The Loon

by Michaelbrent Collings

  THE LOON

  by Michaelbrent Collings

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  The Loon

  PROLOGUE: PARTING

  Part One: The Calm Before

  COLD

  TIO

  HEATER

  LATE

  FIGHT

  GONE

  INTERLOPER

  INSIDE

  ANGELS

  WELCOME

  TOUR

  GOD

  PROTECTION

  PREPARATIONS

  QUALITY

  COFFIN

  FOOD

  MONSTER

  TOWER

  PRISON

  EMPTY

  CODE

  SEARCH

  OFFICE

  HUNGER

  LETTERS

  JOBS

  MOVEMENT

  NAKED

  OUTSIDE

  CHASE

  HOW?

  HACKER

  FOUND

  Part Two: The Storm

  MEAN

  MEETING

  STATUE

  SURVIVOR

  HOOKS

  FROZEN

  CROOKED

  ROADSIDE

  VISITOR

  UNCERTAINTY

  ASSIGNMENT

  LOCATIONS

  EYES

  REPLACEMENT

  OPTIONS

  SOON

  MUTE

  BLOOD

  DELIVERIES

  OFFICE

  OFFICIAL

  Part Three: The Dark

  FLASHES

  STUDYING

  SCARED

  LIE

  TIME

  UNMANNED

  SHOOTING

  ALONE

  COFFEE

  PLOT

  KEY

  SMARTY

  PROMISE

  BEAR

  DISAPPEARED

  CARROT

  SLIP

  GOOD

  DAISIES

  BLACK

  TAKEN

  FIX

  DARKNESS

  BONUSES

  ORDERS

  POSITIONS

  PROMISE

  OBSCENITY

  TUNNEL

  HUNGRY

  HELL

  OUT

  GENERATOR

  POWER

  ONLINE

  NOW

  BLOOD

  CELL

  PUNISHMENT

  INTERRUPTION

  FOREVER

  TRAUMA

  SCRATCHES

  WADE

  VERTEBRAE

  BECKY

  BLOOD

  GAME

  HURT

  CRYPT

  Part Four: The Feeding

  STORM

  FUN

  STRESS

  DISSOLVED

  WARY

  LUCKY

  BASEMENT

  CRYING

  PHOTOS

  VENT

  STAIRWELL

  DUCT

  REALIZATION

  PROBLEM

  DIFFERENTIATION

  HALL

  RATS

  BEDS

  DESK

  ARRANGEMENTS

  FILES

  SYMPHONY

  VIOLENCE

  SAMMY

  FATHER

  SCREAMS

  QUESTIONS

  RESCUE

  NICE

  PLAN

  CRAWL

  ESCAPE

  FRENZY

  INSIDE

  SCRATCHING

  FALLING

  ATTACK

  WAITING

  PENS

  SCARS

  ANSWER

  ABOVE

  BARRICADE

  MITCHELL

  INNOCENCE

  BLIND

  TRAP

  TENDRILS

  SUBTERFUGE

  SPIDER

  FLAME

  PRETENDING

  BEAST

  DOWN

  DRENCHED

  PUNCHED

  TORCH

  GRAVITY

  ANTS

  CLIMBING

  DEAD

  ETERNITY

  DOWNSTAIRS

  SCREWS

  SMART

  AWAKE

  REMEMBERING

  GRABBED

  SNAPPED

  GIRLS

  DEATH

  SUPERGIRL

  FLAME

  STAIR

  GO

  PURSUIT

  EXPLOSION

  SHACK

  FLAME

  EPILOGUE: REUNION

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright © 2017

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author. For information send request to angie@angelicahart.com.

  NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

  cover elements © MagicPhotography used under license with Shutterstock.com.

  Cover design by the author.

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  DEDICATION

  To...

  My buds from Paraguay, who provided me with many of my names...

  and to Laura, FTAAE.

  PROLOGUE:

  PARTING

  This is how the man lost his child.

  They were together in the park. The sun shone brightly around them, falling lightly down from the sky to kiss them both with soft golden touches. The grass was green, greener than grass had a right to be in the middle of winter, just as the sky was bluer than skies usually were. It was a perfect day, and the man marveled at the sheer beauty of it all.

  How could some people say there is no God? he wondered.

  The rain had come two days before, and though it was gone – rain rarely stayed long in southern California, when it came at all – it had left behind the sparkling crispness peculiar to rain: a sharpness that hummed with barely restrained electrical energy and heightened one's ability to smell the beautiful odors of nature that usually hid beneath a tough blanket of smog, a rough quilt of hydrocarbons and methane emissions.

  The man breathed in deeply, and the air that filled his lungs was reminiscent of the rainy days of his childhood. He could almost feel his mother draping a warm flannel blanket over his shoulders as he walked in from school. He could smell her – Mother always smelled like peppermint and vanilla – and could feel the soft tousle of the fabric as she used it to dry his wet hair after a walk through
the rain, whispering softly, "So wet, my baby, where did you go? What did you do, my son?"

