May Novel Essential Information

Novel Title: Seeded

Time Setting: 2022

Genre: Life

Minimum Word Goal: 90,000

Timespan: July–August

Locations: Brooks, Duchess, & Rosemary, Alberta

Main Characters: Brandt Remington & Lark Stanek

Background Information: 

Born the only son and youngest of three children to his parents, who operated a dairy and grain farm east of Duchess, Alberta, which had been established by his great-great grandfather in the early 1900s, Brandt was immediately his father’s favourite child.

For several generations the firstborn child of each man of the Remington line had been a son, with Brandt’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather not being exceptions in the least, thus Brandt’s father had been expecting to have a son as his first child, and had been disappointed when he and his wife had, instead, birthed two daughters first.

Worse yet, Brandt’s mother hadn’t wanted to have three children, so Brandt’s father had needed to cajole her into one more pregnancy, which became urgent to him when Brandt’s youngest paternal uncle and his wife announced they were expecting their first child, who would be the first cousin to Brandt’s sisters.

Thankfully — as far as his father was concerned — Brandt’s uncle and his wife had a daughter just a few months before Brandt was born, the first grandson to his grandparents, who agreed with his father that he would be the fifth generation owner and operator of the farm.

Since the farm was a long-established place, Brandt’s upbringing was better off than some of his peers, but that didn’t mean it was happy.

Brandt’s parents had been in conflict regularly about many things before Brandt was born, and their marriage didn’t improve after his birth; instead, when he was four years old his father put his mother out and invited a new woman — with whom he’d been having an affair — into the house, divorcing Brandt’s mother in short order.

His father meant to marry his new partner, who had to secure a divorce from her own husband as well, but she was killed in a car accident scant weeks before the wedding, which Brandt didn’t necessarily find sad for himself, even if she and his father hadn’t argued as much as his father and mother had, but it took a couple years before his father found a new partner, with whom he had two more children, a son and a daughter.

By the time his little half-brother was born, Brandt was ten, so he didn’t really bond with his younger brother, nor was he all that close with his older sisters, as his oldest sister was fifteen, which made her too old to associate with little boys — although she was nevertheless nice about it — while his other sister was ill-tempered and childish.

When their little half-sister was born, the younger of Brandt’s older sisters seemed out to harm the baby, prompting Brandt’s father to send her to live full-time with Brandt’s mother, who’d return to her family near Olds and was living with a man who taught at the local agricultural college after having moved around a fair bit.

With his oldest sister graduated and attending college by then, and his father’s new partner breaking up with him because of disagreements regarding having further children, Brandt and his father found themselves living in a rather large house all by themselves.

Even though Brandt never had to ask twice for something he wanted from his father, and had heard his father constantly proclaim his good qualities, Brandt had never really felt all that loved by his father for who he was as a person, but for what he represented, as he was a son who would take over the farm.

It wasn’t that Brandt wasn’t interested in the farm either, but it was actually the oldest of his father’s two younger brothers who’d instilled that love in him, as his father had been too busy managing the farm to truly show him things or explain how they worked.

His father did try to bond with Brandt in the time they lived in the house together, but Brandt never got the sense it was sincere, which was what he wanted more than anything.

Indeed, Brandt didn’t really feel loved by anyone, even his friends, many of whom he felt liked him only because he was the richest kid in the area — although he also got plenty of bullying for being the rich kid too — and his mother and her partner were just as insincere in their bonding efforts with him.

He did have one friend who genuinely cared about him, though. Brandon was from west of Duchess, nearly exactly halfway between Duchess and the nearby town of Rosemary, and was actually a churchgoing kid who was serious about Christianity, but never tried to force it on Brandt.

Instead, Brandon would simply not participate in certain events or activities because he didn’t believe they were right, and would sometimes give Brandt moral advice — whether Brandt asked for it or not — which led to Brandt giving Brandon the nickname Conscience.

Only Brandon knew that Brandt struggled with anything, as Brandt confided in Brandon about feeling lonely and loved more as a means to an end than as a unique human being with his own personality and character; to everyone else, Brandt was confident, arrogant, self-assured, and something of a bully, notwithstanding Brandon’s efforts to curtail Brandt’s vengeful acts against those who upset him.

When Brandt graduated from high school he followed in his father’s footsteps by going to the same agricultural college as his father — the one at Olds, which was how his parents had met — but he took different courses than his father had, and was fascinated by some of the alternative agricultural practises propounded by people there.

During his time at college, however, his father found a new girlfriend who was only a little older than Brandt’s oldest sister, and seemed to Brandt the personification of everything he disliked in women, as well as being massively ignorant about anything related to agriculture.

His father has been tying to get him to like her when he’s home for the summers, but Brandt has stubbornly resisted, as the only thing he might consider mildly likeable about her is the fact that she’s a fitness instructor, thus she has a very good-looking figure.

Now that Brandt has graduated from college with his degree, however, his father has told him that this girlfriend is going to be moving in with them, and the couple are already in discussions about building a house together to replace the house that Brandt’s grandparents had built for his parents when they’d gotten married.

Brandt isn’t necessarily against his childhood home being razed and replaced, but he has little confidence that he would possibly be inclined to like the planned house, even though he’s not yet seen any renderings of it.

Furthermore, their building a house together has Brandt suspecting that their relationship isn’t going to be over anytime soon, contrary to his hopes, with the worst part of it all being the fact that he’s going to have to stay living with them until whatever time he decides to get married, at which time his father has assured him he’ll get a custom-built house of his own.

So far Brandt hasn’t been able to stand one day under the same roof as his father’s girlfriend, leaving him confident that sharing a house with her is going to be the closest thing he has ever experienced to cruel and unusual punishment.

Born the youngest of three daughters to her parents, who operated a grain farm with a few beef and dairy cattle with her grandparents west of Rosemary, Lark was just three and a half years old when her mother was killed in a devastating car accident.

Her mother had been at fault for the accident because she didn’t like having to wait behind slow-moving farm equipment that couldn’t reach the posted speed limits because they weren’t manufactured to go that fast, and so had pulled out to pass without checking for oncoming traffic, thus the oncoming semi-tractor unit didn’t have time to slow down or take evasive action before obliterating her car almost beyond identification.

