Lincoln Loud gazed out the grimy window at the passing countryside, a dour expression on his face. His arms were folded over his scrawny chest and his legs were crossed at the ankles; he slouched in his seat and squirmed every so against the itching in his butt. He was not ADHD and could sit for long periods of time unstimulated and uninterrupted, but for some reason, he was extra restless today.
Some reason.
He knew why. His stomach roiled with nerves over the coming meeting with Ronnie Anne. A thousand different scenarios ran through his head and every one of them ended with Ronnie Anne mad at him. Before leaving, he had convinced himself that it would go smoothly, that Ronnie Anne would accept his "breaking up" with her, that she, too, realized there was no relationship to break. As the bus rolled south west along the interstate, however, it seemed more and more likely that it wouldn't happen that way. She would be mad, angry, upset - whatever emotion took her, it wouldn't be easy. Things like that rarely ever are.
Why should it matter, he wondered. He and Ronnie Anne were really close once, but that was a long time ago. They lived hundreds of miles apart. They barely spoke anymore, never saw each other, and indeed their lives were on two totally different tracks. Maybe it sounded callous, but it wasn't like he needed Ronnie Anne in his life. He liked her and he kind of hoped that they could stay on good terms, but if that didn't happen, oh well, right? Lincoln was young but he was just old enough to realize that in life, people come and go. They might make a huge impact on you, you might even love them for a little while, but they eventually moved on and that special spark between you diminished. Your best friend today is just another face in the crowd tomorrow.
The prospect of outgrowing a friendship was a sad one, but so it goes. No matter how close you are with someone at any given time, you're eventually going to drift apart. Take his relationship with his sisters, for instance. He was extremely close with all of them, but that was in large part because they were young and still lived together. They were in close proximity to one another on pretty much a 24 hour basis. Lincoln could walk to the bathroom and pass the dwelling pace of all his siblings. That was the only life he had known but it wouldn't last. Sometimes it seemed like it would but he was well aware that one day, they would be scattered to the wind, living in different places, following different paths, and too caught up in their own individual lives to be stuck up one another's butts all the time. That was the natural course of life and Lincoln fully anticipated it happening one day. Sometimes he looked forward to it, sometimes it made him sad, but that's just the way life was.
Even if he and Ronnie Anne remained friends, they would inevitably drift apart. It had already begun to happen. Unlike his sisters, he wasn't always around her. Their lack of proximity ensured that they would develop along different paths, becoming different people, the way two plants, separated by continental drift evolved differently on opposite sides of the world.
All of that to say that he was prepared for his and Ronnie Anne's relationship to end one way or another. Even if he wasn't with Lori, even if he and Ronnie Anne liked each other and were involved in a long distance relationship together, it likely wouldn't last, and sooner or later, they would part ways on the superhighway of life.
Would Ronnie Anne see it that way?
He thought she would, but then again, as he had said before, she was unpredictable.
Drawing a burdened sigh, Lincoln cast a quick glance at Lori. She sat in the seat beside him, scrolling restively through her phone. For long stretches, she stared off into space and chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully. She looked as nervous as Lincoln felt, hell, even more nervous. He couldn't blame her, she had every reason to be nervous. He and Ronnie Anne weren't in an actual relationship. Lori and Bobby were. They had been together for what felt like an eternity and for a while there, they were hot and heavy. Whatever Lincoln thought his and Ronnie Anne's parting might be, Lori and Bobby's probably would be. He felt bad for her and for Bobby too.
Bobby was the older brother Lincpoln had always wanted but never had. He was a real bro in every sense of the word and had always been kind and supportive to Lincoln. How, you ask, did Lincoln repay him?
By stealing his girlfriend, of course.
Lincoln's stomach knotted even now. Putting it that way made him feel like the biggest scumbag on the face of the earth. Bobby didn't deserve that. He didn't deserve to have his heart broken or to be "cucked" as the gang on 4chan might say. Lincoln didn't mean for it to happen, it just kind of…did. Things have a way of happening in life, and you can't really control them. Well…he supposed in this situation he could. He had the power to ignore Lori's advances way back when she made them. He could have walked away. She was drunk when she made her pass at him. He knew that. She wasn't herself and a decent human being would have left her alone to sober up. Instead, knowing deep in his heart what he really wanted, he went to her and…well…the rest is history. It crossed his mind that it was wrong to want, and take, your sister, but he never once thought of Bobby. Incest was a far, far bigger taboo than cheating, and it kind of overshadowed it. It wasn't until later on, after the deed was done, that he began to think of Bobby and of what his and Lori's relationship had become.
He felt terrible about it, he truly did, but not terrible enough to break it off with Lori. Lori was…he sighed because even now, he could not articulate the way Lori made him feel. Simple words failed to convey the sensations she stirred within him. She was like rain and sunshine; she was love and light and made him feel good. That was all he could say: She made him feel good. Did she make Bobby feel as good as she made him feel?
That thought made him sick. He would die if someone robbed him of this feeling, and he didn't want to do it to anyone else.
"You alright?" Lincoln asked, breaking the silence between them. It was still fairly early in the day and the other passengers were still lethargic. The only sound for many miles was the occasional stifled cough and the ever present hum of the tires meeting the pavement.
Lori stirred and ran his fingers through her hair. 'Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "You?"
Lincoln shrugged. "I'm alright."
"You're really squirmy," she pointed out.
He cracked a lopsided grin. "Kind of."
"Nervous."
"A little," he said. He hesitated for a long, quiet moment. "I feel bad for Bobby." He resisted the urge to rub the back of his neck. That was a nervous tic he'd had since he was a little boy. If you saw him doing it, it meant that he was feeling awkward and uncomfortable. "I feel guilty about all of this, like it's my fault."
Lori rolled her eyes."You're always blaming yourself for everything. It's like you have some kind of complex or something."
