A Desolate Hour

by Mae Clair

  A goatish smile twisted his lips.

  The bitch had no idea just how angry he could get.

  * * * *

  It didn’t take Caden long to backtrack to where he’d found Ryan. From there it was a matter of following the signs of a struggle deeper into the woods. The beam of his flashlight picked out broken reeds and twigs. Overturned stones. Approximately three hundred feet in, he stumbled over Oates’ revolver.

  Tucking the weapon into his waistband, he angled his flashlight through the trees. “Oates? Come on, man, where are you?”

  Several yards farther he found the deputy’s rifle. A short distance away, Oates’ body lay crumpled at the base of a tree. Belly down, he lay with one arm flung in front as if he’d been reaching for something. The back of his shirt was a shredded mess, blood-soaked skin visible among the ragged tatters of fabric.

  “Shit! Oates.” Caden dropped to his knees beside the deputy. He pressed his fingertips to the man’s jugular vein. A faint pulse beat in response. Locating the walkie-talkie on Oates’ belt, he ripped it free. “Pete. It’s Caden. Come back.”

  Static burst from the speaker and was cut off by Pete’s angry voice. “Caden, where the hell are you?”

  “Get the location from Ryan, then head another three hundred feet north. And call for an ambulance. I found Oates.”

  He shut down the mic, then took a closer look at Oates’ back. A few of the wounds looked deep, but most weren’t as bad as he’d feared. The deputy was probably suffering from shock as much as the trauma of the attack. Before he could move to render any type of first aid, a screech ripped through the air behind him.

  Caden spun, rising to a half crouch.

  The Mothman stood ten feet away, wings stretched open to either side.

  Caden’s mouth went dry as a flicker of fear coursed through him. He stood slowly, rifle trained on the creature. After what it had done to Ryan and Oates, he was no longer certain of the ground he stood. If he had any sense at all, he’d pull the trigger and end the thing’s miserable life. But he doubted a bullet would do any good. He’d already shot it twice through the wing without impacting it. The creature’s death wouldn’t be easily accomplished, if it could die at all.

  “It’s what you’ve wanted, isn’t it?” He spat the words with venom. He’d protected the cryptid only to have it turn on one of his own. “You don’t belong in this world, and if death is the only thing that will take you from it…” Caden tightened his finger around the trigger.

  Something alien probed his mind, gouging with the sharpened end of a knife. It speared his thoughts, flaying the edges until he grimaced in pain. Fear bubbled up in the back of his throat, an emotion he’d never felt in the presence of the Mothman. Lightning illuminated the creature from behind, revealing prominent ridges of veins in its wings. Each jagged artery pulsed blue and black, reminding him of the stones in Sarah’s pendant, Quentin’s amulet. Behind the piercing glow of the creature’s eyes, something took shape.

  Caden clenched his jaw. “I promise you death.”

  The breath left his lungs in a rush as he beheld the creature’s face.

  * * * *

  Shawn slipped the knife through his belt then eased out of his car. He closed the door soundlessly, waiting for the latch to catch before moving into the yard. Sarah’s trailer sat on a square patch of ground, tucked behind a bend in the road where it was shielded from traffic. Flowerbeds sprawled beneath the front windows, offset with a plump shrub on each end. Wind whipped through the branches of a large maple on the side yard, heralding a prolonged rumble of thunder. The sound prickled along his nerves, warning the storm grew closer. As he bolted for the rear of the trailer, fat drops of rain splattered the ground and a blue-white tongue of lighting warped night into day.

  The storm couldn’t have come at a better time. It crashed over him with a pulse of electrically charged air, feeding the malevolent energy that mushroomed inside him. Seconds later, the heavens exploded in a deluge. Within moments he was soaked through, his hair plastered to his face, rivulets of warm water dripping from his chin. The wind crashed through the treetops, whispering of Obadiah’s death on a rain-soaked night.

  The shade of his ancestor stirred.

