Hush

Lyrics

Hush, little baby, don't say a word,

Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird.

If that mockingbird won't sing,

Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring

If that diamond ring turns brass,

Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass.

If that looking glass gets broke,

Mama's gonna buy you a billy goat,

If that billy goat don't pull,

Mama's gonna buy you a cart and bull.

If that cart and bull turn over,

Mama's gonna buy you a dog named Rover.

If that dog named Rover won't bark,

Mama's gonna buy you a horse and cart.

If that horse and cart fall down,

You'll be the sweetest little baby in town.

HUSH

Alledria Hurt

Smashwords Edition.

Copyright © 2017 Alledria Hurt

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13 9781370021765

Lyrics

Hush

The Mockingbird

The Diamond Ring

The Looking Glass

The Billy Goat

The Cart and Bull

The Dog Named Rover

The Horse and Cart

The Sweet Baby

Dear Reader

Other Books by Alledria Hurt

The Mockingbird

There is something therapeutic about losing one's guts into the porcelain in a public restroom, though I have yet to find out exactly what therapy would consider it a portion of their sacraments. Maybe AA. Repentance for failure to hold it together. Either way, I was busy throwing up my guts in Brick's when someone knocked on the stall door. I wiped my mouth on the back of my sleeve and said,

Go away, Ellis.

The man outside the stall in the woman's restroom had once been my paramour. Things went south when he got drunk one night and called me a freak. I didn't take it terribly well and we had been on rocky barely speaking terms ever since. It probably didn't matter now though. He needed my assistance for something, I could feel the anticipation of it building in the air. I didn't know what it was yet, but it would come along. Knowing for me was something that happened frequently.

I raised my eyes to look at the graffiti declarations on the wall of the restroom and considered seriously heaving one more time in the toilet. I told myself, once again, that I would never again find myself drinking rum. It just did horrible things to my insides. But I couldn't deny it tasted good going down. It was just that it tasted like hell coming back up.

Ellis rapped on the door again and a helpful voice a stall over said,

Go away, Cop, nobody wants to talk to you.

I didn't agree with them, but I preferred to go through my misery alone. I levered myself up off the floor and shakily answered the door just before he rapped on it a third time in his attempts to get my attention. He'd had my attention since he walked into the bar, but I'd been doing my best to ignore him. Maybe I would continue to do so. Ellis stood a good 6'1", benched his body weight, and had been a cop going on 20 years now. He'd just gotten his ten year chip when he met me. That had been a day that was interesting in a bad way. He slicked back his black hair, just a touch of gray at the right temple, and stared into my bloodshot eyes. He didn't have much of a poker face so I could see the pity as it ran across his face only to disappear behind a facade of 'just doing his duty'. That was about the size of things between us. Undiscussed longing. The need for apologies that weren't coming. In short, purgatory.

He offered me a hand which I looked at as though he might have a snake hidden in his palm and then slipped past him out of the bathroom. The helpful voice from the other stall was making her way out to wash her hands and flashed me a sympathetic smile. Probably thought Ellis was my parole officer out to ruin my night. I could have checked just to see what she was thinking, but that kind of intrusion gets too easy too quick. I'd had to train myself not to do it years ago. Knowing what's in someone else's head all the time is a quick way to end up insane. She stopped at the basin. I considered stopping there too, but nixed the idea with the way Ellis was glowering into the mirror. He wanted to talk to me without an audience. I didn't have to peek inside his head to know that. I just had to read his eyes.

I bypassed the basin and headed back out into the bar itself. Brick's was a hole in the wall establishment, maybe 1000 square feet total. The bar took up a good half. There was a table or two if you wanted to have a semi-private conversation, but that was about it. Either you drank at a table or you drank at the bar. I had a barstool at the end with my name on it. Calvin, the young man who also made my drinks on the strong side, watched me come out of the bathroom with my escort and said,

I told him not to go in there.

