The Night of the Flood Read online

  THE NIGHT OF THE FLOOD

  A Novel in Stories

  E.A. Aymar and Sarah M. Chen, Editors

  PRAISE FOR THE NIGHT OF THE FLOOD

  “Each of the 14 varied and fitfully amusing stories in this solid anthology takes as its starting point the destruction of a dam and the subsequent flooding of Everton, PA. Aymar and Chen deserve kudos for putting together a distinctive anthology.” —Publishers Weekly

  “While the collection includes various styles and voices, it feels as though it was masterminded by a single ingenious author. The Night of the Flood shines, showcasing talented writers making the most of an inventive starting point.” —Foreword Reviews, Starred

  “Plenty of complex characters and hard edges. Take a breath, then hang on and enjoy this entertaining romp.” —Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author

  “Bravo to all the authors who contributed to The Night of the Flood, a collection of brilliant short stories about residents of the dysfunctional town of Everton who are thrust into the turbulence of decisions that will forever change who they thought they were. A stormy page-turner that will leave you wanting more.” —Sandra Brannan, author of the award-winning Liv Bergen Mystery Series

  “A brilliant, multi-leveled concept, Faulknerian in its structure. A novel in stories. Wow. Fourteen new exciting crime writers create a rare three-dimensional mosaic of a doomed town and the night hell flooded through it. Terrifically exciting. Wonderfully inventive.” —David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Murder As a Fine Art

  “A brave concept brilliantly executed.” —Lee Child, bestselling author of the Jack Reacher Series

  “An impressive collection of stories from some of the most talented writers working in the crime genre today.” —BOLO Books Review

  Compilation Copyright © 2018 by E.A. Aymer and Sarah M. Chen

  Story Copyrights © 2018 by Individual Authors

  All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover design by Page Godwin

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  The Night of the Flood

  Guest Editor Introduction

  Hank Phillippi Ryan

  Dear Townspeople of Everton

  Jenny Milchman

  The Orphans

  E.A. Aymar

  Anything Worth Saving

  Wendy Tyson

  The Copy Man

  J.J. Hensley

  The Curse

  Mark Edwards

  And the Water Kept Rising

  Alan Orloff

  Bad Day to be the Bad Guy

  Angel Luis Colón

  Marta

  Gwen Florio

  Carter Hank McKater Takes a Sedative at One in the A.M.

  Shannon Kirk

  Bales

  Rob Brunet

  The Darkest Hour

  Hilary Davidson

  A Watery Grave

  Sarah M. Chen

  The Chase

  Elizabeth Heiter

  Epilogue

  Jennifer Hillier

  About the Contributors

  The Down & Out Books Publishing Family Library of Titles

  Preview from Blind Eye by Marcus Pelegrimas

  Preview from Slaughterhouse Blues by Nick Kolakowski

  Preview from Second Story Man by Charles Salzberg

  Dedicated to the International Thriller Writers organization,

  and all it does for aspiring, debut, and established writers.

  And also the people of Everton, PA (sorry).

  Guest Editor Introduction

  Hank Phillippi Ryan

  This book is so ridiculously terrific I can’t begin to tell you, but being a writer of course, I will try.

  What makes it so brilliant? It’s three books in one.

  First, of course, it’s an anthology of short stories. No dearth of those around, of course. Like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland (with me here?), writers will get together and say—let’s write all some stories about detectives, or aliens, or famous crimes.

  But this anthology is wonderfully unique. Each short story reveals a moment in time in a super poor Pennsylvania town called Everton. What would happen, these thriller writers asked, if a massive dam was town-destroyingly blown up by a group of zealots? More I cannot say, but that’s the jumping off point. If your world was about to be deluged with millions of tons of uncontrollably rushing water, how would you react? What would you do? What decisions would you make? How would your “friends” behave? Who would you save? And—with law enforcement as overwhelmed, terrified (and wet) as you are—would any laws apply? What could you get away with—and what would you try?

  Whether these authors collaborated and divvied up the people and timing I don’t even want to know—because that’s the fascination. But each short story is a personal jewel, a look deep inside the characters’ motivations and fears and unleashed desires. These are thriller writers, after all, so there are no stories where someone says, “Oh, golly,” then packs up the family albums, puts them in the Pontiac and heads for the—less soggy—hills. Each of these is a pitch perfect little story of raw emotional choices—sometimes violent, sometimes shocking, and sometimes hilarious. Each is an investigation into the impossible-to-predict process people would go through when faced with a cataclysmic event. If you simply read it story by individual story, it’s fun and fast-paced and imaginative and surprising. But that’s only part of it.

