by Billy Farmer
“Looks like we’re hoofin it, boys,” Sam said, trying to cut through the tension.
Tom kicked the side of the Shining and said, “I didn’t say anything when we left the patch, but I worried about the right track. It had seen better days, for sure.”
Titouan began to say something, but I stopped him. “Dammit. Just shut the hell up. You can tell your dad paid your way into Wharton because you’re dumb as shit, aren’t you?”
“Son, you better listen to William. He’s tryin to save ya from a bruisin,” Sam said.
Titouan mumbled gibberish before grabbing his lantern and taking off in a direction he thought we should be going. After he thought he was outside of earshot, he muttered something more loudly than maybe he intended. Tom didn’t take very kind to having his mom being called a bitch. To my surprise, though, Tom just shook his head and laughed before saying, “I want to be in the room when he tells Miley what happened at the Patch.”
I nodded. “We can make that happen.”
There were no geographical references, like mountains or signs, to guide us in the right direction, and honestly, it wouldn't have mattered if there had been. Mother Nature was throwing so much snow at us that with the bright lights of the Shining we could only see just a few feet in front of us. With our battery powered lamps, it was much less, inches maybe. Factor in the wind-swept snow quickly obscuring the already deteriorating remnants of ice road, and what you had was a cluster fuck in the making.
Tom thought the road wasn’t a straight shot to Barrow. He believed it bent significantly to the east. We decided we’d rather miss Barrow to the west than we would to the east because it was so sparsely populated. We sat out on a point roughly west of the front end of the Shining. If we had already left the road, we were screwed plain and simple.
“What do we do about him?” Tish nodded her head towards Titouan. His little tantrum had netted him about twenty steps.
“He’ll get back in line before he loses sight of our lamp light. He’s too big of a pussy to go at it alone,” Tom said, “especially now that he’s seen a boogieman.”
"This way, Titouan," I finally said. There was safety in numbers. He slowly adjusted his course but stayed back just far enough to try to make us believe he was still going his way.
We walked for what seemed like forever but still hadn't reached Barrow. The bit of good news was the gale-force winds had started to abate, if only a little, and so had the snowfall. Avery was the first one to say we should've seen lights from Barrow if we were even remotely close to it. That was the bad news. There were, however, clear signs of a snow bank to our left. Whether it was man made or a product of the wind piling the snow was still up for debate. Nevertheless, we walked towards it.
“This is the road," Tom said. Avery agreed.
“Holy squirtin Mother Mary, do ya guys see what I see?” Sam asked.
That happiness evident in Sam’s characteristically crass retort quickly faded to apprehension as we got closer to the edge of town. Off beyond the rough banks of the seawall, I saw a smattering of small structures still mostly cloaked in darkness and blowing snow, but slowly coming into frame as we moved closer. Something odd quickly became evident about those structures and the light poles dotting the road beside them, but also went a long way in explaining why we didn’t see lights in Barrow. There weren’t any. The town was ominously dark.
Chapter 5
Barrow is a Jekyll and Hyde kind of city. If you were to walk the streets, seeing all the wind-battered and tattered houses, all the junk lying around, not to mention the unpaved roads, you might leave with the impression that it was one of the most forsaken and impoverished places you’ve ever seen. Take a closer look and you might be surprised by what you uncover. You’ll see schools that are equally as nice, and even in some cases nicer, than most back in the lower forty-eight, libraries and administrative buildings that are also top notch, and rounded off with many valuable services offered to the community. All of this wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for the glut of oil revenues that flowed through Barrow, and, well, Alaska in general.
The bleak emptiness battered our spirits worse than the buffeting winds that assaulted us as we passed over the sea wall. There was no one in the streets but us. Our headlamps danced in the darkness, trying to find any sign that our initial reaction was just carryover pessimism from the Patch. Tom tried in vain on at least three occasions to rouse people from their houses by pounding on their doors. There were no answers.
