Hope's End: Ancient Enemy 3

by Mark Lukens

  ​“What are we supposed to do?” Jed asked. “Bury them? We’d be here for the next three days doing that. Ground’s probably frozen anyway.”

  ​Esmerelda didn’t say anything. She looked up at the sky, noticing the buzzards that were circling. “We can’t just leave them out here to be picked apart. This wasn’t their fault.”

  *

  Jed and Sanchez helped Billy build a travois so they could drag the dead bodies to the church. It was the biggest building, the only one that could house all of the dead. It was a place where the dead had already been.

  ​They searched a few of the buildings for supplies. In the livery they found some long, thin wooden poles they could use as the framing for their travois, and they pulled them up from the ground. The livery was empty—no sign of the horses; no dead horses or even any pieces of them. The horses were just gone.

  ​After the travois was built, the three men took turns dragging a dead body or two (or sometimes just pieces) up to the church in two-man teams. As they did that, Esmerelda cleaned up the saloon as best she could and started packing bags of supplies to take with them when they left.

  ​She went out back behind the saloon to the small house she rented and packed her own bag. There wasn’t much to take, just a few sets of clothes and shoes, the few photographs of her mother that she still had, and the stash of money she had been saving up over the last two years.

  ​When she was back in the saloon, she finished packing the rest of their bags: one for each of them. In each bag she included a blanket, a bag of jerky, a canteen of water, a bottle of whiskey, coffee beans, a few pots and pans, matches, a metal plate, a tin coffee cup, a fork and knife. She set the bags by the door. They were a little heavy, but they would need everything in them when they left.

  ​Once the job of filling up the church with the dead was done, they closed the doors and barred them shut with slats of wood. All four of them stood there in front of the church doors.

  ​“Should we write something on the door?” Esmerelda suggested. “Some kind of explanation?”

  ​“How are we supposed to explain what happened here?” Jed asked.

  ​No one had an answer for him.

  ​Billy walked down the street to the saloon. A few minutes later he was back with the can of red paint and the paint brush. He handed it to Esmerelda and said nothing. He just stared at her like he knew she would do the right thing.

  ​Esmerelda dipped the paintbrush into the can and wrote words on the slats of wood barring the red doors shut: DEAD INSIDE.

  ​She set the paint can down on the bed of gravel in front of the church steps.

  ​“Explanation enough,” Sanchez said.

  ​“They will probably just blame this on Indians,” Billy said.

  ​Jed tried not to laugh, but the laughter came out. It wasn’t funny in the least and he didn’t know why he was laughing. A few seconds later Esmerelda and Sanchez joined him in his laughter. Even Billy chuckled at his own joke, but his eyes said that he hadn’t been joking.

  ​Jed wiped at his eyes and looked up at the sky. It was only an hour and a half away from dusk now—they wouldn’t have much light left to travel by. “We’d better get going,” he told them.

  *

  Jed knew it was going to be a long walk, and the four of them had only made it a few miles outside of Hope’s End before they had to make camp for the night. They had plans to head in different directions tomorrow, but tonight they would stay together.

  ​They built a fire and ate some jerky and drank coffee. The fire was warm, but not as comforting as it should have been.

  ​“I’m going back to my family,” Sanchez told them after they were all quiet for a while. He’d never taken his gun belt off the whole time, and Jed was sure that had as much to do with him as any other threat out here. “I’ve had my share of adventure now. I’m ready to go back home.”

  ​Jed smiled and nodded. “I think I’ve had my share of adventure, too.”

  ​Esmerelda watched Jed, staring at him in that strange way that made him feel like she was reading his mind.

  ​Jed tore his eyes away from Esmerelda and looked at Billy. “What about you?”

  ​Billy stroked the silver charm hanging from his leather necklace, the charm that held the lock of David’s hair inside. Jed knew that Billy would always keep that silver charm with David’s hair in it, just like Jed knew he would always keep the photograph of David and his family with him.

  ​“I am going home too,” Billy said, but he didn’t expound on it.

