Love.
Jim King
Sally Ann clutched her thin cotton nightdress tightly around her so it didn’t tangle her legs as she walked across the yard. She was sixteen now but her father still made her wear a nightdress like a little child, wasn’t proper for a girl to dress like some city tart he would say. If only she was brave enough to run away, but perhaps when she chose tonight things would be different. She hurried across the yard, little puffs of dried dust thrown up behind her bare feet as he hurried toward the barn.
The full moon had risen above the fields of waving grass and summer corn like an ocean of silver flowing across the land. The walls of the old wooden barn seemed to gleam in the wane light like some palace out of the tales of fantasy. Tonight she would choose, tonight she had to pick between them and then her life would change forever.
She reached the side door and paused then ran her fingers through her thick auburn hair, she had to look her best for them, the two men who were the centre of her life, the men she must choose between tonight, the one who would make her a woman and the one she would never see again.
The wooden door squealed as it opened, hinges that hadn’t felt the touch of Greece or oil for year heralding her entry to the shadows within, the smell of old straw and rotting timbers wafting out to greet her like a memory of childhood games of hide and seek.
The barn was lit by columns of silver moonlight that streamed down from the windows set in the steep pitched roof, sparkles floated across the moonbeams as dust drifted gently in the air.
Two men stood in the barn, facing each other but standing as far apart as it was possible to do in the length of the barn, each by accident or design standing in the shadows away from the moonlight.
By the main door stood a tall muscular man, by look in his mid twenties, his light brown hair tousled about his strong face and manly chin. He was clad in worn jeans and a faded tea shirt, the logo of some obscure rock band just visible in the gloom. Even in the limited light he glowed with power and life.
By the back of the barn stood a taller slimmer figure, dressed in a fine suit, white shirt open to show the top of his pale hairless chest, polished shoes almost sunk in the straw underfoot. He looked older, perhaps in his thirties, his face narrow, cheek bones like blades below dark, exotic eyes.
Sally Anne paused as her breath caught in her throat at the sight of the two men.
“David” The man by the door stepped closer.
“Simon.” The man standing at the back of the barn nodded and took a single step closer.
As the two men stepped into the moonlight her heart began to beat faster, she found it hard to think, hard to concentrate. Simply having them close to her filled her thoughts with love for them, everything else vanished, only they mattered. Her perfect lovers to be.
“Have you chosen?” David spoke, his voice almost a growl.
Chosen, chosen what? What was she choosing. Why did she have to choose. Then she remembered, memories forcing their way to the surface through the cloud of desire that filled her mind. She had met one of them days ago, weeks ago, months ago, it was hard to remember but it didn’t matter. Had it been David she met first, or Simon. Never mind.
She had met one and then the other had arrived to claim her love, they had argued, perhaps even come to blows. Then they had called a truce, to share her between them but under the condition that neither could take her.
So one night or part of the night she would be within the strong arms of David and another time her lips would be pressed against the cool skin of Simon.
They were so different and yet she loved them both, she couldn’t live without them, she would be with them forever, how could she choose.
Choose, why did she need to choose. More memories, they had become tired of sharing and not taking. They had threatened to fight, they demanded she choose which one of them claimed her and which would leave. She had to pick one, tonight, she was to pick one tonight. But how could she pick one and deny the other.
David, the man of nature and the wild, so strong and powerful, when he held her is arms and chest were so warm against her body that she felt it was like a summers day. David’s strong manly smell, somehow reminding her of their family dogs, he had only to come close and she could smell him, desire him. He was down to earth, jeans and tee shirts much like her clothing, his arms covered in soft hairs, his beard thick but not rough like her fathers, a kiss with David promised such passion and warmth. How could she not pick him.
But Simon, tall, lordly Simon. A prince among his people. Cool, controlled, his passion vieled behind an arrogance that only the powerful truly have. He was pale, his skin almost glowing from within. When he held her she could feel his strength though he was thin, so different to the well muscled David. His touch, his hands, so cool. When he held her close and kissed her neck she could feel the warmth of her body filling his arms and chest, giving him life and strength.
