You Will Be Safe Here: Four Tales of Monsters and Mayhem and Tracker's Travail, a novel

By James Noll

Come travel down the dark recesses of the human mind, accompany the doomed inhabitants of a distant planet on their dangerous final mission, and tour the paranormal corners of Fredericksburg, Virginia with four more short stories and a new novel from the author of A Knife in the Back.

"Milly-Anne" doesn't let autism get in her way. She's smart. Smarter than her mother, smarter than her classmates, and definitely smarter than Mr. Tull, her principal. But something horrific is spawning in the air ducts of her school, and she can't make anybody understand just how much danger they are in.

In "Like This?," the psychiatrists release Jefferson Jefferson from the institution early. They shouldn't have.

In "The Unan," Bear, Lily, and the old man barely escape a deadly outbreak in their compound. They take to the jungle, where unknown peril awaits.

In "Savages," a fireball streaks through the heavens above the peaceful valley where the White One, the Brother of Rhoem, has lived for years with his cousins, the Unan. The chief of the Unan thinks it may be a message from the gods, but the White One knows it is a different kind of visitor.

Tracker's Travail picks up the story of Topher, Zorn, and Gertrude years after their escape from Raleigh's Prep.. Arriving in Fredericksburg, Virginia just in time to stop a Class IV CZA, they quickly find themselves embroiled in various other misadventures. Who would have thought such a quaint little town could be so lethal?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Mar 2, 2014

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You Will Be Safe Here

Four Tales of

Monsters and Mayhem

and Tracker’s Travail, a novel

James Noll

PULP!

Horror, Post-Apocalyptic, and Science Fiction

This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. I tell you true

YOU WILL BE SAFE HERE. Copyright © 2014 by James Noll

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. PULP books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, visit www.jamesnoll.net

Book and Cover Design by James Noll

Cover illustration by Grant Ervin

Author Photo by Haley Noll

Brother Oliver’s explanation of the plague

is modified from The Bible, Genesis, 19:25

ISBN: 0615924484

ISBN-13: 978-0615924489 (PULP!) 

This one is dedicated to everybody who helped me with the PULP! Project (www.pulpedu.com).  In no specific order: Jeff Covert, who recorded a lot of and mixed all of the music.  Grant Ervin, who illustrated nearly every aspect of the project.  Bill Harris, who also illustrated nearly every aspect of the project.  Larry Hinkle, who played guitar and provided encouragement.  Mark Phelan, who played bass and is just awesome.  Eric Somdahl, who played bass and provided tech support.  Sarah Hromyak-Pendleton, who argued with me about cool things.  Wayne Pendleton, for flicking me off at the entrance of my neighborhood.  Kevin Johnson, who let me make fun of him, and who starred in one of the videos.  Steve Watkins, Lisa Gates and Susie Barnes, who also starred in one of the videos. Kent Ippolito, who wrote and recorded Beta’s Tune, and played on Salvation because he’s just that cool.  Chip Warren, who is a creative guru, a great friend, and who provided me with the best advice ever regarding the dip. And finally, Sasha and Iggy, who patiently waited for me to finish whatever it was I was doing, and who purred near me and guarded me and are generally excellent.

A Homily

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.

—H.P. Lovecraft

"The human race has only one really effective weapon,

and that is laughter."

—Mark Twain

"You can’t always write a chord ugly enough to say

what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a

giraffe filled with whipped cream."

—Frank Zappa

The planet is fine.  The people are fucked.

—George Carlin

PART ONE

Four Tales of Monsters and Mayhem

Milly-Anne

Ms. Goodnight bustled back into her room. She’d just completed her third meeting of the day, this one a PLT meeting for her second PLC group, which followed an IEP meeting into which she was roped for a student she didn’t know, which itself followed an impromptu parent meeting when Mrs. Bigsly showed up unannounced demanding to know why her son, Clayton, was failing nearly every class. Ms. Goodnight explained that Clayton was failing because he didn’t do any of his work and ate paste to entertain his friends, a fact that did not seem to faze his mother.

But it says in his IEP that he has ‘room to wander.’

Stunned, Ms. Goodnight excused herself. She had other students to worry about, like Jordan Lee, who never had anything to eat but liked to bite her classmates, and Miles Gunderson, who slept through every lesson but gleefully explained to anybody who would listen that he stayed awake all night playing video games. Then there was Milly-Anne Taylor, who, while she didn’t eat paste and always had enough to eat, and while she did not once take a chunk out of, or even gnash her teeth at, any of her classmates, was singular enough of a problem on her own.

