Dark Rest: A Lance Brody Story (Book 5.5)

by Robertson Jr, Michael

  Dark Rest

  A Lance Brody Story (Book 5.5)

  Michael Robertson, Jr.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any similarities to events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and should be recognized as such. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, etc.) without the prior written consent and permission of the author.

  Copyright © 2020 Michael Robertson, Jr.

  Cover Design Copyright © 2020 Jason Collins

  Contents

  Dark Rest

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Author’s note

  Also by Michael Robertson, Jr.

  DARK REST

  1

  “I have to pee.”

  Leah shifted in the Beetle’s driver’s seat and looked over to Lance, who had the passenger seat reclined and pushed back to give his long legs comfortable space. Out the windshield, the highway stretched far ahead of them in the blackness of night, and the Beetle’s headlights were doing their best to cut weak cones of light through the dark. Few other cars were present, not in their northbound lane, nor the opposing southbound route that was just visible in quick glimpses over the raised mound of earth that served as the median.

  It was two o’clock in the morning.

  Lance, who felt as though he’d been traveling alone for so long, was both immensely enjoying and also learning how to travel with a companion. Not just any companion, mind you, but Leah. The person who, just like the headlights that were working to guide their way through the dark unknown, was responsible for shining her own rays of sunshine into Lance’s mind, body and spirit when he’d needed it the most. She’d warmed him from the inside out at a time when it felt like coldness was the only feeling he’d ever know again.

  He knew the age-old jokes about traveling with women, how they’d have to stop to pee every half-hour. But truth was he’d had four cups of coffee and a glass of ice water when they’d stopped for dinner at the big truck-stop diner a little over an hour ago, and he was about to burst.

  “Me too,” he said, and sat up in his seat, looking out the windshield in search of a highway exit sign that would notify them of possible locales to do what was needed.

  A mile later, one such sign presented itself, advertising a twenty-four-hour fast food joint and also a variety of gas stations that might offer a restroom. The exit was two miles away.

  “Thank God,” Leah said. “I shouldn’t have had all that tea at dinner.” She looked over to Lance and grinned. “I don’t know how you aren’t just hooked up to a catheter at this point, all that coffee you drink.”

  Lance smiled, was in fact ready to make a witty retort, but then another highway sign emerged from the darkness as the Beetle’s headlights did their job. This one advertised a highway rest stop. It was five miles away.

  Lance stared at the sign as they passed it.

  There was a small tingling at the base of his skull.

  Or was there?

  It had been very faint. Might have just been some air blowing across his neck, a draft from one of the Beetle’s old windows. Could have just been a chill. It was very late and he was tired and they’d been driving for most of the day, so it was completely plausible that he’d imagined the whole thing.

  Ahead, the exit ramp that promised the fast food and gas stations appeared and Leah slowed the car and flicked on the turn signal.

  A hundred yards from the exit, Lance said, “No. Keep going. Let’s use the rest stop instead.”

  Leah must have heard something in his voice, because she simply nodded and switched off the turn signal, increased her speed and drove on ahead.

  2

  In the daytime, the biggest threats one might imagine from a highway rest stop would be unsanitary conditions, or the potential for stepping in dog poop somebody failed to pick up and dispose of properly when they let little Fido out for a much needed break, or having one of the vending machines eat your change and fail to deliver the candy bar or pack of crackers. In the sunlight, highway rest stops were well-trafficked, a constant flow of cars coming in and out as families and business folk and truck drivers all congregated to stretch their legs and answer nature’s call. They’d sit at the picnic tables and breathe in some fresh air and eat their packed lunches or snacks (if the vending machines did in fact cooperate), and they’d all exist together with silent smiles while really never seeing one another—each person or group existing only within themselves. The same way it was when they went to the grocery store or to the movies and even the dreaded Department of Motor Vehicles; they saw other people, but they didn’t really see them. Didn’t need to. Humans have become incredibly adept at putting the blinders on to anything except their own life, their own tasks.

  But at night, when the sun settles and the darkness begins to swallow things, highway rest stops suddenly take on a different persona. Instead of bright and airy places meant to offer a short reprieve from a slog of a drive, they suddenly grow ominous, almost desolate. They become outcroppings on the wasteland that unfolds beyond the threshold of civilization. Orange-tinted lamps light the parking area, creating an artificial haze that makes you feel as though you’re driving into an old Spielberg film. Unlike the daytime, when the place is busy and full of movement, now each car (and there are only a few) parked in the lot suddenly must have its own story, must have a reason as to why it is here at such an hour, here with you. Their drivers become mysteries you want to solve, need to solve. Because the what if begins to set in.

  What if they’re a drug addict, tweaked up and out of their mind…

  What if they’re a rapist, waiting for an unsuspecting victim…

  What if they’re a murderer, some serial killer that the authorities have been trying to capture for months, maybe years, but is too clever for them, always one step ahead, and tonight is the night they kill again…

  What if…

  You start to wonder who could be lurking in the shadows of the small alcove where the vending machines hum their song, or who might be waiting behind a closed stall door?

