Death Twitches: A Lake People Novel

The Past

More than a few years ago…

In Unknown, Louisiana

Chapter 1

Death twitches my ear.

Live, he says, I am coming. – Virgil

In a formidable deluge, the rain poured down. The air currents pushed from the west and the moisture shoved from the Gulf of Mexico, crashing together to produce the inevitable explosion. It might have been the middle of summer and late in the evening, but in Louisiana it was just another thunderstorm.

A group of children hustled out of the wet to under the relative dryness of a nearby boat dock. They clustered together and listened to the rain as it pounded against the metal roof above them.

The solitary adult among them sighed, and said, Ain’t Louisiana in the summertime wit’ out a thunderstorm, no?

Are we going to be able to camp tonight? a boy asked. His gold eyes gleamed as they caught the yellow beams from the single light on the corner of the boat dock.

I don’t want to sleep in the wet tent, a girl complained. Her eyes were a similar color. A dozen more pairs solemnly regarded the adult.

We’ll see, said the older man. His hair was white and his disposition genial. We don’t always get what we want. Least it ain’t cold right here.

The children were camping in the middle of the tiny town of Unknown, Louisiana. The typically empty grass lot to the side of the general store and a few feet from the marina, was filled with various sized tents. Presently the tents were drooping with the weight of water produced from an unexpected storm. The summertime event was something that owner of the general store held every year. Earlier, they had watched a movie projected on a sheet hung up from a tree. E.T. the Extraterrestrial was a perennial favorite, even if some of the children didn’t like that E.T. almost died. The man even provided all of the makings for s’mores, but the fire had been put out by an inch of rain falling in less than ten minutes. All he had left were soggy marshmallows and the gift of gab.

Sebastien, said a small boy, "do we have to go inside?" Clearly a little bit of rain didn’t seem to bother him.

Rousseau, Sebastien said kindly to the boy, of course, we do not. But I don’t reckon most of us will be wanting to sleep in wet sleeping bags that will stick to us tightly. Goujon might swim by and think us some kind of fancy burrito soaked with sauce. He might be tempted to et us up.

Giggles erupted in response. They all knew about the legend of Goujon. He was a giant catfish who lived in the nearby Twilight Lake. He was so large that it was said that he even ate the occasional tourist, but never one of La Famille, the family. Goujon was said to protect them. Sometimes, it was said they were the children of Goujon.

Sebastien motioned with his hands. Come closer, children. Huddle together. Don’t you mind if that’s a boy or girl next to you. When you be older, you’ll be wondering why you thought it was funny. Don’t give me that look, Gabriel. It’ll happen to you, too.

The children scooted closer together, disregarding cold hands and wet shirts. Goosebumps rippled along their forearms.

I do believe your parents should be showing up to take you home and we do this again next weekend, when the weatherman up to Shreveport ain’t just taking a stab in the dark, him, Sebastien said. He swept his moist, shoulder length white hair away from his forehead, and chuckled. Only one child groaned in response because most of them really didn’t want to sleep in the damp. The temperature might be in the seventies, but they all felt as if it was much colder because of the abrupt downpour.

So I will tell you a story instead, Sebastien announced. "I got the time for one story, then off you children go, back to the warmth of your houses, put on your jammies, and get a glass of warm milk from you mamans, but this ain’t one of those happy stories, no. This is a story that tells us something important. Something very scary and very essential, oui."

Little faces watched with rapt attention. Most of Unknown’s children had heard Sebastien talk about the history of the area or of this or that person. He was known to tell a scary story, too, but almost never to ones their ages.

Once there was a beautiful girl named Lisette, Sebastien said.

The boy named Rousseau screwed up his face. We heard of her, he said with a derogatory tone.

Hush, Rousseau, Sebastien admonished. Lisette had black hair, as black as the lake. It was as shiny as a crow’s wing. It was like looking at a piece of the night. He smiled and the children smiled back, even Rousseau. Her eyes were golden, too. As gold as yours. He pointed to a little girl nearby. Like mysterious coins from a country time has forgotten. He jingled one of his pockets and coins clinked fetchingly. And her lips, he said and clicked his tongue, her lips were like berries, full, lush, red. Ooo la la. I’ve known at least three men who each wrote a poem about Lisette’s lips.

