Banjo Strings, by Larry Winfield

Novel Excerpt (Contains graphic language and descriptions)


Part I: November 2005

Chapter 1: Augustus' Ride


Augustus Wainwright was having an old familiar dream, of when he was thirteen and caught the dark chocolate upstairs maid smoking in his mother's bathroom, her private sanctuary. He'd fancied that gal all summer, and now he had her, close enough to touch. His face stretched into a goofy grin, he ordered the maid to his room near the back of the mansion. He bent her over his desk, slid down her panties, undid his pants and just watched, breathing in the faint new aroma, entranced by his first real look at a woman's vagina. The best part of the dream came when she, realizing her position and resigning herself to it, reached back and took matters in hand. He shuddered in anticipation, then an irritating noise, an itch he couldn't scratch, ice-picked its way from...where?

He looked up, out through the window where he expected to see Mother bent over the azaleas in the garden. Instead, she was standing, wearing an old-time plantation ball gown, passionately kissing a shirtless, barefoot black man. The noise scratched itself into a banjo being tuned, then strum. It jarred him awake. He heard a murmur behind him on the bed, sat up and looked over to see Rebecca Sandiford, the girl from last night's party, curled up beside him. Damn, he groaned. She didn't leave when the cops ran everybody off?

Downstairs, he heard the muffled sound of a banjo being strum. He blinked his eyes, looked over at the clock on the nightstand. 3:02 AM. "He'll come at three in the morning, the day after your birthday." Auntie Aggie's words spilled from his lips, underscored by the banjo...

He slowly got out of bed, pausing as his heart thumped strongly for a couple beats, then calmed back down as he eased away from the bed, watching the girl sleeping. The first verse of "Dixie" began to softly play and then repeat, at once coming from the parlor downstairs, and as if from miles away, bringing a heaviness that settled around his chest and squeezed. He fought to stay calm, force his breathing a little closer to normal. He went to the window, peered through the blinds up and down the street in search of the county sheriff's car. It was parked right outside when he told Rebecca to leave with the rest of his friends, half an hour later he'd passed out after finishing off another bottle of Jack Daniels alone. She must've hid, and no deputy was around either, he worried as the song began again, the dreamy echo of "Dixie" outside the room.

That god damn cable show he'd been watching immediately sprang to mind. "The File Room." He hated that show, though he'd watched every week for the past year, growing more and more alarmed as they proved this supernatural hogwash was real. Each episode that included a ghost encounter filled him with sick dread. This would make one hell of an episode, though, he thought.

For Augustus Wainwright, a life of luxury, parties and privilege, and being spared the burden of inheriting any of the family businesses, had come to a sudden end as his 20th birthday approached. A week ago he was dragged from a beach bar in Rio and deposited in this small family-owned house on the west side of Liberty Plaines, in the kingdom of Wainwright county. It was his turn as the latest first-born son to go through this ordeal or be disowned. He was only 19 when brought before his Auntie Aggie, Agnes Wainwright, the matriarch of the family. She first spoke the names Jacob and Polly, and told him about the old curse that afflicted the Wainwrights and the LeChettes, another old plantation family in the county. She shared with him the part of the family history that had been kept from him his whole life.

She couldn't hide her embarrassment as she quietly told him that Jacob was a runaway field nigger who was caught by Justin Wainwright and Lucien LeChette in 1832. As they were bringing him back he put a curse on them and they killed him. Polly was just a crazy old kitchen slave who died when Jacob was a baby, but she haunts Wainwright Park, appearing as a little girl. The name was familiar; the park was situated on the grounds of the former Wainwright House, the largest and most beautiful mansion that used to grace Maison Road, but the few times he visited Wainwright County as a child, his siblings never went there. His brothers dismissed it as "that colored park, and let 'em have it," so he dismissed it too. Augustus could tell there was a lot more to the story, but Auntie wouldn't say, though her face tightened with the knowing of it.

His Auntie showed him manila folders containing the original sheriffs reports for his late uncle Jeffrey Wainwright in '67 and Oscar LeChette in '83. The obituary pages folded inside listed their deaths as 'heart attack' and 'stroke' the morning after their 20th birthdays.

Augustus never heard much of Uncle Jeffrey. The family members never mentioned him, far as he could remember. He supposed the LeChettes never mentioned their first-born sons either, as if they didn't matter and would be forgotten soon enough. At 19 he realized that he was never challenged or encouraged in school like his siblings, he lived separate from them, in Atlanta with his mother. There he was indulged and entertained, treated more like a child with a terminal disease. Soon to be covered over and forgotten, like something shameful, a sacrificial lamb to the curse, just accept it and die and let them all move on. Well, two months ago he hired an attorney outside the family's influence and shared the shameful family history, and gave him a letter with instructions.

He glanced over at Rebecca and grimaced as the music downstairs paused. In 83, Oscar LeChette had a young woman with him when the ghost twins visited. She didn't survive. The girl being here was bad...

Augustus took a deep breath as the banjo playing started again, the sound crawling up and down his spine. He slipped on a night robe and walked slowly to the door, opened it as quietly as he could, watching for any movement from Rebecca, he then eased himself out and closed it with a muffled 'click,' slowly crept down the hall then, paused at the stairs,the music drifting up from the parlor below. He started down, close to the wall but staying clear of the paintings and portraits of the proud lineage of Wainwrights through the past two hundred years, And down the wall were the smaller solitary portraits of the firstborn sons at age ten. Eight of them since the Northern Aggression and only two ever lived past the age of 20. His picture wasn't there yet, but there was space for it. The grim chain was begun by Beau II, the unfortunate first son of Beauregard T Wainwright. Augustus passed his portrait as he reached the bottom of the stairs, facing the entrance to the parlor.

The banjo playing stopped abruptly. Upstairs, the sudden absence of sound stirred the girl awake. She reached out lazily for him, opened her eyes, finding the bed empty. She looked around the dark room, shadows draped over the Victorian and Colonial furniture. "Gus?"

She'd hid in the upstairs closet as the deputy was breaking up the party, then went downstairs to the kitchen until Gus fell asleep. She had decided at the party that the ghost story was romantic, it made her like him even more, even though she'd never met him before tonight, but they both felt an immediate attraction when they met in the kitchen. On impulse she decided to stay and give him a wake up present, then go with him wherever he would jet off to, whether it was Rio or Prague or Timbuktu. Rebecca was taking a year off from college and exploring all of her wild impulses. And she discovered Augustus liked to travel and party. But, where was he?

In the middle of the parlor Augustus saw a young, powerfully built black man, the man who invaded his dream, barefoot, shirtless, his face sweltering from the sun. There was no sunlight in the room, but he could see it glinting off the man's back and arms as he swung a hoe in short sure downstrokes, with a phantom blade that chopped into the fine oak floor but made no damage. Old Jacob....

Augustus winced as he felt his heart squeeze again. It passed after a few seconds. He grunted, then straightened up, breathing hard as Jacob stood upright, letting the hoe slip from his hands and fade away as it fell.

Augustus shivered as Jacob calmly studied him. Jacob himself looked no more than 19 or 20, his dark skin shiny with sweat. His face was calm, serene, but the eyes reflected all the ugliness and inhumanity captured those few years.

"You know who I am?" the ghost said. Augustus tried not to show his fear. "Yes," he said just as calmly. Jacob smiled. "Yo uncle Jeffrey pissed hisself 'fore he could even speak." In a split second Jacob was standing a foot in front of him. Before he could react, Jacob placed his broad dark hand squarely on his chest. "Time to see, Wainwright! See if you get a taste, or take a ride."

The girl walked slowly from the bedroom to the top of the stairs, wondering did she really hear a banjo playing? She finished tying up her robe and, as silently as she could, quickly made her way downstairs, stopping at the landing. She saw Gus standing in the doorway of the parlor, shaking. There's somebody else in there, but she couldn't see. She inched around Gus, craning her neck to see into the dark room who it was. Rebecca and Jacob saw each other in the same instant.

Jacob froze her in place with a forceful wave of his hand. He clawed the air in front of him the way you'd catch a fly, and she was instantly standing before him. immobile and trembling. Jacob turned to Augustus, his face registering disappointment. They know better than to have anybody else there, but they still do it. He looked around at the remains of a party decorating the parlor. Wainwright first born don't deserve birthday parties either, even one so sickly.

He continued reading them, saw that they weren't nowhere near as bad as some Wainwrights, so they would get off easy. He only had mild charms on him this time, as concession to the tearful pleas of Agnes Wainwright. Jacob pulled 'Gus closer till they were nose to nose. "You takin' a ride alright, but you might just make it. Only on account of your weak heart, and her."

His body glistened as he built himself up, his hands clutching the front lapels of the helpless pair's robes. Two specks of sunlight appeared before them, bright glowing embers. They began to shine and Augustus stared into its bottomless light, his eyes beginning to shine. A flash as his speck exploded and he suddenly gasped and began struggling against unseen bonds. Jacob released his grip on Augustus, watched him slowly fall backward, land gently on the floor.

Jacob watched Rebecca's eyes as they glowed in reflection of her speck of light. After the flash he was completely caught off guard when he saw which ride she began. Not Emma Jane, an older woman caught alone working in a slave patch at dusk, forced to service two local town boys taking a shortcut to Maison Road. This was Annie's ride, one of the worst ones he had, but he wasn't carrying... He felt his pants pocket for the pouch, and the two bones within, then he felt it resting on top of the pouch. Annie's bone. He groaned, "Dammit, Polly..."

