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Pitch Black
Grand Central (2008)
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It's strange how a single event can alter the course of your entire life. Of course, some are obvious: winning the lottery, getting hit by a car when you're riding your bicycle, saving a kid from drowning in the lake, or your momma running off with a liquor salesman. But it's those more secret things, the ones that keep quiet and don't reveal themselves until the fall of events has completed itself, that seem to make the most significant changes. You know something started you on the path from there to here, but only by backtracking can the source be found. Follow the trail of toppled dominoes and pretty soon, there you are, staring squarely at the reason your life took a left turn onto a gravel road filled with potholes instead of a right turn onto the sweetly paved blacktop with clear shoulder markings.
For Lily Holt, that event was finding a single cigarette butt.
PROLOGUE
There were things in this world that just didn't make sense. Like how it was just fine and dandy for eleven-year-old Lily to walk around in their apartment over the Crossing House Tavern, do her homework over the beer cooler, cook dinner over the juke box, and even go to bed right over the pool table in the back, but it was against the law for her to set foot on the first floor. Her dad was the owner and tended bar, but she couldn't even go down and kiss him goodnight. If she had something to tell him during working hours, she had to call him on the phone. Like he worked miles away instead of right beneath her feet.
As her dad got ready to go down to work, she flopped down on the couch next to him, grumbling once again about that stupid law. "Why can't we just ignore it? Who would know?"
Dad looked at her with his do-we-have-to-do-this-again face. "We might think it's silly, but it's still the law." He paused, right where he always did, and rubbed his hand over his face - like he always did. "It wouldn't be right to just follow the laws we like - you can't just pick and choose. What if someone thought it wasn't fair that they couldn't drive when they were three sheets to the wind? Just think of the things that could happen."
Well, that didn't seem nearly the same at all. Lily knew her dad never let anyone leave the Crossing House after they'd had too much to drink. He'd call Mr. Mills' cab company to take them home. Oh, they did think it was a stupid law then - she'd heard them cuss a blue streak at her dad. Their drunk tongues had a hard time getting the words out, but their loud voices made up for that. It was always the same. "Benny," they'd say, "give me my goddamn keys!" And she'd hear a pause where her dad must have been talking. "I ain't too drunk! Just look at my hands - steady as a rock!"
"But that law makes sense," Lily said. She'd seen the accident out on the curve on Quarry Road. The one everybody still talked about in real quiet voices. The one that killed two little kids and their mom.
Dad ruffled her hair. "Just the same, it's all in the way a person looks at it. A law's a law. Like it or not. So," he kissed her on the forehead, "you just pick up that phone and call if you need anything." Then he put on his white apron and headed downstairs. She heard him call back over his shoulder, "Don't forget your homework."
"Better be hunting down Luke if you're worried about somebody's homework!" Her older brother was in serious danger of repeating eighth grade - all because of math. Well, English and social studies were pretty iffy, too. Tomorrow was D-day. She laughed; that was a good one! Luke'd be lucky if it was D-day and not F-day.
Dad's laugh echoed up the stairwell that led to the bar's kitchen. Then she heard him holler hello to Henry Calverson, the cook. He had to holler, because Henry was about as close to deaf as a person could be and still hear a freight train pass through his living room.
"Evenin', Benny. Kiddos okay?" Henry asked -- well, shouted really -- his usual question.
The comforting sounds of business getting underway downstairs drifted up to the apartment. Once the bar started to fill up, Dad would shut the door at the bottom of the staircase. Until then, Lily went about getting dinner ready for Luke and their little sister, Molly, listening to Henry sing too loud and way off-key.
She liked to hear Henry sing.
As she set the macaroni and cheese on the table, her mind hurried on toward evening. She and Luke had serious business to attend to.
It was twilight when she finally locked the door behind them and they headed down the outside stairs. Instead of taking the road, they slipped down to Blackwater Creek and followed it to the dam. On the other side of the tall spillway was Forrester Lake, which up until a handful of Chicago people bought up all the land on the far side, had been Forrester Reservoir. Funny how money can change everything, even the name of a body of water.
It was dark enough in the woods that they needed their flashlights. As Lily started to switch hers on, Luke put a hand out to stop her. "If you're right," he whispered, "we don't want to let anyone know we're coming,"
It was still spring, so the water was high enough to roll over the spillway, creating a noise that sounded a little bit like rain falling on leaves - enough noise to mask their movements. "I'm right. Somebody's been here."
They moved toward the rocky limestone outcropping a few yards to the left of the creek bed, not far from the bottom of the dam.
