BLACKENED
TIM
McWHORTER
PlotForge, Ltd.
Copyright
Cover Design by Tim McWhorter
Copyright © 2015 by Tim McWhorter
Published by PlotForge, Ltd.
1650 Lake Shore Drive, Suite 225
Columbus, OH 43204
www.plotforge.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage system, without the written permission of the publisher.
Blackened
ISBN: 978-1-937979-20-1
Library of Congress Control Number:2015946126
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events portrayed are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Rendered in the United States of America
About the Author
Tim McWhorter was born under a waning crescent moon, and while he has no idea what the significance is, he thinks it sounds really cool to say. A graduate of Otterbein University, he lives just outside of Columbus, OH, with his wife, a few children and a couple of obligatory pets that seem entirely too attached to him. Blackened is his fourth book and his second full-length novel. Find out more about Tim and his writing at www.timmcwhorter.com
Acknowledgements
I find that as my writing career continues to grow, the list of people I need to thank with each book also continues to grow. This book would not be possible without the support and assistance of the following individuals.
First of all, a very special thanks goes out to my amazing group of beta readers. Thank you so much for all of your great feedback. You guys took what I gave you and kicked its ass, helping me make the story better than I ever could have on my own. You’re all hired! Though I have to warn you, the pay isn’t very good. (Meaning, there is none...)
Thanks to my cousin, Ryan, who continually answered all of my questions about the city of Dayton without getting fed up and telling me to just come check it out for myself. Thanks, man.
Since I’m a high maintenance writer who can’t compose anything worthwhile without the aid of the right music in the background, I would be remiss if I didn’t also thank James Newton Howard, Clinton Shorter, Howard Shore, Hans Zimmer, Philip Wesley, The Chamber Orchestra of London and the guys from both Agalloch and With Our Arms To The Sun for creating just the right atmosphere to allow my sometimes shy muse to stretch her legs and create uninhibitedly. There are many more worthy composers and musicians who inspire my writing, but these were the people who rode shotgun with me on this particular book.
While I’m at it, I may as well thank Starbucks for discovering the nectar of the gods that is your Doubleshots espresso. It is the fuel that my muse runs on, and if you ever stop producing it, I may have to lay down the pen.
Thanks to all of you who buy my books, read them, share them, recommend them, talk about them and promote them on social media. Your support and enthusiasm take a back seat to no one, and I’m proud as hell to serve you.
Finally, my wife, children and the rest of my family deserve special thanks and more appreciation than I can show. You continually help me find that balance by allowing me to disappear for hours, and sometimes even days at a time to follow this crazy, insignificant dream of simply producing art. Thank you. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all of my grandparents,
whose pride in me often knew no boundaries.
Whether I deserved it or not.
Table of Contents
Copyright
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Dedication
PART I
PROLOGUE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
PART II
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
PART III
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Epilogue
PlotForge, Ltd.
PART I
PROLOGUE
“Come on, baby.” The words escaped his lips between the bourbon-scented kisses he was leaving up and down her trembling neck. “I’m helping you out. You should wanna help me.”
She squirmed in his arms, but couldn’t shake loose from the tow truck driver’s ravenous hands. Lifting up her dress from behind had been his first breech of professional courtesy. Pinning her against the door of his tow truck, as her disabled Accord hung off the back like a great white dangling from the Orca had taken things to an all-new, frightening level. She was beyond irritated at this point. She was downright afraid.
“Just a kiss, Baby. Let’s start with that,” the creep continued. “Give ol’ J.D. a kiss.”
The guy had apparently never heard of taking no for an answer, and she cursed herself for not listening to her father and maintaining her car better. She was trying not to panic, but the situation was increasingly calling for it. The man smelled of grease and liquor, and the combination was making her stomach queasy, as if it didn’t already have reason enough to be. Looking up and down the deserted road for help, her escalating dread only reinforced what she already knew. She was on her own. No one would be coming down this road anytime soon. It was just her and this guy, surrounded by so many trees that her car may as well have broken down in the middle of Ohio’s own Yellowstone. She wanted to scream, but knew the effort would be wasted. They were in the middle of nowhere without another car or living soul in site. It was probably the reason the guy felt so bold to begin with.
Just as her free hand was locating her cell phone at the bottom of her purse, something in the overgrown brush over the guy’s shoulder caught her eye. The greenery started to part, and a man was emerging from the trees. A large man, as formidable as any she’d ever seen. Relief flooded through her like rain water rushing down a street after a downpour. But her momentary lapse of anxiety was short lived.
