A MIGHTY ROLLING THUNDER
FREE Sneak Preview: Chapters 1 - 4
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FREE Sneak Preview: Chapters 1 - 4
Ebook only $2.99
FREE on Kindle Unlimited
Click HERE
Chapter 1
MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND:
SATURDAY EVENING
Livi sipped at the last of her third glass of Zinfandel, watching Trent and the rest of the guys out on the patio. She sat at the dining room table with Tamara, wishing she could tell her, but the words wouldn’t come.
She didn’t want to ruin everyone’s fun.
Trent was having a bit too much fun. Not even eight o’clock yet and he was already well into Hank’s bottle of Jagermeister. Livi knew he drank too much, but she let it slide, as usual.
Trent Delaney was devilishly handsome, no doubt about that. And successful, charismatic, and outwardly charming. By the time he showed her the control freak aspect of his person- ality, his claws were in her deep enough to draw blood if she ripped them out.
Well, Livi was ready to bleed.
This would be a new record. Barely four months into their relationship, and she was ready to call it quits. Trent already wanted her to move in with him, and she just wished he didn’t know where she lived.
But hey, no biggie. There were plenty of other good-looking arrogant jerks out there just waiting to treat her like a piece of property, an accessory.
Arm candy. Ugh, she hated that term.
Why did she always attract the bad boys, the ones who acted like winners, but were really the biggest losers when it came to matters of the heart?
She knew what she wanted: a man with a kind heart, a gentle soul, an imaginative mind and sharp wit, one who could keep up with her intellectually but didn’t mind getting his butt kicked at Scrabble. A man who, when they were entwined, considered her pleasure tantamount to his own. A man who knew exactly where he’d been, where he was going, and how he was going to get there. If there were any of those left.
Was that asking so much?
She celebrated her thirty-third birthday six months ago, and it seemed that, inversely proportional to her butt getting wider, her chances of finding that man were getting slimmer. No ring, no children, and a career that many people considered fanciful at best. Mother would be wailing in melodramatic lament from her grave.
On this Saturday evening of Memorial Day weekend, Livi would much rather be walking Beauty, her Golden retriever, in the woods. She would keep her eyes peeled and her mind open for the next irresistible picturesque scene. Then she would go home, don her pajamas, kick her bare feet up on the ottoman with a favorite Vivaldi mix sparking her muse, and sketch the scene with her charcoals, with Beauty on the couch beside her.
Breaking out her brushes and breathing magical colorful life into another canvas would invite an invigorating ocean breeze back into her soul. What else would help?
Having an ice cold Michelob instead of this too-tart, overly dry wine. And not even thinking about men, or biological clocks ticking away the precious seconds in a countdown to Old Maid-dom.
But here she was, partying like she was still in her early twenties. She grimaced as she watched Trent. He was gesticulating enough to slosh his drink out of his glass, probably embellishing an already tall tale about one of his shrewd triumphs at his brokerage firm, raising his voice to be heard over the others because, after all, it was all about Trent.
Livi bit back a snarky comment as something foul roiled in her gut. It wasn’t Tamara’s cherry-glazed rack of lamb, the Szechuan vegetable medley, or the Hawaiian fruit salad, all of which were superb. No, what made her ill was how she could have been so blind, so ignorant.
I’m not really that shallow, am I?
“Brains before beauty, baby girl,” Daddy often said, “and you got plenty of both. Work on the important one.”
So how was she going to use that brain to get out of this mess with a little dignity and grace intact?
Hank came inside shaking his head. He leaned over and kissed Tamara on the cheek, and noticed Livi staring at Trent.
“Need another one of those?” he asked, pointing at Livi’s empty wine glass.
“No, I think one of him is enough.” Livi looked at Hank and smirked.
Hank glanced outside at Trent. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I’ll talk to him, see if I can get him to slow down. Meantime, I need a cold beer.”
“And I need to go,” Livi told Tamara after Hank went into the kitchen. She knew where she wanted to be, and who she wanted to be with. The fact that Trent had never shown Beauty any affection should have been her biggest clue.
She leaned toward Tamara. “I’m sorry, Tamara. Dinner was wonderful. I just…”
Tamara gave her a crooked smile. “Maybe we can send Trent home, and you can stay.”
“You know how that would go over.”
“Unfortunately I do. But that’s the way I’d prefer it.” Tamara stood and surprised Livi by coming over and giving her a hug. “I’m sorry, Livi. I knew this was coming, and don’t blame you for ditching him. Didn’t think it’d take you this long. Give me a call if you need me, or just want someone to talk to, okay?”
Hank and Tamara were Trent’s friends, and Livi barely knew Tamara. But the gesture moved her, and made her feel better about her decision.
“Thanks, Tamara. I will.”
“Uh-oh,” Hank said, frowning as he passed back through the dining room with a fresh Corona in hand. “Why do I think you’re about to leave?”
“I’m not… feeling well,” Livi said, not meeting his eyes. It seemed like the wisest little white lie. Breaking up with Trent here and now—especially when he was drunk—would be a huge mistake. “But thank you for dinner, and the wine.”
Clearly not believing her reason for leaving, Hank gave her a glum nod, then gave Tamara a quick shrug. “You’re welcome here anytime, Livi,” he said, and headed back out onto the porch.
Livi winced. “I’m gonna go tell Trent.”
“I’m right behind you, girl,” Tamara said, her hand on Livi’s shoulder.
They went out onto the patio together. Even with the cool, gentle breeze, the rank, pungent odor of Trent and Daniel’s cigars hit her like an emetic, tightening another knot in her gut. At least she didn’t have to fake feeling ill.
She cleared her throat. “Trent, I’m not—”
“Hang on a second, babe,” Trent said. He pointed the index finger of his cigar hand at Daniel. “And you wanna know what the little maggot had the nerve to say to me? He said—”
“Trent, I’m leaving,” Livi said. “I’m not feeling well.”
“What?” Trent jabbed his finger at Daniel again. “Pause that thought. I’ll be right back.”
He took Livi’s arm, brushed past Tamara, and led her through the dining room into the living room, ignoring Tamara’s rule about no smoking in the house.
“God, Olivia. Do you have to do this now?”
“I told you, don’t call me that.” Only Mother called me that.
He snickered and shrugged theatrically. “Well, it is your name. You know, I’m trying to kick back and have a little fun with my friends here. And you gotta go and ruin it.”
“Well, I want you to keep on having fun with your friends. You stay. I’ll walk home.”
He rolled his eyes. “Do you want me to call you a cab?”
Tamara came up behind him. “I can drive you home if you like, Livi.”
“No, it’s okay, thanks. It’s only four blocks, and I need the fresh air.” Her hint about Trent’s cigar was apparently too subtle for him; it flew right over his head.
Trent sighed. “Fine. Whatever blows your skirt up.” He turned to head back outside, then spun and pointed a finger at her, knocking cigar ashes onto the carpet. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Not if I can help it.
Before things got any uglier, she headed for the front door. She opened it, and Tamara waggled a “call me” pinky and thumb beside her head as Trent stomped out of the room. Livi nodded, then left.
She floated down the front porch steps as if a concrete yoke had been lifted off her shoulders. She breathed deeply, treasuring the invigorating scent of pine and honeysuckle wafting on the early spring breeze.
Even if she didn’t see anyone for the rest of the holiday weekend, she wouldn’t be spending it alone. Beauty awaited her, always ready for a walk and playtime, and snuggling afterward. The rustle and swish of the leaves whispered a symphony of intangible melodies in her mind as she strolled home, and she was there before another thought of Trent even popped into her head.
She had made the right decision. She would tell him the next time they spoke, preferably over the phone. He would find replacement candy for his arm in no time, and forget all about her.
Beauty waited just inside the front door when Livi opened it, tail wagging in overdrive. Livi went down on one knee, ruffled the reddish-golden fur under Beauty’s ears, and kissed the top of her head.
“Hey, sweet girl. You’ll never betray my love, will you? No, you won’t.”
Beauty let out a soft woof, her nails clackety-clacking as she pranced on the parquet floor.
Livi waggled her hands, made a panicky “hunh-hunh-hunh” sound, then smiled. “Well, what are you waiting for? Go get your leash, girl.”
Beauty spun and darted through the living room and into the kitchen, and was back in seconds, dragging her leash.
“Good girl.” Livi set her cell phone on the foyer table. If Trent called while she was out, he could just leave a damn facemail. This was her and Beauty’s special time together. Assholes were not allowed to interrupt.
She leashed Beauty, led her out, and shut and locked the door. Even though Trent had a key—a decision she regretted almost from the moment she gave him one—she doubted she’d see him again tonight. With a confident spring in her step and Beauty heeling at her side, she headed around back toward the woods. When they were far enough under the canopy of oaks, maples, and pines, Livi unhooked Beauty’s leash and let her run free.
Spring in north Georgia was always idyllic, and never failed to spark the creative muse in Livi’s soul. Twilight brought the fireflies out in force, and Beauty was a comical one-dog circus as she darted here and there, trying to catch the elusive glowing lights.
Livi believed that she sometimes experienced Beauty’s perspective more than just vicariously. In those moments, she was inside Beauty, seeing the world through her innocent eyes, feeling the constant pulse of life through her generous heart. Often Livi was sure she was reading Beauty’s mind, just through her expressive eyes or animated posture.
Livi smiled and closed her eyes, breathed in the gathering dusk, and Beauty’s pure joy was her own.
Trent and all the Trents of the world were a bad dream casually dismissed and promptly forgotten. Livi was too excited about a new idea for her next canvas: She would paint the scene viewed through Beauty’s perspective.
She experienced a moment of panic when she felt a disturbing absence of light, like a sudden palpable density to the air, cloying and invasive. Her eyes popped open and she looked up, sucking in a sharp breath.
No stars were visible through the upper boughs of the trees. A gigantic black cloud covered the breadth of the sky, dull and lifeless, without promise of rain. The wind kicked up, and the silhouettes of the swaying trees looked like skeletal sentinels pronouncing a harsh judgment upon the world.
Livi shuddered as a nameless primal fear rushed through her, feeling as if she were a mile high and plunging to Earth without a parachute. Shadows of cadaverous hollow-eyed faces pressed down against the rippling shroud, as if desperate to pass through the eerie barrier.
A multitude of spinning funnels lengthened and strained toward the ground. They looked like enormous cone-shaped drills trying to pierce the shroud, as if the dark canopy was a force-field whose purpose was to prevent passage from another dimension into this one. Puffy sacs contorted the funnel shapes, stretching their membranes, and dread constricted Livi’s throat. The universe was trying to regurgitate its cosmic bile, with Earth as its toxic waste dump.
The funnels burst on the ground with thunderous gooey splats, belching out pitch-black globs that transformed into hordes of featureless humanoid figures of pure darkness. Livi gasped as an invisible fist clenched her heart.
Beauty whined, then growled. Livi felt her soft fur brushing her leg, and trembled as a sudden preternatural awareness filled her. It felt like a wordless promise whispered in her mind by an entity whose nature she couldn’t fathom. She staggered as an epiphany rushed through her like a breeze dancing across a mountaintop. Then she smiled, recovering, and went down on one knee beside Beauty. She scratched Beauty’s neck, no longer afraid.
“It’s okay, girl. I don’t know what they are, but they can’t have either one of us. We don’t have to be afraid.”
As if in response to her declaration, tiny pinpricks of light pierced the shroud. They grew as they ripped more holes in the darkness, swelling with a nearly unbearable brilliance. The lights merged, then became a dazzling radiance that should have blinded her. Instead, as it increased in intensity, it filled her with a calm sense of purpose.
When she could absorb no more, the brilliance burst, and twilight returned. A rain of gleaming twinkling orbs fell all around her and Beauty like luminous feathers dancing in a gentle breeze as they floated to Earth.
“The stars are falling,” Livi whispered, and Beauty answered with a soft “Woof.”
The shadowy figures had vanished with the blast of brilliance.
Livi grinned and held out her arms to catch the spectral lights. It was another profound glimpse into the world of faerie, similar to the occasional peek she had of things not-of-this-world, only amplified to the tenth power. She incorporated these entities into her canvases, seen only from the corner of the eye, an ethereal quality to her art that kept her clients coming back for more as if they shared a timeless secret.
Sometimes her brushes would create a pulpy face jutting out of the bark of a tree, some- times a number of tiny winged figures hidden in the cascading spray of a rushing mountain stream, sometimes a wispy outline of a god-like entity limned against a puffy cloud. But the veil dividing dimensions had just been lifted, and Livi saw the faerie world in all its majesty and glory.
The lights dissipated before they touched ground. Some passed through her, making her squeal with delight and wonder. Then, as quickly as they had appeared, they were gone. And though the darkening twilight felt unchanged, Livi heard a new voice in her head, and knew it would never again be the same.
Beautiful twinkle-people. Happy, like run-in-wind.
