Scenes from the Secret History (The Secret History of the World) (45 page)

But you couldn't try that on the ones that still had some pepper in them.  They wouldn't hold still enough for you to place your heel.  That was where the Gary and his Slugger came in.  He swung at one as it snapped at him.

"The head!  The head, dammit!" Pa was yelling.

"Awright, awright!"

"Don't mess the pelts!"

Some of those coons were tough suckers.  Took at least half a dozen whacks each with the Slugger to kill them dead.  They'd twist and squeal and squirm around and it wasn't easy to pound a direct hit on the head every single time.  But they weren't going nowhere, not with one of their legs caught in a steel trap.

By the time he and Pa reached the last trap, Gary's bat was drippy red up to the taped grip, and his bag was so heavy he could barely lift it.  Pa's was just about full too.

"Damn!" Pa said, standing over the last trap.  "Empty!"  Then he knelt for a closer look.  "No, wait!  Looky that!  It's been sprung!  The paw's still in it!  Musta chewed it off!"

Gary heard a rustle in the brush to his right and caught a glimpse of a gray-and-black striped tail slithering away.

"There it is!"

"Get it!"

Gary dropped the sack and went after the last coon.  No sweat.  It was missing one of its rear paws and left a trail of blood behind on the snow wherever it went.  He came upon it within twenty feet.  A fat one, waddling and gimping along as fast as its three legs would carry it.  He swung but the coon partially dodged the blow and squalled as the bat glanced off its skull.  The next shot got it solid but it rolled away.  Gary kept after it through the brush, hitting it again and again, until his arms got tired.  He counted nearly thirty strikes before he got in a good one.  The big coon rolled over and looked at him with glazed eyes, blood running from its ears.  He saw the nipples on its belly – a female.  As he lifted the Slugger again, it raised its two front paws over its face – an almost human gesture that made him hesitate for a second.  Then he clocked her with a winner.  He bashed her head ten more times for good measure to make sure she wouldn't be going anywhere.  The snow around her was splattered with red by the time he was done.

As he lifted her by her tail to take her back, he got a look at the mangled stump of her hind leg.  Chewed off.  God, you really had to want to get free to do something like that!

He carried her back to Pa, passing all the other splotches of crimson along the way.  Looked like some bloody-footed giant had stomped through here.

"Whooeee!" Pa said when he saw the last one.  "That's a beauty!  They're
all
beauties!  Gary, m'boy, we're gonna have money to burn when we sell these!"

Gary glanced at the sun as he tossed the last one into the sack.  It was rising brightly into a clear sky.

"Maybe we shouldn't spend it until we get off Foster's land."

"You're right," Pa said, looking uneasy for the first time.  "I'll come back tomorrow and rebait the traps."  He slapped Gary on the back.  "We found ourselfs a goldmine, son!"

Gary groaned under the weight of the sack, but he leaned forward and struck off toward the sun.  He wanted to be gone from here.  Quick like.

"I'll lead the way,
Pa."

Available in…
The Barrens and Others

…ends in February

Reprisal

Definitely my darkest novel.  All about the seductiveness of evil.  Jack’s story is now bumping into the Adversary Cycle.

I should say something about the infamous Danny scene in the flashback when Father Bill Ryan enters that cold dark house (Menalaus Manor, later bought by the Kenton brothers of
The Haunted Air
) on Christmas Eve and finds Danny.  It almost didn't get written.  I couldn't get the words out.  I developed an aversion reaction to my keyboard.  Every time I sat down I'd have to get up and walk around the room.  I did
not
want to write that scene, did
not
want to hurt that little boy, and I especially didn't want to describe what had been done to him. 

But I had to.  Someone was trying to crush Father Ryan, utterly destroy him, but it takes a lot to do that to a man of his inner strength and faith.  About the only way to strike at him was through Danny, the little hyperactive boy he loved like a son.  Trouble was,
I'd
become emotionally attached to the kid as well.  Hurting him was like hurting a real person.  If you'll notice, the scene is described obliquely, out of the corner of the eye.  It was the best I could do, and actually it works better than a full-frontal exposure.  If you let the reader's subconscious fill in the gory details, the effect can be more disturbing than a detailed description.

Like
Reborn
, the novel starts out with Mr. Veilleur, then switches to a simple groundskeeper… who has a problem with phones…

Reprisal

(sample)

QUEENS
, NY 

Rain coming.

Mr. Veilleur could feel the approaching summer storm in his bones as he sat in a shady corner of St. Ann’s cemetery in Bayside.  He had the place to himself.  In fact, he seemed to have most of the five boroughs to himself.  Labor Day weekend.  And a hot one.  Anyone who could afford to had fled Upstate or to the Long Island beaches.  The rest were inside, slumped before their air conditioners.  Even the homeless were off the streets, crouched in the relative cool of the subways. 

The sun poured liquid fire through the hazy
midday sky.  Not a cloud in sight.  But here in the shade of this leaning oak, Mr. Veilleur knew the weather was going to change soon, could read it from the worsening ache in his knees, hips, and back.

Other things were going to change as well.  Everything, perhaps.  And all for the worse.

He had been making sporadic trips to this corner of the cemetery since he’d first sensed the
wrongness
here.  That had been on a snowy winter night many years ago.  It had taken him a while, but he’d finally located the spot. 

