Stone Hill
Shadows Rising
Dean Rasmussen
Copyright © 2019 Dean Rasmussen
All rights reserved.
Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1-951120-00-9
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent from the publisher is strictly prohibited, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
For more information about this book, click or visit:
www.deanrasmussen.com
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Stone Hill: Shadows Rising
Published by: Dark Venture Press, 15502 Stoneybrook West Parkway, Suite 104-452, Winter Garden, FL 34787
Cover Art: Mibl Art
Developmental Editor: Anna Jean Hughes
Line Editor: Kristie Stramaski with EKS Edits
Proofreader: Roth Notions
Created with Vellum
Contents
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
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
About the Author
FREE Short Story!
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
This novel is for Eric and Kayla.
If you ever read this, just remember I love you
and the only real monsters are the ones hiding in your closets.
1
Michael’s legs weakened as he approached the bottles of Jim Beam. His heart raced and his fingers tingled as they bristled along the edge of his jeans. A cooler door in the frozen section banged shut in the next aisle and he paused. He looked around. Nobody to the left of him and nobody to the right. Could the owner see him? He was alone.
“Just pick it up,” Loner had said minutes earlier. “Don’t even think about it.”
His fingers wrapped around the cold glass bottle, and it clanked against another as he lifted it toward his chest with his eyes locked forward. His heart pounded in his chest as he furtively slipped the bottle into his bag and tried to look normal, but his cheeks were flushed, his heart hammering so hard against his ribs it hurt. The world receded as if in a surreal dream. The weed wasn’t doing its job this time. He zipped his pack shut and forced a smile. Easy-peasy.
He turned toward the exit. Everything would be great if his legs just got moving. That was easier said than done. He slung his backpack over one shoulder, and the glass bottle jabbed against his spine. Each breath heaved in and out of his lungs as a pang of elation jolted through his chest.
This wouldn’t be anything like the last time. He wasn’t a loser, and he’d be King Shit for the day. Loner would insist on getting the bottle first like always just because he always needed to be first. But it didn’t matter because they all shared everything. The booze, the weed, the money. But not the girls. Loner’s girl was his girl and nobody touched her. Touch her and he broke your face if you were lucky because he was just as likely to break your arms and legs while he was at it. Michael didn’t care about Loner’s girl or the alcohol or even the chronic. He didn’t care about Loner, but shoplifting and enjoying the proceeds were a fun way to kill an afternoon. Plus they worshipped him for doing it.
He turned at the end of the aisle and headed toward the door with his feet dragging. There weren’t any customers around to drown out the clomping of his shoes against the polished tile floor. The owner was nowhere in sight, although he’d been standing near the door when Michael had entered. He forced himself to inhale a deep breath into his lungs. The soft jazz music playing through the loudspeakers stopped, and a chill flashed through him. He didn’t care; he would make it.
Two customers walked in the store, and the owner’s voice broke the silence. “Welcome to Marty’s,” he said.
Marty, the owner, usually greeted people that way from behind the cash register, but today he was out in front, and Michael could see the man’s face out of the corner of his eye. Marty had been friends with his dad and had even attended his dad’s funeral. Seeing Marty now was enough to ignite the darkness he struggled so hard to extinguish from his mind. Marty had stood along the aisle, watching him as he watched him now, and just as he had watched Michael as they’d escorted his father’s casket to the hearse in the procession to the cemetery.
Michael stared at the floor and pushed the memory down deep. The jazz music broke through the air again, and the sunlight beamed through the large panes of glass on either side of the door. A burst of light reflected off the floor, and Michael swung his face to the side. Marty’s voice blended into the background music. Marty couldn’t see Michael any longer. Just a few more feet and he would be out the door. He hurried as fast as he could.
“Hi, Michael,” Marty said.
Had Marty really just said that? Michael’s face burned as he lost his momentum, and his head turned until Marty’s face appeared in his peripheral vision. Michael’s legs wobbled and trembled. His friends would torment him without mercy if they saw him like this. Why the hell was he so scared? He wasn’t a coward. He caught Marty’s eyes for a moment before he turned back toward the door.
“Hi,” Michael said without stopping. He gasped, and his body weakened further. He slowed as if a force had grabbed ahold of him, and he struggled to move forward.
Footsteps came from behind him, and a hand came to rest on his shoulder. He stumbled.
“Do you need help with anything?” Marty asked.
“No, thank you,” Michael said. Marty’s hand slid off his shoulder, and Michael hurried out the door.
