Ferocious Read online

  FEROCIOUS

  A novel by Jeff Strand

  Ferocious copyright 2019 by Jeff Strand

  Cover design by Lynne Hansen http://www.LynneHansenArt.com

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's perverted imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Seriously. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the author.

  For more information about the author, visit http://www.JeffStrand.com

  Subscribe to Jeff Strand's free monthly newsletter (which includes a brand-new original short story in every issue) at

  http://eepurl.com/bpv5br

  DISCLAIMER

  The plausibility of this novel has not been verified by anybody in the scientific community, due to concern that their heads would explode.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Rusty didn't reach for his shotgun at the sound of the approaching car, but he did glance over at it. Though trespassers were rare and very unwelcome, he tried to give them the benefit of the doubt instead of immediately pointing a firearm at them and sternly suggesting that they get off his land. Oh, he'd point the shotgun at them early in the conversation; he simply made an effort not to start there.

  He continued to sand the chair leg as he watched. The path to his cabin was long and winding and it would be another minute before the car arrived. If the driver was lost, he was extremely lost. It was virtually impossible to get lost enough to end up at Rusty's home. Visitors tended to be people who purposely ignored the posted signs, like that car full of obnoxious teenagers last year. That had been a very brief visit. He wasn't the type of person to be amused by cowardice, but watching those kids peel out and speed away had brought a small smile to his face.

  The car, a fancy blue one, stopped in front of the cabin. A thin guy in a nice shirt and tie got out of the vehicle. Rusty stood up, both to be polite and to be intimidating. He was not a small man.

  "Rustin Moss?" asked the stranger.

  "Rusty."

  "You're a hard man to find."

  "That's by design."

  "I can see that. That road was...unfriendly. Not the right car for the job." The stranger walked up onto the porch and extended his hand. "I'm Grant Olander. I'm an attorney."

  "You look like one."

  Grant gestured to the chairs that filled half of the porch. "Did you make all of those?"

  Rusty nodded.

  "Nice work."

  "Thank you."

  "May I sit in one? Test it out?"

  Rusty shrugged. "If you'd like."

  Grant sat down in a rocking chair and rocked it back and forth a few times. "Oh, yeah. Now this is craftsmanship. None of that mass-produced garbage." He ran his fingers along the arm. "You can tell this was made by somebody who cared to do it right."

  Rusty didn't like people very much, but admiring his furniture was one way to get on his good side. Not that he was going to offer the man a drink or anything. "I have to do quality work. It's how I make my living."

  "You make a full-time living selling your chairs?"

  "Not just chairs. I make tables, desks, dressers...but yes."

  "Impressive."

  Rusty shrugged. "I live cheap."

  "Even so, it's great to be able to do what you love."

  "Do you love being a lawyer?"

  "I love being able to tell my parents I'm a lawyer."

  "That's something."

  Grant rocked a few more times, then frowned. "As you've probably guessed, I didn't drive all the way out here to test out a rocking chair. I'm here to deliver some bad news."

  "I'm listening."

  "Lori Richards is your sister, correct?"

  "Yes."

  "Which would make Flynn Richards your brother-in-law."

  "That's right."

  "They were in a car accident. Not their fault. The other driver ran a red light."

  "Drunk?"

  Grant shook his head. "Changing the radio station. Anyway..."

  "Hold on," said Rusty. "I feel like I should sit down for the rest of this." He took a long, deep breath, then sat down on his fine homemade rocking chair.

  "Your sister died instantly. She didn't suffer. The other car struck the passenger side head-on, and quite honestly she may not have even seen it coming. There are worse ways to go."

  "Yeah." Rusty gritted his teeth as he clenched the armrests. A tear ran down his cheek, but he didn't care if the lawyer saw him cry. This was only the third time he'd cried in his adult life. Once per relative. "She wasn't even thirty yet."

  "I know."

  "What about her husband?"

  "He didn't make it to the hospital."

  Rusty had never even met his brother-in-law. Lori hadn't tried to make him feel guilty about not going to the wedding; it was on the other side of the country, and Rusty didn't do airplanes. She understood that. He wiped the tear from his eye. "What...what about...?"

  "The baby?"

  "Was it in the car?"

  "Yes."

  Rusty closed his eyes. "Goddamn it."

  "The baby is fine. She was in a car seat in the back. A couple of scratches, and a piece of glass got her in the face but she was very, very lucky."

  Rusty opened his eyes again. He wanted to smile and cry at the same time and he wasn't sure how to reconcile this. Conflicting emotions were not part of his world. He liked things to be simple.

  Grant nodded toward his car. "Rusty, would you like to meet your niece?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Your parents are deceased. You have no other siblings. You are Mia's only living relative."

  "The baby's in the car?" asked Rusty, feeling a twitch of panic in his stomach. Babies were foreign and frightening.

  "Yes."

  "Right now?"

  "Yes."

  "Your car? The one that's right there?"

  "I'll be back in a second." Grant gave the chair a couple more rocks, then got up and walked over to his vehicle. Rusty watched, his sorrow completely replaced by confusion and nervous tension. The baby was here? Did that mean he was responsible for it? He did remember telling Lori that, yes, of course he'd be Mia's godparent, but he never thought his little sister would die!

