This Strange Addiction by Julie Steimle (e book free reading .txt) 📕

“Alright everybody, choose a crew!” Neil called out.

Silvia glanced at Audry with a look around the area for Hogan and said, “Where did Prince Orion go?”

Shooting her a dirty look, Audry said, “He’s got work. He’s testing the water.”

‘Really?’ said Silvia’s eyes. But her mouth said, “So we’ll see him around?”

“Yes,” Audry said, leaning right in to Silvia’s face, going nose to nose with her. Then she walked toward the group handling the dead and wounded animals. “You don’t have to be so judging.”

“Yes, I do,” Silvia replied, following her.

Bobo went with the group hauling and cutting the wood, which surprised Audry a little as she had been sure Bobo had been sent to follow and protect her. But then she noticed that Jandra also went that way, whom Audry was sure was way too weak to be hauling logs.

There were not too many dead animals. A few were still alive. That meant Audry had to go back to the van to get her animal rescue kit, including her tranquilizer gun, and the locals were grateful she did. With gloves on, they dragged out a dead porcupine, a possibly dead opossum—as you never knew—and a couple raccoons. They found a nearly drowned skunk. But as soon as they realized it was alive, the moment its tail cocked up for action, they scattered and left it alone. There were about three rabbits, two moles, and one shrew, which they scooped out with huge swimming pool nets. They even found a weasel. Then they rescued a fox. It was alive like the skunk, but barely. Audry took it to shore, drying it off on a cloth where it struggled to breathe and she helped it. The local veterinarian came about an hour later to claim the fox while animal control collected the dead carcasses for cremation.

When they found the deer, a young fawn, Audry nearly cried. There was nothing they could do for it. And when they hauled out two owls and a coyote, Audry drew in a breath. She gazed to the lake, realizing I had been a horrible storm with this many animals dead.

“Are there any wolves in this area?” Audry asked those workers from animal control as she was carrying out another drowned rabbit and two birds.

They shrugged. “We’ve heard rumors, but we have never seen any ourselves. There’s the occasional bobcat and coyote—and the coyotes are larger than out west. But actual wolves? I don’t know.”

“I heard one guy say he saw a gray wolf,” a local chimed in, heaving out a sopping log with a friend to a stack they were building to be chopped.

“Some think they’re secretly being reintroduced, but wolves migrate,” that man from animal control said. “They could be coming down from Canada.”

Nodding Audry sighed.

When all the animals they could see were cleared from the lake and the fox was taken away to recover, Audry joined those collecting trash blown in from the town and campgrounds. There was a ton of plastic, especially shopping bags. She also got out three umbrellas. They must have been easily carried on the wind.

They were mostly finished at around four in the afternoon. The locals thanked them and went home with their trash haul and new firewood. With the rest of the afternoon to themselves, though exhausted, the group from NYU wanted to get in some hiking along the ravine and falls before heading into the camp. Going along with the group, Audry spotted Hogan in his waders inside the river collecting water samples. She could already see his collection case was full of samples from the lake and groundwater.

“Are you done for the day?” she called down to him. Silvia stood right behind her almost like a shadow.

He looked up then grinned. “Nearly. Give me a second.”

Audry waited, hearing Silvia sigh with disgusted resignation. With a glance back at her, she shook her head.

Once Hogan got up and out of the water, he packed his things into his case. Then he carried them as they hiked along the stony path. Audry had already put her equipment into the van, so her hands were empty. She offered to help carry his load, but Hogan refuse with a chuckle.

“It would not be right for a gentleman to burden his lady,” he said, kissing her hand.

Audry blushed.

The view was spectacular. The ravine looked like a tall, stacked, thin-layered, dark chocolate tort had been carved out with several ice cream scoopers in a wavy zigzag, the green growth here and there like a dusting of matcha. And the falls tumbled down into the ravine, in some parts akin sheer lace curtains and in others a frothy pouring of white milk. The stone walkway they were on, which had a low wall dividing them from the canyon, gave them an idyllic, almost fairy-tale path for their journey. Audry could imagine herself back in time, with romantic knights and quests and journeys. It was so European in a way that it almost made her laugh. Such old stonework to her did not seem the American style.

It was late when they all returned back to camp. The sun was low and getting lower. Most of the group was beat, dead on their feet, though not yet ready to go to sleep just yet. William, who was with Farrah, had brought in firewood, and he with Paula were trying to start a fire in the pit. Audry went to help. And so did Hogan.

Silvia sauntered up as they struggled to keep things lit, peering over their shoulders while they worked with both matches and a lighter. “Too bad I didn’t invite my brother Danny to come. He’s really good with fire.”

Audry smothered a laugh. Silvia frequently said her half-brother was a pyromaniac, mostly in jest. Good with fire was an understatement—though the only time Audry had ever seen Daniel handle fire was with the candles during the spell. And even then, she still had not figured out if he had palmed a lighter or something because she could not recall him holding a match or a candle or anything to light those wicks.