And, of course, her classroom was spattered with blood.

Red spray, as if from a hacked-open artery, coated the children’s chairs. Wadded up hunks of discarded organs, dripping with blood, were scattered all over the tables. A severed head was perched upon a stack of papers on her desk. Scalps hung from the ceiling like hairy spiders. This, after all, was the reason she spent four years in undergraduate school and two years in graduate school: to teach special needs eighth graders how to make a good House of Horrors for the school-wide Halloween Celebration, all while making it engaging and educational.

Ms. Goodnight herself was outfitted in a white surgeon’s smock, safety goggles, a surgical mask, and bright yellow, chemist’s gloves. All of them were flecked with fake blood. She chuckled a little bit, wondering what Mrs. Bigsly thought when she saw her son’s teacher dressed like this. Maybe that’s why she didn’t say anything when Ms. Goodnight left.

She rolled up the left glove and checked her watch. Shit. Nearly two-thirty. Her class was in Gym with Mr. Powers until the end of the day, but the meeting about Milly-Anne was in fifteen minutes.

Sorry I’m late, she said, bustling into the conference room.

Mr. Tull, her bespectacled, balding, and rather constipated principal, sat at the head of the long table. To his right sat Mrs. Burton, Milly-Anne’s case manager. Mrs. Taylor, Milly-Anne’s mother, sat at the middle of the table, staring vacantly before her. Milly-Anne sat at the other end, two seats away from the nearest adult, rocking and staring at the ceiling. Her yellow summer dress, the one with the white daffodils, was as rumpled and dirty as usual, and she’d outgrown the open-toed sandals she always wore, but there was no way anybody would convince her to wear something different. This would not have been a problem if she didn’t wear it every day, even as the weather grew colder, even in the snowstorm the year before.

She didn’t seem at all concerned with the presence of such esteemed and knowledgeable adults. Any other child might cling to her mother, or stare wide-eyed around her, but Milly-Anne hated physical contact, and the outside world rarely seemed to register.  If it did happen to intrude, as it did today, she met it with puzzled indifference, or ignored it completely, or (as was the case in S.O.L. practice a few days before) with unmitigated horror.

Mrs. Taylor, Mr. Tull drawled. I’d like to apologize for Ms. Goodnight’s lack of consideration. We here at Forest Glen Middle value our parents’ time. We understand you had to take time off from work to get here today.

Ms. Goodnight slid into the seat across from Milly-Anne’s mother. She tried to swallow her protest but just couldn’t hold it in.

And time away from my planning.

Mr. Tull peered at her over the rims of his glasses.

Ms. Goodnight. This is not the time for this discussion. I will not tolerate subversiveness.

Mrs. Taylor stared at all of them, her jaw slack, her eyes dead. She was a small, wan woman with rumpled hair, rumpled makeup, and a rumpled maroon shirt. The words Bottom of the Barrel were sewn onto the breast pocket, and the rest of it was stained with a variety of condiments: yellow mustard, red ketchup, a few unmentionable green gobs. Bottom of the Barrel was the local discount grocery store.  Mrs. Taylor worked in the deli.

Mrs. Burton cleared her throat.

If everybody’s ready? Her voice was thick and her eyes looked a bit red. She arranged the stack of I.E.P. papers sitting in front of her.  Mrs. Taylor, we are here to discuss an update in Milly-Anne’s I.E.P., as requested by you following the first quarter.

I didn’t request nothin’, Mrs. Taylor said. Her voice was flat and nasal, at home in barn lofts. Milly-Anne did all that.

Mr. Tull chuckled.

I’m sorry, Mrs. Taylor. That’s impossible. I’m reading right here that it says you called about the meeting.

Milly-Anne ast me to.

Mr. Tull turned his lidded attention upon the child sitting at the end of his table, seeing her as if for the first time.

Is this true, young lady?

Milly-Anne did not answer. She rocked and stared at the ceiling, rocked and stared.

Mr. Tull slapped the table with the palm of his right hand. Every adult in the room flinched. Milly-Anne stopped rocking. Her eyes slowly focused on her surroundings.

Young lady!

Milly-Anne stared at him, her eyes growing wider and wider.

"Mr. Tull," Ms. Goodnight hissed.

