Issue 132 September 2024

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Editorial: Westerns and Weather Events

by Rebecca Halsey

September 5, 2024

Editorial

Like many Americans, I grew up watching Westerns. To be more specific, my dad grew up watching Westerns, and when cable television and VHS came into our home in the 1980’s, it was often Westerns that my dad (and us kids) would watch. Nearly a third of movies created in Hollywood’s 20th century “golden era” were Westerns, a stat I can’t imagine being replicated in my lifetime. They must have been everywhere! Like superhero movies are now.

The plot of many classic Westerns centered on bringing “civilization”—in the form of law and order, settling families, or railroads—to a land that is wild and challenging. A classic man-vs-nature take. The scenery even appears stark and untameable on screen. The heroes of these stories are themselves untameable, often adopting the outlaw’s techniques in order to bring about a new society at the edge of the frontier.

In a short film made for The Museum of Modern Art called “Westerns: Is the Genre Dead?”, Dave Kehr has a great examination of what made these heroes so popular in the post-WWII era—essentially, their trauma as a result of violence. But in addition to this specific mid-century proclivity, I think these kinds of stories and characters had already been popular in America, even when the frontier was the Ohio River Valley, even when the frontier was Mississippi. Andrew Jackson’s reputation as a frontier man won him the presidency after all. It was the combination of this archetype, which had already existed, with the extremely cinematic scenery of the desert and mountains that really sparked people’s imagination.

Those traditional Westerns have faded away into the sunset—began fading away in the 60s with the rise of counterculture movements. The only societal message a Western could adopt then was a cynical one.

The only Westerns for today’s audience might be revisionist ones. Far too many examples of the early films contain scenes depicting (even full plot lines hinging upon) the exploitation, murder, and displacement of Native and Indigenous peoples. (Linking to this Wikipedia article does not do the issue justice, but I also am not the right person to speak on this topic.)

And what’s more, the American West is no longer the frontier. Families that moved west now have children moving back east!

Being a magazine that publishes our fair share of speculative fiction, you might expect me to pivot to “space is the final frontier.” But no, I want to stay on earth. I want the cinematic landscapes I grew up with. I want the man-vs-nature struggle. For that I turn toward climate change and weather extremes. The scramble for resources will be a theme that future generations will find resonance with, and that struggle will ultimately define where the next frontier is.

This month we have stories featuring weather events, Western backdrops, or—in the case of three out of the five—both. First up is “Tornado Breakers Don’t Cry” by Stefan Alcalá Slater, a story about a renowned tornado rider, Ethel, who needs to break free from her father’s toxic words.

Keeping with the theme of law and order is “The Hanging of Billy Crabtree” by H. A. Eugene, in which the death of an outlaw changes the course of history. Justice and revenge also figures in our reprint story for the month—“Nosebleed Weather” by Marilyn Hope.

Returning author Rich Larson brings us “To Harvest a Cloud,” a story of exploitation that begins with a classic Western intro—the wandering man comes to town.

Finally, we have “The Ruby Level” by L.L. Madrid, which gives us the dark-and-stormy night we need for a perfect segue into Spooky Season.

Speaking of spooky, our upcoming October issue is the WEIRD HORROR special, a double issue featuring eight horror stories from authors around the world (seven brand new originals, and one reprint). This issue will include an introduction by our guest editors Avra Margariti and Eugenia Tryantafyllou. If you want to get your issue right on October 1st, become a subscriber at Weightless Books or become a paid member of our Patreon page.

Thank you for being with us! Happy Reading!

* * *

Ⓒ Rebecca Halsey

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Tornado Breakers Don’t Cry

by Stefan Alcalá Slater

September 6, 2024

Ethel lassoes the twister but can’t break the beast. It whips her off the ground, carries her a hundred miles before spitting her up.

Edgar, her brother, finds her hours later among a heap of splintered telephone poles and tattered cattle. He offers happy tears at first because she’s alive, stomping about, berating herself for letting the town down.

But then comes the gut hurt and the stammering, because her heart, Edgar sees, has been pierced by a weathervane, the bronze arrowhead stabbing through her jean jacket. Though her eyes are red, no tears fall, because Ethel chews on their father’s words—tornado breakers don’t cry—to dull the pain.

Their eyes meet. Edgar approaches slowly. He tentatively touches the weathervane’s rooster, which perches on her shoulder. There’s no weakness in hurting, he wants to say, but all he offers instead is a whispered question.

