by Mark Lukens
“We’ve got a few options here,” Cole said. “After we robbed the bank we stashed our snowmobiles a few miles back in the woods, about a mile or so off the road.”
“I don’t know how to ride one of those things,” Stella said right away, lying to Cole.
He stared at her for a few seconds, and she could tell that he didn’t believe her. But he didn’t challenge her on it. He looked back down at the town below them. “It’s too risky anyway. Those snowmobiles might’ve been discovered by now. Cops might even be watching them.”
Stella looked down at the town. Even though the town of Cody’s Pass was in a clearing, a lot of the suburbs were built on the foothills of the mountains surrounding it. Roads wound up into those foothills, meandering through the buildings and houses where lights burned in a lot of the windows. The traffic lights blinked from green to yellow to red and then back to green along the main road through the town and on several of the major cross streets. Apparently the storm hadn’t knocked out the electricity to the town or it had already been restored.
“We need some kind of vehicle to get out of here,” Cole said. “Preferably some kind of truck since these roads still look pretty bad. Looks like some plowing has been done on the main roads down there.”
Stella just nodded.
“We need a place to stay for the afternoon, maybe even the night.”
“There’s a motel in town,” Stella said. “You can’t see it from here, but it’s way down that main road a ways. I stopped there for a few hours on my way into town. We slept in my truck for a few hours until it got too cold for us.”
Cole seemed to consider the idea. “Motel could be kind of risky. Maybe we could find an empty house.”
Stella didn’t think any of the houses were going to be empty.
Cole thought it over for a moment. “A motel could work if you and David checked in by yourselves, and then I could sneak in later.”
Stella just nodded again.
“We’ll ride down closer to the town and stash the snowmobile in those bushes over there.” He pointed at a stand of brush and trees far off in the distance. “Then we’ll walk to this motel you’re talking about. Use the cash you have on you for the room. But first we’ll stop at a store, pick up a few things. We need some food and water. And we need some rest. And lastly, we need some information. I need to see what the weather’s going to be like and find out what the cops know about us so far. Then we’ll work on getting a vehicle and moving south again.”
Stella didn’t ask how Cole planned on procuring a vehicle. Maybe he would pay cash for one at a car lot, or buy one for sale in someone’s yard. But it seemed more likely that he would steal one. Or maybe even carjack one, like he’d done to her and David.
If they could make it to the motel without the police stopping them, maybe they would have a few hours to rest, clean up, eat, and make some plans. But they couldn’t wait too long. The police were going to ramp up their search in the next few hours when they got to the burnt cabin and saw the dead bodies inside of it.
And they couldn’t forget about the Ancient Enemy chasing them.
No, they could never forget about that.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Outside Cody’s Pass, Colorado
Something woke Nora up out of a sound sleep this morning, something that she could’ve sworn sounded like some kind of explosion. It was far enough away to sound like a muffled thump in the distance, but she felt the explosion rumbling through her house, along the floor, rattling the old bones of her home. She got up and wrapped herself in her heavy robe and slipped her socked feet into her favorite slippers.
She’d always been an early riser so she would’ve normally been awake an hour later anyway. It was almost dawn and the sky was beginning to lighten up in the east. She walked through her house, turning on a few lights on the way, still trying to be quiet because her teenage son and daughter were probably still sleeping. She walked through the kitchen to the sliding glass doors that led out onto the wraparound wooden deck outside the house.
Nora looked out the sliding glass doors and saw the smoke rising up over the trees towards the northeastern end of her property. The smoke was black, but she could still make it out against the dark sky that was rapidly lightening with the rising sun.
“What are you looking at?”
Nora jumped and turned around. Her daughter Nicole stood right behind her. She was dressed in wool PJs and her hair was messed up from sleep.
“I heard something,” Nora told her. “I was just checking to see what it was.”
“I heard it, too,” Nicole said, knuckling sleep from one eye. She was fifteen years old but Nora still thought of her as her little girl. “What was it?”
“I don’t know, but there’s something on fire a few miles away.”
Nicole moved closer to look out the sliding glass doors, getting close to the cold glass so she could see the smoke in the sky just out of the edge of her vision.
Nora hadn’t been sleeping too well these last few nights, not with news that dangerous criminals were still on the loose—the bank robbers who had killed poor old Jed.
Poor Jed. She hadn’t been great friends with the old man, but her husband had known him. And now both Jed and her husband were gone.
She thought of her husband, dead six months now. But at least she didn’t live here alone—she still had her children with her. She had Nicole, and she still had Travis, her son, who was nineteen years old now. He hadn’t gone into the military or off to college, he seemed content to work part-time at the Olsen’s farm. He didn’t really seem like he knew what he wanted to do with his life and she wasn’t going to push him. Travis wasn’t like Nicole who already had her life mapped out. She made straight A’s in school (another difference between her and Travis), and she wanted to get a scholarship to go to a good college. She wanted to be a psychiatrist.
