Tangerine Terror

TANGERINE TERROR

By Valeri Caronna & Vinny Bellucci

Chapter One

Aries

Tangerine Crème Brûlée

Tangerine Wheat Ale

Scripture:

“When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.”

Isaiah 43:2

Quote:

“Some rivers don’t carry people. Some rivers choose them.”

Five-Card Tre Quarti Spread

Card One: Ginger

Aries

The palm reader with fire in her mouth and warning in her hands.

Card Two: Valeri Caronna

The High Priestess

She feels the river before the river touches her.

Card Three: Vinny Bellucci

The Chariot

He thinks he can steer anything until the current proves otherwise.

Card Four: Ruby Falls

The Tower

The place where Tangerine River and Strawberry River meet and split fate in two.

Card Five: The Mask

The Devil

A warning hidden behind celebration colors.

The tangerines were piled in a blue plastic bowl on the tailgate of Skull ZZ’s truck like somebody had robbed a citrus grove and called it breakfast.

Ginger stood beside them with one hand on her hip, sunglasses pushed into her red hair, and a can of Tangerine Wheat Ale sweating in her other hand. She looked too pretty to be dangerous and too loud to be ignored, which meant everybody kept listening even when they claimed they were not.

“That river’s got attitude today,” she said.

Skull ZZ laughed from the back of the truck.

Skull ZZ was barefoot, sunburned, and wearing a tie-dye shirt that had seen more illegal decisions than most attorneys. He was the top hippie moonshine maker anywhere along the Tangerine River, and he said that like it was a medical license.

Beside him, Bones tied inner tubes together with yellow rope.

Bones was thinner, darker, quieter, and impossible to read. He had the calm look of a man who knew where things were buried but preferred not to interrupt lunch.

Vinny Bellucci stood near the riverbank, arms crossed, watching the water.

He was not afraid of rivers.

That was the problem.

Vinny had that Bellucci habit of assuming the world would eventually behave if he stared at it hard enough. Black hair, dark eyes, shoulders set like he was waiting for someone to confess. He looked relaxed to strangers. Valeri knew better.

He was measuring the current.

Valeri Caronna watched him from beside the cooler.

She had already pulled three tarot cards that morning before they left the cabin.

The Moon.

The Tower.

The Hanged Man.

She did not like that.

Not for a river trip.

Not for Ruby Falls.

Not with a group this loud and half-prepared.

“Val,” Ginger called. “Come here.”

Valeri turned. “Why?”

“Because I want your hand.”

Vinny looked over immediately. “For what?”

Ginger smiled. “Relax, Bellucci. I’m reading her palm, not marrying her.”

Benny Fazio snorted from his folding chair.

Benny was Vinny’s cousin from New York or New Jersey, depending on who was asking and whether taxes were involved. He wore a white tank top, gold chain, and boardwalk nostalgia like cologne.

“She reads palms?” Benny asked.

“She reads everybody,” Valeri said.

Ginger grabbed Valeri’s hand anyway.

Her fingers were warm from the sun and cold from the beer can. She turned Valeri’s palm upward and got quiet.

That was when Valeri stopped joking.

Ginger talked through everything.

Food. Weather. Exes. Hair. Parking. Death.

Silence from Ginger meant something had stepped into the room, even if they were standing outside.

Nichole came closer.

Nichole was Cancer, soft-eyed and dangerous in the way water was dangerous. She wore white linen over her swimsuit and had red beads around her wrist. Her voodoo bag was tucked inside her tote like other women carried lip gloss.

“What do you see?” Nichole asked.

Ginger traced a line across Valeri’s palm with her thumbnail.

“This travel line breaks.” Ginger swallowed. “Right here.”

Valeri looked down.

Ginger touched another mark.

“And this crosses it.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Vinny asked.

Ginger did not look at him.

“A blade.”

The river kept moving.

Nobody spoke for a second.

Then Skull ZZ ruined the silence by dropping a tube and yelling, “A blade of grass, maybe. Y’all got to quit haunting the picnic before we even get wet.”

Bones gave him a look. “You’re the one who said Ruby Falls was acting funny.”

