Shades of Night (Sparrow Falls Book 1)

by Justine Sebastian

  “Gah,” Nick said. He knew it was bound to come up; seemed like it was about all anyone had to talk about anymore. Sure, they had the one nutcase killer, but he was old news; he’d been around for ages. People had gotten used to him because people really could get used to damn near anything given enough time.

  “You still don’t believe,” Crash said.

  “No, I don’t,” Nick said. “Why on Earth would I fucking believe that? That’s the thing no one can give me an answer about. They all tell me why it is what they say it is and how I should believe in what they’re telling me. But they can’t tell me why I should throw all logic, reason and my knowledge of the natural world out the window simply because they say, ‘Oh, the murders are too brutal, it can’t be a person. They’re too… whatever the fuck… so it can’t be an animal. Therefore, it must be both’ and fuck that. That’s stupid.”

  “Tetchy, tetchy, Nicholas,” Crash said. He was watching Nick through lowered lashes with a teasing smile. He ate the piece of blooming onion at last and swayed in his seat to some music Nick could not hear. “I think they don’t tell you why you should do any of those things because they have already done so themselves. They think it’s obvious and you, well, you just aren’t seeing it.”

  “About that they’re right,” Nick said. “Because I’m not.”

  “You know, that level of emphatic denial is usually because you’re afraid it might be true,” Crash said.

  “What, you’re a shrink now?”

  “No,” Crash said. “I think I am just pointing out the obvious. Not everyone is saying it’s a werewolf, but there are a few of us who are… I suppose… willing to accept the possibility. I’m not totally sold on the idea myself, but I can’t ignore the fact that there is something decidedly off about the killer’s methods.” He leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, face close enough again that Nick could see the candle flames leaping and twisting in his eyes once more. It was almost hypnotic. “You must remember something very important here, Nick: I have seen the bodies. You have not.”

  “And do the bodies say ‘werewolf’ to you?” Nick asked.

  “I don’t know,” Crash said. “I do know what they don’t say though and that is ‘human’. I cannot believe it’s a person, especially not after seeing the bite marks on the bodies.”

  “Bite marks.” Nick rolled the two words around on his tongue, feeling them out, wondering what they meant.

  “Not human bite marks either,” Crash said. “Big damn bite marks with fang punctures and all. I’m not a medical examiner, but it’s my job to move the bodies—and that means moving them to and from autopsy tables.”

  “Maybe the guy has a dog,” Nick said.

  “I’ve never seen a dog with a bite that large,” Crash said. “I hope I never do if that’s what it is.”

  “Could be a… I dunno… Saint Bernard.”

  “No, it couldn’t be. Look, they’ve run comparisons of the bites; the size and all that. That’s not something I’m supposed to know, but I’m around and I overhear things,” Crash said. “One of those things I overheard was the coroner talking to one of the detectives on the case. They said the closest they could match it to in width and all was a large grizzly bear.”

  “Jesus,” Nick said. He ate more blooming onion just to have something to do with his mouth other than spew profanity. He couldn’t even be that annoyed with what Crash was telling him; it was sound scientific fact, not some yammering yokel’s half-assed bogey story. It made him think of Josephine Miller’s suggestion that it might be a bear, a thought that Nick didn’t like because Josephine was crazy. However, with Crash telling him what they’d determined from bite mark comparisons, it was harder to ignore. Except for one thing. “There are no grizzly bears in Louisiana. Hell, there aren’t even that many black bears left if I remember correctly.”

  “People get animals from all over the place,” Crash said. “Someone could’ve brought a bear back from a trip to… I dunno… Montana or wherever. I mean, there used to not be pythons in Florida either, but now look at it.”

  Nick blinked. “There are pythons in Florida?”

  “Man, how long were you in prison?”

  “Ten years,” Nick said.

  “Ah, well, you’ve missed a lot,” Crash said. “The natural order is all fucked up now thanks to illegal import-export and so on. But back to the bear…”

  “If it is a bear,” Nick said.

