Twitch and Die! (Lost DMB Files #26)

By David Mark Brown

If Sergio Leone and Quentin Tarantino had a book baby!

"Forget emergency landing procedures. When reading Twitch and Die! all one can do is hold on for dear life."

"Disguised as double-fisted pulp fiction, the Lost DMB Files resurrect a forgotten history. The life's work of author David Mark Brown, mysteriously disappeared in the 1930's, has only recently taken on new life surrounding the controversy that these "Lost" files are more than mere fiction. Let the reader decide for her or himself." ~ Professor Jim Buckner, Dept. Geology University of Texicas, Austin

Two populist Texan folk-heros, Chancho Villarreal and James Starr, embark on a mission of political endorsement, but what they find is a hill country rife with fear and rumor. A so-called Angel of Death is executing individuals infected by a terrible plague, and the company mining town at the epicenter has gone dark.

It's up to Chancho and his worst enemy to navigate a world of shifting allegiances while uncovering the truth about a plague and its infected who refuse to die quietly.

"If there was a top to be over, Twitch and Die! removed it completely, and with electrifying results."

Letter from the Editor:
The Truth in History Society (THS), commonly known as lost file conspiracists, have beat their drum for nearly a dozen years. I, like most, ignored them. Unlike most, I was kidnapped. While initially ticked off by this, not getting exploded (another story altogether) ultimately balanced the scales.

Since then I have rigorously set about curating and editing all known Lost DMB Files while maintaining as scientific of an approach to these pulpy stories as possible. Now I count myself among the zealous believers in their authenticity, not simply as pulp fiction, but as journalistic tales preserving historic fact.

My promise to the reader is to seek out these Lost DMB files and present them to you unabridged and unaltered from their original intent for as long as I am able. I also vow to do my best to allow you to draw your own conclusions as to their historical value and contemporary commentary. (I’ll refrain from my preachy tendencies as best I can!)

Finally, be forewarned. Becoming lost in these “lost files” and the world they reconstruct is difficult to resist. May what once was lost be found.

Professor Jim “Buck” Buckner

All known Lost DMB Files (including assumed gaps):
Reefer Ranger (#9)
Del Rio Con Amor (#14)
Fistful of Reefer (#17)
The Austin Job (#18)
Hell’s Womb (#22)
Get Doc Quick (#24)
McCutchen’s Bones (#25)
Twitch and Die! (#26)
Paraplegic Zombie Slayer (#35)
Fourth Horseman (#43)

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Mark Brown
• Release date: May 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476403670

David Mark Brown

I wrote my first award-winning story in 4th Grade, titled “The human bean.” It wasn’t a play on words. Intending to write a profound piece about the human condition, it turns out I wrote a mutant story about a human/legume crossbreed. (Curse you, phonics!) Now I write from the unique perspective of being born and raised on a cattle ranch in Texas while attending University in Missoula, Montana, thus spawning the world’s most self-proclaimed redneck granola. The years in between haven’t improved my spelling, but they’ve created a hell of a human bean. My first book, Tainted Love: God, Sex and Relationships for the Not-so-pure-at-heart (written from all my soiled experiences) was published in 2002 by InterVarsity Press. After several years of retooling myself as a novelist (by drinking more and making less money) I reemerged in 2009 with the concept for Reeferpunk. My lovely wife and I adopted our first child from Vietnam and recently produced a second boy through more traditional means. When not spinning genius into the aethernet I obsess over home wine making, earthen construction, gardening, social justice, ultimate Frisbee and the promotion of industrial hemp. Pull up a chair at www.thegreenporch.com.

Book preview

Twitch and Die!

By David Mark Brown

Twitch and Die!

By David Mark Brown

Copyright 2011 David Mark Brown

Art by Erin Mehlos

SMASHWORDS EDITION

This book is available in print at most online retailers

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. The price of all the DMB Files have been kept low in order to respect consumer dollars. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the authors, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

This book is entirely a work of fiction.

