Captive in Terror Orchard

By Brian Bakos

Where do kids go when they are driven through the cracks - is it to some nightmare land?

Throwaway delinquent Billy Conner seems useless to the world, but he’s all that stands between it and the workings of a vicious, supernatural conspiracy.

Book 1 of the Terror Orchard series

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Bakos
• Release date: May 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301689316

Brian Bakos

I like to write and travel. I'm from the Detroit area originally and try to see other places as often as possible. My most recent travels have been to China, Ecuador, and Belize. Am thinking of my next destination. It's wonderful how travel inspires the writing process. Attended Michigan State University and Alma College.Not much more than that. Anything else I have to say comes out in my books. If you really want to know more, please contact me through my website, https://www.theb2.net/. May life bring you many blessings!

Book preview

One: Life Over the Edge

1. Crud Hotel

The usual crowd is hanging around our apartment when I get home from school. I want to avoid them, but it isn’t possible.

You’re back early, ain’t ya? somebody says.

Yeah.

The sofa is full of losers. More stretch out on the carpet. Two of them, a woman and a biker type guy, are in the easy chair, groping under a blanket.

I shuffle past the empty beer bottles toward my room. The cigarette and marijuana smoke is thick enough to swim through. My eyes burn from the stink.

Hey, kid, somebody says, want some?

He drags on a joint and blows the smoke my direction.

Cut that out! I snap.

Everyone howls, like a pack of psychotic chimps. Mom wouldn’t like this, but she’s in the kitchen blabbing on the phone with somebody from school. They must be telling her why I’ve been sent home.

Well, at least our landline hasn’t been cut off again.

Mom’s latest boyfriend is flopped out with the others – high, laughing, and yowling – a big, mean-looking guy with tattoos and a bald head. Biker type. His name is Steve, or Bill, or something. I can’t keep track.

I make it to my room and shut the door, which blocks the party racket somewhat. I open my window, and the air becomes more breathable – although the smoke stench is a permanent fixture in our place.

At least another lousy day at school is over. This one was a real classic.

Some big mouth called me trailer trash during lunch period and I had to bust him up a little. This surprised him because he was bigger than me and didn’t think I’d object to such a funny comment. He was only trying to be clever, impress the girls at my expense.

I got in a good take down before he knew what hit him. His head smacked a table edge, and the fight was pretty much over. He had this blubbery, frightened look on his face, and I just couldn’t bring myself to slug him. His tray went flying and scattered food over the lunch room. I hope everybody liked the ‘chopped steak’ or whatever it was supposed to be.

They blamed me, of course. I’m a hair’s breadth away from another suspension unless Mom can talk them out of it, which doesn’t seem likely.

Thing is, we don’t even live in a trailer. We have this wonderful place, courtesy of the welfare department.

It’s no worse than the other places we’ve lived. Better than some, actually, but the same type of awful people keep showing up. It’s like we have a big flashing sign in the window:

CRUD HOTEL

Bring All Your Friends

I flick on my little garage sale TV and sprawl on my bed. A program about Brazil is on, and it sweeps me away from my ugly world like a magic carpet. One minute I’m stuck in the Crud Hotel, the next I’m walking though a beautiful rain forest, then I’m dancing in a carnival parade.

The warm glow lasts right through the commercial break – a couple of stupid ads selling drugs. As if I don’t have enough drugs around me already! Some guy comes on talking about his heart attack and how wonderful the hospital was that took care of him. Great stuff.

Brazil comes on again – the wonderful golden shore by Rio this time. An unbelievable blue ocean mixes with the sky and laps against the beach. Guys are playing soccer in the gleaming sand along the water line. All of them have big, toothy smiles and tremendous sun tans. I narrow my eyes and imagine myself among them – kicking the soccer ball, splashing into the water with the dolphins…

My door bursts open, and Mom’s boyfriend stumbles in. I stand up to face him.

What the hell! He’s swaying around, trying to focus. Ain’t this the bathroom?

No, it’s down the hall. If you can make it that far.

He gives me a stony look. Oh, yeah?

Yeah. You’re not supposed to come in here, so get out.

This is a dumb thing to say, but I’m mad and still fired up from the battle at school. Besides, I’m confident I can outrun him if I need to.

