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Black Velvet Seductions Publishing Company
www.blackvelvetseductions.com
Copyright ©2006 by multiple authors
First published in 2006, 2006
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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
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Black Velvet Seductions Publishing Company www.blackvelvetseductions.com
Copyright ©2006 by Robert Cloud, Lee Rush, Richard Savage, Abby Blythe, and Kara Elsberry
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The Crimson “Z"
A Compendium of the Paranormal
Stories by
Robert Cloud—Lee Rush—Richard Savage—Abby Blythe—Kara Elsberry
Copyright 2006
Blood Ritual of
The Crimson Z
The Harbinger
The Prologue by Robert Cloud
The Harbinger
Standing atop of a ladder that was perched precariously against the outside awning of the old, brick building Zachariah's hands struggled with the last knot of the banner that proudly announced that the Grand Opening of The Crimson Z would be on October 31st. The arthritis in his gnarled and tired knuckles made it the most difficult knot to tie. His hands already ached from the work they had done in getting ready for the opening of the new location of his jewelry shop.
It had been a tradition for generations that whenever the shop moved that the new opening would occur on Halloween. He did not intend to change that tradition even if his tired aching bones were screaming from exertion they were not used to. At his age he should be home enjoying his retirement years but the life and craft of a jeweler was all he knew and was all he had. He knew if he stopped working he would waste away to nothing.
Halloween was still a week away and if he was going to be ready to open the doors on that day there was still a lot for his old body to accomplish in those seven days. He would be done in time but only barely. How he wished for the days when his body was younger and did not hurt all the time. Hell, he was so old that even he did not know his age. At his last visit to the doctor's office the doctor had said he was in great health for a man approaching a hundred. Was he a hundred years old? It seemed like he was much older than that. He could remember things that would be impossible for him to remember if he were only one hundred, but maybe they were the memories of his own father or grandfather that had crawled into his mind and took residence as if they were his own.
He looked down the rungs of the ladder. His knees trembled as he began to lift his foot to step down. He tightened his grip upon the rung for he was not certain that the aching joints in his knees would allow him to climb down again. With pain flaring in his arthritic hands he held tight as he raised his foot to take that first step. Just then a sudden shadow loomed down and passed over him. It was larger than a bus yet looked like a giant bird. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, they had to have played tricks on him for its neck had extended forward of its body much farther than any bird he had ever seen and its tail looked more like the tail of a serpent but the tail ended in a barbed spike. Its wings were so wide that the tips were hidden by the shadows of the buildings upon each side of the street.
He watched as it disappeared and then closed his eyes thinking it had to have been his imagination. When he opened them he saw the shadow returning toward him and as it passed over him the wings of the shadow came together as if to lift the great beast into the sky. A sudden downdraft of wind hit the old man hard and he had to fight to keep from being knocked off the ladder. His eyes watched the shadow as it began to get smaller. Quickly the old man turned his head sending a sudden blinding streak of pain into his neck but his gaze caught nothing in the sky that could have made such a shadow. There was but one lone plane and it was too high in the sky and to the wrong side of the sun to have cast any shadow at all. Even if it had been in the right location to cast the shadow it would not have explained the sudden gust of wind.
The old man shook uncontrollably for a moment as his hand rubbed the aching hump at the base of his neck. Slowly he righted himself and tried to think rationally. He was not a child. What did he think he had seen? A dragon?
A memory returned to him of a long time past when he and some of his friends would be taken by such flights of fancy. They would dash off into the fields of their fathers and protect the flocks of sheep from dragons and other monsters. They would wave branches about like swords to ward off the predators of the skies. No dragons, giants or other beasts would lay one hand or claw upon any of the wooly flock of their fathers, but that was when he was a child of seven or eight. He rubbed his temples and then his forehead as he tried to remember, how long ago was that? He could not recall.
Once again he looked down the rungs of the ladder and with his knees still trembling both from his age and from the rush of adrenalin caused by nearly falling he began to descend yet he had only taken two steps down when again he was interrupted. Age had taken many things from him but one thing that it had left him was his hearing. That sense was startlingly acute even for a young man. Not one sound got past the old man's ears. He even knew exactly how many mice had taken up residence in his apartment above the store and he left them little crumbs of food as they were his only friends.
He heard the sound of wheels skating upon the rough concrete of the sidewalk. He looked up to see a young child of maybe seven streaking along upon a pair of those things that he thought he had heard a young man call roller blades. The skater was pretty good for someone so young. The long hair streaming from beneath the child's helmet led him to believe the skater was a girl but he had been fooled more than once, yet the grace of the skater reinforced his conviction that the child was indeed a girl.
