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Sand

  Book Three of the Campground Series

  A Novel by JD Jones

  Copyright 2013 by JD Jones

  License Notes:

  All characters, events and places in this novel are fictitious. This is purely a work of fiction, and as such, any resemblance to actual living persons or real places is unintentional.

  Other books in the Campground Series by JD Jones

  Mist

  Dark

  Also read the short story, My Last Testament.

  Chapter One

  Lucius Salvatore walked aimlessly across the dew wet grass of the park. It was dark and quiet at night and there was no one there to tell him to keep off. He hated cops. Always warning him. Always bothering him. Always hindering him. But they were not there at night. They would not come here at night. At night they stayed far away. No one came here at night.

  Only Lucius ventured here at night, now. Once there were several who came. But they were all gone. They had done bad things. They had hurt people. No more. It was quiet now. Happy now. Just Lucius and the sand.

  Moonlight slashing through the trees glinted off the bottle he carried alongside his body. He kept his hands down by habit. No one could see him carry the bottle, but habit had made him cautious long ago. Even now, when caution was no longer called for. With an upward tilt of his head he smiled into the moonlight as he slipped out from under the trees and let the fullness of the moon beams play across his face. He could feel the light. Soft, loving. A gentle caress of nature's own nighttime protector. Always vigilant. Always watchful. Especially for him.

  Lucius did not hurry. Time was not a factor. He had all the time he wanted once the moonlight filled the night. Lifting his arms he whirled around, letting his body drink of the gentle energy of the light surrounding him. It was luxurious, radiant, even warm. He reveled in it. He drank of it as surely as he had been drinking of his bottle earlier. Earlier, when he had to wait for darkness. Earlier, when things were not as good as they were now.

  But now all was right. Once again balance was restored. The balance that came with night and the true light it brought. Moonlight. The true light. The only light by which he could see the sand. And it was the sand that was important. The sand of time. Truth was in the sand. Life was in the sand. Destiny was in the sand.

  Many had laughed when he told them of his discovery. Many had mocked him openly. They did not understand. What he found did not fit into their nicely ordered world. They refused to see. They shunned him for trying to make them see. So well trained academically but, so blind to real knowledge. He had showed them. They had ignored him. Now they were them and he was himself.

  Lucius swirled across the damp grass in a pattern of loops and whirls, dancing himself into the middle of the largest lawn in the park. It was known as the Ocean's Lawn to most but the Place of the Sand to him. There he could see the sand. He could hear it. He could commune with it. He could become one with it.

  One could actually see the ocean from the lawn. Some well meaning politician, or well meaning citizen of high rank, had once thought the view was what was important. They had missed the sand, though. It was everywhere. Even where the grass grew thick, the sand waited underneath. Sure, this was ocean front. Tourists came to visit because of the ocean. But what good is an ocean without any sand? Without sand there is no beaches. No beaches. No tourists. Just ask those rocky beach owners in Maine. How many people spread their blanket out on those rocky shores? No, it wasn't the ocean. It was the sand.

  As soon as he reached the center of the lawn, he stopped his dancing pirouettes. His eyes took on a somber gleam and his smile became more of a lustful leer. Forgotten was the bottle he had dropped somewhere in his ecstatic revolutions. Forgotten was the day he had. Everything meant nothing now. All was fresh and new. There was only the sand. And it came.

  It started as sparkling particles dancing around him in the moonlight. Then it grew to a luminescent cloud swirling first around his feet, eventually rising up and slowly circling his body, at times obscuring his form behind the density of the individual particles.

  Inside Lucius could hear the voices. He could sense the presence of them all. He knew they could sense him as well. Ever so gently he began to turn with the cloud of sand. One step at a time. Then two. Eventually, he matched the speed of the cloud surrounding him. Eventually he became one with the movement, with the sound, with the sand.

  Electric. That was how he had tried to explain it to others once. They had laughed but they had never felt it. Like being with someone you loved, it lifted you up somehow. It energized him. It energized him now. The slow drain of his day was washing away inside the cloud of whirling particles. All that the world had taken away from him was being given back. The Sand replenished. The Sand made it good again.

