Fled

By Jason McIntyre

In this noir chapter of the Dovetail Cove saga, it’s May Day, 1973, and Charles Scobie finds himself hitched to Chrissy Banatyne, the daughter of the wealthiest and most talked-about power couple on the island. And, of all the rotten luck, Chrissy’s honeymoon destination of choice brings her home, while bringing Charlie back to an icy batch of memories he’s trying to leave behind. Desperate to finally outrun a violent childhood, a disastrous start to his career, and his estranged family, Charlie believed he could finally set everything right after one last backroom deal, executed on a snowy night—right here in this very island town. Now, Charlie’s gotten used to the high life. Newly wed and wealthy, he has everything going for him. Still, it seems, no matter how fast Charlie runs, he finds himself right back where he started.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jason McIntyre
• Release date: Jan 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370469352

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.

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Fled

a novella by

Jason McIntyre

Published by &

Copyright © 2017 Jason McIntyre

Smashwords Edition

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.

Fiction titles by Jason McIntyre

On The Gathering Storm

Thalo Blue

Walkout

Mercy and the Cat

Black Light of Day: A Collection

Nights Gone By: A Collection

The Night Walk Men: A Novella

The Devil’s Right Hand: A Night Walk Men Novel

Corinthian: A Night Walk Men Story

Kro: A Night Walk Men Story

Dovetail Cove titles by Jason McIntyre

1. Deathbed (Dovetail Cove, 1971)

2. Bled (Dovetail Cove, 1972)

3. Fled (Dovetail Cove, 1973)

- 4. [COMING SOON] (Dovetail Cove, 1974) -

5. Zed (Dovetail Cove, 1975)

- 6. [COMING SOON] (Dovetail Cove, 1976) -

7. Shed (Dovetail Cove, 1977)

8. Dread (Dovetail Cove, 1978)

- 9. [COMING SOON] (Dovetail Cove, 1979) -

- 10. [COMING SOON] (Dovetail Cove, 1980) -

Learn more about the author and his work at:

www.theFarthestReaches.com

Dovetail Cove

May 1, 1973

Part I

Wed

Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine. ― Sigmund Freud

1

The first time Charlie Scobie witnessed the icy, black hand of death, he was five years old.

It was the second week of November, 1949. A Tuesday. The sun was barely up. Little Charlie was walking up the #94 side lane to meet the bus at Lucky Boy Road, just north of Blue River, Oregon. He was a half-dozen paces behind his big brother, Kelly. Breath clouds formed and dissipated at their mouths. Formed and dissipated, formed and dissipated. His rusted blue lunch pail swung jauntily in his mitten and he plopped along dreamily, having woken up late and still feeling crust in the corners of his eyes but not giving that any thought.

Kelly was eight—old enough to start shooting birds with his Dad and uncles—and he spotted it first. At the point up ahead where the brush met the shoulder of the bumpy, sanded road, a bedraggled overhang of leaves in orange and yellow drooped lazily over the frosted grit and nearly kissed a dark, misshapen blob. Kelly put out the tip-toe of his boot and made the dark shadow of his crooked leg long on the road and into the side-bush.

Hey, Charlie, come ’ere and take a look! He dabbed his foot again at the dark spot. The dark spot didn’t recoil from his jab. It shifted, but only a little. It was a crisp morning and everything wore a layer of white crystal from last night’s frost.

Charlie picked up his pace. His rucksack bobbed and the handle in his mitt squeaked against the tin of his blue pail. He joined his brother and stuck to a stop in the grit, nearly tumbling forward and right into the dark patch that held his big brother so rapt.

What is it? Charlie asked, inching back.

Don’t touch it, Charlie. Dad’ll hide us both. Just do your gawking and then come on. We can’t miss the bus.

