A Sound In The Dark Read online

  Table of Contents

  Also by Kyle Alexander Romines

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  A Sound In The Dark

  Copyright © 2017 by Kyle Alexander Romines All rights reserved.

  First Edition: July 2017

  ISBN-13: 978-1502943552

  ISBN-10: 1502943557

  Cover and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Kyle Alexander Romines

  The Keeper of the Crows (Sunbury Press)

  The Chrononaut

  This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever wanted to give up.

  “Do not set foot in the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evildoers. Avoid it, do not travel on it; turn from it and go on your way. For they cannot rest until they do evil; they are robbed of sleep till they make someone stumble. They eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.”

  —Proverbs 4:14-19

  Prologue

  August 2006

  The sun rose slowly over the horrors below, which were left behind like a child’s misplaced toy. Despite the early hour, the park was already unbearably hot. The formidable temperature was typical of the Texas climate, usually offset by the region’s great beauty. Today that beauty was marred. The Elmore State Park would ordinarily be teeming with camping enthusiasts, heat notwithstanding. This was not an ordinary day. The only people in the park at the moment were park staff and law enforcement officers.

  A car pulled into a makeshift parking area just outside a barrier of yellow tape. The car’s driver was a man named Frank Collins, an unassuming detective who would’ve otherwise been doing little aside from mulling retirement. Frank knew little about the scene that was waiting for him other than it was a multiple homicide investigation and currently the department’s number one priority.

  The detective stepped out of the car and immediately found himself face-to-face with two troopers. Although Frank didn’t know the two men from Adam, they seemed familiar with him.

  “Detective Frank,” one of the troopers said almost immediately.

  “That’s me,” he answered curtly.

  The two troopers glanced briefly at each other before the first man spoke again.

  “Why don’t you follow us this way?”

  Frank followed along quietly. Neither trooper said anything else right away, though they occasionally exchanged nervous glances. If these two men were supposed to brief him, it wasn’t off to a particularly promising start.

  “I’m Jim Stillwell, by the way,” the first man said after a time. “And this is Ramon Burgess.”

  The troopers led Frank down a dirt trail that ran through the park. A short time later, they emerged in a clearing inaccessible by vehicles. A tent rested just outside the bushes. There was already a group of officers surrounding the area.

  Frank sensed something was wrong even before he saw the blood. A dark red patch streaked down one side of the duly colored tent, which was twisted, as if improperly set up.

  “What happened here?” Frank whispered almost too softly for the others to hear. As he neared the tent, several of the officers broke into groups to begin their respective tasks.

  Stillwell caught Frank’s expression. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

  Frank wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Before Stillwell could elaborate, Frank noticed an elderly man hunched over an out-of-place chair. The man was speaking to three officers. A cup of coffee sat ignored in his hand.

  “Who’s that?” Frank asked.

  “Gerald Mosby, the Park Ranger. He found the first body during his patrol this morning.”

  Mosby was talking, but the man’s eyes remained unfocused. He was clearly in shock.

  “How many victims are there?” Frank finally asked.

  “We still don’t know at this point,” Stillwell said. The officer nodded in the direction of a comely brunette now talking to Mosby. “Jeannette found the bodies in the tent.”

  Frank noted the use of the plural. Officer Ramon finally spoke up, interrupting the detective’s thoughts.

  “Another two bodies have been discovered since we arrived. There’s one in the woods and another at the bottom of a cliff less than a mile away.”

  “We’ve got teams spreading out all over the valley,” Stillwell finished.

  Frank recalled the number of vehicles in the parking lot and nodded. He was starting to feel like he was the wrong man for the job. He was a seasoned officer only recently transferred to a new city, but he’d never encountered anything remotely like this before. How was something like this even feasible?

  “You might want to call in more teams,” he said uneasily, as if someone hadn’t thought of that already.

  The killings brought to mind a set of violent murders in another national park a little over a year ago. The murderer had never been found. The press had dubbed the killer ‘The Hunter.’ Could this be the work of the same individual? Frank didn’t even want to think about that possibility.

  “I heard the FBI has already been notified,” Stillwell said.

  A bullhorn sounded in the distance. Frank heard shouts coming from the woods. He knew what that meant. The men turned back the way they came until they reached a spot near the parking lot where terrain vehicles were waiting for them. They followed several other officers, driving deep into the heart of the forest where the air was thick.

  Dozens of officers had already assembled. As he stepped out of the vehicle, Frank searched for the source of the commotion. When he turned his head, the officer vomited.

