Dark

Dark

  Book Two of the Campground Series

  A Novel by JD Jones

  Copyright 2013 by JD Jones

  License Notes:

  All characters, events and places in this novel are fictitious. This is purely a work of fiction, and as such, any resemblance to actual living persons or real places is unintentional.

  Chapter One

  Barbara Self was in pain. She tried to hide it but it was getting worse. She was not good with pain. She didn't like it at all. Not even a little pain. This pain had steadily grown worse through the weekend. She believed it was a punishment from God for her wild, promiscuous Friday night. She tried to convince herself she was being silly. God did not work like that. He did not chastise people with horrible pain to make them behave or simply because they had already misbehaved. But the pain was hard to overlook. And it had begun the morning after her tryst with that handsome guy, Joe. At least she thought he might be handsome. Truth was, she could barely remember the night. From the moment she had met him, it seemed as though everything went into slow motion, like a dream.

  She remembered seeing the man across the room on a bar stool. Not her normal place for meeting men. But he had looked forlorn and inviting and needy and exciting all at the same time. He had triggered something in her that drew her outside of herself. She felt different around him. She felt like he looked at her as though she was exciting. At least she thought she remembered it that way. She hadn't got his number. She could not remember if she had given him hers. All she knew was his name was Joe. And that they had had a wild time in her bedroom.

  She sat in the straight backed chair of the doctor's office and wished time would move ahead faster. She did not waste her time wishing for the doctor to hurry and get to her. That would be asking too much. Easier to move a planet than a doctor's schedule.

  Every once in a while the pain doubled her over in her chair. The nurse behind the counter took note of Barbara's pain and monitored it for severity. She considered letting the doctor know they had an emergency in the waiting room. But that would make more paperwork for her. The doctor would certainly tell her to call an ambulance and then she would be on the phone with the hospital for the next half hour arranging things for the admission of the young woman now barely bearing up under the pain that was attacking her body. She decided to wait.

  Two streets over, Iris Cunningham listened as the doctor explained that she was pregnant. How that could be, she had no idea. She was on the pill. She was careful about the men she was with. They used protection, too. And the doctor had said the baby was how old?

  “How far along?”

  “Six months.” the doctor replied.

  “That's impossible.”

  “Well, there is a small margin of error in the calculations, but not more than a week at this stage.”

  “Impossible,” Iris repeated. “I have not been with a guy since a week ago and before that it has been almost a year.”

  And that week ago had been a one night stand with some guy named Joe. She didn't expect she would ever see him again. It wasn't that good. Although, she had to admit that something had attracted her to him so strongly that she could not let the night pass without trying him out. She remembered having to know. It was like she saw him and developed an addiction. She had to have him. Like he was some kind of chocolate. So, she had taken him home and unwrapped him and devoured him.

  “I only know what the test shows us.” The doctor stated.

  “How can that be?”

  Iris was concerned because she just suddenly started showing. Monday night nothing, the next morning a definite baby bump that she tried to ignore. By Tuesday afternoon she was feeling the pinch of her pants against her belly. Wednesday morning, she had to call in sick because none of her clothes fit except her sweats, which she could not wear to work. She took antacids, and vitamins and everything else in her medicine cabinet. She knew something was out of balance with her body. Thursday morning she had woke up and thrown up. Her belly was greatly expanded and that's when she made the doctor's appointment.

  “Listen, Iris,” Doctor Schwartz looked down at her patient. “I don't believe in miraculous conception, so I'm going to have to believe that you must have had sex somewhere in the past six months. This baby is definitely entering the third trimester.”

  “I know where I've been, Doc.” Iris was adamant. “Eleven months ago, I broke off a long engagement with the only man I had sex with since high school. It was bad. I did not have sex again until last Friday night. I met a guy who swept me off my feet and romanced me out of my pants. Before that, nothing.”

  “You sound like you believe it, but that does not change the fact that you have a six month old baby inside you.”

