Mercy at Midnight Read online

  Mercy at

  Midnight

  Mercy at

  Midnight

  Sylvia Bambola

  Heritage Publishing House

  Copyright © 2016 by Sylvia Bambola

  ISBN: 0989970752

  ISBN # 9780989970754

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016943195

  Heritage Publishing House, Bradenton, Florida

  Scriptures taken from Holy Bible, King James Version, Cambridge, 1769

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission.

  For information:

  Heritage Publishing House

  1767 Lakewood Ranch Blvd.

  Bradenton, FL 34211

  Also by Sylvia Bambola

  The Babel Conspiracy

  The Daughters of Jim Farrell

  The Salt Covenants

  Rebekah’s Treasure

  Return to Appleton

  Waters of Marah

  Tears in a Bottle

  Refiner’s Fire

  The story and main characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is strictly coincidental.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My family is always on the top of this list. Did I mention they were wonderful? A big “thank you” to my daughter, Gina, for her critique and invaluable input. Gina, I always appreciate your perspective and how you find those inconsistencies I fail to. And then I extend appreciation to my son, Cord. Where do I start? How do you say “thank you” to someone always willing to help no matter what time or day? Always willing to go the extra mile? Thank you for keeping my computer humming.

  Next, I’d like to thank a precious woman of God, Gloria Smith. What eagle eyes! I won’t embarrass myself my mentioning just how many grammar and spelling mistakes she found during her edit. What a gift you have, Gloria, and thank you for using it to help make Mercy at Midnight better.

  And finally, a big “shout-out” to Miranda Lee, the very talented graphic artist who put together the cover. Miranda, I love your spirit of excellence and desire to make everything perfect.

  Love and blessings to you all!

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  CHAPTER 1

  Cynthia Wells hoped she wasn’t going crazy.

  She had always thought the scanning of obituaries a harmless pastime. Now, she wasn’t so sure. And it wasn’t because of her string of recent nightmares, either. Rather, it was due to the fact that lately, the names and particulars of the departed were sticking to her brain like her mother’s dumplings used to stick to her stomach. Hazel Dowd, Charles Mactrell, Amelia Davis, Thomas Gates and a host of others—all strangers, all names off past obituaries —had taken up residence inside her head as though it were a hotel with plenty of vacancies.

  She remembered who the grandmother of eight and great-grandmother of nine was, the World War II veteran, the buyer for Flossie’s Mercantile, the pastor of the Beacon Mission. And that wasn’t all. She knew, for instance, that Hazel Dowd was born in 1924, that Charles Mactrell was awarded the Silver Star, that Amelia Davis worked for Flossie’s for thirty-five years, that Reverend Gates had been in ministry even longer. And considering that Cynthia had trouble remembering how long her own mother had worked for the legal team of Sly and Sly before retiring last year or whether her father had gotten two Purple Hearts in Vietnam or just one, this whole obituary thing was beginning to disturb her.

  She folded the pages of the Oberon Tribune, ignoring the smudges of newsprint that covered the tips of her fingers, and placed the paper on top of the pile of other folded papers beside her bed. She supposed this obsession with the obituaries bothered her because it made her life smack of “imaginary friends”—if you could call a bunch of dead people that. Her mother called it something else.

  Isolationism-the word she coined for Cynthia’s self-imposed socially-Spartan lifestyle.

  But who was her mother to talk? There were other ways to become inaccessible. You could party more than Paris Hilton and still be isolated, with emotions penned up, and left to starve. Her parents had mastered that one.

  Still . . . both methods, her parents’ and hers, resulted in a sort of self-destruction, like the end of a Mission Impossible tape where it goes up in smoke. But wasn’t life, after all, a vapor? She had heard that somewhere. She tried not to brood over the obvious metaphors. Brooding came all too easy these days. It was silly to think of her life as a played-out tape when it was still on its first one-third of the reel. And her life, instead of smoke, was a block of concrete; a veritable bulwark of solid employment, solid finances, solid future. And though living could be rough, it was hardly “mission impossible.” Besides, she thrived on the difficult. Everyone said so. She had even built her reputation on it.

  Cynthia absently brushed her fingers against the blue and cream Jardin sheets, leaving behind a faint smudge along the top edge. She was finally sleepy and needed to push that roster of names in her head and all that nonsense about self-destructing tapes into the backroom of her mind.

  And maybe, if she was lucky, she’d actually get some sleep.

  A sudden blast of cold air slapped Cynthia’s face just like when she opened that old GE refrigerator Mom kept in their well-lit garage to house chocolate pudding and Jell-O and other snacks, only this room was murky . . . dark as though she were looking through black gauze, and this blast of cold air made Cynthia’s heart race. She stood still, tilting her face upward like a mouse sniffing for danger. Gradually, her eyes grew accustomed to looking through gauze and she was able to distinguish familiar shapes: the doll house in the corner, the rocking chair, the little clothes-tree whose branches resemble hands and . . . the faint outline of her new Holly Hobbie kitchen. She was still angry over this newest outrage—that of her little oven door hanging by a thread.

  Julia wasn’t supposed to touch it. But she’d never get punished for wrecking it. She never got punished for anything.

