Tony burst through the doors and frantically glanced to the desk. He saw no one and for a minute worried old Allen wasn't tending tonight. Then he noticed see the old man seated in the corner far from the entrance. There was no wonder he hadn't noticed him beforehand. The man was well-concealed behind a freezer and he had his back turned away from the door. The young man rushed over to him and stood over the seated man.
"Mr. Allen, have you seen my girlfriend? The one I was here with a few weeks back?" Tony frantically asked the storekeeper. "Did she come in here?" There was no response. The man didn't even turn his head at Tony's frantic voice. The young man pleaded with the proprietor to tell him what he sought to know. "Please, did you must have see her car pass this way. When did she go by?"
The man still had not moved, and a shadow passed over Tony's mind. He felt the creeping sensation of something horribly wrong here, but his concern for Amanda was too great to turn back. Instead he grabbed the man by the shoulder and shook him.
The storekeeper swirled around and Tony found himself looking down the barrel of a shotgun. The young man raised his arms while the older one slowly stood to his feet. Now Tony could see the local's face, and his own paled at the gaunt figure. The man's features were skeletal as though he'd had no sleep nor food for several days. The hands which held the weapon were thin and shaking, and when Allen spoke his voice matched his frail, quivering appearance.
"You don't know what you've done. You and your stupid woman brought it out of the mountains. You've loosed it on us all."
"You mean that thing? Did it come down here?" Allen slowly nodded his head and Tony winced when the barrel crept closer to his chest.
"It's coming down here and taking over our nightmares. We can't sleep or eat without feeling that thing around us." Tony didn't have time for this, especially as he felt the sun set behind him. In the corner of the store where they stared off he feared the darkness was too deep for the artificial lights to keep the creature inside him at bay.
"Listen, I know this is bad but I've come here to get rid of that thing. All I need is a couple of-"
"You're not getting nothing! You just get out of here right now!"
Allen stuck his gun too close, for Tony felt the thing stir inside of himself. Before Tony could warn the old man he saw the skin on his arm darken and a tendril bulged out of his skin. Old Allen saw the thing a split second before it shot out and knocked the gun from his hand. He let out a screech and scrambled back against the wall. Tony grabbed at his arm and whipped around to the aisles behind him. Not far off he could see the flashlights which were sold to the tourists, and he stumbled over to them.
He kicked the gun away from the old man and it knocked against the counter near the front doors. His unchanged hand grasped out for the flashlights and he grabbed one before the tendril could stop him. He clicked on the light and shined the beam along his infected arm. The tendril writhed and receded back into his arm, and the skin returned to its normal color. Tony collapsed against the shelves and then slid to the floor. In the corner Allen's wild eyes looked between the fallen young man and the gun far off.
"So it's got to you like that professor, didn't it?" Allen accused Tony. The young man ignored the question, and instead grasped the shelves and used them to pull himself up. Allen spat on the ground. "You filthy monster. You're proud of it, aren't you?" He stood to his feet and steadied himself on the wall. "You're enjoying doing this, scaring folks and torturing them." Tony turned his face toward Allen, and his eyes burned with anger and a hint of the creature. His voice was low, dangerous.
"You think I asked for this?" Tony asked him. He clicked off the flashlight and his skin blackened almost immediately. Tony shoved the dark arm toward Allen, who cringed back. "You think I want this...this thing attached to me?"
"I-I don't know what the hell you want, but I know what's happened to you." Allen slunk along the wall to the corner which abutted the same wall that the counter ran along. Tony didn't stop him from moving farther away from him. He couldn't blame the old man for fearing him, not when he feared himself. "You're doomed, boy, just like that man was fifty years ago."
"Listen, I just want to know if you saw my girlfriend's car drive by," Tony pleaded with the man. He clicked back on the flashlight onto his arm to keep the creature at bay, and the brighter lights above him would help contain the thing.
"There...there was a car that came driving by here a few hours back." There wasn't much traffic, so Allen would remember anyone going by. He reached the corner and his eyes glanced over to the gun on the floor. There was only a dozen yards between him and the weapon. "Looked like a young miss was in the car, but I can't be sure."
"A few hours..." Tony repeated. He turned his back on the old man and started grabbing as many flashlights as he could hold. His mind conjured up any amount of possibilities for what had happened to Amanda over so much time, and none of them were pleasant.
Allen saw his chance and moved as fast as his old body would allow over to the gun. Tony heard the shuffling of the man's feet and turned in time to see Allen pick up the gun and turn the barrel back on him again. The young man froze with his hands full of the flashlights. Allen grinned and stepped toward the other man.
