The Felstrom Legacy

The Felstrom Legacy

By Lee W. Lindsay Jr.

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Lee W. Lindsay Jr.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Acknowledgments:

My thanks to all my friends who read the drafts of this story and encouraged me to see it published. Special thanks to my wife, Sylvia, for her editing, comments and help.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

About the Author

Chapter 1

Hold that damn light still. The seventeen-year-old, dark-haired, man snapped as he spun around to face the girl.

Jose Martinez smiled as he watched Janet Lindle fumble to grab the flashlight with both hands to steady the shaking light. The stupid bitch was scared, he thought as he looked down the dark, narrow hallway. He sucked in smoke from the cigarette dangling from his mouth, then slowly blew out a stream of smoke, adding the smell of burnt tobacco to the dusty, mildew smell of the old house. They were in the middle of a hallway. One end of the hallway had a staircase to the second floor of this wing of the house. The end he was facing, the way they had come in, ended in a blank wall, several feet from the doorway they had come through. They had entered through the parlor with its furniture covered in dusty gray cloths. From the parlor you could go to the entry hall with the double doors that lead outside. Why the stupid old man who had the place built didn't just have the entry way open to the hallway, shit, who knew? From all the stories Jose had heard growing up, old Felstrom was whacked. Crazy as he had been rich. Jose glanced at the side of the hallway opposite the parlor.

Directly across from the parlor doorway was the doorway to the room with the big-ass dining room table. The table was so big you could hardly move around it. Jose looked at the walls.

What a stupid place, he thought, with pink and white-striped wallpaper and wood paneling. Hallways were in the middle of the house and you had to go through other rooms to get to them. His grandfather had told him that Jose's great-grandfather came up from Mexico and his first job was working for Job Felstrom. He helped build this house and the hospital that was now the Felvale Resort. That crazy old man, Felstrom had built the town and gave it the stupid name of Felvale. Jose shook his head. He could have come up with a better name than that. Still some of the stories of Felstrom's weird experiments were cool. Most of the scariest and best were probably bullshit, but he liked to think some were true. Jose sucked in some more smoke and slowly exhaled as he dropped the cigarette butt on the floor and crushed it with his foot.

He turned to look at the wall facing the front of the house. Other than the door to the parlor there was a door that lead to a room with a desk and a bunch of books. Nothing worthwhile in there. The wall to the back of the house only had the entry to the dining room and two pictures that hung on the wall, covered in dusty cloth. Jose had peeked underneath the dirty, gray cloths that hid the pictures. One showed a bunch of guys in stupid clothes watching another guy cutting someone open. A bunch of doctors without the scrubs. Kind of cool, but he liked the second picture better. A man in armor, holding a blood-stained sword, standing over a bunch of dead people. Lots of blood in that one. It would be neat to be the guy in that armor, Jose thought. Strong and powerful and no one gives you any shit or they end up dead.

Yeah, give him that sword and armor and he would have a few bodies piled up around him. People who looked down on him, like his old man. Stupid, old loser. Always getting down on Jose because he got in trouble a couple of times. Big deal. Just because his old man was too scared to take a chance at winning the big prize, was no reason for him to take it out on Jose. His dad played it safe and played by the rules. Jose figured rules were just there to keep people like him down.

Jose turned and strutted down the hallway, running his fingers along the top of the wood panel, leaving a clean streak in the dust. Jose looked back and forth between the two walls as he walked closer to the stairs. Yeah, Janet was scared enough to just about piss herself. Still, he liked her well enough, as long as she did what she was told. And this place didn't scare him. Not when there was supposed to be treasure hidden somewhere.

Jose stopped at the end of the hallway, facing the side of the steps that went to the second floor. He knew that the only way to this part of the house, the wing that came off the main part of the house, was through this hall and up these stairs. It was as though Felstrom wanted the second floor of the wing cut off from the rest of the house. The stairs started in a recessed area of the left wall and turned to go up to the second floor.

Jose looked at the wall that covered the area under the stairs. It would be wasted space but he couldn't see a door. He paused. A section of the wallpaper was torn and he could see darkness, a hole in the wall. Jose turned and waved for Janet to come closer.