  *

  Jed took the first watch while the others slept, but at some point he must’ve surrendered to pure exhaustion, nodding off during the night.

  ​He woke with a start about an hour before dawn. He knew something was wrong as soon as he sat up. The campfire was low, but not out yet. It provided a little light in the never-ending darkness, and even less warmth. Jed looked around at the other three. They were still sleeping, breathing heavy, curled up under their blankets.

  ​Jed thought of how the Ancient Enemy had made him and Roscoe fall asleep in the woods. The thought of it sent a spike of panic through his chest.

  ​A scuffling noise in the sand from behind Jed whirled him around. Jed had his pistol in his hand.

  ​A shadowy figure emerged from the darkness. Even before the man sat down in front of the embers of the fire between Sanchez and Billy, Jed knew it was Red Moon. The Navajo outlaw was naked, just like he had been the last time he had paid Jed a visit. Red Moon kept his head down, his hair covering that gigantic hole where his face used to be. The dying fire barely illuminated Red Moon, keeping him in flickering shadows. Things crawled underneath Red Moon’s skin: beetles and spiders—the Ancient Enemy itself.

  ​“What do you want?” Jed asked, aiming his Colt right at Red Moon. Jed’s arm shook so badly he wasn’t sure he would be able to put a bullet into Red Moon even if he wanted to.

  ​Red Moon didn’t answer.

  A coyote called out in the inky-black distance, then another coyote answered the first one’s call.

  Red Moon reached his left hand out towards Billy who slept on his blanket five feet away. Red Moon reached his right hand towards Sanchez. Red Moon’s arms were growing impossibly long, his fingers stretching to touch each man. Bones popped away from the joints inside of Red Moon’s arms as they grew longer, muscles and skin stretching and threatening to snap.

  ​Jed pulled the trigger and . . .

  ​. . . he jumped awake.

  ​It was almost dawn, the eastern sky on fire with the first rays of the morning sun. Jed sat up and looked around, his hand on his gun. The campfire was out, just a pile of ash and partially burned sticks of wood now with a weak tendril of smoke rising up.

  ​A hand touched Jed’s arm and he whirled around.

  ​It was David.

  ​Jed stared at the boy, his vision blurring as tears filled his eyes. “David . . .”

  ​“I am safe,” David said. “I am warm and safe now.” David smiled at him.

  ​Jed went to reach for David and then . . .

  ​. . . he woke up. He sat up and stared at the campfire. It was out just like it had been in the dream.

  ​A hand touched Jed’s arm. He turned, expecting to see David, but he saw Esmerelda instead.

  ​“It’s over,” Esmerelda told him. “It’s really over.”

  ​He stared at her for a long moment.

  ​She scooted closer to him and hugged him. She held him for a while, and he held her. It had been a long time since he’d held a woman like this.

  ​“I had a dream,” he whispered into her hair.

  ​She nodded.

  ​“I had a nightmare, but then I saw David.”

  ​“I know,” she said. And that’s all she needed to say. Jed was sure that she had seen David in her dreams, too.

  *

  An hour and a half later, after they had eaten a quick breakfast and broke camp, t
hey were ready to begin their long walk.

  ​Sanchez left them first, walking south towards Mexico. He would have the longest journey of them all. Jed figured Sanchez would buy a horse with all of the money he seemed to have. Whether he rode to Mexico or walked there, Jed was sure that he would reach his destination. Sanchez was a fighter. He was a survivor. Any obstacles he faced along his journey now would be nothing compared to what he had already seen in Hope’s End.

  ​Billy headed east. There were few words between the three of them when they parted, and soon they had nothing left to say to each other. Jed thanked him.

  ​Before Billy turned to walk away, he stared at Jed for a moment. “David is not dead,” he told him.

  ​Jed didn’t respond.

  ​“He is in a different place now,” Billy added. “He lives there now.”

