37

by David Achord

“Thomas?”

  “Yes, who is this?” I said.

  “This is Kalina, do you remember me?” she asked. I set my beer down.

  “Yes, of course. Lilith’s cousin,” I said. “How are you?”

  I’d met Kalina several months ago in Chicago at The Gypsy Dragon, back when it was still open. Her attitude toward me at first was aloof, but I think she had eventually warmed up to me.

  “I’m calling to warn you,” she said. Or, maybe not.

  “What’s the problem?” I asked.

  “My family believes you have brought ruin upon them. You are bibaxt, bad luck. Because of this, an amria has been put on you.”

  I frowned, wondering what the word meant. “Is that like some kind of gypsy curse?”

  “Yes.”

  I waited for her to start laughing. She didn’t.

  “Are you joking?”

  “I’m dead serious, Thomas,” she said.

  “That seems rather drastic, Kalina. After all, I didn’t kill any member of your family.”

  “It is believed you are the cause of their deaths,” she said. “The elders believe this.”

  “Well, somebody needs to sit them down and give them the facts. Wolf killed Lilith. He and Pekoe were killed by the cops, and that goofy-looking old man who ran around with them banging on a tambourine was killed in a car wreck while in the act of abducting a woman. So, why am I the one getting a curse put on me?”

  “You are not a gypsy, you are gadjo. You would not understand.”

  “No, I don’t guess I do,” I said. “But you need to tell your people to leave me alone. I’ve had enough of them. By the way, why did nobody claim Lilith’s body? You and your people know I’m the one who made arrangements for her funeral service, right? As in, I’m the one who paid for it and I’m the only one who attended her service. Which one of those snarky elders do I talk to about that?”

  There was a long pause, and then the line disconnected. I looked at the screen a moment before setting it on the bar top.

  “Bunch of crazy assholes,” I muttered and downed my beer.

  I did not believe in psychic ability, or magic, or any of that nonsense, and I damn sure wasn’t going to believe in a gypsy curse. But in the weeks and months that followed, I would remember this phone call. I would remember it in my waking moments and in my dreams.

  “How about another beer, beautiful?” I said to Marti with a grin, forgetting all about my mental reminder to slow down.

  Chapter 48

  I finished cleaning my grill and filled the hopper with wood pellets at about the time Anna came home. Marti was with her and they had the car stereo blasting, as usual. I don’t know how they could stand it. After a moment, they exited the car and walked over. Gracie bounded behind them, only pausing long enough to squat in the grass.

  “Hi, girls,” I greeted.

  “What are you cooking?” Marti asked.

  “Garlic and herb-stuffed prime rib roast,” I answered.

  She inhaled deeply. “It smells wonderful. What’s for dessert?” she asked. She had a mischievous grin when she said it and punctuated it with a flirtatious wink.

  I tried not to, but I grinned as well. I told myself I wouldn’t do it, but the two of us had recently hooked up one night after Mick’s had closed. I certainly hoped Mick did not bother looking at the bar’s surveillance video, because we not only christened the bar top, but the humidor and one of the couches as well.

  It was spontaneous, poorly thought out, but I had to admit I did not regret a second of it. Evens so, the two of us agreed it was going to be our little secret. Since then, we’d hooked up a couple of additional times. I had to admit, she was fun to be with.

  Anna, who was oblivious, spoke up and peppered me with questions about the party.

  “Do you know if everyone is coming? Do we have enough to eat and drink? What beverages are we serving?”

  “Stop worrying. Everyone who matters is coming and we have enough to feed a small army.”

  “What about beverages?”

  I pointed at a blue plastic barrel sitting near the back door.

  “There’s a quarter-barrel keg in there on ice, and we have various sodas in the fridge. If anyone wants something stronger, they need to bring it.”

  “Alright, I’ll go check on the rest of the food,” she said and walked inside. Marti waited before the door closed before speaking.

  “I think she’s going to spend the night with Percy tonight after the party,” she said.

