The Dark Light of Day (The Dark Light of Day 1)

“You want me to take you over there?” he asked. “It’s not far.”

“Sure.” It was still early, but I figured I could get something to eat before finding a place to crash for the night.

I looked over at Owen as he watched the road, his face illuminated by the blue dashboard lights. I guess he could feel my stare. “What?” he asked with a smile.

“Nothing,” I responded, still unable to take my gaze away from him. There was something about him that was intriguing, different than other boys I knew. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but he seemed almost familiar to me.

“Nuh uh. You have to tell me why you’re looking at me like that.” He turned into the broken shell parking lot of Bubba’s and put the truck in park.

“It’s nothing,” I said. Owen made another face, and I found myself muffling a laugh.

“Tell me, Abby!” He locked the truck from the automatic lock button on his door. “I’m not letting you out if you don’t tell me right now what you were thinking.”

“Fine,” I said, giving in. “Unlock the doors first, and then I’ll tell you.”

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. “Ok, there.” He clicked the button. “Now, tell me.”

Before the words were out of his mouth, I jumped out the door and ran from the truck. When I was almost to the entrance, I looked back and saw Owen’s bright, open smile. He put the truck in reverse, shook his head and laughed as he backed out onto the road and drove away into the night.

Maybe I did have a friend after all.

Maybe.

CHAPTER FOUR

BUBBA’S WAS ALWAYS BUSY, but during the months when the tourists were occupying all the motel rooms and vacation rentals on the island, it was a total madhouse. It mostly happened during the winter, when the snowbirds migrated south, or during a few weeks in summer when families took vacations together.

I knew nothing about either of those.

Vacations or families.

I grabbed a spot at the end of the bar and ordered a burger and fries. I took my time eating, observing all the colorful characters that came out for the night—locals and tourists alike. An older woman with curly maroon hair sat on the lap of a man wearing sweatpants, her use of blue eye shadow was epic, reaching all the way to her eyebrows. A crowd of college kids turned the pool table into a beer pong station. The small dance floor was packed with people who were either rhythmically-challenged or three sheets to the wind. Either way, they all looked like they were having a good time. For a just a moment, I found myself warring with feelings of jealousy. Until I saw a couple of kids my age making out in the corner booth.

The jealousy faded as quickly as it came.

When I finished eating, I ordered another Coke to extend my stay. I was exhausted and certain that I smelled as if my entire body had been beer-battered, deep-fried, and rolled in an ashtray. Still, I stayed until the last person shuffled out of the bar.

“Everything okay, Abby?” Bubba asked. “I was so sorry to hear about Georgie, she was a great woman.” Bubba was older, in his late-sixties with salt and pepper hair. He and Nan would always chat whenever she brought me in for Sunday brunch. I’d once asked her if she’d ever thought about going out on a date with him, but she’d always shrugged it off, as if the idea was as ludicrous as wings on a dog. I always suspected there could’ve been something more between them than just Sunday morning chats.

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” I lied. “Just not tired yet. Figured I’d hang out late.”

Bubba nodded and took out his keys to lock up after me. “Yeah, busy nights like this used to get me all wound up. I wouldn’t be able to get to bed until the sun came up.” He yawned again. “Obviously, those days are behind me.”

“Hey, Bubba, any chance I can trouble you for a job?” I cringed inwardly at having to ask. I knew I wasn’t exactly qualified. For anything. I could easily have told him my sob story about being alone and having no money in an attempt to persuade him, but I didn’t want his pity. More than that, I couldn’t allow myself to sob at my own sob story, so I definitely didn’t want others to.

Bubba looked me over. “How old are you now, Abby?”

“Almost eighteen.” It was sort of a lie, and sort of the truth. Depending on your definition of ‘almost.’

“You ever serve before?”

I shook my head. “No, but I think I’d be really good at it. Nan always talked ‘bout how she used to run her café back in the day, and I always listened to how she would handle the customers. I can do it. I promise.” I didn’t know if that was a lie, too. I had no idea if I could be a good server or not. Now was not the time for honesty.

