Kylie's Stories

By H. W. Vivian

Growing up in the drug-ridden town of Huntington, WV, during the summer of 2016, sixteen year-old Kylie Grace continues grappling with her father’s heroin-induced suicide from many years earlier while trying to balance her schoolwork, resist peer pressure to experiment with drugs, and escape from a serial killer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9780359046935

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Kylie's Stories

Kylie’s Stories

By H. W. Vivian

Other books by H. W. Vivian

In Hiding

War of Rain

War of Rain : The Goddess

War of Rain : Somewhere Beneath

Chasers

Copyright © 2018 H. W. Vivian

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Published by :

Chasers Publishing LLC

139-50 35th Avenue, Flushing, NY 11354

[phone]

ISBN : (sc)

ISBN : (c)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Frozen Creek Studios are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery Frozen © Creek Studios

Rev. Date : 1/1/2018

Prologue

September, 2008

Huntington, West Virginia

Kylie Grace could see the flashing ambulance lights all the way down the block as she trotted home from the bus stop, her skin gleaming with sweat from the late summer humidity. Neighbors trickled out of their apartments, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was going on. A minivan cruising down the road slowed when it neared the scene—the driver glancing curiously toward the commotion. Misfortune hung heavy in the sweltering air. Kylie could practically taste it.

Clutching tight onto her backpack straps, she broke into a run, sending maple-blonde hair flying behind her shoulders like a kite tail. She swerved around some of the onlookers gathered in front of her building and sped straight inside. A sharp left turn took her through the door to the dimly-lit stairwell, where she climbed hurriedly up to the second floor, her rubber soles slapping against the steps.

Bursting onto the landing, Kylie peered worriedly down the corridor. Voices drifted out from the open door at the very end.

Her apartment.

Panting, she forced herself to walk the last few feet home, ignoring the neighbors’ prying gazes. But when she reached her door, she froze. 

Down the narrow hall, with its dull beige tiles that Kylie’s mother always complained were too hard to clean, she could see two paramedics gathered in the kitchen. Between them lay her dad—splayed out on his back, motionless. She tried to glimpse his face, but all she could see were the bottoms of his tennis shoes, the Nike swooshes eroded from over-use. The floor around him was littered with silver spoons. A large rubber band was wrapped around his upper arm, strangling out the vein.

Kylie’s mother, Lidia, stood only a few feet away from the scene, one hand covering her mouth. She was still in her baby-blue scrubs, her bushy dark hair tied back so tight that the sides of her face were stretched taut. She’d probably only beat Kylie home by a few minutes.

When Lidia finally noticed her daughter in the doorway, she hurried around the paramedics and over to her, the nylon fabric of her scrubs swishing together noisily. Lidia took Kylie tensely by the hand and led her into the adjacent hall.

Kylie, honey, go to your room.

But what hap—

The paramedics need space. Just go to your room for now.

Within the uncomfortably warm confines of her four walls, Kylie pressed her ear against the closed door and listened to the voices outside.

We feel awful to say this, Lidia, but…

He was already far too gone.

"There must have been other substances in his system. Narcan is only targeted toward heroin. Something else seems to have made him this way, and, well… we’re very sorry for your loss."

We know lots of programs that could help you deal with these sorts of things.

We suggest you call up the rest of your family. You shouldn’t try to deal with this alone right now.

And then, silence.

Kylie held her breath. Though she was just eight years old, she knew what those words meant.

Dad is dead.

Her little body went numb. Her backpack slid off her arm and dropped gently onto the floor. She turned to face her window, where the afternoon sun deepened against the other apartment buildings in a thick, unnatural orange, reminding her of the syrupy consistency of Gatorade.

Lidia’s muffled voice returned, and Kylie pressed her ear hurriedly against the door again.

I… Lidia exhaled weakly. … I understand.

Silence again.

There was a sniffle and then a sob. A few minutes later, the sound of a stretcher squeaked into earshot as the paramedics moved her father’s body into the ambulance outside. Kylie watched from her bedroom window as they loaded her father’s corpse into the back, her mother climbing in after him. A rev of the engine and a snap of the shutting doors, then they were gone.

And there was nothing but silence.

Kylie took a deep breath, filling her lungs with hot, stale air, and pulled open the door. Outside the bedroom, her home was just as she expected—empty.

She crept out and made her way slowly toward the kitchen. There, she glanced briefly out of the window at the neighborhood. A few onlookers still lingered across the street, but most had moved on. So quickly her dad had passed out of their lives—of her life.

