Dark Places of the Soul: Dark Soul Trilogy - Book 1 (2 page)

She sat back on the stool and rubbed the
front of her head, laughing. He had taken the sports section of the
daily news and left the balance of the paper on the seat dividing
her realm from his.

“
My name is James,” he
offered as she finished wiping a few tears of laughter away from
her eyes.

“
Keri,” she stated in a
voice with breezy edges.

“
You do breakfast here
often?”

“
No… job huntin’ t’day…
gonna try an see what’s up at the drug store across the
street.”

“
Could apply t’ work
here.”

“
Never waited tables… but
it would be a possibility… tips are normally pretty
good.”

“
See there Joyce,” he said
to the waitress, “got you some counter help in
training.”

“
Sorry, not lookin’ t’
bring in any new help right now hon, but ya leave yer name and
number where ya c’n be reached and I’ll put ya on th’ list.” Joyce
placed a small saucer with a buttered English muffin in front of
Keri. The plate with eggs, home fries and toast was for
James.

He opened the section of paper he’d taken.
Glancing over to Keri he caught her sneaking a quick look in his
direction. She giggled, giving him the impression he was living
through a sort of teen aged ritual performed by a girl in her early
twenties. His vision turned back to the paper before him, Baseball
standings. Detroit was holding their lead in the American League
East. It didn’t seem as if anyone could catch them after their 35-5
start. He neatly folded the paper back as he had found it, minus
the section Keri was still buried in.

“
It doesn’t look like
you’re spendin’ your time in the classifieds,” he
commented.

She took a bite of her muffin and wrinkled
her nose at him. “Priorities… ya know… the worldly news ‘n stuff
like that.”

“
Me… I’m totally into
sports and the funnies section. That stuff about the Middle East
drives me absolutely nuts.”

“
Can I ask you somethin’?”
She took another bite of muffin as she asked.

He simply nodded his approval at her efforts
to pry into his personal life.

“
What do you do for a
living?”

“
I teach,” he offered as
an answer to her query, “and nothing t’ do with current
events.”

Her returned expression was laced with
multiple layers of doubt.

“
Seriously,” he said over
the rim of his coffee cup, “I teach a course in creative writing at
a local high school and a couple plain old English courses just for
good measure.”

“
I guess you could pass
for an English teacher… although every male teacher I ever had was
much older than you and either bald or completely gray.”

“
I’ll take all that as a
compliment… that I’m not bald or gray.” He took another sip of his
hot coffee before continuing. “Guess I could use a shave and a
clean shirt. I’m kinda takin’ the summer hiatus bit a little
far.”

“
You also seem a little…
youthful t’ have me absolutely convinced.”

“
Four years at a state
college… four more taking evening classes for my masters, mind you
of course that is after spending the day trying to control some
very unruly high schoolers and here I am, twenty-seven and half way
t’ tenure.”

He took a final swallow of his coffee and
nodded when the waitress offered a refill. Keri looked over her
shoulder at the front door of the drug store, checking to see if
the closed sign was flipped over to reveal the store’s opening.

“
When did you know what
you wanted t’ do with your life?” The question was tossed out into
the bacon aroma air.

“
Still not certain,” he
paused for a moment to think over his next few words. “I love what
I do, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I wonder if it’s what I’m
suppose t’ be doing… in the grand order of things.”

“
Told you ya don’t look
like a teacher… philosopher maybe… High School English… I don’t
think so.”

“
You still in
school?”

“
Not for me… barely made
it through high school.”

“
Did you ever have
anything that you really wanted to do? A dream… a special dream…
the kind of thing you always knew was far fetched, but it still
filled your mind?”

She looked over her shoulder again, through
the front window of the restaurant, while finishing what remained
of her Orange Juice. “When I was younger I was intrigued with
painting. I wanted t’ sit at my easel all day and paint beautiful
mountains and sunsets. I use t’ go and set up in a field and paint
flowers, water color or oil, it didn’t matter. I wasted a lot of
time.”

“
Wasted?”

“
My mother didn’t see the
value of any type of art. She was always tryin’ to protect me from
becoming just like her… lazy, a dreamer lookin’ for a man to pull
her through life. If I had danced she would have told me I was
wasting my time. If I sang she’d have said the same. Lucky me, I
liked t’ paint and so she told me… right to my face that I was
wasting my time.”

“
What about your father?
Did he think your painting was worthwhile?”

“
Don’t know,” she answered
as she did the over her shoulder thing again. “Don’t know who he
is… never met him.”

“
Sorry… I didn’t mean to
pry into something that’s obviously none of my
business.”

“
It’s alright. My mother
use t’ say I was better off not knowing him.”

The waitress placed a check in front of both
customers. He laid a twenty on top of the green and white slip.

“
Charge hers to mine and
keep the change,” he said quickly as he got up from the
stool.

“
And what do I owe you if
I let you pay for my breakfast?” The comment came across in a
cynical manner.

“
Nothing,” he stated quite
plainly.

She spun on her stool, one knee completely
exposed through her torn jeans. Her skeptical expression softened
and the edges of a smile touch the corners of her lips.

“
Thank you,” her
appreciative response was barely audible.

They walked to the glass door together and
like the gentleman he always sought to be, he held the exit opened
as she passed. The displayed time outside the local bank down the
street read three minutes after eight. Across the street at the
drug store someone had flipped the sign in the door over to ‘open’.
Keri stood on the curb, preparing to take the first step onto the
black river dissecting the two rows of brick and concrete
buildings.

