The Complete Bleaker Trilogy Box-set

by Jeremy Peterson

  The Bleaker Books

  The complete saga

  Jeremy Peterson

  Copyright © 2017 by Jeremy Peterson and Back Road Books

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover layout and design by © David Phee

  www.southmanchesterartdesign.com

  This edition published 2017 by Back Road Books

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher. The author GREATLY appreciates your support and, if possible, please consider leaving a review wherever you purchased the book. Go to www.thebackroadbooks.com to join the BRB mailing list for updates and the occasional free book.

  Contents

  Book One

  Mr. Bleaker

  Part One

  Part Two

  Part Three

  Book Two

  The Perfect Life

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  AFTERWARD

  Book Three

  Chaplin Hills:

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Book On

  e

  Mr. Bleaker

  Part One

  1988

  1

  Mr. Bleaker lived in my closet and haunted every dark corner of our house. I think it traveled through the heater vents, because I could hear its razor sharp claws ticking away on those thin sheets of tin. Most nights I could smell its sour, dead stench as I lay in bed. I know the boogeyman isn’t very original, but as a child, that doesn’t matter much does it? To a kid, fear comes as natural as breathing. But fear can be good. Fear can keep us safe…and maybe even keep us alive.

  The good news is, when we grow up, our fears disappear. They vanish like that bunny in the magic hat, never to trouble us again. Only that’s a lie, and I suspect you know that. Our fears don’t go away when we grow old, they simply adapt. Eventually days become years, and somewhere along the way, our fear of the boogeyman in the closet becomes a fear of living the same miserable lives as our parents; broke, unimaginative, and after we’re dead, completely forgettable.

  Do you remember what scared you when you were little? I’ll bet you do, and I’ll bet at some point—those you looked up to: your parents or an older sibling—told you to face those fears.

  Suck it up and rise above it, they said, or be crushed under the incredible weight.

  Some of you, no doubt, succeeded and flourished, while countless others crumbled. You may notice the latter (though probably not) at your school or work with their heads down and their mouths shut. They are the faceless and downtrodden who sleepwalk through life, practically invisible to the rest of the world. What do they see when they look upon the other half, the lucky ones that rose up and conquered their demons. Can they see the terrified little kid that hides behind the mask of every successful, confident adult? Or is that little kid gone, dead and buried under years of hard work, mortgage payments and car loans?

  What would I see if I looked into your eyes? Would you dare look into mine? I am not a good man nor am I an evil one. I’m just a man, and this is my story.

  2

  My name is Peter Taylor and I was born in Golden, Colorado. My mother moved us away when I was nine, so I don’t remember much about it. What I remember most about Colorado—besides living each day in the shadow of the North and South Table mountains, and my father taking me hiking on the endless stretch of trail behind our house—is that it was where my father disappeared.

  He worked for a company that built houses, the big gaudy ones that doctors, lawyers and pro athletes would request. Their specialty was building in the mountains, deep into the wilderness where it became too difficult to get in trucks and supplies for the average construction company. That part of the process he didn’t particularly enjoy, but the pay was good and mom always said dad loved a good challenge, which, she would quip, is why he married her.

  Sometimes, when the long daily commute began to wear him down, he would stay on site and sleep in one of the worksite campers. Mom would occasionally complain about the long hours and the lonely nights—and the hard work definitely took its toll on dad’s body—but he loved the outdoors and hard work was the only thing he knew. It was his calling.

  In the fall of 1988, dad left for work and never came home. He was two months into the project, which was about an hour into the mountains and in the middle of nowhere. The house was for a TV show producer, whose name, like all those shitty sitcoms he produced, I have forgotten. When the rest of the crew arrived at the site the next morning, they knocked on dad’s camper door but didn’t get an answer. They told the police later that they thought the boss might just be sleeping in, or possibly even sleeping off a hangover, although dad had never been much of a drinker (or so I was told). When the first coffee break rolled around and dad still hadn’t joined them, one of the crew, the new guy, I believe his name was Julio, finally searched the camper only to find it empty. They called mom and she called the police. And that was that, we never heard from him again. I don’t even remember what I said to him the last time I saw him. I hope it was nice.

  There were search parties, helicopters, dogs—but he was gone.

  The popular assumption was that he fell in a creek and simply washed away. That’s what the authorities and the search parties thought, and although she never said so, I believe that’s what mom thought as well. I had another theory.

  3

  A month earlier, my dad took me on a hike on one of the trails behind our house. Mom would come sometimes, but usually it was just dad and I. It was our thing. Whenever I saw something cool, I would bug him about going off the trail to get a better look but he would always refuse. It was dangerous, he would say. So we stuck to the trail. We always stuck to the trail. Most of these hikes would last no more than an hour or so and this day was no different. As a matter of fact, circumstances would cut that last hike short.