One girl, just on the cusp of thirteen, sighed.

A beautiful girl, Sebastien said. "La jolie femme. Many men looked at her with longing, oui? He didn’t really want an answer, so he went on, But Lisette had herself a beau. They were in love. They knew each other. He slowly tapped the side of his head, trying to impart a message of deepest love. They had the gift, you see. It was a prize from God. Her young man was named Varden. A handsome man. Muscles. Sebastien raised one arm to demonstrate how his bicep could bulge. Several children giggled. Yes, a good, fetching man who loved Lisette with all of his heart. Together they could make the Spanish moss in the trees get up and dance a jig.

"They were to be married. One day Lisette traveled to Shreveport to have her wedding gown fitted. That night she did not come home. Her parents called to all of the family, La Famille. They called to Varden. He tried to communicate with Lisette, but there was nothing. It was as if she was…not…there…anymore. Gone!" He snapped his fingers.

A few of the children gasped.

The pair did have the gift of veiled eyes, the gift of second sight as we call it, Sebastien went on. They were as many couples are here in our community. But it did not do Varden any good. Lisette was gone. She had disappeared. Poof!

More children gasped. Even though they had heard the story before, it was retold here by Sebastien with the dark tone of a frightful tale with the blackness of the night beyond them as a chilling backdrop. To them it was all too true that most members of the family were never really alone. For a single person to have vanished was an appalling occurrence. To simply not be there anymore and to be unable to communicate with the rest of the family was unthinkable.

At first, none knew what happened to poor Lisette, but Varden, who loved her so tremendously, never gave up. He searched and searched and finally found out the terrible truth. Sebastien paused for effect. He allowed the knowledge to sink into the souls of all the little ones, so they would know it could happen to any of them unless they were very careful. Lisette had been kidnapped by outsiders, bad people with no loyalty and greed in their blackened souls. She was used as an act to support them. She was chained to a table and forced to play little games with people who had no idea she was being forced to perform.

No, Rousseau breathed. He pressed his two hands together, palm to palm, almost as if he was praying, waiting with breathless anticipation to hear what else happened.

"Oui, Sebastien confirmed. Foul outsiders, with no sense of family, only interested in what they could get from poor, poor Lisette, who didn’t do anything to any of them. It happened far from here for somehow the outsiders knew that proximity was important to us. They knew somehow that if she was taken away, then she couldn’t ‘talk’ to any of La Famille."

But how do you know it happened this way? a girl named Camille asked. She reached out and grasped her younger brother, Gabriel, and brought him close to her, just in case he might slip away. Gabriel didn’t like that and wiggled away.

"A man in love, chère, Sebastien said, will do almost anything. Varden never gave up. He searched and searched. But there was no happy ending, this. First, he discovered a newspaper article about a woman with psychic powers. The article led him to one of the men who had kidnapped Lisette. Through that man Varden finally found his beloved Lisette lying in an unmarked grave in a pauper’s cemetery. He also got the names of the others accountable. He found the men responsible for her death. Each of them paid the ultimate price, but not before they divulged that a person living near here, an outsider who had become l’ami, a trusted friend, had betrayed La Famille. His voice lowered and became deep with the sound of dark dishonesty. Wretched man who wanted his pockets lined with ill-gotten gold, him."

What happened to Lisette? Rousseau asked. How did she die?

We don’t know much about that, Sebastien answered honestly. She was sick, unhappy, and separated by all that she loved. There’s no way of knowing exactly, and if Varden rooted it out of those foul men, he did not talk of that part. He only said that each of them paid a dreadful price for their treachery.

You mean Varden killed those men, Rousseau stated.

Sebastien made a face. Finally he shrugged. It’s best not to speak of that. But we learned a lesson, did we not, children?

Don’t trust outsiders, Camille said. We don’t tell them about the veiled eyes. We don’t share our secrets with them.

"Oui, Sebastien nodded, content that his message had been passed on successfully. Outsiders are like the boogieman. They haunt the night with closed minds and pitch colored souls. We can never trust them. Not truly."

Not any of them? Rousseau insisted.

