Aberrations Read online

  Aberrations

  Edited by Jeremy C. Shipp

  Aberrations

  Edited by Jeremy C. Shipp

  Anthology copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved.

  Individual stories copyright by individual authors

  Kindle Edition

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronically, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the proper written permission of the copyright owner.

  This anthology is a work of fiction. People, places, events and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Money Well Earned by Joseph Nassise

  Bug House by Lisa Tuttle

  The Thing in the Woods by Nate Kenyon

  Survivors by Joe McKinney

  The Hounds of Love by Scott Nicholson

  Goat Boy by Jeremy C. Shipp

  Tested by Lisa Morton

  Bus People by Simon Wood

  Beggars at Dawn by Elizabeth Massie

  From Hamlin to Harperville by Kealan Patrick Burke

  Money Well Earned

  by Joseph Nassise

  I make my living killing things.

  Sometimes I kill animals. Big ones, usually. Rhinos. Elephants. Stuff like that.

  More often than not, though, I kill people. Somebody knows something they shouldn’t know or somebody sees something they aren’t supposed to see and someone else wants to make certain that they don’t talk about it. When that happens, they call me in.

  It’s not a bad job, as jobs go, and I’m rather good at it. One of the best, actually. And that’s not my ego talking, either, just a simple statement of fact. The Marine Corps trained me well, way back when, and the years I’ve spent as a private contractor have honed those skills even more. I can kill a man at two thousand yards, with the right equipment and time to set up the shot. Believe you me, that’s not an easy thing to do.

  So I wasn’t surprised when I got a message that Big Al Dantoni wanted to see me. I’d done some work for Big Al in the past. He always paid on time and never argued about the price. I like that in a guy. Straight up, ya know?

  Big Al was in Vegas, so as soon as I got the message I made the necessary arrangements and caught the first flight out. Philly to Vegas, with a stop in Phoenix just to be certain I didn’t have a tail. I wasn’t expecting one, but it never hurt to be cautious. And I’d made a career out of being cautious.

  I grabbed a cab at the airport and twenty-five minutes later I was being ushered into Big Al’s living room. He lived in this big place outside the city, more a compound than a house, really. Word was that Bugsy Siegel himself had built it back in the thirties, when those guys were throwing cash all over the place like it was going out of style. Back before RICO and federal racketeering statutes and all that.

  Big Al was somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred fifty pounds, but he moved with the grace of a man half his size. He came forward to shake my hand and gestured for me to take a seat.

  He wandered over to the bar. “Drink?”

  I shook my head. “I’m good.”

  “Mind if I have one?”

  That was Big Al. Always polite. Until you pissed him off and he had some guy like me put a slug through your eye from a few thousand yards out.

  “Your house,” I said with a slight grin. He’d been offering for ten years and I’d be saying no just as long. It was a familiar ritual. Our way of saying, “Good to see you,” or some shit like that.

  Through a variety of cut-outs, Al ran all the construction that took place within the city limits, small and large. If you wanted to build a new hotel or casino complex, or simply wanted to add a room to your house, you went through Al. If you didn’t, bad things started happening at your job site. Crew members got hurt. Tools went missing. Product showed up damaged or not at all.

  Al poured himself a scotch, a generous one, and wandered back over to take a seat opposite my own.

  “I’ve got a job for you.”

  That much was obvious, so I kept my mouth shut and waited to hear the rest.

  “It’s in West Virginia.”

  I shrugged.

  A slight grin crossed his face. He reached down beside his chair, picked up a file, and handed it to me.

  It was full of old newspaper clippings, police reports, even a few first-hand accounts written in pen on fading paper. They told an interesting story.

  Late in the evening of November 15, 1966, two young couples encountered a strange creature near the abandoned TNT plant outside of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The creature was described as being shaped like a man, but bigger, in the neighborhood of seven feet tall. It had large red eyes and a pair of monstrous wings that it kept folded against its back. When the couples sped away from the scene, the creature took to the air and followed them right up to the town limits.

  Other people saw the creature that night and during the course of the next few weeks. Many of them were reputable individuals, which gave their testimony added credence. The creature, dubbed the Mothman after a villain on the popular Batman television show, was reported as either grey or dark brown and had a tendency to glide when it was aloft. Other strange occurrences were also noted during that time; odd lights in the sky, unexpected problems with televisions and telephones, cars stalled for no reason while passing by the old TNT plant.

  The events continued right up until the night of December 15, 1967. On that evening the bridge that crossed the Ohio River outside Point Pleasant abruptly collapsed, killing forty-four people. Some later theories suggested that the Mothman had come to warn the people of the disaster ahead, but that his message hadn’t been understood and the people of Point Pleasant, West Virginia had paid the price.

  Whatever the reason, the Mothman wasn’t seen again after that fateful night.

  I finished reading and tried to collect my thoughts. I was confused and not too embarrassed to say so.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand,” I said, looking up.

