After she had driven for nearly two hours she began to feel exhausted. Staying up all night, talking with doctors and nurses, holding Hank’s hand through the worst of his seizure, had all taken their toll on her mind and body. Her muscles had become saturated with stress and she seemed to lose her focus driving, which she knew was not safe out on those central Kentucky curvy roads.
Still she managed to make it home in one piece, but became overwhelmingly panicked as she made it to the end of the driveway to see the Almeida’s laid out on her front yard. As she parked the car her mind raced with all of the possibilities of what could have happened. She practically jumped from the driver’s seat, forgetting to close her door. Amy ran as fast as she could across the front yard and right up to the Almeidas. Yuri was hunched over Ana Sophia, collapsed on top of her. Their bodies intertwined in an island floating alone in a sea of blood that soaked the ground and as Amy stepped closer her shoe was covered nearly to the ankle in the thick, sticky, red coagulation of their spilled live’s essence. Yuri’s back was shredded to pieces, his shirt disintegrated by some unknown slashing implement. His form huddled over his wife’s immediately revealed that he had died, in vain, trying to protect her. Amy could see pieces of his ribcage as most of the flesh had been stripped from his back. She noticed bite marks all over his body. Then her gaze turned to Ana Sophia, her good friend, her roommate in college. A woman who was like a sister to her.
As she looked down in shock and horror at Ana Sophia’s body it finally dawned on Amy. That her friend laid beneath her husband and was wearing the pajamas Amy had loaned her the night before. Amy began to feel dizzy. A sudden nausea came over her and she vomited up everything in her stomach. This was way more than she could handle. She began to look around frantically for some sort of clue as to what had happened. Laying in the grass, some twenty feet from the bodies of her dear friends, Amy saw a pitchfork. It was covered in blood and she knew that Yuri must have used it to try to protect them from whatever wild animal or animals it was who did such a wretched thing.
“My god…how did this happen?” she asked the sky as she shook her fist at the clouds. At the god she did not believe in. Tears streaking down her cheeks as fresh ones flooded into her dark blue eyes. Amy collapsed right there on the ground, into the blood, right next to the bodies, and sobbed.
It was over an hour before she was able to collect herself enough to stand up again. She was snapped back to reality by the sound of flies buzzing about the bodies. Immediately upon her return to reality and rational thought Amy pulled her car into the yard and positioned it so that nothing could be seen from the road, even by someone using binoculars. She wasn’t going to take any chances. Next she called Jared, who told her to wait for him on the front porch after getting cleaned up, that he would take care of everything.
Jared didn’t take more than ten minutes to arrive and Amy was still in the shower when he pulled down the driveway in a black Ford SUV that she had never seen before. Although the windows were tinted she could tell that there were at least three people in the vehicle. She became very uncomfortable at the thought of anyone, even Jared, knowing what had happened. That she had two dead bodies in her yard.
Most people would have just called the police and had an ambulance come and proceed as normal. But then again most people didn’t have several hundred marijuana plants growing in their house upstairs. Amy couldn’t take the chance that Hank would go to jail. He wouldn’t make it in there with his epilepsy. She would do whatever it took to keep this extreme situation from becoming any more of a mess than it already was. She would make a deal with the goddamn devil if she had to. Nothing else mattered. Just getting those bodies out of there. Just going back to life as normal.
Jared hardly said anything to her at all. He just got out of the car and was already working on cleaning things up when Amy came out on the front porch, still toweling her hair dry. He said nothing more than, “Don’t worry about this. We will make it look like a car accident. The car will be burned. The county sheriff and the coroner already know the situation and they are with us…thangs out here are….well it just works different.”
He turned to get back to the mess and with his back to Amy said, “Go on back in the house. Smoke a bowl. Take a valium. I won’t be more than an hour. When I get back then we have a lot to talk about.”
