[53] Farmhouse Shenanigans

Chapter 53: Farmhouse Shenanigans

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The farmhouse had changed for the better, like the shadows had retreated back to their corners. Joan Maplewood lay unconscious on her bed and she looked smaller and more fragile than the bombshell who'd greeted us earlier. Her chest rose and fell steadily, but her face was pale, lips parted slightly as if caught mid-scream.

"She's stable," Grandpa Max said, checking her pulse with practiced care. "Just a bit shock. The human mind doesn't handle alien encounters well, especially the violent kind."

Todd hovered in the doorway, clutching that old journal like a lifeline. His eyes darted between his unconscious mother and us, the strangers who'd brought chaos into his ordered world. Poor kid looked like he wanted to run but had nowhere to go.

"Is Mom gonna be okay?" His voice cracked on the last word.

Gwen knelt beside him, all gentle reassurance. "She'll be fine, Todd. Just needs some time to process what happened."

I watched from the corner, still trying to shake off the adrenaline from the fight. The Xenocyte's DNA hummed in the Omnitrix, a new tool in my arsenal that I'd probably never use. Who wanted to turn into a mummy? Though the bandage manipulation could come in handy...

Joan stirred, a soft moan escaping her lips. Her eyelids fluttered, then snapped open. For a moment she just stared at the ceiling, probably trying to figure out if the giant rat and fire monster had been a nightmare.

Then she saw us and scrambled backward, hitting the headboard with a thud that made everyone wince.

"Easy," Grandpa said, hands raised peacefully. "You're safe. The creature is gone."

"Creature?" Her voice was hoarse, eyes wild. "Ah, that thing... that wasn't natural. What the hell was that?"

Max shifted into interrogation mode so smoothly I almost missed it. He took out the stone tablet, and his grandfatherly warmth dimmed just enough to add weight to his words. "That's what we need to find out, Mrs. Maplewood. And we need your help. Do you recognize this tablet?"

"I- I don't know anything!" The protest came too fast, too defensive.

"Really?" Max's tone stayed conversational, but I heard the steel underneath. "Because that thing didn't randomly choose your farm. It was looking for something specific. Something buried on your property."

Joan's eyes darted to Todd, then back to Max. "I told you, we just p-protect the markers. Family tradition."

"A tradition that nearly got you killed tonight." Max let that sink in before continuing. "What if that creature had gone after Todd instead? What if it attacks your neighbors' children next?"

Low blow, using the kid card. But effective. Joan's face crumpled, tears threatening to spill. "You don't understand," she whispered. "We swore an oath. Six generations of Maplewoods have kept the secret."

"Secrets have a way of getting people killed," Max pressed. "Especially when they involve alien artifacts and ancient curses. How many more families need to suffer because—"

"Grandpa." I stepped forward, catching his eye. "Maybe we should give her some space. This is a lot to process. I’ll talk to her."

He studied me for a long moment. I could see the gears turning in his head, probably wondering what angle I was playing. Finally, he nodded.

"You're right. Come on, Gwen. Let's check the perimeter, make sure there aren't any more surprises." He gestured to Todd. "You too, son. Show us where you've seen the purple lightning before."

Gwen shot me a look that promised questions later, but she followed Max out. Todd cast one last worried glance at his mother before trailing after them.

The door clicked shut, leaving Joan and me alone.

She pulled the blanket up to her chin, suddenly very aware that she was in bed with a strange young man in her room. The fear was still there, but underneath it, I caught something else. Curiosity, maybe. Or something more primal that recognized a protector when she saw one.

"That fire thing," she said quietly. "That was you, wasn't it?"

No point in lying. She saw Gwen standing beside Heatblast. "Yeah. That was me."

"You're one of those superheroes. Like on the news…?"

"Something like that." I moved closer, sitting on the edge of the bed. Not threatening, just present. "I help people. And right now, you need help."

She laughed, but it came out broken. "Help? My family's kept this secret for over a century. Now monsters are digging up my fields and my son's traumatized. How exactly can you help with that?"

"By stopping whatever's coming next." I let my voice drop, adding weight to the words. "Because this? Tonight? Trust me, that was just the beginning. Someone's collecting artifacts across the Southwest. Building to something big. Something that could hurt a lot of people."

Her eyes searched mine, looking for the lie.

When she didn't find one, her shoulders sagged.

"You really are a superhero, aren't you?" There was wonder in her voice now, mixed with something else. "You people are quite strong… and dangerous, too. You superhumans. That fight in Harlem… that was so scary. Did you see that?”

I nodded. "I was there. Didn’t you hear that zero people died despite the intense chaos? Not to take all the credit, but my group is the main reason behind that."

"Ah, I see..." Her hand emerged from under the blanket, fingers trembling as they found mine. "Will you really take care of this monster? So that it can’t hurt Todd?"

The touch was electric. It stopped me from saying ‘no worries, that Mummy’s already dead, the other monsters are in Mexico.’

This close, I could smell her soap – something floral mixed with the earthy scent of the farm. Her eyes were the deepest brown, flecked with gold that caught the lamplight. Even disheveled and scared, she was stunning.

