Bad Juju: A Novel of Raw Terror (40 page)

***

Filthy and exhausted from working
all day in the sunken ruins of downtown Vinewood, Luke sat in the rocker on the
front porch to remove his dirty boots, then entered the house. The screen door
slammed behind him with its comforting slap of wood on wood. It was good to be
home. Good to come home to the woman he loved.

“Ree?” he called.

No answer. The house felt empty.
Anxiety edged into his weary awareness.

“Where are you, Shorty?”

Still no answer.

He went through the house, checking
every room. She was nowhere to be found.

 ***

She crawled through growing
darkness, ignoring the pain as best she could. Blood was streaming into her
eyes. Her mouth was gritty with a residue of dirt. Her torn shirt was down
around her waist, her bra hanging from her left shoulder by a single strap, and
her breasts were raw and bleeding. Her bicycle shorts were full of dirt, as was
the one remaining sneaker.

Home.
It was the one thought
still fixed in her mind.

Home.

She lifted her head from the earth
and saw the yellow rectangle of light in the distance.  A window. In a house.

Home.

A screen door banged shut. A voice
called: “Ree!”

Luke. Here. I’m here.

“Shorty?”

“Here...” she said aloud, but her
voice was too weak to be heard. She didn’t have the strength to cry out any
louder.

Here...

The darkness swallowed her.

***

Then she was flying. Bouncing in
the air. She blinked her eyes. Saw his face. Then darkness again.

Floating. In warm liquid. In the
womb. Stinging pain, somehow pleasurable.

Opened eyes.

“Ah, thank God,” he said. “What
happened?”

She smiled up at him. She was in a
tub full of warm water. He was bathing her with such gentleness and concern she
thought her heart would burst with joy.

“I beat it,” she said, her voice
husky and hoarse. “It’s gone.”

“I think your leg’s broken,” he
said as he wiped her face with a soapy wash cloth. “Get you cleaned up and take
you to the hospital.”

She looked down at the raw wounds
on her buoyant breasts and the ugly bruises on her lower legs. “I’m a mess,”
she said. “But it’s gone. I think it’s dead.”

He picked her up, wrapped her in
his bulky bathrobe, carried her to his truck and sat her in the passenger seat.
She shivered in the night air.

“Beau was right,” she said as he
scooted behind the wheel and started the engine. “I gave up tobacco and my
nicotine withdrawal drove it out of me. It tried to nest in me, in the baby,
but it couldn’t hack the withdrawal.” She laughed a little drunkenly.

Luke looked askance at her and
said, “I hope the baby’s all right. You took a hell of a beating.”

Ree opened the robe and placed her
hands against the abraded flesh of her belly. “The baby’s fine. She’s going to
be a real daddy’s girl. Just you wait and see.”

He tried to smile. “And you know
this, how?”

“I know a lot of things. You’d be
surprised. She’ll have raven-black hair and enchanting eyes darker than the
darkest night. And a smile to melt your heart. You’ll see. She’s going to be a
real heartbreaker.”

Luke gave her a look she couldn’t
read, then he put the truck in gear and they lurched forward into the dark. She
closed her eyes. From a bottomless pool of inner darkness the unborn child
reached out for her.

—I thought you’d be here. You’re
looking for her, huh? The loony.

—I sure ain’t looking for rats.

—Wasting your time. She’s not here.

—Time? Time ain’t nothing.

—She’s gone on.

—I wanted to tell her I was sorry
for leaving her out here to die.

—Don’t matter now. You know what
dying is.

—But she was so...

—Forget it. You coming?

—Can’t. Not yet.

—But she ain’t here.

—My old man might be.

—Don’t matter. Devil’s Valley,
remember?

—You don’t know.

—Suit yourself. I’m moving on.

—Later, man. Blood brothers?

—Yeah. Blood brothers.

I extend my gratitude to geologist
Dr. R.B. Schultz for enlightening me on the subject of sinkholes and geological
engineering. Should you, gentle reader, ever need a consultation with a rock
doctor, go to www.therockdoctor.com.

I’m happy to acknowledge my old
school mate and railroad historian Larry Goolsby for allowing me to pick his
considerable brain on the subject of trains and train yards.

The blues lyrics Billy Joe’s ghost
sings in the pecan tree are from “Me and the Devil Blues” by legendary bluesman
Robert Johnson. See you down at the crossroads, Robert.

—R.C.

Randy Chandler
is the author of
Daemon of the Dark
Wood,
the forthcoming mystery novel
Dime Detective, Bad Juju,
and
Hellz Bellz.
He also co-authored
Duet for the Devil
with the late t.
Winter-Damon and has contributed short stories to numerous anthologies.  Randy
has been a magazine editor/publisher, a freelance book reviewer, a mental
health worker, a gas-pump jockey, an ambulance attendant, a soldier in Vietnam,
and a funeral home flunky.  He often haunts fields of carnage where angels and
devils do battle.

edited by David T. Wilbanks and Craig
Clarke

includes Randy Chandler’s novella
“Spooky Tooth”

Q: What happens when heavy music inspires dark fiction?
A: The anthology reviewers have called “heavy metal horror heaven” (
Ginger
Nuts of Horror
) and “one of the things that make having an e-reader
worthwhile” (
Dead in the South
).
The concept behind
Living After Midnight: Hard and Heavy Stories
is
simple: 63,000 words’ worth of horror and dark fantasy inspired by the authors’
favorite hard rock and heavy metal bands. From the music of Black Sabbath, Iron
Maiden, Judas Priest (of course), and others come exciting tales of zombies,
ghosts, wizards, serial killers, and more. You don't have to like hard and
heavy music to enjoy these stories—just hard-rocking genre fiction.

“Any die-hard metal fan will absolutely devour this
well-edited, well-written anthology.”

—
Hellnotes

“A bevy of loud stories perfect for those of us who've wrecked our ears on a
lifetime misspent listening to the heaviest of heavy metal... They read like
classics.”

—Joe Donn Martin,
author of
Too Poor for Texas

“A good variety pack of scary stories... a wide assortment
of horror with a supernatural bent... I plowed through this book inside of a
few hours—it was an easy read, and a satisfying one as well.”

—Patrick D'Orazio,
author of
Comes the Dark

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THE END

BAD JUJU

AN

BOOK