TheBeastWithin

by James Daniels

  The irregular grid of red veins pulsing across the thug’s face had put Matt on high alert, but it hadn’t horrified him. He was too used to it by now. In fact, he’d been seeing such sights regularly for the past nine months.

  Almost a year before, while skiing with a friend, Matt had been buried in an avalanche. He was given up for dead, but his body was eventually recovered three months later— frozen solid beneath a bank of snow. It wasn’t until the coroner made the first cut for his autopsy that the truth came to light: Matt was alive.

  He had survived a three-month deep freeze!

  Matt’s doctors couldn’t explain his complete recovery, although they tried, as did psychics, celebrities, scientists, and talk-show hosts. For a few news cycles, Matt was the man of the hour: he’d turned down endless invitations for interviews, special appearances, guest slots on late-night talk shows. He’d even had Ripley’s Believe It or Not! banging on his door.

  And yet not one of the millions who read the newspapers or watched the reports on TV knew the strangest fact about Matt’s miraculous resurrection. Once he was out of the hospital, he began to see things that no one else did: certain people seemed to be afflicted with rot, decay, disease, and disintegration. People who looked perfectly healthy to everyone else looked like lepers to Matt. And worst of all, the rot he saw (and smelled) proved time and again to be only a harbinger of evil things to come. Every decomposing person he had seen had gone on to commit some act of destruction: mass murder, mindless mayhem, arson, robbery, rape. After his season on ice, Matt had received forewarning of all kinds of human carnage—often in connection with a shadowy jokester who identified himself only as Mr. Dark. Half the time, Matt suspected that he’d been given a second chance at life to discover and prevent evil disasters from destroying innocent lives.

  The other half, Matt suspected that he was just bat-shit crazy.

  Which theory was right? Only time would tell. But until it did, Matt had learned to steer clear of infected souls when he had the chance—and fight like hell when he didn’t.

  But in this case, retreat seemed the best possible option, and he had no trouble committing to it. Especially with the strange young woman sitting behind him, her thighs pressing against his, her arms locked around his chest, her chin resting on his shoulder.

  Left, here, she told him. Now right. And right again. Now we drive for long time.

  He liked the sound of her voice in his ear, the low, mysterious accent purring instructions over the throb of the Yamaha’s cylinders. Following her directions, they left the outskirts of Wittman behind and passed a scattering of seed stores, shuttered farmers’ markets, and dilapidated antique “shoppes.” The low cloud cover made evening come early, and a misty rain began to fall. Matt slowed down a little, concerned about the roads.

  Roma might have been concerned, too, because she edged closer, put her chin against the back of his jaw, and for the first time in ten minutes, spoke to him.

  “I am sorry for this…this trouble I have caused to you.”

  He shook his head. “You saved my life back there, Roma.”

  “Yah, after you save mine.”

  For a few moments there was only the thrum of the motor and the hiss of rubber on wet blacktop. The mist slid down Matt’s neck and pooled in the hollows of his throat. “Can I ask, Matthew, why you come to this place?”

  “To meet someone.”

  A slight pause. Her chin settled on his shoulder. Then: “A friend?”

  “No. I’ve never met him. But I read a book he wrote.”

  “Aha. And he knew you were coming?”

  “No.”

  “You live near here? From nearby?”

  “No. My home’s on the West Coast.”

  “Ah. West Coast.” Thought about that. “So you…”

  “Traveled three thousand miles to meet him.”

  “I see.” Even though she didn’t. “It must have been a good book he wrote, this man.”

  Not quite, Matt thought. But he didn’t say it. The book had been, hands down, the worst piece of shit he’d ever read.

  “You should leave tonight, Matthew. For you to stay here? It would not be safe.”

  “I know.” If her lips brushed his earlobe one more time, he was probably going to drive off the road. He had to do something, anything, to get his mind off her. “About those guys who attacked us,” he began.

  “Go left here,” she said immediately.

