Aquifer

By A J Maurino

The Aquifer, life-sustaining drinking water for more than two million Long Islanders, is vulnerable to an underground toxic plume of unknown potential. Environmental Advocate Lee Marshall suspects that the old County landfill, recently closed, has placed the precious aquifer at risk. The nearby community of Bethview could become a ghost town. Marshall and his investigative paralegal, Calley McAin, have many questions. Time is running out. County Executive Jimmy Pellegrino has the answers, but he has dreams of occupying the governors mansion. Nothing is going to stop him...least of the all, the truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 21, 2002
• ISBN: 9781462841721

A J Maurino

AJ Maurino has been an attorney for more than twenty-five years. He has held appointed office in local government on Long Island in the fields of environmental protection and land use planning. He is presently a planning & environmental consultant to municipalities on Long Island. Aquifer is his first work of fiction and is based on his experiences with the federal Superfund Law, landfills, solid waste, pollution and water supplies.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Clad in regulation black leatherette, they stutter-stepped through a narrow slit in a chain link fence far from the front gate of the County Waste Disposal Complex. Faint shards of sodium vapor light drifted toward them from the parking lot of a deserted factory. It was not enough to lift the protective cloak of night.

Madam Candy Devine gripped a long chrome flashlight directing the dusty white beam onto the sandy narrow pathway before her. The others followed close behind. Four chickens followed their mother hen, close behind, all in single file … reminiscent of a scene from a Disney cartoon. She stepped left, they stepped left; she went right, they went right. Although it was forecast to rain, a silvery waxing moon slipped past smokey clouds and illuminated the landfill’s immense drifts of trash transforming them into shades of gray and grainy white, as the unlikely travelers hurriedly negotiated their way through the unfamiliar terrain before them.

The daytime would have revealed a more colorful array of rubbish heaps and organic waste and paper products—apple cores, cardboard, rusty cans, newspaper, french fries, bald auto tires, old televisions, warped wood furniture—the bespeckled ad infinitum of society’s waste piled like an ancient religious offering high into the sky. But the night enshrouded society’s waste adding mystery to what the women were perusing with some trepidation on their way to work.

The stench ridden trail finally gave way to a hard gravel, wide roadway which the ladies happily recognized as the Haul Road. Around the bend and down a slight slope they would see the trucks silently lined up one behind the other.

Candy reached for her perfume bottle and beckoned to the ladies to prepare for their one act play. The ladies momentarily primped themselves, a flick of the hair, a spray of perfume and a deep slow breadth. They settled down as if the curtain was about to rise. No trucker that night would doubt for a moment that he was a great stud and master of fornication. The ladies could have slept through it all.

Candy and her girls would only be seen by the glow of the orange running lights located on top of the truck cabs—the signal that the man on the inside wanted to do business. Some truckers were simply tired and just wanted to sleep. Candy’s girls never bothered a sleeping trucker; she gave strict orders … she knew they kept guns in their cabs.

As the foursome and their leader approached the line of trucks, Candy remembered the two boys from Tennessee, Travis and Jesse. Candy also recollected from the week before that Travis liked redheads. Charlene would do fine.

Travis Kellum pulled his clay-encrusted truck in front of Jesse Parker’s 18 wheeler and backed up, tightening the distance between the two trucks to less than four feet. If Parker wasn’t snoozing, he would have seen Kellum’s white backup lights through his windshield, a stark contrast against the black satin backdrop that enshrouded the twenty-eight story mountain of landfill waste beyond. Kellum turned off the truck lights and sat in the cab of his rig and waited in the dark. It was cool and misty, 1 a.m.

As Travis Kellum rubbed his blood shot eyes, he mused hopefully about a redhead. Tonight, a redhead with big hooters. That’s all he wanted and to jaw with his buddy trucker, Jesse.

All the County government wanted was a tight line of sixty trucks on the haul road so that at sun-up the truckers could begin methodically to unload the high density clay they had transported from New Hampshire to Long Island. The sooner they left the old landfill, the sooner they would return to New Hampshire to collect the next load of red earth.

Kellum felt his two day old beard with his weary right hand. Then he raised his left arm and sniffed his arm pit. He turned to a small olive-drab canvas duffel bag on the seat next to him and began to fish in the dark for a bottle of cheap cologne. He splashed the woodsy fragrance over half his body.

