Night Chill

by Jeff Gunhus

  “Turn around,” Janney called out. “Raise your shirt. Any weapons you have, I want on the ground right now.”

  Lonetree did as he was instructed. His face cast like a death mask, his eyes never leaving the spot where Sarah’s screams had now been replaced with soft whimpering. Jack wanted to tell the man he appreciated the sacrifice he had just made. He wondered though if Lonetree really had given himself up for Sarah, or if it was that he wanted to look into the eyes of the devil he had hunted for so long. The Boss was on the other side of the halogen lights. Maybe he had decided it was worth his life to stand face-to-face the man who had killed his brother and father.

  “Cover me, Huckley,” Janney said before sliding out from behind the rocks beyond the lamps. He walked carefully toward Lonetree, his gun trained on the big man’s chest. The sheriff’s face puckered from the stress of the moment, as if he were walking up on a sedated animal, not quite sure if the drugs had taken all the fight out of him yet. Jack, too, wondered if Lonetree was playing with them. He felt detached from the situation, just a spectator hoping something big was about to happen.

  Janney patted Lonetree down, always watching his face for a sign he was about to attack. Finding nothing he called out over his shoulder, “He’s clean.”

  Huckley appeared first, looking like an animal that had maimed a bird and was now eager to have some fun with it. He clapped his hands together as if the sheer enjoyment of having Lonetree unarmed in front of him was too much to contain. But Lonetree didn’t look at him. His eyes were focused beyond the lights, waiting for the Boss to appear.

  Sarah came running out from the shadows first. She screamed and sprinted to Jack with her arms out wide. Jack hadn’t expected to see her free. He staggered a few steps toward her and sank to his knees to scoop her up in a bear hug. She jumped into his arms. He held her tight as her body heaved from crying. Jack rubbed her back and lied to his little girl over and over. “Everything’s going to be all right. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

  “Hello, Jack. I can’t say I expected to see you here.”

  Jack looked up, not ready to believe the voice he heard until his eyes confirmed the sight for him. Next to a stone pillar, his grey hair neatly combed back, stood Dr. Mansfield.

  “You?” Lonetree said, giving a voice to what Jack was thinking. “You’re the Boss?”

  “That’s right.” Dr. Mansfield walked toward them, smiling at Sarah hugging her father.

  “I don’t get it,” Jack said. “It’s not possible.”

  Dr. Mansfield smiled. “You’d be surprised what’s possible when it comes right down to it.” He turned to Lonetree. “So now you know. This was what your brother died trying to find out. Even at the end, I don’t think he ever guessed. Both you of you might have come closer if you ever stopped to understand what I am trying to accomplish here. Your brother never appreciated what this was all about.”

  “Killing little kids? No, he knew exactly what you fuckers are all about,” Lonetree said.

  Dr. Mansfield shrugged. “Drug abusers, runaways, teenage prostitutes. These are society’s throwaways. No one wants them. No one misses them when they disappear. I gave them something they would never had whoring and drugging their way across the country. I gave their lives meaning. I gave their lives a purpose.”

  “You took their lives. For this…this thing locked in that stone cage.”

  “This all is for mankind’s progress. Years from now these children will be heralded for their role and honored for their sacrifice. They were part of a process that will change the world.”

  Jack squeezed Sarah tighter against him. “Why Sarah? Why are you doing this to her?”

  Dr. Mansfield walked nearer, careful to keep his distance from Lonetree even though Huckley still had a gun aimed at his chest. “We have made so much progress, but there is a lot we don’t understand about the Source. We have reason to believe this little girl, with her special abilities, can open a new world to us. To all of us.”

  “Don’t talk about her like she’s some kind of lab animal,” Jack said, desperately trying to think of how to keep Dr. Mansfield talking. If his little girl had to die in this cave, he wanted to be able to hold her in his arms up until the last second. He willed Lonetree’s explosives to go off sooner and end their nightmare.

  Then Janney cried out and pointed toward the stone structure.

