Read Online The Croning by Laird Barron - Free Book Online

they hurtled along a winding road that led ever farther from the city into the night.
    “My people were Celts,” Ramirez said.
    “Celts, really?” Don was slurring. “I thought there was something different about you.”
    “My clan is special. Real black sheep. We were into the groovy shit, hombre. We danced to the music of the old black gods.”
    “Celestial music,” Kinder said, his voice heavy with melancholy. “Those must’ve been the days.”
    “Don’t be sad, compadre. The wheel rolls round and round all hail Old leech!” And this shout was echoed by Kinder and the heretofore silent Clubbo and Günter.
    “My wife would love to talk with you,” Don said.
    “Oh, yeah!”
    “Shut, up, Lupe! The fucker will climb over there and kick your ass.” Kinder feathered the brakes and slewed the big car wildly, throwing everyone around.
    After they’d straightened out and things were calm for a few moments, Ramirez said as if muttering to himself, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the fall of the Western Roman Empire in Britannia, we were there, man, sticking the shiv to those wop fucks. We limed our hair and fought butt naked, painted in blue and red. We set ourselves on fire, hacked off the heads of our enemies and made fruit bowls outta their skulls. Got one in my pad, too. Fought with copper and bronze and flint. Men fucked men when putas were scarce, and the dogs ran scared. Everybody ran scared. So don’t screw with me.” His eyes were wild in the rearview and Don waved at him, limply.
    “Nobody’s screwing with you,” Kinder said. The pair passed a marijuana cigarette back and forth and the Cadillac swooped in broad, stately arcs across the faded centerline. Too dark to be certain, but it felt mountainous.
    “I’m okay,” Ramirez said after taking a manly drag on the cigarette. He popped his eyes at Don in the mirror. “Be good, puppy. You’re under surveillance.”
    Something huge and dark blotted the stars, and snuggling into Günter’s armpit, Don realized his instincts were absolutely correct—they were in the mountains. Even then, the powerful Cadillac toiled beneath the shadow of a tower of rock. The warm wind grew dense with the tang of pollen and sap, a cloying sauna humidity that instantly stuck Don’s shirt to the small of his back and caused him to imagine Aztec ziggurats wreathed in vines and a terrible shadow of winged lizard gliding across the rainbow landscape, an Aztec Princess, nude as fire and over her shoulder a storm cloud, a cloud of something at any rate, a ball of raveling yarn crackling with lightning and closing fast. He groaned and Ramirez barked laughter, and then the car stopped.
    Don tried to make a break as soon as the doors opened; jackknifed his head into Günter’s jaw and then flung himself across Clubbo, elbowing and clawing the big man as he went. Günter wasn’t any more fazed by the headbutt than Kinder had been by getting socked back at the cantina. The brute caught Don’s belt and he and Clubbo threw him from the Cadillac. Don landed face down in the dirt and the goons casually kicked him in the ribs and thighs until he couldn’t suck enough air to scream.
    Kinder called a halt to the beating.
    Günter and Clubbo helped Don to his feet and led him by the headlights’ shaft to a mossy boulder and propped him against it. Things happened as if in a dream—someone stripped his jacket and shirt; a quick yank and there went his belt and pants, everything dumped into a canvas bag Kinder held open. Don didn’t resist; his limbs were heavy as lead and focusing was impossible.
    In his delirium he was far past resistance or holding grudges. He said, “Am I being Shanghaied?” and everyone chuckled and Ramirez patted his arm, careful to stay clear of the blood pumping from his nose and the gore yet trickling down Don’s leg from the savage dog bite. To Don, his thigh and lower leg were a mass of grue, no better than a deer haunch smashed by a car, but he felt only the