Friday Fiction

          Drew Calder stopped at the edge of the park, shifting to settle the load he carried more evenly across his shoulder. His suit jacket and the shirt underneath clung unpleasantly to his skin, wet all down his back and a little cold. Glad he’d disregarded Sebastian’s objections and worn his work boots, he sighed and shrugged into the burden, then set off across the grass, sticking to the shadows despite sufficient bribes paid to keep any cop in town looking the other way. The greenway made for a convenient shortcut back to the house, though Drew wished they’d just taken the car. Mostly he wasn’t bothered by Sebastian’s vanity, but sometimes his need to make an entrance bit them in the ass. Or bit Drew in the ass, really, since it usually became his mess to clean up. Drew hoped that a few rumors of their undignified exit did get back to Sebastian. Maybe he’d think twice about the hired limo next time, or at least let Drew wear pants with pockets sufficient to keep his phone from sliding out somewhere along the way, leaving them both stranded when things went sideways. A breeze kicked up as Drew reached the bottom of the hill that led up to the driveway, chilling the sweat on his face and making him shiver a bit. He tightened his grip and trudged on, his spine and shoulder protesting under the weight of Sebastian’s body.


          Drew met Sebastian the night he died the third time. The first death happened when he was born -- blue and floppy as a ragdoll, everyone said, even after they unwrapped the cord from around his neck. According to Drew’s aunt, who had been there, a seasoned delivery nurse snatched him from the doctor’s hands, put her mouth on his tiny face, and sucked out the gunk that was suffocating him before half the people in the room realized what was happening. The second time he died, he was working concert security in the rain when an ungrounded amp wire stopped his heart. Someone in the crowd knew CPR and kept oxygen moving to his brain long enough for the paramedics to get there. The third time, the one that almost counted, he’d been on the door at Kellan’s, pulling his normal Saturday night shift. One of the dancers had a shitty ex, who came around periodically to harass her. That night he’d shown up drunk and angry. Drew hadn’t been in the mood for it and told him to fuck off. When the ex boyfriend shot him, it felt like taking a football helmet to the chest -- no pain at first, just the sensation of something slamming into him and having the breath knocked out of his lungs. The pain caught up right before the second bullet collapsed his left lung, and he never did catch his breath.
          He had a dim memory of screams, of being lifted off the ground, of a sharp voice saying, “Please let me through; I’m a doctor.” A shot of something thick and scorched-tasting was tipped down his throat. That was all he recalled. After a long while, he opened his eyes and saw Sebastian watching him from a chair beside the bed where Drew lay sprawled on his back, still dressed in clothes soaked with more blood than any body seemed capable of losing. There was a dull ache in his chest, but he could breathe full and deep again.
          “I have a proposition for you,” Sebastian said in his trim accent. He was slender and well-kept, dressed in an expensive-looking suit. His hair was light, his eyes dark, and his features sharp. “I realize you may need time to consider my offer, but I’d like you to hear me out before you say no.”
          Sebastian needed someone to do his heavy lifting, he explained. Drive him sometimes, run his errands, keep his business close. In exchange, Drew would receive more money than he could ever spend, lodging on Sebastian’s property, access to the clubs and parties Sebastian attended, sex if he wanted it -- though Sebastian was firm that it would never be required. “Who could ask for more?” Sebastian asked with a smile that almost reached his eyes. “It’ll be a few days before you feel well again,” he said as he stood to leave. “The cure has healed you, but your body will take a while to replenish all the blood you lost. Please take all the time you need, and let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”


          As Drew came within hailing distance of the gatehouse, Jordan leaned through the window and called out, “The limo driver dropped off your phone!” Then, seeing what Drew carried, he paled. “Jesus, man, what happened?”
          “Philosophical disagreement,” Drew grunted, pausing to lean against the side of the gatehouse. “He'll be fine, I think.”
          “I’ll get the cart.”
          Drew slumped further against the bricks as he waited for Jordan to return with the groundskeeper’s motorized cart, grimacing as he noticed how bad he smelled -- a mix of his own sweat and the acrid odor of Sebastian’s blood. He debated setting Sebastian down, but wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to get him back up again, so he waited some more.
          Once Jordan arrived, they maneuvered Sebastian’s lanky frame into the cargo bed as carefully as possible, trying not to jar his neck, which Drew had bandaged as best he could with his own tie. The cut was deep, but hadn’t severed the spine, so as far as Drew knew it could be fixed. He slumped into the passenger seat and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths of the cool night air as Jordan drove them up to the main house as fast as he dared.


          Two days after he was shot to death -- Sebastian later confirmed that he had briefly died -- Drew woke up again in the same bed in the strange room that was not in a hospital. No one watched from the bedside this time. His muscles were sore as he pushed himself up to sit, his clothes stiff and reeking from the blood that had drenched them and mostly dried. Drew gagged a little and staggered to his feet, saw a doorway that led to a bathroom and stumbled over. There were towels and soap, so he stripped naked and dropped the awful clothes outside the bathroom door, pausing to stare in the mirror at the two round, slightly puckered scars that marked his chest now, one just to the right of his heart and the other centered on the left side of his ribcage. He pressed his fingers to one and then the other, feeling nothing but his own familiar skin and muscle and bone, the faint drum of his heart beneath. He got into the shower, made the water hot enough to hurt, and scrubbed until he couldn’t remember the smell of blood.
          When he went back out to the bedroom, his ruined clothes were gone and the bed had been made up with clean linens and a new blanket. A pair of jeans, boxer shorts, and a thick henley shirt were folded and waiting on the chair, his wallet and cell phone and car keys resting on top. Still feeling dazed, Drew got dressed and picked up his phone, but the battery was dead. There was a light knock at the door, so Drew opened it and found the man he’d seen two days before standing in the hallway, wearing gray slacks and a sweater. He was almost as tall as Drew, who stood 6 feet 4 inches barefoot.
          “Hello,” the man said. “May I come in?”
          “Um. Sure?” Drew backed up to let him enter.
          “I’m Sebastian Birk.” He offered his hand and Drew shook it.
          “Drew Calder.”
          “Do you remember what happened to you, Drew?”
          “Maybe. I think.”
          “Please, sit. I find it’s sometimes best to not try too hard to understand it, but just to accept that remarkable things can happen.”
          Drew sat on the edge of the bed, and Sebastian settled into the chair.
          “Do you remember the offer I made to you, the night I brought you here?”
          Drew nodded. “You want me to work for you.”
          Sebastian returned the nod. “I do. I could use a big, solid fellow who won’t take shit, as they say. As I said before - it would be a lot of driving, errands, and discretion. It may be dangerous sometimes, but I don’t think terribly so. Certainly nothing worse than you’d expect working as a bouncer at Kellan Ferguson’s strip club.”
          “What happened to the guy who had the job before?”
          “He worked for me for many years, but finally decided he was ready to retire somewhere nice.”
          “Is this like when your dad tells you he sent your dog to live on a farm, but really he shot it?”
          Sebastian laughed and gave Drew an appraising look. “Astute, Drew Calder. I like you quite a lot. I also suspect we had very different fathers. But no, Charles is actually retired. I believe he’s living in Majorca now. Speaking of dogs, though, that is something I should tell you.” He reached into the pocket of his slacks and retrieved a glass vial full of a substance that looked like motor oil. “The cure that saved your life is quite useful. Good for everything from a gunshot wound to a hangover. But if you use it much, dogs won’t like you. They can sense it somehow, I suppose. Cats, on the other hand, won’t care one bit.”


          Drew and Jordan managed to get Sebastian into the back ground floor bedroom where Drew slept when he didn’t stay in the carriage house. They laid him on the bed and then Drew let his knees give out and collapsed onto the floor, the old hardwood smooth and cold against his back through his damp clothes. Jordan sank down to sit nearby, breathing hard and using his sleeve to wipe sweat from his face. “Jesus,” he choked out, his teeth chattering from adrenaline and nerves. “He’s heavy for a skinny dude.”
          Once he’d caught his breath, Drew sat up. “I’ll be back in a minute. Stay here.” He hauled himself up and went out through the hallway and down the old servants’ staircase to the wine cellar. Inside, he placed his palm against the scanner lock on a sleek industrial refrigerator. There was a cheerful beep and a click as the lock mechanism disengaged. Drew pulled the door open, selected the supplies he needed, and closed the door, tugging it afterward to make sure the lock had re-latched. He opened a second, unsecured fridge and collected two bottles of beer before heading upstairs. When he got back to the bedroom, Jordan was pacing the floor, his arms tightly crossed. “Hey,” Drew said, bumping him with an elbow, “you need to take some deep breaths. Calm down.”
          “He looks dead, man. He just...he looks dead.”
          “He’s dead every time you see him.” Drew handed Jordan one of the beers and set the other on the narrow dresser. Next he opened and assembled the shrink-wrapped syringe he’d brought up from the basement, and filled it with thick, black blood from the refrigerated vial. “If you don’t like needles, don’t watch,” he told Jordan. He unclipped a small folding knife from the waistband of his pants and used it to slit the sleeve of Sebastian’s jacket and shirt up to his bicep, then carefully injected the blood into a vein at the inside of his elbow.
          With this accomplished, he went to the dresser and pulled out a set of clean clothes. He uncapped the second beer and took a long drink. “Sit with him until I get back,” he told Jordan, who was sipping his own beer and looking less like he was about to freak out. “I’m going to take a shower and call Isabelle.” “Shit,” Jordan said, looking utterly miserable. He gulped the rest of his beer and stared glumly at the floor. “Shit.”


