by Alexie Aaron
Mia could not believe her eyes when Karl fell at her feet. She was following the progress of the manhunt by the sound of footfalls above her. She heard a massive thud. The ceiling opened up and Karl Todd landed hard before her.
“MOTHER!” he called as he pulled himself to a sitting position. He brushed himself off and wiped the tears from his face. He heard movement above him, and he decided to beat it before the cops caught up with him. There was a loud click, and he felt cold steel on the side of his head.
“Stay still or I’ll blow your fucking head off,” Mia said, worried that she was standing within the monster’s reach. She knew that the rock salt in the shotgun would not stop this behemoth, but it may slow him down some.
Karl started to get to his feet.
Mia shot his ear off with the rock salt.
Karl screamed and held his head.
There was a pounding of footsteps and Butch showed up with his team. They forced Karl onto his stomach before dragging his hands away from his head to put a set of handcuffs on.
Mia heard a scrabbling above, and she looked up to see Whit’s bruised face smiling down at her through the hole in the ceiling. “Whatcha doing?” he asked.
“Looking for pieces of an ear.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Thought Karl might want a matched set.”
He smiled, turned his body around and dropped feet first through the opening, landing gracefully next to Mia.
“Whoa, circus stunts,” she said approvingly.
Whit walked over to Butch and patted him on the back. “He’s your collar, Alar. Make sure you read him his rights, all of them.” Whit touched his com. “Sheriff Ryan, come in.”
“Ryan here.”
“We have Karl Todd in custody. Better call the EMTs. Mia shot him in the head.”
“What with?”
“Sawed-off shotgun…”
Mia shouted, “Hypothetically!”
“Can you move him or do you need a stretcher?”
“Nah, it only took off his ear.”
“I will arrange for transport. Bring him down the elevator, over.”
“Will do.”
Mia watched as Karl was brought to his feet. The tall man looked at his captors and blubbered about needing his mother. Whit and Butch each took an arm and muscled him down the hall while June had her service weapon trained on Karl’s back. They loaded him into the elevator and several of the patrolmen got in too.
“Coming?” Whit asked, looking at Mia.
“I’ll catch the next one. Or take the stairs. Down has to be easier than up.”
“Suit yourself.”
The doors closed, and the elevator headed for the first floor. Mia smiled at the two remaining stateys. She followed them to the stairs. She tucked her shotgun into her pants and pulled the hoodie over it before following the men down the steps.
Murphy caught up to her on the second landing.
She didn’t have to thank him, he knew he had her appreciation, but she did anyway. “Thanks, Murph, I’d be a deader two times over if it weren’t for you.”
He took off his hat and put it over his heart and smiled.
“I hear she smelled like burnt chicken when she finally went,” Mia teased.
Murphy held his nose with his fingers.
Burt was waiting for her on the ground floor. He looked a bit dirty from his grave robbing adventure and smelled of acrid smoke. He held out his hand.
Mia took it and he pulled her into a hug. “Sorry, Mia, I have no words.”
“It’s okay, whatever it is, it will be okay,” Mia’s muffled voice replied. She pushed at him, and he released her. “Sorry, dude, couldn’t breathe.”
“We got a bucket of ashes to take to the graveyard. Want to come along?”
“I’ll pass. I have to find a lift to my truck. I’m tired, hungry, and Murphy and I have to get ready for trick-or-treaters.”
Burt looked at her slyly.
“Okay, so no one trick-or-treats at my house,” she admitted. “You go play in the graveyard, I will be seeing you. Thanks for coming all this way. We couldn’t have done it without the PEEPs.”
“I know, especially Ted,” Burt mused.
“No, all of you. Each one of you has gifts that are needed to successfully navigate the world of the paranormal,” Mia said seriously. “I appreciate you having my back.”
“Thank you,” Burt said.
Mia nodded and turned to go.
“You hear all that, Ted?” Burt asked his tech.
“Oh, yes. I hear everything,” Ted admitted.