Table of Contents

Letter to the Reader

Angel of Death

The Stone House

Chloe's Angel

No Road to Thurber

Get Ready, Get Set

Old Times

New York Hill

Vezzoni, the Bastard

Scratching the Surface

It's a Good Plan

Cemetery Hill

Marcon Place

The Shadows

Old Friends and New

See it Through

Blood Cry

This Should be Fun

We Meet Again

Contingency

Round Two

Kablooey

No Debt Between Friends

Bonus Story: McCutchen's Bones

Author Greeting

Author Bio

More Lost DMB Files

Soundtrack

Letter to the Reader

Dear reader,

What you hold before you is a priceless artifact. The work of an American hero all but forgotten to history due to nothing less than the largest conspiracy of our day.

A year ago, I would have thought this total bunk, as I’m certain many of you do. Then again, I’ve found the truth rarely subtle (although sometimes invisible until it cracks its knuckles across your cheek). While the vast majority considers Brown’s writings nothing more than entertaining pulp fiction, a fervent minority of which I now ascribe considers these pulps as cunning attempts to preserve factual events in the face of a concerted effort to subvert them.

Little is known for certain about the original author. He was the great grandfather of David Mark Brown, IV, and founder of The Truth in History Society. He lived during the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a writer in what is now known as The Democratic Republic of Texicas.

Believed to be an orphan, Brown learned to support himself as a dime novelist by the age of 16. His body of work is thought to be extensive, with over three-quarters yet to be recovered. That’s where I come in. Despite the controversy, and indeed attempts on my life, I have undertaken the task of recovering, editing and chronologizing what has become known as the Lost DMB Files.

A copy of Twitch and Die! was given to David Mark Brown, II, on his twelfth birthday and preserved as a family heirloom to this day. I have made only minor edits to the original text and now present it to you in digital format. Due to the immediate relevance of Twitch and Die! (Lost file #26) to another short by the name of McCutchen’s Bones (lost file #25), I’ve made the editorial decision to bundle them together while maintaining their integrity as separate stories.

For the fullest experience, I recommend also reading Hell’s Womb and Get Doc Quick, Lost Files #22 and #24 respectively, which also detail the same plague and provide insight into the motives of the significant players involved. (But I had to draw the line somewhere.) I will leave it up to the reader’s good judgement whether to explore the remaining lost files or not.

Originally published as part of a serial entitled, Reefer Ranger Rides Again, McCutchen’s Bones appeared in a pared down manner with names and places altered to avoid undue scrutiny from the powers it laid bare. McCutchen, a controversial historical figure to say the least, appeared as McCormick.

I recently discovered the unabridged and uncensored version of the story scrawled toward the back of a field journal kept by Brown. The discovery of the field journal is in itself a story worthy of a novel, one I intend to undertake Lord willing and the creek don’t rise. But as means of introduction to McCutchen’s Bones, I’ll refrain from pontificating extraneously.

The text you have before you is my earnest effort to polish and present these horrifying and heroic tales as they were originally intended by Brown, consequences be damned. But consider yourself forewarned. The contents herewith are as volatile as a truckload of nitro-torpedoes en route to the oil fields described in the story. Discussing them casually among anyone other than intimates is not recommended.

Despite McCutchen’s Bones chronology before Twitch and Die! I’ve placed it at the back of this digital book strictly for formatting purposes. (Read them in whatever order you choose). Here I ramble after specifically saying I’d limit pontificating to a minimum.

Without further ado,

Professor Jim Buck Buckner

Department of Geology; University of Texicas, Austin

And now, Twitch and Die! A Western Plague Novel. Death will find you. Unless you find it first.

Twitch and Die!

ONE

Angel of Death

Black smoke curled from the chimney. Approaching through a barren bramble of oak crisscrossed with grapevine and briar, McCutchen dismounted behind the barn. An angry brush stroke of tar had congealed there, slashed diagonally across the clapboards—a marker the locals had taken to leaving of late. One he neither sought nor trusted.

