Vengeance by Jack A. Ling (bill gates best books .txt) 📕

The day of July 17th, 2012 started with the rise of the blooming flower of a sun into the morning atmosphere. Five birds, no more and no less, soared across the space between the clouds and the tips of trees, singing their songs to wake the wildlife below. The temperature was well above 90 degrees Fahrenheit which created a soft steam above the lakes of the waking land. The start of the morning grasped the world so that all seemed ‘happy’. So happy was the dawn that even the most average problems were overlooked by the universe. As the heat and light from the sun soaked into the soil, the denizens of the small town under the five birds began to wake with the morning, and go about their diverse businesses.
“Rodrigo!” a heavily Spanish-American voice slowly crept to the upstairs bedroom in a small urban home in the middle of Tallenport, New York. Just as the voice reached the individual upstairs, an alarm began playing the obnoxious tune from the Brazilian national anthem.
“For the love of Christ!” the darker skinned boy leaped from under the sheets of his bed to obliterate the wretched sound. “Mother! Turn that down!” he exclaimed downstairs.
“Don’t you use the Lord’s name like that!” the door slammed open with the unending fury of a religiously Hispanic woman. Just as the individual stormed the upstairs room, her tightly fixed hair devolved into a frisked mess. “I’ve been called to present the new product to the board of directors. Please behave while I’m gone, Rodrigo,” she locked eye contact.
“Sí, Mamá,” the groan sounded almost rehearsed. “But can I at least hang out with Noah?”
“Do you not have school today?” she interrogated.
“It’s a teacher work day. No school for students.”
“Rodrigo, don’t you have anybody else to be with today?”
“Madre, we’ve known the Owenson’s for years. Why can’t you just try to be kind to them?” Rodrigo responded, offended as though he were an Owenson.
“I don’t like the look of Mr. Owenson. Never have. And I especially don’t like my son being around those cultists!” she pointed past Rodrigo with narrowed eyes out the window.
“They aren’t cultists, mother! They are non-denominational for Christ’s sake!” he spewed, not realizing the impact it would have on the radically Catholic woman.
“Watch your mouth! But this conversation is over. You can hang out with him but please be careful, son. I really do care about your wellbeing,” his mother said gently as she kissed his forehead and headed to here meeting.
“And so my freedom begins,” he laughed as he ran down the stairs.
The small urban house was divided into a living room, family room, three bedrooms (and corresponding restrooms), and a kitchen. With the kitchen consuming half of the living room, a majority of the Diaz family’s time was spent here. Along with several neo-rural furnishings in a few of the bedrooms, the home retained its primary appearance of ‘cheaply put together’ as Rodrigo had put it during his fourteenth birthday.
Through the absolute silence of ‘la casa de Diaz’, an older-in-design telephone struck the nine o’clock morning atmosphere.
It rung once.
All four clocks in the large living room slowly kept their ticking at a constant, unceasing pace.
It rung twice.
The clock ticking synchronized with the (annoying) dripping of water droplets upon the kitchen sink.
It rung thrice.
A rat sprung across the landscape and began to gnaw as a loose subject of rotting wood near the floor. The annoyance throughout the house grew louder and louder. More and more consistent. The room seemed to be moving and shaking until –
“Hello?” Rodrigo grasped the phone is his hand, silencing the home at his pleasure. All seemed (and was) as well as it could be in the dull land of Tallenport.
“Lupe Diaz?” a cold, almost hurtful, voice nailed through the phone into Rodrigo’s ear.
“She . . .” he hesitated. The voice was unlike anything he had heard, seen, or sensed in his entire life. The sound of the other side of the phone line resembled everything he had ever feared. He was truly afraid – he just didn’t know it. “She isn’t home right now. Could I take a message?” he sighed heavily.
“I must speak to her immediately,” there was a heavy intake of air by the speaker. “Do you know where she is? It is a matter of – life and death,” it placed an inhuman emphasis of the ‘death’.
“She is at a business meeting. 1244 Almond Centre is the address. Is there anything I can do for you?” he wondered, but the line was already dead. As he set the phone down, he heard the faintest creaking of a wooden door. So faint, it was almost inhuman. So gentle; so constant. Suddenly he felt somebody behind him. A male by its shadow, but it was somehow familiar. He jumped around as fast as he could, and was suddenly relieved to find out that it was in fact Noah Owenson.
“Oh, Noah!” Rodrigo exhaled.
“Who else would it be? Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Noah grinned lightly. His blond hair completely contrasted with Rodrigo’s dirty-brown; but, his darker skin made him feel more at home with Rodrigo than with his paler family.
“Nah, just you, ugly,” Rodrigo grinned back. “But where do you want to go today?” the color finally returning to his face and hands.
