Sketches of the Wigwam

By Mack Moyer

Part-time artist, full-time smartass and gleeful drunk Billy thought his childhood memories of the skeletal entity called the Wigwam were just his imagination. But when Billy returns to Indian Hills, he discovers the Wigwam is real–and he remembers Billy very well.

What was supposed to be just a weekend with his girlfriend turns into a nightmare for Billy as repressed memories of his youth come storming back. Soon Billy is isolated on the haunted mountainside that the Wigwam calls his home. Mutilated figures appear in a sudden fog engulfing the mountain. A pair of missing twin boys, presumed dead, appear.

Armed only with sarcasm, a pack of smokes and all the beers he can find, Billy needs to remember how he defeated the Wigwam as a boy if he wants to survive the next round.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Permuted
• Release date: Jun 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781618685926

Book preview

Praise for SKETCHES OF THE WIGWAM

Sketches of the Wigwam is a gut punch of a horror novel. Intense, frightening, and as unrepentant as its hero.

– Andy Goldman, author of The Only City Left

In the world of Mack Moyer, the first line of defense against the undead is not garlic but beer, and lots of it. But it isn't enough. It isn't nearly enough.

– Brendan Ball, author of Thieves in the Night

Sketches of the Wigwam

Mack Moyer

A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK

Published at Smashwords

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-592-6

SKETCHES OF THE WIGWAM

© 2015 by Mack Moyer

All Rights Reserved

Cover art by Martin Kintanar

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Permuted Press

109 International Drive, Suite 300

Franklin, TN 37067

http://permutedpress.com

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

About the Author

Chapter One

Most stories don’t begin with a guy’s inability to achieve an erection. This one does. Roughly one month before I faced the dark thing living on a mountain in Northeastern Pennsylvania my girlfriend made a comment that inadvertently destroyed my sex drive.

For anyone who might ever read this, yes, I might have avoided the terrible things I saw on the mountain if my junk had been functioning properly. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It was a typical Saturday night at the Emerald Isle Tavern. The kitchen was hot, the jokes were many. As possibly the greatest kitchen manager in the Emerald’s history, I made sure the guys on my crew were all, in one way or another, totally retarded. Kevin Hanratty and I, despite our inconsistent sobriety and penchant for laughing at the most depraved topics imaginable, handled the long, busy night with ease. Brutal as the shift was, by the end of it, our jaws ached.

Thinking of the Emerald now makes my heart sting; that’s how much I miss it. I was in the back room at the sink washing the sweat off myself. I’d just put my good clothes on when Hanratty appeared with two beers. For us, drinks were free at the end of our shift (as long as the owner didn’t find out). I took one and we toasted to another night then prepared to get drunk.

Hanratty didn’t need alcohol to have a good time. He only needed a nugget of humor and an inappropriate topic of sufficient awfulness. Then his eyes would light up. The gears would shift in his mind. It would start with a deep throated chuckle. The man—Christ, at twenty-eight years old we were considered men though neither of us felt a day over fifteen—had the ability to make any subject hilarious. No matter how terrible the joke, you couldn’t help but laugh along with him.

Despite his depravity, Hanratty actually had his shit together. Few people knew it, but his bank account, while not overflowing, was pretty damn impressive for a kitchen hand. On top of his forty hours at the kitchen, he had a way of sniffing out side gigs. His casual alcoholism helped out; it seemed like every bar owner in the neighborhood knew him. I was never shocked to walk into a random pub and see Hanratty bartending. It was the perfect job for him. The guy lived to laugh. The tips he got from customers were obscene.

After our customary post-shift back room beers, we headed up to the bar. The guys from the kitchen were there, doing shots with the bartender and flirting with the waitresses. I went to the cash register to check out the night’s take when I spotted Kate sitting with the guys.

I have no problem admitting I’m not the most attractive guy in the world. I don’t shave often. Years of smoking have given my teeth a yellow hue. The only reason I wasn’t rocking a beer gut was the long, hot nights in the kitchen. My point is, I’m not ashamed to say Kate was out of my league.

