The Turning (Book 2): Whisper Lake

by Micky Neilson

  Thinking again about the immense, primal power that the beast radiated, he decided that if he in fact chose to trust in what he had seen, the next thing he would ask himself was whether that same kind of power could be his. He continued to consider this as he and the boss set about doing what they had to do.

  ***

  Jason awoke, naked, in a blood-covered clearing, amid the remains of what might have at one time been a jack rabbit. Though his sense of smell wasn't as acute as it had been in the last few days, his nose picked up on the smoke immediately. Looking out above the tree line he saw a black cloud drifting into the early-morning sky.

  As he headed toward the source of the smoke, Jason tried to remember the previous night's events. He was able to recall everything up to being tossed in the dog-fighting pit. The rest was a blank.

  After a short run through the woods Jason arrived at the edge of the Haversaw property. The house and all of the surrounding structures were blazing. While he stood watching the soaring flames, flashes played across his mind: the dogs attacking, him turning, killing dogs and…

  The older stranger. He had struck out and killed him.

  Jason reached out to a nearby tree for support. He had killed someone. True, these men had killed the sheriff (or at least said they did), and they intended to kill Jason. What he had told Carter not so long ago, though it seemed like forever, was true: he had made a choice when he joined the Army. He would kill if called upon to do so. But he hadn't known what it would feel like to take a human life. What he felt now was a hollow kind of despair.

  Then he remembered the kid. That voice had come back into his head, spurring him on to kill again, but he hadn't done it. He had defied the goddess but only by the barest thread. Next time… next time he may not be able to resist her.

  Jason stayed against that tree for several minutes, coming to terms with what he had done, and clinging to the hope—like a fading ember in a dying fire—that a human heart still beat inside his chest.

  So now what? Boil and the others had destroyed any evidence. It wasn't like Jason could come forward anyway. The element of surprise, for him, had been blown. He had killed one of theirs… did that mean they would retaliate? They knew him, and that meant they also knew… his family.

  Jason raced in the direction of his mother's house as fast as his pain-ridden feet would take him.

  ***

  Celine sat on the front porch, wrapped in a blanket she had taken from inside. Bethany and Trish were still in the minivan. At dawn's first light Celine had awoken, naked and cold, lying in the dirt driveway not far from the vehicle. Her head, muscles and joints ached. She tried to remember the night before, but could only recollect the pain of her changing—too early, before it had even gotten dark—as well as Bethany and Trish coming home. Little by little, more horrific memories came back to her: biting Trish, setting off after the two of them, even before the change had been completed. Then she remembered the voice, the strange voice—the goddess?—inside her head urging her to kill, to feed. Everything after that was a blank.

  She had stood on shaky legs and approached the van, angled with the rear and right side facing her. The back and side windows were tinted. Celine had rapped on the rear window saying "Misses Emblock, it's me, Celine. Are you okay? Is Trish okay?" She had moved to the un-tinted passenger door window. The cab was empty. Celine had rapped again. There had been no answer and for a moment Celine feared the worst. Had they never made it to the van? Had they tried to escape the van and had she…

  Bethany had emerged halfway into the cab then, stringy hair dangling over her face, wild, red eyes puffy from lack of sleep. She had looked very old and very tired as she called out "You get the hell away from us!" Then she had returned to the back of the van. Celine had tried a few more times to draw them out, but it was no use. She decided to look for something to wear, but as she had walked toward the house she stopped, looking down in the soft dirt.

  There had been tracks there: large wolf tracks.

  They circled the van in both directions, in some cases overlapping. Celine's hand had flown to her mouth as the realization hit her full-force: she had spent the entire night stalking, waiting for them to emerge, just as she had waited in her dreams, waited for her prey weaken, to make that one deadly mistake. There was something else, too: Trish's toppled wheelchair, just outside the driver's side sliding door, abandoned in Bethany's haste to get Trish into the van…

  To save her from the monster.

  She had felt sick to her stomach, and still felt that way now as she watched the sun break over the treetops.