“Does it hurt?”

She grins like their father’s ghost is watching. “Nope,” she says. Then she’s off, heading home, complaining about how the twister stole her boots.

All Edgar can do is follow, and smile, carefully.

* * *

The metal rooster crows, every morning, filling Edgar and Ethel’s home with a screeching serenade that’s always the same.

Your father would’ve broken that twister, the rooster says. Would’ve kept it from ruining those homes.

Edgar makes breakfast. Changes Ethel’s bandages. He wants that rooster gone. He offers to call the doctor.

“I got it,” she says, waving him off. And the rooster on her shoulder happily steals hash browns off her plate.

When the town knocks, Ethel answers the door, ignoring the way they all stare at the weathervane. They beg her to get back to breaking, to save their homes. The sky’s madder than ever, it won’t be long before the next one comes.

She reassures them politely; says she’ll be healed real soon.

But when the door closes, Ethel crawls to bed.

Edgar hears the metal bird pecking at her heart, hears it say that their father fell too.

But he always got back up. Always.

Days slip past. Ethel hides under the covers, won’t let Edgar touch the weathervane.

One night Edgar hears the rooster whispering to Ethel.

The disappointment will end, the bird clucks in the dark of her bedroom. If you let yourself die.

And Edgar drops a dinner plate.

* * *

Edgar never could catch a twister.

As a child, he fell ten thousand times, snapping every single bone, because cooking and gardening called to him, not breaking.

So his father ignored him, and focused on Ethel, because she showed a hunger for the thrashing ride—she lassoed dust devils blindfolded, won blue ribbons riding zephyrs at the fair, broke sandstorms to kill time, and all while beaming, shouting, and calling for her brother to watch, please watch.

But somber soldiers, not rodeo clowns, save lives and make parents proud. Their father set about taming Ethel: Boisterous laughter and joyful cursing became—after exhaustive week-long rides, shredded hands, and burst saddle sores—the expressionless, diligent quiet. She gripped that lasso tight, let her father do the talking, and she waited, mostly in vain, for that nod of approval.

But when the moon hung high, Ethel snuck into her brother’s room to tell him worry kept stealing her sleep.

“What if I’m not fearless?” she’d ask.

And Edgar would always reply, “Do you want this?”

If she’d said no, he would’ve run off with her.

But she never did.

So he stayed.

When her doubts screamed, he shushed them down. He cooked, cleaned, and cared because he wanted their home, the one their father built, to be a reminder of genuine good.

And not their father’s words.

* * *

Tornado sirens wail.

Edgar can’t find Ethel. He runs to the basement, and there’s his sister, hiding.

“I can’t do it,” she says, shaking.

Of course, the rooster clucks.

Edgar holds Ethel tightly. He asks, “What’s wrong?”

She goes still. Her mouth works silently, like she’s close to spilling her fear, but she only whimpers. Edgar rocks her. He recalls Ethel as she was, and his stomach sinks: She once rode, roared, and cursed so eagerly that she caused the sky to blush sunset-red, bison to low-laugh, and her father to clench his fists. Edgar wants his sister to become unbroken again, to grin just for herself, but she stays quiet.

The rooster, however, knows her fear.

“Because she’s nothing like him.”

Edgar silences it with a glare.

Then he looks to Ethel. He smiles, warmly, like he’s done a million times before, and he shares the truth that he’s carried in his heart—the truth that has kept him breathing all these years. 

“That’s why I love you,” he says.

Ethel stops shaking.

“You lived to ride once,” he says. “Before that bastard broke your love.”

She smirks, remembering.

“So ride,” Edgar says. “Not for him, not for me. Just for you.”

* * *

The twister was the biggest the town had ever seen.

Most scurried into their basements, but a few were caught aboveground.

They were the ones who saw Ethel return.

Later, while drunkenly standing atop barstools, they’ll say that there was something different about Ethel.

Before, she’d roped like a stony, subdued shade.

But this time, she wore a wolf smile and howled happily, hungrily. The storm clouds, they’ll swear, evaporated, and the wind-whipped prairie grass went respectfully still. She hollered with hurt, or happiness, maybe both, and the twister, stunned by her torrent, knelt like a show pony.

She hopped on its back and rode away from town, singing like some love-sick coyote, yipping so shrilly that every eardrum popped, every window cracked, and every heart stampeded with adoration, all at once.

