DeadEarth: Mr. 44 Magnum Read Free Page B

charge…
until I get back. And I will be back.” He started down the
stairs.
    “So that’s it. Just like that, you’re
leaving.”
    “Long goodbyes just hurt more. I love you.
Lou. Shade, I love you too. Stay safe, and I’ll see you soon.”
    Shade listened as her father walked
downstairs, through the living room, and out of the front door. The
house was silent again as the weight of what just happen fell over
each of them. Shade opened the door. Rikka stood right outside of
it staring down the stairs in utter disbelief.
    “Did...did he just leave?” It was a stupid
question, but Shade had to ask.
    Rikka looked at her, awe dominating her
expression. “Yeah,” she muttered.
    “Just like that? With a two minutes warning
and a half-ass goodbye, he just left?”
    Rikka sighed, shedding the perplexed
expression. “Fuck. Now I have to kill and gut the rest of the
horses.”

Chapter 3: “Be safe, Rikka.”

    Shade remained shut up in her room while
Rikka tended to the horses. She didn’t want to hear, see, or smell
what the horse gutting process entailed. Of course, her father made
her do it from time to time, though on smaller animals. She could
never wipe the look of utter disgust from her face when she cut
open their stomachs and watched everything spill out. And the sound
it made…
    The first time she left her room was for
dinner. Rikka was anal about the family eating at least one meal
together, especially after their parents’ divorce. Dinner was the
designated ‘family meal’. Though Shade preferred eating alone, she
wasn’t big on conflict. She ate with her family simply to humor her
sister and keep the words—and occasionally fists—from flying. She
never sat at the table though. Their mother always ate standing up,
and Shade took up that trait, much to Rikka’s dismay
    “Are the horses...?” Shade cast her eyes
downward to her plate of leftover lasagna.
    “Yeah. They’re...” She glanced at Lou. “Just
stay out of the barn.”
    Shade nodded and went back to eating.
    Lou set her fork on her plate and crossed her
arms in front of her. It was a ritual of sorts for her. Anytime she
crossed her arms at the dinner table, a question would follow. And
they were never easy questions. The last time she crossed her arms
at the table, she all but forced her father to explain what an
orgasm was. That was a very awkward meal.
    “What could have made all the plants die at
the same time?” she asked, looking from Rikka to Shade expectantly.
She would not continue eating until she had a satisfying
answer.
    Rikka set her fork down and leaned her chair
back on two legs. She thought for a moment before offering a
rebuttal. “I think it’d be easier to narrow down what it couldn’t
have been, don’t you think?” It never ceased to amaze Shade how
kind and gentle Rikka was to Lou, and how much of a bitch she was
to her.
    Lou smiled. “Okay. Well, it wasn’t any of us,
right?”
    “Right,” Shade said as she walked over to the
table and sat down. She had been wracking her brain for an answer
for weeks with no success. She knew the rest of her family had
thoughts on the matter too, but no one openly discussed them. It
seemed like everyone was silently waiting for a
geo-something-ologist to offer up not only an explanation, but a
solution as well.
    “Are we ruling out pollution, too? You know,
like the holes in the ozone, gamma radiation, and stuff like that,”
Rikka asked with a raised brow.
    “I think so,” Shade said. “If it was
pollution, I don’t think it would happen so quickly. I mean,
wouldn’t there be signs? I don’t see Mother Nature tossing in the
towel before even stepping in the ring.”
    Rikka nodded thoughtfully. “So, it’s a
unanimous ‘no’ for pollution?” Shade and Lou nodded as well. “What
about…” she shrugged, “some kind of weapon someone lost control
of?”
    “Like a sci-fi movie,” Shade said with a
laugh. Rikka cut her eye at her middle sister until the