Nora was proud of her daughter. But she was proud of Travis, too. She was sure he would find his way in life soon enough. She was in no hurry for Travis to leave. Now that her husband was gone, it was comforting having a man in the house still. She loved having her son around. She felt safer with him here. She knew the day would come when he would leave, and the day would come when Nicole went off to college. It wouldn’t be fair to hold either one of them back, but she dreaded the thought of being all alone in this house deep in the Colorado woods. She had loved it here when her husband was still alive, but these last six months since he’d been gone had been miserable for her. Every room, every stick of furniture, every TV show, every tool in the garage, his truck (that Travis drove now)—they were all reminders of him, constant and painful reminders. Maybe it was time to think about selling the place. She knew that Travis had hoped to have the property handed down to him one day, so she would need to discuss it with him. Maybe if he agreed to keep living here with her …
Normally she would’ve started a pot of coffee as soon as she’d gotten up and then she would’ve turned on the TV, maybe to the local news or Fox News. Maybe she would’ve even got some breakfast going by now. But instead, she walked to the front door in the living room and grabbed her heavy coat from the old-fashioned coat rack. She also kicked off her slippers and slid her feet down into a pair of tall rubber boots that were three sizes too big for her … her husband’s old rubber boots that she couldn’t bear to throw out.
“What are you doing?” Nicole asked.
“I want to get a better look at it,” Nora answered as she walked back across the room to the sliding glass door.
Nicole didn’t even grab a coat; she just hugged her arms and followed her mother out onto the deck.
It was freezing outside. Two back-to-back snowstorms had passed through in the last few days, dumping several feet of snow on the ground and grinding life in these parts to a halt. At least her electricity hadn’t gone out—thank God for that.
They stood on the wood deck and stared at the ever-lightening sky. The smoke continued to dr
ift up into the sky over the tree line.
“Something’s wrong,” Nora muttered.
“I think someone’s house might be on fire,” Nicole said.
Nora nodded. She was thinking the same thing. Could’ve started from a grease fire, or even Christmas decorations. But people were usually very careful in these parts, and she couldn’t help thinking that this fire had sinister origins.
And that led her to think of the criminals on the run. She glanced around at the woods all around them, listening for any sounds of movement out here in the quiet morning. The deck around her home was covered by the edge of the roof, but some snow had managed to drift onto the floorboards. The rest of the world was blanketed with snow … so much snow, more snow than she could ever remember seeing since they’d lived here. It was beautiful, but she knew it was also dangerous.
A cracking sound in the woods to her left demanded her attention. It sounded like something big was moving around in there. She stared at the woods for a moment and she was convinced that she saw a blur of movement in the darkness between the trees.
“You hear that?” Nora asked her daughter.
“It was probably just an animal. Maybe a deer or something.”
“I don’t know,” Nora said, still staring at the thick woods.
“Don’t worry, Mom, those bank robbers are long gone by now.”
Nora nodded, but she wasn’t convinced. She looked back at the smoke in the sky and she was sure that those bank robbers were behind that fire somehow. The fire was maybe five or ten miles north of them she guessed, somewhere between her property and the town of Destin. She tried to remember the names of the distant neighbors around here. Her husband could’ve recalled the names immediately and listed them off to her, but she couldn’t remember any of them.
“That might be Tom Gordon’s place,” Nicole said. “It’s in that direction.”
“What about Tom Gordon’s place?” a male voice asked.
Nora and Nicole spun around and looked at the open sliding glass door where Travis stood.
“Travis,” Nora breathed out and then smiled. “You scared the bejesus out of me.”
“What are you two doing out here?” he said as he stepped out onto the deck, but then he saw the smoke drifting up above the tree line in the distance. “Oh shit.”
“We think Tom Gordon’s cabin might be on fire,” Nicole said. “Either that or he woke up before dawn and decided that he wanted to start one hell of a bonfire.”
Travis only wore a pair of long john pants and a thick, long-sleeved shirt but the cold didn’t seem to bother him.
Just like his father.
Oh, to be young again, Nora thought. Young enough when the cold didn’t bite into her bones and sting her flesh.
Travis bolted back inside their home.
“What are you doing?” Nora asked as she followed her son back inside the house.
“Probably going to check it out, I’m sure,” Nicole muttered, but her mother wasn’t paying attention to what she was saying. She closed the sliding glass door and then slid the vertical blinds shut in front of it.
Travis ran back to his bedroom and he yelled over his shoulder to her. “I’m gonna get dressed and check on Tom. You call the sheriff’s office; let them know someone’s house might be on fire.”
Nora turned to head for the kitchen but Nicole already had the cordless phone in her hand, offering it to her mother. She took the phone from her daughter and dialed some numbers. She didn’t dial 911. When there was an emergency out here, they called the sheriff’s line to his office.
“Sheriff’s office,” a woman answered in a cheerful voice. “Deputy Burnette speaking.”
“Hi, Deputy Burnette,” Nora said into the phone. She watched as Nicole started the coffee machine. She knew she probably shouldn’t let Nicole drink coffee, but she enjoyed sharing a cup of coffee with her in the morning. It couldn’t be that bad for her. Had to be better than a can of Coke in the morning like Travis usually had. “I think there might be a fire,” Nora said. “There’s smoke in the sky about five or ten miles northeast of my house. I believe it might be on Tom Gordon’s property.”