  “Well, the only other option is it’s a werewolf.” Crash’s smile was teasing.

  Nick rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m really going to discard the possibility of a natural animal in favor of a myth.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” Crash said.

  “No, they haven’t,” Nick said.

  “Where I’m from, we call them Dogmen,” Crash said.

  “So, what? Michigan is overrun with werewolves?”

  “Not overrun, but there’s a healthy population there if local lore is to be believed,” Crash said.

  “It isn’t to be believed,” Nick said.

  “God, you’re so… so…”

  “Logical?”

  “And resistant. And skeptical,” Crash said. “It’s weird given where you hail from.”

  “Heh,” Nick said. He’d thought the same thing, but ghosts and stab-happy nutjobs were breeds apart from werewolves.

  Crash started to say more, but Brandi came bouncing across the dining room with their meals and he switched his attention to the steak she set down in front of him. “Mmm… dead cow,” Crash said.

  Brandi laughed; a little too loud, a little too bubbly and Nick snorted laughter of his own. She left them to their meal with another smile and a toss of her hair that fanned them both with the scent of perfume that tried way too hard to say, I’m a grown-up.

  “Wow,” Nick said as he watched her sashay away.

  “I know, I know,” Crash said. “But what I can I say? I’m hot.”

  “You’re all right,” Nick said.

  Crash sighed and smiled to himself. “You want me, you just don’t know it yet.”

  “Right,” Nick said. “I think I would’ve noticed something like that.”

  Crash laughed softly as he cut off a big bite of rare steak. He looked up and winked at Nick as he bit down on it and began to chew.

  Nick tucked into his angel hair pasta with blackened shrimp and asked himself if he did want Crash. He’d fuck him if it came to that, Nick had no qualms about fucking people; there was no such thing as a prudish whore. He would probably even like fucking Crash, he sure as hell enjoyed looking at him. He was even starting to like Crash, but wanting someone—that was unfamiliar territory. It was one more reminder that despite all of his experience, all of the hours spent naked, sweating, moving with another body on top or beneath him, Nick had missed out on some of the fundamental trappings of being a functioning, emotionally healthy person.

  The last time he had really wanted anyone had been Hylas Dunwalton and that was going on twenty years in the past. He knew a hundred different ways to make a man come, but did not have the first clue about what it felt like to wake up and long for a warm body lying beside him. Nick figured he should probably be sad about that; however, it was hard to miss something you’d never had.

  Dinner went off without a hitch; once their meals arrived they made like most men and paid more attention to their food than to each other. What conversation there was consisted of offhand remarks amid chewing, mostly things about how the food was good and Crash hated it when his baked potato got cold. Nick told him should learn to eat faster and Crash laughed around a mouthful of nearly raw meat. Nick found himself strangely charmed by it.

  They had coffee after dinner and Nick watched Crash consume a huge slice of Devil’s food cake. He finished his coffee and ordered a beer while Crash scraped the plate clean. He was not in the least bit pudgy, but Nick figured if he ate like that all the time, he eventually would be. Then again, maybe Crash was one of those
special people with supercharged metabolisms; the ones that Nancy both envied and despised.

  For the conclusion to their lengthy meal, Crash belched so loud it made Nick jump. He grinned and did not excuse himself, only raised his hand to wave for the check. Brandi brought it with another bounce and a giggle, punctuating it all with a toss of her long, shiny hair. When Nick took out his wallet, Crash waved him off.

  “I asked you to dinner, so I’m paying,” Crash said.

  “I’m not a girl,” Nick said. “And I’m not poor either.” Not quite the truth, but his income bracket was significantly higher than it had been.

  “God, no, you are not a girl,” Crash said. “You are pretty though. You have such marvelously blue eyes.”

  “Thank you, I think,” Nick said. “Now let me pay for my dinner.”

  “No,” Crash said. “Really, I insist. I’d feel like a dating failure if I let you do that, but… compromise: You can leave the tip.”

