Burn Scars, Eddie Generous [read full novel txt] 📗

show you the back seat of my car!” Jessica licked the inside of Leroy’s mouth and grabbed him by the beltline, pulling him tight.

“Damn right!” he said, his words slurring into a wet and sloppy mess.

They started across the dim dance floor, passing three small groups of drinkers, passing the washroom doors and the sign that gave the number for Sid’s Taxi. They got to the back hallway and the fire doors with the alarm warning in bold red letters. The alarm hadn’t sounded in years and the warning was all smoke. Leroy stumbled through to the cool night, his legs like rubber, his knees refusing to stay locked. Hands clamped onto his arms and his toes dragged along the pebbled asphalt.

The world came at him in orange flashes.

He was in a back seat, but Jessica wasn’t there. Only a man. Leroy squinted.

“Cary?” he said, his tongue felt huge and the word came out covered in fat.

“Rest easy. You’re in trouble, but you’re okay for now.”

“Wherdachick?”

“Sleep. Gonna be a long day tomorrow and you won’t remember any of this.”

—

“So where’s Kim?” Cary walked behind Landon Lawrence, up the steps of the Talbot home.

“Took the kids to their grandmother’s place.”

Landon kicked next to the doorknob twice before the wood splintered and they entered. It smelled faintly of pot and beer. A bit like shit too. Cary hit the light switch. Cobwebs drooped from the corners, yellowed by tobacco smoke. The wallpaper was bubbly and faded pink where it hadn’t peeled. The gold and white linoleum had large gouges burned out of it and the brown carpet was thin and uneven.

“Right.” Cary paused a moment just into the living room. Somebody had left the TV on, had to be Leroy before he left to the bar. “You sure we should be doing this. Maybe it’s too far?”

“He ruined my life. I’m ruining his life. That’s how even retribution works.”

Cary rubbed his beard. Leroy Talbot wasn’t the only man who’d had a thing with Jeri-Lynn, not if any of the stories around town were true, and they sure sounded true. “All right,” he said, looking around the less than modest home and on the hard luck furnishings. If they had insurance, maybe they could fib a bit and score some nicer stuff. Possibly, it would come out in a win win.

Landon found a set of stairs and descended with the jerry can. Cary went over to the TV and shut it down for no explicable reason. Smoke billowed up, something downstairs was itching to burn.

Landon started yelling.

Kim Talbot started yelling back.

Cary stood dumbly, unable to move. He clenched his jaw when a thump followed by a crash seemed loud enough to shake the entire house. Water was draining somewhere on the main floor. A door opened and closed. It hit him then, they were all home. The realization turned him to ice, even as the smoke engulfed him.

Landon raced up the stairs with his arm over his face. Cary grabbed him and shouted, “They’re all home! They’re all home!”

“Who gives a shit?” Landon said and then wrenched free, stomped to the door.

Another thump, loud enough to cut through the fog and the closed doors, pulled Cary to the hallway. He opened the first door. It stopped mid-way and he pushed harder. On the floor was a teenaged girl. Blood haloed her.

“Oh no,” Cary whispered and then began coughing.

He pulled on the body, it was too floppy, but it was warm, so despite the cracked head, maybe, just maybe. He grabbed a crunchy towel and began mopping at the blood when he noticed the stilled baby in the tub. Its nose and lips mostly out of the water.

“Dammit. Dammit,” he huffed, fought off a hacking fit as smoke poured through the door behind him. He tossed the towel onto the kid in the tub, couldn’t look. The towel soaked through, the sitting water swirling pink. He pumped at Rebekah’s chest. “Come on,” he said and coughed again, hard.

She wasn’t moving.

Landon had killed them.

Cary himself had helped.

Dammit.

With the fire raging behind him and below him, Cary opted for the window and the route Rebekah would’ve taken. Outside, Landon was already gone and Cary was already thinking up his guilty statement. Rebekah’s eyes and that baby’s lips, they followed him until they became his own children and right there, he knew he’d never tell a soul.

 ABOUT

Eddie Generous has fallen off three different roofs and been lit on fire on multiple occasions. He grew up on a farm and later slept with his shoes under his pillows in homeless shelters. He dropped out of high school to afford rent on a room at a crummy boarding house, but eventually graduated from a mediocre college. He is the author of several small press books, has 2.8 rescue cats (one needed a leg amputation), is a podcast host, manages Unnerving, and lives on the Pacific Coast of Canada. Burn Scars is his first crime novel. www.jiffypopandhorror.com

Contents

BURN SCARS

PROLOGUE

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

EPILOGUE

ABOUT