Hot Southern Mess

by Gen Griffin

  Kelsey had pawed all the way through Gracie's underwear drawer earlier tonight. She'd mocked Gracie for her plain cotton thongs and boy-short panties. Bright colors apparently didn't make up for the lack of sex appeal. Gracie didn't trust Kelsey anywhere near enough to admit that the thought of going shopping for something sexy knowing Cal wouldn't be seeing it had been so downright depressing that Gracie still had an unused $100 Victoria's Secret Gift Card in her wallet that had been there since her birthday in July.

  She shuddered. She had been unable to shake the nausea that had begun during Brett's last reckless journey into the rural neighborhood to the west of main campus. It had taken her 30 minutes to get his body out of the driver's seat and into the back floorboards. His phone had been ringing and receiving alerts the whole time. She'd finally forced herself to get it out of his pocket and take the battery out.

  She was driving the flashy car down dark, mostly empty two-lane highways heading back to the tiny southern backwater town that she'd always called home. She tensed every time a set of headlights approached, certain that somehow the cops already knew she'd killed Brett. Every time the other vehicle kept cruising right on by without so much as a show of brake lights, she felt unreasonably relieved.

  David had said to come home. It was a good enough excuse to run like hell away from State University.

  Chapter 14

  The scene that greeted Jo Beth and Addison in the trailer was unlike anything else either of them had ever witnessed before. Amelia had apparently fallen through the soggy floor next to the air conditioning duct the raccoon was stuck in. The floor had collapsed and taken out the duct with it, trapping Amelia and freeing the coon in a twist of fate Addison would have found amusing at any other time.

  “Not cool,” Addy whispered under his breath as he surveyed the scene. Amelia was screaming at the top of her lungs. The raccoon had apparently climbed over her on its way out of the floor and she had bloody paw prints on her shirt and cheeks. The coon was sitting in the corner of the room. It was holding what remained of the bag of donuts and hissing viciously at Addison.

  “That's pretty much the understatement of the year,” Jo said. She was standing at his elbow and making no attempt to move into the room. Addison noted that her honey-brown eyes were still framed by perfectly applied eyeliner and pink eye shadow. When she licked her lips she pulled a tube of lip gloss out of her pocket and reapplied it automatically.

  “Get me out of here!” Amelia bellowed. “What are you doing just standing there? I'm gonna sue the both of you!”

  “Don't suppose you have access to the county crane?” Jo pursed her lips then leaned towards Addison. “There is absolutely no way the two of us are going to be able to get her out of that floor.”

  Addy shook his head. “The biggest thing I have access to is David's wrecker. I reckon we could knock out a wall and try to winch her out?”

  Jo almost smiled.

  The raccoon, apparently having had enough of Amelia's screaming, darted towards her flailing arms. The animal scratched her hand as she let out another squeal of anger. “Do something! I'm being attacked!”

  “I was really hoping that dumb son-of-a-bitch would have run off by now.” Addison gestured at the raccoon and scowled. He tightened his grip on the dog catcher's pole he was holding. He had no choice but to try and go across the weakened floor to get the coon out. He turned to face Jo Beth. “Go get the ax out of the bed of my truck and bring it back here. Please.”

  “Ax?”

  “How else are we going to get her out of that floor?”

  Jo stared back at Amelia, who was failing madly and making the whole floor quake and shift. “Should I call someone? Like, back up or something?”

  “Wouldn't do any good. Perkins is on duty tonight. He weighs even more than she does. He'd fall through the floor beside her and then we'd have to figure out how to get both of them out.”

  Jo Beth nodded and headed out the door. She left Addison to deal with the raccoon and the screaming.

  He turned to Amelia as the coon hissed at her again and laid its ears back flat against its head. She responded by flinging the television remote directly at the critter. The remote hit the coon squarely in the nose making it hiss and snarl furiously.

