Beside her, set on a table his father had built, stood the old man’s chessboard. They were in midgame, which might have taken days or weeks.
Uncovered from all her sweaters and blankets, M’am’s dwarf body still showed that timeless quality she had. She looked as much like a girl as she did a hag, and the ambiguity struck him as something curious and creepy and very funny.
“You see more of my bare flesh and you get the giggles, boy? Another lady would be shamed and disgraced.”
“But not you.”
It made her cackle. Threads of smoke clung to her teeth. “Take a sight more than that, I reckon.”
“So do I, especially since I wasn’t laughing at you.”
“But you were. At the fact that I get me the sweats in weather like this. I guess it is a sight.”
Like there was nothing else to talk about than how fascinating a seminude dwarf witchy woman might be.
“You made it back alive,” she said. “You should be proud of that. Not many people go up the bad road and come back again. People like us, that is.”
“And who are the people like us?” he asked.
“Those who got special consideration under the Lord.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“Sit on the bed. I’m gonna care for your wounds.”
She clambered down from her seat and moved about the shack, so small and familiar with the place that even at her age she somehow managed to scurry. More like a small animal skittering around the place, like something you’d chase after with a broom and set traps for.
He lay back on the bed and watched her brew tea. For a few minutes he slept, and when he woke she had cleaned his belly and the cuts on his scalp. She’d wrapped a cloth around his neck soaked in a cooling fluid. The tea tasted worse than he would’ve guessed but he immediately felt more alert.
After he sat up, she immediately returned to her seat and began smoking again.
“I heard what you said outside,” she told him. “Don’t you worry none on the death of your friend. It’s December. It’s a time meant for dying.”
“So why didn’t I?”
“Considering the size of the bruises on your throat and the hole in your guts, you’re lucky you didn’t. Then again, December ain’t over just yet.” She let out a spurt of cackling that went on for too long.
“I thought you were supposed to ease my mind.”
“I can only do so much.”
“Well, feel free to start whenever you like.”
“She’s with child,” M’am Luvell said, her forehead misted with perspiration. “Your woman, if that’s who she be. That Elfie Danforth.”
It got the heat flowing back through his veins again, and the rage that had abandoned him bucked once, like an engine trying to turn over.
Was this all he was good for? Being baited and toyed with? To what goddamn end? “And you learned that when I was with her only last night?”
M’am sucked on the pipe loudly, holding the smoke in her lungs until her lips fluttered, then letting it out. “Oh, the baby ain’t yours. She been with a lot of other fellas since you been away. I don’t rightly think she knows who the daddy is. But her mama come in here to get some Black Haw jam, and that takes the morning sickness off.”
Now Elfie and her Ma could sit back together on their Uninterrupted Airflow Pillows late at night and order off the shopping channel. Painless Nostril Hair Waxer. A four-gallon tub of Dissolve’a’Grit.
“Even if it’s true, why are you telling me?”
“You mentioned her while you slept. It weighs on your mind that you might have a child born in the hollow. But that baby, it’s a girl, she won’t be yours.”
He let out a long sigh and drew the chill rag from around his neck. “Did you really think that would make me feel better?”
“Boy, it’s my aim to get you on to where you need to go, not to make you spin cartwheels for joy. Did you find what you were after on Gospel Trail Road?”
“No.”
“Then you ain’t done with what you got to do.”
“I know that.”
“You might never be.”
Shad stared at her. “Old woman, are you ever going to tell me anything helpful?”
M’am Luvell tilted her chin and considered on that for a while, nodding as the smoke writhed in the air. “I reckon not.”
“Then shut the hell up!”
“It’s only gonna get worse for you now.”
“You’re as crazy as the rest of them.”
She broke into that wild laughter again that sounded like bones clashing and crushing together, and even after he walked from the shack past his father and the girl, with Lament now loping beside him, the noise followed and managed to drown out the shrieking croaks of the deranged, dying bullfrogs.
THE ’STANG WAS ALL YOU COULD COUNT ON.
He drove into the mountains with Lament in the passenger seat, past the patch of ground where his sister’s body had lain in the darkness. Where Dave Fox had gingerly placed it after killing her, leaving Megan there alone for hours while he drove around the town as if searching for her.
It began to snow.
He could feel the breath of the two dead guys in the backseat on his hackles. Lament felt it too and started giving sidelong glances, snapping at emptiness.
When Shad parked, Lament hopped out and gazed north along the trail. It took a while for Shad to limp that far. They hiked up and stood where the wagons had unloaded families dying from cholera and yellow fever. The elderly and the children flung from the back of a cart as they weakly argued for life.
You knew you were going to a place designed to make you disappear.
The dead knew something about life that the living didn’t. They knew how it ended.
Lament chased the snowflakes and rolled happily in the mud. He kept trying to get Shad to chase him. Slowly they worked up the rise toward the dense oak and slash pine, with the willows bowing to the ground, beaten in the crosswinds coming across the precipice.
The woods continued to close in as they walked. They finally came to the mold-covered split-rail fence at the top of Gospel Trail Road.
