Deathbed

By Jason McIntyre

The Dovetail Cove saga begins here--in July, 1971.

Farrah's on summer break and she's sure to tell you she's not twelve, she's twelve-and-a-half, thank you very much. The tiny island-town of Dovetail Cove is the only home she's known. And tonight, she's sneaking out to visit her Gran and show the old woman a 'mystery box' she's stumbled across at the Main Street Summer Market, dead certain there's a story hidden within. And she's right. Events reach back to 1956 and a shadowy 'incident' that started the darkness on the island. Only a handful know the true details of what really happened. And even fewer have witnessed this new darkness, but Farrah will catch a glimpse of it tonight...at the edge of her Gran's DEATHBED.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jason McIntyre
• Release date: Dec 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370208739

Jason McIntyre

Born on the prairies, Jason McIntyre eventually lived and worked on Vancouver Island where the vibrant characters and vivid surroundings stayed with him and coalesced into what would become his novel, On The Gathering Storm. Before his time as an editor, writer and communications professional, he spent several years as a graphic designer and commercial artist. Jason is the author of more than two dozen short stories, several novellas and full-length fiction.Currently, Jason is at work on new novels and stories in the Dovetail Cove world -- companion books to BLED and SHED.His latest full-length novel, THE DEVIL'S RIGHT HAND, is out now!Synopsis:The saga began with The Night Walk Men, the #1 Kindle Suspense novella by Jason McIntyre. Now it continues with The Devil's Right Hand. And a war is brewing.Meet Benton Garamond. He's lost. He careens through the wet streets of downtown Vancouver on a collision course with a dirty lawyer named Levy Gillis. He wants something from Gillis and he aims to get it.Meet Donovan Lo, former drug kingpin and not bad with the ladies if you ask him. He's in hiding and has a plan to leave his empire for good. But something -- and someone -- aims to put a bullet through his last big score.Now meet Sperro. He has a lot to say about his job, about Benton Garamond and about Donovan Lo. Sperro will be your tour guide."We are Night Walk Men, imbued with the lives of at least ten men, and we walk among you like a blur, unseen but often sensed or smelled like pollen in the air when you can't see flowers--or the tingle you get when the hairs on your neck stand up."If you hear footsteps on the parched earth behind you, or if dry autumn leaves scrape concrete with a breeze, that's most likely one of us, walking just a little ahead or just a little behind. If it's dark and you climb into your car and for once--for no reason at all--wonder why you didn't check the back seat for strangers, one of my brothers is mostly likely back there as you drive off."We are everywhere at once and nothing can stop us. We are Death incarnate, walking under long robes of black and chasing down the winds to read from a discourse that may be the last words you'll hear..."Be prepared to shake The Devil's Right Hand.

Book preview

Deathbed

a novella by

Jason McIntyre

Smashword Edition

Published by &

Copyright © 2017 Jason McIntyre

Fiction titles by Jason McIntyre:

On The Gathering Storm

Shed

Thalo Blue

Bled

Black Light of Day

Walkout

Nights Gone By

The Devil’s Right Hand

Dread

We Can Make It If We Run

Mercy and the Cat

Kill The Lights

Zed

Learn more about the author and his work at:

www.theFarthestReaches.com

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

Evil is also not anything small or close to home, and not the worst; otherwise one could grow accustomed to it.

- Jacob Grimm

Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf.

- Alfred Hitchcock

You don’t feed nightingales on fairy tales

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Dovetail Cove

July 14, 1971

Part I

The Grand Tapestry

1.

Farrah Birkhead pedalled along the bike path so fast and so hard it turned to a grey-green blur beneath her feet and alongside her. And to the world, she was just a blur of orange cycle shorts and a white sleeveless top. No helmets, right Farrah? Helmets were for sissies.

At twelve-anda-half, Farrah was already starting to stretch out. No boobs yet. Her friend, Jamie, was starting to get some but they were still nubs, nothing to brag about—even though she did to Farrah who was still as flat as they both were at summer camp last year. At twelve-and-a-half, Farrah Birkhead didn’t have the grace to avoid clarifying her age if you made the mistake of saying she was only twelve. At twelve-and-a-half, Farrah Birkhead didn’t have the bosom of a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old. But at twelve-and-a-half, she had enough self-awareness to recognize it would arrive. As would the problems that accompany burgeoning womanhood for all young ladies.

Tanned legs, arms and neck, Farrah had her hair up in a messy pony. Too many strands were lost and victims of the wind now, what her Mom called ‘whispies’. But the air felt good. It was hot, but not as hot as it had been out on Main Street for the annual street market. Dad had let her go on her own for the first time because he had some things to take care of at the office. And mom, well, that’s complicated. Mom was off island the last while.