From the first day she and Luke had stumbled upon it, Lily had loved the place - which is exactly what they called it, only with capital letters. The Place. It was nice to slip into the cool shadows of the overhanging rock and sit on the logs they'd dragged there for seats. She liked the way everything sounded more clear in the deep ravine, the birds, the trickle of the water over the stones in the creek bed, the rustle of a rabbit in the brush, the sharp chatter of an angry squirrel.
It was when she'd come earlier today that she'd found it. A cigarette butt. Evidence that someone had invaded their private hideout.
They ducked behind a large honeysuckle bush, still unable to see anyone. Night had fallen and The Place had a host of its own shadows.
Suddenly a match flared under the outcropping. Two boys sat on the logs, lighting cigarettes. One was tall and skinny, about Luke's size. The other one was a little bigger - broader.
"Well, shit," Luke whispered. "At least they're kids."
Lily didn't know if that made it better or not. Adults might be here a couple of times then forget about it. Kids - well, they'd probably fight for it.
Lily leaned close to her brother's ear. "What are we going to do?"
Luke smiled; his teeth shone blue in the darkness. She recognized the smile. It was a declaration of war. Lily felt a thrill go through her. She didn't normally like to fight, but when someone takes something that's yours - you just have no choice.
She said, "Shouldn't we try asking them to leave first?"
Ignoring her, he shot to his feet, crashing loudly through the bushes and snapping his flashlight on. He held it at shoulder height and shone it right in the faces of the two boys.
"Hey!" Luke could have a really deep voice when he worked at it. "You kids!" He was working at it.
Immediately, the two glowing ends of the cigarettes disappeared.
Luke kept the boys blinded with his flashlight.
"We weren't doing anything, officer."
Lily crouched lower and stifled her laughter with her hand. They thought Luke was the sheriff!
"Where you boys from?" Luke had to keep his sentences short. He couldn't use the deep voice for too long at a stretch without it cracking on him.
The skinny one with the light hair said, "Cottage over on Mill Run Road."
Cottage? Those places on Mill Run Road were bigger then most of the "real" houses in town. And what were these richy summer kids doing poking around on this side of the lake? Their side had the marina and the ice cream place.
"What're your names?"
After a long hesitation, where Lily imagined the kid was weighing the possibility of getting caught if he lied, the skinny one said, "Peter Holt." His voice squeaked slightly.
Lily was pretty sure he told the truth. Who would choose to be a Peter?
The bigger one stepped forward, more into the light. When he did, Lily's breath caught in her throat. It was the kid who helped her little sister Molly late last summer when she fell off her bike at the park. When Lily had found the two of them, he'd already gotten Molly to stop crying. In fact, he had her laughing a little bit.
"Clay Winters," he said.
His voice was deeper than last year. Deep enough to make Lily wonder how long they were going to buy Luke's impersonation.
"Your folks let you smoke?" Luke used just the right tinge of adult-sounding sarcasm.
"We just wanted to try it. We don't even like cigarettes. We won't be doing it anymore." Peter, the skinny one, again.
God, even Molly wouldn't believe that line.
Luke grunted, just the way she'd heard Sheriff Hayes do when he didn't buy a kid's story. "Get on home. Don't let me catch you back here."
"Yes, sir," both voices chimed together.
When they were almost out of the range of the flashlight beam and Lily was about to burst out of her hiding spot, Luke called out, "Hold it!"
The boys froze. Clay turned to face him.
"Be at my office at four o'clock tomorrow. Bring your parents."
One of the boys said "shit!" under his breath.
Luke said, "What was that?"
Clay said, "We'll be there, sir, but my Father's in Chicago."
"That's fine, son. He can call my office at four."
Don't push your luck. Just let them go.
"Go on," Luke finally said. He kept his flashlight shining from his shoulder until the sounds of their flight disappeared. Then he burst out laughing.
Lily exploded from behind the bush. "You should have stopped while you were ahead. Once they go to the sheriff, they'll know they were tricked."
"Yeah, but by then they'll have had to tell their parents."
"But they'll come back here looking for us!"
He rubbed her hair, just like Dad did. "That's right. We'll be ready."
She and Luke took to the field of battle as though their very lives depended upon it. They warred with Peter and Clay through the early weeks of summer -- water balloons and booby traps, tit for tat, attack and retaliation. It had been all consuming, the reason they got out of bed each morning, the subject of their quiet conversations at night.
The Fourth of July dawned and Lily felt a charge in the air.
"The only way to gain the upper hand," Luke said, winking at Lily, "is to stake your territory first." He loaded a paper grocery bag with fireworks.
