by Ronald Kelly
TWILIGHT HANKERINGS
Vampires, Werewolves,
&
Other Things That Go Bite in the Night
By Ronald Kelly
First Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press & Macabre Ink Digital
Copyright 2011 by Ronald Kelly
Cover Design and copy-editing by David Dodd
Part of the cover image provided by:
http://ashensorrow.deviantart.com/
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ALSO FROM RONALD KELLY & CROSSROAD PRESS
NOVELS:
Hell Hollow
Timber Gray
NOVELLAS:
Flesh Welder
COLLECTIONS:
Dark Dixie
Dark Dixie II
Cumberland Furnace & Other Fear Forged Fables
The Sick Stuff
UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOKS:
Flesh Welder – Narrated by Wayne June
Peacemaker / Copyright by Ronald Kelly
First appeared in Fright Depot (1988)
The Boxcar / Copyright by Ronald Kelly
First appeared in After Hours (1989)
Consumption / Copyright by Ronald Kelly
First Appeared in Thin Ice (1989)
Then Came a Woodsman / Copyright by Ronald Kelly
Previously unpublished
Oh, Sordid Shame! / Copyright by Ronald Kelly
First Appeared in Deathrealm (1990)
The Thing at the Side of the Road / Copyright by Ronald Kelly
First appeared in Harlan County Horrors (2009)
Whorehouse Hollow / Copyright by Ronald Kelly
First Appeared in Dark Seductions (1993)
Thinning the Herd / Copyright by Ronald Kelly
First Appeared in 2 AM (1992)
CONTENTS:
Peacemaker
The Boxcar
Consumption
Then Came a Woodsman
Oh, Sordid Shame!
The Thing at the Side of the Road
Whorehouse Hollow
Thinning the Herd
INTRODUCTION
By Ronald Kelly
Webster’s Dictionary defines the word “appetite” as:
any of the instinctive desires necessary to keep up the desire to eat an inherent craving; an insatiable appetite for nourishment.
Of course, there are other terms for appetite as well. Craving, coveting, hunger, lust, gluttony, ravenousness, want, yearning, and passion, just to name a few. South of the Mason-Dixon Line, we call it a “hankering”. Southern folks possess a hankering for a lot of things: gravy & biscuits, sweet tea, pecan pie and homemade ice cream. If you’re hanging at the honky-tonk and downing your twelfth beer, you might get a powerful hankering for a hellacious fight or some late-night loving (although most Southern wives refuse to accommodate their men in that area if they stagger home all liquored up).
When thinking of appetite, two supernatural beings come instantly to the minds of horror fiction readers; vampires and werewolves. I’ve explored both in larger bodies of work – my novels, Blood Kin and Undertaker’s Moon (Moon of the Werewolf) – and, in a more limited way, several short stories. Those tales of the blood-sucking undead and the beastly lycanthrope are featured here in this collection. Since it is also dedicated to “things that go bite in the night” these stories also explore other creatures with equally voracious appetites, from man-eating caterpillars to backwoods succubi to monstrous things that lie patiently in wait by the side of the road.
So, if you hear something scratching at your front door or lurking in the shadows of your darkened bedroom following the reading of this collection, don’t blame me. It’s just the dark things that run rampant between dusk and dawn, looking for a little midnight snack.
Ronald Kelly
Brush Creek, Tennessee
February 2011
PEACEMAKER
The last full moon of the cycle drove Joe Tanner from his human form and, before the night was out, he again stalked the western wilderness, that maddening lust for flesh and blood pounding feverishly through his brain.
By the time the change was complete, he had reached the desert canyon where last night’s hunting had gone so well. It was a lonely gorge on the Colorado-New Mexico border; a route used only by wild animals and desperadoes running from the law. Tanner returned there, vividly remembering the feast he had indulged in the night previous. He had crouched atop a high bluff overlooking the outlaw canyon, when the sound of shod hooves rang through the darkness and the scent of humanity came to him on a gentle summer breeze. Patiently, he had waited as two riders appeared, obviously traveling together, but spaced a good fifty feet apart. Choosing the second horseman as his victim, Tanner had pounced. He tore away the appaloosa’s gullet as he drove his massive weight against the horse’s right side. The impact had toppled both horse and rider into a shallow drywash. So silently had the entire attack been launched, that the first rider continued onward, oblivious to his companion’s fate until it was too late.
Tanner’s prey had been an Indian dressed in fringed buckskins. He immediately drew a revolver from his hip, but the beast gave him no chance to fire, no opportunity to alert his friend of what confronted him. With a swipe of razor claws, the Indian’s right arm sailed into a clump of prickly pear, the six-shooter still clutched in his hand. Tanner circled the injured man, playing his usual game of cat and mouse, savoring the rich scent of fresh blood and fear. When he finally moved in for the kill, the Indian drew a knife with his remaining hand. If Joe had been in his human form, he would have surely laughed. But in his wolfish state he could only growl savagely in triumph as he tore full into the red man’s body, ignoring the ineffective slashing of the hunting blade against his own skin.