David would be a passionate lover, a mate, Simon would be her lord, to rule her and command her. David offered fire and life, Simon offered the mystery of the night, David desired her openly, Simon claimed her but showed her no love.
“Have you chosen?” This time it was Simon who spoke and he stepped closer, an action matched by David. Both men looked at each other and bared their teeth in a growl. Gleaming white teeth, canines lengthening in both mouths. The men were now only a few steps apart and both prepared to fight,
David hunching himself, balanced on the balls of his feet ready to leap, Simon with arms outstretched, as if his fingers were claws that he could slash at his enemies with.
“HAVE YOU CHOSEN?” David, loud, angry, demanding an answer.
“Chosen, no, yes, chosen, I, I...” Sally Ann couldn’t think, with both men so close she was blind and deaf to everything except the two, her love for them overwhelming everything else, she wanted them, needed them, to offer herself to them, to belong to them. So she stood, frozen in confusion as the two men stepped closer still, now so close they could touch her, or each other.
The sound of the side door squealing as it was pushed open seemed deafening in the silence, three pairs of eyes turned to look at the oblong of moonlight that was now visible. A stocky figure silhouetted against the silver glow, the double barrelled shotgun clearly visible.
“Git away from them freaks girl, afore I blast em.” Her father’s voice was its usual rough growl, a lifetime of smoking and alcohol left the man’s voice course and difficult for some to understand, but she always understood, she had listened to that voice telling her what to do her entire life. Her confusion vanished as she recognised the shotgun and the threat to the men, her men.
“NO DADDY” she shouted. “They are my friends, they love me.”
The sound of the hammers clicking back on the shotgun was sharp and clear, like the ringing of a dull bell. She stood in shock as her own father lifted the shotgun to point it at the two men, her two men. Before she even knew what she was doing she had covered half the distance towards him and by the time she regained control of her actions she was close enough to touch the double barrels.
“Please daddy, put the shotgun down, I love them, I won’t let you hurt them.” She took another step, deliberately blocking the shotgun with her own body, pressing the barrels to her breast. She would die to save the two, she loved them more than life and in that instant she realised that she loved them more than her father. He had always tried to stop her seeing them, he never understood that she loved them. Them! Not him.
The two men had stepped closer together, both hiding behind her where the shotgun couldn’t fire, both staring hard at her father and for once not thinking of fighting the other. For a moment there was a greater threat to keep them occupied.
No one heard the main door swing open, it was the sudden shock of moonlight flooding in that turned every head. For just a second the two men and the young woman stared at three figures standing bathed in the silvery light, three men in uniform, two with rigid brimmed hats on their heads and gleaming steel pistols in their hands. The third, broader, his bare head glistening in the moonlight, his revolver a patch of grey in his big hands.
Then the shooting began, each shot echoing from the walls and roof again and again till it sounded like machine guns firing. Sally Ann screamed and turned to run to the men, to throw herself between them and the sheriff and his deputies, to use her body as a shield against the death that flew toward them.
A heavy calloused hand grabbed her arm and yanked her back, she was lifted and crushed against her father’s chest by an arm still strong from a lifetime on the farm. She screamed and cursed and fought but it was in vain, her father was too strong, she was trapped, helpless, as the men she loved were attacked, she could do nothing. She screamed her hatred into her father’s unflinching face.
David and Simon staggered back, both struck again and again, the bullets tearing through the fine shirt and the old tee shirt with equal ease and sinking deep into the flesh below. Both collapsed, David snarling his defiance for a few seconds longer than his rival who was motionless in the straw that covered the floor of the barn.
Both deputies emptied their magazines then the sheriff took a few steps into the barn, his old fashioned revolver dull and worn in comparison to the gleaming automatics of the others. He bought his arm down, lined up his eye to the sights and the head of the closest fallen figure and squeezed the trigger, the boom was loud, much louder than the other firing had been. The single heavy bullet smashing David’s forehead, passing through his brain and coming out the back of his head with a spray of blood, bone and brains that stained the ground behind him.
Then the sheriff moved his aim and fired again and Simon met the same fate.
“Bubba, git in here boy and bring that axe.” The sheriff called out but his eyes didn’t move nor did his aim waver, the two deputies kept their distance and reloaded, carelessly dropping the empty magazines into the straw in their haste and fear.
