The Bloodwind - An Oxrun Station Novel (Oxrun Station Novels)

by Charles L. Grant

  There was a mask of perspiration gleaming on her face, an ice-river slithering slowly down her spine. Though she clenched her jaw as best she could, her teeth chattered uncontrollably, and her left knee jumped spasmodically until she clamped a hand on it and held it there tightly. Lifted it, waited, then brought the hand to her mouth and bit down on a knuckle. It was then she realized she had been holding her breath, and she slipped it out in white spurts, breathing through mouth and making her teeth ache. She swallowed, and winced at the sandpaper that had abruptly lined her throat.

  She thought she could taste the warm salt of blood.

  The woods, silent; the sky, lowering.

  The shed creaked under the weight of its snow, and she held her breath again, staring at the nearest plank as if it were ready to split open and spill the creature into her lap.

  The woods, silent.

  In a moment so swiftly passing it was gone as soon as she noted, she could feel every inch of her skin pressing damply to her clothing: her breasts to her shirt, her stomach to the waistband, thighs to her jeans, calves to her boots, toes so cold they felt nothing at all. It was as though she were suddenly naked, and she moved a few inches to kill the sensation before it overwhelmed her.

  Then she listened, and heard nothing.

  Gone. Oh my god, it's gone. It has to be gone. Please; please let it be gone.

  Yet she dared not move. If it was just waiting, somewhere out there waiting, it would see her the moment she broke into the open. It wouldn't hurt to wait herself. To rest. To think. But she felt as if all logic circuits in her mind had shorted out, had consumed themselves in sudden explosions of sparks that denied her the reason she needed to know what was happening. Because what was happening, of course, wasn't real. It couldn't be real. She couldn't have had a silly fight with Gregory and elected to walk home in the middle of winter through the middle of a forest with ninety feet of damned snow on the ground. And she couldn't have been sitting on that stupid thing she called a throne, muttering to herself and feeling sorry for herself. And she certainly hadn't seen the snow suddenly drift off the edges of the quarry and form itself into a tornado-like barrier around a deep-red, blood-red, night-red creature that just rose from the ice like some stage trick on Broadway. She hadn't felt the wind. She hadn't heard the grumbling, or the shrieking, or the bellowing that was a challenge. She knew she hadn't, because it couldn't have happened.

  Not in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, in the twentieth century, in Connecticut, of all places.

  She uncurled a fist that had been pressed tight against her chest. She stared at it, daring it to contradict her, demanding it prove to her she wasn't losing her mind. Weeping suddenly and silently because if none of it had happened, then her mind was indeed lost. And she would rather believe in night-red beasts rising from quarries than lose what she had protected for nearly forty years.

  It snorted, a snuffling as if a muzzle had been plunged into a snow bank and yanked out again.

  The tears stopped abruptly, and the hand returned to her chest. Feeling the heart pounding through its own rabbit quivering.

  A footfall. Something wide, something heavy pressed into the snow.

  She turned slowly to put her back against the shed wall, her hands spread against the wood and her arms slightly bent. She would run, but only at the last moment. Surprise was a weapon she would be able to use only once, and even then there was no guarantee it would work at all to save her.

  What was it? What the hell was it?

  The shed trembled as something brushed heavily against it. Snow drifted languidly off the canted roof and into her face. She shook her head, not wanting the dead cold lying on her skin, blinked rapidly to clear her eyes as she tried to judge from which side it would come. Left, and she would charge off to her right, through a hedgerow there, and angle toward the road; right, and she would go left, seemingly heading back for the quarry, but ducking around a broad stand of fir to charge straight down the hill as fast as the snow and the slope and the trees would allow her.

  The haze deepened, greyed, filling the air with tiny black specks.

  The shed trembled again. Something sharp rasped across the front. Then it stopped. Everything stopped.

