Canyon Echoes

by Miranda Nading

  She could still feel the cuffs around her ankles, rubbing against the burned skin where the electricity had jumped from her body, into the cuffs, and back into the bedframe where it completed the circuit.

  Nor did she know whether she was blind or not. She had awakened to darkness. There was no way to tell if the lights had been turned off, or if that part of her brain controlling sight had been damaged. The inferno burning in her skull suggested it was the latter.

  She had also awakened to white noise. A rushing in her ears that blocked out everything else. Though this wasn't evidence that Julie had left her alone, the lack of further taunting, further humiliation and pain, did.

  Yet, she was sure she wasn't alone.

  The voices in her head, especially the Other, were quiet. Though they had been shocked into silence, she didn't think they were gone for good. It wasn't their company she sensed in the darkness. It wasn't anything internal. It was external. Eyes watching her in the darkness.

  She didn't dare speak for fear it was Julie. If she thought she was still unconscious—better yet, dead—it would buy her some small reprieve.

  When something brushed against her face in the darkness, she flinched away from it. A whimper escaped before she could stop it. Hands, strong yet gentle, grasped her face and hot breath washed over her before lips, surrounded by stubble, pressed against hers.

  “Hudson?” she whispered.

  “Ssshhh, she's still here somewhere,” the tremor in his whisper caressed her skin.

  She tried to reach out to him, but her arms still refused to follow her commands. Even if she hadn't been handcuffed to the bed, they would be less that useful.

  As he released one arm after the other and folded them on her chest, the pain was immediate. Sadistic needles raced across her skin as blood began to flow through her limbs again. She wanted to hold him but her arms still refused to budge, feeling instead like lifeless slabs of burned meat.

  With her arms free, he turned to unlock the cuffs at her feet and the world exploded. Bullets ricocheted through the small room, bouncing off cement walls and the metal bedframe. One whistled passed Gracie's ear moments before flecks of concrete showered down on her.

  Something wet and warm hit her face like a summer rain before Hudson cried out and fell from the bed. The silence and darkness that followed the strobing effect of the gunfire was deafening, oppressive. Even as she screamed his name, Hudson was up and launching himself over the bed. Light bloomed on an empty doorway as he turned on the flashlight.

  She rolled, wanting to follow him, but her ankles were still firmly attached to the bedframe. Desperate, she clenched her fists and unclenched them, willing the fat sausages of her fingers to work.

  When she'd regained most of the feeling in her hands, she searched the mattress, praying that he'd dropped the key where she could find it. Still tingling and half-numb, she hit the key, sending it skittering over the edge and onto the floor before she realized what it was.

  Twisting at the waist, she threw the top half of her body off the bed. With the cuffs digging into the damaged flesh of her ankles, she swept the cold cement floor with her fingers.

  Her fingers trailed through a puddle, sticky, wet, and warm. She brought her fingers to her nose and the metallic scent of blood sent a flood of panic washing through her. He'd been shot.

  The desperate mewling of a hurt child drifted through the room as she found the puddle of blood and resumed her search for the key. Disturbed to realize it was coming from her, she tried to make it stop.

  She needed to find the key, she had to help Hudson. The mewling turned to panicked sobs as her search came up empty.

  42

  David hit the brakes and slid in next to Hudson's truck. The sudden stop rolled the injured dog in the floorboard; eliciting a squeal of pain from her, while Fred commenced barking at him again. It was just a kick-me dog, the size of a mutant rat, more hair than body. Yet David was fairly certain the little furball was chewing him out.

  The red and blue lights on his vehicle, and those that followed, washed the landscape in a riot of color. As Billie pulled to a stop beside him, he stepped out of the truck and had to use one hand to keep the little dog in the truck until he could get the door shut.

  “Kill the engines,” he yelled at Billie as she moved to join him.

  While she turned back to turn off her truck and pass the word on, he swept the ground around Hudson's truck. Within seconds, he found Hudson's trail, leading off into the darkness. He followed them a little way before Billie, Calvin, and the others joined him.

