by Ron Ripley
And the memory was there. Unbidden, unwanted, and relentless.
Rowan was no longer a forty-seven-year-old man, but an eight-year-old boy, standing in the snow beside his best friend. The sun shined down on them, and darkness uncurled from the trees, reached out long, dark tendrils and wrapped around Paul Higgins' limbs. First, a look of surprise settled on the man's face, then terror flashed across it.
Paul was jerked backward, knocked down, and dragged beneath the snow-heavy bows of a pine tree. Someone screamed, a loud, piercing sound, and Rowan discovered later that the scream was the combination of two voices, William’s and his own.
Rowan and William had fled from Preston Road. The two boys had been desperate to escape the monster that had grabbed William’s father, and they had made it to the safety of the main road. After the nightmare of Paul’s death, Rowan lost his best friend, William and his widowed mother moving far from Lake Nutaq.
Rowan shuddered as he remembered Paul. A man who had seemed too tall and vigorous to Rowan to be brought down by anything.
And on a cold, snowy day, Paul had been snatched away as if he hadn't been anything at all.
Enough! Rowan screamed. He slammed the car into gear and drove down to the entrance. When he arrived, Rowan stepped hard on the brakes, shocked to see another vehicle there.
The vehicle was free of snow and ice, the gray paint job dirty with salt and sand from the roads. Rowan knew it couldn’t be the man that Danny had told him about. Common sense said Shane’s car would be down further along the road, and more than likely covered in snow from the storm.
No, this was someone else.
Rowan put his car into park and turned off the engine.
Do they know what they’re getting into? he wondered. Rowan got out of the car and looked at the footprints that lead from the other vehicle down onto Preston Road.
“Hell,” Rowan whispered. “Do I?”
He looked down at the thick trees on either side of the road and realized he did not.
Chapter 45: Deeper into the Forest
They walked with a steady rhythm, following Jack through the gloom. The path he led them on was curved, and it didn't take Shane long to understand they moved parallel to Lake Nutaq. Somewhere, along the lake’s border, they would find where Broken Nose had hidden away the boy.
And with any luck, they would discover the Indian’s bones as well.
Don’t forget Patience, Shane thought, the girl’s memory bitter to him. We’ll burn her too. Hell, I’ll set the whole damned forest ablaze if I have to.
“Shane,” Frank said.
Shane looked over at his friend.
“You okay?” Frank asked.
Shane shook his head. "I'm angry. I'm going to hurt them if I can."
Frank raised an eyebrow. “Let’s just get it done with.”
“Can we hurt them?” Jack asked, appearing beside them. “Aye, there’s a question to be answered, what do you say, Frank?”
Frank didn’t answer, looking instead to Shane.
“I don’t know if we can hurt them,” Shane said. “And I don’t care. All I want is to get the boy, and send the dead into the next world.”
Jack snorted, a disappointed expression on his face. “And where is the fun in that, aye, my boy? Nowhere, says Jack, and it’s a truth to be sure. I’d rather find out if I can stick a blade in and twist it about.”
"You're welcome to try," Shane said, "after we get the boy out. Not before. Do it before, and you and I will have a bit of talking to do."
A sneer flickered across Jack’s face, and then the ghost was gone.
“He’s not exactly right in the head, is he,” Shane said.
“No,” Frank replied. “Not by any stretch of the imagination. Even Carl said as much.”
“Carl knew about him?” Shane asked, surprised.
“Yes,” Frank said, and he told Shane what he had learned from Carl.
Shane shook his head and came to a stop. “Where the hell did he go?”
“I don’t know,” Frank answered. He shifted the shotgun in his hands and dug the bright gold button out of his pocket.
Frank held it up to his mouth and whispered, the words faint.
“Jack,” Frank said. “Where are you?”
There was no response from the dead man.
Shane lifted his chin and felt the air. The temperature hadn’t changed. Jack wasn’t back, but no one else had arrived either.
