by Ronald Kelly
"Heck, I don't mind," said Dale with a big grin of approval. "I think you'd make a great mom. It might mean less burgers and fries, and more vegetables on my plate, but I reckon I could get used to that."
"What about your career, Jenny?" asked Alice. "Don't tell me you're willing to give up your painting."
"I don't see why I couldn't split my career in Memphis with a life in Tucker's Mill," she said. "Besides, what better inspiration could I ask for than to be a few miles from PaleDoveMountain? I'm sure Lance LaBlanc and the others wouldn't mind serving as models every now and then."
Glen scratched his beard in sudden thought. "That reminds me, what are you going to do with all that gold that LaBlanc gave you?"
"I've been thinking about that," said Jenny, "And I've decided we ought to split it up among ourselves. Does that sound fair enough?"
"Wow!" beamed Dale. "We're filthy rich!"
"Not quite, young man," laughed Glen, ruffling his son's hair playfully. "But it will put you through college when the time comes."
A thought crossed Jenny's mind and she frowned in heartfelt concern. "What about Captain Nickles and the state police? Do you think they'll investigate what went on up there on the mountain? They could end up doing more damage and causing the changelings more trouble than Jackson Dellhart did."
"I told Joe the entire story from start to finish," said Gad. "He was a little skeptical at first, but I think he believes it, considering what he saw there toward the end. He did say that he was gonna take a team of troopers up on the mountain early tomorrow morning and check things out. But do you know something? I don't think he's gonna find anything. He might come across some bloodstains or a few burnt holes in the ground, but I don't believe he'll find any helicopter wreckage or bodies. I'm pretty sure the albinos will spruce the place up before they get there. And I don't think the Captain will be foolish enough to go poking around in those caves either. Joe's a smart man. He knows when to leave well enough alone."
Glen smiled broadly, showing none of the discontent that he had exhibited a few short weeks ago. "Well, then I'd say that everything worked out just fine," he said, putting his arms around Jenny and Dale. "Just goes to show that there are such things as happy endings after all."
Jenny tried to match his optimism, but couldn't quite succeed. She kept thinking about the one key player in the invasion of PaleDoveMountain who had escaped the vengeance of the Dark'Un—Vincent Russ. And she couldn't help but recall the way his eyes had sparkled with greed as he looked upon the golden walls of the subterranean chamber. It had been a greed every bit as strong and uncompromising as the one that had motivated his unlucky superior…perhaps even stronger.
Epilogue
The inside of Jackson Dellhart's private safe looked like a treasure trove to Vincent Russ. Within the cramped compartments were several hundred thousand dollars in cash, a number of stocks and security bonds, and a small lockbox containing half a million in rare diamonds and gold. There was also a portfolio of important contracts and documents…among them the deed for PaleDoveMountain.
Russ opened his briefcase and put both the cash and the lockbox inside. He ignored the stocks and bonds, but took the deed. That was the main thing he had come back for. He knew as much about faking the legitimacy of documents as the Stoogeones had, and knew that he could work a little magic in his own favor. Soon, the deed would be properly doctored, listing him as the legal owner of the Tennessee mountain.
He closed the safe and crossed the office to Dellhart's private elevator. As he stepped inside and pressed the button that would take him to the heliport on the roof, he considered the direction that his future was taking. On their way to Memphis, he and Hollinger had made their plans. First, they would refuel at the airport and then head down to Mexico. The pilot had friends in a town called Las Zargoza, where they could hang out for a while until things cooled off. Hollinger also had connections with a network of mercenaries in the Western hemisphere and abroad. They could pick and choose who was best for their planned military strike. When Vincent Russ returned to PaleDoveMountain to claim his golden fortune, he planned to take a commando force with him that would make Hendrix's bunch look like a Girl Scout troop.
