This is a work of fiction. Riverwolf Pass, the events in this book and the characters are all figments of Kya Aliana's imagination. Any resemblance between characters and the people you know is purely coincidental.
IMPENDING DOOM
Copyright 2010
Cover design by Alex Lake and Kya Aliana
Cover art by Alex Lake and Kya Aliana
Interior text design by Kya Aliana
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be copied or reprinted in any way without Kya Aliana's permission. Freely sharing copyrighted materials isn't cool. In fact, it sucks big. You're dissing the author out of money that he/she deserves. Writing a book is not easy, and making money off it isn't any easier. Don't be a downer, share the book but don't copy it. Your friends and family can buy their own copy of this book if they really want to.
ISBN: 9781456481957
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 (2nd edition)
This book was written in the month of November 2010 through the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) program.
Impending Doom
A Novel
By
Kya Aliana
Chapter One
1
Ivan Harvey was the first to see them. He stood at the window in ZZ's Pub. The tips of his blond hair stung his bright green eyes. He absentmindedly whipped his head to the side to stop them from watering. His eyes and mind were fixated on the sight before him; he couldn't stop looking... he wouldn't stop looking. After all, why would he want to? That had to be the most exciting sight that Ivan had seen in his entire life. Needless to say, nothing much ever happened in the town of Riverwolf Pass, the town where Ivan was born and raised.
Ivan could hardly believe it. He'd never seen anything like it... well, in books maybe, but not in real life. Ivan took in a breath of disbelief. He let it out slowly as all else around him faded into the background. All he could focus on was the moving truck; the bright red moving truck carefully meandering its way up the twisty road leading to Utopia Point, the mountain that towered over the town. Ivan, in all of his seventeen years, had never seen a moving truck before. In all of his seventeen years, no one had even moved into Riverwolf Pass. He could hardly believe that it was actually happening now... who could they be?
Ivan tried to hone his vision in on the mansion, looking for people. But, of course, the mansion was too far away for Ivan to make out anything but a blur.
Ivan could reach the mansion if he followed the dirt road leading up Utopia Point. It would take ten minutes if he drove. But driving his car on that road was a thought that made Ivan's stomach tangle with the rest of his innards. The dirt road had a gorge on one side and a cliff on the other. It was small and narrow and if two cars met, Ivan couldn't figure out how they would ever pass each other.
The recesses of Ivan's mind explored the memory of going up there... he'd ventured there on foot when he was ten years old. There was nothing much interesting about the place, unless of course, you find cobwebs and dust thrilling beyond your wildest dreams. He'd expected a more adventuresome feeling from the mansion, but in the end it was only droll. Nevertheless, his mind swirled with thoughts, constantly trying to make the mansion more exciting than it actually was... this was probably due to the mass amounts of horror novels Ivan drown himself in day after day.
People called it The Lovehart Mansion, and Ivan did not know why. Maybe, he thought, it was the last name of the people who used to own it. When he was thirteen, he had overheard his parents talking about the Lovehart Mansion with Thelma Garder. They'd said something about it being foreclosed on years ago. Ivan remembered Thelma had called the incident an “abhorrence.” At the time, he hadn't known what the word meant, now he did: an abomination, a disgust and a disgrace to the town. Knowing the word only made him more curious about the prior owners, yet he never found out much about them. The mansion had feeling to it; it made people feel a certain way. Its God-like presence loomed over the small town.
“Hey, Ivan, come on!” Chad barked, tapping his foot, his arms crossed, half way leaning against the door. His quarterback build seemed to bulge out even more when he crossed his arms. His straight blond hair reached the tops of his shoulders. Victoria Reeves swooned over his puppy dog brown eyes. Ivan had never understood why girls, Victoria especially, put Chad in this awe-inspiring category. After all, Chad was just a person. So what if he had muscles the size of actual dumbbells and his eyes were brown? So what if he was the captain of the football team? What made that so special? Why couldn't Ivan be special? What made Chad so much more special than Ivan? Football? Muscles? Brown eyes? Ivan didn't understand. But, ignoring that fact, Chad was still Ivan's best buddy.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming, don't lose your head over it,” Ivan said, waving a hand at Chad while he continued to look out the window up at the old Lovehart Mansion. He could have sworn he saw a figure standing there on the deck, but as suddenly as it came… it went.
