The Last Horror Novel in the History of the World (2 page)

A line of them stretches back through the night like a string of honking Christmas lights.

Fridays we fry fish in the front yard, the smell of cornmeal caramelizing in the grease.

The mothers make mayonnaise from scratch, mince home-pickled cucumbers for the tartar sauce.

We sing these old songs in the sweater-heavy nighttime air. The glow of streetlights soft in the salt stench.

If I could live my life all over .  .  .

And Mindy Stuart stares out at nothing over that line, and we all know someone will love her no matter what because the way she looks, and we all know that it won’t be the love she craves, because Mindy never likes what she has.

We overdo it, drink until our blood is rust and the prickly sun pinks the sky to dawn.

No one’s ready for sleep. We take the john boat down to the laguna and row out to the duck blinds where we hide in the humid morning with shotguns between our legs.

We pass out before the ducks show, wake swollen with mosquito stings.

“What now?” someone asks.

“Let’s get drunk again.”

We have whiskey and we work on it, toss out decoys and wade the water, dragging our feet to scare away stingrays.

Someone shoots at the sky and we wait a moment.

After a while, birdshot rains down.

“There’s so many ripples,” someone says. “So many ripples,” as the shots land, dimpling the water’s surface.

Mindy keeps her herpes secret, crawls in and out of apartments that smell of new carpet and microwaved soup.

She knows the boys of high school intimate.

They are shark-skin smooth and firecracker quick.

They whip in and out of her like snake tongues tasting air.

She examines their tightness, the curls in their hair.

Gives them more than they want of her.

Makes them say her name.

First we saw birds and rabbits, squirrels and frogs, raccoons and possums, crossing through the daytime streets.

“Something’s off,” Old Burt says. He’s racist toward blacks and hates the internet. “It just makes everyone act blacker,” he says.

Manny is Mexican and Tyler’s black as they come.

Manny says, “You like me?”

“Hell yeah I do,” Old Burt says. “We stole this land from your people.”

Tyler says, “You like me?”

Old Burt says, “I’m trying, son. I know it’s not right. I was trained this way. Imagine how long it took for folks to admit the world wasn’t flat.” He shakes his head, “But, boy, I just look at you and think the word nigger.”

Old Burt loves his guns. He takes the plug out of a twenty gauge pump, walks into his front yard and starts shooting the possums that wander awkwardly in the light, baring their needly teeth when they scare.

He blasts a few to muck, their bodies shredding open with the shots, skidding down into the dirt where swell hunks of them disappear.

“I tell you,” Old Burt says, “something ain’t right.”

Newscasts show static.

Mindy lies still in a strange boy’s bed. She has a necklace charm that she drags on the chain. It hisses as a zipper might, makes a sort of music in the otherwise silence. She eyes the TV oddly. She drops the charm on her chest, elbows the boy who rests beside her. “Something’s wrong with your cable,” she says.

The boy rolls away from her. “So fucking sleep,” he says.

Tim Bittles sits in the dark cabin of his Ford truck, his face aglow with his cell phone’s light. He nods at it, then unzips his pants. He takes his dick firm in his grip, the erect length of it swelling, the faint smell of sweat and sweet. He presses a button on his phone and a bright light flashes, taking a pale picture. “This what u like,” he types, then hits send.

He waits.

He waits for a reply.

For a long time he waits, but nothing.

He shrugs, shakes his head, and keys the ignition.

The starter hacks electric, and the engine turns over.

Tim Bittles puts his dick away.

Tim Bittles drives into the night.

Blue Parson stands on his rooftop. Rob Cooder sits Indian style picking banjo notes.

Suddenly, the distant city lights go dim.

“See that?” asks Blue.

“What?” asks Rob.

“The lights?”

“What about ’em.”

“They’re gone.”

Rob stands beside Blue, both dumbfounded.

“Power outage, you reckon?” Rob asks.

“Maybe,” says Blue, “let’s check the news.”

Rob climbs down the tree house ladder, Blue takes the zip line. They cross the yard, enter Blue’s home. The TV, which stays permanently on, says, “No signal.”

