Guarded Keepsakes

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  Fallen Stardust: A boy, an outcast and an alien must find salvation in a world of ruin. Samuel must find a medicine to cure the fever ravaging his village. Markus must find the motive that murdered those he loved. And an angel must find a future in a city crumbled into debris. But something lurks beneath the wasted world, and waking it may doom what little of humanity survives.

  The Sisters Will Dance: Blaine Woosely claws his way back to the living. He has cleaned his blood of his addiction, and an unexpected, family farm home rewards his efforts. Only, the country acres isolate Blaine when a sharp-toothed monster hunts to bring Blaine back to dark. The sad history of Blaine's blood brings magic to the country home's new master, but in the end, only Blaine himself can break his chains.

  Mr. Hancock’s Signature: The dead walk in Monteray. The corpse of a nearly forgotten farmer named Hancock arrives via train. Ian Washington remembers Mr. Hancock and vows to return the body home. Yet Mr. Hancock's body will not rest while Ian works to reopen a cemetery, and the corpse staring each morning upon the doorstep forces the town to choose between the isolation of their fear or the hope of their fellowship.

  Guarded Keepsakes

  Brian S. Wheeler

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2013 by Brian S. Wheeler

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  Guarded Keepsakes

  Jay Logan grimaced as he sipped from his morning thermos of coffee. After twenty-seven years of waking before sunrise to shower, shit and shave before driving the half hour to the county highway department's corrugated shed, where he would check his tractor's filters and lube his mower's hydraulics before lumbering along the county roadways to cut short the overgrown grasses, brewing a palatable carafe of coffee remained a mystery to him. So Jay continued to grimace for his brew's bitterness. But unlike so many mornings when he had sipped, and winced, while taking his caffeine, his soul smiled.

  Jay had scrimped and saved. He had protected his optimism through fits of bad luck. And now, he was about to realize a dream to transform a hobby into a livelihood. He couldn't wait for the sun to rise and shed light upon what the day would show him. Instead of lumbering his tractor over grasses that never ceased to grow, Jay Logan would soon travel to discover the antiques, collectibles and treasures that would give him the gold his confidence promised he deserved.

  Jay braved another sip at his coffee as he heard his wife shuffling down the stairs into the kitchen. She was such a light sleeper, and he could not avoid waking her.

  “Coffee?”

  Kelly shuffled into the kitchen. The shredded knee suffered on the basketball court two decades lost had never properly healed. Kelly believed herself too young for a knee replacement, and so she entered that cluttered kitchen wincing as she carefully guided her hampered gait through all the tools – the levels and the power drills, the hammers and the vices, the wooden shims and tape measures – that had strewn about the kitchen floor during the past two months since Jay had attempted to hang new cabinets.

  “A mug of your brew would burn through my ulcers.”

  Jay moved to plant a kiss on her forehead, but Kelly took a stiff step backwards before he reached her.

  “Since you're up this early, I take it you won the bid on the Turner estate.”

  Jay nodded, hoping his restraint from words would discourage discussion.

  Kelly sighed. “How much?”

  “Ninety-grand.”

  “Jesus,” Kelly shambled to the stove and ignited flame beneath her tea kettle. “I can't ask how you got that kind of money from young and nervous Mr. Phillips at the bank. We've already sunk so much into this old country home, and now you dig us ninety-grand deeper. Ninety-grand would cover Anderson's college tuition. That bill's only a couple years away.”

  “Is Anderson awake? I was hoping he might change his mind.”

  “His snoring is still shaking the walls,” Kelly's tired eyes winced in the kitchen's lighting.

  Jay swirled his thermos. “I was hoping he would come with me and Gus. Thought the pick might create a memory for us.”

  “He's young, Jay,” Kelly scavenged through the cabinets resting on the floor for her missing tea packets, “too young to share your passion for old things. He sees only the dust and the years. His treasures wait for him in the future. Spare him the grime of sifting through piles of discarded, forgotten things.”

  “He'll think otherwise once he learns how valuable some of those antiques can be,” Jay countered. “He might find a piece that he could sell to help with his car insurance. There's no telling what's out there, Kelly. We might be real surprised with the future we find. With a little work, we'll get our ninety-grand and more than a little back from the old Turner Estate.”

  “We haven't finished the work on our own home, Jay.”

  “It's going to be a windfall when you consider all the pieces out there just waiting for a little polish and display.”

  “Whose gonna buy all that junk?” Kelly glared at her husband, daring him to engage. “No one's gonna touch anything from that estate in the entire down state.”

  “We can't let superstition trump a good investment.”

  “I disagree,” Kelly searched for a mug. “Who's going to want to buy a relic from the Turner family? People for miles around trembled whenever a Turner came into town.”

  “It's been forty years since anyone but that poor Jackie has been seen at the grocery store, and now she's dead, Kelly.”

  “That doesn't make me feel any better,” Kelly answered. “Her brothers and uncles were so mean and vile that no one would have anything to do with Jackie. Poor woman had a hard time even finding a church that didn't shut its doors on her. That's how much this community hated, or feared, her Turner family. Everyone remembers how the Turners guarded their property, with savage dogs and loaded guns. Everyone remembers how the Turners slurred their curses whenever anyone asked them a question. Everyone remembers how those Turners hated anyone who competed with them at auctions or salvage yards. No one wanted to touch the Turners' junk then, Jay, and no one's going to want that junk now.”

  “Ghosts can't be collectors, Kelly.”

  Kelly closed her eyes while she waited for her tea to steep.

  “I hope you're right, because to me it feels like you're about to pick from a family tomb.”

  A swath of light passed along the kitchen's curtains.

  “That's Gus rolling up the drive,” Jay topped his thermos and peeked through the window to see Gus's familiar, white van pull up his country home's drive with an empty, red horse trailer in tow.

  Kelly nodded. “Don't let Gus talk you into paying for any more of his van's repair. That man owes you plenty, Jay Logan. Stop forgetting it.”

  “I need his good, green eye,” Jay answered. “I'll be hard pressed to find anyone else with Gus's knowledge of collect
ibles. And I need that van and trailer of his in good, working condition if I hope to move whatever antiques wait at the Turner place and start making money.”

  “He takes advantage of you,” Kelly frowned. “I wish I had your optimism, Jay. I really do. Because you've committed the both of us now. Try to bring something back to me that can show me the light.”

  Jay reminded himself to stay optimistic as he left through the kitchen's back door. The Turner home would hold all those antiques he imagined. The engine to Gus's white van would run long enough to deliver those antiques to new owners. The ninety-grand investment would see the tremendous return his family needed. Worthy enterprise demanded an optimistic start.

  Jay Logan vowed to search every corner of the Turner estate and promised to let no relic go undiscovered. The Turners were now all ghosts. The dead had no need to keep antiques.