The Widening Gyre Read online

  THE WIDENING GYRE

  Chuck Grossart

  THE WIDENING GYRE

  All Rights Reserved © 2017 by Chuck Grossart

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Chuck Grossart

  To all those who see beyond the shadows

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Part I The Farewell

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Part II The Awakening

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part III Something Wicked . . .

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Part IV . . . This Way Comes

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  He made sure his eyes would stay open. Forever.

  A drop of superglue on top of each eyelid did the trick. If he died with his eyes closed, the thing in his dreams would be waiting, and he would never escape it.

  The ceiling swirled as his vision faded. He was going to die, but it was the only option to end all the pain and heartache he’d caused.

  His wrists were numb now, and it was difficult to breathe.

  The ceiling faded away, replaced with nothing but a blank gray slate. There was no tunnel of light like he expected.

  From beneath, he sensed the low guttural growl of his own personal hell. It knew what he was doing.

  “Zach?” His mom’s voice. “Zach, open the door.” She must have realized something was wrong upstairs.

  A booming noise, frantic thudding. His dad, trying to break in. It all seemed so far away, like thunder in the distance.

  He hoped they would understand. Just one more period of grief for them to endure, and then they could enjoy life again. Without him. The note he’d placed on the bathroom counter begged them to do just that.

  He took another breath—with some effort—and let it out slowly. It was time to let go.

  “No, Zach. Hang on.”

  A different voice, so close this time. Not his parents, but familiar.

  In the darkening void before him, twelve-year-old Zach Regan glimpsed a man standing over him, reaching out his hand. Not his father.

  “Zach, don’t go. You have to live. I need you.”

  From far away, he heard the bathroom door crash inward, slam against the wall.

  “We need you.”

  In the distance, Zach heard his mother scream.

  PART I

  THE FAREWELL

  1

  Twenty Years Ago

  Mitch Bannock leaned against the doorjamb, watching his wife and son rush to eat breakfast before leaving for Timmy’s T-ball game.

  “Are you going to eat, or just stand there?” Jenna asked.

  Mitch took a sip of his coffee. “This is breakfast.”

  “Really? As soon as we get there, you’ll start whining. ‘I’m starving.’”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Here,” Jenna said, tossing him a granola bar. “Eat this, you caffeine junkie.”

  Jenna, his wife of fifteen years, wore a light blue maternity dress with a white T-shirt underneath, her auburn hair pulled into a ponytail. In her eyes, Mitch saw the deep, endless blue of an October sky. Even at seven and a half months pregnant, Jenna was stunning.

  Timmy, whose freckles and curly hair were a gift from Jenna’s side of the family, was decked out in his Twin Creek Hardware Cardinals uniform, cleats and all. Balancing on a small kitchen step stool, he stretched to reach a box of cereal in the cupboard. “Got it,” he said. “Mom, can you get the milk for me?”

  Jenna grabbed a nearly empty plastic jug from the fridge, noting the expiration date. She unscrewed the cap. “If your dad would get around to building that pantry he promised me,” she said, giving the milk a sniff, “you wouldn’t have to climb around like a monkey to get your breakfast.” She winked at Mitch, as the pantry was one of the items on his to-do list that he’d managed to avoid so far. “Here, finish this up. It’s still good.”

  Mitch grinned as Timmy gave it a sniff himself, just to make sure, then sat down at the kitchen table. Jenna had placed a vase of lilacs on the table, and their scent filled the room. Lilacs were her favorite, and she always kept a vase of the tiny flowers in the house while the bushes were in bloom.

  Mitch enjoyed Saturday mornings, especially this time of year. Timmy was old enough to play sports—sure, it was only T-ball, but it was a start—and the weather was warm enough that they could spend their weekends outside. May was usually the start of severe weather in this part of Nebraska, but this weekend was supposed to be beautiful. No tornado sirens today.

  Which is what made Mitch wonder why the breeze coming through the screen door felt so cool.

  No, it was cold.

  He glanced outdoors, his eyes drawn to the screen.

  Flies. The outside of the screen was covered with them. Multifaceted eyes peered through the aluminum mesh, tiny nerve impulses integrating thousands of disjointed puzzle pieces of sight into a coherent picture, gazing at the world as if through a shattered looking glass. Searching for an opening. Trying to get inside.

  And seeing what needed to be seen.

  Just as suddenly as the shivering air had crept across his skin, it was replaced by the warm morning breeze. But for a brief instant, Mitch thought he smelled something. A terrible, fetid odor, one he knew well.

  As an Army Ranger, he had seen death—and delivered it, up close and personal—more than once during his time in the desert. As the years passed, most of the more troubling memories faded away, safely locked in a corner of his mind seldom visited, but the stench of violent death was something no man could ever forget.