  I nodded. “Remind me to disable the cameras, or else Ronald will find out.”

  Her jaw dropped open. “Do you think he watches the cameras at the bar?”

  My face tightened. “I hadn’t thought of that. He hasn’t said anything, so I think we’re okay.”

  She giggled. Our conversation stopped when my phone rang. I looked at the caller ID. It showed the call originating from the Rutherford County Jail. When I answered, an automated voice informed me an inmate was calling me collect. When it identified the inmate as Flaky, I frowned in concern and hurriedly accepted the call.

  “How’s it going, Thomas,” Flaky greeted.

  “Hey, I take it you’ve been arrested, am I right?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I got myself into a little situation,” he said.

  “Oh, yeah? What’s going on?”

  “Well, it goes like this. The cops have charged me with murder.”

  The End

  Read on for a free sample of Primordia

  PROLOGUE

  1908 – South America, somewhere in South Eastern Venezuela – the Wettest Season

  Benjamin Cartwright ran like never before in his life. Damp green fronds slapped at his face, thorns ripped his skin, and elastic vines tried to lasso every part of his body. But he barged, burrowed, and sprinted as if the devil was after him.

  Because it was.

  The thing that followed him pushed trees from its path, and its carnivore breath was like a steam train huffing and hissing as it bore down on him. He whimpered, pivoting at a boulder and changing direction. The roar came then, making leathery-winged avian creatures take flight from the canopy overhead, and causing his testicles to shrink in his sweat-soaked trousers.

  Cartwright accelerated, and immediately an explosive breeze hit his face as the jungle opened out. He skidded to a stop, squinting against it. He was at the cliff edge that dropped away to a green carpet over a thousand feet below.

  He stared for a split moment; the strange low cloud swirled all around him, and he knew he only had hours before he’d be trapped forever. He grimaced and turned. Already the trees were being pushed aside as his pursuer caught up to him. He’d seen what it did to Baxter, and the thought of it happening to him liquefied his bowels.

  Arm-thick creeper vines ran across the clearing and hung down over the edge of the cliff face but didn’t reach anywhere near safety. In the few seconds he had left, Benjamin Cartwright realised his choices were to be eaten, or suicide – death either way.

  The foliage burst open behind him, and the hissing-roar made him cringe back with fear. He couldn’t help but turn – the creature rose up, towering over him, all coiled muscle, glistening scales, and teeth as long as his arm. The remains of Baxter still hung ragged between those tusk-like fangs.

  Cartwright fired his last bullet from the gun he had almost forgotten in his hand – it had no effect, and he threw the Colt revolver to the ground. He turned back to the cliff edge, grabbed up one of the vines, said a silent prayer, and leapt.

  PART 1 – What if it were true?

  There's many a man who never tells his adventures, for he can't hope to be believed ―

  Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World.

  CHAPTER 01

  2018 – Greenberry Cemetery, Ohio – Today

  Benjamin Cartwright stood with his arm around his mother’s shoulders. It shoulda been raining, he thought. Instead, belying the somber mood, the sun shone gaily, and the verdant green lawn gave
off a pleasant odor of cut grass and fresh soil. The leaves on the large trees ringing the cemetery quivered slightly as a soft breeze moved through their shimmering leaves.

  Perhaps it was fitting, as his father, Barry, was an outdoorsman ever since he was a kid. Being here, surrounded by this forest-like setting seemed, perfect.

  His mother sobbed again, and Ben squeezed her slim shoulders and felt her continuing to shudder as her tiny frame was wracked by sorrow. His own eyes blurred with tears momentarily, and he blinked several times to clear them.

  It was the surprise and suddenness of it all, he guessed. His dad was only 63, and he had seemed strong as an ox…right up until chopping wood had turned into a clutched chest, and then it was lights out big guy, forever.

  Cynthia, his mother, had called him first, telling him that Barry had a bad fall, very bad – that was it. Ben could tell by her voice that it was no simple fall. Both his parents were the type that brushed off trauma as a mere annoyance – even a broken wrist was described as just having a bit of a scrape. So Dad having a very bad fall set off alarms in Ben’s head.