  Has the state installed security cameras here?

  Why aren’t the lights brighter at the bathroom entrances?

  So many things are completely innocent in the daylight, but at night…

  The night changes everything.

  3

  Leah again slowed the Beetle’s speed and flicked on the turn signal and started to take the short off-ramp into the rest stop’s parking lot. Lance saw her glance at him from the corner of his eye, and he knew that she was waiting for some sort of explanation as to why he’d decided to pass up the restroom options that now lay a few miles behind them and had instead opted for the rest stop.

  He didn’t have a good answer, so Lance said nothing.

  The parking lot looked incredibly large being as empty as it was, just a sea of blacktop sporadically lit by overhead lamps positioned every fifteen parking spots or so. The buildings—there were three in total—sat off to the right of the lot. A cement pathway lead from the sidewalk that ran parallel to the parking lot and snaked in an artistically twisted pat
h to the main building which housed the restrooms, and to a smaller structure to the left that was three walls and an archway that led into an alcove full of vending machines. The third building sat further back and to the right of the main building, a smaller square unit that must have been a utility and maintenance shed, probably full of pumps and switches and gauges and tools, maybe a mower for when the weather was warmer and the grass needed cutting. Unlike the other two buildings which were made up with brick and stone and meant to be appealing to the eye, the utility shed was all metal and steel with no windows. For some reason it reminded Lance of a futuristic prison cell. There was no cement pathway leading to the shed. Instead, there was a thin crushed gravel path that almost seemed like an afterthought.

  Lance took this all in as Leah parked the Beetle in a space slightly to the right of the main building, placing Lance directly in-line with the shed.

  There were three other cars in the lot. A small dark-colored sedan had been parked horizontally across three parking spaces just past where the off-ramp had ended. A white t-shirt was draped out of the passenger side window, a flag of surrender from the car’s engine. No driver. Whether the car had broken down an hour ago or a week ago, there was no way to tell. Parked further down, nearer the vending machine alcove, there was an SUV. A huge boxy tank-on-wheels type of thing that looked more suited for an off-road excursion than chewing up highway miles. The third vehicle was parked facing the highway in the row of spaces behind and opposite the SUV, and it got Leah very excited.

  “Oh shit, that’s a Tesla!” Leah said, looking over her shoulder and out the window once they’d parked. “I’ve never seen one in person.”

  Lance followed her gaze to the car, saw a sleek and sporty looking sedan. He said, “Tesla … like Nikola? Like the inventor?”

  Leah didn’t turn away from the car to look at him, but he could hear the wide eyes in her voice. “You don’t know about Tesla, the car company? They make all-electric cars that are super safe and have all kinds of tech in them and, well, they’re also completely badass.”

  Lance nodded. “I usually ride a bus.”

  Now Leah did turn to look at him, that lovely smile of hers shining bright in the darkened cabin of the car. “Not anymore you don’t,” she said, and leaned across the the seat and kissed him. He kissed her back, the two of them staying that way until the scream pierced the silence, shattered the moment.

  4

  Lance and Leah’s heads snapped apart, a kiss cut short by the cry that had just erupted in the night. Leah turned quickly in her seat, and Lance’s eyes darted out the windshield toward the direction the sound seemed to have traveled from.

  A small boy, no more than five or six, was standing alone just outside the entrance to the restrooms. He wore pajama pants and a puffy winter jacket. He was jumping up and down and pointing to the ground where a row of small bushes lined the front of the building. His face was that of abject terror. Lance watched as the boy grew stone still, as if suddenly petrified. Then the boy leaned down slowly, peering more closely at something on the ground before he bolted upright again and echoed the same high-pitched wail of a scream as before.

  Lance and Leah moved in tandem, the Beetle’s doors flying open. Their footsteps pounded on the sidewalk. Leah’s ponytail whipped behind her as Lance followed for a few feet before overtaking her with his longer strides. The cold night air was like water splashed on his face, it filled his lungs and awakened his senses.

  He ignored the weaving concrete path and cut the corner through the grass, maybe forty yards away now, just a matter of seconds. But before he could make it to the boy, a huge hulking figure shot from the entrance to the bathrooms and snatched the boy off the ground.

  Lance felt fear grip him for just a second—not fear for himself, but for the boy. Fear as to what was about to happen to him, and if Lance could get there in time to stop it.

  “What! What’s wrong, honey?” The hulking figure had a voice. Deep and strong, but oddly full of concern and affection. Lance slowed his pace and Leah nearly collided into him. From this angle, closer to the light, Lance saw that the hulking figure was nothing more than a very tall and very broad-shouldered man. He wore sweatpants and a similar puffy jacket to that of the boy’s. He was clean-shaven and wore his hair buzzed. “Why did you scream?” the man asked. “Tell daddy why you screamed.”

