Dead Beginnings (Vol. 1) Read Free Page A

his father inside. Several times he’d demanded a paternity test only to get cracked across the face with an arthritic, but solid fist. Those memories passed through his mind and then flittered away on the rays of the sun.
    Deep breath in, exhale out.
    He couldn’t lose control again.
    He could not lose control again.
     
     
     
    III.
     
     
     
    Lonnie Lands hopped down from the old Ford and glared up at the apartment building the GPS on his phone had lead him to. The lower half was a mixture of light colored stones and the upper half a cream siding. It looked brand spanking new.
    The windows were massive, floor to ceiling he bet, and the landscaping was immaculate with large shrubs to hide all the air conditioning units and mature trees to provide the perfect amount of shade over each picnic table strategically placed around the grounds. The patios were small. That was the only negative thing Lonnie could come up with as he gawked with his neck craned upward. There was always a negative to everything.
    Dunes Ridge was nicer than any place Lonnie had ever lived, and that included the double wide trailer his father rented for the first five years of his life. It’d been practically brand new. Only one other tenant had lived in it before and there were no weird stains on the carpet—at least not at first. Buddy’s lack of respect for anything besides himself had turned their nicest home into a pit of beer cans, fast food wrappers, and cigarette butts. Everything Buddy touched turned to shit it seemed.
    Lonnie headed up the stairs to apartment 622 on the second floor. When he knocked a young woman opened the door, her youthful face temporarily wrinkled across her forehead and in the corner of her eyes. Lonnie took her in with a judgmental glower and came to the conclusion that his buddy, Ralph Sherman, could have done better. Back in the day he’d seen him pull way better tail than the girl in front of him. Amy was a thousand times prettier than the new Mrs. Sherman.
    “You must be Lonnie,” she said, her lips twitching upward in a contrived smile. In her arms was a curly blond-haired girl clinging close to her mother’s chest, sucking her thumb.
    Lonnie wasn’t good at guessing children’s ages, but she looked to still be under a year old, unless she was just small and anorexic-looking like her mother. Sally’s jutted cheek bones and thin arms and legs made Lonnie’s nose wrinkle ever so slightly as he eyed her.
    “Yeah, that’s me,” was all he said.
    Sally stepped aside and let him in. “Ralph’s in the bathroom. He’ll be out in a min.”
    Lonnie stopped short after only taking a few steps inside and scanned the white-walled apartment with narrowed eyes. Family portraits from the local JCPenney littered the walls, held snugly in place by frames with inspirational sayings painted on them. The room was a blended haze of beiges and creams, the decorative pillows the only hint of personality in the place, and that included the woman with her back to Lonnie in the kitchen. The soft carpet was freshly vacuumed, the lines revealing Sally’s routine pattern of compulsive cleaning. There were Better Home & Garden magazines strategically placed on the coffee table.
    “Jeez,” Lonnie exhaled with a sneer, both his hands rested on his hips.
    “Excuse me?” Sally asked from the kitchen where she mixed a bottle of formula.
    “Ralph really sold out, didn’t he?”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Her brow was furrowed heavy over her almond-shaped, green eyes. When she turned to look at him her long, thin hair flowed over her shoulder and right into her daughter’s hands, who tugged hard. “Ouch!” Sally pulled her hair from the grip of the tiny baby’s fingers.
    Lonnie thought Sally’s hair was tacky. It was way too long, like most girls who wanted to rebel against the rigidity of military life once they were out, despite its scraggly quality. She was a natural brunette, but she had so many fat chunks