by Dana Pratola
The Haunting of Josiah Kash
by
Dana Pratola
Text Copyright © 2020 Dana Pratola
All Rights Reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), business establishments, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Scenes in this story may contain graphic and/or sexual situations not suitable for young readers. Or not.
Cover design: Cecilia Marie Pulliam
*This is not a ghost story.
Keep scrolling after THE END for a look at DESCENDED~JETT, first in the DESCENDED Series!
Keep scrolling for contact information, etc.
~~ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ~~
God – ALWAYS.
Family – ALWAYS
Cecilia Marie Pulliam, thank you!!! This book and cover would not have happened if not for you. Your patience is boundless, as is your talent.
Stephanie Palmer Taylor, Chana Keefer, Rosemary DeSimone, Robin Bayne, Sherry Chamblee, Annabelle Garcia, your edits are invaluable. LOVE x 6
TEAM PRATOLA! You ladies are AMAZING!
CHAPTER 1
Pain.
Lots of it.
Felt like everywhere.
That was the first thing I remembered when I came to, though I couldn’t remember what I’d come to from. Truck accident? Gunshot?
I remembered more. The roar of chopper blades, men shouting orders at one another, a woman sobbing.
The pain was the primary thing.
That, and…. I couldn’t see.
One of my arms throbbed, and I felt a jab in the other, then something wrapping tight around my bicep.
“Name’s Josiah Kash!” a guy shouted through the din.
Yeah, but with a K, I clarified in my mind. Reflex, my whole life.
I heard another guy say, “Stabilized,” which I guess should have been reassuring. But why couldn’t I see? I knew my eyes were open. Before I had a chance to panic over it, my remaining senses were doused by a thick blanket of blackness and quiet.
*****
“It’s been two days,” a woman said.
It might have been Tracy. I couldn’t be sure.
“When will he wake up?”
Yup, that was her.
“He’ll wake up when his body and brain are good and ready,” an unfamiliar male voice said. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”
He sounded annoyed. Tracy had a way of doing that.
I purposely closed my eyes tighter to make sure the lids were down, that the reason I couldn’t see made perfect sense.
“Did you see that?” Tracy asked. “He closed his eyes.”
“His eyes have been closed for two days.”
Ah, good, Ben was here. I heard the annoyance in his voice as well, but it was always that way when he spoke to her. They couldn’t stand each other. Mostly due to his fierce protective nature when it came to his loved ones. He’d never thought she was any good for me, just out for what she could get, and he was probably right. Tracy was a … not nice person (right, not my first thought, but my daddy raised me better than that).
“No, he squinched them tight,” she said.
“Is squinch even a word?”
“Just come look.”
I heard footsteps and felt a presence over me.
“Hey buddy, you awake in there?” Ben asked.
“Yup. I’m awake.”
“Oh, Josiah!” Tracy let out a squeal and the left side of the bed depressed, followed by her hands on my cheeks. “Open your eyes. I’m here, too.”
“I know.”
“Wow, how long have you been awake?” Ben asked.
“Not sure.” Was I awake now? My head was sloshing around and I couldn’t seem to zero in on anything.
“Open your eyes, Babe, look at me,” Tracy said.
I was afraid to. What if I opened them and still saw nothing?
“Yeah, come on, Kash, let’s see those baby blues,” Ben said.
“They’re brown,” I reminded him.
“Okay so your memory is still intact,” he answered with an edgy chuckle.
They were quiet for several seconds, waiting for me to comply. So, what choice did I have? I couldn’t walk around with my eyes shut from now on, even though it wouldn’t make a difference. I already knew what to expect when I popped my lids up.
“He opened his eyes!” Tracy announced.
Blackness. With little inward brackets of lighter brown on the sides.
“You were out a while, man,” Ben said. “I was afraid I’d be seeing you at your funeral.”
Leave it to Ben to be direct. “That would’ve sucked.” But I didn’t know where I was now. What if I was dead already and my mind was replaying this sick scene? “Where am I?”
“Where does it look like? You’re in the hospital,” Tracy said, amused, and planted a kiss on my mouth. “I’m so glad you’re okay!”
Let’s not be hasty.
“Hey,” Ben said.
“Hey, what?”
“Kash, you okay? You’re staring at the ceiling. Look at me.”
I shifted my eyes to where I thought his voice came from.
“At me,” Ben said. “Not the corner of the room.”
“Babe?” Tracy shifted her weight on the bed, or maybe she got off. “Look at me.”
Okay, so faking my way through was out. “I can’t. I can’t see.”
“Oh my God!” Tracy said, followed by a little gasp.
Ben’s hand gripped mine.
“Oh my God,” Tracy repeated. “What are you going to do?”
“Tracy…” Ben started.
“What? He can’t see!”
“I heard that,” Ben snapped. “And he knows it. You don’t have to keep saying it.”
“Well it doesn’t change anything if I don’t say it,” she fired back.
“Yeah it does, it makes me not want to—”
“What? You have no—”
“Guys,” I interrupted. “Not now.”
“It’s all right, man,” Ben said. “I’m sure it’s temporary.”
