by Jenna Brooks
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 Jenna Brooks
Edited by: Victoria L. Hobson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-4792-3482-6
ISBN-13: 9731623473372
eBook ISBN: 978-1-62347-337-2
DEDICATION
To the heroes who struggle to survive.
In memory of those who didn’t.
And for the Fears-facer and the Waves-chaser:
Remember, good people can’t do nothing.
Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.
Luke 7:47
Contents
Dedication
October Snow
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
October Snow: Part Two
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
OCTOBER SNOW
Jo knew it was coming. She had known for weeks.
She balanced her phone on her shoulder, gunning her truck into the traffic at the end of the exit. “You called the cops?”
May Walker was panicked, bordering on hysterical. “They aren’t here yet. Are you on your way?”
“Yes. You need to get back on the line with 911, May.”
“No! Stay with me!”
Jo ran a red light at sixty miles an hour. “Okay. I’m right here.”
“How far away are you?”
“Just a couple of minutes. Doors are locked…”
“Yes.”
“You’re in the safe room?”
“I put Jasmine in there. I told her not to open it for anyone.”
“May…” Jo decided it was too late to deal with that. “I’m turning onto your street.”
There was a scream then, and the jarring clatter of May’s phone hitting the floor.
Jo whipped into the driveway a minute later, a city police car right behind her. She heard a shot; a moment later, she heard another.
Her pulse throbbed in her ears, and she didn’t hear the police bellowing for her to stop. She ran onto the front porch just as May emerged, tumbling into her arms, and they sank to the porch floor together. Jo’s legs were wedged under May’s back: they felt warm, oddly sticky.
May had fallen with her head facing away, and as Jo carefully turned her to look at her, she saw that there was a deep groove through the right side of her neck. Blood was gushing out.
“He’s in there,” May whispered. “Don’t let him get Jasmine.”
Jo couldn’t breathe. “I won’t. Shhh.”
“Ever.”
“No. Not ever. Be still now.”
May was crying. The blood on her face mixed with her tears, running down her temples and into her hair. Jo, in her shocky state, thought that May’s tears were made of blood.
She was mumbling confused, disjointed thoughts. “I didn’t make it, Jo.”
“May…”
“There aren’t any heroes left.”
She put her hand over the wound in May’s neck. The blood seeped between her trembling fingers, and Jo stared at it, transfixed, desperately stifling the impulse to scream.
Earl Walker suddenly appeared in the doorway. Jo’s eyes were riveted on his handgun–aimed not at her, but at the policeman who had arrived to back up the first officer. The gunshots, so close by, created a popping, implosive sensation in her ears.
Earl was thrown almost completely off of his feet as the force of the bullets slammed him back into the doorway; then he fell forward, shrieking and clutching at his abdomen, a few feet from where his wife lay bleeding to death. His gun skidded toward the steps, and Jo had a sudden impulse to grab it and finish him off.
She looked down at May. Her eyes were closed. Jo could barely hear her when she whispered, “Thanks for being my friend.”
She had no concept of how long they sat like that; then, two officers moved May’s body away from Jo’s legs. She absently wiped her hands on top of her thighs as she sat watching them attend to her. Her hands slipped awkwardly, and she looked down to see her jeans drenched in blood.
She felt another scream pushing its way from her throat–and then, another officer appeared, helping her to her feet.
“It’s me, Josie,” he said. “It’s Derosa.” She recognized him then.
Derosa. She repeated his name several times.
The Channel Seven van arrived soon after. The reporters stayed in the street, behind the yellow crime scene tape. Jo, standing with Derosa at his car, recognized one of them: she had done a much-applauded piece a few weeks earlier, about a man in Plymouth who had been arrested for beating the family dog to death, right in front of his kids. Everyone was appropriately horrified, and it seemed that the public consensus was that the guy needed to be flogged. Put in the rack. He was facing felony animal abuse and child abuse charges.
Jo, however, had been horrified by the fact that there was only the briefest mention of his record. He had been previously arrested–twice–for assaulting his ex-wife. He had almost killed her once, right in front of the kids. Jo knew about that because the woman was one of her clients at the domestic violence center; however, attempted murder was, apparently, a Family Court matter.
“Beating the dog…Well, that was just going way the hell too far.”
She realized she had spoken out loud when Derosa said, “I can’t hear you.” He was hunched over, trying to make eye contact with her.
Jo stared blankly at the newswoman, and then at the green van with News You Can Use stenciled on the side. “She’s Christine…Something. I think…” She pushed off from where she leaned on the side of the cruiser, putting her hand to her forehead. “My hand’s…weird….” She held it in front of her face, not understanding for a moment what was covering it.
He offered her a towel. “Here, let’s wipe you down a little…”
She started toward the Channel Seven van, and Derosa put his hand on her arm. “Where are you going?”
She stumbled, and he tightened his grip to steady her. “I want to say something to that stupid reporter. News she can use.” She tried to pull her arm away.
He shook his head. “You can’t talk to the press.”
Jo looked at him petulantly, then back at Christine.
“Please, Jo, just stay here with me.”
