Swift to Chase Read online

  Swift to Chase

  A Collection of Stories

  By

  Laird Barron

  JournalStone

  Copyright © 2016 Laird Barron

  Originally published in:

  Screaming Elk, MT - Nightmare Carnival 2014

  LD50 - Weaponized Blog 2013

  Termination Dust - Tales of Jack the Ripper 2013

  Andy Kaufman Creeping through the Trees - 2016 Autumn Cthulhu

  Ardor - Suffered from the Night 2013

  the worms crawl in, - Fearful Symmetries 2014

  (Little Miss) Queen of Darkness - Dark Regions #29 2014

  Ears Prick Up – SQ Mag. 2015

  Black Dog - Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre 2012

  Slave Arm - Blood Type: An Anthology of Vampire SF on the Cutting Edge 2013

  Frontier Death Song - Nightmare Magazine #1 2012

  Tomahawk Park Survivors Raffle – Swift to Chase 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  JournalStone books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

  JournalStone

  www.journalstone.com

  The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  ISBN: 978-1-945373-05-3 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-945373-07-7 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-1-945373-06-0 (hc)

  JournalStone rev. date: October 7, 2016

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016949884

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover Art & Design: Chuck Killorin

  Edited by: Vincenzo Bilof

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my friends, family, and colleagues:

  Publisher Christopher Payne at JournalStone; Paul Tremblay (for a fine introduction); John, Fiona, and David Langan; Ron Wier (technical advice on “LD50”); and Chuck Killorin (for the excellent cover art); Mark Tallen; the marvelous Deborah Gordon Brown; Yves Tourigny; Jason and Darci Duelge; Jason and Harmony Barron and the kids; and Timbi Porter.

  Special thanks to Vincenzo Bilof for his edits.

  My gratitude to the editors who originally acquired these stories: John Joseph Adams; Steve Berman; Ellen Datlow; Mike Davis; Aaron French; Paula Guran; Gerry Huntman; Ross Lockhart; and Robert S. Wilson.

  Extra Special thanks to my agents, Janet Reid and Pouya Shahbazian, and their wonderful support staff, Penny Moore and Chris McEwen.

  As always, thank you to my readers.

  For Jessica M

  Introduction

  By

  Paul Tremblay

  “People call it this or that but our club doesn’t have a name.”

  If you’re not already a member of our club (I find it hard to believe that you’re not a member. Honestly, how could you not be a member?), you will be soon enough.

  Laird’s brilliant first collection, The Imago Sequence, was published in 2007, and you have his fourth in your hands, all of which seems temporally incongruous to me. It’s hard to imagine a time when I wasn’t either reading his fiction or eagerly anticipating it. In such a relatively short period of time, that Laird’s work looms so large within the horror community speaks to his talent, his singular vision, his uniqueness in his uncanny ability to move us, to make us see, and to his maniacal/stubborn (you choose the adjective; likely both) levels of hard work.

  Many argue that we are in the middle of a renaissance or golden age of horror fiction. I’m inclined to agree, and Laird’s success is both reason for and reflection of the rising cultural relevance of horror. Whether Laird has simply mainlined into the zeitgeist and our post-millennial nightmares feel like a Laird Barron story, or his literate mix of the horror, noir, and pulp adventure has already left its fingerprints (oh they’re there if you look hard enough) on more than one pop cultural moment, doesn’t matter. In a community often desperate to proclaim literary/artistic/popular agency and legitimacy (and given to promote saviors, the-next-Stephen-King, and historical all-timers way too prematurely), Laird is one of our proven champions.

  Welcome back to the club, friends.

  * * *

  “In my dreams, I always die.”

