Free Creepers by Bret Tallent Page B

damn irritating at times.  Toby knew Tom wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was smart enough, and boy could he fix an engine.  Toby smiled just then.  Tom was a gentle soul and would do whatever Toby asked him.  That would make it a lot easier; he decided.  That would make everything that was coming a whole lot easier.

CHAPTER 8
     
     
    Evvie White lived about a mile up the road from the White Apple Baptist Church.  She played the organ there every Sunday and her beautiful baby girl Precious sang in the choir.  Precious was hardly a baby; she was nearly seventeen, but Evvie would always see her that way.  Precious was truly a gift from God and had the voice of an angel to prove it.  She was also the only thing worth a damn that Evvie’s no good man had given her.
    Jasper had filled Evvie’s head with all kinds of lovely words.  He had told her how much he loved her, and how beautiful she was.  To Evvie, he had the promise of a life she had never known.  So she had let him bed her down.  Then as soon as she turned up pregnant, that worthless Jasper didn’t even have the time of day for her.  Come to find out, he had been bedding down several of the fine ladies around town, and Evvie wasn’t the only one who was pregnant.
    As it turned out, Evvie was the only one that had kept her gift.  Be it from the likes of Jasper or a prince, life was a gift from God, and you just couldn’t get rid of it.  Now when Evvie saw those other women around town they would look away.  Too ashamed of what they’d done, she supposed.  However, Evvie bared them no ill will.  The way she saw it, she had won, and they had lost.  She had won with her beautiful little Precious.
    Evvie had finished her nightly chores and sat in an overstuffed chair in the living room, reading her bible and waiting for her daughter to get home from work.  Waiting for Precious was pretty much what Evvie did most every night.  She would get home from her job of cleaning houses around 6:00 pm and make dinner for Precious and her for the following evening.  The dinner she had made last night would be reheated for them for supper tonight.  Then she would do the laundry or clean the house, whatever needed to be done.  She would sit down with the good book for an hour or so, and then Precious would be home.  The two of them would enjoy the meal Evvie had prepared the night before, do the dishes and then go to bed.
    It was the same routine they had shared since Precious had started working.  It was not that much different than it was when Precious had started school, the big difference being when they ate.  Everything that Evvie was, revolved around her Precious.  She didn’t approve of Precious working, but they needed the money.  Sweet Precious was going to school; she ran track, worked, and participated in the choir.  She truly was a gift from God Evvie decided.  It pained her to see Precious missing out on things, friends, dances, boyfriends.  In the end though, Evvie knew that Precious would be rewarded.
     
    ***
    It was nearly midnight by the time Toby and Tom pulled off the road at the turn off to Evvie White’s house.  Toby backed the truck into a small clearing where vine covered trees mostly obscured them from the road to the right.  He had barely shut off his engine and lights when Toby saw headlights coming down the road from the opposite direction.  He grabbed Tom on the shoulder and pushed him down in the seat.
    “Get down,” Toby exclaimed as he also hunkered down in the seat.  Toby peered through the gap between the steering wheel and the dash as the car drove past.  It was a police car, and it had to be coming from that preacher’s house he guessed.  There was nothing else down this way, not past this point at least.  Toby breathed out a sigh of relief.  It didn’t seem as though they had been seen.
    Toby inched his way back up in the seat and stared down the road to the right.  He half expected