We met at the Community College of Philadelphia. I had just dropped out. (Some advice for aspiring artists out there: Art classes are worthless. Save your money and put the work in on your own time. You can thank me later.) I still hung around campus, wasting time with the myriad hippies and weirdos I met there. One day Kate showed up. She had the body of a cheerleader but the skin of a biker, with tattoos wrapped around both arms. This was before everyone and their grandma had one, back when being covered in ink was reserved for rebels and freaks. Don’t ask me how I found the courage to talk to her. I might have blacked out when I sat down next to her. She was reading a biography on Abbie Hoffman. She told me she was taking creative writing classes. I told her I was a dropout. Three hours later we went to a bar for drinks. We screwed then lost touch. Cue Facebook six years later—one drunken night of searching out old lays. It was love at first friend request. She had seen my cartoons in The Riverward Review, the small weekly newspaper circulating in my neighborhood. She was trying to get a novel published and supported herself by managing blogs for companies in Philly, something she hated and only wanted to do temporarily. I don’t want to whore out the tiny bit of talent that I have, she used to say, but unfortunately food costs money.

And she was talented. I read her novel three times. It was about working class kids in Philly, kids like ourselves. Funny but sad, just like real life. In the two years since we started dating I’d come to despise the publishing industry. I didn’t know a thing about it, but I knew the look on Kate’s face when she received another rejection letter. As time went on, she talked less about the novel and more about her blogging business. She was forced to wear long sleeves and turtlenecks to cover her tattoos when she went to meetings with prospective clients. She only mentioned her hopes to get her novel published when she was drunk.

I bet you’re guessing when I’m going to mention my flaccid penis. Despite my boozy nature and predilection for whiskey dick, Kate should have been the last girl on the planet around whom I couldn’t get a boner. She giggled relentlessly when Hanratty and I were joking. We rooted for the bad guys together at the movies. We shared a healthy disdain for the sober population. Plus, she had rockin’ tits.

Just as I finished with the register, she asked me to go outside for a cigarette. We took our drinks out with us. I noticed a folder sticking out of her purse.

Bill, she said, I have something for you.

Do tell, I said, puffing on my Marlboro.

The night had turned cool and comfortable. The Emerald was half a mile from the Delaware River, just a couple yards away from I-95. Most people felt differently, but I loved the smell of the river, doubly so when mixed with the exhaust fumes from cars passing on the highway.

Kate pulled the folder from her purse. She held it against her chest for a second, looking at me uneasily. I want you to keep an open mind before I give it to you.

You’re making me nervous now, I said.

Don’t be.

I hope it’s not a pregnancy test.

She rolled her eyes. Don’t jinx it, she said. Bloody Mary should come next week. But here, look it over.

She handed the folder to me. I opened it and saw a brochure for the Art Institute of Philadelphia. Puzzled, I noticed a bookmark in the middle section. There, Kate highlighted the necessary criteria to enroll in the Institute’s graphic arts program.

I thought she was joking. I laughed with a mouthful of beer and almost spit some on her. Forcing the beer down my gullet, I gasped for air and let out a chuckle. Funny, I said.

Look it over, she said. You could get a student loan or something.

Kate, I said, these programs are for people who want to design corporate logos.

There’s good money in it, she said. Way better than what you get with the paper.

She was right. Sketching three panel comics for a weekly community newspaper didn’t put me in a higher tax bracket. But I didn’t draw for the money. True, it helped pay the bills and though I’d been drawing for The Riverward Review for years, I was still paid on a freelance basis, but I did it for fun. The paper was geared toward the old school Catholics in the neighborhood, full of church bulletins and updates on bingo night at Saint Anne’s. The editor brought me in to rile up the church crowd; essentially I drew the edgiest cartoons that the Catholic riverward population could stand. The more hate mail I got the better. My crowning achievement came when I received an honest to God death threat. That was even better than the time I actually sold a painting to an art gallery in South Philly.

Yes, I had other goals for my art. I hoped I could inject enough fringe humor into my comics to attract the attention of some of the big alt-weekly papers where I could really let loose. One day I wanted to create a graphic novel. Maybe splash together another painting or two. But I loved what I did. The thought of putting on a button down shirt with khakis and heading to the office to touch up an advertisement for some douchebag with a briefcase made me want to puke.

I hugged Kate tight and kissed her cheek. Thanks but no thanks, I said.

She pulled away. Really? You’re dismissing it just like that?

It’s not for me.

You’ll get paid though. And you can still draw whatever you want on the side.

It’s a road I don’t want to go down, I said.

What do you mean?

