Angel of the Night, page 1
ANGEL OF THE NIGHT
By B. W. Battin
A Macabre Ink Production
Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Digital Edition Copyright 2015 B. W. Battin
Partial cover image courtesy of: Cindy Funk
And used per the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License
LICENSE NOTES
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Meet the Author
B. W. Battin grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. After serving four years in the U.S. Coast Guard, he graduated from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He became a reporter at KOAT-TV in Albuquerque, then moved on to TV stations in Shreveport, Louisiana; Rapid City, South Dakota; and Duluth, Minnesota, where he wrote his first published novel, Angel of the Night. After it was published, he became a full-time writer. One of his novels, Smithereens, was made into a TV movie for NBC. His novels and short stories have been translated into various languages, and he has ghost-written novels for other authors. He lives in Belen, New Mexico, with his wife Sandy, whom he describes as the love of his life. They met in Albuquerque while they were both in the news business.
DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS
Visit us online
Check out our blog and
Subscribe to our Newsletter for the latest Crossroad Press News
Find and follow us on Facebook
Join our group at Goodreads
We hope you enjoy this eBook and will seek out other books published by Crossroad Press. We strive to make our eBooks as free of errors as possible, but on occasion some make it into the final product. If you spot any errors, please contact us at publisher@crossroadpress.com and notify us of what you found. We’ll make the necessary corrections and republish the book. We’ll also ensure you get the updated version of the eBook.
If you’d like to be notified of new Crossroad Press titles when they are published, please send an email to publisher@crossroadpress.com and ask to be added to our mailing list.
If you have a moment, the author would appreciate you taking the time to leave a review for this book at your favorite online site that permits book reviews. These reviews help books to be more easily noticed.
Thank you for your assistance and your support of the authors published by Crossroad Press.
ANGEL OF THE NIGHT
Prologue
She would never go back. Never. Not to the stepfather who wouldn’t keep his hands off her, not to the high school in Des Moines, where most of the girls she knew wanted nothing more than to become good little wives and mothers with a reliable hubby to provide for them. Good little girls with the right attitude. Good little girls, many of whom would find out too late that the good provider they’d hoped for was really a good-for-nothing son of a bitch who would slap them around—like her stepfather. And like her mother, they’d find themselves middle-aged, with no skills, with little chance of finding another husband, with nothing to do but stay, put up with it, live life for its precious few happy moments, and try not to let him catch you crying. And try to learn, as her mother had, to look the other way when your husband gropes your teenage daughter. And when he takes her into the bedroom, closes the door, and forces her to submit.
Sally Parker immediately pushed those thoughts aside. Images of that night—her stepfather holding her down, ripping her clothes, his face pushing down on hers, his breath smelling of beer and cigarettes—those recollections were still too sensitive for her to deal with.
The dreaded memories shoved back into her subconscious, Sally took in her surroundings. She was walking along a little-used two-lane highway that wound its way through the woods of northern Minnesota, toward Canada. It was a sunny June morning, and the trees had that early-summer healthy look about them, that delicate shade of green that came from new leaves, as yet untroubled by insects or disease. This far north, summer had barely begun. She took a deep breath; the woods smelled of a cool, damp freshness. It was beautiful here. She was glad she had come this way.
It wasn’t a choice route for hitchhiking, but there was no rush to cross over into Ontario, as she had no idea what she would do when she got there. At least all her options were open she could thumb her way west to Vancouver or east to Toronto, a much shorter trio, deciding what to do next after her arrival. Sure, she was afraid, a little. A seventeen-year-old girl alone in a strange city—not to mention a strange country—could have a tough time. But she would not go back, no matter what happened. And she’d already had a taste of what it would be like.
Last night, her first night as a runaway, she had spread her bedroll under a tree near Interstate 35 and, remarkably, had managed to fall asleep. Then, about 1 AM., it rained. And continued doing so for the rest of the night. Not only had that put an end to her sleep, but also now the damp bedroll strapped to her back smelled foul and musty.
And then there were some of the people who offered her rides. A tall, slender young woman with long dark hair and a pretty face, she had no trouble getting male drivers to stop for her. But some of them she refused to ride with; they had that peculiar look in their eyes, the same look she’d seen in her stepfather’s eyes. What worried her the most was that one of these times she might not notice that look until after she’d gotten into the car.
Again forcing herself to clear her mind of unpleasant thoughts, she concentrated on the trees. Unlike Iowa with its endless miles of farmland, here the whole world seemed to be a continuous forest, the trees so close together they barely had room to grow, stretching off into the distance, forever. Some were white-barked, poppies or birch she supposed, and others were what she called needle trees, like pines, although she didn’t know whether these were pines or spruce or some other variety. Somewhere, hidden in the branches, a bird was chirping.
