by Lukens, Mark
“Shaman,” Stella finished for him.
“Yeah, this shaman. See if he can help. If anything can be done at all. And if it can’t …”
“Then what?”
“Then we’ll figure it out from there, when we have more information.”
Stella sighed. She was so tired, the exhaustion washing over her now.
“I’m being honest with you,” Cole said. “I don’t know how many times I can say it to you. I don’t know how to make you believe me.”
Stella didn’t answer. She was ready to crawl into bed beside David and sleep for a few hours, but she couldn’t help still feeling wary with Cole in the room with them. She couldn’t make herself trust this man completely.
“Do you really think a shaman, or anyone like that, could defeat that … that thing out there, whatever it is?”
“I don’t know,” Stella said in a low voice. She glanced at David to make sure he was still asleep. “But it’s the only thing I can think of. Our only shot.”
Cole nodded. “Yeah, but what if you can’t find one of these shamans?”
“I’ve heard of a shaman down there on the Navajo Reservation. He’s supposed to be pretty powerful. A man named Joe Blackhorn.”
“And you know this guy?”
“No.”
“You know where he lives, though.”
“No. But we’ll find him. I know someone I can talk to. She’ll know someone who can find Joe Blackhorn”
Cole smiled. “Yeah.”
“I know it’s not much of a plan, but what else can we do? The only person who can fight this thing is David, and the only way he can learn to fight it is from a shaman. A real shaman.”
“Then that’s our plan,” Cole said and turned back to the TV. “Why don’t you get a few hours of sleep. Then I’ll sleep while you guys are awake.”
Stella nodded. “I need some sleep.”
“We all do,” Cole said and turned the TV off. He stood up. “I’m going to take a quick shower.”
Stella nodded at him and stretched out beside David on the bed, curling her body up around him. She heard Cole walk away and enter the bathroom. A moment later she heard the water running in the shower.
Her eyes closed for a moment and flashes of the terrors they’d seen ran through her mind and …
… she opened her eyes again. She thought she’d only closed her eyes for a few seconds, but she saw Cole coming out of the bathroom through her half-open eyes. He only had his pants on and he laid his shirts out over the two chairs by the table so they could dry. It looked like he had washed them out in the sink. She studied his body; he was lean, nothing but muscle and bone, not an ounce of fat. She had suspected that. He had a few tattoos on his back and shoulders, and a light sprinkling of hair across his chest and a line of hair down his abs.
She closed her eyes again and she was back at the dig site in New Mexico, holed up in that trailer, armed with their pathetic weapons that could do nothing against the god-like being that waited in the badlands outside for them.
The Darkwind, Jim Whitefeather had called it. The Darkwind was another name for the Ancient One, or the Ancient Enemy, or the Anasazi.
In the dream, Stella was at the mouth of the cave again, finding David for the first time. He had blood all over his hands and some smeared on his face. She was panicking at the sight of the blood, yelling for help. He was just a little kid, and his eyes were round with shock.
The other archaeologists and grad students came running to help her.
“Is he hurt?” one of them asked.
“I don’t think so,” Stella said. “I don’t think it’s his blood.”
“What happened?” Jake asked David. “Is someone hurt?”
David wouldn’t respond.
“If someone’s hurt, then you need to tell us,” Jake barked at David.
“Where are your parents?” Stella asked David.
He still wouldn’t answer. He was shivering from both fright and the cold. Jake swooped in and scooped David up. “Let’s get him inside. Get him warm.”
Inside the trailer, Stella got David cleaned up as best she could. The blood was mostly on his hands and face, and there were blood stains on the front of his shirt. She washed his hands, arms, and face, and then she gave him one of her T-shirts to wear. It was a little too big on him, but it fit well enough. She washed the few spots of blood off of his coat in the sink and then hung it over a chair so it could dry.
After talking to David for an hour, she at least got him to tell her his name, but that was about all.
Jim Whitefeather suggested that they contact the Tribal Police. They could be looking for this boy right now. They tried their radio but it wouldn’t work. Neither did the satellite phone. Jim told them that he would drive and contact the nearest neighbors, ask them to call for help, but none of the vehicles would start—all of the batteries were dead.
Jim was scared by then. Stella hadn’t known Jim Whitefeather very long, but they had formed a bond with each other. She respected his culture, and he knew it. Jim could tell that she was interested more in preserving the artifacts, the culture, and getting the history right rather than fame and fortune. She knew Jim was a strong and brave man, and the fear she saw in his dark eyes when he pulled her away from the others unnerved her. He was a seasoned scout and tracker. He’d grown up on this land as had his ancestors for generations. He knew this land; he knew its secrets, its stories, its legends … its monsters.
“Listen to me closely,” he told her in a low voice, his eyes darting around to make sure no one else was listening. “Something bad is out there.”
Stella was about to tell Jim that she feared David’s parents were hurt somewhere and David had run away to get help for them. That was the story they were all set on. But she could tell that Jim believed something else. “Yeah, his parents are probably hurt—” Stella began, but Jim cut her words off.
“No. It’s worse than that. Much worse than that.”