* * *

Everyone watched Ethel, so no one saw Edgar that day.

No one watched as he left his house for the first in a long while.

He limped to the curb and tossed a broken weathervane in the trash.

“Bastard,” he said, spitting.

Then he went back inside to make dinner.

* * *

Ⓒ Stefan Alcalá Slater

The Hanging of Billy Crabtree

by H. A. Eugene

September 13, 2024

Judge Davis’s voice boomed in the dry heat. “Billy Crabtree, I sentence you to death by hanging for eleven counts of train robbery and three counts of murder. Do you have any last words?”

Billy’s horse stirred in the dirt under the oak tree. His hands were tied and he couldn’t turn his neck. “Judge? Reverend? Sheriff? This noose is too dang tight.”

Judge Davis stepped forward to examine the knot. But Sheriff McMurty, eager to get his morning coffee, slapped the horse’s ass, causing it to bolt. Billy’s body tried to follow, but his head swung under the tree while the noose cinched around his throat, cracking his neck bones. The sleeve of muscle at the base of his skull couldn’t sustain his weight, and a clipped shout issued from somewhere as Billy’s head popped off like a toy doll’s and flew straight into the river.

Reverend Peterson was mid-prayer when Billy’s decapitated body slid off the horse and landed on its butt, bolt-upright, on the ground. Sheriff McMurty and Judge Davis watched, dumbfounded, as dark matter shot out the neck hole—an oil well gone-a-gusher. To their astonishment, what flowed was not blood, but small locomotives—like functional toys, but laden with raw steel and lumber, spiraling out in intestine-like coils and landing, fully operational, in the dirt, leaving tracks behind them. Next came passenger cars, and a concomitant flurry of papers—deeds, mortgages, mill paychecks—all blasting out like a flock of white doves circling above the great orgasm of progress continuing to explode from the bandit’s headless body.

Sheriff McMurty pointed his six-shooter at the gush of horse-drawn combines, diesel tractors, and termite-like laborers digging tunnels. But he was a planet—too enormous to be visible to the streetcars, followed by horseless carriages, with their attendant telegraph lines, Victrolas, chattering machine guns, and dancing girls—all in an endless, tiny chorus line, kicking high, kicking low, off into the blue sky.

Then came the flying contraptions. The sheriff laughed when he realized the sole purpose of these flocks of cylindrical winged train cars was to drop dynamite on hospitals, schools, and cathedrals. His guffaws deepened as they stepped back to make room for their ultimate achievement: a slow-motion mushroom cloud rising from the now ruined city; a triumph of industrial mega-death, all birthed from Billy’s hemorrhaging neck hole.

This mass immolation was its last hurrah. The three men stood, dumbfounded, as Billy Crabtree’s body, an empty husk, fell over.

The sheriff pushed up his brimmed hat and scratched at his hairline. “Years of watching people die had me thinking a man’s head was a spigot. Turns out it’s more of a cork.”

A population of tiny, chanting brown people congregated around the reverend’s boot. The man of the cloth squinted at the procession before bringing his moonlike heel down, grinding their entire culture into the dirt. “The devil has revealed himself today.”

“My ass. What’s devilish is how much complicated shit got caught up in such a worthless jackass.”

Judge Davis spoke to the sheriff. “Union Pacific stopped construction for nearly eighteen months because of the Crabtree gang’s payroll robberies.”

“So?”

“They halted the westward expansion. Meaning young Billy here was that cork that stopped up progress.” The judge’s voice was low, portentous. “Maybe that’s how the future works, Sheriff. That the lowliest of low-lives may alter the flow of history in profound ways.”

The sheriff reasoned that while no bringer of fancy mushroom-shaped death-clouds, surely that Navy Colt holstered at his hip could liberate more futures than a noose. Curious, he aimed its pointy barrel at the judge, whose eyes widened with panic until he pointed the thing at the reverend, instead. Then bang. The bullet entered below the man of God’s wagging chin and punched a hole through the top of his head—out of which flowed more little people, this time, marching with building fragments, like ants carrying leaf-litter. Before the men’s eyes those parts—a cross they turned to lumber; a church bell, to steel slabs—became a school, which in time grew into a great swarming river of youthful promise radiating outward from the reverend’s head wound, like the shimmering silk strands of a spider’s web.

