Excerpts from Black Fire: The First Book of the Low War.
Black Fire Chapter1
It was Wednesday night and raining. Blake pulled off the highway and into the little gravel lot of the diner. It had one of those big signs by the side of the road; made of light bulbs in a frame covered with white plastic you could stick letters on, the whole thing set on a little trailer. There was something on there about chicken and potatoes.
The old stolen Mustang sat idling like a squat black predator among the parked pickup trucks and Broncos. Blake still gripped the wheel, clenching it in time with his jaw.
He stared through the rain-streaked windshield at the bright lights inside the windows of the diner. “Pops” the sign on the roof said. The lack of apostrophe hadn’t deterred the customers. That exactly the way he had seen the sign in his visions. Same sign, same restaurant, same cars parked out front. He prayed to God that the rest of the visions weren’t as accurate. He knew they would be, though.
Blake shut the car down, turned off the lights, and sat in the dark. He felt the duffle bag full of weapons behind his seat. It brooded there, a dark collection of firearms and blades. He feared he would need them soon.
He looked back at the diner and decided not to take anything from the duffle with him. He just needed coffee. No monsters, no killing. Endless days on the road had taken their toll. He was here, in Windburn, where the visions had pushed him.
“Just a little longer,” he told himself. Just long enough to find a shitty motel. Maybe then the nightmares would let him sleep. Just for a little while.
Blake dragged himself from the Mustang and crunched along the gravel as the cold rain ran down his face and neck. He pulled his old army surplus jacket tighter around him. A little bell jingled as he passed through the glass and metal door.
The place wasn’t full, but Blake thought it was busy for a weekday. Truckers, farmers, miners, bored teenagers, all turned to look at him. He figured Windburn must be the kind of place where everybody knew everybody else. Nobody knew him, though. He ignored the stares and moved to an unoccupied booth.
He sat down and squinted against the fluorescent lights. Somebody else here didn’t fit in, he realized. She was back in a corner booth, pretending to read a newspaper. She wasn’t wearing flannel or fringed leather like the other women in the diner. Her hair wasn’t teased or feathered in some vain attempt to hold onto the eighties.
Her hair was shoulder length, blonde, and straight. She wore no makeup, made no attempt to lighten her dark brows. Beneath her tan overcoat, she wore a dark business suit, pointed boots. She was pretty in a plain way. Blake spotted her glancing up at him as he turned to stare at the tabletop.
“She’s a Fed,” he thought to himself in a wave of paranoia. Who else would dress like that in a place like this?
Was it the guns? The car? He had stolen them all, but not from anyone he thought would report it. The guns had come from a meth dealer’s house in Virginia, the Mustang from a psychopathic bitch robbing a liquor store in Maryland. They were all targets of opportunity revealed in his visions. Ones he had taken.
Blake looked up slowly. The lady’s eyes were flicking from Blake to the paper and back, intense ice-blue eyes. She was studying him hard.
Shit! He looked back down. She was a Fed. What the hell did that mean? He hadn’t seen this in any of the nightmares or visions. Just blood, teeth, screaming faces in the dark. He sat there, trying to decide what to do. He wished he had brought a gun, now.
“Oh, that’d be good,” he thought. “Start a firefight in here with all these people and their kids. I should just leave, but that would look suspicious. Damn it!”
He smelled burning paper and looked down. The napkin under his hand was smoldering. The air around his fingers shimmered with dark waves of heat.
“Not now,” he moaned in his head. “Got to calm down. Just take it easy.”
“You want an ashtray, Hun?”
Blake looked up wide-eyed at the waitress. She gazed down at him with past-forty, tired eyes. No uniform but jeans, a “Pops” bowling shirt, and dark hair struggling out of a tight ponytail. She crumpled the blackened napkin and swept it onto her tray.
“Yes, please.” He drew his hands under the table until the heat died away. He realized that this could turn ugly, even without any guns. The last thing he needed was any more unwanted attention.
The waitress grabbed an ashtray from an unoccupied table and set it in front of Blake.
“Start you off with something to drink?” she asked.
