by Mark Lukens
“I hope so,” Joe muttered. “Only he knows how to close it even though he may not realize it yet.”
The wind shrieked outside again, a blast of it rocking the trailer. They were all quiet, all of them looking into the living room at the front door.
David was still asleep, but the dog had raised his head up, a whimper caught in his throat.
“Tell me what has happened to you so far,” Joe said to Stella.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Joe Blackhorn’s trailer
Stella made another cup of coffee and sat back down at the table.
She began telling Joe everything that had happened. She told him about Jake Phillips calling her down to the dig site with the great discovery he’d made. She told him that after a few days David wandered into camp near the mouth of the cave. Stella had been the one who had found him, and she’d seen the bloodstains on his hands and face.
She told Joe that Jim Whitefeather seemed to be scared of David, but he agreed to go and get the police. He left. But then his dead body was outside, slumped up against a tree … his eyes gone. Then he disappeared, and then he came back—only he wasn’t himself anymore. He asked for things … and all of it was leading up to sacrificing David.
She told Joe about how she escaped from that place after Jake sliced his own throat. She told Joe about her reckless journey north up into the snowy mountains of Colorado. She told him about what happened in the gas station, and then being carjacked by Cole and his crew.
Joe looked at Cole in a new light now, but Stella continued on. Joe had just preached about how much he valued the truth in science and she wasn’t going to lie to him now about Cole. She told him how Cole had only been there with the bank robbers to try to save his brother from Frank, to get him paid back so he could get Trevor out of Frank’s crew.
She told him about what had happened at the cabin, how Frank was taken in the middle of the night. And then the others were taken one by one. She told him about their escape on the snowmobile and what had happened at the hotel. She told him about their journey back down here to the Navajo Reservation to find him, to find someone who could help David, someone who could teach David to fight back against this thing.
Joe had remained silent during Stella’s recounting of what had happened. He finally nodded. “The bodies at the dig site have been discovered,” he said. “And David’s parents.”
Stella felt like crying. She’d heard the same thing from Alice. She had dared to believe that maybe a few of the archaeologists at the dig site had made it, but deep down she knew it wasn’t true.
“They were all slaughtered,” Joe said. “Details aren’t being released, but people talk. The police and FBI are baffled by what has happened.”
Stella nodded.
“So what do you think that thing is?” Cole asked. “I know you said it comes from another dimension.”
“I don’t know,” Joe said. “There’s a story in our culture of the Star People who came down from the skies and born the first man and first woman. It’s not too different from the Adam and Eve story in the Bible. In fact, there are more similarities between religions around the world than people care to admit, similarities in their origin stories, similar tales of great floods, of prophets coming to preach to them, so many similarities even though so much land, sometimes even continents, divided all of these cultures for a millennia.”
“So you think this thing might be an alien from outer space?” Cole asked, trying to get Joe back on track.
Joe shrugged. “Alien, yes. From outer space? I don’t know. Maybe it’s an alien from its own world, its own dimension. Maybe it lives on an alternate Earth where its kind is as normal as our animal and plant life are to us. But their world is so fundamentally and physically different from our world that it would drive us insane if we stared at it too long.”
“So it’s an alien in the truest sense of the word,” Stella said. “A lifeform that’s strange to us, completely foreign.”
“Yes.”
“You said that this has happened many times before,” Stella said. “You mean like with the Anasazi? Like how they disappeared?”
“Yes. But even more recent than that. I believe the Darkwind slips through every so many years … every one hundred and twenty years to be exact.”
“So it sleeps for a while and then it wakes up,” Cole said.
“I don’t think it’s quite that simple.”
“Then what?”
“I think it has something to do with people like David.”
“Why do you think the time span is a hundred and twenty years?” Stella asked. “That seems like a pretty specific number.”
Cole didn’t give Joe a chance to answer. “When we were driving here you said that looking at David was like looking at a ghost.”
Stella’s eyes widened with the memory. “That’s right. You said even his name is the same. What did you mean by that?”
Joe nodded. “I need to show you something that you may not believe.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Joe Blackhorn’s trailer
Joe Blackhorn said he wanted to show them something they wouldn’t believe, but Stella was sure that after the things she’d seen, after what she’d been through, she might believe just about anything now.
Joe got up from the table. “I had to search through the spare bedroom for it.” He stopped and smiled at them. “The spare bedroom is my storage room now, so I’m sorry that all I can offer you is the living room to sleep.”
“That’s fine with us,” Cole said.
Stella and Cole’s eyes met; she could read his thoughts—if we can sleep at all.
“It would probably be a good idea if we all slept in the same room anyway,” Cole suggested as he looked back at Joe.
Joe nodded like that was a good idea, one he’d already thought of. “I knew you were coming,” Joe said. “And I wanted to find this folder to show you. It has some information in it that I’ve collected over the years.” He shook his head in frustration and smiled at them. “It would be easier to show you.” He held up a finger, indicating that he’d be right back.