  He smiled. “Your target is right there.”

  “Who? Someone in these old clippings?” I started leafing through the photocopies again, paying attention to the names, looking for one that made sense given what I knew about Al’s business practices.

  Then a fat finger entered my frame of vision and came to rest on the picture of the artist’s representation of the Mothman. The finger tapped the photo, once, and then Big Al pulled his hand back.

  You have got to be shittin’ me…

  I kept my cool. “Let me get this straight. You want me to go to West Virginia. Track down a flying…” I glanced down at the paper to get the name right, “Mothman, and bring it back here for you.”

  He nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly right.”

  In the back of my head I knew that pissing Big Al off was a very bad career move, so I tried to be diplomatic about it. “Al, these articles are more than thirty years old. Since you don’t have any newer ones, I’m assuming this Mothman thing hasn’t been seen since 1967. The trail is cold, Al, real cold.”

  His grin got wider, if that was at all possible. He reached down beside his chair and handed me a second file. This one had a couple of recent articles in it from the same paper. They told of lights in the sky and the sighting of a strange figure at night just off Highway 62.

  “It’s happening all over again,” Big Al said. “Which means he’s coming back. Except this time it will be different.”

  He clapped his hands together like a delighted child.

 
“This time you’ll be waiting for him.”

  He’s gone absolutely nuts, I thought to myself. I came within a hairsbreadth of turning him down flat, right then and there, but after a moment I started to think about the financial opportunity in front of me. Al was paying me to go to West Virginia and hunt a mythical creature that hadn’t been seen in over thirty years. That meant my daily rate, for as long as it took to get the job done, plus expenses. I could probably add in another 10% for hazardous duty pay, too, as there was no way of knowing how dangerous this thing was or what it might be able to do. It was simple math. Added risk equaled a higher price.

  I laid it out for him, step by step. How I’d have to observe things for awhile, get the lay of the land. How it would take time to confirm whether the sightings were real or just some country bullshit. How, if they were the real thing, I would then need to figure out the best way of taking this thing down. I’d have to be thorough and I’d have to be sure; I probably wouldn’t get more than one chance to blow it out of the sky.

  He listened, nodded a few times, and handed over an envelope stuffed full of cash. “First two weeks pay plus a generous amount for expenses. I’ll have a special refrigerator truck on call twenty-four hours a day to pick up the body once you’ve handled your end of the job.”

  And just like that, I became the first hit man in the history of violent crime to be hired to kill a myth.

  Sometimes this job is just damned strange.

  * * * * *

  West Virginia was about what I expected. Lots of trees. Lots of green. Lots of long, lonely stretches of highway. After flying back from Vegas, I’d loaded my Expedition with the equipment I needed and driven south. Interstate 81 took me out of Pennsylvania and into West Virginia. At that point I headed west on 68, crossing half the state before turning south on 79. Another two hours of travel took me into Charleston, where I stopped and had a quick lunch before completing the final leg north into Point Pleasant.

  It was a quiet community, perched on the edge of West Virginia with the mighty Ohio River at its back. Population just over 4000. As I drove through the town, scoping things out and getting my bearings, I came to the conclusion that little had changed in the forty some odd years since the Mothman’s first appearance.

  Except for the statue, that is.

  It was a large, silver thing, with big wings and red eyes, and was humanoid in appearance. It stood on a pedestal right there in the center of town, with a plaque commemorating that first sighting back in 1966. The statue had been done by a local sculptor, a guy by the name of Bob Roach, and I wondered for a moment if he’d ever seen the thing or if he’d just decided this was what a Mothman should look like.

  Probably the later, I thought to myself.

  Turns out the town not only had a statue of their favorite monster, but a museum and an annual festival devoted to him as well. Clearly someone somewhere along the way had the bright idea to capitalize on their notoriety and would probably still be doing so fifty years from now.

  That was when I made up my mind.

  I knew it was crazy, but I decided then and there to act as if the Mothman was a real target. Big Al was paying me a lot of money and it didn’t seem fair to write it all off without checking to see if there was any substance to it.

  I needed a place to set up watch. Someplace that was out of the way enough that I wouldn’t be noticed by the locals but that had a better than even chance of letting me catch it in the act, if it actually did exist.

  The old TNT plant seemed to be my best bet.

  The area around the plant was comprised of several hundred acres of dense woods. Large concrete domes were scattered here and there. The domes had held high explosives during World War II and had fallen into disrepair not too long afterward. A network of tunnels stretched throughout. I imagine it would look something like a giant ant colony, if it could be viewed in a cross-section.

  Searching the place was out of the question and it wasn’t because I was worried about encountering the Mothman. There were enough natural dangers to keep me out of a place like that all on its own. Collapsing tunnels, old pitfalls, rats and other vermin. You needed a team with plenty of rope and a strong GPS signal to do it right, neither of which I had at the moment.

