Joe Lansdale - The Best of Joe R. Lansdale

“Forget the nigger,” Pork said. “Give me your car keys, ball sweat.” Leonard took out his keys and gave them to Pork and Pork went around to the trunk and opened it. “Drag the nigger over here.”

Leonard took one of Scott’s arms and Farto took the other and they pulled him over to the back of the car.

“Put him in the trunk,” Pork said.

“What for?” Leonard asked.

“‘Cause I fucking said so,” Pork said.

Leonard and Farto heaved Scott into the trunk. He looked pathetic lying there next to the spare tire, his face partially covered with newspaper. Leonard thought, if only the nigger had stolen a car with a spare he might not be here tonight. He could have gotten that flat changed and driven on before the White Tree boys even came along.

“All right, you get in there with him,” Pork said, gesturing to Farto.

“Me?” Farto said.

“Nah, not fucking you, the fucking elephant on your fucking shoulder. Yeah, you, get in the trunk. I ain’t got all night.”

“Jesus, we didn’t do anything to that dog, mister. We told you that. I swear. Me and Leonard hooked him up after he was dead… It was Leonard’s idea.”

Pork didn’t say a word. He just stood there with one hand on the trunk lid looking at Farto. Farto looked at Pork, then the trunk, then back to Pork. Lastly he looked at Leonard, then climbed into the trunk, his back to Scott.

“Like spoons,” Pork said, and closed the lid. “Now you, whatsit, Leonard? You come over here.” But Pork didn’t wait for Leonard to move. He scooped the back of Leonard’s neck with a chubby hand and pushed him over to where Rex lay at the end of the chain with Vinnie still looking down at him.

“What you think, Vinnie?” Pork asked. “You got what I got in mind?”

Vinnie nodded. He bent down and took the collar off the dog. He fastened it on Leonard. Leonard could smell the odor of the dead dog in his nostrils. He bent his head and puked.

“There goes my shoeshine,” Vinnie said, and he hit Leonard a short one in the stomach. Leonard went to his knees and puked some more of the hot Coke and whiskey.

“You fucks are the lowest pieces of shit on this earth, doing a dog like that,” Vinnie said. “A nigger ain’t no lower.”

Vinnie got some strong fishing line out of the back of the truck and they tied Leonard’s hands behind his back. Leonard began to cry.

“Oh shut up,” Pork said. “It ain’t that bad. Ain’t nothing that bad.”

But Leonard couldn’t shut up. He was caterwauling now and it was echoing through the trees. He closed his eyes and tried to pretend he had gone to the show with the nigger starring in it and had fallen asleep in his car and was having a bad dream, but he couldn’t imagine that. He thought about Harry the janitor’s flying saucers with the peppermint rays, and he knew if there were any saucers shooting rays down, they weren’t boredom rays after all. He wasn’t a bit bored.

Pork pulled off Leonard’s shoes and pushed him back flat on the ground and pulled off the socks and stuck them in Leonard’s mouth so tight he couldn’t spit them out. It wasn’t that Pork thought anyone was going to hear Leonard, he just didn’t like the noise. It hurt his ears.

Leonard lay on the ground in the vomit next to the dog and cried silently. Pork and Vinnie went over to the Impala and opened the doors and stood so they could get a grip on the car to push. Vinnie reached in and moved the gear from park to neutral and he and Pork began to shove the car forward. It moved slowly at first, but as it made the slight incline that led down to the old bridge, it picked up speed. From inside the trunk, Farto hammered lightly at the lid as if he didn’t really mean it. The chain took up slack and Leonard felt it jerk and pop his neck. He began to slide along the ground like a snake.

Vinnie and Pork jumped out of the way and watched the car make the bridge and go over the edge and disappear into the water with amazing quietness. Leonard, pulled by the weight of the car, rustled past them. When he hit the bridge, splinters tugged at his clothes so hard they ripped his pants and underwear down almost to his knees.

The chain swung out once toward the edge of the bridge and the rotten railing, and Leonard tried to hook a leg around an upright board there, but that proved wasted. The weight of the car just pulled his knee out of joint and jerked the board out of place with a screech of nails and lumber.

Leonard picked up speed and the chain rattled over the edge of the bridge, into the water and out of sight, pulling its connection after it like a pull toy. The last sight of Leonard was the soles of his bare feet, white as the bellies of fish.

“It’s deep there,” Vinnie said. “I caught an old channel cat there once, remember? Big sucker. I bet it’s over fifty feet deep down there.”

They got in the truck and Vinnie cranked it.

“I think we did them boys a favor,” Pork said. “Them running around with niggers and what they did to that dog and all. They weren’t worth a thing.”

“I know it,” Vinnie said. “We should have filmed this, Pork, it would have been good. Where the car and that nigger lover went off in the water was choice.”

“Nah, there wasn’t any women.”

“Point,” Vinnie said, and he backed around and drove onto the trail that wound its way out of the bottoms.

“Godzilla’s Twelve-Step Program” © 1994. First appeared in Writer of the Purple Rage (Cemetery Dance Publications: Forest Hill, Maryland).

“Bubba Ho-Tep” © 1994. First appeared in The King Is Dead: Tales of Elvis Post-Mortem , edited by Paul M. Sammon (Delta: New York).

“Mad Dog Summer” © 1999. First appeared in 999: New Stories of Horror and Suspense , edited by Al Sarrantonio (Avon: New York).

“Fire Dog” © 2003. First appeared in The Silver Gryphon , edited by Gary Turner and Marty Halpern (Golden Gryphon: Urbana, Illinois).

“The Big Blow” © 1997. First appeared in Revelations , edited by Douglas E. Winter (Cemetery Dance Publications: Forest Hill, Maryland).

“Duck Hunt” © 1986. First appeared in After Midnight , edited by Charles L. Grant (Tor Books: New York).

“Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” © 1991. First appeared in Night Visions 8 , edited by Robert E. McCammon and Paul Mikol (Dark Harvest: Arlington Heights, Illinois).

“The Events Concerning a Nude Fold-Out Found in a Harlequin Romance” © 1992. First appeared in Dark at Heart , edited by Joe R. Lansdale and Karen Lansdale (Dark Harvest: Arlington Heights, Illinois).

“White Mule, Spotted Pig” © 2007. First appeared in The Shadows, Kith and Kin (Subterranean Press: Burton, Michigan).

“On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks” © 1989. First appeared in Book of the Dead , edited by John M. Skipp and Craig Spector (Bantam: New York).

“Not From Detroit” © 1988. First appeared in Midnight Graffiti No.2, edited by Jessie Horsting and James Van Hise (Grand Central Publishing: New York).

“Cowboy” © 1997. First appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent: Early Stories and Commentary (Subterranean Press: Burton, Michigan).

“Steppin’ Out, Summer, ‘68” © 1991. First appeared in Night Visions 8 , edited by Robert E. McCammon and Paul Mikol (Dark Harvest: Arlington Heights, Illinois).

“Fish Night” © 1982. First appeared in Specter! , edited by Bill Pronzini (Arbor House: Westminster, Maryland).

“Hell Through a Windshield” © 1985 and 1989. First appeared in Twilight Zone , April 1985.