The Story Thus Far
Chapter One: Mallory Kalvornek and her lover Julie Hanson have returned to Bronning, Minnesota, for the first time in years to catch up with friends and family. Meanwhile, their old friend (and occasional sex partner) paramedic Nettie Hastings fights to save a life, her lover Hannah drops by with an unexpected surprise, Terry Wilder grapples with writer’s block… and two little girls living in a trailer park named Heather and Gina are being carefully observed by a hidden stranger.
Chapter Two: Mallory and Julie get together at Nettie’s home with Nettie and her lover Hannah, Nettie’s friend Terry Wilder, Terry’s teen daughter Halee, and Mallory and Julie’s friend (and occasional sex partner) Cindy. Gossip is exchanged, memories shared, and an unexpected attraction between Mallory and Terry Wilder reveals itself. Meanwhile, the mother of the two trailer park girls Heather and Gina goes out for a night on the town, oblivious to the presence of the man spying on her home.
Chapter Three: At Nettie’s place, Nettie and Hannah leave the others to indulge in a bit of romantic pleasure, while Julie and her old friend Cindy get it on with Terry’s teen daughter Halee. As for Mallory, she has repaired to Terry’s place for one of her occasional bouts of heterosexual action. Appetites are indulged, confidences shared. Meanwhile, Heather and Gina are abducted from their trailer home by a mysterious and very scary man.
For a list of the characters from the previous two stories that you will encounter here as well, visit this page.
And now, dear readers, we make our way into the next installment. Read on…
by Rachael Yukey
We have bent the rules, we have lied
Loved and known you’ll rise again
Friends will do all this for you
Sonata Arctica, 2024
Closing Nettie’s bedroom door carefully behind her, Hannah padded down the hall in the direction of the muted voices coming from the kitchen. The hallway opened out into the living room, and Julie waved to her from the opposite side, where she was seated on one of the barstools surrounding the kitchen island, Cindy on her left. Both wore bathrobes, and were sipping from steaming mugs of coffee.
Rising at Hannah’s approach, Julie plucked a mug from a hook below one of the cupboards. “How do you take your coffee?” she said, keeping her voice low.
Hannah gave her a warm smile. “With a little cream, if there is any.”
She settled onto a barstool, watching as Julie poured the coffee, stirred in a splash of cream, then set the cup in front of her. “Thanks. Halee still asleep?”
Cindy and Julie exchanged a cautious glance. “Haven’t seen her yet,” Cindy’s tone was evasive, her cheeks pink.
“Oh, stop,” said Hannah. “I know she spent the night with you two. Think I’ve never done the same thing? I thought we established last night that we’re all on the same page.” Cindy’s face relaxed into a grin; Julie turned her eyes to the ceiling with a sigh of relief.
“Sorry about that. I figured you knew what was gonna go down,” said Cindy. “Still… plausible deniability, y’know? I’m glad we’re sympatico on this.”
“To answer your question, Halee was still out when I got up twenty minutes ago,” said Julie. “We gave her a workout.” Hannah chuckled into her coffee.
“I take it tall, dark, and moody is still in dreamland, too?” Cindy inquired.
“Yeah,” said Hannah, taking a cautious sip of the steaming brew. “I don’t think she slept well. I got up twice to use the bathroom, and she was awake both times.”
The glance Cindy and Julie exchanged was not lost on Hannah, but she said nothing. She had questions to which these two probably had answers, but couldn’t think of a tactful way to pose them.
“So!” said Cindy, breaking the momentary awkwardness, “is there a plan for today? Three-fourths of the Pussy Posse are in town, and it’s my weekend off. We should do something.”
Hannah abruptly set her mug down. “The—what? Pussy Posse?”
Julie snickered. “It’s what me, Mallory, Cindy, and our friend Emma used to call ourselves. Other girls came and went, but the four of us were like sisters from the sixth grade all the way through high school.”
“Sisters with benefits,” said Cindy with a wink.
“Sounds idyllic,” said Hannah. “I think I’m kind of jealous.”
“It was pretty sweet,” Julie agreed.
Three sets of eyes swiveled toward the hallway at the sound of a doorknob turning. A puffy-eyed Halee emerged, saw them looking her way, and gave a limp-wristed wave before disappearing into the bathroom.
Julie turned her eyes back to Cindy. “We’ll figure something out,” she said, “once Mal emerges from penis-land.” She glanced over at Hannah. “And after Nettie drags herself out of bed.”
