It's been sweltering hot here in Central Ohio. And of course what better time for our air conditioner to start acting up than right now! The good news is that it's still blowing cold air. The bad news is that it's leaking water all over the basement. The even worse news is that it's thirty years old and has to be replaced rather than repaired.
In other news, I've been hard at work on my next novel which is set in winter. It's strange writing about snow and cold when it's in the 90's with high humidity here. Which reminds me of my novel RACE THE DARKNESS. This book is set at this exact time of year--the weeks leading up to July 4th!
And guess what? Guess what? Guess what?
**It's on SALE!**
Grab your copy for only $1.99.
But hurry, the sale lasts only a few days!
And to wet your appetite, here's the first two chapters for your reading enjoyment!
RACE THE DARKNESS
Individuals
with Auditory Perception Syndrome claim to hear more than sound. They allegedly
possess the ability to hear thoughts. These assertions have never been
scientifically proven and should be treated as an auditory hallucination.
~~Dr. M. J. Franklin, The Journal of Sound and
Mind
Chapter One
Xander Stone stopped outside
interrogation room B, shoved his ear up to the seam of the closed soundproof
door, and listened. Supercharged hearing had only one benefit, and this was it.
From inside the other room, he heard the slow, easy breathing of someone who
thought he’d never be caught or prosecuted or imprisoned. Xander’s favorite
kind of criminal.
He pushed through the door
and made sure to display his scars to the suspect. The disfigurement was a neon
sign on a starless and moonless night, pointing and flashing—freak, freak, freak. A caution to all
who dared speak to him. Wasn’t his fault if no one listened to the warning.
Yeah. Life was a
saggy-assed-fun-bag of laughs after being zapped with upwards of 50,000 volts
of lightning. But the forehead-to-calf scarring didn’t even rank on the Richter
scale of shit when compared to the bizarre sensation of no longer being alone
inside his head. And then there was the issue of his amplified hearing. He
couldn’t ignore the way his brain now tuned into the frequency of thoughts.
The familiar pounding—like a
basketball upside the head—slammed into Xander’s right temple. He winced.
Always did with the first thump, no matter how hard he tried not to react.
Tuning-in to the frequency of people's thoughts fucking hurt. He washed his
features of expression.
Holy Shit.
What happened to the dude’s face? Xander
heard the words even though they hadn’t been spoken aloud. The suspect—a kid,
really—snickered, his gaze riveted to the puckered striation and the network of
branch-like scars that stretched up Xander’s neck, spread over his cheek, and
finally ceased on his forehead.
“Good Cop-Bad Cop didn’t
work, so now they’re sending in Ugly Cop?” The kid slouched back in his chair
as if he were in his dorm watching the latest episode of some show glamorizing
stupid people, instead of in an interrogation room at a Bureau of Criminal
Investigation field office. He looked like every other cocky college kid—hair
too long, clothes too preppy, ego too large. He didn’t look like the leader of
a sex gang.
“Ugly cop? The last guy said
the same thing. The asshole before him too, and the one before him. See how
boring that gets? If you really want to insult someone, you’ve got to get
creative. Try again. Lay a real good one on me. One I’ve never heard before.”
Xander couldn’t remember the kid’s name—wasn’t important anyway. He took a seat
at the table, settled his notepad squarely in front of him with his pen
diagonal across the clean sheets of paper.
Scar
face. Fugly motherfucker.
The kid opened his
mouth—Xander cut him off. “Scar face and fugly motherfucker. Seriously? That’s
the best you got?” Most suspects expected him to be offended or outraged. They
didn’t expect his total acceptance.
The kid tilted his head like
a dog trying to understand a new command. That’s
weird.
Yeah. It was weird. “My name
is Xander Stone and just so you know for your insult planning, I’m not a cop.
Never been a cop. Never wanted to be a cop. Don’t even like cops—they’re all
pricks. And these guys—” Xander jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at the
mirrored glass of the interrogation room. “—are some of the biggest pricks of
all.”
No one could accuse him of
lying. It was no secret he didn’t do well with authority. The only reason the
BCI put up with him was because they needed
him and his unique style of interrogation.
A smile padded with
self-satisfied smugness hitched up the kid’s mouth. We’re back to good cop.
“What is he doing in there?”
The Superintendent’s words came to Xander from beyond the mirrored glass. With
his supercharged hearing, the soundproofing separating the rooms was little
more than a cotton swab on a spurting artery.
He turned in his seat to face
the mirror. Everyone knew about his rule of absolute quiet if they were going
to observe. “Silence. I need complete silence. Or I’m out of here and you can
let the kid walk.” He glared at the mirror, daring someone to speak.
This
dude is certifiable cray cray.
He faced the kid. “I think
you might be on to something with that cray cray bit.”
The kid jerked upright like
someone had goosed his gonads. How’d he
know what I was thinking? His attention bulls-eyed on Xander. The kid was
just starting to realize Xander had changed the game from checkers to chess.
“I know what you’re thinking
because I’m the guy the BCI calls in when they’ve got a difficult case.”
Referring to gang rape as merely a difficult
case was like painting a pile of shit just to make it look better. It was
still shit. It still stank.