Lark and her sisters were thus raised by their father alone, as he didn’t have the heart to remarry, although her paternal grandparents, who still lived on the farm as well, were also active in her upbringing.

She and her sisters were loved dearly by their father, who did his best to make time for them in the midst of all the demands of the farm, which was helped by the fact that his parents were around to do some of the farm work when he wanted or needed to spend time with Lark and her sisters, whether they simply went out to ride on the horses, or went to the nearby lake, museums, or even, on occasion, more significant trips to Calgary.

When Lark was nearly thirteen her grandparents moved off the farm and her oldest uncle, who was a year younger than her father, and his family moved into the house her grandparents had vacated.

Her uncle and aunt had lived and farmed near Olds, where they’d met, with her aunt’s family until disagreements between her uncle and her aunt’s brother-in-law, who were running the farm together prompted her uncle to decide that he couldn’t keep being nice to his in-laws if he lived and worked so closely with them, thus they’d moved to Rosemary and made a short commute to the farm, but her grandparents arranged a house swap with them.

As a result, Lark had cousins to play with who were around her age, a couple of whom were boys, although the house swap didn’t mean she saw all that much less of her grandparents, as they were still at the farm many times a week just simply to hang out and help where they could, as they were too old to be involved full-time, but they were still young and vigorous enough to help out on occasion.

Lark’s father and uncle had always been close and worked well together, with her uncle growing the beef side of the farm, as he’d worked with beef with his wife’s family, while Lark’s father concentrated on the dairy part and they worked together on the grain that they both needed for the cattle.

Outside of the farm, the church was another important place in the life of Lark’s family. They attended church every Sunday, and participated in many church-run events as well. Lark’s oldest sister was most interested in being involved at church, while her middle sister was interested in singing and making music.

Being involved in helping others and music were both things Lark liked as well, but she also liked animals and nature, and thus was the one who had the closest relationship with the dogs and cats on the farm — whose deaths she mourned no matter their ages — as well as the horses kept for pleasure riding, the calves, and even the cows and bulls.

Lark was also interested in agriculture otherwise. Not necessarily the operation of the farm and all the legal and financial parts, but in the goal of feeding people the best-quality food possible, whether it was beef, milk, cheese, grain, or many more things, and to that end she enjoyed cooking, especially when she was cooking with food products grown on the farm, whether in the extensive garden her aunt and grandma planted every year, or the big fields full of crops, and even the meat of pasture-raised beef.

As she got older, however, Lark didn’t really know what she wanted to do in the future. Her oldest sister went to Bible school, where she met a young man who was training to become a pastor, and the two of them got married once they’d graduated, settling in Saskatchewan, where he’d gotten a job pastoring a church, while her middle sister went to a music school in Calgary and had plans once she graduated to settle in Strathmore where some of their paternal grandma’s family lived.

Even when Lark graduated she still couldn’t decide what she wanted to do, although the idea of becoming a veterinarian, which she had considered, had diminished, as even if she wasn’t so queasy as some at the sight of blood and wounds, she was pretty sure she still lacked the physical fortitude to see the worst of the worst, and she was too quick to cry when any animal died to be willing to euthanise any who needed it herself.

Her desire for farm management hadn’t grown either, she was content to let her uncle’s oldest son take over the farm instead, as he was more interested in those sorts of things, which left her somewhat adrift when it came to a plan for her future.

Thankfully she’s not twenty yet, so there is time for her to still decide what she wants to do with her life while still being young enough to not be looked at oddly if she were to go to college, but the fact that she’s lacking even for some ideas of what she might consider doing isn’t really giving her comfort that she’ll be able to come up with something before too long, which may not be a bad thing if whatever she wants to do doesn’t need a college degree, but she does feel like secondary education would help, and it’s not like she doesn’t have promises from her father and maternal grandfather of significant financial contributions to such an education either.

Pronunciation:

Brandt: brahnt

Misgivings: Day 20

Word Total: 120,089

Year to Date: 420,215

Summary of Events:

Greyson chatted with the mechanic and learned some more about the Fransbergen family, mainly learning that Ayers was smart, but not necessarily quick-witted. The following morning Greyson was making breakfast when he was confronted by Mr. Fransbergen, who accused Greyson of snooping around despite their agreement by sitting around looking out the front window. Greyson claimed that he was only doing it because there was no back deck, but Mr. Fransbergen called his bluff and Greyson, seething at himself, set about to rearrange the living room furniture. He discovered some cuts in the carpet under the couch while doing so that made a flap, beneath which he was shocked to find stacks of $100 bills…

Excerpt of the Day:

He warily reached out and took up one of the stacks by its rubber band, revealing a particle board underfloor beneath, as well as making it clear that the multicoloured foam underlayment was about 1cm thick.

Thus, the stack of bills — all of which were brown $100s — was 1cm thick, but Greyson had no idea how many bills it took to make 1cm of thickness so, with a trembling hand, he removed the rubber band and, finding the textured darker brown place close to Sir Borden’s head made for getting a good grip on them in just such a situation, counted them out silently.

One hundred bills were in the stack. Greyson fished his cell phone out of his pocket and multiplied 100 by 100. 10,000 was the answer. This one stack of bills was $10,000.

Since there were seven stacks in four columns, that meant there were twenty eight stacks, and if each stack was, indeed, comprised of only $100 bills — which Greyson felt was reasonably likely, seeing as the other two stacks he could see edges of showed nothing but brown — that meant that there was $280,000 sitting before him.

Over a quarter of a million dollars, hiding under the carpet of a janky, dated old trailer hiding out in the middle of nowhere on a dodgy chicken farm. Greyson couldn’t believe it.

His hands still shaking, he drew the stack back together and wrapped the rubber band back around it before replacing it in its spot. He’d just about been giddy to see five $100 bills in one place. This was many more times that than he could calculate in his head.

Carefully Greyson put the carpet flap back in place and, after a moment, got up and went over to the vacuum, which he turned on and ran carefully over the carpet so as to not accidentally lift up the flap and possibly end up sucking some of the money into the vacuum, which he imagined would clog the vacuum, if not even damage both it and the money, all of which had looked crisp and new, despite the fact that polymer bills had been in circulation for nearly a decade, and Greyson had seen for himself some pretty mangled bills over the years.

