Swift to Chase

A Collection of Stories

By

Laird Barron

JournalStone

Copyright © 2016 Laird Barron

Originally published in:

Screaming Elk, MT - Nightmare Carnival 2014

LD50 - Weaponized Blog 2013

Termination Dust - Tales of Jack the Ripper 2013

Andy Kaufman Creeping through the Trees - 2016 Autumn Cthulhu

Ardor - Suffered from the Night 2013

the worms crawl in, - Fearful Symmetries 2014

(Little Miss) Queen of Darkness - Dark Regions #29 2014

Ears Prick Up – SQ Mag. 2015

Black Dog - Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre 2012

Slave Arm - Blood Type: An Anthology of Vampire SF on the Cutting Edge 2013

Frontier Death Song - Nightmare Magazine #1 2012

Tomahawk Park Survivors Raffle – Swift to Chase 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

JournalStone books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

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The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-945373-05-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-945373-07-7 (ebook)

ISBN: 978-1-945373-06-0 (hc)

JournalStone rev. date: October 7, 2016

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016949884

Printed in the United States of America

Cover Art & Design: Chuck Killorin

Edited by: Vincenzo Bilof

Acknowledgements

Thank you to my friends, family, and colleagues:

Publisher Christopher Payne at JournalStone; Paul Tremblay (for a fine introduction); John, Fiona, and David Langan; Ron Wier (technical advice on LD50 ); and Chuck Killorin (for the excellent cover art); Mark Tallen; the marvelous Deborah Gordon Brown; Yves Tourigny; Jason and Darci Duelge; Jason and Harmony Barron and the kids; and Timbi Porter.

Special thanks to Vincenzo Bilof for his edits.

My gratitude to the editors who originally acquired these stories: John Joseph Adams; Steve Berman; Ellen Datlow; Mike Davis; Aaron French; Paula Guran; Gerry Huntman; Ross Lockhart; and Robert S. Wilson.

Extra Special thanks to my agents, Janet Reid and Pouya Shahbazian, and their wonderful support staff, Penny Moore and Chris McEwen.

As always, thank you to my readers.

For Jessica M

Introduction

By

Paul Tremblay

People call it this or that but our club doesn’t have a name.

If you’re not already a member of our club (I find it hard to believe that you’re not a member. Honestly, how could you not be a member?), you will be soon enough.

Laird’s brilliant first collection, The Imago Sequence, was published in 2007, and you have his fourth in your hands, all of which seems temporally incongruous to me. It’s hard to imagine a time when I wasn’t either reading his fiction or eagerly anticipating it. In such a relatively short period of time, that Laird’s work looms so large within the horror community speaks to his talent, his singular vision, his uniqueness in his uncanny ability to move us, to make us see, and to his maniacal/stubborn (you choose the adjective; likely both) levels of hard work.

Many argue that we are in the middle of a renaissance or golden age of horror fiction. I’m inclined to agree, and Laird’s success is both reason for and reflection of the rising cultural relevance of horror. Whether Laird has simply mainlined into the zeitgeist and our post-millennial nightmares feel like a Laird Barron story, or his literate mix of the horror, noir, and pulp adventure has already left its fingerprints (oh they’re there if you look hard enough) on more than one pop cultural moment, doesn’t matter. In a community often desperate to proclaim literary/artistic/popular agency and legitimacy (and given to promote saviors, the-next-Stephen-King, and historical all-timers way too prematurely), Laird is one of our proven champions.

Welcome back to the club, friends.

* * *

In my dreams, I always die.

Roughly ten years ago, Laird trekked to the east coast to attend Readercon. I hosted a small, impromptu cookou

t at my place the night before the convention started. Before Laird and a few other guests arrived, I prepped my two kids (at the time, ages four and eight) to not ask Laird about the why of his eye patch, knowing that my youngest, Emma, wouldn’t be able to help herself. I tend to over-worry about things, so I was nervous about my unrelenting four-year-old making Laird feel uncomfortable in any way. I’d only known Laird for a year or two at this point. We were friends, but new friends, and he’d previously expressed to me that he was hesitant to talk (or write) about his experiences growing up in Alaska.

Sure enough, the moment I went inside and foolishly left Laird sitting at the rickety patio table in the backyard with the kids, Emma pounced and asked Laird why he had an eye patch. Cole, ever the responsible, twitchy first-born, was embarrassed and horrified, but not so much that he interceded or went to get me in a desperate attempt to stop his renegade sister. Emma asked what he wanted to ask, and he leaned in close to hear Laird’s answer.