Hannah shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to intrude on a reunion of old friends…”
“No, no,” Cindy broke in. “People hanging with us is just part of the tradition. It was always me, Emma, Julie, and Mallory, but lots of others were in and out.”
The bathroom door opened once more, and Halee padded down the hall toward them. She was wearing the clothes she’d arrived in the evening before.
“Morning, sunshine,” said Cindy.
“Any coffee left?” Halee wanted to know. Answering her own question with a glance towards the Braun, she changed course, heading for the cups hanging under the cupboard.
Julie rose quickly from her stool. “Sit, sit. I’ll get it for you. Want anything in it?”
Halee’s head swung back and forth in slow motion. “Nope. Thanks.” She plopped her backside onto the stool next to Hannah’s.
“Black coffee at thirteen,” said Cindy with a chuckle. “When I was your age I was still having chocolate milk for breakfast.”
Julie set the cup down in front of Halee. Nodding her thanks, the girl raised the piping hot beverage to her lips.
“Remember that old wives tale,” said Julie as she reseated herself, “that you couldn’t give coffee to kids because caffeine would stunt their growth?”
Cindy snorted. “My mom believed that bullshit,” she said, “but she didn’t think twice when I was guzzling pop by the gallon, and that stuff’s full of caffeine.”
Halee rolled her eyes and shook her head. “That’s ludicrous. Pop is, in every conceivable way, far worse for you than coffee.” She took another sip. “That said, I have been known to suck one down every once and again.”
Cindy burst out laughing. Halee’s eyes narrowed. “Something I said?”
“Kinda,” said Cindy, still chuckling. “Sorry. It’s just that you’re really starting to sound like your dad.”
Hannah snickered. “I was thinking the same thing. Sorry, hon.”
Halee relaxed, rolled her eyes, and sipped more coffee. “Whatevs. It’s what Nettie says, too. GIve me a break; I’ve been listening to the guy chatter nonstop for thirteen years.”
“And when she says nonstop, she ain’t tellin’ tales,” said Cindy with a grin.
All eyes flicked in the direction of the hallway at the muffled sound of a pager going off. “Uh-oh,” Julie muttered.
“I don’t think Antoinette is on call today…” Hannah trailed off at the sound of flurried activity coming from the master bedroom.
“Maybe not,” said Cindy, “but Nettie’s the only medic on the squad. If she thinks they need ALS, she’ll go.”
Sure enough, the door flew open a moment later, revealing a tousle-headed Nettie dressed in tactical pants and a light blue Bronning Ambulance hoodie. She was speaking into her portable radio. “Bronning medic to on-call.”
“Wilder here.” Terry’s voice.
“I’m jumping on with you,” said Nettie as she crossed the living room. “Don’t leave without me, and make sure my ALS bag is in whichever rig you’re taking.”
“Scott’s my partner,” Terry replied, “you’ll get to the station before he does.”
“Copy that,” said Nettie, shoving her feet into her boots and bending double to lace them.
“Sorry,” she said, craning her neck to look at her guests. “Based on the dispatch, I’m smelling sepsis. They might need blood pressure support, and the EMTs can’t do that. I’ll be back in a bit.”
“What do you have for that, aside from fluids?” Hannah wanted to know.
“Just added Levophed to my ALS kit here in Bronning,” Nettie replied as she straightened. “Literally last week. We’ve had it for awhile at work.”
“Nice!” said Hannah. “That’s what I’d use, too. Do what you gotta do, hon. I’ll wait.” She blew a little kiss, bringing a smile to Nettie’s lips. Then she was gone, pulling the door closed behind her.
Julie drained her mug, then slid off the barstool and turned towards the half-full carafe. “Anyone want a refill?”
Cindy handed her cup over. Julie refilled them both, stirred a spoonful of sugar into Cindy’s, and settled back in, placing both mugs on the table. Then she began patting down the pockets of her bathrobe, locating and retrieving her phone. “If Terry just got paged out,” she said, “I imagine Mal’s awake now if she wasn’t already.”
She tapped at the screen, then set the phone on the counter. It was on speaker, and Mallory picked up after the first ring. “Morning, love,” she said.
Julie grinned. “Since you don’t sound completely dead to the world, I’m guessing you’ve already been up for at least an hour.”
“Fuck yourself, love,” Mallory replied in a too-sweet voice.
