Dark Father
DARK FATHER
James Cooper
First Edition
Dark Father © 2013 by James Cooper
All Rights Reserved.
A DarkFuse Release
www.darkfuse.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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To all the fathers and all the sons,
including my own...
Paul & Ethan
Acknowledgements
Dark Father exists only because of the support of the following people: Andrew Jury, primary critic and confidant. My own “dark daddy,” Greg Gifune, peerless editor and friend. And my loving family, Ethan and Suzanna, who listened attentively when I first read aloud the opening chapter and were suitably appalled.
James Cooper
August, 2013
PART ONE: THIS IS NOT THAT
“I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.”
—Sylvia Plath, “Elm”
“The most important thing a father can do
for his children is to love their mother.”
—Theodore Hesburgh
The man has smiled at many things in his lifetime: lewd jokes, dazzling sunsets, the unconditional love of his son. But as he sits in the cottage, considering what he must do, a thought occurs: perhaps the smile on the face of his wife and child, who sit opposite with watchful eyes, is a fake. Perhaps it is a sign of fear, as cold and desperate as the sweat that laminates their brow. He stares at the clenched teeth, the stretched lips, the glistening gums. They tell a different story, something he has seen but wants to forget, returning him to a primal state of awareness, clutching at his memory, compelling him to do something bad. When he stares at them, their expression falters, then corrects itself. The muscles contract and the terror smiles out at him, a counterfeit distraction that looks so perfect it almost has him fooled…
The man smiles in the dark, the pain of it almost timeless, and he realizes it is because he too is afraid. He smiles because he wants to convince them he wouldn’t dream of hurting them. Not now. Not ever.
He looks across at them and blinks slowly. He smiles to remind them to run…
CHAPTER 1: BELONG
The boy awoke in the darkness and saw the outline of his mother’s face hovering over the bed. She placed a finger against his lips, soliciting silence, and waited for him to rediscover his bearings. He felt the familiar heat from her skin, smelled the lilac soap she used when she washed. It was only as he sat up and wrapped his fingers around her fist that he realized his mother’s hand was trembling. He looked at the dark hole into which her face seemed to have collapsed and felt a wave of panic reach out to claim him. She was breathing hard, as though she’d been interrupted in the middle of a run, and he could see the ghostly contrails of her breath being blown into the room.
“We need to leave,” she whispered. “Right now.” Her face was still in darkness, but he was sufficiently awake to allow his memory to sketch in what he was unable to see. “Can you do that for me, Billy? Is that okay?”
The boy thought for a moment. “Will Daddy be coming?”
He felt his mother tense. “No. It’ll just be you and me. Jasper and Alison have offered us a ride in their truck. Won’t that be fun?”
The boy frowned. “From next door?”
His mother nodded, but seemed a little uncertain even in the dark.
The boy shrugged. “What will Daddy do while we’re gone?” he said.
“It doesn’t matter,” his mother said, sounding flustered.
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