The General Store: Where Innocence Goes to Die

by A. L. Moore

  The General Store

  A. L. Moore

  Copyright 2019 A.L. Moore

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, event, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Judy Bullard, Custom E-Book Covers

  For Daddy

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 - Kids

  Chapter 2 - Baby Steps

  Chapter 3 - Introductions

  Chapter 4 - Taken

  Chapter 5 - Sex and Other Stuff

  Chapter 6 - Silenced

  Chapter 7 - Inside

  Chapter 8 - Contradictions

  Chapter 9 - Steady

  Chapter 10 - Payment

  Chapter 11 - Letting Go

  Chapter 12 - Insurance

  Chapter 13 - Captive

  Chapter 14 - Getting Out

  Chapter 15 - Lies

  Chapter 16 -Sharing

  Chapter 17 -Truth

  Chapter 18 - Busted

  Chapter 19 - Outside

  About the Author

  Chapter 1. Kids

  I could practically feel summer slipping through my fingers. One day in and I was already bored senseless. I flicked Mason in the back of the head before making my way across the living room. Screams from mutant zombies meeting their demise filled the air. Mason batted my hand away without looking up from the television. The lyrics to an old blues song his mom always listened to ran through my mind. The thrill was most definitely gone. I hummed the catchy tune as I peered outside. My forehead burned against the glass door. It felt like a furnace outside at ninety-six degrees. The hazy streets were empty. No kids riding bikes or playing as I would’ve been doing ten years ago. No, they were inside glued to electronics like the nimrods in my house.

  “Justice!” Mason complained when I moved from the door, letting sunlight flood the dark room. “Dang it! You made me lose.”

  “I’m not the reason you’re a loser, Mason,” I smirked, blocking the sun from the television long enough for my little brother Josh to start the game back before darting away again.

  “Shut the door,” Josh and Mason whined in unison.

  They were like freaking vampires. I was stuck in the house of the living dead. I should’ve gone with my best friend Anna.

  The sun was probably hotter where she was, but knowing Anna, she welcomed its blistering heat. I certainly would’ve if I’d been in her sand sprinkled sandals. The sun was different at the beach, like snow on the mountains. It was supposed to be there, and life was better because of it. Unlike home, where its sole responsibility was to mock my sad existence while everyone else in the world frolicked to exotic vacation destinations. Anna practically lived at the beach. She had already posted a picture in all her bikini- clad glory, standing next to a perfect, white-capping ocean. She could’ve been the poster child for what I was missing out on. Ugh! Her tan would be darker than mine by the time she got back. I should’ve gone. Anna had practically begged me to join her, but I hadn’t wanted to leave my boyfriend of the past three years, Mason, for a whole week. As I watched him high-five Josh in front of the big screen, I couldn’t imagine why. I was an idiot.

  At least Joshua was in Heaven. The green and gold rubber bands on his braces had been on full display all afternoon. All of his friends thought he was cool because he hung out with Mason.

  I grabbed the quilt from the back of Dad’s leather chair and pushed through the door. The heat was even more insufferable on the porch. I could already feel my hair frizzing. Not that it mattered. Mason hadn’t so much as batted an eye when I’d walked past him. He was too busy trying to save the world from mutant zombies to notice me in a bikini. I made my way across the freshly cut grass, careful not to disturb the honeybees on the daffodils, and stretched onto my back. Most of my body was in the sun, which wasn’t the easiest task. Pink, blooming dogwoods lined our white picket fence on either side.

  At least I could get a tan while doing nothing. I looked better with a tan. It made my hair lighter, too. I wasn’t crazy about it darkening the past few years. My homeroom teacher last year had actually called it brunette! I'd never liked her anyway. If it got darker than dirty-blonde, bleach was in my future.

