Dark Creations: The Hunted (Part 4)

Dark Creations:

The Hunted

A
novel

By Jennifer and Christopher Martucci

This book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

DARK CREATIONS:
THE HUNTED

Published by Jennifer and Christopher
Martucci

Copyright © 2012
Jennifer and Christopher Martucci

All rights reserved.

First edition: July 2012

There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.
–
Ernest Hemingway

The turbulent rise of heat radiating from the pavement caused the air just above it to quiver and shimmer on the blistering mid-July afternoon.  Shannon Leary groaned aloud at the thought of stepping back out into the unbearable heat, of leaving the comfortably cool temperature of the supermarket and traipsing across the parking lot to her car.  But she needed to get home.  Her company would be arriving shortly, and most of the groceries in her cart needed to be prepared before her guest’s arrival.  She paid the cashier and paused briefly, enjoying the crisp, indoor air a moment longer before continuing toward the exit.  Her presence before a set of motion activated doors caused them to swing open. 

As her foot stepped down on the sidewalk beyond the doorway, she was met with a wall of stifling air.  The humidity was so high, the air so thick, she found it difficult to breathe.  She felt as though she were walking through a dense, viscous substance, invisible but resistant; it was an effort to
push through it.  A bead of sweat trickled down between her shoulder blades as she struggled against the atmosphere across the parking lot toward her minivan.  An ice-cream cake sat perched precariously in the basket of her shopping cart as the sun scorched from overhead.  She looked down at the cake and doubted it would fare well with the sun, the heat and the humidity conspiring against it. 
She
wasn’t faring well, couldn’t expect something as fragile as a decorated lump of ice cream to survive the recent heat wave.  She stopped suddenly, and forgot about the fate of the ice-cream cake for a moment as a distinct pain spread across her midsection.  Her abdomen contracted involuntarily.  She hunched over instinctively and clutched it.  An elderly man passing stopped, looked at her belly and asked her if she needed help. “Ma’am, are you okay?  Should I call an ambulance?” he asked.

Shannon was having trouble catching her breath, and could not answer right away.

“Ma’am, I’m going to get help okay?” he said as he fumbled in his pants pocket for his cellular phone.

She raised a hand to protest but still could not get sufficient air in her lungs to speak.

“Just hold on, okay,” he said struggling to sound calm.

Finally, the sensation subsided and she could breathe again.

“That won’t be necessary.  Please, you don’t need to call an ambulance.  I’m fine, sir.  Thank you.”

“Are you sure?  You didn’t seem fine just now.”

“I’m fine, really.  Thank you, though.”

He narrowed his eyes and looked at her warily.  Suspicion etched his deeply creased features.  When whatever inner lie-detection system he believed he possessed indicated that she was, in fact, okay, he relaxed a bit.

“Alrighty then.  Just don’t want to see you deliver that baby here in the lot is all,” he said and gestured again to her pregnant belly.  

“I promise I won’t do that,” she assured the concerned stranger.

“You take care, ma’am,” he replied and walked away.

Though she had told the man she was fine, she was not entirely convinced of her own words.  Her Braxton-Hicks contractions had not been so strong during her first pregnancy. What she had just experienced felt a lot like labor pains.  But thankfully, the pain had passed rather than persisted.  The oppressive heat had likely instigated their intensity.  Her shirt had dampened considerably and she realized, courtesy of a curt horn honk, that she was standing in the middle of the A & P Food Store parking lot on a busy Saturday afternoon.  She waved to the impatient driver and walked as quickly as she could out of his way.   Walking had become more difficult in recent weeks, her stride more of a waddle than a gait.  Her changed center of gravity, along with the extra twenty pounds she was carrying, had joined forces and gave her a bearing that more closely resembled a duck than a woman.  But both her extra pounds and her walking style would disappear soon, after her son was born. 
She smiled at the thought of meeting her unborn child as she continued though the lot and found her minivan. 

Once at her car, she fumbled in her purse for her keys.  After digging through an assortment of random items that would never have been there five years earlier, she found them and pressed a button to open the trunk.  She moved as quickly as her pregnant body allowed her and placed her packages inside before she climbed into the driver’s seat, cake in hand, started the car and turned the air conditioning on full blast.   The cake looked runny and sad; her episode moments earlier had taken a toll on it. She placed the cake on the passenger seat, tipped her head back against the headrest and breathed deeply while she waited for the car to cool.  Thoughts of holding her newborn son swirled in her mind as she tried to ignore the sweltering heat.  Sweat stippled her forehead and chest.  The car struggled to contend with the weather as the temperature inside remained stuffy and insufferable. 

Her clothes were moistened with perspiration, as well as her hair.  The van could not cool soon enough.  She wanted nothing more than to be home and in the shower with cool water running over her body.  Instead, she was roasting in her car, sweaty clothes clinging to her skin, waiting for the temperature to drop to a level bearable enough to operate it with a semblance of concentration.  While she waited impatiently for that level to be reached,
she glanced at herself in the rearview mirror. Her auburn curls, the ones that weren’t plastered to her forehead, were a frizzy, shriveled mess. Her cheeks were flushed.  She looked as disheveled as she felt.  The only redeeming factor in her ruffled overall appearance was that the skin around her pale-blue eyes bore virtually no trace of her thirty-four years. 
I guess
listening to mom paid off
she thought and chuckled. Her mother had warned her of the negative effects of sun exposure on fair, Irish-American skin like hers.  Thanks to those warnings, she regularly applied sunscreen and enjoyed an appearance far more youthful than her years. She
felt
each of her thirty-four years, perhaps more, but at least
looked
younger.

