Ancient Enemy Box Set [Books 1-4]

by Lukens, Mark

  “I swear to God, Needles, if you don’t shut the fuck up …” Cole let his words trail off.

  Needles became very quiet and suddenly calm. A strange smile appeared on his blood-splattered face. “You’ll see,” he whispered to Cole. “You’ll see soon enough.”

  Cole walked away from Needles—he had to get away from him or he was afraid he was going to hit him again. Besides, Cole had another concern at this moment—Jose.

  He walked over to Jose and stared at him.

  Jose sat in the dining room table chair, his body slouched, his eyes distant, his head hung down.

  “Jose,” Cole said in a soft voice. He pulled out a chair and moved it over so that he sat down right in front of Jose.

  Jose didn’t respond.

  “Jose!” Cole said a little louder.

  Jose looked at Cole. “We have to give him what he wants,” Jose said in an emotionless voice. “We have to give him anything he asks for.”

  “What’s wrong?” Cole asked. “What did you see out there?”

  “Frank’s not real,” Jose said, and then he thought for a moment. “He’s not alive. He can’t be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s nothing inside of Frank anymore.”

  “Nothing inside?”

  “He’s been hollowed out,” Jose said quickly. “He’s like some … some kind of puppet. His back has been torn off and something scooped out all of his insides. Everything’s gone. There’s nothing in there.”

  “Then how—”

  “I don’t know!” Jose snapped. He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he repeated in a softer voice. “He’s just a puppet for whatever’s out there.”

  Cole glanced at Stella; she had taken David to the couch and sat him down. David grabbed his notebook and pen right away, he held them protectively on his lap. They both looked back at Cole and Jose.

  Jose startled Cole by grabbing his arm hard, Jose’s fingers dug into Cole’s flesh.

  But Cole didn’t pull away; he stared into Jose’s unblinking eyes of terror.

  “We have to give him the eyeballs,” Jose said. “We have to give them to him.”

  CHAPTER 32

  “It can do anything it wants to,” Jose continued as he stared into Cole’s eyes.

  “No it can’t,” Cole answered him, “or we’d all be dead already. If this thing can come in here anytime it wants to and take all of us, then why hasn’t this … this thing done that yet?”

  Jose startled Cole by jumping to his feet. He paced around for a few seconds, like he wasn’t sure where he was going to go or what he was going to do. He was like a caged animal that knew it couldn’t escape but couldn’t help running around the cage and searching for a way out. Jose dashed to the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of whiskey off the counter. He spun the lid off and drank down a few long swallows of the bourbon, something to numb him from the horrors that waited outside for them.

  Cole watched Jose for a few seconds, but he knew he wasn’t going to be able to get through to Jose right now—he was too frightened by whatever he’d seen out there.

  By Frank’s hollowed-out body?

  No, Cole couldn’t believe that. He couldn’t wrap his mind around that. It had to be a mistake. Jose had to have misunderstood what he’d seen out there. There was no way that could be possible.

  Cole looked at Stella, and then he walked towards her. “Why eyeballs?” he asked her. “If all this … this thing that’s supposed to be out there wants is eyeballs, then why doesn’t it take Frank’s eyeballs?” Cole hesitated for a second before finishing the rest of his sentence, like it was too painful to get the words out. “Or Trevor’s.”

  Stella stared at him with unwavering eyes. “Because it wants us to do it.”

  “Why? Why would someone want us to do this?”

  Stella didn’t answer, and Cole could see that she wasn’t going to answer. She was guarding some of the information, Cole could see that now. And in a way, he couldn’t blame her. But he didn’t think she was hiding things because she was a part of what was going on out there, more like she knew who was out there and she was strategizing to save David and herself.

  Cole sighed. Eyeballs. They couldn’t just take someone’s eyeballs, could they? And whose eyeballs? Cole wasn’t going to volunteer. Neither was Jose. Cole would not allow them to take Stella or David’s eyes. That only left one possibility.