It starts innocently, I said. I graduate, learn how to draw shit on a computer. Next thing you know I get a part-time gig. I say, ‘I’ll work on my own stuff this weekend.’ But I never do. Before I know it, I become some stuffy asshole sitting at a desk.

I was still calm at this point. I’m not an easy guy to piss off. I’m really not. But I had a bad tendency to develop these balls of anger deep down in my belly. There were times when I thought I would snap. I don’t know what exactly brought out the rage. It just seemed to happen with enough prodding. I rarely acted on the anger. The beer helped. I never got into a drunken bar fight. The Cro-Magnon trait of going wild after shots of liquor didn’t apply to me. Booze and the occasional bump of blow kept me on an even keel whenever I feared I might snap out.

Yet I came close when I saw the brochure. I knew Kate didn’t mean to upset me. On the surface she probably didn’t realize how angry I became when she jammed the brochure in my face. I did my best to keep the anger in my belly.

You can do anything you want, she said.

"So I don’t want to do it. I like what I do now."

We could combine our talents. I’ll run the blogs. You add some artwork.

That’s your gig, not mine.

So you’re just going to settle?

The anger danced in my belly. I have fun with what I do now. I don’t see a reason to change it.

I understand, she said. But you’ve been working in this kitchen since high school. And how long has it been since the paper has given you a raise? I’m only saying you can do something with your life.

I took a painfully long drag from my cigarette. My life’s fine, I shot back.

You’re talented. The degree can turn that talent into money. And you can still focus on the work that matters to you.

The same way you’re still working on that novel of yours.

Kate nodded, smiled, and yanked the folder out of my hand. Okay, she said. Sorry.

She went back inside. I finished my cigarette then lit another. I didn’t want it. Smoking two in a row made my mouth dry, but I needed a minute to calm down. Eventually I returned to the bar. Kate was laughing at Hanratty, and the bartender was pouring shots. I joined them. Our conversation outside might as well have never happened.

To her credit, Kate didn’t press the issue. Soon the whole group went to another bar where we spent the night laughing and downing shots. After last call, Kate and I went back to my apartment. Neither of us mentioned the conversation outside the Emerald. We fell onto my couch, drunk and tired. I made a move. Her clothes were on the floor within seconds. So were mine. I climbed on top of her.

Call it what you will. The wet noodle. The soggy hot dog. Limpy McBonerless.

Kate was nothing but cool about it. She kissed my forehead and told me to give Billy Junior a rest for the night. He always gets the job done, she said with a smirk, so it’s cool if he needs a vacation. I laughed it off, but my dangling ding dong wasn’t my problem.

Life was my problem. I was fully prepared to resume the conversation we had outside the Emerald. I wanted to know if Kate could accept the way I wanted to live my life. Maybe if I had, my boner would have come back, we would have gotten busy in the sack and I never would have turned on my computer.

Instead I made the mistake of checking my email. My cousin Jeremy had sent me a message.

* * *

A month later I found myself thirty minutes outside of Philly, heading north on the turnpike. Excluding a couple trips to the Jersey shore it was as far as I’ve ever been from Philadelphia. I never had a reason to leave my home city, you see. Philly has dive bars, cheese steaks, and public transportation. What else does one need?

Billy Junior still wasn’t functioning. Since our chat about the Art Institute, I’d been zero-for-thirty, skating on a completely sexless November. Kate had a ton of patience, more than I did. Frustrating as it was to have a lack of boners, I had other worries. Namely the three hour trek north to Jeremy’s house.

My Thunderbird was over twelve years old. She was still going strong, yes, but Jeremy’s house was still a ways off. I hoped the T-Bird was up to the job. I was cruising along at a steady eighty miles per hour, glad I put the booze in the trunk because long drives make me want to drink. By and large I don’t enjoy drinking in the daylight but, given the occasion, a couple cold ones felt warranted.

I let some pressure off the gas pedal, slowing our pace away from civilization. Leaving Philly was not something I wanted to do on this fine Saturday morning. Missing a shift would hurt my next paycheck. Getting off was a pain as well. More importantly I would miss out on a night of laughs all for a trip to the ass end of Pennsylvania’s godforsaken coal country in Indian Hills, on the western slopes of the Pocono Mountains.

Kate was lying down in the backseat, laptop balanced on her thighs, hard at work. What time does the GPS say we’ll get there?

I picked up the Garmin from the dashboard. Because I rarely left Philly I never had much need for the GPS. I muted the thing seconds after turning it on. Its robotic female voice got on my nerves.

