by David Tully
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2012 David Tully
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
eISBN: 9781611091649
Dedication
To Tobe Hooper, for directing my first feature and making it the movie it is…not what it might become.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Acknowledgments
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
On the morning of the day that Matt Cahill decided to murder an entire town, he was feeling kind of blue.
The weather didn’t help: dark clouds rolling above, a certain chill creeping into the late summer air, wind picking up as the storm moved on in. In fact, the first drops of rain were starting to come down, making Matt’s day just about perfect.
The radio and TV had been full of it for days: Hurricane Jonas was on the way, and woe to those unlucky or dumb enough to get caught in its way, so get out of town yesterday.
This far north, hurricanes weren’t supposed to be a problem, but a couple of years back, Hurricane Irene had torn a path of destruction through the mid-Atlantic and New England that everybody was still trying to dig themselves out from under. Then, without giving anybody a decent chance to even catch their breath again, Sandy rolled on into town, clobbering everyone her pal Irene might have missed the year before.
And now it was supposed to happen all over again—and if the meteorologists were right, Jonas would rampage through this region sometime tonight.
Good time to visit the Adirondacks, Matt thought as he stood by the side of the road. He watched the heavens pressing lower, shutting him in from above while the looming black mountainsides closed in behind and in front. Any way you cut it, nature was boxing him in. If he were the suspicious type, Matt would feel like he was walking into a trap.
Happily, as it turned out, Matt was the suspicious type, and he was pretty sure that was exactly what was happening here. But he’d made his choice, so no backing out now.
A boxy, battered old Subaru rounded the corner back the way he’d just come. He glanced at it and looked back at the mountains, not even bothering to stick out his thumb. The only people who picked up hitchhikers these days were truckers desperate for a companion—or, to be more accurate, a therapist—willing to listen to their troubles. Ones they could take in a fight, of course. Only so much any trucker was willing to risk for a shoulder to cry on.
Matt had been walking for the past ten miles, since he’d been let off at a diner just off 87, and didn’t expect any more vehicular assistance before he reached the town called Sundown—dead ahead on top of that mountain, the black one looking like a tsunami about to break over him.
Which was why he squinted, puzzled, when the red Sub eased to a stop about ten yards ahead of him, standing in the middle of the road, idling, its driver watching him.
Matt stopped, duffel bag still in hand. And when the door opened, the bag fell from his hand, thumping on the ground with a metallic ring because his grandfather’s ax lay at the bottom.
He stood there, mouth open, staring at Rachel Owens, the girlfriend he’d left behind in Deerpark to begin his long journey into darkness.
“Well,” she invited, her voice a soft caress, “are you coming in?”
CHAPTER TWO
Except it wasn’t Rachel, of course—he knew that the moment she spoke. The voice was higher, younger—as was the girl. But from even a short distance, with that pose, her hair drawn back in a ponytail, and Matt’s general lack of food and sleep, the resemblance was incredible.
Not that Rachel ever dressed so much like a hippie, or earthy-crunchy, or whatever they called themselves…though she would have looked just as good in those shorts and that tight-fitting tank top. Matt stood there, marveling at the illusion that Rachel was here, thousands of miles away from where he’d left her, and at the nonillusion that a gorgeous young woman had just pulled over in the middle of nowhere to offer him a ride. He felt like he’d landed in an old Eagles song.
“Look, I just trusted my gut instead of my instinct and decided to give you a lift. So you want it or not?” Her sweet, bemused tone knocked him out of his reverie and back into action. Matt picked up his duffel bag, glad for the ten hundredth time that he’d found one big enough to stow the ax in. Oddly, that accessory often seemed to discourage drivers from picking up this particular scruffy hitchhiker, and Matt supposed he couldn’t blame them.
“Thanks,” he called as he trotted forward. “I thought I’d be walking all the way to Sundown.”
“That’s twenty miles. You’d never make it before the storm,” she said, with a nod to the heavy black clouds pouring over the mountain peaks.
Matt shrugged. “Not much choice in the matter.”
“Well, now you do.” She smiled, taking him in as he got close. “I’m going all the way.”
Matt wasn’t sure if that was intended as a double entendre or notice that he was being driven right into Sundown—either way, he’d take it.
They climbed back into the car at the same time. Matt noticed the chaotic pile of clothes, food wrappers, and posters (“Ban Hydrofracking!”) that filled the backseat, and hesitated with his bag.
“Just throw it on top,” she said, indicating his bag. “Hopefully it won’t get swallowed by the rest of that shit before we get there.”
Matt relaxed against the soiled gray seat, breathing in the pine-scented air freshener aroma that filled the car, and noticed the black polish on her short nails as her hand slid around the gear shift, gripped it tight, and slid into drive.
And they were off—up to Sundown and into the storm.
