Dark Twilight

By Charles Justus Garard

An American mythologist, professor, and paranormal investigator returns to China where he taught for many years with the ashes of Geraldine, a Chinese lady-friend who died in his country. Upon returning, he, Dr. Harper Paget, decides to accept contracts and start teaching in universities in the northeast of China. He meets new colleagues and students, one named Marilyn who is interested in him but from whom he distances himself before the situation becomes more complicated. He arrives at a new university where he meets Dr. Brady Simon, a media professor from Canada.

When the two become friends, Harper learns that Brady recently lost his wife in an accident in China and has decided to exchange SMSs with ladies in the Philippines. Harper warns him about this, but Brady continues and meets an apparently pleasant young woman named Bella. Later, Brady learns about a supernatural creature from the Philippines called an aswak. Harper wonders if such a creature is linked to the kuntilanak, creatures from Indonesia whom he had to fight against not only in China before but in his own country. Harper feels that these Kuntilanak are actually the Lamiae from ancient Greece in disguise, entities who his ancestors have been struggling with for generations..

Harper meets Anjani at the new university, a graduate student from Indonesia who tells him about the very human problems in her country. He also meets Xue, a young Chinese lady who works for the Foreign Affairs Office. After helping him to collect Christabel from the train station, she vanishes. Christabel was Harper's love interest in the past who gave him up for a French friend but who now keeps in contact with him, mainly by SMSs. Before Xue disappears from the campus, she reports having seen Harper from a distance at night with a woman who does not look completely human.

While Anjani and Harper become friends and even lovers, Brady has some unpleasant conflicts with the ladies in the Philippines, some of them having to do with money and one of them involving threats. Across from the courtyard from where Harper's dorm building is the dorm for the the female students. Some of them watch him from windows. Harper watches them in return. even though a growing sense of foreboding seizes him.

Who is the real kuntilanak who endangers his life and the life of his Canadian friend? Whose attack puts him in a wheelchair where he awaits a further confrontation? Is it Anjani, Xue, Christabel, Marilyn (who writes that she wants to visit him at his new campus), or even one of the ladies from across the courtyard? Harper has been in danger before, but now he cannot even trust his cell phone messages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles Justus Garard
• Release date: Dec 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781684541829

Charles Justus Garard

I am a retired PhD in literature and writing who taught for sixteen years at a private college in Atlanta, at a university and community college back in my home state of Illinois, and for seven years in the People's Republic of China. Before finishing my degrees and becoming a professor, I worked in film advertising for two theatre companies in Illinois and sold advertising for a community newspaper in Missouri. Since returning to the USA in 2012, I have been devoting my time to writing. I do have one print book published as a scholarly evaluation of books made into films, focusing on British author John Fowles. My hope now is to continue my struggles to publish fiction novels that I have been working on for years. Two novels based on my teaching experiences in China are FORBIDDEN VOICES and FOREIGNERS AND EMPERORS, which are semi-fictional exposes.. The recently completed and available is the third novel in The Alex Barteau Asian Series titled SMS; THE SCAMMERS. This e-book novel deals with characters from the Philippines as well as from China. My science-fiction novels include a time-travel mystery called OF TIME AND THE DREAMER, a time-travel adventure titled FROM HERE TO ATLANTIS, and a work about an extraterrestrial occupation in a small town called CIRCLES AND REALM. First completed and available is a trilogy of paranormal (horror) novels called the DARK JOURNEYS TRILOGY, followed by a fourth novel in the DARK JOURNEYS series called DARK TWILIGHT. The fifth novel is tentatively titled CURSE OF THE LAMIAI. Featuring many of the same characters in OF TIME AND THE DREAMER is the follow-up time-travel novel titled ISLANDS IN TIME. Recently completed and posted is the semi-fictional experience based on characters from the Philippines titled SMS: THE SCAMMERS. I really appreciate the sweat and mental trials that authors must go through, and I hope to continue my support for my colleagues through group sites through Facebook. Thank you all for support by continuing to read literature -- in whatever format. Right now, the USA is in fifth place among the countries in the world with the most educated people. I hope we can change that by showing that we are not only good at playing computer games. Connect with Charles Justus Garard: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/charles.g.phd Twitter: https://twitter.com/chukk0913 Blog: http://www.virgostone.wordpress.com Smashwords Interview: https://www.smashwords.com/interview/chukkgarard Smashwords profile page: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/chukkgarard Web site: https://www.the-alternate-world-of-cjg.com

Book preview

DARK

TWILIGHT

The return of the dark

world of Harper Paget

By

Charles Justus Garard

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Copyright by Charles Justus Garard©2018

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Dedicated to Bryan Hansen, host of the Facebook site The Horror Experience

ISBN: 978-1-68454-182-9

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E-Book Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the publisher and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the time and hard work of this author.

