The Damned Summer (The Ruin Trilogy) (2 page)

Sarah rose early the next morning, sore and
full of guilt, but at the same time an aura of independence quietly steamed off
of her like an invisible mist. Last night might not have been the wisest
decision of her life, but it still gave her a rite of passage into adulthood.
One of the more minor and easiest of all the trials of maturity, but passage
all the same.

She walked down the stairs and into the
kitchen with a gait that looked the same as before, but definitely felt
different and nearly collided with her father.

“Whoa!” He mumbled, moving his coffee cup to the
side, luckily it had a lid on it, or they both would have got burnt.

“Sorry!” She replied.

“My fault,” he smiled. “I heard you coming
down the stairs. I should have known you’d be moving with the speed of youth,”
he winked at her, squeezing her shoulder as he moved past.

“You’re up early for a Saturday,” she
replied, pouring herself some coffee.

“The latest results of the dig are troubling
me,” he said, opening the door to his study.

“More barbarism?”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“Won’t that attract more media coverage?”

He put his hand on his forehead. “Damn, I
hadn’t even thought of it from that angle.”

“Don’t you want to be famous?”

“Your generation has a hang up with that, not
mine.”

“Bologna,” she replied, sipping her own
coffee. “Everybody is a glory hound, everybody but you, that is.”

He tipped his cup at her. “Finally we agree
on something.”

“Why don’t we go out for breakfast?”

“If you can get your mom out of bed, I’m
game.”

“I’m on it,” she said, making her way back up
the stairs as quickly as she had come down them.

He moved into his study and closed the door.
His face quickly became stoic as he looked down at the pages scattered across
his desk.

It seemed like just yesterday that his class
had found the site that had become the latest and hottest Late Woodland period
dig site since Cahokia. He had felt like a kid on Christmas Eve, with all the
museums calling him and the immediate approval of research grants for future
funding for the digs by the state and federal government, not to mention all
the sponsorships by millionaires who were involved in archeology merely for the
sport and brag of it.

The press had been more of a pain in the ass
than anything. His daughter spoke the truth when it came to his utter
disinterest in fame, but it had helped to bring out the rich and their
checkbooks.

It wasn’t until they were about a year and a
half into the excavation that they started finding disturbing evidence of
savage brutality. It was well recorded that many acts of violence transpired in
ancient times. Human sacrifice, mass murder and cannibalism were quite common
in the early age of mankind, but what he seemed to have stumbled upon was much
more disturbing. What he had found rivaled even the atrocities of modern man.

His fingers lightly brushed across the papers
that were his notes and drawings from the dig, as if they were crawling with
disease and parasites.

“We should have left you in the ground,” he
whispered.

The dig site that was troubling Steve Hendrix
was the home a small group of refugees were escaping from four hundred years
ago. The very same demon that battled with Frank Tyler in the present had also
pursued these refugees. The monster's cause for pursuit those centuries ago was
the same reason it will present a peace offer in the future to Frank. Needless
to say, the demon had been on the same quest for quite some time, but on that
night four hundred years ago it thought it was about to win. It believed this
chase was almost over.

The fiend had been instrumental in destroying
their homeland, but he wasn't done with this group of refuges yet. The girl was
the one he wanted, the others didn't really matter.

Destroying their village hadn't been much of
a task, as far as the demon was concerned. It just had to introduce some fleas
that were carrying the bubonic plague and let things escalate from there. It
kept its finger on the dying pulse of the village, whispering ideas into the Elders'
ears as they slept. It took some time, but desperation sometimes breeds action
with little thought. The Elders desperation had turned into demon fueled
paranoia, and they had made a decision that no one liked, but few would speak
out against.

Raven and the small group she traveled with
were the few with the courage to stand against the leaders of the tribe. For
their bravery, they were rewarded with exile.

So the small band left their home, and the
fiend followed. None of them ever returned, leaving the fate of the village
unknown to all of them, except for the demon of course. It found out much
later, almost by accident.  

The fiend watched her from the high grass as
she led the small group of three people that had refused to forsake her. The
old woman trailed behind her, and was their shaman. A young boy; who was her
little brother, and all that was left of her blood relatives, helped the old
woman along. The one at the end was her man.

She stopped suddenly, crouching down and
looking directly at where the demon laid, watching them.

"Your eyes aren't that good, little
bird,"
the monster thought
to himself. "
But you sense danger, don't you?"

"Raven," her man spit out at her.
"Why do we stop?"

"Shhh," she replied, listening.

"Don't try and silence me!" Coal
growled, grabbing her arm, yanking her back to him.

They came eye to eye, Coal's eyes fuming with
anger.

"There is something out there!" she
hissed back. "All you are doing is getting its attention!"

"Let it come!" Coal yelled into the
dark sky. "I will run no longer from these evil spirits!" He pointed
at the woman he loved, the woman that he had thrown everything away for, to be
nothing more than her follower. "Evil spirits that follow you! The Elders
were right, you are cursed!"

The demon was planning on attacking but
quickly changed its mind, this was much better. Coal was finally betraying his
woman.

"How tasty," the demon whispered,
causing her to look back out into the darkness at him.

"I am a warrior!" Coal yelled into
Raven's face, forcing her attention back to him. "I should be making the
decisions on where we go, and what we should do, not some..." he hesitated
for a moment. "Woman," he finished.

The old woman who could read the winds looked
to Raven. "He has forsaken you. His pride has made him a traitor."

