Mark had read the entire manuscript in just over three hours, it had kept him enthralled the entire time. It was a sequel to Night Thunder and it brought Sligis back for a second appearance in the sleepy little town of Whisper Lake, where most of his novels took place.
He and Cassie had talked excitedly about the novel the very next weekend when they had come in to see the author, already at work on another story. P.J. had been very pleased by the reception that his two favorite critics had given the book and he had signed and dated both copies, after binding them in black leather that he stitched around each. P.J. had spent several months working with an old gentleman who restored older books, in the process of researching one of his grislier novels, STIRRINGS, where the dark figure of Gabriel Dante had bound all his tomes of knowledge in the flesh of virgins. It was a great gift to receive and they’d been equally floored when he added a dedication page, to his two greatest critics and named them both, with a wish for happiness in the future.
P.J. called Mark over to the phone and demanded that he “Talk some sense to the crusty old bitch on the line.” Hesitantly, he placed the phone to his ear and started off with a simple hello.
He found Alberta Hathaway to be a charming woman. After almost forty-five minutes of conversation with her, he said a simple good bye and promised to call again soon. Mark looked over to where P.J. was glaring at him and knew what was coming next.
“Traitor,” the writer accused, lip shot out in an uncharacteristic pout.
“Am not,” Mark countered immediately.
“Are Too.”
“Am Not.”
“Are too.”
“Am not,” Mark continued, adding the dreaded counter argument, “and I can prove it.”
P.J. looked at him skeptically and Mark smirked, waiting to lay down the trump card of his hand.”Oh yeah,” challenged P.J. “Prove it, I dare you.”
“Ali said she’s going to print it as is.”
P.J. sat gape jawed, staring at Mark, as if he’d suddenly developed seven extra heads. “No. No way will you get me to believe that you convinced the old witch to go ahead with the novel unchanged.”
“Ah,” Mark lifted a cautionary finger.”There’s a catch.”
“I knew it! What does the old bat want, my first born child? My eternal soul?” P.J. looked as if he’d scored major points against Mark’s argument. “What did you agree to on my behalf, boy? Speak! Your Lord and Master commands you!”
Mark buffed his nails against his shirt and looked nonchalantly over at the nervous writer. “Oh, nothing so extreme.”
He was about to continue, when the author piped in again. “Gods, man, tell me you didn’t agree to more books for the hell-cow!”
Mark smiled. “No, just one little thing.” P.J. looked warily at Mark, knowing that this was the killing stroke, the one piece of knowledge that would devastate him, no matter how mildly the boy put it to him.
“What already?!” He demanded, as his mediator started pouring them both a mug of cream with coffee flavoring. “What have you done to me? I can’t stand this! If you don’t let me know, I’ll strangle you with your own intestines!” That was Mark’s favorite thing about P.J.: The man’s penchant for dramatics was almost as bad in real life as it was in his novels.
Mark smiled triumphantly and said, “Now you know what it’s like, to be on the receiving end of a good piece of suspense.”
P.J. stood, blood in his face. “What-did-you-give-that-evil-creature?” He punctuated each word, with a small step forward. Mark backed up an even distance and smiled cruelly.
“I told her,” he started slowly, “that you would have lunch with her when she comes to town this Friday. Tomorrow, to be precise.”
Mark watched his friend turn deathly white, as the terror of what he’d just said struck home.
Mark’s laughter was quickly blanketed by the raw shriek of horror that broke from the writer’s lips.
He laughed all the way home, as P.J. tried without success to get through to Alberta Hathaway, desperate to let her know that he’d reconsidered and would write it her way. The real Coupe De Grace, had come, when he told P.J. that she was already on her way.
Hathaway, it seemed, wanted to negotiate for more novels.
CHAPTER FOUR
1
Tyler’s house was a massive, sprawling, three story, monster that had absolutely no reason to be in a neighborhood of smaller two-story homes. Except, of course, that that was where Tyler’s dad had wanted it. Tyler’s dad, Samuel Edgar Wilson, could afford to have things go his way, at damn near any cost. Fortunately for Mark and Cassie, Mr. Wilson had also wanted to have an indoor heated swimming pool; otherwise, they wouldn’t be enjoying a good water fight with Tyler until Summer showed itself again.
Folding his body into a near fetal position, Tyler hit the pool like a small boulder half drowning his two friends with the resultant wave. He then flew energetically out of the water to land on Mark, who was still trying to get his breath back.
Wrestling frantically, the two went under the turbulent waters. Cassie screamed excitedly, as the two came out of the water and threw themselves at her wading form. After another twenty minutes of such frantic activities, the three gasped and crawled weakly over to the pool’s ledge and flopped themselves down with a gusto.
Tyler looked over at the two heavily breathing forms next to him and grinned ear to ear. “You should see yourselves, you look like you both just had raunchy sex.” The two lifted themselves up and looked at each other, then quickly away. That confirmed that they had not yet done the deed and Tyler relaxed a little. At the ripe old age of sixteen, he had seen too many couples complicate their relationships with physical satisfaction before they were ready. He wanted their relationship to last. They looked good together and they had a fighting chance, as long in neither one forced the issue too soon. They still had a lot to learn about each other.