She turned her attention to the floor, to the spot where her dad had been. In her mind, she could trace the outline of his broad-shouldered figure just like the police do at the scene of a homicide. The rubber band was still there, unknotted and lying threateningly upon the tiles like a sleeping snake.

But it was the spoons that bothered her the most. They were coated in some burnt brown substance and scattered all over the floor—teaspoons, tablespoons, even the child-sized spoons her mother had saved from when she was a baby. So many times they’d been dipped into little bowls of delicious food and emerged to end up in her mouth with the promise of some wonderful new flavor, like mint chocolate chip ice cream or apple cinnamon oatmeal. These innocent spoons bore precious memories for her. But now, they were tainted, and innocent no longer.

Kylie reached down and picked one up gingerly, examining the burnt brown coating. She turned it round and round, looking for answers. But when she looked too closely, the hardened substance made her stomach turn, and she dropped it back down to the floor with a skittering clack. She straightened herself anxiously and turned toward the front door, suddenly desperate to get out of the apartment.

In an instant her world had become unrecognizable. She should be coming home to her dad right now. He should be wrapping her in a big bear hug and asking about her day at school. Her mom should be complaining to him about saving enough money or needing to buy an air conditioner or any one of the other million worries she carried around like accessories.

She never got to say goodbye.

Kylie walked to the front door. Her hand on the knob, she wrenched open the front door and took a step into the hallway, then froze. If she left now, would she be able to come back? Would she be able to walk down this hallway again, knowing that her father would not be there to greet her on the other end? Would she picture his body every time she rounded the corner into the kitchen? The dingy beige tiles under her feet stared back up at her as she hung her head.

No, she couldn’t leave. Her father’s body might be gone, but his presence was still here, at least for the moment. She couldn’t take that for granted.

Kylie crept back to her room. There, she sat at the foot of the bed, next to her fallen backpack. She leaned back against the mattress and pulled her knees close to her chest, her purple t-shirt moist with sweat. As the light outside turned from orange to lavender, Kylie sunk into her thoughts, wondering what was going on at the hospital. She imagined her mother in the morgue, staring at her dad’s body on a cold, icy shelf, the mortician bundling up his clothes before sliding him into storage. Lidia would have to sign a bunch of documents because that’s what grown-ups did—signed and documented everything. As if life wasn’t hard enough without writing it all down.

Kylie checked her clock to see that, suddenly, an hour had passed, then two. Her mother was still not home.

Two pigeons landed on the roof of the apartment building next door. Kylie watched them, unblinking, as they waddled up and down the concrete railing, their feathery breasts puffing. One tried to peck at the other, but the second one shot off into the sky before being chased by its assailant.

The first pigeon got hungry, Kylie thought. It didn’t have anything to eat… except for its friend.

Her belly gurgled. She pulled her knees closer to her chest as if to fill the emptiness in her stomach. She watched the two pigeons round back from above her own building and flap off into the distance. She tried to continue imagining a story for them, but it was futile. When she was hungry, thinking was impossible.

Soon darkness stretched across the neighborhood. Kylie could see figures in the glowing windows moving about slowly and unhurriedly.

I’ll never see Dad again, she thought. Whatever happened to him must have been terrible, like a tragedy. Yeah, Dad died from a tragedy.

But that didn’t make sense because her mother hadn’t been crying. She’d shaken her head when the paramedics consoled her as if to say that, no, this was no loss. People only cried during tragedies. What made Kylie’s dad die must not have been a real tragedy… right?

Eventually the jingling of keys echoed from outside the front door. Kylie rushed down to the entryway in time to see Lidia hanging up her purse, her shoulders slumped heavily. She looked worn and exhausted, her forehead gleaming with sweat and the scrubs she had yet to change out of stained and dirtied. It was in Cabell County Hospital that she had toiled all day to support her family, and it was there that she just laid a member of that very family to rest.

One fewer person to feed.

Ah, dammit, Kylie, she cursed as she turned and saw her daughter. I’m sorry, honey. How long was I gone for?

Kylie searched her mother’s face. Beneath heavy lids she saw that redness ringed her eyes. So she had been crying after all.

As if given permission, Kylie’s own eyes welled up with tears.

Oh, Kylie, I’m so sorry I left you, Lidia soothed, crossing the room and pulling her daughter close. Everything’s just changing so fast.

After a few breaths, Lidia went abruptly quiet. We need to be strong now, honey, she whispered. We’ll get through this. Everything’s gonna be fine.

Figures in black floated to and fro like fish in an aquarium. People spoke in the language of condolences. The candlelight around Cory Grace’s casket flickered from the groaning air conditioning as mourner after mourner passed by, their heads bowed.

Such a tragedy.

Kylie’s so young, too.

