Shadow Puppets: Scarecrows of Minnow Ranch Read online

  Is this what getting older feels like?

  She wasn’t old, definitely not, but she’d stopped having the drive to fight. Not long ago, she’d been proud to be a rebel. She’d spit in the face of the law and would laugh off conformity. Now, she didn’t feel much like spitting or laughing or fighting. She simply wanted to be left alone.

  Maybe I am ready to settle down with Matt. Or maybe not. I don’t know.

  The only thing she was sure about was she was excited to see her sister again. They’d always had a good relationship. Dawn was older and wiser and had always been there for her. Sometimes she thought the only reason she’d rebelled in the first place was to get out of Dawn’s shadow. Dawn was the better sister. She did what little girls are supposed to do. She grew up and started a life.

  Now that her sister was back at their childhood home, Daisy worried that her sister might be in real pain. She hadn’t said much about the divorce. Not as much as Daisy would expect her to. She’d remained oddly quiet about it all, chalking it up to, “It just didn’t work out. We were two different people meant to go in different directions.”

  Plain and simple. Dawn was definitely a plain and simple kind of girl.

  “So who, in your mind, is bound to be a classic?” Harvey asked her. “Dazzle us with your decision.”

  “Fuck off,” she said.

  Matt and Harvey both laughed.

  “I figured you probably didn’t really have an opinion,” Harvey shot back.

  “She’s gonna slap the shit out of you,” Matt warned him. “And I’m gonna laugh my ass off.”

  “Thanks babe,” Daisy said as she leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek.

  She turned her attention to Harvey seated in the backseat of Matt’s old, beat up, double cab pickup truck. She still couldn’t believe she’d let Matt convince her to pile into that thing with the two of them.

  “For the record. Seether will be a classic group.”

  “Fucking Seether?!” Harvey yelled. “Seether’s only good song was the one with Amy Lee!”

  This made her actually turn around in her seat and get her slapping hand ready.

  “Are you kidding me?” she asked. “Have you heard their live album? The unplugged one? It’s fucking epic. Now, I’m not saying they’re the best band on the planet but if more people would listen to that album, they’d know Shaun Morgan is the next Jim Morrison.”

  “Seether,” Matt scoffed.

  “Sorry,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “They’re not Maroon 5 or anything.”

  “You guys are so gonna fuck to Adam Levine’s greatest hits later, aren’t you?” Harvey asked.

  “You haven’t had real sex,” Matt replied, “Until you’ve fucked to Sugar.”

  “You will NEVER fuck me to Sugar,” she promised.

  “Oh we’ll see about that,” he said as he pulled her closer so he could put his arm around her while he drove. “That’s nothin’ a couple shots of Cuervo can’t change.”

  At that moment, the truck turned onto the dirt road that would lead them straight to Minnow Ranch. Daisy didn’t remember a lot about her childhood but she vaguely recalled her dad letting her sit in his lap and take the wheel sometimes on the way home from the store. It was probably the one good memory she had of the man. She wished she could remember her mom more. She hoped maybe seeing some photos around her mother’s house might jog her memory.

  “What’s this place called again?” Harvey asked.

  “Minnow Ranch,” Daisy said.

  “Ohhh we’re so gonna go fishing, right?” he asked.

  “There’s no lake,” she replied.

  “Then why the fuck is it called MINNOW Ranch? A minnow’s a fish, right? Is that your last name or something?”

  “Parker,” she said.

  “Daisy Minnow,” Matt said softly under his breath. “Has a nice ring to it.”

  “Daisy Parker,” Harvey said, turning the name over and over again in his head. “You sound like a super hero’s alter ego or something. Like Clark Kent. Clark Kent meet Daisy Parker.”

  She rolled her eyes again. She didn’t know what she was thinking when she’d agreed to let Harvey tag along. She’d agreed because she thought her sister might find the guy attractive and she figured Dawn needed to get laid. She probably hadn’t had sex in years. Harvey wasn’t bad looking. He was a little kid in a grown man’s body. It seemed all he talked about was comic books, video games, and sci-fi TV shows. None of those were Dawn’s things.

  But dick had to be one of her things and he had one of those so maybe they’d hit it off.

  “So no minnows, huh?” Harvey said to himself.

  “There was a lake at some point,” she said. “A long time ago I guess. But it’s not there now.”

  Excitement burned in Daisy’s chest as the house finally came into view. Her sister was in there somewhere, probably watching TV or reading a book or knitting or whatever divorced women do. She didn’t know Daisy was coming with a couple of guys. Hopefully she wouldn’t mind.

  The real reason they were meeting at the ranch was to decide what to do with their mother’s things and with the ranch itself. She knew Dawn would want to sell the place. She’d said for so many years that she had no desire to visit their old house. Daisy hoped to be able to convince her to hold onto it. Yes, they could probably get decent money for the place but this ranch was theirs and of all the things in life that could be taken away from them, this place could not. They owned it. There was a certain amount of security that came with that.

