by P. T. Hylton
She nodded slowly. Much of what Jake was saying made sense. To escape her past and the horrors that lived there was a long-time fantasy of hers. And Jake seemed to have truly accomplished that here. But a complete break with the past for someone like Taylor? That was something she simply couldn’t abide. But what else could she say but yes? “I understand. You have my permission.”
A wide smile broke out on his face. “Good. Thank you. And, the offer goes both ways. You know those things they used to do where minor celebrities would go on the Internet and answer any question from random fans?”
Sophie smiled. This was a topic she knew a little about. “Ask Me Anythings?”
“Exactly. Consider this my ‘Ask Me Anything’. But I’ll start if you don’t mind.”
“Fire away.”
He cleared his throat. He was obviously nervous. It was actually kind of cute. “Based on the tree we found you under, I assume you’re from Rook Mountain.”
She paused, momentarily confused by the question. How did the tree they found her under reveal where she was from? “No, sorry. I live in Nashville.”
Jake’s smile disappeared.
“But I, um, got here by way of Rook Mountain. That’s where I almost died and said Sanctuary and all that.”
His smile returned with a vengeance. “Excellent. I was hoping you could tell me a little bit about what’s been happening in the town lately.”
Sophie suddenly wished for a Larva to leap out at her neck. “Well, geez, I don’t really know where to start. Some seriously weird stuff went down in Rook Mountain last March.”
“Yeah, I know. I was there for that. Part of it anyway. I’m looking for information on what happened after. June through...what month was it when you left?”
“October. Wait, you couldn’t have been there in March. Frasier says you’ve been running this place more than ten years.”
His smile looked forced all of a sudden. He resembled a starving man who is being asked to instruct some slow child before being given bread. “Time works differently here. Very differently.”
This was some Harry Potter-level weirdness. If she went back home now, how long would have passed? A week? A month? Her stomach turned at her the thought of her parents left wondering about her fate for all that time. There was no time to think about that now. She had to concentrate on getting back to them. “Okay, let’s see, June through September...I’m not sure. Rook Mountain’s been in the news a lot, but I haven’t followed it super closely. Shame my mom isn’t here. She reads all the tabloids.”
He smirked. “They’re writing about Rook Mountain in the tabloids?”
“It’s a different theory every week. Strange metal found in Rook Mountain. Scientist claims he built a machine that sent Rook Mountain outside of time. New study reveals Rook Mountain Incident was all an elaborate hoax. That kind of thing. You know things have gotten weird when the tabloids are arguing the weird stuff didn’t happen.”
“Hmm. I was hoping for a little bit more specific information.”
She kicked a rock out of the path. “Well, I wasn’t in town long, so I doubt I’ll be of much help. But try me.”
He took a deep breath. “I was hoping for news about my wife and son. Christine Hinkle and Trevor Hinkle. Those names mean anything to you?”
She shook her head.
“Wait, her name’s Osmond now. I almost forgot. Christine Osmond.”
She shook her head again. “Sorry man. Like I said, I was only there for a day.”
Jake sighed. “Okay. Thanks anyway.”
“Listen, it’s none of my business but…”
He spread his hands. “Ask me anything, remember?”
She grinned. “Yeah. Okay. If you want to find out about your wife and kid, maybe man up and go visit them. I’m sure they would appreciate it.”
He squinted at her. “Sophie, don’t you understand? There’s no leaving. Not for any of us. Not ever.”
She looked into his eyes, and she suddenly knew it was true. There would be no leaving here. No seeing here family again. Or her friends. Or anyone other than the couple dozen weirdos here at Sanctuary. There would be no taking Taylor to justice.
“Damn,” she said softly, hoping he didn’t notice the tears standing in her eyes. “I was really hoping that was just an act you pulled for the newbies.”
“Guess we’re both disappointed, then,” he said.
She looked off into the trees. No fuzzy ball-of-death monsters in sight. “You asked me a favor before. Can I ask you one in return?”
“Of course.”
“I want you to tell me what’s going on here. Don’t be cryptic or cute. Tell me straight up like a human being. What the hell’s going on here? How are you bringing people here? And why can’t we leave?”
He nodded slowly. “I don’t know what the media and the government said about Rook Mountain, but the truth is it was taken out of time. I didn’t find that out until I was here, but that’s what happened. This place, Sanctuary, is kind of like that. Except instead of being outside of time, it’s outside of place.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“This place wasn’t always like this. It was used up somehow.” He put his hands on his hips and stared up into the sky. Whether he was looking for Larvae or just trying to collect his thoughts, Sophie didn’t know. Eventually, he said, “I came here trying to find help for my family. We’d exhausted our resources and we were almost out of hope. There was this mirror, and all I knew about it was it would send me far away. Maybe I would be able to find help for my family and maybe it would be a one-way trip. I rolled the dice and came here.”
“Guess that was a bad roll.”
Jake moved his head back and forth as if considering. “Yes and no. It did cut me off from my family, which was my greatest fear realized. On the other hand, it might have saved the world.”
