by Ford, Lizzy
I drew a deep breath and moved towards the cave, pausing in the open entrance.
It was larger than I expected, extending a good thirty feet into the canyon wall, and stocked with barrels and crates along the back wall.
A Native American man sat on a wooden box towards the back, staring at me with a mix of puzzlement and intensity. A glow flared around him briefly, the way it had at the market.
“Running Bear?” I called uncertainly.
He rose, tense, with one hand clenching a bloody knife and another a rabbit he was skinning.
The flickers of memories were faint, jumbled with the insistent whisperings and dream-like images emanating from everywhere in the cave. The chips were confused again, unable to read him clearly but reading the cave itself.
Not Running Bear. The man was an identical twin. The scar running down one side of his face marked the difference between the two men, along with the odd intensity and cold eyes. Running Bear hadn’t been happy to see me at any time our paths crossed, but this man was … hostile.
The historical chip was telling me about the massacre that he would commit, the same tale it told me about Running Bear. I realized with some dread that it wasn’t able to tell the difference between the two men. In fact, there was nothing anywhere in my mind that mentioned there being twins, as if the knowledge was either never recorded or lost somewhere in history.
But the visions of blood and shadows, of anger and hatred, belonged to this man. This was the man I could see starting a massacre.
There’s something very wrong with him. My empathic memories were scrambled and overwhelmed by the cave, for there was more than one source to the whispers, and they were spread around the cave, as if …
Dead. There were people buried in this cave, people whose lives had ended violently, right here, by the man whose mind was too tangled for me to read. Why hadn’t Carter told me I could read objects and places in addition to people?
“Who are you?” I whispered.
“Fighting Badger.” He was studying me. “How did you find me?”
“I, uh …” There was no explaining microchips and a mental map. My eyes went to the floor of the cave, to the places where the dead lay. I had the sense of disconnecting with the world around me, of watching rather than existing.
How was it possible for me to sense something like that? Had Carter put something else in my head that let me read objects and places, or was this empathic memory chip much more powerful than he let on? Was this what he implied about the chip when he said it was experimental?
How was I able to read dead people?
“You are a spirit,” Fighting Badger voiced quietly.
I shook my head, struggling to focus with the whispers and images. A small part of me was warning me to run, telling me I should fear this man and place, that they were both evil in a way I didn’t know existed before tonight.
“You must be.” He followed my gaze to a random spot in the cave, where the whispering was loudest at the moment. “Only a spirit can hear others.”
“You can hear them, too?” I asked, surprised.
“They are loud tonight.” Fighting Badger tossed his rabbit and knife down then wiped his hands on his pants. There was an emptiness to his eyes. Though I wasn’t a superstitious or religious person, or someone who really thought twice about souls and the afterlife, I experienced the strange sense that this man had no soul.
“They are.” I swallowed hard and shifted feet. He was built like someone who tracked, hunted and killed his own food, the opposite of the comparatively pampered life I lived, which meant I wasn’t going to get far if I made a run for it. “You are not a ghost and you can hear them.”
“I hear them because they are mine. I did not free their spirits. They stay with me. They are mine.”
He’s a fucking serial killer. One who collected souls instead of other souvenirs of his victims.
“Come, ghost. You must sit with me.”
“I’m not one of your spirits,” I objected.
“I know.” Fighting Badger sat down near the fire and motioned for me to do the same.
I glanced towards the path that led back to my horse.
“I will hunt you, spirit or woman,” he told me calmly.
“Okay,” I whispered. Not wanting to step on the dead, I made my way through the unmarked graves to the fire and sat across from him.
My best friend always said I had a knack for making friends of the least friendly people possible. I doubted she had a serial killer in mind when she said it, but I was about to test her theory. If I survived, she was right.
“You are Talks to Spirits.”
“No, actually, my name is …”
His sharp look made me clamp my mouth closed. My chest was tight, and I had the urge to cry, since I wasn’t able to run. Recalling my mission in the past, the hope of saving a million people over the next two centuries, I took a deep breath and offered a small smile. “Very well. I am Talks to Spirits.”
“Did the wind bring you?” he asked.
“Sort of. I had a … dream about this place and so I came.”
He was gazing at me intently. I hoped he wasn’t debating how to kill me, but his mind was too twisted and dark for me to make sense of. How would it be to live with a mind like his? Some memories I was able to make out, like the fact he hadn’t spoken to anyone in a month or left his cave except to hunt.
“You’re alone here,” I assessed. “You have been for a while.”
“My spirit speaks to you?”
“A little, yes.”
“What does it say?” He leaned forward. “I cannot understand it. My spirit and mind are strangers to me.”
And there it was – full-formed pity for a serial killer who comprehended how screwed up he really was without knowing why. How was I born with a heart bigger than my common sense?
“It says you’re lonely,” I murmured. “That you keep the spirits with you for this reason.”
He lowered his eyes to the fire. He had no other real emotions I was able to read, nothing but the darkness clouding his mind.
