Dark Knight of the Skye (3 page)

Danny took her by the arm and pushed her toward the open door. She got in without hesitation, locking it behind her. Danny looked down at her and smiled before walking around the front of the truck. The men took a few steps back, but only to get into a position where they would have him circled.

Danny was no small man; he was six foot five, two hundred thirty pounds of pure muscle. The three that now stood around him were scrawny-looking with long dirty hair and filthy clothes. Not one stood over five ten and yet they seemed to have no fear of the big man that was stepping slowly toward the driver’s side of the truck.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the one in the middle asked. Danny didn’t reply. He just turned to move to the side of the truck, when he was stopped by the man to his left.

“He asked you a question.”

“Ye want me money?” Danny sternly asked.

The three burst out laughing, and as if they were enjoying themselves. Danny pushed past the man, making his way to the door. He didn’t even get the key in the lock before his body was yanked out of D`nae’s sight.

“DANNY! DANNY!” she screamed. She quickly climbed over into the driver’s seat and rolled down the window. That’s when she saw the three men on top of Danny’s lifeless body. The horror of what she was witnessing was more than her mind could comprehend. It looked as if they were biting, or eating at his flesh. The one closest to her turned, opening his blood-soaked mouth and screamed a sound that was more animal than human. That was the last thing she could recall when she came to with a powerful smell under her nose and a flashlight in her eyes.

D`nae knocked his hand away, rolling to her side and pushed herself up into a sitting position, grabbing her head as she did. The pain inside her head throbbed with every beat of her heart. “What the hell happened to me
?”
she thought as she swayed in unbelievable agony throughout her entire body.

Several vehicles began to arrive. The ambulance and two other cop cars showed up at the same time. The paramedics worked quickly, ensuring that she was stabilized before loading her up on the stretcher. It was only as they were wheeling her into the ambulance that she noticed the black van parked next to it. Written across the side in stark white letters was he word “Coroner”. She began shaking her head in disbelief, remembering what she had seen before she had blacked out, and just like that, blackness took her once again.

Three days later, while she was still in the hospital recovering from the multitude of wounds she had sustained that night, she was given the news that Danny’s body had been sent to his home in Scotland. Up to that point, no one had even discussed what had happened, other than the few vague comments that had been made concerning her particular case. Finally, two detectives came by and explained to her that Danny’s body had cut up severely, and that it was the massive amount of blood loss that had taken his life. When she told them what she remembered, they explained to her that with the trauma she had been through, she must have imagined it. Considering the fact that she still had no idea what had caused the damage to her
own
body, she had no other choice but to believe what they said, regardless of what she knew she had seen.

* * *

Three and a half years had passed and D`nae had never recovered from the horrible events that had occurred the night of Danny’s death. She couldn’t move on, other than with the day to day activities in life that one must do to merely survive. The fact that she never got to tell him goodbye ate at her mind every night, along with a number of unanswered questions. She now worked in an office, filing papers for a legal service, which kept her behind an office door throughout the day, then safely back home to where she spent her nights locked in her upstairs apartment. Her weekends were filled with long talks on the front porch, drinking hot chocolate with her landlady, listening to the grand ole stories of the sweet old woman.

That night while she lie in her bed holding Danny’s picture, she realized what she not only wanted, but felt she desperately needed, to do. If she was ever going to be able to get on with her life, she had to go to where Danny was buried and tell him goodbye. Everyone was always telling her she needed to take a vacation, anyway. She had plenty of time in at work and her landlady, who lived downstairs, could keep an eye on the apartment. She fell asleep holding his picture as she had every night since he passed; only this night, she slept with comfort. For the first time in a long time, she knew what tomorrow would bring.

* * *

The plane landed in Dumbarton, Scotland three weeks later, where she stayed her first night in a quaint little hostel before traveling by train to the Kyle of Lochalsh. She could have continued by train all the way into Kyleakin, the small community where Danny had spent his youth on the Isle of Skye, but she wanted to take the ferry, because it was one of the things that Danny had spoken of so fondly, and that’s what they had planned on doing.