“If I did, I’d be playing for an audience,” Julie replied. “You’re on speaker, by the way. Everyone in the house has been told to go fuck themselves.” A low chuckle issued forth from the other end of the line.
“Anyway,” Julie went on, “we were just talking about finding some kind of trouble to get up to today. Got any ideas?”
“I dunno,” Mallory replied. “Cindy lives around here, maybe she can think of something.”
Cindy tipped her head back, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Remember how we used to go out to Lake Norman, bring some lunch, just hang out and fish? Swim if it wasn’t too cold? There’s a river that runs a little ways east of town.”
Julie pursed her lips. “That sounds promising.”
“I’m in,” said Mallory’s disembodied voice.
Julie looked to Hannah, eyebrows raised. The redhead tilted her head to one side. “I’ve never been fishing in my life,” she said. “But if Antoinette’s up for it, I’ll try anything once.”
***
Heather Dulcey shivers beneath the single threadbare blanket the two girls share. A few hours earlier their captor threw it carelessly over them, then disappeared, bolting the door of the dingy old shed behind him. It’s not cold enough to freeze to death, but during the night it’s still cold enough for them to be miserable.
Gina dozes lightly against her shoulder, a bruise on her cheek where the haunted-looking middle-age man struck her for some undisclosed transgression, just before depositing them on the cracked concrete floor.
Heather weeps as she watches rays of the sun brighten tiny gaps between the siding planks, hoping that the day will warm quickly. She wonders what the bald man with the dead eyes wants with them. She looks at her sister, suddenly overcome with guilt. Gina tried to tell me. Why didn’t I listen?
Doing her best to cry quietly so as not to wake the sleeping girl, Heather buries her face in her hands.
***
“Jesus Christ, what have you got on there, Mal?” Cindy was hastily reeling her own line in. “Gimme a second and I’ll grab the net.”
“Don’t get too excited,” Mallory grunted, fumbling to loosen the drag on her reel with the hand that wasn’t gripping the handle of the bent-double fishing rod. “It’ll be a miracle if whatever this is doesn’t break the line.”
Nettie put aside the hook she’d been tying on for Hannah. “I’ve got the net, Cindy.”
Julie was shaking her head. “God, half of us don’t even have a line in the water yet, and Mal’s already hooked the Loch Ness fucking Monster.”
Swirling water splashed, the rapid-fire clicking sound of the drag assaulting their ears as the behemoth on the other end pulled line from the reel, moving fiercely downstream. Mallory gave the end of the rod a quick jerk, then stole back a little line as the fish redirected momentarily towards the bank.
“That’s it,” Julie encouraged. “Keep playing him. If he makes it to those rocks, you’re probably gonna lose him.”
“Don’t I know it,” muttered Mallory, jerking the tip of the rod in the other direction, then pulling in a bit more line. The fish changed heading again, diving once more for the rapids downstream, line playing out with that harsh buzz.
Hannah was staring open-mouthed, eyes darting between a grim-faced Mallory, and the churning water just beyond where the line disappeared beneath the surface. “Holy shit,” she said. “I have no idea what’s happening right now. Is something wrong with her pole? Why is the fish pulling string out?”
Nettie, now standing by the bank with net in hand, flashed a grin at her. “It’s called drag,” she said. “If there’s no give, the fish’ll just break the line.”
Hannah came up alongside Nettie, peering at the water. “So… what then? She has to keep fighting with it till it gets tired?”
“Yup,” replied Cindy. “With something that size you do. I’ve got six-pound test line on that reel, and she has something a hell of a lot bigger than that hooked. You can’t just brute-force it up to the shore.”
The five women had set themselves up in a secluded spot half a mile from the main road, following a trail that only Cindy’s pickup and Hannah’s recently purchased Jeep could negotiate. They were outfitted with fishing gear from Nettie’s late father’s stash, along with a couple of rods and a tent from Cindy’s house. Food had been packed, and fishing licenses had been obtained for Hannah, Julie and Mallory, the latter two hesitating only a moment over the exorbitant out-of-state fees. “Whatever,” Julie had said with a shrug. “I’m gonna need it anyway; Dad and I are going to Lake Anne for bass next week.”
Hannah’s eyes were glued to the water now, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever was beneath. Suddenly the surface broke, a gaping maw momentarily visible, followed by a long stretch of shiny grey back. Then it was beneath the waves, thrashing furiously rather than trying to swim in any particular direction. In her peripheral vision, Hannah was aware of Mallory judiciously reeling in more line.