          Isabelle Morgan was in her late twenties, with a petite frame and a heart-shaped face that could best be described as cute. She dressed in expensive professional clothes, never wore heels, and was utterly terrifying. Drew had met her just after being formally introduced to Sebastian, when she’d breezed into the bedroom with her smartphone and planner and proceeded to sweep him along in the wake of her efficiency. Tapping on the phone and jotting notes, she briskly scheduled him for a trip to buy clothes, arranged a visit with Sebastian’s accountant, ordered a driver to retrieve his car from Kellan’s, and called the groundskeeper to show Drew the various secondary homes on the property that he could choose from as his new living quarters. Then she handed Drew a piece of paper with times and dates printed neatly across it and swept out again, leaving him dazed and not quite sure what had just happened.
          Sebastian, who’d been standing to the side and gazing out the window, turned to Drew with a wry smile. “You’ll get used to it. If you do what she says at all times, your life will be simpler.” He came over to the bed and offered his hand to shake again. “So it seems we have an arrangement.”
          Drew nodded, his head still swimming a bit. “I guess we do.”
          “You can leave my employ whenever you choose. I do ask that you give me the courtesy of notice beforehand, but your time is your own. I do not require a contract, unless you would prefer one. I will do everything that I can to treat you fairly and reasonably. Please know, however, that if you betray me -- either while you work for me or afterward -- I will kill you. And you will be quite permanently dead, in that case.”


          Drew’s job was to accompany Sebastian to events and parties as requested, fetch and deliver when needed, look dangerous as required, and drive a lot of wan-looking and very hungover young men (and more rarely, women) home after mixing up a morning smoothie with a shot of the cure blended in among whatever ingredients were trendy that month. On three occasions he’d been asked to dispose of a body, each time someone whose name had come to Sebastian through whispers and half-coded messages, men whom the law couldn’t touch, monsters who were using the dark corners of Sebastian’s world as their hunting ground. As far as Drew could tell, Isabelle handled everything else, from arranging personal shoppers to booking international business meetings. Calling Isabelle to tell her that her plans had been derailed was never a fun experience.
          As he undressed and started the shower, Drew weighed his options -- if he called now, he’d have to talk to Isabelle now. But if he waited and called her after he got cleaned up, she’d undoubtedly be furious at the delay. Heaving a sigh, Drew thumbed his phone to life and selected Isabelle’s number. The call went immediately to voicemail. “Isabelle - it’s Drew. I think you’re going to need to clear the schedule for Monday. Maybe Tuesday, too. Sorry about this.”
          Within minutes, his phone rang. He reluctantly accepted the call. “Hey, Isabelle.”
          “What the hell is going on, Drew?” Heavy bass thumped in the background, and Isabelle’s voice echoed weirdly. Drew wondered which club bathroom she was calling from.
          “Sebastian is out of commission. I think he’ll be okay, but it may take a few days. Also, we’re both going to need a new suit.”
          Isabelle’s sigh was a rebuke. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Are you with him right now?”
          “No, but Jordan is.”
          “Jesus Christ.” She disconnected without saying goodbye. Drew showered and dressed and made it back to Sebastian’s side in fifteen minutes. He sent Jordan out to the gatehouse with instructions to admit no one other than Isabelle until he heard otherwise. Then he settled into the chair he’d brought over from the staff kitchen and closed his eyes.
          He’d barely started to doze when he heard Isabelle coming down the hall. She knocked lightly and came in before he answered, stopping short when she saw Sebastian. She clutched the strap of her work bag tightly, her eyes going wide. “You didn’t tell me it was this bad.” It was the first time Drew had ever heard worry in her voice.
          Drew peered at the wound on Sebastian’s neck. “It was worse,” he said grimly.
          “Did you give him the cure?”
          “About 45 minutes ago.”
          “How did this even happen?”
          “I missed the beginning. There was an argument over something at the club. Backroom stuff...I think there were Russians? I was supposed to wait in the hall, but I went in when I heard shouting. It was over by the time I got the door open.”
          “What about the bodies?”
          “Nothing incriminating. I got him and got out.”
          Isabelle gave a curt nod. Under her Saturday night makeup, she looked pale. “I have some things to handle. I’ll be in the office if you need me.”
          Sebastian and Isabelle had adjoining offices on the other side of the back of the house, separated from Drew’s room by the old servants’ kitchen. He waited until he heard Isabelle’s office door close, then went to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. After some consideration, he made two plates of toast with honey as well, and took one to Isabelle. She actually smiled at him, just a little bit, from behind her laptop when she saw what he’d brought. “Thank you,” she said, accepting the plate and mug of coffee.
          “Do you need anything else?”
          “No. Just stay with him and let me know if he wakes up.”
          As Drew was pulling the door closed behind him, Isabelle called his name. He paused, half-turned.
          “Thank you,” she said again, and her voice wavered - again, just a bit. “For saving him, I mean.”


          Daylight was just beginning to brighten the sky when Sebastian stirred, bringing Drew back from the drifting almost-doze he’d been in and out of for the past few hours. Drew stood but didn’t approach, waiting for Sebastian to open his eyes. When he did, he seemed quite alert.
          “Ah, Drew,” he said hoarsely. “It seems I owe you a debt of gratitude.”
          “Just doing my job,” Drew answered. “Can I do anything for you?”
          “I think perhaps you’ve gone above the call, but we’ll sort that out later. Would you help me up, please? I’d like to go to my room if you don’t mind.”
          “Isabelle’s here,” Drew told him, moving close to support Sebastian as he got to his feet.
          “Please tell her to get some sleep. I will call her as soon as I can.”
          Leaning heavily on Drew, Sebastian was able to make it up the stairway to his private rooms on the third floor. Drew had only been inside Sebastian’s suite a few times, and he always felt like he was trespassing. He helped Sebastian to the bed, where he sank onto the mattress and kicked off his shoes. “Much better” he said with a sigh, easing himself down onto his back. “Thank you, truly. I will call you when I’m feeling well.”
          “Or if you need anything.”
          “Yes,” Sebastian said with a ghost of a chuckle. “That, too.” He reached out and patted Drew’s arm. “Now go to bed, please. You look like you’re about to collapse.”
          Drew was aware of every sore muscle as he made his way downstairs, his back aching in earnest now. He stopped by Isabelle’s office, where he found her asleep on the chaise. He scribbled a note and left it stuck to the front of her phone and quietly slipped back out, pausing in the hallway to text an all-clear to Jordan. Back in his room, he changed the bedding and opened the windows to let in some fresh air. As the sun crested the trees outside and lit up the room he finally lay down to rest, sliding gratefully into sleep.

Friday Fiction

To give credit where it's due, Jett Superior shared a photo that I loved on Twitter a while back. I replied: "I feel like there's a deep (if short) story there, if only we could decipher it!" She said, "Maybe you should just use that photo as a prompt and write it. I'd love to see what comes of that." And so I did. I'm sure this one could use another round of strong-arm editing, but I feel like it's time to let it fly for a bit and then see how it shapes up.

Shekinah

      Marcus Abernathy had never been one for favors, but when an old fraternity brother called and asked him for one, it was harder than usual to refuse. Harris Chappell had just been elected governor and handed a monster of an in-progress highway project. A new interstate was being cut through the length of the state and Chappell had campaigned on a promise that he could get it done fast, right, and fairly. Abernathy had made a career out of smoothing the way for land acquisition for construction projects. Usually it was fairly straightforward - negotiate an acceptable deal between a municipality and a subdivision developer, line up incentives to lure a shopping mall to a nearly-abandoned strip of farmland on the edge of a growing city. This job, though, promised to be a little more delicate. The next phase was a major interchange with an existing highway just north of a small rural town that had offered serious opposition from the beginning. Out-lobbied and out-shouted by larger cities who didn’t want the highway either, the townspeople had eventually caved and the affected families were starting to sell, but tensions were high and the governor wanted someone on site to keep things from blowing up. Abernathy was looking forward to a few quiet years of semi-retirement before he called it quits for good. He was 57 years old, still relatively fit, hoping for a few good decades to enjoy himself. The project seemed pretty straightforward - shake some hands, hand out some reassurances, and hang out for a few months to maintain a semblance of government presence - so he finally agreed.

      By the time Abernathy arrived in the tiny town of Hedges, there was only one holdout, an eighth generation farmer named Jessup McTiernan who owned 600 acres of field and timber and steadfastly refused to yield. His ancestors had carved the farm out of the wild country, worked it into something worth having. They’d been born there, died there, and were buried there. McTiernan was twenty five years old, married, with an Ag Ec degree from Purdue. Abernathy set up a meeting with McTiernan and his wife, held on supposedly neutral ground at the town’s tiny administration building. He made sure he arrived first and waited in the small, nondescript conference room. The McTiernans arrived five minutes early and were shown in by one of the mayor’s aides. Jessup was tall and lean, dressed in work-worn boots, jeans, and a long-sleeved plaid shirt despite the heat. He removed his John Deere ball cap as he entered the room, revealing close-cropped black hair and startling pale gray eyes. His wife Amelia was tiny and blonde, her pretty face hardened with concern. She was pregnant, the swell of her belly filling out the front of her light cotton dress.
      Abernathy stood and offered his hand to husband and wife in turn. “Thank you for coming. I’m Marcus Abernathy. Please, sit down.”
      Once they were seated, he slid a manila folder across the table to each of them. “As I told you on the phone, I’m here to serve as a mediator between you and the state. It’s my job to try to look out for everyone’s best interests and find a solution that suits everyone.”
      His speech was mostly bullshit and he suspected the McTiernans knew it. As they went over the paperwork that all of them had seen before, Abernathy found Jessup polite in that way country people tended to be, but there was steel underneath. Amelia was mostly just angry and he could tell an outburst was simmering beneath the surface of her chilly civility. Everything about the state’s offer was offensive. The money they were offering barely covered the paper-value of the land and made no reparations for the crops, the timber, or the mineral rights. McTiernan was completely justified in being furious and had taken every right and legal step to defend what was his.
      Worst of all, Abernathy found he genuinely liked the man and wanted nothing more than to hand him back his family’s land. The section the state wanted would cut a swath right through the core of the property, leveling the house, bisecting the cropland, ripping out the two oil wells drilled in the 1970s, and destroying over half the timber acres the family had kept mostly uncut since the 1800s. The McTiernans rejected the state’s offer yet again, and Abernathy himself went to the governor with a proposed adjustment to the route that would save the house and slice off the edge of the property instead of cutting out its heart. The highway commissioner rejected it immediately, angry after months of delays.

