#although i certainly knew jack was skeptical from the very beginning

[linusbenjamin]

Lost 4.10 | Something Nice Back Home

[cyberspace10000]

NOXIOUS SUNRAYS

by Jack Schneider The night, pierced with the umber glow of the streetlight, was masked by smog. Dust held heavy in the humid air as a light breeze rustled through the dead trees littered by the broken road. Two of my colleagues, clad in blue uniforms, stood to either side of a heavy front door at the foot of a big white house, their pistols drawn. I nodded at them. They forced the door open into a ruined dining room. A large mahogany table was the centerpiece of the room, with six equally large chairs set around. Upon the white drywall hung a telephone receiver, a long black cord draped down to the floor, where the other end of the telephone sat in the paleing hand of a young body; splayed awkwardly across the floor. For a moment, I stood outside in the night, before I stepped confidently into the room. That confidence, however, was for naught. I entered and was immediately struck by a cloyingly sweet scent wafting through the air. I reeled backwards as the sickly odor overwhelmed my senses. A wave a nausea and pain slithered down my spine from the very crown of my head. I staggered forward and gagged as the foul taste of puke dispelled from my stomach. I fell onto my knees. Grunting, and trying to reclaim my dignity, I pushed myself upwards and covered my mouth and nose with my hand. Looking down, I saw yellow vomit splattered across the white tile. I signalled to one of the officers. “Get an ambulance.” I coughed. One of my colleagues stepped out to the squad car, and the other joined me at my flank. “Officer Lemon, take the upstairs. I’ll handle it down here,” the officer nodded. “And Officer,” I said knowingly, “No going it alone this time. Bring anything suspicious you see to me.” the officer nodded again, this time with some hesitation, and a gas mask. He went upstairs. This was the third set of gas attacks in Botetourt county by what seemed an untraceable killer. Nicknamed “Friz,” the attacker had struck in random locations with no connection between them. Forensics were at a complete loss, so the FBI had been called in to investigate the scene. I switched on my flashlight, the pale glow reflecting the struggle I saw in the dining room. The dining room was connected to the living room and a mudroom. I first went to the mudroom. As I entered the room, the gaseous odor became stronger. I held my breath. The moon shone through a window, cracked open slightly. I scanned the room quickly, and spotted three vents that appeared to drain into the space. As my breath was running out, I darted out the door and slammed it shut. I inhaled deeply. I checked the living room and found nothing out of order. “Agent Hall!” a voice resounded from upstairs. I cocked my head towards the source, and moved in that direction. Officer Lemon was waiting for me at the top of the stairs. He gestured into the bedroom and I saw a man and woman intertwined on the bed, twitching. Their breathing was laborious and deliberate. Each inhale rattled deeply in their lungs, and every exhale seemed to constrict their throats even more so. Their faces were transfixed with fear and were purpling. I threw open the window and called out to the other officer, who heard me and rushed into the home. I grabbed the woman, who lay limp in my arms, and carefully exited the building. My other officers soon joined me as the flash of red and blue lights danced in the distance. A white and red van pulled up next to us, sirens screaming. Paramedics flung open the back doors and lowered down two stretchers, where the bodies were deposited. The corpse was also put into the ambulance and it sped off. A medical officer remained with us to conduct an investigation. I directed them to inspect the interior, as I checked around outside for clues. In both of the previous cases I was involved with, there had been no apparent clues nor any evidence left for the local police to deal with. I was assigned to the case to remedy that issue. The warm night breeze brushed through the shrubs. I closely inspected the ground, still wet from today’s light rain. The windows all seemed far too high to be reached by a normal man, but the mudroom seemed to be the logical entry point, as the ventilation systems started and ended there. I plodded around the house until I reached the mudroom window. I looked up, and I saw it cracked, light falling through the slivers lacing the glass. The window, ajar, appeared to have no damage aside from the crack. However, I estimated that if the window had been opened, the crack had been made at a prior point. I checked around where the attacker may have stood, and I discovered something. The grass, wet and cold and lightly coated with dew, was emblazoned with a single footprint. It was obvious that something had stepped on it, however, whatever it had been, its foot was jagged, with only three large toes projecting from the base. I called for assistance. Quickly, the medical examiner arrived. For a moment, he looked down at the print and studied it. “Three attacks in three weeks and this is the only thing we have? I’m not sure this can even be classified as evidence,” he said, looking up again at me. “No,” I said, “look at the shape of the impressions. They become deeper at the heel and toe areas. That means that there was a clear foot arch.” The medical examiner, still skeptical, took out a forensic camera. From above, in one of the bedrooms, a voice resounded as the flash bounced across the exhumed landscape. “Agent Hall!” said the voice. I jogged towards the entrance of the house and quickly ascended the stairway. I found the officer in the upstairs bathroom with a tool of some sort in his hand. “It’s a flit gun.” the officer said. “They use it to spray crops in the midwest.” “Excellently