A Natural History of Hell: Stories Read Online Free

in park and reached to turn the lights off. She didn ’ t, though. “You see out to the left, near the shore, over by where the cat tails start. I think there ’ s somebody sitting on that bench.”
    He squinted. “I can ’ t see shit.”
    “Come on, we ’ ll go check it out,” she said and killed the headlights.
    “What if it ’ s Moxioton?”
    She opened the door and got out. He followed her. They walked across the sand beyond the swing set. The lake smelled of spring and stirred in the breeze.
    “Tell me honestly,” he said. “When the Blameless first spoke of Moxioton, did you ever think he was gonna pull that demon from her big toe?”
    “That one will come from lower down,” she said in the reverend ’ s voice and laughed.
    “If you ’ re right, and it ’ s an act, it ’s genius. ”
    “The gun was a surprise.”
    “Next time we get an invitation to one of these, say no.”
    Helen raised her arm and motioned for him to be quiet. They were getting closer to the bench. “Walk soft,” she whispered. They drew within twenty feet, and the moon came through the clouds. The girl ’ s dress shone like a beacon in the sudden light. Grace and Morrison Zeck, slumped shoulder to shoulder, both asleep. Tom and Helen quietly moved a few feet closer. She took his wrist when she wanted him to stop. They stood in silence for a moment. Tom leaned down and whispered in her ear, “That Zeck kid is a goofball.”
    Helen shook her head.
    “Do I call Ina?” he asked, taking out his cell phone.
    It took her a while to answer. “No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”
    “Why not?”
    “They ’ re too young to be lovers. They must be friends.”
    When the moon went away, they walked back to the CRV and drove home. Later, the rain started in again. The sound and smell of spring came through the screen of their bedroom window while he dreamt in the language the angels dream in, and she, of the land without worry.

Word Doll

    Every morning I take the back way to town, a fifteen-mile drive on narrow two-lane roads that cut through oceans of corn. The cracked and patched asphalt is lined on either side by telephone poles shrinking into the distance. Sometimes I pass a hawk on a line. Every few miles there’s a farm house, mostly old, like ours. In the winter, the wind is fierce, whipping across the barren fields, and I have to work to keep the car in its lane, but in summer, after I get my cigarettes in town and stop at the diner for a cup of coffee and a glance at the newspaper, I drive home and go out back under the apple trees, sit at a little table, and write stories. Sunlight filters down through the branches, and there’s always a breeze blowing across the fields that finds me there. Sometimes the stories flow and I don’t notice the birds at the feeders, the jingle of the dog’s collar or the bees in the garden just beyond the orchard, and when they don’t, I stare out into the sea of green and daydream into its depths.
    In late September, on a Monday’s journey to town, I passed this old place at a bend in the road like I’d passed it every morning. It was a Queen Anne Victorian with a wraparound screened-in porch, painted blue and white. The house was in good shape, but the barn out back was shedding shingles, and the paint had weathered off its splintered boards. I’d often seen chickens bobbing around on the property, and a rooster at times dangerously close to the road. There were blackberry bushes tangled in a low wall on either side of the entrance to its gravel drive. As I rolled past, I noticed something partially covered by those bushes. It looked like a sign of some kind, but it was faded and I was going too fast to catch a good glance.
    On the way back from town I forgot to slow down and look, but the following day I woke up with the thought that I should stop and investigate that sign. Nine times out of ten, I could drive to town and back and never pass another car, and that day was no