Another figure walked into the room, a little shorter than the other three but much heavier, rounded, running to fat but walking with a step that said not weak, overweight but never soft. This figure lifted his right arm to reveal an axe, a great thing like a fireman’s axe, a shaft of seasoned wood and head of steel but the blade was longer than any fire axe and had a curve to the blade. No good for cutting wood but perhaps not intended for that purpose.
“Bubba get over here and cut these dammed monsters heads off.” Another scream and more cursing came from by the side door, the girl was kicking and scratching, desperate to break free of her father’s grasp and reach the two monsters but the arm around her was like stone.
Bubba walked up to the first and stepped to its side then lifted the axe high, a single practiced swing bought it down and buried in deep in the dirt of the floor. A single solid thump as it hit. He grunted as he tugged the axe head free of the soil the kicked the severed head to one side. A few seconds later and he was beside the other monster, the axe swinging up and down in a single smooth action. A solid thump and it was done.
Sally Ann collapsed, only her father’s arm kept her from falling, her screaming and shouting replaced by sobbing.
“You two get the bags and remember ta keep the heads separate this time, then sling em in the back of the pickup. Billy you drive em down ta the hospital and you tell that coroner I want him ta dig the bullets out and send em back this time. Price they charge fa silver these days, I got a budget to watch, don’t want them dammed penny pinching town Councillors on my case again.”
The deputies looked at each other then both turned and walked out into the moonlight to a pair of cars and pickup that stood by the road two hundred feet away, both cars clearly marked as sheriffs vehicles by colour, letters and lights on top.
The sheriff looked down at the two bodies and then at the two heads, the closest was a werewolf, most of the head and face covered in course stinking animal hair, the nose and mouth distended, halfway between human and wolf. The stench of animal strong on both the body and the severed head.
He looked at the other head, this one pale and decayed, the pasty white flesh mottled by rot, one ear gone completely, the eyes sunk deep into the skull and the lank dark hair patchy and clumped together by something he didn’t want to know. The vampire had the stench of the grave, of meat left in the sun for a week and covered in maggots.
The sheriff looked at the girl, a dammed shame, such a nice girl, he remembered her skipping down the high street, pig tails bouncing as her mother laughed and tried to keep up.
Now look at her, leaning on her father’s broad chest, her tears staining his shirt black in the moonlight, mourning the death of a pair of monsters who would have killed her anyway.
It was all the fault of that dammed film, that and them novels. Story books and films. Vampires and werewolves made out to be noble creatures, bloody Hollywood lies and foolishness. Never a vampire or werewolf existed that was like them books and films but the young, they read the storys and watched the films and thought they knew the truth.
Some vampire or werewolf came sniffing around and they didn’t run, didn’t call for the men folk. They thought they knew, they wanted to see some handsome supernatural being that would be their lover. They should have run but they didn’t, they stayed long enough for, what was it the discovery channel called it, phere something’s, yea pheromones, to take effect and that was it. They were prey.
Once the scent took over they couldn’t see the truth, the smell, the touch, all some sort of dream. That was how the monsters got their prey, how they fed. It was something to do with sex so it worked on the teenagers strongest and the ones who read the books or watched the films, they were taken even worse.
What sort of foolish girl would believe a monster like a bloodsucking vampire or flesh eating werewolf would make a lover, or want to take a demon or supernatural freak to their beds. But they did. Twilight, pah, should string up the son bitch responsible for that.
The sheriff looked at Sally Ann, wondering to himself, how long had she been affected? A few days and it would wear off quickly, a week or two and she would be like this for weeks. A month or more and it was permanent, she would mourn and cry for a while but she would always want the company of the monsters, it was like an addiction. Unless she was strong she would seek them out, but she wasn’t strong, not strong enough to have resisted the first time.
She would run away from home and find her way to the big city. Search out one of them underground clubs, find more monsters, give herself to them.
Then someday soon they would find her in a dark alley, throat torn out and drained of blood or maybe half eaten. Then the phone call would come and the sheriff would have to drive out here and break the news to her father.
Dammed shame, she had been a good kid.
Bloody monsters!
