Black oak 2, p.1
Black Oak 2, page 1
BLACK OAK #2: THE HUSH OF DARK WINGS
By Charles L. Grant
A Macabre Ink Production
Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
Digital Edition Copyright 2016 Kathryn Ptacek
Copy-edited by: Duncan Douglas
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Meet the Author
Photo by Jeff Schalles
Charles L. Grant taught English and history at the high school level before becoming a full-time writer in the ‘70s. He served for many years as an officer in the Horror Writers Association and in Science Fiction Writers of America.
He was known for his “quiet horror” and for editing the award-winning Shadows anthologies. He received the British Fantasy Society’s Special Award in 1987 for life achievement; in 2000, he was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from HWA. Other awards include two Nebula Awards and three World Fantasy Awards for writing and editing.
Charlie died from a lengthy illness on September 15, 2006, just three days after his birthday. He lived in Newton, NJ, and was married to writer/editor Kathryn Ptacek for nearly twenty-five years.
Book List
Horror
Novels
Black Oak: Genesis
Black Oak: The Hush of Dark Wings
Black Oak: Winter Knight
Black Oak: Hunting Ground
Black Oak: When the Cold Wind Blows
Fire Mask
For Fear of the Night
In A Dark Dream
Jackals
Millennium Quartet #1: Symphony
Millennium Quartet #2: In the Mood
Millennium Quartet #3: Chariot
Millennium Quartet #4: Riders in the Sky
Night Songs
Raven
Something Stirs
Stunts
The Bloodwind
The Curse
The Grave
The Hour of the Oxrun Dead
The Last Call of Mourning
The Nestling
The Pet
The Sound Of Midnight
The Tea Party
The Universe of Horror Trilogy
The Soft Whisper of the Dead
The Dark Cry of the Moon
The Long Night of the Grave
Collections
Dialing the Wind
Nightmare Seasons
The Black Carousel
The Orchard
Science Fiction
A Quiet Night of Fear
Ascension
Legion
Ravens of the Moon
The Shadow of Alpha
As “Geoffrey Marsh”
The Fangs of the Hooded Demon
The King of Satan’s Eyes
The Patch of the Odin Soldier
The Tail of the Arabian, Knight
As “Lionel Fenn”
The Quest for the White Duck Trilogy
Blood River Down
Web of Defeat
Agnes Day
668, the Neighbor of the Beast
By The Time I Get To Nashville
Mark of the Moderately Vicious Vampire
Once Upon a Time in the East
The Once and Future Thing
The Really Ugly Thing From Mars
The Reasonably Invisible Man
The Seven Spears of the W’dch’ck
Time, the Semi-Final Frontier
As “Simon Lake”
Daughter of Darkness
Death Cycle
Death Scream
He Told Me To
Shapes Berkley
Something’s Watching
The Clown
The Forever House
As “Felicia Andrews”
Moonwitch
Mountainwitch
Riverrun
Riverwitch
Seacliffe
Silver Huntress
The Velvet Hart
As “Deborah Lewis”
Eve of the Hound
Kirkwood Fires
The Wind at Winter’s End
Voices Out of Time
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For Laura Anne, the patient saint.
BLACK OAK #2: THE HUSH OF DARK WINGS
Previous, in Black Oak
On a mist-shrouded highway in eastern Kentucky, Ethan Proctor asks his companion:
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
On a private jet, somewhere over Virginia: Taylor Blaine speaks to Ethan Proctor about the reason for their meeting:
“We were in Connecticut, Mr. Proctor. The family home. It was late June. Celeste had just turned eighteen. Nineteen eighty-four, it was. She was to attend Wellesley that fall, and was going to travel a little with two of her friends before locking herself away behind ivy-covered walls. We had been joking about George Orwell and such, because of the year. She was afraid Big Brother would take over sooner or later. I was of the opinion he already had.
“I stood on the front porch and watched the three of them drive away. They were laughing, Mr. Proctor, waving out the windows and laughing.
“She called her mother every other night for the next two weeks. Every other night, Mr. Proctor, but
I never saw her again.
“Two years later, my Iris passed away. A massive stroke in the middle of the night. I am convinced it was the pressure of not knowing.
“Whatever the reason, they’re both gone now.
“One, I have lost forever.
“I want the other one back.”
“Here is the deal,” Blaine said. ‘It’s very simple, don’t look so apprehensive. You will allow me to hire Black Oak—which means you, sir; you—to find out what happened to my daughter. I will pay all your expenses, I will give you access to every one of my contacts as they become necessary, I will give you the run of my house, my offices wherever they may be, and my staff. I will give you free reign to do whatever you want, whatever it takes.