The kid laughed a blatantly
fake laugh, the kind that was code for fuck-you. He’s trying to mess with me. Ain’t gonna work.
“I’m not trying to mess with
you.” Well, maybe just a little.
Disbelief in his ability was a universal rule. Hell, he barely believed it. “I
just want to get this done so I can get the out of here. Like I said, I hate
cops. And I’ve got a headache.” The vision in his right eye pulsed with each
thump inside his brain. He wanted to press his palm against the pounding, but
didn’t. Show no pain. Show no weakness. Show no emotion.
No more dicking around with
the kid. He needed to get the answers to the questions he’d been sent in to ask
and then get the fuck out of here. Funny how he could remember the questions,
but not the kid’s name. “How many guys are in the Bangers Club?”
Six plus
nine. Sixty-nine. Six plus nine. Sixty-nine. The kid’s thoughts were a perverted chant. “I don’t know what
you’re talking about.”
Xander picked up his notepad,
tilted it so the kid couldn’t see, and scribbled 6 + 9 = 15 onto the paper. “I
need the names of all fifteen members.”
Fifteen?
How’d he come up with that number? He’s guessing. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told Good Cop
and Bad Cop. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The names of all fifteen
members.”
Michael
Blevins. Blake Johnson…
Xander listed the names until
he lost the frequency. Five to ten seconds of silence in the conversation and
the connection severed. He stared down at the paper and cherished the absence
of pain, then sucked in a few deep breaths, pumping himself up to re-establish
the connection and restore the basketball thumping inside his head. “I need the
rest of the names.”
Bang! He jerked from the
force of the blow inside his brain. God, that first hit—
Aiden
Stacey. Tre Mitchell…
Xander listed all the names.
“What are you writing?” The
kid half-stood, trying to see across the table to Xander’s notes.
“Names.” Xander angled the
notepad so the kid couldn’t see his writing.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah. You did. Just not out
loud.”
What is
he talking about? They sending in some mind game expert? This shit isn’t going
to work on me. Just keep quiet and don’t react.
“You’re already reacting. I
can hear it. You’re breathing faster, shallower. Your pulse has picked up.
You’re not quite panicking yet, but eventually you’re going to.”
What the
hell? What the hell? What. The. Hell. The kid
did a stellar job at retaining his outward expression of entitlement. No one
would ever guess he was on the cusp of an implosion.
“Between the fifteen of you,
how many girls have you banged?” The
word—the Bangers Club word—tasted insectile on his tongue, like if he didn’t
spit it out, it would burrow a hole through the roof of his mouth and have
babies in his brain.
Fifty-seven.
Twelve away from our goal—sixty-nine.
Jesus. The kid needed to be
neutered.
There was no reason to ask
for the girls’ names. From what he’d been told, The Bangers Club didn’t bother
learning the names of their victims. “You ever been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive
Disorder?”
No. The kid’s brows raised, his head swiveled on
his neck in a good imitation of a white trash ho about to show her sass.
“Just asking because you seem
awfully obsessed with the number sixty-nine.”
The kid’s jaw unhinged and
nearly clattered onto the table. Not
possible. He can’t really read my mind. He's guessing somehow. Or… Did someone
talk? No one would dare—
“You’re right. I’m not
reading your mind. I’m listening to the things you aren’t saying.” As if the
kid would believe that. Only one more question and he could walk out of the
room, out the building, and be alone.
The last question was the most critical. From
the dumbed down version Xander understood, the kid had created a nearly
impenetrable computer system that streamed all The Bangers Club bangs—for a
monthly fee. The only way to shut it down was to access the original computer
and enter the password—no mistakes, no guessing—or the entire system would go
viral and start broadcasting live on all the local channels, even the small
town church TV station. Kids today were dangerously clever. “What’s the
password?”
6*2H95—London Bridge is falling down…
Xander wrote the numbers and
letters on his paper. The kid was starting to catch on. Not that it would
matter.
“Stop writing shit down.
You’re making things up.” The kid’s voice rode the ridge of hysteria.
“6*2H95. I need the rest of
the password.” Xander loved the way other people’s brains just couldn’t resist
thinking.
O#ZR591H.
No. No. No. London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down—
“6*2H95O#ZR591H. Keep going.”
It took three more tries
before the kid eventually spit out the entire password.
“The tech department wasn’t
kidding, this password is a monster.”
No, no,
no. This isn’t happening. “Who
talked? Someone is setting me up.”
“You talked.”
“I didn’t say anything,” the kid yelled.
Xander felt the smile split
open his face, felt the skin on his right cheek stretch in a way that wasn’t
familiar. Life didn’t hold much amusement for him, but he always savored the moment
when some asshole finally realized he’d been bested and was going to be sent on
an extended vacation to criminal central.
Xander pushed back from the
table and headed for the door. He stopped, hand on the handle, and turned back
to the kid. “You come up with a creative insult yet?”
The kid leaned forward,
banged his forehead against the table. No.
No. No.
“Guess not.”