Jim King
Sally Ann clutched her thin cotton nightdress tightly around her so it didn’t tangle her legs as she walked across the yard. She was sixteen now but her father still made her wear a nightdress like a little child, wasn’t proper for a girl to dress like some city tart he would say. If only she was brave enough to run away, but perhaps when she chose tonight things would be different. She hurried across the yard, little puffs of dried dust thrown up behind her bare feet as he hurried toward the barn.
The full moon had risen above the fields of waving grass and summer corn like an ocean of silver flowing across the land. The walls of the old wooden barn seemed to gleam in the wane light like some palace out of the tales of fantasy. Tonight she would choose, tonight she had to pick between them and then her life would change forever.
She reached the side door and paused then ran her fingers through her thick auburn hair, she had to look her best for them, the two men who were the centre of her life, the men she must choose between tonight, the one who would make her a woman and the one she would never see again.
The wooden door squealed as it opened, hinges that hadn’t felt the touch of Greece or oil for year heralding her entry to the shadows within, the smell of old straw and rotting timbers wafting out to greet her like a memory of childhood games of hide and seek.
The barn was lit by columns of silver moonlight that streamed down from the windows set in the steep pitched roof, sparkles floated across the moonbeams as dust drifted gently in the air.
Two men stood in the barn, facing each other but standing as far apart as it was possible to do in the length of the barn, each by accident or design standing in the shadows away from the moonlight.
By the main door stood a tall muscular man, by look in his mid twenties, his light brown hair tousled about his strong face and manly chin. He was clad in worn jeans and a faded tea shirt, the logo of some obscure rock band just visible in the gloom. Even in the limited light he glowed with power and life.
By the back of the barn stood a taller slimmer figure, dressed in a fine suit, white shirt open to show the top of his pale hairless chest, polished shoes almost sunk in the straw underfoot. He looked older, perhaps in his thirties, his face narrow, cheek bones like blades below dark, exotic eyes.
Sally Anne paused as her breath caught in her throat at the sight of the two men.
“David” The man by the door stepped closer.
“Simon.” The man standing at the back of the barn nodded and took a single step closer.
As the two men stepped into the moonlight her heart began to beat faster, she found it hard to think, hard to concentrate. Simply having them close to her filled her thoughts with love for them, everything else vanished, only they mattered. Her perfect lovers to be.
“Have you chosen?” David spoke, his voice almost a growl.
Chosen, chosen what? What was she choosing. Why did she have to choose. Then she remembered, memories forcing their way to the surface through the cloud of desire that filled her mind. She had met one of them days ago, weeks ago, months ago, it was hard to remember but it didn’t matter. Had it been David she met first, or Simon. Never mind.
She had met one and then the other had arrived to claim her love, they had argued, perhaps even come to blows. Then they had called a truce, to share her between them but under the condition that neither could take her.
So one night or part of the night she would be within the strong arms of David and another time her lips would be pressed against the cool skin of Simon.
They were so different and yet she loved them both, she couldn’t live without them, she would be with them forever, how could she choose.
Choose, why did she need to choose. More memories, they had become tired of sharing and not taking. They had threatened to fight, they demanded she choose which one of them claimed her and which would leave. She had to pick one, tonight, she was to pick one tonight. But how could she pick one and deny the other.
David, the man of nature and the wild, so strong and powerful, when he held her is arms and chest were so warm against her body that she felt it was like a summers day. David’s strong manly smell, somehow reminding her of their family dogs, he had only to come close and she could smell him, desire him. He was down to earth, jeans and tee shirts much like her clothing, his arms covered in soft hairs, his beard thick but not rough like her fathers, a kiss with David promised such passion and warmth. How could she not pick him.
But Simon, tall, lordly Simon. A prince among his people. Cool, controlled, his passion vieled behind an arrogance that only the powerful truly have. He was pale, his skin almost glowing from within. When he held her she could feel his strength though he was thin, so different to the well muscled David. His touch, his hands, so cool. When he held her close and kissed her neck she could feel the warmth of her body filling his arms and chest, giving him life and strength.