  Roughly ten years ago, Laird trekked to the east coast to attend Readercon. I hosted a small, impromptu cookou

  t at my place the night before the convention started. Before Laird and a few other guests arrived, I prepped my two kids (at the time, ages four and eight) to not ask Laird about the why of his eye patch, knowing that my youngest, Emma, wouldn’t be able to help herself. I tend to over-worry about things, so I was nervous about my unrelenting four-year-old making Laird feel uncomfortable in any way. I’d only known Laird for a year or two at this point. We were friends, but new friends, and he’d previously expressed to me that he was hesitant to talk (or write) about his experiences growing up in Alaska.

  Sure enough, the moment I went inside and foolishly left Laird sitting at the rickety patio table in the backyard with the kids, Emma pounced and asked Laird why he had an eye patch. Cole, ever the responsible, twitchy first-born, was embarrassed and horrified, but not so much that he interceded or went to get me in a desperate attempt to stop his renegade sister. Emma asked what he wanted to ask, and he leaned in close to hear Laird’s answer.

  Laird said (and I imagine he said it dryly and straight-faced): “Has your dad ever told you not to run with a sharp pencil?”

  His answer was a playful, mischievous joke, one I’m sure my kids (hopefully they’re less gullible than I am) were in on, but at the same time, it left them asking what if it was true? They didn’t know and couldn’t know for sure. They could visualize a terrible accident happening to Laird, but because of how he phrased it, how he didn’t come right out and explicitly say he’d stabbed out his own eye with a pencil, he let them extrapolate, and create their own conclusion, and maybe they could see it (viewed through metaphorical fingers covering their eyes, or brazenly wide-eyed) happening to them as well. His answer was a ten second horror story, one that was totally Laird.

  I didn’t find out about the secret Clarice/Lector-style quid pro quo until later that evening. Laird was laughing as he told me about it, and so was I. I’m convinced that Emma still frequently asks when Laird is coming over to the house again due in part to his answer to her question.

  * * *

  “It didn’t originate in Alaska. It was around before Alaska.”

  Swift to Chase is Laird’s Alaska book. The landscape is as integral, active, and unknowable as any character and as a result these stories are dangerous, raw, primal, and desperate. They are also intricate and complex, and wonderfully varied thematically. One can certainly find Laird peering into his past as revenants abound. Jessica Mace, Laird’s recurrent ultimate survivor, runs like a vein through this collection. She is forever fending off the Eagle Talon ripper (a killer as large and mysterious and perhaps as ancient as Alaska) while she continues to recklessly drive ever forward into a most uncertain future. That Laird opens the collection with two Jessica Mace tales and saves her mesmerizing origin story “Termination Dust” for the third spot is genius, and you’ll understand why when you read it.

  Like the calling of names in the first paragr
aph of “Slave Arm,” you’ll find all manner of friends, enemies, dogs, loves, lives, heroes, failures, hopes, dreams, nightmares, and inspirations within the stories. There’s Clive Barker and an unforgettably human Raw Head Rex in “the worms crawl in,”; Robert E Howard and Roger Zelazny in the bloody, bold, and soulful high fantasy/adventure/science fiction/horror hybrid “Ears Prick Up”; Flannery O’Connor in the personal, touching, and dread-filled “Black Dog.”

  Swift to Chase is a not a simple case of what is old is new again. His universe expands even as his focus contracts. He is most definitely not playing it safe and rehashing old favorites. These stories are a thrilling and daring step forward into Laird’s literary future. The experimentation with plot structure, narrative form, and point of view in the aforementioned “Termination Dust” and “Slave Arm,” and in the wickedly entertaining and almost unimaginably brutal “Andy Kaufmann Creeping through the Trees” adds to the feeling of danger and unpredictability. In “Frontier Death Song,” a manic and doomed chase across the country, Laird is totally messing with us; he knows you think you know who all the players are and how everything connects, but you don’t. And it’s exhilarating.

  * * *

  “We’re waiting for you pal. We know where you live.”