done, officer. Bag it and let’s go.” We quickly wrapped up the operation and exited the building. As my company proceeded to the squad car, I remained back and looked at the house ruefully. The air was filled with a morbid dread that certainly came from within the halls of that big house. I gazed up at the canopy of those dead trees lining the perimeter of the dying home, and I saw, just for a moment, two pale jade circles that flashed like the moon in full glow. They vanished, and I stood for a moment, contemplating what I had seen. At the moment I saw those orbs, my heart seemed to chill frozen solid. I knew not what I had seen, aside from the fact that despite my best explanations, still stood out in my mind like the sun on a stormy day. I joined my fellow officers in the squad car. As we drove off, I saw one bush rustle without wind. Part Two My home was a small, yellowing bungalow in a low-income neighborhood where the sound at night was not of crickets, but of domestic violence and the hum of ageing streetlights. The smell in the morning wasn’t fresh coffee but the industrial pollutants that snaked up from the breaking down and withering cars that the neighbors took to and from to work. It was a wretched little place, but home nonetheless. As the night grew older, the hum of cars and the hubbub of voices died down. I lay in my creaking bed, eyeing the hole in the plaster ceiling that leaked whenever it rained. I found it difficult to sleep most nights since the investigation began, for my mind wandered deep into the abyss of purpose and motive. Why did the gasser attack these people? What was their connection, if any? Was he working alone, or as part of a group? What was the noxious unidentifiable gas he used? And most importantly, was he even real, or simply a figment, a mass paranoid delusion in a town too isolated to know the difference between the supernatural and the mortal? I rolled over, the heat from the radiator that never turned off making me sweat through my clothes. The rusty alarm clock that stood vigilant on my nightstand read the hour of 2:37 AM, and I could feel my eyelids beginning to grow heavy. I gave in to the temptation, and soon began to dream. I stood in a boiler room. The chug of hot water and the muggy air filled the dark basement closet. In front of me was a spotlight, in the center of which lay a molding brown chair. In it, sat a wizened man. His eyes, gross, with bulging cataracts stared directly into my own. He wore a full suit, covered by a black trenchcoat. His gaze was unwavering. He opened his mouth and I saw no teeth, but only gums that looked worn and diseased. He spoke, I could see the vocal cords moving, but no sound came. Only the hum of the boiler. I felt sweat drip down my neck as the man continued his silent monologue. His gums seemed to be growing more and more infected by the second. Not once did he blink. Only the silent dance of the cracked lips and the cataracts that grew ever more foggy as time passed. At once, the man shut his mouth. But behind him, the shadows revealing nothing of their faces, two men approached each other. The man on the right carried in his left hand a patent leather briefcase. Inscribed in reflective print upon its side was the symbol of a gear with a hairline crack, jagged, running down its midline. The men seemed to know each other, although their unseen faces and their total lack of movement said otherwise. But something about their body language, the way they were so relaxed, they seemed to be perfectly comfortable in their mutual presence. The man on the right lifted the briefcase and exchanged it to the man on the left. The man on the left, with mechanical precision, took it. With the same precision in both men, they shook hands. The man on the left vanished into the shadows. But the man on the right stayed behind the old man. With no words, the old man smiled a terrible grin. And from the gums, so red now that they stood out like flames on a dark night, dripped down a line of blood and saliva. The spotlight shut off. In the center of the palm of my hand I felt a needle prick. My eyes, bleary with sleep slowly blinked open and as they did, the haze slowly began to fade away. While I knew my limbs were in perfect working function; I could see them, I felt as though they had been shackled with some sort of great venom, a paralytic drug or perhaps just unseen chains that bound me. I knew not where I was. The room I was in was entirely dark, but it seemed to be somehow shaking slightly as time went on. The surface I was on felt cold and metallic. I could only see a bit of my body through some form of light that was entering from the other side of the room. I was completely naked. I tried to move my arms and legs, but they were still slow and unresponsive. I began to breathe faster as I realized the gravity of my predicament as the last dregs of sleep sloughed off my body. I looked around with only my eyes (my head couldn’t move either) and saw the same infinite thing, darkness. The rocking and shaking of the room continued, and I noticed no change in the light until the bright flash of orange that was so common for streetlights at the time dance across the room. I was in a vehicle of some sort! But as soon as I had made this realization, I was met with another danger as from an unknown source came two men, their faces obscured by shadow. At this moment, I wondered if I was still dreaming, or if I was indeed awake in the world of the corporeal. They looked at each other in almost unison before stepping into the meager light. Their faces still infect my nightmares. Both men were exact equals, each with no hair anywhere on the body, white eyes with only small dots of black as pupils, a mouth with no lips whatsoever, and a nose and bone structure that seemed to sink or even press deep into the muscle and flesh tissue of their heads. Their necks, long