by Paul A. Rice
After a few seconds, she calmly said, ‘The rest is history. I’m thirsty; would anyone else care for a drink?’ Without another word, Tori turned and walked into the house. She was never to speak another word about the traumatic events.
Fetching some fresh coffees and another two beers for Ken, Tori re-joined them on the veranda, where together they sat and watched the night come to them. It brought with it a slight chill and Ken disappeared to get some wood for the brazier. Dragging it over to the porch, he soon had a healthy blaze going. The grieving foursome dragged their chairs nearer to its welcoming glow. It warmed their bones and pushed the chill from within their hearts.
Jane had made the other women a stiff drink – her personal favourite was chocolate milk, served piping hot with lashings of brandy. Stirring another tot into the mixture, she thought: ‘What the hell, life’s too short,’ and splashed a bit extra of the golden alcohol into their mugs. She raised her own drink in a toast to Mike. ‘Cheers Mikey!’ she said. After having a quick sip, she carried the drinks outside and re-joined the others on the patio.
Ken had pulled some sausages from the fridge and was busy grilling them on the fire. He looked at the women, saying: ‘Yeah, I know, I know… but we still have to eat!’ He passed each of them a sizzling sausage, which they happily tucked into.
What had started off as a horrendous day was now seemingly in the process of becoming slightly more amiable. Alcohol is such a wonderful thing, sometimes. Talking of wonderful things – Mike’s departure was more than merely wonderful, it was truly amazing.
At bang on five minutes before midnight – 23:55hrs exactly – as they sat watching the sky and sipping on their drinks, a barely discernible whistling noise started to fill the air. The gathered humans never heard it at first; the pitch was far too high. However, what they did hear was every dog, wolf, fox and anything else with even the slightest trace of the canine gene in its blood, beginning to howl. They didn’t bark or yelp, and there was no yapping or whining, either. No, they howled. Every single one of them howled. The wailing chorus floating through the still night air and echoing across the dark fields like some strange warning siren was one of the most eerie sounds that any of them had ever heard. It was almost as though the animals were singing.
And then, at a single stroke, their moaning choir stopped. The unexpected silence left in its wake seemed to be almost louder than the noise the beasts had been making in the first place. Ken looked in disbelief at the women next to him, then, more jokingly, stared at his beer. The women laughed at him, shaking their heads and using the moment to remove some of the madness from the bizarre situation. Sitting there laughing, they all began to sense the slight vibration that pulsed through the house. It was only a fleeting moment, like imagining the beginning of an earthquake.
‘What was that?’ Jane said, looking at the ground in surprise.
Ken had felt it too, and quickly checked upwards to make sure the roof wasn’t coming down or something.
Maggie smiled at them and said, ‘Michael is leaving, look at the sky!’
Turing their faces to the sky, they did as she had said.
Mike started with a faint glow, it came from down by the apple tree, its luminescence gradually brightening the air surrounding the tree. The light didn’t really have a colour, as such, it was merely a faint glow, sitting there, pulsing softly for a while. Then there was that familiar ‘Rrrrriiiippp’ feeling – its passing wobbled the air around them. They felt it in their heads; it was as though they were standing on the platform of an underground railway station as a train came hurtling past. The buffeting vacuum almost feels like it will suck everything along with it into the blackness of the tunnel. With very much the same sensation, the strange, ripping sound seemed to pass straight through them; the feeling almost took away their breath, and certainly blurred their vision.
Before any of them had a chance to say a word, Mike’s gentle glow began to lift magically into the air. All trace of passiveness was now long-departed, the soft orb now turning into a ball of the most brilliant, blue light – it was laser bright and crystal clear. The light was so bright that it very nearly forced the onlookers to turn away, but it was so fascinating that they were unable to. They had to watch, had to. Unbelievably, as though it was being sucked into an invisible pipe, the light began to stream upwards, gradually at first – dripping aloft in gentle pulses – then it began to accelerate at an increasing rate, before turning into a solid, upward-pouring stream of light. The speed at which it climbed was almost mind-boggling, like a blue fireball, the light rocketed into the heavens.
