by James Hunt
“In danger from who?” Terry asked, maintaining that even-keeled, inquisitive nature.
“From…” The answer eluded Amy, evaporating like her tears the moment it reached the tip of her tongue. She choked on the words, struggling to reclaim her thoughts, but in her struggle, another answer shoved its way to the forefront.
Terry stepped closer, his presence more intimidating than before. “Why were our children in danger, Amy?”
Amy’s tongue worked the motion of the words in her mouth. But she shook her head, refusing to speak them aloud.
“Who put them in danger?” Terry stepped closer, his words angrier than before, the shadow of a smile appearing on his face. He was giddy, excited, feeding off Amy’s anxiety. “Say it.”
The words filled her mouth, the pressure to speak them aloud growing stronger. Small bursts of mumbles escaped the tight seal of her lips. The gasket was about to blow, the pain of keeping the truth tucked away overwhelming.
Terry leaned closer, continuing to push Amy toward the edge. Excitement danced in his eyes like the fires that Amy had watched consume her children. “Say it!”
“Me!” The proclamation flew out of her mouth with enough force to cause Terry to step back. She dropped to her knees, shooting pain up into her hips and stomach as she hunched forward on all fours.
Terry dropped to a knee, leaning into Amy’s ear. “That’s right, Amy. It was your fault. All of this was because of you. You put your family in danger. A danger that still plagues them even while you’re here.”
“No.” Amy trembled on all fours, sweat dripping from her nose and rolling down her face, stinging her eyes along the way. “It’s not true. You’re not real.”
“I am real,” Terry said, hissing the words into her ear, letting them travel into the cracks of her mind and memory, forcing the divisions wider, making it harder for her to concentrate. “Everything in this place is real. The pain, the visions, it’s nothing more than a reflection of the truth.” Terry placed his hand on Amy’s back, the weight from it nearly buckling her to the ground. “The truth is a hard pill to swallow.”
“GAHH!” The pressure pushed down harder. The gravity of the place had somehow increased tenfold, and Amy used every ounce of strength she had left to keep herself from being flattened to the ground.
“Don’t fight it anymore, Amy.” Terry kept his hand on her back, still smiling, though the excitement had been replaced with apathy. “You know what you did to your family. It’s time you accepted that fact. Embrace it, and it will ease the pain.”
Amy fought it but grew weaker the longer she protested. It wasn’t her fault. The medicine man had cast this spell on her. He had been the one to make her hear the voices. It was his fault. He was to blame.
“But you still got in the car, Amy,” Terry said, countering her thoughts as if he could read her mind. “You drank, you drove, you totaled the car with your girls inside. The medicine man didn’t tell you to do that. You became overwhelmed. Because you are weak.” He applied the slightest pressure on her back.
Amy screamed, her mouth opened wide, her face a beet red.
“Your daughters will not survive,” Terry said, his voice more sinister. “Your husband will die.” It grew deeper, all base and baritone, the words rolling off his tongue and dripping onto her back like added weights. “You can do nothing to save them here.”
Amy’s muscles started to give out, her elbows bending. The flesh on her knees and her palms had already burned away. Blood seeped from beneath both and boiled on the rocky surface.
“You are nothing,” Terry said.
Amy sputtered defiant groans, the pressure in her head growing so intense she thought it might explode. Her eyes bulged from her skull, and blood dripped from her nose.
“You are weak,” Terry said.
Amy shut her eyes, turning her face away from the ground, her cheek just inches from contact.
“You are guilty.”
The last bit of Amy’s strength finally gave out, and she flattened to the ground. The searing heat momentarily overrode the contact of the vicious landing, her mind able to experience only so much pain at once.
She screamed and writhed and cursed with every word she knew, but it was all drowned out by the creature keeping her pinned down.
Its laughter was so deep that it shook the very ground beneath them, splitting open the rock and spewing more hot acid into the atmosphere.