  “This is impossible,” was all Iris could think to say.

  The doctor could only shrug.

  Helen Norris waited on the gurney. She was scared but Gary had demanded she do this. He was already mad enough that she sometimes slept with other guys without asking for money. Hell, he had always liked it before they got married. And when he had started renting her out to other guys he had even allowed her some free time to herself. He knew she was a sex maniac. She couldn't help it. She loved sex. At no time did she ever feel so good about herself than when a guy was on top of her, grunting and really getting into it. She always knew that guys appreciated her for what she could do for them. She could do for guys what every guy wants. She loved knowing that.

  Maybe she was a freak. She didn't care. She didn't mind most of the guys Gary farmed her out to either. Hell, she thought most guys were sexy. What bothered her was how he thought he owned her and could say who she could and couldn't screw. It was her body. She could do what she wanted with it. Like that Friday night a couple weeks back.

  She had seen Joe in the bar before. She had always ignored him before because he acted like he was afraid to be alive. He just sat and drank. He never really lived it up. He hardly ever laughed. But that night he was laughing and living it up large. She had been immediately attracted to him and knew a few seconds later that she wanted to sleep with him. She never brought up the subject of paying even once. Gary could go screw himself. She wanted Joe for herself that night. It had been good, too. Not fireworks and rainbow good, but at least big city lights and carnival good. That was how she rated her partners, by the experience. Levels of light. That night Joe had put away his darkness and brought a little light into her life. She would always remember that.

  That was two weeks ago. Things were a little tense with Gary after that night and then a couple days later she started showing and was obviously pregnant. Gary got mad about her personal philandering. After his screaming fit, he demanded she have the abortion and commit to only the guys he brought around. Then they had found out she was six months pregnant and no doctor would perform an abortion of a six month old fetus. So, Gary had found a doctor who would. He said she needed to get back to work for him. He could not have her lying around doing nothing. Besides, he was not taking care of some other guy's baby.

  As she lay there on the gurney, waiting for the doctor to come in, Helen tried to hold back the tears. She had always wanted to have a baby. Gary didn't want kids. They had argued about it once. He got so mad, he threw the television out the window. She never brought the subject up again. She had always viewed her life as failure. Now she was going to kill the one good thing she had done with her life. She had no idea who the father was. There was no way to tell. But half the kid was hers. That was the thing that gripped her heart. Her child. Growing inside her. Living inside her.

  She didn't want to kill it. She had just discovered she was pregnant a couple weeks ago. Part of her wished she had known about it the whole time. Six months. Wow! She thought she could have at least treasured that time be
fore Gary made her abort it.

  Suddenly she heard a loud commotion in the other room where Gary and the doctor and his nurse had gone out to confer. She figured Gary was paying the man up front. This was not exactly a legitimate doctor's office. That was obvious from the warehouse décor all around her. More like a storage shed than an office.

  The noise grew louder and she could definitely hear crashing and screaming and groaning and yelling. Gary must be arguing with the doctor. He was a very violent man. She had learned that the hard way. The only reason she stayed with him was because he let her satisfy the urge to sleep with almost any man she saw and still stayed married to her. That pleased her mother. Her mother held marriage as sacred. That and the fact he had told her he'd kill her if she ever left him.

  Several minutes dragged on and the screaming finally quit. She expected the doctor and his nurse to come in after the arrangements were completed. No one came. It was very quiet. Thirty minutes passed and Helen wondered what was happening. She was getting more nervous about this with every tick of the clock.

  Finally she got off the gurney, pulling her gown closed behind her to ward off the cool air more than any attempt at modesty. She liked when men looked at her. Being wanted was her dream. Fulfilling a man's desire was her passion. Being modest was something those women with no sex life could afford. The rest of womanhood needed to show it off and attract more men. How else could they get their own needs met?