Lily didn't like the idea of missing the Fourth of July parade and picnic in the park. But if Luke said it had to be done, it had to be done. So just as the sun was coming up - Luke assured her that rich kids never got up until nine - she and her brother left a note for their dad and headed to The Place. They each held a brown grocery bag. One was packed with snacks and a couple of bottles of Coke. The other ammunition -- firecrackers and some illegal M-80s, bottle rockets and even a few real aerial fireworks.
That was another law Lily never fully understood. It fit right up there with not being able to go downstairs to talk to her dad at the Crossing House. You could buy illegal out-of-state fireworks if you told the man you bought them from that you weren't going to set them off in Indiana. Every year the same beer-bellied man, who called himself Firecracker Bill, came to Glens Crossing and set up a tent in the parking lot of Kingston's Supermarket. Of course, Dad didn't have any idea that they pooled their allowance and visited Firecracker Bill. If he had, there would have been no more allowance or Fourth of July for either of them.
As the day wore on and boredom was replaced by severe boredom, Lily's regret over missing the festivities grew. She'd never noticed how little there was to do at The Place. Of course, she'd never been stranded here like a castaway on a desert island. Man, if it could be so boring here, why did they care if someone else used it every once in awhile?
She just bet those kids, Peter and Clay, were at the watermelon eating contest at the park right now. And Dad would have Molly's bike all decorated with red, white and blue streamers for her to ride in the parade.
Sighing as loud as she could without getting lightheaded, she was disappointed when Luke didn't stir from where he was dozing with his head on a big rock.
For a while, she sat next to him and amused herself by tickling his nose with a Jack-in-the-pulpit she'd picked near the big sycamore. After the fourth or fifth time she got him to scrunch up his face and scratch, that used up all its amusement.
Sighing again, she leaned back on her elbows and closed her eyes. The sunlight flickered through the leaves and she watched it play in pink patterns on the insides of her eyelids.
Something small hit the ground nearby. Lily figured it was an acorn or walnut knocked loose by a squirrel, so she didn't open her eyes.
The snap of the firecracker brought her directly to her knees. The sharp acrid smell of gunpowder stung her nose and a puff of blue smoke clouded her vision. Luke was at her side before she'd drawn a breath. He got his arm around her shoulder and knocked her back to the ground.
"Bastards," he whispered through his teeth. "I knew I shouldn't have gone to sleep."
"It's them?" As she whispered it, she strained to see any tell-tale movement in the bushes.
Luke looked at her like she didn't have a brain in her head. "Who else, Einstein?" He crawled over to their fireworks bag and dug around in it for a minute. When he crawled back to where she was crouched behind a log, he shoved a bunch of firecrackers into her hands. "You just hold this stuff." He opened a box of kitchen matches. "I'll light and throw."
She looked at the firecrackers she held. "Could these hurt someone?"
"Only if they go off in your hand."
Lily felt her eyes widen.
"Don't worry. They're not going to be lit in your hand."
She just about said he might want to be concerned about his own fingers, but she didn't want him to think she was a wuss.
Just about the time Luke struck the first match, another firecracker came flying from the shrubbery to their left. Lily drew herself into a ball and squeezed her eyes closed, waiting for the pop.
Instead, she heard a loud hiss.
Luke launched his first round.
Lily looked behind them. A smoke bomb was spewing a red cloud.
"Peeeewwww."
"Give me another one." Luke poked at her closed fist.
Handing it over, Lily still couldn't actually see the enemy. She heard something land back near the limestone outcropping - far enough away that she stood her ground and waited for the explosion without flinching.
When it came, it was much louder than she expected. She ducked her head close to her s houlders. Luke was trying to pry another firecracker out of her clenched fist. "No!"
"Gimme!"
"It's too danger--"
The rapid succession of explosions made them both spin around.
The paper sack jumped as if it was filled with popping corn. It smoked, then burst into flames. Lily's copy of Little Women was right next to the bag - as was the blanket. She started for them and Luke jerked her back.
He jumped over to the bag and tried kicking the flames out. But it was too late, the bottle rockets and fireworks had started to take off.
Lily ran toward him, but something big came crashing past her. She lost her balance and teetered to the left.
Clay skidded to a stop beside Luke, seemingly oblivious to the rockets taking off in every direction, and scooped up fists full of dirt, throwing them onto the burning blanket.
Once she regained her balance, Lily started toward the fire again. The pops and hissing kept going and a rocket whizzed past her ear. If she hadn't ducked, she was certain her hair would have been on fire. She was almost to Luke when something hit her leg.
She screamed, falling to the ground. It felt worse than the time she was accidentally shot by a B-B gun.
