River of the Damned

by Aiden James

  “The goddess—that Pele?” asked Ishi, immediately horrified.

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “So, it’s a real idol, and not an imitation version,” I said, exchanging glances with Ishi, whose unease was growing worse by the second.

  “If you mean does the idol date back to pre-colonial times, or older?… Yes,” Agent Spence confirmed, chuckling again as his gaze settled on Ishi. “But you don’t really believe in all the mumbo-jumbo bullshit about Pele, do you?”

  Ishi looked at me before answering, and maybe I should’ve cautioned him to just let it go… but I didn’t. Maybe I needed a little more fun—this time at my little buddy’s expense. Maybe I wanted to see what our big boss believed…. Or, maybe after everything Ishi and I had gone through together, I wasn’t quite ready to dismiss the legends of a temperamental goddess as fable. Especially when given my recent luck with the ladies—mortal and otherwise.

  “When we’re out on our own this time, do you think you can get us a cell phone to use?” I said, deciding to divert us from a debate about Pele’s reality. Besides, after learning of Mayta’s hotline to Agent Jacobs, I wanted one too. “Better yet, how about getting us a couple of the new satellite versions?”

  “Well… having those privileges is what following protocol will do for you,” Spence replied, seemingly ready to move on to the details of our next assignment. “Taking another ill-advised side trip in commando fashion will leave you missing more than just your skivvies. Comprende?”

  Okay… so we couldn’t do anymore ‘favor missions’ for Agent Jacobs, or anyone else. Ishi and I nodded.

  “Good… I will see that you both have the latest communications gear,” he said. “Now for the most important details. You guys will be leaving for Hilo tomorrow morning, and will be based in a resort condo in Kona—not far from the volcano and the jungle you’ll be searching. One of our agents stationed in the islands will meet you, and she will help you guys get acclimated to the area….”

  She? I have to admit to being intrigued. Even more so by the lovely name that followed…. Anouhea Kahanamoku.

  Dangerous drug lord brothers and a legendary goddess with a far-reaching curse produced the spice to pique my curiosity… but a living gal with an alluring moniker added something more. An ingredient to seal the deal… or ensure disaster?

  Only one way to know for sure, and like Ishi and me, you’ll have to wait to find out how it all shakes down.

  Until next time,

  Nick

  The End

  Available now:

  The Witches Of Denmark

  (Please read on for a sample)

  Chapter One

  The day we left Chicago was the day I became homeless.

  Might as well have been sentenced as a vagabond.

  Chicago had been my home during my entire life up until this past spring. But, as the school year ended, my family decided it was time to move on. So, we left our home in Wheaton, a quiet suburb of Chicago, to find someplace new. Someplace even less exciting than Wheaton, believe it or not. Someplace… down south?

  Are you frigging kidding me?!

  Maybe if it had been Nashville or Atlanta, or even Louisville, I could’ve coped with the move in terms of some comparability to what I’d lost. But Dad and Mom insisted on moving to some place far off the beaten path. Deep in the sticks. A place where they could chill out, lay low, and where my sister and I could experience a “different pace of life.”

  Seriously, they said that.

  Such a load of crap would be more apropos for my grandparents, who would soon join us in this insane venture below the Mason-Dixon Line….

  It was a move founded in desperation. To get away from the past. Our unfortunate, and deeply regrettable, past.

  But you know what they say about trying to run away from one’s problems, right?

  Yeah, well, there will be more about that in the coming pages of whatever this thing should be called. A diary or a journal? A book, perhaps? I like the sound of ‘journal’ best, since I can write as much or as little as I please, and be as detailed as I want or don’t want to be…. So, that’s what I’ll call it. My journal about the good, the bad, and the absolutely absurd shit that has visited me and my family in a place called Denmark, Tennessee. You should picture the twang to go with that, Chicago deep-dish style.