He opened his mouth to respond, but cut himself off instead. He didn't always blame himself for everything but he did have the self-awareness to blame himself for the things he actually deserved blame for. A lot of people can't or won't acknowledge the errors of their ways. They plug their ears with their fingers and go "La la la la I can't hear you." Lincoln did not have that problem. In fact, he had the opposite problem. He was maybe a little too honest with himself for his own good. Human beings lie to themselves all the time to protect their own fragile egos. If we were all 100 percent honest with ourselves all the time, we'd be so down on ourselves that we would die of depression.
Either way, this was his fault, though fault might be too strong a word. "Fault" implied that there was a mistake made somewhere along the way. Lincoln did not think of getting with Lori as a mistake. Call their love wrong, call it sinful, call it what you will, but it wasn't a mistake, at least not to him. Responsibility might be a better word. He was responsible for what initially happened between him and Lori. He could have stopped it, he could have said no. He was the one with a sober mind that night, and he chose to do what he did.
"It kind of is my fault," he said, "I could -"
Lori pressed her finger to his lips to shush him. "Don't," she said.
He smiled and kissed her finger. "Okay."
She bruised the back of her hand over his cheek, and he kissed her wrist. She snuggled up to him and from there, they lapsed into a warm, companionable silence. The suburbs and small towns lining the interstate fell away, replaced by flat, rolling farmland. The sun sat high in the sky and beat hotly against the window. Lincoln expected the bus ride to be hot and uncomfortable, but the A/C system was on point and he felt as cool as a cucumber. He played a game with himself, counting bales of hay scattered across different pastures; he decided to give up once he reached a hundred, which took him much longer than he anticipated.
Lori fell into a light doze and Lincoln rested his eyes. He was on the verge of falling asleep when the bus left the highway. He peeled his lips open and sat up, An off ramp wound between two green hills before filtering out on a road that crossed the interstate via an overpass. The bus rolled to a stop, pulled a wide, cumbersome right, and followed a two lane ribbon of blacktop through a stand of pine trees to a filling station, where it docked in a dirt lot fronting the building. The driver called that they had fifteen minutes, and everyone filed off to hit the john and to fill up on snacks. The day was hot and dry and the sun beat relentlessly down on Lincoln's shoulders. The whine of bugs filled the dessicated air and a hot breeze blew against his face like sandpaper. Lori stretched and Lincoln followed suit, wincing when something popped in his lower back. "Ow," he said.
"That sounded serious," Lori remarked.
"I'm a quadrapalegic now," Lincoln said.
Lori arched her brow. "You don't look like one," she said.
"Looks can be deceiving," Lincoln pointed out.
The bathrooms were around the side of the building, past an ice chest. Grass grew tall and rampant here and Lincoln counted a good thirty spiders just chilling in their webs. If they decided to band together, they could totally snare a small child and eat like kings. Instead, each was an island unto itself, isolated and alone, powerless in their individuality.
Suckers.
As Lincoln expected, the men's room was a nightmare of bad smells, litter, and dirtiness. He took a fat piss in one of the urinals; it wouldn't flush, so he gave up and left his pee all up in it. He went to the sink, but when he turned the tap on, the water came out rusty red, putting him in mind of a horror movie he'd seen with Lucy where a woman's shower did the same thing. Only that time it really was blood.
Outside in the heat again, he met up with Lori and they went inside. After the blazing sun, the store was cool and dark, like a cave. They grabbed some snacks and drinks, paid, and got back on the bus. Everyone else was still shopping or walking around, so they had the place to themselves, Lincoln looked around and spotted the driver sitting on a canned rock by the roadside smoking a cigarette. Lori opened a bag of Baked Lays, took one out, and crunched it between her teeth. Lincoln opened his mouth like a baby bird begging to be fed, and Lori smiled. She went to put one of the chips in his mouth, then pulled it back at the last second. His teeth snapped closed on thin air and she laughed. "I'm sorry," she said in a playful tone and gave it to him.
He ate it and swallowed. "Drink," he said.
"I have something you can drink," she said with a lewd little twinkle in her eye. "I'm really horny."
Lincoln twisted around and looked out the window to see if they had time to get something going. The driver was almost finished with his cigarette, and their fifteen minutes was almost up. He deflated a little, but turned back to her and grinned. "Yeah?" he asked.
"Yeah," Lori said with a nod. She brushed her teeth over her bottom lip. "I wanted to do it before we left but I was too lazy to get up and seduce you."
Lincoln checked his phone. "We have a few minutes."
"That's not -"
"Lean back."
Lori looked at him a moment, then obeyed, settling back into her seat. Lincoln lifted the armrest between them, twisted around as best he could, and faced her. He unbuttoned her shorts and she watched him with an expression of anticipation. Beneath, she wore sky blue panties. He laid his hand flat on her quivering stomach and then gently slipped it into her panties. Her wet heat enveloped him and her soft skin trembled against his touch, Her breath caught with a hitch and she dutifully spread her thighs for him, giving him easier access to the sweet fruit between her legs. He skimmed his fingers over her silken pussy lips and a bright red blush burst across her face. Her small breasts rose and fell with the heaving of her breaths and one corner of her mouth turned up in a sly and sinful smile.
Lincoln dipped his middle finger between her folds and swirled it around her opening while beginning to stroke her clit with his thumb. Lori tossed her head to one side and bit her lip. Her blonde hair veiled her flushed face and she was panting heavily now, partly in pleasure and partly in anticipation. Lincoln slid his middle finger into her and curled it. Lori gasped and reached behind her head to grip the back of the seat. She braced her feet against the floor and began to rock her hips back and forth, pushing herself onto his fingers. He slipped in his index finger and she sucked a sharp intake of breath through her teeth. Her pussy noticeably dampened and her muscles tightened. He pressed deeper, found the bundle of nerves below her pelvis, and brushed his fingers over it. Lori's back arched off of the seat and she let out a strangled curse that echoed through the empty bus. Lincoln lifted her shirt over her bare breast; her pink nipple was stiff and ringed in gooseflesh. Lincoln wrapped his lips around it and flicked it with his tongue, making her moan in ecstacy.
