“So sorry, Charlie,” he said.
The man moaned again as Frank snuffed out the last flame.
“Oh get over it, it’s gonna be a lot hotter where you’re going, my friend.”
He opened his mouth, let out a soft groan. And Frank couldn’t help but smile as the man suffered below him.
Then his lips twitched, phantom words dancing on his tongue. Frank leaned in closer to hear what he had to say, but instead of words, a fountain of black, murky water spewed out of the man’s mouth like projectile vomit or some kind of Demonic faucet.
Frank’s hands shot up in front of him. No good. The water leaked through his hands. Smelled like chemicals, had the consistency of cooking oil. He slipped as he backed away.
The burnt man stood up before him, hovered above, loomed like a black Shadow of death. His eyes only showed the whites and the water slowed down now, only dribbled from his mouth and nose like the last vestiges of a rainstorm. He blinked once, and the whites filled with the same darkness.
Frank might’ve had a heart attack had the rage not been thundering inside of him. Because, before him stood his son’s murderer; the dark man with his Demon eyes and somewhere, his darker blade.
“Frank King, you have been chosen.”
“Fuck you,” he said, trying to stand up. But the pain had been so much more prominent in the presence of that caliber of evil.
“Frank King, you have been chosen,” the man repeated. His head bowed, the whites aimed in Frank’s direction.
“I said, fuck you. Give me my son back, and I’ll listen.”
“Frank King — ”
“Enough!” He forced himself up. Too slow. The man’s hand, squeezed Frank’s throat with the force of a boa constrictor. He latched onto the man’s wrist, felt the muscles and the tendons twisting and writhing like black snakes.
“Frank King, you have been chosen. The mark of the Demon brands your throat.” And as the man spoke, Frank’s flesh, the healing wound from the arrow that had struck his son’s murderer, sizzled. He caught a fresh whiff of smoke, and screamed out. But the noise was cut off by the man’s tight grip. “With this mark you shall do the Dark One’s bidding.”
“I-I’m not d-doing anyone’s bid…bid….bidding.”
“You have no choice, Frank King. The venom has taken you. It has been a long time coming. You have fought well, but you are no match for the darkness.”
“I’ll f-find you and k-kill you, you piece of — ”
“Find and kill Harold Storm.”
Frank stopped trying to talk then. It just so happened to be that killing Harold Storm was near the top of his list anyway.
“And his partner, Sahara of the Cloudless Realms.”
“The redhead?”
“Correct, Frank King, the woman with the red hair. She possesses great sickness.” He squeezed harder, causing Frank to hack up hot fire, causing the veins in his eyeballs to bulge. “So she will not be a problem for you.”
“P-please let g-g-go.”
The man didn’t, but he didn’t squeeze harder either. “Harold Storm is stronger than he looks. He may be Electus, from the Prophecy of Fates, but you are not as weak as you look either, Frank King. With the venom coursing through your body, you will be even stronger.”
The man let go, and Frank landed on the concrete, knees first. He felt like his nerves would’ve shorted out by then, but they hadn’t, and he did his best to not show it, though he imagined the Demon — man, or whatever it was — knew the pain was there regardless. His hands rubbed at his throat, at the wound he’d forgotten was there, but now blazed with more pain like a bonfire.
“What’s in it for me?” he asked, wheezing.
The man flexed his knuckles. A face of total impassiveness looked to him. And black, black eyes.
“Your son,” he said. A hint of a smile passed over his face.
Frank’s heart might’ve exploded, but that persistent fear still held him. He had felt like crying, too, though he didn’t.
“How do I know you’re not lying?”
“I have many powers, Frank King. I am a God, and a God can do whatever he pleases.”
Frank stepped forward, extended his hand. “Shake on it,” he said.
The man raised a fist, ball and joint grinding and sounding like a rusty hinge. The original owner had tried everything in his power not to comply, but the Demon inside was too strong.
Their hands met, and the men — or whatever they were now — shook.
“It is not like you would’ve had much of a choice, Frank King, but I am a man of my word. I have always been. Do my bidding, and meet your son once more.”
