by Paul Cave
Ben frowned. Why would she even entertain such a thing? He’d be screaming blue murder if anyone stapled his nipple.
He flipped to the next page.
February ‘82 was licking a thick marker pen in a suggestive way.
The next page.
March ’82 was using rubber bands as makeshift handcuffs. Her expression one of naughtiness.
Ben flipped through all the pages to find young women expressing looks of either lust or excitement, and everything in-between, whilst implementing different items of stationary in their poses.
December ’82 flipped open last.
A buxom brunette with erasers between her knuckles. Different in colour but all square in shape and size. She had one hand at her chin, and her other punching out towards the camera. A knuckleduster of rubbers. Ben’s eyes dropped to the dates. One had been circled. His heart skipped a beat. What was this. Yesterday’s date, but for its corresponding future.
Ben just stared at that date for a while.
His face cracked slightly. A chuckle came from his lips. Then a hearty laugh. His amusement turned to one of great hilarity. Cal was barking, his tail wagging crazily.
Ben could feel tears slipping down his face.
Yesterday had been calendar day!
Nothing less.
Nothing more.
Chapter Fifty
The sign that welcomed those to Hope Springs was a bright and cheery affair. Rainbow in the background with the town’s name caught underneath – a symbol that care and consideration, from the townsfolk, were of highest priority. A river snaked away from the letters, to end in a cascading waterfall.
Hope Springs was a place one could expect happiness and vitality. Some of the bright paintwork had been chipped off – tiny holes punched through the thin metal, the mark of kids and their target practice. A declaration was at the bottom of the sign, made up from just three letters and three digits.
POP. 256
Jake Rivers sat with the engine idling. The Maverick was parked just to the side of the highway. He had been looking at those numbers for a long time.
Rivers could see that those numbers were stencilled on. Understandably so, as to use ones that required a peg to hang from would surely invite the kids in town to have fun with.
POP. 652 -- POP. 65 -- POP. 2 5
Endless entertainment to be had, no doubt.
Rivers could imagine the work, if someone either left town permanently, by choice, in a box, or otherwise, or more people arrived, required to update the population on that sign.
Someone would have to drive out, carefully remove the original number first, or numbers, big families these days, and paint on the updated requirement.
It would be a real pain if the natural flow of population were to suddenly increase or decrease in sporadic and unpredictable fashion.
Rivers considered this as he sat in the driver’s seat.
Nothing had either left town or entered in the time he had been here. Nothing. He took a while to work out what day this was. Saturday, he thought. A busy day. Some merchants would be open to customers, a half day of trade to fulfil, before heading home, or the park, or hunting, whatever it was the individual desired.
Trucks and cars should be rolling in and out – yet the highway remained empty.
What was Rivers missing.
That feeling of dread was starting to creep back into his senses.
Those numbers were playing on his mind again. His imagination building a picture of the worker having to paint faster and faster as each moment passed, the population of Hope Springs dropping in alarming fashion. Indeed, it was Rivers’ belief that maybe it would have been more prudent for them to start at POP. 1, and work their way up from there.
Had the entire town been massacred overnight.
Rivers stretched his back and twisted around in his seat. Stiffness was working its way into his muscles. It was a welcome relief to the pain he had been suffering with.
The rain had taken care of that.
Rivers had not turned into a frenzied madman as the rain graced his skin. Nothing of the sorts. A mild tingling to his skin initially, flowed by a numbing effect. The agony at his side had lessened almost instantly, and the feeling of being punched in his liver had retracted first to a dull throb, and then an internal itch, to complete numbness.
Likewise, the burning wound from the bullet had been dampened instantly the moment he stepped out into the rain.
A tingling throughout his body came next – something like pins-and-needles, yet it coursed from head to toe.
Energy followed, each muscle invigorated, and the fatigue that had had him gripped dissipated with each heartbeat.
Rivers turned the rear-view mirror towards himself. He still looked ghostly, eyes dark circles and cheeks gaunt, but only sleep would have the power to correct that. He had been awake for almost 36 hours, and his mind was ready to shut down for some routine maintenance, mental exhaustion in need of an override and reboot.
He readjusted the mirror before running his hands over his face. Pulling them away, he took a moment to examine his palms first and then the backs of his hands.
Clean and healthy skin both sides.
Rivers considered this.
The rain had not taken his sanity, but rather given him an insight that few would be informed about. He was not suffering from any of the diseases or illnesses that Agent Orange and its deadly dioxin had tarnished so many with.
