Literature / Pump Jack

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Pump Jack is a horror Short Story by Donald R. Burleson, first released as part of the first Bare Bone anthology in 2001 and later included in The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror 13.

Cal Withers returns to the home of his aunt and uncle, a place in the desert surrounded by oil wells and their pump jacks. After a strange nighttime encounter, he starts to recall the legends they told him, of the Pump Jack that stalked the nighttime desert. He tries to brush it off as nothing but superstition and childhood nonsense, but, somehow, nothing he can do can make the fear leave him. As time passes, he grows more and more paranoid; when he hears the sound of a strange creature outside the old home, he decides to head out into the night and confront this legend once and for all.

Examples of tropes within this work:

• Antagonist Title: Pump Jack (capitalized) is the name of an old childhood bogeyman of Cal’s; whether the thing is real or not, it certainly can be called the antagonist, with how wracked Cal is by the fear of it. It’s real.
• Attack of the Killer Whatever: As a child, Cal Withers’ aunt and uncle told him stories about a killer pump jack (one of those things you see on oil wells) to keep him in line. As it turns out, Pump Jack is actually more than just a story.
• Capital Letters Are Magic: They’re what separates a mere pump jack (oil-drilling equipment) from Pump Jack (an instance of such equipment that, according to legend, took on a monstrous life of its own).
• The Legend of Chekhov: Played with; as a boy, Cal’s parents told him the legend of Pump Jack, an oil rig that would tear away from its moorings at night and roam the desert, and had a love of feasting on naughty little boys. When a pump jack starts displaying odd behavior, it’s kept unclear if the legend is really true or if it’s all just the product of paranoia, misremembering, and odd coincidences. Ultimately played straight, as Pump Jack turns out to be completely real.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: After returning to the home of his late aunt and uncle, Cal recalls the legend of Pump Jack that they used to tell him, and starts becoming a bit paranoid after he sees a pump jack on the edge of the family’s property despite remembering that there were no oil wells there. The next night, he hears something making a mysterious noise outside, and almost swears he can see something big moving just outside of his lantern’s light. After heading into the desert to confront the intruder, he stumbles across a normal, motionless pump jack, and can’t help but laugh over how silly his fears were- at least until the jack turns to look at him.
• Metafictional Title: Aside from being a piece of oil equipment, “Pump Jack” refers to a monster of legend Cal’s aunt and uncle scared him with when he was young. This is ultimately subverted, as Pump Jack turns out to be completely real.
• Shout-Out: At one point, Cal sits down to read Bleak House, and finds that his paranoid mind can’t resist misreading a passage to involve Pump Jack.
• Sinister Southwest: The story is set in the American Southwest, and revolves around the oil “pump jacks” that are a common site in the desert.
• Twist Ending: After traipsing around at night chasing a mysterious noise, Cal runs into a pump jack, mockingly strikes up a one-sided conversation with it, and laughs at how silly he was, being scared by a childhood legend. Then the laugh catches in his throat, because
  When the great oblong head, perched atop its neck of steel, bestirred itself with an unthinkable metallic groan and turned, coldly predatory in the pallid moonlight- turned to look at him.
• Uncertain Doom: The story ends with Cal face-to-metal-head with the real Pump Jack, with no word on whether the monster will drain his blood, if he’ll manage to escape, or why Pump Jack was even after him in the first place.
• Vampiric Draining: According to legend, if Pump Jack caught you, it would drive its pumping rod directly into your heart and drain every drop of blood from your body.