The trucker knew little about the haul job. He would get paid well, as an independent hauler, to deliver clay to the largest suburban landfill in the state of New York—a landfill which had reach capacity after 25 years and was now closed. The high quality clay would be used to cover huge trash heaps and seal 6 million tons of garbage in the earth forever.

He and Jesse Parker were both up from Tennessee. They were part of a dwindling group of gypsy truckers each of whom owned only one truck and traveled the American countryside looking for haul jobs, each sleeping in his solitary rig at night.

Kellum, like his friend Jesse Parker from Nashville, was proud of his only real possession, a Peterbuilt, diesel, supercharged, heavy duty rig. The rig had gold stars six inches high painted on cream colored doors. A screaming eagle decal was affixed to the factory-built spoiler located on the roof of the cab. Dual chrome-plated vertical exhaust pipes extended to the floor of the cab.

Jesse Parker’s rig, Tennessee Tiger, was much like Travis’s Gold Star. The oversized truck cabs were perfect for the ladies who started working the County facility only a couple of weeks after the Department of Public Works allowed the trucks to park over night with their loads of clay on the deserted haul road in the County Solid Waste Disposal Complex. Long ago it was simply called the County Dump.

The bellow of an air horn cracked the night and exploded into the eardrums of Travis Kellum’s road-weary head. His heart palpitated momentarily and he straightened up in his seat. The smell of cologne, applied too heavily, assaulted his nostrils. He coughed, cleared his throat. Then he laughed and his paunch began to shake over his belt buckle. His buddy, Parker, had just given one hard pull on the air horn … a reminder to Kellum, don’t fall asleep, the ladies are coming. Candy and her girls would soon arrive. But Kellum needed to close his burnt red eyes for a brief snooze.

CHAPTER 2

Travis Kellum had leaned his head against the window on the driver’s side with his right leg stretched sideways across the bench seat of his cab. He opened his eyes looking lazily through the windshield. Then he lurched forward almost hitting his head on the steering wheel. His head pulsed from the rush of blood through his arteries as he struggled to focus on the road not more than 50 feet away. As he blinked he saw eerie glowing, floating white reflective boots dangling on a close line ahead.

Then he realized that the boots were not on a clothes line and they were not empty. They were filled with women who wore dark skirts and dark tops which absorbed light while their white boots reflected the diffused rays of the running lights on top of the truck. He sat up. He happily recognized Candy approaching the truck.

Madam Candice DeVander known to her clientele as Candy Devine was, at the age of 33, the mother hen of four, sometimes five, ladies of the evening ranging between the ages of16 and 25. She operated a brothel in Amity Landing, a lesser maritime village situated by the Great South Bay of Long Island, not twenty minutes from the County Complex. The girls resided with her in the brothel, a rundown Victorian style wood frame structure, once a boardinghouse in the 1930’s.

Candy had heard that the County was scurrying to cap the landfill. The local diner, road-kill rest, as it was affectionately called, was a source of info which she readily tapped every day. The juicy gossip was most abundant in the late morning when the mud-encrusted County equipment operators would pile in for their coffee break. It seemed that everyone in the dumpy diner knew that the County was determined to cap the landfill at breakneck speed, no matter what the cost or the risks.

The crew of equipment operators had been hired to level off the heaps of garbage and rubbish using heavy duty pay-loaders and giant bulldozers; they would lay on pure clay, layer upon layer filling in the remaining spaces, between the garbage drifts until a single mass began to look like a colossal plateau somewhere in Arizona, 280 feet high.

All this, of course, had been printed in the local newspaper but somehow, the gossip at the diner gave it the flavor of insider trading. Candy was functionally illiterate, anyway. But she was street-smart; the madam knew how government worked. Her ladies would be busy for months with visiting lonesome truckers regardless of how in a hurry the County might be.

Hi! good lookin’, smiled Candy, as she looked up at the cab door. Candy forced a smile with her cherry red, applied too thick, lipstick. Her low cut sequins blouse exposed half her cleavage to the boy in the truck. Travis turned on the courtesy lights inside the cab and rolled down the window of his Gold Star rig and smiled back at Candy bashfully. He was 38.

"Well howdy, Candy. It’s a might purdy night out, ain’t it?" Travis was smiling with his lips only slightly parted which he learned to do years ago when he lost several front teeth in a bar brawl in Nashville.

