by Bret Tallent
She thought about her mother and sister, and she thought about Nick. And as if he knew she was thinking about him, the phone rang just then and it was Nick. He thought she might be feeling blue and decided to call. They talked for a while and she shared her thoughts with him and the email as well. He was the only other person who would know about it.
***
Sarah was lost somewhere between then and now, but something had intruded on the then, something from now. A noise that didn't belong with the memory found its way there. It startled her from her retrospective daze but not soon enough to be cognizable. Then there was a second noise that she did recognize, a scraping sound on the porch, footfalls.
Her blood ran cold and she had to swallow hard to keep her heart down. Her breathing stopped but her mind was racing a hundred miles an hour. She finally took a breath then jerked her head around violently, searching the room wild eyed. Her heart was pounding so hard that her chest ached and her temples throbbed. Her mouth was incredibly dry and the huge amounts of cold air she was pulling in through it stung.
Finally, her eyes fell on the huge fireplace and she stared at it for a calculative moment. It explained Clayton she decided, and then moved toward it. She crawled quickly into the blackened maw and saw the pool of frozen blood on its floor. Behind her she could hear the footsteps nearing the door and her heart raced even harder, but she wasn't about to take the time to look back.
She looked up as she was about to scramble up the chimney, and screamed. The noises closing in on her were forgotten. Her adrenaline had been pumping wildly and what she saw brought her to hysterics. The naked torso of a man had been stuffed up the chimney. It had no arms or head, only tattered flesh where they had been.
Sarah backed out of the fireplace on all fours, screaming the entire way. Her voice bounced off the stones in the hearth and echoed through her head. She scrambled backwards, oblivious to everything around her, until she backed into something. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder, gripping her hard and pulling her up. It turned her to face it and her panic turned into rage, then recognition. She went limp and fell against Nick, weeping. He held her and she hung onto him.––
***
Nick was numb; he couldn't believe his uncle was dead. He decided that he had to push that aside and concentrate on the here and now. He would have time to grieve for his uncle, and his friends, later. The first order of business was survival, and that didn't look too promising where they were. As much as the thought terrified him, they would have to go back to Copper Creek.
Mike stood by the door, somewhat subdued, but kept looking around nervously. His curiosity had gotten the better of him and he had taken a look up in the chimney. What he had seen made him want to gag, but he had quelled it. He then backed out of the gory hole, ashen and somber. He glanced sympathetically at Sarah, then pulled the revolver from his coat pocket and had taken up the position near the door that he now held.
Sarah sat next to Nick, red eyed but composed. She couldn't believe that this was happening, whatever it was that was happening. There were so many things running through her mind she couldn't focus on a single one. Too many things were happening too fast. She wanted to say something, anything. She needed to make sense out of everything she had seen, but it was all just a jumbled mess. Finally, she said the only thing she could.
"Nick, I'm scared."
"So am I Sarah. I think whatever did this is already in town, but there's no where else to go."
"What do you think it is?” she asked quietly, her voice a squeak.
"I don't know. But whatever it is, its smart.” he thought a moment, then added, "And vicious."
"We need to get back and find Hayden.” Mike piped in from across the room. "I don't think we should stay here too much longer, I don't think it's safe."
"If Hayden makes it back.” Nick mumbled under his breath, but nodded.
"Who's Hayden?” Sarah asked.
Mike continued, "He's the sheriff of Copper Creek; this is his gun.” holding it up, "He went out on a snowmobile earlier today to see some people or something. We need to find him.” he reiterated.
''Mike's right, we need to leave, and Copper Creek is our best chance.'' Nick agreed.
"Why don't we just snowmobile out of here?” Sarah offered.
"I'm almost frozen as it is. No, no I don't think we could make it.", Nick replied.
Sarah looked at his breath hanging heavy around them and nodded. She'd nearly forgotten how cold it was. With her attention brought back to it, she noticed that her feet were numb and she was shivering uncontrollably. It was cold, that was true, but there was something out there far worse than the cold.
