by Mark Lukens
Cole and the skinny pilot came back inside the building. The pilot was happier now, his smile even wider under his bushy mustache; he spoke rapidly, gesturing wildly as they walked across the room right towards Stella.
She waited there as Cole and the pilot approached. “Well?”
“We’re working on it,” Cole told her in Spanish, grinning at the pilot.
The pilot was still insisting that it was too dangerous to fly right now, even though he was very interested in the Toyota 4x4 parked outside and the money that Cole was offering.
They had stopped at the edge of the large doorway that led out to the planes, the pilot feigning the act of really thinking this over, looking up at the sky, considering the churning clouds.
Cole’s eyes shifted back to the card table where the men kept looking over at them even though they were playing another hand now. “I could ask one of them,” Cole said in a low voice.
“Just wait a minute,” the pilot said with a big smile back on his face. He draped an arm around Cole’s shoulders. “Let’s talk about it a little more. Come, let me show you which airplane is mine.”
They walked outside, talking in whispers. Stella couldn’t make out what they were saying anymore. She noticed that the men at the table had grown quiet during their card game, listening, sensing Cole’s desperation.
And she and Cole were desperate. The Ancient Enemy wasn’t going to wait much longer before it built up its strength again and attacked. She swore she could feel it near them now. Her skin was prickling and she suddenly felt cold, fighting a shiver.
She was about to go outside and catch up to Cole and the pilot. They were halfway to the line of airplanes now. The pilot had lit either a thin cigarette or a joint; he was waving it around with his wild gestures, still negotiating the price of the plane ride.
A slamming noise turned Stella back around. The bathroom door had just crashed open and the man who had gone in there stood in the doorway. But he wasn’t the same anymore.
CHAPTER 37
Stella
Costa Rica
Stella knew there was something wrong with the man as soon as he came out of the bathroom; he looked mostly the same but his expression was different, the look in his eyes, the purposeful way he walked away from the bathroom, past the couch and chair, towards the men at the table playing cards.
Even the stoned woman seemed to sense something different about the man, tearing her eyes away from the TV and watching him as he walked past her.
The Ancient Enemy, it’s here. It’s inside of him.
One of the card players called out to the man as he approached their table, but the man didn’t respond. He wasn’t just walking towards their table now, he was marching; he was a man on a mission.
The three men at the table seemed to instinctively understand the threat coming their way, only they couldn’t imagine how dangerous and powerful this man was now. The card player who had called out to the man threw his hand of cards down and stood up, drawing his gun, ordering the charging man to stop or he would shoot.
The man kept coming, not exactly running, but walking quickly. He growled something in Spanish that Stella couldn’t entirely make out, and then a black tentacle shot out from the man’s stomach, ripping right through his clothing and the flesh underneath as if it were paper. The tentacle was long and thin, a feeler; it shot through the air fifteen feet towards the man like a bullet. Smaller hair-like tentacles grew from the feeler on the way. The tentacle was wrapped around the man’s hand and gun before he could even shoot, the tentacle eating through the man’s flesh in seconds, severing the man’s hand.
Other tentacles shot out of the man who had come from the bathroom, launching across the room, branching out like webs along the way. The other two men tried to draw their guns. One of them tried to run. But they weren’t quick enough. The tentacles were all over them now, growing all over them in seconds, digging their way inside of them.
The two men screamed, still trying to move, but it was like the tentacles had invaded their bodies and stiffened like rods of metal, forming a frozen skeletal system inside of them that their muscles weren’t strong enough to fight against.
Stella was as frozen as the three men for a few seconds. She watched as the man from the bathroom turned towards the bar. The tentacles were out of him now, leaving a hole in his stomach big enough to slip a fist into. Blood and pieces of guts poured out of the hole, spilling down the front of his clothes, saturating them and dripping down to the floor. He walked past the three men, all three of them frozen yet still trying to scream, still trying to struggle against the alien things inside of them. The man from the bathroom marched towards the bar, stepping in his own blood on the floor, leaving bloody footprints behind on the dusty concrete floor.
The bartender had a shotgun in his hands that he had grabbed from behind the bar. He aimed the weapon at the approaching man, trying to hold it still in his shaking hands. Another tentacle shot out of the hole in the man’s stomach, the thick tentacle branching out into thinner wires that wrapped around the shotgun and the man’s hands, pulling him over the bar and down onto the floor, invading his body just like it had the other three men.
The tentacles had completely left the man from the bathroom now, leaving behind the massive hole in his stomach. His face was a mask of shock as he fell forward and landed face-down on the floor.
The piece of tentacle that was still wrapped around the shotgun grew more branches in the blink of an eye, shooting its sharp ends into the fallen bartender’s arm, his belly, and his chest; the thickest tentacle stabbed into his neck. The bartender seized up, his body frozen, his eyes bulging, his mouth open and trembling like he was trying to scream, but he couldn’t make a noise with the tentacle moving around inside of his throat.
Stella’s paralysis broke and she ran out through the open garage door, slapping at a big red button on the wall next to the doorway on her way out. The large garage door began rumbling down. She ran as fast as she could across the grassy field.