“Are you coming or what?” Chad asked, his eyes glaring into Ivan’s back with the impatience of a two-year-old princess.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” Ivan said, forcing his head away from the window and walking out the door of the pizza parlor, completely ignoring the googly eyes that Victoria was making at Chad from her table.
That, was the first time anybody ever took notice of the newcomers. It took place in October of 2009... And so the town gossip began.
2
“Yes, yes, I am sure I saw a moving truck today,” Thelma said over the phone to Marie, nearly jumping up and down out of excitement. She was having the same conversation with Marie as she had with all her other cronies. “I saw it with my own two eyes! Whoever heard of 24-hour movers...? Yes, yes of course that is what it said on the side of the truck… No, of course it was not dark when I saw the truck… No, I didn’t actually see the family, but I hear that there are three of them, a mother, father and a daughter...” Thelma’s mind was swirling around like a tornado with gossip. Her heart thudded with all the excitement; she wasn't sure how long she'd be able to stay away from the mansion. She wanted to be the first person to meet this new family in town. She reflected on the memories she had of the Loveharts for a moment.
It was such a shame that Mr. Lovehart had lost all his money when he made a silly mistake regarding a horse race and an all-in bet. Thelma frowned as she thought about the filthy habits of a gambler. She hoped that the new family wouldn't be gamblers. She simply couldn't take her mind off meeting them; as a descendant of one of the founding families of Riverwolf Pass, she felt it important to meet and greet the newcomers immediately. After all, who would dare move into this town without her approval?
“Well, seeing as I haven't seen them in town yet, I do so believe they are arriving today… Oh! You do suppose they'll be hospitable?... Well, yes, of course it is our job to make them feel at home, I just thought since it's a small town they should at least make an appearance at the General Store.” Thelma made a face as she thought about what it would be like if they ended up to be hermits. “They should at least enroll their daughter in school... Lord Almighty, you don't think they home school, do you? Who ever heard of such a thing! How are the children supposed to get the socialization they need if they are stuck at home all day while the other children are in school?... Yes, yes, Marie, I will try to be understanding if they do choose to home school,” Thelma promised as she rolled her eyes.
Thelma abruptly stood up after hanging up the phone. Her head felt dizzy as her feet tapped with anticipation. She felt a tiny tingle of happiness as she grabbed a few brochures for Riverwolf High. She would make it her personal business - as she did with most everything that went on in Riverwolf Pass - to see the new fa
mily's daughter in school within a week.
When Thelma drove up the dirt road, she passed the bright red moving truck with thick black lettering spelling out 24-Hour Movers.
The sun set off to the West side of the road, causing the sky to fill with purples, pinks and a golden color as it sank beneath the North Carolina mountain range. The golden colors of the sun rays touched down upon the land and showcased the red colors of the leaves on the oak trees. A bitter fall wind snapped harshly in the air, traveling through the trees with the velocity of a tropical storm. The turbulence against the car was causing Thelma to go even slower than she normally would have gone.
Vague thoughts of her childhood skipped through her head. She remembered walking up that very dirt road with her three best girl friends in middle school. And then she thought of being a teenager and walking up the road with her boyfriend. Oh, the things they would later do in that old mansion... things that she certainly wasn't proud of now... things that she could never admit to even now... things that nobody could know about. She shook off the dirty memories and hoped to God that her children never found out how she had behaved. She decided never to reflect upon her past ventures in the old mansion again.
She pulled into the driveway, only for a million more memories to rush over her. She breathed in the fresh air that rested on top of the mountain; it was different than the air that rested in Riverwolf Pass. Up on the mountain, the air smelled fresher, there were more breezes, and there was the faintest smell of apples. She looked at the apple tree that sat in the yard and remembered eating apples from it when she was little.
She was pleased to see that the new family had cleaned the mansion up nicely... Well, what they could reach of it. She noticed that the windows in the upstairs and attic were still boarded up from when the house was foreclosed on. Aside from that little hindrance, there was no dust and the windows on the lower levels sparkled and glistened in the setting sun’s pink, glowing light. The house appeared freshly painted to Thelma’s eyes, although the color did not set right with the rest of the town, or Thelma for that matter. The paint job was a deep night sky's black, with red trim around the door and on the window shutters. The cold autumn wind wrapped around her jacket, reaching down and touching her bones. She pulled her jacket tighter around herself, ripping a seam. A conundrum soon passed through her mind. If they did all this work on the house, then why hadn’t the people in Riverwolf Pass seen anyone?