“In addition, I will pay you enough above and beyond so that you will never have to work on anything else in your life.”
Blaine held out his hand.
Proctor didn’t take it.
“If I accept,” Proctor told him, “I will run my business as usual. I have clients, sir, who depend on me and my people. And frankly, this case is so old … the odds against the results you’re looking for are great.”
“Great,” Blaine echoed mockingly. “What you mean is, a hell of a hell of a hell of a hell of a long shot. Snowball in hell. Slim to none, and slim is out of the question.”
“Yes, sir, that is exactly what I mean.”
Blaine’s hand didn’t retreat.
“And you have to work,” he said thoughtfully. “Other cases, that is. My daughter’s … my daughter will be just one case among many.”
Proctor nodded. “Yes, I do have to work. I’d go nuts if I didn’t. Even with all those reports and contacts and whatever of yours, there’s going to be a lot of downtime. Time when I’ll be just twiddling my thumbs, as it were. I can’t live like that. Your own story tells me you can’t either. Which tells me you don’t like it, but you do understand.”
Blaine returned his gaze steadily.
For the first time, Proctor looked at the hand, then looked up. “But your daughter will not be just one case among many. None of my cases are, Mr. Blaine. None.”
The plane touched the runway with a faint lurch and squeal, both men were eased forward when the engines reversed and the brakes were applied, and Proctor, without thinking, took the old man’s hand.
Blaine’s smile broadened; his grip was snug without testing.
“You won’t regret this, Ethan,” he said.
“It’s Proctor,” Proctor said. “Nobody calls me Ethan. And yeah, sure I’m going to regret this. You and I, we’re going to fight like cats and dogs.” do you believe in ghosts?
ONE
There were stars, and a waning moon, and a touch in the air of thin brittle ice.
There was darkness laced with silver.
And the hush of a light cold wind that passed through the high buffalo grass. Whispers in the night. The souls of the dead, locals liked to say, the Indians and settlers who had lived and traveled on the Great Plains, plotting ways to return. No ghostly moans, no banshee screams, no clank and clatter of chains dragged behind.
Only the whispering, constant and soft.
And the irregular harsh panting of someone who has run a long way, who can barely move another step, who needs to sit a while and rest and doesn’t dare.
Kira wished desperately she could stay off the road. She could hide in the tall grass, or find a depression to crouch in, or maybe there’d be a miracle and she’d find a cave somewhere along the weed- choked banks of one of the long-dead creeks, where she could wait until the sun rose and everything would be all right.
But there were no miracles, not anymore, and the stars and the moon didn’t give a damn.
Just the night long past midnight, and the dry cold wind that, slow as it was, still made her feel as if she weren’t wearing any clothes.
Besides, she thought bitterly, running across the plains in the middle of the night was a blatant invitation to certain disaster—a turned ankle, a broken leg, or something worse: getting lost.
The paved two-lane road allowed her to move swiftly, at least in the beginning, and it led straight toward home, waiting for her up there, somewhere in the faint glow that marked what was left of Hart Junction. Maybe Kenny would still be there. Maybe he hadn’t given up on her. Maybe he was waiting in the living room, a lamp on in the window, watching TV and once in a while glancing at the door in case she should come home.
She had to believe that.
If she didn’t, if she couldn’t, there was no sense going on, she might as well sit down right here and let it happen.
A sudden stitch of pain in her right side made her gasp aloud, and she slowed to a stumbling walk, finally stopped and bent over as she massaged the place where she hurt. A few seconds wouldn’t kill her; a few seconds, that’s all, until the pain went away.
She had long since gotten used to the rest of it— the vicious scrapes on her knees when she’d fallen and skidded at the beginning of her flight, tearing open jeans and flesh; the dozens of scratches and a handful of cuts on the backs of her hands and across her cheeks when she’d tried, really tried, to use the buffalo grass for cover and fallen too many times before realizing the futility and had taken to the road.
If she bled, she couldn’t tell. The cold had numbed her skin, made the aches go away. For a while, anyway. For a while.
In her left hand was a flashlight. She used it sparingly, flick on and flick off, just to be sure she wasn’t heading for the shallow ditches that bordered the road. Use it more than that and they would find her without half trying. A single light in all this emptiness could be seen for too many miles.
After a few seconds the pain subsided, she grunted, and moved on. Slower now, screaming silently at her legs not to give up, there were only two miles or so left, more than halfway home. And once there, she swore, she would never leave the house again, not until she had convinced Kenny that their future lay somewhere, anywhere else, but definitely not in Hart Junction.