He dragged the coffee table over the cuts in the carpet and drew the couch around to be against the wall, centred along the picture window and sat on it, still hardly able to wrap his head around what he’d just seen.

There was no way that Mr. Fransbergen knew about that money. He would not have told Greyson to rearrange the furniture if he’d known it was there. It couldn’t be Ayers’ either, as Ayers had last lived in the trailer before polymer bills had been introduced. All of that money had to have been left behind by Terry without anyone having known about it; but where was it from, and why was it there?

Next Post: 30 April.

Misgivings: Day 19

Word Count: 114,014

Summary of Events:

Greyson was feeling bored and restless, so he contacted Raylyn, who agreed to meet him for dinner and to hang out for the evening, which they did. A couple mornings later, Greyson was called by Joe, who needed him to come to work, which brought Greyson into contact with Raylyn's brother Trey, who was visibly displeased by Greyson's friendship with his sister, and believed that Greyson was working out like a bodybuilder in order to woo every girl in the community to him, leaving Trey — who was also single — with no one for himself…

Excerpt of the Day:

“No one has ever compared me to a bodybuilder before, retired or not,” Greyson said. “But, just so you know, that’s not my goal. I just want to stay in shape, and I’m not using any secret injections to do it, I’m just using a medium-intensity workout to maintain what I’ve been keeping developed for several years.”

“Yeah, developed to win all the girls,” Trey snapped.

“Apparently you’re not aware of my prior occupation before I joined this crew,” Greyson said.

“Pfft, you were a bodybuilder,” Trey said.

“I was a firefighter,” Greyson replied. “I built this muscle for firefighting, and I’m simply choosing to maintain it.”

“You weren’t getting enough girls as a firefighter and you had to change jobs?!” Trey exclaimed, clearly incredulous.

“That’s not why I changed jobs,” Greyson replied. “I’d still be firefighting if I could.”

“You don’t look like anything’s wrong with you,” Trey said.

“That’s because it’s in here,” Greyson replied, tapping his head.

“Well then get over it,” Trey said.

“That’s not how it works,” Greyson replied.

Trey swore dismissively. “People could get over all kinds of stuff back in the day, but now all of a sudden everybody has some ‘mental illness’ because you’re a bunch of pansy snowflakes sheltered by helicopter parents from ever knowing how to live life.”

Greyson wanted, on one hand, to burst into tears and shout profanities at Trey, and on the other hand to seize Trey and beat him within inches of his life. He did neither, in part because he saw behind Trey the man door had opened again.

“I can’t believe you’re such a pansy,” Trey said, shaking his head. “You’ve got all this height and brawn and stuff, but your poor widdle bwain is bwoken.”

“Call me when your best friend gets blown up,” Greyson replied. “Then we’ll talk.”

“You were a firefighter, not in the army,” Trey snapped.

“Get out of here,” Greyson said. “I’m pretty sure Joe isn’t paying you to antagonise me like this.”
“Poor widdle pansy,” Trey sneered, but nevertheless turned and walked away with an arrogant air.

Greyson seethed as he stared after Trey. He knew that there were people who didn’t understand how delicate and fragile the brain could be. He wouldn’t consider himself mentally weak, he’d even tried to fight through it, but he simply couldn’t, no different than an amputee couldn’t fight through their loss of a limb and cause it to regenerate, or a quadriplegic couldn’t fight through the nerve damage and make themselves walk again.

Like an amputee being restored to mobility by prosthetics or a quadriplegic by a wheelchair, Greyson had been restored to some semblance of normal function by his medications, and there was — unlike the amputee or quadriplegic — the chance that his brain might even heal and allow him to return to doing what he had wanted to do for so long.

Unfortunately, amputees and quadriplegics had visible injuries that people couldn’t deny either existed or deserved sympathy, his was hidden where it could neither be seen, nor even understood or controlled.

Misgivings: Day 18

Word Count: 108,126

Summary of Events:

Greyson was bothered by the fact that the bumper sticker struck him as familiar, and so pondered it all through supper. Eventually he remembered that the bumper sticker was a custom one that had been made in memory of his late coworker, and that the minivan belonged to one of his other coworkers, Vernon. He texted Vernon, asking if his van had been stolen, but then realised he could get wrongfully accused of being involved in the theft, and so lied when Vernon probed him with questions about his having seen the van, saying that he'd encountered it on the highway, being driven by a strange man, before stewing inwardly about what he'd gone and done…

Excerpt of the Day:

He hoped that by giving Vernon a ballpark for where to look for his van the police might be able to find it without realising Greyson wasn’t involved in the group, and without Mr. Fransbergen realising that Greyson was the one who’d ratted him out.

Sliding his hand off his face, Greyson sighed. He felt like he was between a rock and a hard place because the only place he’d been able to find to live was a place where crooks regularly dropped off stolen vehicles for dismantling and illegal sale, and had chosen his friend — likely without a clue that there was any connection — to be one of their victims, probably because he took such good care of his vehicles, and vehicles in good shape like that were going to command better prices than vehicles that were on their last legs.

Greyson wasn’t really surprised that there was criminal activity going on all the way up here, after all, he’d found Grande Prairie to have been host to a good deal of crime, having not realised until he moved there that it had a surprisingly high crime rate for a city of less than a hundred thousand people.

Indeed, Grande Prairie had one of the highest crime rates in Canada, which Greyson had not realised, nor had he expected, but since he was within an hour’s drive of Grande Prairie, he wasn’t really surprised that there was crime in the countryside, as chop shops weren’t probably the sorts of places that ought to be in urban environments, nor even too close to them.

Having a chop shop hidden out here on a chicken farm was almost the perfect cover, as it was rather far away from Grande Prairie, as well as most of the major thoroughfares. It would take a lot more searching for the police, who would definitely start in the easy places, such as in the city, close to the city, and along major routes.

There was a part of Greyson that even wondered if Mr. Fransbergen deliberately didn’t maintain his driveway in order to prevent the police from suspecting that his place was a chop shop, but Greyson wasn’t sure if that would dissuade them.

Nevertheless, of all the places he’d had to find to live, he’d had to find this one, and he’d had to be forced here by a confounded water main failure. If not for that water main failure he wouldn’t have had to move, and probably would’ve ended up staying down in Grande Prairie until one of the proper rental houses had opened up, which he would’ve preferred to living in a dodgy trailer on a dodgy farm with dodgy people engaged in dodgy business.

