The Last Horror Novel in the History of the World Read online

  Lazy Fascist Press

  Portland, Oregon

  PO Box 10065

  Portland, OR 97296

  www.lazyfascistpress.com

  [email protected]

  ISBN: 978-1-62105-146-6

  Copyright © 2014 by Brian Allen Carr

  Cover Design by Matthew Revert

  www.matthewrevert.com

  Edited by Cameron Pierce

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  All persons in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance that may seem to exist to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction.

  Printed in the USA.

  WELCOME TO THE LAST HORROR NOVEL:

  AN INTRODUCTION BY TOM WILLIAMS

  The Mexico/Texas border—near which Brian Allen Carr has lived most of his writing life—is easily demarcated on a map. The Rio Grande separates the nation and the state (though, as its ad agencies would like us to remember, Texas is “a whole other country”), yet it can be an easily traversed border, and the influences that flow back and forth cannot be overlooked, as it’s easy to wander through the streets of, say, Nuevo Laredo and think things look much like a typical US city, or stumble upon a section of McAllen and think it would fit right into Mexico. In all, if borders are meant to designate two different sides, the Rio Grande is doing a pretty lousy job.

  To be true, the border that exists between fiction deemed as literary and that deemed as genre is far better policed and regulated than that between Mexico and Texas. I would go so far as to venture to say that the natives on each side are far more hostile toward one another, and that as soon as one has crossed over, she need not attempt to return. Further, unlike the somewhat naturally occurring Rio Grande as border, the divide between literary and genre is entirely manmade and likely as unnecessary as, a Texan might say, tits on a teacup.

  Yet there it lies, forcing literary writers to gripe about vampire teen detective novels (while whispering about their “guilty pleasures” of fantasy, sci-fi, thriller, or English cozy) and ginning up the defensiveness of genre writers who know that pointing to their sales only confirms that something must be wrong on that side of the border, if so many people want to buy those quote unquote books.

  And then there is Brian Allen Carr. Like the Texan that he is, who daily breathes air scented by both cultures while digging into a hybrid cuisine, he moves easily across borders. None of the jabs the natives of literary and genre fiction might fling at him can penetrate his defense. His sentences soar, his action entices. His sharks scare more than Spielberg’s, while his characterizations help you know every-damn-body in the book as well as a best friend. And in this ineffable novella—part-apocalypse narrative, part-fable, part-prayer—he rains down terror so indescribable you have to read it for yourself while breaking your heart when his characters share their secrets.

  In this fantastic (in both senses of the word) fiction, Brian Allen Carr reminds us that borders are not to be feared but forded, crisscrossed and zigzagged until no border remains and a new frontier results. What we need after The Last Horror Novel in the History of the World is a modifier to describe his accomplishment. Carresque? Carrvian? I’m going with Carrful. Because that’s where I want to be with Brian Allen Carr: riding in the backseat with his indelible prose, unerring comedy, mad scientist plot, and social worker heart while he howls behind the wheel, foot on the accelerator, ninety-miles an hour, headed for the abyss.

  Scrape, Texas—far from fame or infamy—appeared on maps, was passed through by travelers. A blink of crummy buildings, wooden households—the harsh-hearted look of them, like a thing that’s born old.

  When we stood on the rooftop of Blue Parson’s tree house, we could see, in the navy, swollen night sky, the orange glow of better towns to be from, could hear the highways to them hissing with car traffic and train horns cooing from their age-rusted tracks. We knew the direction, you just didn’t see us walking. The salt smell of the bayside was the church of our childhood, and we would not play the role of heretic just because America said, in its school-mannered way, “If you stay where you come from, you’re doomed to repeat yourself.”

  What we sadly witnessed, what fate befell us, never happened to anyone in this whole world’s history.

  But, tragically, will never happen again.

  The black magic of bad living only looks hideous to honest eyes.

  These few streets at dusk, still except for tarrying dogs, their milk-heavy tits swaying.

  Rob Cooder breaks a banjo string, clears his throat, smokes cloves.

  Mindy Stuart has herpes.

  Tim Bittles has a cell phone and is on it, texting a girl named Meredith two towns over, and every time she obliges with a picture, he shows us her faceless nudity on the screen.

  Scarlett and Teddy are in love, say: we’ll quit Scrape, Texas when we can. Put everything of worth into a U-Haul, drive to Austin and get schooling in us and not look back ever.

  “Good. Good. Do it. You should.”

  Scrape lies between two legitimate cities.

  Corpus Christi and Houston.

  There are saltwater puddles the whole way between them.

  There’s the constant smell of turning fish.

  On the water, boats with filled sails slow their patterns eternal.

