Keep In The Light (Keep In The Light Book 1)

Book summary

College student Janet's life is upended when a supernatural entity transforms her worries into primal terror. In a world where humans are no longer at the top of the food chain, Janet and her loved ones must confront their deepest fears to survive the lurking darkness. David Musser's KEEP IN THE LIGHT is a gripping horror story of resilience and family bonds.

Excerpt from Keep In The Light (Keep In The Light Book 1)

“Wow that party sucked,” Janet said to no one in particular as she walked down Parker’s Lane toward her dorm room.

Brushing back her long dark hair, she continued her rant. “Go to college, study, make friends, and go to amazing parties.” Okay, it didn’t really say that in the brochure but come on. “Wow, it’s exciting to drink, oh and drugs are cool. NOT!”

Janet, or Lucky as her family and friends called her, had been excited to go to this party. Jerry was going, and she had been so eager to see him and find out what he was doing before heading back home tomorrow. But he spent the evening sitting back in a recliner, a funnel in his mouth, a joint in his hand, engaging in a juvenile game with his friends who took turns pouring beer in the funnel and insisting he take a hit off the joint anytime he gagged on the beer.

Well as her mother said, “Just because a boy’s pretty, doesn’t make him smart or a good one.”

“Give me a break,” she said again and thought Where I’m from you are finishing your father’s beer for him when you mom’s not looking at eleven, and many smoke their first joint with their crazy aunt and or uncle by thirteen. So, it’s not a big deal. Is that it? Do people that think booze or pot are exotic make a bigger deal of it?

She had a crazy uncle, but she did not smoke with him. He was kind of cool. He’d taught her how to shoot. Her father was an excellent shot, but even he admitted that his brother was better.

“I’m better with a shotgun. You don’t have to hit a small target or center mass. I can take the top off a man at twenty feet. What else do you need?” he would say.

It would be fun to get back home for a bit. This was spring break of her freshman year. So far, other than her boyfriend situation, everything was coming up sevens. No choice of a major yet; maybe she would decide to be a nurse.

Passing Carter Hall, she felt a twinge; something was wrong. These twinges or feelings were why her parents called her Lucky. She could feel it, something was going to happen. Listening, she heard quick footsteps and turned around as Jerry almost collided with her.

“Lucky, Lucky, where are you going?” he slurred. “I wanted to see you before I go home. Gimme a hug,” he demanded as he reached out for her.

“You are stupid drunk, Jerry, and I’m not in the mood!”

She stopped, looking up at a light that flickered, and felt scared. Of him? if not then who?

“Come on Lucky, let’s get you. Get it? Get Lucky,” he smiled as if she’d never heard that one before.

“F-off Jerry!” she yelled as she headed toward her dorm. She could hear him coming behind her and she knew what he was going to do. She could see it in her mind before it happened. Jerry grabbed her left shoulder to spin her around, but instead of turning, she planted her feet and grabbed his hand, turning with his momentum, and threw him. It was a simple judo throw. Nothing fancy but it worked. If anyone had been around to see it, they would have thought it a spectacular throw as Jerry went flying into the bushes beside the path.

“Bitc—” he started to say as he struggled up, but before he could she kicked him in the ass, and he went face forward into the ground.

“Stay down, Jerry!” she shouted at him.

The streetlights flickered again. Something’s wrong she thought. “Go home, Jerry!” she yelled over her shoulder, hurrying to her room.

Inside the dorm with the lights on, she felt better. Maybe she was catching a cold. Her radar had never gone off like that before when there wasn’t something…

Her mother explained it best. “Some people have a faster reaction time than others and they are more aware of their surroundings. So, what you think of as luck, or something supernatural is really just the fact that you are observant. Watch a quarterback sometime, the good ones will move when someone is about to grab them but will keep looking downfield. Is that super-” her mom had been cut off by her father yelling from somewhere in the house “It’s her superpower don’t mess with it.”

She missed them so much right then. Entering her room, she made a quick decision - she was awake, and everything was already packed, so she grabbed her backpack and keys and headed for her jeep.

Outside once again, she noticed that the streetlight that had been flickering were completely out. Keys in hand, she reached in her backpack and pulled out her tactical flashlight. “Thirteen hundred lumens and a steel body baby, you can’t get better than that,” her uncle had told her when he had given it to her for her sixteenth birthday.

