Obey The Darkness: Horror Stories

OBEY the DARKNESS:

Horror Stories

by

ROBIN RAY

OBEY the DARKNESS: Horror Stories

Copyright © 2018 by Robin Ray

https://seattlewordsmith.wordpress.com/

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the link above.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover art: Haunted Forest Romania by Hoia Baciu ©2018

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

Terry Pratchett

OTHER BOOKS by ROBIN RAY

Wetland & Other Stories

Stranded in Paradise

Tears of A Clown

You Can’t Sleep Here: A Clown’s Guide to Surviving Homelessness

Commoner the Vagabond

Murder in Rock & Roll Heaven

OBEY the DARKNESS: Horror Stories

by Robin Ray

Introduction 1

1. Crystal Mine 5

2. The Soucouyant 48

3. The Haunted Piano 78

4. The Black Cumin Cure 84

5. The Candlestick Kid 98

6. Obey the Darkness 106

7. Raven’s Hair 139

8. Red Sand 146

9. Ol’ Tubby 153

10. Lamp Black 169

11. The Vented Chamber 182

12. The Claw-Hands People 187

13. The Troll in the Basement 192

14. Post-Concert Blues 199

15. Dark Lenses 203

OBEY THE DARKNESS - AN INTRODUCTION TO FEAR

I was born on the sunny isle of Trinidad in the West Indies way back in the days when we were still a British colony and lacked independence. We would get total freedom roughly a month and a half later, but now I’m curious about something: If I became a world famous author, would I be eligible for a knighthood since, technically, I was born during the time when I would have been eligible? I’m just wondering; you never know, especially with the way some governments change and/or adopt policies as frequently as Beyoncé changes outfits in concert. But I digress. This isn’t a book about international political relations or hip hop fashions. This is a book about horror; specifically, the kind that’ll keep you up at night wondering if I meant for you to be as sleepless as I can be at times.

Trinidad & Tobago, like most countries, have their own myths and legends. As children, we were regaled with tales of devil women who led wayward men to their deaths (La Diablesse), blood thirsty, shape changing old women who shed their skins to reveal the fireball beneath (Soucouyant), and jumbies – forest-dwelling mischief makers with no faces. No doubt, similar folklore like these exist around the globe, which only goes to show one thing - mankind has a sardonic wit when it comes to keeping their children in line.

Obey the Darkness: Horror Stories was written within the context that myths, legends and folk tales were created, not to worship some evil, crop-destroying god, but to simultaneously warn and entertain people on their journey through life. In that sense, I’ve tried to add levity whenever the need for it arose. This book is one of the most delicious undertakings I’ve ever done because of the wide-ranging themes within each tale. Mindful that we’re living in a vastly shrinking world where information is always at our fingertips, I’ve brought together quite a few disparate elements into these pages, from American, Mayan and Trinidadian folklore to European fairy tales and South American myths.

There are fifteen stories in Obey the Darkness, and they range from sci-fi horror to supernatural horror to fairy-tale horror. When I first started submitting some of the stories to individual speculative fiction magazines online, they went out of their way to make one salient point - the less gore, the better. I thought that was a strange request given that, by its nature, gore is a part of horror. Can you imagine a version of Stephen King’s Carrie, for instance, where the gore was kept to PG levels? Instead of a bucket of blood raining down on her in the high school auditorium, it’d be a basket of confetti. Instead of the telekinetic knives hurtling into her mother, they’d be crash landing into the walls around her instead. Similarly, a bloodless Cujo or Misery, where the giant dog simply slobbered all over people, or the writer merely got tickled and his foot remained un-amputated, would fall flat on their faces at the box office. In any case, I did give some thought to what the magazine publishers were saying, so I did go ahead and cut the violence down to the point where some stories could actually be PG, or at least PG-13. After all, this is horror. It’s designed to scare people. A little blood now and then shouldn’t be too bad, right?

