Hashimoto Blues - Chapter 1
Why did I say yes? I stood in the barn, alternately looking at the ruins of my house and the box with its gruesome contents in my hand. In the two short weeks since Max asked me to “play a Game,” life had taken a sharp left turn to Shitsville. If I’d listened to my own instincts, if I’d just told him no, that simple two-letter answer, we could’ve been sitting on the porch having a beer and a smoke instead of pissing ourselves in the barn.
An unseasonably warm breeze blew across the yard, carrying the scent of wood smoke and scattering the autumn leaves in a red and gold rustle to the corners of the property. The sky overhead looked like rain with angry gray clouds rolling across the land and obscuring the mountains.
In part, I agreed to this suicidal mission because we were running out of money. Max hadn’t pulled one of his criminal schemes, what he liked to playfully refer to as “a Game,” in months. I ran minor jobs over the border, smuggling small amounts of drugs and other valuables between the US and Canada in my ultralight airplane, making just enough to get by. It was steady work in good weather, but the beastly Vermont winter would temporarily put a stop to any of my jobs. The snow and ice made it too dangerous to fly, and incoming storms could be unpredictable. Plus, with the temperatures dipping well below freezing, it would be way too cold in my unheated cockpit.
I looked at Max, my partner in crime, my partner in life, my partner in everything. He visibly bore the marks of our disaster. Bandaged and bruised, he hardly resembled the handsome Canadian I had lived with for the past sixteen months. His easy-going smile was replaced with a deep creasing frown, and his large, muscular frame held a tight posture of fear and disillusion.
“Do you understand what this means?” I asked, holding the box up. It had been mailed to our farmhouse, specifically to Max, via UPS. The plain brown wrappings that covered the outside like a Christmas gift lay crumpled on the floor with our address neatly typed on the front. There was no return address, not that we needed one to know who had sent it.
Max stared at the house and tugged at the front of his hair, twisting the brown strands around his fingers in a display of nervous tension. He had been avoiding the box but his blood-shot eye, such a beautiful shade of sea glass green, slid sideways to peek at it from under a swollen lid. He nodded slowly. “Ellie, he’s going to kill me. He won’t stop until I’m dead.”
“Or we disappear.” I wasn’t about to give up and let Hashimoto kill either of us. “We need to leave. Now.”
I took one last peek inside the box. As horrible as it was, I couldn’t stop looking. The eyeball nestled in white cotton padding at the bottom stared back at me, the muddy brown iris making eye contact, bloody nerve endings trailing behind it like a tail. My hand shook, causing the gelatinous sphere to quake and tremble as if it had a life of its own. I slid the box top back in place and set it on the ground.
Again, I thought, why did I say yes? Then, I answered myself with another question. When did I ever say no?
Find it on sale here:
Print:
http://www.amazon.com/Hashimoto-Blues
Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/Hashimoto-Blues-ebook
Try the first five chapters - Download the PDF here!
An unseasonably warm breeze blew across the yard, carrying the scent of wood smoke and scattering the autumn leaves in a red and gold rustle to the corners of the property. The sky overhead looked like rain with angry gray clouds rolling across the land and obscuring the mountains.
In part, I agreed to this suicidal mission because we were running out of money. Max hadn’t pulled one of his criminal schemes, what he liked to playfully refer to as “a Game,” in months. I ran minor jobs over the border, smuggling small amounts of drugs and other valuables between the US and Canada in my ultralight airplane, making just enough to get by. It was steady work in good weather, but the beastly Vermont winter would temporarily put a stop to any of my jobs. The snow and ice made it too dangerous to fly, and incoming storms could be unpredictable. Plus, with the temperatures dipping well below freezing, it would be way too cold in my unheated cockpit.
I looked at Max, my partner in crime, my partner in life, my partner in everything. He visibly bore the marks of our disaster. Bandaged and bruised, he hardly resembled the handsome Canadian I had lived with for the past sixteen months. His easy-going smile was replaced with a deep creasing frown, and his large, muscular frame held a tight posture of fear and disillusion.
“Do you understand what this means?” I asked, holding the box up. It had been mailed to our farmhouse, specifically to Max, via UPS. The plain brown wrappings that covered the outside like a Christmas gift lay crumpled on the floor with our address neatly typed on the front. There was no return address, not that we needed one to know who had sent it.
Max stared at the house and tugged at the front of his hair, twisting the brown strands around his fingers in a display of nervous tension. He had been avoiding the box but his blood-shot eye, such a beautiful shade of sea glass green, slid sideways to peek at it from under a swollen lid. He nodded slowly. “Ellie, he’s going to kill me. He won’t stop until I’m dead.”
“Or we disappear.” I wasn’t about to give up and let Hashimoto kill either of us. “We need to leave. Now.”
I took one last peek inside the box. As horrible as it was, I couldn’t stop looking. The eyeball nestled in white cotton padding at the bottom stared back at me, the muddy brown iris making eye contact, bloody nerve endings trailing behind it like a tail. My hand shook, causing the gelatinous sphere to quake and tremble as if it had a life of its own. I slid the box top back in place and set it on the ground.
Again, I thought, why did I say yes? Then, I answered myself with another question. When did I ever say no?
Find it on sale here:
Print:
http://www.amazon.com/Hashimoto-Blues
Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/Hashimoto-Blues-ebook
Try the first five chapters - Download the PDF here!