She leaned her back against his car. The blue lights were spinning and flashing. “No story here,” she called behind her, over the top of the cruiser. “May didn’t have a dog, Chris-tine.”
A cold mist was starting to fall, making the metallic smell of May’s blood on her clothes unbearable. The blood that Jo had just smudged on her forehead was mixing with the rain, and was running into her eyes and down her cheeks. She put her hand on the patrol car, bent over, and vomited until she fell to her knees. Derosa held her forehead, his other hand on her back, calling for a medic.
chapter 1
THE DASHBOARD CLOCK read 5:27 PM. She’d be late for work in three minutes.
“O
kay, honey. I understand…No, I’m not mad. Maybe next week…Love you. Oh, by the way, Johnny…”
But Jo’s son had already hung up.
She bit her lip, angry, uncharacteristically so. “By the way, Johnny…” she said to her closed cell phone.
“No, I’m not mad.” She slammed her truck into park. “Why bother being mad when no one cares anyway?”
She pulled her lipstick from her apron pocket. As she yanked the rearview mirror into position, she recalled the debate she and Maxine had the night before, about the tree falling in the forest.
“Of course it makes a sound. What a stupid idea.” She resisted a sudden impulse–almost a compulsion–to smear Honey Pink Frost all over her face.
She flipped the mirror back into place, looking up at the restaurant’s flashing neon sign. Welcome To…The Berry Crate!…Homestyle Cooking…Really Great!
She grimaced. “Three years of this place.” She stepped out of the truck, rolling her eyes when she saw the manager’s car by the front entrance. “Great,” she muttered. “Big Barbie’s here.”
“Jo-see!” the other waitresses called out to her as she came into the kitchen. She blew them kisses, fumbling with an elastic band, trying to pull her hair back before Barb saw her.
“Jo!” Too late.
Kaleen, the new girl, jumped, scrambling to steady the large tray of food she was balancing. Jo took faint notice that she herself didn’t startle anymore when Big Barbie screamed.
“For the last time, you pull your hair back before you come into the restaurant!” Barb was close behind her, and Jo could smell the overdose of her perfume, intensely floral and suffocating. “Or better yet, get a haircut. Good grief, at your age, you certainly don’t need that cheerleader hairstyle.”
The kitchen fell silent for a few moments, then resumed its chaotic chatter. Jo closed her eyes and listened as Barb’s high heels clipped away. She could hear the cloying, nasal country music out in the dining room. Some singer–probably long dead, Jo mused–was wailing the eternal questions about broken hearts, and lamenting his own.
The evening was frantic, far too busy for only a few waitresses and one busboy. The Berry Crate was designed to evoke memories of the old country store, reminiscent of the days of roadside eateries and old-fashioned values.
Jo thought the place was completely synthetic, prostituting a fantasy of days gone by: an era of children playing on warm summer evenings, good neighbors, and happy people and families. Nine of The Crate’s airbrushed commercials played in a continuous loop on a fifty-two inch TV screen above the fireplace in the dining room.
The customers themselves were generally a sick, stark contrast to the happy images that streamed above them: they were angry, demanding misanthropes, with miserable lives and overblown ideas of entitlement. They came in for their cheap meals, and the hokey atmosphere, and to flex a little of their superiority at the waitresses. It sometimes occurred to Jo that Big Barbie was the same way.
They ate lots of meatloaf and gravy. Mashed potatoes. And fried chicken–the smell, sight, and feel of which she knew would haunt her senses forever.
The crowd was feeling especially ugly that night. Meals were taking too long, drinks sat empty, tables were dirty. The busboy had clocked out and quit at the height of the dinner rush, and one of the cooks wound up in the emergency room after burning his hand on the grill.
In the kitchen, after the restaurant had quieted, Jo picked up a large busser’s tub and took it to the dining room.
“Hey, you.” Her friend Samantha was rubbing her back. “Let me help. We’ll put the place back together.”
Jo picked up plates and silverware with two fingers, grimacing and waving away the flies that dotted one table in particular. She pulled a highchair away from it, and spotted an open, soiled diaper on the floor underneath it. Looking up for Samantha, her eye caught the TV above the fireplace: a pristine, white-haired grandmother was passing a perfect, pink, lace-clad infant to her grandfather as the proud parents beamed, taking bites of meatloaf and chattering happily.
“Sammy, got any gloves?”
There were two tables left to bus when Maxine called to them from the kitchen doorway.
“Hey girls, Barb wants us all in here. Now.”
Jo nodded. Her stomach gripped as she made her way from the dining room to whatever tirade was waiting for the servers in the kitchen.
Barb was a very large woman–heavy, tall, and big-boned. She had a fifties-style, poodle-do haircut, and a penchant for long, flowing skirts that she wore, always, with the stiletto heels that made her tower over the servers. Jo, at five-three and not quite a hundred pounds, couldn’t help feeling physically intimidated by her. She often wondered if it was a deliberate thing, the fact that most of the waitresses in the place were kind of small.