  Oh, that cold air . . . so out of place in this warm, happy room. Where was it coming from? Cynthia sniffed the air again, then froze. Nearby, she heard the rustle of denim and smelled what must have been the entire contents of her new Blossom Eau de Toilette.

  Julia!

  Her arm shot out, but still she failed to clasp the fairy wisp that seemed just centimeters from the tips of her curled fingers.

  She wanted to shout, “Stop!” but her tongue remained as slug-like as the time Miss Wilson asked her to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in front of the class. Her legs pumped furiously trying to get to the source of the cold before that wisp did. She was running with all her might but going nowhere. Her breath came in fits and starts as perspiration tickled the sides of her face. And her heart sounded like the pounding of surf in her ears.

  “Stop!” she screamed, at last able to speak. A soft giggle answered. Finally, she seemed to make headway and moved toward the blast of cold air. Barely able to see, she ran with arms extended like a mad sleepwalker heading pell-mell toward a cliff. She ma
de one final lunge for the wisp, her fingers clawing air and nothing else, then heard the scraping and scratching of metal against wood, and one last giggle before it turned into a scream.

  Cynthia shot up in bed. Her chest heaved beneath perspiration-soaked pajamas. A sharp, piercing noise bounced off the blue faux-finished walls. She covered her ears—her fingertips lost in the tangle of wet hair plastering her head—and rocked back and forth until realizing the sharp noise was her alarm clock. She lunged for the nightstand and slapped down the button.

  Another nightmare.

  The third this week.

  She swung her legs around and let them dangle off the bed.

  It must be the sleeping pills.

  The thought evaporated when she remembered she’d skipped her pills last week and still had had two nightmares. She dropped her head to her chest and rotated it like that TV fitness instructor, the one with the great washboard-abs, had demonstrated.

  Slowly, roll slowly.

  She could almost hear his sexy, melodic voice. First to the right, then to the left. Round and round, round and round. It was supposed to ease the tension between her shoulders.

  Another minute and she stopped rolling and rose from the bed, still feeling like someone was pinching the back of her neck. She stepped over the stacked copies of The Oberon Tribune, Morning News and Oberon Times—all folded to the obituary section. She tried not to think what Bernie would say if he found out she was an obituary-holic.

  No wonder you have nightmares.

  She shuffled to the bathroom vowing to toss the sleeping pills and try some melatonin from the health food store that someone in archives told her about yesterday. And she’d pick up some wholegrain bread and some of those organic vegetables, too. And maybe some of that tofu that looked like barf when you crumbled it up in a salad as Bernie’s wife, Roberta—the health nut—did at her dinner parties.

  “You’ve got to stop poisoning your body with junk food,” Roberta kept telling her. Maybe Roberta was right. Two thirty-minute TV workouts a week and a half dozen TV dinners, and now, sleeping pills, didn’t exactly qualify as a healthy lifestyle. Maybe if Cynthia lived healthier, the nightmares would stop, and those brooding fits of hers, too.

  Okay, it was a visit to the health food store tonight, but now it was a quick shower and then a trip to Starbucks for some high-octane so she could start her engine before Bernie called, wondering where she was.

  Cynthia waited in line, taking long, deep breaths in-out, in-out—Roberta’s prescription for importing oxygen to all those oxygen-starved cells of hers. “Deep breaths, deep breaths,” Roberta had instructed, as though it was a mantra. But this in-out in-out stuff wasn’t working. Even now, after her shower and time spent on makeup and hair, all Cynthia longed for was a bed and five minutes of deep REM sleep. She once read that constant fatigue could be a sign of depression. And hadn’t Bernie called her the Grim Reaper last week just because she refused to laugh at his corny jokes? But she was tired of pretending Bernie was funny. Though he was . . . sometimes. But most of his jokes were lame, so his Grim Reaper remark was hardly credible. Besides, she’d seen firsthand what a lifetime of pretending could do.

  She pictured her mother—with eyes lifeless as brown buttons—sitting at one end of the family dinner table, politely spooning her vichyssoise and politely listening to Cynthia’s father retell a story they had all heard a thousand times. Politeness had ruled their house for years, which meant never discussing things like death or dying or how a heart could be shredded as easily as tissue paper. And of course, allowing pain to rise from some secret inner pit to tear your eyes like common onion vapor was out of the question. No wonder she rarely ate with her parents. But she rarely ate with anyone, anymore. Eating alone had it own rewards, Cynthia thought, shuffling forward in line and stifling a yawn.

  “So, Toby aced his math test?” the thin, pimple-faced kid behind the Starbucks counter said to the man in front of her as he finished making a latte.

  “Yeah,” returned the customer.

  “That’s great. I know you were worried. When I was his age I had trouble with math, too. He’ll make out fine, you’ll see.”

  “Hope you’re right.” The customer took his coffee and handed the employee a ten-dollar bill. “Keep the change.”

  “Thanks. You take care now, Mr. Potter. See you tomorrow.”

  Cynthia stepped up to the counter and smiled at the kid who had been making her café mochas for the last two years. “Double espresso.”