The Candlestick Kid, more than any other story in this collection, had the most circuitous route of arriving here. Written nearly 20 years ago when I’d spent two months in NY’s Creedmoor Psych Hospital for a suicide attempt, I abandoned it when life came calling in the form of gainful employment. This fairy tale followed me from state to state as I traveled around the country, eventually landing a home online at Enchanted Conversation where it was published after a rewrite in Seattle. I’m now an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association because Candlestick had won an award at Enchanted Conversation which made me eligible to join HWA. Pretty cool, I’d say.

Raven’s Hair is also a fairy tale along the lines of what the Brothers Grimm would have collected. It involves armies, kings, pretty maidens, faithful steeds and an unjustly-imprisoned hero. Its main stories of deceit and revenge are familiar tropes in the horrorverse. Nothing like a good back stabbing to make one’s blood boil, eh?

Crystal Mine is one of my favorite stories, and the last written one, of the bunch. It allowed me to introduce characters and elements not found very often in modern literature - Mexican Kobe beef herders in Arkansas, subterranean quartz mines in America, and the Camazotz, the mythological Mayan beast responsible, legend says, for the dissemination of the Mayan peoples. I’d written this story because I’d collected about 200 pages worth of fiction for Obey the Darkness and I thought I should fatten up the pot by adding one more story. Little did I know it would turn out to be one of my darlings.

The Soucouyant, in a sense, also had a circuitous route getting here. Introduced to this myth as a child in Trinidad, it would follow me where ever I went, sometimes showing up in little anecdotes or short stories I’ve penned over the years. It wasn’t until recently that I devoted this entire novella to it. (There are three novellas in Obey the Darkness: Horror Stories. The other two are Crystal Mine and Obey the Darkness). The Soucouyant actually began life in earnest as a treatment for a screenplay called From A Blessing to a Curse. When I first started writing this story, it was called just that because I thought The Soucouyant would’ve just been too odd of a name for a lot of people to grasp. I went ahead with its current name because, well, it’s high time that Trinidad & Tobago saw its legends represented on the world stage. Everyone knows about vampires, fairies, elves and werewolves, but how many have ever heard of soucouyants? In fact, there are two myths in this tale, the other being the obeah woman, an elderly persona trained in the dark arts. One day I’d like to convert all three novellas into screenplays. Maybe I’d start with this one.

Obey the Darkness is the third novella in Obey the Darkness. This one centers on madness, another familiar trope in horror. In a sense, that would make this story a psychological horror and probably rated PG-13. The bits of violence and profanity through it, however, could bump it up to an R. Still, I could even see those elements being toned down for a PG-13 release. Like the other stories in this book, darkness is a character, and definitely not one to be taken lightly. I’d like to speak a little more about what happens in this tale, but why ruin your element of surprise, dear reader? That wouldn’t be so nice of me now, would it?

Lamp Black was designed as a straight-down-the-middle fairy tale ala Hans Christian Andersen or Charles Perrault. The main difference here, however, is the hero is a jet black maiden, not white like her contemporaries Rose Red, Snow White, Rapunzel, etc. Another important difference is that her skin color does matter and she is forced to consult a witch-in-exile when she, herself, gets banned from the only village she knew and grew up in. A tale of revenge, Lamp Black can get pretty harrowing towards the end. Still, I’ve read stories from the Brothers Grimm that could raise the hairs on the back of the neck from any unsuspecting reader. Very grim, indeed.

The Black Cumin Cure, above all the stories in this collection, was the most difficult one to write. An apocalyptic, sci-fi/horror tale, it was originally written for a sci-fi magazine. They passed on it but were nice enough to tell me what needed to be fixed. Months and months passed where I tweaked this story over and over and presented it to others for their comments and, hopefully, approval. Being the obedient child that I am, I listened to everything they said and applied whatever I could in recreating it. Science fiction is not the easiest thing to write; the research alone can put any author’s tail between their legs and make them find some other use of their time. The visual in my head for this story came from the wastelands of the award-winning video game Fallout 3, one of my favorite games of all time. Hopefully, I did it some justice regardless of the fact the setting was Northern Bangladesh and not Washington, D.C.

