Fiddleback 2

By Jeff Vrolyks

Timothy Stoddard is a shy, stuttering, young boy who meets a girl his age named Arabella. Arabella knows things that haven’t yet happened, and performs some neat tricks such as disappearing.

On a farm in Nebraska Eddie Verboom unearths a demonic-looking jade idol. Upon touching it a voice speaks to Eddie inside his head, calls himself “The friend behind your eyes,” and promises him wealth and power if he does what he says, starting with moving to Sacramento, where reports of the SacTown Slayer, a serial killer, are dominating the airwaves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeff Vrolyks
• Release date: Aug 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301727506

Jeff Vrolyks

Jeff Vrolyks lives with his supple wife of 7 years Christy in Simi Valley, California. He is a new writer, in that he recently discovered a passion for writing and hasn't stopped since. He was in the Air Force for a four year stint (cargo aircraft crew-chief), worked in the beer beverage industry, automotive industry, and in the oil fields on drilling rigs. His turn on’s include rain-forest thunderstorms, rainy sunsets at the beach, and glowing reviews from you. His turn off’s include driving in Los Angeles, working-out in an over-crowded gym with fat hairy people in spandex, and receiving scathing reviews from people intolerant of foul language and violence. Find him on Facebook to be kept current on upcoming releases.

Book preview

Foreword

Of the several novels I’ve written, none have included a foreword. I consider that a service to my readers, because who really cares about the author? What matters is the story. The story, it’s always about the story. It isn’t about technique, vocabulary, or even word selection (though it helps), it’s about the story. When a daddy tells his daughter and her twelve brownie friends a story by a campfire, do they give two shits about anything other than the story? Does daddy ever give a foreword before telling his campfire tale?

I wanted to write a foreword on how stories come to be, at least in my own experience, and if you’ve read Stephen King’s On Writing, you’ll know that he shares the same method of story creating, one that preceded my own by roughly forty years. I’d guess that most writers share this method. Those who have never written a novel will assume that stories are outlined, plots considered in advance and written down, with arrows pointing this way and that, notes scrawled on the margin, stuff crossed out and some stuff with several underscores—the neighbor boy was the killer, perhaps. The truth is, most stories are written one word and one idea at a time. I don’t know why stories are better written on the fly, but they are. There is always an exception to the rule, but generally speaking this is the case.

I write prolifically. Once I get a vague idea of a story, I set aside some time where I won’t be disturbed and I pour out copious amounts of text in no-time-flat. I’ve written a novel in less than a week. I don’t say that proudly, or as a badge of honor. Stories are like demons needing to be exorcised, the faster the better. Behind The Horned mask was such a long novel that I split it in two, each of them being roughly novel-length. I wrote that like a maniac, it had become an obsession. I was working 12 hour shifts at the time I wrote it, so when I wasn’t at work I was cranking out words on an abused laptop in my car with a can of Monster at the ready. Just over two weeks that long-assed novel took for me to write. That demon was exorcised and I was pacified for a good while, until I ventured to write Fiddleback 2.

If I can veer off topic for a moment, let me talk about Fiddleback 2. I had never intended on writing a sequel. It shouldn’t be considered a sequel, shouldn’t have been entitled Fiddleback 2, but perhaps Fiddleback Lateral. The time-frame of the novel takes place during the 5 years that gapped Trent killing Mae’s parents, and Tag submitting his stories on an amateur website. Those 5 years were suspiciously absent in Fiddleback.

And now for the reason why I’m writing this foreword: to tell you the ideas that sparked my novels. I’ll keep it short. I won’t be offended if you skip over this and get to the meat and potatoes of this novel. My novels were written from a simple image or idea, no more than that. Here they are, and thank you for your time.

(Listed in chronological order)

Fate Fatale: A man driving down a mountain highway in a convertible swerves purposely off the road, plummets off a cliff. Mid air he feels the touch of a hand on his shoulder.

Reflection: A wealthy man has a bitch wife who is divorcing him. He decides he’d rather give his money away to a select few strangers in need than letting that bitch get his money (boy did that story turn out differently than I had intended).