  “Calvin, grab my flashlight out of the truck.” When Calvin took off, David turned to Billie. “Looks like he headed for the old bunkhouse and corrals. We'll split up and circle around. Keep your ears—”

  Fierce growling and a squeal of pain interrupted them. They all turned in time to see Calvin shake the overgrown furball loose from his hand. “Dammit! There he goes!”

  Fred was off like a little red rocket. Several rangers pounced as he flew past, only to land face down in the snow. Ten yards away, he stopped. Sniffing the ground, and then turning to sniff the air, he raced off the path and into deeper snow before skidding to a halt.

  Turning to look back at them, his little body bounced with each bark. Billie took a step forward and Fred ran a few steps before turning to look back at them. He launched into another volley of bark-bouncing before scaling a near vertical drift of snow.

  “He's got something,” Billie shouted and ran after the little pooch, leaving David and Calvin staring at her in disbelief.

  “We're going to follow the rat-dog?” Calvin asked.

  “Looks that way,” David hollered and took off after Billie. “Send rangers to the bunkhouse, just in case.”

  The dog couldn't have weighed more than five pounds and glided effortlessly across the snow pack, sinking no more than six inches as he bounded like a deer from hole to hole. Billie and David, on the other hand, sank nearly to the waist with each step.

  With one hand on their guns and the other holding tightly to their radios, they followed the little dog. Guided by nothing more than Billie's flashlight and the full moon, which had risen above the treetops, fueled by desperation, they managed to keep up.

  Barely. David was convinced the dog was waiting for them to catch up before taking off again. If the dog took it into his head that they were too slow, he'd leave them behind.

  That is exactly what he did. Whether the scent had grown too strong, or he was tired of the humans slowing him down, the little mongrel disappeared. It left them with nothing more than his hopping, miniature deer prints to follow.

  “Shit!” Billie yelled.

  David turned in time to see her head disappear. Her flashlight did somersaults through the air, before following after her.

  Launching himself forward, he reached where she'd gone down only to find her on hands and knees, floundering in what looked like the bottom of a dry, snow-filled, streambed. “I lost him,” she called up. “I can't find his tracks.”

  Still panting, trying to catch his breath, David jumped when Calvin shouted at his shoulder. “Over there! To your left.”

  Calvin flopped down on his butt and slid down the snow bank, causing a small avalanche to follow in his wake.

  “I'm getting too old for this.” David, still panting, followed them down.

  Farther up the hillside, the snow thinned, blown down into the valley by spring winds. It made the trek easier, but thin snow cover made Fred harder to track. For the second time, they lost him.

  “If he went any deeper, we'll never find him,” Billie breathed heavily, holding herself up with her hands on her knees.

  Calvin was turning in a slow circle, but his eyes weren't on the ground. “Listen. Did you hear that?”

  David held his ragged breathing so he could listen. He heard nothing but the soft wind soughing through the pine trees.

  About the time he realized the wind had grown still, Billie pegge
d it. “He's growling. This way.”

  They raced back down, around a clump of juniper and found the dark maw of an open doorway that seemed to lead nowhere. Calvin and Billie each took up positions to the side of the door, waiting for David's signal. With his gun drawn and braced over his flashlight hand, he aimed at the thin line of darkness and nodded his head.

  Billie grabbed the handle and forced the door open a little wider. The first small room had a dirt floor. Fred's growl came from the door on the other side.

  Once inside, they surrounded the hole in the floor and stared into the darkness. Their flashlights revealed little. The small Pomeranian they had chased across the countryside stood panting and growling in turn. Snowballs of varying sizes clung awkwardly to his coat, hanging under him and around him like frozen jingle bells.

  Calvin asked, “What the hell is this?”

  Before David could answer gunfire, distant and soft, but clear echoed from the depths. He snatched Billie's flashlight, holstered his weapon and grabbed the stairs. No sooner had his feet hit the ground than Fred launched himself into the hole.

