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  MOUNTAIN HOME

  By

  Bracken MacLeod

  “Bracken MacLeod's MOUNTAIN HOME hits like a Claymore mine and cuts with the emotional precision of a scalpel. A powerful and thoughtful first novel.”

  ~ Chet Williamson, International Horror Guild Award winning author of Soulstorm

  - Books of the Dead -

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  “Bracken MacLeod's MOUNTAIN HOME is a superb page-turner that deserves such merit. What makes the story so compelling is MacLeod's willingness to cast aside cliches and stereotypes, his meticulous attention to facts and details, and his unflinchingly honest characters. His writing is layered with moments of elegant, heart-wrenching prose and pure diesel-fueled suspense, creating a novel that, quite simply, I couldn't put down until I finished the last page. It's THAT good.” ~ Peter N. Dudar, author of A Requiem for Dead Flies

  “In MOUNTAIN HOME, Bracken MacLeod finds the horrors and fears that are in the human heart and rips them out for all to see. When you start this book make no plans for the rest of the night - and don't expect to get any sleep. Hardboiled terror with an wonderfully eerie touch.” ~ John French, author of Paradise Denied

  “Bracken MacLeod brings heart and muscle to this taut siege thriller.” ~ Nicholas Kaufmann, Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of Chasing the Dragon

  “Bracken MacLeod's debut novel MOUNTAIN HOME opens with a shot and never looks back. It's a great character study of people locked in a small space facing death. MacLeod is able to keep the tension taut throughout, and the story barrels towards a bloody ending. I'm interested to see what MacLeod has up his sleeve next.” ~ John F.D Taff, Author of Little Deaths

  “MacLeod’s gripping and heartbreaking story proves that evil isn’t always born, sometimes it’s crafted, insult by insult, injustice by injustice, and trauma by trauma. A kick-ass debut of page-clicking suspense!” ~ Jan Kozlowski, author of Die, You Bastard! Die!

  “Bracken MacLeod's MOUNTAIN HOME hits like a Claymore mine and cuts with the emotional precision of a scalpel. Ferocious and tender, painful and real, it shows that the worst horrors are those we create ourselves, and that this world offers no shelter from evil, not even for the innocent. A powerful and thoughtful first novel.” ~ Chet Williamson, International Horror Guild Award winning author of Soulstorm

  “Confident and perfectly paced, MacLeod's novel is at turns heart-pounding and heart-rending, tender and vicious. A grade-A thriller.” ~ Adam Cesare, author of Tribesmen

  “Bracken MacLeod’s Mountain Home is a thrilling tale that took me places I never expected. With an explosive storyline that keeps you on your toes, the real surprise turned out to be his characters; real, growing, and full of vitality that you both love and love to hate. Joanie and Lyn’s intertwined stories are inspiring and horrifying, and after reading Mountain Home, it is astounding to consider the impact just one person can have. Please read this novel, but be prepared. This is a tale of personal passage—of gateways to change, for better or worse.” ~ Weston Kincade, author of A Life of Death

  “Mountain Home is double barrel shotgun blast of violence and pathos. Clean, deft writing and more than enough narrative drive to keep you buzzing along, this debut marks the beginning of a very promising career for Bracken MacLeod.” ~ John Mantooth, author of The Year of the Storm and Shoebox Train Wreck

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, events, dialog, and situations in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of reprinted excerpts for the purpose of reviews.

  Cover Design by Small Dog Design

  Edited by James Roy Daley

  MOUNTAIN HOME

  BOOKS of the DEAD

  Copyright 2013 by Bracken MacLeod

  For more information, contact: [email protected]

  Visit us at: Booksofthedeadpress.com

  * * *

  For my grandfather, Claude, who taught me what a good man does.

  For my son, Lucien, who inspires me to live up to that example.

  “People who don’t have much get ugly about giving up the little they have left.”

