Dark Places of the Soul: Dark Soul Trilogy - Book 1 (4 page)

“
Candice, Candice,
Candice,” the voice made her cringe, “been too long darlin’ since I
last cast these ol’ eyes on you.”

In fact less than a month had passed since
their last run in, but she knew the person interrupting her focus
didn’t really have much of a life. Indeed, to Conrad Kaminisky
three weeks must seem like an eternity. “Conrad, it’s good to see
you,” she lied and forced herself to give the old man a hug.

“
What on earth have you
done to my friend Zak?” Conrad asked, trying his best to perform a
demure role. “Must be love,” he answered himself, “the glaze over
the old coot’s eyes give it away. You got ‘im… hook, line and
sinker.”

Across the room Zachary moved from the
reporter to a place of momentary solitude. Their eyes met and it
was enough for Candice to make an excuse to leave the tiny corner
in the room Conrad occupied. She floated across the expanse to the
man with the gray hair; the one she knew secretly concealed a ring
with a diamond which would contrast nicely with her eyes.

“
Zak… the party is
wonderful… thank you.”

He addressed her insincerity with an
unemotional kiss on the cheek.

“
Our flight is early,” she
reminded him.

“
Why don’t you go upstairs
and get your beauty sleep and I’ll see to getting our guests on
their way.”

She knew that type of suggestion from him
meant he’d be to bed in about two or three hours. Zachary Wells was
not one to end a party before two o’clock in the morning and it was
now less than five minutes before midnight.

***

Keri woke with the sound of a distant alarm
clock. The irritating intrusion on her sleep abruptly came to a
halt once her eyes were opened to the gray dawn. She rolled onto
her back and sat up on the firm mattress. Her jeans and blouse were
crumpled on the floor. Her sneakers were nowhere in sight. All she
wore were the same white panties she’d had on for days; such was
the life a newly ordained homeless person. Surprisingly she didn’t
feel dirty; maybe she had become used to her own filth.

Across the foot of the bed she saw a shirt.
It was one of his, James Lansing. She wouldn’t forget that name or
face, his actions had left a mark on her life. She reached for the
shirt and found it had long sleeves with buttons up the front. The
garment seemed familiar, like something she’d once worn in a
similar situation. She sniffed it, burying her nose in the fabric,
it smelled clean.

What do you owe someone for saving your
life, and then gives you a place to sleep, in his bed, without
questions asked? The question danced through her head while she
threw his shirt over her shoulders. It had a checked pattern of
blues and grays. Maybe he had the funds available to allow her to
purchase new clothing, if nothing else fresh panties were becoming
a necessity. A little change and a couple singles still lined the
pockets of her jeans. It was all she had to her name. This
morning’s breakfast had drained most of her cash.

She left her jeans on the floor, deciding
the oversized shirt hid enough, and stepped out of the bedroom. Her
senses were immediately greeted by the aroma of morning coffee.
Some pleasures bring joy to your senses despite poverty. Caffeine
hadn’t found its way into her system in three days, having decided
on the cold glass of Orange Juice instead of the eye opener
yesterday morning. The muffin, she tried to eat slowly, as if that
would have made it last in her digestive tract, had been her only
solid food in the past day and a half. Her stomach seemed beyond
hunger pains.

He stood at the tiny excuse for a kitchen
counter fixing a cup of coffee. He met her eyes which she figured
had lost all their vitality.

“
Coffee?” He
asked.

She nodded, as if words weren’t awake in her
brain yet.

“
Shirt looks nice on you,”
he commented as he walked back to the front of the camper. His
vehicle sat on the side of the road. A sign she could read through
the front window said something about a KOA campground. The front
gate was closed.

“
Got here a few hours
ago,” he said, when he noticed where her attention focused. “This
place wasn’t open yet. We still have a three and a half hour drive
to Richfield Springs. It’s not worth pullin’ into a
site.”

“
Did you get any sleep?”
She asked.

“
Few hours,” he responded
as he sat in the driver’s side Captain’s Chair.

Keri poured a cup of hot black liquid and
took a satisfying gulp. She sat in the passenger’s seat, folding
her bare legs up beneath her. “It’s a scar from a childhood
accident,” she said when she caught him looking at the ugly
reminder running from the inside of her knee cap halfway down her
calf. “Right down to the bone,” she added in case he needed a more
detailed description.

In silence he sampled his coffee while she
cradled her warm mug between the palms of her hands.

“
We goin’ to Richfield
Springs t’ chase another dream?” She asked into a moment becoming
too quiet for comfort.

He nodded his head. “There’s a small
restaurant on the main strip. I expect the meeting to take place
there.”

“
I guess you got somethin’
for dreaming about restaurants.” She smiled with the comment. “I
should hope this one doesn’t involve another damsel in
distress.”

“
Quite the little wise
ass… aren’t you?”

The comeback might have shocked her if it
wasn’t accompanied by a rather attractive smile on his part. She
took no offence and quickly kidded back, “Been checkin’ out my
butt?”

His sly expression told her he had. She
hoped he’d found the view enjoyable.

“
How many times did you
have the dream about me?” She asked.

“
Often, kinda like a
re-run of Gilligan’s Island.”

Her eyes might have doubled in size, if it
were possible. She heard his response in her head as if it were an
old recording. “I knew… you were going to say that,” she spurted
out. “Actually,” she paused momentarily as she tried to decide how
crazy her next statement was going to sound, “I’ve been feeling
kinda… like I’ve been here before, sleepin’ in the bed, walkin’
down the hall back there.” She turned in her seat, pointing out the
direction she spoke of.

He made no comment to address the possible
revelation she had just provided.

Her mind changed gears with relative ease.
“Do you suppose there’s a place around where I could wash my
clothing?”

