Dark Reckoning - Steve Williams Series Book One

Chapter 1

        The instructions fluttered on the ground under a new rubber mallet, ignored.

She tugged on the hem of his shirt. “Daddy, you promised.”

“Just a minute.” He lifted his hands from the canvas. Poles swayed and metal scraped. Before he could catch it, the tent imploded. Again. Muttering a few choice words, he picked up the fabric and the aluminum frame.

“But Daddy, you said we’d take a walk when Mommy went to the store.”

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” Amy’s father glared sideways at her and tugged on the canvas again. “Just stay out of my way until I get this up.” He turned his back and continued to fiddle with the tent poles, swearing under his breath.

Amy slipped to the edge of the campsite blinking back tears at her father’s harsh words. “Stupid tent,” she said and glanced in her father’s direction.

He yanked the canvas over the unstable rods yet again, cursing as the tent tilted this way and that.

She stepped into the woods, swallowed by the forest.

That had been hours ago. Now she stumbled through the underbrush, sobbing, searching for the campsite, wishing she had stayed by her father’s side.

She turned in frantic circles but dense brushwood blocked her path in every direction. Blueberry bushes, barberries and prickly thistles pulled at her clothing and scratched her legs. Evergreens reached high, mingled with century old maples and oaks, dimming the last of the evening light.

Amy’s hoarse voice persisted, yelling, “Daddy!” over and over and over. Her cries fell on the deaf ears of the New Hampshire forest.

Fighting through a thick clump of bayberry, she fell onto crunchy dried moss in a clearing bordering a small pond. She scrambled to her feet. The still black water rippled and Amy froze, her eyes glued to the malignant form rising from the surface.

What climbed out of the water was far worse than any Pokémon she’d ever seen and fear locked down her ability to function.

She couldn’t move.

She couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t scream.

The staccato beat of her heart thrummed like the wings of a hummingbird and she shivered despite the summer heat, her sweaty tie-dyed t-shirt not enough to keep her warm in the damp clearing.

When it stepped onto the shore, the ground sizzled and the stench of burning moss and rotting flesh blanketed the cove.

Her paralysis broke. A shrill cry of terror, like a lamb at slaughter, barreled from her throat and she turned, fleeing through the woods.

She ran as fast as her little Keds would take her.

But it wasn’t fast enough.

* * * *

The search party combed through the dense forest, each member clutching a picture and calling Amy’s name.

The young FBI agent halted, the child’s name swan-diving from his lips in a silent rush of air. The earth in front of him was painted reddish-brown with pieces of cloth, flesh, bone and blood-streaked hair scattered through the red sludge. But the sneaker caught his attention.

A single, blood-splattered Keds.

He took a step back, his gaze bouncing between the photograph in his hand and the carnage before him, trying to reconcile the bloody remains on the ground with the happy child in the picture.

Bile rose in his throat and he gulped, forcing it down his already burning esophagus, willing his churning stomach to settle.

He looked down, surprised to see the snapshot crumpled in his clenched fist.

His eyes were drawn back to the gruesome scene, scanning the massacre and snapping back to the bloody sneaker.

“I swear I’ll find you, you son of a bitch,” he promised.

He pushed the button on the radio clipped to his shirt, his voice rumbling in his tight chest. “I think I found her.”