  Catching the frozen dog with more luck than skill, he couldn't keep hold of him. Squirming and twisting, Fred broke loose and hit the ground running. Afraid to lose the dog and thus his only way of finding Hudson, he pulled his gun and chased after him without waiting on the others.

  43

  Hudson lay flat on his back and cursed himself. Both his nose and shoulder soaked his shirt with blood. He'd been so shocked to find Gracie still alive that he'd let Julie sneak up on him. No only had she shot him, when he barreled around the corner to the main hall, she'd been waiting.

  One hit to the nose was all it took to put him down. He continued to scoot backwards and she stayed with him. The gun pointed at his head. Somewhere behind him lay the pit he'd found earlier, though he couldn't tell how far.

  The flashlight he'd been carrying had fallen out of his hand when she clobbered him. With any luck, it didn't shed enough light down the hallway to make the vertical shaft obvious. If he could just get her closer, maybe he could take the bitch with him.

  “What? You're not going to ask me questions? Try to sweet talk me so I don't shoot you?” She laughed, and then pouted. “How disappointing.”

  “I don't care, Julie.” He groaned past the pain in his shoulder and scooted back a little farther. “You'll just blame it on your dad. Maybe even your mom. One didn't love you enough, and the other one beat you. Bullshit. I think neither of them beat you enough.”

  She stepped forward and kicked him in the side. He rolled with the blow, trying to catch a glimpse of the pit. “You're about to piss off the chick with the gun, dumbass.”

  “At least I'm not a coward,” he hissed, holding his shoulder against the pain that flared when he rolled over on it. He had to be getting close, but he didn't think she'd just throw down the gun and jump into the pit.

  “Coward?” She laughed. “A coward runs from her problems. I've dealt with every single one of mine. Well, almost.” She waved the gun back down the hall, to indicate Gracie. “But as soon as I'm done with you, I'll remedy that.”

  “She's the only one who loved you, Julie. Even when I proved to her that it was you, she stood by you. Look what you've done to her.”

  “Tough love, ranger. That's what I've done. She was weak. Pathetic. I gave her everything she needed to have a life, a purpose. And she turned to you.”

  “She was going to kill herself, Julie. Because of you, because of what you were doing.”

  “You lie!” she yelled, but there was a flicker of doubt in her eyes.

  “She jumped from the overlook,” he said. “I caught her, but she fought me. Tried to break free. Because of you.”

  “No! That was your fault! You and that other ranger. You were hounding her, threatening her. You're the reason she tried to jump!”

  As Julie continued to yell, movement behind her caught Hudson's attention. Gracie leaned against the wall, using it to keep moving forward. She looked as if she was on the verge of collapsing.

  The sound of a hammer being cocked back brought his eyes back to Julie. The gun that had been wavering now held steady, pointing at his midsection. He wanted to scream at Gracie to run, get out. But he was afraid to bring her to Julie's attention.

  “She would have been fine if you'd left her alone.”

  “Bullshit. You killed Kari, Kristi, and her husband. You cared about all of them, too, didn't you? You cared about them and you killed them. Gracie was next, no matter what happened. Once you killed Lester you couldn't stop.”

  As soon as he realized his mistake, Hudson clammed up. It was already too late.

  Gracie's voice was frail, tired, as she moved closer. “You killed Kristi? Corny?”

  Julie spun around and aimed the gun at Gracie. “They betrayed me. All of them. I would have killed Corny, but Kristi beat me to it. They were an infection. Poisoning our family. Killing it. I had to stop them.”

  “And me? What did I do to deserve this?”

  “You betrayed me!” Julie screamed “With him.”

  “I'm so tired, Julie. I know you're going to kill me and I'm ready. I need to ask one thing first. One small favor, for old time's sake.”

  As Gracie pushed away from the wall, Julie took a step back. It put her legs within Hudson's reach, but with the gun aimed at Gracie's chest, he didn't dare make a move.

  “What? You want me to let him live?”

  “No,” Gracie whispered.