  She opened the door to the outer room slowly in case the men were discussing things in a more quiet tone. She did not want to anger Gary for intruding. What met her eyes as the door swung open stopped her in her tracks. Blood. Everywhere she looked there was blood. The walls. The ceiling. The floor was like a big puddle of the sticky, smelly red fluid. And there was no way to identify the bodies. There were just pieces of torn flesh flung in every direction like a lawn mower had run over a cat. Or maybe a cow.

  Helen started to scream. At least she thought she was. All that came out of her mouth was a small chirp. Then she felt her head spin and knew she was going to faint. She had never fainted before but she knew that was what was happening. As she fell to the floor, she felt someone catch her and gently lay her down. Darkness was closing in and taking her sight as well as her reason. But before she gave in to the unconsciousness of her shock, she could have sworn that she saw a very hairy man or a balding ape. And he had to be seven or more feet tall, too. Then all went dark.

  Three weeks before, across town in another doctor's office, Carol Bennings had heard similar news from her doctor. A thin, wispy woman, her baby bump was exaggerated against her small frame. It had been four weeks since she had grown concerned about the added weight she was gaining. By the time her appointment had arrived, she was definitely showing all the signs of a pregnancy. Her discussion with the doctor then centered around the paternity testing she was doing for the time period in question. There were two candidates. Both men lived in her apartment building. She had divided her time between them that month. Not at the same time. One began the month as her partner. The other finished the month. She had her standards, after all. She would never allow a man she dated to sleep with other women. She would never do that to them either.

  “What do you mean that neither of them is the father?” Carol asked for the third time.

  “Neither of the men in question matched the DNA of your baby. There must be a third possibility.”

  “No way!” Carol was concerned. “Are you sure we have the time period down, right?”

  “Within a week or two, I'd say.”

  “Which way?”

  “Earlier, maybe.”

  “Can't be that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was in a kind of dry spell before that for almost three months. And it's the same guy after that up until a month ago.”

  “No one else? No...uh...one nighters?”

  “Listen doc. It's been the same guy until a month ago and then only one since then and that was almost exactly four weeks ago.”

  Even that was just a guy she met at work named Joe. She had seen him around before but four weeks ago he had come into the office on a Saturday afternoon to do some work on a bathroom lock and she could think of nothing else all day until she got him home. He had seemed surprised that she paid him any attention at all since they traveled in different circles. But that night they had traveled in the same circle very closely all night long.

  It had been a fling, a random moment of passion and unwise thinking. Her rule was to never date guys from work, but she just had to break it that one time for Joe. She would never do it again. No future in Joe. But it was fun for the one night. But that was it. But even that was not far enough back to account for a pregnancy in its seventh month.

  “I do not know what to tell you. If you think of anyone else to test, we'll be glad to run it for you, but neither of the ones submitted to date are the father of your child.”

  “I just don't know, Doctor.”

  “One thing you can think about is this. The guy probably is exotic. His DNA is nothing like normal American or European markers. It's very different. If you'd like we could have an expert look at the markers and maybe give you a better idea of who to look at.”

  “No use, Doctor.” Carol was crestfallen. “There is no one else. I'm pretty careful about who I sleep with. Things being what they are. I have no idea who else this baby could belong to unless someone slipped into my house without being noticed and impregnated me in my sleep.”

  “Not likely, huh?” The doctor offered.

  “Not likely, Doctor.”

  John Allen Corwin sat on the wooden deck of his camper at the back, northwest corner of the campground he and his wife owned and managed. The air was still warm, especially for late November. But no one was complaining. Cooler weather would come soon enough.

  The light breeze tousled his short, brown hair slightly as he bent his head to the book he was reading. His brown eyes scanned the pages but he was not really reading any more. His mind kept drifting to elsewhere. Elsewhere being his campground business and the end of a great season. Deep satisfaction was his primary emotion at the moment.