As he contemplated the wealth that he was sure to obtain, Russ absently reached into the side pocket of his windbreaker for a pack of smokes. Something next to the cigarettes moved, tickling the skin of his knuckles. With a soft curse, he withdrew his hand and, along with it, came a squirming insect. It dropped onto the carpeted floor of the elevator and darted toward the far corner.
It was a small black centipede.
Damned bug must've crawled into my pocket when I was up in those woods, he thought with disgust.
Slowly, his grimace of repulsion changed into a cruel smile as he moved forward and, placing his foot above the squirming insect, stepped down hard.
Vincent Russ chuckled like a sadistic child…then heard the sound of brittle crackling beneath the sole of his shoe.
Hollinger sat in his helicopter on the circular pad of the Eco-Plenty roof. The pilot's hands were folded behind his head and his eyes were centered on the pale orb of the moon that hung in the night sky overhead. He smiled at the good fortune of the past few hours. Earlier that day, he had merely been a flunky of Frag Hendrix, one warrior among many. But now things had changed for the better. He was a partner in a forthcoming project that would make him a multimillionaire. Not bad for a man whose ancestors had been poor Mississippi cotton pickers.
He spotted a flash of motion from the corner of his eye and turned to see Vincent Russ leaving the elevator. The weasely man started across the roof toward the waiting chopper. Hollinger reached up and flicked a few switches, sending the blades into lazy rotation. It would take a moment for the engine to gain momentum and the blades to reach their proper speed.
"Come on, man, we ain't got all night," he uttered beneath his breath, for the guy seemed to be taking his time in getting there. He watched as Russ approached the passenger side of the chopper, his hand reaching out to take hold of the door handle.
Except that was not the man's true intention. Instead, Russ's outstretched palm slammed against the wall of the chopper with enough force to rock the aircraft on its landing skids.
"What the hell are you doing, man?" growled Hollinger. At first he simply stared at Russ in confusion, wondering why the man was acting so funny. Then, through the Plexiglas of the chopper door, he saw a ghastly gray face leering in at him with pitch black eyes, and he knew that the thing outside was not Vincent Russ.
Placing its gray-fleshed hands against the olive drab structure, the creature began to push. The big Bell moved easily, its skids grating across the concrete pad as effortlessly as the wheels of a toy car might move under the hand of a child. Hollinger shot a quick glance to the opposite side and saw that the chopper was gradually approaching the edge of the roof.
He could hear the blades whining above him, gathering speed, but he knew they would never reach their correct momentum in time for lift-off. Hollinger drew his .45 and began to blast away at the thing that pushed the aircraft steadily toward the edge. Slugs punctured the glass and slammed into Russ's head, but they either flattened or glanced off the ashen flesh of his brow. Then, with a wide grin of shiny black teeth, the creature heaved mightily against the side of the helicopter.
The thought of escaping from the other door of the cockpit flashed through Hollinger's mind, but it was far too late. He saw empty space yawning beyond the window, as well as the random headlights of the cars on the street below. The helicopter teetered on the edge for a precarious moment and then surrendered to the law of gravity.
The pilot turned his head, not wanting to see the dark pavement as it rushed up to meet him. Instead, his eyes fastened on the receding roof of the thirty-story Eco-PlentyBuilding. He did not see Vincent Russ standing at the ledge as he expected. Rather, he thought he caught a fleeting glimpse of a dark form darting in front of the pale sphere of the m
oon.
The silhouette of a shadowy bird winging its way eastward, with a scrap of paper clutched tightly within its dark talons.
OF CROWS AND PALE DOVES
Author's Note
Of all the characters in The Dark'Un, the most short-lived and enigmatic may just be Fletcher Brice. The elderly mountain man lives a nearly hermit-like existence, shunning civilization and keeping himself—and his family—in relative discomfort and isolation…but for what gain? Is it to protect a race of albino changelings out of the sheer goodness and decency of his heart? Or are his stubborn actions motivated by loyalty and obligation for something that might have happened to him on PaleDoveMountain many years before?
