Laid & Crucified: Part-1

By John Aalborg

SETTING:
Florida panhandle, 50 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico to the Alabama line. The treasure trove of cultures normally unseen. Present century, pre smart-phone.
SHORT DESCRIPTION:
A drama/thriller which pairs tales of murder, kidnappings, and lust with stories of true love, and joins unusual perps with "good" citizens while sparing neither the religious nor the infidels. Unfolding events, however, allow a few from both sides to survive the resulting carnage.
MAJOR CHARACTERS:
THE MEN: 1. A serial killer whose favorite prey is the rare, attractive female he can snatch from an abortion clinic picket line. Ladies whom he forces to copy by hand the most lurid texts from their own Bibles before he rapes them. 2. A pimple-chested over-grown boy who believes the actresses in his X-rated video cassettes are real and worth saving at any cost, but couldn't care less whether his flesh-and-blood sex partners live or die. 3. A likable, preacher's kid who believes God helps him get laid. 4. An educated middle-aged kidnapper and murderer who is also a respected and honorable yard-man.
THE WOMEN: 1. A beautiful redhead, the unflappable antithesis of the female-as-victim, who dresses like the devil and shoots straighter than God. 2. A Jewish princess who killed her parents and believes she is the reincarnation of Elissa, Queen of ancient Carthage, and does her exotic best to prove it. 3. A young and sexy, bi-lateral short-stump amputee who walks on her hands and harbors wanted criminals in the enclave of her vast, dead husband's salvage yard. 4. And last but not least: a brace of lovely, virgin, black twins who pepper this bizarre, human porridge with their screams.
Other characters provide pithy comic relief in an edgy story which begins on page-1
Author's Rating: "All Ages"
Publisher's Rating: PG-14 (mild erotica, graphic violence)
Home Schooler Rating: MA
NB: The print version contains both Parts 1 & 2

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Aalborg
• Release date: Jun 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311659491

John Aalborg

Snap bio updated by Cheater:John Aalborg is an old unaccountable, traveling, card-carrying member of the working class who can write. Thanks to the invention of the portable laptop, he has been able to type his hard-boiled, originally handwritten crime (and other) novels into digital form. Bleep-Free Press is currently working to get his page-turners into print and e-book form, and eventually into the public eye.. Along with internationally published "over the road" articles (including NEWSWEEK and COSMOPOLITAN), which he did, he says, out of desperation, Aalborg wrote the Axel McKay radio-play series aired coast-to-coast on the WLAC Nashville network, numerous magazine publications of trucking experiences in foreign countries, and for 4 years wrote a monthly road column with me: "Don't Ask Us!" by Mo'hammer and Cheater. Never boring and often controversial, Aalborg's pithy and morally suspect characters, both male and female, bring the reader to places rarely seen.Aalborg has been able to elude punishment, jail, and notoriety for his entire life despite a long list of bizarre occupations, including a well-lived 3 years in the black market trade in Europe, when in Germany he was eventually deported back to the USA (his iconic, antique, Mercedes roadster confiscated). Soon after, with a young family in Miami, one of his less risky employments was writing under the pen-name Stephan Aalborg back when racy books and magazines were censored in the USA - "girlie books" - banned unless each edition contained new "literary content". When the courts ended this requirement the bottom dropped out of that writing market, and Aalborg ascended into psychedelic drugs while still writing on the side. During this time he wrote the beautiful and gamy novel : "ALL MEAT - A Redneck Meets LSD-25". This accurate counter-culture drama, featuring a page-turning dysfunctional family in 1970, was released just last year. The typewritten manuscript was misplaced and lost - as only a "head" can do - for 40 years. Around 1980 John began moving away from Miami, "The Magic City", to his present, undisclosed hidey-hole, where years later a dangerously-younger new girlfriend, me, prodded him to do something with the novels and essays which had been piling up on legal pads and in boxes in his RV. This, and with major encouragement from an Australian writer and editor, finally resulted in John allowing us to get his longer work into print while attempting to keep his whereabouts a secret. "I could stay invisible in Miami," he likes to say.Aalborg's history is a story-book in itself, much provided by job skills and experiences unrelated to each other. Like ten years as a state-licensed locksmith in Miami-Dade, where many of his less ethical assignments were for law enforcement; five years as an EMT for a backwoods hospital and ambulance crew; many more years driving OTR flatbeds (interstate) for long-haul trucking companies; and turning down that work during slow winter seasons. Keeping warm but barely making a living at times, Aalborg worked graveyard shifts at Florida fuel-stops on exits off I-10, where he packed a gun and took care of his own law enforcement.In other words, Aalborg can take the reader into worlds the average person would love to get an exciting and often scary look at, but preferably at a distance and in the comfort of an armchair.Update: Since retiring from driving big trucks, Aalborg has kept buried his social life as well but now writes full-time. He does his best to keep his location and contact numbers secret and has pulled himself from Facebook and the like. His next crimenovel, however, will be out in a big paperback in early Spring 2016 (if I still have any influence) and serialized as an e-Book in 2 book-length parts here at Smashwords and other e-book retailers, the first part free or close to it.-- Update by Cheater, Bleep-Free Press, 16.December.2015

