The Damned Summer (The Ruin Trilogy) (22 page)

“What?” Sarah asked.

“Spill it,” Linda commanded.

“What are you talking about?”

“It would be easier now than when your father
gets back.”

Sarah sighed. “It's just high school stuff,
mom. No big deal.”

Linda didn’t buy it for a moment, but she
suffered the same malady that many parents of good kids suffered. She trusted
her teenage daughter’s judgment. The situation couldn’t be as bad as Linda’s
instincts screamed they were; her daughter was smarter than that. Her daughter
was better than that.

“I hope you know what you’re doing honey,”
she said, squeezing her daughter’s hand.

“I do, mom,” Sarah replied, but she didn’t
squeeze back, which worried the hell out of Linda.

Steve came back with the blue cotton candy.
“Here ya go, honey,” he said, holding it out to his daughter.

“Thanks, daddy,” she said with a smile that always
lit up his soul, and at the same time raised his defenses.

“Welcome,” was all he could choke out.

“Well, I better catch up with the girls,” she
said as she moved off. “I’ll see you guy’s back home.”

“Storm’s rollin’ in,” Linda replied. “You
guys better head out soon or you’ll get wet.”

Sarah looked to the sky. “Yeah, it’s really
moving in.” She pulled out her cell phone. “I’m going to have them meet me at
the car.”

“Good idea,” Steve replied. He wanted to tell
her to just come with them, but he knew better. “We’re going to head out to the
truck, we’ll see you at home.”

“Okay,” Sarah said with a smile as they went
their separate ways. Nothing would ever be the same as they parted.

Frank watched the potential showdown with the
teenage boys from the shadows. He let out a sigh of relief as the other group
of kids split when Johnny pulled the knife.

“What now?” he asked the sky.

The sky answered him with a dark twister that
came down on the carnival like the angry hand of God.

The tornado picked up the nearby Ferris wheel
and twisted it like a used beer can. Metal shrieked with a noise that rivaled
the death scream of a rabbit amplified one hundred times. The twister picked up
the metallic heap and threw it towards the parking lot like it was nothing more
than a balled up piece of paper.

Frank grabbed Lloyd as he fell to the ground,
the metal heap flew over their heads as rain pelted them.

“I didn’t see this coming,” Frank yelled as
the wind howled.

Lloyd replied with a sharp bark in agreement.

Steve and Linda saw the twisted Ferris wheel
flying through the air towards them, but they had little time to do anything
about it.

Steve dropped to the ground as it came
crashing down behind him, rolling on like a wagon wheel.

He pulled his head from the cold mud, looking
behind his back to where Linda had been a moment before. His wife was gone, but
he could see the wheel moving on, like a rolling stone.

Drew and Jenny held each other’s hands as
they ran towards the parking lot. The wind had really picked up and they were
giggling at the prospect of getting rained on in the summer night. Their
outlook changed quite quickly as they saw the metal death ball rolling towards
them.

For a moment they looked at one another as
the steel rolled over them, cutting Jenny in half and slicing Drew’s head off.
Summer romance rarely ended this abruptly. Their fledging relationship would
never know its potential.

Sarah watched the Ferris wheel as it flew
over her head and into the parking lot.

“NO!” she screamed as she chased after it.

Jake and Johnny also watched the metal ball
fly off.

“Fuck!” Johnny yelled. “My car better be
okay!”

The rain still came down like a waterfall,
but the twister seemed to be long gone. Its path of destruction however, was
still having repercussions.

Several power lines had been knocked down and
were dancing like crazed snakes on the carnival grounds. More than one person
felt their deadly bite over the next few moments. The base of the tilt-o-whirl
had been damaged severely, leaning it at a forty-five degree angle. It suddenly
gave, falling over and crushing to death four more people.

“Now that’s what I call a broadside!” a voice
exclaimed from behind Frank.

Frank didn’t need to look behind to see who
it was. “You didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“No,” the demon replied as he held out his
hand to help Frank up. “That would be your boss that called this order.”

Frank ignored the hand. “This was a natural
occurrence of the weather, nothing more.” He got back on his feet, then nearly
fell again when his bad knee almost gave out.

“Yeah, yeah, the big guy works in mysterious
ways, right.”

“The big guy didn’t have anything to do with
this,” Frank growled. “It’s just a bad storm.” Rain pelted his forehead like
gravel.

