Refuge Book 1 - Night of the Blood Sky (2 page)

2

“There it is.” The words came out of Winslow Herman’s mouth as a reverent whisper, like he was an old world explorer discovering new land on the far side of the ocean. That’s how he saw himself, anyway, and it was why he named his backyard observatory, the
Crow’s Nest
. It was his perch. His lookout tower. But instead of looking at land, he was looking at planets, moons, stars and comets.

He stepped aside, allowing his wife, Carol, to peer through the telescope’s eyepiece. She drew a quick breath and grinned. “What’s it like there?”

“No place you would ever want to visit. Not without a specially made space-suit to protect you from Jupiter’s radiation, the absolute freezing cold and the vacuum of space.”

Without taking her eyes away from the view, she asked, “There’s no atmosphere?”

“It’s negligible,” he replied. “Most likely just gases seeping from the cracks in the ice.”

“Do you really think there could be life there?”

“If there is life anywhere else in this solar system, it’s under the ice of Europa. Scientists and smart science fiction authors have known this for a long time. It’s only a matter of time before we go there and find out. But even then, the chances are slim.”

Carol pulled back from the eyepiece and smiled at her husband, accentuating the laugh-line wrinkles on her cheeks and deepening the crow’s feet beside her eyes. She was a beautiful sixty year old woman, whose wrinkles formed earlier than most, primarily because she smiled so much. There was very little that could get her down. It was her faith, she claimed, that gave her peace and allowed her to enjoy the world, no matter the circumstances. “Listen to you. You don’t even have faith in your own theories.”

“I have faith in the scientific process,” he defended. “Theories are just theories until they’re proven. And I’m afraid, in the case of Europa, that is unlikely to happen within our lifetimes.”

“Why not just choose to believe the life is there, beneath the ice?”

Winslow scratched his cheek, burrowing his fingers through his thick, but neatly trimmed, salt and pepper beard.

“Is that what you do?” he asked. “Are you just pretending?”

Carol squinted at her husband with a wry smile. “Watch yourself, Mr. Herman—” She shook her small fist at him. “—or you’ll be seeing stars alongside your frozen moon.”

Winslow chuckled and glanced at his watch. “Speaking of that...” He flipped a switch, turning on the single light bulb hanging precariously from the domed ceiling. The observatory wasn’t exactly large—just big enough for four or five people to gather around the telescope that cost more than Carol would ever know. “Sometimes the best view is the wide angle.”

He opened the four-foot tall doorway and held it open for Carol. She crouched and exited onto the patio that connected the observatory and their custom-designed home. Before retiring to Maine, Winslow had worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. He designed optics, including those used on both the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers. But it had never been a job. He loved the work. It was his passion. And he continued it by building the observatory and allowing visits from school groups, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts troops and even the occasional visit from the teenage correctional facility in Concord. If he had an audience, Winslow could wax eloquent about the universe until his throat went raw. Most of the time, his audience was Carol, but she didn’t mind. She’d fallen for him at one of his public lectures, and if she could follow him from warm and sunny Pasadena to the more often than not frigid woods of New Hampshire, she could discuss Europa a thousand more times.

Winslow knew it. He grinned at his wife as he exited with an adoration that the stars above would never experience. Taking her hand, he led her to the grass on the north side of the house.

“I thought we were watching the fireworks?” Carol asked.

“I promised fireworks,” Winslow said. “But I didn’t specify the type.” He stepped to the side, revealing a blanket, a wine bottle and two glasses. “Ambrose Bierce once said that an observatory is a place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors, whereas I have always firmly believed that they are most useful for picking up sexy young fillies.”

Carol laughed, one hand over her mouth, the other slapping Winslow’s shoulder.

Winslow was about to carry-on with his banter, but something tickled his ear. He cocked his head to the side, trying to listen, but the nearly inaudible rumble didn’t change.

“What is it?” Carol asked.

“You don’t hear it?”

She listened and shook her head. “Only the beating of our hearts,” she joked and began unbuttoning her blouse.

Winslow caught a peek of his wife’s emerging cleavage and forgot about the sound. “You’re pretty direct for a church-going gal.”