Lori raked her fingers through his hair, her nails grazing his scalp, then she cupped his face in her hands and pulled his lips to hers. She swept her tongue into his mouth and they kissed deeply. She jammed her hand between his legs and began to furiously rub his growing bulge through his jeans. She rocked her hips back and forth and every movement produced a wet schlicking sound, Lincoln could smell her excitement heavy on the air and his dick ached beneath her touch.
He was about to say fuck it and mount her, but the first passengers began getting back on the bus. Lincoln ripped his hand out of Lori's shorts and Lori sat up so quickly that she almost gave herself whiplash. She hurriedly buttoned her shorts and Lincoln pressed himself against the window, getting as far away from Lori as possible. Nope, we weren't doing anything. Just hanging out and eating snacks. Outside, the driver threw away his cigarette, got to his feet with a visible sigh, and hitched his pants up. He walked over to the bus, pulled the door open, and swung in behind the wheel. He started the engine and the last few passengers raced to get on before he left them. Lori's hand crept into Lincoln's and he gave it a gentle squeeze. She flicked her tongue at him and he returned the gesture.
A few seats up, someone sniffed the air and crinkled his nose. He looked around. "It smell like booty in here."
The driver pulled a lever closing the doors and spun the wheel, guiding the bus back onto the highway. Lincoln gazed out the window as they jumped back on the interstate and squirmed. His boner was almost entirely gone but was in danger of roaring back into life at a moment's notice. From the strained look on Lori's face, she was just as turned on as he was, and her ovaries were turning blue much like his balls. The next time they had a chance, he decided, he was going to take his oldest sister to Poundtown. He didn't know if the bus would make anymore stops before reaching the city, but if it did, he would take Lori into a bathroom, bend her over the toilet, and ream her hard. Did she remember her birth control? 'Cause he wasn't pulling out.
She pressed her lips to his ear and her hot breath sent a shiver down his spine. "As soon as we're alone, I'm fucking you into next Tuesday."
Lincoln smiled.
He liked the sound of that.
Luan Loud paced back and forth between her nightstand and the bedroom door, her chin tucked against her chest in an unconsciously defensive posture and her shoulders squared. Her hands were balled into fists at her sides and her lips peeled back from her braces in a doggish sneer. She sucked great gulps of breath through her teeth and released them in a rattling, snake-like hiss.
She was cracking up.
Early that morning, about 5am, she was asleep in her bed with her hand jutting on the edge of the mattress. You know how it goes: Curled up on her side, knees drawn to her chest, snoozin' so hard a bomb could have gone off and she wouldn't have woken up. She was completely, 100 percent vulnerable…and her stalker attacked. She came awake to a warm, wet sensation between her legs. She snapped up to a sitting position just as her bedroom door closed and quick, light footfalls scurried away. She was too disoriented to realize what was going on…until she realized her nightgown was wet.
She peed herself.
Her hand was wet as well, and when she sniffed it, she smelled none of the odors you might associate with pee - whatever those might be (science was Lisa's thing, not hers). For a minute, she was baffled…then it hit her. Someone had pulled that old trick on her, the one where you dip a sleeping person's hand in warm water to make them tinkle themselves.
The Stalker.
Luan's heart sank into her stomach and she clutched the saturated blanket close to her chest. The Stalker had been in this very room, hovering over her as she slept, totally vulnerable, at the madwoman's whim.
And it had to be a woman. Lincoln was gone and the only other male in the house was Dad. Dad loved a good prank but under no circumstances could she see her father pulling mean-spirited pranks on her. It had to be someone in the house, therefore one of her sisters. Not Lori, Lori was gone. Lily was way too young for pranking but all the others were prime suspects.
Which one was it?
Luan asked herself that question a thousand times as she washed her sheets and blanket, but the answer never came. Okay, she could admit, being pranked was getting old, but that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was not knowing who it was. If she knew the identity of her attacker, then fine, she could take a little bit of her own medicine, but she didn't know their identity. They were a shadow, a ghost, a creeping presence who lurked in darkness like…like…like a serial killer. Abstract, invisible, menacing.
What a psycho! Who did that? Luan proudly owned every prank she ever pulled…except that one time she flushed an M80 down the toilet at school. That was different, though. The fact that The Stalker was hiding who they were frankly scared her, because it implied that their movies were dark. What if The Stalker's pranks became more and more brutal as time went on? What if next time, she dipped Luan's hand not in warm water but in corrosive acid? What if she went to sit on the toilet and found a pressurized bomb attached to it so that was primed to go off the moment her weight left the seat?
God, what was this crazy up to?
Luan had extra sheets and blankets in her closet so she could have made her bed and gone back to sleep, but she couldn't bring herself to do it, so she sat awake all night just in case The Stalker tried to come back.
In the morning, she sat at the breakfast table with her sisters and pretended to enjoy some of Mom's scrambled egg hash while secretly studying everyone. Surely she would see some sign of the evil lurking within her attacker. Horns, fangs, something, anything. There was nothing, though. No telltale evidence of wickedness; nothing to betray the hurt of darkness that lurked in The Stalker's chest.
It could be anyone.
Or, oh god, everyone.
Luan's eyes narrowed and she from face to face. Luna looked up at her and furrowed her brow in confusion. "What's that look for?" she asked.
"You're all in on it, aren't you?" Luan asked.
Everyone stopped eating and looked at her. "We are?" Leni asked.