Misgivings: Day 17

Word Count: 102,010

Summary of Events:

Greyson was able to get out of the woods without being detected, but worried that someone might come to his door and confront him about suspicions he'd been in the woods at the very least, and so was somewhat surprised when no one came. Late the following afternoon a thunderstorm was approaching, and Greyson had to fight to close all the windows, which caused him to accidentally slam his hand again a couple times before he succeeded and settled down to watch the rain bucket down while lightning flashed. Once the worst of the storm had passed, Greyson started to doze, but was roused by the sound of a horn, which he discovered belonged to a minivan pulled up to the long, low building, which Mr. Fransbergen, Ayers, and Andy had left before the storm broke…

Excerpt of the Day:

He heard the noise that had jolted him out of his doze again, a honk that also proved someone was within the minivan, which Greyson observed critically. It was one of the most common makes and models of minivans in existence, and neither the newest nor oldest model still out on the roads. Greyson guessed it was probably between five and ten years old, but closer to five than ten.

It was a darker colour not all that far off from the colour of Greyson’s SUV, and looked to be a well-maintained vehicle, as it wasn’t terribly dirty, there were no dints, scratches, or scuffs on its bodywork. Overall, it was probably a decent van; if it were being sold as it was, it would probably be a good used vehicle, reliable, something a family that couldn’t necessarily afford a new vehicle would consider a worthwhile buy.

The van honked again twice after a short pause, and a couple more times after that before Greyson noticed three hunched figures hurrying toward the long, low building.

Mr. Fransbergen was in a long, green coat that looked like a proper raincoat, with a wide-brimmed hat on his head, while Ayers and Andy were both wearing smaller windbreaker types. Ayers had a hood over his head, Andy was just holding his arms up over his head.

They disappeared behind the van and the building for a few moments before the door started sliding open from the inside, soon revealing Andy to, as usual, be the one pushing it open.

Mr. Fransbergen appeared in the doorway and made a beckoning gesture toward the van, prompting it to reverse slightly before turning to drive inside.

Greyson didn’t recognise the license plate number, not that he had many license plate numbers memorised these days, unlike when he was a kid, back then he’d memorised quite a few, almost none of which were in use any longer, thus the fact that he could still remember them was really rather a useless bit of information.

Its license plate wasn’t the only thing the van had on the back end that was noteworthy, however. It also boasted a bumper sticker on the left-hand side of the bumper that struck Greyson as vaguely familiar, not that he was altogether sure exactly why.

There was, to the left end of the bumper sticker, a picture, and to the right end some sort of symbol that was predominantly red, but Greyson couldn’t make it out very well because of the fact that the background it was on was also red, as was the remainder of the sticker. White text in the middle looked to spell out a name, but Greyson couldn’t tell what it was.

Worse yet, before he could take up his cell phone and snap a picture that he could zoom in on and at least get a grainier idea of what the text said, Andy appeared and started drawing the door shut, which blocked the bumper sticker from Greyson’s view almost immediately, as well as hiding the rest of the van and all but a 30cm by the height of the door rectangle of darkness, leaving Greyson to wonder why that bumper sticker struck him as familiar without the ability to find some way to examine it more closely than he could examine a brief snapshot of an image in his mind.

Misgivings: Day 16

Word Count: 96,089

Summary of Events:

Greyson was returning from having gone to the gym in Grande Prairie again when an SUV came at him, drove in the hayfield flanking the driveway to get around him, and took off down the road; he was then shot at — but thankfully not hit — by Ayers, who had apparently supposed him to be the other SUV returning, which he learned from Mr. Fransbergen, who came to check that his vehicle was unscathed, had been a couple of men trying to convert Mr. Fransbergen, Ayers, and Andy to their religion. The next day Greyson was making lunch when he heard a vehicle pull into the yard, but he couldn't see it. After eating quickly, he went outside, pretending he needed something from his SUV, and determined it was the truck he'd seen twice before, so he snuck around into the bush behind the two houses, where he was able to overhear Mr. Fransbergen and a man he presumed was the truck's driver, whom he'd seen before, discussing payment, particularly of a 'Risk Surcharge' for Greyson's presence on the property…

Excerpt of the Day:

“We’re the ones with our necks most on the line because of him,” Mr. Fransbergen said. “We need this money as a contingency fund.”

“For what purpose?” the muscular man asked.

Pain suddenly shot through Greyson’s hand. He looked down even though he wanted to hear Mr. Fransbergen’s response and swore under his breath. His arm was crawling with ants whose large hill covered with pine needles was immediately to his left. He wasn’t touching it, but apparently they’d deemed him a threat nonetheless and were attacking him.

Standing up, Greyson swiped all of the ants roughly off his arm, but several more got bites in on him before he could get rid of them all. He stepped back from the hill only to have his foot slip on something, causing him to fall onto his stomach.

He laid perfectly still, his ears straining desperately to hear if the people in the house had heard him. He couldn’t hear anything.

Part of him was inclined to remain frozen where he was, while part of him desperately wanted to flee without heed to the noise he might make through the bush.

Eventually he eased to his hands and knees and backed his way down the slope with caution, as well as glancing up to where he’d slipped in hopes of seeing what had caused him to slip, but he couldn’t really tell. He guessed it was just damp soil, as even though it hadn’t rained in nearly a week, if this strip of bush was anything like the bushy areas that he’d wandered in as a kid, it could hang onto moisture for awhile, giving it the musty smell of decomposing plant matter, which was kind of a nice smell, except on a hot day, then it was oppressive because it meant humidity, and humidity made heat feel even worse.

Greyson had eased his way down to the creek bed when he heard the sound of a dog panting. He looked up fearfully and saw only the bull terrier picking his way down the slope somewhat laboriously. Greyson edged back, wary of someone following the bull terrier.

The bull terrier came up to Greyson, who cowered in anticipation of a loud bark, but instead the bull terrier actually walked up to him and licked his face.

“You won’t tell them I’m here, will you buddy?” Greyson whispered, touching his head to the sleek-coated head of the bull terrier.

Seeing as the bull terrier likely couldn’t hear him, and even if he could, didn’t understand English, Greyson wasn’t surprised that the dog didn’t respond, although he looked almost like he was smiling.

