Reunion at Walnut Cherryville (The Eternal Feud Book 1)

by Lauren Salem

  I walked out of Kenneth’s view and sat down on the toilet as my eyes watered. I didn’t want to let him see that I was upset over Vincent. “What do you do with the bodies after you kill people?”

  “When it comes to dead bodies, we don’t do anything different from anyone else. Once it’s dead, we just throw it in the graveyard and bury it.”

  “Do you mind if I go down and eat breakfast?”

  “No, I guess not. See you later then, wife.”

  “Goodbye for now, husband,” I said before I left the bathroom and closed the door.

  I felt so sick to my stomach that I couldn’t even think about eating. All I felt like doing was throwing up and crying, so I put on a black dress and headed down to the greenhouse to gather some flowers. When I walked into the greenhouse, all the workers stood at attention and called me Mrs. Quinton. I told them to go about their business before I tore a handful of daises off their stems and headed to the graveyard in search of Vincent’s body. He deserved more respect than just having his body thrown in the graveyard so carelessly.

  As I searched the graveyard, I tripped on bones that protruded out from the sand and struggled to read the names scribbled on some of the wooden crosses. I came upon a cross that read “Vincent,” but there was no way to tell if it was my Vincent. Compared to some of the crosses where the ink looked smeared or withered away, this one looked fresh, so I could only guess it was for my Vincent. I sat down in front of his cross and placed the daises on top of the sand by the base.

  “Vincent…I’m sorry for what happened to you…to us. I don’t want you to think that I don’t care about you because I do care for you deeply. I should have listened and stayed with you…I was stupid to think that I could actually change our situation. Seems like I only made it worse. Now you’re dead, and I’m just sad and alone, stuck with Kenneth. I miss you…Now that I’ve thought about it, you’ve helped me more than I ever realized.

  “Sorry about not returning your shirt. I meant to, but you probably saw somehow why I never got the chance to…I don’t know why you were watching me, but I’m glad that you did. I never got the chance to say thank you for the tissues you left me on Thanksgiving. I’m assuming they were from you, since no one else cares enough to do those kinds of things for me. Sometimes it was the little things like that, which helped me get through the day, get through school, and get through life. When you first told me that you watched me, I freaked out, called you a stalker, and was very unappreciative; now I know it was all for the best. You’re a really nice guy, and I was a lucky girl to have you in my life. I just wish that we could have spent more time together.”

  I wiped my tears with both hands and sniffled as I thought about my next words. “I think I might love you…Sorry it was too late, but I didn’t realize what we had until it was gone. When it comes to true love, there are a lot of things I don’t understand. It’s complicated because I’ve never loved anyone in my life, and everything I’ve ever done felt so meaningless and materialistic. I want to change. I want to be more like you, someone who is satisfied with the people in my life rather than the things I have. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but leaving you was my biggest one.

  Chapter 28: Johnny

  When I woke up from hibernation, all I wanted to do was touch something so I could see how it felt in my hands, but there was literally nothing around for me to touch. All I could see was white, blank, nothingness, so I felt my scruffy beard. My skin felt warm and prickly, which was satisfying after feeling numb for so long. I looked down at my arms as I moved my fingers. My hands still worked fine. I peered out at my feet, rotated my ankles around, and shook my legs. Nothing wrong there; I felt fine, but why couldn’t I see anything? Oh, no…I was blind! I felt around the air to find my bearings when suddenly colors started to fade in, and I could see shapes and blurry objects moving around. It was too much for my mind to handle, so I blinked, and everything came into focus. I was on an airplane, sitting in the window seat with my hands on a bald man’s head.

  “Excuse me, sir, do you mind taking your hands off me?” he said.