“Tell me where he is,” Frank said, cutting straight to it. “And I’ll make sure he suffers.”
His voice sounded alien, unlike his own. More gruff. More sinister.
That slight smile passed over the man’s features once more. He blinked slowly again, erasing the darkness, and bringing back the whites of its inhabitant’s eyes.
“Need I remind you?” he asked, before the black water poured from his mouth, leaked from his eyes, dripped from his nose. “Lake Shallows.”
And Frank didn’t think it was funny or pleasant at all, but still, he smiled. It had been too long since he’d visited the Lake.
CHAPTER 16
The bar and grill was not as nice as Harold had thought it would’ve been. He didn’t think the term ‘mirage’ applied, but there was sand by the actual lake and the heat could’ve driven a man insane even without the sun.
So maybe it was a mirage.
But inside, was as dead as the things in the water. The music had stopped when he stepped through the threshold. The smells disappeared. Electricity vanished, too. No air conditioner, only the muggy heat stuffed into the building, threatening to choke Harold to death.
He had turned back once he spotted the rotten wood of the hostess’ stand. The hanging signs. The dirt and debris strewn all over the once spotless linoleum. Emptiness. The horror. But the door had slammed closed, and the old Harold would’ve froze right then and there and let the fear shrink him into a miniature version of himself.
He didn’t.
He stood a little taller, embraced the darkness.
You don’t belong here, that voice in his head had whispered. But somehow he knew he did. Knew fate had drawn him here with the promise of rest and relaxation, and air conditioning.
Now he walked around, taking in the mustiness, the old rusty lights that hung from the ceiling with dead bulbs. Only slivers of fire made its way through the cracks in the blinds, illuminating the smallest of areas.
Embrace the Shadows. Be free.
No.
He walked onward. Hands felt around the darkness, but for what? Something that would help Sahara, something that would give him answers.
A burst of ghostly white energy in the other room caught his eye, and he followed. Turned the corner into a great bar area. Long forgotten televisions hung from the walls — not the flat screens so common of Harold’s day, but the bulky square kind that needed two pounds of reinforced steel to hold them up. A screen above him near his left had been fractured straight down the middle, the bar too. Upturned stools and broken glass bottles lined his path.
The white light was blinding now. He hoped he hadn’t died. Don’t go into the light as the saying went, and Harold seemed to be doing exactly that. Until his eyes adjusted and the white light took up the shape of a human-like figure who sat in the corner of the room, far away from the bar beneath a shuttered window.
Harold’s legs didn’t want to keep going, but they did. And soon he was face to face with the figure.
It raised a glowing arm up towards Harold’s throat and part of him recoiled, though his brain must’ve not gotten the message because he didn’t back away. Luckily all the light had done was snap their fingers — or whatever they had attached at the end of the cylindrical limb that looked like an arm.
Harold’s eyes jammed closed with the sound of
the snap. It hadn’t came at him like a regular sound, didn’t float in the air for a fraction of a second before entering his ears then his brain. No, it went straight to his head as if dynamite had been ignited by a gunshot, and he fell to his knees clutching the sides of his skull.
The noise reverberated for what seemed like decades, but when he opened his eyes again, it appeared that it had reverberated backwards. The bar was alive and pumping. No more cracked screened televisions. Now pictures moved across the screens like a television was apt to do, showcasing a baseball game. Cigarette smoke filled the air, causing Harold to see everything through a gray film.
A man carrying a bottle of beer with a retro design passed by, wearing a paisley shirt and a face covered in wiry brown mutton chops. He nodded to a group of friends on the opposite end of the bar. “Alright, alright,” he said. “Now this party’s gettin’ started. Guh-roovy!”
Harold said, “What the fuck?” softly under his breath before a man sporting a blood-red suit jacket and a neatly tied bowtie bent down to yank him up. On his face were a pair of Buddy Holly horn-rimmed glasses.
