by Gregory Kay
WINGS IN DARKNESS
by
Gregory Kay
Copyright 2012, West Virginia; all rights reserved.
WINGS IN DARKNESS is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to anyone or any place living or dead is purely coincidental.
Other books by Gregory Kay
THE THIRD REVOLUTION SERIES:
THE THIRD REVOLUTION
THE LONG KNIVES
THE BLACK FLAG
THE WARLORD
THE BARNACLES OF AEGIR
DARK PATHS
All books are available at Amazon.com
THANKS
The first thanks goes to God, of course, who gave me the talent to write.
I can’t forget to thank my editor, Kathy Gaskins, who I can always count on for an honest opinion, and who does her best to institute a little something called ‘proper grammar’ into my work.
Thanks go to Sam Sowards, owner of the real Body Fantasies Tattoos (yes, it does exist!), who came up with the theory of modern electric power transmission affecting the Earth’s ley lines, and who, along with his long-suffering wife Rhonda, helped me to develop a couple of characters that will be very familiar to anyone who knows them.
Lastly, I need to thank my own wife and family, who put up with my literary projects.
DEDICATION
WINGS IN DARKNESS is dedicated to my hometown Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and its people. It may not be much, but it is what it is.
SATURDAY
CHAPTER 1
Mason County, West Virginia
The predator was unfamiliar with the area, having arrived that very evening after sensing the opening that would allow him to pass through. He didn’t know if any more of his kind were on this side, or if any other kind had followed him through, nor did he care. He was not capable of caring, or worry, or empathy, or of any other emotion not directly related to his own survival; was there something that might eat him, and was there something he could eat. At the moment, since he could detect no dangers close by, his primitive mind was occupied with food.
He had eaten; he could still taste and smell of the blood of the small opossum he had surprised two hours ago, but that had been hardly a morsel, not enough to even take the edge off his always-ferocious appetite. His metabolism was high and he needed bigger game to keep it fueled, so he would continue to hunt.
It was dark, but he was used to that. Darkness was the only familiar thing here, and he thrived in its comfortable embrace. It was no impediment; his large eyes, hyper-sensitive hearing, and keen sense of smell opened up all of the night’s secrets to him, just as they were doing right now.
He had been following the sound of the muffled, murmuring voices whispering through the trees, and now he was close enough to pick up the musky smell of breeding pheromones over the metallic chemical stink given off by the machine that contained them.
On the overcast mid-October night, the normally-bright waxing moon was no more than a dim, unsure hint behind the thick clouds, and the stars not even that. Other than the distant glow of the towns, businesses, and power plants miles away on the wood-shrouded horizon, there was no light at all in the McClintock Public Hunting and Fishing Area: a thirty-six hundred acre parcel of gravel roads, winding creeks, silent ponds, wooded hills, and tangled brush better known to the locals as ‘the TNT’ from the explosive manufactured there during World War II. The ruins of those facilities still remained in the form of massive structures of crumbling concrete and rusting steel, while another less-noticeable and more dangerous legacy lay in the heavily-polluted water and earth.
It was just the sort of place teenagers were attracted to.
The old black Camaro sat almost invisible in the shadows, black on black against the night, parked beneath the overhanging trees on a turn-off from the back road. A charitable observer might have called the aging muscle car ‘vintage,’ but despite the obvious restoration efforts, it had seen its best days decades ago, making it about like what someone might expect the average teenager to own, and the windows were fogged up, just like one might expect a teenager’s car to be in such circumstances.
Johnny Robinson was trying to make his move again, and Alison Parks, as always, was having none of it. Prying her lips away from his while grabbing the fingers fumbling with her jeans, she pushed him back with her free hand.
“That’s enough, Johnny.” When he kept trying, she shoved him harder and twisted the offending fingers painfully. “Johnny! I said that’s enough!”
She could barely make out the outline of his head in the darkness, let alone his features, but the combination of frustrated begging and serious irritation was plain in is voice.
“Ah, come on, Allie!”
“Come on, nothing! I’ve told you before, I’m not that kind of girl!”
“But we’ve been going together for almost two years!”
“I don’t care! I’m saving some things for marriage.”
“Doggone it, everybody does it!” The begging was rapidly leaving his voice, replaced by the irritation that was well on its way to anger; he knew he had lost, but he was too pissed off by now to just let it drop as usual, and Alison was getting more than a little peeved herself.
Even though I want him so badly! It would be so easy just to...
Instantly, with the skill born of long practice, she killed that thought before it could take hold, because she wasn’t sure what would happen if it did.
No, I know exactly what will happen!
“No, everybody doesn’t do it! I don’t, for one. Like Momma told me, if you’re giving away the milk for nothing, nobody will want to buy the cow.”
“You always listen to your momma?” he asked, challenging her.
“I do when she’s right!”
Johnny’s breath blew out in a plainly audible whoosh of frustration and he slammed the peeling steering wheel hard enough with the heel of his palm to shake the whole car.
