A Cold Tomorrow

by Mae Clair

  Cover Copy

  Where secrets make their home…

  Stopping to help a motorist in trouble, Katie Lynch stumbles upon a mystery as elusive as the Mothman legend that haunts her hometown of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Could the coded message she finds herald an extraterrestrial visitor? According to locals, it wouldn’t be the first time. And what sense should she make of her young son’s sudden spate of bizarre drawings—and his claim of a late-night visitation? Determined to uncover the truth, Katie only breaks the surface when a new threat erupts. Suddenly her long-gone ex-boyfriend is back and it’s as if he’s under someone else’s control. Not only is he half-crazed, he’s intent on murder….

  As a sergeant in the sheriff’s office of the famously uncanny Point Pleasant, Officer Ryan Flynn has learned to tolerate reports of puzzling paranormal events. But single mom Katie Lynch appears to be in very real danger—and somehow Ryan’s own brother, Caden, is caught up in the madness, too. What the skeptical lawman discovers astounds him—and sends him into action. For stopping whatever evil forces are at play may just keep Katie and Caden alive….

  Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Books by Mae Clair

  Weathering Rock

  Twelfth Sun

  Myth and Magic

  Point Pleasant Series

  A Thousand Yesteryears

  A Cold Tomorrow

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  A Cold Tomorrow

  A Point Pleasant Novel

  Mae Clair

  LYRICAL PRESS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Copyright

  Lyrical Press books are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2016 by Mae Clair

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  First Electronic Edition: December 2016

  eISBN-13: 978-1-60183-778-3

  eISBN-10: 1-60183-778-X

  First Print Edition: December 2016

  ISBN-13: 978-1-60183-781-3

  ISBN-10: 11-60183-781-X

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  In memory of Cathy Brehm

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my fantastic critique partner, Cate Masters, for working through chapter after chapter when I was on a tight deadline. I couldn’t have finished the book without you.

  To my editor, Paige Christian, thank you for your hard work in making this novel shine.

  To Lyrical Underground and Kensington Publishing, I’m delighted to be part of such a professional organization.

  Finally, to my husband, who has been by my side through every step of my writing journey, and who listened patiently to my endless chatter about the Mothman and UFOs. Thank you for undertaking two trips with me to Point Pleasant and the TNT. There is nothing like firsthand research when penning a novel!

  Author’s Foreword

  In 1966-67, leading up to the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge on December 15, 1967, Point Pleasant, West Virginia experienced a number of unexplained occurrences. Among these were Mothman sightings, an unusual amount of UFO activity, and the arrival of mysterious Men-in-Black.

  I’ve used those events to create my own account of preternatural activity in A Cold Tomorrow. Set in 1982, fifteen years after the fall of the Silver Bridge, I’ve employed many of the legends from Point Pleasant folklore. As someone who enjoys researching urban legends and myth, I’ve placed my own spin on these. It should be noted that none of the characters in this book are meant to resemble persons living or dead in any fashion.

  I’ve also taken some liberties with Point Pleasant by adding several roads and a number of fictional businesses such as the Parrish Hotel, the River café, Doreen Sue’s hair salon, and others. The TNT is an actual site, part of the McClintic Wildlife Management Area.

  A small town, Point Pleasant is situated at the confluence of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers. It’s suffered great tragedy and loss, endured the spotlight of scrutiny, but preserved. If you visit, you’ll discover the world’s only Mothman Museum, an amazing River Museum and Learning Center, Tu-Endie-Wei State Park which commemorates the town’s frontier battle days, and also Fort Randolph, the site of an American Revolutionary garrison. The town also has an amazing riverfront with amphitheater. During one visit, I passed a pleasant summer evening there with my husband listening to local musicians and taking in the river views.

  I hope you enjoy my interpretation of the Mothman and other odd events from Point Pleasant folklore. Thank you for taking the journey with me.

  Mae Clair

  June 2016

  Prologue

  December 15, 1967

  Point Pleasant, West Virginia

  Christmas was a week and a half away, but the cheerful bustle of downtown Point Pleasant left Katie Lynch gloomy. Across the street from her mama’s hair salon, a man in a Santa Claus suit rang a hand-held bell, beckoning shoppers inside G. C. Murphy’s. Another time she would have been excited to peek at the festive store displays or the toys and plush stuffed animals tucked into overflowing bins. She had her heart set on a perky white dog, since Mama said a real one was too much trouble. But even the memory of the snowy pooch she wanted to name Moonbeam had lost its appeal.

  It was impossible to think of anything happy since her sister had disappeared three days ago. The only gift Katie craved for Christmas was Wendy’s safe return.