Mr. Tull slapped the table again, and the girl’s hands shot up to her ears. She wailed and kicked the table, rocking Mr. Tull’s bottle of water. He stared at her, confused, hand still positioned above the table, ready to strike. Mrs. Taylor shook her head.

She don’t like loud noises.

Mrs. Burton got up and walked around to the girl. She knelt down next to her, careful not to touch her or make any motions that might be interpreted as an attempt to touch her, and started to speak. Nobody could hear what she said, but her voice was hushed and calm, and soon Milly-Anne’s wailing stopped, and then her hands came off her ears, and then she was staring at the ceiling again, rocking and staring, rocking and staring. Mr. Tull looked around and blinked.

Is she calmed down? Young lady, are you okay?

He started to slap the table, but Mrs. Burton turned to him and said, She can’t take loud noises, Dale!

Mr. Tull nodded as if he understood and turned his attention back to Milly-Anne’s mother.

Mrs. Taylor? I understand there were some incidents in Ms. Goodnight’s class this week?

Ms. Goodnight said, There were no incidents. Nothing unusual for her, that is.

Mr. Tull grunted. He flipped through a few papers he held in his hands. He grunted again and picked one out, waving it in the air.

If there were no incidents, then why did, uh— He checked the paper. Why did Mr. and Mrs. Lee call me up to complain about loud screaming during S.O.L. practice?

That—

Loud screaming of the variety I just witnessed coming from this student’s mouth a few minutes ago.

Milly-Anne started to whisper to herself, Fifty percent wet on Monday.  All dried up.

The heat kicked on, pumping warm air into the conference room.  Ms. Goodnight winced. It smelled a little like ammonia, acrid and metallic. Mrs. Burton sneezed, followed by a great whopping cough.

Seasonal allergies, she explained.

Ms. Goodnight pulled out a little pack of tissues and handed it to her.

Mr. Tull, what Mr. and Mrs. Lee did not tell you was that their daughter was tormenting Milly-Anne while we were practicing.

Tormenting?

Yes. She was whistling.

Whistling?

A very high pitched whistle, just to bother Milly-Anne.

Mrs. Taylor picked at her uniform.

She don’t like high pitched whistles. Can’t abide no loud noises at all. Don’t like to touch the floor with her heels, neither. Been walkin’ on her toes since she learned how to stand. Her arches collapsed.

Mr. Tull was unimpressed.

Even so, she disrupted a very important practice session for the practice standardized test coming up next week.

Ms. Goodnight sighed, exasperated.

She doesn’t even need to take the test.

Doesn’t need to take the test? Mr. Tull stared around in disbelief. "Doesn’t need to take the test?"

Milly-Anne whispered, Green and black. Not wet since Monday.

She’s scored perfectly on every practice S.O.L. I’ve given her since August. She even corrected the spelling errors on the last one.

Scoring well on the practice test is impressive, but that still doesn’t exempt her from the real test in May.

She has a photographic memory, too. Show her a map of America after the Louisiana Purchase for one second and she can draw it for you perfectly.

Mr. Tull turned to Mrs. Burton.

Mrs. Burton? What is your take on this child’s alleged genius?

Mrs. Burton had to clear her throat before she could speak, and when she did, her voice was thick and hoarse.

She has started a number of science projects since August. Mr. Holmes was fixing that leaky pipe in the ceiling last week, and she got him to get her some samples from the air ducts.  But—

But what, Mrs. Burton?

Well, she starts a lot of experiments, but she never completes any of them.

She hacked again, three times in a row, short, violent bursts. Her eyes were suddenly red and watery.

Mr. Tull gave her a triumphant look.

"Never completes any of them?"

She’s like that at home, too, Mrs. Taylor said. Gotta clean up after all these explosions in the bathroom.

She’s mixing explosives?

I don’t know what she’s doing. Always scraping stuff off the shower curtain, setting it on fire. About near burned out our basement after it flooded last spring.

All of the sudden, Milly-Anne began to moan again, another long low sound, like a siren ramping up to a high pitched wail. Startled, Mr. Tull slapped the table with his palm several times in succession, and Milly-Anne leaped out of her seat.

Green and black and dry! she screamed. Fifty percent wet in the leaky pipe! Green and black and dry!

Mr. Tull slapped the table again and again, and Mrs. Taylor got up and went to Milly-Anne.