  What if I had killed them? Jesus, what if…

  It was as she sat wondering what the hell to do next that Jason emerged from the trees, naked as the day he was born, a look of absolute confusion on his face.

  Celine let out a deep, exasperated breath and in her mind she spoke the words she wanted to scream out to him now; words that were, for her, among the most difficult to say: I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.

  ***

  This time, CJ was in a room. Sunlight streamed in through thin, ripped curtains. He was on the floor, naked again, with thick, hand woven blankets under him. The room was plain with orange plaster walls, a small chest of drawers, the one curtained window, and one door—closed. There was another plastic water bottle, half empty, within arm's reach. In the corner was a large bucket. CJ vaguely remembered shitting in it at some point. It still smelled, and the inside was coated with crap, but it had obviously been emptied.

  CJ sat up. His throat was raw. His intestines felt like some kind of crazy sailor's knot. His head throbbed. He felt cold and achy, and in desperate need of a hit.

  I gotta get the fuck outta here. This shit ain't cool. Not cool at all.

  Footsteps sounded outside the door, coming closer. CJ pulled the blanket over his junk.

  The old man entered the room, still wearing his hat and goofy shirt, holding a steaming wooden bowl that he placed on the floor a few feet away from CJ before sitting and crossing his legs.

  "Did you see anything?" the old man asked.

  "Are you nuts?" CJ blurted. "Who the fuck are you? Why'd you kidnap me?"

  Instead of answering, the crazy shitbird leaned over and pushed the bowl closer. "Drink."

  "What is it?" CJ asked.

  "Beats the shit out of me." The old goat actually chuckled.

  CJ pushed the bowl back. "Man I'm not drinkin' shit 'til I get some answers."

  The wacky injun unfolded his legs and put a hand down to steady himself as he readied to leave. "Wait!" CJ blurted. He reached out, grabbed the bowl and tipped the contents into his mouth. It tasted bitter and felt strange slithering down his throat. He put the empty bowl back and looked into the bloodshot eyes of his… host? Captor?

  "I could have froze to death in that damn toolshed," CJ said.

  "Quit your bitching," the injun said. "Your ancestors slept fine in blankets just like those." The nutcase crossed his legs again and repeated: "Did you see anything? In the sweat lodge?"

  CJ sighed, then described what he could remember of the fever-dream. Old Jeronimo had listened intently, quietly. When CJ was finished he said: "Frog signifies the search for meaning, a struggle of self; he also represents transformation: egg, tadpole, amphibian. He communicates your spirit's desire to evolve."

  "Huh." How much of this shit am I gonna have to listen to before I can get high again?

  Cochise went on: "The second animal you described was badger. Badger is protective and ferocious… will finish whatever he begins, will attack when threatened… but most of all badger tells us that it is time to emerge from seclusion."

  CJ was listening, mouth open, and the more this crusty old freak talked, the more it made his head hurt. "Look man, I don't understand any of that. I just need to—"

  "Your Mother was Tanya Pierson. Her father was Raymond Pierson. His father was Motega Pierson. The blood of our people runs through those veins…" the old man
's knobby finger pointed at CJ's arm. "The same veins you insist on flooding with poison."

  Rubbing at his arm, CJ said "Uh-huh, and who the hell are you?"

  "Your cousin," the old man replied. "Motega was my uncle."

  All that family relation shit made CJ's head swim. "Okay, cousin. You got a name?"

  "Jack."

  CJ laughed. What the fuck kind of Indian name was Jack? Then his hand shot to his stomach as his guts twisted. "Why am I here?"

  Jack retrieved the bowl. "My vision told me it was time to bring you home. To the rez." He uncrossed his legs. "You should get more sleep."

  The thought of running crossed CJ's mind. Not like Indian Jack could stop him. But what, or where, would he run to? With all the shit that had gone down at Whisper Lake, maybe laying low on some Indian reservation wasn't such a bad idea.

  Jack had stood up and was slowly making his way toward the door. A mostly white, thin tail of hair, trailed down from under his hat nearly to the old man's belt. "Hey," CJ said. "You never told me about the wolf from my vision. What was the wolf?"