Jose watched as Janet ran her fingers through her short, tousled, blonde hair, the bangs coming over her blue eyes. Her thin face was drawn and she looked toward the ground. Jose grinned as he watched her shuffle her skinny body toward him. She didn't have very big tits for a fifteen-year-old. Not that he cared. She did what he told her to, jumped when he spoke and he screwed her when he wanted. Someday, when he was rich, he would find a real woman, but Janet would do for now.

Jose looked back at the hole. Janet stepped up beside him and he grabbed the flashlight out of her hand, pointing the beam of light at the hole. It wasn't quite chest high. He fingered the loose paper, folding it back and then poking the wall under the paper.

Yeah, he said as he shoved the flashlight back at Janet, the hole's bigger. He reached out and tore off a strip of the wallpaper.

Janet gasped. Jose, don't! You'll get in trouble if you...

Jose turned and snarled. Shut your face, you stupid bitch, and don't tell me what I can't do. Get over here so I can see inside. He raised his hand and smiled as she flinched.

Jose grabbed her arm and jerked the girl closer. He bent down, putting his eye close to the hole. A puff of air exhaled from the hole, carrying a dry, musty smell. Jose saw a glint of green. The light disappeared, darkness swallowing the green glitter. Jose spun around, snarled and slapped the girl.

Hold the light still, you stupid idiot, Jose said as she raised a hand to her face, her cheeks flushed and Jose saw the muscles of her jaw bunch. I can't see shit if you wave that thing around.

Janet swallowed. I heard something, she said in a tight voice, as she pointed the light toward a fat sixteen-year-old boy shambling toward them, munching a Butterfinger candy bar. It's Billy. she aimed the light toward the floor.

Big whoop. Jose said as the large boy lumbered to a stop ten feet away. What did you find, tubby?

Billy crammed the last of the candy bar into his mouth, smearing chocolate around his lips, and dropped the wrapper so it fluttered down to rest where the wooden paneling joined the dusty carpet. Didn't find nothing, he said, his high pitched voice echoing as he pulled a Snickers bar out of his jacket.

Jose grunted. Billy had blonde hair, like his sister, but otherwise they were totally different. She was small, muscular and skinny; he was a two-hundred-and-sixty pound mass of soft blubber. His face was so broad that his mouth, eyes and nose seemed tiny, lost in the round pale globe of his head. Janet walked in a soft, graceful way, while Billy moved in a rolling gate, swinging his legs around each other. At times, Jose could hardly believe that Billy could move. In a few years, he thought, Billy will end up on the cover of some national gossip rag as the fattest kid in the world.

I'm sure you looked real hard. Jose laughed as he grabbed Janet's arm, pulling her around. I told you to hold that damn light still. He shook her and squeezed.

Janet gasped and winced. Yes, Jose, she said.

Jose let go of her arm. Maybe it was time to remind her what it meant to be his girl. He turned, then glanced back over his shoulder. She was looking down, but he could swear that she had glared at him. Yeah, he thought, definitely time to have some fun and remind her of her place. He'd been too easy lately, been soft. He felt himself get hard as he thought about it. No, not now, he thought, later.

***

It's always later than you think, thought Lewis Templer as he looked at the setting sun, as cliche a thought as that is, it seems to be true. He shivered as he looked at the mountains. Not the lonely, warm, brown and dark green of the mountains around Tucson, Arizona, but dark, cold, gray, jagged mountains with their white, gleaming peaks of ice and snow, looming over the highway. They made him think of teeth, like he was a snack sitting inside a dragon's mouth, staring out at the setting sun. Sometimes, he thought, it's too late.

But why should he be thinking stuff like that, he wondered. It's not like there's any obvious danger in the next sixty miles between here and Seattle, Washington. He had lived in Tucson for most of his life, so he should be able to handle the big city life in Seattle. He knew things were different, Tucson was open, warm and fairly flat, while pictures of Seattle showed it to be more hills, cool and green. He blinked his tired eyes, trying to clear the weary blurriness out of them.

Lewis glanced at the thick Douglas fir, maple and red cedar trees along the north fork of the Stillaguamish River. The edges of SR 530 had patches of yellow where the scotch broom was blooming. The scenery was pretty enough along the winding highway, yet in the last few miles, Lewis had felt an uneasy sense of danger. He shook his head. That was silly. The whole idea of leaving Tucson was to get his head together. The strangest thing he had seen this whole trip was the sign coming up.

