Amanti's Chest

By Lyndell King

If you see a ghost, keep it away from the people you love the most.

Dr. Panola Hartman has finally done it! With the help of a supercomputer, and thru dangerous experiments on a mysterious chest, he captures a ghost named Amanti, who can use the chest to travel though space and time. Hartman realizes that this chest might be used to save his wife, who is dying from a brain tumor. But when he secretly removes the chest from the lab to save her, his plan backfires, and as a result, his wife dies. After her death, Hartman develops a deep resentment for his powerful employer, The Syndicate.

Because of his experiments, he has lost the whereabouts of Amanti and the chest, but eventually the chest turns up at a yard sale! A young man named Camden Hill buys the chest unaware of what lies within.

The ghostly image of Amanti begins to appear to Camden, who she has found favor in. This comes just in time as he is actually also being hunted by gangsters in connection to a murder. Camden absorbs Amanti's energy and is protected by ghosts who use his body as a portal. The ghosts are his slain enemies and are powerful!

Hartman meanwhile has continued to search for the chest and Camden and his girlfriend Lenora Pleasant must now fight for their lives. In an effort to escape from the Syndicate, Hartman has created a deadly chain reaction by causing a nuclear meltdown! Can Camden protect the woman he loves, and stop Dr. Hartman from setting off unforeseen consequences of tampering with Amanti's Chest?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456732721

Lyndell King

Lyndell King, like most kids of the 1980s, grew up on comic books. At the age of eight, he began writing short stories and music. Lyndell appeared on Prince Among Thieves: a critically acclaimed hip-hop album produced by Prince Paul, released in the early nineties. His fascination with superheroes and fantasy, futuristic worlds resulted in Amanti's Chest, his first novel. Lyndell was born in Brooklyn, New York, raised on Long Island, but now resides in Atlanta, GA.

Book preview

Chapter 1

It was the middle of June in Atlanta, the most corrupt city in America. The sun painted the sky in bright colors like stained cathedral glass. The city lets you see things that you then become a part of, then it hides the danger in things that soon wash you down storm drains full of blood and shit. I was ready to put what happened during the robbery behind me, but two days after the robbery Anthony did not show up at our apartment. Maybe he was caught up with one of his women. He had so many stories that he could write his own book, "The Memoirs of a Scumbag."

I was nervous about his disappearance and couldn’t sit still. I decided to drive east on Sycamore Street on my way to his house. As the neighborhood’s cookie-cutter homes with short black driveways and flat green lawns stretched out before me, my attention was captured by a yard sale. My foot off the accelerator, I scanned the scant collection of items and my eyes fell on a heavily carved wooden trunk about the size of a large rectangular box.

Guided by an unseen hand, I exited my car and stood before the trunk on the spongy front lawn. Among the hewn images at the yard sale, there was a young girl who reached out her undulated hand and lightly traced the contours of the wood in response to my interest. She was a dark portrait of herself, in an advanced state of decomposition sculpted by the hands of death. Her smirk caused an incessant thumping in my soul. I tried to relegate her ghostly presence to the exacts of my unreliable imagination until she made an anxious thrust at the trunk’s surface, and left a tangible gouge as proof of her existence outside my hallucinations. I focused on the scar in the wood and was impacted by its message. She had revealed her name to me, (Amanti) on this wooden trunk, symbolic of how luminary her place in time was. I watched her fingers and felt the sensation of the smoothened and polished wood as if it were my own hand. Just as the she wandered around the trunk she disappeared.

From my side came a woman’s raspy voice, I see you found the highlight of my yard sale.

Did you see her? I asked.

See who, the older-aged white woman replied. She looked gloomy, until my question grabbed her attention! She quickly slipped into salesman mode.

Hello. My name’s Zelda Hawthorne. I can break down this beauty’s brass for you, and a bit about its fine craftsmanship too.

It’s beautiful, I replied, and finally reached my hand out physically to examine the mechanical silver lock that graced the face of the trunk.

Notice the intricacy of the carvings. You can feel attached to its aged beauty, streaked with dark glosses of time and use, she said.

The carvings showed African men, women, and children worshiping a rekindled sun. They were hunting animals, bearing gifts, and gesturing with gratification in images chiseled out of lacquered mahogany. She produced a large silver key seemingly from mid-air with her left hand and dangled it tantalizingly across my now focused field of vision. I noticed that her right hand was wrapped in ripe bandages. The fingers that poked out were blushed scarlet and pink. I immediately caught a vision of this narrow woman standing in a small bathroom; her frizzy auburn hair loose about her face, framing those sharp blue eyes, as she stood hacking at the offending hand with a razor, stripping off layers of the soft unfortunate tissue.

The trunk’s key glistened in the light of the sun. I could make out a deep engraving on its head in a pretzel-like cage flourish. I inserted the key into the trunk’s lock, and the sturdy casters fell into place when they turned. A tribal jostle moved from the aged wood, up my arm, and throughout my body.

Now that’s what-cha call an antique, she said, using a dry southern chuckle.

I opened the lid and leaned in to examine the interior of the trunk which was lined in rich velvet. I reached down into the trunk and held up a faded ‘pin doll’.