“Just coffee,” he said. “Say, is there a motel or hotel or something around here?”
“Alice’s a few miles down the road. Anything else?” She started to eye him as if looking for the mystery cigarette that he had carelessly ashed onto the napkin.
“That’s it. Thanks.” Blake smiled weakly and pulled out a pack. The waitress nodded warily and left. He lit up, stealing glances at the Fed through plumes of smoke as his leg jumped nervously beneath the table. She watched him back, between flips of the newspaper’s pages.
It was then that Blake noticed how quiet the place was. People spoke in hushed, uneasy tones—a background noise over the country music station on the radio. It was a kind of hush that reminded Blake of his dreams. It was the sound of subtly growing fear.
The waitress appeared with a coffee pot and cup. She poured him one and set cream and sugar dispensers on the table.
“Thanks,” Blake said and read the name stitched on the shirt. “Rose.”
“Sure.”
“Hey, Rose. What the hell’s going on around here? Why’s everybody all…?” He wiggled his fingers in the air and raised his eyebrows.
Rose glanced around. “Oh. Seems we have some sort of ‘rogue animal’ according to the state police.”
“Staties? You got no cops in this town?”
“Not anymore. Can’t afford it. Got to rely on the state troopers when they roll through.”
“Rogue animal, huh?”
“Killed a couple of pets, some livestock. Old Brenner,” she shook her head. “Course, he probably got drunk and went after the thing.”
Brent nodded. “Anybody doing anything about it?”
“Supposedly, some wildlife specialist is coming from Penn State, the university over the mountain,” she shrugged and walked off to take another order.
“Huh,” Blake said. This was definitely the place. He didn’t think some specialist from a university was going to be able to deal with the problem, though. The thing in Blake’s visions was big…and it wasn’t going to stop at killing one old drunk.
But someone thought Blake had a chance. Maybe something was a better descriptor. Something that knew his past and what still lingered within him.
“I hope you know what you’re getting me into,” the thought as he drank the coffee black. His thoughts were too preoccupied to be concerned with the taste. His eyes drifted once more to the Fed in the corner. She wasn’t even pretending to read the paper anymore. She sat staring at him with those blue eyes, hands gripping the table like she was about to leap at him at any moment.
“Fuck this,” Blake said to himself. He had enough info to confirm his nightmares. It was time to find Alice’s and try and get some sleep.
He asked for the check, paid, and walked out the door. He felt the Fed’s eyes on him the whole time. Blake looked back once he was outside. The rain had turned to drizzle. Through the speckled window, he saw the girl get up from her table and move towards the door.
“Shit,” Blake breathed. He increased his pace to the Mustang, unlocked the door, and ducked in. He fired up the engine, backed out, and threw it into first. The back tires spewed gravel at the girl as she came down the steps to the parking lot.
He watched the lights of the diner fade in the rearview mirror. Blake shook his head. He only had half an idea of what he was doing here, anyway. With that lady on his ass, things would be even more difficult.
The chain-link fence of an abandoned strip mine sped by the right window, a hewn cliff of rock held back the forests on the left. Blake kept watching the mirror for headlights. Nothing. It was desolate out here. He wondered if the whole town had gathered at the diner tonight.
There were lights up ahead on the left. He drove into a wide lot cut from the surrounding hills. Alice’s Motel was long and low and empty. The only signs of life were the lamps in the office. Blake pulled up in front of the building.
He nearly leapt through the door and ran to the counter. He looked back to watch the road beyond the window as he rapidly tapped the bell.
“Jesus Christ!” swore an old and shaky voice from the room beyond the counter. An old man in red flannel, tottering on a cane, made his way through the door to the counter. “You can stop ringing the goddamned bell, son!”
Blake’s head snapped back. “I need a room,” he said to the toothless man.
“Holy hell,” the clerk said. “I reckon you do. You got a girl with ya’ or what?”
“No,” Blake lowered his head and leaned on the counter. “Sorry. I’m just tired. Been driving all night. So, you Alice?”
“It’s forty five a night,” the old man smirked. “Cash, credit. No checks. Alice was my first wife, smartass. They call me Sandy around here. Where you from anyway?”
