Descent of the Flaming Dove (eBook)

L. Michelleangelo V. (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
268 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-9068-3 (ISBN)

Infos

A birthday camping trip amongst friends turns into a battle for their souls in this gothic horror novel. Will anyone leave the valley alive?

L. Michelleangelo V. was born in San Diego, California in 1981. In 2004, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Motion Pictures from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, California. Her film projects earned her the nickname 'Mistress of Love and Death.' After college, she moved back to San Diego, where she now resides with her husband and cat. She enjoys doing all kinds of art, exploring nature, playing strategy games including tabletop RPGs, and spending time with her loved ones.

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Kelly and her friends go camping to celebrate her brother's birthday, only to find something supernatural and sinister living in the valley. It drives them to turn against each other before claiming their souls. They soon discover that they are not the only prey trapped within the valley. Will love and reason be enough to break the dominance of hate? Will anyone leave the valley alive? "e;Descent of the Flaming Dove"e; is a gothic horror novel that explores the hearts, minds, and monstrosities of those involved with and around both passive and violent abuse.

Textauszug

-Chapter 2-

The sun was shining through a sprinkle of lavender clouds, as it did on most spring days. Ruth and Pearl were harvesting some ripe vegetables and preparing the newly vacant soil for the next crop. They were tossing around some ideas about how to combine old ingredients in a new way to add variety and excitement to their limited diet.

Ruth suddenly flinched backward and exclaimed in surprise. Pearl looked up as her mother sank back and groaned in pain. Ruth gathered her forearm close to her body.

“Mother. What’s wrong?” Pearl didn’t move.

“I got bit.”

“By what?”

“I don’t know,” Ruth reluctantly admitted, for that was rare.

“Are you ok?”

Ruth peeked at her forearm, near her elbow. “No.”

“FATHER!” Pearl forced the strength of her voice with her diaphragm as hard as she could. “FAATHEER! FAAAATHEEER!” Her usually soft voice boomed off the mountain walls and echoed in all directions. A few birds nearby took flight. Pearl came over to her mother, concern growing. “What can I do?”

Ruth said calmly, “Look around. Find what bit me.”

A whistle echoed up the canyon. Irvin had heard and was on his way.

A second whistle from Les echoed soon after.

Both women’s eyes hunted among the vegetables and dirt. Ruth found it.

“Pearl, dump one of the jars of seed into another jar and give me the empty one. We’ll sort them out later.”

Pearl did as she was told. Ruth used the empty jar to trap something near her arm. She fiddled with it, and then quickly put the lid on the jar and screwed it shut.

“Now please help me up,” Ruth conceded.

Irvin and Les charged up the hill to the garden from different directions.

“Les, get my bag! And my books!” Ruth called weakly.

Les veered off toward the house. Irvin arrived heavily winded.

“Mom got bit”—Pearl picked up the jar and held it out. It had a spider in it—“by this.” She handed the jar to Irvin.

Irvin didn’t even look at the jar, leaving Pearl unanswered. He looked into Ruth’s face. “Do you recognize it?”

“No, and it hurts. So it’s poisonous as well,” Ruth replied.

“Tourniquet?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” she nodded.

Irvin took a handkerchief from his pocket and tied it tightly around Ruth’s bicep several inches above the bite.

Les thundered up the hill from the house, a black bag in one hand and three small tomes in the other. Never taking his eyes away from Ruth, Irvin scooped up his wife and carried her gently down the hill toward Les. Ruth kept her hand over the bite. They met Les halfway. Irvin set Ruth down again in the grass.

Pearl followed helplessly, jar in hand.

Ruth asked Les for one of her books in particular. She cited a page, and Les held it up and leafed through it for her. Les had done this task for his mother many times before on house calls. He knew when she said “turn left” to pull the page over to his right. He knew when she cited a word such as “poison” that he was to look in the index, read aloud the numbers, and she would tell him which number was the page he was to flip to. Ruth was searching longer than usual.

Ruth’s brows furrowed. “Pearl, please bring me the whiskey. This is really painful.”

Pearl handed the jar to Irvin again—this time pushing it into his chest until he accepted it—and ran into the house. Irvin set it on the grass.

