Struck

By M.D. Thomas

During a summertime meteor shower, Persee Hodges suffers a freak strike to the eye that leaves her not only wounded, but surprisingly dangerous to those around her....

Persee comes to the heartbreaking realization that if she wants to protect her loved ones, she must abandon them.

Enraged by her decision, her enthralled ex-boyfriend Tim - no longer the sweet boy she fell in love with, but a warped product of her mysterious influence - becomes a danger to Persee and her family, forcing her to find a way to end his obsession or die trying.

If you love supernatural suspense, you'll love Struck!

What reviewers are saying:

"Pace is fast and I was glued to this book until I finished it. You will be thrilled with writer's style and gift for painting a very real picture of a very unreal situation. Have fun!" 5-Star Amazon Reviewer

"M.D has a way of writing very unique stories that grab your attention and doesn't let go. This book does not disappoint." 5-Star Amazon Reviewer

"It is very fast paced book and I would highly recommend..." 5-Star Amazon Reviewer

"M.D. Thomas knows how to keep you glued to your seat, flipping pages madly, and entrancing you. His characters are always well developed, with story lines to draw you into his world. This is one of his best! Waiting for more!" 5-Star Amazon Reviewer

"It grabbed me right away and I couldn't put it down because it was such a unique story. It was very suspenseful and held my interest throughout. I highly recommend this book!" 5-Star Amazon Reviewer

"OMG, this book grabbed me from the very beginning. It's a book you cannot put down. The story stayed with me well after I was done reading." 5-Star Amazon Reviewer

"M.D. Thomas has a way of developing characters that you can't stop reading about! The storyline in this book is just as compelling as his other novels. I have a new favorite author and this new book did not disappoint!" 5-Star Amazon Reviewer

"Suspense filled thriller." 5-Star Amazon Reviewer

"The plot is well developed, the dialogue is well developed, and the events unfold in a chilling way. The book will not disappoint the reader." 5-Star Amazon Reviewer

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.D. Thomas
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781734487084

Book preview

One

I wake up afraid.

It’s dark, and I don’t know where I am until my fingers curl against the cardboard box I collapsed last night in the hydrangea patch behind Bethel Lutheran Church. My eyes—cursed, contagious, poisonous—take in the stars overhead, visible through winter-bare oak branches, as I listen to shuffling steps approach through leaf litter and underbrush.

I thought he wouldn’t find me here.

Calm, Persee….

The hydrangeas—a mass of serrated green leaves and pink blooms in the spring and summer, but no more than skeletal branches now that December is almost here—sit at the edge of a large swath of grass between the rear of the church and the caretaker’s cottage. The lawn serves as the warm-season site for potluck dinners, used clothing swaps, barbecues, make-shift flea markets, and the annual church Easter Egg hunt. It’s only a decent place to sleep—private, but a tight fit, the long, woody stems poking and prodding all night long, and, in the fall at least, riddled with deer ticks—but it’s one of the few places where I can see the stars without worrying about the police running me off, or some good Samaritan offering food or blankets or Jesus-induced salvation.

Where are you, Persee? Tim calls. He sounds rough, but more like the old Tim than last time. "I need to see it. To feel it. Please."

He’s close enough he doesn’t have to yell for me to hear him, but probably not so close he’s reached the hydrangeas yet.

I resist the urge to bolt from the hiding place, which is probably why he spoke at all. I ran the last time, and if I hadn’t been so close to Main Street with its restaurants still full of late-season tourists, all gorging on blue crabs and Ruby Salts oysters, he would’ve caught me—he was always fast, and, while I’m not slow, I’m handicapped by bad vision and, tonight, by layers of clothing. But Bethel Lutheran sits on the outskirts of Cape Richard, about a mile east of the Chesapeake Bay, and there are more loblolly pines here than houses—no crowds of people.

I followed you from behind the Taphouse, he says, his voice wavering, on the verge of breaking. "I saw Anja giving you scraps, Persee. Scraps. Like you’re a stray dog or something. It hurt to see you like that."

The loneliness I’ve lived with for months swells even farther, fills me completely—seeing Anja is the only bright spot left in my day, and now I might never be able to go back. The loss of food will hurt, but it’s nothing compared to the loss of my last friend.

