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Horror Science Fiction Web Serial

Hell Town RV Park, Episode 23. A Web Serial

Hell Town RV Park

For Those Who Believe in Other Worlds

(a Web Serial)

by Clara Bush

Artwork by Lara Clayton

(To start at the beginning with Episode 1, click here)

(Rated Mature for Adult content)

Chapter 2: On Gate World

(Last Time on Hell Town: The untouchables gathered around Piper, each taking turns to touch the freshly cut area. Even Lynx came out of hiding to see. They looked from one to the other.

Gaze said, “But you’re human.”

“Well, aren’t you?” Piper snipped.

They stepped back, shaking their heads. Piper chuckled to herself. The untouchables could be touched. And rattled. And even shocked. She had them right where she wanted them.)


Stranger Earths: One Thought


Artwork of Ransome by Lara Clayton.

Spooky and Aron, with Ransome’s help, found their way back to the motorhome. The dawn pursued heavy, onyx clouds and attempted to break through their unnatural blackness but merely left a trail of yellows and oranges buried in the underside of the murk. 

Spooky’s head and eyes ached from the strain of searching the landscape for  home. Had it not been early morning, she’d consider a shot or two of Jameson to deaden the throbbing. Must be evening somewhere. Maybe Australia.

“You gonna be okay, Sis?” Aron asked.

“I don’t know. Don’t know how we are going to work this all out. What do I tell Brodie and Dovie? How do we find the girl? What if she—”

“Whoa, Sis, you’re getting yourself all worked up. Let’s take it one problem at a time. First. Don’t you think it’s about time I met your husband and daughter?”

“Shit. Yeah. Probably.”

“That way if we have to leave to find the girl, we can make up some excuse about going to see my farm. They don’t need to know it’s a weed farm. We’ll say…” He paused to think. “I raise potatoes. Everyone in Colorado grows potatoes.”

“Or weed.” Spooky freed a nervous giggle. “Okay, tonight. Come about six thirty. I’ll get Brodie to grill some steaks. Have you located the girl?”

“I’m getting images, but they keep changing and seem to be future images. Sometimes she is with us. Sometimes she is with a group of teenagers. Which indicates she could go either way. These teens she is with have a dark, almost black, aura about them. Hers is indigo, meaning she is a seeker in life, and perhaps, has a third eye.”

“Third eye…?” Spooky asked.

“Like us, she sees what others do not. She functions at a higher consciousness than most people and is able to tap into inner realms. This may be why The Shimmer connected to her.”

Chetan by Lara Clayton

Spooky leaned against the RV and rubbed her eyes. “They didn’t even give us the girl’s name. If they had, I could’ve done some tracking on my computer. I’ll have to forget technology until I get a name.”

A soul-replenishing breeze caressed her face. “We are here,” Chetan whispered.

Singer by Lara Clayton

“Don’t forget about us,” Singer hummed

“I can search for her, and find a name,” Shayd said.

“You mean you—the almighty Avenir Shayd—are going to find her? After all these years of allowing me to think you were a ghost, I’m not sure I want your help. I’m not sure I trust you like I once did.” She immediately felt his hurt. She couldn’t stay mad at him for long. He meant too much to her.“You’re going to locate her? How?”

“I have ways. I managed to get you and your brother together, didn’t I? The Avenir sent me to help you years ago. They didn’t just abandon me on Gate World. Everything has led up to this. A search for one girl. As Aron said, she could go either way. And it’s up to us to convince her we’re the good guys.”

Shayd by Lara Clayton

“Good guys. Huh. Never in my life have I considered myself a good guy. Or been considered a good guy by others.” Spooky noticed Aron had his head cocked to one side, and he was grinning. “What? So I talk to myself.”

“No you don’t. Since the first time I found you, my senses picked up on the entities who have attached themselves to you. In the past, I could see you talking to them, but couldn’t hear what you were saying. This close to you, I’m able to hear both sides of the conversation. It’s funny but a little eerie as well.”

