Blacken by Alandra Rankin (i love reading books txt) 📕

few personal choices, “you can’t go wrong with these few here, and this one across town as long as you stay away from the fish.”

Avie snickered, “All right, that’s been noted! Thanks for the heads up!” She wrote the memo down beside the legend on the map. The woman let out a steadying breath, glancing over the placements on the map, still unsure of one thing. “Caroline, do you know anyone else that had a vibrating body experience? Someone that I could maybe start talking to?”

The nurse’s demeanour changed, the middle-aged woman looking sterner at her question, “You can try Jim at the hardware store, I don’t know too much about anyone else. I prefer not to get mixed up in that hysteria.”

Avie felt the tone grow heavy, “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it. I appreciate all your help.”

“Mmhmm,” she hummed in acknowledgment, before leaving her to her own devices.

Well, that was weird.

It was odd to see such a shift over a simple question, Avie wasn’t sure what to make of it. More questions came up, the whole phenomenon struck at her innate curiosity, she needed to find out more, needed to find out why there was a calling to this town that she followed. It affected its citizens in some way, but she was still very much in the dark about everything. There was a starting point at least.

Jim who worked at Home·Aware was her first stop.

It was time to get some answers.

CHAPTER 2

The sky loomed heavy with darkling clouds, a sure sign of an intense rainstorm coming at any time. The wind picked up enough for Avie to pull her windbreaker closer, attempting to block out the chills, to no avail. August rain waited beyond the trees, bringing in a bite to the atmosphere. Frost ran its threatening fingers over the evening, a promise it could come within days by the dropping temperature in the surrounding mountains.

Traversing through the streets by the map in her hands, she felt good to get up and walk around for the first time since leaving the hospital. Even though her muscles protested in their sore state, she needed to stretch them out, knowing it was beneficial to build up her strength. Besides, she had been resting plenty, Avie could rest once she got a little more information.

Her eyes searched the street ahead of her, locating the hardware shop on Blacken’s main street. Promptly after entering the store, a wash of warmth caressed her, finally out of the wind.

“Hello, anything I can help you with?” A man appeared at the cash register to her left, flashing her a smile which crinkled his eyes, wiping his hands with a dark hand towel. He couldn’t have been any older than his late forties, but his face was worn. Avie thought absentmindedly that he smelled of tobacco, the scent wafting through the building.

“Yes, I was hoping I could speak to Jim?” She stepped further inside, walking up to the desk to converse with the gentleman.

He motioned to his name tag, “Well you’re in luck, Jim is in!” He chuckled, “You have a special project you’re working on?”

The redhead fidgeted, not really rehearsing what she was going to say.

“I, umm, well actually I was hoping to talk to you about something else. A nurse at Berridge General said you may be able to help, and I’m sorry if it sounds weird, but do you know anything about having your body… vibrate?”

Jim’s smile dropped while his bushy eyebrows rose in being caught off guard, “It’s been a very long time since anyone’s asked. I had it take me here a good thirty years ago now, so I can’t rightly remember what it felt like, just that it took over my whole body. There’s not many people out due to the weather, would you like to come and sit, maybe have some coffee?”

Avie agreed, knowing it may be a lengthy discussion, excited in the fact that he knew the sensation. She was led to the back; a break room of sorts, an old coffee machine brewing caused the space to smell like rich java. The large pot sat next to a few other appliances and next to a half-eaten sandwich on the counter, bright lights slightly flickering overhead.

“I had just started a fresh pot; you take cream or sugar?”

“Both, please.”

Jim motioned her to sit at the small table while he fixed the cups of coffee, “So, Miss, what’s your name?”

“Avie, Avie Conrad.”

“Well Avie, you look like you were in quite a scuffle, you mind if I ask what happened?” Jim sat across her, handing her coffee over.

“I crashed into a tree, just outside of the town. But since I came here, that feeling I had stopped. Do you… I mean, is there any answer for that?”

Jim sighed, taking a sip of his black coffee, reverie dancing behind his eyes, “Geeze… How many years has it been since anyone asked about this…?”

She tilted her head, feeling some lingering tenderness, “You don’t have a lot of people experience it?”

“Well… No, not really. And there’s not really an answer. The locals of Blacken don’t like to hear or talk about it. They almost brush it off as some sort of witchcraft or conspiracy. I, like many others, can’t ask too many questions without being ostracized. It leaves people not wanting to pursue that curiosity.”

She sipped at the coffee, mirroring Jim’s action at the natural pause. He looked down, breaking eye contact while staring down into the black abyss of caffeine held in his hands, speaking with a low longing. It almost felt like he was someone who gave up his search, one of the ones he was talking about—on the verge of being an outcast for asking of the strange sensation they had no control over.

“But why is that? Why do they care so much about others trying to find an answer?”

“Most people around here are religious, it’s the crutch they lean on whenever someone tries to go out of