  Grant opened the back door and leaned into the car. He stayed like that for a few moments, which Rusty initially thought was a cruel effort to draw out the suspense, but then he realized that Grant was probably just undoing all of the straps on the baby seat.

  Finally, Grant emerged with a baby in his arms. Beaming, the lawyer brought the pink-blanket-swathed child onto the front porch.

  "Rusty, Mia. Mia, Rusty."

  Rusty just gaped. He'd seen pictures, but all babies looked the same to him, so he couldn't be one hundred percent positive that this was his niece. She had a small bandage on her right cheek.

  "Do you want to hold her?" Grant asked.

  "Not at the moment, no."

  Grant cooed at the baby, which was not something Rusty could ever do. He did not coo.

  "This is obviously a great shock for you," said Grant, sitting down on the rocking chair. He began to rock gently, smiling at the baby as he did so. "If you weren't so far off the grid, of course we would have tried to give you some notice."

  "Are you...are you giving her to me?"

  "You're her godfather. Makes you sound like a crime boss, doesn't it? I completely understand that this is a lot for you to process all at once."

  "Yes," said Rusty. "It really is."

  "For what it's worth, she travels well. Barely cried at all on the tri
p over here."

  "I can't be her dad. I don't know how to take care of a baby. I don't know how they work!"

  "Oh, it's not that difficult. Just put food in one end and clean up the other end."

  "I..."

  "I apologize," said Grant. "I shouldn't be making jokes like that. You've just found out you lost your sister and now I'm here with this little bombshell. I'm not trying to make light of the situation."

  "I can't do it."

  Grant nodded. "You're not legally required to raise this child. It's not your baby."

  "What would happen to her?"

  "Foster care. She's a healthy child; she'll get adopted. You wouldn't be banishing her to an orphanage run by Mr. Bumble."

  "Mr. Bumble?"

  "From Oliver Twist. He ran the orphanage. He was very unpleasant."

  "I remember him now."

  "That would not be Mia's fate. She'll be fine, I promise you."

  "Okay." This did not give Rusty any sense of relief, because he knew that he could not send this child away. He didn't believe in the afterlife, and so he didn't think that Lori was gazing down upon him at this moment. But he did believe in doing the right thing, and though he hadn't taken a blood oath and shouted "I swear that I shall care for this child as my own!" at the sky, he knew that it would devastate Lori to know that he'd simply abandoned her daughter to whatever the system chose to do with her. She might end up in a perfectly nice home with a perfectly nice family and live a perfectly nice life. She might not.

  Rusty and Lori rarely saw each other anymore. It was difficult to remain close with your sister when you'd pretty much eschewed all contact with other human beings except for a once-a-month trip to town to buy supplies and drop off furniture. Still, for eighteen years they'd been inseparable, and no way in hell was he going to go back on his word to her.

  "I'll hold her now," he told Grant.

  The lawyer stood up and carefully handed the baby to him. "Put your hand on the back of her head...yes, just like that...see, you've got it already."

  Rusty looked down at Mia. She wasn't quite asleep but she was getting there. For an instant he thought that this might not be so bad, but then the aroma struck him.

  "I think she has a dirty diaper," he told Grant.

  "Yep. Gotta go." Grant hurried off the porch. Then he turned around with a grin. "I'm just kidding. I've got diapers and other supplies in the car. The first diaper change is on me."

  "Thank you."

  "I'm not going to chuck a kid at you and leave. If you come back with me, there are people who can help get you set up with what you need, answer the millions of questions I'm sure you have, and show you how to do things like change a poopy diaper. If you aren't able to do it now, I'll take Mia back to child services and she'll be cared for until you're able to join me and formalize everything."

  "I never said I was taking her."

  "I saw it in your face."

  This answer surprised Rusty, because he assumed his face was a twisted mask of pure terror. Mia's eyes were closed now. Maybe all babies didn't look the same. Even with the bandage, she was way less ugly than most of the babies he'd seen.

  He'd have to learn to coo.

  "Do we need to schedule a different day?" Grant asked.

  "Nah. I was just making a chair. It can wait."

  "Excellent. It's going to be fine, Rusty. I'm not an optimist, believe me, but you've got this."

  Grant went to his car and came back with an enormous box of diapers, which he joked was a half-day supply. He then apologized for the joke. He took Mia back from Rusty and asked to be directed to a good spot to change a diaper.

  "Do you mind if I take a quick walk?" asked Rusty. "I don't think Lori's death has quite hit me yet, and I need some time to think. I promise it'll be quick."

  "Take a long walk if you want. I'm enjoying the peace and quiet. Maybe I'll get you to hire me as a nanny."

  "A quick one will do it. Thank you."

  Rusty left his cabin and walked through the woods. He loved it out here. He really hoped that Mia did, too, because there was no way he was going to move back to the city. He'd have to make more frequent trips to town, he supposed, but that wasn't a major sacrifice. He'd handle her schooling himself, which meant that he had four or five years to learn history and geography and all of the other stuff he'd forgotten.

