The Horseless Horsemen, Book 2: Rita

By Ross C Miller

Wake up in a freshly killed body.
...now deal with the killer.
After being recently murdered, herself, Rita wakes in the body of a woman beaten to death just moments ago.
With no control over timing or placement, when Rita transfers the third time, she understands that she has a job to do. And now she needs the help of The Grey Man. ...a living radioactive corpse, who is finding the monsters ... the real monsters ... and leaving them for the authorities to collect. ...most of them, anyway.
Being able to hear his thoughts, Rita knows that he needs her help just as much as she needs his. But will he let her near him? And will being dead, already, allow her to survive his radiation?

While being a Stand-Alone book, Rita continues the story begun in Jude.
The words most commonly used to describe this Paranormal Suspense series are “Intense!” and “A roller-coaster of emotion!”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Skye Run
• Release date: Feb 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311650801

Book preview

Prologue

Something landed on her chest and scattered across her skin like water. …except … it was solid.

It didn’t hit hard.

She could feel the pieces of whatever it was fall over her sides and slide down her ribs.

She couldn’t feel it entirely yet because all of her senses hadn’t connected completely. …yet.

…and she wouldn’t exactly feel it entirely then, either.

…but she had no doubt about what was happening.

The first thirty seconds were always the strangest.

Kinda like the reverse of when you wake up while dreaming that you’re falling. You feel like you just fell a half a foot or more onto the bed.

It’s kinda like waking up from a dream. …only it’s waking up to nothing from somewhere else.

She knew what the stuff was already.

…what it must be.

It didn’t tickle, sliding across her ribs. It certainly wasn’t amusing. Not after all the times she had gone through this same thing.

She felt the bones in her neck move. …the crunches as they shifted back to where they were supposed to be.

Usually it was a short process. She had no control over it. She couldn’t make it happen, speed it up, stop or delay it. The grinding and popping sent vibrations into her skull. The sound transferred itself into her mind through bone conduction rather than through her eardrums. She felt more than heard the bones settling back into their proper places.

Her hearing hadn’t fully connected yet, either.

It would all sort itself out in another half a minute, or so. Her skeleton was putting itself back together the way it was supposed to be.

She’d waited for the process to finish more times than she could count.

A broken neck was the most common result of whatever had happened before she got there.

Bones ground in her chest. She could feel that, now. Her ribs were knitting themselves back together.

That wasn’t new either.

She was almost completely connected. She could feel most of her body.

It always took a few seconds for the few senses she would regain to realign themselves. The centers for sight and hearing had to get settled in and working together once again.

Her mind was getting adjusted to the new accommodations.

Neural pathways were similar between people, but not exactly the same. Her mind had to figure out where all the new stuff was and what it had to do to make everything work. …apparently. …as far as she was able to tell.

Fortunately, she didn’t have to make it all happen consciously. It was all taken care of for her.

She couldn’t open her eyes yet.

Not that she wasn’t able to. She was very able. It was just that she chose not to, so she could have time to figure out what was going on, and how best to deal with it.

Every time was different. …but every time was also very much the same.

She was transferred here. …brought here. Put here, was a much more accurate description.

She was here for a reason.

A very specific reason.

To deal with the person who was in the process of burying her.

Not burying me, exactly. That’s not what he started out doing, anyway. But that’s what’s happening now that I’m here. He had intended to bury someone else. …the person who used to be in this body. …the person he just killed, not too long ago.

But I’m making assumptions. He might not have been the one that killed this body. He might not even be a he.

Another load of dirt landed on her. Her ears were working now. She could hear the shovel bite into the ground just before another few pounds of dirt fell on her.

She opened her eyes a tiny bit. They were connected fully now.

Her neck had stopped popping. Her fingers and toes had stopped tingling. She could assume now that she had the use of her entire body.

It was a young guy she saw. Lean. Sweating with the effort of hurrying to finish covering her. …covering the body of the woman he had killed, who wasn’t that woman anymore.

