J. Patrick Lemarr

LUCY:An UNDERNEATH Prequel

LUCY:An UNDERNEATH Prequel

by

J. Patrick Lemarr

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Copyright

UNDERNEATH and LUCY: AN UNDERNEATH PREQUEL Copyright © 2012 J. Patrick Lemarr. All rights reserved. Nopart of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, without written permission except in the case of briefquotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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LUCY

Lucy Abernathy took a long, smooth sip of her iced tea, praying to whatever godsmight be listening that it would turn into a whiskey sour as it touched her lips. Lunching with hermother often drove her to imbibe, most especially when Madge Abernathy (“of the PhiladelphiaAbernathy’s,” Madge would often announce) was two cocktails into her tiresome tirade. The lobstersalad on Lucy’s plate remained untouched as she waited for her mother to steer the S.S.Uncomfortable Conversation from the choppy waters of the Bay of Wasted Talents toward thecrystal clear shores of her other favorite subject.

“I ran into Mark Fitzsimmons the other day,” Madge offered. “He was havingdinner at La Moyen with…well, I shouldn’t say. Mark’s a high profile attorney, after all, so you canimagine the sorts of clients he works with.”

“Mediocre,” Lucy said, pushing her plate to the side.

“The best and brightest this state has to offer,” Madge insisted. “If I mentionedwho was with him, you would understand my discretion.”

“No, Mother, I was pointing out that la moyen is French for ‘mediocre’ or ‘average.’I don’t care enough about Mark or his clientele to join that part of the conversation. It just struckme as odd that anyone would choose to eat at a restaurant called La Moyen. The owner must’vethought it was clever.”

“Well, he asked about you,” Madge said. “I think he still misses you.”

“The owner of La Moyen?”

“Why must you play these games, Lucy? Why can’t we just have a civilizedconversation over lunch like other mothers and daughters?”

“There’s nothing civilized about trying to pawn your daughter off to a man shefinds repellant, Mother, nor is it the height of civility to carry with you some mental laundry list ofways I have disappointed you. Daddy would never—“

“You’re father was a dreamer, God rest his soul. If he hadn’t married someonewho knew how to climb the social ladder, he never would’ve made that first million.” Madge tookanother sip of her martini before continuing. “I don’t ask for much, Lucille, but I cannot remainsilent as I watch you throw your life away in that…poverty farm…when I know you could have somuch more.”

“You mean ‘we’ could have so much more, don’t you, Mother? Are you finding itdifficult to maintain your status among upper crust widows with your ever-dwindling fortune?”

“Is this you trying to hurt me, Lucy? Is that what this is?”

“You’d have to have a heart for that,” Lucy thought. But she didn’t say it.

“I’m not trying to hurt anyone, Mother,” she replied. “That ‘poverty farm’ is aschool like any other. And, like other schools, it has a great need for teachers who can impact itsstudents. I do what I do for the kids, not the paycheck. I’m sorry if that disappoints you, butexpensive lunches and verbal assaults will never change that.”

“Honestly!” Madge said. She sighed and dabbed her lips with her napkin. “You actas though it’s wrong for me to want the best for you.”

“No. It’s wrong for you to assume you know what’s best for me,” Lucy countered.“I love you, Mother, and that will never change, but these conversations are pointless and mayeventually be enough to drive me away.”

The waiter placed the bill on the table and asked if he should take Lucy’suntouched plate and box it up for her to take home. When she declined, he left them to theirconversation. Madge, however, remained silent for a few moments as she swallowed down the lastof her drink. Lucy, likewise, said nothing as she dug through her purse for her wallet.

“Lunch is on me, dear,” Madge said. “I invited you. As always.”

“No, Mother, this is my treat,” Lucy said, producing a virgin credit card from theconfines of her handbag. “If I’m adult enough to stand up to you, the least I can do is buy you ameal.”

She gave her mother a weak smile, but Madge didn’t seem to notice.

“You know…I miss your father, in spite of what you might think,” Madge said,her eyes never leaving the olive in her glass. “I may have pushed him to grow his business, but itwould never have happened if he wasn’t so extraordinarily talented. People wanted whatever he wasselling, Lucy. They flocked to him like children around the ice cream truck. I can see that same talentin you—that same natural ability with people.”

“Yeah, that’s me all over today,” Lucy mumbled.

“You and I are just different animals,” her mother continued. “You have muchmore of your father in you, which I admire, dear. Just because things are not easy between usdoesn’t mean I can’t see your amazing potential.”

