Sunday, March 27, 2016

LOTTERY part 2

Copyright (c) 2016 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.


LOTTERY
Part 2
By R. Peterson


                Janet Reynolds and Lisa Jennings lay across the bed both helpless and naked as the three men undressed. Both were both bleeding from the mouth. “Too bad your husband is unconscious,” the biggest one sneered. Jack was bound and tied in the corner. “He might enjoy watching three ex-convicts having a little fun.”
                “You’re Harry Walton aren’t you?’” Janet pleaded with the largest gang member. “Don’t do this! You don’t want to go back to prison do you?”
                “Me and these other stooges will be back in the joint in a month or so,” Harry said. “That’s a given. Why not enjoy ourselves while we can? Besides …” He held up the Tupperware container with the winning lottery ticket inside. “Eighty-six million dollars is enough money to start a new life almost anywhere!”
                “How are you going to explain you and your two thugs accompanying me and my husband to the lottery office?” Janet said.
                “Bodyguards!” Harry told her. “When someone wins this kind of money, half the people in the country go nuts.”
The doorbell rang just as Harry started to climb onto the bed. He looked at his watch. “It’s two-twenty in the morning,” Harry cursed. “Who the $#%# would be coming to your house at this time of night?”
One of the other convicts peeled back one corner of the bedroom curtains. “A lot of somebodies,” he whispered as he peered out the window. The flashing lights of a police car reflected on the bedroom wall. “There must be at least six cars out there … and a string of headlights backed-up clear into town.”
The doorbell rang again and someone pounded on the door.
Harry jerked Janet off the bed and thrust her toward the closet. “Put on a robe and go tell all your friends  to get the hell out of here.” He walked to the corner and kicked an unconscious Jack with his work-boot. A glimmering knife appeared as if by magic in his hand. “One word about us being here and your husband gets his tonsils extracted … same with this one …” He gestured toward Lisa, “… and all three of your kids.”
Thirty seconds later, Janet opened the door to constant pounding, and Mary Jennings pushed past her, followed by a smiling Don Jepson, the town mayor. At least twenty others were crowded onto the lawn in front of the trailer, with more arriving by the minute. Everyone was talking at the same time. Lights from at least three TV News cameras blinded her. “We know yall has the winning ticket … We figured it out!” Mary screamed. She grabbed Janet’s arms and began to dance with her across the living room as she jumped up and down. She waved a copy of a cash-register receipt in the air like a flag. “Yall were the only person in the store who bought diapers and a lottery ticket!”
Mayor Don Jepson threw his arms around Mary crushing her and Mrs. Jennings. “We’re sorry for coming over so late,” he shouted. “But with the changes this town is going to make with that kind of money … who can sleep?” Deputy Bobby Joe Tinker was right behind the mayor followed by a beaming Ruth Watson and Nancy Livingston. “You really had me fooled with that smoking truck,” Bobby Joe bellowed. “Who knew that truck was actually burning money!”
                “Honey, you don’t know what this money is going to mean to the Georgia Daughters of Dixie,” Ruth Watson yelled. “We’ve been needing a new lodge since … forever.”
“This means I’ll be driving one of them new Dodge Chargers with state-of-the-art Whelen LED Lights  just like the cops in Atlanta,” Bobby Joe gushed.
                “One new police car?” The mayor thundered at the overweight officer, then smiled for the news cameras. “We will have at least twenty, plus new state-of-the-art vehicles for all the city employees.”
Luke Brady, the local Baptist minister, pushed his way through the crowd a little irreverently. His hair stood up on both sides of his head obviously tussled by the crowd. The glare of the TV camera lights made him look like a young devil. He waved a thick manila folder in his hand. “We have hundreds of people in this town who are in dire need,” he said. “Janet, I know you and Jack will do the right thing.”
Kit Kat’s cries somehow rose about the chatter and the questions being fired from a dozen reporters. “Oh your poor baby!” Nancy Livingston pushed past Janet moving toward the bedroom. “All this noise must have woken her up!” Janet turned around to stop her and noticed the back door to the trailer was wide open. She could just see three running figures disappearing behind the clothesline and woodpile as Nancy opened the door to the wrong bedroom. The crowd grew suddenly quiet when Nancy screamed. “Looks like we’ve found out where your little sister got herself off to Mary…” She pointed toward a naked Lisa trying to cover herself on the bed, then scowled at a bound and tied Jack who had just woke-up in the corner. “If this is what money does to people … then I guess we’re all going to hell.”