  He smiled at the thought, and looked at his own son, who waited expectantly some twenty feet away.

  So beautiful, my baby, he thought. So lovely, my son.

  The boy was five today. He was five, he was beautiful, with a perfect smile of wonderfully crooked baby teeth: a grin that pulled mischievously to one side, as though he were constantly being tugged by pixies who were urging him to run, play, be merry in the Neverland of imagination. His hair was brown. Thick and lustrous, ever windswept in appearance, for the boy was like the wind: never at rest, always on the move, always searching for a place to go next, for something to do. Restless, but not anxious.

  No, the man thought, not anxious. He is merely too full of life to stop for even an instant. Like the wind, perhaps if he stopped moving, he would die and that would be the end.

  But no chance of that. Even now, when the boy was waiting, his hands were dancing through the air, weaving tiny patterns, conducting silly symphonies of childhood impatience. A touch to his pants, a scratch to his ear, a rub at his cheek. The music his son led was too quiet for the man to hear, but he knew it must be beautiful, for his son was beautiful.

  The boy's eyes were blue, like his mother's. They were always moving as well, peering intently into bushes to try and find a lizard, watching the trees for signs of a squirrel, then skipping with a smile across the man's face.

  "C'mon, daddy!" shouted the boy, and clapped his hands in excitement. He was five, he was beautiful.

  So beautiful, my baby, the man thought again. So lovely, my son. Out loud he laughed, and kicked the soccer ball he held over to his boy. The ball overshot his son slightly, and the child ran after it, small legs pumping with ever-greater speed as he sprinted after the new toy. He laughed, a light merry laugh that warmed the man. The boy was happy, and that was more than enough cause for him to be happy as well.

  The mother stood nearby, and the man tore his gaze from his son long enough to look at her for a moment. She stood straight and tall, like a Good Queen from a fairy land. Her hair was black and straight and lustrous. It seemed to pull light in, deep and darker than blackest night. Her skin was as fair as her hair was dark, almost translucent in its purity and perfection. Her lips were thick and full, and always held a cool kiss on one side, and though the whole world could see that the kiss was there, only he was allowed to come and steal it from her.

  This the man did often, for he knew that kisses, when stolen by the right person, will only grow back stronger and more fair than before. He had stolen such kisses so many times now that the kisses that remained with her were almost too perfect to bear.

  The woman saw him looking at her, and smiled. Her smile was cool, like her kisses. It did not warm the man, but rather refreshed him like a draught of ice water on a hot day. His son threw off heat, his wife touched with cool touches, and the man found himself somewhere in the middle: somewhere perfect.

  "You going to stare, or help?" said his wife, and laughed her tinkling laugh, a laugh like a merry bell over a doorway in a small bookstore. Come in, said the laugh, come in and make yourself at home and find my treasures, if you wish.

  The man laughed as well. He laughed harder than she, for that was his way, to laugh hard and laugh often. God was easily visible, his son was beautiful, and his wife loved him, so he found it hard to contain what happiness he had. And therefore, when he laughed, it all came rushing out of him in a torrent of mirth. Laughing Paul, some of his friends called him, and he did not mind that because it was true.

  He felt something brush his foot. The ball. His son's new soccer ball, given to him this morning, on a day when he was supposed to be in school. But it was his birthday, so the man had taken him out of his kindergarten class at eleven thirty that morning, and brought him here, to the park.

  "C'mon, Daddy!" urged his son again.

  The man grinned and laughed once more. "I have to help Mommy."

  "Then kick one more, 'kay?"

  "'Kay, kiddo."

  The man booted the soccer ball, and it flew high, over and beyond the boy's head, bouncing softly over grass that was greener than grass had a right to be, and finally settling near the tiny brook that trickled through the park. The boy hooted and whooped, and ran toward the ball.

  The man trotted to his lovely wife. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, he stole her kiss. It was short and sweet, the way stolen kisses must be, but as quick as he was, as fast as the kiss, by the time it was over he could see that another kiss had already grown to replace the one she had lost. And sure enough, it was lovelier than the one he had stolen.

  He would have stolen yet another kiss, but she held a hand against his chest and said, "Later, Casanova. Help me with the cake."

  She put a shiny party hat on his head, a cardboard cone with glitter and tinsel that said "Happy Birthday" against a background of bright balloons. A thin elastic cord snapped around his chin, holding the party favor tight against his hair. The man knew he must look silly, but did not care. He could afford to be silly, for his family loved him that way.

  He took the knife his wife had offered, and moved to cut the cake. It was a small, simple cake, just as their family was small and simple. But like the family, the cake was sweet, and it was enough for anyone. The boy had already blown his candles out, before insisting that the man play ball with him now, and then leaving chocolate behind without a thought in favor of playing with his daddy.

