SHORT STORIES

by AA.VV.

Greg Farnum
THE BARN
THE NIGHT SKY

Robert W. Howington
DON'T PULL ANY SHIT IN TEXAS
THE THING FROM STOP SIX



THE BARN
by Greg Farnum

He parked the car at the side of the road and walked the
quarter of a mile through  the  woods  to the spot where the
trees stopped and the land sloped gently down  to  the  main
highway.   After some kicking and scuffing with his boots he
found a comfortable  spot  in  the  brush  and sat down, his
knees pulled up toward his chest, to wait.  He  checked  his
watch, then checked it again; it should be soon, he thought.
It was.  Far off he saw them rounding the bend.  The waiting
was harder now.  When the column reached the stretch of road
nearest  him,  about 150 yards from where he was sitting, he
raised his hunting rifle to his shoulder and calmly loosed a
bullet into the middle of the two parallel lines of marching
soldiers.  He lowered his  rifle  to  his lap and sat there.
The soldiers stood as if suspended, then the  entire  column
fell  to  earth.   There were shouts.  Carefully he began to
skitter backwards.  Then the  woods  exploded in bullets and
he found himself moving at great speed on his belly, on  all
fours  and in a crouching run that sent him bursting through
the bushes face first.  Soon he  was at the car and fumbling
for his keys, an act which  struck  him  as  wildly  out  of
keeping with what had just taken place.  He wedged his rifle
partly  on  the  floor  of  the car, partly on the seat, and
drove off.

Then it started.  The act of driving was so ordinary, so
exposed.  If he saw  a  roadblock  up ahead he couldn't just
duck into the woods.  He would have to...what?   He  made  a
conscious effort to keep his hands on the wheel, to keep his
speed  down, to keep the car on the road.  Then the exertion
of slithering and running  through  the  woods kicked in and
joined the emotions that made it hard to keep his  hands  on
the  wheel  and something seemed to rise up through his body
and into his skull: I'm going  to  die of fright, he said to
himself.  Then he realized  how  far-fetched  that  was,  to
literally die of fright.

Then he realized it wasn't far-fetched at all.

Each  second  that  the  car stayed on the road, though,
drained that phrase of  its  power  and  eased his fear, and
eventually the car came to a halt in front of his house.  He
got out and stopped.  He couldn't leave  the  rifle  in  the
car,  yet  he  was  afraid to take it out.  He couldn't just
leave it there in clear view  of anyone who happened to peer
in the car window, yet...why not?  That was the  frightening
part,  the  question;  when  he'd  set  out  earlier  in the
afternoon he'd had an  iron  clad  plan, now it had vanished
like an unremembered dream.  Any choice he  made  seemed  no
better or worse than any other.

On his way to the kitchen he glimpsed his wife reading a
magazine  on  the  couch in the livingroom.  She didn't look
up.  He opened the  refrigerator,  grabbed  a bottle of beer
and drank it quickly and felt a little better.  He went  out
the  kitchen door and circled round the back of the house to
the car.  Making a conscious  effort  not to look around, he
removed  the  rifle  and  walked   to   the   root   cellar.
Fortunately  the  root cellar door wasn't locked.  He leaned
the rifle against a sack  of potatoes, emerged from the root
cellar and went into the barn to hide.

A couple of minutes later he got up from  the  hay  bale
wedged  into  a  corner of a vacant stall and went back into
the house.  He  walked  through  the  front  door and, again
passing his wife who still refused to look up, went into the
kitchen.  He grabbed all the beer in the  refrigerator  and,
arms  full,  tried  to  let  himself quietly out the kitchen
door.  He  dropped  one  can  which  banged  down the wooden
steps.  He froze for a  moment;  then,  convinced  his  wife
hadn't heard, he made his way back to the barn.  Back on the
hay  bale  he  set  the  bottles  in an orderly array on the
floor.  It was only after  he reordered them, then reordered
them again, that he opened one.  He was ready  to  hide  and
wait.

Into  the  next  beer, he realized he should be thinking
about the  rifle.   He  should  have  it  with  him.  He was
defenseless.  But what defense would the rifle really be  if
the  army or the police cornered him in the barn?  "What are
you doing  in  here?"  they  might  ask.   "Escaping from my
wife," he could say.  They might buy that.  They'd laugh  at
that.  He opened another beer.

He  lit  a cigarette.  Could burn the barn down, he said
to himself.  At least that  way  they'll never find me.  The
sun began to fail.  He zipped his coat.  That  gave  him  an
idea.   He got up and walked the length of the barn to where
the old blanket was stored.   Back  on the hay bale, wrapped
in the blanket, a cigarette burning in  his  left  hand,  he
numbered  the  full  bottles  and cans on the floor with his
right hand.  He picked one  up  and  opened it.  The last of
the light slid through the barn's partially open door.   The
sound  of  birds  reached his ears and as he listened it was
punctuated by the soft  rustling  and shuffling and snorting
of his underpopulated barn.  He opened  two  beers  and  lit
another  cigarette.   His  breathing  was  regular now.  The
birds  reached  their  just  after  sundown  crescendo.   He
cradled the two  bottles  against  his  stomach and exhaled.
"This is more like it," he whispered.


