Page 12 of Archie

“Locked up? Not unless they were to put me in a cell all to myself with only a hole to get my food from. I’d kill anything that came to me right away.” He turned to the judge before speaking again. “She thinks I’m dangerous. That’s not it at all. I’m a man that likes to have things my way. I don’t believe I should ever have to compromise. Why should I? Things are there for me, and I should and will take them when I want them. Everyone should understand that about me. I mean, look how many times I had to teach someone that lesson.”

Douglas pointed to the file boxes and then looked at her. Before he could speak, if that was what he was going to do, she didn’t take her eyes off him when she told him that he needed to be dead rather than locked away. She thought that the world would be better off if he wasn’t in it.

“Oh, Carrie. When will you learn that people like me don’t die? We keep making rules that you have to follow all the time. And if you get in the way? Well, I guess that you’d end up in a file just like the other people who crossed me did.”

Carrie left the courtroom. She could no longer stand to be in the same room as her brother. The very air around him stank. He was evil, and she was sure that if he ever got out, he’d test their immortality to the limit. Or he’d find someway of killing them that hadn’t been made up as yet. Her brother was—

Running to the corner of the building, she threw up several times when she thought of the people who had been in the courtroom that he’d killed. People who had lives. Children that hadn’t gotten to grow up. Her heart ached for everyone that he’d killed and wished that she could have done something about him when they’d been younger. Or, at the very least, her parents should have done something to have him examined so he’d be someplace safe for all humanity.

“Are you all right?” She told Archie that she wasn’t and didn’t think she would be ever again so long as Douglas was around. “The judge is taking a quick break, but he had Douglas chained to the floor before doing so. As you can imagine, he’s not at all happy about it. An officer held a gun to his head while they chained his wrists. Then his legs, too. I don’t think any of them wanted to be that close to him to do it.”

“No, I don’t think that I would have either.” She looked at the Dari Twist, the ice cream and soda shop across from the courthouse. “I’m going to go and have a banana split for myself. Then I’m going to walk home. If you want to join me, I’m not sharing. I need this more than my next breath.”

“I understand completely. I’m going to stay in here in the event that Jameson needs me. Also, I can keep an eye on him too. He’s about as shell-shocked as anyone that I’ve ever seen. I have to admit, this is about the strangest court hearing that I’ve ever been to. Even if it had been my own mother, I wouldn’t have believed it without being here.” They both laughed. “You enjoy your split and I’ll talk to you again when things are settled up. I believe that the judge is going to put him away, but it’s hard to tell right now. Poor man.”

Carrie did enjoy her ice cream. Just as she was digging into the second scoop of chocolate-covered ice cream, Mikey came to sit with her. He smiled a huge smile and showed her his new shoes as well as the hat he’d gotten. It took his sister a little bit longer to get to them. She and their grandma were admiring the flowers in the barrel next to the small shop. Also, Sissy was in a wheelchair still and wasn’t getting around as well as her brother.

“We came to have some ice cream, too. Grannie said that we’ve been so good that we all deserved a treat. I love her.” Carrie gave him the rest of her ice cream, having had too much as it was, and he ate it while telling her everything that the three of them had been up to. “Grannie also told us that she’s got nothing to go back to, so she’s going to be looking for a house around here. I’m glad. The sloth is taking good care of us, and I like having my friends around. I’ve made so many of them now.”

“I bet you have.” Grannie, Ms. Granger sat down while Mikey went up and got their order for them. “How are you doing? The kids are all right, aren’t they?”

“Oh yes. Oh my, they’re the best little kids. I love having them around.” She looked at them with so much love that Carrie felt it in her soul. “Mikey has been especially helpful with his sister. I sometimes…well, I wasn’t in a good place before coming here. I missed my family. My daughter and I had very little to do with each other after she met that man. But these two have brought me back to life, it almost seems, and I am grateful for them every day.”

They spoke about things that the sloth was giving them. Ms. Granger was a bear, too, and she was enjoying having a good leader over the one that she’d had before. Carrie mentioned that she and Archie were the leap leaders, and she seemed very happy about that. Ms. Granger asked if she knew anything about the local schools.

“Not too much, I’m afraid. Mikey and his sister would know more, I’m sure. We’ve been invited to allow our kids to go to the pack school when we have any. We’re keeping our options open. We’ve only been together for a few weeks so far.” She said that she noticed that the leap had a lot of things going on in town. “Yes. Improvements to help out the town. Taking care of a few things too that might bring in a few new businesses.”

“My son. Oh, I’m so happy you brought that up. Larence Granger, he’s my son had a huge car shop. He not only sells some used cars, but he has a lot of men who work for him that do repairs, too. He’s looking for a place with a good deal of land. He wishes to sell some new cars too. Oh, what an enterprise he has for his family. He helps out with my bills, too, every month. He’d probably enjoy having to move here to be closer to myself and the kids.” She asked a few questions, not really sure what it would take to have a business to move in. “I can have him give you a call if he’s wanting to do that. Wouldn’t that be really nice? I know that he employs quite a few people, over a dozen of them.”