-------2-------

Sheriff Buford Big B Jackson and three deputies, including Bobbie Joe pushed the crowd and the reporters out of the trailer while Jack and Janet sat in the kitchen. It took minutes for Janet to blurt out the details of their horrific ordeal while Jack patted his swollen face with a large T-Bone steak courtesy of Jim’s Custom Meats. A smiling Jim Turner was the last to leave the trailer. “Don’t you worry none about them convicts,” BB assured Jack and Janet as he closed the door. “They all in a heat wave. The Governor promised me his state police will have Harry Walton and his gang jerking chains before those cotton-pickers can sneak out of Georgia.
Jack spent twenty minutes looking for the Tupperware sandwich container with the winning ticket inside. He had all but given up hope, sure that Harry and his gang must have taken it with them when he spied it leaning against a corner in the bathroom along with a dented can of leaking hairspray, crushed disposable razors and two wet towels. It had been stepped on so many times the plastic was broken … but the ticket inside was still intact.
The Sheriff was on the phone in the other room; Janet tucked the ticket inside her loose-fitting bra. One strap was broken from when it had been used to bind Jack’s hands.
            “The first thing we got to do, is get yall and your ticket safely to Atlanta,” The Sheriff said. “Yall still got that ticket don’t you?”
            “It’s in a safe place,” Jack looked at Janet’s sagging breasts beneath her dress and the Sheriff’s eyes followed his.
            “I’ll drive you to lottery headquarters in Atlanta in my own private car,” BB said. “It’s a Cadillac CTS sedan, not new, but still a nice ride. It won’t attract attention like flashing-lights will.”
            “Thank you, Sheriff. We’re not used to such luxury,” Janet told him. “Your car will do just fine. We were worried about driving clear across Georgia in our old truck.”
            “My pleasure.”
Something about the Sheriff’s gleaming teeth reminded Jack of an alligator that he once helped chase off a golf-course.
“I like nice things,” BB told them.

-------3-------

Buford Jackson picked them up an hour later, no longer wearing his Sheriff’s uniform but a pair of oversize khaki pants and a loose fitting Hawaiian shirt. Jack and Janet were both happy to see him arrive; half the population of Baxley was still lingering around the outside the doublewide trailer. “Hey! You haven’t forgotten about last winter when I pulled you out of the ditch with my Bronco have you?” Tony Cordess was even drunker than the day before. “Because I’ve got me a long list of things you can pay me back for.”
Ruth Watson tried to push a pre-printed check made out to the Georgia Daughters of Dixie for two-million dollars and a pen into Jack’s hand as he carried Sally and Mick and Janet lugged Kit Kat, a suitcase and his car seat through the crowd toward the Sheriff’s Cadillac. “It’s all legal,” she beamed. “All you have to do is sign!”
Some of the people in the crowd were getting angry by the time the Reynolds family reached the Sheriff’s car. George Brady threw an empty beer bottle that just missed Janet’s head and skimmed the windshield of the Cadillac. “This is what happens when people get money,” he yelled. “Zoom … instant #$%$#^%#$!”
            “Can I put these bags in your trunk?” Janet asked as the crowd began to press forward.
            “No, Just squeeze into the back seat for now,” BB said. “We need to get out of here.”
It took Bobby Joe Tinker and all three Appling County deputies to push back the crowd so they could get the doors open.
            “I can’t believe it!” Jack sat in the front seat next to the sheriff. “I’ve known these people all my life … suddenly they’ve turned into animals.”
            “They were always animals,” The sheriff said. “The smell of money makes them hungry.”
            “Speaking of food,” Jack said. “I don’t think any of us has eaten since yesterday. How about stopping at that Burger King just outside of Hinesville. I think a couple of Whoppers and fries might help us all forget about losing our friends.”
            “I already thought about that.” BB handed Jack a large bag from McDonalds. “I didn’t know what yall liked, so I got a little bit of everything.” He smiled. “We have a long way to go and stopping when your pictures have been plastered all over the TV news is going to be dangerous.”
            “Thanks sheriff!” Jack discovered he was ravishingly hungry as he handed out the burgers.
An hour later they were headed south on Interstate ninety-five. Jack, Janet and all three children were asleep, good thing or they might have noticed the change in direction. Sheriff Buford Jackson smiled and began to sing softly as he sped-up to pass a slow moving semi just north of The Florida border. It sounded like the song from the Gold Diggers musical from the 1930’s. We’re in the money. We've got a lot of what it takes to get along!
-------4-------

Jack opened his eyes just as they pulled into the gravel parking-lot of a bar in Miami called Toro Magnifico. His head was swimming through a swirling fog. “What the hell! I’ve been drugged,” he gasped. “What was in those hamburgers”
            “Just a little something to help you sleep,” Sheriff Jackson said as he opened his door. Three Cuban looking men in dark suits appeared to be waiting for them. They surrounded the car.
            “I told you I like nice things,” BB went on. “I got myself in a bit of a jam spending from the Appling County police fund. Rico Alfaro …”   He gestured toward a fat Latino waddling toward them from the bar entrance. “…offered to loan me enough to get past the last two state audits, now he wants paid in full.”
            “Do everything they say,” The sheriff whispered. “These guys make Harry Walton and his gang look like choir boys.”
            “Veo que entrega las palomas,” Rico said. “Are you sure they have the ticket?”
Sheriff Jackson opened the back door to his Cadillac and dragged a semi-conscious Janet out. He thrust flabby fingers down her blouse, lingering longer than necessary and then pulled out the card.
            “You’re a good looking woman with a great figure,” the sheriff told her as he slapped her behind. “You don’t need any padding.”
Rico smiled as the sheriff handed him the ticket. “Volaremos le todo a Atlanta mañana in my private plane,” he told Jack. “Hacer todo lo que digo … and there might be something in it for you … like your lives!”
Janet was still groggy, Jack helped her as they were pushed toward the back entrance of the bar. Kit Kat was sleeping soundly in Janet’s arms but Sally and Mick each walked beside their father holding one of his hands. “Is this what’s it’s like to be rich?” Sally asked as she stared at a flashing neon sign above the main bar entrance showing a naked woman riding a bull.
            “I hope not,” Jack told her. “If it is, I’ll never buy another lottery ticket again.”
Ten minutes later the Reynolds family found themselves locked in a tiny back room without windows. A mattress that smelled of sweat, urine and sex was on the cement floor. The bar was obviously packed with mostly Latinos. Loud music with Spanish lyrics played almost constantly. Just before two AM, two loud blasts that sounded like gunshots made all three children wake up and begin to cry. The music stopped and a minute later the noisy sounds began to diminish.
            “Thank God,” Janet said. “Now maybe we can get some sleep.”
They heard the door being unlocked and then it burst open. Two men dragged a bleeding corpse into the room and flung it into the corner. “Sorry, but the boss said to put this stiff in here until we figure out what he wants done with it,” one man said.
Janet buried her face in Jack’s arms and began to cry. “I can’t take this anymore,” she sobbed. “How can this night possibly get any worse?”
Her question was answered ten minutes later when the door opened again. Four men stood there. One with a jagged scar that ran across his nose from cheek to cheek was smiling. “El Jefe promise us a little something extra nice after we disposed of his body.” Two of the men grabbed the corpse and dragged it from the room; the other two grabbed Janet. “Hay un montón de putas latinas en este lugar … but none of them moan like the white women do.”
Jack tried to pry their hands off his wife. O ne of them punched him to the floor and then kicked him repeatedly. “Ser agradecido no es su hija (Just be thankful it’s not your daughter),” he said pointing to the children on the mattress.
            “We’re going for a ride on a very expensive yacht,” the one leading Janet away whispered in her ear. His hand was sliding up the back of her legs. “I know you will like the way the ocean waves makes the water-bed rock.” All four men laughed. “We all do,” he said. “Todos nosotros lo!”

