Nocturnal Read online

  nocturnal

  Volume One Of The

  frostbitten

  series

  A Novel By

  Ilia Bera

  DEDICATION

  To the love of my life,

  May your life be filled with many dogs.

  MORE FROM

  ILIA BERA

  Want to keep up to date on Bera’s next release? Visit the Facebook Page here:

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  Thank you kindly for your interest, and I hope that you’ll be there for my next one!

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  OTHER BOOKS

  PROLOGUE

  An Overture

  Sometimes, if you sit back and just simply watch the world around you, you will realize that our seemingly insignificant lives are actually part of an epic tale, unfolding right before our eyes.

  Like the elaborate underground of a thriving metropolis—Endless tunnels and corridors—abandoned subway lines and sewer systems—all passageways to lives that, unless explored, you would never know existed. Life itself is an incredible story, so meticulously structured that every single word—every single syllable is as important as the entirety of the fiction itself.

  It was during that time of year when the sun only rose for a couple of hours every day, and the long nights were as cold as all hell, that I found myself that little room.

  That little room where all of the players in this little tale came together for the first time.

  I arrived early, before anyone else, and I took a seat in the back corner of the classroom. I didn’t realize it then, but as I was sitting down in the back of that quiet, forlorn classroom, I was taking a front seat for a show, much more incredible than I could have imagined.

  This tale is not about me.

  I was simply there. Fate had led me to the perfect spot at the perfect time to witness the events of those cold, long December nights. Like a formless spectre—my role in this tale is that of a passive observer.

  But before I describe to you the details of that fateful winter month, it is important to explain how I came to be in that quiet little room.

  I didn’t know at the time, but the events and the characters from my own past would turn out to be vitally important to the future of the characters in the tale you are here to read.

  I hadn’t always wanted to be a writer. It wasn’t until I was finished high school that I wanted to be anything at all. My banker of a father wanted me to become an accountant, and my nurse of a mother wanted me to become a doctor. Growing up, all I wanted to do was read.

  I would zone out during school and I would read classic book after classic book. I never cared about my grades—they meant nothing to me. The only thing I cared about was reading.

  When I was very young, my parents didn’t have a lot of money and they couldn’t afford day care. Instead, my father would take me to the bank at the centre of town, where he worked. He would sit me down in the waiting area where the bank kept a small red table and a bucket of Lego Blocks for children, as well as a bookshelf for the adults. I would sit there all day, watching as person after person came through the bank. Children my age would sit down and play with the Lego Blocks until their parents finished their bank meetings.

  I was more interested in the books.

  I would read book after book while I waited for my dad to finish working.

  All of the bank staff loved me—especially the bank manager himself.

  My father worked for a very successful man:

  Philip Riley.

  Everyone in the town knew Philip. He was a charismatic kind of guy who loved to mingle in the waiting area with all of the bank’s customers.

  He was a man of extraordinary taste. He smoked Cuban cigars in his office, and ate out at fancy restaurants during lunch. I didn’t know much about him as a child, aside from the fact he gave my father a job during the recession, when the bank wasn’t hiring.

  My father only ever had nice things to say about Philip Riley.

  When I became old enough to stay at home alone, I stopped going into my dad’s workplace.

  One day, when I was about twelve years old, my father came home from work upset. He explained that he had been promoted as Philip had unexpectedly quit. My father worshipped Philip Riley—he owed him everything we had.

  Philip fell off of the town’s radar, and as the years went by, the memory of Philip slipped from all of our minds.

  It was about five years later, when I had just turned eighteen that Philip Riley reappeared in my life.

  It was the middle of the winter, and our town had just set new cold and snowfall records.

  Because of the spell of unbearably cold weather, my mother hadn’t had a day off in weeks. She was becoming worn out—completely exhausted.

  The town’s only hospital, where my mother was working, was filled with victims of frostbite and hypothermia.

  I woke up one morning with a weird sensation inside of my body. It seemed to flow through me—making me feel anxious and panicked for seemingly no reason at all. I will never forget that strange tingling.

  It was a Friday—the last Friday before schools broke for winter. The air managed to become impossibly colder and the snow managed to get heavier. Every radio station in town was repeating a warning message: “If at all possible, stay inside!”

  I was surprised to see my mother in the kitchen when I woke up. Apparently, the hospital was making her stay home, as they were struggling to pay their employees’ overtime.