The afternoon glare of sunlight shot into his eyes. He squinted straight ahead to where Loner had parked the car earlier. It was gone. Had he just moved it?
So where was he supposed to go? He’d made it outside, and now he only wanted to run. This was the fight-or-flight response Michael remembered from his school lessons. He needed to fly. Where the hell had they gone? As his eyes adjusted to the light, Loner’s white Honda Accord caught his eye in a row far off to the right. He let out a breath. The sun blazed down on his baseball cap, and he stumbled forward with a burst of energy as if he were escaping from a jail cell. A chuckle broke through his clenched teeth. He’d done it. He tipped his head back, his face basking in the warmth of another sunny California afternoon.
Someone yanked on his backpack. “Mind if I have a look inside?”
Michael pulled forward, but the person didn’t let go. Michael whipped around to face one of Marty’s employees, a fat middle-aged man wearing the standard dark red apron stretched to the breaking point over his chest. Thank God it wasn’t Marty.
“No,” Michael said. “I mean, yes. I do mind. Leave me alone.”
“Come with me then,” the employee said to him, still gripping his backpack.
Michael didn’t move. “What for?”
“I saw you on camera. You shoplifted a bottle of alcohol. I know it’s in your backpack so don’t look all surprised. Come with me.” The store employee held Michael’s arm and pulled him back toward the door. No way was he going back in there.
Michael spun and broke free from the man’s grip. The fabric of his backpack tore as the employee’s other hand broke away, and Michael took off. Footsteps slammed behind him as a surge of energy pulsed through him. Each breath roared from his chest until the footsteps behind him faded. As he raced toward the white Honda, the faces of his friends appeared through the glass. They weren’t even watching for him. They were huddled close to the center console, passing the joint around with whiffs of smoke escaping through the open window.
The footsteps behind him were gone, but in his mind the store employee was inches behind him. No way was he going to slow down and look back. The wind caught his baseball cap and almost ripped it from his head. Michael slapped his hand down on the roof of the car and lunged for the door handle. They jumped when they saw him. He pulled up on the door handle, but it was locked. Blaring music from the open windows spilled into the parking lot.
“Open the door,” he yelled.
“Chill out, Michael,” Loner said from the driver’s seat.
Michael’s heart raced. He caught his breath and wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead. Michael glanced back toward Marty’s, but the fat employee was nowhere in sight.
They swung the door open, and Loner’s girl leaned forward in the passenger seat as he climbed into the back seat, placing his backpack in his lap. He sank below the edge of the windows.
“Turn down the music,” Michael said. “Everyone’s staring at us.”
“Let them stare,” Loner said.
They raced from the parking lot, and within minutes, he was laughing about the whole thing.
Michael was coming down from his high. He hadn’t wanted to go home, but his friends were done partying and he didn’t have anywhere else to go. He stealthily crept inside the back door to find his mom waiting for him on the living room sofa.
“Did you stop by Marty’s Market today?” she asked.
“No.”
“Marty called me this afternoon and said one of his employees witnessed you shoplifting a bottle of alcohol.”
Michael squished up his face in shock and shook his head. “No.” He stared at the television through squinting eyelids. The HGTV channel his mom loved so much was on again.
“Look at me,” she said.
He pressed his eyelids together, and then opened them, staring at the television.
“Did you shoplift again?” she asked, her voice stern. “Don’t lie to me.”
The darkness settled around him like an old coat cloaking his shoulders. He stared at the television without seeing it. Her eyes peered at him from the edge of his vision. The sadness in her face pierced his heart, and he didn’t even bother with a lighthearted laugh this time. He’d screwed up, but what could he do now?
“That’s the way she goes,” his dad used to say sometimes when things went wrong. The dark cloud wrapped around him and numbed the pain of his father’s loss and mother’s disappointment. He wanted to die so he didn’t have to see her face like that.
“Mom, I’m bored,” he said. “You never let me go anywhere. I’m always stuck in my room.”
She clenched her teeth and glared at him. Her face flushed in anger, and her eyes widened. He retreated further into himself, waiting for an outburst of anger.
“I let you go everywhere you want, and you stab me in the back every time. I’ve given you every chance to stop this bullshit with your friends and get your life back on track. I can’t take this anymore. You don’t listen to anything I say. This isn’t a joke, Michael. You’re going to end up in prison if you don’t stop this shit. It’s killing you. Is that what you want? You want to be in prison with murderers and rapists?”
Michael rolled his eyes and turned away from her. “I’m not going to prison, Mom. I only took one bottle for my friends.”