“It’s a pike,” Cindy was saying. “Fuckin’ big one, too!”
“I think you’ve got him now, Mal,” said Julie. “He’s not really pulling anymore.”
“Maybe,” said Mallory, “but I’m not going to get cocky…” and then line was playing out again, as the animal on the other end dove deeper and headed once more downstream. “See?” said Mallory, a slight smile on her lips as she raised the tip of the rod. Her eyes never wavered from the end of her line.
“Freakin’ pike,” said Julie, laughing. “I forgot how they get these sudden last-ditch energy reserves.”
Within moments, however, the fish was redirected once more, thrashing ineffectually as Mallory inexorably brought him back upstream. Line played out, then was retrieved. And again. The buzz of the drag was almost constant. Finally the creature was only feet from shore, clearly visible, hardly fighting at this point.
Nettie was moving in with the net, cautiously angling to slide it underneath the belly.
“Look at that,” said Julie. “It’s gotta be over three feet long.”
Slipping the hoop of the net along the river bed and under, Nettie hoisted the fish from the water.
“What would something like that weigh?” Hannah’s tones were hushed.
Nettie hefted experimentally. “Fifteen, sixteen pounds. Maybe more, ‘cos this one’s got some girth to it. Jesus.”
Hannah watched in silent fascination as Julie removed the hook from the gaping mouth with a set of forceps, Cindy secured a stringer through a gill, and the fish was placed back into the water, the stringer tied securely to a tree just off the bank.
“Whoa,” she finally said, as the others rinsed off their hands in the frigid river water, laughing and congratulating Mallory on one hell of a fight.
Nettie looked back to Hannah, expression softening. “Hope that didn’t put you too far off your lunch, sweetie.”
Hannah shook her head. “Are you kidding? Let’s finish getting my pole set up. It’s my turn!”
***
“Not too impressive, is it?” Hannah proclaimed, gazing at the fish dangling from the end of her line with a critical eye.
“What are you talking about?” demanded Cindy. “That’s one gorgeous crappie!”
“Yeah, but compared to…” she waved helplessly towards the point on the bank where the fish stringer disappeared beneath the surface.
“Apples to oranges,” said Nettie, gesturing with the half-eaten apple in her hand. “Nobody else here is gonna catch a pike that big today either, and anyway, they’re different species. Cindy’s right; that’s a damn good size for a crappie. It’d make a meal for two people, with some leftovers. It’s a great first catch. Put it on the stringer.” She bit into her apple with a satisfying crunch.
Hannah shrugged, her face breaking into a grin. “I just figured with how hard it fought…”
“That it’d be bigger?” Julie put in. “Naw. Crappie are in the bass family, which means they fight like hell once you hook ‘em. They taste like bass, too. It’s not as big as Mallory’s pike, but it’ll have a richer flavor.”
“Okay, then,” said Hannah. “Someone wanna show me how to get this sucker off the hook?”
***
“What—what is that you’re making?” Heather cringes, instantly regretting having opened her mouth. Beside her, Gina clutches her arm and whimpers. But her words invoke little reaction from the man seated on the floor across the shed from them, leaning casually against the wall. His eyes never waver from the stick he’s whittling to a sharp point with a large bowie knife.
Emboldened by the silence, Heather pipes up again. “What is it you want, anyway?” The last two words come out as a strident wail. Blue eyes flick upwards in her direction, a slight smile curling the corners of his mouth upwards. It is not a pleasant expression.
Heather cringes back against the wall as dawning realization courses through her. “You—you like it when we’re scared, don’t you?” Beside her, Gina begins to wail.
***
“Hannah—chow’s on.”
Hannah glanced over her shoulder to where Nettie beckoned from her place by the fire. Shadows were growing long as the sun began its descent towards the horizon. The other four were gazing at her expectantly. Mallory wielded a spatula, tending a cast-iron pan suspended over the fire. Julie had expertly filleted a handful of the smaller fish they’d caught for their dinner.
“Gimme a sec—something’s playing with my line.”
“Honey, that bait-stealing bastard’s been nibbling for five minutes,” said Cindy, not without sympathy. “If it was gonna grab, it would have by now.”
“Damn,” muttered Hannah, reeling in with a great show of reluctance. Since hooking into her first fish, she’d been like a woman possessed, her line out of the water only long enough to remove her catches and re-bait her hook.
“I think we’ve created a monster,” Mallory observed, flipping the last fish fillet out of the pan and onto a platter.
