Breaker

By Aniko Carmean

It’s Summer Solstice, 1983. Urban legend researchers Drucilla and Eddie are investigating the gruesome Treeletting legend. In the small town of Breaker, they encounter a crone purported to be the vessel of an ancient Goddess, are eerily threatened by a pair of masked twins, and discover that Mother Nature isn’t just a metaphor.

BREAKER is set in the STOLEN CLIMATES universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aniko Carmean
• Release date: Jun 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9780984968930

Aniko Carmean

Aniko Carmean is a Virginia girl living in Austin, Texas. She writes stories and novels in a variety of genres including horror, science fiction, and literary-artsy. Aniko is the sole proprietor of Odd Sky Books, a publication imprint dedicated to serving discerning readers of surreal fiction. Aniko's major literary influences are Italo Calvino, Shirley Jackson, Amelie Nothomb, Iris Murdoch, and Sylvia Plath. After graduating with a degree in Physics from a small liberal arts school, Aniko married her college sweetheart, and took a day job in software to support her writing habit. Aniko's favorite shoes are Doc Martens. Her favorite way to think is while is walking, favorite number is twenty-two, favorite month is October, and her favorite pastime is lingering over a hearty meal and talking with friends. Aniko has lived in more than one haunted house, which goes a long way towards explaining her fascination with the surreal.

Book preview

BREAKER

Published by Odd Sky Books

First Smashwords Edition: June 2015

First Edition: March 2015

Copyright © 2015 Erzsebet Aniko Carmean

Cover Art by Aniko Carmean, using DIY Book Covers

Editing by Jacinda Little

License

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.

Disclaimer

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

BREAKER

Aniko Carmean

For the drivers of Austin Capital Metro's Route 983. I wrote this story on your bus. Thank you for making that possible.

Table of Contents

Breaker

About Aniko

Breaker

It is Summer Solstice, 1983. My team and I are on FM-6060 in west Texas. Drucilla paused and looked off into the distance, her signature orange-red lipstick the brightest color in the dusty silence.

I’m Drucilla Quincey, a post-doctoral student in Cultural Anthropology at Rice University. I invite you to join me in investigating Treeletting, a dark folktale of human sacrifice, pagan beliefs, and goddess worship. Discretion is advised, as some details of the Treeletting legend may be upsetting to sensitive or young viewers.

A heat-mirage, visible just to the left of Drucilla, flexed its insubstantial body over the road and Eddie zoomed out to capture it in the shot.

Our destination is Breaker, Texas, Drucilla continued. Breaker has a population of less than a hundred, and it is one of the last towns on the road to Big Bend National Park. She pulled her thick, black braid over the front of her shoulder, fondling it as if lost in thought. Few travelers stay for long, perhaps because Breaker is rumored to be the epicenter of ancient and grisly rites.

Eddie panned the visual to include the immense, cloudless sky dominating the arid expanse of prickly pears and mesquite trees.

Drucilla took off the eyeglasses she only wore on camera. How’d the monologue seem? Was touching my braid to hammy?

You looked good, Dru.

That’s amazing, considering it’s got to be over a hundred out here. Drucilla wiped her brow with the back of her hand. "God, I really hate west Texas."

Eddie nestled the Sony BMC-100 Betamovie recorder back in its case, kissed his fingertips and pressed them to the side of the camera. You could have chosen to research the Proctor and Gamble logo brouhaha. Right now, we could be in a corporate sky rise, sipping martinis in the air conditioning.

Maybe P&G really is supporting the Church of Satan, but who’s going to be surprised? Evil conglomerates are so passé. Drucilla repeated Eddie’s gesture, adding her own good-luck kiss to the side of the camera. Nope, it’s Treeletting that’s going to land us that PBS spot.

###

Eddie pulled to a stop near the historical marker for the Makepeace Orchard.

That’s one hell of a juxtaposition, Drucilla said. The orchard is in the middle of a million acres of dead land. I couldn’t have planned a nicer set-up for the idea of human sacrifice to a vegetable goddess. She reapplied her lipstick and put on her glasses. It’s incredible.

I’ll get a long shot of it while you read the marker.

Start on me, though.

"Oui, mon capitaine."

Eddie climbed into the back of the van to get the equipment while Drucilla hurried toward the historical marker. The raised lettering was weather-beaten, and if the paint had ever contrasted to the background, it had long since been denuded by the merciless weather. She grabbed at the hem of