Dark Places of the Soul: Dark Soul Trilogy - Book 1 (5 page)

It wasn’t a good idea, for Abner to go to
Boston. The man, despite his age and nearness to death, couldn’t be
argued with. Maybe, Stephanie thought, living on death’s doorstep
made every action taken so much more urgent.

Abner stood waiting
outside his place when she pulled up in her brand new Pontiac. The
white Firebird caught her eye the moment she first saw it on the
dealer’s lot. Abner told her such an expensive
vehicle

was a waste of hard earned money.

“
I still don’t think this
is a good idea,” she said as he buckled himself into the front
seat.

“
What isn’t… my going to
Boston or the fact that I’m a passenger in this death
machine?”

“
The doctors…”

“
Doctors be damned,” he
curtly interrupted her voiced concern, “I have more important
things to attend to then worryin’ about whether or not I live a few
more days past the medical profession’s appointed
doomsday.”

‘
Just thought I’d let you
know I’m concerned.”

“
He looked at her over the
bridge of his nose and shook his head. “What we did in
’46…”

“
Removed something evil
from this world.”

“
It wasn’t
human.”

“
I believe you,” Stephanie
said, “I always have.”

***

Abner took a long look at the girl in the
driver’s seat. They were a half hour on the road and she’d said
very little after he’d gotten in the car and rewarded her concerned
words with a harsh comeback. She reminded him of Randall, her
father. Stephanie Hawkins, a rather attractive woman who never
married, although she did shack up with a guy for four years after
college, much to her father’s contempt.

There was an abundance of physical
attraction in the seat next to him. Stephanie had short black hair
and porcelain skin. Her blue eyes were mesmerizing. Abner figured a
young man would be fortunate if he took the time to break down the
barriers Stephanie Hawkins wore like armor.

He rested his head back against the seat.
The ride was smooth, although comfort in a moving car escaped his
ancient bones years ago. He prayed for success. The man who turned
others toward the savior he believed in failed. He and his three
chosen soldiers for good failed when they most needed to
succeed.

“
Stephanie,” he said
without opening his eyes, “there are things in the world we don’t
understand. Some think they do… they are only fools.” He turned his
head toward her and studied her fine complexion of youth. “Your
father stood up proud, in a moment when life and death mattered,
but I think we failed.”

“
How… how do you sense
failure? Nothing has changed. The world is still pretty much the
same as it always was.”

“
The evil thing
breathes.”

“
Satan is not ours to
defeat,” she returned. “You’ve preached that from pulpits in the
past. He is ours to reject… but we can not defeat him.”

“
The thing we fought is
not Satan. If it were, I’d let God take me home as a loyal servant.
This thing… some say it is nothing more than a man… but I know that
it is spiritually evil.”

“…
And my father,”
Stephanie continued for Abner. “He and his brother both believed
you.”

“
As did Lonnie Wilkerson,”
he responded.

Abner Hollis added nothing else to their
conversation. He closed his eyes again and his gentle snoring
announced to his driver his decision to seek sleep.

Noah knew the handwriting couldn’t be the
same. The previous author, of notes received during his college
years, had taken his own life. After settling his nerves, Noah had
re-read the entire letter carefully. A restaurant called the Iron
Skillet was mentioned briefly in one paragraph, a taunt, the
location of a meeting eighteen years ago. No one knew, or should
have known about the deal made with the Albany businessman.

John Hamilton, an identity Noah discovered
years later, was willing to pay for proof of his young wife’s
affair. A picture of the unfaithful wife had been supplied by the
spurned husband. Noah desperately needed the funds. By hiring Noah
Cote, John Hamilton was killing two birds with one stone. Noah
attended the same school as the wife’s boyfriend and Noah also took
great human interest photographs for the college newspaper.

Noah wasn’t a private investigator and that
fact had pleased John Hamilton even more, someone who belonged on
campus, a venomous snake waiting patiently in the tall grass. The
blond thirty year old spouse, an employee of the college and her
lover were going to become targets of Noah Cote’s photo layout.
Only this collection of snapshots would never be seen by the nosey
public.

Last night Noah found sleep was not going to
be forthcoming. Just after midnight he climbed behind the wheel ’73
Ford Ranchero. He purchased the wannabe truck four years ago and
had clocked half of the vehicles hundred and eight thousand miles
since then. The interior had witnessed better days. A tear in the
driver’s seat had been covered with gray duct tape, an effort to
keep the foam stuffing from bursting out of the wound. The exterior
had a small dent in one quarter panel and the paint had lost the
battle to retain its original color. The vehicle ran strong though,
and Noah was confident it would be able to parade into Richfield
Springs without too much black smoke.

The trip took four and a half hours. He had
stopped along the way for a cup of coffee at around three in the
morning, rehashing in his mind the single sentence with the mention
of the Iron Skillet. ‘Every morning, I sit in the Skillet and
remember what you agreed to do.’ The Skillet, the Iron Skillet,
Noah had never once gone back to the tiny restaurant in the last
eighteen years, until today.

He pulled his Ranchero up to the curb across
the street from the restaurant. It hadn’t opened yet. From where he
sat he hoped to view every customer as they entered.

‘
Every morning I sit in
the Skillet.’

Who in their right mind would do such a
thing? Sit in the same hole-in-the-wall, probably eating eggs
cooked the same way with bacon on the side. He wondered about the
sanity of such a person just before he began to wonder about his
own.

After a half hour of waiting, Noah watched a
late model Chevy pull into the parking area along side the
restaurant. An elderly couple got out of the vehicle. The woman
eased out from behind the steering wheel and assisted a crooked man
with a cane from the passenger’s side. They were right on time.
Someone in the restaurant had just turned the sign in the door from
closed to opened. The old couple entered and Noah waited for
another vehicle to enter his field of vision.

