The Damned Summer (The Ruin Trilogy)

by Weaver, Scott

  She looked around. “Could you walk with me?”

  He nodded and they started to move away.

  “Hey!” Johnny said as he pointed at them. “Do you have a license to take such a fine looking girl off alone without supervision?”

  Jake replied with a middle finger.

  “Watch out for him, honey, he’s bad news!”

  Such a comment would have made her smile before, but not now.

  “Listen,” Jake said once they were away from the others. “I haven’t said anything to anybody about that night and I’m not going to.”

  “I think I’m pregnant,” the words just blurted out of her mouth.

  His cigarette tipped toward the ground, almost falling out of his mouth. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  She shook her head and tried to stop the tears that slowly leaked from her eyes.

  Sarah’s dad started up the SUV.

  “Is this really necessary, Steve?” his wife asked.

  “We are going to the carnival, Linda,” he replied, backing up the vehicle. “Are you going to ruin date night by saying you’ve got a headache or something?

  “No, but I didn’t know this was date night.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m trying to be spontaneous.”

  “Sure,” she answered as they drove down the quiet street.

  “We’ll do a lap around the park and then go home, okay?”

  “Which accomplishes nothing other than embarrassing your daughter and showing how much of a nip-shit you are.”

  “Peace of mind might not mean anything to you, but it does to me.”

  “False sense of peace,” she replied.

  “It makes me feel better, if it doesn’t do anything for you, that’s your problem.”

  Linda looked out the window and chose not to say anything. She could see an old man walking a dog.

  “Is that Frank Tyler?”

  Steve looked out into the growing darkness. “Yeah, I think so,” He tapped his horn as they went past. Frank gave a brief wave.

  “He’s holding up pretty well,” Linda commented.

  “Frank’s always been a rock,” Steve said with a smile. “I imagine he’ll be around for a while.”

  Frank wondered who was in the dark SUV as he waved.

  “Just more people you’re going to hurt by your actions,” the demon said, walking up beside Frank.

  “We’re just going on a walk,” Frank replied, ushering a growling Lloyd forward.

  “You’re not much of a liar, old friend.”

  “You’re not much of a friend, old liar,” Frank replied, looking straight ahead.

  The demon chuckled. “Such word play, old man. I didn’t know ya had it in ya.”

  “I’m full of surprises.”

  “Not as many as me,” the fiend said into Frank’s ear. “If you get involved tonight, I’ll eat your soul and your little dog’s too.” The fiend did an excellent rendition of the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz.

  “I guess we’ll find out,” Frank said, picking up his pace as the demon faded into the darkness. Lloyd tugged at his arm, trying to make the aging man walk even faster toward the carnival.

  Jake took a deep drag off his cigarette. “Just take it easy,” he said, his mind racing. She nodded silently, wiping her eyes.

  “Mom didn’t say shit about this,” he whispered to himself.

  “Excuse me,” Sarah asked.

  “Nothing, never mind,” he took another puff of his smoke. “So, what now? An abortion?”

  “No,” she hissed, grabbing her stomach. “Never.”

  “Okay, that’s cool,” he said with hands raised. “Just runnin’ your options by ya.”

  “Are you going to be an asshole about this?”

  “No,” he stammered. “Shit, I don’t know. You kind of caught me off guard here.”

  She crossed her arms and shook her head.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” he replied, throwing down his spent cigarette. “What do you want to do?”

  “We are going to have a child, do you understand that?”

  “Yeah,” he whispered. “I hope she looks like you.”

  “There they are!” A drunken Johnny yelled as he pointed at them. “What the hell are you two up to?”

  Jake reached toward Sarah’s hand.

  “Later,” she said, stepping away as the crowd came forward.

  “Were you two getting’ it on in the shadows?” Johnny asked as he draped his arms around the two future parents.

  Sarah pushed him off and made her way toward her friends.

  “Oops,” Johnny said as he leaned on Jake. “Did I spoil the mood?”