  “That didn't help.” Addison stared at the angry animal with a growing sense of dread. He wasn't exactly an ace with the pole, and he was not going to have much of a margin of error on this. He wouldn't have wanted to trade places with Amelia right now.

  Addison loosened the metal wire noose on the end of the pole and attempted to move it slowly towards the coon. The coon took one look at him then growled and ran across the room. It trampled over Amelia's head in the process. She screamed again and Addison decided to make a go for coon. He missed the coon and knocked over a cheap, ugly ceramic lamp in the shape of Jesus. Amelia howled. “That was my Mother's!”

  “Guess she'll have to give you another one.” Addison lunged after the coon again and fell through another hole in the floor. Pain shot through his ankle and he cursed. “Fuck!”

  “My mother is dead!” Amelia yowled. Addison attempted to pull his leg back out of the hole in the floor. He succeeded at getting free but he ripped a long slit through one of the legs of his jeans as a sharp nail stuck him. The coon glared at him from under a coffee table and hissed. He swiped at it with the pole, which the animal easily dodged.

  Addison crouched on the edge of the hole he'd just created, muttering obscenities and glaring at the raccoon. Amelia's howling was giving him a headache. “Will you kindly shut the fuck up?”

  “You can't talk to me like that! I pay your salary!” Amelia glared at him and he considered her for a moment. Her house dress was shredded across her chest, exposing one large blue-veined breast. Her curly hair was completely disheveled. She had blood running down from the areas where the coon had bitten her.

  “Do you want me to get this raccoon or not?” Addison turned his attention back the raccoon. He carefully slid the pole towards the raccoon and eased the noose carefully around its neck before tightening it down. He wasn't fast enough. The raccoon grasped the pole in its paws and began climbing up the pole towards Addison. He cursed and was about to drop the whole contraption when a shot rang out and the raccoon dropped to the floor of the trailer twitching.

  Amelia abruptly shut up.

  “Jesus Christ.” Addy turned to see Jo Beth standing in the doorway with a pink .38 caliber pistol nestled neatly in her hand. He was disconcerted to see that the gun was the exact same shade of pink as her hoodie. The ax was leaning against the doorway behind her.

  “You just shot my trailer!” Amelia wailed.

  “Technically, no.” Jo shook her head and brushed her bangs out of her eyes. Addison watched numbly as she clicked the gun's safety back on and put it into the pocket of her cotton capri pants. “I shot my trailer. Or rather, my step-daddy's trailer.”

  “Nice shot,” Addison said, finally recovering his wits. “You always carry that thing around with you?”

  “Pretty much,” Jo said with a shrug. “Never know when some creep might decide to prey on an innocent girl.” She shot him a nasty look. Her implications were clear.

  “I'll keep that in mind.” Addison tried not to let her see him shudder slightly. The coon hadn't been an easy shot. She could probably shoot his balls off. That little talent made her a lot more dangerous than he'd previously suspected. He decided he might have to make an attempt to be nicer to her. He liked his anatomy the way God had made it. He grabbed the ax from where she'd left it resting against the door frame and headed towards the center of the room where Amelia was still trapped.

  “Hold still,” he told her roughly as he began hacking at the floor. Addison was trying his damnedest not to do any more damage than he needed to. A few well-placed swings later Amelia was free of the plywood floor but still down in the hole.

  “What are you waiting for?” she demanded. She held both arms out to him. “Lift me u
p.”

  Addison groaned and took her hands. His back and legs were already aching from the day's abuse, not to mention his own fall through the floor. He pulled up on her as hard as he could with his muscles screaming in protest. He thought it was working as Amelia budged an inch and then two. She was almost free when she suddenly stopped trying to help and turned into dead weight with a death grip on his hands. When Amelia fell back through the floor, she took Addison with her.

  For a moment he lay under the trailer, groaning as he rolled off of Amelia and into a nest of harmless but still disgusting wood spiders. Amelia moaned beside him.

