MAMURALIA
a western kentucky apocalypse
a NOVELLA by art robin
ABOUT THE BOOK: Mamuralia is Art Robin’s first work of fiction based on one of his many trips across the back roads of the Bluegrass State. Inspired by Kentucky’s curious paranormal heritage, Robin blends psychology, folklore, travel writing, and magic realism to capture the apocalypse that was the 2020 lockdown. From the remote Falls of Rough to the river city of Paducah, on to the sanctuary of Lake Barkley at Land Between the Lakes, take the trip that one reader described as “a blend of David Lynch and Flannery O’Connor.”
EXCERPT:
John Michael Jennings stopped to consult the marker at a fork in the trail but the lettering was worn and indecipherable. Part of the sign had been broken off completely. He chose to go west down a gentle slope where the trail mimicked the slow curve of the shore, apparently leading to the water after passing by a boulder field. As the elevation dropped and the path dipped well below the shelter of the surrounding hills, a subtle silence gradually took over as the light diminished ever so slowly, yielding to the shadows of the thick woods.
He walked lazily along, aloof to the strange quiet overwhelming these lowlands. The trail twisted back around towards and below the way he had already been. He looked around as he walked, disoriented. The water, which he had expected to reach soon, was now behind him. He wandered into a grove of sparse and slender beech trees adorned with mustard yellow leaves that glowed like lanterns of another world under the weak, flat light of late afternoon, their meager, sinewy trunks dark as iron, dappled with a thin, black fungus.
March fifteenth, two thousand and twenty: In search of peace...tranquility...
Another round of hearty laughter bounced through the restaurant. John Michael slowly looked up from the tabletop and stared out at the room. Everyone was smiling but there was something about their eyes that didn’t quite complement the vigor of their grins. As they spoke, their call-and-response cadence came off almost too naturally, void of the second guessing or misunderstandings typical of casual banter. Certain phrases seemed straight out of a script. The clinical ambience of the crowded white room bordered by views of the rainy highway outside, purple through the windows, gave the diners’ hair a porcelain sheen like plastic figurines in a dollhouse. No one would make eye contact with John Michael. Nonetheless, he felt watched.
Alone on the road...a vacation to get away from it all
Miles fell away behind him. The streetlights started to thin and die out somewhere around the junction with Route 70. John Michael was alone in a sea of gray until a worn out minivan shrouded in a cloud of dust swung lethargically out from a driveway a few hundred feet ahead, forcing him to slam on the brakes. Its license plate had been obscured with spray paint. The driver waved an apologetic greeting out the window before rolling up the glass and maintaining a steady 30 mph to spite the open highway. Exhaust poured liberally out of the blackened tailpipe, the undercarriage sagging low over the road.
The abbreviated reach of the headlamps glowed teal and white through the dense crops on both sides of the road, mirroring the monotonous crawl of the two vehicles. Strangely, the driver accelerated as soon as John Michael attempted to pass on the left, black exhaust exploding from the rear of the van. The driver slowed to a near halt soon after and John Michael whiteknuckled the steering wheel. His breathing grew rapid. He watched the doors and windows of the van for movement, involuntarily checking his phone—no signal. The van slowly returned to its easy pace, a mad black beetle dumbly traversing the lawn of the gods, before finally turning off onto a gravel road. The journey grew uncomfortably still as John Michael accelerated anxiously up the highway without a soul in sight.
But in this place, in this time, nothing is as it seems…
“Nice shirt, fancy boy,” a short, clean-faced man in a baseball cap said, spitting. “Yeah, what are you, a catalog model?” laughed a woman with a heavy accent. John Michael was dead silent, unable to make a move, staring at the horrible silhouette. At first, all John Michael saw was a void of light, a hole around which the streetlights and blue gray clouds were shining. But the closer he looked, the more clearly a form jumped out at him. His heart stuck in his throat as he saw the undeniable shape of a giant—an enormously large man—standing solemnly at the back of the group. The giant’s face was dotted with stubble, his eyes cruel and sharp like diamonds.
His mouth was slowly growing into a snarl. Everyone else was slumped over, lazy and drunk. Don’t run, don’t run, he thought to himself, his stomach in knots. “How come you always so quiet? Huh? Oh, you mad or somethin’? What you wanna do, then?” slurred the bearded leader, beginning to lean in with a scowl. John Michael smirked but stayed quiet. His attention honed onto the enormous figure at the rear of the entourage. Staring straight at John Michael, the man seemed even taller than before. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a knit hat, slowly nodding back and then forward again.“What!?” thought John Michael, then he saw: the man was laughing. Coldly. Quietly. At him.