Book preview

Chapter 1

Leesa & The Diary

Leesa squinted her eyes in the semi-darkness of the abandoned dynamite shack, trying to read – to comprehend the horror – of the first page of the diary she had just found.

He told me I have to start this at the beginning, and if I write everything down he will feed me and won't kill my little one. My name is Rachel. I am a Christian and I am pregnant with my first baby. I have long, straight hair which falls all the way down to my butt ass. He is watching me write. I am not allowed to use stupid words, he says. Next time he will hurt me if I do. Now he says I should start this diary over, then he says I should just go on but...

The lunch bell began to ring and Leesa had to catch her breath. The dynamite shack was strictly off limits and even though the walls were thick, Leesa could tell by the extra clamor of that big bell that her mother was letting her know her father was home. Glancing through the next few, handwritten lines, Leesa reluctantly slipped the book back where she'd found it and poked her head out the door. Her eyes scrunched down from the brilliance of the noonday sun and she waited until she could see. White people had the ability to appear out of nowhere, she believed, and before she would go any farther she peered from side-to-side. Leesa was a dark, pretty fourteen, and a good girl except for these little trespassing adventures which pumped up her adrenalin – a natural high. Nothing to feel really guilty about if you didn't get caught.

Satisfied that the coast was clear, Leesa dashed through the crisp, winter, North Florida air to the fence. She had to hunker down and get on her back to crawl through the opening underneath but she did it without getting snagged or scratched. After a quick brush-off she ran down the path which cut through the woods to their cabin. Leesa was light-weight and petite, and usually when she was in the presence of others she would affect a cool, slow glide of a walk. Nothin' don' bother me! But she was running easily now, the discovery of the diary giving wings to her feet, her white Reeboks flashing a storm through the dead leaves on the trail. She slowed when she neared the cabin, though, so her parents wouldn't realize she'd been so far away. Soon the woods would be thicker, and green with the growth of Spring. She would be able to come and go without being seen so readily, and with summer vacation she wouldn't have to limit her exploring to weekends. In the summer Brenda would come to visit sometimes, too, and they could spy around together.

Leesa was hungry, and after giving her father a quick but genuine hug she plunked down at her place at the table. Her parents just sat there for a moment with looks of wonder and satisfaction, and watched her tear into her food. When Leesa had finished the bacon and eggs, and was scraping up the last mouthful of grits with her fork, she finally spoke.

Daddy? I love it when you're home for lunch. This sure beat peanut butter an' jelly!

Dinner, MayBelle corrected.

Mama, mos' people have this for breffis'!

The word is breakfast. Leesa's father stared at her with his cold eye, as they liked to call that particular look. Then he laughed. Leesa, your mama didn't know I was coming, so you would've had eggs and grits anyway.

Uh-huh. 'Cept you always come on Saturdays. So we both knew.

Not every Saturday.

We see you ain't wearing chains, MayBelle said.