“Not sure. How about the café over on first street?” Noah suggested. They had both been huge fans of the Arbor Café ever since they could remember. Whether the scent of freshly made coffee or the regulars and their amazing tales, it was the perfect spot to relax and socialize.
“Great idea! It’s a mile walk so we’d better start right away,” Rodrigo said as he grabbed his coat.

Travel to the Arbor consisted of a simple trail across three intersections of limited traffic which usually took about a half hour. Unfortunately, the largest of the intersections had been cut off by police officials in order to repave the road, so Rodrigo and Noah were forced to take the southern route which was in fact shorter, but led through a very rundown part of the town known informally as Raving End. The particular end included an old, rundown gas station, four ancient houses, and a single road running to the dead end. No birds ever fly over, no animals ever pass through, and no plants ever grow. Everything thing in the end is forever dead. Forever dead until Rodrigo and Noah took their first steps into the desolate way.
As the first step was made, both Rodrigo and Noah’s skin were scourged with goose bumps. They continued walking, attempting to ignore their surroundings. Every step was like walking on hollow, cracked ice because the street hadn’t actually been fixed in decades.
Although there was in fact an absence of birds (and wildlife in general), when the boys had covered approximately a fifth of the journey to the small trail which would take them directly to the Arbor, three ravens landed on the lifeless tree which lay five meters away. The ravens were as black as the bark of the tree upon which they stood. Not only did they stand, but they watched. Constantly gleaming down at the boys with unblinking pupils, the whites of their eyes were impossible to detect with the naked eye. Making no sound, telling no tales, and creating only an atmosphere which was so dead it was almost inexistent.
“Goddamn, those birds are creeping me the hell out,” Rodrigo whispered, not moving his eyes from the ground upon which he walked.
“I think they are ravens,” Noah began. “We were reading a poem one in English class last week,” he said, imitating Rodrigo by staring as far away from the visitors as possible.
“Either way, I can’t stand them. But at least we are almost out of this damnable place,” Rodrigo exhaled as they grew nearer and nearer to the trail.
“I know ri—” Noah attempted to respond, but he was suddenly frozen in his tracks. He simply stared up into the corner of one of the ancient homes which was shrouded is darkness and an unbelievably large shadow. Something within this shadow had caught his attention in a more supernatural fashion. Something was within the darkness, but he just couldn’t tell what from the distance.
“Noah?” Rodrigo said, worried about his friend’s suddenly pale face. “Are you all right?”
“I-I-It’s,” he paused. “Over there. In that shadow. Something is in there,” he slowly rose his right hand, index finger extended, to show the location. Still dead as ever, the spot sent chills up both of the boys’ backs.
“Nothing is there, bud,” Rodrigo responded, but he was fully aware that he had the same feeling. “Just shadows.”
“No. I know something is there,” Noah whispered under his breath as the sped towards the corner of the home. As he approached it, he felt a cold breeze blow into his eyes and only his eyes; the rest of his body felt completely normal. His walk towards the destination only intensified the feeling exponentially until he had finally arrived. Several inches from the shadow-line, Noah exhaled. Frozen air (a rare sight this time of year) followed the exhale.
“Anything there?” Rodrigo asked Noah from several yards away, as worried as can be for both himself and his friend. “Anything?”
Before Noah could answer, a cold hand extended, quick as lightning, to grasp Noah’s t-shirt with a superhuman-like strength. The skin of the hand was old, wrinkled, and dirty as can be. Yet, the strength of the old hand was not the most frightening part to Noah. It was the temperature of the skin which clubbed him with fear.
“Owenson?” a voice as blackened as the ravens in the tree called from the shadows. The voice seemed subhuman; yet, the breath was right in his ear.
“T-That’s my last n-name,” Noah stuttered, confused.
“You!” the elder man called as the emerged from the shadows. His hair all but diminished and old clothes close to disintegration. “You are blessed, my boy!”
“What do you mean?” Noah felt as though his knees were to collapse any moment. “I’m confused.”
“You have been blessed! Oh, Master, thank you!” the man laughed hysterically, taking his seat upon the dead roots beneath him. “My boy, you are lucky-lucky-lucky,”
“How so?” he fearfully wondered. What could possibly be blessed about living in Tallenport?
“You – no, wait. I don’t want to spoil the surprise,” the man responded with a cruel grin, showing his rotting teeth. “Go to the Wessington headquarters here in town. You will understand.”
“That’s across the street from the Arbor!” Rodrigo exclaimed as he juxtaposed his feet to Noah’s.
“And where my mother works,” Noah said with a blank stare as the old man seemed to disappear.