"AHA!" Luan jumped to her feet and jabbed her finger at Leni. "You just gave yourself away, smartass."
Leni blinked. "I did?" She touched her finger to her chin. "Who did I give myself away to?" A look of terror crossed her face. "I don't have to leave with them, do I? I wanna stay here."
"You're not going anywhere," Luna said long-sufferingly. "Just relax." She shot Luan a dirty look and asked, "What are you even talking about."
"One of you made me pee myself last night," Luan charged.
Lola favored her with a blank stare. "You…peed yourself?"
"Yes, I -"
The entire table erupted in laughter. Lola snickered meanly behind her gloved hand, Lana pounded the table, Lucy pointed at Luan and said, "Ha ha," and Leni kept repeating "LOL LOL LOL", perhaps forgetting that she was in real life and not on Snapchat. Luan opened her mouth to tell them off, but they laughed even harder. A blush of shame spread across her face and she withered up like the dead pedal of a dying flower. If her life was a cartoon on Nickelodeon (The Luan Loud Show!), she would have shrunk down to the size of a mouse.
With no other recourse, she slammed her fist down onto the table with all her might, making the glasses and dishware clink and the cups sway. She spun around on her heels and stalked off with a dour expression on her face that she wore even now, hours later. She had only left her room to pee and to get a drink of water, and the whole time she was out there, in the world, she felt exposed, like a tiny field mouse slithering through the grass and praying to Mouse Jesus (Cheesus?) that no hawks spotted her. She had spent most of that time walking in restless circles, but she had devoted some of it to drawing up a list of suspects. She paused now at her bed and looked down at the papers fanned across the freshly washed blanket like a hand of cards.
Which one of you bitches is it?
Her prime suspect was Lori, but Lori left earlier in the day with Lincoln. She could be The Stalker, but something told Luan that The Stalker was still here. Call it a feeling. Her next prime suspect was Luna. She could easily imagine Luna wanting to get back at her for all the April Fools' pranks she had put her through. Luna had a hard edge about her, a certain streetwise cunning, that made her the perfect suspect.
If it wasn't her, it was probably Lana. Lana was a little roughneck too. Lola, on the other hand, possessed an unhealthy amount of cruelty. Lucy…Luan couldn't picture Lucy sneaking through the dark with a big stupid grin and a plan to make someone pee themselves. Then again, Lucy did act like a little stalker, always creeping up on people and scaring the bejesus out of them. Her quickness and soft tread would serve her well if she decided to pull a bunch of hateful pranks.
Almost everyone was a suspect and Luan couldn't trust anybody.
Presently, she went to her sock drawer and started to open it, but thought better of it. Ducking, she pulled it open, expecting some kind of booby trap.
Instead, she found only socks.
She let out a sigh of relief and swiped the back of her hand across her brow. She grabbed a pair of socks, went over to the bed, and lowered herself onto the edge of the mattress, jumping up at the last second and checking undernerath to make sure there were no bombs or whoopi cushions.
There were none.
Sitting, she pulled her socks on and then her shoes. If she didn't get out of here for a little while, she was going to lose her mind, A walk in the park sounded nice. She left the room and tiptoed down the stairs, hyper-aware of her surroundings and on the lookout for anything suspicious. The Stalker might be clever, but she was Luan Loud, the prank master, she could smell a set up from a mile away.
Luan made it outside unpranked and hurried down the walk. She did not feel the eyes boring into the back of her head from the living room window. The Stalker balled one gloved hand with a leathery sound and exhaled heavily.
Enjoy your walk, Luan, because when you get back…
Outside, Luan followed the sidewalk and cast worried looks over her shoulder. On the opposite side of the street, a man pushed a mower across his front lawn, and a group of girls skipped rope. Even though none of them were her sisters, Luan was instantly suspicious of them. She came to a crushed aluminum can lying on its side, and she gave it a wide berth. Ha, you can't fool me, Stalker.
A car horn honked and she let out a squeal of fright. She whipped around so fast that she almost toppled over, and the car turned down a side street, completely ignoring her. Luan looked after it until she was sure it was gone, then walked away.
You're losing it, Luan, she told herself. You need to relax and forget about it.
That was far easier said than done.
Fifteen minutes later, she reached the park; a wrought iron archway flanked by brick columns guarded the way, and the back of Luan's neck tingled as she passed by. No one jumped out at her and she sighed. Whew, this was really getting to her.
She needed to relax.
First, she sat on a bench and did her best to clear her mind. After relaxing as much as she could, she got up and walked around the duck pond. Lilypads choked the surface and fat bullfrogs croaked to one another. Before long, Luan grew bored and wandered off with no real destination in mind. She made her way across the train tracks and into downtown Royal Woods, where quaint shops lined the shaded sidewalk and slanted parking spaces invited passing motorists to pull in and stay a while. She caught herself looking over her shoulder again and forced her eyes forward. You need to relax and stop thinking about it. It's not even that big of a deal. So what someone's pranking you? It's not like they're trying to kill you.
Right?
RIGHT?
She wasn't sure about that. She wasn't sure about anything at this point. If her stalker didn't have overly malicious intent, why didn't they reveal themselves? Why didn't they own up to the pranks they had been pulling?
They could be afraid of retribution.
Yeah, that was it. They knew that if Luan found out who they were, she would respond ten times harder. She was the prank master, after all, and if she found out who was behind the recent attacks, there would be hell to pay. The Stalker knew this, and they also knew that they were not on Luan's level. Anyone can sucker punch Mike Tyson in a dark room but it takes real skill to fight him head on in a boxing ring. Luan was Mike Tyson. The Stalker was Glass Jaw Joe. If they tried to step up to her on an equal playing field, she would destroy them. For that reason, they had to sneak around in the dark like the coward they were. It's not that they were trying to hurt her or anything, they were afraid of her hurting them.