Bent slightly at the waist, with one arm across his
stomach and the other hanging down and slightly behind his leg, the man lumbering toward them was injured. As he drew nearer and she could see the extent of his injuries, her heart sank. Thick, mud-colored blood trailed over both of the man’s shoulders and down his chest in long, thin streams like a fireman’s suspenders. The back of his bald head or neck was likely the source.
Staring at him from over the tow truck driver’s shoulder, her wide eyes met the injured man’s, and what she saw in those feral eyes brought no comfort. Desperation. ‘Murderous intent’ is how they would describe it on the crime shows she watched with her roommate when neither of them had a Friday night date.
Oblivious to what approached from behind, the truck driver continued his groping ways, trying to pull her dress strap off her shoulder with his teeth as his bulk kept her pinned against the door of the truck.
For a terrifying second, she wondered if the two men might be partners. Was one man’s job to hold her up while the other laid in wait until the time was right? The horrors of what the two of them together might have in store cluttered her already troubled mind with even more chaotic thoughts. But, as the man from the woods stumbled his way up onto the shoulder of the road, her questions were soon answered, though it did nothing to alleviate her fear.
The tow truck driver arched his back at a strange angle, causing him to release the grip he had on her. His throat bulged a split second before a scream exploded from somewhere deep inside, a place so deep that only the damned know its depths.
The truck driver’s eyes doubled in size as they met hers. Then, right in front of her, a long, bloody knife burst through his chest and pointed in her direction. Accusing her. Calling her out on every mistake she had ever made. Everything happened in slow motion. The upturned blade sliced through the driver like the hole had already been there.
She retreated from it as far as she could, but the hard, steel door of the tow truck stopped her from pulling back more than a few inches. The blade’s advance stopped just short of her throat and hung suspended in the air. She fought the urge to even swallow for fear the blade’s tip would prick her trembling flesh.
After taunting her for what seemed like decades, the blade suddenly retreated, disappearing back into the driver’s blossoming chest just as quickly as it had appeared. The man from the woods lowered his arm, and she watched in magnified horror as gravity clutched the truck driver’s body and slowly drew it toward the ground. Finally, with a wet sucking sound, the lifeless corpse that had been so threatening only seconds before slid off of the curved, sword-like knife and crumpled into a ruined mass at her feet.
The suddenly free knife didn’t just drip blood. The gore ran down the length of the blade in waves, as if the steel itself had been wounded. Her lunch lurched in her abdomen, threatening to join the growing puddle of crimson spreading over the gravel. All the while, the man from the trees held the weapon firmly, flaunting it as he turned his attention to her. His wild eyes looked into hers, and instantly, she saw his plan.
Frantic and consumed by fear, she turned away from the truck. She tried to run, but with the first step, she felt the heel of her right shoe wobble, then snap.
Finally, she screamed.
Moments later, a physically exhausted and barely conscious Corwin Barnes held a hand to the back of his head as he steered the tow truck up onto the road, spraying a cloud of dust and gravel into the air, covering two more nameless bodies.
ONE YEAR LATER
Chapter 1
My hands would never be clean again, I was sure of it. They had turned black and vowed to stay that way, no matter how hard I scrubbed. I’d been working in Dallas Tipsword’s garage for three months, and the grease and oil had managed to settle into every line and crease on my fingers and palms. Like the veins on a leaf, thin black lines ran in all directions. Nineteen years old, and I was already scarred for life.
Both inside and out.
I was washing my hands after just rotating the tires on a new Ford Explorer when Dallas stalked past with Wade hot on his heels. Wade was mid- to late-twenties, a good mechanic who learned the trade while in the Army, and just happened to be Dallas’ nephew. He knew his way around the garage the way a neurologist knows his way around a brain. But that didn’t do Dallas any good when Wade couldn’t find his way out of bed after a 12-pack bender the night before. And that seemed to be happening more often than not lately.
This was exactly the point Dallas was making as he stormed through the shop on his way to the office.
“I can’t have you working for me if I can’t depend on you to be here, damn it.”
Dallas Tipsword was a character in all respects, except when it came to his garage. The guy looked like every sixty-two year old Vietnam vet ever portrayed on television, with a salt and pepper ponytail and a chest-length beard to match. He even wore the obligatory tie-dyed t-shirts and flip-flops on the weekends. The first time my dad met him, he told me The Grateful Dead could give Dallas a call and revive their career with a new singer. I didn’t quite get the reference, so I just took his word for it.