Jacob pulled the girl close, shaking with anger and regret. This girl didn't deserve Annie's ride. Holding her head still, he whispered in her ear "I'm sorry. I hope..." He released her, watched her settle gently to the floor beside Augustus Wainwright, who twitched like a fish on a hook.

Jacob closed his eyes, began to search the surrounding countryside for his companion, sweeping his gaze east through the small town, past the square, then back west to the old Maison Road that once connected three great plantation houses, to the park where the third and most beautiful mansion used to stand. There, on the swings beside a gazebo, a young teenage girl wearing just a shirt was in the middle swing, long dark legs kicking out as she swung forward. "What are you up to now?" he muttered. Just then a car sped past, skidded to a stop on the road past the gazebo, then roared away. Polly smiled, jumped off the swing and started walking toward the road. When the car appeared back on the road approaching the park, Jacob waited, wondering who Polly was playing with.

###

Augustus spun, lost his balance, but didn't fall. He looked up, dazed, and saw his hands, feeling funny, smaller than before, bound to ropes. His arms were spread apart and tied to the large overhead branch of an old tree. The high sun dappled through the leaves. His eyes finally focused. His name was Samuel. And his skin was black as shit.

"...Tole you what I'd do if I caught you scratching on the ground again, Samuel. Young miss ain't here now, nigger!" Augustus felt the spittle of tobacco juice splatter against Samuel's bare back. The heaviness in his chest returning, he tried desperately to yell out, beg, scream, but the mouth had a mind of it's own, refusing to open. He felt Samuel straining against his bonds until an ear-splitting crack exploded just behind his head. "Hold still, nigger..." Samuel froze. Augustus was reduced to shallow gulps. The frayed end of the whip exploded between his shoulder blades, two, three times. He writhed between the ropes as the overseer put just the tip of the whip next to the skin...

"...Now you see why I run the yard for Master Beauregard, boy! He say 'don't make no long ugly scars, make little pretty scars, like spring blossoms..." Crack! Four and five split the air at Augustus' right ear. His head snapped away. Six snapped just above the base of his spine and his legs went numb. Augustus was in agony, struggling as a wave of pins and needles cascaded down his legs, then the maddening mix of intense pain and complete numbness swept in fading waves over his body. His mouth finally opened, and Augustus screamed out, but it didn't sound like him, but like a young boy. It was getting harder to breathe the hot, humid air. He slumped to one side, looking like a marionette dangling from it's strings. the heavy weight on his chest allowed him small, gulping breaths.

Seven, Eight. The overseer enjoyed this part of the job, it was why he was hired. Master Beauregard detested the long, ugly scars many slaves carried on their backs. He considered it a failure in livestock management. Still, slaves had to be corrected and trained. "Make the scars smaller," he insisted, firing three overseers until he found one with a deft touch and deadly accuracy.

Nine.

Ten snapped sharply at the base of the boy's skull. Augustus gasped in shock, inhaled too quickly and swallowed his tongue. He flailed, desperately, his blocked throat silent. He passed out at lash no. 13. He was dead by the time the overseer untied Samuel from the tree...

###

Rebecca found herself running, stumbling to a noisy stop inside a line of trees, from the glow of a full moon into pitch darkness. She leaned unsteadily against a tree, her head spinning from being at Gus' mansion, then flashing eyes and sudden terror, and the sudden knowledge slammed into her head that she was also a Wainwright house girl named Annie, with a white man's blood on her hands, with her own blood staining her thighs. She looked back through the trees to the LeChette House, grand in its own way, but not as majestic as her massa's House. Screams inside and four men tearing out the back door almost made her scream as she froze behind a tree. When they went back inside she turned and ran quickly and silently through the woods. South. Wainwright house is two miles south at the other end of Maison Road, Annie whispered to her. The three remaining cousins of Lucien LeChette, the Stonehill brothers, would be on her soon enough if she didn't keep moving. And they knew where she'd be running to.

Rebecca had no control of the body as Annie worked her way well off the roads south to Wainwright House, but she saw, and felt the young house girl's terror of being caught again by those boys. She'd already been violated by master Franklin Stonehill, him still roughly pounding into her on the floor of the upstairs bedroom by the time she got one of Mistress LeChettes' knitting needles into his neck. She pulled herself off of his rigid, trembling penis as she stabbed him a second time in the neck, shoving him onto his back on the floor, pushing down her dress and wiping the blood from her hand onto his undone pants. He shuddered and came, arms flailing, grasping at the large needle, sputtering loudly as death throes increased the intensity of his last orgasm. The other brothers, still downstairs in the billiard room, laughed at Franklin's garbled outcry. He stopped gurgling and struggling finally, and bending over him, she took out the knitting needle. Blood sprayed from his neck, splashing across the front of her dress, sprinkling her face and neck.

She sprang off him in a panic, scrambling to her feet. Heart pounding, she took the dress off, wiped the blood from her face, then tossed it on Franklin's exposed crotch. She found a plain yellow dress in mistress' wardrobe and put it on, panic clawing at her fingers as she struggled with the buttons. The other Stonehill brothers were just downstairs, any of them could come up any moment to join Franklin in "gittin' some high yella nigger juice...." Annie spent a long minute biting down on her terror, remembering the advice of Old Ruth: "If you ever wind up havin' to kill some damn white boy cause he won't leave you alone, only two things you can do. Run, and don't stop. If you can't run, child, use this..." And Old Ruth reached into her bosom and took out a small leather pouch with a single-shot pistol and five bullets inside. "If it comes down to it, save the last one for yourself, child..." The pistol, hers now that Old Ruth passed over last year, was back at the cabin, hidden underneath.

She moved steadily, walking fast through the woods, running full out across the moonlit open fields at crossroads, till finally she reached the cabins back of the Wainwright smokehouse. No time for good byes or nothing, she thought, as she crept to the rear of Old Ruth's cabin and felt around for the hidey hole. Make my way to New Orleans and disappear. In the city she could pass...Rebecca felt the anger that flared up in the girl at the thought of 'being able to pass,' the monumental insult that being 'high yellow' was what drew the attention of the damned cousins in the first place. Two days before they were visiting young master Julius at LeChette House, stopping their game of billiards when she walked pass the doorway carrying a parcel for Mistress upstairs. They marveled at how similar she was to Alexander Wainwright's dear sister Athena, who was a lovely girl, but spent far too much time with her mother and her bible to be available, but this young lass was very available and couldn't say no...

Annie found the pouch with the gun and bullets in a hole covered by a rock. Clutching it in her shaking hands, she crept around the cabins, scanning the yard between the cabins, the smokehouse and the main house. Her satchel, with all her worldly possessions, was in the upstairs sewing room. She dashed for the back door, praying the Stonehill boys weren't already at the front door...



Chapter 2: Amanda's Plan


Amanda Harris was supremely pleased with herself as she drove down Hwy 12, cruising east toward the Louisiana-Mississippi borderline, on her way to a live meeting in Mobile, instead of the teleconference her 'associate' Marcus Hudson had planned. She chuckled, thinking of her 'executive-level solution' that put a collar on "Sir Marcus," the "Affirmative Action" MBA junior executive bucking for her spot on the board after only a year with the firm. Before him, she was the rising star at the regional headquarters; that board position was HERS.

Well, it only took a few months to get past his natural distrust and suspicion, to change his view of her from hostile competitor to friend. She started by having weekly "peace lunches" with him to share harmless office gossip. He soon relaxed around her, demonstrating his profound weakness by becoming far too trusting. Amanda took that time and used it well. She had enough time to sneak a keylogger onto his unguarded laptop to learn his passwords. She had enough time to gather together the different drugs she'd need to mix up a batch of her "Zeta House party potion," which made innocent freshmen and coeds very horny, very high, and very cooperative. She laughed out loud driving through the early morning countryside, remembering the bible study group Zeta House turned into their personal harem. The two couples went from nervous and shy to welcoming nymphos, taking on all comers. She remembered the strap-on she shoved so far up that one boy's ass he shoulda screamed, but he just wiggled and grunted as he fucked back onto the hard rubber phallus. It sounded so much like a big dog barking, she couldn't help breaking out in a fit of giggles.

When she got herself invited to one of his quarterly "presentation tours" of teleconferences and personal meetings with a few current and potential clients, she was ready. A week before the tour, from El Paso to Atlanta, Amanda invited him to a bar near her apartment, where she got "tipsy," requiring him to take her home. Once inside, she turned on him, pushing him back against the door and kissing him as she fumbled with his belt buckle. That's right nigger, you know you want it, she thought. His pants dropped, as did she, to her knees, fishing his impressive erection from his boxers. She stroked him and waited, looking up with the babydoll face she used so well at frat parties in college. He had to make the next move. When his hands guided her lips to the bulbous, shiny head, she knew, she had him. She almost felt remorse for Hudson the first time she rode with abandon on his thick non frat-party sized dick, but she shoved that weakness aside; feeling sorry for his black ass would PUT his black ass in that board seat instead of hers.