  In slow, jerking movements, Scott Moran crawled toward the group, trailing a swath of blood behind him.

  Scott Moran’s shirt was soaked through with blood from the gunshots to his torso. The right side of his face was caved in across on the jaw line when Jack beat him with the gun. Strips of skin hang off his skull from the deep lacerations. The left side of the face was untouched and the eyeball on that side roved around manically taking in the scene in front of it. The other eye was destroyed, ripped from its socket and mashed into the cheekbone. A groan came from deep in the man’s throat as he leaned to the side and spewed a gush of blood and bits of black flesh.

  “Jesus, what a mess,” Janney said.

  Scott Moran lurched in the direction of the voice but he seemed paralyzed from the waist down. His wounds were healing, so slowly that it was only noticeable on the edges of the cuts. Low, wet grunts came from deep in the man’s throat. He raised one arm toward Janney as if begging for help.

  Dr. Mansfield walked over, took Janney’s gun, placed the barrel against Scott Moran’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. Jack held the back of Sarah’s head so she wouldn’t see the spray of blood and brain matter that dripped down the rock wall behind Scott Moran as he collapsed to the floor.

  “He was healing. Why did you…” Janney’s voice faded as Dr. Mansfield spun around and pointed the gun at the sheriff’s head.

  “He questioned my authority when the decision had to be made about his daughter.” He cocked the gun. “Do you have a question too, Janney?”

  “No, Boss. Of course not.”

  Jack watched in fascination as Dr. Mansfield stood with the gun pressed against Janney’s head, bending the man to his will. He sneaked a look at his watch. Still seventeen minutes to go. It seemed like an eternity.

  Dr. Mansfield lowered the gun. “All right, enough delays. Tie up these two. We need Mr. Lonetree to tell us where his information about us is hidden. Having Jack will make it easier to convince Dr. Tremont to assist me.”

  “I thought we were going to just tell her that her daughter was still alive,” Huckley said. “Isn’t that what you told her upstairs?”

  “Lauren’s here?” Jack cried out.

  Dr. Mansfield ignored him. “That will only work for so long. Eventually she’ll want proof. That’s when Jack here will be useful. Did you have Janney’s man do what I told you?”

  “Of course. I assume you plan to kill him for the rape when we get topside. Make the Tremont woman think you’re the good guy.”

  At the mention of the rape, Jack’s mind went numb and the men’s conversation grew distant, as if they were disappearing into a tunnel. His world coalesced to the space occupied by himself and his daughter. There was no way out, he knew that now. He was out of time. They would all die in the cave and this madness would end. That, at least, was a consolation. But, with the men getting ready, it looked now as if Sarah might have to endure the cruel pain of the ritual before the explosives activated. Not only that, but he considered for the first time that the explosives might not detonate. Maybe there was a short in the charges. Maybe the cave could withstand whatever amount of C-4 Lonetree used. There was only one way for him to make sure him daughter didn’t suffer. It was a terrible responsibility, but it struck him that it was the only thing he could do for the little girl he held in his arms. He just didn’t know if he could bring himself to kill his own child.

  All around him were stone cages filled with skeletons of parents that had to make the same horrific decision. The same angry, vengeful souls, Melissa had shown him. Now Jack felt that every skull was turned
in his direction and every black, empty socket stared at him, urging him to do his duty. He heard their voices.

  Break her neck.

  Bash her head on a rock.

  You’ll do it if you love her.

  I did it.

  I had to do it to all my children.

  If you love her, you’ll kill her.

  And there was a murmuring undercurrent that ran through his head. It sounded like a swollen river, the kind that gurgles so that both vowels and consonants fill the air, almost words, like a foreign language that seems oddly familiar but indecipherable. It was the sound of many voices, all saying the same sentence, but overlapping so that words became unintelligible. But slowly, the more Jack focused, the more the voices synchronized until he could understand what the thousands of voices were saying.

  You failed us so you can suffer like us.

