The Zmora

By Carol Knee-Omant

Levi Puskaric is an ordinary sixteen year old kid. He has a best friend, James; parents, a little sister and a weird Polish grandmother who walks around the house chanting, dressed in black and making signs to ward off evil.

Together, Levi and James are ‘The Team’ and one day; the team is going to Make It Big. They just haven’t figured out how yet.

Death has come to the small town of Larsenville. From the moment the poster calling for a town meeting was nailed to poles all over town; people had changed. Residents are reduced to a scowling eye looking out from a twitching curtain.

The city sends specialists; but just like everyone else in Larsenville, they guess. Everyone except for Grandma Puskaric; because she knows the truth. She escaped death as a young girl growing up in a small village in Poland.

But she is old and her old ways are foolish. This is the new land and there is no room for, or belief in legends.

For ‘The Team’, it doesn’t come bigger than killing a monster and saving the town.
But as Levi and James discover, there is much to lose.

Levi’s younger sister Pauly is in the right age group to be chosen. They soon realize that the creature is real and it is smart enough to retaliate. In a bid to destroy the team, their strength.

The Zmora’s second attempt to take Pauly takes Levi to the edge and he watches his family and the team, unravel. He understands that he must face evil alone and destroy the monster.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carol Knee-Omant
• Release date: Oct 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9780987222008

Carol Knee-Omant

In short, I am:A little bit mad, but not psychoticA conversationalist, but not a talkerRomantic, but not idealisticBelieving, but not gullibleSelf absorbed at times, but not narcissisticKnowledgeable, but still learningAdventurous, but not foolhardyPragmatic, but not hard headedImaginative, but not avant-gardeWatchful, but not mistrustfulProfessional, but not an expertIntelligent, but not brilliantNot a mind reader, but a good guesserRandom beliefs:- Cooking is a passion that should be approached with music and a glass of red;as with most things in life.- Anything said in Latin sounds profound; which is weirdly true.- Life rule number one: Never love anyone, that can't love you back.My life:I work full time. Write. Am addicted to "Sons of Anarchy" and "True Blood" - but as a general rule, prefer music over television.I come from a large, boisterous family.

Book preview

The Zmora

Carol Knee-Omant

Published at Smashwords

Discover more about the author at:

www.carolknee-omant.com

PRELUDE

Veins of light writhed across the blackened sky, and when the thunder came, the ground shook with fear.

Shadows in the archaic dwelling shimmered; Pin points of moonlight that filtered through dusty window panes, diminished.

In a darkened corner the shadows seemed to thicken, gaining in substance. A wind appeared where there had been none before, disturbing the dust.

All was black and the inimical shadow shuddered to life, glancing at the surrounding room with loathing.

Its sleep had been long and the time for feeding... longer.

Its hunger intensified with the passing of moments.

Slowly, it shifted amongst the deepening shadows, and the ancient walls that housed it hummed with the force of its power.

The shadow hovered, feeling its strength build.

Soon its hunger would be sated. Already it could feel the pull from the smaller human dreams. They were so vibrant, almost tangible; a flickering of the reality that the shifting darkness craved.

Deep within a knowledge existed. Drink their dreams was the repeated whisper; a chant and the shadow knew that in return for the dreams, its power, its presence, would intensify, until IT became tangible.

The shadow accepted the decree, wondering if this was the cycle that would see it take the form of the beast, enable it to escape the shield it wore as protection.

It stilled; drinking from the river of memories that engulfed it, letting instinct guide it to past defeats, gaining its bearings.

A trickle of direction flooded through its core and it swelled in anticipation, knowing that a bloodline from which it had once taken was near.

Its ravenous hunger magnified and it moved through the gloom to turn unseeing eyes toward the town below.

The human offspring had dreams so vivid, so real and it wondered briefly what changed in their minds as the shell of flesh that housed them grew and their imaginings became vapid… Colourless.

Instantly all thought retreated, as slowly it glided from the cliff tops, feeling the hunger that burned within.

CHAPTER ONE

The poster fluttered in the howling wind. Its corner tugged free with a snap and it flapped/flew down the street to plaster itself against the wet pavement.