“I’m more than happy to share my haunts with you. It will be a relief after all these years. Which one do you want? Chetan? Singer? Shayd?”

“Not funny,” Chetan whispered.

“How could you? After all we’ve been to you,” Singer hummed.

Shayd laughed so hard it almost drowned out the others. “As if.”

“Just kidding. Don’t get all bent out of shape, guys,” Spooky said.

“Okay. Tonight then. See you around six thirty. Can I bring anything?”

Spooky wrapped her arms around her brother, and, for the first time, hugged him. “Your Republican ears. Brodie and Dovie are so far from liberal, I’m sure their beliefs are written in scripture somewhere. God knows, ’cause I sure don’t.”

Spooky stepped into her motorhome and inhaled the special aroma of freshly brewed Kona coffee. Brodie was sitting at the booth with a cup. “Where you been so early?” He grumbled.

“For a walk. Lots to think about.”

“Who were you talking to outside?”

She sat across from him. “Are you going to meet up with your buddies at the coffee shop? If you’re not, and you have some time, I’ll explain.”

Brodie poured himself another cup. Added creamer and two healthy scoops of sugar. “I’m listening.”

“That much sugar will kill yah, you know.”

“Okay, not listening anymore.” He headed to the door.

“Wait.” She glared at him. “I care. That’s the reason I said anything about the sugar. Please. Sit down. I have something important to tell you.”

He returned to the dent in the cushion on his side of the booth. Spooky started a kettle of water for her Earl Grey and popped in a crumpet.

“You look like crap,” he said.

“I didn’t sleep much last night. I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you.” She looked to see if he was listening. He was in the habit of not.

“What? Did you find another ghost?”

“No. But I did find a brother I never knew I had. A twin brother in fact.”

Brodie huffed. Sipped his coffee and allowed silence to breed. Not the reaction, Spooky had anticipated. He stood as if to go and said, “I knew.”

“You knew? How in the hell?” She braced herself in from of him. “How long?”

He looked at his feet encased in new Chaco sandals. “About a year after we were married. After all the weird shit started happening. You know, in my line of work, I have access to all types of records.”

“And you never told me?”

“I thought it best for our family you two never meet. He’s a criminal with a rap sheet. Not the kinda person I want my wife involved with even if he is your brother.”

“You asshole. That wasn’t for you to decide. Was he ever convicted? Has he ever been in jail?”

“No. And no. But that doesn’t erase the fact he was a hitman for some drug lord.”

“Well he’s in our lives now, so get ready. I’ve invited him for dinner, and I’m asking Dovie.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“He’s turned his life around. He’s no longer a criminal.”

Brodie choked on his sip of coffee. “No criminal? Huh. Just a pot grower.”

“It’s legal in Colorado.” She let that sink in a minute. But she could tell by the look on Brodie’s face, he didn’t care if it was legal or not. “So you’ve been keeping tabs on him? I know. For the safety of our little family. Damn it, Brodie. He’s like me. With weird gifts. Only he has visions instead of ghosts. I could’ve benefited from having someone like me in my life. And maybe, if I’d been in his, I could’ve steered him away from a life of crime.”

Brodie huffed. “No, instead he’d been just another weirdo like you our daughter would’ve had to tolerate.”

“I could have seen he went to college. Or to a trade school. And had a career you wouldn’t have opposed. Maybe he could’ve become a detective. Seems like your organization could use all the help it can get. With his visions, he may have been a real asset.”

“We’ll never know will we?”

“I’ve invited him for dinner. Six thirty. I’m setting out some steaks. You’re in charge of grilling them and making small talk.”

“Shit, Spooky. Don’t do this. Call it off,” he said with one foot already out the door.

She threw the frozen steaks they’d been saving for a special occasions on the fake granite countertop. They made a loud thud. “Done. And done,” she shouted as the door slammed shut.

