A Scarecrow to Watch over Her (A Horror Novella) by Saunders Craig

Author:Saunders, Craig
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dark Fable Books
Published: 2015-04-03T04:00:00+00:00

*

Bernie came around and screamed. He didn’t make a sound. That was bad, but not the worst.

The worst thing was that the weight of his head falling down against his chest had cut off his air. He could have died.

The pain in his legs, in his arms, was terrible, terrifying, but it was background. The circulation had cut off. There was nothing he could do about that. But he’d torn some skin from his lips when he’d tried to scream and now he could taste the blood. The taste of fresh blood somehow woke him up in a way that the panic and pain could not.

When you taste blood, you know it’s real.

Then he screamed some more as a strong wind made his makeshift cross sway and the nails in his forearms and his shins grated against the bone. Blood started to flow afresh from the dozen barbs pulled tight into the flesh around his meatiest parts. He sobbed, unsatisfying, muffled sobs.

He was beyond terrified. He was way over into despair. Resignation was the next town over, but he wasn’t quite there yet.

The hood had shifted so that all he could see was a stretch of tilled earth and the outer curve of his gut, his spiteful gut, which was pulling him down.

It wouldn’t be the blood, or the nails, which killed him. It would be his great fat gut, pulling his chest forward, pulling his shoulders back, crushing his ribs, exhausting him, until his head fell again, fell against his chest…Then, he would stop breathing and he would never know if she was alive or dead. He could not bear the thought. To never know if the one and only woman he'd ever loved lived or died right along with him.

Bastards, he thought. Fucking dirty bastards.

For a second, his mind told him to yell, to thrash...but somehow he managed to quiet that instinct...to do so would only hurt him worse.

Bernard didn’t believe in heaven. He didn’t believe they’d meet again. He believed in farm truths: dirt, and worms, and an afterlife as compost.

He didn’t want to die not knowing. He didn’t want to die. Full stop.

So what can I do about it?

'Got to get moving, Bernie. Got to get moving.'

Get to the house.

'And yet,' he thought in a way that was not entirely like him, 'You’ve been planted in a field and you’re nailed to a cross and you can’t see.'

This new voice was full of sarcasm. An unkind voice that must be his own, but he didn't feel like he knew it had been there, all along.

A stranger, to him. But one that wouldn't shut up.

'If you do somehow get out of the ground, and fall on your face, you’ll be just as dead, because believe me when I say you’ll never get up again. Not in this life. The next thing you know, you’ll be part of the great cycle of life. You know, the one you talk about when you’re drunk and the conversation in the

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