“You came from the sky, like the others,” he said.
“What others?”
“There are six of you. My brother is one, and so are you. The others I do not know.”
Brother? Interest replaced part of my fear. Was he talking about Running Bear or did he have more brothers?
“The spirits are never happy.” He glanced to my left, where a whisper originated. Not the loudest of the memories from the dead, it was the closest to me.
I had a microchip in my brain. What was his excuse for hearing the whispers?
“Maybe they want to be free,” I said.
He glared at me.
“I mean, I know why you keep them, but maybe if they were free, they’d leave you alone.”
“They’re mine.”
I jumped at his sharp growl. He was tense again, agitated, the shadows in his mind churning.
“I understand.” I raised my hands in a sign of surrender. “Don’t be upset. I don’t think there are many of us who can hear them.” I began to realize that I’d never be able to tell anyone about my empathic memories with the exception of Carter. Hearing Fighting Badger talk about the whispers that didn’t exist outside of us made me realize how crazy it sounded.
“No. Only us.” He shook out his shoulders. “Where did you come from that you can hear them?”
“It’s a really long, complicated story.”
“Very well.” He tossed me a canteen and then settled a pot over the fire. “I will make us dinner while you tell me this story.”
Dinner? I almost laughed. But didn’t. “It’s kind of crazy,” I said. “I don’t think you want to hear it.”
“Crazy,” he repeated. “Perhaps we share a spirit.” A ghost of a smile crossed his features.
Not a chance. I definitely wasn’t his kind of crazy.
“Speak!” he ordered.
I jumped o
nce more. Seeing his mind, knowing about his solitude and fearing him as I never had anyone else, I made a swift decision to tell him the truth. Because no one would believe him if he shared it, and I didn’t want to end up buried in his cave.
“I’m from the future,” I started.
He glanced up from gutting the rabbit without otherwise reacting.
Slowly, I began to speak, as much out of fear as nervousness and the slim hope that if I made it until dawn, maybe someone would send a search party out for me. I told him everything from when my parents died to what I did in college and how I met Carter and my mission here in his time. My life was relatively mundane until Carter.
Fighting Badger listened while prepping a stew. He settled back to let the food cook and watched me as I spoke.
“… and that’s it,” I finished. “Sound crazy?”
“No.”
Why was I relieved by his response? “You can’t tell anyone what I told you, though. It has to be our secret.”
He nodded. “Running Bear would not start a war,” he added. “He is very kind.”
“Would you?” I asked.
Fighting Badger appeared pensive. “This is my home. The spirits could not go with me if I left them. I would have to collect more.”
“Oh, Jesus no!” I exclaimed before I could stop myself. “But I think you’re right. You should stay here and not start a war.”
Rather than appear angered, he was amused by my outburst. “You are the first who has spoken to me without believing me crazy.”
“I do think you’re crazy,” I replied. “But not because you can hear the spirits.”
He seemed to find that funny. I didn’t know why. I wanted to tell him he was a psycho lunatic, and yet, I found myself connecting with him over a skill neither of us was able to share with anyone else. That I had something in common with a serial killer was one of the greatest surprises of my life.
“My father cast me out when I was ten,” he said. Twisting, he pointed to the corner of the cave. “I put him there, far from the fire, so he could not get warm.”
Oh, god. The longer I stayed, the harder it became not to freak out. But I listened to his words instead of my clamoring instincts. “Why did he cast you out?” I asked.
“I am different. I collected the spirits of animals when I was too small to collect those of men.”
“These spirits … they’re your friends?”
He nodded. “I taught myself to make a fire,” he said and motioned to the blaze. “Running Bear taught me to hunt.”
These images were clearer, childhood memories of a man who idolized his twin for taking care of him. I was able to see that Running Bear – and to my surprise, Sheriff Taylor – were both present in his mind. They visited him frequently and brought him toys and treats, like he was …
Still a child. Understanding rendered me nauseated. A lonely child, exiled at a young age, already on the precipice of madness. They didn’t have the resources in this time to deal with him. I didn’t want to sympathize with a serial killer but it was difficult not to sympathize with the lost child he’d been.
“You love them both,” I murmured. “Don’t you?”
“Yes. My brothers care for me.”
The sheriff – who had hanged half the town, if Nell was to be believed – couldn’t know what Fighting Badger did to his friends.
“You won’t kill me, will you?” I managed in a tight voice.
“If you will be my friend, I will not.”
“I will be,” I said quickly. “I’ll bring you grilled corn and wooden toys next time I come, like your brothers do.”
He appeared pleased by this response. He was a young predator, quick to change his mind about whether his visitors were dinner or entertainment.
“I will not start a war,” he decided. “I cannot leave my spirits, and I promised my brothers not to take more.”
Sheriff Taylor knew. My stomach was churning, along with my thoughts.
“Eat.” Fighting Badger ladled stew into a tin cup and passed it to me. The steaming soup smelled good, despite the feast I’d eaten for supper. He poured himself some soup and sipped it.