  Suspended by ropes, hanging upside-down from a tree, was a mutilated body.

  Chapter One

  Three Years Later

  Friday, 9:00 am

  Zack found himself unable to speak. His entire body trembled with rage. He slammed shaking hands down loudly against the kitchen countertop. The hands whitened against the black marble surface. She started toward him, and he found his voice. When he spoke, his eyes burned with anger.

  “Get out,” he said.

  That was then. The memory from the past kept repeating itself, like a broken record tearing its way through his skull. The event unfolded over a year ago, but Zack still couldn’t rid himself of the scene in the kitchen. Time didn’t work. Neither did counseling. D
eep down, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to be free.

  “Watch out!” a voice shouted.

  An old pickup truck pulled in front of him, and Zack’s foray into the past was cut short. Zack barely had any time to react. He swerved into the right lane, a dangerous gamble considering the van’s current speed. He missed the truck by seconds. Zack heard a loud honk, evidence of the displeasure of another driver in the right lane. Having nearly caused a wreck, he couldn’t blame the driver for being angry with him.

  “Well, that’s a great way to start the trip,” Dave said lightly after a few seconds.

  No one laughed. Dave sighed and shifted against the back seat. Zack caught a glimpse of him in the rearview mirror. There was clear disappointment on his face. Although most of the passengers in the van were Zack’s friends, he couldn’t say the same about Dave. It was easy to see that Dave was expecting a more jovial environment. Instead, there was an undercurrent of tension since the group started on the road. Zack was aware he was at least partially responsible for that.

  He looked over at Will, who sat in the passenger seat next to him. There was caution in his eyes, mingled with another emotion Zack couldn’t discern. His friend knew better than to say anything about their near miss. Will’s insistence was the only reason Zack was even in the van in the first place.

  “You’re working too hard,” Will had said. “It’s time for you to get out of the house for a change.”

  This sounded all well and good over drinks, but Will didn’t exactly share his workload. Zack worked around the clock managing his own bakery, whereas Will was a fulltime partier and womanizer currently studying law (if Will’s assertion that taking a few online criminal justice courses constituted studying law was correct).

  Camping wasn’t completely out of the ordinary for either of them. In fact, they’d gone on such trips regularly in the past. Zack met Will Bradley when the two shared a dorm room his freshman year of college. In what seemed in Zack’s experience a rare student housing success, the two became fast friends. Both shared a love of the outdoors, which led to large outings with friends.

  Since then, Zack hadn’t gone camping in years. His responsibilities at the bakery were part of the reason why. As for the other part…his zeal for life wasn’t what it once was, to say the least.

  “It’s too early in the morning for yelling,” Cole Wallace said in a partial growl from the back. Sitting to Dave’s left, Cole had propped a massive pillow against the mirror to block out the light and was fighting a losing battle to remain asleep.

  Zack smiled. Leave it to Cole to defuse a tense situation, he thought. Never mind that they’d almost been killed.

  Cole closed his eyes and thrust his head against the pillow. His curly brown hair was completely disheveled. His face didn’t look quite the same without the reading glasses Zack had grown accustomed to seeing. Cole must’ve abandoned them for the trip in favor of contacts.

  Like Will, Cole purported to be a law student. Unlike Will, he actually took it seriously. Quiet and thoughtful by nature, Cole was perhaps the most scholarly individual Zack had ever met. Zack suspected it had taken just as much cajoling on Will’s part to get Cole to go as it did for himself.

  “Why is he even trying to sleep?” Will asked, amused. “We can’t be much farther from the park.”

  “I heard that,” Cole replied motionlessly. He yawned, which prompted Zack to do the same. Zack was normally a morning person, but he hadn’t slept well for a long time now. He wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of a couple of nights on the cold, hard ground.

  “Actually, we’re less than ten minutes away,” Zack said. “You should start waking up.”

  “I will when we get there,” Cole promised.

  “You’ve had hours to sleep,” Will insisted.

  “You would’ve had more if Will hadn’t insisted on roughing it completely,” Zack muttered. He looked at the map. “‘No GPS,’ you said. ‘We’ll find it the old fashioned way.’”

  Will shook his head. “We’re not going to let these two losers ruin the fun for the rest of us, are we guys?”

  “What fun?” Dave asked. “It’s too early for drinking, and this van is about as lively as a cemetery.”

  Zack was tempted to ask if Dave wanted to take his chances on the road, but kept his mouth shut.

  “You’ll see,” Will had said when he proposed the trip. “A weekend away is just what you need.”