  “Get off me, asshole,” Jake said, also pushing Johnny back.

  “Guess so,” Johnny said, stumbling off to the side with a giggle.

  “Let’s split,” Sarah said, walking up to her friends.

  “No way,” Kara replied. "Johnny owes me a ride on the Clown Twister. Right, good lookin’?” She called over to Johnny.

  “Whatever you want, baby,” he slurred.

  “Drew was going to take me on the Twister too,” Jenny said as she grabbed Sarah’s hand. “Why don’t you guys come to?”

  “Yeah, Jake,” Drew called over to his friend. “You’ve got some tickets. Why don’t you take Sarah on the twister.” Drew and Jenny exchanged smiles for a moment.

  “Alright,” Jake said as he pulled some carnival tickets from his front pocket.

  “You guys share a booth,” Johnny said, pointing to the two other couples. “Me and this babe are going to have our own private ride,” he draped his arm over Kara’s shoulder as he led her onto the metallic barrel with a clown’s head on the top.

  The four teenagers piled into the metal barrel; two were laughing, the other two were eerily quiet.

  The iron drum shut with a clang and slowly twisted in circles as it moved around and around in a figure eight pattern. Sarah watched Drew and Jenny laugh as they spun round and round. “Is she falling for him?” she asked herself as her eyes fell upon Jake. He wasn’t looking at anything, just staring into space. “He looks like a trapped animal,” she thought as her eyes moved from him to Kara and Johnny in the other barrel across from them. They were kissing passionately and his right hand was up her shirt, squeezing her breast.

  “Sinners in a barrel,” she thought to herself. “Sinners like us,” she thought, looking back at Jake.

  He was looking back at her now, with the same empty eyes he had from before.

  Frank and Lloyd stood outside the entrance to the carnival, watching the people as they seemed to run toward the hypnotic neon lights as they weaved and bobbed in the night.

  “It’s like the Venus Fly Trap,” Frank explained to the small dog.

  Lloyd looked up at him, let out a sigh and sat down.

  “They have pink leaves that attract insects. Once the bugs walk onto the pretty color it closes and eats them. They never know the danger till it’s too late.” He looked down at the dog, which simply stared back.

  “Okay, I’m being a little dramatic, but it does fit.”

  Lloyd simply cocked his head at Frank.

  “Alright, never mind. Just an old man’s rambling I suppose.”

  Without another sound, the two friends moved into the carnival, looking for trouble.

  She sat in the darkness, dragging on her cigarette, daring the cancer to hurry up and finish her off. She wanted to die tonight, but she got something else instead.

  She saw the large figure outside her screen door, a beat up ball cap sat on his head, advertising farm equipment.

  “May I come in?” he asked.

  “Whatever you’ve got to say can be done from where you’re standing,” she replied.

  “Give me a break, lady,” the demon said, walking in. “I was just trying to be courteous.”

  “Such tidings don’t become you,” she replied without missing a beat. She was well beyond fear.

  He sat down beside her, ligh
ting his own cigarette. “I know, I know. A demon with manners is nothing more than a contradiction in terms. Sorry, I was just trying to make you feel comfortable.”

  “I’m as comfortable as I’m going to be,” she replied, exhaling smoke.

  He grinned at her. “Yeah, talking to mortals with a deadly disease is a whole new ballgame. So long as they’re not all whiny and willing to do whatever they have to do to stop death, those are boring. But ones like you,” he said, pointing at her with his two fingers holding his cigarette. “You guys are balls to the wall. You know you’re dying and it don’t mean shit! Very refreshing!”

  “I’m glad to have pleased you; why are you here?”

  Smoke escaped from his nose. “You’re giving us mixed signals, Margaret. We are starting to wonder whose side you are rooting for.”

  “I’m on my son’s side.”

  “Which would be my side, by default.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  His laughter filled the kitchen. “The blind ignorance of a mother has always tickled me in my most intimate areas.”

  “Fuck you,” she growled.