  Sweat dewed on my neck as I fanned my hair out around me. If only we had a pool like the neighbors. There were always cars parked along the street in front of the two story, brick colonial. Our back yard was plenty big enough, but my parents didn’t want to give up their vegetable garden for something as superfluous as a pool. If you could call three tomato plants and a worm riddled cucumber vine a garden.

  The neighbors never invited us over. Not once in the ten years we’d lived across the street had I seen the inside of their weather worn, ivy covered privacy fence. Snobs. Of course, they were older. Their youngest, Robyn, was a senior my freshmen year. She’d gone away to college for a while, but I’d seen her working the counter at The General Store in town. Her mom told my mom Robyn was taking some time off, but rumor was she’d been kicked out. Robyn had always been a little crazy, but not in a straitjacket kind of way.

  My parents always said Robyn was out of control, the way she stayed out until all hours of the morning and made-out with random guys in parked cars in front of our house. Getting booted from school only confirmed their opinion to be fact. My parents had spent most of my middle school years praying Robyn would move. Watching her run her long fingernails through the thick hair of guys I only dreamt about, had only made me want to be her. I was in the seventh grade the first time I'd seen her cherry red lips and green eyes reflected behind a fogged windshield. From my bedroom window I’d watched in awe. Her life was hypnotic, way better than any movie I’d ever seen or the cheesy romance novels I slipped from Mom’s purse. Robyn was danger– danger and sex, all the things I wasn’t allowed to know about yet. Boys hung on every word she said as if she had them under a spell. They couldn’t pry their lust filled eyes away from her. It was as if she were a witch or something. If that were the case, show me to the pointed hats and brooms. No guy had ever looked at me like that.

  “Justice, really!” Mom scolded, coming through the gate that separated the front yard from the driveway. “Can’t you do that in the back yard?” Sweat bubbled along her forehead. "The pastor drives this street." She clutched her dirty, floral print gloves in her hand. Her khaki shorts were ruined with grass stains. The sun turned her judgmental, blue eyes into slits, warding off the perspiration along her brow.

  “The sun’s in the front,” I said pointedly, peering at her from beneath my hand. Did my bathing suit really look worse than the rolled-in-the-dirt look she was sporting?

  Her skin was almost translucent beneath a wide-brimmed, sun-flowered hat. She needed a tan worse than I did. She was like looking at a dirty ghost.

  “Isn’t that Mason’s truck?” she asked annoyed, fanning dirt in the air with her glove. “I swear! You kids nowadays. When I was your age, if my parents had let my boyfriend come over, I would’ve been glued to his side. Tickled pink! Where is he?” She looked around as if he might appear out
of thin air.

  She knew as well as I did where he was. The same place he always was.

  I flipped over to my stomach and buried my face in the blanket. “Where do you think?”

  My parents would never have to worry about grandchildren with Mason around. Not unless the game console came to life and assaulted him, in which case babies might start popping out left and right.

  “Boys and their toys,” Mom muttered, making me cringe at the casual use of what was becoming her catch phrase.

  She never looked at things the same when it came to me and my phone. She’d practically ripped it out of my hand on several occasions.

  The screen door slammed as she stomped inside. Less than a minute later I heard it creak open again, just as I knew it would. The powers of persuasion.

  “How can you stand it out here?” Mason whined, snapping the shoulder strap of my bikini as he invaded my space. “Aren’t you hot?”

  “That’s kind of the point,” I said, shoving his big hand away from my sweaty arm.

  “Are you mad at me?”

  This was a routine question from him, so I gave my routine answer. “Why would I be mad at you?”

  He was quiet for a minute, pouting no doubt. “Josh asked me to play,” he started. “What was I supposed to say?”

  No! You could’ve said no. Said that you came over to see your girlfriend and not hang out with some dork little kid. “I couldn’t care less, Mason” I said flatly, blowing the hair that tickled my nose. “How can I compete with a thirteen-year-old and a PlayStation? I’m only your girlfriend.”

