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“Hmph. Figured as much. Come on, Kaye. They probably don’t know anything about Brown anyways,” I mumbled, but I knew they could hear. Before I could take a step, Jules spoke up.
“Now, waits a minute.”
“Pa—”
“Don’t pa me. Ole’ Brown needs da go. She’s tun’n up these here swamps fer too long. Besides, she done near wiped out the LaComb family,” he snapped at his son before turning his milky eyes back to me. “Well, come see,” he said, nodding at the break in the counter before heading back to the room he came out of.
His son let out a long sigh before he ran a hand over his thinning hair. “Sure hope y’all know what yer doing, else y’all be more gator bait,” he warned before lifting up the countertop, exposing a passageway.
He didn’t wait for us before turning and following his father out the back. I gave Thorn and Kaye a doubtful look before taking a leap of faith and seeing where this rabbit hole led.
‘We’re going to die,’ Thorn predicted, and I had a feeling he might be right.
CHAPTER 5
She’s a Klunker
Ravena
We shuffled through what I could only guess was a building full of relics of times passed. There were mountains of junk everywhere. Now, I knew I had no room to talk if you saw the backseat of my car right now, but in my defense, I spent a lot of time in it, and at least you could see parts of the floor. If it weren’t for the entrance to this place, I would have no idea what the floor or walls looked like in here.
Along the floor were busted-up boxes that Mr. Jules weaved his electric chair down. One of the towering stacks of papers almost toppled over, and my life flashed before me. Thorn was notoriously known as a busybody and liked to put his nose into everything, so it spoke volumes when he stuck to my boots like glue.
‘I don’t trust this place not to reach out and suck me into its moldy depths to be lost forever,’ he said when I asked him why he was clinging to me like a toddler without a binky.
I tried to suppress the cough that sat at the base of my throat as I inhaled the layers of gunk in the room. My lungs will never be the same after this place. A newspaper clipping from the New Orleans Times-Picayune caught my attention when I saw ‘Aunt’ Julia Brown named. I glanced up at the date, and my eyebrows disappeared.
‘What is it?’ Thorn asked, feeling uneasy that I had stopped our progression.
“Hey, Kaye.” I reached out and grabbed her arm before she could continue on. “There’s a newspaper here from 1915. How old is Jules?” I asked, wondering, not for the first time, who this man was.
“He must be pretty ancient to have that,” she replied, looking down at the stained yellow newspaper.
We quickly caught up as they exited the building and stepped onto a patio into the scorching heat. The chaos of junk continued along the deck, out across the lawn, and into the weeds.
Thorn pushed against my legs and almost tripped me as I tried to step away.
‘What the hell, Thorn? What’s wrong now?’
‘We’re not alone out here. Something is hiding out in those weeds. Pick me up… please,” he begged.
‘I’m not going to pick you up.’
‘Either pick me up, or I’m gonna climb you.’
I peered down at my bestie and was taken back at him, shaking with fear. He met my eyes and shook off his fear by lifting a paw, flexing his claws, and showing his intent. I rolled my eyes as I picked up my massive scaredy cat.
‘Fuck. You need to lay off the sweets,’ I murmured as I shifted his weight so I could continue walking.
‘You need to lift more weights. You’re getting fluffy in the middle,' he retorted as his tail poked me in the gut, making his point.
Yes, I was squishy in the middle, but I liked my curves and carbs. Plus, Walker didn’t complain when I had him beneath me. Thorn curled his weight around my shoulder to see as we reached a section where the path opened to a dock where two boats were stationed and Kaye was waiting.
“Last time I checked, he had working legs,” Kaye commented when we caught up.
“Yeah, I thought so too, but someone’s being a scaredy cat,” I informed her.
I moved so I could look at the boats that gently rocked against the pier. I recognized them from the many advertisements for swamp tours around here. I had been on one once when we took a trip to the Everglades when I was little, but all I remembered was that it was loud and fast. You know the ones I’m talking about. The boats with flat bottoms and big propellers inside the metal cages that speed you across the water. The other boat looked more or less like an old raft or canoe.