What followed was a train, pulling a fancy caboose with red, white, and blue bunting. Legions of speck-like women ran after it, ripping off corsets and bustles in an endless parade of what the sheriff assumed to be microscopic indecency, but was—in actuality—the birth of a new age. Woman president. Women statesmen. Women scientists. Electric streetcars, and eventually, another flying contraption: this time, an arrow that shot into the sky with a blast not unlike the mushroom cloud, but without the accompanying mass death. Instead, a rainbow of planets formed a map to heaven that spiraled across the valley like a never-ending pearl necklace.

The sheriff whistled. “Well dang…”

Judge Davis fell to his knees. In tears, he dragged the sheriff’s still-smoking gun to his forehead. “Make me a god in death.”

The sheriff regarded the bodies of Billy Crabtree and Reverend Peterson. “Judge Davis.” His voice booming with newfound preacher’s gravitas, he pointed his gun at his own right temple. “Bear witness to the future.”

McMurty squeezed the trigger. The last images in his mind were of dancing girls, world-altering bombs, and arrows to the firmament. But what came out of the wound was two, then three tiny men arguing in the street, kicking dust on each other’s boots. Then a dead body. Then a new saloon, plunked down where the sheriff’s office used to be, dealing faro, blackjack; blaring piano, all hours; liquoring, carousing; men running wild in the streets like coyotes.

The blood dried after the train tracks drifted away. And the general store and saloon went quiet.

Then came tumbleweeds.

Tiny, tiny tumbleweeds.

* * *

Ⓒ H. A. Eugene

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Nosebleed Weather

by Marilyn Hope

September 17, 2024

Twelve-year-old Tibby Wallace takes the winter with him when he dies, but it’s an act of rage. Summer scrapes through the valley overnight. Pollens convulse, lakes flood. Hundreds of snowshoe hares wear their December-whites in the sudden verdure; easy prey for owls, foxes, Mazzie Mako’s feral cats. Soft, torn bodies everywhere. Tibby evokes eight-foot-tall stalks of hogweed from every ribcage, furious and toxic to the touch. But it’s the yarrow that spells murder to me and Cricket.

“Never seen anything natural grow in such straight lines,” Cricket says, studying the row of rusty blossoms that slit across the town limits like papercuts. “Earth don’t plant in processions.”

“Speaking of processions,” I say, nodding to the single-lane road. Mrs. Wallace is driving back from the cemetery in far-off Stanton in her battered station wagon, heading the autocade at a crawl. Everyone’s still got their winter tires on. Wallace rolls down her window, melting snow clinging to the tulle veil of her fascinator: she must’ve stood graveside for a very long time.

“What’s all this?” Wallace asks. “Hemlock?”

“Yarrows,” says Cricket. “Also known as ‘soldier’s woundworts’ or ‘sanguinaries.’”

“All right, Policegirl Posy. What they mean?”

“Mean he’s angry.” Cricket’s thick black hair hangs heavy with sweat and rain. Tibby has been tantruming short storms and grueling sun in turn across the 5.80 square miles of our town all day. “Mean there’s something else he wants us to see.”

“Always got to have the final word, my boy,” says Wallace. She and Tibby had lived in a small house full of fatigue. They were hard-eyed but shy, both of them better hiders than seekers. Mrs. Wallace’s hands are all knuckle as she tightens them around the steering wheel, so hard that the old leather cracks. “We following through or not?”

Cricket and I get back into the squad car and hit the siren. We’re in haphazard plainclothes for today’s mercurial weather. I’m wearing a denim romper and snow boots. Cricket’s in a sage-colored button-down, men’s trousers, and a disposable rain poncho. Badges on ball chains circle our necks.

“Seen this before,” Cricket tells me, dodging hogweed as we drive. “My neighbor’s daughter in Cheongsando went missing one spring. Found the body surrounded by endangered musk deer, the kind that live in the boreal forest, right there in the island green. They died so quickly. Fangs everywhere, like punctuation marks. But for a spell, they brought the taiga with them. Jezo spruce and bog rosemary and fireweed—”

“You know your plants,” I say, startled.

“I know everything that’s got a place,” says Cricket. “And I know a pointed finger when I see one. That girl laid dahurian larch all around the house of the man who killed her. I didn’t have the seniority to convict him then, but I’ve got the numbers and the shadows to back me here. Not that I think Tibby’ll have left much for us to fingerprint. If this sun is any indication.”

Sweat slips down our temples. Cricket pokes the AC vents open.

“Hell-hot,” she says.