Fiddleback (a two pronged idea, as it was originally two separate novels): 1) What if a girl has an imaginary friend who isn’t as imaginary as she thinks, and he tells her to do bad things? 2) What if an amateur writer falls in love with one of his characters, then learns the character is a real person?

Mortality in Wasteland: What if during the Black Death plague in 14th century England, a young man was tasked with being the town’s undertaker. How would he deal with burying half the town, and where would he put them all?

Tell No One: What if a star college quarterback about to enter the draft has a dark secret from his childhood. What if when he was a kid, he and a little girl entered a mine and killed someone.

Harlot Malediction: What if you could utter a curse that unleashed something pretty fucking horrible, wiping out the whole town.

Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso: What if a guy sees a black-shrouded figure in the great distance, and every day that figure is a touch closer to him. Closer and closer until it reaches him.

Behind The Horned Mask: What if there was a masquerade party and one of the masqueraders was wearing a mask of a man, and a hat with devil horns. The devil masquerading as a man. What might he do to the partiers?

Fiddleback 2: I wonder what happened during the 5 years I glossed over in Fiddleback? There’s only one way to find out: let me power up my laptop.

Part 1: Then

Chapter One

2001

The funeral service was at a church that Timothy had never been to. And even now as he was taking his seat he hadn’t the slightest notion of its name or precisely what religion it was. Christian is what he had been told he was, so this was probably a Christian establishment. It was only recently that he learned that some people believed in other things, and that was a curious thing to consider. Is God okay with that?

An orderly at the foster home, Jim, had died a few days ago, and he must have had a lot of friends and family because this large room was getting pretty packed. Getting pretty cozy, as Maggie—another orderly—would have said.

Timothy picked a seat kind of in the back, where there were plenty of open seats (for now). There was a chorus of soft weeping. As he made his way down the row he spotted a girl in a pretty white dress with wide belled skirts, shiny white Mary Jane shoes. Her feet didn’t reach the floor. He wondered why she didn’t have to wear black like everyone else. She was seated alone. Her parents were probably off greeting some of the other mourners, touching softly their backs before shaking their hands with grave expressions. Or maybe she was an orphan, too.

He judged her to be about his age, maybe a little older—no older than eight, nine tops. She had a pert little nose, red little mouth, slate blue eyes with long dark lashes, hair so light that it might have been strands of spider silk. Not blonde but white! She looked like a doll, one of those kinds whose eyes close when you lay them down. Looking at her he felt something never before felt, and that was… well he didn’t know what it was, but he wanted to talk to her.

Hi, Timothy said and took a seat two spots down from her.

Hello, she crooned with a big smile and a wave for good measure. What a pretty way to say hello, he thought, to sort of sing it.

Are you here for the funeral? he asked her.

She covered her mouth and giggled. Timothy frowned at that, then giggled himself. Two people entered their row, took a seat far from them.

Do you live in the foster home too? he asked her. He was sure she didn’t, he would have recalled seeing her. I don’t remember seeing you there.

No, she drawled, tilted her head, and smiled widely at him again.

Pretty dang odd, this little number was. Bubbling with personality, he could tell already. I’ve been there for almost a year now, Timothy said with a sense of pride. I liked Jim. He always had funny stories to tell about his wife, who he called his old battle axe.

He was a great man, the girl said. He made me laugh.

So you knew him. I’m Timothy; what’s yours?

Arabella, she said and moved over to the chair beside his and poked him in the side playfully.

Arabella, that’s a neat name. Are you an orphan too? If not, where are your parents?

She shrugged, giggled, took his hand in hers. Her bright blue eyes peered so deeply into his that it felt like an invasion of his privacy!—that surely she could read his mind with such a penetrating stare! But he liked it. She could invade his privacy any day she’d like.

His mouth unhinged unawares. His eyes drifted down to her nose and mouth, back to her eyes. What a wonderful girl, he thought. Too bad she didn’t live at Saint Josephine’s Foster home, because he’d like to play with her. He sensed she’d be good at Hide ‘N’ Seek, and even better at Tag. He wanted more than just to play with her, he wanted to be friends with her. He admitted to himself that he might even add a special word before friends, such as best. Sometimes things happen just that fast.