David would be a passionate lover, a mate, Simon would be her lord, to rule her and command her. David offered fire and life, Simon offered the mystery of the night, David desired her openly, Simon claimed her but showed her no love.
“Have you chosen?” This time it was Simon who spoke and he stepped closer, an action matched by David. Both men looked at each other and bared their teeth in a growl. Gleaming white teeth, canines lengthening in both mouths. The men were now only a few steps apart and both prepared to fight,
David hunching himself, balanced on the balls of his feet ready to leap, Simon with arms outstretched, as if his fingers were claws that he could slash at his enemies with.
“HAVE YOU CHOSEN?” David, loud, angry, demanding an answer.
“Chosen, no, yes, chosen, I, I...” Sally Ann couldn’t think, with both men so close she was blind and deaf to everything except the two, her love for them overwhelming everything else, she wanted them, needed them, to offer herself to them, to belong to them. So she stood, frozen in confusion as the two men stepped closer still, now so close they could touch her, or each other.
The sound of the side door squealing as it was pushed open seemed deafening in the silence, three pairs of eyes turned to look at the oblong of moonlight that was now visible. A stocky figure silhouetted against the silver glow, the double barrelled shotgun clearly visible.
“Git away from them freaks girl, afore I blast em.” Her father’s voice was its usual rough growl, a lifetime of smoking and alcohol left the man’s voice course and difficult for some to understand, but she always understood, she had listened to that voice telling her what to do her entire life. Her confusion vanished as she recognised the shotgun and the threat to the men, her men.
“NO DADDY” she shouted. “They are my friends, they love me.”
The sound of the hammers clicking back on the shotgun was sharp and clear, like the ringing of a dull bell. She stood in shock as her own father lifted the shotgun to point it at the two men, her two men. Before she even knew what she was doing she had covered half the distance towards him and by the time she regained control of her actions she was close enough to touch the double barrels.
“Please daddy, put the shotgun down, I love them, I won’t let you hurt them.” She took another step, deliberately blocking the shotgun with her own body, pressing the barrels to her breast. She would die to save the two, she loved them more than life and in that instant she realised that she loved them more than her father. He had always tried to stop her seeing them, he never understood that she loved them. Them! Not him.
The two men had stepped closer together, both hiding behind her where the shotgun couldn’t fire, both staring hard at her father and for once not thinking of fighting the other. For a moment there was a greater threat to keep them occupied.
No one heard the main door swing open, it was the sudden shock of moonlight flooding in that turned every head. For just a second the two men and the young woman stared at three figures standing bathed in the silvery light, three men in uniform, two with rigid brimmed hats on their heads and gleaming steel pistols in their hands. The third, broader, his bare head glistening in the moonlight, his revolver a patch of grey in his big hands.
Then the shooting began, each shot echoing from the walls and roof again and again till it sounded like machine guns firing. Sally Ann screamed and turned to run to the men, to throw herself between them and the sheriff and his deputies, to use her body as a shield against the death that flew toward them.
A heavy calloused hand grabbed her arm and yanked her back, she was lifted and crushed against her father’s chest by an arm still strong from a lifetime on the farm. She screamed and cursed and fought but it was in vain, her father was too strong, she was trapped, helpless, as the men she loved were attacked, she could do nothing. She screamed her hatred into her father’s unflinching face.
David and Simon staggered back, both struck again and again, the bullets tearing through the fine shirt and the old tee shirt with equal ease and sinking deep into the flesh below. Both collapsed, David snarling his defiance for a few seconds longer than his rival who was motionless in the straw that covered the floor of the barn.
Both deputies emptied their magazines then the sheriff took a few steps into the barn, his old fashioned revolver dull and worn in comparison to the gleaming automatics of the others. He bought his arm down, lined up his eye to the sights and the head of the closest fallen figure and squeezed the trigger, the boom was loud, much louder than the other firing had been. The single heavy bullet smashing David’s forehead, passing through his brain and coming out the back of his head with a spray of blood, bone and brains that stained the ground behind him.
Then the sheriff moved his aim and fired again and Simon met the same fate.
“Bubba, git in here boy and bring that axe.” The sheriff called out but his eyes didn’t move nor did his aim waver, the two deputies kept their distance and reloaded, carelessly dropping the empty magazines into the straw in their haste and fear.
