This story has been in the back of my head for many, many years and was truly a labor of love. Although historicals are my first love, this story kept nagging at me all through the Mountie series and other books. The Gathering is a mixture of mystery, suspense and a little paranormal with just a touch of a love story thrown in. While it is a deviation from my usual genre, I hope that you, as readers, will give it a chance. It truly was a joy to write. In researching this book I had the pleasure of interviewing some pioneers in the search for the Loch Ness monster. Riobert Rines, Nicholas Witchell and Richard Greenwell all were very helpful and shared some of their experiences and stories with me. In fact, Ward's first experience with mysterious beasts in his boyhood was based on a story Richard Greenwell told me of his own childhood in England and a rare sighting. And so here it is, a sneak peek from The Gathering!
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The Gathering
The economy rental car coughed up a final belch of disagreement and rattled into the parking place. Ward shoved the transmission into first gear and yanked up the parking brake. A pinched face appeared at his window.
"Please Dr. Black. We have to hurry!"
The woman at the window reminded Ward of a nervous chicken as she paced back and forth on the sidewalk. Stick-straight blonde hair was piled up on her head and secured there with a pencil. She clutched an armload of papers to her chest as if they would somehow take on a life of their own and gallop away across the parking lot of the television studio.
Ward shoved open the protesting door, grabbed his briefcase and unfolded himself out of the car.
"We're taping around back," she said as she pony-stepped beside his long stride. Her franticness was soon contagious and Ward broke into a half run through the front door of the studio, across the morning news sound stage and toward the back door where a stagehand yanked it open. A makeup technician caught his arm, dusted his face with powder, pinched his cheeks, and shoved him toward the set. Someone grabbed his briefcase out of his hand. Henny-Penny flitted around the edge of the set rearranging three wooden stools placed in a line on a large piece of green, indoor-outdoor carpet. Large stand lights ringed the area and a few plants in large pots sat behind the stools. Three cameras were aimed at the area, massive cables strung from them to the open back door of the building.
The back of the television studio edged up against a copse of piney woods. Without the lights, carpet and cameras, one might think there were out in the deep, deep woods. Apparently the effect the crew was going for.
Henny-Penny grabbed his arm and led him over to a stool facing the other three. She pushed down on his shoulder in a silent order to sit, and then flitted away. Moments later, she fluttered back into view, a clipboard with production notes in her hands.
"Angela will open the show as usual then she'll ask you some questions about the expedition, what you found, how you came to be there and," she paused briefly in her chattering, "your wife's death."
Sarah. Everybody wanted to know the dirty, twisted details of Sarah's death. They all waited, breath held, for the famous monster hunter to divest himself of his festering guilt and divulge some hereto unknown facts. But, there were no juicy facts. Sarah fell. Sarah died. Sarah's body was never seen again. Period.
The mention of her name used to bring crushing guilt and pain and anguish that wrenched his body and robbed him of sleep. But now, nearly a year later, that pain had softened into a dull, familiar ache that lay undefined and heavy in his soul. A pain that accompanied him every waking moment, reminding him of his failings, of the sorry state of his humanity. He wished he could say he'd worked through the five stages of grief with the precision of a psychoanalyst, but he hadn't. The resulting uproar from Sarah's accident had eclipsed all the steps save Number One - Denial and isolation, which he was very good at – and Number Four – Depression, which he had mastered.
Once back in the states, the world had swooped down on him in a feeding frenzy. Beloved Dr. Sarah Black tragically killed while on another of her husband's harebrained monster-seeking expeditions. How did she stand the bastard, they asked anyone who would listen.
The back door to the studio banged open and three people filed out. Out in front was Angela Rampton, lead character in the hottest reality show on cable television at the moment, The Truth Seekers. Behind her were her three sidekicks, each one representing some contrasting bit of human psyche – The Doubter, The Jester, and The Serious One. Each one wore an outdoor-esque vest. Tall leather boots lent just that hint of English-African safari ambiance. Floppy, much-abused Fedora hats added a pinch of Bold Adventurer. Angela wore a hiking bag of some sort draped across her shoulder to show her readiness, no doubt. The Serious One held aloft a GPS antenna used to track implanted radio devices. Implanted into what was not immediately clear.