but thick and covered in veins and muscle fiber, pulsed and contorted without purpose. They both wore suits, buttoned up fully with a crisply pressed white shirt and a black, or at least I think it was black, tie. The line between the ethereal and mortal seemed so bent and distorted that my mind itself seemed incapable to wrap around. Again, another glance at each other before they looked down at me, four eyes equally locking with simultaneous power of intimidation to my own. They opened their mouths, and spoke. Their voices, like the rest of them, were inhuman. The man on the left’s voice was so high that it seemed indistinguishable from a dog whistle, and so infuriating it might drive one to madness, and the man on the right’s voice so deep and evil that he might have been Lucifer himself. They spoke, in unison. “Hall. Bryan. FBI Registration Special Agent. You have been assigned to a case of certain international importance. We recommend that you immediately seek residency in another town.” They paused for a moment and locked eyes with each other yet again. The maddening whistle of the right man’s voice combined with the demonic timbre of the left man’s made a horrible sound that no man could have been able to replicate. “In several months this will be nothing more than a cold case that will never again be opened.” They paused again as their voices still reverberated inside the metal walls. I could hear only my breathing. “If you do not comply… we will hunt you like a dog.” At this moment, I became so abruptly terrified that I let out several shouts for help, screaming that I was a federal agent and I would have them brought to justice, and that I knew people in high places. But somehow, it was seemingly written in their uncanny faces that they were also agents of the Union, that they could not be brought to justice; like they were above the law, and that they knew people in places higher than my own. I did not notice until after my fit had ceased that I had indeed been making no sounds. Furious, I attempted to scream the loudest scream I could as their eyes remained unwavering on my own. I conducted the yell, but again, no sound came out. It was like a night terror, where all rage and all your fear was inexorably and inexplicably kept within you, building and building so much until it seemed that your mind itself was ready to burst. And then, at that moment, the moment where the fear controlled you the most, you woke up, you broke through the cage, and everything seemed to be alright. The men looked at me. Their faces slowly changed expression. The right man’s face became a hideous smirk, and the left man’s face contorted an expression of pure hate and opened his mouth wide to show his glistening white teeth. We passed underneath another streetlight, and on the ceiling of the vehicle I saw in the same reflective print, a gear. I looked down, and saw their eyes once more before I sat up with a shout in my own bed. Part Three The radiator hummed softly as cold sweat dripped from my pores, snaking down my body and wetting my already damp sheets. The fan which lightly blew wind in my face chilled the dampness of my skin and dispersed the heat of the dream. I had never had a nightmare so vivid or so symbolic. Come to think of it, I rarely in fact dreamed. But perhaps this could have been a dream. I had never been assigned to a case I couldn’t crack, but this one was one of them. Perhaps my subconscious mind knew something I didn’t. But then again, I had never felt so alive during the moment. I could have sworn I felt adrenaline pumping through my veins, I could almost taste the cold metal of the table I may have been locked on. I looked at my clock, but not before I rubbed away the sleep from my eyes. It was 5:30 in the morning. Still bleary eyed, I forced myself up from the bed, and made my way to the shower. I turned on the hot water and cleaned myself up, then got out and put on my black work suit and khaki trench coat. Outside, I heard a horn honk amidst the other hubbub of the morning rush. It was familiar, the same horn of the car that sounded every morning to pick me up. I walked out, fresher than I was, thought that in itself was not so fresh. I walked out, and I saw that the sky was still dark. The squad car sat on the curb with one of my colleagues driving. I opened the passenger side and I entered the car. “Mornin’ Bob,” I said. “Any updates on the case as of now?” Bob looked at me and lit up a hand-rolled cigarette, too loose to hold tobacco, and too big to be wieldy. Ash fell onto not only his pants but mine as well. “That footprint you found yesterday? We had someone analyze it, and embedded into the ground we found this.” He held up a small plastic bag marked “EVIDENCE”. Inside it was a small black piece of patent leather. I took it from him and looked at it. The leather shined with the same radiance that the briefcase had when I had seen it last night. Realizing this with a small sliver of doubt about the reality of the second nightmare and a slight chill running down my spine, I pocketed the evidence. “Bob, any fingerprints?” Bob shook his head. “Not a one. Whatever there might have been was covered by gloves or washed away by rain.” I sighed. I looked at the half-smoked, foul looking cigarette and said “Bob, you better give me that.” Bob looked at me and smiled a knowing smile, and handed the cigarette over, tobacco falling out as he did. I looked at it, was disgusted by it, and then started smoking it. I inhaled the vapor, and tasted its monoxide flavor as it tunneled into my lungs. But all that was bearable as nicotine began to course through my veins. When it burnt down, I threw it out the window. The blur of the trees, most of them decaying, was parsed by pines that seemed immovable by the forces of both the seasons and the passing of time. A voice piped through the ham radio mounted to the