Check out the winner of our second place prize in this year’s short story contest: Kyle Robinson of Kingston, Ontario!
About Kyle Robinson
Kyle Robinson is a Canadian novelist and short story author in the horror, fantasy, and realistic fiction genres.
Thorn River
Thorn River lent credence to one of August Maynard’s favourite proverbs—the map ain’t the land—for the town had erased itself from all of them.
“Thorn River can only be found at high noon,” Kippinaw said, “if it appears at all.” August lit his cigar. “Sounds like you’ve visited.”
A shadow fell over Kippinaw, then danced when he lit his own tobacco. “Briefly.” “You didn’t take the money?”
“Just get in, get the gold, and get out before dark, gunslinger.”
“I aim to.”
The next day, August rode west. He found Thorn River surrounded by mountains, just where Kippinaw said it would be.
“It’s quiet,” he said to the horse.
Buttermilk snorted.
“Go on now. Let’s get this over with.”
She trotted forwards. Cabins that anyone could be watching from formed the outer ring of Thorn River. A stone road bisecting the town guided them by a textiles store, a telegraph office, and a post office. The mountains and the river winding through them should have moistened the air, but every breath bit at August’s nose and throat.
Something moved in the corner of his eye. August drew his pistol but when he turned, the post office window was empty. A crow screamed overhead.
“Come on out,” August called. “I don’t give warning shots and I don’t like being startled.” His demand echoed, then faded.
Crisp wind rolled into town. A chime tittered.
I am alone.
“Goddamn you Kippinaw,” August muttered.
He used the position of the sun to guess at the time: one o’clock.
“That can’t be right. We only just got here.”
August looked back along the road, retracing their steps. Empty windows stared. The wind mutated between laughing and shouting for him to leave, leave now, and don’t come back. What had Kippinaw found here?
Get ahold of yourself.
All at once, August felt so tired he could not sit up straight. The sudden exhaustion almost caused him to panic, but in the next moment he discovered he lacked the energy for such a reaction. His eyelids fluttered. His business in Thorn River no longer seemed urgent.
His eyes closed, and dreams rushed in. Cordelia and his daughters swirled.
Wake
Dice, cards, and the roulette wheel flashed, clattered, and spun. These engines of his destruction had caught him, he wasn’t safe anywhere, not from them.
Up
“You’re looking for Thorn River Savings and Loans.” Kippinaw said. “Tread carefully. I saw… It made me forget things.”
“What does that mean? What made you forget?”
Kipinnaw looked up. His terror was juvenile in its baldness.
“The town.”
WAKE UP.
August’s eyes opened. The shadows had lengthened. How long had he been asleep? In the bowels of Thorn River, something giggled.
There is something bad here.
They came upon the bank not long after that. August was almost sorry to find it. “Thorn River Savings and Loans,” he read, dismounting. He tied Buttermilk to a nearby wooden post and approached the entrance. The porch squealed underfoot. A sign hung on the front door and August squinted to read it.
Hours: 8am to 5pm. Monday to Friday.
Be out before dark.
He gripped the brass knob and something heavy thumped against the inside. “Hey!” August called. “Who’s there?”
No reply.
He checked the sky. The sun insisted, impossibly, that it was four o’clock. There was still time to escape, but if he returned home empty-handed, the sharks who called him ‘amigo’ and ‘vaquero’ would cut off his fingers, and much worse afterwards.
He put his hand on the door knob again, then froze. The sign had changed. GO HOME, GUNSLINGER.
“I didn’t see that.”
August opened the door.
Towers of gold stretched from floor to ceiling. He grabbed two fistfuls of coin, setting off a dozen glittering avalanches. He heard himself laughing.
A minute later, he’d filled the first burlap sack. He tied it to Buttermilk’s saddle, then grabbed the rest of his bags and returned to Thorn River Savings and Loans. He half expected the coins to have vanished, but the gold was just as he’d left it.
Cognizant of the setting sun, August hopped over the teller’s counter. He found shares for the Clear River Company, Robb-Daniels, King George Flour, and a dozen others. August didn’t recognize all of the company names, but he could get better than fifty dollars for each share of Robb-Daniels. He and Buttermilk departed Thorn River as the sun dipped behind the mountains. They carried more than two hundred thousand dollars of confederate gold, shares, and bonds.
“Farewell, ghosts! You have my thanks!”
August rode all night, wary of roving bandidos looking for trouble, but he made it home unmolested by sun-up the next morning. After showing his haul to Cordelia, the family held a celebration. The party paused when August rode into Carson City to pay his debtors, and continued in earnest upon his return.
The following years saw the trajectory of the Maynard family pivot towards the clouds. August became the largest shareholder in the Clear River Company and moved his family to a penthouse in the burgeoning city of New York. Daisy, who had been destined to wed a forty-year-old cattle farmer called
Beau Hicks, attended Harvard and married a lawyer after graduation. Abigale wrote poetry, and was invited to England to dine with the Queen. She stayed in London teaching at a private school, and wrote to her parents often.
August Maynard retired a multi-millionaire. When the silent cough found him, he was eighty-five years old. Mrs. Maynard took care of him as best she could, but sobbed when she thought he was asleep. He reminded Cordelia how strongly he loved her, and that if now was his time, he would go to God with gratitude.