That woman had died and left her body vacant. It was an empty shell. Or, it had been an empty shell.

The body was inhabited now.

…by someone the man was not going to want to meet.

He was about to, regardless.

He constantly looked at the blade of the shovel. Empty or full. She could see his face follow it, regardless of where in the process it happened to be. It was as if he were trying to make the small shovel move faster by the sheer force of his mind.

He hadn’t dug the grave very deep.

Two and a half feet, at best, she estimated.

She could see his foot close to the edge of the hole and the corner of a blue tarp across from him.

Careless.

He should have put the tarp on top of her. That would have helped to smother the stench of the rotting body, and might have kept animals from digging it up. Left as it was, discounting her being here in it, the scavengers would have the body out of its grave, scattered, and probably found in less than a month. More than likely, it would have plenty of his DNA in evidence, as well.

…except that this body wasn’t going to be here.

She wasn’t going to be the one that ended up buried in the hole.

He was.

They were definitely in the woods. No authorities would be out here to find him. And she couldn’t exactly tell anyone where she was, so they could find her.

And she couldn’t just leave him out in the open.

He’d be dead, no matter what. …even if she didn’t kill him.

And that left one option.

She had to make sure he didn’t suffer.

She’d even make the hole deeper for him.

He’d have the tarp over him, although it wouldn’t really make the slightest difference if he was found or not.

He’d be buried alive, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

She was a Horseman.

…a Horseless Horseman.

One of the ones sent here without a steed.

Not one of the four sent to punish humanity en masse, but one of just two sent back where they had begun as normal human beings. …sent back with a mission. …a task that had been given to them. One that she had been given the choice to take on, and which she had chosen.

Justice.

Justice for those victims for whom it was too late.

Justice for those who wouldn’t be caught until they had killed or abused far too many. …if even then.

Slowly, she took a handful of the dirt that was starting to pile around her. She opened her eyes fully and tossed the dirt at his head.

The surprise had the exact effect she suspected it would.

The sweating young man jerked around to see her with her eyes open and looking grimly at him.

She caught his ankle and pulled him the rest of the way off balance.

I KILLED YOU! he shouted after he hit the ground and had gotten some of his wind back.

He regained a small amount of his wits, and stared wide-eyed. His voice was full of the unbelieving panic the killers always had when they finally realized the mistake they made.

YOU’RE DEAD!

Not the simple mistake of overstating the obvious.

Not the simple mistake of observations made erroneous by a power infinitely greater than the microscopic bit she might have. …the One who put her here in this place and in this body.

No.

It was the monumental mistake of taking someone’s life unnecessarily. …maliciously.

It was the mistake of being a monster.

…one of the people who killed for pleasure.

…who killed for the soul purpose of being able to see someone suffer.

…to smell their fear as they died.

Those were the monsters.

And those monsters were all too real.

She sprang from the shallow grave like a snake striking at its next meal.

The dirt sprayed off her with the abrupt movement.

She landed over him, her feet to either side of his chest.

She crouched with her knees to the outside of her shoulders, not interfering with the movement of her arms.

She moved her hands over his chest, tugging lightly at that which he would never see her take.

She brought her face near his, seeing his stark terror as she moved closer.

If taste had been one of the senses she had regained, she would have easily been able to smell his fear.

She could tell when he noticed the thing he hadn’t done to her.

She knew he had correctly identified it. It was something almost all of them saw at one point or another, but only a few of them ever recognized it for what it really was. None of them fully understood what it might mean.

He struggled weakly.

Fear drove any rational defense strategy from his mind. …a mind which had been bent well before he killed the woman whose body she now wore.

It wouldn’t have mattered in the least, though, if he’d fought her. Even if he had been more than twice her size, he would’ve had no chance.

She dug her fingers around his pectoral muscles.

She knew it had to be excruciatingly painful because of the nerve ganglions only an inch farther back.