“Potential that I’m wasting as a teacher?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps I’m just too set in my ways to properly assess suchthings.”

“Perhaps they aren’t yours to assess,” Lucy added.

Madge sighed once more.

The waiter returned to take Lucy’s credit card. A moment later, he was back for hersignature. She couldn’t afford the upscale restaurant and her mother damn well knew it, but Lucywas enjoying the warm flame of her defiance and was in no hurry for it to be quenched. She was,however, in a rush to leave her mother in the rearview mirror.

“Look, I still have a few errands to run before I head back to Melville,” she said,signing the receipt. “Will you be okay getting a cab, or should I drop you home first?”

“I’ll have the maître d’ call for a service,” Madge said softly. “I was thinking ofvisiting your Aunt Elaine this afternoon.”

“Yeah, well… tell her I said to keep on truckin’, would you?”

“Honestly, Lucy.”

********************

The drive back to Melville had been painfully slow due to a three car pileup onInterstate 76 just outside Chesterbrook. It had grown late—nearly time for dinner—but Lucy’sstomach was still sour from her mother’s derision. Melville was less than 10 miles ahead when sheremembered the dive bar on the outskirts of town. It was a place for the miners to go and blow offa little steam after a long shift, but they would likely serve alcohol to anyone who could afford it anddamn, but that whiskey sour has been on my mind since I left the restaurant, she thought.

Clutterbuck’s was more “old west saloon” than “chic modern disco”, but its lotwas nearly full as Lucy parked her Pacer and made her way inside. A miner sat on the hood of histruck, nursing a Coors. She gave him a smile, he gave her a nod and then she was inside, awash in atorrent of country music and coal black workers of the Underneath—which was how locals oftenreferred to the mines. She brushed past the crowd and ordered her drink at the bar.

“I don’t get much call for mixed drinks,” the bear of a bartender said. “Just straightliquor for men aiming to forget that deep down dark.”

“Is it always this busy?” she shouted above the music.

“You bet,” he replied. “Especially the first few shifts after payroll.”

He finished mixing her drink and placed it on a dirty coaster. “It’s none of mybusiness, ma’am, but some of these men get a bit ornery once their livers get nice and lubricated. Itmight be for the best if you finish your drink and head on home.”

Lucy felt that fire in her belly spring to life once more. The bartender’s assumptionof her weakness was nearly as offensive as it was unnecessary. Miners were good men, strong intheir values and work ethic. It was one of the main reasons she had settled in Melville as opposed tothe other districts that had scrambled to bring a Temple graduate into the fold. She could’ve calledthe bartender on his outdated, sexist leanings, but she had come to relax and have a drink and shewould do just that.

Before she could thank him for his concern, another man approached the bar—the miner who had given her the nod outside. He slid a five dollar bill to the bartender before Lucycould even reach for her purse.

“Stop trying to the scare the little lady,” he told the bartender. “Most nights we

“Stop trying to the scare the little lady,” he told the bartender. “Most nights wehave to be content to stare at your ugly mug, Bert. It’s a real treat to have someone around prettyenough to brighten up this dump. Her drink’s on me…and any others she orders, too. I’ll keep theboys off her back. They know if they mess with me, I’ve got plenty of other folks that could dotheir jobs.”

The bartender took the bill and nodded. “I’m just trying to look out for the lady,Cyrus.”

“I know, Bert,” he said. “That’s mighty Christian of ya, too.”

The man turned his attention to Lucy and offered her a kind smile. “Bert wasn’taiming to scare you, Miss. We just don’t get many decent ladies to step foot in here. You must’veneeded that drink something fierce.”

Lucy chuckled. “I had lunch with my mother this afternoon and it drove me todrink. How sad is that?”

“Well, I would guess that would depend on the sort of mother you have,” theminer said. “Some really know how to get under your skin. Mine sure as hell did.”

He offered her his hand. “My name’s Cyrus. I work down at the Charlton lease.”

“Lucy,” she said, shaking his hand. “I teach school here in town.”

“Well, pardon me if this strikes you as forward, Miss Lucy, but I never had aschool teacher anywhere near as pretty as you.”

“No?”

“No, ma’am. Most that I can recall had granny moustaches and humps on theirbacks.”

Lucy hadn’t realized how badly she needed to laugh until it came bubbling up outof her. By the time she caught her breath, she felt as if a bit of the cloud that had hovered over hersince lunch had, at last, dissipated. She clinked her glass against Cyrus’ beer bottle.

