Balance of Darkness E-Book

George S. Frost

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

A strange big creature visits the Earth; Two men take the law into their own hands; A boy and a girl get in the middle of it all... How will it all end?

Leseprobe

George S. Frost

Balance of Darkness

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG80331 Munich

BALANCE OF DARKNESS

BALANCE OF DARKNESS

by

GEORGE S. FROST

The unknown is dark... and it's everywhere.

There is always more than meets the eye.

The darkness hides many things,

and it's better for many of them to remain there.

We must hear it and see it to believe it.

Sometimes a little darkness is needed...

to stop a bigger darkness.

We all keep secrets in the dark.

The question is: how big are they?

Table of Contents

COPYRIGHT

PROLOGUE: A BOLT FROM THE BLUE

CHAPTER 1: CRIMINALS AND CRIME KILLERS

CHAPTER 2: THE STRANGER AND THE AGENT

CHAPTER 3: SCHOOL'S OUT

CHAPTER 4: SHOTS IN THE DARK

CHAPTER 5: CONSEQUENCES

CHAPTER 6: A DANGEROUS JOB

CHAPTER 7: FATHER AND DAUGHTER

CHAPTER 8: WHEN THE PATHS CROSS

CHAPTER 9: A DEAL WITH THE ENEMY

CHAPTER 10: MORE AND LESS ANSWERS

CHAPTER 11: DARK PAST AND PRESENT

CHAPTER 12: SECOND CHANCES

CHAPTER 13: THE RIGHT THINGS TO DO

CHAPTER 14: ON A MISSION

CHAPTER 15: TO FIND A GHOST

CHAPTER 16: FACE TO FACE

CHAPTER 17: DONE AND SEEN

CHAPTER 18: A BETTER BALANCE

CHAPTER 19: PERSONAL ATTACKS

CHAPTER 20: BEHIND THE APPEARANCE

CHAPTER 21: THE DENORIANS

CHAPTER 22: THROUGH THE STORM

CHAPTER 23: HAPPY BIRTHDAY

CHAPTER 24: THE MYSTERY REVEALED

EPILOGUE: BEFORE, NOW... AND LATER

INTERESTING FACTS

COPYRIGHT

This is a work of fiction. The names, the characters, the businesses, the places, the locations, the events and the incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any similarities to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events are purely coincidental.

Balance Of Darkness © 2020, by George S. Frost

Cover design copyright © 2020, by George S. Frost Pictures design copyright © 2020, by George S. Frost [email protected]

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion of it may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

PROLOGUE:

A BOLT FROM THE BLUE

Somewhere in the California desert, in the middle of October, a truck was travelling. It was around 7 a.m., the sun was rising, and the desert was getting more visible – a few trees, not much grass, a mountain, a lot of sand… and that was about it. Two men, not much pleasant looking, were in the truck – the driver had brown hair, the passenger was bald.

“That was quite a hit, eh?” said the driver. “Smuggling might be a dirty business, but it pays off!”

“Yeah, but we gotta be more careful. The cops in California are serious, you know?” said the passenger.

“Sure they are!” scoffed the driver. “That’s why we’re here on our way, and the cops have no idea.”

“Well, I hope not, but just in case I think we should---”

And then, like a bolt from the blue, an object fell like a meteor about 2000 feet from the truck. It was on the right side, and the passenger saw it, but only for a second, right before it hit the sand.

“Jesus Christ!” said the passenger. “Stop the truck! Stop the truck!”

“What?!” said the driver and stopped.

“Did you see that?!”

“See what?”

“Right there!” he pointed the spot where the object fell, but it was too far away. “Something fell from the sky!”

“Oh, yeah, I saw it… That was your brain! You should go get it back, even though it won’t make much difference.”

“How could you not see it?!”

“You’re still half asleep, huh?”

“No, I… I know I saw something!”

He got out of the truck and ran to the spot.

“Hey, where the hell are you going?!” yelled the driver. He grabbed a shotgun from the back of the truck and got out.

The passenger reached the object after two minutes running – it looked like some big figure, bigger than human. It was also frozen and scary looking. He saw it and said:

“What the hell is that?!”

“What are you running for like some… Whoa!” said the driver, as he arrived and saw the mysterious thing.

“I told you I saw it! But what is it?”

“Uh… some king of... frozen statue or…”

“And it fell from the sky, I’m sure! I saw it!”

“So, what do we do with it? Let’s take it.”

“Take it?! Are you crazy?!”