CHAPTER THREE
“You’re a lifesaver,” Matt said, his eyes on the winding mountain curves—and the steep drop-off outside his door.
She glanced over at him, smiling. “I couldn’t leave you out in that weather, even if you are a serial killer.”
“Hate to disappoint you, but I’m not.”
“No? What are you, then?” she asked.
Matt hesitated, not sure how to answer that one. Woody Guthrie with an ax? No, that wasn’t quite right…he didn’t sing many folk songs. “I, uh, I work in a sawmill.”
He could instantly feel the disapproval as her smile faltered, grew more forced. “Oh, a lumberjack,” was all she had to say about that.
Matt glanced back at the posters in the backseat: he vaguely knew that “hydrofracking” had something
to do with the environment, and putting that together with her whole look, he pegged his savior as a tree hugger…just the sort who’d see a lumberjack as her archenemy.
Matt’s nerves, on high alert since what had happened in New York, now relaxed a bit. He’d suspected an agent of Mr. Dark, waiting to spring the trap shut. A hippie he figured he could handle.
“My name’s Zoey,” the hippie finally said. She seemed a sweet kid, unable to stay mad, even at her archenemy, for more than a few seconds.
“Matt Cahill,” he murmured, and after two days without it, he promptly fell into sleep.
He woke with a groan, half opening a sleepy eye—to see a rotted, skull-like visage leering in the window, inches from his face.
With a yelp of surprise and fright, Matt instantly came fully awake, leaning so far back in his seat that he was nearly falling on top of Zoey. Under other circumstances, this would have been an ideal turn of events, but Matt was distracted.
“Whoa, there.” She laughed in surprise. “Nap time’s over, lumberjack.” Then she noticed his expression, and her smile faded.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
Matt looked up at her, then back at the window. The rot-faced nightmare at the window was still there—but its grin had faded, its expression now more quizzical.
“He…it…that…” Matt pointed at the window, trying to clear the sleep and cobwebs from his brain, not sure if he was still out and dreaming. He was trying to get rid of the confusion brought on by sleep as fast as possible, but the lines of reality were still blurry.
“It’s name is Tom,” Zoey said. “It’s a friend of mine.”
As Matt groggily sat up, Zoey climbed out of the car. Tom pulled his rot-face away from the window with one more wary glance at Matt, then turned his attention on Zoey, who rushed over and embraced him.
Disoriented, unsure of where he was or what was happening, Matt opened his door and climbed out of Zoey’s car.
He stood in a town square straight out of a Thornton Wilder story: a village green surrounded by a church, general store, one-screen movie house, hardware store—the whole Americana trip. And the place was crowded on this Saturday afternoon—the whole town out and about, dozens if not hundreds of men, women, and children meeting, greeting, shopping, lounging. And every single damned one of them infested with rot: flesh dripping, sores oozing, skulls bursting through thinned hair, and decomposing arms.
There was not a single person in this town, besides Matt and Zoey, who didn’t show the corrupting mark of evil he’d come to know so well.
Zoey turned to smile at Matt, oblivious to the sea of corpses they were swimming in, even as they all moved in, surrounding Matt—and he remembered that his ax was buried somewhere in the morass of her backseat, now separated from him by two approaching rot-faces.
Zoey had seemed too good to be true, and she was; thanks to her, he’d realized that, God help him, Mr. Dark was right—and the village of Sundown now had him.
CHAPTER FOUR
Looking back, he realized he’d let himself be set up like a prize chump.
Two days before, Matt had been sitting in an Internet café down in New York City, though café was far too upscale and kind a word for this filthy hole-in-the-wall, a place reeking of stale coffee, sweat, and urine (Manhattan’s summer cologne of choice).
He’d gone to the e-mail account he’d set up a while back and stared morosely at the empty in-box for a few minutes, faintly aware of the ticking clock in the corner but unwilling to sever this dim, mostly illusory connection with the world, a rare event for a lonesome traveler like him.
And just as he was about to bid good-bye to the Internet, the message came.
Not an e-mail, but an instant message…from someone calling himself Darkhunter.
The first one was terse enough: “I know who you’re looking for.”
Matt stared at it, first assuming it was a mistake, as no one could know how to contact him here, now. No one he could think of.
He glanced around the glamorous nook, assuming it was a fellow café patron—there was one scruffy-looking kid absently picking his nose, staring vacantly at a game on his screen. Probably not him. Only other choice was the rotund proprietor of the establishment, who was perched at a nearby counter, staring openmouthed at the Mets game playing on the TV bolted to the wall over his head. Also unlikely.
Matt looked back at the cracked computer screen to find a follow-up waiting for him: “I know where he is.”
Matt hunched forward, his foot kicking the duffel bag shoved under his seat. The ax inside made an ugly metallic ding as it hit the side of his tiny cubicle, but that failed to rouse either of Matt’s café companions.
