Solomon Dark

by Erick S. Gray

Genres: Thrillers; Historical Thrillers; Supernatural suspense

Synopsis

Love has its own agenda in this twisty supernatural thriller steeped in the backdrop of the 1800s where a tortured slave is bitten by a vampire and gains supernatural abilities that sets him on a path of death and destruction as he searches to rescue his long-lost wife.

In the year 1845, Solomon is a tortured slave on the Walken Plantation in South Carolina. Born a slave, Solomon yearns for his freedom. He’s married to Irene, the love of his life. One day, she’s sold off by master to a nearby plantation to pay off Master Walken’s debt. Heartbroken, Solomon escapes one night to find Irene so that they can escape north, to freedom. It’s dark, it’s cold, and slave catchers and dogs are tracking him down. Solomon meets a stranger, a unique black man he assumes is a free man, running into a nearby cabin. This stranger promises Solomon everything he yearns for—freedom, Irene, even power. But it comes with a cost.
 

Release date: July 23, 2024

Publisher: Black Odyssey Media

Print pages: 288

Sample

Prologue

1755

A full moon rose over the Atlantic Ocean, the second-largest of the world’s oceans. The ocean moved like a conveyor belt driven by changes in temperature and salinity over large areas. Yet, there was nothingness for hundreds of miles in every direction. It was an oasis of silence in the middle of the sea. The beauty of the sea was rhythmic with chance calm. The sky above was dark, black, and beautiful. It was as if a black piece of velvet had been placed over the sky and sprinkled with shiny gems. It was a dark, serene night. The luminous moon gleamed like a beacon for ships crossing the sea, and the twinkling white stars gave harmony to the black-blue sky. The Atlantic Ocean exuded power and confidence yet became the connection between worlds. But for some, the center of the Atlantic felt like the edge of the world.

The sea was where people could lose themselves in the ocean’s beauty, tranquility, and uncontrollable power—peace could be found in the middle of a chaotic world.

The slave ship, Abigail, cruised across the Atlantic toward the Americas. A breeze carried a salty aroma that swirled into the noses of the crew, a far better smell than what was below. Unfortunately, a few unlucky sailors had to live and sleep without shelter on the open deck during the entirety of the Atlantic voyage. But they were the lucky ones, as slaves occupied the space belowdecks.

The sea and the saltwater smell were surpressed below, putrefied by appalling conditions. The conditions in the vessel’s hold were overcrowded, smelly, dirty, and disease-ridden. Hundreds and hundreds of slaves were kept like cargo, squeezed into small spaces. They were chained together by iron legs, underfed, with barely any room to turn about. The men, women, and children were separated. The Abigal had become a floating prison for these souls.

The large wooden vessel, the sea, and the white men with dirty-blond hair and blue eyes that snatched them from their homes were foreign to the Africans. The enslaved were scared. There were ageless cries, suffering, praying in desperation, and pain below. Some Africans believed they would be eaten by these men or killed. The chains used on the enslaved Africans started to chafe and dig into their skins, making movement painful. The Europeans and the Americas had collided with their world. And this was the result of it—a hellish nightmare, being treated more like savage beasts than human beings and never seeing their homes again.

Before the enslaved Africans were taken aboard the vessel, they were vigorously stripped of their clothing, branded like animals, cattle, and had their heads completely shaved.

Amongst the enslaved below the deck was a man named Akasha. He was a strapping individual, tall and dark, possessing a powerful torso, and was an intense warrior like the blazing sun. But he’d been reduced to a prisoner of war—sold to the Europeans by other Africans, a rival tribe in Guinea. As a result, he’d become part of what they called a slave train. The men, women, and children on the slave train came from entirely different backgrounds, spoke different languages, and had probably never seen the ocean before.

Akasha came from a nation of dancers, musicians, and poets, and he was educated. His father was an elder and chief. His home, his land, was uncommonly rich and fruitful and produced all kinds of vegetables in great abundance. The women were beautiful goddesses; the men were warriors and scholars. His people believed that there was one creator of all things and that He lived in the sun, but his ancestors practiced African black magic. Akasha had a future with hope and dreams. Now, his fate was uncertain.

Akasha’s breathing was faint as he sweated profusely, lying on his back naked, shackled, and bruised. He was sick, dying with wounds to his neck and chest. They appeared to be bite marks and deep scratches, and there was an unfathomable pain coursing inside of him.

Akasha lay there, restricted with sorrow and uncertainty. He thought about his wife and his children. He would give anything to kiss and touch his wife one last time, to hear his children’s laughter and experience their playful banter. He loved them more than life itself. Now, it all was lost. Akasha mumbled a quiet prayer to himself, praying to the seven African powers and specific deities.