Xander opened the
door—sounds—a million of them—rushed his ears at once. A toilet flushing,
typing, the hum and bump of the air conditioner, conversations—too many
conversations. Sensory overload was imminent. The only question was how long
before his brain shorted out, unleashing the Bastard In His Brain—that thing he
always felt lurking in the darkest depths of his mind. When The Bastard took
the wheel, there was no such thing as a happy ending.
He needed to leave. Now.
But Kent and Thomas, who’d
been watching the interview, waited in the hallway.
He passed the notepad to
Thomas who sprinted down the corridor to get the names and password to the
cyber division.
“Why the fuck was there
talking during my interrogation?”
Kent gave him the same
disapproving, annoyed, disgusted look he’d been giving him since Xander
bloodied the guy’s nose in the first grade.
Bam. Pain bounced inside his skull. Xander
flinched. Goddamned tuning-in. “Quit with the look.” They’d never been friends.
Still weren’t.
You’re
such an asshole. Acting like you’re the only one working here. “Do you always have to be such a dick about
us? The superintendent was watching.” Kent headed in the same direction as
Xander—toward the exit. You need to make
a decision about Camille.
“The superintendent was the
one talking. You pushed me to work here. You pushed them to hire me. You got a
fat-assed bonus out of it. So if you, or the superintendent, don’t like what I
do, stop calling me. And what I do with Camille is none of your business.”
“Keep your freak self outta
my head.”
“Only way to make it stop is
by not talking to me.” Outside of work, Xander mastered in social isolation and
conversation avoidance.
“Come on man. She’s my
sister. We may not be real close, but I care about her. I’m not letting this
go.” You’re using her.
Xander’s neck got hot. He
didn’t argue with Kent’s thoughts. He couldn’t. The man was right. Camille
never rejected him, never made demands on him, but she wanted commitment. He
got that from tuning in to her thoughts. All he wanted was acceptance and
uncomplicated sex.
The conversation lagged, the
pain vanished.
Xander exited the building.
Low on the horizon all that remained of the day was a single tiger stripe of
orange. Already the summer night was in full chorus. The whistle screech of a
bat using its sonar-like system, the flutter of its wings overhead. The buzz of
a trillion mosquitoes. The bass of a bullfrog two blocks away at the Sundew
Park pond. Life pulsed all around him.
When he couldn’t sleep, he’d
lay in bed with the window open—listening, just listening. Not letting himself
think, just focusing on the rhythm of the world. The sounds of nature were the
only form of music he could tolerate.
He fished his truck keys from
his pocket and pressed the unlock button.
“The superintendent is
probably going to need you again tomorrow,” Kent called from the doorway.
“Tell him to call me.” Xander
tossed the words over his shoulder.
“You going to answer the
phone?” Bet you don’t.
“Bet you’re right.”
*
Death twined around Isleen
Walker’s body, whispering over her naked flesh, coiling around her heart and
lungs, hugging the last sparks of life from her. Twenty-five years of being
alive distilled down to a wish. A wish that death would hurry up and grant her
its promised relief.
“I’m dying.” She tried to
warn Gran, but the words came out quieter than a breath. Her gaze roamed the
room—their prison for the past eight years. It was just big enough to contain
her and Gran and an overflowing waste bucket, but now it felt too small, too
fragile to contain Isleen. Soon she would transcend this space and no matter
what Queen did—she wouldn’t be able to tether Isleen here.
Gran slept, face tucked into
the corner. Safety was an illusion—beating after beating had proven that
fact—but still, they always gravitated to the corners. Gran’s once supple flesh
sagged from her bones. Her spine protruded sharply in a pathetic row of spikes.
“… tobesaved. Not die.
…protectordiedtoo?” Gran spoke in a smear of barely distinguishable words.
She’d been a sleep-talker for as long as Isleen could remember—even before
they’d been abducted.
She used to wake Gran from her
dreams, but had long since decided it was a mercy to let her stay inside them
for as long as they hosted her. Maybe in her dreams, Gran still possessed her
wits and all her faculties, and lived somewhere beautiful, where nothing bad
ever happened.
Footsteps pounded down the
hall and stopped outside the door. The sound of the key in the lock scraped
across Isleen’s heart. Was today going to be a feeding day, a beating day, or a
bleeding day? It didn’t really matter. It was too late for food, a beating would
finish her off, and she had no more blood to give. But there was Gran—
The door rasped open. Queen.
Always Queen and only Queen ever entered their prison. If ever a name didn’t
fit a person, it was hers. Nothing about her was royal or regal. She was no whimsical
fairytale ruler; she was a twenty-first century reality. A simple-minded,
delusional woman who took pleasure in domination and torture. Under a different
set of circumstances, Queen would have been passing her days in a psychiatric
hospital, medicated to the point of drooling.
Without even looking, Isleen
could smell Queen’s stench. Cigarette smoke so stale and foul and thick Isleen
could taste the bite of it in her mouth, feel the burn of it in her eyes. The
pungency of flesh that hadn’t been washed in years snuffed out the oxygen in
the air.
Queen kicked her in the
thigh. “The Dragon has not yet died.”
