Whistling Past the Graveyard

WHISTLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD

AND OTHER STORIES

JONATHAN MABERRY

JournalStone

San Francisco

Copyright © 2016 Jonathan Maberry

Doctor Nine
, ©2008 Jonathan Maberry, first published in
Killers
edited by Colin Harvey; Swimming Kangaroo Books.

The Adventure of the Greenbrier Ghost
, ©2008 Jonathan Maberry, first published in
Legends of the Mountain State 2,
edited by Michael Knost; Woodland Press LLC

Calling Death
, ©2010 by Jonathan Maberry Productions, LLC, first published in
Appalachian Undead
, edited by Eugene Johnson and Jason Sizemore; The Zombie Feed Press
.

Flint and Steel
: A Story of GI Joe, ©2010 by Jonathan Maberry Productions, LLC, first published in
Tales from the Cobra Wars,
edited by Max Brooks; IDW Publishing.

Death Song of Dwar Guntha
: A Story of John Carter of Mars, ©2012 by Jonathan Maberry Productions, LLC; first published in
Under the Moons of Mars,
edited by John Joseph Adams;
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Chokepoint
, © 2013 by Jonathan Maberry Productions, LLC; first published in
The Uninvited Magazine #2

Clean Sweeps
, ©2009 by Jonathan Maberry; first published in
And So It Begins,
edited by Mike McPhail; Dark Quest LLC.

Long Way Home
, © 2013 by Jonathan Maberry Productions, LLC; first published in
Halloween: Magic, Mystery and the Macabre
, edited by Paula Guran; Prime Books.

Mister Pockets
, © 2013 by Jonathan Maberry Productions, LLC; first published in
Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror
, edited by Anthony Rivera and Sharon Lawson; Grey Matter Press.

Property Condemned
, © 2012 by Jonathan Maberry Productions, LLC; first published in
Nightmare Magazine #1.

Whistlin’ Past the Graveyard
, © 2013 by Jonathan Maberry Productions, LLC; first published in
Nightmare Magazine #16.

Cooked
, © 2012 by Jonathan Maberry Productions, LLC; first published in
Tales from the Fire Zone:
Blackstone Audio.

The Death Poem of Sensei Otoro
, © 2012 by Jonathan Maberry Productions, LLC; first published in
Hungry Tales:
Blackstone Audio.

Ink
, © 2016 by Jonathan Maberry Productions, LLC; first published in
Whistling Past the Graveyard

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-942712-67-1(sc)

ISBN:978-1-942712-68-8(ebook)

ISBN:978-1-942712-69-5(hc)

JournalStone rev. date: July 22, 2016

Library of Congress Control Number:  2016941827

Printed in the United States of America

Cover Art & Design:
Robert Grom

Image Credits:
  Grave Stone:
Stuart Monk
/Shutterstock, Crow: 
Marcin Perkowski
/Shutterstock,

Blood:
Suzi Nelson
/Shutterstock

Edited by:
Aaron J. French

Dedication

This is for William F. Nolan.

Bill’s story, “And Miles to Go Before I Sleep,” was the first piece of short fiction I ever fell in love with. It was suggested to me by Ray Bradbury, who gave me Bill’s wonderful collection, Impact 20, on a snowy February evening in 1971. Ray had written the introduction to the book and said I would love all of the stories, but that one in particular. He was right. It also ignited within me a love of short form fiction.

Thanks Ray, and especially thanks to you, Bill!

And, as always, for Sara Jo.

By

Scott Sigler

May 9, 2016

Delve deep into the history of American entertainment, and you'll find yourself in an idyllic little town where the sheriff enforced the law with nothing more than down-home common sense, an aw-shucks grin, and a brook-no-bullshit attitude caked in casual calmness. Of course, that sheriff would have never used the word “bullshit,” because there just weren't no need to curse when you visited Mayberry.

From 1960 to 1968, Mayberry was the setting for “The Andy Griffith Show.” Andy Griffith was the sheriff of a small town that epitomized the projected values of Main Street, USA. He was famous for not carrying a gun. His erstwhile, bumbling deputy Barney Fife did carry a gun, yet had only one bullet.

Yeah. That was 1960. This is 2016, and there’s a new sheriff in town. This one most certainly does carry a gun. More accurately, guns. Lots of them. He also lives in a “Mayberry," of sorts, but it’s spelled a bit differently—“Maberry,” as in, the mind of author Jonathan Maberry.

People are all different, but there are tells that let you instinctively group them by nation, by region, and if you're from that region, sometimes even by a specific town or city block. People talk a certain way, act a certain way. Their values, both the ones they openly espouse in the light of day and the ones they hide away in the dark, they can be fingerprints that thumb-down on a particular zip code. That's what Jonathan's stories are like—no matter where the kids wind up in the big bad world, no matter if they succeed or fail, they all graduated from the same high school—within a few sentences, you can just tell these stories came from the same place.