“Whatever, he’s your boss, I’m sure you know
him better than me. But, you can’t disagree on the simple fact that this works
better for me than for you.”

“You’re wrong, people rise to the challenge
at times like these.”

“Oh sure, brief moments of heroics in times
of tragedy are common among people, but you know what happens when tragedy
stays around for more than five minutes, don’t you?”

Frank just stared at the demon, trying not to
let the rain force him to blink.

“People show their true nature at times like
these,” the demon said with a smile. “Chaos always turns people into selfish
beasts, you can’t deny that.”

“I won’t deny it, I’ll disprove it,” Frank
said as he turned and walked away.

“Whoo-hooh, doggie,” the demon called from
behind. “The gauntlet has been thrown down, let’s get it on, Franky!”

Lloyd growled quietly as they walked off.

“I know,” Frank answered. “He’s just trying
to get us worked up, trying to get us off the trail of what we really need to
do.”

A woman cried out from Frank’s left. He
looked over and saw her leg was pinned under the Tilt-O-Wheel, surely broken.

“Hold on, miss,” he yelled through the rain.
“I’m coming.” He investigated her pinned leg and quickly knew he could not free
her. He grabbed her hand. “I’m going to go get help.”

She clutched his fingers “Don’t leave me!”

He gripped her hand tighter. “I’m going to
need help to free you, but my dog will stay with you.”

The woman glanced at Lloyd, who tentatively
stepped forward.

“I’ll be right back, I promise.”

The woman nodded, holding her hand out to
Lloyd, who gently licked her fingers.

Frank moved off without another word,
glancing at the smiling demon as he went.

“It took less than a minute to prove you
wrong,” he said with a laugh. “This night just keeps getting better and better!”

Kara was the only person that night that was
actually thankful of the rain. It washed away the mud and scum almost as well
as a shower. She looked up at the sky as tears mixed with raindrops.

“Johnny?” she called out to the darkness.
There was no answer, and she was both relieved and scared at the same time.

It was at this time that the twister hit the
carnival. Kara was at a safe distance, watching the wind funnel knocking over
the tilt-a-wheel, and crumpling up the Ferris wheel and kicking it out into the
parking lot like a giant metallic soccer ball.

“Holy shit!” she screamed as the rain came
down in large, angry drops.

“Ain’t nothin’ holy about it, baby!” a voice
said from behind her.

She turned and saw the demon. He looked the
same as all the other times he had shown up so far today, except he let her see
his real eyes.

She screamed and threw her face into the mud.
“Bad trip, bad trip!”

He crouched down in front of her, stroking
her hair, “Oh you poor little slut, the trip hasn’t even started yet.”

Jake and Johnny hauled ass towards the
parking lot. Jake caught a glimpse of Sarah just as they reached the car.

“Sarah!” he yelled through the rain. “Over
here!”

“Have you seen my parents?” she asked,
reaching him.

“No, we just got out here. Are you okay?”

She pushed her hair out of her face. “They
were out here when the tornado hit. I have to find them!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll help you. C’mon, Johnny.”

“Fuck that, man! I’m outta here!” Johnny
replied, opening the car door.

“Bullshit!” Jake said, grabbing Johnny’s arm
and pulling him out of the car. “You’re not leaving until we find everybody,
you got it, mother-fucker?”

Johnny pulled his arm away. “Fuck you, man!”

Jake punched him in the side of the face with
a right hook, knocking Johnny right to his knees.

“Cock-sucker,” Jake yelled, kicking him into
the mud. “I’m so sick of your bullshit.”

He grabbed Sarah’s hand. “Let’s go.” And they
ran off into the storm.

Johnny picked himself up out of the mud. With
his left hand he pulled out his flask of whiskey and took a deep drink. With
his right hand he pulled his switchblade, clicking it open. “I’ll show you,
asshole,” he whispered, walking after them.

Frank had found four people willing to help
him free the trapped woman. After a few moments they got her loose and Frank
and Lloyd were back on track.

“Where did he go?” Frank asked, looking
around.

Lloyd answered with a bark as he saw the
demon leading a girl into the parking lot.

“Let’s go,” Frank replied.

Needless to say, Lloyd covered the distance
between them much quicker than Frank.

“Shit!” the demon growled as the small dog
came down on him like a lion. “Get the fucking car unlocked!” He commanded as
the dog ripped into his leg.