“You’re sure, are you?” I asked.
“Yes. You had swelling in the brain. You had surgery, it’s gonna take some time, that’s all.”
“Oh my God, what if it’s permanent?” Tracy asked. “What if he’s blind forever?”
“I’m not deaf, you know,” I said. I did not need this dismal outlook pronounced over me.
“Tracy, shut up,” Ben said.
“You shut up, Ben. Josiah, are you going to let him talk to me that way?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m not in the best position to do anything, am I? And I think it’s a great idea if you do shut up.”
She let out a little choked sound. I’d seen her outraged face often enough to picture it clearly in my mind’s eye, though I had more important things to think about than a stupid squabble.
“I’m only pointing out the obvious possibility you might never see again. I can’t believe you’re not defending me.” I heard her stomp away, then back. “If you can’t support me when it comes to your friends, then maybe this relationship isn’t worth the effort.”
Effort? Living at my place as queen of the hacienda, earning a salary on top of it for answering phones and hanging out talking to people, effort?
“It’s all right, Tracy, you can go. Don’t feel you have any obligation to me just because we’ve been together for two years.” It was nothing less than I’d expected
anyway.
“I knew you’d throw that in my face,” she snapped.
I heard her footsteps retreat even as Ben chuckled.
“She’ll be back,” he said, his voice tinged with disappointment.
“No, she won’t. She’s not the caregiver type. If I’m blind—”
“It’s temporary.”
“How do you know?” I demanded. Ben stayed silent. “I can’t see a damn thing. I want to talk to a doctor.”
“He was just in. I’ll go get him,” Ben said, before his footsteps faded.
Truth be told, I was freaking out. I wasn’t cut out to be blind. Aside from that, my head was pounding, my side ached like a—
“He’s coming,” Ben said, stomping back in.
“How the hell did I end up in here anyway?”
“Kicked in the head by one of the horses.”
Toby. I bet it was Toby. Sneaky son-of-a-bitch. Rodeoing, I’d been broken more times than the horses, and a lot of days I felt like a walking injury, but I’d avoided being kicked in the head. Until now.
“Caused brain swelling,” Ben said. “They airlifted you to Davies to drill holes in your skull, then brought you here.”
I raised a hand tentatively to the source of the pain, and met with a bandage. “Holes, huh? Feels like it.”
“Yeah. Doc says they’ll heal up nice. Still, no telling if you’ll be crazier than ever.”
“I may have reached my limit when I started dating Tracy.” I smiled, somehow. I guess to make Ben feel better. I’d known him since we were five and six, and I heard the strain in his voice. He was a pretty easy-going, faith-filled person. If he was worried, it didn’t say much for my chances.
*****
Okay, so the long and short of it…. I was screwed. Potentially for the rest of my life. To sum it up, Dr. Meyer said the fact that I was blind wasn’t good—learn that in med school, Doc?—but it was conceivable the condition would reverse itself when the swelling from surgery completely subsided. Possible. Not probable. My words, not his. Whoever heard of someone losing their sight and getting it back again? Not me, in all my thirty-one years.
He assured me it was still too early to tell, that he should know more in a few days. In the meanwhile, with the chance of infection low, but still possible, and the inescapable fact that I couldn’t take care of myself yet, he wanted me to stay in the hospital. Not my speed. I didn’t sleep enough as it was, and couldn’t handle having a nurse wake me every hour to take my pressure. I could already tell it was up.
Since home was too far away should anything happen necessitating emergency medical treatment—seizures for example—I had to find somewhere close by to hang out. A hotel wouldn’t go over well, and Ben’s place was as far as mine. Right next to mine, in fact. Plus, he had a job, and a very pregnant wife who had no business trying to care for an invalid, so that was out.
Ben promised to come up with something before leaving me to stew in my terror and darkness, to contemplate what would become of me should I remain in this state. I had no family nearby who would take care of me. Tracy … well, not in denial there. By the time I got home, her belongings would be cleared out. Great for the fun times, but dire situations just didn’t hang well on her.
I refused to go home now even if I could. Most of my staff was great, but having them see me like this might strike fear into their hearts over what would become of them if I never got better. What would become of my business? I still had the cattle, but how could I train a horse I couldn’t even saddle? Or find in the first place?
With my insurance, medical bills wouldn’t put that big a dent in my savings, but assuming some of my clients stayed, how long could I expect to keep them? We’d still board and all that, but it might not turn enough profit to keep things going. I don’t say this arrogantly, but they pay for Josiah Kash, for my training skill, my eye. Now with that gone….
I stared ahead at the nothingness, as bleak and barren as my future, and wondered what I’d done to get myself here. It was odd that I wasn’t totally panic-stricken. I mean I was freaking out, but not totally. I considered I might be in shock, but ultimately decided it must be whatever meds they had me on.
Sure, I tried to be a rational, even-tempered person, but I was blind! Panic formed a swirling pool of acid splashing up from the bottom of this precipice I teetered on, only I couldn’t fall over the edge. Was that good or bad? It would hit me when I left here, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it be better to get it over with now, in a stable environment? The tears, the rage, the fear.