  A bear, the small stuffed guardian that had watched over his son since his first birthday, sat next to the cake. It was the boy's favorite toy. It slumped next to the cake as though exhausted; as though resting from its guard duties.

  The man removed the burnt-out candles from the cake, like five steadfast wax soldiers that stood more upright than the Queen's guards at Buckingham Palace, and then sliced the cake in neat, even slices. The last cut went through his son's name.

  As he made the incision, the man's neck prickled. The knife cut across his son's name, and an icy chill cut him to the bone. Cool tendrils of fear wrapped themselves around his spine, his hands trembled. Why, he could not say, but the man felt something awful in the wind.

  "What is it?" asked his wife.

  The man did not answer. He did not know the answer. He only knew that he was suddenly afraid. The day, so bright and crisp only a moment ago, now seemed dark and muffled as by a black cotton sheet. The sun had lost its winter warmth and now hid behind a cloud that had not been in the sky only seconds ago. Gloom descended in the man's heart, and the sky darkened with it.

  He realized that the bear was the boy's guardian. It should be with the boy. Without it, the boy was alone. Alone and not safe.

  He looked around frantically. It had been less than twenty seconds since he kicked the ball, but he could not see his son near the brook. Where could he be?

  The grass was no longer greener than grass had a right to be. It was dark, and the fey sky snatched its brightness and replaced it with a somber tone more appropriate to the season and more frightening to the eye.

  The man looked to the sandbox. His boy was not there. The jungle gym stood vacant, a boxy skeleton whose cold bones had been stained to a deep gray by thousands of hands pulling children through its ribcage, gripping its fleshless frame and jumping from rib to rib before sliding down its spine. The teeter totter listed to one side, its wooden plank equally devoid of human touch. The swings drifted slowly back and forth, pushed by the wind or by the phantom touch of ghostly children who wished to play but could not quite find the tangible strength to move the swing to its intended heights. Slowly back and forth, the swings were hypnotic and frightening. But the man pulled his gaze away from their mesmerizing drift.

  The man looked to his left, and the tendrils of fear sprouted into full-grown horror. His boy had followed his new ball into the street.

  "Sammy!" screamed the man, but the boy did not hear him, or perhaps hea
rd but was too intent upon following his toy to heed the man's call.

  The man dropped the knife. It fell to the cake, its tip piercing the spongy softness before the handle also fell down, landing in the perfectly-spread frosting without a sound, but marring the cake with grim hostility. The knife handle lay across the frosting balloons, and its weight had levered up the point of the knife while it was still imbedded in the cake, tearing up a great chunk of the "Happy Birthday" and shredding it beyond repair. The boy's name remained as it had been, with a perfect slice down its center, a single deep incision that the man had made himself.

  The man ran to his son, screaming his name. Hundred Pines was not a bustling metropolis, it was a small city near the sea. It was not a heavily congested area, and remained blissfully untouched by the thick traffic jams that congested nearby Los Angeles. There was no car in the street where the boy now ran, but the man knew that something horrible was in the air. Fear powered his legs and his screams.

  His boy picked up the ball, and now he apparently heard his father, for he faced the man and waved. He smiled his perfect, crooked-tooth smile, and the man could almost see the fairies pulling at the boy's cheek.

  He remembered in that instant that fairies were actually monsters, who would lure children to their deaths in a forest; that fairy tales were horror stories told by parents who wished to frighten their sons and daughters into good behavior. The man knew his life was a fairy tale, and like all fairy tales it had to end in death.

  "Son!" he screamed, and his voice came out in burning gasps, choking him even as he yelled. He was one hundred feet away, and there was nothing. His boy was alone, his boy was safe. The grass flattened below his heavy footfalls, bending down moistly with each running step. The man did not know if the grass would rise up again after he passed, such was the force of his speed as he pushed himself to go ever faster.

  Horror still draped its vines over him, adding its weight to his own, dragging him down, holding him back.

  He was fifty feet away, and there was nothing. His boy was alone, his boy was safe. The sky darkened still further, becoming almost a storm-sky, driving away the light and draping everything in a gray funeral shroud. A chill wind swept along the ground, touching the man's forehead with its icy breath, drying the sweat that had beaded upon his brow. It cooled, but did not invigorate. Rather, it cut him with icy razors, pruning the terror that rode him, making it stronger, pushing him down into the ground. The grass blades flattened beneath him, and did not rise after he passed.

  He was thirty feet away, and still there was nothing. His boy was alone, his boy was safe. The child was looking at him with something strange in his eyes, something the man had never seen in them before: fear. And the boy was not moving, he was not moving an inch. He had come to rest, and the man pushed his legs even faster, for his boy was like the summer breeze, and could not safely stay at rest.