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  © 2018 by Lucian Bane

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  In my own words: Don’t steal my work. Thanks.

  In loving memory of

  Heather Dzeima--Momo

  AKA—Isadore

  Scientific symbol for coffee

  (we miss you)

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One ............................................................................................................................................2

  Chapter Two.........................................................................................................................................10

  Chapter Three......................................................................................................................................18

  Chapter Four ........................................................................................................................................26

  Chapter Five .........................................................................................................................................34

  Chapter Six............................................................................................................................................42

  Chapter Seven......................................................................................................................................49

  Chapter Eight .......................................................................................................................................56

  Chapter Nine ........................................................................................................................................64

  Chapter Ten..........................................................................................................................................72

  Chapter Eleven ....................................................................................................................................83

  Chapter Twelve ...................................................................................................................................98

  Chapter Thirteen..............................................................................................................................108

  Chapter Fourteen.............................................................................................................................118

  Chapter One

  Isadore placed the record player needle on her favorite spot on the album-- Tied To The Whipping Post. Setting the volume to number five, she nodded and danced her way to the sink then filled her mop bucket with hot water. “I’ve been run down…” She unscrewed the Pine-Sol bottle. “I’ve been lied to…” A deep sniff of her favorite smell brought a rush of endorphins as she jerked the mop handle to her mouth. “I don’t know why I let that mean woman make me a fool.” She dunked the mop up and down in the water. “Took all my money…” She rang the mop out. “Wrecked my new car…” she strutted her way across the room. “Now she’s with one of my—good time buddies… drinking in some-- cross-town bar.”

  She plopped her wet mop on the floor and waited for the solo. “Sometimes I feel!’ She mopped in long strokes that matched the agony and betrayal. “Sometiiiiimes, IIIII feeeeel. Like I’m tiiiiied… to the whipping post. TIED! To the whipping post!”

  Isadore froze in full swing, cocking her head for a listen. God-blankin’-noises. She leaned the mop against the wall and made her way to the other side of the room, turning down the stereo. That was the third time she heard something that was off. She brought her nose to the screen that covered the entire half wall, peering out into the darkness. The light of the lamppost at the end the pier flickered like a creepy horror movie. Geeze.

  One of these days she’d take the time to go to the stupid little general store and order the specialized bulb the antiquated post required. Everything at her little shack she’d inherited from her father had to be special ordered. For the first time in her twenty-seven years of sheltered life, “special order”

  translated into “pain in the ass” when it came to keeping up the place she’d made her home.

  The bayou water near the light winked in response to the wind stirring its surface. Hurricane season was coming. Excitement and fear fluttered in her stomach as she wondered if this would be the year she’d experience one of those. Alone. Even if she wasn’t alone, she’d be scared. But it was one of those fears you just wanted to get over and this would be the third year she anticipated one.

  Well played Mother Nature, well played.

  Isadore studied the darkness beyond the flickering light, searching for any movement that matched the re-occurring noise. Couldn’t even describe the sound to know what sort of animal it could be.

  A coon, likely. Hopefully. Images of that damn alligator she’d seen hanging around her end of the swamp crept into her head. It didn’t help that rumors of missing dogs were circulating.

  “I done saw dat alligator et up a pig!” Mr. Thibodeaux had told her today. “Et it clean up. I thought to mahself, meh, dat alligator he wants some bacon!”

  Isadore chuckled at the memory of the old man’s toothless, wide mouthed laughter that accompanied his tale. The man always had a tale to tell. Having coffee with him on the way to picking up his grocery list each week had earned a yellow highlight on her calendar.

  Isadore scanned the darkness for an entire minute more. She finally glared at that damn mutt lying on the porch like a snoring drunk, oblivious.

  Stupid paranoia. It’d followed her clear from Boston. Yep, the source of it was warranted and the scientist in her had quarantined the bullshit in order to keep the past from controlling her. And yet here she was, contemplating closing the storm shutters on a muggy, August night, all because she thought she heard a noise that not even her dog—the flea whisperer—could hear.

  She was not closing those storm shutters.

  She headed back to her mop and a loud thonk hit the roof.

  Shit!” she gasped, freezing in the middle of the room, looking up. What the blaze? Darting a glance to the huge wall of screen, she suddenly wished she’d given in to the blasted paranoia.

  Swallowing, she hurried to the loft stairs and peered up. Were the windows shut up there? Dear God, they had better be.

  What would be on the roof? A bob-cat?

  She jumped again when barking erupted, like Sam finally woke up to whatever it was. “Goddamn dog!” she whispered, hurrying to the front door and sliding the bolt home with a clonk. She ran for her shot-gun hanging over the log-stove, eyeing the screen wall as she went and the hole in the ceiling that led to the loft.