Behind her, she heard a car approaching and decided simply to let it go by. It was nice walking in the woods; she was in no hurry to thumb a ride. The driver tapped his horn, a friendly little toot that said Hi there and at the same time warned her of his presence; then a blue Chevy passed her and disappeared down the road.
After walking another twenty minutes without seeing any other cars, she decided traffic was too light here to let very many prospects get away, so when she again heard a vehicle approaching from behind her, she reluctantly turned to face the driver and stuck Out her thumb. And quickly dropped it. Coming toward her was a light-green bus full of people. As it passed, she saw a blur of faces at the windows and below them black letters that spelled out ELK RIDGE STATE HOSPITAL. Through the hack window, two of the passengers stared at her, one of them laughing as if she were the object of a joke. There was something in the eyes of that laughing face that made her uncomfortable, and she involuntarily checked the buttons on her blouse. Then the bus and the faces were gone, out of sight around a bend in the road, and she felt relieved. She could guess the sort of place Elk Ridge State Hospital was.
A few moments later, the silence of the woods was shattered by a crash. Sally froze, listening intently. Now the sounds were the occasional chirp or squawk of a bird and the faint roar of a distant jet, but she was sure of what she had heard. Somewhere, not too far away, something big and heavy had just smashed into something else. Sally started to run. The only thing she knew of that was big and heavy and not too far away was the bus.
Her heart pounding, she raced around the curve, and then she saw it. Still several hundred yards ahead, off the road, the bus lay on its side. Gasping for breath as she neared it, she saw what had happened. It had hit the soft shoulder and been pulled to the right, slamming into a tree and overturning. It lay on its left side, its rear end facing her, its right front wheel still spinning lazily. The rear-end emergency door had popped open, and she saw at least three people, apparently thrown out during the crash, lying on the ground.
Reaching the bus, she collapsed against it, trying to catch her breath. Inside, people were moaning. She smelled gasoline and, looking down, saw a puddle of it near her feet, a small stream running toward the front of the bus. Suddenly, she realized the bus might explode, and she had to try to get the injured passengers away from it.
“Help me,” someone called weakly. Turning in the direction the voice had come from. Sally saw a chubby woman of about thirty-five with long blond hair. The Woman lay on her back, her eyes fixed on Sally, pleading. Sally hurried over to her.
“I’ve got to get you away from here,” she said. “There’s gasoline leaking.”
“Please,” the woman whispered, “please help me.”
“I’ll try,” Sally replied firmly. “But you have to stand up. I can’t carry you. I’m not strong enough” The woman, her eyes still fixed on Sally’s, nodded.
With Sally’s help, she was able to sit up, but as soon as she had, she groaned and fell back again, her eyes closed.
“Wake up!” Sally cried. “Please! You have to get away from the bus!” But the woman wouldn’t respond.
A loud groan came from within the bus. Sally ran to the open emergency door and peered inside. The passengers who had been sitting on th e right side of the aisle had been hurled on top of those sitting on the left. Some were draped limply over what, with the bus on its side, had become the bottom row of seats; others had two or three people piled on top of them; no one moved.
“Please,” Sally called desperately, “can anyone help me? We’ve got to get everyone away from here.” She was answered by a moan, the source of which she was unable to determine.
She leaned against the bus, trying to decide what to do. She could hear the gasoline dripping from the ruptured tank, but maybe it would all soak into the ground and nothing would happen. It didn’t necessarily have to explode. Perhaps she’d be doing the victims more harm than good by trying to move them. She simply didn’t know, and she wished someone would come along who did. Feeling helpless and confused, she ‘looked in both directions along the road, seeing no signs of any assistance. The only sounds were the quiet of the woods and the persistent drip of gas.
Uncertain whether it was the right decision, she concluded that the only thing to do was to wait for help and hope the leaking gasoline would trickle harmlessly away or evaporate or whatever gasoline did.
In addition to the now unconscious woman, two other people, both middle-aged men, had been thrown out of the bus, and she hurried over to examine them. They were sprawled in some low weeds within five feet of each other, one face down, the other on his side. Unable to tell whether they were breathing, she considered feeling for a pulse, but other than by holding the victim’s wrist, she had no idea how to do it. All she could do, she supposed, was turn the head of the man whose face was buried in the weeds so he could breathe more easily if he was still alive. As she reached down to do so, from the corner of her eye, she saw movement.
But before she could turn to see who was there, something heavy smacked her in the back of the head, and the world went black. She was only vaguely aware that she had fallen across the man whose head she had been about to turn. In the swirling of her thoughts, her mind seemed to focus on the sound of liquid dripping, and she vaguely sensed it was gasoline, but it was miles away, in another world, of no importance.
The same pair of hands that a moment ago had brought a large rock down on Sally Parker’s head now held a book of matches. Striking one, the hands held it for a moment, the flame flickering in the gentle breeze, then dropped it into the puddle of gasoline.