To be continued …



                

Sunday, March 20, 2016

LOTTERY

Copyright (c) 2016 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.


LOTTERY
By R. Peterson

Janet Reynolds took Jack to the sawmill, dropped Sally and Mick off at Altamaha Elementary School and then held her breath as the Ford F150 lurched smoking up to the pumps at QT’s Convenience Store. She was sure the way her morning was going that she’d run out of gas. There was $16.34 in her purse including the pennies and she needed diapers. Kit Kat was beginning to cry again. Janet didn’t blame her. The car-seat still smelled like bile from when the eight-month-old had been sick the day before.
Baxley only had one cop on duty at a time and Janet saw Bobby Joe Tinker come waddling out of Quick Trips tearing the wrapper off a giant Snickers bar while holding a bag of Chili-Cheese Fritos and a large Mountain Dew under his arm as he lumbered toward his patrol car. She hoped her ex-boyfriend was too hungry to notice the expired Georgia license stickers on her pick-up.
He turned his head, saw her and dropped the chips as he came running toward her. She didn’t know fat-men could run that fast. “Get out of your truck!’ he yelled. “Yall on fire!”
Janet laughed as she opened the rusted door. “Clarence at Repair-n-Run says the smoke is from bad-engine rings … whatever they are,” she said as she waved the smoke from in front of her face. “We go through two quarts of used-oil for every six gallons of gas.
Bobby Joe shook his head. “I thought for sure this old piece of junk was gonna explode any minute.”
            “This old truck was Jack’s pride and joy back in our school days,” Janet said. “I guess it’s just getting old like we all are.”
            “If you would have married me instead of that damn Raven’s first string quarterback I’d have you driving one of them Porsche nine-eleven’s’ or something more your style … not this old corn hauler.” Bobby Joe looked sincere.
            “On what Appling County pays its deputies,” Janet laughed, enjoying the flirting from an old beau. “Robert Joseph Tinker, you got the biggest heart in Georgia from your momma … but not a lick of sense when it comes to women.”
Bobby Joe took off his hat, wiped his forehead with his hand and glanced-up at the sun, obviously trying to change the subject.. “Damn! This here day’s gonna be hotter than a goat’s butt in a pepper patch.”
A low-riding midnight blue ’64 Impala cruised slowly past the on the highway, the glass-pack mufflers sounding like the rumble of thunder. The driver and passengers were just a dim reflection behind dark-tinted windows.  “That’s Harry Shanks Walton,” Bobby Joe stared, but only for a second. “Not someone you’d want to mess with. He just got out of Georgia State Prison at Reidsville two weeks ago for two counts of rape and murder in Savanna. I hear now he’s got himself a gang.”
            “I heard about those murders,” Janet said. “That was eight years ago … maybe he’s reformed.”
            “Prison don’t make you better … it makes you worse,” Bobby Joe told her.
            “Ain’t you going to arrest him for those noisy mufflers?” Janet couldn’t help but kid her old classmate.
            “I do my job … but I ain’t got no dern death-wish,” the deputy told her.
A flat-bed truck filled with teen-age boys, some standing up in the back drinking from cans and whooping, went past the other direction easily traveling well over the posted twenty mile-per-hour in-town speed limit and saved the deputy’s pride. “See you later, Janet. Damn High School graduation is in two weeks,” Bobby Joe muttered as he loped importantly toward his patrol car. “Kids now-a-days ain’t got enough smarts to take their beer-parties out a town.”