  Her voice became tiny then. “I don’t know what to do,” she had said.

  Ben felt sick from fear then, but he swallowed it down. Trying to impart calm, he had told her to phone the police or an ambulance, or a neighbor, and he was on his way. He lived in Boulder, Colorado, and even though the flight was just a little over 2 hours, it would still take many hours on top of that to go point-to-point.

  “Keep him warm. And Mom, just stay calm, okay? I’ll be there soon.” He checked his watch, blew air through pressed lips, and ran to his room to grab a few things and stuff them into a bag. He snatched up his wallet and phone, and then ran to the door, praying there’d be a flight he could jump on.

  He’d phoned anyone and everyone he could think of; sending emergency services, plus Hank the neighbor. His mom sounded disorientated, having only said that Barry was still asleep and that she had placed his jacket over his shoulders to keep him warm.

  After the longest 5 hours of his life, he was there.

  When he arrived, he thankfully found that an ambulance had come and gone, but Hank from next door had grabbed his shoulders. “Sorry, Ben,” was all he’d said.

  He had steeled himself, knowing what to expect, but it still hit him like a kick to the guts.

  He trudged up to the house, where a local police chief he remembered from when he was a kid waited on the porch. He saluted Ben and shook his hand.

  “Sorry for your loss, Ben. Your father was a personal friend of mine. He was a good man.” His jaw worked for a moment. “Massive heart attack. Probably never felt a thing.”

  Ben nodded. “Mom? Cynthia?”

  “Inside. She’s okay…wanted to wait for you.”

  Ben went past him and into the house. He found her in the family room, sitting on the sofa, just staring at the fireplace. He had sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulder.

  “Stupid old man; chopping wood like that,” she scolded, and then collapsed into tears.

  Ben felt his own eyes fill. Barry had been the perfect father – happy, strong, always there, and had taught him everything from how to do his shoelaces, to being able to drink from a soda bottle without the backwash sliding back into the bottle.

  Guilt nagged at him for not coming back sooner, to have one more laugh, one more beer, or maybe one more chance to tell him he loved him. All gone now.

  That all had been just two days ago. Now, family and friends were gathered at his funeral, staring at the polished coffin that gleamed in the sunlight. No one talked, and few even met his eyes after the initial handshake greeting – all bar one – Emma Wilson, a high school sweetheart. She nodded to him, and he gave her a flat smile of acknowledgment in return.

  He also turned slightly, hiding the scar on his cheek – a parting gift from a grenade-throwing ISIS asshole in Syria. The line down his face from temple to chin was a reminder of his time in the military. The grenade had been a lucky throw, and landed in the center of five of them – he dived for it, but his buddy, Mad Max Hertzog, had beat him to it, shouldering him aside and covering the frag device with his body.

  Then came the madness: the explosion, the smell of burning flesh, the warm wetness that rained sticky blood and flesh onto his face, his hands, and into his eyes and mouth. There was the siren sound of perforated eardrums and the faint shouts of men hauling him up.

  There wasn’t much left of Max, blown in half, and another of their team lay on his back with smoke rising from charred and ripped flesh. They were being overrun, and he was dragged away, but not before he thought he saw the dead man’s fingers twitch. He tried to pull away, tried to scream that the man needed help, but his mouth wouldn’t work.

  He was later told the man, Henderson, was dead. His head told him that was the truth, but his subconscious whispered that he had left a man behind and those bloody fingers twitching, beckoning to him, still haunted his dreams even today.

  The shrapnel had opened his face, but he knew he was one of the lucky ones; he served, and survived, with everything intact. Many others didn’t, or they came home missing pieces.

  Ben let his eyes drift again to Emma and didn’t realize his hand had reached up to touch the scar; his mother said it made him look handsome in a brutal sort of way. Others said it just made him look meaner, and that was fine by him.