The Vented Chamber is the other sci-fi horror story in this collection. Darkness is definitely another character in this one as it’s used ominously as a weapon. This tale speaks about a future where the robots, tired of mankind’s rule, have taken over, and the few people that do exist are subjugated to the wills and caprices of the robot elite. Not a very appetizing future to look forward to, to be sure, but it can be a cautionary tale to respect the earth and treat her like gold because, well, she’s all we’ve got at the moment.

Red Sand introduces yet another legend from Trinidad & Tobago, the La Diablesse. Literally the Devil Woman, La Diablesse is beautiful and captivating to the eyes, but it’s just a disguise she uses to lure men to their deaths in the forests, beaches or other naturally-occurring areas. Typically, she wears a white, wide-brimmed hat. This makes it difficult to see her eyes. No one knows what’s beneath her long, flowing white dress, but people are sure of one thing – one of her feet is a cloven hoof which she sometimes find very difficult to conceal when she’s stressed. She shows up in Red Sand, floating over a sandy beach like a will ‘o the wisp. If you see her in your travels, take my small advice: back away slowly, turn around, and haul ass. You don’t know what she has in mind.

The Haunted Piano was one of the first stories I’d gotten published. It first showed up years ago at Dark Media Online. Now that I just realized the magazine was called Dark Media, it made me ask myself a question - am I doomed to darkness? I think it’s bad enough that my vision was so poor that it prevented me from playing with kids when I was growing up, but I wonder if the darkness was actually now a part of me. Pretty foreboding, eh? It’s interesting that I don’t consider myself a dark person at all; if I was, I’d be spending all my days rotting in a prison somewhere, not enjoying the greenery of all these Pacific Northwest parks. One of the reasons I like The Haunted Piano is because of the purposefully international bent I’ve given to this book. The main character here is Vietnamese. In The Black Cumin Cure you’ll be introduced to folks from Bangladesh, India, United Korea (yes, it happened!), Russia, Kenya and America. Everyone gets their blood shed in my books!

Ol Tubby is yet another fairy tale of mine. (Notice the trend here?) This one is about an overweight ruler who, bored with life in his kingdom, enlists the aid of his serving girl to help give him a new lease on life. Thinking that if he got scared it would cure his ills, she sets off with him on adventures throughout foreign lands to recapture the essence of his brave youth. This PG-13 fairy tale introduces the reader to monsters they’ve read about in their youth, as well as new creatures waiting in the wings, to add their name to folklore, myths and legends.

The Troll in the Basement is, perhaps, the lone PG offering in this collection. The title pretty much tells what the story is about. A young male troll, lost in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, someone finds his way into the home, and the heart, of a fifth grader named Candy. Nicknamed Creepy Candy, she lives with her mother in a mysterious-looking house. With overgrown shrubs and vines all around their home, it looks like a witch’s cottage from fairy tales of yore. Lonely by nature, Candy discovers the troll, befriends him, and embraces him even more when he comes to her aid against the elementary school bullies. Sigh. I wish I had my own personal troll friend when I was growing up. Some kids have all the luck.

Dark Lenses is an apt admission to this book. Set in a psych hospital (where else?), it tells the story of a little girl with behavioral problems so severe that she had to be admitted to an insane asylum for observation. What the grown-ups don’t know, however, is she is possessed and has very little control on some of the things she says and does, especially those of a violent nature. This was also one of the first stories that was published online. I’ve updated and expanded it for inclusion in this book.

Post-Concert Blues, like Dark Lenses, is a horror story with supernatural elements. Relatively short in length, it concerns one man’s last night on Earth and the deal he must make if he wants to go to Heaven since Hell has already come knocking at his door. Like the rest of the stories in this collection, darkness is a character. What lurks in it? Only the Shadow knows.

