Just a Touch of Voodoo
Copyright© 2025 by Flavorfulcorpse
Chapter 4
The girls disappeared as soon as we got home, leaving me to unload and park the bike in the garage, and then I stopped to admire the paint job that was on Niks’ bike. You’ve seen the tattoos where the machine was trying to get out of the flesh? Well, this was the opposite—the flesh was trying to get out of the machine. The organs, blood, and veining—all looked so real, and where the metal was torn open, it looked like torn metal with actual blood on it. Niks’ bike was a masterpiece. “I’d have to ask who painted it.” I thought to myself.
When I walked into the house, they were all sitting in the den talking. I couldn’t help but laugh a little, as they were all wearing one of my hoodies, Niks included, even as it absolutely swallowed her. Pris patted the seat cushion between her and Niks for me to come and take a seat on, and then Niks and Pris scooted over as close as they could to me once I sat down. “Niks, who painted your bike?” I asked.
“I did,” she replied.
“It’s a masterpiece,” I told her, making her blush.
“Thank you,” she said, sinking more into me.
“Why not study art?” I asked.
“Drawing and painting are where I go to escape. Designing something that is going to be used, or seen, by the world is where I go to feel alive.”
“I can relate; I want to follow in my parents’ footsteps,” I told her.
“And that is?”
“Biomechanical engineering.”
“Light reading...” Niks said, turning her head to Pris. “Pris, what about you? What do you want to do?” She asked.
“I want to teach,” Pris replied.
We sat and talked about different things until Nan came and announced dinner was ready. I was assigned dish duty, while the girls and Nan went and did their thing, whatever that was.
When I walked into the den, they were all sitting on the couch talking. Turning around, I walked out, grabbing my keys to the Jeep, and heading to the store, because I wanted peach cobbler and ice cream. I don’t think they even knew I had left, because they were all in the same spots as they were in before I went to the store.
I put six individual cobblers in the oven and the gallon of ice cream in the freezer. Then I set the timer on my phone and went to the basement to work out; yes, we have a basement in Louisiana. Pure had a friend she met in college that designed our house; it looked like a normal house, but its skeleton was steel beams. She had made the basement a reinforced concrete tub, with the same footprint as the floor above. I had my ‘gym’ down here, so I come down here when I need to burn excess energy, which is all the time. While I worked out, Niks had snuck down and watched me without me noticing her (‘Sway’ by So Below explains Niks’ feelings towards Rudger).
The timer on my phone sounded, and I went to fix everyone’s cobbler and ice cream. I should have known that they would beat me to the cobbler and ice cream. Mine was waiting for me, and they were sitting at the table eating theirs. I got mine and sat at the table with them. Not one word was said while we ate.
“I was thinking, why don’t we make a bike trip to Galveston and hang on the beach for a couple of days after Pure and Pris get their endorsements? What do you think?” I asked as I finished my cobbler.
“I’m not riding on one of those things,” Nan said as she collected our dishes.
“Okay, you can drive your car and take the luggage then,” I told her.
“That works for me,” Nan said to me.
Pure, Pris, and Pur all agreed to the trip. Niks hung her head, not saying anything, and she just looked sad; “What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“Even if I were invited, I can’t afford to go.”
“You are, and I can,” I told her.
“You mean that?” She asked excitedly.
“I do.”
Pris and Niks gave a schoolgirl squeal and hugged one another. Nan came over and stood next to my chair and gave me a ‘hip hug’ while I sat. Pris and Niks went to Pure’s old bedroom and shut the door, while the rest of us went and sat out on the lanai and talked. When Pris and Niks came down and joined us, they were wearing one of my T-shirts now. My shirt came to Pris’s knees, but it came down below Nik’s knees and was almost long-sleeved on her.
Nan and the girls started complaining about the bugs bothering them, so they went back inside. I stayed outside a while longer because I wasn’t being bothered by the bugs. The girls were nowhere to be seen around the house when I came in, so I went and took a shower, then lay in bed watching some TV for a while.
I dozed off and was awakened by the bed shifting as two warm bodies snuggled close to me and then kissed me.
A few hours after we fell asleep, the bed shifted again, waking me. I didn’t know it at the time, but Niks had joined us. When I woke up, Pure and Pur were on my left side, and Pris had Niks wrapped in a hug, and her legs were wrapped around Niks’ legs on my right. “She’s like a fish out of water,” Pure said, with her eyes still closed. Niks began squirming a little, and Pris instantly tightened her hold on her without waking either of them.
I got out of bed, leaving the girls to sleep in, and made my way to the kitchen. Nan hadn’t made it yet, so I decided I wanted to cook breakfast for everyone this morning. I had prepared eggs and other ingredients for omelets when Nan walked in and kissed my cheek, just like I always do to her; “What kind of omelet do you want?” I asked her.