Hey, big guy, I’ve got a little redhead hear for ya. Her name’s Charlene. Candy was the epitome of charm. Kellum became instantly hard.

Candy saw his face redden, she knew what was up. Back in Tennessee he had a wife and three children on a rundown pig farm just outside of Chattanooga. He faithfully wired money back home every week. That was the extent of his faithfulness.

Charlene is just your type, she said with a chuckle. Travis nodded agreeably.

I hope y’all got a friend for my best buddy. He’s right behind, said

Travis, gesturing hopefully with his thumb in the direction of Jesse’s rig. He didn’t want the Madam to accidentally leave Parker out. After the hookers were gone, he and Jesse would talk and drink Tennessee bourbon till dawn, mostly swapping stories about the ladies who serviced them during their travels as truckers.

As Travis opened the door to the cab, the Madam reached with some agility for the chrome safety bar which was bolted to the side panel of the truck. She pulled herself up while taking a step up onto the non-slip metal running board and got close to the trucker. You smell real good.

Travis slapped a crisp $50 bill in her waiting palm. As Candy stepped down, Charlene spit out a wad of bubble gum and hastily materialized before Travis’ blood shot eyes. Her own eyes had been half closed. She brightened, smiled and hopped into the cab. Her natural dark red hair matched her ruddy complexion and contrasted against her green eyes and high cheek bones. Her heavy makeup hid well her sixteen year old face. Candy didn’t need to risk a rap for impairing the morals of a minor in additional to pandering charges. Charlene clearly gave the impression of being three or four years older.

Charlene’s makeup indeed hid her under-aged face. But, her leatherette skirt did not hide well a slightly protruding abdomen. She was late nearly three months and refusing Candy’s pleas that she go to the clinic. The truck door closed, the courtesy lights were turned off.

CHAPTER 3

It began to rain lightly at 4 a.m. It had rained heavily on and off the previous week. In fact much of April, it had rained. Every child on Long Island knew that April showers bring May flowers.

Candy’s girls had worked the truckers on the haul road about two weeks with good success. No crazies or weirdos, so far. Candy Devine was grateful. It had been a good night, too, but she was not comfortable carrying all that cash in her purse and the light misty rain had slowly saturated the ladies. The moon had abandoned them. She was anxious to leave. They could return to make more money tomorrow. And beside reasoned Candy, if she and her girls got into trouble, she could always turn to the newly-elected County Executive James Murphy Pellegrino.

She and Charlene, her youngest and most attractive girl had both serviced the drunken Pellegrino one night at the House a couple of years earlier. The girls watching through a peephole, found the portly, but good-looking, gin-blasted Pellegrino comical as he waggled his soft pale sagging butt across the mattress like a beached whale.

The House, the brothel in Amity Landing, was located on County Line Boulevard, aptly named because the line separating the two counties which comprised Long Island ran right down the middle of the road. Pellegrino, at the time, was a lowly Councilman. He evidently thought he wouldn’t be recognized by any of the hookers since his constituency at the time was 10 miles away in a different locale all together. Actually, he was right. Candy wouldn’t have recognized him. But Pellegrino was accompanied by a well-intentioned friend named Buddy, who himself was a client and who opened his yap. As Candy recalled, Buddy wanted Pellegrino to get special treatment. He got the special treatment alright.

Her attention shifted back to the moment. Time to get our asses outta here. Candy stood facing the four hookers with hands on hips. They wearily began to form a file behind their boss. The girls obediently headed back toward the first truck in the line of vehicles passing by Travis Kellum’s rig. They could hear Jesse and Travis hootin’ and howlin’ in the Gold Star rig while Garth Brooks sang Thunder Road through high density stereo speakers.

Candy Devine wearily led her ladies down the Haul Road and turned left into the murky mountains of garbage. She began to follow the narrow gravel trail back toward the easterly perimeter of the facility where the slit in the chain link fence and her dark green Chevy van were waiting.

Then the path took a turn which seemed unfamiliar to Candy … too hilly, meandering. But the drifts of decayed garbage on each side of her looked the same as before. Like city folk in a forest, she could identify nothing that told her she was proceeding down the right trail … in fact she had taken the wrong turn. Candy looked up. She pointed the beam of light from the flashlight directly in front of her … she was facing a dead end in the path. A crumbling wall of rubbish blocked her passage.

