A Note From the Author
Hello once again! Welcome to this, my third long-form story for Juicy Secrets. I’m honored and humbled at the number of people who have so graciously expressed enthusiasm for my previous work, and excitement at the prospect of the tale you’re about to read, which merges the casts of the two prior stories.
If you’ve read the novellas “Strange Brew” and “Pages From a Diary,” you already know the two exist in the same universe and share some of the same cast. There was even a taste of reunion when the Hanson family attended the funeral for Nettie Hasting’s father in “Strange Brew.” Well, in this one we’re just bringing everyone together!
Like “Pages…” and “Strange Brew,” this is a story in which sex is not the main focus. There certainly is a lot of it, much more than a typical novel would feature, but there will, at times, be entire chapters with no sexual activity. Those familiar with my work will already be aware of this, but I thought I should throw it out there. If you’re looking for a straight-up stroke story, this probably isn’t for you.
One more small warning: there are a very few instances of strictly off camera heterosexual activity. Like, a male and female character will go off somewhere and have sex. I won’t be detailing the sex, but it’ll be hinted at. Sometimes, it might involve a female character you wouldn’t expect. Hopefully not too many people will find this a showstopper. This is a story with male characters that are of importance to the plot, and men get laid too—at least so I’m told.
You will note that every chapter is prefaced with some song lyrics. Each is chosen in an attempt to highlight the themes and overall feel of a given chapter. Given the importance Nettie Hastings attaches to her beloved heavy metal as one of the lifelines she clings to when her traumatic past comes back to haunt her, it seemed apropos. However, if I were to pick an overall theme song for this story, it would be Halford’s “Silent Screams.” From the very early phases of my work on “Strange Brew,” when Nettie’s character was slowly unfolding itself in my mind, I’ve thought of it as “Nettie’s Song.” When I need to put myself in her head, I go back and listen to that.
Before I shut up and let you get to the story, I do feel the need to express my undying gratitude to Jetboy, whose truly righteous editorial work has greatly enhanced my stories. I can’t possibly say enough good things about our working relationship. Thank you so much, my friend! Also, thanks are in order for the rest of the staff at Juicy Secrets: the work you do to keep this site up and running is truly appreciated by all.
And now, it’s time to join your favorite characters from both “Strange Brew,” and “Pages From a Diary,” in this brand-new adventure. May the joy you take in reading be as great as the pleasure it gave me to write it!
Big hugs and kisses, Rachael Yukey
***
A (brief) note from JetBoy: This being a sequel to two previously posted novellas, we consider it our duty to inform you that if you have yet to read those, you may find this new story hard to comprehend in places. Also, you are guaranteed to encounter a veritable mountain of spoilers. Besides, the earlier works are great and you should read them, damn it.
***
For a list of the characters from the previous two stories that you will encounter here as well, visit this page.
***
by Rachael Yukey
Foreword
I had such plans for the summer! Mostly to do nothing at all. It was the spring of ‘22, the ink was still drying on my hard-won PhD, and I was back in my hometown for a few months. I’m Mallory Kalvornek, by the way—some of you might have read the diary I kept back when I was in the 6th grade.
Julie and I were returning to our old stomping ground, making the trek from our home in Boulder, Colorado by car. Historically we’ve always caught a flight when returning to Minnesota, but we were planning to be there for the entire summer, and figured we’d be better off with our own set of wheels. We took turns driving, the one in the passenger seat either napping or reading to the other. That’s how our friendship started, you know: through a shared love of fantasy novels. The material has changed a bit—we’re doing hard science fiction these days—but sixteen years down the track, our favorite together activity is still reading to each other. Not counting, of course, our exploits in bed!
I’d finished grading finals a week earlier, signing off on the last of the senior recitals the day before we left. And for the first time since I was twelve, I didn’t have a summer concert schedule. Julie took a three-month sabbatical from her engineering job, and just like that, we were homeward bound.
I had it in mind to wander the family farm, and finally make the decisions I’d been putting off since Dad died two years before. We’d also meet up with old friends; maybe even have a reunion of the Pussy Posse. Julie wanted to get in some bass fishing with her dad and spend some time with her kid sister, whom we haven’t seen nearly enough of the past few years. To cap it all off, my first band had plans to converge on the old hometown and play a show in August.