Leesa's father was tall and very black, with shiny muscle rippling along his arms. MayBelle would frequently remind him just how handsome he was to her, too, and also just how old. You're old, blue-black, and pretty! she would tell him. And she would invariably add: 'Cept for that scar. Then she would laugh and hug him, mashing her friendly, opulent body against his. He would always hug her back, laughing with her until she screamed for him to stop. He was a confident man – a logger who made a fair living – and even though he never finished high-school he was proud of his accomplishments and happy about himself. He liked for each of his two wives to remember all of that.

The scar, a livid and jagged pink river, ran down from above his left cheek all the way to the underside of his jaw.

Daddy? Please bring Brenda over tomorrow, okay? Drop her off? Let her skip church this one time? It's important.

There was a long silence. Brenda was Leesa's half-sister. They liked to think of each other as twin sisters because they both had the same features, the same dark, coffee-with-cream shade, and were the same age. Brenda had been born on Christmas Eve and Leesa on Christmas Day. Both of them had very light-skinned mothers but that's where the maternal similarity ended. MayBelle was plump and usually jolly while Brenda's mother was slender like a model, and had this air. Brenda's mother was also into the social life of the church – something MayBelle didn't give a hoot about – which is why Leesa had Sunday mornings free and Brenda didn't. But the fact that the man took the other woman to church was an old wound in MayBelle's soul which never seemed to heal.

Even the names of the sisters' mothers had a rub: MayBelle, and Peaches.

It's important, huh?

Yes! Please, Daddy?

John Simmons turned his eyes on MayBelle. Has she been coming straight home from school when I'm not here? Minding her birds and bees?

I say no to everything, Daddy! Leesa shrank back into her chair, hoping her remark didn't sound too fresh.

But John Simmons was smiling, the pink scar crinkling back around the corner of his mouth. You both are so pretty. So pretty! When I see you two together I can hardly stand it. And you're filling out so fast. Just the thought of some dumb-ass, crack-head boy with his hands all over you. Just thinking about it, it's like a knife stabbing right into me. You hear?

Yes, Daddy.

You remember my promise.

MayBelle chuckled. You didn't mind having your paws all over me when I was fourteen.

My babies are going to college, John said. Stay pure and clean, and I'll put you both through college. That was the deal.

"I'll bring Brenda over tomorrow. After church. But you mind what I said about the old Norris place. Okay?"

What about the Norris place? MayBelle said.

I told Leesa no more trespassing. The girls have their tree-house over there. I'm knocking it down tomorrow. The for-sale sign is still up on the road but I keep on seeing this fancy, black van parked down in the drive. The tree-house isn't safe if there's going to be new owners. It's on the forty acres that go with the house and the barn.

Leesa tried to think fast. The dynamite shack was just across from the Norris place and the tree-house had been a good excuse for hanging around there. She needed to show Brenda the hole she found under the fence and the diary without their father getting suspicious.

The new people might have kids, Daddy! Think how happy they'd be to find that tree-house! Leesa watched him think about it. I promise we won' go back to the tree-house until you tell us it's okay. Okay? 'Cept to get the rest of our stuff out.

That's a deal, little fox.

What about the powerline? That's still okay, right?

Not far from the cabin, a high-voltage transmission line ran straight as an arrow for miles. It also neatly separated the old Norris farm from the huge, fenced-in junkyard nearby. Several times a year the rural electric cooperative would mow the right-of-way under the lines, and the wide corridor was a favorite place of Leesa's. It was great for exploring and you could see forever (for there were woods everywhere else around them). John liked it, too, for hunting on his Saturday afternoons off, and sometimes Sunday when he needed to put Peaches in her place. But the powerline also crossed two county highways several miles from either side of his property and one never knew what trash would be coming down the right-of-way to do a little hunting or scouting of their own.

John spoke up suddenly, raising his voice. What's Rule Number One? He moved to the side a little so MayBelle could set down a fresh plate of eggs and grits.

Daddy, everything is Rule Number One! Okay. If I see a stranger comin' I don' let 'im get close. I don' ask 'im who he is or nothin' – I jus' run for it.

He?

He or she.

MayBelle laughed. They both as good as gold.

John nodded his head. He worried constantly that his daughters might be easy prey. They were both tomboys, too, and they roamed in the woods too much. Leesa, I'm thinking you and Brenda should sign up for the new self-defense class at school.

Oh, Daddy.... That program don' start till nex' year.