dashboard. “All units, converge on North 21st Street. We have a possible 10-14. Repeat, all units, to North 21st Street.” Bob quickly glanced at me and I braced myself as we spun into the nearest driveway and peeled out in the direction of the street, rubber burning on the tarmac. Our cruiser shot through the more desolate parts of town, the tires running over trash and garbage of all sorts before we arrived at the scene, sirens screaming. Bob hit the brakes and we exited the vehicle. My trenchcoat fluttered behind me as I walked into the cool breeze. I pulled out my large flashlight and shined it on the porch. In the few rays of dawn that arched over the horizon, I saw a girl, no more than 20, lying face down on the stone steps. I rushed over to her and rolled her over. The sight I saw was more than foul. Her face, swollen and disfigured, was bright pink. I could see the veins of her head pumping blood madly to her cheeks, her body desperately trying to flush out whatever venom she had indulged in. There was vomit splotched across her white sundress. The scent was foul, but somehow, at the same time, sweet notes penetrated through that odor. I looked down at her hand and noticed a white cloth. I pulled it out of her hand and put it into an evidence bag. Paramedics were already on the scene. I walked back to the squad car, away from the body. In those newly borne noxious sunrays I saw on the sidewalk a key glittering. The light’s reflection seemed to nearly call for me, a depraved invitation to the identity of the prowler. I thought to myself that this could be the clue I needed! I bent down, the howl of sirens and the echoes of voices fading slowly from my senses. I picked it up, and felt its well-worn silver encrustment. As I looked at it, I could tell the infiltrator’s key would betray no secrets. I bagged it as sound returned to my senses. But aside from the sirens and shouts of the paramedics, I heard another voice, more filled with anguish than any of the former. I looked and I saw the mother, shrieking of conspiracy and essential hysteria. She was being assisted by two officers. I walked over to her. Still her shrill voice pierced through all other noise. I gripped her shoulder. It was rigid, and yet shook with a powerfully nervous energy. I said with utmost delicacy, “Ma’am, I need to ask you some questions.” The shaking seemed more subdued, so I continued with my prompt. “Me and my colleagues are desperate for any sort of information you may have, regardless of what you think you saw or not.” This statement earned me a few glares from my more official coworkers, but I shirked them off. Her voice was no longer shrill. “Behind the house, clad in black-” was all she could say before hysterics retook her form. At this moment I knew that I could extrapolate no further answers. I motioned for those two officers to follow me, and they joined me. We rounded the house, where great oaks lay dormant upon the horizon. We saw at the back of the house, two great windows. The sun had risen fully, and the light cast through the one that had been opened from the outside. We checked on the ground for the footprints, and, without a doubt, found them again. I looked back up at the window and noticed red marks laced around the perimeter. At the moment, I thought they may have been bloody scars, but I noticed they were too bright and too fresh to be blood. I rubbed my finger on one of the marks, and withdrew it, and found a waxy substance attached to my finger. I touched that finger to my tongue, and tasted lipstick. I looked at my fellow officers and declared this: “Gentlemen, we’ll reconvene at this location at precisely 11:30 PM. Evacuate the household. We’re gonna wait him out.” Part 4 Crickets chirped all around me. I lay concealed with my fellowship in the cruiser that was silent with all lights darkened. The clock drew near to the aforementioned hour. We continued our watch. The car was humid, and the windows were unopened. Discreetly, I rolled down the window. The other two thought this a fruitless venture, because in all cases the prowler had not returned to the scene of the crime. However, this time, the prowler had slipped. The error we needed was now within our grasp. By leaving the key and the lipstick, the perpetrator had already, unknowingly, sacrificed his last chance at freedom. I knew he would come to cover his tracks. The clock continued to tick. The same question drifted back into my mind yet again. Why? The prowler seemed to have no purpose other than to terrorize and spread fear, and accomplished no goals by doing so. Unless there was an unknown cause, there was no reason to engage in this activity. To justify this, there MUST be an unknown cause, because the reason was nonexistent. I pondered for a moment. If the perpetrator had taken such great lengths to conceal himself and his whereabouts, as well as using untraceable chemicals and state-of-the-art agricultural tools, this must mean that that unknown cause was of extreme delicacy and importance. The clock hit 12:00, and I realized I had lost myself in thought. I looked at my compatriots, and saw both of them asleep. No matter. I had the skills to- There was a sound behind the house. It sounded like a rustling bush or perhaps the wind moving through the trees. I felt the air, and detected no wind. At this moment I knew I had him. I exited the vehicle silently. My treads upon the grass went unheard by even the crickets. I drew my gun. The black steel was cloaked by the night. I held it close, and rounded the house. Whatever or whoever the perpetrator remains unknown to the law today. But what I saw was inhuman. A tall, lithe figure clad entirely in black, a jumpsuit so tight it looked as if it was the skin of the creature. I was still unnoticed. The prowler had no hair, but the same black material tightly fitted over its elongated, weird head. The face