As the air in the car began to
cool and become more comfortable, Shannon scooped her unruly curls up off of her shoulders and arranged them in a loose bun. She checked her reflection in the mirror again and found it to be only slightly more acceptable, then pulled out of her parking space. She needed to hurry home and prepare for her daughter’s fourth birthday party.  Family and friends would be gathering to celebrate.  She would get to take her cool shower eventually, but not before unpacking and readying the groceries, straightening the house and dressing the birthday girl.  She would tend to herself last.  If she hurried though, she would have ten minutes to relax before her guests arrived.  Answering her desperate need for a short period of relaxation, Shannon slightly increased the pressure her right foot placed on the gas pedal and the minivan accelerated.  She exceeded the speed limit of forty-five miles per hour minimally and traveled at fifty miles per hour instead. Unfortunately going faster wasn’t going to guarantee her a break before the party. 

Shannon glanced in her rearview mirror.  As she looked up, she saw flashing lights behind her and any hopes of respite were squashed.

Shannon pulled into the right lane and then to the shoulder.  The police cruiser pulled up behind her, his lights a dizzying display of strobe lights.  She desperately wanted to leave the car running, more specifically, the air conditioning; the air had just become cool enough to be tolerable.  But she knew that a running car was not in keeping with standard police protocol during traffic stops.  She had gotten a speeding ticket just two months earlier.  Unfortunately, that ticket hadn’t been her first.  She had had several throughout the years and had earned the title of “lead foot” in her family.  She was all too familiar with the procedure of getting a traffic ticket.  Reluctantly, she lowered her window and tuned the key in ignition toward her.  The cooling effect was interrupted immediately.  She opened her glove compartment and grabbed her registration and insurance information then searched her wallet for her driver’s license.  With all of the necessary information in her hands, she watched her side-view mirror and silently hoped the police officer would move a little faster; the heat was becoming more and more insufferable by the second. 

When finally the cruiser door opened and a man stepped out, Shannon gasped.   Tall and strapping, the man approaching was the most handsome she’d ever seen.  His appeal surpassed any man in Hollywood.  His skin was a perfect, sun-kissed shade of bronze and his hair, short and neat, was thick and black.  She could not see his eyes; they were covered by mirrored aviator sunglasses.  He walked toward her minivan slowly, assuredly.  She quickly looked from the side-view mirror to the rearview mirror and looked at herself.  Her reflection made her wince.  Her unkempt appearance was embarrassing.  Before she had time to dig through her purse for her makeup bag, he was at her open window.

“Good afternoon, ma’am.  Can I see your license and registration?” he said and removed his sunglasses. 

With his sunglasses off, he made direct eye contact with her.  When he did so, she felt her heart begin to race and suddenly felt lightheaded.  She was shocked that staring into his eyes could generate such a reaction.  After all, she was far removed from schoolgirl responses like the one she’d just had.  Marriage, children and minivans had been apt deterrents.  But his face, his eyes in particular, were mesmerizing. They were a breathtaking shade of green so pale they appeared translucent.  In her peripheral vision, she saw that he smiled broadly showing white, even teeth.

In all of her years of experience with law-enforcement officers, having received many citations, she had never encountered one who asked for her documents so politely, and with such a dazzling smile and pastel green eyes.

“What’s the problem, Officer?  I wasn’t speeding, was I?” she asked though she knew she was going roughly five miles per hour faster than the posted limit.

“Don’t worry ma’am.  You were driving just fine.  We are on the lookout for a vehicle similar in description to yours,” he said and smiled again.

She felt enchanted by his radiant eyes and equally radiant smile as she handed him her paperwork and he assured her he would be back soon.  She felt incapable of a verbal response and nodded goofily as he turned from her.  She felt color unrelated to the sweltering heat redden her face as she watched him walk away.  He looked as good going as he did coming.  His body was strong and fit.  His uniform did little to conceal the contours of well-formed muscles. As soon as he was out of sight and back in his patrol car, she ransacked her purse in search of anything that would help with her looks.  She found medicated lip balm, hand sanitizer, and antacid tablets.  Her makeup bag was nowhere in sight.  She had likely left it on her bureau opting for more practical items such as the ones in her hand.  She fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat, still huddled over her purse, helpless to improve her appearance.   She stopped rummaging and looked up in time to see him return. 

He returned just as he’d left, with the same slow stride of a confident, powerful man.  She watched him in her side-view mirror until he was a few steps from her window.  When his form filled the frame, he bent down and smiled affably.

“Here’s your license and registration back, ma’am.  Everything checked out.  You’re not a fifty-five-year- old man suspected of kidnapping his grandson as it turns out,” he said and laughed.  “You have a similar looking vehicle, though, so I had to check.  Sorry for the inconvenience, for making you wait without the air conditioning and all.”

“No problem Officer.  I hope you catch the person you’re looking for soon so you can stay in your air-conditioned cruiser a bit too,” she smiled.

“This heat is something else, isn’t it?” he said pleasantly.

“It’s miserable.  I have no tolerance for heat and humidity like this,” she replied.

“I would imagine you don’t in your condition.  How far along are you?” he asked.

“I’m six and a half months pregnant,” she told him and felt slightly embarrassed that he had noticed her swollen belly.  She was not ashamed of being pregnant per se, just of looking like the sweaty mess she was, and being pregnant to boot. 

“Six and a half months. Excellent!  That’s exactly what I figured,” he said matter-of-factly, the friendliness of his earlier tone was gone completely.