She thought about telling the deputy that her son was going to check it out and make sure Tom Gordon was okay, but she decided against it. The deputy might order her not to let her son go, and she knew that she wouldn’t be able to keep him home.
“Yes, ma’am,” the deputy said, her voice suddenly all-business. “I’ll contact the fire department. Many of the roads outside Destin haven’t been plowed yet so it may take some time.”
“Oh yes,” Nora said. “I understand that.”
“Thanks for calling us.”
“Of course,” Nora said.
“Just stay inside and keep your doors and windows locked.”
Nora inhaled sharply, a surge of fear fluttering through her body. “You guys haven’t caught those bank robbers yet?”
The deputy hesitated like she was selecting her words carefully. “Just stay inside and keep your doors and windows locked.”
“I will. Thanks.” Nora pressed the OFF button on the cordless phone and Nicole took it from her and hung it back up on the wall.
Travis burst out of his bedroom dressed in warmer clothing, a hat, and gloves. He was out the front door in a flash. A moment later Nora heard his snowmobile starting up outside as Nicole prepared two cups of coffee for them.
Nora walked over to the front windows in the living room and watched Travis as he rode his snowmobile towards their driveway that ran through the woods and then led out to the county road.
“He’ll be okay,” Nicole said and handed the cup of coffee to her mother. “He just wants to make sure Tom’s okay.”
Nora nodded, but she didn’t feel okay. She still felt nervous. Her stomach fluttered with fear and she didn’t know why. Something didn’t feel right.
Nicole sipped her coffee and walked back to the kitchen. Nora followed her and she almost dropped her cup of coffee when they heard someone knocking at the sliding glass door.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Near Cody’s Pass, Colorado
Travis sped down the snowy road on his snowmobile. He knew his mom didn’t want him riding around out here. It wasn’t the fire that bothered her; it was the fact that those bank robbers hadn’t been caught yet. They’d never had a bank robbery in their town before that he’d ever heard of, and certainly not a murder. But she didn’t have to worry because Travis brought along a little protection of his own just in case he ran across one of those criminals—his dad’s pistol. If he saw one of those murdering bastards, he wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in that man’s head. He practiced with the gun all the time in the woods behind their house and he was an expert shot now.
The first thing Travis noticed when he got out onto the county road from their driveway was the snowmobile tracks on the road. He stopped his snowmobile for a moment and studied them. The tracks went both north and south, up and down the road. For a moment he thought someone else might have headed to Tom Gordon’s property to check out the fire, but on closer inspection of the tracks he realized that they were heading south. Someone had been riding away from the fire.
He thought about riding south and following the tracks, but he knew that the right thing to do was to go to Tom Gordon’s cabin and make sure he was okay.
Making his decision, Travis drove down the narrow road that wound through the army of evergreens, pines, and firs—all of their branches burdened with snow. The roads were bad, worse than he’d ever seen them before, but it wasn’t anything his snowmobile couldn’t handle.
Everything was quiet out here, and the drone of his snowmobile’s motor was the only sound in the silence. Normally he loved the solitude and silence of the woods, but today he was feeling a little creeped out. Maybe all of his mother’s worrying about these bandits was getting to him a little. He loved his mom to death, but she had always been a worrywart.
He knew she was
worried about him leaving home (because they both knew that Nicole was heading off to college as soon as she graduated high school—which would be a year earlier than normal because of her grades). He had told his mom plenty of times that she didn’t have a reason to worry about him leaving right away. He surely hadn’t gotten a scholarship to go to college and he definitely wasn’t signing up for the military even though his father and uncle had both served. And Travis didn’t have any serious relationships in his life right now. He’d dated Jenny a few times, but she seemed more into partying and dating other guys than he could tolerate. She wanted an “open” relationship and Travis didn’t really care for that. He tried to end things with her, but whenever she got drunk and she hadn’t hooked up with anyone else for the night, she would call him. And he would always go running to her when she called. Even though they had some good times, he knew their relationship wasn’t going anywhere. He was looking to stay right here in Cody’s Pass, and she was set on finding a rich guy and getting swept away from this small-town life.
So he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon, and he’d told his mother that many times. But she still worried about it.
These thoughts ran through Travis’ mind as he drove carefully down Tom Gordon’s long and winding driveway through the trees. He tried to hurry, but he needed to be careful—he didn’t want to hit a rock or stump or shrub on the side of the driveway that might be hidden in the snow, and wreck his snowmobile. The smell of the smoke was heavy in the air now.
He had followed the snowmobile tracks the whole way down County Road 217 to the driveway and he’d stayed far away from them so he wouldn’t disturb them. It was a little more difficult not to disturb the tracks in the narrow driveway, but he did his best.
But there was no denying it—someone had driven a snowmobile away from Tom Gordon’s burning cabin and headed south. Was it Tom? Had he gone for help? But why wouldn’t he have called the sheriff’s office himself? His mother’s call seemed like the first one the sheriff’s office had received about the fire. Maybe Tom couldn’t get back inside his house to use his phone. Cell phone? They didn’t work too well out here, and he was pretty sure Tom didn’t have a cell phone anyway.
