Shadowy Tales (eBook)

Lucy L. Jones (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022 | 1. Auflage
372 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-2630-1 (ISBN)

Infos

'Shadowy Tales' is a heart pounding thriller that emphasizes the danger of cultural division and social intolerance through a truly compelling mystery. This is the story of a protestant minister, Frances Anna Keeton, newly appointed by her bishop to a church in the conservative south. Arriving from a liberal environment in California, she faces immense turmoil. Frances realized she was entering into a difficult situation. But she never would imagine the danger, harm, and secrets that lie ahead.

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"e;Shadowy Tales"e; is a heart pounding thriller that emphasizes the danger of cultural division and social intolerance through a truly compelling mystery. This is the story of a protestant minister, Frances Anna Keeton, newly appointed by her bishop to a church in the conservative south. Arriving from a liberal environment in California, she faces immense turmoil. Frances realized she was entering into a difficult situation. But she never would imagine the danger, harm, and secrets that lie ahead. A new casino is being considered on land currently owned by members of the local Choctaw tribe who are active members of Fran's church. The clout behind this proposal is exerting pressure on Fran to support the local gaming establishment rather than actively oppose it. Fran is terrorized repeatedly, but she doesn't know if it's because she is a woman pastor or if it is to intimidate her into supporting the new casino. When Kevin, her organist and friend, is kidnaped, a search begins. A carved arrowhead is left at her door for no apparent reason. A phone message instructs Fran to present the arrowhead as a signal that she is ready to submit herself as ransom for Kevin or forfeit Kevin's life. Telling no one, she hunts for an unidentified person who would know the sinister meaning of the arrowhead.

Textauszug

Chapter One –

Saturday morning Week One

The murky shadows at the door masked his body. He watched the woman curled up on the bed, listened to her steady breathing. Could he be man enough to do what needed to be done? The sole object of his concern was the pretty lady. His body reacted with a subtle quickening, but the immediate task would relieve his need. He withdrew into the dark office space across the hall, lifted the phone of the fax machine and dialed.

“Pastor Keeton?”

The muffled male voice on the phone convinced Fran this was no dream. In a fog, she rolled over to peer at the clock. Two o’clock! Did I sleep through until afternoon? A dim streetlight glowed through her blinds, verifying nighttime.

“Speaking,” she answered.

“I’m callin’ from the police station,” the drawling voice continued. “Your church ain’t locked up. I wonder if y’all’d mind goin’ over and walkin’ through it to make sure nothin’ has been tampered with or is missin’?”

“What?” Fran was awake now. “How do you know it’s not locked?”

“A routine check, Miss. Our man stops by there to check all the doors at night. This time he found one unlocked. Can y’all get over there?”

“Of course, I’ll be there in a few minutes. Thank you for calling.”

He moved back into the shadows of the hallway’s dead end. She switched on the small lamp beside her bed, leaving him in even deeper shadows beyond her eyes. He watched her tear off the nightgown, an old t-shirt that left little to his imagination. He watched her slip into jeans and a light sweatshirt, watched her run fingers through spiked red hair, watched her bend over to tie on running shoes before shooting out the door. He wanted to watch her do more, but she was gone. She was out of his way, but her image loitered in his senses. He sauntered through the house and let himself out the kitchen door to walk home.

The parsonage, home for “Parson” Reverend Frances Anna Keeton, was several blocks away from the church instead of right on the church property itself like it was for many years in small communities. Within five minutes of the phone call, she was flying toward the church parking lot. Even though she normally walked or ran the short distance, this time of night she decided it was better to drive.

Turning a corner, Fran saw the dark structure ahead. A spotlight normally focused on the steeple and cross, but an automatic timer was set to go off each night at ten. Nothing was awry there. The streetlights were minimized after midnight to conserve power, shedding a ghostly pallor over the entire corner church grounds. Now fully awake and able to think what she was doing, Fran pulled into the empty side parking lot with caution.

Where is the police car? Shouldn’t it be here waiting?

She turned off the headlights, but remained in the car, watching the shadows, anticipating the arrival of a patrol car. If someone had entered the church, thinking money from the offering plate was kept there, that person might still be inside. No sense in being crazy enough to go in alone. But she was here now, and awake. Why not check it out? The small community of Piney Falls was a low crime area, after all.

