In Bleed Country

By Brian Fatah Steele

What is The Bleed Country? The space between words in a prayer and the last number in Pi. It is where faith & dreams are held safe, where unborn terrors lurk and all the answers are painted in colors that don't exist. There have always been Agents who protect Bleed Country, individuals granted powers who walk the under-roads known as The Scar and seek to keep the balance. But now cards have been thrown, and while the only true constant in this reality is change, it is coming faster and more surely than anyone could have predicted. Sides will be drawn for the battle of Bleed Country, and not everyone will survive...

The DarkRedPress Special Edition of In Bleed Country contains the original novel, plus character illustrations done by the author along with three new Bleed Country short stories. “Bound In Blood” speaks of an enigmatic origin, “The Brutality Coda” details a mysterious death, and “If I Only Had Some Couth” spills the secrets concerning everyone’s least favorite scarecrow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Fatah Steele
• Release date: Jan 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781301160969

Brian Fatah Steele

BRIAN FATAH STEELE, a member of the indie author co-op Dark Red Press, describes the majority of his work as "Epic Horror with lots of Explosions." His articles and stories have appeared in various e-magazines and online journals. Steele lives in Ohio with a few cats that are probably plotting his doom. Surviving on a diet primarily of coffee and cigarettes, he occasionally dabbles in Visual Arts and Music Production. He still hopes to one day become a Super Villain.

Book preview

IN BLEED COUNTRY

Dark Red Press Edition

a novel of lost wonders and walking nightmares

BRIAN FATAH STEELE

What is The Bleed Country? The space between words in a prayer and the last number in Pi. It is where faith & dreams are held safe, where unborn terrors lurk and all the answers are painted in colors that don't exist. There have always been Agents who protect Bleed Country, individuals granted powers who walk the under-roads known as The Scar and seek to keep the balance. But now cards have been thrown, and while the only true constant in this reality is change, it is coming faster and more surely than anyone could have predicted. Sides will be drawn for the battle of Bleed Country, and not everyone will survive...

The DarkRedPress Special Edition of In Bleed Country contains the original novel, plus character illustrations done by the author along with three new Bleed Country short stories. Bound In Blood speaks of an enigmatic origin, The Brutality Coda details a mysterious death, and If I Only Had Some Couth spills the secrets concerning everyone’s least favorite scarecrow.

A Dark Red Press presentation

In Bleed Country by Brian Fatah Steele

Original Copyright (c) 2009 by Brian Fatah Steele

Dark Red Press edition

Smashwords Digital Edition

Revised Copyright (c) 2011

Bound In Blood original Copyright (c) 2008

Revised Copyright (c) 2011 by Brian Fatah Steele

The Brutality Coda and If I Only Had Some Couth

Copyright (c) 2011 by Brian Fatah Steele

Original cover design by Brian Fatah Steele (c) 2011

Cover art elements by NikxStock, Snwaj, AbsyntheMyndedArt

All art elements used with permission.

All artists available at DeviantArt.com

All interior illustration by Brian Fatah Steele (c) 2010

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be altered in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

http://brianfatahsteele.com

Find more at http://www.darkredpress.com

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editor

Past The Patch

Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it. Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

For my four younger brothers –

Adam, Nathan, Jordan, and Quintin.

In Bleed Country

Chapter: Part One…

Chapter: Part Two…

Chapter: Part Three…

Bleed Country short stories

Chapter: Bound In Blood…

Chapter: The Brutality Coda…

Chapter: If I Only Had Some Couth…

Visions and Whispers

Chapter: Author Notes on IBC…

Chapter: PART ONE

INTRODUCTION

The Only Constant In This Reality Is Change…

Change. To evolve into something new, hopefully for the better, is the goal of all things. Many don’t realize this and simply progress forward instinctually. Some find the concept terrifying and fight against it. These conservative minded individuals either want to preserve the status quo or worse; progress backwards to some illusionary Golden Age. This simple ideology is perhaps the only real mistake one can make in regard to reality. While time is not truly linear, change always moves FORWARD. The simple perception of that particular change’s Good or Evil is only a matter of personal taste.

