Read Paranormal Realities Box Set Online
Authors: Patricia Mason
Paranormal Realities Box Set
Box Set
Copyright 2012 by
Patricia Mason
Writing as P.R. Mason
Contents
Amazon Edition, Licensing Notes
Entanglements
Copyright 2011
Patricia Mason writing as P.R. Mason
PART I:
RIFT
“There are more things in heaven and
earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
-Shakespeare
Chapter One
June 21st
No one had ever lived after jumping from
the Talmadge Bridge. Until now, in my entire fifteen years, I had never been
particularly special or unique. So the chances I, Kizzy Taylor, would be the
first to survive were probably slimmer than the cheerleading captain at my high
school. The nighttime Savannah skyline, with its gold domed city hall, loomed
in the distance, serene and beautiful. Leaning over the railing, I peered down
to the water far, far below me. The whipping wind slammed my ponytail against
my forehead.
In the darkness, the black sheen of the
water’s surface had the appearance of asphalt after a rain. It would probably
feel like asphalt on impact. At the thought, my knees buckled. Even if I wasn’t
particularly afraid of falling, I was suddenly very afraid of heights…Weird.
Straightening my shaking legs with
defiance, I dragged my gaze away from the river and deliberately stared at my
feet. They weren’t as scary as the height. From the purple polish on my toes to
the blister on my right heel, they were the same feet I’d slipped into clear
plastic flip-flops this morning. The garishly happy sunflower appliqué of my
shoes mocked me.
“Kizzy.” Adam’s tiny four-year-old fingers tugged at the
denim of my pants. He held his favorite plastic pterodactyl toy in his other
hand.
Glancing back at him, I pried his fingers
away. “Get back,” I ordered, giving a little push behind me. Okay. Maybe my
life was over but I was going to save my little brother.
“I want to go home and see Mommy.” Adam's
blue eyes were wide and glistening with fear.
“I know, baby. We will. But get back
now.” I tried to keep my tone firm but loving.
A car’s horn blared. Rising as it
approached, the tone of the honking then fell as the car left us behind. The
lights of the enormous suspension bridge must be illuminating us as if we were
on a theater stage. Why didn’t any of these passing cars stop to help?
Adam’s sobs tore at me as I balanced my
belly against the icy metal of the railing and climbed over. With barely enough
room for my feet, their tips hung over the concrete edge.
“Shhh.” I glanced back over my right shoulder
at Adam to try to meet his eyes but they were scrunched tightly shut. “We’re
just playing a game. We’ll go home soon. I promise.”
“This isn’t a game.” The baritone voice,
so agonizingly familiar, drowned out my brother’s cries. “You have to do it,”
the man shouted prodding me in the back with his revolver.
The muzzle jabbed into my skin through
the thin fabric of my t-shirt and pushed me forward. I would totally have a
bruise tomorrow...if I survived until tomorrow.
“Jump,” the man screamed.
Gripping the rail behind me, I clung. A
jagged piece of metal on the rail bit into my flesh and I winced as liquid
pooled in my palm. I couldn’t help jerking that hand away to hold it in front
of me. Blood dripped off my palm before disappearing into the darkness and
becoming part of the Savannah River water.
“Kizzzzzy!” My brother screeched.
“Shut up.” The man started with a jerk.
“Do you want to make me shoot?”
The pitch of Adam’s wailing heightened.
Clutching at my necklace as if it were a
religious medal, I turned to try to talk to him.
“Can’t you just leave Adam alone? I’ll do
what you want.” My pleading had the same effect on the man as it did on the
steel of the suspension cable a few feet away.
“This is because of you,” he said. He.
My dad
. He
didn’t even look like the hero I’d always known. My once handsome father was
now ugly with his face set in angry angles and with unrecognizable wild eyes.
"This is all because of you."
Tell me something new. I’d always
suspected I was to blame for my parents’ divorce. But could the breakdown of a
marriage actually send my father into this kind of craziness?
“What about Adam,” I said. “Will you take
him home…after this?”
“That’s not important.” He—I
refused to think of him as Dad again—waved the gun around as if he weren’t
even aware of it anymore.
His monotone statement sent an
uncontrolled shiver rushing through me. Suddenly, my heart raced so fast and
hard it wouldn’t have surprised me if it burst through to the outside of my
chest like that creature in the movie Alien. I was terrified for myself and for
Adam.