The dark of night had gradually bleached ash gray as the shortened winter morning crept toward afternoon on spindly fingers. Only a week ago a new decade had come concealed in cloud. McCutchen thought the gloom fitting. He looped the reins around the horn and slapped his horse, Chester, on the neck twice. The animal snorted, steam rising from his back and nostrils.

McCutchen held his breath. No bird chatter. No barking dogs. No combustion engines rattling across town. Thurber Junction, or Mingus, as the locals called it, normally boasted a busy immigrant population blackened with coal dust or caked-in mud from the kilns. But work had stopped when the company town of Thurber, two miles further south, went dark.

A Model T sat in the barn. No tracks in or out for days. He strode across the lawn. Nearer the house, a scattering of jilted whirligigs, hand-carved and painted, lay in various stages of repose. Some had fallen, some cast down violently. The front porch of an otherwise meticulous and newly built Craftsman-style home lay strewn with garbage, the door jamb marred by deep gouges. A fresh one.

Shy of the landing, McCutchen drew one of his Colt .45s. He shook out his muscles, barring the cold and replacing it with his mantra. An ornately carved plaque caught his eye. Hanging crooked on the post of the front porch, it announced, God bless all who enter. Not likely.

He leapt onto the porch. Bursting through the front door, he shattered the jamb. An elderly man lurched from a lounger in the living room, upsetting the tray in his lap.

Twice, McCutchen pulled the trigger, pounding the stagnant air. With two boiling holes in his chest, the man dropped into his chair—feathers and splinters exploding out the back. Next to him sat a second chair, empty. No time.

A gurgling screech pierced the air as a body slammed into McCutchen’s back. Dropping his firearm, he spun with the blow. Boney fingers clawed for his face. While pinning them against the attacker’s own neck, he clutched a hand full of scalp, dipped his shoulder and took a knee.

Using his attacker’s momentum, he flipped the old woman across the room. Lunging toward his fallen .45, he gripped it at the same time he drew his second Colt. As the old woman’s body struck the perforated tin of the pie safe, McCutchen sparked the air twice more, putting one bullet on top of the other.

A vaporous burst expelled a staggering amount of the woman’s blood in a single surge. Two more beats of her infected heart and she fell limp, draped over the shattered family heirloom.

McCutchen stood, both pistols at the ready. Choked by puffs of acrid smoke and the characteristic twitcher reek, like compost rife with mold spores, he moved into the kitchen. Newspaper and claw marks covered a small table—two place settings. Two overturned wooden chairs. Two twitchers.

The early ones had all been sick, on the verge of death. Over the last three days the majority had been like this. I’ve gotta move faster.

He left the front door open and cleared the porch in a single stride. After whistling a two-toned trill, Chester galloped around the corner of the barn. McCutchen grasped the horn, mounting on the fly. Securing the black bandana around his nose and mouth, he pulled the brim of his grandfather's Stetson down low and urged Chester out of town.

TWO

The Stone House

Chancho struck a match and dipped it into the reservoir. The kerosene whoofed into flame, licking the sides of the glass globe. He twiddled with the knob until it transformed from flickering chaos into a steady glow. Really, Mrs. Marcon, it’s no trouble. He placed the lamp in its regular place, determined by the discolored streak of soot running up the plaster wall.

I should have asked Angelo to tend to all this before dismissing him and your lady friend.

Chancho's partner in politics, State Senator James Starr, responded from the cupboard where he clanked stale biscuits onto a plate. No problem at all, ma’am. Angelo seemed quite the charmer. I’m sure Miss O’Brien’s enjoying herself.

Chancho shot Starr the evil eye before logging his cursory assessment of the stone house and its occupants. The Tucci brothers, Angelo and Marcello, appeared at least as Catholic as himself, and yet unfettered by law. The ingredients in the cupboard, combined with the collection of brown jugs under the sink, indicated the Tucci's either consumed an inordinate amount of booze, even for Italian miners, or they perhaps proffered it to others for a small profit. The combination of mysticism and rebellion instantly endeared them to Chancho—men after his own heart.

Angelo’s truly been an angel to take me in, after Serge’s… Mrs. Marcon's voice guttered and died as a chill wind rattled a loose window pane.