She stepped backward slightly, shifting her weight, and yanked him up.

She knew the pain she was causing helped to provide the incentive for him to move with her.

Before his feet could find any purchase in the scattered dirt, she levered him over and threw him into the hole he had dug for her.

She followed him in his short flight.

She landed hard on him, straddling his chest, driving the air from his lungs.

She was naked. That was the case far more often than not, in her experience.

I’ll have to take his clothes.

She always had to do that when she found herself in circumstances that dictated it. The killers rarely left the clothes anywhere nearby, or in any wearable condition. …even if she could find them. And she couldn’t exactly wander around wearing what she had on now. …which, at this point, didn’t even include a smile.

A runner’s body, she noted quickly. She looked at herself briefly, taking inventory, as the man lay paralyzed in confusion.

Very flat and tight stomach. Small breasts that did little to hide where her ribs met her sternum. Thin, but strong arms. Hard muscled legs.

Maybe a dancer. Or an acrobat.

She was very limber. The joints had a far wider range of motion than normal. The muscles were well trained.

In many ways, this new body was similar to her original one. Only this one was better. She could tell that the training this body had undergone had been far more rigorous, far more all-inclusive, and over a much longer timespan. The body carried extremely little fat, but lots of thin-corded muscle, which was why she had been able to throw him so easily. That … and the years of training she’d had in a number of martial arts disciplines. Those always stayed with her. …just like the bullet hole in her forehead.

She moved her face closer to his as he tried in vain to squirm away.

I’m Rita, she said without emotion and not at all directly addressing his last statement the way he might have expected.

His shattered mind had already fallen over the edge of sanity and into the pit of his panic.

And you’ve been served, she told him. She added softly as his eyes cleared with comprehension for just a moment, Oh, don’t worry. I’m not the last thing you’ll see. Oh, no.

Her eyes widened and her stare grew intense as she moved even closer so all he could see was her eyes, driving her point home more thoroughly than a stake through his heart.

That’ll be far worse than me. She nodded her head slowly and whispered, Far worse.

His body relaxed as she took hold of something above his face.

His body wouldn’t move again. …not by his choice.

*****

Part One

When the Lamb opened the second seal,

I heard the second living creature say,

Come!

-- Revelation 6:3

Chapter I

Ego te baptizo in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, the priest chanted.

He drizzled a little bit of the water over the baby’s forehead from a shallow pewter bowl in the shape of a clamshell.

Lucy and her new husband, Jack, both held the little girl face up with her head slightly downward, so the water would run back into the font off the top of her head, just as the priest had suggested.

The little girl, who had been fine up to that point, began to cry.

This was normal, in the priest’s experience. They didn’t cry from the water, or its temperature, or all of the strangers, or even the baptismal process itself. It was just the matter of being held at that awkward angle without having the security of hearing the heartbeat of either the mother or father.

Even still, the priest always suggested the parents do it exactly that way. At least in that position, the child had extremely little chance of inhaling any water, or having the child choke because the parents jumped when the water flowed in a different direction than what they were expecting. And the water always seemed to flow in an unexpected direction.

The priest had the choking thing happen once.

Early on in the priest’s career, he had performed the Baptism Sacrament for a young couple. When the water ran into baby’s eyes, the mother tipped the baby up so the water could run down off the little boy’s face. The father had a better grip on his son, and thought the baby had somehow started to fall, so he tilted him back down. The mother jumped and bumped the water bowl with the boy’s forehead, dumping the entire quarter cup of water onto the little boy’s face. With the changes of angle, the water ran down, then back up into the boy’s face. …and straight up his nose. The boy choked on the water. He coughed for almost fifteen minutes. The father held him upside down to help the water drain out of the baby’s lungs, which really only helped to cause more distress and unhappiness all the way around. The boy survived the sacrament and the incident without further drama once everything had calmed down.

The parents were a different story, however.