  Cole looked at Needles.

  For a moment he thought about Tom Gordon in the freezer—they could take his eyeballs. But his eyes were already gone. It was like this thing was one step ahead of them, like it had taken Tom Gordon’s eyeballs so they couldn’t use them now.

  They all heard a sound on the front porch.

  All of them stared at the front door.

  Outside, on the front porch, there were heavy footsteps walking across the wood floorboards to the front door.

  The footsteps stopped.

  Three loud knocks on the front door.

  Cole whipped out his gun and glanced at Stella. “Who is it?” he whispered.

  Stella shook her head no, indicating that she didn’t know who it was.

  “Frank?” Cole whispered.

  This time Stella shook her head no—her eyes said that it wasn’t Frank.

  Jose set the bottle of whiskey down on the edge of the counter; he almost let it tip over and fall to the floor, but he slid it back slowly from the edge so it wouldn’t fall, he did all of this without looking at the bottle, still staring at the front door the whole time. Jose didn’t go for his gun. He didn’t move towards the door, either. He was frozen with fear; he just stared at the front door with wide eyes.

  Needles squirmed against the wall, trying to work his way closer to the recliner, he was almost behind the recliner now, trying to hide behind it, but he still peeked at the door from behind the piece of furniture. He was whimpering.

  Three more knocks at the door. The door seemed to shake in its frame from each knock.

  “You have to untie me, Cole,” Needles hissed. “You can’t leave me like this.”

  Cole ignored Needles; he took a step towards the door with his gun gripped in his hand.

  “Cole, please …” Needles begged, beginning to cry.

  The door handle rattled like whoever was on the other side was jiggling it and trying to get inside.

  Cole walked towards the door, his gun ready. He was close now, about to reach out and open the door.

  The jiggling of the door handle stopped—there was only silence from the other side of the door for a moment.

  “Cole, wait,” Jose said with a tremor in his voice. Jose still hadn’t moved from his spot by the kitchen counter.

  Then Cole heard the person speak from behind the door.

  “Cole …”

  The voice sounded deep and guttural, yet Cole still recognized it. His little brother’s voice—Trevor’s voice.

  Trevor was out there. But that couldn’t be. Trevor was dead. He’d seen the pieces of his body and he’d seen his decapitated head sitting in the middle of the porch like a trophy.

  Cole’s mind jumped back to his conversation with Frank only moments ago. Frank’s words echoed in his mind: You really want to see Trevor again? Then you will see him again real soon.

  “Help me, Cole,” Trevor whispered from the other side of the door.

  Maybe he hadn’t really seen the pieces of Trevor’s body, his mind whispered. Maybe it hadn’t been real. Maybe all of this is some kind of nightmare that he couldn’t wake up from.

  Without thinking about it, Cole unlocked the deadbolt and then he unlocked the door handle. He grabbed the door handle which wasn’t rattling anymore, like the person (Trevor) on the other side, was waiting for him to open it, waiting for Cole to invite him in.

  “Cole …” Stella whispered.

  But Cole didn’t hear her.

  Cole opened the door and screamed without realizing it when he saw what stood on the front porch.


  CHAPTER 33

  Trevor stood on the front porch. The pieces of his body had been put back together; stacked back up into what resembled a human body again. But the pieces did not fit together too well, not quite lining up with each other anymore. In the deep lines where the pieces met each other, tatters of bloody clothing hung in ragged strips.

  Trevor’s head sat on his neck at a cocked angle. His face was slack, his eyes glassy, his skin pale. His yawning mouth moved, and the jaw muscles creaked as he tried to work his mouth closed and then open again, trying to speak, trying to utter out words through vocal chords that must have been severed.

  “Give him what he wants, Cole,” the monstrosity that used to be Trevor grunted out.