“I said she had personality,” Skull ZZ corrected.

Big Steve sat on the open tailgate with his guitar case beside him.

He was hard to miss. Tall, broad, blond hair hanging around his shoulders, blue eyes sharp as broken glass, tattoo sleeves running down both arms. He looked like a biker who had wandered into a church choir and somehow improved the music.

He played Jackson Square most weekends.

Blues. Southern rock. Old hymns if the money was right.

Big Steve had come along because Skull ZZ said a river trip needed music, and Steve said any trip with free beer and bad judgment required supervision.

Now he stared toward the trees across the water.

“You hear that?” Steve asked.

“Hear what?” Angelique said.

“Nothing.”

Giovanni Bellucci, Vinny’s cousin, laughed. “That’s what happens in nature, Steve. Sometimes it shuts up.”

“No,” Steve said. “Nature don’t shut up. It hides.”

That killed the mood again.

Aunt Wanda came down the gravel path carrying a tote bag full of folded towels, bug spray, and one emergency sewing kit because Aunt Wanda Bellucci did not believe in being unprepared for fabric failure.

She usually did alterations for formal affairs.

Bellucci weddings. Caronna charity galas. Lipari funerals. Romano baptisms. Any event where somebody needed a hem fixed, a sleeve let out, or a secret sewn shut.

Today she wore huge sunglasses and held a Tangerine Quad in a koozie.

“Which one of you fools forgot sunscreen?” she demanded.

“Good morning to you too,” Vinny said.

“I said what I said.”

Aunt Wanda looked at Valeri’s face.

Then Ginger’s.

Then Nichole’s.

Her mouth tightened.

“Oh, hell no. Who read what?”

Ginger dropped Valeri’s hand.

“Nobody.”

Aunt Wanda pointed at her. “Aries lie with their eyebrows.”

Benny laughed. “That is terrifyingly specific.”

“It was just a palm line,” Valeri said.

Aunt Wanda looked toward Ruby Falls.

The falls were not visible from the launch, but the sound carried faintly through the trees. Not a roar. More like a low, steady argument.

“Your palm ain’t the only thing with lines,” Aunt Wanda said. “Rivers got them too. Cross the wrong one and everybody starts pretending they didn’t hear the warning.”

Jesse Yarborough came walking up from the parking area with a camera already in his hand.

“Did somebody say warning?” he asked. “Because that is usually where the movie starts.”

Valeri smiled despite herself.

“Jesse.”

He hugged her with one arm, camera lifted safely in the other.

Jesse Yarborough was Valeri’s old high school friend from Florida, an actor with a face built for close-ups and a personality that entered rooms ahead of him. He had the easy charm of someone who knew how to hit his mark and the eyes of someone who noticed where the exits were.

Behind him came Marlene Russell.

She looked like sunlight had hired security.

Tall, Jamaican, gorgeous, supermodel posture, white scarf tied around her hair, camera bag over one shoulder. But her beauty was not the important thing. The important thing was how she scanned the river before she greeted anyone.

Marlene did not look impressed.

She looked informed.

Nichole noticed her immediately.

Marlene noticed Nichole right back.

There was a strange recognition between them. Not friendship yet. Not suspicion either.

Something older.

Jesse kissed Valeri’s cheek.

“You still pulling cards on people?” he asked.

“You still pretending not to love attention?” Valeri answered.

“Professionally, yes.”

Marlene hugged Valeri next.

“River feels heavy,” Marlene said quietly.

Valeri nodded. “You feel it too?”

“Since we crossed the bridge.”

Nichole stepped closer. “You work?”

Marlene smiled. “A little.”

Nichole’s eyes dropped to the white scarf, then the beads on Marlene’s wrist.

“More than a little.”

Skull ZZ clapped his hands.

“Wonderful. We got tarot, palmistry, voodoo, actors, models, Italians, beer, and one guitar player who thinks silence is a felony. Can we please get in the river before the river files a complaint?”

Bones held up the rope. “Tubes are ready.”

Giovanni lifted a cooler. “Beer is ready.”