Decked out as part Indiana Jones, part Marvin the Martian, they boldly scrambled through forest and swamp each week to debunk or validate sightings or even whispers of mysterious beasts or paranormal activity. Armed with state of the art technology and no hard facts, they traveled to every far flung part of the country where anybody had ever said Boo! in the dark. Single-handedly they had debunked new evidence for the Skunkape in the swamps of Florida. And recent sightings of the Jersey Devil were explained away as migrating birds. Paranormal activity at an abandoned mental institution in North Carolina was explained away as a before-unknown population of brown bats. Then, just when their viewing audience was coaxed in a sense of security from the unseen, they would almost capture a beast on film or almost identify that footprint as belonging to Bigfoot only to be thwarted by some unfortunate – or fortunate, depending on how you looked at it - circumstance.
Angela stopped in front of him, took a deep, silent breath, and stared down at her shoes. The unmistakable odor of a good, stout bourbon emanated from her in waves.
So, Angela Rampton, fearless monster hunter, got her courage from a bottle.
In the pregnant silence following that alcoholic exhalation, the production crew that had now filed outside and taken their places began to whisper and exchange furtive glances. The director, massive headphones clamped onto her ears, slapped her forehead with her palm and gestured wildly. Ward fought down the urge to laugh. Live broadcasts had a way of going terribly, terribly wrong, spawning bloopers that went viral in a matter of hours.
He hated interviews, especially these trumped up, costumed productions that made a mockery out of an obscure branch of science, all for the cause of broadcast ratings. More importantly, he hated interviews that made a fool out of him. He did that just fine on his own, thank you ma'am.
"Good morning, Dr. Black. I'm glad that you could see fit to join us."
So, old Angela wasn't so smashed after all. She was alluding to the five other times she'd attempted to have him on the show and he'd cancelled.
"My pleasure," Ward replied, warily eyeing Angela as, in front of his eyes, she slipped from fragile-heavy-drinking-bad-girl to fearless truth seeker.
"I'm going to ask you some embarrassing questions. I hope you're prepared."
Ward smiled. "As prepared as I ever am for a good, old-fashioned screwing."
Angela chuckled then took her seat beside her sidekicks.
"Action!" said the director and dropped her arm. A green light flickered on the camera beside Ward.
"Good morning, you Truthies out there."
Ward cringed.
"I'm Angela Hampton and I'm here with my Seekers crew and a special guest."
She looked at the camera, now cool as a cucumber, although Ward suspected most of her vegetables came with her Bloody Marys. “Our guest this morning is cryptozoologist Dr. Ward Black,” she continued in her broadcasting voice. “Recently, Dr. Black made the ultimate sacrifice for his rather odd passion. His wife, renowned NASA scientist Dr. Sarah Black, was killed while on an expedition in Nepal searching for the Abominable Snowman. This disastrous and possibly illegal expedition cost Dr. Black his position as Professor of Microbiology at Cornell University. After the break, he will join us to share his incredible story and also tell us how he duped the American public into funding this catastrophic adventure.”
"Please Dr. Black. We have to hurry!"
The woman at the window reminded Ward of a nervous chicken as she paced back and forth on the sidewalk. Stick-straight blonde hair was piled up on her head and secured there with a pencil. She clutched an armload of papers to her chest as if they would somehow take on a life of their own and gallop away across the parking lot of the television studio.
Ward shoved open the protesting door, grabbed his briefcase and unfolded himself out of the car.
"We're taping around back," she said as she pony-stepped beside his long stride. Her franticness was soon contagious and Ward broke into a half run through the front door of the studio, across the morning news sound stage and toward the back door where a stagehand yanked it open. A makeup technician caught his arm, dusted his face with powder, pinched his cheeks, and shoved him toward the set. Someone grabbed his briefcase out of his hand. Henny-Penny flitted around the edge of the set rearranging three wooden stools placed in a line on a large piece of green, indoor-outdoor carpet. Large stand lights ringed the area and a few plants in large pots sat behind the stools. Three cameras were aimed at the area, massive cables strung from them to the open back door of the building.
The back of the television studio edged up against a copse of piney woods. Without the lights, carpet and cameras, one might think there were out in the deep, deep woods. Apparently the effect the crew was going for.
Henny-Penny grabbed his arm and led him over to a stool facing the other three. She pushed down on his shoulder in a silent order to sit, and then flitted away. Moments later, she fluttered back into view, a clipboard with production notes in her hands.
"Angela will open the show as usual then she'll ask you some questions about the expedition, what you found, how you came to be there and," she paused briefly in her chattering, "your wife's death."
Sarah. Everybody wanted to know the dirty, twisted details of Sarah's death. They all waited, breath held, for the famous monster hunter to divest himself of his festering guilt and divulge some hereto unknown facts. But, there were no juicy facts. Sarah fell. Sarah died. Sarah's body was never seen again. Period.