In this small village of Hudson Falls there were not many people on the sidewalk at this time of day and the skater skirted around the few that were there like it was more a dance for her than a mode of transportation. The old man's eyes grew wide as he saw the door of the Rexall Drug Store open. The skater was too busy skating around the cluster of people standing in front of the used furniture store and did not see the glass door. It was directly in her path and the old man started to call out to warn her but his aged lungs could no longer hold the breath of his more robust years and his voice did not carry loud enough for her to hear. At the last moment the skater made a sudden and quick move to dart around the door. The skates screamed as they flew out from under her and the girl's face slammed into the open door as her knees and hands scraped against the rough concrete like cheese on a grater.
He continued to descend the ladder carefully. He wanted to rush faster so he could aid the little girl but he worried if he tried to move too fast that it would be himself in need of an ambulance therefore he went slowly. Still his eyes never left the girl or the door.
He watched as the person whose arm had been holding the door when the child had hit it darted out and knelt beside the crying child. The young lady, who could not yet be out of her teens, set her packages d
own and began rummaging through her purse. She pulled out a handkerchief and what looked like a wet wipe of some kind. By the time he was again standing on firm ground he could see that the young lady had the situation well under control. The young woman helped the girl to her feet and wiped the last of the tears away with another of her wet wipes and then the girl began to skate away. As she neared the only scratches his eyes caught upon her were a couple of small ones upon her lower shins. They were nothing that would mar what turned out to be a lovely little girl. He smiled at her as she neared but she did not see him instead she turned and waved to the young woman that had helped her and then darted past him with the grace of a dancer. He had been nothing in her life but an insignificant obstacle upon her journey.
The resiliency of the young had always amazed him. She had rebounded so quickly it was as if nothing had happened and he could hear the chiming of her laughter as she rounded the corner just beyond him.
His ancient bones creaked and complained as he turned back to look at the young lady who had caused the accident. Of the two she was the one that seemed to have had the worst of it though he could see no sign of any physical injury.
It amazed him that even from a distance of nearly half a block he could make out the wet trails that the tears had left on her cheeks. Her green eyes glistened with more tears that were readying to fall as she paused and placed her face into her hands and wept in silence. He queried himself, how was it possible to see the color of her eyes from that distance, hell he could even read the small lettering on the packages that lay on the ground at her feet. Surely someone his age should be almost blind. Instead he could see things he should only be able to see if he were looking through binoculars or a telescope.
The young woman knelt to pick up her two small bags. While she gathered her items she stopped and continued to cry a moment longer, holding her handkerchief to her eyes to hide the tears. Two older boys walked by her one pushed at the other laughing and nearly knocking his buddy into her, yet neither of them seemed to even notice she was there. He grumbled under his breath at the disrespect that young people of this era had. In his day a gentleman helped a lady in distress even if only for a moment or two. He just could not fathom the indifference of young men. It was not even a matter of being a gentleman anymore but just common courtesy, and it definitely was not that the young lady was unattractive. She did not dress to show off the beauty that lay within her but he could feel the stirrings within him that made him wish he was young again.
Slowly she stood and began walking in his direction, her right hand darting up and trying to wipe the tears away from her eyes. As she neared him he was struck at how much she reminded him of someone but he could not place who. Yet his heart began to pick up its pace and suddenly shyness overcame him. He felt as if he were a young lad about to ask the most beautiful girl in town for a date. His heart leapt into his throat as he thought she was going to pass him by but suddenly she paused. He began to dance back and forth upon his feet like an anxious young child desperate to see Santa. He could not understand what was wrong with him. He hadn't felt like this about anyone since the passing of his wife many years ago and this was only a little girl. Why was he acting as if this was the most important moment in his entire life?
Slowly she turned her eyes upward and she looked up at his sign and then back to him and said, “Mister, your sign is up backwards."
He gazed up, stared at the sign a moment, then laughed, and while still looking at the sign said, “Well my bones can't handle another trip up that ladder today. I will have to fix it tomorrow."
"I don't mind fixing it for you, Sir,” the young lady said in such a sweet voice that he could feel his heart melting.
"But ... but ... you are wearing a dress?"
"Not a problem,” she said. She sat her packages down and unhooked the strap from her purse. She took one end of the strap and attached it to her belt behind her back and passed it between her legs and then fastened it to her belt in the front. The belt pulled the hem of her dress up and closed the opening making a type of pants.
He watched her ingenuity stunned. She must have seen the look upon his face for she quickly explained, “I always wear dresses and at school I often help decorate so I have learned a few tricks to keep the boys from looking up my skirts."
He did not have time to say a word before she darted up the ladder and within no time she had the sign righted and was back down and had her purse reassembled. He smiled at her and thanked her profusely.
