Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories by Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, Paul Tremblay, Mercedes M. Yardley, Richard Thomas, Damien Angelica Walters, Kevin Lucia Page A
Authors: Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, Paul Tremblay, Mercedes M. Yardley, Richard Thomas, Damien Angelica Walters, Kevin Lucia
Ads: Link
moving drugs; they certainly never lacked for good weed, or molly. She’d been proud of herself for figuring it out. (She was smart—people told her that, too.) When Mason had invited her camping with them for the weekend, she’d been even prouder, had felt a fierce and soaring freedom as they hurtled east out of Reno, hip-hop they let her choose playing on the Jeep’s stereo, Mason’s hand on her thigh. This, she had thought, was how she wanted her life to be.
She’d met Mason three weeks before. He had come up to her at a house party, walking past girls who were older and prettier. He was beautiful: full-sleeve tats and laughing eyes; a beard thick enough to twine her fingers into. He knew how to dance. His presence seemed to make her high.
When her mother met him, she said, That boy’s bad news.
But her mother hung out with bikers, and was sometimes gone for days at a time; her life was a mess, her judgment worse. Hannah had sworn to do better. She got okay grades; she liked to party, sure, but she was—had always been—careful with boys. Her girlfriends made fun of her for being a virgin, but, god—Hannah knew better than any of them that if you weren’t careful, you’d end up living in a shitty apartment in a shitty Reno neighborhood, with a teenager of your own, dealing blackjack, your life never again your own. Hannah was going to graduate high school; she was going to go to Portland State, study design.
Last weekend, she and Mason had fooled around a little on her bed. When she’d told him she wanted to take things slow, he’d laughed and said, Really?
Really, she said, re-buttoning her blouse.
An old-fashioned girl, huh?
She didn’t tell him about her virginity; she didn’t like people, let alone boys, knowing she was afraid of anything. She pushed him back on the bed and gave him a hand job—she knew how—and that seemed to make him happy.
After kissing her goodnight, though, he said, I’m not a very old-fashioned guy, you know?
I know, she said. She kissed him again, made up her mind, and said, Soon.
***
The abandoned town was named Dominion, and was a long way from anywhere inhabited—they’d driven for eighty miles on two-lane blacktop without seeing any life but a couple of distant ranches, and big rigs headed north to Idaho. The town wasn’t even marked by a sign. Kyle simply turned off the highway onto a rutted dirt road that curved slowly away to the east, around the base of a craggy mountain. Dominion was two miles farther along, a small clump of structures and trees circled by a high chain-link fence and bullet-pocked NO TRESPASSING signs. Kyle parked in front of the fence’s gates and turned off the engine. To the west were the mountain’s abrupt gray cliffs; to the east was a vast, bone-white playa, followed by another swell of mountains, all of it as empty of people as an ocean.
Hannah knew about the town—a few Reno kids every year came out here to get drunk or stoned and scare themselves, or camp overnight, or both. It was a thing to do, and now they were doing it too.
It’s spooky, but it’s cool, Mason had told Hannah, when he’d invited her along. He and Kyle had been there before. You can find all kinds of weird stuff out there in the houses.
He told her the town had been built by a mining company in the 1950s, after they’d discovered a gold seam, a big one, under the mountain. The mine hired a few dozen men from Reno to work the vein, and built a suburb for them, with its own school and churches and store and golf course, so the men could bring along their families.
Then in the 70s the gold had dried up, and just like that the town was dead, the residents moved out. The company cared enough about the property to erect a fence around the entire town, and the mineworks another mile away, but not enough to guard it. A liability thing, Mason had told her, in case some idiot dies out there. Every once in a while a highway patrolman might drive by and report
She’d met Mason three weeks before. He had come up to her at a house party, walking past girls who were older and prettier. He was beautiful: full-sleeve tats and laughing eyes; a beard thick enough to twine her fingers into. He knew how to dance. His presence seemed to make her high.
When her mother met him, she said, That boy’s bad news.
But her mother hung out with bikers, and was sometimes gone for days at a time; her life was a mess, her judgment worse. Hannah had sworn to do better. She got okay grades; she liked to party, sure, but she was—had always been—careful with boys. Her girlfriends made fun of her for being a virgin, but, god—Hannah knew better than any of them that if you weren’t careful, you’d end up living in a shitty apartment in a shitty Reno neighborhood, with a teenager of your own, dealing blackjack, your life never again your own. Hannah was going to graduate high school; she was going to go to Portland State, study design.
Last weekend, she and Mason had fooled around a little on her bed. When she’d told him she wanted to take things slow, he’d laughed and said, Really?
Really, she said, re-buttoning her blouse.
An old-fashioned girl, huh?
She didn’t tell him about her virginity; she didn’t like people, let alone boys, knowing she was afraid of anything. She pushed him back on the bed and gave him a hand job—she knew how—and that seemed to make him happy.
After kissing her goodnight, though, he said, I’m not a very old-fashioned guy, you know?
I know, she said. She kissed him again, made up her mind, and said, Soon.
***
The abandoned town was named Dominion, and was a long way from anywhere inhabited—they’d driven for eighty miles on two-lane blacktop without seeing any life but a couple of distant ranches, and big rigs headed north to Idaho. The town wasn’t even marked by a sign. Kyle simply turned off the highway onto a rutted dirt road that curved slowly away to the east, around the base of a craggy mountain. Dominion was two miles farther along, a small clump of structures and trees circled by a high chain-link fence and bullet-pocked NO TRESPASSING signs. Kyle parked in front of the fence’s gates and turned off the engine. To the west were the mountain’s abrupt gray cliffs; to the east was a vast, bone-white playa, followed by another swell of mountains, all of it as empty of people as an ocean.
Hannah knew about the town—a few Reno kids every year came out here to get drunk or stoned and scare themselves, or camp overnight, or both. It was a thing to do, and now they were doing it too.
It’s spooky, but it’s cool, Mason had told Hannah, when he’d invited her along. He and Kyle had been there before. You can find all kinds of weird stuff out there in the houses.
He told her the town had been built by a mining company in the 1950s, after they’d discovered a gold seam, a big one, under the mountain. The mine hired a few dozen men from Reno to work the vein, and built a suburb for them, with its own school and churches and store and golf course, so the men could bring along their families.
Then in the 70s the gold had dried up, and just like that the town was dead, the residents moved out. The company cared enough about the property to erect a fence around the entire town, and the mineworks another mile away, but not enough to guard it. A liability thing, Mason had told her, in case some idiot dies out there. Every once in a while a highway patrolman might drive by and report
Similar Books
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past
Jennifer Teege, Nikola Sellmair