A small gasp, not of pain,
but of being startled escaped Isleen’s throat. For as long as they’d been held
captive, Queen had referred to her as The Dragon.
Queen cleared her throat.
Mucus snapped and rattled. She hawked up a wad of nasty and spit it on the
floor. “King decreed that if The Dragon shall linger—”
“You will suffer for
everything you’ve done.” Gran crawled out of the corner on all fours. “Her
protector is on his way.”
Queen’s hunched shoulders
straightened. “I am your Queen. Bow before me.” It was all a part of Queen’s
delusional mind—she was a queen and they were her subjects and the objects of
her torture. Especially, Isleen.
Gran didn’t bow, didn’t move,
didn’t understand.
“You will be punished.” Queen
opened and closed a giant pair of scissors. Shkk.
Shkk. Shkk.
Dread burned a hole through
Isleen’s shrunken stomach. “It’s not her fault. She doesn’t understand.” She
tried to move, but her body was too weak, her limbs too emaciated.
“Your Majesty. I am sorry. I
have committed the gravest of errors.” Gran executed a bow of supplication,
arms spread out, forehead to the floor. “Please accept my humble apology and
know that I will never again speak in such a manner to one as powerful as you.”
Before Gran had lost her mind, she’d been fluent in kiss-up-to-the-fake-queen
language.
Gran
must be having a rare moment of clarity.
“Very well. I grant you a
pardon. Know this—though I am a merciful queen, I will not tolerate such
treasonous behavior again.” She pointed a fat, stubby finger at Gran. “You have
been warned.”
Gran kept her pose. Good
decision.
Queen turned her grotesque
gaze to Isleen. She went through the same disgusting process of clearing her
throat and spoke as if she were making a proclamation. “King has decreed that
on the sixth day, if The Dragon shall linger, I am to thrust my sword into its
side.”
…thrust
my sword into its side. Isleen
understood Queen’s words, she just didn’t fear them. No matter what Queen did
to her now it would be nothing—absolutely
nothing—compared to the agony of living. A calmness nestled into her bones,
curled up in her guts.
Gran lifted her face from the
floor and challenged Queen’s authority by looking directly at her. “You don’t
have the power to kill her.” Insanity warped Gran’s tone.
Queen’s attention snapped to
Gran. “You were warned. Now, you shall be executed.”
Isleen thrust words from her
heart, words she’d always wanted to speak, but never dared, until now, when she
needed to divert Queen’s attention away from Gran. “You’re not a queen. You’re
psychotic. You’re a bitch. You’re evil and stupid and mean. And…and…you smell
bad.”
Queen’s wide-spaced eyes
nearly bulged out of her block-shaped head. Her fat lips snarled back, revealing
teeth so neglected they were the same color and texture as Fritos. She switched
her grip on the scissors, fisting the handle, and stabbed the blades at Isleen.
She watched the scissors
descend, heard the whisper and swish of them piercing her flesh. Felt only a
vague pressure and presence of something foreign inside her body. Smelled
sweetness in the air and tasted salt on her tongue.
Queen yanked the scissors
from Isleen’s body and held them up. Blood dripped from the blades, chasing red
streamers down Queen’s doughy arm.
Warmth oozed from Isleen’s
side, the heat comforting her cold skin.
“Tomorrow, if you are still
alive—off with your head!”
Gran waited until Queen
locked them back in the room, then scooted next to Isleen. There were no
bandages, no cloths, no tissues. Nothing to stop the bleeding.
“Hold on, baby girl. Just
hold on. He’s coming. He’s got to be coming. He will release you. Save you.”
The worst of Gran’s mental breakdown was the delusion that someone would find
them. In Isleen’s most desperate of moments, she had allowed herself to believe
Gran. Not anymore.
“Your dreams will come true.
All of them. Remember the dreams about him. How you loved him and he loved you.
Remember the dreams of sunshine on your face and the cabin you shared. Remember…
”
There was nothing to
remember. It had just been dreams. Silly dreams. No more powerful than Gran’s
sleep-talking.
You’re
not coming. You’re not going to save me. Because you don’t exist. Never have. I
believed in you. Thought you must be real—Gran swore you were. But you were
nothing more than hope’s fatal dream. We’re going to die and no one other than
Queen will ever remember we existed.
A rainbow of colors swelled
in front of her eyes. Colors she hadn’t seen in years. Colors so brilliant and bright
and beautiful her eyes watered. Death was an alluring kaleidoscope.
Chapter Two
A bloated moon dangled from
the sky, tossing silver light across the barren hilltop where Xander’s cabin
stood. He sat on the front porch swing, listening to the symphony of sounds
only night could produce. A breeze full of relief from the summer sun whispered
over his skin. From the woods encircling the yard, leaves rustled and branches
swayed and clapped as if applauding Mother Nature’s concert.
Xander closed his eyes—as
close to sleep as he was going to get. To other people it was late, the middle
of the night, but to him time didn’t matter. That’s what happened when he
couldn’t sleep. The days and nights blurred and blended together with no
division between them other than the color of the sky. It was an exhausting,
endless sort of existence.
Tonight was worse than ever.
