Bewere the Night

“A few weeks ago.” Mark took another hard draw on the beer and nearly choked himself with it. He looked into Kilgore’s face and didn’t see a guy who was about to bust out laughing.

He just looked interested, and a little concerned.

So Mark cleared his throat and made a face that implied acid reflux, and he continued. “I found a couple of the goats all torn up. I figured someone’s dogs got out, you know? Or if they weren’t somebody’s dogs, then maybe coyotes.”

“Maybe,” Kilgore said.

“Once we lost another couple goats, I started checking them out good before I buried what was left. And I’m telling you, it looked like they’d been … I don’t know. Gored, or something.”

“Gored? Like by a bull?” Kilgore frowned.

Mark shook his head. “Naw, more like a baby unicorn. They were punctured, but the holes were too deep to be teeth.” He held up his hands, trying to indicate his best guess. “It was like they’d been jabbed with something sharp, maybe the size of this bottle’s neck.”

“And how many have you lost now?”

“Eleven. The thing got one more last night.”

Josh elbowed Mark. “Tell him the rest,” he said.

“The rest?”

Mark stared at his bottle. “I shot it.”

“You shot it?”

“I shot it,” he said again. “But it didn’t die.”

“Ah.” Kilgore said. “Does that mean you got a good look at it?”

“Not a good look. And the look I got … I don’t know what I saw.”

The big man kept his somber face on and didn’t push too hard.

“You want to tell me what it looked like?”

“You’re going to think I’m nuts.”

“Bet you I won’t.” But that wasn’t enough to make Mark talk, so Kilgore added, “Look, man. I’ve heard some crazy shit in my time, and a surprising amount of that crazy shit has turned out to be true. So I’ll tell you what. I’ve got stories that would make you think I’m as nutty as a tree full of squirrels. I’ll tell you one of mine if you’ll tell me yours.”

“Deal,” Mark said. “Go on. Surprise me.”

“All right, I will. Two weeks ago I was up in Knoxville, and I got stuck in an attic with a pair of vampires who were righteous pissed to see me.”

“Wait. Stuck … ?”

“Now, I’ll grant you it was faster getting down than going up—I fell through the floor and landed on a table downstairs, which hurt like a sonofabitch. But that was after I ran one of them through with a sharp chair leg, and I poured some of Reverend Sam’s finest blessed H20 down the throat of the other.”

“Blessed … ?”

“You heard me. What’d Josh tell you about what I do?”

Josh beamed, and Mark acted queasy. “He said you fix unusual problems.”

And finally, Kilgore laughed. It was a merry sound, sharp and genuine. It matched the way he talked. “I do indeed fix unusual problems—mostly the weird ones that no one else’ll touch. So if you think I’m going to poke fun at you, you’ve got it all wrong. You can tell me what you saw, and nothing you can say will send me running. Lord as my witness, I promise you that.”

Mark gave up. “All right,” he said, shaking his head left and right, and trying not to taste any more of his stomach in his mouth. “All right, I’ll tell you what it was.”

He picked at the label on his bottle and dropped it down on the counter with a clank. And then he said quickly, “It was a big black shape with glowing red eyes. There, are you happy?”

“Happy? Hell, no. Big black shapes with glowing red eyes are pretty far down on the list of things that make me happy, but I’d appreciate it if you could be a little more specific. Can you tell me what kind of big shape?”

Mark thought hard. “It was big, but low to the ground. Maybe it would’ve been waist-high on me, but it was long. It had a big head and a humped back.”

“There you go, now you’re talking. Keep going. Tell me about the eyes. Red and glowing, I’ve got. What else can you tell me?”

“It was dark,” Mark said slowly. “And I couldn’t see too clearly. They were close to the ground, like it’s something that holds its head low. And I hit it broadside with at least two pumps from the shotgun, but it ran off and came back for more the next night.”

Kilgore pursed his lips, and it made his whole face look small. He leaned himself away from the counter and stood up straight. “I believe you,” he declared. “Now tell me, how far away from here is this farm of yours, and would you like to see something done about your problem tonight?”

“Tonight?”

“How many more goats can you afford to lose?”

Mark snorted. “I’d be happy to see the whole batch of them tossed off a cliff, but Elaine’ll have my head if I don’t put a stop to it. Besides, what if it don’t stop with the goats or the dogs? What if she’s out feeding the things, and it comes after her? Or me?”

“Exactly,” Kilgore said. He adjusted his coat and cocked his head toward the door. “Josh, you know where this farm is?”

“I do.”

“Then you’re riding with me.”

Signal Valley Farms sat in the shadow of Signal Mountain, Tennessee, and it was only a few miles away from the derelict roadhouse where Kilgore Jones had joined the party. As he drove his semi-black, beater Eldorado around the mountain, his passenger tinkered with the radio and groused about the knobs.

Josh punched the round handle and said, “You need a new one.”

“That is the new one. You think they came with cassette players in ’67?”

“You’re a real dinosaur, man.”

Kilgore smiled, but it was a grim little smile. “You said the turn’s coming up?”

“It’s right here. Right over there, I mean. Look, see? There’s a sign.”

The edge of the right headlight clipped a low-swinging sign with a picture of a goat and some purple flowers. Kilgore turned the long car slowly, and its tires chewed against the gravel. The unpaved road turned out to be a driveway, but it was a long driveway and it made a dead end at a ranch-style house with one light burning.

They parked up near the house.

Josh and Mark milled nervously while Kilgore rummaged through his trunk. He produced a battered book with a burgundy leather cover, a fistful of stakes that should have lined a garden, a pump water gun with loudly sloshing contents, a digital camera, and a pair of six shooters. Then he lifted out a small flashlight and checked its batteries.

“I told you, I shot the thing already,” Mark said.

Kilgore methodically packed a camo-green duffel bag with everything except for the guns, which he popped into the holster he wore under the trench coat. “I heard you, and I believe you. But I’m willing to bet you didn’t shoot it with bullets like these.”

“What are they, silver or something?”

“Silver-plated,” he said. “It works just as well, and I ain’t made of money. I’m not saying these’ll work or anything; hell, I don’t know what you’re up against here. But not much can stand up to this assortment. And oh yeah, this.” He reached back into the trunk and pulled out a machete as long as his arm. The light of the trunk’s half-dead bulb glinted against the shiny, sharpened edge.

Josh did a good job of appearing unimpressed, but Mark went green. “Is that a magic knife or something?”

“No magic here,” he said, then changed his mind and patted the side of the bag. A rectangular square showed in outline through the fabric. “Except my mom’s old Bible.”

“What are you, some kind of preacher or something?” Mark asked. “Is that why you do this?”