“Yeah—I thought you said you weren’t really the outdoorsy type,” Nettie called out as Hannah trudged up the bank to join them. She beckoned to the vacant camp chair next to hers. Hannah fixed her hook into an eyelet as the others had taught her, leaned her rod against a tree, and settled in. Nettie held out an end of the blanket that was draped across her shoulders, unfolding it until it encompassed both of them.
“Honestly, this is way more fun than I thought it was going to be,” said Hannah with a smile.
“You’re having a good first day,” said Julie. She was shoveling portions of fish onto plates along with raw veggies from the cooler, then passing them around. “You’ve caught what—three crappie, two bluegill, and a pike?”
“Thanks,” said Hannah, as she accepted her plate of steaming fish. “But just to set the record straight, it was five bluegill and two pike.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Cindy shot back, laughing. “Anything under keeping size does not count.”
Hannah tipped her middle finger to Cindy, an amiable smile on her face. She was delighted by how comfortable she’d grown with these women on such short acquaintance. Taking up her fork, she corralled a chunk of crappie. “Still caught ‘em,” she insisted.
Shoveling the forkful into her mouth, she rolled it around on her tongue, nodded appreciatively, and swallowed. “That’s delicious,” she said. “Wow. The fish itself, and—you seasoned it with something, didn’t you? Please tell me it’s not a secret ingredient.”
Cindy, Mallory, and Julie all burst out laughing. Hannah looked to Nettie, who only shrugged. Cindy rummaged in her pack and pulled out a plastic package with a picture of breaded fish on the front. The logo read SHORE LUNCH. “The secret ingredient,” Cindy declared.
“Don’t waste your time trying to create your own fish seasoning.” Mallory’s voice was a little muffled, and she seemed to belatedly realize she was talking around a bite of fish. She swallowed, then went on. “Shore Lunch was our secret weapon back in high school. You just moved to Johnstown, didn’t you? I’m pretty sure there’s a Fleet Farm there. They’ll have, like, ten or twelve different flavors of this stuff. Seasonings and breadings both. They’re nearly all fantastic.”
Hannah nodded, savoring another bite. “Seriously, I’m having a great time,” she said. “I can’t wait till Bethany gets here. Stuff like this is exactly why she says she wants to get out of the city.”
“Can’t wait to meet her,” said Cindy. “She’s the reason Halee didn’t come with us, right?”
“Yeah, those two were planning to video chat or something this evening,” said Hannah. “They’re getting pretty close.” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Nettie stifling a grin. Too late.
“Do I sense an undertone here?” said Julie with raised eyebrows.
Hannah snickered. “Oh, yes. You do indeed.”
***
Standing on a kitchen chair, Halee Wilder plugged a power cable into the back of the wireless router on a shelf above her father’s stereo. “Okay,” she announced. “Internet should be back on as soon as this thing reboots.”
“Ummm—was it not on to begin with?” Terry inquired, entering the living room.
“I ran CAT 6 up to my room,” said Halee. “This lame-ass router doesn’t want to hotplug for some reason. I had to reboot it to get it to recognize the new line and assign an IP.”
“Whoa—hold on there for just one second,” said Terry, pausing in the middle of the room. “You did what?”
“Ran CAT 6,” she repeated. “You know, ethernet cable. It’ll provide me with a hardwired connection to…”
Terry held up a hand to forestall the coming lecture. “Yes, thank you, daughter dearest, I know what CAT 6 is. The actual question I’m attempting to ask is why.”
“Because the wifi in my room is stupid and slow,” she replied.
“Fair enough,” said Terry, “but if I might be so indelicate as to inquire—what route did you choose to run said cable? Please tell me I won’t be stumbling across gaping holes inexpertly drilled through my walls.”
Halee giggled. “Relax. This house has more than enough holes in it already. I utilized the unused vent shaft behind your left speaker, ran it from there to the next floor, and then through the hole in my closet floor left over from a previous owner’s ill-advised wiring scheme, which you have thus far failed to repair. It was my thinking that it may as well get used for something.”
A door opened in the hallway, and Halee’s younger sister Dawn and her friend Allison emerged. “Seriously, Halee,” said Dawn as the two of them ambled through the living room. “You’ve gotta quit talking like that. The only way I can tell you two apart is that his voice is deeper.”
“And where might the two of you be off to?” Terry wanted to know.
