by Amy Cross
Sara didn't answer. Still looking down at the potatoes in the bucket of water, she felt as if she wanted to completely empty her mind. At the same time, she could feel something calling to her, tugging at the edge of the thoughts; whatever it was, it seemed to be coming from the lower level of the barn.
“He's going to be mad at me,” she whispered.
“Don't worry about that. He won't be in any position to be mad at anyone.”
“Are they going to shoot him?”
“Maybe. If he doesn't surrender. There's only one of him, and Dad rounded up half the town to go with him. If he lets himself get taken alive, there'll be a trial, but to be honest...” She paused again. “Sometimes it's better if things are dealt with quickly. Men like Jonah Lund can't be saved or turned into good people, there's nothing they can contribute to society. Besides...” Another pause, as a hint of anger entered her eyes. “After what he did to Kari, part of me wants him to put up a fight, so they have to shoot him.”
“Wouldn't that be bad, though? You're not supposed to kill people.”
“I know,” Elizabeth replied, “but... Sometimes things just work out that way. It's not always about good things or bad things, quite often you have to make a compromise. Whatever happened here over the past few days, God didn't put Lund down on this world for him to kill people.”
“So why did God let it happen?”
“We can't understand God's ways. We just have to remember who we are, and accept that these tests come to us sometimes.” She watched Sara for a moment, searching her face for some hint of understanding. “Why don't you do me a favor, sweetheart? Go and get some more potatoes from the barrel. I'm almost out.”
Turning, Sara began to wander across the yard, although she stopped as soon as she heard another rifle-shot in the distance.
“Don't think about it!” Elizabeth called after her. “It's out of our hands now!”
Without looking back at her sister, Sara continued to traipse across the grass and gravel, until she got around to the other side of the barn and made her way to one of the barrels of potatoes. Although she was still haunted by the sight of Kari's empty eyes, there was a part of her that felt she'd made the wrong decision, that felt she should have trusted the man more. After all, he'd told her not to pay attention to what anyone else had said, and that everything would become clear in time. She'd agreed to believe him, but she hadn't been strong enough.
Standing on tip-toes, she reached into the nearest barrel to get some potatoes.
“There you are!” a voice hissed, grabbing her from behind and clamping a hand over her mouth. “Why,” the man continued, “I ought to cut your throat right now and stuff you head-first into one of these barrels.”
Struggling to get free and trying desperately to cry out, Sara felt herself being lifted up and turned around, before the man started to carry her along the side of the barn. In the distance, another shot rang out.
“They're up there now,” he continued, “probably going through my things, raking through my home. They think their guns'll scare me, but they're wrong. Don't they realize that by doing all of this, they're only making things much worse? Anyway, they're too late.”
Trying and failing to call for help, Sara began to kick her legs back, hoping to hit the man's knees. In response, he turned and slammed her into the nearest wall with enough force to almost knock her out.
“But this place,” the man added, turning to look along the barn, “I've been here before. I just wish I could remember when. I'm sure there's something I wanted to do here, but all my thoughts just seem so disconnected. I need to remember, but it's all happening too slowly!”
Another shot was fired in the distance.
“And what about you, huh?” he continued, whispering into her ear with the same hot, foul-smelling breath that Kari had described earlier. “What am I supposed to do with someone who betrayed me so easily? That's what you did, you know... You said you'd trust me, and I trusted you, and how did you repay me? By ratting me out. By telling those gun-toting imbeciles where to find me. It's a good job I was out foraging in the forest when they showed up, otherwise they'd have damn well walked right into that shed and shot me. You do realize that, don't you? They're not up on the fields to catch me. They're planning an execution!”
With tears running down her cheeks, Sara felt too terrified to move.
“So now I have to change my plans,” he added. “I thought that by returning your sister to you alive, I'd be showing you that I'm acting in good faith. I had every right to kill her and dump the body where no-one'd ever find her, but I didn't. I wanted to make it clear that I'm a better man than that. I just couldn't resist the urge, you know? There's a part of me that just enjoys hurting people. But you...” He paused, before pulling her back and then tossing her to the ground. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a large, serrated knife, which he aimed straight at her face. “Scream and I'll put this through your goddamn head.”
Staring up at him with terrified eyes, she began to open her mouth, but no cry came out.
“Oh God,” he continued, stepping closer, “what am I going to do with you and your lousy family, huh? You've given me quite a conundrum, little doll.”
“Please,” she whispered, “don't hurt us.”
“What was that?” he asked with a grin. “I didn't quite catch you there.”
“Please don't hurt us,” she continued, inching away from him across the mud. “You can run away. They won't catch you, and I won't tell them you were here.”
“Oh, you won't?” he replied, stepping closer with the knife still in his hand. “I oughta rip out your guts right now, but maybe that'd be too quick.” He smiled. “You saw what inventive things I did to your sister. I guess I'll just have to do something even better to you.” Reaching down, he grabbed her leg. “Now if -”
Sara screamed.