was unseen, hidden by a strange gas mask. The gas mask, however, beneath the eyes, emitted a strong emerald light. The eyelight shone on the ground, illuminating the object that I had decided to leave outside the window for his convenience. The key flashed viridian in the lights. I looked up at the thing again. Its entire form was skinny to the bone. It was emaciated, simply put. It bent over, and I could hear something between the stretching of rubber and the cracking of bones as it did. It picked up the key, and, almost dreamily, observed it. The crunch of flesh and bone was even more obvious as it stood. My eyes flitted back and forth over the body, until they landed on the right hand of the creature, where in it, lay a long, thin flit gun. It took the key, and pocketed it, if what it put it in was a pocket. I preferred not to think about it. The feet, clad in the same material, was the exact same as the footprints we had. From the pocket, it withdrew a tube of lipstick. The creature uncapped the lipstick, and on the wall, seemed to write something of importance. Then, immediately after, its three fingered hands, the fingers themselves long and crooked, raised up to the mask. Both hands gripped either side of the gas mask. With delicacy, and several hisses of an unknown chemical, the creature slowly pulled the mask up a few inches, enough to expose the mouth, a terrible black pit that seemed to have nothing within it. The skin of the creature was grey and crusting, scabs etched into its green lips. Veins, filled with black fluid, pulsed visibly on the flesh as well. It raised the lipstick to the hideous lips, and applied it. I could see pieces of dry skin and scabs falling slowly off the lips in the still air, lit up by the light behind the mask. I shuddered. It capped the lipstick, reinserted the mask to its normal position, and raised the flit gun to its side. It inserted it into the window that still remained open. I knew it was time to act. I whipped out from behind my meager cover and trained the pistol on the creature. “Freeze! Federal agent! Drop your weapons!” The creature glared at me quickly, the glowing eyes of the gas mask locked to my own. It dropped the gun from the window, and ran with all its possessions into the nearby woods. “Stop! Lethal force!” I yelled after it. The creature only wheezed as it attempted escape. I sprinted after it. “Lethal force!” I yelled again. Again, no response. I raised the pistol and fired three shots at the back of the neck in quick succession. The bullets made their target, and with meaty thwacks they penetrated the suit. Unknown gases hissed furiously from the punctures. The creature fell unceremoniously. Yet somehow it failed to fully stop. It clambered on all fours, and with sickly speed and silence, crawled even faster away from me. At this point, I unloaded all the rounds in my gun. 5 shots resounded through the dead wood. Only one made impact, and the creature gagged inhumanly when it did. The chase came to a head as we reached a clearing deep within the forest. I went to tackle the beast, but I missed, and impaled my leg on a pointy rock. I screamed in agony. I watched on as the emerald glow began to fade into the darkness of the clearing. I could see it still, faintly outlined, as it stood with great difficulty. It was dishevelled and badly hurt. But above me, the starry sky was blotted out by some enormous object. From the very heavens itself, came a sound. If one combined the death screeches of some wild animal with the pounding noise of a jet engine, you might come close to what it was. The object remained still over the clearing. The creature looked up at it. Gases still hissed from its suit. Suddenly, the scream of the object grew louder as a brilliant white light was emitted from deep within the cavern of whatever it was. I could see the creature, shadowed by the light and the crescendo of shrieks, defy all laws of physics and ascend upwards into the sky. The crescendo reached its greatest height as it seemed to be stabbing through my very eardrums. The horrible noise, at once, ceased, along with the light. I held my hand to my ear and felt blood dripping from it. Ears ringing, I picked myself up and screamed as I did so. The pain was almost overwhelming. I staggered towards where the creature had stood and found three things. Burned soil and grass, still smoking putridly, the flit gun, and the container of lipstick. I knelt in the ash and, with blood still flowing freely from my body, observed it. It was black, and inscribed upon its side, I could see in the starry night, was a cracked gear reflecting the stars back at me. And at that moment, I knew my nightmare had been a reality. Epilogue The prowler vanished after the attack at 21 North Street. Copycat artists attempted to recreate his work, but were always caught by the law. Life in Botetourt County returned to normal. Agent Hall was hospitalized for severe, inexplicable radiation burns all over his skin. His fate is unknown, and his records have been erased from existence. Ten years later, in Mattoon, Illinois, the same mysterious events occurred. Both events remain unexplained. However, there are rumors and tall tales of two men, one gleeful, and the other hateful coming to the victims of the attacks in their dreams. This concept of collective dreaming has yet to be deduced by our science. No evidence aside from the gun and the lipstick were ever recovered. The skeleton key Agent Hall had come into possession of was never unearthed. No ideas about its significance were ever suggested. At the conclusion of a 4 year investigation, the gassings were dismissed as a case of mass hysteria. However, the symbol of the gear, fractured in two, were found etched into several former offices of members of the high executive branch. Those members have since been declared missing. This was far more than panic.