The Claw-Hands People was inspired by a dream. As a sufferer of PTSD, my dreams tend to be vivid, extremely lifelike, and in full Technicolor, no less. Sometimes they can be so bizarre they stir me awake. Combine that with bipolar disorder and you have someone who sleep defies as much as possible. Sleep deprivation is a horrible affliction, one I wouldn’t wish on anyone because its effects can be catastrophic as it can sometimes lead to hallucinations. I once had a dream where the people of an indigenous South American tribe had claw-like hands. These Elephant people burned their fingers down to a stubble in a vat of acid at a ceremony and simply lived the rest of their lives that away. This image stayed with me for years, but when I started writing this story, I just couldn’t find the tribe’s usefulness for having fingerless hands. I wrote it so that only the menfolk, free from having to fight enemies for centuries, adapted their hands this way to best suit their community. To make the story realistic, I used actual places, flora, and fauna from the Amazon basin. Only the names were changed to protect the innocent.

If I ever get around to scripting Obey II, it won’t happen for at least a year as this book was both physically and mentally draining. My next ventures will be in writing screenplays. I’d written five a couple of years ago, but I’d like to re-visit them and give them a new life. If not, I’ll probably just concentrate on turning the three novellas in this book into scripts. My hero in all of these endeavors is Stephen King. As of this writing, there’s been 59 movies based on his stories. 59! Can you imagine? If I even have one out, I would consider that a success. So far, the three scripts I have up for grabs on the internet are the horror tidbits Tears of a Clown and Crystal Mine, and the coming-of-age drama Strung Out. I hope they will get optioned some time in 2018. I’m getting older so there’s no way I can catch up to what Stephen King has created. A little slice of that pie would be nice, though. Stephen, are you listening?

Robin Ray

Port Townsend, WA

March, 2018

CRYSTAL MINE

A herd of prized cattle approximately 30 heads deep were casually grazing, without a care in the world, on a sprawling pristine farm smack in the middle of rural Arkansas. Spreading out further, they chomped through the muscular, pesticide-free annual ryegrass, comfortably at ease on their quiet, moon-swept, 30+ acre meadow. With the warm southern winds on their backs and the soft green carpet beneath their feet, this was more than a relaxed pasture for these peerless ruminants – it was heaven on earth.

From the distance, a faint sound of flapping wings was heard; not the fluttery, speedy kind as from a small bird, but the heavier, slower, thunderous version befitting a much larger specimen. The herd, cautious of the bass-heavy noise, began scattering, some running towards the distant farm house, others towards the wooden fences encircling the enormous pasture.

One ruminant, a few years older and slower than the rest, found itself alone and trotting for safety towards the southern fences. It heard, but barely noticed, the ominous flying object darting overhead and kept up its hapless pace. Then, as the bovine neared the fence, the black, airborne beast swooped down from the sky and attacked the cow, covering up its head with its massive ebonite wings.

Struggling momentarily with the continuously mobile cattle, the brazen beast with its long, sharp talons then flew off, leaving the distraught animal’s bloody, headless body to crash neck first into the barely movable wooden fence.

Young Franklin’s nimble little mind drifted to and fro, or perhaps more like hither and yon, as he rode the poorly air-conditioned public bus to Joyous Meadows, a hobby farm located at the southern edge of Lewis Ridge, Arkansas. The Ridge, as the locals called it, was a small, quaint and picturesque town just 130 miles northeast of Little Rock. Situated in the foothills of the Ozark National Forest, The Ridge was more than just a mountain town. Located smack in an earthquake fault zone, it was known for its rich bounty of quartz crystals that had been brought to the surface through faulting and other means. Several mines had sprung up over the years to harvest these semi-precious stones well-known for their mystical healing properties. Unfortunately, farming had become so extensive that there was practically no more treasures to be had. The sad turn of events didn’t signal a death knell for The Ridge, however. A well-stocked quartz museum in the center of town continued to draw tourists from far and wide, everyone eager to catch a glimpse of some of the largest, most colorful crystals in existence.

Riding through the rural berg, Young Franklin of the curly-haired persuasion checked his watch and nervously chewed the inside of his cheek. The Spanish-accented man on the phone had told him to be at Joyous no later than 8 a.m., and now that it was already near that time, he felt his chest tightening, anticipating he may be turned away for the job he’d inquired about. He wanted to soak in the new scenery of spacious horse, alpaca, and Hereford cattle farms, but his impatience gnawed at his being so deeply that he neglected to appreciate the sculptured beauty of rolling hills all around him. He noticed that some of the passengers on the half-filled bus were fast asleep while the others were busy reading books and newspapers. He also noted that, at eighteen years old, he was the youngest person on the rural transit. Where could they be headed? he thought. Church? Probably not, he figured, since it was Saturday, and a spanking bright sunny day, to boot. In any case, because his nervousness would give him no peace, he abandoned his seat and walked up to the bespectacled driver.