Thousands of feet below, the Chatalaha River boiled at the bottom of the gorge.
Sometimes you could feel your life entering through a new door as another closed behind. You did what you could to stay sane and strong from one moment to the next, but it was never quite enough.
“Where’s my story going now?” Shad asked, and Lament began to whine and nervously turn in circles.
The movement beneath the turnings of the world climbed toward him. Something reached for Shad’s ankle, tightened on him, and began to yank him down. He wondered if he was strong enough to resist. He held for a moment, then started to slide over the edge. It felt powerful enough to be Dave’s fist.
The suicides didn’t sleep. Lament barked and lunged and squealed. Shad grabbed for the dog. We have to save our Laments, they’re the only ones alive who still care for us. Wraiths bit into his legs. His lower back gave way again and the pain made him cry out. He slid farther to the rim, went to one knee, and the wind brought a burst of snow up into his face.
Lament’s howling made a sob break from his chest, and he nearly went over. The moon, he thought, this might only be the moon and the sickness in your mind. Behind him, Megan’s hand appeared and flashed out to grip his wrist, trying to pull him back up, as the snow thrashed and outlined the rising, reaching forms all around, and he waited to see where the fight would go from here.
TOM PICCIRILLI is the author of thirteen novels, including A Choir of Ill Children, The Night Class, A Lower Deep, Coffin Blues, and the forthcoming Headstone City. He’s had over 150 stories published, and his short fiction spans multiple genres and demonstrates his wide-ranging narrative skills. He has been a World Fantasy Award finalist and a three-time Bram Stoker Award winner. Visit Tom’s official website, Epitaphs, at www.tompiccirilli.com. Tom welcomes email at [email protected].
OTHER BOOKS BY TOM PICCIRILLI
NOVELS:
A Choir of Ill Children
Coffin Blues
Grave Men
A Lower Deep
The Night Class
The Deceased
Hexes
Sorrow’s Crown
The Dead Past
Shards
Dark Father
COLLECTIONS:
Mean Sheep
Waiting My Turn to Go Under the Knife (Poetry)
This Cape Is Red Because I’ve Been Bleeding (Poetry)
A Student of Hell (Poetry)
Deep Into That Darkness Peering
The Dog Syndrome & Other Sick Puppies
Pentacle
NONFICTION:
Welcome to Hell
If you enjoyed
November Mourns
you won’t want to miss any of
Tom Piccirilli’s
acclaimed novels from Bantam Spectra.
Read on for an exclusive sneak peek at
Headstone City
coming in March 2006.
Look for your copy at
your favorite bookseller.
Headstone City
by
Tom Piccirilli
On sale March 2006
THEY CAME AFTER DANE IN THE SHOWERS while he had soap in his eyes.
It was pretty much how he’d expected the hit to go down during his first six months in the can, but by the end of the year he’d dropped his guard and started to grow a little comfortable. You’d think it was impossible, getting used to a place like this, but it had slowly crept over him until now he nearly enjoyed the joint. The crazy sounds in the middle of the night, the constant action, and the consoling security of having bars and walls on every side.
He’d gotten some of his edge back after the fire, but it hadn’t lasted long enough. The Monticelli family had such a low regard for Dane that they contracted outside their usual channels and hired one of the Aryans. A guy called Sig who whistled old Broadway tunes only Dane recognized. Usually from South Pacific, Fiorello, and Oh, Kay! It got your foot tapping. Sig had a self-made brand of Josef Mengele’s profile burned into his chest. He used matches to singe away his body hair, the black char marks standing out and cross-hatching his body. This Sig, he was a masochistic pyro who’d hooked up with the skinheads because you could get away with searing yourself to pieces with them. In the name of racial purification.
Dane was in his cell reading when Sig walked down the D-Block aisle holding a little plastic bottle of gasoline he’d filched from the workshop. Unable to contain himself, Sig let out a squeal of wild joy and Dane looked up to see a liquid arc flashing through the air. He rolled over and yanked his mattress on top of him as Sig lit a match and tossed it, his eyes full of love and awe. The cell burst into flames and Dane squeezed himself behind the toilet, pressed his face into the bowl so his hair was soaked, and used his hands to cup water and splash himself down.
This Sig, though, he had some issues. He cherished the fire so much that, standing there, he grew jealous of Dane being in the middle of the flames. Tugging at his crotch, he stepped into the cell spritzing gas from his bottle left and right. It was a good thing the mental institutions were even more overpacked than the prisons, or maybe the Monti family wouldn’t have wound up with such a schiz.
The fire bucked and toppled over Sig as he flailed, spun, and took a running leap off the second floor D-Block tier.
Dane sat with toilet water dripping down his face while he tried to take in the whole moronic situation. The bulls worked fast with their extinguishers. When they found him he was laughing on the shitter, thinking about how Vinny would react to the news when it got back to him.
It had been more funny than anything, so he got complacent again. He kept waiting for the family to pay off a pro hitter who would do the job right. There were at least five guys on D-Block that Dane would never be able to take on his best day. But instead of doing him in, they let him read his books, play chess with the old-timers, and even spotted him when he worked the heavy weights in the gym.
