Hard
The F*cked Series
R.K. Gleason
Contents
Other books by R.K. Gleason
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Copyright © 2020 R. K. Gleason
Print Edition ISBN-13: 97-98646969218
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Created with Vellum
Other books by R.K. Gleason
The Fucked Series
Uppercase
Proper
Mean
The True Death Series
The True Death
The Vengeful Death
The New Death
The Lonely Death
Death’s Return
Death Threats
Death Match
The Bitter Years Series
Savaged
Chapter 1
Dave watched Ben stare at him from the backseat of their newly acquired Jeep 4x4. This had been going on since they’d pulled out of the Haviland Hardware parking lot and onto westbound one-sixteen. Each time he looked in the rearview mirror to check for any signs they were being followed or pursued, his son was staring back at him. Dave glanced to his right to see if Pam had noticed, but his wife kept her attention on the road in front of them. He looked in the mirror again and saw the same thing. Ben’s head and shoulders silhouetted by the dark purple, fading to black hues of the approaching dawn. The dim light from the dash casting far enough to glint off Ben’s eyes, giving his son a predatory look. Dave had seen similar eyes reflecting back at him from the infected dogs he and Pam saw in the park near their home in Columbus. Back when things first turned to shit.
“Something on your mind, Ben?” Dave asked him via the small mirror mounted to the windshield. He tried to keep the sneer from his tone, but the way Ben kept watching him was beginning to give Dave the creeps and making him a little nervous. And when Dave was on edge, he tended to overreact, badly.
“All kinds of stuff,” Ben said, finally shifting his eyes from the mirror to the window beside him. “It’s going to be daylight pretty soon,” he muttered.
“Thank fucking god,” Pam sighed, shifting her position in the seat. Ben replied to his mother’s comment with a contemptuous scoff that triggered Dave into action.
“Oh, fuck this,” Dave mutters. Hitting the brakes and swinging the wheel hard to the right. The three occupants leaned against the pull of the motion as the jeep slid in the loose gravel on the road’s narrow shoulder, before coming to a stop.
“What the hell?” Pam shouted, glaring at Dave as she pushes away from the dash. Zack was immediately on the radio.
“Dad! Pam! What’s going on? Is something wrong?” he said through the speaker built into the CB radio mounted under the dash.
Dave threw one arm over the headrest behind him so he could turn in his seat to face Ben. With his other hand, he reached blindly for the mic without taking his eyes off Ben. His fingertips found the thick, spiral cord first and traced back to the mic shaped like an upside-down avocado. Grabbing the mic, he stretched the wire to his mouth, before pushing the transmit button on the side.
“That’s what I want to know,” Dave said into the radio’s mic before handing it to Pam.
“Okay. We saw you pull off and did the same. Joe pulled over as soon as we did. What’s going on?” Zack asked again.
“I’m trying to figure that out now,” Pam said into the mic. “Hang tight.”
“Do you need us to come back?” he asks.
Pam repeats the instruction to hang tight and drops the mic back into its cradle. “One of you want to tell me what the fuck’s going on?” Pam asked.
“Ask him,” Dave answered.
“Okay,” Pam said, turning to look at their son. “Ben?”
“It’s nothing, just keep going” he replied, glancing out the window.
“Bullshit,” Dave disagreed. “There’s got to be something on your mind.”
“There is. Sort of,” Ben said to the window.
“Well, you’ve been giving me the hairy eyeball from the backseat since we left, so spit it the fuck out,” Dave replied.
“Calm down!” Pam told him, setting her hand on his leg.
“I’m being calm!” Dave said, immediately realizing the tone in which he’d said it and added, “Sorry, baby.”
“Right there,” Ben jumped in, pointing at Dave. “Right there!”
“Right there, what?” he replied.
“You did it again!” Ben answered.
“Did what?” Pam asked.
“He makes a snap judgment and when it turns out to be shit, he says he’s sorry,” Ben told her.
“And?” Dave fumed.
“And it’s like what you always told us growing up,” Ben says, turning his attention back to Dave without lowering his accusatory finger. “Sometimes sorry doesn’t get it done.”
“You did say that a lot,” Pam agrees.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Dave asks Ben, ignoring Pam’s interjection for the moment.
“God! It’s like you’re not even seeing what’s going on here,” Ben begins. “That whole thing with Carl and his sons. That was your fault! You’re the one who decided we should all pull over. You’re the one who decided we should follow Carl back to the store,” he said, pausing to take a breath. “You’re the one who decided it was a good idea to let Jacob and CJ sit out in that field all night and they were killed because of it!”
“That was their idea and you fucking loved it at the time!” Dave shouted.
“Yeah. Well, it’s too bad you didn’t have time to tell Carl, you’re sorry. I’m sure that would’ve made him feel a lot better!” Ben snapped. “And how about Dakota? How’d he take your apology? Oh, that’s right. He’s dead too.”