My name’s Camden. I’ll take it. You want this Zelda?

Heck no, she replied.

Surprised at her slight startled response and firm no, I replaced the doll and closed the lid. So how much?

She feigned contemplation for a moment then called out a number with forced lightness. I reached into my wallet and extracted the exact amount in bills and handed them over. She did not bother to count money, but tucked the bills about her waist, said a quick, Thank you kindly, then wandered off.

There’s definitely something off about her, I mumbled.

Maybe you can use this wheel buggy, she said, and had begun taking the trunk to my car.

I stood for a moment looking at the purchase and returned to the world around me. Various sounds meandered from across the neighborhood and reminded me of life beyond this patch of earth. I was struck in the eye by the bright rays of the afternoon sun and took in a mealy breath of the heavily pollinated air.

It was also at this time that I saw the young girl again and would register her importance for weeks to come!

Chapter 2

The bright sun streaked across feathery clouds on an Atlanta afternoon. You could hear the ghetto’s growl, as if ‘it’ hasn’t eaten in days. Outside, a drunkard guzzled everything he had then decided to wring out the bottle till his hands were bloodied. Winds blew the smell of a urinated staircase through my nostrils. The rubber band that kept my dreadlocks in a pony tail popped. I pulled up my belt-less jeans, brushed the grisly hairs across my face, and looked more in my late forties than thirty-four. Right now, I didn’t care to shave. I became paranoid after the robbery, Anthony’s disappearance, and the ghost I first encountered at Zelda’s yard sale.

Maybe the ghost I kept seeing had something to do with the robbery, but why would a ghost appear before me? In her image, under the transparent layers of her skin, insects crawled from within the wells of her eyes. Her hair appeared like nappy stitches all along her scalp, just as it had looked when she died.

It wasn’t long before I fell asleep. The girl tamed the residue smell of gun smoke from my dreams with a simple touch, stirring a whiff of death and despair across my mind as I lay asleep. I was seized by her darkness and curious about that moment of death that had come for her.

I followed the fish–bone-shaped girl into a grove and the grey sky above me turned black. With rain coming down, there was a synchronized applause that grew increasingly louder. A few feet away, I heard an almost constant buzzing of a summer fly. It landed on a green chair occupied by a tall man in a lab coat. He sat in the green chair and placed a shotgun under his chin. In just an instant he pulled the trigger. The back of his head exploded and spiders bled out, pouring forth as if from a thermos! The body slumped over and the entire scene left me frightened until it withered away, leaving nothing behind but a damp red stain.

I tried to escape this cold place where wandering souls exist on the fringe of some sort of unexplained phenomena, but the girl was suddenly in front of me, sitting on the burgundy trunk that could hold every item I own. She did not look wasted away, but was once very pretty, the kind of girl that makes boys remember. She held her favorite button-eye cotton doll and looked at me in the way that a jilted lover gazes out of a window. Her hair turned a cohesive brown, then right before my eyes, she burned to the ground like a parched grass hut! The rains were useless in putting out the flames. I can’t seem to take my eyes off that hand-spun doll burning in the groves!

A knock on the door awakened me. I opened the door to find Do-Dirt and my brother Moreland waiting for me outside. I had answered the door with a thirty-eight caliber pistol cocked in my grip.

Do-Dirt jokingly blurted out, Easy killer, looks like you slept under a bridge.

Sweat ran down his colored face, but the heat wave irritated him. He pouted like a duck and tasted loose hair follicles left along his mustache. My brother Moreland was not as burly as Do-Dirt and he had the same dreadlocks and brown-skin as me, but his laugh came out as more of a cackle. All of us grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. They began to tell stories about the women they just met.

Lenora’s so beautiful, Moreland said. He used a dry washcloth to wipe sweat protruding from his forehead. He kept his head tilted, like he balanced a spoon on his nose, and saw birds chase clouds made of silk across blue skies from the apartment’s window.

I met a caramel unicorn today Camden, Do-Dirt said.

The day you fuck Virginia is the day I watch curious George with a bunch of Muslims, Moreland said to Do-Dirt.

Fuck you Moreland. Things are finally starting to look good for us, Do-Dirt replied, ridding his white tee-shirt from loose hair.

He inhaled the blunt again, waited twenty seconds then blew the nebulous smoke out his nostrils. We’re sitting on a kilo of cocaine boys. Now we need to turn a profit.

Now we need to find Anthony, I told him, looking outside the apartment’s window at cars stuck in the same direction below, perhaps on the way to the big concert. I had stumbled upon some tickets to the concert between some of my brother’s things for the night.

Stop being a buzz-kill, Moreland said to me.

You didn’t have to pull the trigger Do-Dirt, I said. We have two rules.

He sarcastically replied, Never rob someone who has nothing more to lose. Never squeeze the trigger unless our lives depend on it.

You killed Carlos with no remorse.

I told him the grass would be painted in blood if he tried to act a hero.

Carlos did listen.

Like shampoo the bullet lathered his brain Camden, Moreland said. There’s no turning back now. Time to move on.

We made the God-awful mistake of breaking rule number two, I said.