The sensation of Beauty communicating without words was so vivid that Livi reacted with no more than raised eyebrows. After her staggering epiphany, she was anticipating something wondrous. She wasn’t expecting anything as extraordinary as telepathic communication with her dog, but Livi had long been a staunch believer in the existence of far greater things than were dreamt of in most people’s mundane philosophies. Whereas others more pragmatically oriented and permanently ensconced in the “real world” would scoff at such a fanciful notion, she freely accepted this new talent as a gift from the remarkable spirits she’d just encoun- tered. Rolling with the magic of the moment, she hugged Beauty, rubbing her face against her fuzzy head.
“Yes, they were beautiful, just like my special girl.”
Make shadow-mans run away.
“Yes, they did.”
Long ride now. Hard. Beauty and Livi.
Livi nodded, eyes on the night sky, but her mind focused on the vision from her revelation. “Yes, we’re going on a journey. I don’t know where we’re going, but I’ll know when we get there. C’mon, Beauty.”
She headed back to her condo with happy visions of Beauty’s twinkle-people dancing in her head. Inside, she snatched her cell off the foyer table, pocketed it without checking for messages, and strolled into the kitchen to hang Beauty’s leash on the peg beside her bowls.
She found Trent leaning against the counter. He clutched a nearly-empty bottle of whiskey in one hand. The other was clenched in a fist, pounding against the countertop.
His eyes were wild, frantic, but the sneer twisting his lips promised pain.
“Where the hell have you been, Olivia?”
“You’re drunk.” And you’re ruining our magic moment, asshole.
He laughed, then took a long swig of whiskey, emptying the bottle and drooling some of it down his chin. “I just asked you a fucking question, bitch.”
Livi reached a shaking hand down toward Beauty, who stood tensed and shivering at her side with a low growl building up in her chest.
Shadow-mans find Trent, Beauty thought at her. No twinkle-people.
Livi nodded. Whether Trent knew it or not, whether he experienced the same cathartic phenomenon that she and Beauty had, he radiated a pestilent darkness, overflowing with shadow-mans.
“Answer me, goddammit!”
Livi just shook her head, looking for the quickest way out of this madness. Trent pushed off from the counter and lurched toward her with a humorless chuckle.
“That’s okay, Olivia. It’s long past time for talk. Now I’m going to show you what happens when you cross me.”
She didn’t want to ruin everyone’s fun.
Trent was having a bit too much fun. Not even eight o’clock yet and he was already well into Hank’s bottle of Jagermeister. Livi knew he drank too much, but she let it slide, as usual.
Trent Delaney was devilishly handsome, no doubt about that. And successful, charismatic, and outwardly charming. By the time he showed her the control freak aspect of his person- ality, his claws were in her deep enough to draw blood if she ripped them out.
Well, Livi was ready to bleed.
This would be a new record. Barely four months into their relationship, and she was ready to call it quits. Trent already wanted her to move in with him, and she just wished he didn’t know where she lived.
But hey, no biggie. There were plenty of other good-looking arrogant jerks out there just waiting to treat her like a piece of property, an accessory.
Arm candy. Ugh, she hated that term.
Why did she always attract the bad boys, the ones who acted like winners, but were really the biggest losers when it came to matters of the heart?
She knew what she wanted: a man with a kind heart, a gentle soul, an imaginative mind and sharp wit, one who could keep up with her intellectually but didn’t mind getting his butt kicked at Scrabble. A man who, when they were entwined, considered her pleasure tantamount to his own. A man who knew exactly where he’d been, where he was going, and how he was going to get there. If there were any of those left.
Was that asking so much?
She celebrated her thirty-third birthday six months ago, and it seemed that, inversely proportional to her butt getting wider, her chances of finding that man were getting slimmer. No ring, no children, and a career that many people considered fanciful at best. Mother would be wailing in melodramatic lament from her grave.
On this Saturday evening of Memorial Day weekend, Livi would much rather be walking Beauty, her Golden retriever, in the woods. She would keep her eyes peeled and her mind open for the next irresistible picturesque scene. Then she would go home, don her pajamas, kick her bare feet up on the ottoman with a favorite Vivaldi mix sparking her muse, and sketch the scene with her charcoals, with Beauty on the couch beside her.
Breaking out her brushes and breathing magical colorful life into another canvas would invite an invigorating ocean breeze back into her soul. What else would help?
Having an ice cold Michelob instead of this too-tart, overly dry wine. And not even thinking about men, or biological clocks ticking away the precious seconds in a countdown to Old Maid-dom.
But here she was, partying like she was still in her early twenties. She grimaced as she watched Trent. He was gesticulating enough to slosh his drink out of his glass, probably embellishing an already tall tale about one of his shrewd triumphs at his brokerage firm, raising his voice to be heard over the others because, after all, it was all about Trent.
Livi bit back a snarky comment as something foul roiled in her gut. It wasn’t Tamara’s cherry-glazed rack of lamb, the Szechuan vegetable medley, or the Hawaiian fruit salad, all of which were superb. No, what made her ill was how she could have been so blind, so ignorant.
I’m not really that shallow, am I?
“Brains before beauty, baby girl,” Daddy often said, “and you got plenty of both. Work on the important one.”
So how was she going to use that brain to get out of this mess with a little dignity and grace intact?
Hank came inside shaking his head. He leaned over and kissed Tamara on the cheek, and noticed Livi staring at Trent.
“Need another one of those?” he asked, pointing at Livi’s empty wine glass.
“No, I think one of him is enough.” Livi looked at Hank and smirked.
Hank glanced outside at Trent. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I’ll talk to him, see if I can get him to slow down. Meantime, I need a cold beer.”
“And I need to go,” Livi told Tamara after Hank went into the kitchen. She knew where she wanted to be, and who she wanted to be with. The fact that Trent had never shown Beauty any affection should have been her biggest clue.
She leaned toward Tamara. “I’m sorry, Tamara. Dinner was wonderful. I just…”
Tamara gave her a crooked smile. “Maybe we can send Trent home, and you can stay.”
“You know how that would go over.”
“Unfortunately I do. But that’s the way I’d prefer it.” Tamara stood and surprised Livi by coming over and giving her a hug. “I’m sorry, Livi. I knew this was coming, and don’t blame you for ditching him. Didn’t think it’d take you this long. Give me a call if you need me, or just want someone to talk to, okay?”
Hank and Tamara were Trent’s friends, and Livi barely knew Tamara. But the gesture moved her, and made her feel better about her decision.
“Thanks, Tamara. I will.”
“Uh-oh,” Hank said, frowning as he passed back through the dining room with a fresh Corona in hand. “Why do I think you’re about to leave?”
“I’m not… feeling well,” Livi said, not meeting his eyes. It seemed like the wisest little white lie. Breaking up with Trent here and now—especially when he was drunk—would be a huge mistake. “But thank you for dinner, and the wine.”
Clearly not believing her reason for leaving, Hank gave her a glum nod, then gave Tamara a quick shrug. “You’re welcome here anytime, Livi,” he said, and headed back out onto the porch.
Livi winced. “I’m gonna go tell Trent.”
“I’m right behind you, girl,” Tamara said, her hand on Livi’s shoulder.
They went out onto the patio together. Even with the cool, gentle breeze, the rank, pungent odor of Trent and Daniel’s cigars hit her like an emetic, tightening another knot in her gut. At least she didn’t have to fake feeling ill.
She cleared her throat. “Trent, I’m not—”
“Hang on a second, babe,” Trent said. He pointed the index finger of his cigar hand at Daniel. “And you wanna know what the little maggot had the nerve to say to me? He said—”
“Trent, I’m leaving,” Livi said. “I’m not feeling well.”
“What?” Trent jabbed his finger at Daniel again. “Pause that thought. I’ll be right back.”
He took Livi’s arm, brushed past Tamara, and led her through the dining room into the living room, ignoring Tamara’s rule about no smoking in the house.
“God, Olivia. Do you have to do this now?”
“I told you, don’t call me that.” Only Mother called me that.
He snickered and shrugged theatrically. “Well, it is your name. You know, I’m trying to kick back and have a little fun with my friends here. And you gotta go and ruin it.”
“Well, I want you to keep on having fun with your friends. You stay. I’ll walk home.”
He rolled his eyes. “Do you want me to call you a cab?”
Tamara came up behind him. “I can drive you home if you like, Livi.”
“No, it’s okay, thanks. It’s only four blocks, and I need the fresh air.” Her hint about Trent’s cigar was apparently too subtle for him; it flew right over his head.
Trent sighed. “Fine. Whatever blows your skirt up.” He turned to head back outside, then spun and pointed a finger at her, knocking cigar ashes onto the carpet. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Not if I can help it.
Before things got any uglier, she headed for the front door. She opened it, and Tamara waggled a “call me” pinky and thumb beside her head as Trent stomped out of the room. Livi nodded, then left.
She floated down the front porch steps as if a concrete yoke had been lifted off her shoulders. She breathed deeply, treasuring the invigorating scent of pine and honeysuckle wafting on the early spring breeze.
Even if she didn’t see anyone for the rest of the holiday weekend, she wouldn’t be spending it alone. Beauty awaited her, always ready for a walk and playtime, and snuggling afterward. The rustle and swish of the leaves whispered a symphony of intangible melodies in her mind as she strolled home, and she was there before another thought of Trent even popped into her head.
She had made the right decision. She would tell him the next time they spoke, preferably over the phone. He would find replacement candy for his arm in no time, and forget all about her.
Beauty waited just inside the front door when Livi opened it, tail wagging in overdrive. Livi went down on one knee, ruffled the reddish-golden fur under Beauty’s ears, and kissed the top of her head.
“Hey, sweet girl. You’ll never betray my love, will you? No, you won’t.”
Beauty let out a soft woof, her nails clackety-clacking as she pranced on the parquet floor.
Livi waggled her hands, made a panicky “hunh-hunh-hunh” sound, then smiled. “Well, what are you waiting for? Go get your leash, girl.”
Beauty spun and darted through the living room and into the kitchen, and was back in seconds, dragging her leash.
“Good girl.” Livi set her cell phone on the foyer table. If Trent called while she was out, he could just leave a damn facemail. This was her and Beauty’s special time together. Assholes were not allowed to interrupt.
She leashed Beauty, led her out, and shut and locked the door. Even though Trent had a key—a decision she regretted almost from the moment she gave him one—she doubted she’d see him again tonight. With a confident spring in her step and Beauty heeling at her side, she headed around back toward the woods. When they were far enough under the canopy of oaks, maples, and pines, Livi unhooked Beauty’s leash and let her run free.
Spring in north Georgia was always idyllic, and never failed to spark the creative muse in Livi’s soul. Twilight brought the fireflies out in force, and Beauty was a comical one-dog circus as she darted here and there, trying to catch the elusive glowing lights.
Livi believed that she sometimes experienced Beauty’s perspective more than just vicariously. In those moments, she was inside Beauty, seeing the world through her innocent eyes, feeling the constant pulse of life through her generous heart. Often Livi was sure she was reading Beauty’s mind, just through her expressive eyes or animated posture.
Livi smiled and closed her eyes, breathed in the gathering dusk, and Beauty’s pure joy was her own.
Trent and all the Trents of the world were a bad dream casually dismissed and promptly forgotten. Livi was too excited about a new idea for her next canvas: She would paint the scene viewed through Beauty’s perspective.
She experienced a moment of panic when she felt a disturbing absence of light, like a sudden palpable density to the air, cloying and invasive. Her eyes popped open and she looked up, sucking in a sharp breath.
No stars were visible through the upper boughs of the trees. A gigantic black cloud covered the breadth of the sky, dull and lifeless, without promise of rain. The wind kicked up, and the silhouettes of the swaying trees looked like skeletal sentinels pronouncing a harsh judgment upon the world.
Livi shuddered as a nameless primal fear rushed through her, feeling as if she were a mile high and plunging to Earth without a parachute. Shadows of cadaverous hollow-eyed faces pressed down against the rippling shroud, as if desperate to pass through the eerie barrier.
A multitude of spinning funnels lengthened and strained toward the ground. They looked like enormous cone-shaped drills trying to pierce the shroud, as if the dark canopy was a force-field whose purpose was to prevent passage from another dimension into this one. Puffy sacs contorted the funnel shapes, stretching their membranes, and dread constricted Livi’s throat. The universe was trying to regurgitate its cosmic bile, with Earth as its toxic waste dump.
The funnels burst on the ground with thunderous gooey splats, belching out pitch-black globs that transformed into hordes of featureless humanoid figures of pure darkness. Livi gasped as an invisible fist clenched her heart.
Beauty whined, then growled. Livi felt her soft fur brushing her leg, and trembled as a sudden preternatural awareness filled her. It felt like a wordless promise whispered in her mind by an entity whose nature she couldn’t fathom. She staggered as an epiphany rushed through her like a breeze dancing across a mountaintop. Then she smiled, recovering, and went down on one knee beside Beauty. She scratched Beauty’s neck, no longer afraid.
“It’s okay, girl. I don’t know what they are, but they can’t have either one of us. We don’t have to be afraid.”