  “No,” he said with a pointed finger. “Fuck you. Did you really think you could control this game? Your son is nothing more than a punk. He’s a dime a dozen for my side, no work at all. It was the girl you were supposed to deliver, which you pretty much have.”

  “That’s where you’ve lost sight of the ball,” she replied, taking a drag of her own smoke. “You’ve expected my son to make the wrong decisions, forcing Sarah down the wrong path, but my Jake isn’t going to do that.”

  “Oh, I’ll take that bet,” the demon said with a dark giggle. “You going to put your soul in on this wager?”

  “Yes,” she said, stamping out her cigarette.

  “Done,” he replied, disappearing in a whiff of smoke.

  The revolving clowns came to a slow stop and the teenagers climbed out. Everyone was holding hands except Sarah and Jake.

  “Where next, party-goers?” Johnny asked as they made their way off the ride, towards the games.

  Vendors beckoned them with big prizes for a small amount of money. “Get your girl a giant panda for a buck,” one of the greasy carnys called to them from his booth, tossing a basketball into the air.

  “Give this a try,” said a woman with no teeth, pointing to glass plates. “Bounce a quarter onto the glass and keep whatever’s beneath it.”

  “Fuck that,” Johnny said as he pulled Kara past the games. “Let’s go on some more rides.”

  “Hell ya,” Kara replied with a smile.

  The rest of the group started to follow Johnny and Kara.

  “Gimme your flask,” Johnny whispered to Jake. “We need to start getting’ these bitches drunk.”

  Jake pulled the flask from his boot without saying a word. He popped the cap and took a long swig before handing it over.

  “Damn son,” Johnny said as he looked around, wondering if anyone in the crowd had noticed Jake’s vagrant act. “You’ve got balls of steel.” He quickly grabbed the flask and showed it to Kara with a smile.

  A carny with a farm implementation hat waved his hands at Jake and Sarah, getting their attention from behind his stand.

  “This girl matters, doesn’t she?” he asked.

  Jake looked at Sarah, “Uh, yeah, of course she does.”

  “You wouldn’t ever do anything to intentionally hurt her would you?”

  A long bridge spanned across the teenagers' eyes.

  “No, never.”

  “Well, then,” the carny said with a nasty smile. “Prove to her that you care. Give me a dollar and play this game.”

  “Alright,” Jake mumbled as he fished a dollar out of his front pocket.

  The carny grabbed the green paper out of Jake’s numb hand in a flash, replacing it with a pellet gun. “All ya gotta do is shoot the heart out of the target,” he explained as he pointed at a piece of paper eight feet away from them. It was a white sheet with a relatively large red heart in the center.

  Jake took the gun, aimed at the heart, and squeezed the trigger. Pellets spit out of it like a machine gun, ripping through the right side of the heart.

  “Well, look at that,” the carny said with a dirty smile. “You’re almost half way there, kid. Careful though, you just used half your clip.”

  Jake took aim at the top of the heart, squeezed the trigger and brought the gun down in a hard loop, the other side of the heart disintegrated. The red separated from the white and floated towards the ground.

  “We’ve got a winner!” the carny yelled into the night. “Here ya go, sweetheart,” he said, handing Sarah a pink stuffed animal of a troll. It was wearing a diaper and looked somewhat like a newborn with beady dark eyes and an evil smile.

  “Gee,” the carny said as he looked down at the ravaged red paper. “I hope he doesn’t do that to your heart,” the carny said, flashing her a dirty grin.

  Sarah wanted to drop the ugly pink troll, but couldn’t for some reason, so she simply ran off with it.

  “I think you got yourself a high maintenance girl,” the carny said to Jake as he ran after Sarah.

  “Easy money,” the demon said as he adjusted his hat, watching the teenagers run off into the darkness.

  The other four teenagers walked past the rides, laughing and flirting like only the young can. Two were hanging all over one another; the other two were almost holding hands.

  “Hey look, the carousel,” Jenny said with a smile. “That’s my favorite ride.”

