Bad Juju by Dina Rae

Author:Dina Rae
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Horror
ISBN: 1480067709
Publisher: Amazon
Published: 2012-09-06T23:00:00+00:00

***

The day after Pete’s death, Lucien woke up feeling better than he could remember. He put on a track suit and headed to the nearby grocery store. The weather was perfect.

He placed two leather scrapbooks and some food on the conveyor belt of the checkout line and waited to pay his bill. As the cashier scanned his groceries, he felt the sudden urge to buy a Marlboro Lights. He had her throw a carton and a lighter onto his bill. The craving unnerved him. He never smoked cigarettes, only pipes.

He settled with the cashier and asked for $50 of quarters. She handed him five rolls. He walked outside and approached the pay phone at the end of the store’s entrance. Setting his bags down, he opened the carton, lit a cigarette, and then dialed a phone number he hadn’t dialed in years. He still knew it by heart and hoped it wasn’t disconnected.

The phone rang and a recording demanded $19. Lucien dropped the quarters into the slot. The number belonged to a family owned pharmacy in Port-au-Prince. An unfamiliar male voice answered.

“Bonjour.”

“Bonjour, is Giselle Truveau there?” Lucien asked in English.

The unfamiliar male voice replied, “Hold on.” He shouted in French away from the phone receiver. Lucien could hear his muffled voice calling for Giselle.

“How can I help you?” Giselle questioned as she spoke into the phone.

Lucien’s eyes welled with tears. He still recognized her voice. Giselle would now be in her late sixties. He wasn’t sure if she was sixty-eight or sixty-nine years old. She was the only one of his children who still talked to him when he called. He took a long drag off of his smoke and spoke to her in French.

“Giselle! Papa. I didn’t know…so you still have the pharmacy. I’m alive, still in the U.S. Did everyone survive the earthquake?” A long pause followed his questions. “Giselle?”

“Yes, I’m here. Just in shock. It’s been a long time…I know you have to be careful, the danger you face by calling…We all figured you were dead. You must be a hundred by now,” Giselle said.

“Almost. But my time has ran out. I doubt I will see my next birthday. Please tell me everyone survived,” Lucien said.

“I wish I could. Pierre, his wife, Vivienne, her first born, and her only daughter didn’t make it. Rene, Jean-Paul, Dominique, Francis, they were saved under piles of rubble. Olivia, Marguerite, and their families are still missing. And Danielle, did you know she passed away last year?”

Lucien sobbed. Danielle was his first wife. A few minutes went by with Giselle catching him up with his family’s survival. A recorded message rang in his ear, demanding more quarters. Lucien threw another fifteen dollars of change into the phone.

“What about money? How are you all making ends meet?” Lucien asked.

“You know very well that money has always been tight. I have no success stories to share. All of us are either poor or really poor,” Giselle answered. He could hear the bitterness in her voice.

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