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  Will turned and saw them both at the entrance and spoke up. “Well if it isn’t our little fireball!”

  Everyone was just turning around when they all heard it. It was maybe supposed to be an ‘under the breath’ thing, but Stan said it a bit too loud.

  “More like our resident slut!”

  The head turning stopped dead and everyone began to face the floor in silence. Not Judy though. No sir, now she was pissed and Kevin was about to get a small taste of the ‘fireball’. She walked calmly over to Stan and asked him to please stand up. For some reason the fool actually did it. Kevin saw her hand move from her side and the whole room wouldn’t soon forget the sound that came next.

  SLAP! Stan’s hand snapped to the side of his face and he was holding it.

  Judy looked at him square in the eyes, “If I EVER hear you talk like that again it’s going to be with a MUCH HIGHER VOICE, because your damn balls are going to be sitting outside on the lawn!”

  She pushed him HARD and he fell back down into the chair. Judy did the wildest thing then; she turned to Kevin, stopped, and gave him a HUGE shitty GRIN!!! She walked over to a sofa and sat, then looked at Kevin and tapped the cushion next to her.

  “Come on Kev,” she said, “come have a seat.” She had a huge smile on her face as she said it.

  ‘Man, she’s absolutely beautiful,’ Kevin thought, and he went and sat next to her.

  Everyone was talking about everything. At 9 p.m. sharp, Stan got up and silently left the room.

  Kevin turned to Judy. “Still pissed I see.”

  “Oh I’m sure he is, but it’s also nine. He goes to his room at nine every night. Never misses it...”

  “So what was all of that?”

  “That one’s easy Kev. Stan thinks I’m his, has done since the first week he came here and God forbid anyone get in the way of that. What you heard from him tonight… that my dear Kev, was stark raving jealousy directly aimed at both you and me.”

  “So I’m about to have trouble in paradise Judy?”

  Will stood up and looked at both of them. “Not on my watch there won’t be, or Stan’s ass is out the door.”

  “Thank you, Will,” was Judy’s response.

  Barb stood up; she wore a worried frown. “I think it would be a lot closer to paradise without Stan here, that I do.”

  Around 9:30 p.m., everyone agreed it was about time to turn in for the night. They all headed for the stairs except Will and Barb, who headed out towards the dining room into the back, where their room was. As Will walked past Kevin and Judy, he did a ‘talk while he walked’ thing.

  ”Yup, I believe I’m going to like you quite a lot…’KEV’,” he quietly said before continuing to walk away, chuckling softly to himself.

  Upstairs everyone said their goodnights and headed to their own rooms. Kevin and Judy found themselves in the hall alone.

  “Kev, I’m sorry if I opened an old wound. I shouldn’t have.”

  “It’s okay, Judy. I didn’t tell you anything I didn’t want to tell you. You were fair, you asked, I told, easy as that.”

  “Thank you,” she leaned into him and kissed his cheek, then walked off to her room. She looked back at him as she closed her door, a big smile on her face. Kevin walked to his room sort of stunned; so much, so fast, he’d been a loner for three years now. He had barely said more than a few sentences to any one person. As he was about to go into his room, he heard someone crest the top step. It was Will.

  “GOOD, you’re still out here! I forgot to tell you, breakfast is between six and seven. We have steam tables that keep most everything warm so you don’t have to bust your ass to get there. We have working folks ya know, so breakfast has to be early.”

  “Good deal Will, thanks and goodnight.”

  Will headed back down, so Kevin turned and went into his room. He headed over to the chair at the window and simply sat and looked out at the blackness of the night. It would normally be his kind of night actually; no moon, totally dark.

  Stan also sat in a chair in his dark room. He didn’t move and one might think he was asleep while he sat up. One would think that unless one got a closer look. His eyes were open, yes, but all you could see were the whites of his eyes, as if he was looking up into his own mind. It seemed Stan was beginning to receive a voice all of his own.

