Hags Episode 7

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“That bad, huh?”

Micah paused before he took a deep breath. “Found a body.”

“A human body?”

Micah searched Bob’s eyes. “Yes.”

“Alive, I hope.”

“No.” Micah noticed how dark brown Bob’s eyes were.

“Man or woman?”

Micah faced the window. His voice was soft. “Young teenaged girl, a kid.”

“What happened?” Bob put a tiny hand on Micah’s muscular arm.

Micah adjusted his position to face Bob. “Somebody cut her heart out.”

“Don’t tell me that stuff.”

“You asked.”

“Yeah. I can be stupid sometimes.” Bob called over his shoulders. “Hey, Peevy, you hear anything about a murder last night?”

Peevy stopped rubbing the counter and stared at Bob for a few seconds. “No.”

“Micah found a body.”

“His latest victim. Call the police.” Peevy resumed polishing.

Bob shook his head. “That’s harsh, Peevy.” He picked up Micah’s fifty, rubbed it between his fingers and handed it to Peevy at the counter. She held it up to the light while Bob returned to his seat.

Micah pointed with his coffee. “Didn’t realize Peevy worked here. I just moved back from Phoenix.”

“So you’re new in town?” Bob rose from his seat and picked up two empty coffee cups from the floor.

“New again. Grew up in Naperville.” Micah played with a rip in his faded blue jeans.

“Childhood sweetheart thing, right?” Bob tossed the cups in the trash before returning to his seat again.

“Yes, sir. High school. After high school.” Micah tried to duck as a wad of cash and several coins pelted him. More than a few customers ducked out of the way. Peevy turned her back to Micah.

“Peevy, you’re not nice,” Bob said.

Peevy turned around and stared blue-eyed bullets at Micah. “Get out means you put your rear end on the other side of the door.”

Bob approached the counter. “Peevy, give these nice customers here each a drink on the house. And stop scaring people away.”

Bob rejoined Micah at the table. “Some of us act like we’re still in high school, but it was such a long time ago for you two to be so angry with each other now. Did college break you up?”

“No.” Micah stuffed the wad of bills in his pants pocket without counting it. He ignored the coins scattered about the floor.

“Another girl?”

“Ask Peevy.” Micah took a sip of coffee.

“Ah, another boy. Tough luck, fella. Say, what’s your name anyway?”

“Probert.” He stared at the top of his coffee cup.

“That your first name?”

“Sorry, sir. Micah Probert.”

The short man stuck out a small hand with stubby fingers. “Bob. Glad to meet you.”

“You too, Bob.” Micah noticed a flash of color when a man strolled into the coffee shop.

The man wore blue jeans, a red shirt and brown leather lace up boots, the type a construction worker might use in the mud. A copy of Mark Twain’s Letters from the Earth stuck out from under his arm. Blood dripped from the book.

“You know that guy?” Micah asked.

“Yeah, he’s an angel. Why?” Bob sipped his coffee.

Micah’s stomach flipped. “His book is dripping blood.”

Bob turned to the man again. “No, it’s the color of the book.”

Micah glanced over again and didn’t see the blood. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “My eyes must be playing tricks on me. Anyway, he flew by my window this morning?”

“Low flying airplane?”

“No, gossamer wings.”

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Hags Episode 6

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“Wait,” said the short man. “Anyone who can piss off Peevy O’Malley by ordering a cup of coffee is somebody I want to know better.”

Micah stared at Bob. “Yes, sir, but I didn’t order yet.”

“Even better.” Bob waved toward a chair. “Have a seat.”

“As long as no one throws stuff at me.” Micah approached the chair.

“Relax. We can always toss you out later. Besides, Peevy is busy with other customers.”

Micah took the seat at a round table by the window. The short man headed behind the counter, grabbed a small coffee cup and filled it with high test. “What can I get you?”

“Something strong.”

“What size? Medium okay?” Bob held up a paper cup. 

“Yeah.”

Bob filled the medium cup with dark roast and handed it to Micah. “So you’re a friend of Peevy?” The short man sat down at the table across from Micah.

“Ex-boyfriend.” Micah reached in his back pocket for his wallet, but he opened it upside-down. Cash and credit cards tumbled to the floor. He chased down his scattered dollars and plastic.