"I'll do everything I can," I promised, squeezing her hand gently. "But I need to know what we're dealing with. What was really buried here, Joan?"

She bit her lip, clearly wrestling with generations of programming. I shifted closer, close enough that our thighs touched through the blanket. Her breath hitched.

"It's okay," I murmured, pulling her into a hug. "You're safe now. Feel free to talk, no monster will hurt you."

She stiffened for a moment, then melted against me. Her face pressed into my chest, and I felt her tears soak through my shirt. We stayed like that for a while, her crying out the fear and stress while I held her.

When she finally pulled back, her eyes were red but clearer. "You must think I'm pathetic. Crying on a stranger."

"I think you're brave." I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, letting my fingers linger. Gwen would kill me if she saw me play this game. "Not everyone could handle what you saw tonight."

She leaned into the touch, eyes fluttering closed. "I’ve been so scared lately. Todd’s stories aren’t just stories. I knew that, I’d seen the silhouette of that dead man too. The neighbors also have. So I was scared of it. When I saw you all get out of that RV, I thought... I thought maybe you could help. You people didn’t look dangerous, just a grandfather and his grandchildren. That's why I asked you to stay. I didn’t want Todd to tell you those stories because it might scare y’all to leave… Sorry."

"No need to say sorry. But are you sure you asked us to stay just because you were scared?"

A blush crept up her neck. "That... and other reasons."

"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow. "What other reasons?"

She ducked her head, suddenly shy. "You're... well, look at you, Ben. Tall, handsome, those muscles..." She trailed off, blushing a little. "Do I sound like a desperate housewife?"

"I don't hear your husband complaining." The words slipped out before I could stop them. Real smooth, Tennyson. Way to kill the mood. Bring up her probably dead husband when flirting your way into answers.

But instead of pulling away, she laughed. She’d definitely calmed down a lot.

"Richard? He's in Houston. Has been for three months. Some big contract that's more important than his family." The bitterness in her voice could've curdled milk. "He calls once a week, if I'm lucky."

"That's rough.” I really thought her husband was dead.

"That's marriage." She looked up at me through her lashes. "Sometimes I wonder what it would be like. To be with someone who actually sees me, you know? Someone… strong… young… who wants me."

The air between us crackled. This was dangerous territory. This woman was clearly sexually frustrated, but at the same time, this might just be her ploy to get out of answering the questions. The smart play was to back off, keep things professional.

But when had I ever made the smart play? Plus, I trusted my machine gun to get all the answers since she was dancing around the subject. I took a good look at her curvy body, the way her white nightgown clung to her breasts, her large hips…

[Image Here]

"Trust me," I said, voice rougher than intended, my hand running down her thighs. "Anyone who doesn't see you is blind."

Her lips parted, tongue darting out to wet them. "...You're too young to be saying things like that, no?"

"I'm old enough." My hand found her waist, thumb brushing the strip of skin where her shirt had ridden up as she whimpered. "Old enough to know what I want."

"And what's that?"

Instead of answering, I leaned in. Our lips met, soft at first, testing. She made a small sound in the back of her throat and pressed closer, hands fisting in my shirt.

The kiss deepened, years of loneliness and fear pouring out of her into desperate passion. She nipped at my lower lip, and I growled, pulling her fully against me.

"One last time," I said, “you sure you wanna continue?”

The question remained unanswered for a moment. I could see the war in her eyes – propriety versus desire, loyalty versus need. Then she bit her lips, decision made.

"Yes. God help me, yes."

I kissed her again, harder this time. My hands explored the curves I'd admired earlier, finding them even more delicious than imagined. She arched against me, making sounds that went straight to my core.

"Buttt… I gotta answer Grandpa once we’re out, so let’s talk while we get busy. The artifact," I murmured against her neck, not quite lost to the moment. "Tell me about it."

She laughed breathlessly. "Now? You want to talk about that now?"

"Multitasking." I found that spot behind her ear that made her shiver. "I'm very good at it."

"It's... oh god... it's a piece of something bigger." Her words came in gasps as I worked my way down her throat. "Great grandpa's journal called it... called it a fragment of the Corazón de Muerte."

"Heart of Death?" I pulled back to look at her. "That sounds ominous."

"Five pieces," she continued, eyes glazed but focused. "Scattered across the Southwest. Together they form a key, but to what, the journal never said."

I rewarded her with another kiss, deeper this time. She melted into it, inhibitions crumbling. When we broke apart, we were both breathing hard.

"Someone's collecting them," I said. "The mummy thing was looking for your piece."

"Then they can have it." Her hands slid under my shirt, nails scraping lightly. "I don't care anymore. I just want..."

"What do you want, Joan?"

She pulled me down until our foreheads touched. "I want to forget. Just for tonight. Make me forget everything except this."

Who was I to deny a lady?

I pressed her back against the pillows, taking my time. I kissed her nape, squeezed her breasts, and my knees pushed against her crotch. Every action drove her higher while keeping enough presence of mind to gather information. It was a delicate balance, but like I'd told her – I was good at multitasking.