Sometimes you just gotta take her out. She wiped her nose.  Damn nose is runnin’.

Mrs. Burton hurried out of the conference room, one hand over her mouth, and one on her forehead. She nearly ran over Milly-Anne, who was still screaming through her mother’s hand.

Mrs. Burton has the seasonal allergies pretty bad, Mr. Tull said to no one in particular.

~

Ms. Goodnight shoved a load of papers and supplies off her desk.  Pencils flew, crayons clattered, and the rest crashed to the floor. She sighed and collapsed into her chair, which nearly tipped over, rocking backwards until it came to a rest against the filing cabinet.

This was nice.

Her feet dangled in the air. She could feel the blood flowing back into them. Her head listed to one side, and she found herself staring out the window. Leaves, gold and orange, coated the ground. The wind kicked up, shaking the branches of a tree just outside, and more leaves sailed into the air. She watched as they floated gently down, then let her head loll the other way.

The overhead lights were too bright, so she closed her eyes.

Suddenly she jerked awake, nearly tipping the chair over. How long had she been out? She looked at her watch. Phew, only ten minutes. She leaned back again, summoning the strength to stand up and go home.

There was a dark splotch in the ceiling. A dark splotch in the shape of a bell, spreading out from one of the vents.

She frowned. Was that fake blood? Clayton Bigsly. How did he get it all the way up there? No, he couldn’t have. Not without a ladder.  The splotch spread as she watched, changing from a bell into a large blob. The heat kicked on and that same acrid smell hit her: ammonia and dirt, stronger than before. Her eyes began to water and she suddenly felt dizzy and sick. A scream sounded out down the hall.

She tried to get up and out of her chair but found that she was too nauseous to move. The stain spread out from all four corners of the room, and the air was heavy, and though she gasped and labored, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t breathe. The last thing she noticed before her vision failed was that the stain was a glistening, slimy green, and that there were little particles, little black particles, shooting out of the air vent.

~

Milly-Anne’s mother would have said goodbye when she dropped her off, but considering the fact that Milly-Anne had never said goodbye to anyone in her life, and considering the horrid wailing the little girl emitted for the hour after she was told she was going to school, and considering the kicking and punching and other fits she threw on the way in, her mother decided against any pleasantries altogether. Instead she deposited her, still sniffling, out on the curb and sped away, late, again, for her shift at the grocery store.

Milly-Anne moaned as she stared at the front door. A cold wind blew. Dead leaves skittered across the concrete. The flag line clanged against the pole. Where was the flag? Mr. Tull usually had it up by now. Children yelled in the distance, playing as they waited for the bus. It was only three and half minutes from the last bus stop to the front of the school.

As if on cue, the front door swung slowly open.

All she could see was darkness. Ms. Goodnight usually met her at the curb and walked her in, and the lights were always on, and there were always secretaries and janitors and bus monitors moving around inside, getting ready. But not today. Today there was just blackness. Dead blackness.

Then she saw them. The principal, Mr. Tull, and Mrs. Burton, and the gym teacher, and her sixth grade math teacher, and dozens of the other teachers, all emerged from the gloom to loom pale in the shadows of the lobby. In front of them all stood Ms. Goodnight. Her eyes were wide and black, the whites tinted green.

In the distance, Milly-Anne heard the roar of the first bus as it approached the school.

Ms. Goodnight reached for her.

Milly-Anne, she said. Come here.

Like This?

I am, if you will forgive the cliché, what is known as a bit of an odd duck. That is if by odd duck one means educated sleuth. To be sure, I have achieved my fair share of peccadilloes; to wit: the incident with the aquatic waterfowl when I was five, the unfortunate fascination with that actress at age twelve, nearly every day of my second senior year in high school, and finally, an episode I refer to as The Mortification Beneath the Train Bridge. However, none of these should be held against me. The world is filled with brilliant, if difficult, men. Walter Bishop. C. Auguste Dupin. Hercule Poirot. Not that I, poor little Jefferson Jefferson from Fredericksburg, VA, ever aspired to be placed among such august company as Auguste et al, but would that I could! But of course I realize that those men are fictional, and . . . yes, yes, it is perfectly rational to draw a rather negative conclu . . . but that is precisely the point to which I aim! Should I have a moment to straighten the rudder, then perhaps we shall thread the channel?

So. My point. My point.

Ah yes.