Laird said (and I imagine he said it dryly and straight-faced): Has your dad ever told you not to run with a sharp pencil?

His answer was a playful, mischievous joke, one I’m sure my kids (hopefully they’re less gullible than I am) were in on, but at the same time, it left them asking what if it was true? They didn’t know and couldn’t know for sure. They could visualize a terrible accident happening to Laird, but because of how he phrased it, how he didn’t come right out and explicitly say he’d stabbed out his own eye with a pencil, he let them extrapolate, and create their own conclusion, and maybe they could see it (viewed through metaphorical fingers covering their eyes, or brazenly wide-eyed) happening to them as well. His answer was a ten second horror story, one that was totally Laird.

I didn’t find out about the secret Clarice/Lector-style quid pro quo until later that evening. Laird was laughing as he told me about it, and so was I. I’m convinced that Emma still frequently asks when Laird is coming over to the house again due in part to his answer to her question.

* * *

It didn’t originate in Alaska. It was around before Alaska.

Swift to Chase is Laird’s Alaska book. The landscape is as integral, active, and unknowable as any character and as a result these stories are dangerous, raw, primal, and desperate. They are also intricate and complex, and wonderfully varied thematically. One can certainly find Laird peering into his past as revenants abound. Jessica Mace, Laird’s recurrent ultimate survivor, runs like a vein through this collection. She is forever fending off the Eagle Talon ripper (a killer as large and mysterious and perhaps as ancient as Alaska) while she continues to recklessly drive ever forward into a most uncertain future. That Laird opens the collection with two Jessica Mace tales and saves her mesmerizing origin story Termination Dust for the third spot is genius, and you’ll understand why when you read it.

Like the calling of names in the first paragraph of Slave Arm, you’ll find all manner of friends, enemies, dogs, loves, lives, heroes, failures, hopes, dreams, nightmares, and inspirations within the stories. There’s Clive Barker and an unforgettably human Raw Head Rex in the worms crawl in, ; Robert E Howard and Roger Zelazny in the bloody, bold, and soulful high fantasy/adventure/science fiction/horror hybrid Ears Prick Up ; Flannery O’Connor in the personal, touching, and dread-filled Black Dog.

Swift to Chase is a not a simple case of what is old is new again. His universe expands even as his focus contracts. He is most definitely not playing it safe and rehashing old favorites. These stories are a thrilling and daring step forward into Laird’s literary future. The experimentation with plot structure, narrative form, and point of view in the aforementioned Termination Dust and Slave Arm, and in the wickedly entertaining and almost unimaginably brutal Andy Kaufmann Creeping through the Trees adds to the feeling of danger and unpredictability. In Frontier Death Song, a manic and doomed chase across the country, Laird is totally messing with us; he knows you think you know who all the players are and how everything connects, but you don’t. And it’s exhilarating.

* * *

We’re waiting for you pal. We know where you live.

Lines are blurred and Laird’s past, present, and future are all in these pages. The stories in Swift to Chase are confessionals and artistically crafted lies, and they ooze confidence and bravura, and sadness and vulnerability. As an admirer and friend, I recognize the bits of flesh Laird tore off himself and stuffed into these pages, but the best part is that we’re all there too. That’s the magic of Laird’s fiction: despite the scope and exotic Alaskan landscapes and locales we recognize ourselves within his stories. We see who we are, who we could be, and what will happen to us all eventually. We see ourselves running with that sharpened pencil when we shouldn’t be, even though we might not have a choice because we’re the ones being chased. Or are we the ones doing the chasing?

Swift to Chase drops us within the wide vista of a brave new world in Laird Barron’s fiction. It’s thrilling, and of course, terrifying. He has managed to somehow expand and personalize his cosmic horror universe. This collection is the cosmic horror of me, the cosmic horror of us, and the horror is boundless.

We don’t suckle at the breast of a god, it suckles at ours.

Paul Tremblay

1/5/2016

SWIFT TO CHASE

I: Golden Age of Slashing

Screaming Elk, MT

Near dusk a trucker dropped me at a tavern in Screaming Elk, MT, population 333. A bunch of locals had gathered to shoot pool and drown their sorrows in tap beer. CNN aired an hour-long feature on survivors of violent crime. The Where is Jessica Mace? segment popped around halfway through and I told the bartender to switch it pronto. A sodbuster on the next stool started to bark his offense, then he took a closer look at the file photo of me larger than life onscreen and things went from bad to ugly.