A gust of arctic wind buffeted the lodge just then and threw tiny particles of snow against the building. They bounced off the glass with a ticking sound that was quickly lost in the shrieking wind. There was something else there as well, in that wind. It was a cry that was a part of it, yet separate at the same time. It was unearthly and caused the hair to stand on end on each of them. They were coming.
Nick stood up quickly and pulled Sarah up with him, "We have to leave here, now!" He didn't need to explain further, they all felt it. They were coming. Whatever they were? Again the wind pelted the lodge, closer. The wind was closer somehow and it filled Nick with terror.
There was a mad scramble as the three gathered up what they had removed, and headed out into the storm. The wind pushed back at them, trying to hold them there as best it could. Joints, stiffened from the cold, impeded them. They were sluggish, even in their fear, and trudging through the deep snow was a tremendous effort.
Nick jumped on Sarah's machine and after prodding it a little, it grumbled to life. Mike's machine roared next to him and Nick looked over. Mike was struggling to see through the blowing snow, struggling to see if anything was closing in on them. Then Nick felt Sarah climb on behind him and wrap her arms around his waist.
Without any hesitation, Nick punched the throttle and felt gravity tug at him as the snowmobile launched. Sarah's grip tightened then and very nearly squeezed the wind out of him. There were angry shrieks all around them, a thunderous cry that reverberated through his head. Beneath his mask, Nick's nose started to bleed. He could feel its warm progress down his lip, but he ignored it.
Behind him he heard the scream of the second snowmobile then saw its skis pull up beside him. Behind the goggles, Mike's eyes were opened wide. He leaned forward over the handlebars and shot up over the rift in front of him. The snowmobile felt light, then weightless for a moment before it came down hard on the frozen, blanketed earth. It jarred him, but his grip never wavered from the throttle.
The howling wind had gone in through his ears and bounced around inside his head. Its sound chilled him to the bone and his skin crawled beneath his clothes. But this wasn't what had panicked Mike. He thought he'd felt them, actually felt a hand on his back. It was as if something had grabbed at him as they were leaving. It was just his nerves, he was sure, but it spooked him never the less.
Nick was at full throttle as well, but the added weight held him back. As Mike blew by in a flurry of snow, Nick glanced over. Through the white cloud thrown up by Mike's machine, Nick saw something on Mike's back. Through the dark nylon of his ski coat, the white fill material oozed out of four long gashes in the fabric, from shoulder to kidney. Nick swallowed hard then and leaned forward as far as he could. He was staying on this machine.
CHAPTER 13
Heather Mead sat in the bentwood rocker, rocking slowly, and waiting for her brother to speak. She pulled the worn and tattered afghan around her shoulders and held it up beneath her chin. She watched him pace back and forth in front of the glowing hearth and lowered her eyes every time he turned and could see her face. It was not that she was afraid of him, or ashamed, but it was a learned response from years of living with Clayton.
Heather was the opposite of her brother in every respect. Where she was timid and nervous, Jesse was strong and confident
. She needed others while he was completely independent. She was petite and he was a bull. Her hair was a dirty blonde to his jet black, and her eyes a pale hazel to his steel blue. To see them side by side you would never guess that they were even remotely related.
Jesse stared at his sister; her complexion was wan, even against the dingy white of the afghan. She looked sickly to him. Part of it was contempt for her weakness, he was sure. But beyond that, she seemed ill. Her face was drawn and narrow and it would have been colorless except for the bruises, compliments of that lower life form she was married to. Her eyes were hollow images of what they had once been, darkened orbs in a sorrowful mask.
Her eyes used to be as ice, Jesse thought, a long time ago, back before Clayton had pulled the life out of them. She was so pretty, he remembered. Not gorgeous, but pretty in a simple and naive way. "Cute as a button!” he'd heard remarked more than once. And why on earth she ever ended up with him? Jesse shook his head.
