Lucky's Girl (3 page)

Abby James reached over to her husband in bed next to her. It was six AM and the alarm clock was tweeting. It had been a gift from a parishioner nearly thirty years ago and it was still going strong, a faded red with a big gaudy print of Woody Woodpecker’s mug on its face. It had made a plastic imitation of Woody’s famous Uh-eh-eh-ah-aah every morning since the Rev had brought it home.

The parishioner was a new Christian and had heard from the stiffer members of the community that all TV was bad and he should throw it away. He came to Franklin and sheepishly asked if he had to throw away his TV to be a Christian. Franklin had laughed and said Jesus wanted him to be happy, and as long as TV didn’t interfere then it was fine by the Rev and fine by Jesus too. Franklin professed his undying love for Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Johnny Carson, The Detroit Lions and that fellow Sagan, even if he didn’t believe in God.

Abby couldn’t feel him next to her. That meant he’d fallen asleep (as he very often did) watching Carson, or whatever the new guy’s name was… or whatever the guy’s name was who had replaced the guy who had replaced Carson. Or maybe he’d fallen asleep in his swivel chair while writing on his blog about local issues. It was always bad news; the state bankrupt, jobs going south, and the locals petrified about the reappearance of Grey Wolves.

Abby and Franklin secretly loved the Wolves. If there ever was an Exhibit A for the Existence of God, the Grey Wolf was it. Beautiful majestic creatures, pure cunning and power. But she understood why people were so afraid of them. They were dangerous. But oh, so beautiful!

She and Franklin would sit on their deck when the church wasn’t doing something (which did occasionally happen) and watch Grove Island where the Pack lived. One time Abby could swear Blackie had looked straight at her. Abby had gasped and lowered the binoculars, then had quickly raised them, and sure enough, there was Blackie looking right at her. Only the half mile between had kept her blood from running cold. Even so, she’d felt a tingle of fear. As much as Blackie was the living evidence of the glory of God, she couldn’t deny it, Blackie was terrifying!

Abby sat up, turning off the old alarm clock. She couldn’t smell coffee brewing, which meant old Franklin was sacked out real good. She smiled. She’d go get the bacon and eggs going and then he’d appear. She swung her legs around and snuggled her toes into the fuzzy tops of her slippers. They were old and tatty but well taken care of. She smiled. That’s just how she and Franklin were: old and tatty but well taken care of. They could’ve had more money but the Ministry was their calling. Money was just money, and there were people with less, especially in Elton Township. A bittersweet smile crossed her face and then she started her morning prayers. She began by thanking the Lord for the things hardest to be thankful for, so she thanked him for this beat down town at the edge of the world.

It was easy to love Franklin, because he loved her back. But loving unemployed drunks punching their wives was harder. But she thanked the Lord for them anyways. Girls on their third kid out of wedlock, girls on their third abortion, bosses demanding kickbacks from minimum wage workers, stores with a bigger liquor aisle than bread aisle… Some people didn’t make it easy to love them, but eventually they all staggered through the doors of Elton Township Church of the Pentecost, just like everybody else did.

But the hardest part was her son, Mason. She was too old to actually hit her knees to pray but in her life she’d spent a lot of time there, and most of that time had been spent on Mason. She believed in her heart that God couldn’t make mistakes, that people did bad things because of their paths in life. They weren’t born evil, but this world and the King of Lies made them that way.
Something
made them that way. She didn’t take much to psychology but knew well enough about cause and effect. She was too close to the front line, pulling people out of the gutter to deny any of that.

They could be saved, that was what it was all about.

But Mason?

Nothing
made him that way.

There was no warning, there was no indication, there was no
cause
.

She snapped herself out of her fugue. There was no point in pondering questions too big to ask when there were people out there right now that
could
be helped.

But first, breakfast! Time to wake old sleepy bones on the couch.

She got up, smiled into the mirror, and padded out the bedroom door and down the hall to the living room. And there he was, still asleep on the couch, the local news flickering on the TV set in the dim morning light.

She glanced out the big glass sliding doors and what she saw made her heart do a double hammer. Her body had registered it on a primitive level before her mind could process it.
They
were on her deck, the only thing separating them was a single pane of glass. Thirteen of them, the whole Pack. Her heart clapped again and again. She wanted to backpedal to the bedroom and close the door, but that left Franklin asleep just feet from the Pack, less than ten feet from
Blackie
… with only glass between them.

Her rational mind knew they weren’t dangerous unless provoked. They also weren’t known to be this bold. They were supposed to be instinctually afraid of men. But this pack was
so different
from how they were supposed to be. So far the state Wildlife people had been wrong about a lot. They hadn’t outright attacked anyone but… they were far more aggressive than any previous accounts suggested possible.

Franklin was sleeping on the couch, if they broke through the window…

Low and quiet. “Franklin, Franklin wake up.”

He didn’t move, he was out cold.

“Franklin!” Quiet and urgent through gritted teeth.

Still, he didn’t move a muscle.

She choked in a deep breath and took a step toward the couch. Her eyes went to the pack, then back to Blackie. The wolf returned her gaze. She took another step but Blackie remained still, the other wolves getting to their feet. Blackie stayed low, ears upright, just watching.

Abby put one foot in front of the other, followed by another and another.

Blackie lay where she was, not moving at all. The other wolves now began to whine in agitation. Still Franklin hadn’t moved. Why couldn’t he hear this? She reached down to shake her husband’s shoulder, discovering why he wasn’t moving. His skin was cold, his body stiff. He had died quietly in his sleep.

The Rev was dead.

Abby fell to her knees, burying her face in her husband’s side. She opened her eyes and looked to the Pack.

Blackie stood then sat back down on her hindquarters. She howled, a song of victory and challenge to the world, with the other wolves joining in the chorus.