  Sarah arched her back and pushed off her father’s body with the palms of her hands. Jack let go enough so that she could look him in the face.

  Jesus, did she read my mind? Does she know I plan to kill her?

  Sarah nodded her head as if he had spoken the question out loud. He started to say something but she held a finger to his lips. “Shhhh, Daddy. You don’t have to do that. Melissa is here to help us. She brought the others. The ones who died here.” She leaned in so that her mouth was up against his ear. “Get ready to run, Daddy.”

  Before Jack could react, his daughter was ripped out of his arms by Nate Huckley. Jack cried out and lunged to grab onto her but Janney’s boot kicked him in the side, knocking the air out of him. He fell to the ground gasping for breath. When he looked up he saw that Huckley had stopped in his tracks, Sarah hanging limp in his arms.

  “Something’s wrong,” Huckley said. “I can feel it. I feel it in my bones.”

  “It’s nothing,” Dr. Mansfield said.

  “It’s a vibration.”

  “It’s nothing, I said.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You always say there’s background vibration from the Source. All other extra-sensory ability is drowned out by it, that’s what you always say.”

  “So?”

  “So the vibration must be coming from the Source. It must sense what is about to happen.”

  “I don’t know. All of a sudden I have a bad feeling about this,” Huckley said. “The vibration is getting stronger. It’s different somehow. Not from the Source.”

  “Come on, Huckley. You’re the one who brought us to this point,” Dr. Mansfield said. “This reaction must mean you were right. Think of what the Source promised us with this sacrifice. Free from all limits. Immortality could be minutes away for us. Immortality for the entire world. We have to find out.”

  Huckley squinted from pain. “Only part of the energy is coming from the Source.”

  He slid Sarah’s limp body to the ground. Her flesh was a white as her clothes. Her lips were blue from cold. She panted in quick, short breaths.

  “It’s coming from her.” Huckley closed his eyes, wincing. “The Source is drawing power from her. God, it’s getting more intense. This isn’t right. I can feel it in my head.”

  “What the hell is that?” Janney cried out turning to the stone cage nearest him. There was a scratching sound, like rats crawling over a pile of dry chicken bones.

  “It’s nothing. Just take the girl and…” Dr. Mansfield’s voice trailed off as a howl came from high in the cave. The light didn’t penetrate to the roof so a layer of darkness hung over them, leaving the source of the howl to their imaginations. “Just wind,” Dr. Mansfield said. “Remember there’s a storm outside.”

  Before any of the men could articulate what they all knew, that two centuries in the cave had yet produced the sound they just heard, the scraping sounds in the cages increased. It wasn’t just one of the cages, it was all of them.

  Janney was near one of the halogen floor lamps. He reached up and swiveled the light so that it faced out into the rows of cages around them.

  Bones danced everywhere. It was like the floor of the cages had been transformed into the surface of a drum being beat in at a furious tempo. There was no order to it. The bones remained a jumbled mess, rubbing and clacking against each other. Only the skulls had a specific orientation. A thousand dark eye sockets stared at the Source.

  Huckley’s howling was the only thing that tore Jack away from the sight of the skeletons. The man was on the floor next to Sarah, his hands pressed against his ears, screaming in pain.

  Jack took the opportunity and ran to his little girl. As he crossed between Lonetree and Dr. Mansfield, Lonetree surged toward the gun Jack had thrown on the floor when he surrendered.

  The explosion caught them all off guard. It was too soon for the C-4 charges but it didn’t stop Jack from thinking it was all over. Chunks of rock flew past his head. The ground shook and he fell forward to cover Sarah with his body. Debris fell on top of him, large enough to bruise but not to cause any real damage.

  When he looked up the area was bleached white by the halogens. The lights were ramping up in intensity as if a power surge was building in them. The lamp Janney had turned away from them exploded in a cloud of sparks. Then the second one blew, sending bits of glass and filament raining down.

  Jack covered his face until it stopped, then took stock of his surroundings. It was a freeze frame, no more than one second to burn the image into his mind.