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Warning: This e-book novel contains stronger language and sexual terms (in one scene) than what readers usually find in my works. The reason for this is explained within the body of the story.

Chapter One

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Harper knew that he was being watched.

The shadowy figure stood watching him from across the narrow channel of the river.

Harper Paget stood alone on the shore of the river, staring at the sky, feeling the dull pain that continued to plague his right shoulder. That he was being watched didn’t surprise him; this was China and being stared at by Chinese citizens was a familiar experience.

However, this dark form might not belong to a human.

It had started raining that afternoon while Harper was still teaching class and had continued for nearly an hour. When he returned to the river near the edge of the campus that evening, he was almost startled to see a glasslike smoothness that one might see only on a still lake.

This narrow river, however, provided a visual treat like nothing he had yet seen in China. Even though he had, admittedly, photographic memories of orange and pink sunsets over the Mississippi River, and even though he had, filled away in the back of his brain, an evening vision of the Gulf of Mexico seen from the Florida shore, this moment standing on the wharf overlooking the river here in Jilin on a windless night could probably never, he believed, be equaled.

The shadowy form, just as he expected, was gone when he looked up again.

He had wondered for so long how he would feel at this moment when the news finally came, wherever he happened to be, that they were again watching him.

Again, in China.

He had brought Geraldine’s ashes back to China. He had known the risks, but he had promised her that he would bring her back to her own country.

But. Time to go in.

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Harper wanted to feel on his forehead the breeze from the open window that the inexpensive fan he had purchased at one of the shops across the street from the campus was supposed to be assisting. That was why he had moved it from its position next to his bed and taped it to the window ledge just beyond his desk. The air conditioning unit high on the wall was sending out a feeble stream of air, but its efforts were pretty much useless – like the air conditioner in the living room that had never worked and never been repaired since his arrival. The Chinese workers for the dormitory building had just looked at it, declared it broken, and never replaced it.

Usually with the window open, he could hear students giggling and chattering as they walked along the diagonal path of closely fitted stones that cut across the yard from the front entrance of the campus hotel where his apartment was located, past the rear of the kitchen area and delivery ramp, to connect with the walkway that would take them alongside the open stadium on their way to their own dormitory buildings.

He had walked that path to the stadium many times, and many times he had accompanied one or more of his female students to their dorms in the dark. He had told a couple of them that he was alarmed for their safety if they walked alone, considering how poorly lit it was at night. When some girls argued that they were safe on this campus out here away from the city, he had insisted that no place was safe and told them about how some girls had been raped in their dorms by laborers doing construction work on the campus. The university had tried to keep this information quiet, but negative news frequently reached the ears of faculty members.

At this hour of the morning, the path was untraveled, and Harper could only hear the droning of the fan.

He tossed around, trying to make the damp pillow feel comfortable. After several minutes, he realized that this wouldn’t help. He still felt the tightness in his chest, probably related to the gas pains that he had been experiencing earlier that day. He inhaled the warm air. Then expelled it.

Harper swung his legs off the bed. It was useless to try to sleep. He had taken a nap earlier and now was alert – not weary enough to sleep. He walked to the fridge and extracted a plastic bottle of Diet Coke. It was only semi-cool since only the freezer compartment of the unit that had been new when placed in this fourth- floor hotel suite last August was working at full capacity. He opened it and turned back toward the desk. Waiting on the desk was the MacBook Pro, its lid open.

Was it too late to contact Anjani in Indonesia?

While in China, Anjani lived in a dorm on the campus of the Fenghuang Teacher’s College and University. Enrolled in the graduate program, she even taken a media class from his Canadian colleague Brady Simon.

Harper thought of his friend Brady who had recommended that Harper relocate from Jilin Jiaoyu to Fenghunag.

