Garret squinted at him. “What are you trying to tell me?”
Joseph squirmed. Garret was pushing too hard. He tried to back off, in expression at least. “Joseph, do you know something I don’t?”
Joseph grinned. “I know lots of things you don’t. Newton’s calculus, Xeno’s paradoxes, the ABC’s, how to tie my shoes…”
Garret put him in a head lock and Violet swerved off the road. Garret recovered the reins, and Joseph took off his glasses and began straightening them out.
As Joseph’s frail fingers massaged the wire frames back into shape, his face took a distant look, as if growing thinner and even more nervous than usual.
“I’ve found six others.”
“Other what?” Garret asked, not at all liking the direction the conversation was taking.
“Other animals like your rabbit.”
Garret stifled an oath. “It’s spreading.”
“It’s not a disease, Garret. At least not like you’re thinking.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t…” Joseph sighed in frustration, a rare emotion for him. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“Huh?”
Brow furrowed, Joseph stared through his glasses into the gorgeous day without seeing it, as only a dork can. Garret clapped him on the shoulder. “You need a girl. We’re gonna get you a girl.”
“That Molly stays with you is to her credit, Garret, not yours,” Joseph said.
They had ridden into the forest, and the sun faded. Between the old trunks, the road meandered through a quiet dimness of dead leaves and even deader air. Why is the last stretch of road always the darkest? Garret wondered.
Joseph sighed as they drew abreast of the side road to the Keller’s farm. “What is wrong with this town?”
That was twice he’d mentioned it. It was obviously bothering him, and that was strange. Nothing ever bothered Joseph, unless one of his friends was hurting, or someone had given him a math problem he couldn’t solve.
“What are you talking about?” Garret asked.
“It’s not just normal marital strife and struggling businesses and failing crops. It’s like it’s being deliberately guided. Manufactured strife. Like the Devil is playing around in everybody’s heads.”
Garret wasn’t sure where to go with that.
Joseph shook his head and moved towards the edge of the wagon.
Garret reined Violet in hard and they lurched to a stop. If Joseph had been any other boy, Garret would have let him jump while the wagon was moving, but Joseph would probably find a way to break both legs, crack his skull, and end up under the wagon all at the same time.
Joseph climbed down.
“I can take you to Keller’s,” Garret offered.
Joseph shook his head. “No thanks, you’ve got a delivery to make.”
“It’s a half mile up the road, it’s no trouble for me. Come on.”
Joseph looked at him for a second, then said gently, “This is you, Garret.”
“What?”
“This. Trying to talk me into riding instead of walking. Caring about your brother. This is who you are. Let go of the bravado. It’s not you. People like you for who you really are.”
Garret dropped his eyes, humiliated. Joseph waved and walked away. Garret couldn’t help but notice how frail he looked. Downright vulnerable. Kind of like he’d left Garret feeling.
“Watch your back, Garret,” Joseph said over his shoulder. It wasn’t a threat of course, but it had a tension in it that made Garret’s skin crawl.
“What do you mean—”
Garret’s sentence broke off when the wagon lurched under him. He hadn’t snapped the reins, but Violet had started off as she sometimes did when she randomly decided it was time to go. She was the weirdest little horse. Garret watched Joseph’s narrow shoulders, which were bowed, until the trees hid him.
Watch my back? Garret mused. Why I’ve never heard the boy use such language, he thought in his grandmother’s tone of voice.
Oh well. Garret would ask him about it again later. The rabbit eating the snake was just plain nasty anyway, and Joseph seemed to know more about it than he was saying. Garret lifted the reins in his hands to snap them lightly, but Violet, using her equine ESP, picked up the pace without him needing to do anything. She was prancing higher than usual today, proud to be dragging around a wagon full of junk. A mound of tension slid off Garret’s shoulders as he watched her. He began to notice the sun beams and breeze, playing together in the turning leaves.
Pa was in the shop today, and he was making up for lost time. Garret had gone out to do the deliveries, for which the clients were paying a little extra, of course, so Pa could stay behind and shoe Danty, Mr. Wakowski’s evil horse. Garret didn’t mind missing that rodeo one bit.