Your dad’s been going to the restaurant, hoping you might show up, he says, his voice stronger. And closer—he’s got to be near the edge of the hydrangeas now. You’re all he ever talks about. He doesn’t know about your eyes though, does he? I almost told him once, but I don’t want anybody else looking at them. They’re mine.

He hasn’t remembered Leo, which is a relief, but an icy wave radiates down my spine at the thought of him talking to Daddy still.

Don’t run. You’ll trip. That’s what he wants….

A chilly breeze wafts across the hydrangeas, bringing with it the smell of cigarette smoke, his calling card these days. He’s been smoking incessantly ever since my accident.

The rustling pauses and I hear the metallic flick of the monogrammed Zippo I gave him for his seventeenth birthday—I love you to the stars and back—and an ache of loss flows through me.

"You did this to me, Persee. You and your experiments. Since you ran away it’s been gnawing at me. Gnawing so much it hurts. But I’ve been patient. Really patient. Haven’t I, Persee? I’m sorry if I scared you at the apartment, I really am, but I can’t wait anymore. I can’t."

The sound of the rustling changes—he’s reached the hydrangeas, coming straight toward me now.

Maybe I should let him catch me. Maybe it’s been long enough that he won’t be angry, that I’ll be able to convince him to go once he gets a look…

No. I can’t outrun him and trying to convince him to go is probably useless. But if I stay where I am….

The hydrangeas are so thick you have to wade through them, and if he gets too close and overpowers me before I can get a good look at him, I’m done. I need to see him coming. There’s enough light near the back of the church, where the bulb on a utility pole casts a circle, or near the entrance to the caretaker’s cottage, where a small, wall-mounted fixture illuminates two wooden steps flanked by narrow flower beds. If I could make it to either…but what if he knocks me out before I can overwhelm him?

Doesn’t matter…I’ve gotta try. Even if it might not work.

I suck in a deep breath, my heart thumping against my ribs, then roll over and crawl through the hydrangeas away from Tim, the branches lashing my face as they part before me.

Despite all of my own noise, I can hear Tim crash after me.

I burst out of the hydrangeas and surge upright, sprint toward the circle of light behind the church. I can no longer hear anything over the pounding of my feet and the wind in my ears, but I can sense him behind me, like a wave about to crash. I stumble over something unseen, but avoid falling, and as soon as I make it to the light, I turn my back to the church so he can’t catch me from behind.

Tim slows to a halt, perhaps twenty feet away, his chest heaving like my own, his breath rising in a silver mist illuminated by the light from the caretaker’s cottage.

Please, Tim, I say, hoping some part of the boy I used to love is still inside of this frightening man. You don’t want to do this.

He touches his temples, and despite the low light I can see his face contort with pain.

Maybe. I don’t know. I love you, Persee, but…it’s all I can think about anymore.

His hands fall away from his head and he starts toward me.

Part Two

JULY / 2013

One

The familiar purr of the outboard motor fills the night as we skim along the calm surface of the Bay.

It’s perfect, isn’t it? Daddy’s clear voice cuts across the engine noise. No moon and not a cloud in the sky!

Lyrid and Leonid are on the platform in the bow, short enough at six-years-old that their feet don’t even dangle into the center of the boat. I can’t see them very well, but no doubt they’re staring at each other and not at what seems like a billion stars overhead, even though it’s really only a few thousand from any given place on earth, which most people have trouble believing. I bet dollars to donuts they’re holding hands too, their faces close as they talk about something in their twin speak that the rest of us don’t understand and don’t try to because it’s their special language.

Behind the twins, Mama is on the bench next to Gemini, who has our golden retriever Orion curled up between her feet. Orion is about as dumb as dogs come, which might explain why he likes Gem so much. Gem just turned fourteen a couple of months ago and she’s as mean as a viper and not half as shy about it. She didn’t even want to come—she’s never cared about meteor showers, not even her namesake—but Mama threatened to give her more chores if she stayed at home. Gem is the laziest dang person I’ve ever known and she’ll do just about anything to avoid more work.