  Drew pulled out his roll of tickets. “Let’s go,” he smiled back, as he did one of the bravest things of his young life. He grabbed her hand.

  “Okay,” she said, giving his hand a slight squeeze.

  “Let’s go ride some horses,” Drew yelled over to the other two as they moved towards the line.

  “Fuck that, man,” Johnny replied. “I’m taking my girl on a good ride.” They stumbled off.

  Drew let out a sigh as he watched them disappear into the crowd. “I hope she knows what she getting into.”

  “She knows all about Johnny,” Jenny replied. “Kara knows exactly what she’s getting into.”

  Drew replied with a shrug. “Looks like we're next.”

  The carny took their tickets and they made their way to the ride.

  They walked up to two empty horses. Drew turned to her, put out his hand, and spoke in his best cowboy voice. “Could I help you onto yer horse, perty lady?”

  “No thanks, I can mount my stud just fine.” Beautiful laughter escaped from her mouth as she jumped on the plastic horse.

  Drew nearly tripped over his own horse as he also started to laugh. Jenny grabbed his hand and helped him onto the fake saddle.

  The carousel started to turn as they looked into each other’s eyes. The laughter stopped as they bent towards one another and started to kiss. It was one of the most perfect moments in their young lives.

  Johnny led Kara to the Ferris wheel.

  “I thought we were going on a good ride,” Kara said as they got in line.

  “I’ll show you what makes it good,” Johnny said with a shark’s smile.

  “I bet you will,” she replied, remembering the flask of whiskey.

  It wasn’t long before they got on the ride, and he handed her the flask as soon as they started moving. “Drink up,” he said as he pulled out his weed and started loading his one hitter.

  “You’ve got all kinds of party favors,” she said, taking a drink.

  “You bet I do, baby.” He gave her the pipe and lit it for her. She cleared it out as they reached the top.

  “You got some lungs on you, darlin’,” he said, reloading the pipe. The ride came to a stop as people got off.

  She took another drink of the whiskey, as he handed the pipe to her. “It’s your turn,” she said.

  “No baby, I’ve had plenty. You need to catch up.”

  “Okay,” she said with a shrug, putti
ng the flask back between her legs and taking the pipe.

  He lit the pipe and watched her take a deep drag. “There ya go, baby,” he said with a smile. As the ride started to move again, she finished off the rest of the load. He grabbed the flask from her lap, took a quick drink and handed it back to her. “If you’re quick, you should be able to clear the pinche one more time before we get back to the ground.”

  “Think so?” she said, taking another drink as he reloaded the pipe.

  “If your lungs are as big as I think they are,” he said, handing back the reloaded pipe. “Show me what ya got.”

  She put the pinche to her lips and he lit it for her again. Not only did she clear it out once again before the ride was over, she also took four more drinks from the flask.

  “You’re my kind of woman,” he said as he helped the severely intoxicated girl off the ride and into the darkness.

  Sarah ran track and had made it to state last season. Jake had been a linebacker in football and was quite strong but not particularly fast. Needless to say, he didn’t catch Sarah until she let him, which was in the darkness of the parking lot where there weren’t many people.

  He grabbed her arm. “Hold up!”

  She yanked free of him. “What are we going to do? Why did this happen? Why were you out there that night? I went on walks at night all the time and never ran into you before. Why that one time?”

  "Because my mother told me to be there," he thought to himself. “I don’t know,” he lied. “But we have to deal with this now. No more running.”

  “So you aren’t going to run from this?” she asked, getting right in his face. “You’re going to stand up and be a man about this?”

  “Yes,” he said, holding his ground.

  “You’re going to help raise this child?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re going to throw away your youth and grow up in the span of nine months?”

  “Yeah,” he said, throwing his hands into the air.

  “You’re going to stop partying and make your main focus our child?”

  “I said yes.”

  “Changing diapers at one in the morning on a Friday night, instead of drinking or getting high?”