“Go back,” Greyson whispered, pointing uphill.

Turning, the bull terrier picked his way back up the slope and Greyson hoped desperately that Mr. Fransbergen and the others would believe that it was nothing. The last thing he wanted was for them to suspect that he was up to anything. He ought not even be up to anything in the first place. It wasn’t any of his business. This was just supposed to be a place to stay until something better opened up. Nothing else.

Misgivings: Day 15

Word Count: 90,009

Summary of Events:

Greyson observed the routine of Mr. Fransbergen, Ayers, and Andy to be unaffected by the weekend, so he watched them from his couch on Saturday and Sunday, not that he could really see all that much. Nevertheless, on Sunday afternoon, Greyson watched as Ayers and Andy exited the long, low building that they spent most of their days in before heading to the quonset, where Greyson heard the engine of the skid steer which had loaded the flatbed trailer on Friday morning start up…

Excerpt of the Day:

In moments the skid steer appeared in the daylight, revealing itself to be a machine that was by no means new; in fact, it looked to Greyson like this skid steer had probably been one of the first to have ever rolled off an assembly line, as Greyson was pretty sure that skid steers hadn’t come into being until at least sixty years ago, but probably more forty to fifty years ago, as he’d not seen a lot of old ones of them like he’d seen old tractors, combine harvesters, and even construction tractors.

As many skid steers, this one was the golden yellow of a construction tractor, although Greyson could tell it was a tad faded, and that there were signs of long-faded black paint having been on the tractor to identify who had made it. It always surprised Greyson how quickly black paint could fade compared to any other colour, at least when it came to tractors.

Affixed to the front of it, just as Greyson suspected had been the case on Friday morning, was a set of pallet forks that, thanks to his open windows letting in more sound than would’ve ordinarily come through the walls and closed windows, he could hear were rattling, as they weren’t under load.

The skid steer turned and drove into the long, low building and idled within for a long time before it finally reversed out and headed back to the quonset. Greyson expected it to shut off and for Ayers and Andy to return, closing doors as they went, but instead, after a few moments in the quonset, the skid steer reversed out with a pallet on its forks, atop which was stacked at least another half-dozen pallets, which were taken into the long, low building, from which the skid steer emerged with empty forks in a moment before returning to the quonset where what Greyson had expected to happen the first time happened: the skid steer shut off, Andy drew the quonset doors closed, he and Ayers returned from the quonset to the long, low building, and Andy drew the door back to its usual position when the trio of them were outside working.

Greyson shifted his jaw. He doubted he was going to see much more ‘excitement’ for the rest of the day, and he wondered of those pallets had been brought to the long, low building for the purpose of loading more parts from future vehicles that would be dismantled onto, in order to load it all onto a flatbed trailer at two or three in the morning and take it somewhere. He’d have to see if any new vehicles were delivered to the property over the course of the week, and if the cycle was going to be about the business of repeating itself.

Honestly, he suspected it would, as if this place was a chop shop, it would constantly be about the business of dismantling stolen cars so that their parts could be sold illegally at profit for the thieves wherever illegal car parts were sold.

Misgivings: Day 14

Word Count: 84,011

Summary of Events:

Arriving home, Greyson put away the leftover food and drinks that he'd brought to the wiener roast and observed that he hadn't seen Sonic. Upon searching the trailer, he discovered she'd escaped out the spare bedroom window, and so undertook a search for her around the yard that only found success when he took Mr. Fransbergen's bull terrier without asking and set the dog on Sonic's trail. Mr. Fransbergen was displeased, even when Greyson apologised, so Greyson retreated to the trailer to try and replace the screen in the window Sonic had escaped out of. Unable to do so because he couldn't open the window all the way, Greyson elected to close the window, which resisted closing before suddenly slamming Greyson's hand, scraping it and making it sore…

Excerpt of the Day:

He flexed his hand and stepped into the bathroom, where he ran cold water over the sore area to ease some of the pain before he had to shake his hand dry because he’d not put any of his towels into the main bathroom and go over to the kitchen to towel off the residual moisture with a kitchen towel.

Sonic was still crouched by her bowl eating. Greyson sighed as he looked at her. He had no idea what had behoved her to get out and get up to mischief, but he didn’t appreciate it, and hoped that he wouldn’t have to worry about her getting into mischief again, but he had no way of knowing for sure whether he’d be able to achieve that.

Nevertheless, Greyson was grateful that she’d not become an owl’s midnight snack while he’d been busy enjoying himself with Raylyn and learning more about the Fransbergens.

He opened the refrigerator and grabbed out one of the remaining bottles in the case he’d brought home. He fetched out his bottle opener from his utensil drawer and popped the lid off before taking a sip of the chilled liquid within, his mind turning back to what Joe and Raylyn had told him.

Four years ago, for what Raylyn had suggested was a somewhat brief period of time, this trailer had been occupied by Terry Woloschuk, Ayers’ best friend, before he’d been killed by Travis Fransbergen.

Greyson wondered why Mr. Fransbergen hadn’t mentioned Terry. His not mentioning Terry had made Greyson wary that Terry had met with foul play by Mr. Fransbergen, Ayers, or Andy’s hand, but if he would’ve been told upfront that the place had last been lived in by a guy who’d been killed by a drunk driver, Greyson wasn’t sure that he would’ve necessarily felt so uneasy when he’d first moved in and found all the clothes and other possessions, as well as the newspaper in the garbage can.

Had Mr. Fransbergen not liked Terry? Greyson wasn’t sure. Even if Mr. Fransbergen didn’t like him, but was letting him live in the trailer, Terry had been Ayers’ best friend, assuredly if Mr. Fransbergen had disliked Terry he would’ve put the kibosh on Ayers’ friendship with Terry years ago.

Taking another sip from the bottle, Greyson shook his head. He honestly couldn’t think of any reasons why Mr. Fransbergen wouldn’t have mentioned Terry. Surely even if his habitation in the place had been somewhat brief, it hadn’t been worth glossing over, nor did Greyson really believe that Mr. Fransbergen might’ve forgotten about it. Even though he was the oldest man on the property, Greyson was personally convinced that Mr. Fransbergen was the sharpest tool in the shed. Ayers and Andy, despite their comparative youth to Mr. Fransbergen, were not the men Greyson needed to fear. Mr. Fransbergen was.