  The old man turned and said "Wolf was your friend, Jason."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  "Mom, it's me… It's Jason."

  What the fuck had Celine done? Why was she even here?

  Refusing to answer his questions, she had gone into the house and retrieved a pair of pants and a shirt. Jason had quickly put them on, righted the wheelchair, placed it just outside the sliding mini-van door, and now… he waited.

  Celine stood several feet away in her blanket, watching silently.

  After a long moment the door slid open. His mom kneeled behind the passenger seat, shirtless. Her eyes were very wide; her mouth trembling but she stayed silent. Trish was calling out to Jason, twisting in her seat, hands outstretched. His mom's shirt, stained a dark red, was wrapped around her left arm. Jason shot a glance at Celine, who frowned and twisted her lips.

  Mom shuffled backward as Jason stepped up and lifted Trish out of her seat. Heavy breaths came from inside the van as Jason eased Trish into the wheelchair. Jason pulled the shirt away slightly. The blood had dried, and the cloth stuck to her skin. He would need to wash the wound to see just how bad it was. Walking around to the back of the chair, he grabbed the handles and said "Mom, come out."

  "Don't you let her near my girl," his mom said in a broken voice. "Don't you do it."

  "I won't let anyone hurt her, Mom, I promise. Now will you come out?"

  Nothing. She would come out or she wouldn't. He couldn't worry about that now.

  "I'll be inside," he said as he wheeled the chair toward the house.

  ***

  "A fucking dog man," Boil said. "Don't that beat all?"

  He was sitting sideways, parallel to his desk, leaning back. His sunglasses sat on the table, but in the darkness of the office it was hard for Carter to see just what the boss was looking at.

  Throughout the day, after Carter had returned to the Haversaw place from driving the sheriff's Forester deep into the woods and torching it, after lighting up the house and relocating the kid, Boil had been… different. Absent-minded, distant. He was normally quick, his hands always moving. Carter wondered just how much the previous night, and what they had seen, changed the old man.

  "What's next?" Carter asked. His arm was still sore, but the wounds had closed and now all that was left of where he had been bitten were dark spots with smoky, swirling lines like phantom tentacles spreading outward. Aside from the aching, he didn't feel any different. Yet.

  "That sonofabitch threw a big ol' monkey wrench in my plans. We know shootin' him don't work, but… as much as I feel like an asshole for sayin' it, we haven't tried silver, have we?" He turned in his chair then, a big smile spreading under his bushy mustache, and slapped the desk with a loud WHAP! Then he chuckled and raised his eyebrows, waiting for Carter to join in the merriment.

  "FUCK, son, what else can you do but laugh? Goddamn wolfmen and silver bullets!" He reared his head back and howled "AR-AR-AROOOOO!!!!" then laughed for a solid minute before taking his sunglasses off of the desk. "I know a guy," he said finally, wiping the glasses on his shirt. "Gun runner. If there's anybody can get custom bullets made it's him. I'll reach out. Meantime I'm gonna lay low, change up my routine in case the Shaggy D.A. makes more trouble."

  Neither man was worried that Jason would go to the cops. But who knew what else he might try, pissed off as he was about the sheriff?

  The boss looked over. "And you… I'm curious as hell what's gonna happen to you. Guess we'll find out in thirty days. You run things here. Keep that cocksucker off our backs if he comes around. Once I get those bullets…"

  Boil stood and donned his glasses. "We'll do our damnedest to cut that fucker down."

  ***

  "You were right. Is that what you want to hear?" Celine leaned against the driver's side door of her Jeep, arms folded. She wore a set of Jason's clothes. They didn't fit right, but at least it was something. What remained of her clothes still lay scattered on the floor of Jason's room. From her pants she had retrieved the Jeep keys. Her purse she had left inside the vehicle the day before.

  Though she had been crying for quite a while, that was over now. Now she was too pissed at herself to cry.