Thelma shivered once more and approached the door. The tiny wooden gate that let onto the porch of the house made her jump when she opened it. She hadn't expected it to be creaky, especially with the rest of the mansion looking well maintained. The house stood proudly on Utopia Point, with its gaping open windows and the wrap around porch. The house had one tall minaret which featured a tiny window. It was, in fact, the only window that high up that wasn't hidden behind boards. Behind that window, a small girl stood looking out at the sunset. If Thelma had looked up there right about then, surely she would have spotted the girl looking out the window down at the tiny blue car that sat parked in her new driveway. Her eyes and facial expression would have been curious as to what Thelma was doing at her new house.
Thelma approached the high doorway. Two doors joined to make one big door. There was a doorknocker on the front center of the two adjoining doors. It was of a wolf’s head, holding the knocker with in its snarling silver mouth full of sharp teeth. The actual ring was made up of two people inside the wolf's mouth, there even appeared to be blood dripping off one of them. Thelma glared at the ring she had always loathed, thinking it was heathenish. Using only her index finger and thumb, she lifted it and knocked twice. She stood there for no longer than a minute, her foot tapping against the old wooden deck. There was no noise from inside and no one came to the door.
Thelma walked around the back, perhaps there was someone working on the house. Out behind the house there was a small river. How peculiar, Thelma thought to herself. She'd forgotten all about the river that ran through the backyard.
“Hello?” she called out, peering around the side of the porch. There was no answer. After quite the length of time, Thelma gave up and went back to her car, figuring that there must be nobody home. She drove off back to her own house watching the final light of the sun disappear as the darkness dominated the sky and the crescent moon slowly rose over the tops of the trees.
3
“Hey, can you give me a hand with this?” Judd asked, pulling a heavy box towards the opening of the truck.
“What is this?” Samuel asked with his heavy southern accent as he jumped up in the truck, ready to unload the last box, get out of there, and go home.
“It ain't none of our business, just pick it up and let’s get out of this freak town.”
“What was the name of it again?” Samuel asked, scratching his head trying to remember.
“Riverwolf,” Judd replied with a heave as he and Samuel lifted up the last box.
“Can’t say I ain't lookin’ forward to getting the hell outta here. What’s a riverwolf anyways?”
“I don’t know and I got no desire to know, now come on and walk back, this is our last box and we’ll be done with this job.” Judd looked at his watch and wiped the sweat from his brow. With a heavy sigh, he and Samuel moved the heavy rectangular shaped box into the common room of the mansion. There came a voice from the stairwell that startled Judd something awful.
“Oh, that does not go there.” The movers turned to see a woman, no older than thirty-five. She was a beauty! Fair skin, long straight blond hair that pulled into a messy bun on the back of her head. Her eyes were a mysterious emerald green and had the look of a rare mist that appears in the morning if one gets up early enough to see it. She was tall and her height was even more exaggerated because she was standing on top of the miraculous stairwell. The staircase had no more and no less than twenty-seven winding stairs made of serpentine marble, swirled to perfection. The railing was the most beautiful thing that anybody had ever seen. It was made of pure gold and was shiner than ever, no doubt it had recently been polished.
“Whoever can afford this house must be millionaires!” Judd had whispered to Samuel earlier that day when no one else had been around.
“I heard it was foreclosed on, so they got a good deal at an auction,” Samuel whispered back.
The lady who stood in the stairs made her way slowly down to the room where Judd and Samuel stood, lightly dragging her hand down the banister.
“I don’t suppose I could get you to move this into the root cellar?” she asked, gliding her delicate hand across the top of the box.
“Most certainly, ma’am,” Samuel said, tipping his hat right before picking the box up again with Judd and walking down the stairs. The lady followed them, taking a deep breath before slamming the root cellar door behind her.
“What are you doing?” Judd asked nervously as the lady approached him with gleaming eyes. It was dark and Judd was hard pressed to see anything... but he could see her eyes alright, they were bright as ever. The last thing he saw was her lips gently curl up into a smile, her teeth caressing the side.