-------2-------

The inside of QT’s was a beehive of activity. Janet noticed a long line at the checkout counter and those waiting in line did not look like they had anything to purchase. “What’s going on?” she asked Mary Jennings who was setting up a floor display for Pepsi. “That damn lottery,” Mary said. “It’s over eighty-million and every peanut-picker in the county thinks they‘re gonna win it!”
Janet remembered Jack had asked her to buy a two-dollar ticket while they were eating breakfast. The truck needed at least ten in gas to get through the week and the cheapest box of Parent’s Choice diapers was $5.97. She would be a dollar short. “Sorry Jack, looks like we’re not gonna be featured on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous this week,” Janet muttered as she waited in line.
Leroy Folsom was in the check-out line in front of her. He was wobbly and smelled like half a case of  Cartersville Swamp Water. “What will Mr. Bud Weiser be buying today?” Mary Jennings’ little sister Lisa asked him with a grin. The sarcasm went right past Leroy’s thick Georgia skull. “I’ll have me a some of that-there Copenhagen chaw,” He waved his hand. “And a quick-pick,” he told her. “Make sure it’s a winner this time.” While Lisa was using the lotto-machine to print out his ticket Leroy knocked the chew off the counter. When he rose after picking up the tin of Copenhagen a folded dollar bill was in his hand. “You dropped your money,” he told Janet. His breath smelled like Black Eyed Peas and Ham Hocks. By the time Janet turned her face back to protest that the dollar wasn’t hers, the town-drunk was already staggering out the door.
“Tony Cordess said he caught Leroy having sex with a pig,” Lisa whispered when the door closed.
“That poor pig,” Janet told her.
            “Will this be all?’ Lisa asked Janet with a grin. “I’ll be pumping ten dollars of gas,” Janet said. She was counting her money in her head; with the dollar Leroy found, she just had enough. “Give me a quick-pick too,” she said. “I know I shouldn’t.” Janet smiled. “But you know Jack … he dreams about waking up in high cotton.”
            “Don’t we yall!” Lisa happened to glance at the numbers as she handed Janet the ticket “four-nineteen … that’s my birthday,” she said, “… hope it’s lucky!”

-------3-------


Jack offered to help with the dishes after supper, but Janet handed him a beer from the fridge and told him to relax. Sally and Mick were watching an episode of Blackish. “These people don’t act like any of the Negros we know, mama,” Sally said.
            “The correct term is African Americans,” Janet told her as she sat down … and TV is just make-believe.”
The semi-weekly lotto drawing appeared following a commercial for Budweiser light beer. “I know it’s only Wednesday but I feel like getting sloshed,” Jack said. He got up and walked toward the kitchen.
Tonight’s lucky winners will share an estimated jackpot worth eighty-six million dollars,” the announcer said, as the cage with the numbered balls began to roll.
“Clarence says they might have to lay off six people if orders don’t pick up,” Jack said from the kitchen. Janet heard the bottle open as the first ball rolled down … six was the number printed on the side of the white ball. Janet looked at the lottery ticket lying on the coffee table: 4-19 -11 -6 -46 with the power-ball number 9. She picked up the ticket … and her hand trembled slightly.
            “I’ve only been working full-time since January,” Jack went on as she heard him open  the cabinet above the stove. “Any of those Barbeque Fritos left?”
The next white ball rolled down … number eleven. Janet felt her heart begin to pound like a jack-hammer as Jack kept on talking “I might have to ride the bus to Cartersville and get a job in the Anheuser Busch plant working in quality control … can you believe someone gets paid to drink beer all day and say if it’s good or not.”
The next ball rolled down … it was number forty-six. Janet stood up so fast she kicked the car seat Kit Kat was in and the baby began to cry. Jack was still talking. “Fat chance of that though, guys like Gary Andersen would do that job for a bowl of peanuts and a handy restroom.”
Janet’s hand was shaking so hard she had to look three times to read the numbers on the ticket. The next white ball was rolling down … number four. Janet opened her mouth but she couldn’t make a sound. The baby was beginning to wail … still Jack would not shut up. “Seriously,” he said washing down the words with beer. “I hear they might need help on the loading docks … I still have a valid fork-lift operator’s license.”
The last white ball rolled down …. It was number nineteen. Janet felt like she was going to faint. The room was starting to spin. The baby was crying louder. Sally and Mick sensed something was wrong with their mother and they began to cry too.
“And the power ball is …”  The announcer made his voice louder for dramatic effect. “Number nine!” From somewhere in the lottery studio background Louis Armstrong began to sing “… Oh how I’d love to be in that numberWhen the Saints go Marching In.”
“Tonight’s jackpot is worth an estimated eighty-six million dollars,” the announcer boomed over the music.
Janet finally found her voice … and she screamed. Jack came rushing into the living room. “What’s wrong?” he said.