It’s true, we’ve had outsider friends, Sebastien said reluctantly. "All of us know families who have an outsider in their blood, but it’s best not to trust any of them. Stick with La Famille. We are like rock. We are like cement. We stick to each other. We support each other. It is we who are loyal."

Another smaller child said, What if we have to trust them?

Sebastien looked at her. "Ah, p’tite Leonie, he said, you would know about Lisette, wouldn’t you?"

She was my mother’s aunt, Leonie said somberly.

Is it really true? Gabriel asked Leonie.

We visit her tombstone in the graveyard, Leonie said.

"Oui, oui, it is a true story," Sebastien said. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the first car pull to a stop in the marina’s parking lot. A tall man climbed out, and opened an umbrella to shield him. He saw Sebastien and the children under the roof of the boat dock, and waved. Another car’s headlights appeared as it turned the corner. The parents were arriving just as Sebastien knew they would. No telephone calls had been necessary.

Beware, children, Sebastien added, for evil is all around us. It could sneak upon us and we would never know whether we should fall down and play dead or run like the hounds of hell were snapping at our heels.

Several of the children looked around them as if the name of evil was palpable and was indeed, watching them as they listened to a simple story. Nonetheless, evil is never as obvious as the spoken word.

The Past

Only a few years ago…

In Dallas, Texas

Chapter 2

By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes.

– William Shakespeare

The game was five card draw. The venue was the disheveled back room of a massage parlor. The occupants sitting around a battered, cigarette-burned, round table were varied and unusual. One man’s appearance was reminiscent of an old fashioned undertaker, complete with black, three-piece suit, skinny black tie, and mournful eyes. He only bet when he had a pair of jacks or higher. An older African American woman smoked a vape pen. She wore a gray suit with a bright, multicolored blouse under the jacket. In between hands she blew smoke mustaches, to which she placed her face appropriately. She had a tendency for baby straights. Another man looked like Dustin Hoffman circa The Graduate. He puffed on half a well-chewed cigar, and liked to pretend that he could bluff, but he truly couldn’t. A third man could be compared to an ostrich. His hair was white and stuck up in wild clumps. His head moved spasmodically about as if he couldn’t quite control himself. There was an indication that he might very well stick his head in the sand, if sand had been available. He bet on anything, but the left corner of his mouth twitched when he was bluffing, so it twitched frequently. The fourth man of the group of six was the one that bothered Melisandre the most.

Meli, as she thought of herself, was the youngest in the group. She wasn’t even the legal age to buy a lottery ticket, and if she hadn’t known someone that had gotten her into the game, she wouldn’t be present. Her hair was dark and raggedly cut. Her eyes were brown, the color of warmed brandy in the sunshine and the color of a Doberman pincher’s coat in the ill-lighted room. She wore a t-shirt that had a rip in one sleeve and jeans with holes in the knees. She had a wad of money that looked like it had been pulled out of a vending machine or collected on a street corner. She lost most games, but won a few, and let the other gamblers know that she was intent on going the full run. She was well aware that she appeared desperate.

The fourth man didn’t appear desperate. His expression was neutral as he examined his hand. His shirt was silk. His watch was gold. His slacks were pressed. His shoes were leather. His apparel didn’t really matter to Meli, but his thoughts were what itched at the center of her head.

The thoughts didn’t match the man’s general appearance. His hair was blonde, but it was nearly a platinum color that wasn’t out of a bottle. If he went into the sun for an hour a day, he would have streaks of purest white as the color was leached away by the heat. He was much taller than she was, and she could tell that fact even when he was sitting down. It put him well over six feet, even if the poker table tended to equalize heights. He had the face. That was what Meli called it. The face meant a player who couldn’t be discerned by expression alone.

She tried to look at him without being noticeable. His features were not plain. That platinum hair was cut in a professional manner and outlined a lean face with cheekbones that sliced toward his chin. His eyes were so dark in the room that she suspected they were black when they should have been pale blue to compliment his hair. His lips were full, and he had a set of white teeth that showed because he had smiled at something that the African American woman had said to him. Somewhere in his late thirties or early forties, Meli would have called him handsome, but he was too old to be interested in for anything but taking some of his money in a purely unfair game of five card draw.

