Threshold

PROLOGUE

Wayne stumbled through the rocky driveway, grinning ear to ear despite wobbling like he’d just had knee surgery. No doctor ever handled him with the kind of T.L.C. he just received, whereas these specialists knew just how to soothe all his aches. Not even the breeze wafting pine and hormones past him could chill the warmth they gave him.

No wonder this place stayed in business so long, he thought with a huge grin while pulling his keys from his pocket. He couldn’t care less who saw his official vehicle out here an hour past midnight. Hell, anyone up at this hour would be here for the same reason anyway.

He found the right key a few steps away when a sharp growl startled the bejeezus out of him along with the key ring right out of his hand. He scanned the area, but the old mansion’s glowing windows and dim portico lights barely revealed the driveway. Probably just a critter. These woods were chock full of them.

He laughed at himself as he scooped up his keys. Spooky friggin’ woods around an eerie friggin’ town nobody could even find on a map. He never believed any of the legends, but coming out here still made his skin crawl. Of course, that skin was still humming from—

A faint rumble rose through the night air. He managed to keep his keys in his hands, which he slipped into his pocket so he could pull his revolver from its holster.

“Hello?” he called out, aiming each way he looked.

Nothing came, and all he could see of the woods were the branches above him reaching for each other like an incomplete trellis.

“Hello!” he cried louder, which didn’t even echo. Hell, he didn’t hear anything. No crickets, no frogs, no wind … nothing.

“What the—”

A hard mass like a freight train crashed into his back, and white hot pain ripped through his left shoulder.

He cried out as his hand clenched off a round at nothing. He tried to fight, but fire spewed through his forehead with pinpricks now spilling blood into his eyes. He lost his gun in the struggle and focused on getting a hold on his attacker, fighting the pulsing agony long enough to grasp a handful of hair or fur. He poured his last ounce of strength into a roll and yanked the bastard off him. A good bit of his flesh went with it, but he still couldn’t see what spilled ahead of him …

… until two purple orbs glowed before him, followed by a feral howl.

Before he could make another move, those eyes vanished, darkness swallowed his entire face in a deathly clamp of needles, and all was pain.

The legends were true. This town was cursed!

CHAPTER 1: THRESHOLD

CITY LIMITS

THRESHOLD, GEORGIA

EST. 1828

POPULATION: 503

504 now … but not 505, Shad Duran thought glumly as he drove past the sign just off Parham Road. A tall spire ahead peeked just above a barrier of lush trees he had once thought a gorgeous sight until three weeks ago, now seeing it as the tether that kept him stuck in Meriwether County. Why his late mother had loved such a remote part of the world made as much sense to him as why anyone would fit a town like this off a dirt road rather than one of its nearby highways, but it was home now. His alone.

He sighed as he drove through the tunnel of trees, the branches swallowing his cruiser like Jonah’s whale. This stretch into town always reminded him of entering Kakariko Village in pretty much any version of The Legend of Zelda, but the rest of its superstitious population treated it like its Dark World variant in the third game. He had heard so many stories about this place since his middle school days in Manchester, he was surprised anyone still lived here.

But, then, he didn’t just become its new Deputy Chief of Police by falling for hype.

He emerged from the dark evergreen with only a mild appreciation for the sight of Main Street. Several puddles mirrored the brick structures that seemed to slumber under blankets of moss. Muddy tractor trails marked the cracked asphalt like scars, sullied only by bits of hay here and there. He failed to see why anyone worried about crime in such a remote place. The seven-by-four plot was so small it didn’t appear on any maps. The nearest bank was over eight miles away in Manchester, the nearest gas station five of those in Warm Springs. As far as he was concerned, he would sooner get mugged by Moblins than real criminals, let alone the phantoms everyone believed had long haunted the region. He just hoped it would make Halloween interesting.

“Anyone on the horn near Gerald’s?” came through the radio mounted on his console, the voice of receptionist and dispatcher Tinder Wilkerson accented heavily by the rural region. “We got a disturbance.”

He shook his head at the informality of the caller, still used to hearing penal codes rather than vague descriptions. Then he frowned at the lack of response in the following seconds. He would have to talk to his new patrolmen about that, but now something needed to be done. He picked up the C.B. handset and squawked in. “Duran here. I’m looking right at it, so I’ll check it out.”

“Bless you, Dep,” Tinder said sweetly, for which he was grateful despite the curbing of his job title. She seemed to be the only one in town thus far who was friendly to him. Why spoil it? Besides, he could get some coffee while he was there.

He drove the additional block past the three-story City Hall building ahead of his station and parked before the two-story brick structure that was Gerald’s. He stepped out into the cool air, only to plant his foot into flooded pothole. Really? He huffed and shook off some of the water that crawled up his pant leg before walking up to the café.

He opened the door but was quickly shut out. He flinched, then tried again. The reason why almost crushed him with the door when he slipped inside. He shoved back, but the fray continued like he wasn’t there.

“I’uz here first,” drawled a burly blond with a curly mullet—a crime in itself, as far as Shad was concerned—while shoving a barrel-chested brunet in a gray hoodie.

“You were waitin’ on the side,” Hoodie said with an even thicker twang as he shoved back.

The rural combatants grabbed each other like the initial lock of a professional wrestling match, Mullet grunting through getting the back of his neck slapped by Hoodie. “It’s—still—in—line.”

“Take yo’ foolishness outta my café,” the wrinkly old woman shouted from behind the counter, jostling the coffee pot in her hand almost to the point of spilling. Sadly, her brew was more likely to settle sooner than her rowdy customers.