“The park,” replied Dawn. “It’s nice out. You okay with that?”
“That depends. How trashed is your room?”
“Medium trashed. But I promise I’ll clean it after dinner.” Not even waiting for a reply, she strode off towards the foyer, Allison in her wake.
“I will hold you to that,” Terry called out behind her. He turned back towards Halee. “Is the wifi in your room really that bad?”
“You can do basic web surfing on it,” she replied. “But Bethany and I have plans to video chat after dinner, and the wifi connection on the second floor is inadequate for the purpose.”
Terry grinned. “Care to tell me what the two of you have to discuss that’s so private the meeting can’t be held down here?”
Halee grinned back, meeting his gaze head-on. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
Terry’s eyebrows shot up, comprehension dawning on his face. “In point of fact, I probably wouldn’t,” he said. “Forget I asked. But Halee—have fun.”
***
The pointed stick grazes the flesh of Gina’s abdomen, leaving a scratch behind but not drawing blood. The girl shrieks in terror.
Tears stream down Heather’s cheeks. “Leave her alone, you f-fucking creep!” The man with the smooth-shaven head and haunted eyes doesn’t seem to hear her. Slowly, almost reverently, he draws another light scratch across Gina’s belly.
***
“You have to have the exact right mixture,” Cindy was saying as she poured vodka into a plastic cocktail cup. “Vodka up to this line, and then…” she stopped pouring, set the bottle aside, and screwed the top off a two-liter bottle of Sprite. “You pour the Sprite up to this line. See?” She held the cup out ceremoniously.
“So it’s all about the lines that are molded into the cups,” said Hannah, accepting the proffered drink.
“Right,” said Julie. “You have to use different lines if you’re using Seven-Up, and then there’s another set that works best with Mello Yello. Sprite’s best, but the store back home in Dickson used to run out of stuff. So we did a lot of experimenting to get the best flavor with each brand. God help us if the cup manufacturer ever changes their molds.”
Hannah took an experimental sip of the mixture, then a longer one. “That does go down pretty good.”
“Trust us; we’re the experts,” said Mallory with a grin. She took the cup that Cindy was holding out to her and took a long swallow.
“What I want to know is where you got hold of a steady supply of vodka at that age,” said Nettie, taking a sip of her own Sprite and vodka mixture. “When I was a teenager here in Bronning, the best we could do was usually cheap beer.”
“There was this old lady named Elaine who lived right above the liquor store in Dickson,” said Cindy. “She was like ninety years old, had five kids who wouldn’t talk to her, a bunch of grandkids she’d never met…”
“God, what did she do?” said Hannah.
“We never found out,” said Julie. “I got curious once and tried to do a little snooping, but never learned anything. She had one mission in life, and that was to stay drunk on cheap-ass blackberry brandy. But she was living on Social Security, so she couldn’t even afford that half the time. If you gave her enough extra to buy a bottle of her favorite tipple, she’d pick up anything you wanted. And I guarantee, old Reggie Moen knew she was doing it, too.”
Nettie’s head jerked up. “Reggie Moen,” she said, looking towards Cindy. “I think I met him a few times. Wasn’t he…”
“My great-uncle, yeah,” said Cindy with a smirk. “He eventually got shut down for selling weed and shrooms in the back room. Died a couple of years ago.” She raised her cup. “To Uncle Reggie, the crooked old coot. And Elaine, the facilitator of many pleasant evenings at the lake. May they both rest well in whatever fucked-up afterlife they’ve found themselves.”
“Hear, hear,” said Julie, as they all raised cups. Hannah laid her head on Nettie’s shoulder.
***
“Oh, fuck me,” muttered Halee, frowning at her laptop screen.
“Trouble?” Terry inquired, looking up from his magazine. “Serious enough trouble to assault your father’s ears with such ghastly language?”
“Sorry, Dad—slip of the tongue.”
“I daresay. What seems to be the problem?”
“I just borked my display server.”
Terry furrowed his brow. “I’m not sure which term I’d like you to define first: ‘borked’ or ‘display server’.”
Halee sighed, fingers pounding her keyboard in furious rhythm. “Borked is just computer-talk for ‘messed up’. A display server is the software that allows your computer to display graphical windows.”
“And why would you be fooling around with your display server? I’ve been using computers since long before you were a twinkle in my eye, and have never even heard of such a thing.”
“It’s Linux, Dad. I was trying to get it to run multiple—oh, never mind. I was trying to trick it out to do something it wasn’t designed for, and I messed it all up.”