He had ended it swiftly, devouring what he wished of the man, then of the dying horse. By the time the other rider realized that his partner was absent and backtracked to find his mutilated body, the thing that was Joe Tanner’s horrid other-half was far from that dusty draw, satisfied until the influence of the lunar cycle overtook him once again.
It was that overpowering force that brought him there tonight. He scouted the area thoroughly before taking his place on the edge of the cliff. The remains of the spotted horse had been dragged by ropes deep into the drywash and left as food for buzzards and coyotes. The unfortunate Indian had been buried along the trailside, a crude stone of gray slate serving as a makeshift headstone. A single word was scrawled in memorial, but Tanner could not read it. In his animal state, he could not interpret the English language, whether it be written or spoken aloud. All he could understand in such a primal condition was the produce of the moon-inspired hunts; the screams, the blood, the insatiable yearning for human flesh.
Now, as he crouched on the lip of the bluff and awaited his next victim, Tanner reminisced. He had been stricken with that godawful curse in the summer of 1863, after the bloody battle of Gettysburg. He had been separated from his unit during the heat of the fray and, as he quietly skirted an enemy encampment in the dead of night
, he became suddenly aware that something was stalking him. Before he could even raise his musket, it was upon him, ripping, tearing him apart. He awoke in a dense thicket the following morning, soaked in his own blood. His fatal wounds were all but healed and in his palm was emblazoned the sign of the pentagram. He had heard enough of this Grandma Tanner’s fireside stories about werewolves and such to know exactly what he had become. He knew from that moment on that his life would be tainted with bloodshed and deep despair.
Twenty years had passed since that awful night. Joe Tanner had traveled many miles in that time; across the muddy Mississippi from Tennessee, across the Ozarks and the plains of Kansas, to finally settle in the Great Divide. He found honest work whenever he could; mining, riding herd on cattle drives, blacksmithing. He was a decent, well-liked man, but on those nights when the moon grew full he endured the horror of the change and roamed the mountains in search of two-legged prey.
It was nearing midnight when hoofbeats roused him from his thoughts and he watched as a lone rider traveled the canyon from the west. Tanner recognized him as the surviving horseman of the night before. He licked his fanged chops as he watched the man reign his snow-white steed to a halt before the grave, dismount, and, removing his hat, kneel in prayerful remembrance.
The hunger was nearly unbearable as the wolf slowly and tediously crept down the rocky wall of the canyon, careful to make no sound. The albino horse caught his scent and snorted aloud, but his master paid his skittish behavior no mind. His grieving mind was deep in thought and unconscious of the grave danger that approached him from behind… or so Tanner thought.
The beast was across the canyon floor, no more than twenty feet away, when the man whirled, one of two shiny Colts drawn from a holster of hand-tooled leather and held at the hip with cold confidence. Again, Tanner wanted to laugh. Instead, he threw back his shaggy head and howled long and loud. It was a sound that would have driven most men to the brink of madness. However, this one regarded him calmly, eyes veiled in the dark shadows of his crisp, white Stetson.
The fool, thought the hellish fiend, moving forward. Let him fire if he will! Let him empty both guns and reload… but it will do him no good. I shall have my feast tonight… gun or no gun!
As he advanced, the nightrider calmly thumbed back the hammer and fired.
The first shot caught the hungry beast completely by surprise. Tanner had expected the dull ache of common lead to enter his system impotently, to be absorbed and forgotten. But, instead, a searing agony bore through him; a pain he had never once experienced during all his years of nocturnal stalking. He stumbled backwards a few steps, then pressed onward, much more slowly than before. The man stood from where he had crouched before the single-worded grave and began to fire rapidly, fanning the spur of the gun’s hammer with the heel of one black-gloved hand. Five more shots speared through Tanner’s malformed body, each more agonizing than the one before. Four hit him squarely in the chest, while the last tunneled though his long, toothy snout into his brain.
With a dying shriek, the creature collapsed, his breath growing shallow and ragged. As he endured the slow and painful transition from man to wolf one last time, Joe Tanner stared up at the man with the nickel-plated Colt. Shaking his head, the gunman idly unloaded his pistol, letting the spent casings fall before reloading. Tanner’s outstretched hand reached for one, but withdrew when the flesh of his fingertips burnt at the mere touch of it.
Pure silver, he thought in bewilderment. Both the bullets and the cartridge casings… pure silver. But how? How did he know?
Looking into that impassive face cloaked in shadow and dark cloth, Tanner knew that the man had not really known after all. For some unknown reason, the man in the pale blue uniform always carried his pistols loaded with sterling silver.
A fresh throe of agony gripped Tanner as mats of coarse hair fell away and his muscles resumed their original form. A great relief washed over him, driving away that awful cancer of lycanthropy from the depths of his soul. The nickname of “Peacemaker” that had been bestowed upon Sam Colt’s firearm in recent years never rang truer than it did that night in the outlaw canyon. He stared up with tears in his eyes, wanting to thank the rider… thank him for releasing him from the monthly damnation that had plagued him most of his adult life. But when he looked up, the man was gone. The clatter of departing hooves and the pale form of the white horse could be discerned from a distance, before the night engulfed them.