-------4-------

“Max Jennings will charge us some gas when he knows how important this is.” Jack’s face was flushed and his eyes looked like they belonged in some wild animal’s head. Janet sat on the other side of Kit Kat’s car seat, squeezed together with Sally and Mick. She held a square Tupperware container, with the winning ticket inside, so tightly in her fingers as if it might blow out the window, that her knuckles were turning white.
            Mick was beginning to feel cramped. “It’s stuffy in here … can we open a window?”
            “No!” Jack and Janet both screamed at the same time.
They weren’t expecting the huge crowd at Quick Trips.  People were parked alongside the highway a quarter of a mile before the convenience store. The parking lot was so full of milling people there wasn’t any room for cars. Janet recognized the local news station truck as well as two other TV vans from Atlanta.
            “What’s going on?” Jack unrolled his window next to two of the guys he worked with, who were drinking beer in the parking lot.
            “Haven’t you heard,” Tony Cordess sounded drunk and smelled like it as he leaned in the window. “Some lucky #&^%$# won the lottery and they bought the ticket out of this store.”
            “Is that right?” Jack tried to sound innocent. Behind Tony, Jack recognized George Brady another co-worker who was beating his fists against the side of his own car. “That #&^%$^# close!” he was screaming to no one in particular.
            “Yeah,” Tony was slobbering. “The mayor, the chief of Police and about thirty news-people are inside the store right now grilling Mary Jennings’ little sister Lisa about who she sold the winning ticket to … she claims she didn’t notice the numbers and can’t remember.”
            “I’m sure she must have sold hundreds of tickets today with that much prize money,” Jack told his friend.
            “I know one thing,” Tony’s words were slurred. “When I find out who won my money … I’ll cut his nuts off. That money should have been mine. I’ve bought twenty-dollars worth of tickets in here every week for the last ten years!” He spit on the asphalt. “God Dam it to Hell … that money should have been mine.”
            “How do you know the winner was a he?” Janet tried to sound cheerful.
            “If it’s a woman that has got my winnings I’ll do a lot worse things to her,” Tony promised.
            “Some friends you’ve got,” Janet said as Jack rolled up his window.
            “He’s just drunk,” Jack said. “Money and booze will make anyone crazy.”

            “Looks like not winning makes people even crazier … still want to ask Max Jennings if he’ll charge you enough gas to get you and that winning ticket to Atlanta?” Janet asked as they moved through the mad-cap parking lot and back onto the highway.

-------5-------

            Jack and Janet were too wired-up to watch television and had finally got the children to sleep. They lay propped-up in bed with the Tupperware box between them, they each had a hand on it. The poor sandwich box had moved from safe-place to safe-place ever since they got home, going from Jack’s bottom drawer under a pile of socks to the tiny freezer compartment above the refrigerator wrapped in blood-smeared butcher-paper to look like a pound of hamburger.
            “I get paid on Friday,” Jack reasoned for about the twentieth time. “All we have to do is play it cool. No-body knows we got this ticket. To hell with the mortgage on the trailer-house. We’ll rent a reliable car that will get us to Atlanta from the Avis store in Macon… our truck will make it that far … after we cash the ticket and get the money all of our troubles will be over.”
            “What will it be like to be rich?” Janet sighed and closed her eyes. “We won’t live here in Baxley will we?”
            “Baxley!” Jack laughed. “Hell no! We’ll move to Paris or London … some place fancy. Who needs these cracker-heads?”
            “Our lives will change forever,” Janet said. “I have friends here … at least I did have.”
            “We’ll find new friends where we’re going … a lot of them.” Jack promised.
            They were still awake two-hours later. Janet put on her peek-a-boo nightgown she’d worn on their honeymoon, showing her pink bra and panties and they’d made love like two muskrats for over a half-an-hour … but it still didn’t relieve the unbelievable tension.
            “I have to go to work in the morning,” Jack moaned. “If I don’t show up at the sawmill someone might get suspicious.”
            “There’s a bottle of Benadryl I keep for my hay-fever above the sink,” Janet told him. “Take two of them with a glass of milk and they’ll knock you out for sure.”
An hour later they were finally sleeping soundly. Janet was the first to awaken from banging on the trailer door. Jack was still groggy from the drugs. “My God it’s two AM,” she said as she walked into the living room still wearing the naughty nightgown. “Who’d be coming around at this time of night?”
            “It’s me, Lisa Jennings,” a tiny voice said. “Can I come in? It’s very important.”
            “It’s Mary’s little sister,” Janet told Jack who was following behind rubbing his eyes. “She sounds like she’s been crying!”
Janet had just released the lock on the door and turned the knob when it burst inward. Two large bear-sized men with scared faces and one short-one with greasy black hair pushed Lisa into the trailer before them. Janet stared at the girl’s hands, her fingers were all bleeding and several of her fingernails appeared to be missing.
            “I’m sorry,” Lisa sobbed. “I didn’t want to say anything to anyone but they were waiting for me at my house.”
            “I believe yall have something that we want,” the biggest one sneered.
            “This is about the lottery ticket isn’t it?” Jack said. He was still holding the Tupperware box in his hand. He pushed it toward the now smiling man. “Take it … and leave us alone.”
            “We seem to have a little problem,” the man said. “Only the person who bought the ticket can cash it … and that will be in no less than twelve hours in Atlanta.” He reached out his hand and lifted the bottom of Janet’s teddy. She slapped his hand away.
            “Leave her alone!” Jack lunged forward and the other two men grabbed him from behind.
            “I’ve been in prison for eight years,’ the biggest man said as he viciously lifted Janet’s arms and held them above her head. “Do you know what going without a woman for that long does to a man?” He stared at Jack and then turned his black eyes back on Janet. He slowly began to lift her nightgown again as she began to sob.
            “It turns you into a #&^%$^#  animal,” the short, stalky men holding Jack said just before he punched him repeatedly in the face.
One of the men tied an unconscious Jack’s arms behind him with Janet’s bra and then stuffed her torn underwear into his mouth sealing it with duct tape as the two others dragged a kicking Janet and a now naked Lisa into the bedroom.
From somewhere in the dark Kit Kat’s cries mixed with Janet’s sobs. “She’s only sixteen,” Janet begged. “Do what you want to me, I’ll do anything you say, but leave her alone.”
            “We got eight years of real dirty thoughts in us,” the man said as Janet began to moan. “That’s going to take more than one woman and nine-hours to satisfy.”