  Plopping to a seat on the bench in front of the salon, she chewed the inside of her lip. She’d stayed inside for a while, waiting for her mama to finish, but the odor of perm solution had worked on her stomach until she’d finally wandered outside. Despite an edge of cold in the air, she didn’t mind the chill. Maybe because the sun hadn’t set and the street was so busy. From her vantage point, it was easy to see the string of traffic lined up to cross the Silver Bridge farther down the road. She and Wendy had made plans to go shopping across the river in Gallipolis tomorrow. Their mama was even going to let Wendy take the car, something that had surprised them both.

  And then Wendy vanished. The sheriff, most people around town, and even Mama thought Katie’s older sister had run away.

  “The girl took off once before,” Katie had overheard Mrs. Quiggly tell Pearl Kraus when she’d dropped off a clothing donation at the thrift store. Secretly, she didn’t understand why her mama worried about less fortunate people, when most of the town said nasty things behind her back. Like how she stayed out too late drinking, didn’t have control over her daughters, and ran arou
nd with men.

  It was the way people thought of Wendy, too—trashy and cheap. Some of the boys in school, and plenty of the girls, had even called Katie those names. Most wanted nothing to do with her. The only kids who might have taken an interest were bullies and troublemakers, friends she didn’t need at twelve years old.

  Locking her hands on either side of the bench, she leaned forward and glanced down the street. Across the road, two girls walked side by side, chatting intently—Eve Parrish and Sarah Sherman. They usually avoided her like most of her classmates, but never called her trashy names. Eve had even let her borrow a notebook for history class after Suzanne Flemish dumped Katie’s in the toilet.

  Her face burned with the memory. She’d wanted to punch Suzanne, but it would have only gotten her tossed out of school. If she’d had friends—good friends like Eve and Sarah seemed to be—maybe it wouldn’t have hurt so much when she’d been forced to slink away. But Eve Parrish, daughter of the family who owned Point Pleasant’s famous Parrish Hotel, would never be friends with someone like her. Wendy was the only true friend she had.

  A sudden flapping noise made Katie glance skyward. A dense flock of black birds—more than she’d ever seen clustered together—swooped frantically overhead. Several people paused to look up, but most kept walking, too concerned with their regular business.

  Was it her imagination or did the birds seem startled?

  The sudden blare of a horn erupted from the line of cars waiting to cross the Silver Bridge. The ones that had been idling hadn’t moved and more piled up behind the stalled string. It was Friday night, near rush hour as her mama called it, but she’d never seen the bridge so busy. The smell of exhaust, the flash of brake lights… Somehow it felt wrong. As if there were far too many cars and trucks for the old suspension bridge to hold.

  “Excuse me, little girl.” A man’s voice cut into her thoughts, scattering them like the birds overhead.

  Turning, Katie stood. The man who faced her on the sidewalk was tall and striking, with whitish-blond hair and ink-black eyes. Dressed in a black suit and black fedora hat, he appeared unaffected by the cold weather. She knew the style of hat because Wendy had a flashy red one she’d blown half a paycheck to buy. Katie had borrowed it once, though she hadn’t been brave enough to wear it out of the house.

  Her gaze dropped to the stranger’s gloveless hands. It was hard to overlook fingers like that. Long and slender, the last digit of each fatter than the rest, making the tips look bulbous. A deformity of some sort. Her mama taught her it was impolite to stare, but that didn’t stop a chill from dancing up her spine. The icy cold had nothing to do with the man’s oddly shaped fingers, but an inner sense of warning that sent gooseflesh prickling down her arms.

  “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” she blurted.

  “Well, now.” The man’s words were carefully modulated, tinged with an accent. He performed a slight bow, bending at the waist. “You may call me Lach. There. You see now. We are no longer strangers.” His mouth stretched in a smile, revealing perfect white teeth.

  Katie took a step backward. “What do you want?”

  “I am looking for Doreen Sue Lynch.”

  What did he want with her mama? Sudden hope pinged through Katie’s heart. “Do you know something about Wendy?” It was hard to mask her eagerness.

  Tilting his head, the man eyed her as if she were a curious puzzle. “Wendy.” He did not make the name a question, nor did he say it matter-of-factly. It seemed to Katie that he rolled it around on his tongue for fit.

  “Yes, Wendy.” An edge of anger bridled her words. He had to know something about her sister, dressed the way he was, obviously an outsider and someone of authority. Why didn’t he come out and say what he knew? Was it because she was a kid and he wanted to speak with her mother?

  Her gaze darted to the small sign hanging to the right of her mama’s salon—Doreen Sue’s Place. Lach looked there, too, realization dawning on his face.

  “Ah. Mrs. Lynch is inside.”

  “Tell me first.” She stepped into his path, blocking his entry. He had to understand how desperate she was for news of Wendy. “If you know something about Wendy, tell me. I’m her sister.”