THE NIGHT SKY
by Greg Farnum

The moon.  The bald man in the drill sergeant's hat  had
commanded their gaze toward the distant orb.  They stared at
it,  bright  silver  in  the  cold  night air.  The bald man
paced, the only  sound  that  of  gravel  scurrying from his
shiny black boots.  Down  the  line  the  fat  boy  wheezed.
Thomas  tensed and shot a ghost of a glance in the fat boy's
direction, as if he could  quiet the fat boy's lungs through
force of will.  How many times had the fat boy been  in  the
hospital...two?   Three?   The  last  time  was  the  worst.
Thomas  could see his face, red and woozy and pleading as he
lay in the sand pit that was used for crawling practice.  He
couldn't crawl anymore --  the  heat  stroke was coming over
him again like it had before.  "Pussy!"  screamed  the  bald
man,  adding  something  about the fat boy's mother.  "Move,
fat boy, move!" The  fat  boy  looked  up once, glassy eyed,
before he buried his face in the sand and cried.

What god damned black hour of the morning was it anyway?
What day was it?  It wasn't the day they went to  the  rifle
range.   Thank  God.   If  you  failed at the rifle range it
wasn't  pretty.   Another  day  of  running  back  and forth
singing songs about killing Charlie Cong, probably.  "You'll
thank me for this," the bald man would say as  he  ran  them
back  and forth.  "Charlie Cong ain't gonna wipe your little
noses and sing you to sleep  like I do." You'll thank me for
this he'd told the fat boy writhing in the sand, adding,  "I
oughta put a boot in your ass."

The bald man stood there, conferring with a corporal who
held  a  clipboard.  Why did they get us up in the middle of
the night?  The fear in the ranks was palpable.  Shipping us
out before anyone had a  chance  to  go AWOL?  Sending us to
some commando unit where we'd have to live  off  leaves  and
snakes?   Or  perhaps  some new form of punishment, some new
form of degradation that  we  hadn't  even thought of.  They
waited and gazed obediently upward.

Thomas thought of his cousin and how,  years  ago,  they
would  lie on their backs on the welcoming lawn and stare up
at the sky.  Lie  on  their  backs  like lordly souls at the
beginning of time, look up  at  the  sky,  and  discuss  the
events  of the day.  Like whether or not we would find Jesus
if we sent a  space  ship  out  far  enough, or whether time
travel was possible, or whether or not  we  would  beat  the
Russians  to the moon.  The cousin thought not; the Russians
already had sputnik.  Thomas  knew different.  We would beat
the Russians.  We would get there first.  We had to.

The bald man handed the clipboard back to  the  corporal
and  turned toward the ranks.  A small, almost imperceptible
lowering of eyes and  necks.   "Now listen up!" he bellowed.
"We've just walked on the moon."
	


DON'T PULL ANY SHIT IN TEXAS
by Robert W. Howington

Jerry kept telling Kell to stop the car.  "Stop the god damn
car now or I'm gonna ruin this nice new upholstery job  with
a  big  smelly  shit," he said.  "Okay, okay, already," Kell
said.  "But we're gonna be late and I don't like being late.
You owe me one." He pulled  his navy blue '67 Caddy over and
Jerry jumped out and let his pants and boxer shorts drop  to
his  antles.   His  knees  buckled slightly as shit shot out
from his ass like a  cannon  going  off.  He closed his eyes
and went, "Aaaahhhhh yeeeaaaahhhh!" He used  his  undershirt
to wipe himself and got back in the car.

A kid on a bike came by and tapped on Jerry's window.  Jerry
rolled  it down.  "Yeh, kid, what do you want?" The kid took
a lollipop out of his mouth and pointed at nearby road sign.
"Cain't you read mister?" he asked.  It says DON'T MESS WITH
TEXAS.  You just  shit  on  her.   That  ain't right." "So?"
Jerry said, giggling.  "What are you  gonna  do  about  it?"
"I'11  show  you."  The  kid  got off his bike and carefully
picked up the soiled undershirt.

"THAT KID'S CRAZY!" Kell  screamed.   "ROLL UP YOUR GOD DAMN
WINDOW BEFORE HE THROWS THAT IN HERE!"

Jerry rolled feverishly but the kid ran up to  the  car  and
slam  dunked  the  undershirt through the window.  It hit on
Jerry's lap and left  a  big  skid  mark on his pants before
stopping next to Kell.  Kell shot out of the  car  and  went
after  the  kid.   But  he  got  on  his  bike and sped off,
spraying gravel  and  dirt  into  Kell's  face.   as the kid
pulled away he looked back and  gave  Kell  the  bird  while
yelling, "REMEMBER THE ALAMO!!"