As Mike disappeared, the four spellbound onlookers saw that his passing had left behind a faint halo of light, the strange substance hung in the atmosphere like a giant smoke-ring. They heard a far off rumble, and then the sky darkened.
Tori shouted: ‘I’ll see you later, Michael, my baby – see you, Mikey!’ Then, no longer able to hold back her deepest emotions, she burst into floods of uncontrollable tears. The others gathered round the girl and let her sob, holding her tightly until the pain had faded.
When it had disappeared, gone into the night, disappeared like Mike had disappeared, Tori looked up at them, smiling through reddened eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I…well, I guess that I don’t really need any more words, do I?’
They nodded in understanding and hugged her once more. Tori looked at them and smiled weakly. Jane kept hold of her hand and remained sitting next to the young woman, their grip intertwined so tightly that it seemed as though they might never let each other go.
As the foursome sat on the porch, the silence hanging over them broken only by the sound of logs spitting in the brazier, the mood seemed to lift a little. As one, they looked up into each other’s faces and smiled, the orange firelight glowing against pale skin, flaring like candles in their glistening eyes.
As if jolted by the noise of the spitting logs, Ken rose to his feet and threw some more wood on the fire. ‘Well, I don’t know about you guys,’ he said, ‘but I’m gonna sit here and have a few drinks on Mike. That was one damned-fine light show – I’ll bet that I don’t get one anywhere near as good!’
Laughing at his sick humour, the women picked up their own drinks glasses. In no time at all, Ken’s last farewell to Mike had managed to become a very drunken, emotional evening.
35
Michael
It was a long time later – two whole years, maybe even longer – before they began to recover from the terrible loss of Mike. Months of coming to terms with all the things that had passed, two long years of looking at the sky and wondering. Red had been returned to them in one piece, sporting only some neat scars on his barrel-chested body, but it was his mind that needed far more healing. He didn’t know, nor would ever fully understand, the complete picture. It took several months of helping Red to try and understand the situation, long hours spent letting him to deal in his own way with the fate of the man he had become so fond of – perhaps even loved.
Tori spent every hour of the day and night with him; gradually drawing him up from the pit of despair, the terrible black hole that Red seemed to have lodged himself at the bottom of. The young couple spent hours down by the lake and sitting under Mike’s Tree, as it became known.
Red wasn’t really a boy anymore, and hadn’t been for a while now – it was simply the way in which Ken thought of him. He would always be a boy to Ken, the boy who changed everything for him and Jane, Dwayne ‘Red’ Tolder – the boy who had unwittingly changed the lives of many people. Most of all he had changed things for Mikey, irreparable changes, catastrophic changes.
Ken hoped it would be worth the sacrifice.
Red was learning to be a man in some other ways, too. It was obvious that he and Tori were very close. Ken and Jane saw the flower of the couple’s love bloom. It didn’t take Red long before he began to recover, who wouldn’t with such a woman by their side? Tori had also blossomed; beauty seemed to radiate from her every po
re. She was truly a gorgeous creature.
The apple tree, Mike’s Tree, had also bloomed magnificently. The boughs now provided an almost endless bounty of sweet fruit almost year-round. The juicy apples were without doubt the finest that Ken had ever tasted, every time he ate one it was as though it was his first, and he never tired of their taste. Jane had taken to delivering baskets of the fruit to Maggie in the store; between them they had accrued a fairly decent nest-egg.
Although Maggie would never let on to Ken exactly how much money she was talking about. ‘It’ll be enough when the time comes to use it, Kenneth, my dear!’ she would say, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. When Ken asked her one time about how long this time was going to last, whether they really were going to be there forever, Maggie had said, ‘Nothing lasts forever, you know? When you are both ready, well, then it will be time! Are you missing your old world, my dear? I may perhaps be able to get hold of George – would you like me to?’ She looked at him with her eyes sparkling in that cheeky way she had.