“We’re married,” she said, removing her shirt and casting it aside. “I can be as slutty as I want to be.” She closed the distance between them, hands going for his belt.

The rumbling tickled his ear again.
Tinnitus?
he wondered and glanced up at the stars, so bright above, the Milky Way cutting a soft line across the sky. The view seemed to shimmer for a moment, the way stars twinkle when they’re low on the horizon, their light bent by the atmosphere. But then Carol loosened his pants, found what she was looking for and the whole of the universe ceased to exist.

3

“Listen, you backwoods hick. Don’t hold out on me. I’ll pay you whatever you want.” She thought she was whispering, but the words came out as something closer to a growl and loud enough for the bar’s five other patrons to hear.

Cash Whittemore pushed his half-drained beer to the side and leaned forward over the worn brown table that had started out a light shade of maple thirty years earlier. By all outward appearances, he was now a co-conspirator. “Look, Lony.”

“My
name
is Avalon,” she grumbled. And she was right, her name was Avalon Butler, but other than her parents, no one ever called her by her actual name. Unless you were blessed with a single syllable name or were well respected, the people in town had a horrid habit of shortening just about any name and tacking on an E sound at the end. Avalon became Lony. Jeremy became Jerry. Richard became Richie, or even worse, Dickie. As a kid, she knew three separate Dickies, and only one of them deserved the name.

Cash sighed. “Fine. Avalon. I’m not entirely sure what it is you’re looking for, but unless it’s cold and frothy, I don’t know anything about it.”

Avalon looked him up and down. He wore dirty blue jeans, a torn and paint-spattered flannel shirt—in July—and a dirty Red Sox cap with a frayed bill. He was handsome, but that was hidden by a few days worth of stubble and the dark rings under his eyes. If anyone in this Godforsaken town knew where to score some Oxycontin, it was him. “Bullshit.”

“Why are you sweating, Lon—Avalon?” he asked. “Walter keeps the AC cranked. Must be sixty-five degrees in here. You feeling okay?”

She wiped the sweat from her forehead and looked at her shaking hand, which came away slick with perspiration. Her heart pounded in her chest, making her feel like she’d just run a few miles carrying a hungry anaconda. She gripped the table with both hands, oblivious to the old bubble gum her left ring-finger compressed on the underside. When she was collected—in her mind, to everyone else she appeared as an overheating steam engine—she spoke clearly and concisely, no longer concerned about anyone hearing, because the only person that currently existed was the man in front of her, whom she believed could end her suffering. “I’m fine. Now do you have any Oxy or not?”

After a moment of thought, Cash winced and asked. “Is that like the tub cleaner?”

He knows
, she thought.
Damn him, he knows! And he’s just mocking me. He wants me to suffer!

Avalon’s fingers scraped against the bottom of the table. The nail of her ring-finger, now embedded in the unmoving gum, folded back, peeling away from a few millimeters of skin before popping free. She didn’t notice the sharp sting that would make most people hiss in pain. “You son-of-a-bitch!” Her voice rose in volume and pitch with each shouted word. With hooked talon fingers, she hauled back and swung at Cash’s cheek.

Moving faster and with more agility, Cash leaned away from the swing, caught hold of her arm and turned her away from him. Before she knew what was happening, he’d planted his big, muddy, steel-toe boot against her backside and shoved.

It wasn’t a hard push, but in her current condition, Avalon lacked the wherewithal to slow herself and avoid the table where Pastor Ken Dodge sat with a woman she didn’t know. As she flipped, ass over tea kettle atop the table, taking drinks and pretzels with her, she thought it was strange for the pastor to be out at a bar with a woman, but then, he wasn’t a priest and even Jesus imbibed.

Then she hit the floor.

Hard.

The room fell silent as Avalon stared up at the ceiling. Bright track lights blazed in her eyes, their glow magnified by the effects of Oxycontin withdrawal. Her eyes filled with tears, partly in response to the light-induced sting, partly because of the deep welling despair gripping her body—not because she’d become a shell of a person dependent on a drug to feel normal, but because she knew she wouldn’t be getting any tonight, and come morning she’d have to once again face the real world and all its real problems.

