Black Flash

By Michael James Grant

A small group of strangers living in different towns across America, each with different backgrounds, is chosen. Some have come willingly, while others have been taken in the dark of night. Stark, shadowy terror suddenly invades their dreams and turns their days into living nightmares. While each begins manifesting startling abilities, uncharacteristic behaviors, and frightening visions, they find themselves running from an unseen, unknown enemy. As the clock ticks down and a web of danger surrounds them, threatening to ensnare them forever, a dark memory forces its way back from their haunting pasts, a forgotten truth so horrific they'll fight for their lives to unravel its clues before their dark enemy silences them forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 22, 2005
• ISBN: 9780595800674

Michael James Grant

Michael James Grant is a native of Maine, graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and currently lives with his Rottweiller, Casey, in San Francisco, CA. The Reunion is his first novel.

Book preview

PROLOGUE 

Tony Morgan awoke to absolute silence, and he knew he had gone deaf. As he opened his eyes, a light film blanketed his vision, like an early spring fog over Boston Harbor. He stared up, frightened, confusion taking over. Last night he’d snatched a bottle of port wine from another street person and, as usual, passed out on a park bench in the Boston Common. Now to his utter astonishment, he was staring up at bright florescent lights.

Filtered shadows floated around him, and he wondered what the hell had been in that port wine from last night.

He tried to move but couldn’t feel any part of his body respond. He willed his left hand to at least twitch, staring at it intently. To his relief it started to move, and his vision began to clear, but the silence still shrouded him.

Suddenly, boiling pea-soup-like blisters began to bubble the skin on his hand. As the ripples of flesh traveled up his arm, the skin on his hand began to render. Purple veins, pink tendons, and writhing spaghetti-like ligaments slithered over the bed, evaporated, and then muscle and bone oozed into a colorless puddle of lifeless gelatin. The skin and muscle from his entire arm slid off like meat on an undercooked pig. It slopped onto the bed sheet and bumped into the colorless gelatin puddle. The puddle jumped like thermometer mercury and bounced over the edge of the bed, and then the skin and muscles disintegrated into a wispy fog, drifting toward the florescent lights.

He opened his mouth to scream, and as he did the bottom half of his jaw floated off to the left, joining the separating diarthroses joints of his elbow and shoulder.

Tony fought hard to keep his wits about him, telling himself he was on a bad trip, but the fog and darkness enveloped him again. As he stared up at the ceiling, the shadow of something human appeared. His vision slipped in different directions until he was looking at the walls to his left and right at the same time.

And then, there was complete darkness.

CHAPTER 1 

The cool, damp air curled through the open window, wrapping its airy tentacles around Dr. Marcus Knapp’s bald head. He sniffled and then sniffled again.

The cool San Francisco night and the chill coming from the empty side of the bed caused him to wake completely. He swiped his nose with the back of his hand and then sneezed. Fluid dripped from his nose and he pinch at it. The mucus had a gummy slickness to it. He sniffed again, this time hard, and the slight taste of burnt copper filled his mouth and throat. It dried immediately, and he coughed up dried caked on phlegm from the lining of his throat.

God, he muttered. It was happening again this week. Throwing back the light covers, allowing the remaining bed warmth to dissipate, he swung his feet to the cool oak floor and moved toward the night-lighted bathroom at the far corner. The small beige rug in front of the sink was soft and inviting to his feet. He clicked on the dimmer switch.

Blood—a lot of blood—pulsing over his mustache. It smeared his nose and hands.

As his heart nearly stopped and then roared to an earsplitting crescendo in his head, the gushing blood from his nose matched it beat for beat. He stammered and teetered back on his heels. He quickly struck out with his hands, grabbed the edge of the white porcelain, square sink, and righted himself. Leaning over the white bowl, blood splattering the clean basin, he placed his hand on the five pronged water stem and cranked it. As quickly as he could, and without even thinking, he bent at the waist and vigorously tossed cupped water from his hands to his face. With his eyes squeezed tightly shut, blocking out the horror, he blindly grasped hold of the terrycloth hand towel from the stainless-steel circular ring, stood upright, and applied pressure to his nose.

Dropping the lid of the toilet seat, he set himself down and leaned his head back against the wall until he felt the pulse slow in his head. He waited a few more minutes, opened his eyes, and pulled the blood-soaked towel away from his face. Placing the fingers of his left hand against the underside of his sore nose, he felt a slight stickiness but nothing oozing.

What the fuck, man, he said, his voice echoing off the white tiles of the bathroom.

