by Lukens, Mark
Stella’s eyes said: Go where?
And she was right. There was the chance that their truck wouldn’t start. The Ancient Enemy could have already destroyed the engine or drained the battery. But they had to try. They needed to leave now. One thing Cole had learned when they were at Joe Blackhorn’s trailer was that the Ancient Enemy used up a lot of its energy to control the wind, animals, and people. It was powerful, but only for short periods of time. Right now it had been controlling Maria, making her body float outside the windows, tapping at the glass. It was also controlling at least one snake inside the house. And the Ancient Enemy might even be controlling the wind. This was their only chance. The important thing was to get as far away from here as they could. After that Cole could call one of his friends and arrange a flight out of here, even if it was only to the other end of the country, somewhere away from here where they could catch their breath and make more plans.
The tapping sounded at the bedroom window again, a series of quick taps, three at a time. It was a maddening sound. Then the fingernail scraped down the glass, sounding like a fingernail on a chalkboard. Cole wondered why the Ancient Enemy wasn’t shattering the window and rushing inside to get them. David wasn’t here to protect them now. Why hadn’t it gotten Stella when she’d been in the living room earlier? Or why hadn’t it gotten him while he’d been sleeping in bed? Why was it holding back? If it wanted to get inside, it could. It had to be waiting for some reason. But he couldn’t worry about that right now.
Cole looked at Stella again. He held the burning piece of cloth by a corner. “We get to the kitchen and out the back door. To the truck.”
She nodded and slipped her cell phone into the back pocket of her jeans, but she didn’t look confident. She had the plastic pouch in her hand.
Lightning flashed outside. Thunder rumbled a few seconds later.
Cole threw the flaming cloth down at the base of the wall where he had soaked it with the alcohol. The wall erupted in flames. And then he grabbed another bottle of alcohol, opening it up and tossing the cap away.
As they ran down the hall, Cole dribbled the alcohol out of the bottle. Cole kept glancing at the floor as he entered the kitchen, splashing the last of the alcohol around. He pulled his gun out of the waistband of his pants, trying to spot the snake that Stella said was inside the house. He imagined that the snake was coiled up in a shadowy corner somewhere, waiting to strike at them. But he never saw the snake.
Cole kicked the back door open. He expected to see the reanimated corpse of Maria waiting for them, floating out there in the night, but she wasn’t there. He ran across the weedy yard to their Toyota 4x4. He got in the driver’s side and Stella got in the passenger side, throwing the plastic pouch down on the floorboard. Cole slid the key into the ignition after pushing the button down to lock the doors.
The wind was blowing even harder and flashes of lightning were lighting up the darkness for a split second, the wind blowing sand around, bits of plants and twigs pelting their vehicle.
Cole turned the key and the motor tried to turn over, but it sounded like the battery was already low. He tried again, keeping the key turned all the way. The motor turned sluggishly.
It was only playing with us. It didn’t attack us because it wanted us to run out here to the truck; it wanted us to have a glimmer of hope. But now it would come for us.
Another flash of lightning revealed Maria at the other end of the yard, coming out of the brush, floating three feet above the ground, her arms out to her sides, her head cocked to one side, her face blank and her mouth open. She looked so pale in the lightning flash, like a ghost. And there were other things scurrying out of the brush underneath her floating feet—rats, hundreds of them.
Darkness again. Thunder rumbled. The ground shook.
Cole turned the key again, stomping his foot down on the gas pedal. The headlights came on even though Cole hadn’t turned the knob. The dials and gauge lights on the dashboard flickered. The headlights brightened and then dimmed to almost dark, and then brightened again.
Maria was floating closer to them. The sea of rats was getting closer.
“Cole,” Stella said.
Cole kept the key turned all the way and he stomped down on the gas pedal. “Come on!” he yelled at the truck through clenched teeth.
The 4x4 roared to life, the headlights brightening all the way, illuminating Maria who floated ten feet away from the front of the truck, the rats racing towards them under her feet, some of the rodents were already underneath the truck.
