September 2006 Issue The Horror Library, your Haunted Home for Horror Fiction, Dark Art, Horror Games, Movie Reviews, Book Reviews, Non-Fiction, Alternative Music, Horror Authors, Horror Short Fiction and featuring The Terrible Twelve - RJ Cavender, Bailey Hunter, Boyd E Harris, Megg Roper, Jason Beirens, CJ Hurtt, Eric Stark, Cordelia Snow, Chris Perridas, Curt Mahr, Stephen Sommerville, M Louis Dixon, Kerry Drummond
My daddy ran an antique store for forty years. He'd go calling on folks who'd recently lost a loved one – usually an old man or woman with a whole mess of stuff they'd let pile up in their house – and offer to haul it away. They'd pay him a few dollars to remove the junk. The real money was in selling it to tourists. He'd take an old chamber pot, stick an "antique" sign on it and sell it for upwards of thirty or forty dollars. Tourists will buy anything. That's what Daddy used to say.
Momma, Daddy and I lived pretty well, I reckon. We got enough to eat and sometimes on Sundays Momma baked a shoo-fly pie. I miss Momma's pies. The schoolmaster told Momma that I was slow – he said slow just a little louder and slower than the other words. I never went to school like the rest of the kids my age. Some of the other boys teased me -- like Turner Slocum and his brother Lawrence.
When I was nine I had a little old cricket for a pet; named him Cecil. Turner and Lawrence came along one day when I was inside helping Momma. They found Cecil tethered on a string to the fence, and they killed him. Took a magnifying glass and burned him up. I came out of the house and saw them running away and laughing something fierce. I looked around to see what was so funny and saw my poor Cecil. He was shriveled up black as tar on the end of that string.
Well, I had me a good cry, all right. I buried him in a matchbox, made a little cross out of twigs. Right after that, I pulled out my pocketknife and cut a line across my palm and promised ole Cecil I'd avenge his death. Swore it with a blood oath and there ain't nothing more serious than a blood oath.
I kept close tabs on them Slocum boys through the years. Lawrence married a cute little girl name of Sarah Thomas. They moved into his daddy's old place and Lawrence became the postmaster here. Turner married and run his wife off with his drinking. He never did amount to nothing. Years went by and first Momma, then Daddy, passed on. I stay to myself mostly, other than going to the post office for the mail.
I had a dream one night, made me sit up straight all sweaty. I knew just what to do once I caught my breath. I took some rope and a can of kerosene and went a-creeping through the woods. I sat and waited till old Turner come rolling home, drunk. It weren't pretty what I done, but then what he done to Cecil weren't neither. I squatted down in the woods behind his house till the light went out, and said the Lord's prayer seventeen times. Then I slipped in old Turner's house just as pretty as you please and had him half tied up before he even come to. He carried on a sight. Reckon he didn't know what was going on.
"Fuck you, Audie Richardson – fuck you and the horse you rode in on. You better cut these ropes loose, you idjit."
Oh, he talked real big there at first. Then he seen the can I had sat beside the weeping willow tree. Boy, he changed his tune when I poured that kerosene over him. He went to begging and screaming. I figure so had Cecil, in his own little way. Wasn't nobody heard Cecil's screams – wasn't nobody but me and God heard Turner's. Difference was I gave that good-for-nothing Turner Slocum time to make peace with his maker before I lit him up.
It's funny what happens when a person dies that way. It ain't like when Momma died. Momma just kind of slumped over the stove at first. Then she fell over in the floor and slammed her head on the kitchen table. She lay there with her eyes wide open like she could see me, but she didn't. Doc Willard said it was an aneurysm. Daddy said that meant something blew up inside her head. I never heard a sound and I was right there. Figure it was a soft kind of explosion 'cause Momma always spoke real soft.
When Daddy died, I wasn't around for that. He was working in the antique store and I'd gone to the post office to pick up the mail. Lawrence Slocum gave me my mail and asked if he could have a word with me. I said sure.
"Audie, I know I did a bad thing to you all those years ago when my brother and I killed your cricket. It was hurtful and mean, and I want you to know I'm sorry for it. Can you forgive me?" He hung his head down and just stared at his shoes. I'm not one to hold a grudge if a man is big enough to apologize for what he done. Daddy taught me that. I accepted Lawrence's apology right then and there. We shook hands, and I walked on back to the store. Daddy was dead when I got there. Doc said Daddy had a massive heart attack, said he didn't feel a thing. Just keeled over and the spirit left his body.
But when a person burns up, it's different. Old Turner definitely felt something. His skin bubbled up and sizzled, sounded just like when somebody pisses on a campfire. And he screamed something awful. Took him a long time to die.
I waited about a week before asking Lawrence if I could haul away Turner's things. He gave me fifty dollars to do it. I told him I was gonna start Daddy's business back up. I asked him could he do me a favor, and he said yes. I said, "Could you make me a sign that reads, "Dead People's Things For Sale?"
