghosts, going up toward the tree line. They had Kelly with them. They had gotten loose of the building's wreckage. I took to the far right, where there was a run of hardwood. I darted from one tree to another. Glancing up, I saw Kelly stumble and Will jerk her to her feet.

  I inched my way on up. Down below I heard more gunfire and Booger yell, “How about coming and getting some of this shit.”

  More gunfire, and then I heard the distinctive chopping of Booger’s axe, the kinds of screams I still hear sometimes when I close my eyes and start to sleep. There is nothing like it; men making a sound so high-pitched the noise could shatter a wine glass.

  When I got near the top of the rise, the trees were a little thinner up there, and there was a deer trail, and they were coming along that. I was still pretty well out of sight, behind some brush. They were just below me. As the three came along, Pye in the lead, Kelly next, and then Will, I lifted the shotgun, worrying maybe they were too close together, and that I might hit Kelly. That’s when fate worked for me. Kelly and Will lagged slightly, allowing Pye to push ahead. I came out of the brush for a clear shot. Pye saw me. He turned at a crouch. The handgun he was carrying whipped in my direction. He fired, and I fired. His shot whistled past my head. My blast took out his legs and he yelled and hurtled down the hill in my direction, head over heels.

  Will saw me, snapped off a shot. By this time I was moving behind a tree. Bark flew from both sides of it as Will began firing at random. That’s when Pye, lying on the ground, wounded, but still alive, lifted his hand gun and blasted away. It was a close shot. It struck the oak I was behind and splintered bark. The bark went into my eyes, blinding me for a moment. Luckily, I had already pumped a load into the chamber of the shotgun, and I let it go in Pye’s direction.

  The general direction was all I needed. When I shook the bark out of my eyes, I saw that what was left of Pye’s head could have been stuffed in a thimble with room left over.

  Will yelled down the hill, “You sonofabitch. I’m going to kill this cunt. You don’t let me pass on by, she’s dead.”

  “You’ll kill her anyway,” I said. “Let her go and I’ll let you go.”

  “You’re lying.”

  This was true. I was.

  “You killed my daddy,” he said. It sounded like a petulant kid who had just heard someone say their daddy could beat up his.

  I peeked around the lower base of the tree, and when I did, I saw Will was aiming at me. Kelly moved suddenly, knocking his gun hand aside, bringing her shoe down hard across his shin and onto the top of his foot. Will yelled, and that’s when he lost it. He hit Kelly in the back of the head with the pistol, knocking her down and out. Down the hill he charged, bellowing like a Confederate Rebel, firing his handgun, which popped twice and then was empty. I heard him say, “Shit. That’s about right.”

  I came out from behind the tree, the shotgun lifted, but damn if Will wasn’t already on me, bolting right at me with that empty gun; it was like someone had stuck a rocket in his ass and lit the fuse. He stooped, came under the shotgun barrel before I could figure the situation, knocked it from my hand, and sent us both winding down the hill.

  As we rolled, below I heard more gunfire, as well as cussing from Booger, then the falling of the axe and a scream. Seemed there had been more of them than we thought.

  Twenty-Six

  I made an effort to get my feet under me, but I might as well have promised to lift the world with one hand. Will’s elbow had caught me under the chin and my head felt as if it were spinning around on my neck. Everything had narrowed, like I was seeing the world through a cardboard tube.

  Finally I rolled over on my side, gathered some of my wits about me, reached for the .38, but I had lost it during my trip down the side of the hill. Will was on his feet, and he kicked me. I took the shot in the ribs, felt something move, but slide back into place. I scrambled on all fours and made it to my feet.

  Will pulled a large clasp knife from his pocket, flicked it open and came charging at me. I barely avoided him, and he lunged past. We had both rolled down the hill enough that we were now on level ground, so Will recovered from his miss quickly. I reached for the knife Booger had given me. It was still in place. I pulled it. It was short and sharp and broad.

  Will bent low, stabbed at me. I sliced at his knife hand, cut his arm above the wrist. He yelped. It wasn’t a deep cut, but it bit him. He slashed at me. I pranced back, avoided it, stepped back in, cut at his elbow as he tried to make a back swing. It was a hit, but his coat saved him from a good, deep slice. He screeched, backpedaled, and then I saw his eyes light up. He was standing on my .38 and knew it. He threw his knife at me. I barely dodged. He reached down to grab the gun. A shadow came up behind him, and with the shadow came movement and a sound like someone breaking a rack of pool balls.

  It was Kelly. She had picked up the shotgun, snuck down the rise without either of us noticing her, and now she had hit Will with the stock of the shotgun in the back of the head. He fell to his hands and knees, not having gotten hold of the revolver. I rushed over and shoved him on his back with my foot.