But with incredible speed for a drunk, he grabs my shirt front before I can dodge away. Next thing I know, I’m flying across the room. I slam against the wall and knock down the bulletin board. Pain explodes through my body, but I’m too shocked to be frightened.

Time you learned some manners, punk! the boyfriend says, spraying alcoholic breath over me.

He starts to undo his belt. Maybe he intends to hit me with it, or perhaps he has something worse in mind. I’ll never know because Mom comes in, swinging a tire iron. He turns toward her and catches it square.

WUMP!

He stands for a couple seconds, stunned. His mouth gapes open and his eyes roll back, a big cut runs down his bald head. Then he crashes face-first to the floor and starts bleeding on my comic book collection.

Scum! Mom kicks his fat ribs. I said I’d kill you if you ever touched him!

She raises the iron two-handed for the killing blow, but others rush in and disarm her before she can finish him off. The weapon tumbles onto the floor. The posse drags Mom away. She is screaming and cursing like a maniac.

I sit propped against the wall, trying to get my breath back. Sharp pain tears through my side whenever I move. A bloody taste seeps into my mouth.

Finally, I manage to get up and step around the slob mountain spread on my floor. I grab the tire iron and drag it to the living room, ready to smash anyone who tries to harm Mom. My ribs hurt so much I’m about ready to pass out.

Leave her alone!

Everyone stares at me; no one is laughing anymore. Mom seems to be okay. She’s sitting on the sofa with a couple of women, crying and drinking cheap vodka. Somebody is calling 911.

Lover boy survives the little spat. The last I see him, he’s being wheeled out on a stretcher, whimpering like a baby. Big hero. Then I have to go to the hospital myself for my cracked rib. It’s the same place where the TV heart attack guy went.

2. The Grech Appear

Soon afterwards, the child welfare people declared Mom an unfit parent and sent me to the Children’s Home for abused and neglected kids.

It’s for the best, Billy, Mom told me between sobs – hers and mine. I know I can’t take care of you right.

That was my last conversation with her, and it’s been well over a year now.

I was so angry that all I could see was a new bunch of kids to fight with, another crummy school. It’s just recently I’ve realized the Children’s Home wasn’t such a bad place. Some of the counselors were really nice; they tried to be on your side. If I’d been smart, I would have tried to get along better, but that’s all in the past.

They put me through a lot of tests. I was evaluated as being highly intelligent, but also rebellious and defiant. The Home was glad to get rid of me when the Grech appeared.

What a snow job those two gave! Yes, they’d be happy to take a problem child like me into foster care. They had a beautiful country home, and they came highly recommended – by a county judge, no less. A guy named Franklin Gulp.

I was so desperate to leave the Children’s Home that I jumped at the chance the Grech offered. But I suspected that something wasn’t right.

Two: Captivity

3. Sweet Home on Brazil Road

Marnie, the cook, plops down the food. The ancient table groans, and a smell like unwashed laundry wafts into the air. The Grech dig in. That’s a good way to put it because this dinner has been dug up from someplace ugly. My heart sinks to a new low.

I have to break out of this nightmare before it’s too late, I tell myself for the thousandth time.

Good old Mr. Grech jaws a mouthful of the stuff. Juice dribbles down his chin stubble and onto the front of his shirt.

Dang, Marnie, he says, you sure make good roast beef.

Use your napkin, Albert! Mrs. Grech snaps.

I look at the soggy mess on my plate and force back a gag. This is roast beef? And to think I used to complain about the Children’s Home food. Compared to this garbage, the hamburger blobs at the Home were gourmet heaven.

My stomach grumbles, and my brain roams over the escape plans I’ve thought about for the past two weeks. I mentally travel through the whole rickety house and around the property outside – over to the big oak tree and the raspberry patch – looking for a way out. Try as I might, I keep stumbling over the same problem, which is strapped to my ankle.

Marnie slithers back into the kitchen with her black dress rustling. Mrs. Grech brushes back her frizzy gray-streaked hair with one hand and slurps peas from a twisted spoon she holds in the other. She munches away, her dentures clicking along.

Eat up, boy! she says between chomps.

I shovel in a couple of peas and chew them slowly. They explode in my mouth like boiled pimples. At least they temporarily take my mind off the two frightening old people sitting at the table.

The Grech