Getting up slowly, he once again stood in front of the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. Dark half-moons hung below his olive eyes like puffy, burnt marshmallows. His freshly shaved head was damp with sweat. He turned the faucet handle again and rinsed the blood from the cloth. With his blood-caked hands and fingernails, he lightly dabbed at his mustache, careful to keep the blood from flowing again.

Filling the sink with steaming soapy water, Marcus plucked the bar of soap from the water and the fingernail scrub brush from the basin and began scrubbing like he’d done a hundred times before when assisting in surgery.

Within a few minutes, Marcus’ hands and forearms were pink from the friction. He dried off, shut off the light, and exited the bathroom. As he approached the bed, he grabbed the journal he’d started after his partner, Greg Shaw, had become sick. Greg had had similar problems, but they’d escalated far quicker than Marcus’—at least, that’s what he kept telling himself. A few years earlier, Greg had been admitted to San Francisco General Hospital, his health fluctuating. After numerous blood tests, MRIs, and CAT scans, he and the doctors at the hospital became frustrated because they could not pinpoint the exact nature of the illness and cause of his symptoms.

He logged the bloody nose. He’d had seventeen over the past year, three of them in the past month. This was the second one this week.

Normally, Marcus dealt with problems easily. He actually enjoyed the challenges his life and others’ around him at the hospital offered. So, when his bloody noses had started a year ago, he thought he could handle them as well. At first, the blood had been just a droplet or two, something he could ignore and write off as minimal. However, as the year moved forward, the flow of blood increased. As he replayed the vision of his reflection in his head, he had to admit that they were now as bad as Greg’s had been.

His challenge now was to admit defeat, to admit there was something definitely wrong. He sighed. Doctors make the worst patients.

He checked the neon red digital display on his alarm clock.

Four thirty-seven.

With the sun just minutes from appearing over Mount Diablo in the East Bay, he flicked on the bedside light, removed the bloodied pillow from the bed, and set it gently on the floor. Remarkably the charcoal-gray sheets barely had any blood droplets on them. Climbing into bed, he pulled the covers high up and silently prayed for more sleep. As he closed his eyes, a bright flash, something metal, swept behind his closed eyelids. His eyes snapped open.

What the... he said, his deep voice echoing off the Mesa red bedroom walls.

He slowly closed his eyes again and held them shut as a bright flash of metal, sweeping from left to right, whooshed across the inside of his eyelids again. As the motion repeated over and over, like a film caught in a loop, it suddenly changed direction. It flung up and down in a violent arc until the entire vision turned a deep crimson red.

A screech reverberated through the room and his eyes snapped open again. His alarm clock was wailing its wake-up call. Marcus looked to the digital clock again.

Seven-thirty!

He pulled himself out of bed and moved to the bathroom. As he clicked on the dimmer switch, a soft light filled the room. He winced at the pink remnants of blood in the sink. After turning on the cold water tap, he cupped the water and splashed the droplets. The liquid swirled and mixed with the purplish droplets. It turned pink and washed down into dark throat of the sink, the pipe gurgling like a large throat.

Marcus looked to the mirror; there’d been some changes. The dark half-moons were nearly gone, but his once clean shaven head had nearly a quarter of an inch of black stubble growing from it, and his black mustache and beard seemed longer and disheveled.

He flipped open the medicine cabinet, removed the shaving gel and razor, and then shaved his head quickly. It had become and obsession of his while on a solo vacation to Turkey four years earlier. It didn’t matter what he was doing; if he felt the slightest bit of hair growing on his head, he needed to shave it. It was a compulsive disorder, but it was one he was comfortable with.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like hair. In fact, he loved his beard, and his chest grew a wonderful black pelt over his V-shaped torso. He’d trimmed it down a number of times over the years, but never had it crossed his mind to shave it like he did his head.

After he finished shaving, he stepped into the shower and let the warm water wash away the remnants of the shaving gel, hair, and the awful crimson mask he’d awoken with.

After slipping on his white terrycloth robe, Marcus threw his wet towel over the shower rod and wandered through his two bedroom condo performing his morning ritual wake—prepping the coffee maker, popping a bagel in the toaster, and turning on the news.

As he walked into his sparsely decorated living room, a sudden white-hot explosion rocked through his apartment, nearly knocking him through the sliding-glass doors. Acrid smoke filled the room, and a rendering screech of metal caused the floor beneath his bare feet to vibrate.

Earthquake!

Marcus reached to brace himself, but just as suddenly as the vision had started, it stopped, the acrid smoke dissipating into a light fog and then disappearing completely. Jesus Christ! What the fuck? he said, nearly collapsing onto the chocolate-brown leather couch.