Levi stared at it, trying to focus on the words but they were blurring. Even as he tried to read them, the black ink splaying across the page, mingling, until it became unreadable.

He shrunk further into his coat. He didn't need to see the words to know what it said. He didn’t need to read the poster to know the effect it had on those who read it.

From the moment the poster had been nailed to poles all over Larsenville, people had changed.

No; it hadn't been the poster, it had been before that, but the stark white sheets with their huge black letters calling for a town meeting was a culmination of all the guessing. It was an acknowledgement that something was wrong, something they could not fix.

Levi rode his black, ten speed bike through the darkening streets, scrutinizing each house carefully. The town was shrouded in a gloom that seemed to swallow the ground as it advanced. It was winter and the arch of trees overhead were skeletal hands that reached out bony fingers to snatch at his hair as he rode past. He skidded to a halt, the squeal of tyres barely audible over the wind that rushed onwards, rattling rubbish bins. The brightly coloured awnings of houses snapped taut before billowing out at the next onslaught.

He wondered at the nameless workings of his mind and why it had summoned him here to the Rutland Street Hall.

But he knew why. The meeting, the subsequent fear; had changed his life. It had changed all of their lives.

The hall stood before him, menacing in the darkness and he blinked hard against the sting of the wind. The storm was gaining momentum and Levi dropped his bike to the ground and moved closer to the building, hugging the wall to escape the blustery weather.

He cupped his hands around his eyes and pushed his face against the window to peer in. The small panes of glass were freezing and he watched them fog with the warmth of his breath.

Watery moonlight filtered in, illuminating hard wooden benches that ran the perimeter of the room; whitewashed walls, bereft of the usual colourful array of posters and notices. A floor of polished wood, scuffed dull in the centre, from numerous town dances where grannies fox trotted to some old time band wearing bright, glittering suits. The picture of blue haired ladies and gnarled old men in black dinner suits diminished, leaving him with memories of the town meeting that had taken place in this room and invoked by the notices and that lay on the pavement behind him.

For a moment he seemed to hear the shouting, the questions, fired like gunshots. The din had been surprisingly loud for everyone in Larsenville had turned out for this meeting. Everyone except Grandma Puskaric, but no one would have expected her to attend. She was too old, too foreign.

Of course she had heard about the meeting. She knew the reasons it had been called; she just figured it was somewhat pointless to attend.

`I know the answers.' She had growled hoarsely. Her voice was guttural in her strange Polish/English accent. `Those men, they know nothing! Tell them to coming to me; I will give knowledge they seek.' And her face, the light that burned behind her eyes made him think, for just a second, that she really did know.

Excitement flickered to life in the pit of his stomach. But then he reminded himself that Grandma Puskaric talked in riddles; she was always uttering dire warnings and making signs to ward off evil. She spoke them in a mixture of half sentences that simultaneously confused and excited him.

Levi had shaken his head and told himself she was talking nonsense. And so they had left her at home, chanting, while the rest of the town had streamed towards the hall, trailing children in pyjamas and dressing gowns or wheeling toddlers and babies in prams. These days, families kept their children close.

They had sat huddled against the chilliness of the hall, which had persisted despite calls to turn up the heating. No amount of heat could diminish the hopelessness that filled the room. Sitting with his own parents, Levi felt his mother’s hand creep out to grasp his own; it had felt like ice.

He shivered at the memory, feeling a chill invade his body just as it had the night of the meeting. He pushed back from the window, leaving the protection of the building and the wind buffeted him. He staggered back a step, tripping over his bike and falling arse first to the wet grass. The fall shattered the memories that the poster had roused and it was with relief that he got to his feet, brushed wet leaves from his butt and yanked the bike to him, clumsily throwing a leg over the bar.

He pedalled furiously down the street anxious to leave the hall, the memories, behind him. The air was frozen and it bit into his fingers until they were numb. He raised a hand to his face and blew a long-winded stream of warm air onto his fingertips. His warm damp breath only served to make the flesh tingle painfully. With a muttered curse, he made a fist of the stinging hand and vigorously rubbed the knuckles along his jeans clad leg until they burnt.

He turned his attention back to the street and the fast approach of night that was closing in on him.

