Page 4 of Stronger Than Blood

Chapter four

Mick

Igot up early to see Granny Ida off to Nashville with Mr. and Mrs. Stewart.

I also didn’t want to get an earful about not getting the rest of the hoeing done in the garden, and of course, just thinking that made me chuckle.

My buddies had come over once during the summer, and when Granny had told us we needed to be hoeing, they’d lost it.

When they’d left, I had the embarrassing job of explaining why hoeing was considered funny to my friends. My face glowed as she laughed so hard she said she was afraid she was going to wet herself. That woman was too much. Especially for a teenager.

After I finished in the garden, washed, and filed down the hoe again, I walked in the back door and was about to pour myself a glass of water when I heard something in the front room. “Did you forget something?” I called out and went to see what was up with Granny being back so early.

A sickly, dark feeling hit me in the gut like a wrecking ball. “Shit,” I whispered. It’d been a long time since I’d had that feeling.

I felt the dark roll in, blocking my peripheral vision. “You have no place here!” I yelled, just like the counselor told me to do. “Get out!”

I heard a malevolent chuckle and what felt like a cold, slimy finger slide over my face and onto my shoulder.

“GET OUT!” I yelled, and the feeling began to pass, the color returning to my vision.

I backed out of the room, not willing to let myself be vulnerable.

When I got to the back door, I stepped out and locked it behind me.

In the corner of the yard, under Granny’s prized plum trees, was an antique swing set.

We’d sit out there and shell peas or snap beans when it was too hot to do much else.

It was far enough away from the house that I felt safe, and when I had my ‘spells,’ as Granny used to call them, no matter what the weather, it ended up being my place to go.

I leaned back in the swing, letting my head fall forward.

The darkness had almost gotten me admitted to the state hospital when I was a teenager, if it wasn’t for Granny and Joann, my cousin…

well, Granny’s niece. Anyway, family was family in these parts, and it didn’t matter how far down the line it went.

Joann had talked Granny into getting me therapy after I’d arrived back in Granny’s life and acted more like a church mouse than a teenage boy.

The dreams had started shortly after moving in and scared the hell out of both of us.

Then, I began having waking dreams, and they were so much worse.

The blood and the terror of that first dream that came during the day still plagued me.

When I accidentally told the therapist I was feeling the ghost, she immediately called in Granny and asked if she could put me in the state hospital for observation.

Granny had just laughed. “Lady, if you put every Southerner in the loony bin for seeing or feeling ghosts, there wouldn’t be none of us left!” she’d said, and that had been the end of my therapy sessions with that woman.

That day, Granny had taken me to Piston Creek where the Methodist Church had hired a young apprentice minister whose degree was in social work before he went to divinity school.

Anyway, his take was that I wasn’t nuts but rather facing a demon.

“And no wonder, after what happened there when he was just a kid,” he’d said after Granny had explained I was having spells.

The young man had turned to me and smiled. “You've got to tell the devil to get out and leave you alone. The Bible tells us we have the power to rebuke and cast out demons.”

After that, I tried, and it did get better.

I was never sure if it was because of the Bible or just because I was facing my fears.

In fact, up until now, I figured that’s what it’d been—me facing the demons inside me.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t faced the fear, not…

not entirely. Like today I mostly just avoided it.

I knew I wasn’t going back inside with him there, at least not today, and because I didn’t want my grandmother to come home to a ton of work from today’s garden harvest, I threw the baskets of peas and beans into the back of my truck, thanking the good Lord that it wasn’t the time of year for everything else to be ready for harvesting.

I’d shell and snap this batch before taking a nap and getting ready for my night shift at the store bakery.

I’d volunteered to take the night shifts mainly because it allowed me to help my grandmother during the day, but also ’cause I liked doing all the baking when it was just me or me and one other person at night.

I looked warily over at the house and shuddered when the curtain flickered in the front room. I really needed to figure out how to get an exorcist over here. That son of a bitch had spent enough time creating trouble in our lives. Now, if I could just find one that wasn’t full of crap.

I drove to my tiny apartment, thankful the hateful spirit never bothered Granny Ida.

I took the produce up the two flights of steps and plopped it down on my sixties Formica-top dining table.

The apartment had been the one I’d moved into when my first relationship turned to crap, and since it was just me, and I was always concerned Granny might need something, I stayed and saved my money, instead of moving to something decent.

I scrubbed my hands and face, deciding to get the produce dealt with before I showered and turned on the television like we’d done when I’d been living with Granny during the summers.

“TV during the day is fine as long as your hands are busy,” she’d told me early on.

It was funny, but I still lived by that philosophy today.

It only took a moment to process, wash, and put all the vegetables in my refrigerator. I sighed as I thought about the extra thirty minutes I’d have to carve out of my sleep today to get everything back to Granny’s house. She’d have a fit if I left it until tomorrow.

I understood why she’d wanted to get them canned fast, at least the green beans. If she didn’t get them in the jars, they’d wilt and wouldn’t be worth eating. If I didn’t have to work tonight, I’d can them myself, even if I was dealing with a tiny stove and no counter space.

I shrugged off those thoughts and climbed into the shower. Normally, I’d shower after I woke up before work, but I wouldn’t get into bed covered in dirt. Oh well, I’d wear a hat to work tonight ’cause I would for sure wake up with some wacky bedhead after sleeping with wet hair.

As the shower washed off the dirt, I thought of the evil entity and groaned. “There’s got to be a solution. I just wish I could figure it out.”

By the time I was done, as usual, no solution had come to mind, and I forced myself to forget it as I dried off, then climbed into bed—nothing I could do about it now, anyway.