It would be hard. He could be so damn stubborn sometimes. Handsome, smart, but with the genes of a damn mule. Once she told him what she had seen, however, she doubted he’d argue. He would do what she wanted.
He had to.
Please, God, he had to.
A flick of the light, the blacktop washed a temporary grey, and she picked up the pace again, stag#gering from one side of the road to the other but not once taking her gaze off the glow up ahead.
Sweat drenched her hair, soaked her back. Cramps stirred in her thighs. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she felt blood slipping down her shins. Her jacket, an old leather thing she had worn when she’d left home, gained a pound with every step, but she didn’t dare take it off.
The wind gusted, nearly toppling her.
The whispers rose and fell.
She gulped a breath, and dropped the flashlight when her fingers stopped working.
“Shit,” she muttered wearily as she turned, listening to the plastic casing rattle across the blacktop. She was tempted to leave it, but she had to have it. Slip into one of the ditches and she was a goner. “Shit,” and she dropped to her knees, inhaling sharply at the stinging, the burning, forcing herself to ignore it as she passed her hands over the gritty surface until she found the light, giggled, and tried to stand again.
She couldn’t.
Her knees wouldn’t lock, her arms had lost their strength, and she fell back onto her rump.
Okay, she thought, not giving panic a chance; okay, this is a sign, right? Body says I have to rest or it ain’t moving again. No sweat.
She giggled, and wiped the sweat from her face with a forearm.
No sweat, I can handle it.
The wind stopped.
The whispering stopped.
Her wheezing sounded like the pitiful roar of an aged lion.
Okay, it’s okay, count to ten and get up off your butt, Kira Marie Stark, this ain’t a vacation, you know. It ain’t fun and games. And the first thing you’re going to do when you get home is beat the hell out of your pigheaded husband for not stopping you, the jerk.
Or coming after you, the bastard.
She giggled.
Then you are going to take the longest bath you’ve ever had in your life, in the history of the world, eat everything in the refrigerator that isn’t covered with some kind of fungus because Kenny never did have the sense to throw things out when they needed throwing out, and then you are going to pack, drag him to the car, and drive as far away as you can, the hell with trying to convince him there’s something wrong. If he hasn’t figured that out by now, he deserves to stay behind.
She giggled.
She put a trembling hand over her eyes, took as deep a breath as her lungs would allow, and replaced another giggle with an explosive sob of exhaustion, and the fear that she was cracking up. So tired of running, so tired of listening to them talking to her, so tired of listening to what was left of her mind tell her she was—
Her hand snapped away, and she scrambled awkwardly to her feet, swaying.
Out there in the dark.
Something was out there.
She was positive she had heard it, but she couldn’t hear it now, no matter how hard she strained to listen over the frantic thumping of her heart and the wheezing as she breathed through her open mouth.
It wasn’t the wind; there was no wind.
She stepped backward, stepped again, squinting hard into the dark, holding the flashlight like a club. It couldn’t be them, because she would have heard them. Either they’d be in that fancy car, the only vehicle they owned, or they’d be running just like her; either way, she would have heard.
“No time to stop,” she whispered. Her arms at her sides were too heavy to move. “Go, Kira, damnit, move.”
She couldn’t.
Nothing worked.
Standing with her legs apart, blinking rapidly, gulping air, she cocked her head and listened, closed her eyes and listened harder. Smiled. Giggled. Wiped the back of her hand across her lips and swiveled around stiff-legged, fixed on the Junction’s glow and let it pull her forward. One small step at a time, legs unbending, reminding her so much of Frankenstein that she grinned, growled, and tried to imagine what the bolt-neck monster would look like, running.
Dear Lord, I’m cracking up.
Kenny, help me, I’m cracking up, oh God, I’m not gonna make it.
She heard Kenny’s voice, that smooth deep voice, telling her to stop feeling so damn sorry for herself. She was a grown woman, damn near thirty, and since she’d gotten herself into this mess, she could damn well get herself out. All she had to do was stop thinking about the aches, the pains, the lead in her muscles, the burning in her lungs.
Don’t think about it.
Just do it.
So she did, just to prove to that goddamn smug bastard that she didn’t need him, didn’t need anyone, to get her out of anything. Three-quarters dead on her feet, she was still better than half the men who still lived in the Junction, hiding behind their doors each time the sun went down, holding meetings that accomplished nothing, writing letters that were never answered, all the while carrying on as if there was nothing wrong. Going to work, coming home, everything’s okay, Kira, it’s all in your mind, your pretty little head.
