Harlan County Horrors (15 page)

“
This whole place has gone mad!” one person
exclaimed.

“
It’s the end times!” an old man shouted.

Meanwhile, out of the corner of his eye, Boo happened to see
someone standing outside the diner’s main window, peering through.
Laughing. Leering.

“
Isn’t that PJ Smith?” he asked.

His
fellow deputy glanced up, still awe-stricken by the weirdness
around him. “Huh…y-yeah, that’s him.” Then he added. “Don’t he live
by that house where all those deaths happened last
night?”

Boo
hadn’t realized it before but, oddly and suspiciously enough, it
was true.

“
He sure does.”

PJ
continued to gaze through the window, pumping his fist with glee
while watching the turmoil inside. His face beamed with a sinister
glow. Behind him hung a dark cloud that seemed to originate from a
lantern connected to his belt. The form resembled a person’s
shadow, except for something peculiar. Strange. Then Boo’s heart
stopped. He couldn’t believe it. The shadow was the same as the
ones he had seen in the desert, when the guards had shot
themselves, when they had all looked possessed.

PJ
twisted his lips into an evil grin, reveling at the chaos for a
moment longer. Then he jerked away from the glass and
disappeared.

Boo
gathered his nerves. “Stay here,” he ordered, stepping around the
two black slugs that had now sprouted teeth and were gnawing on the
dead man from which they had been spawned.

“
Wait a minute!” the deputy implored. “You cain’t leave me
with these thangs! What am I supposed to do?”

“
Call for backup!”

“
What’r they gonna do?”

Boo
was already out the door.

Sprinting into the parking lot, he caught a glimpse of PJ’s
truck spinning away and rushed to his cruiser to pursue.

45…55…60 miles per hour.

PJ’s truck moved faster ahead.

85…95…100.

Boo’s car struggled to make the curves, yet the dented old
pickup in front of him, which appeared to be one rust hole away
from the junkyard, rounded them with ease, pulling away at even
more improbable speeds as if powered by an unseen source. As if
goaded by Satan himself.

Finally, Boo was forced to slow down, easing up on the
accelerator as PJ’s truck careened out of sight. He kept driving
nonetheless, hoping that he might miraculously catch up with the
vehicle or, at least, stumble upon some clue as to where it had
gone.

The
decision paid off.

After several miles, he saw the truck parked at a holiness
church on the outskirts of Big Creek.

Pulling up beside the church, Boo got out of the car and
slipped into the small vestibule just inside the front door. He
could already hear PJ yelling inside, ranting
uncontrollably.

“
Wha’chew doin’ with this hyer preacher, Arlene?”

Boo
peeped around the corner.

“Wha’dya mean?” a woman at the front of the church asked. She
wore a floral dress, her dark hair draped down her
back
.

“
Y’heard me! Wha’chew doin’ with this preacher? This
hypocrite!”

Behind the wooden pulpit cowered a thin man wearing a grey
suit and paisley tie. No other people were in the
building.

The woman answered, “I’ve been praying,” and she motioned to
the man. “
We’ve
been praying.”

“LIAR!” PJ shouted. “I know what yuns been doin’!” He paced
back and forth, the lantern still dangling by his side. The shadow,
barely visible, still loomed behind him.

“
I’ve been praying,” Arlene repeated.

PJ
stomped. “Prayin’ fer what! Huh? Fer love! Fer money!
My
money!” Veins
throbbed in his neck. Rage burned through his gaze. “I gave you
ever’thang, Arlene! Ever’thang y’ever wanted! And y’left me! Y’left
me fer
him
!”

Normally, Boo would have stepped in at this point, but he
didn’t quite know what he was dealing with yet. All he could think
about was what had happened out at Couch’s Branch last night. And
at the diner a few moments ago.

Arlene’s voice broke in. “You’ve been drinking again, PJ. Why
don’chew just go home. Go home and sleep it off.”

PJ
smashed a vase filled with artificial flowers, then took the
offering plates and slammed them onto the floor. “I don’t need to
sleep it off! What I need to know is why I was never good enough
fer you. Won’chew tell me that! Huh? Was I a
bad man
?” he mocked. “Was I a
sinner
?”

The
woman looked frightened, yet held her composure rather well. “No,
you’re not a bad man. You just had issues that made you hard to
live with.”

“
Fer better or worse, Arlene. What happened to that?” PJ
steamed.

The
woman shook her head. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I loved you,
PJ. But we’re not together anymore. Don’chew understand? We’re just
not. And we cain’t ever be. Not with you like this.”

The
words cut him deeply; PJ said nothing. All that could be heard was
his breathing, which grew louder and stronger as anger boiled
inside him, filling his mouth with a taste bitter as bile. The
shadow behind him fed on the rage, growing proportionally in size.
Finally, PJ released his fury on the man behind the pulpit. “It’s
all yer fault, Preacher!”

“
No! No, it’s not, Brother,” the preacher said.

PJ
roared. “Don’t start brotherin’ me! It’s all yer fault, and y’know
it! You and yer damn snake church!”

The
preacher looked confused. “But this ain’t no snake
church.”

PJ
sneered. Lifting his hands, he brought the lantern over his head
and laughed. “Well, it is now.”

Suddenly, the earth started to quake. In the vestibule, Boo
stumbled backward, grabbing the doorway for support. Throughout the
old church, floorboards rippled. Pews upended and flipped. Chunks
of the ceiling crumbled. Then, from the center of the sanctuary,
the ground cracked open. Flames licked up through the fissure as
out from the fiery hole burst a copperhead snake, forty feet long
and as round as a car tire. Venom dripped from its curved fangs;
its forked tongue flapped viciously with each hiss.