  Cole had screamed when he’d first seen this thing that used to be his brother—it had been a short cry of shock and rage and despair all rolled into one. And now he stood only a few feet away from this impossibility and he couldn’t move for a moment. He was frozen with fear, with awe, with confusion. His mind reeled and everything faded away around him for a moment. He had been aware for a few seconds that Needles was screaming from behind him somewhere. And Jose was shouting something at him, maybe to shut the door or shoot. But Cole couldn’t be sure because everything was fading away into darkness all around him.

  And the darkness was closing in—he could feel his mind slowing, his chest heaving, his muscles weakening.

  He was very close to passing out.

  Trevor took a step forward; the pieces of his legs that had been stacked back together shifted and moved, and there was not only the creaking sound of stiff muscles trying to work together, but the wet pulpy sound of meat squishing against meat.

  This isn’t possible, Cole’s mind whispered. There’s no way this thing should be able to move. This thing should fall apart, and the pieces should topple back down to the floor.

  Trevor’s mouth hung open impossibly wide like his jaw had been dislocated and then shoved back into his face, and now the jaw was off-center. His mouth opened and then snapped shut again and then opened once more, like he was trying to say something else. “Cole …”

  Cole couldn’t listen to anything else this thing had to say.

  This wasn’t his brother anymore.

  This wasn’t Trevor.

  This thing that used to be Cole’s brother stumbled forward, trying to cross the threshold of the doorway, trying to reach out for him.

  Cole aimed his gun at the monstrosity. He pulled the trigger over and over again. Five shots into the head and torso of that thing. The bullets knocked the reanimated thing back out onto the porch a few steps and tore large chunks out of what used to be Trevor.

  Cole screamed again as he kicked the door shut and lunged for the door. He locked the door handle with trembling fingers, and then the deadbolt. He backed away from the door, staring at it.

  Needles was still screaming: “It can get inside! It can get inside anytime it wants to! It can do anything it wants to us!”

  Cole turned and stared at Needles with dead eyes—eyes that had seen too much horror now. “Shut up,” he told Needles in a soft voice.

  Needles snapped his mouth shut as he stared at Cole from the floor beside the recliner where he cowered.

  Jose stood in the same spot right next to the counter—he hadn’t moved an inch the whole time. He watched Cole. “That wasn’t Trevor anymore, Cole.”

  Cole walked towards Jose with slow, deliberate steps.

  “You know that, right, Cole? That wasn’t Trevor anymore, just like that’s not Frank anymore out there.”

  Cole walked right up to Jose, his gun still gripped in his right hand.

  “Cole, put the gun away,” Jose said in a low voice. He reached behind him without looking and grabbed the bottle of whiskey from off the counter. He handed the bottle to Cole with a trembling hand. “Here, take a sip, man.”

  Cole stood very still for a second, his eyes still dead, his breathing still shallow, his face slack with shock. Then he shoved his gun down into his waistband and took the bottle of whiskey from Jose. He took two long swallows of the fiery liquid.

  Jose glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall, and then he looked back at Cole who still gripped the whiskey bottle by the neck. “It’s getting late, man. Maybe only a few hours before sundown.”

  Cole just nodded—Jose didn’t need to explain what he meant. They only had a short amount of time to decide what they were going to do. He glanced at Stella and David who sat on the couch, both sitting up ramrod straight, like they might bolt at any second. But where would they go? Where could they go?

  Stella stared at Cole, and she slowly nodded her head. “It will keep coming back,” she said.

  Cole took one more swig of the whiskey, and then he screwed the lid back on. He handed the bottle back to Jose as he stared at Stella. “I want you and David to go into Tom Gordon’s bedroom. I don’t want David out here when we do this.”

  Needles pushed himself away from the recliner, his eyes were bugging out. He shook his head no, his arms struggling behind his back, trying to wriggle out of his bonds, but they were tied too tightly.

  “No, Cole, please.”

  Cole ignored Needles. He’d made his decision. Needles had killed the old man at the bank, which was the reason they were here at this cabin. And then Needles tried to kill David. If they had to take someone’s eyeballs, then it had to be Needles.