To be continued …

           
           
           



Sunday, March 13, 2016

CREEPAS part 3

Copyright (c) 2016 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.


CREEPAS
Part 3
The Tomb of Thalnos
By R. Peterson

             No one wanted to leave Melania, but she insisted. “I’ll be perfectly fine,” she said. “Standing just outside the instance is the safest place.”
            “I’d feel a whole lot better if you came along,” Sheriff Walker said. “But I know someone has to be outside to resurrect us if we should die.”
Melania laughed. “It’s not if, it’s when.” She took both the Sheriff’s hands and forced him to look at her. “Do you ever wonder what it’s like to die? You are going to find out inside that tomb that Creepas just disappeared into. That un-dead Rogue possesses powers and abilities that are beyond your comprehension. I’m sure that you all will die at least twice. The only thing I’m not sure of is the third time. If you can destroy this demon, many more lives can be saved in this world, if not …. God help us all.”
Sheriff Walker held up the sword Tugg had taken from the chest and rotated it in his hand. “This looks like a lethal weapon,” he said. “But I’m not sure it can take down whatever is killing people in Cloverdale.”
            “Like the Mormon armor you’re wearing, you must believe in your tools and your abilities,” Melania told him. “Success depends on it.”
Tina shook her head at her cheap New Year’s Eve noisemaker while Tony chopped a huge jagged hole through the guardhouse door with his axe and David let fly a dozen arrows across the graveyard into a withered tree. “You can be serious,” she said. “Unless the stupid noise this thing makes can kill demons, I’m in a lot of trouble.”
            “You have a very important part in this party,” Melania said. “You must distract the monsters from their prey before they can finish them off.” Melania smiled. “I’m sure Creepas will hate this sound.” She turned toward Sheriff Walker, Tony and David. “When she distracts the monsters, whoever is most healed must step in and fight the creature to make sure she does not get attacked. This is very important. Do you understand?”
            “A typical bait and switch,” Tony said. “Me, David and Tugg have done this a thousand times in dungeons.”
Melania closed her eyes and rubbed her empty hands together for almost a minute then she carefully extracted five tiny glass vials from the wooden recipe box that appeared. “Use these to heal yourself,” she said as she handed a vial to each member of the group. “But only a single drop on your tongue, and only when you’re very weak. Too much … and you’ll swell up and burst like a balloon!”
            “#%$&^# cool!” David said carelessly dropping the tiny bottle into his coat pocket. “It’s like an energy drink!”
            “It’s more than a few B vitamins and a ton of caffeine,” Melania told him indignantly. “Each vial contains a thousand grains of diluted Apitoxin, or African honey bee venom mixed with wolf blood.” She said. “It will put that life-force pump in your stomach, that no doctor knows about, into high-gear … for about thirty seconds.”
Red and purple beams of light began to swirl around the moss-covered crypt entrance that Creepas had dragged Cynthia into. “You must go now,” Melania told them. Tugg handed the remaining skeleton key to Tony; the other key had dissolved when the chest was opened. “You go first,” he said. “We’re all right behind you.”
                “We go together as a group,” Tony said. He waited until they were in a tight group then began to slowly cross the open space toward the glowing tomb. “No laggards and no gung-ho mob-pullers bringing every boss-monster in the dungeon down on us.”
They were midway between the gate-house and the tomb when David stepped on a hidden switch in the grass. A steel door covered with sod opened in the ground and a swarm of ravens vaulted from the gaping hole and attacked the startled party. Sheriff Walker was trying to protect his eyes with his arm and swung the sword in the air blindly, as three of the huge birds attacked his neck, back and side. Tugg dropped his axe when a raven landed on his arm and began to peck his hand and another landed on one shoulder and started to tear off his ear. David dropped his bow and ran screaming toward Melania. He was less than fifty feet from her when he collapsed under a huge pile of flapping wings and snapping beaks. Tina stood turning in a circle, blowing the noisemaker and scaring away one bird as three others attacked from different sides.
Sheriff Walker was no more than a huge mound of feathers when an especially large raven lifted Tina high into the air and soared across the graveyard with her still blowing the noisemaker.
Moments later, all five appeared before Melania, shimmering like ghostly apparitions made of white-smoke and broken mirrors. “That’s one life!” she shook her head as she produced a Tarot card showing naked men, women and children rising from open graves. “God help us all if I have to use this Judgment card more than once more.”
                “It’s not so #%$^%# bad … death isn’t,” David said as he thrust his transparent arm through a stone wall and stared at the others.

-------2-------

            Melania took another card from the Ombré recipe box, this time two Acolytes were shown kneeling before the Hierophant ready to hear and pass on his teachings. Melania read from the back of the card in Latin and then vocalized the recipe out loud. “A word of color to each I give, to protect from harm and let you live.”
Melania then placed her hands on Tony’s head and said “Blue”.  She did the same for David, Tina, Tugg and the Sheriff giving them the colors black, pink, red and silver as they became once again living.
“#%$^%# black! I like it!” David danced around while a dark aura surrounded him. The others were haloed by their respective colors.
            “If any member’s color should disappear or turn pale,” Melania said. “It means they are in trouble and need help.”
            “And what color will you be?” The Sheriff asked Melania.
            “White of course,” she said. “The color of spirit and resurrection. She began to radiate a somehow comforting cold and to glow like sunlight on a snowdrift.