By the time we reach the house at the end of the yarrow, tiny red petals have swallowed the doctor entirely—a woman’s silhouette tethered to the ground by a net of stems. Cricket and I draw closer on our tiptoes, seesawing as we try not to step on the flowers’ open faces. So many and so close, the copper clusters of florets smell full and peppery, like someone’s cooking. Spindly white spider lilies canopy her expression, rising from her eyes and nostrils and mouth, as if in censorship.

Cricket presses one hand to the doctor’s wrist for a pulse, then pulls it back with her middle finger raised toward the ceiling.

“Oh, boss, don’t pout,” I say. “Let the boy have his revenge.”

“And what pretty revenge it is,” says Cricket, sullen. “Just wish the achillea came with answers.”

But it doesn’t. Tibby had been back in the phlebotomy chair the last afternoon we spoke. I asked what they were testing for this time, and he replied in that voice of his, dry as dust: “Toxins. The really-hard-to-find ones.”

He liked us—Cricket’s terse concern and thin mouth, my cheerful banter, the silly things I could do with my eyebrows. The way we believed him when he said someone was poisoning him. “I wanted to do what you two do,” he said, the doctor tapping gently at his inner elbow. “I wanted to keep listening after everyone else gives up.”

There was nothing we could say to that, his resignation, our failure. I watched the test tubes fill one after the other, his tiny veins bulging with blood. Almost beautiful.

“Like branches,” I said.

“Like roots,” Tibby replied.

Outside, Mrs. Wallace honks her horn twice. She and the funeral cortege are pulling up to see the damage. I can address the grief in her expression—there are enough ways to say “I’m sorry” and “I know you loved him”—but I can think of no acceptable reply to the fury and shame that twist her mouth when she sees where the flowers are leading her.

Cricket and I walk to the front porch and stand shoulder-to-shoulder, shivering. Now that we’ve found the body, Tibby has released the weather again, fast as a snap of the fingers. Not far beyond the final car, it’s beginning to snow, winter creeping up on the mourners like a slow, slender needle.

* * *

Ⓒ Marilyn Hope

Originally published in X-R-A-Y, October 11, 2021. Reprinted here by permission of the author.

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To Harvest a Cloud

by Rich Larson

September 20, 2024

The cloudman arrived on the driest day of a dry year. Folk lifted their feet carefully as they walked, for the slightest scuffing sent tawny dust billowing into the air. They scarved their mouths against the floating grit and squinted their eyes against the seething sun, which hung in a vast baked-blue sky clear in all directions—save one.

A solitary shred of cloud had appeared, drifting far overhead of a trudging traveler. He wore a grimy yellow cloak, but no hood or cap. His hairless brown scalp looked soft and smooth as a baby’s. Perhaps that was because he walked in the shade, a cool sliver of shadow placed perpetually between himself and the sun.

When the man stopped on the edge of town, so too did the cloud. When he lowered himself to the ground to rest, the cloud lowered in the sky. This tethering could not be coincidence, nor a trick of the sweat-stung eye. The mothers held tightly to their children, but one escaped: a little girl who had never seen a stranger and only rarely saw clouds.

 She ran up to him and collapsed in the cooling sand, peering first at his hairless face and then at the gray vapor swirling above him.

“Welcome to Lachryma,” she said.

* * *

The cloudman called himself Tso. He said he had come from far, and sought farther, but would stay and rest for a season if permitted. He asked for wood to build and seed to till. They hospitably gave him both, though they told him it was still far too hot to plant.

He set to work in the shade, which grew darker as the cloud above him thickened. Some folk would not place foot in this unnatural shadow; others helped him build his small hut just to pass time in the coolness. They did not help him seed the garden, as it was not the season, but their eyes flickered from the parched soil to the dark cloud swirling above.

When all was finished, the cloudman drew a bone needle from his pocket. He pricked his thumb and let fall a single vermillion drop. The instant his blood pocked the sand, the gray cloud overhead buckled and split. Cool rain showered the thatched roof of his bower, drenched the soil of his garden, pattered against his bare scalp. No mothers could keep their children from dancing through the sudden downpour; some mothers joined in.

Folk rubbed their chins and murmured: witchstuff or no, this Tso, this cloudman, might be a very good person to have in town.

* * *

In exchange for small kindnesses, Tso would bring his shade to where it was most needed. In exchange for greater kindnesses—tools, food, furnishings—he would puncture his skin and his cloud. Months passed. The gardens of Lachryma flourished early, and in such abundance that the excess was sold to their less fortunate neighbors.