Doc Bentley’s farm was approaching around the next bend. Bentley’s house was the last stop before Garret could head back to the shop. In the wagon bed lay a jumble of mended garden tools. The pile was ridiculously large. Bentley, or his house keeper, Mrs. Stumf, had apparently been bending and breaking things for years without having them repaired.
The wagon rounded the bend and a white picket fence came into view. Violet slowed. She never did that. Garret frowned. Violet stopped in the middle of the road, ears twitching. Garret looked all around at the forest. This part of the road wound through an old growth stand. Most of the trees were eight feet in diameter at the base. They were wooden monoliths, old gods from before white man had invaded. They’d locked their leafy fingers together centuries ago, leaving the forest floor, the road, and Garret and Violet in a thin twilight.
The lack of light also meant a lack of undergrowth. The steep ground was covered with an age’s worth of leaves and sticks, but there was no place for anything to hide. Except behind the bark-covered giants, of course. But the woods were empty as far as Garret could see.
He picked up the reins to snap them, but he paused. Violet had stopped deliberately. A nervous quiver ran down her flanks. Garret climbed down off the wagon. It creaked and groaned loudly in the quiet. Violet stamped, her ears still twitching. Running a hand down her side as he went, Garret advanced to her head. She bobbed it, snorted nervously. Garret gave the woods another 360 while he petted her neck.
“What’s wrong girl? Do you smell something?”
She snorted and pranced again, more insistently this time. But she didn’t take a step or tug at her reins. She was obviously scared, but she wasn’t giving any indication of which way she wanted to go. That alone was enough to frighten Garret. Though man had built towns and railroads, this was still wild country. The bears and mountain lions ruled it.
Garret patted her neck and stared around until he saw spots. As he did so, the color began to drain from his vision, as if it was being siphoned away. He was too worried about what had spooked Violet, so he just went with it, and in return, maybe it helped him see a little better. The browns and greens dulled out, but in a way, the lack of color helped to eliminate distraction, making every motion, from the falling twig to the tumbling acorn, stand out. If anything moved, he’d see it.
“What do you smell, girl?”
She made a little chuff, and it didn’t sound horsey. To Garret, it sounded like a noise a fearful child would make. It made his skin crawl. I’m not carrying a rifle, and we’re sitting ducks. He scrambled back into the wagon seat. As he grabbed for the reins, he felt something watching him. It wasn’t a premonition. He felt it as solidly as he felt the shoes on his feet. He snapped the reins. “H’yah!”
Violet took a few steps and cowered. Garret’s heart rate accelerated. “So is it in front of us or not?” he demanded in a whisper.
The road was too narrow to turn the wagon around. Should he force her forward? She didn’t want to go forward, but she wasn’t trying to go backwards either. The forest got quieter.
Garret hem-hawed, darting glances around. Which way?
The forest was silent. Which way!?
Pure ter
ror instinct rose up in him, unbidden. It was a primal thing, with no thought to it, and so powerful it made him shiver, just like the quivers running down Violet’s flanks. At the same instant, she screamed and bolted. Had the seat not had a board for a backrest, Garret would have tumbled into the bed. He grabbed for control as Violet tried to gallop in her harness.
The weight of a huge presence came out of nowhere over Garret’s left shoulder. He crouched in the seat and spun, but there was nothing. The wagon banged and slammed over potholes and through ruts.
A flash of something dark passed through the trees to his right. He’d only caught it from the corner of his eye and didn’t know which tree it went behind. It was huge, of that he was sure, and it was unnaturally, impossibly quick. It moved as if its body weighed nothing. He tried to keep Violet on a straight course. She stretched her neck forward as she ran, her eyes wide, her ears flat to her skull.
Another flash of dark motion, this time down over the hill to his left. Not even bears had the strength to propel themselves so effortlessly. And how the hell had it gotten from his right to his left? Was there more than one? No, there wasn’t. For a reason his fear-soaked mind couldn’t identify, he felt sure there was only one. There would never be more than one.