Things are not black and white, there are only varying shades of grey. What we in early 21st America may deem immoral by general consensus could very well have been the norm over a thousand years ago. It may very well yet be normal practice again some time in the future. Honor is personal, morality is cultural, and we have seen far too many cultures follow trends that later were found idiotic or barbaric.

Regardless, change is the key.

Our perception of things is where the argument begins. How does one truly describe his or her experience when seeing the color red to another human? Can we be sure that everyone has the same definition for such a thing? We could make a better argument for such esoteric concepts like beauty, righteousness, or fear. The eye of the beholder, indeed.

What purpose have we to engage the words of prayer against the scientific method? Perhaps God is an infinite equation that equals eternity and we are simply a variable in that algorithm. It takes a Leap of Faith to believe in things that logic dictates to us are pure madness, but were not such things as microscopic germs once considered a thing of fantasy? Is it not conceivable that one day man will engineer a device to compute the essence of reality?

Upon that, we must remember that reality is not immutable. It can be molded and formed to fit our desires, altered to shine as we see fit. It is not entirely beyond the realm of belief that belief itself is a controlling factor. Mankind needs to believe in something, whether it be the New Testament or a physics text book. And yet, while they need this, they can never be allowed to see. To see would be to know, and to know would shatter the need for belief.

So what are we to do?

How much of our lives are given to Fate and how much to Free Will? While your choice of beer through the drive-thru on a Friday night may not be destiny, what of your first love? Is a cheating spouse moved to act by higher forces or do they do so of their own volition? Perhaps it is a combination of both, a weaving of tapestry threads as complex as any theoretical bit of numerology.

And while we consider this, we must then consider the ramification of God’s existence. Is there a consciousness at work, one grander than we could possibly fathom? Go beyond such archaic concepts of a man in the sky with a beard; does this entity understand the plight of mortality? Have we stumbled into some Cosmic Joke, somewhere in the realm of a random and mad deity who threw together reality and then wandered off to play elsewhere? And if we are alone, what does that mean?

Experience is utterly essential, to take in as much as one can from this reality and be affected by it. The good, the bad and the bizarre. Always strive for more, always strive for change. Question everything. Question everything, but don’t expect many answers. Most know nothing, especially those claiming wisdom. Question, learn and discard that which you find incorrect or absurd… but remember it. It has still changed you.

Perhaps…

Perhaps divinity isn’t as bold as a lightning strike. Perhaps it’s in the laughter of children, in the sigh of a lover, in the scent of cinnamon cookies, in watching kittens sleep and in the last ride on the rollercoaster before the park closes. Perhaps we have to force ourselves to understand the face of the reality around us, and in turn, learn what it means to each of us.

Instead of fearing the change, we learn to embrace it.

Instead of second-guessing, we learn to anticipate it.

Instead of waiting for it, we learn to stimulate it.

Instead of riding it, we learn to manipulate it.

What if reality was merely a matter of perception? What if the core consciousness of humanity is all that held it together? What if that oh so fragile belief needed to be protected, not mankind’s belief in anything in particular, but simply his ability to believe?

It permeates our land, our seas and cities. We walk through it everyday, but do not see. We can’t see it, couldn’t be allowed to; to see is to know and to know is to shatter belief. Oh, there are gates. Small portals that seep out wonders and terrors that few witness and that one day turn into legends. This is what keeps belief alive. These gates are called The Wounds and one can find them scattered all over. Hidden and secreted away, protected so that only those chosen can walk The Scars where they are needed.

Yes, The Scars, the under-roads that criss-cross all over our planet, those that defy the laws of science that some men hold so tightly to. Travel upon these lanes is different, the journeys less about time and distance. Walk The Scars to The Wounds, and here? Here we may be granted access, here we may find things held back from mortal experience.

Here we find The Bleed Country.