She flicked off the dome light before she opened the car door. Night vision was critical. She stepped out onto the asphalt lot, letting her eyes adapt to the dark. The narrow strip of concrete that led up to the office door was almost visible. Clutching the ring of church keys in her hand, she eased the car door shut and inspected the vacant street. The muffled click brought no curious dog barks. There were no booze bashes in final stages, no blue television reflections flickering through windows, no soft lights to assist midnight feedings of babies, no lingering scents from late dinners. Crushing darkness buried the neighborhood.

Fran walked around the corner of the open courtyard that enclosed the east side of the building. Rounding the corner, she hoped to find a patrol car waiting in the north parking lot, but she saw nothing.

She tried to recall details of the brief conversation with the dispatch person from the station. Was the patrolman to meet her here or did he want her to check it out herself and let him know if anything was amiss? She was almost certain he was to accompany her on the walk-through.

The entryway to the narthex of the church was situated to receive the most direct illumination from the streetlight, as muted as it seemed to her now. Keeping watch for the local blue and white patrol car, Fran tested the thumb latch on the colonial style handle of the thick door. Locked. She slipped a key into the hole beneath the grip and rotated it to the left.

Which door did the patrolman find unlocked? This one seems secure.

One of Fran’s first tasks as pastor in Piney Falls was to learn the location of the light switches in all rooms of the educational buildings and the main church building. She knew this switch was just inside the door on her left, but this wasn’t the time to flip it on. She stood in the dark, listening for any unusual sounds. She heard nothing more than an occasional soft rattle from a breeze flowing through the metal strips of the air vent at one end of the narthex.

Realizing she was half-crazy to go into the dark building alone, she left the front door ajar and walked through the large double doors that led into the sanctuary. The stained-glass windows picked up enough of the obscure light from the street to cast a grotesque matrix of color across the pews and aisle.

In the past, Fran often found solitary reassurance and serenity in quiet church sanctuaries. Until now, she’d never come into this specific sanctuary at night, and she’d never come in alone. She yearned for that familiar solace now, but it was absent. Fran stood with her back to the wall just inside the door to wait – listening and remembering.

Her first church appointment after ordination was to a small farming community near the Pacific coast. Still unsure of her abilities in the new role as pastor, she often slipped through the door between her office and the sanctuary at all hours of the day or night to kneel at the altar railing. Performing that small dance of faith with an open heart brought the strength and support she needed, often to get her through the next five minutes.

“Take thou authority....” Often Fran had to remind herself of those first three words of the ordination service as the bishop and others placed their hands on her head and shoulders. The yoke he placed around her shoulders was a simple piece of cloth, yet it was often heavier than she deemed bearable. Pastors held a baffling sort of authority. Church people seemed to want to claim the control, yet her leadership was not to be merely of a temporal nature. She was to represent a spiritual force outside herself. Church members often confused the two.

Tonight, Fran didn’t feel the protection of a holy presence, or the familiar serenity that accompanied those thoughts. There was hollowness in these surroundings. Even the Divine appeared to have retreated in an encounter with some evil. Was the Spirit finally impotent?

At first, she heard only her own inhale and exhale quivering in the emptiness. A whiff of air closed the front door with a soft thump and now there was total darkness. No longer did the streetlight shine through the crack she’d left open. She sensed a slow rhythmic breathing that grew louder as her imagination took over, thought there was something more here than the musty smell of an empty old building.

She slumped to a sitting position on the floor without a sound, making herself a smaller target for whatever alien presence might have joined her. She listened again, sniffed the air. Still nothing. Moving only her eyes, Fran probed the gloom around her, seeing mostly shadows she recognized, distorted as they might be.

As a child, she pretended the shadows of her room were clowns who had come to laugh and entertain her. She was having difficulty finding the same amusement in this situation. Were the phantoms real this time? Maybe if she invited the silhouettes around her to be clowns now, they wouldn’t be so frightening, but these menacing shapes refused to become clowns for her.

Scooting along the rough plaster wall toward the corner, Fran practiced deep meditative breathing, wondered why she thought entering the dark sanctuary alone would be a good idea. She should either turn on the lights to finish checking the rest of the building or go back out the front door to her car to wait for the police or leave.

When she was young, she felt safer if the lights were off, allowing her to watch through her window for the scary stuff of childhood. Now the force that threatened from beyond her own body swallowed her. Maybe if she got as far as her office, she could phone the police and find out why someone wasn’t here with her. Maybe they weren’t the ones who called after all, but who would bother pulling such a stunt? There was nothing for anyone to gain from this.

I tell people that God is in control of our lives, but that we are put in charge of daily living....

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.3.2022
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• ISBN-10: 1-6678-2630-1 / 1667826301
• ISBN-13: 978-1-6678-2630-1 / 9781667826301