Blake counted out the cash from his wallet and handed it to him. “South, they tell me.”
“Sounds like you got an accent.”
“So I hear.”
“You from Alabama?” The old man slid the register book and receipt towards Blake.
“Yeah,” Blake said as he signed. What the hell? It sounded good.
“What parts?” Sandy’s gums glinted pink and wet in the dull lights.
Shit. “Bir…” fuck, “…mingham?” There was a Birmingham, wasn’t there?
“Mm,” Sandy smiled. “Nice place Birmingham. What brings you up here, Mr.….” He leaned over and turned the register book around. “Jones?”
Blake sighed out of sheer exhaustion. Sleep deprivation had made him giddy. “Well, I was possessed by a demon for nearly a decade—cost me my marriage and family, but an angel reversed the possession so that I control the demon now. Well, most of the time. Sometimes it just bursts out of my hands like black fire. It burns everything it touches. Hell on the sleeves I tell ya’. It causes me to have nightmarish visions of Evil that won’t let me sleep until I destroy said Evil. Consequently, I’m being used as a secret weapon by the angel that handles all of God’s dirty work. But that’s all a whole different story. Tonight, I’ve come to hunt the beast preying on the good peoples of this fair haven, Windburn.”
“Ya’ what?”
“Fishing trip.”
“Oh.”
They stared at each other a while, neither one entirely sure what had just been said. Blake’s eye began to twitch.
“Can I have my key?” he asked as he rubbed at his runaway eye.
“Sure. Yeah, sure. That’s number one,” Sandy said warily. “Right next door. Be sure and ring, uh, if you need anything.”
“Thanks.”
Blake closed the door to room one and stood staring into the dark. He was now acutely aware of the bag of highly illegal weaponry in his left hand. He turned on the light and flinched at the decrepit apartment.
It was like every other motel he’d been in, just older. Smoke stains, or mold, or something splotched the off-white ceiling. The dark brown paneling and shag carpet were probably something to see back in the seventies.
Blake locked the door and tucked the duffle under the bed. He sat down on the worn lime-green blanket. He was so tired he barely noticed the vomit-inducing color scheme of the room.
“Can I sleep, now?” he wondered. The Fed would have been on him by now if she had anything on him. He crept to the window, just to make sure. The lot was empty except for the Mustang. Blake lay down on the bed without undressing, without turning off the light.
His extreme fatigue made his limbs feel like they were dissolving, dwindling into the air. His eyes closed.
“What if that thing, the thing in my visions, knows I’m here? Can it sense me too?” But before he could come up with an answer, he was asleep.
It wasn’t the peaceful nothingness he had hoped for. There was a new nightmare, a new vision about to reveal itself to him. On some subconscious level he railed against it, but knew it was no use.
He was there, in the dream. Beneath a full moon, he fled across a sloping field, past the ruins of a farm where only leaning shacks and the foundation of a house remained. Something big pursued him, crashing through the underbrush, breathing heavy—a beast, yet malicious in its intention to not just eat, but kill for the sheer joy of it. And then it took hold of him.
He screamed as hot, wet breath on his neck preceded the light touch of the thing’s teeth. It held him down, teasing him with the death to come, toying with him. The jaw closed slowly, sot that he felt the teeth piercing his flesh, then muscle and artery, and then grinding on bone. Blake shrieked as the teeth ripped.
“Christ, son! You dying?”
The beast shook him by the neck. He felt vertebrae snap, his face ground into the wet grass.
“Goddamn it, now! Wake up!”
His eyes rolled wildly as his head came off.
“I said wake up!”
The crack of Sandy’s palm against his face tore Blake from the dream. He bolted upright, his eyes open. Sandy yelped and staggered back as Blake’s hands erupted in black flame. The cuffs of his jacket squealed and blackened to ash where they touched the fire.
Blake roared in fear and heard something other than his own voice—a deep and guttural growl that no earthly throat could produce. Sandy fell into an armchair a few feet from the bed and stared at Blake.