Dane had grown especially sloppy these last few weeks, with his grandmother and the dead girl always on his mind. He should’ve known the hit would happen today since it was their last chance to make a play while he was still on the inside.
But he’d been worried about getting presentable and smelling fresh for when he saw his Grandma Lucia this afternoon. He thought about her slapping him in the back of the head, telling him that just because he was in prison didn’t mean he couldn’t still look nice.
Dane thumbed the suds off his face and tried to clear his vision as they came at him from the front, standing shoulder to shoulder. They weren’t pros and had the jitters, hands trembling as they held out poorly sharpened shanks.
Mako stood about 5'1'' and suffered from short guy syndrome. Always getting into everybody’s face and tackling the biggest cons just to show them he wasn’t afraid. He loved to scrap but never went in for anything much heavier than that. Put a weapon in his hand and he didn’t know what the hell to do with it. He held the shank wrong, high and aimed back toward his own belly, so it would be easy to twist his wrist and get him to fall onto the blade. He looked like he was either going to scream or cry, and Dane felt a sudden wash of pity for him.
Kremitz was an insurance investigator who’d sign off on almost any suspicious claim so long as he got a kickback from it. He did all right for himself for a couple of years but finally got nabbed in a sting run by the fire marshal. Kremitz was muscular but gangly, with an ambiguous temperament. He’d used a shiv on his Aryan cell mate a while back but only after being sodomized for about a year. He was known as a wild card on the block. You never knew which way Kremitz might jump.
Dane had never gotten used to being naked in front of other men. Not in the high school showers, not in the army, and especially not here in the slam. And now he had to stare down these two with his crank hanging out.
They gaped at his scars, the way they wove up and twisted around to the back of his neck. Dane could brush his hair to hide most of the metal plates securing his scull, but under the showerhead they came up polished and gleaming. The shiv started to really dance in Mako’s hand.
“How’d they get to you two?” Dane asked, genuinely curious.
“The same way they get everybody,” Kremitz said. “They want something done, they put the pressure on until it’s done. Me, they reeled me in through my brother. He owes twelve grand to their book. Likes to think he’s going to get off the docks by winning on college basketball. He used to get out from under before by jacking a few crates, but this time, he gets caught. The other longshoremen kick the shit out of him because he hasn’t given anybody a taste. He’s got no other way to pay off. So it falls to me to save his worthless neck.”
“Sorry to cause you trouble.”
“It’s not your fault. Just bad luck all around. Except for my brother. He’s just an asshole.”
Turning to Mako, you could see the little guy had no other excuse except he was scared.
Water swirled madly down the drains. Dane could see a shadow moving at the front of the showers, where someone was standing guard to keep others out. At least one bull would’ve been paid off, possibly more.
Dane touched the scars and felt some of the tension leave him. There was power in your own history, in the stupid traumas you’d endured.
“I ain’t got nothin’ against you,” Mako told him.
Defensively, as if apologizing for not saying it first, Kremitz agreed. “Me neither. Really.”
“I know it,” Dane said. He just kept shaking his head, thinking how ridiculous it would be to buy it now, only a couple of hours from being on the street again. “I’ll be out of here this afternoon. When I’m gone, the heat’ll be off you.”
“Lis–listen–” Mako had to cough the quiver out of his throat. “The Monticelli family won’t forget us if we foul this up.”
“Yeah, they will.” It was true. This wasn’t Vinny’s serious play anyhow. It was him having fun, breaking balls, keeping Dane on his toes.
“Those bunch of goomba pricks don’t forget nothin’ about nobody,” Mako whined, shuffling his feet so they squeaked. “If they did, they’d have let you ride out of here.”
“It’s a different situation.”
“And I’m supposed to trust what you say? That they’ll fade back?”
“Yeah.”
“I get told I got a visitor. First visitor I’ve had my entire nickel in the joint. My Pa don’t come, my old lady, not even my kid, the little bastard. He’s seventeen and into meth now. Steals cars and drives ’em out to Kansas, writes me letters from the road, what a good time he’s having with some chick working his nob. Anyway, I got a visitor. A big guy in an Armani suit, one eyebrow, hands like he goes around slugging brick walls for fun.”
That’d be Roberto Monticelli. It took Dane back some, wondering why ’Berto had come himself instead of one of the family capos or lieutenants.
“Guy tells me I do this to you or I get it done to me. Goes into all this bullshit about blowtorches and pliers and meat grinders, how he’s gonna mail me to six cities all over New Jersey. Except with him, I know it’s not bullshit.”
Dane couldn’t really help but argue the point. “Most of it is.”
“It’s the part that’s not that worries me.”
“Maybe I can help.”
“The hell you gonna do that?” Mako groused, trying to make himself angry. Thinking about ’Berto had gotten him all wired up, given him the shakes. The point of the shiv danced against his T-shirt. “Even if you get out the front gate you’ll be dead before you hit the corner.”
“Don’t believe it.”
November Mourns Page 22