  Gripping the shotgun with both hands, she stood near the bathr
oom door in case she needed to lock herself in. Heart hammering fiercely, Sam’s barking turned vicious. Thonk, thonk, thonk, shot across the roof. Oh God! That was footsteps.

  Male faces from town sped through her mind like a bad deck of cards. Several men didn’t like her. Didn’t like her lack of participation in their lady games.

  Terror had her nearly hyperventilating just as a hard knock rattled the cedar door. Shit, shit, shit!

  Sam stopped barking. “Isadore, it’s me. Jared. I got your address from your mom. Took me forever to find this place.”

  Jared? Jared Plant? Her two-timing ex? The bastard who stole her money and her best friend?

  Once best friend? She looked around, ready to hide. She felt for the door handle behind her.

  “The crazy nuts in the town said you were home. I really, really, miss you darlin'.”

  Disbelief and disgust dropped her jaw as she opened the bathroom door so very slowly, praying the creak wouldn’t be too loud.

  “I heard your music, what happened? Are you okay?”

  Really? Really?

  Screw this shit. She stiffened her spine and walked to the door and unbolted it. Sure enough, it was him. Jared, the two-timing-bastard-dick-for-brains-ass-hat, peering through the screen door all squint-faced and stupid looking. What in God’s name had she ever seen in him?

  “Wow,” he said, his eyes registering on her fully. “Hello Jethro’s hot sister with a gun.”

  She raised the barrel at him, and his eyes went wide. “You here to get shot? That why you came?”

  He raised his hands. “Isadore, I’m sorry. I’ve come to say I’m sorry. I made a huge mistake.

  Vernissa is a bitch.”

  It was hard not to drop the gun in total exasperation with that line. “Really. Well you’re a bastard, so that makes ya’ll the perfect couple, now don’t it?” Maybe using some dumb swamp talk would scare him off.

  He looked around the place like he didn’t notice the lingo. “Really nice little home.” He met her gaze, being all sweet. “You like it?”

  Dumbass. Having another human to talk hit Isadore with a desperate appeal, even if he was a piece of shit. Was sure high time she got out more. Only problem was, getting out made her a target for all the lonely, crazy men out there. She’d made the mistake of dressing like a woman in town only once.

  After, she dressed the part of a wretched hag in giant overalls.

  The need for some city news made her brain itch like it did around puzzles. “I’m going to let you in for a few minutes before you head back up where you come’d from.” At seeing his concerned look, she grinned. She was suddenly glad she hadn’t washed the day’s work off her body. She was also glad for the hair experiment she’d been doing. Washing it every day was a luxury of time and products she couldn’t afford. Then she went to washing it every other day, then every third day. What the hell, may as well do it once a week and just keep it up. She imagined it was all clumpy and shiny where it escaped her up-do.

  "Sounds fair enough to me."

  She regarded the look on his face that said his sweet Isadore had been swampatized and he wasn't so sure he wanted her. Good. Dumb fucker.

  Using the barrel of the shotgun, she opened the screen door, and he eyed her, making her heart skip a beat like it used to when he’d come around. In a hurry, she called up the images of him fucking Vernisa in her dorm room and, shazzam, the calm calculation of a swamp serial killer returned.

  He walked in and looked around with a light whistle while the idea to shoot and drown him in the swamp niggled at her trigger finger. He sat at the little kitchen table for two, rattling on about the quasi-chic style of the place while she put water boiling on the single hot plate next to the wood stove.

  “You look so fucking hot, Isadora.”

  At hearing the nasty let’s fuck hiss following his words, Isadore set the gun in reach.

  The defense mechanism in her brain set her mind to the locked and loaded position as she rinsed the drip pot and readied it for fresh coffee grounds. “The weather is always hot. I sweat like a pig daily.

  Smell like one too. I like playing in the swamp, it relaxes me. I conserve water and bathe once a week. It helps.”

  “Oh wow.” He sounded entirely undeterred. “Is it shower day today?”

  “Why would you come all this way, Jared?” Without calling nearly slipped. “Are you in some kind of trouble? I hope you realize I have no money, the only thing I inherited is what you see here and a whole lot of headache from the swamp folk who don’t much care for city folk.”

  He gave a shocked gasp like he was hurt by the accusation. “Despite what I did, Isadore, I do love you. No, don’t look at me like that, it’s true. I realize what I’ve done and it was a mistake. I’m here to beg you to forgive me. We can start over. I can take care of you the way you need me to.”