"You can't fool me, thing. The professor tried to do that, too. He'd act normal and then beg for me to shut off the light and let him get to it." Allen shook his head, and looked Tony up and down.
"You don't know what you're talking about. I'm still me," Tony insisted. His mind buzzed with thoughts on how to escape, and then his eyes caught on the fluorescent light hanging over Allen's head. The same were scattered about the store, including over his own head. They were the only things lighting up the place. He raised his arms above his head and took a step toward Allen. The old man jerked the quivering end of the barrel toward him.
"Don't come near me, thing. I ain't wanting to kill you, but this is self defense if you don't get out of here now with yer ugly hands full of my stuff."
"If you'll just let me take a few of them-"
"Just get out, I tell you! You've caused enough trouble around here!" Tony frowned at the demand. He needed just a few good ones to take up to the cabin, and this desperate time caused for a desperate measure.
"All right, sir, I can do that."
Tony threw all the flashlights in one of his hands at the lights above Allen, and the other half he kept to himself. His aimed proved to be true, for the old man ducked when the flashlights crashed into the covers and the glass bulbs. The glass rained down on the storekeeper and Tony had enough time to grab more and fling those into the lights leading down the aisle in which he stood. Allen recovered from his shock and fired a few rounds off his gun. His aim was wild and most only succeeding in destroying his merchandise and more of the overhang lights, but one hit its target.
Tony felt the bullet graze his tendon while he was running through the aisle, and the sudden pain caused him to fall to the floor. He skidded a few feet before coming to a stop not more than three yards from the exit. Allen stomped up to him and pointed the barrel straight into Tony's face.
"I'm not going to kill you, not with them cameras watching us," Allen told the young man. He nodded up above the entrance to the store, and for the first time Tony realized the whole place had security cameras around all the points. The old man had caught his change on camera. "I'm just going to let you lie there for a bit while I call the cops. When I hand over that footage you'll be sent off somewhere where you won't be bothering decent people."
"Please don't do this. I have to go find my girlfriend," Tony pleaded, but the man was unmoved.
"If she really drove by here that long ago going to that mountain, than no sense worrying about her now. She's done for." Tony didn't want to believe that was true, he knew it wasn't true.
"Please let me go, I'm begging you!"
"Beg all you want, but I'm not gonna do nothing but call the police." Allen backed up toward the counter with the barrel of his gun
ever on Tony.
The young man raised himself up to a seated position and glanced up at the broken lights. The area around him was darkened to nearly the same hue as outside the front doors. He felt the creature inside him stir with a greater demand than before, and beneath his clothes his skin changed to the color of darkness. Tony didn't want to release the thing, but the situation was desperate and the flashlights were at hand to control it once the deed was done.
Allen didn't notice the change until one of the tendrils shot out from beneath Tony's shirt. It grabbed the gun and yanked it from Allen's trembling hands. The old man scrambled back behind the desk and watched the tendril lift the weapon high into the air. It wrapped around the body of the gun and both men winced when the weapon cracked beneath the pressure of the thing's strength. Then the weapon clattered to the ground and Allen yelped in fear when the creature slowly slipped down toward him.
Tony grabbed at one of the nearby flashlights and clicked the beam on the tendril. The thing writhed and tried to escape the light, but Tony then turned the light on himself. With the source of the tendril illuminated, the thing itself let out a screech and pulled itself back into his body. Tony doubled over when the thing sucked into him because for the first time he felt pain run through his connection with the thing.
He didn't have time to worry about that, though, and struggled to his feet. Allen slunk down behind the counter and watched the young man staggered out with a handful of flashlights. Several were on and beamed straight at him. Then Tony slid into his seat, turned on the overhead light and drove out of there. Allen stood straight and watched the car disappear into the night, and then he picked up the phone to call the police. He mumbled out a few words before the dispatch answered the call.
"You're doomed, boy."
Whether or not that was true, Tony still made straight for the mountain. At the bottom of the path he found Amanda's abandoned car. With but one thought, to save her, he hurried up the trail as best as he could manage considering his wounded state. He kept the thing inside him at bay with frequent flashes of the lights, though the closer they drew to the cabin the more the creature sought to break free. By the time he was in view of that horrible building much of his skin had darkened and no amount of light would rid him of the blackness.
The door to the cabin stood open and through the entrance he glimpsed a person standing in the dark. He recognized Amanda, and she had her back turned to him. The tendrils wrapped around her body and created a sheer dress. He struggled across across the barren expanse and stumbled against the side of the door frame. The flashlights he carried fell to the ground, leaving him defenseless but too exhausted to care. He'd left a trail of blood up the trail, and was exhausted from both physical and emotional fatigue.