Another figure walked into the room, a little shorter than the other three but much heavier, rounded, running to fat but walking with a step that said not weak, overweight but never soft. This figure lifted his right arm to reveal an axe, a great thing like a fireman’s axe, a shaft of seasoned wood and head of steel but the blade was longer than any fire axe and had a curve to the blade. No good for cutting wood but perhaps not intended for that purpose.
“Bubba get over here and cut these dammed monsters heads off.” Another scream and more cursing came from by the side door, the girl was kicking and scratching, desperate to break free of her father’s grasp and reach the two monsters but the arm around her was like stone.
Bubba walked up to the first and stepped to its side then lifted the axe high, a single practiced swing bought it down and buried in deep in the dirt of the floor. A single solid thump as it hit. He grunted as he tugged the axe head free of the soil the kicked the severed head to one side. A few seconds later and he was beside the other monster, the axe swinging up and down in a single smooth action. A solid thump and it was done.
Sally Ann collapsed, only her father’s arm kept her from falling, her screaming and shouting replaced by sobbing.
“You two get the bags and remember ta keep the heads separate this time, then sling em in the back of the pickup. Billy you drive em down ta the hospital and you tell that coroner I want him ta dig the bullets out and send em back this time. Price they charge fa silver these days, I got a budget to watch, don’t want them dammed penny pinching town Councillors on my case again.”
The deputies looked at each other then both turned and walked out into the moonlight to a pair of cars and pickup that stood by the road two hundred feet away, both cars clearly marked as sheriffs vehicles by colour, letters and lights on top.
The sheriff looked down at the two bodies and then at the two heads, the closest was a werewolf, most of the head and face covered in course stinking animal hair, the nose and mouth distended, halfway between human and wolf. The stench of animal strong on both the body and the severed head.
He looked at the other head, this one pale and decayed, the pasty white flesh mottled by rot, one ear gone completely, the eyes sunk deep into the skull and the lank dark hair patchy and clumped together by something he didn’t want to know. The vampire had the stench of the grave, of meat left in the sun for a week and covered in maggots.
The sheriff looked at the girl, a dammed shame, such a nice girl, he remembered her skipping down the high street, pig tails bouncing as her mother laughed and tried to keep up.
Now look at her, leaning on her father’s broad chest, her tears staining his shirt black in the moonlight, mourning the death of a pair of monsters who would have killed her anyway.
It was all the fault of that dammed film, that and them novels. Story books and films. Vampires and werewolves made out to be noble creatures, bloody Hollywood lies and foolishness. Never a vampire or werewolf existed that was like them books and films but the young, they read the storys and watched the films and thought they knew the truth.
Some vampire or werewolf came sniffing around and they didn’t run, didn’t call for the men folk. They thought they knew, they wanted to see some handsome supernatural being that would be their lover. They should have run but they didn’t, they stayed long enough for, what was it the discovery channel called it, phere something’s, yea pheromones, to take effect and that was it. They were prey.
Once the scent took over they couldn’t see the truth, the smell, the touch, all some sort of dream. That was how the monsters got their prey, how they fed. It was something to do with sex so it worked on the teenagers strongest and the ones who read the books or watched the films, they were taken even worse.
What sort of foolish girl would believe a monster like a bloodsucking vampire or flesh eating werewolf would make a lover, or want to take a demon or supernatural freak to their beds. But they did. Twilight, pah, should string up the son bitch responsible for that.
The sheriff looked at Sally Ann, wondering to himself, how long had she been affected? A few days and it would wear off quickly, a week or two and she would be like this for weeks. A month or more and it was permanent, she would mourn and cry for a while but she would always want the company of the monsters, it was like an addiction. Unless she was strong she would seek them out, but she wasn’t strong, not strong enough to have resisted the first time.
She would run away from home and find her way to the big city. Search out one of them underground clubs, find more monsters, give herself to them.
Then someday soon they would find her in a dark alley, throat torn out and drained of blood or maybe half eaten. Then the phone call would come and the sheriff would have to drive out here and break the news to her father.
Dammed shame, she had been a good kid.
Bloody monsters!