Arlene screamed. The preacher ducked behind the pulpit and
began reciting the twenty-third Psalm.

PJ
stood in the front of the church with outstretched arms. Gleaming.
Basking in the power to command nature and creation at will. A fire
rose up from the floor to surround him. Flames danced in his
eyes.

Boo
took particular notice of the strange lantern, its scarlet glow
throbbing like the beat of a heart. The thin stream of smoke that
billowed out from the artifact wrapped about PJ’s head, flowed
through his hair and around his ears, and eventually curled back to
form the tail of the demonic shadow–now a gargantuan entity
hovering over PJ like a puppeteer over a marionette.

The
preacher spoke louder, trembling with a semblance of spiritual
authority. “Yea, though, I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I shall fear no evil…”

PJ
cackled. “Welcome to my valley!” His voice was different. Colder.
Then it morphed to sound like a legion of demons squealing from
Hell. “
Welcome to your
DOOM!
”

With those words, the snake struck out, sinking its fangs into
the pulpit and splintering the wood into a thousand
pieces.

The
preacher was thrown back against the wall. Arlene scampered beneath
an overturned pew.

From the vestibule, Boo took a deep breath.
To protect, honor, and serve.
He repeated the oath in his head, trying to figure out where
giant snakes and the forces of darkness fit in. The last time he
had faced such evil, he and his fellow soldiers had rightfully
retreated. This time, however, two innocent lives were at stake.
And a peaceful community. Possibly the fate of Harlan,
itself.

Boo
had to do something. He couldn’t simply stand by and watch any
longer.

“
Stop!” he shouted, running out with his gun raised high. He
let out a flurry of shots that riddled the snake in the back of the
head. The creature flinched only slightly, as if rapped by a
handful of pebbles, then whipped about, peering at its assailant
through slitted yellow eyes. In an instant, it snapped forward,
coiling around Boo and leaving him immobilized from the chest down.
With his arm still free, however, he continued firing into the
reptile, but to no avail. The weapon was useless.

The
snake constricted tighter, and Boo could feel the life being
squeezed out of him. He couldn’t breath. Everything around him
started to fade, consciousness slipping away. In desperation, he
pointed the gun toward PJ.

“
Shoot me!” PJ dared, the flames around him lifting higher,
enveloping his body but leaving him eerily unscathed. The dark form
overhead swelled with delight.

PJ
cried out again, “Go ahead and shoot! I am invincible! I am a
GOD!”

Boo
flashed back to that night in the desert. The guard walking into
the fire. The others shooting themselves. Bullets flying. Oil
fields burning.

Other memories followed. Children crying over dead mothers.
Bodies singed beyond recognition. Death. Destruction. The face of
war. The face of the shadow.

“
You’re no god,” Boo wheezed. Then he pulled the
trigger.

The
bullet sailed just shy of PJ, barely catching the threads of his
shirt. Instead, it ripped into the base of the lantern, causing an
explosion that shook the foundations of the church. The dark shadow
wavered. Furiously, it clamored about, looking for a way to
maintain its existence, but with its source of fuel destroyed, it
quickly dissolved into nothingness. The giant snake that held Boo
vanished, as well.

Around PJ, however, the wall of fire began to spin. A hole
opened up under his feet, forming a whirlpool of brimstone that
sucked him downward.

Death by fire
, the old Indian legend had said.

PJ
called out as he clung to the edge of the swirling abyss. His voice
sounded normal again. Gentle. “I’m sorry, Arlene. I’m sorry fer
ever’thang. I always loved you. I never meant to hurt you. I never
meant to hurt nobody.”

And
in a poof of flame, the hole was gone. PJ, too.

The
next day, a fresh breeze blew through the Appalachian valley. At
the diner, Boo sat in his usual seat, a bandage stretched over his
left brow, the deputy perched on the stool beside him.

“
So,” the deputy started, “y’gonna tell me what happened out
at that church yesterdi’?”

Boo
shook his head. He looked weathered. Worn. “No, Douglas, I don’t
think I am.”

The
deputy nodded.

Boo
said, “Let me ask you something, though.”

“
Shoot.”

“
Do you think I’m a sinner?”

The
deputy huffed. “Do what?”

“
Just answer me.”

The
uniformed man thought a moment. “Well, my granny used to say that
we’re all sinners, just depends on the time of day.” He smiled at
Boo and winked. “And, of course, how pretty the girl
is.”

Boo
couldn’t help but smile back.

Then, as if it were nothing, the deputy changed the subject,
pointing at Boo’s fries. “Y’gonna eat those?”

Boo
looked down at his plate. “No. Help yourself.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a man tending a
rice field stumbled upon a strange lamp buried deep in the
muck.

“
The Thing at the Side of the
Road”

Ronald Kelly

Ronald Kelly resides in the hills and hollows of central
Tennessee. After a decade-long hiatus from the horror genre, he’s
back, writing his unique brand of Southern-fried horror. His novels
and collections include
Fear
,
Blood
Kin
,
Hell
Hollow
,
Undertaker’s Moon
,
The Sick Stuff
,
and
Midnight Grinding & Other Twilight
Terrors
.
Please
drop by his web site at ronaldkelly.com.

T
he thing at the side of the road worried
Paul Stinson something awful.

He
didn’t know why, since it was nothing more than roadkill. Some
unfortunate creature that had strayed onto the blacktop of Highway
987 and got clipped by a passing vehicle. Or maybe it had reached
the center line, got mashed beneath speeding tires, and crept its
way back to the side before curling up and giving up the ghost.
Either way, it was dead. Paul had passed it on the way to work and
back for the past two weeks and it hunkered there in the exact same
spot…nothing more than a clump of glossy black fur amid a fringe of
brown weeds and wilted cocklebur.