Kara held up the keyless entry to her blurred
eyes and finally figured out which button to push. With a beep the doors
unlocked and the demon threw open the door, pushed the girl in and jumped
behind the wheel. Lloyd went right into the car with them, dangerously close to
clamping down its jaws on the fiend's throat.

“Get this fucking thing off me!” The demon
screamed at Kara as he tried to get the dog away from his face.

Kara replied by puking all over the
floorboard of the car.

“Fucking lost cause,” the demon growled,
climbing out of the car. Lloyd continued to chew on his arm.

Frank came around the car just in time to see
the demon get back on his feet and get loose of Lloyd. Frank looked in the car
at the young lady, half passed out in the front seat.

“Did we interrupt your plans?” Frank asked.

“Minor setback,” the demon replied. “That
bitch ain’t nothing,” and then his form folded off into the darkness.

Frank took a moment to let Kara finish
emptying her stomach. “Are you going to be alright?” He asked.

She looked at him with mascara stained eyes.
“Who the hell are you?”

He laid his hand on her scraped, dirty knee. “I’m
a friend, I want to protect you from the monster that brought you here.”

She started to cry, “This is the worst
fucking night of my life.”

“I know, dear,” he replied, patting her knee.
“I’m so sorry for whatever has happened to you tonight.”

She made eye contact with him again. “I
really liked him.” Tears traced black lines down her face like poisoned tar.

Frank hoped she wasn’t talking about the
demon, but had no time to council her. “Where was it you were going?”

“The Simmons farm,” she replied with a
sniffle.

Frank looked to Lloyd, “Margaret.”

Lloyd nodded his head with a quick sneeze.

Frank squeezed Kara’s hand. “Sit tight honey,
we’ll take it from here.”

She replied with convulsions as she went into
toxic shock.

“Damn,” Frank whispered as the demon’s words
echoed through his head, telling him he would have to abandon someone in order
to achieve his own goals.

Lloyd gave a sharp bark, drawing Frank’s
eyes. The dog and the man looked at one another.

“
The Greater Good.”
The Canine’s eyes
bored into the Homo Sapiens’s.

“Not good enough,” Frank replied as he looked
around. “We’ve never played by the demons rules before, we’re not starting to
now.”

The cut on Johnny’s lip burned as he took a
long sip of the tequila from his flask. He hissed and then giggled slightly
from the pain, scrapping his thumb across his mouth. He looked down at his hand
that now had a red racing stripe of blood leaking down his fingers.

“Pussy hit me with a cheap shot,” he
whispered as the rain started to dilute the blood. He brought the redness to
his mouth and sucked it back into his system.

He licked his throbbing mouth. “Not too bad
of a whiskey chaser,” he said.

Confusion suddenly hit his clouded brain. He
looked down at the silver flask that was supposed to have whiskey in it, but he
swore he just tasted tequila in his last swallow. He took another deep drink.

The spicy liquor brought back his memory.
“That fuckin’ carny,” he thought with a nod. “He must a given me a refill. What
a dumbass.” He put the flask away, and got out the switchblade.

People were all over the place, running,
crying, pleading for help. Back in the park the tilt-a-whirl finally went down
the rest of the way with a metal crunch, making the screams increase, as people
scattered like scared rats.

Johnny started to giggle as he watched the
people run from falling steel, and then he saw a middle aged woman, fleeing
from the ride, flailing her arms as she ran, screaming at the top of her lungs:
“OhmyGodohmyGod!”

His giggling turned to belly laughter, as he stumbled
back up against his car.
“You only see this kind of shit on You Tube.”
he thought to himself.

He watched her cartoon ass run right out of
the park and into a large puddle that an electrical wire was dancing in. She
quickly joined in her own dance and the noise she was making now was even
funnier than before.

“Oh shit!” Johnny said as he started laughing
even harder, “I’m gonna piss myself!”

She crumbled to the ground in silence, but
was still convulsing.

Johnny pointed at her. “Look! Now she’s break
dancing!” He wiped the tears from his eyes as he kept laughing.

A concerned man suddenly ran up to Johnny.
“Are you alright son?” He saw him wiping his eyes, but not the knife in his
hand.

The laughter stopped as Johnny slammed the
switchblade into the man’s stomach. “I’m doin’ a hell of a lot better than you,
dumb-shit.”