Ken had thought about that one for a minute, he had this crazy mental image of Maggie picking up some strange telephone, shaped like Ayers Rock, or something, and dialling the old guy. Maggie smiling at the screen and saying: ‘Umm… would you arrange tickets for two please, George, my dear?’ At the time, Ken had told Maggie not to bother; things were just fine as they were, for now.
No, Ken wasn’t in any hurry, he loved life on the farm and felt years younger. He rose early and worked the place for most of the day, when he felt like it. Other times he simply lounged about or did some odd jobs, maybe went fishing or chopped some wood, perhaps. He had also taken to helping out Jack on some delivery runs for the hardware store, even made a few cents doing a bit of DIY for various people here and there. It kept him completely happy, and if he was to be honest, he felt no need to be moving on. Not just yet, anyway.
He had never really discussed any of the other things with Maggie or Tori, either. Only once, when they had all been sitting under the tree, watching Tori and Red messing about on the lake in the dinghy which Ken had made for them, he had quietly asked Maggie: ‘How are things going, you know, Maggie…upstairs?’
The old woman had laughed. ‘Oh, they are fine and dandy my dear, just fine and dandy, indeed! Everybody seems to be much more at ease than they were before…’ With a gentle smile she had said, ‘And they have you two to thank for that!’ She hadn’t elaborated any further.
To be honest, neither Ken nor Jane had felt the need to ask, the whole scenario was beginning to seem as though it had happened to someone else.
Things were just the way they were supposed to be.
Then, one day over breakfast, as they sat in the kitchen with the log-burner crackling away behind them, Tori broke some news to them.
Looking up from her toast, she cleared her throat.
‘Umm, Ken… Jane…’ she said, glancing at Red as he sat next to her with his face beaming like a kid at Easter. Turning back to the waiting couple, Tori continued. ‘We were wondering if you would mind terribly if we decided to get married – you know, man and wife?’ Realising what she had said, Tori blushed magnificently, the flush of blood colouring her cheeks like a peach. ‘Sorry, that’s obvious! But, well…you know what I mean?’ She laughed and reached for her future husband’s hand.
Jane and Ken thought about it. Red was coming on for nineteen years of age; they had never even asked how old Tori happened to be. It was something that Ken had deliberately steered clear of. ‘What shall we do if the she tells us that she’s four hundred-years old…or maybe even older?’ he’d said, when Jane mentioned it once.
Jane had slapped his arm and shook her head at him. ‘Kenneth Robinson, you are such an unromantic!’ she cajoled. ‘Honestly, you men just have no idea!’
Sitting in the present it didn’t appear as though Jane had any doubts whatsoever about the young couple’s marital plans. Her face lit up with a bright smile. ‘Now, that sounds like a fantastic idea!’ she said. ‘Ken, what do you think?’ Without waiting for an answer she continued: ‘When’s the big day, who are you inviting? There’s enough room here for the whole town…we will definitely have to have a huge party – have you made a plan?’
In fact, they had made a bit more than just a ‘plan’.
Red, joining Tori in her red-faced blush, looked at them and said, ‘Umm…ma’am, Jane, I mean… Ken. Actually, the both o’ you! Damn it, I’m stuttering like a fool here! Well, you see, it’s like this: Tori and I are gonna have a baby and we thought that maybe’s we should be getting ourselves decent beforehand.’
It was at that precise moment when Jane had kicked into overdrive. To say she was ecstatic would have been, in the very least, an understatement. She ran around the kitchen like a wild thing, whooping and shrieking as though her pants were on fire. Her happiness was so undisguised that the others simply sat there open-mouthed.
