by Lukens, Mark
David walked across the living room to the front windows.
“What are you doing?” his aunt asked.
“Going to look out the window,” he told her.
Awenita didn’t try to stop him.
David got to the window and pulled the curtain back just a little, allowing the faintest of moonlight to shine inside the house. He stared out the window for a moment, trying to make things out in the darkness. He could see the night sky and the dark silhouette of mountains and trees against it on the horizon. He could make out the dark mass of cottonwoods to the left of the front yard. The police cruiser wasn’t running now. All the lights were off, too. Someone had just shut the engine and the lights off.
The wind kicked up in a sudden gust, sand blowing around, obscuring the little that David could see in the yard. But he thought he could make out some of the objects in the front yard, but he couldn’t see anything clearly enough, especially not now with the sand blowing all over the place.
“You see him?” Angie asked. She sounded like she was on the verge of crying.
David let the curtain fall back in place. He walked back to Angie and his aunt. “No,” he whispered to Angie. “I can’t see anything out there. The police car isn’t running anymore. Someone shut it off. All the lights too.” The Ancient Enemy shut the police cruiser off, he thought but didn’t say it. The Ancient Enemy shut the police cruiser off just like it had shut off the electricity and the phones, and disrupted the cell service here.
“He’ll be back soon,” Angie told herself.
The wind died down as suddenly as it had picked up. The three of them stood in the dark and the silence. But then David heard the sound of shuffling feet across the concrete porch. Someone was walking towards the front door out there.
“It’s him,” Angie practically squealed with delight. She started to go for the door, but David put a hand on her upper arm, stopping her.
“It’s not him,” David told Angie.
She stared at him like she was shocked he would try to stop her from opening the door for her husband. “How do you know?” Her voice was louder and sharper, like she was accusing him of something.
“It’s not him,” David said again.
CHAPTER 32
David
Iron Springs, New Mexico
There were three heavy knocks at the front door.
Angie pulled her arm out of David’s grasp, swinging the shotgun down to her side, about to rush for the door.
“Please don’t open the door,” David told her. He wasn’t so worried for himself, more for her.
“Maybe David’s right,” Awenita said.
Angie ignored both of them as she walked towards the door.
Three more knocks at the door. The pounding was so hard it sounded like the door was vibrating in the doorframe from the force of the knocks.
Angie hesitated.
“Tell him to identify himself,” Awenita yelled at Angie. “That’s what Begay said to do. Remember?”
Angie didn’t look back; she still stared at the front door.
David was ready to grab his aunt and herd her to another room, through the kitchen to Captain Begay’s man-cave. If his aunt stayed with him, maybe he could protect her like he had protected Stella and Cole in the cabin in Colorado. The only problem was that David didn’t know how he had protected them, and he didn’t know how to protect his aunt now.
“Baby,” Angie said to the door, her fingers on the deadbolt knob, ready to unlock it. “Is that you?”
Silence from the other side of the door. Not even the wind was blowing now; it was like the Ancient Enemy wanted them to hear everything.
There was no knocking now, but a voice answered Angie: “Let me in.” But it wasn’t Begay’s voice—it was Billy Nez’s voice.
“That’s not Billy anymore,” David told Angie.
Angie’s fingers still rested on the deadbolt knob.
David took a few steps towards Angie and the door. His aunt was right behind him. He turned his cell phone on and shined the light at the front door, illuminating Angie in front of the door. Her face was wet, shiny with tears in the light.
“Please,” Billy said from behind the door. “Let me in. The killer was out here. You have to let me in.”
David watched Angie’s face in the cell phone’s light. He saw that she was crying harder and it seemed like she knew the truth now; she knew it wasn’t Billy out there anymore.
“I’ve seen this before,” David told Angie in a calm and even tone of voice, trying to get through to her, to stop her from opening the door. He took a few steps closer to her. “The Ancient Enemy sends people back. It controls them like puppets.”
“The captain is out here,” Billy said through the door, but his voice was gruff and guttural, more of a growl now. “He’s still alive. He needs help. Don’t you want to help him?”
Angie’s eyes widened with hope, her fingers twitching on the deadbolt knob.
“It’s not true,” David told her. “He’s telling you anything to get you to open the door. Ask Billy why he didn’t bring the captain back with him.”
Angie turned to the door. “Where’s my husband? How come he isn’t with you?”
“He’s in the front yard. He got hit with something. I can’t carry him. You need to help him.”
“Don’t do it,” David told her.
For a second David was sure he’d gotten through to Angie, but then she twisted the deadbolt knob and unlocked the lock on the doorknob.
The front door flew open and Billy Nez rushed inside, crashing into Angie, knocking the shotgun from her hands. The weapon dropped to the floor and slid into the corner by the door, hitting the wall.
David rushed towards the door without thinking about it, a white fury in his mind. He just wanted all of this to stop; he just wanted the Ancient Enemy to go away, to leave him and everyone he knew alone.
“Stop!” David yelled. He thrust his hands out in front of him like he was going to push Billy Nez back. The symbols Billy had painted on David’s skin a few hours ago began to glow, like little heating elements were warming up, first yellow, then orange, then a deep red.