CHAPTER – 1

Change can come at you in a second, but Jeff Palmer knew that already. He had found that out recently and in a most brutal fashion when trying to gamble away an already sizable debt. Jeff had sat down at the blackjack table a solid ten grand in the hole. Instead of walking away even or perhaps a slight bit ahead, he ran out of credit at negative twenty-five thousand. Quietly escorted away, he assumed his death would be a rather cheap affair.

The old and dilapidated casino on the Reno, Nevada outskirts that Jeff liked to frequent was owned by a mob family just as old and dilapidated. The Boccichios wielded very little power outside their casino walls, but inside they were almighty. Far enough from the radar of shiny Las Vegas, they had been getting away with petty crimes for the better part of a century. And with a substantial deadbeat lurking about, it didn’t look good on them in the respect business.

Jeff had every belief that he was about to be Whacked.

The old man had a better idea. Saul Boccichio had a certain little problem that needed taken care of and currently his usual man was out of town. To top it off, it would seem the Vegas lights weren’t so blinding as to keep the authorities completely away from the ancient Reno casino. One lil’ job, the old man had said. One lil’ job, you never set foot in here again, and we call it even.

What was Jeff to do? That was pretty much it. That was how Jeff Palmer came to be driving the ’92 Chevy Cavalier down a deserted highway at seven o’clock on a Thursday night with a dismembered body stuffed in the trunk.

As twilight crept up, Jeff considered his life and how he had arrived at this point. Relatively nervous by nature, one of the few times he felt strong… felt alive was when gambling. It gave him the sensation of being in control when, logically, he knew he clearly was not. Cards, dice, sports, numbers; it didn’t matter.

Jeff idly wondered about the guy chopped up in the trunk.

He was to travel down the highway until he saw the large rock on which someone had spray painted Jesus Saves and turn left immediately behind it. Something resembling a road would lead him a good two miles to a spot where he was to dig and dispose. Jeff really hoped there weren’t more bodies lying underground in this particular location. It made his skin crawl to think about the job before him. The fact that the guy in the trunk was currently separated into about a dozen duct taped white garbage bags was making the thought even worse. The dude must have really pissed off the Boccichios.

Jeff didn’t have to worry about work interfering as he was currently between employments, a situation that had led him down this path to begin with. A flooring contractor for the last six years, he had been laid off when budget cuts came down. He had a gig coming up installing tile, but that wasn’t for another month. Jeff had a livable bit of savings plus unemployment, but it was the free time that drove him to the casino. Boredom hanging on him like a heavy coat, a sense of purpose found at the tables.

At thirty-two, both of Jeff’s parents were dead and he had never really had much of a social life. Slight of build, he pretty much blended in with the crowd with his thin dark hair and permanent stubble. Always a quiet and nervous guy, he was given to drumming his fingers and an almost constant bouncing of his leg. His coworkers found him likable enough, just a bit too reserved perhaps. Jeff rarely talked to women; he found them to be of a somewhat alien origin.

Lighting up a cigarette, Jeff pondered what he was going to do for the rest of the time he had until the tile job started. He wouldn’t set foot back in the Boccichio joint, that was for sure, but would he be able to stay out of any other casino? Would the old man have put his name out as persona non grata? Jesus, he had already gone through his DVD collection. Twice.

Moving to flick his cigarette ash out the window, the red ember tip flew off and back into the car, falling in Jeff’s lap. Yelping, Jeff slapped the burning cherry out as his car careened about the road. He looked up just in time to see a pale blue mini van coming straight at him.

Change can come at you in a second…

CHAPTER – 2

Samuel Vaughn sat in the car he had recently stolen and looked over his notes. This man, this Clement Fontain, was his best lead so far. Samuel had known so many false hopes these past two years, so many who claimed great knowledge and wisdom only to be found ignorant and clueless. If Fontain knew, Samuel would find out.