After a few minutes, when the blood-rush had subsided, she sat back down and laughed at them. ‘I am so very happy!’ she exclaimed. How long have you known? Does Maggie know, does…’
As the questions rained from her mouth, Ken sat back and looked at his wife, smiling as he did so. He thought: ‘That’s why I married her, I guess – because she’s ever so slightly mad!’ He shook his head, and with a laugh, proceeded to join in with the celebrations.
The final words belonged to Tori.
When they had settled down a bit, she looked at them and said, ‘I haven’t been to the hospital yet, just the doctor’s… At the moment, old Doc Peterson says it all looks fine. He says that I’ll find out the sex of the baby later – but I already know that it’s a boy. I know it is and I can feel him. It’s a boy and he’s going to be big! Yes, he’s going to be a big tall boy with black hair and blue eyes!’
She grinned, saying: ‘Grandma says that she and Jane have made a nest egg for us – she’s already started getting lots of clothes, blue clothes!’ She turned to her future husband, he smiled proudly at her. She picked up his hand and turned back to them. With her blue eyes doing that flaring thing again, she took a deep breath and, with that faint smile crossing her lips, Tori said, ‘Red and I have already decided upon a name for the baby…’
Book Three
The Last Hunt
Only the chosen may render battle unto the Darkness.
1
One Last Dance
Life on the farm was good in every way, almost too good, perhaps. Time had seemingly taken to standing still for all those who lived there. Their days filled with the pleasures of an uncomplicated lifestyle. The farm itself had become like a cocoon, it cosseted them within the bosom of its ever-changing seasons, which seemed to have flowered alongside their own, happy fulfilment. The changes they’d made to the old place seemed to have repaid them handsomely. The house, the land, and even the air around them, all appeared to have taken out a new lease on life.
Maggie, as she stood down by the lake looking out across the calm water with the windmill at her back, would sometimes look them in the eye and murmur: ‘Such changes, such beauty, the place seems to have bloomed!’
In many ways she was right. It was not just in the material improvements, either – the people who lived within the soft caress of the farm’s surroundings had also benefited; it was as though they, too, had somehow become more nourished. Ken and Jane had become even closer to each other, and for a couple who were already close in so many ways, this even deeper feeling of togetherness was something neither of them would have thought possible.
The goodness of the farm and of the people, who surrounded them, filled their lives with almost total happiness. The one blemish upon the shiny veneer of their new life came in the form of a profound and undeniable sadness, a certain, irremovable needle of pain, one whose occasional sharp prick was wielded by the memories of their eternally-absent friend, Michael Wyppen. His death seemed as fresh today as it had been all those years ago. Sometimes the memory was so fresh that Ken felt as
though he was able to smell Mikey’s blood.
Michael’s only nephew, a boy whose parents had chosen to name him after that very same deceased uncle, had flourished in his own right. From the moment he was born the child had leapt into a spurt of growth, one that would have rivalled even the finest of beanstalks, which any fairy-tale boy called ‘Jack’ may have planted. He seemed, much like the fabled green plant, to have grown overnight. It was a fitting comparison because the boy’s middle name was Jack.
His full name was, in fact, Michael Jack Tolder. He now stood at over six feet in height and had taken on many of the traits of his huge father, one Dwayne ‘Red’ Tolder. Powerful arms, wide shoulders and a heavily muscled chest gave away those inherited genes. However, unlike his father, it was the grace he possessed that made him stand out from the crowd. His mother’s own genes made sure they’d had their say in that department. Michael’s movement seemed almost panther-like at times.
When seen side-by-side, Tori and her son were very much like two peas in a pod. Only his physical size and the unusual shade of his hair gave a clue as to who his father was. The dark hue of his almost bronze-coloured hair was nearly as exceptional as the incredible strength that lay within his powerful young body. Michael was also highly intelligent and had achieved excellent grades at the local school, which nestled in a green valley five miles the other side of town. His sporting prowess was beyond reproach and would easily have gained him a scholarship to any number of colleges, should he have been destined to follow that particular path.