See that man, she said and pointed to an older guy several rows up. He followed her dwarven digit with an itty-bitty nail and spotted him, nodded. He’s dying, too, she said. Sad, huh?

He is? Him? He pointed. She nodded. Of what?

She shrugged. He just is. That’s what I heard, anyway.

Will you be here for his funeral? he asked.

Would you like me to be?

I don’t care, he said coolly, faced forward and folded his arms under his chest. He stared sidelong at her and added, If you’d like, sure.

More people were entering their rows, taking seats. Service would begin pretty soon.

My parents died last year, Timothy informed her. He wasn’t enjoying facing forward and pretending not to be infatuated with her, so he resumed his previous posture, which was leaning into her, inches from her charming little face. He took it a step further and put his hand on her forearm. "They were missionaries, if you know what that is. Preached gospel to poor Godless people in other countries. Some countries were really far away. Really far, like directly below us if you dug a deep enough hole. They were only supposed to be gone two weeks, but there was some kind of tragedy. There are bad people out there who don’t agree with the commandment thou shalt not kill."

She nodded solemnly.

More people had entered their row, which was now the only row left with available seat. They were side-stepping toward Timothy and Arabella.

I’m really glad we met, he said to her. It was the most honest thing he had ever said.

Me, too. Very glad.

A family took the four seats to Timothy’s right. A man and woman edged their way past them now. The man smiled wanly at him, an apologetic one, the kind reserved for funerals. The woman in his company (presumably his wife) didn’t look happy to be here. She’d rather be anywhere on earth over this place, Timothy judged. She dropped a folded-over piece of paper to the floor just before him. He reached down and picked it up, tapped it rapidly into the back of her knee a couple times to get her attention: she took it without a word. Timothy said you’re welcome, looked to Arabella with a disapproving head-shake. Mannerlessness is what’s wrong with the world today, his expression said. The man took the seat just past Arabella.

Timothy’s eyes doubled when he saw the mannerless woman preparing to sit down on his new friend. She turned her back to Arabella, tucked her black dress in and just before taking the seat Timothy exclaimed, Ma’am, the seat is taken! You’ll crush her!

The woman looked back quizzically at Timothy, then the occupied seat in question, moved down the row to the seat just past the guy.

The nerve of some people, huh? Timothy whispered to her.

She smiled at him, patted his knee.

An old man was now making his way down the row. There were no more available seats, so what was this old codger planning? Timothy frowned up at him as he brushed by, had half a mind to say something but didn’t.

Afternoon, son, the man said and turned his back to poor Arabella, precisely as the woman had done just a moment ago.

Sir, the seat is taken, Timothy said at wit’s end.

The man paid no attention and took Arabella’s seat. Timothy was fixed on her as the man collided into her, through her.

The man adjusted in his seat as he looked over to Timothy’s enormous eyes, his gaping mouth.

Is there a problem? the man asked him.

10 Years Later

Sandalwood Street was the place to be if you liked street hockey. It was Timothy’s favorite after-school hobby. It was a ten minute bike ride from his house, in a lower-middle-class neighborhood where houses were built practically on top of one another, the streets narrow and typically lined with cars at the curb. What made this locale great for street hockey was that it was on the last street of the tract, and at the corner, so that people driving home would arrive before reaching them— that is, unless they lived at one of the houses offering front-row seating to the games. There was typically an audience gathered on the sidewalk composed of neighborhood kids too young or horrible to play, and an occasional parent or two.

There were two metal trashcans on their sides acting as goals, spaced forty feet apart. Timothy was the first chosen every time because he was the oldest here at sixteen, and larger than the others—lankier than most, but taller than all. The kids looked up to him as the neighborhood’s best goal-scorer, and because of this admiration they never teased him about his stutter—try finding that anywhere else. He had been playing nearly every day for a month now, having learned of these games from a boy at his school. He was making new friends, though the majority of them were in middle school. There was just one other boy here from his high school, a freshman named Wally. He was pretty terrible at the game (but not at Chess and Star Trek trivia, if that helps paint a picture), and was usually picked last. But he was as good as anyone at passing the ball, and just now made a beautiful pass to Timothy, who capitalized on the lack of defenders between himself and goalie, slapped the ball with his scuffed and scarred hockey stick, and into the trashcan it went with a loud reverberating clang. His teammates cheered, gathered in to exchange high-fives.