The wagon jolted and skittered sideways. The left wheels had fallen into a deep rut because Garret wasn’t watching. The rut locked the wheels into a straight course, and battered against them as Violet ran. It was slowing them, but worse, it was going to break a wheel, if not an axel, unless Garret could—
A hulking shadow came out of nowhere. Garret barely had time to flinch before it struck him, sending him into a limp sprawl off the wagon. His last sight was of the road coming up to meet him.
Chapter 10
Garret groaned and tried to push himself up. His mouth was full of dirt. He spit it out and blinked down at the lumpy mouthful on the road. Saliva, dark red with his blood, strung between it and his mouth. His head felt too heavy to hold up, as if it was going to roll off his shoulders any second.
He groaned again and pushed himself back to his haunches before his arms collapsed. He knelt and swayed. What was he doing in the road? He’d fallen from something, right? He was on the way to Doc Bentley’s to deliver tools. Wagon. I fell off the wagon.
The sun rays through the trees looked to be near the same angle as when he’d fallen, so he hadn’t been unconscious for long.
How did I get here? What’s wrong with my head?
He must have hit it when he tumbled from the wagon.
Violet?
Carefully, so his head wouldn’t fall off, Garret checked both ways down the road. The rutted dirt snaked away into the trees, but there was no sign of Violet or the wagon. He touched the side of his head. The amount of blood it left on his hand was scary. Garret stood weakly. It took far less time to decide to do it than it took to actually do it, but once he had gained his feet, some of the pressure started to ease out of his head. Dizziness replaced it.
I gotta—he nearly blacked out again—get to Doc Bentley’s. He knew that for certain. Other thoughts were more difficult to hold. The first step was the hardest, but he took it, and the one after that, and the one after that. White railing. Doc Bentley’s fence. Garret stumbled over to it and began to work his way along it, getting stronger as he went, and leaving bloody handprints on the top rail.
Half an eternity later, he broke out of the trees and arrived at the gate, which was open. He was going strong enough not to need the fence for guidance, and his head was clearing, but the sudden rush of sunlight made him stagger.
“Doctor Bentley,” Garret shouted, making his head hurt worse. “Doctor Bentley, I need your help!”
Garret made his way up the shallow rise towards Doc Bentley’s clapboard house. On the porch sat Mrs. Stumf. Why wasn’t she coming to help? She rocked slowly, back and forth. Garret stumbled, caught himself on his hands and knees on the ridge of grass between the wagon tracks. The simple act of stopping himself jarred his head badly enough to make his stomach heave.
Garret’s breakfast splattered between and on his hands. He didn’t know how long he knelt there on all fours, swaying like a cattail in the wind. After minutes, or perhaps days, he was able to stand and call for help again.
“Mrs. Stumf!”
She rocked back and forth, both hands flat on the arms of the rocking chair, her spine straight, her eyes fixed ahead over the rolling fields and hills. Garret put one foot in front of the other. The right hand wagon track was smooth dirt so Garret stepped into it and focused on it, using it to guide his steps, one at a time, until he gained the top of the incline on which Doc Bentley’s house sat.
Garret turned from the road and approached the porch. Stout Mrs. Stumf filled her chair like a brick fireplace, her rocking mechanically precise, her posture tight. Garret frowned against the glaring sun and Mrs. Stumf’s behavior. Deep in his head, a warning sounded, but it was only one more thing his injured brain couldn’t process. Garret managed to mount the steps without tripping.
He approached Mrs. Stumf, but stopped before he reached what he would normally have thought of as a polite conversational distance. He stared blearily, unable to make sense of her.
“Mrs. Stumf? Are you okay?”
Her rocker creaked sullenly and she gave no indication that he existed. Her eyes were wide and staring, but did not seem to be seeing. Garret involuntarily backed up a step. “Where’s Doc Bentley?” he asked.
Her rocker creaked to a stop. Nothing about her posture changed, but Garret sensed her drawing tight. A bowstring being pulled farther and farther. Past its release point, nearing its breaking point. He took another step away from her, which brought him parallel with the front door. It stood open a few inches. The brass knob was bent.