  My name is Sebastian. Sebastian Radu, and my family and close friends call me ‘Bas’. I come from a proud Romanian family that has resided in the United States since 1801. We were New Yorkers in those days, or immigrants who pretended to be New Yorkers, doing their best to fit in with every other European embracing what was, at that time, a land of incredible opportunity. Maybe it’s a little corny. It certainly was easier to make a life and name for oneself back then.

  But if you want a history lesson, my parents and grandparents are the ones to ask about that. As for Alisia, my younger sister, and me, we’ve always preferred to focus more on the present. We have our reasons, as you will soon learn.

  We left the day after my graduation. May 22nd. My parents wanted to make this sort of a farewell/family vacation/graduation road trip. But all I wanted to do was get to wherever we were going, so I could begin my internment without the fanfare.

  “Hey, at least you don’t have to go to school anymore,” Alisia told me, as we finished loading up the Escalade with the last of our stuff deemed too sacred to transport in the moving van that had already departed for Tennessee. “I’ve still got, like, forever before I graduate.”

  I almost felt sorry for her. But schooling for a Radu had never been an easy, or traditional, thing.

  “Let’s go kids!”

  Dad and Mom stood by the SUV. They gazed at our old cape cod longingly, maybe enduring a moment of nostalgia while looking back on the deserted house. Our home, now abandoned and left to die. But despite my sister and I remaining glum after piling into the back seat, once we merged onto Highway 41 and headed south to Dixie, our parents seemed relieved. Running from a death threat can even bring a level of euphoria, I’m told. But we had never run from our troubles before.

  In the meantime, while they seemed to exhale all their fears and worries from decades of uncertainty, I felt like heavy iron bonds and chains had been applied to my wrists and ankles. Even around my neck. Like a free man returned to the old south as a fugitive runaway. It didn’t seem to be as bad for Alisia, though she was far from experiencing the falling confetti and balloons going on in the front seat.

  Dad said the trip would take less than nine hours to reach our destination—and less than eight if we drove straight through without stopping for lunch and/or dinner. But the drive seemed longer. Much longer. I ignored most of the scenery my mother pointed out, which honestly didn’t get interesting until we neared the Kentucky border. The hills got bigger and were covered with trees for miles on end. It inspired a nasal rendition of “Dueling Banjos” from the movie Deliverance, bringing an abrupt end to Mom’s efforts as our tour guide. But, hell, at least I got a giggle from my sis.

  “Quit acting like an insolent ass.” My father pulled me aside, after we stopped for a bite in Murray, Kentucky. “You’re making this much harder than it needs to be, son.”

  He regarded me wearily, and annoyance fueled his hazel irises to a brighter shade. Maybe the exodus south wasn’t easy on him either. Maybe he saw a younger version of himself, when he and Mom were forced to leave New York with my grandparents long ago. His face was the same one passed down for generations, or so I’ve been told, with only slight alterations. Nearly all of the Radu males in our clan have sleek pilgrim noses, thick dark hair, and some variation of green eyes—hazel or emerald.

  My mother’s blue eyes and blonde hair have tainted that pattern slightly; giving Alisia blonde hair and both of us blue eyes. My sister’s features are softer than what Mom calls the ‘rugged Romanian comeliness of the Radu’. But everyone else, aside from Mom and Grandma, carries our traditional family traits.
/>   I see myself as sort of a Kerouac beatnik figure, taller than most of my clan at six-foot four with a lanky build, shoulder length hair and often hiding my eyes behind a pair of dark Ray-Bans. Since my father sees it as supremely disrespectful to wear sunglasses when being chastised by him, I pulled them down until he finished.

  “I’m not happy about the move, Dad,” I said. “Not at all.”

  He regarded me a moment longer and sighed.

  “If not for me, can you tone it down for your mother?” He grasped my shoulder, and though it was done affectionately, the strength of his grip prevailed most. An effort to coerce a truce? “It will make the transition easier.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “See that you do.”

  So I tried. It was easy enough during dinner, since my raging hunger being satisfied brought a moment of contentment. I fought to hold on to that feeling as we resumed our trip south. After Murray, we soon reached a very small town called Hazel, Kentucky, where my mother and sister remarked favorably about the prospects of antiquing. Both sides of the road were lined with stores specializing in the merchandise of yesteryear. In fact, the stores seemed to be all that existed of Hazel, other than a restaurant or two, and a filling station.