“The works,” she replied.
I started cooking her the omelet and toast, and while they cooked, I took her a cup of coffee just how she liked it.
“I could get used to this,” she said, and took a sip of her coffee.
“I’m afraid my repertoire of what I can cook is very limited,” I told her.
“That’s okay, I love you despite that.”
“And I love you, Nan.”
Pure and Pur walked in and went straight to the coffee, not saying anything to Nan or me. They fixed their cups and then sat at the table. “What do you two want on your omelets?” I asked.
“What she’s having,” Pur said, pointing to Nan’s omelet. Pure just nodded in agreement.
I made their omelets and carried them over to them. Nan was finished with hers, so I took her dishes and put them in the dishwasher. It looked like they needed refills of coffee, so I brought the pot of coffee and refilled their cups. I made my omelet and sat down to eat, and just as I cut into my omelet, the other two walked in. Pris looked like she had wrestled a tornado, while Niks was all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
I gave Niks my plate and asked Pris, “What do you want on your omelet?”
“Everything but the bell peppers,” she replied.
I made hers and mine and sat next to her; “What do you ladies want to do today?” I asked.
“Can I have another omelet?” Niks asked.
I hadn’t yet taken a bite of mine, so I gave it to Niks and went to make myself another one and one extra, just in case. The incase was needed; Niks had an appetite this morning. I ended up making one more omelet for Niks before she was full, then I shooed the girls away and cleaned the kitchen.
Nan came back a few minutes later, filled the carafe with coffee, and went back to the others. When I finished in the kitchen, I went and found the girls sitting out on the lanai again.
“Can we go fishing?” Niks asked out of the blue.
“I’ve never been fishing,” I told her.
“Never?”
“Never, we don’t even have fishing licenses or gear to fish,” I told her.
“We can go to Wally World and get them,” she said, cocking her head to the side.
“Nan, what say you?” I asked.
“I could fish,” she replied.
‘Pur, Pure, Pris?” I asked.
“Sure, why not,” they said at the same time.
We loaded up in Pris’s Jeep and went to our nearest Wally World, getting what we needed to fish legally. Niks had us stop and pick up some minnows, bait shrimp, and night crawlers; Pris wasn’t a fan of the worms. When we got back home, Nan and Niks helped those of us who were fishing ignorantly get our rods ready to fish and showed us how to bait the hooks. Casting the rods was more difficult than I thought it would be.
Nan caught the first, second, and third fish before the rest of us even got our lines wet. Niks was all smiles as she showed us how to fish. When we could cast well enough to reach the water, Niks went and tried to catch up with Nan on how many fish she was catching. It was a good day to fish, as we hit the limit on crappie and largemouth bass. Nana landed a large channel-cat that I had to pick up out of the water.
Nan made quick work of cleaning the fish, then she had me walk down a way from the house and dumped the scraps back into the lake. That night we had a fish fry, my first one; “Can I invite Uncle Robert and Aunt Tynee?” Niks asked.
“Sure, you can,” Nan told her.
“Can I borrow a phone?” Niks asked.
Pris let her use her cell phone and looked at me. I knew what that look meant, and I agreed with the intent. It was still early enough to make it to the cell phone store to get Niks a phone, so I slipped away and did just that. I gave the phone to Pris so she could give it to Niks. Ratchet and Tynee made it to the house just after I did. “Ratchet, why doesn’t Niks have a cell phone?” I asked.
“Tynee is the only one who has one. I just use hers when I need to use a phone.”
“One more thing,” I asked.
“Shoot,” Ratchet replied.
“I thought you and Tynee were her parents?”
“Man, that’s a story, let me tell you.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Tynee and I had just moved here and opened the shop. We were getting ready for bed one night and heard a car pull up and then drive off at a high rate of speed. Tynee went down to look around, and when she came back to our room, she had a baby in a car seat. And of course, Tynee wanted a baby, and I couldn’t give her one, so we kept the baby and waited for whoever dropped her off to come back and get her,” he explained to me.
“But she called you Uncle and Aunt?”
“Again, Tynee’s idea, in case her ‘real’ parents came back to get her so as not to confuse her, and maybe they’d let us keep seeing her,” he said with a shrug.
“I would like her to stay here with us for the rest of our summer break,” I told Ratchet.
Tynee overheard what I said: “That’s a good idea; it keeps her away from the riffraff that comes into the shop.”
“I’m some of that riffraff,” I told her.
“You know what I mean,” she said, rolling her eyes at me.
I called Niks over to where we were standing; “How would you like to stay here for the rest of summer break?” I asked her.
She looked over at Ratchet and Tynee; “Is it alright?” She asked timidly.
“Yes, Baby, it is,” Tynee answered.
“What about the shop?” Niks asked.
“You can work there if you want,” Ratchet told her.
