Darkwind: Ancient Enemy 2

by Mark Lukens

  Travis wasn’t sure what was going on, but it was something strange. His heart was already racing with excitement.

  He emerged from the driveway through the woods, driving out into the front field of Mr. Gordon’s property—and there it was, exactly what Travis had suspected all along, the cabin was on fire.

  The walls of the cabin still stood strong even though part of the roof had collapsed near the back of the cabin and the front porch was ablaze. It would take forever for the fire to burn through those log walls. Part of the porch had fallen in on itself, but Travis saw what looked like bodies on the floorboards near the open front door—twisted and burnt bodies.

  Tom Gordon lived here alone. Why would there be so many bodies on the front porch?

  Could those bodies be some of the bank robbers?

  It had to be.

  Travis drove his snowmobile past the front of the cabin, staying far away from the other snowmobile tracks. He had to be very careful now; this wasn’t just a fire anymore, now this was most likely a crime scene.

  He drove towards Tom Gordon’s pickup truck, and then he idled past it towards the open door of the free-standing garage beyond the truck. He slowed down to a stop, his headlight shining into the darkness of the garage. Off to his left the fire crackled and popped, and he could feel the heat all the way over here.

  “Hello?” he called out at the garage door.

  No answer from inside the garage.

  He was pretty sure there was no one alive left in the cabin. But maybe Tom had gone to the garage for safety. But no, that didn’t seem right either. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible had happened here … something terrible had happened to Tom Gordon, too.

  He should probably sit right here and wait for the fire and police. Or better yet, he should ride back home. But what if there was still a small chance that Mr. Gordon, or even someone else, needed his help?

  Besides, Travis was reasonably sure that if the bank robbers had been here, if they had burned this cabin, and burned those bodies on the front porch, then they were gone now—one or two of them escaping on the snowmobile. A shiver ran through him—if he would’ve left his home moments earlier, he might’ve come face-to-face with them on the county road as they drove south and he drove north.

  Travis cut off the engine of his snowmobile and got off, his eyes darting around, his hand itching to grab his father’s gun inside his jacket.

  He walked towards the wide-open garage door and stood at the threshold.

  “Hello?”

  No answer from the darkness.

  He hesitated a moment, starting to feel like this might not be a good idea. It was murky inside the garage, but his eyes were already beginning to grow accustomed to it. He ventured inside the garage, his hand still ready to draw his gun if he needed to.

  “Mr. Gordon? You in here? It’s Travis from down the road. I saw the fire.”

  No answer. Only silence.

  “We already called the police!” Travis added. He didn’t like the shakiness in his voice but he was trembling and he couldn’t help it. The cold, the fear, and the excitement were all getting to him. “The fire department’s on the way, too!”

  Still no answer. After a deeper search, Travis was sure that no one was hiding in the garage. He found where the snowmobile had been parked, and he saw the crumpled up blue tarp that had covered it.

  Travis left the garage and decided to walk around the cabin, keeping at least twenty-five to thirty feet away from the burning cabin. As he walked down the side of the cabin, he kept looking at the woods. He’d grown up around these woods all of his life—he’d hunted in these woods, hiked in them for years, camped out in them—nothing in these woods scared him, but he still couldn’t help feeling like something … or somebody … was watching him.

  When he got far enough past the cabin, he saw a vehicle burning in the back—it was parked a few car lengths away from the back of the cabin. It looked like some kind of SUV and he was pretty sure that Tom Gordon didn’t own a vehicle like this.

  Travis ran back to the garage and searched through the tools until he found a snow shovel and a fire extinguisher. He ran back to the vehicles and used the fire extinguisher on the vehicle, smothering a lot of the flames out. Then he went to work with the shovel, smothering the rest of the flames with snow. It was hot next to the vehicle and Travis had built up a sheen of sweat underneath his clothes from the exertion.

  He stared at the charred vehicle after the fire was out. Most of the fire damage was in the back of the SUV where the fire had started. He walked to the front and peered in through the window. Nobody in the truck, and the tires on the front hadn’t melted yet from the heat. This couldn’t be Mr. Gordon’s truck … he didn’t own a vehicle like this, and when he saw the license plate on front he was even more certain—it was a New Mexico license plate.

  What was this truck doing here? It seemed like somebody had purposely set the back of this vehicle on fire, because it didn’t seem like the fire could’ve jumped all the way from the back of the cabin to the truck. But he wasn’t an expert. The firefighters would know for sure.

  Travis had a feeling that this was the bank robbers’ vehicle. Obviously they must’ve come from New Mexico to rob the bank here. And then they had ditched the getaway vehicle and escaped on Tom Gordon’s snowmobile.

  But not all of them.

  They had left some of their crew behind, their bodies burning on the front porch. And Mr. Gordon was probably among those bodies. It was a sad thing to think about, but it was most likely a reality.

  Travis continued his investigation around the house to the other side. He saw a discarded gas can. This fire had been deliberately set, yet it didn’t seem like the criminals were trying to hide the evidence.