Chancho couldn't shake the cold grip of paranoia squeezing him from the house itself. Built during rugged pioneer years, defense and function had trumped less practical things like the human yearning to connect with his surroundings. As a man who’d spent much of his adult life sleeping either in a wagon or under the stars, the dank oppressiveness wearied Chancho. Something about the stagnant odor—too much methane?—riled his stomach.

He took his time returning to the seating area. Tucked in the front corner of an open room serving as kitchen, dining and living, the Tucci’s had arranged two chairs and a small sofa. As he rounded Mrs. Marcon's wingback, a rasping wheeze came from the bedroom. Rushing as if to mask the sound, Mrs. Marcon continued, Do you mind catching the curtains against the cold? Sorry about the dark, but I'm afraid light...irritates me.

Chancho paused. Two bedrooms opened off the main room. Both doors were closed. Combined with the living space, the bedrooms constituted the entirety of the stone home. Finally, he obeyed her request, despite his loathing to lose his last tether to the outside world.

Starr set the plate of ceremonial biscuits on a low table and plopped into the chair closest to Mrs. Marcon while Chancho fussed with the wool curtains. In the corner of his eye a large animal, maybe a horse, disappeared behind a splash of shifting juniper. The evergreens created a shocking contrast against the winter’s dismal gray.

I haven’t time for formality or even proper manners, but I really am grateful you’ve responded to my letter, Representative Villarreal and Senator Starr.

Chancho shifted his sombrero from the floral patterned cushion to the floor. Taking his seat across the way, he established eye contact with the woman who’d brought him and James Starr to Gordon, Texas, on urgent business. Mrs. Phebe Marcon’s sunken, listless eyes had once been a portal to tantalizing beauty—both an internal and external strength revealed now only by the grace with which she accepted her ailing condition.

"Call me Chancho, por favor. He gestured toward Starr. James and I prefer less formality when outside of Austin."

Starr added, And inside Austin, truth be told. But the institutions we serve won't have it.

While Mrs. Marcon's impassioned plea for justice had been Chancho and Starr's impetus to drive to Gordon four days before the 37th Legislature commenced, more pointedly they had left Austin to dig up anecdotal support for their paramount piece of legislation. The so-called Pay for Progress Act attempted to balance an egalitarian work force with a strong state economy. Chancho preferred the call it the Progress for Freedom Act, but had been outweighed.

Politics aside, something about the righteous yet resigned tone of Mrs. Marcon’s letter had clenched Chanco's gut—like the words of Old Testament prophets had when he was a child.

The woman's eye twitched. She pressed her gnarled fingers to her cheekbone for relief. Again, thank you for coming all this way. After all that’s happened, before and after the incident, I’ve no one else to trust.

Tiny alarms detonated inside Chancho. Despite his sympathies for anyone bearing a story of oppression, he suddenly hoped the woman was delusional. Incident?

She gave up her efforts to arrest the twitching and left the eye closed. There are those who would have you believe it an accident, but I’m sure you’re not interested in all that. She spoke using deliberately spaced words and considerable effort to form each one, as if her muscles were slowly forgetting how.

Chancho seized the opportunity to focus the situation and reassure their host. "We’re very interested, Señora Marcon, in everything you have to say, and are completely sympathetic to its delicate nature." He smiled, struggling to look her in the eye, rather than past her as a faint moaning drifted from the bedroom. He brushed his hand across the grip of his old S&W .38 caliber pistol, snug beneath his wool serape.

Indeed. She stiffened. Opening both eyes and exposing vast bloodshot whites, she coughed violently.

Chancho crossed himself, filled simultaneously with grief and fear. It was a gesture he hadn’t mindfully done since his childhood years at Mt. Sabinas Orphanage.

Wheezing, she struggled for a deep breath. As alluded to in my letter, terrible times are upon us. What I could not say publicly was that Texas Pride Energy is responsible.

TPE? The company that owns the mines in Thurber? Starr asked.

The company that owns Thurber, yes.