On day 2 of the tour, Amanda and Marcus arrived at their hotel near Bush Intercontinental Houston Airport around 6 pm. He had a round of one-on-one teleconferences planned, starting with the client in Mobile tomorrow afternoon, and he wanted to go over it again. Amanda just smiled and patted his arm, "relax, everything's ready." She lagged behind at the front desk after Marcus took his keycard and walked to the elevator. She asked the concierge for any messages for "Annie." He checked the cork board behind the desk, out of Amanda's view, seeing, yes, a post-it with "For Annie" written on it. He gave it to her with a knowing smile she didn't notice as she snatched it, hurrying to catch up with Marcus. She shoved it into her skirt pocket as she turned the corner into the elevator banks and almost collided into him as he stood waiting. Riding up to the fourth floor, she agreed to come by his room in a few minutes, noticing the familiar hungry look in his eyes. Once in her room, down the hall from his, Amanda pulled out the paper - "Betsy, Rm. 732" was written in the center.

"Betsy" was the woman she'd found, and auditioned, after a month of searching in LA. Smiling, Amanda called her, gave her Marcus' room number and told her to be ready in an hour. She called room service, then went to his room and said she'd ordered burgers, fries, and mikshakes, was that ok?

A few minutes into the meal she told him she had a surprise - "some really excellent pot from a friend of mine. I thought we could eat first and then get high. But, I left it on the dresser in my room,' she said, giving him a wicked grin as she took off her blouse and slipped out of her shoes. He grinned, took her key card and hurried out. He was back in a minute, but she only needed 30 seconds to get out the little bottle from her skirt pocket, pop the lid and pour the red, sweet potion into his chocolate shake, stirring the straw to mix it. He returned just as she dropped her skirt, revealing a lacy black thong as she sat back in the chair beside her tray. He brought her a small zippered pouch as he admired her perky breasts in the french-cut bra.

Half an hour later, after finishing off a couple bowls of her potent weed, he started getting a slightly goofy look on his face from the potion as his penis began to stir on its own. He didn't notice.

"Isn't it hot in here, Marcus?" She remarked, and smiled as he slowly attacked the buttons on his shirt. She moved the serving trays to the cart and pushed him back onto the bed, removing the rest of his clothes and stroking his erection. Five minutes later, Marcus had a tremendous orgasm, lost to the wonderful sensations he felt, his nerve endings all screaming pleasure as he spurted in a lazy arc that pooled on his chest. His dick was still erect and would be for another hour or so, Amanda thought as she lightly bit the drooling head and intently watched his quivering response. It's time.

She rolled off the bed and dialed Betsy. "It's me. come down now!" she hissed into the hotel phone. She grabbed a towel from the bathroom gently wiped him off, savoring the moment. Enjoy your balls tonight, she thought, I'll have them tomorrow, along with control of your precious seat on the board.

She turned to his laptop on the dresser, powered it up, then opened a browser and went to her travel site. A soft knock at the door and she grinned at Marcus, rolling around on the bed in slow motion. Showtime, big boy. At the door she took the "Do Not Disturb" sign off the inside handle, quickly opened up and ushered in Betsy, tall, gorgeous, with flowing shoulder-length red hair to match her full red lips, wearing a slinky dark red evening dress, elegant sandals and pearls. She took in Amanda's pert breasts and smiled as the lingerie-clad woman hooked the sign on the outside and closed the door. They just stood there and drank each other in, then embraced and kissed, long and slow.

"Hi. Annie," she said in a sweet lilt.

"Hello yourself." said Amanda. "We don't have much time. Your host is this way, and he can't wait to meet you." Amanda led the way as Betsy admired her cute ass in the thong.

They entered the dark bedroom to find Marcus propped up on his elbows, eyes closed, his erection still strong. Amanda walked over to him and kissed him. His eyes slowly opened and he tried to reach for her, but she backed away. He noticed another woman standing beside Amanda, a tall redhead with big lips peeling down a red dress to her slender waist. She had beautiful grapefruit-sized breasts with little pink nipples sticking through the open slits of a see-through bra. Betsy kneeled beside him on the bed and guided a nipple between his lips as Marcus' hands slowly, clumsily caressed Betsy.

Amanda returned to the computer and confirmed her red-eye flight to Mobile on a small airline using her own money. Nobody in the LA office needs to know about this trip yet, and Marcus will say what I damn well tell him to after tonight, Amanda snorted. She watched him, still sitting up, following Betsy's whispered instructions as she held him close. Marcus, in a daze, squeezed her breasts together until the nipples were inches apart, then alternated from one stiff nipple to the other, suckling. "That's right, like that," Betsy purred, sliding a hand down to his erection and lightly stroking him.

Amanda left the computer and crawled onto the bed at his legs, kissed up his thighs, brushed her lips against Betsy's caressing fingers, then captured his cock with her mouth. Marcus had barely come down from the melting waves of bliss he was riding. He was one big pleasure center, and he loved it. Nipples in his mouth and fingers stroking his dick was the center of his world. He'd come already and was still hard as a rock, and now a sudden wet warmth enveloped him...

Amanda kissed and swallowed the shiny head, rotating around it lovingly, then went down further, meeting Betsy's fingers coming up, admiring his cock the way she admired all her new toys. She glanced over at Betsy's dress as she relinquished his dick, eyes lingering over the barely noticeable bulge at the junction of her thighs. "Ok, ready?" she asked. Betsy nodded and they stretched him out on the bed. The redhead quickly finished undressing and got on the bed, straddling his face. Amanda smiled, admiring Betsy's neat arrangement of a slightly smaller-sized furry vagina tucked behind a small scrotum and a rigid four-inch dick.

Amanda returned to the stiff black cock, licking the head as she watched Betsy. The readhead brought her pussy close to his face; he started licking as soon as he felt her intoxicating wet folds brush his lips. He couldn't see a thing, but he didn't care. About anything. This was the best night of his life!

Amanda left the bed and went to her skirt in the chair, took the digital camera out of the other pocket. She turned on the lamp in the furthest corner of the room, giving just enough light to avoid using the flash. She checked the camera and went to the foot of the bed and took in the view.

Betsy was guiding Marcus, slowly sliding his tongue further and further out of the wet furrow and onto her meat, getting it wet. Amanda climbed aboard and resumed humming on his dick. As soon as he moaned loudly and started shaking, Betsy slid her pelvis back and with her hand, stuck just the tip of her penis into his mouth. His lips clamped on the small head as Amanda rapidly bobbed her head on his stiff pole to keep his senses reeling. She backed off as he started trembling. Not yet, big boy.

Betsy alternated Marcus from her dick to her pussy, sliding her cunt lips, then her cock, over his busy tongue. Amanda got up and steadied the camera as Betsy moved down and straddled Marcus, facing him. She eased herself down on his rigid cock, stroking her own erection and moaning in time with him. Amanda had a dozen shots by the time Betsy climbed off his pulsing dick and slid down until her tongue found his puckered anus and painted his balls and asshole. She straightened up, reached for the pillows on the bed, shoved them under him.

Betsy wet two fingers and began slowly easing them into him as Amanda leaned down and licked his dickhead to distract him. It took a few minutes, but when he started fucking back onto Betsy's fingers, she smoothly slid them out and positioned her stiff cock at his asshole. Betsy slowly inched into him, then rocked back and forth, gasping as Marcus' clenching ass gripped her throbbing dick. When she bottomed out, Amanda moved back off the bed to get shots as Betsy stroked her full length into Marcus, grasping his wet pole of flesh and stroking it in time to her thrusts.

After five minutes of Betsy, Marcus cried out as he came again, three spurts that puddled on his belly. Betsy kept stroking him as she pounded his ass with her rigid cock. He remained hard.

Betsy felt herself about to come, so she pulled out of Marcus's ass and plunged her steaming pussy back down on his cock, grinding on his meat until she stiffened and squealed, gushed around his pole, spurted twice on Hudson's chest. And Amanda had it all on film.

She cleaned Marcus off with the towel, then climbed back on the bed, lowering her humid pussy down to his waiting mouth. The two of them rode Marcus for another lazy half hour, Betsy slowly grinding his penis in her tight snatch as Amanda trailed kisses from Betsy's lips to both hard, plump nipples, down her quivering belly to her short, throbbing dick. They got dressed while Amanda downloaded the photos into Marcus' laptop (MY laptop, now, she thought). Marcus lay in the bed, sighing, eyes barely open as his dick slowly began to deflate. Amanda flipped through the shots, marking the best 10, showing Marcus' face, but not Betsy's. Perfect.

At the door, they embraced and kissed, tenderly. Amanda promised Betsy that "Annie" would see her in LA in a week. Amanda watched Betsy gracefully stroll down the hall to the elevator, a smile of accomplishment on her face.

Back in the room, Amanda giggled as she went to the computer to finish her work. She printed out the 10 pictures, then retrieved a memory stick from her skirt pocket. From it she printed the letter she'd already written to Marcus - telling him in specific terms what she thought of him, why teleconferencing Mobile instead of making a personal visit was a stupid decision, not one a board member would ever make, what would happen with the pictures if he didn't do exactly as ordered (stay in the room for the next three days and hold your dick, cancel your meetings, no phone calls other than room service, and no contact with LA, or else), and what she expected of him when she got back. She took an empty manila envelope from his bags and put the papers inside, wrote "Open Immediately" on the front and left it on his chest.