Cole shifted into reverse and stomped down on the gas pedal, squishing dozens of rats as he backed down the driveway and out onto the street, the tires sliding as the rain began to fall. He shifted into drive and sped away.
CHAPTER 27
Officer Sam
Iron Springs, New Mexico
It was late now as Officer Sam Yazzie patrolled the streets ten miles outside of Iron Springs, but he was still alert. It was his turn to patrol the main road leading in and out of town. The empty desert was in front of him with a million stars and a nearly-full moon shining down from the night sky, washing the desert in a milky blue light, creating dark shadows. The night had also brought cold air.
It had been hours now and there had been no sign of this killer that everybody had been whispering about. But Officer Sam wasn’t going to let his guard down. He kept himself awake with the coffee, but also with his anger. He thought of John and Deena Bear, people he’d known well. And he thought of their poor son David. At least David and Awenita were with Captain Begay tonight at his house.
When they had organized their patrol earlier in the day, they had all agreed to drive by Captain Begay’s house every hour or so, even though he didn’t want them doing that. Officer Sam had also decided to swing past Awenita’s house on his way out of town. The house was dark and empty. He stopped there for a moment, his Dodge Durango rumbling in the driveway. He used the spotlight on the side of the driver’s door, shining the beam of light along the front of the home, but he saw nothing suspicious.
And now that he was farther away from town, he would run by John and Deena’s house. It was just an empty place now. No one would ever buy the house now. No one would even rent it. No one would buy the land even if the house was torn down. It was a haunted place now and it would always be a haunted place.
On his way out to John and Deena’s house, Officer Sam saw something in the distance down the road, a dark shape speeding towards him. He slowed down a little and flipped his headlights to brights. He saw now that the dark shape was a vehicle racing towards him, but the vehicle had all of its lights turned off.
Sam hit the switch for the police lights on top of his Dodge Durango. His first thought was that it could be the killer driving towards him, the killer they’d all been waiting for. But then he thought it was more likely a drunk driver who hadn’t realized that his headlights weren’t on.
The car wasn’t slowing down as it approached. It was driving fast, at least sixty miles an hour, and it was coming right for him.
Maybe the police lights weren’t working to alert the driver. Sam pressed the button for the siren, just a quick whoop whoop.
The car still hadn’t slowed down. It was almost up to Sam’s vehicle, staying in its own lane, driving as straight as an arrow. It was an older car, a gray Chevy Impala with a different colored front fender and a big dent in the rear quarter panel. The Chevy sped right past Sam’s Durango. His heart skipped a beat, his breath freezing in his lungs for a few seconds. There wasn’t anyone inside the vehicle. The Durango’s headlights had washed over the windshield of the Chevy Impala and there was no one in the driver’s seat.
That can’t be possible.
Maybe the flickering red and blue lights and his headlights had worked together to create some kind of distorting lights and shadows, some kind of optical illusion that made it seem like no one had been driving.
Officer Sam skidded to a stop and turned around. He gunned the gas and
sped down the road. He was up to fifty miles an hour. Sixty. Then seventy. He was gaining on the car quickly, the red and blue lights from his police cruiser crisscrossing the road in front of him.
He was about to call this in, but he didn’t grab the mike because he saw the New Mexico plate on the back of the Impala; he already knew whose car this was. This was Billy Nez’s daughter’s car. But he doubted Doli was driving tonight, more likely it was her husband who was often drunk and always getting into trouble.
The driver was already slowing down, already knowing that he couldn’t outrun Officer Sam’s Durango. The Impala veered to the right as it slowed down more, the brake lights flashing a few times. It slowed to a crawl as it ran over the sand and then the brush and small shrubs before coming to a stop in a cloud of dust.
