Here's a sample of what's inside. Kindle Prime members can still borrow for free and we still have the introductory pricing in place for those who prefer paper books. The screenplay version is entered into the Peachtree Village International Film Festival screenplay competition which is this weekend!
CHAPTER 2
7:45 p.m., SATURDAY, JUNE 21st
– EDISTO BEACH
The Island
Exchange Souvenir Shop, located just at the intersection of Jungle Road and
State Road 174, was not much when Joan Jeffers first purchased it two years
earlier. Unoccupied for over a year when she found it, she and her son Brett, a
bright-eyed, then sixteen year old younger version of his father, worked side
by side with a local handyman contractor to make repairs and paint to return
the building to commercial quality. With merchandise she had collected from
auctions and estate sales in and around the low-country, Joan opened the doors
to the Exchange just weeks before the tourist season began in 2008. To her
surprise and very thankfully, the little shop produced enough revenue, when
combined with her alimony and child support she received from her ex-husband,
for her to maintain her home on Oyster Factory Road and stay near the ocean she
had come to love so much.
Married to
William Jeffers when she was only twenty-one, Joan soon found that her husband
was, unfortunately, not the marrying kind. While there was never any doubt in
her mind that William wanted to be a father, in fact she realized early on that
William Jeffers was all but obsessed with the idea of having an heir; it was
the wife part of the package he wasn’t particularly interested in. Twenty-plus
years her senior and surrounded by dozens of young women who worked for him at
any one of his establishments around the island, William’s string of affairs
over their sixteen years of marriage finally ended when Jeffers had the
audacity to actually bring one of his girls-for-rent back to their house and to
what she thought was her bed. But now those days were two summers in the past.
Her business was succeeding and although she occasionally had to see her
husband as he was out and about she rarely had any willing contact with what
she usually referred to as ‘that evil bastard’.
#
The last of the
customers of the day was just at the register as Brett walked into the little
shop and waited for Joan to finish with them. As the young couple left with the
treasures of lacquered driftwood and a large statuette of a Great Blue Heron,
Brett locked the door behind them and met his mother at the till.
“If it’s uh,
okay,” the boy asked sheepishly as he approached. “I’m gonna be a little bit
late tonight.”
“How late?”
Joan asked with a mother’s suspicion.
“Oh, one-ish
maybe,” he replied.
“And what keeps
you out so late tonight?”
“Cindy Parker,”
Brett replied. “I want to take her into Charleston to the new Cineplex there on
John’s Island.
“Um-huh,” Joan
said as she continued to tally the day’s take and cut glances up to the smiling
Brett.
“Well, just be
careful. Those roads are so dark at night.”
“I will,” Brett
replied. “That Mustang has awesome headlights anyway.”
“Speaking of
your graduation present, have you seen your father, to tell him?” she asked.
“No, I
haven’t.”
“You need to
tell him, Brett.”
“I know, but he
isn’t going to like it.”
“That’s beside
the point. He’ll probably want to know why you didn’t discuss it with him to
start with.”
“It’s not like
I’m going straight to the war or anything. And besides, college can wait and I
can pay for it myself with the G.I. Bill when I’m done with my first tour.”
“Choosing the
Air Force over college isn’t the issue. It’s a big decision and I think he
would have liked to have talked about it with you. But you’re nearly eighteen
now, you can and did, do what you wanted, even though I had to sign your early
enlistment papers.”
“One-ish?” he
asked again, ignoring his mother’s admonishment.
“Yeah, I guess
‘one-ish’ will be okay.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Oh, and you
get Roy Parker’s little girl back to him in one piece and in the same state you
found her in, young man. Do you understand me? I don’t need him stomping in
here pointing fingers at me about his daughter.”
“Yes – Mother,”
Brett replied. “I’ll be good.”
“Good, now get
out of here. Go have fun.”
#
A half hour
later, Brett pulled his vehicle into the driveway of the large estate home of
one Fredrick Sansbury, a local car dealer who had several dealerships along
Highway 17 between Charleston and Beaufort. While Brett had been honest with
his mother about being late this evening, he had not been quite as honest as to
why. There across the lawn of the great house, his headlights illuminated a
large group of teenaged kids as they with the help of Mike Sansbury, Fredrick’s
oldest son, were using the parentless house for a massive beer saturated
graduation party for Mike. Just off to the side, sitting in a large garden
swing with two of her best friends, was the object of Brett’s intentions for
the evening – Annie Morse; a petite little blonde who had the ability to make
Brett do and say almost anything for her attention.