He feebly murmured in his African language, “Almighty Allah, the great Thumb we cannot evade to tie any knot; the roaring Thunder that splits mighty trees . . . the all-seeing Allah up on high who sees even the footprints of antelope on a rock mass here on earth. You . . . You are the one who does not hesitate to respond to our call. You . . . You are the cornerstone of peace and protection . . .  protection for our children born or to be born to the great mother, Yemaya. And love, prosperity, and abundance to the queen Oshun so that it is never missing . . .”

Akasha reflected on his mortal life, knowing it would all be gone soon. A sudden chill went down his spine, and he saw a shadow fly over him. He could sense his soul drifting away from his body, ready to take him to a peaceful place, into the next world, protecting him. His eyes fluttered, sweat continued to drip from his skin, and before he closed his eyes for the final time, Akasha smiled and uttered, “Soon, my love. I’ll come back to you.”

He then took his last, jagged breath, closed his eyes slowly, and slipped away into his endless sleep, giving himself away to darkness.

Hours passed. The moon at midnight tried to break through the pall of the clouds, and the Abigal pitched and bucked in headwinds and seas, coasting in the black and calm night. All was well on the vessel. A few men were asleep, while some were on guard duty. The ship’s captain, Sir Francis Hawkins, had taken comfort with one of the slave girls in his quarters. He was king on this vessel. Sir Francis Hawkins held absolute power over every individual on his ship. His responsibilities were extensive, and his friendships were few. He couldn’t afford to appear vulnerable to his officers, crew, or the enslaved Africans. Mostly every night, Captain Hawkins had one of the youngest slave girls brought to his quarters, where he would rape them. He pleasured himself during the journey with slaves and food. At the same time, his crew was abused and mistreated.

Below the deck, the deterioration of Black men continued with despair and desperation in the cramped holds. There were a few dead, including Akasha. But then . . .  his eyes opened abruptly, and the deceased had become awakened. His eyes were perfectly black with no whites at all. The purity of something changed, and evil was within them, lacking humanity. Instead, it was something demonic and possessed. Akasha pried open his restraints with tremendous strength and tossed the hampering neck and leg irons aside. He was hungry and hell-bent on revenge.

The door into the below-deck slave area opened, and two crew members descended into the room. Unfortunately, they were immediately hit with an ungodly stench and started to cough, gag, and cover their mouths.

“Damn, they all smell. I never smell anything like this in my life,” uttered Johnathan, the youngest of the crew, fifteen years old.

“The captain wants us to check for the dead, remove them, and throw them overboard,” said Henry, a seasoned sailor who was in his late twenties.

“How do they survive?” asked Johnathan.

“They’re savages, Johnathan . . . like pigs in their own filth.”

The men were unsympathetic to the moaning of the slaves below. The hundreds of Black souls were considered black gold and profits for the ship. They needed to be fed, forced to exercise, and kept alive until the ship reached its destination.

“Their own people gave them up,” said Henry. “Wretched creatures if you ask me.”

Johnathan was still green to the hellish environment on a slave ship. This was his first voyage, and he needed the money. He and Henry moved about the dark deck with a burning candle in a lamp. Unfortunately, it only illuminated a small area around them. Henry held the light slightly over his head, annoyed at the Africans’ existence. He knew they were worth more to the captain than his meager life. The men inspected the cargo, poking at the slaves with a long stick to see if they were dead or alive. If a slave became ill, the crew would throw them overboard, and the slave would drown.

Below the deck was unnerving, unsanitary, and threatening enough for the crew. Still, there was something creepy and sinister in their presence for these two men checking for the dead below. Johnathan was shaky and worried. His eyes moved from slave to slave. All enslaved Africans were considered savages who would kill him in a heartbeat and easily tear him apart from limb to limb.

“Let’s hurry this up, shall we?” uttered Johnathan nervously.

Henry chuckled. “A bit afraid, are we? There’s nothing to be worried about, chap. They’re shackled tightly.”

The smell alone was getting to the young boy. But something made the hairs on the back of Johnathan’s neck rise. The two continued to move through the rows of shackled slaves, inspecting and checking. But then, they came across something odd. There was a U-shaped shackle that had been damaged. The bolts across the opening seemed forced apart, and leg irons snapped into two pieces. There should have been a slave shackled and on his back. But it was an empty space.

Confused, Henry and Johnathan looked at each other.

“That’s not possible,” uttered Henry.

“Where did he go?” Johnathan asked with heavy breathing.

Henry shifted the light around the deck, searching for the anomaly . . . until the light from the lamp landed on a dark figure glaring at both men. Johnathan saw this creature and immediately froze with his eyes wide in horror. Its face was demonic, dark, with a look of rage and determination. Henry locked eyes with it, and though he appeared calm, he was nervous.

