Someone had once described me as looking like Matthew McConaughey after a bad car accident. Whatever that means.
Anyhow, it took me a long minute to compose myself, then pull the car back onto the road. I passed several more farms before coming to a dirt road leading through a broken gate. A family of crows were perched on the ramshackle fencing. Tall, unkempt grass and weeds led to a faint farmhouse in the distance.
“This must be it,” I muttered.
I drove through a large puddle then continued toward the house. Unlike the other farms, whose plots were neatly sectioned off, the Humphries Farm was wild and roaming. It was an adolescent with no guardian and no curfew. Tall grasses freckled with little yellow flowers extended a half mile in every direction.
Halfway to the house, I stopped the car and squinted into the lowering sun. There was a tractor out in the field, but unlike the others, this one wasn’t moving. It was long deceased, engulfed by the very field it once plowed.
Mark the Lawyer said the farm had been uninhabited for the past ten years, but it looked like no one had lived there for thirty.
A road snaked between a series of large trees then gave way to a small farmhouse. The farmhouse was two stories, white clapboard. The paint was peeling, leaving the dull gray of the beaten timber beneath exposed. The roof was a checkerboard of black squares where a quarter of the rain-battered shingles had fallen off.
To the house’s left was a giant oak. Having gone untrimmed for several decades, like a monster uncurling its fingers, the branches reached precariously over the house. Behind the tree was a tall, cylindrical, gray brick structure, which was either a silo or a guard tower. To the right of the house, maybe fifty feet away, was what I presumed to be a chicken coop. Farther right, a football field away, was a barn. Both the coop and the barn were the same white clapboard, the same peeling paint, the same underlying grayness.
Unlike my picture on the fridge, there was a lack of color. Everything was muted. Everything acid-washed. Everything the color of an approaching thunderstorm.
I should have taken that as a sign.
A sign of things to come.
Chapter Three
I opened the door of the car and stepped out, sinking shin-deep into the tall overgrowth. My black T-shirt stuck to my back, and I didn’t know if it was from the long drive, the fatness, or the dense Missouri air.
I trudged through the tall grass to the front porch where two rocking chairs sat in disrepair. I wondered if they dated as far back as Harold, wondered if Harold sat in one of those chairs, rocked back and forth, drank lemonade, and whittled something while he listened to his beloved St. Louis Cardinals on the radio.
Bugs of all makes and sizes skittered up and down the wooden porch and railings.
“Don’t mess with me and I won’t mess with you,” I told the bugs, hoping they would share our understanding with the rest of their tribes.
A screen door was held open three inches by an invisible force. I pushed it back and tried the door. Locked. I knocked a couple times. Part of me expected someone to open the door. Someone with half their teeth, a shotgun, and a bottle of moonshine. But since it wasn’t 1890, this didn’t happen.
I pressed my shoulder against the door and gave it a nudge. It held firm. I pondered kicking it down but decided I should first explore my alternatives.
I made my way around the tall oak and to the back of the house. The back door was also locked. I continued around, peeking through several of the windows. Most were opaque, fogged by decades of dust and grime, and in the few that had areas of visibility, the view was blocked by curtains. I tried to open several windows, but none budged.
Back at the front door, I took a couple deep breaths then kicked it with my foot.
The door didn’t waver.
Farmhouse: 1. Thomas: 0.
I shook my leg out then went the shoulder route.
Blamo.
Same result.
Farmhouse: 2. Thomas: 0.
I walked to the Range Rover, popped the hatch, pulled out a tire iron, and said, “You have messed with the wrong guy.”
I should mention I was slightly delirious.
I needed food.
And sleep.
On my way back to the house, I noticed one of the second-story windows was open a few inches. I also noticed it wasn’t all that far from where the tall oak fed into the roof.
I dropped the tire iron and began climbing the tree. It was harder than I expected. On account of the fatness.
After a long couple of minutes, I crawled out onto one of the branches. My face was beaded in sweat and I was wheezing. The branch was softball-size in diameter, which would have held Fit Thomas just fine but creaked under the weight of Fat Thomas.
“Please hold,” I wheezed.
I’d survived too much in my life to die climbing a fucking tree.
I set my feet and prepared to leap to the roof.
Crack.
The limb snapped clean off.
I braced for impact and landed on my side with a loud thud.
“Oh, God.”
I lay groaning for a long minute, then did a damage assessment. I fell on my left side with my shoulder, ribs, and thigh absorbing most of the impact. I doubted anything was broken, but I wouldn’t be starting Pilates the next morning like I intended.
I pushed myself up with a grunt, holding my tender ribs with my arm.
Farmhouse: 3. Thomas: 0.
I picked up the tire iron and shouted, “You dirty rat! You killed my brother!”
Did I mention I was delirious?
And now concussed.
I smashed the tire iron against the front door. Once, twice, three million times. The door died a horrible death. I pushed open what remained of the door, a light breeze sending