  He had an overwhelming feeling that he should go back home now and protect his mom and his sister. He wasn’t sure why this feeling was so strong. He’d seen the snowmobile tracks on the road beyond their driveway and they had continued south along the road. Whoever had been on that snowmobile was probably down in Cody’s Pass by now, trying to find a way to escape, perhaps trying to find another vehicle.

  No, he decided he would wait for the sheriff and the fire department to get here.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Cody’s Pass, Colorado—Nora’s house

  “Who’s knocking at the door?” Nicole asked and walked straight to the sliding glass door that led out onto the deck that they’d both been standing on only ten minutes ago. Nora had pulled the vertical blinds back over the glass doors after they had come back inside and they couldn’t see who was knocking.

  Fear gripped Nora so badly that she couldn’t speak for a moment. She wanted to warn her daughter not to go to that sliding glass door but her words were frozen in her throat, her muscles paralyzed with fear. There was something bad out there, she was sure of it … something very bad. It was the way the person was knocking on the glass door … three loud and steady knocks … impatient knocks.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  It was one of the bank robbers, Nora was sure of that. One of those animals had been in the woods earlier when they’d been outside watching the smoke drift above the trees. He must have waited until Travis left and then he climbed up onto the back deck and now he was at her sliding glass door. Maybe there was more than one of them.

  For a split second Nora thought maybe it might be Travis at the sliding glass door. But she dismissed that idea instantly for a few reasons. For one thing, Travis wouldn’t knock—he had a key to the front door. And she hadn’t heard his snowmobile come back. But even if he’d broken down in the driveway and had to walk back, he would’ve come in through the front door.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Nicole was at the vertical blinds now, about to pull them aside so she could open the door for the person who was knocking.

  Nora lunged for the cordless phone on
the wall in the kitchen. She grabbed the phone and it nearly slipped out of her hand. She pushed the TALK button with a trembling finger. She was going to call the sheriff’s office and tell them to get out here right now.

  There was no dial tone.

  She tried all the numbers on the phone, jabbing at them furiously.

  Nothing.

  The phone had just been working a few moments ago.

  They had cut the phone lines.

  Then another thought occurred to Nora. Had she locked the sliding glass door when they had come back inside? She hadn’t heeded Deputy Burnette’s advice on the phone earlier and locked all the windows and doors, but maybe she had locked the sliding glass door … but she was pretty sure she’d left it unlocked.

  Nora plucked the biggest kitchen knife out of the wood block on the counter and she ran into the dining room.

  “Don’t open that door!” Nora screamed at her daughter, finally finding her voice.

  Nicole seemed to be ignoring her—almost like she was in a trance. She slid the vertical blinds to the side and then she stood there, paralyzed for a moment as she stared at the person on the other side of the glass. She seemed frightened but also confused, like she was trying to figure out exactly what she was looking at.

  Nora wished Travis was still here. He would know what to do.

  “Nora,” a voice said from outside the glass door, a voice that seemed to somehow float into the house through the glass, a voice that sounded so clear to her.

  Her heart stopped in her chest for a moment. The person standing outside knew her name. Maybe it was a neighbor or someone from town checking on them. But then again, why wouldn’t they have come to the front door and rang the bell? And why would Nicole be so frightened and shocked by who was on the other side of the glass?

  “Nora …” the man said again. The voice was louder. Her name sounded garbled in the man’s mouth, like he was having difficulty speaking, like he might be injured.

  There was something familiar about the man’s voice, something familiar in the way he said her name. She knew this man’s voice from somewhere; she could feel it in her bones.

  “Nora … I’m home. I’ve come back home.”

  Nora knew who it was now … but it couldn’t be. She bolted from the end of the dining room towards the sliding glass door with the knife clenched in her hand.

  Nicole was already sliding the door open for their visitor, her face shiny with tears as she stared at the man in the doorway.

  “Don’t open that door!!” Nora screamed at her daughter.

  But it was too late now.

  Nora stopped in her tracks a few feet away from the door as Nicole backed up to let the visitor inside. Now Nora could clearly see who was on the other side of the sliding glass door. She froze in shock and fear just like Nicole had done, her mind trying to understand what she was seeing. The knife slipped out of her fingers and dropped down to the floor with a thud.

  The sound of heavy footsteps thumped through the house as the man entered their home from the deck.

  “Daddy?” Nicole said as she backed up away from the dead man standing just inside the sliding glass door. His skin was gray and mottled. The suit he’d been buried in was nearly shredded with rot. Clumps of dirt hung in his hair. More dirt was smeared all over his clothes and exposed skin.

  “Yessss …” he whispered. “Daddy’s home.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Destin, Colorado

  George Joekel was the snowplow driver for the town of Destin, Colorado. He’d been very busy these last two nights plowing the streets of the city and the roads of the suburban neighborhoods. He was a private contractor and he used a heavy-duty plow hooked up to the front of his massive Ford F350 that was equipped with giant snow tires. He was nowhere near done with the work of plowing the streets of Destin, and he’d only managed to catch about six hours of sleep in the last two days, but Sheriff Hadley had called him and told him to stop what he was doing and get on up to Route 217; he wanted him to start plowing south from Destin to an address he’d given to him—the address of a man named Tom Gordon. The sheriff also wanted George to plow the man’s driveway so emergency vehicles could get to a house fire.