The water was just as he had said it would be, beautiful with blues and turquoise shining in the mid-morning sun. The Isle from the ferry was breathtaking. Kyleakin was a small village on the water’s edge with a flowing landscape of majestic hills behind it. Once she was in the village, she found her way to the Dun Caan Hostel, which is better known to locals as the backpackers independent Hostel. The month was March and the weather was a bit cool, but to her surprise there were no others in the hostel, even though this was supposed to be one of their busiest times of the year.

“That sounds great, thank you,” D`nae replied, not sure what she had just agreed to. Mabel returned with a plate of small biscuits and a large cup of steaming hot tea.

“Eat up luv.” When D`nae had finished, Mabel showed her to her room, afterwards inviting her to have dinner with her family.

That night she joined the family, which included Mabel’s husband Sam and two older men, James and Harry that had been living behind the hostel for years and eating as a part of the family from day one. They were joined by one man, who didn’t fit in any better than she did, that went by the name Detective Grady O’Brian, who was down investigating several unexplained disappearances that had occurred over the past few years on the Isle.

“I spent the first seventeen years of my life in Denver, Colorado, then back and forth from there to Coventry, London when my folks divorced,” he explained.

“Oh, I see. Well, I’m here to try and find someone’s family that meant a great deal to me a long time ago, and I thought I would do some backpacking while I was at it.”

“An fit family be ye lookin fur lassie,” Sam asked as he started to slice the loaf of bread.

“The Gilmore’s, do you know them?” Sam dropped the knife like he had just cut himself and everyone took on a dead stare, straight at her.

D`nae sat there with a shocked look on her face, listening inattentively to the talk circling table when she heard her name. “Are you okay?”

The two excused themselves from the table, making it clear that their departure had nothing to do with the food or the conversation, and left the Hostel.

“Sorry you had to hear that. I gather you had no idea about your boyfriend’s family,” Grady inquired.

“No… to be honest, I don’t know anything about his family other than what he told me before he died. So, what happened to his body?”

“Look, don’t get all defensive. There have been things going on around here for the last three years that no one can answer, and all of a sudden we get a call that a so-called tourist decides to check in at a place that hasn’t seen a customer in almost two years. I had no idea that you were going to be Danny Gilmore’s girlfriend until you said so. I just happen to know the case.”

“This is all freaking me out, so excuse the hell out of me if I get a bit defensive. I mean, how would you like to find out some of this shit after almost four years of thinking it was another way?” she said, turning her back to him.

“Please don’t cry, Mrs. Creel.”

She turned around so fast that he actually jumped and gave him the best go-to-hell look she could manage.

“First off, I never cry and second, my name is D`nae. Mrs. Creel is my mother!” She started back toward the hostel, finished with their conversation.

“I’m sorry,” he said running up beside her, taking her by the arm. “I didn’t mean to say
Mrs.
I meant
Miss
and there’s no reason to get this upset.”

“You don’t know a damn thing about me. You have no idea what kind of hell that I’ve been through and I damn sure don’t need some nosey detective trying to hold my hand, telling me I don’t need to get upset!” she retorted, pulling away.

Once she was back in the hostel, she went straight to her room and started repacking her belongings into her backpack. She made sure to take everything she would need for at least a three day hike around the Collin Hills, because she knew that Danny had told her his family owned a large piece of land in that area and she wasn’t about to ask anyone else around here, anything. She made it to the main check-in area when Mabel noticed she was leaving.

The village was small and it wasn’t long before she had made her way onto the outskirts of the village grounds, where the road curved in toward the land and left the sea to its back. She walked a good five miles when the sky started to fill with dark clouds and the earth below her feet swirled with a thick layer of dewy mist. The hills looked more like mountains and the trees were starting to get thicker the higher she climbed. She had taken a trail that she thought would bring her to a small campground, which she had seen advertised on a sign a few miles back down the road. The terrain seemed to change every time she turned around and she was beginning to feel stupid for not listening to the advice to stay put for the night.