The small houses that lined the street on either side were replicas of each other. Heavy drapes were drawn tightly closed across windows. This was a small town with small town mentality regarding their own protection. Usually, drapes hung open offering a glimpse of warmth and life within. Here and there a centre crack opened between crooked curtains, allowing a sliver of light to illuminate an enclosed porch but striped awnings were pulled down tight. They snapped taut in the wind, sounding like the crack of a whip.

The façade presented was one of closed. Closed up tight, but what protection did that give? His bike skimmed the concrete curb and he weaved through a cluster of trees, slowing his pace as he peddled across frost stiffened lawns. He was approaching the centre of town and he noticed that each of the shops had the same shut up look. Of course, it had been suggested that shops lock up tight; and that suggestion had been a thinly veiled order; given by the strangers from the city.

Strangers, like zoo keepers. Come to watch the animals. They had arrived on mass in Larsenville very early one morning. Arrived, dragging their boxes and ghoulish curiosity behind them. He supposed equipment filled the boxes, stuff so that they could test everything that stood still long enough to be tested. They started with the soil, air and water. Then they moved on to bloody. And when they found nothing, they started testing all over again.

Levi knew that this was a pointless exercise. They were looking for an illness, something to explain the sudden high mortality rate of the town’s children. `But no one is freaking sick!' He muttered to himself but the wind snatched the words away before they reached his ears.

There was a perceptible darkening of the sky and he glanced at his watch knowing he would be in trouble for this lateness. Even knowing that punishment was round the corner, he grinned. His watch was a tiny piece of authority that had been ceded to him by his parents last birthday. A watch was a piece of adulthood.

Kids were put to bed when their parents decided it was time; they were wakened for school by those same parents, until the moment came when they gave you a watch. That meant you were the decision maker now; the keeper of time… It was almost as though he was now in control of your own destiny. Okay, that was grasping at the edge of reality, but hey, that was how he felt about it.

It was six fifteen in the evening. It was a Friday night, but there was no late night shopping. People were not out walking their dogs and even Sampson Cooper's twenty-four hour garage was closed. The usual buzz and blink of neon’s was dark, silent. Heavy chains wove between the nozzles like serpents, declaring the place off limits.

No petrol meant most people had elected to drive as little as possible. Hell, mostly they didn’t leave the confines of their homes, so it was pointless for Sampson to open anyhow.

Of course the benefit of this was that the bike rider was now king and Levi rode through town along the centre line of the road for one thrilling moment. He was not a daredevil by nature and after a minute or two; he swerved back to the side of the road and picked up his pace.

Gaining speed, he whizzed around the corner of Rutland Street and into Park Drive. A replica of the notice he had seen earlier was tacked to a graffitti’d fence and it jerked his thoughts back to the meeting, when the officials had announced their findings.

‘Findings’ was giving them more credit than they deserved. As expected, they had found nothing. ‘And there’s a shock,’ he mumbled and his mother had clenched her hand a little tighter around his as a warning to be silent.

The air and the water – fine. No unknown virus. Food was untainted. But just to be safe, all public places should remain closed for the present and it would be safer to keep to their homes as much as possible.

The help them achieve this; barriers would be erected at the perimeter of the town. To protect them – it was stressed. But no one, residents or visitors would be authorized to pass through the barriers.

So for their own protection, they were now in a state of total lock down.

‘What barriers?’ Anni Lawrence, the English teacher from school asked. Levi had watched her face, fascinated by the flickering emotions. She had more personalities than a ball of wool, and each emotion that danced across her face, altered her facial expressions drastically.

Like the swell of tide, anxiety escalated at that point. It was explained that the town was to be temporarily quarantined. ‘Temporarily’, he had repeated loudly, raising his hands as the level of noise in the hall rose to an outraged babble. Many parents worked outside Larsenville, and a few people even drove to the city every day. What would happen to jobs, their livelihoods?

And so Larsenville had become like some domed city in a sci fi movie.

Of course, there was no dome, but there was a barrier on every road and they were manned by soldiers. If that was not creepy enough, people said there were watch posts set up in fields to make sure no one crept out at night.

He supposed if they were in a movie, people would have tried to escape in the dead of night, only to be shot at or have some other dramatic army ending. When he thought about it, Levi figured they probably should have at least attempted it; but it was as if the town was frozen by fear. No one had actually tried to get out and perhaps that was the scariest thing of all.