  He had set up the campground last winter and opened it up with the help of the community in time for the tourist season beginning in May. From the first week it had taken off and supported itself. He was proud that he had not had to dip into his cash reserves even once all summer long. The campground had supported itself from day one with the help of some locals steering campers his way.

  A new business. A new community. A new wife. A whole new life was how he saw what had become of his existence. If there were unhappy people in the world, John was not one of them. He had never expected to have so much so young in life. Just out of college with a business degree, he had inherited some money, built a campground in a new community, saved his future wife from a demented, ghostly killer, married her and was now enjoying what they had built together.

  He picked up the coffee cup at his left hand. The hot liquid felt good against the cool breeze drifting in off the ocean only a few miles to the south. A few birds were still around and singing in the trees. The squirrels were busy digging and hiding acorns everywhere. It had been a good season for the squirrels.

  “Still reading?”

  John's wife, Kathy, stepped out onto the deck. Her blond hair had grown longer over the summer. Longer than when John had first met her working behind the desk of the local police station. But the twinkle of quiet mischief in her deep, blue eyes was an ever present marvel to John. It was like she could think one thing and be doing another behind those eyes. He loved the sound of her voice as much as he enjoyed the shape of her body and the mannerisms of her youthful energy.

  The two had been drawn together almost immediately from the moment they met. More than a mere physical attraction, they had shared something of a mental connection, a way of believing in life and all the mysteries it holds. Somehow they recognized it in each other over
an inane meeting about John's problem with trespassers on his property. The meeting may be forgotten but the result of that meeting was the marriage they shared and the life they now lived out to its fullest every day together.

  If love was the deepest emotion a human being could experience then John and Kathy were exploring the deepest levels of that emotion in an attempt to explore uncharted territory. Though they had been drawn together from their first meeting, John's sacrificial rescue of her against a spiritual enemy of demonic evil cemented her feelings for him in an unbreakable manner. And it was that rescue that pushed John to discover just how far he was willing to go for the woman he loved. Nothing. Nothing in this world or any spiritual realm could keep him from being with her and making sure she was happy and safe.

  “Thinking more than reading,” John replied.

  “Like usual,” Kathy smiled and took the chair on the other side of the small table where his coffee rested. John just looked up at her and smiled.

  “With all the work mostly done for the season, there is not much else to do.”

  She laughed. Her musical tone and obvious happiness shined through her laughter. He fought off an incredible urge to reach out and pull her into his lap. With his love for her had come an unbearable desire for enjoying her body, too. He would never deny that. He might be a preacher's kid and someone labeled as a Christian in most sections of society but he was not a monk. Kathy and he enjoyed a rousing, exciting and very hot love life. It was so good that only his upbringing in the small churches where his father pastored kept him from shouting how great their sex life was to the world.

  “That's what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  John grimaced.

  “Don't be like that.” She slapped his knee playfully.

  “Okay. Okay.”

  John put his book on the small table beside his coffee cup. Kathy obviously had something on her mind. Besides the fact that if it was on her mind he wanted to know about it, she could be a considerable force to reckon with if he tried to ignore her. Not that he ever would. He found everything about her to be wonderful and amazing. He could not conceive of anything that she was involved in as being any less than fantastic just because she chose it. That's the way she made him feel about himself. But something about her let him know that if he ever did happen upon that one thing that might not be so great about her, it would be best for him to forget it and go back to rule number one. Everything about Kathy is fantastic.

  “I know when you went into the Mist something happened between you and Marcie, the little girl.” Kathy began. John had tried, as best he could, to help Kathy understand the events leading up to her rescue.

  “Don't let Marcie hear you call her a little girl.” John warned her. Every time he tried to remind the spirit from the Mist that she resembled a battered and beaten little girl, he was strongly rebuffed and reminded that she had been killed a hundred and thirty years ago. That made her older than his great grandmother would have been if she was alive.