  He gave me an addled look. “Don’t hurt me.”

  “You threatened me and my family.”

  “I give up.”

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  Kelly walked away briskly.

  Smooth as if I were merely drawing a line on paper, I squatted down and cut Will Anthony’s throat.

  Twenty-Seven

  As I went down the hill with Kelly, she said, “You did what you had to do.”

  “I did it, that much I know.”

  I was shaking as if I were immersed in ice.

  “I came back,” she said. “I shouldn’t have. But I did. I thought if something happened to you, then it should happen to me too. I didn’t like to think you might not live and the last thing you would think of me was what a chickenshit I was.”

  “I was happier when I knew you were safe,” I said.

  “And I was unhappy being away from you.”

  “Mom and Sue?”

  “They’re fine, though now we have to drive to Arkansas and get them.”

  At the bottom of the hill Booger had the axe and he was chopping dead bodies as hard and fast as he could. It was sickening. Kelly bent over and vomited, said, “Oh, Jesus.”

  Cason was looking away from Booger, his hands quivering.

  I said, “Is that necessary?”


  “He thinks it is,” Cason said, “and I advise you to let him have his fun.”

  “Fun?” I said, turning away, hearing the axe chop.

  “For him it is,” Cason said. “It rids him of frustration.”

  When Booger was through chopping – and I’m not sure how he decided he was done, perhaps exhaustion – he got the bulldozer and used it to push the bodies, the crunched up building, all the cars and their weapons, into the big pit. He ran the dozer over it, smashing it all down flat. When that was done, he started pushing dirt on top of it all. It was mid-morning when he finished and we hiked through the woods to Cason’s car, the smell of pine sap and evergreens filling our noses.

  I wondered about the cops in our neighborhood, our protection. I wondered how many times they might have changed shifts, if they had called our house, or knocked on the door, though they might not have been too eager to do that after they saw what Booger had done to one of their own, traitor or not.

  We ended up at Cason’s place in Camp Rapture. There he had me and Kelly shower to get rid of blood and gunfire residue. Kelly took her shower with me. We got soaped up and clean, but we got something else done, too, and I have to admit that something else relieved more tension than the warm water.

  Out of the shower, Cason had laid clothes out on the bed for us. Shirt and pants and shoes, clean underwear and socks for me. They were a good fit, as me and him were close to the same size. For Kelly he had some women’s clothes. It didn’t surprise me he had them. Cason was the kind of guy that would have quite a few of those left over at his place.

  Dressed, we went into the kitchen. Cason was cooking steaks and grilling some vegetables alongside it on an electric grill. He said, “Booger will be back in a little while, about the time this is done, I figure. He went to dispose of the weapons we used.”

  As Cason predicted, Booger showed up shortly after the steaks were done, and we ate well. I had a beer with the food, and then I was so exhausted I could hardly hold my eyes open. I lay down on the couch and Kelly lay in my arms, and just before we drifted off to sleep, I heard Booger say, “They’re so cute, aren’t they?”

  I thought he might have been sincere.

  It was newly dark when we were awakened by Cason. We went down to the car with him and Booger, and he drove us the back way to our place in Laborde, leaving us a block from it. Booger got out with us, and Cason drove off.

  It was dark, but there was enough in the way of street and house lights to see by. We snuck back to the house the way Booger and I had gone out. Only one dog barked, and by that time we were in among some ornamental trees our neighbor grew, then through the carport and the fence gate, the backyard, and into the house.

  I checked the phone messages.

  None. No cops had called.

  “You can’t be seen,” I said to Kelly.

  “No,” Booger said. “You can’t. Won’t be long and we’ll be hearing from the law.”

  He was right. About nine that night I got a call. It was from Lieutenant Ernest.

  “That problem you had,” he said. “I want to come over and talk to you about it.”

  “Had,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll explain.”

  “All right,” I said.

  Kelly hid in our bedroom. Booger and I sat in the living room and waited.

  “You think he’s going to try and finish things for Anthony?” I said.

  “Nope. No profit for him there now. And I think he’s the straight dope. I think he was merely trying to take care of you, in his own cowardly way.”

  If that was the case, I didn’t see it as cowardly.

  When Ernest arrived he had Allen with him. They knocked on the door, didn’t ring the bell. I let them in. They came and sat at the kitchen table with me and Booger.

  Ernest said to Booger, “I got to ask you to let me talk to Tom here in private, if that’s okay?”

  “That’s peaches,” Booger said, and went outside to the carport.

