Refuge Book 1 - Night of the Blood Sky (5 page)

7

When Deputy Frost met Griffin and Avalon in front of Soucey’s Market, she quickly read and translated the serious look in Griffin’s eyes as:
Do not speak
. She simply said, “Follow me,” and led them to the police station, a block past Memorial Park. It was hard to not ask about Avalon’s delirious state or the now constantly ringing church bell, but she managed to stay silent for the two-minute walk. Inside the small station, she led them past the processing desk, where she would normally book people brought in for a crime, which wasn’t very often. As she understood it, Lony wasn’t in trouble, she just needed to work off a bender...
or something worse, by the looks of her
.

Without a word spoken, she opened one of the two cells in the station’s back room. It was a small space with a cot, not designed for more than a single night’s stay. Frost unlocked the handcuffs and closed the cell door, locking Avalon inside.

Avalon all but collapsed on the cot. She opened her eyes, looked around the small space and groaned. “No toilet?”

“If you have to go, give a shout,” Frost said.

“You just want to see me with my pants down,” Avalon said, her speech slurred for a moment. “Always thought you were a lesbian.”

Frost glanced at Griffin, who just shook his head.
Don’t respond
.

“I’ll get you an extra pillow and a bucket,” Frost said, which garnered a nearly inaudible ‘Thanks.’

Frost returned to the front of the station with Griffin. She could see he wanted to talk, but she wanted to get that bucket before she forgot. “One sec,” she said, entering the bathroom where the storage closet was located. She paused in front of the mirror and noticed the quick jaunt into the early July humidity had made her ponytailed, smooth black hair into something resembling an explosion of wool. She wet her hands and attempted to smooth out her hair. When it didn’t cooperate, she frowned and said, “Damnit.”

Then she squinted at herself. What was she doing? She wasn’t the type of woman to wear makeup or push-up bras or jewelry. For one thing, she ran every day, and her body was pretty much everywhere it was supposed to be for a thirty-three year old woman. And unlike the sheriff’s hip-hugging uniform, hers was loose-fitting and did nothing to accentuate her femininity. So why was she worried about a few errant hairs?

Because Griff likes smooth hair
, she thought,
always has.
Like Julie Barnes’s. Real-estate slut
. But Griffin was off limits. She’d been close friends with Jess, his wife, before she’d died. Didn’t seem right to show an interest in her husband, now that she was gone. Of course, if Frost was honest, she’d been interested in Griffin when Jess was alive, too. “Get a fucking grip,” she growled at herself and headed for the door.

She exited the bathroom to find Griffin staring at her quizzically.

“What?”

“No bucket?”

“Shit,” she whispered, reentered the bathroom, found the bucket and returned to the office without meeting his eyes. When she entered the back room, Avalon was passed out on the cot, a puddle of vomit already on the floor. “Double shit.”

With a shake of her head, she unlocked and entered the cell, propping Avalon’s head up on a second pillow, covering her with a blanket and placing the pail next to her head. The puke could wait, Frost decided, and she turned toward the door. Griffin stood there, watching.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Just doing my job,” she replied, but his grin revealed he knew she was lying. Jail cells weren’t meant to be comfortable.

Back in the front office, she could hear the church bell running non-stop now, and she really wanted to be out there. She hated office duty. But she also understood why she needed to be here. Punching a seventeen year old kid was never a good idea. Still, the little douchebag deserved it.

Despite the ringing bell being the perfect segue out of the uncomfortable silence between them, she instead went with, “Any new paintings?”

Griffin was a surrealist painter who created huge images—oil on canvas—that Pastor Dodge had once called ‘monstrosities’ from the pulpit. As one of the few non-church goers in town, Griffin found himself on the receiving end of more than a few accusations of occult interests and devil worship, if not by Dodge himself, then by some of the older folks in town, a few of whom might personally remember the days when witches were burned at the stake.

“Finished one yesterday,” he replied. “Good thing, too. I don’t think I’ll be getting much done for a while.” He glanced toward the back room.

“She okay?”

Griffin leaned back, hands atop Deputy Sweeney’s desk. “Showed up last night. Asked me to help her detox. Apparently she’s...” He paused, eyes on the floor. “She’s addicted to Oxycontin. And I got a little more than I bargained for. I think she was probably still a little high when she asked for help, but once the craving set in...” He shook his head and sighed. “I’ve seen some pretty unstoppable people in my time, but she...she was feral. Lucky Becky found her when she did.”