As if in response to her declaration, tiny pinpricks of light pierced the shroud. They grew as they ripped more holes in the darkness, swelling with a nearly unbearable brilliance. The lights merged, then became a dazzling radiance that should have blinded her. Instead, as it increased in intensity, it filled her with a calm sense of purpose.
When she could absorb no more, the brilliance burst, and twilight returned. A rain of gleaming twinkling orbs fell all around her and Beauty like luminous feathers dancing in a gentle breeze as they floated to Earth.
“The stars are falling,” Livi whispered, and Beauty answered with a soft “Woof.”
The shadowy figures had vanished with the blast of brilliance.
Livi grinned and held out her arms to catch the spectral lights. It was another profound glimpse into the world of faerie, similar to the occasional peek she had of things not-of-this-world, only amplified to the tenth power. She incorporated these entities into her canvases, seen only from the corner of the eye, an ethereal quality to her art that kept her clients coming back for more as if they shared a timeless secret.
Sometimes her brushes would create a pulpy face jutting out of the bark of a tree, some- times a number of tiny winged figures hidden in the cascading spray of a rushing mountain stream, sometimes a wispy outline of a god-like entity limned against a puffy cloud. But the veil dividing dimensions had just been lifted, and Livi saw the faerie world in all its majesty and glory.
The lights dissipated before they touched ground. Some passed through her, making her squeal with delight and wonder. Then, as quickly as they had appeared, they were gone. And though the darkening twilight felt unchanged, Livi heard a new voice in her head, and knew it would never again be the same.
Beautiful twinkle-people. Happy, like run-in-wind.
The sensation of Beauty communicating without words was so vivid that Livi reacted with no more than raised eyebrows. After her staggering epiphany, she was anticipating something wondrous. She wasn’t expecting anything as extraordinary as telepathic communication with her dog, but Livi had long been a staunch believer in the existence of far greater things than were dreamt of in most people’s mundane philosophies. Whereas others more pragmatically oriented and permanently ensconced in the “real world” would scoff at such a fanciful notion, she freely accepted this new talent as a gift from the remarkable spirits she’d just encoun- tered. Rolling with the magic of the moment, she hugged Beauty, rubbing her face against her fuzzy head.
“Yes, they were beautiful, just like my special girl.”
Make shadow-mans run away.
“Yes, they did.”
Long ride now. Hard. Beauty and Livi.
Livi nodded, eyes on the night sky, but her mind focused on the vision from her revelation. “Yes, we’re going on a journey. I don’t know where we’re going, but I’ll know when we get there. C’mon, Beauty.”
She headed back to her condo with happy visions of Beauty’s twinkle-people dancing in her head. Inside, she snatched her cell off the foyer table, pocketed it without checking for messages, and strolled into the kitchen to hang Beauty’s leash on the peg beside her bowls.
She found Trent leaning against the counter. He clutched a nearly-empty bottle of whiskey in one hand. The other was clenched in a fist, pounding against the countertop.
His eyes were wild, frantic, but the sneer twisting his lips promised pain.
“Where the hell have you been, Olivia?”
“You’re drunk.” And you’re ruining our magic moment, asshole.
He laughed, then took a long swig of whiskey, emptying the bottle and drooling some of it down his chin. “I just asked you a fucking question, bitch.”
Livi reached a shaking hand down toward Beauty, who stood tensed and shivering at her side with a low growl building up in her chest.
Shadow-mans find Trent, Beauty thought at her. No twinkle-people.
Livi nodded. Whether Trent knew it or not, whether he experienced the same cathartic phenomenon that she and Beauty had, he radiated a pestilent darkness, overflowing with shadow-mans.
“Answer me, goddammit!”
Livi just shook her head, looking for the quickest way out of this madness. Trent pushed off from the counter and lurched toward her with a humorless chuckle.
“That’s okay, Olivia. It’s long past time for talk. Now I’m going to show you what happens when you cross me.”
Chapter 2
Conor frowned as he gazed upward. Something was wrong with the sky. It seemed thinner in places, as if it were a fragile protective shell about to fracture and let the dark matter of deep space come rushing in through the cracks. In the gathering dusk, the horizon turned a hazy burnt orange, like someone had set fire to the edge of the world, and the flames were consuming the Earth.
Conor snorted and dialed back his overactive imagination. Closing his eyes, he rested his head back against the thick grass. He had more urgent, mundane problems to solve, dilemmas that he could understand and act upon—if he could find the solutions.
The setting sun winked through the swaying boughs of the trees, painting a moving canvas across his closed eyelids in flickering images of shadow and light. The rustling leaves sounded like angels whispering the story of the gods in a language that made no sense.
Conor inhaled the pungent fragrance of rich soil, grass, and honeysuckle, then exhaled in a sigh. Let the angels murmur their indecipherable tale to someone else today. He was here searching for serenity—another graceful thing that seemed to scamper farther out of his reach with each passing day.
Although the day had been warm, he shivered as the late May breeze dried the sweat on his chest, forehead, and cheeks. The chilly wind brought a reminder of bitter winters, seeming to warn of a momentous change coming. He grimaced and shook his head. He needed change, but wasn’t some good news way overdue?
A happier marriage would be a good start.
Especially since Kristy discovered she was finally expecting. Conor tried to pretend it was the best news ever, but who wanted to raise a child in today’s crazy world? Almost a quarter through the twenty-first century, with one country after another murdering their neigh- bors—all in the name of false gods, Conor believed, whatever the denomination—chaos and madness seemed to have settled in for the long haul.
Kristy’s long-winded tantrums certainly weren’t helping. Lately she sounded just like her mother, and one Delia Dinara was one too many.
Conor winced, his eyes still closed. “Knock it off, dude. Take a chill pill.”
T-Rex’s happy barking helped him shake off his mood. He opened his eyes, sat up, and glanced warily at the sky. It looked fine, a normal early evening sky, and he watched his furry buddy frolic. His goofy four-year-old German shepherd raced through the meadow below him, leaping and bouncing like the startled jackrabbit he was chasing.
“Get that wascally wabbit, T-Rex!”
Conor had a handful of good friends, and a thimbleful of great ones. But he’d never had a friend like T-Rex, probably never would again. T-Rex would never betray him, never leave him—except in the worst, most final way possible.
Can’t think about that; not now, not ever.
Something in the carefree way T-Rex scampered here, darted there, then bolted in the opposite direction told Conor that maybe his buddy knew and even understood the story of the gods. What if there were some way to infuse humans with that irrepressible joie de vivre, to bottle it and pass it around?
The world would be a lot better place to live in, for everybody.
Unlike humans, dogs gave their love freely, without suspicion of ulterior motives, or fear of losing their hearts to someone who didn’t return that love. Conor closed his eyes again, imagining the world-as-it-is from T-Rex’s perspective.
The wind in your face, so glorious, so elegantly free.
Dinner and fresh water waiting at home, no worries.
Want to take a nap? This looks like a great spot, and anytime is a good time for a nap.
And who wouldn’t want to chase a butterfly and discover where it goes, and why it flutters about so oddly? Best of all, to not wonder or worry about those things when the butterfly escapes you.
Conor grinned and opened his eyes. T-Rex had his nose buried in the grass, his forepaws digging up dirt clods. The wind kicked up, and Conor shivered again. Twilight had crept up like a cloak covering the world, bringing with it the first twinkling stars that seemed to hint of other worlds with sentient life.
The trees swayed in a symphony of spectral voices, and Conor stood and snatched his shirt as the wind nearly blew it away. He threw it on, not buttoning it up, and thrust his fingers in his mouth and whistled.
Time to go home, and deal with whatever that entailed.
T-Rex lifted his head and looked back, then spun and bolted toward Conor as though it was the best game ever. He came up to Conor and sat, panting with his tongue lolling.
Conor crouched and ruffled the fur around T-Rex’s neck. “He’s a good boy. I sure am glad you didn’t catch ol’ Bugs, pal. We gotta get home, and get us some dinner. At least it’s not rabbit stew.”
Conor picked up T-Rex’s leash and they stood. Conor’s shirttails flopped in the wind. T-Rex’s fur wriggled with the breeze as if it had a life of its own.
With a disturbing tug at his gut that felt like a warning from the gods, Conor looked up and saw the stars start winking out. First one, then ten, fifty, a hundred, a thousand. Gray twilight became velvet midnight, as if he had blinked and hours passed in a millisecond.
A boundless canopy descended on the Earth, cloaking the world in darkness. The only lights came from the parking lot past the hill behind them, and the faint city lights in the distance.
“Whoa! What the hell?”
T-Rex growled, tail dropping and hackles rising. Conor couldn’t move, couldn’t take his eyes off the freakish phenomenon.
“It’s creepin’ me out too, buddy.” I’m dreaming, that’s all. I’m still lying in the grass under that old oak tree. Because this is not happening, can’t be real.
Spinning javelins pierced the canopy, funneling downward like mini-tornados. They bulged with pestilence, filling the sky, spikes in a shroud that was collapsing upon the Earth like a sinister entity intent on choking the life out of the world.
One vortex lanced straight at Conor and T-Rex.
“Let’s get the hell out of here, buddy!” Conor sprinted toward his Jeep Wrangler half a mile away like a running back tearing hell-bent for the goal line with no time left on the clock. T-Rex could easily outrun him, but stayed by his side.
All around them the mini-tornados struck the ground, exploding with loud, gross wet splats. Their innards spewed out in slow motion. Quivering tar-black globules sprayed everywhere, and Conor kicked it into overdrive.
Must not let them touch us.
A hundred feet from his Jeep, Conor and T-Rex skidded to a halt. A streaking javelin as thick as the forest’s mightiest oak clobbered the ground ahead of them, splattering like a massive rupturing sack of entrails. T-Rex snarled again. Conor’s heart was a pounding jackhammer. He knew he wasn’t dreaming, because T-Rex’s clear warning of danger would wake him if he was.
The scattered globs strained toward each other, stretching like ectoplasmic taffy. They coalesced into humanoid figures, spindly-limbed and bobble-headed, but disturbingly featureless. They were blacker than the sudden nightfall, opaque but somehow more hollow than the vacuum of space.
Before Conor could react, a dozen figures surrounded him and T-Rex. They moved toward the pair in jerks and spasms like out-of-sync stop motion photography, as though they wavered between this dimension and the next. Their gangly arms reached toward Conor in unison, and T-Rex tensed to spring.
Conor grabbed T-Rex’s collar and stopped him in mid-pounce. The spectral figures’ arms elongated, their fingerless hands tipped like spears. Conor sneered, a hopeless but defiant gesture, and the spears stretched and plunged into his chest.
Utter darkness. Everything gone, forever gone. Nothing but searing endless pain, and inextinguishable rage. Something formless rushed into the void, and Conor was filled with a soul-crushing despair.
As he howled and raised his sightless eyes to a sky that wasn’t there, one tiny star winked back into existence, then more, then a multitude, bringing a blossoming hope with their return. Soon they filled the early evening sky, the sky that was still there, more full of stars than Conor had ever seen or even imagined. Brighter and brighter they shone, more than the sky could contain.
Conor inhaled a deep breath as if he’d been drowning. Then the stars’ fiery coronas merged, blotting out the night, and they fell from the sky.
Everything was pure light, brilliant but not blinding, because Conor could suddenly see more clearly than he had ever imagined possible. The light filled him to overflowing, then burst inside him. Out of the explosion, twinkling crystals fluttered around him, dazzling and radiant in ordinary twilight again as they floated toward Earth. He held out his hands, mesmerized, trying to catch them, but they passed through him.
The dark phantoms had vanished. No trace of them or the world-spanning veil of darkness remained.
Only half-aware he was smiling, Conor mumbled, “Beautiful.”
The lights winked out before touching ground, and Conor found himself standing at the meadow’s edge next to T-Rex, wondering what the hell had just happened. The mild breeze ruffled his shirt and cooled his sweat, and he saw the grass at his feet sway, smelled the rich loamy earth and blossoming greenery, heard the gentle rustle of the leaves.
T-Rex gazed up at him with a look of unmistakable devotion, panting and grinning, his tail softly swishing the grass.
Sparkle-angels. Pretty pretty pretty.
Conor frowned. They weren’t words exactly; rather they were more like images that formed words in his mind. And he could swear the images came from…
No. Ridiculous. Impossible.
He crouched next to T-Rex, their eyes locked. “Well, buddy, I knew I was close to snapping. Now it’s finally happened. I’ve completely lost my mind.”
T-Rex like sparkle-angels, like! No like night-people. Bad. Hurt.
Conor didn’t know he’d fallen backward onto his butt until he felt a rock grinding into his spine. “You know,” he said, his voice quaking and his throat dry, “it started out pretty damn scary, but this has turned into one awesome dream.” He had to keep talking, fill in the holes and make sense of this. “Because even though I always wanted to know what you’re thinking, I know that… we both know that dogs can’t—”
Not dream. Must go home. Fast, like wind-in-fur.