“How did you free yourself from your chains?” Henry growled at this figure, pulling out his knife.

With startling speed, Akasha, now the undead, lunged at Henry before he could react to defend himself with the knife. Akasha ripped into Henry’s neck, teeth piercing the soft flesh as he clenched his jaws and ripped apart his neck. Henry howled, and his eyes bulged with sudden pain. Johnathan stood there in horror, realizing the rumors of Africans being able to tear a man apart were true. Akasha killed Henry like he was a mere bug. He spat out blood and chunks of flesh and growled. Johnathan trembled and begged, “Please. Please . . . I’m just doing what I was told to do. I want to go home.”

Johnathan turned suddenly to run away. He screamed for help. Akasha chased him down before escaping from below and viciously killed him the same way he did Henry. There would be no mercy. However, the screams from the boy below alerted other sailors on the top deck. Three more men came barreling below armed with weapons but were quickly met with the same grizzly fate.

Akasha wanted revenge. Burn it all down, he thought. Then, and before other white men came charging below to suppress a slave revolt, Akasha, with tremendous strength, pried open the locks and chains that restrained his African brothers. Their hampering neck chains and leg irons were tossed aside. One by one, the other chains followed until, finally, nearly all the slaves stood free of their shackles.

A few enslaved Africans armed themselves with several sugarcane knives, terrifying weapons. The handles were square bars of steel an inch thick, and the blades were two feet long, razor-sharp, widening by regular gradation to a maximum width of three inches at the end. They were now in the hands of angered slaves, becoming deadly, hand-wielded guillotines.

Slaves poured from below with such ferocity they sounded like hundreds of lions roaring in the middle of the sea. Onboard were fifty-six crew members, and each man hurriedly took up arms to defend themselves or flee to safety from the ensuing bloody retribution. The captain was alerted. He sprang from the arms of a young slave girl and peered at what was his worst nightmare coming true.

Cannons and guns went off, killing a slew of Africans leading the charge, but it wasn’t enough to end the retribution. The Africans wildly swung the sugarcane knives at their captors, slitting open their throats, cutting off their heads, and creating gaping wounds across their chests and faces. More cannons went off, and more bodies dropped. Burning candles and lamps fell over, setting the ship ablaze. Sailors fled aft, leaping from the taffrail and swimming in the middle of nowhere with the ship glowing with uncontrolled fire. Sailors that remained on the ship continued to fight for their lives, including Captain Sir Francis Hawkins. But it was becoming a fruitless task. The slaves, with machetes and other weapons, sprang onto the top deck and upon the remainder of the crew and the captain. Gunfire exploded, killing half a dozen Africans.

The captain scowled and removed his sword, and when three slaves rushed him, he evaded their attack and quickly ran the men through with his sword. The captain’s first mate, Remy, grabbed an oar and screamed madly at the Africans, “Get back! Get back!” But the fear on his face was palpable. The slaves were beyond control, and the ship was burning, which was the end for him. His fate was inevitable. Remy dropped the oar and fell to his knees, surrendering to his doom. The Africans were quickly upon him; a machete rose and fell in one murderous stroke, and the first mate crumpled to the deck, his head split open.

However, the captain wasn’t about to surrender so easily. The Abigal was his ship, his slaves, his profits. These men were animals to him. They were inferior, and he refused to die by their hands. The captain seethed with the sword still gripped tightly in his hand. He was ready to strike wildly with a murderous look upon each encroaching slave. He was trapped. Behind him was the dark, massive sea, and immediate death was before him. One slave charged, and the captain opened a long gash across his head.

“I’ll kill you all!” shouted Captain Sir Francis Hawkins.

But it was an idle threat.

Then Akasha appeared before the captain with his dark, lifeless eyes and fangs showing. The captain was taken aback by this slave’s demonic appearance. He uttered, “Oh God, the devil is upon us. God help me.”

The captain lifted his sword, ready to defend himself, but was suddenly shaky. Akasha lunged at him quickly and sank his teeth into the captain’s neck, rendering the man’s sword useless. He tore out pieces of flesh like it was savory meat. Finally, Akasha released his full rage and tore this man apart like a branch snapping into two. He continued to feast while the ship sank into the Atlantic. Every man, woman, and child had succumbed to a watery grave.