A movement came at his side, drawing his attention away from his hands.
Deputy Anderson was slumped in the passenger’s seat next to him.
Her body was twisted at an awkward angle, her back bent over and her arms pulled out if front of her. The handcuffs were still clamped tightly around her wrists, Rivers unable to find the key, and the chain that joined them together tethered to the Ford’s door via a knot of rope.
Rivers had needed to backtrack to the base of the tower, to locate the fallen metal bar, before going to work on the front fender of the VW. Eventually, the fender had popped away, and Rivers had been able to slip her tethered arm free.
It was the best he could have done under the circumstances.
Another murmur came, Anderson’s lips moving and garbled words tumbling from them. None of it made any sense to Rivers.
Dead rats with elongated tails.
Kids with guns.
Bears and elk – okay he got that one.
Rivers shifted in his seat. Bent forwards to get a look at her face. Her eyes were rolling crazily under her lids, and her face kept twitching as those strange words and phrases came out.
He dropped his gaze lower.
Her uniform looked damp. In some places, patches of darker liquid had soiled the blue of her uniform into a black goo. The blood however had stopped and that awful wheeze that had accompanied every breath she took had mercifully gone, too.
Something filled his periphery, a larger blue, which grew quickly, to block out the rear window.
A mail truck tore past.
It took the corner of the highway at speed, and the truck teetered for a split second on just two wheels. In the next second it was back on all four and had rounded the bend to disappear.
The first sign of life since Rivers had been sitting here.
A thought now, were all the townsfolk in one place – townhall possibly – awaiting the late arrival of much excited and belated news.
Unlikely, Rivers believed, but the mail truck had been in one hell of a hurry.
His hand reached out to rest against the gearstick. He was just about to shift into gear, when he realised the deputy had moved her position somewhat.
Her head was turned his way.
Those green eyes of hers bright and full of clarity.
Rivers could feel them piercing into his soul.
She looked mad as hell!
COMING 2022
Books by Paul Cave
For Everything a Reason ISBN 9780956236-89-0
Joseph Ruebins is a natural-born fighter, a champion of his sport, yet no training could have prepared him for the events that were to follow at Madison Square Garden on the night of his ultimate fight. Ruebins had planned his retirement with precision, and it was not supposed to be like this. Struck down by a sudden and debilitating stroke, Joseph finds himself in hospital; paralysed, fearful, and at the mercy of this cruel condition. When Joseph’s roommate is murdered, he becomes an unwitting witness and finds himself in mortal danger. Can this ex-champion of the world find a way, not only to survive, but also to protect his family - his life - his very existence...?
Something of the Night ISBN 9781908098-28-3
For years scientists had warned about the possibility of a global strike from outer space: a global killer. Mathematicians had calculated that once in approximately every sixty million years the Earth has been hit by a meteorite of such proportions it drastically changes our climate, plunging the world into a decade of nuclear winters. In a post-apocalyptic world in which the sun has been replaced by near-darkness, the few remaining survivors have been forced underground to protect themselves from the evil predators that roam the surface above. Something else is out there. Something that speaks intelligently, plans with cunning meticulousness and, just like its cousin, this new breed likes to hunt. Not the scrawny livestock and wild animals that cling to life on the barren land. No, this new breed hunts for something far more rewarding.
Cold Light of Day ISBN 9781908098-49-8
Josh Sawyer’s passionate encounter with Anna, a beautiful and mysterious young woman, was one that would change his life forever. Josh must come to terms with Anna’s deep, dark and terrifying secrets - that thrust him into a nightmare of violence and bloodlust. Suspected of grisly multiple murders, the couple are forced to flee Chicago, with the police and FBI hot on their heels. But a more deadly and evil threat is tracking them - an adversary from Anna’s past.
Dead Until Dawn ISBN 978-1908098870
Almost a year on from fleeing the city of Chicago, accused of a spate of grisly killings, Josh Sawyer has crossed the American border, taking refuge in a small, unknown Mexican town. Hiding from the US authorities, his place of sanctuary quickly turns desperate, as it becomes apparent that this place is harbouring a dark secret of its own. Meanwhile, at the furthest tip of the northern hemisphere, FBI Agent Sebastian Fernandez is posted to Alaska, his special talents required in helping the citizens of Fairbanks to find a ruthless killer, drawn there by an almost perpetual darkness. Only one person can help both Josh and Agent Fernandez. Someone with the ability to understand how the living psyche can become twisted and immoral. Able to think how killers think. Yet, more importantly, kill how they kill.