His foot jittered against the porch floor. His insides twitched and trembled as
if they were about to erupt through his pores. His brain itched. Itched.
Actually, fucking itched. Short of eating a bullet, there was no way to satisfy
that particular sensation.
He couldn’t sit there a
second longer. He needed to go somewhere. Do something. Only he didn’t know
where or what. He’d figure it out on the way.
His truck turned over with a
throaty rumble he usually enjoyed, but not tonight. He jammed his foot down on
the gas, gravel chucking across the yard until the wheels got their grip and
then rocketed down the mile-long winding driveway.
I’m
dying.
Tension grabbed hold of his
spine. His heart stuttered, stopped, started again.
Those two words, spoken in
that female voice, were not a product
of The Bastard In His Brain. Those words were an auditory hallucination—another
enduring effect of the lightning strike.
It’d been a long time since
that voice had spoken to him. But still, there was only one sane way to deal
with it—booze. There was another way to get rid of the voice, but that involved
psych meds and a trip to the nut house. And he had a severe nut allergy.
He was ten minutes from the
twenty-four-hour gas station with its beer cooler stocked full of liquid
oblivion, but only ten seconds away from driving past the main house. He
should’ve moved years ago, but couldn’t afford a seven-hundred acre tract of
land as beautiful and isolated as the one his father owned. The benefits of
extreme solitude continued to win over the reminder of rejection every time he
drove past his childhood home.
He rounded the first curve in
the driveway, the truck’s headlights danced across the house’s many windows. No
lights shined from inside, no exterior lights illuminated the grounds. The
place was a giant beast slumbering on the side of the hill.
Anyone else looking at the
structure would be awed by the many gables and porches and stunned to learn
that an entire medical facility was housed in the expansive basement. But to
him the place was a mausoleum of memories. A place where he’d once been part of
family with his dad, his step-mom, and his teenage step-sister who all loved
the child version of him. Until Gale left his father, taking Shayla with her,
and his dad forgot he existed. He’d been just seven-years-old when love left
his life.
He let off the gas and
coasted past the house, didn’t want to make too much noise. Didn’t want to wake
Uncle Matt and he especially didn’t want to wake Roweena—the Stone family
housekeeper. She might be an employee, but she’d chew his ass for driving
around in the middle of the night as if he were still a teenager. She worried
about—
You’re
not coming. You’re not going to save me. Because you don’t exist. Never have. I
believed in you. Thought you must be real—Gran swore you were. But you were
nothing more than hope’s fatal dream. We’re going to die and no one other than
Queen will ever remember we existed.
“Get the fuck out of my
head.” He yelled the words, breaking his number one rule—never talk back to the
voice. Talking back meant he’d descended to a whole new level of cuckoo in the
cranium. He clenched his eyes closed for just a second, hoping for a reset when
he opened them.
A figure stood in the middle of the driveway,
facing away from the truck.
“Shit.” Xander slammed the
brakes, the truck skidding in the gravel before stopping only a few feet away
from a vehicular manslaughter charge. The sound of his heartbeat and ragged
breaths were loud as an air-horn to the ears.
Dad.
His father stood in the
middle of the driveway, dressed in a pair of plaid pajama pants and a T-shirt.
His thick gray hair smashed and bent, forming an unattractive case of bed head.
What the hell was the guy doing?
Xander sat back in his seat,
crossed his arms. He wasn’t making the first move. To acknowledge Dad would be
a violation of their unwritten code of conduct. Each pretended the other didn’t
exist. It’d been that way since Gale left them, taking his father’s heart with
her.
But that voice. How long
before it started talking again? He needed to get half pickled to get it good
and gone.
Fuck the rules. He honked one
short burst.
Dad didn’t flinch or
acknowledge he was standing only feet from Xander’s bumper in the beam of his
headlights.
Xander rolled down the
window. “Move.” His throat tingled from the force of his shout.
Dad acted oblivious. As if he
weren’t standing in the middle of the driveway, in the middle of the night, in
the middle of Xander trying to get booze.
Xander tore open the truck
door. Decades of anger rode between his shoulder blades. Hundreds of unuttered
words flooded his mouth. He stomped toward his dad. “What is your problem? I’m
just following your rules. I got the message ten years ago when you didn’t show
up at the hospital after I was struck by lightning. When you never even asked
Row or Matt about whether I was alive or dead. Now get out of my…”
His words faded when he saw
his father’s face. Fine wrinkles flared out from the corners of his eyes,
deeper ones cut furrows across his forehead. His mouth was turned down in an
endless frown. The last time Xander had been in the same room with his father
the guy had been in his forties—the man before him was two decades older and
looked like he’d suffered a tremendous loss.
Tears streamed down the older
man’s cheeks, splashing onto his T-shirt.
Pain slammed into Xander’s
temple. He jerked and pressed his palm to the side of his head. He could
practically feel his brain pulsing inside his skull.
Dad’s gaze cut to him. “She
needs me. I can feel her desperation, but I can’t find her anymore. It’s been
too long.” I love her. She’s my soul. My
everything. I need her as much as she needs me.