  Although Zack admired Will’s optimism, he wondered if his friend was ever going to see things as they actually were. He was twenty-eight now. The life they’d known in college would have to end soon for him. It ended long ago for Zack. Still, Zack wasn’t in any position to give life advice, so again he remained silent.

  “I’m with you, man,” said Steve, the person on Dave’s right. “I’ve been waiting for a chance to get away forever.”

  “That’s more like it,” Will said.

  Steve Emerson was the fifth and final member of their group. Zack knew Steve better than he knew Dave, though even that wasn’t saying much. Steve was more Will’s friend than anyone’s. To Zack’s recollection, the two worked a job together one summer.

  Altogether, it was a relatively small group by Will’s standards. In the old days they’d often required multiple vehicles to carry all the people and supplies. Years passed and friends got married or found employment in other states, causing the circle’s numbers to dwindle.

  Zack glanced out the window. A sign confirmed that the park entrance was a mere ten miles away. “We’re almost there.”

  The scenery beyond the road certainly seemed promising. Maybe he would enjoy himself after all.

  “In one piece, too,” Dave said with a smirk, a not-so subtle reference to their near-wreck a few miles back.

  Zack felt his temper rise. He wasn’t going to put up with Dave’s attitude for long.

  “This is it,” Will said. “Drifter’s Folly Memorial Park.”

  “What part about sleep don’t you guys understand?” Cole demanded. He sat up, one hand on the pillow.

  “Will was just telling us about the park,” Steve said.

  “Here we go again,” Cole said. “Why don’t you tell us all one more time how you found the great location of the trip?”

  Zack joined in. “While you do, you might mention how big the park is and how it’s virtually empty for this time of year.”

  “Everyone’s a critic,” Will replied with a grin. “Once you all see what this place has to offer, you’ll change your minds.”

  “As long as we don’t get mauled to death first,” Dave said.

  At that, Will stopped smiling. “It took me a lot of effort to plan this trip. I would appreciate a little gratitude.”

  “Sorry,” Dave said. “It’s just cramped in here, that’s all.”

  With that, the temporary enmity was forgotten. Moodiness was one of Will’s biggest character flaws, though Zack thought Dave deserved the rebuke. He slid the map onto the dashboard and pulled off the highway.

  “At least the weather shouldn’t give us any problems,” Cole said sleepily. He was checking the forecast on his cell phone.

  “It’s mid-September,” Will replied. “It’ll be nice and cool.”

  Zack remembered a time when they tried camping in November at a lake about an hour from the university. Will dared Cole to go swimming in the lake at night. The water was near freezing, and Cole was so cold he hadn’t slept properly the rest of the night. Cole was gone when everyone woke up, having sought refuge for warmth in his car and driven home hours earlier. Zack shook his head at the pleasant memory. What happened to those days?

  “Drifter’s Folly,” he mused. “That’s an unusual name. Any reason for it?”

  Will shrugged. “Not that I’m aware of. Maybe we’ll find
out.”

  Zack nodded. “Maybe.”

  “Look at the size of those mountains,” Steve said, obviously excited. “We can get some good hiking in there.”

  “I didn’t know you were into hiking,” Cole said in approval. “Colorado is a perfect place for it.”

  Zack knew Cole had seen bigger mountains in the past, but he didn’t want to ruin the moment for Steve. It was Steve’s first camping trip with the group. Dave had gone before, just never with Zack.

  Steve and Cole seemed to be getting along well, which was good. In a way the two were quite similar. Both men were loners by nature. Steve wasn’t particularly scholarly, though, and often came across as out of place.

  “I’m looking forward to the lake,” Zack said, making an attempt to get involved in the conversation. There was nothing like the sight of sunrise on the water. He wondered if it would still retain its magic for him. He privately doubted it.

  There was forest on either side of the narrow road, and Zack slowed down to avoid any further potential accidents. When the vehicle passed over a bump in the road, he was thankful he had reduced his speed. He followed a faded green sign at a fork in the road and turned left.

  Drifter’s Folly Lodge, two miles, read the sign.

  Good, Zack thought. He was ready to stretch his legs. Zack was six-foot-two, shorter than Will by less than an inch. The two friends looked a great deal alike. Both possessed straight jet-black hair. Zack’s eyes were blue, and Will’s were blue-green. In college people often mistook them for brothers. There was a hunger in Will’s face that wasn’t there in Zack’s, which amounted to one difference between them.

  “This place is really far out there,” Dave said as he shoved a ball cap over his red hair.

  “My phone has already lost service,” Steve said. “What about the rest of you?”