  Dad seemed pretty intrigued about returning to the little antique-hoarding town, too. As for me, I had never cared much for trinkets from bygone eras. Only the bigger items, like the stately and ostentatious furniture of the Victorian age. Something I grew up with.

  “Can we come here again, like, maybe tomorrow?” Alisia asked, causing me to whip my head in her direction. She whispered, “Sorry!” when I eyed her accusingly. This wasn’t the agreed upon plan between us, and she was making things too easy on our parents.

  “Sure, sweetie,” said Mom, sounding quite pleased to have one kid wavering toward the dark side. “I’d love that.”

  I had officially been betrayed. This royally sucks!

  Left to continue my protest alone, I scarcely noticed we had crossed the Tennessee border, less than a minute beyond Hazel. After moving through another small town on the Tennessee side, we reached the outskirts of Denmark.

  “I know how you both detest long road trips,” Dad said. “But, at least you got to see the same scenery your mom and I enjoyed when we came down here to close on the house last week. Southern Kentucky and Tennessee are certainly as beautiful as advertised.”

  “We didn’t get to see Kentucky Lake, despite your promise, Dad,” I said, determined to keep the conversation objective. “An aerial view would’ve been better for that. Much better, in fact.”

  Another glint of annoyance flashed in his eyes as he regarded me through the rearview mirror. Surely he knew what I was getting at. He looked away to view the road ahead and to exchange a loving glance with Mom, whose irritation I could almost feel the warmth from, radiating toward me through the back of her seat. Though I couldn’t see her expression, I could clearly picture it. The fire in Dad’s eyes was usually nothing compared to her sapphire flames, whenever she’s had enough of either Alisia’s or my sassiness.

  Alisia grinned at me, mouthing “Way to go!”

  “It’s located to the east of us, son,” Mom advised, releasing a low sigh that extinguished much of her ire. “But what you’re getting at, we discussed thoroughly last night. Remember? We can no longer afford to be frequent flyers. It’s important to fit in with the people of Denmark as much as possible. And, once we get settled, your father and I have discussed purchasing a nice boat for the lake. There is much to do there in the way of fun, from what our real estate agent told us. The lake is enormous.”

  “The largest manmade lake in North America and the second largest in the world.” Dad sounded impressed. “The fishing is supposed to be comparable, if not better, than Lake Michigan.”

  “Oh, really?”

  Not that I expected him to expound further, since we had reached Denmark’s city limits. At least I assumed so, judging from the huge frog smiling at us from the side of the road. A frog wearing a cowboy hat, no less. That, and a big neon “Welcome to Denmark” above the frog sign.

  “Yes, it’s true, Bas,” said Dad, resuming our conversation. “As you can see, we’re here.”

  At first, ‘here’ looked like any other small town we had seen since reaching southern Illinois. A few salvage yards and building supply companies, an auto repair shop, and a drive thru ATM for the First Bank of Denmark. Next came a bar-b-que pit, a run down Mexican restaurant, and at least five beauty shops lining both sides of the road—three of them situated between a Farm Bureau insurance agent, Edward Jones Investments, and the offices of the local Denmark Gazette.

  “Well, at least the square looks pretty cool,” said Alisia, drifting further from our alliance as we came upon Denmark’s version of downtown. The place that Dad claimed they held the ‘World’s Biggest Frog Leg Fry’ every spring. Thank God April’s already behind us! “Hey, Mom, look—there’s a fashion boutique!”

  She pointed to a quaint shop sitting next to what I assumed was the town’s lone Chinese restaurant, “The Sanchuan Dragon”. The restaurant was framed in red lattice with a gold-leafed dragon straight out of San Fran’s China Town.