“Ok. And thanks…I really don’t know what to say,” she turned and walked back inside. She got out Hank’s biggest bong and packed a solid eighth ounce of their best cannabis into the bowl, lit it and took a hit so big she choked for a minute straight. Coughing like a high school kid taking her first toke Amy laughed at herself after she regained her composure. After all the months they had lived in that house and after all the freaky shit she had experienced Amy just couldn’t believe that something that violent could happen to her friends. It all seemed so surreal. She just couldn’t believe they were dead. The thing that got to Amy the most about it was the thought of their children growing up without parents. She shuddered again, took another bong hit and laid down on the couch, drifting into a deep sleep easily and quickly.
Amy awoke some time later to Jared gently shaking her by the arm. She awoke slowly and groggily, wiping drool from her mouth. She still felt a bit in a daze but was glad to see Jared. His face was a welcome sight after a day of such horrors. She gazed deep into his dark eyes before speaking.
“How did it go?” she asked timidly. Afraid of the answer no matter what it was.
“Alright. The sheriff should be finding the crash any time now. The official story is that they got lost out here deep in the country, hit a tree, car caught fire and they burned. Coyotes will explain the bites all over them. Local coroner will corroborate the story,” he sounded deadpan, as if recalling something extremely mundane. He quickly realized that he was being detached and attempted to comfort her. “Amy, I’m really sorry for your loss. I know you were very close with them.”
“Thanks Jared. God…I appreciate everything you’ve done. If it weren’t for you and how connected you are out here…well…we’d be going to prison. Let me give you some weed for now. It is the least I can do.” She pulled a tray out from beneath the couch she had been sleeping on. It had a wooden box on it in which Hank kept his most choice buds. It was the best of the best, marijuana flowers that should have been in High Times magazine. She opened the lid and pulled out half of what was in there and gave it to Jared. It probably amounted to two ounces.
“Thanks a lot Amy. I sure do appreciate it. But…well there is going to be a steep price to pay for what went down today. A lot of people had to look the other way, fabricate an untrue narrative and paint certain pictures. Others had to handle things and get their hands dirty, cleaning the mess up, like myself. I didn’t want you involved with these people Amy. They’re Cornbread Mafia…”
He went to continue but she interrupted him with a loud guffaw. She laughed and laughed almost hysterically. She thought he was joking. After almost a minute she realized that he was not.
“That’s just what they call themselves Amy…but the point is they don’t fuck around. These are not people to cross and certainly not people to mess with or owe any favors to. Unfortunately they were the only people to turn to for such an extreme situation,” he said to her while gazing deeply into her eyes, trying to convey a sense of urgency to her that she seemed not to be getting.
“I see. Well, whatever it takes. I’d pretty much make a deal with the devil to make this mess go away. God…Hank doesn’t even know. Maybe I shouldn’t even tell him?” she pondered, half to Jared, half to herself.
“We have to tell Hank. He’s going to grow us a shitload of clones for next season. He’s as good as it gets at cutting clones and he has the best strain around. Next year your all’s strain will be the commercial outdoor that Marion county runs on. That’s the plan at least. Hope ya’ll can handle that. They want ten thousand cuttings rooted, ready to go by April. I told them that was a steep order for anyon
e to fill, but they really didn’t care.”
“Jared, what happens if we can’t come through on that order?” she asked, again afraid of the answer no matter what it was. Amy knew that cloning marijuana plants by taking a cutting from a mother plant and rooting it, much as tomato growers do, was Hank’s specialty. She knew that he had a near one hundred percent success rate with rooting cuttings, but she also knew that ten thousand clones was much more than he had ever done by an order of magnitude. She also immediately began to worry what kind of space ten thousand marijuana plants was going to take up in her house, no matter how small they were.
“I really don’t know, but it won’t be pretty. Basically it ain’t an option. It just ain’t, so go on and get that notion right out of yer head right now. This is probably do or die,” as he laid it all out for her Amy found herself slightly amused. She had always been attracted to danger and this was as dangerous as it could get.