  It’s also a second book entirely—because somehow, like an Altman movie or a photo developing in a chemical bath (you remember that, right?) each individual tale isn’t just a story in itself, but the piece of an emerging bigger picture. In this about-to-be-obliterated little town, each person, suddenly mano a mano with destiny, is pitted not only against the relentless water, but their own personal demons. Each person struggles not only to survive, but also understands this disaster may offer the opportunity to do something they always wanted to do. Get revenge. Even the score. Leave someone behind. Take what they want. Form unlikely alliances. Reveal the truth. Start over.

  And as you read, a comprehensive portrait of the whole town emerges, a twisted Spoon River or a sinister Grover’s Corners—or maybe more like Rod Serling’s suspect-your-neighbors Maple Street. You begin to realize that what’s happening in the bank is happening at the same time as what’s going on in the Wetherbee’s house, or at the auto mechanic, or on the river. The stories work together—and as we read, we become more and more invested in this increasingly believable and realistic drama.

  But there’s yet another element. The Night of the Flood is also a master’s class in storytelling and voice. An illustration of why when we say “thriller” it could mean so many things—suspense, horror, caper, procedural. Each author’s voice is eloquently individual, each story imaginative and unique. And if you notice, as I did, a certain dark cynicism about the state of our world these days, well, that’s probably your imagination.

  I’m happy I don’t live in Everton. But trust me—it’s a pretty amazing place to visit. Just bring an umbrella and a r
owboat.

  Back to TOC

  Dear Townspeople of Everton

  Jenny Milchman

  Dear Townspeople of Everton:

  First, I want to say I’m sorry for what’s about to happen to you tonight.

  I gotta admit that my sympathies lie with Maggie Wilbourne, and I guess that don’t make me a—what would you call it? Unbiased observer. But all we’re asking is for the governor to grant a stay of execution, or the judge to overturn the verdict, better yet.

  I’m not saying Maggie didn’t do it, mind. I’m saying she had a good reason to.

  You already know about what she done. It was in all the papers, ones we just heard the names of but never read, plus the Everton Early, of course. Those slick reporters talked about it on the news—our local little channel six, all the networks, and on cable too. Even when there was nothing new to say, they kept rehashing every gory, grisly detail. Gore and gristle sell. And when even those start to get old, begin stinking like a bad piece of meat, then people speculate there’s more to it than we was hearing about, make all sorts of things up.

  There wasn’t more to it. Maggie Wilbourne went to get justice from the law, and when the law didn’t give it to her, she took her daddy’s rifle and shot the heads off two men whose names you already know: James Manning and Trevor Daw. And when James saw Trevor’s face go flying, he didn’t turn around and run or try to hide, that’s how shocked he was. He just stood there, staring down at what was left of his friend, till Maggie blew him away too.

  Why James Manning and Trevor Daw? Because Maggie said they raped her pretty bad. One at a time so the other could watch. Helpless on her daddy’s couch in that house he has by the Big Dam. Did you ever wonder why we call it the Big Dam like there was a smaller one? But the Big Dam’s the only thing we got in Everton. Powers all the towns downriver, people fear that one day, nothing will be left for us.

  Won’t matter if we do what we’re intending on tonight.

  My daddy brought me to Everton when I was twelve years old and my momma had just walked out on us. He found work here at the dam, and that was reason enough to stay. So I’m not from around here, and sometimes it seem like folks can see that about me, hear it in the way I talk, smell it on me almost. But I love this town same as if my good-for-nothing family lived here for four generations. This town took me in when I was nothing.

  I love it enough to destroy it.

  Maggie told Chief Wilcox what James and Trevor done, and the chief did what he was supposed to, wrote up a report, started an investigation. I guess it was Maggie’s lawyer couldn’t make a good enough case. Or maybe the jury started feeling some sympathy for those two blown apart boys.

  It’ll be a fitting follow-up when we blow up the Big Dam tonight, won’t it? ’Cause if Maggie Wilbourne dies with needles poking into her veins, sending in poison that’s the only thing could be strong enough to wipe her memories away, we’re going to make sure everything else here in Everton gets washed away too.

  And if the house Maggie grew up in, her daddy’s house that sets right on the hillside over the Big Dam, is the first to go when we let that big wave of water free? Well, maybe that’s fitting too. Maybe Maggie’s lawyer couldn’t think of anything to say when that other lawyer made the truth about her daddy come out in that courthouse. Maggie didn’t start crying, you know, never even blinked.

  She sure was crying, screaming too, that night on her daddy’s couch when James and Trevor went running to see what was the matter. Maggie’s daddy just slinked away. He came straight to my house, which is where he always does go, nights when Maggie sleeps so hard, she can’t be woken, or those times when Maggie’s momma, my auntie, decides to stay home.

  Too much blood has flowed in this town, too many tears have been spilled. Time for us to wash it all away.