  Opening his mouth Lucius allowed several grains of the sand to enter in. He tasted of them and loved them as they made their way inside him. He released himself to them and gave them complete control. That was where the energy came from. The Sand had it. The Sand shared it with him when he shared himself with the Sand.

  With the energy came a reason for the energy. There was no sense having energy if he was not going to use it. The Sand had taught him that. And the Sand had much to do. Because he loved the sand, he had much to do. They were kindred spirits now. They were one.

  As quickly as the storm of sand had risen it dissipated. Though the cloud was gone he still felt its presence. That was another thing the Sand taught him. When he was energized he was more aware of the presence. Ordinary people could not sense it because they were too tired, too busy, too preoccupied with themselves. Ordinary people spent their day trying to figure new ways to use up their energy with purposeless things. They had no idea of why the energy was wasted on them in the first place. Only he sensed the presence of the Sand. It was how he knew he was alive. The sand had shown him what real living was. What really being alive was.

  Pictures played across his mind as he concentrated on the renewing of the presence within himself. The taste of the sand was gone from his mouth but the presence was strong in his mind. He told himself he could feel it. It was that strong.

  There was the picture of a man and a woman this time. Both were young. She was pretty. He was tall and looked like a basketball or football star. He was sure she was someone important, too. Sometimes he knew. Sometimes he didn't. It didn't matter to him. All that mattered was the presence. Feeling it and the energy it brought. Being one with it. Everything else was only part of the presence. The presence was everything.

  Noticing the park around him once again, Lucius started moving. His walk was not aimless now. He had purpose. That was another thing the Sand had taught him. Life without purpose is worthless. Lucius was not worthless. The sand gave him purpose. Every Thursday night he had purpose. It was Thursday night. He had something he had to do. The Sand had taught him that too. The Sand had so much knowledge. He owed so much to the Sand.

  Time now became important. Not because it was important to him but because it was important to others. That importance gave him a window of opportunity. Ordinary people could be expected to do things according to the way they viewed time. Unlike Lucius who was part of the Sand and needed no time, no boundaries, ordinary people used time as a tool of their existence. He pictured a clock and knew the time that he was to meet. Setting his shoulders for the walk ahead he pushed on out of the park and into the night that surrounded the small city.

  The Sand had taught him how to move with the night. Like a shadow he slipped from building to building and drew no attention despite the small pockets of people he passed. A clock above a diner showed him how much of the night he had left. 11:25 pm. Like always he had plenty of time. It was the ordinary people who never had enough time. People who filled
their time with things just so they could claim to be busy or important or whatever. Not one of them could explain the importance or the purpose of the things that took up their time. Most of them spent a lot of their time complaining about the things they felt they HAD to do. Ordinary people abused time. Tonight some would have even less time. That was why they needed Lucius. He could show them how to get all the time they needed. Like him they could never worry about time again. Instead of fighting time by trying to steal large quantities of it they could become one with it and lose themselves in it. It was part of his purpose.

  Lucius walked on. No one saw him. No one remembered him. He moved with the sand of time. They moved with the time of their own schedules. Two very different places. He smiled at them as he passed but they saw only their own destinies. They lived in their time with all their friends. He lived in sand time with all the sand. The presence spoke to him even if they would not.

  The Sand Man was coming.

  John Allen Corwin woke in a sweat. Since the death of his young wife, the nightmares had come every night. He dreaded the night. Sometimes it was a creature out of the darkness. Sometimes it was him holding her tightly. Other times, he remembered running a race and losing. But always the ending was the same. In a fog of dark mist, Kathy slipped silently away from him. Her arms outstretched, like she was trying to hold onto him. Her mouth was open like she was screaming, but nothing was coming out. He always cried out to her. He always reached for her. He never got to her. She always disappeared into the depths of the darkness that consumed her. He missed his wife, hated the world and all that was spiritual. Mostly, he dreaded the night.