“You little prick,” Dave growled as he tried to climb over the front seat. He didn’t put much effort into it, knowing if he’d been seriously trying to get back there, Ben had plenty of time to evade or stop him. But Dave was still putting his knees into the seat under his ass and made a halfhearted grab for Ben, which he batted aside.
“Stop it! Just, stop it!” Pam shouted at them both.
“He started it,” Dave told her.
“I started it?” Ben asked with mocking disbelief. “When I was thirteen—” he began.
“You’re right! I admit it. I overreacted,” Dave interrupted him.
“You don’t even know the time I’m talking about,” Ben nearly shouted.
“For the sake of this discussion,” Dave began, wanting Ben to cut through the bullshit and make his point. “Let’s assume you’re about to recount some injustice we can use as a metaphor for the entire time you were thirteen, and I was an asshole. Fine. I get it. But what does any of that have to do with any of this shit?”
“You see! Right there!” Ben shouted, jabbing his finger at Dave again. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about!”
In a microsecond, Dave’s thoughts shifted from growing frustration with his son to being utterly befuddled. “What. The actual. Fuck. Are you talking about, Ben?” Dave asked, his irritation put on temporary hold.
“You just assume you’re smarter than everybody else,” Ben answered.
“And?” Dave said, waiting for the revelation.
“You’re not,” he replied.
“Bullshit!” Dave countered without thinking.
“Will you both. Just shut. The fuck. Up!” Pam shouted over both of their rantings.
“Everything okay back there?” Joe’s voice came crackling over the radio.
“We’re having a moment,” Pam answers through the mic. “What the fuck is wrong with both of you?” she asked. When neither of the males answered, she continued. “One of you better say something or we’re just going to sit here on the shoulder of the road and wait for /god knows who, or fucking what, to show up. Now talk!”
“Dave. Look,” Ben began in a calmer tone. “I’m not saying you’re an idiot. All I’m telling you, is you don’t know everything.”
“Like what?” Dave asked, keeping his voice down.
“Seriously?” Pam asked him, shocked by the arrogance of his response. Ben replied by staring back at him until Dave realized the stupidity of his question.
“Right. Obviously, there are things I don’t know. I mean, fuck. Right?” Dave asked, turning down his defensive nature to listen to his son and wife.
“You make snap decisions without thinking them through. If it sounds good and it might work, you do it. You’ve always done it,” Ben explains.
“Remember the Halloween lights?” Pam asks.
“Don’t start,” Dave says. “I got them up.”
“The week before Halloween,” Pam said.
“See?” he replies brilliantly.
“But it was also a week after you were released from the hospital,” Pam reminded him.
Long before she and Dave ever moved into their recently abandoned apartment, they lived in a house, set back from the road at the end of a long cul-de-sac. A decision had been made to hang Halloween lights on the eaves of the house. It was made on a whim, by Dave, after a minor indulgence in marijuana. A fact he still disputes as having any influence on the series of poor choices that followed.
The house they lived in was rather tall and they didn’t have a ladder to easily reach the eaves. Dave had encountered this situation before when cleaning the gutters and had completed the job from on top of the roof, rather than clinging precariously to a ladder. He ran an extension cord out the window he intended to use and carried two large plastic totes of assorted strings of lights onto the roof. All of them in dark oranges, yellows, and purples. Pam had purchased special red ones that glowed crimson when they were plugged in and those were worked into the various strings Dave was untangling while sitting on the roof for the next hour. During this time, there have been rumors Dave possibly indulged in some additional recreation while he was alone up there. He, however, refuses to consider the suggestion and insists any evidence contradicting his sobriety at the time, is based on hearsay and speculation. And since he doesn’t remember most of the details between looking for the lights in the basement, and waking up in the hospital, other than flashes of images, he was the only witness.
Pam never pushed the issue, feeling a little guilty for not being out there to assist her husband. She’d been the one who had casually mentioned the lights would be cool, glowing over the headstones they’d installed in the front yard for the holiday. And she hadn’t objected when he ran with the idea to its conclusion. The rumor in the family was Pam may have also been an accomplice in the indulgence, but nothing could ever be proven. Either way, Dave was alone on the roof, left to his own devices and may, or may not, have been under the influence of cannabis, according to the paramedics’ report.
With the absence of some specific details, Dave had somehow draped multiple strands of holiday lights that were loosely coiled around his arm, over the powerlines leading to the roof of the house. Clutched in his other hand was a stainless-steel staple gun. The kind so big it sometimes took two hands to finish the last of the stapling project. Years later, when Dave would place his hands in hot water, you could still see the faint scar left from the electrical burn he received from it. When the wires made contact, they caused all the lights in the house to flicker. Pam later told the insurance adjuster she’d thought she’d noticed something but wrote it off to a trick of the light. Further implicating herself in this debacle much deeper than anyone had originally believed. In the meantime, Dave had chosen to straddle the powerline, attempting to step over it and continued stringing lights. He preferred this method, rather than taking the four steps to move around the short poll connecting the high-voltage wires to the house.