  And then the man’s eyes looked up and away from his son’s and scanned the area and landed on Lance and Leah.

  Lance did what he always did in awkward situations like this: he threw on one of his patented awkward smiles. One that hopefully said We were only trying to help. We were not the reason he screamed. Scout’s honor.

  Lance couldn’t tell what was happening inside the big man’s head, but if the man had been considering whether Lance and Leah had possibly been the threat that had caused his son to cry out, the boy quickly set the matter straight.

  “Snake!” the kid yelled, pointing down to the ground again by the row of bushes. “I saw a snake!”

  The boy’s father looked down to where his son was pointing, apparently saw nothing, and then gave Lance and Leah another stare across the expanse of grass that separated them before he nodded once and said, “Your mom was right. I should have never let you watch that movie. It’s fine. I’ve got you now. Let’s get back on the road, okay?” The boy said nothing, and as the big man carried him back to the tank-like SUV, Lance heard the man assure him, “You know … snakes are more afraid of us than we are of them. You don’t have to be afraid.”

  Lance didn’t know if this was true. Last he checked, humans didn’t have fangs that could literally drip poison. But that debate wasn’t important right now.

  For now, he still had to pee.

  The man and boy drove away in their enormous vehicle, merging effortlessly onto the empty highway. From beside Lance, Leah said, “Well, that was more excitement than I was expecting. I’m wide awake now.”

  “My kiss woke you up?”

  Leah smacked him on the butt and walked toward the restrooms. “Sure.”

  Lance smiled and followed, glancing over his shoulder as he walked, looking back to the Tesla and remembering the tingling that he may or may not have had at the base of his skull.

  5

  The building with the restrooms had a solid stone front with openings on the far left and right sides, like a face with two empty eye sockets. Lance watched as Leah was first bathed in the yellow light of the lamp mounted above the entrance and then vanished into the women’s room on the left. Lance stood outside the building for another thirty seconds, a slight breeze dancing through his hair, giving him a chill. He looked across the parking lot, from the Tesla and then down toward the entrance where the sedan was broken down, and then all the way across again to the opposite side where the building with the vending machines waited. He saw all this, but he also saw nothing.

  Nothing unusual, anyway.

  But Lance knew better than most that unusual didn’t always present itself at face value.

  He stepped inside the men’s room, swallowed by the light.

  The fluorescents here were harsh, a brutal assault of artificial light. Lance squinted against their blast and let his eyes adjust. The restroom was thankfully not disgusting. In fact, it was quite clean. The floor was mostly free of dirt and smudges and … other stuff, and there was a hint of lemon-scented cleaner in the air. To his right there were six urinals and six stalls, with an equal number of sinks on the left, an equal number of mirrors mounted above each sink. There was a baby changing station mounted on the wall just before the sinks, along with two automatic paper-towel dispensers. A trash can was recessed into the wall near the doorway.

  All of these things were normal, exactly what you’d expect in a restroom.

  But Lance wasn’t paying attention to these things, not really. His eyes were drawn to the back of the room, a door directly opposite him standing maybe a quarter of the way open. The same terrible fluorescent
light escaped from the gap between the door and its frame.

  “Hello? Lance tried, a little louder than he’d meant. “Anybody in here?”

  He felt silly as soon as the words left his mouth. There was still the Tesla in the parking lot, so there very well could be somebody in the restroom with him. And how would he feel if at two o’clock in the morning, while he was trying to handle his business in a highway restroom stall somebody just came in and started shouting questions?

  But there were no patrons at the urinals, and he hadn’t heard any signs of life from the stalls. So it stood to reason that if anybody was in here with him, they must be behind door number one. Tell ‘em what they’ve won, Johnny! Today, they’ll be going home with … a brand-new psychopath! Knives and guns included!

  Lance took one step toward the door at the back of the room when the sound of a powerful engine fed through the restroom’s open entryway and reverberated off the walls. Whatever it was, it was moving fast, getting closer. Tires screeched, the engine ceased its rumble, and a door was opened and closed.

  He couldn’t say why, but Lance didn’t like any of it. He glanced longingly at the urinals, his bladder protesting, and said, “Until we meet again.” Then he hurried out the doorway and into the night.

  6

  There were two reason why Leah had bolted from the Beetle with Lance when the boy had screamed. First, when a young child screams in fear and you don’t see a parent or other adult around, you help. That’s just a page out of Being a Human 101. The second reason was this was her life now. She was a partner to a man who had gifts and abilities and intuitions well beyond any person she’d ever met or was likely to ever meet in the future. And his gifts were only outshined by the size of his heart. Leah had made the decision to leave home just a few short days ago and come to join Lance, so that they could be together—both as a couple, because boy did she love him, and as a team of light against the darkness. She knew the risks, risks that she also knew Lance was still struggling with accepting at some deep-down level, but she’d made her choice.