A woman has an accident by a church. A one-legged ex-Marine saves her and they endure trouble by an old boyfriend.
THE CHURCHYARD
A Love Story
By
Harvey Mendez and John Edward Young
PROLOGUE
There was no way to grow up in The Crags and not be some kind of tough.
That’s just the way things were. In the ominous moonlit shadow of the ancient
church steeple, the boys played cutting games. They were from generations of strong
people and were tougher than outsiders could ever be.
Scattered throughout the churchyard, most of the weathered headstones were unreadable. The coastal Massachusetts town had been founded in 1678, and some smoother headstones existed almost that far back.
Private, dark, and deadly quiet, mere appearance alone kept most of the town’s residents away after dark. The kids from The Crags all knew the best place to party was in the churchyard at Saint Anthony’s, but it was also good for other things.
The previous caretaker, rough and crusty Old Man Brunson, always raised hell if anyone had dared to soil his domain, but he’d died two years ago, and for almost that long no one had filled the post.
No one bothered the kids there at night now, especially on a wet and windy
Halloween. Zack Hartack, the new one-legged Marine Vet caretaker, had played the
knife cutting games as a kid, but now was only around during the day. He never
hounded them at night and kept the grounds clean and tidy, trashed bottles and junk the
teens left lying around. The place had been the second town dump until Zack cleared it.
CHAPTER ONE
Zack Hartack’s edgy sleep rocked him and his bed where he lay in the church’s basement. Was it the lightning flashes or the thunder clashes that filtered through the single window in the small room? Or was it another nightmare that followed him from battle-torn Afghanistan. He stirred, rolled from his stomach to his back, and gazed at the light show. Just like the battlefield, bombs blasting, weapons firing, men screaming. Would it ever end? He shot his hands to the top of his head and curled into a fetal position. Sweat poured off his forehead, and the trembling began.
Several minutes passed before he calmed down and eased around. Only a moment of relief brought him back before he heard the loud crash. He shook his head, grabbed the flashlight on his nightstand, reached for his crutches, and hobbled out of bed on his remaining right leg.
Throughout the day, the skies had been threatening, and as night came on, thunder and lightning pounded the dark sky above the small town of Craggy Cove. Thank God the light show and rain had let up some. The lone woman glanced out her car window. The wind and mist were bad enough.
The dark day blended seamlessly into one of those dreary stay-at-home
fall nights everyone tried to avoid, but this night she had a Halloween party she’d
promised to go to. Now the woman was on her way home with only a couple of drinks in her, proud of her self-control.
The relentless wind whipped and slashed through the trees on the side of the lonely road that wound around the outskirts of town, her Honda Civic the only car on the road in the storm. In a hurry, she drove faster than she should have and was a little anxious. Friends told her more than once she worried too much. Which worried her.
As she approached the bend in the road just before the creepy old church, a group of young, drunken hooligans wearing masks, who had obviously been partying at a nearby house, stumbled into the street. Startled, she slammed on the brakes, but the car skidded off the embankment and overturned in front of the churchyard.
The sound of shrieking brakes, followed by a deafening crash split the
Halloween night air. The young kids in their scary masks stopped, stared at the
overturned car, then looked at each other. One laughed, soon followed by the others.
They turned to their car, no longer stumbling, as they roared away into the night.
From the entryway of Saint Anthony’s Catholic Church, Zack Hartack swayed on his crutches in the fierce wind as he stared at the disaster about thirty-five feet in front of him. In a few seconds his mind registered there was a wrecked car upside down by the side of the road. The taillights stuck up in the air and smoke drifted from under the hood as Zack hurried to the wreck.
The overturned car’s wheels still spun; the driver’s door was caved in and the window smashed to pieces. He heard moans coming from the front seat; it sounded like a woman. He smelled gas, a bad sign, and hoped it wasn’t leaking fast. The driver was a young female. She hung suspended by her seat belt, head slack, red hair spilling down the ceiling of the car. The air bag had deployed against her chest and she was splattered with blood. Zack tried to pull the door open, but it
didn’t budge. He reached in and took her warm wrist in his hand, felt for a pulse and
Certainly, a suspenseful start to what may be a novel (?). It ends so abruptly, even though it's only supposed to be chapter 1. That may be unintentional.
I learn new things all the time. Recently, I learned that thoughts could be a shown as italics. Before that I always put them in quotation marks with a modifier, he/she thought. There is one sentence that looks like a thought and could be italicized if you like: "Thank God the light show and rain had let up some."
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