  When the truck pulled in the driveway, Daisy expected to see her sister come bolting out of the house, leaping down the front porch steps, and racing over to wrap her up in a hug. There was no bolting, leaping, or racing. There was only silence.

  Her sister’s car was parked in the driveway so she had to be home.

  “Guys,” she said to her friends. “Be quiet when we get out of the truck, okay? My sister might be mad that I brought you along. We’ve got a lot to do around here and I’m sure she was expecting only me.”

  “She’ll be fucking pleased when she needs us to move some shit for her,” Matt said.

  Harvey laughed.

  “I hope your sister has your glowing personality,” Harvey added.

  Daisy scowled at him and then got out of the truck and walked toward the house. The scarecrow standing at the corner of the cornfield seemed to be watching them. She didn’t like how its gaze followed her even though it never turned its head. She didn’t remember the scarecrows being so creepy when she was little. She didn’t remember them much at all.

  As she made her way up the porch steps and toward the front door, she swore she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She whipped her head to the left and stared at the scarecrow. She swore he’d been looking more toward the truck a second ago. Now its eyes were directed right at her.

  Fucking scarecrows. Did the things ever scare a fucking crow? Or are they around just to scare me?

  She did her best to ignore it and tried the front door. It was unlocked. She’d need to talk to her sister about that later. For being older and wiser, she sure wasn’t smarter and safer. Either that or she didn’t have the big city concerns Daisy was so accustomed to. She’d never leave her door unlocked.

  She looked back at Matt and Harvey who were pulling their bags out of the bed of the pickup. The tailgate was all rusty and chipped at the corners, leaving holes in the bed of the truck. She hoped none of the nasty rust clung to her bags. All she needed on a trip like this was tetanus.

  “Sis,” Daisy called out as she entered the living room.

  It was dark inside with the blinds pulled shut. The living room was clean. It looked unused. She made her way into the kitchen and was nearly knocked over by the smell. On the counter, a plate of some kind of meat had flies swarming around it.

  “Oh God, that’s gross,” she said as she picked up the plate and tossed it into the garbage.

  What seemed like unt
idiness suddenly worried her. She hadn’t, at first, thought her sister might be in danger, but why would her sister leave food sitting on the counter for so long it would go bad like that? Daisy’s heartbeat picked up.

  She was late. She’d said she would be out here at the ranch three days ago but had some issues getting the time off work and had to wait a few more days. Dawn hadn’t answered the phone in two of those days, but she’d figured it was probably a cell phone signal issue. The house was out in the middle of nowhere.

  What if something bad had happened to her?

  What if the divorce was too much for her to handle?

  No, God, no.

  Daisy ran through the house, checking the small bedroom on the first floor before running up the stairs and barging into the first room she came to. The musky smell in the room almost knocked her over.

  The window was open but the room smelled like body odor and there were strands of hay all over the floor. Dirt and hay.

  Then she saw her sister. Dawn lay completely naked on the bed, curled up in a ball, her hands between her legs. She had bruises all over her body and the one visible nipple looked to have a bite mark all the way around it.

  The bedsheet was stained with something dark.

  “Dawn!” she yelled and ran to her sister’s side.

  She shook her older sister and slapped her face lightly. Dawn’s eyes fluttered and a lazy smile grew on her lips.

  “Anders?” she asked. “Is it time again already?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? Dawn? Dawn?”

  She grabbed her sister’s cheeks and squeezed. She didn’t respond. She put a hand to her forehead and lifted both of her eyelids. Dawn’s eyes rolled back.

  “Are you high? What have you done? What did you do to yourself?”

  Daisy was hysterical. She couldn’t calm down. What was going on? Who the fuck was Anders and what was this on the fucking sheet?

  Her hand touched the dark stain and whatever it was scratched off in her hand. It was dry and flaky.

  “Is this blood?”

  Dawn didn’t respond.

  “Is this your blood?”

  She wrapped her sister up in the sheet so the guys wouldn’t see her and then yelled for them to come in and help her. Matt and Harvey both stood stunned.

  “She’s overdosed or something,” Harvey said.

  “No shit,” Daisy replied.

  “Maybe we should call an ambulance,” Matt said.

  Daisy didn’t want to do that to her sister. They were new in town and this would be a hell of a way to start things off. Plus, who knew how long it would take for an ambulance to make it all the way out to the ranch?

  The druggy family out at Minnow Ranch.

  Nothing was worse than small town gossip, or so she assumed. She found the keys to Dawn’s car and they took that instead.

  ***

  The town hospital was nothing more than a two-story clinic on the other side of town. The doctor was an older man who’d probably lived in town all his life. At least he didn’t seem like the type to gossip. Matt and Harvey stayed out in the waiting room while Daisy remained with her sister. The doctor assured her that it wasn’t drug related but seemed to be some sort of extreme exhaustion. He asked strange questions about what was going on at the house and seemed oddly suspicious about the two gentlemen who’d accompanied Daisy to the hospital.