After finding
Annie and making the obligatory rounds to visit with his friends for several
hours, make numerous trips back and forth to the keg Mike had provided for the
unsanctioned affair and to watch his new girlfriend over imbibe, Brett and
Annie made their goodbyes at half past eleven and headed back to his car. As
the exuberant blonde seventeen year old girl slid into the passenger seat of
the car, she leaned over and vigorously embraced the boy and pressed her body
firmly against his.
“Where’re we
going?” she asked breathlessly.
“Secret place,”
Brett said as he fired up the engine and guided the car out of the driveway.
#
Brett’s Mustang
was little more than a white streak as it turned off of the state road and hit
Jeffers Road just ten minutes later. With the sound system blaring and an
excited Annie in the seat next to him, his young mind raced with anticipation
of exploring her body once more. For Annie this relationship with Brett was a
secret she kept from her mother and father and one which she had no intention
of ever disclosing. While Allen Morse worked for William Jeffers, Brett’s
father, he was far from one of Allen’s favorite people. Unfamiliar with what
exactly disturbed her father about the man, Annie knew full well that when he
returned home after long hours on the Jeffers estate, the foul mood he was in
was always attributable to Jeffers.
“My father is
so going to kill me if he finds out about you and me,” Annie said as Brett’s
car eased along the old, oak-lined, dirt road.
“Relax will
ya,” Brett replied and then reached over the seat and felt around for the
cooler he had placed on the backseat. “Damn, can’t reach it,” he said after
several attempts to feel for it.
“I’ll get it,”
Annie said, turned in her seat and bent over into the backseat. Pulling two
cans of beer from the cooler, the girl quickly popped the top on both, handed
one to Brett and then began to chug the other.
“Thank you,”
Brett said as he took a sip and then slid the can between his thighs.
“He’ll kill me
a second time and you, if he finds out that not only are we about to – you
know, but I’m drinking as well.”
“He’s not going
to find out about either one, Annie. Trust me on this one.”
“You did bring
some – things, didn’t you?” Annie asked with a giggle. “You didn’t last time.”
“Relax, they’re
right here in my pocket.”
“Good,” she
replied, finished off the can and tossed the empty into the back. Turning
around quickly, she leaned over the seat again, found the cooler and returned
with a second beer.
“You better
slow down,” Brett said as he began to slow the car and looked to the single,
yellowish night light on the dark road ahead. “There’s the church. The turn-off
should be just up here on the left.”
A few moments
later, Brett eased the car off the dirt road and onto a narrow trail that was
lined with twisted oaks from which hung long strands of Spanish moss that moved
ever so slightly in the night air.
“Are you sure
nobody comes back here?” Annie asked as she looked ahead into a light ground
fog which was just beginning to rise.
“Now why in the world would
anybody come back here in the middle of the night?” Brett asked with a chuckle.
“We’re back here in the middle
of the night!”
“I mean anybody
else, be back here in the middle of the night?”
“How do you know about this
place anyway?” Annie asked.
“This is my
Dad’s property,” Brett replied.
“Did you show Cindy Parker this
‘special’ place of yours?”
“Cindy Parker?” Brett replied,
trying his best to hide the truth.
“Yeah, Cindy. You know, red
hair, big tits; can’t walk past you without stopping,” the suspicious Annie
said.
“No,” he
replied, shaking his head. “Cindy Parker has never been back here with me.”
“Oh, so you
took Cindy to another secret location then?”
“Don’t do
that,” Brett pleaded. “Cindy and I have been friends since we were three.
That’s it, that’s all, nothing more.”
“Uh-huh,” Annie
said with obvious disbelief.
“Jesus … it’s dark out here
tonight,” Brett said as he guided the car to a small clearing just at the end
of the trail and then stopped.
“It’s dark out here every
night. That’s why it’s called – night!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Brett said,
reached between his legs found the beer, turned it up and emptied it. “Oh, oh,
too fast,” he said with a start. “It’s still really cold; brain freeze!”
“Stupid, of
course it is!” Annie said as she watched Brett open his door and get out.
Stepping around
to the trunk of the car, Brett opened it and removed an old wool blanket.