  Nick thought about it, thought about how he didn’t get paid for another week and needed the money for other things. A higher income bracket did not by any means imply a high income bracket. With a grumble, Nick. “Fine, fine,” he said. “So you don’t feel like a failure.”

  “You are too kind,” Crash said. “My self-confidence really needs the boost, you see.”

  “No,” Nick said. Crash had self-confidence bordering on arrogance at times.

  “Well, that’s your blind spot then,” Crash said as he rose from the table. He placed a hand on his chest. “For you see, I am but a scared little boy on the inside, crying out for love and hugs.”

  The corners of Nick’s mouth twitched even as he scoffed. “Go pay the check, Crash.”

  As soon as Crash had his back to him, Nick laughed quietly. He turned his beer up to finish it then fished out a ten dollar bill to leave for Brandi. He got up and left, heading for the door just as Crash was bidding Brandi a good night and telling her to behave herself.

  “Aww, Crash, do I have to?” she asked.

  Nick could hear the pout in her voice and snorted as he pushed the door open. He stepped outside into the wet, frigid night air and shivered as the wind whipped across the parking lot, blowing a damp mist of rainwater in his face.

  Crash fell in step beside him and Nick glanced over at him. “I’m surprised Brandi let you out of there with your clothes on.”

  He tilted his head to the side in a considering way, took a deep breath and said, “You know, I bet she thinks about me when she masturbates.”

  Nick stumbled and coughed out a surprised laugh. “That is not something I want to think about. She’s so illegal.”

  “No, she isn’t,” Crash said. “She turned eighteen on Christmas Eve.” He frowned. “However, I will allow that what I said was one of those things I probably should not have said out loud. Or even thought, for that matter.”

  “Your mind is a strange place,” Nick said.

  “Scary, too,” Crash said. “Sometimes. At other times, why… it’s a fucking wonderland. And on occasion has been known to be a wonderland of fucking.”

  “You’re being weird again,” Nick said as he came to stand beside his truck.

  “Ah, yes, I do that,” Crash said. “I think it might well be a part of my nature.”

  “Weird is fine, creepy is not fine,” Nick said. “Just keep that in mind.”

  “I apologized for all of that,” Crash said, affronted.

  “You did and I accept your apology,” Nick said. “Otherwise I would not be standing here.”

  Crash nodded and looked down at his feet, rocking on his heels a bit. He looked up so suddenly it was startling. Crash had strange eyes, grey as a ghost, but sometimes they caught the light and seemed almost silver or like mist. Nick was pretty sure it was either a trick of the light or a glimpse at Crash’s madness.

  “Come out with me again,” Crash said. “On a properly proper date, one with dinner and then dancing or some other kind of activity along those lines. I’d say we should see a movie, but the only theater in Sparrow Falls seems to be undergoing renovations indefinitely.”

  “Probably Covington, but I’ve never liked movie theaters that much,” Nick said. He’d sucked too many dicks and given too many handjobs in them to ever be one hundred percent comfortable, even if he wasn’t doing anything illegal. Those had started happening more near the end, when his drug habit had begun to outweigh his interest in not being arrested for prostitution or public indecency.

  “Fine then, come to a bar with me, we will have drinks and many laughs,” Crash said. “Maybe you will even let me kick your ass at pool.”

  Nick thought about it and nodded. “All right. I’m off next Thursday and Friday.”

  “I have Wednesday and Thursday,” Crash said. “So… Thursday it is then.”

  “Not much of a date night,” Nick said.

  “It’ll be more than enough, I’m sure,” Crash said with a smile. He moved closer to Nick who watched him with lifted eyebrows. “Now then, Nick, prepare to be amazed. Or at the very least, pleasantly surprised.”

  That was all the warning Nick got before Crash kissed him. It was the second time he had been kissed in recent memory and both times it had been Crash. Nick did not get kissed much and he was unused to it; one part of him leaned into it, wanted it. The other part wanted to pull away and ask Crash what the hell he was doing. There was an even smaller part of him that could only think, You don’t know where my mouth’s been. But Nick knew where it had been and the most phallic thing his lips had wrapped around that night was the mouth of his beer bottle.