Tina turned to Candy, Oh, shit. We’re not going back to the haul road, are we? Tina sounded more weary than impatient as she flicked back her long natural black straight hair with a snap of her head. She had taken off her Indian headband … her trademark. Few besides Candy knew that Tina, Theresa Brighthorse, was one-third Native American, and belonged to a tribe of Indians which to this day maintained a reservation on Long Island not two hour’s drive from the County Complex. She was the oldest of the girls, 25, and Candy’s second in command.

I got us lost. We’ll have to start over, said Candy impatiently. Risks of the profession, she muttered, but Tina was not listening.

Fuck this, Candy, let’s just cut through these piles of smelly shit. We can’t be more than a couple hundred fuckin’ feet from the van.

Tina was gesturing repeatedly and confidently in the general direction of the easterly perimeter of the facility, the cut in the chain link fence and the green van just beyond, while chewing on a double wad of grape bubble gum, which had been given to her by Charlene who always kept a supply on hand.

Charlene and Pattie, the two youngest of the crew chimed in, practically speaking in the unison. Come on Candy, let’s get outta here. We don’t want to go back to the Haul Road. Candy took no lip from any of her girls, but Charlene and Patti each sixteen years of age, both short and slight of build, acted more like whining, tired children then disgruntled hookers.

All right, everybody, follow me and don’t start bitchin’ if we get more lost. Candy Devine with flashlight in hand, doubled back fifty feet, then headed off in the direction Tina had pointed. The high-powered four D cell flash light was sufficiently bright to bounce indirect light from the ground as well as Candy’s white boots casting a glow along the pathway which the girls followed. All else was velvet black.

Candy led her crew in single file between two lesser hills of waste through a narrow pass where uncovered garbage was more prevalent and odorous, conveying the impression that this portion of the landfill may have been more recently used. Fatigue had over taken them and no one spoke as they followed Candy’s lead. The odor of garbage was unmistakably pervasive throughout this leg of the journey. They should have already reached the fence of the eastern perimeter.

As the mild wind shifted from their backs they noticed a distinctively pungent, vitriolic odor. Tina’s eyes began to tear. Patti began to choke and Kiki, the one with more sensitive stomach, covered her mouth to suppress the urge to upchuck. They each enlivened their pace, taking short rapid steps down the pathway. No one seemed to notice that this trail too, was unfamiliar.

After about thirty steps, the ground which had been softened by days of rainy weather momentarily gave way and Candy lost her balance, falling forward to her knees. She dropped her flashlight, as her open hands hit the soft pathway. The flashlight rolled to her right and submerged into wet trash. The beam of light was gone. Candy tried feebly to feel for the flashlight in a wet slimy ridge of debris but came up empty handed. Now the girls were draped in darkness as the pungent burning odor closed in upon them.

Kiki a/k/a Concitta Maria Rodriquez, began to whimper and started to speak in her native tongue, using Hispanic murmurs to Jesus and the Holy Mother. She noticed that the fine misty rain had turned to drops and was keenly aware of the pitter-patter surrounding them. Patti, moved closer to her. No one made a sound. Then Patti flinched.

There’s something out there, I can hear it, whispered Patti, her pulse quickening. As she swallowed, she felt a grating, burning sensation in her throat and an inflammation in her upper lungs. She tried to breath shallow. The women heard a distinctive rustling sound from one direction. These were not rain drops. They turned to their left; then the same sounds to their backs. They turned their heads. They saw nothing. Instinctively, they began looking in all directions.

Candy, trying to be the leader, mustered a calm voice while holding tissues to her face. Pay attention, move closer to me. I’m going to walk fast. We don’t need the fucking flashlight. We’re getting out of here. She hoped the women didn’t notice her trembling hands. She ignored the knot in her stomach.

Charlene and Patti who brought up the rear guard soon began to fall behind as their Madam led the group. They were supposed to walk in a single file down the narrow pass leading between two large drifts of debris but Patti was scared and hugged Charlene. They walked shoulder to shoulder. Charlene decided not to resist the uncomfortable hug of her friend. Patti, acting suddenly giddy, wobbled slightly as she walked. Charlene felt dizzy, Patti’s hug steadied them both.