      After a judge ruled that the state had the right to seize what it wanted through eminent domain and a second judge upheld the ruling despite McTiernan’s lawyer’s appeal, Abernathy insisted on being present when the eviction notice was served. A pair of state policemen had been sent to handle the situation when the commissioner had decided the local sheriff wasn’t aggressive enough, and they were fed up with the stubborn farmer and ready to work out some frustration. Abernathy rode in the back of the squad car, his stomach giving an unpleasant lurch as they passed between the two massive, gnarled white oaks that marked the entrance to the property. Angling the cruiser in to park in the grass near the front porch the nastier cop, Chandler, got out and hustled ahead, clearly hoping to cut off Abernathy’s attempt at diplomacy. McTiernan had anticipated the visit and stood in the open doorway, feet braced wide and arms folded across his chest.
      “Time’s up,” Chandler said, thrusting the eviction notice out in front of him. “You’ve got thirty days to pack up and clear out.” When McTiernan made no move to take the paper, Chandler reached over and stapled it to the wood-sided front wall of the house. Every chunk of the silver staple gun felt like a punch in Abernathy’s gut. As Chandler finished and stepped back with a smirk, there was a flurry of movement in the doorway. Amelia darted past her husband, her face contorted with rage. “You son of a bitch!” she shrieked as McTiernan caught her under the arms, yanking her back just before she was able to get at Chandler. “You rotten, thieving son of a bitch!”
      “Let her take a swing, cowboy,” Chandler sneered as his partner Laramie laughed.
      Abernathy felt his own hands clench into fists as Amelia spat and swore.
      When McTiernan finally spoke, his voice was low and dangerous. “Get off my land.”
      “It’s not yours much longer,” Laramie told him.
      “But it’s mine today. So get back in your car and leave.”

      With the last legal obstacle cleared, things proceeded quickly. Heavy equipment rumbled up and down the road to the McTiernan farm, widening the gravel road and laying pathways for the destruction that was to come. Two weeks after the eviction notice, a half dozen local men in pickup trucks rattled up the rutted road pulling empty flatbeds behind them. Abernathy saw them drive by from the window of his miserable office trailer and hopped into the car to follow them up. The men were loading up everything the McTiernans deemed worth saving as Amelia directed traffic in the front room. Abernathy rolled up his sleeves and joined the flow of work without a word, helping haul out boxed-up dishes and papers, duffel bags of clothes, all the sundry things that make a life and never get noticed until someone has to move them. It was heartbreaking to load up furniture and carefully wrapped quilts handed down through generations of people who’d only ever wanted to stay. When a pair of men came down the front stairs carefully carrying a spindle-sided baby crib between them, Amelia broke. She sank to the floor as sobs wracked her body and McTiernan came to her, knelt and hugged her to his chest, rocking her as she wailed. Abernathy turned away, busied himself with carrying another stack of boxes from the room.
      All the household goods were delivered to a storage unit on the edge of town and Abernathy heard from the sheriff that Amelia and Jessup had decided to stay with Amelia’s sister for a little while. But a few days later Jessup was back at the farm, his dusty truck parked next to the ramshackle white barn like always. One evening after the construction guys had cleared out for the day, Abernathy made the drive up to the house. He found McTiernan sitting on the front steps, halfway through a bottle of whiskey.
      No greeting seemed appropriate so he finally settled for “Hey.”
      McTiernan grunted and offered the whiskey bottle. Abernathy accepted, settling down on edge of the porch and taking a deep pull. “Look,” he said finally, handing the bottle back. “I am truly sorry for how this all turned out. It’s not what I wanted.”
      “I know,” McTiernan said. “Thank you for trying.”
      They sat in silence for a few minutes, staring off across the gently swaying corn to the rich green of the treetops beyond. Cicadas whirred, filling the evening with their hum. The smell of rich soil and fresh cut hay hung in the air.
      “I wouldn’t want to leave here either,” Abernathy said after a bit, feeling utterly wretched.
      “I’m not leaving.”
      “Jessup, you don’t have a choice. If you don’t go willingly, they will arrest you and drag you away. Think of Amelia and the baby if you won’t think of yourself.”
      “You don’t understand,” McTiernan said. “The land is our blood. Without it, we don’t have anything. No family, no home.” He took a long drink from his bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I was born here, did you know that?”
      Abernathy shook his head, aching with the misery of the moment.
      “It’s true. I was born right up there, in the front bedroom. And I buried my dad here after he died. I’m supposed to die here and be buried here and hand this all down to my son. I’m not supposed to end up raising my boy in a rental house in the middle of town and working under a roof all day.”
      “I know. It’s horrible.”
      “I don’t think you know. I think you want to understand, but I don’t think you do.”

      Once the construction foreman figured out Jessup was back, he enacted a policy of constant harassment. Nothing Abernathy said to him or relayed back to the governor made any difference. The sheriff’s hands were tied, jurisdiction firmly resting with the state police. Construction equipment encroached closer and closer to the house each day, drivers blasting music and blaring horns and revving engines. One afternoon a driver got a little too bold and pulled his wheel loader through the oaks, probably planning to tear up the grass or God knows what. Before he got thirty feet past the property line, his windshield spiderwebbed in front of his face, cracked by a bullet from McTiernan’s rifle. He turned the machine around and fled, and by the time Abernathy got word of it and raced up to intervene the foreman had gone up to the house to raise hell. When Abernathy arrived the foreman was standing between the oaks, swearing and screaming. McTiernan stood fifty yards away, the rifle in his hands.
      “What the hell are you doing?” Abernathy called out, frustration mounting.
      “This is still my land.”
      “For four more days!” the foreman shouted. “Four fucking days, McTiernan, and then I’m going to drive a fucking bulldozer over you myself if you’re not gone.”
      Abernathy pulled out his cell phone and dialed the sheriff. “You have to get Amelia up here to talk some sense into him. Someone’s going to get killed.”
      Amelia came and went. Jessup stayed. Abernathy flagged Amelia down as she drove past the trailer on her way back to town. She slowed to a stop and rolled down her window. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. “His mind is made up, Mr. Abernathy. I don’t expect you to understand.”
      “I don’t think he understands. Someone’s going to die up here, Amelia.”
      “Without this land he’s as good as dead anyway.”

      It rained for three days and kept things quiet. The fourth day dawned clear, the last day before the land became state property. Abernathy had barely settled in at his desk when he heard tires on the gravel. Glancing up, he saw the foreman’s truck and the state cop cruiser roll by with a bulldozer rumbling along behind. Chest tight with panic, he ran to his car to follow. At the oaks, the foreman and the cops got out of their vehicles.
      “I want these trees down by lunchtime,” the foreman said.
      McTiernan stood between the two massive trunks. He was unarmed, disheveled, dressed only in jeans and a white T shirt. His bare feet and rumpled hair made him look young and vulnerable. “It’s not time yet.”
      “It is as far as I’m concerned. You’ve been slowing us down long enough.”
      The bulldozer fired up and began to roll toward the closer oak. McTiernan stepped in front of the tree and faced the machine.

      “For God’s sake,” Abernathy cried. “This is insane!” He started toward McTiernan, but Laramie stepped into his path and caught his arm.
      “Stay out of this.”
      Abernathy could only watch as the bulldozer rolled closer and closer to the figure standing immobile in its path. He felt tension knotting across his shoulders as the bulldozer driver actually crept close enough to bump the dozer blade against McTiernan’s chest and knock him back. McTiernan kept his feet, but a moment later Chandler was on him, throwing a couple of punches before shoving him to the ground and cuffing his hands behind his back. The cop hauled McTiernan back up and dragged him over to the cruiser.
      “Do it!” the foreman called out and the bulldozer roared to life again. McTiernan was silent, rigid, anguish laid bare on his face. It took nearly fifteen minutes for the first oak to yield. As it finally cracked and toppled, McTiernan wrenched himself free of Chandler’s grip. He bent double and vomited, then reeled away, staggering a few steps before sinking to his knees and pressing his forehead against the side of the cops’ car.
      Abernathy yanked his arm free and moved to McTiernan’s side, gripping the young man’s shoulder tightly. Though he remained silent through the other oak’s fall, the farmer trembled with grief. After it was over, the cops drove McTiernan down to the town jail, but the sheriff refused to book him. He ordered the troopers to turn McTiernan loose and they did, perhaps sensing they were on the verge of pushing too hard. The sheriff drove McTiernan to Amelia’s sister’s and left him in his wife’s care. Abernathy hung around his trailer until nearly midnight, certain that McTiernan would come home. He was right and waved down the farmer and his wife down as they drove up the road.
      “I really don’t want to watch you die, Jessup.”
      The young man’s eye was bruised, his lip cut, but he seemed steady again. “You won’t have to, Mr. Abernathy.”
      “See you tomorrow, I guess.”
      McTiernan offered a sad smile. “Thanks again for everything you’ve tried to do.”