Shoving the car keys into his back pocket, he walked to the front of the car
and draped it across the hood. With the headlights illuminating the wood-line
beyond and Brett as he prepared the hood, Annie watched with some amusement as he
smoothed and tugged at the edges of the blanket as if making a bed.
“Grab me a beer
and come here,” he said once he had the blanket in place.
Reaching once
again into the back, Annie found two cans and then joined Brett at the front of
the car. Placing the cans on the hood, she wrapped her arms around Brett’s neck
and said, “You are just full of yourself tonight aren’t you, Brett Jeffers?”
Deeply inhaling
the girl’s perfume and feeling her body next to his gave Brett an instant
erection which he pressed hard into Annie’s pelvis.
“Not as full of
myself as you’re about to be,” he whispered and pulled her mouth to his.
The feel of the
young girl’s tongue in his mouth exploring his own brought the boy to another
level of arousal. Pushing Annie against the grill of the car, he ran his hands
up and down as much of her young body as he could reach. With one hand on her
rear and the other feeling between her legs the girl moaned as inside she felt
the first stirring of orgasm. Annie’s breathing began to become heavy and Brett
could feel her heart beating within her chest as she reached to her jeans and
unsnapped them. In an instant, the boy’s hand was inside and thrusting ever
downward.
“Oh God, that’s
it,” she sighed breathlessly. “Right there.”
After several
minutes of working Annie into a frenzy with his fingers, Brett removed his hand
and lifted her onto the hood of the car. As she lay there unbuttoning her
blouse she watched as Brett unbuckled his trousers and let them fall around his
legs to the ground. So excited were the two of them that neither heard the
sound of the car keys fall from the pocket of his jeans and onto the heavy bed
of pine straw below. Fumbling in his half-on, half-off trouser pocket for a
condom, Brett finally found one and then placed it between his teeth. He
reached forward and quickly slipped off Annie’s shoes and dropped them at the
front of the car. As she pushed the top of her jeans down over her hips, Brett pulled
the legs and then they too were off. Seconds later, Brett had the condom
package open and then rolled the lubricated latex over his erection as Annie
slipped off her panties and waited for him.
“Oh Christ,
you’re so hard!” she gasped as she felt the boy slide inside of her.
Entwined in a
young lover’s embrace and lost to the world in ecstasy, the two threw
themselves against each other time and again until each pivoted on the edge.
Heaving rapidly as she felt Brett’s weight driving her into the hood over and
over again, Annie only thought she heard what could only be described as a
growl somewhere far off in the distance. Then, a twig snapped, leaves rustled,
and the low haunting growl began to grow ever near. Bringing herself out of the
moment and into the reality of the dark and forbidding wood, Annie suddenly
realized that what she was hearing was real.
“Brett!” she said through
labored breaths. “Brett!”
But Brett was too close to
climax to hear her. He groaned and against her torso and between her legs Annie
felt the fullness of the boy’s orgasm.
“Brett,” Annie said as she
pushed him off of her and then sat up. “There’s someone out there.”
Gasping to catch his breath and
running a hand along the small of Annie’s warm, naked back he said, “There’s no
one out there.”
The growl Annie
thought she heard was now a low, guttural, constant echoing just to the left of
the car and just inside the tree-line.
“There!” Annie
said as she pointed to the left and this time, Brett heard it too.
“There is
something there,” he said as he squinted into the darkness outside the beam of
the car’s headlights.
Another sound –
snarling. The unmistakable sound of an animal, a large animal, unseen but
present just feet away from them erupted from the bushes.
“Jesus Christ!”
Brett shouted as he slipped from the hood and pulled Annie down behind him.
“Get in the car!” he shouted to her.
In the light of
the car’s headlamps, Annie took just enough time to reach for her panties and
then pulled them on as she headed for the driver’s side door. As she did, Brett
reached and felt for his trousers all the while looking off into the distance
for the source of the sound.
“The door’s
locked!” Annie shouted as she fanatically tried to open it.
“Ah shit!”