Billy Nez was rocked back in the doorway from the invisible force that came out of David. Billy stood ramrod straight for just a second, then he fell forward onto the floor inside the house, his body smashing apart like a porcelain doll as it hit the floor, his head and hands coming loose from the rest of his body. Other sections of his body came apart inside his clothing, like large pieces of rocks were inside his shirt and pants.
David lowered his hands.
Angie was still on the floor in front of Billy as large black beetles crawled out of his body, crawling out of the ends of his wrists and the stump of his neck. She scrambled back away from Billy’s body, crab walking back along the floor, kicking and screaming as she tried to get away from the broken corpse.
The backs of the fat black beetles shined in the moonlight that came in through the open front door. The beetles crawled all over Billy’s body, but they weren’t coming forward, they crawled along Billy’s back and legs, collecting on the floor beyond his legs, forming into another creature, swirling like a black smoke out onto the front porch, building and collecting mass, its shape constantly shifting and changing in the shadows under the porch. The writhing black shape tore away into the night like smoke carried along the wind.
David looked down at his hands and wrists. The Anasazi symbols were no longer glowing. Had the Anasazi writing on his skin helped, or had the power come from somewhere inside of him?
Angie was back on her feet, right in front of David now, staring at Billy Nez, making sure he wasn’t moving. The pieces of his body were motionless now, the black beetles swept away in the night wind. The Ancient Enemy was gone for now.
David wondered why the Ancient Enemy had gone away. It had Angie right there in the foyer. It could have grabbed her and taken her out into the yard. Had David pushed it back or had t
he Ancient Enemy gone willingly? Why would it just leave like that?
“Where’s Awenita?” Angie asked when she turned to look at David.
CHAPTER 33
David
Iron Springs, New Mexico
David spun around. He hadn’t even heard his aunt leave, never even knew she wasn’t behind him anymore.
She ran, David told himself. She saw that monster that used to be Billy Nez in the doorway and she ran. She was probably hiding somewhere right now.
Or the reason the Ancient Enemy hadn’t attacked was because it had only been a distraction.
David didn’t want to listen to that voice in his mind, but he had a nauseous feeling in his stomach as he hurried into the kitchen and the dining room. He looked around. He had his cell phone in his hand again, the screen lit up to give him some light. He shined the light around the rooms so quickly that it seemed like the shadows were racing along the walls.
“Aunt Awenita!” David called.
Angie stared at the door that led to her husband’s man-cave—the door was ajar.
David saw what Angie was staring at. She’s in there, he told himself. She’s in there hiding, scared to death.
David bolted to the door and pushed it open, letting the meager light from his cell phone guide his way. The light from the phone lit up most of the room but kept the corners and the bar in shadows. He stopped in his tracks when he came to Captain Begay’s two leather recliners. There on the floor between the backs of the chairs and the bar was his aunt sprawled out, her face staring up at the ceiling, her eyes wide open, her throat a gory mess, the blood so dark and glistening in the light from his cell phone.
“No,” David whispered. “Please, no.”
The light on his phone winked out and he had to push the button to light it up again. For a second as he stood in the darkness David thought his aunt’s body would be gone when he lit the phone back up again. For a second he thought that he hadn’t really seen her on the floor, that it had been a hallucination. But when he lit the phone up again she was still there, still in exactly the same position on the floor.
“He wants to take everything from you first,” a deep voice said from behind David.
David turned around, shining his cell phone at the voice like he was aiming a weapon. A tall man was right behind Angie, holding a hunting knife up to her throat. The knife blade still had a little bit of blood on it like his aunt’s blood hadn’t been wiped off well enough. Angie stood motionless, afraid to move an inch with the blade up to her throat. The man’s skin was so pale in the light, like a living corpse. But this man wasn’t dead, he was very much alive—he was the killer. David had never actually seen the killer in his dreams, but he had sensed the evil and he felt that same evil right now. The man was thin but all muscle that could erupt in explosive power. His head was shaved clean and he had no eyebrows left, just hard ridges of bone and flesh that protruded over his eyes, the darkest eyes that David had ever seen, eyes that showed no mercy or compassion. The killer’s mouth spread into a smile of triumph, his lips shiny in the cell phone’s light.
David knew the Ancient Enemy wasn’t inside the killer anymore; it was out there waiting in the night for its puppet to complete the task.
“It will kill you after you kill me,” David told the killer. “It’s only using you to get to me.”
“I know,” the killer said. “I want it to use me. I want to help it, to serve it, to give it what it wants. And what it wants more than anything is for you to be dead. And I’m going to give that to it. First I’m going to cut this woman’s throat while you watch, and then I’m coming for you.”
David had nowhere to run; Begay’s man-cave had no doors that led outside and he wouldn’t have time to get out through the windows. He already knew he didn’t stand a chance in a fight against the killer, and he couldn’t use his power on the killer because he was just a man now that the Ancient Enemy wasn’t inside of him anymore. But David swore he would fight as hard as he could when the killer came for him, he would fight as hard as he ever had.