  His tone added anger to that defense mechanism in her brain, cocking that mental gun. “Need you to?” She turned and gestured around her. “Does it look like I need anything from you? How long have I been here, not needing you or any man?” She jerked the kettle off the hot plate and turned to fill it with water then set it back with a bang.

  “I talked to Tim.”

  Time stopped even as her brain sputtered with erratic panic. She slowly turned, gripped in fear at what she might find in his eyes. He’d just whispered the name of her nightmares with a near lusty hunger.

  “Yeah.” The burning in his eyes struck terror in her as he nodded with a humorless grin. “Turns out you lied to me.”

  His words caused a misfire in her brain and the defense mechanism turned on her. Staring at him, she locked onto the puzzle of what he meant. What did she lie about? That was suddenly the all-important question keeping her from doing what she should do. Grab the gun and aim it in his face.

  The synaptic emergencies of solving a puzzle warred with the screaming physical threat, leaving her frozen with a fatal, internal error. Her past trauma overrode practical logic and demanded she avoid

  the trauma that would shut her down. Even as he slowly stood like a towering wild bear, ready to kill, she could only think, how had she lied?

  “You told me he forced you.” He shook his head slowly, his eyes fixed on hers. “But he had a much, much different story, Izzy.”

  Leave. You need to leave. The words shouted in her head but wouldn’t make the connection with her tongue. She backed up and hit the stove, knocking the gun down. Even then she couldn’t take her eyes from him. Go. Please. Leave me. Didn’t he see the command in her eyes, on her face? The shake of her head?

  “No? No, that’s not true?” He stood just in front of her and slid the back of his fingers over her cheek. She gasped and clenched her eyes shut as images of Tim came to suffocate her. “He said you liked it," he whispered. "Said you fucked around with him the entire time we dated.”

  The fury in his quiet voice and what it meant he'd do to her shook her loose from her inability to act. She shoved him, them bolted for the door. Fingers bit into her hair and yanked hard, slamming her to the floor. She grunted, fighting to get her wind back while struggling beneath his athletic body, fighting to get his forearm off her neck. Again, she wondered over all the wrong things. Was he lying? Why? Why did she have to suffer this? Why?

  Survival flared in her brain and she thrashed like a mad animal. Finding a weakness in his hold, she broke free and scrambled across the floor for the loft stairs. Halfway up, she realized the trap she’d run to. Her mind puzzled over the stupidity of her actions and she screamed and kicked at the iron fingers clamping her ankle.

  The upstairs window.

  Focusing on escape, she aimed her kicks and connected her heel to his nose. He let go with a roar and Isadore shot up into her bedroom, wishing more than ever she’d installed that planned hatch door.

  Eyes on the window, she ran for it, hands reaching ahead of her. The rarely opened window refused to budge and she screamed, looking back at Jared’s bloody face
coming through the hole in her floor. She yanked wildly on the un-oiled lever, her every procrastination mocking her as Jared’s reflection in the glass raced for her.

  The window flew open with her screaming sob and she fought to make it into the darkness as his cruel fingers latched onto her leg. “Come…here!” He jerked her with a vicious force and shoved her toward the bed.

  The dog’s bark turned into howling, as tears blurred her vision. “Leave me alone! Please leave, please!” She held her hands toward him, trying to anticipate and block his approach, not understanding the hateful sneer he wore.

  A loud thonk hit the metal roof, then a fast thonk, thonk, thonk, thonk across it. They both jerked to the window to see a form drop with one last thonk onto the small metal roof next to the opening.

  The freaky apparition of a man, out of nowhere, stood, staring at her. Isadore’s brain was back to malfunctioning, caught up on the green of his eyes. They were so oddly bright in the dark. He climbed lithely through the window, wearing black dress pants and no shirt. He stood in the room before them, in full living color. Isadore’s eyes were glued to his torso covered in strange tattoos. Onyx in color, the ancient looking symbols crowded his sweaty tanned skin. They extended up the right side of his face and disappeared into his hair.

  She became acutely aware of the heave in his massive chest and the fact that he now stood only a few feet from her bed. Dear God. There were no men around the swamp that well-muscled. Zero. She quickly searched her mind for swamp tales to match him. Christ, he looked like a warrior from the pages of ancient Greek stories. Right there, standing in her room.

  Jared had slowly backed up. “This your boyfriend?” he muttered, fear and stupidity cracking his voice.

  She couldn’t answer, she couldn’t stop staring at the handsome face of the stranger, harsh with something that made her crawl as far back onto the bed as she could get. Staring. Staring into those bright green eyes.

  “I’ve been listening,” the strange man said to her. His voice was low, but deep and clear. Not at all matching the anger she thought lined his face.