The Hyde side of Barrow was on full display.
Sam pointed to a group of small houses. “You see anythang odd ‘bout ‘em?”
“The doors are open,” I said.
“Lot of houses with the doors wide open. Some shit goin on here.”
“Lot of that going on right now – shit, that is.”
Sam cocked his head, grinned, and said, “We should of done stayed in East Texas.”
“No argument here.”
Tish led us. Because she did her clinicals in Barrow, she had a much better idea about the lay of the land. She had become invaluable as a member of our crew, even before the power went out. It’s funny to think that she almost didn’t come to the Patch.
The day I called her for an interview, she said she was packing to go back to Fairbanks. She was finishing up her clinicals when she had gotten into it with one of her advisers. The lady at the hospital told me not to hire her because she was hateful, but I needed someone to help our nurse. Not taking the woman’s advice, I interviewed her, and we hit it off instantly. We were glad to have her then, and we were gladder to have her that first night in Barrow.
We had just crossed over Stevenson Street and were making our way southeast to Momeganna Street. That would take us to the Wiley Post-Will Rogers Airport. Miley’s office complex was about a mile to the east from there. We were already several blocks into the city by this point, and we still hadn’t come across anything that would ease the fears that something ominous and strange was happening. It was going to be a long, weird walk to Miley’s.
“Must be about midday,” Tish said.
I hadn’t noticed until that moment it had gotten a little brighter outside. Twilight isn’t just a movie about douchey, brooding teenage vampires. It’s also a time in the arctic winter (around noontime or a bit earlier) when the sun is oriented just below the horizon, but high enough to provide enough light to keep everything from being drenched in complete darkness. Depending on the time of year, it might last two or three hours. The extra light it brought was welcomed indeed.
“At least we know about what time it is. That’s something,” I said.
Titouan sighed. “Does it really matter?”
“To us it does.”
“I guess.”
“We’ll just haft ta make the best of things, fellers,” Sam said as he hurried to catch up with Tish.
Shaking his head, Titouan asked, “What’s he got to be positive about?”
“The converse could be said about you,” I said, smirking.
“Something is wrong with him if he can be happy during this,” he said.
“The difference between you and Sam is he’s not trying to bring people down. He’s trying to help. You could learn a thing or two from him. Hell, we both could,” I said.
He exhaled loudly and slowed his pace, so I would walk ahead of him.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched. During the entirety of that period there weren’t any noises or obvious indications that would warrant a normal person like I supposedly was to call for a full-on red alert, but I had a deeply visceral feeling of a looming threat lurking in the darkness. Obviously, with the hunt for Titouan’s ghost episode not that far behind me, I didn’t want to be fat-dude who cried wolf. Even when I finally heard real evidence that justified my fears, I was hesitant to act.
I slowed down. Avery synchronized his pace with mine but was seemingly oblivious as to why I had slowed. I gave him a quick look, hop
ing he had heard it, too. His eyes remained forward. He was there but we were obviously focused on different things, not to mention him not hearing what I thought I had. We walked further, my head on a swivel, watching every alleyway and nook and cranny we passed. I saw nothing.
A bit further down the street, Avery gasped and blurted way too loudly, “William…” He turned to me and with wide eyes said, “Someone was crouched back there. I do not think he saw us. He seemed to be focused on something behind us.”
Before I had time to react to what Avery had said, I heard a loud sniff and a grunt, followed by fast footfalls. I turned to warn Tom, but it was too late. The gray blur was on him in an instant. He had seen the attacker, as he tried to raise his rifle to take a shot, but his man was on him too quickly. The attacker saw us, but for whatever reason had peeled off in the direction we had come from, full on sprint, his head jerking inhumanly in one direction or another, oddly out of sync with the rest of his body, as he ran back towards the big bank in Barrow.