  George was on it.

  He turned his F350 around and headed east towards Route 217, a county road that led down to the town of Cody’s Pass—the same town where the bank robbery had taken place. People had stayed indoors because of these massive storms, but also because of the news that these criminals were still on the run. And with how severe the weather had been in the last few days, it wasn’t that far-fetched to think that those criminals might still be here in the area, maybe holed up inside someone’s home and holding them hostage.

  Maybe they were even at this Tom Gordon fella’s place that Sheriff Hadley wanted plowed so suddenly.

  Route 217 was a winding pass through mountainous terrain—a strip of two lane road that stretched through the never-ending forest, and now it was completely covered with two and a half feet of snow. George hadn’t seen a snowstorm like this in decades.

  It’s all because of this damn global warming, George liked to grumble to the other patrons at the bar, but his worn-out joke didn’t seem to amuse anyone anymore.

  George made his living as a landscaper (among many other odd jobs) through the spring and summer, and he had a small crew of helpers. But when the first snows hit, his guys took unemployment from the state for the next few months and George went to work with his truck and plow. He was a one-man operation and he worked very hard to keep it that way. Keeping up with the demand always worried him; he felt sure that the county would eventually elect to hire a plow service from one of the neighboring counties, but he would try to hold on to this gig for as long as possible.

  So that meant when Sheriff Hadley wanted a particular job done, George was on it. He still had three quarters of a tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, a thermos of black coffee, and the radio was blasting rock n’ roll.

  By the time he had plowed a decent path down the winding, remote road, he saw flashing lights in the misty white distance behind him. The cop cars and emergency vehicles planned on following him right to the source of this emergency.

  And now he could see the spiral of smoke rising up above the trees ahead of him. George was betting the fire had started from either a Christmas tree or a space heater. He muttered a quick prayer that no one had been caught in the fire.

  He slowed down as his older Garmin GPS unit that was stuck to his windshield with a suction cup told him he was approaching Tom Gordon’s driveway.

  The driveway was much narrower than the county road and the tree branches scraped at the sides of his truck in some places as he pushed the snow to the sides of the driveway with his plow. The powerful motor in his truck growled and smoke poured out of the dual exhaust, clouding up behind him.

  The driveway plowed just as easily as the road … no rocks or large tree branches in the way, thank God. Fallen tree branches snapping off from the wind or weight of the snow were pretty common in his line of work. He emerged out of the woods into a field that had to be at least ten acres … and there was the cabin in the middle of the field. It was still on fire. The front porch was partially collapsed and part of the roof was caved in near the back of the cabin. A free-standing garage with a pickup truck parked in front of it was far enough away to have escaped the flames, but much of the snow on the garage and nearly all of the snow on the pickup truck had melted away from the heat of the fire.

  George didn’t expect to see a young man sitting on a snowmobile in front of the garage waiting for them. But what surprised him even more were the burnt bodies on the front porch—two on the floorboards, and one in the doorway to the home.

  But he kept on with his job; he kept plowing a path for the sheriff’s car and the fire truck and the ambulance, creating a large area so the vehicles could park, even getting as close to the front of the cabin as he could so the fire truck could pull
right up in front of it.

  The emergency vehicles pulled up in front of the cabin as George continued making pass after pass, creating an impromptu parking lot for them in the front field.

  When he was done, he pulled up near the sheriff’s car. The sheriff was already rolling down his window.

  “You need me to plow some more here?” George asked him.

  “No, I think that’s good for now, George.”

  “You want me to keep on plowing down Route 217 to Cody’s Pass? I mean I can do that, but I still got a lot of neighborhoods in town to do.”

  “I know. Don’t worry about the rest of 217. Freddie’s got some guys plowing the streets in Cody’s Pass. I’m sure they’ll get on up here eventually. Go ahead and get back to town. Make sure you make the pass wider on the way back so these vehicles have an easier time getting back to town.”

  “You got it, Sheriff.”

  The sheriff got out of his car but George hadn’t pulled away just yet, hesitating for a moment. He was still leaning out of his truck window, the motor of his truck rumbling. “Are those bodies on the front porch?” he asked. “I thought I saw—”

  “I haven’t had a chance to look at things yet,” the sheriff said. “I’m sure you got a lot of work to do.”

  George knew when he was being brushed off. He rolled up his window and turned his truck around and headed back for the driveway.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Tom Gordon’s Cabin

  Sheriff Hadley watched George leave. He was sure the man would be spinning some yarns at the bar tonight for sure.

  The firefighters already had their hoses out and they were blasting the flames with water. The sheriff decided to stay out of their way for now and he headed over to the kid who waited patiently on his snowmobile by the open door of the garage. The walking was pretty smooth across the “parking area” that George had created for them, but he had to step over mounds of snow at the edge of the cleared area and then trudge through the knee-high snow to get to the kid who had gotten off his snowmobile to meet him halfway.