  ~ Andrew Vachss

  Prologue

  14 July 2013 –– 1445 hrs

  The asshole from table three paid with a credit card. Lyn Lowry read his name off of the front before handing it back along with the slip. “Here you go, Mr. Mills.”

  Richard Mills smiled with half of his mouth and signed the tab. While he figured out the tip, Lyn fingered the necklace dangling between her small breasts. She caught his eyes darting up to look at the sparkling silver faerie pendant she bought two years earlier at FantastiCon in Portland. After a moment too long, he stood up and slid the ticket back to her. Lyn glanced down to see that in place of a tip, he’d drawn a horizontal line. She looked past his shoulder to where the new busboy, Luis, was clearing the mess they’d left. Grabbing her earring, she gave him the signal for “how much?” She hoped to see him hold up at least a five. Richard and his wife had been rude. Instead, he held up a single dollar bill and a bible tract. A buck on a thirty dollar tab. Lyn pushed the cash drawer closed gently, trying not to show her exasperation. Rick rhymes-with-dick Mills and his wife were not only rude, but they were also lousy tippers who thought she needed saving. I’ve been judged by enough holy rollers at this friggin’ job. Showing a little cleavage to get a better tip doesn’t make me a whore. I’m trying to save enough for tuition, you losers!

  Instead of screaming at them, she kept her smile in place and said, “Thanks for eating at Your Mountain Home Kitchen.”

  Mrs. Mills glanced over her shoulder with a haughty look that said she only spoke to the help when ordering something. She pushed the door open with her free arm, the other one squeezing the nasty yapping little dog they’d insisted on bringing into the restaurant––if you want our business, dear––and stepped out into the afternoon sun.

  Lyn imagined rich Rick and his wife getting into their Lexus convertible, taking the top down, and tearing down the road only to skid off the hairpin turn over near Mercy Lake and careen into the rocky valley below. She pictured the car exploding in a ball of flame like in the movies, and she smiled genuinely for the first time that day. Of course, she didn’t really wish them harm. Maybe a little fishtail skid around the turn. Something to remind them that life was too short to be judgmental pricks.

  “Y’all come back and see us agai––” A loud crack from outside the restaurant interrupted Lyn’s farewell. She watched the golden halo of Mrs. Mills’ bleach blond hair go dark and the back of her husband’s head blow open like a crimson flower in a time lapse educational film.

  The mirror behind the cash register shattered and clattered to the floor in a rain of shards that bounced off the floor, pelting the backs of her calves. Lyn’s world narrowed to the scene directly in front of her as Rick crumpled behind his wife, their bodies blocking open the glass doors leading out to the parking lot. Mrs. Mills’ dog streaked away like a rat chased by a boa constrictor. Lyn tried to scream but the man’s blood caught in her throat and she gagged. Her stomach rebelled at the taste.

  The screams of the other customers sounded miles away.

  Lyn wiped her mouth with the back of her blood-spattered forearm. She stared blankly at the mess coating the register thinking, Mr. McCann is going to kill me! She thought she might be screaming. But then, none of the customers in the café were coming over to make sure she was all right, so maybe she wasn’t.

  She l
ooked up from the Mill’s corpses in time to watch the plate glass window above tables five, six, and seven explode inward. Glass flew into the face of the man at table five who’d ordered a “bottomless” Coca-Cola. His head rocked violently to the side, but the prodigious gut he’d barely been able to squeeze into the booth held him in place. The bullet that blew most of his chins and jaw into the dining room ricocheted off to the right and grazed the woman from table nine before embedding itself in the cheap wood paneling below a framed picture of celebrity chef Paula Deen hugging the owner of the restaurant.

  Lyn heard her own scream rising above the chaos like a siren. Your Mountain Home Kitchen was under attack.