  Slowly, her back arched, her shoulders drew together; any minute now she knew a lance, an arrow, a spike would crash through the weather-weakened wood and into her heart. She would die before she was able to cry out, to scream, to do anything but open her mouth to let out the blood. The thought paralyzed her, and dried her mouth until it felt coated with sand. She shook it off, and replaced it with another—that the shadows creeping across the snow in front of her would suddenly become three-dimensional. They would prance over the white without making a track, pointing claws and fangs directly to her position, cackling like witches, hissing like snakes, dancing to show her where she would find what others would call her grave.

  Shadows. The shadows.

  Since the sun was already setting, and since she was facing west, it wasn't possible that shadows would be stretching out before her. It couldn't be. It was impossible. Just like the snow and the night-red and the bellowing and—

  She felt the shed trembling again, creaking under the slow application of a weight it couldn't bear.

  The shadow.

  A head, huge shoulders that seemed almost feathered, and the limbs she had seen now raised so high their black reflection reached the trees.

  There was so little time to react she didn't realize she was running until she heard her boots crunching harshly through the crust, and she had no idea of her direction until she found herself plunging through the underbrush, arms high, chest outthrust, legs pumping maddeningly slowly as she fought to break through.

  She screamed only once—when she heard the bellowing, and the explosion of splintering wood. It had known she was there, and it had tried to crush her.

  The scream, however, was a release. It spurred her through the hedgerow and guided her around the boles; it goaded her through drifts that had piled against fallen logs, lashed her into anger when her boot caught against a root.

  Behind her there was silence.

  Temptation, then, to slow down, to turn, to see if pursuit had been directed another way or cut off entirely. It passed. There were too many obstacles coming at her, too many opportunities to trip her, to kill her, to slam her unconscious; she needed all her attention just to keep herself alive simply in flight—if anything on her trail was determined to have her it would have to run as she did, and catch her on the fly.

  Running. Her whole life running. Her lungs protesting by filling her chest with knives, her legs begging mercy by turning themselves to lead; her eyes watering, the tears freezing on her cheeks, her lips splitting open and the blood salty on her tongue; her head slumping forward and lolling on her neck, her arms flapping like broken wings and upsetting her balance against the wind in her face. Her coat dragging her down. Her boots grafting to the ground. One knee buckling until she screamed at it to straighten. No thinking. It was too hard to think. Downward was the only direction, and the hell with the road.

  Running. At least she thought she was running, but the trees weren't speeding past her as fast as they once were, and it was getting harder to kick through the drifts that seemed too wide to go round, and the wind was easing, the wind of her own making, and her mouth wouldn't close and her eyes kept blinking and she was positive someone had cut her hands off at the wrist and her feet at the ankles. A clearing was wind-cleared, and the hunched brown grass was more trouble than mud; a birch grew too fast and smacked painlessly against her left arm; ruts and depressions broke the evenly laid snow, and it took her almost five minutes to see she'd reached the road anyway, was taking it down its center and not caring if she was seen.

  Running. No. She glanced down and saw her toes flash out, disappear, and she knew she was walking.

  She stopped.

  She turned.

  The hill was above her, the road swingin
g off to the right, and she sensed more than felt a grin spreading open her lips, showing her teeth, drawing more blood. She didn't care. She didn't mind. Right now bleeding to death would have been infinitely more desirable than what she'd just averted. What did it matter that she could hear the grumbling up there? What did it matter that through the snow glare between the trees there were darts and winks of night-red?

  "Oh."

  Not a moan, not a revelation, not a marking of despair.

  Simply: "Oh."

  She turned; she walked; there was no question of running because the running was no longer there. There was only the sound of her boots on the road and the night-red behind her and an occasional whimpering she could not restrain. Yet she tried. She urged herself into a trot that lasted ten paces; she berated herself into a trot that lasted ten paces more. She raised her eyes (her head was too heavy) and watched the clouds thicken, promising her more white unless she returned home now; she opened her mouth and tried to widen her lips, but the curses were weak, too weak to encourage.