Meli knew she would have been a good player, even if she didn’t have a little extra assist. She had an eye for other players’ tells. The African American woman liked to puff her vape pen three times before she made a big bet. Two out of three times she wasn’t bluffing when she did that. The undertaker tried to buy the pot every third round. When he tried to buy the pot he had a pair of aces or less. Dustin Hoffman’s foot began to tap when he was bluffing. Everyone could hear and Meli knew she wasn’t the only one who knew about his tell. The ostrich’s mouth convulsed incessantly when he bluffed.

The fourth man didn’t do anything. Meli folded three times while she concentrated on his thoughts.

No one had offered any names and it would have been uncommon to do so, although Meli had previously played with two of the players. She’d gotten trounced by the undertaker once because she hadn’t been able to get a good hand to save her life. The ostrich had been good for a month of rent about six months before. Meli could tell the ostrich had remembered her because a stray thought had escaped him when he had first glimpsed her. …her again. What is she? Sixteen? I wouldn’t have been throwing down cards at sixteen. My mama would have beaten me bloody. Might have to cash in before she starts a streak.

Once Meli had started losing, the ostrich had thought, Not so lucky tonight, is she? Might have to keep in. Watch out for the guy with the silk shirt. Badass to be sure.

The initial buy in for the game was ten grand. Meli was down to two before she made her move. She was determining her best course of action when something else happened.

Curious.

The thought came from nowhere at all and pierced Meli’s skull like the tip of an ice pick. She controlled the knee jerk reaction to stare at the other players.

She was used to reaching out for thoughts, capturing them in an imaginary fist, and pulling them to her. Most people could be read like books. She simply took a moment to open them up and find the right page. She couldn’t use her skill to win at the lotto, even if she could have gotten her worthless, drug addicted mother, Evaline, to buy a ticket at the right time. It wasn’t good for the slots, even if she could have played the machines at the nearest casino. Dice games weren’t realistic because the die didn’t have thoughts about which side it was going to land upon. But poker, yes, poker was good.

Once upon a time, Meli remembered staring at the homeless shelter’s front door, wondering if they would take a fifteen-year-old girl with her ten-year-old brother and not call Social Services. Her mother was off on a binge, leaving Meli alone with her brother, Thierry. It was crowded in the area around the shelter and people came and went with impunity. Nearby, a man set up a portable table and started a round of three-card Monte. She could hear his thoughts and knew that while he was the dealer, there were three other people involved. There were two shills and one look-out who also doubled as a bouncer. If someone happened to guess the right card at the wrong time, it was his job to accidentally knock over the table.

Meli wandered over to watch, pushing a baggie of animal crackers into her brother’s hand. She watched three people win, and then they began to lose in earnest. The Monte dealer raked in a hundred dollars before five minutes had passed.

Most of the time the dealer didn’t have to cheat. He had two fours of clubs. One had a bent corner that the suckers didn’t notice. The queen of hearts was the lady, the winning card that would get lost in a rapid shuffle. The trick wasn’t hard. A shill pretended to win. Another shill hit a mark with light conversation about the game. The mark played, won a few times, got really excited, and then started betting larger. Then they lost until the dealer cleared the mark out. It was repeated as many times was safe in the area.

The dealer’s thoughts were like a loudspeaker. The lady is in the middle. Yeah, buddy, pick the four. Sucker. Dumb twat.

It had always been like that for Meli. As long as she could remember, she knew that she could pick up thoughts from other people. It was usually smatterings of inane conversations. Some people were harder than others and they certainly didn’t think in logical fashion. Most people’s thoughts were like a ping pong ball bouncing endlessly around a closed room. It hit one wall, ricocheted, and went in an unexpected direction. She had to concentrate on them to get where they were going. Like the three-card Monte dealer paused to consider the rapid case of jock itch he was having, and he did a little dance where he managed to rub his thighs together so the marks wouldn’t see him reaching down for a long, alleviating scratch of his nether regions.

One of his shills was a case in point. She was an older lady who was tired, hungry, and anxious for a hit of the oxycodone she kept in her purse. She thought, Is that guy out of money? I want a pill. Jeez, my feet hurt. Is Dancing with the Stars on tonight? I need to get out of this game. No popo around this time, but for how long? Pill. Pill. Pill. Wait. What did Phil just say?