You see, I was most certainly not acquainted with the four uniformed officers traipsing in and out of the house on Hawke Street that morning. I was acquainted with other uniformed officers, granted, but not as well acquainted as I was with the detective standing just within the door. His name was Davis, and he was my cousin. Yes, we shared the same last name, and yes I am aware of its implications, but you may have my utmost assurances that Davis was not the least concerned with history or politics. He was not a member of any white-sheeted group. He did not attend reenactments. He did not subscribe to the bizarre notion of the southern states somehow salvaging the chimaeras of its erstwhile militaristic vigor. The south was as strong as ever, in Davis’ humble opine, thank you very much, and to contradict such a notion was to be guilty of heresy. Or something like that. To be honest, I do not think Davis thought a whit about the south, the Cause, its position in the world. He was a detective. And as such, he had criminals to detect.

Recently, however, the dragging economy led to a certain amount of uncertainty among the public servant set, and with sequestration and austerity measures and the Cypriots rioting and what not, Davis’ department had already eradicated its community outreach programs, (not to mention its long ridiculed cavalry), and there was frequent fervor of furlough and firings and further financial flap. Perhaps, I thought, my cousin might need to prove his mettle beyond his usual competence, beyond his usual skill and aptitude and expertise, and who better to aid him in just such an endeavor than his erstwhile incommodious cousin? I, in other words, wanted to . . . help? Is that the word I’m looking for? Well, if not, it will do for now.

Davis had always been handsome, yes, and even now, even in his advancing years, he retained the square jaw and evenly proportioned features humans find so attractive. The golden ratio, what. Though his frame was still trim, still demonstrative of a lifetime’s effort on the pitch or diamond or court or wherever it was the good man spent forty-three years spiriting ball or birdie or what-have-you into some narrow orifice or other, did I detect a burgeoning paunch at his midsection? A certain fleshiness to his chin? A pronounced recession of hairline? We all grow old, do we not? Even former high school sport stars. And I, for one . . . no, there is not a hint of that particular emotion in my voice, and besides, green does not wear well on me.

To his credit, when he did finally notice me standing there across the street, Davis did not scream or yell or pitch a fit. He is—was—a professional, after all. No no, he didn’t entirely ignore me per se (Mama Dee would have descended into a state of drooling convulsion had he executed such a common pedestrianism), but he did proceed with his duties for a time until he finally disposed himself to pull away for a moment to parlay with a beloved, if long absent, cousin.

I declared his name as he crossed the street, a respectful, if familiar, Ah, Davis.

I noticed his chosen attire was not nearly as natty as I expected.  He was a public servant, I suppose, but gracious me, could they not afford to pay him just a parcel more, enough to, perhaps, invest in some quality footwear? His sport coat, while immaculate, was certainly straight off the rack, and the thread count on his cotton shirt must have numbered in the ones. Tsk tsk, FPD. Tsk tsk.

I, for one, picked my ensemble with an eye to impress. My shirt? Ralph Lauren. Thread count, 80. Pants: Armani. 100. Shoes: A. Testoni Norvegese. I accessorized as well. I bought a new Samsung Galaxy.

Nonetheless, after putting the final flourishes on my morning’s blog, I informed my dear cousin how good it was to see him again, how wonderful, how spectacular.

Davis cringed.

Jefferson, what are you doing here? And where did you get the money to buy that phone?

I informed my cousin that, although yes I’d been recently let go, rough economy, sequester cuts and layoffs et cetera, ad infinitum, he needn’t worry about my financial situation. Davis, however, did not seem to enjoy this particular response. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

Does Mama Dee know you’re here?

Of course she did. And may I ask, dear cousin, the nature of his day’s work? Was it a kidnapping? A rape? Child abuse, sex scandal, suicide, domestic strife, drug bust, meth lab, burglary, car jacking, terrorism, serial—

Murder, Jefferson, okay? Two college kids were murdered.

Oh dear. Poor young ladies.

How did you know they were girls, Jeff?

Please, Davis dear, it’s Jefferson.

Jefferson! How did you know they were girls?

I pointed at the house, from which two paramedics were hauling a young lady on a stretcher.

Holy Christ. He ran across the street calling out for them to stop. He and the medics exchanged some choice words at the curb that ended with the medics pushing past him and loading said young lady on the stretcher up into the ambulance and slamming the doors tight behind them and speeding off seconds later, the siren screaming in the early summer morning.

It would appear as though the job was not