John slammed his fist down on the table and grinned when Leesa and MayBelle jumped. Next year, not nex' year, he corrected. When they have sign-up, you both sign up.

Yes, Daddy. Leesa got up to clear the table and start the dishes. She couldn't wait to get back to the salvage yard and the dynamite shack there, and that lady's diary. Rachel. And she could barely wait to show Brenda tomorrow.

Hurry up with those dishes, little fox, John said. We're going to town when you're through. Put on a dress.

Daddy! Secretly, Leesa loved to wear dresses, and her father always seemed to have enough money for her clothes even though he was usually short on cash for other things. But she kept quiet about her thing about dresses because it would be just another reason for everybody to think she was Peaches' daughter and Brenda was MayBelle's. Sometimes their parents made no bones about their suspicions that the hospital nurses had played a trick on them, switching babies in the nursery on Christmas Day fourteen years back. They would teach that uppity nigger John Simmons and his two wives! They would know it but he wouldn't – not for the rest of his life!

Leesa and Brenda made a pact after they found out that their parents had always suspected a switch. They would stay with their present mothers, even if John decided to resort to the latest DNA tests to find out. Besides, it was never too late to nail him for bigamy – he could never sue the hospital – so the testing was probably not going to happen. Neither girl looked like either of the mothers, anyway. The girls were smaller, both probably fully grown now at five-foot five, small-boned with straight noses and high cheek bones. Indian blood in me somewhere, their father would repeat often enough until one day MayBelle told him he to forget it. Every nigger in the U S of A claims Indian blood.

Even though strangers often assumed the girls were twins, Leesa weighed exactly one-hundred pounds and Brenda one-hundred and two. Leesa could eat everything put in front of her but Brenda felt she had to be careful. MayBelle, however, allowed herself to gain a few pounds each year, knowing that John's continued interest depended on the contrast between Peaches' lean, hard body and her own warm and unwrinkled opulence.

Will we be back before dark? Leesa said.

I doubt it.

MayBelle closed her eyes. There be plenty of money for this? She couldn't stop herself. I can just see Peaches tearing up WalMart last night. MayBelle tensed, her eyes still closed, her head back.

Oh, last night? We went all the way to Panama City. John laughed. We went to J. C. Penny, and Gayfer's, and... Now let me try to remember. Pier One. And the International House of Furs!

MayBelle opened her eyes and smiled. I'm ready for that! She heaved herself up and chunked some firewood into the heater and shut down the stove's air vent. It's supposed to freeze again tonight, she mumbled. Well, a light frost, they said. When they would get back home she would open the air draft so the heated wood could burst into flame. It was a good heater. And she had a good life, compared to some.

Leesa hurried with the dishes, thinking about what coat to wear, what dress, what shoes. Lately she'd only been allowed to wear dresses when her father was along, or for special school functions. She decided to tough out the chilly weather and wear the red dress that showed a little of her new cleavage.

Chapter 2

The Old Norris Farm

Good thing you brought a jacket along, she said. Still Florida, but it's not Tampa, I'm sure!

Jeremy watched her snap open the attaché case on the hood of her station wagon – something he couldn't do with his van. Do you have a title report?

Yes, and there are no other encumbrances. Plus the bank has accepted your offer. That cuts into my commission a little, of course, but I'm glad to see the Norris place go to someone who can appreciate it. Not some developer.

I want to see the survey markers before I give you the down payment.

Oh.... Well, sure! If we can find them. I do have this little map here, but, well, you know.

Jeremy frowned as he looked over the hand-drawn map she was spreading out. And he was sure she would snap at the first developer she could find who would be interested in anything this remote. She was a short-haired, pearl-in-each-earlobe, brazen type. Thirty something. Perfume vaguely familiar. Hair as raven black as an Amazon Indian but with skin white as milk.

Okay, she said. I'll put on my boots. I keep a pair in the car for things like this.

Soon after she was leading him along the south portion of the forty acres. The easy part where they could walk along the red-clay road which fronted the property. The east and west survey posts were easy to spot. Short, galvanized pipes which had been hammered into the earth and festooned with red ribbon. It was time to head over to the other side.

