Fortunes fool chance mcc.., p.37
Fortune's Fool : Chance McCabe Book One, page 37
She walked to the end of the bar and propped her hands in front of him. “William from Wisconsin,” she said. “Didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
“I’m not from Wisconsin,” he said. “And my name is not William. It’s Chance. Chance McCabe.”
She tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. She pursed her lips and smiled, turning on her innate lie detector and finding no deception. “Yes, it is.”
She picked up his glass and drained it. Then poured him another. “You look like shit,” she said.
“You should see the other guys.”
“No. I don’t think I should.”
McCabe picked up the glass, took a long sip.
“You get your business all squared away?”
“Nah, I fucked it up.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
He shrugged, took another sip.
“What brings you back to the city?”
“The airport.”
“Leaving again, huh?”
“For good this time.”
“Where you headed?”
“To be determined. I’ll decide when I get there.”
“So you just stopped by for another ‘taste of the city’ on your way out of town?”
He smiled. “I came to apologize.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What for?”
“Taking your gun.”
She nodded.
“I was going to bring it back, but I lost it.”
“You lost it?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“So you needed it?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I did.”
“Good thing you had it then, huh?”
“Yeah. It was.”
She picked up his glass and again drained it. “And that’s what you came back here for? To apologize for losing my gun?”
“For stealing your gun and then losing it.”
She leaned closer to him, her lips brushing against his ear. “That’s it? That’s all you came back for? You’re a piss poor liar, William from Wisconsin.”
“Chance. My name is Chance.”
eighty
McCabe was awakened by a buzzing sound. It took him a few moments to realize it was a phone ringing. He sat up in bed, rubbed his eyes. Amanda stirred, but didn’t wake. McCabe looked at her naked back, the tribal tattoo just above her bare ass.
He swung his feet off the bed and stood. He found his pants on the floor by her bedroom door. He fished in the front pocket and brought out the burner phone he’d planned to ditch and replace at the airport. He looked at the screen. Barksdale area code and, as the brain fog of waking cleared, a number he recognized.
He answered. “Leah?”
“Lucky?” Her voice trembled. With just that one word, he could tell she’d been crying. Was still crying.
“How’d you get this number?”
She didn’t answer his question. He could hear her sobbing softly.
“What’s wrong, Leah?”
“My daughter... Cate... Ellie’s mother... she’s... she’s in trouble. She’s in real trouble. I... I didn’t know who else to call.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“I can’t... I can’t... I can’t say. Not on the phone.”
“Have you called the police?”
“I can’t. It’s not the kind of trouble you can go to the police for.” She paused. Sobbed some more. “I need you, Lucky. Can you help me? Please? I need you.”
McCabe swallowed hard. Closed his eyes.
Shit.
“Lucky?”
“I’m on the way,” he said. “Be there in a couple of hours.”
eighty-one
Margie pressed the 4-high button, activating the Hummer’s four-wheel drive, and turned off the dirt trail cutting deep through the Hatchootucknee Swamp. She drove slowly, slipping between cypress trees, bouncing over nubs, and slinging mud as the Hummer sloshed over the marshy ground toward a dense thicket of trees ahead. She brought the Hummer to a stop and put it in park just ahead of the thicket. It was late in the afternoon, almost evening, the sun already dipping below the treetops, the light fading, and shadows stretching long on the ground. She turned on the Hummer’s headlights. The thicket was so dense, the shadows so deep, the twin beams illuminated only the outermost ring of trees before being swallowed up by the darkness.
Margie looked to the front passenger seat where the mountain-sized man with the cochlear implants sat. He wore a pair of camo-colored rubber hip waders that reached to his chest. He sat in silence, staring ahead at the thicket.
“Will you get the stuff out of the back, Esau?” Margie asked.
Esau nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” He opened the door and stepped out onto the soft marshy ground, boots squishing in the soil as he walked. The giant peered nervously past the ancient cypress trees jutting from stagnant waters green with algae, through the dangling strands of Spanish moss swaying in the evening breeze to the thicket ahead.
He walked around to the rear of the Hummer and lifted the hatch. Inside were two enormous stainless steel bowls only slightly smaller than a clothes basket and next to them sat a forty-eight quart, insulated cooler. He picked up the steel bowls and sat them on top of the cooler. He hefted the cooler as if it were weightless. He sloshed through the standing water, carrying the cooler and bowls to the edge of the thicket.