“Let go of her!” Elizabeth shouted.
Turning, Sara saw to her relief that her older sister was standing over by the corner of the shed, and she had their father's old hunting rifle aimed straight at the man.
“Let go of her!” Elizabeth said again, more firmly this time, as she took a step forward. Her hands were shaking with fear, which made it difficult for her to hold the rifle steady.
“Do you know how to fire that thing, little lady?” the man asked.
“I know,” she told him.
“Really?” Letting go of Sara's leg, he took a step toward Elizabeth, with the knife still in his hand. “You don't look like the shooting kind.”
In the distance, another rifle-shot could be heard from the hill, followed by two more.
“If you take one more step toward either of us,” Elizabeth told him, “I will shoot you dead.”
“You will?”
“I will.”
He looked down at his feet for a moment, before looking back at her. “You know what I think?” he asked. “I think I ought to mess you two little ladies up so bad, they won't even know which bits belonged to which of you.”
Trying to keep her aim steady, despite her trembling hands, she closed one eye so she could aim better.
“It's not my fault,” the man continued. “I just have this -” Stopping suddenly, he frowned.
“Your tortured her,” Elizabeth whispered, with tears in her eyes. “I won't let you hurt anyone else.”
“The barn,” the man whispered after a moment, with a sudden look of shock on his face. “I have been here before. A long, long time ago. Maybe this is what I was waiting for. Before the hospital, before the operations, before Trine...” He paused. “Trine. How could I have forgotten? I remember what I'm here for, I remember why I broke out of the hospital. I have to kill it before -”
He took a step forward.
Elizabeth fired, blasting a hole in the man's chest and sending him thudding back down into the muddy ground.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Today
“I've worked this route every wi
nter night for five years,” Sebastian explained as he turned the wheel, steering the huge, rumbling snowplow off the main road and into the car park of a shuttered diner. “I turn around here five times every night, so you can work out for yourself how many times I've done that in total. Sometimes I even take my mandated half-hour break here.” Bringing the plow to a halt, he switched off the engine. “A book, some coffee...”
Stopping for a moment, he reached out and wiped the windscreen. Ahead, there was nothing but the dark, snow-covered parking lot, the diner, and - a little further on - a line of dark pine trees.
“I remember my first night on the job,” he added. “I had an old-hand riding with me, to show me the ropes. He told me that this is the best place to stop, but he told me something else too. He told me... Never go beyond the edge of the lot. Never go into the forest around this part of town.”
Waiting for him to continue, Paula realized after a moment that he seemed to be watching the trees, almost as if he expected something to happen.
“So...” she began, before pausing. “I mean, why did you... Why did you bring me here?”
“Because one night I did go beyond the edge of the lot,” he continued, opening the door on his side of the cab, “and I think you should see what I saw. There's a spare coat in the back if you need it. Temperature's almost minus thirty, so you might. Are those boots waterproof?”
“Yes, but -”
“Good. They'll need to be.” Climbing down into the snow, he smiled as he pushed the door shut.
“They will, will they?” Paula muttered to herself, watching as Sebastian made his way around the back of the plow. Reaching over the back of the seat, she found the spare coat and quickly put it on, before opening the door on her side and climbing down into knee-high snow.
“This diner is like a magnet for the men of the area,” Sebastian explained, as he slipped a woolly hat onto his head and passed a spare to her. “They all come here and sit drinking coffee when they want to get away from their wives. Saturday morning, the place is packed with gossiping old men. The place was only built in the eighties, though. Before that, the site was abandoned, and before that there was a hospital here.”
“Here?” Paula replied, surprised by the idea. Looking around, she saw nothing but the main road passing the diner, with no other buildings for miles. “Seems a little out of the way.”
“That's the whole point,” he continued, as he started to trudge across the lot. “It was a hospital for people with leprosy. They wanted to keep them as far away from towns and cities as possible, so they stuck them out here to die. Well, that's what they told everyone, at least, but you hear rumors about what was really going on here.”
“What kind of rumors?”
He paused for a moment. “It's just gossip within gossip,” he said finally. “By the end, you don't know what to believe, but I knew someone whose aunt had worked here. In fact, she died here, apparently one of the patients killed her.” Another pause. “I don't know what they were really doing, but if I was a betting man, I wouldn't be so sure that all the patients here were lepers. I don't even know if leprosy was such a big problem by the late seventies. I've seen photos of what the place used to look like before the fire that destroyed it. It was a big old wooden building, with two floors. It was actually quite beautiful.” Reaching into his pocket, he took out his phone and tapped the screen a few times, before showing it to Paula. “Don't you think?”
Looking at the screen, Paula saw a grainy photo of a large wooden structure, although it was difficult to make out too many details.
“They reckon that in the old days,” Sebastian continued, “back in the nineteenth century, more than five hundred people with leprosy were sent out here. That's the story, anyway. I don't want to be morbid, but none of them ever ended up going home.”
“So they died here?” she asked, wading after him through the snow.
