Congregation Of Darkness (Full Moon Series Book 2)

by P. Mattern

  She looked frightened. And desperate. And as soon as she reached him she threw her arms around him and buried her face in his jacket, sobbing.

  Paranoid that they might become fodder for more town gossip, Carey put his arm around her and suggested that they walk to Aunt Ida’s house. Kimbra pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose daintily as she strode forward, keeping pace with Carey in spite of his longer legs. The sky had grown increasingly more ominous, violet tinged clouds pregnant with rain moving across the sky, and the wind had picked up , blowing her rippling hair across her face as she turned to him, her pupils huge and her long eyelashes wet with tears.

  “I love you Carey.” she said. Her voice was soft and resonant and her fervent words seemed to hang between them for an interminable moment in time before the wind swept them away.

  Carey felt his heart leap forward in his chest, as if it were responding with a physical affirmation of its own. He had to stop and pull her to him again.

  “And I love you. I love you Kimbra. For always.”

  The wind had picked up even more before they reached Aunt Ida’s porch, making the tree branches clack together with a hollow sound as they hurried inside. The eves and beams of the old Victorian house were moaning in the rising wind .It was as though the weather was reflecting the emotional tumult they were both feeling. Carey called out for his aunt and then checked upstairs and found that she was taking a nap. She had left a note in the kitchen about leftovers from a chicken dinner she had prepared earlier, but Carey was exceptionally unhungry and eager to get Kimbra alone privately to exchange information.

  As soon as she was seated on the couch he smoothed her shining wavy hair back from her troubled brow saying, ”Okay lady-spill it. I’m all ears. And I had quite the day myself-but you first!”

  Kimbra seemed to have calmed herself. Her eyes were full of apologetics as they met his.

  “My father doesn’t want me to see you anymore, and couldn’t even give me a reason-just said some general crap about how suspicious people in the town are of you, especially Pastor Levi. It’s to the point that they’ve put pressure on Mr. Hansen to fire you-also for no reason. I don’t get it-I got the impression that there was more to it-that there was something that he didn’t want to tell me-or couldn’t tell me. But he seemed almost…afraid. Like he was under some pressure himself.

  Carey that is SO unlike my dad! I couldn’t believe it! But at the same time I had to wonder…to wonder…”

  Kimbra’s voice trailed off as she searched Carey’s eyes for a moment, and Carey filled in the blank.

  “…you wondered if it has something to do with my metamorphosis, what I’m turning into. If they somehow have picked up on it right?”

  Kimbra lowered her eyes and nodded. It was as if she felt so badly having to relate this information to him that she couldn’t look at him. And yet something else-as though she were afraid to see the pain in his eyes that she felt the bad news would bring. As though she couldn’t stand to see him hurting.

  “Hey,” he said gently, though his heart was again racing.”I’m here with you, and I’m staying here. They can say anything they want. And I don’t care about the job.

  All I care about is you ,Kimbra. “

  He pulled her against him for a third time, thinking that she might start weeping again, but her voice, soft and resolute against his ear, was steady.

  “But my Dad-Carey I’m over 18-do you think your Aunt would let me stay here?”

  Carey drew back from her, a shocked expression on his face that morphed into a delighted grin.

  “Well you’re just full of surprises Miss Kimbra Bingham! Of course I’d have a decision to make since I’ve already committed to sleeping with Loki…do you happen to snore?”

  Kimbra actually laughed.

  “Not that I know of. How about you?” she teased.

  “Not that I know of –but I guess you’ll have to check that out for yourself. I do sleep in the nude however. That’s something to consider!”

  She snorted and pushed herself up against him,”Since when? I bet you just made that up.”

  He reached forward to slip his arm around her .

  “Well I’ve been meaning to try that! And what if Loki morphs into human form again? Then you’ll find yourself in bed with two guys!”

  “Well I’ve been meaning to try that!” she quipped saucily, echoing his own words. Carey looked down at her lovely uptilted face and began to laugh, his mood lightened by her cleverness. And he had an epiphany, a prescient sense that, though there might be a maelstrom surrounding them ,they were meant to be together , and they would stay together.