  “You misconstrue why I am here. Perhaps it would be best that I address Mrs. Lynch at another time. I did not expect her to be in a place with so many others.” He nodded to the salon.

  Before Katie could reply, a boom pounded the air with the roar of a cannon. The sound was so deafening, so unexpected, she cried out in fear. Above her head, the birds shrieked raucously, clamoring to be heard above a wild chorus of car horns. Somewhere across the street a woman screamed, and another began to sob. The man in the Santa Claus suit dropped his bell and raced in the direction of the Silver Bridge.

  Whirling, Katie looked for the towers of the old suspension bridge, normally visible in the gap between buildings on Main Street. She saw only empty sky. As if some giant hand had descended and squashed the bridge into the Ohio River.

  “That’s not possible.” Her stomach plummeted.

  Down the street, people poured from the cars lined up to cross the bridge. Most were dazed, their expressions frozen in horror. Others screamed, pointing to where the bridge had stood. Cars on Main came to a screeching stop, drivers and passengers racing for the empty space the old bridge had dominated for decades.

  As if pulled by an invisible leash, Katie took three halting steps. A horrible tightness splintered through her chest. “What happened to the Silver Bridge?”

  Behind her, her mama’s stylists and three customers burst from the salon. Two of the women raced past, their hair done up in curlers, plastered with bleach. By now Katie could hear the wail of sirens and the horrified screams bouncing up and down the street—“The Silver Bridge is gone! Oh my God, my God, someone please help. The Silver Bridge is gone!”

  A sob built in Katie’s throat. “Mama.”

  “I’m here.”

  Strong arms crushed her in a protective embrace. Overcome by a heavy cloud of rose perfume, she couldn’t think past pressing her face to her mama’s chest and sobbing. “How, Mama? How?”

  “I don’t know, baby.” Her mama’s voice was raspy from too many years of cigarette smoke and watered-down bourbon. Tonight it carried the added taint of tears. “All those people. All those cars.”

  Katie shuddered. First Wendy, now this. How many of her classmates, neighbors, or teachers had been on the bridge when it fell? It was almost as if someone had placed a horrible curse on Point Pleasant.

  Drawing back, she looked about for the strange man with the light hair, but he’d vanished somewhere in the crowd of gathering people. All that remained were the sobs and the terror of a traumatized town.

  And the mad, swirling dance of hundreds of blackbirds overhead.

  Chapter 1

  October, 1982

  Point Pleasant, West Virginia

  “It’s star shit.”

  Ryan Flynn didn’t question how the man knew, because—as Chester Wilson had told him earlier—he was a bona fide expert on star shit.

  “We had it all over the fields when I was a kid.” Wilson hovered beside him as Ryan squatted and dipped a twig into a puddle of gelatinous goo. Lifting the stick closer to his nose, he sniffed the string of mucous-like substance dangling from the tip. If it was shit, it didn’t stink. The weird-looking stuff had no odor at all.

  “You say it’s all over the field?”

  Chester’s head bobbed up and down on his skinny neck. “Take a look.” He swept his arm to indicate the surrounding pasture. “See those globs? They’re all over the place. They’ll be melting soon. That’s how it was when I was a kid. You could set your watch by it.”

  Ryan squinted against the morning sun, picking out several shiny silver-white patches on the grass. Whoever’d dumped the stuff in farmer Wilson’s pasture had gone to a lot of trouble. Yeah, it was a freak fest, some whacko’s idea o
f a joke, but it didn’t rate priority one. As a sergeant with the Mason County Sheriff’s department, his time could be better spent settling disputes between neighbors, hauling in the occasional drunk—or God forbid—responding to calls on Mothman sightings. Thankfully, Point Pleasant’s infamous “bird” had kept a low profile over the last four months.

  “Could be someone’s playing a joke on you.”

  “No, sir.” Wilson was adamant.

  Ryan stood, doing his best to take the call seriously. He had the feeling a couple of teenagers were laughing their asses off somewhere. “When did you first notice the stuff?”

  Wilson scratched his chin. “Just before I called to report it. I’ve been busy in the lower pasture and didn’t find it right off. But the star shit’s not the worst of it. Take a walk with me, and I’ll show you why I really called.”

  Lucky him. It figured his first call of the morning would border on Twilight Zone territory. At least Wilson hadn’t blamed the Mothman for dumping the goo.

  As they traipsed through the field, Ryan sidestepped several globs of the silvery goop. He’d collect some and send it for analysis, but the gunk would probably end up being a harmless concoction brewed in some kid’s backyard. At his side, Wilson kept up a steady monologue about how his father and the senior Wilson’s friends had dubbed the mucus-like stuff star shit back in ’66. Ryan had been a kid then, but vaguely recalled rumors about the gunk.