Regardless of all the other thoughts whirling about, the dealer was broadcasting like a neon sign. It was only a little effort for Meli to reach out and tap into it. There’s the lady, my right side. Don’t you put your hand there. That’s right, put it on the middle. You lose again. Eating at Red Lobster tonight. Endless shrimp, yeah.

Based on what the dealer was mentally shouting, Meli learned was that she could have taken all of the dealer’s cash right then and there. She knew exactly where the red lady was going to be because its location was exactly what the dealer was thinking. However, Meli also knew that the lookout/bouncer wouldn’t have let her keep any of the cash because they had about a dozen methods for screwing up a win.

The lesson was that Meli could use her gift to her advantage. Sometimes she called it the sight. It didn’t work long term and she got a headache if she pushed too hard. Once she had gone to a university and freaked out an adjunct professor with a set of Zener cards. Finally the adjunct professor had concluded that Meli was extremely good at perceiving body language to determine which cards he had turned over. He’d even offered to pay Meli to teach him how she’d done it.

That was then. Meli had dug around to find out how to get into illegal poker games. It had been a matter of finding a few men who regularly played or organized the games, asking them questions about it, and listening to what they thought about, instead of listening to the inane, contradictive answers they actually spoke.

Meli had money concerns and needed to make money. Half the time Evaline would get kicked out of their house, and twice they had lost all their possessions because landlords would keep them in lieu of rent. The day her brother and she had spent outside the homeless shelter had been one of the worst, but it had given her the impetus of an idea.

Months later through scrapping, begging, and worse, she had enough money for her first game. She had made $15,000 in five hours. Two months later she made $33,000. A month after that it was $27,000. It would have been fine if her addlebrained mother hadn’t stolen the money to use for booze and drugs. And if it wasn’t Evaline, then it was one of her mother’s boyfriends who helped themselves to the cash Meli tried to hide.

Perhaps worst of all was that her mother hadn’t even wanted to know from where Meli was getting the money. Playing a game every few months would have been enough to make it through the lean times, except for stupid Evaline.

Consequently, Meli found herself in the decrepit back room of a massage parlor, watching a tall man with pale hair and black eyes watching her. It was he that had impaled her noggin with that single, nearly accusatory word. Curious.

Any plan of action that had been percolating in her head abruptly vanished. She didn’t want to leave without at least breaking even, but the unreadable man wasn’t making her feel warm and fuzzy. In fact, the thought of delving into his icy persona made her shiver with dread.

Meli knew if she left at that moment, she was going to have to throw most of Thierry’s belongings into the nearest grocery bag and haul ass away from the one-bedroom apartment in which they were currently living. Evaline hadn’t paid rent for two months and the landlord glared at Meli every time she walked in or out of the building. Sometimes the landlord wondered if he could trade the rent for the use of Meli for a night. Sometimes Meli wondered if Evaline might seriously consider the trade.

There were always tough decisions to make. She knew that when she turned twenty-one, she could go on a professional gambling circuit and make enough money to live wherever she liked. She would even have enough money to bring her brother with her, or at least get him away from Evaline, before their mother considered selling him to a landlord or a drug dealer, too. But Meli was only seventeen and Thierry was twelve, so she didn’t have many choices. They had no place to go, and any extended relatives that were left had already had their limit of Evaline’s druggie ways.

Meli knew that if she was careful, she could win the bigger pots, take the money, and not raise suspicions. After all, her t-shirt was short-sleeved and they had all been searched before being allowed into the room. Twenty percent of the pot went to the organizer of the game, and cheating was heavily frowned upon. Most games had muscle in the background to make sure no one got too excited.

But that was the future. Right now was different. The platinum haired man was different. The whole set-up was different.

Different made Meli nervous. If there was anything else that she had learned, it was trust her instincts.

But we have to eat. The landlord might catch her going or coming. Or worse, he might catch Thierry going or coming.

Meli concentrated on the next hand.