“Okay, time to turn the coms off,” he ordered as he watched as Mia argued with what appeared to be no one, all the way out of the building.
Chapter Fifteen
Mia opened up the tailgate of her truck and stood back as the four inches of accumulated rain drained out. She hopped up and walked over and unlocked the toolbox. She deposited her weapon in the bag, wrapping it in a towel first. A light breeze ruffled her hair. She watched the sun as it rose over the field of dry corn.
Murphy sat on the hood of her truck. She slid over the roof and down the windshield and sat next to him. He mimed about their adventure and pointed out different things about the fields. He was quite talkative for someone who made no sound.
Mia pulled out her ball cap from her cargo pants pocket and pulled it low over her head.
Murphy smiled as she fell asleep. It was the morning of Halloween, and here he was, sitting with his best friend in a field of corn on a truck sunk up to its axels in mud. Death could not be better.
***
Homecoming PEEPS Lite 3.2
Chapter One
The feeling was back, the weight on his chest, the compression of his ribcage. He struggled to breathe. He felt the cold hand on his mouth and heard the reedy demand, “Don’t scream. Listen. The well, beware of the well…” The weight lifted off, the hand slid away, and he could breathe again. Mike rolled over and curled into a ball and started to cry. After all this time, it was back. Whatever had first plagued his sleeping nights for the first nine years of his life had found him again. “Listen…”
Glenda Dupree held the old rotary phone handset in one hand, a pancake flipper in the other. She had an early morning call from her elder sister. They were resuming a conversation they had started a few nights before but had to stop because Dancing with the Stars had begun. “What would he want to do a damn fool thing like that for?”
Mike walked into the kitchen, kissed his mother on the cheek and headed for the coffee pot.
“The men in our family have no G damn sense!” she bellowed into the phone.
Mike wondered what had riled the old lady up today. He ran the list of his recent activities through his brain, and with the exception of breaking the lawnmower again, he was in the clear.
“Lund’s a ghost town,” his mother declared to the caller on the line. “Haven’t been back there since… ninety-seven,” she calculated.
Mike groaned and wondered who died. The only time he had been to Lund in recent years was to go to a funeral. The Lunds liked to be buried together. He assumed they’d figured out if they were grouped together, they could argue for an eternity. His mother’s folks had been raised in the town their grandfather had settled. Johan Lund worked his way west to the area now known as Illinois. He took his savings and bought some land with good soil. He promptly planted a grove of trees, as was tradition in his family, to block the prairie winds from taking all his soil, and began to farm. His relatives from Sweden joined him by and by. After dozens of years the Lunds owned most of the land in the area. They chose to live close together, instead of out on each parcel of land, and built a town around them. They called it Lund. It suited them fine.
The town held its own and managed to attract a Sinclair gas station at one point. The railroad opted not to build a spur in Lund because of the lack of business there. The Lunds trucked their harvests long distances to get the best deal
, so they didn’t foresee the problem of what not having access to the railroad would mean to the future of their community. Besides, trains were messy and noisy. Outsiders that had settled there were tolerated but only as breeding stock. They had a school at one point, as the Lunds were a prolific lot, but that was gone now. Farming didn’t pay once the corporate farms moved in. The Lunds that had remained in town commuted two hours to Joliet and Chicago to work in the factories.
Mike had spent part of his young life there. His father was an enlisted man in the army. When he was called overseas, his mother brought him home to Lund. Glenda wanted to be with family. To sit and argue while shelling peas on the back porch, this made her happy.
“Eddy finally gets a break and he… No sense,” his mother sighed. “I suppose I better get to it and make arrangements. Sure, sure, I’ll let you know what I decide. Thanks for the heads up, Mary. Talk to you soon,” she said and hung up the phone. Glenda looked over at her handsome son and smiled. “You’ll never guess.”
Mike didn’t like the guessing game, but since she still hadn’t produced his breakfast, he thought he’d better play. “What?”