Sam quickly caught up to and surpassed me, making his way to Tom. As I approached Tom, I was pretty sure I heard him say, “The sonofabitch cut me.” I gasped as I saw crimson flowing through the gaps between his fingers as he tightly grasped his throat.
Curses and hard breaths filled the space formerly occupied by howling wind and pelting snow.
“He’s bleedin bad, boys,” Sam said.
Tish didn’t waste any time working on him. I saw her rummaging through the bag she carried. Frustrated, she said something about not having what she needed to help him. How do you like that, we brought a nurse but forgot things she might need in case of an emergency. We could’ve been a case study in how not to handle emergencies. I picked up the gun Tom and dropped off the road and prepared myself to guard against another attack. Maybe I could at least do that right.
“How bad is it?” I asked, trying to keep a lookout while struggling to get my breath.
She didn’t respond.
“Is he dying?” Avery asked.
“Shut yer damn mouth, boy,” Sam hissed.
“Apply pressure here, Sam. We got to get him inside and fast,” Tish said, as she wiped blood on her pants.
I knew we had to get him inside, but inside where? We were still more than a mile from Miley's office, so that was out of the question. Assuming the hospital was operational, and I didn't, it was farther away than Miley’s. That also wouldn't work. Instead of concentrating on what I needed to do, my mind raced, about things I should've done and things I could've done differently in my life, both past and present.
I heard a voice off in the distance; it was faint but serious. I began to wonder if that was what a nervous breakdown felt like. Then I reasoned, if was cognizant enough to question my mental state, then I probably wasn’t. I'm not sure you have the faculty of recognition during an episode such as that, but I might’ve been overthinking things.
The voice called again, louder this time, yet muffled and essentially incomprehensible. If you’ve ever watched a war movie, the voice sounded like what a soldier heard after an explosion. After some amount of time, I decided it was Tish’s voice I was hearing. She was yelling at me, now. Instantly, the world snapped back into focus.
On sheer instinct, I ran down Nanook Street. The first or second house I came to, I ran up to the door and began to kick it in. I don’t even remember checking to see if it was unlocked. I just kicked the hell out of it, over and over again. After a few good kicks, the door was swinging wide open. I called a couple warnings to anyone who might be inside and then waited. No one thankfully answered.
I busted ass getting back to Tom, sweat pouring off me as my feet pounded the snow. As tired and out of breath as I was, I still managed to help Sam carry Tom back to the broken-in house.
“Easy,” Tish said, as we gently lay him on the living room floor.
“Figure out how to keep that door closed, Avery,” I said, hands on knees and gulping for breaths of air that weren’t coming quickly enough. And if that wasn’t a testament to just how out of shape I was, then I don’t know what is. I remember being told in peewee football to stand up straight and put your hands on your head. I did that, and it seemed to help. I was dizzy as hell and coughed until I nearly puked. I needed to lose some damn weight.
We placed lamps around Tom. His face was already pale from loss of blood. He moved his mouth trying to say something, but nothing came out. His eyelids fluttered and then slid closed, hopefully just passing out from loss of blood or pain, and not anything more grievous. Tish grabbed a pillow case off a pillow lying on the couch and used it to replace the blood-soaked bandage she had applied earlier. It didn’t seem particularly sterile, but I didn’t argue with her. “Keep the pressure, Sam,” Tish said, placing his where hers was.
Tish pulled me aside. As much as she tried to hide it, she was terrified.
“William,” she whispered, with a slight tremble, “I’m not sure I can help him. I’m… I’m not ready for this.”
“None of us are. We have to do the best we can. That’s all we can do.”
Tears streamed down her face. “It could be his carotid artery…”
“Then you probably need to be working on it.”
She nodded slightly and then wiped her eyes and nose with her ungloved hands. “I have to have needle and thread to stitch his neck up,” she said.
No, we didn’t bring that either.
As I searched through a bedroom that adjoined the living room, I heard Titouan say something to the extent of shouldn’t we be worried if the homeowner comes home. To which Sam replied, “You’ll have a lot more to worry ‘bout if ya don’t get ta lookin for what Tish needs.”