"The other families," I asked between kisses, biting the side of her breast. "The ones guarding the other pieces. Do you know them?"

"Some." She gasped as I found a particularly sensitive spot. "The Hendersons in New Mexico. The Chens in Arizona. But we lost touch years ago."

"Why?" My hands mapped territories that would make her man weep with envy.

"Because... because..." She lost the thread as I moved my tongue in a particularly hungry manner. "God, don't stop."

"Tell me why."

"Because people started dying!" The words tumbled out in a rush. "Twenty years ago. One by one, the guardian families were targeted. Accidents, they said. But we knew better."

Now we were getting somewhere. I rewarded her honesty with focused attention that had her clutching the sheets.

"Who was targeting them?"

"Don't know. Don't care. Just... please..."

I laughed but obliged, taking off my clothes. For a while, there were no more questions. Just soft moans and desperate whispers in the darkness as the hungry married woman got what she wanted.

****

Forty minutes later, we emerged from the bedroom looking presentable if slightly rumpled. Joan had fixed her hair and changed into a fresh shirt, but the glow in her cheeks told its own story.

Grandpa, Gwen, and Todd were waiting in the living room. Max's expression was carefully neutral, but I caught the knowing look in his eyes. But thankfully, Gwen seemed oblivious.

"Joan's feeling better," I announced. "She's agreed to tell us what she knows."

"Phew, finally. Guess she just needed a young man to talk to," Gwen muttered, just loud enough for me to hear. I’m really glad she was occupied with calming down the kid and so didn’t notice anything.

Joan took a deep breath and launched into her story. When she spoke, her voice was heavy with the weight of generations. Her eyes were fixed not on any of us, but on the stone tablet Gwen now held carefully, wrapped in a protective cloth.

The guardian families, the artifacts, the deaths from twenty years ago. She talked about all of it clearly and concisely, matching what she'd told me earlier. No deception, no holding back.

"My family has called it 'The Burden' for over a century," she began, her voice a reedy whisper. "But its real name, the one from my great-great-grandfather's journal... it's a fragment of the Corazón de Muerte. The Heart of Death."

“That’s ominous…”

She looked at Todd, a flicker of fear and love warring in her eyes. "He wrote that it wasn't a curse, but a sacred trust. A piece of a key, shattered into five parts so that no single person could ever turn it. It also brought us benefits. Notice our crops? They’re so green and glowing, all thanks to that tablet."

She hugged herself, a shiver running through her despite the room's warmth. "But a trust becomes a curse when people start dying for it. Twenty years ago... it started. The other guardian families, the ones who held the other pieces. The Hendersons in New Mexico, the Chens in Arizona... we used to talk. Share stories, warnings. Then the calls stopped. We'd hear about 'accidents' on the news. A fire. A car crash. But we knew."

“That must have been scary,” Grandpa said.

“Yeah, it was.” Her gaze met mine, and I saw the raw terror she'd lived with her whole life. "My father became a ghost in his own home. He taught me to fear strangers, to never speak of the farm's secret, to trust no one. He said the silence would protect us. That our burden was to be borne alone." She let out a humorless laugh. "But you guys saw what happened. The silence didn't stop the nightmares, did it? It just left us alone when the monsters finally came knocking."

“We’ve taken care of the Mummy already,” I decided to be honest with her. “It’s the other ones that remain. The ones that took the artifacts from the other locations.”

Joan's expression firmed, the fear receding to reveal a core of steel. "I see… You guys have one fragment at least. If someone is taking these sites like you said... they must be after something evil. Find them before it's too late. Please… Let my family's watch finally be over, so my son can just be a boy."

Max nodded slowly. "You're doing the right thing, Mrs. Maplewood. We'll ensure that we find the others and use the tablet to help people, not harm them. We already know the destination of these monsters. We’ll put a stop to them."

"Yes, just take it away," Joan said simply. "And stop whatever's coming."

Max took the artifact from Gwen with the reverence it deserved, carefully placing it in a containment unit from the RV. "We will. You have my word."

Our break didn’t last long. We’d stopped near evening, and it was midnight now. But we couldn’t waste any more time. As we prepared to leave, Joan pulled me aside.

"Be careful out there, Benjamin," she said softly. "Whatever killed those families twenty years ago is probably still out there."

"I can handle it,” I said, giving her fat ass one last squeeze.

She smiled, sad but genuine. "I believe you. You made me wanna spend the entire night with you, you know? Pity your family was right out the door…" She glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then pressed a quick kiss to my cheek. "Thank you for being a delicious meal."

The Rust Bucket's engine rumbled to life as we climbed aboard. Through the back window, I watched Joan and Todd standing in their driveway, waving goodbye. She caught my eye and winked, a secret shared between us.

We’d probably never meet again. But that one hour in her room would remain as one of the fun things of this summer vacation. I’d remember her.

As Texas beckoned ahead, I thought about what was coming. The Sword of Ek Chuaj was out there, waiting. And we were racing against unknown enemies to find it first.

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