  He nodded, then headed for the espresso machine, never commenting that she wasn’t getting her usual today or saying her name or passing along trivia or asking her questions. She knew he was going to Community College and that he had a girlfriend named Linda, all from overhearing his conversations with others. But he knew nothing about her.

  She was struck by how few people really knew her—not Cynthia Wells the hotshot reporter, but just plain old Cynthia. And if she were to disappear, just drop off the face of the earth, there wouldn’t be many who’d care.

  She paid the kid, feeling peeved that her thoughts were jogging this morbid path. She had to get out of her funk.

  And she really had to stop reading those obituaries.

  “I’m scared. Real scared.”

  Stubby White watched his friend, Turtle, jam shaking hands into the pockets of his trousers, except one pocket was ripped and only a thumb caught, leaving the rest of his hand exposed and jerking like a hooked mackerel.

  “They worked him over good, Stubby. You shoulda seen him.”

  “Yeah. I heard.” Stubby swallowed hard, thinking of the description of splattered blood and pulpy flesh circulating through the hood.

  Bad news traveled fast on Angus Avenue.

  “I still can’t believe Manny’s dead. But it ain’t good for us to be talkin’ out here . . . in the open.” Stubby glanced over his shoulder. “Somebody might hear.” He inched toward the alley.

  “They put him in a dumpster. You believe it?” Turtle’s hacking made Stubby step backward. “In a dumpster. Like he was garbage or somethin’.”

  “I warned you. Didn’t I warn you? Not to mess with that bunch? Didn’t I say Snake was trouble?”

  “You shoulda seen his face. You wouldn’t a recognized him. They worked him over good.” Turtle dropped his head, revealing the frayed rim of his baseball cap. “I can’t take pain.”

  Stubby rubbed his aching hands together thinking that sooner or later pain got them all. The throbbing in his fingers reached all the way to his shoulders. But even if pain was to win out, a body didn’t have to flirt with it, run towards it like it was Lila Stone sashaying down the middle of the projects in her low-cut red dress. Messing with Lila sent a body to the clinic for penicillin. That’s what she had taught him. You don’t go lookin’ for trouble.

  So what did Turtle and Manny expect? That they could go messin’ around and not pay?

  Stubby yanked Turtle’s arm. “Pull yourself together. Everythin’s gonna be fine. You gotta lay low for awhile, that’s all.”

  “Easy for you to say. No one’s lookin’ for you.”

  “Turtle, this ain’t doin’ neither of us no good. You gotta leave. Make yourself disappear for awhile. These people got eyes everywhere. It ain’t no good to be seen like this. And you’re puttin’ me on the spot, too.” Stubby knew saying this was sure to reflect on his courage. But to Stubby’s way of thinking, it wasn’t a matter of courage, but of street justice. Why should he take penicillin for someone else’s folly?

  Turtle pulled a shaking hand from his pocket and held it out in front of Stubby. “Look. When was the last time you saw me this bad? You know I gotta shoot. After that . . . I’ll do what you say and make myself scarce.” He ran the hand over his dry, cracked lips, oblivious to the grime covering his fingers. “You got any cash? I need it bad.”

  “What about the stuff . . . you know . . . the stuff you and Manny . . . ?”

  “Are you crazy? I can’t
go nowhere near it. Not after what they did to Manny. Suppose they’re watchin’ and find me with . . . ?” A coughing fit caused Turtle’s shoulders to heave beneath his oversized shirt.

  Stubby stood watching, feeling sorry for his friend, and feeling angry, too. Why hadn’t Turtle and Manny listened? Why had they gone and pulled that harebrained stunt? “I can’t help you this time, Turtle. I’m down to my last two quarters.”

  “Then an extra snowball, maybe?”

  Stubby shook his head.

  “Anythin’?”

  Stubby fingered his back pocket and felt a bulge, along with a rising resentment. Years on these mean streets had taught him not to go expecting help from others, the kind of help others seemed so quick to expect from him. It was one of those irregularities of life discovered long ago, that two people could travel the same road without necessarily learning the same lesson.

  “No. I got nothin’.” He glanced backward to avoid Turtle’s eyes. When he did, he saw two men crossing the street and heading toward them.

  “You go on now, lay low ‘till this thing blows over.” Another glance caused perspiration to dot the top of Stubby’s bald head and drip down onto the curly fringe of white hair that cupped his neck. He sighed with relief when the men walked by without a glance.

  As he headed toward the Angus Avenue Hotel, the clomp-clomp of Turtle’s boots echoed behind him. Let Turtle think him a coward. Cowards were made; not born. It was livin’ on the streets that did it.

  “It’s not gonna blow over, Stubby. That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you. I got this bad feelin’ and can’t shake it.”

  Stubby stopped, reached into his pocket and pulled out his quarters, then handed them to Turtle. Two miserable quarters. What good were they, anyhow? “No one can hole up like you when you put your mind to it. They don’t call you Turtle for nothin’. You gotta do that now. Hole up where no one can find you.”

  Turtle blinked at the coins in his hand. “I didn’t mean for you to give me your last . . . but I gotta take ‘em. I wouldn’t except I need ‘em real bad. I don’t feel right about it though.” Turtle curled his fingers around the money.