  Lines are blurred and Laird’s past, present, and future are all in these pages. The stories in Swift to Chase are confessionals and artistically crafted lies, and they ooze confidence and bravura, and sadness and vulnerability. As an admirer and friend, I recognize the bits of flesh Laird tore off himself and stuffed into these pages, but the best part is that we’re all there too. That’s the magic of Laird’s fiction: despite the scope and exotic Alaskan landscapes and locales we recognize ourselves within his stories. We see who we are, who we could be, and what will happen to us all eventually. We see ourselves running with that sharpened pencil when we shouldn’t be, even though we might not have a choice because we’re the ones being chased. Or are we the ones doing the chasing?

  Swift to Chase drops us within the wide vista of a brave new world in Laird Barron’s fiction. It’s thrilling, and of course, terrifying. He has managed to somehow expand and personalize his cosmic horror universe. This collection is the cosmic horror of me, the cosmic horror of us, and the horror is boundless.

  “We don’t suckle at the breast of a god, it suckles at ours.”

  Paul Tremblay

  1/5/2016

  SWIFT TO CHASE

  I: Golden Age of Slashing

  Screaming Elk, MT

  Near dusk a trucker dropped me at a tavern in Screaming Elk, MT, population 333. A bunch of locals had gathered to shoot pool and drown their sorrows in tap beer. CNN aired an hour-long feature on survivors of violent crime. The Where is Jessica Mace? segment popped around halfway through and I told the bartender to switch it pronto. A sodbuster on the next stool started to bark his offense, then he took a closer look at the file photo of me larger than life onscreen and things went from bad to ugly.

  “You’re that broad! Yeah, yeah, you’re her!” Shitkicker had crossed over to the dark side of drunk. “Nice rack,” he went on in a confidential tone. “I wouldn’t pay a nickel for anything above the tits, though.”

  I threw a glass of whiskey in his face, as a lady does when her appearance is insulted by an oaf. No biggie—I’d been nursing the cheap stuff. Besides, the move was only a cover to get my knife unsheathed and pressed flat against my inner thigh, all ready to do its work. A couple of his comrades at the bar laughed. He recovered fast —animals are like that — made a fist and cocked it behind his left ear. I puckered my lips. Don’t suppose that I enjoy getting punched. It’s simply that I can make pain work for me if it comes to that.

  Despite my gravelly voice and rough edges, I know how to play the femme fatale. I can also hold my booze. It’s a devastating combo. During our youth, my brothers Elwood and Bronson were the brawlers, the steamrollers. Elwood has gone to his reward and Bronson crashes cars for a living when he isn’t playing a hockey goon. Me? Let’s say I prefer to rely upon a combination of native cunning and feminine wiles to accomplish my goals. Flames and explosions are strictly measures of last resort.

  I’ll put my life in mortal danger for a pile of cash. No shock there, anybody would. Goes deeper, though. I’ll also venture into hazard to satisfy my curiosity, and that’s more problematic. The compulsion seems to be growing stronger. Violence, at least the threat of violence, is a rush. I’m addicted to the ramifications and the complications.

  As the CNN story so luridly explained, I put paid to a serial killer up in Alaska, the Eagle Talon Ripper, and nothing has been the same. It’s as if the stars and the sky don’t align correctly, as if the universe is off its axis by a degree or two. Since pulling that trigger I haven’t figured out exactly what to do with myself. I wander the earth. It would be romantic to say I’m righting wrongs or seeking my destiny. Feels more like I’m putting my shoe into one fresh pile after another.

  A good friend who worked in the people-removing business for the Mafia once told me there aren’t coincidences or accidents, reality doesn’t work that way. Since the first inert, super-dense particle detonated and spewed forth gas and dust and radiation, everything has been on an unerring collision vector with its ultimate mate, and every bit of the flotsam and jetsam is cascading toward the galactic Niagara Falls into oblivion.

  The dude possessed a more inquisitive nature than one might expect from an enforcer by trade. He said, Jessica, you’re a dancing star being dragged toward the black hole at the ragged edges of all we know. Drawn with irresistible force, you’ll level anything in your path, or drag it to hell in your wake.