The priest kept track of the couple and the boy. The couple had gotten divorced shortly after the boy died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It wasn’t named that back then. They just called it Crib Death. It seemed that a fancier name made it sound like they knew more about it. They didn’t. But the medical profession liked to have it sound like they did.

The baby’s death occurred only a few months after the baptism. The subsequent autopsy hadn’t found even a remote link between the death and the incident at the baptism. The little boy’s father had tried to maintain that connection between those two events during all the long court proceedings. He’d tried to sue the Catholic Church from the local level all the way up to the Vatican.

The priest knew that the connection in that death, so long ago, was in fact … God.

Not that God had killed the baby.

The priest understood that God did some very strange things sometimes. But those things were only strange to the limited understanding of human reasoning. Certainly not to God. The priest knew that while we might not be able to figure out or understand God’s plan, it is still God’s plan. The successful completion of that plan in no way depended upon our understanding. …or even our cooperation with it. On the other hand, Jonah couldn’t run from it, and Nebuchadnezzar couldn’t ignore it, but both were required to participate in it.

Since the incident of that boy, though, the priest had all of the parents hold their babies in the head-slightly-down position, and he warned them beforehand not to move the baby as he poured the water. He told them to expect the baby would cry, and not to be embarrassed or concerned if it did. That part of the ceremony would be relatively short. The reaction of the baby did not in any way reflect on the parents or the validity of the ceremony. He would let them know when they could pick the baby up.

Infants expressing their mild to moderate unhappiness at being held in that position was very common. But there had been no similar incidents of near drowning since.

The priest decided that he was more than satisfied with those statistics.

When Rita’s Baptism was finished a few minutes later, her father turned abruptly and walked away, leaving his wife to take care of the little girl. Lucy pulled Rita upright, tucking the baby’s face against her throat. She bounced her gently, cooing at the little girl.

Lucy’s parents moved in to add their efforts to calm Rita, who was normally a happy baby, Lucy told him. …unless Jack was holding her. Apparently, there was something about Jack that Rita just didn’t care for.

Lucy’s mom suggested once that it might be Jack.

Lucy wasn’t amused.

Jack, even less so.

Rita took her time allowing herself to be consoled, but she eventually calmed to a point where she fell asleep.

Jack joined his group of more than a half dozen friends waiting off to the side. They immediately took up a slightly more animated conversation than they probably should have, discussing how their high school varsity football team was going to kick the rival team’s ass. …and including other phrases of an anatomically specific nature. Their word usage was such as you might expect from teenagers far too big for their britches, but never inside a House of God.

The entire group was on the team. The boys discussed how they might go about accomplishing the stated goal, up to and including the possibility of the opposing quarterback being injured. …accidentally, of course, as just sometimes happens in contact sports. The game was after school tomorrow.

Hearing the conversation, the term offensive defense began to take on an entirely new meaning.

The priest quickly walked over to Jack’s group after he had a short conversation with Lucy about the little girl’s religious future. Her family had attended his church off and on for years. …more off than on. The priest wanted to get some sort of commitment to see Lucy and her little girl at church just a little more often than he was currently seeing them all.

Gentlemen, the priest began.

He was immediately interrupted by a sarcastic snort from one of Jack’s friends.

One of the boys punched one of the others on the shoulder. That lets you out, dick-wad!

Eat me, asshole! came the response.

The priest continued nonplussed, putting his fingertips on the insides of the arms of Jack and one of the nearest friends, urging them gently to move toward the foyer doors.

Could we take this conversation outside, please?

Sure, Father, one of the boys agreed slightly too loudly. He gave Jack a shove, after which Jack rounded on his friend and soundly punched the other boy in the center of his chest.

Kiss my dick, douche bag! Jack nearly yelled at his friend as he laughed.

Some of the group hurried toward the door.

Jack took his time.

Lucy’s mother lightly rubbed Lucy’s back, while Lucy’s father scratched lightly on Rita’s.

The world was exactly as it was supposed to be for Rita, though.