For a moment, only a moment,
compassion chiseled away Xander’s hard edges. But then blades of bitterness and
rejection and anger stabbed through the tenderness. “This is about Gale? It’s
always been about Gale. It’s been over twenty-five years since she left. Get
over it. And get out of my way.”
She’s my
fearless. Dad cast
his gaze down the driveway.
“Here we go again.” When Gale
and Shayla first left, Dad had raged for weeks about some local legend and the
bear totem that resided on the hill nearby. But that’s all anyone knew—the
rantings and ravings of a man gone manic in his grief. “You’re not making sense.” Xander grabbed
Dad’s arm and hauled him to the edge of the driveway. “Stare at the night all
you want. But do it after I drive past.” He got back in the truck and drove on,
refusing to look back, think about Dad, or the voice. He’d think about beer. A
chilled beer. He could practically taste the tang of that first swig. His mouth
watered.
At the end of the driveway,
Xander barely braked, just cranked the wheel to the right and skidded out onto
the road, laying a strip of rubber and squealing the tires in a way any high
school boy would admire. He gunned the truck’s engine to get to the top of the
tallest hill in Sunny County.
Alcohol was less than six
minutes away. God, how he needed a beer. Or five. Fuck that, he needed a case.
Hell, he should go straight for the tequila. Anything to kill the voice.
As he neared the top of the
hill, his headlights played over a motorcycle parked along the wide berm of
road, and then snagged on a man. A huge beast of a guy stood staring up at the
centuries old carved wooden bear like it was his own personal savior.
The animal posed on its hind
legs, mouth open in a frozen snarl, looked real. Alive. Ready to attack. It
wasn’t the kind of thing to attract tourists. It was more likely to repel them.
What the
fuck was up with the carving? His father obsessed over it. And now this freak?
The man turned his face
toward the truck, blinking from the brightness of the headlights. A thick black
mark—what the hell was it—slashed up his face from mouth to cheekbone, giving
him a sinister—half evil look. He glared into the lights until Xander drove
past.
Xander glanced in the
rearview mirror. The truck’s taillights tossed a bloody glow over bear and man,
highlighting the play of muscle and sinew hacked into the wood and making the
black mark on the man’s face appear to be a gaping hole.
Xander’s breath locked inside
his lungs. As crazy as it sounded, he half expected man and bear to move. To
charge after him.
The truck raced down the
hill, the man and bear fading from sight. Xander’s gaze snapped to the road in
front of him. Yeah. Obviously, he was on the verge of losing it. It being his sanity.
Booze. Booze always helped.
He needed to get some. Now.
Five minutes later, in sight
of the gas station with its neon flashing BEER sign, a rush of energy stung his
face, and then rolled down his body—The Bastard In His Brain. The sneaky ass
was about to stage a coup. Damn. All Xander could do was watch as he
inexplicably turned the vehicle onto the highway and headed west—away from
liquid salvation, away from reason and rationality, away from sense and sanity.
*
Three hours later, Xander
parked on a mud strip that he suspected might have once been a driveway. The
Bastard In His Brain had decided to take him on a vacation to Crazyland, where
the only way out was through the
funhouse. How else could he explain passing up alcohol, driving halfway across
Ohio for this—a strange trailer secreted away amongst hundreds of acres of
cornfields?
Despite dawn tipping the
horizon in cheerful color, an ominous void and a bleak desperation hung over
the place that went deeper than the structure’s disrepair. One side of the
trailer sagged lower than the other, giving the impression of an enormous
teeter-totter. Windows were missing, their gaping maws covered with boards or
plywood or simple cardboard. The screen door dangled by its bottom hinge.
He wanted to reverse the
truck and lay twin strips of fuck-you on the asphalt on his way down the road. Wanting wasn’t enough—not nearly
enough—to overpower The Bastard. He got out of the vehicle, left the keys in
the ignition. He would run up, scan the inside of the trailer, satisfy The
Bastard, then sort his shit on the drive back home.
A miraculous hush fell across
the landscape. No birds chirped, no insects chattered. No corn leaves rustled.
Pure undiluted silence invaded his ears and it was more stunning and more
fascinating than anything he’d ever heard. He stopped. Listened. Nothing. Not
one sound. He couldn’t even hear the rapid duhdum
duhdum of his heartbeat. He closed
his eyes, savoring the quiet. Was this why The Bastard led him here? To find
relief from the constant barrage of noise? Was there something significant
about this location on the earth? Something significant about the trailer? He
needed to find out. ‘Cause if this spot was a void of sound, he was going to be
moving.
He walked up the crumbling
cinder block steps, his boots crunching loud and startling against the decay.
So much for the complete void of sound theory. He reached through the skeleton
of the screen and jiggled the knob. Locked.
From the other side of the
door, the thud of heavy footsteps approached. Someone lived here? The place
looked like it should be inhabited by rats and rodents, not humans.
“Open the door. Now. Or I’m
bustin’ it down.” The urgency in his voice surprised him. What surprised him
even more—he meant every word. He’d get in this trailer one way or another.
Didn’t matter that he was trespassing or about to break half a dozen other
laws. He needed to get inside. Not
guilty by reason of Bastard In The Brain—aka insanity—would be his defense.