[thegfiles]

Book: The Wedding Garden by Linda Goodnight

This is a Christian romance and part of a series called Redemption River. I must admit, I'm not Christian. So, its kind of odd that I would read this book, right? Well, to be quite honest, I didn't select this book myself. A snippet of this book, the prologue and first chapter, were sent to me in the mail, asking for my opinion on the book as a potential reader. So, I read the snippet and gave them my opinion, and as a reward they sent me this book and one other.

(Spoilers below the cut)

I have to say that I'm glad they did it. Just reading that first little bit of the book already had me wondering what was going to happen next. Not that I expected a lot of adventure, chaos and mayhem. I mean, it is a Christian romance. But, there was still that element of interest, nonetheless.

There was certainly an element of God and Jesus in the book, but to be honest it didn't seem to me like it permeated the entire thing. It didn't get in the way. Every other word wasn't about God or Christianity. So, that made it easier for me to read and probably lent to the interest of it. At least, for me.

There are many characters, and none of them are necessarily original. But, they still add to the book in a good way as per the way they were written. It flowed well, in other words.

Sloan Hawkins, the main character, the character the book was more or less about. He was dark and brooding, troubled. He had grown up in the town of Redemption. His father was a criminal who died in prison. His mother was a woman who was misunderstood and had a reputation as a slut and worked in a truck-stop diner. Her reputation was sullied because she would take drunk men to her home and let them sleep it off on her couch rather than drive around drunk. Nobody believed she wasn't actually sleeping with them, so naturally...rumors spread. Sloan is haunted by the fact that she just up and left one night, never to return. Nobody knew where she was, and apparently only Sloan ever thought it was weird that she left. Rumors were spread that she left in the middle of the night with a man she met at the diner, some trucker, and left Sloan all by himself.

Aunt Lydia, Sloan's ailing aunt who took care of him after his mother disappeared. She raised him from boyhood and though he had a troubled youth and eventually left town, he has always had a soft spot for his aunt. She is someone he respects and loves deeply. And she is the reason he came back to Redemption, after so long away, despite the fact that he hates the place and just about everyone in it.

Annie Markham, Sloan's high school sweetheart. She's harbored a lot of resentment and hate for Sloan since he left, but as we find out as the book steadily progresses, its understandable to a point. Annie is the police chief's daughter. She's kind, responsible and dependable. In the time that Sloan has been away, she's been married and divorced, she's had two children, and she is now Aunt Lydia's home-care nurse. She doesn't live there, but she spends quite a lot of time there caring for Lydia, seeing as the older woman lives alone. Although, now that Sloan is back the slack is taken off of Annie just a wee bit, but he's no nurse.

Chief Dooley Crawford, Annie's father, the police chief of Redemption. He has it out for Sloan. He threatened, blackmailed, and set Sloan up years ago so that he'd run off and leave Redemption, and leave his daughter alone. However, there was a much more secret and pressing reason that Chief Crawford made the decision to run Sloan out of town one way or another, and it had nothing to do with Annie.

Justin Markham, Annie's oldest child. He's a troubled boy, with a bad reputation around town as a troublemaker, who feels unwanted, unloved, a failure, and directionless. This is, in part, because his parents are divorced. He feels as if it might have been his fault, and he has a lot of anger and resentment over this, as well as anger and resentment at his father for leaving in the first place and leaving his mother and sister. The kids around town aren't too nice to him, either, and he gets into fights regularly. His grandfather, Chief Dooley, doesn't seem to pleased with the boy, for obvious reasons. And at 11, he's starting to get into that awkward stage anyway.

Ulysses "Popbottle" Jones is a character that I found quite endearing. Despite that, I might not have added him among the prominent characters, except for the fact that he plays a pretty significant role throughout the book, even though at first it might not seem so. He used to be a professor, but now he's among the downtrodden poor and hangs around with a dumpster diver named G.I. Jack. He's a very well spoken older gentleman, despite this, and has made many mistakes in his past. Among them was the love that he left behind in Redemption when he went to follow his own path, only to find out it wasn't what it had seemed nor what he really wanted.

These characters are all very endearing in their own way...well, except Chief Crawford, but I'm sure that was done on purpose. The book is well written and flows and progresses steadily and quite well. I definitely enjoyed it.