  Bethany had finally gone inside the house to be with Trish—after Jason had washed and bandaged her arm and given her a pain pill—but only under the condition that Celine would not go in the house, and would in fact leave and never return.

  After getting dressed by the Jeep, Celine had told Jason about the previous day. About how she came for the rifle and started turning late in the late afternoon—it's not fair, it shouldn't have happened then! I didn't think about the moon coming out early—when Trish and Bethany had come home, about going after them… but most painfully, she had talked about the voice.

  "It told me to feed. When they ran it wanted me to go after them…"

  Jason was looking at the house, at his bedroom window, and Celine wondered if he was envisioning that hole in the closet wall. Celine's heart ached. She wanted him to do something other than just stand there. She wanted him to yell at her, to cuss her out, to lay into her the way she deserved.

  "I don't understand," he said. "You weren't having nightmares; the goddess wasn't trying to contact you."

  Celine's head and voice dipped. "I did have dreams, just not the same kind you said you had." Jason scowled. "They were dreams of me hunting. Animals at first and then… then I don't know, things that were human I guess but they just seemed like stupid dreams, not a big deal. I didn't think it was worth telling you. Maybe when this "goddess" communicates, it's not the same for everyone." She should have told him. She knew that very well, and if her excuses sounded lame to her, Celine could only imagine how they sounded to him.

  Jason was silent, his eyes still fixed on the house.

  "We'll help her," Celine said. "Trish is gonna be okay. We'll find a way…"

  "You can't know that!" Finally Jason raised his voice. Just as quickly as he started to lose it though, he gained control. In a calmer tone he said: "Were you really gonna shoot Boil?"

  "I just wanted to scare him into telling me what happened to my dad," she replied.

  A long moment of silence stretched between them. Finally Jason said "I went to CJ's place. He wasn't there but Boil's guy, Carter, he was. We fought, I put him down and I forced him to take me to Boil."

  Celine unfolded her arms and took a step forward. "What happened to sheriff—what happened to my dad? Did you find out?"

  Don't let him be dead, don't let him be dead…

  Jason didn't answer at first. Celine was about to repeat the question when he finally said "No. I turned before they could tell me anything."

  ***

  Jason hated himself for the lie as soon as it came out of his mouth. He felt like a coward, but after what had just happened with Trish, Celine would be a lot easier to deal with if she didn't know what he had been told. That
was the thing: he had been told. He didn't know for a fact that they had killed the sheriff…

  But he suspected it was true.

  Right now, however, what he was most worried about was Trish.

  Celine almost ate her, for Christ's sake.

  Jason tried not to think about it. "That kid was there, the one you called Ghost," he said. "Had some lab in a shed out back."

  Celine had put her face in her hand. She looked up now, her bloodshot eyes narrowing. "Lab for what?"

  Jason shrugged. "I'd guess he's making some kind of drugs. Maybe Boil's tired of being a middleman. Boil and the kid were talking about a 'commitment' and 'delivery.'"

  "What else did you see?"

  For the next few minutes Jason proceeded to tell Celine what he remembered of the turning, the dogs, and his killing of the older stranger. He spoke of the last in whispers and the sickness from earlier returned. He also spoke of his fear that Boil might come after Trish and his mom.

  Celine had listened carefully. When Jason was done she said: "What if Ty—Dad, went out there and found something?"

  "We'll find out," he said, and he meant it. He wouldn't rest until they knew for sure.

  After a moment Celine nodded and wiped her nose with her—Jason's—shirt sleeve. "I'm late for work, but if you want me to stay I'm sure the Wayside can do without me for a while."

  Jason shook his head. "You should go," he said. "Spend some time away."

  Her eyes were wide on him. "From… Bethany?"

  Not looking back, he said "From Mom, from Trish. From me."

  She continued to stare at him. He continued to look away. After another uncomfortable moment she said, barely loud enough to hear, "I gotta go," and got into the Jeep.

  There was a deep aching in Jason's chest. His love for Celine warred with his anger at her for being… for being her. For acting without thinking. If she hadn't come here to get the rifle…

  It could have been worse.