Frost knew that Griffin was one of the few people in town who could get away with calling the sheriff by name while the woman was on duty, so she didn’t mention it. In fact, she didn’t say anything at all, which made her feel like an idiot, but she really just wanted to hug the man. It was probably the right thing for a friend to do, but her feelings got in the way.

Luckily, the ringing bell became so feverish and loud it was no longer possible to ignore.

“What the hell could ring that bell so fast?” Griffin said, standing from the desk.

They headed toward the front door together. Frost could feel the hot and humid air working hard to curl her hair again, but she managed to ignore it. Outside, the bell was so loud it hurt her ears. She turned toward the church and saw Pastor Dodge, Radar and Lisa Howard standing in front of the church, alongside a few others who had gathered to behold the spectacle. But most were backing away with their hands over their ears. The sheriff was nowhere in sight, which meant she’d probably gone inside.

Of course she’s inside
, Frost thought with a pang of jealousy. Of all the nights for the town to get restless, it had to be the one she was on office duty.

“Want to go check it out?” Griffin asked.

She nearly replied in the affirmative, but caught herself. With Avalon in the cell, there was no way she could leave.

Griffin seemed to understand her hesitation and added, “Ava’s not going anywhere.”

Frost sucked in a quick breath. Only Jess had called Avalon by that nickname. Griffin usually used her full name, unlike everyone else in town, who called her ‘Lony.’ The use of the nickname reinforced the idea for her that Griffin was off limits. “Can’t.”

But then, the bell stopped ringing, and despite her determination to shirk her feelings for Griffin, she was secretly pleased, because it meant he might not leave. When his hand wrapped around her arm and he spoke her name, “Helena,” with a calm sense of wonder, she became gripped by worry that he was going to break her rule for her. When she turned to look in his eyes, he wasn’t looking at her, he was looking up.

She followed his gaze and found the sky above was moving and flexing like a great big red blanket, lit from the back side, as if it was being shaken over Refuge. She could hear the people by the church shouting now, but paid them no attention. “What is it?”

“Nothing good,” Griffin said.

Despite the beauty of the sight, Griffin’s confident declaration concerned her greatly. It wasn’t the words exactly, but the fear behind them. Griffin Butler didn’t scare easily.

He dug into his pocket, pulled out a cell phone and quickly dialed. The phone rested against his ear for just a moment. When he yanked it away, even she could hear the high pitched squeal emanating from the speaker. She quickly tried her phone and got the same result. She tried the radio next, intending to check in with Rule, but it shrieked at her too.

For a moment, she locked eyes with Griffin, and then they ran inside the station, each trying a different landline phone. “Dead,” she declared.

“Same,” he said moving to a computer. He clicked the mouse three times. “No internet. Do you have a satellite phone?”

“Why would a small-town police station have a satellite phone?”

“Right,” he said, heading for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I have one.”

“Of course you do.” She nearly said she was coming, but she remembered her job. She couldn’t leave Lony here, even if the sky was falling. She could, however, double-check whether the sky was, in fact, falling. She stepped outside with Griffin and looked up.

The sky warbled with rolls of red, like the night itself was bleeding.

A tightness gripped her chest. She reached out instinctively, grasping Griffin’s arm. She knew others might see her fear as a sign of weakness, but if she could share her inner frailty with anyone in town, it was Griffin.

“Something’s very wrong,” she said.

He checked his phone again. It no longer shrieked at them, but there was still no signal. “There’s a
lot
wrong tonight.”

“I don’t hear anything,” she said and then specified, “We should still hear the fireworks.”

“They probably stopped them when...” He pointed to the sky, “...you know.”

Maybe,
she thought, but the fireworks in Ashland had become a pretty big deal because they were one of the few towns in the region to have a big fireworks display. She was pretty sure the whole show was run by a computer that wouldn’t stop because of some lights in the skies, and it was possible that the crowds might think it was part of the show. Lasers or something.

But there was something else nagging at her, something different that she couldn’t quite put a finger on, until she did. She turned her head toward the black and red sky. The full moon at its core warbled in and out of view. “Griff,” she said, tugging on his shirt. “The moon. When we entered the station, it was still on the horizon.”

He craned his head back, looking up. His shoulders dropped the way a man’s does when he’s been defeated by life. He whispered a curse and turned to Frost. “It wasn’t full, either.”

