Four Octobers Read online

  Four Octobers

  A Collection of Novellas

  Rick Hautala

  CEMETERY DANCE PUBLICATIONS

  Baltimore

  2006

  “Introduction to Four Octobers” Copyright © 2006 by Rick Hautala

  “Miss Henry’s Bottles” Copyright © 2001 by Rick Hautala first appeared in Trick or Treat, edited by Richard Chizmar, Cemetery Dance Publications, MD, 2001

  “Blood Ledge” and “Tin Can Telephone” Copyright © 2006 by Rick Hautala appear here for the first time

  “Cold River” Copyright © 2003 by Rick Hautala first appeared in the Cemetery Dance Novella Series, #13, Cemetery Dance Publications, MD, 2003

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

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cemetery Dance Publications

  132-B Industry Lane

  Unit 7

  Forest Hill, MD 21050

  www.cemeterydance.com

  First Digital Edition

  ISBN-13: 978-1-58767-245-3

  Four Octobers Copyright © 2006 by Rick Hautala

  Artwork Copyright © 2006 by Glenn Chadbourne

  Digital Design by DH Digital Editions

  With special thanks to

  all of the “Texans”

  who fought side by side with me

  at the Alamo.

  “I want my place, my own place, my true place in the world, my proper sphere, my thing which Nature intended me to perform when she fashioned me thus awry, and which I have vainly sought all my life-time.”

  —Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Tin Can Telephone

  Miss Henry’s Bottles

  Blood Ledge

  Cold River

  Introduction

  A few words are in order…

  I’ve always considered myself primarily a novelist. I know a lot of beginning writers think (or are told by writing professors who haven’t published much—if anything—outside of the university press “lit-ry” magazines) that they must hone their skills writing short stories before they’re ready to, as they say, “tackle the novel.”

  Well, I am nothing if not the exception that proves the rule. I had three novels published and two more under contract before I sold my first short story.

  It’s not that I hadn’t tried my hand at short stories before then. In college and shortly afterwards, I had written a handful of stories before I dove into my first novel. (That book—Moondeath—beat the odds on its own because, unlike most first novels, it didn’t languish in a desk drawer for long; it actually saw the light of print.) Before then, though, I got some nice rejection letters for the few stories I sent out. Not enough to paper the wall, but that’s only because I didn’t write or submit many of them. One rejection in particular that I remember came from Ben Bova, who very kindly told me that the science in my story just didn’t make sense. He was right; the story sucked, big time.

  It wasn’t long, though, before I discovered that the length of the novel suited my temperament much better than the short story. I felt—and still feel—as though it’s easier to write a novel than a short story. Masters of the craft, like Harlan Ellison, are rare and wonderful. If you put my feet to the fire, however, I’d have to say, hands down, I enjoy writing screenplays the most. I don’t know why. I just do.

  Notice, though, that I didn’t say anything about writing a “good” novel or a “good” short story. No matter what we may think about our own work, it’s not up to us as writers to judge the quality of our writing beyond simply putting everything we can at that particular moment into our current project, be it short story, novel, screenplay, or dirty limerick.

  If we’re lucky, we find a form that suits our temperament, and we stick with it. I have always enjoyed roaming around in the vast landscape, the wide canvas of a novel. My Uncle George Pistenmaa was a carpenter his whole life. He always said that he enjoyed rough framing houses because he could make enough little mistakes so the big ones didn’t show. Continuing that analogy: a short story is like making a piece of fine furniture. One nick… one slip of the saw… one half-moon dimple from your hammer head, and it’s ruined.

  Well, I like the size and scope of a novel, and I’ve written my fair share, some maybe even “good,” although I am painfully aware that all of them have enough small mistakes in them so, I hope, the bigger ones don’t show.

  But a while back (I don’t want to get into all of the particulars, but suffice to say that there were many personal and professional reasons), I had a bit of a career/midlife crisis.

  In fact, I hit the wall.

  Part of the problem—a very small part, believe me—was that ever since I’d sold my first novel, I had never written or sold anything, not a novel or a short story, that hadn’t already been contracted for. Editors and publishers would contact me and ask for a short story, and I’d write one, usually around the “theme” of their particular anthology… You know, like “Lesbian-vampire nuns in the Middle Ages”… Stuff like that.

  And the novels…?

  Yeah, I was doing all right with them. Not as well as I (and everyone else) did in the mid-1980s heyday of horror, but I was holding my own. I was still selling books while other writers who had started when I did had to go back to that dreaded “DAY JOB.” Many of them eventually vanished. Gave up writing. In some cases that was a good thing; in other cases, it was sad.

  The problem was, I wasn’t too happy with the prospects. As I looked ahead, I saw myself churning out a novel a year for the rest of my life, and that scared and depressed me.

  So I decided to do something about it.

  Unlike many other writers, I didn’t quit. I did the more sensible thing. I decided to write something just for myself.

  What a concept!

  No contract.

  No expectations.

  No nothing.

  Just let a story un-spool from my imagination. Dig into my memories of childhood and play with ideas and images, characters and events, and see what came out. I could always toss it into File 13 if I didn’t like it.

  But this sounded like fun. It sounded like something I hadn’t done in so long I began to wonder if I’d ever really done it.

  So I started a story—“Miss Henry’s Bottles”—and went with it, working on it a little here, a little there, over a couple of years until I had something like a hundred pages.

  I didn’t know what I had, and I didn’t care because no one wanted to buy it. No one contracted for it. No one had paid me for it. So it was mine, mine, all mine. And I had truly enjoyed the process of just telling a story… or letting a story tell itself.

  Coincidentally, the same day I finished “Miss Henry’s Bottles,” Rich Chizmar at Cemetery Dance Publications called and asked if I happened to have any novella-length works on hand.

  Did I?

  Well, yeah, I did. But truth to tell, I wasn’t sure I wanted to send it to him. Remember what I said about judging our own work? Well, when we’re writing for ourselves, forgetting all about entertaining an audience or having the pressure of being paid for the work, we’re sole judge and jury. I reluctantly sent the story to Rich, and he loved it… loved it enough to include it in his anthology Trick or Treat.

  Thankfully, the novella got some good attention, some nice reviews and kind comments from readers. I was grateful and relieved because “Miss Henry’s Bottles” was, if nothing else, my special baby.

  But what I discovered in writing it was that I enjoyed the length of the novella. It had the fast i
mpact of a short story and a bit more room to bang around in. I almost felt at home. So not long after that, again simply to please myself and no one else, I started writing “Cold River.” By this time, I had gotten out of the depression that had settled in around me. (I told you I’m not going to discuss it.) I was contracted for and writing “real” novels… you know, for money under my own name and under my pseudonym, A. J. Matthews.

  Once I finished “Cold River” and sent it off to Rich Chizmar for inclusion in the Cemetery Dance Publications novella series, I’d been bitten by the novella bug. It felt good—especially when I’m in that postpartum depression time between novels—to work on something that didn’t have the heft of a whole novel but didn’t have the brevity of a short story.

  So I started work on “Tin Can Telephone,” and I took an old idea I’d had more than ten years ago and polished up an aborted story titled “Blood Ledge.” And now you have all four of them collected here.

  Lucky you.

  And lucky me because in bringing these all together, I realized something about all four of these novellas. Although none of them are strictly autobiographical (thank God!), they all draw quite heavily on my memories and impressions of my childhood. Maybe that’s where true inspiration comes from—sweet and not so sweet childhood memories and impressions.

  And that explains why I’d like to dedicate Four Octobers to Mr. Ray Bradbury, whom I lovingly refer to as the “Halloween Man.” I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting him in person or speaking with him, but his stories have influenced me more than anything else I read when I was in that formative stage of being a “pre-writer.” (You know, that awkward and frustrating period when you just know you think and feel things deeply and intensely, but you can’t even begin to express what or why.)

  So I’ll wrap up this rather long-winded introduction simply by saying—

  Thank you, Mr. Bradbury.

  You’re father to a whole generation of wonder seekers.

  Tin Can Telephone

  October, 1957

  The predawn air crackled with frost as we made our way through the narrow strip of woods beside my house. It was early October, and the leaves of the oak trees had just started to turn brown and drop. Those still on the trees rattled in the darkness with a dull, leathery sound, almost like the flutter of bat wings, as a gentle wind blew down from the north.

  It was about a quarter to five on Monday morning, and the three of us were heading out into my grandfather’s field. There was me—my name’s Johnny; I was named after my grandfather, Jussi, which is Finnish for John—my older sister, Elena, who was in seventh grade, and my best friend, Chucky Nielson. Chucky lived two houses down the street from me on Stockholm Avenue.

  It was a school day, and if this had been like any ordinary school day, I would have stayed in bed until the last minute, snoozing until my mother called up to me that it was time to get ready.

  But this day was not ordinary.

  Not at all.

  It had started a little after four o’clock in the morning when the tin can started banging against my bedroom wall, making a loud, jangling sound like a cowbell. The tin can—an old Bird’s Eye orange juice can—was tied to a long piece of string that ran out through the narrow slit of my opened window. As soon as it started banging like that, I leaped out of bed. My feet got tangled in my bedspread, and I almost fell down as I darted over to the window.

  It was dark outside when I looked down into the yard, but I could make out Chucky, staring up at me. His face was as pale and round as a full moon. I started to run the window up, but Chucky waved at me impatiently.

  “Use the phone,” he said in a loud whisper, holding up the tin can that was tied to the other end of the string.

  Still a little groggy, I grasped the tin can, took a few steps back until the string was taut, and held the can up to my mouth.

  “Yeah. Hey. I’m awake,” I said.

  When I shifted the tin can to my ear, I heard Chucky say, “Neat. Now get your butt down here.” His voice was faint, and it buzzed like a bumblebee inside my ear. It would have been a lot easier just to open the window and talk to him, but this whole tin can telephone thing had been Chucky’s idea so we wouldn’t wake up my parents. I went along with it, mostly because Chucky usually went along with most of my stupid ideas. I call them stupid now, but like a lot of things that either never work out the way you planned or are just plain numb to begin with, they seemed like a good idea at the time.

  “Get a move on. What the heck are you waiting for?”

  “I’ll be right down,” I said and then, remembering the tin can in my hand, held it up to my mouth and repeated myself. “I’ll be right down.”

  When I dropped the tin can, it clunked loudly against the wall. For a moment, I was worried that the sound, transmitted along the string, might have hurt Chucky’s ear, but then I remembered how faint his voice had sounded coming through the can, so I didn’t worry about it.

  I got dressed in a hurry, pulling on the jeans I had worn all weekend and grabbing a clean T-shirt from my bureau. I knew it was pretty cold outside from the draft that was coming in my window, so I pulled my red sweatshirt on over my head before leaving my bedroom.

  Just as I was closing the bedroom door behind me, hoping not to disturb anyone else in the house, the door to my sister’s room opened, and Elena looked out at me. My parents already knew what we were up to this early in the morning, but this was an adventure, and I wanted at least to pretend that we were sneaking. I didn’t want them—and I certainly didn’t want my sister—coming with Chucky and me. That’d ruin everything, for sure.

  “Hold on,” Elena said in a sharp whisper. “I’m coming with you.”

  Her left eyebrow rose expectantly, like I really had a choice and could say no, but she knew and I knew if I protested, she’d make such a fuss that it would wake up my folks, and then probably everybody would come traipsing along with Chucky and me. I hesitated, but only for a second or two before nodding silently and then started down the stairs with my sneakers and socks in hand.

  Chucky’s expression froze when he saw that Elena was with me. It wasn’t that he didn’t like my sister. In fact, he’d told me lots of times that he “kinda liked” her, but this was our plan, and we didn’t want anyone else tagging along… especially a girl. My teeth chattered from the cold as I sat down on the top step of the back porch and quickly pulled on my socks and sneakers.

  “So,” I said once I was fully dressed. “You sure you know where to look?”

  Chucky didn’t answer right away as I led the way across the backyard, heading towards the narrow strip of woods and my grandfather’s field beyond.

  “Supposed to be coming from the northwest,” Chucky finally said.

  I thought he sounded unusually subdued, and I was sure it was because Elena was with us. Chucky never acted like himself whenever there was a girl around, even my sister. It was like he got all nervous or something and didn’t want to say or do anything they might think was stupid or childish. Because my sister was two years older than me, I figured that’s what was bothering Chucky. I realize now that he had a crush on her.

  “Which way’s northwest?” Elena asked.

  She was wearing jeans and a dark, hooded sweatshirt. I couldn’t see her face clearly as she turned and faced Chucky, then looked up at the night sky. Through the trees, we could see a dull blue broad swatch of the Milky Way arching from horizon to horizon. The moon had already set, so the shadows under the trees were dense and kind of scary.

  “North’s that-a way,” Chucky said, waving his hand in the general direction we were walking.

  When we stepped out from under the oak trees, a subtle chill ran through me. It was more than the cold night air, I now realize, but I remember feeling small and insignificant beneath the vast night sky. I had never felt nervous like this outside at night before. There were plenty of nights in the summer when Chucky and I camped out with some of our other neighborhood fri
ends—usually Billy and Roy. And we’d spend hour after hour, lying on our backs and staring up at the sky as we talked about all sorts of stuff.

  But this time, I felt something different.

  “Have you heard it?” I asked, wanting to break through the little bit of nervousness I was feeling.

  “Jeeze, who hasn’t?” Chucky said. “It’s been on TV and radio all weekend.”

  I nodded, suspecting that the gesture was wasted in the darkness.

  “I just don’t see what’s the big deal,” Chucky went on. “I mean—how can anyone make any sense out of those sounds. It’s just a bunch of beeps.”

  “You wanna know what it means? “ Elena said.

  Chucky and I both paused, waiting for her to go on.

  “It means the Russians can drop A-bombs on us now. My history teacher, Mr. Ives, said so.”

  Maybe it was just me, but I was pretty sure I heard a tremor in her voice.

  “The Russians aren’t gonna bomb us,” I said. “This is science.”

  I remember putting more feeling into what I said than I actually felt, probably because I always enjoyed contradicting my sister. “This is really exciting.” My foot snapped a dry twig on the ground. The sudden sound made me jump in spite of myself. “This means we’ll be going to the moon and Mars and stuff.”

  Chucky sniffed with laughter. “Yeah, right,” he said, shaking his head. “Nobody’s going anywhere in that thing. Have you seen what it looks like? Sputnik ain’t much bigger than a tin can.”

  “Yeah, but it’s in orbit around the Earth.” I looked up at the night sky again and felt a sudden swelling of awe. “Nobody’s ever done something like this before. Not even the US Army.”

  Nobody had a reply for that, so we continued out into the field. Frost laced the dried stalks of weeds and grass that brushed against our pants legs. It wasn’t long before the cuffs of our jeans were damp. Looking down the gentle slope toward the Stockholm Avenue and the darkened houses that lined it, I once again experienced that odd chill. I knew it was more than the night air. The stars had never shone so bright, and the sky actually seemed to shimmer with a subtle, pulsating glow. Once we got to the middle of the field, the three of us stopped and just stood there with our heads tilted back as we stared up at the sky, waiting to see one of the stars move.