Hell Town RV Park
Where one man’s trash is another man.
(a complete Web Serial)
From The RV Files
By Clara Bush
Episode 3
(for Episode 1 click here and for Episode 2 here)
(Rated Mature for Adult content)
Spooky pressed the warm mug of hot tea against her lips. She loved the bergamot fragrance. She wanted to pause in the moment of aloneness and peace, but the questions clawed for release.
The strangeness grows with each passing day, and it demands answers.
She typed.
“Why didn’t the boy know what a mother is?” she asked.
“Not all creatures in this universe have mothers,” Singer said.
“In this universe? What do you mean?”
No answer.
“Will you help me find the children?”
“Invite your daughter?”
“What? No. She’s been through enough. Besides, she knows nothing about what I do for a living. And we just had dinner out with her the other night. Remember?”
“How could I forget? The Tex Mex made me gag,” Shayd said.
“Ghosts gag? Hmm. News to me.”
“You take everything so literal. Anyway, don’t you think it’s time Dovie knew about your talents?” he said.
“No. Never. At least not until after the baby. Long after the baby is born. Maybe when he’s grown and in college. Maybe then. Maybe not even then. Maybe when I’m dead and I come back as a ghost I’ll tell him. But never Dovie. She wouldn’t understand. Yep. That’d be the best time. When I’m dead.” Secretly, she wished her first grandchild would possess a few of her abilities so she’d have someone close to her who understood the beauty of the gift, its burden, and its pain.
“I’ll never let you die,” Shayd whispered.
“Why do you hide what you are from Dovie? Are you ashamed?” Chetan asked.
“Yes.”
Dovie favored her mother in looks, but her dad in personality and, for this reason, Spooky never felt comfortable letting her daughter in on her dark side. When Dovie asked why her dad called her Spooky, she told her it was because she scared easily. This avoided the whole conversation about her haunts.
“Just invite her for lunch. No harm will come to her and the baby,” Shayd said. “I’ll make sure. Haven’t I always kept you safe?”
Her phone vibrated on the table.
“Mom? Mom? Are you there?”
“Dovie? Yes, I’m here. Why aren’t you at work?”
“Mom, it’s Saturday.”
Spooky heard the same huff from her daughter that Brodie perpetuated. “Oh. Sorry, sweetie. I lost track of time.”
“Where’s Dad?”
The “where’s Dad” line was a reoccurring theme with Dovie growing up. Over the years, Spooky learned any time her daughter didn’t want to deal with her, she’d bring up her dad. As if to say, get him to handle whatever weird thing is going on with you. Spooky accepted it. But it still hurt.
“Mom, is everything okay? You’re acting quirkier than usual. Why did you call?
“I didn’t call you. You called me.”
“Mom, stop. Get Dad.”
“He’s in town drinking coffee with his buddies.”
“Mom, you called me. My phone rang. I looked down and it was your number on the screen. You called me. I didn’t call you.”
“Oh, sorry, I must’ve butt dialed you.”
Spooky placed the phone under her thigh. “Damnit, Shayd. Why?” She gave him the dirtiest look she could invent—bottom teeth, covering upper lip. And not knowing exactly where he was, she did it several times covering all directions.
“Well, sweetie, while I have you on the phone, how about coming over for lunch?”
“Will Dad be there?”
“Who knows. He gets home at different times from his social events. He tells me to expect him when I see him.”
Spooky hears a huff, then another, and thinks, wow, I rated two huffs in a row. “I understand if you need to rest. It being Saturday and all. We’ll do it another time.”
“No. I’ll be there, but why did you tell me when you first got there you didn’t want me to come to the RV park. Something about it being a dump. What changed your mind?”
She wanted to say her friends changed it for her. “Maybe, the park isn’t as bad as I originally thought.” Only worse, she thinks.
***
Spooky pulled the ham and Swiss quiche out of the compact oven and replaced it with a dozen apple-cinnamon, not too sweet, muffins. She counted on these still being Dovie’s favorite lunch items. In her codependency way, Spooky wanted this action to show her daughter how much she loved her. She acknowledged, however, nothing in the past had ever produced the relationship she longed for with her daughter. Brodie and Dovie were always closer than she and Dovie. More like-minded, she guessed.
She put ice in the tea glasses with a wedge of lemon—the way Dovie liked it—and placed them on the table where fresh cloth napkins and placemats waited.
She smoothed over the napkins with a delicate hand, and rearranged the silverware over and over until she was sure it was perfect. “There better be a good reason you wanted Dovie to come to this hell-hole.”
No answer.
“Is there a good reas…” A knock on the door forced Spooky to pray Dovie didn’t hear her talking. It’d happened before—always awkward.
She hugged Dovie. “Hey, sweetie, glad you could come.”
Dovie surveyed the kitchen, den, and dining combo in the RV. She spotted the table. “Everything looks nice, Mom.”
“I wanted to put a vase of wild flowers on the table, but there are only tumbleweeds and mesquite here in Hell Town.”
“Hell Town? Is that what you call it? Sorry you have to be here while I’m pregnant.”
“No, Dovie, Dad and I are excited to be here with you. I call it Hell Town because that’s its name.”