Teddy sets a box in the back of the U-Haul.

“I think that’s it,” Scarlett tells him.

Teddy smiles, nods, then jumps for the handle, hangs from it as the cargo door lowers. “Sure you don’t want to leave tonight?” he asks.

“Sure,” Scarlett says. “I’ve already rolled out the sleeping bag.”

The two hug, kiss.

Scarlett pulls Teddy by the hand and leads him back into their garage apartment.

Tessa says, “Cash only,” when Blue sets the Lone Star sixer on the counter.

“Who the hell carries cash?”

“No one,” Tessa says, smiles. “But the machine ain’t working.”

“Like, ain’t reading the cards? Like, you tried that plastic bag trick?”

“Shit,” says Tessa, “it ain’t the plastic bag trick.” Her dyed-blonde hair is tightly braided into ropes pulled back into a ponytail of coils. “Thing ain’t connecting.”

“Shit,” says Blue. “I ain’t got cash.”

“Sucks to be you,” says Tessa.

Blue frowns, shrugs. “C’mon,” he says, “lemme pay you tomorrow.” He smiles all his charm at her.

Tessa takes a blonde braid in her hand, twirls it around a finger. “Blue, you ain’t trustworthy.”

“Is that a yes?”

Tessa shakes her head. She looks at the camera on the ceiling. She knows it doesn’t work. “Shit,” she says, “long as you promise.”

Blue smiles. “In that case,” he says, “I’m gonna switch this out for a twelve.”

Manny flinches each time Old Burt pulls the trigger. Tyler twists a blunt as bits of raccoon and rat fleck his sneakers. Burt fires again at the roving critters, says, “What could be causing it?”

Tyler lights up. “Who fucking knows?” Tyler says. “Want some of this?” he asks, tries to pass to Old Burt. The smell of bud and gunpowder stinks up the air.

Old Burt shakes his head, “You know I can’t smoke after you,” he says. “Pass it to Manny first.”

Tyler shakes his head. “You’ll smoke after him?”

Old Burt shrugs. “I’m sorry,” he says, “he’s just closer my kind.” Old Burt blasts an armadillo and chambers another shell. “You don’t gotta make me feel guilty about it.”

Tyler grits his teeth. “I don’t know why the fuck I hang out with you,” he says and passes Manny the blunt.

“Thanks,” says Manny, and he fills his lungs with smoke, passes back to Tyler, exhales toward the sky, thick with all manner of birds flying toward the gulf.

“Hey,” says Burt. “It was my turn.”

Tyler hits it, says, “Nope,” as he chokes the smoke down. He holds the blunt at Burt. “It’s your turn now.”

Old Burt contemplates the blunt. He looks at Tyler, he looks at Manny, he looks at Tyler again. “Fine,” says Old Burt, “but don’t go telling no one you saw me do it.” He takes the blunt in his fingers.

Tessa says, “Cash only, credit card machine’s down.”

“I ain’t got no fucking credit card,” Mindy says as she sets her quart on the counter.

Tessa rolls her eyes. “Just the Miller then?”

Mindy shakes her head no, says, “Pack of Camel Crush.” She points to the black and blue pack. “What the fuck’s wrong with the machine?” she asks. “Ain’t nothing working right.”

“Don’t know,” says Tessa as she retrieves the cigarettes, places them on the counter, rings Mindy up. “Just not connecting. Had to spot Blue a twelve pack.”

Mindy looks at the camera on the ceiling, flips it the finger, “That thing still broken?” she asks, then, “You know he ain’t paying you back.”

“Seven fifty,” says Tessa, “still broken,” she says, “and if he don’t pay me back I’ll kick his ass. Y’all still fucking?”

Mindy hands Tessa a ten. “Tessa Butcher,” she says, “I ain’t never fucked no Blue Parson.”

Tessa makes change. “Shit,” she says, “you fuck everything else.”

Mindy stares hard. “Your hair looks like shit,” she says.

The two women mad dog each other.

Mindy takes a lighter from a rack on the counter. “I ain’t paying for this,” she says and leaves the store. 

“Can you sleep?” Teddy asks.