She snuggled a little deeper under Lucy’s chin, quite contented now that she was receiving all of the attention that she should have been getting to begin with. Occasionally, the muscles in Rita’s back would tighten, and she would push her belly into to her mom’s chest when her grampa hit a really good spot.

*****

Lucy and Jack were married shortly after they found out that Lucy was pregnant. Lucy’s parents felt sixteen was far too young to be married, even though single mothers were rare in that part of the country. Single mothers that young were even rarer. But they felt strongly that Lucy would be far better off staying single. Even moreso, under the consideration that it was Jack who was the father.

Jack … didn’t exactly follow the way things ought to be either, but he had the baby to think about.

Actually, Lucy had the baby to think about. Jack had football.

It wouldn’t look right if I had a little bastard kid running around on the loose. Something like that could interfere with my future! he’d said.

There were appearances to be kept up if he wanted to be accepted onto a professional team. Joe Namath was doing weird things like wearing women’s fur coats, but Broadway Joe was already playing for the Jets when he started doing shit like that.

I’m gonna need a nickname like that. Boston Jack! …no. Jack Freedom! …maybe. Mass Attack Jack! Yah! I like that!

So, Jack and Lucy got married. The couple moved in with Lucy’s parents after the wedding. Or, rather, Jack moved in with Lucy and her parents, which caused more than just a little discontent all the way around.

Their house wasn’t very large, but Lucy’s parents welcomed Jack in. Jack’s ego, however, was big enough to require the room equivalent of four people all by itself. And he tended to take a great many things for granted.

Jack’s parents were farmers, and he wanted absolutely nothing to do with farming. …or his parents. They felt he should stay and have a productive life he could feel some real satisfaction with, instead of getting his fool head stove in playing a rough sport like football. Their opinion led Jack to consider just about everyone older than twenty to be mentally defective. …particularly his parents.

Why else would they be so stupid as to want me to live on a farm forever and work my ass off for nuthin’, when I can play professional football and be filthy stinkin’ rich in only five years?

He’d be able to retire and buy his parents farm for pennies on the dollar after figuring out how to put them out of business. Then he’d kick ‘em out so they’d have to go and get real jobs. And then he’d bulldoze the entire thousand acres.

He had it all worked out.

He figured he could get the team he ended up on to hire them to carry water, or clean the locker room. After all, they were used to breaking their backs. There was a huge world out there and Jack believed only morons would choose not to take advantage of it and ride it for every penny it was worth.

With him on it, whatever team he was with would be in first place and they’d make a huge amount of money. If his parents played their cards right, they could parlay their being related to him into better jobs.

His biggest ambition, even bigger than getting to be old enough to legally buy beer without having to drive two towns over to do it, was to play for the New England Patriots. He felt they would be a significantly improved team with a fullback of his own understated and far too under-recognized talent. He spent much of his daytime between school and training and exercising. …maybe just a little less on school than training. …but who really needed that?

His nights were normally spent with his friends down at the local hang out, instead of getting a job to help support his child. He left that to Lucy and her parents.

Lucy’s parents refrained from voicing their opinions about the matter in public. …for the most part. It would be great, if he got to play professional football. But they weren’t enthusiastic about the chances of their daughter’s marriage surviving whether Jack went Pro or not. He’d said he would marry her from the very beginning. But her parents had the feeling it hadn’t really been for either Lucy’s or the baby’s benefit. In the more than six months since they were married, he’d spent far less time taking care of his new responsibilities and more time running around with his friends than was at all appropriate.

And he drank far too much beer for a seventeen year old.

Of course, Jack felt differently.

Even while she was pregnant, Lucy was optimistic. She defended Jack. …sometimes loudly enough that she spent the next half hour dealing with the agitated baby inside of her. At those times, it felt very much like the baby wanted to get out straight through her intestines. Or maybe the baby had simply decided that her insides needed a little rearranging to dampen the internal acoustics.