  Chapter Nine

  The air was changing in Indiana. The wind was getting brisker, and autumn was beginning to haunt its old halls again.

  Cindy managed to sign up just in time to catch the first semester at the community college. As she walked the small campus of the college, she saw firsthand just how right her guess was. There were people from all ages walking around, heading to classes. There were even some who looked to be around her mom’s age. As she thought about her mom she started to knit her brow some. She had to tell her eventually, right? Cindy’s mother lived about an hour away from where Cindy lived now but didn’t come by her apartment a lot. Cindy thought she may still have some time to figure out how to explain it all to her, but she also knew time flew fast.

  As she turned the corner to her first business class, she stopped suddenly. Something hurt, down in her belly area. The pain went away after a minute or so and Cindy slowly started advancing forward again.

  “What the hell was that?” she whispered. “That really hurt.” The first thing to hit her mind was to make an appointment with Doctor B. as quick as he could see her. She came to the doors of her first class and looked at them.

  “Well kid, time to start the rest of your life.” Then she walked inside the class room. After choosing a seat, she started to lay out her school items for the class. She looked at the clock and saw she still had about ten minutes left, so she folded her hands in front of her and just sat, staring at the blackboard. Thoughts rushing through at breakneck speed: a baby, mom, life, and now school.

  “Yeah, we used to do that in second grade, remember?”

  Cindy snapped her head to the left and sitting two seats away from her was Billy.

  “Billy.” she said excitedly, “what are you doing here?”

  “I’m taking some classes for work; the shop owner says I can have the sales manager position if I take these two business courses that they require.” He smiled and she briefly saw the old Billy there, the one she used to like so much. “Yeah, things are moving along a lot better than they used to be, did you hear Michelle and I are going to have another baby?”

  “NO, really? Billy, I want you to know just how proud everyone is with you, you’ve really pulled yourself out of the shit pile you put yourself in. That’s gotta be tough to do.”

  “Believe it or not Cindy, for some reason, it wasn’t tough at all, and I can tell you it sure has helped the family budget now that I’m not pissing it all away. Maybe you could come for a nice dinner some weekend? If you have the time of course. I hear you’ve enrolled a full semester here, and with the truck stop still on the menu, you must be busy most of the time.”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised. I talked Lenny into letting me have the weekends off, and I’ll still pull down a 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. shift during most of the week.”

  “That sounds nice Cindy, really nice.”

  Everyone looked up as a side door opened and in walked Mr. Roland Cowell, the teacher for her class.

  “Quiet down people, let’s say we get this show on the road, shall we?”

  Cindy looked at him and stared. She had another funny feeling in her all of the sudden, only this feeling didn’t hurt.

  Chapter Ten

  Kevin had a conversation after going to his room. A conversation no one on earth would ever hear. ‘The voice’ came to him while he sat in the dark.

  “Very nice work you did at that variety store, we didn’t know you did freelancing Kevin.”

  “Then we’re even on that one, I didn’t know my inner voice did comedy.”

  “Believe us, it was no joke, it was a test. We wanted to see if given your own choice, you would be
a witness or a participant. You passed with flying colors I can add, we couldn’t be more excited. We have been wondering if we should allow you to ‘freelance’ a bit more. Not a lot, just some more.”

  “So the verdict is, ‘go for it Kevin? Immerse yourself with the scum of life 24/7’?”

  “Is Kevin getting a little frustrated with his missions now?”

  “If you must know, I’m getting exhausted from my missions lately.”

  “Well then, good news, you’re going to be taking more of a respite for the next few months. Not completely mind you, but a lot less than you were doing, and of course, freelancing as you see fit.”

  “So why the sudden change? Didn’t you send me here for help because things are getting worse?”

  “Your right Kevin, which is why you’re here, and nothing has changed. But we want you to really work with these people and we don’t want a lot of distractions. We aren’t going to give them what we gave you, but at one point, you will be sharing some of what flows through you with them. We will tell you how when the time comes.”