Glancing from the now deathly-still Mrs. Stumf to the room beyond the door, Garret leaned far enough towards the door to push it open with a few fingers. It swung in on well-oiled hinges. A small part of his addled mind noted that the rug in the foyer was dark red. It used to be white. The foyer was small and furnished only with a half-table and a coat rack. Garret’s breath caught in his throat. The rug was not only red, it was soaked. Wringing wet. Saturated with blood.
Blood had been slung all over the floor and splattered up the walls. A bloody path was strung out towards the kitchen. Someone had been bled out on the rug as if it was some sort of absorbent pad, then dragged away.
Garret’s breathing double-timed. Fright cleared his senses, but it muddled his logical thoughts further. He was in the process of taking a delicate step away from both the door and the woman in the rocker when a flash of motion filled his right hand periphery, and greasy dark fur brushed his arm. He lurched away from it, up against the door facing. The dark thing was past him in an instant, before his addled mind could focus on it.
It was big, that he knew, and upright, though hunched, and as it blurred down the porch, it opened the largest hand Garret had ever seen and ripped Mrs. Stumf out of her chair. It didn’t even break stride, and was gone around the corner of the house in a flash. Garret heard a muffled cry, rising to a wail of agony, a sound more pure, more horribly, wretchedly human than he had heard a person make. It was Mrs. Stumf. The sound ended with the wet crunch of bone.
Garret flung himself through the door and fell onto the sodden rug. The impact made his head explode with colors and light. He kicked, whimpering, scrabbling in the blood, grabbing for purchase. He managed to kick the door closed. It slammed with a thunk, cutting off the searing sunlight.
Garret floundered through the sticky mess, aiming for Doc Bentley’s living room. He scrabbled across the floor and through the door facing, crashing into an oriental vase and a wingback chair. He left bloody hand prints on the green chaise lounge, pulling himself to his feet so he could fall against the bureau on the far wall. He ripped open the top drawer and pawed through the folded doilies, streaking them with red. He slammed it closed and ransacked the next drawer. It contai
ned candles and stacks of old letters in brown paper, some sealed with impressed wax.
Garret jerked the third drawer all the way out and dropped it. Where was the gun? He remembered seeing it here when he was a little boy, watching Doc Bentley show it to Pa. Garret ripped the fourth drawer out and flung its contents all over the room. He yanked open the bottom drawer, hitting his own shins, but was rewarded with the heavy thud of a weapon. It was a short, double-barrel shotgun with polished wood and brass filigree.
He couldn’t have cared less about the filigree, only the box of shells which he spilled all over the floor with shaking hands. He tried to wipe his hands off on his clothes, but it only made his hands worse. His shirt and pants were soaked with blood from where he’d fallen on the rug.
Whimpering, Garret fumbled with the weapon until it broke down, folding the barrels across his arm. After three tries, he managed to slide a shell into each barrel and snap the weapon closed. He hefted it to his shoulder, stood, and staggered under another wave of dizziness. His vision cleared after a moment, but his breathing was ragged and uneven.
His bit his lip and reset his grip on the gun. Twice. Finally he remembered to thumb the hammers. They clicked tightly. He didn’t want to step back out on the porch again, but he couldn’t stay in the house either. He had to go, had to put as much distance as he could between himself and whatever-it-was.
In the back of the house, not nearly far enough away for his comfort, came the creak of an opening door. Garret whirled, pointing the gun. Footsteps approached through the house, moving fast.
Oh Jesus. Garret cowered back into the corner by the dresser and tried to steady the gun at the foyer. Time slowed. His heart beats became hammer blows, falling slowly to count the last seconds of his life. He didn’t know what the creature was, but he knew it was big, strong, and deadly. His imagination painted dozens of horrifying images for him as the footsteps paced up the hallway.
It was three steps away. Garret held his breath, finger on the trigger, every muscle in his body drawing tighter and tighter. During its last two steps, his imagination stopped painting pictures of the creature, and started painting pictures of himself, pictures of his blood and death in the huge dark hands of a furry beast with no face. It would round the corner and pounce. He’d seen how fast it could move. Would he have time for a shot?
Brimstone Page 17