Amanda looked over at Marcus. He was asleep, and would be for another twelve hours, too late to interfere in her plans, but let's make sure. She went into his pants and took out his wallet. He had four credit cards and $2500 in cash. She took out $2000 and the cards, and returned the wallet to his pants. That'll hold him for a couple days, she thought. She turned off the laptop and took it, the sleek portable printer and his cell phone back to her room. She left the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the outside.

Amanda changed back into her traveling clothes and finished packing her flight bag. It was a little after 9 pm, plenty of time to catch the red-eye to Mobile for the afternoon meeting. With everything on Marcus' computer, she could hold her own teleconference with the other clients from any place with a connection. Like the Houston client later in the week, who was just one of Marcus' friends from their college days. A drunken blowhard who certainly didn't deserve a personal sit-down, Amanda snorted. She stood at the door with her flight bag and the laptop cases, feeling the rush of adrenalin wash over. We're crossing the Rubicon, 'mandy, she thought. No turning back. She took a deep breath and steeled herself, focusing on the image she saw last year during a morning board meeting: all the members were assembled and waiting to introduce Marcus. She'd been in the ladies' room and got back too late. The board president had already begun talking and Marcus Hudson was already positioned, standing a few feet back from the slightly ajar double doors to the boardroom. Where she should be standing. The echoes of applause filtered out from the boardroom as the doors opened to admit him like a conquering hero.

At the desk downstairs, Amanda explained that she had to leave unexpectedly and would be gone for a few days, but that her associate would be staying. She strolled out to the waiting airport shuttle, triumphant.



Chapter 3: Amanda Goes Down


After her flight took off for Mobile, things started to go bad for Amanda Harris. Her plane developed engine trouble and had to land in Baton Rogue. She didn't want to set foot in La., but now she was halfway to Mobile and would have to drive through the swampy, backward, backwoods Bayou country, and try to stay away from the Katrina devastation.

At Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport, there were no other flights to Mobile till morning. In a foul mood, she trudged to the car rental area, but only found one agency still open, a light-skinned girl was sipping coffee at the counter. She was such a bitch to the girl, she got an older model car without the plug-in GPS alert system "That's the only car we have available at this hour with our garage closed, ma'am,' she smirked politely. The girl handed Amanda a road map of the southern states from a rack on the counter. "Just stay east on Hwy 12 till it turns back into the 10 and you'll be in Mobile by morning," she said, but Amanda barely listened as she took the map and lugged her things out to pick up her rental. It was a brown 4-door with a nasty trunk, so the flight bag went into the back seat, Amanda put the laptops in the front.

She drove out of the rental lot and made her way to Hwy 110, driving south to 10 east, making sure she was on the right onramp to Hwy 12, avoiding the depressing spectacle on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain. The radio was tuned to a news station so she turned it up as she hit the gas, speeding up on the deserted stretch of highway. "It's 1:48 and time for weather and traffic..." Hm, it's a little over 200 miles to Mobile...I'll be there before sunrise, she thought, easing back on the gas to the speed limit. Amanda began to feel her control returning, once again driving instead of flying to meet clients like a board member.

Her mind drifted as she fell into automatic driving mode, no longer hearing the radio. She loved to fly. She loved taking red-eye flights on one of the company's fleet of Lear jets, greeting the dawn in a new city, a new day to conquer. And Marcus fucking Hudson wasn't even a board member and he's already been on more flights than any of the other junior associates. She remembered thinking he must be blowing one of the senior members to get so many free trips. But what if he does for real? What if he is 'on the downlow' and she could get proof? Amanda smiled. That's where the old Zeta House party potion and "Betsy" came in, and now I have Marcus fucking Hudson exactly where I want him. She burst out in a fit of giggles, supremely pleased with herself and her 'executive level solution.'

"...Toxic-chemical spill on Hwy 10, near the Pearl River bridge on the La state line. It's already causing backups on both sides of Hwy 10, and they don't expect this to be cleared up in time for the morning rush..." Damn! She pulled over to the emergency lane and checked the map again. Hwy 59 was a few miles ahead. It went up sharply northeast, deep into Mississippi. The map didn't show any of the state roads, so she pulled out her laptop, praying that a working cell phone tower was nearby. She was able to get online and pull up Google Earth, and zoomed in on the web of local state and county roads. She found an east-bound county road turn-off from 59 near Picayune. She saved the map, bookmarked her place, then turned off the laptop. She drove off with new determination; the executive solution is flexible, I'll make it work!

Once she reached the county road turn-off, Amanda stopped and opened the laptop back up to the Google map, listening to the news for any more on the accident to the south, trying not to listen to the sudden small voice of worry as she looked around at her surroundings. Hwy 59 shot straight ahead, NNE, the highway lights suddenly smaller cutting through the dark countryside. Up ahead, she saw the shallow offramp that curved to the right and ended at an L-shaped intersection. The branch she had to take shot east, away from the ribbon of lights and safety, into the backwoods gloom. She thought back to the girl at the rental counter, sticking her with this brown heap with no emergency call unit in the car. "Little piss-colored bitch," she muttered. "I'll show her and Marcus!" She snapped off any further nagging fears and got back to her task, saving a picture of the area and pulling the small travel printer out of Marcus' laptop case. Ten minutes later, she was rolling east with the high-beams on, the computer gear stowed and three printed pages showing a marked path all the way to Mobile laying beside her on the seat.

Leaving the cab light on, she checked the top page. The next 20 miles of the road's route crossed sparse intersections and stretches of farmland with scattered towns along the route. She drove on, making excellent time on this also deserted road. Why didn't anyone else do what I'm doing, she wondered. She'd only lost half an hour, she sighed, relaxing as she drove on through the enveloping darkness.

The news update at 3AM didn't improve for the highway jam. Traffic was still backed up, but the worst of it was miles behind her. There was still no one else on this county road - all mine, she thought, turning off the radio and the cab light, getting into the drive now, nothing between her and Mobile...

The county road intersected Hwy 49 up ahead. Amanda saw a truck stop to the left and and a motel on her right as she drove through. Once she crossed the state highway, it was like the air had a different feel and scent. Heady, familiar, but she couldn't quite place it...

She drove through broad fields and scattered farmhouses barely visible in the dark, the horizon of faint lights sliding past. The marked trail turned left at the next intersection. Now heading north, the car's headlights flashed across a sign that read "Wainwright Park, 2 mi." She sped down the deserted road, letting her high-beams play across the trees and manicured lawns of a small public park. A small building that looked like a one-room schoolhouse on the left. On the right, a gazebo set off from the road, and beside it a child's swing set partly illuminated by a solitary streetlight at the road. And a little black girl in the swing...

It took Amanda a second to realize...there was a child in the swing in the middle of the night. Wearing just a shirt...

The marked trail said a right turn at the corner was next. Past the intersection she hit the gas, rolling through flatlands and more wide fields, coming upon the trees and manicured lawns of a small park, with the same little schoolhouse on the left, and a gazebo and swings on the right. And a little black girl in just a shirt, now waving at the approaching car, jumping off the swing and running toward the road. Amanda felt everything slow down as the girl was caught in the wide beam of the headlights. The girl looked older, maybe 15, standing over 5 feet tall, most of it legs as she ran toward the car and a mesmerized Amanda. Then she was past.

Amanda screeched to a halt. Part of her balked at stopping, but she slowly backed up until she was between the schoolhouse and the swings. She looked around for the girl, seeing no one. Amanda suddenly felt very alone and small, felt the night pressing in on her again. She jammed on the gas pedal and loudly skittered away from the park. All right, no more stops until I find a gas station, she decided.

She looked at her paper map. Good, she thought; the trail was straight for another 30 miles, far away from that disturbing, but exhilarating vision of the girl in the park, she thought. The fact that the map previously indicated a left turn at the intersection past the park was completely missed by Amanda.

She replayed the image of the girl's young, forbidden fruit caught in the headlights, not noticing that up ahead she was approaching the schoolhouse, the gazebo, and the girl, now standing beside the road near the gazebo.

Amanda slowed the car to a dead stop 10 feet from the girl. She began walking toward the car, waving and smiling. Amanda was entranced by her honey-brown legs, the deep chocolate-colored areola topping her blossoming breasts, clearly visible through the shirt in the car's headlights. The beautiful smile, the virginal eyes.

She no longer thought of running, she was excited at the thought of the girl's open and available body. Her hands were sweating on the steering wheel as she breathed uneasily, slowly, unsure what was going to happen next, fear and desire coursing through her as the girl, still smiling and waving, walked across to the car's driver side, stopping at the window, her belly and breasts pressing against the glass. Amanda caught her breath, gaze locked onto the hard thumb-sized nipples inches away. She heard a gentle giggle behind her, turned to see the girl sitting in the passenger seat. The shirt, an old fashioned faded white tuxedo shirt, was now unbuttoned all the way down to her lap. Amanda could see the swell of the girl's breasts under the shirt, the nipples hard. Her eyes trailed back up to her full lips and innocent eyes.

"Hi. I'm Polly. You're pretty." She slid across the seat, the shirt sliding away from her glowing skin, crumpling the paper under her. Amanda looked down at the sound, heart racing as she watched the dark thighs, intoxicated by the scent of an aroused female. Amanda's head was spinning from the aroma, her own nipples, painfully stiff, sent delicious shocks through her body. Polly finished taking off her shirt and climbed onto Amanda's lap, bringing her handful-sized breasts up to the captivated woman's lips as her eyes pleaded with Amanda to take her. Amanda, trembling with desire and trepidation, brushed her lips against the girl's nipple, lost as Polly sighed.