  “You're trying to kill me,” she said accusingly and then started to cry. “You did that on purpose.”

  Addison blinked at her in complete disbelief. He was coughing and brushing spiders off his chest and arms.

  “No, I don't think he did,” Jo Beth spoke from above them. She knelt carefully near the edge of the hole and held out something long and metal in one of her hands. She lowered a step-ladder into the hole. “I saw this outside.”

  Addison was tempted to kiss her as Amelia clawed into his shoulder and used him as a post to hoist her massive body out from the underside of the trailer. He was having a hard time breathing. He suspected the problem had something to do with the fall, his dust allergy, and having three hundred pounds of woman pressing down on his rib cage.

  Jo Beth gracefully helped Amelia onto her feet and onto more solid ground. No sooner was the ungrateful woman back on her feet than she glared at Jo. “I'm not paying you any more rent. In fact, I'm going to sue you as soon as the courthouse opens tomorrow morning.”

  “That's fine,” Jo said calmly as Addison worked his own way out of the hole from hell. “You're not on the lease anyway. You moved in five years ago when your mother died and Matt let you stay because he's a nice guy. I'm planning on evicting you in the morning. If you sue me you should be aware that I'm going to counter-sue you for destroying the trailer.” Jo gestured at the holes in the floor and then turned on her heel, picked up Addison's ax and walked neatly out the door.

  Addison considered his options for half a second and then gingerly used the pole to pick up the dead raccoon and followed after her. Amelia slammed the door shut behind him.

  Chapter 15

  “Either I've had way too much to drink tonight or nowhere near enough.” David was sitting on the top step of the porch when Gracie got out of the BMW. The moon was bright enough that she could see the details in the tattoos that were covering his chest and arms when he stood up to greet her.

  David had too many tattoos. The only thing Addison had learned in the Navy was how to work a tattoo gun. David had been content to let Addy practice his new skill on his body when he'd come back to Possum Creek. The result was a disturbing collection of artwork that displayed a lot of raw talent but rather questionable taste.

  The words 'Southern Bad Ass' framed David's collarbone. Immediately underneath the writing he had a large toothy alligator with the skeleton of a confederate soldier resting against its side. The gator and the solider were surrounded by a wicked, decaying swamp full of bullfrogs and stumps. The confederate flag itself covered the flesh over his heart. When he took a drag off the cigarette he was holding, the entire image rippled like it was breathing on its own.

  “Nowhere near enough. I promise you. You can't buy enough whiskey to make tonight okay.” Gracie shivered as she shut the door of the BMW and walked unsteadily towards the ramshackle porch of David's singlewide trailer. She wasn't surprised to find him awake and waiting on her at quarter past three in the morning. She felt his dark, hooded green eyes burning into her as she delicately stepped over the busted rear-end that had come out of Addison's truck last year. Neither of them spoke as she picked her way barefoot through the broken glass and miscellaneous truck parts that had accumulated in the front yard over the last decade or two. He had been living alone in the trailer since high school. The place was beginning to bear a strong resemblance to a junkyard.

  She turned to face him directly as she reached the porch. He was taller than her by a couple of inches. The top of her head came up to his eye level when they were both standing barefoot. He had his tanned, muscular arms crossed over his narrow chest. David was as thin as a skeleton when compared to Cal and Addison. He was strong but he didn't look it unless he had his shirt off. Gracie could see the lean muscles that cut decisive lines in his toned body. Lean corded muscle covered in endless tattoos and scars. Plenty of scars on David.

  She caught sight of a particularly long, jagged scar on his rib cage and almost smiled. Rumor had it he'd gotten that scar in a knife fight with the Hells Angel who had stabbed his Dad. Rumor also had it he'd gotten it while robbing a bank in some county no one had ever heard of. A third rumor said, well, it didn't matter what the third rumor said. He'd been gutting a deer with Cal and the knife had slipped. Gracie knew because she had been sitting on these very steps when it had happened. He'd bled like a stuck pig and his olive toned skin had turned white enough to spook Cal into breaking every speed limit for 60 miles on the way to the hospital.