  As he sat up in the darkness trying to regain his sense of composure, he let his hatred burn. If it did not burn, it would explode. Somehow he knew that without thinking about it too hard. He needed an outlet. Someone or something he could vent all his anger on. Nothing presented itself. So, he let it fume inside him. If he couldn't find a real target, he would hate everything.

  Everything he had ever been taught told him to let it go. Forgive and forget. Move on. Find his way out of the dark place he was in. But he could not move on. The darkness would not let go of him. He could never let go. Or maybe, rather, would never let go. That was how he felt now. Hatred. Anger. Holding on. Barely.

  He could not let go. Letting go meant letting go of Kathy. He would never let go of her. She was what made him whole. He feared that by letting her go, he would lose a part of himself, somehow. That was his life now. Fear. Fear of the night. Fear of the day. Fear of meeting happy people. Fear of never being happy again. It was easier to hate. Easier than the alternative. Letting go.

  Laying back down, he tried to close his eyes. But they were wide, staring into the blackness that was his small bedroom in the camper. It was winter time so the campground was mostly empty, quiet. He had considered what was going to happen if the tourist season arrived and he was still in this funk. So far the only answer he had given himself was to tell them all, “To Hell With You!”

  Rita Paxwood slept warmly in her bed. Her black hair, long and shining across the pillow, cascaded down the edge of the bed. She and her husband, Paul, had been married only seven months. This was one of very few nights they had actually been asleep in their bed before midnight. Each had to get up early for work the next day, not that they had let that stop them before. But the new was wearing off the every night sex and they were becoming more and more comfortable with skipping sex some nights and just cuddling until they fell asleep.

  Lucius peeked through window at them and saw that it was dark. Darkness was no hindrance to him, though. It was his friend. He needed it. He sought it out. Every day, he waited for it to come.

  The two bodies were motionless. Not as motionless as he planned on making them before he was through. He watched for several minutes making sure they were asleep. He was not a very big man. He needed the surprise and the momentary confusion of waking from a sound sleep to do his work. Approaching them when they could see him coming would not do at all.

  Paul laid still so he would not wake Rita. He loved just lying there holding her. In the dark her beautiful features were shadowed but he could remember each characteristic of her face as though the lights were full on. His heart ached as he watched her sleep. No man deserved such a beautiful woman. She was like a gift to the world and he had somehow managed to capture her for himself.

  For so long he had dreaded getting married. Not the solitary bachelor thing. It was not even about sharing his life with her, keeping his own space. He had been so convinced that she could do better than him, that he would not marry her. If he married her, he thought he would be bringing her down to his level. She deserved better. He felt that then and still felt that, to some extent, now. It worried him at night. That was when he could lie awake beside her and think about such things. How was he going to bring her everything she needed and deserved? He barely made enough money to afford this small apartment and a run down car. If she had not already had her own car, he could not have afforded to get her one. And what about children? They had talked about wanting a big family. How was he going to afford children? He sighed softly into the air. Like the other nights since he had agreed to marry her, he came up with no new answers. Maybe tomorrow would hold something new.

  There was a flicker of shadow across the wall where Paul's eyes rested in the semi darkness. A street light from outside beamed through their bedroom window, so they were never really in the dark. Something had crossed in front of the window and made that shadowy flicker. Paul turned towards the window but there was nothing there. Outside, beyond the window, all was as it always was. He turned back to his thoughts and holding his lover. He still could not believe she had chosen him.

  She was beautiful. He was ordinary. She was classy, from a well to do family. He was the son of a drunk who never held a job for more than a month. She had a degree and worked at the hospital. He had most of a degree and had been working at the same tire store as a clerk, slash, manager. He didn't feel lucky. Not for her, at least. He felt like an anchor. She should be going places, meeting people. Not staying here and taking care of him. Not that he allowed her to take care of him. He would not hear of it. They were still working out how they were going to live as man and wife. Every scenario he came up with had her taking care of him as she progressed and prospered at the hospital. That worried him too. His future.

