Revenant

by Allan Leverone

  REVENANT

  BY

  ALLAN LEVERONE

  Kindle edition copyright ©2012 by Allan Leverone

  All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is unintended and entirely coincidental.

  First eBook edition: 2012

  No one exists on an island, but everyone needs a rock. My rock is my family: My wife, Sue, twenty-eight years and counting. My children, Stefanie, Kristin and Craig, three wonderful young adults who represent a legacy far better than any I could ever have dreamed of leaving. And my granddaughter, Arianna, for whom the future is limitless.

  Special thanks to Neil Jackson, cover artist extraordinaire and a true gentleman.

  Praise for Allan Leverone

  “Suspenseful and well-written, The Lonely Mile shows how far a father will go to save his child.”

  —Debbi Mack, New York Times bestselling author of Identity Crisis and Least Wanted

  “Written with edge-of-your-seat suspense and precise detail…The successor to Michael Crichton has landed. And his name is Allan Leverone.”

  —Vincent Zandri, Amazon bestselling author of The Innocent and The Remains

  “Allan Leverone delivers a taut crime drama full of twists and conspiracy. A serial killer thriller with a heart.”

  —Scott Nicholson, Amazon bestselling author of Liquid Fear

  “Allan Leverone raises the stakes with every turn of the page…”

  —Sophie Littlefield, Anthony Award-winning author of A Bad Day for Sorry

  “Thriller fans will enjoy Allan Leverone’s new book, The Lonely Mile, which will carry readers along as a daughter is stolen by a vengeful serial killer.”

  —Dave Zeltserman, author of Pariah and Monster

  “A dark and creepy chiller!”

  —Ron Malfi, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of Floating Staircase

  “Fast-paced and eerily seductive, Darkness Falls is a well-told and atmospheric tale of loss and obsession, of madness and revenge. Allan Leverone is a terrific writer with a bright future…”

  —Mark Edward Hall, author of Apocalypse Island and The Lost Village

  “I was floored by the great writing…this book is a steal for anyone that is a fan of a good crime thriller.”

  —Book Sake

  “…a chillingly realistic suspense thriller that will have you holding on for the ride of your life.”

  —Life in Review

  “…this story drew me in, grabbed my attention and would let go until the very surprising and climactic ending…one hell of a roller coaster ride…”

  —Café of Dreams Book Reviews

  “…the suspense never stops…an intense thriller…”

  —Martha’s Bookshelf

  “From page one to the end you will be breathless with suspense…simply an entertaining and enjoyable and intense story…This is one of the things that I love about book blogging—finding new authors from smaller presses that are true gems.”

  —My Reading Room

  “…a must have for anyone looking for a great page turner with mystery and mayhem”

  —Community Bookstop

  “If you enjoy thrillers…this is a great option. It’s a fast-moving storyline…and you’ll find you care about the main characters…”

  —My Book Retreat

  “…feels like I’m watching an episode of 24. There is not a dull moment, and absolutely no lag time…The characters are well developed, and I find the plot easily believable and very easy to get absorbed in.”

  —Southern Fiber Reads

  “…a high suspense thrill ride…”

  —Derry (NH) News

  “…keeps you on the edge of your seat, reading pages as fast as you can…I highly recommend that you read this book…you will not be disappointed.”

  —Two Ends of the Pen

  “…absolutely fantastic…The story moves along at a good pace, dripping with atmosphere…The frights come at you hard and fast…A great story, believable characters, tension, atmosphere, frights galore, blood, and a nice twist at the end…”

  —Literary Mayhem

  “…the storyline was haunting and creepy…I would recommend Darkness Falls to anyone who enjoys a really nightmarish tale.”

  —Horrornews.net Book Reviews

  Books by Allan Leverone

  Final Vector

  The Lonely Mile

  Paskagankee

  Novellas by Allan Leverone

  Darkness Falls

  Heartless

  The Becoming

  Short Story Collection

  Postcards from the Apocalypse

  PROLOGUE

  Three months ago

  Don Running Bear’s brakes screeched out a complaint as he pulled to a stop at the end of his dusty driveway. He shut down the engine and his ancient Chevy pickup kicked and bucked like a temperamental stallion, eventually giving up the ghost and wheezing into silence.

  He sat in the cab and mopped his face with a well-worn handkerchief. Faded renderings of sacred Navajo animals covered the light cotton, dulled by the passage of time from white to a sickly greyish-brown. The hankie had been a gift from his grandfather and was now threadbare and clearly past the end of its useful life. Don knew he should take some action to preserve it, maybe store it between the pages of a book or something, but he had used the damn thing for as long as he could remember and could not imagine going through even a single day without being able to touch the only remaining link to the man he so admired.

  The temperature outside the pickup had soared to well over one hundred degrees, which meant inside the truck it was probably close to one-forty, but Don was in no hurry to get into his house, despite the fact the air conditioning would provide a welcome respite from this blast-furnace heat. Don needed to think, and to do that he had to be alone. So he sat in his truck, barely noticing the sweat running down his weathered copper face.