  My hands withdrew to my sides. “Sorry,” I apologized before looking out the window. It looked like I was on a runway, but the plane wasn’t moving. Did I book myself a flight? Where was I going? Where was I right now? Frustrated and confused, I closed my eyes again, hoping that it would all go away, but instead my mind focused on the elevator jazz playing softly under the passengers’ chatter. When I reopened my eyes, I noticed new things, like the fact that I was wearing a familiar red flannel shirt, wife-beater, and washed-out blue jeans with holes in them. I felt the fabric on my arms, which was light and thin. These clothes felt so comfortable for some reason…It was almost like I had worn them twenty times before. I spotted a magazine titled Underworld stowed away in the leather pouch of the seat in front of me, so I pulled it out and took a look.

  “Welcome to Antarctica,” I read, “a land where about 98 percent of the continent is covered by ice that averages at least one mile (1.6 km) in thickness. We hope that you will enjoy your stay on this peaceful land.” I stopped reading and closed the magazine.

  “May I have everyone’s attention,” a stewardess spoke over the intercom.

  The passengers gradually quieted down to a whisper.

  “There has been another delay.”

  Everyone started complaining at once, and if my ears were correct, I even heard a woman scream and break glass. “I can’t take it anymore! I’ve got to get off the plane!”

  “Please, calm down, and stay in your seats,” the stewardess said. “We should be taking off in thirty minutes.”

  “That’s what you said thirty minutes ago!” a man’s voice shouted from the back of the plane.

  “The stewardesses will be coming around shortly to serve you drinks while you wait. Thank you for your patience.”

  I looked out the window and saw a plane roll down the runway and lift off into the sky. It was a white plane that read “Antarctic Air” in black letters, and it had an image of a penguin on its tail. Isn’t that a contradiction? Penguins don’t fly…how odd.

  “Sir, would you like a drink?” the stewardess asked as she stopped her cart next to my row.

  “Sure, what do you have?” I asked.

  “We have hot tea, coffee, soda, juice…”

  “Do you have Sprite?”

  “Sure.” She took out a Styrofoam cup and dropped an eyeball and a red worm into it before she filled it up with a green bubbly drink. “Here you go, enjoy.”

  I took the drink from her and curiously peered down into the cup. The red worm was actually an earthworm that was still alive and swimming around the eyeball, which was looking at me. The eyeball was too large to be human, so I was assuming it was from a larger mammal.

  How long had I been asleep? Sprite had sure changed since I last drank it. I took a sip. It still had that old lemon-lime crisp flavor. I ate the worm, which was deliciously juicy and salty at the same time…almost as smooth as butter. Wasn’t sure about the eyeball, though. I had been told I ate strange things, but I had never eaten an eyeball before. Well, I guessed there was a first time for everything. I popped the eyeball into my mouth and…ick…spit it right out. That was weird. It was slimy, crunchy, soft, and gushy all at the same time. The inside tasted like pus. Did the world run out of fresh water? What happened to ice cubes?

  “May I have your attention once again, please,” the stewardess announced. “We are cleared for takeoff.”

  The passengers clapped and cheered.

  “Please turn off all cellphones and electronic devices. At this time, I need everyone to return to their seats and fasten their seatbelts like so,” she said as she demonstrated on a practice seatbelt. “Please locate the exits in the front, middle, and back of the plane in case of an emergency. In the event of an emergency, oxygen masks will drop from above…”

  “Excuse me, sir,” I whispered to the bald man next to me. “Where are we going?”

>   “We’re going to the Underworld.”

  “You mean Antarctica?”

  “I haven’t heard anyone call it that for years.”

  A few minutes later, the plane started moving, and I could feel her gaining speed. We took off, flying smoothly past the clouds. During the first hour of the flight, nothing seemed unusual, and everyone was acting normal. I’d never been on a plane before, so this was definitely an experience but unfortunately a bad one—all of a sudden, we hit a patch of turbulence that caused my ass to jump up from my seat for a moment. Now I was convinced enough to put my seatbelt on, since my head almost hit the ceiling. I didn’t know if I liked flying…It felt unnatural.