  We pull crab traps from the shallows, cast dead shrimp at unseen trout, gig flounder in the nighttime, shoot Redhead drake from bleak-winter skies.

  We invent a game to anger the city folk.

  Rob and Tim go to the highway and drive thirty-five miles an hour side by side.

  There’s no way to pass, so the cars clump up in their commuting.

  A line of them stretches back through the night like a string of honking Christmas lights.

  Fridays we fry fish in the front yard, the smell of cornmeal caramelizing in the grease.

  The mothers make mayonnaise from scratch, mince home-pickled cucumbers for the tartar sauce.

  We sing these old songs in the sweater-heavy nighttime air. The glow of streetlights soft in the salt stench.

  If I could live my life all over . . .

  And Mindy Stuart stares out at nothing over that line, and we all know someone will love her no matter what because the way she looks, and we all know that it won’t be the love she craves, because Mindy never likes what she has.

  We overdo it, drink until our blood is rust and the prickly sun pinks the sky to dawn.

  No one’s ready for sleep. We take the john boat down to the laguna and row out to the duck blinds where we hide in the humid morning with shotguns between our legs.

  We pass out before the ducks show, wake swollen with mosquito stings.

  “What now?” someone asks.

  “Let’s get drunk again.”

  We have whiskey and we work on it, toss out decoys and wade the water, dragging our feet to scare away stingrays.

  Someone shoots at the sky and we wait a moment.

  After a while, birdshot rains down.

  “There’s so many ripples,” someone says. “So many ripples,” as the shots land, dimpling the water’s surface.

  Mindy keeps her herpes secret, crawls in and out of apartments that smell of new carpet and microwaved soup.

  She knows the boys of high school intimate.

  They are shark-skin smooth and firecracker quick.

  They whi
p in and out of her like snake tongues tasting air.

  She examines their tightness, the curls in their hair.

  Gives them more than they want of her.

  Makes them say her name.

  First we saw birds and rabbits, squirrels and frogs, raccoons and possums, crossing through the daytime streets.

  “Something’s off,” Old Burt says. He’s racist toward blacks and hates the internet. “It just makes everyone act blacker,” he says.

  Manny is Mexican and Tyler’s black as they come.

  Manny says, “You like me?”

  “Hell yeah I do,” Old Burt says. “We stole this land from your people.”

  Tyler says, “You like me?”

  Old Burt says, “I’m trying, son. I know it’s not right. I was trained this way. Imagine how long it took for folks to admit the world wasn’t flat.” He shakes his head, “But, boy, I just look at you and think the word nigger.”

  Old Burt loves his guns. He takes the plug out of a twenty gauge pump, walks into his front yard and starts shooting the possums that wander awkwardly in the light, baring their needly teeth when they scare.

  He blasts a few to muck, their bodies shredding open with the shots, skidding down into the dirt where swell hunks of them disappear.

  “I tell you,” Old Burt says, “something ain’t right.”

  Newscasts show static.

  Mindy lies still in a strange boy’s bed. She has a necklace charm that she drags on the chain. It hisses as a zipper might, makes a sort of music in the otherwise silence. She eyes the TV oddly. She drops the charm on her chest, elbows the boy who rests beside her. “Something’s wrong with your cable,” she says.

  The boy rolls away from her. “So fucking sleep,” he says.

  Tim Bittles sits in the dark cabin of his Ford truck, his face aglow with his cell phone’s light. He nods at it, then unzips his pants. He takes his dick firm in his grip, the erect length of it swelling, the faint smell of sweat and sweet. He presses a button on his phone and a bright light flashes, taking a pale picture. “This what u like,” he types, then hits send.

  He waits.

  He waits for a reply.

  For a long time he waits, but nothing.

  He shrugs, shakes his head, and keys the ignition.

  The starter hacks electric, and the engine turns over.

  Tim Bittles puts his dick away.

  Tim Bittles drives into the night.

  Blue Parson stands on his rooftop. Rob Cooder sits Indian style picking banjo notes.

  Suddenly, the distant city lights go dim.

  “See that?” asks Blue.

  “What?” asks Rob.

  “The lights?”

  “What about ’em.”

  “They’re gone.”

  Rob stands beside Blue, both dumbfounded.

  “Power outage, you reckon?” Rob asks.

  “Maybe,” says Blue, “let’s check the news.”

  Rob climbs down the tree house ladder, Blue takes the zip line. They cross the yard, enter Blue’s home. The TV, which stays permanently on, says, “No signal.”

  Teddy sets a box in the back of the U-Haul.

  “I think that’s it,” Scarlett tells him.