“What do you mean? How do you know that? Has David talked to you?”
“No. But this has happened before.”
“What has happened before?”
“I could be wrong about this, about that boy, but I’ve heard stories like this all my life.”
“What stories are you talking about?” Stella’s mind raced as she thought of all the stories she’d heard from the Navajo culture, anything that would have something to do with a small boy showing up dazed and bloody at a dig site.
Jim Whitefeather shook his head like it didn’t matter now. “We don’t have much time. I’m going out there to get some help, but I’ve got my pistol and I’m going to try to track that thing out there.”
Jim was the only one of them who carried a weapon, an old .38 revolver. “What thing?” she asked. “An animal? A bear or mountain lion?”
“You need to stay inside this trailer,” he told her, ignoring her question like he didn’t have time to explain. “Don’t go out there. All of you need to stay together. And protect the boy, Stella. He’s your only hope of staying safe.”
“Jim … this doesn’t make any sense.” Her voice was getting louder.
Jim’s eyes darted around again, and then he smiled at her. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to try. Hopefully you’re right and he’s just a hurt child that went looking for help. But the radio isn’t working and all of the batteries in the trucks died at the same time. It’s too much of a coincidence.”
Moments later Jim Whitefeather left on foot to go for help.
Then Stella’s dream flashed forward hours later. They found Jim’s mutilated body outside the trailer, propped up against a tree like a trophy. His gun was gone. The limbs of his body were bent at strange angles, bones snapped underneath his skin and clothing. His mouth hung open way too wide and his eyes were gone, leaving behind deep black holes in his face.
And then the dream flashed forward again. A panic settled among them. They wanted to get out of there but the phones
, computers, and radios still didn’t work. And none of the trucks would start. They even switched a few of the batteries for spare ones, but they were dead too.
They didn’t have any weapons. They didn’t have any way to communicate with anyone else. They were stuck way out here in the middle of the desert with a madman out there stalking them.
But they would learn soon enough that it wasn’t a person out there … it was something else, something ancient and powerful, something beyond imagination.
After Jim’s body was taken in the night, some of the people wanted to interrogate David; they were frustrated that he wasn’t telling them anything.
“He knows something,” Phil said. “I know he does. He knows who’s out there. We need to make him tell us what he knows or we’re all going to die.”
Stella was the one who stuck up for David. Jake helped her at first, but after Jim came back and called them outside, after he started asking for things, then taking another one of them away in the middle of the night, the fear started taking hold of them. Even Jake began to turn against David right at the very end. People could change; fear could change them … even the bravest, even the best of people.
But Stella wouldn’t let them hurt David.
Protect the boy, Jim had told her before he left, staring at her with that fear in his eyes.
And then Jim became a messenger for that thing, an eyeless puppet for it. Jim wanted the boy. He promised that all of this terror would end if they just killed the boy …
Stella snapped awake from the nightmare, her breath caught in her throat. She sat up in bed, looking around at the unfamiliar room. Her gaze rested on David beside her, still sleeping. Then she saw Cole sitting in the chair by the table. He had his shirt back on and he was staring at her, concerned.
“You okay?” Cole asked her.
The TV was off. The drapes were closed. The room was murky even though it was still daytime outside.
“Yeah,” Stella said, taking in some deep breaths. She looked at Cole again. He seemed to be stretched out in the chair, half-asleep. “How long have I been asleep?”
“About two hours,” Cole told her, keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t wake David up.
Stella nodded, her mind beginning to chug along again now. She was in a motel room with Cole and David, resting for the first time in such a long time. But they couldn’t stay here long. It would only be a matter of time before the Ancient Enemy found them.
“You should get some rest now,” Stella said.
“I’ve been dozing a little,” he said, but she could tell it was a lie.
“Just stretch out on the other bed,” she told him as she moved slowly to the side of the bed, trying not to disturb David. “I’ll stay awake for a few hours.”
Cole seemed like he was going to argue about it, but he surprised her by getting up and walking a few steps over to the bed. He only had his jeans, socks, and a T-shirt on. His face looked drawn, the bags heavy under his eyes. He needed sleep or he was probably going to pass out soon.
“Don’t let me sleep past dark,” he told her after he rolled over onto his side. “We should leave before it gets dark.”
Stella nodded, even though he was facing away from her, already breathing heavily. “Okay,” she said.
But she had different plans.
CHAPTER 30
Cody’s Pass, Colorado—The Mountainside Inn
Stella waited thirty minutes, making sure Cole was deep asleep. She wasn’t sure how heavy a sleeper he was, but if he was feeling even remotely safe like she had been, and if he was half as exhausted as she was, then he might be dead to the world for a few hours. This was her chance to get away from him.
He’d said that he wanted to go with them all the way down to the Navajo lands, but she wasn’t sure if she could believe him. And with the cops searching everywhere for him and his crew, she and David might do better on their own.
She got up and walked over to where she had laid her clothes out. She kept her eyes on Cole the whole time as she put her shoes on and her other heavier shirt. She shoved her pistol down into her waistband at the small of her back, and then she stuffed the packs of money back down into her socks. She still had some packs of money in her coat pockets. She collected a small bag of snacks, two bottles of water and kept them by her coat.