Lucy always dealt with it alone, whether Jack was home or not.

…usually not.

*****

The weather was perfect for an outdoor gathering. The back yard was small, but Lucy’s family included only her parents and Rita. Jack’s parents were there, as far as his immediate family was concerned. His brothers and sisters stayed home to do chores. They didn’t think much of his decision to get married any more than anyone else did. They all liked Lucy well enough. It was more just that it was Jack. At least his parents felt it was their duty to their new granddaughter to attend.

Jack’s friends from the football team were there for the free food.

Lucy’s small circle of friends were there to help with everything. They had stayed with Lucy throughout her entire pregnancy, helping with her missed classes and making sure she never got behind with her homework.

Early in her pregnancy, Lucy spent a large number of days at home with severe morning sickness. On those days she would usually be found on the floor in the bathroom, leaning against the wall by the toilet. The only other place she might be was in bed with the covers pulled up so high she couldn’t be seen except as a large lump in the blankets. There was one month that the girls were very busy with her. They found, though, that keeping her current on her schoolwork had started improving their own grades, as well, so they were far more than happy to help.

A folding table was set up next to the picnic table, which held an array of drinks and dishes, including old favorites like lasagna, fried chicken, southern barbeque, macaroni and cheese, potato and egg salads, baked beans, and coleslaw. The football team stayed very close to the tables, occasionally wiping their hands on the tablecloth.

The girls sat in a group under the canopy tent not far away.

Rita was still in her baptism outfit, in a pendulum cradle that had been handmade by Lucy’s dad. The breeze was just strong enough to keep everyone from getting overheated while standing in the sun, but not enough to blow the tin foil covers off the food. Not that those covers were actually allowed to stay on the food for long, given the football team.

Lucy sat next to Rita, waving mosquitoes away from the baby. She happened to look up as a bee zoomed in, underneath the canopy. It was large enough to notice, although it wasn’t particularly big. She watched the bee as it hovered for a few seconds, changed its location to the side by a few feet, and hovered again.

The first bee was joined by a second, then very shortly by a third. They hovered almost in formation, within inches of each other. Lucy put her paper plate down onto the ground and was about to stand up to take Rita into the house, when all three of the bees zipped straight into the cradle.

One of the girls gasped.

Lucy hadn’t been the only one watching them.

More bees came straight in and landed on Rita.

Lucy’s dad came over quickly after seeing the looks of concern and discovering the cause.

Don’t swat at them! You’ll make them angry and she’ll get stung!

The increasing number of bees crawled on Rita’s dress, blankets, face, neck, and arms.

There were dozens on the baby now, crawling all over inside the cradle.

Rita giggled as they crawled on her skin. She sounded like they were tickling her.

The girls backed away, not wanting to get stung themselves, or accidentally do something that might anger the bees.

Lucy and her dad stood watching impotently, wanting to do something, but afraid anything they might do would be the wrong thing.

There were so many bees in the cradle now. And they were still coming.

Somebody needs to call Doc Pilman, Lucy’s dad suggested softly. If they start stinging her, she’s going to need him real quick. I’m sure he’d rather be here and not needed, than get here too late.

One of the girls volunteered and ran toward the house.

Tell him we’ll feed him for his trouble! Lucy’s father called after her, before she could get inside.

Dozens more bees landed on Rita while she continued to giggle.

One or two had even crawled in and out of her mouth.

Lucy lurched forward, afraid to leave Rita in the cradle but too terrified to try to take her out.

Her hands shook with the stress of being unable to do anything.

Rita stuck out her tongue, making gurgling sounds.

Spit bubbles formed on her lips.

Bees crawled off her tongue and back onto her face, popping the bubbles as they went through them.

Bees continued to come in the entire time, as if they had found a wild wisteria grove.

All of them landed inside the cradle.

They were so thick you almost couldn’t see there was a baby under the pile.

There must be hundreds in there! Thousands!!