Amanda's hands roamed over Polly's breasts, her back, lightly squeezing her ass, reaching around to the front, brushing her fingers against the girl's soft, kinky mons. She lightly sucked and nibbled on the turgid nipples as Polly unbuttoned Amanda's blouse and pushed up her bra. As Polly touched and caressed Amanda's breasts, she read the shadows on the woman's heart. The lust, the fear, the hate. And Marcus Hudson... The woman felt her arms become heavy, unable to move as her arousal increased. Polly leaned back, plucking her nipple from Amands's mouth, taking in the woman, frozen, trembling on the edge of a small orgasm, eyes wide in terror as the girl's face grew hard and cold.

"You really did Marcus wrong. I've known a white woman like you, Mistress Olivia. She liked hurting people too."

The girl vanished from her perch on Amanda's lap, appeared in front of the car, dressed again in the fully buttoned shirt. She looked up, as if scanning the black sky. "Jacob?" she shouted, in a voice that cut through Amanda with a piercing dread.

###

Jacob stood before the contorted body of Augustus Wainwright, disgusted with the young master's failure to endure even the suffering of a young boy. Pitiful. That was the easiest ride I could give you, he thought, glancing over to the girl Rebecca, who was still in the early part of Annie's memory.

He closed his eyes and returned to the park. He closed in on the brown sedan, saw the out of state plates and a young woman behind the wheel, staring hard at Polly. Despite himself, he grinned at the teenaged ghost, pressing against the car window as she slipped inside. It won't take long now to get a read, he thought.

His gaze approached the car and slid into the back as Polly was shrugging out of her shirt and climbing into the woman's lap. The woman's lust was coming off her in waves, a familiar tang both he and Polly recognized. As she caressed the girl's body and feasted on her breasts, the woman ...Amanda, was being read by Polly. The darkness in her heart, right on top, hot and thick, what she did with great pride and anger a few years ago, and again to an innocent young black man just a few hours ago. The tang of Mistress Olivia LeChette, who liked girls and boys, liked them young, and often loved them to death. The young ghost shivered at the memory; Amanda mistook the movement and clutched her tighter, moaning around the girl's hard nipple between her lips. Jacob saw Polly's face grow hard, knew that particular look would bear down on the woman, make her arms and legs heavy and clamp her mouth shut. Wrapping her up for me, he thought. She should, the way she messed up my judging...

His gaze left the car, hovered above as Polly appeared back outside, standing in front of the car, dressed again in the shirt. Polly called his name as he returned to the parlor where the girl twitched on the floor beside the latest weak-assed prospect from the Wainwright clan. Young miss, you just got lucky, he thought.

Jacob left the parlor, stepping through a dark corner in the hallway and emerging from the shadow of an old, gnarled tree. It was one of three ancient Red Maple trees in a small stand of River Birch next to a creek that meandered through an unkept field. He walked around to the opposite side of the tree, stopping at a large knothole on the trunk above his head, visible in the moonlight. He reached up and inside it, removed a large leather bag and from it took out a piece of wood with blood stains on it. He put the bag back inside the tree trunk and removed the smaller pouch and Annie's bone from his pants pocket. Jacob added the wood to the other charms inside, a folded scrap of paper covered in random numbers and letters, for Samuel, and a small bone with a piece of faded blue cloth tied to it. Annie's bone, with it's faded scrap of stained yellow cloth tied around it, Polly snuck into his pocket. All the charms in the pouch and back in his pocket, the ghost went back around to the night shadows cast by the old Red Maples, entered them and appeared on the road beside Polly.

Amanda, paralyzed, breathing rapid and shallow, began muffled wailing at seeing the young, powerfully built black man appear, looking no different than the average shirtless young ghetto thug as he walked to the car, except his eyes were sad, not hard or feral. That frightened her even more as he appeared next to her in the passenger seat. The sense of sadness and regret plainly spoken in his eyes.

"It's ok," Jacob said as he stroked her hair, attempting to calm her as he straightened up her clothes, feeling her finally relax. "I know you don't understan', you ain't from round here, but that's ok. You gon' help a young miss who's carrying a burden not meant for her."

Jacob took the pouch from his pocket and removed the piece of wood. The hard glare of the streetlight revealed a rough heart scratched onto one side. He placed it next to her cheek; she was powerless to resist him turning her face toward his. Between them a speck of sunlight sparked into being, glowed as she surrendered to it, let herself be submerged in it, then it flashed and she screamed. He reappeared in front of the car beside Polly, watched Amanda slump over in the seat and begin a twitching dance.

Jacob turned to Polly, removing the pouch from his pocket, taking out Annie's bone before putting away the little piece of wood. Her face screwed up; she was about to start making excuses, but his eyes stopped her.

"Polly, you playing around messed up my judging. That girl and this woman is on you."

He put the little pouch away, held her by the shoulders and waited until she looked him in the eyes. "It ain't over yet," he said, pointing at the car. She looked away, anywhere but at Amanda's twitching form in the car. It wasn't just the woman. It was the out of state license plates...

"We ain't never took this outside befo'." He looked beyond her to the hard night horizon, to the world beyond the park, the town, his eyes growing hard.

Polly, genuinely regretful now, murmured a low "I'm sorry." Jacob saw her close to tears, embraced her gently, comforting the child she was. "I know, I know... "



Chapter 4: Rebecca's Taste


Rebecca was losing herself within Annie's high-pitched terror of the Stonehill brothers. She felt her own legs pumping, urging the slave girl on as she sprinted from the slave cabins toward Wainwright House; get in, get your things, get away.

Annie's eyes focused on the rear parlor window all the way to the back door. The curtains were wide open, but the room was dark. She skidded to a stop beside the low steps up to the door, right under the window. She fought to control her breathing, listening for the sounds of men or horses as she crouched exposed in the broad back yard of the mansion. She swallowed and rushed up the steps, slowly opened the door and peeked through the crack. All clear. She took another deep breath, then slipped inside soundlessly.

She steered carefully around the elegant furniture as she moved to the parlor's front entrance. Just beyond, the hallway of the great house extended straight throught it, taking a short left detour at the second of the three landings before opening under the gracefully curving arch of the front stairway, facing the broad double doors at the grand entrance. It was dark, only a few lanterns left glowing along the wall. She couldn't see the front door from here without going down the hall, but that risked waking up the nightboy, who normally dozed in a chair by the entrance. She didn't like him anyway; he preferred being a house nigger. He'd enjoy turning her over to the Stonehills. He'd wake up the house soon enough when they got here. she turned and crept up the rear staircase.

The sewing room was on the left, a few feet away from the back stairs. She peeked just above floor level, thankful it was quiet. She slipped into the room, went to the closet that held old bolts of material from previous balls and dances, retrieved her satchel from behind the pile.

She put the pistol inside and was about to close it up when Rebecca felt herself being...pushed. She got a flash of another woman, around her age, screaming as she and Rebecca tumbled past each other, through whirling darkness, into...the room.

The confused girl found herself in the sewing room, a few feet away from Annie, floating a foot or so off the floor. She couldn't hear Annie's voice any longer, but she still felt the girl's fear, the other woman's panic and confusion as well. She saw Annie's reflection in a mirror, but also the woman who took her place. She was dressed in a modern skirt and blouse and appeared to float within Annie's outline. And her name was...Amanda. Rebecca heard a little girl's voice in her head now, whispering about Amanda and what she did to someone named Marcus Hudson just a few hours ago.

She was still trying to make sense of it when she lurched forward just as Annie moved to the window. Rebecca careened past Annie, passed through the window, drifted to a stop a dozen feet above the ground. Disoriented, she fought back a wave of nausea and tried to focus on Annie standing at the window. The slave's frightened start, disappearing from view and the sound of horses below told her the Stonehill boys were just arriving. Rebecca spun around, saw young master Julius Le Chette was with them, trailing from behind, staying on his horse as the boys dismounted and ran toward the entrance of the mansion.

Rebecca was flung back to her previous position a few feet away from the girl who choked back a gurgled sob. She saw Amanda's reflection in the mirror hanging beside the window as the girl rushed out the door, clutching the satchel. Rebecca was whirled from the room, through the door to see Annie creep down the stairs as she was flung the opposite direction down the hallway, then dropped through the floor to hover beside the second stairway.

She heard a noise to her left, saw Annie slowly moving through the rear parlor to the back door, then heard pounding at the great front door of the mansion. Annie's exit was as silent as the Stonehill boys were loud, bursting through the doors, slapping the nightboy on his head and ordering him to fetch his master.

Good, Rebecca thought, they didn't see us, you...

She reeled from the nausea and vertigo of flying through walls and furniture, a helpless hovering ragdoll, feeling Annie / Amanda's fear rising as she slowly slipped out the back door. Rebecca heard master Beauragard Wainwright loudly coming down the front staircase, then was cast backward through the house till she found herself floating outside again, this time just above the ground. When her eyes focused, she saw Julius Le Chette staring at something in the back yard. Rebecca turned to look, her sick feeling confirmed by Annie, a pale yellow shadow running through the grand back yard used for outdoor parties. It seemed so wide now, as the house came alive with alarm.