CHAPTER 2 

With dawn approaching, Sal Broderick gradually crept out from between the pallets of magazines he’d been hiding behind all night. The warehouse security guards were about to change shifts for the morning, and if he was going to make his move, it needed to be now.

For the exception of the ten or so yellow sodium lights, the darkness of the warehouse was deep at this hour.

A loud clanking of an old motor and chains rumbled though the vast warehouse; Sal jumped slightly from the sudden noise and darted back behind the pallets of magazines. He checked his black and gold Timex and shook his head. The doors were opening an hour earlier than anticipated. When the rattling of the chains and motors ceased, and the warehouse’s door came to an abrupt halt. A dark Chevy van glided in and stopped directly underneath one of the sodium lights.

The passenger’s door opened and a dark figure emerged. From Sal’s distance, he could barely make out the stranger’s thick, angular facial features, heavy jaw, and slanted nose. The dark shadows clung tightly to the lights’ edge, and clouded the man’s eyes, mouth, and neck. The only features standing out clearly were his large sonar dish-like ears, ready to detect the slightest noise from anywhere in building.

Hey, what’s up? the night security guard asked, his voice wobbly, as he checked his watch.

Nothing. Just thought I’d come check the warehouse this morning. He approached the guard, towering over him. Anything out of the ordinary tonight? he asked, gazing around with disinterest.

The gray-suited guard tipped his hat back. Other than you showing up an hour early? Nothing.

Something wasn’t right. Something was about to go terribly wrong. Sal wasn’t sure how he knew it, but he did. As the shadowy stranger leaned in to whisper to the guard, Sal’s stomach clenched and adrenaline rushed through his head. From the tilt of the guard’s head, Sal could see his eyes widen with interest.

A flutter of panic, like that of a frightened bird buffeting against the metal tines of its cage, started in Sal’s scrotum and traveled to his heart sending it screaming against his ribcage. It pounded frantically in an attempt to escape its bony enclosure. He began to sweat. I need to get out of here, he thought.

But like a puppet on strings, he stood up and sauntered out from behind the pallet. The stranger and the guard turned quickly.

What the. the guard said, but Sal wasn’t watching him. His eyes were on the thick-featured stranger.

As their eyes connected, the stranger gave him the once-over and noticed the knapsack on Sal’s right shoulder. His eyes opened even wider. John! Quick! he yelled.

John was probably either in the van or somewhere else in the warehouse, but Sal wasn’t going to wait around to find out. Within three steps, he pivoted and dashed down the first aisle and bolted as fast as his long legs could carry him. A muffled thud just behind his head ruptured a cardboard box, sending paper into the air. Up ahead in the distance, over the top of the pallets, a florescent light marked the location of the dispatcher’s office. Sal wove his way through the pallets and headed toward the staircase.

As he approached the end of the aisle, the staircase to the dispatcher’s office no more then twenty feet away, he stopped, glanced

both ways, and then leapt from the protection of the boxes and charged up the dusty wooden steps, two at a time.

When he reentered the office, the two guards he’d overpowered earlier in the night popped their heads up and struggled feebly against the ropes binding them to their back-to-back chairs. A shot rang out, the bullet smashing the window behind Sal. They all froze for a second as the shards of glass rained down around them. Sal dove for cover, knocking the guards to the floor shielding them from any stray bullets.

Crawling on his hands and knees, glass shards sticking into his palms, he slithered to the back office and unlatched the widow. He thrust it open with a bang, the pane of glass shattering. With his survival instincts taking over, he climbed onto the ice-encrusted fire escape. Icicles hung from the handrails, and the iron steps were crusted with bits of hard snow from the previous week’s snowstorm. Although the danger of falling was imminent, Sal risked it anyway.

Sal glanced back to see the office door slam open, nearly tearing from its hinges. His eyes connected once again with the stranger’s, but this time he saw something familiar. Before he had time to figure it out, he forced himself toward the fire escape ladder.

As he snatched hold of the bare iron, the frozen metal and his bare skin instantly adhered, the outer layers of his skin rendering with ease. He nearly screamed out as he pulled them back. The blood seeped out around the glass shards, but it warmed the iron, making it easier for him to escape. As he descended, his feet slipped repeatedly from the snow-encrusted iron rungs. He frantically snatched out with his suffering hands and grabbed the rails, driving the glass further into his hands. Blood trickled down his wrist.