Mark looked over at Tyler and casually tossed an insult into the air. “Why, were you wishing I’d look that way for you, you big stud?” Tyler gave him the bird. He wished that Sandy would’ve come over, but she had obviously been torn apart by the confirmation of Pete’s death. He really liked her, but knew it couldn’t work out. She was still in love with a dead man. Or if not love, then at least infatuation. Tyler strongly believed that lust was the downfall of most romances, he’d seen it send his father through several live in girlfriends before his mother had finally come back to stay. Off and on his parents had separated and reunited several times before the old man finally decided to stay with the woman he’d married in the first place.
“Okay, so you’re not going to give me any juicy gossip on your love lives,” he started. “How about the latest gossip on the “I hate Tyler patrol,” any more gruesome deaths to talk about?”
Cassie grinned, familiar with Tyler’s sick sense of humor; Mark looked appalled. “That’s disgusting, Ty, you should wash your mouth out.” Mark looked as if he meant it. Tyler just grinned.
“You can’t honestly tell me you miss those guys, Howie, I know you better than that.”
Mark frowned. “No, but that still doesn’t seem like a decent thing to say about the dead. I mean, I hope I’m remembered a little more fondly, when my time comes.”
Tyler looked at him and pushed his glasses up the joke he called a nose. “Good point, Howie. I hereby withdraw my previous statement.” Mark seemed mollified and Tyler went in for the kill. “So any-more assholes get offed, or what?”
Mark and Cassie laughed along with him and Mark slapped him with a towel. “No, I think only two of your sworn enemies are out of the picture, so far,” Cassie replied, “but, I’m sure that your efforts will be rewarded. What’s next, Arsenic in the cafeteria, or dynamite in the gym?”
Tyler leapt at the question with a special joy, saved only for friends who had left themselves open. “Hey, they see dynamite after gym, every time I take off my shorts for the shower.” He leered at Cassie and winked. “Lose
ol’ Howie and I’ll show you sometime,” he stated, in a bad imitation of W.C. Fields.
“In your dreams,” she stated, wiggling her little pinky in his direction. “You’d have to have something worth showing first.”
With mock injury on his face, he threw a dramatic arm across his brow and wept. “You slut! I knew you’d given me up for Howie, but to tell him about my castration is simply going too far!” He watched as Mark reached for a Diet Pepsi and as his friend started sipping, threw in, “And all because I made you swallow the second time.”
Cassie let out a loud “EEEUUUUWWW!” of disgust and wrinkled her face up, as Mark snorted cola out of his nasal passages. Ah, Tyler, you’ve still got it.
“No reason to hide the truth, my love, I’ve told Mark all about our relationship, just as I told you of his, with me.” Mark half choked on that one too. “Ah, I see that you remember our love affair with the same fondness that I do.”
They caught him on the third circuit of the pool and worked in unison to heave him as far as they could into the deep end. After they helped him back out, they started the gossip in earnest.
“You should have seen the look P.J. gave me when I told him that Ali was coming over to his place for lunch. I imagine it was almost as good as when she showed up for dinner.” Mark chuckled at the memory and continued eagerly. “If she’s half as good looking as she is smart, he won’t have a chance.”
Cassie looked slightly wounded and he immediately added, “Just like I never had a chance.” That earned him a smile. Too close, Mark, too damn close.
They talked a good deal more, as the day became night. Then Mark and Cassie said their good-bye’s and Mark led the girl they both loved in their own ways, off into the darkness.
2
Mark was rapidly becoming someone special to Cassie. She didn’t quite know how she felt about it, but there it was. They held hands as they meandered slowly towards her house, on the next street. They didn’t talk much, but they communicated.
When they finally reached their destination, he pulled her close, into a light hug and kissed her softly on the forehead. “You better get inside,” he said, smiling gently. “Your dad’s probably ready to be tied, waiting for you.” She smiled back and gave his hand a final squeeze. He watched her the entire trip to the door and she knew he’d probably stand there for another five minutes after she had gone in. She’d timed him once. It was silly, but it made her feel special.
Dinner had been held for her and she and her parents discussed the day in the usual round of questions. “So, how’s Tyler?” Her mom would ask and she would respond with a fifteen or twenty minute lecture on his latest antics, normally curbing the more sadistic comments because her mother was ever so slightly prudish.
“How was school?” her father would ask and she would tell him a fairly detailed run of how her day at school had gone and what she was studying in each of her classes. They never asked about Mark, not after that time last week. When her father had pointed out that the troubles around town, as regarded that young Tanya girl and even poor Andy Phillips—“Did you hear, he was apparently thrown off of a balcony and crushed his head in, poor boy”—had started about the same time that that Mark Howell came to town. Her parents worked in the city, her father to pay the bills and her mother because she wanted a little extra spending cash, but they lived here, in Summitville, as their parents before them had. They had security here and could even leave the doors unlocked at night. They knew everyone in town, if not by name, at least as a casual acquaintance.