  Dad heard it first. Sixty yards off the trail, a grizzly bear stood rummaging in the tall grass under a copse of pine trees. Dad froze and then grabbed my shoulder painfully. He pulled me behind him but otherwise stood motionless. A moment later, another bear came bounding up to the first. It was a cub and it approached its mother emphatically. At this point, neither bear had seen us and we continued to stand still, dad holding me tight, placing himself between the cub, its mama and me.

  “Stay calm, buddy,” dad whispered, “and don’t make a sound.”

  I didn’t so much as breathe.

  With the sun finally beginning to set at our backs, the cub looked
in our direction. It took two steps forward and then rose up on its hind legs, not in an aggressive move I believe, but most likely to get a better view of the two strangers on the trail. At this point, knowing we would no longer be able to slink away unseen, dad began yelling at the bears.

  “Hey! Get the hell outa here!” he screamed. “Go on! Get outa here!” His harsh, angry voice startled me, and although I remembered dad telling me you were supposed to use loud noises to ward off bears, it seemed so antagonistic.

  Dad’s voice did scare the cub and it began to run, but instead of running away from us, it ran towards the trail, at a clearing that dad and I would have reached in a moment or two had we kept going. The mama bear began following her cub, her head shifting from us to her baby as she picked up speed. After about twenty yards, she veered towards us and charged. My heart stopped and a sharp, stabbing pain shot through my chest and behind my eyes. The rest of my body went numb as the bear devoured the distance between us as fast as it threatened to devour us. Dad, still screaming obscenities, scrambled for the bear spray that hung from his belt. He pulled the safety pin from the can and I watched it fall to the trail as if in slow motion. I focused on the glint of steel in the dirt as the bear charged at us. Its footsteps sounded like thunder and I could hear its heavy breathing as it ran.

  Dad continued screaming, but the words had morphed into a desperate battle cry and somewhere along the line, I began screaming as well. Still standing behind my dad, with my face pressed into his sweaty t-shirt, I stole a glance at the bear as it charged. Each giant footfall sounded like cannon fire. I was certain she was going to trample us but instead, it abruptly stopped its charge a mere five feet away. Time seemed to freeze as the creature stood on its hind legs and roared, asserting herself as the true king of this jungle. Dad stood tall but I could feel him shaking, and I think it was at this time that I pissed my pants. He raised the can of spray and shot a stream directly into the bears face. It looked like a good shot but she was so tall I couldn’t be sure. It dropped back down to all fours and closed the gap slowly, menacingly, now only three feet from us. Its eyes were surprisingly small and dark; the only light in them was the reflection of my terrified face. Somewhere underneath the fear, I could smell Mr. Bleaker.

  Dad, with no air left in his lungs to scream, aimed the spray can at the bear’s eyes and scored a direct hit. It shook its head, more annoyed than hurt and then burst forward. At the last second, she veered past us, its shoulder brushing dad and knocking him into me. I buried my face into dad’s shirt and listened to the bear run away.

  We stood on the trail for a few minutes, dad shushing me and telling me everything would be okay, but I didn’t believe him. I could only stand there, tears and snot streaming down my face and urine in my shoes. I wasn’t okay and I wouldn’t be ok in a long time, if ever. He carried me home and that was the last hike for me. They closed the trail for a couple weeks but never found the bear or her cub.

  4

  My normal life, if I ever had one, ended that day. The person I was supposed to be died and, in its place, the new broken me was born. It is because of this altered version of me that you are reading this story right now. Mr. Bleaker suddenly had a face and whenever I closed my eyes, I saw it’s snarling, snapping mouth. When I turned my back, I felt its breath on my neck and heard its footsteps in my ear. Day and night, she haunted me. Mr. Bleaker suddenly had a face. It was hungry and it was angry. We denied it on the trail but it was coming for me, and I knew it would have me.

  Every night the stack of clothes in the corner of my room would come alive and growl my name. Mr. Bleaker would keep it low, usually no more than a hiss so mom and dad wouldn’t hear. It was clever. If I managed to fall asleep, the sound of the closet door creaking open would wake me, and the smell of rotten meat and feces would fill the room. Every damn night I would shut that closet door tight but it didn’t matter. I would wake up screaming for my daddy with wet sheets and terror on my face. Both mom and dad would come running in to comfort me, although each time with less urgency and something else lying just under their sympathy. The lights would snap on and the closet door would snap shut. As I said, the bastard was clever.

  One early morning after a particularly terrible dream, I remember dad sitting on the edge of my bed. Still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he told me about the light.

  Listen son, when you’re afraid and you feel alone in the darkness, just close your eyes. Because inside, he tapped my chest, inside all of us is a light. This light shines incredibly bright and when you find it, nothing can hurt you. Nothing at all.

