Worse Angels
Contents ( 56)
- ALSO BY LAIRD BARRON
- CONTENTS
- PART I
- VALLEY OF THE HORSES’ HEADS
- CHAPTER ONE
- CHAPTER TWO
- CHAPTER THREE
- CHAPTER FOUR
- CHAPTER FIVE
- CHAPTER SIX
- CHAPTER SEVEN
- CHAPTER EIGHT
- CHAPTER NINE
- CHAPTER TEN
- CHAPTER ELEVEN
- CHAPTER TWELVE
- CHAPTER THIRTEEN
- CHAPTER FOURTEEN
- CHAPTER FIFTEEN
- PART II
- JOHN HENRY IN THE PIT
- CHAPTER SIXTEEN
- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
- CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
- CHAPTER NINETEEN
- CHAPTER TWENTY
- CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
- CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
- CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
- PART III
- DEATH OF THE STARRY-EYED KID
- CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
- CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
- CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
- CHAPTER THIRTY
- CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
- CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
- CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
- CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
- CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
- CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
- CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
- PART IV
- RAH, RAH! SIS, BOOM, BAH!
- CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
- CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
- CHAPTER FORTY
- CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
- CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
- CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next on your reading list?
ALSO BY LAIRD BARRON
The Imago Sequence and Other Stories
Occultation and Other Stories
The Croning
The Light Is the Darkness
The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All (Stories)
Swift to Chase (Stories)
Blood Standard
Black Mountain
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2020 by Laird Barron
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
Ebook ISBN 9780593085004
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0
For Jessica M.
CONTENTS
Also by Laird Barron
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Part I: Valley of the Horses’ Heads
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Part II: John Henry in the Pit
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Part III: Death of the Starry-Eyed Kid
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Part IV: Rah, Rah! Sis, Boom, Bah!
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Out of the window,
I saw how the planets gathered
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.
—WALLACE STEVENS
The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew:
Quoth he, “The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.”
—SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
PART I
VALLEY OF THE HORSES’ HEADS
CHAPTER ONE
A blood moon glowered over the Catskills as I climbed out of the hole. I glowered back, imagining claws and fangs and muscles bursting through my clothes the way it happened for Lon Chaney Jr. on moldy old Wolf Man posters. Nothing doing. I remained plain old Isaiah Coleridge, but that was probably bad enough. Werewolf movies were on my mind, for various reasons. Earlier that evening, I’d commented on the topic to my girl, Meg.
Freudian as all get-out, she’d said. Good guy on the surface, woman-and-sheep-ravishing beast on the inside. Those faux romantic posters where the werewolf—in pants!—carries an unconscious gothic heroine in his arms? Not like that. He—it—dragged the woman by her hair. Blood drooled from where the roots tore free. Her shinbones gleamed in the moonlight . . .