      Abernathy made sure he was the first to arrive at the farm the next morning. He parked his car near the ruined oaks and approached the house on foot. As the sun broke over the timber stand and illuminated the side of the white barn, Abernathy stopped in his tracks. Painted in large, neat black letters was a message: I will not bow down to tyranny.
      He knocked at the farmhouse door but got no response, though Jessup’s truck was parked in its usual spot. When the cops arrived they kicked in the door and searched the place, but McTiernan wasn’t there. The foreman called in an excavator and a bulldozer to level the house. As the front wall buckled and peeled away to expose the room where Jessup said he’d been born, the room he and Amelia had painted light blue for their baby boy, Abernathy turned away, unable to bear the sight.
      The house was gone by the end of the day, smashed to rubble and pushed out of the way. Even the fieldstone chimney had been toppled and shoved aside. Work proceeded rapidly at first, the crews laying a wide gravel access road past where the house had stood and up to the corn, but then things started to go wrong. Equipment constantly broke down, slowing work by hours and then by days. The weather turned abysmal, with rain and lightning storms. Two weeks after the house fell, one of the bulldozers was crippled by an engine fire in the middle of the work day. The foreman and the cops blamed McTiernan, but no one had seen him since the night before the demolition. The cops and the sheriff had watched Amelia’s place night and day and the construction company left night security on the site, but McTiernan never turned up.
      The day they started bulldozing the cornfield, a sinkhole opened up at the edge of it and swallowed two machines. There’d never been any indication of instability in any of the surveys, and Abernathy had no answers for the highway commission. A month into the project and already two months behind, the crew doubled their pace but met tangle after tangle. Electrical shorts killed the grader they’d brought in to extend the road bed. Two men were seriously injured when an excavator tipped over in high winds. Finally, a late summer storm washed out the access road up to the farm. Abernathy sent his report to the highway commissioner and the governor, detailing repairs that would have to be made for work to continue.
      He heard nothing for a week, then received an abrupt message informing him that his services were no longer needed, that due to unforeseen unsuitability of the land, the highway would have to be adjusted to the alternate route. He packed up his stuff and headed back to Indianapolis. For a while he called down to the sheriff every few months to check in, but Jessup never reappeared and he eventually stopped calling. He took on a few more acquisition jobs but nothing involving private landowners. At the end of the year he filed for full retirement and left the industry for good.

      Years later, Abernathy was passing through on his way home from a week in the Florida Keys and stopped by the old farm on a whim, not entirely sure why he'd driven up the long and still-unpaved road. The scars from the skid loaders and bulldozers were nearly healed, new trees growing straight and strong to hide the gaps the men had cut into the sky. But no one living, not even the little boy chasing chickens in front of the modest two-story house built atop the foundation of the one Abernathy had seen ruined, would last to see the white oaks restored at the end of the drive. The low, sad stumps hit him like a fist to the gut. So much wasted. The gravel from the access road remained, though the grass had grown up around it again. The cornfield started fifty feet farther back from the house, a small pond filling the sinkhole that had stopped the bulldozers.
      As his car rolled to a stop at the edge of the yard, a small blonde woman stepped out from the shade beside the house, a damp bed sheet still crumpled in her arms. She recognized Abernathy as he got out of the car and her back went straight, the set of her shoulders turning defiant.
      "Amelia," he greeted her, his tone heavier with regret than he'd intended.
      "What do you want?" she asked, her voice pleasant enough with the child so close but her eyes hard as flint.
      "Nothing. I was just in the area and thought I'd come up and see what had happened to the old place."
      "Still here, no thanks to you." She stepped away to clip her sheet to the clothesline, then turned back, arms folded tightly across her chest.
      "Look, I'm sorry for the way it happened. I truly am. I had a job to do."
      "And look how far it got you."
      Abernathy laughed; he couldn't help it. "He won in the end, I guess."
      "Damn straight," she replied, pride evident in the set of her chin.
      Abernathy turned his gaze to the boy who now sat at the edge of the yard, black hair shining in the sun, a hen captured in his skinny embrace. "At what cost, Amelia? Leaving all this behind, was it worth it?"
      She spread her arms wide to encompass the farmstead and the acres beyond. "He didn't leave all this, he saved it. You still don't understand, do you? Jess tried to tell you. The land is our blood. Without it, there's nothing. He did what he had to do."
      The little boy turned the chicken loose and came to stand beside his mother, looking up at Abernathy with curiosity in his pale gray eyes. Amelia rested her hand fondly on his head. “Say hello, Jesse,” she told the child.
      “Hello,” the boy said dutifully.
      “Hello. And I guess goodbye. I didn’t want to upset you, I was just wondering how things were.”
      “We’re fine,” Amelia said, twining her fingers through her boy’s dark curls. “We’re fine.”
      “Well, all the best, then. If you ever need anything the sheriff knows how to get in touch with me.”
      “Goodbye, Mr. Abernathy,” Amelia said, but not unkindly. As Abernathy walked back to the car she called out, “Thank you, by the way. For what you did back then. I know you tried to help.”
      Abernathy smiled sadly. “I only wish I could’ve done more.” A warm breeze rustled through the distant trees and washed over the yard as he walked back to the car, ruffling his hair and carrying with it the barest scent of sweet whiskey.
      He glanced in the rearview mirror as he pulled away. Amelia and Jesse still stood together, the peace of their land wrapping around them. The white barn and its barely-faded message reared up behind them, the peaked roof reaching proudly into the impossibly blue Indiana sky.


photo taken by Jett Superior and used with permission

Naked

An old friend invited me to join an online writing group and I accepted. The hope is that if I have a place where people can see whether I'm writing or not, I'll actually write more fiction. Another major hope is that people will leave comments and / or critiques on the posts, though I won't hold my breath on that one. After some pondering, I decided I was really only comfortable doing this as a protected blog. I know my fiction's not all that, but it is mine and I'm not really keen on the idea of throwing it out on the internet in general. That said, if you've been around here for a while or I talk to you on Twitter, I'm probably okay with you reading it. If you're interested or just curious, drop me a line and I'll set you up with reading permissions.

And now, because I'm feeling a little sheepish about the whole thing, let's divert attention onto someone else…here's Nico naming all the dinosaurs in Stomp, Dinosaur, Stomp! at bedtime tonight:

Friday Fiction #5

part one
part two
part three

Though he enjoyed hunting on his own, Dominic hated the first week of firearm season for deer. The woods were always crowded with men and teenaged boys, many of them with more enthusiasm than experience. Getting shot by a jackass with jumpy nerves was no way to die, so he ended up staying off the trails for most of opening weekend, restless and worried. A couple of local conservation officers checked licenses on the way in and tags on the way out, so unless he wanted to take his chances hunting in an already-packed field, there wasn't much to do. This year, though, his luck was good. Two days before the season opened, he got a call from his old college roommate with an invitation to spend a long weekend bowhunting on private land in the Upper Peninsula.

Abby was in the wind, having given no word on when she'd be back. The past few months had taught him she might be gone for a few days or nearly a week. She rarely called before skipping town; usually he just didn't hear from her and that's how he knew she'd taken off again. Since she also tended to show up again without calling first, he sent her a text message to let her know he'd be gone for a few days and left the spare key under the loose board at the bottom of the porch steps. It turned out to be a nearly perfect weekend, the weather chilly but clear, the hunting good. He and four other guys spent three nights under a limitless sky, drinking beer and playing cards by campfire light, miles from the nearest road. Even though she maintained she had no interest in hunting, he couldn't help but think that Abby would love this place and its acres and acres of quiet. He was looking forward to telling her about the wolves he'd heard singing every night. He'd seen increasing signs of wolf activity around the cabin all through the summer and into the fall, but he'd never heard a pack howling.

He drove back on Tuesday, arriving home in the late afternoon. Abby hadn't replied to his text message and her car wasn't parked out front, so he drove around to the small outbuilding behind the cabin to unload his share of the weekend's deer meat into the freezer. Once that was done and the truck bed was hosed out, he got his pack and bow from the cab and let himself in through the back door. After stowing the bow, he built up a fire in the wood stove to warm the chilly air inside the cabin and headed out to retrieve the spare key. His steps slowed as he noticed drops of blood on the boards of the porch, a trail leading from the steps to the front door and then doubling back to the steps. He followed the trail, fingered a tuft of fur caught in a rough spot on the boards at the porch edge. Something had crawled underneath to hide, maybe to die. A dog, he thought, or a coyote. He moved cautiously to crouch beside the porch steps and peer into the dim space behind them. As his eyes adjusted to the poor light, he swore in surprise. A woman lay curled in the crawl space, naked and streaked with dirt.

"Hey," he called out, stripping off his bulky jacket. "Hey, are you all right?" He knew it would be a tight squeeze, but he dropped to his belly and wriggled through the gap between the steps and the foundation. His body was blocking most of the light from the entrance, but he suddenly recognized the tangle of blonde hair in front of him. "Abby?" He scrambled forward, ignoring the scrapes and bruises the porch floor was laying along his back as he moved too quickly to be careful. "Jesus…Abby!" She was breathing but unconscious, cold to the touch. It took a painful eternity to move her out into the daylight, trying not to drag her too roughly across the ground but lacking the clearance needed to lift her. He felt like he was back on the ice again, inching toward the wolf, his pulse a steady drumbeat of fear.

He finally made it into the yard and pulled her carefully out, his heart lurching in his chest as he saw blood smeared along her thighs and belly from a ragged wound across the meat of her right hip. Scooping her into his arms, he rushed into the house. He hurried to the bathroom and laid her as gently as he could in the tub, then opened the taps to fill the bath with hot water. Abby had never been shy about her body, but it felt wrong to see her naked this way, without her knowing. He spread a towel across her and did his best to only look where it was needed to clean her skin and check her for injuries. With the blood washed away, he was left with only the shallow gash across her hip, ugly but not severe. The bleeding had mostly stopped already, so he drained the water from the bath, wrapped her in towels, and carried her to the couch. He bandaged her wound as best he could, then stoked the fire in the wood stove to burn high and hot, hoping to drive the last of the chill from her.

Once he was sure she was resting comfortably, he slipped back outside. His thoughts were a tangle, anger threatening to choke him. Someone, something had hurt Abby and left her to bleed in the cold. He paced the dirt of the yard in widening arcs, but no matter how far he circled out from the house, he found only the tracks of a solitary wolf interspersed with traces of blood. There was no sign of the girl's passing, no prints from her bare feet or snagged strands of hair. It was as if the wolf had chased a phantom out of the forest. As the daylight started to fail, he retreated to the house and brewed a strong pot of coffee, then sat down at the table and drank it, staring out the kitchen window as he turned everything over in his head. Abby’s injury didn't look like a bite. It seemed crazy to admit it, but the thing looked like a bullet graze. How had she made it to the cabin with no clothes, no shoes, no car? He sipped more coffee, his gaze miles away. His thoughts drifted again to the wolf he'd pulled from the lake, the way he'd felt on the trail the day he'd met Abby, her odd disappearances. The problem wasn't so much that things weren't adding up, it was more that they were but the sum made absolutely no sense.