  Despite dad’s pep talk, my fear of the dark entered near mythic status. Simply leaving our house became a nightmare and a true test of my parents’ patience. I grew terrified to let dad out of my sight. If I were with him, I would have to be touching him. I would sit on his lap when we watched TV or lay on his feet as he sat on the couch. When we did leave the house, I would grip daddy’s hand so tight he would tell me I was crushing him and joke about me working out too much. Then, one month later, my dad was gone, vanished from his job site.

  Mr. Bleaker had gotten him; my traumatized kid’s mind insisted on it. The beast had gotten my daddy—my protector—and I would be next. This was obvious to me but nobody listened. Mom did her best to comfort me and the authorities said there were no signs of a bear attack near the job site. Bear sightings are common in the mountains of course, but everyone insisted that bear attacks were rare. They were rare but they weren’t unheard of. This much I knew.

  For two weeks, they searched for him. Volunteers on foot, search-and-rescue teams, helicopters, the whole nine. People I didn’t even know brought over food nearly every night, and would then find themselves stuck, unsure of what to say or do, eventually awkwardly excusing themselves back to their lives where their husbands and fathers were home safe, as it should be. Hell—even Aunt Nancy, who had never liked dad for some reason—stopped by to help out. In the end, we never found him. He’s still out there somewhere.

  You are probably asking yourself, did dad stay at the campsite to get away from me—to get a break from my neurosis? I don’t know. Probably. Could you blame him?

  5

  Two years later, we packed our bags and left Colorado. I guess that’s how long you wait for a missing spouse to return from the dead before you move on. Mom and I moved to a little town in Nebraska called Chaplin Hills where we spent most of dad’s insurance money on a shitty little cafe and an even shittier little house. Our new home sat on a hill on the farthest northeast edge of town. It was a small, brick, cookie-cutter home that looked like your basic military housing. One story, no basement or second floor, but the yard was huge and we only had one neighbor. That was Mr. Stounager, an angry old man suffering from Alzheimer’s. He hated me but as far as I could tell, he hated everyone.

  Mom renamed our new restaurant, formerly known as Grandma’s Café, to…Mom’s Cafe. Creative, right? The locals tested us for a while, avoiding the outsiders and their little café, but there weren’t very many options in Chaplin Hills, not even a single fast food joint back then, so eventually they gave in and gave us a shot. Mom made a go of it for a while, but she couldn’t stop the bleeding. Each month, the café would fall a little deeper into the red, and in four short years, dad’s insurance money was gone.

  We got lucky and mom sold the restaurant, got a secretary job at the high school, and sold milkshakes and cherry cokes at the ice cream shop that would open up on Main Street every summer. The restaurant is still open today but I think it’s on its fourth owner since we sold. I wonder who will be the fifth.

  Mom and I got by. Our first year in Nebraska, mom met Cliff, who was a diesel mechanic down at Stephen’s Truck Repair. They started dating and although he never officially moved in, he stayed with us most of that first summer. I thought he was an asshole who smelled like diesel fuel and barbeque sauce but apparently, mom didn’t agree. I know mom was lonely and Cliff seemed to be nice to her, but he
was such a downgrade from my father in every way. That’s not fair. and I know that, but dad stared down a grizzly bear for me. Sorry, Cliff.

  To the north of our house and right out my bedroom window, was the Little Blue Creek. It was little but I don’t remember it ever being blue. In fact, most of the time it was as dry as a popcorn fart. Coincidently, it didn’t smell very good either.

  Right out our front door and across the dirt road that lead to our house, was a patch of forest. I’m not sure forest was the correct term, considering it was only four blocks square, but I believe it to be concrete proof that my mom just didn’t get it. I mean, every night of the week for two years a beast that came from the wilderness tormented me and mom bought a house with an eighty-year-old man suffering Alzheimer’s at our back, a creek surrounded in thick brush to our north and a forest just outside our front door. I pissed my bed every night and talked to myself like I had Alzheimer’s and this is the house she buys? Ridiculous, right?

  The creek, buoyed from the Platte River’s runoff, formed the town’s north border. Oak and spindly spruce trees lined both sides of the creek, marking its path with a hodgepodge of wild bushes mixed in. The city tried to trim out the bushes from time to time but it was clearly not a priority. The creek cut through the tiny forest then veered north out of town towards the town cemetery. So, at least there was that, I couldn’t see the cemetery from my living room window because the forest, otherwise known as the home of my worst nightmare, blocked it from view.

  I remember sitting on the sidewalk in our front yard, staring at the forest, but staying close enough to the front door so I could retreat inside quickly if anything horrible came crawling out of that wooded, dark nightmare. The downside to staying so close to the house was I had to listen to mom defending me to her new boyfriend.