How far are we from Joyous Meadows? he asked him.

Right there, the driver said, pointing up the road.

Thanks.

Instead of returning to his seat, he remained at his post where, seconds later, he departed the bus. As the sorely-in-need-of-an-overhaul bus disappeared, Young Franklin read the green and white sign posted above the gated entrance to the cattle ranch he was looking for, JOYOUS MEADOW. Guess this is it, he thought, as he opened the gate and walked the few feet to the one-story ranch home in his sight. As rural homes went, this one was atypical in appearance. Beset on all sides by a chain link fence, various fruit trees adorned the landscape. There was even a rustic weather vane atop the house, the tail of its flat metal rooster spinning in accordance with the light wind patterns. Just as he was about to ring the doorbell, the front door opened.

Hello, a salt and pepper-haired, casually attired woman in her 50’s, carrying a walkie-talkie, greeted him as she opened the door.

Hi, he returned. I’m here about the job.

Oh, she said. I think my husband has all the help he needs.

Sorry I’m late, Franklin quickly apologized. The bus I’d hopped on was old and had to make frequent stops.

Where are you coming from, señor? she asked, her Spanish accent unmistakably present.

Conway, he answered.

Her eyes widened with surprise. That’s about 100 miles away, she reckoned. How long were you on the bus for?

A good two, two and a half hours, he revealed.

Well, she admitted, I’ll give you this - you’re committed. Here, she said, hoisting a finger. Hold on for a moment.

Placing the hand-sized transceiver to her ear, she pressed the push-to-talk button.

Ikal, she said, we have a straggler. Can you use another one?

I’ll be right there, the voice over the walkie-talkie said.

I guess you’re in luck, the woman said to Franklin as she stowed away the communication device. I’m Maria, she added, offering her hand.

Franklin, the stranger said, shaking it. They call me Young Franklin.

Is your father Old Franklin?

Nah. Just a nickname I picked up when I used to write poems and songs.

Do you want some iced tea, Young Franklin?

What I’d like, he offered, is to use the bathroom. I swear that bus had no shocks. I felt every single dip in the road.

Yeah, Maria smiled. These roads are lacking, that’s for sure. But it’s what one would expect from rural Arkansas.

Minutes later, after using the bathroom, Franklin sat at the kitchen table while Maria assembled a few pages of legalese from a cabinet in the living room. Sipping his beverage, he surveyed the furnishings in the kitchen and adjoining living room. The outsides of the ranch house may have been typical Americana, but its innards told a different story. Imbued with strong Mexican flavors, south of the border decorations were in evidence everywhere. On this wall - a giant sombrero, multi-colored blankets, and pieces of quartz crystals upon glass shelves; on that wall - an assemblage of musical instruments, cousins of the guitar, like the bajo sexto, Mexican vihuela and guitarrón, and more pieces of quartz crystals upon glass shelves. Along another wall were percussion instruments like the huehuetl, teponaztli and marimbula. In the kitchen was a huge six foot by four foot painting of a Mexican woman harvesting corn from a sun-baked field. The woman, Young Franklin noticed, bore more than a passing resemblance to Maria. Nearly all the bottles and cans of foodstuffs on the counter tops, from refried beans to hot sauces to chilies, sported three main colors - green, white and red, ably representing their South American country of origin. Moments later, just as the hostess reappeared in the kitchen with papers for the young man to fill out, her husband entered from the back door.

Hi, the man of the house said, extending his hand to the stranger. Utilizing crutches under both arms, he nevertheless deftly navigated his surroundings despite the fact his left leg was wrapped in a black immobilizer.

Morning, Franklin said, rising to greet him. Am I late?