“Why? What could happen?”

“I don’t, but---”

“Then shut up and help me lift it!”

They tried, but it was quite heavy and cold... and it was slipping; they only moved it a few inches.

“Damn, that thing is heavy!” said the passenger.

They were about to try again, but then the iced figure started to crack. The two men got scared and quickly stepped away from it.

“What---?! Is it melting?” said the driver.

It started to crack more and more… and the figure inside the ice looked like it was wiggling.

“Whoa?! Do you see that?!” said the passenger.

In a few seconds the ice shell shattered to pieces, and the two covered themselves. When they looked again, the figure was still there (out of the ice) and it was moving – the things that looked like its arms moved first, then what must have been legs, then the head. The two men were stunned and started to back away. The figure stood up slowly, and now they were standing before an 8-foot grey creature with two arms, legs and eyes, but different from those of a human:

its arms were long, thick, with four fingers each and with no nails;

the shape of its head was more like a human head, but bigger at the lower half, and the neck was thick;

on the back of its head it had a long, thick dog-like tail, pointing downwards and reaching the waist – it was not hair, it was a part of the head;

its eyes were similar to human eyes, but a little bigger, beige, with a dim light in them, and without eyelids or pupils;

its nose looked like a squirrel’s nose with no nostrils;

its mouth looked like a bear’s mouth (just the lips, not the whole mouth) and it had light grey diamond-shaped teeth;

on the right and left sides of the head there were two curved lines instead of ears;

the creature was dressed in strange dark grey clothes, like some kind of uniform – boots with metal soles, pants with small metal flat rectangular pieces on them, a metal belt, and a shirt with no sleeves, and also with small metal flat rectangular pieces on it.

“What the hell…?!” stuttered the passenger.

“Hold it!” shouted the driver scared, but remembering that he was holding a shotgun; and the other one grabbed his gun from the holster.

The mysterious creature started to walk slowly towards them, and in their panic they started to shoot – 6 shotgun shots and 13 pistol shots… which did not even scratch the giant. He approached and kicked the driver, which hurled him 20 feet away, and he fell on the sand not moving anymore. The passenger ran for dear life, but the big one reached him with his long arm, punching him in the back, and he shared the fate of his friend. The 8 footer looked around, clearly not knowing where he was, and then he looked at the dead driver. In a few moments his eyes flashed brighter for 3-4 seconds, then he just made his way to somewhere...

CHAPTER 1:

CRIMINALS AND CRIME KILLERS

One evening, seven months later (which was May, next year), near an abandoned building, a van and a silver Ford stopped. Across them there were two black Mercedes. Two people got out of the Ford – a boy and a woman, and there was only one man in the van. Eight men got out of the two Mercedes and walked towards them.

“Is everything in order, Robert?” said the boy named John – around 25 years old, 6'1 feet tall, with long black hair and unshaven.

“You could say that...” said the leader of the others.

“How many guns do you have this time?”

“Well, the van is almost full.” said the woman named Liz – around 40 years old, with dark hair to the shoulders (a little shorter than John’s). “I know we used to bring more, but the business is getting slow.”

“The business? Is that what you call it?” he chuckled.

“For us it’s exactly that.”

“Okay... Anyway, may we see the guns?”

“As soon as we see the money.” said John.

“Oh, yeah, the money... Boys!”

His other seven associates opened the doors of the two Mercedes and grabbed guns.

“What the hell is this?!” said Liz.

“Well, it’s business, like you said. Ours is kinda slow too, so we can’t afford the price you want for the guns.”

“Then you can’t have them!” said John.

“We have these guns.” said the leader, then everybody pointed their guns at John and Liz. “Tell him to get out of the van!”

“Marv, come here!” said John, and the van driver got out.

“What’s going on?” said Marvin.

“A little setback.”

“Not really.” said the leader. “Here’s the deal: you give us the guns in the van, we let you walk; or we shoot you with these guns, and we take those anyway. What’s your call?”

“My call? Well, uh... This is my call...” said John, turned aside, removed his hair from his right ear and there was a headset – an earpiece and a microphone. Their opponents were surprised, Liz also had one they did not see, and in a second four smoke grenades flew from the dark and fell by the two Mercedes. John, Liz and Marvin got back in their vehicles as quickly as they could, and the grenades created a smoke screen. The eight double-crossers started coughing, choking and falling on the ground – three were already down, the rest five started shooting in all directions. The leader moved outside the smoke covering his face with his forearm, and shot a few times at the Ford. The bullets hit the windshield, but not John or Liz. John got out with a gun and shot him in the shoulder. He fell groaning, and the others were already down and out from the gas. Three men with gas masks appeared from the dark building, and Liz shouted:

“Let’s get outta here!”