Turning the light on, she swept the area in front and behind her just to be sure. Nothing that she could see was out of place, but no use taking a chance. Jerry could be hiding to jump out and scare her. She couldn’t wait to hear his apology on her cell when he sobered up.

Almost to the parking lot, she could just make out her jeep in the shadows. Not far now. What is going on? One hundred yards, eighty, seventy, sixty.

That was it, she could not take whatever was going on. She broke into a run. “F this,” she said, running while moving the flashlight back and forth in one hand, and pressing the remote start for the jeep with the other. The lights turned on. Twenty feet, ten feet, “Just past this van,” she said.

“Boo!” Jerry shouted as he jumped out from behind the van.

Screaming, she hit him three times in the face before she knew what she was doing. He went down to one knee.

“You broke my nose, I was just kidding, I’m sawry,” he slurred the final word as he kneeled on the ground, his face in both hands.

Stepping past him, she got the jeep door open. “Lose my number!” she shouted as she tossed in the backpack, got in, and slammed the door. It was in gear and spinning gravel on Jerry as she flew out of the parking lot.

Never look back, forward always forward. If you don’t move, you die. She had read this or saw it in a movie once.

She’d stop at a pharmacy, or maybe a gas station, and get some aspirin or something for her fever. That had to be it. I must be getting sick, she was thinking.

Never once did she look back as she headed for the interstate, wanting to put some distance between her and whatever was going on.

Behind her, still sitting on his knees in the gravel holding his face, Jerry threw up. “Fuc…bi…” he spat out between heaves.

He was sitting in the dark. “Another light out. This school is falling apart,” he said aloud to the air around him.

Looking down at his hands he noticed the blood on them from his nose, and lip. Yes, his lip was cut. He could not believe it. The blood looked cool in the darkness.

She was fast! he thought. He had not planned to do anything but seeing her coming back out of the dorm he’d known where she was going and couldn’t help himself.

He had made it behind the van in plenty of time. “Wow that light is bright,” he remembered thinking, and it had sure hurt his eyes. Looking through the van’s windows had given him the perfect view of her. He had seen her, and that weird light had made some funky shadows all around her. It was almost as if whenever she had moved the light, the shadows had moved in the opposite direction.

“Duh,” he said to himself “She moved the flashlight and the shadows moved, man you are so stoned.” Still, they had looked odd.

Standing he forgot completely about the shadows and Lucky, taking off his T-shirt to use it to stop the bleeding before wiping his mouth. He lay back with his head against the van. If he had opened his eyes, he would have noticed the shadows swirling around in the sky above him. Two of them were swirling in circles, one dipping, while the other circled it. A sportsman would have seen them as two predators fighting over prey, but Jerry was no sportsman, and he was dead before Lucky hit the interstate.

They would find him the next day, or what was left of him. Spontaneous human combustion would be the listed cause of death. Nothing but ash inside of his clothes.

Lucky felt better when she hit the interstate. Giggling to herself a little. She had never really hit someone before. Sure, she had during martial arts practice but never in reality. Her hand didn’t even hurt. Did she hit him with the flashlight hand or the key hand? She couldn’t remember at first, then remembered it was two with the key hand and the final one with the flashlight. Curled in her fist like that it was better than the roll of dimes she always carried in her backpack.

“Being paranoid pays off every time,” she said and laughed as she turned on the radio.

“And tonight, on Coas—” it started as she changed the station “President says no nee—” She changed the station again and found nothing she felt like listening to, so she plugged her phone in and fired up her favorite playlist.

Relaxing finally, she looked around and laughed at what she discovered. When had she done it? She didn’t know, but the dome light was on. What, was she afraid of the dark now? Wow big college girl.

She turned off the dome light and relaxed into the drive. It was too late to call her parents to let them know she was coming home, but she was glad to be on the way.

Letting her mind wander, she thought of home and her wonderful father, who was only slightly less paranoid than his brother. How they even left the house each day with worrying about what would happen when they were gone was a mystery. She knew that if her uncle had been her father instead, he’d never have agreed to letting her go to college ten hours away from him. He would have moved.

Her father in fact had mentioned moving with her several times, but thankfully her mom had realized she needed to get out and experience the real world.