I looked at the screen, trying to make sense of the graphics. All I saw was a mess of squiggly green lines and at the top of the screen it read CONTINUE NORTH ON I-476/PA TURNPIKE.

It doesn’t say, I answered.

The arrival time should be at the bottom left-hand corner, genius.

I don’t see it.

Ass, she said. She leaned forward and grabbed the unit from me. Right here, she pointed. It says…fuck, one o’clock. Drive faster.

We’re not past the point of no return yet, I said.

Get over it, she said. You’ll have fun once we get there.

Which I doubted. Let me say this clearly so anyone who might ever read this will know: My hatred for Jeremy was profound. I mean, I loved him, but only in a family way. I was contractually bound by birth to love him as a cousin, but I considered Jeremy a bastard of the highest magnitude.

Jeremy’s father, Uncle Jack, left all his property to Jeremy when he died, bland acres on the side of a mountain. Indian Hills was ten miles away from the town of Weatherly, which was the largest population center in the area with a whopping twenty five hundred people, most of whom were flag waving, dues paying NRA members in good standing.

Indian Hills had once been a mining town wedged between two small mountains, complete with a small cluster of businesses, even a large brewery that employed a good chunk of the population once the mines went bust. The brewery opened a couple of years ago, well after I was gone, and the town actually looked to be on the upswing. Then there was an explosion, a big one. Killed most of the people there. Luckily for Jeremy his house was closer to Weatherly, on the western face of the mountain, well away from the blast. All that remained of Indian Hills was a scattering of homes on either side of the valley, with nothing in between.

Jeremy’s house had two stories with six bedrooms plus a standalone garage. I spent a year there when I was five years old. My parents literally didn’t have time to take care of me. They had to work double shifts to pay the bills. When I was a teenager I learned it was my dad’s fault. My mom almost left him, but he never gambled again. I had a sneaking suspicion, though, that their double shifts weren’t the only reason they dumped me on Uncle Jack. My dad owed money to a couple rough guys. They didn’t want me around if anything happened.

Luckily I didn’t remember much of my stay with Jeremy and Uncle Jack. I didn’t want to.

Jeremy invited us to visit because he was selling the place. He discovered his family estate sat on the Marcellus Shale, the great deposit of natural gas under chunks of Pennsylvania and New York. Two gas company representatives appeared at Jeremy’s door. They offered him half a million dollars for his land. He gladly accepted.

I have always enjoyed my life. I was a strict adherent to what I called the Hanratty Philosophy, laughing and boozing as much as possible all while taking few things in life seriously. Despite our rough patch, I had an incredible girlfriend. My mother still did my laundry if I asked her nicely. I worked with my friends, drew pictures for cash, and lived in the greatest city on the planet. I was by any estimation one lucky sumbitch. Yet the moment I read about Jeremy’s new found wealth I came perilously close to killing myself.

He was the prototypical alpha male cockbag mixed with a sprinkling of rural American bullshit. He called me a sissy because I didn’t enjoy shooting guns or riding ATVs. As a part-time police officer in Weatherly, he used his badge to wedge himself between the legs of any willing female over the age of eighteen. I made the mistake of going to a bar with him a few years ago and he handcuffed me inside the car then left me there for two hours.

I shared Jeremy’s email with Kate the night of our Art Institute conversation only because I thought there was no way in hell she would want to go. During my stay at Jeremy’s I would find I misjudged Kate quite a bit, but it all started with the email. She’d never met Jeremy, but I told her plenty about him.

My family didn’t get together often, but when we did Jeremy always showed up. In front of the rest of the family he didn’t brag about the notches in his bed post. No, in their company he was Mr. Big Shoulders, the first to volunteer to fix your leaky spigot or jump at the chance to do the heavy lifting. He held court at dinners, blabbing to my more impressionable family members about the importance of Jesus in the family unit and how the country just wasn’t the same without a Republican in the White House. And don’t you know? The liberals are coming to take our guns.

Once, when I was fourteen, I sneaked out of a family function to smoke a joint with Hanratty, who tagged along at my insistence. Jeremy caught us then demanded ten dollars for his silence. The moment I paid him off, he went back inside and ratted me out to my mom.

My mom didn’t give a damn. She threw a fit in front of the family for the sake of appearance but afterward she admitted all the times she smoked pot, and how she had no