Brady had told him about what he had been doing that week. It was complicated; however, it did not, Brady felt, show himself in a good light.

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Samsung Android SMS:

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I finally responded to a post that I was getting on my computer, Harper read Brady’s text on his Android, an online dating site with women overseas. This site introduced us to women from Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and, of course, here in China.

Indonesia was Anjani’s country of origin, like that of Lina Wibisona, and the original land of the kuntilanak. Lina was still working at a university in the States.

It turned out to be a scam and forced me to dispute credit card charges. In fact, I had to be issued a new Chase card.

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OMG, Harper had typed in return.

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Most of these women are from the Philippines, and some are from Indonesia. Many are from here in China, and most of those are drop dead beautiful. Most look much younger than their ages and are highly educated. Some are looking for a lifetime commitment, but not all of them say that. As you know, after Mari died, Chinese women began letting me know that they were available.

Harper knew that Brady’s Filipina wife, Mari Cruz Simon, had been killed by a Chinese motorist who had ignored a recently installed traffic light in front of the campus. While Brady was reeling from his loss, Harper had been furious that the news had been left out of the local city press. Apparently, the motorist had had some connections with the right leaders, just like the young driver who had hit students on campus and had yelled that he was son of a local police official when other students had stopped his car.

Brady told Harper that he wanted to continue learning what he had already learned about the Philippines. Less obvious to most people who knew him was the fact that he was now seeking a kind of relationship that would not require a close-up involvement.

Harper jumped in with his own text message. Some of these countries are very poor, Brady, like Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. And some of them are known for their scams. It seems to me that you are searching for a distant friendship to cover the pain you have been feeling. This may sound facile, but it sounds like you are also looking for reasons to beat yourself up. What you are doing is perfectly legal.

Brady: Glad to know that part, Harper, although being illegal was not one aspect that I had considered.

Harper: You have probably thought of these things yourself, but I’ll mention them briefly. The first thing that comes to mind is continued hazard to credit card security. I am very risk averse when it comes to internet security. I’m not casting aspersions on the sites(s) you are now visiting, but the internet is full of dark and dangerous alleys. Since Chase reversed those previous charges, what happens if further problems occur against your new card? Just wondering.

An icon of a downturned face was inserted after the last word.

Brady: Me too. That’s why I am more impressed than before with major credit cards. If a large charge appears, they call me to verify it. If I spot it first, I call them to dispute it. The dispute system has worked so far.

Harper locked his apartment door and started down the corridor to the stairwell.

Harper: Are you aware of malware, Canuck? It is just one type of malicious software that can take up residence and relay critical information to harvesters who will try to use information for nefarious purposes. Those bots ride in through website visits and email attachments on your computer. Do you have security software like Norton and McAfee installed on your PC?

Brady: Yes, I do, Yank. And I know there are risks involved with cell phone messages.

Harper halted when he reached the stairwell. Didn’t want to trip and fall while looking at his phone. Good, he typed with the slender phone pen. You should have fun with that distraction. Be wary, however, of taking photos at face value (I know, bad joke). Photos of beautiful babes might be false cover for other correspondents.

Brady: "What? Do you mean people from somewhere else?"

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People or beings? Harper thought.

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Harper: They call that cat-phishing.

Brady: Some of them expressed dreams and plans on a corresponding that seemed site far from realistic. Even some as young as twenty-two had given their age preferences for the males to contact them as being between fifty and eighty. I asked a couple of them what they would do with a man of such an advanced age. Were they looking for a father figure or a sugar daddy? I couldn’t think of an explanation for the term ‘sugar daddy,’ so I described the arrangement as best as he could. Letters from some Filipina ladies informed me that they had been treated badly by unfaithful boyfriends in their own country, so they searched for older men who were more mature and usually more caring.

Harper: I see. Might be true. Don’t know much about the men there.

Brady: One dating site included warnings and tips about what not to do with the overseas pen pals. One repeated warning was that we should not send money to women that we met online.

Harper: Looks like you didn’t take their advice.

Brady: The last girl was snotty about it, saying that I had not given her money for a new phone, even though she had not asked for it. Then she directly asked me for money to help her pay for a future trip to Canada.

Harper: Even though you are now here in China?

Brady: "I don’t know about rules in China regarding immigrants. I don’t know if they could come