by Jadyn Chase
By the time I got to the long driveway leading up to Smokey Ridge, I couldn’t run anymore. My knees buckled at every step and I couldn’t breathe. I told myself at every step, Gotta get there. Gotta get there. Can’t stop.
I staggered up the driveway more dead than alive. As I expected, Kylen, my father Isaac, and my uncle Luka all sat on the porch, along with my other brother Liam. I couldn’t ask for a better audience, but I couldn’t speak.
I leaned against the porch post, bent and broken. Pop raised his beer can. “How’d the meeting go, son?”
I tried to say something and wound up doubling over at the waist. I dry-heaved into the flowerbeds.
“What’s the matter with him?” Luka muttered.
“Lynch….” I rasped. “Sam Lynch….”
Pop cocked an eyebrow. “What about him?”
“…. attacked Jacks River Campground,” I stammered. “…. taken…. a bunch of campers hostage…..made off north.”
That did the job. For one awful moment, the four of them sat riveted to their wicker chairs. No one breathed—except me, of course. I still gasped for breath. My stomach felt sick.
Then all hell broke loose. Pop and Luka launched out of their chairs. They dropped their beers. The cans leaked fizzy beer all over the porch but no one noticed. Pop bellowed orders right and left.
“Get the trucks out! Get all the boys down here on the double!” He jabbed his finger at Kylen. “You get on down the road and get word to Martin Phelps. Liam, get inside and alert your Ma and the girls. Get the compound under lockdown and the guard out to the fence. Then get back down here and be ready to move.”
The boys exploded into action. Liam and Kylen raced off in opposite directions. Pop and Luka stormed down the porch steps. A dozen trucks met Luka in the driveway. Men and teenaged boys hung from them, and rifles and shotguns bristled everywhere.
Pop stopped next to me and clapped his hand on my shoulder. “You did good, son. You did the right thing coming to tell us.”
I nodded, still too exhausted to speak.
He jerked his head toward the house. “Get inside. Your Ma will fix you up.”
I whipped around. “No! I’m…I’m going with you.” He started to shake his head, but I grabbed him by the wrist. “I’m going.”
He eyed me for an instant. Then he pursed his lips and nodded. “I should have expected that from you. All right, son. Come on.”
I dove into the nearest truck. Two of my young cousins manned the front gate now. That gate stood wide open a few seconds ago for anyone to drive or walk right into our compound. Now the boys guarded it with rifles on their hips.
They held the gate open until all the trucks sprinted down the driveway. Then they closed the gate behind us to seal the electric fence topped with razor wire. No one could get inside without bringing the wrath of God down on his head.
I found myself sandwiched between Luka and Liam. Luka handed me a frosty beer can while Liam wrenched the wheel in circles. “Here,” Luka told me. “This’ll wet your whistle.”
I took a swig of the icy, sparkling liquid. It refreshed my parched throat, but not even a few swigs of alcohol could dispel the horrible realization of where I was and where I was going.
Clan Lynch had attacked Jacks River Campground. They were our worst enemy and the most feared band of hooligans in these mountains. Now we were on our way to war against them and no mistake.
Clan Kelly spent decades fighting tooth and nail to put the Lynches in their place and secure peace over our territory. No one wanted to return to those days, but we couldn’t allow them to make these forays into neutral territory.
The Lynches controlled a section of the Cohutta Wilderness north of ours. Jacks River rested in a buffer zone between the two. No one was supposed to show any sign of hostility across that area.
The Lynches would only attack the Campground for one reason—to make a statement. They wanted to extend their influence by provoking us. We had to put them down hard and send them scurrying for their holes. That was the only to deal with any stinking Lynch.
Liam skidded through soft mud and leaves with the other trucks right behind him. He drove around the Ridge to the campground and braked to a stop.
“Where did they go?” Luka asked.
I pointed toward the trees. “That way. They made one hell of a mess, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble following their tracks.”