  “There’s been a development,” Ernest said. “Someone went out to the construction company, probably one of Anthony’s men, and he found the building out there was gone, and the pit was filled up, and this someone made a call in about it.”

  “What pit?” I said, trying to be casual.

  Ernest explained to me there was a pit there where the construction company dug gravel from time to time. A bulldozer was parked where the pit had been. He said the dirt had been moved recently. Real recently, like last night.”

  “There’s a big crew out there right now,” Allen said. “They got lights, several bulldozers and the like, and they’re digging.”

  “I don’t think I follow,” I said. I thought I sounded very convincing.

  “It seems someone might have killed the people out there and pushed the building down with the bulldozer, shoved everything into the pit, cars included, and filled it in,” Allen said. “I don’t know why they would do that, fill it in. They were bound to think we’d look. I was figuring they might have seen it as funny, or maybe they thought no one would look for a while.”

  “Wow,” I said. I knew he was trying to get me to say I might know something about what went on out there, but I wasn’t biting.

  “Okay, here’s the thing,” Allen said, dropping the cagey act. “We’ve actually had the pit dug out. There were bodies buried there. Fresh ones. Chopped up with a machete or an axe or something.”

  “I’ll be damned,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Allen said. “It’s a mystery. You have any idea about something like that?”

  I shrugged. “Me? Hell no. That’s not my line of work, thinking about stuff like that. I’m mystified.” I tried not to get to the next part too quickly “When you say bodies, are you suggesting that among those were one or both of the Anthony folk?”

  “That is what we’re suggesting,” Ernest said. “Both of them. Someone had cut off the elder Anthony’s head and stuck someone’s dick in his mouth. Several were missing dicks, so we haven’t decided whose dick was whose, so to speak. I’ll leave that to someone who is a specialist at what dick goes where.”

  “So you’re telling me there was some kind of turf war or something like that?” I said.

  “We don’t know what we’re telling you besides they’re dead,” Ernest said. “It’s really handy for you, though, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose it is,” I said.

  Ernest nodded, said, “For shits and giggles, say you and that big fucker outside went out there to rub them out, took them by surprise, killed them all. That would sure help you out, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would. But we been here all night. And besides, I own a frame shop. I’m not a professional killer. The dead guys were.”

  “How about this one,” Ernest said. “Say your watchdog left and did it for you?”

  “He would have to be some kind of badass to do all that,” I said. “And be back here, sitting with me, and out on the carport right now, thinking about whatever he’s thinking about.”

  “I should believe it’s puppies and kittens did that to them?” Allen said.

  “I wouldn’t,” I said.

  Allen chuckled.

  “Besides,” I said. “Me and him, we been here all night.”

  “Yeah,” Ernest said. “That’s what our watchdogs say. Course, they were about half asleep when we showed up.”

  “That gives me pause about how safe we were tonight,” I said.

  “Doesn’t matter now,” Ernest said, standing, Allen rising with him. “I was just trying on a few shoes to see how they fit.”

  “How did they fit?” I said.

  “Not that well,” Allen said. “Bottom line is it’s done.”

  They started walking toward the door. When they got there Ernest paused, appeared to be studying the job Booger and I had done nailing the closet door over the hole in the original door. But I knew that wasn’t what he was thinking about. He turned and looked at me.

  “Thing
is,” Ernest said, “if I thought you or the big guy had something to do with this, thing for me to do would be investigate it. But, I got to tell you. I feel kind of relieved tonight. Some nasty assholes are in the ground. In pieces. I don’t miss them. I guess someone does, a dear old mother, a dog, or someone. But I don’t.”

  “Yeah,” Allen said. “I’m not that weepy about it either.”

  “I got to admit,” I said, opening the door to let them out, thinking about Kelly in the bedroom, Mom and Sue safe and sound up in Arkansas, “I don’t miss them either.”

  It was a nice night out. The air had changed. The hot had gone out of it and it was turning really cool, starting to be winter. Maybe it would be real Christmas weather. A wind blew across the yard and made goose bumps rise on my arms. At least I think it was the wind. I was all of a sudden thinking about straddling Will Anthony, pulling that knife across his throat.

  I shook it off and watched Ernest and Allen stroll down the walk and out to their car. Allen was on the passenger side, which was closest to me. He had his window down. He lifted his hand off the window frame in a slight wave.

  I waved back, and as they drove away, I gently closed the door and turned the lock, went to get Kelly and Booger, and turn on the Christmas tree lights.

  About the author

  Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over thirty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in eighteen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Ho-tep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” was adapted to film for Showtime’s Masters of Horror. He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.