Matt typed a response: “Who are you talking about?” From the chosen screen name, Matt had a pretty good idea who was being discussed—but he wanted to hear it directly from his new friend.
Instantly, the response came: “Tall, thin, looks like he just escaped from a road tour production of Cabaret, has a thing for lollipops—which Freud would have a field day with, by the way. Ringing any bells?”
Matt glanced over at the kid across the room, who by now had moved the finger from nose to mouth. Definitely not him.
Matt typed again: “Mr. Dark?”
Almost before he could hit “send,” the answer came back: “Look at you, Captain Clever! Yes, Mr. Dark. Come up to Sundown. The key to stopping him is there.”
Matt stared at the screen. No more to that message—someone was out there, waiting.
So he typed again: “Where?”
For a moment, nothing came. And then: “On the killing floor.”
Matt frowned, not sure what that meant. He decided on another tack: “Who are you?”
Not that he expected a real name from “Darkhunter,” but he was still baffled by the response: “Ask for Croatoan.”
Matt waited for more, but nothing came. He had no clue who Darkhunter was, or Croatoan, or how they’d found him.
He stared at the screen a moment, then did a search for “Sundown.” Turned out there was one that was “up”—due north of the city, up the Hudson River, past Lake George and even Lake Placid, high in the Adirondack Mountains that shield the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave from any encroaching Quebecois hordes. There were a bunch of articles about trouble up there due to hydrofracking: locals wanted it for jobs, environmentalists didn’t want it because it was supposedly lethal for the ecosystem. Mildly interesting, but not exactly in his line of business.
So he had no clue what to do about Darkhunter and his tip. The whole message was too vague—“killing floor.” “Sundown.” “Croatoan.” Everything in there sounded like a code for something else.
But Matt was still curious. A trip to the mountains would at least feel more like home than this claustrophobic rat maze—so he leaned forward to look closer at the map on the screen, soaking in the details about how to get to Sundown.
And without warning, the screen was filled with the image of Dark.
Startled, Matt leapt back in his seat, gaining even the attention of the nose-picking young gamesman across the room. Matt didn’t notice—his eyes were on Mr. Dark, grinning at him through a Skype lens and pointing at the crumbling, stain-covered headphones perched on the side of Matt’s cubicle.
Gingerly, Matt lifted them, slid them over his ears, and felt his skin crawl as the sound of Dark’s voice oozed in.
“Hiya, Matt!”
Matt said nothing, staring at him, gauging what Dark’s angle was now.
“Enjoying the big city?”
Again, no response.
“You should see some shows while you’re there. I hear that Spider-Man musical sucks, but it might be good for a laugh if one of those guys falls again. Go check it out for me.”
Before Matt could respond, Dark leaned even closer to whatever camera, in whatever nightmarish location, a disembodied force for pure evil might employ. The pale dry skin around his lips went slack as
his ever-present grin faded, his eyes narrowing to black slits.
“But whatever you do, lumberjack, stay the fuck away from Sundown. Don’t you recognize a trap when you see one?”
Now Matt was interested. If it wasn’t Dark, then who wanted to trap him? And why would Dark be against it? He didn’t even bother responding, letting Dark go on.
“You’re no use to me dead. And there’s no way you’d survive what’s waiting up there. So stay away.”
Matt leaned closer to Dark’s image, though it repelled every instinct. When he spoke, he sounded a hell of a lot more arrogant than he felt. “Well, that clinches it,” he answered. “Looks like I’m going to the mountains.”
Mr. Dark stared a beat longer, and then that infuriating grin came back, as a dark tongue darted out to lick cracked lips.
“When are you going to accept that you dance when and where I tell you, puppet?”
Instinctively, Matt’s fist rammed into Dark’s insolent face—and the force of Matt’s punch sent the fist through the destroyed monitor, into the cheap plaster of the wall behind.
The image was gone, but Dark’s laughter filled the headphones, roaring at Matt, blocking out the angry shouts of the guy behind the counter…until Matt yanked them out of the computer and stomped one large boot down on them as well, making sure the job of trashing all the equipment was done right.
So he’d donated most of his last money to the general upkeep of the Internet café, then headed up to Port Authority and hopped a bus that got him as far north as Saranac Lake. From that point on, he’d relied on the kindness of strangers.
And that kindness had led him right here, into Norman Rockwell’s production of Night of the Living Dead.
Into, it appeared, a trap.
For once, Mr. Dark was right: he should never have come to Sundown.
CHAPTER FIVE
Zoey was introducing Matt to a small circle of rot-faced horrors fully outfitted by the North Face. He’d dived into the back and found the bag, trying to assess the situation as he searched. The extra time hadn’t helped.