8

Rebecca Rule stood dumbfounded, staring up at the sky above the church like she’d seen the good Lord himself perched atop the steeple. The red sky would have been strange on its own, but the way it coincided with the ringing bell and the wavering air suggested all three phenomena were part of the same strange event.

She didn’t want to fuel Dodge’s belief that the Devil was involved, but she couldn’t deny the event smacked of the supernatural. What else could turn the night sky blood red and send a church bell into a fevered spasm?

“Sheriff,” Cash said quietly, as though speaking any louder would bring about the apocalypse. “Laurie’s working at the diner tonight.”

His body language was apologetic, but urgent. She could tell he was going to leave no matter what, but he was being polite about it. “Go.”

“If you need me,” he said, taking a step back.

She nodded. “You’ll be at the diner or your place.”

“Or Laurie’s,” he added. “You know how she gets.”

Rule knew very well. At least thirty percent of their calls came from Laurie Whittemore, Cash’s younger sister. A stiff breeze could send the girl into a panic. She’d only ever had one serious man in her life, Henry Something from Concord, but he only lasted six months on account of how frequently she woke him up at night, claiming someone was in the house. Rule had gotten to know Henry pretty well during those months. Saw him a few days a week, and then not at all.
Poor Laurie
, Rule thought.
Being
a
nice gal just isn’t enough when you have the emotional constitution of an abused chinchilla.

“Anyone you see on the way or at the diner,” Rule said, “You tell ’em to go home. Nothing bad is happening. We’re taking care of it.”

Cash glanced up at the now silent church steeple, his eyes communicating that he knew better, that none of them really knew what was happening.

“You don’t have to believe it,” she added. “Just tell ’em.”

“Will do, Sheriff,” Cash said, and began jogging to his pickup truck.

“Sheriff,” Walter said. He had the same look on his face as Cash, but he didn’t have a sister in town. Or a wife. Or kids. The Brick House was his family, and right now, it was unattended.

“Go ahead,” she said, and waved him away.

“My phone’s not working,” someone said, taking Rule’s attention away from Walter. She dug into her too-tight pocket, pulled out her phone and switched it on. The screen worked fine, but her usual three-bar status showed a circle with a line through it.

No signal.

She tried her radio next. There was a brief, high-pitched squeal and then silence. “Frost, this is Rule. Can you hear me?”

“Oh my God,” came Frost’s reply. “Do you see this?”

“Where are you?” Rule asked.

“Station steps.”

Rule turned toward the station. She could see Frost and Griffin standing on the front steps. Frost gave an urgent wave, while Griffin kept his eyes on the shifting sky. She toggled the radio. “Listen, our job isn’t to figure out what happened; it’s to keep people safe.” She glanced at Dodge. “People are going to take this all sorts of ways, and we need to make sure no one causes any trouble. Understood?”

“Copy that,” Frost said, her voice calm and back to business. She was a good officer, and Rule secretly hoped Frost could one day reign in that temper of hers and become the next Sheriff. Ultimately, it was up to the people of Refuge, so she’d have to stop punching people sooner or later. Preferably sooner than later.

Cash’s truck roared to life across the street. He pulled out into the road and performed a wide U-turn. He gave a wave as he passed and then sped off down Main Street, headed north. She waited for the sound of his engine to fade before speaking.

“Griffin, can you hear me?” Rule asked, and she knew he could because he looked down when she said his name. “If you’re not planning on going anywhere, could you man the phones tonight, so Frost can help me around town?”

A breeze washed over her, carrying a foreign odor she couldn’t identify, but the air was dry and tickled her throat. Her first thought was that there was a fire, but she couldn’t smell smoke. It was almost like...salt.

“Becky.” It was Griffin’s voice on the radio. She turned to the station and saw him looking at her. “The phones are out. Even the land lines. We’re completely cut off.”

Rule nearly asked why they still had power, but remembered that the town was self-sufficient.

“But...” Griffin continued, sounding grave. “I’m not sure...” The radio went silent, and she saw him lower his radio for a moment before bringing it back to his mouth. “We should speak in person.”

She was about to ask why when Dodge appeared at her side, eyes wide. “What’s wrong? What doesn’t he want us to know?”

She shook her head as casually as possible and forced a smile. “It’s nothing, Pastor. Phones are out is all. Nothing to worry about, and it’s
not
the Devil.”

“You can’t know that,” he said.