At the sound of his knocking against the wood, Amanda half turned at the noise. A bright smile shined across her face when she saw him standing in the doorway. His eyes fell on the noticeable bump in her stomach. Her hands stroked the bulge and she appeared perfectly calm.
"I've been waiting for you, Tony," she told him,
"And you knew I'd come," he stated rather than guessed, and she nodded. Through their shared connection with the creature they could feel one another. That's how he'd been so sure she was still alive. He glanced around the cabin with its plain furnishings and broken window. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, but he felt the thing was just below the surface observing them. "What now?"
"Now you come with me." He flinched back when she stepped toward him, and that made her stop and shake her head. "You can't go back. It never leaves behind its own," she explained. "And they won't accept you out there, you know that. They've seen too much."
"But this isn't us." His own voice was low and soft. "This isn't what or where we were meant to be. We need to go back and find a way to be normal again."
"That's not true, Tony. You can feel it isn't true," Amanda insisted. She stepped back to the center of the room and from the floor rose up the creature. It covered the floor and slid up her legs, but stopped below her stomach. She held out her hand again to Tony. "Do you love me?" she whispered to him.
"More than life itself," he replied. He wouldn't risk so much for any less. "But what kind of life are you asking us to go to? What about what's growing inside of you? Is it...is it really yours and mine?" Amanda's smile slipped from her face and she glanced down at her full belly. Her hand never stopped rubbing along her swollen skin.
"Yes, it's ours, and yet much more. As for where we'll go and what sort of life it promises, I can't explain that. It must be experienced to be understood."
"It's either the unknown darkness or the known experiments, is that it?" he asked her. She sighed and nodded her head.
"I'm afraid that's what's happened, but don't be afraid to come with me." She now raised both her arms out and invited him to clasp her hands. "Come away from these toils and troubles. Let's rest together."
Tony glanced over his shoulder at the barren mountainside and the trees that surrounded the path. The clear sky glistened above the small cabin and far below them he could imagine that old man keeping his word and showing the whole world what had happened at the gas station. Then he turned back to Amanda, stepped inside the cabin and reached out to grasp his hand in her own. She gently pulled him against her and the shadows reached up to envelope them in their warm embrace.
Together they were taken by the creature into the unknown.
The morning after their escape, a search party led by the police climbed the mountain. They found nothing of the two save for footprints along the dusty floor, and a trail like snakes leading down between the floor boards. No one could ever explain where they'd gone or what Jeremiah Allen caught on his surveillance cameras that night, but for the townspeople the nightmares disappeared and the darkness of the woods quieted. It was appeased, at least for now.
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Other Books by Mac Flynn
(all titles available in discounted box sets)
Phantom Touch #1
Phantom Touch #2
Phantom Touch #3
Phantom Touch #4
Phantom Touch #5
Sensual Sweets #1
Sensual Sweets #2
Sensual Sweets #3
Sensual Sweets #4
Cabin Fever (Unnatural Lover #1)
Old Stories (Unnatural Lover #2)
Stalking Sensation (Unnatural Lover #3) Research Questions (Unnatural Lover #4) Delicious Nightmares (Unnatural Lover #5) Separation Anxiety (Unnatural Lover #6) Doppelganger Night (Unnatural Lover #7) Mountain Mysteries (Unnatural Lover #8) Permanent Changes (Unnatural Lover #9) Welcome Home (Unnatural Lover #10)
Shadow of the Wolf (In the Loup #1) Wolf Rising (In the Loup #2)
Heart's Strife (In the Loup #3)
Wolf Blood (In the Loup #4)
Clashings (In the Loup #5)
Evolution (In the Loup #6)
Sleepover (In the Loup #7)
Disloyalty (In the Loup #8)
Folklore (In the Loup #9)
Urgings of the Wolf (In the Loup #10) Insatiable (In the Loup #11)
Reveal (In the Loup #12)
True Form (In the Loup #13)
Threatening (In the Loup #14)
Supremacy (In the Loup #15)
Wrap Up (In the Loup #16)
Office Duties Series: Books #1
Office Duties Series: Books #2
Office Duties Series: Books #3
Office Duties Series: Books #4
Office Duties Series: Books #5
Office Duties Series: Books #6
Office Duties Series: Books #7
Office Duties Series: Books #8
Mac Flynn, Unnatural Lover Boxed Set #2
(Series: # )
Tha
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