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

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    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