“No, damn it, no!” Blake shouted. His will strained as he tried to reel the demon back in.
“Let me out!”
“No!”
“I want to play!”
“No!” He felt the being within him pulling back, a black acid rage receding into his psyche. The flames on his hands flickered and died.
“Soon, you’ll need me, Blake. You’ll have to let me out.” The voice in his head faded.
Blake hung in a sitting position, his hands dangling between his knees as his jacket cuffs smoldered. He took a deep rattling breath and noticed the old man gawking at him from the chair.
“I’m so fucking tired,” he said to Sandy. He pulled his jacket off and ground out the sleeves on the carpet. Beyond Sandy’s shoulder, Blake saw the gray light of dawn creeping around the drapes.
The only sound was the old man panting through his toothless mouth. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he gasped.
“He won’t let me sleep. They won’t. Maybe they’re all in it together,” Blake rasped, a look of misery on his face.
“Listen, Tom.” Sandy struggled up. “You stay here, son. I’m gonna’….”
Blake started to laugh hysterically.
“What is it?” Sandy asked, bewildered.
“My name’s not Tom. I just wrote the only name I could think of in your book. Tom Jones? Are you serious?” He laughed harder, tears running down his face.
“You ain’t right, boy,” Sandy said. “I’m gonna’ call somebody. Heard you screaming from the office. Just came to see if you was all right.” He shuffled angrily towards the door.
“Wait!” Blake raised his hand, not laughing anymore. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Sandy. I didn’t mean to scare you. Please. My name is Blake Wither. My real name, I mean.”
“I’m supposed to believe you now?”
“You don’t have to.” Blake rubbed his stinging eyes. “But you’ve already seen everything I have to hide.”
“That so?”
“Yeah. Thing is, I need someone I can trust in this place. Someone who believes that I’m here to help.”
“Son, I don’t even know you,” Sandy pleaded. He looked at the floor. “So all that stuff you said last night was true?”
“Except for the fishing trip.”
Sandy sat down and sighed. “Hell, son. I thought I’d seen a lot in my lifetime. But fire shooting out of your hands? That voice? Your eyes turned black for a minute back there. Solid black. I’m not even sure I believe what I saw. Plus, you act like you’re on the run. And you’re telling me you’re here to help?”
Blake nodded slowly, wearily. “It’s true. Everything I said, everything you’ve seen, it’s all true. I am here to try and stop the thing attacking Windburn.”
“So it ain’t an animal?”
“I don’t think so.”
“This is a lot to take in all at once,” Sandy said.
“Trust me. I know. But I don’t have the luxury of waiting until it sinks in. I think it killed again last night.”
Sandy cocked an eyebrow at him. “How do you know that?”
“I dreamt it.”
“That what all the screaming was about?”
“Yeah. It was…bad. It happened after the rain stopped. The moon was out. Somewhere around an abandoned farm.”
Sandy scoffed. “That’s half of Windburn, Blake.”
“Is there an actual town of Windburn? Like with a square or anything?”
“It’s not much, but it’s there,” Sandy nodded. “Few miles further on. Post office, bars, old lumber yard, few houses and apartments.”
“And all the attacks have been on the outskirts?”
“From what I’ve heard.”
“They’re gonna’ get closer to town.”
Sandy shook his head and got up. “You’re scaring me, son. I need to think about all this.” He opened the door and stepped out into the brightening morning. “You may want to try and keep things down on account of your new neighbor and all.”
Blake walked to the open door as Sandy headed back to his office. There was a car parked next to the Mustang, a silver Chevy sedan, plain and nondescript. Too much so, Blake thought.
He stepped out into the lot and walked along the car. It was too clean inside, not a coffee stain or cigarette ash anywhere. As he rounded the end of the sedan, he glanced down at the license plate.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” he said quietly. “U.S. Government,” it read at the top. Feds didn’t really have plates like that, did they?
Blake looked up at the window of room two. The curtain was cocked at the side, just a little, just enough for someone to peer through. Or maybe that was just the way it hung. Blake stared at the dark slit and felt it staring back. Quietly, he went back to his room and locked the door.