  Teddy smiles, nods, then jumps for the handle, hangs from it as the cargo door lowers. “Sure you don’t want to leave tonight?” he asks.

  “Sure,” Scarlett says. “I’ve already rolled out the sleeping bag.”

  The two hug, kiss.

  Scarlett pulls Teddy by the hand and leads him back into their garage apartment.

  Tessa says, “Cash only,” when Blue sets the Lone Star sixer on the counter.

  “Who the hell carries cash?”

  “No one,” Tessa says, smiles. “But the machine ain’t working.”

  “Like, ain’t reading the cards? Like, you tried that plastic bag trick?”

  “Shit,” says Tessa, “it ain’t the plastic bag trick.” Her dyed-blonde hair is tightly braided into ropes pulled back into a ponytail of coils. “Thing ain’t connecting.”

  “Shit,” says Blue. “I ain’t got cash.”

  “Sucks to be you,” says Tessa.

  Blue frowns, shrugs. “C’mon,” he says, “lemme pay you tomorrow.” He smiles all his charm at her.

  Tessa takes a blonde braid in her hand, twirls it around a finger. “Blue, you ain’t trustworthy.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  Tessa shakes her head. She looks at the camera on the ceiling. She knows it doesn’t work. “Shit,” she says, “long as you promise.”

  Blue smiles. “In that case,” he says, “I’m gonna switch this out for a twelve.”

  Manny flinches each time Old Burt pulls the trigger. Tyler twists a blunt as bits of raccoon and rat fleck his sneakers. Burt fires again at the roving critters, says, “What could be causing it?”

  Tyler lights up. “Who fucking knows?” Tyler says. “Want some of this?” he asks, tries to pass to Old Burt. The smell of bud and gunpowder stinks up the air.

  Old Burt shakes his head, “You know I can’t smoke after you,” he says. “Pass it to Manny first.”

  Tyler shakes his head. “You’ll smoke after him?”

  Old Burt shrugs. “I’m sorry,” he says, “he’s just closer my kind.” Old Burt blasts an armadillo and chambers another shell. “You don’t gotta make me feel guilty about it.”

  Tyler grits his teeth. “I don’t know why the fuck I hang out with you,” he says and passes Manny the blunt.

  “Thanks,” says Manny, and he fills his lungs with smoke, passes back to Tyler, exhales toward the sky, thick with all manner of birds flying toward the gulf.

  “Hey,” says Burt. “It was my turn.”

  Tyler hits it, says, “Nope,” as he chokes the smoke down. He holds the blunt at Burt. “It’s your turn now.”

  Old Burt contemplates the blunt. He looks at Tyler, he looks at Manny, he looks at Tyler again. “Fine,” says Old Burt, “but don’t go telling no one you saw me do it.” He takes the blunt in his fingers.

  Tessa says, “Cash only, credit card machine’s down.”

  “I ain’t got no fucking credit card,” Mindy says as she sets her quart on the counter.

  Tessa rolls her eyes. “Just the Miller then?”

  Mindy shakes her head no, says, “Pack of Camel Crush.” She points to the black and blue pack. “What the fuck’s wrong with the machine?” she asks. “Ain’t nothing working right.”

  “Don’t know,” says Tessa as she retrieves the cigarettes, places them on the counter, rings Mindy up. “Just not connecting. Had to spot Blue a twelve pack.”

  Mindy looks at the camera on the ceiling, flips it the finger, “That thing still broken?” she asks, then, “You know he ain’t paying you back.”

  “Seven fifty,” says Tessa, “still broken,” she says, “and if he don’t pay me back I’ll kick his ass. Y’all still fucking?”

  Mindy hands Tessa a ten. “Tessa Butcher,” she says, “I ain’t never fucked no Blue Parson.”

  Tessa makes change. “Shit,” she says, “you fuck everything else.”

  Mindy stares hard. “Your hair looks like shit,” she says.

  The two women mad dog each other.

  Mindy takes a lighter from a rack on the counter. “I ain’t paying for this,” she says and leaves the store.

  “Can you sleep?” Teddy asks.

  “Not hardly,” says Scarlett.

  “Wanna do something?” Teddy asks.

  “Of course I do,” says Scarlett.

  Blue Parson cracks open another, “Nothing better than free beer,” he says.

  Rob Cooder nods agreement, sips at his own. “Wonder why everything’s down?”

  The two sit in lawn chairs beneath the tree house, and Tim Bittles pulls up in his Ford. He gets down. “Got one for me?”

  “Sure,” says Blue, and he fetches a bottle from the ice chest. “But you gotta show me some them cell phone titties for it.”

&
nbsp; “Shit,” says Tim, “you got yourself a deal.”