As it turned out, our summer wasn’t quite as simple as that. We did get time to do the things we came to do, but don’t they say that life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans? I don’t think anyone could have predicted the sequence of events that brought Julie’s cousin Nettie face-to-face with her troubled past, carrying the rest of us along for the ride. Or that yours truly would end up with the job of compiling everyone’s stories and experiences, putting them into a comprehensible format an outsider can make sense of. Someone had to do it—this is a story worth telling.
Some of what you’re about to read I was there for, but much of it I’m relating second-hand. I had to extrapolate a lot of details from police reports and files from several federal agencies, the latter passed along to me by someone who had no business doing so, bless her delightfully wicked heart.
Come now; let me spin you a tale…
Chapter 1
The evil that men do… lives on and on.
Iron Maiden, 1988
No movement stirs the shadows beneath the glow of the few streetlamps that continue to function. No sound permeates the predawn air but the rustle of a light breeze through the surrounding pines. This is the trailer park that time forgot, a ramshackle collection of mobile homes long past their intended lifespans, many unoccupied.
Better times, the days of the bustling iron range with its attendant support industry, are now a good half century in the past. Few remain but downtrodden retirees, single moms on welfare, couples too tapped out to afford even a cheap apartment, the occasional indigent bachelor. The most exciting thing to hit this park in recent years was the taking of a trophy northern from Keenan Lake two years gone; the scariest thing the not-so-occasional pile of bear shit on someone’s lawn in the morning.
If you were to take a wrong turn off of Highway Seven onto Keenan Lake Road at this still, dark hour, you’d drive once around the outside edge of the park, see nothing to elicit interest or concern, and return posthaste the way you came.
But you would be wrong. Something malignant haunts the forest this night, as it has every night for more than a week. A sick, twisted mind has been denied what it craves for far too long, and is now biding its time, ready to seize opportunity when it strikes. Watching. Waiting. Yearning.
***
“Heather—there’s someone out there again. Heather, wake up!”
“Go ‘way, Gina.” Heather Dulcey pulled the blanket over her head and curled up tightly, trying to keep the warmth in. Mom was keeping the thermostat at sixty-four to keep the gas bill down.
“Heather, there was a man out there!” A small hand pulled the blanket down despite Heather’s too-late grab to claw it back, revealing Gina’s anxious face peering up over the edge of the top bunk, the eleven-year-old’s features just barely visible in the illumination cast by the Mickey Mouse nightlight. She was pointing urgently at the window.
The girls had the back bedroom of the two-bedroom trailer they shared with their mother and her never-ending parade of boyfriends. The trailer was backed up to the very edge of the forest, the window in question less than three feet from the encroaching pine boughs.
Heather sighed heavily. “You thought you saw someone last night, too. It’s just the bear again, Gina. Go back to sleep.”
“Bears don’t wear clothes, Heather!”
“Ugh!” Heather yanked the covers back over her head. She didn’t want to hear about some fairy-tale stalker, she wanted to sleep. The sooner she was back in dreamland, the sooner yesterday’s humiliating twelfth birthday party would cease to replay in her head, visions of unwrapping Mom’s gift while her school friends looked on—a pair of scuffed and faded thrift store pumps. The “cake” had been a box of stale day-old donuts from the Hasty Tasty in Virginia.
Tomorrow might be a little better; Mom was working at the C-store. Nominally she and Gina would be watched by Mrs. Amundson down the street, but that lady didn’t give a hoot in hell what they did or didn’t do. In the evening, though, they’d be stuck with the fat babysitter who smelled of pot and always sent them to their room so she could watch dirty stuff on her phone. Meanwhile, Mom would be out hitting the little country bars, looking for some trashy guy to keep her bed warm for the next little while. The very idea of doing it with some sleazeball you picked up in a honky-tonk gave Heather the creeps. The sooner she could go back to sleep, the sooner she could stop thinking about that stuff.
But Gina wasn’t done being a pest. “Heather, come on!”
With an annoyed groan, Heather threw the covers off and clambered down from her bunk, wincing as her feet hit the icy floor, then padded over to the window. Placing both hands against the glass, she peered out.
Nothing. No movement, save for the rustling of the pines in a light spring breeze.
