the general store, the prospects didn’t look good. Several blocks down the street, she noticed a tavern—CROSSROADS, the sign read. Hmm, a redneck bar. Bet I’d get some real funky looks in there. That would even be a bigger mistake, and even if they served her a few months short of her twenty-first birthday, she knew she didn’t need to be drinking. She hadn’t had a beer since the night her sister died.
“Hey, girl....”
Cassie turned at the comer of the last shop. An old red pickup truck was parked there; she hadn’t realized until just now that someone was sitting in it.
Another cliché. From the driver’s seat, a sun-weathered man in a ZZ Top hat was staring at her. No shirt beneath the overalls, a couple of days since his last shave. He raised a can of beer from between his legs, sipped it. Cassie frowned when she noticed the brand: Dixie.
“Bet old man Hull shit hisself when you walked in,” the man said. “Folks in these parts don’t take too kindly to strangers.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Cute tatt, by the way,” he commented of the tiny half-rainbow tattoo around her navel.
“Thanks.”
“I gotta coupla tatts myself, but believe me, you don’t wanna see ’em.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“My name’s Roy. Can’t shake hands proper, well, on account....”
That’s when Cassie noticed that his right arm was missing. It was just a nub. Then she saw that the pickup was a stick shift.
“How, uh, how do you drive?”
He grinned. “Practice. See, I joined the army ’bout ten years ago, thought it’d get me out of this cracker town. All they did was send me right back a bit later, left my arm in Iraq. Goddamn Saddam. Oh, I got some of his boys, though, yes sir.”
I’m sure you did, Cassie thought.
“Lemme guess. You take one look at me and think I gotta be just another piss-poor drunk redneck on welfare. That why you’re not tellin’ me your name? You don’t seem like the type to hold somethin’ against a fella on account of the way he looks.”
“My name’s Cassie,” she said. “I just moved here from Washington, D.C.”
He laughed over his beer. “Well you sure picked a dumbass place to move to. Ain’t nothin’ out here. Aw, shee-it. I’ll bet it’s you who moved into the Blackwell place, huh?”
“Yes, with my father,” she said and instantly regretted it. Smart, Cassie. You just told this PERFECT STRANGER where you live. He seemed nice, though, in his own hayseed kind of way, and she felt sorry for him about his arm.
“Yeah, I know this guy who works up there with his ma. Jervis. His ma’s all right, but you keep an eye on Jervis. He likes to peek in windows’n such. Did thirty days in Luntville jail for peepin’ on little girls at the middle school.”
Charming, Cassie thought and frowned.
“Oh, I don’t mean to scare you none. The county court makes him take some fancy drug as part of his probation. Keeps his mind off things like that. Just stick a wad of paper in your keyhole, if ya know what I mean.”
“I appreciate the sound advice.”
“Now, if I was you I’d be more worried ’bout the house itself. That place just has some bad vibes.”
The comment perked her up. “Let me guess. It’s haunted, right?”
“Naw,” he said and sipped more beer. A moment passed. “It’s a damn lot worse than just being haunted. You know. On account of what went on there.”
“All right, you’ve got me hooked now,” she admitted.
“Come on, let’s go fer a ride. I’ll tell you all about the place if ya like.”
Cassie just looked at him, and thought, I’m really not stupid and naive enough to get into a pickup truck with a one-armed half-drunk redneck I just met, am I?
“Okay, Roy. Let’s go,” she said, and got in.
(III)
It turned out that Roy could drive a stick-shift better than she could. The flash of his left hand to the stick only took a second before it was back firmly on the wheel.
“Peel me off one’a them