Light Remains: Three Stories

by Fuller, A. C.

  That's when I thought maybe I had a soul mate. Maybe this guy was like me. Maybe he knew what I knew and he was tryin' to tell everyone like I had.

  I can't even move my body as fast as that beat was playing, but it made my heart hot. Like a bunch of bodies smashin' into each other, all sweat and meat and love. Kinda reminded me of that day with Ancient Larry up in Tuscaloosa, actually.

  As I pulled up to the quarry, my chest was poundin' and tears were drippin' from my eyes and I felt like my heart might explode. Then the beat faded and the DJ was back, talkin' about next week's matchup against Arkansas.

  I turned off the radio and got out of the truck.

  * * *

  The quarry ain't much of a quarry, actually.

  Alabama Stone bought up the land when I was a girl, thinkin' they'd tear it up and haul out the quartzite. But I guess they never found much because they dug up a long, thin sliver of earth, fenced it in, and never came back. Now it looks like a crack in the ground, maybe fifty feet wide, a couple hundred feet long and a couple hundred feet deep.

  The rain had stopped and, as I got out of the truck, hundreds of birds rose out of the quarry as one, straight up like they were hoverin', then moved over my head and kind of stayed there for a half-second. They turned all together and flew north and I leaned on the fence, watchin' them until they disappeared over the trees.

  For some reason, watchin' those birds made me think of Ancient Larry and my mama and Mr. Malcolm and Peg, and even Mean Joe, but nothin' in any of that made me think any different about what I was doin'. That song was still in my head, though, and it made me feel like I should stick around and go find that singer, whoever he was. Like maybe he and I could be friends and I wouldn't be so lonely here anymore.

  But then I thought about home, about the billions of blue and red and white stars. I could feel myself leavin' already. I'd travel like light across galaxies and be home before my body was cold down here on Earth.

  I opened the passenger door and grabbed the hose.

  It only took a minute to set it up. I slid the hose into the tail pipe, then sealed it off with some duct tape I kept in the glove compartment. I ran the hose around the truck and into the passenger side window, then rolled up the window, leavin' about an inch of space. I sealed the space with more duct tape.

  Ten minutes after pullin' up to the quarry, I started the truck.

  I'd read up on the process in advance. Newer cars have emissions rules, but in my forty-year-old truck with a tiny cab, things would go quickly. Carbon dioxide is odorless and death is painless. Worst thing I read about it was that sometimes people panic for a moment when they stop breathin', but I doubted I'd do that because I knew where I was headed.

  I reclined the seat and closed my eyes. The truck was shaking a little, like it always did when runnin'. I had my mind set on those stars, red and blue and white, twinklin' and twinklin'. I could see them in my mind and I knew I would be back to them soon.

  After a minute, I got drowsy and kinda sunk into the seat.

  I was still thinkin', though, thinkin' about my gravestone. I'd left a note on my kitchen table to let people know what had happened. All it said was, "I killed myself. Please put ‘Ella Jones' on my gravestone." I left it with $1,000 I'd saved up from the diner.

  Anyone who knows me by that name will probably remember me fondly. They'll remember my biscuit hands and say what a damn shame it was that I somehow got it twisted. Unless you've hurt them, people usually like to remember the good stuff. But as I was fadin', I was thinkin' about that singer. Maybe he would hear about me and come find my grave and understand. Maybe he'd look at it and see blue stars and red stars, twinklin' on the stones, and know the real me: Zelta Jones, Starwoman.

  I felt myself leavin' my body, risin' up out of the truck, and I saw the blue mountain, stars and all. They were flashin' at me, welcomin' me home, and I knew I'd done the right thing. Soon I'd be talkin' with my old friends, tellin' them all about Earth and how no one down here knows anythin', but it's okay because they've got football and biscuits and this one guy in this one band who might be onto somethin'.

  Blue and red and white.

  Flashin'.

  Flashin'.

  Then I heard a voice. "That's her. Open it."