Turning back to her sister, she shook her head. “There’s nothing out there, Gina. Not even the silly damn bear. Now stop being a spaz and go back to sleep.” Climbing back into her bunk with more grunts of effort than were strictly necessary, Heather resolutely pulled the covers back over her head.
***
“Thanks, doctor.” Paramedic Antoinette Hastings was speaking into her phone. ”We’ll terminate the resuscitation.”
Her eyes swept the cramped second-floor bedroom, encompassing a visibly nervous cop, an ancient four-poster bed and, finally, the woman on the floor. All skin and bones, wisps of snow-white hair, the Lucas compression machine pumping inexorably on her chest. Nettie’s EMT partner Darren knelt at the woman’s head, using a bulbous bag valve device to do the breathing for her.
They’d been in this farmhouse bedroom for over half an hour, and had even got pulses back for a few minutes. But before they could package the old lady up to carry her down the stairs and to the ambulance, her heart had stopped again.
“Sounds good,” Dr. Murphy replied. “Drop by the emergency room when you get back to town and I’ll give you your signatures.”
Tucking her phone back into the left front pocket of her navy blue tactical pants, Nettie turned to her partner. “All right,” she said, “we’re done here. Kill the Lucas, and check pulses one more time.”
As Darren hit the pause button on the compression machine, Nettie dropped to her knees, resting a hand on Denise Lawson’s thigh. She’d been to this house a half dozen times over the last year, as emphysema had rendered the lady increasingly infirm. Nettie admitted to herself that she’d grown rather fond of the acerbic, quick-witted old bird.
Darren was pressing two fingers against the emaciated neck. His eyes widened. “Uh… Nettie?”
Nettie’s mouth fell open. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Nope. She’s back. Guess we’d better haul ass, huh?”
Two minutes later they were bolting through the kitchen with their charge, Darren carrying the foot end of the longboard, Nettie and the brown-clad policeman at the head. Denise’s husband Harold, sitting at the table with his head bowed and tears on his cheeks, looked up, startled. He’d already resigned himself to his wife’s passing.
“We got pulses back,” Nettie tossed off without breaking stride. “We’re taking her to the hospital.”
“P-pulses?” the elderly gentleman stammered. Nettie kept right on going. As they strode across the lawn in the chilly Minnesota moonlight, she glanced at the monitor, propped between the withered twigs masquerading as legs.
“Get a load of her pressure,” she said.
“I saw that,” said Darren. “One twenty-seven over seventy-three. Rate looks good, too. Think we actually have a shot here?”
“She hasn’t so much as twitched,” Nettie replied as they reached the ambulance. “She’s not trying to breathe under her own power, either. I still don’t think we’re getting a good outcome.”
The comatose woman was shoved into the rig through the back doors, Darren hauling himself in right behind. Nettie turned to the sheriff’s deputy. “Any chance you could drive?”
He shook his head. “Sorry, Nettie. I’m flying solo tonight. Can’t leave my squad behind.”
“Shit,” Nettie muttered. “All right, then, do me a favor. Go back upstairs, pick up all the crap we left behind, including the garbage, and bring it to Pinewood. I don’t wanna waste time here retrieving it.”
“That I can do.”
Nettie nodded once, then hoisted herself in through the back doors, slamming them behind.
“No driver?” Darren asked, not taking his eyes from the pressure bag he was pumping up over a fresh bag of saline.
“No, but he’s gonna bring our stuff to the hospital.” Nettie’s eyes roved across the monitor, the bag valve bubble that Darren was still squeezing every six seconds, and the Lucas machine secured across the old woman’s chest.
“I think you’re pretty set back here,” Darren replied. “I spiked you a new bag, and powered up the vent. Everything is where you can reach it from the bench.”
Nettie turned her attention to the ventilator, punching a couple of buttons and adjusting a dial. Then she handed the end of the vent tubing to Darren. “Go ahead and hook her up to this, then get us moving. It’s twenty minutes back to civilization.” She took her place, ass hitting the bench seat with an audible plop. Darren stripped off his gloves, dropping them into the trash as he exited through the side door.
Reaching across the patient, Nettie plucked the radio mic from its clip as the ambulance eased into motion. “Thormleton 3520 to Pinewood.”
