Carver Pike
SCALP
Author’s Note and Dedication
Nobody hates head lice like parents and teachers, so I’d like to dedicate this one to the parents and school nurses who’ve had to sit and shampoo – not to mention comb through – a kid’s head while he or she whined and cried. To the teachers who’ve cringed while watching a student scratch his or her head… all while the student in the next seat over is leaning closer to borrow a pencil. Head lice come straight from hell and you’re all on that demon-slaying frontline. God bless y’all.
Next, I’d like to thank all the ladies who picked through this book and found all my leftover mistakes and errors. Thank you for helping me clean up my work. Thank you Autumn S., Mary H., Stephanie A., Fran R., Beverly S., and Kaye K. for all your hard work on this book. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Thank you Lisa-Lee Tone at Bibliophilia Templum for all the reviews you’ve done on my books and for spreading the word about my work. You rock.
To Jules for making me believe my happiness matters. For believing in me, for cheering with me on good days, and for helping me through the rough ones. I love you, baby.
To my kids. I miss you guys so damn much, I love you, and I think about you every day. We’ll be together again soon. I promise.
To my blended family, thank you for accepting a stranger into your world and treating me like one of your own.
Now, let’s let the head itching begin.
1
When Andre Pete put a bullet into a stag, he felt his fist travel along with the slug and reach through the animal’s pelt, sizzle past its meat, and grab hold of its heart. Andre was one with his rifle, one with his bullet, and one with the animal. Hunting was religion to him. It cleansed his soul and elevated his psyche. Like a drug shot straight into his system or a drink that was downed so quickly it sank into the bones, taking something’s life was on a whole other level. He was a king out here in the woods.
But today, he felt different. The world around him seemed off. The forest was too quiet. Since he and his cousin Carl entered the woods, he hadn’t heard a sound other than his own boots crunching down on fallen leaves. Even the wind seemed to cease. Its usual whoosh through the trees was barely a calm rattle. The sun was beginning its decline and would plunge them into darkness in a little under a half-hour. Darkness didn’t bother him, usually, but Andre couldn’t help thinking they should wrap up this trip and head back to the truck.
It’s so damn quiet.
Where were the birds? Where were the frogs? Where were the damn woodpeckers?
Andre would have even been fine with the shaking of a copperhead tail trying to convince him it was a rattlesnake. He’d seen plenty of both kinds of snakes. They didn’t bother him none, so he tried his best not to bother them. Right now, he wished he heard a hiss. Or a growl of some other animal. Anything to assure him everything was normal. His gut told him something was wrong, and his gut was usually right.
It was right during basic training the night Floyd plucked the tiny razor blade out of his disposable razor and tried to off himself.
It was right the night he came home from Korea to find his buddy’s truck in the driveway. Susan had been fucking him for months.
It was right when those three men at the bar kept eyeballing him. They’d jumped him in the parking lot when he’d been too drunk to defend himself. He’d cracked two ribs that night and suffered a concussion.
Now, his gut told him to get out of the woods and go home. He hadn’t listened to it any of those other times. Perhaps this was the time he should.
Something ain’t right.
Yet, the deer was lined up in his rifle scope and all he had to do was take the shot. He’d done it a hundred times. Maybe even a thousand. Not only on animals but on humans too. This stag was different though. It wasn’t standing still like it should have been. It was shaking its head around wildly like a swarm of bees was attacking it.
Andre saw no bees. He saw nothing irregular other than the deer going batshit crazy.
“What’s wrong with eem?” Carl asked, his strong southern drawl seeping into his whisper.
Andre ignored him and focused on his breathing. When the moment was right, he held his breath as he squeezed the trigger.
“Got eem,” his cousin, Carl, announced. “Got eem good, Cuz.”
Andre wasn’t sure about the hit. Like everything else, it didn’t feel right. Usually, when he struck something, a red mist erupted from it. This time, the deer just collapsed as soon as he’d pulled the trigger. All its wild head thrashing stopped, and it dropped to the ground. That didn’t seem right at all.
“Looks like dinner tonight,” Carl continued.
“Keep it down,” Andre said.
“But you got eem.”
“Did I?”
“Sure looked it.”
It looked more like I hit a slab of frozen beef.
Carl high-stepped, dancing his “we nailed it” jig, all the way to the carcass. “This gon’ be dinner, yessir.”
His cousin was still a full-bred country boy, straight from their West Virginia holler. He even bore the scar to prove it. It cut across his left cheek and served as a reminder that teenagers should never ride lawn mowers drunk. He should have never been drunk in the first place, but his daddy made moonshine for a living and made so much of it he often lost track of a bottle or two.
Carl fully embraced small-town living. Andre, however, had outgrown the lifestyle. He’d joined the U.S. Marine Corps, learned to shoot properly, and was only home because he’d injured his leg and didn’t want to serve in Uncle Sam’s elite forces if he wasn’t up to par. He had too much pride to ride a desk or teach. He knew the saying. Those who can’t, teach. Even if he couldn’t, he wouldn’t.
Carl was right though. He’d sniped that buck.
Where is the blood?
“Carl, step away from it,” he ordered, this time digging deep and finding the loud, commanding voice he’d used in the battlefield.
Like an obeying soldier, Andre’s cousin backed up a step or two and waited for Andre to meet him a few feet from the dead animal.
“It looks weird,” Carl said.
He was right. From up close, Andre could see no blood seeped from the bullet wound, but a hundred or so minuscule red dots covered its fur. It looked like it had been bombarded with tiny pinpricks or syringe injections. Its eyes were white, cloudy, like both were plagued with cataracts. “I don’t like it. Leave it.”
“Leave it? Are you nuts? You’re fixin’ to waste all that meat?”
“Carl, leave it. Some things ain’t worth the hassle. I got a bad feeling about it. Might have caught something. Rabies or whatnot. Look at the eyes.”
If he could take back the order, he would, but it was too late, and he’d already started to turn away from the deer when he heard Carl say, “Damn, look at them puppies. Its eyes are freaky, ain’t they?”
Andre turned back to his cousin, who was holding a stick and was about to jab one of the eyeballs.
“Don’t touch it,” Andre warned, but he was too late.
Before the stick came in contact with the animal, a strange skittering sound emanated from it, like a bunch of pissed off crickets had been shoved inside the animal’s gut and were ready to be freed.
“Carl!” Andre yelled.
His cousin glanced back at him with his face scrunched up in confusion, and as he did, his stick touched the deer’s gelatinous eyeball. Like he’d pushed a trick button in some cursed tomb, it released something.
FSSSSST!
The skittering sound grew louder and angrier. A black cloud burst forth from the animal’s fur and shot toward Carl.