They sat mostly in silence for a few hours, listening to music. Jared called in to work to stay with Amy and she was super thankful, not just to have someone there in such a stressful time, but that it was Jared. She tried to give him every indication that she was attracted to him. It had been so long since Hank had satisfied her that sometimes she would tell herself that she no longer cared if she hurt him. Amy looked at herself more as his caretaker than his lover and it wasn’t in her nature to hold on to feelings of guilt. Jared was right here in front of her and she knew he wanted her as much as she wanted him.
After long awkward silences and several rounds of bong hits of Hank’s weed Amy leaned over and began kissing Jared. He did not resist, but he did not respond as she thought he would. He sat there, neither accepting nor rejecting her. This made Amy furious. She lost her cool fast and shoved her tongue past his lips, taking his head in her hands. He could not play coy any longer, kissing her back passionately.
After making out for half an hour they just sat and held each other. After holding each other they did more bong hits. “Hank is impotent. I haven’t been fucked properly in years. It is his seizure medication. It basically numbs his brain and well…the brain don’t work, the dick don’t work. He goes down on me a lot, but even when he was at his best…I was never satisfied,” she found herself confessing to him.
He seemed to take it all in even though he said nothing. He just held her tighter. Amy hadn’t felt that comfortable in years. Not since she had first met Hank. She felt like she could tell him anything and he wouldn’t judge her. She moved his arms off of her, stood up, took his hand and led him into the bedroom.
He followed, silently, but intensely. She could feel his pulse quicken as she opened the bedroom door. She threw Jared onto the bed and climbed on top of him.
Hours later, late into the night, they both awoke in each other’s arms naked. The sound of a car coming down the driveway bringing them both out of the deep post coital slumber that they had fallen into. They both jumped up quickly and scrambled to get dressed and to the living room where they could casually play off that they had been doing bong hits for hours.
Just as they were getting believably situated Hank entered the front door. He came through the foyer looking happy and chipper, as if nothing had happened the night before. He entered the living room and blew Amy a kiss and walked over to Jared and leaning over the back of the couch Jared was on gave him a deep hug.
“Thank you brother. You saved me. You saved my fuckin’ life,” Hank gushed.
“I just gave you a shot of valium Hank. Anyone could have done that,” Jared downplayed the situation, trying to be humble but slightly annoying Hank.
“Hank…honey…I have some really bad news. We have a lot to talk about,” Amy rained on the parade. Hank immediately knew by the tone she used that something was extremely wrong. Something world shattering had occurred in his absence. He didn’t want to know, but knew that it was inevitable and braced himself for impact.
Amy patted the couch next to her, motioning for Hank to sit with them. She packed him a bong of their best weed and recounted everything that had happened from the moment she had gotten home up to her and Jared doing bong hits on the couch, which is where she left the story and left Hank with the impression that he had come home during that moment. She and Jared both played off their love making with icy stone hearts. Amy knew Hank would be oblivious; and if he found out? Well it was an extremely stressful situation, he’d have to understand. Part of her didn’t care if he did or not as she remembered the passion she had recently shared with Jared.
As Amy wrestled with all the emotions that were flooding her heart and clouding her mind as Hank sat on the couch, stunned, unable to process the deaths of Yuri and Ana Sophia. He put his head in his hands and wept. Amy rubbed his back as he cried until he had no more tears. His best friend on earth had died in his yard, along with his wife. Hank was shocked that he didn’t have a seizure with such stressful news. He felt like nothing in the world mattered anymore and in that moment, having shed his tears, hid his heart behind a stone wall of nihilism. He gave Jared a stern look, asking without words what it was that was expected of him. He knew Amy didn’t clean up the mess alone and that there would be a toll required of him.
“Hank, there is a steep price to pay for what we had to do for you all today,” Jared deadpanned. “They’re gonna need ten thousand clones.”
“Not gonna be a problem at all,” Hank was overconfident. “No problem whatsoever,” he reiterated, half to himself, with a fake bravado in his voice. The type he only used when he was in denial and trying to convince himself of something.