  He kissed back, a little hesitant and unsure of what to do, kissing another of those things he didn’t have as much experience with as the average, normal human being. Crash took his time though and Nick was a quick learner. Soon he was leaning into Crash, fingers tangling in his soft, dark hair as Crash ran his fingers lightly along the strip of skin on Nick’s back where his shirt had ridden up. Warmth, liquid and smooth pooled in Nick’s belly and spread out through his entire body as their tongues stroked together and Crash pulled him closer until their chests were almost touching and it was getting hard to breathe.

  When they did break apart, Nick gasped for breath and looked at Crash who was smiling again, but sweetly now.

  Crash rocked forward on his heels and tipped an imaginary hat at Nick with a flourish. “And here is where I will leave you, as a gentleman should,” Crash said as he took a step backward. “Goodnight, Nick. I’ll be seeing you soon.”

  He turned on his heel and walked toward the rear of the parking lot. Nick was still trying to catch his breath and sort out something to say when he realized Crash was gone. He turned to look for him, but saw nothing though he knew he had to have driven there; it had been raining like hell. Of course, he’d also had an umbrella… which he had forgotten inside the restaurant, Nick realized. Had Crash walked back? His clothes had been so dark that Nick couldn’t tell if they had been at all wet when he showed up.

  He leaned against the side of his truck and rubbed a hand over his face. He licked his lips and tasted the faint dark chocolate phantom of Devil’s food cake. That pool of warmth still lingered in his belly, though it was fading and all Nick could really think was how he wanted it back. With a bemused shake of his head, Nick turned and got into his truck. He was almost certain that he did indeed want Crash and he had no idea what to make of that.

  20

  Nothing brought a community together like a string of violent homicides. When Josephine Miller’s remains were found, it was the last straw in a town that was already wound far too tight. Tense times became more so, the mayor enacted a curfew of seven o’clock for all residents who were not working, saying that people should only go out if they absolutely had to and not to go alone. When night fell, Sparrow Falls became a ghost town, only the cold and dark filling the streets, the glowing halos of the streetlights there to spotlight the nothingness.

  People didn’t feel safe in their h
omes; all of the murders had taken place at the victims’ homes or on their property. The curfew was a token gesture, the flailing of a mayor who didn’t know what else to do. It was a placebo and it didn’t really work. Those who lived alone went to stay with friends or family, save a stubborn few; people slept with guns and checked their doors fifteen times a night to make sure they were locked.

  Occurrences of accidental shootings rose exponentially following Josephine Miller’s death. After her body was discovered, after the way she had been dragged out of her kitchen window and after the pictures in the paper of the bloody windowsill, there was an uptick in visitors to the ER, ranging from a drunk guy accidentally shooting himself because he got startled, to a frightened single mother stabbing her rebellious son when she heard him sneaking back in after a night of vandalism and drug use.

  Working at the hospital, Nick watched it all with a detached sense of fascination. Sooner or later, it wasn’t going to be little things like some idiot shooting off a toe or a delinquent teenager getting cut. Someone was going to end up dead. Nick played a game with himself: Would it be the shooter’s fault? Or would it be the serial killer’s fault? The nervous homeowner would be the one to pull the trigger, but they never would have wound up in that position if not for the serial killer. It was quite the conundrum to amuse himself with while he was tossing biohazard bags into special disposal bins, trying to pretend he couldn’t smell the stink of old blood and the acrid tang of urine wafting from the bags. The rattle of used needles.

  He spent his lunch breaks sitting in the parking lot, watching the mist with Crash while they ate. He filled Crash in on all of the drama he missed while locked away in the morgue like a princess in a dungeon. All Nick could think to say to him when he compared himself to that was, “I don’t see any tits.”

  “I had breast reduction,” Crash said.

  Nick cut his eyes to the side and said, “Oh?”