  He heard a noise. Maybe glass breaking? Maybe not. Definitely not a normal nighttime noise, though. He unwrapped his arms from Rita and slid gently out of bed so as not to wake her. There it was again. A clicking, tinkling sound. It sounded to Paul like it was coming from the back of the house. He moved into the shadows of the hallway and softly made his way to the back of the house. He slipped into the living room when he heard a noise from the kitchen. A drawer opening. Someone was inside the house.

  Paul's adrenaline kicked in. Not fear. Excitement. His nerves all awoke and set themselves to ready. His muscles pulsed with the pounding of his heart. His pupils dilated to allow as much light as possible through. His entire body heard the noise, assessed the potential threat and created a response before he even finished picturing the situation.

  Moving to the closet, he reached for his softball bat in the corner. They had still not found a place to put his sports equipment in this small apartment. Rita had needed the closet for her things. His stuff was still piled in the corner outside. The bat felt familiar and comforting in his hands. A thirty four inch, aluminum length of defense weapon now. Quietly he moved back to the hallway.

  A few more quiet steps and he was at the doorway to the kitchen. Slowly he leaned his head around the door jamb and peeked inside. It was a small room with no obstacles to hide behind. In a couple seconds, he assessed the situation, realizing the room was empty. No intruder here. Another breath and he saw the broken window at the back door. The small pane of glass just above the handle. Another breath and he saw the drawer that he had heard opening. It was sti
ll open. It was the silverware drawer. That puzzled him. There were half a dozen drawers in the kitchen. How had the intruder known which drawer he wanted to look in? What did he want there? Then the biggie. Where was the intruder now?

  Paul's eyes widened in realization. Rita! He barely kept himself from calling out her name and alerting the intruder. His movements back down the hallway were not as stealthy as they had been coming this way. Quiet, but not slow any longer. A scared urgency drove Paul forward to protect his wife.

  With softball bat raised in readiness, he entered the bedroom at the front of the house and saw a shadow against the wall immediately. The shadow distracted him from the actual body that made the shadow, giving the intruder precious seconds to react to the surprise attack. The result was that Paul's swing landed against the intruder's side instead of on his head as planned.

  Paul was not a super athlete but he was a big, young man in pretty good shape. Knowing his first swing missed, he did not rail back for a second. Instead, he lunged forward letting his body knock the intruder away from the bed, where Rita now came awake at the disturbance. Paul saw her move back across the bed in fear, not fully realizing what was going on. He heard her short scream of surprise to find two people scuffling beside her bed.

  The intruder tried to move sideways, as to attack Rita and Paul moved to block. His bat was ready for a second swing and he drove through the ball as his old baseball coach had always taught him. The blow caught the intruder in the shoulder and drove him across the room with the cracking of some bone, satisfying Paul's sense of athleticism somewhat. By the way the intruder grabbed at the upper part of his left arm, Paul assumed he had broken the bone there. He planned on breaking the man's head as soon as opportunity presented itself.

  Then the light from the street flashed off something metallic in the man's right hand. Paul quickly assessed it was a knife. Possibly one of the steak knives from the drawer that was open in the kitchen. Again he wondered how the intruder knew which drawer to look in. He also thought how much he disliked those ugly knives when Rita's parents had given them to them. It was a strange, random thought that flowed easily with all the other thoughts running through his head now. Like the way the man was focusing on Rita. Why was he still focusing on her when he was facing a husband with a bat? What was the guy doing in their house at all? It was not like they had anything worth stealing. Was this guy on drugs? Was he crazy? Was he a rapist and not interested in stealing?

  Didn't matter. The intruder lunged for Rita. She was curled up in a defensive ball at the headboard of the bed. Paul let him take one step and then attacked again with an overhanded chop trying to sever the relationship between the knife and the man's hand. He didn't care which he caught. The intruder made a quick feint forward and then pulled his arm back, side stepping the powerful swing of the bat. The effort pulled Paul off balance. He had planned on the contact helping him maintain balance. The lack of contact drew him further forward than he wanted to go, placing him directly in the path of the intruder's advance, with his back exposed.