  Eventually, the patches of turbulence turned into constant turbulence, and the plane shook us up like a salt shaker. The oxygen masks dropped from above, and everyone started to panic as the lights flickered. The sky bled a nasty dark purple color, and I felt like we were flying right into a storm. I could even smell the air getting misty. I put my oxygen mask on right before I noticed a raging twister in the distance.

  We lost electricity at about one hundred feet, and the windows began to develop deep cracks as we approached the storm. At about eighty feet away, the compression was so high that the windows burst into pieces, and everyone in the cabin was crying and screaming for their lives. Somehow, I managed to remain calm and welcome the storm while most people were yelling, “We’re all gonna die.” Watching violent storms was exhilarating to me, and I was always astonished by mother nature’s brilliance and the beauty of her creations. This was a creation that I’d never seen before: a dark hurricane that towered over the clouds and swirled around in the atmosphere…the perfect storm. However, this was not a storm I would have liked to witness from the air but rather on the ground, sitting in a bed of wet grass.

  At sixty feet away, mother nature took out the engine, and we rocketed toward the exterior of the dark hurricane. The plane broke in half upon impact with the twister, and I had nothing left to count. As we spun around in circles, the plane materials disintegrated until there was nothing left.

  Lustful ghosts sobbed in the current with an infinite sadness as they attempted to grab at me and cling to my clothing, but I kicked and pushed them away. I could have sworn I saw the ghost of Laura pass through me. If I listened closely, I could hear her voice echoing…

  “Kenneth, Vincent, Todd, Ron, Randy, Steven…” she listed.

  “Laura!” I yelled.

  “Johnny?” she questioned as she drifted over to me. “No, you’re not on the list.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “I died from AIDS, and I never found true love.”

  “Can you help me?”

  “What you are looking for can be found.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “All one must do is swim down.”

  I looked down the eye of the purple hurricane and saw some people swimming toward the base, which was a sparkling black hole. I followed them, using all the strength I had to swim down the salty current. The tears of so many ghosts left a gross, briny flavor in my mouth. Once I reached the black hole, it sucked me in and spit me out on the other side within seconds.

  As I plummeted from the sky, the darkness changed into a beautiful, sunny day with colorful cotton-candy clouds scattered about. The atmosphere on this side of the black hole smelled like pure sugar. I fell on a pink cloud, and as it slowly lowered itself down to the mountain tops below, the aroma of mint became stronger. I guessed this was my stop. I scooted off the cotton candy, plopped on to a mountain top, and took a nibble…It was an Andes Chocolate Mint mountain! What a relief; just one bite was enough to dilute the ghost tears and give my breath the minty freshness it needed.

  I rolled down the mint-chocolate mountain into an edible land of sweets. Powdered sugar fell from the sky like snow, which melted over the warm cinnamon-glazed nut gravel. Were my eyes playing tricks on me, or did I really see a town made out of sweets? I got up, brushed the nuts off my jeans, and walked into town. The houses here were constructed of graham crackers and were decorated with icing and colorful candies. Everyone had candy corn lawns protected by vanilla wafer fences. As soon as I stepped onto the Oreo crust street, a giant human basketball came rolling quickly toward me, screaming, “Watch out!”

  I jumped back, tripped backward, crushing a vanilla wafer fence, and landed on the candy corns. That voice sounded familiar. “Collins?”

  The basketball stopped and turned to face me before rolling over to where I was. “Johnny?”

  “I am so confused…Where am I, and…what happened to you?”

  Collins had his eyes on someone’s Reese’s Pieces chimney, and I could tell he was hardly paying attention to me. Before I could finish my question, he rolled over the lawn and bit the chimney off the roof. Midway through chewing it, he began to cry. “I can’t taste it,” Collins sobbed furiously. “Everything here looks so tempting, and I remember that I like Reese’s Pieces, but when I eat, I taste nothing!” Collins’s diameter grew an inch instantly. “Can you taste it for me and tell me what it’s like again? If you haven’t lost your sense of taste yet, could you let me watch you eat it?”