The urgency hit Conor like a punch to the gut, wherever it came from. He couldn’t define it, but he damn sure felt it. He staggered to his feet, fumbling in his pocket for his keys.
“This is so not happening.”
Night-people everywhere, the voice in his head that couldn’t be T-Rex said. Find Kristy. Hurt.
“Oh, my god.” Conor bolted for the Jeep, yanking his keys out of his pocket. T-Rex sprinted after him. Why hadn’t he thought about Kristy?
As he ran, he realized why. It was because of all the harsh words foolishly not swallowed before they were uttered, the later regret that built up and turned into angrier words, the disagreements that turned into shouting matches that, had they sold tickets for them, would have made them both miserably rich by now—and dividing the spoils in divorce court.
T-Rex leaped over the tailgate and into the back of the Jeep. Conor jumped in the driver’s seat and cranked up the engine. T-Rex whined behind him, his breath hot on Conor’s cheek.
“I’m all over it, buddy.” Conor threw it into first, mashed the accelerator, and peeled out of the parking lot. He shifted gears as he turned onto the main road, shrieking tires leaving tread marks on the pavement.
“What the hell was all that?” he shouted, banging the steering wheel with a fist.
T-Rex growled. Night-people find Conor/Kristy-baby. T-Rex no let night-people hurt. T-Rex tear, rip out night-people throat.
Conor whipped his head to the side and stared into T-Rex’s pleading eyes, his knuckles whitening on the wheel.
“How is this possible? And how could you possibly know about the baby?”
T-Rex know. Wind-in-fur, Conor!
Conor floored it. He may be over the edge and cackling mad, but T-Rex was right. Wonder of it all, he was taking advice from a dog, or believed he was. Didn’t matter.
What did matter was that Kristy and their baby might be in danger—and that suddenly mattered more than anything else in the world.
“Conor no let night-people hurt them either.”
T-Rex barked three times, and the images in Conor’s head didn’t need words.
“You got it, buddy. Wind-in-fur.” Hang on, Kristy, we’re coming…
Conor snorted and dialed back his overactive imagination. Closing his eyes, he rested his head back against the thick grass. He had more urgent, mundane problems to solve, dilemmas that he could understand and act upon—if he could find the solutions.
The setting sun winked through the swaying boughs of the trees, painting a moving canvas across his closed eyelids in flickering images of shadow and light. The rustling leaves sounded like angels whispering the story of the gods in a language that made no sense.
Conor inhaled the pungent fragrance of rich soil, grass, and honeysuckle, then exhaled in a sigh. Let the angels murmur their indecipherable tale to someone else today. He was here searching for serenity—another graceful thing that seemed to scamper farther out of his reach with each passing day.
Although the day had been warm, he shivered as the late May breeze dried the sweat on his chest, forehead, and cheeks. The chilly wind brought a reminder of bitter winters, seeming to warn of a momentous change coming. He grimaced and shook his head. He needed change, but wasn’t some good news way overdue?
A happier marriage would be a good start.
Especially since Kristy discovered she was finally expecting. Conor tried to pretend it was the best news ever, but who wanted to raise a child in today’s crazy world? Almost a quarter through the twenty-first century, with one country after another murdering their neigh- bors—all in the name of false gods, Conor believed, whatever the denomination—chaos and madness seemed to have settled in for the long haul.
Kristy’s long-winded tantrums certainly weren’t helping. Lately she sounded just like her mother, and one Delia Dinara was one too many.
Conor winced, his eyes still closed. “Knock it off, dude. Take a chill pill.”
T-Rex’s happy barking helped him shake off his mood. He opened his eyes, sat up, and glanced warily at the sky. It looked fine, a normal early evening sky, and he watched his furry buddy frolic. His goofy four-year-old German shepherd raced through the meadow below him, leaping and bouncing like the startled jackrabbit he was chasing.
“Get that wascally wabbit, T-Rex!”
Conor had a handful of good friends, and a thimbleful of great ones. But he’d never had a friend like T-Rex, probably never would again. T-Rex would never betray him, never leave him—except in the worst, most final way possible.
Can’t think about that; not now, not ever.
Something in the carefree way T-Rex scampered here, darted there, then bolted in the opposite direction told Conor that maybe his buddy knew and even understood the story of the gods. What if there were some way to infuse humans with that irrepressible joie de vivre, to bottle it and pass it around?
The world would be a lot better place to live in, for everybody.
Unlike humans, dogs gave their love freely, without suspicion of ulterior motives, or fear of losing their hearts to someone who didn’t return that love. Conor closed his eyes again, imagining the world-as-it-is from T-Rex’s perspective.
The wind in your face, so glorious, so elegantly free.
Dinner and fresh water waiting at home, no worries.
Want to take a nap? This looks like a great spot, and anytime is a good time for a nap.
And who wouldn’t want to chase a butterfly and discover where it goes, and why it flutters about so oddly? Best of all, to not wonder or worry about those things when the butterfly escapes you.
Conor grinned and opened his eyes. T-Rex had his nose buried in the grass, his forepaws digging up dirt clods. The wind kicked up, and Conor shivered again. Twilight had crept up like a cloak covering the world, bringing with it the first twinkling stars that seemed to hint of other worlds with sentient life.
The trees swayed in a symphony of spectral voices, and Conor stood and snatched his shirt as the wind nearly blew it away. He threw it on, not buttoning it up, and thrust his fingers in his mouth and whistled.
Time to go home, and deal with whatever that entailed.
T-Rex lifted his head and looked back, then spun and bolted toward Conor as though it was the best game ever. He came up to Conor and sat, panting with his tongue lolling.
Conor crouched and ruffled the fur around T-Rex’s neck. “He’s a good boy. I sure am glad you didn’t catch ol’ Bugs, pal. We gotta get home, and get us some dinner. At least it’s not rabbit stew.”
Conor picked up T-Rex’s leash and they stood. Conor’s shirttails flopped in the wind. T-Rex’s fur wriggled with the breeze as if it had a life of its own.
With a disturbing tug at his gut that felt like a warning from the gods, Conor looked up and saw the stars start winking out. First one, then ten, fifty, a hundred, a thousand. Gray twilight became velvet midnight, as if he had blinked and hours passed in a millisecond.
A boundless canopy descended on the Earth, cloaking the world in darkness. The only lights came from the parking lot past the hill behind them, and the faint city lights in the distance.
“Whoa! What the hell?”
T-Rex growled, tail dropping and hackles rising. Conor couldn’t move, couldn’t take his eyes off the freakish phenomenon.
“It’s creepin’ me out too, buddy.” I’m dreaming, that’s all. I’m still lying in the grass under that old oak tree. Because this is not happening, can’t be real.
Spinning javelins pierced the canopy, funneling downward like mini-tornados. They bulged with pestilence, filling the sky, spikes in a shroud that was collapsing upon the Earth like a sinister entity intent on choking the life out of the world.
One vortex lanced straight at Conor and T-Rex.
“Let’s get the hell out of here, buddy!” Conor sprinted toward his Jeep Wrangler half a mile away like a running back tearing hell-bent for the goal line with no time left on the clock. T-Rex could easily outrun him, but stayed by his side.
All around them the mini-tornados struck the ground, exploding with loud, gross wet splats. Their innards spewed out in slow motion. Quivering tar-black globules sprayed everywhere, and Conor kicked it into overdrive.
Must not let them touch us.
A hundred feet from his Jeep, Conor and T-Rex skidded to a halt. A streaking javelin as thick as the forest’s mightiest oak clobbered the ground ahead of them, splattering like a massive rupturing sack of entrails. T-Rex snarled again. Conor’s heart was a pounding jackhammer. He knew he wasn’t dreaming, because T-Rex’s clear warning of danger would wake him if he was.
The scattered globs strained toward each other, stretching like ectoplasmic taffy. They coalesced into humanoid figures, spindly-limbed and bobble-headed, but disturbingly featureless. They were blacker than the sudden nightfall, opaque but somehow more hollow than the vacuum of space.
Before Conor could react, a dozen figures surrounded him and T-Rex. They moved toward the pair in jerks and spasms like out-of-sync stop motion photography, as though they wavered between this dimension and the next. Their gangly arms reached toward Conor in unison, and T-Rex tensed to spring.
Conor grabbed T-Rex’s collar and stopped him in mid-pounce. The spectral figures’ arms elongated, their fingerless hands tipped like spears. Conor sneered, a hopeless but defiant gesture, and the spears stretched and plunged into his chest.
Utter darkness. Everything gone, forever gone. Nothing but searing endless pain, and inextinguishable rage. Something formless rushed into the void, and Conor was filled with a soul-crushing despair.
As he howled and raised his sightless eyes to a sky that wasn’t there, one tiny star winked back into existence, then more, then a multitude, bringing a blossoming hope with their return. Soon they filled the early evening sky, the sky that was still there, more full of stars than Conor had ever seen or even imagined. Brighter and brighter they shone, more than the sky could contain.
Conor inhaled a deep breath as if he’d been drowning. Then the stars’ fiery coronas merged, blotting out the night, and they fell from the sky.
Everything was pure light, brilliant but not blinding, because Conor could suddenly see more clearly than he had ever imagined possible. The light filled him to overflowing, then burst inside him. Out of the explosion, twinkling crystals fluttered around him, dazzling and radiant in ordinary twilight again as they floated toward Earth. He held out his hands, mesmerized, trying to catch them, but they passed through him.
The dark phantoms had vanished. No trace of them or the world-spanning veil of darkness remained.
Only half-aware he was smiling, Conor mumbled, “Beautiful.”
The lights winked out before touching ground, and Conor found himself standing at the meadow’s edge next to T-Rex, wondering what the hell had just happened. The mild breeze ruffled his shirt and cooled his sweat, and he saw the grass at his feet sway, smelled the rich loamy earth and blossoming greenery, heard the gentle rustle of the leaves.
T-Rex gazed up at him with a look of unmistakable devotion, panting and grinning, his tail softly swishing the grass.
Sparkle-angels. Pretty pretty pretty.
Conor frowned. They weren’t words exactly; rather they were more like images that formed words in his mind. And he could swear the images came from…
No. Ridiculous. Impossible.
He crouched next to T-Rex, their eyes locked. “Well, buddy, I knew I was close to snapping. Now it’s finally happened. I’ve completely lost my mind.”
T-Rex like sparkle-angels, like! No like night-people. Bad. Hurt.
Conor didn’t know he’d fallen backward onto his butt until he felt a rock grinding into his spine. “You know,” he said, his voice quaking and his throat dry, “it started out pretty damn scary, but this has turned into one awesome dream.” He had to keep talking, fill in the holes and make sense of this. “Because even though I always wanted to know what you’re thinking, I know that… we both know that dogs can’t—”
Not dream. Must go home. Fast, like wind-in-fur.
The urgency hit Conor like a punch to the gut, wherever it came from. He couldn’t define it, but he damn sure felt it. He staggered to his feet, fumbling in his pocket for his keys.
“This is so not happening.”
Night-people everywhere, the voice in his head that couldn’t be T-Rex said. Find Kristy. Hurt.
“Oh, my god.” Conor bolted for the Jeep, yanking his keys out of his pocket. T-Rex sprinted after him. Why hadn’t he thought about Kristy?
As he ran, he realized why. It was because of all the harsh words foolishly not swallowed before they were uttered, the later regret that built up and turned into angrier words, the disagreements that turned into shouting matches that, had they sold tickets for them, would have made them both miserably rich by now—and dividing the spoils in divorce court.
T-Rex leaped over the tailgate and into the back of the Jeep. Conor jumped in the driver’s seat and cranked up the engine. T-Rex whined behind him, his breath hot on Conor’s cheek.
“I’m all over it, buddy.” Conor threw it into first, mashed the accelerator, and peeled out of the parking lot. He shifted gears as he turned onto the main road, shrieking tires leaving tread marks on the pavement.
“What the hell was all that?” he shouted, banging the steering wheel with a fist.
T-Rex growled. Night-people find Conor/Kristy-baby. T-Rex no let night-people hurt. T-Rex tear, rip out night-people throat.
Conor whipped his head to the side and stared into T-Rex’s pleading eyes, his knuckles whitening on the wheel.
“How is this possible? And how could you possibly know about the baby?”
T-Rex know. Wind-in-fur, Conor!
Conor floored it. He may be over the edge and cackling mad, but T-Rex was right. Wonder of it all, he was taking advice from a dog, or believed he was. Didn’t matter.
What did matter was that Kristy and their baby might be in danger—and that suddenly mattered more than anything else in the world.
“Conor no let night-people hurt them either.”
T-Rex barked three times, and the images in Conor’s head didn’t need words.
“You got it, buddy. Wind-in-fur.” Hang on, Kristy, we’re coming…
Chapter 3
Trent was on Livi before she could move. He dropped the empty whiskey bottle and grabbed her arms above the elbows. The bottle bounced off the vinyl floor, and he slammed her against the oven built into the wall, squeezing hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. His face was inches from hers, his toxic breath making her gag.