Cole hadn’t moved at all.
Stella got David up. He didn’t even make a sound; he just opened his eyes and stared at her. She gestured at him with hand signals, hoping he understood that she wanted him to leave with her.
She helped David get his shoes on, his heavier shirt, and then his coat.
They were ready to go. Cole was lying on his side, facing the door. He didn’t have a sheet or blanket on him. He was breathing so heavy he was practically snoring. Stella and David stood near the TV, both of them watching Cole. She glanced at David, locking eyes with him. She nodded, indicating that they were ready to go. She took David’s hand and they walked past the foot of Cole’s bed.
She had a flashback of sneaking out of the trailer at the dig site while everyone else slept, while David was outside.
As they got around the bed and stepped into the small hallway where the bathroom was, Stella kept her eyes on Cole. She expected his eyes to be wide open, a smile on his lips as he caught them in the act of leaving him. She had tried to concoct a lie, but anything she said would be transparent; Cole would see right through it, he would know what she was doing.
But Cole wasn’t awake. His mouth was partly open, and he was still breathing heavy.
The trick was going to be opening the door without waking Cole. She stood at the door and turned the deadbolt knob as slowly and carefully as she could. It slid back out of the doorframe back into the door without a sound. She pushed down on the metal handle slowly, and then pulled the door open. She was surprised that the door hadn’t made much of a noise, but they seemed like newer doors, like this motel had been remodeled recently.
One last look at Cole as they slipped out the door into the hallway … he was still sleeping.
She closed the door gently, letting it click into place as it closed. It sounded so loud to her in the silence of the hallway, but she didn’t hear anything beyond the door in their room, no shouts of alarm or stomping feet as Cole ran towards the door.
“Come on, let’s go,” Stella whispered to David.
David hesitated for a moment, staring up at her like he didn’t understand why they were leaving Cole behind.
“We have to,” she whispered. “I told you, we can’t trust him.”
David finally took her hand and they hurried down the hall.
The motel was so quiet. She knew there weren’t many guests at all, but it seemed deadly quiet. She couldn’t help feeling that this was a bad sign.
They hurried down the wide carpeted steps to the lobby. When they reached the lobby floor, Stella and David walked hand in hand, hurrying towards the large glass doors in the wall of glass.
“Going somewhere?” the clerk asked from behind his counter on the other side of the room.
Stella looked over at the man as they walked, already forcing a smile on her face. But then she stopped dead in her tracks.
There was something wrong with the clerk. He was standing in the same spot he’d been in when he had checked them in. He was wearing the same clothes, the red vest and white button-down shirt. But it was the expression on his face that had stopped her cold. She’d seen that flaccid, dead expression a few times now … she’d seen it on Jim Whitefeather’s face, and she’d seen it on Frank’s face when he had come back and asked for things.
Stella let David’s hand go and she inched her hand to her side, moving it slowly towards her back for the gun.
The clerk didn’t blink as he stared at her, his face so slack he looked dead.
“Uh …” Stella stammered. “We’re just going out for something to eat.” She felt David’s hand pawing at her; she heard the whimper in his throat.
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br /> “You can’t leave,” the clerk said, and his mouth popped up into a smile like invisible strings had just jerked the corners of his mouth up. But his eyes behind his round glasses were still cold and dead.
Stella whipped her gun out and aimed it at the clerk.
The clerk stayed right where he was, the bottom half of his body hidden behind the long wooden counter. The counter was hiding something horrible, she was sure of that. He stood very still and his smile dropped, his expression blank again, his eyes on her the whole time. “I’m going to get the boy. You can’t run forever. Sooner or later you’ll need to sleep, and that’s when I will be there, looking down at you.”
Something was moving underneath the counter. Stella could hear the squelchy sound of something wet whipping around down there. Then she saw the ends of a few whipcord tentacles poking up above the edge of the counter, black and slimy, like snakes peeking up at them. And then they disappeared back down behind the counter again.
“I want to show you something,” the clerk said, his voice lower and more guttural now. He turned to his left, but only his top half seemed to turn. Stella heard the crunching of bone, the tearing and stretching of skin, the ripping of flesh. His legs propelled him to the little wooden door at the end of the counter, and she could hear his footsteps behind the counter, which sounded like a clattering noise, like someone trying to get their footing.
I don’t want to see this.
Stella aimed her gun at the clerk as he stumbled out from the little doorway in the counter. The lower half of his body had been twisted completely around, his legs backwards, his feet poking out behind him. He walked forward, shuffling unfamiliarly on his backwards legs. The top of the clerk’s pants underneath his vest was caked with dried blood. Strings of drying intestines and gore hung down to his thighs among the ragged tatters of the bottom of his button-down shirt.
“Stay away from us!” Stella yelled. She took a step back and she still felt David clinging to her with one hand. He was still whimpering with fear.
Then the clerk stopped walking towards them. He just stood there, staring at Stella and David with that blank expression on his face. Then he suddenly smiled again and looked towards the lobby doors.