“If you’re too drunk to stand, buddy, then I think it’s about time you went home.” He looked behind him at the yellow sunlight streaming in, at the crisp blue water on the horizon, the tens — maybe hundreds of people — on the lake, tanned and smiling. “Not even two p.m. and you’re wasted, buddy. C’mon, bad for business.”
That voice sounded familiar. And so did the atmosphere. Though Harold might not have been a thought in his mother and father’s heads — and wouldn’t be for possibly another fifteen years — he’d felt like he’d been here before, felt like he’d seen this particular now in the history books, the movies, and old television shows.
The man had a tight grip on Harold, as he looked down, and saw he wore a tank top, a pair of all too short swim trunks, plain blue and alarmingly thin, as well as thong-toed sandals on his feet dusted with pale sand.
The man with the bowtie had a handful of the tank top Harold never remembered putting on and as he brought him closer to his face, his magnified eyes blinked slowly. “Man, oh man, you look like shit.”
“Gee, thanks,” Harold answered. “Haven’t heard that one before.”
“‘Nam?” he asked, letting go of him.
Harold started to say a smart-ass response, but the bartender cut him off.
“Me, too.” He pulled out a ball chain necklace from under his collar and dog tags hung over his bow tie. “4th Infantry. Got clipped in the Battle of Dak. Goddamned slit-eyes. They sent me home in ’69, right when that Armstrong fella walked on the moon. While my friends, the ones stuck out in that fuckin’ jungle, were gettin’ shot at and losing limbs. Fuckin waste of money and lives, I’ll tell ya. But you, man, you looked like you got it the worst. What were ya, a POW?”
Harold nodded.
“What battalion?”
He stuttered, then said the first number that came to his head: “Uh, 1st Battalion.”
“Of the 9th?”
“Uh-huh,” Harold said, not looking into the man’s eyes.
“I’ll be goddamned, you guys really earned that nickname.” He chuckled. “The Walking Dead. Man, that ain’t a joke. You look like you crawled right out of the grave.”
With the bartender’s acceptance, Harold felt a new confidence growing inside of him. He shrugged. “It was my duty to serve this great nation.”
The bartender smiled. “This great nation is a pile of horseshit. That Carter is too soft. Gonna get us nuked, he is.”
From his right, where the man in the paisley shirt went, him and his group of friends — all equally as hairy and unkempt; hippies, if Harold had ever seen them — whooped at the television, drawing the bartender’s eye. “Goddamned Yankees,” he mumbled, then looked up at Harold. “C’mon let me get you a drink. I owe you one for being such a righteous prick.” He clapped him on the back and started off towards the bar.
Harold smiled, accepting the generosity.
The man started fiddling with the tap, filled a mug full of Budweiser, then turned with it in hand, the foam spilling over the glass. Behind him a swinging door opened with a girl carrying a plate of steaming hot chicken wings and french fries. The smell made Harold’s stomach flip. But he grabbed the beer nonetheless, bringing the mug to his lips. Even Budweiser tasted good to him, which was odd because Harold Storm was a whiskey man most of his life, ever since he found the dusty airplane bottles of Jack Daniels hidden far away on the top shelf of his mother’s medicine cabinet. At thirteen, he brought some to Tyler, his older neighbor, and the two drank all of them out by a fire that summer’s night. Made him feel cool back then, more than a decade ago, and still made him feel cool today. Except now the drink had been a need now more than a need to feel cool.
“Hope you don’t mind one of these big motherfuckers,” the bartender said. “Or the Bud. I hate those assholes that sip on those fruity drinks with an umbrella.”
Big motherfuckers, he thought. No, it couldn’t be. Where in the Hell am I? When am I?
“Don’t mind at all. Love some Budweiser,” which was a lie, but lying was the least of his worries at that point.
“Good, good. And you, pal, are a goddamned war hero! War heroes only drink the best.”
He bent down and pulled a glass bottle from the cooler below, popped the cap off with a hiss and raised it up. Harold clinked his drink to the bartender’s, then they both gulped deeply.
“So what brings you to the Shallows? You from the city?”