“That’ll teach you.”
Halee chuckled. “Probably not. I break something by messing with the source code at least once a week. It’s only a problem right now because I’m supposed to cyb—I mean, video chat with Bethany in a couple of hours. I guess I can use my phone if I have to. The big screen is better, though.”
Terry’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline, but he let it pass. “I was unaware that you harbored this interest. How long have you been doing this whole Linux-y source code computer thing?”
Halee shrugged. “A couple of months. I was going to talk to you about this anyway—there’s an online Summer of Code course I want to sign up for, and I need to do it by next week. I’ll learn to program in Python, but it’ll cost four hundred. Can I do it?”
“Have I ever denied you the opportunity to expand your horizons? Once you’ve solved your borking problem, or whatever it is you called it, email me the link. I’ll get you signed up.”
Halee hit the enter key and sat back, letting out a sigh of relief as her graphical display reappeared on the screen. “Aannndddd… we’re back.”
She turned to her father with a smile. “Thanks, Dad. It won’t go to waste.”
***
Under the blanket they shared, Hannah was drawing lazy circles on the inside of Nettie’s jeans-clad thigh with her fingers. Nettie slapped lightly at her wrist. Giving her an insolent smile, Hannah moved her fingers further up the thigh. Nettie shuddered, inhaling sharply through her teeth. It did not go unnoticed.
“Whoa,” said Julie, eyeing them speculatively. “There wouldn’t happen to be some fooling around going on under that there blankie—would there?”
Hannah’s grin broadened. “Mayyyybe.”
Nettie tried for a severe expression, without much success. “She’s a bad person. It’s not my fault.”
“We like bad,” Cindy assured her. “Bad is good.”
“Says the official custodian of law and order,” said Mallory with a tipsy giggle.
“If it makes you feel any better, the Piano Princess here just unbuttoned my pants under our blanket,” Julie announced.
Mallory slapped her partner’s shoulder with the hand that wasn’t sliding beneath the loosened waistband. “Don’t tell them that,” she protested. “Cindy might have to arrest me.” She giggled again, and it was infectious—the entire circle of women erupted in a fit of laughter.
“God, get a tent,” said Cindy, eliciting another round of giggles.
“Us or them?” said Julie through her laughter. “There’s only one tent!”
Hannah looked toward the three women across the dying fire, then thoughtfully studied the tent. Finally she said the very thing they were all thinking. “It’s a big tent,” she ventured. “Plenty of room for lots of people to get up to all kinds of things.”
Cindy was the first one out of her chair. “Race you!”
***
“Honestly, Halee—you can make the X11 display server walk and talk, but it’s never gonna get up and do dance steps,” said the voice from her computer speaker.
“So what I’m trying to do is impossible? What if I tried Wayland?”
“Girl, if you can make any PC display server anywhere in the world do everything you’re trying to make it do at once, you just landed a job at Google or Microsoft. Probably as a project lead. Look: what you want has already been done, just not at the display server level. You’re runnin’ a tiler, ain’t ya?”
“Yeah, Qtile. But—”
“So you can get what you want inside your window manager, without ever diddle-fucking around with X. And you’d know that, baby doll, if you’d read the docs. You need to get some background under you, hon. You’re trying to fly when you haven’t really learned to tie your shoes yet.”
“Hey, fuck you—”
“I’m just sayin’. Being able to write Bash or Lua scripts doesn’t mean you’re ready to hack on complicated projects written in low-level languages. You have to learn the fundamentals first, you feel me?”
Halee let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah, I feel you. Thanks, Toya. I’ll keep you posted on how the course is going.”
“All right, kid. I gotta bounce, you good?”
“Yeah, I have something I have to get to anyway.”
“Righty then, over and out.”
Halee killed the connection with a smile. She was annoyed over her amateurish coding error, but the call she’d just left had been a good test—she had solid broadband speed in her room now. She adjusted the zoom on her cam, placing the laptop on the bed beside her. Wearing nothing but a sheer pair of black panties Nettie had picked up for her, she settled in to wait for Bethany’s call.
***
The shed door slams, a padlock clicks into place from outside. Gina is shuddering uncontrollably, hands clasped over the crisscross of light scratches on her belly. None deep enough to draw blood, let alone leave a scar, but a terrifying promise of things to come. Sniffling, Heather draws the blanket tightly over them both.
Soon to come: Chapter Five!
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