Fear had crippled them. Jeetho Robson, the town's baker, flooded his mind. Jeetho was a bear of a man whose block shaped head sprouted up from massive shoulders. His neck was so wide and short that it barely existed; the perfect rugby player. He had bright ginger hair, freckled skin and muscles that rippled and danced when he moved, giving life to the array of artwork inked on to his skin.

He had fought the huge bush fires of '63; had even chased and wrestled a thief he stumbled upon ransacking his shop late one night. But at the meeting, Jeetho had sat like a statue in his chair, just like the rest of Larsenville; silently watching the proceedings before him, fear etched into the lines of his face.

That fear was mirrored on every other face in the room. Despite their assurances, equipment and tests, the officials had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on. Their ideas had died and blown away like dust.

They each had fancy names with letters tacked on the end to prove how smart they were, but they had no more answers than anyone else. It was a mystery; what was wrong in Larsenville remained anyone’s guess.

Levi peddled past the park and he gazed through the trees at the empty slides and swings. There was not a soul there, just a vacant space. One of the swings gyrated in the wind, making a faint creaking groan and it made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

When things were normal you could ride past the park at anytime of the day, even after the sun had dipped in the sky leaving nothing but a hazy trail of redness on the horizon. There was always someone there. The park was a refuge, a place of liberation and freedom from adult rule. But not now; now everything had changed. `It's a ghost town', he whispered.

He was relieved to leave the lifeless park behind him and his speed increased as he came to a sharp rise in the hill, barrelling down, knowing... hoping, that a car would not speed from a blackened side street. The wind whipped through his hair, but he did not have to push it out of his eyes as he used to do. It was worn short these days. A buzz cut.

You look like a toilet brush, his father had said, choking back the laughter as he leaned across the table on that first night. Levi grimaced at the memory. He had expected a reaction to the haircut, demanded one really, but his fathers’ amusement was not exactly what he'd had in mind.

He liked that the toughness of this cut; it diminished the femininity of his face.

Levi glanced down as his reddened fingers where they gripped the handlebars. They were raw and cold and he cursed himself. Not listening to his grandmother would be his downfall. As winter approached she had knitted him gloves. He had sworn to wear them; of course he had promptly made up his mind to lose them at the first opportunity.

She was a strange old woman and her pale silver eyes pierced into your head to scrape at the truth. He wondered now if she had known he lied and shrugged. If she had known that much, she had probably recognized he that he would suffer for his foolishness.

The spokes of his wheels hummed with speed and Levi pushed himself harder, eager to be home. It was approaching full dark now and if he could make inside before total darkness, he may avert the grounding that was already probably being discussed at home. His mother would be having a fit, made worse as his grandmother sat near by chanting, already planning his funeral.

Relief flooded his system as his house loomed before him. He did not decrease his speed any. He did not slow down, for he always left braking until the last possible moment and then it was an attempt at braking and turning in one smooth movement.

Usually he made it, but not tonight. Tonight the bike hit the curb, and reared up and over it with such shuddering force that he was bucked from his seat like a cowboy in a ‘B’ grade western.

He landed with agonizing abruptness, sprawled in a colourful patch of lilies in the front garden. A puff of mist lingered for a moment before the wind dispelled it. Levi groaned, dragging himself up to stand in the midst of the crushed flowers.

He flexed his limbs to check that nothing was broken and his glance slid guiltily to the curtained window, hoping his mother was not standing there watching him, furious that his foolishness had annihilated her beloved lilies. And as much as his mother loved them, Grandma Puskaric called them death flowers. She was always wandering the house, sheathed in black and breathing omens of death.

He sighed and got to his feet.

He supposed he would cop it now, but it wasn’t really his fault. In fact, if he had to plead his case he could argue that this racing the unseen demon that existed within was actually his parents fault. They had passed down the ‘winning is everything’ gene after all.

He tugged the bike out of the flowerbed and wheeled it around to the side of the house and into the shed. He pulled the remaining stalks and leaves from the spokes and tossed them over his shoulder. His fingers were slow to do his bidding and he hissed with the pain as the