“This isn’t good,” Shane said. He slipped the strap of the duffel bag off his shoulder and set it down in the snow at his feet. “I can’t say I have a lot of trust in our new friend, Jack.”
“That’s more than what I have,” Frank said.
“What do you mean?” Shane asked.
“I don’t trust him at all,” Frank said. He sank to one knee, looking out into the depths of the forest.
Shane wracked his memory for any shred of information in regards to Native Americans and their burial habits. He remembered only a little, a vague recollection concerning mounds and pyramids.
“We can’t wait for him,” Shane said. “If he doesn’t come back soon, though, I say we put his shiny button in the salt for him.”
“Sounds good to me,” Frank said, standing back up. He brushed the snow off his jeans and nodded to the bag. “Want me to carry it now?”
Shane began to say no, but he changed his mind, nodding instead. “Yeah. Best to switch off with it.”
“No, that’s not why,” Frank said, picking the bag up and shouldering it.
“Oh no?” Shane asked.
Frank shook his head.
“Why is it then?”
“It’s because you’re a cripple now,” Frank snickered.
Shane let a small smile creep onto his face as he thought, It’s good to face death with a friend.
Together the men continued on through the snow, angling their path towards what Shane hoped would be Lake Nutaq.
Chapter 46: Still Awake
Mark had managed to roll over, and he lay on his back, staring into darkness. His throat was dry, and his stomach rumbled, hunger overcoming the unrelenting ache of his broken leg. He felt exhausted, his eyes dry and pained as they moved in their sockets. Mark reached out around him, groping at the cold, hard dirt he found.
His fingers quested for a bit of ice or snow, anything to help slake his thirst and take his mind off the gnawing in his belly.
But there was nothing to find except for old and brittle leaves. Small, unseen creatures scurried away from his hands, and Mark was afraid the animals would nip at him.
“How are you?” Jonathan asked from beside Mark’s head.
Mark shuddered. “I’m hungry. And thirsty.”
“There is nothing here,” the dead boy said. “I am sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Mark said, sighing. Tears welled up in his eyes, but he held them back. He had cried enough. “Have you heard anything?”
“No,” Jonathan answered. “Broken Nose sits alone. The others have gone to seek out your savior. They will bring him back alive.”
Mark couldn't argue with the statement because he didn't know if it were true or not. He knew he didn't want it to be true. But all Mark had was a name and the affirmation from Jonathan that Shane was indeed looking for him.
“What do you think happened to my brother?” Mark whispered.
“I think he died, and nothing more,” Jonathan replied. “For which we must be grateful. He did not suffer at the hands of Broken Nose. Nor was he forced into an eternity of captivity within Patience’s foul depths.”
"Why do you hate your sister so much?" Mark asked. His throat hurt with the effort to talk, and to keep his voice level, but he was too afraid of the silence and the darkness.
“It was she who betrayed us,” Jonathan answered, anger rising in his voice. “The savages had attacked us, and we were safe. Secure within our garrison house. We had only to hold out until the heathens tired of the siege.”
&nb
sp; “Would they have left?” Mark asked.
“Yes,” Jonathan answered, confidence in the response. “They always did. Fields would be set afire, animals butchered. Houses razed. But always they did leave, and always the men went out to exact vengeance. This time, too, it would have kept to its rhythm, had it not been for Patience. It was she who unlocked the back door. She slipped the bar and let them creep in among us. Those that died quick, they were indeed the lucky ones. The rest of us, we suffered. And the strongest of us are trapped here, unable to claim our places in Heaven.”
Mark wanted to ask more, but the sound of voices silenced him.
“So I says,” a deep, manly voice stated, “I wanted to try my hand at killing one of the savages. Or whatever it is that can be done to our kind. They weren’t obliged to let me try. No, not at all. Which is all well and good, now that I thinks on it a bit more.”
Mark heard Broken Nose answer, and Patience translated. Her words were too faint to be understood. The stranger's boisterous laugh and the cruel undertone to it made Mark believe that it had not been a funny or pleasant statement in the least.
