Out of the Dark

Book I

Nightfall

 

 

Chapter 1 

Thorn propped his baseball bat against the end table and reached through the darkness, lifting the phone.  Another bumping sound came from the back of the house, followed closely by a scratching.  Something’s back there!

Was it at a window? The door?  “Just a branch,” he whispered–but there’d never been a branch there before.  He resisted the urge to turn on a light.  The darkness would give him an advantage over intruders because he knew where everything was in the house.

His hands shook with the rest of him and he accidentally pressed ‘2′ instead of ‘1′.  He disconnected, blinking back tears, and tried again.  “Please answer,” he whispered when it rang.  He hated himself for being scared.  He was eleven years old–almost grown, he thought–but that night, he needed his mother.

Thorn lifted his eyes and they darted between the front and back doors, keeping a fix on them in case he needed to run.  The scanning made him feel a little better.  Though he couldn’t see the doors through the dark, he knew where they were and plotted his potential trajectories accordingly.

“Hey, honey,” his mother answered.  

Relief flooded through him at the quiet sound of her voice.  “Hi, Mama.”

No loud music and laughter came from her end of the line, which meant she must have left the bar already and was probably in a room at the motel.  “Are you busy?”

“Little bit,” she answered.  

Thorn heard a man’s voice in the background.   It didn’t sound like a nice voice.   It made him sad that his mother had to be nice to mean people to get money for the things they needed.  Once upon a time she had a real job.  She was a high school teacher, science and health education.  She lost her job because she wasn’t healthy enough to keep it.  Now she had pink business cards with fancy silver writing that called her Lana Reeves.  Her real name was Irena MacDonnell, but she didn’t want that on there.  The cards also said she was a dance instructor.  She did dance, he thought, but mostly she just had sex.  She gave the cards to men she met at HIV support groups, and her phone rang a lot.

“You okay?” his mother asked.

“Yeah,” he answered.  “Just hearin’ noises outside.”

“Like what?”

The man’s voice came again, louder than before.  “What the hell is this shit?” 

Thorn swallowed.  He didn’t want to make the man mad because then he might hurt his mother.  “Prob’ly just raccoons or something,” he said, hoping to reassure himself as much as her.

“I’m not paying you to talk on the goddamned phone!” the man said.

“Honey?” his mother said.  “I know all the windows and doors are locked.  But double-check.  Stay awake.  I’ll be home as soon as I can.  Okay?”

“Okay, Mama.”  Thorn bit his lip.  “Can I call the police if somebody’s here?”  She’d told him he couldn’t ever call them.  They might take him away from her if they found out she left him alone at night.

“Are you that scared?”

“I don’t know,” he answered.  “Something just doesn’t feel right.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“Are you sure that’s okay?”

“I’ll be there,” she promised.  “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mama.”

He put the phone down, hating himself for being a baby.  He’d never called his mother home from work before and hoped she would forgive him for this one time.  He retrieved the baseball bat and then checked the doors and windows.  While he checked the lock on his mother’s window, something changed outside.  It was like a shadow.  He shifted his eyes but saw nothing.  Probably just a cloud passing over the moon.  He looked but saw no clouds.

Thorn moved back to the front window in the living room and raised his eyes to the glow above the treetops.  His mother was there, just on the other side of the highway, in the place where the lights were shining.  Now that the trees and bushes had gotten their leaves, all he could see of the bar and motel was the haze in the nighttime sky.  Still, it was better than nothing.  It made him feel closer to her.  He fixed his attention on the long, tree-lined dirt drive, longing for the first sight of the headlights he knew so well.

Another sound came from the back of the house.  A breaking twig? He wanted to go look, needed to, but was too scared.  If somebody was there, he didn’t want to know.  He wanted somebody else, somebody bigger, to come look for him.  The police.  They had guns.  His mother would call them.  “Hurry, Mama,” he whispered, rocking himself in agitation.

The crash of breaking glass shattered the silence.  Back door, his mind supplied as he spun to face that direction.  He heard movement–a hand scrabbling for the inside locks.  He ran for the door, raising the bat as he went.  He swung, using the groping sounds as his guide.  The impact jarred his whole body, but he was rewarded with a pained bellow as the hand withdrew.  He pulled the bat back over his shoulder and waited.