  Maybe, she thought then, it doesn't want to kill me. Maybe it was sent to protect me instead. It could have killed me before. A couple of times. Lots of times. The night I was drunk and came home from the Inn. The night I was promoted and took a walk and it chased me and made me lose my hat. I could have been killed then. It could have gotten me then. So why should it want to kill me now? What I should do is, I should turn around and ask it what it wants. Maybe it speaks English. Maybe I could use sign language.

  She stumbled.

  Maybe it's as afraid of me as I am of it. Like bees. Mother always told me not to worry about bees because they were always more afraid of me than I was of them. Just ignore them and they'll go away and they won't sting you. So maybe—

  She stumbled, and fell to one knee.

  —I should ignore it and it will go away. It doesn't really want me because if it did it could have done it a million times already. And the bigger they are the harder they fall and oh God I'm so goddam fucking tired! So tired! So—

  She knew she was down. Hands and knees were buried in the snow. The wind had risen and was tearing at her hair. She looked up and saw the farmhouse beyond the fence. A beautiful fence. Rail-and-post and coated with untouched white, four chimneys above the peaked roof, a gable in each corner, and smoke curling from a fireplace and merging with the haze. She could scream.

  The rumbling.

  She could scream and the people inside would rush out and see what was the matter and the night-red thing, the thing born in the bloodwind, it would climb back up the mountain and she would be safe. It had to be that way because she was too tired for anything else.

  The rumbling, now a bellow, and something thundering down the road.

  On hands and knees she turned to face it.

  She couldn't scream. Her throat was dead, her lungs were dead, her mind was so filled with pleasantly warm cold that all she wanted to do was lie down and let it, the night-red, the bloodwind, pick her up and bring her back to the quarry where it was warm and black and she'd never have to think again. That's the way it would have to be. Since she couldn't scream. Since the people in the farmhouse would never come to save her.

  A part of her, a place so deep now she hadn't known it existed, told her to get mad, to get moving, to stop feeling sorry for herself and accepting everything she couldn't handle as inevitable. The red thing that had come out of the snow pillar wasn't moving as fast as it had been. She still had a chance. She ought to get up off her ass and start running again. She was rested. She knew it. She wasn't that tired. She knew it. She ought to do something instead of kneeling in the snow like a goddamned idiot and ending it all at the hand/ claws/fangs/of something that didn't exist in the first place.

  With a shove that almost sent her sprawling onto her back, she lurched to her feet.

  The red-beast rounded the last bend.

  She stumbled in a circle and began trotting toward the farmhouse. And once she realized she could trot, she began to run. And once she realized she could run, she lifted her arms and she lifted her face and she lengthened her stride until she could barely feel her boots crashing beneath her. Could barely feel the knives slicing madly at her lungs. Could barely feel the wind as it split open her chin.

  And she just reached the gate when the red-beast caught her.

  Chapter 15

  An arm grabbed Pat around the waist as her legs gave way and she sank toward the ground. She tried to strike out, to scratch, to lift her knees, but nothing would work. The arm gripped her too tightly, held her too closely. And there was a roaring in her ears. A sharp cacophonous display that forced her to squeeze her eyes shut tightly, to bite down on her tongue to keep from screaming. Because above all, and for no reason that made itself plain to her, she did not want to scream. She did not want to give it the satisfaction of knowing her fear. She was sure it could smell it—in the perspiration that had drenched her clothes, in the stench that rose from every pore of exposed skin; but she would not allow it to hear it from her lips. A foolish thing, inconsequential, but as she was dragged away from the gate through the cloud of white, of red, of swirling colors that matched the buzzing swarming over her, it mattered. Later, if there was a later, she would attempt to understand it. Now, however, she had to keep her silence. Even in the hissing in her right ear, the hissing that was insistent, almost vicious, she had to keep her silence, keep herself in the dark behind closed lids so she could not see at so close a range the thing that belonged to the arm fastened so snugly around her waist.

  She was lifted.

  Her feet left the ground and she was swung gently through the air. Gently. Carefully. Set down again, and the arm slipped away and her back rested against something firm, something that gave when she pressed against it. She held her breath. The hissing, the buzzing, the roaring had vanished.