“Well, ‘tis neither here nor there at this point, aye, my girl?” the stranger asked.
Patience's answer was once more too weak to hear.
"Yes," the stranger said, clearing his throat, "send your bucks along with me, and I'll lead them straight, so I will. And I've your word I can stay here?"
Patience’s murmur set the man to laughing.
“Oh aye,” the man said, “I’ll not kill too many, that I promise. I’d scare off the rest of the flock, what?”
Chortling, the stranger left, his voice fading.
Broken Nose and Patience exchanged a few words in the Native American’s own language, and left, their voices fading.
“I fear the worse for Shane,” Jonathan said. “It seems he is to be betrayed, for the man speaking to Broken Nose was a member of his party.”
The thought of being trapped, when rescue had seemed so close, caused Mark to shake. It started as a tremble and transformed itself into something violent. He clenched his jaw to keep his scream of pain and fear trapped in his throat.
“Calm yourself,” Jonathan urged. “Keep your body and your mind your own. Do not let fear take them from you, Mark. Find the strength of your name, it is a good name, the name of one chosen by God.”
Mark didn’t find any strength in his name, but he found a place of comfort in the dead boy’s voice. He focused on the gentle rise and fall of Jonathan’s words, the lilt in the way he spoke.
In a few moments, Mark was calm. He forced his jaw to relax, rubbing the muscles with one hand, and trying to ignore a throbbing headache that had sprung up behind his eyes.
“Are you calmer now?” Jonathan asked.
“Yes,” Mark managed to answer.
“Good.” Jonathan paused, then added, “If the worst occurs, then it will be up to you to save yourself. Do you understand?”
“No,” Mark responded. “How can I save myself? I’m trapped.”
He hated the sound of hysteria as it crept into his voice, but he couldn’t seem to stop it.
“Hush,” Jonathan said gently. “No one is ever trapped. Not when you have the will. I will help you, and you will be free. My sister and Broken Nose have gathered enough souls to them.”
“Alright,” Mark whispered, turning his head towards the sound of Jonathan’s voice. “I will save myself if I have to.”
“Good,” Jonathan whispered, and silence fell over them as they waited for news of Shane.
Chapter 47: Going Down Preston Road
Rowan fought his fear with each step he took. He felt watched, the sensation gnawing at what little remained of his confidence. A small part of himself told him to man up, to deal with the fear. It reminded him of when he had gone and pulled people from burning cars, intervened between men fighting, and when he had needed to jump into Lake Nutaq to save a child from drowning.
Yet all of those occurrences had been within the scope of his job as a peace officer. They were, when it came right down to it, mundane.
Looking for monsters, the supernatural kind, was not anything he had considered doing.
Not ever, he told himself.
Rowan reached the cabins of Preston Road and came to a stop.
His eyes took in the entirety of the scene, his training cataloging everything. He saw the snow-covered car at the first cabin on the left, and the churned snow from the steps to the battered remains of Danny's plow. Rowan saw the cabin's door hung askew and open.
Snowmobile tracks ran from the right, arced around the plow, and back down towards the clubhouse. At that building, he saw Clark's van, and the damage done to it and the structure. There was a path from the first cabin to the clubhouse, and Rowan wondered what had happened on Preston Road.
Without knowing why, he lowered his hand to his semi-automatic pistol, slipped the holster’s loop off it, and took a deep breath. He let the air out slowly through his nostrils, the steam curling up past him as he considered what to do next.
His thoughts were interrupted by a high-pitched yowl, jerking his head over to the right as he drew the pistol with a single, smooth motion.
A Native American man ran out from between a couple of cabins, a war club raised over his head.
“Stop!” Rowan ordered, steadying his right hand with his left and sighting down the barrel. He kept the weapon pointed at the man’s chest, and it was then Rowan realized two facts.
