Three days before all of these current events. It was all good 3 days ago.
That’s the part that messes with you when you look back. How normal it all felt. How nobody had any idea.
Jarvis and Carlton were posted on the porch, the kind of evening where the heat finally lets up around seven and it would be a miracle if a breeze comes through that makes you remember why you stayed inside in the South.
Jarvis had brought over something from the dispensary top shelf, the real deal, the kind that smelled like money the second you cracked the jar.
They were passing it back and forth, not talking about anything serious.
Just laughing.
Joking around the same way when they teenagers.
Then a car came down the street.
Rolled about halfway in the dead end.
Then stopped.
Both of them watched it without saying anything.
The car sat there long enough to be deliberate.
Then backed up slow, turned around, and then Grand Turismo out of the neighborhood the same way they came in.
Carlton was already up on game.
He went inside without a word and came back out with the Draco.
Didn’t make a scene of it. Just set it on the ground in front of the chair he was sitting and settled back down and picked up where he left off.
Jarvis watched him do it.
“Man.” He took a slow pull and exhaled. “You know that bitch been following me. I wonder if that could be her.”
Carlton looked down the street where the car had disappeared.
“Oh next door.” He stood up. “Let’s go inside.”
Inside, they kept talking. Carlton’s place was comfortable dim, cool, TV on low in the background.
They settled in and were continuing their conversation then Jarvis went quiet.
Something shifted in the room. Not a sound or objects moving.
More like a frequency.
Jarvis sat up and looked toward the window.
“Yo.” He said it calm. “Look outside. Black four door car.”
Carlton walked up to the window and prop up a blind and seen a black 4 door car turn the corner.
And before Carlton could even turn his head, they both said it at the same exact moment.
With black tinted windows.
Carlton stared at him.
“How the fuck you know that car was about to hit the block, ninja.”
It wasn’t really a question.
Jarvis laughed.
Carlton leaned forward. “I know you lying. Can you feel her around now?”
“Nope.”
Carlton sat back, shaking his head slow, somewhere between puzzled and fascinated.
Jarvis stood up and stretched.
“Yo, I’m bout to bust out. You bout to see that car again. Watch.”
“Yeah.” Carlton looked out the window at the street. “This a must see.”
Jarvis left maybe twenty minutes later. Dapped Carlton up at the door and pulled off into the night.
He looked in his rearview and saw nothing but streetlights stretching out behind him, orange and quiet all the way down.
Carlton went back inside.
He made one phone call. One of his lady friends Kandy.
They talked for close to an hour. By the time he hung up he was already reaching for his keys.
He had his car running. Half his body in, one foot still on the driveway.
Then headlights.
A car rolled up and blocked him in smooth, like it had been timed.
Carlton stepped all the way out. Hand loose at his side, eyes reading the car before anything else. Then he recognized it and his whole posture changed.
He leaned down to the driver window.
He made one phone call. One of his lady friends Kandy. They talked for close to an hour, that kind of late night phone conversation that goes longer than either person plans for.
By the time he hung up he was already reaching for his keys.
He had his car running. Half his body in, one foot still on the driveway.
Then headlights.
A car rolled up and blocked him in smooth, like it had been timed.
Carlton stepped all the way out. Hand loose at his side, eyes reading the car before anything else. Then he recognized it and his whole posture changed.
He leaned down to the driver window.
“Surprise.”
“Why you didn’t say you were coming over?”
She tilted her head. “I don’t know. What I do know?”
Carlton looked at her. “What?”
“Let me taste it.”
He blinked. “You for real right now?”
“Hell yeah.”
Bet.
“Okay. Come on. Backup in the driveway.”
Kandy handled her business.
And everything was quiet just the night, until it wasn’t.
BOOM.
The kind of sound that you know something messed up.
Just pressure. Just impact somewhere close enough you could feel the vibration from the boom.
Carlton’s phone slid off his lap at the same time of the lights went out from the explosion and it dropped between the seats. The whole street was dark.
Everything black.
“You heard that?” Carlton was already moving her head. “Get up. Put your bra on.”
Kandy groaned. “Ugh come on here—”
“Nah. Lights out. You need to go.” No room in his voice for negotiation. “Now.”
“Whatever.”
She pulled herself together, clearly annoyed, and pulled away from the curb without another word.
Carlton stood in his driveway in the dark, watching her taillights go further down the road, the neighborhood around him completely dead and still.
He went inside and started looking for his phone.
Checked the couch. The kitchen counter. His pockets twice. Retraced every step since the car.
The car.
He called Kandy’s number from his house.
She picked up on the third ring.
“Yo, I think left my phone in your car?”
Yes. Her voice flat and unreadable. I put it in your mailbox.
Carlton stopped walking.
“What the fuck you put it in there for?”
Go get it.
She hung up.
He stood in the dark of his living room for a second, staring at nothing. Outside, the whole neighborhood was still blacked out not a single light on anywhere down the block.
Whatever hit, it hit hard enough to knock out the grid.
He didn’t know yet that Kandy had seen his screen before she dropped the phone in that mailbox.
He didn’t know she had seen Jarvis’s name.
And he didn’t know she had canceled his call.
To be continued… — Part 4 coming soon
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