As they planted their seeds in rich dark soil, new ambitions took root as well. Word had spread of the town where it rained once per week, by the letting of blood, and this brought new settlers and new mouths to feed. When an old engineer from the coast spoke of irrigation and reservoirs, folk listened. When rumors spread of invasion from the north, by the roving tribes jealous of Lachryma’s sudden wealth, folk shuddered.

They went to visit the cloudman, whose house was now closer to the town’s heart than at its fingertips, and petitioned him. He had brought them great prosperity, which they appreciated, but he had also brought them hungry masses and dangerous enemies. 

It was his responsibility, then, to keep all fed and safe.

* * *

They presented him with a beautiful bone knife, honed sharp as the needle, and asked for only a little more blood: enough rainwater to mix clay for a reservoir and to fill it, enough to fashion Lachryma a protective moat like those of the southern fortresses.

The cloudman refused. He said a season had passed, and he had bled enough, and would soon continue on his journey. So, for the good of the city—for Lachryma was sprawling in all directions, growing without pause, and would not long be a town—the cloudman was captured.

They were not cruel, at first. He was allowed to stay in the house they had helped him build, though under guard. They took him from site to site in a comfortable wagon. They sliced shallowly, and a physician from the coast treated and bandaged each cut. They assured him that once the moat and reservoir were full, he would be permitted to leave.

But plans were made for a second reservoir, and then for an aqueduct that could capture Tso’s downpour and carry it all across the dry land. The blood-letting became more frequent. The cloudman grew paler, sickly. Lachryma became a mighty city, mills and factories powered by churning water, towering stone walls swathed in verdant vines.

The storm came without warning. 

* * *

Today, Lachryma stands empty beneath a soft rain. It has been a decade since lashing lightning and high wind chewed its buildings to rubble, since the floodwaters turned its streets to corpse-crammed canals. All the drowned bodies are long dissolved, save one.

One, somehow preserved, remains chained to the wall in a flooded house. Yellow cloak billowing around his scrawny body. Bone knife clenched in rigor mortis fist. A look of exhaustion on his face, and a wide smile slashed beneath his jaw.

Far from derelict Lachryma—past the bloated ghosts of its inhabitants drifting through the air, past the neighbors who dare not step foot beneath its crown of dark clouds, past the southern fortress-cities who reveled in its destruction but now shudder at its name—a baby is born beneath a ray of perpetual sun.

They will grow, and they will wander. They will stay and rest where permitted. They will hope that maybe, maybe, this season will be different.

* * *

Ⓒ Rich Larson

Comments

  1. James Miller says:
    September 20, 2024 at 9:34 am
    Really beautiful and imaginative. I’d enjoy seeing this universe played out in more detail.
  2. Yvonne Eliot says:
    September 22, 2024 at 7:02 pm
    Lyrical cautionary tale.
  3. Joule says:
    October 1, 2024 at 3:41 pm
    Larson does such beautiful work in such a short space. This was so sinister and effective, I loved the unexpected time jump at the end.
  4. D.A. Xiaolin Spires says:
    November 3, 2024 at 8:22 am
    Wow, this was haunting and lovely! I didn’t expect the dark turn since I was captured by the halcyon imagery and the beautiful prose, but enjoyed it!

Leave a Reply

The Ruby Level

by L.L. Madrid

September 27, 2024

Though Penny hadn’t used it in weeks, the skillet was crusted with meat. As she scrubbed, yellow bits of sponge tumbled into the water. When she glanced to the window over the sink, a gasp tore from her chest as she met the eye of a buck. He was in profile, so close that a velvety antler nearly scraped the glass. He didn’t turn his head, though the black star of his pupil drifted, regarding her.

“Ruby?” Penny called. She was giving her little sister too much credit. Ruby was gone and deer weren’t uncommon. Still, it was unsettling to see one on the first anniversary. A breath later, the buck bounded away. A warm drop hit Penny’s bare foot.

She shut her eyes.

It’s not blood.

Water dripped from her fingertips. Suds slipped around her toes.

* * *

A year ago, Penny watched herself run from the bathroom, shrieking as red rivulets cut through her hair, to her face, to her expensive Brooklinen towel. She cringed at the cartoonish slip-and-slide on the hall rug, stomach squeezing at the final frame: face down, ass up. The censoring emoji only added to her humiliation.