But Farrah was desperate to go. I just know I’ll find something great! she’d said to her dad. Please oh please? Jamie will be there and I won’t talk to anyone. And by anyone, Farrah meant tourists. Off-island folks. Not that she cared one whit whether someone was local or not—people are people, a phrase she remembered from a Sunday school teacher she had liked an awful lot.

But it was Dad’s point of view. Tourists, hed said more often than not. They can be...weird. He’d told her some horror stories about different things that had happened through the years. And she was sure he’d sanitized them all in different ways, just for her. One of them, he’d sometimes remind her, in as gentle a way as he could, had lost their dog camping up past the main beach. That dog-less family had boarded the ferry for home anyway, no poochie in their Chevy’s backseat. Well, that poor beagle, emaciated and scared, was the one that had wandered right into the generous backyard where Farrah, about four at the time, was playing with her dollies.

It’s like they send their brains on vacation when they go on vacation, Dad often said. They don’t think. Most people have trouble with that, the best of times. But off-islanders are the worst.

But he’d let her go to the market. With the stipulation she’d be home by five p.m. at the very latest. She’d gotten her way by making sure to guilt her dad into it. Gran and me always used to go. But she can’t anymore.

It was five (or six) minutes past so that’s why she was pedalling with mad fury through the trails south of town, down to where the Birkhead’s little half-acre was. Douglas Birkhead’s job was recession-proof—not like the vast majority of islanders who weren’t in a trade related to tourism (or related to Chris Banatyne, the island patriarch).

Doug Birkhead was chief of Police of the island town known as Dovetail Cove.

2.

The reason Farrah was five (or six) minutes late was simple. As she’d foretold, she found something great. The market was a three-day event that had waned in popularity. It got smaller each year. Farmers from up north brought their goods to try and catch direct customers. Artisans from Oregon, Washington State and the lower mainland of British Columbia, trundled over on the ferry to try and sell overpriced handmade trinkets and pottery. The odd novelist sat and signed copies of his vanity press book about his upbringing in the dirty thirties.

Zeke, a municipal employee, would saunter around in the sun, stop to tilt his hat back and watch the shoppers while he gave his sweaty brow a wipe, then start up again, stabbing the odd styrofoam cup in the gutter with his trash stick.

Dab Saum, owner of the Highlander Cafe, would send his waitress du jour, Tina or Helen, out with trays of iced tea on the hot days at a quarter apiece—or steaming coffee on the rainy ones. And the cycle of styrofoam for Zeke to stab up and put in the trash would begin again.

Usually, there were one or two booths run by junk dealers. In the case of Farrah’s find, it was a woman with round John Lennon sun glasses and long white hair. She wasn’t selling vitamin potions or elixirs, though she called to mind that kind of fairy tale, where perhaps Farrah would buy some magic beans and they’d sprout something nefarious by morning.

Out across the closed street, sellers were packing up. A radio was playing Beyond the Sea by Bobby Darin. The touchy signal for a mainland station was blessing the market this morning and Bobby’s tinny croon carried across the street to this woman’s booth. Through her half-tinted lenses, she eyed Farrah with the black eyes of a witch.

No, Farrah wasn’t interested in potions or beans. She loved old things. She was a kind of archaeologist of modern artifacts. Cameras, cash registers and typewriters piqued her, but she usually couldn’t afford them. She was twelve-and-a-half, after all. And what did a twelve-year-old need with a thirty-year-old Olivetti missing the letter ‘T’?

Farrah’s interest had lain in a black tin box with no name on its cover.

It was most likely someone’s snuff tin, the Lennon Lady said as Farrah turned it upside down and felt its contents shift. Or pipe and tobacco. It’s my mystery box. Tell you the truth, I don’t even have the key for it.

Farrah, who’d told a fib to Dad about Jamie being with her at the market, squinted against the late afternoon sun and looked disbelievingly at the old witch. A fibber could spot another fibber, that’s what Farrah’s granny had told her. She stopped just short of blurting her thoughts to the Lennon Lady, which were, simply, curtly: I don’t believe you.

As if reading her mind, the old woman with the white hair down her back in a straight, simple ponytail that ended in a tie-dyed rag with a bulky knot, said, Alright, alright. I have the key. But here’s the deal—

She produced a small silver key, as if by magic. She held it out as if it was indeed a small vial of haunted elixir, one that would solve, say, all of Dad’s problems.

Farrah, who was sucking a giant Gobstopper in one swollen cheek, shifted it to the other side. Her lips had a touch of blue dye on them. She said nothing. She wasn’t going to be pushed around by this gypsy junk seller. She was better at dickering than this woman knew. To keep quiet was the utmost in owning a negotiation. Another tidbit of wisdom from her old granny.

Deal is this, Lennon said. "You can have