  Huckley was still on the ground, his mouth open in a soundless scream.

  Janney crouched down, his arms wrapped around his head. Lonetree lay on the ground, seemingly unconscious, large rocks surrounding him from the explosion. Dr. Mansfield had been further to Jack’s right, but now he was gone.

  Out of his peripheral vision, Jack caught a movement to his left, the direction where the blast came from, the direction of the stone structure and the Source. Then he realized the explosion must have been the Source itself. He turned to see what the movement had been at the edge of his vision.

  Just as he did the last halogen flared into a brilliant supernova and exploded. The world turned black, the after-image of the burst of light hovering in front of Jack’s face. From his left, a screech tore through the air, shredding it with an unearthly pitch. The sound turned into a howl. Then rocks chattered as something ran away. Silence settled back over the ancient cave and Jack held his breath. He hadn’t seen it clearly, but in the last instant before the light exploded, he was sure of one thing. A dark form had risen from the destroyed stone structure and was climbing out over the rocks. The creature they called the Source had escaped.

  EIGHTY-TWO

  Jack fumbled in his pocket for the glo-stick Lonetree had given him. He found it, snapped the middle and shook it to activate the light. Sarah was conscious but disoriented. Looking her over quickly, Jack didn’t see any obvious injuries.

  “Mansfield got away,” Lonetree said.

  Jack jerked at the sound of his voice. He held up the glo-stick in the big man’s direction. A thick flow of blood had matted the hair at his temple and coated one side of his face. In the green glow, he looked like an old painting of an Indian in war paint.

  “You all right?” Lonetree asked.

  “I should be asking you that.”

  Lonetree waved him off. “I’m fine.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “I have no idea,” Lonetree said, moving toward him. “But we have less than eight minutes to get out of here. You want me to carry her?”

  “No way. She’s all mine.”

  Lonetree led the way. They ran as fast as they could over the challenging terrain using only the glo-stick for illumination. A minute into their mad dash, Lonetree snapped a larger glo-stick which surrounded them with a round ball of green florescence. It was risky but they needed to move faster if they stood any chance. Sarah whimpered into Jack’s shoulder and wrapped her legs around his midsection to hold on through the bouncy ride.

  “How far to the exit?” Jack called out
to Lonetree.

  “I don’t know. It can’t be far.” Lonetree turned back to answer, “There’s a trail here. Should make it easier to—”

  The gun shot came from behind them. The glo-stick shattered in Lonetree’s hands, the florescent liquid exploding in a spray of light. Sarah screamed. Jack turned away, shielding her with his body.

  A shadow flew from behind a stone cage and crashed into Lonetree’s side. The shadow and Lonetree rolled to the ground, wrestling and grunting, both bodies covered now by splotches of florescent green liquid.

  Jack held up his small glo-stick to illuminate the struggle in front of him. It was Janney. He had Lonetree pinned to the ground, straddling the big man with a knee on either side of his chest. Lonetree’s hands gripped Janney’s wrists, trying to push back the slow descent of a hunting knife toward his face.

  “Run,” Lonetree grunted. “Get her out of here.”

  Lonetree shifted his grip to the man’s forearms. But Janney was forcing the blade down inch-by-inch toward Lonetree’s eye, putting all of his weight behind the effort. Lonetree’s arms started to shake. Janney seemed to notice because he grinned and pushed harder, twisting side-to-side to weaken Lonetree’s grip.

  Jack pried Sarah off him and put her on the ground. He didn’t have a weapon, so he ran at the struggling figures and lowered his shoulder.

  The impact sent all three of them sprawling in a jangle of limbs. But Janney was quick to get back on his feet. Jack still clutched the glo-stick in his hand, making it easier for him to see. But it also made him an easy target. Janney charged toward him. As he did, Jack lunged at the man’s legs.

  He made contact right above the knees, wrapped his arms and drove forward with his legs. Janney tumbled over, hitting the ground hard.