If anyone from Denver had asked them if they could recommend a place to live, away from the city, they would have hemmed and hawed for a minute or so and said that they couldn’t think of any place. They had a P.O. Box in the city, so that they didn’t have to give their home address to anyone. They never invited anyone from the city to stay in the town with them, or to come to dinner at their home. Dear Heavens, what if they wanted to stay after having seen the little town? Oh, that would never do! No, absolutely not!
Her parents, like most of the town, suffered from an extreme case of xenophobia. The very thought of strangers coming into the town was enough to send most of the families scrambling madly to lock the shutters and bar the doors, as if any newcomer must obviously be out to rape every female, no matter what age. Newcomers must want to murder all of the young children and kill the men in the process. Probably rape the children in the process.
Cassie smiled to herself bitterly, remembering how long it had taken Doctor Lewis to be accepted and he had had the recommendation of Sheriff Hanson to back him up. She wondered if P.J. Sanderson would have been readily accepted into the town, if he hadn’t been a native son returning from college. Probably not, she decided.
Still, it irked her that her parents had automatically assumed Mark carried a switch-blade in his pocket and had something to do with Tanya’s death. She had let them know her feelings too, when they had suggested, ever so casually at the dinner table, that perhaps she should stick with her own, stop seeing that new boy. She’d let them know all right, at the top of her lungs. Cassie wondered how much of Tony’s attitude towards Mark was based on his parents, if they had the same fear of anything different. His mother, maybe, but not his father. His father was from Chicago and couldn’t possibly feel that way. He’d suffered a good deal of the town’s stand-offishness himself.
It had taken most of the week just to get back on speaking terms with her parents. The unofficial decision not to speak of Mark had been made without a word being said. Perhaps that was for the best. She really didn’t want any more grief with her folks. She had enough problems of her own without having to hold theirs as well.
After she finished dinner, she went to her room to study. It didn’t go well, her mind was on Mark and none of the school books made any sense. Eventually she went to sleep and that was when They made Their move.
3
Mark walked aimlessly, thinking to himself that his life had turned around, since moving to the little town of Summitville. Suddenly he had a few friends at school; he’d finally started to lose the excess pound he’d carried for years—something that his mother had assured him would happen, she’d lost her baby fat late in life as well—he wasn’t getting bashed daily by the assholes at the school and, of course, he had met Cassie.
Yep, life had definitely taken a turn for the better. He liked Summitville and was fairly certain that at least some of Summitville returned the sentiment.
As he often did, he wandered through the subdivision and the surrounding woods, thinking to himself, as he headed on his way home. Somehow, he managed to find his favorite spot. If someone had asked him why he liked this spot, he couldn’t have told them. Unless he’d been here for awhile. They never showed up, right away, They always waited for a small time before They showed Themselves and he never remembered Them until They showed Themselves again.
He saw Them all at once and felt the tide of warm emotions wash over him as They scampered closer and danced around him on the forest’s floor. They climbed across him as if he were a log, running up to his face and caressing his skin with Their delicate little fingers. He laughed with Them and shared in Their joy, never thinking that They shouldn’t even exist. And They were beautiful. Their pale skin glowed in the moonlight and Their liquid eyes shone with joy, as They whispered excitedly to him, telling him of the wonders that existed only in Their world.
When They told of a snake shedding its skin, it was a story of wonder and a story of celebration, for the snake had lived long enough to shed its old skin and grow a small amount larger. When They sang to him of the birds in the trees, he felt the feathered creatures’ simple joy at being alive, no matter that the day had brought challenges the bird had had to struggle desperately with. And They always had the finest things to tell of all his friends, P.J., Tyler, Cassie, even his parents. They always had the most amazing stories of his friends’ lives. It was as if They had been with his friends, watching them a
ll along, protecting them. He was very grateful that the Folk were his friends.
Soon, he grew sleepy and he closed his eyes, knowing that he was safe and would have such wonderful dreams. Dreams of Cassie, dreams of great passion and love and warmth. And safety. In a world without pain. Sometimes, he wished he could stay forever.
4
What seemed like hours, took only some twenty minutes in reality. Mark was home in time for dinner with a smile on his face. Had his mother or Joe asked him, he would have simply said that he’d had fun at Tyler’s. They didn’t ask, they had other things on their minds.
He didn’t know what the problem was, but he could sense the tension between them. It was a tension that rarely existed. After twenty minutes of eating in deadly silence, Mark could take it no longer. “What’s wrong? You’re both awfully quiet tonight.”
Jenny looked over at her son and he knew what the problem was before she even opened her mouth. “Joe’s been offered a job, in New York. It pays almost twice what Joe’s making now. He wants to take it.”
Mark felt his blood pressure shoot up to dangerous levels and controlled himself with a Herculean effort. “I want to stay here.”
Joe looked over at Mark and clamped his jaw tightly shut. He’d been afraid of this. “Look, Mark, it’s a job that only comes around once in a lifetime. The managing editor is retiring, I need to accept the position, if I ever want to move into the upper management level.” He hesitated when he saw the look of raw pain on Mark’s face and realized, possibly for the first time, just what all of the moves had done to his son. He added words that rang untrue, even to his own ears. “If it means that much to you, I’ll talk to Rob at work and see if I can work out a raise. Maybe we won’t have to move. Okay?”
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