  Carey perceived that Kimbra had picked up on the same vibration, and leaned forward to kiss her hungrily, his passion matched by her own. Secretly he was thrilled that she had never been with anyone else. Not only was that a rarity in this day and age, but the idea that he would be the first and only male to make love to her(whenever that auspicious event took place) made him believe in both romantic love and destiny.

  A kiss that might have led to something else was interrupted by a sharp knocking at the front door of Aunt Ida’s house. The storm was in full force, and a high female voice shouting something was carried away by the mounting winds.

  Alarm in her eyes, Kimbra reached the door first.

  Outside, Channing stood, shivering wearing a bright blue rain slicker , the long blonde hair around her face hanging in soaked tendrils as she stepped inside. The urgency on her face was unmistakable.

  The first thing she did was give Kimbra a hug.

  “I’m so glad I found you! I was hanging outside in the foyer when Father called you into his study-I’m sorry I eavesdropped, but I’m NOT sorry because at least when you left I knew you were going to see Carey. Men from the church came right after you left, asking to speak with Father. They closed the door. I couldn’t hear EVERYTHING they were saying because the door was closed, but I heard enough to know that they were talking about Carey.

  Kimbra they’re planning to force him to leave-tonight! The judge issued an order or a writ or something about Carey being an undesirable-apparently there’s still a town law on the books that permits them to escort ‘undesirables’ to the city limits and make them leave, anytime they see fit to do it! I had to warn you that they’re coming for him tonight!! What are you going to do?”

  Carey and Kimbra both stared at the earnest bedraggled teenager in shock.

  “How long do I have?” Carey finally said. “Are they coming soon?”

  “They said something about getting together a cavalcade-all the police vehicles and official cars, and coming here to escort Carey to the city/county line.

  Carey turned to Kimbra.

  “I’m going to wake up Aunt Ida and gather some supplies…I started up her Winnebago the other day and took it out-it seems to run okay. I can tell her we’re going on a trip or something..she’s pretty amenable to anything these days.”

  He stopped , and Kimbra could see naked desperation in his eyes.

  “Kimbra I can’t….I can’t ask…” His voice trailed off into a hush. Kimbra noticed that he was trembling slightly.

  She looked at him directly, defiance in her eyes.

  “Of COURSE I’m coming with you! I couldn’t bear to stay here, to wonder where you were.”

  As Channing watched the couple embrace she began to argue ,”I’m going too! Kimbra I don’t want to stay with Father-he’s obviously been brainwashed by the Pastor and everybody else! Let me go with you!! Please!!!!”

  Kimbra pulled away from Carey and shook her head violently. There were tears in her eyes.

  “Channing I promise we’ll make contact and we’ll come back for you! But you’re only 15 and they’ll charge Carey with kidnapping!! I’m sorry! Please ,please try to understand!!We have to go now!”

  “But Kimbra”, Channing wailed, her face distorted into a harpy mask with the depth of her emotions,”Mama’s GONE now .PLEASE DON’T LEAVE M
E!!”

  For a half second Carey saw a faltering look in Kimbra’s eyes, as if she were wavering in her resolve to leave. When she spoke again she had her arms around her younger sister, holding her closely.

  “Chan, you have to trust us. I’ve got your cell number, and your friends numbers too. No , wait-Dad might take your cell when he finds I’ve gone. Here-take mine and hide it-he’ll think I’ve taken it with me and I’ll call you when we get to…wherever we get to. Please!”

  But Channing refused to budge. Her blue eyes were teary but there was steel resolve in her plaintive voice.

  “I’m GOING WITH YOU Kimbra! I‘m not staying here!!!”

  Kimbra pulled back from Channing and searched her eyes for a moment.

  Suddenly she sighed.

  “Okay. You can come,” she said. Carey, alarm and surprise showing in his eyes, started to put his hand on her arm in mild protest to get her attention, but she shook him off.

  “We have just a very little time. You need to run home-sneak in through the back so Father won’t know. Get some basic things and all the money you have on hand, I know that that’s probably not much. Go in my room and get the twenties I have in my top dresser drawer too. Plus if you can grab flashlights or anything else you can think of that we might need on a roadtrip bring it too… but you have to hurry!! Do you understand?”