Chapter One

Greenville, South Carolina, 1850

The August heat was sweltering. It was one of the hottest days of the year, but it was the cotton-picking season. The cotton field was in full bloom, a visual purity, like an immaculate expanse of light, new-fallen snow. The cotton had grown from five to seven feet high, each stalk having many branches shooting out in all directions and lapping each other above the water furrow. Over two dozen slaves were working the field. There was a slave to each side of the row with their sacks around their necks that hung to the ground, the mouth of the sack about breast-high. And to make sure everyone was hard at work, an overseer on horseback patrolled, bullwhip in hand, eyeing the slaves at his mercy. Mercilessly, the overseer hurled his whip down at laboring slaves. The whip snapped like gunfire inches from the men, women, and children as they picked the cotton hastily.

Baskets were placed at the end of the furrows, and slaves dumped their cotton sacks into the baskets. Then they continued to pick until their sacks were again filled. Among the slaves feverishly working the cotton fields was Irene. She was a beautiful, fleshy slave wearing a headwrap. Irene moved through the rows at speed, expertly picking the cotton, her sack almost filled. The overseer, Colemon, stared at Irene momentarily, eyeing her every movement, and Irene did everything she could to avoid his unwanted attention. Everyone knew that Colemon had a penchant for slave girls and most nights took comfort with them, but Irene was a married woman. Her husband, Solomon, was the blacksmith on the plantation, and he was one of the best. And Irene was one of Master Walken’s hardest workers.

Whenever Colemon’s eyes lingered on her for too long, Irene quickly cast her attention away from him. She didn’t want to create any trouble for herself. Even though she was one of the hardest workers in the field, she was still subjected to abuse and rape on the plantation. And so far, Colemon had left her alone. Mindy and Anna were his two comfort girls at night.

While Irene worked the cotton field, her husband, Solomon, was hard at work shoeing the horses by the barn. Solomon was a strapping Black man who stood six feet tall with nappy hair. He was one of the fortunate ones on the plantation. He was a blacksmith, one of the best. He started as an apprentice when he was ten years old. His daily routines would be cleaning out the forges, breaking up and hauling in charcoal for the day, nearly three bushels, along with sweeping and picking up tools and scraps of iron left on the floor from the previous day. Then he would start the fires in the forges, and before it would get warm, he would get breakfast from the big house.

While Solomon tended to one of Master Walken’s horses, he looked across the cotton field, where he saw his wife working hard under the bright afternoon sun. And unfortunately, the overseer was breathing over her shoulder on horseback with a whip, threatening violence. Solomon paused for a moment and frowned. He loathed Colemon, an evil rapist of Black women, knowing what the man was. Solomon wished his wife wasn’t so close to the man every day. He wished Irene had a job doing master’s laundry or caring for the livestock on the plantation. Irene was a great cook, but her abilities were wasted picking cotton from sunup to sundown.

When Colemon looked Solomon’s way, he quickly averted his attention back to shoeing the horse. Solomon didn’t want any trouble from the overseer. He knew Colemon would quickly land that whip across his flesh and chastise him for casting his eyes too long his way.

The Walken plantation was a wonder with an antebellum, ashen-colored Greek revival mansion centered on the plantation. The estate was grand with a center entrance, a deep wraparound porch, and several columns, two stories high with a piazza in front. A log kitchen, poultry house, corn cribs, and several slave cabins were in the rear.

Master Cornwell Walken and his wife, Cynthia, considered themselves good Christian folks. They were in their late thirties and had four children. Cornwell thought himself a God-fearing, righteous, and educated man who was quite articulate. And what he valued the most was protecting his position in a wealthy society. Cynthia was the doting wife. She would prance around the plantation in her cotton afternoon dresses and bonnets, ensuring she took care of the home well.

The couple was dressed immaculately for the summer weather. Master Cornwell Walken was a clean-shaven, handsome man. He stood on the porch in his gentlemanly appearance, clad in a riding coat, a cotton shirt, and neat trousers. Being the patriarch on his prized plantation, he took pride in his appearance.

Master Walken stood perched on his porch overlooking his slaves hard at work. It was the cotton-picking season, and this year, the fields were thriving with rows of cotton that stretched to the ends of the horizon, damn near eternity. This year’s harvest was flourishing. There were dozens of baskets filled to the brim with cotton, ready to be processed and sold. But Master Walken was concerned about one thing: two of his slaves, Thomas and Malcolm, had taken off running a few days back, and he wanted them found. They were two hardworking niggers that he paid a hefty price for, and the loss of them would be dreadful.

Cynthia approached her husband, noticing his look of concern. “They’ll find them, Cornwell. There’s no need to stand there and fret. They couldn’t go far.”

Cornwell turned to his wife and replied, “I paid eleven hundred dollars respectively for them two niggers not even a year ago. We treat our niggers well, right? So why would they go and do something so stupid and run off? I won’t stand for it, Cynthia. Our niggers running off in the night, making me lose stock.”

“Eat some breakfast, dear. You’ll feel better.”

Cynthia looked over to where one of their slave girls,. . .