It's okay, I said. I sat down at one of the grimy tables and templed my fingers in front of my forehead. The hangover I was going to have in the morning was going to be epic if the headache already forming behind my eyes was any indication. It was going to be a doozie of a night all around. Ellis sat down across from me by turning his chair around backwards and sitting with his arms pillowed on the back. I didn't bother telling him that sitting like that just looked weird. He knew what I thought about it. There was no need to get into that all over again. What do you want?

The question hung there between us for a moment before Ellis said anything and he started with a shrug. I don't really know. I just know that I got handed a case I might need your help on.

He also talked around the subject before getting to the point as if that would somehow soften the blow. Curiosity, something I tried very often to drink to death, popped up as I wondered when he was going to get down to business. It was important enough for him to follow me into the restroom. It had to be at least somewhat important.

Tell me what's going on. The snatches I'm getting from your public mind don't mean much. I waved away the offer of another drink from Sylvia, the waitress slash second bartender for Brick's. She walked away after making eyes at Ellis. He was a new face to her. I tried not to notice too much. I'm waiting.

Ellis shrugged again, his face sheepish. I'd have to show you the pictures. Meet me outside in a few.

I was used to him himming and hawing for a bit before he got down to business so this was a nice change. Though it made me wonder what exactly could have happened to cause such a drastic change in behavior. I guess I would find out. My jacket was behind the bar. I was enough of a regular that not only could I leave things behind the bar, but I could walk out without paying. Calvin and Sylvia know I'm good for it and their boss was once upon a time a close friend. We'd grown apart since my dating Ellis, but he didn't generally much any fuss about my leaving with my tab unpaid either. Some things just don't change.

Picking up my jacket, I headed for the door and the November night wind. It was running brisk and smooth through my hair and carried with it the scent of garbage and bread. Brick's was next door to a Cinnabunny, a bakery that kept some odd hours. Ellis followed me out without raising any stink over the fact that I had left without paying. His do-gooder streak was a mile wide and if he thought I was skipping out on something, he'd have hauled me back there himself and had it out with the people to make sure I paid my bill. I sorta liked that about him. He was straightlaced. Though that had a limit.

Out in the parking lot, I looked at my beat up Ford truck and then at Ellis's far newer ride. He'd recently been promoted from what I heard. Full detective. He'd splurged by buying something current. Otherwise, he'd have been driving a car as old as my truck. I let myself into my truck and waved him on to hurry up. This wasn't summertime, it got cold if you stood out there too long.

We drove to a secluded place, a former lover's lane high at the edge of town. It gave a fantastic view of the street lights twinkling like stars down below. A string of murders had soured its reputation though and only the most brazen ever parked there anymore. Kind of a pity, it was a really nice spot. When we got there, I switched rides to sit with Ellis in his. Better heater. He pulled an envelope out of the glovebox and dropped it in my lap. I didn't want to open it.

When you've been working with the police a while, you begin to distrust envelopes. Especially when you were someone like me. Envelopes generally meant you were about to see something you would prefer remained buried. Regardless, you opened them and canceled sleep for however many nights it chose to be absent. I wasn't disappointed. The pictures were black and white, though blood still had a peculiar way of standing out even in monochrome. I had to turn them a bit to see what I was seeing. It was a bird man. Or a man someone had tried to make into a bird. His face had been elongated to make a beak and a real beak had somehow been grafted on. His nose was non-existent. His jaw must have been broken in a dozen places to make it fit. And just to add icing on the cake, they had given him a headdress of feathers by stitching it to his forehead with garish Frankenstein stitches. It was enough to make me want to hurl again, but I kept my composure if only to spare the new leather.

After a few minutes of looking, and learning, I stuffed the photos back in the envelope and looked at Ellis with suspicious eyes.

What does this have to do with me? Other than giving me nightmares of men who were trying to be birds and fly to disastrous results. I don't work for the department anymore.

I know. He rubbed the back of his head with one hand trying to come up with some explanation that wouldn't have me yelling at him. I wasn't reading his mind, just his body language. We'd been lovers. There were tells. I just thought...

Thought what?

That maybe you could give me a hand. There it was, the admission I knew was coming. He needed my help pretty badly, even if he was trying to coach it down to something smaller. I just wanted to know what it was he expected me to do.

I don't work for the department anymore. I barely work for myself. I don't think I can help you.