Shad wedged himself between the grapplers, splitting them up with his back and his hands. “That’s enough, gentlemen.”

“But—I was—here—first,” Mullet grunted through his attempts to reach Hoodie.

Shad gave them both a final shove and pointed at them both. “That’s enough,” he shouted, then continued firmly yet calmly, “This really isn’t worth fighting over. Now, if you’ll calmly have a seat, I’ll buy you both a coffee. What do you say?”

Hoodie scoffed. “How about a scone while you’re at it, ya smudge?”

Shad fumed at the word, but he kept his cool … and his hand away from his weapon.

Mullet snickered. “Careful, Earl. Don’t want Mister California to lock you up for usin’ yer First Amendment rights now, do ya? You know how they are there.”

Earl the Hoodie snorted.

Shad got in the Earl’s face. “I spent half of my life in Manchester, putting up with bigots like you calling me a lot worse, but I learned better—and, yes, in California. Now, I can lock you up for assault, disturbing the peace, and destroying private property for the mess you made in here … or I can buy you both a coffee—and only a coffee—to take out of here,” he added for Earl’s small-minded awareness. “What’s your pleasure?”

Earl waved him off and headed for the door. “I don’t need nothin’ from some self-righteous halfie.”

Mullet tried to flinch Shad into a mistake, but Shad held his ground. The bigot scoffed and followed the other jerk out the door.

Shad took a few deep breaths with his fingers splayed, trying hard not to ball them into destructive instruments. It seemed his mixed parentage was just as reviled here as it was anywhere else he had lived.

When he opened his eyes, he found a cup of coffee before him in the hands of the café’s elder. “Thanks for that, Dep,” she said. “I can’t always afford to fix what they break.”

Shad forced a grin and took the cup, glancing around for any previous damage. He spotted some scrapes in the paint and a couple of dents in the walls. “I’ve got plenty of leftover paint and spackle at home, if you want some help fixing any of it up.”

The elder’s dark face brightened with a huge smile. “I would not deny ya, child. And don’t you mind them fools. They always fightin’ over somethin’ like Capulet and Montague.”

Shad smiled at the Shakespearean reference. “So, it’s a family thing, then?”

“That’s just the folks around here,” the elder said as she threw up her free hand while rounding the counter and docking her coffee pot, “lashin’ out at everything ’cuz they so afraid of they own shadow.”

Shad sipped his coffee as he approached the counter, smiling from the impressive blend of grounds, nutmeg, and cinnamon coating his tongue. He set the coffee on the counter and pulled his wallet. “Good coffee. How much?”

“On the house, Dep,” the waitress with no name tag said with a wave.

“I can’t do that,” he said as nicely as he could. “I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble.”

The old woman belly-laughed so loudly, it echoed off every metal fixture and picked up behind him from the only other two patrons in the room. “Oh, child. This is my shop. Ax anybody around, they’ll tell ya about ol’ Shonda.”

Shad smiled accommodatingly despite his sudden embarrassment. “You own … Gerald’s?”

“Gerald was my grandpappy, God rest his soul,” she added with a Catholic cross over herself. “Made and ran this place even with every damn whiteboy in the county threatenin’ to burn his black ass outta town. Proud man, he was. You understand.”

He did, all too well. He scanned the menu and pulled the proper dollar for his coffee. “Good coffee. Thanks.”

“‘Never mind the small mind’,” Shonda said while ignoring his payment. “That’s what grandpappy always said. Remember that, and you have yo’self a blessed day, Dep.”

He nodded with a hoist of his cup and turned to leave, only to stop dead in his tracks.

“Excuse me,” the most beautiful woman he had ever seen said softly. Her smile stretched high, bunching up childlike cheeks above a curvaceous frame that was anything but. Her dark gold hair shone in the light much like his, spilling waves down her little shoulders like feathers falling to the ground. Her floral print sundress hugged her form as mindbendingly as the low cut that previewed the nicest pair of—

Shad forced himself to step aside and—with no small amount of satisfaction—watch the young woman head toward the counter, listening to her melodious voice ask with a kind of Slavic accent for seven different kinds of coffee and two drink holders. A secretary, perhaps?

Whatever she was, Ol’ Shonda didn’t seem to like her one bit. The glare she gave the young woman while taking her order could wither the small bouquet of daisies next to the register.

Shad’s watch told him he didn’t have to time to stick around to find out what that was about, though he did enjoy another heavenly smile from the young woman on his way out. His head tingled and his body hummed until he reached his car, which reminded him of his duty. He slipped into his cruiser, reached for the C.B., and reported in, “Dispatch, Duran, situation at Gerald’s resolved. No arrests necessary,” he added without trying to sound bitter.

“Roger, Dep,” Tinder replied, “but I got another caller for you.”

He flinched in a mild grin. “Two in one day? Must be a record for this town. What’s the problem?”

“There’s … a body,” Tinder said.

His head flushed, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. So much for escaping the brutality by leaving Los Angeles. When he regained his senses, he shook it off and keyed back in. “Thanks, Tinder. Have Holt or Dyson meet us.”

“Chief Schoelke asked for you to meet him there alone. You’ll see his cruiser in a clearing to the north a mile past Crowder. He said to be … discreet.”

An odd request over the radio, but he had dealt with enough internal matters to understand—and dread—when things needed to be handled quietly. He started his engine and replied, “On it. Thanks, Tinder.”