Lucky's Girl

William Holloway

Lucky's Girl by William Holloway

First published in 2014 by

Horrific Tales Publishing

http://www.horrifictales.co.uk

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Copyright © 2014 William Holloway

The moral right of William Holloway to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

eBook Edition

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

William Holloway would like to acknowledge the following persons: First, Graeme Reynolds. In reading the High Moor books and seeing the creative output of Horrific Tales I was really intimidated in submitting Lucky's Girl. I just wasn't sure about this one. Turns out he liked it, and here we are…

I'd also like to thank Simon Marshall Jones for the painstaking editing this one required, Lisa Jenkins for the proof reading and Stephen Bryant for the cover artwork.

Last but not least, our long suffering Beta Readers Kerri Patterson and Vix Kirkpatrick. Thanks guys, you all did fantastic work!

PART 1

THEIR MASTER’S VOICE

CHAPTER 1

Lucky needed a new gig. All this riding around waiting for a sign was lame. He felt it in his shoulders and chest; there was a vibe buzzing like a horsefly at the edge of his mind. Sometimes he could see it in the leaves carried on the breeze, sometimes on the wind carrying them. But when everything was at stake, he needed to take it to the next level. He needed to Read the Signs, and he’d taken some risks to be here.

He went to Target dressed like a square, and had a couple kids knock over mannequins for a distraction to make his play. He knew where to find the right kids; young girls with young girls’ attempts at pop star make up, big costume jewelry and sweaty little boyfriends with braces too big for their faces. He sat in the booth next to them and in minutes they were off on their assignment, then in the back of cop cars on petty vandalism charges. He got a five finger discount on a Red Rider BB gun, a handy tool for times like this.

And this time he really needed it.

Over the years he’d come closer and closer to assembling the perfect tribe from the flotsam and jetsam of the California fringe. Hippies, junkies and castoffs looking for direction. He gave them something to live for, and they gave him everything they had. Body and soul, in word and deed they’d become his.

But sooner or later the Child Protective Services would take notice, the cops would show up, and he’d slip out and hit the road. But this time they weren’t just crashing a hippie cult in the desert, they were looking for
him
by his street name: Lucky. And this time it was the Feds. They probably didn’t know his real name because the bikers didn’t know it. Neither did the girls. When he set up a tribe he would go by a guru name: Father Faith, Ram Goa, Chris Crucial, to name just a few.

His first lady called handcuffed to a detective’s desk. The feds were pushing charges of meth distribution. One by one the girls had called to say they loved him and to come spring them from these bogus charges so they could fuck and fuck and fuck. They knew he was innocent but The Man couldn’t let a prophet go without crucifying him. They didn’t know their SSI checks bought the speed the bikers moved for him. They didn’t know about his bank account, but the Feds had known and cleaned it out.

Hence the lack of funding for the BB Gun.

He needed a new gig, and he needed it bad.

The shack in the desert was east of Bakersfield, his retreat when shit would get out of hand. Just an old shack with four sun-faded cars, with flat tires and paint peeling off in big curling scabs, one for each time he’d lost a tribe to the cops. They were the last thing he cared about. He had gear buried under the shack. Tent, sleeping bag, three hundred in cash. Tools to get the Harley running. No more driving around like a square.

But that had to wait. He built a fire, then closed off his mind until all the anger and tension fell from his frame. He chanted strings of syllables until rhythms began, patterns formed, and order emerged from the morass of sounds.

Ket-mat-na-roz, keh-pi-uh, ja-quey, tae-lae, bas-nef-tek
.

It felt familiar.

Powerful
. Like lightning or an earthquake.

His eyes flew open and he sucked air.

Yes,
this
was the refrain.

His hand went to the pillowcase full of writhing, injured animals. Squirrels, chipmunks, and a cat with a collar that said
Beatrice
. He held her by the scruff of the neck and inserted the knife under the sternum, opening the abdomen, holding the thrashing cat in one hand while he examined the entrails in the other.

Ket-mat-na-roz, keh-pi-uh, ja-quey, tae-lae, bas-nef-tek
.

Once, twice, five more times, until the fire was rank with steaming guts.

At the end of this divination he knew more, but the way was still dark.

The Big Tree was beckoning him home after all these years. He would have a new tribe, one which would fulfill him like none had before. He would be chieftain, and take back what was rightfully his, and so be avenged on those who had brought him injustice.

***

Kenny McCord looked for the right place to send the rock skipping over the water. His arm darted out and he hit the sweet spot between two dirty waves, the rock jumping twice before plunging under. The water was brown, the horizon was brown. That’s just how Houston was: dirty and brown. He reached for another stone, but hesitated as his fingers started questing in the wet sand. No, he could spend hours or even days matching that last skip. A perfect skip was the right way to leave this shithole.

On the horizon, he could see the oil rigs, but he didn’t begrudge the hazardous job, or the mortgage company repo’ing his house.

He blamed the place. Some towns are just bad.

Twenty-odd years ago he had blamed the backwoods town in the U.P. and had left for greener pastures. A place with no waiting list for jobs sawing down trees.

Houston; where there were more jobs than people.

His kids were in the back seat of his truck, his welding rig behind them. He’d left everything else behind. There were nothing but bad memories here. He wished his kids didn’t have to see this but he was beat and they were retreating. He wiped away the tear hanging at the edge of his eye. He was surprised he still had any.

One last look at the horizon, fading towards sunset. Beautiful in its dirty brown way, but dead to him now. God had given, and Houston had taken away, and there was only retreat. He turned his back to the sunset, closing his eyes. He breathed in and out again, then headed for the truck.

***

Jenny was wearing black knockoff wayfarers. The first time Kenny had seen them he had thought she’d looked like her mother the day they’d met at the diner. Just a bit too mature for a twelve year-old girl. He didn’t say anything. He just wanted to spend quality time with Jenny and Jake, not an absentee dad who showed up, yelled, and then left.

Of course when he’d first met Kelly it had been a whole other ballgame. He was nineteen and good looking. She was nineteen and the most provocative thing he’d ever seen. Like one of those pin-up girls painted on the side of a WW2 bomber in wayfarers and a waitress get-up. She had big almond-shaped eyes with lashes curling up at the edges and lips which did the same.

Jenny looked like her mother.

Despite how his daughter looked now, a smile formed inside his head thinking of that silly day at the
59 Diner
. He’d stood in front with his bags, waiting for the van to take him to the rig for a three week tour of duty. She’d walked by and had given him a smile.

He’d missed that van: he’d had just one concern in the world – the waitress in wayfarers, consequences be damned. He’d sat himself in her section but the manager had thrown him out, but he’d gotten her phone number. His mind drifted to the vision of their wedding. Her parents hadn’t approved, they’d wanted a doctor or a lawyer. But she wanted him, the kid from Michigan who welded underwater on oil rigs; the kid from nowhere who had no parents, just a weird old Vietnam Vet uncle who’d raised him in a shack.

The shack they were headed to right now.

Kelly’s parents had raised her up right, with her head screwed on straight. He wondered if he could be the dad Kelly’s father was. He wondered if Jenny would let him. He wondered if Jake would let him. He looked in the rearview mirror and briefly caught their eyes. Jenny looked back out the window. Jake didn’t have imitation wayfarers to cover his disdain.