You look shook right now, Do-Dirt replied. Going to this concert will help you relax.

How could I relax? That night silence became adhesive inside the car. Every other day at this time Carlos would be coming home from picking up large shipments of cocaine. He did this for four years. He got out his car and walked toward his house as we approached his regular routine. Abruptly, the first of four gunshots echoed, like lightning through a parched sky! My stomach was tied in knots. My throat suddenly became dry. Carlos had clung to his yellow porch, blood squirting the swaying bramble, and pattering his white shirt with dark stains. Rule number two was completely out the window.

I pulled Moreland to the side, When did we become murderers?

After mom’s death when dad found a bottle to beat on instead, remember? The first person we ever stole from was our father. What rotten seeds we were growing right in his own backyard.

We didn’t murder people back then, so what’s your point Moreland?

Then we began robbing high profile drug dealers given to us by their own drug supplier, Anthony.

It was all supposed to be easy.

That’s exactly my point. We always deal with problems, since kids, but we adapt. Nothing’s ever easy Cam. Let’s get to this concert. It’ll ease your mind.

Let’s throw this trunk in the garbage first.

"Why are you throwing it away?

I don’t like it anymore.

Wait until we return from the concert to toss the trunk. It’s not going anywhere.

The change of scenery at the concert would be a welcome and refreshing change without seeing the haunting memories of Carlos twitching from hot shells, or of the girl rising from within the burgundy trunk.

Chapter 3

The rain had stopped. For once Zelda Hawthorne fully awaited the teapot’s whistle. One peaceful night’s sleep was enough to be thankful for, but her tears continued to fall. When her brother West brought the chest to her home she experienced things that frightened her like a startled rabbit. West said the chest and doll was a gift from one of his political friends.

The wooden chest was grand, she remembered saying, running the fingers of her select hand over the intricate details of its well sculpted and lacquered surface. The chest was certainly of African descent and superb craftsmanship. One day she opened it and was delighted to find an old pin doll. It had black buttons for eyes, and though the eyes looked to have fallen off once or twice in the past, they seemed to be always sewn back on by a careful hand. Made of brown fabric, the doll’s nimble joints had been double sewn together. Its hair was made of black yarn that frayed with age giving the doll a wildly turbulent look.

The hard floor had begun to press uncomfortably on her backside. She stood to move to a more comfortable room in the basement. Holding the heavy silver key in her burdened hand, she squatted down to lock the chest. Aiming the key directly at the keyhole, she was shocked to recognize an insidious eye that stared from the keyhole’s interior at her! She took frightful steps backing farther away, walking right into a forgotten collection of light fixtures, which crashed to the ground! She saw a child standing in the corner of the basement; her pitch-black eyes sticking their reel into Zelda’s soul to catch her frequent thoughts. Her phantom image accompanied a cold draft that swooped under a basement door. A sickly, nauseated feeling washed over Zelda. She dashed to the stairs! Locking the door behind her, she never returned to the basement until the child called for her, bellowing to get rid of them.

So on that beautiful June morning movers placed the wretched chest outside and nestled it inconspicuously with other assorted items for sale. Movers carefully placed the green chair her late husband used to sit in on the lawn, along with assorted clothing, shoes and some amateur paintings they had acquired and lost interest in over the years.

Mostly everything placed outside had an emotional tag attached to it, but no one could have guessed at the memory she harbored of the chest. The engravings on its surface were a testament to its wicked journeys. She knew from inside its decomposed bowels a specter lived on, biding her time to blaze an unfinished saga. The murder of Zelda’s husband reinforced that notion.

She walked over to the kitchen table and compared crime scene photos of her husband and a young woman. They were both shot multiple times at point blank range. Then the killer placed a black bandanna over their faces. The first thing she would do in the morning was find out why they were murdered, and was the same killer responsible for their deaths: Jesus Ramirez.

The doorbell rang.

Who could be at my door this time of night? she mumbled.

The woman was having an affair with a politician. The fact that West never attended my husband’s funeral now makes him a suspect. We were never close anyway, she added, tapping her feet into slippers to answer the door. She looked through the peep-hole and opened the door wide.

West, ‘speak of the devil.’ What are you doing here? And you brought a friend.

West Hawthorne entered the home with Holcomb Bridge trailing closely behind. He immediately hugged his sister. He took a long assessment of her physical condition. Her blue eyes looked sunken in and were ringed with the tell-tale black circles of sleepless nights. She was swathed in a pink nightgown. Her curly auburn hair was an uncombed mess. He noticed that his sister’s hand had not healed. He expected she took her husband’s death extremely hard, but her appearance was proof.

You’re still as pretty as a baby at a county fair, he said.

I miss your honest conversation, she sarcastically replied. She took the moment to appraise him. He took after their father’s burly figure, even down to his beige suit and crimson tie. You were always an odd stick brother.

Now why would a well-known journalist take so much time off, he said.

Why would a politician currently running for governor of Georgia still be making late night house calls?

My humble apologies sister. This is my good friend, Mr. Holcomb Bridge.

Holcomb Bridge was a black man in his early forties who stood a bit over six feet tall. His eyes were imperial brown. His head clean shaven. He had