Even after Cory promised he was gonna get clean. I knew he’d never change. Poor Lidia.

Well, you know what’s been goin’ on in this town lately. Seems like somebody O.D.s every week these days. They’re callin’ it an epidemic.

"It’s just unfortunate that it happened to them."

Three rows from the front, Kylie sat stoically in her black cotton dress. She stared at the lush green carpet, swinging her feet up and down beneath her seat. Her cheeks itched from the tears that she’d forced out of her bright green eyes. She’d made herself cry all that morning as her mother drove them to the funeral home for her dad’s wake, just to behave appropriately for the occasion.

By the time the eulogies had all been made and the pastor had finished the last prayer, Kylie was ready to move on with her life. Her dad wouldn’t have wanted this anyway. Everything was so orderly—the candles, the flowers, the neatly dressed people. She couldn’t remember a time when her dad was this organized. Life with him had always been chaotic and unpredictable. All these ribbons and frills couldn’t be farther from the truth about Cory. Also, everything the mourners were saying sounded strange to Kylie. They seemed to live in a world of uptight maturity and even shallowness; of innocence long passed, just like those spoons in her kitchen, which Lidia had to throw out and resort to forks until she got her next paycheck to go shopping again. Kylie just couldn’t quite understand grown-ups. Perhaps she never will.

Bored of all the moping, Kylie slipped off her seat and circled the room, trailing the sides of the chairs with her fingers. She wondered how the people at the funeral home kept the cushions so tidy. There was not one stain on them. She began picking at every little detail of the upholstery, determined to find at least one flaw.

And then she saw it—the fourth seat in the last row. The stain at the very center was faded, but large and incredibly noticeable.

This place isn’t so perfect after all, she sniggered. She shuffled over to the seat in question and studied the stain, a faded brown splotch upon the ivy crocheted design. Like with the pigeons, she started devising a story in her mind. A messy teen who’d been dragged to the wake of a family member he hardly knew was quickly falling asleep through the long emotional eulogies. To keep himself awake, he slipped out a Coca-Cola bottle from his backpack, and opened it at a rather careless angle. Out poured the foam and all the sugary brown liquid beneath it, leaving its mark on the meticulously maintained cushion of this otherwise pristine funeral home. No doubt he was embarrassed when everyone stared at him.

One of the mourners, a woman, took notice of the intense look on Kylie’s face as she passed by the little girl staring at a seat cushion in the back row. She bent her knees slightly and placed a hand on Kylie’s shoulder. Oh, everything’s gonna be fine, dear, she reassured. Don’t you worry ‘bout it.

Kylie looked up at the woman—one of her mom’s co-workers from the hospital. Glenda was her name, and she was old enough to be Kylie’s grandmother. Glenda had a plump figure and a bob haircut that was dyed a flashy lipstick-red to go with her feisty personality. Kylie remembered that she’d given her fruity candy canes the previous Christmas because she knew that she hated the generic peppermint ones.

Glenda’s wrinkled lips stretched into a quivering smile. Death is all part o’ life, honey. We’ll all go in our different ways. Sure, not everyone goes the way your dad did, but your mom’s still here, and she loves you. The good Lord, Jesus, loves you, too.

Kylie blinked. Thank you, Ms. Glenda. Then, without another word, she slipped out from beneath the woman’s gentle hand, and trotted off toward the exit, disappearing into the corridor.

Glenda stared, dumbfounded. Rising upright, she trundled around the rows of chairs to her two friends, Shawn and Whitney.

I just talked to Lidia’s girl, Kylie, Glenda began. She didn’t seem quite right.

Well, whaddya expect? Shawn answered. He crossed his arms over his mammoth frame, stretching at the buttons of his shirt. She just lost her dad.

But when I was just talkin’ to her just now, she didn’t look like she felt anything at all. Lidia told me that Kylie saw Cory in the kitchen right after she came back from school. Can you believe that? Poor girl must be traumatized.

Kylie just needs some time, Glenda, Whitney said sympathetically. She perched her thin hand beneath her pointed chin, a habit of her timidity. Where Glenda was loud and ostentatious, Whitney was subdued and slight. She’ll be better in a few months or so. Remember when my brother passed last year? His boy was cryin’ his heart out for weeks, but then one day, he stopped. Acted like he’d never even had a dad. Kids at their age forget easy.

Yeah, but your nephew didn’t see his dad O.D. on the floor, Shawn justified. "I mean, I’ve worked with grown men down at the precinct who’ve been scarred by the sorta stuff Kylie saw. Needles everywhere… Lidia told me there were other things in Cory’s system, too. No innocent kid should have to deal with that. We