  Channing stopped crying and nodded soberly. Wordlessly she she put up the hood of her still dripping rainslicker and exited out into the storm, which had abated quite a bit during their terse exchange. No sooner had the door closed than Kimbra’s head whipped back to face Carey.

  “I just lied to my sister-for the first time ever! We have to leave NOW Carey. Lets get Aunt Ida in the RV and gather up some supplies! Channing doesn’t want to stay but she’ll be safe here. But if she comes with us, the authorities will throw the book at you, it will give them the perfect excuse to prosecute you and it won’t matter what any of us say, they’ll do it.

  But if it’s just us and Aunt Ida-there’s nothing they can do!”

  Carey moved quickly gathering supplies though his mind was in a daze-everything was just happening too fast. Loki stayed on his heels as he and Kimbra got Aunt Ida settled comfortably in the back of the RV with all her layers of bedding that they hurriedly stripped off the bed. Carey took his clothing, though he had very little, since this was the second hasty exodus from a place of residence that he’d made in the scant space of a few months. He emptied Aunt Ida’s cupboards of canned food and powdered milk, her linen closet of warm blankets and grabbed all the flashlights from the garage along with an ancient looking toolbox .Belatedly he thought of Aunt Ida’s personal things and found that Kimbra had already seen to those, as well as Aunt Ida’s purse, with her checkbook and a healthy preponderance of hundred dollar bills bound in sheaves by thin paper wraparounds with “one thousand printed on them.”Apparently Aunt Ida was in the habit of squirreling funds away for the proverbial rainy day.

  The money, Carey reflected, would probably come in handy. And it was definitely the rainiest day they’d seen since his arrival in Milton.

  There was a creeping sense of urgency as he opened the garage door and started up the RV, only half believing it would start, and half expecting he and Kimbra would be caught redhanded in the act of leaving and maybe charged with kidnapping the elderly lady. Between the two captain’s chairs seats in the front Loki lay quietly, his head propped on his front paws. It was still raining hard, making a tinny thrumming sound on the vehicle’s roof as he pulled down the driveway. Looking to the left before he made a turn to the right to put the vehicle on the road out of town he was startled to see flashing lights approaching from a few blocks away-red and blue-mounted on the roofs of at least three police department vehicles. And a rainsoaked mob at some distance , looking like a pack of angry Maine lobstermen in their heavy raingear.

  In the foreground though, running down the sidewalk for all that she was worth, several blocks ahead of the lit up official town vehicles and the pedestrian mob, was Channing. The hood of her rain slicker had fallen back and her long blonde hair was soaked through. Her mouth was open and moving, as if she were either trying to warn them or screaming for them to stop.

  Beside him in the passenger seat, Kimbra, who had seen Channing running toward the RV also, shouted “CAREY,GO!” before she collapsed, burying her face in her hands and sobbing raggedly.

  It was not in Carey just to leave Channing there on the sidewalk, but at the same time he knew that they couldn’t take her. Rolling down the drivers side window he shouted hoarsely at Channing,’CHANNING I’M SORRY, WE HAVE TO GO.WE WILL COME BACK FOR YOU I PROMISE, CHANNING,I PROMISE!!!”

  Channing stood stock still on the sidewalk. Even in the uneven lighting and its attendant shadows he could see her gasping for air from her attempt to outrun the police, her thin chest inflating and deflating . She looked so small, desperate and vulnerable standing there in the driving rain, like a landlocked mermaid ,her hair hanging in wavy wet tendrils around her , a look of both shock and sadness clearly visible on her beautiful face.

  She looked most of all like a betrayed angel, and Carey felt an actual pang in the area of his heart as he gunned the accelerator and turned onto the roadway.

  He didn’t want to ,but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sideview mirror ,watching Channing’s slight, lone figure as she started running after them again, her mouth open, probably crying out for them to stop. Finally he saw her collapse onto her knees on the sidewalk, as the first police car with its lights revolving slowed to a stop beside her.