The fire escape trembled as Sal reached the bottom rung with his feet. He glanced up through the gaps in the black iron and saw the familiar stranger step onto the top platform. The stranger jumped up and down, sending crusts of snow and daggers of ice over Sal. He turned his face away as the icy debris pummeled his head and shoulders. pushing off with his feet and bloodied hands, Sal fell ten feet to the black pavement. He scrambled away from the building, regained his footing, and fled to the darkness.

A loud screech of metal on metal, like a large flock of tormented seagulls in flight, pealed into the arctic night. Still running at full tilt, Sal dared a glance over his shoulder. He lost his balance and fell onto the icy pavement. Rolling over, he looked back at the warehouse and watched the fire escape dismantle in a series of pings and pops and then it crashed to the ground in a skeletal collapse. The ululating scream of the hulking shadow echoed through the starry night. Dust and powdery snow danced around each other until they quickly became exhausted and fell to the frozen earth.

Not stopping to survey the damage, Sal jerked the knapsack over his shoulder and pressed forward to the back corner of the building. He glanced around and saw no one. He hugged the building with his back, concealing himself in the murky darkness. As Sal stood there catching his breath, thinking of little else but escape, he consciously slowed his breathing to listen for anyone approaching, but heard only sirens in the distance.

The cops!

Shit, he muttered, as his sense of panic nearly sent him fleeing openly into the night. But these people wouldn’t call the cops; they’d deal with him themselves.

With the cold green corrugated metal wall to his back, Sal slowly snuck around the side of the building like the burglar he was, until he saw the front door of the warehouse. The yellow sodium lighting pierced the darkness, illuminating the doorway. The rollup door was like a wide mouth eagerly awaiting its prey. There was a guard standing in the doorway, and even from this distance Sal could see a Smith & Wesson M39 9-mm pistol firmly held in one hand, and a small black walkie-talkie in the other.

Damn it, he muttered.

The guard whipped his head around and bolted in Sal’s direction while talking into the walkie-talkie.

Sal ran full tilt toward the back of the building again. As he rounded the corner to the alleyway, near pitch black enveloped him again, but light from the far end of the alleyway beckoned him. Moving quickly, his black-booted feet barely making a noise on the pavement, he kept his eyes on the goal. A hulking figure, who Sal thought might be the same guy from the collapsed fire escape, lumbered around the corner.

Trapped!

Using the darkness of the alleyway to his advantage, he edged up against the wall and slowly worked his way toward the hulking figure. About halfway to the back of the building, he happened upon an indentation along the wall and slipped into it. When the knapsack caught on something after he pushed into it, he slid it off, placed it between his feet, and slowed his rapid breathing.

After a few seconds, his eyes began to adjust to the darkness. His only hope was that the eyes of the others’ hadn’t done the same so quickly. Suddenly the side of the 9-mm pistol shaft floated in front of him at eye level, followed by the firing pin, and then the guard’s hand. The guard was fumbling through the darkness, one hand tapping on the wall in front of him. With lightening speed, Sal reached out, grabbed the metal shaft and the guard’s wrist simultaneously, and then twisted back violently on the shaft with one hand and then down on the wrist with the other. The gun snapped free. He yanked the guard toward, him, let go of his wrist, and gripped the guard’s neck with his now free hand and squeezed until the guard passed out. Sal laid him gently on the ground.

As he stood to wedge himself back in his hidey-hole, a violent thrust sent him sprawling on the wet pavement, the gun skittering out of reach. With his face inches from the ground, Sal flipped to his side, swung out with his right leg, and connected blindly with the knees of the unseen force.

Shit, grunted the stranger, hitting the pavement.

Sal sat up, pitched his hands behind him, palms down, and kicked out with his left booted foot. He hit the attacker square in the middle of his face. A sharp, violent snap echoed in the alley and then the flesh turned to a doughy thud when the stranger’s nose gave way. Sal’s stomach churned, but he had no time to think about what he had just done.

Get out now!

After snatching the knapsack from its dark cover, he sprinted toward the front corner of the building again. Slowing to a walk as he approached the front side of the building, he poked his head around the corner and saw no one. As he stepped from the shadows, a bullet ricocheted off the building behind him. He ducked and ran in a crouch to the front door. He dove inside as a bullet slammed into the front door above his head.

As he rolled and scrambled for safety, he spotted the dark Chevy van. With any luck, he told himself, the keys would be in the ignition. Standing up, he quickly peered into the interior of the vehicle through the tinted driver’s side window.

Empty.

The metal door handle moved up freely; the door clicked slightly and then opened. Reaching in, he fumbled to the ignition, finding it void of keys. Removing a Swiss Army knife from his black jeans pocket, he popped the ignition lock and sparked the wires. The van rumbled to life.