Okaaaay, Charlie said absently, sniffling up a throat-full of snot, swallowing it back, and rubbing his dirty mitten backhanded across his nose. His tummy turned in a heavy, gross lurch. At his snot-meal, sure, but also at the view of what Kelly was prodding with his shadow-toting foot. Kelly gave the object one more thrust with the toe of his boot and then shuffled away.

Alone now, little Charlie afforded the pile a wide berth and stepped down into the crunchy, frosted underbrush. He crackled through the glassy coatings of ice that glazed the bases of the sludgy weeds. In the mess, he found a long wet stick, crooked and partially coated in rotting leaves. He pulled it out of its resting place, shook the bulk of the muck off, and returned to the road, careful to again step around the suspect pile. The smell of the wet leaves came with him and he sniffled against it through his stuffy nose.

It mingled with the pungent, thawing smell of death.

What is it? he asked again, this time under his breath and so quiet his big brother would have never heard him. Kelly was down the road now anyway.

Tentatively, the little boy drew out the crooked stick and poked the heap at his feet. He made ready to leap back when it inevitably jumped at his legs and grabbed hold of him. But it didn’t. With a squelch, it took the point of the stick like dinner getting forked.

He tested the flattened pile of bodily leavings. His heart rate quickened as he probed it. But he couldn’t help himself. Don’t touch it, Kelly had warned him. But he had to test it, had to, even if Kelly told Dad and Dad gave him the hardest hiding of his short life. Would the thing on the road come to life and leap at him? It probably would. It made sense that it would.

The stick dove into fur, matted with congealed blood, coloured guts and grey pebbles. A tiny black lip unfurled showing the dark pink of a mouth and the off-white blotches of teeth. The mass wiggled with Charlie’s stick-work. One bulbous eye, shiny with frost, stared unblinking at the sky beyond the little head of the youngest Scobie boy. Two more pokes, then Charlie’s eyes traced the white, brown, and black of the animal’s striping. It ended in a sprout of bushy, upturned tail that quivered in the tiny push of breeze.

And Charlie answered his own question. He’d seen them before. Usually in the yard, scrounging for eats. Chipping and twitching and high-tailing it up the trunks of trees and into the bobbing canopy. A squirrel, with its guts ripped up and still pouring from its body when night fell and froze him to a standstill, all oozing and stink stopped dead for the night. No more than a squirrel. A big one. This one dead no longer than the last dozen hours. And whatever bigger beast had done this to him was now departed—but for what reason, the little mind of Charlie Scobie couldn’t reason.

And still that dead eye looked remarkably...alive. Staring into the pale blue above, staring, it felt, right into Charlie. He took a shiver, and one brought on by much more than the head cold he had, or the embrace of this chilly November morning.

The horn on the bus let out a flat bleat.

Charlie jumped with a start. He turned and saw his brother at the stairs to the gaping side door. And now he could hear the rumble of the bus’s engine. From a hundred paces, Kelly called out to his little brother at the crook of Lucky Boy Road where the boys’ bus sat puffing out white from its back end. Charlie! Come ON!

Charlie had been far away in his own head, not hearing anything and not witnessing anything, except maybe the imagined final moments of the squirrel. Kelly waved frantically, trying to get little Charlie to move it. He wasn’t going to let his little brother catch him another hiding.

Come ON! Kelly hollered again before boarding the bus.

Charlie turned back to the small, flat pile. His heart banged in his little chest. The glassy, black eye stared at him, unfeeling. He gave the squirrel another poke with his stick and then turned away. He tossed the stick to the ground and ran to catch the school bus.

2

May Day, 1973. What an odd expression, Charlie thought. Mayday. Isn’t that what fighter pilots radio’d when they were hit over Korea and all they saw was a spiralling, smoking view of the Pacific looming large through a cracked cockpit windscreen?

Fitting, in a way, he supposed. Today had been Charlie Scobie’s wedding day. He’d put it off as long as he could but he’d found the right girl (she was rich) and her parents wouldn’t need to stay over at their place when they came to visit (they were rich too).

Christine Banatyne