Hogan glanced to them. “We’ll get this lit.”

And they did, eventually. Once they put in some truly dry tinder, they got a blaze going. The problem was, much of the current firewood was damp, and when the fire finally started, they heard a lot of popping from the blaze—like it would explode in their faces.

In the meantime they set up their tents and pulled out their other camping things. Silvia and Audry put together their tent—though mostly Audry did it. Silvia really wasn’t a camper. Silvia had also worn her only tennis shoes for the trip, and her shorts were a bit too short for truly comfortable camping. Sitting on the dirt wasn’t exactly a comfortable experience for her. She really didn’t have camping gear. It was all Audry’s. In fact, a lot people stared at Silvia, wondering what she was even doing there despite being a former Green Club member. Being attached to Audry seemed to be her only reason. Hogan set up his tent on the other side of the camp near the trail and the trees, briefly watching them as they worked. Once his tent was up, he came over to help. However, the ladies’ tent was up before he arrived. Silvia was currently sitting on her rump and blowing up her air mattress.

Tugging Audry to the side, Hogan said, “Why did she come? She doesn’t seem the type.”

Shrugging, Audry then said in a low whisper, “I’ll tell you later.”

“She just seems so clingy lately.”

Nodding, Audry knew the exact reason for Silvia to be clingy. Being a shadow outside of the apartment had its risks. The closer Silvia was to her—according to Silvia—the better the spell worked.

As the fire started to make coals, Paula and Brooke pulled out their cooler, which had been full of dinners for them all. All were vegetarian, tin-foil wrapped meals. They loaded them into a grilling cage they had brought and set them into the coals, pushing it into the red and yellow of the fire. Someone else brought out the fixings for s’mores, and someone else brought out hotdogs. Paula and Brook shot them dirty looks.

“Don’t have an aneurism,” that person said, loading their hotdogs onto the sticks he had brought. “They’re tofu dogs.”

But Audry doubted it. She knew the smell of cooking meat. Besides, Silvia was smirking and winking at him, providing the condiments and bread for the hotdogs. Apparently they had correlated.

As they roasted and baked dinner, also heating up a pot for cocoa, they snuggled around the fire and started up stories. Audry nestled next to Hogan, holding his hand as she rested her head against his shoulder. They had just heard a story about someone seeing Bigfoot and another story about a trip one guy had in China where he had seen a real battle take place in a tourist spot attached to a Buddhist temple in Jiangsu provenance.

“… I kid you not. I swear I saw a guy parachute down from a back ops copter, draw a sword and attack a monk with it. I’m telling you. The CIA are exterminating Buddhist monks.”

They all groaned. “Shut up Tobey.” “You’re such a conspiracy theorist.” “That’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid. I am sure I even saw that white haired guy Audry knows—what’s-his-face—the guy who came to our booth last year—Tom Brown. Yeah him. He was there. And we know he’s CIA,” Toby said.

Audry blinked, sitting up a little.

“You know a CIA agent?” Hogan whispered to her.

“A friend of Rick’s,” Audry hissed back. “Matthew’s friend. You met him at the auto shop. He was at my apartment packing all my plates, remember?”

“Oh. Right. That Deacon guy’s old roommate.”

“Let’s have another story,” Paula called out. She then pointed across the fire toward Bobo. “What about you? You’re new. Do you know any scary stories?”

Bobo, who was sitting next to Jandra and Farrah, chuckled deep. He shook his head and said, “Oh, I know a few frightenin’ ones. But I don’ know if y’all can handle any of ‘em.”

“We can handle it,” several chimed in from around the fire.

“If it really is all that scary,” Neil tagged on.

“Ok…” Bobo then cleared his throat. He gazed across the blaze at the other club members. “I’m not sure if y’all don’ know or not, but I’m originally from New Orleans. I went to high school in New York City, but I went back to New Orleans after graduation. And this story is an old one. I’ve known it for a while.

“Back when I was a child, there was a lot of gang violence in the city. Not much has changed, but the gangs did. There was one gang called La Dague, which was warrin’ with another gang in the French Quarter. It started off as jus’ territorial. It included what girls you could be seen hangin’ with. There were knifin’s, lynchin’s, and drive by shootin’s. It got so bad that they started to kidnap and torture people on their side—cuttin’ off body parts and sendin’ them back to their enemies. They were sendin’ fingers and hands, and soon boxes with heads in ‘em.”

Gasps came from the group listening in. This was better than some Buddhist monk extermination story.

“One day, a local voodoo witch got sick of it. And, man, you never anger a man who is skilled in voodoo.” Bobo shook his head, taking a deep breath as if it pained him. “Well, that dude concocted the best curse ever thought of. And he did it by cursin’ a kid and settin’ ‘im loose.”

“Cursing a kid?” Jandra murmured.

“Yep,” Bobo said, looking to her. “The kid was just a snot-nosed brat, a li’l brother of one of the La Dague. He didn’ even know what was happenin’. The voodoo man just grabbed ‘im