Brett said as he turned his attention from the tree-line and to the ground then
hastily searched for the keys. His fingers soon found them and as he raised his
hand to press the electronic lock, the bulk of the beast’s body hit him at full
speed. The impact of the animal’s weight against Brett’s was like a wrecking
ball against a brick wall as it then carried the boy ten feet beyond the car
and broke several ribs on his right side in the process. The wind gone from his
lungs and searing pain running up his right side, he struggled to find his next
breath and somewhere in the distance Annie screamed uncontrollably. Crying, he
thought to himself as in half consciousness he heard his girlfriend sniveling
in terror. Trying hard to shake off the effects of the blow and gasping for
air, Brett looked up and saw what his rattled mind could only make out to be a
massive, indescribable creature’s face a mere foot from his. And then, as
quickly as it was there, it was gone.
Footsteps – running,
he thought. Annie’s bare body was a mere blur as she ran past the prostrate boy
and headed off down the dirt trail behind him. As he struggled to regain his
faculties, Brett realized that the thing that had hit him was now back and standing
over him again. Its breath was foul, as rank as week-old rotten meat and hot as
the flames of hell as it washed across the boy’s head and face. Then reality
hit him – canines. Teeth the size of his index finger were all he could see protruding
from a horrifying mass of fur and head and then as suddenly as they were there,
they were gone again. The sound of the animal’s steps, pacing rapidly off
somewhere in the darkness was all he could hear as he struggled to come to, but
could not quite get there. Breathless and drained of strength, Brett tried to
raise himself but crashed violently back to the ground as the pain rendered his
right side useless. Time – how much time he was not sure passed and then what
he felt next was like a sledge hammer striking him in the back of the neck as
if the animal had sunk its gigantic teeth into it all the way to the bone and
crushed his spine. Darkness – and then Brett felt the life drain from his body.
#
Along the dirt road, Annie
Morse’s mind told her one thing only – run. And on failing legs the young girl
did her best to carry herself along the old trail back the way they had come.
In the distance behind she could hear the deep, heavy grunting of the animal as
it chased her through the darkness. She looked down as if looking through
someone else’s eyes and watched her bare feet pounding the sand and clay below.
She looked up and ahead in the distance Annie focused on a single yellow-ish
light which stood out as if a beacon in the night for her to follow.
‘Church’, she thought as she
realized where she was.
Looking behind to see if the
creature was there, Annie turned back toward the light and desperately
struggled to maintain her balance as her feet struck the dark road top below.
Then she heard it, the sound of galloping paws somewhere just behind her
through the darkness.
‘Don’t look back again,’ she thought to herself as she ran,
‘just run.’
Seconds later, not only could
she hear the galloping paws at what seemed to be no more than a few feet behind
her, she now heard the thing panting as it ran after her, drawing ever closer
through the darkness.
‘Daddy! Daddy!’ the girl cried
out in her mind but was too terrified to actually make the words.
The light of the night light
which illuminated the old church’s parking lot was just a few yards away now
and extended its feint glow just enough so that Annie could now see the door of
the church beyond. As she turned off the dirt road and stepped hard onto the
thick green grass of the church’s lawn, she heard first a snarl and then the
snapping of massive unseen jaws behind her. With her next step, Annie’s left
foot found a hole in the grass which sent her tumbling head over heels across
the lawn as the galloping paws followed in quick pursuit. With a mouth full of
grass and breathless from the tumble, Annie rolled from her stomach and onto
her back just in time to glimpse the massive head of the beast behind her as it
lunged forward, just missing her bare legs. And suddenly, as if signaled from
the merciful Almighty himself, the bells of the church above chimed midnight.
What Annie Morse heard next was like no other sound she had ever heard before.
The yelp and then the high pitched squeal which followed shook her to the core.
The sound the animal made was as if someone had reached into the hulking black
mass of the beast that had moments before been chasing her and was ripping its
spine slowly from its body. Seconds later, Annie heard again the galloping paws,
but this time in the opposite direction. Gasping for air, shivering
uncontrollably and clawing at the earth with what strength she had left, Annie
pulled her body into the doorway of the church and passed out. Vulnerable, all
but naked and alone there in the doorway of the church, Annie Morse lay
helpless as from the darkness the curious, flame-red eyes watched her
motionless form. Satisfied that the girl now posed no threat, the great beast
turned and began trotting back down the road from where it came; back to its
one-hundred and twenty year old secret, back to the place where its story had
begun two-hundred and fifty years before – back to Isaiah’s Rest.
http://www.amazon.com/Isaiahs-Rest-Edisto-Ghost-ebook/dp/B00BTBEYC4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1376987425&sr=8-2&keywords=isaiah%27s+rest