Bob yelled, “Didn’t know it was a lover’s spat, Peevy. Do you still want me to toss him out?”

“Yes!” Peevy poured coffee for a female customer. Three more customers waited in line.

“In a bit. I want to find out what kind of man turns you on.”

Another empty paper coffee cup, this one medium-sized, bounced off the short man’s balding head.

Micah jumped when the paper cup flew by while he was returning his wallet to his pocket. He nearly lost his money again. He placed a fifty-dollar bill on the table and slid it across to Bob.

Bob raised his eyebrows at the fifty. “Is finding Peevy in your favorite coffee shop the reason you look so down?” He raised his voice when he said Peevy’s name.

“Didn’t know she was here. And I’ll get back to you on my favorite coffee shop.”

“Depends on the quality of the brew and the friendliness of the crowd?”

“Yeah. It takes time, but if the rest of your menu is as good as this coffee, I’ll be back.”

“Next time, don’t look so down when you come in.”

“Sorry. I had a bad night.” Micah sipped the brew.

“Want to talk about it.”

“No. You can hear about it on the news.”

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Hags Episode 5

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Chapter Two
Micah Probert guessed the woman to be about forty. He liked her face, but in a déjà vu moment, she reminded him of something he couldn’t quite grasp. His stomach growled against the aroma of rich coffee buffeted by the sweet smells of scones and muffins under the counter.

The heavyset woman’s puffy face turned bright red against her medium-length blond hair. “Get out! How dare you.”

Micah’s smile faded as he opened his mouth in wonder and his head slanted to the side in a glint of recognition. He backed away from the counter. “No.”

Bob’s Coffee Emporium exuded darkness from the aged mahogany framework of the display case to the faded oak wainscoting and forest green upper walls. A painted tin ceiling dotted with fans and soft lights added to the appearance of antiquity in the store. The plate glass front door and storefront windows provided soft light from a northern exposure. 

The angry barista wore blue jeans and a long, green blouse not tucked into her pants. Micah guessed her height at about five-feet six-inches and her weight close to three hundred pounds, possibly more.

 “Don’t you dare say ‘no’ to me. Get out right now.” The barista glowered. She placed her hands on her hips and called over her shoulder, “Bob, throw this criminal out of here.”

Micah raised both hands, palms out. “I didn’t mean ‘no.’ I meant ‘no way’ as in ‘no way, is that you?”

A man of stocky build, wearing a plaid flannel shirt and blue jeans approached. Micah estimated the man’s height at about five-two or three. The man looked up, smiled and then turned to the woman behind the counter. “What’s up, Peevy?”

“Get this bum out of here.” Peevy’s blue eyes flashed. Micah remembered years long past and a teenaged girl once much thinner.

“We don’t throw the customers out, Peevy. In fact, we don’t become angry at them. We’re supposed to smile, take their order and their money. And we say thank you when we’re finished. Did I mention the part about their money?”

“Men! He’s not a regular customer. Throw him out.” Peevy picked up a bar towel and slammed it on the counter. She stormed to the other end of the counter.

Bob smiled. “Appears regular enough to me.” To Micah, the short man said, “Don’t pay any attention to Peevy. She gets like this every month.”

An empty small paper coffee cup bounced off the short man’s bald spot.

“Hey!” Bob grabbed the top of his head.

Micah headed towards the front door with his head down. “I don’t mind. I’m not pleased to see her either.”

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Hags Episode 4

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Micah wound his way stoop-shouldered around the boxes back to the unkempt mattress. A loud thump caught his attention so he meandered around the boxes again to the window. Red liquid smeared a six-inch-square chunk of the wet pane. “That wasn’t there before.”

Micah attempted to raise the window so he could check out the stain on the outside of the glass, but it wouldn’t budge. “Painted shut, cat. Or else the wood is swollen from the rain.”

He flapped his bare feet downstairs to the kitchen where he poured milk into a small white porcelain bowl and filled the other bowl, a little red plastic one, with fresh water.

“Now where did I pack the coffee?” Neither the Delonghi coffeemaker nor the Jamaican Blue Mountain turned up in any of the boxes marked “kitchen.”