"Silence, you old, useless woman!"
Coal said, slapping his elder to the ground. Raven's little brother tried to
prevent the woman from crashing to the earth, but was unable to stop the large
woman's decent.

The young boy turned on Coal, fury in his
eyes for what had been done to the shaman.

Coal replied by kicking the boy in the chest,
sending him to the ground much harder than the old woman.

"The demon has his mind,"
Raven admitted to herself.  Forcing the
anguish deep down into her stomach, she pulled her knife, stepping forward and
slashing her husband's throat.

Their eyes met for a moment as he started to
gurgle and choke on his blood. His eyes rolled up into his head as he fell to
the ground.

A lone tear traveled down her face as she
thought of what Coal had used to be before the plague destroyed their people,
before the Elders exiled her as the cause of the plague.

"Everything I touch," she
whispered.

"That's not true!" her young
brother yelled, crouching beside the shaman, who could not seem to stop wheezing.
"You did not cause the bad spirits to come into our life, you are the only
one that can destroy them! That is why they come after you, they fear
you!"

With the man dead and the old woman nearly
so, the demon decided that it was time to attack.

Raven heard him coming. She motioned her
brother to rise up next to her. "Draw your weapon, River. The monster
comes."

River did as his sister commanded, crouching
in a warrior stance, ready to fight, ready to die. He felt fear in his nine
year old bones, but he was ready; even though one of his ribs was cracked from
Coal's savage kick. Raven was his sister, and he loved her dearly but she was
also much more. She was the Chosen One, the one the gods had picked to defend
her people. The Elders of the tribe had refused to see this, banishing her as
the cause of the plague. The irony of the Elders driving out the only one who
could save them was not lost on the boy warrior. Snarling at the darkness
before him, he gripped his tomahawk in his right hand and his stone knife in
his left, moving in front of his sister savior, fully intending to give his
life in her protection.

Raven let her brother stand in front of her,
knowing the monster would most likely leap right over him as it pounced on her.
Not only was it most likely the safest place for him in the current, deadly
situation, it might allow him to strike at the beast from behind as it tried to
bite and rip the life from her.

It came fast and silent, but River had the
eyes of an eagle and he spotted it in the darkness before it was close enough
to pounce.

The young warrior shot forward like an arrow
from a bow, doing his best war cry, that only cracked slightly in his thin,
fragile vocal cords.

"Brother!" Raven screamed. Fear
gripped her for her sibling. She had no problems facing her own death, but
River's life was much too precious to her, she couldn't let him die. Wouldn't.
He was the only one left who was still good, still pure.

Her speed was legendary, catching River in
less than four steps, throwing him to the side while the beast sprang forward,
crashing into Raven, sending her to the ground as its claws drew her blood and
its teeth snapped at her face.

"NO!" River screamed, rising from
the ground as the puma demon ripped the flesh from Raven.

Things got worse from there.

Sarah crept into her parent’s room, setting
her coffee down on the dresser as she tiptoed towards the bed.

“You better have not set that coffee cup on
my dresser without anything underneath it,” a muffled voice said from under the
covers.

Sarah let out a loud sigh and then jumped on
the bed. “It’s impossible to sneak up on you! What were you before you married
dad, a Navy Seal?”

“The ears of a mother are second to none, my
dear,” she replied with a sleepy smile as she hugged her daughter. “And I was
completely serious about that coffee cup being on my oak dresser without a
coaster.”

“Relax, Mrs. anal-retentive, there is a paper
towel under it. I’ve been trained thoroughly in that department.”

“’Bout time,” her mother mumbled.

Sarah kissed her mom’s nose. “Breakfast?”

Mom opened one eye. “What are you making?”

“Not me,” her daughter smiled. “Daddy’s
wallet is the chef this morning.”

Mom opened her other eye. “That, I can agree
with,” she replied with a smile. “Ten bucks says I’m ready before you.”

“Game on!” Sarah jumped out of bed and ran
towards her room.

Sarah’s mother, Linda, slowly climbed out of
bed and walked over to the cooling cup of coffee.

“Works every time,” she said with a smile,
taking a sip.

Frank opened his eyes and looked at the
ceiling of his bedroom. A slow sigh escaped him as he woke from a peaceful
sleep. Lloyd licked his face once and then sat down beside his right shoulder.

“Few things rival a good night’s sleep when
you’re as old as me,” he said, rubbing Lloyd’s chest.

 Lloyd looked at him for a moment, then
blinked and looked away.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Frank whispered
into the dog’s ear. “I made no promises to that fiend.” He sat up, throwing his
legs over the side of the bed.

Lloyd groaned loudly as he lay down on
Frank’s pillow.

Frank looked at his old friend, stretching
down so their noses touched. “Do you trust me?”

Lloyd replied by licking his nose.

“Then relax and let this play out,” Frank
petted Lloyd’s head. “I’m the brain of this operation, remember?” He pointed to
his chest. “You’re the brawn,” he said with a point at Lloyd’s.

The dog let out three violent sneezes, which
caused Frank to laugh at the top of his lungs. He tried to ruffle his ears, but
Lloyd quickly sprang from the bed with a bark, refusing to let the old man
touch him as he ran out of the room and down the hallway.

Frank got on his feet with a shake of his
head and a smile. His eyes fell across the picture of his dead wife as he made
his way out of the room. Pausing, he gazed at her when she was in her prime.
Deep beautiful brown eyes looked back at him as he picked up the old silver
frame.