Yes, you can. I know you got some impressions off those pictures. You always do.

Yeah, I did. He suffered a lot. He died in pain.

So he was awake and alive when that was done.

Your ME could have told you that. You don't need me for something that simple.

Look, we don't have any real leads. It happened in an abandoned warehouse occasionally used for raves. There was a body strapped to a dentist's chair with his face all cut up.

Who was he?

A two bit hood named Maguvney.

Sounds like the mob.

We're working that angle. Maybe he was meant to be a warning. He was turned into a bird, so maybe he's supposed to be a stool pigeon, but we don't know that for sure. If you could just look into it a little more, I know we would find something important.

I was getting tired of repeating myself. I don't work for the department anymore.

Stow the department. They want to drop the case all together. Bury it. I know there's something going on here. I've got that feeling in my gut, but no one will take the time to figure anything out.

Ellis's gut was a more primitive way of knowing. I knew in words. I read minds and objects. He just got massive hunches. They turned out to be right all too often, but they were just hunches. And he was right, if I chose to look into it a little further, we would probably find something important, but I really, really didn't want to be involved.

I still had the envelope in my hand, so I looked down at it to give me a few seconds of cover. I needed to get out of this car right now. The intuition was there clear as a photo flash. I needed to get out of that car and away from this case. Otherwise, I was going to be traveling down a road from which I might not be able to return. Getting slapped with an intuition like that is hard to hide. It freezes the body, including the face for several seconds. It's like playing a game of red light green light except the light is always red.

Ellis saw it. What did you see?

It's not what I see, it's what I know. The correction was automatic. I sometimes did see, but mostly it was a non-visual certainty which made my life interesting in a bad way. Drop it, Ellis. For once, do what you're told and just drop this one. I grabbed the door handle and shoved the door open. The temperature was dropping as night got deeper.

He didn't follow me out and I stood for a moment in the quiet of the midnight hour certain of one thing.

I have a bad feeling about this.

Mornings were not my best time. Especially not lately. I was drinking too much. Waking up with a hangover too often. Making a mess of things in an attempt to get away from it all, including the part of my brain that made me special. One person out of a million has some ability to know on a conscious level. The rest get gut feelings, hunches, insights, intuitions, whatever they were calling them where they came from. The gift was pretty common. Unfortunately, I could know and I could hear. Which made me a doozie when put up against a perp. All I had to do was sit in the room and wait for them to start thinking about what they weren't supposed to let slip out. Then I could quietly nail them with details I shouldn't have known. It was one of the good things I used to do. What I couldn't do was speak. Otherwise going to see my Mother wouldn't have been necessary.

My mother, Vivian Chase, was like me. Or rather I was like her. Either way, we could do very similar things. She however developed a slight touch of lifting as well, which I did not have.

After brushing the fur out of my mouth and changing clothes into something still respectable, I found myself standing on my mother's doorstep. I needed to know and she was the only person I could ask. Letting anyone else in could be suicide.

The key was under the mat waiting for me. She anticipated me. I let myself in.

My mother's living room isn't necessarily kitschy, but there are definitely more Dollar Store nick-nacks than there need to be. She was a collector of the useless. Though I really couldn't blame her. Little rainbow painted horses and the girl living on the edge of the sugar bowl didn't let you down the way people would. One could say she'd seen too much.

She was bustling around in the kitchen when I stuck my head in. With a go away wave, she said,

Lunch in 15. I expected you a little later.

I sniffed the air suddenly hungry at the promise of food. She'd made my favorite: chicken pot pie. I went into the living room and sat down. She came in after me, stripping off her apron as she made for her favorite chair. The natty afghan on it was faded, stained, and only a suggestion of the colors it had once been, but it was grandma's so it was never leaving. My seat on the couch was across from her.

Why's Ellis on your mind? She didn't mince words, I was there for her help. She knew it. I knew it. So I had better come clean about the whole thing before she tried to go looking. That was generally a bad idea between sensitives. You could blow out your proverbial eardrum listening to hard. It would make her effectively deaf to me for a few days, but nothing permanent. Mother took a small cigar and lit it.