“You shouldn’t have dissed me in front of everyone, Livi.”
“Dissed? What are you, seventeen, Trent?”
His fingers dug into her arms, and she couldn’t stifle an involuntary cry as he slammed her against the oven again.
“You’re hurting me!”
“I’m gonna do a lot more than that before we’re done here.” His voice was thick and husky. He pressed his crotch against her, and she felt his hardness. Lust and fury radiated off him like a heat wave. He was deep in the grip of shadow-mans.
Beauty whined, flinching backward behind Trent, and the helpless cry broke Livi’s heart. Beauty was a lover, not a fighter, and Livi instantly forgave her for not being the ferocious defender she suddenly needed.
“I’m gonna show you what kind of man Trent Delaney is,” Trent hissed, grinding his teeth. “I’m gonna take my rock-hard cock and fuck that pretty little pussy till it’s raw and bleeding.”
“Let go of me, you son of a bitch.”
He slapped her, then rammed her into the oven again. Marbles rattled in her head, and Beauty’s whine transformed into a low growl. Trent laughed and kept talking as if she hadn’t spoken.
“Then I’m gonna fuck you up the ass until you gotta have surgery to fix the damage. And long before I’m done with you, you’re gonna know—”
“You’re no longer welcome here, asshole!” Livi said, amazed at her defiance. Mother’s little mouse had grown fangs. But just a glance in his wild eyes told her he meant every word. Still, she couldn’t stop herself.
“I want you to leave now, and I want my damn key back.” Foolish starry-eyed girl. Never should have given him a key.
He snickered. “Key? Oh, I got your damn key right here. You need this, Livi. You need a real man to fuck the shit out of you, show you who’s boss. And I’m just the--aahhh!”
Trent jerked backward, and Livi looked down. Beauty’s teeth were clamped around his calf, yanking him away. Trent threw Livi sideways against the sink and spun around.
“Fucking worthless mutt!” He kicked out with his free leg. Beauty yelped as his heel smacked into her side. She let go and backed off, whimpering, and Livi felt like she’d just been doused with gasoline and set ablaze.
The dirty dishes in her sink were suddenly a reward for procrastination. She grabbed the handle of the iron skillet she used to make an omelet for breakfast in both hands. Trent turned back to her with a triumphant sneer, and she swung the skillet at his head like a batter aiming to knock the ball out of the park.
Trent raised an arm to deflect it. The skillet glanced off his forearm, but connected with his temple with a satisfying dull clonk! Grunting, he collapsed to his knees and glared up at Livi.
Blood oozed out of the cut in his temple, dribbling down over his eyebrow and cheek. He put a hand up to it and grimaced. A mix of respect and fear shone in his eyes, but when he saw the blood on his hand, they glazed over with the fire of madness.
Sneering, he leaped at her, and Livi knew that even if she could stop Trent Delaney, there was no stopping the shadow-mans possessing him. He reached for her. Beauty snagged his ankle in her jaws, snarling and jerking him backward.
Livi was already swinging, overhand this time, like she was going to drive a spike into a railroad tie. The skillet made a resounding clonggg! and vibrated in her hands as it bounced off the top of Trent’s head. He slumped to the floor face down and lay still.
She stared at the makeshift weapon, then lowered it, hands trembling. Her whole body trembled, down to the bone. Beauty backed off, whimpering and hobbling on her right foreleg, and Livi’s heart broke again for what Trent had done to her, for the innocence he stole from the most gentle, loving dog she had ever seen.
“Oh, my special baby,” she said, and hurried toward Beauty. Beauty limped backward as if she was afraid she’d be punished for the bad thing she just did. That made the fire in Livi blaze higher. She crouched, set the skillet on the floor, and slowly approached her friend.
“It’s okay, girl. C’mere.”
Beauty hobbled forward, and Livi put her arms around her, cooing at her. She rubbed her face on top of Beauty’s head, and felt her first tears wetting the soft fur there.
“She is such a good girl, such a good, good girl.” Livi kissed Beauty’s snout, then leaned back and ruffled the fur around her neck. She stared into those deep brown eyes, amazement overcoming fury. “My Beauty. You fought for me, my sweet, sweet girl.”
In Beauty’s four short years, Livi had never seen her snap or growl at anyone. At other dogs in rambunctious play, yeah, but never a person. Beauty gazed up in her eyes, and all the love—and all the need for it in return—was still there.
With a soft wuff, Beauty looked at Trent, who hadn’t moved or made a sound since he dropped, then gazed back up at Livi and sent her more thought-images.
Shadow-mans.
“You’re right, girl. It was the shadow-mans.”
Beauty no let shadow-mans hurt Livi.
“Oh, my special girl.” Livi sniffled, hugged her, and let the tears come.
After a few moments, when Livi’s blurry eyes burned and her nose wouldn’t stop running, she pulled herself together. She checked Beauty’s leg and side. Beauty whimpered at her touch, but nothing seemed broken. Hopefully just a bruise, no splintered ribs piercing a lung or anything catastrophic like that.
Satisfied, Livi picked up the skillet, stood, and set it on the counter. She grabbed a paper towel, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose. Then she glared at Trent, still motionless on the floor.
She glanced at the skillet, then back at Trent. Had she killed him? She was afraid to check. He might jump up and bite off her head, or rip out her heart, like the evil killer in the end of every bad slasher flick.
At five-four and one-hundred-ten pounds, she was petite, yet not a mouse. She had swung hard, but despite the rage that filled her when Trent kicked Beauty, despite his horrible threats, she didn’t want to kill anybody.
Taking a deep shuddering breath, she picked up the skillet, edged around Trent, and knelt by his head. Skillet ready to swing, she reached for his neck and felt for a pulse.
He groaned, moved a little, and she let out a sigh of relief. Now what?
Call the police. Duh. She stood, tugged her cell out of her back pocket, and dialed nine-one-one. Instead of a ring, she got a recorded message.
“We’re sorry,” the annoying female voice said, “but we’re experiencing an unusually high load of emergency calls. Please stay on the line, and an operator will assist you as soon as—”
She pushed “end,” gawking and intuitively drawing lines from dot to dot.
“God help us all. This is not an isolated incident.” She glanced at Beauty, who stood frozen, watching her as if reading her mind.
Shadow-mans everywheres, Beauty’s mind-voice said. Twinkle-people only somewheres.
Livi stumbled backward, catching herself on the counter before her knees gave way. Beauty was right.
Did anyone else actually see what she and Beauty saw? And did they feel the change when they were chosen by one faction or the other? Worse, how many people were chosen by Beauty’s twinkle-people, as Livi had been, compared to those like Trent who were selected by the shadow-mans?
“It might be too late when we finally figure it out,” she mumbled. “Might be too late already.” She looked at Beauty, and feared for their future.
Go ride now, Beauty and Livi?
Livi shuddered. “Yes. We’re going for a ride. And I don’t think we’re coming back.”
Trent groaned again, tried to push up off the floor, and failed. Livi set the skillet on the counter, pocketed her cell, and started searching through her kitchen drawers.
A minute later she found what she was looking for: a three-inch-wide roll of reinforced boxing tape. She stood above Trent and rolled him over. He moaned and grunted, but otherwise hardly moved.
“Sorry about this, boss.” She grabbed his hands and wrapped the tape around his wrists and forearms. “I can’t kill you, wouldn’t if I could, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let you hurt me or Beauty again.”
Tight enough so he couldn’t just tug his way free, but not enough to cut off circulation. Satisfied, she stood, grabbed a knife out of a drawer, and cut the roll free. Then she wrapped his ankles and knees together. No more kicking.
Then she started making a list in her head.
Leaving the skillet on the counter but hanging onto the knife, she headed into the living room, which doubled as her studio. Beauty followed, limping but wagging her tail.
With a pang of regret, Livi glanced at the canvas she was currently working on, resting on her easel and awaiting more loving brush strokes. Wherever they were going, would there be art, literature, and music? Livi wasn’t getting rich off her art, but it paid the bills, often with a little left over. Most people she knew thought she was crazy to try making a career of it—and she had done pretty well at it so far—but she didn’t paint to make money.
She painted because she couldn’t not paint.
She let out a heavy sigh. Most of her canvases were sold, or displayed in the handful of galleries that sold them on consignment, but she’d kept several favorites that she couldn’t imagine giving up. What would become of them?
Biting her lip, she picked up the remote, turned on the TV, found CNN, and cranked up the volume. Maybe they could give her a clue where to go, and what was going to become of civilization now that the rules of the game had changed.
Even if no one else was aware of it, she knew that “life as we know it” would be radically different from now on. Her epiphany had assured her of that.
She almost heard the unseen new doomsday clock ticking off a countdown, and hurried into her bedroom and set the knife on her dresser. Suitcases out of the closet: hardier clothing in the big one, forget the fancy stuff; necessary toiletries in the smaller one. Packed and on her way down the hall to the living room, she glanced into her spare bedroom, where she stored her personal canvases.
With Beauty as her little shadow, she carried the suitcases to the front door and set them down beside it. In the kitchen, she grabbed the tape. Trent moaned, stirring but still unconscious. From the living room speakers came the sounds of sirens and people shouting, obviously a live report.
Already going to hell in a hand basket.
She hurried back down the hall to her bedroom, snagged the knife and yanked the comforter off her bed, then headed to her spare bedroom.
“Three are coming with us,” she said, spreading out the comforter on the floor. She looked through the canvases leaning against the wall. After quickly selecting three favorites, she grabbed one more, saying, “Okay, four.”
Livi-pictures go for ride too? Beauty’s mind-voice asked.
“Yes, pretty girl.” As Livi wrapped the canvases in the comforter, she thought of the arrogant snob who had tried to buy all of her paintings at her most recent exhibit. Good-looking man, but creepy. Acted like he thought he was a rock star. She had limited him to three paintings, and those reluctantly. The thought of that jerk owning a number of her canvases had made the hair on her arms crawl. What was his name? Victor something.
Well, he wasn’t getting these four. She taped up the package, then carried it to the front door with Beauty at her heels.
Go like run-in-wind?
Interesting that Beauty understood the urgency of the situation.
“I’m hurrying as fast as I can, girl.”
What else did she absolutely need?
Gym bag she never used in the closet. Accompanied by snatches of an increasingly horrifying news report—numerous incidents of rampant violence, and not just local—she stuffed the bag with first aid items.
Drop it off at the front door with the suitcases and canvases, then into the kitchen. Fill her reusable cloth grocery bags with non-perishable food and some cooking utensils. Case of bottled water out of the fridge, dodging Trent. Grab Beauty’s twenty-gallon plastic bin of dry dog food--a little over half-full, good—toss in her food and water bowls, brush, and heartworm and flea-and-tick medication. Pack one grocery bag with Beauty’s treats and canned food.
Carry it all to the door, half-listening to the madness pouring out of her living room speakers, and hearing Beauty’s silent pleas for haste. Time to load it all up in her Toyota Forerunner, then departure into… whatever future they had.
As she grabbed the last of what she hoped was all she would need for a while, Trent gasped, then groaned. He jerked up into a sitting position and glared at her.
“What the… hell did you do to me, you bitch?”
Livi stopped, and Beauty froze beside her. “You were going to rape me, boss man. Remember?”
He struggled, growling like a cornered animal and jittering like a fly caught in a spider’s web. He spent himself fast, and slumped against the cabinets with a grimace and another moan.
Almost as an afterthought, Livi glanced at her skillet on the counter. She grabbed it and stuffed it into one of her bags along with the knife. Amid a reporter’s alarmed stammering blaring out of her living room speakers while the doodie hit the fan somewhere, she set her last load on the counter and stepped toward Trent.
“What do you remember, Trent?”
He sneered. “I remember deciding that you need a good old-fashioned hard dick fucking, you cunt. Untie me now, dammit!” He winced, clearly in pain. Served him right.
“You should try to sit up, and stay awake. You may have a concussion. I can’t stay with you and monitor you, and emergency services are… temporarily unavailable. Sorry. Good luck. We’re leaving. Goodbye, Trent.”
He jerked and yanked his shoulders, trying to rip the reinforced tape. Kicked his legs against the floor, quickly wearing himself out again amid angry grunts.
Livi picked up her last bags, Beauty chuffing behind her.
“Come on,” Trent said, his voice silky smooth again. “You know I didn’t mean all that, babe.”
Her glare made him scowl and yank his arms again, kick his feet. As she turned to go, he gave it his best shot.
“You can’t leave me like this, Livi. I’ll die. I need help. Please, baby.”
“You need the kind of help I can’t give, and don’t care to, Trent.” Shadow-mans got you, you poor bastard. “You’ll cut yourself loose in thirty minutes, an hour tops.”
From her living room, a newscaster uttered the phrase “absolute chaos” with a frightened shout. Livi didn’t want to hear it, already knew it. Seconds ticked off like the swinging blade of a descending pendulum.
She took her packages, headed out the front door, and started loading up, ignoring the foul-mouthed curses from Trent, just more background noise to accompany the imminent bedlam.