The fire instantly raced along the trail of leaked fuel. In seconds, the bus was engulfed in flames, the blaze growing until even the people lying on the ground were hidden behind a roaring wall of orange.
A solitary figure stepped back from the heat of the burning bus, turned, and disappeared into the woods.
One
Janice Anderson groped for the alarm clock beside her bed, found it, and succeeded in shutting it off at the precise moment she knocked it off the bed table. It fell on the floor, the carpet reducing the sound of its impact to a gentle clunk—not to mention saving the clock from any serious damage, although at six in the morning she could hardly wish the infernal thing any good fortune. She considered rolling over, just for a moment or two, but the last time she’d done that, she awakened to discover she was already half an hour late for work, so instead she reluctantly dropped her legs over the edge of the bed, the covers slipping off her nude body.
That was one of the nice things about summer: sleeping nude. She hated bed clothes; it was so much nicer when you could enjoy the feel of cool sheets against your bare skin, one of the many luxuries to be taken advantage of during Minnesota’s all-too-brief summers.
Blinking her eyes into focus, she looked down at herself. Even unsupported, her breasts pushed out proudly, firmly, and below them, her long, slender legs stretched down to the carpet. She nudged the alarm clock with a toe; as no pieces fell off the clock, she assumed it had survived its fall. Then her eyes found the damned fatty roll that always appeared in her stomach when she was sitting. Her tummy was flat as could be when she stood, so why did the flesh have to bulge like that whenever she sat down? She let her eyes fall a little lower, to the blond bush between her legs, and she laughed, recalling the first time Mike had seen her naked. His initial comment had been: “Well, I’ll never accuse you of dying your hair.”
Vanity, she thought. I’m twenty-eight years old, and I’m still as vain as a teen-ager. And that, she knew, made her a hypocrite; she had no use at all for vain women—or vain men, for that matter.
Her room was white, with a few pieces of modern furniture. Simple, functional, without any knickknacks or other purely decorative things to clutter it up, it suited her personality. It had been her room as a child, although, having never been one for developing attachments to things, she’d long since thrown out all the relics of her youth. Until a year ago, when her father was involved in the car accident, she had lived in an apartment in another part of Dakota Falls, a Minneapolis suburb of about 60,000 people. Her mother had died when she was seven—complications from pneumonia—so when the accident confined her father permanently to a wheelchair, he had needed someone around the house to do the things that could only be done by a person with two good legs. It wasn’t a great personal sacrifice, really; she liked her father, and the restrictions living here placed on her social life were sometimes more advantageous than troublesome.
She stood, stretching, then snatched her blue robe off the chair, wrapped the summer-weight garment around her, and headed for the bathroom. Stepping into the hallway, she hesitated. To the right were the bathroom and her father’s room, its door closed. To the left was another closed door leading to her sister’s room. Actually, it was the spare bedroom now, but she’d always thought of it as Amy’s room. Amy was two years older than Janice, widowed, and lived in California. And Amy, along with her five-year-old son Mark, would he here for a visit in a few days, which meant the room should he aired out. Taking two strides to the door, Janice pushed it open.
Although there were none of Amy’s personal belongings here anymore, the room still had her touch. It was painted a light blue, and the matching curtains, bedspread, and even the lampshade were delicate and somewhat frilly. Not to Janice’s taste at all, but then the only thing she and her sister had in common was parents.
Still, standing in the doorway of what had been her sister’s room, Janice found herself looking forward to Amy’s visit. All those years of growing up together had created a bond that mere differences in attitude or lifestyle could not diminish. She’d also be glad to see Mark. Although brash and a little spoiled, the boy loved his Aunt Janice dearly, even if some of his admiration did stem from his fascination with her job. Janice turned and headed for the bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later, showered, dressed in a conservative green pants suit—one that didn’t emphasize her body—her short, curly blonde hair combed., she gave herself a quick final inspection in the full-length mirror on the back of the bedroom door, and she was ready to face the world. She spent as little time as possible dressing. and she almost never wore makeup, in part because she thought it was foolishness and in part because her soft, healthy complexion didn’t require any. Although she wouldn’t go so far as to say she would never use cosmetics, she certainly didn’t look forward to the day she might have to start.
In the hall, she stuck her head into her father’s room and called cheerfully: “Hey! Time to get up. The sun’s shining and the birds are chirping and all that crap.”
Then she realized she was speaking to an empty room. There was no lump under the covers, no wheelchair beside the bed. Janice knew where she’d find him. As she stepped into the living room, she smelled the warm, friendly odors of breakfast being prepared in the kitchen. Her cat, a big gray tom named Sam, was curled up on an armchair. He opened one eye in greeting and went back to sleep.
The kitchen was modern—copper-colored appliances, built-in oven and range. She found her father, his wheelchair rolled up to the stove, an egg poacher and a frying pan on the two front burners. This was the third consecutive morning that he’d beaten her to the kitchen and taken over the cooking duties.