Stella turned around in her kitchen chair and watched Joe as he walked into the living room. Her eyes shifted to David for a moment, making sure he was still asleep. The dog lifted his head a little as Joe walked through the living room, but he made no move from the couch to follow his master.
Joe picked up the remote control to the TV and turned the volume all the way down, but he left the TV on. Then he went down the hallway to the back of the trailer.
Stella looked back at Cole. He sipped his coffee. He looked exhausted; the days of sleeplessness and shock were adding up to much more than either one of them could take. The idea of all of those spiders, snakes, scorpions, rats, and insects that had surrounded their truck ran through her mind again. She could imagine all of those creepy-crawly creatures making the journey down the bumpy trail to this little valley and standing on the ridge like an army. A shiver ran through her.
Her mind felt like it was going to snap. She didn’t feel like herself anymore, and she hadn’t felt real for a while now. Talking a little bit about science tonight had eased her mind a bit, but not nearly enough. Part of her just wanted all of this to be over with and part of her even welcomed the dark, comforting embrace of death, of the nothingness to wrap around her and take her away.
But she knew that the Ancient Enemy would never let death envelope her. The Ancient Enemy would keep her alive … it would let her suffer as it used her body as a puppet.
She glanced at Cole again. He’d been such a surprise to her. He’d saved them at the hotel in Colorado even though she and David had run out on him. She couldn’t help feeling attracted to him in some odd way like she’d never been attracted to a man before. In the short time they had known each other, they’d been through more trials and tribulations, more loss and fear than most couples go through in a lifetime. She knew he felt something for her, too.
Why had Cole stayed with them and helped them? Maybe he was trying to prove his goodness to her, maybe this was his way of atoning for his past sins, maybe it was all about revenge for his brother’s death. Maybe revenge fueled a man like Cole more than fear or even love could.
Stella knew she loved Cole in a way … a deep love of two people who had walked through hell together. It was hard to explain. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever really loved a man before, but she knew she loved Cole in a strange way. She’d had her flings in high school and in college, but she’d never let herself get too close to anyone because her career had been her driving motivation in her life. She figured once she got out into the field, once she made some great discoveries and published papers and wrote some books, then she would have time for a husband, for a family … time for love.
But the years had slipped by quickly with no real relationships … and no real discoveries out in the field, either. She’d had an off and on again relationship with Jake Phillips, mostly off. And when he’d called her about his great discovery in the cave, she couldn’t help wondering if it was just a ploy to get her out there and together with him. Maybe she’d been too jealous of Jake to get close to him. He had made some discoveries, written some books, published some papers, secured some grants … all the things that she had wanted to do.
But it hadn’t been a ploy to get her down there with him. Jake had really discovered something amazing—an entire city built deep inside a cave. But the most incredible thing was the collection of tablets with the ancient writing carved into them.
Her life had changed when she went down to that dig site. From the discovery of Anasazi writing, to David showing up, to the Ancient Enemy pursuing them … everything had changed. She didn’t think about publishing papers or writing books anymore. Now all she thought about was protecting David and surviving.
Jake had changed, too. He had changed into an animal that last night at the dig site, ready to agree with the others, ready to sacrifice David to that thing out there. And then that night when she had run away with David, she watched Jake rush towards her with the hunting knife. He said he only wanted to give it what it wanted, but she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her, too.
And then Jake’s eyes had cleared at the last moment like he’d woken up from a dream. He stood out there in that scrub brush next to the trailer, out there in that cold night, in that cold wind with the coppery smell of blood on it. She liked to believe that in that last moment Jake had realized the animal he had become, and now she understood the nobility of his actions as he ended his life, and maybe how he was disgusted with his own cowardice. Then she watched him cut his own throat.
But Cole had never even thought about sacrificing David to that thing out there. He had even killed Jose to save David. Maybe Cole was smart enough to know that the Ancient Enemy would never let them go if David was killed. Maybe Cole knew they would be even more vulnerable than ever. Maybe he had been using David as a shield. But once they got away from the cabin, he could’ve run so many times. And he didn’t need to come after them after they had run out on him at the Mountainside Inn. He had already been in Bruce the salesman’s SUV by then with the engine running—he could’ve just left the parking lot. But he didn’t, and she thought she might love him for that, too.
Cole touched her hand.
Stella looked at him. He smiled at her like he’d been reading her thoughts.
Joe came back from down the hall into the living room. His footsteps were so light he hardly made a sound on the old floorboards of his trailer. He held what looked like a three-ring binder a kid might take to school. He entered the kitchen and sat back down at the head of the table.
On closer inspection, Stella realized that the binder was actually a cheap photo album with a dark vinyl cover. Joe opened it up and she saw news clippings from magazines and newspapers carefully positioned behind the clear plastic covering the thick white pages. There were also internet printouts that had been cut to size to fit the pages. There were articles and photos and also many pages of notebook paper in between the white stiff pages of articles and photos; the notebook paper was filled with small, neat handwriting.