It made him sad to see her this way. Sad because he knew the person she had once been, the girl that was his sister. And then it made him angry. Angry that she could let this happen to her, that she had allowed it. A Jenkins!? He was mad at her, and then he was mad at himself. He should’ve killed that sonovabitch years ago. Hell, he should’ve killed him a dozen times since then, for every time he had to take Heather to the hospital in Steamboat. But, she had always talked him out of it.
For reasons that he could no more fathom than the reason the good Lord had taken both their parents, she protected the man. She stood by him, lied for him, and stayed with him. Every once in a while, after a particularly bad beating, she would come to Jesse and say she was leaving him. But then a few hours later, after some of the pain and fear had subsided, she always changed her mind. It was pathetic.
So now he was really having trouble believing it would be any different, even with the news she had just brought him, although she did have a suitcase this time. But, a leopard couldn't change its spots, could it? If life had taught him nothing else, it had taught him that. Oh, she might stay away for a while, a week or maybe two. But eventually, she would find her way back to that slug.
Jesse had considered everything but it came down to one thing, one little item, she was his sister. And whatever else there was, that was all that mattered. Jesse pushed the sleeves back up over his elbows then crossed his arms on his thick chest. His skin was dark and nearly lost in the blue plaid of his flannel shirt. He stood there, legs slightly apart, head tilted to the right, waiting.
Finally, the soft creak of the rocker stopped and Heather looked up at him. Her eyes were red and puffy and a single tear found its way out and ran down one cheek. Jesse cleared his throat, cleared the emotion that was trying to well up inside him. He didn't look directly at her, but diverted his eyes slowly, inconspicuously. He wanted to be hard, but he loved his sister too much and to look into her eyes would just about kill him.
His voice broke the silence, raspy and low, "You sure you're pregnant?"
Heather only nodded.
"And you ain't gonna go runnin' back to that ass-wipe?” he continued.
"I told you Jesse, he ain't gonna touch my baby." Heather's voice was a quiver but there was determination in it. Something Jesse had not seen in her in a long, long time.
"It's just that I've heard this story before Heather. How many times over the last five years?"
She only stared at the fire.
"You're my sister Heather", he continued, "and I promised to take care of you after mom and dad died. I know I haven't done too good a job of it, but you ain't been much help either. But this is the last time, if you leave Clayton now it's for good."
Heather looked up at Jesse and there were tears running down both cheeks now. "I can't go back Jesse,” she managed, barely above a whisper, "he won't let me keep the baby. And even if he does, he'll probably end up killing it, or worse." Heather looked back down, unable to look her brother in the face any longer.
She continued, "It's my baby and I'm going to have it. And I swear that no one's gonna do to it like's been done to me." There was strength in her voice but Jesse couldn't help but feel incredulous. Heather looked up then and saw the look on his face and it angered her momentarily.
She needed to explain it to him, make him understand. There was so much more to it than just her being weak. Jesse didn't remember, or didn't want to remember, how it was. That's the funny thing when people die; we all make them out to be saints. We only remember the good things, or embellish them. The rotten things they did or their bad sides are lost somewhere in the fog of grief. Jesse didn't remember how it was between their parents and her.
Her own father had beaten her as many times as Clayton ever had, and Jesse didn't know it, but he had come into her room as well. Come into her room and done as he pleased on those nights when their mother was visiting away for the evening. It made her feel so dirty, so ashamed. But, that was all she had ever known as love, and didn't she deserve it?
Her mother had let him do it too. She didn't help him any, but she sure didn't do anything to stop it. All she could do was to tell her what a worthless brat she was. After a while, Heather began to believe it. She had shown her parents only heartache and they had done so much for her. She was nothing but a burden to them, but they loved her anyway because she was their child. And why else would they treat their own child that way, unless she deserved it.
Jesse's view was clouded though, and their parents had done no wrong, could do no wrong. Heather wanted to tell him so much, tell him everything, but she couldn't. Jesse wouldn't believe it anyway. After they had died, Jesse's grief turned into a sick love for them, a consecrated love. To him, they were perfect.