LOL. She should have known.
An idea struck her and she came to a shuffling half right in the middle of the sidewalk. A big grin spread across her face and her metal smile glinted in the light of the summer sun. Why didn't she think of it sooner?
Renewed excitement washed over her and she hurried back home, her fear and paranoia largely forgotten. When she reached 1216 Franklin Avenue some ten minutes later, she bounded up the steps and slammed through the door, unheeding of any danger that might be waiting. She was red faced and winded from the mile and a half jog and a stitch flared in her right side, but she didn;t care, barely noticed. She bolted up the stairs and went into her bedroom. She paused, looked around, and confirmed to herself that The Stalker wasn't lying in wait somewhere.
She went to her computer, turned it on, and waited for it to boot up. She accessed her camera and turned the whole rig toward the door. She sat in her chair and made sure the mic was on. Once she was sure everything was as it should be, she turned the screen off and smiled to herself.
The next time The Stalker dared to invade her personal space and try to victimize her, Luan would have their ugly face on video. Oh, and when she did, she was going to prank them back so freaking hard they'd beg God to wipe them out of existence so they could escape their suffering.
Throwing back her head, Luan laughed heartily.
She got up, went to her dresser, and opened the top drawer.
A coconut cream pie flew out and plowed into her face.
The bus arrived at the South Detroit Greyhound Station at one-fifteen that afternoon. It was fifteen minutes late because there was a bad smash-up on the interstate that held them up for nearly twenty minutes. Lincoln was hoping to see some epic carnage (in terms of damage, not gore) but the cars weren't even messed up, just kind of…crumpled.
It was hot and sunny when they had set off, but as soon as they crossed the Detroit city limits, the sky filled with clouds and a warm wind sprang up. The raised highway soared over the flat rooftops of the meanest, dirtiest slum Lincoln had ever seen. There were vacant lots, destroyed buildings, graffiti, low riders, and trash everywhere. He half expected N.W.A. to stroll up and start rapping, but unfortunately, the hood here didn't provide music to get shot to.
I sure hope the bus station isn't down there.
As if on cue, the bust took an off-ramp.
Of course. The bus station is always in the worst part of town. Even in Royal Woods, the bus station was in a shady area. Every time someone showed up on the news for getting arrested with drugs or shot in the face, it always happened within six blocks of the bus station. Why was it like that? It didn't make any sense to Lincoln. You'd think that you would want people's first taste of your city to be nice and pleasant, not ghettoy as fuck.
The bus stopped at a red light and a man in rags appeared from nowhere with a bucket of soapy water clutched in one hand. He walked up to the bus, stood in the middle of the intersection, and began to wash the front windshield with a dirty rag. Because it was, you know, a freaking bus and not a little sedan, he couldn't reach all of the windshield, so he just hit the bottom half. Good thing too, since his rag added more grit and smear than it subtracted. The light turned green and the driver gave the horn a sharp little honk. When the guy didn't move, the driver threw his hands up in frustration. "C'mon, get out of the way!"
Still, the man didn't move. The driver pressed the gas and the bus lurched forward. The bum finally got the message and scrambled away.
Only in the city, Lincoln thought.
Hanging a left, the bus turned into the station and came to a rolling stop at the platform. Big windows looked into a waiting room filled with chairs and old magazines and an overhang protected the promenade from the elements. The driver opened the doors and everyone started to get off. "The last bus of the day leaves just before midnight," Lori said. "I want us to be on it. If not an earlier one."
Neither of them wanted to stay in the city overnight. Not because it was dangerous (which it so totally was), but because how awkward would it be to break up with someone...and then ask to spend the night at their house? Lincoln wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible. Lori wanted the same. Thankfully the last bus left as late as it did. He didn't know what time the earlier buses left, but just knowing that they wouldn't be forced to stay with Bobby and Ronnie Anne was a major load off his shoulders.
After everyone else had left the bus, Lincoln and Lori got up and shuffled down the aisle, stepping over a discarded Burger King cup that lay on its side like a wounded animal. Outside, the heat was intense, and sweat instantly sprang to Lincoln's brow. He didn't know why, but it was always hotter in the city. Maybe it had to do with all the concrete, which, if he recalled, collected and stored up heat like every other rock on earth. He had no evidence for this, but he thought the collective body heat of millions of people also had something to do with it. You couldn't pack three, four, five million people into such a small area without their natural heat having some kind of impact on the climate. If you people ten to fifteen people in a room, it started to feel close and stuffy after a while. The same principle had to apply to cities as well.
Lori held her hand up to her forehead to shield out the glare of the sun and scanned the platform. "I don't see them," she said.
Bobby said that he and Ronnie Anne would meet them at the bus station. Bobby was a man of his word, but he had a real problem being on time. If you told him to meet you at 2:30, he wouldn't show up until 2:50. He didn't do it intentionally or maliciously, he just had poor time management skills.
If Bobby stayed true to form, that gave Lincoln and Lori time to "be alone."
Wink-wink.
Lori apparently had the same thought. "I wonder where the bathroom is," she said.
"I think there are too many people around," Lincoln said.
And there was. The platform was packed with people waiting for their bus or just killing time, and most of the seats in the waiting room were occupied. There was no way that he and Lori could sneak into the bathroom together without being seen. He said as much, and Lori shrugged one shoulder. "So? We're in the city now, Linc. They don't atrest people anymore in the city, and if they do, they let you out in an hour. If they'll let you go for beating someone up or robbing a store blind, they won't even bother with us."
Well…she wasn't entirely wrong. The news was filled with stories of liberal prosecutors who refused to prosecute criminals and activist inspired bail reform laws that put bad guys back onto the street when they should be locked up. Recently, some guy smeared poop on a random woman's face in NYC, joked about it, and then got cut loose. There was also the wave of organized shoplifting for which no heads rolled. If you can get away with stealing hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise from a Walgreen's and rubbing doo doo in someone's face, he and Lori could totally get away with smashing one another in a bus station restroom.