  So instead I set up camp in a thicket on the edge of a slender valley leading to the plant. With a wide area in front and plenty of ground cover to hide in, I would be able to see the Mothman as it was silhouetted against the open sky above. I had my favorite rifle with me, a Remington M24, fitted with a Leupold scope. A memento of my service days. I was confident that if the Mothman put in an appearance, I could shoot it out of the sky with that weapon. Easier than shooting fish in a barrel.

  Except the Mothman didn’t make an appearance.

  At least, not for me. Other folks were seeing him left and right. Soaring across the fields. Standing by the side of the road. Just about everywhere else but the old TNT plant where it had taken up residence the first time around. Every time I went into town I’d hear the latest story, how so and so had seen such and such and what did it all mean?

  Rumors were rampant. What was the Mothman trying to tell them? What disaster was going to befall the community this time? Even the authorities had gotten into the game, with work crews sent out to examine the piling beneath the Silver Bridge, checking for any sign that there might be a repeat of the original disaster.

  And still I didn’t see a thing.

  I vowed that I would spend one more night watching the sky around the old TNT plant and then it was time for a new plan of attack.

  It was the first moonless night since I’d arrived. The lights of the town didn’t reach this far out and the sky around me was ablaze with stars. I was looking up at them, trying to remember the names of the constellations just to pass the time, when a dark shadow blotted out the stars above me. It was there for just a moment and then it was gone.

  But there was no doubt in my mind what I had seen.

  I brought my rifle to my shoulder and waited.

  It would come back.

  I was sure of it.

  I watched that patch of sky for a full twenty minutes before admitting to myself that I had missed it for the night. I was disappointed, but filled with a strange sense of exultation, too. The damned thing really did exist!

  I lowered the rifle and turned around, my thoughts whirling.

  The Mothman stood less than a foot away, its wings stretched out above us, its red eyes glowing in the near darkness.

  I knew I’d never make it, but I tried anyway.

  I swung the rifle up, my finger reaching for the trigger.

  The barrel wasn’t even halfway to my waist when the Mothman reached out and placed one clawed hand on my shoulder.

  An explosion of color and sound filled my head.

  * * * * *

  I chose a patch of high ground roughly four hundred yards from where I knew my target would appear. It was far enough away that I could get in and out again without being seen, but close enough that the wind and the natural curvature of the earth wouldn’t put too much stress on the shot. I could hit a dime at four hundred yards; I wasn’t worried about hitting a target as big as this one from that distance.

  I settled in to wait.

  It didn’t take long.

  The target filled the frame of my scope. Thanks to the optics, it looked close enough to touch. I squeezed the slack out of the trigger. Breathed in. Breathed out. Felt my heart beating. Once. Twice. Three times.

  In the space between heartbeats, I pulled the trigger.

  The gun kicked and roared.

  The bullet entered Big Al’s head just in front of his ear and exited out the other side in an explosion of blood, brains, and skull fragments. He was dead before his body hit the street.

  As hell broke loose on the street below me, I calmly left position and returned to my vehicle. The half-built parking garage had been a good choice. I’d had an unlimited field of fire and easy access
to and from my vehicle. I was six blocks away before the first patrol car even made it to the scene.

  Those who claimed the Mothman was a warning of disaster to come were right. I knew it from first-hand experience. I’d seen it all through the Mothman’s touch.

  The shiny new hotel and casino complex, all eighty-eight stories of it.

  The shoddy materials that were used in building the hotel’s foundation, because the owners refused to meet Big Al’s monetary demands and he intended to teach them a lesson in obedience.

  The devastating collapse of the main tower that killed three hundred and twenty-nine individuals, including fifty-seven school children there for a spelling bee.

  With one shot, I kept all that from happening.

  Big Al had hired me to kill a monster.

  And with the Mothman’s help, I’d done that very thing.

  Bug House

  by Lisa Tuttle

  The house was a wreck, resting like some storm-shattered ship on a weedy headland overlooking the ocean. Ellen felt her heart sink at the sight of it.

  “This it?” asked the taxi driver dubiously, squinting through his windshield and slowing the car.

  “It must be,” Ellen said without conviction. She couldn’t believe her aunt—or anyone else—lived in this house.

  The house had been built, after the local custom, out of wood, and then set upon cement blocks that raised it three or four feet off the ground. But floods seemed far less dangerous to the house now than the winds, or simply time. The house was crumbling on its blocks. The boards were weather-beaten and scabbed with flecks of ancient gray paint. Uncurtained windows glared blankly, and one shutter hung at a crazy angle. Between the boards of the sagging, second-story balcony, Ellen could see daylight.

  “I’ll wait for you,” the driver said, pulling up at the end of an overgrown driveway. “In case there’s nobody here.”

  “Thanks,” Ellen said, getting out of the back seat and tugging her suitcase after her. She counted the fare out into his hand and glanced up at the house. No sign of life. Her shoulders slumped. “Just wait to be sure someone answers the door,” she told the driver.