This time the entrance to the crypt was without mishap. Tugg used the skeleton key to open the massive stone door and they entered through a swirling vortex of blue and magenta light. It took several moments for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. They found themselves in a long dim hallway lit by tallow-pots placed on candelabra imbedded high on walls lined with books every hundred feet or so.
A dozen sets of red eyes from three directions slowly turned and became aware of the intruders. They were huge rat-like creatures, with oriental faces, walking upright about six-foot long from the tip of the nose to the end of each fleshy tail. Each wore a red jacket with gold dragon-head buttons and carried a wicked looking knife half as tall as they were.
“We’re in the #%$^%# library … those are Gallants!” David gasped.
“Tina!” the Sheriff said. “Use your distraction weapon and see if you can draw one or two towards us.”
Tina muttered “weapon?” under her breath and then blew on the New Year’s Eve noisemaker. A long tube made of paper extended a foot from her face and made a sound like a drunken quacking duck. Three of the Gallants immediately screamed and rushed toward her.
The Sheriff and Tugg jumped between Tina and the charging enemies slashing with sword and axe while David stood back and let fly his arrows.
Two of the guards went down quickly. The last was a champion named Magnaphem. He had The Sheriff’s silver aura beaten to a dark grey before Tugg rushed to his aide and dispatched him with several strokes of his axe. “#%$^%# cool!” David laughed standing over a crumpled body. “I must have shot forty arrows and they’re all coming back.” The group watched as arrows began to re-appear in David’s quiver.
It took more than an hour to move through the library. The vast caverns filled with books contained small alcoves every so often that contained small pockets of Monks and Diviners plus groups of vicious guards that looked like Indian bears roaming the halls. Tina heard a growling sound coming from a small alcove. “I think we’re coming to the end,” she said.
Six horse-sized hounds, three on each of two chain leashes jerked a twisted old man wearing railroad coveralls from a doorway. Two rows of dripping fangs, each razor-like tooth at least six-inches long, gleamed from each struggling beast in the lamp light.
A cruel frowning mouth filled with rotted teeth omitted a green glow and radiated a vile rotting-cabbage stench as the man spit on the ground and then spoke. “You are visiting the library after hours,” he whispered, “… the penalty is death.”
“#%$^%# damn! It’s the Hound master!” David gasped.

-------3-------

            The man with the cruel mouth released all six dogs and they lunged forward. Tina stepped out of the way and blew her noisemaker but the beasts would not be distracted. The Sheriff’s sword tangled in a mass of scrambling legs and gnashing teeth as one of the dogs pounced on him. David was just taking an arrow from his quiver, when a hound launched itself through the air and bit his bow in half just above the hand-rest. Tony and Tugg were each trying to fight two of the beasts at once and they looked like small whirlwinds of gnashing teeth and flying fur.
Tina screamed as the colored auras around the players began to dim and then go out. She had only run twenty yards down the hall when the two remaining dogs brought her down. Tina’s last memory was of the old man standing over her licking his lips. “Why ain’t you pigs!” he complained. Slobber dripped on her from his rotted mouth. “I have me a hunger for pork.”

Melania was already resurrecting The Sheriff and Tony when Tina appeared back at the guard house. David sat on the stone floor examining his broken bow. “There are two dogs, the old man and Creepas left,” she said. “This is the last time I can bring you back to life.”
“Damn that Hound master!” David cursed. “Why couldn’t that #%$^%# have had sheep on those leashes?”
Melania took another card from her recipe box and rubbed it between her fingers. David’s bow magically repaired itself.
“Stay in a tight group this time,” Melania told them as she looked at her cards. “I sense deception and behind a torn curtain, there is a treasure room that must not be entered.” The five were already running toward the swirling lights of the tomb entrance.

They followed Melania’s instructions and formed a circle as they moved together, with Tina in the center. The Hound master was in the same doorway as before. The two remaining dogs hunched on the floor before their master blood mixing with saliva as it dripped on the stone. This time the old man held a long gleaming knife in each hand. “I’ll cut your ears off,” he swore as he looked at each of them. “To show these mutts how it’s done.”
The dogs charged forward and the old man showed surprising agility as he leaped over them and attacked from behind. Tugg took a nasty cut to his shoulder before one of David’s arrows went through the old man’s neck.
The remaining dogs proved to be especially vicious. Their jaws still kept biting even when they both lay in a bloody heap on the floor. The five players were wounded badly and drank the rest of their vials before their colored auras went out completely.
            “All we have left is to find Cynthia and then get out of here,” Tony said.
            “Creepas must be destroyed,” The Sheriff told them. “If not he’ll just slink back and kill again, perhaps he’ll take Cynthia again just to spite you.”
            ‘This place is huge,” Tugg said. “How will we know where to find her?”
Just then a terrified scream came from the end of a hallway that veered to their left. It was unmistakably the voice of Cynthia Bowles. “This way I think,” Tony said. All five shuddered as they walked toward the sound.