She didn’t know if she could die in this place, but as the flesh and muscle melted from her body, she hoped that she did.
69
It took about an hour before Maisie finally worked herself into exhaustion. Liz had held her, but once Maisie had fallen asleep on her shoulder, Liz rolled her onto the bed, propping a pillow beneath her head.
And while Liz was exhausted, she couldn’t bring herself to sleep. Not with the man by the door.
After her father was taken, Liz and Maisie were escorted back to their room at the hotel building within Ghost Town. She didn’t know where they’d taken her dad.
The man who’d been charged with watching them had said little other than “Move”, “Go inside”, or “be quiet.” He had made no threats, and he had not been violent. His towering presence was threat enough. That and the pistol in his right hand, which currently rested on top of his right thigh.
Liz watched him, and he watched her. His eyes hadn’t left hers since the room door was locked.
It was like being stared at by one of those paintings where the eyes followed you no matter where you walked.
When Liz wasn’t noticing the brute’s gaze, she looked at her sister or out the window. The first few rays of sun had come up and Liz rifled through the options that remained to her.
The first was to do nothing and pray that her dad was able to appease whatever his boss wanted done and for all of this to blow over. The second was to hope that someone came looking for them. The third and the most ridiculous option was to try and overpower the man.
But Liz had zero chance with her five-foot-three-inch, one-hundred-ten-pound frame against the six-foot, two-hundred-fifty-pound linebacker with a gun. She needed something. Anything. She glanced at the bathroom door, and the spark of an idea formed in the back of her mind.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Liz said.
The thug maintained the stoic expression, and at first Liz didn’t think he’d heard her. Without blinking or moving another muscle, he finally replied. “Go.”
Liz stood and walked slowly to the restroom. She thought that she might have to convince him not to watch her while she peed, but he offered no rebuttal for her request. She figured that since Maisie was still out here with him, there was no need to keep an eye on her. The constant threat that he could kill either of them at any time with the pistol in his hand seemed more than enough of a deterrent to keep her from doing anything stupid.
Liz shut the door quickly and locked it. She leaned back, shut her eyes, and released the pent-up anxiety that had plagued her body for the past twenty-four hours with a slow exhale. She wanted to just curl up in a ball and stay in here until help arrived, but she knew that it wasn’t going to come unless she could contact them.
She forced herself off the door and to the sink, clutching it for dear life. Some of their bathroom toiletries were still in here, and she rummaged through them quickly.
Liz kept glancing toward the closed bathroom door, trying to keep as quiet as possible. She found the nail clippers, which had the fine tip of the filing point on them. It wasn’t much, but it was the only thing in the bag.
But how was she supposed to hurt him with that? She was sure he was quick, and it wasn’t like she could sneak up on him. She needed him to get distracted with something.
Liz scanned the room and then stopped when she saw the toilet. Still trying to remain quiet, she removed the porcelain top off the back and peered inside. She had a limited understanding of the toilet’s mechanics. When she had first gotten her period,
she had stuffed too many tampons down and clogged the toilet, causing it to flood the bathroom.
If Liz could flood the bathroom by clogging this toilet, then he might turn to investigate, at least giving her enough time to try and attack him, create enough time for Maisie to escape.
Liz opened the small linen closet in the bathroom, grabbed as many wash cloths as she could, and tossed them into the toilet. She reached for the chain that controlled the toilet’s water levels and snapped it from the piece of flimsy plastic holding it in place.
Once she flushed, the wash cloths would clog the toilet, and the tank would funnel water into the bowl, but with the chain broken, it wouldn’t have a way to stop the flow of water, and it would continue to run, spilling water over the bowl and onto the floor.
Liz placed her hand on the lever, stared down into the bowl where the cloths floated in a white and blue clump, and shut her eyes. “Please work.”
She pressed the lever and then stepped back, keeping her eyes focused on the toilet, watching the cloths spin down into the hole. “C’mon, work. Work,” she whispered to herself, fists clenched in tight balls.