Ruby wheezed with laughter. “I didn’t think dye and corn syrup in the shower head would get you but—”

“Delete it.”

“No way. It’s at half a million views.”

“Get rid of it!”

Ruby frowned. “Why can’t you be happy for me?”

“What if my clients see this?”

“You can’t stand that I’m pursuing my dreams while you’re an accountant.”

“Accounts manager.” Penny hated how her voice shook. “Tell me, what does TikTok pay you to post nasty pranks?”

“Jesus, Penny. Stop taking everything so seriously.”

* * *

Thunder crashed, rolling over the roof, causing Penny to jump from the couch. Her head throbbed, a migraine coming on; she needed water. In the kitchen, the scent of rotten eggs—no, sulfur—wafted in the air along with a fast, familiar ticking.

She dashed to the stove. All four burners were in the ignite position, spitting gas. She spun the knobs. Hesitated. What if the buck…?

Penny rushed to the window and forced her hands to push up the glass. No buck, no storm clouds. Nothing. Don’t be stupid.

But overhead, the bulb flickered like lightning, then popped.

Penny pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. This was Ruby’s doing.

An hour before bed, Penny doubled her dose of melatonin. Waiting for the tug of sleep, she opened her laptop. Netflix’s menu flickered; the suggested thumbnails reflected Ruby’s appetite. After Penny shared her login, her sister took over. Like always.

She clicked to the home screen, where two users’ icons appeared. A trickle of dread carved its way down her spine.

Ruby never created a profile.

“Stress,” Penny spoke the reassuring word aloud. She blinked, and re-checked the screen, relief filling her as she saw only her lone avatar, the default smirk.

* * *

“I know what you did,” Ruby said.

Penny glanced at her sister. Ruby stared ahead, watching the rain splatter the windshield.

Penny was too exhausted to fight. It was three in the morning. She’d already driven an hour to get Ruby, who’d refused to explain her emergency or accept an Uber.

“How could you?”

Penny gripped the wheel and peered out into the black, struggling to see past the pale beams of the headlights.

“You texted Ryan. Told him to leave me ’cause I was never gonna change.” Ruby shrilled that last part, an imitation of Penny.

“Oh. So, he broke up with you?” She swallowed the word finally. Ruby was a drama tsunami, flattening anyone in her path.

“No. I went through his phone.”

This was why Ruby had her navigating a forest road during a thunderstorm? Penny gritted her teeth. “Well, he didn’t take my advice. Why have me come get you?”

“You thought I’d let that slide? You’re jealous. You—”

Penny’s fingers twisted the volume knob, drowning out her sister.

“Lookout!” Ruby yelled, pointing out the windshield at a glowing orb.

Just ahead.

A deer.

A yellow eye.

* * *

Penny scrambled in bed, raking tear-matted hair from her face.

“It was dark. The road was slick. There wasn’t time to break.” The words rasped like a prayer.

She flipped on her phone, a friendly blue specter. “It was an accident. I didn’t kill Ruby. It was the buck.”

The phone read 3:06 AM. All her nightmares concluded at the same time: the time of the accident. Her body made a routine of terror.

A coincidence.

The phone vibrated. No one had called her at an unreasonable hour since that night.

It convulsed as Scam Likely flashed across the screen.

It was stupid to answer, but she needed someone. Anyone.

“Hello?”

“Good evening. I’m calling on behalf of the Sisters of Mercy.”

Penny’s lungs iced over.

“Will you pledge to help the sisters? We’re accepting donations at various price points. May I put you down for the diamond level, a one-time donation of $1,000? For that amount, we add your name to the prayer list and send a rosary decal.”

“It’s you, isn’t it?”

“Or perhaps the sapphire level of $100 is more in line with your financial ability? You won’t be eligible for a decal, but you’ll still be in the sisters’ prayers.”

“Please, you sound like my sister. She died last year. Ruby—”

“Oh, the Ruby level,” the voice purred. “Patrons who donate at the Ruby level no longer have nightmares.”

“Oh, god.” Penny pressed her hand against the words slipping from her lips like warm droplets. Her fingertips came away crimson.

“I’ll put you down for a one-time donation of your eternal companionship.”

The phone struck the hardwood floor, the shattered screen a mosaic of night-black glass. In each shard, a yellow eye.

* * *

Ⓒ L.L. Madrid

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