  “I don’t mean to pry,” the doctor said, “But what exactly are you guys up to out there at the ranch?”

  “What do you mean?” Daisy said. “I told you. I arrived with my two friends and we found my sister like this upstairs in the room.”

  “Well,” he said and then stopped. He seemed to be searching for the right words. “I might be a small town doctor, and I’m sure I haven’t seen a lot of the stuff that goes on in the big cities, but I have to be honest with you, Missy, somethin’ tells me you’re not being entirely honest with me.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Daisy snapped.

  She needed to stop doing that. She knew it. She had a bit of an anger issue and if she ever wanted to calm down, or settle down, like she thought she might, she’d have to get that under control. Cursing out the other parents at her kid’s school one day would probably be a bad idea. Cursing out a doctor right now wasn’t a much better one.

  “That,” the doctor said, snapping a finger and pointing at her. “That…that…right there. That’s what I’m talking about. Y’all aren’t from around here is all I’m saying. We got us a very umm, a very peaceful kinda lifestyle. When people come around and be doin’ nasty things like this…”

  “Nasty things like what?” Daisy asked.

  The doctor pointed at Dawn in the bed and now it seemed to be his turn to raise his voice.

  “Look at this girl,” he said. “She’s practically ripped from her vagina to her anus. I mean…whatever the hell you youngins are into, this rough kind of sex play is going to get someone hurt. There are ways, God fearin’ ways to find your pleasure, Missy.”

  “My name isn’t fucking Missy,” she corrected him. “My name is Daisy. I don’t know what happened to my sister, but if something happened to her…vagina…then it happened from one of your townsfolk. Now, what are you trying to tell me, Doctor? Was my sister raped?”

  The thought hadn’t occurred to her before but hearing the doctor get so worked up about the state of her sister’s sex life caused her to suddenly be concerned.

  He put a hand to his chin and again seemed to be searching for the right words. Daisy thought it must be what she looked like when she was trying to keep from losing her temper. He looked angry.

  “I’m this close to calling the sheriff,” he said, holding his thumb and index finger an inch apart. “I can’t tell you if she was raped. But when she woke up, she was smiling, and babbling on about ‘doing it for them.’ Who is them? I could only assume it meant you or the two buddies you have out there in the waiting room.”

  “Doctor,” she said, actually doing a good job at remaining calm. “I can understand why you might think such a thing, but please, sir, I’m fucking scared right now. You didn’t see the way the house looked. There were fucking flies on a plate of meat. Dirt and hay were all over my sister’s bedroom and she was sleeping naked in a pool of blood. Whatever happened to her didn’t come as a result of me or my friends. But something did happen to her.”

  He nodded.

  “When was the last time you were out there at the ranch?” he asked.

  “I was a kid.”

  “And your mom was Mrs. Ruthie Parker?”

  “You knew my mother?”

  “Knew her? Not much. No one could know a woman like your mother. But there was talk of stuff that went on out there at the ranch. If I were you, I’d sell that place and get the hell out of there.”

  Daisy didn’t know what to do. The doctor seemed downright crazy, talking about strange occurrences at her house. Not even occurrences but ridiculousness that others had supposedly seen. Repairmen who wouldn’t go near the cornfield and stuff like that. None of it made sense.

  Suddenly she realized that she owned the scary house down the street that all the kids were always afraid to walk past. Her mom was the wicked old lady with all the cats. She and her sister had inherited the neighborhood looney bin. Only they had no neighbors. So they were all alone in their crazy new home.

  In the end, Daisy decided to take her sister home and help her get washed up. She would keep an eye on her through the night and in the morning they’d have a chat. Hopefully she’d sober up or liven up or whatever the hell needed to happen to someone who’d gone through serious sexual trauma as the doctor had called it.

  He was convinced it wasn’t rape. He was sure she’d wanted whatever had happened to her. Daisy wasn’t so sure. If she was hurt that badly, if her lady parts were so ripped open that she’d actually needed some stitches like he said, then how could she be okay with that? And who was the guy doing this to her
?

  After cleaning her up and getting her into her mother’s old bed, Daisy pulled a chair next to her bed and sat next to her, brushing her hair as her sister slept off the drugs the doctor had given her. He’d said she probably wouldn’t wake through the night. Showering her had been hell and she’d had to enlist the help of Matt. She wouldn’t be able to tell her sister as she’d be mortified to know that her sister’s boyfriend…

  Damn, there I go again. Not my fucking boyfriend.

  …had held her naked body up in the shower. The process of scrubbing her down, rinsing her off, and then drying her was painstaking. Daisy had assisted many of her drunk friends in their time of need but never had she ever had to keep one standing long enough to shower. She would have filled the tub if she hadn’t feared that her sister would drown.