Gender roles are thick here, however, and impossible to miss. Men are stereotypically rugged, enigmatic creatures of habit or exasperation. Women are for the most part delicate, in need of protection and humoring from men, and so forth. These gender roles are there, and they are annoying, but they are not made a huge deal out of and it is muted in a way. And, considering that this is a Christian romance, it isn't all that surprising. I expected it, I was ready for that, so it didn't bother me as much as it might have if it had just sprung on me out of nowhere.

There really aren't too many places where this book lags for me. By the time you get to the last page of a chapter, each time there is something there that leaves you wondering. It really is a page turner.

Almost as soon as Sloan rides into town, he catches the Chief Dooley's attention. In fact, he catches everyone's attention. And he is aware of it. He has a severe disdain for the people of this town as a whole and he isn't interested in hiding it. Nor is anyone else apparently interested in waiting to spread rumors about why they think he might be back, why they think he left, and so on and so forth. Every town has its nosy old biddies, and Redemption is no exception.

Sloan's biggest irritation with the town seems to be the hypocrisy he perceives. Everyone is so big on Christianity, God, Jesus, church, family, love. But, at the same time as far as he can tell nobody really acts all that Christian. Spreading rumors, judging people, treating others like dirt...these are not Christian values. But, these are the things he remembers from the people of Redemption his entire life, things he remembers flung toward him, toward his mother even after she was gone and no longer there to defend herself, toward his father. He doesn't see much point in God, in Christianity. Why should he? What he's been shown of it is hypocrisy and rudeness, and mean-spiritedness.

Despite this Sloan is not an atheist. He is disenchanted with Christianity and God, he perhaps even harbors resentment toward the religion and its god, but that just shows he does believe in some sense. Then again, this is just my opinion of things. I don't feel that someone who is angry or feels resentment toward a deity could be considered an atheist, simply because if you are hating or resenting something you must believe that the entity exists.

At first, his return to Redemption doesn't do much to dispel these impressions of Christianity and God for him. And there isn't really a lot of emphasis put on it, either. Christianity and God are elements of this story, but they are not the centerpiece. And, I think this is because while most people who are Christian do center their life around their religion and their god, you don't hear God, Jesus, and Christian(ity) out of their mouths every other word. There are references to them, and to prayer, especially if something important (bad or good) is going on. But, for the most part people don't usually feel the need to talk about it all the time. And, I think that's what it was with this book. It was an aspect of the book, just like Christianity, God, and prayer are aspects of people lives, but it wasn't all there was to it. For me, that's one major thing that made this book readable.

Throughout the book, Annie and Sloan are the real main characters. The book really centers around them. Lydia was what brought Sloan back to town, and she's what keeps him there. And she's even the reason he finds God, but her role is actually pretty small as far as appearances go. I liked her and her death scene (there is no secret made from the beginning of this book that she is dying) was quite sad and I'll admit I shed a few tears.

Sloan's devotion to his aunt is actually very endearing. He's a skeptical person, a realist most of the time, a bit prideful, a typical bad boy, but with a heart of gold underneath. He's a good person who was dealt a bad hand and let it cloud his vision. But, his aunt appears to have been his brightest spot, one of his points of weakness. And the way he took her death was touching and endearing. His bedside inability to believe she was dying was more than touching. It wasn't the sort of throw-yourself-on-the-body-and-weep sort of moment you might expect out of dramatic moments in books or movies. No, instead he begged and bargained with her, if she lived he'd take her somewhere special. If she stayed with him, he'd do anything. This is actually one step of grieving.

I think all throughout the book until that point, Sloan knew she was dying but simply just refused to believe it. Everyone else, including Lydia, knew she was dying and had accepted it, though. In fact, that's why she was home instead of in a hospital. There was nothing that could be done for her aside from keeping her comfortable at this point, and her fondest wish was to be able to go home and die peacefully there. Which is exactly what she did.

Unfortunately, this happened RIGHT after (like the next day) Sloan found God. I must admit, I was actually wondering if he was going to decide he was angry at God again, but he didn't seem to do that. It wasn't until later in the book that this was addressed. He knew it would solve nothing, he'd already been down that road for other reasons before, and he knew that if his aunt Lydia could speak to him now she would not want him to forsake God again over her death. I like the maturity and the ability to self-examine himself and his feelings and situations that Sloan has throughout the book, even if some of it comes a bit later.

As for why this book is called The Wedding Garden. This book takes place in Redemption, as I mentioned, but a lot of it also takes place in or around the house of Sloan's aunt. This house had, for many...many years had a famous garden in the back that was so beautiful a lot of people wanted to have their weddings there. This garden is a very important aspect of the book. A lot of things center around this. One of Sloan's major goals in the book is to get that garden finished before his aunt died. And, even when that didn't happen, he kept on working the garden to restore its former glory. It had become run down because without Lydia, there was no one to tend the garden, anymore. She'd been too sick and weak to do it herself for quite some time.