She sighed. “What did I say about being cryptic?”
He held out his hands. “Hear me out. When I first got here, I found a book. It was a special book. Using it, I could look into a few select places. Rook Mountain was one of them. There’s a small town in western Wisconsin called King’s Crossing. One in Texas. One in Florida. A few others. I found I could bring things through the book. I brought food, clothing, furniture. Fuel for the generators. I could also bring things from this place’s distant past into the present. Like the house I live in, for instance. But I spent the first few years watching. I watched everything that happened in Rook Mountain. And it was both wonderful and torturous. I could see my family anytime I missed them, and I could even take things from their world and bring them here to ours. But I couldn’t send anything back the other way. I had no way to communicate with them. Eventually, I watched my wife remarry. As difficult as that was, I couldn’t blame her.”
“Damn, that’s pretty big of you.”
“Not really. It was the right thing to do. It protected her and our son. Besides, I can never go back there and she deserves to be happy. Eventually, I had to stop watching them. It was too painful for me, and it wasn’t fair to them to have me constantly spying.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “After a while, I tried to bring a person through. It didn’t work. It turns out, unlike inanimate objects, humans can resist being brought through. For it to work, they have to want it.”
“So everyone here came from one of those special towns you can see in the book?”
He nodded. “There are fifteen towns in the book. All the people here are from one of them.”
“And the trees…You said you knew I was from Rook Mountain because of the tree they found me under.”
“Yeah. I can pull inanimate objects through the book. It doesn’t work that way with people. It’s more like I’m opening a door. They appear somewhere in this forest. There are some trees that seem to be connected to the towns somehow. I can usually guess which town folks came from based on the tree they appeared under. Usually.” His face darkened. “You ever heard of
Zed?”
“Sure. The Rook Mountain boogeyman. Or scapegoat. Depends who you ask. A lot of the folks from Rook Mountain blame what happened to the town on him. But, conveniently, no one outside the town has ever seen him.”
“He’s real enough. Trust me on that. I believe the towns in the book all have something special. Something Zed desperately wants. That special something is the reason for what happened in Rook Mountain. Which gets us back to the saving the world thing.”
“I was wondering when we’d get back to that.”
Jake took a deep breath before continuing. “Zed was trying to do something in Rook Mountain. He had an endgame. I don’t know what it was exactly, but my wife, my brother, and some of my friends stopped him before he could finish. Thing is, he’s gonna try again.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
“Because Rook Mountain wasn’t his first time. Whatever he was trying to do in Rook Mountain, he did it successfully here first.” He waved his hand at the forest around him. “He somehow used this place up. And now it’s a sick thing. It’s like a nuclear test site. It’s radioactive.”
Sophie took a step closer toward the center of the trail.
“Not literally. It’s a different kind of sickness. Spiritual maybe. Or metaphysical. I don’t know. But those things that grow here, the Larvae, they feed off the sickness.”
“Geez, man. Thanks a lot for bringing everyone here.”
He grimaced. “I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t important. Leaving my family was the most painful thing I’ve ever done. Watching my wife remarry and move on was a close second. The third was bringing all the people here. But I can honestly say it was worth it.”
“Because of the saving the world thing?” Sophie found she could actually say it with a straight face now.
“Yes. The sickness here is hungry. It wants to spread. And where do you think it’s gonna spread to first?”
“Those fifteen towns the trees are connected to?”
Jake nodded.
“So when you say this place is hungry—”
“I mean it’s literally hungry. It wants more land in order to grow its trees and develop the Larvae.”
“So that’s the problem. How do we go about stopping it?”
His brow suddenly tightened. “The book I found? I can use it to fight the sickness. A little bit anyway. What the sickness wants above all else is chaos. It’s constantly changing the land, rearranging it. Flowing it back and forth like water. But using the book, I can insert tiny bits of order into the chaos. Your job, and the job of everyone at Sanctuary, is to help keep the order intact.”
“You’re talking about the trails.”
He nodded. “When I create the trail, it’s a tiny thing, barely even noticeable. But as more people walk the trail more often, it grows larger. If we don’t walk it, it starts to fade.”
She thought that over for a moment. “So you think if you make enough of these trails, you can destroy the sickness?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. That might be too ambitious. But we can fight it back. Keep it from growing.”
Sophie looked around at the thick trees surrounding her. They were nearly countless. Above her head, the branches tangled so thick they blocked out the sun. “No offense, but that seems like a pretty shitty plan. It’s like you’re trimming the weeds instead of using weed killer.”
His eyes shone with emotion. “Weed killer’s in short supply these days. You got a better suggestion?”
She silently cursed herself. Here she was, her second day on the job and she was already criticizing the way the boss did things. And her first day on the job she had caused an injury that could cost a man his arm. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like it came out.”
“No, no. I wasn’t being sarcastic. I really want to know if you have a better idea.”
“Sorry, man. I really don’t.” Sophie bit her lip and thought. “You said Zed caused all this, right? Any idea where he is?”
