Read Online Tucker’s Grove by Kevin J. Anderson - Free Book Online
Authors: Kevin J. Anderson
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’ s how you clawed his eyes, but didn ’ t so much as scratch the lenses.” I hope this will make him pause. It doesn ’ t.
He draws back an arm, preparing to swipe at me with his o b sidian claws.
The self-preservation drive bursts within me, breaking down th e walls of reason and unleashing purely animal instinct. I tear Darby ’ s tomahawk from my belt and howl maniacally as I lunge forward, splitting Kenner ’ s breastbone and driving the primitive stone axe into his dead heart. The tomahawk strikes something as f irm as gelatin, and hangs suspended in Kenner ’ s flayed chest.
Kenner stops cold and begins convulsing like a man in contact with a Galvanic battery. Beads of red sweat burst from his pores and begin trickling together, running in rivulets up his chest, aga inst the pull of gravity. The blood reaches his for e head and leaps into the night air like a narrow river of fiery droplets, whirling together in a cyclone of blood.
Kenner falls over the deck rail and lands in the silent river with a splash like a thunder clap. Suddenly I can hear the night sounds again; the river laps up against the sides of the Far West .
I collapse to the deck, shaking, drenched with sweat, and fee l ing utterly ill. Kenner is gone, and I have survived. But he, and the bloodthirsty wilderne ss, have had their victory as well. No logic, or careful planning, or rationalization has saved me this night — it was pure animal instinct. I butchered a former co m rade by swinging a stone hatchet into his chest, and reveled in the feeling of conquest.
Neve r again will I consider myself a civilized man.
Sickness rises up explosively in my gut, and I lurch to the rail. Bending over, I retch so violently that small blood vessels burst in the whites of my eyes.
Red wetness spews from my mouth and vanishes overb oard into the night.
Blood.
SCARECROW SEASON
The scarecrow hung on a crossbar in the Indian Summer sun, clutching at the last threads of life. Crucified. His clothes were ta t tered, his hair tangled and askew, his skin sunburned and blistered.
He had endured endless days and nights while he sweated away his body ’ s water until he was little more than a dry corn shock. For a long time, he had stared at the acres and acres of waving cornfields that stretched out in front of him. Then the crows cam e to peck out his eyes, and he saw nothing else.
Blood crusted his wrists. On the first day, he had struggled to wrench himself free of the ropes that held him to the rough, nail-scarred crossbar. He knew with a sick sadness, and also r e lief, that he wouldn ’ t last another day.
A broad, flat fragment of bloodstained altar stone rested against the foot of the upright support bar, just beneath his bare feet. Nearby, in the branches of an ancient oak along the fenceline, he could hear the deep croak of a huge cr ow with fathomless black eyes. The crow had perched motionless in the tree, watching him as he hung helpless. The crow barely moved its head, eyes shining in the sun, watching, waiting. Like a d e mon.
The man ’ s last thought was a gibbering curse at the pers on who had done this to him. Elspeth Sandsbury.
Exhaustion, hunger, and thirst drove him miles deep into u n consciousness, so deeply that he did not even realize it when that awful woman came to finish him off….
Elspeth whistled a bright melody as she marc hed down the weed-tangled lane to the back field, the one far from the road leading to Tucker ’ s Grove. She swung the newly sharpened sickle in her calloused hand.
Elspeth Sandsbury was a hefty woman —“ big bones,” she a l ways said. A farmer ’ s wife needed to be strong and healthy. Most people didn ’ t suspect just how strong she had become after years of doing the farm work by herself, after her husband had died. When Elspeth decided to use her strength, it took most of her victims completely by surprise.
Seeing the gray, drawn skin on her new scarecrow, she hu r ried,
He draws back an arm, preparing to swipe at me with his o b sidian claws.
The self-preservation drive bursts within me, breaking down th e walls of reason and unleashing purely animal instinct. I tear Darby ’ s tomahawk from my belt and howl maniacally as I lunge forward, splitting Kenner ’ s breastbone and driving the primitive stone axe into his dead heart. The tomahawk strikes something as f irm as gelatin, and hangs suspended in Kenner ’ s flayed chest.
Kenner stops cold and begins convulsing like a man in contact with a Galvanic battery. Beads of red sweat burst from his pores and begin trickling together, running in rivulets up his chest, aga inst the pull of gravity. The blood reaches his for e head and leaps into the night air like a narrow river of fiery droplets, whirling together in a cyclone of blood.
Kenner falls over the deck rail and lands in the silent river with a splash like a thunder clap. Suddenly I can hear the night sounds again; the river laps up against the sides of the Far West .
I collapse to the deck, shaking, drenched with sweat, and fee l ing utterly ill. Kenner is gone, and I have survived. But he, and the bloodthirsty wilderne ss, have had their victory as well. No logic, or careful planning, or rationalization has saved me this night — it was pure animal instinct. I butchered a former co m rade by swinging a stone hatchet into his chest, and reveled in the feeling of conquest.
Neve r again will I consider myself a civilized man.
Sickness rises up explosively in my gut, and I lurch to the rail. Bending over, I retch so violently that small blood vessels burst in the whites of my eyes.
Red wetness spews from my mouth and vanishes overb oard into the night.
Blood.
SCARECROW SEASON
The scarecrow hung on a crossbar in the Indian Summer sun, clutching at the last threads of life. Crucified. His clothes were ta t tered, his hair tangled and askew, his skin sunburned and blistered.
He had endured endless days and nights while he sweated away his body ’ s water until he was little more than a dry corn shock. For a long time, he had stared at the acres and acres of waving cornfields that stretched out in front of him. Then the crows cam e to peck out his eyes, and he saw nothing else.
Blood crusted his wrists. On the first day, he had struggled to wrench himself free of the ropes that held him to the rough, nail-scarred crossbar. He knew with a sick sadness, and also r e lief, that he wouldn ’ t last another day.
A broad, flat fragment of bloodstained altar stone rested against the foot of the upright support bar, just beneath his bare feet. Nearby, in the branches of an ancient oak along the fenceline, he could hear the deep croak of a huge cr ow with fathomless black eyes. The crow had perched motionless in the tree, watching him as he hung helpless. The crow barely moved its head, eyes shining in the sun, watching, waiting. Like a d e mon.
The man ’ s last thought was a gibbering curse at the pers on who had done this to him. Elspeth Sandsbury.
Exhaustion, hunger, and thirst drove him miles deep into u n consciousness, so deeply that he did not even realize it when that awful woman came to finish him off….
Elspeth whistled a bright melody as she marc hed down the weed-tangled lane to the back field, the one far from the road leading to Tucker ’ s Grove. She swung the newly sharpened sickle in her calloused hand.
Elspeth Sandsbury was a hefty woman —“ big bones,” she a l ways said. A farmer ’ s wife needed to be strong and healthy. Most people didn ’ t suspect just how strong she had become after years of doing the farm work by herself, after her husband had died. When Elspeth decided to use her strength, it took most of her victims completely by surprise.
Seeing the gray, drawn skin on her new scarecrow, she hu r ried,
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