The first was that the man’s breath wasn’t forming the clouds of white it should have been. Second, Rowan could see through the man, as if the stranger was nothing more than a trick of the light.
Rowan fired the pistol anyway.
The sound of the weapon rang off the cabin walls and raced into the woods.
Rowan knew he had hit the stranger because he never missed.
A hole had even appeared in the wood of the cabin behind the man.
But the Native American kept charging towards him, closing the distance with long, powerful strides.
Rowan fired two more shots, the brass casings spinning through the air before landing in the snow.
After the third shot, Rowan turned to run. A sense of panic was fighting his rational mind for control of his body, and Rowan understood he wouldn’t make it to his car before the man caught him.
Instead of turning towards the road, Rowan ran for the open door of the cabin on the left.
With the screaming man behind him, Rowan barreled up the steps, slammed into the open door and slid on a pile of rock salt scattered around the threshold. He tripped, stumbled, and then fell into a chair, knocking something heavy onto the floor which landed with a loud thwack.
Rowan fell on the floor but managed to hold onto his pistol. He twisted around and fired three more useless shots at the figure which appeared in the doorway. The man laughed at him, glanced down at the scattered salt, and frowned.
Rowan tried to steady himself, preparing to push himself up, but his gloved hand smacked a hard piece of metal. Turning his attention to it, Rowan saw it was a rough length of plow-edge, the iron pitted and worn. Someone, he noticed, had wrapped the bottom with medical tape.
Without knowing why, Rowan grabbed the iron, holding onto it as he would a life raft. Gripping the makeshift weapon, Rowan faced the Native American, who was squatting down and looking at the salt. The man rested his war club on his shoulder and scratched at his topknot.
Rowan stood up, holstering his useless pistol.
The movement and the noise caught the other man’s attention, and he gave Rowan a smile that caused the hairs on his neck to stand up.
He’s a ghost, Rowan thought, the idea strange and foreign to him. He’s already dead. That’s why the bullets didn’t do anything.
The dead man used the war club to point at the iron in Rowan’s hand. He spoke in a language Rowan couldn’t understand, but the meaning was clear.
The iron was not welcome.
Rowan felt a surge of hope, and he switched the weapon from his left hand to his right. He pointed it at the dead man and said, "Come on."
The man snarled at Rowan and gestured to the salt on the floor, making a sweeping gesture.
It keeps him out. Salt.
“You don’t like the salt?” Rowan asked, nodding towards it.
Again, the dead man gestured to it, then he beckoned Rowan forward.
“Sure,” Rowan said. “Sure.”
He took a step forward and squatted down. In the corner of his eye, he saw the dead man raise the war club in a slow arc, and Rowan thrust the iron plow edge forward.
The result was instantaneous and thrilling.
A scream of rage was ripped from the throat of the dead man even as the ghost vanished.
Rowan was left alone with ringing ears and a way to protect himself.
He straightened up, adjusted his grip on the iron, and turned away from the door. Danny had said Matt was dead. Shane, whoever that was, had tried to save him.
It was time to see if Matt’s body was in the cabin.
Rowan took only a few steps into the small den, passed the chair he had knocked over and into the doorway of the bedroom.
Matt Rushford lay on the floor, hands folded on his chest, legs, and feet together.
There wasn’t a single mark on the boy’s body, and his face looked younger than Rowan knew him to be.
Rowan’s heart ached for Doreen, but Mark was still alive, and he needed to find her younger son.
Taking a blanket from the bed, Rowan spread it out over Matt. He didn't try to say any prayers. The sadness he felt faded away beneath a growing wave of anger.
With the iron in his hand, Rowan turned away from the body and went to find Mark.
Chapter 48: Jack Returns
Jack appeared from behind an evergreen, and Shane resisted the urge to scatter the ghost with a blast from the shotgun.
Without taking his finger off the trigger, Shane came to a stop, and Frank did the same. Shane noticed that Frank kept his weapon pointed on Jack, too. Jack seemed aware of it as well, looking from one man to the next.