  Shawn licked moisture from his lips. Tasted the tang of wet and sulfur. He crept from the lawn onto a small deck that abutted the rear door. The trailer was dark, three square windows reflecting the frenzied dance of lightning. He caught a glimpse of his face in the nearest pane, startled by the stark white shell frozen in that moment in time. Too much of his ancestor in there. Sometimes he got confused about who he was, especially when images from Obadiah’s life invaded his mind.

  Treachery and Death.

  The spider symbol on the knife murmured to him, promising immeasurable power when Obadiah was gone. It fed the restlessness in his gut, made him hunger to be inside where he could flaunt his dominance. Women were weak. Sarah would be no different. Rain drummed against his back and neck.

  Gripping the door knob, he twisted it to the side.

  Locked.

  Quickly, he moved to the closest window and worked his fingers beneath the edge in an attempt to pry it open. It didn’t budge. The bitch had sealed the place up like a drum. No matter. There was more than one way to get inside. Drawing the knife from his belt, Shawn wedged the tip against the joint in the door and concentrated on weakening the lock.

  * * * *

  A loud crash of thunder pulled Sarah from a deep sleep. Jerking upright in bed, it took her a moment to realize where she was. A flash of lightning whitewashed the room, illuminating the bulk of her dresser and the stark outline of her nightstand. Within seconds, she became conscious of the hammering drum of rain against the roof.

  She pulled the sheets to her throat. The storm had finally broken. It flung her back in time to the night when she was ten years old, alone and terrified in the TNT, the mangled shell of her parents’ automobile behind her. She’d been sleeping in the back seat and awoke to the same bellow of rain and thunder, the car screeching to a jarring halt. A part of her remembered crying out to her parents, another part only that the night had been cold, black, and forbidding. When she’d climbed from the car, she’d wandered for an hour before finding help. A lonely, desolate hour filled with night terrors that still had the power to choke her in the light of day.

  Those same fears tumbled down on her now. Pushing from the bed, she fought to still the frantic thump of her heart. It was just a storm. Another summer storm that had brewed too long on the horizon.

  Thunder cracked again, and she sucked down a breath. Wind and rain combined in a violent racket that had her automatically reaching for the light on the nightstand. The switch turned over with a hollow click but the room remained dark, draped in shadows.

  No electric.

  Sarah’s pulse kicked up a notch. Storms frequently knocked out the power. Most of Point Pleasant was probably dark. Repeating the mantra, she locked her fingers on the pendant around her throat. She normally wouldn’t have worn her mother’s necklace to bed, but something had prompted her to keep it close. Thoughts of her parents and her grandparents filled her head, all the people she’d loved taken too soon. A wave of sadness washed through her, fed by a blue backwash of lightning. The flash lit her bedroom end to end.

  Run from the thunder,

  Run from the rain,

  Lightning can’t hurt you,

  The wind is in vain.

  Breathing through her mouth to calm herself, she snatched a silken robe from the bedside chair and slipped it on over her nightgown. The robe was nearly as short as her nightie, brushing mid-thigh, leaving her legs bare. Goose bumps pimpled her flesh.

  It’s only a storm. It can’t hurt you.

  Wide awake, she moved down the hallway. She was halfway to the back door when she heard something jiggle the handle.

  Sarah’s heart lurched to her throat. For a moment she stood frozen, unable to move
as the sound repeated over and again, a soft click and rattle warning that someone was trying to get inside. Her immediate impulse was to race for the door and secure it from entry, but it was already locked. Terrified, she crept to the closest window and risked a peek outside.

  A dark form hovered on the rear deck, head bent over her doorknob. Fear formed a vice around her neck as she recognized Shawn Preech’s limp blond hair and lank frame. Anger boomeranged through her, quickly quelled beneath a potent rush of alarm as she recalled his viciousness with Suzanne. If he was here, trying to break in, then he had to think she knew something about his wife’s whereabouts.

  Panicked, Sarah stumbled into the living room and grabbed the phone. Thank God there was a dial tone. Frenetically, she pushed out the number for the sheriff’s office, then clutched the receiver close with both hands.

  A woman answered on the third ring: “Mason County Sheriff’s office.”

  “Please.” Her voice was a scratchy whisper. She dared not speak any louder. “This is Sarah Sherman from 11 Farling Road. Shawn Preech is trying to break into my trailer. Please send someone right away.”