I took a long breath, expecting a groan to push out afterward. There was nothing but the sound of people chattering in the corridor, some kind of cart with a resistant rattling wheel rolling past, and the echo of Tracy’s footsteps walking out of my life.
Maybe her departure didn’t seem so bad in light of this event, and later on, when it hit me…. Nah. I knew it wouldn’t be a life-changer even if she’d broken the news last week over dinner. Just one of a dozen red flags signaling a dead-end relationship, that I’d been too blind to see even before.
No, that’s not true. I’d ignored them. Like the no swimming after sunset signs at the lake. Now I felt like a jerk for wanting to use her to help me through this. That’s what it would have been. Maybe she knew it too on some level.
Nah. She was just a … not nice person.
CHAPTER 2
I hated the rainy season when I was a little girl. I hate it still. The sky had darkened to a deep, moody gray and I rushed to collect the few items of clothes I’d rinsed out off the line as the low rumble of warning sounded over the hills. My worry wasn’t for the rain soaking them all over again, nor for the whirling wind, not even the thunder, booming and verbose as I knew it could be. It was the lightning I dreaded.
Hidden somewhere in the terrible mass of gray, angry yellow-blue streaks danced impatiently. Single-minded creatures with one intent: locate and torment the most fearful person they could find. Me.
Another rumble, this one closer, and the sky flashed. I swore I felt the energy, making my hands tremble and the air back up in my lungs. I yanked the clothes, causing pins to fly in all directions, dropping underwear, socks, and tops in the small basket before snatching it up and running. I made it up the back steps, nearly falling through the half-open door on top of the basket, just as the first loud crack split the sky.
My pulse had started elevating the second I saw the clouds forming on the horizon. It happened every time an electrical storm approached. Every time. Since I was eight, anyway. That year I’d spent the summer with my grandparents on their farm in southern Pennsylvania and witnessed nine of their cows murdered by lightning.
They’d been standing under a tree for shelter one minute, the next, that simultaneous whoosh and sizzle sound, and a huge boom as the bolt hit the tree, and just like that, they all fell over dead. I assume there had been some vibrating as their insides were scorched by the tremendous heat, but thankfully, my mind didn’t register that. Just whoosh, sizzle, boom, all over, dead.
The fact that the bolt hadn’t hit any of them directly, yet still killed them, terrified me then. Now I understood the scientific process and knew intellectually that I’m not likely to be killed by lightning, especially while inside, yet that fear is there and I run and hide, always avoiding being near a window. In the part of my mind where I keep my eight-year-old’s memories, lightning is still a monster that can see me if I’m near a window, so I have to always keep it guessing.
I’m thinking like a crazy person lately, though it’s a wonder I’m thinking at all after the last few months. The flu had been no picnic, and losing my car in a flash flood…. What kind of freak accident was that anyway?! I knew no one else that had actually happened to. My job at the dry cleaners didn’t pay nearly enough to afford another one. In fact, the only thing that job had going for it, was that it was close enough to ride to on my rickety bike.
As if the car wasn’t enough, my landlord took my tiny room out
from under me when her son returned to roost after being expelled from college for selling drugs. Homeless for a week, I slept on my best friend Eliza’s couch, before finding this place.
I might still be on that couch if not for the ultra-militant building manager, Stu, threatening to throw Eliza and her mother in the street for breaking the lease by letting me stay. And no way was I going to reach out to my father and his new wife for help. No way.
I forced myself to study the greenish-gold fleur-de-lis wallpaper rather than focus on the storm bearing down on the drafty, dilapidated farmhouse. I couldn’t remember if I’d closed the windows on the second floor but was too afraid to move toward the stairs. That would mean making my way past three windows. No, I was okay here, leaning against the wall just inside the back door with my hands over my closed eyes so I wouldn’t see the flashes of light.
My pulse had steadied since the last blast of thunder a few minutes ago, and I inhaled slowly, exhaled even more slowly, trying to fool my heart into believing everything would be all right. I wanted to cry already, knowing once the storm ended, the next phase of misery would begin. The self-loathing.
It was this way after every thunderstorm, when I recognized I was still here, still alive, that nothing had happened to me, and what a fool I’d been to think, even for a moment, that lightning was a living being trying to kill me. Then I’d cry.
I sighed aloud, almost masking the sound in the distance. Not thunder, or the rain pelting the sagging roof of the back porch. Something else. I tilted my head forward and to the right because I thought it helped me hear better.
Tires. Tires on a road.
I hoped there wouldn’t be another flash of lightning as I inched toward the window, then peeked out to see a silver truck coming down the road a couple hundred yards out. Ordinarily, I would assume it was on its way past, since no one had a reason to stop at an abandoned farmhouse, but I somehow knew it meant to come here.
This time the sky lit briefly from the east, moving away from me, not the cause of my pounding heart. There was nothing more to fear from the storm, but I had no idea what the truck’s arrival meant. I watched it approach the turn-off to the gravel road leading directly to the house, hoping it would speed by. Instead, it slowed and turned.