You’re that broad! Yeah, yeah, you’re her! Shitkicker had crossed over to the dark side of drunk. Nice rack, he went on in a confidential tone. I wouldn’t pay a nickel for anything above the tits, though.

I threw a glass of whiskey in his face, as a lady does when her appearance is insulted by an oaf. No biggie—I’d been nursing the cheap stuff. Besides, the move was only a cover to get my knife unsheathed and pressed flat against my inner thigh, all ready to do its work. A couple of his comrades at the bar laughed. He recovered fast —animals are like that — made a fist and cocked it behind his left ear. I puckered my lips. Don’t suppose that I enjoy getting punched. It’s simply that I can make pain work for me if it comes to that.

Despite my gravelly voice and rough edges, I know how to play the femme fatale. I can also hold my booze. It’s a devastating combo. During our youth, my brothers Elwood and Bronson were the brawlers, the steamrollers. Elwood has gone to his reward and Bronson crashes cars for a living when he isn’t playing a hockey goon. Me? Let’s say I prefer to rely upon a combination of native cunning and feminine wiles to accomplish my goals. Flames and explosions are strictly measures of last resort.

I’ll put my life in mortal danger for a pile of cash. No shock there, anybody would. Goes deeper, though. I’ll also venture into hazard to satisfy my curiosity, and that’s more problematic. The compulsion seems to be growing stronger. Violence, at least the threat of violence, is a rush. I’m addicted to the ramifications and the complications.

As the CNN story so luridly explained, I put paid to a serial killer up in Alaska, the Eagle Talon Ripper, and nothing has been the same. It’s as if the stars and the sky don’t align correctly, as if the universe is off its axis by a degree or two. Since pulling that trigger I haven’t figured out exactly what to do with myself. I wander the earth. It would be romantic to say I’m righting wrongs or seeking my destiny. Feels more like I’m putting my shoe into one fresh pile after another.

A good friend who worked in the people-removing business for the Mafia once told me there aren’t coincidences or accidents, reality doesn’t work that way. Since the first inert, super-dense particle detonated and spewed forth gas and dust and radiation, everything has been on an unerring collision vector with its ultimate mate, and every bit of the flotsam and jetsam is cascading toward the galactic Niagara Falls into oblivion.

The dude possessed a more inquisitive nature than one might expect from an enforcer by trade. He said, Jessica, you’re a dancing star being dragged toward the black hole at the ragged edges of all we know. Drawn with irresistible force, you’ll level anything in your path, or drag it to hell in your wake.

Load of horseshit, am I right? Sloppy, I-love-you-man drivel. Yet, his words come back to me as I travel east, ever east. I’m starting to believe him. I’m a dancing star and my self-determination is a facade.

Cut to the drunken asshole in the bar rearing back to knock me into next Tuesday. Not so fast, Tex, said the universe.

A rugged, burly fellow in a safari shirt and work pants stepped in and introduced himself with a left hook to the sodbuster’s jaw. Put the cowboy to sleep with one blow. I hadn’t needed a white knight. I had my knife and knew where to stick it. But, I must admit, the crunch of the cowpoke’s jawbone and the fast-spreading blood on the scuffed floorboards thrilled me a little. A lot.

Mr. White Knight rubbed his hand. All those nicks and notches on his knuckles, like rocks that had been smacked together a thousand times.

I’m Beasley. What are you drinking?

Ah, the beginning of another beautiful friendship.

* * *

Mist flooded across the marsh and erased the country road. Rounding a bend, we were transported from present day Montana to Scottish moors circa 1840s, or a Universal Studios sound lot with Bela Lugosi poised to sweep aside his cape along with our feeble protestations.

Can’t-find-your-own-ass-with-both-hands-and-a-flashlight-weather, I said to cut the tension. I twisted my rings until they bit in. That night, I wore five in honor of the dead samurai lord—bands of iron, silver, and titanium on the left hand. A mood ring and a biker-large death’s head on the right. The latter pair were gifts from Mom who’d used them plenty in her skating days. Jawbreakers.

Beasley stepped on the pedal. His face by dashboard light put me in mind of Race Bannon and Doc Savage. The unbuttoned safari shirt contributed nicely. Ten, maybe fifteen years my senior, but some juice left in him; I loved that too. A crucifix dangled from the rearview mirror; also sprigs of dried flowers. More dried flowers peeked from the ashtray. I wondered if these details meant anything; made a note.