Suddenly, Patti stepped in soft terrain on the edge of the path and fell sideways pulling Charlene with her. They screamed in unison as they splashed into a pond hidden in the shadows. The two found themselves dog paddling frantically while neck-high in a cold, watery, milky liquid slime. Floating paper, cardboard and other light weight debris gave the appearance around them of a solid surface—the landfill’s version of quicksand. Their screams disturbed the slumber of a large squadron of gulls parked on top of a nearby heap of rusty 55 gallon drums. The sudden flight of the frightened birds over their heads made the two girls more disoriented as the birds circled frantically, screeching and squealing with their open beaks, their excrement falling like raindrops on the women below. The gulls settled down in different pile of drums about 50 feet away.

At first the two did not notice the tingling, burning sensation that the murky liquid was visiting upon their skin. Then Patti absentmindedly scratched, while Charlene was momentarily blinded, as fiery tears fell from her eyes. The girl whimpered helplessly as the muscles in her arms and shoulders twitched frantically and then went limp. Charlene began to pass out, dipping toward the bottom of the pool of arcane liquid. Patti screamed as she saw her friend drift down into the blackness of the pond.

Tina, a full 5 feet 11 inches in stocking feet, was suddenly standing next to Charlene whose five foot frame was fast submerging beneath the surface. Tina, standing chest high in the intensely burning unknown substance, gripped Charlene’s neck, pulling her up with her right arm, keeping Charlene’s chin clear of the mysterious painful liquid. She began to paddle toward the trail and pushed the limp Charlene towards Candy’s imploring voice. Patti held onto Tina’s long hair from behind as if she held a mane of a horse while riding bareback.

Candy Devine, like a dedicated Army sergeant caring for the troops in battle, no longer thought of her own well being. She knelt on terra firma, shrugging off the noxious odor and reached in the darkness with surprising strength.

Over here, take my hand, she called, grabbing in the shadows for any piece of body. Over here, come on, dammit! she demanded. Kiki kneeled alongside of Candy looking in the darkness for Patti, Charlene and the taller Tina and then jumped into the pond.

Charlene regained consciousness as her youthful adrenaline kicked in. She turned toward Candy’s voice as Tina pushed her in the same direction. Patti and Charlene were now both trudging to shallower waters, knee high, with Kiki along side as they reached Candy’s outstretched hands. In a moment, the girls were liberated from the all encompassing slimy waters.

All four girls and the Madam now found themselves standing on firm ground. Only Candy had been spared direct contact with the murky pool of liquid slime. The wetter girls began to notice the itching, burning terrible sensation on their skin, amidst the stench and pungent odor. There was an odd chilly breeziness to their skin although there was no discernable wind. Overpowering nausea gripped Tina and Kiki as searing pain took their lungs. Tina briefly urinated down her left leg but said nothing to the others who were busily worrying about themselves. Patti found herself trembling while trying not to keep her knees from buckling.

A momentary quiet descended on the group allowing Candy to exhort her squad. Girls, we’ve all been through worse, she said unconvincingly. Think of the hot showers back at the house. The beer’s on me. Tomorrow is a day off. Sighs of relief could be heard among the groans of discomfort and coughing. They did not notice any longer the rustling sounds they had first heard. The gulls remained settled on a mound of broken drums some distance away. An occasional bird lifted off, circling and then returning to the others.

With Candy in the lead, the girls once again headed east along the dark path, only this time, wet, burning, sloppy and more fatigued than ever. Charlene as usual was last. Patti was up ahead, this time near Candy, and preoccupied with her itching skin. Candy longed for sleep and cursed the lightly falling rain. She began to think about Charlene who was three month’s pregnant and refusing each day to see a doctor.

To Candy Devine, Charlene who looked somewhat like she did at sixteen, might have been the daughter she never had. As she thought of Charlene, her favorite, she resigned herself… risks of the profession … she stepped out on to the darkened pathway defiantly.

Charlene felt increasingly dizzier. Her head spun and her vision remained unfocused as she trailed the group down the gravel path. She fell farther behind. Charlene barely saw a bend in the trail where the others were up ahead. She squinted hoping to catch a glimpse of a pair of white boots in the distance. Only Charlene had chosen not to wear boots that evening. She remembered having reached for her black medium heel pumps. A hooker with sensible shoes, said Tina laughing uncontrollably in front of the house, Now, don’t that beat all!