After climbing up on the vinyl seat, he shut the door, slammed the gearshift to reverse, and punched the gas pedal. As the van catapulted backward, Sal spun the wheel left and the van’s tires squealed in opposition to the torque being applied to them. The van came to rest facing the front roll doors. He knocked the van into drive, jumped on the accelerator, and the van lunged forward like a panther pouncing on its prey.

The doors began to close.

Tightly gripping the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white, Sal focused on the door as it slowly descended, shutting out the darkness of the cold winter night and his only way to freedom. Three men, one on the inside to his left and the others on the ramp outside, stepped into clear view; one appeared to be carrying a machine gun. At the bottom of the ramp, a matching Chevy van blocked the exit.

Halfway closed.

Sal’s van continued to gain momentum, shifting from one gear to the next. It roared forward. A bright flash, like a dragon’s breath, exploded from the tip of the machine gun, and Sal ducked down to the right. Bullets snapped into the van, pinging off the metal, thudding off the windshield. Lifting his head just enough to see the doorway, he thanked God for the invention of bulletproof glass. In the distance, the doorway was nearly two-thirds closed.

With the gas pedal all the way to the floor, the van kicked into a higher gear as it scuttled beneath the metal jaw. Due to the speed and angle at which he’d been traveling, the van caught air. He quickly sat up, gripped the steering wheel, and braced for the impact.

The van landed with a bounce, but instead of stepping on the brake, Sal tromped down on the accelerator again, turned the wheel slightly to the right, and slammed the back of the other van. The impact sent the front of the other van around violently. It racked into the back of Sal’s, tipped up on its side, and somersaulted.

The speed of Sal’s descent down the ramp and the subsequent impact sent his van out of control. Sal twisted into the fishtail and the van slid over the wet parking lot with velvety smoothness, as if floating on air. With the momentum causing him to lean left, he yanked the steering wheel left with both hands. The wheel turned easily, but the van continued sideways until it hit a clear dry patch. The van lurched violently left, popped the tail end up slightly, and then came to a thudding rest.

Without stopping to check his bearings, Sal stomped on the accelerator once again and drove past the end of the warehouse and toward the next one. He passed that one, then another, then another, picking up speed all the way.

Sal looked to the side-view mirror, but it had been ripped off during the crash. He quickly glanced the other way and saw a swath of headlights in the other mirror cutting through the darkness, turning towards him. Fuck! he screamed.

With a ping from the engine and a slow gearing up, Sal’s hope of outrunning them was dashed, and then, to his horror, there was a sudden pop and hiss from the engine and the van slowed even more. It began to buck slightly, but then picked up speed again. Unaware he’d been holding his breath, Sal let it out and looked to the right side-view mirror. The other vehicle, still quite a distance behind, was closing in on him, filling up the mirror’s surface.

The industrial buildings, adorned with round hedges, were dark and deserted. None appeared to have a night shift, and even if they did he didn’t want to bring anyone else into this. After he slipped the gearshift into neutral, the vehicle slowed down and Sal turned it to the left, entering the parking lot of Sullivan’s Meat Packing.

Sal shifted back into drive, tromped on the gas, and sped down the side alleyway. When he neared the end of the building, he clicked the gearshift into neutral, slowed the van, and turned left in a wide half-circle until he was parallel to the building. He shut off the lights and stopped the vehicle about thirty feet from the alleyway’s entrance to the back lot. The dim glow of the approaching lights grew brighter; Sal prepped to pounce, slamming the vehicle broadside.

When the lights were as bright as he thought they should be, he floored the accelerator. The van lurched forward but stalled as the speeding car passed by in a blur.

Shit, motherfucker, he screamed, reaching down to connect the ignition wires.

Off to his left, he saw the car’s brake lights illuminate like two blood-red orbs. The car spun around, planting its headlights on Sal. The squealing tires, and growing headlights sealed his fate.

His stomach flopped.

He was a dead man.

Giving up on the dead van, he grabbed the knapsack and leapt for the back doors. Through the black tinted windows, his impending doom was rolling toward him; the inside of the van was a scorching white daylight. He reached the back door and pulled on the handle.

Nothing!

Shit, motherfucker, he screamed again, reaching up and pulling up the lock. He pulled up on the handle and the door opened. Leaping from the black coffin before the lid slammed down, he tumbled to the ground. The screeching metal tore through the night’s near silence with an impact so loud, it thundered deep in Sal’s bones.

Rolling and scrambling over the ice-covered parking lot, Sal finally found purchase and got to his feet. As he did, the car and van exploded behind him in a whoosh of heat so strong