The woman with the vape pen became the dealer. She tossed in her ante of a hundred dollars and the players followed in line. The vape pen was held between her lips as she expertly shuffled and offered the cut to the player on her right. She retrieved the deck and efficiently dealt out five cards to each of the players. There was no blind in this game by initial agreement, which Meli didn’t care for because it meant she would have to stay longer to clear everyone out. That meant that Thierry would be alone in the apartment longer or, even worse, he would be alone with Evaline, who would come up with some asinine idea to score drugs in Oak Cliff. She might or might not take Thierry with her and very well could leave him alone on the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) train.

The first player, the undertaker, gathered up cards and examined them. Meli studied him. Shit hand. No point to this one. He said, Check.

Then it was Meli. She glanced at her cards. She had a pair of tens and nothing else. She shoved in a hundred dollar bill. The dealer said, A hundred to the next player.

The next player was Dustin Hoffman. He chewed rapidly on his cigar and thought, Maybe a little straight, if I can get a four or a nine. He put the hundred in.

The ostrich glanced at his cards. Ain’t my night. He folded.

Next was the man with the black eyes and the pale hair. Meli couldn’t think of a name for him. She examined him while pretending to look down at the table. She resisted the urge to bite her lip. It was like this sometimes. Nine times out of ten she could read a person’s thoughts. Their immediate thoughts. Occasionally she didn’t want to read someone’s thoughts because it was beyond icky. Some people had no mental filters. Once in a while, there was a person who couldn’t be read. She didn’t know why, but it was bad for business when she was playing a game. She frowned and concentrated harder.

Need a heart. A five of hearts. I’ve got hearts at home in the freezer.

Meli forced a lump down her throat.

The pale haired man tossed in a hundred dollar bill.

That’s a hundred to me, the dealer said. She puffed on her vape pen as she examined her cards. Meli missed the thoughts but the woman folded immediately so it didn’t matter.

The undertaker folded, and Meli tapped a finger on the edge of her cards while surreptitiously observing the pale haired man.

How many cards?

Meli blinked and looked at the woman with the vape pen. What?

How many cards, hon? she asked.

Meli blinked again and looked away from the man with the pale hair. Mr. Midnight, she thought. Eyes that you don’t want to see after midnight, if you know what’s good for you. That’s it. That’s the name. Her fingers automatically discarded everything but the tens. Three.

The woman shot three cards at her. Meli collected them up in a pile and took a moment to separate them. She got a two of clubs, a five of hearts, and a ten of diamonds. She had three of a kind, which was a decent hand for five card draw.

Dustin Hoffman discarded a card. Damn. No nine. No four. A pair of sixes. That sucks. Let’s see what everyone is doing.

Meli brought her head up to look at Mr. Midnight. He’d been looking for the five of hearts, but she had gotten the five of hearts. He discarded a single card and she winced as she concentrated on him again. There was a little pop that sounded and she realized it was only in her head. A flush isn’t bad.

A flush put paid to Meli’s hand, but it was always possible that Mr. Midnight might fold.

Your bet, missie, the dealer said to Meli.

Meli thought about it. A second later she folded.

Dustin Hoffman felt brave and bet five hundred. His foot was tapping furiously as he began his bluff.

Mr. Midnight grinned a winter-filled smile. Your five hundred, he said, pushing bills in, and another thousand on top.

Dustin was committed. He chewed his cigar and tapped his foot. Your thousand, he said finally, and another five thousand. The foot wasn’t particularly loud but Meli could hear it increase in tempo.

That smile on Mr. Midnight’s face never faded. He didn’t look at Dustin at all. Instead he looked at Meli, and her stomach lurched in response. I call you.

Dustin sighed. I got a pair of sixes, he said and flipped his cards.

Mr. Midnight chuckled and continued to stare at Meli. He flipped his cards and very precisely spread them apart as if deliberately showing them to her. Pair of aces. There wasn’t a single heart in his hand.

Meli stopped her leg from twitching. Everything inside her was telling her to run, but if she ran from Mr. Midnight’s creepiness, she might never get another game. What if he was like her? What if he read thoughts too? If she was one, there could be others. A few people she had met had come close. It tickled at them. She had never discounted the possibility.

The deal went to the undertaker.

Meli went all in on a hand that was an ace high and lost everything to the ostrich’s four-eight straight. She smiled tremulously, applauded everyone, and left without looking back, congratulating herself on