The mention of her name used to bring crushing guilt and pain and anguish that wrenched his body and robbed him of sleep. But now, nearly a year later, that pain had softened into a dull, familiar ache that lay undefined and heavy in his soul. A pain that accompanied him every waking moment, reminding him of his failings, of the sorry state of his humanity. He wished he could say he'd worked through the five stages of grief with the precision of a psychoanalyst, but he hadn't. The resulting uproar from Sarah's accident had eclipsed all the steps save Number One - Denial and isolation, which he was very good at – and Number Four – Depression, which he had mastered.
Once back in the states, the world had swooped down on him in a feeding frenzy. Beloved Dr. Sarah Black tragically killed while on another of her husband's harebrained monster-seeking expeditions. How did she stand the bastard, they asked anyone who would listen.
The back door to the studio banged open and three people filed out. Out in front was Angela Rampton, lead character in the hottest reality show on cable television at the moment, The Truth Seekers. Behind her were her three sidekicks, each one representing some contrasting bit of human psyche – The Doubter, The Jester, and The Serious One. Each one wore an outdoor-esque vest. Tall leather boots lent just that hint of English-African safari ambiance. Floppy, much-abused Fedora hats added a pinch of Bold Adventurer. Angela wore a hiking bag of some sort draped across her shoulder to show her readiness, no doubt. The Serious One held aloft a GPS antenna used to track implanted radio devices. Implanted into what was not immediately clear.
Decked out as part Indiana Jones, part Marvin the Martian, they boldly scrambled through forest and swamp each week to debunk or validate sightings or even whispers of mysterious beasts or paranormal activity. Armed with state of the art technology and no hard facts, they traveled to every far flung part of the country where anybody had ever said Boo! in the dark. Single-handedly they had debunked new evidence for the Skunkape in the swamps of Florida. And recent sightings of the Jersey Devil were explained away as migrating birds. Paranormal activity at an abandoned mental institution in North Carolina was explained away as a before-unknown population of brown bats. Then, just when their viewing audience was coaxed in a sense of security from the unseen, they would almost capture a beast on film or almost identify that footprint as belonging to Bigfoot only to be thwarted by some unfortunate – or fortunate, depending on how you looked at it - circumstance.
Angela stopped in front of him, took a deep, silent breath, and stared down at her shoes. The unmistakable odor of a good, stout bourbon emanated from her in waves.
So, Angela Rampton, fearless monster hunter, got her courage from a bottle.
In the pregnant silence following that alcoholic exhalation, the production crew that had now filed outside and taken their places began to whisper and exchange furtive glances. The director, massive headphones clamped onto her ears, slapped her forehead with her palm and gestured wildly. Ward fought down the urge to laugh. Live broadcasts had a way of going terribly, terribly wrong, spawning bloopers that went viral in a matter of hours.
He hated interviews, especially these trumped up, costumed productions that made a mockery out of an obscure branch of science, all for the cause of broadcast ratings. More importantly, he hated interviews that made a fool out of him. He did that just fine on his own, thank you ma'am.
"Good morning, Dr. Black. I'm glad that you could see fit to join us."
So, old Angela wasn't so smashed after all. She was alluding to the five other times she'd attempted to have him on the show and he'd cancelled.
"My pleasure," Ward replied, warily eyeing Angela as, in front of his eyes, she slipped from fragile-heavy-drinking-bad-girl to fearless truth seeker.
"I'm going to ask you some embarrassing questions. I hope you're prepared."
Ward smiled. "As prepared as I ever am for a good, old-fashioned screwing."
Angela chuckled then took her seat beside her sidekicks.
"Action!" said the director and dropped her arm. A green light flickered on the camera beside Ward.
"Good morning, you Truthies out there."
Ward cringed.
"I'm Angela Hampton and I'm here with my Seekers crew and a special guest."
She looked at the camera, now cool as a cucumber, although Ward suspected most of her vegetables came with her Bloody Marys. “Our guest this morning is cryptozoologist Dr. Ward Black,” she continued in her broadcasting voice. “Recently, Dr. Black made the ultimate sacrifice for his rather odd passion. His wife, renowned NASA scientist Dr. Sarah Black, was killed while on an expedition in Nepal searching for the Abominable Snowman. This disastrous and possibly illegal expedition cost Dr. Black his position as Professor of Microbiology at Cornell University. After the break, he will join us to share his incredible story and also tell us how he duped the American public into funding this catastrophic adventure.”