We were rocking and rolling like a motherfucker now. The rickety farm truck’s tires cried mercy. But when the moon hove nine-tenths full and full of blood over the black rim of night and screamed white-hot silver through the boiling clouds, everything stood still.

The Gallows Brothers Carnival, huh? I said after I caught my breath. I would have said anything to break the spell. I heard that name somewhere. Want to say a news story. Which means somebody got maimed or murdered. Wouldn’t be news otherwise.

He grunted and hit me with a sidelong glance.

So, uh, you know how to shoot? Maybe he meant the rifle rattling in the window rack behind our heads. A light gauge shotgun; nothing fabulous. Also, would you say you’re fast on your feet? On a scale of, oh, let’s say a chick in high heels to Carl Lewis sprinting from a lion.

I hate it when dudes ask me that. The line of inquiry seldom leads anywhere pleasant.

You dames have all had bad experiences.

I laughed, low and nasty.

Yeah, it’s weird. Can’t figure what the common denominator might be.

He shut his mouth for a while, smarting. Guy like him, pain didn’t last long. A whack upside the head with a two-by-four was positive attention.

My thoughts went to a previous fling with another brutish loner type; a coyote hunter in Eastern Washington. I hoped my luck was better this go-around. I hoped Beasley’s luck was better too.

You’re not really a carnival roadie, I said a few miles later. You lack a particular something or other.

Well, I wouldn’t get on any of the rides.

The Gallows Brothers Carnival had set up shop in a pasture a few miles outside of town. Unfortunately, I had missed the last show. The great machinery lay cold and silent and would soon be dismantled. Beasley lived in a modular at the end of a concourse of shuttered stalls, tilt-a-whirls, and tents. All very Beaver Cleaver 1950s. The night breeze swirled sawdust and the burned powder of exploded firecrackers.

A wolf howled from the north where the forest began.

Then we were inside Beasley’s shack, barring the door behind us. Down, down into the darkness we dove, to the bottom of a blue hole at the bottom of the earth. The wolf howled again. Its pack answered and the Ponderosa pines closed ranks, as Beasley’s mighty arms closed me in.

* * *

A hazy nightlight fumed at the foot of the bunk. Beasley, with a physique straight from a picture book of Norse gods, could’ve wrestled bears, looked as if he’d done so on occasion. Once Beasley and I got going he held back for fear of breaking me, the fool. I wanted to tell him it was only really good once it started to hurt, but I’d gone past the vanishing point and dissolved into another, primal self, the one that doesn’t speak English.

He performed as his swagger advertised, or close enough. Afterward, he lay slick and aglow, perfectly scarred. I asked him if he did any acting, because he radiated mucho charisma. He only smiled boyishly and took a swig from the bottle, took it in like water. I suspected his fate would be to die horribly of cirrhosis, or under the claws of a beast, and young, or to turn fifty and appear as if he’d gone face-first into a wall, haggard as a kerosene-swilling bum. Probably the dying young deal, which meant he’d better get started soon. I kept seeing a bleached skull when I caught him in my peripheral vision.

Gimme some sweet, sweet nothings, I said to keep him from nodding off and leaving me alone with my 2 A.M. thoughts, and alone with the howls in the wood.

Look, doll, I’m a man of action. Sweet talk ain’t my bailiwick.

Your wick isn’t going into my bailey again if you don’t humor me.

As you say. He cleared his throat. How can you be sure you’re here?

What, think you were humping your pillow?

Sorry, Jess, you started this. Maybe all of it is a projection. Or a computer program. You’re a sexy algorithm looping for eternity.

We shared a cigarette. Not my brand.

Kinda smart for a dumb guy, I said. What I knew of Beasley’s past derived from a few hours over pints—ex Army, ex-footballer, a hunter, a bodyguard, expert driver. Man-at-arms slash valet and satisfied with the role. College had served as a central hub for womanizing, boozing, and playing ball.

No offense taken, or anything. He even made petulance sound manly.

"Don’t get riled, handsome. Playing dumb is your protective coloration. It’s how you fool the predators. Most of us are fooled."

My protective coloration is a surly disposition and a buffalo gun that’d blast a hole through a concrete bunker.

Neither of those require smarts. I squinted at a movie poster of Robby the Robot carrying unconscious Anne Francis against a backdrop of shooting stars, and another of Lon Chaney Jr. bursting the buttons of his natty white shirt as a devil moon blared through evergreen branches.