  “Oh good, savior baton passing, that should be fun.”

  “Kevin, we all understand what these missions do to you. You just need to trust us.”

  “Do I get a choice?”

  “You always have a choice, remember?”

  “Yeah. Hey listen, while I have you here, there’s a man here – Stan – I get the feeling something’s very wrong with him, inside his head I mean. Maybe you could shed some light?”

  “We are very aware of Stan as well. We are working on the problem, but it seems his mind is being blocked from us for now. You may have to use your own judgment with him unless we can get into his head, I’m afraid we can’t be of much help.”

  “Well then, here’s a good start for you: whatever is blocking you is not good, not good in the least.”

  “Then you and all of us will continue to work on this ‘Stan’ problem.”

  The voice began to fade but not before giving a few final instructions to Kevin.

  ***

  Shortly after breakfast, Kevin headed out to his car; he was wearing his leather trench coat. ‘It won’t seem so out of place here; the weather is brisk to say the least and it’s going to get a lot more ‘brisk’ before too long,’ Kevin thought as he moved towards the garage.

  As he backed his Mustang out of the garage, he heard a yell.

  “KEV….WAIT.”

  He looked in his rear view mirror and saw Judy going at a fast trot to the side of his car. He unrolled his window as she was getting there.

  “Kev, give a girl a ride to town will you?”

  He thought about what he had to do, and then he decided it shouldn’t matter if she was there.

  “I’ll be gone a while, I’m going into Denver itself, is that ok?”

  “Oh yeah, not a problem. Can I?”

  “Sure, hop in kiddo.”

  She ran around past the front of his car and he couldn’t help but notice she had a very nice and bouncy, well, ‘rack’ if you will. ‘I really should wipe this grin off my face before she gets in,’ he thought, ‘she may figure out what’s on my mind’.

  Judy jumped in and closed the door. She looked at Kevin and the first thing out of her mouth was, “Get a good view of the package?”

  ‘SHIT,’ Kevin thought to himself, ‘so much for wiping a grin off.’ He protested and said, “No, no, you have me all wrong Judy.”

  “Oh do I? Are you gay?”

  “Of course not Judy, why would you ask that?”

  “Well, if you’re NOT gay, then you were checking out the package, it’s really easy math actually.”

  Kevin started to drive down the driveway and only said one word, “Crap.”

  Judy replied, “Damn right, crap.” She was grinning from ear to ear.

  Kevin learned two things from this: one, he wasn’t going to pull anything over on Judy and two; he’d discovered a new shade of red that his face could make. They headed off to Denver, shooting the bull and jokes all the way.

  As they got into town, Judy told him that she needed to go to the store first. The speed in which they had become comfortable with each other was simply amazing.

  He looked at her, “Condoms or birth control pills?”

  “Both, idiot. A girl needs to feel safe, right?”

  “Then get a can of bug spray while you’re there, then you can feel triple safe, trust me on this.”

  They both laughed at the back and forth and how smoothly it went. Kevin told her he was going to drop her off and he should be back before she’d finished, unless that is, they kept the condoms and bug spray together on the same shelf, which would make perfect sense actually. Judy got out and was actually giggling. Kevin drove off to his destination.

  Kevin drove to the back of the police department and parked. He got out, surveyed the area then went to the trunk and opened it, busying himself inside. When he closed the trunk, he turned and walked towards the back police door which was for bringing in and taking out criminals. He had a very large burlap sack which was stuffed with something. He dropped the sack at the door and pushed the buzzer. Kevin then turned and calmly walked back and got in his car, started the engine and drove off.