The cloths reached the bottom hole where they stopped, piling on top of one another. Then water poured in from the tank into the bowl, rising higher than normal, and over the top of the bowl.
Liz would have screamed if she knew that it wouldn’t attract attention. Quickly, she rinsed her hand in the sink, pocketed the clippers, and quickly stepped out of the bathroom, closing the door before she walked back over to the bed.
She didn’t look directly at the brute, but she saw that he kept his attention on her as she walked past in her peripheral.
Maisie was still asleep, unfazed by Liz’s disappearance. But knowing that they might have to move quickly if her plan worked, Liz gently nudged Maisie, who groaned in defiance. “Hey, you need to wake up.”
“But I’m tired,” Maisie said, her voice muffled as she buried her face into the pillow.
“Hey, c’mon, you need to do what I say.” Liz gently but forcefully lifted Maisie into an upright position, and the little girl backpedaled to the bed’s headboard. There she leaned back, closing her eyes and nearly falling asleep again. “Hey.” Liz prodded her another time, and while Maisie grimaced, she finally kept her eyes open.
Liz looked back to the thug, his pair of eyes still watching them intently. She lowered her eyes to the gun and then looked to the locked front door.
Waiting for the water to continue to fill the bathroom, Liz mapped out her plan. She’d head down the hall, bypassing the elevators, and head for the stairs. She couldn’t afford to wait for a ride down.
Maisie would be a problem, and while Liz could carry her, she knew that she’d be half as fast with her sister in her arms. But she didn’t need much time, just enough commotion to cause alarm and bring people to help, or at the very least call the police.
Liz looked back to the closed bathroom door. A puddle of water had crept through the bottom crack, slowly inching its way forward at a glacier’s pace.
Liz inched closer, giving her sister a kiss on the cheek, and then quickly whispered in her ear, “When I grab you, I want you to get off the bed and run out of the room and down the hall.” Liz pulled back, quickly studying her sister’s expression. While she was young, she was able to understand the context of what Liz was talking about. She nodded, and Liz leaned back into her original position. She stole another quick glance at the bathroom door.
If this didn’t work, then she didn’t know what else was left.
The moment after Kara had spoken to her grandfather, she got into the truck and headed toward Ghost Town. She had never seen him so distraught or broken. She had gotten in the truck so quickly that she almost didn’t see Ben running out of the trailer.
Kara slammed on the brakes, and Ben veered toward the passenger side, a pair of rifles gripped in his bear paw of a right hand. He jumped inside.
Neither spoke on the ride over, both understanding what might happen and what would probably happen. It had been a long time coming, and she knew that Ben had been waiting for this a while now. The avenue of force was a path he had wanted to explore when they first started all of this.
Deep down, Kara knew that it would come to this. It was the inevitable collision of the runaway train into the station.
Kara turned off the truck’s headlights before they arrived at Ghost Town, concealing themselves in darkness on their approach. While the town had been evacuated, she figured that Mulaney would have his goons stationed inside or at the border.
Stealth was their best ally. They could scope out the situation and assess their options before barging in, guns blazing. Kara cast a side-eye at her brother, hoping that he would feel the same way.
But she didn’t think there would be a problem with him now. He had a reserved calm about him. He wasn’t anxious or angry. He was focused. Kara just had to make sure that he pointed all of that focus in the right direction.
Kara slowed when she saw the lights of Ghost Town up ahead. Ben detached one of the scopes on the rifle and peered through it.
“What do you see?” Kara asked.
Ben grunted a little. “One SUV parked outside of the hotel. No one in the streets.” He lowered it. “I don’t think he’s here.”
“Terry might not be,” Kara said. “But the girls could.”
Ben reattached the scope on the rifle. “You think he’d hurt them?”
