Lucky

By Bill Girvin

In many ways, it was one of the worst winters in California history. The evil, mass murderer and drifter, Tommy Lee Higgins had come to visit Gibson Ranch County Park just outside of Sacramento to steal the lives of the young who had come to play there. To their rescue came the most unlikely of all saviors, a homeless, tiny, seven-pound toy poodle named Lucky, who was hell-bent on revenge and possessed the supernatural ability to battle her mighty foe against all odds and save the life of eleven-year-old Bobby Bailey. It would be a fight to the death for all, born from the endless love of the innocent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642148015

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Lucky

Bill Girvin

Copyright © 2018 Bill Girvin

All rights reserved

First Edition

Page Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64214-800-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64214-801-5 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Sooner or later even the fastest

runners have to stand and fight.

Stephen King

Chapter 1

Evil had arrived to pay an unwelcomed visit to the Sacramento valley toward the end of fall 2016. The soiled pockets of his near floor-length, hooligan-like, black overcoat, provided by the Salvation Army at no charge, were bursting with his offensive trappings of destruction along with a homemade plastic rattle of grisly souvenirs. His undergarments hadn’t been changed in so long, it was as if they had been permanently attached to his unwashed body like an extra layer of thick skin. He absolutely, positively reeked from years of dried sweat and urine stains left behind as a result of excessive drinking spells where he had passed out from enjoying company with his only intimate friend, Jack Daniel’s Honey. He had simply shortened the name to Honey to show his personal affliction for the quickly emptied bottles. It wasn’t long after his arrival that winter’s first storm would announce his heartless and painful presence with a clap of thunder, endless sheets of freezing rain, and a local television news story about the horrific murder of little ten-year-old Carolyn Hanson. Much to the traumatized, broken and outraged hearts of the terrified city, it was to become only the first story in a series of too many. Evil had shown the foulest face it could possibly find to wear that year, and did so repeatedly over the next several months with resolve.

By the time the second week of December came to an end, there were five grisly deaths and still two more missing children. Everyone dreaded the worst and prayed for a Christmas miracle that would never come, hoping beyond rational thought that the two unaccounted for children would be discovered alive. The skies were dark with monstrous-sized, billowing, cumulous clouds reaching heights over thirty thousand feet and the cold, northerly winds they were propelled upon, rapidly thrusted the much heralded, worst storm of the winter season, significantly closer to the city each day. The entire population had only a few more hours to button down and prepare for its direct hit.

The epitome of evil, Tommy Lee Perkins, was once again lurking in the shadows at Gibson Ranch County Park as dusk rapidly pushed the day aside. The children were busy playing outside in the park before the latest storm blew in, as he watched through his lifeless, black-ringed eyes that were buried deep between his pox-marked, unshaven and swollen cheeks. His eyes looked like they belonged to a prize fighter that had lost every round in the canvas ring of pain. He was lingering there in the dimness, yearning for the right opportunity to strike again, knowing the moment was near. No one seemed to notice him, hour after hour, as he gazed out from where he sat, motionless. He had never moved more than an inch or two since early that morning. Even when some unknown species of insect landed on the tip of his fat, dented, and rutted nose, he refused to lift a finger and swat it away. He didn’t want to take the slightest chance of being detected. He was just that cautious.

Tommy was very patient and believed patience to be the highest virtue one could hope to achieve, especially for a person such as himself, with a negligible, and definitely debatable, bloodline to Sioux American Indian heritage. While he had committed many hideous crimes over the years, up to this point, he had escaped all efforts of the men in blue, except for one minor altercation of a bar brawl in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in his younger days, some ten years prior. That event occurred when a semi-topless, barfly’s boyfriend rightfully objected to his constant stares and unsavory comments. Tommy did manage to win the fight that ensued, hands down, much to the displeasure of that fine establishment’s other patrons, who quickly called the police while their friend was being beaten into submission. In the end, it landed Tommy a one-week vacation in the county jail and three squares a day. Upon his release, he quickly disappeared from town before retribution could be had.