Ruth waited until Pearl was out of earshot, then spoke quietly, “The information is not there. I need the new book, Les.”

Les began to worry. His mother had taught him that you should not show fear to a patient. Even if that patient was your mother. Especially if that patient was your mother. Les did his best to keep a calm expressionless face. Irvin, however, didn’t practice a bedside demeanor, and his face was covered with worry.

Les had not opened this book for his mother before. This book was handmade by a mountain man they had met on their way through the mountain range. After reading through some of it, Ruth decided to make a copy of one of her books to trade for it. This new book was full of medical knowledge that the mountain man had gathered from the natives and his own experiences in their region.

Les fumbled to pick up the mountain man’s book. He flipped through the pages but couldn’t figure out how the book was organized.

Sensing Les’ confusion Ruth calmly explained, “The book reads back to front because the mountain man who wrote it was Japanese. The spine of a Japanese book goes on the right side. The entries are arranged alphabetically, but in reverse order to us. That’s why the ‘animals’ category appears to be toward the back. ‘Spiders’ were categorized as animals because they’re living creatures.” Ruth instructed, “You must match the picture to the spider in the jar.”

Irvin picked up the jar with the spider in it and, for the first time, took a good look at it. The yellow-brown spider body itself was almost an inch long. What was distinctly different about it from most spiders was that the front section, the cephalothorax, was almost the same size as its back section, the abdomen. Its cephalothorax was very round and had all eight legs attached by very knobby joints. The abdomen was slightly darker than the rest of the spider’s coloring and looked furry. The pedipalps and legs were fairly thick. Irvin handed it to Les.

Now understanding the way the book was read, Les was quick to find the information. But once he’d matched a picture with the spider in his father’s hand, Les froze. He saw the words but could not tear his gaze away from what they said.

“Did you find it?” Irvin prompted.

Les nodded.

“Then show your mother,” Irvin urged sternly.

Pearl made it back with the whiskey just in time to hear the diagnosis.

“It’s called a Brown Recluse.” That was all Les could manage to say before choking up, so he turned the book toward his mother.

Ruth read in silence. The land was still. Everything waited for Ruth. Ruth looked straight into Les’ eyes and said, “Thank you for helping me read my books, Les.”

Les realized she was referring to every time he had ever held her books for her, not just this time. Les could not move, and his eyes began to water.

Ruth looked into Irvin’s eyes, and tears began running down her face. Ruth let go of her arm to show Irvin the bite. The bite was blood-red and swollen. The arteries along her arm were also red and swollen, defined by inflammation beneath her flesh. Ruth unbuttoned the front of her shirt and looked down at her chest. Despite the tourniquet, the arteries leading to her heart were already beginning to get swollen and red. She showed Irvin.

Irvin took the book out of Les’ hands and read, then let the book fall between his fingers and land on the grass face down.

Ruth turned to Pearl and took the whiskey. “Pearl, thank you for always helping me.” Ruth drank it as though the whiskey was water. “Irvin, can we please sit beneath the willow?” Ruth asked, “Les, will you play for me?”

“Mother?” Pearl asked, “What can I do?”

“Nothing, just come sit with us,” Ruth requested.

Irvin picked Ruth up and carried her to the willow.

Les went and got his father’s best guitar, Euterpe, and brought it to the willow.

Pearl snatched the book off the ground and read, “The poison of a Brown Recluse spider has no antidote. It is extremely painful, and the poison rots the flesh rapidly. You can only remove the decaying flesh to prevent the spread of infection throughout the body. If the infected area cannot be removed, the infection will spread, becoming systemic, and lead to death. If the venom itself reaches a vital area in the body, the poisoning can be fatal. Depending on the severity of the bite, fatality can occur within an hour or take as long as a few days.”

Pearl grabbed the glass jar and compared the spider to the picture. She could not dispute the match in appearance. However, the book said the arachnid was supposed to have a body as big as a quarter inch. This spider was at least twice that size. Pearl dropped the book and jar and ran after her mother.

Irvin held Ruth beneath the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 8.3.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-9068-3 / 9798350990683