Cole and the pilot were closer to the line of airplanes now, but they were looking her way as she ran towards them.
“It’s here!” Stella screamed as she ran towards Cole. She expected to feel the sharp end of one of the Ancient Enemy’s tentacles piercing the back of her body at any second now. She chanced a look back as she ran. The garage door was almost all the way down now and nothing was chasing her.
Why?
She thought of what Cole had asked her earlier: Why wasn’t the Ancient Enemy attacking them? There must be a reason.
CHAPTER 38
Palmer
Iron Springs, New Mexico
Palmer had stayed at Captain Begay’s house until the FBI agent from the Farmington office showed up. The agent was a man named Alex Hollings; he was a young clean-cut guy with an athletic build and the gleam of ambition in his eyes. He took a detailed statement from Palmer, and then he took statements from Angie and David. After that he talked to the captain of the tribal police for a few minutes, the man who had replaced Captain Begay.
Angie was ready to leave as soon as Agent Hollings showed up; she wanted to get to the hospital so she could be with her husband. “Is it okay if I go now?” she asked Palmer.
“Yeah. Agent Hollings got your statement. Are you coming back here tonight?”
“Depends if they keep him overnight,” she answered.
Palmer nodded.
“Come inside with me and I’ll give you the keys to the pickup,” she told him in a low voice.
Palmer followed Angie to her bedroom. She shut the door after they were inside and then she hurried over to their closet. She flipped on the light and pulled down a shoebox and put it on the bed. There was a gun inside. She handed the gun to him and an extra magazine to go with it. “I know they took your gun for evidence so take this with you.”
Palmer nodded; he’d had to give his Glock up after shooting the killer. The FBI would need it to match ballistics.<
br />
Angie pulled the keys to Begay’s pickup truck out of her pants pocket and gave them to Palmer. “Be careful.”
“I’ll be as careful as I can,” he told her as he shoved Begay’s spare handgun into the shoulder holster under his jacket. He slid the extra magazine and set of keys into an inside pocket of the jacket.
Palmer left the bedroom while Angie packed an overnight bag for her and Begay. She also said she was going to wash the blood out of her hair and change her clothes before going to see her husband.
After leaving the bedroom, Palmer didn’t go back outside just yet. He went to Begay’s man-cave where Agent Hollings was taking photos of the two bodies on the floor.
“I can’t believe this is really the guy,” Agent Hollings said as he snapped another photo of the dead man on the floor. “I can’t believe one guy did all of this.”
Palmer didn’t say anything.
“One guy did all of this,” Agent Hollings said again, almost like he was talking to himself. “And all of the other murders seven years ago.”
Palmer still didn’t say anything; he wasn’t going to reveal anything to this agent who seemed to be fishing for something.
“Oh,” Agent Hollings said like he’d just remembered something. “The car he drove down here was registered to a man named Quinn Kurtzman in Colorado. They found Kurtzman’s pieces in his bathtub.”
Palmer remembered Cardenelli telling him about the murder of Quinn Kurtzman earlier.
“How could one man rip people apart like that?” Agent Hollings asked, staring right at Palmer.
“Listen, Agent Hollings, if there isn’t anything else you need from me, then I’m going to drive David back to his house so he can grab a few things.”
Agent Hollings just stared at Palmer—he saw the suspicion in the agent’s eyes.
“David’s been through a lot tonight,” Palmer explained. “I’m going to take him to one of his family members so he can stay with them. He needs to be with his family now.”
Agent Hollings nodded, a barely perceptible nod. The agent knew things weren’t adding up here at this crime scene any more than things had added up at the dig site seven years ago. “Forensics is on its way here,” he said like it was some kind of threat. “They’ll be here for a while.”
“Yeah,” Palmer said. “I’m sure they will.”
“I think they’re taking the bodies, and the pieces, to a local hospital so they can get them on ice until they can transport them to the lab in Albuquerque.”
Palmer didn’t say anything; he didn’t really care what they were doing with the bodies. His mind was on getting David out to Joe Blackhorn’s home before it got too late in the day; he didn’t want to be there after the sun went down.
“Hey,” Agent Hollings said, pointing at Palmer. “When are you going to be back here? I’d love to get your take on things. Pick your brain a bit.”
“Sure,” Palmer said. “It might take a few hours for me to get back. I want to make sure David gets settled in with some of his other relatives.” Palmer glanced down at the body of David’s aunt, her throat sticky with dried blood, her glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling. “He’s in a state of shock right now as you can probably imagine.”
“I could see if the BIA will send a shrink to talk to him.”
“No,” Palmer snapped. “I think he just needs to be with loved ones right now. I’ll talk to him about it though, see if he would like to talk with someone like that.”
Agent Hollings nodded.
This guy’s smart, Palmer thought, not at all like Klein was, the agent who had been in charge down here seven years ago.
Palmer’s cell phone rang. He was glad to be rescued from any further conversation with Agent Hollings, but then he saw that it was Cardenelli calling and that prospect didn’t seem any more alluring. “I need to take this.”
A few minutes later Palmer was outside. He called Cardenelli back.
“Palmer,” Cardenelli snapped. “Did the agent from the Farmington office get there yet?”