Tim and I are hip-kissing on the next bench which is really nothing more than a wooden board supported by blocks on either end. Holding hands, too, which is all we can get away with around Daddy, even though we’ll be seniors in two months. Mama doesn’t mind if we smooch in front of her, as long as they’re zipped-lip kisses.

Daddy’s at the helm behind us, where he always is.

I know Daddy was talking to me, because I’m his favorite. I’m not bragging, it’s just true. And it’s not just because I’m the oldest at seventeen—eighteen in three months, thank you very much—but because, like Daddy, I’m in love with the universe. The moon, the stars, asteroids, meteors, planets, planetoids (sorry Pluto!), black holes, the Milky Way, galaxies. Every infinite bit of it. I look up on a clear night away from the town lights and I disappear, my body gone, my mind speeding between the stars, lost in the swirling clouds of Jupiter or Saturn’s icy rings, straddling the event horizon of a black hole, or diving into a supernova.

I don’t yell back at Daddy—my voice doesn’t carry like his in the boat. Instead, I answer him with a thumbs up and a smile, sure that he can see both. Daddy’s got the best night vision of anybody I’ve ever met. He’s been crabbing his entire life and knows the Bay like his tongue knows the back of his front teeth, but even if he didn’t it wouldn’t matter, because even by starlight he can see where he’s going. There’s a spotlight strapped under one of the benches, but I don’t think he’s ever used it.

Daddy returns my thumbs up and opens the throttle a little more, pushes us faster across the water toward Bitter Run Island, which is really only a sandbar in the middle of the Bay—you can barely even see it at high tide, but it’s a great place for star-gazing because there are no lights for miles.

I squeeze Tim’s hand just-because and he squeezes right back like he always does, and then I look up again, which I can’t help but do, hoping I might see an early meteorite. That’d be hard on a normal ride because it’s almost never completely calm on the Bay, but tonight the water is like sheet glass and we skim across the surface like a stone sliding across a frozen pond—my head doesn’t bump at all as I stare into the firmament (that’s one of my absolute favorite words for space. Space is a terrible word, all cold, and empty, no beauty at all).

We left the house just after nine, and when we get to Bitter Run, we’ll anchor the skiff and set up our camp chairs in the middle of the sandbar. The Lyrids are produced by debris left from the comet Thatcher on its previous passage near the Earth, and normally it’s a pretty crappy meteor shower, which Gem was sure to point out to Lyrid earlier today. But—and this is the really cool part—this year is the cyclonic peak, so there’ll be hundreds of meteors every hour, so take that Gem! We’ll sit in our chairs in the dark, on a sandbar in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, our feet dry because low tide comes at just the right time tonight, and we will marvel at one of the greatest light shows in the universe.

The Lyrids radiate out from the constellation Lyra, but shortly after midnight so many of them are falling all I have to do is look up and I can see them streaking across the night sky.

Can we leave now? Gem asks for at least the twentieth time. Orion and me are tired.

I don’t know if Gem is really tired or not, but she’s right about Orion—he spent the first hour we were here fetching a tennis ball from the water and now he’s beat, passed out on the sand next to Gem’s chair.

For God’s sake, Gem, Mama says. Go lay down in the boat if you want to sleep. You can take Orion with you.

I’m not sure how much Mama even likes the showers, but I know how much she loves Daddy, and so she never rushes him. She says the only life harder than being a waterman’s wife is being a waterman, so she’ll never make him miss something that’s so special to him.

The boat is anchored a few hundred feet away, near the edge of the sandbar, probably too far away for even Daddy to see. We’re sitting in a circle, Daddy on my left and Tim on my right, and the night is so beautiful, the only noises coming from the twins playing in a tide pool behind me. They sat and watched long enough to make Daddy happy, then left to dig in the sand for crabs, more interested in what’s below than what’s above.

This one’s a once in a lifetime shower, Gem, Daddy says, his big, beefy frame reclined so far in his chair that his neck rests on the seat back. He doesn’t look away from the sky as he speaks. You know it only happens every thirty-three years. I doubt I’ll live long enough to see the next one.

