Dark Hearts: Four Novellas of Dark Suspense by Bates Jeremy

Author:Bates, Jeremy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ghillinnein Books
Published: 2015-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

***

As they started down the path toward the lake Charlotte played the flashlight beam among the hemlock, sugar maple, and birch trees crowding the beaten path. It didn’t reveal much except the shadowy outlines of tree trunks and the canopy of spindly branches overhead.

Abruptly Tom’s voice cut through the night. He sounded panicked.

Charlotte glanced at Emma, who shook her head. Then they broke into a run. The trees thinned, tapering off to smaller shrubs and scrub. Slabs of rock angled down into the three-mile-wide lake that spread away from them like a vast oil spill. The waxing moon cast a silvery reflection over the mirror-smooth surface.

Tom and Luke stood twenty feet away, facing one another. Tom was holding up his hands, palms outward, as if trying to calm Luke. His family was filthy rich, and everyone knew him as a spoiled brat womanizer who’d gotten accepted to Columbia’s MBA program because his father was a Wall Street big shot. Physically, he was a muscular jock type, with a brown mop of hair and an unkempt beard. His shirtless upper body was lean and tanned in the moonlight. Right then, however, backing away from Luke, who stood six four, he looked small and unimpressive.

Luke’s hair was still cut military high and tight. His features, always straight and handsome, now seemed sharper, carved out by black shadows, his eyes lost in the dark recess below his brow. He wore board shorts and a white T-shirt. Sleeve tattoos covered his biceps and forearms, running the gamut from machine guns enshrined in roses to demon drill sergeants to skulls and snakes, a fury of green ink. “You wanna know?” Luke was saying. “You really wanna fucking know?”

“Dude,” Tom said, “I was just chatting.”

Charlotte stopped a few feet from them. “Luke, what’s going on?” she demanded.

“This motherfucker asked me if I’d shot anyone.”

Tom shrugged. “I didn’t know it was such a big deal.”

“Shooting someone’s no big deal? You ever shoot someone, dickhead?”

“It’s all right, Luke,” Charlotte said.

“He’s fucking crazy—” Tom said.

Luke head butted Tom in the face. The sound was like someone snapping their finger and thumb together, and that might have been Tom’s nose breaking.

Tom collapsed to his knees, then to his side, where he rocked back and forth moaning and cupping his face in his hands.

“Luke!” Charlotte cried, seizing his arm and yanking him away from Tom. He shoved her hard, sending her flying through the air. She landed on her tailbone. The flashlight clattered away from her.

Yelling, Emma attacked Luke, batting him with her hands, but she might have been a butterfly attacking a bear for all the good she was doing. He swung a sideways closed fist at her, striking her temple. She collapsed to the rocky ground, unmoving.

Luke kicked her in the head with his bare foot. The impact made little noise but snapped her head sideways.

Leaping to her feet, Charlotte felt ill, and all she could think was: This can’t be happening! This isn’t happening! He’s going to kill them!

Luke raised his foot over Emma’s head, as if to stomp it like an egg.

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