***

The song of the Pack tore through the early morning air straight to Jerry and Errol standing in front of Sheila Running Bear’s cabin. They’d managed to pull her back from the edge. Errol had talked her out of killing herself, then talked her out of killing him. Luckily Jerry had arrived and Sheila had gone inside, slamming the door. They could hear her throwing things and screaming.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! It’s not night-time, they’re not supposed to howl like that during daylight hours!”

Errol looked at him with big round eyes. “Nothing about these fucking wolves is going according to plan, boss.”

“That’s less than a mile away, Errol. Maybe they’re fucking up something else and we can catch them red-handed and shoot the bastards!”

“Come on, get in the jeep!”

They ran over to Errol’s four-wheel drive vintage 80’s Jeep, jumping in and throwing it into gear, following the sound the short distance to the Reverend Franklin James’s house.

***

Jimmy Everclear tossed and turned on his lumpy cot. The room was cold but he was sweaty. He knew this part well, but kept coming back even though it was pure hell.

Detox, day three.

With any luck he’d keep something down today, maybe some saltines. The Rev and Abby always had saltines and a lifetime supply of little Snickers bars, coffee and Coke. He didn’t know why it was he craved coffee while detoxing. Nothing made him puke with more existential pain than a cup of coffee with clumpy non dairy creamer bobbing around in a rime around the top and…

Thud!

Fuck, my head.

Jimmy knew that detox was
trip
time too. Not in a fun way like acid but in a scary, nauseating…

Thud!

What the fucking fuck?

Jimmy sat up, switching on the little lamp next to his cot, his grey brown blanket sliding to the floor. The yellow pallor fell over Mike the Polack sleeping on the couch a few feet away. Mike groaned, “C’mon man, fuck off with that shit!”

“Mike? Didjoo fucking hear that shit?”

“No, now fuck off back to sleep, fucking Everclear, fucking shithead.”

“You talk to Jesus with that mouth, Polack? Seriously man I coulda sworn I…”

Thud!

Neither spoke but Mike the Polack sat upright on the couch with
fuck and shit
written on his face. It was day four for him. Yesterday he’d eaten some chicken noodle soup and had kept half of it down. Both men should’ve been in an inpatient detox but the state didn’t offer that shit anymore. So they had the buddy system, so they could each watch over the other for signs of heart attack or stroke, as well as to talk the other out of drinking when the itch hit. Yesterday Jimmy had confessed he wanted to drink and was gonna bail. They’d gone and talked to the Rev, praying for courage.

“Jimmy, what the hell is that? That ain’t a gunshot or a car door or…”

Thud!

Deep and loud, very deep, very low. It appeared to be coming from above the basement but beneath it at the same time, emerging out of the air.

Mike’s breath came in little jerks. “Jimmy, fuck, Jimmy, what the hell man, that sounds like…”

Both men shivered and shook. Neither had slept fully for days. Both were malnourished, bodies and brains awash in alcoholic breakdown.

Jimmy pulled out his pack of Dorals and handed one to Mike.

Neither said anything, both men cringing and closing their eyes.

Thud!

“Footsteps, Mike, them’s footsteps.”

Jimmy took a big drag on his cigarette and opened his eyes, looking up at the ceiling, waiting for it, for the sound of leviathan footfalls.

Thud!

Louder now, the loudest yet. Whatever it was, it would soon be on top of them.

Jimmy still stared at the ceiling.

“Jimmy, look man, it should be shaking this old church apart but…”

Thud!

Right on top of them now, the building wasn’t collapsing, neither did it shake, but the cigarette smoke wavered as if hit by shockwaves. They could feel it in the air in their lungs, and heard it, but there was no physical tremor to accompany it.

Thud!

The sound was all around them now, shifting, slow and menacing. Something vast, walking in a daze, unconscious but slowly awakening, too big for the church building but here in the room with them nevertheless.

Neither dared move a muscle as they heard the first deep, cavernous inhalation. It was in here with them. Whatever it was exhaled and inhaled, and they could feel its breath moving through the room, coming from all directions at once, breathing them in,
tasting
them. Jimmy felt his skin being appraised, knowing instinctively that it wanted the blood underneath.

“Mike?” Jimmy whispered. Mike was silently crying, keeping still, tears rolling down his blotchy cheeks.

“Mike, what’s it doing to us?”

Mike sobbed. “Judging us, Jimmy, it knows what I done.”

It breathed a vast sigh of contentment. It had found what it needed. Both men knew that it knew. It knew them worthy by virtue of their squalor and vice. They felt its mind, ancient and wise, alien and patient. The time to reap had come. Both destitute men turned their heads to face the direction of its next footfall. They sat, knowing their fate as it trudged to its birthplace, to be born again.

CHAPTER 4

They’d barely spoken for a day and a half. Jake and Jenny no longer asked to pull over for the bathroom, they just went when Kenny did. They didn’t look at him, and he couldn’t meet their gazes either. The three filed into Stuckey’s and over to their booth. They did this at every truckstop and diner. They neither talked nor looked at each other.

Kenny was the adult here, he was the dad. He had to deal with this. He had get them talking, there was no two ways about it. There were no shrinks at Stuckey’s, and there wouldn’t be any in Elton Township either, only the deep green silence of the U.P. It was the first thing which had come to mind when Kelly had died. It was the first thing that had come to mind when the police had found Jenny walking down the road, dazed and bleeding.

Run home, back to the cabin.

Run back to your Uncle Frank.

But your uncle’s dead, isn’t he? He died alone in that cabin, with nothing but a TV and hand-rolled smokes, beechnut, and those four walls, chased there by communists on another continent, and a country that didn’t give a flying fuck about anything, least of all guys like him. You didn’t go see him once, did you? He came down for your wedding but you never saw him again.