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.