  It was Ancient Larry and, for the briefest moment, I was happy. He'd come with me somehow. I felt it as a flash in my heart. Ancient Larry had come home with me and now I could show him things from my home, like he'd done with me.

  I heard the door open and felt a rush of cool air.

  "Ella!" Larry's voice again.

  Then a different voice. "Grab her shoulders."

  It was Bill Johnston, the sheriff, and almost before he'd finished speakin' I felt his massive hands under my arms, pullin' me out of the truck. Next thing I knew I was on the ground, a sharp rock pokin' into my right shoulder. The piercing pain kinda woke me up, and I opened my eyes slowly to see the red and blue lights of Sheriff Johnston's patrol car flashin' off the fence around the quarry.

  Ancient Larry was on one knee and he leaned over me so his head was just about a foot from my own. His dark face was blurry and kind of runnin' into the sky, the two morphin' together so I couldn't tell where he stopped and the sky began. I had all kinds of thoughts runnin' through my mind, but mostly I was disappointed I'd have to go to work the next day.

  Then Ancient Larry's face came into focus and I saw the sparks in his eyes—blue and red and white—and I forgot all about work.

  He shook his head at me like he had a hundred times when I'd said a hundred different crazy things. "You already home," he said. "Dammit girl, don't you know you already home?"

  Thanks for Reading!

  I’ll be honest. Besides my family, nothing makes me happier than the thought of a reader finishing one of my books.

  So…thank you!

  As an indie author, I work hard to bring you excellent work as fast as I can. I’ve got many books in the works and I plan to be at this a long time. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

  The best way to do that is by joining my reader club. I never sell or rent your email address. I never send spam or junk, but I do send:

  inside information about my books

  invitations to in-person launch parties

  notes about my writing workshops and other public appearances

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  I hope you enjoyed the stories and I look forward to hearing from you.

  A.C. Fuller

  Hansville, Washington

  The Alex Vane Media Thriller Series

  In addition to writing stories, I write novels. I call them "Media Thrillers" because they're fast-paced and set in the world of journalists and other media figures. Check them all out below, or flip the page for a free sample of The Cutline.

  The Cutline (An Alex Vane Novella)—Available Now; flip the page for a free sample

  The Anonymous Source (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 1)—Available Now

  The Inverted Pyramid (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 2)—Coming April 23, 2017

  The Mockingbird Drive (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 3)—Coming June 30, 2017

  The Cutline: An Alex Vane Novella

  It’s the spring of 2000 and Alex Vane is living the dream. He’s brilliant, handsome, driven, and has just landed his first major reporting job: covering New York’s biggest trials for the city’s second-biggest daily, The New York Standard.

  As if his luck couldn’t get any better, Alex befriends a top prosecutor who helps him uncover a dark secret about a legendary defense attorney. When Alex breaks the story, the trial of the East Coast’s most deadly drug kingpin falls into turmoil.

  Sample: The Cutline, Chapter One

  Lower Manhattan District Court, New York City

  Monday

  Alex already felt out of his league, and if he nodded off during a crucial cross examination, his peers from The Times and The Post would mock him mercilessly. He
fought to stay awake, but the heat from the packed courtroom was getting to him. Or maybe it was the three hours of sleep he’d had the night before. Or the seven shots of Patron, which he’d chased with Corona after Corona after Corona.

  It didn’t matter.

  It was his first week on the job and if he fell asleep, he’d never live it down. Not only did the reporters to his left and right have ten years of experience on him, but Judge David Butcher was a legendary hardass when it came to the press. For the first time in his career, Butcher had allowed cameras in his courtroom for the Mendoza trial, and only after extreme public pressure due to extreme public interest. Last week, he’d held a producer in contempt for setting up a camera in the wrong place. If Butcher saw Alex’s chin drop to his chest, it might be his last day as lead court reporter for The New York Standard.