“You’re gonna pay for that!” came a voice from outside.

Thorn’s mouth went dry.  It wasn’t the voice of a stranger.  It was much worse.  It was his father’s voice.  Thorn hadn’t heard it in more than a year and he’d hoped never to hear it again.  He’d been scared before, but now he was terrified. 

Oh God, he’d called his mother home.  She would come and his father would get her, and it would be all his fault.  He needed to call and tell her not to come–but that wouldn’t work.  If he told her his father was there, she would come to help him.  And if he didn’t tell her, and pretended everything was all right, then his father would just kill him and be waiting when she did come home.  “Nonono,” he breathed.  “What am I s’posed to do?”

The hand didn’t come back.  Instead, something heavy hit the door.  He felt the vibration in the house.  His father meant to crash through.  Thorn didn’t know whether to stay and fight, or turn and run.  The memory of his father’s six-foot-four, 350-pound bulk convinced him to run. 

Running was better anyway, he told himself as he headed toward the front door.  He could maybe catch his mother before she got to the house, and they could speed away.  He didn’t know where his father had parked, but it was probably some distance away since Thorn hadn’t heard a car approach.

His hands fumbled with the locks in the darkness.  “Damn it,” he breathed.  He almost kicked the door in his frustration that the very things meant to provide security were instead hindering his escape.  He didn’t, though, because he didn’t want his father to know where he was.

Finally, he got the chain and slide-bolt unlocked.  All that remained was the little lock above the doorknob.  As he turned it, the back door crashed.  He yanked the door open, then turned and hurled the bat in the direction of his father’s curses.  His father roared, and he knew he’d hit the mark.  He hated losing the bat, but it would have slowed him down anyway.  He tore through the doorway and raced across the front porch, jumping to the ground and running.  He wished he could fly.

His father’s heavy footsteps thundered in his ears.  He thought about moving into the woods to hide, but decided his best bet was to stay on the driveway.  If he could make it to the highway and across, there would be people.  He would be safe.  He was almost there.

An engine roared, drowning out his panting breaths and his father’s wheezing ones.  It overrode the sounds of their feet on the dirt as it rushed toward him.

There were no headlights but he saw moonlight on metal as the car tore across the highway and into the drive.  He and the car were both moving too quickly to stop.  Thorn swerved to the right and prayed his mother would veer the other way.  He heard the tires skidding when she put on the brakes.  Time slowed down as the car slid toward him, coating him in dust.  It didn’t hurt as much as he’d feared it would when it hit, but it sent him flying. 

Landing hurt.  He hit hard and rolled, feeling explosions of pain all over him.  He ended up on his back.  He couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe.

“Thorn!” his mother screamed.  “Please be all right!”

He wanted to tell her to run but didn’t have the air.  Her face appeared above him.  Someone had hit her again.  Probably his fault for getting the man angry with her.

Thorn finally made the word. “Run!” It was too late.  His father’s face loomed above him, just beyond his mother’s.

Something clamped around Thorn’s ankle and then he was dragged back toward the house as his father backed in that direction.  One of his father’s huge hands held him with bruising force while the other was wrapped in his mother’s long, black hair.  Thorn saw her struggling to stay on her feet. 

Thorn bent his body, reaching for his father’s hand to try to get free. 

“Be still!” his father commanded, savagely wrenching his mother’s hair, driving her to her knees.

Thorn knew that routine.  Anything he did would cause his father to hurt his mother more.  But what did it matter now, when he was probably going to kill them anyway? A little chance was better than none.  He drew back his foot, hoping to land a kick on his father’s groin.

“Don’t, Thorn!” his mother said.  “Just do what he says.”

He growled his frustration; it sucked sometimes that mothers could read minds. 

Now he didn’t know what to do.  How could he fight when his mother told him not to, knowing he could end up making things worse for her? He hated feeling powerless.  He didn’t want to think about what his father would do when he got them into the house.  The last time he’d gotten them, they’d both ended up in the hospital–but that was before he said he’d kill them.