by A L Crouch
366
Guardian
Book One
By
A.L. Crouch
Dedicated to my warm and loving family; to my children who breathe inspiration into my life, to my mother who always gave me a soft place to land, and to my husband who makes me feel as though I can do anything. You all are my angels and my proof of heaven on earth.
Angel of God,
my guardian dear,
to whom God's love commits me here,
ever this day,
be at my side
to light and guard,
to rule and guide.
Chapter 1
Hope is a hard thing to kill. It clings to the desolate spirit of a person and remains vigilant when all else falls away. I never considered the possibility that at the age of ten my life would end. It was a child’s way of thinking, full of naive anticipation and expectancy. Even as our car plummeted towards the ground and came to a crunching halt below, I clung to the one thing that wouldn’t die. Hope.
I didn’t feel the pain at first, only the pressure that pinned me down and made it impossible to escape this new twisted reality. The pelting of the rain on the ground confused me, roused me into consciousness. The night was starless and black. I strained to see through the dust and smoke and shadow.
Something was on top of me, crushing me. When lightning flashed, I saw that the floor of the car was now above me, the vacant seat belts dangling to my right. The left side of the back seat had come apart from the frame and now had me trapped under its immense weight. I could barely move my head, my arms and legs pinned.
I screamed for my mom and struggled to look up to where the front seats should be. Among the twisted and mangled metal, I found what used to be the passenger seat. It looked now to be meshed with the enormous pine tree which had broken our fall. My throat tightened with panic as my eyes darted around the wreckage in search of movement.
My eyes burned with the white hot suddenness of the lightning which ripped a cry from my throat as the answering thunder growled to life. As it echoed off the tops of the blackened mountainside, I saw it. My mother’s bloodied arm lay across her seat. I followed the line of it to the outside of the car where I caught a glimpse of her blond hair, now soaked in crimson. I screamed to her. No movement.
“Gary!” I cried, straining to see the driver’s side of the car. “Gary, wake up. Please wake up. Mom needs help. Wake up!”
With the next flash, I saw that Gary’s seat was still intact, though now suspended above me in the front of the car. His arms dangled from his seat above. I screamed to him again, a hoarse cry, and winced at the pounding in my head. A slight movement from Gary’s hand gave me the motivation to scream louder, the hope to keep trying.
I stopped when I heard the footsteps. They sloshed against the sodden earth behind me as they approached the car. Relief washed over me as I struggled to take a deep breath.
“Help us please!” I cried to our rescuer. “My mom isn’t moving. She fell out of the car. I’m stuck, help us please . . .”
I listened as the footsteps approached the right side of the car where my mother lay motionless. It was hard to see out of the shattered window on that side. Another flash, a glimpse of denim. A hand, covered with a brown leather glove, stroked what I could see of my mother’s blood-stained hair. There was so much blood. My mind refused to register its significance.
“Please. Is she alive? Help her . . . please!” I cried.
There was no answer, only footsteps. They slowly, purposely, retreated to the rear of the car and came up beside me on the left.
“Hello? Please call the police! Get help,” I panted, the reality of the situation setting in. I could see Mom in the background, still motionless and red.
As the footsteps approached my door and slowed, Gary moaned and brought his dangling hand to his head.
“Gary, wake up. Help is here.”
“Alex?” I heard him mumble.
Twisting my head as much as I could, I tried to get a better view of my side of the car when Gary’s door tore open with abrupt force. Thank God, I thought, Gary is going to get out. He’s going to get me out so we can help Mom.
With the next flash of lightning, the gloved hand reached into the car for Gary. Before the brightness faded, light glistened fleetingly off of a shiny object in its grasp. With the ensuing darkness came an eruption of thunder and over the rolling clap I heard Gary shriek into the night. Frozen by my immediate confusion, I held my breath and waited anxiously for the next bolt of lightning to illuminate the scene.
When the next flash came, my eyes darted straight to the front of the car. I watched the gloved hand pull away from the driver’s seat and struggled with my blurred vision to make out the shiny object clutched in its fist. The hand held a slender knife. The handle, crafted in the shape of a snake, curved around the palm. The blade now trickled with fresh blood. Gary’s hands fell, lifeless, back to a dangle. They too were splattered with crimson. Then darkness.
Panic pulsed through me like a static charge and threatened to shatter me from the inside. This couldn’t be happening, none of this was real. Then footsteps again. They moved back toward the door beside my head. I threw myself against the seat that trapped me until my left leg was able to wiggle slightly. Concentrating every bit of strength I had, I struggled to free it from the seat even as the leather-covered hands worked the handle beside me. I thrashed about as much as I could, but to no avail.
The hands beat and tugged at my door but could not open it. Then footsteps again. They stalked back up to the driver side of the car. I held my breath and tried to decipher their next move in the blackness, but all I could hear was the hammering of the rain against my upholstered prison.
When the world lit up again I struggled to take in my surroundings as fast as I could. Before I could focus, the gloved hands came at me, the blade flying towards my face from the front seat. I screamed and turned my head away from the strike. The hands jerked to a sudden halt, the console and rubble stopping them just short of my cheek. Darkness again. I cried and beat upon the seat above me as the hands struggled to get to me. It was all I could do, yet even at my young age, I knew it was useless.