Of course you will, Mama says, reaching over to run her fingertips down Daddy’s whiskered cheek. Don’t say stuff like that, it’s bad luck.

There’s a good one, Tim says, long arm pointing up in the darkness. You see it?

Yeah, it was really bright. Like Gem, Tim’s not really that interested either. But he knows what they mean to me and tries to care. It’s just one of the reasons I love him so much. Think we’ll see any fireballs, Daddy?

No tellin’. But even if we don’t, this is somethin’ else. I’ve never seen anything like it.

What’s a fireball? Tim asks.

Just a bigger meteorite that’s really bright as it falls and breaks apart, I say. Like that one over Russia in February. That one broke windows for—

"Ugh… Gem moans across from me. No more. Please."

Gem… Mama says.

Don’t worry, Gem says, as she stands and folds up her chair. I’m going to the boat. C’mon Orion.

Orion gets slowly to his feet, does downward-facing dog, then pads into the darkness after Gem.

About time….

No one talks for a while after Gem slouches off into the darkness.

Daddy’s right. I’ve watched meteor showers for as long as I can remember, and seen some good ones—especially the Perseids, which are the best of course, no argument—but I’ve seen nothing like the number of meteorites we’re seeing tonight. I don’t want to blink and miss a single one.

I saw a long exposure photograph of a meteor shower once, and all the lines of light streaked across the sky reminded me of when a ship goes into hyperspace in the old Star Wars movies. I always thought that photo was just about the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. But I was wrong, because right above me I can see streak after streak after streak in the sky and it’s so spectacular I keep holding my breath.

It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Tim?

But before Tim can answer there is bright light and noise and then burning pain and I’m falling backwards in my chair, screaming as I hit the sand with a shake that barely even registers because of the throbbing ache radiating from my left eye.

Persee!

Daddy’s scream seems distant, but his shadow blots out the stars above me as warmth spreads across my cheek.

I’m in Daddy’s arms as he pounds across the sand toward the skiff. Somewhere behind me, Mama yells at the twins to forget the chairs and leave them behind.

Start the engine, Gem! Daddy shouts, and Orion barks.

Persee? Tim’s voice is full of panic.

My head is throbbing so badly that when I try to answer him, all that comes out is a groan. I can still see the sky with my right eye, even the streaks of meteorites that continue to fall, but my left eye is squeezed shut against the pain.

Daddy splashes into the water, and through my good eye I see a shadow rise above the side of the skiff.

What— Gem says, but Daddy cuts her off.

Help us get her in the boat, Gem!

I push against Daddy to raise my torso. I can—

No, Persee, Daddy says, as he and Tim lift me over the side of the skiff.

What happened? Gem asks as she helps them get me onboard.

I think a meteorite hit her, Daddy says.

"Holy shit! For real?"

Normally Daddy would chastise her, but he only reaches over the side of the boat and lays me on the second bench with Tim and Gem’s help, my wounded eye toward the bow.

Pull the anchor, Tim, Daddy says as he and Tim scramble into the boat. Then he goes straight to the helm and starts the engine which Gem failed to do.

I press my left palm over my cheek and eye, scared of what I might feel but unable to keep it away because of the pain. There’s wetness on my face

—tears? blood? eye gook?—

but not as much as I expect. I close my good eye and use my fingers to force open my left eyelid. The pain becomes more intense—like when there’s a piece of dust irritating your eye—and the view is dark and blurred and I can’t see the stars anymore.

Jesus, Persee, Gem says as she kneels next to me. You okay?

I can barely see out of it, I say, closing my eye again so the pain isn’t as bad. I cover it once more with my palm. "I can’t see the stars out of my left eye, Gem. Oh, shit—"

Here, Kelly! Daddy shouts, and a moment later he leans over the side of the skiff and takes one of the twins from Mama. Lyrid, I realize, when she walks past the helm and stops near my head.

You’re hurt, Lyrid observes, her voice calm. If she plans to say anything else, she loses the chance because Gem lifts her over me and pushes her toward the bow platform.

Leo’s pulled in next and I can hear him sobbing my name over and over.

Come here, Leo, I say, reaching toward him. He rushes over and presses his face against my good side, his chest hitching.