  “Ma’am, hello? Can you repeat your address?”

  The joggling at the back door grew louder as if Shawn had somehow sensed her cry for help. Sarah was still clutching the phone, looking frantically over her shoulder when the door burst open and Shawn lurched inside. A blaze of lightning illuminated the sharp end of a knife.

  Sarah screamed and bolted for the front door.

  * * * *

  Rain.

  After a freaking week of witch weather, the storm had finally broken. Quentin flipped his windshield wipers to high and pressed on the gas as he rounded a bend in the road. Sarah would think he was crazy, arriving at her trailer after one in the morning, but a growing sense of dread propelled him to drive faster.

  The hell with the thunder. The hell with the rain.

  The storm was just one more element to convince him that something pivotal had taken place that night. His sister was normally the one given to intuition and dark omens, but with each passing second his sense of foreboding grew stronger. He prayed it was merely restlessness, but as second slipped into second, he grew more and more convinced Sarah was in danger.

  Lightning exploded overhead when he rounded the final bend in the road and found himself in front of her trailer. A blue Dodge Charger was stationed in the driveway, a car he’d noticed in town his first night at the Parrish Hotel. It hadn’t taken him long to pick up on scuttlebutt that it belonged to Shawn Preech. You couldn’t be a semi-celebrity in a small town without everyone knowing what kind of vehicle you drove.

  Quentin slammed the Monte Carlo into park, then bolted into the rain. The front door of Sarah’s trailer hung unlatched, yawing open. Quentin scrambled onto the porch then into the trailer.

  “Sarah?”

  He hit the light switch, but the interior remained dark, shrouded in shadows. Within seconds his eyes had adjusted enough to pick out an overturned chair. A table beside the couch lay on its side, the phone on the floor. Quentin stooped to pick up the receiver, the drone of a dial tone spitting in his ear. A rhythmic tap-tap-tap drew him down the hall, where he found the rear door repeatedly striking the frame with each bellowing gust of wind.

  “Sarah?” Gut lodged in his throat, Quentin dashed down the hall to her bedroom. The sheets were balled on the bed but there was no sign of the woman he’d come to care for. Swearing violently, he pivoted and swung back to the hallway.

  She was out there—somewhere in the night—and Shawn Preech was with her.

  Quentin raced for the door.

  * * * *

  Sarah had seen his face.

  Oh, God, he was crazy.

  The moment Shawn had burst through the rear door, she fled through the front. Lightning ripped the sky from one end to the other, freezing her momentarily in place. Paralyzed for three agonizing seconds, she heard him pounding down the porch steps behind her. Heart in her throat, she ran for the road. The long stretch of curving asphalt was barren of traffic, a dark ribbon that cut into deeper night. Small stones scattered on the shoulder bit into her bare feet. Exposed, and at a disadvantage on the hard surface, she veered back onto the grass, looping toward the rear of her property. Fifty feet ahead, the yard abutted a farmer’s field. If she could vault the fence and make it to the farmer’s house, she stood a chance of escaping Shawn. He wouldn’t chase her there. He couldn’t be that crazy.

  Sarah slipped in the grass, stumbling to one knee. Wind blew her robe back from her nightgown, the chill bite of rain slashing into her skin. The storm blinded her, a deluge unlike any she’d seen since the night of her parents’ accident.

  “You can’t get away from me, you stupid bitch.” Shawn’s voice cracked through the roar of the storm.

  Throwing a hasty glance over her shoulder, she fought the urge to scream. There was no one to help and she’d only be alerting him to where she was in the darkness. All she could do was run.

  Run from the thunder,

  Run from the rain,

  Lightning can’t hurt you,

  The wind is in vain.

  Lightning turned the landscape from charcoal to bone-white ash. In that second of stark illumination, Shawn’s form loomed several yards behind her, a hulking silhouette, clutching a knife.

  “Stay away from me!” Desperate, she grasped the necklace and scrambled to her feet.