  It felt like fire and ice driving through him all at the same time. A tearing, burning sensation that opened up his lower back, quickly freezing into an icy state of unbelief as the intruder's movement drove the knife into Paul's back. Knowing he had been severely cut, Paul jerked away from the attacker doing more damage to flesh and muscle as the attacker held firmly onto the knife.

  Didn't matter. Paul would have to be dead three days before that intruder was going to get to Rita. He steeled himself against the pain and set his feet for another attack of his own. His lunge and cover up at the pain in his back had put him out of position to be between the intruder and Rita. He now adjusted that situation and came once again squarely between the intruder and his wife.

  If the intruder was surprised at Paul's resilience, he didn't show it. His stance said he planned on finishing this deadly attack and nothing was going to stop him. Paul could not see the man's face clearly enough to define any features, but he swore he saw the flash of a smile. That unnerved him. The verdict was now crazy. Only a crazy man attacked others and smiled while he was doing it.

  Logic was out. Crazy people had their own logic. Maybe this guy thought they were some danger to the world or to his family or to himself. Whatever it was, this intruder had designated them as the problem. That was the only logic that prevailed right now. Paul assessed his situation and knew that he had to end this quickly. He was cut badly. If this went on too long, he was not sure he'd be around to end it. So, the answer was clear for Paul. No more fooling around. The next blow would be to kill. There was neither time nor alternative opportunity. Kill or be killed. Protect Rita or let her die at the hands of this madman. The choice was easy for Paul. He would have killed his best friend if he tried to harm Rita. Killing this crazy intruder was not even a moral choice. It was just the good choice.

  The intruder feinted left, towards the window. Paul bit for it and found his arm slashed hurriedly as the crazy guy jerked back towards the center of the room and Rita. The cut tore deeply into Paul's arm. Blood was flowing and dripping onto the carpet beneath him. He had no mind for such things. The intruder was moving towards Rita again. Swinging from where he was, Paul just could reach the back of the man now slipping between his wife and himself. The blow swung the man sideways, away from Rita and causing his knife thrust to go into the pillow beside her. She screamed and drew back to the other side of the bed as Paul's body crashed down on the man crushing him into the mattress and pinning him there.

  Paul dropped the bat and set to punching the man in the face and throat again and again. Twice the man's hand flashed out and drove the knife into Paul's abdomen. Twice Paul grunted as Rita screamed again and again. But Paul would not be thwarted. He could feel the knife stabs. Hot and cold at the same time. Pain like he had never known before. But he would not abandon Rita. She was his focus as surely as she had been the focus of the intruder only a few seconds before.

  Again and again his blows landed on the man's face and throat. Finally the man quit moving. Paul pounded a few more shots into the man's throat making sure that whatever was crushed in there stayed crushed forever. With some surprise, he found himself utilizing his first aid training and feeling for a pulse in the man. Nothing. Dead. Good.

  With a fatigue he had never imagined possible, Paul slipped back off the man and allowed his body weight to carry him to the floor. He was conscious of his blood pumping and leaving his body in immense proportions. He heard Rita screaming at someone. He wondered who. He looked back to the lifeless body of the intruder and knew he had nothing to fear from that quarter. That man was not going to bother anyone ever again. So, who was Rita screaming at.

  Then he was outside his body. Paul was not a religious man. He had only been to church once in his whole life and that was to get married. He believed there was an afterlife but had no idea what it would look like. He had no idea if only good people enjoyed an afterlife or if there was a bad place for the bad people. He had never really considered any of those things. Suddenly, those things seemed important.

  A woman at a fair one time prayed with him. He believed in God and she told him it was necessary for him to pray that prayer in order to get to heaven. Well, his friends were going to heaven so he wanted to go too. He didn't remember the prayer, now. It was a long time ago. He did remember that she had said he had to live right from then on, whatever that meant. He had lived his life to be counted a good man, helping when he could, not hurting people, being just the opposite of what he figured his father was. He wondered now if maybe he should have gone to church to learn about some of this after life stuff.