Hmm, the man mumbled, looking over the youngster. You’re kind of young.

Your ad said we had to be 18 and over, Franklin reminded him. Although he wasn’t the arguing type, it gave him no peace when people would present points he knew to be erroneous, and at the risk of coming across like a know-it-all, when the situation presented itself, there was nothing left to do but strike.

True, the man agreed, but your frame is slight and this is hard work.

I’m up to the task.

I’m Ikal, the Mexican man in his early 60’s said. And you are…?

Franklin Bearn, the young man answered.

They call him Young Franklin, Maria interjected, laying a manila folder of paperwork and a pen on the kitchen table in front of him.

Okay, then, Young Franklin, Ikal said. I’ll fill you in on the details while you read and sign those papers.

No problem, the eager applicant said. Plopping himself back down on his chair, he commenced reading the papers in the packet.

Do you have any more suits? Maria asked Ikal.

Uno mas, he answered, then momentarily eyed the width, height and girth of the new arrival. It might be a little big, he realized, but since some folks prefer wearing it over their clothes, it should work.

Si, Maria nodded. I’ll leave you two gentlemen alone, she added, then exited the kitchen.

Ikal, laying his crutches to one side, opened the refrigerator and scanned it for something to drink. When his probing eyes finally settled on a bottle of lime-flavored sparkling water, he brought it out, cracked it open, and sat a tad awkwardly opposite the scribbling young man at the table.

Did you break your leg? Franklin asked him.

Si, Ikal answered, nodding. Driving accident a month ago.

Sorry to hear that, Franklin mentioned. Did you have a lot of applicants?

A few. What do you know about quartz?

Franklin shook his head. Not much. I know that Arkansas is one of the few places where quartz crystals exist, and the deposits were created by the formation of the Ouachita Mountains 250 million years ago.

Impressive, Ikal nodded.

Franklin smiled, suddenly imagining Ricardo Montalban himself was sitting before him as his host sounded almost exactly like the famed illustrious actor.

I see you’ve been doing your homework, Ikal continued.

They’re used for radio oscillators, clocks, and computer chips, Young Franklin added, hoping to impress his employer. The natives used it for arrowheads and folks up in the hippie communities use them for natural healing. Everywhere, though, they’re used as decorations, like the pieces you have in the living room.

What about the mining of it? Ikal asked.

They dig it from open pits using hand tools, Young Franklin assured him, then clean it using a steady stream of water.

That’s good, Ikal noted, but you have to go a step further to remove all the clay and bring out the beauty of the mineral.

Getting up, and breathing hard with the exertion, he opened the cabinet below the sink and brought out a sealed white plastic bucket.

Oxalic acid powder, he explained. You add about a cup of this to a gallon of distilled water. Sometimes you might want to use less powder because you don’t want to turn the quartz yellow.

How long do you let the stones soak? Franklin asked.

Just a day or two, Ikal answered. If there are other eroding deposits on the quartz, that makes it harder to clean, I soak them in vinegar and ammonia for a couple of hours. You can use acid, too, but that’s for the really stubborn deposits, something you don’t see that much in the Arkansas soil.

You’ve been a miner a long time? Franklin asked.

Oh, Ikal quickly replied, I’m not a miner at all. I just know a little about it because a vein was found on my property. We raise Wagyu cattle at Joyous Meadows.

Franklin looked puzzled. Wagyu cattle?

Japanese blacks, Ikal answered, standing with his crutches in the back of his ranch house with Franklin by his side as they looked over the spacious cattle-laden green acreage before them. With the picturesque Ozark Mountains framing the background, and a grove of shade cypresses at the northeastern section of the farm, the scene reminded the young visitor of westerns he’d grown up watching, like Brokeback Mountain and Dances with Wolves.

I’d say you did well for yourself, Franklin nodded, soaking in the environs.

Fifteen head of cattle on thirty perfect acres, the proud Ikal emoted. Should be thirty on thirty, he lamented, but I guess you can’t have it all. Still, I’m not complaining. Come, he told his new assistant, let’s get you suited up and we’ll drive over to meet your co-workers.