Lucy remembered reading articles about people who had been swarmed by thousands of bees and dying of suffocation, without ever getting stung.

Her mind raced, trying to think of something that she could do other than just standing there.

She could still see Rita’s nose and eyes.

Rita’s giggles still sounded distinctly from under the pile.

Doc’s on his way! the girl called, as she came from the house. He said to leave her there and don’t try to do anything about the bees. He’ll be here in five minutes.

She could be dead in five minutes! Lucy fretted, nearly in tears.

None of the bees had bitten or stung Rita yet, so there was still hope they wouldn’t.

But they had to remain undisturbed.

By this time, even the football team couldn’t continue to be blissfully ignorant. …but they gave it their best shot.

Jack and his monumental ego made their way over to the canopy. He started to reach into the cradle.

If they haven’t stung her by now, then they’re obviously not bees that sting. Why don’t you assholes just take her out!

Don’t! Jack! Lucy yelled.

His hands got no closer than just inside the cradle basket when a dozen bees flew from the baby and landed on him.

They must have stung him because he started screaming and whipping his hands frantically.

A few flew from his hands to his face, as his screaming rose in pitch.

Amid all of the overly dramatic hysterics, Jack started slapping at his face.

He ran into the house, followed by the team, who stopped on the way to refill their plates.

The girls replaced all of the tinfoil over the food after the team left. …yet, again.

Lucy watched the bees in the cradle with renewed horror. Since they had stung Jack, they were in fact quite capable. Even if they didn’t sting, they could still bite, and bee bites hurt just as bad.

Rita was still giggling in the middle of it all.

Even though they stung Jack, they still hadn’t done anything but tickle her. In fact, their reaction to him was more like they didn’t want him to touch her. …like they were protecting the baby.

After a few more minutes, some of the bees flew off the pile and hovered over the cradle. At first, just a few at a time left, then large groups. Once out from under the canopy, they all flew at the same steep angle toward the top of a nearby pine tree. By the time the doctor arrived, most of them were gone, except for a very small handful. Those lay dead in the cradle.

Jack was in the house still swearing up a blue streak, loudly enough everyone outside could hear him clearly.

His parents looked more embarrassed than sympathetic to their son’s pain.

He should have known better than to reach into the cradle. If the tractor hitch pin breaks, you don’t replace it with your finger.

The doctor brought a half dozen vials of medicines just for stings, and he was prepared for any possible allergic reactions. He had a number of jars full of salves, and he gave Jack several large bandages to cover some of the clusters. It took a while for the doc to remove all of the stingers that were embedded in Jack’s hands and face. It looked like some of the bees had both stung and bitten him.

Adding insult to injury.

The doc wrapped Jack’s hands with a lot of cotton gauze after covering them with yellow stuff. His hands had received the most and worst of the stings.

They’re probably going to be swollen for a few days, the doctor told him.

Although there was swelling, it appeared to be only a normal reaction. The boy didn’t seem to be allergic.

Your face will probably be okay tomorrow, except for a few scabs. Leave those alone and you won’t get scars.

The doc didn’t believe that there had ever been a teenager in the history teenagers that had ever paid the slightest bit of attention to that particular little bit of advice, but he gave it anyway.

Jack nodded. Can I play tomorrow? His lip was already fully swollen, making his Ps and Ms sound funny. It’s a real important game.

I wouldn’t recommend it, the doctor said, putting his gear away. You’re going to want to take a couple aspirin every four hours for as long as those stings keep hurting. The ones that have your eye swelled shut will probably hurt for a good while. Same for your lip. They might feel better tomorrow, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.

Shit. Jack wasn’t happy.

*****

Jack didn’t go to school on Monday. Regardless of how good he said he felt, that meant that he also couldn’t play, according to the school regulations. If he felt that good, then he probably should have shown up for his classes. He stayed in bed for the rest of the evening after he got home, calling for Lucy to wait on him all evening long.

"I wonder if she’s had to go pee for