Questions abound concerning Fletcher's life before he decided to turn his back on those around him and chose to exist solely for the protection of those strange creatures who occupied his mountainous property. What was Fletcher Brice like as a young boy? Where did the infirmity of his lame leg come from? And does his loyalty really belong to the albino beings…or to the black-and-gray monstrosity known as the Dark'Un?
This story supplies the answers to all of these questions…as well as some you probably would have never asked on your own.
—RK
This story is dedicated to Alex McVey who, artistically, changes hats about as often as the Dark'Un does. Thanks for your expertise and vision, your wonderful and unique covers for this series of books, and, most of all, your friendship.
Fletcher Brice loved to read.
His avarice for the written word began at an early age…cuddling in his mother's lap in the old rocking chair by the stone hearth of the log cabin high atop Pale Dove Mountain, teleported by the tales and truths of the Holy Bible, as well as stories from a battered copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales passed down by his maternal grandmother shortly before her death. Later, he learned to read—with difficulty and determination—on his own and found himself visiting the wonders of Treasure Island, the other side of the Looking Glass, and the center of the very Earth itself.
His father—a stern, joyless man who fought tooth and nail to make a living during the lean times of the Great Depression on a mountain much too steep to plow and plant—held no such love for reading books. In fact, he seemed downright hostile concerning the pastime. He forbade the presence of books and periodicals in his household, except for God's Word. And, for some unknown reason, he particularly loathed those that bore illustrations upon their covers or amid their pages.
Therefore, Fletcher, with the secretive assistance of his mother, was forced to sneak his beloved books home from the monthly bookmobile that visited the town of Tucker's Mill in the valley below. Mother and child went to great pains to keep that simple secret from Elijah Brice.
Although Fletcher resented—even despised—his father for his irrational behavior and unbending ways, he found solace in the pages of Kipling's The Jungle Book, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and the woe begotten, yet destructive creation of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly's Frankenstein.
As he grew older, though, Fletcher gradually learned the reasons for Elijah's stern rules concerning the prohibition of books; rules that were sensible and downright necessary, given the strange nature of the mountain on which he was born and raised.
It was during 1936, in his twelfth year, that Fletcher grew from a boy into a young man. It was a year of hardship and altered ideals…one full of strife, worry, and fear.
His mother, Mattie, had lost her health the year before to the ravaging effects of tuberculosis and was bedridden. The strong, vibrant woman he had known since birth was gone. In her place was a shriveled shell of a human being; confined beneath layers of patchwork quilts, her pallor deathly pale and her eyes sunken deeply in shadow. Fletcher would lay awake in his bed at night, listening to her cough so violently that her expulsions would change from watery phlegm to sluggish clots of blood. He would bury his head beneath his pillow to block out his mother's hoarse hacking, but the sound always traveled past the barrier of cotton ticking and goose down, and caused his young heart to grow heavy with dread. When the coughing ceased and she finally rested, her rattling breath sounded like the ticks of a clock; one that's inner workings were slowly winding down until, one day soon, it would give out entirely and only silence and finality would remain.
While his father trapped small game for pelts and hunted for wild ginseng—a medicinal root that could be sold for eight dollars a pound in Knoxville—Fletcher stayed close to the mountainside cabin, doing chores and attending to his mother's needs. Many a time, Fletcher longed to leave the strain of his obligations behind and hike to the peak of the mountain to his secret place along a stone pathway lined with snow-white roses. There, the boy loved to read his books and dream of a life beyond that he knew on PaleDoveMountain. He pictured himself walking barefoot along the shore of an ocean, or traveling some foreign land, exploring places he had only visited within the pages of books. He longed to ride a camel among Egyptian pyramids, to climb the icy peak of Mount Everest, or to simply feast his eyes upon the gentle smile of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre in Paris. Possessing quite a talent for drawing, he would sketch those ambitions on any scrap of paper he could manage to find. But he always hid them away, aware of the consequences should Elijah accidently happen upon them.
