Burnt Black Suns: A Collection of Weird Tales by Simon Strantzas Read Free Book Online Page B

the emptiness, but he soon realized he’d learned to hate his job during his absence. And yet there was nothing for him. All he knew was how to fix things, and they weren’t the sorts of things he could put on a résumé. He couldn’t work a computer, but he could use his hands, and he knew how to hold a gun. Those were enough. Or they had been until Emily’s death.
    He still saw his daughter sometimes, standing in the corner of his basement apartment as he moved from one room to other, or when he was backing his car out of Henco’s underground garage. She stood absolutely still, blaming him for what he’d done. He tried to tell her it wasn’t his fault, but she was dead. And he didn’t believe it anyway.
    The Henco Industries brass wanted the standoff to end. The Six Nations of the Grand River protesters had been there for five months already and showed no desire to leave. Each additional day on the grass of the Douglas Creek lot allowed them to dig in further. “We cannot trust the O.P.P. to help,” Mr. Estouffer said in his stilted Quebecois accent. “All they do is stand around and not get involved. McCarthy, he already speak to the Crown, but they do not move. No one does anything. This is why you must go. Go do what you do best.”
    Mr. Estouffer did not ask about Emily, and Harvey wanted to wrap his big hands around the old man’s fat throat. He resisted. Without the job, there was nothing left to stop the memories.
    “Just do us a favor, Harvey. You don’t push these Indians too much.” The way he said Indians made Harvey’s skin crawl. “We don’t want the news to find you are there.”
    Harvey said nothing. It was the last thing he wanted, as well. He didn’t have the face for television; it was too wide, too rough, too wrinkled. And he couldn’t risk his eyes revealing the truth. He didn’t believe.
    Something about the Six Nations occupation of the site didn’t measure up, which was why the first thing he did before leaving his apartment was put on his overcoat and slip the gun in his left pocket. Not in his right. He did not open the right-hand pocket. Even when he felt the faint tugging of something desperate to be gone.
    His walk from the coffee shop to the edge of the Douglas Creek lot was consciously rambling. He wanted to approach without it being clear where he was headed. The hardest part was passing the mirrored window of the Caledonia Hardware Store, reflecting in his peripheral vision despite the oncoming night. A shadow moved beside him, brushed against him. He wouldn’t acknowledge the manifestation.
    The Six Nations protesters were in a line along the entrance to the Douglas Creek lot, mired in a shouting match with the Caledonia Citizens Alliance—wealthy and bored locals tired of dealing with the constant threat to their property values. One of the natives wore an elaborate costume—part angry bear, part giant spider—that made him tower over his opponents as he danced. If it was meant to intimidate, it worked; the Alliance members cowered when he swung his multiple legs by their heads. Harvey skirted the disturbance and remained invisible.
    “Our land was stolen. We will not leave until it is ours again!”
    “Get out! You aren’t welcome!”
    One hundred years earlier the Six Nations of the Grand River signed a document that sold their land to Henco Industries. Harvey sympathized—Henco was certainly capable of looting the Six Nation ancestors—but he questioned why they were suddenly contesting the sale. Why did they want the land back? And most importantly to Harvey, why had they secretly moved a digger truck past the Argyle Street barricade the previous night?
    With spring still new, the sun had already set by the time he reached the Douglas Creek lot, and Harvey was able to position himself discreetly behind some trees on the edge of the forty hectares without being noticed. The dark cloaked him as he viewed the small tent enclave that was erected when the