Are you gonna die, Persee?

No, Leo. I’m gonna be fine.

But oh god I might be blind in one eye….

C’mon, crybaby, Gem says, pulling him away from me and sending him after Lyrid.

Anchor is in, Tim says, his voice wavering as he coils the clanking anchor chain against the hull.

A moment later Daddy’s got Mama aboard.

Gem, get your vest on, Mama says as she steps over me and kneels next to Gem in the center of the skiff. Then you and Tim help the twins with theirs.

Gem obeys without comment for once, and a moment later the skiff is reversing away from the sandbar.

Kelly, check your phone and as soon as you get a signal call 911. Tell ‘em to meet us at the house. Daddy turns the bow away from Bitter Run Island and toward home. Everybody hold on.

The boat lurches as Daddy shifts into forward, and then he’s pushing the throttle up, smooth and fast. We plow through the water for a moment and then we’re on plane, skimming across the surface once again, faster than when we came out, as fast as the skiff can go.

Tell me how it hurts, Persee, Mama says, her face pressed against my cheek and her lips by my ear so I can hear her over the engine and the wind. She’s keeping my hair from blowing into my face and holding my hand.

Gem is right next to Mama, and Tim is by my feet. He was close enough to hold my hand when we started home, but Daddy made him move to balance the boat. Now he’s gripping my leg like he’s afraid to let go.

The pain is intense, but unlike anything I’ve felt before. It’s not sharp and localized like the time I cut halfway through my index finger trying to slice a Granny Smith apple, but it’s not deep and nauseating like when I fell off the swings when I was eight and broke my arm either. No, this is more of an all-encompassing ache, like a bad sunburn, except that it’s not just on the surface—it’s running through my entire body.

Persee? It’s Mama again. Did you hear me, girl? I need you to answer. Tell me how it hurts.

I just…ache. All over.

Not just your eye?

No. Everywhere.

I can’t believe she got hit by a frickin’ meteorite, Gem says, which I’m having trouble believing myself.

Watch your mouth, Gemini, Mama says, but her heart isn’t in it. We don’t know that. It could’ve been something else.

What? Gem asks. "Like a shotgun pellet or something? There was nobody else around for miles."

I don’t know.

It had to be a meteorite. Crap. What are the odds of that, Persee? You, of all people, have to know.

Gem, Mama says, be quiet.

Fine. But I’m right.

And suddenly I know Gem is right. It was no stray shotgun pellet. Not a piece of airplane debris or any other weird thing that could’ve been in the sky tonight. I have been hit by a meteorite. No. A micrometeorite, probably only a few millimeters in diameter, because anything larger would’ve made Swiss cheese out of my head. Even through the pain, I’m suddenly overwhelmed by emotion, by the realization that a small fragment of the comet Thatcher, a space traveler of ancient origins, has become imbedded in my head, potentially blinding me in one eye. Space dust is everywhere, we breathe it in all the time. But this feels like more than breathing. This feels like becoming.

Two

The ride out to Bitter Run Island normally takes about an hour from our house on Teegan Creek. But even though the Bay is calm and Daddy’s going faster than usual, the trip seems to takes an eternity. My mind keeps shifting between the pain, curiosity about the object in my eye, and all the things I might see less of now—sunsets over the Bay, the sparkle of sunlight across the water, the stars in the night sky.

Nausea twists my belly and I don’t know if it’s from the injury or from fear.

Mama gets through to 911 about halfway home, and gestures at Daddy to slow down. He throttles back long enough for her to tell the operator what happened and where our house is, and to ask me how I’m doing

—fine, Daddy—

and then he speeds up again.

Except for when she’s on the phone, Mama talks the whole time, asking me to answer every once in a while—I think she’s afraid I’m going to pass out and that it’ll be bad if I do—but everyone else is silent. Tim’s head rests on my thigh, and if he didn’t keep clasping and unclasping his hand on my shin, I’d think he’s asleep. The twins stay quiet, and Gem doesn’t say another word either, only pets Orion, whose head is on her lap. I can see Daddy’s shadow at the helm—focused on the water—but I bet he’s terrified. Daddy’s big and tough, a stoic waterman on the surface, but inside he’s more delicate than a soft-shell crab.