"Okay," Lincoln said and shrugged, "let's so it."
No sooner had he said that than someone called Lori's name. They turned around just as Bobby and Ronnie Anne came out of the crowd, Bobby in a plaid shirt and looking like an Hispanic Kurt Cobain and Ronnie Anne wearing the Royal Woods hoodie Lincoln gave her a while back. Lincoln's stomach turned and Lori stiffened a little. "Here we go," Lori said under her breath.
Yep.
Here they went.
Bobby smiled and Ronnie Anne nodded. Lori took a deep breath, and she and Lori went to meet them.
"Hey, babe," Bobby said happily. He pulled Lori into a tight hug and she gave him a quick pat on the back before pulling away.
"Hey," she said.
Lincoln and Ronnie Anne faced each other, Lincoln with his arms folded uncomfortably over his chest and Ronnie Anne with her hands in the oversized pocket of her hoodie. "Hey," Lincoln said.
"Hey," Ronnie Anne said. "It's been a while."
"Yeah," Lincoln said nervously, "I've been meaning to call more, but I've been kind of busy lately."
Ronnie Anne shrugged. "It's fine, I've been pretty busy too. What's new in Royal Woods?"
If the heavens conspired to give him a more perfect opportunity to mention his having a girlfriend, it couldn't have given him a better one than this. His heart thundered against his chest and his guts knotted tightly; he opened his mouth to say something, but the words wouldn't come. He wanted to get it out of the way, but decided that now wasn't the right time. You don't lead with that sort of thing, not when you'll have to spend the whole day with the person you just broke up with. Doing it right now struck Lincoln as clumsy and awkward. He needed to ease into it.
"Not much," he said, "things never really change there."
Ronnie Anne chuckled. "Yeah, nothing really does. Things are always changing here. Sometimes I'll walk down a street and it'll look so different from the last time I saw it that I get lost."
They both laughed.
By now, they were walking along the platform toward the parking lot. Beyond, the tall buildings of the city clustered against the dreary sky. Bobby put his arm around Lori's shoulders and she grimaced. She slithered out from under him and he looked at her funny. "My back hurts," she said, coming up with the first excuse she could think of, "from sitting down so long."
Bobby flashed an understanding grin. "No problem." They walked in a big group across the parking lot and toward the street. A group of black dudes stood on a corner and talked, and an old white lady in rags pushed a metal shopping cart heaped with garbage along the sidewalk. "What do you guys wanna do?" Bobby asked. He looked at Lincoln. "There's a real sick arcade just up the street. It makes Gus's look like a pile of puke."
"That sounds good," Lincoln said. He resisted the urge to rub the back of his neck. He felt like a liar and a traitor. He stole Bobby's girlfriend…and here he was smiling in his face and pretending to be his friend.
"I'm kind of hungry," Lori said. "I haven't had anything but chips since breakfast."
A line of cars passed in the street, all chrome spinners and bumping rap music. "What ate you in the mood for?" Bobby asked. "There are tons of restaurants close by. Chinese, Mexican, Italian, you name it."
Lori scrunched her lips to the side and let out a long, thoughtful hum. "I'm kind of in the mood for fried chicken."
"There's a KFC," Bobby said uncertainly, "but that's not really romantic or anything."
"Perfect," Lori said.
Ronnie Anne stuck out her tongue and Lincoln uttered a nervous chuckle. "Yeah, gross."
"Romance is gay."
"It sure is."
The KFC was three blocks over on a strip of gas stations, cheap motels, and fast food joints with sticky floors and dirty windows. A man stood at the exit with a cardboard sign. Lincoln craned his neck to see it and read WHY LIE? I NEED A BEER.
"At least he's honest," Ronnie Anne said.
"They usually aren't," Lincoln said, even though he didn't really know. You didn't see many bums or panhandlers in Royal Woods.
"They usually come at you with some bullshit story," Ronnie Anne said. Bobby shot her a dirty look but didn't say anything. "I mean bullcrap stories," she corrected.
Bobby opened the door for Lori and made a show of checking out her butt as she passed. Lincoln looked down at his shoes and felt a mixture of guilt and outrage. He figured he had no right to feel the latter since she and Bobby were still technically together, but he did anyway.
Inside, the smell of fried chicken seasoned the air and the chattering din of many talking voices drifted to Lincoln's ears. The floors were dirty and all of the unoccupied tables unwashed and piled with garbage. They got in line and when Lincoln saw the prices on the menu over the counter, he blinked and did a double take. Noticing his reaction, Ronnie Anne nodded. "Everything's more expensive in the city," she said.
"You can say that again," Lincoln said. "How do people even make it here?"
"Pay is higher," Ronnie Anne said, "so it all kind of evens out. Raising the minimum wage really doesn't help because the prices keep going up. It's stupid but whatever, My family makes decent money from the bodega so we can afford it." She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "We're not rich or anything but we're doing better than we were when we were living back in Royal Woods."
Before leaving for Detroit, Ronnie Anne and her family were dirt poor. They rented a little house on the 1000 block of Chestnut Street, and most of her mom's paycheck went to rent and utilities. At first, she worked double shifts at the hospital and waitressed at TGI Friday's on Friday and Saturday nights for extra money. They were doing okay for a while, then the Friday's closed down and she lost her job. A few weeks later, they cut her shifts at the hospital. She had to get on food stamps and government assistance, but she still couldn't make it on her own. Bobby got a job delivering pizzas, but he made very little money.
For that reason - and with a little dash of homesickness thrown in for good measure - Ronnie Anne's mom moved them to Detroit to live with their extended family. On one of the video chats Lincoln used to have with her all the time, Ronnie Anne told him that things were "great" and that they were doing better. He was happy to hear that and even happier now.
Maybe her recent good fortune would distract her from being mad over him "dumping" her.
If dumping it could be called.
When their turn in line came, Bobby ordered two buckets of chicken, two heaping sides each of mashed potatoes and gravy, cole slaw, mac and cheese, and biscuits, and four sodas. Lincoln and Ronnie Anne carried the drinks to an empty table and sat down. Bobby and Lori stood by the register and chatted, and Lincoln couldn't decide if he wanted Lori to get away from Bobby, or to suck his dick as a thanks for buying such an awesome lunch. Hell, if she didn't, he would. The guy deserved a BJ for this.
And he was probably expecting one later on.
Little did he know.
Now Lincoln had guilt again. He drew a heavy sigh and pushed it out in a puff. Ronnie Anne, sucking on her straw, noticed and furrowed her brow. "You alright?" she asked.
"Yeah," Lincoln said, "it's nothing."
"Looks like something to me," she said.
Lincoln pursed his lips. Lori and Bobby were still on the other side of the restaurant waiting for the food, and there was no one within earshot of the table. Now would be the perfect time to dump her. Moments like these, where the stars perfectly align, don't come every once in a blue moon, but they also weren't guaranteed, so you have to take them as they come. He sighed again and made a show of looking conflicted. It wasn't much of a show, since it was largely real, but he wanted to make himself something of a figure of pity, that way Ronnie Anne's anger would be tempered with, well, pity. "I, uh…I met someone recently and…"
He looked up, and Ronnie Anne was regarding him with a bewildered expression. "Okay," she said, "and?"
"It's a girl."
He braced himself for anything.
"Alright," Ronnie Anne said, still not following him.
Lincoln took a deep breath. "We really like each other and we're together now."
That last statement came out in a rush and he winced in expectation of Ronnie Anne's fury. Instead, she arched one brow and looked at him like he was a strange and interesting bug. "Okay. What, do you want a cookie?"
So…she wasn't mad?
Whew! Lincoln knew that she probably wouldn't be, but he had no way of knowing for sure, and something told him that it wouldn't be as easy as just telling her the truth. He had to come all the way out to Detroit, there'd have to be some drama involved.
She was looking at him intently, and Lincoln squirmed under her gaze. "I just figured, you know, since we were, you know…kind of together…"
Ronnie Anne furrowed her brow again, this time in confusion. She started to speak, but then stopped. Knowing her, she was going to (vehemently) deny that they had ever been "together" but realized that they kind of had been. "I guess," she said, "but that was a long time ago. I mean, you're a great guy, but you live too far away."
"What about when you left?" he asked.
Ronnie Anne considered her reply for a moment. "I liked you," she said, surprising him. In all the time he had known Ronnie Anne Santiago, she had never been so frank and straightforward with her emotions. "I mean, I still kind of do…like, the potential is there, but after being away from you for so long, it's cooled off." For the first time, a hint of red colored her cheeks and she looked uncomfortable. "You know what I mean, right?" There was a touch of desperation in her voice, as though she needed him to understand.
Understand that she wasn't some mushy gushy lame o who stayed in her feelings.
"I know what you mean," he said and took a sip of his soda. "I felt kind of the same way. I really missed you at first, but after not having you around for so long, it wasn't a big deal."
"Exactly," she said, sounding relieved. "We can still be friends, though." One corner of her mouth curled up in a sharp grin. "And in laws."
Heh.
Yeah…about that.
He looked over his shoulder to see if Lori was giving Bobby the bad news, but from their body language, it looked like she wasn't. Well…his part in this whole mess was done, now he was just waiting on her to wrap things up on her end.
Suddenly, he was impatient to get out of here and put all of this to his back.
A few minutes later, Lori and Bobby brought the food over. Lori sat next to Lincoln and he plucked a drumstick from the bucket while Lori slapped mashed potatoes and coleslaw onto a plate for him. "I frickin' love KFC,' ' Bobby said around a mouthful of chicken and breading. "Their fried chicken is the best."
"Taco Bell's good too," Lincoln said, "too bad this isn't one of those combo things with a KFC and a Taco Bell."
Bobby jabbed his index finger at him and swallowed. "They have one of those on I-65. I literally ripped up a piece of fried chicken and shoved it into a burrito." He laughed. "Crazy times."
"They closed the Chinese buffet in town," Lori said. "I haven't had a good buffet dinner in a long time," Lori said.
"They did?" Bobby asked indignantly, "why?"
Lori lifted and lowered one shoulder. "I don't know. I heard a rumor that the health inspector found wet dog fur in the kitchen byt that's probably bullshit."
"I don't know," Ronnie Anne said, "a lot of stray pets used to go missing around that place."
"That's kind of racist," Lincoln joked.
"How so?" Ronnie Anne asked. "If I had a restaurant, I'd cook cats and dogs too. If it meant keeping costs down."
Everyone laughed except for Ronnie Anne. "I'm serious," she said, "but okay."
Of course, she was just joking. Ronnie Anne was like one of those candies with a hard exterior but a soft, gooey center. She mean mugged everyone in a ten mile radius but she loved puppies, kittens, and all other manner of small creatures. She wasn't secretly an animal whisperer or anything, but she was as into cute critters about as much as Lincoln himself was. He didn't make it his mission to pet every dog he saw, but he also wouldn't butcher one for its meat. If a vicious dog stepped to him and it was kill or be killed, he could wreck the fucker and live with himself, but that's different. That's self-defense. If he ever ran a cat over in a car, he wouldn't go to pieces and weep on his knees like a woman, but he'd also feel kind of bad. Ronnie Anne would probably do the same.
Probably.
