A DARKNESS PALE

SATAN

…Husker called Reba’s husband to try to get her in trouble, and ended up humiliating himself yet again…

Satan

When Clay Nathan accidently hammered a steel plate into his thumb and split it in half, he said, “Wow.” The pain was sharp and immediate and very quickly blood spouted over the section of tarp he was working on.

Carefully, as he was on the side of a roof and under another tarp, he crawled backwards to the ladder and undid himself from the safety harness. Deke Jones, his foreman, slapped him on the back of his Carhart hooded jacket and told him he’d finally popped his cherry. At the emergency room, the doctor was less enthusiastic. He silently stitched Clay’s thumb back together and sent him home with a bottle of Vicodin.

Clay tossed the pills in a snow bank. The pain was still rich and forceful and made him feel clear and zippy, like he was back on the trail, pumped up with vigilance, prepared for whatever was around the next corner. He was also happy to get a little vacation.

He and his wife Reba had moved to Portland because knew they knew they couldn’t live outside on the trail anymore, not with the direction the weather was headed in. When they’d first arrived in town he’d crushed it, getting on the roofing crew, getting house and for the first time in his life having more money than he knew what to do with. But then, so what. Everything felt stifling and everyone was so soft. Soft people, even the dudes he worked with. Frock coats and waxy beards and centipedes and bullshit. They’d turned the inevitable into an affectation. He shaved everyday now and only wore Carhart but worried he was getting soft too. On the trail he’d been as hard as they come. He’d been the king. He’d been the prophet of Satan. But he couldn’t go back to the trail. And his crazy-ass wife was no help. She’d gone in another of her crazy-ass directions. He didn’t know if she’d completely sold out or just flipped out for good. You could never tell with Reba.

His block was blacked out. Clay thought, okay, fine by me. The plan was to maybe slap on the headphones and crank some Appolloyn, or early Sabbath to further facilitate his contemplations. Sitting in the dark and quiet was also fine, maybe downing a couple of beers and getting to it that way. Through the windshield of his carriage he saw his living room was lit up. Reba must be home early. Well, she wouldn’t be staying long, she never did these days. He parked his purple metal flake Kia out front and walked the horse to the rear stable. Reba kept her skis in the stable. He didn’t see them. Even if she was shit-twisted drunk, she wouldn’t leave her skis anywhere else. She loved those fucking skis and always took them back here and cleaned them so they’d stay in top condition.

No way Reba was home. Goldilocks was in the house. Or they’d eaten all the porridge and hadn’t bothered to turn the lights out when they split. “Fucking Goldilocks,” Clay muttered, more intrigued than alarmed. He hoped they were still in there.

Feeling very much like papa bear, he crept in through the back door. There was some sort of construction going on in the front. Expert at not making a sound, he cracked opened his fridge and plucked out two Desert Ice ales. He bit off the bottle caps and drank them quickly. He stepped into his living room to behold a runty little twit intently dismantling his mantelpiece. The twit was using his tool box, which to Clay seemed especially rude.

Clay unsheathed his trusty nine-inch hunting knife and burped, getting the twit’s attention, who jumped and then sized Clay up, and lapsed into an affected indifference. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Clay said back at him. “You don’t look like Goldilocks. Who are you.”

“I’m Jacob.”

Who would make that name up? There was something about the name… Clay couldn’t think. “Why are you taking apart my mantel piece?”

A sigh from Jacob. “Looking for your money. It sounded hollow.”

“I keep my money in the stable out back. Probably not that hard to find if you’ve got half a brain.”

“The stable. Good to know, thanks.” Jacob looked down at the hammer and chisel he held, like he had just noticed them.

“Put my tools down,” Clay commanded with no mirth. He was squeezing the bone handle of his knife like it was grip strengthener. He didn’t feel soft. He liked it.

Jacob obliged.

“You like to suck cock?” Clay asked.

Jacob shrugged. “I mean, I’m totally your bitch now, so, yeah, sure.”

Clay sheathed his knife and cupped the crotch of his carpenter pants. “Come on over.”

Jacob obliged again and Clay grabbed him, put him in head lock and broke his neck. Just like being on the trail again. Squeeze and twist and jerk until you hear the snap and pop.

He stripped the twit and emptied his pockets, finding nothing of interest except a little blue fairy figurine. He wrapped the dude up in a bedsheet and dumped him in the trunk of his Kia, then hitched up his horse and slowly rode east, into the woods. The snow was nuts, visibility barely ten feet. When the surroundings started feeling comfortably remote Clay stopped, threw the twit over his shoulder and hiked into the trees. He knew there were other dead people out here. He couldn’t see them but was sure their bodies were tangled under the snow. Drifted or murdered - it no longer mattered. He dumped the twit and his clothes and headed home.

It was his first kill since he left the trail. He felt invigorated. He felt a blast of inspiration. The Church of Satan. That was what he needed to do - start up a chapter of the Church Of Satan. Take was he’d started on the trail and blow it up, build his own church. Show the centipede was darkness was all about.

He stopped off for a six pack and drank it all before he got home. In their little backyard he pissed into the snow, the fucking blue snow.

Reba was actually home this time. Staring the mantel. She held the blue figurine, which he’d decided to keep as a trophy.

“Hey babe,” Clay said.

“What the fuck?”

She meant the figurine, holding it in front of his face. “You’re fucking him. That’s why he’s gotten so fucking distant.”

In that perfect drunk way, Clay understood everything. “You mean Goldilocks? That dude’s a fag.”

“You’re a fucking fag.” Her eyes went to his hand. “What?”

She wasn’t talking about his bandaged thumb. That was his other hand. She meant his knife, which he’d unsheathed again. Man, he was so lifted right now he didn’t know what he was doing. And suddenly horny.

“I’m just feeling good.” He told her. “I fucking figured it out – with a little help from your little friend. Ha.” He began stroking the tip of the knife against his crotch. “You remember how we used to do it? How we’d be all covered in blood?”

“I’m not into that satanic shit anymore. That’s so dumb. That’s just another way to do death.”

Boy, she was wasted too, he could tell by the flat shine to her eyes, by the way her cheeks were flushed. And she was pissed. Watch out. Her tense body - the energy she was exporting to him said she was as pissed as he’d ever seen her. She’d probably come at him in a second. He’d be surprised if she didn’t.   

“This is getting good,” he said, still rubbing his knife against the side of his crotch, loving the tickle of the knife’s blade against the denim. Licking his lips, and then thinking, Oh, wait. Because he’d accidently cut himself. He’d cut himself very deep. He kept his knife razor sharp and there was a cut in his jeans. He must have cut right into the artery in his inner thigh. He knew this was the case from the blood spraying out. Much worse than with his thumb. He could feel it pumping out of him. It felt mesmerizing.

“Wow,” Clay said for the second time that night.

…Husker and Reba mix booze, hate, and sex, creating some violent complications…