“Pinewood hospital, go ahead.”
Nettie gave a rapid-fire account of everything that had transpired since her phone conversation with the doctor, pausing only to instruct her partner up front to hold off on the siren until she was done with her report. It wasn’t like anyone was out cruising these back-country roads at the shank of the morning, anyway.
“We’ll be there in about twenty minutes,” she finished, “so you have time to call in the cavalry.”
“Most of the on-call people are already here,” the deep male voice of Nettie’s favorite ED nurse rumbled. “We have a sick anesthetist, but the new anesthesiology resident is coming in. We’re ready for you, Nettie.”
Nettie hung the mic up, eyes continuing to rove the equipment, absently noting the siren beginning to howl. Her mind was racing, trying to think of anything she could do to improve the odds. The monitor began a strident wailing. She fastened her eyes upon the device. A series of tall, wide, regular humps chased each other across the screen, replaced a moment later by a chaotic, disorganized waveform.
“Fuck!” Nettie felt around for a carotid pulse, fingers rapidly confirming what she already knew. But for the first time since they’d squeezed their way into that tiny farmhouse bedroom, she had a shockable rhythm.
She hit the charge button on the monitor, pressing the start control on the Lucas with the other hand. The siren cut out. “Need help back there, Nettie?” Darren called from the driver’s seat.
“No, keep going. She just went into vfib, but I’ve got this.” The siren sounded again. The monitor let out a loud beep as it reached full charge. Nettie paused the Lucas, feeling slightly foolish at the urge to yell ‘clear’. No one back here but you, dumbass. She hit the shock button, watching the patient’s body convulse. Not waiting to see how the rhythm reorganized, she fired up the Lucas again.
Pausing the machine two minutes later, she focused her gaze on the monitor. Back to a normal rhythm. Probing fingers located a strong carotid pulse, but there was still no sign of neurological response. Nettie shone a penlight into the eyes; first left, then right. Fixed and dilated. Shit.
She felt the ambulance slow, turn left and accelerate smoothly as Darren pulled them out onto state highway 37, just two miles shy of Johnstown. It’s really true; time flies when you’re having this much goddamn fun.
***
Five minutes later, Nettie was just rising from the bench when the back doors popped open from the outside. The garage door had yet to roll down, and Darren hadn’t even had time to get out of the cab. The portly, bushy-bearded nurse Nettie had spoken to on the radio stood waiting for her.
“Santa comes early,” she quipped as she hauled her tired ass towards the open doors.
‘Santa Claus Sam’, as Samuel Harvey (RN, BSN) was known to almost everyone, uttered a deep belly laugh that reverberated even over the racket of the garage door trundling down on rickety tracks. Nettie dropped to the poured concrete garage floor just as the front door of the ambulance slammed. Darren rounded the back of the rig at a fast walk.
“She coded again about ten minutes after I last talked to you,” Nettie reported as they pulled the cot out. “Vfib arrest, so I shocked her for the first time in the whole goddamn code. Got her back on the first try.”
By this time they were power-walking the cot through the double doors into the emergency department, making haste for the large stabilization room near the nurses station at the end of the hall. A small army of on-call personnel were waiting for them there. The monitor wailed again, and three sets of eyes fixed on its screen.
“Christ,” said Nettie, feeling for a pulse as Sam and Darren continued to push the cot down the hall, “she’s down again, and the rhythm isn’t shockable.” She started up the Lucas for the last time that night.
Dr. Murphy was at the forefront of the horde waiting for them outside of the stabe room. “She just coded again,” Nettie informed her en passant, as they wheeled the cot through the door. “I lost her in the ambulance ten minutes ago, had vfib, shocked once, got ROSC. But now we’re in asystole.”
Dr. Murphy’s lips twisted. “Just bring the ultrasound straight in,” she called out.
A minute with the ultrasound confirmed what they all suspected… no cardiac activity. “You’ve been working this for what, an hour now?” Dr. Murphy wanted to know.
Nettie nodded weakly from where she leaned against the door jam, suddenly exhausted now that her part in this was done. “About that.”
“All right,” said the doctor, “Let’s get the anesthesiologist in here to verify device placement. I’m sorry, what’s her name… Dr. Fletcher?” Something about that twigged at Nettie, but her weary brain failed to assimilate it, and she barely even registered the brisk young woman who brushed past her.