Officer Sam pulled up behind the car and kept his police lights on. He sat there for a moment, not sure what to do. He didn’t want to take this guy in because he didn’t want to leave his patrol, so he decided not to call it in. Maybe Doli’s husband wasn’t drunk; maybe he had just fallen asleep. If he was really drunk, Sam decided that he would just put him in the back of his Durango until his shift was over. There was always the danger of the guy puking or pissing himself, but it was a chance he would take to stay out here and help nab this killer.
If this killer was really coming.
He stared at the Impala in front of him. The Durango’s headlights were shining right into the rear window because his vehicle sat higher up off of the ground. The strange thing was that he still couldn’t see a driver behind the wheel. Maybe the driver was lying down across the seat, passed out. Or maybe he had jumped out earlier, running into the desert, taking his chances out there rather than being caught.
A strange sensation of fear tapped at Sam, but he pushed it away. He always had to be careful on traffic stops, but he was pretty sure this guy would be no real threat.
He got out and unsnapped the strap over his service pistol, getting ready to draw just in case. He pulled his flashlight out and turned it on even though his headlights and police lights were providing plenty of light. He shined his flashlight at the back of the Chevy Impala as he walked towards it, his boots crunching on the sand. It was quiet out here. The only sounds were both of the vehicles running. He was expecting the driver’s window to roll down or the driver’s door to open at any moment, spilling the driver out. But the door remained closed and the window stayed rolled up. All the windows were rolled up.
Sam got to the back door of the car and shined his flashlight in at the back seat. Everything—his heart, his breath, his muscles—seemed to stop for a second. There were four severed heads in the back seat: a man’s head, a woman’s head, and the heads of two children. Blood was smeared all over the seats. The children’s heads were face-down, but the man’s head was on its side and the woman’s face was turned up, her blank eyes staring at the ceiling of the car. Her mouth was wide open, her neck ending in a ragged stump that was crusted with dark blood. Her hair was splayed out underneath the head. It was Doli’s head. And her husband’s head was right beside hers. The two smaller heads must be her children.
Officer Sam drew his gun and stepped in front of the driver’s window, aiming his gun at the window, shining his flashlight beam inside. “Turn the car off! Keep your hands where I can see them!”
There was no one in the driver’s seat—it was empty.
“Aw, you saw the gifts I was bringing to the party,” a deep voice said from right behind Officer Sam.
Sam turned and aimed his pistol and flashlight at the man who stood only a few feet away from him. The man was tall and thin, the skin on his face and hands ghostly white. His head was shaved clean; even his eyebrows and eyelashes were gone.
“Don’t move!” Sam yelled at the man. This was the killer that Begay had warned everyone about earlier—had to be. Sam was going to nab this guy by himself, or shoot him if he had to.
The man raised his hands up slowly, surrendering. There were bloodstains on his dark clothing, and smaller splashes of blood on his hands. The man didn’t look scared. He smiled and his eyes were as cold as the desert air.
“Down on the ground!” Sam yelled. He needed to get this guy down and cuffed, and then he needed to call this in. He wished now that he would have already called this stop in.
“I guess one more gift couldn’t hurt,” the man said as dozens of tentacles shot out of his wrists and from his torso, knocking Sam’s gun and flashlight out of his hands, wrapping around his wrists in a flash.
Sam was slammed into the side of the Impala, his breath knocked from his lungs with a grunt. He slid down the car door, sitting down hard on the sand with his back against the Impala. He didn’t even know how he’d gotten down to the ground so quickly. There were more tentacles wrapped around his wrists and arms, holding him there. The tentacles were moving like snakes, alive but not alive, squeezing him tighter. He tried to kick his legs, but he couldn’t move.
Another tentacle shot out from a dark mass in front of him and wrapped around his neck. The killer was out there somewhere beyond those tentacles, somehow connected to the black, shimmering mass of tendrils. But that wasn’t a man, that was a demon, the Ancient Enemy that some whispered about, the monster that Sam had never believed in.