  Caught off guard and nonplussed, Hudson and Julie both repeated the word. “No?”

  “I don't care about him,” Gracie whispered. “I love you. You're the mother I never had. Please, just one more time…”

  The realization of what she was going to do left Hudson cold. “Gracie, don't do this.”

  She took another step forward. Julie stood her ground, but the gun wavered. Gracie's eyes turned toward Hudson, but there was something there. Something he'd seen before, through the window at the lodge, sitting in his truck at Madison.

  Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. Julie jerked the gun back up, but aimed it down the hallway, as the barking grew louder.

  When Gracie spoke again, Hudson knew it was no longer Gracie in control. It was the Other she had mentioned. “Julie, hold me.”

  Without another word of warning, Gracie launched herself at Julie. Though tired and weak, she caught Julie off-guard, knocking her off balance. Locked in that brutal hug, they both tumbled toward the edge of the abyss.

  Hudson grabbed at Gracie in a blind panic, not caring if he saved Julie in the process. He couldn't let Gracie go over the edge. Couldn't let her fall. Yet his hands felt useless, everything he grabbed slipped right through his blood-covered fingers.

  The barking dog grew louder, followed by pounding feet. But they were too late. He grabbed at anything he could get ahold of, but Gracie was falling over the edge. Nothing he could do would stop her.

  Screaming, he lunged after her.

  44

  For having such short legs, the Pomeranian Popsicle was moving pretty damned fast. It was everything David could do to keep tabs on which corners the little bugger turned. Insistent barking made it doable, but by no means easy.

  He'd turn one corner just to find the white dingle-berry-covered furball turning another. The red and white blur disappeared as quickly as he could catch sight of it.

  The beam of the flashlight was one of the strongest he'd found. Though it was bright enough to track the dog a full length of corridor away, it seemed to do little to dispel the gloom. In fact, the shadows leaping in the void left behind by the bobbing, dancing light seemed darker, more ominous than those that preceded it.

  Focused on not losing track of the little dog, David heard the screams just before he turned the last corner. He skidded, tripping over his own feet as the beam spotlighted two women who seemed to be dancing. While he stood staring, they tumbled over and vanished.

  Hudson's ago
nized scream as he lunged after them got David moving again. Dropping his gun and flashlight, he threw himself at Hudson's legs. The cement below them felt wet, slick, and he couldn't seem to find purchase to stop Hudson's slide into oblivion.

  “Billie!” he screamed.

  He hadn't waited around to see if the other two had followed him. Over Hudson's yelling, a woman screaming in the distance and the dog's constant yapping, he couldn't tell if they were coming or not. “Billie!”

  A sickening thud reverberated up from the tunnel below them and the woman's scream was cut off. Hudson was still yelling and as David fought to stop his forward slide. To David, it seemed that Hudson was fighting just as hard to go over the edge.

  “Billie!”

  Without a word, Billie stepped over him and sat on Hudson's back, reaching past his head. Together, they pulled Gracie back out of the breech. She collapsed in Hudson's arms for the briefest moment before she seemed to pounce on him, shoving him to the ground.

  As David struggled forward to pull her off, he realized she was putting pressure on Hudson's shoulder. The blood all over the deck belonged to him. There was too much. Way too much. Hudson was bleeding out.

  “Where's Gracie?” Hudson held her by the shoulders, shaking her as she continued to press on his wound.

  He was delusional. Switching tactics, David grabbed Hudson by the shoulders and held him down. “It's going to be okay, Boss. Hang in there.”

  “She's okay,” Gracie said. David was sure she was talking about herself in the third person to soothe Hudson, but it unnerved him to hear her do it. “You didn't let Gracie fall.”

  Billie tried to ease Gracie back, to take a look at Hudson's head and shoulder. Hudson held on to her, as if afraid to let her go.

  “Billie, we need help.”

  “Calvin's waiting for the cavalry topside. I marked a trail coming after you.”

  “Pulse is getting thready. Get on the radio and try to light a fire under their ass. We're losing him.”