He shook his head.
“Maybe he’s dead.”
He chuckled. “I highly doubt that. I have it on good authority the man’s unkillable.”
She decided to let that slide for now. “Best guess?”
Jake shrugged. “He didn’t finish his work in Rook Mountain, so he’s likely hiding out in one of the other towns waiting to make his next move. I’d say the only place we could rule out is here. He’s already squeezed all the juice out of this place.”
“Do you know what it was before it was ‘out of place’ or whatever you said?”
“No. These trees are a side effect of what Zed did. They’ve wiped out everything else. Nothing remains of whatever was here before.”
He turned and started walking down the path. She followed.
She saw something out of the corner of her eye, and she froze. It was another message carved into a tree with that same odd technique that caused the bark to bend outward. The tree was close enough to the trail that she could read it without stepping off. Once again, it seemed to have been written specifically for her.
He lies. Ask him about the banishments.
She paused, took one last look at the strange message, and then hurried to catch up to Jake.
“So…I can still ask you anything, right?”
He didn’t turn to face her, but even from behind she could tell he was nodding.
“If you knew where I came from based on the tree I appeared under, I’m guessing you also know where Taylor’s from.” She paused to see if he’d respond. He didn’t, so she continued. “Since we’ve got this whole pause on the ‘no talking about the past’ thing, there’s some stuff you should know about him.”
He shook his head briskly. “I gave permission to discuss my past, and you gave permission to discuss yours. It’s not our place to talk about someone else’s.”
She felt her pulse quickening. Screw Jake and screw his rules and screw Sanctuary. “He’s a killer.”
Jake spun on his heels. His teeth shone in the light of the forest. “Didn’t Frasier tell you what would happen if you broke the rules? I swear to God, Sophie, if you hurt another person here or breathe a word about Taylor’s past again, I will banish you. Understand?”
She managed to nod.
“Tell me about the banishments,” Sophie said. “What happens when you banish someone?”
“I’m not ready to tell you about that yet. After you’ve been here a while, we’ll discuss it.” He sighed. “Look, I’m sorry I yelled. I appreciate your help today. I badly needed an update on Rook Mountain.”
“Why didn’t you ask your buddy Taylor?”
Jake paused, as if unsure whether to answer. “I did. I made him the same offer I made you. I asked if he’d be willing to discuss the past.”
“And?”
“He declined.”
Sophie laughed. “If that’s not a red flag, I don’t know what is. You don’t know what it’s like—”
“I do know,” Jake said. “Back in Rook Mountain, Zed has these…let’s call them disciples. When he took power, they got elected into office. They became the selectmen that ran the town’s government. They enforced Zed’s rules. They hurt people I cared about.”
“Yeah, I read about that,” Sophie said. She didn’t see the connection.
“A while back, I brought someone here. I didn’t know who it was. Just another person yelling Sanctuary, asking for my help. Turns out, it was one of the selectmen.”
She squinted at Jake. “What’d you do about it?”
Jake shrugged. “I welcomed that person to Sanctuary. We both pretended like we didn’t know each other, and over time we’ve even become friends.”
“If you think Taylor and I are gonna be friends, you are out of your mind. You don’t know what you’re asking.”
Jake put his hand on her shoulder. “Please Sophie, listen to what I’m telling you. Follow the rules. If you have a problem with Taylor, stay away from him. If you lay a hand on
him, I’ll pass judgment on you. Even if you are special.”
She tilted her head at him. That was the first time in a long time anyone had called her special. “How am I special? Because I killed the Larvae?”
Jake smiled. “I knew before that. See, the book lets me know in advance when someone’s gonna request Sanctuary. Sometimes I let them through. Sometimes I don’t. But you were different. I never got any warning. You just showed up in the middle of the night.”
“So what the hell does that mean?” she asked.
“It means I didn’t open the door to let you in. It means someone else did.”
IN THE WOODS (PART FOUR)
Frank followed Mason down the thin line of dirt that had probably once been a wide trail. Today it was nothing more than a faint sketch in the woods. Frank had trouble seeing it at times in the dim beam of his flashlight.
Mason, on the other hand, was having no such trouble. He wove his way down the trail like a much younger man. There was a spring in his step and every time he looked back to see if Frank was keeping up, the look on his face spoke of sheer delight. Frank was reminded of the Tolkien character, Tom Bombadil, the man of indeterminate age who was so quick he could go out in the rain without getting wet.
The beam of their flashlights bounced on the trees and roots ahead of them. Frank wiped the sweat off his brow with his free hand. They’d only been going for about twenty minutes, but their pace was such that Frank didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to keep this up. Part of it was the heavy lockbox that dangled from his right hand. The box had a durable handle built into the top, and it fit Frank’s hand like an old baseball glove. He’d hauled a box like this one down to the river and over mountains and God only knew where else. It had been his near-constant companion for a few years when he was a kid. It sure felt heavier now than he remembered.