“Yes. Agent Alex Hollings is here now.”
“Yeah,” Cardenelli said as if he knew the man personally.
“We all gave our statements,” Palmer said. “Hollings is waiting on forensics to get here.”
“Any ID on the killer?”
“No wallet or ID found on him, just a wad of cash in his pants pockets. Nothing else.”
“Forensics will get his prints and we’ll ID him soon enough,” Cardenelli said. “Hell of a thing. This guy goes on a historic killing spree and then nothing for seven years. And now he just starts again?”
“Yeah,” Palmer agreed. “It’s a strange one.” He glanced over at Begay’s pickup truck parked in the gravel next to the driveway. David was standing there like he was waiting to leave. “Listen, I’m done here for now. I’m going to take David Bear to his relatives’ house, somewhere he can stay the night. Angie Begay is at the hospital with her husband, the captain. I imagine they’ll keep him overnight. He had a pretty nasty blow to his head and he sprained his knee in the fall.”
Cardenelli was silent on the phone, but he was breathing heavy like he was doing something with the phone up to his ear.
“It’s going to take me a few hours to get David settled in and cell phone service can be spotty out here.”
“You informed Agent Hawthorne that you’re leaving?”
“Agent Hollings,” Palmer corrected and then he almost added: I’m not asking you for your permission. “Yes. I told him I’d try to be back in a few hours. David’s had a rough time; he saw his aunt die right in front of him.”
“Yeah. Of course.” Cardenelli sounded distracted. “I’m coming down there. Hopping on a plane as quickly as I can.”
Palmer figured Cardenelli would come down here. This wasn’t his jurisdiction by far, but some of the murders this killer had committed had happened in the Denver area, and Cardenelli wasn’t going to miss this spotlight for the world. Palmer was sure all of this would be leaked to the media soon enough and an army of reporters and photographers would descend upon this small town like a cloud of locusts, just like they had seven years ago.
Palmer hung up and walked towards David and the pickup truck.
It’s going to come back, David had said—this wasn’t over.
Palmer’s stomach was in knots at the thought of driving out to Joe Blackhorn’s property again, but if there was something at Joe Blackhorn’s house that could help David fight the Ancient Enemy, then he was going to do it. At least they weren’t going back to that ghost town, and that church.
CHAPTER 39
Cole
Costa Rica
Cole was pretty sure he had the pilot convinced to fly them out of here. The pilot had told them he could get them as far as Mexico, but he knew someone else there who could take them the rest of the way into New Mexico. Cole had offered the pilot a thousand dollars plus the Toyota 4x4 they owned—they wouldn’t need it anymore now because Cole had a feeling that one way or another he and Stella weren’t ever coming back to Costa Rica. The paperwork for the vehicle was in the glove box, but he was sure the pilot, Juan Carlos, had ways of making money off of the vehicle. The Toyota would be associated with their old fake names, along with the house he had burned down hours earlier. And now they were going back to New Mexico, back to the horrors they had run from seven years ago. It was crazy going back there, but Stella was right—they had to do their best to protect David. And the Ancient Enemy wouldn’t ever stop hunting them no matter where they went; Cole could see that now.
And maybe Stella was right, maybe if that thing, whatever the Ancient Enemy really was, if it killed David, the last shaman, maybe it would really be free then to do whatever it wanted. Maybe it would bring a tidal wave of death across the land, an unstoppable force that could kill all life if it wanted to. Cole wasn’t sure how it would work, maybe the thing could multiply itself after it killed the shaman, or the thing would turn into a biblical plague or
grow into an unimaginable beast. If this thing was an alien living in another dimension, then what did that make David? An alien? Part alien?
Cole couldn’t ponder those things right now, it was too big for his mind and it only frustrated him; he only liked problems that he could solve, problems that were possible to solve, his mind didn’t work well with the abstract. And right now he was focused on getting him and Stella the hell out of here.
The pilot Juan Carlos was a talker. He was definitely interested in the Toyota even though he pretended not to be, he was just trying to drive a harder bargain now for as much cash as he could get. Cole was doing his best not to seem desperate, but it was hard not to seem desperate at a tiny smuggler’s airport in the middle of a jungle.
“Two thousand,” Cole told Juan Carlos. “That’s as much as I can do. We don’t have much more than that for ourselves.”
Juan Carlos pretended to be thinking it over. He looked up at the stormy sky again, he was about to continue his shtick about the storm to the north being too dangerous to fly into.
Cole had no doubt that flying into a storm like that was dangerous, but he knew these pilots had flown in some of the worst conditions on short notice when the money was right.
“If that’s not enough money, then I’m sure one of your buddies back there will do it for fifteen hundred,” Cole said, turning away to head back to the building; this was his last bluff.
Juan Carlos laid a gentle hand on Cole’s arm, that wide smile back under his bushy mustache. “Amigo, please. We can talk about this.”
“I’ve been trying to talk about it.”
“What’s your hurry?” Juan Carlos asked. “Some kind of trouble you are running from, yes?” He had turned suddenly serious, his smile disappearing.
“You could say that,” Cole said.
“Who is chasing you, my friend?”