Misgivings: Day 13

Word Count: 78,139

Summary of Events:

Greyson made the acquaintance of the younger sister of one of his coworkers at the wiener roast, and spent the remainder of the evening in her company, including going off alone with her, where he decided to ask her about the death of Ayers' best friend Terry — as he'd realised on reflection that Joe hadn't actually told him when Terry had died, so he couldn't be sure Terry was the last resident of the trailer before he'd moved in — asking her if she recalled any major collisions in the last few years, which she did…

Excerpt of the Day:

“It was a drunk driving one,” Raylyn replied. “The guy was doing a hundred and ten on the gravel.”

Greyson opened his eyes wide and swore in astonishment. Sure it was only thirty kilometres an hour faster than the posted speed limit for a gravel road, but even if the gravel gave better grip in wet conditions, it was also impossible to regain control on. He’d only sped on gravel once, doing only ten over, and if not for his mind replaying his Dad telling him what to do if he ever lost control, he would’ve rolled. He’d never sped on gravel again.

“I know,” Raylyn said. “I don’t even go that much over on gravel, and I only speed when I’m in a hurry.”

“I don’t speed on gravel,” Greyson said.

“Oh come on, all farm kids speed on gravel,” Raylyn said.

“Nope,” Greyson replied. “Nearly rolling once is enough for me.”

“Oh,” Raylyn said. “I’ve never almost rolled.”

“Did this guy roll, though?” Greyson asked.

“No, it was a blind corner, and the other guy had the right of way,” Raylyn replied.

Greyson nodded. The sober driver had been approaching from the drunk’s right, that was always how Greyson remembered the right of way. The person to the right got to go without yielding, unless they had someone to the right of them, but Greyson had never seen a rural intersection be used by more than two vehicles at once.

“They both died,” Raylyn said. “One or both of the trucks caught on fire.”

“Wow,” Greyson said. “Were they young guys?”

“No,” Raylyn replied. “They were both around forty.”

“Were they anybody you knew?” Greyson asked. “Actually, that’s kind of a dumb question, this is the country. Were they related to you?”

“No,” Raylyn replied. “The guy who was drunk was Travis Fransbergen. He was often drunk. Either that or he was always expecting a baby with one of his girlfriends. His second daughter was a girl I knew in school. We weren’t too close, but we had some mutual friends.”

Greyson nodded. “What about the other guy?”

“That was Terry Woloschuk,” Raylyn replied. “He was the younger of the two Woloschuk boys, the other one farms just east of us. He’d just been through a messy breakup and had moved in at his best friend’s place.”

“Oh,” Greyson said. “Who was his best friend?”
“Ayers Fransbergen,” Raylyn replied. “Travis’ cousin.”

“Gotta like when your cousin kills your best friend while drunk and speeding,” Greyson said, deliberately feigning ignorance.

“They didn’t get along,” Raylyn replied. “Their dads hated each other because Ayers’ dad got the whole farm when their dad died, while Travis’ dad got only some cash, and not even a lot. Dad says that it was as much of a pittance back then as it would be now. I don’t remember how much it was though. Travis’ dad died of heart failure later in the year too.”

“And when was this accident?” Greyson asked.

“I think it was four years ago or so,” Raylyn replied. “Yeah, it was, because I graduated that year, and then I started college in the fall.”
Greyson nodded. It was officially confirmed then. The items he’d found had belonged to Terry Woloschuk, and it wasn’t foul play that had done him in on anyone’s part either.

Pronunciation:

Woloschuk: walluschuck

Misgivings: Day 12

Word Count: 72,107

Summary of Events:

Greyson went to the wiener roast early in order to have some time to talk to his boss, Joe, about the Fransbergens. Joe confirmed Greyson's suspicions that Ayers was Mr. Fransbergen's son, and had inherited his brown eyes from his mother, although Greyson was surprised to learn that Mr. and Mrs. Fransbergen had divorced, and their other son, Troy, had gone with Mrs. Fransbergen shortly after Ayers had gotten married to the wife he no longer had, while Andy — who'd been Troy's best friend — had been taken in by the Fransbergens when his parents had kicked him out for excessive drinking at sixteen, which didn't really surprise Greyson…

Excerpt of the Day:

“I could believe that,” Greyson said. “But thankfully I don’t have dents in my hood to prove it.”

“Dents in your hood?” Joe asked.

“When I arrived to move in he saw me driving in and walked up to my vehicle grille, banged on my hood, and swore at me,” Greyson replied. “Later on we went toe-to-toe and he told me he didn’t like me, but he didn’t seem to have a valid reason for why.”

“That doesn’t seem terribly out of character,” Joe said, nodding.

Greyson nodded, even though he’d only known Andy for about two weeks now, and watched as the tongues of orange flame licked at the wood of the fire, set down in a pit slightly in the ground and burning brightly within the confines of the metal ring around it.

Thinking over what he’d learned, Greyson shifted his jaw. If Joe was correct in having supposed that Ayers had moved into the trailer with Ariann, that would mean someone lived in the trailer more recently than ten years ago, but if Ariann had since gone on to find and marry someone else, would they have really lived in the trailer four years ago? Also, why would Ayers have left his clothes behind?

“Do you think anyone else lived in the trailer before me?” Greyson asked.

“I don’t think so,” Joe replied. “I know so.”

“Oh,” Greyson said. “Who?”

“Ayers’ best friend, Terry,” Joe replied. “Ayers, Terry, Troy, and Andy were sometimes known as the AT-AT, not only for punny reasons, but because they were considered somewhat destructive, especially when they got drunk. There’s a lot of stories of the shenanigans they got up to. The most scandalous was Andy’s being found drunk, high, and naked in the middle of the highway by Gloria’s sister and her husband. They’d been coming up for an August long weekend visit, and they were so disgusted they turned around and drove home before calling Gloria and telling her what they’d seen. Not the sort of thing you expect to see on a highway at eight in the morning.”

“Wow,” Greyson said. “Is that what got him kicked out?”

“Yes,” Joe replied. “And from what I understand he still refuses to believe such a thing ever happened.”

“I don’t even want to picture that in my head,” Greyson said.

