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.