  “Well, you know who I mean,” Kathy held her ground. The little girl's age was not her point. “I know something happened in the Mist between you two and I do not want to pry. I know you did whatever you did to save me and that is enough for me.”

  “Are you sure? Because this is, like, the fifth or sixth time you've brought it up.” John dreaded the day he had to reveal all that had happened in the Mist. He wanted it to stay as just him passing a test to gain entrance to the world created by the Keeper of the Cabin, who had kidnapped Kathy to play out some fiendish plan he had for her life ever since she was a little girl.

  “I know. I know.” Kathy hesitated. She was not sure how to go on. She knew what she wanted to say and what she wanted to ask, but she was unsure how it would come out or in what light John would see her questioning. She didn't want to seem jealous of a ghost, or even concerned about it. John had done what was necessary and that was good enough for her. What she wanted to know was to what extent they could use this contact with the Mist to investigate other killings and evil plots that originated in a realm other than the one they lived.

  “Let me put it like this,” Kathy began. John felt his insides cringe at the coming onslaught. Part of him wondered if it was evil to pray that she suddenly be struck mute.

  “I am interested in solving unsolved murders and kidnappings, especially of children.”

  John understood her interest in this since she had been a kidnap victim when she was a child. Still, he was not sure where she was going or what it had to do with his experience in the Mist. Kathy had talked about wanting to help parents and family members find closure for the cataclysmic events an untimely or violent death could unleash in a family's life. Her heart cried out for closure in her own case, which would never happen now. Not totally.

  She was forever burdened with the knowledge that her own father had not only been a serial killer of children but had also targeted her when she was a young girl and again just this last winter. On top of that her father had been dead for five years. So the killer who had abducted her and caused John to come to her rescue was a ghost or spirit or whatever, himself. John understood there were a lot of mixed emotions and tumultuous thoughts ranging around in Kathy's head. He did not pretend he had any idea of their depth or impact on her, though.

  John waited for her to go on.

  “I believe the Mist can help. The people of the Mist have knowledge of the crimes and access to the victims in a way normal police do not have. If we can talk to the victims, follow the real events and uncover the evidence in our world, we can solve the cases and give the families closure.”

  “And Marcie?” John asked.

  “Your relationship with Marcie is what will get us cooperation on the other side.”

  “How?”

  “I don't know. I know she likes you and likes being around you and wants to do things for you.”

  “To me, is more like it.” John muttered half to himself.

  Kathy smiled. She had reasoned out that what had happened between Marcie and John when he came to rescue her had been something sexual or embarrassing at the least. She could not remember much of her own escape through the Mist as a little girl but she remembered a very nice ghost man laying down with her and being very gentle with her as he helped her share her energies or something with him. She did not know or care about it back then and never considered it important since. She would like to have asked John to ask Marcie about it for her but decided not to push things.

  “I was just wondering if you would ask her about the possibility of us doing this,” Kathy stated.

  “I can ask,” John looked up. “But I have no idea how they feel about such things or what it would cost to get their help in something like this.”

  Truth was, he had a good idea that Marcie would do pretty much anything for sex allowing her to accept the fluids and energies it released for her. That was part of his reticence. His embarrassment from their first meeting, as much as his male pride, kept him from trying to further the relationship with Marcie. He could not get over the fact that a little girl, ghost or no ghost, had forced him to have sex with her in order to get past the maze that was keeping him from rescuing Kathy from her crazy father, the ghost of Air. He reminded himself that she was a one hundred and thirty year old little girl ghost that faded back and forth between her little girl persona and her beautiful, adult persona. Still when he thought about the incident, it was the visage of the little girl riding him like a full fledged woman while he lay on his back that disturbed him.

  “Could you at least ask?” Kathy gave him her best please-please-please look. He could not resist her. He would have dug a hole to China for her knowing it couldn't be done but believing he would be the first to do it if she asked.

  “Yes, I could ask.” John admitted.

  “Will you?”

  “Yes, I will.” He promised.