Luka pounded his fist against the truck roof. Someone knocked back in a broken, two-step pattern and the convoy set off through the trees. Liam followed the ATV tracks. They showed up clear enough for several miles before they faded out.
After that, one of the boys in the back tapped out instructions by rapping on the roof. The boys could see a lot better up there than we could through the windshield. Liam turned left or right according to these directions.
He veered off the trail some distance from our destination. He parked the truck and everybody piled out. The other trucks disgorged armed men and we all gathered around Pop and Luka.
“Now you know what to do,” Pop announced. “Don’t show yourselves, not even if fighting breaks out. Let us take a good look around and see how the land lies before you do anything. Understand? I don’t want to hear so much as a single gunshot without my order.”
He scanned the faces around him. Everyone nodded. “Yes, Sir.”
“All right,” Pop concluded. “Disperse and meet back here in half an hour.”
The men broke up and wandered into the trees. In a few shakes of a lamb’s tail, no one could see any trace of them.
I started forward when Pop slammed his hand into my chest. He pushed me back. “Not you, son.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “I’m going in, too. You can’t leave me out of this, not after I ran all that way to raise the alarm.”
“You’re the best tracker we’ve got, son,” he told me. “I want you to skirt the area and pick up any sign they might have a guard or a patrol out. They might have stashed the hostages somewhere else. This whole blasted thing could be a trap. I need you to make a circuit of the perimeter, son. I need you to keep the wide loop and make sure it’s clear.”
“How am I supposed to alert you if I find something?”
He pulled a revolver out of his waistband and held it out to me. His eyes sparkled with an inner fire. “Don’t alert me. Just handle it.”
I fixed my gaze on his wrinkled, bearded face. I knew this man better than anyone in the world, but I never realized until that moment how well he knew me in return. Now I understood why he waited until all the others left before he gave me these orders. He trusted me. He trusted me to get the job done, and he trusted me to get it done alone.
He would never entrust a job like that to any of my brothers or cousins. He wouldn’t even entrust it to Luka. His wrinkled old face told me all I needed to know. The whole team’s safety rested with me.
I crammed the gun into my jeans behind my back. Pop and I turned away at the same moment and I waded into the trees.
3
Nora
A splitting pain stabbed into my head. I jolted conscious to find Michelle bending over me. “Are you all right, Nora? You’ve been out for hours.”
She tried again to touch my head. I reacted on instinct and slapped her hand away with a feral snarl. “Don’t!”
She retreated with a stricken pout. I floundered upright and got my first look around. Michelle held out a bloody gauze square. She must have been trying to fix my head. Matt and Ethan hunkered not far away. Matt stole a glance up at me before he looked away. Ethan didn’t look up at all.
Thick wooden posts surrounded us in a ring. Thick hemp rope lashed them together to form a solid wall higher than my head. Daylight eked through the cracks. The thin whispers of dusty light gave the only indication there was anything outside.
Michelle shrank back against the wall with the men. She hugged her knees to her chest and fixed her eyes on the ground.
I cradled
my throbbing skull in one hand and did my best to think. “Where are we?”
“Keep your voice down,” Michelle whispered. “You don’t want to attract their attention. We’re in some kind of compound. Don’t ask me where. They brought us here last night and threw us in here. We’ve been here ever since.”
I rubbed my eye trying to get my brain to function, but that only made my head hurt worse. I waded through the splitting pain to remember everything that happened at the campground.
None of it made sense. Those things…. they couldn’t have been…. I hesitated even to think the word. I didn’t believe my own senses. Then they changed into people—walking, talking, punching people.
It couldn’t be. Something must have gone wrong to make me hallucinate all that. I mean, dragons don’t exist. They certainly don’t go around killing people and kidnapping people and hitting people over the head. They certainly didn’t change into people themselves. The whole notion was preposterous.
I scowled at my surroundings trying to piece it all together. “What do they want from us?”