But his father's oppressiveness and his mother's infirmity made all those dreams seem grimly unattainable. Life on the mountain was all he had known and all he probably ever would know. His father was much too stubborn and set in his ways to move down to the valley, where the other residents of Peremont County dwelled. Fletcher was denied a decent schooling; his father deemed it unnecessary and told him that he was needed at home, to attend to his sick mother. Nearly a teenager, Fletcher could scarcely write or cipher with numbers. His only strong point was his reading, which was his only pleasure…and his only hope.
Another thing preyed heavily on his mind, too. A man by the name of Wesley Allen Scott.
Wes was a hermit of sorts, even more so than Elijah Brice and his family. He was a veteran of the World War and had suffered a grievous injury while fighting the Kaiser's army, taking the brunt of a tater-masher grenade, which had cost him his right leg and what little sense he had possessed before. Below his knee, he wore a wooden leg beneath his pants, while the left side of his bearded face was riddled with scar tissue and his eye canted lazily to the side.
The man worked every now and then at Leland Tucker's general store down at the Mill, sweeping up or toting provisions for customers. Some folks said that he acted peculiarly toward the local children since his injury, while others claimed that he had been that way before, just better at hiding it. He seemed particularly enamored with Fletcher whenever he went to town with his Father. The cripple would stare at him like a child hungering for candy, grinning slyly all the while.
"You'd best watch yourself around Wes Scott," Fletcher's mother would warn him. "He's a deceitful and dangerous man. And he's taken a liking to you."
Fletcher knew little of the world and its ways, so he was unsure of exactly what she meant by that. But, in another way, he had an uncomfortable inkling of what his mother was driving at. Fletcher wasn't like the other boys in PeremontCounty. He was whipcord lean and handsome, but not in a manly way, almost femininely so. He sported a curly shock of pale blond hair the color of cornsilk and his eyes were as blue as the sky on a cloudless summer day. His sensitive nature and love of things other than hunting and fishing also gave him an air of vulnerability. When in town the other children were cruel to him, playing pranks on him and calling him "sissy boy" or "queer."
He was cherished by his mother, but knew that he was a grave disappointment to his father. He had once overheard Elijah tell his mother "God gave us a girl child, but with the wrong plumbing." That had hurt Fletcher to his very core, but he had said nothing and given no indication that he had even heard. Thinking about the attentive way Wesley Allen Scott regarded him, he began to wonder if his father wasn't correct in his tactless assu
mption.
Surprisingly enough, it was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that revealed the true—and awful—nature of PaleDoveMountain one balmy afternoon in early spring.
Fletcher had found the book by L. Frank Baum on the cramped shelves within the gray bus that was parked out front of the Baptist church earlier that morning. Fletcher had read the book once before and, given his age, probably wouldn't have read it again…except for the enchanting illustrations on the cover and the pages inside. The title page read "illustrated by W.W. Denslow," and the copyright page dated the tome as 1900.
The twelve-year-old was at his favorite place that day—the rose-lined pathway near the peak of the mountain. He sat with his back against a boulder, admiring the whimsical drawings, when he got the urge to urinate. He left the book open on the rock and ducked into the underbrush to do his business. When he was finished, he buttoned his trousers and stepped back onto the pathway.
He was surprised to find four white doves perched on the corners of the book, peering curiously at a full-page illustration of Dorothy and her trio of friends strolling along a winding road of yellow brick. But that wasn't all. In the middle of the gathering stood a large carrion crow perhaps a good eighteen inches in length. It wasn't like any crow he had ever come across before. This one was pitch dark, with a stone-gray beak and equally gray feet. Its eyes were what froze Fletcher in his tracks. They were small and beady, and blacker than a night devoid of moon or stars.
Great! He thought, they'll poop on it and then I'll end up having to pay for it…or else Pa will. The thought of his father even finding out that he possessed the book was terrifying. He ran toward the flock of birds. "Get away from that!" he shouted, waving his arms.