  Matt slowed. The two-lane road through the woods was intersected by a gravel path that wound up a steep hill. An old wooden sign by the side of the road indicated that the path led to the “WITTMAN SKI RESORT,” but the paint was peeling and the words were badly faded. Nailed to the signpost, a much newer, diamond-shaped, hazard-red sign had been posted:

  PRIVATE PROPERTY

  KEEP OFF

  TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT

  By order of Owner,

  Charles Kingman

  Matt came to a stop, staring at the sign.

  “It is all right, Matthew. You can go. This is my home.”

  “Charles Kingman,” Matt said, staring at the sign as the engine idled. “You know him?”

  “Of course.”

  “How?”

  She leaned forward, trying to catch his gaze with her green eyes. “We are married, Charles and myself. For the last six months. Why?”

  He finally turned toward her. Gave her a long look. “The author I mentioned? The one I came all this way to meet?”

  “Yah?”

  “Is your husband.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The narrow gravel road was about a quarter of a mile long, and they had to stop a few hundred yards in. Roma had patted him sharply on the back and told him to pull over. When he did, she slipped off the bike and walked cautiously forward, her hands outstretched before her like a sleepwalker. Suddenly she stopped and rested her hands on something invisible, midair. She walked sideways to the nearest tree and unhooked whatever it was with a great deal of effort. Then there was a whisper in the leaves that lay scattered on the road, and she waved him through. He walked the bike forward, looking down. As he passed her, he caught sight of a thin black wire lying on the ground, extending to a second tree on the opposite side. Then she lifted it behind him and reattached it to the first tree. It hung invisibly in the air, exactly neck height.

  A trip wire.

  If she hadn’t stopped him in time, it would have easily taken his head off.

  Jesus.

  A few seconds later she came back to the bike.

  “Is okay now.”

  “Why do you keep a line strung over the path like that?”

  She slung a long leg over the leather seat behind him, scootched forward until the insides of her thighs pressed against his buttocks. Locked her arms around his chest.

  “Is not much farther.”

  Ignoring his question.

  He let the throttle out. They eased carefully over a bridge that spanned a creek, the old boards whump-whump-whumping beneath the wheels. “I bet it’s been ages since someone tried to sell you Amway,” he said.

  “Am…way?”

  “You know, like door-to-door salesmen, selling… Actually, I have no idea what Amway is.” If the joke could have fallen flatter, he didn’t know how. “I just mean, the sign, the trip wire, the long driveway…it probably cuts down on your visitors, right?”

  “We don’t, ah, get out so much.”

  “Homebodies, huh? You and Charles?” Glanced back at her. If he were married to this woman, he wouldn’t get out much, either.

  “Y-yes.” A strange hesitation. “Charles and myself.” Carelessly: “And the rest.”

  The rest? He was curious. “You two have kids?” Curious, because he’d seen the photo of Charles Kingman on the dustcover to his book. And the idea of that man with this beauty…

  “Kids? No.” She pressed her cheek into his shoulder. “Go on, Matthew. Is not far now.”

  The woods thinned as t
hey followed the path. They rounded a corner, and all of a sudden Matt could see the east face of the big hill and how the trees had been cleared away to make two decent ski runs. At the top of the hill he could see what looked to be an old-style lodge, and an honest-to-God ski lift went from it to the bottom of the hill, where it led to three ramshackle buildings that looked like places where you could get skis, rent lockers, and maybe buy lunch. It looked like a nice little setup.

  Three things struck Matt as odd, though. The first was that, up at the top of the hill, a ten-foot chain-link fence had been erected to surround the lodge. It cut right across the top face of the ski runs, making them pretty much unusable.

  Second, even though there was no snow on the ground and the ski runs were wrecked by the fence, the parking lot they now were passing was full of old beat-up pickups, and there were dozens of tents erected around the ramshackle buildings at the base of the hill. Matt saw a few dozen men, all in camo, many of them carrying branches toward a big bonfire woodpile. All of them stopped to stare as Matt drove past.

