A sample from BURIED DEEP
As I said a few days ago, work has begun, and now chapter one is written. Twenty-four (plus an epilogue) remain, but the first exceeded my expectations.
Sometimes I plan out a book and get very nervous, wondering if the story is going to come together or if it will just die as an “idea with no depth.” I don’t always worry about that; sometimes I have so much story in my head that I know I can write it. This one, though, was one of those times when I wondered.
To be honest, I still worry about the middle of the book, but at least after chapter one, I am happy.
Here’s a sample from the chapter, during which the main character—Scott Vander—has been summoned to his own backyard by his neighbor, after the discovery of a hole presumably dug by the Vaders’ labrador, Barf. The time is nine in the evening, December just outside of a small Connecticut town. It’s dark, in other words…
*****
Both Scott and Archie lived in old, Federal-style homes, built two-hundred years prior. Scott had no idea who owned the house before him, but Archie could tell you every resident who lived in his home, dating back to his great-great-whatever-grandfather who built it. He was believed to be the descendant of the town’s founder, and he's believed to be that because that’s how he introduced himself to every new resident he encountered.
Imagine what being his neighbor was like.
Archie came to a stop in front of the fence that separated their two properties, near the corner where the dense forest of trees stretched for several miles. If it wasn’t for Barf’s desire to chase…anything, not to mention his fascination with taking a dump in anyone’s yard that’s not his own, Scott never would have built the fence. It always felt a bit trashy having a chain-link barrier so close to a treeline that provided plenty of natural boundary.
“I was feeding my cat when I saw it.” Archie said, shining the flashlight toward the ground.
“Your cat is out here in this?!”
“She likes it. She’s bred for it. This your dog, I guess.” He knelt down and scooped some of the fresh snow out, to better reveal the hole.
“I guess.” Scott said, too cold to hide his annoyance. “I dunno, Archie, it’s a hole. I’m sure my dog did it. I’ll fill it and fix it in the morning.”
“It’s awfully big.”
“I’m really sorry. Like I said, I’ll—”
“Oh, hey, I’m not mad Scott. No trouble. No harm done. It’s just, the hole is so big I was worried he got out. It’s big enough for a dog twice as big you see.” The flashlight pivoted a bit from the hole to the fence itself, where a portion was bent, though not from the inside-out, but from the outside-in.
“Well Archie, I don’t think my dog bent the fence.”
“It wasn’t my cat.”
“No, I’m sure it wasn’t Mr. Bilky.” Scott said, glancing around the darkened pair of yards, sweeping the snow-drifted scene with his flashlight. Unlike the Vander family, Archie and his wife had neither a fence nor a dog to contain, which meant any manner of wild animal could have come in from the forest and dug into his yard. The idea left his mind as quickly as it entered, though, since there was no sign of any thing in his enclosure but himself and his neighbor.
“Well it’s peculiar, I know that.”
“It sure is, Archie.” Scott said flatly. “I’ll fix it all up tomorrow morning, don’t worry.”
“No work tomorrow?”
“No, I—am off.” he lied. The last thing Scott wanted was to explain why he wasn’t working tomorrow, and thus endure another fifteen minutes in the cold.
“Arch?” a woman’s voice called from the darkness. The men turned to see the silhouette of a woman—Marylin—standing against the yellow square of an open doorway. “It’s almost nine!”
“Oh shoot that’s Dateline.” Archie said with a snap of his fingers. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” With that, he hurried away as fast as his old legs could take him, down the fence to the gate he originally walked through to get into the yard (Scott was bad about forgetting to lock it).
“You really don’t need to come out. I’ll have it filled no trouble.”
“No it’s no trouble. I’ll see you then!” Archie called back as he closed the gate behind him.
Scott trudged through his snowy yard, listening to the rhythmic crunch that accompanied each step. He wasn’t even watching where he was going. He didn’t even have the flashlight on anymore. The den light was still on, a square in the door that glowed dull orange. Crunch *crunch crunch,* his boots broke the snow underfoot. *Crunch crunch, step,* he reached the covered porch and his footfall quieted.
*Crunch*
He spun around, looking into the darkness, unmoving, listening, eyes scanning left and right. It was dark, but not so dark that he couldn’t see something standing feet away from him. There was nothing, however. The flashlight was in his hand and, very slowly, he positioned it so that he could turn it on and shine it forward, without having move his arm. With a click the light beamed forward, bouncing off the glistening white flakes, reflecting off the assortment of metal toys Molly had left out, scattered around the yard, peeking out of the snow. But still there was nothing.
A faint sigh left his nostrils, annoyance more at himself than anything else. He clicked the light off and stepped back into his den, locking the deadbolt and lingering by the door, listening for a crunch or a step or anything like he heard before. But still there was nothing. The lamp in the den was still on but every other downstairs light was off. He slipped off his boots where he stood and walked up the stairs to his bedroom.
*****
As I say, I still have twenty-four more chapters to go, so this one will take me a while to do. Still, I’m happy with how chapter one turned out, and look forward to continuing the story in chapter two.