“Abby, I can’t risk my liquor license by putting you behind the bar. And I can’t let you be a server, ‘cause we’re in the height of season and slammed with people and I got no time to train anyone new. But I tell you what, you come back and see me when you’re eighteen, and we are less busy, and I promise I’ll try and find something for you.”

“Yeah, no problem,” I said, trying to keep a positive tone.

Bubba ushered me to the front door. “Georgie did right by you, darlin’. She was a good woman. Come see me if you need anything. God’s people need to stick together.” I didn’t know if he was talking about me or just Nan when he said ‘God’s people’. And hadn’t I just asked him for help? I nodded and smiled.

I left the bar feeling defeated.

I still desperately needed money. Once the coast was clear of Miss Thornton, and I was back living in Nan’s, I’d need to be able to feed myself—and hopefully keep the lights on. If I couldn’t get a job, I would have to resort to stealing.

Bubba’s words stuck with me as I walked down the main road between the shadows of our town’s few light posts. God’s people stick together. It actually started to make sense to me as I thought about it. If God’s people stuck together, and I was all alone, then I certainly wasn’t one of his people. As much as Nan took me to church and prayed for me, I’d never felt like I was being watched over or taken care of by some higher power. I knew then that this was because I wasn’t one of God’s people.

I probably never had been.

I walked with no destination in mind, with the new knowledge that if there actually was a God, he’d likely forgotten about me from the beginning. It wasn’t even a second after this thought crossed my mind when the ground beneath my feet started to shake, and the bulb on the light pole over me rattled out a warning. The night went dark.

What the fuck?

A single round light, brighter than any I’d ever seen on a car appeared before me, breaking through the darkness and casting away the shadows of the night around me. It sped directly toward me. The rumbling of the earth grew more violent the closer it came. The light overhead buzzed as it struggled its way back to life.

Just when I began to believe it was God himself making his presence known to me, to punish me for my blasphemous thoughts, the thunderous hell-machine that carried the light barreled past me in a blinding blur of chrome, black and blonde. The force of its stream sent me flailing into a nearby thicket of prickly bushes. It wasn’t God. It was just a fucking motorcycle. A big one for sure, but still, just a fucking motorcycle, going at least three times the speed limit.

Just my luck, I thought. I pulled myself up from the brush and bent over to pick the sand spurs and shell fragments from the skin on my calves.

Just my fucking luck.

***

The sound of my own sneezing woke me. I wasn’t surprised. It seemed that if I moved at all, I kicked up a dust bowl and the result was several earth-shattering loud sneezes in a row.

I hated dust.

I hated allergies.

And I definitely hated sneaking into the junkyard behind Frank Dunn’s Auto Body to sleep in Nan’s old truck. She had taken it there in an attempt to get it running again, but since she’d found out it would take over two-thousand dollars to make that happen, it had stayed at Frank’s, untouched for almost a year.

Past experience had taught me that the child welfare social worker types didn’t stake out kids for too long. Once they’d spent a solid twenty-four hours looking for you without any luck, they’d list you as a runaway and move on to the next unfortunate case. So I needed just one night away from Nan’s, maybe two, to make sure that meddling bitch Miss Thornton would be long gone before I went home. I checked the time on my watch. It was almost four in the morning. I figured I could get in another couple hours of undisturbed sleep, so I tucked myself in under my hoodie and closed my eyes.

I tried to ignore the dust and pretend I was home in my bed at Nan’s. I curled up and had almost drifted back to sleep when I was startled by the same thunderous sound that had knocked me to my ass earlier. Careful not to be seen, I sat up and peeked over the dashboard. The yard motion light clicked on, and I saw two figures walking around in the night. They were too far away for me to see them clearly, but I heard a feminine laugh and the click-clack of heels, so one of them was probably a woman.

I quietly sank down to the floorboard under the steering wheel and tried to make myself as small as possible. The last thing I needed was a breaking and entering charge. I think I had one of those already, anyway, and I knew that Frank Dunn wouldn’t be happy with me when he saw the trash can sized hole I’d cut in the fence in order to break into the yard.