  The third thing was that, as they passed the men and the bonfire pile, Roma leaned into him again, pressed her cheek against his jaw, and said, “Drive faster, please.”

  So he did.

  “Problem?” he asked. But again, she didn’t answer, which didn’t surprise him a bit by now. As the path wove back into the woods, he glimpsed at his rearview mirror and saw one of the men drop his load of wood and point in their direction. Then the pines swallowed them up, and he was gone.

  A few minutes of steep zigzagging and they reached the fence. Matt pulled up in front of it and stared at in surprise. It had looked kind of thrown together from the bottom of the hill, but up close he could see that it was actually a double fence, both of them chain link, fifteen feet tall, with barbed wire at the top. There was about five feet of space between the two fences, and it was filled with three large coils of razor ribbon. A red triangular sign on the fence said “HIGH VOLTAGE HAZARD” and had a pictogram of a stick figure being blown backward by a lightning bolt.

  “Wait here, Matthew.”

  The center of the fence had a sliding entry gate, also of chain link. Next to it was a touch pad and speaker that emitted a red light that blinked at steady intervals. Roma approached it and tapped its keypad. There was a pause, and then the gate slid sideways with a grinding sound.

  Roma stepped in and waved him onward.

  Again Matt walked the bike forward, looking around as he did.

  On either side of the gate were twin towers of scaffolding, topped with camouflaged deer blinds. The deer blinds were covered with branches and brush. As he looked at the one to his left, he saw a large hunk of brushy debris separate itself from the rest and lean over to watch him pass. It appeared to have two brushy arms. Which appeared to be holding a brushy AK-47.

  Matt let his gaze drop from the guy in the ghillie suit and glanced ahead. The entire property—about two acres—was ringed with the electric double fence, and every thirty feet or so a large halogen lamp crowned a fifteen-foot fence post. Strangely, all the halogen lights were facing outward. And each of them was accompanied by a thin black box that also faced outward.

  Surveillance cameras.

  The property itself was filled with a mishmash of tin sheds and construction materials. Everywhere you looked there were pallets of bricks, bundles of tin sheets, troughs of plaster, buckets of screws, and great stacked rafts of plywood and particle board.

  And then there was the lodge.

  Clearly, it had once been nice. Built in a seventies retro style, it had a steep, peaked roof and a large second-story wooden deck where skiers could sip hot chocolate and take in a view of the slopes. On the left side of the deck was an angular turret with a peaked roof, and on the right the ski lift was anchored to a large concrete base that snugged right up against the deck. Below the deck was the first-floor entrance, which was flanked by stone pillars and dark wooden beams to give the place an alpine accent. It looked like it had once been a fun place to spend a snowy Saturday afternoon.

  But those days were long gone.

  The front entrance was now screened by hanging plastic camo curtains. The second-floor deck’s guardrail had been buttressed by large, interlocking sheets of tin, with slits cut into them just wide enough to allow for a sight line—or the muzzle of an AK-47. The windows were likewise covered with tin sheets. The turret bristled with outward-facing flood lamps, a red-blinking security box, and two satellite dishes. The peaked roof of the turret had been cut away and replaced with a circular row of six-foot-high white PVC piping, over which hung a thick canopy of camo netting. A shadow moved within it—there seemed to be someone up there.

  Squinting to get a better look, one of Matt’s eyes was momentarily blinded by a red flash. It was gone as soon as it had arrived. Matt put a hand to his eye, and when he drew it away, just for a second, he saw the crimson dot of a laser sight play along his thumb. Then it slid off into nothingness and was gone.

  Matt’s jaw locked as he looked around at the compound. Anyone else would be amazed at what had been done to such a good piece of property. But not Matt. He had read Charles Kingman’s god-awful book. So he was not surprised in the least.

  “Nice little place,” Matt said, getting off the bike.

  Roma gave him a lopsided smile. “But too much, ah, construction, yes? Please, Matthew, follow me. My husband and brothers, they will be so pleased to meet you.”