“Your cousin Eddy.”
“The pig farmer?”
“Not anymore. Ever since he hit the Powerball he hasn’t touched a pig.”
“He won the lottery?” Mike asked, uncomfortable with the thought of his smelly cousin rising income brackets faster than he was.
“Big. He won big. Fifty million.” His mother raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips. “Guess what the moron’s doing with the money?”
“Trip to Vegas?”
“No, not that stupid.”
“Getting married?”
“No, that’s would have made sense. Come on boy, think dumb.”
Mike laughed at his mother’s comment of think dumb. He thought the act of thinking no longer made you dumb, but there you go, Ma had her own language. “He’s buying a farm?”
“Now you’re on the right track.”
“I heard Lund mentioned. Is he buying George Albert’s farm?”
Glenda wrinkled up her face and nodded. “That’s not all he’s buying.”
Mike waited dutifully for his mother to build up the suspense.
“He’s buying the whole damn town!”
“Lund? But it’s a ghost town, no one lives there.”
“I know! Who’d want to? No stores, no church, no schools,” she listed.
“What’s he going to do with it?”
“Going to refurbish the whole town, make it a… a… Oh, damn… Got it! A destination town. Antiques, B&Bs, restaurants, and little stores. Got the idea from that movie star, what’s his name on that reality show? You know the guy who played that guy… ah hell, nevermind.”
“What a way to piss away a couple of million dollars,” Mike commented.
“We got to get over there and empty Grandpa’s house.”
His mother’s words hit him like a sledge hammer to the temple. He winced and croaked, “Why?”
“Because Eddy’s going to start with Grandpa’s house first. He’s offered me a fair price, and I’m taking it.”
“I didn’t know you owned the place.”
“Been renting it out for a few years to your aunt Sybil, but her kin put her in a home. It’s just been collecting dust since. I never bothered to sell it as the taxes were dirt cheap. George Albert’s been looking after it for me.”
“When do you want to go over there?” Mike asked as his mother put a large plate of pancakes in front of him. He added up the calories and the gym time he would have to put in, but he felt the taste far outweighed the damage he would do to his diet.
“I’d like to tackle it before the snow comes. Today.”
Mike choked on his food. Glenda was there ready to do the Heimlich maneuver. He waved her off. “Today?”
“No time like the present. Are you doing an investigation presently?”
“No.”
“I’d really like to get this taken care of and off my mind.”
“What about Thanksgiving?”
“We could have it there.” His mother’s eyes lit up. “Why don’t you invite that little Chicago girl you’re always fighting with?”
“Mia?”
“Yes, that’s the one. Maybe you two could get to know each other better and stop squabbling all the time.”
Mike gave her a sideways look. His mother loved to argue, listening to squabbles, starting most of them herself. He thought she was up to something.
“She’s a handywoman, right? I’ll hire her to help us. I bet she could use some money coming into Christmas time.”
“She’s got people and a boyfriend,” Mike pointed out. “I’m sure she wants to spend the holidays with them.”
“Couldn’t hurt to ask.” Glenda walked over to the wall phone and picked up the handset. “What’s her number?”
Everything was moving way too fast for Mike. He hadn’t a chance to think up an excuse for why he wouldn’t be going to Lund, let alone why Mia wouldn’t be interested. He pulled out his cell and read her number out from his PEEPs contact list.
Alexie Aaron
After traveling the world, Alexie Aaron, a Midwestern native, returned to her roots where she’s been haunting for years. She now lives in a village outside of Chicago with her husband and family.
Her popular Haunted Series was born from her memories of fleeting shapes rushing around doorways, an heirloom chair that rocked itself, cold feelings of mysterious dread, and warm feelings from the traces of loved ones long gone.
Alexie also writes the Cin Fin-Lathen Mysteries. These cozies set in England and south Florida combine action and intrigue with a liberal dose of humor.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Homecoming PEEPS Lite 3.2
Alexie Aaron