In the nearby barn, Ikal packed a hiker’s backpack with miner implements while Young Franklin donned his new outfit, an orange boiler suit with reflective stripes and a white hard hat with built-in headlamp.

It fits you well, Ikal noticed, studying his new worker. You got lucky.

After Franklin finished zipping up his miner’s garb, he glanced around the barn while waiting for his backpack. Several yard tools were hanging on pegboards attached to the walls as well as on rectangular metal tables scattered throughout the window-less barn. A relatively new four-wheeler and two-stroke moped were parked in a corner. In the opposite corner were plastic buckets of oxalic powder, black pepper and salt, 25lb bags of rice, and cases of other food products like canned menudo, refried beans and picante sauces.

Here you go, Ikal said, handing the finished backpack to Franklin. I’ll explain everything in there soon.

A few minutes later, the two went riding on Ikal’s quiet, green and yellow utility vehicle, a John Deere TE Gator 4x2, through the supremely flat pasture. Although compact in size, the Gator appeared robust enough to carry both gentlemen as well as the backpack, crutches and other items in its rear cargo hold.

You have any kids? Ikal asked his passenger.

Not yet, Franklin answered. I’m thinking about going to the Army.

Good choice.

What about you?

I have two boys, Ikal answered, Alejandro and Diego. One’s in California and in the other’s in Arizona. They have their own lives and can’t be bothered with an old gringo like me.

Self-deprecating, huh? Franklin asked himself as he leisurely rode next to the South American émigré. A sucker for new experiences, he was already enjoying his brief time at Joyous Meadow immensely. The hosts’ genteel presentation were not lost on him. From his perspective, even the herd of cattle seemed to be satisfied with their capacious and airy homestead.

I’ve never heard of ‘Ikal’ before, Franklin confessed. Is that short for something?

It’s Mayan for spirit, the farmer answered. Not necessarily the body-in-a-body type, but the, how do you say, verve kind.

Like passion.

Yes, like passion. Very astute of you. I can see you’re a well-rounded person. Tell me, Franklin, have you ever ate Kobe beef?

Nope, the young passenger answered. What’s so special about it?

It’s marbled, Ikal explained, like the floors of the Vatican, and delicious as hell. Just one bite and you’ll fall in love with its succulent, mouth-watering flavor. And it’s healthy, too. It’s less fatty than other beefs, about 30 percent, so it won’t raise your cholesterol level. Only the finest restaurants serve it.

And that would be the reason why I’ve never tasted it, Franklin explained. My budget is limited to McDonald’s.

Continuing on, they drove right alongside the herd.

You slaughter ‘em here? Franklin asked.

Shh, Ikal warned him. You’ll spook the troops. Don’t wanna frighten them.

Troops, huh? Franklin thought. What next? Dress them in tuxedos and take them dancing to the Royal Ball? Still, he could relate to the old man’s attachment to his bread and butter since he, himself, treasured a collection of vintage video games he’d owned for the past six years.

Sorry, the young man apologized. Didn’t know they were so sensitive.

They’re my friends, Ikal admitted. You see this grass they’re grazing on? Pure organic, watered with distilled water. But, to answer your question, there’s a slaughter house not far from here, he whispered. We used to sell beef at the farmer’s market, but now that our stock went low, we just supply a few restaurants.

You seem pretty proud of your troops, Franklin noticed.

I am, Ikal swore. Each head set me back a small fortune. The Japanese aren’t exactly keen on their prized possessions going worldwide.

So, Franklin thought aloud, wouldn’t driving around this pasture with this utility vehicle spoil the grass?

It’s electric, the farmer noted. Zero emissions. See these wheels? They practically float so they won’t mash the field. I wash them very often, too. Nothing but the best for my babies.

They sound spoiled.

They are, Ikal bragged. See the feeding station? he asked, pointing to the gray, rectangular building next to the barn. "That’s where they’re fed organic corn, barley and soy as part of a growing-up program. From zero to three months they begin a starter ration; that’s early weaning to get them ready for grain feeding. Then, for the next year or so, they get hay roughage to