A bell above the door chimed, announcing the arrival of another bar patron. Heavy boots clomped across the wide wooden planks of the bar’s floor, vibrating in the back of Avalon’s head.

A figure leaned into view above her, obscured by the blur of her tears. Avalon squeezed her eyes shut, pushing the tears out onto her cheeks.

“Well, as I live and breathe,” the woman above her said. “Avalon Butler. That explains the California plates.”

Avalon looked up with cleared vision. “Mrs. Rule?”

“Been a while since you’ve been home for a visit,” Rule said and then tapped the badge on her chest. “It’s Sheriff Rule, now.”

Avalon giggled. “You follow all the rules...Rule?” She winced as a sharp pain lanced through her head and sucked away her laughter.

“You trying to ask me something?” Rule asked, and then turned to the bar. “She been drinking?”

Walter shook his head, no. “Not here, at least. Came in like this. ‘Bout five minutes ago.”

Avalon slowly writhed on the floor for a moment, lost somewhere between withdrawal, a lump on the head and confusion from seeing her childhood babysitter dressed in the tan uniform of a sheriff. “Mrs. Rule...”

The sheriff leaned closer.

“You have any Oxycontin?”

4

Joshua Wilson nearly threw up. He managed to hold it down primarily because he knew it was perhaps the worst response he could have to a first kiss. But his nerves were a mess and were playing havoc with his body. He was clammy and cold and sweating profusely. He’d doused himself with copious amounts of his father’s Old Spice before heading out, but he wasn’t sure if the cologne could completely mask his growing nervous odor. Rivulets of cold perspiration tickled his sides. He stepped back, rubbing his T-shirt against his skin.

“Did I do something wrong?” Lisa Howard asked.

She was picture perfect, with a tight yellow T-shirt, blonde hair and twin ponytails. The sight of her, hands wrapped around the chains of the swing upon which she sat, froze Joshua in place. He’d known her for all fifteen years of his life. They were next-door neighbors, after all. But despite the long years of friendship, she had always had this effect on him. Until just a moment ago, when she returned his kiss, he had no idea she felt similarly.

“N—no,” he finally said, and decided to not have a sitcom relationship. “I’m sweating like a pig at the beach.”

Lisa smiled and then laughed. “I’ve seen you with snot all over your face. I think I can handle a little sweat.”

In first grade, during a circle-time reading, he had sneezed a volcano of mucus into his hands that splashed back onto his face. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of his life. “You remember that, huh?”

“Radar,” she said, using the nickname bestowed upon him by his cousins and picked up by the rest of the town, “it’s a sight I will take to my grave. But you don’t need to be nervous. I’m still just me.”

“You always make me nervous.”

“We live next door to each other, we’re in the same class, we walk to and from school together every day, play on the same soccer team on Saturdays and go to the same church on Sundays.”

He nodded. “I’ve been nervous since the day you were born.”

She hopped off the swing, stepped up close and ran her fingers through his curly red hair. They stood nearly eye to eye, him being just an inch taller. “You don’t have to be nervous anymore.”

He could feel the warmth of her breath and smell the gum she’d been chewing. “I think you’ll make me feel this way until the day I die.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You have long-term plans already?”

He cleared his throat, smiled and said, “Since the day you were born.”

“Such a romantic,” she said, and kissed him for the second time. As they lingered, frozen in the moment, Radar’s wristwatch began beeping. He ignored it for a full thirty seconds before Lisa leaned away. “You have somewhere to be?”

“Huh?” His mind slowly became aware of the shrill beeping. He looked at his watch and then remembered. “Oh! C’mon!”

He took her by the hand, leading her through the park. To their backs was the swing set and the elaborate wooden jungle gym where they used to play as kids. Beyond that was the baseball field. Straight ahead was green grass, tall trees and a gazebo where a band would play during the town barbeque tomorrow afternoon, surrounded by gaudy red, white and blue decorations, which were already hanging all around town along with a surplus of American flags. But tonight, with the fireworks drawing everyone to Ashland, the park and most of the town was empty, including the First Baptist Church on the other side of Main Street.