She came to slowly, surrounded by Dominic's familiar smell. It was as strong as if she lay in his arms, but she could tell she was alone. She opened her eyes and found she was tucked snugly into his bed in the cabin's sleeping loft, three quilts piled on top of her and soft pillows beneath her head. Lifting the covers a little to peer below, she saw that she was dressed in too-large plaid flannel pajama pants and a University of Michigan sweatshirt. As she moved to push the blankets aside and sit up, pain knifed across her right hip and wrenched a cry from her throat. She fell back against the pillows, whimpering a bit as footfalls rushed up the staircase toward her. Dominic appeared at the top of the steps, his face lined with worry.

"Are you all right?" he asked, stopping and gripping the footboard with both hands, his knuckles whitening.

"I'm fine, I just moved too fast."

"What happened to you, Abby?"

"I don't…" she faltered and closed her eyes, trying to call up anything she could remember. Wolf thoughts were different from human thoughts, wolf senses sharper and stranger. She'd gotten better at translating wolf memories into human ones, but it took effort. She recalled fear, noise, pain. Limping toward what her instincts told her was a safe place, then panicking when she found herself not in a den but at a house that smelled of men and guns. She'd crawled into the darkness to hide. Then the change had come and she'd been left helpless against the cold and weakened by her wound. Later, there had been vague awareness of someone pulling her out into the sunlight, of warm water and a gentle touch. She opened her eyes and reached out toward Dominic. He hesitated only a moment and then came to sit beside her on the bed, his weight solid and comforting.

"Dominic, I need to tell you…" she trailed off, tears welling up in her eyes as she saw the concern in his face. "I should've said something before, but I didn't know how to say it." He picked up her hand and laced his fingers through hers, and she forged ahead. "I'm not what I seem to be, not really. Not at all, actually."

He studied her face for a long moment, his eyes thoughtful, biting at his lower lip. She was ready to swear he looked a bit relieved, but that made no sense at all. Finally he smiled a little and said, "Well...nobody's perfect."

Friday Fiction #4

part one
part two

A few days later, she drove back to the reservoir and this time she parked near the main trail that circled the lake. She set out at a comfortable pace, letting the morning sun and the movement of her limbs warm her body. As she’d hoped, a mile or so into her hike she spotted a familiar figure ahead of her, walking with his hands in his jacket pockets and his face tipped toward the sky. She quickened her steps to catch up, calling out, “Hello!” He half-turned as he walked, his expression registering mild surprise when he recognized her.

”I’m not lost this time, I promise,” she said, falling into step beside him. “I’m Abby, by the way.”

His name was Dominic and he wasn’t a big talker. They walked the four mile loop together, mostly in silence, and the quiet was surprisingly comfortable. She still wasn't sure what it was about him that had hooked her. She had always dated pretty city boys, not that it had ever worked out very well. This one, he was big and solid and steady, the kind of guy who probably always had mud on his boots and dirt under his fingernails. And for Christ’s sake, he had literally pulled a gun on her already, though she could admit she had kind of deserved it. Her life was complicated enough without trying to fit a guy into it all, but she just couldn’t bring herself to walk away.

As they neared the patch of gravel where she’d left her car, she bumped her arm against his. “I realize we just met, and for all I know you’re actually a serial killer, but I’d really like to see you again.” Her cheeks warmed as he looked down at her with a smile curling at one corner of his mouth.

”All right,” he said.

”I have to work the rest of the week, but maybe I could come back up on Sunday afternoon?”

”Sunday’s good. What do you like to do other than sneak up on people in the woods?”

”I’m pretty easy,” she told him with a wink as she turned to go. “Surprise me.”

This girl, Abby, she was different than any woman he’d ever known. At first he felt awkward around her, never knowing what to say or when to speak up. Through the Spring, though, they fell into a comfortable rhythm. She’d come up to visit most Sundays and he’d take her to one of his favorite places in the backcountry. It had started as a test, sort of, that first weekend when he’d taken her to the small cave he’d found high on the ridgeline. She kept pace with him up the steep trail and slogged happily through a muddy creek bed up to the exposed rock face with its low, half-hidden entrance. When he handed her a flashlight she’d given him a quizzical look but had laughed and said, “All right, I’m game.” Once they were inside the small cavern, she’d exclaimed with delight over the delicate formations and the translucent blind fish darting through the frigid stream.

He hadn’t had a girlfriend since college, when he’d lived with a brassy, pushy poli sci major named Sabrina for three semesters in a little apartment near campus. They’d had a good time, but neither of them had ever claimed to be in love. She’d gone off to grad school in New York after graduation and he’d come up here. Every once in a while he’d meet someone in town, but those usually didn’t last and he was getting too old to hook up with the college girls who came to the woods to hike on the weekends, even though they sometimes didn’t seem to think so. No matter what his few married friends told him, he felt like dating was just generally too much work.

Until Abby had dropped into his life, he’d thought he was pretty happy, but he couldn’t deny that it was nice to have someone around again. It didn’t hurt that she was pretty and smart and could make him laugh until his side stitched. She didn’t seem to want anything more than company and some fun, and even though she never said it, it was pretty clear she had business of her own that she wanted to keep to herself. Sometimes she arrived at his door smelling of soap and clean laundry, well-rested and content. Other times she turned up disheveled and distracted, the scent of fresh earth and fallen leaves clinging to her hair and skin, as if she'd been sleeping outdoors. The slightly wild look in her eyes on those days warned him not to push, so he didn’t ask and she didn’t talk about it, but she started spending more and more time with him and he started to realize that he was falling for her.

As a human, Abby knew that the backcountry side of the lake was the safe choice. There were just too many people moving through on the cabin side, too many chances for someone to stumble across one of her little caches of clothes and take them or to report a wolf hanging around the well-traveled paths. But as she grew closer to Dominic, it seemed like her instincts were resetting, both as a girl and as a wolf. Increasingly through the Summer, she found herself near the cabin when she came back out of her fur. She spent less and less time hiding in the deep woods and more time within range of the man whom she'd learned to associate with safety and contentment.

She'd never had a relationship like this one, easygoing and exciting all at once. She tried to keep a bit of emotional distance at first, knowing that eventually her secret and her unpredictable behavior would probably drive him away, but she soon gave up the fight. Nights alone at her apartment, once a happy little piece of solitude, became restless hours of wishing she'd gone to Dominic's instead. When they were together, she found that she forgot to worry. What began as a little bit of casual fun became a comforting routine -- afternoons spent walking in the woods; evenings tucked up against him on the couch, his arm across her shoulders as they drank beer and watched football; nights burrowed under the blankets in his bed, his long limbs tangled with hers. He was kind and laid back and appreciative of life's small wonders, and she felt like after years of mistakes, she'd finally gotten something right.

And so in early November, she prowled the grove of pines and oaks near the house, kept in close by something her wolf brain didn't fully understand. It was rut season for the deer, meaning they were to be avoided, especially the males. It was a chilly afternoon near the end of her time as a wolf, when she was most restless. She was tracking a rabbit through the underbrush when she came upon him. A man, not the one she knew the smell of, one stinking of adrenaline and deer scent. He'd been downwind, out of sight, and now she froze for a moment, her instincts at war. She wanted to flee but she needed to stand her ground, and as she hesitated, he lifted something in his hands. There was an explosion of sound and then a high yelp escaped her throat as a slash of pain tore down her side. She turned to run, the scent of blood heavy in the air.

part four

Friday Fiction #3

(part one is here)

She stood for a long moment with her hands half-raised, palms toward him in what she hoped was a pacifying gesture as her heart hammered in her chest. Then he lowered the gun, pointing the barrel down and away, though he didn’t sling it back over his shoulder just yet. She didn’t smell any fear on him this time.

“Sorry,” he said. “You spooked me.”

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. I was just trying to find my way back out of here.”

“You’re lost?”

“Yeah...it’s embarrassing, really. I parked by the backcountry campsites and went for a hike, but I must’ve got turned around somewhere.”

His eyebrows drew together just a bit, not quite a frown. He knew as well as she did that the backcountry sites were ten miles away over rough terrain. She wasn’t sure if he believed her story, but it didn’t seem to matter much to him if it was true or not, because the next thing he said was, “I can give you a lift to your car if you like.”

She smiled at him, trying to appear earnest and friendly. “That would be great, if you’re sure you don’t mind.”

“No problem.”

She followed him back down the path to the cabin, where he unloaded the rifle with quick, practiced fingers and locked it in the toolbox in the bed of his pickup. He offered her a hand up into the cab, his touch sparking a burst of heat that raced up her arm and made her heartbeat quicken again. She peered at him sideways through the curtain of her hair, trying to decide if he’d felt it, too. If he had, he showed no sign. He simply climbed in, put the truck into gear, and pulled it out onto the narrow gravel road that led up the hill. After about a hundred yards, he got out to unlock a low crossbar gate marked “NO ACCESS - STAFF ONLY,” letting in a burst of cooler air from the shadows under the tall trees behind the house. She smelled oak and pine, foxes and rabbits, songbirds, and a bit of the lingering winter’s particular bite. She also thought she smelled one of the others, but the scent was gone before she could pinpoint it for certain.

Something was off about the girl, he just couldn’t figure out what. She didn’t feel dangerous, just strange. She was easy enough on the eyes, tall and a bit on the skinny side, with long blonde hair worn loose around her face and odd amber-colored eyes. She smelled like some kind of girly soap and fresh air. He was pretty sure she hadn’t hiked across the ridge, even if she was dressed in jeans and a fleece jacket and a sturdy pair of boots. He didn’t know why anyone would lie about something like that, but people got into all kinds of weird business out in the woods and most of the time it was stuff that was embarrassing to discuss. Usually he figured he didn’t need to know, as long as they weren’t hurting anything. He'd been out here three full years and had opted not to ask a lot of questions. Most people just wanted a nice day out, and even the weird ones were generally harmless. The ones that weren't, he could usually spot those coming.

