Oklahoma Nocturne: A Novella by Allan Leverone

Author:Allan Leverone [Leverone, Allan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2025-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Seeds of a Plan

He didn’t move for a long time.

He thought he might have fallen asleep for a while but wasn’t sure.

His ribs ached and his scraped-up elbows throbbed and he was sore where he’d been violated. His right palm was on fire, the jagged gash from last night filled with dirt and the pain spiking with every beat of Cody’s heart.

Eventually, almost as an afterthought, he reached down and swept the caked-on dirt out of his underwear and the inside of his jeans as much as possible with his good hand. He pushed himself to his knees and then rose to his feet and fixed his clothing. He’d thought it might make him feel marginally better but he was wrong.

He was hungry and thirsty and his entire body ached with a pain that was only partly physical. How was it possible he could survive four years of near-constant abuse at the hands of Verne Fulmer, enduring indignity after humiliation after heartbreak, only to finally escape and fall immediately into the clutches of perhaps the only person in the Great American Southwest more vile and evil than Fulmer? How?

Was the world that cold and heartless to everyone, or had he done something special to earn this level of cosmic abuse? Cody had little personal experience upon which to rely, but didn’t think everyone suffered the type of existence he had. Early in his tenure on the farm, Fulmer had sent Cody to Travis’s tiny public school. It had only been for a few months, and he’d never really made any friends—life on a small farm left little free time for developing relationships—but he’d observed enough of the other kids’ activities to suspect that none of his classmates received nocturnal visits from men looking to satisfy their own perversions at the expense of helpless children.

Before he knew it he’d begun crying again, ashamed of himself although he couldn’t have said why. It took a long time for the tears to stop, and after they did, he fell back to sleep.

***

Cody awoke to the loud creak of the door being yanked open. His fitful dozing had eliminated any chance he might have had to gauge the passage of time. It might have been two hours since Officer Psycho’s assault or twelve. His hunger had worsened but it was nothing like his thirst, which was a raging beast. His tongue felt the size and texture of a dried-out sponge and he doubted he’d be able to speak clearly if his life depended on it.

Which, of course, it might.

Daylight again flooded the interior of Cody’s prison with the opening of the door, so unless nearly a day had passed—and he didn’t think that was the case—it had probably been closer to the two hours than the twelve. He wasn’t sure why it even mattered.

Like last time, Officer Psycho entered the rabbit hole gun first. He might have viewed Cody as pathetic and helpless, and from Cody’s perspective it was hard to argue the

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