  Load of horseshit, am I right? Sloppy, I-love-you-man drivel. Yet, his words come back to me as I travel east, ever east. I’m starting to believe him. I’m a dancing star and my self-determination is a facade.

  Cut to the drunken asshole in the bar rearing back to knock me into next Tuesday. Not so fast, Tex, said the universe.

  A rugged, burly fellow in a safari shirt and work pants stepped in and introduced himself with a left hook to the sodbuster’s jaw. Put the cowboy to sleep with one blow. I hadn’t needed a white knight. I had my knife and knew where to stick it. But, I must admit, the crunch of the cowpoke’s jawbone and the fast-spreading blood on the scuffed floorboards thrilled me a little. A lot.

  Mr. White Knight rubbed his hand. All those nicks and notches on his knuckles, like rocks that had been smacked together a thousand times.

  “I’m Beasley. What are you drinking?”

  “Ah, the beginning of another beautiful friendship.”

  * * *

  Mist flooded across the marsh and erased the country road. Rounding a bend, we were transported from present day Montana to Scottish moors circa 1840s, or a Universal Studios sound lot with Bela Lugosi poised to sweep aside his cape along with our feeble protestations.

  “Can’t-find-your-own-ass-with-both-hands-and-a-flashlight-weather,” I said to cut the tension. I twisted my rings until they bit in. That night, I wore five in honor of the dead samurai lord—bands of iron, silver, and titanium on the left hand. A mood ring and a biker-large death’s head on the right. The latter pair were gifts from Mom who’d used them plenty in her skating days. Jawbreakers.

  Beasley stepped on the pedal. His face by dashboard light put me in mind of Race Bannon and Doc Savage. The unbuttoned safari shirt contributed nicely. Ten, maybe fifteen years my senior, but some juice left in him; I loved that too. A crucifix dangled from the rearview mirror; also sprigs of dried flowers. More dried flowers peeked from the ashtray. I wondered if these details meant anything; made a note.

  We were rocking and rolling like a motherfucker now. The rickety farm truck’s tires cried mercy. But when the moon hove nine-tenths full and full of blood over the black rim of night and screamed white-hot silver through the boiling clouds, everything stood still.

  “The Gallows Brothers Carnival, huh?” I said after I caught my breat
h. I would have said anything to break the spell. “I heard that name somewhere. Want to say a news story. Which means somebody got maimed or murdered. Wouldn’t be news otherwise.”

  He grunted and hit me with a sidelong glance.

  “So, uh, you know how to shoot?” Maybe he meant the rifle rattling in the window rack behind our heads. A light gauge shotgun; nothing fabulous. “Also, would you say you’re fast on your feet? On a scale of, oh, let’s say a chick in high heels to Carl Lewis sprinting from a lion.”

  “I hate it when dudes ask me that. The line of inquiry seldom leads anywhere pleasant.”

  “You dames have all had bad experiences.”

  I laughed, low and nasty.

  “Yeah, it’s weird. Can’t figure what the common denominator might be.”

  He shut his mouth for a while, smarting. Guy like him, pain didn’t last long. A whack upside the head with a two-by-four was positive attention.

  My thoughts went to a previous fling with another brutish loner type; a coyote hunter in Eastern Washington. I hoped my luck was better this go-around. I hoped Beasley’s luck was better too.

  “You’re not really a carnival roadie,” I said a few miles later. “You lack a particular something or other.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t get on any of the rides.”

  The Gallows Brothers Carnival had set up shop in a pasture a few miles outside of town. Unfortunately, I had missed the last show. The great machinery lay cold and silent and would soon be dismantled. Beasley lived in a modular at the end of a concourse of shuttered stalls, tilt-a-whirls, and tents. All very Beaver Cleaver 1950s. The night breeze swirled sawdust and the burned powder of exploded firecrackers.