Read Online Fresh Flesh by Todd Russell - Free Book Online

other room and broke the
collections into pieces and shoved them into the fireplace.
    "Charles," Angela said, muffled in the other
room. Tears started to form in Kyle's eyes, he clutched the mount
with the butterfly.
    "The boy is almost a man now, Angela. He can
drive a car and soon he'll be out there on his own. He doesn't need
to play with these any more. It's time for him to grow up and get a
job to pay for things like that turkey he threw on the floor."
    "You stubborn fool, it was an accident. Kyle
didn't do that on purpose."
    "He's sixteen now. Time to stop playing with
bugs. This is a lesson."
    "This is no way to teach him anything."
    "You're too damn soft."
    The sound of the flames cracking through
wood.
    "Loving a stubborn fool like you, I guess so!
Now don't you ever take his property again or I'll kick your big
white butt out of this house for good. I mean it, Charles Andrew
Smith."
    All three names. You knew Angela was serious
when she rolled out all three names.
    A smile crept across Kyle's face. This was
the first time Angela ever stuck up for him in over five years
together. His butterfly collection would be safe.
    Angela, however, would not be. She would be
dead before Christmas.
     
* * *
     
    Heart attack out of nowhere and with Angela's
weight she just collapsed and succumbed. Charles first act with
Angela gone was to send Kyle away.
    "It's not just you, boy," Charles said,
trying to explain his newest string of C's: callous castaway. "The
foster home is over." Charles wasn't lying, he sent all three
foster kids back to the state saying he couldn't carry on without
Angela. Charles wouldn't have been able to do it alone, but he had
Kyle.
    "I could stay here and help you,
Charles."
    "Yeah, sure." Charles laughed. "You know you
kids were never mine. And you wouldn't want a crusty guy like me
watching over you anyway."
    C is for Crusty, indeed.
    Kyle shook Charles' dirty mechanic nails
hand. To Kyle's surprise, Charles pulled him into a rare hug. He'd
been ten or eleven years old the last time Charles had hugged him
like this. "You take care of yourself, boy."
    A long, awkward silence before Charles added:
"And don't you turn out like. . .me."
    Charles sulked away into the distance. Kyle
didn't expect to ever see him again.
     
* * *
     
    Kyle opened his eyes and it was present day
again. Much older now but the past still clung to him. The
butterfly fluttered away and Kyle waved goodbye.
    Seth said he'd seen a woman on the island.
Bobby would find out if Seth was seeing things again. Kyle hoped
this time Seth wasn't delusional because a lot of fun could be had
with a woman on the island.
     

CHAPTER 10
     
    The young ensign with bleach-white hair, that
earlier bragged of how strong his seaworthy stomach was, violently
upchucked over the right bow. He wasn't the first, though. Six
Coast Guard men and three other Navy ensigns puked too.
    "Jesus, Admiral," a veteran Navy Captain
named Wick Eckers said. He had seen some ghastly sights in 'Nam:
rat-chewed bodies, bullet-riddled and rotted flesh, brain-blown
corpses and worse. But he hadn't seen anything as disturbing and
grotesque as the things ten feet away.
    Admiral Bodecker tugged his beard, a nervous
habit which had accompanied him most of his adult life. In his many
Navy years, he'd rarely seen the ocean display such gruesome power.
There were three limbless torsos brought in by the Coast Guard with
seaweed wrapped like tinsel around the flabby, useless flesh where
the head, arms and legs should have been. The bodies were all
drained white and well rotted. The sight was terrible, but it was
the horrendous smell that had been the coup de grace for the
pukers.
    Ocean rot, ocean decay; the overwhelming
smell of salt and mutilated flesh. Strange how these bodies had
shown up from nowhere, retched from the largest cemetery on earth.
He wondered how they came up?
    "Ensign?" He touched the young blonde man on
the shoulder, "Go below deck. Take the day off."
    "Yes,