I followed his lead and was pleasantly surprised by the flavor. “This is really good,” I told him.
“One of the spirits told me how to make it.”
“How are you able to hear them?” I asked, puzzled.
“Maybe I have magic in my head like you do.”
“Maybe. Can you hear the spirits of those who are alive?”
He shook his head. “My father said I was destined to become a shaman but that my connection to the spirits was so strong, I went mad. They decided to teach my brother in the ways of a shaman instead of me.”
“That makes sense.” For a moment, I let myself overlook the fact he’d killed somewhere in the neighborhood of ten people and buried them in his home because he was lonely. “If I had heard the spirits when I was young, I would be crazy, too.”
We ate our stew in silence. Soon after, a chill touched the back of my neck, and I twisted to see the sky outside was growing lighter. My nerves were close to shot, and I was starting to feel overwhelmed by the whispers and knowledge that I was surrounded by death.
“I have to go, Fighting Badger,” I whispered, praying he let me leave.
“Not until it is full light. You will get lost.”
I almost wept at the words. He really wasn’t going to add me to his collection. Facing him again, I stretched my legs and wrapped my coat around me more tightly to keep the chill of dawn from reaching me. It didn’t make sense that the twin most likely to do something on the day Carter had identified had no intention of leaving his cave. With dread in my stomach, I realized I’d have to make good on my promise to return, at least once.
“Can I come see you on September twenty fourth?” I asked.
“When is this?”
“Nine days from now.”
He considered. “It is a long time,” he said. “You will come sooner.”
“How about I come back in five days and then again in nine? That time I told you about, when something bad happens, is in nine days. I want to come by and make sure you are safe that day.”
He nodded. “That will do.”
“What do you want me to bring you from town?” I asked. “Grilled corn?”
His eyes lit up. “Yes. And some for the spirits.”
“I can do that.”
“I will make us stew.”
“You do make a good stew,” I agreed.
“Fighting Badger? Josie?” someone asked from the entrance.
I twisted, startled to see the sheriff framed against the lightening sky. Relief trickled through me, followed by unease. He was alarmed, tense, his gaze on Fighting Badger.
“What’re you doing here, Josie?” he asked in a hushed voice.
“Talks to Spirits,” Fighting Badger corrected him.
“That’s right,” I seconded, not wanting the serial killer at the back of the cave to get upset. “I have a new name.”
“All right, Talks to Spirits.” The sheriff nudged his hat back, intent gaze on me. “What’re you doing here?”
“The spirits brought her,” Fighting Badger answered for me. “Did you bring me anything, brother?”
Brother?
“I did.” The sheriff pulled a roll of leather from where it was tucked between his belt and pants. “This one is cherry flavored.” He entered the cave and passed Fighting Badger the item. “I need to take Talks to Spirits home.”
“Home? She’s from …”
I held my finger up over my lips. “Our secret, Fighting Badger, remember? Friends keep secrets?”
He nodded. “Take her home, brother.”
The sheriff all but hauled me to my feet and swiftly marched us out of there. The morning was cool and cloudy, the scent of rain in the air. He said nothing until we reached the top of the canyon. Then he spun on me and took my arms, glaring down at me.
; “Do you have any idea how stupid that was?” he demanded.
My eyes blurred, and I nodded.
“Fighting Badger has … a problem. He’s isolated for a reason. No one who goes to his cave comes out alive.”
“I did.” I swallowed hard and struggled to regain my composure. “We have something … in common.” Wired and scared after the long night, I wasn’t able to stop the tears. I covered my face with my hands, relieved to be free yet horrified by the experience.
The sheriff released me. “Miss Josie, please don’t cry. I didn’t mean to scare you. You don’t have any idea what I’m talking about.”
“But I do.” I wiped my face and met his mint green gaze. “I know you hide him, I know he kills people and collects their spirits. I know one of his brothers fell from the sky the same way I did.”
“How can you know this?” His look sharpened.
“Because I do. And right now, I need a hug.”
His expression went from searing to uncertain. “From me?”
“Do you see anyone else out here?” If I wasn’t so freaked out, I’d have laughed. As it was, I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around his lean frame. His scent, familiar in its own odd way, and the heat of his body brought me back from the scared place in my mind. I didn’t try to stop the tears; they weren’t going to leave me alone until I released them.
The sheriff hugged me against his hard form. “There’s something special about you if you’re still alive,” he murmured against my temple.
You have no idea. The shakes and tears stopped soon after they started. “Good thing you’re always around to rescue me,” I joked weakly and lifted my head to see his face.
“I think you rescued yourself this time, Miss Josie.” He offered a small smile. There was warmth in his gorgeous eyes for the first time since I met him. “You need to stop wandering off.” Almost absently, he brushed tears from my cheeks with his thumb.
“I can take care of myself.” Though I secretly did enjoy the feel of his strong embrace.
“You survived my brother.” His grip tightened around me. “Josie, you need to be careful here.”