Benny held up a container. “Cake is ready.”

Aunt Wanda squinted. “Is that my Sicilian flourless tangerine cake?”

Benny paused.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether you’re accusing me or feeding me.”

Vinny shook his head. “He stole it.”

“I borrowed it from the future,” Benny said.

Valeri opened the dessert cooler.

Inside were neat containers labeled in Aunt Wanda’s handwriting.

Tangerine crème brûlée cups.

Sicilian flourless tangerine cake.

Tangerine panna cotta.

Gelo di mandarino.

Tangerine tiramisu.

Aunt Wanda did not pack snacks. Aunt Wanda packed evidence.

Valeri picked up one of the crème brûlée cups.

The sugar crust was perfectly torched. Amber and glassy, almost too pretty to crack.

Ginger leaned in.

“That one is mine.”

“Of course it is,” Valeri said. “Aries would pick the dessert you have to break before you eat.”

Ginger grinned. “Exactly.”

Vinny came up beside Valeri and lowered his voice.

“You alright?”

She looked at the river.

The Tangerine River slid past them in bright brown-gold curls, sunlight flashing on the surface. It looked harmless if someone wanted it to look harmless.

That bothered her.

Water could lie better than people.

“I don’t like the cards I pulled,” she said.

“What cards?”

“The Moon. The Tower. The Hanged Man.”

Vinny’s jaw shifted.

“You pulled those today?”

“This morning.”

He looked toward Ruby Falls again.

“You want to skip it?”

Valeri studied him.

That was Vinny. Everybody else saw stubbornness first. Valeri saw the part underneath. If she said no, he would load the coolers back into the truck and let everybody complain until Christmas.

She almost said it.

Then laughter rose from the group.

Jesse was filming Skull ZZ trying to explain river safety while drinking moonshine out of a mason jar.

Marlene was adjusting a camera strap.

Big Steve was tuning his guitar.

Aunt Wanda was threatening Benny over cake.

Giovanni and Angelique were arguing about whether tubes counted as boats.

Bones was checking the knots.

Ginger was holding Valeri’s crème brûlée hostage.

For one small moment, it looked like a normal weekend.

Valeri wanted one.

Just one.

“No,” she said. “We go.”

Vinny did not look convinced.

“Val.”

“We go,” she repeated. “But we stay close.”

He nodded.

“Always.”

Ginger tapped the top of the crème brûlée with a plastic spoon.

The sugar cracked.

The sound was tiny.

Valeri still flinched.

Across the river, something moved behind the trees.

Big Steve stopped tuning.

Marlene lifted her camera.

“What was that?” Jesse asked.

“Deer,” Giovanni said.

Bones stared too long.

Skull ZZ’s smile thinned.

“No deer move that high,” Bones said.

Everyone looked toward the treeline.

Nothing.

Only leaves.

Only shadow.

Only the Tangerine River licking at the bank like it had all the time in the world.

Then, from far downstream, a sound rolled back toward them.

Not thunder.

Not a motor.

Not a bird.

A low metallic cry, stretched thin across the water.

The Tangerine Train Trestle answered from somewhere beyond the bend.

Big Steve put his guitar down.

Aunt Wanda crossed herself.

Nichole whispered something under her breath.

Marlene’s camera light blinked red.

Recording.

Vinny stepped closer to Valeri.

“What the hell was that?”

Skull ZZ forced a laugh, but it came out wrong.

“Old bridge noise.”

Bones shook his head.

“Train trestle ain’t had trains in twenty years.”

The river slapped the mud.

Ginger looked at Valeri’s palm again without touching it.

“That line,” she said softly. “It just got darker.”

Ruby Falls kept calling from beyond the trees.

The crew pushed the tubes into the water anyway.

Because warnings almost never stop people.

They just make better witnesses.

Closing Prayer

Lord, walk with us where the water turns dangerous.

Let every hidden current be revealed before it carries us too far.

Protect Valeri, Vinny, and the ones who do not yet understand the warning.

Expose every false mask, every forged name, and every evil thing waiting in the trees.

Guide the river back toward truth.

Amen.