Angie looked resigned to her fate, closing her eyes now. She looked close to passing out.
“Say goodbye,” the killer whispered to David. The killer was about to rip the blade across Angie’s throat, but then his forehead exploded open. Blood, bits of brain, and tiny pieces of skull came flying out. His eyes had bulged in surprise in that millisecond, his mouth falling open. His body went limp. The knife slipped out of his already dead fingers.
Angie pushed herself away from the killer, a scream escaping her throat. Blood from the killer’s forehead was splattered all over the top of her head, making her hair shiny in the darkness.
David stood in the middle of the floor, unable to move for a moment as he watched the killer fall forward onto his face, bones crunching when he hit the floor.
Emerging from the darkness of the kitchen was a man, a gun still in his hand. He lowered the gun now, aiming it down at the pale body of the killer as he inched his way forward to the doorway, revealed in the light of David’s cell phone. It was Agent Palmer.
Palmer entered the room, still aiming his gun down at the dead killer.
David realized that he hadn’t even heard the gunshot, he had somehow blocked out the noise as the top half of the killer’s face exploded outward.
The wind gusted outside, another sound David hadn’t noticed until now. But the wind was dying down already, and David could hear the sirens of police cruisers getting closer.
“David,” Agent Palmer said. “Are you okay?”
David nodded.
Palmer looked at Angie. She was crying. “Captain Begay’s outside,” he told her. “He got hit in the head pretty hard. He’s hurt, but I think he’s going to be okay.”
Angie erupted into tears, falling to her knees and sobbing.
Palmer looked back at David.
“It’s gone for now,” David told the FBI agent like he had asked the question. “It will be back, but for now it’s gone.”
CHAPTER 34
Palmer
Iron Springs, New Mexico
As dawn began to break Palmer was outside with David, Captain Begay, and Angie. The ambulance was there, ready to take Captain Begay to the hospital. Palmer guessed that Begay had been hit in the head with some kind of blunt object, a rock or maybe a stick. There was a pretty good gash on his head and dried blood caked the side of his face. There was more blood all over the front of his shirt. He had twisted his knee in the fall and he could hardly walk.
The paramedics had inspected the other bodies: Awenita and the killer in Begay’s house, Billy Nez—the pieces of him—in Begay’s doorway, and the five severed heads in the front yard, the heads rammed down onto a long thin metal rod that had been driven into the ground.
Another officer of the Navajo Tribal Police found Officer Sam’s headless body beside Doli’s Chevy Impala. He had called it in and one of the other officers eventually came to Begay’s house, calling all of the other officers when he got there. Two officers were now on their way out to Billy Nez’s home where Palmer was sure they would find the car that the killer had driven down here.
Palmer had gotten to Begay’s house before any of the police officers had. He had driven past the house and saw the front door wide open. He suspected something was wrong, but more than that, he felt it. He’d parked thirty feet down the road, sneaking in through the driveway between Begay’s new pickup truck and a minivan. Now that he was closer, he saw that there appeared to be a body in the doorway of Begay’s house. But what caught his eye was the large body lying in the middle of the yard. He hurried over to the fallen man, crouching down as he ran, his gun out.
It was Captain Begay on the ground. The side of his head and face were covered with blood. He saw the stack of severed heads near Begay, like some kind of grisly totem pole erected in the middle of the yard. He checked Begay’s pulse in his neck and was surprised to find one.
The wind had kicked up at that
moment and it made it even harder for Palmer to see in the darkness, but he knew he had to leave Begay behind for the moment and get into the house. He sprinted across the front yard to the front door and stared down at the man’s body there, the head and hands detached from the corpse.
From behind him, Palmer heard the wind gusting, he heard the leaves rattling in the trees. It felt like something was rushing up behind him, but Palmer made himself wait there in the doorway, hiding in the shadows of it, watching the interior of the home. He saw a shadowy figure moving through the kitchen, sneaking up behind a woman and putting a knife to her throat. He was the killer, Palmer was sure of it. Maybe he couldn’t save all of these people, but he could get in there and put a bullet in the killer’s brain. At least he could do that much.
Palmer crept forward with his gun in his hand. He was trying to be quiet but he was also trying to move quickly. He knew he didn’t have much time. He heard the killer talking in a deep voice. He heard David from the next room telling the killer that the Ancient Enemy wasn’t going to let him live after this.
The killer didn’t care; all he wanted to do was give the Ancient Enemy what it wanted, to serve his new master.
Palmer was only three feet away when he shot the killer in the back of the head. He hadn’t been sure if the killer had already slit Angie’s throat, but if he didn’t take the shot then her death was going to be certain in the next few seconds.
After it was all over Palmer brought David and Angie out to the front yard, out to Begay. Angie didn’t seem to notice the stack of heads (or didn’t want to), she only concentrated on her husband who was beginning to wake up, trying to sit up, grunting with effort as he got to his feet, hobbling on one leg.
They moved slowly across the dirt yard to the driveway, Begay limping the whole way. Begay sat down on the back of his truck after Palmer lowered the tailgate.
“Thank you,” Begay told Palmer when they told him what had happened, how Palmer had shot the killer.
