by J. Bryan
“I wanted to say I’m sorry for ending your life like I did. You could have had a good, long life if it wasn’t for me. I’m sorry.” Jenny didn’t bother hiding her tears. There was no one to see her. “I also want you to know that you’re the last. I know how to keep it inside now. I don’t have to hurt anybody else.”
Above her, another blackbird sang, joining the first.
“Your record collection’s gone,” Jenny said. “All my stuff’s gone, too, my pictures of you. Ward took them all, and that whole base collapsed from the fire, so it’s all burned and buried. Mariella really wrecked the place.” Jenny shook her head. “It was good to have a friend for a while, a real friend who understood me. I wish you could have met her. I wish I could have met you.”
Jenny sat for a while, listening to the birds sing and feeling the baby doze in her arms.
“I don’t know what we’ll do now,” Jenny said. “I’d be happy to just stay here awhile. The town’s gotten spooky with everybody gone, but I always liked ghost towns. I want to get a good camera and take pictures of everything falling apart, flowers growing up through the cracks in the streets. I think it’s pretty. Sad, but pretty, too.”
Jenny stood up, startling the blackbirds into flight. Hundreds of them launched from the trees around her, as if they’d all been hiding, listening quietly.
“Bye, Momma,” Jenny whispered. The flapping birds startled the baby awake, and she began crying.
“It’s okay,” Jenny told her, holding her close as she walked back up the trail. “Everything’s gonna be okay now.”
* * *
“Oh, let me see that baby!” June squealed. She set her Miller Lite, snug in its vintage Jimmy Buffett beer cozy, on the picnic table and reached out her arms. Jenny handed little Miriam over to her. “Ain’t you just the most precious thing?” June asked the baby.
Jenny joined her dad, who was turning the ears of corn roasting on the grill, next to the ribs he’d been smoking all day.
“Yard looks good,” Jenny said. Since June had moved in, she and Jenny’s father had tamed part of the back yard, moving her father’s junked old appliances and pinball machines closer to the shed and concealing them behind white lattice screens. The cleared area had the picnic table, lawn chairs, and grill, plus shrubbery and flower beds by the house, wind chimes by the back door, a chipped stone birdbath under the shade of an old maple.
“Probably shoulda had it this way when you were little,” her dad said.
“I liked the dangerous rusty object theme, too.”
“Bet they didn’t have this over there in France.” He brushed a homemade mustard concoction onto the ribs. “Carolina sauce.”
“They sure didn’t. And don’t even ask about grits and cornbread.”
He laughed and looked at her. Jenny put an arm around him, and he automatically stiffened up, still not used to the idea of her touching anyone. Then he relaxed and hugged her around the neck, kissing her head.
“You sure you’re going to be okay?” he asked in a low voice. “Ain’t nobody out there looking for you?”
“They already sealed and buried the original Homeland Security investigation,” Jenny said. “The people who captured us this time are...well, we dealt with them. My friend Mariella said she thought the general wasn’t telling his superiors what he was really doing, they thought he was just doing some card-reading experiments or something. She would know best, she pretended to work with him for months.” Jenny paused, thinking about her lost friend, then shook her head. “I looked up ASTRIA on the net. They were just a joke Cold War agency, looking for UFOs and Russian psychic spies. I don’t think anyone knew what Ward was really doing out there. And now it’s all destroyed.” Jenny shrugged. “We could get by for a long time with nobody bothering us, maybe. It’s not like we’re on the FBI’s Most Wanted list or anything.”
“If you think you’re okay.” Her dad didn’t sound entirely convinced, but he’d always worried too much.
“Running and hiding didn’t help,” Jenny said. “We tried that already. Might as well be where we want to be.”
“Well, you’re both welcome to stay here as long as you want,” he said. “I don’t guess Seth’s house is an option, since there ain’t nothing left but a brick or two, and it’s federally condemned and all.”
“We’d have to bring a tent,” Jenny said.
“Found them!” Seth walked out of the house with plastic cups, which he sat out on the table and filled with iced tea. Jenny took a cup. It was frigid and sweet, just what she needed after her walk in the woods.
“When are you going to have another one?” June asked Seth, while smiling at the baby in her lap. “How many you gonna have? Four? Five?”
“Um,” Seth said. “So, those ribs look great, huh?”
They ate outside at the table, leaving little Miriam in her car seat, where she seemed happiest. They ate the smoky ribs and corn, cole slaw, cornbread, green beans cooked with fatback. Jenny truly felt at home.
Later, Seth and Jenny walked out to the driveway to watch the sunset burn down through the trees. Seth held little Miriam against his shoulder, humming to her.
“You think we ever get to go where they go?” Jenny asked, watching the light fade. “After we die, I mean?”
“Where everyone goes, you mean? All the normal people?”
“Yeah. We can find each other between lives, just floating around out there in empty space, but where does everyone else go? Somewhere different? Do you think we’ll ever get to move on? Like in some future lifetime, after you die, you’re not just waiting and watching between lives, but there’s someone there to meet you...or a door to someplace else where we’ve never been...”
“I guess we’ll see,” Seth said. “I don’t want to go anytime soon.”
“Me, neither.” Jenny kissed the Miriam’s cheek, which only seemed to annoy the baby.
“Do you think she’s like us?” Seth asked. “Will she have some strange power she can use to terrorize us when she’s a toddler?”
“I hope not, for her sake,” Jenny said. “I hope there’s nothing supernatural about her at all.”
She looked up at Seth, his kind blue eyes, his strong arms holding their small child. She felt so much love for them she thought she might burst. She was grateful that she got to be with him until the end of time.
She rose up and kissed him softly on the lips.
“I love you,” Jenny said. “Forever.”
The End
The Paranormals series by J.L. Bryan:
On Nook:
Jenny Pox
Tommy Nightmare
Alexander Death
Jenny Plague-Bringer
See more J.L. Bryan books on Nook
From the Author
Instead of a regular “About the Author” page, I just wanted to leave a note for you, the reader. Your support successfully convinced me to continue Jenny’s story beyond the first book. I really enjoyed writing this fourth book, reconnecting with the characters, and bringing the storyline around full circle, even including Ashleigh and Alexander again, though in a different form.
If you’ve enjoyed this series, I hope that you will help tell others about it or add a review of Jenny Pox or Jenny Plague-Bringer to your favorite ebook store. Books live and die on the word of mouth of readers, and I think there are many more people out there who would enjoy the story but haven’t heard of it yet.
I invite you to connect with me online for updates, giveaways, and new books, and here are some links for that (I spend a ridiculous amount of time goofing off on Twitter):
www.jlbryanbooks.com
@jlbryanbooks on Twitter
J.L. Bryan’s Books on Facebook
My newer series, Songs of Magic, are all-ages books, really inspired by the birth of my son, and by the need to write something my young nephews and niece would finally be allowed to read! They are lighter, funnier books, and I hope you’ll try them. The first one is usually either
free or ninety-nine cents:
The Songs of Magic series
On Nook:
Fairy Metal Thunder
Fairy Blues
Fairystruck
Fairyland
I have another project in mind for 2013 that I think will appeal to the readers who enjoyed Jenny Pox—it has elements of horror, paranormal, romance, and historical fiction, as well as teenage characters. It’s a story I first wrote several years ago, but I’ll be writing a new version of it from scratch. I can tell you that the name of the novel will be Megido, and it will take place in a remote town in a particularly hellish part of the Texas desert.
That’s all the news for now! Thanks for reading!
-J.L. Bryan
October 13, 2012