Lewis turned on his headlights and the sign jumped out of the shadows of the trees. The image of a resort building with a small lake provided the background, while in the left corner was a large F combined with a twisted caduceus. The medical symbol gave the letter wings. Creepy, he thought as he read the sign which said Stop in at the Felvale Resort and Golf Club and Visit Scenic Felvale. Lewis hadn't even noticed Felvale on the Washington map and, given a choice, he would drive on through any town with such an odd logo. He yawned. The trouble was, he was too tired to make it to the next town beyond Felvale.

A second sign flickered in the growing darkness like a ghost. Stay at the Shady Tree Inn in Beautiful Felvale. Again, it had the logo. Whoever developed that logo, thought Lewis, had some serious problems, and not very good taste. He shivered, and the name is kind of creepy as well. And since when does a town have a logo like that? He yawned again.

He needed to stop soon or he would pass out. He ran his fingers through his blonde hair, tugged the neck of his blue t-shirt, then gripped the steering wheel with both hands as he took his six-year-old Honda through a curve. The road sloped down and Lewis could see an orange glimmer of sunlight reflecting off a lake. Another sign announced the Felvale cemetery ahead on the right. Just the thing, thought Lewis, to promote your town. He sighed. He had been on the road too long, traveling through Utah, Idaho, and into Canada, and now back through Washington. Miles between him and Tucson.

His family had moved to Tucson when he was six, and in the last thirty years he had never left the state until now. Running to escape the memories of his ex-wife and supposed best friend. Memories that hung over him like the chains on Marley in A Christmas Carol. He shook his head. Drama, much? He looked at the next sign. Welcome to Felvale, population 1,250. Founded in 1943. He felt a sudden urge to turn around and drive away.

Lewis laughed. It must just be his natural aversion to a small town, a place without a Starbucks coffee shop or a big mall. He spotted the cemetery, then the concrete wall blocked the view of the gravestones, mainly shadows against the lawn in the fading light. Blackberry bushes crawled over part of the wall. A lonely, dark place, he thought, a place that would be a good setting for his game and he could throw in some ghosts and zombies. They were popular nowadays. Lewis reached down and unclipped his pen from the open, spiral notebook on the seat beside him and scribbled a note letting up on the gas to slow down as he passed a 35 mile per hour sign.

Lewis finished the note and looked out the left side of his car and slowed some more, pulling off to the side of the road. A dark, cutout of a mansion stood out on top of a shadowy silhouette of a hill. Black against the fading, blue sky that grew darker as Lewis took in the blocky shape of the central part of the mansion, a single wing and a pointed tower that rose up where the two joined.

Cool. said Lewis. That would be way cool to put in the game.

He scribbled another note in his notebook, then re-clipped his pen to the page and looked around as he pulled back onto the road. He came to the first intersection and squinted at the street sign. He shook his head. So did Job Avenue refer to getting a job or was it a biblical reference? He looked over at a white building with a sign reading Stop-In-Diner. People were sitting and moving behind the windows. The tattered, faded awnings were gray-green and gray-red in the fading light and the dim streetlight that sent a pale, yellow light over the diner. Lewis rolled down his window for some air and the scent of grilled meat drifted in with the cool mountain air.

On the other side of the street was a narrow, red-brick building with Bar painted in big white letters on the side. Several old cars and pickups were parked in the lot next to the bar. As he came up to the next intersection, he saw a small, square house on the left with its porch light illuminating a small patch of lawn bordered by half a dozen skimpy carnations.

Lewis crossed Pine Avenue, where a boarded up house sat on the corner. He noted a Quick-Mart with gas pumps and a single car parked in front. Then he blinked, wondering if he was so tired he was dreaming. On the left was a long building with faded, yellow paint, and faded, green trim. Ugly, faded daisy flowers in blues, reds and greens were painted on the wall. It reminded Lewis of an old VW bus he had seen in southern Idaho that was driven by gray-haired Dead-heads who kept playing Truckin' all the time. The sign over the building said Recycled Treasures. Lewis shook his head. An antique store by any other name is still over-priced. He took note of the laundromat and reminded himself he needed to wash his clothes. Just beyond the laundromat was the Shady Tree Inn. The windows were dark and the neon sign read vac.n.y. Lewis pulled into the empty parking lot as a faint feeling of uneasiness washed over him. He yawned. Too late now, he thought, I couldn't go any further tonight if I wanted to.

