But fat, evil Harvey hadn’t drawn either of the small-caliber blasters.
In bis right hand, he held a blade, double-edged with a sharp point.
Ryan felt his left eye start to throb, pulsating in time with his heartbeat, a pulse that was increasing in speed. His legs felt leaden, paralyzed with fear.
He knew he wasn’t afraid of his brother. What terrified this younger Ryan was the knowledge of what Harvey was about to do. Despite the location being different, despite the circumstances in this mat-trans-induced dream being reconfigured from the fragments Ryan held in his adult memory, the outcome was going to be exactly the same.
“End of the road, you little bastard,” Harvey said, leering confidently down at his younger sibling.
“Go ahead. Do it, you fat butcher,” Ryan snarled, his lips curling from his teeth as he spoke.
The blade came up, then down, the needle point directed at Ryan’s left eye.
It was the last thing the eye ever saw. After the eye burst and the boy felt wet blood and fluid run down his cheek, Harvey pulled the blade free and went for the other side of Ryan’s face, trying to blind him but instead plunging into his right cheek and cutting down, peeling back the flesh from the bone and causing a jet of blue blood to spray outward, joining the other torrent from the ruined eye.
Blinded by blue, Ryan screamed. The sound was horrible and exposed, revealing to his corrupt brother just how much the injury and the betrayal had cost- in both body and still maturing soul. He screamed again in agony, hoping the pain might stop but knowing despite his efforts, the scars would remain with him to his dying day.
KRYSTY WAS DREAMING. She was singing a predark country tune in a dump of a jolt-and-alcohol bar made of dirty tar paper and aluminum siding, on the outskirts of the tiny ville known as Hazelwood, fifty or so miles outside of Harmony. Hazelwood was the kind of place a man loyal to his wife and family traveled to if he wanted an anonymous night out with the boys…or the girls. No questions asked.
The song was a classic about cheating hearts and being weak and she sang it well, but the watchers in the smoky audience sipping at their watery drinks weren’t there for the music.
They were there to ogle Krysty.
Her current attire left nothing to the imagination.
She was completely nude from neck to knees. The only articles of clothing on her voluptuous body were a silly-looking shiny white cowboy hat with a silver star-burst pinned to the wide white brim perched precariously on top of her crimson hair, and her well-worn blue cowboy boots with the chiseled silver points on the toes, and the silver spread-wing falcons on the front.
“Shake it, honey,” a voice called from the audience. “Show us you mean it!”
Krysty ignored the man’s comment and kept singing, holding the old-style microphone to her lips in both hands. Behind her, a backup band consisting of an amplified electric guitar and a simple trap drum kit provided accompaniment. Vocals and music both came from a few old, black Vox amplifiers, powered by a portable gasoline generator that chugged contentedly to itself outside the bar.
Why she was singing this particular song, one her Uncle Tyas had a particular fondness for, made perfect sense to her. She knew all the lyrics and had always enjoyed the tune. Why she was nude was another matter entirely, and as she finished the last verse of the Hank Williams classic she decided she’d better get around to investigating her current situation.
“I never knew you had such a pretty voice,” Ryan
Cawdor said from where he was sitting with the polished candy-apple sun-burst Les Paul electric guitar.
“I never knew you played guitar,” Krysty retorted.
“I’ll let you in on a secret-I don’t,” Ryan said with conviction, and gave her a saucy wink with his right blue eye.
“I don’t play drums, either,” J. B. Dix added, spinning the drumsticks between his fingers in an elaborate display of showmanship before bringing them down on the snare to snap off a rim shot, accenting his words.