Kara considered it. She knew that Mulaney was a scoundrel and a thief, but a murderer? She wasn’t sure. Though he had no problem trying to frame the murder of three people on her just the other day, so her judgement of his character was slightly skewed.
“I’ll park outside the gate on the northwest side,” Kara said.
“You should stay in the truck,” Ben replied, loading bullets into a magazine.
Kara frowned. “I’m not letting you go in there alone.”
“I’ll be fine.” Ben shoved the magazine into the rifle. He turned toward his sister, his face stoic. It was unnerving.
Kara leaned closer. “I’m just as much a part of this as you are, Ben. You can’t protect me from what’s coming. So don’t try.”
The stoic expression on Ben’s face cracked. “I’ll always try.”
Kara grabbed the back of his head, and the pair touched foreheads, eyes closed. “We do this together.”
Ben nodded, and Kara pulled back, veering off the road and parking the truck near the fence, but far enough from the road to where it was concealed by darkness.
Kara reached for the second rifle, Ben handing her one of the magazines that he just filled, but when she grabbed it, he held it for a moment, bringing her eyes to him.
“We move quickly. We don’t stop. If we shoot, we don’t hesitate.” Ben sounded exactly like their father whenever he was explaining something serious to them as children. It was stern, hard, but just palpable enough to understand.
Kara nodded. He released the magazine. She loaded her weapon. Both shut the truck doors quietly and then crept alongside the fence, eyes peering into the darkness. Their eyes had grown used to the dark, though Kara wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
They crept along the backside of the buildings, Ben taking the lead, their feet soundless in the sand they had spent a lifetime walking across.
And despite the danger and the stakes, Kara’s pulse was steady, every beat of her heart propelling her forward, her senses heightened the way she imagined her ancestors had been on a hunt, which her people had done for decades. She wished they would. She wished that they had held onto more of who they were. Then, maybe, they wouldn’t have had to fight so hard for what little they had left.
Ben paused just before the alleyway toward the hotel. He peered around the corner, his movements slow, like the subtle shifting of the sands.
Without a word, he stepped into the alleyway, and Kara followed. The hum of the building’s A/C units helped mask the sound of their feet on th
e concrete, Ben paused at the side door, which most likely led to a staircase. Kara sidled up next to him, both keeping their voices low.
“Stay by the door,” Ben said. “I’ll head to the front, see if there is anyone waiting in the lobby. If the Holloways are still here, then they’re probably in their room.” He looked at her. “Do you know which one it is?”
“No,” Kara answered.
“There might be a directory in the lobby. I’ll check it out.”
“Wait.” Kara lunged, pulling him back. She checked the door. It was locked. “Come back in through the stairwell to let me inside.”
Ben nodded, and he started forward, but Kara grabbed him one more time, and he cast her a more concerned glare.
“Make sure you come back and get me. Do not go alone, got it?”
Ben nodded, and Kara released him. She crouched behind one of the dumpsters, opposite the hotel’s side entrance, and waited.
The rotten stench of whatever was inside the dumpster permeated through the alleyway, and Kara figured that it had been roasting in there for a while. The terrifying image of corpses came to mind.
She thought of the Holloways, their bodies crammed inside, discarded with the filth compiled from the rest of the tourist trap. She clutched the rifle tighter, her knuckles whitening from the pressure she applied. It wasn’t right. None of this was right.
Time slowed while Kara waited, and every breeze, every rattling noise of the buildings beside her set off an internal alarm that caused her to pivot and check her surroundings to ensure that she was still alone.
And the longer it took for Ben to return, the quicker her patience unraveled. She was about to press forward when movement at the door to the side of the building caught her attention. Ben emerged from the doorway, gun aimed at Kara. Kara had her gun aimed at him.
Kara’s tension released, and she lowered her weapon as Ben stepped aside to let her in. Ben closed the door without a sound, then turned to Kara, who had her rifle aimed up the first flight of stairs.
“Top floor,” Ben said, his voice a whisper. “Number five-sixteen.”