“Where did you get that? The entryway just says RV Park, and I saw a bunch of flowers along the road. You know, it’s not near as bad as you said.”
She and Dovie never agreed on anything. “When Dad made the reservations, he told me it was Hell Town RV. I thought it was in protest to the name Prayer.”
“No Hell Town on the sign out front. You sure Dad wasn’t jacking with you?”
“Your dad has never been one to jack around with anyone, least of all me. Let’s eat and then maybe you can show me where those flowers are.”
A low humming in her ear said, “Careful, don’t say too much. Dovie doesn’t see what we see. And you don’t want her to.”
Spooky had her answer. She knew why her friends wanted Dovie to come to the park. She wouldn’t bring up looking for wildflowers with Dovie again. She wanted her daughter away from this place as quickly as possible.
She wondered if Brodie saw the RV park the way she did. She brushed the thought aside and tried to focus on her daughter’s words. Plans for the baby’s nursery. She wasn’t showing yet. Trevor was lonesome for her on the oil rig and wanted to come home, but couldn’t because the money was too good. She’d been busy preparing her classroom for the students’ first day.
“Well, Mom, I seem to have done most of the talking as usual. Do you have anything new to tell me?”
“Nope. Just your old mom doing old mom stuff. Not much excitement here. Your coming for lunch and getting to hear all the things going on in your life is what I live for.” The words stuck in her chest and gnawed. Was she a good mother? She’d tried. Always tried but her eccentricities often popped up at the most inconvenient times. Like the time she was watching Dovie perform the lead role in the school play, and Shayd tickled her. She giggled out loud during Dovie’s serious monologue. It was a tear jerker and she’d laughed. Dovie still hadn’t forgiven her. No redoing the past, Spooky thought. But damn, how she wished she could.
Spooky walked Dovie to her car. “Tell me, sweetie. My eyes are getting bad. What type of trailer is that next door?” She pointed to Chick’s
“I don’t know a lot about trailers, but it says it’s a Keystone. Looks pretty fancy and fairly new. Nice.”
“What about all the staked tumbleweeds with Sprite cans around it?”
“What? No tumbleweeds. No Sprite cans. Mom, go get your eyes checked.”
“Yes, sweetie, I will. Thank you for coming.”
The mother and daughter pivoted at the sound of laughter. Across the way, the boy and girl stood waving.
“Oh look, what cute kids,” Dovie said.
“You see kids?”
“Mom, please, do I need to find you an eye doctor?”
“I will, promise.”
“I’m going to go talk to them…”
Spooky grabbed Dovie’s arm. “Nooo…”
“Why? What’s the deal with you? The boy looks like he might be one of my students.”
“But, Dovie, don’t you need…”
Click on the link below to continue following the Hell Town Web Serial.
Author’s Comment
The reason I began writing a blog was to create a brand for my fiction. After almost four years of blog writing and much research, it dawned on me, I’m not doing what I love doing. Yes, blogging is a form of writing, but my love is creating characters with flaws, placing them in scary situations, and adding a little romance. Which is not the definition of a blog. My love is being so far up my imagination I’m living in a different dimension where I’m one of my characters and the other characters are leading me on a path to discovery.
As a way of keeping my blog active, and immersing myself in what I love most, I’m writing a new trendy thingy called a Web Serial. And it’s free. NOT FREE as in take for your own free, it is copyrighted, but FREE FICTION as in read and enjoy. It costs you nothing but a little time and perhaps, a supportive comment. I like supportive comments. This webserial will the cohesive type where chapters and episodes intertwine and build on each other.
Why FREE FICTION? Why a WEB SERIAL? As writers, we’re told not to give away our writing. People don’t treasure what is free. I was told. But then the light came on. I have so many story ideas rambling around in my head I’ll never get them all written. When a writer writes a book, whether it’s self-published or traditionally published, the editing and marketing take a tremendous amount of time. No time is left to start the next book.
A webserial allows me to release some of those pent-up stories for others to read. No hassle. Hell Town RV Park will appear on a regular basis until the novella is complete. It is a work in progress. Feel free to comment on the discovery you hope the characters make. And enjoy. Thanks for stopping by.
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.
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2 replies on “Hell Town RV Park, Episode 3. A Web Serial”
Good morning:
Thanks for sending the address for episode two. Just finished reading, and enjoying, two and three.
As you know I have some “not in the rut” beliefs but I wish I also had the imagination you do. It makes for exciting reading.
Well, I guess we all need to use whatever we have been blessed with!
Have a good week.
Good Afternoon, Ike— Well, telling a writer she has an imagination is like the best compliment ever. Thank you. So glad you are enjoying the Web Serial. And as far as blessings, I don’t think Creator skimped any when it came to you. Your knowledge and understanding of the bible—old and new testaments—is incredible. And then your ability to explain the lessons to your readers is a whole other talent. In fact, readers, if you want a different and highly intellectual perspective of the bible’s teachings check out Ike Fehr’s website. http://wwwthinkagai.blogspot.com/
Ike was also a guest blogger on The Probe. To read what he and I have to say about ancient astronauts and their connection to the bible start here: https://www.clarabush.com/2015/12/02/religion-and-ancient-aliens/
Thanks again, Ike, for educating us. —Clara