  From,

  The Daughters

  Back to TOC

  The Orphans

  E.A. Aymar

  The dam blew up ten minutes after six, then we emerged. It wasn’t what you see on TV. You hear about riots and looting and you expect a mob tossing rocks through windows, snatching TVs. But we were smart. A plan had circulated through text and email, going to all us folk in the south side, the poor, the angry, the ones on the edge of breaking. We’d hit homes first, wait for the Everton cops to help out those victims, then target the stores.

  We went to the houses on the hill. That’s the rich part of Everton, where the folks who have more bedrooms than family members lived, where they stayed, where they looked down on the rest of us. Their houses were built around the dam, but none of those houses were damaged. None of those houses stood in the path of the rushing water. Those people never suffered the way we did.

  The looters stole through Everton. My sister Callie and I avoided the flood and stayed on the outskirts of the town. Here the ground was higher and, for now, dry. We rode my motorcycle north, occasionally stopping to stare at the submerged town below, some of the families already perched on rooftops to watch the water rise. The men and women were shocked or sad. The children, excited or scared.

  It took a half hour to reach the hill, and we figured we had an hour before everyone else showed up. We wanted to get here first, before the riots started and blood spilled. The homes here were all spread apart, not clustered together like the south side. The house we targeted was at least three stories, but so dark it looked abandoned. Every other house had people standing out front, staring down at the drowning town. The porch on this one was empty. Trees curved around it like a crown.

  “Vic, check it out,” Callie said to me, her long knife hanging at her side. “They started the fires.”

  She was right. Fires flared to life through Everton, five, ten, more. The town was pitch black since the power had gone out, so someone had texted that we should set the trees on fire.

  “I’m going to miss this after tonight,” I told her. “Just kidding.”

  “Still want to leave, huh?”

  “There’s been nothing for us here. And there’ll be even less after tonight.”

  “Then let’s do this.”

  I pulled my 9 mm semi out of its holster, used the handle to smash the small glass window next to the door. I listened to hear if anyone was inside.

  Silence.

  I reached through the broken glass, unlocked the door. Pulled my ski mask down over my face. Looked back at Callie.

  “Where’s your mask?”

  Callie shook her head. “My hair looks really good tonight.”

  She opened the door and stepped inside. Tossed her mask behind her.

  I picked it up and followed her in.

  Callie and I had lived in Everton since I was six and she was three. We’d been born in Baltimore to a crack addict and a hooker and ended up in foster homes, until James Whitlow of Everton—a lifelong bachelor desperate for a family—adopted us and moved us to western Pennsylvania. We were the only adopted kids in the town. The adults called Whitlow a saint. Kids called us The Orphans.

  Whitlow wasn’t much of a saint. He was a moody drunk and, when the plant closed in 2007, he went over the edge. He ended up putting his fists on me and his fingers in Callie. I didn’t know he was doing anything to her until almost a year had passed.

  “He promised he’d kill me if I said anything,” Callie told me one day at school, as we sat by ourselves at lunch. “That’s why I haven’t said anything until now.”

  My insides felt like rocks sliding down a hill.

  “When?”

  “When did he start or when does he do it? He comes into my room at night. Really late. Since January.”

  My shoulders hurt. I hadn’t realized my body was so tense.

  “Should we run?” Callie asked. “Go somewhere else?”

  I glanced at the crowded tables in the cafeteria, listened to the conversations around us, the sudden shouts of laughter and happy exclamations.

  “I don’t want to run. I want to do something else.”

  Call
ie smiled. “Me too.”

  We waited until later that night, when Whitlow was passed out drunk, and dragged him to the garage. He was a large man, probably two-fifty with a protruding belly. It took both of us, but we finally got him into his car and started it up. We stuck a hose in the exhaust, fed the other end through the window.

  They found him the next night, gray and bloated and dead. Everyone called it a tragedy. Everyone pitied us. One of our neighbors, a librarian named Natalie Moreno, offered to take us in. I was seventeen, Callie fourteen, and after a year I moved out and took Callie with me. Natalie didn’t hurt us the way Whitlow had, but she was mercilessly strict and I worried Callie would kill her. When Natalie took away her phone because Callie had stayed out all night, and I saw Callie eyeing the kitchen knife rack, I made my decision. We left days later.

  I got a terrible job at Woods Automotive and a small apartment. Callie and I lived there for the next three years.

  No one bothered us. People had always given me a wide berth. “It’s because you never smile,” Callie told me, but Callie was legitimately crazy so I didn’t put a lot of stock in her opinions. Most people couldn’t put their finger on it, couldn’t figure out what exactly about my sister, a thin pale brunette, made them nervous. But I knew the reason.

  Callie didn’t have limits, didn’t even know what limits were. I tested that the night we murdered Whitlow. Killing him didn’t bother me, not after I learned what he’d done to Callie, but she couldn’t care less. When the cops took away his body the next morning, she told me she dug her nails into her palms to stop herself from smiling.