“They died here,” he replied. “Slow, painful deaths, surrounded by other people with the same condition. The place even started to be called the Leper Valley, partly so other people would know to keep the hell away.”
As they reached the edge of the forest, Paula stared at the darkness ahead. She could see pine trees receding into the distance, but the gaps between them seemed filled with expectation, as if something might appear at any moment.
“They used to burn the bodies out here,” Sebastian explained. “No-one wanted to handle the dead, not when they were supposed to have been lepers. Most of them were pretty foul-looking by then, and people were superstitious, so the nurses would take the bodies out and just burn them without any kind of ceremony. I read about the place once. When someone was dying, the nurses would get the poor bastard to climb into a plastic bag, ready to be carried off. Some of the lepers didn't like that much, for obvious reasons, so when they knew the end was close, they'd escape in the night and run off into the forest, so they could die in peace. The hospital couldn't allow that, so they'd have to send orderlies out to find them and haul them back. Of course, you won't find much about that in the history books. People round here just turn the other way and pretend bad things never happened.”
Paula paused for a moment. “So... Why did you bring me here at four in the morning?”
“You said you wanted to know that ghosts are real.”
“I think I proved that tonight.”
“When did your mother die?”
At this, she felt momentarily speechless. “I...”
“You said she died and that's why you want ghosts to be real. So that maybe you have a chance of seeing her again one day?”
“It's not just that,” she replied.
“I had the opposite experience,” he continued. “My father was such an abusive old drunk, I hated the idea that anyone could continue after death. When he died, I wanted that to be the end of it.” He paused. “I'd pretty much convinced myself of that by the time I quit school and got this job. And then one night, I ignored the advice I was given about the place and I took a little smoking break and wandered into the forest.”
“What's out there?” she asked, watching the darkness with concern. “Bodies of all those lepers?”
“Come on,” he replied, stepping forward and making his way between the first of the trees. “We won't go far. Just enough to show you.”
“But -”
“Come on,” he continued with a smile. “After what you told me you saw and heard tonight, I think you need to experience this.”
As Sebastian trudged forward, crunching through the thick snow, Paula glanced back at the dark snowplow for a moment. She'd always been a careful, cautious kind of person, and she wasn't quite sure how she'd managed to end up in the middle of nowhere, with a man she barely knew, about to go wandering through a forest, but she felt as if she was safe enough. Besides, she liked the fact that he was distracting her from thinking about the ghosts at the farmhouse. Turning, she realized she could barely see Sebastian anymore, so she hurried forward, fighting her way through the snow until she spotted him up ahead.
“Wait!” she called out. “Hold up!”
“Don't worry,” he shouted back to her. “I know this land well. There's nothing out here that can hurt us.”
“Great,” she muttered, finding the trudge through the snow to be heavy going. Her legs were already aching, so she started reaching out and grabbing the pine trees, using them to pull herself along a little. Once Sebastian stopped up ahead, she was able to catch him, although by that point she was a little out of breath.
“You'll get used to it,” he said with a faint smile.
“Used to what?” she gasped.
“Snow.”
“Never. Never, ever will I get used to this much of the damn stuff.”
“Listen.”
She turned to him.
“Listen,” he said again.
Pausing, she listened, while glancing around at the tall, bare pine trees that stood like dead sentries, spreading off into the d
arkness in every direction.
Finally, she opened her mouth to ask what, exactly, she should be hearing, but she felt as if somehow it wasn't her place to disturb the silence, so she waited a little longer, for Sebastian to say something.
“You hear it?” he whispered.
She shook her head.
“I hear it,” he told her. “Try again.”
She paused, listening some more, but there was nothing. In fact, the utter silence was kind of impressive, and she was starting to think she'd never really been somewhere totally quiet before. The only thing she could hear was her own breath, and Sebastian's.
“We need to go further,” he said suddenly, starting to push his way forward through the snow.
“Wait -”
“I want to know if you can hear what I hear,” he continued. “If you can't, then maybe I've been imagining it all these years. If you can... Well, I don't know if two people can have the same delusion.”
“And how's this linked to the farm?” she asked.
“You'll see.”
Following him for a few minutes, she began to feel as if they were getting further and further from the real world. There seemed to be no end to the trees, and when she looked up she saw snow still drifting down from the night sky.
“Wait,” she said suddenly, stopping and looking back as she heard something in the distance. “What was that?”
“What did you hear?” Sebastian asked, making his way over to her.
Her heart was pounding as she looked into the darkness, trying to work out whether she'd imagined the sound of someone crunching through the snow. A moment later, she spotted a dark shape in the distance, flitting between the trees as it ran through the forest.
“What's that?” she asked.
“You see him too?”
“What the hell is it?”
“I often hear them out here,” he replied, “but I don't often see them.”
Before she could ask him again, she saw the figure stumble in the snow just a few meters away, landing hard and then struggling to get up. As he reached out, Paula saw that there was a number tattooed on his hand: 17019.