Most of the time things were quiet, and that's why he liked it. He'd never been much for talk or for crowds, and generally being around too many people made him nervous after a while. Four years at college in Ann Arbor had been enough city to last the rest of his life. People who ran into him on the trails or at the nature center were always asking how he could stand it, living in the middle of nowhere. They couldn't seem to see the fullness of the world that was all around them. He loved the feel of the land under his feet, the way the woods told its secrets in tracks and on the wind, watching for the first green shoots of Spring and the first yellow leaves of Fall. He had come to know this place like a friend, and these days it felt more like home than anywhere else ever had.

The drive to the lot where she’d left her car only took about fifteen minutes by the access road. She didn’t say much, just a few comments about how nice a day it had turned out to be and how she was grateful for the ride. It was an uncommonly pretty early Spring day, the still-bare branches of the trees outlined against a clear blue sky. He drove along the western edge of the reservoir and when they reached the high point where the trees thinned and the lake came into view below, he heard the girl gasp a bit. With the water sparkling in the sun, the far shore lost over the horizon, it really was beautiful.

“I’ve never seen it from up here,” she said.

“Most people don’t,” he replied, glancing over at her.

She was smiling at him, her face alight with the joy of the moment, and he found himself smiling back. She really was pretty, he realized, as the sun brought some color into her cheeks and set her light hair aglow. He dropped his eyes from hers, turning his attention back to the road. Something about her was still nagging at him. It was the strangest thing, but when he’d circled back on her out on the trail, he’d fully expected to find an animal following him, not a human girl. He was still sure there had been something else out there, something with teeth.

There were fifteen wolves she’d run with in these woods at one time or another over the past year, and most of them were just wolves. But there were at least a few others like her. She’d never seen them as humans and had no idea where they went when they weren’t in their fur or how long they’d been coming to the reservoir to hide. She’d found it by accident one day as she drove around aimlessly, crying over her shit luck and the stress of trying to keep her life together and having finally lost her job after months of making excuses for needing to take nearly a week off each month. It had felt like a revelation to step out of the car and be surrounded by hundreds of acres of woodlands, to hear no traffic sounds or barking dogs. Setting out on foot, she’d walked the trails for hours, rarely passing anyone else. The rich scents of the forest overwhelmed her senses, calling to the wildness inside. The place was quiet, big, and sparsely traveled -- everything she needed to make herself disappear.

She went back day after day, week after week, even when she had no need to hide. Right before her unemployment benefits ran out, she’d landed on a job waitressing at a little roadside place just outside of the closest town. The owner had a tiny apartment upstairs that he let her stay in as part of her pay, she was allowed to eat in the kitchen at the end of her shifts, and he didn’t ask questions when she told him she had to go home for a few days each month. As long as she made enough in tips to keep her car insured and full of gas, she thought things would work out. She sold off most of her stuff and left the city she’d lived in her whole life, moved to the kind of small town she’d always made fun of, worked a job she’d always looked down on, and found that she was about as happy as she’d ever been. Until the day she followed a bleeding doe out onto the lake and misjudged the ice, she’d never come close to trouble. Glancing over at the man in the driver’s seat, she reflected that she might’ve found herself some trouble at last.

part three

Friday Fiction #2

“R.J.” I shake the lump under the covers. “Hey. R.J., get up.”

“Go away.”

“No. Get up.”

“No.”

I yank the blankets back and R.J. turns over, pulling the pillow against his face to block out the light.

“Mellie, I said no.”

“So did I.”

R.J. rolls onto his back and regards me with a scowl. “If I promise to get up for school tomorrow, can I have my blanket back?”

"Tell you what -- you can get up and go to school today, and then you can get up and go again tomorrow.”

My brother finally relents, kicks his sheet aside and sits up. His hair, a few shades more fair than mine, is sticking up at odd angles all over his head. He’s wearing grimy jeans and just one sock, with a hole that lets his big toe poke out. He stinks of cigarettes and stale sex. I pretend not to notice as I pull him to his feet.

“Where were you last night?” I ask, trying to keep the edge out of my voice.

R.J. shrugs, rubs his eyes with his fists. “Out.”

“Out where?”

He blows out a sigh, irritated. “Just...out.”

I grab some clothes from his dresser--they’re probably clean--and shove them into his arms. “I’ll make you some coffee while you’re in the shower.”

“Okay.”

He shuffles down the hall, and I chew my thumbnail as I watch him go, all angles and bones these days, his ribs and the knobs of his spine standing out in relief against his pale skin.

I go back to the kitchen, sidestepping boxes of winter clothes that we haven’t bothered to unpack yet. When we left our last place, my mom forgot to grab her coffeemaker from the kitchen, so I have to use a saucepan and guess how much coffee I need. I put the water on to boil and go back to my room to finish getting ready for school. This is the first place we’ve had in years that has three bedrooms. R.J. and I used to take turns using the living room couch for a bed. We’d switch each time we moved. But ever since the whole thing with Bill, R.J. hasn’t let me take my turn on the couch. I think he’s afraid Bill’s coming back and wants to put himself between Bill and the part of the house where Mom and I sleep.

It’s nice to know R.J.’s got a bed now, instead of keeping watch in the front room, but the three bedrooms are probably the only redeeming quality of this house. The hot water runs out in 10 minutes, the carpets are gross, the wallpaper is peeling, and the kitchen is the only room that doesn’t smell kind of like cats and mothballs. That’s probably the only reason we could afford this place--no one else wanted it, so our sleazy landlord cut Mom a deal.

I finish packing up my books and get back to the kitchen just in time to save the coffee from boiling over. It smells pretty harsh, so I add a generous helping of milk to R.J.’s cup. He wanders in, hair uncombed and shoes untied.

“Do you want some toast?”

He groans and makes a face as he slumps into a chair and pulls his cup across the table.

I roll my eyes. “Okay. No toast.” I slather extra strawberry jelly on my two slices, but it doesn’t really make me feel any better.

R.J. drinks his coffee with his eyes closed, looking tired and much older than seventeen. He’s wearing the ratty Pearl Jam T-shirt I gave him for Christmas a few years ago. The sleeves are a little short on him now, and his tattoo shows. I used to be fascinated by the intricate knotted design that winds around his right arm. We lived in Cincinnati back then. R.J. was 14 but looked older, and he’d gone down to Kentucky with his friends and lied to the tattoo artist about his age. I turned 11 that summer, and I’d watch him, trying to trace the interlacing lines with my eyes until he'd eventually move and I’d lose my place.

My eyes don’t untangle the knots today. Instead, they take in the fresh bruise inside R.J.'s elbow, the faint track marks that radiate out from it like the legs of a pale spider. I sigh and refill R.J.’s cup. He drinks it straight and doesn’t say anything about the taste.

Two cups down, R.J. is as close to awake as he ever gets. “Thanks, Mellie.”

“You’re welcome.”

Mornings have always been my favorite time of day. Mom has always worked early-shift waitressing jobs, and usually has to leave before we're awake. When we were kids, R.J. would make pancakes for me in the morning, or cut my toast into the shape of a rabbit or a butterfly. He’d braid my hair and then tickle my nose with the end of the plait. I thought he knew everything. Now I make breakfast, which R.J. can hardly ever choke down, and I braid my own hair.

Mornings are still the best time of day, though. That’s when R.J.’s hangover is still hitting hard enough to keep that calculating look out of his eyes, the one that means he’s looking for a way out, as fast as he can get it. Sure, he’s sick as a dog most of the time, but at least he’s R.J. By the time I get home from school, he’s hollow. Every time a door slams, he jumps. If you startle him, he’ll flinch like you slapped him in the face. I try to stay away from the house until I’m sure he’s gone off to work, just so I don’t have to watch him fall apart.

Mom met Bill right before I started seventh grade, and he’d moved in with us by Halloween. He was really cool at first, almost like a dad. He took us to the movies and helped Mom with the housework. I don’t think R.J. ever liked him much, but I always figured that was just because R.J. remembered our real dad, who died when I was only 2 years old. R.J. and Bill tolerated each other, and once R.J. got his license and a job, he wasn’t home much.

Maybe I was too young to know better, but I didn’t notice that Bill was changing until the night I got up around midnight for a drink of water and saw R.J. standing at the kitchen window, his forehead resting against the glass, eyes shut tight. There was a broken whiskey bottle in the sink, and the next day Bill kept rummaging through the cabinets when he thought no one was looking. A week later, the four of us were sitting at the supper table when Bill suddenly pounded his fist on the table. We all jumped, and R.J.’s eyes went hard and angry. Bill said R.J. was stealing from him. He said it had been going on for months, and he was tired of it. He said that Mom had better do something about it, or he’d have to do it himself. Mom seemed nervous. She asked R.J. if he’d been drinking lately. R.J. said no.

“See, he didn’t take it,” Mom had said.

Bill called R.J. a liar, told R.J. he’d be sorry if he didn’t keep out of other people’s things. R.J. shot him a cold look and got up. Bill told R.J. to sit back down, but R.J. walked out the back door. I didn’t see him again for two days, and after that night I stopped finding broken bottles in the trash can outside the back door.

“Are you working today?” I ask R.J. as he leans back in his chair and lights a cigarette.

He nods, taking a deep pull. “Nathan and me are going to go out to St. Louis this weekend. You want to go?”

I raise my hand to my mouth, nibble absently at my fingernails. I do want to go, but I don’t want to have to come face to face with the parts of R.J. that he keeps locked away. I went to the garage once with R.J. on a Saturday, and before I knew what was happening, his friend Nathan was telling me stories about R.J. How he’d drink until he could barely walk. How he’d get all quiet sometimes and then you didn’t touch him unless you wanted him to take a swing at you. How he’d tripped out on ecstasy and pounded his fists against a wall until his knuckles bled. I managed to get away from Nathan by telling him I needed to pee and then I locked myself in the bathroom and cried. I’ve never told R.J. that I know these things about him. I won’t ever repeat those stories out loud.

“I better not,” I tell him.

“Don’t you ever feel like having fun?”