As the smoke curled toward the ceiling, I told her everything I had felt up to the moment of walking in her door. Despite how much we didn't get along, my mother's house meant peace for me. Someone who understood precisely what I was going through. A sympathetic ear. The smoke smelled fruity. One of her specials I guessed.

That's heavy, Cassie girl.

I know, but that insight--.

Got you thinking someone's going to die if this continues. Mother feathered smoke through her nostrils looking for a moment like she might have been part dragon. What can you do?

He wants me to help him. I don't think I can knowing what's coming.

If you don't help him, what happens then?

I don't know. That insight hasn't come. I fidgeted, trying to find something to do with my hands.

And you're busy drinking yourself into oblivion rather than working on yourself.

Mother made no secret of what she thought of my handling my own life. It wasn't often brought up, but in this case, I deserved the chiding. If I had been working on myself, the insights would come more readily and I wouldn't be trying to chase them down through her. I grimaced, then shook my head. Too late for takebacks.

I need to know. Can this bad thing be prevented?

I can't see it either. Her abilities were stronger than mine, years of honing on top of just plain old age, so she could see further. There are a lot of choices between now and then that have to be made. And the first one is already sitting in your lap.

Do I help him or not? The question had been on my mind going to bed. It had been in my pounding head when I woke up. It was still in my head now, a backdrop to other thoughts. Could I go following Ellis down this rabbit hole and hope for the best or keep my neck out of the noose and let him go it alone?

I sighed. There were no more answers here. I was just as empty handed as I had been walking through the door and the doubling effect of two pre-cogs in the same room made the dreaded thing seem even closer, as if it might happen tomorrow. If it did, at least I would be spared the knowledge that I could have done something to prevent it. Cold comfort at best.

Mother got up and bustled back into the kitchen, thin hips switching to an internal beat. I watched her go for lack of something to do. Lunch was ready. I would stay and eat, then make my way to nowhere.

After visiting Mom's I found my way into a case of beer and tried not to find my way out again. As much as I hate to admit it, things like that made my housekeeping a little slobbish. There were clothes that needed washing, boxes from take out that needed to be thrown out, and a little vacuuming couldn't hurt. But I was busy popping the tabs off cans and making sure I didn't hear the phone if it rang. Ellis would be looking for me. I would be avoiding him.

Same state of affairs we'd managed for the last year, except now he wanted my attention more than ever.

It was dark by the time I decided it was safe to go out. I donned my jacket and made my way out. I needed money. Not that it was hard to get. Technically, I couldn't see to know so it was hard for me to cheat at casino games. That was the only reason The Four Aces still let me in the door. I couldn't guess every card that came down the line, but a few. Enough to make a tidy profit. Security knew about me. I knew about them. Management had come to terms with the fact that I would never play any of the big Jackpots because I'd just lose money and everybody got along getting along. I came in, played a while, made some money, spread a little of it back at the bar and left. It wasn't quite an every other day routine, but close. I knew most of the poker and blackjack dealers by name and could spot a new guy from the door.

I had the taxi drop me off in midtown. Brick's wasn't far away, but I didn't go directly to the bar in a cab. Made it too easy for someone to follow me and I felt like I needed to stretch my legs before I curled up on a barstool. I popped my collar to keep the worst of the wind off my neck and headed down the street.

The streets were awash with litter, it was the day before the sweeper would come through and the accumulated trash made the gutters look a little white as if it had snowed already. I was waiting for the first snow. It would make the world fluffy and white and perfect for just a little while. I needed that, but it was rare. Too often I was looking at the dark underbelly of things.

I picked my way out of the gutter and back onto the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street, looking at the still lit shop windows that were there. Barclay's clothing store was having a sale on jackets, not too hard to believe with the weather the way it was. Next door, Bennington Shoes were showing off the newest leather boots. The leather shone in the display light. They were nice. I would have to think about getting myself a pair. A few doors down, the display was squirming. A bunch of puppies were playing in the front window of DJ's Dogs and Cats. They were cute. I stopped to watch them as they squirmed and tumbled over one another with a smile on my