Wait a second. Is that wolfsbane in the pot?

Jessica…you’re not a hologram, you’re a dream. He kneaded my breast. It had to be the right woman, but I hoped it would be a flake, a bumpkin. I was afraid you’d come here. Ever since I dreamt of you there’s been a dark spot floating in my mind. A mote.

Make sense, man!

Yeah, it’s wolfsbane. He rolled away from me, the oldest trick in the book.

* * *

I woke to a little girl screaming her heart out, out in the darkness. Beasley gently clamped his hand over my mouth, his other arm wrapped around my waist. I wasn’t going anywhere unless I took extreme measures. Not so much of a turn-on in this context.

It’s all right. He spoke softly and I almost didn’t catch it. They say an elk screams like a child. Go back to sleep.

A long time and a lot of silence passed before he let me go.

* * *

Oatmeal and kiwis for breakfast in the commissary. Beasley introduced me around to the early-risers. Hey, everybody, this is Jessica Mace. She’s wandering the earth. Make her feel at home. Damned if I didn’t despite their clannishness. Free food is free food.

Strongman (actually a strongwoman, after a double take), Bearded Lady, Wolf Girl, Poindexter the Geek, the Knife Thrower, Ephandra the Contortionist, and Perkins and Luther— head carpenter and electrician respectively. The Gallows Brothers, Benson and Robert, weren’t on hand. The proprietors had departed on a hush-hush mission, or so Beasley intimated when I asked to meet the gents.

Beasley’s request notwithstanding, I received the hairy eyeball from the company. Nobody said two words to me except for Earl, the Illustrated Man. Earl repeatedly inquired where oh where on my delectable body I might be inked. Answer: nowhere, jerk. I kind of hoped Beasley would bust his jaw too, but it didn’t happen. Several children lurked on the periphery. The oldest, an adolescent girl; the youngest, a grubby boy maybe a year or two out of diapers. They gawped at me from a safe distance, until their minder, a matronly lass named Rocky, swept them away with brisk efficiency.

After breakfast, Beasley escorted me on a tour of the environs. I tasted snow. A lot of the stuff covered the mountain peaks.

This doesn’t jibe, I said. Are you hiding from the law, or what?

We’d moseyed a distance from the encampment. He wore a battered Australian drover’s hat, light jacket, workpants, and lace-up boots. He also carried a big-ass hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. Double-barrels, very serious.

Whatever happens, don’t get scared.

Scared of what? And, too late.

Of nothing. I’m not on the lam, by the way. Vacation. He knelt and traced flattened grass with his entire hand. We were surrounded by an ocean of it, tall and white, dying.

How everybody spoke to you, you’ve been here a while.

Ten months next week.

Ten months! Sounds more and more like you’re on work release.

He laughed. Nice white teeth. Considering the battered condition of his face, it was a small miracle he’d kept most of them.

I live back east. My regular employers are having a disagreement.

Dare I ask what they do?

Big brains. Quantum physics, exobiology, anthropology. They’re famous, infamous, one of those things. A pair of mad scientist types. They’d love to build a time machine or a doomsday device for the kicks.

Sounds like wacky fun. I could use a spin in a time machine, for sure.

Backward or forward?

I shrugged, bored.

Sorry your bosses are trying to kill each other. Family feuds are the worst.

It’s all the shooting that made me nervous. He turned away and scanned the ground again.

What’s the argument about?

The ethics of temporal collocation of sapient organisms.

No shit?

I shit you not. Mainly, they’re at each other’s throat about a dog.

"Oh, I get that. I’d kill over a good dog."

Hmm. This one sure as hell is. Or it will be, after they build it.

Build it? Are we talking about a robot?

A cyborg. It—he—is a war machine. Weapons contractor is financing the project. My bosses are making history. Rex has a positronic brain. First of its kind, and Toshi and Howard are fighting over the ethics. Look, stick around a few days, we’ll fly to the compound, I’ll show you. Easier that way.

Okay, I said.

Man, I wish Rex was online. We’d make short work of… He cleared his throat and stood. Be seven or eight years before the prototype is even in alpha phase. Gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way.

Do what the old-fashioned way? Aren’t you on vacation?

So to speak. Personal business. I traveled with this carnival as a kid. Ran away from a bad scene at home. The Gallows took me in, gave me a job, made sure I got an education. They’re my uncles and they’re in trouble.