“Yeah, I’m glad I didn’t run with that crowd,” Joe said. “There were a few light drinkers in my crowd, but they were the hard-drinking crowd, and even if the stories can be entertaining, on one hand, they’re also disgusting on the other.”

“Yeah, my friends and I didn’t get up to stuff like that,” Greyson said. “But, um, what happened to Terry?”

“He was hit by a drunk driver and killed,” Joe replied.

“Oh,” Greyson said. No murder.

“But not just any drunk driver either,” Joe said.

“A driver who was drunk and high?” Greyson asked.

“No,” Joe replied. “Ayers’ cousin Travis.”

“Oh,” Greyson said. “That probably didn’t make family gatherings pleasant.”

“The Fransbergens don’t have family gatherings,” Joe replied. “They never did.”

Misgivings: Day 11

Word Count: 65,005

Summary of Events:

When he went out on his run the following morning, Greyson discreetly looked for tire tracks in the yard, as well as pondering how exactly the big semi tractor and trailer loaded down with cargo had gotten out of the yard, before determining that the tractor had driven in the field beside the driveway to avoid the ruts and bumps. As he ran, he pondered everything, having proof it wasn't a dream, and came to the conclusion that the reason why the tractor had come at night was because the vehicles which had been loaded aboard it in disassembled form had been stolen, and were being illegally dismantled to be sold wherever there was market for those kind of parts…

Excerpt of the Day:

It was entirely believable that Mr. Fransbergen, Ayers, and Andy were hiding all kinds of things, from illegal vehicle-altering equipment to stolen cars, in those buildings, aided by the fact that none of the buildings had windows for people to snoop in, nor did the buildings look like they would be holding something more than junk.

Greyson had seen farms — he’d grown up on one — and he had to say that they were kind of like organisms. A farmer could build a brand-new farm and it would be all clean and organised, but over time, things would accumulate, and by the end of forty, fifty, even sixty years, he’d have a whole host of stuff to sort through and auction off when he went out of the business, and there were times that even he didn’t know where it’d come from.

Even Dad — who was still farming last Greyson had seen him — had things accumulated in places, whether it was little things like nuts and bolts on a shelf in the garage, or bigger things like buckets, hoses, and tires piled up somewhere outside, and had sometimes observed things and wondered aloud about where they’d all come from. It was as if the used tires mated and made more used tires under the cover of darkness, along with the nuts, bolts, hoses, and buckets.

There were also places on the farm where Greyson remembered there’d once been nothing, or little, but by the time he’d left there’d been a pile of stuff there that had looked like it’d always been there. It was just how farms worked.

Another thing about farms was that even if new buildings were erected to replace old ones that had stored livestock, machinery, or other things that were valuable to farmers, the old ones wouldn’t necessarily be razed, but would be retained so long as they were structurally sound, as places for more stuff to accumulate.

As a result, no one would likely think it suspicious that an old farmer had old buildings on his yard. In fact, even if they looked run down, those two long, low buildings — which Greyson supposed had previously been chicken barns before the metal clad ones replaced them, considering the similarity of shape and size — looked pretty structurally sound, unlike the leaning sheds, swaybacked wood quonsets, and partially-collapsed hip roof barns Greyson had seen on other farms over his life.

It would be reasonable to anyone who came to the place that they would’ve been retained, and it probably would’ve been presumed by anyone that those buildings were simply used for storage of something or another, with no real curiosity to know exactly what was within.

Therefore, a chop shop or other criminal enterprise wouldn’t be the first thing a newcomer would think of when they arrived. It hadn’t been for Greyson and he’d even been forewarned that Mr. Fransbergen was kind of shifty and definitely unfriendly — although he seemed to have more rational brain between his ears than Andy did.

Misgivings: Day 10

Word Count: 62,051

Summary of Events:

Greyson fought a very strong temptation to go snooping around the property as he headed out for his morning run, not wanting to know how Mr. Fransbergen would react to his nosiness. In the afternoon, Greyson was invited by his boss to a Friday night wiener roast and determined he'd need groceries, so he went to Grande Prairie on several errands on Thursday, including paying a visit to the gym, which he hadn't done since moving. He was jolted out of bed after dark by the air horn of a semi tractor and watched by minimal light as a skid steer went from the quonset into the long, low building, fetched out the body of the vehicle that had arrived under its own power not all that long ago, and placed it onto the flatbed trailer behind the tractor…

Excerpt of the Day:

In moments the skid steer — whose pilot Greyson supposed was either Ayers or Mr. Fransbergen, considering it’d been his observation so far that Andy opened the doors — backed out of the building and set another frame for a different type of vehicle on the trailer bed behind the one that the shadowy men were chaining in place. One of them stopped that work to help guide the skid steer’s operator in placing the second body.

It looked like there was at least two, but maybe three people working on chaining the bodies of the two vehicles down onto the trailer.

Greyson anticipated a third body to next be placed on the trailer, but instead the skid steer returned out with a pallet loaded down with stuff that looked to be shrink-wrapped into place, or at least wrapped around with some sort of cling wrap that was clingier, stronger, and more durable than the plastic wrap sold at the grocery store for covering over leftovers.

Another pallet was brought around to the other side of the trailer before straps were passed around both of them together. Another two pallets were loaded on the back of the trailer before one of the shadowy men hopped off the trailer and jogged over to the cab.

One of the other shadowy figures turned on a cell phone flashlight as the truck started easing backwards, a similar beep to that of the skid steer’s, but not quite so shrill, indicating what it was doing.

The person with the phone flashlight stood behind the second row of pallets and waved what Greyson presumed was his hand with the cell phone in it up and down in long, exaggerated waves at first, that eventually got smaller and smaller until the hand no longer moved.

At that point the truck stopped and the brakes were reset before the driver hopped down and jogged over to the back again as the cell phone flashlight was turned off. Only two further pallets were loaded onto the trailer and secured into place before Greyson observed a shadowy figure that looked the shape of Andy heading back toward the long, low building.

He drew the sliding door shut, leaving the lights to glow around the edges. The glow got a bit dimmer right away, but it took a long moment before the glow ceased entirely.