“Damn it!”
“Well, if that’s the only thing you want me for...” Even as the words left her lips, she knew that particular accusation was a lie, and one she should never have made, and would never have, if she hadn’t been so angry.
That was wrong! That was cliché and bitchy both!
His head swiveled to face the girl he could hardly see.
“Surely you know by now that’s not the only thing! I love you! It’s just...look, Allie; I am going freaking crazy! You’re a girl, so I don’t know; maybe you don’t understand what it’s like! I’m so horny, I can’t stand it anymore!”
He slapped the steering wheel again, muttered a curse under his breath, then turned and looked out the side window, staring at nothing. Alison, feeling miserable and somehow guilty for insisting on sticking to her principles, reached out a hand and laid it on his shoulder sympathetically.
“I know, honey, and I do understand because I want it too, but it’s not right and you know it. I have to respect myself. We’re just going to have to wait.”
His head swiveled back toward her, and a brief flash of moonlight flickering momentarily through the concealing clouds reflected in his eyes, and he said the two words she had been dreading. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Allie, but I can’t.”
Alison knew Johnny might be a lot of things, but a liar wasn’t one of them; he was honest to a fault. She knew beyond a doubt he loved her, but she also knew, as sure as night followed day, he was going to find someone willing to do what she wouldn’t, and if that happened, it would be more than she could stand...just like losing him would be. She loved him too much to just let him go.
She sensed more than saw him reaching for the ignition, and his voice was full of sad resignation that threw her nearly into a panic. She had to do something; she ha
d to or else...
“We might as well go back to town,” he said in a voice packed full of teenage loss, “Maybe there’s something going on there.”
She clamped her hand over his, preventing him from turning the key.
“Wait.”
Alison paused, swallowing hard. She knew lots of other girls did what she was about to do, but she never had, and she honestly didn’t know if she could. She just knew that if she wanted to keep Johnny, she was going to have to.
“I’m not going to go all the way with you; not before we’re married, but...would it work if I can give you a-a...” She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘blow-job’ directly. “...a little something to hold you, to take the edge off so it won’t be so hard for you?”
His eyes widened with surprise bordering on shock, but that quickly gave way to a smile of anticipation.
“Yeah...that would sure help.”
“Alright then. I-I’ve never done this before, so tell me if I’m not doing it right.” Alison nervously licked her lips and gulped once more, and reached for his zipper. He’d already rested his hand on the back of her neck to guide her when there was a loud crunching sound in the leaves somewhere just outside the car. She let go and sat bolt-upright in a panic; the first thing she thought was Oh, my God! Dad’s found us!
“What was that?”
“What was what?
“That noise!”
“What noise? I didn’t hear anything. Just relax and go ahead, and – “
There was another crunch, much louder and sounding even closer this time, accompanied by the rustling of brush. Although distorted by the surrounding metal and glass, she somehow had the impression that it was coming from above them, in the trees.
“There it is again!”
“I heard it that time. It sounds like something walking through the leaves. It’s just a deer or a coon or something.”
A wave of sheer, unexplainable terror swept over Alison, shaking her down to her very core, and suddenly all she knew, whatever the source of the sounds, was that it was something much more to be feared than any deer or raccoon, or even her father.
“Johnny, let’s get out of here!”
“Why? I told you, it’s just a deer.”
An increasingly frantic Alison said, “I mean it! I’m really scared!”
“But...” Suddenly his voice was angry, accusing. “Look, if you want to back out, why don’t you just say so!”
“I don’t! We’ll go someplace else and I promise I’ll do it!” In a full-blown panic right then, a level of fear she’d never experienced before, she would have let him do literally anything just to get her out of there. She was crying and practically screaming as the tears poured from her eyes, “I promise! I swear to God! I’ve just got a really, really bad feeling! Now please, let’s go!”
She had his right arm and was shaking him hard with both hands when he finally realized she was serious. “Alright, already! Just let me start the car.”
The Camaro was old, but Johnny was good with motors; when he turned the key, the engine kicked over and took hold within a second, and the powerful 350 roared to life.
There was a loud, shrill screech, and something heavy slammed down on the roof of the car with enough force to visibly bow the headliner inside and send the Camaro rocking on its shocks.
Alison was no longer practically screaming; now she was actually screaming, all the painful, throat-tearing way.
“Oh, my God! What was that?”
“I don’t know, but we’re getting the hell out of here!” He flipped on the headlights, and whatever was on the roof screeched again and began scrambling around, scraping across the metal like fingernails on a chalk board.
“Hurry, Johnny! It’s on the car!”
He grabbed the four-speed shifter, but she was still clinging to his arm in fear, and he yanked it out of her hands, her nails raking the blood from his skin beneath his black tee shirt sleeve.
“Let go! I’m hurrying!