A debt of honor. How sweet. Sweet like rat poison. Daddy the Marine had taught us kids a whole lot about honor. Honor had put him and my eldest brother into early graves. Can’t say I have much use for the sentiment.

I didn’t pick you out of that bar simply because you’re a looker, Beasley said. You’re something special.

Huh, that’s some heavy duty charm you’re laying down.

Yeah, it’s exhausting. I’ll stop.

Since you’ve already had your way, I’m steeling myself for the worst.

The Gallows Carnival is cursed. I’ve come to put things in order.

Wait, what? A curse?

Right.

Like voodoo, desecrated Indian burial grounds kind of curse?

He pointed to a splotch of maroon on the grass.

Stay tuned.

I decided to give Twenty Questions a break. I stuffed my hands into my pockets and tagged along as he inspected a rusty overgrown fence. Soon, he found a break in the wire. A black funnel bored through a copse of pine trees, juniper, and nettles. The hole had obviously formed by the crush of a massive body wallowing its way through the tangle.

Then the breeze shifted and the reek of putrefying flesh almost knocked me down. Beasley handed me his hat and unlimbered his rifle. He carried a flashlight in his left hand. Its beam didn’t cut very far into the darkness.

Motioning for me to stay put, he crouched and moved into the burrow.

Bad idea, Beasley. Bad, very bad. Over the stench of death, I whiffed something else, something born of musk, dank fur, sweat, and piss. This was the lair of a ravenous beast, a creature of fang and lust. The combination of scents, the crimson aura of the den, made me dizzy, made my nipples hard and my thighs weak. I slapped myself across the mouth and the sting shocked me out of my little swoon.

Maybe slightly too effective. Every birdcall, every snapped twig caused me to twitch. The shadows in the trees became sinister. I gave serious thought to leaving Beasley there, of strolling back to camp. I’d have coffee with a nip of bourbon and wait to see if he ever returned.

Jess. His voice floated from the tunnel, muffled and strange. Dial 911. Ask for Sheriff Holcomb. Tell him to come right away.

I made the call. The dispatcher asked the usual questions and said a squad car would be on site shortly. Beasley crawled from the den, shirt torn and stems in his hair. He tossed a man’s severed head on the ground. Dead two or three days at most. The left eye was still intact. Blue as milk. Hours later, I still saw my shadow reflected in it, the beetles and the flies crawling around, unsure where to start.

Five or six bodies in there, Beasley said in a hoarse voice. He lighted a cigarette. Reached for his hip flask of whiskey, glanced at the sun, and reconsidered. Then reconsidered again and down the goddamned hatch. Gonna have to reassemble the pieces to know for sure. Lotta pieces.

Cops are on the way.

I’m not sure if I said it to reassure myself or to warn him there’d be no more axe-murdering on my watch. I ninety-nine percent dismissed the possibility of his involvement in a massacre. My instincts are hellishly sharp when it comes to detecting the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. Beasley had issues. Cold-blooded murder wasn’t one.

The sun inched across the sky. Beasley checked his watch every couple of minutes.

Did the carnival lose a tiger? I said. Or a lion? The neck wound is…chunky. That’s how a big cat might savage its prey. As if I knew jack shit about big cats or mauled corpses. My mouth pops into gear when I’m nervous.

The Gallows own three panthers. All accounted for. This ain’t a wild animal attack. This is a whole other thing.

I couldn’t stop staring at the head, its mouth agape, teeth and tongue clotted in gore. I ran my thumb along the scar on my throat, felt a sympathetic pang, and relived the searing slash of the blade as it sawed on through.

Here’s the sheriff, Beasley said. He looked me in the eye, hard. Be careful.

We’re hunting rabbits? I always try to be brave.

Don’t get cute with him. He’s not your friend. Take my word.

I decided to heed his warning. A bad black vibe pushed forward thick as the dust from the cop cars tearing along the road.

* * *

Two Lewis and Clark County police cruisers nosed into the field. Several cops in midnight blue suits and white Stetson hats trudged the rest of the way to us. They patted the guns on their hips. One had a German shepherd on a leash. Poor dog wanted fuck-all to do with the murder scene. He pissed himself and cowered between the legs of his mortified handler, a lantern-jawed gal in mirrored shades.

Beasley shook hands with the sheriff. Two dogs deciding whether to sniff asses or get to tearing each other apart.

Blond-bearded and heavy through shoulders and hips, Sheriff Von Holcomb seemed at least a decade under-seasoned for the post. On