If I tried to get past him, my father
could easily block me and throw me over. Mind racing, I remembered the door in
the concrete tower—one of the two supporting the deck of the
bridge—we’d passed walking up here from our car. I hoped that door led to
a stairway down or possibly an elevator. The tower and its door to freedom
tantalized me at only about fifty feet away. I could walk the edge of the
bridge like a balance beam and make it there pretty quickly.
But what about the gun? It occurred to me
that, for some reason, shooting me wasn’t what he wanted or he would have done
it by now.
Carefully turning my feet and preparing
to get away as fast as I could, I gripped the rail with my right hand and held
out the other toward my brother.
“Come to me,” I said.
With complete trust Adam ran and hopped
so I could lift him into a “seat” on my left elbow. His arms wrapped tightly
around my neck. The smell of chocolate in his hair bolstered my resolve.
“What?” The man blinked as if coming out
of some kind of trance. “What are you doing?”
Not bothering to answer, I inched my way
along. A wall of wind I hadn’t counted on thwarted my progress. Worse, a sudden
gust threatened to sweep us over the side.
“Stop,” the man ordered.
A popping from behind me was almost
immediately accompanied by a burning in my right bicep. The arm I’d been using
to anchor us to the rail went numb and I lost my hold. Apparently, he was
willing to shoot me after all.
Only a few more feet to the door. We could
still make it, but I needed to go back over the rail to get there.
Twisting, I prepared to set Adam down on
the safe side. Another popping noise sounded from behind me and a thud
reverberated in my body as if I'd been slammed in the side with a twenty-pound
barbell. The numbness in my arm expanded into the rest of my body and fog
seeped into my brain. I know I dropped backward and lost the precarious balance
I’d had with my feet.
Falling seemed to take forever as the
water slowly rose to meet me. The dome of city hall continued to gleam in the
distance, with its golden reflection extending to the river water. Strange that
I hadn’t seen that before.
No,
I thought. The glow wasn’t on the water it was above the
water. A luminous oval pulsed between the river and me. The oval transformed
into a circle tinged not only with gold but also with violet.
This must be some dying hallucination the
brain generates
, I
thought as I passed into the shimmering ring. The teacher hadn’t covered this
in Biology I. Maybe death tripping was in next semester’s material. The stuff I
wouldn’t be learning.
Hitting the water felt like a giant wet
mouth sucking me in before swallowing me down.
* * * * *
“Does she yet live?” A gentle female
voice asked.
“Yes…A curse on Jupiter’s eyes.” This
voice was male and harsh in its reply.
“If the consuls are informed of her
presence, we will all be condemned,” the female voice said. “Your position in
the Senate will not be of protection, Gaius.”
No longer numb, my arm and side burned as
if I’d been used as an ashtray by a stadium full of people. My eyelids weighed
heavy and their seams were crusty with a substance that felt like a cross
between sand and glass shards. I wanted to gasp and pant with pain but these
strange people with their odd accented words stopped me.
“Let us return her to her people with all
possible swiftness before shame is brought to the house of Calixo,” the female
said.
“Return her? But would that not further
violate the edicts of the Senate?” asked a male voice with a slightly higher
timbre than that of the other male.
“Yes, but the gods have left us little
choice, my son,” said the deeper male voice.
“And upon whom will you bestow that
glorious task?” the son asked with heavy sarcasm. “Surely not my exalted
brother.”
The father’s voice spoke as if between
gritted teeth. “If a father orders, your duty is to but obey. And absent
complaint."
“But—” the son began.
“Try not my patience with such
tone," said the father. "You test the bounds of paterfamilias too
often for my taste.”
Managing to pry my lids open slightly, I
saw the young man kneeling over at my side but his attention was focused beyond
me, probably to his father. He had short black hair with the slightest of waves
and that perfect olive complexion I’d always envied due to my pale, untannable
skin. Dark, almost navy blue, eyes glared from beneath perfectly arched black
brows converging in a furious vee. A grimace twisted the full lips of his angular
face. The young man wore a red tunic in a style I didn’t recognize. Square cut
and trimmed with gold at the neck, the garment fell loosely and then draped to
the side at his waist. Even though he scowled mightily at his father, my friend
Petra would have called him “so fine he’s divine”.
The thought of Petra and the normalcy she
represented made me want to cry. As if I wasn’t already on the verge of tears
from the pain humming over my skin and through my body.