Then came the end. As the afternoon faded to evening, August’s nurse fetched the Maynard family. Cordelia sobbed. Daisy and Abigale spoke niceties while their faces glistened with tears. “Goodbye my family,” August said, closing his eyes. “I love you all.”
“Goodbye, dad,” the girls said together.
“Goodbye, sweetheart,” said Cordelia.
“Gunslinger,” said Kipinnaw, “it’s nearly dark.”
August’s heart seized. He opened his eyes.
He stood at the entrance to Thorn River Savings and Loans.
Still Open
“No,” he said through a younger man’s voice he barely recognized. “No.” Behind him, a horse whinnied.
Buttermilk, he remembered, his mind whirling. And this is…
He was not the retired executive of a financing company, the name of which was already fading, but a cowboy, drowning in debt.
Get in, get the gold, and get out before dark.
He turned westward. The sun hovered above a mountain, ready to plunge itself into the tip. Inhuman laughter rose from the empty streets.
There is something very bad here.
With the last wisps of his old life slipping away, August opened the door to Thorn River Savings and Loans and stepped inside.
In another life, or a dream, this lobby had been stuffed with treasures. Now the windows were boarded over, and aside from the teller’s counter, it was empty.
The door slammed behind him and rattled its frame.
August spun, drawing his revolver, but there was no door. There were no windows anymore either, only a flat wall. Darkness crowded in.
“Gunslinger,” something whispered.
“Who’s there? Show yourself!”
The same tinny laughter as before rose, ,but this time it grew louder until August holstered his weapon to clamp his hands to over his ears.
August shot. Smoke filled his nostrils.
“Let me out!” he shouted. “I won’t take anything! I want out!”
The laughter became outrageous, whooping and crackling.
“Go to the light,” the whisper repeated, somehow audible over the laughter. What light? August thought, and in reply, a pale green glow emerged from beyond the teller’s counter. He followed the source, staggering deeper into the bank. He went through a hallway, and around
tens of corners. At some point, he crossed over from the bank into a world where flesh walls pulsed with red veins.
The ghost stood waiting for him at the end. Emerald light poured from his eyes. “Gunslinger…” Kippinaw moaned. A bullethole gaped from the Chief’s forehead. “What are you?” August asked. “You aren’t Kippinaw.”
Kippinaw did not argue. Instead, he held out a briefcase.
“For you.”
“No thanks.”
“Take it,” Kipinnaw groaned, but when August looked up from the note, the chief transformed into a grotesquery of his wife. Cordelia’s fingers were missing and she held the briefcase between her palms. Strips of translucent skin hung in ribbons. Her green eyes burned.
“You just had to play your cards and throw your dice!” she hissed. “Will you bet me next? Whore your wife away when you can’t roll snake eyes? You couldn’t get much for a crone, but your daughters— ”
August snatched the briefcase. Cordelia fell silent..
Thirteen slots had been cut into the red interior. Four were empty, and silver coins marked each of the others.
“One per customer,” said Cordelia.
August lifted a silver. According to the inscription, it had been minted in 1804. The profile of some queen had been carved here, and a small green gemstone winked in her eye. On the other side, a range of mountains served as foreground to a setting sun. two words ran along the rim: Time’s Up. August pocketed the coin and ran. Behind him, the demon of Thorn River transformed into a zombified Daisy.
“You’re not my father,” it wailed.
Nothing stopped him on his way out of the Savings and Loans, and August emerged into the dying afternoon to discover Buttermilk was gone. There were no signs of a struggle.
He looked toward the mountains, searching for the sun. There was time to escape, but precious little.
Oblivion awaits, said a voice in August’s head that did not belong to him.
August took off at a sprint, moving across Thorn River the way he had come. A headless girl waved from the cracked saloon window. Something with clustered eyes on stalks oozed from the post office onto the street. A dog with six legs barked from the closest cabin, then turned itself inside out.
August observed these impossibilities from the corner of his eye and kept running. These were distractions, or tests, or real monsters, but as long as got out before dark, he would be safe. “Out before dark,” he said.
The many-eyed thing screeched.
“Out before dark, out before dark.”
The street turned to human bones. Skulls and femurs exploded under his boots. August kept his balance and kept running. He was almost out.
A horse neighed, and in spite of his terror, August found himself staring. Buttermilk was there in the window of the telegraph office, but she was not alone.
Good horsey. Good horsey.
Something vast and malevolent had her constricted in black tentacles. The creature was too large for the building and it caused the walls to jut and whine. Pus frothed between the boards. Buttermilk gave one final holler and disappeared beneath an ink-coloured appendage that left a trail of slime on the window.
Good horsey. Good horsey.
Something sharp grabbed August’s ankle. He yelped, tore himself free, and ran out of Thorn River.
Behind him, the sun went out.
He ran until his legs quit. He fell, sure that some horror would fall upon him, and uttered a quick prayer that the end would be painless.
Nothing fell upon him.
August opened his eyes and staggered to his feet. The whole world lay before him, begging him home.
He turned back to Thorn River.
If monsters, wendigos, or devils lurked here, they were hidden. The windows were dark, but not from the wet skin of some hulking hunger. The road was stone again. Nothing oozed from the post office. The splayed dog had disappeared.
A horse cried out, shattering the silence, and was cut off with a wet crunch.
August turned and ran. Thin laughter echoed in his ears and a coin jostled in his pocket.