A fist slammed into his
temple—or at least it felt like a fist—Xander winced at the tuning-in. Damn.
The door cracked open. All he
could see was a too-large-to-be-normal jaundiced eyeball staring out at him,
locking on Xander’s scars.
He bears
the mark of The Beast. King warned me about him. He is here for The Dragon, but
it is too late.
The mark of The Beast. Well,
that was a new one. Xander touched the puckered skin on his cheek. He almost
admired the originality. Almost.
“Go away. You’re
trespassing.” The female voice was deep and thick, mucus snapping around each
word. King must confirm The Dragon’s death before the body can be
burned and the evil ashes soaked in holy water. “I’ll call the police.”
“You won’t call the police or
you would’ve called them already. Let me in. I won’t ask again.”
“Go away.” King would not permit such a risk to anyone,
even one marked by The Beast. The door slammed. A lock snapped into place.
A chain rattled.
Was she fearless or stupid or
crazy? He leaned toward crazy with her thoughts of dragons and kings. He
shouldn’t judge. He was short on sanity too.
Abandoning all of his
self-control and the last of his logic, he rammed into the door, snapping the
lock, busting the chain, and impacting with the heft of her body on the other
side. He leaped across the threshold. The stench slammed into him—a physical
entity that pushed him back a step.
Cigarette smoke so thick it
choked the oxygen and clouded the room. Unwashed flesh, so pungent and sour it
burned his throat. Infusing it all—the putridly sweet rot of death. His throat
kicked open and he half-coughed, half-gagged, and barely managed to keep
himself from vomiting.
The
terrible throbbing in his head stopped, but his eyeballs took up the beat.
The
floor was covered in trash. Old milk jugs, wrappers, empty boxes of food,
strips of white paper that looked suspiciously like toilet paper. She obviously
didn’t understand the function of a garbage can, and the concept of trash day
had to be about fifty points above her IQ.
Roach-like,
she scuttled to block a darkened hallway. Sweat plastered her few strands of
hair to her skull like a greasy comb-over. Her bulbous nose and wide features
verged on downright ugly. Stains of various color and texture trailed down the
front of her tank top, over the bulge of her protruding belly. Everything—every
single thing—about her disgusted him. Repulsed him. He didn’t want to be in the
same trailer as her, and he sure as fuck didn’t want to be in the same room as
her.
So why
was he here? Why couldn’t he force himself to leave?
She brandished a large pair
of scissors and jabbed them at him like a roly-poly ninja. Under a different
set of circumstances, he might’ve laughed, but her insanity sucked the humor
from the situation.
And then there was the blood
on the blades.
Dread fisted his lungs. “What
have you done?” He braced, waiting for the frequency to be re-established. His
head jerked.
On the
sixth day, I stabbed my sword into The Dragon’s flesh. “A peasant should not question his Queen.” Her
tongue slithered from her mouth, shuttered over her lips, leaving a slime trail,
before slipping back inside.
“I’m not your peasant.” He
might be on a visit to Crazyland, but she had moved into town, taken up a
permanent residence, and joined the Church of Unsound Mind. When in Crazyland,
do as the crazy do. He packed his tone with authority. “I am your king and you
will tell me what you’ve done.”
She froze, almost as if
Xander had hit the pause button.
You
don’t look like King.
Shit. “I had plastic surgery.
Changed my entire appearance. That’s why you don’t recognize me.” With the
scars on his face, she’d have to be more than crazy to buy that line of bovine
excrement—she’d have to be downright dumb.
Her face relaxed into a look
of senseless understanding.
“Sire.” She crossed one tree
trunk of a leg in front of the other and curtsied. Fucking curtsied like she
was some fancy ass princess.
King is
so pretty now. Except for part of his face. “I didn’t know your new face.”
“Show me what you’ve done.”
“I have followed your decree.
On the sixth day, I thrust my sword into The Dragon.”
His gut coiled tight. “Show
me.”
“It might not be safe for
you. I’m not certain The Dragon is dead.”
He used his best
I-am-the-king tone. “Show me.”
“But Sire, you cannot risk
being in its presence if it still lives.”
“All will be well.” He forced
himself to not gag on his next words. “My queen, please, show me.”
She turned and waddled down
the short hallway. He followed her to a heavy steel door. The kind of door that
wouldn’t be standard issue in a cheap trailer. The kind of door used to keep
intruders out. Or to keep something locked inside—something that bled from the
looks of her scissors. An animal? He wanted
it to be an animal, but—damn—he knew he was going to find a human on the other
side of that steel.
She unlocked the door and
stepped aside. “Be careful, Sire.”
Dim silver light from the
open doorway slashed across the dark room, illuminating a body in the middle of
the floor. The naked female, so devoid of muscle she qualified as a skeleton,
had a vicious ring of blood surrounding her, seeping from the gash in her side.
His lungs contracted,
expelling the air out of him. “What have you done?” He snapped at The Crazy One
and realized two seconds too late he’d broke character.
You’re
not King. You tricked me.