  “Where are your clothes?” David's question brought her back to the present.

  “My clothes?” Gracie was confused until she looked down at herself. Even on a nearly moonless night, the outlines of her dark nipples showed clearly through the sheer black lace of her bra. Her toes were bare except for a chipped coat of cherry colored polish. The tiny confederate rose tattoo Addison had drawn on her hip when she turned 15 was exposed to the elements. Her hair was a tangled mess from the wind.

  “I wasn't wearing much to start with. Just a tank top and this skirt. I threw up on the tank top.” She was almost embarrassed as she waved one trembling hand across her exposed flesh. “You know how I get when I see blood.”

  “You still have it?” His voice was emotionless but that was completely normal for David. David was tough. He'd never complained when he'd sliced his side open. Not one complaint even as his blood had turned the blue towel Gracie had been instructed to use to keep pressure on his open wound to a deep dark brown color. He'd barely flinched when the doctors had stitched him back together and dumped several bags of fresh blood into his veins. He'd opened the shop same as usual at 7 a.m. the next morning.

  “My shirt?” She nodded and forced herself to try and stay calm. “It’s in the back seat.”

  “I'll have to make sure to burn it.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek. It was nervous habit he'd had for as long as she could remember. “You have any trouble getting down here? You didn't get pulled over or anything, did you?”

  “I almost ran out of gas,” she admitted with a shudder. She was fighting the urge to break down and bawl like a baby. “I thought three quarters of a tank would be enough, but the car gets really crappy gas mileage.”

  David snorted back a harsh laugh and shook his head at her. “That engine is meant for speed, Gracie Jayne. Most folks who can afford one of these babies aren't worried about a few bucks at the pump.”

  “Figures.” She shrugged her shoulders and bit her lip to stop fresh tears from spilling down her cheeks. David had never had never had any patience for whiny, crying girls. The last thing she needed to do right now was annoy him. He had a wickedly short temper. Unlike most of the residents of Callahan County, Gracie wasn't remotely afraid of David. But she had no desire to annoy him either, especially not when her entire future was in his hands.

  “I came straight here. I never stopped. I was afraid the car would be too memorable.”

  “Especially being driven by a half-naked blonde,” David commented without any hint of sarcasm. “I was starting to worry something had happened to you. You took more than three hours to get here.”

  “It took me a long time to get his body into the back seat,” she explained with a shudder. “I didn't want to risk opening the doors of the car and having anything drop out. I didn't think I could pick him back up if he fell out either.”

  �
�That was smart.” David brushed his shaggy brown hair out of his dark green eyes and scowled at the car. “Your boyfriend still in there?”

  Gracie gagged slightly and nodded. She gestured toward the back doors of the sedan. “Don't call him my boyfriend.”

  David cocked his eyebrow at her but said nothing as he walked over to the car and opened the back door. He barely recoiled when he caught sight of Brett sprawled across the backseat. If Gracie hadn't known him intimately since the tender age of three she probably wouldn't have noticed the way he flinched when he reached down to double check the corpse's pulse.

  She tried and failed to suppress a shudder. “David, I'm so sorry.”

  He held up a hand to stop her from saying anything else. He shut the door on the BMW. “It's okay. We'll get through this.”

  “I can't believe this is happening. I didn't mean to kill him. I swear to God. I was just trying to stop him from raping me. I thought he'd back off and let me go when he saw the gun.” She was taking her breaths in short gasps. Suddenly tonight was all too real. She didn't even realize her knees had given out until David grabbed hold of her and pulled her upright against his warm chest.

  “Shhh. Easy. It's okay. You're safe now.” David pressed his cheek against the top of her head. Gracie dug her fingers into his skin. She held onto him for dear life.