He rubbed the cat on the head. “One of us needs to check the coffee shop down the street. I know, you’re wondering how I knew about it, what with me new in town and all, but cat, you have to know coffee lovers notice coffee shops, especially the indies.”

A wispy woman dressed in a pioneer costume strolled into the room. She stared at Micah as though she was about to speak. She turned up her nose and retreated down the hall and around the corner. Micah chased her, but by the time he arrived at the stairs, she had vanished.

“What do you think, cat? Haunted house?”

“Meowr.”

“Yes, sir. I agree. She gives me the heebie-jeebies. She could at least take her bonnet off inside. So cat, did you see where I left my wallet?”

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Hags Episode 3

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In the half awake time before rising when images, dreams and half dreams ascend from the darkness of the soul and imprint themselves on the memory for the rest of the day, Micah Probert observed the faerie in a mountain meadow. The creature wore blue jeans and a red shirt tucked into his waistband as he flitted about from golden daffodils to blue forget-me-nots like a bee shopping for nectar. Gossamer wings buzzed like a dragonfly until, as sometimes happens in half dreams, the creature turned to face the camera of Micah’s mind. It flew in for a close-up and grinned with a Mediterranean face outlined with short black hair.

Micah jumped which caused him to smack his hand hard against the side of a stack of book boxes by his mattress.

He pushed the boxes aside and blinked against the sunlight as it glared through the soiled glass of the back bedroom window. Micah found his knees staring him in the face when he plopped his feet on the floor. He reached over to pet the black cat asleep among his blankets and sheets. “How’d you get in here?”

A humming noise came from outside. Micah weaved a path through the jungle of boxes to the window. He leaned his hands on the wide wooden sill coated with faded, peeling white paint and considered how potted plants would go nicely on the windowsill.

The droning came from above and to the right, so Micah turned in that direction in time to see a man in blue jeans. He was bare from the waist up, but had a red shirt tucked into his waistband. He wore a pair of brown work boots like a construction worker prepared for a job in the mud. The man hovered about fifty feet above the parking lot behind Micah’s tiny backyard near the row of green dumpsters. Yellow police tape surrounded one of the dumpsters. The police had completed their work and hauled the body away.

The winged man landed by a large puddle in the parking lot. He folded a set of four long, narrow gossamer wings against his back. The wings faded into a filigree pattern of blood vessels woven over the man’s skin like a tattoo. He undid his shirt from his waist and ambled around the corner of the house out of sight. Micah craned his neck sideways to track the winged man’s movement. Above, a strong breeze moved the cloud cover off to the east.

Micah shook his head to clear it. “Hallucination? What do you think, cat?”

The feline sprawled with its paws stretched out and its mouth open in a yawn. “Meowr.”

“Yes, sir. You make a good point. And I agree. Caffeine is the best way to figure out how you got in here. By the way, have you always had that lisp?”

The cat stretched, yawned and smiled.

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Hags Episode 2

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Cold, wet grass tickled his bare feet as he ran to the end of the yard. In the darkness he couldn’t find a gate. Feeling with his hands, he realized he had purchased a home with a fenced in yard and no gate.

Can’t jump over in my bare feet and underwear. Break an ankle. Scratch my legs. Slip and do much worse. Not using the family jewels for anything anyway. Still the pain would be insufferable.

Micah turned the lights on in the kitchen where the apparition continued chewing her raw meat. He screamed. After a frozen moment, he ran to the downstairs hallway where he threw the light switches on for the downstairs entrance area and the upstairs hall. He also turned on the light in his back bedroom.

He slipped on a pair of faded blue jeans and sneakers without the socks. He checked the time on his cell phone. Two-thirty-eight. He ran back downstairs, out the front door, around to the alley and the parking lot.

At the dumpster with the damaged lid, he touched the wrist of the arm hanging out. It was cold, feminine, and petite. He hesitated before taking the cell phone out of his pocket. Not certain his Arizona phone number would connect to a local nine-one-one line, he punched four-one-one and asked the operator for the police.

If I phone, they’ll respect that I called. Like that means anything in DuPage County. At least, I’m not hallucinating.

In less than a minute, a police car pulled up close to the dumpster with its lights flashing. A uniformed officer stepped out of the car and shined a flashlight into Micah’s face. The sudden brightness flooded Micah with a litany of bad memories.