  Alex blinked a few times and tried to stretch out, but the rows of seats were cramped and there was little room to extend his long legs. In his little spiral notebook, he wrote stay awake stay awake stay awake until he caught the woman from The Times glancing down at it and smirking.

  His eyelids were heavy, his shoulders slumped, and he was seeing surreal, dreamlike images pass before him, mingling with the scene in the courtroom. The grain of the wood-paneled jury box started to bend and curl, the back of Mendoza’s head morphed into a black hole, and defense attorney Diego Dos Santos’s deep voice seemed to seep into him from all directions. He was falling asleep with his eyes open and was about to collapse.

  Dos Santos saved him just in time. The attorney had been at work on his witness for hours, and when Alex heard him say, “That’ll be all, your honor,” he perked up.

  Josephine Bonner was about to do her magic.

  Judge Butcher looked down with a frown, tugging at a curl of his black hair, which was longer than usual for a judge of his stature. "Ms. Bonner, would you like to cross examine?"

  She stood and nodded at the judge. "I would, your honor.”

  That’s when Alex knew that he could make it through the rest of the afternoon.

  Joey, as she liked to be called, was beyond a rising star. She was a star already risen, but she’d ascended so quickly that it had been hard to notice as it happened. In her late thirties, she wore her short blond hair in a perfect 1940s-bob that rounded out her sharp, angular face. Pacing the courtroom in red heels and a skirt suit that matched, she looked like she belonged on the cover of a magazine about young professional women ready to, "Get Theirs in the New Millennium."

  And then there was her voice.

  It was full of the precision and intelligence you’d expect from a Harvard-trained prosecutor, but occasionally she’d let slip just enough of her Mississippi drawl to make you think she was pouring warm molasses over you. Her opponent, Diego Dos Santos, was one of the top defense attorneys on the East Coast—a rockstar—and Alex felt privileged to have the opportunity to watch him work. But he didn’t have a voice that blew through the hot room like a cool breeze.

  Joey had spent the last two weeks presenting her evidence and her witnesses in the case of The People v. Manny Mendoza. The DEA, along with the FBI and half a dozen state and local police forces, had been after Mendoza for everything from drug trafficking to tax evasion to jaywalking, but it had been the NYPD that had finally nabbed him. And for murder, no less.

  Joey had presented a compelling case. By the time she’d finished, everyone in the courtroom, everyone in New York, and a good portion of the American public believed Mendoza had beaten to death a man named Victor Alvarado in Vinny’s restaurant in Little Italy. Alvarado was one of Mendoza’s own men and, according to Joey’s version, he’d come into the restaurant toward the end of Mendoza’s meal and had been bludgeoned, without provocation, with the base of an old brass lamp.

  On the stand was Damien Woodrow, a massive man wearing an ill-fitting brown suit who had wedged himself into the booth at the front of the room as the defense’s first witness. Dos Santos, who was famous for drawing out his trials, especially when he didn’t have a case, had taken his sweet time examining Woodrow. It had taken him an hour to establish that Woodrow was the defendant’s personal driver, that he’d held the position for six years, and that he’d been gambling with the defendant in Atlantic City that evening before returning to the Lower Manhattan for dinner. And it had taken another two hours to establish Woodrow’s story: that he and the defendant had been attacked by the victim, that Woodrow had pushed Alvarado away, and that the fatal blow had been his head hitting against the wooden bar when Alvarado tripped.

  Joey paced for a moment, nodded at the jury, then began with, "Mr. Woodrow, you drove the defendant to Vinny’s in Little Italy yourself. Is that correct?"

  "That’s right."

  "And you left the casino when?"

  "About ten."

  "It takes me around two hours to get from Atlantic City to Little Italy, and I drive pretty fast." She flashed her southern-belle smile at the jury. "Within the speed limits, of course."

  Alex was picturing her, top down in a red Mercedes coupe, speeding down the Garden State Parkway. And, of course, he was in the passenger seat.

  She continued, "How is it that you and the defendant made it to Vinny’s before they closed at eleven?"