  ​Jed nodded like he already knew that. And he swore he did. He had a feeling that Billy knew he had seen David in a dream—Billy knew things like Esmerelda knew things. He shook Billy’s hand and then watched him walk away.

  ​Jed and Esmerelda headed north to Smith Junction. Unless they could borrow a horse along the way, their walk was going to be a long one—at least three days and two nights of camping. But Esmerelda was strong, and she never complained once.

  ​“Billy’s right,” Esmerelda said six hours later when they stopped by a large grouping of rocks that Billy had told them about, a place where they would find pools of water in the rocks to refill their canteens.

  ​Jed didn’t answer Esmerelda as he sipped water from his canteen.

  ​“David’s not dead,” she said. “I can feel him.”

  ​Jed just nodded at her. He believed her.

  ​Later that night, as they camped, Jed asked Esmerelda what her plans were.

  ​“I’ve been saving my money for years now to get to California,” she said, and then she was quiet for a moment. “I’ve had enough money to leave for a while now. I don’t know why I was putting it off for so long.”

  ​Jed wondered if that was true. Maybe Esmerelda knew why she had put her journey off. Maybe deep down inside she knew that she needed to be in Hope’s End—she needed to be there to help David when the Ancient Enemy showed up.

  ​“What about you?” she asked.

  ​He shrugged. “Don’t really know. I don’t want to be a marshal anymore. I’m no good as a rancher or a farmer. I should just sell my place to Chavez.”

  ​Esmerelda moved closer to Jed, snuggling up to him. “Go with me. We could go to California. Travel up to San Francisco. Maybe even farther north.”

  ​Jed was quiet for a moment. And then he looked at her and smiled. “Yeah. Maybe we could.”

  ​Esmerelda kissed Jed . . . a long, slow kiss. She backed away and stared at him. And then she kissed him again.

  ​Jed felt better now than he had a long time. He wasn’t afraid now, and he wasn’t lonely anymore. For the first time in years he felt hope.

  CHAPTER 39

  New Mexico—2018

  David snapped awake in bed. For just a second he wasn’t sure where he was, but then he knew he was in his Aunt Awenita’s house, where he had lived the last seven years. It had been seven years since he had battled the Ancient Enemy in the ghost town that had once been the small town of Hope’s End so long ago. It had been seven years since he had traveled through Colorado, New Mexico, and then into Arizona with Stella and Cole. It had been seven years since he had first met Joe Blackhorn.

  ​He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of his bed, breathing out a long sigh. He was about to turn on the lamp next to his bed, but he didn’t. A shaft of moonlight shined in through the window and provided just enough light for him to see.

  ​He’d been dreaming, but it was more than that. Those weren’t dreams; they were memories . . . memories of Jed and Esmerelda, of Sanchez and Billy. Those memories were as real to him as the memories of Stella and Cole.

  ​And the memories of the Ancient Enemy.

  ​David felt like two people right now. It felt like one life had ended and a split second later he was here in this life. Yet when he slept, he was back in one of his old lives. Each time he woke up in a new life, the Ancient Enemy followed him.

  ​But not this time. No, this time the Ancient Enemy had been defeated in that ghost town.

  ​Hadn’t it?

  ​David took a sip from a bottle of water beside his lamp on the table next to his bed. He grabbed his cell phone and lay back down. He scrolled to an internet article he had come across a few days ago, one he had saved.

  ​The memories of his dream came flooding back as he stared at his phone. He remembered every one of them now: Jed, Esmerelda, Billy, and Sanchez. He remembered Moody holding a knife to his throat. He remembered his mother and father and his brother; he remembered what had happened to them in that house. He remembered the saloon and the church. He remembered Hope’s End when it was still a town, and not the ghost town it was now.

  ​And there were other memories, ones that went further back into the past. How far back? How many lives?

  ​He couldn’t think about that. When he woke up from these dreams, he had to think about something else or it would drive him crazy.