Several weeks before Christmas, and less than two miles to a hole under a low-hanging bridge that he called home, Tommy had erected the perfect hiding spot in the woods. Its purpose was similar to a duck hunter building a hunting blind in the water made out of reeds in anticipation that migrating birds would be flying his way. Kids were at play and he was waiting for them, watching. There were plenty of places to hide amongst the trees that crowded Gibson Creek on the east end of the park. The entire area was teeming with impenetrable, lofty weeds, leafy plants and tall, green grasses from the unusually copious rains, as the creek swelled its banks. There were also thousands of tall majestic oak trees, cottonwoods, and a variety of other trees that claimed this area as their home. The essence of evil blended right in, just like the ‘poisonous weed’ he had become ever since he was a boy.

From his clandestine location, Tommy peeked out from between the branches of a 150-foot, fallen heritage oak tree. He was scrutinizing how one of his ‘sheep’, as he liked to refer to the children, was grazing, as he liked to say, when they played. The young boy soared high in the sky on the swing set, fattening up with innocence, just like a farm animal would, hungrily devour an entire field of wild flowers for dinner, but different. Tommy thought it very unfair that anyone should be allowed to have as much fun as the boy was obviously having. He’d never had much fun growing up. No, not once in his life had he had that much fun! As a child, he had been repeatedly denied anything that resembled fun, except for one form of escape where he could get lost in a world all his own, deep inside his blackened soul. It was there that he would create nursery rhymes for his personal enjoyment. Over time, he became very good at creating rhymes without much effort at all. Most were dark and haunting, expressing his feelings of hopelessness and anger. These were not the type of nursery rhymes that good, loving parents would ever recite to their babies. Not at all!

Tommy was embittered beyond mere words about his youth. It made him very jealous, and it always infuriated him seeing happy children, relishing life. He had been cheated of all the good things that life had to offer—like a loving mom, a good education, close friends to confide in and a stable home where he could feel secure or being tucked into a warm bed each night by his mom. There were no sleepovers with buddies or fishing trips with good, ole dad to the local frog-infested pond. There were never any happy birthday parties or family weeklong vacations to Disneyland. The only thing Tommy ever got was a swift kick in the butt.

After all the unscrupulous cruelties he had been through over the years, Tommy wanted to be that child he was watching playing on the swing. He wanted that just about more than anything in the world! That boy had everything he didn’t and was just showing off to let everyone know that too, swinging higher and higher, pushing it to the limits. Time had come once again for Tommy to collect on the biggest, past debt owed, revenge against humanity for everything that was wrong with him. He took out his homemade plastic rattle and began shaking it gently, holding it close to his ear, listening to the rhythm of the beat. Doing so helped calm him and, of course, allow him to think more clearly. It was also his good luck charm. As long as he shook it, it was impossible for anything to go wrong. He listened intently to the clickety-clack noises emitting from inside the rattle. They reminded him of the sounds a rattlesnake makes just before striking its victim. It was almost time. He was ready.

Although it was still early, the winter days were short and night was rapidly approaching, starting to pull its blanket of darkness over all of the West Coast and, in particular, Gibson Ranch County Park. It was time for the little boy that Tommy had been watching to head home for dinner. Tommy was unwaveringly waiting to greet him along the path he would take and was very prepared for that moment when it arose. The previous night he had dug a rather deep, burial hole toward the top of the creek bank where he’d hide the body of the little boy. By the next day, as Tommy was hiding in the bushes, the hole was already a third of the way full from rain water seeping in through the already saturated ground.

After feeding on the boy’s spirit, Tommy would once again be on the run looking for new hunting grounds. What few belongings Tommy had were packed in a thick, black, fifty-gallon plastic garbage bag, waiting for him back under the bridge in the hole that he called home. The most important items he had with him. There was the rope needed to strangle the life out of the boy as he looked deeply into his eyes and breathed his last breath into his own. Also, a dull bladed shovel with a broken handle to cover the boy’s grave with dirt, actually mud since it seemed to have never stopped raining except for that