I’m shocked at what I see before me. There are no simple twinkle lights hanging from the trees or picnic table benches lining an unlined aisle.
It’s a carnival.
And not a small one either.
It’s complete with spinning rides, games with prizes hanging above the carnival workers calling out the low chances to win, and best of all…there’s a Ferris wheel.
“What? When? How?” I ask, unable to form a coherent question.
Preppy takes my arm again and leads me forward. “King. It’s all King.”
King recreated the carnival.
I have happy tears in my eyes as he leads me and Dre to a tent set up in the back. “You look beautiful,” Dre says, unhooking her arm from Preppy’s. “I’ll see you both inside.” She ducks inside.
“I’m sorry your pops couldn’t be here.”
My happiness is temporarily replaced by the sting of not having my dad here. He’s recovering from pneumonia and the trip was just too much. Although I did video chat with him after I got ready, so he got to see me in my wedding dress, and he insisted I make sure someone videos the ceremony so he can watch it later.
“It’s okay. These things happen.”
Preppy shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks on his heels. “So, what would you say if I offered to stand in to substitute.”
“I…” I sniffle. “I would like that very much.
His smile beams bright. “I know I’m not your first choice to walk you down the aisle, but sometimes, the second one can surprise you. Like your second choice in an orgy.”
I burst out laughing. The music starts to play, and Preppy pushes the tantalizer flap aside. My laughing ceases, and my heart stops when I see King waiting for me at the end of the aisle.
He doesn’t take his eyes from me. So much passes between our locked gazes. Love. Lust. History. Future. And although the seats all around us are full of people, it’s just me and him in this moment.
I don’t even realize the minister is speaking until it’s King’s turn to recite our vows. We opted to say our own straight from the heart, and I’m leaning toward him, eager to hear what he’s chosen to say.
He clears his throat and takes my hands. “I promise to guard this thing between us just like I guard you and the kids. I promise to protect it with my life. Forever.”
I’m so full of every emotion that I can’t even remember what it was I wanted to say. I sniffle. “How the hell am I supposed to follow that?”
King’s eyes never leave mine. “Just promise you’ll be mine forever.”
“I am yours. Forever. I promise.”
“Damn fucking right, you are,” King growls. He reaches for me, lifting me up in the air and pressing his lips to mine in a kiss that wouldn’t be appropriate for any kind of church wedding.
The crowd hoots and hollers as the reverend closes his book. “I guess you won’t be needing the rest of it since you’ve seem to have taken matters into your own hands. So, by the power vested in me and the fact that you’re already legally married, I now pronounce you man and wife.”
We’re all searching for a little light in the darkness. Something to cling to when life lashes out. I have that with my kids. With King. I make another vow to myself. To trust the safety net he’s built around us and lean against him when I feel myself falling. Because King isn’t just my husband or my partner, he’s my soul, my safe place.
My shelter from any storm.
Chapter 11
King
“You might want to take the fucking sign down,” Bear says, pointing at the top of the old hunter’s shack hidden in amongst the thick pines of Motherfucker Island at the bright neon sign hanging above the door.
Preppy looks up and scratches his head. “Why? Not big enough? Should I have used a ‘g’ instead of the apostrophe? I knew I shouldn’t have gone with slang. ING would have been so much classier.”
Bear slaps him in the back of the head. “Because it’s a big fuckin’ neon sign that says The Killin’ Shed.”
“How will the people we killin’ going to know it’s a killin’ shed if there’s no sign?”
“They will know, and so will the cops,” Bear points out, dropping his bag at his feet.
“You two bicker like old ladies at the supermarket fighting over the last of the fucking tapioca,” I mumble, adjusting my own heavy leather bag, hanging over my shoulders.
The blue-hairs ignore me and continue on with Preppy pointing to the sign. “No, they would never think that a place with a sign that says killin’ shed is an actual killin’ shed. Duh, Bear, it’s common reverse psychology. Or don’t you have books at your big bad biker playhouse?”
“Clubhouse,” Bear growls, staying behind with me as Preppy goes inside. The door shuts behind him, but we can still hear him singing. “Ain’t no business like Killin’ Shed business like no business I knoooowww.”
“You know,” Bear says, taking a drag off his smoke. “He may have come back to life, but I think some pieces of his fucking brain are still dead.”
“Wouldn’t be Preppy if we weren’t constantly questioning his lack of sanity.”
“Ain’t that the fucking truth,” Bear says. He stubs out his smoke, and we go inside where Preppy is still singing his song while pulling on a pair of thick rubber gloves. The kind meant for welders. Or in our case, murderers.
“Welcome to the killin’ shed!” Preppy announces. “It’s like Disney World, except there’s no rides, and it’s not the happiest place on earth. Well, not for you, anyway.” Preppy scratches his head. “Shit, I guess it’s nothing like Disney World. Okay. Okay. Let me try again.” He scratches his chin with the long sharp blade in his hand. “Okay, how about this one.” He clears his throat. “Welcome to the killin’ shed. The last place you’ll ever be.”