Michelle shook her head. Her mouth twisted in misery. “They didn’t say.”
The longer this went on, the more my mind cleared. I searched for some way to cope with all this. “Have they come around since they put us in here? Did they say anything?”
She shook her head. “No one has come in here. No one has said a word to us since that…that guy knocked you out.”
I frowned even deeper. This made no sense. Why wouldn’t they come around and talk to us? Why wouldn’t they at least explain why they captured us?
I couldn’t accept this situation. Crap like this just didn’t happen in a modern day American National Park. No way could a bunch of freakin’ dragons swoop out of the sky, kill a bunch of people, change into men, and take a bunch more people hostage. That sort of thing just didn’t happen.
Michelle whimpered and huddled closer to Matt. Through this whole conversation, Ethan never so much as looked up. He didn’t move. He sat fixed and still.
I surveyed the enclosure one more time. This time, I gave it more scrutiny. Now that I really looked, I noticed one section of the wall cut across at head height. I didn’t see any hinges, but it looked for all the world like a door. Of course this holding pen had to have a door. How else would they get us inside?
In answer to my thoughts, that part of the wall creaked back and three of those men strutted in. I recognized them from yesterday, and their appearance didn’t make me all that happy to see them, either. They all carried guns propped either on their hips or over their shoulders.
The big red-headed guy barged right up to me. “Oh, look, Sleeping Beauty’s finally awake.”
The others chortled with maniacal glee. The same utter calm filled my mind. No matter what they did, they couldn’t scratch the tough exterior holding me inside. Not even those fearsome dragons killing and destroying everyone and everything could frighten me.
I mean, I was frightened. I was scared out of my wits at the campground. I was even scared now but I couldn’t react. Some force stronger than myself kept me still and quiet.
The big guy strolled up to me. “So you think you’re pretty tough, huh? Well, we’ll see just how tough you are.”
Out of nowhere, Michelle blurted out behind me, “What do you want from us? Why are you doing this to us?”
She distracted the man’s attention from me. She knew enough to tell me to keep my voice down. Now terror and anguish took hold and she lost the ability to follow her own advice.
He probably would have done whatever he was about to do to me, but she drew his notice to herself instead. He sauntered toward her with a demonic grin plastered across his dirty face.
“I don’t think I have to explain it to you, girly,” he snarled. “You don’t need to know why we’re doing it. You just have to stand around and watch us do it.”
One of the others guffawed loudly. Matt and Michelle spun around to gape at him. Ethan didn’t raise his eyes from the ground. I watched the whole scene from far away. I already knew this situation would get a whole lot worse before it got better.
The guy came cruising back toward me. I recognized the smoldering hostility in his eyes. I saw the same look on his face right before he knocked me out. For some reason, he directed it at me more than the others. Something about me made him hate me and want to hurt me.
“You think you can stand there and watch without saying anything,” he growled. “You think we can’t hurt you. I guess we’ll just have to show you that we can.”
He slouched across the enclosure to where the others shrank from his menacing presence. He studied them one after another. “Now, let me see,” he drawled. “Let’s see which one of these three means the most to you. Which one of them would you least like me to take away from you? This one?”
He grabbed Michelle and yanked her toward him. She stumbled and pitched into his arms. He hugged her against his sweaty frame and leered in her face.
She screamed and writhed to get away. The other men laughed so hard their guns wobbled. The leader ran his hands up and down Michelle’s back until she sobbed and screeched to get away.
All at once, he shoved her off. She slammed into Matt, who wrapped his own arms around her. He tried to draw her away from the man to protect her. That movement sent a chain reaction through the redhead.
His features hardened. His hand shot out and he snatched Matt. With one powerful tug, he tore the pair apart and propelled Matt toward his men.
Matt staggered and bumped into the biggest of the evil henchmen. The guy caught him by the elbow with one hand and manhandled him toward the door.
