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Authors: John Manning; Forrest Hedrick

Tags: #Fantasy, #Horror, #Fiction, #Suspense, #General

Black Stump Ridge (36 page)

BOOK: Black Stump Ridge
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“He did,” Diane insisted. “I saw it.”

“Then, how do you explain this?”

Amanda stood on the narrow road less than three feet from the van’s right front fender. Her hair was a tangled mess; her eyes blank. Her blouse hung in tatters. She stood naked from the waist down. Even her shoes were gone. Dried blood caked her inner thighs.

“Fred,” Diane shouted as she opened the door, “help me get her inside. We have to take her back to the cabin.”

Fred slowly opened his door and stepped onto the road. Everything slowed to the moving through molasses feel of a really bad nightmare. “Cabin?”

“She’s in shock. We have to get her cleaned up. We need to get some clean clothes on her. Mostly, we need to get her warm. Come on!”

Fred shook his head. The lethargy lifted. He rushed to Amanda and helped Diane guide her back to the truck. He turned it around and raced back up the mountain.

Once they were all in the cabin, Fred found some fresh clothing in her suitcase while Diane took her to one of the bathrooms to clean her up and examine her. Half an hour later Diane emerged, her expression sad and pensive.

“What the hell happened to her?” Fred asked.

“The creature got her,” she replied.

“What do you mean, got her?”

“He got her. We need to arrange an abortion as soon as possible.”

“No.” Fred doubted that Diane was any more shocked than he was at his words. “She’s been through enough. You were wrong about her being dragged into the cave. You might be wrong about this, too. I’ll get her checked at a regular hospital by a real doctor.”

“But…”

“No.”


Fred looked at his watch. Ten minutes.
Ain’t that always the way?
he thought. He considered walking to the elevators, but decided against it. He promised the doctor he’d wait, and he always tried to keep his word. He decided to find the cafeteria, instead, and get a cup of coffee. He could use the caffeine. He thought for a moment. It was on the second floor. He walked to the elevator and stood before the double doors. The
up
light already glowed. A pretty blond Candy Striper, probably sixteen years old, stood beside him. She smiled at him the way young girls did when they met someone they felt too old to be a threat.

The problem with youth,
a memory played in his head,
is that it’s wasted on the young.
He smiled back at her and resumed staring at the steel doors.

The doors slid open with a soft “ding” and he gestured for her to enter first. She smiled wider and stepped in. She had dimples. It made her look like the girl on the Swiss Miss boxes in the grocery store.

She pressed 2 and looked back at him.

“Three, please,” he replied without thinking.

She pressed the button and, after a slight hesitation, the doors trundled closed. The car slid slowly upwards.

His mind drifted back once more, something he seemed to do more of these days. The elevator stopped, snapping Fred from his reverie. The Candy Striper stepped out and the doors slid closed. As the car moved upward he realized he’d missed his floor. Why had he told her three? The cafeteria was on two. It was probably his subconscious knowing how much he wanted to be with his wife.

The car stopped and the doors opened. He debated. Should he step out, or go back down to two?

The doors started to close. They snapped open again as he stepped through. The nurses’ station to the right bustled with activity.

Must be shift change,
he thought.

He looked at the numbers on the wall. The ones above the left pointing arrow showed 331 – 350. He turned left. Most of the rooms he passed had couples and families, some of the women doing the special breathing method taught in Lamaze classes.

Amanda’s room was the last on the left. The door was closed. Fred hesitated, uncertain of what to do. He heard faint sobbing from the other side. Slowly he pushed the door open and stepped in. The door closed softly behind him. He looked around.

The first thing he noticed was blood – a
lot
of blood. The sobbing came from the far corner. He ignored it for the moment. The bed was disheveled and bloody. The blankets and sheets hung over the other side of the mattress. The tray table lay on the floor. An armchair lay on its side. Two legs in white trouser legs stretched out from the other side. The chair blocked his view of the body. A pool of blood covered the floor.

Fred carefully stepped closer for a better look. A lab tech lay face down in the blood pool, the vials from her rack strewn and scattered over the floor. A gaping hole in her forearm and throat revealed the source of the blood.

He looked to his right. Amanda curled in the corner, sobbing softly. The lower part of her hospital gown was soaked, almost black with blood. A trail led from her to the tech, and from there to the far corner.

Fred moved toward the corner and hunkered down. An infant watched him steadily from the shadows. Its wide eyes stared into his. It mewled softly. Fred pursed his lips and made a clicking sound. The infant clicked back, and then slowly crawled towards him. In the light, Fred could see the blood on its face and hands.

He reached out to it. The baby reached back and let Fred pick it up. He looked around for a towel with which to wrap it.

“Let’s go, Little Brother,” Fred crooned as he turned and headed back to the door. “It’s time to go home. After all, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Kin always helps kin.”

 

 ABOUT THE AUTHORS

John Manning lives in retirement near Dallas, Texas, with his girlfriend, Jackie, their dog, Dottie, and their African grey parrot, Gonzo. John feels that having a birthday on Halloween adds to his fascination with all things macabre and horrific. He has had non-fiction articles published
Nemeton Magazine
and
Trajectories Magazine
as well as one science fiction short story. He is originally from Detroit, Michigan, but considers Texas his home.
Black Stump Ridge
is his first novel-length work and his first collaboration. His next work,
Fear the Reaper
, will be his first solo novel.

 

Forrest Hedrick lives and works in Houston, Texas. He is a hunter, a leather craftsman, and a garb maker for Renaissance Fairs. He is an accomplished medieval-style cook, a semi-retired adventurer, and a gentleman rogue. His previous works include a book of poetry. He has two solo projects under development.

 

John and Forrest have been friends for over twenty years and have at least two other collaborative projects in the works.

 

Table of Contents

Black Stump Ridge

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

BOOK: Black Stump Ridge
6.27Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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