Snow was in his hair. The rain had stopped. Nothing but the whiteness of snow slowly blanketing the dead-grass hills and frosting the ridge and banks of the far shore.
“Would you look at that river,” Joe said. He could not laugh, or cry. “It’s so clean, that water, right now. You can drink that water.”
Tad said, “No, you can’t. It’s polluted.”
“Not right now. Not anymore.”
They sat there a long time. Becky went and got a jacket from the Buick, and wrapped it around Tad. Jenny and the kids came over and sat beside Joe. He clung to Hillary, kissing her forehead. It was so silent.
As the day grew long and the snow began to stick, Jenny said, “Let’s go. We can head south and take the road up the Malabars. I saw some others taking that road.”
“It’ll be slick. The Buick won’t make it. We can go steal someone’s four-wheel drive, I guess.”
Aaron piped up. “I know where a truck is.”
Tad looked at Joe and whispered, “I know I shouldn’t be scared, but I don’t want to ever go back there.”
“Oh,” Joe said. “There’s nothing back there anymore. Nothing like what happened. It’s gone.”
Tad said, “I don’t know. I can hear my father, Joe. I can hear him.”
Tad began shivering.
Joe hesitated before asking. “What’s he saying?” He glanced at Becky. She had a concerned look on her face beyond the exhaustion.
Tad said, “My dad says we should wait here. He says we should watch the skies. He says it may come back.”
“No,” Joe said, “We need to go before the snow blocks the roads. Once we’re out of the area, we can find somewhere to call someone—I don’t know who yet, maybe the police—and try to tell our story.”
Joe took him by the hand. They walked back to the car. Tad didn’t object; if anything, he was overly compliant. Joe was shivering just as much as the boy. They all got back into the Buick, and drove to town, parking in front of the Gardners’ house. Jenny, Aaron, and Joe went to the back, to the garage.
Joe slid open the old garage door, and as the light of day skimmed the place, he saw another miracle.
His old Ford truck, yellow and still shining, as if kept just for this moment.
His mother, all those years, had kept it clean, had made sure it was in good shape. Just waiting for him to come home again. He found a particle of joy in the midst of the tragedy of that week: that love survives even the wrecks and mangles of life. He loved them all, my mother, my wife, my two beautiful children (no, three, for my baby Paul had died a few years before). Melissa, Hopfrog, Patty Glass—a tremendous and profound love was born in him at that moment. He realized then that he would lose everything he ever loved in life, and yet love would not die in him because of it: I believe this. He hugged his son against his chest as if he could absorb and keep him safe in his bones; then, he let go. His mother was with him; he could feel her presence. Not in a garage with a bright and well-oiled machine, but in his heart, in the place she had never left
He checked the tires, started it up after a bit of fooling around under the hood, and then they squeezed in, packed like sardines, children on laps, Jenny squeezed so close to him it almost felt as if they were one person. They drove up the side of House Mountain and took the route over the Malabar Hills, until they came to Stone Valley.
Joe got two connecting rooms at the local motel, all of them falling asleep, almost as soon as they touched the beds.
When Joe awoke, before dawn, he looked out at a white snow morning, a silent world, and laughed out loud when he saw a child on the icy street, rolling snow around to make a snowman, breaking the cut-crystal silence with a shout to his friend that there was no school today.
The light came up, and he went about the business of the living.
* * * *
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Publication Information
ISBN-10: 0-9796862-8-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-9796862-8-3
Cover Design: Copyright 2012, Alkemara Press. Cover Image Credit: ©iStockphoto.com/gioadventures - Trees in fog image © Giorgio Fochesato ©iStockphoto.com/the4js - Ghoul child image © Jake Holmes
About the Author
Douglas Clegg is the author of more than 25 books, including The Hour Before Dark, Afterlife, Nightmare House and Bad Karma. His work has won the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Guild Award and the Shocker Award. He lives on the coast of New England and is working on a new novel.
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Table of Contents
The Children's Hour
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PROLOGUE
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
PART TWO
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
PART THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
EPILOGUE
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The Children's Hour - A Novel of Horror (Vampires, Supernatural Thriller) Page 30