I opened a door in the bedroom that weirdly led into the kitchen. I pulled out every drawer I saw. I was looking for the one drawer that rules them all. The one that is stuffed full of crap like menus from every restaurant in town that does take out, tools of various types, pot holders, and the one thing we needed most, needle and thread.
After only a few minutes searching, I found what I was looking for. “I’ll be damned,” I said out loud. “Everyone does have that drawer.”
Needle and thread in hand, I began to walk out of the kitchen when I saw something out of place near the kitchen table. The battery in my headlamp was nearly dead, so it was difficult to make out the form hidden in the shadows of dark kitchen. I moved slowly towards the table, where a human-shaped silhouette began to take shape. I came to a dead stop. Holy shit.
“I’m so sorry for being in here,” I said, inching closer to the table. “Our friend is hurt. I didn’t think anyone was home…” I stopped, leaving plenty of space between myself and the table. I could see the form of who was sitting there, but the shadows concealed whether it was a woman or man, and honestly, to me, it didn’t matter. I was an intruder in someone’s home, in Alaska, the place where everyone has a gun.
“Hello?” No answer. I lowered the gun barrel, taking a passive of a stance as possible. For all I knew, the person could’ve had a gun pointed at me as soon as I entered the kitchen, and my life hung on a single false step. “Hello,” I repeated.
I adjusted my headlamp, hoping to get a better view of the person. It was a woman… Her eyes were wide open like she’d seen a ghost or something. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” I said. Her mouth was closed, lips pinched so tight that there was scant difference between the upper and lower lip. My first inclination was that she was dead. There were a newspaper and a half empty glass of water sitting on the table beside her. Maybe she had an aneurysm or something – just died while reading the morning paper.
I moved closer, feeling comfortable enough in my assessment that she was no longer with us. Sam’s voice could be heard from the living room. He and Tish were talking about something, but I couldn’t make out what precisely. It never entered my mind to call out to them. Hell, I’d forgotten I had found the needle and thread. My focus was squarely on what was unfolding in the kitchen.
>
The woman was middle-aged and had been, at some other time, attractive. Then, though, her skin was a sickly, blueish-gray color, slick and shiny from a film that covered her exposed skin. Her eyes were dark and too large for her face. The whites were replaced with the same sickly gray color of her skin, except they were interspersed with large deep red blood vessels. Her irises and pupils were almost indistinguishable from one another. I’d never seen a dead person’s eyes before, but not even in my most wicked of magic-mushroom driven dreams could I imagine conjuring up anything that remotely looked like hers.
A sudden noise nearly caused me to jump out of my boots. It sounded like something heavy had been knocked over in the snow outside the house– muffled but loud enough to send another wave of adrenaline through my already saturated nervous system. I quickly walked towards the window facing the back yard. Even with the extra light twilight afforded, the only thing I could see of note was the pile of broken appliances. It didn’t help that my headlamp was casting a reflection off the window pane. I switched it off, but still couldn’t see anything.
More ghosts, I thought. I returned my focus to more important matters. I flipped my headlamp back on. Damn, were her eyes creepy as shit. Wait. No – no, I didn’t just see that. Fuck that, I remember thinking.
I moved closer but saw the same thing several seconds later. One of her eyes was as wide open as it was before. The other one, though, blinked, two times in as many minutes.
Another noise. This time inside the kitchen. Footsteps, I thought. The shadow-cloaked figure moved towards me. Acting on pure instinct, I swung the rifle around to greet my assailant. I remember striking something hard as I swung the rifle.
Much of that encounter was clouded in adrenaline and pure unadulterated fear. I do, however, remember hearing Titouan’s voice, while taking aim at my attacker. Too bad for Titouan, my mind didn’t register the possibility that the known voice might belong to the still veiled figure.
