I had a friend once, name o’ Jesse. Best friend a guy could ever have. Everybody used to call Jesse "Pinnochio" ‘cause they said he had a big nose. Never could see it myself, but I reckon friendships have a way of blindin’ you to physical imperfections. Hell, not once in the two-and-a-half years I spent with Jesse did he ever mention my acne (a malady that’d earned me the not-so-flattering nickname of "Crater-Face" amongst the other 99% of my classmates).

"Pinnochio" and "Crater-Face." Heh. It was us against the world.

Jesse and I used to hang out after school a lot, just me n’ him. People had, on more than one occasion, called us "fags"—a fate worse than death for a teenage boy if there ever was one—but, truthfully, we didn’t care. Those people just didn’t understand. It wasn’t nothin’ like that. Mine and Jesse’s relationship was a sort of…brotherly love, yet at the same time so much more. Sometimes I wished Jesse was a girl, truth be known. ‘Cause I did love Jesse. And he loved me. We were as close as two guys could get without actually bein’ homo for one another.

Me and Jesse spent all our spare time in the woods behind his house.It was our only refuge. Didn’t matter if we had homework or not. Hell, half the time we didn’t even go to school. Jesse’d take his Winchester 30.06 and I’d tag along—like some pimple-faced Tonto to his big-nosed Lone Ranger—as he hunted for squirrels, rabbits, whatever we could find.Afterwards, we’d climb up in what we’d dubbed the Big Tree—a mighty oak that had been there for as long as we could remember—and we’d smoke reefer (most of it raunchy skunk-weed I’d kifed off my older brother) like it was goin’ outta style.Till we were gigglin’ like crazy. Gigglin’ so crazy you’d think we were about to fall right out of that great tree of ours, come crashin’ to the ground.

God, those were the days.

One thing I always loved to look at were Jesse’s "Trophies." That’s what he called ‘em - his Trophies. All those rabbits and squirrels and groundhogs he’d tagged and so painstakingly stuffed himself—they were his prized possessions. Jesse said he was gonna be a taxidermist, see, said one day we’d open up our own shop. He said that’s all he ever wanted to be when he grew up, and I could tell he was well on his way. All those furry creatures were so life-like and real; they’d already taken over his whole bedroom, turned it into some grand forest in itself.

Jesse told me his Trophies were his only friends in the world.

Besides me, of course.

So one day, after school, Jesse didn’t call me. This was odd—ya see, Jesse always called me. Didn’t matter we’d spent all day together at school, or if we hadn’t planned on doin’ anything that evening—Jesse always called me the minute he walked in the door.

I called and called and called, but even when I let the phone ring thirty times, no one answered.

So I hopped on my bike, rode across town. To Jesse’s house.

And my heart almost stopped when I walked into his room.

Jesse’s bedroom was trashed. Those furry friends of his—all those long hours of hard work and dedication—lay strewn about the room like some great brown cemetery of abandoned stuffed animals. Desecrated, eviscerated. I nearly tripped on a shiny green eye that rolled like a marble beneath my sneaker.

All of Jesse’s treasured Trophies had been remorselessly ripped asunder. Not one had been spared. And there was blood—let’s not forget that. Blood everywhere.

Gallons of it. I would find out later it was goat’s blood, but for all I knew right then it could have been my friend’s. It was all over the place. Splashed about Jesse’s man-made forest like some horrible crimson rain.

PINNOKEYO -N- CRATERFACE TOGETHER 4EVR, those still-dripping letters spelled out on the wall closest to me.

EAT A DICK

So ugly and obscene, this mockery of our friendship.

"Bastards!" I cursed, seconds before I realized I was not alone. I heard a quiet whimpering noise to my left, and I turned to find Jesse against the far wall. He was cowering in a fetal position behind his bed. I ran to him. "Jesse!" I cried. "Who did this?!"

And then I saw the big ole’ shiner ‘round Jesse’s right eye. It looked like he’d just gone ten rounds with Muhammad Ali.

"Bastards!" I spat again, tears in my eyes. "Who did this, Jess? Who did this?!"

For a while, still, he did not answer. He just sat there, huddled in that corner, starin’ off into space beneath the ragged, headless corpse of a chubby groundhog he’d nabbed last Halloween.

"Jess," I said again, as calmly as I could. "Who . . . did . . .this?"

"Sons-a-bitches," Jesse said, through tears and bubbly snot. Then, as if he really had to tell me: "You know. Ricky, Robbie. Tommy Joe."

I slammed a fist down hard on Jesse’s bed. Into more of the sticky, congealing mess there. I shoulda known. Ricky Jordan. Robbie Mohann. Tommy Joe Wanamaker. The biggest bullies in the school—three boys whose sole purpose in life, it seemed, was to make mine and Jesse’s own lives nothing less than a living hell.So I left Jesse there. I didn’t want to—God knows I hated doin’ that, condition he was in—but I had to. I had things to do, you see . . .things to do . . .

I loaded up Jesse’s Winchester. This was not even an hour ago . . .

I loaded up his Winchester . . . I went a-huntin’ . . .

And now I have a collection o’ Trophies all my own.

James Newman lives in the mountains of North Carolina with his wife and son—more specifically, he exists in a single room filled with horror movie villians and B-movie icons galore. Not to mention dense clouds of cigarette smoke, which he’s sure will one day be his "undoing." James’s fiction has been published throughout the small press, in publications such as SHADOWFEAST ONLINE, DREAD, DELIRIUM, and the U.K. Anthology NASTY SNIPS. Soon, DarkTales Publications will release his novella HOLY ROLLERS as a chapbook . . . also, HOLY ROLLERS may become a short indie film in the near future.You can check out the interview with James HERE.