This garden also supplied the venue for Sloan to get to know Annie's son, Justin. As I mentioned before, he is a troubled youth and Sloan knows something about troubled youths, as he used to be one. He saw that the boy was lacking structure, guidance and a male role model in his life and so he took it upon himself to try to help out. It was certainly a way to try to make peace with Annie, but he was also genuinely fond of the boy and genuinely wanted to help him work through whatever it was he needed to work through. To give him direction, something he had not had when he was a boy.

And, one of the first things this garden also does for Sloan, in a bit of a round-about way, is that it shows him that not everyone in the town of Redemption is against him or into spreading rumors. When he decided to start work on the garden, the first thing he did was stop by a plant farm/garden center to get supplies. He meets a woman there, Delores Miller, that he vaguely remembered from before he'd ever left. She treated him like a regular person, which was more than can be said for some other people he'd already encountered.

Speaking of that, it leads right up to something I want to talk about, because its one of my favorite aspects of Sloan Hawkins. He's got a caustic wit that he's not afraid to use, especially against nasty people who seek to hurt him. Take, for example, this excerpt from chapter 3, page 33:

"Say, you're Sloan Hawkins, aren't you? Clayton Hawkins's son?" she snapped her fingers as if trying to remember something. "And his wife -- what's her name? Worked over at the diner? Janie?"

Sloan skewered her with a dark glare. If she was trying to get a rise out of him by pretending ignorance, she was succeeding.

"Joni." he muttered through clenched teeth.

"That's right. Now I remember." Right. As if she'd actually forgotten. "She's the one that ran off with that trucker, wasn't she? Sure was a crazy thing to do, leaving you behind and all. Did you ever hear from her again?"

Never let 'em see you sweat.

With a cocky grin he didn't feel, Sloan leaned in and imitated her tone. "Say, aren't you the mom of that mean little creep, Ronnie? And isn't that your broom parked by the curb outside?"

Roberta jerked back, face flushing bright red. "Well, I never!"

Sloan showed his teeth in a feral smile. "Now you have."

I have to say that when I was reading that, especially those last two lines, I had to grin. I know people like Roberta and they always think they're so cute. I love it when someone has a great way to confidently give them a taste of their own medicine. Unfortunately, they generally don't learn their lessons.

And, just for context's sake, I would like to mention who Ronnie is. Sloan did not just poke a jab at that woman's son for no reason just to get at her. Ronnie is a little boy that goes to school with Justin and he had been making fun of Annie one day. It got Justin riled up, they got into a fight, and Justin got into trouble. Nobody knew exactly what had caused the fight, because Justin refused to tell. Even refused to tell his mother. However, he did tell Sloan upon a bit of coaxing. I suppose that despite this, the jab at the boy was not really necessary. It was a bit uncalled for. The boy kid is obviously learning bad manners and habits from his mother and repeating the nasty things she says. But, I think, in a way, Sloan was kind of killing two birds with one stone. He was getting back at Roberta for trying to hurt him and he was getting back at her for teaching her son it was okay to pick on other people. Too bad Roberta probably didn't take the hint and try to adjust her behavior.

Chief Dooley makes it his mission throughout the book to try to run Sloan out of town again. Except, this time, Sloan is no longer a kid without direction or confidence in himself. This time, Sloan will not be pushed or run out of anywhere until he is ready to be, regardless of how much he dislikes the town and most of its people. However, the twist in the book has everything to do with Chief Dooley, Joni Hawkins, and what REALLY happened the night she disappeared.

At this point I would really love to get into the nitty gritty of it all, but it makes the best twist of the book and I don't want to spoil it for anyone who might want to read it.

Long story short (yeah right, look at the length of this thing already!), Sloan inevitably finishes most of the garden and decides to stay once he and Annie put their differences aside and realize they still have feelings for each other. Especially after the truth comes out about Chief Dooley, and the night Sloan ran off.

You might think I've just spoiled the book, after all! But, oh...nay, I say. There are a few other plot twists I didn't mention, some of them predictable, and some of them not. And they're all pretty good and they all make the book. The characters in this book, especially Sloan, are memorable even if they aren't completely original. They have a sense of reality to them, they could easily be real people that you might meet one day. Even Sloan.

I like that about this book. While it is fiction and it is romance, its not dirty. Its not a bodice ripper, and it doesn't need to be. It stands alone and is a great book without the dirt. Its a great book without having to embellish the characters or their dialogue so much that they sound fake or strange or silly.

Its definitely a nice change from the usual romance books I read. I like this book and I definitely recommend it to anyone who has the time to sit down and read it. I don't think you'll be disappointed with it.