***

The Winnebago pulled sluggishly from the
toll both at the foot of exit 30. The heavy vehicle seemed to take
forever to get up to speed. James turned left, toward the town of
Mohawk and onto route 28. His destination was only twelve miles
away. At the junction of New York routes 28 and 20 he took another
left. On his right there would be a small restaurant. The type the
locals would frequent.

The town brought him back in time, to
someplace simpler. To someplace where a man might like to start
over. This was a place where he wouldn’t have to be James Lansing.
He could be just Jim, the guy living next door with the well kept
garden and a nice wife who visited the neighbor’s wife a couple
times a week for coffee or tea.

James passed the Iron Skillet on his right.
He decided to turn around on a side street and park across the
street, heading west on route 20, rather than pull into the narrow
parking lot just past the building. After maneuvering the vehicle
down a maze of side streets James pulled over along the shoulder of
the main road. The Winnebago barely got off the road far enough. He
left about a half a car’s length between his camper and one of
those cars made to look like a pickup truck.

“
This the place you
dreamed about?” Keri asked, leaning across the center
console.”

His answer came with a quick nod of his head
followed by a low rumble of acknowledgement which escaped from his
throat.

“
I liked the place where
you picked me up more,” she said into his moment of solemn
concentration.

“
I’m going to go in and
take a seat by the side window,” he commented.

“
Not without me you
don’t.” She got up from her seat and grabbed her rumbled jeans from
the pile of clothing too dirty to wear. “Loan me a pair of your
BVDs,” she said while trying to shake a few wrinkles from her
pants.

He turned in his seat, giving her a smile
she didn’t expect.

“
Well,” she said to his
wordless smirk, “denim is a little rough against certain parts of
the body and like I said…”

“
You’re not puttin’ dirty
panties on against clean skin,” he mimicked her previous
protestation.

She nodded, agreeing with his interruption,
still holding the pair of worn jeans up in front of her.

“
In the bedroom… under the
bed,” he said, “there’s a couple suitcases with stuff. The black
one’s got some extra briefs.”

“
Knew you didn’t look like
a boxer man.”

She turned to go down the hall, but before
she was out of earshot he added, “This I gotta see.”

She leaned against the wall, placing her
head against the plastic jam. Slowly she inched the shirt she wore
over a bare hip. “Maybe you’ll get lucky,” she purred.

***

Noah watched the young couple get out of the
Winnebago behind him. The slender woman in the well worn jeans and
oversized shirt caught his eye. The female portion of the couple
looked unruly, still watching her brought him the sort of pleasure
he usually denied himself. The young girl was not the type to stand
beside a pastor. She could never dress conservatively, or sit
quietly with a Bible in hand. That was the type of woman he chose
for himself. The girl from the Winnebago had a sinful way of
moving. Temptation filled his loins and he chastised himself. He
was a minister, but he still possessed the desires of a man.

The man with the girl seemed to be a little
older, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties. Noah noticed
the man take hold of the girls hand as they hurried across the
street after allowing a lone vehicle to pass. He wondered about the
status, if any, of the relationship between the two. His lonely
lifestyle festered an avalanche of thoughts he wasn’t proud of.

After the couple had entered the diner Noah
got out of his vehicle and crossed the state route. At this time of
the morning traffic was sparse. He didn’t have to wait before
making his journey across the black barrier.

When Noah entered the interior of the
restaurant he noticed the couple sitting at a window seat along the
far side of the dining area. The male looked at him and when Noah
looked away his spine still felt the stranger’s attention. The male
portion of the couple was in no way familiar. Noah sat at the
counter, making sure the couple by the window was visible in a
strategically placed mirror.

The next face to pass through the door Noah
would have recognized if a hundred years had passed between
meetings. The dark, handsome features of John Carver gave way to
little change over the last eighteen years. The man from the
college years nodded to the minister and took a stool next to
him.

“
You’ve changed little,”
Noah said.

“
The changes my life has
taken on you would know little about… Noah.”

The smell of bacon permeated the walls of
the Iron Skillet. The character of the small community was
plastered in every corner. John Carver felt at home here. He didn’t
feel that way in many other places.

The waitress placed a coffee down in front
of John Carver, his usual, black with no sugar. She looked to be
midway through her forties, short blond hair and piercing blue eyes
took the attention away from a scar across her forehead. John
Carver knew the disfigurement was from an auto accident five years
ago, particulars beyond that fact he wasn’t privy to.

“
Coffee?” She asked the
question at Noah.

“
Yeah… coffee and… maybe a
cinnamon roll… if you have any.” His voice seemed to betray his
nervousness.

The waitress answered with a simple nod,
poured him a cup of his morning poison before dropping three
creamers on the counter.

“
I thought you…” Noah
paused, leaving the statement undefined.

“
Failed,” John Carver
responded, then quietly continued, “suicide is more difficult than
most would imagine. Took me years to recover and even longer in the
asylum… biding my time.”

“
You know… I wasn’t
responsible…”

“
For her death,” John
Carver cut into Noah’s claim of innocence.

“
Yes… her
death.”

John Carver spun in his seat, looking first
to the young couple by the window and taking note of the girl’s
curly blond hair. His vision shifted to the old couple at the
opposite end of the room. The Johnson’s were married fifty years
last August. They had breakfast at the Skillet twice a week. They
were good people.

“
She was beautiful Noah,”
Carver said, “tortured by a man who possessed… but didn’t love her.
I loved her… the bird that she was… seeking flight and returning to
me only when… she needed to be loved.”