  “Don’t be like that,” he said, rubbing my arm too quickly to be a caress. It was as if he were trying to create enough friction to start a fire. “You know I came over to see you.”

  Yeah, right. Maybe, if I happened upon a shrinking machine and morphed into the T.V.

  “Could you move?” I shoved his shoulder. “You’re in my light.” I turned my head away. His shirt smelled like Doritos. Besides, he was only here because my mom ran him out of the house. “What’s wrong? Did Mom make Josh turn the game off?”

  I felt the blanket sink next to me as he stretched out but didn’t answer. BINGO!

  Mom and Dad had been trying to help Mason out since we’d started dating freshman year. He was the sport playing, Honor Roll son they hoped Josh to be one day.

  Our families were like mirrored images of one another. Our moms had headed the PTA fundraiser the past three years. That’s how we'd met. They'd intentionally sat us together at the freshman cookout. Mason had been the only boy at the table shyer than I was. He’d been a permanent fixture at my house ever since, sort of like a throw pillow that blends so well with the couch that you forget it’s there.

  “Is this what you’re going to do all day?” he asked, leaving a wet spot where his lips touched my head. Ick!

  “Ugh! Don’t kiss me,” I swatted at him. “I’m all sweaty.”

  “Salty,” he grinned, licking his lips.

  “You’re so gross!”

  “Come on,” he said, tugging my arm. “Help me wash my truck.”

  “Wash your own truck! Better yet, get Josh to help you!”

  “You look better in a bathing suit,” he countered, tossing his sweaty, Dorito smelling shirt on my face.

  “Thanks,” I said, wadding the shirt into a make-shift pillow and tucking it under my head. “I needed a pillow.”

  Mason pulled his muddy, blue pick-up out of the driveway and into the street.

  The last time he'd washed it in the drive, the water had washed away half the mulch in the flowerbed. Mom had him shoveling all the next weekend.

  I did my best to ignore him as he soaped up the tailgate. He needed a lethal dose of his own medicine. I turned the music up to drown out the old man next door who was busy weed-eating right next to the fence. Making a makeshift tent with Mason’s shirt over my head, I scanned through Anna’s pictures. She was at a burger place now. There was a huge plate of golden-brown onion rings and a frothy lemonade on the table. It made my mouth parched just looking at it. The sky was crystal clear out the window behind her.

  I prayed for rain.

  “Mason!” I screamed as cold water pelted the back of my legs. I almost thought my prayer had backfired. “You got my phone wet! You are so buying me a new one if it messes up!”

  He ducked behind the truck with the hose but forgot about the bucket. I slipped around the tailgate and splashed the grimy water right on his head.

  “No fair,” he said, brushing off his crew-cut. “That had soap in it.”

  “Don’t forget the leaves and dirt,” I chuckled, watching him pull a pine needle off his back. “That’s why you don’t mess with me,” I teased, tossing my hair over my shoulder.

  I started back through the gate, the hot pavement burning my feet. Mason grabbed me around the waist and took off into the road as I squealed and did my best to kick his shins. A thunderous, black and chrome motorcycle swerved to keep from hitting us. We both jumped to the curb, nearly tripping in the process. The bike turned wide into Robyn’s driveway.

  “Mason!” I squealed, pelting him in the chest. “You could’ve gotten us killed.”

  “Hey, sorry about that,” Mason yelled, giving the man on the bike a friendly wave.

  The man was dressed in black, down to his boots. A low tied ponytail of dark hair hung from the nap of his neck. He pulled his helmet off and looked at Mason as if he’d caught him eating paste. Then, his attention turned to me. His eyes were the same dark chocolate as his hair, and despite the obvious irritation, the most beautiful I’d ever seen. The muscles beneath his t-shirt flexed as he throttled the bike. I’d never paid much attention to bikers, not that I’d been around many. My only experience came from a documentary I’d seen on television. Needless to say, they weren’t painted in the best light. This man didn’t look anything like the low-lives I’d seen on that show. He didn’t have an over-grown mustache or leathery, sunbaked skin.

