Darkwind: Ancient Enemy 2

by Mark Lukens

  But at least it was something to go on, somewhere to start.

  “Excuse me a moment,” Palmer told Susan and stepped out of the bedroom. He walked back to the living room with his phone in his hand. He dialed Debbie’s number back at the Denver office.

  “Hi, Debbie.”

  “How’s it going down there?” she asked.

  “This is a strange one. Listen, I need a favor.”

  “Name it.”

  “Can you find out any information on a woman named Stella Weaver? She’s an archaeologist working out of Arizona State University, but she was supposed to be heading to this dig site. Check her DMV records too while you’re at it. See what kind of vehicle she owned.” Palmer thought of the missing vehicle in the line of trucks at the dig site near the dirt trail.

  “I’m on it. I’ll call you back as soon as I get any info.”

  “Thanks, Debbie. You’re the best.”

  “I know.”

  Palmer hung up and slid his phone back into his jacket pocket. If Stella never made it to the dig site, that was one thing. But if she made it to the site and now she wasn’t among the missing bodies … what did that mean? And if that missing vehicle was hers ... Could the killers have taken her truck? Could they have taken her? Could they have taken David, too?

  Palmer turned around to walk back to the bedroom but Captain Begay was right behind him. He hadn’t even heard the man approach. “You gotta stop sneaking up on me like that.”

  “You got any theories yet?” he asked.

  “Not yet. I need to get back out to the dig site.”

  “I’ll show you the way. Just follow me.”

  • • •

  Palmer followed Begay out of town, the landscape turning to desert wilderness in no time at all. He allowed himself a small nip from his bottle of vodka as he drove.

  He was only halfway to the dig site when his cell phone rang. It was Debbie.

  “Hey, Debbie. What did you find?”

  “We found Stella’s vehicle.”

  “Great,” Palmer said.

  “It’s at a crime scene in Colorado. A remote area between the towns of Destin and Cody’s Pass.”

  “A crime scene?”

  “A cabin was set on fire and there were multiple bodies inside. Her SUV was found behind the cabin, the vehicle partially burned.”

  “Shit. Can you get me a flight back up there?”

  “Of course. You’ll leave out of the same airport in Farmington you came in at. You’ll fly into a town called Destin. We’ll have a car waiting for you there. From there you’ll need to drive south on Route 217. I’ll send the directions to your phone.”

  “As quick as you can, Debbie.”

  He hung up and thought about calling his SAC, Cardenelli, and telling him that he was leaving the crime scene down here in Agent Klein’s hands and heading to Destin, Colorado.

  But then again, maybe he would wait on that phone call for a little while.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Near Cody’s Pass, Colorado

  Travis drove his snowmobile down the snowy road back to his house. He wanted to stick around at the crime scene, but Sheriff Hadley wouldn’t allow it. Travis offered to lead Deputy Ronnie who was on his way there with a police snowmobile, but the sheriff told him that Ronnie was perfectly capable of following the tracks all by himself.

  Travis was a little dejected by not being allowed to help, but it had still been an exciting day. He even thought he might want to pursue some kind of law enforcement career someday. He figured he had pieced together the clues pretty quickly on his own; he’d done a pretty good investigation of the crime scene. He wasn’t much of a reader, but he decided that he would start reading true crime books and watch some documentaries, start studying up on this kind of stuff. He couldn’t believe it—he’d been looking for a path in his life for so long now, and he’d finally found it.

  He was excited. He couldn’t wait to tell his mother about his idea for a career. Of course she would be happy for him, but she would also be secretly sad and frightened that he would be leaving her someday. If she could have her way, neither he nor his sister would ever leave home.

  As he neared the driveway that led through the woods to their property, Travis slowed his snowmobile down to a stop. He sat there for a moment with the motor running. He stared at the snowmobile tracks that continued south down the snowy road. He thought about ignoring the sheriff’s command to go home and keep watch over his mother and sister … he thought about following those tracks. He just wanted to help, and if he could spot one of those bank robbers …

  But he decided not to. Maybe the sheriff was right; he should go home and protect his mother and sister. It wasn’t unbelievable that the bank robber (or maybe the two robbers) had only ridden half a mile down the road and then escaped into the woods only to circle back through the trees to find his house. It wasn’t that unbelievable to think that they might already be at his house, holding his family hostage.

  A chill ran through him as flashes of desperate men aiming guns at his mother and sister ran through his mind.

  He revved the motor and turned down the driveway through the trees. Moments later he pulled up to his house, driving through the same tracks he’d created when he’d left. He drove his snowmobile around the house to the large, free-standing garage and parked it next to the wood and metal awning where his mother’s SUV was parked. He cut the motor and got off his snowmobile. He trudged back through the calf-high snow to the front of the house. He climbed the steps up to the wood deck and kicked the snow off of his boots. He unlocked the front door and entered. He closed and locked the front door, and then he kicked off his rubber boots onto the small tiled entryway. He was sure his mother and sister couldn’t wait to hear what he’d found.

  Travis was about to rush into the living room, but he stopped suddenly.

  The first thing he noticed was the overpowering stench inside the house, the smell of something rotten … something dead.