A grave, which was perfectly natural, this being a cemetery.  This grave was not like the others, however.  This one had no marker.  But something else made this grave special: Nothing would grow over it.

Through the years Mr. Veilleur had seen the cemetery’s gardeners try to seed it, sod it, even plant it with various ground covers like periwinkle, pachysandra, and ivy.  They took root well all around, but nothing survived in the four-foot oblong patch over the grave.

Of course, they didn’t know it was a grave.  Only Mr. Veilleur and the one who had dug the hole knew that.  And surely one other.

Mr. Veilleur did not come here often.  Travel was not easy for him, even to another part of the city he had called home since the end of World War Two.  Gone were the days when he walked where he wished, fearing no one.  Now his eyes were bad; his back was stiff and canted forward; he leaned on a cane when he walked, and he walked slowly.  He had an old man’s body and he had to take appropriate precautions.

Age had not dampened his curiosity, however.  He didn’t know who had dug the grave, or who was in it.  But whoever lay down there below the dirt and rocks had been touched by the enemy… the Otherness.

The enemy had been growing steadily stronger for more than two decades now.  But growing carefully, staying hidden.  Good thing too, for he had no one to oppose him.  But he did not know that.  He was waiting.  For what?  A sign?  A particular event?  Perhaps the one buried below was part of the answer.  Perhaps the occupant had nothing to do with the enemy’s quiescence.

No matter – as long as the enemy remained inactive.  For the longer the enemy delayed, the closer Mr. Veilleur would be to reaching the end of his days.  And then he would be spared witnessing the chaotic horrors to come.  His Heir would shoulder that burden. 

A shadow fell across him and a sudden gust of wind chilled the perspiration that coated his skin.  He looked up.  Clouds were moving in, obscuring the sun.  Time to go.

He stood and stared one last time at the bare dirt over the unmarked grave.  He knew he would be back again.  And again.  Too many questions about this grave and its occupant.  He sensed unfinished business here.

Because the grave’s occupant did not rest easy.  Did not, in fact, rest at all.

Mr. Veilleur turned and made his unsteady way out of
St. Ann’s cemetery.  It would be good to get back to the cool apartment and get his feet up and have a glass of iced tea.  He tried to believe that his wife had missed him during his absence, but with her mind the way it was, Magda probably hadn’t even realized he was gone.

PENDLETON, NORTH CAROLINA 

Conway Street
had come to a virtual standstill.  Like a parking lot.  Will Ryerson idled his ancient Impala convertible between fitful crawls in the stagnant morning traffic and watched the heat gauge.  Still well in the safe range.

He patted the dash.  Good girl.

He glanced at his watch.  He’d already had a late start for work, and this was going to make him later.  He took a deep breath.  So what?  The grass on the north campus at Darnell University could wait a few extra minutes for its weekly trim.  Only problem was, he was in charge of the work crews this morning, so if he didn’t get there, J.B. would have to get things rolling.  And J.B. had enough to do.  That was why he’d recently promoted Will.

Will Ryerson is moving up in the world.

He smiled at the thought.  He’d always wanted an academic life, to spend his workdays on the campus of a great university.  Well, for the last few years his wish had come true.  Except he didn’t travel there every day to immerse himself in the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of the ages; he came to tend the grounds.

With his degrees he could have been at
Georgetown, or even Darnell or Brown as an academic, but proving his qualifications would require him to reveal his past, and he couldn’t do that.

He glanced in the rearview mirror at his long, salt-and-pepper hair – mostly salt now – still wet from his morning shower, pulled tight to the back, at his scarred forehead, bent nose, and full, graying beard.  Only the bright blue eyes of his former self remained.  If his mother were still alive, even she might have trouble recognizing him now.

He peered ahead.  Had to be an accident somewhere up there.  Either that or the road department had picked the town’s so-called a.m. rush hour to do some street repairs.  Will had grown up in a real city, the city with the king – no, the
emperor
of rush hours.  This little bottleneck couldn’t hold a candle to that.

He killed time by reading bumper stickers.  Most of them were religious.

“BORN AGAIN”

“YOUR GOD DEAD?  TRY MINE: JESUS LIVES!”

“LISTEN FOR THE SHOUT – HE’S COMING AGAIN!”

“A CLOSE ENCOUNTER OF THE BEST KIND: JESUS!”

And Will’s favorite…

“JESUS IS COMING AGAIN AND BOY IS HE PISSED!”

I can dig that, Will thought. 

He considered turning on the radio but wasn’t in the mood for the ubiquitous country music or the crud that dominated the university’s student station, so he listened to the engine as it idled in the press.  An ancient gas guzzling V-8 but it purred like a week-old kitten.  It had taken him a while but he’d finally got the timing right. 

Will noticed that the right lane seemed to be inching forward faster than his own.  When a space opened up next to him, he eased over toward the curb and made slightly better time for half a block.  Then he came to a dead stop along with everybody else.

Big deal.  He’d picked up fifty feet over his old spot.  Hardly worth the trouble.  He peered ahead to see if the next side street was one he could use to detour around the congestion.  He couldn’t make out the name on the sign.  He glanced to his right and froze.

Oh, no.

A telephone booth stood on the sidewalk not six feet from the passenger door of his car.