“You the one who called?” The officer kept the light in Micah’s face.

Micah raised his hand to shade his eyes. “Yeah. See?” He pointed to the dumpster with his finger about two inches from the girl’s dead hand.

The officer touched the girl’s wrist.

“I… I… couldn’t find a pulse.” Micah backed away to make more room for the officer.

“You touched her?”

“To check for a pulse.”

The officer opened the lid. Micah hit the ground butt first and hard. The intense pain shooting through his posterior kept him from passing out.

The officer shined his light down on Micah. “You okay?”

“Didn’t expect that.” Micah swiped at the puddle soaking his bottom. He stood up.

“Sorry. I wasn’t either. Guess you didn’t find a pulse.” The officer punched a button on his communicator and spoke to his dispatch in the language of authority.

Micah leaned down to pet a black cat snuggled against him. The cat smelled of damp fur and blood.

Micah waited. He backed away a distance to avoid the police chatter, but he couldn’t escape the hideous noise. Nor could he explain the huge puddle of blood flowing like a river from under the dumpster with red cat paw prints leading away from it.

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Hags Begins Today

 
Welcome to the first installment of this extended preview of my novel Hags. I won't post the entire novel here, but you'll read enough to see if you want to read more. At the end of the episodes appearing  here, I'll make the Kindle version available free for five days on Amazon so you can finish it at your leisure. And if you simply must have the entire book right away, you may purchase the paperback or Kindle version by clicking here.

Today's blog post starts Chapter 1. But first, here's a quick summary: After 15 years in prison for a rape he insists he didn’t commit, Micah Probert returns to his hometown of Naperville, Illinois, where he starts his first day by discovering a human-sized faerie flitting about in his backyard, a dead body in the parking lot behind his house, a pioneer ghost in his kitchen, and a local coffee shop that serves the darkest roast this side of Hades. Mix in a few dark secrets, a couple of serial killers, a hot romance or two, and this novel takes you deep into the heart of horror in the suburbs.

As one of my Amazon critics wrote:
“For a story dealing with such dark topics, Hags surprised me with its genuine humor. Once all the pieces are on the table, the story has a very distinctive and clever personality that flows quickly…. you'll find Hags a delightful read that may have something to say about fear, lust, greed, brokenness and most importantly, redemption.”

Hags Chapter One

From the mattress on the floor of the back bedroom of his antique Victorian fixer-upper, Micah Probert heard a far off scream. An equally distant clang of heavy metal followed. Then two muffled voices, a male and a female. The sound of feet scampering followed by a loud buzz made Micah picture a prehistoric dragonfly. Then came the silence.

Micah dragged his six-foot bulk to an upright position and maneuvered stoop-shouldered around the stacks of book boxes cluttered about the bedroom. The ancient pine floor boards creaked under his weight as he made his way to the window. He absorbed the aroma of damp, clean night air after a storm.

Darkness prevented Micah from seeing into the small backyard of his downtown Naperville, Illinois, property. A series of streetlights illuminated the parking lot behind his yard. The light changed colors as it filtered through the raindrops on the window panes.

At the far end of the lot, he made out the dumpsters, five in a row, bathed in the harsh glow of a streetlight. One had its lid ajar. All were wet with rain.

Micah wasn’t sure if he imagined the hand, wrist and arm sticking out from under the metal top of one dumpster.

The police will accuse me. No, they won’t have any evidence. Still, if I report it, they’ll accuse me. No, they’ll suspect me if I don’t report it. Dead either way. So’s the person in the dumpster. It could be a dummy, part of a college prank. The person may still be alive. And maybe I’ll drive myself crazy with hallucinations.

A black cat stepped out from under the dumpster and called out in a loud, lispy meowr with a big, toothy grin.

Cats can’t smile, can they? And why does that one meow with a lisp?

Micah ran down the steps, tripped over a stack of three large clothing boxes in the entranceway, and made his way into the kitchen where he knocked over a chair. He noticed a wispy mist with a barely-there woman in the center dressed like a pioneer. She sat across the table from Micah, devouring an equally wispy bloody chunk of raw leg of lamb. After a quick little half scream, he stared for few seconds more before opening the back door.

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