All woods now, she said. Behind the backyard there are pines on a ridge, I think, and mostly oak and hickory in the hollow. And cypress. And some huge magnolias!

Let's see some magnolias! It sounded exciting to him, hearing the names of all those different trees. Soon be owning all of them – all of this. How about that path behind the house? He glanced up at the clear sky, not wanting anything to spoil this first real look beyond the landscaped, half-acre or so yard.

Well, that path goes down the middle, actually. We won't find the other two corners that way.

No aerial photographs?

She looked at him. He was a handsome guy, she thought. Trim but kind of soft. Thirty-five? Forty? And fairly well off, apparently. Well, I'm sure the appraiser's office has one. I didn't think to bring a copy. Has your wife seen the place yet?

We're in the middle of a divorce. It's okay. It's an amicable separation. Let's go.

They took the path, Jeremy leading, the real estate agent pointing out the names of the trees to this obvious city-dude, telling him about the white, bell-shaped blooms the numerous sparkleberry trees would have, and the flowers he could expect from the dogwoods in spring. But don't eat the berries. Children?

We already let them decide. We have two. Jeremy did not volunteer their ages. But he knew they would love the run of a country place as big as this, so far from everything, and so would Sandy, his girlfriend. He pictured her – a young incarnation of all his dreams. She could switch from a Barbie doll to a Mother Earth type in a heartbeat. Cocktail dresses to colorful, patched jeans. Long, flaming-red hair and brazen, friendly tits. How could she resist moving in with him with a place like this? So what if his kids were here? Once she saw the antebellum house and the barn, and the old garden. There was even an antique, brass bed in the master bedroom.

Sandy on his big, brass bed.

They were huffing up into the tall pines now, nearing the top of a hill. The lady was breathing hard but Jeremy wasn't buying that. We can rest at the top here if you like. Before we go on.

He would be leaving behind his after-office workout at the gym back in Tampa, but there would be plenty enough exercise here. And nights with Sandy.

The hard breathing behind him tapered off, as he thought it might once she realized they were going the distance to see it all. At the very top they could see a bright patch of the powerline right-of-way, way off, and the upper arms of one of the steel towers. The path angled off to the left, however, and they started down. A half-hour later the lady was brushing the leaves away from the northwest survey pipe.

I found it! She sounded happy again. Excited.

But Jeremy was already gone, out under the powerline, taking in the brightness and glory of this new, open space. He sucked in a lungful of the air sweet with newly-mown weeds and grass, and spotted what looked like gravestones in a thicket on the far side. He ambled over there.

Died 1872 it says here, Jeremy bent over, mumbling. When she finally walked over to him he was brushing at the stone with a gloved hand. Now I know why you were reluctant to get me this far.

I was? Well, some people are afraid of a cemetery so close by. But look at it this way: a cemetery can't be sold. No one is ever going to be moving in next to your land. She brightened up again. Plus this wide powerline separates all the other properties from yours. You'll continue to have all the privacy you want, and all the new graves are way north of this spot where the little church is. Through the woods on this side. Nobody comes all the way back here to look at these old ones anymore.

So what's east of the cemetery? Jeremy was standing again, and squinting his eyes toward a glimmering in the distance. A tall, overgrown, chain-link fence? Reflections from what? Glass? Chrome?

It's an easy walk – they keep this so nicely mowed under the lines. This time she led the way, keeping up her sales pitch. There's a colored family that has two acres and a cabin near the church. You'll never see them because the church and their cabin is way on the other side of the church property woods. That's eighteen acres, the church land. Her voice faltered but only for a moment as the junkyard came into view. The last prospect she'd shown around had asked if test wells had been dug recently to determine if seepage from the extinct salvage operation was poisoning the ground water.

A junkyard! Jeremy shouted. He trotted past her. The chain-link fence topped with razor-wire turned a corner here, running north into the woods and east along the right-of-way as far as he could see. Most of the fence was grown over with bushes and weeds and scuppernong grape vines, but there were a few patchy spots where he could look through. He stopped at a particularly bare place and peered in, locking his fingers into the fence lace.

It looks abandoned! He pressed his forehead into the galvanized mesh. World War Two ambulances! Six-by trucks, god, hundreds of them! Look at this! That busted helicopter! Twin rotors!

