Tatterdemon by Vernon Steve

Author:Vernon, Steve [Vernon, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2013-04-13T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

A Stitch in Time

* 1 *

Helliard lay on the floor, staring at Duane’s rotting body, wondering just how the hell he had ever thought that thing was still alive. He looked at Duane’s body now and he could see the bits of bone showing through the trough that the shotgun had plowed. He saw the maggots and flies swizzling and gnawing. The haystack boogerman was by the window watching poor Mad Again lure another victim in.

How long had this game been going on – her, luring them in and that thing finishing them off? It was like one of them monster movies, only this was real. He could hear the haystack boogerman, just as close as death. He could see its legs, looming over him like a pair of dirty stilts. He could hear its slow wet shuffling, all meat and grass and mud, with bugs and worms pushing through it, the stick bones showing through the dirty tears in the haystack’s dirty denim jeans.

He watched it shift from peg to peg.

It looked a little unstable.

Maybe he could knock it over.

Then what?

Was he going to talk it to death?

Face it.

He only had one chance.

He knew what he had to do.

He prayed to God that it wasn’t looking.

He slid his hand over, reaching for Big Fuck. His fingers felt like bloated sausage. He could see that he was touching the gun, but he couldn’t seem to feel it. His skin couldn’t tell if the metal was hot or cold.

Dear God, please.

He nudged his fingertip into the trigger and slid the gun closer.

Please.

When it was close enough to wrap his hands around it, he broke the pistol open.

The haystack didn’t notice or didn’t care.

Helliard knew the gun was empty.

He’d emptied it into the haystack booger.

Now it had won.

It would come back for him soon. He wasn’t sure how he knew that. He just knew he didn’t want to be there when it did. He had a pocketful of bullets, but he only needed one.

It took him about fifty years to drag the pistol.

Fifty more to break the pistol open.

A damn century to fish the bullet out and load it.

But it only took a half second to push the barrel to his eyeball and squeeze.

Just before it hit him, he saw that little blue man wearing a johnny shirt, like in the hospital.

His face looked so damn familiar.

“Go ahead and shoot, son,” said the blue man with Helliard’s daddy’s face pasted on. “I’m waiting for you on the other side of hell, like a seed waiting for rain.”

The last thing Helliard saw was death rolling out of a long steel tunnel, riding a cool gray locomotive.

When the gun went off it sounded a little like a big steel country guitar string banging home one last note.

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