Annie headed for the treeline behind the far side of the slave cabins, back behind the small garden where the slaves grew okra and collards, often used by them at night to come and go unseen between the great houses. But she cut straight across the wide swath of the back yard instead of heading for the safety of the smokehouse first. And she was in a yellow dress, she realized half way to the meager collection of cabins, looking down. Her knees almost buckled, she stumbled, then, too afraid to stop and look behind, she finally reached the nearest of the cabins, saw the door crack open and a curious face peek out, saw the house astir and the running girl and slammed it shut. Annie stopped behind the cabin, leaning against the temporary refuge, breathing roughly. Hearing shouts from the house, she bolted through the shacks and down the footpath through the garden for the treeline, then began running south along the footpath, hoping the deeper shadows of the trees helped some. She knew it was bad, but it's too late to be careful...

Two Stonehill boys ran from the mansion's back door to the slave cabins, calling to Le Chette, who was just dismounting as they kicked open the first cabin door.

Rebecca, still hovering in the yard beside the grand mansion, watched young master Le Chette and the Stonehill brothers force all the sleeping field hands out of their cabins, ordered them all to the dirt in front of the first row of shacks and trained their pistols on them as each cabin was searched for the girl. The fear and choking rage of the slaves washed over Rebecca in hard waves, searing her soul, amplifying her nausea, her complete helplessness. She screamed, thrashing violently from the assualt. She tasted the dust swirling up from their short breaths in the humid night air as they lay on their stomachs in their rough breeches and shifts. She felt Annie's racing heart, felt shadows of leaves and small branches whipping past her arms and legs as she ran through the loosely spaced trees. She felt Amanda, inside the terrified girl, screaming.

After checking all the cabins they ran back on their mounts, tearing south down Maison Road. The overseer and the nightboy were sent down the treeline to look for her. Master Beauregard didn't trust the field niggers to look for the high yella, even if they had been rousted awake at gunpoint on account of a house girl...

Rebecca was suddenly flung into the air, stopping with a lurch above the great Wainwright House, then she flew south, over Maison Road, easily catching up to and passing the men riding furiously below her, then after a few minutes she was again hovering above the ground, speeding through trees alongside the pale yellow shadow of Annie, moving quickly along the path through the trees.

She could see up ahead a gap in the treeline, an intersecting crossroads marking the end of Wainwright property along the road, nowhere to hide for twenty yards on either side of the road. And the horses were approaching. Annie took a deep breath and fixed her eyes on the nearest tree across the road, then ran, head down across the exposed ground.

Halfway across the road, Le Chette rounded the intersection to her left. Rebecca saw him raise a pistol and fire. Annie yelped and fell to the ground with a muffled thud. Rebecca felt a reflection of searing pain ripple from the back of her left leg and shrieked. Annie just moaned, her energy sapped, spirit deflated as she lay there, a foot away from the treeline, her leg numb and prickly.

She'd only made it a mile south of Wainwright House.

The four men took Annie roughly, threw her over the back of Cyrus Stonehill's horse and rode hard back to Le Chette House. Once there Cyrus and his brothers Abner and Nathan followed Julius to a quiet spot in the back fields of the Le Chette plantation, where Julius and his older brother Lucien often took young slavegirls to "get a taste," or "take a ride."

They stripped off the yellow dress, tore off her underwear, threw her onto the tattered clothing, then each man in turn roughly raped her. Between each violation they cursed and kicked her leg where she was shot. After they all finished violating her, they pulled out their pistols. Cyrus shot her in the already wounded leg. Abner shot her other leg, Nathan Stonehill put a bullet through the hand that plunged the knitting needle into Franklin's neck. Julius Le Chette steadied his hand as sighted down the barrel, watching her bleeding, swollen face. He called her name, waited until her eyes focused through the pain. He expected her to look terrified, but she just stared back, resigned and trembling.

Rebecca, eyes closed tight, recoiled in revulsion throughout the assault, burning pain in both legs and her hand, then Annie and Amanda's torment abruptly ended as Le Chette fired. Rebecca kept her eyes closed through the continued pummeling of the girl's honey brown body, the connection now just a distant echo, but each sound the men made with their boots struck her with dull force.

She heard them stop, then the soft muffled shuffling of footsteps trailing away. She didn't want to look, but something told her she wouldn't get out of this nightmare until she did. She slowly opened her eyes, still shaking from the fading waves of agony now no more than ripples, looked down to the broken body and tried to look away, but she couldn't. Whatever held her above the grisly scene forced her gaze, kept her eyes open as she began to cry bitterly.

Annie's honey tones were barely recognizable, bruises and bloody shoeprints covered her body, her torso misshapen from broken ribs, the slave girl's head smoked from the point-blank bullet hole. Rebecca saw Amanda's shattered face reflected within and retched, dry heaved through wracking sobs. She regained control of her eyelids and clamped them shut, her whole body clamped tight.

She heard quick footsteps aproach a few minutes later, breaking the still silence of the field, the low noise of crickets near a stand of catalpa trees. She didn't want to see anymore, the two faces were burning into her brain, tormenting her. She heard a choked-back gasp, a deep voice gripped in shock and sorrow. She heard Annie's body being held tightly, lovingly.

Rebecca heard nothing but breathing and low moans for another long minute. Let me go, she whimpered, what else there...

Her eyelids popped open, forcing her to watch an older black man struggle towrap the tattered clothing around the girl's body. He grimaced, fighting back tears as he wiped Annie's face with a scrap of yellow. The cloth stroked down her cheek and Rebecca saw her own face, shattered, staring back at her, she couldn't stop screaming.

At dawn the next morning, Ellis Weston, the Wainwright Park groundskeeper, discovered the brown rental car covered in light dew as he came in early to open up the Slave Museum, saw inside a strange woman, face up in the blood soaked front seat, her frozen mask of agony punctuated by a bullet hole in her forehead. The old man cursed and ran to the small building, fumbling with his keys to get inside and call the sherrif. He had a kindergarden class coming in a few hours and he didn't want some out of town gang killing spoiling the children's day. He dared not think what else it could be.

A few minutes later, Augustus Wainwright's body was found by Jesse, a deputy dispatched back to the house by county Sherrif Burt Eggleston on orders from Agnes Wainwright. "Just go collect him," she said. He found Rebecca cowered in a corner of the disheveled parlor, her screams reduced to hoarse whimpers, her body covered in light bruises. She had a fresh round bruise on her forehead the deputy thought would otherwise be a bullet hole, and she was unresponsive to his questions. Just like '83, he thought, remembering the sherrif's tales of the trouble that year, before he was even born. It was the first time he ever heard of Jacob and Polly, 'the ghost twins.' But there it was, one of the family firstborn sons dead the morning after his 20th birthday, and a woman, insane, incoherent, found near him. Ol' Burt wasn't lying after all, Jesse thought.

He called in to the station, asked for the county hospial ambulance, and stood outside the bedroom. He couldn't watch the poor girl's face any longer, and that bruise gave him a weird feeling. That feeling was confirmed when Danny called in from Wainwright Park, reporting a gunshot victim with a bullet wound in the forehead and lots of bruises, except he couldn't tell where the bullet went to. He'd lifted her head, saw the exit wound, but there was no hole in the car seat, no powder evidence from a point-blank discharge on her face or her neatly arranged clothing. Danny said it looked like she was scared to death, then shot. But no bullet.

Jesse always believed the expression "hair on the back of my neck stood up" was just a saying. He knew better now.



Part II: April 2006

Chapter 5: The File Room


April 2006, West Hollywood, CA.

"..So, ladies and gentlemen, we come to the truth. The reputed 'Ghost of Tucker Canyon,' the terror that claimed eight lives over the course of twenty years, has been revealed as the cruel game of Cletus Tucker III, grandson of the old prospector and the supposed first victim of the ghost. Thanks to the assistance of this week's honorary Field Agent, Henrietta Cantwell of Birchwood, Texas, we proved that Cletus not only faked his death, but carried out a gruesome series of revenge murders linked to his family's past."

A tall, distinguished man in a natty suit held up a file, talking as he walked over to a table with a small gray file cabinet sitting on it, named "Myth." Once again, you, the aware public, have aided us in getting to the supernatural truth. Once again, we take hard evidence and employ an open mind, to discover the reality, the proof behind these phenomenona. And this time, the file must, alas, rest here." he said, placing the file inside and sliding it shut. Dark, eerie background music swelled as the man turned to the camera. His deep, rolling voice continued...

"As always, ladies and gentlemen, we ask you, the aware public, to bring your hard evidence to us, bring us proof -", he gestured over to another small file cabinet, this one ornate, made of mahogany with gold handles. A brass plate held the word "Truth".

"Send us your evidence that documents the supernatural, and the supernormal and if we investigate your casefile, you will become an honorary field agent and receive a grant of $10,000 euros, courtesy of the Slattery Trust, certified by Lloyd's of London.

As the man talked, data crawled across the bottom of the offstage monitor: "Grants established by the Trust in honor of Alexis T. Slattery, who lost his young wife in giving birth to Benjamin Slattery in 1827. After attempts to contact his beloved, he swore to discover hard proof of the afterlife, which spread to include a search for the truth behind all of myth and superstition. Upon his death in 1841, he willed $100,000 pounds of his personal fortune to the secret society and investigative agency he formed, now known as "The Campus," to investigate and document the supernatural. In 1850 Benjamin Slattery, after graduating from Oxford, joined the Campus as a research assistant, becoming executor in 1878. In the intervening century and a quarter, the various research and technical "Laboratories" within the Campus have documented, to the declassified satisfaction of the Royal Academy of Sciences, 19,238 authentic manifestations of the supernatural."