One of them went in the van, the other two in the Ford. John approached the wounded leader (the gas was more than 50 feet away from them) and said:

“You’re lucky we’re not killers, otherwise you wouldn’t get away with just knock out gas and a bullet in the shoulder!”

He tried to get up, but John stepped on his other shoulder and forced him back to the ground.

“Better don’t let me see you again!” said John, got in the car, and they all drove off.

Not too long after that somebody was watching the building, the surrounding tracks, and the thugs who started to wake up. Whoever he was, he was wearing a black suit, sunglasses… and he was carrying an automatic weapon.

The Ford and the van were travelling with John and Marvin on the wheels, and Frank – one of the other guys in the car, said:

“Why the hell did they do that?!”

“Greed, buddy. That’s all there is. Good that we’re always ready for anything.” said Wes – the third guy in the car (Liz was the fourth, but she was not a guy).

“Well, there’s no one you can trust these days.”

“These days? What do you mean by that, Frank?” said John.

“Nothing, it’s... just an expression.”

“Okay...”

“Come on, you’re not suggesting that---” said Wes.

“---those guys could have been them?” finished Marvin in the van.

“I don’t think so, Marv.” said the last guy named Ernie sitting next to him. “If they attack us, I bet we won’t even see them coming. Well… at least that’s what they say on the news and in the papers.”

“Maybe they’re exaggerating.”

“I hope so.”

In the car John said:

“I gotta admit… When they set us up tonight, I actually thought for a moment that they were---”

* * *

“The Crime Killers Strike Again” – it was the title of the newspaper that a man in a red Volvo was reading. His name was Kevin, around 50 years old, with glasses, brown hair turning grey; he was in his car watching an expensive restaurant across him for maybe two hours already. It was two days later, in Los Angeles Downtown; the streets were crowded around noon, and so was the restaurant. Soon, a man in a black suit and with sunglasses entered, but he was one of many and no one would notice him... especially his face. As Kevin was sitting in the car, he heard an automatic gunfire coming from the restaurant for a few seconds. He threw the newspaper and ran over there. There was a panic inside, people were screaming and running; seven people were lying dead on the floor. Kevin went inside, looked around, but he did not see anything. He got out on the street, looked around and again – nothing. It was like whoever did this for maybe 20 seconds, simply vanished. When Kevin heard police sirens from a distance, he ran to his car and drove away.

By the evening this story was all over the news, along with a few more similar stories:

“The vigilantes known as the Crime Killers don’t seem to get tired. A restaurant was attacked today around 12 a.m. and seven people were killed. All were identified as members of a gang, suspected of drug dealing…”

“The alleged black market trafficker Robert Cox was shot and killed near an abandoned building, along with some of his men…”

“…so far no person without a criminal record was killed or hurt, which appears to be the trade mark of the Crime Killers…”

“…and yet, no one seems to know who these people are or anything at all about them. The police refuse to comment on any leads in these cases...”

“...they seem incapable of stopping or even finding the mysterious people at this time.”

The newspapers were also filled with these stories with titles like:

“The Mysterious Crime Killers Attack For The 11th Time”

“Crime Killings Continue”

“No Criminal Is Safe”

“The Crime Killers: Heroes Or Villains”

CHAPTER 2:

THE STRANGER AND THE AGENT

One day, a big jewelry store was attacked: four men with guns and masks were yelling at the clients and the employees not to move, and to get down on the floor. They tied up the hands of the two security guards with duct tape, and two of them started breaking the glass jewelry boxes, while the other two were watching the people. Then, the front door got suddenly opened, the robbers turned around and saw... a man who walked in. He was about 6'2 feet tall, looked 30-35 years old, with brown hair, black clothes and a baseball hat – average looking. Now he was looking at the armed men who pointed their guns at him, but he did not seem scared – he was showing no emotions.

“Who the hell are you?!” said the first man.

“Please, put down your guns and surrender.” said the strange man with a calm voice.

“Don’t move! Get over here!” said the second man.

“Are you some kinda nut?” said the third man.

“You should have locked the door, even thought it would not help you.” he answered, as he raised his hands.

“Shut up and get down!” said the second man again.

“I will not ask you again. You have five seconds. Or I will use force.”