“Promise me you can take care of her?” Tynee asked me.
“Yes, we can take care of her,” Nan replied to Tynee.
“Then, Baby, I would rather you stay away from the shop for now,” Tynee said, as she held Niks’s face in her hands, looking into Niks’s eyes with tears rolling down her own cheeks.
This was the first time in my two years of knowing Tynee that she had ever cried in front of me. Whatever was going on at Ratchet’s shop couldn’t be good for them to tell Niks to stay away. Niks gave Tynee her number and put Tynee’s number into her phone. My stomach hurt, not knowing what was going on and knowing it was bad enough for them to let Niks go that easily. I like Ratchet and Tynee and consider them my friends. I wanted to help if they would allow me to, because something had changed drastically from yesterday, and this felt more permanent than temporary.
“Why?” Niks asked, crying herself.
“It’s better for you this way, baby girl,” Tynee told her.
“But I don’t understand,” said Niks.
“You will in time,” Tynee told her as she kissed Nik’s forehead.
The mood was somber as we ate. Nan excused herself for a few minutes, and when she returned, she put a necklace of some sort around each of the necks of Ratchet and Tynee. “Don’t take these off for anything, do you understand?” Nan told them, getting nods from Ratchet and Tynee in return.
The itch in the back of my brain and my gut told me the story Ratchet told me was bullshit, but now wasn’t the time to confront him about it. Now was the time to shelter and protect Niks from whatever was lurking out there that Tynee wanted to protect her from. Auntie Fréda’s words rattled around in my head: “Protect those we send to you.” Had Niks been sent to me? I knew I would protect her or die trying. After Ratchet and Tynee left, I cleaned the kitchen while Nan and the girls did what they went to do.
I was mentally drained and needed to get my mind off things, so I went back downstairs to work out. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about Tynee and Ratchet and how Tynee made sure that I could take care of Niks. The punching bag took the brunt of my agitation and concern. I punched until I could barely lift my arms, and only then did I stop. Nan and the girls were out on the lanai talking when I got upstairs. I was in the kitchen getting a drink of water when my phone dinged. Nan had messaged me, “Can you go get more ice cream?”
“Cobbler?” I texted back.
“No cobbler.”
“Flavor?”
“Anything chocolate!”
I grabbed my keys and left to get them some chocolate ice cream. At the store, there were a few different flavors of chocolate ice cream, so I settled on double fudge and grabbed two gallons. They were waiting in the kitchen when I got back. Pris got up and took the bag out of my hand and set it on the table. Not wanting any ice cream, I went upstairs to take a shower. It didn’t take long for the obtrusive thoughts to return; how dare whatever it was threaten Niks! My anger began spiraling until I felt a calm settle over me. I closed my eyes and let the calm spread.
Once I got out of the shower and dried off, I was hoping I could sleep, so I went to bed. I woke up to Niks pressed tightly against me, with Pure next to her to my right, and on my left, Pris next to me and Pur next to her; I hadn’t even felt them get in bed. Their bodies tightened against me like a vise as I tried to get out of bed. Over the next thirty minutes, I extracted myself from them and was able to get out of bed. The smell of Nan’s cooking drew me to the kitchen, and homemade biscuits and gravy awaited me when I got there. As I always did, I greeted Nan with a hug and a kiss on her cheek.
“Sit,” Nan told me.
Nan’s biscuits and gravy hit the spot. At the sound of the patter of feet, I looked up to see four beauties walking into the kitchen. There’s something about a woman wearing your clothes that makes a man smile, and I had four reasons to smile. Niks could eat; she put away four helpings of breakfast. The kitchen cleanup was done by the girls while Nan made the grocery list. With the kitchen and grocery list done, we all went to get ready to go to the store.
Niks and I took our bikes, while the others went in Pris’s Jeep. All was going good until the same shithead that was sitting on my bike at the convenience store was sitting on my bike again when we came out of Wally World. This dude was getting on my last nerve.
Niks didn’t hesitate; “Get the fuck off the bike,” she told him.
“Fuck off, Bitch!” He clapped back.
That did it; he’d just pissed me off. “Get the fuck off my bike, BITCH!” I told him as I pulled his ass off my bike.
From what I saw in his eyes, he wasn’t used to anyone standing up to him, so he and his two buddies walked away without another word. I loaded the Jeep, and as we were leaving, I saw the shithead sitting in a newer Charger, glaring at us, and hanging on the rearview mirror was a parking pass to the magnet school. This motherfucker was going to the same school as we were.
When we got home, I asked Pris, “You know that guy that was sitting on my bike?”
“That was Everett Graham, the school bully.”
“Greaaaaat!”
“So, he’ll be going to school with us?” Niks asked.
“Looks like it,” I told her.
“His parents are like some big-time booster donors,” Pris told us.