Michelle flew into a frenzy. “Matt!” She lunged for him but the big leader slammed her back. He sent her spinning and crashing into the wall.
Matt thrashed against his captor. He stretched both arms toward Michelle. “Michelle! No!”
“Matt!” she screamed. “Matt! Don’t take him!”
Ethan didn’t move. I couldn’t move, either, not even when my heart revolted against the sight. These men would do exactly as they pleased with us and there was absolutely nothing we could do to stop them. They would kill us all one after the other.
The redheaded leader sidled toward the door. He grinned at me to show me how helpless I was. His men held us at gunpoint until they all backed outside taking Matt with them. Michelle burst into tears. Matt’s voice still echoed from somewhere out of sight calling her name and protesting.
The door crashed closed. The instant it shut, Michelle and I raced to the wall and plastered our eyes to the cracks to catch any sight of what might be going on out there.
Clear daylight flooded an open courtyard. More heavy log walls closed it off from the outside. Guard towers manned by armed men dotted the horizon. I could see nothing beyond that.
The men marched Matt to the center of the courtyard where they let him go. He looked around him on all sides, but no one came near him. They retreated and left him standing all alone.
An ominous silence descended over the compound. This is it, I thought. This is where it all starts. I already knew how it would end. It built to a crescendo inside me, and I couldn’t stop it.
The big leader ambled around the periphery of the courtyard. He hardly looked at Matt. He busied himself with something else and didn’t appear to take much interest in what was going on.
Then, without warning, he strode two paces toward Matt and changed. He transformed before my eyes into the monstrous black dragon I saw yesterday at the campground.
The creature twisted its long body in coils around the courtyard. It angled its spiky head to face Matt. It rumbled deep in its chest and the sound reverberated to the ends of the Earth.
Michelle screamed herself hoarse in my ear, but nothing could dent the impenetrable silence covering everything. Even Matt stood perfectly immobile eyeing that thing.
The enormous reptile lowered its head until its eyes came level with Matt’s body
. It seethed in ominous power. Time stood still. Then, with a mighty gust of wind, it let loose a violent blast of flame at him. He incinerated in a flash and ceased to exist.
Michelle shattered my eardrums with her screams. “Matt! Matt! No!”
I blinked at the empty courtyard. I already knew what would happen, but the awful catastrophe took a few seconds to sink in. The attack on the campground was no hallucination. It really happened. These people—these criminals—were dragons. They could change from dragons into people and back again whenever they wanted.
I turned around and slid down the wall to sit on the ground. Michelle slunk back to her place. She buried her face in her arms and sobbed, but I couldn’t even bring myself to comfort her.
When I sat down, something hard dug into my hip. I sensed it without touching it or reaching into my pocket. It was a pair of fingernail clippers. I paused at a rest stop the day before to nip off a sharp hangnail that bothered me on the hike to Jacks River. Then I put them in my pocket.
I observed my last two remaining companions with a critical eye. Beyond the superficial vital statistics, I knew absolutely nothing about them. Ethan was a rich dental student. Michelle came from Tallahassee and studied accounting. That was as far as it went.
Now, when the chips came down, Ethan withdrew into a catatonic stupor and Michelle became hysterical—not that I blamed her. Matt obviously meant a lot more to her than Ethan meant to me. She just reacted differently than I did in the same situation.
My eyes drifted away from her and I found myself studying the log wall over her head. My gaze traced the hemp ropes holding the posts together. There had to be a way out of here. This stockade and this cell in particular weren’t constructed very sturdily.
Ever so slowly, I got to my feet. The others paid me no mind. I took a turn around the enclosure trying to get my thoughts in order. I didn’t even really know what I was looking for, but my mind churned with a dozen possibilities.
The posts didn’t extend below the ground. They rested on the bare dirt. That gave me the first clue of what to do. On my second lap around the ring, I eased closer to the wall. I stole passing glimpses through the cracks. One piece at a time, I put together an idea of the layout of the compound.
