Gargoyle Knight: A Dark Urban Fantasy by Massa William

Author:Massa, William [Massa, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Critical Mass Publishing
Published: 2014-07-24T21:00:00+00:00

***

Dwayne Kuciak belonged to two worlds nowadays. By day, he lived in a nice three-bedroom house in a residential community in upstate New York that was populated by middle-class suburbanites. By night, Dwayne kissed his wife goodnight, hugged his eight-year-old daughter Penny, slipped into his MTA-blue shirt and began his commute into Manhattan, where he worked the night shift as a subway train operator. His nighttime couldn’t have been more different from the idyllic life he built for himself outside the city, and he wouldn’t want it any other way.

Manhattan, with its pulsing energy and never-ending crowds, was almost another planet. This was compounded the moment he descended those stairs into the station and mentally prepared for his shift. Down in the bowels of the city, where the cement baked you in the summer and seemed to entomb you in the winter, another world awaited. Dwayne didn’t love the smell nor was he particular fond of the crowds and the late-night weirdos. He did enjoy running the trains, feeling in his bones the power of the machine under his feet and the deafening sound of metal screeching against metal.

Dwayne loved his job and couldn’t imagine doing anything else, even if he sometimes worried he wasn’t getting enough sleep. Trying to catch up on his Z’s during the day, while his wife and daughter ran around the house, could be challenging. With Halloween just around the corner it had turned out to be impossible. His wife was too busy to take his daughter Halloween shopping, so Dwayne had volunteered. He loved the holiday and got a kick out of seeing his daughter light up as she tried on different costumes. He had wanted to share this experience with her.

But it had come at a price. He had managed to squeeze in just three hours of sleep the night before and for some reason, it affected him more today than at other times. He felt unsteady on his feet and kept downing cup after cup of coffee. But it wasn’t helping. Not even the scream of the train could prevent his eyelids from drooping.

Considering how he felt already, it wasn’t surprising that he thought he might have nodded off and was dreaming when he caught a glimpse of the gargoyle. The monster was tearing down the tunnel, on a direct path to the operator booth. Immediately, Dwayne was wide awake, his heart pumping furiously with a burst of adrenaline. It was as if one of the Halloween-store gargoyles that had freaked out Penny the day before had suddenly come to life. The beast roared at him and Dwayne was too terrified to react, remaining fixed in place, bracing for the imminent impact that... never came. There was no twisting steel or splash of gore across a cracked windshield.

The gargoyle had disappeared into thin air.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.