  The next thing he noticed was the silence. His mom should’ve had the local news blaring on the TV by now. Breakfast should be cooking in the kitchen.

  His heart skipped a beat. He’d thought only moments earlier that it wasn’t unfathomable that the fleeing criminals could stop at their house, but now he felt certain that it had happened. His skin felt tingly, his mouth went instantly dry, and his muscles felt a little weak and rubbery.

  “Mom!” Travis called out.

  No answer.

  “Nicole?”

  Still no answer.

  Oh God, something had happened to them. They were still here because his mom’s SUV was parked underneath the awning. But why weren’t they answering him? Why was the house so quiet? And where was that terrible smell coming from?

  This was his time to be a hero, to fight for his family. He yanked his father’s pistol out of the waistband of his pants and he rushed into the living room.

  And then he froze in his tracks.

  His mom and his sister sat rigidly in two dining room chairs that had been moved into the living room. There was nothing binding them to the chairs, but they were frozen like they were too afraid to flinch or to even call out to him. Their skin was pasty white with fear and their eyes were large circles of shock, rimmed in redness and tears.

  They were afraid.

  And Travis saw why.

  The thing that stood near them in the shadowy living room couldn’t be possible … it couldn’t be real. It was his dead father.

  Travis’ dad had died of a sudden heart attack six months ago. He had been buried in the cemetery behind the New Hope church in the southeastern part of Destin.

  “What … how …” Travis croaked.

  “Shut up,” the monstrosity growled at Travis. The decaying thing looked like his father. He was dressed in the black suit he’d been buried in, but now the clothing was filthy with dirt, some areas torn and hanging in tatters. His grayish face was sunken, his mouth pulled back i
n a rictus smile that revealed jagged yellow teeth. His eyes were bulging, his gray hair wild and dirty. Loose black stitches hung from the corners of his mouth and eyes.

  “You’re … you’re dead,” Travis breathed out. His leg muscles felt like jelly and he was afraid he was going to collapse. He had never believed people could faint or go into shock, but he could believe it now.

  Travis realized that his mother was cradling an injured hand in the other. Blood was seeping out of a rag she held around her hand.

  He looked back at his dead father. “What did you do to her?”

  “I took one of her fingers off,” his dead father said and his smile widened. He lifted up the pale white severed finger clutched in his hand, the end of the finger a gory and ragged mess.

  Zombie … that’s what Travis thought of. It was the only explanation. Either that or he was in the middle of a very realistic nightmare. Or he had wrecked his snowmobile and he was trapped inside a coma.

  “I assure you this is real, my boy,” his dad said like he’d read Travis’ mind.

  Travis looked down at the gun in his hand like he’d just remembered he was holding it. He raised it up and aimed it at the thing that looked like his father. He could shoot it, but he needed to put a bullet through its brain—that was the only way you could kill a zombie, everyone knew that.

  His father smiled.

  “I don’t know what you are,” Travis said. He was suddenly brave with the pistol clenched in his trembling hand. He glanced at his sister and saw hope in her eyes. That was enough to spur him on. He was going to save his sister and his mother from whatever this thing was. “I don’t know what you are, but you’re going back to where you came from.”

  Travis was a good shot. He practiced all the time. From this far away, he knew he could put a bullet right through his father’s forehead, but his trembling hand was the problem right now. But as soon as he squeezed the trigger it was like the alpha waves of his brain kicked in at the last second and his hand steadied just long enough for him to shoot.

  The bullet hit his father dead square in the forehead. It rocked his head back, but then his head snapped forward again, the smile never leaving his father’s ghoulish face. A stream of grayish fluid blew out of the back of his father’s head with the bullet, splattering the wall behind him, part of it spraying across a painting, the grayish goo dripping off the frame. More of the same grayish fluid dripped out of the neat hole in his dad’s forehead.

  But Travis’ father didn’t collapse. He wasn’t even knocked off-balance by the gunshot. He just stared at Travis with the bullet hole in his face now.

  “You can’t kill me,” Travis’ father said in a guttural voice. “I’m already dead. Now I’m going to take your mother and sister apart, piece by piece, if you don’t do what I want.”

  “What … wait,” Travis croaked.

  “I took your mother’s finger off,” his father continued. “I broke the bone and then twisted it around and around until I could pull it off.”

  Nora looked on the verge of vomiting on herself. Her skin was so white, her body trembling so badly. She looked like she was on the verge of shock.

  “I could take another finger off,” his dad said.

  “No … wait! Don’t! What do you want?”

  “Put the gun away,” his dead father growled at him. “You will need it soon.”

  Travis bent down and laid the gun down at his feet.

  “There’s a boy named David,” his dead father said. “He’s with a man and a woman named Cole and Stella. They have traveled south to a town called Cody’s Pass. I think you have seen their snowmobile tracks in the snow.”

  Travis nodded slightly.

  “Kill the boy and I will not harm your mother or sister any further. But you must do it quickly. For every hour that you do not kill the boy, I will take a piece of them. A finger. A toe. An eyeball. A tongue.”