  Needles kicked his legs wildly on the floor, beginning to cry and scream. “Please, Cole. We don’t have to do this! We can think of something else!”

  Cole didn’t look at Needles. He looked at Stella and David and nodded at them, gesturing at them to go to the bedroom.

  Stella stood up and took David’s hand. David had the notebook tucked under his arm like a schoolbook. They walked across the living room and gave Needles a wide berth. Stella glanced at Needles who had thrashed his way away from the recliner and more towards the middle of the living room, onto the Native American rug that he had stared at for such long periods of time. His face was wet with tears, his skin red from the exertion of thrashing, his eyes wild with fear as he looked around at the cabin like it was the last thing in the world that he would ever see.

  Stella and David walked to the bedroom. They would be alone in the bedroom and this was going to be her chance to talk to David about what she’d seen in his notebook.

  CHAPTER 34

  Cole checked the windows of Tom Gordon’s bedroom as Stella and David made themselves comfortable on the lumpy, unmade bed. The windows were still locked and Cole didn’t see anything moving out there in the snow. But he wanted to check. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Stella and David by themselves in the bedroom, but he didn’t want David in the living room watching him and Jose carve out Needles’ eyeballs.

  He also had a feeling that nothing was going to happen to any of them as long as they were following the instructions, as long as they were giving it what it wanted.

  Cole didn’t want to dwell on the idea too long of what was out there making them do this. He just wanted to get this done and then figure things out from there.

  He was about to leave the bedroom, but he hesitated in the doorway.

  “We’ll be okay,” Stella said as she watched Cole. “It won’t come for us right now,” she told him, confirming what he had just been thinking.

  “I don’t know how long this will take,” he told her. “We have to find some rope or tape and get him … get him ready.”

  “As long as it’s done by sundown,” Stella reminded him.

  Cole nodded as a wave of nausea wormed its way through his guts. He could feel bile at the back of his throat. This couldn’t be happening, he thought. But it was happening and they needed to hurry.

  He left the room. He closed the door and Stella could hear him stomping down the hall.

  Stella turned to David who watched the door for a moment, clutching his spiral notebook which had become a little tattered at the edges now
from him sleeping with it and protecting it the whole time.

  But Stella had seen what he’d been drawing and she needed to confront him about it.

  “David,” she said in a soft voice.

  He turned to her.

  “What have you been drawing in your notebook?” she asked him, seeing if he would just tell her.

  He stared at her for a long moment, and then he spoke. “You said we could run. You said it wouldn’t follow us. You said it wouldn’t find us. You promised.”

  Stella felt a pang of guilt twist through her. “David, I know I told you that. And I tried.” She could feel tears threatening.

  David just stared at her.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I’m doing the best I can.”

  Finally, he nodded and gave her a small smile.

  “When we found you at the dig site, David, you had blood all over you. But you weren’t hurt.”

  David only nodded.

  “It wasn’t your blood.”

  He shook his head no slowly.

  “Was the blood from your parents?”

  David didn’t answer; he didn’t nod or shake his head no.

  “Did that thing out there kill your parents? Did it kill your family?”

  David looked away and now Stella saw tears welling up in his eyes. He didn’t want to talk about it, she could tell. He didn’t want to remember.

  She tried a different approach—the notebook. “David, what have you been drawing in your notebook?” she asked him again.

  He stared at her for a long moment, like he was trying to decide if he should tell her. Finally, he just shook his head no and whispered to her. “I don’t know.”

  “Can I see it?” she asked.

  David hesitated; again he seemed unsure of what he should do.

  “You can trust me,” Stella told him. “You know that. I’m the only one here you can trust.”

  David nodded and he handed her his notebook.

  Stella took the notebook and she smiled at him, trying to give him her warmest smile under the circumstances. “Thank you, David. I just want to take a look.”