Looking down, she saw the long launching stick of the firework protruding from her thigh. he fuse snapped and hissed as it burned closer to the rocket filled with explosives.
Clay was there before she could react. He pulled the rocket from her thigh and hurled it a good ten yards away before it exploded. He bent over her, shielding her from the worst of the burning spray of color that showered them.
The rocket had been deep. In her brief look, Lily had seen that nearly half of the shell was buried in her leg.
Luke was still trying to spread the arsenal and get the burning fuses stamped out. Clay picked Lily up. "She's bleeding pretty bad. I'm taking her for help."
The pops sounded further away. The searing pain in Lily's leg occupied most of her attention, but she heard Luke yell. "Wait! She's my sister. I'll take her."
"Put out the fire, then catch up," Clay called back. Then he yelled, "Peter! Help him!"
They reached the path, where Peter stood staring at Lily's bloody leg for a moment before he took off in the opposite direction. The terror she saw in his eyes told her she was in serious trouble. She started to shake.
Clay kept moving. He murmured softly in her ear, "Take it easy. I'll get you to a doctor. It'll stop hurting soon."
Lily let her head fall against Clay's shoulder and pressed her lips together to keep from crying out. Her leg felt like it was on fire. She hadn't looked at it after he had pulled the rocket out. She was too afraid of what she might see. He had said she was bleeding. She couldn't tell. It just hurt.
The trek through the rough woods seemed to take forever. Normally, it took Lily and Luke fifteen minutes to get to The Place. But Clay was moving slowly, his footing sometimes faltering. His breathing sounded like he'd been running a mile. At one point she heard Luke say he'd carry her for awhile, but Clay kept moving.
Then she heard another voice. This one sounded as scared as Lily felt. And that really got her worried - this was a grown-up voice. Lily landed in the back seat of a car. Doors slammed closed. Then they were moving again. A woman with blonde hair was driving. She kept asking Clay where Peter was.
After the fifth time, he nearly shouted, "I don't know!" Then he added, more quietly, "He's okay."
Clay kept turning around in the front seat and looking at Lily. Luke was in the back next to her, holding a towel against her leg.
Once they pulled up at the emergency room of Henderson County Hospital, other people crowded around her. She lost track of Luke and Clay and the woman who drove the car.
Lily felt all floaty, like she was a kite bobbing on the breeze. She heard her dad's voice, felt his hand on the top of her head.
"How are you feeling, sweetie?"
The pain in her leg was still there, but much more dull. She hesitated opening her eyes. Dad was going to be really mad. Right now he was talking to her like he did when she was sick. Once he knew she was better, it was going to hit the fan.
She opened her eyes. She was in a hospital room.
Dad smiled.
That made her more worried. Was she going to be crippled?
Then he said, "There's someone here to see you."
He stepped away. Lily was surprised when the face that appeared next wasn't her brother's, but Clay's. His eyes moved restlessly back and forth from her leg and her face. Finally, he looked her in the eye.
He had the most incredible golden-brown eyes with a darker brown ring around the iris. Lily almost forgot how much her leg hurt when he looked at her like that. It was as if she were the only person in the world that mattered.
"I ... I'm sorry. We didn't mean for anyone to get hurt."
She shook her head and the room swam for a moment. "You carried me all the way home. You could have run."
The startled look in his eyes told her he was shocked she'd even think such a thing.
She said, "Besides, it was an accident." She looked around his shoulder to see if her dad was listening. He'd left the room. She said, more quietly, in case Dad was just outside the door, "We shouldn't have had those rockets in the first place." She paused. "I suppose Luke's grounded." For a moment she almost wished she would be crippled - that way Dad couldn't be too mad at her.
Clay smiled. "Let's just say, none of us are going to be going to that spot by the creek anytime soon."
It was then that Lily noticed the bandage on his right hand. "You're hurt?"
He quickly tucked the hand behind his back. "Just a little burn."
The events of that horrible moment began to take on definition in her mind. "The fuse on the rocket burned your hand when you pulled it out of my leg."
He looked away. "It's not bad."
"But if you hadn't pulled it out." Lily realized that what felt like a vast burning crater in her leg would have been exactly that. With a sense of sickness in her stomach, her close call became crystal clear. "Oh, my gosh, it could have blown my leg completely off!"
Clay laughed, but it was a nervous laugh that said he was just trying to make her feel better. "Oh, it wasn't that dramatic. You're gonna be okay. Don't think about it anymore."
At that moment, looking into his eyes, she decided she could trust Clay Winters with all of her eleven-year-old heart. And Lily Boudreau didn't give her trust easily. |
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