-------4-------

Cynthia lay tied to a flat slab of stone high at the top level of what looked like an ancient altar. A figure wearing a red hooded-robe stood over her with a knife in its boney hand. The thing slid back the hood. It was Creepas. “You’ve brought an audience,” The female undead Rogue hissed looking directly at Tony. “Good! I was hoping you’d bring friends.”
            “Stay back!” Tony told the others as he raised his sword. “This is something I have to do alone!” He charged forward swinging the sword and just as he reached the altar Creepas vanished in a puff of smoke. Sheriff Walker, David, Tina and Tugg were still gaping when the creature appeared behind them. A slash of the blade, now glowing blue, in the air above their heads stunned them all. “Wait right here,” Creepas said to them with a giggle. “I’ll get back to you!”
Tony dropped to the floor and rolled as the creature leaped into the air and pounced on the spot he’d been standing on a split second earlier. As soon as Creepas’s feet touched the stone floor Tony slashed with his sword striking both legs.  The force of the blow dislodged the sword from his hands and it skittered across the stone floor and stopped just below the slab of rock Cynthia lay on. The Rogue screamed and began to leap like a frog as she hobbled away. The magic spell that held the others frozen was beginning to fade. David’s arms became unfrozen and he fitted an arrow into his bow and let it fly. Creepas shrieked as an arrow passed through her neck. She whirled-around in mid-air and charged toward the group, her blade flashing as if in a whirlwind. “A little Slice and Dice?” Creepas screamed. “… and lunch is served for all.”
The Rogue was too fast with too much agility. The group’s life-force auras were already beginning to fade to nothing. They were still mostly frozen and helpless. A moment later they lay in a helpless pile on the floor only moments away from death. “I should finish you now … but I want you to watch this before you die,” Creepas hissed. She slowly stalked toward Tony who was crawling toward his sword.
Creepas stomped on Tony’s hand and then used the other foot to kick-away the weapon. “This is all your fault,” she smiled at him and hissed. “I was just picking some flowers when you struck me down.”
Her bony fingers forced Cynthia’s chin upward exposing the white flesh of her neck. The gleaming knife was poised in her left hand. “I love to pick flowers and you destroyed that … now I’m going to destroy what you love!” She turned and stared at the helpless party members. “But not right away …” She ran a bony finger across the knife-blade drawing a dark bead of blood like old ink. “This weapon is coated with a special poison that will take almost an hour to kill its victim,’ she said, “We’ll all have a little party while we wait.”
A wailing cry as loud as a freight train came from the hallway and grew louder at an amazing pace. Melania burst into the room holding the Ombré box high above her head with one hand and a card with the other. The white aura that surrounded her was now as bright as the sun. “I am out of the power to heal and resurrect,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean I am without fight.”
Purple beams of arcane power flew from the card and enveloped them both as they fought. Melania fell rolling to the floor with the struggling Rogue on top of her. Creepas tried to force the blade downward only inches from her throat but was weakening. Finally Melania was able to push the creature off and then stand.
Creepas lay in a heap on the floor as her breathing slowly began to falter. Just as the others were coming unfrozen … she lurched once more and then her breathing stopped completely.
The entire chamber began to shudder as if from the beginning of an earthquake.
 “#%$^%# … I thought for a minute we weren’t going to make it!” David blurted as he ran forward. Bits of stone and dust began to fall from the ceiling.
“Are you okay?” The sheriff was staring at Melania. She looked suddenly too pale.
Melania’s eyes shifted downward to where The Rogue’s dagger point lay imbedded in her ankle.
A tiny trickle of blood was already beginning to pool on the floor.
            “We’ve got to get you to a doctor,” the Sheriff said.
            “No doctor,” Melania told him. “Allison will know what to do!”
Tony untied Cynthia and then helped the Sheriff carry Melania and they started toward the entrance. “Where is David?” Tina looked around as a wall to her left collapsed scattering hundreds of books across the floor.
            “I’ve found it!” David’s voice sounded from behind the altar. He had pulled back a red curtain and a large wooden door stood open. “The treasure of Thalnos!” Open chests filled with coins and other golden objects gleamed in the lamp light.
            “We have to leave now!” Tony yelled to his best friend as they staggered toward the door, “this whole place is coming down!”
            “%#$# that!” David called back. “I didn’t do all of this just to leave empty handed!” Tony turned and started back for him, but Tina pulled him back. “We have to get Melania back or she’ll die,” she said.
Tony thought he could hear laughter coming from deep inside the tomb of Thalnos just as they carried Melania and Cynthia through the doorway. A moment later the entire structure crumbled into a pile of dust and cut stone.
Lenard was standing beside the Buick Roadmaster with the motor running and all the doors open when they arrived. He was licking his fingers and smoothing his almost invisible whiskers. “Take this lady to her home,” the Sheriff said. “And don’t worry about breaking the speed limit.”
“I never do,” Lenard’s voice sounded like a purr.
The full moon floating above Motha Forest spotlighted the ancient car as it roared through the mountains headed for Cloverdale. Tony turned and looked back just once as they left the tree-line. Cynthia leaned over and kissed him.  “What a night,” he said.

THE END?


Author's note ~ I recently started playing "World of Warcraft" on the "Nostalrius Begins" realm ... along with more than 14,000 other players and my son after he returned early from an LDS Mission to the Philippines due to an illness ... my favorite character is a level 36 Undead Rogue ... "her" name is of course ... "Creepas."