  Inside the RV, by the light of the dashboard, her fists pressed into her eyes ,Kimbra continued to sob, shrugging off his tentative hand as he reached over to try to comfort her. Though a few of the town vehicles attempted to follow the RV, lights flashing but without sirens sounding, they stopped and turned around when he hit the posted town limits.

  Behind him , in the darkness , Carey thought he could hear Aunt Ida issuing gentle, ladylike snores. Kimbra eventually stopped crying for the most part, still dabbing at her eyes periodically with the crumpled tissue that she held in her right hand, and reaching over silently to take his proffered right hand as he drove with his left. Driving an RV on a rainy night with his left hand wouldn’t have been Carey’s preference, but the intertwining of their hands seemed to calm them both and center them.

  They drove through the night. Carey felt as though time itself had been suspended and the RV had cocooned the three of them-himself, Kimbra and Aunt Ida, in a safe haven on wheels, removed from any threats or former troubles. Eventually the rain stopped and Carey began to search the roadsides for a rest stop. He had to urinate and he was pretty sure that the women might also need to relieve themselves. He also was looking forward to stretching his legs.

  Rounding the bend of a particularly curvy section of the roadway he saw exactly what he’d been looking for-a sign shaped like a giant teepee that announced the Kekionga Campgrounds and Rest Area. It was even large enough to have it’s own mini Burger King.

  As far as Carey was concerned, it looked like the Promised Land.

  The next morning Carey took Loki for a run as Kimbra guided Aunt Ida into the large tourist friendly restroom to clean up and change clothing. Aunt Ida seemed somewhat disoriented which made Kimber suspect that Carey had used his trance or hypnotic powers of suggestion on her. Or that senile dementia was slowly gaining the upper hand. But the older lady seemed in really good spirits, so Kimber also reflected that Carey’s aunt was way overdue for a change of scenery.

  Unfortunately the circumstances that necessitated the trio’s abrupt departure had also prevented Kimber from retrieving any of her personal belongings , so against her fiscally conservative protests Carey had insisted that she select a couple teeshirts and pairs of pants from the gift shop. The selection was extremely limited. When she emerged from the restroom Kimber’s new brown teeshirt declared,”Hoosier Pride” and was paired with camouf
lage pants. Carey took one look and burst out laughing.

  “The selection was, as you can see, rather limited Mr. Floyd!” she said cutting her eyes at him in a disapproving manner.”But it does feel good to change. They even had souvenir underwear.”

  Carey raised his eyebrows.

  “Can’t wait to see those!” he remarked. “Do they have writing on them also? “In spite of his fatigue he could feel his libido rising, thinking of areas of Kimbra’s body he hadn’t explored to his satisfaction.

  Yet.

  Kimbra smirked.”You’ll have to check them out later. All I can tell you is that they settle for once and for all the issue of WHY no one should EVER purchase underclothing at a rest stop!”

  Carey wondered if the new undies featured tiny ears of corn-cornfields were synonymous with the Hoosier state.

  He could also think of another’ear of corn’ that he’d like to see in proximity to Kimbra’s panties.

  Carey, Kimbra and Aunt Ida had a pleasant fast food breakfast of French toast sticks ,greasy but filling egg and bacon sandwiches and hot coffees with cream and sugar. Aunt Ida seemed to be under the impression that they were vacationing.

  “You are such a lovely girl, Kimbra, to offer to come with us on vacation,” she said smiling pleasantly over her cardboard cartons of breakfast food at Kimbra, who was sitting across from her by Carey.

  Kimbra smiled a genuinely fond smile at Carey’s aunt.

  “You are very kind to invite me.” She replied. “It’s been awhile since I took a vacation.”

  “Well I’m sure that the fresh air and change of scenery will do us all some good then.” Aunt Ida responded.”Though it gives me a shameful appetite…I can’t believe how much I’ve eaten!”

  Carey smiled between bites of a french toast stick that had high fructose fake maple syrup dripping off the end of it.”You should both eat as much as you can-this will be ‘brunch’ because I’m not stopping again until dinner time. And be sure to use the restroom before we leave because I’m not planning on any rest stops until then. There may be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth but I refuse to be deterred even for 5 minutes-and by the way, in my experience you ladies NEVER take ‘just 5 minutes!”