The guy moans from behind his gag, and Preppy twists his lips. “No? Damn. I’ll keep working on it. Too bad you won’t get to hear what kind of amazing tag-line I finally do come up with.” He taps the knife on the guy’s nose. “In case I didn’t make it clear, you won’t hear it ‘cause you’ll be all dead and shit.” Preppy makes his best dead man hanging at the end of a noose face.
“I think he gets it,” Bear says, pointing to the man’s pants where a large wet stain has formed. “He pissed himself.”
“Oh, goodie. I didn’t even have to break out the power point presentation,” Preppy says, sauntering back to the table of torture items he’s set up, then nods to me. “You’re up, boss-man.”
I don’t move because I’m staring at one of the men responsible for the almost deaths of my wife and daughter and the rage courses through my ears and the tunnel vision surrounding his face is all I can concentrate on. “So, you wanted to fuck with the King of the Causeway?” I finally ask. “You’re about to feel what happens to people who mess with the wrong fucking family.”
Bear takes the knife from Preppy and hands it to me. I test the sharpness of the blade on my fingertips as I slowly walk around the man.
“Any last words?” Bear asks.
The man nods, and I rip the tape from his mouth. “I...I’m sorry. I just want to say…it wasn’t my fault.”
“Then tell me who,” I demand.
“I can’t. Anything you do to me here, he’ll do worse. He knows where my family lives. That’s the way he works with everyone. Nobody will tell you who he is, or they risk losing everything. I can tell you that it he said something about someone named Pike. That all this is because of him. That’s all I can tell you.” His eyes meet mine. “You know, besides go fuck yourselves.”
I cover his mouth back with the tape.
Pike? What the fuck does this have to do with Pike?
“Those were a lot of last fucking words,” Bear says with a shrug.
“You’ve been found guilty of high treason,” Preppy tells him. “And your sentence is death.”
I slice his throat in one swift motion. Blood sprays out and then oozes down his neck. The garbling
sounds he makes before his eyes glaze over are annoying as fuck. The guy couldn’t even die without pissing me off.
“Shit,” Preppy says. He’s staring at the blood pooling on the clear plastic covering the floor.
“You going soft?” I ask, wiping the blood from my cheek with my forearm and tossing the knife to the ground.
He rolls his eyes and points a finger at his own chest. “Me? Please. This shit makes my fucking dick hard.”
“Then, what’s your damage?” Bear asks, lighting a cigarette and testing the electric buzz saw.
“It’s that I just remembered that Doc asked me to pick up a tomato sauce on the way home because she’ll be back today, and she wants to make…I don’t know, something with tomato sauce, and I almost forgot.” He eyes the fresh corpse and smiles. “Until now.” He pats my shoulder with his thick rubber glove. “Thanks for the reminder, Boss-man.”
“Being back here sure reminds me of old times,” Bear says, peeling off his gloves. “I miss those days.”
“Yeah, the killin’ shed has a way of bringing out the best in all of us,” Preppy says with what I can only describe as a dreamy sigh, and I swear there’s a tear in his fucking eye.
“Today, I agree with you,” I reply, lighting a smoke.
“Wanna kill him again?” Preppy asks, picking the knife off the floor.
“Nah,” I point to the far side of the room at the other gagged men with horrified expressions on their doomed faces who just witnessed what their brief futures are going to look like. “We’ve got two more.”
“This is like Christmas, but better and without all the kinky sex,” Preppy laments.
Bear’s face twists in confusion. “What the fuck kind of Christmases are you having at your house?”
Preppy lets out an exasperated sigh. “Ones with kinky sex. Didn’t I just say that?”
Bear and I exchange the same we’re never really going to know where his head is at and it’s best not to try glances.
Preppy points at Bear with his knife. “You going deaf in your old age, Beary-poo?”
“With half the shit you say?” Bear scoffs. “I fucking wish.”
Preppy picks up a chainsaw. “Oh, that gives me a good idea. We should cut off their ears.”
“Let’s just stick to good old fashioned killin’, for old time’s sake,” I say. “Bear, you wanna do the honors?”
Bear plucks the knife from Preppy’s hand. “With pleasure.”
Preppy huffs. “Always a bridesmaid…”
I slap him on the shoulder. “You get the next one, Prep.”
His frown turns into a beaming smile. He revs the chainsaw and shouts over the deafening sound. “Like I said, just like fucking Christmas.”
* * *
Find out more about the mystery man causing problems in Logan’s Beach in Pike’s book. Coming 2020. Keep reading for a preview.
A quick note
In the US, one out of every nine new mothers will suffer from Postpartum depression. PPD can affect any mom, regardless of her age, ethnicity, marital status, number of kids, or income. 1It can last for weeks, months or years.
14-23% of women will experience some form of depression during pregnancy.
Most importantly, it’s nobody’s fault.
Postpartum depression and depression during pregnancy are as real as any other kind of depression. I know because I lived through it. There were nights when I would sit on the floor of my baby’s room next to her crib and quietly cry for hours. I couldn’t leave the house for weeks because even the smallest of tasks, like what to dress the baby in or even myself for a trip to the grocery store, or packing the stroller into the car, completely overwhelmed me.