I saved the best for last, she said, rolling her eyes up to Heaven.

God, is that a dragline crane way back there? Who owns this place? Looks like it goes on for miles!

It's a hundred and sixty acres, but longer than it is wide, I think. The end of it butts against a county blacktop road, the one you probably drove in on.

I didn't see this!

Where the powerline crosses the highway. The main gate is on an adjacent road, near the church property. Look, I'm going to go on and see if I can locate your northeast marker. That's the only one we haven't seen yet.

Okay. Wait, who owns this place?

Old man Gunther's widow. They didn't have any children. She lives right here, well, way over on the other side near the gate. Pretty little trailer with a roof over it. You can see that if you turn down the church road at the crossing. She's quite young but a cripple. Wheelchair. No legs. Even though it's inside the fence, where she lives is kind of pretty. Flowers all around her trailer. Patio decks. I don't know who does all that for her. I've met her but she says she'd never sell. Very nice, looks healthy, and she'll probably live forever.

Jeremy stiffened when he realized that a peculiar and very low sound was building in volume. The lady stopped talking and Jeremy continued to gaze at the wonders through the fence while he held his breath. The sound seemed to be coming from across the salvage yard somewhere and not getting any closer – just louder. He thought he could feel the ground beneath his feet begin to vibrate with the gaining force and beauty of it. Like a single, deep note from a pipe organ. Or a humpback whale.

Damn! he said finally, just as the sound clipped off. His own voice echoed in the new stillness in his brain. What was that?!

But the lady was gone. Jeremy pressed his forehead harder into the fence and tried to read the faded words painted on the squat, solid-looking structure down near the corner of the yard. It was a small building, made of railroad ties, he thought. Thick, dark, creosoted railroad ties, only much longer. Galvanized roofing covered the top and there was a skylight facing south. The worn, red-paint letters on the padlocked door said:

DANGER! EXPLOSIVES!

He moved back up the fence and found a better view. There was so much to play with here! And J.R., Jeremy's son from his first wife, would go crazy at the sight of all this stuff. Even though J.R. was twenty-two now, he was still a boy at heart. And Jeremy had promised him that when they moved to the country they could build a hot-rod together. The boy was born when Jeremy was only sixteen – his wife, fifteen – and at the time the couple was doing a lot of booze, speed, pot, mushrooms (acid always seemed to be unavailable), and Junior was born a little slow. Retarded was too strong a word for Jeremy, and differently abled just plain ridiculous. After the birth of his son Jeremy decided to get his shit together. He finished high-school, divorced J.R.'s mother, and graduated from Florida State University with a BS. The blessed union with wife #2 produced Jeremy's daughter, Julie, now fifteen. Junior, or J.R., or Jeremy Roy as his mother called him when she was drunk, loved his half-sister. The two of them would move up here with their father as soon as the latest divorce was final – of that Jeremy was sure. Junior would have to. And then, Sandy.... Young, wild, succulent Sandy! Junior's age. Well, Junior would love the spacious, modern, second floor apartment some previous owner had built into the barn. And the ground floor was perfect for working on cars. Junior seemed to be a good mechanic even though it had taken him until just last year to squeak through high-school graduation. Yup, this new place was perfect. For all of them!

The real estate lady was calling to him from the other side of the right-of-way. She had told Jeremy her name several times but he kept on forgetting it. Jane Goodall or something, no, not the chimpanzee lady. All of this was so exciting! He took one last look through the salvage yard fence, and as he turned away he noticed the hole in the dirt at his feet. It looked like it might be just big enough for him to squeeze through. Perfect!