A gust of wind caught her hair and tossed it across her face. She flipped her head to get the hair out of her eyes. The wind however carried with it the still lingering scent of her tears as well as a light dusting of perfume. The fingers of the past wrapped around him reminding him of something from his childhood, a scent that his mother wore, a flower, but he could not place it. He suddenly felt an even stronger need to at least talk to this young lady for a little while. At the rate his heart was responding to her there was little doubt in his mind that if she wanted it he would offer her any piece of jewelry in his store for just a few moments to stare at her lovely smile. His late wife would have called him a foolish old man but he still felt like a young man in his old body.
She smiled at him and though she seemed to be happy he could sense that there was an incredible sadness within her that was far deeper than what could be explained by what had happened down the street. Again he was not certain how he knew that, but there was no doubt in his mind that this young woman was troubled. She lifted her hand as if to wave and he could sense she was about to say she had better get going.
The thoughts that went through his head then passed within a flash. He knew that she was a very special young lady. The very fact that he could feel her inner emotions without her saying a single word told him that there was something within her that was calling out to him. Then the shadow of the old drake passing overhead loomed in his mind and another memory of his past shot out of the darkness. The harbinger of an omen. Maybe it was more than his imagination. He felt deeply that he had to help this young lady in some way, he was not yet certain what she needed or how he would help but he knew he had no choice.
Before she had the chance to say anything he spoke, “Would you care to come inside and sit for a bit? I saw what happened down the street and you seem to be quite shaken by it. Besides, I at least owe you a drink for helping me with the sign."
She nodded and he opened the door as a gentleman should and allowed her to precede him into the establishment. The young woman stepped inside and paused just inside the door. As he stepped in behind her he could see her looking about at all the display cases. They were empty and the place looked barren but the old building had a charm of its own.
He flipped the light switch just inside the door and the overhead lights illuminated the place casting out the shadows and then the tension in the young woman seemed to evaporate. He suddenly realized that she was the first person, other than himself, to enter The Crimson Z since he had decided to relocate there, “Welcome to The Crimson Z,” he announced.
The young woman laughed and said, “For all there is to it."
Then she added, “Will you be ready to open in time for your Grand Opening?"
"I am old but I believe I can make it in time,” he said, as he walked toward the back of the store to go to the little kitchen area. “Would you like a soda, or something else?” He hollered back and asked.
"Do you have any bottled water?” she asked.
"Yes, I have some from Saratoga Springs. I kind of like it, it has a sweet taste."
"That is good, I prefer things without additives,” she responded.
He brought back out two of the bottles. As he passed by a mirror on the wall it began to rattle and he whispered to it, “Not now Lilith, it is not time."
"Excuse me, Sir. What did you say?” she asked.
"I just said to myself ‘Be still, Silly it is not your time.’ It was nothing"
Th
e girl looked at him quizzically so he tried to come up with a reasonable explanation. He hated to lie, he always had but he did not know how to explain the rattling mirror and Lilith to the young woman. Maybe he would in time if she stuck around, but if he tried now she would be out that door and running down the street in a matter of seconds. “You are such an attractive young lady and my heart was racing just thinking of being alone in this dark store with you. But as you see I am an arthritic old man and you are in no danger."
He felt ashamed for he had actually told her two lies. Outside he had felt old and arthritic but once he had stepped through the doors and into the realm of The Crimson Z it was as if half his years had melted away from him. He no longer hurt and his hands and bones were in nearly perfect shape again.
The young girl giggled and smiled brightly as she blushed, “Thank you, I am not so pretty, but I already knew I was safe with you. I could see it in your eyes. I get feelings about people, and you have a very good heart."
He handed the young woman her bottle of water and then opened his own. He laughed to himself thinking when bottled water had first come out he had sworn he would never spend even a single penny on the stuff and now it was about the only thing he drank. He did have a couple cans of soda in the refrigerator for guests but he never touched it. The young woman began to lean over the counter and look for something. “Is there something I can help you with?"
"I was looking for a trash can for this wet wipe. I could not throw it on the street. I just do not like to litter, besides, people are funny about things covered with blood."
He held out his hand, “Hand it to me, the main trash can is in the back. I am still setting up shop so do not have anything really ready yet. Other than the treasures display case over against that wall nothing has been set up."
She dropped the wet wipe in his hand and then turned her gaze in the direction he had pointed. She could feel her eyes growing big as she looked upon the deep red of the rich mahogany case. She was not a good judge of height but it nearly reached to the ceiling so she guessed it stood nearly eight feet tall and was at least six feet wide. The front was divided into three panels. The lower one foot stretched the full width of the cabinet and then the upper portion was divided into what looked like two doors. Across the top was a decorative scrolling that had the phases of the moon carved into the scroll work.
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