I want to tell R.J. that I do, that sometimes I think I’m going to go nuts if I can’t spend some time doing normal kid stuff. He doesn’t know that I’ve never been to a school dance, that I’ve missed all of the football games this year. I would tell him, but then I’d have to tell him the reason why I don’t go. I don’t go because I’m afraid something will happen while I’m gone, and no one will be around to take care of R.J. I feel bad enough avoiding him after school, but I can’t handle being here for that.

The night Bill almost killed R.J., I had been planning to go to the movies with some friends from school. We changed our minds at the last minute, but what if we hadn’t? If I hadn't been there and he'd died…I can't even think about it without feeling like I'm going to throw up.

“Come on, Melanie. Come with us this time. It’ll be fun...I promise.”

“I’ve got a lot of homework.”

R.J. frowns. “You work too hard.”

“And you smoke too much.”

“I know,” R.J. sighs. “I’ll quit soon.” But he doesn’t put out the cigarette.

The first time Bill hit R.J., Mom made R.J. promise he wouldn’t hit back. I had almost hated her in that moment, watching her wipe the blood off of R.J.’s face as she begged him not to fight Bill.

“He’ll change,” she had said. “Give him some time.”

R.J. said nothing. He sat on the edge of the bathtub, his lower lip split, his cheekbone bearing an angry dark bruise and a shallow cut from Bill’s big class ring.

“Promise me, R.J. Promise you won't hit him back.”

R.J. had promised, and he had kept his word. It took six months for Bill to kill the defiant spark in R.J.'s eyes. R.J. never retaliated. When school let out, R.J. stayed away from the house as much as he could. When he did come home, things were worse than ever. Bill didn’t need reasons anymore. He’d slap R.J. and say, Boy, you’d better look at me when I’m talking to you. An hour later R.J. would get punched for looking at Bill wrong.

When Mom told me she was going to leave Bill, I was so happy I cried. I really believed that once he was gone, everything would be okay again. But it didn’t happen like that. At first, Bill called every night, crying and begging Mom to take him back. He’d say he was sorry and swear he’d change, and when I could see Mom was about to believe him, I’d purposely distract her so she forgot her train of thought. When she got back to Bill, she’d be pissed off again. After a while, he got scary again. He would call all the time--threatening Mom, threatening to kill himself in her car while she was at work, crazy stuff.

Even that last horrible night, when Bill came to our house drunk, R.J. never hit him. Mom had opened the door, and Bill had pushed his way past her. Mom was red in the face, telling him to get out and never come back. Bill was yelling at Mom, saying how she had no right to treat him that way. He raised his hand to hit her, and I screamed. And then suddenly R.J. was there, catching Bill’s arm, forcing him back against the wall. For the first time in months, R.J. had come home from work sober. As he pinned Bill against the door frame, his expression cold and hard, he suddenly hadn’t looked like R.J. at all.

But then Mom had caught him around the waist, tried to pull him back. She said Don’t, R.J., and she was crying, and R.J. let go. And the next thing I knew, Bill had R.J. by the throat. He spun around and slammed R.J.’s back against the wall. I looked at Mom, and I knew that she was going to let it happen again, and I must’ve just snapped. I remember running at Bill, hitting him with my fists, screaming at him to stop. I should’ve just gone for the phone and called the police. Bill caught me with the back of his hand, and by the time I could see straight again, Bill had R.J. on the floor, pounding him senseless.

The neighbors must’ve heard the noise. Two cops showed up, burly young guys with serious faces. They kicked our door in and came in yelling. They had to drag Bill away from R.J. As soon as the cops pulled Bill off, R.J. tried to get up. The cops were hollering at him to stay still, so I ran to him. I almost wished I hadn’t. R.J. was half crazed, his face a mess of bruises. I started to back away, but R.J. caught my wrist and pulled me to the floor, so I held him until the ambulance came. I understood for the first time that night why R.J. wanted so desperately to get away from himself, why he’d do almost anything just so he didn’t have to sit quietly for a while and start thinking about stuff.

“Melanie?” R.J.’s voice brings me back. “You okay?”

I take a shaky breath and force a smile. “Yeah. I’m fine.” I check my watch. “We’re going to be late.”

“Sorry.”

R.J. follows me to the front door, taking his jacket down from the hook as he passes. He puts it on while we stand on the porch.

“Keys,” I say.

He puts them into my hand without argument. I’m only a freshman, but R.J. taught me to drive when I was 12.

We drive to school with the windows down, R.J. blowing streams of smoke into the cool morning air. We get to school two minutes before the bell. I take R.J. to his locker and unearth his physics book, then walk with him to his class. “Try, R.J., okay? Try.”

He manages a weak half-smile and opens the door.

As I walk towards my class, I fight back tears. I’m starting to realize that one morning I’m not going to be able to shake R.J. back to life.

Friday Fiction #1

          The wolf was swimming, but just barely, only her face and front paws visible as she sluggishly paddled. There was no telling how long she’d been in the water, but it was clear she didn’t have much time left. The edges of the hole were ragged where she’d scrabbled at the ice, trying to find enough grip to pull herself out. As he crept toward her, sprawled on his belly to distribute his weight, he realized she might not be strong enough to pull herself out even with help. Too late now, he thought, and squirmed closer. Her amber eyes were wide, showing the whites. She growled at him as he neared the the hole, lips peeling back from impossibly long fangs, and he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rising as the primitive part of his brain registered predator! predator! predator! He fought back the low rumble of panic that was telling him to scramble and run, pushing the rough sacking in front of him to drop over the lip into the hole. The wolf was panicking, too, and began scrabbling at the ice again. For a moment it seemed like she would throw herself at the far edge until she wore out and went under, but she began working her way around in her desperate bid for escape. As her paws met the burlap they found purchase, and he held on tight as she clawed and hauled, slowly dragging herself up. She wasn’t a particularly large animal, but the water added weight to her fur and he felt himself slipping closer as she pulled. He dug the toes of his boots against the slick surface and braced against her weight with his arms, his shoulders screaming under the burden. Finally, her rear paws found the sacking and she clambered up onto the ice.

          As she bunched her body and then pressed downward with her hind legs to leap away, he realized his error. There was a crack like a shot as the wolf bolted into the woods, then the ice groaned and shifted beneath him. He pushed backward with his hands, forcing himself to stay flat and move slowly. There was another crack, then another, and just as he decided to take his chances and run, the ice gave out and dropped him into the frigid lake. The cold hit him like a fist and he gasped involuntarily, sucking in water, then fought to the surface in a blind panic, battling the drag of his coat and Carharrt overalls and heavy boots. He made it to the surface three times, but each time was pulled down again by the weight of his clothes. On the fourth attempt, he just barely got a breath before he lost the fight. He slipped under again, breathed in more water, and started to black out. A thought came to him, bizarrely clear -- So this is how I die -- and then strong hands were pulling at his coat, lifting him out into the biting air, dragging him across the ice. His wet eyelashes froze instantly, sticking his eyes shut. He vomited water, coughed and hacked until he thought his chest would crack open, while someone pounded his shoulder encouragingly and said, “Get it out, son, get it out.” There were shouts, radio distress calls, hands stripping his sodden clothes away and wrapping him in rough wool blankets. He couldn’t feel his hands or feet and everything else hurt.

          Later the doctors would tell him they thought he’d been in the water for ten minutes. A pair of moose hunters on ATVs had seen his truck idling on the road and realized something was wrong, had followed his tracks down to the lake and found him just in time. One of the hunters had crawled out onto the ice with a rope around his waist, and then they’d driven him to the highway in his own truck and met a county ambulance there. The hypothermia almost killed him, but the doctors managed to bring him back from that. Then the pneumonia set in and he spent two weeks in the hospital while they pumped him full of antibiotics and kept looking at him like he might die at any moment. He’d truly never felt worse in his life and wondered for a few days if they were right, but in the end they pronounced him cured enough and sent him home with a prescription for pills the size of a knuckle that he was to take for another three weeks. The hospital had been horrible -- too closed-up, too many artificial lights, not enough windows. He’d felt caged by the end, itchy and restless, embarrassed by the short gowns and the constant nurse checks.

          Back home, he felt mostly the same as before, though at first he was prone to wheezing after doing work that normally wouldn’t bother him and sometimes there was a rasping in his chest that made him cough if he took a deep breath. Colors seemed sharper, the sounds of the woods a little clearer, but he thought maybe it was all in his head. He never saw the wolf again, though he scoured the woods around the lake for her body. Probably wolves didn’t get pneumonia, he thought to himself as he split wood outside one afternoon, stripped down to a T-shirt under the sun on a surprisingly mild day. He knew his doctor would have a fit if she found out he was outside without his coat. She’d warned him to take it easy, to not get too cold, to avoid breathing in too much smoke or falling into any icy lakes. He had assured her that the last instruction, at least, he could promise to follow.



          He’d been sick, she thought, as she heard the tiny catch in his chest whenever he took a deep breath. She inhaled his scent, which was rich and earthy, definitely male, and found just a shade of something off, something sour nearly buried beneath the smell of his skin, the aroma of woodsmoke and gunpowder in his clothes, shampoo, soap and shaving lotion, and the toothpaste and coffee on his breath. He’d been very sick, but he was almost recovered now, only the barest scent of hospital and medicine and infection lingering deep where he couldn’t scrub it clean. She knew him, of course -- they all did. He lived in the old caretaker’s cabin and watched over the woods around the reservoir. In the warm months he put on a brown state park polo shirt and drove down to the little nature center, where he taught kids about trees or snakes or bugs. In the fall he hunted deer and always left the guts for the wolves.