The tentacle around Sam’s neck tightened, sinking into his flesh, cutting through his windpipe. He could feel the blood gushing down into his lungs, cutting off his breathing, drowning him. He kept his eyes open as long as he could, but everything was going black. His world was turning dark.
CHAPTER 28
David
Iron Springs, New Mexico
David woke up. He was curled up on the floor. He couldn’t remember falling asleep, but he must have dozed off at some point. He looked around at the living room. Angie and his Aunt Awenita were on the couch, one at each end, both asleep. Begay was probably supposed to be on watch, but he was asleep in his recliner, snoring softly, his shotgun on the floor beside him. Billy Nez was in the dining room, chanting softly, moving around in the other room like a shadow. All of the lights were off, but there was a little bit of light shining in through the windows from the front porch light.
David remembered dreaming so he had to have been asleep for a little while. In his dream he’d been in the town of Hope’s End again. But this time the dream was different, this hadn’t been a memory. This time he’d been alone in the town—Jed, Esmerelda, and the others were all gone; it was just him and the dead people in Hope’s End. And the killer. The killer was there in the town, a shadow materializing out of the darkness of the saloon.
But that was all David remembered before snapping awake.
The wind had died down outside of Begay’s house and everything was quiet. It felt like the calm before the storm. David sat up and stared into the dining room and kitchen, catching flashes of movement from Billy Nez, listening to his whispered chants. Begay had said Billy dabbled with the dark side of magic and that some believed he was a witch. Maybe the symbols Billy had painted on David’s hands, the ancient Anasazi writing, would help. But maybe Billy’s dark spells and songs would help, too. Anything might help.
David didn’t know anything about the dark arts, and as far as he knew Joe Blackhorn didn’t either. But Billy said earlier that Joe Blackhorn had left something for him at his place, something that could help with a spirit walk. David wondered if Joe Blackhorn had been keeping secrets from him. But that wasn’t really fair because he hadn’t studied long enough with Joe Blackhorn to find out any secrets the old man might have been keeping; he had turned his back on the medicine man and walked away from his studies. And now the guilt was back. He felt selfish because he had walked away from Joe Blackhorn, because he had wanted to feel normal. But now he knew that feeling normal was never going to be possible for him.
He looked down at the symbols painted on his hands and wrists. He wasn’t as prepared as he could be. He could die tonight because he wasn’t strong enough to de
feat that monster out there in the dark, that spirit or demon or alien, or whatever it was. Not only could he die, but his aunt could die. And Captain Begay and his wife. Billy Nez could die. Cole and Stella could die. They could all die because he wasn’t ready, because he wasn’t strong enough to fight the Ancient Enemy, because he hadn’t studied and trained long enough, because he had turned his back on Joe Blackhorn.
The Ancient Enemy wasn’t going to stop after it killed all of them tonight. There would be a black wave of death to follow, every living thing wiped out in its path.
Begay seemed to stop breathing for a moment in his chair, for almost a full minute. David watched him, wondering if he should get up and try to wake the captain up. But then Begay snorted and inhaled a breath, coughing and waking up. He hunched forward in the darkness. “You hear that?”
David wasn’t sure if Begay was talking to him, or if maybe he was freeing himself from the last fragments of a dream.
“You hear that?” Begay asked again.
David listened for a moment, and then he heard a sound coming from outside. It was a rumbling sound, like a car or truck with a powerful engine running.
Begay grabbed his shotgun from the floor and stood up. He walked over to the living room window to peek out through the curtains.
Angie and Awenita woke up on the couch.
“What is it?” Angie asked as she popped up to her feet. “Who’s out there?”
Begay peered out the window. “It’s a squad car,” he said. “A Durango. One of the older ones. I told those guys not to park in front of my house. They need everyone they’ve got out on patrol.”
“What’s he doing out there?”
Begay shook his head just a little, still staring out through the slit in the curtains he had parted with the barrel of his shotgun. “I don’t see anyone. The lights are on, even the lights inside the cruiser, but no one’s there. I think it might be Sam Yazzie’s truck.”