“Can and do,” she replied. “And if I hear about you spreading that kind of nonsense around town, I’ll lock you up.”

Dodge reacted like he’d been slapped. “
Nonsense
?
Lock me up
? For what?”

“Incitin’ a panic.”

The man nearly argued, but had the good sense to close his trap.

As the few remnants of Refuge’s population began to emerge from nearby homes, looking up at the sky, a small crowd began to form in front of the church. Rule would have to address them soon, before the rumor mill began to churn out end-of-the-world scenarios and the pastor found his voice again. Before that could happen though, she needed to get organized, and if Griffin had answers, she’d need those too.

She turned to Radar and Lisa as she started toward the station. “You two head home. I’ll keep this from your parents for now, but we’re going to have to work out something with Pastor Dodge.”

Radar nodded rapidly, looking supremely relieved. Although the town might be worried about nuclear war or Satan’s imminent appearance, Radar was more worried about his father. And she knew Dodge would agree to keep things silent. Radar’s father was one devil they could all agree on.

The kids ran into the quasi-darkness, eerily lit by the glowing red sky and the partially concealed full moon. They headed to their homes two blocks away, at the base of Black Job Hill. Rule stomped toward the station. Her feet ached from all the walking, but she barely noticed. Something else nagged at her, tugging at the back of her mind. Something...

She stopped in the middle of Main Street, looking in both directions. There wasn’t a car in sight, and the center of town was well lit by a series of street lights staggered on either side of the street, each holding an American flag. One by one, she saw the flags at the far end of town snap toward her.

A wind is coming
, she realized, and she squinted her eyes. The flags next to her snapped hard when the wind hit. Rule’s hat was torn from her head. But the removal of her hat went unnoticed. The sting of whipping grit across her cheeks held her full attention. She raised her arms over her face and waited out the gust.

The wind died down. The flags hung limp. Rule lowered her arms and played her tongue around her mouth.
What the hell?
she thought, isolating a small, hard grain in her mouth and spitting it into her hand.

Sand.

A thin film of it covered the road. She leaned forward and shook her hands through her hair, messing it up more than she would have preferred, but the grit against her skull was already starting to annoy her. The sand fell like thick dandruff, bouncing on the macadam around her feet.

She heard the scuff of feet behind her. She turned to find Griffin bending to pick up her sheriff’s hat. He dusted it off and handed it back to her.

“There’s a sand pile in Ashland for when the roads get icy,” she said, answering the question she thought he was going to ask. “But I don’t see how a wind could carry it all the way here. They keep it covered most of the year. Though that would explain the smell in the air.”

Griffin looked confused, but sniffed the air and said, “Salt.”

“It’s got to be from Ashland,” she said, trying to convince herself, but not really believing it.

“Becky,” he said. “I think the sand might be the least of our worries.”

This got her attention. “What do you mean?”

The sound of screeching tires filled the air. A car, headlights out, tore around a side street corner and barreled toward them.

“Look out!” both Rule and Griffin shouted in unison and moved to tackle each other out of the way, but the driver saw them and hit the brakes. Tires squealed over the pavement, and the sporty SUV swung to the side, stopping ten feet away.

Without missing a beat, the driver’s side door popped open and a half-dressed Winslow Herman sprang barefoot onto the road, while Carol Herman, still in the passenger’s seat, put the vehicle in park and turned on the hazards.

“Winslow,” Rule chided, “What in the name of God’s green—”

“The stars!” he shouted, wide-eyed. “The stars!”

Rule looked up at the sky. Aside from the red glow occasionally concealing them, the stars, in her opinion, were right where they should be—above her head. But then she noticed something that
was
wrong. “The moon...”

“That’s what I was going to tell you,” Griffin said. “The moon shouldn’t be full, and it shouldn’t be overhead.”

“That’s not all,” Winslow said, his voice shaking with either excitement or panic. “The stars...they’re all wrong. They’re not
our
stars. And neither is the moon.”

Rule nearly argued, but quickly saw that he was right. She’d looked at the moon a lot as a kid. Her father had been obsessed with the lunar landings. And she’d even looked at the moon through Winslow’s telescope a few times. The pattern of shadows and craters had become familiar to her. But not anymore. The sphere above her head was a stranger. The craters weren’t where they were supposed to be.

She wanted to ask ‘What does it mean?’ but that was the obvious next question, and Winslow answered it with his usual informed tone, as though explaining a scientific law. “We’re no longer on Earth.”