  ​He looked at the internet article he had saved on his phone. He’d been looking up any articles or news he could find about Costa Rica for a few years now. Mostly the articles were about tourism or local stories, but a few days ago he’d come across a frightening article about a village where everyone had been slaughtered. The people in the village had been mutilated beyond belief, a savagery so brutal it was almost unimaginable.

  ​The news article made him think of Billy Nez, the Navajo he’d known in another life. He remembered Billy telling them that there were other Ancient Enemies in other places. He also thought of Sanchez and the story he had told about an Ancient Enemy in the south among the Maya and Inca people, and the mass disappearances that had happened there in the past.

  ​David read the news article again. The local authorities were blaming the massacre on a drug cartel, but David couldn’t help thinking that it was something worse. He couldn’t help thinking about how close Stella and Cole were to that village. Stella had stayed in contact with him through the years. They had exchanged letters and texts, even talked to each other on Skype a few times. Stella and Cole were doing well, and David was happy about that. She and Cole were living down there under different names, and she was back to doing what she loved again, archaeology. She was working with a university down there on a dig site.

  ​But even though she seemed happy, David always saw just the hint of fear in her eyes when he talked with her through the computer. She tried to hide it, but he could see it. He told himself that she was just traumatized—like he had been and still was—but it was more than that, it was like she was waiting for all of it to start again, for the Ancient Enemy to find them again.

  ​And now, after reading the article about the slaughter in the village thirty miles away from where Stella and Cole lived, David couldn’t help thinking that they might be in danger.

  David stared up at the ceiling in the darkness, wondering what he should do. Should he text her? Warn her? But what if it wasn’t the Ancient Enemy? What if it really was some drug cartel? Or a madman, some crazy serial killer? David had seen a killer in his dreams, a man who seemed like a living shadow, a man who prowled the darkness and killed, a man who couldn’t be caught by the police.

  He sat up with his phone, Stella’s contact page already on the screen. His finger hovered over the keyboard, ready to type a message.

  CHAPTER 40

  “Get up!” Stella yelled at Cole, pulling the bedsheet off of the bed.

  ​Cole sat bolt-upright in bed. Stella had the overhead light on and their two battered suitcases sat on the tiled floor near the doorway. He had no idea what time it was. It was still dark outside, and it felt like he’d only been asleep for a few minutes. But when he looked at the alarm c
lock he saw that it was almost dawn.

  ​Stella was dressed in jeans and a button down shirt, the sleeves rolled up. Her blond hair was tied back into a tight ponytail and she had her hiking boots on. Her eyes were wide with fear, her tanned skin paler than he’d seen it in years. He hadn’t seen her this frightened since . . .

  ​Cole jumped out of bed, wearing only a pair of underwear. He grabbed his clothes from the chair. It was hot in the bedroom, the ceiling fan barely pushing the heat away. They didn’t have any air conditioning in this house, but usually the ocean breeze was enough to cool them off. But even though it was hot, Cole felt cold. A chill danced across his skin, raising goose pimples. He felt like he was back in Colorado again, back in that freezing cold with something dangerous and unimaginable waiting outside, something approaching their front porch, something about to knock on their front door and ask for things.

  ​He was dressed in a few seconds, slipping his feet into a pair of boots, buckling the belt on his jeans, pulling a T-shirt over his head. He shoved his gun down into the waistband of his pants, making sure he had an extra magazine with him.

  ​Stella was somewhere else in the house. It sounded like she was throwing a few of their possessions into a cardboard box, taking only the bare necessities with them. And Cole knew what those necessities were. They had talked about being prepared many times during the seven years they had lived down here in Costa Rica. They had talked about keeping two suitcases ready in case they needed to leave suddenly. They had talked about the preparations they needed to make, the weapons they needed to have, the traps they needed to set. And now it was time to act.

  ​Cole darted towards the door where their suitcases waited, and Stella was hurrying down the hall to him. She was still scared, running around with nervous energy buzzing through her. She stopped when she saw him in the doorway.

  ​She didn’t need to say the words because Cole already knew, but she said them anyway: “It’s happening again.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: