Sylvan's Fissure
an excerpt

CHRISTMAS NIGHT, 1955, RICHFIELD, TEXAS (rough draft excerpt)

“Where’s Ray?” It’s mom's voice.
A bright light fills my eyes. I sit up with a jolt. For a long moment, I don’t know what’s going on or where I am. I’m still partly in a dream of the Harrison fire looking at horrible grimacing faces in the flames. I blink and see that my folks are in my room. Something’s wrong. Dad has a flashlight aimed at me. He turns it to Ray’s bed.

I look at the clock. It’s 3:22 am. I see Ray’s bed is empty. His covers are thrown back. Our dog Sarge is in the room, whining and acting fidgety.
“Power’s out,” Dad says. “There was an ice storm.”
“Sarge woke us up and wouldn’t leave us alone until we followed him to your room. Where’s Ray?” Mom says.
“I dunno. Check the bathroom?”
“He’s not in the house,” dad says.

The window is wide open. The curtains billow. Sleet blows in like sand and pricks our bare skin. Sarge barks at the open window then jumps through it. The ground is a silver sheet reflecting the full moon low in the sky. In the yard, Sarge turns around and stares at us.

We race out of the house, jump in the car and follow Sarge as he leads us down the icey dirt road we took earlier in our go-kart. It’s a silver ribbon in the moonlight.
“There he is!” I scream, hanging over the back seat between my parents. I point at a moving speck down the empty road that’s caught the hi-beams.

Dad pulls up alongside Ray. He’s still in his Davy Crockett PJs. He has on his coonskin cap and cowboy boots. He turns and looks at us with a crazy blank stare. He keeps walking. He has something in his hand.

I open the car window. “Ray, what are you doing?” He doesn’t even turn to look at me.

Dad slows alongside him and I jump out while the car’s still rolling. So does mom. The cold wind presses her nightgown against her and sleet swirls in little tornados down the road.
“Honey, get in the car.”
Ray keeps walking. He grips his little .22 antique pistol. I sidle up next to him and put my arm around him. He stops. And then slowly turns to me. We are at the single lane wooden bridge.

Abruptly, Ray wakes up and starts whimpering. I take the little pocket derringer from him and mom carries him to the car. She gets in the back seat and cradles him, his head’s on her lap. I get in front with dad. He turns the car around. The wheels crunched on the frozen gravel road.

Something big jumps out from under the bridge and freezes in the car’s headlights. It’s red and looks like a wolf. It’s eyes are neon green in the light.
Dad stops the car. He turns off the engine but keeps the lights on.

“Old-timers in town tell stories of rare red wolves said to in these parts at the turn of the last century. That’s over 50 years ago. But no one I know has ever seen one first hand. Until now,” he whispers.

Ray stops crying, sits up, rolls down the electric window and sticks his head out. He locks eyes with the huge creature still standing defiantly like a statue in the road. Mom tugs Ray back inside the car but he resists. Dad turns off the car lights.

“Look at that boys. Don’t forget this.”
The creature walks to Ray’s window. You can see its breath in the bright moonlight coming from behind it.

Ooooowoooooo. It howls and a mate with two pups come up out of the culvert, bound across the road and vanish in the darkness like phantoms in a dream.

It all happens within seconds and they are gone. We are left alone in the darkening silence of the place. Just the wind-blown sleet pellets hitting the car like bullets.

Dad starts the car and turns on the lights. He has a spotlight to find street numbers when he makes house calls. He uses it to survey the surroundings.
Nothing but empty black fields under an inky sky.

We drive home in silence.