Suddenly, Charlene let out a shriek that sent chills down Kiki’s spine. Kiki was no more than thirty paces in front of Charlene but in the darkness it might as well be two hundred feet. The others dazed and weary turned around.

Charlene, backpedaling, frantically shook her wet soaked black pumps at two gray rats, the size of grown cats. Charlene had seen rats that large down by the canals in Amity Landing where the Madam ran her house. They were commonly called water rats and were not known for their aggressiveness. She sensed that these rats were different. She began to step back rapidly, but the poisonous liquid which had drenched her moments earlier was still having its effects on her muscle joints.

Rats, Rats, I see Rats … . The others knew it was Charlene’s voice. But they were too dazed and frightened to think of her safety. They stood momentarily frozen on the path. The mounds of garbage played reflecting tricks on their ears as Charlene’s shrieks bounced down the path. Kiki called to Charlene, Over here, run to me. As she turned in Charlene’s direction, Kiki caught a glimpse of a shadow moving left to right nearby. It was not Charlene.

Kiki had not forgotten the rat bites on her baby sister, Lita, five years earlier in San Juan. Eventually Lita, who recovered from the immediate wounds, died of tetanus. When Kiki realized how close the shadowy fur was in front of her, she began screaming incoherently in a mix of Spanish and English.

Then the others heard Kiki loud and clear. Rats, Santa Maria, Run! As Kiki came running down the path toward the others, fear crashed upon them with the suddenness of a tidal wave upon unwary beach goers. The women ran, falling stumbling, screaming.

CHAPTER 4

Charlene blinked. The rats were gone. She squinted in all directions straining to perceive shapes in the unfamiliar landscape. She made not a sound. Dizzying, spinning pain overtook her. Charlene took a deep breath which was met with searing pain across her chest and a twitch in her abdomen. She resisted the sensation of passing out. Then the rain stopped. As the clouds momentarily parted, the moon’s light broke through and softly touched the pathway before her. The two large rats had returned and stood silently not ten feet away.

Behind them perhaps a two dozen, smaller than the leaders, stood in the path. Charlene could see several of the smallest ones in the moonlight and the dim reflection of the distant moon in their tiny eyes, their unmistakable pink tails visible in the diffused light. These seemed no larger than field mice. She smiled with a sad sense of resignation.

In a barely audible voice Charlene observed, They’re just babies. At that moment she thought of her own pregnancy and the child who would never be born, by a man she never knew.

One by one, they bit, they nipped, they lunged at the running legs and ankles. The leaders reached higher to Charlene’s calves while the little ones nipped at Charlene’s bleeding chins. At first, they had difficulty keeping up with Charlene. Her legs having momentarily returned to her, she raced down the pathway away from the other women, fighting the restrictive leatherette skirt which confined her thighs. She lifted her skirt and ran back toward the pond where she and Patti first fell in the acrid liquid waste. Charlene frantically high stepped and kicked her way, this time deliberately turning into the mysterious caustic waters to escape the pursuing vermin. The rodent squad did not follow.

Candy found the opening in the fence. The moon had actually favored them for a few seconds, she thought. The moonlight held just long enough for the Madam to get her bearings and spy the fence. The momentary moonlight had settled the breathless women, as well, who focused all of their waning energies upon the fence and the safety beyond. Tina wiped the smeared mascara from her eyes. Kiki shook her head and tried to stave off the heaving sensation in her gut. The pungent odors were gone from the air. The retreat, now orderly, brought the girls to within a few feet of each other by the opening in the fence. One was missing.

Candy held back the fencing as each girl pushed her wet, stench ridden body passed the cut-through. They walked wearily over to the waiting green van. She looked behind her along the dark pathway and in the direction of the garbage piles beyond.

Charlene … ? Honey … ? Her voice echoed briefly. Only silence. She thought for a moment about the possibility of going back down the path in the direction of the once shrieking voice of Charlene, now silent. Exhaustion gripped every joint of her body, Candy Devine would not abandon her girl.

Girls, wait in the van, said Candy in a calm voice. The others remained silent. They were not about to deter her bravery, nor would they assist. She turned and began to step along the path. Candy had not proceeded twenty steps when she saw fleeting shadows and a momentary reflected glimmer of eyes … large yellow irises. She knew she could not go down the path.

Charlene’s