  “Kill a kid?” Travis asked, his voice squeaking with panic. “I can’t just … just kill some kid I don’t even know.”

  Travis looked at his sister, then at his mother.

  Nora shook her head no. “Don’t do it, Travis,” She whispered. “Please …”

  Travis’ dead father took a step over to the table next to the couch. He picked up the blood-stained kitchen knife. “Have you ever seen someone skinned alive?” he asked as he walked over to Nora. He raised the blade up to her face and pressed the point of the knife gently into her fleshy cheek. “I could take her face off in one whole piece and put it on your sister like a Halloween mask.”

  “I’ll kill you first!” Travis roared as helpless tears streamed out of his eyes. “Whatever the hell you are!”

  “You want to see what I am?” Travis’ dead father asked. He dropped the knife to the carpet. His body began to bulge suddenly in some places, the fabric of his dirty clothing pushing out. His suitcoat and shirt tore open and a long segmented leg pushed out through his rotted flesh. Grayish goo was stuck to the thing’s giant insect-like leg. But then it wasn’t an insect leg anymore, it morphed into a rubbery tentacle, like a snake.

  Travis’ mother screamed and nearly fell out of her chair, trying to lean as far away from the monstrosity next to her as possible. She still held her bloody hand cradled in the stained rag.

  “I’m ancient …” Travis’ dead father said. “I’ve been here a long, long time. I am much more than you could ever understand. I am more powerful than you could ever imagine. If you will not kill the boy, I will have some fun with all three of you, and then I will find the next family to kill the boy. And then the next one. I won’t stop. If you want to save your mother and your sister, all you have to do is kill the boy.”

  “Okay!” Travis screamed. His eyesight was blurry with tears now. This was all going too fast. He just wanted everything to slow down so he could think for a minute. But the thing that had somehow gotten inside of his dead father’s body wasn’t going to give him a chance.

  “Kill the boy,” his dead father said again as the segmented and rubbery thing retracted back inside his father’s body. “It’s that simple. Use your gun and put a bullet in the boy’s brain. He won’t feel a thing. Do it, and then all of this will be over. If not, I can promise you that you cannot imagine the things I can do to them.”

  “I’ll do it,” Travis said as tears spilled out of his eyes. “Just please … please don’t hurt them anymore.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Cody’s Pass, Colorado

  After they rode the snowmobile down the hill and towards the edge of town, Cole stashed it in the brush and covered it with some broken branches. There was nothing they could do about the tracks leading up to the brush … eventually the snowmobile would be found.

  They walked the next mile to the nearest buildings at the edge of Cody’s Pass. As they walked down the sidewalks and the plowed streets of the town, they tried to act normally, and with David’s long black hair hidden underneath the hood of his coat, they just looked like a family walking down the road.

  There weren’t a lot of people out walking around even though the storm had passed by hours ago. The sky was blue and cloudless. A lot of the businesses were still closed up, but there were a few people driving around, some driving large pickups, many with plows attached to the front of the trucks.

  Stella heard a snowmobile in the distance and turned around to look. It was a teenager racing across a field of snow in the distance behind some houses. All of this snow must be a dream for him, she thought, but a nightmare for others.

  After a few more miles were behind them, they spotted a convenience store that was open for business. They walked down to the side of the building and huddled together in the cold.

  “Can you go in there and get us some food and drinks?” Cole asked Stella. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go anywhere where there are cameras right now.”

  “Yeah. What do you want?”

  “I don’t care. I’m so hungry right now I’d e
at anything.” He smiled at her.

  She couldn’t trust that smile, she told herself.

  “Maybe you should go alone,” Cole offered. “I could keep David with me.”

  “No,” Stella answered a little too sharply. “David stays with me.”

  “Of course. I understand.”

  Cole dug a pack of cash out from the waistband of his pants and peeled off some twenty dollar bills. He handed them to her. “Money might be traceable, but it will take some time. We really don’t have any other options right now.”

  Stella nodded.

  Cole stared at her for a moment. “You could go in there and tell them about me. You could tell them that you’re with one of the guys that robbed the bank.”

  Stella didn’t answer, she just held Cole’s gaze.

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” Cole said and she thought he almost looked relieved at the idea of it. He would be taken away from this nightmare and placed into police custody, locked away in a cell and protected from this ancient thing that roamed out here. He would be away from her and David, no longer a threat to the thing. She even wondered if the thought hadn’t crossed his mind already, if he might not be weighing his options and waiting for the perfect time to ditch them. He might just be using them for cover right now.

  But Stella knew that if she turned Cole in to the police, they would have a lot of questions for her—questions she would have a difficult time answering. And they would take David away. He would be vulnerable to the Ancient Enemy without her. Before long, the Ancient Enemy would find others and force them into action with unspeakable horrors. It could find others who weren’t as strong as Stella, others who weren’t willing to sacrifice themselves to save this boy, others who would kill David in a heartbeat to save themselves.

  And of course Cole had already thought all of this through. He had run the different scenarios through his mind as he’d driven the snowmobile and on their walk through town.

  He knew she wasn’t going to turn him in—she had too much to lose. David had too much to lose.