“Thank you, Cyrus. I needed that laugh.”

“My pleasure,” he replied, gulping down the last few drops of his beer. “You aren’taiming to get drunk, are you, Miss Lucy? I can pretty much promise you that no amount of liquorcan fix a family squabble.”

“It’s a start,” she said. “And if not liquor, then what?”

“Short of killing her, I can’t imagine,” Cyrus said. “I’m no Donahue.”

She grinned. “I love Donahue.”

Lucy finished her drink in a few gulps and took a deep breath. “Alright. That wasjust what the doctor ordered. Now, I’m going to follow Bert’s advice and head home. I have a stackof book reports waiting for me that won’t grade themselves.”

“You sure you can’t stay for one more?” Cyrus asked. “It’s on me.”

“I’d love to, but I’ve already wasted half my weekend and they have to be done byMonday.”

He offered his hand again and she shook it. “It was nice meeting you then, Lucy.That offer for another drink is a standing one, so you come back anytime. I’m here most nights aftershift…either to get hogged up or drive home the boys that do, so you’ll not have any troubleclaiming it.”

“Thank you, Cyrus.”

Her drink had left a pleasant warmth spreading throughout her body, but the chillof the Pennsylvania air fought to drive it from her bones. When she got home, she would crank upthe furnace in her tiny frame house and snuggle in deep beneath a few blankets. The grading couldwait until tomorrow, she decided. Sleep seemed like a much better pursuit.

When her car wouldn’t start, she cursed beneath her breath and tried again. ThePacer whirred and coughed, but refused to turn over. She tried several more times before admittingdefeat. There was no pay phone in the parking lot, but she assumed Bert the Bartender would haveone she could use. She marched back into Clutterbuck’s, bobbed and weaved through the drunken,dancing miners, and approached the bar to find Cyrus still sitting where she had left him.

“Don’t tell me you already changed your mind about that drink,” Cyrus said as sheapproached. “I just dropped my last fiver on a pitcher for my crew.”

“No,” she said with a pout. “My stupid car won’t start. I don’t know if it’s the coldor—“

“I’ll call for a tow,” Bert said, having overheard them. “But I gotta warn you,ma’am, the closest tow truck’s a good half an hour away. The towing service we had here in Melvillewent under several months back. Bank got it, so I hear.”

“It don’t matter,” Cyrus said. “Let me take a look under your hood. I ain’t amechanic, but I’m not unhandy with a wrench. If I can’t get ya back on the road, Miss Lucy, ol’ Berthere can call for that tow.”

“That’s wonderful,” Lucy said. “I’m not sure I could even afford a tow after thelunch I bought my mother.”

“That must’ve been some lunch,” Cyrus said with a laugh. “You just stay insidewhere it’s good and warm and I’ll have me a look-see. One way or another, we’ll get you back totown safe as houses.”

********************

According to a handful of witnesses present that evening at Clutterbuck’s Tavern(now called O’Malley’s) just outside the Melville city limits, school teacher Lucille Rae Abernathy left

(now called O’Malley’s) just outside the Melville city limits, school teacher Lucille Rae Abernathy leftthe bar a little after 9 p.m. She returned moments later citing car trouble. Patron and Charlton Mineforeman Cyrus Adams discovered a loose distributor cap to be the cause of the problem and gotAbernathy back on the road by 9:30. According to Bert Larson, the barkeep at Clutterbuck’s,Abernathy was in good health and perfectly sober when she said her goodbyes. Per Larson, Adamshad even offered to follow the young lady home in case she had more car trouble, but Abernathydeclined.

Lucy Abernathy’s car was discovered just two miles away from her home inMelville by a trucker—one Mitchell Frank Kline of Melville Freight—the following morning.Abernathy, however, was nowhere to be found. Police discovered a single droplet of blood on thedriver’s side floor mat matching the woman’s blood type, but DNA analysis proved inconclusive.Abernathy was considered a missing person for three years before her mother, Madge Abernathy,widow of real estate magnate Virgil Abernathy, filed for her Death in Absentia with the courts. Thefinal fate of the young school teacher—much loved by her 4th grade students and the staff atMelville Elementary School—remains unknown.

Learn the truth behind Lucy Abernathy’s disappearance.

Uncover the secrets of the Underneath.

UNDERNEATH

a horror short story

by

J. Patrick Lemarr

Available as an eBook Single or Limited Edition Chapbook

featuring illustrations by Jason Webb.

www.writecrowdpublishing.com/underneath