It was then, amidst the panic, that I heard a soothing, velvet whisper against my ear. A familiar voice separate from the horror surrounding me. With the words came the steady strumming rhythm that had always calmed my soul.
“I am with you Alexandra. It will be okay,” the voice said. “I need you to sink further into the seat right now, okay? As far inside as you can. That’s good Alexandra, just like that. It’s almost over.”
When the gloved hands reared back, instead of thrashing to get free, I sucked in all the breath in my body and squeezed further into the depths of the fallen seat. I wasn’t able to get more than an inch further in when the hands came at me again, shoving harder against the wreckage to get at me. Sinking further and further into my seat, I listened in stark terror as my attacker struggled and heaved against the remains of the front of the car. The blade scraped against the metal on top of me.
When I could go no further, I close my eyes and focused on the steady, strumming rhythm that I had come to know so well. The sound of it always signaled his presence. I wasn’t alone in this. He was with me and that thought comforted me even as the thrashing hands above came closer with each forward thrust.
Then, in the distance, a screaming jostled me from my focus. No, not screams. Sirens! Help was coming. The scraping and grunting stopped abruptly. For a moment all I could hear was the gentle strumming and the wails of the sirens steadily approaching. They rose in pitch to match the screams which I then realized were escaping from my own throat.
Another flash and the gloved, knife-wielding hand made a final
, desperate attempt to reach me. It thrust forward with acute force. The biting sting on my forehead tore the remaining breath from my lungs and choked my screams. As the wreckage was once again plunged into darkness, the hands pulled back. I braced myself for the next jab. There was no energy to keep fighting. The world around me was spinning. I listened for the strumming . . . for him.
“It’s over now Alexandra. You’re safe,” the voice whispered.
The footsteps retreated from the car. They moved quickly back the way they had come. Running. They were running away. I was in too much shock to be relieved. My head burned and throbbed and the pain made it hard to catch my breath. When the next flash of lightning came, the world appeared red and thick. Blinking back the moisture, I watched the blue and white flashing lights surround me. And then I saw him.
His familiar face smiled reassuringly to me from the front of the car and I stared into his deep blue eyes. In the next soggy blink he was gone, the strumming replaced by footsteps, dozens of them, all running towards me. The fog in my head thickened and I struggled to cry out for help.
“Help me. I think they’re dead,” is all I was able to say before the world was plunged into darkness one last time.
Chapter 2
“We’re just descending. Nothing to worry about,” a voice behind me said, startling me awake.
I rubbed my eyes as the past dissolved into a forgotten dream. The middle aged man leaning over me gave my shoulder a pat and took his seat behind me.
“Sorry, I guess I dozed off. I’m not a huge fan of flying. I try to remain unconscious for as much of it as possible.” I straightened my blouse and wiped the sweat from my temple with the back of my sleeve and wondered if I called out again in my sleep.
The view from the window showed that the small passenger plane was maneuvering through an expanse of wispy cloud, making it impossible to gauge our distance to the ground.
“Well I’d say your plan paid off. You missed one hell of a storm about 30 minutes ago. Shook me up a bit and I fly all the time,” the man behind me chuckled. “Mind if I join you?”
“Sure,” I said not wanting to be rude.
The man was pleasant looking enough, with the perfect spattering of gray in his sandy-blonde hair to categorize him as distinguished. It was his smile though that stood out. It was brilliant, flashy, practiced.
“Good thing is right, I dislike storms even more,” I understated as he sat in the empty seat beside me.
The captain turned on the fasten seat-belt sign and announced our final descent into the Asheville Regional airport. I fumbled for my purse, yanking a brush through my long, sleep disheveled hair and worked on calming the nerves started to coil around my throat. Within minutes we would be safe on the ground in Asheville, North Carolina. That realization panicked me more than the entire tumultuous flight.
“Well I hope you enjoy Asheville. Are you visiting family? Taking in the Biltmore?” the man asked, persisting in the conversation.
I was too grateful for the distraction at this point to be annoyed. I was never much of a small talk type, but at this moment it made things feel more mundane and less like the cataclysmic event my mind had built this trip up to be.
“Actually, I’m visiting family up in Saluda, about thirty-five miles away.”
It was almost the truth.
“You’re kidding. Believe it or not, that is exactly where I’m headed in the morning. I’m just meeting with a client here in Ashville today. Isn’t that funny,” he chuckled and offered another practiced smile.
I pegged him for a salesman. A bad one.
“Well then, you must have family in Saluda. That’s the only reason anyone ever goes there,” I said and chanced another look out my window.
The plane had descended below the blanket of downy cotton and the mountains, dappled with autumn color, peaked just beneath it. I had forgotten how glorious they were, the enormity and majesty of them stimulating some childlike admiration buried deep within my core.
“Actually, got a couple of buildings up there in need of renovation. I’m contracted out from Raleigh, so I’ll be staying for a week or two. You must have family there then, I’m guessing? Maybe we’ll run into one another.”
