Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 106003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Chapter 8
Creep
Vulture Hollow is a settlement built in the picturesque area of the same name, and it’s also what our club is called. All the way back in the seventies, our village used to be called Camp Happy Bird and housed a summer camp for kids. After it shut down, all the cabins and buildings stood unoccupied until our prez decided to make this place his permanent home. I’ve been told it took a few years of fighting with people who set up a drug den in the main building that is now our clubhouse. There’s even gossip that the camp used to house a cult at one point, but it was most likely just a hippy commune.
Now, Vulture Hollow is ours, and it’s a thriving settlement with the old buildings restored to new glory. We have firepits, a canteen, laundry facilities, a garage, and even a little shop. Everything our community might want, all supported with moonshine and the happy mushrooms we grow in the nearby caves. As long as people stay in line and keep their mouths shut about the illegal activities, they can enjoy a life by the lake and forest, and can sign up to rent a boat free of charge.
Everyone has to pull their weight, of course, including me, but I’m more than happy with my position here. I’m proud to call myself a Vulture and be a part of the first community that welcomes my presence and offers me an illusion of respectability.
My brothers might consider me someone who’s on the club's sidelines, but that still makes me feel more included than I ever was before Vulture Hollow. They don’t pretend I’m not there, or spit at the ground in warning when I pass. The Vultures include me in jokes, even though I fail at humor most of the time. When I’m around them, there’s a purpose to my life.
I’ve always been a loner, an outcast, and I expected to end up in prison not long after juvie, but I found Vulture Hollow and stayed. At first, I remained unseen, stealing food and sleeping in the caves that gave the community its name. It took them three weeks to discover my presence, and once a mob of workers dragged me from my hideout, I was saying goodbye to my life. But then Brigid appeared in her dark linen dress, hair pinned at the back of the head, eyes fierce, and demanded that I be given a chance. She said I’d proved myself by staying hidden for so long.
The men who at first had intended to put me down became family, and Brigid is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a mother. What others saw as a vice, something to be wary of, she appreciated. To her, the way I can sneak around is a valuable skill. She urged Harvey, the oldest member of our club, to teach me how to shoot a sniper rifle, and told Prophet to let me live in the caves if I wanted to. She even gave me a rug.
Prophet might be our prez, and he rules like a Viking leader of his clan, but Brigid is his most trusted advisor. He’d never admit how much influence she has, but it’s obvious, because he sometimes enters her cabin with one opinion on a topic, then leaves with another. Officially, she’s not allowed to know club secrets. Unofficially, I expect she knows more about Vulture Hollow than all of us combined, and I’m her spy, so I mean it.
“You really need to be more careful,” she says, putting the final stitch in the wound Angel left on me last night.
I nod, but it’s hard to focus when Angel’s taste still sizzles on my tongue. It’s just a phantom, but I swear I can sense it. “It’s nothing.” Yet she insisted it needed to be looked at. The way she notices things about me makes me feel like the apple of her eye, even though she’s got many more important things to deal with. I’m guessing she must be in her fifties, but if I were straight, I would have had a crush on her anyway. Maybe it’s for the better that I’m not, because she would keep me on a very short leash.
Brigid smirks. “You expect me to believe that when you’re so absent-minded? Go on, tell me what’s going on. I won’t judge,” she adds and pours us both some lemonade from a pitcher in the middle of the table.
My aunt would have called Brigid a witch and forbidden me from visiting her thatched house by the lake, but I love the way it smells of the herbs hanging in dry bundles above our heads, and all the jars and bottles occupying endless shelves make the interior cozy rather than threatening. Even though I’m certain one of the vials contains the eyeballs of a goat.