Spooky paced from the cab of their Super C to the rear bath. Back and forth. Back and forth. She sat on the edge of their king size bed. Bit into her bottom lip and then made one more lap before slathering butter on her now cold crumpet. She took a bite and didn’t register the taste. She simply bit and chewed.

Her tea steeped. She needed to call Dovie but her daughter would be at school. Text. A text would work. Hey, sweet girl. She typed. Can you come for dinner tonight about 6:15? I have someone I want you to meet.

She pulled the bags from her teapot and took a second bite of her crumpet. Cold but tasty, registered this time. Her iPhone chirped like a cricket.

Dovie: Who??

Spooky: I need to explain first before I say who. Please come. She would have sworn she heard the familiar huff—just like her dad’s—blast through the phone.

Dovie: Ok. Wished I knew why all the mystery. Gotta go. Teachers’ meeting.

Spooky sent a kissy face and heart, and waited for a reply. None came. She pulled out her laptop and strummed the keys. She needed to write down everything beginning with being absorbed by the Rooi and transported to the Avenir World. All the way through last night. Her army. Other worlds. All of it. She needed to write it all down. In case.

In case something happened to her, and she wasn’t around to explain to Dovie and Brodie. At least they’d find her laptop with the Hell Town RV file on it. There would be an accounting of all that had happened. She began to type as if a madness had possessed her fingers.

Once Shayd interrupted her saying, “Love, quit. Go lie down. You’re tired from last night. You need to rest before facing what you must at dinner tonight.”

“What I must do is get it all written down. Just like it happened. Then I’ll nap.”

At two that afternoon, Spooky shut her laptop and sprawled out on the unmade bed. She’d have to make it before dinner. And shower. Start the salad and…

At five she heard Brodie pull up. Oh shit. How long? She straightened the quilt, threw off her clothes, and slipped into the shower.

“Is your brother still coming,” he yelled into the bathroom.

“Yes. Dovie too.”

She heard him curse and the door slam. She hoped Brodie was preparing the grill to cook the steaks.

Twenty after six, Spooky sprinkled almond slivers on a bed of Romaine greens and informed Dovie about her newly discovered uncle. “A twin brother. Oh, Mom. I’m sorry you are only now finding out about him. What a shock. It’s a shock to me to have an uncle I’ve never met. I can’t even imagine how surreal it must be for you.”

Spooky debated whether or not to tell Dovie her father had known for years. Dovie admired him, and if things didn’t go as planned with the Time people and the Vrags, he might end up being all she had in the way of a parent. “Yes, quite a shock for sure. But I like him. He has a past. But now he’s reformed and owns a very successful farm in Colorado.” She hoped her daughter didn’t ask what kind of farm.

At seven thirty, after introductions and a toast with glasses of cabernet sauvignon—she didn’t dare indulge in some Jameson in front of Brodie and Dovie—the four sat across from each other in the RV’s too small dining booth. Spooky had never experienced how damn crowded it was until then. She tugged at the neck of her t-shirt as if it were choking her. She found it hard to breathe. She beside Aron. Brodie and Dovie across from them. Brodie said little and snarled more, like a dog over a bone.

Dovie was inquisitive. “Do I have any cousins? An aunt?”

“No, sorry,” Aron said. “I never married and never had kids.”

“That you know of.” Brodie sneered.

“Don’t have any, sir,” Aron said emphatically.

Dovie asked, “Why not?”

“Cliché, but never met anyone I wanted to marry, and too busy for kids.”

“Too busy. Yeah right. I bet so in your line of work,” Brodie said.

“What am I missing here,” Dovie asked.

Spooky scowled at Brodie. He scowled back. Aron spoke up. “Let’s just say, I have a past I’m less than proud of. Will that do for now until we get to know each other better?”

“Oh, yeah, Mom said you have a past. But doesn’t everyone?” The naivete of her daughter always puzzled Spooky. Surely she was in the know more than she let on. Surely.