But when it came to his auto repair shop, Dallas was all business. He had only two rules in the shop: be here on time, and be ready to work hard. That was all he asked of me as an employee, and in my young inexperienced opinion, it seemed like enough.
For the better part of three months, I’d worked under Dallas’ wing, learning everything I could about cars from both him and Wade. Even before my life went to hell a year ago, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it, a fact my parents could attest to. College just wasn’t for me, even though that was the route my girlfriend, Claire, had taken after graduation. My best friend had been planning on becoming an auto mechanic and eventually taking over his father’s auto repair shop. Garrett had been all about taking on projects and getting his hands dirty. It wasn’t so much that I wasn’t, I just didn’t know if I wanted to do it every day for the rest of my life. Garrett had seemed to think it was an acceptable career choice, and I always maintained a healthy respect for his judgment. So I figured, “why not?” I’d give it a shot for a while. Three months later, I couldn’t say I hated it.
“Looks like it’s just you and me now, Luke,” Dallas said, coming up behind me.
I shook the excess water from my hands before reaching for a paper towel.
“Oh, yeah?” I said, turning around. It was all I could muster at the moment. To be honest, the confrontation between my boss and his nephew had made me a little uncomfortable. Quite frankly, it didn’t take much nowadays. I’d developed an allergy to confrontation and drama about a year ago.
“Today was the last straw,” he said, running his fingers through his graying beard. “I needed that kid here at 9:00 to finish the job he started yesterday, not 11:30. Told Mrs. Cutter her Buick would be ready by 10:00, and I hate like hell not having jobs done when I say they’ll be.”
“Sorry I couldn’t help more on that one,” I said, working the damp paper towel into the crevice around my thumbnail. The Buick had come in with a busted spring. Wade started the job last night, and had gotten most of it done before quitting time. But he was supposed to have the car all back together this morning, ready for pickup. Unfortunately, it wasn’t something I could do. Dallas had to get in there and get his hands dirty, which he normally didn’t mind doing, but one of the first things I’d learned about this business was that nobody likes to finish a job somebody else has started. Mrs. Cutter hadn’t looked too upset about having to take a seat and flip through a magazine for about 45 minutes, but Dallas sure was.
“No worries,” he said. “But, we do have a few cars lined up right now, nothing too serious. All things you can handle, so if you want ’em, you can probably pick up some extra hours this week. At least until I can bring someone else on board. I’ll help out as much as I can, but I have a million other things to do. Haven’t quite figured out how to make the business run itself yet.”
Having apparently said all he was going to about th
e situation, Dallas walked over and pressed the green button on the wall to raise the nearest overhead door. With a sound that always reminded me of Garrett’s casket being lowered into the ground, the door started its slow ascent.
“By the way,” he said, once the door was fully raised and the laboring motor had fallen silent, “looks like there’s a package in on the desk for you.”
“Really?”
That was odd. I had never received a package at the garage before. Nothing beyond the auto parts the Napa driver dropped off several times a week. Why would I? Unless Claire or one of my parents had dropped by without saying hello, and that didn’t seem likely.
Dallas just shrugged, and started walking out to a red Honda Civic that was waiting for him in the parking lot. Spinning the keys around his finger, he started whistling one of the many Creedence songs in his repertoire. I could tell his anger was already subsiding as he set to doing what he loved most, and that allowed me to relax a little more myself.
I finished drying my hands and tossed the crumpled paper towels into a tall grey trashcan before starting toward the office. Pulling my cell from my jeans pocket, I checked the time even though my stomach was already telling me it was ready for lunch. 11:51 a.m. Close enough. Claire was supposed to pick me up around noon.
On the front counter, right where Dallas said it was, a white box sat among the sea of auto parts catalogues and grime-covered tools. It was about the size of a box of fudge from the local chocolate store back in New Paris, the ones my mother used to give me every Valentine’s Day. But unlike the boxes of fudge that I always had to hide from my chocolate-addicted father, this box was mine and mine alone. It even had a piece of white notepaper taped to the top with “LUKE” written across it in big black letters. There was no return address, or any address, on it for that matter. No instructions. Not even a hint at what was inside nor whom it was from.
Blackened Page 1