***

Janet knew it was too late to stop Jose as she tried to hold the light steady. Her face flushed as she remembered the sting of the slap. How dare he, she thought, feeling an impotent anger burn inside her stomach. She let out a slow breath. The trouble was, she let them do it. Her father expected her to clean the trailer they lived in, to do the laundry and cook. Then, every so often, he would come into her room at night. And she let him! Her brother would do the same thing, when he was sure Father wouldn't catch him. And she let him! None of them gave a damn how she felt. She had to find a way out. If Jose found dumb, old Felstrom's treasure, maybe she would get enough to leave them and this stinking town. Not that Jose was ever generous with anything but cruelty. But, sometimes, if he made a big haul, he would share. And that might be enough.

But it didn't matter. Enough was enough. She could put up with Jose using her for sex, but she couldn't put up with the pain and humiliation any more. She looked at Jose's slender back. He looked handsome, but smelled of stale cigarette smoke with a slight scent of mildew. An example of how someone can look good and still be a cruel asshole. Even if on occasion, he could be kind, it wasn't enough. Jose was the best looking and the worst of the men she knew. How do you fight someone like him? She once saw him catch a cat, then beat it to death. He was just as likely to beat her to death if she wasn't careful. She wasn't strong, not like her father or Jose, so she was never sure how to fight them. But she remembered what her mother always said. Bend, but don't let them break you. but her mother wasn't around anymore and Janet knew she couldn't take much more without breaking. Time to fight back, even if it was in small ways. Or time to run, she thought, if you can't fight.

Jose grunted. Janet looked up as he bent lower.

Janet watched as Jose shoved his arm into the hole, his tongue sticking between his lips. His muscles contracted and flexed as he moved his hand around. Then he jerked back, crying out as he yanked his arm out of the hole and grabbing his index finger.

Shit! Something stung me. Janet stepped closer and held the light on his hand as she saw a drop of clear fluid with a tint of green well out of a small puncture in his finger. Some fucking spider, I'll bet. growled Jose, as he stuck his finger into his mouth.

Maybe I'll be lucky and it's poisonous, thought Janet as she pointed the light toward the hole and took a step closer. Two green eyes glittered, looking out of the darkness. She smiled as a pointed, gray face with bright white whiskers appeared and an impossibly large cat with a notch missing from one ear, oozed out of the hole to land lightly on the floor. Janet stared as the cat looked up at Jose. Jose pulled his finger out of his mouth, frowning. The cat sneezed. It looked at Janet, blinking eyes that seemed to sparkle with humor. Then the cat turned, brushing against Janet's leg and walked down the hall.

Janet forced her face into a neutral expression and looked at Jose. He watched the cat move past Billy. Then Jose's eye went wide as the cat flicked its tail into the air like a banner of victory. Jose growled and stomped his foot.

Get that fucking cat! Janet jumped as he grabbed her. It must have bitten me and it probably has rabies or something. he shook her. Get that damn cat so I can kick its damn brains out.

Janet gasped as Jose shoved her. She stumbled and fell to the floor, banging her knees. Tears came to her eyes, but she fought them back as she stood up and turned to face Jose.

No, she said. It's too late to catch him and he didn't bite you. That was a sting not a bite or claw mark on your finger.

Jose grabbed her and shoved her against the wall. Janet sneered at him. You going to show me how tough you are? Janet wondered what was wrong with her mouth and braced herself for a couple of good slaps. She was surprised when Jose let go of her.

Yeah, it's gone now. You two are a couple of useless turds. You wouldn't be able to catch that cat if it just sat there and waited for you. he grabbed her and turned her toward the other end of the hall. Now, we might as well go back to my place and someone, he gave her a shove, can do something useful for once.

Janet swallowed. Oh, goody, she thought, I get to lay there and sound all excited while you prove what