Car! Someone shouted.

On cue two boys moved the trashcans out of the street; everyone took to the nearest curb as a van idled by and pulled into the driveway of a nearby house.

Timothy checked his watch. It was 5:30 P.M., almost time to be getting a move-on. He had to tend to the horses—shovel some poop, feed them, pet them—and would be at it well into nightfall. Before he discovered his passion for hockey he’d get home from school early enough to get everything taken care of before ten P.M.; now he was working almost to midnight on the weekdays. His grandparents grouched at him over this new schedule initially, but they loved seeing Timothy so genuinely happy and making new friends (he had never been great at making friends). So they not only allowed it, they supported this new extracurricular activity.

A nearby front door opened and a young boy bellowed, Jason, Mom wants to talk to you! The door thudded closed.

Dangit, Jason said just a few feet from Timothy.

The cans were returned proper. Jason said sorry guys and trudged home. The captain of the opposing team said next goal wins: everyone agreed to it. Timothy volunteered to replace Jason as his team’s goalkeeper. He was a great scorer but an equally great goalkeeper. It would be up to his teammates to sneak a ball past Jordan, the fat kid who blocked most of their shots with his sheer size, like trying to sneak a golf ball into the nozzle of a garden hose.

The game recommenced.

There was cheering from his right, where several youths had gathered. One such youth was a girl named Krista who seemed to love to find reasons to cry, usually after scraping any number of body parts by any number of ways. Timothy glanced over and saw her, and a girl standing beside Krista. His gaze returned to the street before him. The opposing team wasted no time making a run for a shot: Timothy hunkered down and by the skin of his teeth deflected the ball rocketing at him; it rolled down the street behind him. People at the sidewalk cheered, one whistled. He glanced over at the spectators again, this time taking better notice of the girl not Krista.

A peculiar sensation stole over him, one of vague remembrance, and it made his guts tingle.

The game continued. Timothy immersed himself in sport. Seconds later his teammate lost possession of the ball and a little bruiser by the name of Scotty took a shot that went between his legs and into the trashcan with a game-ending clang. There was a clamor of boos and cheers, banter and praise.

Timothy looked to the sidewalk, to the little girl in a white dress, and squinted at her.

The trashcans were taken out of the street. The crowd began dispersing. A boy approached Timothy and asked if he’d be here tomorrow even though it was Saturday—they were trying to organize a weekend game. Distractedly he replied that he wouldn’t be able to make it, that he worked on weekends. The boy walked away crestfallen. Timothy returned his gaze to the sidewalk once again where the little girl was now walking away. He went to his bike in the driveway of a nearby house and mounted it, hurried toward her.

Friends, acquaintances, and teammates waved goodbye at him, said good game and see you Monday. Timothy mindlessly replied to a few of them. He pedaled faster, crossed the street and coursed the sidewalk, slowing down when he neared the girl.

Hey, he said to her.

She continued walking, looked up at him. Hello.

I haven’t seen you here before.

She nodded. Her little legs moved along purposefully.

You look familiar. Have we met?

She didn’t reply. She looked hauntingly familiar. What was vexing about it was that she was only seven or eight, so she shouldn’t have looked like someone from his past. But gut feelings are what they are.

Well? Timothy said impatiently. Have we? Have we met?

Her reply wasn’t verbal but in her smile.

I knew it! Where’d we meet? What’s your name?

You didn’t come to Rodger’s funeral, she said.

A boy zipped by on his bike saying, You’re going the wrong way, dude! And chuckled. "See you Monday!

Yeah, and if you’re l-lucky you’ll be on m-my team! Timothy replied and looked back to the girl who was no longer there.

He stopped pedaling, looked in every direction. Where’d you g-go?

I didn’t see you at Rodger’s funeral? he mused. Who’s Rodger?