  “Much of the architecture has been restored to what the square looked like shortly after the Civil War ended,” Dad told me, when Mom joined Alisia’s fixation with the discovery of new places to explore and shop. “The courthouse sitting in the middle is the oldest building to survive a pre-Civil War fire, and was expanded to its current size during the last railroad boom around 1890….”

  Admittedly, he lost me after that. My attention, and soon my sister’s, was drawn to an old white guy making a political statement along the walkway in front of the courthouse.

  “This place is loaded with history… interesting history at that,” said Dad. It appeared he noticed my fixation with the old man parading back and forth like a proud peacock.

  “We had plenty of interesting history back home,” I told him, glumly.

  “This might be home for awhile, son,” he advised, this time not bothering to look at me in the rearview mirror. Instead, he appeared anxious for the light to change and for the slowpoke in front of us to get out of the way, so my father could turn right onto a narrow two lane street taking us away from the blip of downtown. “You should try to make the best of it.”

  He’s really in a hurry to get someplace…. The new house?

  “Yeah, well we’ll have to see about that,” I said, pleased when my comment drew a glance from him.

  “Give it time…. Who knows? You might like it here,” said Mom, craning her neck toward me. “And, if you don’t, well, you might get your wish for us to try something else out west. Just depends.”

  “On what?” Alisia stifled a laugh. “On the guy over there wearing the sandwich board that says ‘White Rights’?”

  She pointed to the old white guy who had stopped to shout at passing motorists, more like an angry rooster now. It seemed that everyone within striking distance either ignored him or got out of his way. Even the blacks ignored him, as if they had seen his tired routine for so long his racial hatred had become invisible.

  “Oh,” said our father, pausing to watch the man for a moment, before turning onto the road that would take us away from the spectacle. “I guess not everyone has moved past Jim Crow.”

  “No, not everyone…. But, we knew things would be a little different than up north,” said Mom. “And the people we met while purchasing the house were quite nice. I liked their smiles.”

  I couldn’t help snickering. “Are you serious? You decided to move us out of the hometown we grew up in because you liked these people’s smiles?”

  A middle-aged African-American man crossed the road ahead of us, jaywalking. Dad politely waited for him to cross, and the man shuffled slowly, delivering a hard stare at the Escalade and its passengers.

  “Good thing that guy’s not a wand carrier, huh?”

  “Yes, Bas, it is indee
d fortunate,” Dad replied, glancing in the mirror again. He let out a slight chuckle. “Actually, that guy’s expression is similar to your typical Chicagoan, if you think about it. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of others like him down here, too…. But, as for the comment to your mom, what have you got against warm and friendly people?”

  “Nothing. Just thought it was funny, is all.”

  We were on the way down Woodard Street, which kind of reminded me of parts of Wheaton and other suburbs like Elmhurst. Lots of ‘four square’ and ‘craftsman’ homes on either side. Although, just like in many Chicago neighborhoods, one could easily detect an imaginary line that separated the ‘haves’ on the one side of the street from the less-fortunate residents on the other. In this case, the homes on the south side were in much worse shape than those on the north side of Woodard.

  “We met a couple of families in the neighborhood who moved here from Wisconsin, to get away from the cold. They seemed nice, too,” said Mom.

  “Anyway, why don’t you kids check out the homes up this way?” Dad had just turned right, onto a narrower street called Chaffin’s Bend. “You might see a thing or two that’ll catch your eye.”

  Although signs remained of a nearby ‘hood’ lurking just a few blocks away, the trip up to the top of what Dad called ‘Depot Hill’ was more like a trip through deeper layers of Denmark’s storied history. Of course, none of us fully understood the area’s significance to the city at the time, other than the fact we came upon several grand Victorian homes that mom called ‘painted ladies’ based on pink, purple, and green color schemes from the post-Civil War reconstruction period.

  It wasn’t enough to elicit ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ as our parents might’ve hoped for, since these weren’t homes to rival the massive opulence of Chico Town’s Highland Park area. But, I’ll admit these elaborate 1880s homes stood out sharply compared to the more modest homes we had seen. As I alluded to earlier, I’ve always been drawn to Victorian architecture, either here or in England.