South Village (Ash McKenna) (30 page)

“How long?”

“Years,” he says. “It’s kind of incredible that it’s still standing.”

He unscrews the top of the jar of green paint he’s holding, dips in a brush, and lays the wet point of it against a dry leaf on the forest side of the painting.

“It changes and it grows,” he says. “The original images are still there. I could probably take a knife and pull off bits and show you the layers of color. Point is, nothing ever has to be the way you think it has to be. Cannabelle knew that. I don’t think we’re going to get a chance to memorialize her. Body got shipped off to the family. So we do this. This is our memorial for her. And one day someone will come along and put something over it, and that’ll be okay, too. She’ll still be there underneath it.”

“Okay,” I tell him.

And I lay the brush over the black, bring a little light to the universe.

I
pack my stuff. This time in far less of a rush. I check my passport again. I’ve never had a passport before. Showed up yesterday, and my flight leaves tomorrow. Glad to see Katashi, or whatever the fuck his name was, didn’t follow through and have the document pulled.

I check my phone, the harsh white light filling the bus. It’s 2 in the morning. A few hours to go before Aesop and I need to be on the road, if I’m going to make it to the airport in time.

The last few days have been busy. Cleaning up camp. Restoring order. Lots of talking to cops and investigators, but luckily their gaze is on the folks they captured, and they’re not too worried about us. Ford came through. The official story is that Marx and his crew planned to set off an explosion but messed up. The truck crashing into the tower was an accident. They come out of it looking like buffoons. And they were credited as the Earth Liberation Front, not the Soldiers of Gaia. They can’t even make a name off it.

The fracking operation is permanently suspended, too. No kitchen sink flamethrowers.

I’m still a little conflicted over this. It was pretty awesome to blow something up, and I know what we did was for the greater good of the community. I’ve done a lot of illegal things in my life. This is pretty much way up at the top.

But at night, I sleep, and that gives me comfort.

Sometimes I dream about my dad and Chell.

But not about the hole. That’s gone.

I step off the now-empty bus, close the door. Climb onto the boardwalk and head toward the back of camp. It’s a nice night. A little cool, finally. The air turning to fall and the brutal summer behind us. The world is changing. I wonder what this place is like when it gets cooler. Less bugs, probably. The fires are probably more welcoming. I’m sad that I’ll miss it.

I reach the clearing toward the back of camp, where a fire is already going. Alex and Job are sitting on a log, Job is plucking away at an acoustic guitar while Alex hums the tune to “Redemption Song”. A little clichéd and yet so completely perfect. Zorg is here too, and Sunny and Moony, and Aesop and Tibo. And Robert and Ginger, making out like teenagers.

Aesop takes a canvas bag and pulls out three packages of bacon while Zorg sets up a cast iron skillet on a grill grate over the fire, which Tibo is feeding with kindling. Getting it nice and hot and ready so I can fulfill the promises I made.

This is my goodbye party.

It makes me think back to home. The night I left New York. There was a goodbye party there, too. Apocalypse Lounge was closing, and it was snowing, and there was a great big party, mostly to send the bar off, but some people there to see me off, and the thought of picking through the crowd, trying to say goodbye to every person, it was too much. So I pulled an Irish goodbye. Up and left before anyone realized I was gone.

Thinking back on that now, I regret it. Here, now, I’m happy to get a farewell.

And I could not think of anything more perfect than night bacon.

Aesop is about to cut open a package when I stop him and say, “We didn’t do the circle.”

Everyone stops and looks at me, like they don’t understand how those words could have come out of my mouth. And then smiles break out across the clearing, faces turning up in the dancing orange light.

Tibo’s is the biggest.

We take our spots around the fire, hands reaching out to each other. I end up with Aesop on my left and Zorg on my right, Tibo directly across from me.

“Would you like to start?” Tibo asks me.

“Yes,” I tell him. “Community. I’m thankful for community.”

“I’m thankful for community, too,” Aesop says.

Everyone answers with ‘community.’ And when we’re done we stand there, looking at each other in the glow of the fire. Really looking at each other.

After a few moments, we let go.

Aesop throws the bacon onto the skillet. The scent of it fills the forest and we sit and talk. People ask me questions about my life, how I got there, and I tell them honestly, even the parts that hurt. They share the things that hurt them, and their paths that brought them to the Georgia woods in the middle of the night, sharing fistfuls of bacon in secret.

As we’re cleaning up, as the sky is cycling shades of blue, I realize Chell and my dad, they’re still there, out in the darkness. But it doesn’t feel like they’re accusing me of anything.

It just feels like they’re with me.

Read other title by Rob Hart

Thank you to Bree Ogden and Jason Pinter for their continued support of both me and this series. Thank you Rayne, for your intel on the inner workings of camgirls. Huge thanks to the booksellers who’ve carried my books, including Seattle Mystery, Powell’s, Poisoned Pen, MysteryPeople, The Astoria Bookshop, Murder by the Book, Barnes & Noble, and The Mysterious Bookshop. Plus all the bookstores I don’t know about. Support bookstores! Thank you to my wife, Amanda, for giving me the space to do this. You are the best of wives and best of women. And most of all, thanks to everyone reading this book.

Rob Hart is the publisher at
MysteriousPress.com
and the class director at LitReactor. Previously, he has been a political reporter, the communications director for a politician, and a commissioner for the city of New York. He is the author of two previous Ash McKenna novels:
New Yorked
, which was nominated for the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, and
City of Rose.
He is also the author of
The Last Safe Place: A Zombie Novella
. His short stories have appeared in publications like
Thuglit
,
Needle
,
Shotgun Honey
,
All Due Respect
,
Joyland
, and
Helix Literary Magazine.
He’s received both a Derringer Award nomination and honorable mention in 
Best American Mystery Stories 2015
, edited by James Patterson.

He lives in New York City.

Find more on the web at
www.robwhart.com
and on Twitter at @robwhart.

The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in an entirely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by Rob Hart

Cover and jacket design by 2Faced Design

Interior design and formatting by:

www.emtippettsbookdesigns.com

ISBN 978-1-943818-39-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015951361

First trade paperback edition October 2016 by
Polis Books, LLC

1201 Hudson Street, #211S

Hoboken, NJ 07030

Table of Contents

Title Page

Also by Rob Hart

About South Village

Dedication

Quote

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright Notice