The church building gleamed bright white on sunny days, its steeple reaching up to the sky like the tower of Babel. That was probably an exaggeration, but it was the tallest building in town, which was precisely why Radar had stolen his father’s key. Even now, in the dark of early night, the building glowed, lit by street lights and the light of the waning half moon, still low on the horizon.

“What are we doing?” Lisa asked as Radar led her across the street, hand-in-hand.

He dug the stolen keys from his pocket and shook them. “Best view in town. It’s all ours.”

“I don’t know...”

“It’s not like we’re stealing anything. And I have keys. We’re not even breaking in. We’ll be in and out before anyone even makes it back to town.”

They paused by the church’s front door. Radar wasn’t going to do this without her support, because, if he was honest, entering the church without permission terrified him. It wasn’t that he felt uncomfortable in the building. He’d attended church, Sunday School, Youth Group and Vacation Bible School in this building all his life. He was as comfortable here as he was most everywhere in their small town. But he knew that if they were caught, his father would likely fashion a switch and have at him till the tears he shed in church were more from sitting than from a supernatural encounter.

“Okay,” she said, and he immediately began working the key into the lock. “But we’re not having sex in the church.”

The keys virtually exploded from his hands and fell on the ground. He crouched to pick them up and cracked his head on the doorknob. Wincing in pain, he snatched up the keys and stood quickly, trying to look composed.

Lisa laughed gently, hands over her mouth, eyes watering.

“I—I wasn’t...that’s not what I was thinking...” In truth, he thought about sex roughly three times every ten minutes and at least thirty times since their last kiss, which included fantasies in nearly every room of the church building, thoughts that caused him to quickly ask for forgiveness before starting the daydream over once again. But he’d never planned on following through. That wasn’t what made him stumble. It was that her words didn’t forbid the possibility of sex, just not sex in the church.

With profusely sweating hands, he unlocked the door and turned the handle. It creaked open, and they crept inside, into the darkened house of God. It was far darker inside than out, but Radar knew his way around. The church interior, which was far cleaner than the hearts of anyone who attended the services, provided no obstacles. They quickly entered the stuffy and dusty-smelling steeple and followed the stairs around and up, careful not to hit the church bell rope and alert anyone left in town to their presence.

Upon reaching the top, standing beside the large bell that summoned believers and heathens to church every Sunday morning, Radar took hold of the slats and tugged. The three foot tall rectangle of ventilation slats popped free and swung open, revealing an unhindered view to the south.

“How did you know that opened?” she asked.

“Remember that Sunday when there was no juice for communion?”

“That was like four years ago, right?”

He nodded. “Well there was no juice because I drank it all. My dad figured it out when I threw it up. Turns out a half gallon of juice is a little too much. Pastor Dodge brought me up here afterwards. It was an inspiring lecture about honesty and integrity, but all I could think of as I looked out this window, is how much I wanted to show you the view.”

The distant pop of a firework pulled their attention south. Bright red sparkles of light drifted toward the ground. The fireworks display would lack the power of one seen up close, but there wasn’t any other place on Earth Radar would rather be at that moment. He wrapped his arm around Lisa, and she snuggled in close.

A thought popped into his head, and he chuckled.

“What?” Lisa asked.

“Shadow Liar.”

Lisa turned her head toward him, eyebrows raising.

“It’s an anagram of your name.”

“You just think of that now?”

“And ninety-seven others, but that’s the coolest.” He knew he didn’t need to explain. She’d played Scrabble with him enough times to know that he had a savant-like gift with words and codes. It was one of the many secrets they shared. Not even the teachers at school knew about it, mostly because he feared they’d give him too much attention, putting him in the crosshairs of less gifted bullies, including his father. “Would make a good online avatar name, but if you don’t like it, we could always go with ‘hairdo slaw.’”

She gave his chest a slap and turned back to the fireworks display, leaning into him. Radar squeezed her arm, feeling at home in Refuge for the first time.

Neither of them noticed the bell behind them, swaying slowly back and forth.