Something about her evenly parsed speech vexed Chancho. He swallowed hard, looking away from her twitching face. He focused instead on a crucifix hanging crooked over the bedroom door.

Starr objected, Mrs. Marcon, I hardly think—

It began with an explosion in Mine #4, October 16th, this last year. My husband, Serge, and his brother, Dino, where on shift. Dino walked out, along with three other miners and a woman, in part due to my Serge’s bravery. Two weeks later all six were believed dead, including Serge, who never made it out… She wheezed deep, her eye clamped shut again. In the relative silence Chancho focused on the sounds coming from the bedroom, this time more distinct. She continued, until much later.

"¿Perdón? Chancho interrupted. So your husband survived?"

She scowled. In a manner of speaking.

He was injured?

Afflicted. She spasmed. Much to the same ends you see here, but stronger. Not sick like— An inhuman wailing cut her off.

Chancho and Starr bolted upright in their seats. Mrs. Marcon?

Not like me and Angelo’s brother, Marcello. He’s resting in the bedroom, worse than myself.

Chancho’s mind raced. He’d heard rumor of influenza in the hill country. Mrs. Marcon’s symptoms didn’t look like flu, so he hadn’t connected the dots. Was this a new strain? Worse than the first?

As if reading his thoughts, she continued, There is no flu. If only we be so lucky. Her speech slurred. This is man-made, no curse of nature. Something caused the explosion that day. She twitched sharply. South of #4 Serge found a hidden shaft, an unmapped mine. The miners came up that shaft, bringing with them the woman with yellow eyes and her black book.

The wailing escalated to thrashing. Chancho gripped his armrests. Wait. Yellow eyes? But he couldn’t focus. Was he the only one who heard what was happening in the next room? He began to sweat beneath his heavy wool serape. His eyes met Starr’s, whose face had blanched.

Mrs. Marcon continued with monotone, slurred speech—tripping forward as if her words had left her mind minutes ago and were just now finding expression from a sluggish, uncooperative body. I’m not sure why, but I took the book after she dropped it. I hid it in the brick oven behind our home. Several days later Serge came to get it back. He scratched a message in the brick. I… she paused. Find the book. Find Serge. Both her eyes were open, but distant and unfocused.

Chancho hovered over his chair, waving a hand in front of her, but she didn’t move. Starr? The thrashing in the bedroom climaxed with a shriek and the sound of splintering furniture.

What in God’s name is going on in there? Starr rushed to the bedroom door and gripped the knob.

Chancho leapt from his chair too late. "Amigo, no!"

As Starr threw the door open a monstrous human shape blurred into view. In a single sweeping blow it flung Starr out of the doorway, fracturing the frame in the process, and burst into the larger room. After shaking its head frantically and screaming, the demon suddenly stopped. Sniffing the air, the half-clothed, ruddy middle-aged male jerked roughly towards Mrs. Marcon, who sat motionless, a blanket across her knees.

Still standing in the middle of the room, Chancho shifted his left hand ever so slightly, veiled beneath the colorful wool of his serape. Through the corner of his eye he glimpsed movements from the china cabinet where Starr had crash-landed. Finally, he focused on the monster. Standing relatively still, it was clearly human—a face vaguely reminiscent of Angelo’s, but stretched, gaunt and dark red. Marcello?

Sniffing wildly, Marcello flicked a rapid hand through Mrs. Marcon’s tangled hair, jerking her head to and fro. Unconsciously, Chancho shifted his weight in protest. A floorboard creaked beneath him. Twitching so fast his two eyes blurred into one, the demon Marcello stared at Chancho for a terrifying second. Screaming, he tore the flesh off his own face and lunged forward.

Beneath his serape, Chancho had yanked his hand downward the moment Marcello had screamed, unleashing a chemical reaction he hoped would be faster than the monster’s blinding movements.

~~~

Closing his eyes, Chancho felt the pregnant swell of the air around him and tried to fill the space with prayer. It was the only thing left to do. A searing pinch erupted from his chest just above his heart as the guncotton he’d sown into his garment ignited, thrusting him back in a rush of heat and swirling