The man crumbled to the mud with a gasp.
Johnny helped him on his way down, as he pushed him off his knife and walked
away.

“Fuckin’ twister ain’t the only one that can
raise some hell in this shit-bird town,” he said, looking around for Jake.
“Where’d you go, ya pussy?”

The rain and lack of electricity made it
impossible to make out where Jake and his bitch had gone. He let out a sigh,
hungry to kill his friend, but unwilling to actually put any effort into trying
to find him. Work sucked.

“Shit,” he said, pulling out his flask. He
looked down at the guy he stabbed in the mud. He wasn’t moving or moaning
anymore, the fucking pussy.

The last sip of tequila trickled down his
throat as he tipped the metal bottle all the way up.

“Double-shit!” He growled, throwing the empty
flask into the mud. He still had plenty of weed, but he didn’t want weed, he
wanted some fucking alcohol.

A smile cracked his bloody lip. “Momma
Simmons got plenty a hooch ta share, and when sonny boy comes home,” he looked
down at the knife. “I’ll have something to share with him.”

He climbed into the old mustang. Fired it up
and threw it in gear. Mud flew into the air as the old tires tried to get
traction.

“C’mon on, ya fuck!” He yelled, throwing it
in reverse. The car lurched backwards, bumping into the dead man’s skull,
sinking it deeper into the earth.

He threw it back into drive and hammered it.
The tire spun for a moment as it ate away at skin and hair and then magically
gripped, pushing the car forward, slowly but surely.

“Oh yeah, baby!” He cheered as his car
fishtailed its way out of the parking lot. A long trail of mud flew up behind
him, nearly burying the dead man that had stopped to see if Johnny needed any
help.

Frank saw an ambulance pulling into the
parking lot. “Hey! Over here!” He waved his hands.

The paramedics climbed out of their vehicle
and made their way to him.

“She’s having seizures,” Frank explained. “I
think an overdose of some kind.”

An annoyed sigh escaped one of their lips,
but they went forward and started working on her. “Please move back sir.”

Frank did as he was told, stumbling back
through the dark mud, Lloyd was right by his side.

“We’ve got to get out to that farm,” Frank
said. “We need a vehicle.” He looked back at the EMT workers and the
unconscious girl. He had no idea where her keys were, and even if he did, the
ambulance would be in the way of getting the car out.

“The Indian,” He said. “I can get out there
on the bike.”

Lloyd sat down, looking at him with folded
ears.

“There is no way I’d be able to take you with
me.”

Now the dog looked away, blowing air out of
his nose.

Frank turned back behind him, pointing out
towards the Simmons farm. “If you cut through the fields, it shouldn’t be more
than a couple miles. With the way you can move, you’ll probably get there just
a couple of minutes after me…”

Lloyd shot past him like a bullet, already on
his way to the farm.

Frank smiled. “Lassie ain’t got shit on you,
boy.” He quickly made his way back to his garage. “That damn bike better start
this time.”

Lloyd hauled ass down the dark street towards
the muddy field. He was going down a street that had been in the direct path of
the tornado. Houses to either side of him where one of three things: piles of
shredded lumber, completely untouched or twisted and chewed on like a giant
land shark had mauled it. The dog didn’t really notice; he was focused on the
Simmon’s farm. That’s where he wanted to be right now. Right now. Right now.

He could hear the vehicle coming up behind
him, but it was still a ways away, so he paid it little heed.

The man that was behind the old truck had
been out at his friend’s house drinking all day. He had drove right through the
storm, missing the tornado by about 4 miles, completely oblivious of it. His
stereo was blaring out an old song from a long dead nineties metal band called
Atomic
Slaughter
from his ancient tape deck.

“Ain’t that fuckin’ late,” he mumbled,
noticing all the lights being out. He glanced at the radio clock, which read
11:45. He gave a slight nod of his head. He had to be at work at 6:30 tomorrow,
he still had time to have a couple more beers when he got home before he had to
crash.

He chuckled to himself as he put a cigarette
in his mouth and started clicking his lighter for a spark. His windows were
wide-open, killing the flame before it really began.

“Damn it!” he cursed as his teeth clamped
down on the cancer stick. The car lighter hadn’t worked for close to twelve
years now. The truck swerved back and forth as he paid more attention to his
smoke than the road. The meandering headlights sweepted across Lloyd as he made
his way down the street, as the truck got closer to him.