  Throughout that day, my mother kept commenting on a strange sensation that she was also feeling. I didn’t tell her that I felt it too. I’d never been a big believer in “spirituality” or anything like that.

  My friend, Derek Enderby and I had plans to go to a big house party, being thrown by a friend of Derek’s brother.

  The party had been the talk of our school for weeks leading up to the winter break. The party host’s parents were both out of town and they’d left their sizeable liquor cabinet unlocked.

  But as the night approached, the weather became worse. Derek and I decided at the last minute not to go to the big party. Instead, we chose watch movies at Derek’s house, with his brother, James and the pretty little blonde James was dating at the time.

  The worsening snowstorm took out the who
le town’s power. We didn’t have a generator, so we were left with very few options—the library, the hospital, or one of the few houses with working generators—assuming they would let us in.

  The library was the first place to become packed to the teeth with people—and the hospital was urging people to try their best to find another place of refuge.

  As fate would have it, the big party had a working generator. I found myself headed for the party, with Derek, James and James’ new girlfriend.

  At the party, the host and his friends were turning strangers around at the door, despite them being freezing cold and desperate for a place to warm their hands and feet.

  We had to fight through a crowd of cold people to get into the house—freezing women and children desperate for a place to go.

  The whole hectic situation made me uncomfortable, and I still had that strange sensation fluttering through my spine.

  I decided not to drink that night. Instead, I did what I had always done best.

  I watched.

  As the drunken teenagers danced and mingled, I explored the house. The large warm home was decorated with army medals and award plaques.

  Horny teenaged couples occupied all the bedrooms, and queasy teenaged drunks occupied all the bathrooms.

  The large open living room was the centre of the action—where the music was the loudest and where all of the tipsy students were dancing. The huge kitchen was the desired location for the socializers, and the basement was where Derek, his brother and the party’s host were hanging out with their small circle of friends—a much more intimate setting.

  I continued to watch the party goers become progressively drunker, and I continued to explore the big house. Over the booming bass from the music, I heard a faint smashing sound. Then, I felt an icy cold breeze cross over my body, coming from the end of a desolate hallway. Alone, I walked towards it.

  I turned around a corner, and found myself face to face with him—

  Philip Riley, my father’s old boss, had crawled through a broken window.

  He’d grown a thick beard, and his face had become weathered and worn. He was dressed in ragged clothes, and he looked as though he hadn’t showered in years.

  He was holding a knife out, pointed directly at my gut. He prepared to stab but stopped as soon as he recognized me.

  He stared at me for a moment, lips trembling from the icy winter air.

  “I—I’m cold,” Philip said.

  Philip looked up towards the attic access. Quietly, he snuck up into the attic, and I turned my back, pretending as though I’d seen nothing.

  I returned to the party and went down to the basement where I’d last seen Derek. He was no longer there, so I started to search the rest of the house. I couldn’t find any of my friends—the party had become too loud and too crowded.

  Suddenly, the life was sucked out of the party by a high-pitched scream. I ran towards the source of the cry.

  Derek was crawling down the hallway, holding his stomach firmly with his hand. He’d been stabbed repeatedly.

  Running away from the house, with blood on his hands, was Philip Riley. Derek had taken a girl up to the attic—the only private place that was seemingly vacant. When he saw Philip shivering in the corner, Derek threatened to get the homeowner.

  Angry about the unforgiving woes of his life, Philip stabbed Derek six times in the gut and then ran away.

  The phone lines were down and there was no cell reception. We did our best to put pressure on Derek’s stab wounds, but he was losing blood quickly, and he needed immediate medical attention. Me and the only other sober person at the party put Derek onto a makeshift stretcher, and we carried him through the frigid cold—eight blocks to the hospital.

  Unfortunately the hospital was packed full of people who were just as desperate as Derek for medical attention. Given the necessary attention needed, saving Derek likely meant someone else dying.

  The doctors and nurses were trying their best, but they were too few. Only the truly desperate were even considered for attention. It was first come, first serve, and the bleeding Derek was far from first.

  My mother arrived at the perfect moment.

  Unable to sleep, she decided to go into work—despite the fact she knew she wouldn’t be paid. She arrived in her scrubs, ready to help out.

  She was able to pull some strings to get the dying Derek into an emergency operating room.

  Derek survived.

  Look closely and you’ll see that life is a beautifully choreographed dance. That night, the saying, “everything happens for a reason” couldn’t have been more true.