The woman on the floor needed
an ambulance and mostly likely an extended hospital stay—assuming she was even
alive. But The Crazy One still had those scissors in her hand. He wouldn’t be
helping anyone if she buried them in his spine. He put himself between the
woman on the floor and The Crazy One.
“I told you.” A croaky voice came from the shadows and muted planes of
space the light didn’t reach. “I told
you, her protector would come.” Another skeletal body crawled into the light,
face ravaged by torment and time—its attention focused on The Crazy One’s
scissors.
Something familiar plucked at
Xander’s memory, just beyond the reach of consciousness. Damn.
The Crazy One dropped the
scissors. She stood mouth hanging open, her flat slug of a tongue resting on
her bottom lip. She backed away, one step at a time. I must finish. I must finish. She turned and ran down the hallway,
each footstep reverberating through the floor.
“Take her. Protect her. Heal
her. Save her from Queen.” The malnourished figure crawling on the floor spoke
again, urgency riding each of her words.
Save her
from Queen.
Recognition slammed into him, knocking him to his knees.
…and no
one other than Queen will ever remember we existed. Queen—not a typical name.
“Fuck me.” A burr gouged into
his heart. The woman lying on the floor was the
woman. The one inside his head. She wasn’t a figment of a fucked mind. She
was naked and emaciated and—oh, Christ—looked like a corpse.
Guilt
choked in his throat—a lump too big to swallow down, too awful to taste. She’d
tried to tell him she was suffering and needed help. What had he done? Buried
her words under a gallon of liquor and barrel of self-pity. All those nights
when he’d felt so restless, if he’d just gotten in his truck, would he have
driven here? Found her before it was too late?
The woman’s cheekbones jutted
so sharply they nearly cut through the skin. Tufts of blond hair grew in
patches along her hairline. And yet, superimposed over what his eyes took in,
his mind filled in the gaps, added flesh to her cheeks, fullness to her eyes,
and pale blond hair to her head. Somehow, he saw beyond what lay before him, to
what might have been. She would’ve been beautiful. Radiant in an angelic way
words couldn’t adequately describe.
“Oh, God.” He was the worst
sort of asshole. Had always been a selfish bastard, owned that about himself,
but this—this was a low he’d never be able to crawl out of. He couldn’t just
rationalize away his lack of action all this time.
The spot where his heart
should be throbbed. His hand shook like someone coming off the sauce as he reached
for her, touching her neck, feeling for a pulse, though he knew there was no
way she could be alive.
Her skin nearly froze his
fingers. Death did that to a person, stole their warmth along with their life.
Her eyelids fluttered, stuttered, and opened, locking directly on to him,
pinning him with her gaze.
Logical thought tumbled out
of his head, splashing on the floor. His body went into suspended animation
mode.
She swallowed, wincing as if
the action hurt. “Xander?”
Every word in his vocabulary
vanished behind a nearly impenetrable wall of shock and disbelief.
“Is it really you?” Her words
were barely a breath of sound. “Or am I dreaming?”
He understood what she was
saying, just couldn’t pluck any response out of the emptiness in his mind.
Her face scrunched up, a soft
dry sob hacked in her throat. “You’re just a dream. Why can’t I just die?”
Seeing her hurting, seeing
her pain, finally dissolved his mental paralysis. “Oh, God. I’m here.” He
gripped her face in one hand. Her expression relaxed as if his touch eased her.
“I’m real. You’re safe.” He swiped his thumb over her chin, felt it tremble at
his touch.
Sorrow faded from her eyes,
but other emotions filled the void—more emotions than he knew what to do with.
He didn’t need to be Freud to see the adoration and the hero worship. “Don’t
look at me like that. I’m not the good guy here.” His tone was overflowing with
self-loathing and guilt for not finding her years ago. “You know my name, but I
don’t know yours.”
“Isleen.” One side of her mouth twitched like
she was trying to smile. “You’re real. You’re really real.” The smile faded.
“Where’s Gran? You have to save Gran too.”
Her eyes closed, her chest
popped up and down in exaggerated breaths too unnatural to be normal.
“Isleen. You stay with me now.
You hang on.” He dialed 911, waited for the operator to pick up. Ring-ring. Pause. Ring-ring. Pause. Ring-ring.
“Pick the fuck up.” Ring-ring.
“911
what is your—”
“The last road I remember is
County Road 95. A trailer in the middle of cornfields. I just found two women
being held against their will. They both need an ambulance.”
“Sir,
can you tell me…”
The growl of his truck’s
engine, grabbed Xander’s attention. The Crazy One—he’d forgotten about her—had
stolen his truck. This day was full of happy damned surprises. The sound of his
truck faded and got further away, but then the direction changed and the roar
of pedal-to-the-metal screamed at him. What was she doing? Even as the question
flittered through his consciousness, the answer came to him. His truck was
about to meet the trailer.
He dropped the phone and
grabbed Isleen.
The
room exploded.
Abbie Roads writes dark emotional novels featuring damaged characters, but always gives her hero and heroine a happy ending... After torturing them for three hundred plus pages.
Be sure to follow her website for her twice weekly blog Author on the Couch, where she uses her mental health counselor skills to get the story behind the storyteller.
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