  He wept for a while. He hadn't cried this hard when his mother and father died—also unfairly young—but he supposed it made sense that he'd be extra emotional at the moment.

  Grant was right. It was going to be fine. Rusty had this.

  And if nothing else, Mia was going to have an amazing handmade wooden crib.

  CHAPTER TWO

  "Did you get tampons?" Mia asked. "You know I'll be menstruating soon."

  Rusty maintained a stoic expression. She knew he hadn't forgotten the tampons. Their ongoing game was that she would frequently talk about feminine issues, knowing it made him extremely uncomfortable, and he would pretend that it did not bother him in the least. He always lost the game.

  "I got them," he said. "I wouldn't want you to..." He started to make a disgusting comment, but couldn't force himself to say it out loud. Mia won again. "Thanks for sweeping up the place while I was gone."

  Mia glanced at the wooden floor. "I did sweep it up."

  "I know. That's why I thanked you."

  "Oh. I thought you were being sarcastic."

  "No, you're the sarcastic one in this family. Would you mind putting all the stuff away?"

  "Sure. What are you going to do?"

  "Watch you put all the stuff away."

  Mia grinned and began to pull groceries out of the bags. Rusty plopped down in his recliner, let out an exaggerated yawn, and stretched as if relaxing after a hard day of work, even though trips into town were not exactly brutal manual labor.

  She'd been a tomboy for most of her youth, then in her teenage years entered a phase where she went in the opposite direction—all frilly dresses and makeup and long pretty nails. Now, at seventeen, she'd bridged the gap between the two. She wore blue polish on her short fingernails, spent too long every day fixing her hair, and wore a bit of makeup even though there was rarely anybody around but her Uncle Rusty.

  Rusty was approaching fifty. His lifestyle kept him from getting soft, but the rapid metabolism that had served him so well for all of these years had finally abandoned him, so he'd acquired a gut that Mia did not make fun of because she knew he was genuinely sensitive about it. There was more gray in his hair than black now, but it looked all right, and he thought the creases gave a nice rugged look to a face that had never been particularly handsome. Overall, he could be doing a lot worse.

  "Oooh, thanks!" said Mia, taking a package of red licorice out of one of the bags.

  "I didn't say that was for you."

  "You hate licorice."

  "Maybe I've evolved. People change. They acquire experience and wisdom."

  "Are you saying you've acquired new wisdom?"

  "Oh, God no. I'm done with that shit."

  Mia tore open the package and popped a stick of that nasty sugary crap into her mouth. She happily chewed on it while she put more stuff away.

  "How's the bench going?" Rusty asked.

  "Almost done."

  "Really?"

  "Really."

  She could make furniture a lot faster than him now. It wasn't a "vibrancy of youth versus decrepitude of old age" kind of thing; she was faster than he'd been in his prime. One of the early lessons—one that took a while to make stick—had been to slow down and work with more care. Now she worked quickly and almost flawlessly.

  Mia was also good at commissions. Rusty's process had always been to make whatever he wanted to make and then sell it. It had worked out well. He'd reluctantly take requests, but for the most part he preferred to simply drop off a load of furniture once a month and keep the human interaction to a minimum. Mia would talk to customers, get detailed descriptions of ex
actly what they wanted, and make it to their specifications. Sometimes they didn't quite know what they wanted ("Something that reminds me of Grandma") and Mia was able to figure that out, too. It was rare that anybody was less than thrilled with her work.

  She was an excellent addition to the business. Which was good, because there wasn't a lot else for her to do out here. Having a baby dropped into his lap had required a significant lifestyle change, but he hadn't abandoned the core of what made him happy. He still lived in a cabin way the hell out in the middle of the woods. No Internet. No television. Almost no visitors.

  They did have electricity. Pre-Mia, he'd fired up a generator in those rare instances when he needed it. Post-Mia, he'd gone to solar power, which had been expensive to install but had more than paid for itself after all these years. He'd added a whole new section to the cabin to give Mia her own room and some privacy. Though they still had the outhouse, which was Rusty's preferred venue for elimination, they also had an indoor flushable toilet. The whole place was more like a house than he would've wanted, but the disruption of his life had been almost all for the better.

  Mia liked it out here. She didn't seem to mind that she was missing out on so much of the life of a normal teenaged girl. Sometimes, like today, she didn't even feel like going into town. Sure, they got on each other's nerves on occasion, but there was a lot of available wilderness for them to get some alone time. As far as Rusty was concerned, she could live with him for the rest of his life, and then have the cabin for the rest of hers.

  That said, there were times when he felt guilty. Felt that he was robbing her of experiences that could define the direction of her life. She was damn good at making things, but what if she could cure diseases? What if she could invent things that changed lives? Or, hell, forget about her potential; was it fair that she'd never watched a movie?

  This was something he needed to speak with her about. He'd tried to start the conversation several times and couldn't bring himself to do it. On the drive back from town, he'd vowed to do it today. And he would. As soon as she finished putting everything away.