She could hear Barb shouting well before she got to the kitchen. “No one is leaving until this kitchen is clean. White-glove clean, ladies. I’m getting the gloves out of the office. Move it.” She lumbered toward her office just as Jo entered the kitchen. In spite of Jo’s best effort to get out of the way, she still got bumped–hard–by Barb, pushing through behind her. “Jo, stay the hell out of the way, and will you please answer that phone?”
Sam leaned into Jo’s ear. “Yes please, Jo, go get that phone.”
“I hope it’s death calling.”
Sam laughed out loud. “Big Barbie’s in a mood. Again.” She touched Jo’s arm. “You feeling okay?”
“Just tired.” The headache Jo had been resisting was winning, throbbing with her heartbeat. She rubbed her temples with her fingertips for a moment, sighed, and picked up the phone.
“Berry Crate, Manchester, New Hampshire. May I take your order to go?”
“Hey! Kane!” Barb screamed it, even though she stood outraged only a few feet away.
Jo was motionless for a second. “Could you hold please?” She jabbed the Hold button without waiting for an answer, and slowly turned to face Barb.
“What?”
Maxine, hearing the edge in Jo’s voice, put a hand on her back.
“In my office. Now. Someone else grab the phone.” Barb turned sharply for her office, her four-inch heels clacking like a metronome.
Jo didn’t move. “I really don’t think I can do this anymore,” she said, to no one in particular.
She then wondered if she said it too loudly. There goes my job.
Good. It’s time.
Maxine was still behind her, poking her in the back. “Jo, what are you doing? Get in there.”
“I think I’m done.”
“Go!” Maxine gave her a little push, and Jo walked stiffly into the office.
She emerged a few minutes later, to the usual rush of questions from the others.
“What happened?”
“You get written up?”
“You okay?”
“What did she say?”
Looking at their anxious faces, Jo’s headache pounded harder. “Relax. She wrote me up for not saying my name when I answered the phone.” She smiled wanly. “She feels better now.”
An hour later, as Jo was clocking out, Maxine appeared beside her with their jackets. “Beers at Barley’s?”
“Yes.”
“Sammy? You coming?”
Sam gave her a thumbs-up. “Just for one. Then I gotta get home.”
Jo stared into her empty mug. “You know what I hate the most, girls?”
Sam was on her third drink, and didn’t answer. Max, on her fifth, wobbled a bit in her chair as she shook her head in response.
“Those freaking incessant TV commercials…”
Max was already yelling, “Oh, yeah,” then again, “Oh, yeah.” She stuck her finger in her mug, scraping something from the inside. “It’s like 1984.” She lifted her mug, then paused. “But I hate Big Barbie most.”
Sam looked up. “That TV is creepy, if you ask me.”
“So’s Big Barbie.” Max drained the rest of her beer. “One
for the road?”
Jo signaled the bartender. “Bobby?”
“Yeah, coming up.”
Jo leaned back in her chair, looking up at the rustic ceiling beams that crisscrossed the 1820’s tavern. She closed her eyes, wondering when her headache had let up. “It’s all imagery, like brainwashing. Making people believe that they can go back to innocent times by imitating the people on the TV.”
Max nodded. “They know they’ll never get back there. To innocence, I mean.”
Jo smirked. “Philosophical tonight?”
“That place is proof that Dante miscounted,” Sam mumbled.
They looked at her, surprised. Sam wasn’t known for her intellect.
“Hey, I know some stuff.”
“Don’t whine, Sammy. You sound like Jan Brady. Hey Jo, I thought you were going to deck The Big Bah-bah-ra for a minute there.”
“Maybe I will, one of these days.”
Bobby appeared at the table with their drinks and a bowl of pretzels. “You ladies should eat something.”
Sam’s cell was vibrating at the edge of the table, and Max grabbed it. She struggled to focus on the caller’s name. “Jack,” she said, rolling her eyes as she slid it across the table. “Tell him you met someone new, and now you’re on your way to Reno to divorce his sorry ass.”
Jo tossed a pretzel at her. “And then off to Vegas. With the new man.”
“Stop it, guys.” Sam flipped her phone open. “Yeah, what’s up?…No, I’m at Barley’s…. With the girls…No, not…Why?”
Jo and Max exchanged looks. Max inclined her head toward the bar, still watching Sam, who was stammering something about her long day and wanting to unwind. “Bobby, let’s settle up.”
The small tavern was filling up again, and they made their way slowly to the front door. The band that had been playing at Devon’s Grill–a high-class Yuppie haven just up the street–had apparently called it a night a few minutes earlier, and the drafts were cheaper at Barley’s.
“Hey, Jo,” Max called over her shoulder, “the upper crust is slumming it tonight. Nothing like cheap beer.”
Jo laughed, quickly taking a final sip from her half-full mug, reaching to put it on the edge of the bar on her way out. Someone on her right, pressed up to the bar, backed into her. She looked up at a tall man with every earmark of an aging Yuppie: red sweater-and-tie set, spreading hips, grayish hair lining his expanding forehead. He looked completely out of place. Then, she realized who the aging Yuppie was.