  Chapter One: Joanie Settles Her Tab

  1400 hrs

  Joanie Myer stepped out onto her porch with her eyes closed. The warm afternoon air blew over the sheen of perspiration that coated her body. Carefully, she walked to the edge of the front deck, her hands grasping for the wooden rail she’d carved to replace the one that rotted out two summers earlier. The coolness of the breeze soon turned pleasantly warm as her sweat evaporated in the sun. She breathed in the scents of juniper and columbine, earth, lavender and lupine. Yet, over it all intruded the smell of the road: hot asphalt and exhaust. The spell was broken. There was no more reason to pretend. She opened her eyes.

  She walked down the steps to her driveway. Her legs burned slightly and she reveled in the pleasant fatigue of the first good workout of the day––a ten klick run in the woods behind her house. Over the past three years she’d worn a circuit path through the woods that passed by everything she loved about her mountain home. What do they call that path animals make? She considered what her professor had said in the single class she enjoyed during her only year of college. Paths of desire. They blaze paths of desire through their environment.

  Reaching the end of the driveway, she looked up at what had once been her favorite view in the world. The only sight that had rivaled it was the view of the mountains surrounding Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. But this scene was home. Had been home. She stared at the giant neon sign topping the restaurant across the highway from her house. A range of pointy cartoon mountains behind a little cottage in the middle shone like a beacon of tastelessness. Above that, tall western-style block letters proclaimed the diner to be:

  Your MOUNTAIN HOME Kitchen

  Below that blinked a smaller LED sign with scrolling crimson letters that read, We’re Open! Come On In! Its obtrusive garishness infuriated her every time she looked at it. And she had looked at it every day since it had been erected two years earlier. Her old view of the lush pine valley below was almost completely obscured by the continually buzzing neon sign.

  Resigned, she stuffed her clenched fists in her vest pockets and crossed the street. The highway had been a disappointment when she first moved into the house. But its minor inconveniences––the occasional sound of a truck or motorcycle making its way from Mercy Lake to Jasper’s Fork along rural Route 2A––had been eclipsed by the house’s seclusion and the dream view of the Selkirk Mountains outside her front door. Then dive-restaurant entrepreneur, Adam Bischoff, erected this cathedral of cheap chicken fried steak on a piece of property that probably would be lost to erosion in another ten years. She hadn’t asked, but Joanie was sure he didn’t care what happened to the restaurant that far down the road. He was more interested in driving her out of her home.

  The parking lot was about half full. She counted nine cars. Three pickup trucks––two Fords and a Chevy––a Honda Civic, one of those new VW Beetles, two Subaru wagons, a BMW, and a 2012 Mercedes SLK convertible. A Subaru, one Ford, and the Civic belonged to employees. The Chevy belonged to the manager. The rest belonged to customers. She pulled open the glass door on the right and walked in.

  Inside, the hostess table was unattended. Lyn was serving a couple in the back of the restaurant. She looked at the jingle of the bell and held up a finger in a just-one-sec gesture. When she saw it was Joanie, her face fell. The man she was serving said something sharp and Lyn’s attention returned to him. The toy-like dog his companion held gave a short yip and the couple sitting next to them––two women––tensed their shoulders. Everyone else was eating and chatting and minding their own business.

  Lyn finished pouring coffee for the couple and hurried over to the lunch counter to return the coffeepot before greeting Joanie. The worried look didn’t sit well on her delicate face. She had her hair pulled up from the sides and held back in a barrette that Joanie couldn’t see but assumed was the same one she always wore. The ridiculous pink waitress uniform was designed for someone who could fill it out, not a lanky girl who looked like a 1970s fashion model.

  “Hey Joanie. Uh, Beau’s here today. You know?” She never expected to be greeted with a Welcome to Your Mountain Home Kitchen like everyone else. Lyn only ever reported whether the manager was in the office in the back.

  “S’okay. I just want a cup of coffee.”

  “If I get caught serving you again…” Lyn let her statement trail off.

  “I can take it to go. I ran out at home.”

  Joanie waited while Lyn stood there trying to make up her mind, her face a mask of anxiety. After a few seconds, Lyn finally relaxed. “No. It’s fine. There’s a table in the back. I’ll get you a cup and you can sit and enjoy it. Screw them, right?” She laughed humorlessly.