  The officer was looking through the back door camera but he couldn’t see anything. Instinct caused him to place one hand on the butt of his revolver as he went and opened the door. He looked and saw no one, just a burlap sack resting against the side of the door. He broke a first law of survival when he grabbed it and brought it in. This was his lucky day as he wouldn’t be blown to smithereens because of a bomb in the sack. He opened it and looked inside. The sack was filled with all types of weapons, from small caliber handguns to a sawed off shotgun and even two AK-47s. Sitting at the top was a simple note:

  “Please dispose of these properly, thank you.”

  For the following two hours, five different police officers poured over the security videos. Nothing showed. First the sack wasn’t there, and then it was. No one was ever in the videos. The security here was state of the art; it covered every inch of the police grounds, including the parking lot. Nothing ever showed up on the video.

  Kevin pulled back into the store parking lot and waited. ‘Hmmm…’ he thought, ‘they must be out of bug spray and she’s trying to find a suitable replacement.’ Maybe he should go in and suggest some Liquid Drano to her, as it would keep here pipes clean as well! As he sat, he thought about the voice. It was changing the game without a new agreement. He may have to bring that up at the next ‘head’ meeting. As he was thinking things over, he saw Judy walking out the door of the store. She had a small bag but it was a dark color so he couldn’t see through it. As she got in the car, he just couldn’t help himself:

  “Were they out of bug spray?”

  “Yes actually, smartass, but I got some liquid Drano instead, that should do the trick.”

  Kevin couldn’t talk; he only stared at her wide-eyed with his mouth partly open.

  “What?”

  “Ahhh…..nothing, I was just looking at your radiant beauty?”

  “Fine, don’t tell me, it looks like you get the Drano treatment then.”

  He drove away silently and it was bothering her now.

  “OK, what the hell changed here?”

  “Just promise me that you’ll believe me,” he said, turning to her. He then told her the Drano joke he was going to use.

  Judy opened the bag and slowly took out a can of liquid Drano, “I was having a problem with the bathroom sink and I didn’t want to bother Will about it, so I got this.”

  Now two people rode silently, back to the Inn.

  Judy finally spoke.

  “Kev, you said you had things to do, you don’t need to bring me back just because of a silly thing like what just happened.”

  He turned and smiled at her, “Not if you’re okay with it, no.” He saw a place to turn around and headed back to town. “I should warn you though; I’m going to hav
e to do some pretty exciting things. I have to buy four winter wheels and four studded snow tires as well as have them installed. I know the thrill may just prove too much for you to handle. Are you sure you don’t want to head back?”

  “Well, as I think on it, You may be right, I had my day planned around watching dust settle onto the furniture, I’m not sure if I can handle tires being changed!” She slapped him on the arm in a playful gesture and added, “Just drive the damn car, will you?”

  An hour later, Kevin confirmed that he was there to stay for the winter. When he went to pay for the wheels and tires, the money was there in his wallet.

  “Hey buddy, it’s going to be about three hours for this job, we have to get those wheels from our supplier. Is that okay with you?”

  “Sure, do what you have to do,” Kevin said and went to sit with Judy in the showroom waiting area. As he sat he looked at her. “I hope you weren’t kidding about watching dust fall, because we’re about to get our fill of it. The man at the counter says about three hours.”

  “Listen Kev, just before you showed up, I spent most of my days trying to find places to hide in that old mansion just to avoid Stan. Believe me, I never thought I’d be out of there today. This still has that beat by a very long shot. And besides, I’m sitting with my new best friend, what could be better than that?”

  Kevin stared at her, but he didn’t see her, he saw something else, something inside himself. He suddenly bolted up and turned to look at her, “I think we are about to put what you call ‘entertainment’ to the test,” and he headed off to the counter. He came back and offered his hand to Judy.

  “Come on, we’re going to lunch, I saw a nice little diner half way down the block from here.”

  They left the garage and turned left, heading down the street.

  As they got in front of the diner Judy turned and looked back to the garage. “Exactly how did you see this?” she asked, “We came on this street from the other side and pulled straight into the garage. I can’t even make out the garage building from this far away.”