The paramedics believe it was when Dave grabbed the wire with both hands, like he was riding a hobbyhorse that things became more, serious. The first responders credit Dave’s survival to a few things. The current was conducted more strongly through the staple gun, allowing the circuit to somehow pass through him and back to the cable, via the coils of Halloween lights, rather than a full-on electrocution. That, and his legs spasmed violently with the first jolt, rather than buckling. If they’d collapsed, he would have fallen onto the live wire, probably tangling in it and the strands of lights and cooking like a hotdog on an extension cord. Instead, his knees locked, and his hips bucked, propelling him off the roof and down into the yard. Pam discovered him on his side in a twitching heap when she came to check on him and see why the house had gone totally dark.
Dave was released from the hospital four days later with two cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, second and third-degree burns on his left hand and some convenient memory loss. Seven days after that, at Dave’s insistence, Pam and Zack purchased a taller extension ladder, along with new Halloween lights, since most of them had been fused to the powerline . Dave supervised the hanging of the new lights around the eaves, from the relative safety of the yard. Needless to say, Pam was right, and the tombstones did look exceptionally cool that year.
“Here’s the thing,” Dave said, putting his past behind them. “If you think I’m fucking up, you have to tell me.”
“When?” Ben asked. “Before or after the paramedics are called? Because after the accident is the only time you listen.”
“If you’re conscious,” Pam added.
“Fuck you, baby. I mean I love you but fuck off. I’m not like that,” Dave disagrees.
“You’re exactly like that. Shit,” Pam says, realizing she’d been squeezing the talk button on the mic the entire time.
“The fuck I am!” Dave replied.
“Jesus Christ!” Ben said, looking at Pam.
“They’re totally right, Dad,” Zack said across the radio.
“If it matters, sweetie,” Lynn chimes in. “You’re kind of like that. But just sometimes.”
“Thanks for the support, Mom,” Dave replied, rubbing his face. “Look. I’m willing to admit some of my previous decisions have possibly been less than well-advised. But this time is different. There are other people’s lives involved here. It’s not like I’m straddling a chainsaw while I jerk the cord, trying to get it started.”
“That was pretty stupid,” Pam agrees.
“I think the word you were looking for was careless, babe. But thank you for helping me make my point. If you think I’m making a bad call and could get people killed, fucking tell me!”
“But you have to be willing to listen!” Ben shouted in frustration.
“I will,” Dave assured him. “Just try me.”
“Okay,” Ben said, like this was the opportunity he was waiting for. “What about right now?”
“What about it?” Dave asks.
“What’s your plan?” Ben replied.
“I plan to get our collective asses to the west coast,” Dave answered.
“Is everything okay back there?” Zack asks from the radio’s speaker, having not heard any more of the conversation.
“Your dad was going to tell us how he’s going to get us all to Amy’s,” Pam answers.
“Cool. How?” Zack asks.
“Good question,” she says, handing Dave the mic.
“Fine,” Dave concedes, thumbing the button so the others could listen
in. “Right now, I plan to follow the highway we’re on as long as we can. Eventually hooking up with one of the major interstates, probably I-90 and then hauling ass.”
“And?” Ben asks.
“And, what?” Dave replied.
“That’s it?” Pam asked.
“What more did you expect?” Dave asked her.
“I was hoping for some more details. Maybe something that at least resembles a plan,” she answered. “It’s a little light on details.”
“What the hell were you expecting?” Dave asked, having given up on not broadcasting their conversation to the other two vehicles. “Did you think I had the entire route mapped out in my head? Know where I planned to stop for meals and bathroom breaks?” Dave asked.
“That’d be nice,” Pam answered.
“Since there hasn’t been a whole lot of time to write shit down, I’m pretty much winging it as we go along,” Dave replied, sinking back into his seat.
“That’s an understatement,” Ben replied, slumping into his.
“If you’ve got any ideas, dick, I’d love to hear them,” Dave spat.
“I’ve got a few,” Ben replied.
“Well don’t keep them all to yourself,” Dave said.
“Are you going to listen to them?” Ben asked.
“Like I’ve got a choice,” Dave muttered. Pam reacted to his passive-aggressive bullshit by slapping him on the leg and telling him to stop being an asshole. Dave glared at her for a second before dropping his eyes to the still stinging area on his leg, took a deep breath and began again. “I meant. I’m all ears,” he said, minus the prior amount of vitriol.
“Okay,” Ben said, eyeing Dave suspiciously. “Before we can really talk about what our next move should be is, think about what happened with the soldiers last night.”
The F*cked Series (Book 4): Hard Page 1