“Oh I don’t plan to stay long. Just taking care of some family business and then I’m headed back to Chicago,” I answered, turning to him.
The plane teetered to the right, throwing the view of the ground below and the airport into the windows across the aisle and then straightened out again. We would be on the ground in minutes. I shook off the anxiety that gripped my shoulders and threatened to hold me captive in my seat.
“So you’re a contractor?” I asked shakily, giving the man my own forged smile. Guess I had been wrong about the whole salesman thing. “What buildings are you renovating?”
“Yes ma’am, I am. Though I dabble in real estate from time to time,” he answered. “Let’s see, they want to add on to the gazebo right there on the main street, and the elementary school in Flat Rock is looking to expand their auditorium.”
“Upward Elementary?” I asked, my pulse quickening.
“That’s the one.”
I could only offer a weak grin in response. Of all the elementary schools in the area, he was going to the one I had attended. I wondered if I would have the courage to visit it myself. Probably not, which was fine. It wasn’t part of the itinerary that would get me back to Chicago in a hurry.
When the plane touched down, the man offered me a rough hand and another flawless smile. “The name’s Rick Brightman. Hope to see you around, even if your stay is brief.”
“Alex Nolan,” I said and shook his hand. “It’s a small town, the odds are in our favor.”
It was a struggle to keep my thoughts positive as I blew through the terminal and retrieved my single suitcase from the baggage claim. The faster this is over with, the sooner I’m on a flight back, I told myself. Taking a moment to steady my nerves, I strolled out into the cool mountain air and took in a deep breath of it despite myself. The scent of crisp pines had been as impossible to forget as the emerald landscape which rolled in waves around me in all directions.
I scanned the curb for my ride. Judging by the vehicles parked at the curb, this part of the country clearly preferred large, 4-wheel drive SUV’s over the compact sedans I was accustomed to seeing in the city. They were all muted in color, each speckled with red earth. It had rained recently.
Instead of the standard police cruiser I was expecting, I found a sizeable Ford Explorer, painted the right shade of black and boasting the blue and white “Saluda Police Department” insignia. I admired the metal beast, running my finger along the glossy finish and taking in the 17-inch chrome wheels and tan leather seats through the windows.
“You’re going to have to sit in the back seat just like all the other criminals.” The deep, booming voice came from behind me.
“Uncle Sulley!” I smiled, taking in the features of the man who for a short time had been my uncle, and a man whom I had loved as a father for as long as I could remember.
A man I hadn’t laid eyes on in fifteen years.
He was broader than I remembered. Six feet tall and heavy-set, his once medium-brown hair was now kissed with a tinge of white beside his ears which made him look as authoritative as the shiny silver badge he wore pinned to his crisply pressed uniform. His brooding, puppy dog eyes were the same though, save for a few delicate wrinkles around their edges. Those eyes now burned through me with shock and amazement. His stout jaw hung agape.
“My God in heaven, you look just like her,” he whispered. “I mean . . . your hair is darker, but it’s uncanny. You looks just like she did before . . .”
I had been told how much I resembled my mother. We had the same small stature, high cheek bones, and hazel eyes. My head however, was adorned with a multitude of mousy brown hair, much unlike my mother’s golden tresses. I could only assume I had inherited it from my father, though I had never cared enough
to ask anyone who had met him. It was just now dawning on me how my resemblance to my mother might affect the people in Saluda. The people I left behind.
The tension wafted like a lingering odor, so I did what I always do in uncomfortable situations. I made a joke.
“Well it’s easy to look like her when you have her same eyes.” I smiled sheepishly.
Sulley let my words register a moment before breaking out into raucous laughter. He grabbed me up into a bear hug, which threatened to crush my lungs and rocked me back and forth. I clung to him a moment and allowed myself to feel genuinely happy to see him again after all these years.
“Ah, but that’s all Alex wit for sure.” He held me away from him, all smiles. “That was a terrible joke.”
“I know, but it’s all I had at the moment.” I sighed. “It’s great to see you Sulley.”
“And it’s great to finally see you too. It’s been too long. Not that I haven’t enjoyed the phone calls every now and then,” he said as he tossed my suitcase in the back seat, “but it’s great to finally have you back. Now, let’s get you home.”
I climbed into the passenger seat and marveled at the wood-grained dashboard and internal navigation system. I suddenly missed my car, a modest Accord, which was not as high tech as Sulley’s new ride. It had been easier to fly than to drive from Chicago, but not having the means for which to escape at any given moment made me feel trapped.
“This is quite the upgrade from the squad car,” I said.
Sulley positioned himself behind the wheel.
“Yeah, well spend a decade and a half on the force and they give you the good car,” he winked. “Radio works pretty well up here too, which is an upgrade in itself, but all that’s on the thing right now are those damned reports from that shooting on Fort Bragg. Had to stop listening, get’s me all fired up.”
The shooting had been plastered on every television in the airport as well. Something about a soldier turning on his own, but I hadn’t the heart to listen.