Just before Joe Tanner closed his eyes and slipped into that dark abyss of eternal peace, he could not help but wonder… just who was that masked man?
THE BOXCAR
“Hello the camp!” I yelled down into that dark, backwoods hollow beside the railroad tracks. We could see the faint glow of a campfire and shadowy structures of a few tin and tarpaper shacks, but no one answered. Only the chirping of crickets and the mournful wail of a southbound train on its way to Memphis echoed through the chill autumn night.
“Maybe there ain’t nobody down there,” said Mickey. His stomach growled ferociously and mine sang in grumbling harmony. Me and Mickey had been riding the rails together since the beginning of this Great Depression and, although there were a number of years between us – he being a lad of fifteen years and I on into my forties – we had become the best of traveling buddies.
“Well, I reckon there’s only one way to find out,” I replied. “Let’s go down and have a look-see for ourselves.”
We slung our bindles over our shoulders and descended the steep grade to the woods below. We were bone-tired and hungry, having made the long haul from Louisville to Nashville without benefit of a free ride. It was about midnight when we happened across that hobo camp. We were hoping to sack out beside a warm fire, perhaps trade some items from our few personal possessions for coffee and a plate of beans.
As we skirted a choking thicket of blackberry bramble and honeysuckle, we found that the camp was indeed occupied. Half a dozen men, most as rail-thin and down on their luck as we were, sat around a crackling fire. A couple were engaged in idle conversation, while others whittled silently, feeding the flames of the campfire with their wood shavings. They all stopped stone-still when we emerged from the briar patch and approached them.
“Howdy,” I said to them. “We called down for an invite, but maybe y’all didn’t hear.”
A big, bearded fellow in a battered felt fedora eyed us suspiciously. “Yeah, we heard you well enough.”
I stepped forward and offered a friendly smile. “Well, me and my partner here, we were wondering if we might – “
My appeal for food and shelter was interrupted when a scrubby fellow who had been whittling stood up, his eyes mean and dangerous. “Now you two just stay right where you are.” I looked down and saw that he held a length of tent stake in his hand. The end had been whittled down to a wickedly sharp point.
“We’re not aiming to bother nobody, mister,” Mickey spoke up. “We’re just looking for a little nourishment, that’s all.”
One of the bums at the fire expelled a harsh peal of laughter. “Sure… I bet you are.”
“Go on and get outta here, the both of you,” growled the fellow with the pointy stick. He made a threatening move toward us, driving us back in the direction of the thicket. “Get on down the tracks to where you belong.”
“We’re a-going,” I told them, more than a little peeved by their lack of hospitality. “A damned shame, though, folks treating their own kind in such a sorry manner, what with times as hard as they are these days.”
Some of the men at the fire hung their heads in shame, while the others only stared at us with that same look of hard suspicion. “Please… just move on,” said the big fellow.
Me and Mickey made the grade in silence and continued on down the tracks. “To heck with their stupid old camp,” the boy said after a while. “Didn’t wanna stay there anyhow. The whole place stank to the high heavens.”
Thinking back, I knew he was right. There had bee
n a rather pungent smell about that hobo camp. It was a thick, cloying odor, familiar, yet unidentifiable at the time. And, although I didn’t mention it to Mickey, I knew that the hobos’ indifferent attitude toward us hadn’t been out of pure meanness, but out of downright fear. It was almost as if they’d been expecting someone else to come visiting. Our sudden appearance had set them on edge, prompting the harsh words and unfriendliness that had let us know we were far from welcome there.
We moved on, the full moon overhead paving our way with nocturnal light. The next freight yard was some twenty or thirty miles away with nothing but woods and thicket in-between. So it was a stroke of luck that we turned a bend in the tracks and discovered our shelter for the night.
It was an old, abandoned boxcar. The wheels had been removed for salvage and the long, wooden hull parked off to the side near a grove of spruce and pine. We waded through knee-high weeds to the dark structure. It was weathered by sun and rain. The only paint that remained was the faint logo of a long-extinct railroad company upon the side walls.
“Well, what do you think?” I asked young Mickey.
The freckle-faced boy wrinkled his nose and shrugged. “I reckon it’ll have to do for tonight.”
We had some trouble pushing the door back on its tracks, but soon we stepped inside, batting cobwebs from our path. The first thing that struck us was the peculiar feeling of soft earth beneath our feet, rather than the customary hardwood boards. The rich scent of freshly-turned soil hung heavily in the boxcar, like prime farmland after a drenching downpour.
We found us a spot in a far corner and settled there for the night. I lit a candle stub so as to cast a pale light upon our meager supper. It wasn’t much for two hungry travelers; just a little beef jerky I had stashed in my pack, along with a swallow or two of stale water from Mickey’s canteen. After we’d eaten, silence engulfed us – an awkward silence – and I felt the boy’s concerned gaze on my face. Finally I could ignore it no longer. “Why in tarnation are you gawking at me, boy?”