The curvy form bent over the emaciated figure that had yet to be removed from the ambulance cot. Something about the movement of the scrubs-clad body caught Nettie’s attention, and she straightened.
“Tube’s good, IO is good,” the compact, curvy redheaded woman in pink scrubs proclaimed. “Couldn’t have done it better myself.” At the sound of that voice, Nettie found herself breaking into a grin, despite the unfortunate circumstances. The pink scrubs pivoted to face the door, and the corners of Hannah Fletcher’s mouth twitched upwards. “Sounds to me like the whole thing has been handled perfectly. Not that I’m surprised.”
Nettie suppressed the smile that threatened to consume her entire face, but her eyes were shining.
The entire exchange seemed to go right over Dr. Murphy’s head. “Can anyone think of a reason to not call it?” she wanted to know. Her eyes roved the tired faces; nurses, ED techs, a respiratory therapist. A few heads shook. Nobody spoke.
“All right then,” said Doctor Murphy, stripping off her gloves. “Time of death two twenty-eight. And very well done to the ambulance crew.”
Nettie ducked into the hallway, knowing that it would be a few minutes before they could start retrieving their equipment, and hardly able to contain herself. Moments later the lithe pink-scrubbed redhead glided through the door, stopping in front of Nettie and gripping her arms.
“Hannah!” Nettie exclaimed, eyes dancing at the sight of her lover. “What the hell are you doing here?”
***
“She was a cantankerous old bitch, but I liked her,” said Nettie, taking a cautious sip of steaming coffee.
Hannah shook her head. “I learned while I was shadowing the ER in medical school that emergency medicine isn’t for me. You tried to save her for an hour, got her back three times, lost her anyway—and then you were like ‘okay, back to work’. On a patient you knew and liked. I’m not wired that way.”
Nettie took another sip, then tilted her head back to gaze at the ceiling. “You hit a point where losing someone as old and sick as she was doesn’t bother you too much. It’s a little sad, ’cause I knew her, but it’s pretty easy to shrug off. Little kids are the worst. I couldn’t do what you did in Minneapolis, working with sick children every day.”
“It’s different in anesthesiology,” said Hannah. “Most patients, I’m with them for only a few minutes, and then one of my CRNAs takes over. There’s a certain detachment, and I’m not the one running the code if things go wrong. Hell, I haven’t run a code since I was an intern. When I renew my ACLS every two years, I’m learning everything all over again. My level of care is higher than yours, but I can’t do what you do. Come to think of it, don’t you teach ACLS?”
“Yeah,” said Nettie with a shaky laugh. She leaned forward across the narrow table. “Forget about that—what are you doing here, anyway?”
The two women were seated at the kitchen table in Hannah’s two-bedroom apartment in Johnstown. Unpacked boxes decorated the living room, which at the moment sported a sofa as its only piece of furniture. It was just after seven-thirty this foggy Saturday morning.
“Well,” Hannah said with an easy grin, “Bethany has been pestering me for a couple of years to get us out of the city. Says she wants to live closer to nature. Then there’s us—I hope I’m not being too forward, but I think you and I are right on the edge of something really special, and we’ll never find out if our relationship has legs while we’re living three hours apart. Besides, my fellowship is up at Children’s.”
She sipped at her coffee, then gave a long sigh. “They offered to renew my contract, with a path towards attending. The problem is that there are a finite number of permanent positions, and they’re full for the foreseeable future. Nobody is getting an attending anesthesiology job at Children’s until someone retires or dies, and that’s likely to be decades down the road. So when I saw there was a residency close to where you live, I jumped on it.”
“Wait a minute.” Nettie leaned back in her chair, brow furrowing. “Since when did Pinewood keep anesthesiologists on staff? It’s always been nurse anesthetists, and they get their oversight remotely from larger facilities.”
“New thing,” said Hannah, her smile brightening the room. “Pinewood is looking to expand their surgical capabilities. Historically they’ve only done general surgery, but they’re getting set up to branch into ortho, then more if it goes well. If they’re going to do that and meet state requirements, they need an anesthesiologist in-house. They’re calling it a residency for now because they don’t know how it’s going to go, but I’m in charge of anesthesia for this hospital as of yesterday morning. If the program seems to be working out in twelve months, and I decide I want to stay, the position becomes permanent.”