  "Easy," he said. "We didn’t. Man like Manny Mendoza, they stay open for him." He shot a look at the jury, like this was supposed to impress them.

  Not much of a witness, thought Alex. And he knew where this was going. Over the last two weeks he’d developed the skill of relaxing his mind just enough to hear the sound of Joey’s voice without actually listening to her words. She’d spend the next hour doing everything she could to poke holes in the story, but at the end of the day—and at the end of the trial—the question was going to be the same as it was at the beginning. Were the jurors going to believe the testimony of the two witnesses who saw Mendoza stagger out of Vinny’s covered in blood at 2 a.m., or were they going to believe the testimony of Woodrow and Manny Mendoza himself?

  He tuned in and out over the next hour and, when Judge Butcher announced the end of the day, he felt like a kid at recess.

  * * *

  Outside the courthouse, Alex breathed in the spring air and checked the time on his phone. 4:45.

  He bounded down the wide steps onto the sidewalk and turned north. The air was cool but not cold, and he felt ten percent better every minute he spent out of the courtroom. By the time he crossed Baker Street, his headache was gone and he was looking forward to a long night of booze and spring baseball with his buddy Bearon at Bar 76. He and Bearon had grown up together on the Kitsap Peninsula near Seattle and watching sports was one of the few things they’d brought with them from home. They got together at least once a week in a bar they could barely afford, usually to watch the Mariners or Sonics play one of the New York teams. If he hurried, he’d get there in time to grab a prime seat before the rush.

  But first he had to file his story.

  He darted across an intersection as he dialed the copy desk. He was relieved when Susan Flemming picked up. "It’s Alex. How’s the paper of record doing today?"

  "We’re not the paper of record, Alex. We’re just…a paper."

  "Well, with me and you on board, we’ll be the paper of record soon enough."

  She laughed, as she always did, at Alex’s stupid jokes. Having someone at the copy desk on your side was important for a reporter like Alex, and Susan was very much on his side.

  "Look," Alex said, "I’m not going to be able to make it into the office to write my piece on Mendoza, any chance I can—"

  "Dictate it?"

  "You know me better than I—"

  "Know yourself?"

  "I was going to say ‘know myself,’ but yeah."

  "Okay, pretty boy. Give it to me." She breathed the last part into the phone, husky and sexy, the double entendre fully intended.

  Of course, he could have been back at the office in midtown in twenty minutes and would have had plenty of t
ime to write his story, but he’d just gotten his first cell phone and had convinced his editor to let him file his stories from "the field." Free him up for more "face time with sources." Plus, he loved showing off for Susan. He switched to a sort of exaggerated news anchor voice and dictated the piece while dodging bankers, lawyers, delivery trucks, and other traffic.

  "Diego Dos Santos today began his defense of reputed drug kingpin Manny Mendoza in the case that has gripped New York City since the body of former professional wrestler Victor Alvarado was discovered last November." He paused to dodge a taxi that was running a red light as he crossed Varick Street. "Got that?"

  "I got it. And you swear you aren’t using notes?"

  Alex smiled. "I told you. It’s just something I can do.”

  "I’ll give you something you can do."

  "Da-doom, ching!"

  "Got that right."

  "Okay, ready?"

  "Ready."

  "The defense called three witnesses, including two restaurant employees and Mendoza’s long-time driver and assistant, Damien Woodrow, to refute prosecution claims that the defendant attacked the victim. According to Woodrow, Alvarado assaulted waitress Brittney Deerborn and was trying to assault Mr. Mendoza himself when he was pushed by Woodrow. Alvarado then fell and struck his head on the bar, according to Woodrow’s testimony."

  Alex got to Bar 76 and stopped out front. It was a new bar in an old bank building, and one of the hippest in the city. He said, "Do you have B-Matter you can drop in?"

  "I mean, I could dig it up, but I’m not your secretary Alex. Write your own damn backstory."