Page 2 of Small Town Beast

Saverin was truly alone.

He turned the gun over in his hand, examining it. He’d never fired a Kimber. Damned awkward piece. Overengineered, nothing like his favored CZ or the classic Glock 9. But while he’d been at the hospital, his cousins had come in and moved his ammo and took away his guns. His name was blacklisted at every shop from here to Christiansburg. Maybe he shouldn’t have said those things to Roman. All that talk of killing, blood, and fire. Fire…

After the accident, once they removed the tube from his mouth and he could talk without passing out, Saverin’s first words were of revenge. It was Roman who stopped him, using logic and then using force.

Two years Saverin had waited, recovering, watching the clan move on without him and his grief. Fang was the only thing thatgot him through it. If he went to war against his enemies, what would happen to his dog?

The room Saverin occupied now had been his mother’s favorite in the house. She called it the Green Room for all her plants. Pictures of the Bailey family looked down from the walls: a happy, wealthy, white country father, mother, two boys, and a dog. Saverin was the oldest, dark and hawkish.

On the table in front of Saverin lay a paper with a few scratchy lines of his handwriting. He’d attempted a note but there was nothing to say. The lawyer had it handled; what else was left but to do the thing itself?

Next to the pen and paper stood a bottle of whiskey and a cut crystal glass. The late afternoon sun had turned the remaining whiskey into liquid gold— and gold it was, as a seventy-five year old vintage of the finest Virginia whiskey you could get. Now it was late in the night, and the bottle was half empty.

Wind chimes outside made music. The cardinal was signing in the trees. Strange, a bird singing at night.

I’ll ruin this chair, Saverin thought. And then he didn’t think at all. It was decided; there was nothing else.

Nothing else.

Nothing.

Skeeeeeyeeeeeee…..

Click.

His heart stopped. The world stopped.

Or did it?

Skeeyeeeeee…

Safety on the handle…God!

Saverin set the weapon down on the floor and stood up so fast his vision went black for a second. With a curse he sat down again and picked up the gun. He stared at the weapon a long time before carefully unloading it.

Saverin changedout of his good clothes into raggedy jeans and a Carhartt hoodie— what he’d been wearing when he buried Fang.

I’m alive because of that shit-fucking gun.

He hadn’t left the property since Fang got sick. But now he had to go. Go somewhere — anywhere.

He considered the woods, his usual haven. Four hundred acres of hillside covered with virgin growth. He didn’t lack for money, but logging that forest would have made Saverin a fortune. It was the last of Appalachian forest, the primordial woods that had once covered much of the Southeastern States.

The forest had been in the family since the first Bailey came to Florin. It was where Saverin and his brother learned everything about living. The boys — plus Fang — spent their days there crabbing, fishing, shooting, trapping, swimming, riding, and hunting the great white-tail herds.

Now Sam was dead, Fang was dead, everyone was dead, and he was not.

Saverin got in his Legacy and took off the hill at a reckless speed.The road pulled him like a raft in a current. Florin welcomed him back.

I’m alive.

Old farm roads twisting off down secret, misty hills. Cows grazing on a heaving landscape, the light of the setting sun turning their russet coats to gleaming copper. Then the Black Angus herds that belonged to John Dunny and his sons. A shaggy yellow dog trotted up the road with a stick in its mouth.

Pine breeze. Magnolia petals floating on a whirlwind. Fireflies blurring past. Wind roared in through the open window. He could smell roasting brisket. Somebody somewhere was having a barbecue.

He fumbled for the radio.

Hank Williams.

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