  He was deranged; psychotic. What had happened to him, twisting him into a monster she no longer recognized? It was like living a nightmare. Fear wrenched a sob from her throat. She no longer heard the thunder, barely felt the cold chill of wet grass against her feet. All that mattered was the line of split rail fence in the distance, each flash of lightning bringing it that much closer.

  Just as she flung out a hand to grip the top rail, Shawn seized her from behind.

  Screaming, Sarah swung around and struck out as hard as she could. “Let me go!”

  Her fist connected solidly with flesh and she heard him grunt. She fought wildly, flailing in his grip. In the chaos and confusion, she saw him reach for the knife.

  “No, Shawn. No!”

  He backhanded her, a blow that sent her sprawling at his feet. A knot of pain exploded in her cheek.

  “Tell me where you’ve hidden Suzanne.”

  Terrified, palms pressed to the wet, muddy earth, Sarah looked up at him. Lightning streaked overhead, and in that garish flash, his features were clearly defined.

  The man who looked down on her, hatred and malice twisting his face, was someone other than Shawn Preech.

  The necklace looped around her throat exploded in a flare of blue flame.

  * * * *

  Quentin dashed around the side of the house, setting a blistering path for the rear yard. He hadn’t seen Sarah on the road, but knew she had to be out here somewhere. Shawn’s car was in her driveway which meant the dirt track driver was out there, too.

  “Sarah!” He pitched his voice above the roar of the storm. As he gained the backyard, lightning illuminated his surroundings in a violent flash of white. In the distance, Sarah lay sprawled at the base of a fence. Shawn loomed over her, a knife clutched in his hand.

  “Preech!” he bellowed.

  The amulet in his pocket blazed to life, brighter than the lightning overhead.

  * * * *

  Shawn recoiled from the blue light. The glow overtook him, flaring upward from the necklace around Sarah’s throat. Almost immediately, a second source shot from behind, blinding him as he turned. Snarling a curse, he backpedaled, his sneakers slipping on the wet grass. He bumped up against a weathered fence and raised an arm to shield his eyes. A man raced across the yard, long hair plastered to his face and neck by rain.

  Quentin Marsh.

  The tourist clenched something in his fist. Blue light flowed from between his clenched fingers. It coiled onto the ground like fog, and like fog it s
eeped across the grass, fanning outward in a surreal landscape of cobalt and aquamarine.

  Run.

  Obadiah’s voice echoed in Shawn’s head.

  He hesitated, transfixed by the smoky blue light. His surroundings disappeared until there was only the cobalt glow, inching closer, whispering of a long-forgotten past. Of death and a life he had stolen—a man named Jonathan Marsh, and a woman who had wept inconsolably at the news of his passing.

  The two sources of light joined and erupted in a violent conflagration. The blaze shot skyward, feeding the frenzied lashes of lightning. Bolt after fiery bolt lit up the night sky in a spectacle of blue-crested flame.

  Demon fire.

  A siren rose in the distance, wailing through the tumult of wind and rain, the devil yowl of thunder. How had he lost control so quickly?

  Go!

  This time Shawn needed no further prompting. Gripping the fence, he vaulted over the top and crashed to the other side. His palms and knees struck dirt, and then he propelled himself forward, running across the open field as if his life depended on it. In many ways, it did.

  He’d done something crazy tonight. Committed a criminal act and stupidly allowed himself to be identified. He could no longer parade around town or scout out his usual haunts. He’d have to wait for everything to blow over before showing his face again. Of course, once he killed the Mothman he’d be a hero and none of tonight—or even what he’d done to Suzanne—would matter.

  Swearing beneath his breath, Shawn ran until the fence fell away behind him and the dance of blue smoke no longer enchanted lightning from the sky. The bulk of a barn loomed ahead of him offering shelter from the rain and a place to crash for the night. But as much as he wanted to escape the storm, the cops would certainly look there. Better to keep running until he could hotwire a car.

  He needed to reach the TNT and finalize what he’d set out to do.

  No more delays.

  The Mothman would die before the sun set on another day.

  Chapter 12

  “Caden, where the hell are you?” Pete Weston’s voice boomed through the trees, followed by the bobbing beam of a flashlight.