  Matt followed her up onto the porch. It creaked, sagging beneath his step. “Did you say ‘brothers’?” he asked, looking around. The camo netting darkened the front entryway, but Matt could see that the original wooden door had been replaced by a steel double-wide portal. Tin sheets had been hammered into the wall around it, as if to make the entryway fireproof. A small intercom box was screwed into one of them.

  “Two brothers, yes,” she said, pushing the intercom button. “Half brothers, really. Jasha and Arkady. They are visiting from Russia.”

  “Can’t wait to meet them.”

  “So don’t wait, Matthew.” Again, the mysterious smile, the gold-flecked eyes that glinted even in the darkness. “See, to your right? This is Jasha.”

  Matt turned his head and was startled to see a huge guy about eighteen inches away from his elbow. How had he missed him?

  Jasha was enormous. His arms were the size of Matt’s thighs. His thighs were the size of Matt’s torso. His head wasn’t that much smaller than a basketball and was crowned with a perfectly round bowl cut that hung in front of his eyes. He was sitting on a two-foot section of a tree trunk, slowly dismantling an Uzi.

  He didn’t look up at them.

  “Jasha, my big teddy bear.” Roma stepped lightly over to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She didn’t even have to bend down to do it. He leaned into the kiss but kept his eyes on his work.

  Then Roma whispered something in his big ear in a language Matt didn’t understand.

  Jasha paused momentarily, and then began reassembling the Uzi.

  “Nice to meet you,” Matt said. “I’m Matt.”

  No response. Jasha’s eyes never flicked up from beneath the shaggy-dog bowl cut, and his banana-sized fingers never stopped their business of deftly rotating screws the size of cloves.

  Roma walked back to the door.

  “Jasha does not, ah, talk English so well? And is very shy. But such a big heart. But my brother Arkady, he speak English very well now. So well, is hard to understand him sometimes.”

  That made no sense to Matt. “Why would it be hard…”

  “You will see.” And she reached for the handle of the steel door.

  Before she could turn the latch, it rotated on its own and the door slid open.

  The hallway beyond was dim, but Matt took in the figure beyond in an instant.

  White face.

  Black lips.

  Big nose.

  Evil clown eyes.

  Mr. Dark.

  CHAPTER FOUR
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  Matt lunged at the deranged clown in the doorway. Throwing himself in front of Roma, he grabbed the apparition by the collar of its surprisingly solid T-shirt and slammed him against the steel door.

  “Matthew, no!” Roma shrieked from behind him.

  “Roma—run!” Matt pulled the squawking figure off the door and slammed him right back. “He’s dangerous! Get back!”

  “Matthew, is not dangerous—is my brother Arkady!”

  Matt paused, and then three things happened that convinced him to let go. First, he noticed that, aside from the clown makeup, the guy he’d grabbed was a lot shorter and pudgier—not to mention more solid—than past apparitions of Mr. Dark. Second, the black-and-white clown makeup was smearing where Matt’s knuckles had grazed his chin and lip. Third, with no warning whatsoever, Jasha had silently crossed the porch, driven his shoulder into Matt’s rib cage, and crushed him against the wall.

  Pinned, Matt gasped for breath like a beached whale.

  “Matthew…” Over Jasha’s shoulder, Roma looked at him in amazement. “Why…?”

  Sucking air, Matt looked from her face to Jasha’s, to the outraged figure in the doorway. He swallowed. “Sorry,” he said. No way to explain what he’d just done—so he said the first thing that popped into his head. “So sorry. I…I’ve just got this thing about clowns.”

  “Well is that not being the shizit?” the guy in whiteface said in a thick Russian accent. He stepped out of the doorway toward Matt, glaring at him.

  Matt squinted. “What?”

  “Player-hating fool come to flex on myself?” The guy took a wide stance. His hands flew into gang signs. “Clown Loco G give as good as he get, yes? Be looking close, bitch.” He hoisted his crotch. “I am a world-class melon smuggla, titty juggla, and not hesitating to bust a cap in your ass, whoop whoop.”