  Don Running Bear was worried. He hadn’t been sleeping well, being assaulted nightly by dreams filled with violence and bloodshed, nightmares which were clearly meant as a sign. And worse, the problem was not that he didn’t understand the significance of his terrible dreams, but rather that he feared he did. In these visions, all of them disturbingly similar, a beautiful young Navajo girl wrought death and destruction, murdering strangers and cracking open their cold corpses, plunging her tiny hand inside their chests, ripping out the hearts of her victims, then turning to dust and disappearing.

  In these horrifying dreams, the identity of the young girl refused to reveal itself to Don, although she seemed strangely familiar and he knew he should recognize her. Each morning he awoke trembling, drenched in sweat, certain that with just a little extra effort he might be able to identify the girl, and maybe then begin to decipher the meaning of the nightmares. But so far, her face had remained elusive.

  Don wished he could turn back time and salvage a few hours with his grandfather. Niyol Running Bear had died more than a decade ago, and with his passing, so too had many of the mystical secrets of the tribal medicine man been lost. Niyol had adamantly refused to share his wisdom and knowledge with his son, Nastas—Don’s father—saying only that the knowledge was explosive and dangerous and he
would not involve his family in any more of it than necessary.

  Nastas had died young, killed in a horrific car crash driving drunk at a high rate of speed on the reservation, leaving only Don and his grandfather, and when Niyol had become seriously ill, he had reluctantly entrusted a very valuable relic—a stone—to Don, telling him only that it was to be hidden and protected at all costs, that it was sacred, imbued with ungodly power, magical and fearsome and terrible.

  Don had been thinking a lot recently of both his grandfather and the stone. He wondered if the nightmares he had begun experiencing were somehow related to one or both of them. He suspected they were, but since his grandfather had never gone into specifics regarding the danger the stone represented or its awesome power, Don could do no more than guess. But the very fact he associated his dreams with the stone after Niyol had been gone a decade illustrated the impression the old man had made.

  Don Running Bear sighed and stepped out of his truck. Dwelling on the dreams and their possible relation to the sacred stone, long tucked securely away, was pointless without further information, and he had no way of acquiring that information. He vowed to let it go, to forget about the damned stone, but he had made that vow hundreds of times, probably thousands, and knew he would never be able to follow through on it. The hot, dry wind which seemed to blow endlessly across the plains raised little eddies of dust around his shoes as he trudged across the front yard.

  He stepped through the front door into the cool stillness of his small home, distracted and upset. He made it two full steps inside the house and then froze in confusion and fear. Seated directly across the room, facing the door so there was no way Don could miss the sight of them, were his wife and teenage daughter. They had been fastened to matching kitchen chairs placed side by side, immobilized by thick strips of shiny silver duct tape wound around their wrists and ankles. Don regarded his family in surprise and they stared back in terror, eyes bulging, utterly silent despite the fact they had not been gagged.

  Behind the two women, looming over them in a stool taken from the breakfast bar in the kitchen, was a middle-aged man Don had never seen before. The silver haired intruder displayed a long, curved knife, holding it above Eagle Wing’s and Kai’s heads, turning it slowly in the air so that the sunlight pouring through the window winked and glittered off the polished blade’s surface. If the man was trying to get Don’s attention, his efforts had been terrifyingly successful.

  For a long moment no one moved. Time seemed to stretch into infinity. The stranger lowered the knife blade so that its razor-sharp point pressed against the soft skin of his younger captive’s throat.

  Eagle Wing gasped softly and Don finally spoke. “What’s going on here?” He worked hard to keep his voice strong and calm, fearing he knew the answer to the question but asking it anyway. Sometimes life’s little dramas must play out according to a script written by fate. He forced himself to direct his full attention at the man, not because he wanted to, but because he suspected that to do otherwise would be consigning his family to death.

  “It’s very simple,” the stranger said, maintaining a steady pressure with the knife-blade at Eagle Wing’s throat. “An item of great value was entrusted to your care many years ago. You’re going to give it to me.”

  Don had an instant to decide how to respond. What were the odds the man with the knife was talking about anything other than the sacred Navajo stone? Essentially nil. But for the heavy weight of responsibility his grandfather had laid on his shoulders, Don Running Bear was an ordinary Native American man living an ordinary life. He was the proprietor of the reservation’s General Store, a nearly invisible forty year old man who owned nothing of monetary value, certainly nothing worth breaking into his home and threatening murder to get.

  Nothing except the stone.

  And it was imperative the stone never see the light of day.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said evenly, and as he did, the man’s lips hardened into a thin bloodless line and he flicked his right wrist, drawing the tip of the knife-blade half an inch across Eagle Wing’s throat. Blood welled sluggishly out of a tiny gash. Eagle Wing drew in a breath, a short, panicked gasp, but seemed to realize instinctively that to scream, or even to move, would be to risk suffering much greater damage, perhaps even death.