Back storage area packed up, room for Beauty behind her, ready to ride out of what would soon be Hell. As she loaded the last bag, she turned at a familiar sound behind her.
Beauty clutched her plush toy alligator in her jaws, grinding it, squeaky-squeak-squeak. Her limp was barely noticeable. Livi almost collapsed at the innocence and longing in the simple gesture of a hopelessly gentle soul. How would they weather this unimaginable storm?
Together, that’s how.
“Of course Mr. Squeaky-Gator is coming with us,” she said, fighting more tears as she crouched, and Beauty leaped into her arms. Could mankind ever learn how to give this unconditional love, or display this guileless devotion?
Maybe that was the test now. Last chance.
Stand or fall, do or die.
She tried to block out Trent’s last mad cry that echoed out the open front door but couldn’t.
“I’m coming for you, Olivia! When we’re in Hell together, I’m gonna fuck you for all eternity with my fire-cock!”
Shadow-mans everywheres. She headed over to Trent’s pride and joy, his shiny metallic green Jaguar. She thought about slashing his tires, but settled for letting the air out of his passenger side tires with her key. She watched her front door in case he got loose. He wouldn’t be chasing her down in this overpriced heap, at least for a while. She signaled Beauty to jump in their ride, not even planning to switch on the radio for news. Why bother? She had a good idea what was happening, and didn’t want to hear any more about it, at least not until they were well on their way. In the driver’s seat with her seat belt fastened, she jammed the key in its slot, twisted it, and laughed.
“Houston, we have ignition,” she said as the engine roared to life.
Run-in-wind, Livi! Beauty’s mind-voice shouted. Her snout hung over Livi’s shoulder, her breath hot in Livi’s face.
“That’s right, girl. Blast-off. Here we go.”
Livi’s internal GPS told her to turn right out of the condo lot, and head southeast away from the North Georgia mountains toward the coast, somewhere between Wilmington, Myrtle Beach, and Savannah. Rubber bit pavement as she gave it some gas and left her former life behind.
“Full steam ahead!” she shouted into the void, not nearly as courageous as her voice made it sound.
“Wuff!” Beauty barked.
And that about summed it up.
“You shouldn’t have dissed me in front of everyone, Livi.”
“Dissed? What are you, seventeen, Trent?”
His fingers dug into her arms, and she couldn’t stifle an involuntary cry as he slammed her against the oven again.
“You’re hurting me!”
“I’m gonna do a lot more than that before we’re done here.” His voice was thick and husky. He pressed his crotch against her, and she felt his hardness. Lust and fury radiated off him like a heat wave. He was deep in the grip of shadow-mans.
Beauty whined, flinching backward behind Trent, and the helpless cry broke Livi’s heart. Beauty was a lover, not a fighter, and Livi instantly forgave her for not being the ferocious defender she suddenly needed.
“I’m gonna show you what kind of man Trent Delaney is,” Trent hissed, grinding his teeth. “I’m gonna take my rock-hard cock and fuck that pretty little pussy till it’s raw and bleeding.”
“Let go of me, you son of a bitch.”
He slapped her, then rammed her into the oven again. Marbles rattled in her head, and Beauty’s whine transformed into a low growl. Trent laughed and kept talking as if she hadn’t spoken.
“Then I’m gonna fuck you up the ass until you gotta have surgery to fix the damage. And long before I’m done with you, you’re gonna know—”
“You’re no longer welcome here, asshole!” Livi said, amazed at her defiance. Mother’s little mouse had grown fangs. But just a glance in his wild eyes told her he meant every word. Still, she couldn’t stop herself.
“I want you to leave now, and I want my damn key back.” Foolish starry-eyed girl. Never should have given him a key.
He snickered. “Key? Oh, I got your damn key right here. You need this, Livi. You need a real man to fuck the shit out of you, show you who’s boss. And I’m just the--aahhh!”
Trent jerked backward, and Livi looked down. Beauty’s teeth were clamped around his calf, yanking him away. Trent threw Livi sideways against the sink and spun around.
“Fucking worthless mutt!” He kicked out with his free leg. Beauty yelped as his heel smacked into her side. She let go and backed off, whimpering, and Livi felt like she’d just been doused with gasoline and set ablaze.
The dirty dishes in her sink were suddenly a reward for procrastination. She grabbed the handle of the iron skillet she used to make an omelet for breakfast in both hands. Trent turned back to her with a triumphant sneer, and she swung the skillet at his head like a batter aiming to knock the ball out of the park.
Trent raised an arm to deflect it. The skillet glanced off his forearm, but connected with his temple with a satisfying dull clonk! Grunting, he collapsed to his knees and glared up at Livi.
Blood oozed out of the cut in his temple, dribbling down over his eyebrow and cheek. He put a hand up to it and grimaced. A mix of respect and fear shone in his eyes, but when he saw the blood on his hand, they glazed over with the fire of madness.
Sneering, he leaped at her, and Livi knew that even if she could stop Trent Delaney, there was no stopping the shadow-mans possessing him. He reached for her. Beauty snagged his ankle in her jaws, snarling and jerking him backward.
Livi was already swinging, overhand this time, like she was going to drive a spike into a railroad tie. The skillet made a resounding clonggg! and vibrated in her hands as it bounced off the top of Trent’s head. He slumped to the floor face down and lay still.
She stared at the makeshift weapon, then lowered it, hands trembling. Her whole body trembled, down to the bone. Beauty backed off, whimpering and hobbling on her right foreleg, and Livi’s heart broke again for what Trent had done to her, for the innocence he stole from the most gentle, loving dog she had ever seen.
“Oh, my special baby,” she said, and hurried toward Beauty. Beauty limped backward as if she was afraid she’d be punished for the bad thing she just did. That made the fire in Livi blaze higher. She crouched, set the skillet on the floor, and slowly approached her friend.
“It’s okay, girl. C’mere.”
Beauty hobbled forward, and Livi put her arms around her, cooing at her. She rubbed her face on top of Beauty’s head, and felt her first tears wetting the soft fur there.
“She is such a good girl, such a good, good girl.” Livi kissed Beauty’s snout, then leaned back and ruffled the fur around her neck. She stared into those deep brown eyes, amazement overcoming fury. “My Beauty. You fought for me, my sweet, sweet girl.”
In Beauty’s four short years, Livi had never seen her snap or growl at anyone. At other dogs in rambunctious play, yeah, but never a person. Beauty gazed up in her eyes, and all the love—and all the need for it in return—was still there.
With a soft wuff, Beauty looked at Trent, who hadn’t moved or made a sound since he dropped, then gazed back up at Livi and sent her more thought-images.
Shadow-mans.
“You’re right, girl. It was the shadow-mans.”
Beauty no let shadow-mans hurt Livi.
“Oh, my special girl.” Livi sniffled, hugged her, and let the tears come.
After a few moments, when Livi’s blurry eyes burned and her nose wouldn’t stop running, she pulled herself together. She checked Beauty’s leg and side. Beauty whimpered at her touch, but nothing seemed broken. Hopefully just a bruise, no splintered ribs piercing a lung or anything catastrophic like that.
Satisfied, Livi picked up the skillet, stood, and set it on the counter. She grabbed a paper towel, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose. Then she glared at Trent, still motionless on the floor.
She glanced at the skillet, then back at Trent. Had she killed him? She was afraid to check. He might jump up and bite off her head, or rip out her heart, like the evil killer in the end of every bad slasher flick.
At five-four and one-hundred-ten pounds, she was petite, yet not a mouse. She had swung hard, but despite the rage that filled her when Trent kicked Beauty, despite his horrible threats, she didn’t want to kill anybody.
Taking a deep shuddering breath, she picked up the skillet, edged around Trent, and knelt by his head. Skillet ready to swing, she reached for his neck and felt for a pulse.
He groaned, moved a little, and she let out a sigh of relief. Now what?
Call the police. Duh. She stood, tugged her cell out of her back pocket, and dialed nine-one-one. Instead of a ring, she got a recorded message.
“We’re sorry,” the annoying female voice said, “but we’re experiencing an unusually high load of emergency calls. Please stay on the line, and an operator will assist you as soon as—”
She pushed “end,” gawking and intuitively drawing lines from dot to dot.
“God help us all. This is not an isolated incident.” She glanced at Beauty, who stood frozen, watching her as if reading her mind.
Shadow-mans everywheres, Beauty’s mind-voice said. Twinkle-people only somewheres.
Livi stumbled backward, catching herself on the counter before her knees gave way. Beauty was right.
Did anyone else actually see what she and Beauty saw? And did they feel the change when they were chosen by one faction or the other? Worse, how many people were chosen by Beauty’s twinkle-people, as Livi had been, compared to those like Trent who were selected by the shadow-mans?
“It might be too late when we finally figure it out,” she mumbled. “Might be too late already.” She looked at Beauty, and feared for their future.
Go ride now, Beauty and Livi?
Livi shuddered. “Yes. We’re going for a ride. And I don’t think we’re coming back.”
Trent groaned again, tried to push up off the floor, and failed. Livi set the skillet on the counter, pocketed her cell, and started searching through her kitchen drawers.
A minute later she found what she was looking for: a three-inch-wide roll of reinforced boxing tape. She stood above Trent and rolled him over. He moaned and grunted, but otherwise hardly moved.
“Sorry about this, boss.” She grabbed his hands and wrapped the tape around his wrists and forearms. “I can’t kill you, wouldn’t if I could, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let you hurt me or Beauty again.”
Tight enough so he couldn’t just tug his way free, but not enough to cut off circulation. Satisfied, she stood, grabbed a knife out of a drawer, and cut the roll free. Then she wrapped his ankles and knees together. No more kicking.
Then she started making a list in her head.
Leaving the skillet on the counter but hanging onto the knife, she headed into the living room, which doubled as her studio. Beauty followed, limping but wagging her tail.
With a pang of regret, Livi glanced at the canvas she was currently working on, resting on her easel and awaiting more loving brush strokes. Wherever they were going, would there be art, literature, and music? Livi wasn’t getting rich off her art, but it paid the bills, often with a little left over. Most people she knew thought she was crazy to try making a career of it—and she had done pretty well at it so far—but she didn’t paint to make money.
She painted because she couldn’t not paint.
She let out a heavy sigh. Most of her canvases were sold, or displayed in the handful of galleries that sold them on consignment, but she’d kept several favorites that she couldn’t imagine giving up. What would become of them?
Biting her lip, she picked up the remote, turned on the TV, found CNN, and cranked up the volume. Maybe they could give her a clue where to go, and what was going to become of civilization now that the rules of the game had changed.
Even if no one else was aware of it, she knew that “life as we know it” would be radically different from now on. Her epiphany had assured her of that.
She almost heard the unseen new doomsday clock ticking off a countdown, and hurried into her bedroom and set the knife on her dresser. Suitcases out of the closet: hardier clothing in the big one, forget the fancy stuff; necessary toiletries in the smaller one. Packed and on her way down the hall to the living room, she glanced into her spare bedroom, where she stored her personal canvases.
With Beauty as her little shadow, she carried the suitcases to the front door and set them down beside it. In the kitchen, she grabbed the tape. Trent moaned, stirring but still unconscious. From the living room speakers came the sounds of sirens and people shouting, obviously a live report.
Already going to hell in a hand basket.
She hurried back down the hall to her bedroom, snagged the knife and yanked the comforter off her bed, then headed to her spare bedroom.
“Three are coming with us,” she said, spreading out the comforter on the floor. She looked through the canvases leaning against the wall. After quickly selecting three favorites, she grabbed one more, saying, “Okay, four.”
Livi-pictures go for ride too? Beauty’s mind-voice asked.
“Yes, pretty girl.” As Livi wrapped the canvases in the comforter, she thought of the arrogant snob who had tried to buy all of her paintings at her most recent exhibit. Good-looking man, but creepy. Acted like he thought he was a rock star. She had limited him to three paintings, and those reluctantly. The thought of that jerk owning a number of her canvases had made the hair on her arms crawl. What was his name? Victor something.
Well, he wasn’t getting these four. She taped up the package, then carried it to the front door with Beauty at her heels.
Go like run-in-wind?
Interesting that Beauty understood the urgency of the situation.
“I’m hurrying as fast as I can, girl.”
What else did she absolutely need?
Gym bag she never used in the closet. Accompanied by snatches of an increasingly horrifying news report—numerous incidents of rampant violence, and not just local—she stuffed the bag with first aid items.
Drop it off at the front door with the suitcases and canvases, then into the kitchen. Fill her reusable cloth grocery bags with non-perishable food and some cooking utensils. Case of bottled water out of the fridge, dodging Trent. Grab Beauty’s twenty-gallon plastic bin of dry dog food--a little over half-full, good—toss in her food and water bowls, brush, and heartworm and flea-and-tick medication. Pack one grocery bag with Beauty’s treats and canned food.