Almost of its own volition, Nettie’s hand darted across the table, capturing Hannah’s in a vise grip. “Hannah, that’s great! Why didn’t you tell me, damn it?”
“I wanted to surprise you. Guess I managed it—just not the way I had in mind.” She lowered her gaze for a moment, then raised her eyes to meet Nettie’s. “I’m not jumping the gun here, am I? I mean, where you and I are concerned?”
Nettie found herself fighting tears. “Christ, no. Hannah—I’ve been agonizing over this for weeks. How we’re going to find out if we have what I think we do. You just solved it for me. But this—is it really what you want? It has to be a pay downgrade, for one thing.”
Hannah shrugged. “It is, but I’m an anesthesiologist. It’s not like I’m getting paid crap, and housing costs less here. A lot less. Besides, working here, I’m in charge. At a big city hospital, I’d be looking at decades of work and a lot of office politics before that happened. It’s a reasonable trade-off, especially if it means being close to you.”
Nettie sniffled, wiped a bit of moisture from the corners of her eyes, then gripped her cup again. “You don’t know what it means to me, that you would do this. I’m gonna make you so happy you never want to leave.”
Hannah chuckled. “You fucking better.” She reached across the table, prying loose Nettie’s coffee cup hand, squeezing both extremities tightly.
“So,” Nettie went on, doing her best to get a handle on her emotions, “when is Bethany getting here?”
“Her dad took a couple weeks vacation to come up and stay with her while she finishes the school year,” Hannah replied. “Then she’ll be going to Iowa with him. She stays with him for the first few weeks of every summer vacation anyway. She’ll be here at the end of the month. She’s excited. Much as she loves spending time with her dad, I think she’s a little frustrated to not be coming here with me straight away.”
“What about your house?”
“I’m renting it to a college friend of mine. It’s for the cost of mortgage and taxes, so I’m just breaking even, but it gives her a decent place to live while she starts her new job, and it buys me a little time in case I end up back in the metro. Let’s talk about you. How’s the DEA thing going?”
“Very part-time, for the moment,” said Nettie. “I’m mostly analyzing data, going through evidence and picking out clues. The agent who recruited me was right; I’m pretty good at it. I told them I’d like to ease my way in—I’m not sure when I’m going to be ready to transition out of EMS, or if I even want to. Right now, Bridgett Ramscone is just sending me stuff her agents on the ground are batting zero with.”
Extricating one of her hands, Nettie took a long sip of coffee. “Look, Hannah—I can’t stay. I’m on call for Bronning from nine to two and besides, I have to help set up for a party. Terry Wilder officially takes over as Bronning Ambulance director on Monday, and we’re throwing a… retirement thing for Robbie Wachinsky this afternoon.”
Hannah grimaced. “It’s what—a thirty minute drive home?”
“Closer to forty. That’s why I mostly work consecutive shifts.”
“I do not understand how you manage that.”
Nettie shrugged. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. We’re in Johnstown, not Minneapolis. It’s not that busy. Last night was a shitshow, but if I was on today, I’d just sleep until the next call went out. I’d probably get more sleep if I was staying onshift, because right now I have to go back to Bronning and help get this goddamn party set up.”
“Damn,” Hannah said with a grin. “I was going to offer to let you crash here, with a little climax therapy as a sleep aid.”
Nettie laughed out loud. “Well—it’s Saturday morning. Are you off for the weekend?”
“I’m covering for a sick on–call anesthetist until noon.”
“Perfect,” said Nettie, getting up and shrugging into her jacket. “The party starts at four. Food, cake, the usual bullshit. Why don’t you come as my guest? And spend tonight at my place. Climax therapy can work both ways, you know.”
“Sounds great.” Hannah saw Nettie to the door, standing on tiptoes to kiss the much taller woman.
“Whoa,” said Nettie, leaning backwards. “I can’t promise what my breath is gonna smell like.”
“As if I care,” Hannah growled, looping hands around her lover’s neck and pulling her down by main force. Lips engaged, tongues danced. Finally, reluctantly, they separated.