  Kai Running Bear knew no such thing. Don’s wife let loose a roar of rage and fear, thrashing helplessly in her chair in a desperate attempt to launch herself at the silver-haired man harming her child. The man rotated his left arm at the elbow, still holding the knife to Eagle Wing’s throat, and drove his fist into Kai’s face. The crack of her cheekbone shattering was followed by a dull thud as the chair and its suddenly unconscious occupant smashed backward onto the living room floor.

  Don rushed forward instinctively, stopping only when the man with the knife leapt from the stool and screamed, “Come any closer and she dies!” and Don knew he meant what he said. The stranger’s eyes were black and determined and devoid of any shred of compassion or empathy. He might as well have been a Diamondback coiled under a rock in the desert, alert and lurking, prepared to strike.

  For one second, then two, the men faced each other, locked in a silent standoff. Kai lay motionless on the floor, duct-taped to her toppled chair, her face already beginning to swell hideously. Eagle Wing panted, the point of the knife pressed into her throat, her body shaking as it reacted to the stress and the pain of the knife wound, as well as the sight of her unconscious and badly injured mother.

  “Now,” the man said almost conversationally, “the next few seconds will determine the fate of your entire family. Do not make the mistake of assuming I won’t simply murder all three of you. I know that the object I seek is here somewhere; you would never risk storing it anywhere else. If necessary, I will kill you all and then conduct my own search at my leisure. So I ask one final time: Where is it?”

  Don wondered what his grandfather would have done. The danger the stone represented was monumental; he could not allow it to fall into this man’s hands. But he would not allow his family to be butchered, either. In the end it was an easy decision; it was no decision at all.

  Don held his hands in front of his face, palms out, willing the stranger to relax. He could see the knife blade bobbing in a steady rhythm against the soft skin of Eagle Wing’s throat, keeping time with her elevated pulse. “You win. I’ll do as you wish,” he said quietly. He began sliding sideways across the room, moving on the balls of his feet, hands still suspended in front of his face, never taking his eyes off the man with the knife.

  At the far end of the room he stopped in front of a flat-screen television placed atop an imitation wood-grain TV table. The table supporting the television was mounted on casters and Don bent at the waist, wrapped his arms around the table, and rolled it heavily to the side. The intruder watched from behind Eagle Wing’s chair, his face expressionless, his reptilian eyes taking it all in. On the floor, Kai moaned and shuddered and then once again fell still.

  Don knelt down on the spot formerly occupied by the TV table and hooked his fingers under what appeared at first glance to be a knot in the oak flooring. He lifted his hand and a hidden two-foot by two-foot hinged wooden square rose noiselessly, appearing as if out of nowhere. Bolted to the support beams beneath the floor with a pair of heavy iron bands was a personal safe, installed so that the safe’s door opened upward into the room upon removal of the trap door.

  Don hesitated, still searching for a way out of this predicament that didn’t involve releasing the sacred stone to this stranger. He could think of only one. He glanced up at the man, sighed, and punched a series of numbers into a small alphanumeric keypad built into the safe’s door. Then he twisted a heavy handle and the lock gave way with an authoritative clunk that Don knew would be audible all the way across the room in the heavy silence.

  He pulled open the door and reached inside. The safe’s contents were mostly obscured by shadows but it didn’t
matter. The heavy steel box contained only two items and Don knew the positions of both in the darkness of the safe like he knew the back of his hand. He bent down, maneuvering his body so that its bulk formed a barrier between the stranger and the safe. At least he hoped it did, or else he was condemning his beloved daughter, his only child, to a sudden and painful death.

  Don withdrew the two items simultaneously. One was a perfectly square wooden box, roughly ten inches by ten inches. It could have been a cigar box on steroids. Intricate Native American carvings of Southwestern animals decorated all sides of the box, similar in style and rendering to the ones adorning Don’s treasured bandanna. He lifted that item slowly and carefully with his left hand, while slipping the other item into the right front pocket of his cargo pants, praying the movement would go unnoticed. Then he stood and turned.

  The man removed his knife from Eagle Wing’s throat for a moment and flicked his wrist, much as he had done moments ago when he nicked her, only this time he waved the knife in the air, indicating Don should bring him the box. He said nothing.

  Don trudged across the room while the man returned the knife to its previous location, nestling it just under his daughter’s jawline. Don noted with relief that the cut the man had made was mostly for show; it had nearly stopped bleeding already. But there was little doubt he could end her life at any moment if he so desired.

  Don stopped directly in front of Eagle Wing’s chair. Her eyes were closed and she was making an obvious effort to breathe normally. He was filled with pride for his sixteen year old child’s demonstration of composure and inner strength. He knew his grandfather would have been proud of her as well.