Fiction
It Never Starts With A Body Part 1
A Sunny Alexander-Johnson And Henry James Series By P.G. & Sharon Barnett
My name is Sunny Alexander-Johnson, and I’m Henry James, and we’re writers for Dark Sides of the Truth magazine.
It’s amazing what a phone call at three o’clock on a Saturday morning can do to a person’s disposition. Especially when it’s the kind of call you certainly weren’t expecting. But then who in their right mind expects something like we woke up to anyway?
“Shaundrika? What’s wrong? Are the twins okay?”
“What in the hell, Cynthia? It’s three in the morning.”
“Hush, Henry. Okay, now what were you saying, dear? That’s ridiculous, Shaundrika. It’s been six years, and neither of them has shown anything even close to what you and Henry do. You want us to come over now? Seriously child? Can’t this wait until later in the morning? Alright, dear. Henry and I will be there as soon as we can.”
After disconnecting, we were silent, the soft whooshing sounds of heated air rushing out of the vents on the walls high above us.
“What’s going on, Cynthia?”
“Something with Dante and Alicia. Shaundrika wants to show us something and…”
“This can’t wait until later in the day, baby?”
“According to her and Robert no. I’m going to take a shower and get dressed. I’d suggest you do the same. Shaundrika mentioned something about going downtown.”
“Ya gotta be kidding me. Why in the hell would we want to go downtown at this hour of the night?”
“Henry, I have no idea, but Shaundrika said it’s important. She said she’ll show us when we get to their house.”
The showers did little to wake us and the weather outside frosted our breath as we piled into a car, backed out of the garage, and headed toward the front gated entrance. Somehow the blackness of the night added to the chill, and we both shivered a bit until the car heater finally warmed the air around us.
It didn’t make a bit of sense to discuss what was happening. Neither of us knew what was going on anyway. But a sense of dread told us we probably weren’t going to like it very much.
Things in the Alexander-James and Alexander-Johnson families had been far too routine; what some would say normal, since the wedding and births of the twins.
As we neared Robert and Shaundrika’s house we were convinced that was about to change.
We parked in front of the modest suburban home, scurried through the biting cold to the front door, and rang the doorbell. Seconds later, Robert opened the door and waved us in. He must have instantly surmised we had questions from our expressions and closed his eyes as he shook his head.
“Let’s go to the kitchen. Sunny’s got a pot of coffee on, then we’ll talk. This is insane.”
“What’s insane?”
“Henry, you guys shed your coats and come on back. Sunny and I have something to show you.”
We traded puzzled looks and hung our coats on a tree in the foyer, hurrying along behind Robert as he took a hallway through the house to the back where the kitchen was.
Sunny sat in a chair in the breakfast nook, sipping coffee, saddlebags beneath a pair of puffy eyes that seemed affixed to something lying on the table. After getting some coffee, we joined Robert and Sunny at the table.
“Okay, you two. You wanna tell your mother and me what the hell is going on?”
Sunny slid a hand across the table then turned over two large squares of drawing paper.
“Robert and I need you to take a look at these. At first, we didn’t think anything about them, but when the twins started having trouble sleeping at night and we discussed it with them, it started to make sense.”
“What started to make sense, Shaundrika?”
“Mother, you and Henry need to take a close look at these drawings. One is by Dante the other by Alica.”
“Is that a building? It looks like an abandoned warehouse or something.”
“Yes, mother, it is.”
“Hang on. These drawings are almost identical.”
“Exactly, Henry. Look at the address on the building. 28311 Commercial Boulevard. Both of them drew the exact same building, even down to the address and the number of windows on the first floor.”
“What’s that? Is that a body lying inside the building?”
“Damn. I’ve got a body in this picture too, Cynthia. So why would Dante and Alicia choose to sit down and draw identical pictures?”
“That’s the problem, Henry. They didn’t.”
“Not following you, Robert.”
“Henry, you know we had the kids in the same grade but different classes, right?”
“Yeah, I remember you two had some whacky theory about each of them developing their own identities or some crap like that.”
“It’s not crap old man, and it’s working. But you’re missing the point. Each of them drew the same thing at a different time, in totally different classrooms. The exact same picture right down to a body on the floor of an abandoned warehouse.”
“Coincidence?”
“No, mother, we don’t think so. Robert and I checked. There really is a 28311 Commercial Boulevard, and it’s actually an abandoned warehouse.”
“And you two believe there’s a body lying on the floor of that warehouse?”
“Yes, we do, Cynthia. There’s one other thing you and Henry need to know. Remember Sunny told you the kids haven’t been sleeping well? Well, all of a sudden last night, they demanded they be allowed to come to bed with us. We tried to talk them off the ledge, but both of them seemed terrified.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time a child experienced monsters under the bed, Robert.”
“It wasn’t imaginary monsters, Henry. It was when they learned about the person lying on the floor of the warehouse.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. This sounds like a couple of kids playing make-believe and getting spooked by their own story.”
“You think so, James? Mother, have we ever mentioned to the kids what I used to call dad when I was young?”
“Oh, God.”
“What Cynthia?”
With her eyes focused on both of the drawings, Cynthia finally removed her hand from her mouth. One by one she stared at each of us and then gazed back at the pictures.
“Daddy Ray,” Cynthia whispered. “You used to call your father Daddy Ray, because of Ray Jr. It was always Daddy Ray and Junior Ray. You were the only person in the family that did that. At first, we thought it was cute, but then it really got annoying.”
“Sunny being annoying? Who’d have thought?”
“Bite my ass, old man. That’s what we’re trying to tell you. Both Dante and Alicia told us Daddy Ray had told them about the warehouse and the body.”
“Shaundrika, do you expect us to believe Ray is communicating with the twins and telling them about a body lying in a fictitious warehouse…”
“That’s not fictitious. Yes, mother, we do.”
“And you want us all to go downtown in the middle of the night and do what?”
“Check out the warehouse and see if this is really happening.”
“Okay, princess. Say we do go, and we find a body. What next?”
“I don’t know, old man. I guess we take it from there.”
“A body lying on the floor of an abandoned warehouse? That’s our story? Our stories never start with a body.”
“Well, if the twins are right, this one does, old man. Let me and Robert get them ready, and we’ll go.”
Read On — It Never Starts With A Body Part 2
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© P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.