Jerry  sat  in the car staring at the undershirt and holding
his nose.  His face was turning  pale.  Kell got back in the
car and said, "What are you waiting for?  Get the  fuck  out
of  here  with that shit.  It's stinkin' bad in here." Jerry
opened his mouth to answer  Kell  but  all that came out was
his breaRfast.



THE THING FROM STOP SIX
by Robert W. Howington

The old heavyset woman, who lumbered onto the  bus  at  Stop
Six  with her groceries and sat next to me, wore ragged wear
and was so ugly she  seemed  to  be  all of the world's ugly
people put together into one.   She  looked  almost  exactly
like  that  old bat who claps off her tv set and goes to bed
on those 'Clap On!  Clap Off!' commericals.  And, worse, she
had this big horrible thing  with  hair  on it coming out of
the side of her cheek.  I could tell it was  smiling  at  me
even  though  it  didn't  have a face.  It even spoke to me,
saying, "A bird crapped me out and this is where I landed."

I looked around at the  other  people  on  the bus to see if
they were seeing what I was seeing.  A couple across from me
were cuddled together and looking  out  their  window.   One
person  near  the  front  was fast asleep.  I could tell his
snoring irritated the bus driver because the bus driver kept
turning his head around  to  give  the sleeping person quick
disgusted glances.  Two small boys - maybe 13 or 14  -  were
in  the back ripping the clothes off of a small girl - maybe
12.

I went back to looking  at  that thing on the woman's cheek.
But it wasn't on her cheek anymore.  Now it was on her lower
lip.  It was still smiling at me.  It  spoke  to  me  again,
saying,  "Where  I  come  from  I'm  an  infamous  criminal.
They'll never catch me." The old woman hadn't noticed that I
was  looking  at  her  face so closely.  She stared straight
ahead, oblivious to the  screams  and  moans coming from the
backseat where the girl was getting raped by  the  boys.   I
could  see  one  of  the boys' butts moving up and down real
fast.  He had the girl in the missionary position.  His arms
were holding hers down.  He  kept telling her, "This is what
ho's get!  This is what  ho's  get!"  The  other  boy  stood
guard.

He  displayed in full view to us an Uzi machine gun.  Nobody
bothered to make  a  fuss  about  what  was happening to the
girl.  I certainly was one person who wasn't  gonna  die  to
save  anybody's ass.  Hey, I'm just the fucking writer here.
The thing on the old  woman's  lower lip was still there.  I
wanted to say something to it but if I did I figured the old
woman would get freaked out at me.  I didn't want to cause a
scene.  I just wanted the bus to get to my destination so  I
could get off and get the hell out of there.

Buses  were  transportation  for  the unfortunate and it was
unfortunate that I was on  that  bus at that time.  I didn't
like for things to be going on around  me  so  much  and  my
hands  were sweating as I sat there waiting for whatever was
going to happen next.  I looked at the thing and it spoke to
me once again, saying, "I  like  you, Robert.  You're a nice
fella.  These other people are  shit,  but  you  being  here
kills  the stink." The bus stopped at Stop Seven and the bus
driver walked to the back of the bus and told the two little
punks to leave the girl  alone  and  get the hell off of his
bus.  The kid with the Uzi machine gun laughed and told  the
bus  driver  that  he  was a serious, serious fool.  The bus
driver took a swing at the  little hoodlum and he ducked out
of the way and came back up firing the Uzi.

The bus driver fell backwards stone  dead.   I  watched  the
gunsmoke  rise  slowly from the end of machine gun's barrel.
The kid kicked at the  bus  driver's body and told the other
kid that he was dead.  He gave the Uzi to the other kid  and
pulled  down  his  pants  and step-ins and got on top of the
girl.  She started  screaming  but  he  put  a hand over her
mouth to keep her quiet.  The kid with the Uzi bent down and
went through the bus driver's  pockets.   The  bus  driver's
eyes  were  still  open and I wondered if he could still see
anything.  It was kinda scary to see somebody dead who still
had their eyes open.  It  was  like they were looking at you
from the beyond wishing they could still be there  with  you
in  real  life.  I could see the bus driver's eyes pleading,
"Pull me back, pull me  back."  he couple rushed off the bus
in absolute fright.  I could see see all of  the  whites  of
their  eyes  because  they  were  bugging  out  so far.  The
sleeping guy woke up and just sat there rubbing the goop out
of his eyes and wiping  the  slobber  off of the side of his
mouth.  He didn't do anything else.

The old woman mumbled  something  about  how  the  price  of
vegetables  was  just crazy.  "Ninety nine cents for a pound
of tomatoes is wrong!  I  can't  live that way, no sir!" she
hollered.   "It's  criminal  what  they  do  to  the  little
peoples!  It ain't right, no sir!" The thing on her lip went
into her mouth.  She  didn't  notice  because  she  was  too
preoccupied  with her sales receipt from King Savers grocery
store.  I kept my mouth shut and didn't say anything to her.
I just sat  there  waiting  to  see  what would happen next.
That's what a writer is supposed to do.  That's his job.