Let’s call this place “Maberryland.” It's a small town set somewhere in America’s mountains, where maps aren’t all that accurate, where families have lived for ten generations, where cell phones rarely get service and where outsiders simply do not go. Which is good, actually, because while outsiders may walk in vertical, they usually leave horizontal. If they leave at all.

Jump in a time machine with me. We travel from 1960-68, the era of The Andy Griffith Show's eight seasons, to 2006-2016, the first ten years of Jonathan’s writing career. In the 45-odd years between the two, the Hollywood image of American law enforcement has shifted, to say the least. We leap from Andy Griffith—an unflappable pacifist—to the signature creation of Jonathan’s mind, Joe Ledger, a man who embraces both his justified rage and the face-shearing violence that comes with it.

A man who has his Maberryland High School varsity jacket hanging up in the back of his closet.

Mayberry was clean and polished, a fresh-baked apple pie of a town where the only real fugitive was Old Sam, a legendary lunker of a carp that escaped Andy, Barnie, Opie, Goober and Floyd the Barber. Ha-ha! That crazy fish got away again!

Maberryland is dirty, sweaty, unapologetic. There’s fishing here, sure, it’s just that your boat is a Navy SEAL SOC-R, your tackle box is eight feet long and contains a mini-gun, a Remington 870, a rapid responder folder knife and some C4. "Old Sam" is a genetically engineered monster grizzly-squid with one tentacle holding the dead man’s switch of a low-yield nuke poised to wipe out NYC. Sure, you can bring Opie along for a day of dappled sunlight, because this Opie went to Maberryland Junior High—he knows fifteen ways to kill you with his bare hands, has an AR-15 strapped across his back and is carrying that blowgun he made in shop class.

Mayberry’s entire law enforcement complement had one bullet. In Maberryland, one bullet doesn’t even cover the high-caliber Jonathan sprinkles on his morning Cheerios. We’re talking at least an eight-round mag before the day even begins, with slices of C4 spread on yummy MREs (if you don’t know where your mom hid the C4, there’s extra in the SOC-R’s tackle box).

If we had to focus on just one point where Mayberry, USA and Maberryland differ, it is this: the former is a place without killing—the latter is a landscape of carnage, a Megadeth opera of bullets, brain matter, bravery and brawn. Are there smart people in Jonathan's stories? Of course there are, Jonathan’s work makes it clear he does not brook stupidity in life or in his characters. But does intelligence ensure the win? Rarely. Even for the brightest of characters, in Maberryland the simple argument over a parking spot often devolves into a gnashing, spit-splattered, knife-slashing battle of who wants to live more.

When it comes to Jonathan’s fiction, the small town metaphor works in another way as well. Small towns are the home of regular folk. Jonathan doesn’t do his wet-work in the land of generals, politicians or super-powered heroes. You come to Maberryland to read about the people on the front lines, death-dealers soaked in the blood of their enemies.

Some people write about the decision-makers. Jonathan writes about operatives, those that do the up-close nasty work, as in the tale “Death Song of Dwar Guntha.” Who writes a story about the world of John Carter from Mars that doesn’t feature John Carter? Jonathan Maberry does. John Carter is untouchable, bulletproof and godlike—not so the men that serve under him. Those poor bastards can die, which makes them permanent residents of Maberryland.

Take the story “Clean Sweeps,” for example, where far-future grunts have the same dirt-eating job as the grunts of this century and centuries long past—killing and being killed on the front lines, because of the decisions of others.

Or in the story “Chokepoint,” where the zombie apocalypse begins. Are we in the tent of some high-ranking colonel? Or the CDC lab where the brightest and best puzzle out this strange infection spreading across the land? No. We’re with four grunts, guarding a bridge, with no support, no communication and no explanations.

Oh, I didn’t mention that zombies live in Maberryland? Sorry about that. Because they do. Hordes of them. So do vampires. Vamps love Maberryland. In short: Andy Griffith’s down-home charm wouldn’t be worth two wet farts in this place, and One-Bullet Barney Fife would be a vamp’s blood-doll bitch in ten seconds flat.

Jonathan even manages to make the unstoppable force that is GI Joe more grounded and realistic in "Flint & Steel,” perhaps the only story in that particular universe that made me think, “You know maybe it wouldn’t be all that fun to be a Joe…"

Yes, Maberryland is the place where grunts live, but don’t think you’re safe because you’re not in the armed forces. In this town, the word “grunt” doesn’t apply to just soldiers. It applies to everyday Americans, the workers, the toilers, the luckless, those that never had a chance—the very bones of the nation. It’s the fog rolling through the peaks of Appalachia, where a young man seeking his family past unfortunately finds it in “Calling Death.” It’s a sociopathic little girl whose pretty pony fun-time doesn’t involve ponies at all, but rather her hapless sister and a lovely man known as “Doctor Nine.” It is the plague of meth and hopeless children in “Crooked.” It’s an inner city tattoo parlor where black and white take on different meanings in “Ink.” It’s even Sherlock Holmes, who gets a taste of West Virginia justice in “The Adventure of the Greenbrier Ghost.”