Greyson also could tell that the skid steer had been shut off, while the engine of the semi tractor still throbbed loudly and powerfully, purring in a way, except that Greyson felt a cat that would purr like a semi tractor’s engine would have to be the size of a blue whale in order to have such a big, deep, and resonant vocal box.

After a few moments Greyson noticed that more shadowy figures were moving about the trailer loaded with its cargo, with a couple wearing headlamps that, along with the light from the quonset, revealed that a large, heavy-duty cargo tarpaulin was being drawn over the whole load, hiding it from sight.

Misgivings: Day 9

Word Count: 55,031

Summary of Events:

Greyson was entertaining Sonic with a cat toy that looked like a mouse — which he'd deliberately bought in the hope that she would be inclined to pursue real mice as a result — when he noticed a light silver vehicle had arrived and parked in front of that long, low building that seemed to be where Mr. Fransbergen, Ayers, and Andy spent most of their days. The man who'd driven the vehicle was picked up by a man in a pickup truck, leaving the vehicle to be driven inside the long, low building by Ayers. The following day the pickup returned and the driver disappeared into the building, returning after a few minutes and getting behind the wheel…

Excerpt of the Day:

The engine roared to life and the truck eased forward, revealing Andy pushing the door open.

Once the door was fully open the truck backed inside. Greyson was impressed that it fit through the doorway, considering it had a higher-than-typical ride height, although Greyson wondered if the truck was as high as it was in part to be able to fit into the building, but he couldn’t say he entirely knew why, considering he knew for a fact that the man who drove it didn’t live on the farm.

As the truck drew back into the building, its headlights engaged, revealing them to not merely be increasingly popular LED headlights, but that the diodes were positioned in such a way as to look like eyes glaring menacingly, while the grille between them looked kind of like a snarling mouth.

Andy drew the door back to it’s mostly-closed position almost immediately, leaving Greyson to wait for a long time, longer than the time between when the man had arrived and when he’d come out to back his truck into the building by twice as long at the very least, if not even three times as long.

It was then Andy who again appeared, pushing the door open to let the glowering truck out of the building. It turned to its left and revealed that a retractible cover was pulled over the truck bed.

Greyson had seen the part that the cover retracted into mounted right behind the cab before, it was almost a fixture of trucks, but he was pretty sure the durable material that made up the cover hadn’t been in its place, secured by a specially-installed clip to the tailgate, while velcro held the sides in place — if it was anything like the retractible covers Greyson had seen on other pickups — when the truck had arrived.

The truck drove off out of sight, its engine revving to suggest that the driver had given a surge of power to the engine, leaving Andy to draw the door back closed again.

As far as Greyson could guess, the man had come to pick something up that was big enough to need to be stored in his truck bed — either that or it was too dirty, too heavy, or maybe there were too many of them — and was now taking it somewhere in order to use it.

What the man had come to pick up, however, was as much of a mystery as the man’s identity. Greyson could only guess, but if he was honest, he really didn’t have any guesses as to what the man might’ve picked up, which admittedly made him feel a little bit crazy. He wanted to know what was going on, but at the same time he didn’t want Mr. Fransbergen getting upset or snooping around in his things, so he had to just wait and see if he could figure out what all went on at the Shady Acres Chicken Farm by observation alone.

Misgivings: Day 8

Word Count: 48,006

Summary of Events:

Having collected up the possessions of the previous resident and put them into garbage bags, Greyson decided to ask Mr. Fransbergen whether he would be free to dispose of them as he wished, or if Mr. Fransbergen wanted to deal with them. Since there were several bags, Greyson loaded them into his SUV to drive over to the house, discovering once he'd finished that Sonic had slipped outside while he'd been hauling the bags. He wasn't able to stop her from hopping into the house through a window, where Mr. Fransbergen's dog ended up scaring her onto a bookshelf, from which Greyson retrieved her before asking Mr. Fransbergen to come over and look at the items…

Excerpt of the Day:

Mr. Fransbergen came over. Greyson opened one of the garbage bags, revealing the clothes within.

“All of these bags are full of stuff that I’m presuming belonged to whoever last lived in the trailer,” Greyson said. “A good deal of them are clothes, but there’s also shoes and some magazines and stuff. I was wondering if you were content to let me dispose of these or if you wanted to deal with this stuff yourself instead. I only loaded it in here to save several trips carrying it over there.”

“Hm,” Mr. Fransbergen said, not so much in a tone that suggested he didn’t believe Greyson as almost an impressed tone. “I didn’t realise they’d left so much stuff behind.”
Greyson furrowed his brow slightly. They? He was pretty sure all of this stuff had belonged to one man.

“We’ll deal with it,” Mr. Fransbergen said.

“I’ll drive over there and unload it then,” Greyson said.

Mr. Fransbergen nodded and started toward the house. Greyson closed the hatch on his SUV and drove toward the garage, deliberately following the driveway a tad beyond where he would otherwise have turned in order to reverse his SUV close to the garage door before shutting off his SUV and reopening the hatch.

He waited for Mr. Fransbergen to reach the sidewalk.

“Put it in the living room,” Mr. Fransbergen said.

Greyson took up the first bag and followed Mr. Fransbergen inside, where he set the bag down beneath one of the living room windows, as directed by Mr. Fransbergen.

Part of Greyson expected Mr. Fransbergen to holler for Ayers and Andy, who were both in the house as much as Mr. Fransbergen was. Greyson had waited until they had all gone inside order to ensure that he wouldn’t get in trouble for looking in the door of the long, low building they’d, once again, spent the whole day inside.

Mr. Fransbergen instead watched silently, eventually seating himself on the armrest of the couch as Greyson carried all of the bags into the living room and set them down along the front wall of the living room, heading from the wall that divided the entry from the living room to the second window that peered out of the front wall on toward the end wall, with a double-hung window looking out the gap in the veranda railing toward the trailer that closed off the room.

Greyson felt tired once he’d finished, but at least the bags were dealt with, which was what he’d wanted. He nodded to Mr. Fransbergen, who nodded back silently, and headed out, glancing at the closet to the right and then up the carpeted stairs, at the top of which there was only darkness, suggesting all the doors to the rooms upstairs were closed, denying light to the stairs.

Turning to the left, Greyson stepped out the front door and drew it closed behind him before making his way over to his SUV, whose hatch he closed for a third time before getting behind the wheel and driving back to the trailer.