          She inhaled again, his particular blend of smells tickling at the edges of her memory for a moment before suddenly locking into place. That scent, mixed with fear, at the edge of the ice. The reek of his sweat as he hauled her out of the lake and fought against the instincts that were telling him to run. He was the one. She realized now she should’ve known -- who else would’ve been out in the woods that day and come toward her with anything but a gun? Who else would’ve nearly killed himself to save a ragged wolf? She slipped into the underbrush to trail a few hundred feet behind him as he set out to walk the loop around the lake, his rifle propped lazily against his shoulder with the barrel pointing skyward. Looking at him now, she could assess him through different senses. He was no longer just a collection of movements and scents, now he was a man. Not a bad-looking one, she noted, maybe a bit taller than average, well-muscled but not heavily built. He moved like a hunter, she thought, agile and quiet. Today he wore boots and jeans and a heavy jacket, but no hat or gloves. His brown hair was clipped short, what little skin she could see still bearing some of his summer tan. She could imagine the muscles moving under his skin, the way he’d smell if she stripped away his gun and coat and clothes. There was something about him that her body responded to unconsciously. She closed her eyes and breathed deep, trying to isolate his scent from the smells of the woods around him.

          When she opened her eyes again, he was gone. She quickened her pace a bit and rounded the curve in the path, her step faltering when she saw only open trail in front of her. Then she heard a tiny click behind her and felt the hairs on her arms spring up. She turned slowly and found him standing in the middle of the trail, rifle butt set against his shoulder and barrel trained on her chest. His blue eyes locked with her amber ones. He didn’t seem scared, but there was no recognition or sympathy in his face either.
          “Who are you?” he asked, his voice low and calm. “And why are you following me?”
          She cleared her throat, preparing to speak for the first time in nearly a week. “Please...let me explain.”


part two

Something different

I've only posted fiction once or twice before. I always feel weird about it, like somebody might steal it and then write a book and make a fortune and I'd be SO PISSED. But really, what are the odds? Or someone will read it and think I'm a shitty writer, and then I will be crushed! But who cares, at this point? And so, from an exercise at tonight's writing group, the first one I've been to since college:

        "Where were you last night?"
        Tucker Grace paused, his shoulders stiffening slightly, then finished washing his hands and face. He grabbed a towel from the towel bar and rubbed his skin dry, his gaze sliding up to the mirror over the sink. His girlfriend's reflection watched him reproachfully, her thin arms folded tightly across her chest. She was dressed in a faded blue tank top and a pair of Tucker's boxer shorts, her fair hair piled in a messy knot on top of her head, her face free of makeup. She looked so young and vulnerable that Tucker softened, watching the lines of his own face relax.
        "Sorry," he said, tucking the towel back through the bar and turning to face her. "I got caught up."
        Her arms clenched tighter, her fists burrowing into her sides. "Caught up with what?" The unspoken with whom? hung in the air between them.
        "Just work stuff."
        "All night?" Her eyes were suddenly shiny and Tucker felt exasperation rising.
        "I'm sorry," he said again, forcing it back. "Let me get a shower and then I'll take you out for breakfast."
        "Fine."
        "Do you want to stay here instead?"
        "No, it's fine. Whatever you want to do is fine."
        She slipped out of the bathroom and moments later Tucker heard the bedroom door click shut. He sagged against the vanity for a moment, face in his hands. He knew two things, suddenly. One: he was in too deep already. Two: she would never understand.



Reading:  The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin

Playing:  a Led Zeppelin mix

Like a drunk who's lost a bet

WARNING! READ THIS FIRST!

This post is a segment of the Fall 2009 Choose Your Own Blogventure Spooktacular, invented and organized by the fabulous Nancy Pearl Wannabe. To start at the beginning, go here. Good luck, and happy reading!

If you have reached this page via Life in the left lane, scroll down and read on!







As her fingers closed around the charm, Annelise suddenly felt one foot slip free. Yelping and nearly letting go of her prize, she tried to hold herself out of the muck by sheer force of will. "DAD!" she shrieked, her cry changing to a strangled whoop of relief as she felt a hand close around her wildly swinging right ankle. "I've got it!" she yelled. "Get me out of here!"

It seemed to take ages for Jenny and her father to haul her up and out of the reeking tank. As soon as her feet hit solid ground, she wriggled backward and staggered to her feet. "All right," she shouted, thrusting her fist into the air. "Let's kick some zombie --" She trailed off as the scene before her finally registered. Jenny was facing off against a growing crowd of shambling zombies, swinging a hacksaw with each hand.

"You want a piece of me?" Jenny screamed. "Come on, you undead sons of --"

"Jenny, on your right!" Annelise yelled, flinching back as Jenny whirled and lashed out, catching an encroaching lurcher across the throat with one saw. The monster staggered back and went down, luckily providing a distraction to a half-dozen of its fellows, who decided it looked like an easier snack than the war-ready Jenny.

"Dad!" Annelise turned toward the professor, who stood with his back pressed against the septic tank, wringing his hands helplessly. "Dad, snap out of it! You've got to get them under control!" She rubbed the charm hastily on her jeans and pressed it into his limp grasp. "Come on, Dr. Ansel! We're counting on you!"

He seemed to come awake then, pushing his glasses up his nose and staring at the moaning mob. "I don't know if I can hold them much longer, even with the charm."

"You don't have to hold them," Annelise said, seized by a sudden inspiration. "You just have to get them inside. Jenny! Give me one of those saws and get them into the diner! I want them in and you guys out, as fast as possible!"

"What are you going to do?" Jenny hollered, tossing a hacksaw to Annelise.

"Save the day, I hope!" Annelise called back, catching the saw and turning to fish her father's lucky Zippo lighter out of his vest pocket. "Now get moving!"

As Jenny began to wave her arms and shout, attracting the attention of the undead and gathering them for a drive back toward the diner, Annelise offered up a silent prayer that the zombies' night vision was as poor as their fine motor control. Bent nearly double, she scurried around to the back side of the tank, sticking to the shadows. Pausing for a few moments, deafened by her pounding heart, she took a deep breath and then moved toward the pickup truck, relying on the fading daylight to shield her. When she reached the truck, she risked a glance toward the zombies, and had to bite her lip to keep from laughing out loud in victory when she saw that the whole group was limping after Jenny and her father, headed for the front of the diner.

She scrambled up into the pickup bed and dove toward the toolbox, quickly finding the two things she'd counted on being there -- a knotted length of rope and a roll of duct tape. Her treasures secured, she jumped soundlessly to the ground and ran as quietly as she could around to the back of the diner, trying to keep one eye on the zombies while keeping the other on her course. Reaching the back door, she let out an involuntary sob of relief when the doorknob turned easily under her hand. She took a precious few seconds to jam a broom and a mop across the handles of the swinging doors that led from the kitchen to the front of the diner, hoping if the zombies did catch on to her plan, the implements would slow them down just enough to allow her to escape.

That accomplished, she turned her attention to the stove that took up half of the back wall, and the thick pipe connecting it to the propane tank behind the diner. She hoisted herself up onto the stovetop and set to work with her hacksaw, swearing under her breath at the impossibly slow progress. Dimly, she heard dishes breaking and chairs being knocked over out in the front of the diner. "I hope that's the zombies," she muttered, using her forearm to wipe sweat out of her eyes. Sawing with renewed vigor, she finally broke through the outer layer of the pipe and was rewarded with the sweet hiss of pressurized gas.

Annelise reached over and unlocked the window beside the stove and managed to open it an inch, after a few panic-filled moments of it not budging. Trembling, she slid down to the floor, careful not to dislodge any of the burners or drip pans, and scuttled sideways to the back door. Not daring a glance toward the kitchen doors, she edged the door open, then propped it with her foot and spent what felt like hours sawing the inner doorknob off so that the zombies wouldn't be able to pull the door open and follow her out once she'd made her exit. In her haste, she didn't think to catch the doorknob as it fell, and the noise it made against the tile floor sounded like the triumphant blare of a brass band to her adrenaline-enhanced hearing. Biting back a scream, she launched herself out the door and let it swing shut behind her.

She grabbed her duct tape and rope and sprinted for the window, where she fed one end of the rope through the gap in the casement with shaking hands and secured it with duct tape. She imagined she could hear the zombies rattling the kitchen door, breaking the mop and broom, shambling toward her as she stood protected only by a pane of ancient glass. "Come on, girl, hold it together!" she snarled through gritted teeth, slapping strip after strip of duct tape across the opening until she felt that it was well-sealed. Finally, she came to the most crucial part of her plan. She carefully untangled the rope, laying it out in a line leading away from the diner, painfully aware that one too-hard tug would pull the end free and cost her precious time -- and maybe even her life. Later she would realize that resisting the urge to flee screaming into the night was the hardest thing she'd ever done. As she worked, she kept her eyes on the rope, unwilling to risk a glance at the diner for fear of what she might see peering back at her from the kitchen window.

As she reached the end of the rope, a good ten feet from the diner, she heard Jenny's voice, carried to her on the incongruously gentle evening breeze: "Annelise, hurry! We can't hold 'em much longer!" Kneeling, Annelise struck the Zippo and held it to the rope as she held her breath. It had to catch. There was no other option. In seconds, a hungry orange flame was licking its way slowly up the rope, toward the back of the diner. Annelise watched it for a few moments longer, until she could trust that it wouldn't sputter out, and then turned and ran headlong for the front of the building.

She rounded the corner at a dead run, barely registering the sight of her father and Jenny staring at the zombies through the glass diner doors. "We've got to go, NOW!" she bellowed, catching at their sleeves as she bolted past, dragging them along until they got their feet under them and ran with her. "Behind the truck! Go!"

"Annelise," Dr. Ansel gasped, "What are you -- "

"No time to explain, Dad, just move!"

Seconds after they skidded to a halt behind the hulk of the old pickup truck, there was a low, teeth-rattling whump. Annelise popped her head up above the level of the truck bed in time to see the diner transformed into an incandescent ball of yellow flame.

Closing her eyes, she slid to the ground and collapsed onto her back, shaking with laughter. "We did it," she gasped. "I can't believe we did it."

"Oh, my..." the professor murmured, transfixed by the inferno.

"I have no idea what you just did," Jenny said, sinking to the ground beside Annelise, "but I'm damn glad you did it."

"You know that Halloween party I was planning?" Annelise said to no one in particular as the sound of sirens began to drift toward her on the wind. "I think I've changed my mind. There is no way I will ever, ever be able to top this. Ever."