  The engine snarled angrily, bringing me back to my senses. I quickly looked away, letting my hair curtain my heated face.

  “Be out in a sec.,” Robyn yelled, stretching halfway out a second-floor window. Her hair was longer than I remembered, dancing wildly in the warm wind like a dark shadow over a rocky sea.

  “She’s back,” Mason sang in a creepy voice.

  I gave him an elbow to the ribs and started soaping the mud-splattered hood.

  Robyn climbed on the back of the death machine, all sleek black hair and tanned legs. She undoubtedly worked out. I had long legs too, but they didn’t resemble hers in the slightest. Nothing on my body looked like hers. I was cursed with a figure barely able to fill a junior’s size small and curves that could be missed without a magnifying glass.

  Robyn and her mystery man didn’t even pause at the end of the drive when they turned out. Thankfully nothing was coming. The bike roared a steady, beautiful noise that I’d missed while she was away at college. Her piercing green eyes looked straight through me as she held tight to the man’s waist. I could only imagine what that must’ve felt like. I watched them until they turned at the stop sign and drove out of sight.

  “Justice?” Mason said, twirling a dishrag in the air before tossing it into the soapy bucket. “Did you hear me? My mom wants us to come over for supper. They’re grilling burgers.”

  Again. “Oh, sure,” I said, shaking the thoughts of tattoos and abs from my mind and refocusing on the sudsy truck in front of me.

  All the way to Mason’s, I couldn’t help but wonder where Robyn had gone and what it must be like to be able to pick up and leave whenever the mood struck. I couldn’t walk to the next street without asking permission. I imagined she was running off to somewhere romantic, where video games didn’t exist, and middle-schoolers weren’t allowed. Not that Robyn’s man played video games. Those muscles hadn't come from pushing buttons on a remote. Maybe they were headed to a cozy cabin tucked in the wood with a fire crackling in the firepl
ace. Somewhere that would make Anna’s redundant beach trip look like a night at Grandma’s. There was no way to know, of course. Robyn lived like a recluse. As far as I knew, she wasn’t on social media at all. Her name brought up thirty-eight profile pics, none of which were her.

  ***

  Mason’s house was a traditional red brick ranch that took up two lots at the end of a cul-de-sac. Most of the houses looked the same, give or take a porch swing or garden gnome. Yes, I said garden gnome. It was a neighborhood that harvested fresh baked pies and stoned driveways. Not that my side of the tracks was inherently bad, but we didn’t have a neighborhood association to answer to.

  "Hey kids," Mr. Martin said from behind his reading specks as we slipped through the back privacy gate.

  The charcoal smell from the grill made my stomach rumble.

  "Burgers will be ready soon,” he called.

  "They'd be done a lot quicker if you'd let me slice these tomatoes in peace," Mrs. Martin smirked, spinning her recently trimmed body out of Mr. Martin’s passionate embrace. He kissed her cheek and gave her rear-end a lingering pinch.

  "Come on guys," Mason whined, pulling the sliding glass door open before disappearing into the house.

  His parents reminded me of the couples in the hall at school. They were all goo-goo eyed and handsy. They were nothing like my parents. I’d only seen my parents kiss on the mouth twice in my entire life. Thank God. Mason said it hadn’t always been like that. His parents had almost split-up when he was in middle school. He said back then, they'd argued a lot because his mom was always taking business trips. I couldn't picture his parents taking their lips off each other long enough to argue. Things had gotten better after his mom had Mason’s little sister, Cloe. She’d quit the firm and stayed home.

  I sat down on the ground next to Cloe, shoving sand with my hands into her shiny red bucket.

  "Thank you." She grinned a bright toothy smile and dumped the sand back out to the ground.

  I rubbed her curly blonde mop and continued filling the bucket while she continued to dump it. It was a pointless endeavor, but she enjoyed it.