The camera backed up as the man walked forward, through the doorway of a vault.

"Next week, we investigate the case of a sweet little girl in Nebraska who claims to move large objects at will with her mind. Until then, this is Roger X. Lowell. The file room is now closed."

Lowell stepped out of the frame as the vault door swung closed with a deep, echoing clang. The closing music of the outro came up. Lowell walked over to the sound table, picked up the new copy of Variety with the front page item, "'File Room' spooky smash hit for Phaedra Channel!"

"And cut!" barked the director, as the crew on the set broke into cheers and applause. Lowell merely nodded and smiled, then he stepped back onto the set as the lights came up, holding the paper proudly.

"Thank you all. And a special thanks to Xavier. This could never have happened without your tireless efforts on behalf of the program." He pointed to Xavier Slattery, standing beside the director's chair, beaming in that subtle way of his, from the eyes more than the slightly upturned lips. "We wouldn't be here without you." This round of applause finally made Xavier's smile split wide open.

Xavier was the real force behind the success of the show, Roger thought. Steering "The File Room" through treacherous waters - the highly suspicious and resistant members of the Campus committee, plus his access to the historical casefiles, made the show an excellent vehicle to properly introduce the no-longer secret organization to a skeptical and frightened public. It wasn't just entertainment - we provided a public service, considering the way the world discovered the Campus, on live television, he laughed to himself. God bless the 'Amherst Incident.'

"And now," Roger continued, "I can confirm the rumors sparked from today's most gratifying article. We have indeed signed on for three full seasons with Phaedra, and according to Xavier, the success of our program means, on the Campus, we graduate from "Media Relations" research project to full Media Lab status. And with it, a raise for the production staff."

"Now, we are having a small celebration at the alehouse a few blocks west. Some heads of different labs and a few of our agents are already there, so please stop by if you can before you all disperse on a well deserved two weeks of "R and R". Again, congratulations, everyone."

The mood at the 'alehouse,' actually Monroe's Tap on Melrose in West Hollywood, was lively with the buzz of the production staff, friends from Spectral, Alchem, and one of the Tech Labs and a few field agents from around the globe, trading congratulations and stories from the past year. The bar was closed down, so the shop talk was lively, currently rambling from the electromagnetic properties of ectoplasm to new tweaks in alchemy-based computer chip design. Lowell was at the bar chatting up a young thing from Spectral3, Xavier was ensconced in a back booth, focused on his open laptop computer, trying out a new benefit of being a full Lab: security-level clearance. He now had access to the encrypted data search and surveillance resources in Basic Research, and the secure email system as well. An application suite that shielded the Campus from the world's spy networks, including the CIA's Echelon.

Finally, he thought, I can do this with discretion...

He looked up at the clock across the room. 4:35 pm, West Hollywood time. 11:35 in London. Not long now, he thought, bending back down to the computer, waiting for the 'pending pile.'

A few minutes later he glanced up and caught the eye of Sylvia Cavendish, chatting with friends a few feet away. Elegant, stylish, and currently the Director of Basic Research. He ducked back down behind the screen and suppressed a giddy grin. She was positively glowing, brushing a strand of blonde hair away from her glasses. She surprised him earlier as he approached her, moving to a seat at the booths. She brushed her hand across the front of his trousers as he sidled past in the crowded back room. This new, sexual side of Sylvia still surprised him, and left him intensely aroused. This same reserved, highly intelligent, and achingly beautiful woman he'd pined for (and lusted after) since he was 16, who was never less than professional among the quiet and orderly library aisles at Oxford, or around the sleek racks of blade servers in Basic Research's data centre, was now reciprocating his long-smoldering attraction, and stoking the fire. "Dear boy, in one hour, we are leaving on holiday. I've made all the arrangements. I am so very proud of the effort you've put into this project, so I intend to see you take this holiday," she said, moving closer, pressing the back of her hand firmly against his crotch, "even if it requires constant surveillance." She giggled softly as he made it to a seat, painfully erect and blushing furiously.

With Sylvia's support, Xavier's "Media Relations research project" (some senior committee members on the Campus still refused to utter the cable show's name), was accorded equal status with the in-house prospective research labs - they were given Campus computers, allowed full access to the historical casefiles, but only general access to active investigations. And the committee watched him like a hawk as he competed for good casefiles along with the other labs and research projects. She told him as much the first time they made love, after, as she lay atop him, drenched in sweat, reeling from the best sex she'd had in fifteen years. She said some members of the committee were waiting for him to stumble, to kill the very idea of his public relations program for a secret organization, convinced they could somehow go back underground. They were outnumbered by his supporters in the various labs and on the committee, for now. The news only increased his determination and healthy paranoia.

Xavier watched the cool blonde, her pert, athletic frame slightly obscured by her lab coat. He could easily imagine what holiday Sylvia had in mind. He chuckled as he bent back to his task at the computer. Cases for next season's shows, and waiting for any bad news in this week's pile of 'red' cases...

Solid, definitive cases solved were the bread and butter of the research labs on Campus, whether it documented the supernatural and the supernormal, exposed frauds and hoaxes, or discovered the truth behind myths and legends. And the competition was fierce for new phenomena, not merely cases that updated long-running "active archive" files, so a strict protocol was established.

Today was Thursday. As midnight became Friday, the labs received a weekly 'pending pile' download of prospective casefiles from Basic Research in London - the cases they generate, plus those submitted by the labs themselves: three dozen or more neat one page F-2's, or "Factual Summaries," of details, along with copies of any source documents (audio, letters, emails, blog hits, news clippings...), and any similarities to 'active archive' cases. The pile itself is downloaded in a few minutes, but it stays locked until six after, to give all interested members time to log-in. Once the download is unlocked, most research labs quickly go to the 'red' files of cases they submitted themselves, to get the numbers and officially register them as active investigations. Later, the rest of the F-2's from Basic Research and any from the Tech Labs are considered.

Some 'red' files are so tantalizing, the details will get leaked before the weekly pile, then a more established lab will right away protest the claim, forcing a hearing before the full committee for arbitration. The older Labs, with more resources and manpower, usually won those showdowns, no matter how forcefully the prospective lab would argue. Case closed. Good casefiles brought prestige for your Lab, could speed up the process from research project to full Lab status, and meant more resources next year. And Xavier, to the great surprise of Sylvia and a few other committee members, developed during "lab rat" training a knack for picking good cases other labs overlooked. As a result he'd already lost three 'red' cases to other, more established labs before.

It was a quarter to 5pm. Not long now, Xavier thought.

On the laptop, the fruits of three weeks' worth of F-2s were currently displayed, a world map with yellow, green, and red glowing pins hovering over Zaire, Serbia, Scotland and three spots in the US: Warwick, RI., Alamagordo, NM, and Liberty Plains MS. The yellow pins marked Scotland, and New Mexico - F-2's passed on by at least two other labs but Xavier felt them worth further study. The green pins, in Zaire and Warwick, marked two of seven new investigations begun by other Labs last week, and officially off limits, but Xavier's friends from his Campus training class of "lab rats" were in charge of these cases. If they became show worthy, he'd send Lowell and a news crew down to discreetly inquire, and play up the lab in a live webcast news piece. It worked spectactularly when he last did it this season. Agent Carrie Dubinski from Spectral3 was still enjoying a bit of celebrity after Lowell's "field report" with her, tracking down a killer through the Paris sewers with the aid of a ghost, and clearing a man three hours away from execution. It made international headlines after the episode aired. That put the cat amongst the pigeons, Xavier chuckled...

The red pins marked any unregistered F-2s from previous weeks. Serbia and Liberty Plains. The Serbia file came from Wolfen5, concerning an unidentified, untagged werewolf. Wolfen Labs 2 and 5 had been in arbitration the past week. Both labs were evenly matched, but Xavier hoped it would go to Wolfen5 - his fellow "lab rat" Steven Brindley was slated for lead investigtor if they won the case. And werewolves would make great tele...

The Liberty Plains file was his, and it was perfect - a rumored slave ghost taking revenge on the descendents of plantation masters for over 100 years, a tightly kept antebellum gothic tale exposed by the death of the latest victim. A case that managed to elude the thorough agents of the Trust for most of its existence. Only the F-2 wasn't official, wasn't even registered - it came from Roger Lowell's slush pile of "honorary field agent" letters, a supplement to the Campus pending pile. The letters arrived in December, sent in by a fan named Augustus Wainwright. Actually, Wainwright's lawyer, Rufus Patterson, after the man's sudden death last November. Xavier was sending two or three of these interesting letters to Basic Research each week, to generate F-2s, but when Roger showed him these, Xavier knew this case was explosive, but he wouldn't stand a chance of proving anything if he sent it as a red file, because of what he discovered.