She didn’t even know if that was a lot of people but it would be twelve more people with an income. If he sold cars, too, there is no telling how many more would be working. Talking to her and making notes, not wanting to bother the men just yet—she wanted them to be on their toes around Douglas—so she wrote down as much as she could about some of the questions that she, as well as Ms. Granger, had.

In her excitement, Carrie almost forgot all about her brother and the shit that he was pulling. It felt good, too, to think that she might help out the town by helping bring a business to town, too. If only that would be that easy.

After the older woman left, telling her that the kids had some chores to do, Carrie was happy to see that the kids didn’t seem to mind at all about working for their meals. All they were doing today was snapping green beans for their dinner and shucking corn. That made her mouth water for both those foods, and wondered if their cook could make that for dinner one night. She especially loved fried green tomatoes, another treat that the kids were going to have for dinner, and wanted to beg to go home with them. But she didn’t, as tempting as it had been.

Chapter 7

Carrie was seated in a large room with plants around her. She’d discovered, quite by accident, that when there were a lot of ghosts around, the air seemed stale and tainted. She didn’t want to say it was because they were dead, but it stood to reason that was it. Lifting her head up when the first ghost came into the room, Carrie smiled and asked her if she’d had any trouble getting there.

“No. It was fine. I would, however, like to suggest a change in the way you have us come in. I think that there should be days for a certain kind of people. Then, another day for others. Also, you shouldn’t have us all in one room like cattle. It’s a bit difficult for folks like myself to want to see you if there is an unwashed air to the place.” The woman looked at the chairs, knowing full well whether she could sit or not. It didn’t matter what she had in the room. “I suppose this is all you have? Or is this just what you had lying around before you got the good stuff brought in.”

She didn’t want to start her day off like this but that was the job that she had. Asking for information about herself, the woman finally sat down on something that was on her end and looked to be floating in the air on hers. Carrie didn’t care. It was her first day of having a scheduled time, and she was going to make the most of it. If she could.

“What complaint do you have that I’m willing to help you with. If you’re here to have me change things to suit yourself on either side, you’re out of luck. I won’t, and I can’t.” Dana asked her which side she wouldn’t. “Mine. Now, what is it you want? I have a very busy day, and if you don’t have something to talk to me about, then let’s move on.”

“It’s my daughter-in-law, Diana. I don’t know why her parents gave her such a regal name when—” Carrie told her that she wasn’t going to listen to her go on about things that wouldn’t be changed just to suit her. “All right then. I want you to let me go back and take care of her and that child she brought to the marriage. Why my son married her is—” All she did was raise her hand. “I want her out of his life. She’s a bad influence on him and gets him into trouble all the time. She needs for me to go there and take care of her. Christ, you do make this difficult, don’t you?”

“Don’t care. Now, this daughter-in-law? Is this the one that you accused of stealing your watch? The very one that you have on now?” She tried to hide the watch with her sleeve, but it wasn’t happening. “I’m going to take that as a yes. Diana has been a good and loving wife to your son, Carter. The child in question…it says here that it’s your son’s child from when they were lovers in high—”

“What a disgusting word, lovers. She seduced him so that she could get at my money.” Carrie was so happy for the hyped-up computer that Sunny had made for her. All she had to do was put in a name, and it gave her everything that they’d ever done. Even the dead, when necessary, she had information on them that more than likely they didn’t know about themselves. “I don’t believe for a moment that that thing is my son’s child.”

“Again, I don’t care. She’s his, and that’s all there is to it. If it makes you feel any better, they had DNA tests…Ah, I see. You knew about that but still didn’t believe it. That’s really too bad on your part. But nothing to do with you being a ghost. You’re not going to harm either the child, who is very intelligent, by the way, or your wonderful daughter-in-law. It says here that she gave up her job to take care of you after you had your stroke. I see also that you treated her terribly, spitting at her and pissing the bed when you were able to get up and use the potty. Shame on you. So now that we’ve established that you’re not a nice person and that you’re not going to be able to go back to doing whatever you have in your sick mind, is there anything else that I can help you with? Or better yet, tell you, no, you’re not going to do it?”

“You’re not at all what I want. Is there someone who is a better servant to us? Someone perhaps a little older?” Carrie just stared at her without answering. There wasn’t anyone else, as a matter of fact, unless she wanted to go across the earth to find one. “Well?”

“Well, what?” She was so frustrated that she faded out and in for a few seconds. It took a great deal of energy to be pissed off, Carrie knew, and it didn’t bother her in the least bit that the woman was mad at her. “If there is nothing else, I think your time is up.”

“I didn’t get my request settled up. You can’t just toss me away like I’m nothing. I demand to be able to take care of her and that child.” Carrie stood up, and the woman either didn’t care or didn’t know that she’d pissed her off now. “What now? Are you going to send me away? You can’t do that either. I know my rights.”

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