“So what’s next? You steal a car? You’ll end up on the evening news in handcuffs? I’ve got news for you. Those rapists and murderers in prison will rape and murder you. And that’s if you even make it that far. Maybe next time you’ll find the barrel of a gun in your face.”
“I only took one little bottle.”
His mom slammed her fist onto the arm of the recliner. “Stop it! You’re killing me!”
“Mom, relax.”
“This is not a joke! How am I supposed to relax when I know the next time you walk out the door might be your last?” she screamed and then lurched forward with her fingers curled into claws. “Stop laughing!”
“I’m not laughing, Mom.” He held up one hand to shield himself from her fury.
She knocked his hand away and shouted, “Go to your room.”
Michael stood up and headed toward his room at the end of the hallway. His heart sank further and anger and bitterness flooded him. The world faded around him, and the colorful artwork and framed family photos lining the hallway became nothing more than a gray blur. His high had worn off, and the sensation of reality wasn’t fun.
He closed his bedroom door and sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the floor. He wanted to collapse onto the carpet and crawl like a cockroach into the farthest corner, far away from his mom and his friends and the world. His head dropped, and his eyes locked onto the scars streaking across his forearms from the car accident.
“Did you try to kill yourself?” someone would ask.
“Of course not,” he’d always replied. Life had been good. Sometimes, if the person actually cared, he told them a shortened version of the real story. He’d been learning to drive with his dad, but he’d lost control. It had only been for a moment, but a moment was all it had taken to change his life. No light had entered him for a long time. Occasionally, it came back for hours and days at a time, but not tonight. Tonight it was darkness.
He dropped to the floor and curled up into a ball next to his bed. He pushed aside his mom’s anger. Some loud music would push her out of his mind completely, but his body ached too much to sit up. He pushed aside a memory of how happy his parents had been before the crash and how joyful they had been to take him out to practice driving again.
He ran his fingertips across his scars and wished the accident had killed him instead. He wished he had been the one to die. He wished he’d been the one who had suffered a horrible death. His mother had cried at the funeral as if her off switch were broken. Everyone had cried, everyone except him. Only emptiness had filled him, and everyone had stared at him too. Their eyes had pierced him like needles, and he could barely stand to be in the room with the casket. How could he stand next to the casket and know he had done that? He’d killed his dad. The mourners’ eyes blamed him and hated him and it had been all his fault his father was dead. His Uncle Jerome and his grandparents and his mom had hugged him, but he hadn’t felt their love. His self-hatred had sunk deep within himself, and nothing except a black hole now existed in place of his heart. He’d wished he could’ve been the one in the casket instead of his dad. He wished his mom had been crying over his dead body instead of his dad’s. He didn’t deserve to live anymore.
He ran his fingers up and down the scars. He followed the raised flesh from his forearms, across the bend in his elbow, and then up under the sleeve of his t-shirt.
His cellphone chimed, alerting him to a new text message. He turned away from the sound. That sound would always remind him of death. Why the hell did he even have the phone at all? Why did his mom trust him with a phone after everything he’d done? He’d received it as a birthday present a year earlier, only a month before the accident, and he’d never been able to control himself. Why couldn’t he have a little discipline for a minute? He hated his cell
phone, but he was powerless to ignore it, reaching for it without thinking. He hated his friends, and he hated his life. His vision blurred as tears welled over his lower eyelids and dripped onto his shirt.
From behind his tears, Michael stared out of his bedroom window and into the reddish-orange sunset of another wasted day. Toxic bitterness filled his chest like battery acid. He struggled to inhale in a deep breath, and he pulled himself up, standing at the edge of his bed for a moment before going to his closet. He dropped to his knees and pulled out a box from beneath a pile of unworn clothes. He dug his hand into the box and scraped his fingers across the bottom until he met the cool, smooth metal of the .357 magnum pistol his dad had owned. He’d discovered it hidden away in a dresser drawer about a month after his dad’s death while his mom was busy sorting through some of his dad’s items in the next room. His dad had several guns, but this one had been the only one he’d found outside of the locked drawer in their bedroom. His mom had never asked about it, so Michael had kept it a secret in case of an emergency. He doubted his mom even knew about it because if she did, she would have gotten rid of it. It was great the gun had remained a secret because it was an emergency now.
2
Michael took his gun and sat in the closet, pressing its barrel into the scalp above his right ear. The gun wavered and slipped down, folding the top curl of his ear, and coming to a rest in his ear canal. He took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger.
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