Samuel reclined back in the car’s driver seat and let his mind wander…

There’s a phrase that’s whispered cryptically all over this planet. Under the cover of the music of a German discotheque, hidden beneath the stone walls of a castle in Scotland. Spoken in the shaman’s hut somewhere in Mozambique, found in a monk’s advice high in the temples of Tibet. It can be heard in the back rooms of an occult shop in Philadelphia and remnants still found scrawled in blood on the walls of a Mayan temple.

It is a message, a proclamation, a prayer. Sometimes a thousand years old, sometimes just uttered. It may be in many languages, but it always translates to the same thing: You Better Run To The City Of Refuge.

Samuel came to know these words, came to speak them as his mantra. He broke the laws of man and the laws ‘not of man’ to understand. He did it all for her and would do it again without doubt or hesitation.

Samuel’s little sister, Angie, had been his whole world. Times when despair should have taken him over, he carried on for her. She was the one bit of light he had in this world, the one reason he had to keep going. He had made it his duty early on to protect her, to keep her safe and happy.

Of course, Samuel had failed. He was only three years older than Angie and the Devil so loves to torment the young. Their father had left shortly after Angie was born and their mother, a vicious and bitter woman, often took up with whatever man would have her. How many times Samuel threw himself between his sister and a fury of fists, he couldn’t remember. Usually Samuel would bear the brunt of these assaults, but occasionally he would be beaten too badly and their mother would get some hits in on Angie. It was even worse when the men took to joining in on the attacks. Sometimes he fought back, just to claim their attention away from Angie, but for the most part, Samuel merely took the abuse.

Things grew worse as they got older. Their mother mostly ignored Samuel, but seemed to have a particularly venomous streak for Angie. Perhaps it was because age and the bottle were quickly consuming what paltry looks the woman had, and in Angie, she saw the youth and vitality she had squandered. Perhaps it was also because as Angie grew into a young woman, it was hard not to notice the lecherous glances that mother’s men would make in Angie’s direction.

Then one day school let out and Angie was not at the usual spot where they met to walk home. Growing concerned, Samuel went back to the office to inquire about his sister, only to learn that their mother had picked her up shortly after school had begun that day. Samuel raced home, terrified by this turn of events.

Making it back to the squalor apartment they lived in, he flung open the door to see a gathering of men in the living room. His fear increasing, he shoved past them and their cries of outrage. To his sister’s room Samuel went and when his stricken gaze found her inside... that was when Samuel heard his mother say Get him.

Fists rained down upon Samuel and as he fell, feet found him just as vulnerable. Beaten, and thought defeated, he was drug back into the living room where through the haze of pain he could hear their laughs. So enveloped in their fantasies of violating his sister, so emboldened by the punishment they had given him, they let Samuel crawl away, probably thinking he was off to die in misery.

Samuel made it to the room that his mother shared with her current man. Refusing to let himself rest, he dragged himself to the closet where the man kept a revolver that he had used to threatened Angie and Samuel with. Samuel pulled the gun from the box and peered at it. Through some luck of fate, although horribly broken, his right hand was still functional. Samuel propped himself up against the filthy bed, every part of him screaming out in agony, and limped back out into the hallway.

He shot two of them before the others even realized what was going on. He managed to catch another one in the back as he was fleeing. Part of him regrets not killing the rest, but then he would not have had enough bullets. Not enough bullets for the man who stumbled out of his sister’s room, his pants still comically around his legs, or for their mother. Their mother, who had whored out her own daughter because of her rage, because of her hate. Their mother, who came around the corner of the bedroom, her face a mask of disbelief before Samuel pulled the trigger and made her face no more.

His strength all but exhausted, he fell to the floor. Not done, he had to see his sister, his Angie. He pulled his way into her room, inch by inch, his nails digging into the thin carpet. Finally, by her bedside, he gathered the last of his will into a prayer, hoping she was still alive. Hoisting himself up, Samuel looked upon the ruins of his sister and let out a sob. His weakness elicited a flutter from her eyelids and her hand moved to find Samuels. Grasping it, he gave his best, a grip that Samuel hoped would transfer all of his love to her in some way.