  “Exactly.” Joanie smiled, trying to help the girl relax. Adam was an asshole and he’d hired Beau to manage his restaurant because he was a real son of a bitch, too. Beau made sure everyone knew it, felt it, and feared him. At five eight, he was a petty Napoleon in a bad western suit.

  She followed Lyn into the restaurant. As they passed a table in the middle of the dining room, a redheaded woman with a bobbed hairdo checked out her ass. She felt a flush of satisfaction as the woman’s companion barked, “I’m over here, Carol.”

  The old leathery woman with the yappy little dog sucked air in through her teeth as she stared at Joanie’s dirty brown desert boots. Her husband noisily slurped his coffee trying not to burn his tongue. They sounded like a pair of Hannibal Lectors.

  The table Lyn led her toward was the last one in the back, next to the hallway leading to the bathrooms. She guessed it was in case she needed to make a quick getaway through the door along the side of the diner. No matter what, Joanie intended to walk out the front. “Be right back,” the girl said.

  “Take your time, Lyn.” The waitress slash hostess slash checkout girl ran off to fetch the same coffeepot she’d put down to greet Joanie. She grabbed a tan mug off the counter and hurried back to the table. She’d said, “screw them,” but it was clear she knew who’d get screwed if she violated the Do Not Serve Joanie Myer rule.

  “Black, right?” Lyn asked, setting down the cup and pouring.

  Joanie smiled again. She liked Lyn. The girl reminded her of herself when she was twenty-one––full of energy and ambition and eagerness to please. But Lyn didn’t seem to have any way to make her attributes come together. Joanie saw her either joining the military, like she had done when she flunked out of college, or––more likely––dying a waitress. “Thanks,” she said, lightly blowing on the steaming cup.

  “Can I ask you something, Joanie?”

  “Sure. What?”

  “What’s with the combat boots? I mean, they’re all hardcore and stuff but they don’t go with the whole yoga thing, you know? I’m sorry. I know it’s totally rude of me to say it like that. It’s just, I want to be a fashion designer and I’m trying to learn why people make the kind of choices they make when they’re getting dressed, and I––”

  Joanie put her hand on Lyn’s forearm reassuringly. “It’s okay. I’m not offended. It’s weird, right?”

  “Not weird. I don’t know. Different?”

  “I learned how to run in them and haven’t been able to get the hang of sneakers since,” she explained. “You know what they say about old dogs.”

  “You’re hardl
y an old dog.” Lyn leaned in conspiratorially. “I think you might have just broken up those two over there.” She nodded toward the women who were still having it out over tight pants and wandering eyes.

  “Old enough to not want to give up what’s mine.” She leaned back. “Thanks for the coffee.” She held up the cup and took a gulp of the steaming hot liquid, seemingly impervious to the pain it must have caused rolling over her tongue and down her throat.

  “You bet.” Lyn smiled half-heartedly and rushed off to take the glass that the obese man in the booth by the front window kept banging on the table. “Another one?” she heard Lyn ask. The fat man replied, “Menu says it’s bottomless. I can see the bottom, hon.”

  Joanie noted that he sat alone, wedged tight into the booth. She imagined that one of the beaten up pickup trucks in the parking lot was his. Probably the one with the silver girl silhouette mud flaps and the worn You Can Keep The Change / Bachman 2012 sticker on the bumper. Lyn brought him his soda pop and he downed half of it in one greedy slurp. She hoped Lyn planned on getting him another right away.

  Her eyes wandered over to the lesbian couple who appeared to have made up and were holding hands across the table. That’s nice, she thought. She remembered Jules and Amanda serving with her in Iraq, during Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Jules got discharged halfway through her second tour, even though she was one of the best Arabic speakers in the country. Amanda hid her true self much better and finished her stint with honor. She wondered if these two, sitting there holding hands, were thinking clearly about how they might be treated for PDAs in rural northern Idaho.