Harold nodded. “Yep. Just needed a day off from work.”
“What do you do?”
“Well I’m a cabbie, but it’s so much more than that, I can’t even begin to explain — ”
“Goddamn! You’re a former POW and now you’re fuckin’ cabbie? This country, I’ll tell ya. If they weren’t so soft up north, I’d move to Canada!”
Harold held a hand up as if to tell the bartender to calm down, but the commentator from the televisions echoed loudly and the chatter from the patrons mixed with it. Nobody would’ve heard his outburst, not unless he had done it through a megaphone.
“Say I didn’t get your name, fella.”
“Harold Storm,” Harold said without skipping a beat.
“Well, real nice to meet ya, Harold. And thank you for serving…” He trailed off, eyes glazed over, mouth dropped open as he looked past Harold to the entrance of the bar, where the dining area ended.
Harold waved a hand in front of the bartender’s face. “Uh, hello?” he said, snapping his fingers.
Suddenly Harold noticed the deafening silence of the bar. Well not total silence. The television was still on, and the commentators still talked in their loud, practiced voices.
“A smack into right field. Going…going…outta here!”
But the crowd had stopped, at least the men had. And the bar was mostly full of men. Harold turned his head, slowly swiveling from the end of the bar to the direction the bartender looked. A few women were there, too, and some still spoke to each other in polite voices, but the women paired with their boyfriends and lovers looked on with pursed lips and harsh eyes.
Harold’s jaw nearly dropped too when he caught a look at the source of the conversation-killer. A blonde bombshell, looking like a pin-up girl fresh from the pages of Playboy, stood in the threshold wearing nothing but her bikini. She had tanned skin, silky hair, and a body that somehow looked both hard enough to cut diamonds and soft enough to get lost in.
She stood with a hand on her hip, sunhat flopped over her head, and one temple of her sunglasses pressed between blindingly-white teeth. She smiled at Harold, who basically melted right then on his barstool. But when he felt the stir in his loins — that sexual longing for this woman out of his league and out of his time — he felt a pang of guilt, the cause unknown.
“Hello, Harold Storm,” the woman said.
“Hello,” he said.
She motioned to the bartender. “Chester, dear,
Mr. Storm is with me. I hope you don’t mind if I steal him from you.”
Chester practically drooled onto the wooden bar top. “No, go right ahead, Cindy. But I told ya, you can call me Chet, I don’t mind.”
When she leaned in, Harold caught her scent — cigarettes and sex. Her full red lips puckered towards the bartender, who Harold now recognized as a younger version of his own bartender, but he was too smitten by the woman to let that new information sink in.
“Thank you, Chet,” she whispered. And to Harold, it seemed like everyone in the bar, even the restaurant — Hell, the whole world — watched her every lithe move.
Chet exhaled a shaky breath. “Say, Cindy, you free this weekend. Wanna maybe catch that new movie everyone’s talking about, the Star War or whatever?”
She winked. “You have my number, Chet. Don’t be shy.” And with that she turned and began to walk towards a booth nestled in the corner of the bar, where the ghostly energy had set up shop many years in the future.
With each step, her full hips swung, and she looked back at Harold who salivated all over the barstool, and motioned a finger at him.
“Come on, Harold Storm,” she said.
CHAPTER 17
The noise picked back up after the two nestled into the cozy booth in the corner. Cheers erupted as the sports commentator’s enthusiasm oozed from the speakers, and then the chatter grew to a steady decibel level. Even in the seventies, Harold thought people had short attention spans. And he shook his head, until the woman sitting across from him smiled, and his attention span vanished fast enough for him to ever remember that he had one.
“So Harold Storm, what are you doing in my when?”
The way her lips moved was hypnotizing, and he just stared, not answering her, or registering what words came out.
She laughed. “You’re very cute, Harold, especially with your tongue hanging out like that.”
He jumped, realized he must’ve looked like a begging dog, and quickly withdrew it. Then he straightened up and pulled his gaze away from the beautiful woman.
Shadowbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 2) Page 9