Margie followed him. She was wearing a hunter-green tracksuit with white piping. The bottom hems of the tracksuit pants were bunched at her knees, pushed up by a pair of waterproof, black rubber boots.
Esau sat the cooler on the ground by her and put the steel bowls beside it. He looked into the thicket, then opened the lid of the cooler and took out a gallon-sized plastic bottle full of distilled water. Condensation dripped from the bottle as he poured the entire contents into one bowl.
Margie took a small vial from the pants pocket of her tracksuit and emptied it into the water bowl. Esau returned to the cooler and lifted out a bone-in whole ham wrapped in white butcher paper. He removed the paper and set the ham inside the other bowl. It barely fit.
Margie pulled a bundle of fresh herbs from another pocket, crushed it with her hand and rubbed it over the ham, then dropped the rest of the bundle into the bowl.
She took a clicker from the same pocket she’d earlier produced the vial of liquified vitamins and minerals. She held the clicker out and rapidly pressed the button half a dozen times. Esau stepped back a few paces, hoping Margie wouldn’t notice. She did, but only smiled reassuringly at him. The clicks reverberated through the trees, echoing back to them. She waited a few moments, then clicked again. Another half-dozen or so rapid clicks.
As the echo faded, they stood staring into the thicket. Margie was about to click for a third time when she saw movement in the trees, heard heavy, lumbering steps crunching twigs and fallen oak leaves. Then two red orbs appeared from the shadows at about the level of her shoulders.
Eye shine.
Esau took another few steps backward. Margie stared into the thicket, clicked again, and smiled.
END
The story continues at Amazon's Kindle Vella
Chance McCabe survived, if barely, his sojourn in Hatchootucknee County. But just when he thought he had escaped – for good this time – he gets a phone call from the one person he can’t refuse. A desperate plea for help that draws him back to the nest of vipers that is Barksdale, Mississippi. The saga of Chance McCabe continues in Fortune’s Fool Season Two “A Little Oblivion,” serializing now.
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09952QSR8
About the Author
Greg Kithe doesn’t exist. Well, maybe there’s someone out there named that, but he didn’t write this book. I did. My name's Barry K Gregory and I'm a reader, a writer, a husband, and a dad. The fictional town of Barksdale (in the fictional county of Hatchootucknee) is an amalgamated mashup of the several small towns in Mississippi where I spent the first eighteen years of my life. I've lived in about a dozen states since then but now reside in Florida with my wife, three kids, and a Siberian Husky who looks like a giant red panda.
My website is https://barrykgregory.com/
There you can discover some of my other books, vellas, and comics. You can also sign up for my mailing list to stay informed about new releases. And for joining the list you'll also get — as soon as they're available — free e-book prequels to my novels.
You can follow me on social media. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok (though honestly, not much), and on Hive Social I'm @barrygregory. My Twitter account is currently inactive and will remain so until Jackass McApartheid-Emeralds divests himself. Or until he deletes my account. I'm probably not worth the follow there, but I won't stop you if you're so inclined.
So Why the Pen Name?
I write horror and fantasy fiction (as well as comic books) under my own name, but I write the saga of Chance McCabe under the pseudonym Greg Kithe. So why the pen name? It’s a genre dividing line. While Fortune’s Fool is infused with a healthy dose of the weird, it's grounded in the real world and falls somewhere within the crime/thriller/mystery/suspense genres. You won’t find any of the magic, monsters, and metaphysical mayhem readers of horror, fantasy, and superhero comics expect. It's all about helping the audience to better find what they're looking to read.
Also by Barry K Gregory
A Thing ImmortalDark Fantasy. Horror. Weird Western. A mysterious girl without a name, an immortal gunslinger, a wing thief on a spirit quest, and a manhunter who won't stay dead battle gods and monsters on the great plains of an American West that never was. Read it Now at Kindle Vella.
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09MNB83Y6
Biff Stone Monster Hunter for Hire Horror. Supernatural. Action/Adventure.
When an heiress goes missing on her honeymoon the authorities suspect foul play, but they have no idea just how foul until legendary monster hunter and leisure suit maven Biff Stone arrives on the scene. Read it Now at Kindle Vella.
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09Y2BW26P
Greg Kithe, Fortune's Fool : Chance McCabe Book One