Slamming it into reverse, he punched the gas and popped the clutch, and the wide rear tires peppered the panels and undercarriage with gravel as the car shot backward, causing whatever was on the roof to lose its grip. It slid forward, and they glimpsed a large, shadowy body slamming onto the hood before rolling off and out of sight in front. Johnny promptly locked the brakes and slid to a halt.
“Did you see that?” the boy shouted in anger, both at the damaged car and at what the intruder had screwed up for him, “It’s some guy!” Before Alison realized what he intended, in a quick series of movements he shifted into neutral, set the emergency brake, and reached into the back seat with his right hand while opening the door with his left. Johnny Robinson held the home run record for the local High School baseball team, the Point Pleasant Black Knights – the ‘Big Blacks’ as they were more commonly known – and he never went anywhere without what he referred to as his favorite ‘tool of the trade.’ One foot was out the door and the 30-ounce M110 Louisville Slugger in his hand was on its way over the seat when Alison grabbed him again.
“Johnny, don’t go out there!”
He jerked away from her.
“Let me go! Ain’t no perverted son of a bitch going to spy on us and jump on my car!” Heaving himself out while gripping the hard wood of the maple bat, he shouted, “I’ve got something for your ass, you freaking weirdo!”
Then the freaking weirdo stood up, and when Johnny’s wide eyes watched its height seem to grow and grow until he had to tilt his head back to see its eyes, the bat dropped from his suddenly nerveless fingers.
New York, New York
Her taxi pulled away behind her, throwing water from its tires and joining its own engine’s noise to that of the Big Apple’s ever-present traffic once more. Fiona Pelligatti crossed the sidewalk to the modern apartment building with her umbrella overhead, absently noticing how the rain-slick concrete reflected the twinkling city lights, almost like Christmas time. Once under the green awning, she paused to fold her portable shelter and shake the water off it. She smiled up at the uniformed doorman and nodded her thanks as she passed through the door he opened for her; at two inches under five feet and weighing eighty pounds, up was how she had to look at most people, and why, at twenty-six, she still got carded every time she wanted a drink. That was also why she had an attitude all out of proportion to her size...at least, that was part of it.
Fiona was a very pretty woman, proportionate and well-put-together despite her small stature; at least, everybody told her so, although she couldn’t see it herself. Born and raised andd still living in Brooklyn, she was a classic example of New York City’s famous melting pot. She’d gotten her ebony hair color, dark eyes, and somewhat overly-long nose from her Italian father, and her Irish mother contributed her freckled white skin and the long, curling texture in the dark locks that hung to her shoulders. No one was quite sure where she got her rather diminutive size. Both her parents, neither of whom were above average height themselves, yet easily towered over their daughter by half-a-head, claimed it was from their own tiny grandmother, claims that would get louder and louder every time the subject came up, and usually ended up in a shouting and, occasionally, harmless shoving match as two notably hotheaded members of two nationalities already famous for the same butted heads.
Fiona had inherited her temper from both of them, and had built on that particular legacy, which was how she had gotten through parochial school. After breaking one much larger girl’s nose, knocking out two of another’s front teeth, rupturing a particularly obnoxious boy’s left testicle, and experiencing a long series of nuns breaking an even longer series of rulers across her tiny little ass without ever managing to make the stubborn girl cry, people tended to show her the respect she insisted upon.
She crossed the lobby, the short skirt of her seldom-worn ‘little black dress’ clinging to her legs and her equally-black heels clicking on the spotless beige tiles, past the immaculately-kept potted plants and wood wainsc
oting. Her boyfriend, Clifford Ashley, a brokerage firm executive, lived in a nice place, much nicer by far than the one she could afford.
Than I can afford now, at any rate.
The ferocity of Fiona’s temper was matched only by her stubbornness and the intensity of her ambition. She was going places; she had determined it, and it would be so. Further, she would do it on her own merits; she despised gold diggers, and the few financially better-off men who made the mistake of thinking she was one, and that they could buy her affections, went away with their ears ringing from her psychologically-scarring acid comments. Cliff bought her things, sure, but he didn’t overdo it. The only reason she dated the much more well-to-do man was that she liked him, not his money.
Actually, she loved him, and had for awhile now, and she wanted to surprise him on his birthday. Instead of buying him something he could buy a dozen of for himself if he wanted, she’d gone all old fashioned and baked his favorite; a chocolate cheesecake. She balanced its meticulously gift wrapped box in one hand with her umbrella hanging from her wrist while she pushed the elevator button with the other, her lips set in a smile.
He’s going to be so surprised!
Normally Fiona was a serious type, almost pathologically so, but Cliff, with his witty sense of humor, had gotten her to loosen up so much over the past few months of dating that, by tonight, she was almost giddy. She supposed had reason to be; he had been dropping a few hints lately that might indicate he would soon have a very important question to ask her.
Maybe tonight!
Feeling the slight increase in gravity as the elevator started up, she would have hugged herself if she hadn’t been carrying the cake and the wet umbrella.