  Scarlett pulls Teddy’s hands to her throat, grinds up, down, back, and forth. She is giddy with sex pain. She is slick with their thrusting. Her eyes are closed tight, teeth clenched, mouth forming an agony. Teddy says, “You, you?” and Scarlett says, “Yes, yes.” And then they are both lowing moans and pressing as firm into the other as they can muster their muscles to press, their minds lost in that light and music and dizzy and space and breathing.

  “My daddy would kill me if he knew I was about to do this,” Burt says, and he hands a pistol to Tyler.

  Tyler smiles.

  “You know how to use it, don’t ya?”

  Tyler holds the pistol sideways, fires a bullet at a nutria rat, and the dirt near it coughs dust.

  Old Burt shakes his head. He reaches out and turns Tyler’s wrist so the gun is properly held. “Just cause you’re a nigger,” says Old Burt, “don’t mean you gotta act like one.”

  Tyler shakes his head. “Why come I don’t shoot you?” he asks.

  Old Burt raises his shotgun and blasts the rat that Tyler couldn’t hit. “Prolly cause you’d miss,” he answers. “Now try again. And pretend you’re white.”

  Tyler fires at a possum that thumps dead to the dirt.

  “There you go,” says Burt. “How’d it feel?”

  Tyler nods, smiles.

  Then Manny: “I want a fucking gun too.”

  Then they hear the screaming.

  It can’t be natural. Light bulbs burst in their sockets and birds fall from the sky, shrieking. Old Burt winces in pain. Tessa watches as the glass windows of the storefront crack in threads like webs. Teddy thinks he’s fucking Scarlett better than he ever has. Mindy drops her quart of beer on the sidewalk where it explodes. She falls to her knees, plugs her ears with her fingers. Blue, Rob and Tim drop their beers too. Plug their ears too. Burt, Manny and Tyler drop their guns. Cover their heads. The rabbits and possums and armadillos and raccoons and mice and rats and frogs and deer and birds grow crazier, run in circles, blood leaks from their ears. The water at the edges of the bay and laguna begins to shake, bubble, effervesce. First bait fish float to the surface, crabs belly up. Later, small reds, whiting, flounder, mullet. In the sky, the clouds are dispersed concentric, so above Scrape, the moon can be seen full and pale yellow against a circle of black. Light bulbs continue to burst, raining splinters of glass, sparks of light, and with each one destroyed, the sky goes deeper dark, revealing twinkling stars arranged in myriad constellations. The neon signs of Scrape scream open, rain electric colors. In homes, liquor bottles are toppled from their pedestals, perfume bottles drop and rattle on countertops. Aquariums flood open, and tropical fish wriggle on carpets, their gills aching in search of breath, their tails clapping them about. The temperature rises. In the diner, the butter melts in its foil wrap on the tables, and the ice in Blue Parson’s cooler thins to water. Every leaf from every tree limb drops, and the helicopter seeds chop their single bladed flight haphazardly. Chicken eggs explode in refrigerators, yolks and whites scrambling with slivers of shell and mingling into muck heaps at random. Crayons go soft in children’s hands. In the fields, cows topple, dung beetles creep queerly from manure piles, roll on their backs, kick their legs at nothing. Dogs howl. Cats hiss. Snakes slither into holes, coil up so their heads are tucked beneath the braids of them. Above, the moon seems to be made alive, red and blue veins show on its surface as though it’s some clot of newborn flesh, pale from never seeing sunlight, though the light it’s reflecting is just that. The contents of the sandbox in the schoolyard is picked up and blown off in a magnificent wind that scrapes paint from the cars it crosses over. Soccer balls and bicycles and baby dolls are wriggled away from their resting places, redeposited at the phenomenon’s whims. Countertop fryers dance until they drop on linoleum, spilling their rancid grease in pools that ooze slowly with bits of caramelized flour shimmying in the thickness. Lipsticks melt, pools of maroon and crimson emerge at the base of their black containers. Pianos and guitars and violins and cellos and violas in the orchestra room of the high school emit all their notes in unison. The cooler doors of the convenience store spill open under the weight of the toppled beverages they contain, and Gatorades and Coca-Colas and Pepsis and chocolate milks and Budweisers fumble out into the aisles, the glass containers cracking and rivers of beer and soda flood across the tile floor, down the grout lines. Coins rattle in car ashtrays. Keys jingle where they sit. Books fall from shelves. Coats limp from their hangers in the closets. The pilot lights in all the ovens extinguish. Old ladies lose their wigs, contact lenses. Dentures drop from their mouths. Babies shit themselves. Then the words. Carried on the screams. Thick as cement. “Where are my children?”