“I’ll see you this afternoon,” Nettie breathed.
“Count on it,” Hannah got out. “God, I so want to shove my hand down the front of your pants right now.”
“Save that thought,” Nettie replied. It took all the willpower she possessed to walk out the door.
***
Terrance Wilder sat in his home office, staring at a blank computer screen.
It hadn’t been blank two minutes before, but he’d just wiped the document and started over. Not that it was gone forever, mind you. It was lurking somewhere in the bowels of his PC, patiently awaiting its moment in the sun.
Oughta just scrub the goddamn thing, he mused. It’s shitty word salad that’s best relegated to somebody’s compost heap.
Writer’s block, he’d always thought, was something that happened to other people. He’d never had the slightest problem coming up with ideas, or stringing those ideas out into words. Ever since he’d first tried his hand at fiction at the tender age of seven, it had been easy. It was easy until his life got turned upside down.
So what if you haven’t finished a novel in four years, or sold a script in almost three? The practical part of his mind insisted. It’s not like you need the money there, stud.
Except, of course, it wasn’t about the money anymore. The work came to define you. Your identity got wrapped up in it, to say nothing of your pride.
Impatiently shoving his chair back from the desk, Terry stood, laced his fingers behind his head, and stretched. Sounds filtered into his consciousness, the ever-present resonations of daily life. A car driving by outside the palatial 19th-century home he’d bought four years previously. Little-girl babble emanating from the living room, those of his youngest two daughters mingled with their friend Allison from across the street. The tapping of keys on a laptop; that would be his eldest daughter Halee.
His ever-alert mind wondered momentarily why he couldn’t hear anything of Naomi, his second-eldest. A twinge of panic set in, and was ruthlessly suppressed. He recognized the incipient signs of PTSD, the lingering after-effect of having almost lost Halee to armed thugs almost two months before. Naomi is at her friend Chelsey’s house, moron. She’s fine. Don’t borrow trouble.
It was easier said than done; Terry was self-aware enough to know that he had a problem here. He redirected the way he always did, forcing his mind to the immediate task at hand. Two days hence he’d be officially taking over as the head of the Bronning ambulance squad. There was no particular distinction in holding administrative dominion over a dippy small-town EMS service, but for him, there was a certain symbolism involved. It was one thing to be a volunteer EMT in a town to which he had only the most tenuous connection; quite another to accept a leadership role that would involve active participation in city politics. It made he and his kids a part of Bronning, in a way that nothing else thus far had.
In the meantime, there was the retirement party for his predecessor, just hours ahead. He was expected to give a speech, and was ready for it. At least THAT was easy to write, he thought with bitter irony. He gave silent thanks that he wasn’t expected to oversee the party prep; that was being handled by long–time EMT volunteer and city council member Lori Henderson, who had championed him for the director’s position.
Shaking off the vapors, he stepped out into the hallway, the ancient solid-wood door thudding shut behind him. A few steps down the hall brought him into the living room, where three little girls briefly glanced up at his arrival. Halee, seated at the dining nook table, gave him a small wave without glancing up from her laptop. The two dogs were curled up together on the couch, Halee’s little Boston terrier dwarfed by the hirsute bulk of the family golden retriever.
Picking his way cautiously through a deadly scattering of Legos across the floor, Terry made his way to his record library. He selected a Barto recording of 18th century lute music, carefully settled it onto the turntable, placed the needle on the record and turned the stereo up.
As he settled into his recliner, the animated chatter of three small creatures hard at work on new Lego creations combined with the classical music to soothe his jangled nerves. Even the rattle-clack of Halee’s assault on her laptop keyboard took on a comfortable sort of logic. He thought again of his deepening ties to this place he now called home, and his inability to generate new fiction seemed less important than it had ten minutes before.
Things could be worse, he thought, as he closed his eyes and let the music take over.
***
The malignance is a denizen of darkness, a creature that lays plans and does its work in the murky depths of the night. In the day, it slumbers, undisturbed by dreams. And two girls have a tea party on the lawn using a plastic service so ancient the colors have washed and faded, mere yards from where the creature lurked only hours before. Under the rays of the late spring sun, even Gina has become convinced that what she thought she’d seen amongst the pines was nothing more than the residue of a nightmare.
On to Chapter Two!