  Mitch walked to the door and gave the screen a flick with his finger. The flies jumped away, startled. “Hey, did the forecast change?”

  “Oh, great,” Jenna answered. “Why?”

  “Did you see the screen?”

  “No, what’s the matter with the screen?”

  “There were flies all over it.”

  “Well, maybe you should take the trash out, then. It stinks.”

  “All I smell is lilacs.”

  She put her hands on her hips, tilted her he
ad.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll take the trash out.”

  Mitch grabbed the bag and walked outside to dump it in the can. He didn’t see the look of concern in Jenna’s eyes as she watched him leave.

  Mitch was unsettled. He’d experienced flashbacks before, but it had been years since his last. The bad memories would surface in the strangest ways, triggered by God knows what. This time, maybe it was just because of a stinky bag of trash that reminded him of something he would rather forget. He glanced up at the sky—clear as a bell. No dark clouds anywhere.

  Flies gripping a screen were a sign of a coming storm.

  When he walked back to the house, Jenna met him at the kitchen door.

  “Hey, are you okay?” she asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  “Yeah. I’m fine,” he said.

  She could read him like a book, and knew he was upset.

  “I saw your face, Mitch, before you walked over to the screen,” she said. “You remembered something, didn’t you.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. She just stood there, searching his eyes. “Really, Jen, nothing happened. I’m perfectly fine.” It wasn’t entirely truthful, because he’d never be perfectly fine, but he didn’t want to ruin the morning they had planned by giving her a reason to worry.

  She stared into his eyes for a second longer, then smiled. “If you’re lying to me, I’ll ask my mother to come visit. For a week. Or two.”

  “Oh God,” he said, eyes wide, “don’t do that.”

  She gave him a playful shove. “Get your son and let’s go, you big lug. We’re late.”

  Mitch was lucky to have Jenna. She had helped him through his rough times, always there to soothe and comfort when the horrors of war came calling. His little family was his rock, grounding him to reality when the tide of memories threatened to pull him away.

  Soon they would have a little girl to call their own, too, which was, quite simply, a miracle. The doctors had told them that Jenna wouldn’t be able to conceive because of complications she suffered during Timmy’s birth, but they were wrong. Their second child was meant to be.

  A storm was coming, though. Drawing closer.

  From the darkest depths of hatred, squirming in the shadows, evil was watching, searching.

  In this place, on this day, its search had ended.

  And a storm was about to break.

  “Saddle up, Timbo,” Mitch said, grabbing his car keys. “Let’s move out.”

  *

  Vic Davol closed the motel room door behind him and followed his brother, Cole, toward their ride, a 1992 Camaro stolen the day before in Council Bluffs. In the next hour or two, if everything went as planned, they would be heading south toward a new life.

  Looking at the two of them together, one would never assume they were related. Cole wasn’t a small man, the parking lot gravel crunching under his boots with each step. Vic stood nearly a foot shorter and weighed almost a hundred pounds less. As a kid, Vic had always relied on his big brother to bail him out of trouble. Still did.

  Vic slid into the passenger seat and tucked his Taurus 9mm semiauto into the front of his pants, careful not to squeeze off a round into his crotch. He tried to light a cigarette, but his hands were shaking. His brother noticed.

  “Calm down, will you?” Cole said. “You do exactly what I say, and we’ll be fine. You got the bags, right?”

  “They’re in the back.”

  The engine coughed and quickly smoothed into a low rumble as the Camaro began to roll.

  “I won’t let you down, Cole,” Vic said.

  “I know you won’t.”

  But he already had. Vic got both of them fired at their last job, caught stealing money from the till. They had him on camera, too. More than once. And since then, they’d lost their crappy apartment, forced to live on the streets, existing on handouts. The economy sucked, and the jobs just weren’t there.

  Life had never been fair to the Davol family, and now it was having fun watching them suffer. A giant thumb, grinding him and his brother into the dirt. Laughing at them.

  But not anymore. After today, they’d be the ones laughing.

  He and his brother had robbed a few convenience stores before but had never done anything like this. Vic was nervous about it, but Cole had a plan. People robbed banks all the time, and very rarely did anything bad happen. Most times, the robbers got away, and Cole was confident they would, too.

  In a couple of hours, the Davol brothers wouldn’t have to take a handout ever again. The payoff was too great to resist.

  Vic took a long drag on his cigarette, and swatted a fly away from his face. The nicotine calmed him somewhat. It was going to be okay.

  His brother maneuvered the Camaro onto the interstate, the thirsty V-8 growling through each gear.

  Vic smiled as they headed down the road toward Twin Creek.