Carry it all to the door, half-listening to the madness pouring out of her living room speakers, and hearing Beauty’s silent pleas for haste. Time to load it all up in her Toyota Forerunner, then departure into… whatever future they had.
As she grabbed the last of what she hoped was all she would need for a while, Trent gasped, then groaned. He jerked up into a sitting position and glared at her.
“What the… hell did you do to me, you bitch?”
Livi stopped, and Beauty froze beside her. “You were going to rape me, boss man. Remember?”
He struggled, growling like a cornered animal and jittering like a fly caught in a spider’s web. He spent himself fast, and slumped against the cabinets with a grimace and another moan.
Almost as an afterthought, Livi glanced at her skillet on the counter. She grabbed it and stuffed it into one of her bags along with the knife. Amid a reporter’s alarmed stammering blaring out of her living room speakers while the doodie hit the fan somewhere, she set her last load on the counter and stepped toward Trent.
“What do you remember, Trent?”
He sneered. “I remember deciding that you need a good old-fashioned hard dick fucking, you cunt. Untie me now, dammit!” He winced, clearly in pain. Served him right.
“You should try to sit up, and stay awake. You may have a concussion. I can’t stay with you and monitor you, and emergency services are… temporarily unavailable. Sorry. Good luck. We’re leaving. Goodbye, Trent.”
He jerked and yanked his shoulders, trying to rip the reinforced tape. Kicked his legs against the floor, quickly wearing himself out again amid angry grunts.
Livi picked up her last bags, Beauty chuffing behind her.
“Come on,” Trent said, his voice silky smooth again. “You know I didn’t mean all that, babe.”
Her glare made him scowl and yank his arms again, kick his feet. As she turned to go, he gave it his best shot.
“You can’t leave me like this, Livi. I’ll die. I need help. Please, baby.”
“You need the kind of help I can’t give, and don’t care to, Trent.” Shadow-mans got you, you poor bastard. “You’ll cut yourself loose in thirty minutes, an hour tops.”
From her living room, a newscaster uttered the phrase “absolute chaos” with a frightened shout. Livi didn’t want to hear it, already knew it. Seconds ticked off like the swinging blade of a descending pendulum.
She took her packages, headed out the front door, and started loading up, ignoring the foul-mouthed curses from Trent, just more background noise to accompany the imminent bedlam.
Back storage area packed up, room for Beauty behind her, ready to ride out of what would soon be Hell. As she loaded the last bag, she turned at a familiar sound behind her.
Beauty clutched her plush toy alligator in her jaws, grinding it, squeaky-squeak-squeak. Her limp was barely noticeable. Livi almost collapsed at the innocence and longing in the simple gesture of a hopelessly gentle soul. How would they weather this unimaginable storm?
Together, that’s how.
“Of course Mr. Squeaky-Gator is coming with us,” she said, fighting more tears as she crouched, and Beauty leaped into her arms. Could mankind ever learn how to give this unconditional love, or display this guileless devotion?
Maybe that was the test now. Last chance.
Stand or fall, do or die.
She tried to block out Trent’s last mad cry that echoed out the open front door but couldn’t.
“I’m coming for you, Olivia! When we’re in Hell together, I’m gonna fuck you for all eternity with my fire-cock!”
Shadow-mans everywheres. She headed over to Trent’s pride and joy, his shiny metallic green Jaguar. She thought about slashing his tires, but settled for letting the air out of his passenger side tires with her key. She watched her front door in case he got loose. He wouldn’t be chasing her down in this overpriced heap, at least for a while. She signaled Beauty to jump in their ride, not even planning to switch on the radio for news. Why bother? She had a good idea what was happening, and didn’t want to hear any more about it, at least not until they were well on their way. In the driver’s seat with her seat belt fastened, she jammed the key in its slot, twisted it, and laughed.
“Houston, we have ignition,” she said as the engine roared to life.
Run-in-wind, Livi! Beauty’s mind-voice shouted. Her snout hung over Livi’s shoulder, her breath hot in Livi’s face.
“That’s right, girl. Blast-off. Here we go.”
Livi’s internal GPS told her to turn right out of the condo lot, and head southeast away from the North Georgia mountains toward the coast, somewhere between Wilmington, Myrtle Beach, and Savannah. Rubber bit pavement as she gave it some gas and left her former life behind.
“Full steam ahead!” she shouted into the void, not nearly as courageous as her voice made it sound.
“Wuff!” Beauty barked.
And that about summed it up.
Chapter 4
Conor and T-Rex made it home faster than the wind, a record time of sixteen minutes.
By 2020, urban sprawl had slouched inexorably from metropolitan Atlanta toward the North Georgia Mountains. Now, four years later, the big city was right next door to the Chattahoochee National Wildlife Preserve, where Conor could let T-Rex go crazy off his leash.
They passed several abandoned vehicles along the way, but Conor couldn’t spare the mental effort to wonder what happened.
He had only one purpose now.
He skidded into his driveway and leaped out of his Jeep. T-Rex was right by his side, and together they raced to the front door.
Kristy hadn’t answered Conor’s calls or returned his facemails, but that wasn’t necessarily bad news. Maybe she had stuffed herself during dinner with her mother, and came back and dozed off on the couch. It was eight-thirty now, so she should have been home for at least an hour—unless Delia finally convinced her to leave him.
Even so, Conor’s heart was about to explode. T-Rex’s “voice” in his head was silent, but Conor felt his urgency all the same. The front door was unlocked, and Conor and T-Rex burst through the doorway and dashed down the hall.
“Kristy!” Conor called out. T-Rex echoed him with two sharp barks.
She wasn’t on the couch in the living room. Conor raced through the archway into the kitchen with T-Rex at his side. About to call her name again, he slid to a halt. Her name died on his lips when he saw her pacing the length of the counter with a butcher’s knife clutched in one hand. T-Rex stopped beside him and froze, eyes on Kristy.
“Kristy, I was so worried… that you were…”
She spun and faced him, and that Dinara clan fire blazed in her eyes. She pointed the knife at him with a palsied hand, her knuckles white around its handle.
“You did this to me.”
Even from twelve feet away, he saw the deep nicks in the quivering blade, as if someone had been hammering it against solid steel.
“Did… what? Baby, put the knife down, please. Whatever’s wrong, we can fix—”
“This is all your fault.”
Conor waved his hands, brimstone scorching a hole in his gut. “Kristy, what’s going on?”
“Where were you? Huh, Conor? Where were you when I found out the truth?”
“The truth about what? Baby, please, calm—”
“The truth about what you did to me, and don’t you dare tell me to calm down. Where, Conor? Was it Timothy’s slutty little ass-wiggling assistant? Don’t lie to me. I’ve seen you drooling over her.”
“Drooling? Kristy, you got it all wrong. I never—”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” She banged the knife blade against the butcher’s block, punctuating each shout, thock-thock-thock!
T-Rex whined. Conor gasped for breath as a separate voice in his head whispered Too late, Conor. The night-people got to her first.
“Baby, we can talk about anything you want, just please—”
“Where were you?” Thock-thock-thock!
“I was…” Conor choked on the lie, couldn’t spit it out.
She smiled sweetly at him, but the look in her eyes was all her mother’s.
“Deshawn called an hour ago. Wanted to tell you what a great time he and his little orphan buddies had at White Water today. Where you—” thock! “were supposedly—” thock! “taking him!” thock-thock!
Kristy deserved to know the truth. But she should have figured it out a long time ago. She laughed, a merry sound, and the scariest thing about it was it sounded real, like it burst out of an exceptionally good actress in a stage play.
“Who’s that? Oh, that’s Conor McLain, didn’t you know? What a good Big Brother he is. What a fine man, a man’s man, taking time out of his busy schedule to help out a poor lonesome little orphan nigger boy.”
“Don’t do this, Kristy.”
He usually picked up Deshawn and took him somewhere once a week, at least once every other week, often somewhere they could play with T-Rex. But the Renfield-Stafford Boys Home took their charges to White Water Park the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend every year, a tradition. Conor had lied and told Kristy he was taking Deshawn because it meant he didn’t have to face Delia Dinara, the quintessential mother-in-law from Hell.
He had to say it. “The truth is, I just can’t stand to be around your—”
“Was it all a lie? Is Big Brother Conor just full of shit?”
“Baby, you met Deshawn, said you liked him. We took him to—”
“How do I know he’s not one of your colleagues’ boys, and you just borrowed him to try to fool me so you could go screw your whores whenever you like? Do you think I’m stupid?”
Way out of control, a derailed freight train at warp speed. Did the night-people do this to her?
“Kristy, if you’ll just please put the knife down and sit down and talk with me, I’ll explain everything. This can’t be good for the baby.”
“I want it out, Conor.”
What? Was she saying what he thought she was saying?
“Want what out?”
“This devil baby you put inside me! It’s eating me alive!”
Stop Kristy, Conor, T-Rex’s mind-voice shouted. Take knife, wind-in-fur fast!
Kristy screamed. Conor lunged forward, the butcher’s block between him and Kristy. He felt like he was trying to push his way through invisible quicksand. Kristy raised the knife, point down, the handle clenched in both hands, and oh, God help him, he couldn’t stop her in time. He was too late, would forever be too late.
She plunged the blade into her abdomen, still screaming, then yanked it out with a thick wet splurtch that he’d be hearing in his nightmares the rest of his life. She raised the knife and rammed it into her belly again, and Conor dove over the butcher’s block and tackled her.
She lay on the floor by the sink, tangled in his arms, her eyes unfocused. Blood was everywhere: on the floor, the cabinets, his hands. The knife jiggled in her gut, the stage prop of a cosmically sick joke. Any second now she would stand and laugh at him for falling for it.
The blood had to be fake. The human body couldn’t hold this much blood. Conor tried to touch the knife, wanted to rip it out, but he couldn’t do it. She squeezed him, her arms around his neck, and looked up at him with those beautiful bronze eyes he first fell in love with.
“Conor, what… happened? What did you… do to me?”
“Oh, God, no, no, no, somebody, please. Help us.” He fumbled in his pocket for his cell, his fingers so slick with blood--just stage blood, Conor, watered-down ketchup—that it almost slipped from his grasp. He punched in nine-one-one and pressed the phone to his ear, holding Kristy with his other arm.
T-Rex’s whine was a siren blaring in his head. And the phone rang, and rang, and… rang.
“Conor, save. My baby. Our baby.”
“Hang on, Kristy, just hang in there, baby. Everything’s gonna be okay.”
Everything was not okay, would never be okay again.
Kristy spit up blood. “Don’t let them… get our baby.”
“Would some-fucking-body just answer the goddamn phone?”
“Know you’d… never hurt me,” Kristy choked out. “Love you.”
Conor dropped his cell and yanked the blade from Kristy’s belly, then flung it across the room. It smacked into the wall with a dull thunk, then dropped to the floor and lay there, accusing him. Gasping for breath, he picked up his cell in time to hear someone speaking.
His jaw hung open as he listened to a recorded message. No mistaking what “unusually high load of emergency calls” meant. He thrust the phone into his pocket with a howl of rage and put one arm under Kristy’s knees, the other under her shoulders. He staggered to his feet with her in his arms, and slipped and almost fell in the slick crimson pool spreading across the kitchen tiles. The coppery thickness of Kristy’s blood stung his nostrils, made his eyes water.
Please let me still be napping in the meadow. I’ll wake up from this nightmare, and we’ll go home, and I’ll fix things with Kristy, I swear it. I’ll fix everything.
Her eyes were shut, her head lolling back, a limp rag doll. Conor stumbled out of the house and to his Jeep. T-Rex barked and whined behind him. He had left the Jeep’s roof and doors off, and settled Kristy in the passenger seat. He buckled her in, fingers fumbling, and raced back into the house. Back moments later with an armful of towels, he wrapped them around Kristy’s belly. T-Rex was in back, still whining.
Kristy gasped, her eyes popping open, and she coughed up crimson misery. T-Rex barked three times, the harsh sounds forming words in Conor’s head.
“I know,” Conor said, leaping into the driver’s seat. “Wind-in-fur.”
He peeled out of the driveway, tires screeching, and hauled ass to the nearest hospital.
By 2020, urban sprawl had slouched inexorably from metropolitan Atlanta toward the North Georgia Mountains. Now, four years later, the big city was right next door to the Chattahoochee National Wildlife Preserve, where Conor could let T-Rex go crazy off his leash.
They passed several abandoned vehicles along the way, but Conor couldn’t spare the mental effort to wonder what happened.
He had only one purpose now.
He skidded into his driveway and leaped out of his Jeep. T-Rex was right by his side, and together they raced to the front door.
Kristy hadn’t answered Conor’s calls or returned his facemails, but that wasn’t necessarily bad news. Maybe she had stuffed herself during dinner with her mother, and came back and dozed off on the couch. It was eight-thirty now, so she should have been home for at least an hour—unless Delia finally convinced her to leave him.
Even so, Conor’s heart was about to explode. T-Rex’s “voice” in his head was silent, but Conor felt his urgency all the same. The front door was unlocked, and Conor and T-Rex burst through the doorway and dashed down the hall.