  That was the night I realized that life wasn’t billions of little stories. It was one single complex, incredible story.

  I can still remember sitting in that hospital cafeteria and looking around. The man drinking coffee in the corner, the taillight blur of the passing car out the window, the distant glow in the apartment window—every single one of them was an important subplot in the most amazing story.

  And I remember looking down at my seat, and thinking of all the lives that would one day pass through this hospital—all of the lives that would sit upon that very seat, and see the same very things I was seeing.

  Perhaps they too will see the world as I saw it that night.

  Lo, life went on.

  I would later come to realize that there was a lot more happening that night than anyone could possibly know—the story wasn’t yet over, and the reason it all happened was yet to be revealed.

  A front seat in the greatest story never told.

  After that night, I became plagued by an existential crisis—How was I to fit into this tale that unfolding before my eyes? What was my place amidst life’s incredible story?

  One day, it hit me.

  My role wasn’t going to be as a banker or a doctor. My role wasn’t in the drama, or the conflict.

  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was my job to tell the story. But I didn’t know how to do that.

  So I did the only logical thing—I decided to enrol in that late-night English class.

  That’s how I ended up in the back corner of that little room on that cold winter night.

  That’s how I found myself in the front seat of life’s great play—a wallflower at the forefront of a fantastic comedy—the most tragic tale.

  I had no idea at the time that I was about to witness an incredible series of unbelievable events unfold before my very eyes. The story you are about to read is not my story, but I promise you it all happened—I saw much of it with my own eyes. The other details, I learned through conversations—the conversations that happen in the quiet corners of bars, during the forlorn after hours of weekend parties—the whispers between the most intimate friends.

  Before I tell my story, I feel it my obligation to warn you: Every passing blur of traffic, every sullen face on the dark street, and every glow in every apartment window has their tale—Every silent heartbeat is quietly moving life’s great plot in a different direction.

  And that brings me back to that silent room, as I sat and waited to witness the next characters to take the stage.

  All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women

  merely players. They have their exits and their entrances,

  and one man in his time plays many parts

  .

  ONE

  Fresh Faces

  The first person to enter that little room was a distant-looking young man with messy brown hair. He scanned the room slowly as he walked through the doorway and sat down at a desk near the centre of the room.

  The young man was short, but proportionate–albeit kind of on the thin side. He was nicely dressed, with a collared shirt and clean jeans, and he was clean-shaven and fresh faced. He was a reasonably good-looking guy. He looked like the kind of person who could get along with anyone—the kind of person who knew when to step away from a situation to avoid the ensuing drama.

  He co
ntinued to look around the room–not actually observing the things around him. Instead, he was lost in his own memories, thinking of all of the events that happened in his life to bring him to the small classroom.

  It had been a long time since he was last in a classroom.

  A really long time.

  He began to remove his big, heavy coat and his gloves. His nose was particularly red from spending too much time in the cold outside.

  The young man’s eyes were red as they sat overtop dark bags—as if he’d drank ten cups of coffee in order to stay awake. It looked as though he hadn’t slept in days.

  He was early for class. As he waited for the next person to arrive, he began to zone out, staring at a single unmoving point on a blank wall. His eyes became glazed over as if he was permanently stuck in a recurring daydream.

  After a few minutes of absolute silence, the young man began to doze off. His eyes were quickly becoming heavy and gravity was slowly pulling his head down towards his desk.

  Just before he completely fell asleep, the door opened, and the young man snapped back to reality.

  A young-looking girl walked into the room.

  The girl had smooth, dark skin, and her long hair was straight—dyed a light brown colour, which appeared almost blonde against her black skin. Her skin was nearly perfect, with the help of a lot of carefully applied makeup. The loose curls in her long hair were meticulously crafted and painstakingly positioned–perfectly compliment the young woman’s appearance.

  She carried herself carefully, with her back straight. The tall heels on her leather boots forced her into a perfect posture–an ostensibly questionable choice of footwear, given the amount of ice on the sidewalks and roads.

  But for the young woman, the heels were no issue whatsoever–an everyday extension of her fashion-trendy persona. There was a very good chance the dark-skinned girl didn’t even own a pair of flats.

  On her torso, she wore a fitted white coat with thick soft white fur around the big hood. Around her neck–a thick, fashionable white scarf that matched her pair of clean, tight white leather gloves.