  Ben continued to stare with dark brown eyes that had a hawk’s intensity. Years ago, he and Emma had dated. She was a cute girl then, but now had grown into a beautiful woman, and he wondered whether she had kept in contact with his family, or she was here just to catch a glimpse of him. You conceited ass, he thought, but then, I hope so.

  Afterwards, there was a wake planned at the family home, which was agonizing to endure, and then his mother asked could he stay for a few more days to help tidy things up, and to just be there.

  He knew what she had meant – tidy things up, meant to pack away objects she couldn’t bear to look at anymore. Of course he would. Besides, Ben was diplomatically termed between engagements right now.

  After the grenade, and then the two hundred and fifty plus internal micro-stitches to his face, he had left his Special Forces unit and the Army for good. He had felt like he was running away, and the guilt still hung over him like a shadow. But he knew then that he had seen enough, endured enough, and delivered enough violence to last a dozen lifetimes.

  Now, he just wanted peace and quiet, and may even resume his studies to become a vet – animals he loved; it was human beings that were capable of atrocities and that he had walked away from. He was like his dad, and his grandfather, and he guessed all the other Cartwrights who yearned to live life simply and in the sunshine. Even his namesake, Benjamin Cartwright, who died somewhere down in Venezuela in 1908 after trekking into the jungle, was just a dreamer with an adventurous soul.

  His mother came back into the living room and picked up an old photograph, stared for a moment, and then sobbed again.

  Ben sighed; yep, should be raining.

  CHAPTER 02

  Ben woke with a start. The house was quiet, and he turned his head slowly, wondering what woke him.

  He read somewhere once that if a person dies suddenly it could take days for their spirit to actually realize it. They’d carry on like nothing had happened, wandering along hallways, opening and shutting doors, and even trying to speak to their loved ones.

  “Goodbye, Dad. I love you,” he whispered to the still air.

  Ben sighed and sat there for a few more minutes; it was late, or rather way too early, and he silently got to his feet. He stepped carefully, trying to avoid squeaking floorboards that might wake his mother who had finally got off to sleep.

  He decided to continue with his tidying up and carried a box of his dad’s clothing under one arm and a beer in the other as he made his way up to the attic.

  His grandfather, Errol, had made his fortune in mining and left his father a sizeabl
e inheritance and home on a gentle hilltop with 20 acres of surrounding land. The family home itself was impressive with plenty of sandstone and wood, filled with antiques, memories, and things the family had picked up over several generations.

  The third floor was all attic space and was filled with boxes, chests, and dustsheet-covered excess furniture. He flicked on the lights, placed his beer on a covered table, and hiked the box of clothing over to the existing pile of chronologically layered personal items.

  He still had much to bring up, but the man’s pictures would remain downstairs. He noticed his mother had turned them face down, as if even looking at him would cause her to crumble all over again. Ben figured his dad’s ghost would be in the house for a long time to come.

  He pulled a sheet off an armchair and sat down, breathing in the smell of dust, old wood, and aging papers. He put his feet up on a chest and just let his eyes move along the piled towers of their family history – like geological layers, Barry would now have his things added to the piles, joining those that belonged to grandfather Errol, great grandfather Julius, and his namesake, his great, great grandfather Benjamin.

  In a moment of feeling his mortality, he wondered whether one day someone would be sitting right here with their feet on his lifetime’s collection of papers, pictures, and old track and field trophies.

  Ben shifted his feet on the chest. When he was a kid, his dad had told him that they were all full of treasure. But upon opening a few of them, he had been disappointed to find that there was nothing but papers, old letters, antiquities, and faded photographs. Nothing a kid valued at all.

  His dad had just smiled at the downcast look on his face and told him that knowledge and information was the greatest treasure that a person could ever be given. Back then, he wasn’t impressed; but time has a way of changing perceptions.

  He lifted his feet from the ornate box and unlatched it so he could lift the lid. The hinges squealed in protest like tortured banshees, and he shushed them.