  “Hey, asshole, you bit a hole in my house!” a giant blueberry yelled.

  “I’m sorry…It just looked so delicious,” Collins cried.

  “You have to stop this,” I said. “Remember what Veronica taught you?”

  “It’s too hard, Johnny; I have no self-control.”

  “Yes, you do! Remember when we were in Walnut Cherryville, how every time you ate too many sweets for breakfast, you’d fall asleep during work? Veronica taught you how to portion out your meals so you only ate what you needed to use for energy. I know you can do it…I saw you do it.”

  “You’re right…All this eating made me turn into a basketball, and now I can’t even play basketball.”

  “What’s going on? Can you tell me where we are?”

  “You’re looking for something.”

  “That’s what Laura said, or the ghost above, actually, but I don’t understand what you guys are talking about.”

  “Follow the champagne river; it will get you to your destination a lot quicker,” Collins replied before he rolled away.

  Across the Oreo crumble street, I saw a raft made from cinnamon sticks, floating in the champagne river and attached to a Twizzler tether. Before crossing the street, I looked both ways to make sure no more unusually round people were charging toward me. Once I got on the raft, I detached the tether and let the slow river take me away from sweet town.

  The river was calm to start but quickly became deadly. The champagne rapids were so rough that I could barely hold on to the raft when the river pushed down small rocky slopes. My fingers got nicked by rocks and bled, but despite the pain, I continued to hold on. I thought the small slopes were bad, but the worst was yet to come. I floated on top of a champagne fall the size of Niagara Falls, which was about to throw me off the cliff. Delaying my inevitable death, I attempted to paddle against the current with my hands and watched as the raft inched closer to the edge. Why the fuck would Collins tell me to do this? This was when I realized that the quickest way to a destination wasn’t always the best way…ahhh! I fell down the champagne falls into the deep champagne pool below, which caused the raft to split apart.

  Thankfully, I was still alive, which was strange because most people would have died from a fall like that. I survived it without a scratch, and my skin tingled like I just belly flopped into the lake. The cinnamon sticks were quickly floating away from me, so I only managed to grab one and hold it beneath my body. I could swim, but who knew how long I’d be swimming for, so I had better save my energy.

  As the current pushed me away from the falls, I approached a shiny metal cave. The metal on the outside of the cave looked beaten up to mimic the texture of natural rocks, but really it was just mocking nature. The dark cave was lit up by light that reflected off diamond stalagmites, and I
saw two rows of robots on either side of the river, mining the cave with pickaxes.

  The robots looked like humans in the sense that they had two arms, two legs, hands, feet, and a head with a human face drawn on it like a cartoon character. Unlike humans, their skin was silver, and their body shape was more square rather than round. Each robot worked within five feet of each other, mining USB drives, with a ball and chain tied around their right foot. The chain was only long enough to allow the robots to reach their mining carts, which were half-full of USB drives. I floated past a robot with a familiar voice, so I swam onto land and pulled the cinnamon stick up to shore.

  “The answer to what’s the point of life,” Vincent sighed, “and I can’t read it.” He threw the USB drive into the mining cart and continued hitting the metal wall with his pickaxe.

  “Vincent, is that you?” I asked.

  He stopped mining and turned around. “Johnny, I was expecting you,” he said, his eyes lighting up as he spoke. Like the human Vincent I knew, the robot Vincent had black eyeliner drawn around his eyes, black paint for hair, and an eternal frown face.

  “Do you know what I’m looking for?”

  Vincent dug through his cart of USBs and pulled one out. “The answer to what you are looking for can be found on this,” he said handing it to me. “I would read it for you, but unfortunately, my programing doesn’t allow me to reach my port.”

  “Why not?”

  “If I could reach my port, I’d be the smartest computer in the world. All the answers to life’s questions can be found on those USB drives, and all you have to do is insert them into my port.”

  “Where’s your port?”

  With his hands leaning against the rocky wall, Vincent bent over and revealed his port, which looked like a rectangular-shaped asshole.