Then it came to him. He gasped. Jim’s funeral. The little girl whose name he did remember. He had replayed that meeting with her hundreds of times that long-ago year, and recalled her pointing at an older man saying he was going to die. Though she hadn’t mentioned him by name, he would bet the farm that his name was Rodger. And this girl was none other than Arabella. And, like back then, she had vanished.

Chapter Two

It was the busiest time of year for camping in Yosemite, this being the first week of June. School was out, family vacations in full bore. You couldn’t ask for a better forecast: sunny and highs in the seventies, lows in the upper fifties. The Barnett’s were a quintet, John and Lauren with their three sons, Jake, Michael, and Chris. Chris was the eldest at fifteen, a soon-to-be sophomore at Piedmont High. He was a good looking boy with aspirations of making the junior varsity football team, had a gym membership at 24 Hour Fitness which he frequented with zealous regularity, and possessed the kind of good looks that invoked giggling in girls his age. Jake was the youngest at eleven, his ambitions split evenly between AYSO soccer and X-Box. He had sprouted three inches this year, and was already taller than his thirteen-year-old brother Michael.

Michael was slow to mature, reached puberty only recently, and possessed no aspirations or ambitions that he was aware of. Like all adolescents, he was still trying to get a grasp on who he’d grow into, searching for his identity. Being that he had no inclinations of playing sports—he had tried playing football with his older brother Chris and loathed everything about it, kicked the soccer ball around with Jake and considered it too strenuous—his hobbies were those enjoyed indoors such as reading comic books, science fiction magazines, and role-playing video games on the computer which he hadn’t a knack for but enjoyed immensely.

What Michael lacked in talent he compensated for in repetition, playing long hours in front of the computer after school. Role-playing games were great for one singular reason: he had an opportunity to be someone he wasn’t, to be the hero in a digital world, assume the looks of a stud and not a boy slow to mature physically. The game he played more and more was DragonQuest, his character a Barbarian Warrior who led the charge in dungeons with a group of player-controlled mages, wizards, rangers, rogues, and clerics, protecting them from falling victim to monsters. He had made acquaintance with several of these warring and healing classes and attained moderate respect from them. Being that his friends were virtual and resided in cities and states far from Sacramento, California, he remained somewhat of a loner in school—this his second year at Piedmont Middle School.

On the third-to-last day of school, Michael’s English teacher had assigned an essay to be turned in on the day before summer vacation kicked off: What do you want to be when you grow up? A typical inquiry, Michael thought, but that didn’t make it less interesting. It was a question that would be easily and hastily answered by many of his classmates, but not so for Michael. He supposed his teacher wanted to read essays of doctor and lawyer hopefuls, future engineers and businessmen, but Mr. Kendrick wouldn’t get that from Michael. His essay was titled Video Game Artist. He wanted to draw the monsters and heroes for video games. He wasn’t great at drawing by computer, nor was he competent at freehand, so he supposed it was a long shot landing that career, but it was the only answer he could come up with to that ageless question.

He did have a friend who wasn’t based in pixelations and spoken to solely via keyboard. Taylor was his name, was the same age and went to the same school. But a year ago he began playing baseball and since then that damned game consumed his free time almost entirely. No more hanging out with Taylor to play Transformers—which wasn’t a bad thing, being that he was now thirteen and too old to play with toys—or shooting shit with pellet guns or sticking M-80s in random things to see how they blew up. Michael still spoke with Taylor when he chanced by him during passing period, or meandering around campus during lunch recess, and occasionally he sat beside him during assemblies, but that was more or less the extent of it. At lunch Taylor sat beside the kids he played baseball with; that was the agent of their unity and it was a sticky one, one that made no exceptions for boys whose hobby was playing online video-games.

In the neighborhood there weren’t many kids his age. They were either a couple grades above or below him, just as his brothers were. The exception was his next-door neighbor and possessor of his heart, Mae Clark. His first and possibly last crush she was. Mae was his age and not nearly as slow in her maturation. She was already growing respectable boobs at thirteen and her hips were starting to become a woman’s. Michael was shaped like a plank, flat ass and flat chest, stringy arms and legs. At least he wasn’t fat, he had that much to be grateful for.

He seldom spoke to Mae. The few glorious