Then again, who knows? Money does strange things to people. You can be the sweetest person in the world, but once your costs get too high and you need to cut them down a little…
Ignoring that, Lincoln chowed down on his lunch. He ate three drumsticks and a breast before pounding some coleslaw and mashed potatoes. He remembered hearing long ago that Col. Sanders - a real guy btw - got mad at the KFC franchise for ruining his mashed potato recipe. He called it slop or something and they almost sued him lol. Lincoln had never made mashed potatoes and gravy by the Col.'s own hand, but if it was better than the mashed potatoes and gravy now, it had to be orgasmic. He freaking loved the current recipe, especially the gravy. He wasn't a chunki boi by any stretch of the imagination but he'd totally drink gallons of that stuff if he could.
All throughout lunch, Bobby stole lusty little looks at Lori that made Lincoln's stomach churn. Lori was aware of them and did her best to ignore them. Lincoln wondered when she planned to tell him about her new boyfriend, or if she even would. On the bus ride, they had talked over her strategy, and she hadn't decided if she should even bring up the fact that she had a new boyfriend or not. It wasn't, as she said, "need to know information."
Lincoln personally favored being open and honest…at least until Bobby asked her who it was. There was no way on earth she could say "Oh, it's Lincoln lol" and have it go over well.
When lunch was finished and the bucket was full of picked clean chicken bones, everyone sat back and let their food digest. Lincoln favored Lori with a curious look and she nodded slightly. Soon, she mouthed.
How soon, he didn't know, but if you asked him:
It couldn't come soon enough.
After cleaning up, Luan stormed downstairs where her sisters were gathered to watch TV. "Okay," she said, "which one of you is it?"
"Which one what?" Lana asked from the floor, where she and Lola were stretched out side by side on their stomachs.
"Which one of you rigged a pie to hit me in the face when I opened my drawer?"
Everyone burst out laughing.
"IT'S NOT FUNNY!" Luan raged. "TELL ME WHO DID IT!"
Luna, sitting on the couch with her guitar across her lap, hit a chord that trembled and reverberated. "Sounds like you're getting a taste of your own flavor," she said.
Wheeling on her, Luan glared. "So it's you."
"Never said that, bro," Luna said, "but I think it's funny. You've been doing that kinda shit to us for years, now someone's doing it back and you're mad."
"The irony is pretty delicious," Lucy said.
From her spot between the couch and the coffee table, which was laid with a cornucopia of vials, test tubes, and other scientific equipment, Lisa said, "It's not ironic, however, it is poetic justice. I seem to recall you rigging my laboratory to explode on multiple occasions, leaving me charred and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's fitting that you should experience the same thing."
"I was only playing with you," Luan snapped.
"That doesn't change the fact that my eyebrows were singed from my face," Lisa pointed out.
"Or that you've ruined five guitars," Luna added.
"You turned my skin purple," Leni said, "they still call me Barney at school."
Luan started to reply, but her sisters all jumped in, cutting her off with memories of all the pranks she had pulled on them over the years. "You almost killed Lincoln with raccoons," Lola said. "I like a good joke as much as anybody but that was just sick."
"I almost got kidnapped that time you put signs up to the kitchen," Leni said. "Like,what if I wound up a white slave?"
"You got dye all over my favorite jersey," Lynn said. "The one signed by Tom Brady. Now you're upset because a pie hit you in the face? Seriously, no one cares. You deserve whatever happens to you."
Luan shook and trembled with rage. Rage at them for being this way…and rage at herself because she knew they were right. She had pulled a ton of mean pranks on them throughout the years. She always knew in hindsight when she went too far and tried her best to not do it again, but she got carried away. She never meant it maliciously, she was just having fun, but when you get right down to it, it doesn't really matter once everything is said and done. It's kind of like friendly fire in a warzone. Sure, your fellow troops didn't mean to shoot at you, but they still shot you. Lead was lead and knowing that it wasn't intentional was cold comfort - or no comfort at all - when you were bleeding out on the ground.
"I know I get carried away, alright?" Luan said She hated the edge of pleading in her voice. "I'm sorry, just tell me who it is. I have to know."
"It's not me," Luna said.
"Not me," Lynn echoed.
"It's not us," Lana said, speaking for Lola.
Leni shook her head. "Nope."
"I'm not doing it," Luna said.
Heat burst across Luan's face and her chest clinched with anger. "So it's none of you, huh? What, is it a ghost?"
"Maybe," Lucy said, "your pranks piss off even the underworld."
"Screw you, Lucy," Luan said. She looked from one of her sisters to another, and when it became clear that none of them were going to own up to being The Stalker, she shook her head in disgust. "Screw all of you."
With that, she spun on her heels and marched herself right back up the stairs. In her room, she flung the door closed and dropped facedown on the bed. She screamed into her pillow and battered it with her fists. The dread, the suspense of never knowing when the next prank was coming, was driving her crazy. The uncertainty of not knowing from whom it was coming was going to break her. This was madness, far worse than anything she had ever done. At least with her you knew who to watch out for. She didn't have that luxury.
She drew a deep, watery sigh and let it out. Tears flooded her eyes and she blinked them back. What could she do? How could she fight back against a freaking ghost? She didn't know who to keep her eye on and who to ignore. At this point, the only thing she could do was…
A metaphorical light bulb appeared over Luan's head and she perked up. Yes, that was it! She'd prank the ever loving shit out of all of them. She'd make things so bad for them that they would have no choice but to help her find who it was and then deliver them on a silver platter. She would turn their lives into a living, breathing, waking hell until they cared.
She smiled to herself as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. She had a lot to do and not much time to do it in. Starting tomorrow, maybe even tonight, she would make everyone in the Loud House hate The Stalker for bringing her judgment down upon them.
Oh, she thought, this was going to be good.
Getting up, Luan went off to prepare the way.
Stalker…here I come.