The letter from the deceased young man, Augustus Wainwright, mentioned other incidents in 1967 and 1983, in Liberty Plains, where either a Wainwright or a LeChette firstborn son was visited by Jacob or Polly. Both young men died, but the news never left town. Xavier did a cursory search through old casefiles from those years, finding nothing, then he expanded his search through the historical database for any clues from other cases in the region. After two weeks he found a Spectral7 report from 1985 that mentioned a case in "Wainwright, Ms" dismissed by Spectral4 in July of 83. Dismissed cases were F-2s that, after initial investigation, proved lacking in evidence or substantiation, not even worthy of "hoax" status. These cases went back to Basic Research stamped "dismissed" and filed with the rest of the rejected F-2s in a binder from that month. He located the reference number for the binder, but those files were removed from the database and only in paper form, in a box somewhere in the basement of Basic's data centre in London, sharing space with stacks of boxes filled with binders of decades of old F-2s.

In January, he cooked up an excuse to visit London and the data centre, visiting friends who lived in the residence building on the grounds, which allowed him to access the facility at 2am. He checked the building maps and located the stacks of dismissed files in a cramped room in the centre's basement. After half an hour of searching the disorganized pile of boxes by flashlight and watching the door, he located the binders for summer 1983 in an unmarked box and removed the one marked July, confirming the reference number. He was looking through the binder for the file when a noise behind him made him swing the flashlight around, facing the no-nonsense director of Basic Research at the door.

He stood there in shock, expecting the worst, when Sylvia closed the door, ran to him and turned off the flashlight. He was about to speak when she grabbed him by the waist and pulled him behind the stacks of boxes. She held a finger to his lips as he heard voices passing by the door. He had never been this close to her before, breathing in her bouquet, conscious of every place their bodies touched, and despite the danger of being caught, his body was responding to the contact. She responded to his growing nervous erection by moving her hand from his lips to a firm grasp of his ass. Shocked, he looked in her eyes and saw the same ignited fire. Without thinking, he dropped the binder, caressed her soft, shapely ass under her lab coat and kissed her, hard. She returned the passion, but shortly broke the kiss. "Come with me," she said, straighting her skirt and moving to the door. He wanted to stay and look for the box from 1967, but she hissed that that was entirely out of the question. Luckily, the room wasn't in a high-security area of the basement, so she and Xavier were able to escape detection back to her suite on the grounds. That was the first time he made love to Sylvia, and discovered the committee's surveillance of his project. And the first time he ever hated a member of the Campus.

The dismissed casefile from the July 8, 1983 binder confirmed his worst suspicions. The case agent's report pronounced a 'suicide' for Oscar LeChette in Wainwright, Ms and rejected a vague mention of 'ghost twins' as "no evidence to substantiate supposed legend. No connection." The same agent was a new investigator back in 1966. Lucas Jonesboro, a young agent then, now the director of Spectral4 for almost ten years.

Spectral4 was an old, established Lab on the Campus, with their US headquarters in Memphis and one of Jonesboro's most loyal agents living in Gulfport, Ms., who'd already done work on the Ormond and the Mytles Plantations in LA. And he was known to be more sympathetic to the masters than the slaves. Xavier had no friends in Spectral4 either, he'd be completely shut out from any access to HIS case if it went to arbitration, which they would demand. Then Lucas would bury it, like the others. He and Spectral4 had betrayed the very spirit of the Campus. It disgusted Xavier; Lucas Jonesborough was spitting in the face of Alexis Slattery, who began the Campus out of a genuine thirst for knowledge and truth, no matter where it led. He was determined to expose Lucas and Spectral4, by fully investigating the case and documenting everything, but it had to be a covert operation outside his project, outside the Campus completely. Xavier himself couldn't go anywhere near the town, or send anyone from the show, or Spectral4 would know. An established lab might occasionally launch a 'red file' investigation before it becomes official, but never a prospective or new lab, and definitely not a Slattery, unless there were a bloody good reason and evidence.

This case could well add to the positive press the Trust gained in America during the Gulf Coast disaster, he thought. At first, only a half dozen agents were there in the days leading up to the storm, quietly moving data files, artifacts and equipment from Spectral7's base office in New Orleans to houses in the El Capitan district and the Baton Rouge office, but Katrina hit before they finished, first washing away the homes of two field agents in Timberlane, south of New Orleans, then they lost contact with a third, the voudon expert who lived in the bottom of the 9th ward bowl for over 50 years. They'd been missing ever since, joining the estimated 3,000 people lost to the disaster.

In the days of chaos after, the Trust sent MediVac air and water rescue units to get their people, then they saw the disaster unfold on TV, and got involved in the general rescue efforts, joining those who went around the useless FEMA and managed to get some help into the area, even aiding the Coast Guard who also ignored FEMA and went ahead with rescue operations. In the weeks after the water went down, American field agents from 12 different labs suspended active cases and went to help search the wreckage for survivors, not caring to hide their identities, or their contempt for the government. The network and cable news shows did glowing profiles on the three agents lost to Katrina.

There were still agents from different spectral labs in the worst-hit areas of the Gulf Coast, patrolling the devastation at night, contacting the newly passed-on and collecting data, so many souls overwhelmed and suffering from fear, rage, and confusion. With this temporary situation causing a backlog of cases, he had time to start a covert investigation, but not long before the data mining filters in Basic Research come across a news item or a keyword hit from somebody writing about this ghost online. He was waiting for this batch of 'red' files for any clue that Spectral4 was trying to suppress the latest incident. The wait was nerve-wracking.

I need somebody on the ground for the next couple weeks to get an investigation started and hand it off, Xavier thought. A reporter not connected to the show, and there's only one name on that short list. I need Lionel Perry, I really need him now. It's been a couple years since he lost his tv reporter job. Last time I asked it was only a couple months after...

He brought up a window for the Trust's financial search engines that had access to bank accounts across the world. He entered the name "Lionel Perry" into the database, quickly locating his New York bank accounts.

He had an account in Manhattan Savings before it failed, his other bank, Gotham Federal, hadn't shown any activity in over a year, since a transfer of over $300,000 to the account of a Henry Smith in the Santa Monica, Ca. branch of Bruin Saving and Loan. Xavier entered that name into the database and tapped into California's DMV to look for a license. Lionel didn't show up, but Henry, with Lionel's face, did. The license date was three months after the transfer. All right, Xavier smiled, you're Henry Smith...

He pulled up Henry's withdrawls for the past two months. He noted a loose trail of gas station, RV park and motel charges along Hwy 70, from Kansas City to Denver, then down to Las Vegas. The same pattern of aimless walkabout Lionel... uh, Henry, had been on since the last time Xavier tried talking to his old friend.

He'd been in Vegas the last few days. Suite 827 in the Matador, on the Old Strip.

Xavier brought up his new, encrypted email search system and looked for any cross traffic by either Lionel OR Henry. Nothing. He had three cancelled email addresses from his old job, and there were more than a dozen "Henry Smith's" and "H.Smith's" in the search results. Crap. He couldn't send a mass encrypted message, and he didn't dare send all those Henry's an email on the open internet - Basic Research would be onto him in hours when, not if, they plucked a message with that many keyword hits out of the datastream.

Xavier shrank the private email screen and checked the time - seven minutes. Scrambling, he started looking for courier services in Las Vegas. This time I have to convince him to be a reporter just this once more, look into this as a favor, he thought. Then, I can deal with Spectral4 and the hidebound Campus, he thought. I should ask Sylvia...

He looked up and saw Sylvia, pale blue eyes twinkling as she approached his booth, bending close to him. He quickly filled her in.

"Xavier, in light of the information you discovered, I approve of your covert investigation, and I wouldn't worry about the Campus at the moment," Sylvia said. "I will also support your enlisting a freelancer to do the initial investigation, but you must monitor the situation, and be prepared to take over when he has enough evidence to present in arbitration. The full committee needn't be informed, as long as you and your friend don't misstep, dear boy."

"Working on it as we speak, dear lady," Xavier said as he located an LA - Las Vegas courier service. Mercury Executive Couriers. "Speed And Discretion."

She smiled, glancing at the clock near the bar. 4:55pm. "Xavier, dear, I'm sorry, but you'll only have 30 more minutes, then we must be off. I'll leave you to it." She glided over to three dateless Tech-heads, who stammered and gulped as she approached.

Half an hour. That should be enough time.

Xavier looked about the bar, spotting one of the interns who didn't look drunk, waved her over. "Jean. Excuse me, could you be a dear and bring me the notebook computer no. 6 from the cage in Roger's office. Don't bother signing it out, I'll handle that myself. Thank you ever so much," he said, giving her his keys.

He assembled a folder with files covering the Wainwright information, and the declassified Campus history and regulations handbook, then downloaded them into a memory stick. As the timer on his laptop chimed the hour, the weekly download began. Xavier reopened his encrypted email and wrote a hiring letter to Mercury Executive, with instructions to execute in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Jean returned as he sent off a generous advance via electronic payment.

He closed the encrypted email and returned to Henry's bank to do a little business, then he brought up the Basic Research screen, watching the 'pending pile' download as it completed. He saved it, then took out the other, Campus-issued laptop, checked for the 'grenade,' turned the computer on and installed the encryption upgrade and the files from the memory stick. He wrote out a note on a Post-it, stuck it onto the bag and took it up to Jonas the bartender to hold for pickup.

At six minutes the download unlocked. This week it was 42 files, 17 "red" files. He scanned through them all, including the latest "red" files, made note of two unassigned F-2's from Basic Research, and sighed in relief, seeing no bogus entries for his case from Spectral4. He closed up and packed away his laptop and regarded Sylvia with a wicked grin.

"All right, Sylvia. One quick stop at the studio, then, time for holiday."





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