Darcy Miller
by
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He drifted in the lifting fog until he found himself beside a stream. He watched as the shallow, rushing stream rippled over rocky beds creating whirls and splashes of water. He found he could cross the stream easily by stepping on the rocks just below the surface. He slipped once, dropping his leg into the bubbling stream. It came up dry. He didn’t even feel the cold. He stepped out of the water onto the red clay bank. In the distance, a large field heavy with tall fescue waved at him with each breath of wind. Beyond the dancing field, stands of tall oaks mingled with less majestic pines. He knew this place. Ahead on a small hill, plump pumpkins huddled in a tangle of pale vines. In another world, they would have been bright orange, but in this anemic world, they were ghastly and gray. “Look, jack-o-lanterns. I’ll cut eyes and a mouth in that big one there and stick a big candle inside its head.” Beyond the pumpkin patch, rows of corn stood like tired soldiers, their shriveled silk crowned ears boldly announcing their readiness for harvest. He reached for one and pulled back the thick husk. The cluster of kernels crumbled in his hand. Across the field, a tall silo and the silhouette of an old farmhouse caught his eye. Between the two, stood an old building with furry skins nailed to the outside walls. Charlie hunched his shoulders, crossed his arms and shook his head. “I don’t like it.” What don’t you like, Charlie? “Here! I don’t like it here?” “Ask him why, Harmon,” Nesbit said. “If we know what he’s so frightened of, it might open other doors for us.” What is it you don’t like? “The barn!” What’s wrong with it Charlie? “It scares me.” Why are you afraid of it? It’s just a barn. “It’s the . . . the killing place.” No, Charlie. It’s a safe place. I’m with you. You’re safe with me there. “I’ll go around it.” No! Go in. It’s okay. Nothing is there to hurt you. “I don’t want to. I want to go to the house. I can get there another way.” We’ll go to the house later, Charlie, but for now . . . His body trembling. His voice raspy. “Let me just go around it.” Go in the barn, Charlie. It’s safe. You can trust me. It’s okay. Rapid head jerks. “No! I’m scared!” What are you afraid of? Charlie pointed a trembling finger across the field. “Him!”
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About the Book
Darcy Miller
Bad things happened. Only the straw man saw.
Twelve-year-old Charlie Colby’s discovery of Elwood Johnson’s frozen body in the wooded area near the Davis farm, his head crushed from a fallen tree branch after a sudden N.C. ice storm, heralds the return of Sue Ann Colby and her son’s nightmare.
The return of Darcy Miller, Sue Ann’s sudden unexplainable illness, Charlie’s missing brother, the mysterious death of James “Farts” Bagwell collide and draw Social Worker Darlene Palmer and Detective Casey Larsen into the lives of the Colby’s and their mysterious past.
All Darlene Palmer knows is that the inexplicable entwinement of Darcy Miller and the Colby family is the key to the mystery of both their present and their past. All Detective Larsen knows is that whenever an unexplained death occurs in the small town of Kernersville, Charlie Colby and Darcy Miller are somewhere around.
Darlene’s drive to unravel the mystery of the elusive specter, Darcy Miller and the disappearance of Charlie’s younger brother, Andrew, takes twenty years and a frightening visit to a small Georgia town where she discovers that when multiple entities strive for dominance of the psychic realm, the world becomes a mystifying and frightening place. When one of the personas seems ageless, the frightening becomes terrifying.
About the Author
Darcy Miller About the author Chuck Hughes was born in Waynesboro, Virginia on a crisp September morning. He spent his teens in the Shenandoah Valley amid the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains until his seventeenth birthday when he joined the U.S. Navy and trained as a Hospital Corpsman. Twenty years later, he traded Navy blue for jeans and sneakers and entered the Medical University of South Carolina’s Physician Assistant program. After graduation, he entered the University of NC, at Charlotte (UNCC) where he received a BA in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Education. His life’s experiences, which include tours of duty on a Ballistic Missile submarine, six years with the Marine Corps, a side trip to Vietnam and twenty-five years as a Physician Assistant in acute psychiatry, ingrained in him a lingering curiosity about the human psyche. Once in the golden years of life’s adventure, he found the daring and freedom to allow his curiosity to rove freely in the land of, What If! This is where, one dreary evening, Darcy Miller was born. It is his contention that Darcy Miller may haunt us all at one time of another.