“
Good luck,” he said,
following her into the street, “with the job hunting.” He pointed
to the drug store on the opposite shore as his long stride took him
beside her.

“
Are you following me?”
She asked in a teasing manner she tried not to hide.

A woman in her thirties with red hair darted
from a parked car and ran into the drug store. It was four minutes
after eight and the temperature flashed seventy-nine on the clock
out front of the bank. He heard the bell above the drug store’s
glass door ring as it closed behind the woman. The menacing time
was about to announce itself and as Keri attempted to step up from
the street onto the sidewalk he grabbed her arm, just above the
elbow, and pulled her to him. He spun her back into the street and
in one fluid motion pushed her beside the red haired woman’s car,
shielding her with his own form against what he knew would
occur.

***

The first sound she became aware of was
shattering glass. The explosion hadn’t quite reached her eardrums,
but when it did it was deafening. She was safe from the blast. A
dark green Ford Thunderbird occupied a space between her and the
destruction. The man from the restaurant was against her back and
she heard a panicked scream of someone in pain.

“
Are you alright?” His
breath blew against her ear. It was not unpleasant, funny she
should think that way at this moment.

“
My God, what happened?”
It wasn’t like her to ask questions of the Almighty, especially
since she was unsure of His existence and felt quite certain that
she was despised by any and all Holy beings.

“
Explosion… the drug
store.”

“
I don’t believe it…
another couple seconds… Holy shit… I’da been in there when it
blew.”

She was on her knees beside the red haired
woman’s car. Her protector still had a firm grip on her shoulders.
Initially an eerie silence floated over the broken glass of
shattered windows and crumbled stone. The onlookers hadn’t arrived
yet and no emergency sirens announced their response to the
disaster.

He stood up at the front of the car, gazing
into the smoke filled hole of destruction. Keri gradually braved
the sight, moving to his side. Cries of the victims, the woman with
red hair and the clerk at the counter, diminished into the
momentary silence. She saw a crumpled body, once belonging to the
spirit of an unlucky individual.

A middle-aged man in a gray suit stepped
over the rubble of the broken storefront. He turned back to the
street, toward two associates and shook his head with doubt.

“
Alive?” She didn’t
realize her lips had even asked the question.

“
Don’t believe so,” her
savior responded.

“
You saved my
life.”

The English teacher named James didn’t react
to her admission. She watched him as his head turned up the street,
toward the Northern end of town, as if waiting. The sirens
announced the first response team. A red fire truck with its
entourage of volunteers commandeered the street. Squad cars from
the local police department could be heard a few blocks away.

“
There’s nothing we can do
here,” he commented without turning his gaze to the girl he’d just
saved. He placed a hand to her back to lead her from the scene. “We
should move on before two many questions are asked.”

“
I don’t understand, what
would they ask us?” Her question didn’t stop her from allowing
herself to be led away by the English teacher named
James.

The first of what would be three police cars
pulled up against the sidewalk. The two officers quickly move
toward the chaotic aftermath of the explosion. Keri glanced at
them, still following the lead of her knight in rumpled
clothing.

“
Where are you staying?”
She asked, not certain why.

He turned back, looking at her with his
intense pair of blue eyes before answering in an almost biblical
manner. “Come and see.”

***

Abner Hollis sat at an empty table, leaning
the forearms of his bent frame on the scarred wooden top. He was
nearly eighty and knew that an eighty-first birthday was probably
not dealt in his deck of cards. Yesterday his doctors released him
from St Vincent’s hospital. He had a preference to die of old age
at home.

He unfolded the morning’s paper. The news of
a large eastern city, distant from his Midwestern town in more ways
than one, was notated in capital letters beneath the headline of an
Associated Press article. ‘Boston socialite murdered, fiancé held
as suspect.’ Abner Hollis felt a chill in his spine originating
from a time before the existence of his ancient bones. Three times
in the last month, murders on the east coast had caught his
attention and caused his blood to freeze in his veins. Abner’s
failing heart wasn’t going to take much more of this.

He got up from the table, slowly. His
efforts to move were always stiff after prolonged periods of
sitting. He took the wooden cane, from where he had hooked it, off
the back of his chair and made his way from the kitchen to the
living room. He sat in an oversized recliner. Beside the large
chair a small round table took up space, ornamented by a simple
black telephone. He spun the rotary dial with a crooked finger.
Seven digits memorized by his still sharp mind. The voice answering
on the other end of the wire met his expectation.

“
Hello…”

“
Abner,” a female voice
cut him off.”

“
I need to go east…
Boston, Massachusetts.”

“
Do you think that’s wise?
You’re not well.”

“
I am…” He coughed
abruptly, something he’d grown used to. “I am in need of your help.
Your father would have seen to it.”

The other end of the phone became overcome
by silence. Abner listened to the lack of sound as if a favorite
recording was offering its most sensuous notes.

The female voice broke into the quiet.
“When?”

The church wearing layers of white paint sat
proudly on a hill just east of the New York border. The steeple
overlooked Vermont’s Green Mountains and the valleys between. The
most recent coat of paint was faded and cracked having last been
washed with a new layer more than ten years ago. The bell in the
pointed tower, reaching toward heaven, occasionally chimed, but
never at the appropriate time.

Once the denomination worshipping behind
these walls labeled itself Baptist, later the structure spent a
decade empty. The congregation gathering a short drive west of
Arlington identified with no particular dogmatic faith, other than
to say they were Christian. Their plan to revitalize the old
timbers and cinder blocks flourished with the gift of abundant
spirit.