Joe flipped through the pages, looking for something. “What is happening now,” Joe said as he flipped through the book, “what is happening to David … it has happened before.” He looked up at Stella, and then at Cole. He left the book open, apparently having found what he’d been looking for. “I don’t have proof of every occurrence in the past, but I have enough to recognize a pattern.”
He still hadn’t shoved the book Stella’s way but she could see the open pages and she saw what looked like three articles and photos that had been cut out from internet printouts and newspapers, all situated neatly under the clear plastic sheet. On the opposite page was a piece of notebook paper secured in the three-ring binder. The notebook paper was filled with small, neat handwriting.
Joe was still looking at them, his hands clutching the edges of the photo album protectively. “In September of 1891, something like this happened not too far from here in a town, a settlement really. A lawman and bounty hunter named Jed Cartwright apprehended a fugitive, a half-Navajo named Red Moon, who was wanted for twenty murders along with robbery, horse thievery, and various other crimes. Jed and his partner, a man only listed as Roscoe, and a younger man named Stephen Dobbs, caught Red Moon in the northwestern corner of Arizona and they were taking him back to Smith Junction.”
Joe sighed, pausing a moment. “Jed never showed up at Smith Junction. The story goes that somehow between where Jed and his men had apprehended Red Moon and Smith Junction, they were jumped by a band of Navajo pretending to be skinwalkers. Roscoe and Dobbs were killed … mutilated, and Jed made it to a ranch where he found a whole family slaughtered … the only survivor was a young boy. A boy named David.”
Joe slid the photo album across the table to Stella and she saw a grainy black and white photograph of a boy who could’ve been David’s twin.
She looked back at Joe. “This is … this looks just like …”
“Now you understand my reaction when I saw David.”
Stella slid the photo album across the table so Cole could see the photo. He stared down at the photo for a long moment, and then he looked back at Stella. “This looks an awful lot like David,” he agreed. “But it could still be a coincidence. I’ve had people come up to me before and swear I was someone else.”
Joe nodded. “Yes, I thought of that. But it’s the rest of the story that might sound very familiar. I wrote it down, piecing it together from various sources.”
“What’s the story?” Stella asked.
“When Jed Cartwright got to the ranch and found the family slaughtered, he took the boy with him. They took two horses and began to ride to Smith Junction. But they didn’t make it all the way there. They stopped in a small town along the way, seeking help. It wasn’t long before the members of that town were wiped out.”
“Did the boy live?” Stella asked. “Did he survive?”
Joe shrugged. “No one knows. Jed never turned his bounty in and the slaughter in that town was attributed to either a rogue band of Apache or a part of Red Moon’s gang seeking retribution.”
“But you said there was more,” Stella reminded him.
Cole pushed the photo album back to Joe.
“There’s another account,” Joe said. “Not too much information on it, but about a hundred and twenty years before that in 1771, a whole village was wiped out. The people were slaughtered, mutilated in the most horrendous way. I have a few clippings of people telling their story, but there are no actual newspaper accounts of it like there is with what happened in 1891. And there are stories of similar happenings a hundred and twenty years before the 1771 event, all the way back to the late twelve hundreds.”
“When the Anasazi disappeared,” Stella said. “When they had supposedly walked away from the cities they had built into the sides of cliffs.”
“Archaeologists like to give many reasons why the Anasazi walked away from those cities,” Stella said. “They cite conflicts with the Spanish explorers, but there was no record of the Spanish ever reaching this far inland before 1300. Other tribes attacking them doesn’t make sense to me because the Anasazi were the most sophisticated and advanced culture at that time in the area. Some archaeologists cite drought and weather changes … but if that’s true, then why did they head south into the Arizona and New Mexico deserts where the drought could be worse? Some archaeologists say inner conflicts destroyed the Anasazi because of the evidence at these cities of mass killings and cannibalism.”
“And of course when scientists can’t figure out what happened to an ancient culture, they always cite religious reasons,” Joe said. “Why were people sacrificed in the Maya culture? We don’t know. Must’ve been religious reasons. Why were those gigantic designs drawn on the Nazca plains in South America? We don’t know. Must’ve been religious reasons.”
“But the killings and cannibalism at the Anasazi sites,” Stella said, getting Joe back on track. “What if those people were told to kill and mutilate? What if a dead person had been sent back as a messenger, demanding things until they gave up what the Ancient Enemy truly wanted?”
“Someone like David,” Joe said.
“And if they sacrificed someone like David,” Stella continued quickly, “then they were completely vulnerable to the Ancient Enemy.”
Joe nodded and sighed.
“So we know there’s a cycle,” Cole said. “We believe there has been at least one boy like David a hundred and twenty years ago, and other similar instances going all the way back to when the Anasazi disappeared. We know the Ancient Enemy or Darkwind or whatever, is most likely some kind of alien creature that we can’t possibly understand that slips through from its dimension into ours with the help of a true shaman like David, a true shaman that can hurt it, possibly destroy it, so the Ancient Enemy must force someone to kill David before he grows up and becomes powerful enough to kill it or send it back. We know all of that, but what do we do now?”
