And continues forward.

  Evening is coming, and so is the cold wind. He huddles within the many layers of clothing he’s been blessed with. He wonders where he will sleep and if he will eat tonight. If he doesn’t sleep or eat, he is okay with that too.

  He wonders if the angry man will be at the park again, the angry man who had yelled at the crying woman. The angry man in the long black jacket who had taken the woman away, by the hand, deeper into the woods behind the park. He hopes the angry man isn’t so angry anymore, and he hopes the girl is done crying and is happy again. He hopes they ate good today and sat together and held hands and remembered that God loves them. He loves them, too, wherever they are.

  He turns into the park and heads down a slight incline, pushing the cart, and dragging his damaged foot.

  Chapter Two

  Blessed.

  He’d buried her in the park a few nights ago. He’d dug through the mulch and grass and roots and blackberry vines and little worms. He’d used the edge of his hands and scraped up huge chunks of soil. His hands bled. He had spent the past few days picking the dirt and splinters out from under his nails, all while he looked for his doggie, all while wondering where the dirt and splinters had come from.

  He wants nothing more than to sit by the grave of his Blessed, if he can find it. Yes, he remembers where he buried her, behind the trash can and twisted tree. He had placed a marker there. Or so he thinks he did. He is pretty sure he is to look for a branch in the ground. A branch with lots of leaves.

  Once down in the park, he eases the shopping cart into a cozy nook between handicapped parking and the curb. He thinks the carts fit there perfectly, as if the space had been made just for his cart. He looks back once at the cart and smiles. He looks back again for his doggie, too, but remembers she is dead, and he does not think he will ever look back for her again.

  He walks across the grass and misses the steadiness of his cart. He lost his cane a few months ago, although he suspects it was stolen. It had been a fine cane he himself had found leaning against a trash can. The person who stole his cane was surely in worse shape than he is. He is glad they stole it and he hopes they have made good use of it. Maybe someday he will find another cane. Until then, he has his cart.

  Except here on the grass where the cart didn’t roll so good.

  As that thought passes through his mind, he begins looking around for a tree branch and sees one almost instantly. It is all he can do to lean down and pick it up without falling, balancing most of his weight on his one good foot. The ground is uneven and he wobbles and sways and he thinks he might fall but something invisible—surely God—keeps him on his one good leg and now his reaching fingers grab hold of the thick branch. It is a fine branch, still covered in green needles and twigs and offshoots.

  It is also about the right height, too, and he tests it, putting in a little weight on it. It bends but does not break and this is enough for him to smile for the first time all day.

  He moves through the park with his new cane, proud and alive and happy for the first time in a week or so, ever since Blessed died in his arms after panting and not drinking all day. The sun is setting, and he needs to make sure he can see the ground because the woods behind the park are dark and not seeing the ground is what caused him to break his ankle in the first place, years ago.

  Yes, definitely years ago. Maybe just two years ago. Last year, at least.

  He hobbles over the sloping grass and down toward a dark path that leads to where he buried Blessed. More interestingly, he knows this is where the angry man had taken the crying woman last night. This is where he heard them make naked, as he thinks of it, because he cannot get himself to say make love or sex. And he most certainly can’t get himself to say any swear words. Swear words are offensive to his ears, and offensive to God’s ears most of all, and he cringes when he hears them and replaces them in his mind with words that are nicer.

  As the angry man pulled the woman by the hand down into the woods behind the park, the woman had stumbled and falled. Felled? Fellen?

  He feels the panic rise in him until the word ‘fallen’ appears in his thoughts and this settles him down again. He doesn’t like to lose words. He’s lost so many words. He doesn’t want to lose fallen, too.

  From his bench, he watched the angry man yank the woman to her feet and disappear into the trees, where they made naked noises. The naked noises turned into screams, then choking noises. Then gurgling noises. Then nothing. Then, later, the sound of scraping or digging, some grunting. This went on for some time. He thinks it is similar to the sounds he made when he dug a grave for Blessed with his bare hands.

  A little while later the man had emerged alone from the woods. The man wiped his hands on his jeans. His hands were covered in dirt. The man had looked around briefly, wildly, but had mostly kept his head down. The man continued up the path and out of the park, and never once did the man think to look back at the bench.

  That had been last night. He had awakened in the freezing cold, the drool on his face nearly frozen. There had been people already walking in the park but most avoided him and all looked away. He smiled at them anyway.

  He was pretty sure he had dreamed of the angry man and crying woman.

  Now, the grassy slope gave way to low ferns and narrow trails and thick trees that rose higher than skyscrapers. He moved off the trail and did his best to move over rocks and roots and twists and turns. The naked sounds, the whimpering, the choking, the digging, came from around here. He’s sure of it. Okay, maybe not sure of it. He hasn’t really been sure of anything in a long time, except for his love for God and Blessed.

  This is also where he buried Blessed.

  He had carried her here and buried her with his own hands, dragging great heaps of dirt and leaves and branches and rocks, using his hands as a sort of drudge. He doesn’t know where he knows the word drudge but it feels right to him.

  He hadn’t dug very deep. The forest floor had been veritably covered with debris, so many leaves and branches and moss and dead ferns and rotted tree trunks. It had been so easy to use the debris to cover his dog, along with the loose dirt, and he had done a good job building a mound for her, and packing the dirt and debris around the mound, so that she was safe and happy and comfortable. And he had sat next to that mound for the rest of that night, and into the next day, and when he finally stood because he was hungry, he had forgotten why he was sitting next to the mound. And later that day, as he looked for Blessed and didn’t see her, the panic had begun, and then he had lost his mind, he knew, for many days thereafter. He had lost a week or more. He was sure of it.

  He is on the right path now, he is sure of it. Yes, this is where he had buried Blessed. He thinks.

  No, he knows.

  There is the trash can, yes, and there is the twisted tree, yes, and there is the small mound with the tree branch marker. He is sad and he is happy. But mostly he is sad.

  He wants nothing more than to sit with Blessed and to sleep next to her grave.

  He hobbles closer and closer, faster and faster... and sees something else.

  Another mound, maybe ten feet away. It’s bigger and not nearly as neat.

  Something is reaching out from it. Something pale and small and twisted.

  It is, he is certain, a human hand.

  ***

  He had long since dug her out.

  She was, he knows, the girl who had been crying last night, the girl who had been making noises, then made choking noises. He can see the bruising around her throat. Her eyes were open, but he closed them because she looked scared and in pain and he felt sorry for her. Her mouth was open too, probably trying to breathe or scream for help.

  But it was when he looked into her mouth—a mouth partially filled with dirt and debris—that something happened to him. More than the shock of seeing a dead woman (he had seen many dead people on the streets, dead from natural causes and even murder), it was the bloodied gap in her upper front row of teeth that rocked his world.

  She was missing a tooth.

  That had been hours ago. Now, as the sky lightened and the first joggers appeared, his broken mind clicked on again, and with it came the certainty he had seen something like this before. Not something... someone. Someone close to him.

  With that certainty, his mind spins off again.

  Spins and spins and spins.

  The Pale Cold Light

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  About the Author:

  J.R. Rain is the international bestselling author of over ninety novels, including his popular Samantha Moon and Jim Knighthorse series. His books are published in five languages in twelve countries, and he has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide.

  Please visit him at www.jrrain.com.

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  J.R. Rain, Winter Wind: An addictive mystery thriller (The Rain Collective Book 4)

 

 

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