“Maybe not as colorful as mine, perhaps,” Aron replied. And like that, Aron’s dark past became an unimportant topic at this Hell Town dinner table.

At midnight, as she lie in bed, Spooky stared at a thin thread of light dancing on the otherwise void ceiling. It was a reflection off Chick’s faded Sprite cans, she guessed. But where was the light coming from? She peered out her porthole-like window.

Of course. A moon. What else. Spooky wondered if Chick would appear and dance like she had the first time she spotted her. When Hell Town mysteries were vivid but less complicated.

“You need to sleep, love,” Shayd said. “Morning will come quickly, and we will be busy. I have news.”

“What news? Tell me.”

“Do you want the bad or good first?”

“Both.”

“I’ve located the girl. But she is not in our dimension.”

Outside her window, Spooky heard a dog whine and another creature howl. Her eyes searched for the source. She squinted and vaguely recognized Ransome’s form accompanied by a large wolf. Aron is that you? she asked mentally.

Yes, Sis, it’s me. Just keeping watch.

Shayd found the girl, but she is not in our dimension, he says.

I heard.

What do we do?

Sleep now. We’ll figure this out tomorrow. As soon as Brodie leaves. I don’t think he’s a fan.

Ha. Brodie is not a fan of anyone except law and order. And I’m not talking about the TV series.

Knowing Aron was near, eased many of the fears now flooding Spooky’s mind. She had a brother as weird as she. Who knew all she knew. Someone who confirmed she wasn’t crazy. Someone who acknowledged Hell Town strangeness wasn’t just in her head. She could sleep, now, knowing these things, but as a heaviness overtook her eyelids and slipped into her bones, one alarming thought prevailed. What does it feel like to be eaten by a Vrag?


To continue reading the Hell Town Web Serial, click on the link below.

NEXT- episode 24

Author’s Comment


 

Me by jeep

The WEB SERIAL, or WTH is it?

With the onset of the technology boom, authors are discovering innovative ways to get their works in front of readers. However, though the web serial relies on the internet for distribution, it is not a new idea. It’s much like how writers became known before the days of mass-produced, full-length novels. Earlier writers, such as Mark Twain, released a chapter at a time, on a regular basis, in newspapers or magazines. This is the same concept as the Web Serial. Writers publish their works in bite-sized, one-sitting reads to facilitate the hurried reader. The web helps to make it easily accessible to the writer’s fan base. 

Hell Town offers episodes of 1,000 to 3,000 words in length and is considered a tightly cohesive style of web serial. This type intertwines episodes with each other and depends on the reader being familiar with the story. It is meant to be read as one might read a book.

About the Artist


Lara resides in the Texas hill country with her two adorable but exhausting little boys, her husband, and two male dogs. She confesses her life is dominated by male influence.

Artist Lara Clayton and her son, Axton.

She graduated from Trinity University in 2009 with her Bachelor’s degree in art and with an art history minor. During her life, she has worn many hats—bartender, barista, massage therapist, newspaper circulation manager, wine shop manager, and the list continues. These life experiences have added a richness and depth to her artwork.

Lara is a new addition to the Hell Town RV Park Web Serial family. She is a former drama and English student of mine, and is on her way to accomplishing her dream of becoming a freelance artist. The illustrations are Lara’s original artwork and are created specifically for Hell Town.

We both would love your feedback. And if you are looking for an artist, Lara is available.

 

Copyright


The RV Files is fiction. Any characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, extraterrestrials, demons, werewolves, or ghosts—living or dead—is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright ©: 2017 by Clara Bush

All rights reserved. Published by TURTLE TOP COVE LP.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

For information regarding permission, write to:

TURTLE TOP COVE LP.

Attention: Permissions
P.O. Box 158
South Fork, Colorado 81154

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any mean, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

Clara Bush
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