  She opened her eyes and saw the star-shaped patterns of frost on the windshield.

  And as she slowly, incredulously, gazed around the inside of the car, her hearing returned—to the creak of warm metal snapping against the cold, to the steady blast of the heater breathing summer on her legs, to the voice beside her laden with concern.

  "Doc? Hey, Doc, what's the matter? Why'd you run like that, huh? God, I could've run you over."

  Focus. Snow glare receded and the fencing shimmered into sharp relief, the outline of the red sedan etched in a white background, the scratches and worn padding of the dashboard, the faded jeans and sheepskin coat, the stubble-shadowed face lean and leaning toward her. The single gloved hand on the steering wheel. Beneath a hunter's cap whose earmuffs had been tied over the crown, Ben's eyes were dark, searching, filled with a hope that she would smile and cure his worry.

  "Doc?"

  She began to tremble. Her legs, her arms, until she clamped them all together and hunched over, ignoring the exhaust-tinged air forced to the floorboards.

  The engine fired and the car eased forward.

  "I'd better get you to a doctor," Ben said, though his gaze refused to stay on the road. "You're sick."

  "No." It was a whisper, harsh and unlike the voice she thought she had. "No, please. I'm all right. You frightened me, that's all."

  From his silence she knew he didn't believe her, but she said nothing until he'd turned onto Cross Valley Road. The snow banks here thrown up by the plows were nearly as high as the roof of the car, and when they crept onto Williamston Pike and headed in toward the village, she forced herself not to panic when brief gusts of wind buffeted the vehicle, and sent trails of snow lifting toward the trees.

  Finally, thawed, her toes and fingertips stinging, she sat back and laid her hands flat on her thighs. "Ben, what were you doing up there? You were up at the quarry."

  He nodded.

  Ask him the other one, she ordered herself then; ask him, damnit, ask him!

  "Why?" It was the wrong question. Courage; she needed courage.

  "Well, we didn't exactly welcome you with
open arms yesterday, you know." Guilt and apology were genuine, she was sure, but she couldn't help a glance to see if his eyes mirrored the tone. "And then Harriet told me this morning she'd seen you last night." He sighed, loudly. "She shouldn't have done that. We were just letting off steam. You know how Ollie is. His mouth is bigger than any brains he has." His smile broke, held, faded quickly.

  "The quarry?"

  "I went to your place to talk a little." A shrug, not quite an apology this time. "You didn't answer, and when I came back outside Doc Billings had pulled up. He was in a real foul mood, and he told me where you were." He grinned, and it held. "I almost hit him."

  Ask him. Ask him!

  "Did . . . Ben, did you see anything up there? I mean, while you were up there did you see anything unusual?"

  "What's to see this time of year? The sheds and a hole in the ground, that's all. God, we have any more snow, Doc, that thing'll fill right to the top when it all melts."

  She stared at him, startled. He's lying. She knew he was lying. He couldn't have missed the wreckage of the shed the beast had crushed, or the gap in the ice through which it had risen. He couldn't have. It was impossible.

  He looked to her, back to the road quickly. "Hey, did I say something wrong?"

  On their left the first signs of the park's spear-tipped iron fence rose from the snow. The pike lifted, fell again, and the library on the corner of Centre Street seemed to act as a signal. He slowed, indecisive.

  "I don't know who your doctor is, Doc."

  "It's all right," she said stiffly. "Please, if you'd just take me home, I'd appreciate it, Ben."

  "Are you sure? You look like—"

  "Please!" She stared straight ahead, afraid of what he would see in her expression, in the way she held herself so rigidly.

  "Sure, Doc. Whatever you say."

  He sped up, nearly sideswiping a bus that had lumbered out of Centre onto the pike. He did not apologize for the near-accident, however. He only held his speed until he reached Northland, turned left sharply and braked almost angrily in front of her home. They sat for a moment in strained silence while she sought the words which would ease the tension.