But Heather had come to hate them. She hated them for what they had done to her, for what they had made her. She hated them just as she loathed Clayton. There wasn't a day that went by that she didn't wish Clayton was dead, and yet a part of her wanted to stay with him. Again, she blamed her parents. She hated the pain and fear and indignity, but that was all she knew as love.
Heather wanted so badly to tell Jesse all of this, but she couldn't. She couldn't put it into words, not all of it. It was all a confusing mass in her mind that she was just barely aware of. It was just a part of her, something she had come to accept as normal. It was all buried deep in her subconscious somewhere, it had become her id. So what finally came out was a distortion of the truth.
"It's my baby Jesse, and I'm going to keep it. It's never going to know Clayton, Jesse. It's never going to see the inside of an emergency room by his or anybody else’s hand. I need this baby Jesse, more than it needs me. I need it to give me the life I've never known. But more than that, I want it. I want it more than anything I've ever wanted before. I want something I can love Jesse, something that can love me. I want to know that I'm not a failure."
"You're not a failure.” he tried, not very convincingly, the words catching in his throat. Jesse put a huge rough hand on her tiny delicate ones and squeezed them gently. "And I love you.” he finished. He had never heard his sister sound like this, with this conviction. Could it be true? Could this be the catalyst to bring Heather to her senses? If it was, then Jesse would do all he could to help.
Heather squeezed his hand back, "I'm scared Jesse. I'm scared that Clayton will do something to the baby. When you're not around, who knows what he might do?" Her hands were trembling and there was a pleading on her face. Jesse had to look away again.
"I'll handle Clayton.” he stated, matter of factly. "He won't touch you or the baby, I promise."
And that's when Jesse decided it; he was going to kill Clayton Mead. He had no parents and no living relatives except for his sister. He had never married, which was fine with him. If you didn't depend on someone, they couldn't hurt you. And Jesse had vowed never to be hurt again, the way he had when his parents died. But he wasn't about to let that bastard take his only other kin.
Jesse felt like he should say something more
to his sister, but the truth was he didn't know what to say. It was almost with relief that he turned toward the sound at the door. It was a light sound that broke the awkward moment of silence. So light that it was nearly lost in the wind that danced around the eaves and sang its sad song to the windows. It was a light sound, but Jesse had heard it.
Heather had heard it too. Her head turned as did Jesse's, towards the front door, searching for a shadow…Looking for the outline of a man…Looking for the outline of Clayton. Fear swept over her and a single tremor racked her body. She swallowed hard then and let out a heavy sigh. You’re just jumpy, she chided herself.
But there was a sound and it came again, louder, more insistent. Something was scratching at the door, scratching as if to be let in. It was long and slow and deliberate, and caused gooseflesh to rise on Jesse's arms. He took a tentative step towards the door and concentrated his hearing upon the sound. Then it stopped. He listened hard but there was only the wail of the wind.
Jesse looked as his sister, then back at the door, bewildered. A second later he jumped. Someone started tapping on the stained glass, tapping with a metal rod or something. Then the clawing returned. Suddenly, Jesse was angry. This wasn't the least bit funny. He stormed the fifteen feet or so to the front door, his footfalls heavy thuds on the hardwood floor. He stopped in front of the door and spoke, his voice a booming threat.
"Whoever the hell's out there better be gone before I open this door!” he yelled to the stained glass. Heather winced as he said it, winced at the tone, but watched him as he grabbed the door knob. "If this is you Clayton, I'm gonna pound you, you....."
But Jesse never finished his threat. At that instant the stained glass burst inward, carrying with it splintered pieces of the door from between the panes. A huge white blur followed the shards through the hole and wrapped around Jesse's head. Jesse managed only a grunt as he was pulled through the tiny hole into the blizzard beyond, bits of his clothes and some flesh left hanging on the rough edges of the porthole.
