Supernatural Noir

It caught him on the back of the neck, but the results were not as I expected. The ax cut a dry notch, but up he leaped, as if levitating, grabbed my ax handle, and would have had me, had his pants not been around his ankles. It caused him to fall. I staggered back through the doorway, and now he was out of his pants and on his feet, revealing that though he was emaciated, one part of him was not.

Backpedaling, I stumbled onto the landing. He sprang forward, grabbed my throat. His hands were like a combination of vise and ice tongs; they bit into my flesh and took my air. Up close, his breath was rancid as roadkill. His teeth were black and jagged, and the flesh hung from the bones of his face like cheap curtains. The way he had me, I couldn’t swing the ax and not hit myself.

In the next moment, the momentum of his rush carried us backward, along the little walkway, and then out into empty space.

——

Falling didn’t take any time. When I hit the ground my air was knocked out of me, and the boards of the floor sagged.

The ghoul was straddling me, choking me.

And then I heard a click, a snap. I looked. Cathy had gotten the lighter from the bag. She tossed it.

The lighter hit the ghoul, and the fluid I had soaked him with flared. His head flamed, and he jumped off of me and headed straight for Cathy.

I got up as quickly as I could, which was sort of like asking a dead hippo to roll over. On my feet, lumbering forward, finding that I still held the ax in my hand, I saw that the thing’s head was flaming like a match, and yet it had gripped Cathy by the throat and was lifting her off the ground.

I swung the ax from behind, caught its left leg just above the knee. The blade I had sharpened so severely did its work. It cut the ghoul off at the knee, and he dropped, letting go of Cathy. She moved back quickly, holding her throat, gasping for air.

The burning thing lay on its side. I brought the ax down on its neck. It took me two more chops before its rotten, burning head came loose. I chopped at the head, sending the wreckage of flaming skull in all directions.

I faltered a few steps, looked at Cathy, said, “You know, when you lit him up, I was under him.”

“Sorry.”

And then I saw her eyes go wide.

I turned.

The headless, one-legged corpse was crawling toward us, swift as a lizard. It grabbed my ankle.

I slammed the ax down, took off the hand at the wrist, then kicked it loose of my leg. That put me in a chopping frenzy. I brought the ax down time after time, snapping that dry stick of a creature into thousands of pieces.

By the time I finished that, I could hardly stand. I had to lean on the ax. Cathy took my arm, said, “Taylor.”

Looking up, I saw the fire from the ghoul had spread out in front of us, and the rotten lumber and old sawdust had caught like paper. The canvas bag with the lighter fluid in it caught too, and within a second, it blew, causing us to fall back.

The only way out was up the stairs, and in the long run, that would only prolong the roasting. Considering the alternative, however, we were both for prolonging our fiery death instead of embracing it.

Cathy helped me up the stairs, because by now my ankle had swollen up until it was only slightly smaller than a Civil War ca

When we made the upper landing, we went through the door where Susan’s body lay. I looked in the coffin. She was nude, looking a lot rougher than before. Perhaps the ghoul had gotten the last of her, or without him to keep her percolating with his magic, she had gone for the last roundup, passed on over into true, solid death. I hoped in the end her soul had been hers, and not that monster’s.

I let go of Cathy, and, using the ax for support, made it to the window. The dark sawdust was piled deep below.

Stumbling back to the coffin, I dropped the ax, got hold of the edge, and said, “Push.”

My thinking was maybe we could save Susan’s body for reburial. Keep it away from flames. I didn’t need to explain to Cathy. She got it right away. Together we shoved the coffin toward the window.

We pushed the coffin and Susan out the window. She fell free of the box and hit the sawdust. We jumped after her.

When we were on the pile, spitting sawdust, trying to work our way down the side of it, the sawmill wall started to fall. We rolled down the side of the piled sawdust and hit the ground.

The burning wall hit the sawdust. The mound was high enough we were protected from it. We crawled out from under it and managed to get about fifty feet away before we looked back.

The sawmill, the sawdust, and poor Susan’s body—which we had not been able to save—and whatever was left of Cauldwell Hogson was now nothing more than a raging mountain of sizzling, crackling flames.

——

Joe R. Lansdale has been a freelance writer since 1973, and a full-time writer since 1981. He is the author of thirty novels and eighteen short-story collections, and has received the Edgar Award, seven Bram Stoker Awards, the British Fantasy Award, and Italy’s Grinzani Prize for Literature, among others.

“Bubba Ho-Tep,” his award-nominated novella, was filmed by Don Coscarelli and is now considered a cult classic, and his story “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” was filmed for Showtime’s Masters of Horror.

He has written for film, television, and comics, and is the author of numerous essays and columns. His most recent works are a collection from the University of Texas Press, Sanctified and Chicken Fried; The Portable Lansdale; and Vanilla Ride, his latest in the Hap Collins–Leonard Pine series. The series has recently been released in paperback from Vintage Books.

| COMFORTABLE IN HER SKIN |

Lee Thomas

—

Sylvian Newman strolls along the boulevard. She is already late for her rendezvous with Louis Towne, but the delay is calculated. The nights she makes Louis wait are always the most exciting, so she takes her time, stopping at brightly lit shop windows along the street to peer in at the teasing displays. At Genevieve’s a glittering stream of diamonds pulls her to the glass like a magnet. The necklace is draped over a black velvet bust, and the clear gems twinkle like tiny stars. At their center is a perfect ruby the size of a postage stamp. Sylvia has never seen anything so beautiful in her life, and though Louis is rich, she knows he will never be diamonds-and-rubies generous with her. Besides, the shop owners in this part of town know Louis well. They also know his wife.

Leaving behind the beautiful gems, she continues to the corner. Sylvia spots Louis standing by his car under a street lamp across the intersection. His angry expression is emphasized by the shadows, and the sight of his frown sends a thrill through her. He will complain about being made to wait in a neighborhood where he is so well known. He’ll sulk over di

Louis stands up straight and throws his shoulders back when he sees her across the street. He is an odd-looking man, with chipmunk cheeks and a perpetual coffee-ground stubble covering them. His ears are abnormally small and stick away from his head. He is not repellent to look at, but nearly so. For Sylvia, the attributes that make him attractive—his power and his money—sufficiently offset his passing resemblance to a rodent. Besides, he is a natty dresser, always wearing crisp Italian suits perfectly tailored to his stout form, so he looks sharp, if not handsome.