Chapter 3

Jamie

Jamie carefully bulled the nose of the big church-van through the thicket of blackberry bushes beyond the parish parking lot, and swung the vehicle around behind the fellowship pavilion where it couldn't be seen from the road. Jamie was seventeen, a lean-looking boy but a go-getter. The lawn job he had to do here was the last on his long list for this Saturday afternoon and he would have to hustle if he was to finish before dark. The sign out at the road read:

GRACE LUTHERAN CHURCH

But the van had the sides lettered, in bright, heavenly blue paint:

MOSSY HEAD POND PRIMITIVE BAPTIST CHURCH

Jamie quickly slammed back the side door of the van and horsed the large mower to the ground. His own, old pickup truck was temporarily out of service but using this van, well, it was all for the same god, right? Right. There was very little lawn to cut at the tiny, white-frame Lutheran church but this time the job called for him to also carve a path behind the cemetery through the woods to the old Methodist cemetery near the powerline right-of-way, where the Lutherans and the Methodists were going to have their much advertised get-together in the morning, honoring some common founder. Jamie couldn't care less.

He worked fast, pushing hard against the handles of the noisy mower, mashing the bushes down and listening to the horrible noises under the mower deck as the steel blades chopped the brambles to bits. The job didn't take much brainpower, however, and in his boredom he fantasized the lady in the diary, Rachel, naked and pegged to the ground outside the dynamite shack, on her back, her legs spread, her arms stretched to the sides like Christ on the cross, while he ran the mower up and over her. Bloody chunks of her tits slung out the sides of the machine, splattering the trees and his boots. Gross! Jamie hollered aloud. In his fantasy he suddenly remembered that Rachel was pregnant. The lawnmower blades would have made a horrible mess of her stretched-to-bursting womb. Jamie hollered again.Gross! Yuk! Tired, getting sweaty, and talking to himself.

Even the asshole who kidnapped Rachel didn't do stuff like that!

He had already checked out this mowing job some days before, and he knew there were plenty of clear places under the trees which he wouldn't have to cut at all. The job would go fast. He had told his parents that he had to return the van Sunday morning. The lie would get him out of having to go to church with his mom, his dad the preacher there.I'll go to church in Mossy Head.

He had actually done that once. The Reverend Skipper at Mossy Head Pond preaching with his eyes bulging out, spraying foamy spittle all over the empty front pew at each utterance of the word Jesus. The ladies in the aisle writhing in ecstasy and speaking in tongues. The younger ones with that long hair down to the crack of their ass like Holiness women do – one of them a real looker, too – maybe she would be there tomorrow.

Jamie had neglected to tell The Reverend Skipper what he needed the van for. God knew, of course, knowing everything. Wasn't that good enough? It was God's van! Actually, the vehicle belonged to the preacher himself. The congregation could think it was theirs, but it was his. Title, registration, and all. Jamie knew all about the subtleties of such things – his own father was a preacher, after all. Jamie was a preacher's kid, a PK, a term Jamie hated. A couple more months of school, though, and he was outta there. College in Tallahassee. Live with his aunt. No more church on Sunday morning. No more altar-boy bullshit bowing and kneeling and lighting candles (how could grown people believe that the Creator of the entire universe got His rocks off on silliness like that?!) and no more choir practice and organ practice. He'd been getting out of a lot of that lately, anyway, but still!

Well, he did love the organ.

He had already looked over the huge FSU campus in Tallahassee, three hours to the east on I-10. Unlimited pussy! It was everywhere! And beautiful! Not like the overweight, dumb, country heifers at Mossy Head Pond High.

It was darker under the trees than he had anticipated but he should have known. He wasn't worried about getting home late for supper, he just wanted to finish this job. With this and the other jobs today, he'll reach two-thousand dollars in his savings account. Plus Aunt Dora would be letting him stay at her place for free. Neat, shady, old Tallahassee neighborhood. She was lonely since Jamie's uncle had died. Jamie would do chores for her, of course, and he'd already moved some things into his new room-to-be. Separate, outside entrance. Little porch. Perfect for bedding down coeds. City girls with red lips and bright teeth and sexy underwear and flashy makeup.

Bits and chips of hacked wood were getting into Jamie's eyes. He had misplaced his safety goggles. Never mind, one more fast run-through and he was done. He'd forgotten his earplugs, too, but not the electric lantern. No way would he forget that! Not since he'd found that hole under the junkyard fence looking for what he had hoped would be a lifetime supply of dynamite (you never know when stuff like that will come in handy – worth big bucks on the street, too!) and found the little nest somebody had made in there. The cot with clean sheets, the pretty quilt, the bed all made up perfect. And then there was Rachel's diary, hidden under