The Prisoners of Stewartville by Shannon Felton

Author:Shannon Felton [Felton, Shannon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: literary, paranormal, Fiction, writer, horror, author, fantasy, Dark
Publisher: Silver Shamrock Publishing
Published: 2020-02-24T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

It started raining again by the time we pulled up to Charlie’s place and, with our coats over our heads, we jogged up the steps just as the thunder started rolling in.

Charlie shut the door and flipped the switch on.

He lived in the caretaker’s cottage on the Catholic church grounds, had been since he returned home from the war, getting free room and board for his labor and social security for his disabilities. It was a little studio place, maybe two cells wide, with a bed to the left of the door and two armchairs to the right, and a kitchenette and bathroom up a step in the back.

The thunderstorm outside made it a cozy place, especially since whoever had furnished it those many years ago had had a feminine touch. Rose-patterned ruffled curtains on the windows, throw pillows on the bed, lace lamps on the bedside tables. The walls were something else though, fully decorated in record albums, with squares like Fleetwood Mac, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Iron Butterfly taking up every spare inch.

On the table between the two chairs was a terrarium full of snails.

“What’s this?” I asked, wiping my nose and sitting down. My hands were still shaking.

“I’m raising ‘em. You guys want some hot cocoa?”

“Yeah. Thanks. What do you mean raising them?”

Charlie had gone up the step into the kitchen. “For profit,” he called back.

Zeke settled into the chair next to me and ran a hand over his braids. “Who buys snails?”

Charlie got the kettle going and came back with a spray bottle. “Lots of people,” he said, misting the terrarium. “Restaurants, fishermen, gardeners.”

“Oh.” I sat back, and we all tried to think of something to say. It was one thing when your parents came home and told you the story about some woman they got transferred in who’d eaten her kid’s face off, or when riots happened and the news said a mob of prisoners decapitated some dude’s dad. But this shit was happening to us. Downtown. At home. The end of the road was getting closer and closer.

We stared at the snails and listened to the rain hitting the side of the house, lost in our own thoughts, until the teakettle started to whistle. Charlie pulled himself up off the bed and came back a second later with two mugs. “I put a sprinkle of cinnamon in it for you guys,” he said.

“Thanks, man.”

He sat on the bed criss-cross applesauce and sighed. “You okay, dudes?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said as the rain pattered outside. I held the mug in both hands and looked back and forth between the two. “What the fuck was that tonight, man?”

Zeke leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. “Holy shit, right?”

I shook my head and swallowed down the cocoa to wash the bile from my throat. “Fucking crazy thing is that was almost me,” I said, pulling out a smoke. “One wrong word and he could have smashed in my head.” My hand was still shaking as I lit the cigarette.

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