The term ‘baby blues’ is adorable, but I assure you there’s nothing adorable about the way it makes you feel.
I need you to do something for me. If you know someone who has recently had a baby, give them a call. Today. Ask them how they’re doing. Most likely, they’re going to say they’re fine, or maybe, that they’re just tired.
When they do, ask them how they’re really doing. It can make all the difference to someone suffering.
If you or someone you know is suffering from depression, please seek help.
A Preview Of Pike
Mickey
Mom and Dad always beam with pride when they tell people I have a photographic memory, even though the accomplishment is the least spectacular among those of my three younger sisters. Mallory, the youngest at thirteen, is already on the junior Olympic swim team. Maya, sixteen, recently received her early acceptance letter to Stanford. Mindy, seventeen, paints spectacular watercolor landscapes and landed her first solo gallery show in Miami next month.
Then, there’s me. Micky, nineteen, photographic memory.
Eh, seems pale in comparison.
I hear my Dad’s voice in my head at dinner last month with my aunt and uncle. “Bob, did I ever tell you that Micky here has a photographic memory. It’s astounding. She can remember every detail of everything she sees. Never seen anything like it. Bob, give me your driver’s license. She’ll remember the numbers in two-seconds flat.”
I chuckle to myself at the image of Bob’s astonished face when I did just that, taking a quick glance at his driver’s license before handing it back and reciting not just his license number, but his birthday, the date he got his license renewed, and the fact that he’s an organ donor. I added the part about him having a ketchup stain on his collar in the picture for good measure.
My memory has always been my super power. It’s never failed me.
My smile falls.
Until, today.
Today, Dad’s brag is a lie.
Because something happened today, and for the first time in my life, I can’t remember what.
The memory is there, but it’s sitting inside my brain like a shredded picture floating in the wind. Just when I feel like I’m getting close to it, it’s gone again. It’s like catching something moving in the corner of your eye only to turn around and realize that nothing’s there.
It’s as if I’m chasing ghosts.
The sound of my sisters’ laughter brings me back to the present. I brush off the uneasy feeling and plaster a bright smile on my face.
Whatever happened must not have been that important. Because if it was, I’m sure I’d remember. Because it’s who I am. I’m the daughter who remembers.
Whatever is going on with my memory is going to have to wait, because I refuse to let anything bother me, especially not here, my happy place.
My family and I vacation here in Logan’s Beach every summer. We have a small timeshare right on the beach. All of my greatest memories took place in this town. I lost my first tooth here. I had my first kiss on the pier. Even though the kiss was as gross as whatever was stuck in Hudson Yontz’s braces, the memory still makes me smile. My mom taught me how to swim in the pool of the timeshare here. My sisters and I even won a fishing tournament here. We called our team the Snook Sisters, and that year, the Snook Sisters took home first place. You would have thought we’d won the lottery instead of a forty-five-dollar gift certificate to Master Bait & Tackle.
The warmth of the sun begins to cool and the unrelenting heat fades from the back of my neck leaving a cool spot in its place as the breeze brushes across my wet skin.
I glance up to the sky and notice the sun dropping into the horizon.
Sunset already? Where did the time go? Didn’t we just leave the timeshare to go kayaking a few minutes ago?
We did. That I remember. We packed up the van. Strapped the kayaks to the roof. Stopped to buy more sunscreen.
And then…nothing.
I brush the thought off again.
I mean time always flies by during our summers here. It’s not that unusual for me to lose track of it.
But not of your memory.
I refuse to enter into that line of conversation again with my inner voice. After all, it hasn’t gotten me anywhere so far.
Today, it’s wet paint.
I smile to myself as I slowly walk past the sign. My feet ache from walking. Always the drama queen, I hear Mallory complaining about hers behind me, and I roll my eyes.
My Mom assures her we are almost there. I almost ask where there is, but I don’t want to ruin the summer with them worrying about me. Instead, I listen as Dad tells a bad knock-knock joke that makes my sisters and my mom simultaneously groan, but I can’t help the little giggle that escapes my mouth.
Mindy chides me for encouraging my Dad and groans even louder when he starts telling another joke. But I don’t mind because even Dad’s jokes are more tolerable in Logan’s Beach.
Everything is sweeter here. Better.
Even sharing a bathroom with my three sisters is more tolerable here then it is at home, and the one at home at least has two sinks where the one in the timeshare only has one.
As we walk, I’m leaving a snail-like trail of water on the pavement behind me. My clothes have gone from wet to damp under the heat of the sun, my jeans shorts chafing the inside of my thighs as they rub the skin raw with each step, but my wild mass of hair is like a deranged sponge and once it’s wet, it leaks like a runny faucet until I can find a towel and a blow dryer because air drying is not an option.
Maya notices my wet trail and jokes that I should be one of those Sham-wow infomercials. Not as the salesperson shouting about how fabulous the water absorbent cloth is, but as the cloth itself.
“Like I haven’t heard that one before,” I mutter.
Mom tells her to be nice, and I smile and stick my tongue out.
Dad tells us all to stop walking and take in salty air.
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