He packed another bong hit and before long it was so late they were all feeling the effects of the marijuana and could barely keep their eyes open. Hank and Amy retired to the master bedroom and set Jared up on the couch with some blankets and a thick goose down pillow.
Hank slept easily enough. Amy on the other hand kept tossing and turning all night, thinking of Jared in the living room, on the couch. Thinking of the passionate love making they had done only hours before, right where shy lay with Hank. It was a type of torture that she was not used to feeling. Eventually Hank was snoring deeply and she risked a trip out to see Jared. She walked out of her bedroom and down the back hallway into the kitchen. She turned on the light switch and got a glass of water, making just enough noise to let Jared know someone was awake in case he was not sleeping too deeply.
Amy walked back to her bedroom, this time going through the front of the house, deliberately crossing through the living room. She just wanted to be close with Jared again. To feel his strong arms around her. She felt so safe there, unlike with Hank. When she got close to the couch she could see that he wasn’t there. She turned on a lamp that was on the end table next to the couch and saw he had left them a note, explaining that he had been called into work. She felt her heart sag in her chest a bit, before she picked herself back up with the thought, “‘I’m sleeping with a doctor!”
She curled up on the couch and went back to sleep. Smelling the blanket deeply, inhaling Jared’s musk. Her mind raced through the dream world. She was not one to remember her dreams often, but this one she would never forget. It was one of those nightmares where she was no longer sure if she were awake or asleep, but knew that either way she was dreaming.
She woke up shaking, but her house was not quite the same. It seemed like it was no longer a relic of the nineteenth century but it was fresh and new, yet still of that time. She wandered around in a daze, not recognizing any of the items or furniture occupying the living room. It was as if she had stepped through a time machine.
Eventually she became panicked. Frantically she ran through the house trying to find something that looked even remotely familiar. Everything was a relic of a bygone age. She stopped in the hallway, outside of her room and began to sob. After what she assumed must have been several minutes, although she could not tell if it had been days or hours, Amy heard a loud thud from upstairs and the whole house shook as if hit by a heav
y weight.
As out of place as she felt curiosity got the best of Amy. She was across the hall from the stairwell and all she had to do was open the door and ascend the stairs to find the answer to her curiosity. Still she walked slowly and deliberately. Taking each step with both feet before climbing to the next.
She got to the top of her ascent and found a room unlike any that she knew to be in her house. It looked much like a ballroom and was dominated by a large crystal chandelier. The wallpaper seemed like it was from an old apothecary; the ones in western movies like her grandparents used to watch. The floor was painted white and was dominated by a colorful Persian rug inlaid with intricate patterns of sparrows and branches. A long serving table of shiny oak ran the distance of the entire back wall. Tied off to the wall was a rope that ran alongside the chain which held the chandelier aloft. There was a body on the floor, beneath the chandelier with a broken noose around its neck. It was a man by the look of it, wearing tattered rags evocative of the nineteenth century and a much simpler time.
Amy’s pulse quickened as she realized that the loud noises she heard coming from the upstairs were the sounds of this man’s body falling from the chandelier and hitting the floor. “How long have you been up here?” she thought to herself, although she could feel her lips move.
“He hung himself. He deserved it for what he did to me,” a voice as cold as the grave came from behind Amy and although she was startled it seemed to paralyze her with fear. She felt ice run up her spine.
She spun around to find a ghostly apparition; see through and seething at the edges with an ectoplasm who’s astral essence was not fit for the confines of the physical world. A young woman in a Victorian dress, tattered but obviously well made and expensive, her face a menagerie of features, stood before Amy. Amy could not tell if this young woman was African American, Caucasian, Asian, Native American or a mix of several things. She only knew that the person was no longer alive and was not exactly physically present.
Gravel Switch: the black goat chronicles book 1: a Weird Tale of Extreme Horror Page 7