“
We don’t have time for
that right now. We’re three and a half hours from our next
destination.”

“
I’ve been wearin’ the
same clothes for a couple days.”

“
When we reach Richfield
Springs we should be able to find a store somewhere, after our task
is finished.”

“
Can I at least shower?”
She asked the question after finishing her coffee.

He held up his mug. “I’m going to have a
refill. Think that’ll give you enough time?”

***

Sleep hadn’t come easy. Zak had come to bed
sooner than expected, but Candice wrestled with an overactive mind.
When she had finally given way to slumber she dreamed. Unsettling
images floated through her brain. If Zak hadn’t been so deep in his
own realm of slumber he would have been aware of her increased
breathing and restless movements. When she finally opened her eyes
to break the spell, she felt her heart racing in her chest. Dawn
graced the outside world, as it had three times past when she
finally managed to escape from the reoccurring dream.

She watched Zak die, trapped in the flaming
cockpit of a car, a vehicle different from any of the four sitting
out in his garage, gray and boxy. Three nights recently this vision
had interrupted her sleep. This latest segment added a shimmering
black pin striped highway, viewed through the heat of the flames. A
young couple approached. She could recall their faces clearly and
realized they had starring roles in the other dreams on other
nights. They beckoned to her, telling her to abandon efforts to
save the future husband she didn’t love. The girl with curly blond
hair pleaded for her to move away from the wreckage.

The couple moved dangerously close to the
fire. Their faces blurred like melting wax. The landscape was
unfamiliar and for the first time she noticed another car, crushed
hood to hood against the one she had been a passenger in.

The imagery seemed to have more clarity than
any dream she’d ever had before and as she rolled out of bed she
recalled the scene that shocked her back to reality, Zak bursting
into flame, absorbed into hell.

The shower stopped just short of draining
the fresh water storage tank. Keri performed as a closet singer,
belting out a few tuneless pop songs while the water made an
attempt to drown her out. James Lansing smiled with warmth he
hadn’t been able to cherish in the last few days.

The choruses of ‘Fire and Rain’ and a few
other mellow favorites came to a halt with the water’s flow. James
continued working on his second cup of coffee as Keri made an exit
from the bathroom. He resisted a temptation to turn in his seat and
make a comment about her rock star status.

She flopped in the passenger seat, again
folding her legs beneath her before drawing his attention. A
drowned rat, her curly blond hair clung against her forehead as she
dried the back of her head with a stolen motel towel.

“
So was it a nice motel or
a cockroach infested dive.” She held the towel toward him to
illustrate the reason for her question.

“
Came with the camper,” he
responded, “and I see that you’ve commandeered another of my
favorite shirts.”

“
Don’t strain your eyes…
it’s all I have on,” she shot back in a teasing manner. “No
friggin’ way I’m puttin’ dirty clothing against clean skin…
especially used panties.”

James noticed the pile of clothing on the
floor behind her seat. Her white panties were laid across the
top.

“
I’m keeping my eyes to
myself.”

“
Too bad,” she commented,
her blue eyes looking through damp bangs.

There was a noticeable chemistry between
them. James Lansing had always considered himself dense when it
came to women and a few had chosen to remind him of the flaw.
Doubts about his ability to interact with the fairer sex seemed to
always end up plaguing his relationships. A heart filled with
erotic lust kept him continually weaving though relationships with
women out of his league.

His last romantic liaison had gone nowhere
as far as he was concerned, and everywhere as far as his co-worker,
a divorced English teacher, thought. His lustful desire for her
brought them a couple intense evenings at her place. His jealousy
about her continued relationship with the man she’d been married to
reminded him of just how thick-headed he was.

He started the vehicle after placing his
empty coffee mug in the recessed portion of the center console. His
eyes took one more trail across the girl next to him. The scarred
knee caught his attention again, she didn’t seem to notice.

“
So tell me about the
accident,” he said while glancing out the side of the Winnebago for
any oncoming traffic.

“
This one?” She stretched
her leg out over the console and playing her toes against his arm.
He looked, not certain if he should, especially since her panties
topped the pile of dirty clothes destined for a
Laundromat.

“
Yeah,” he said as he took
inventory of five toes and nicely shaped leg. “Musta been a nasty
accident.” His shirt on her body was dangerously close to revealing
things private.

She stroked the lingering reminder of a
foolish venture from her high school years. “Motorcycle,” she said,
“playin’ around with a boy friend’s bike… dumped it in a field and
received quite a few stitches from a broken piece of rusted
metal.”

“
You got
lucky.”

“
Sucks!”

Her comment drew his quick reaction.

“
It’s lookin’ better now,”
she responded to his expression, “but when it first happened I
wouldn’t dream of wearin’ a skirt.”

“
And would you wear one
today?”

“
Don’t own one t’day… that
pile of dirty laundry is all I have to my name.”

“
That,” he said, taking
notice of how many buttons were unfastened on the garment she wore,
“and the shirt you stole from me.”

***

Stephanie Hawkins came into the world in
1954; eight years after her father, uncle and two other men took a
life on a cold February night. Abner Hollis came into her life not
long before her father’s death. The tall man had always been frail
to her perception, bent and crooked, sitting on the doorstep of the
next life. Her father and uncle never spoke about the night in ’46,
but Abner seemed to feel Stephanie needed to be apprized of the
whole episode. She had no doubt that the four men eliminated an
evil on the cold unforgiving night. Were they vigilantes? Stephanie
never took time to rationalize the situation the four men had
placed themselves in.

She took care of Abner, the old man her
father seemed indebted to. At thirty years old she viewed her
father as heroic, though this image of him came after his death. He
achieved hero status not only for the actions having taken place
that February night thirty-eight years ago, but for the entire life
spent concealing secrets too dangerous for the world to grasp.