Everyone straightens up when we enter the mouth of the Teegan and pass Hodges Seafood, the business grandpa Jimmy started nearly forty years ago that Daddy runs now. I can’t see the market or the pier with Daddy’s work boat—the Hoba, a hard working Chesapeake Bay Deadrise named after the world’s largest known meteorite, a sixty-ton hunk of iron in Namibia—but we’ve passed the market so many times that I can pinpoint where we are by the turns the skiff makes.

The Teegan is shallow, but in the skiff we can easily make it around the seven bends the creek takes before reaching the pier behind our house. Everybody around here wants waterfront property, but there are so many bigger creeks around Cape Richard that nobody cares much about living on a creek that isn’t deep enough for a larger boat, so most of the land along the Teegan is still undeveloped. Grandpa Jimmy left Daddy the house and the business when he died of pancreatic cancer, back when I was still in diapers. Daddy has told me what a difference that made—waterman aren’t ever rich, not with money anyway, and Daddy not having a mortgage means he’s able to do what he loves instead of having to move away from the Eastern Shore and get a job somewhere that he would hate.

I turn my head to the side, the pain spiking, and a moment later see flashing lights in the distance, dancing off the pine trees and marsh grass between us and the house. Orion notices too and starts barking—he may be dumb, but he’s a good watchdog because he barks at everything. We make it around the last bend in the creek and I see the single utility light that glows at the end of the pier. Daddy goes in hot, taking the skiff off plane at the last possible moment before reversing hard enough to bring us to a bobbing halt next to the pilings. The tide is still pretty low, so the pier is a few feet above us.

Gem, tie us up, Daddy says as the sound of feet pounding down the pier reaches my ears.

Orion runs to the bow platform, narrowly avoiding the twins, and leaps up to the pier, barking at the paramedics.

It’s okay! Gem yells as she grabs the bow line and follows Orion. He doesn’t bite!

Tim, Kelly, Daddy says, help me get Persee out of the boat.

I can do it, Daddy, I say, and start to sit up.

No, you won’t, Daddy says, and he scoops me up before I get anything more than my shoulders off the bench.

Daddy is raising me up when two paramedics make it past Orion’s enthusiastic greeting and reach us.

Got her, sir, the male paramedic says as he and his colleague—a woman at least a foot shorter—take me from Daddy’s arms and lay me down on the pier. Daddy climbs up a moment later, Tim right behind him, and the two of them help Mama get the twins out of the skiff.

Are you bleeding, Ma’am? the female paramedic asks.

Maybe. A little. I’m not sure.

Okay. Do you feel well enough to walk?

She—

It’s fine, Daddy. I can walk just fine.

Great, the female paramedic says. My name is Sharee, and this is Richard. We’re going to get you to the rig so we can figure out what’s going on.

Sharee and Richard help me to my feet—Daddy dancing around us like a circus bear, Tim behind him looking scared—and when I’m all the way upright my head goes dizzy and light.

Hold her! Richard says, his hand tightening on my arm.

But before Sharee and Richard can even steady me, Daddy scoops me up again.

I’ll just carry her, Daddy says, and he hurries down the pier toward the ambulance, the paramedics flanking him as we leave everyone except Tim behind. I can feel every step as a throb in my eye.

Dispatch said you were hit in the eye by something? Richard asks.

She—

Persee, I say, cutting Daddy off, hoping talking will distract me from the pain. My name is Persee. It was a micrometeorite. It had to be.

We were watchin’ the meteor shower, Daddy says, his voice breaking, and it came out of nowhere. It was too quick for me to react—

I pat Daddy on the chest to calm him down. It’s okay, Daddy. It’s not your fault.

Daddy squeezes me against him, but I know him—he’ll blame himself for this the rest of his life.

I close my good eye against the flashing lights—I’ve got the bad one squeezed shut still—as we approach the ambulance. Daddy pauses and I can hear Richard and Sharee pull open the doors on the back, and then Daddy clambers inside and lays me down on the stretcher.