  2

  “Great game today, kiddo,” Mitch said. His son had hit the ball off the tee for the first time, a sign that their hours spent in the backyard practicing were paying off.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “After a game like that,” Jenna said, “I think ice cream is in order. How about we stop by Chauncey’s?”

  “Cool,” Timmy shouted, letting loose of their hands and sprinting to the van.

  Jenna punched Mitch in the arm and took off running. “Race you!”

  “That’s cheating,” Mitch said, running after her but staying right behind.

  She slapped the hood. “I win, slowpoke.”

  “I could’ve beaten you,” he said.

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “I was having too much fun watching. You run like a duck.”

  “It’s your fault I run like a duck.” She patted her tummy. “You did this to me, remember?”

  “What did Dad do to you, Mom?” Timmy asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” Jenna said, tossing a wink Mitch’s way. “Your father will explain it to you one day.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Now get in and drive. Duck lady wants ice cream.”

  *

  Twin Creek, Nebraska, a sleepy little town located about an hour northwest of Omaha, was pure small-town America, a quality that captured Mitch and Jenna’s interest the first time they drove down Main Street. Twin Creek was a fine place to put down roots and raise a family after their stint in the Army.

  On Saturdays, from ten in the morning until twelve-thirty in the afternoon, businesses dropped off their cash deposits at the Twin Creek Savings and Loan. This Saturday was no different.

  About a block away from the bank, a dusty-blue Camaro pulled to the side of the street and parked.

  Perched atop the city hall’s clock tower, a raven looked down on the street below, its black eyes darting back and forth in its elongated, aerodynamic head. The bird twitched and ruffled its feathers as the minute hand on the old timepiece moved forward with a metallic clunk. It opened its bony slit of a mouth, two black stiletto blades parting to reveal a pointed tongue, brownish and unclean, quivering in the open air.

  It watched, and waited.

  *

  Vic glanced at his phone. It was almost time.

  Inside, the tellers were helping customers at the counter while two other bank employees were in the back taking care of the cash deposits. It was the same Saturday routine the bank had followed for years, and the same pattern Cole and Vic had watched for the past month. There was a guard on duty, an older gentleman who, in a small town like this, probably hadn’t pulled his .38 revolver from his holster in years.

  The Camaro’s engine started with a puff of blue exhaust. Cole put the car in gear.

  Down the street and across from the bank, two adults and a child exited a minivan parked in front of an ice cream parlor.

  Cole pulled away from the curb.

  *

  “What’s your pleasure, guys?” Jenna asked.

  “Vanilla, chocolate syrup, sprinkles, and that marshmallow stuff,” Timmy
said.

  “Ditto for me,” Mitch added.

  “Grab a booth and I’ll order.” Jenna walked up to the counter and opened her purse. Inside was a check her mother had sent for Timmy’s eighth birthday, which happened to be the day after tomorrow. She glanced at her watch. There was still time. “Mitch, I have to run over to the bank and cash this before they close. I’ll be right back.”

  As Jenna fumbled with her purse, two men exited a Camaro, parked across the street right outside of the Twin Creek Savings and Loan.

  “Mom, can I go with you?” Timmy asked.

  “Sure. Let’s go,” she said. “Mitch, can you—”

  “I got it,” Mitch said, pulling out his wallet. “Hurry up or I’ll eat it all.”

  *

  Vic followed Cole as he burst through the bank’s front door. “Everybody down on the floor, now,” Cole commanded, waving his shotgun in full view.

  Stunned customers—once they realized what was happening—quickly dropped to the floor.

  “Nobody move. Stay down and don’t move.” Vic aimed his pistol at the bank guard, who, as predicted, didn’t react. “Gun belt off. Put it on the floor, now.”

  The guard released his belt, and it dropped to the floor with a thud.

  “Now back away and get on the floor with the rest.”

  The guard took three cautious steps backward, and lay down on the floor.

  Vic grabbed the gun belt, threw it over his shoulder, and turned toward the counter. “You in the back,” he commanded loudly, “get out here now or one of these people is going to die.”

  From the back of the bank, two frightened employees came into view, arms raised above their heads. Vic placed the barrel of his pistol to the head of the first man to emerge. “You try anything, and you’re dead,” he said.

  “Y-Yes s-sir. D-Don’t kill me.”

  “You stutter again, and I’ll shoot you in the mouth,” Vic said, loving the power of life and death he wielded behind his gun. It was intoxicating. Electric.

  The man nodded, afraid to utter another word. Vic smiled behind his ski mask. “We’re going in the back, and you and your friend here will fill these bags. You’re going to do it quickly. Understand?” The man nodded, with a little more urgency than before.

  Vic gestured with his pistol, and they headed for the back of the bank.