“Kristy!” Conor called out. T-Rex echoed him with two sharp barks.
She wasn’t on the couch in the living room. Conor raced through the archway into the kitchen with T-Rex at his side. About to call her name again, he slid to a halt. Her name died on his lips when he saw her pacing the length of the counter with a butcher’s knife clutched in one hand. T-Rex stopped beside him and froze, eyes on Kristy.
“Kristy, I was so worried… that you were…”
She spun and faced him, and that Dinara clan fire blazed in her eyes. She pointed the knife at him with a palsied hand, her knuckles white around its handle.
“You did this to me.”
Even from twelve feet away, he saw the deep nicks in the quivering blade, as if someone had been hammering it against solid steel.
“Did… what? Baby, put the knife down, please. Whatever’s wrong, we can fix—”
“This is all your fault.”
Conor waved his hands, brimstone scorching a hole in his gut. “Kristy, what’s going on?”
“Where were you? Huh, Conor? Where were you when I found out the truth?”
“The truth about what? Baby, please, calm—”
“The truth about what you did to me, and don’t you dare tell me to calm down. Where, Conor? Was it Timothy’s slutty little ass-wiggling assistant? Don’t lie to me. I’ve seen you drooling over her.”
“Drooling? Kristy, you got it all wrong. I never—”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” She banged the knife blade against the butcher’s block, punctuating each shout, thock-thock-thock!
T-Rex whined. Conor gasped for breath as a separate voice in his head whispered Too late, Conor. The night-people got to her first.
“Baby, we can talk about anything you want, just please—”
“Where were you?” Thock-thock-thock!
“I was…” Conor choked on the lie, couldn’t spit it out.
She smiled sweetly at him, but the look in her eyes was all her mother’s.
“Deshawn called an hour ago. Wanted to tell you what a great time he and his little orphan buddies had at White Water today. Where you—” thock! “were supposedly—” thock! “taking him!” thock-thock!
Kristy deserved to know the truth. But she should have figured it out a long time ago. She laughed, a merry sound, and the scariest thing about it was it sounded real, like it burst out of an exceptionally good actress in a stage play.
“Who’s that? Oh, that’s Conor McLain, didn’t you know? What a good Big Brother he is. What a fine man, a man’s man, taking time out of his busy schedule to help out a poor lonesome little orphan nigger boy.”
“Don’t do this, Kristy.”
He usually picked up Deshawn and took him somewhere once a week, at least once every other week, often somewhere they could play with T-Rex. But the Renfield-Stafford Boys Home took their charges to White Water Park the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend every year, a tradition. Conor had lied and told Kristy he was taking Deshawn because it meant he didn’t have to face Delia Dinara, the quintessential mother-in-law from Hell.
He had to say it. “The truth is, I just can’t stand to be around your—”
“Was it all a lie? Is Big Brother Conor just full of shit?”
“Baby, you met Deshawn, said you liked him. We took him to—”
“How do I know he’s not one of your colleagues’ boys, and you just borrowed him to try to fool me so you could go screw your whores whenever you like? Do you think I’m stupid?”
Way out of control, a derailed freight train at warp speed. Did the night-people do this to her?
“Kristy, if you’ll just please put the knife down and sit down and talk with me, I’ll explain everything. This can’t be good for the baby.”
“I want it out, Conor.”
What? Was she saying what he thought she was saying?
“Want what out?”
“This devil baby you put inside me! It’s eating me alive!”
Stop Kristy, Conor, T-Rex’s mind-voice shouted. Take knife, wind-in-fur fast!
Kristy screamed. Conor lunged forward, the butcher’s block between him and Kristy. He felt like he was trying to push his way through invisible quicksand. Kristy raised the knife, point down, the handle clenched in both hands, and oh, God help him, he couldn’t stop her in time. He was too late, would forever be too late.
She plunged the blade into her abdomen, still screaming, then yanked it out with a thick wet splurtch that he’d be hearing in his nightmares the rest of his life. She raised the knife and rammed it into her belly again, and Conor dove over the butcher’s block and tackled her.
She lay on the floor by the sink, tangled in his arms, her eyes unfocused. Blood was everywhere: on the floor, the cabinets, his hands. The knife jiggled in her gut, the stage prop of a cosmically sick joke. Any second now she would stand and laugh at him for falling for it.
The blood had to be fake. The human body couldn’t hold this much blood. Conor tried to touch the knife, wanted to rip it out, but he couldn’t do it. She squeezed him, her arms around his neck, and looked up at him with those beautiful bronze eyes he first fell in love with.
“Conor, what… happened? What did you… do to me?”
“Oh, God, no, no, no, somebody, please. Help us.” He fumbled in his pocket for his cell, his fingers so slick with blood--just stage blood, Conor, watered-down ketchup—that it almost slipped from his grasp. He punched in nine-one-one and pressed the phone to his ear, holding Kristy with his other arm.
T-Rex’s whine was a siren blaring in his head. And the phone rang, and rang, and… rang.
“Conor, save. My baby. Our baby.”
“Hang on, Kristy, just hang in there, baby. Everything’s gonna be okay.”
Everything was not okay, would never be okay again.
Kristy spit up blood. “Don’t let them… get our baby.”
“Would some-fucking-body just answer the goddamn phone?”
“Know you’d… never hurt me,” Kristy choked out. “Love you.”
Conor dropped his cell and yanked the blade from Kristy’s belly, then flung it across the room. It smacked into the wall with a dull thunk, then dropped to the floor and lay there, accusing him. Gasping for breath, he picked up his cell in time to hear someone speaking.
His jaw hung open as he listened to a recorded message. No mistaking what “unusually high load of emergency calls” meant. He thrust the phone into his pocket with a howl of rage and put one arm under Kristy’s knees, the other under her shoulders. He staggered to his feet with her in his arms, and slipped and almost fell in the slick crimson pool spreading across the kitchen tiles. The coppery thickness of Kristy’s blood stung his nostrils, made his eyes water.
Please let me still be napping in the meadow. I’ll wake up from this nightmare, and we’ll go home, and I’ll fix things with Kristy, I swear it. I’ll fix everything.
Her eyes were shut, her head lolling back, a limp rag doll. Conor stumbled out of the house and to his Jeep. T-Rex barked and whined behind him. He had left the Jeep’s roof and doors off, and settled Kristy in the passenger seat. He buckled her in, fingers fumbling, and raced back into the house. Back moments later with an armful of towels, he wrapped them around Kristy’s belly. T-Rex was in back, still whining.
Kristy gasped, her eyes popping open, and she coughed up crimson misery. T-Rex barked three times, the harsh sounds forming words in Conor’s head.
“I know,” Conor said, leaping into the driver’s seat. “Wind-in-fur.”
He peeled out of the driveway, tires screeching, and hauled ass to the nearest hospital.
* * * * *
Three blocks from the hospital, the streets were a parking lot. He’d finally given up trying to call ahead—all lines were busy—and angrily tossed his cell onto the dash.
“Dammit!” he shouted, mashing his horn.
People were shouting, some running by, some screaming. Metallic crunching crashes accompanied the sounds of shattering glass and a dissonant chorus of honking horns. Sharp loud pops rang out in the near distance.
Small-arms gunfire, Conor registered absently.
He barely heard or saw any of it. He let go of the wheel and yanked off his seat belt. He would have to carry Kristy to the hospital. Shutting off the Jeep, he leaned toward Kristy. He was fumbling with her seat belt when he noticed her mouth was open.
Open along with her eyes, and she was looking at nothing. Forever.
“Kristy, no!” He grabbed her face in both hands, shook her head, and gently slapped her cheek. The towels around her midsection were soaked in burgundy; her face was as white as the towels once were.
Artificial respiration. He had to revive her until he could get her in a doctor’s care. They would save her, and their baby. He was leaning over her when a different voice shouted behind him.
“Get out of the goddamn Jeep now!”
Conor turned slowly, feeling like he was underwater. A spiky-haired punk with the cadaverous face and rotting teeth of a meth addict pointed a pistol’s muzzle in Conor’s face. The punk’s gun hand shook as he snapped at Conor.
“I need your Jeep, asshole. Get the fuck out.”
Conor raised his hands palms out. T-Rex growled behind him, but it sounded so far away, mixed in with all the shouting and screaming.
“I have to save my wife,” he said.
The punk glanced at Kristy. He wagged the gun at her, then pointed it in Conor’s face again.
“That your wife?”
“Yes. She needs help. Please.”
The punk snorted, then laughed. “Too late, asshole. That bitch is dead.” Sneering, he raised his pistol over his head and turned it sideways. “Like you’re gonna be if you don’t get the fuck out now.”
Conor felt it all pulse through him like a series of high-voltage jolts: the anger over dreams unfulfilled, the many harsh words and the rare kind ones, the big promises and the infinite tiny betrayals, every kick in the teeth that life gave him—and the anguish and despair he felt when the night-people thrust their javelin fists into him.
Like it was too late to fix what was broken.
As if out of a nightmare, a shrieking woman cradling a bloody child ran by the punk. Her cries of “Save my baby!” made a freakish Doppler shift in Conor’s ears as she bumped into the punk and raced by, and time slowed to a crawl.
A distinctively canine howl in Conor’s mind warned Conor no jump! but it was way too late for that.
In slow motion, Conor leaped at the punk. He felt T-Rex leaping behind him, heard his ferocious growl, and in the shock of the stretched-out moment, he knew the punk hadn’t seen T-Rex.
The punk grunted, trying to recover as the shrieking woman jostled him, and fired.
Conor didn’t know if he saw the muzzle flash or heard the explosive pow first. Everything happened at once, and took the rest of forever to finish. He was looking at the rising ground. Brilliant twinkling lights battled with pulsating empty darkness everywhere, filling his world.
Night-people and sparkle-angels, he thought as he fell.
A hole opened in the asphalt, somewhere below or above him, and swallowed him.
Then there was just… nothing.
“Dammit!” he shouted, mashing his horn.
People were shouting, some running by, some screaming. Metallic crunching crashes accompanied the sounds of shattering glass and a dissonant chorus of honking horns. Sharp loud pops rang out in the near distance.
Small-arms gunfire, Conor registered absently.
He barely heard or saw any of it. He let go of the wheel and yanked off his seat belt. He would have to carry Kristy to the hospital. Shutting off the Jeep, he leaned toward Kristy. He was fumbling with her seat belt when he noticed her mouth was open.
Open along with her eyes, and she was looking at nothing. Forever.
“Kristy, no!” He grabbed her face in both hands, shook her head, and gently slapped her cheek. The towels around her midsection were soaked in burgundy; her face was as white as the towels once were.
Artificial respiration. He had to revive her until he could get her in a doctor’s care. They would save her, and their baby. He was leaning over her when a different voice shouted behind him.
“Get out of the goddamn Jeep now!”
Conor turned slowly, feeling like he was underwater. A spiky-haired punk with the cadaverous face and rotting teeth of a meth addict pointed a pistol’s muzzle in Conor’s face. The punk’s gun hand shook as he snapped at Conor.
“I need your Jeep, asshole. Get the fuck out.”
Conor raised his hands palms out. T-Rex growled behind him, but it sounded so far away, mixed in with all the shouting and screaming.
“I have to save my wife,” he said.
The punk glanced at Kristy. He wagged the gun at her, then pointed it in Conor’s face again.
“That your wife?”
“Yes. She needs help. Please.”
The punk snorted, then laughed. “Too late, asshole. That bitch is dead.” Sneering, he raised his pistol over his head and turned it sideways. “Like you’re gonna be if you don’t get the fuck out now.”
Conor felt it all pulse through him like a series of high-voltage jolts: the anger over dreams unfulfilled, the many harsh words and the rare kind ones, the big promises and the infinite tiny betrayals, every kick in the teeth that life gave him—and the anguish and despair he felt when the night-people thrust their javelin fists into him.
Like it was too late to fix what was broken.
As if out of a nightmare, a shrieking woman cradling a bloody child ran by the punk. Her cries of “Save my baby!” made a freakish Doppler shift in Conor’s ears as she bumped into the punk and raced by, and time slowed to a crawl.
A distinctively canine howl in Conor’s mind warned Conor no jump! but it was way too late for that.
In slow motion, Conor leaped at the punk. He felt T-Rex leaping behind him, heard his ferocious growl, and in the shock of the stretched-out moment, he knew the punk hadn’t seen T-Rex.
The punk grunted, trying to recover as the shrieking woman jostled him, and fired.
Conor didn’t know if he saw the muzzle flash or heard the explosive pow first. Everything happened at once, and took the rest of forever to finish. He was looking at the rising ground. Brilliant twinkling lights battled with pulsating empty darkness everywhere, filling his world.
Night-people and sparkle-angels, he thought as he fell.
A hole opened in the asphalt, somewhere below or above him, and swallowed him.
Then there was just… nothing.
All content this page Copyright © 2016 by Kerry Alan Denney
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved.
