by David Haynes
Draper didn’t know how to begin to reply. He felt no attachment to Vinson, but letting him stay out here all day on his own and then losing him was unforgivable. If something had happened to him, it was somehow worse than what happened at Delta Junction. This was through neglect. The worst of it was that a part of him whispered in his ear that he had done it on purpose. That he enjoyed the thought of Vinson freezing to death.
He rubbed his temples. A nasty headache was building up.
“We’ve looked everywhere.” Flynn had driven his excavator down into the glory-hole. There wasn’t much light anyway but down there it was as black as night. Mercer had cut staging into the sides of the hole to let him dig deeper but even if the floodlights were lit and the excavators’ spots on, it would still have been a dismal place.
“Maybe he went back and we missed him?”
He shouted his reply although Flynn was right in front of him. “Walking though? The truck’s fine. Why would he walk?”
Flynn shrugged.
Vinson’s truck was pointing away from camp, on a narrow stretch of track along the far side of the cut. Without a turning spot, he would have had to drive all the way around to point in the truck in the right direction. It would take ten minutes but it was safer, faster and warmer than walking.
“God damn it,” he hissed. “We go back and see if he’s turned up. If not, we carry on searching.” He turned away. “There’s two of them to find now.”
By the time they got back to camp, the sky had darkened completely. Reversing along the narrow tracks in the growing dark with snow swirling about like a devil had only increased the pressure inside Draper’s skull.
He followed Flynn inside the saloon. Puckett was still in the same spot they had left him in. Draper ignored him and spoke to Meg. “Has Vinson been back?”
She looked shocked. “Not seen him. He’s not out there?”
Draper shook his head. “And he’s not in his camper either.”
“What?” she asked. “How can that be? Where the hell is he? You...” She paused and corrected herself. “We shouldn’t have left him out there on his own for so long. What if...”
Draper turned away and looked at Puckett. He didn’t want to hear any more about what he should and shouldn’t have down. Not even from her.
“Has he said anything yet?” he asked.
“Crying mostly. Crying and gibbering. Something’s messed him up,” Meg replied.
“Gibbering about what?” Draper could feel his mood going downhill. He needed to be outside searching for the two men he’d lost, not babysitting.
“Weird stuff.” Meg sat down beside him. “About the things he’s seen. I couldn’t work out some of it but it was pretty twisted. You ever see him take anything?” she asked. “Drugs?”
Flynn jumped in. “Kid wouldn’t go near them. Hated the sight of them. No way.”
“I’ve seen bad trips before,” Meg said. “And this is the mother of all.”
Draper wondered what sort of people she’d been around but he said nothing.
“It’s like the dreams we’ve been having, only he can’t wake up from this one.”
Puckett wailed, clutched at his eyes, trying to rake his nails into the sockets. Meg and Flynn levered his arms back down.
“Dreams?” Flynn asked. “You too?”
Draper nodded.
Flynn’s eyes narrowed. “My old man used to use his knife on me and my sisters instead of a strop. Used to see how sharp the edge was. A month ago I dreamed I used the knife on him instead.” He looked at them each in turn.
“Not stopped having the same dream since. First morning I felt like I’d won the lotto, now it makes me sick to my guts.” He turned to Meg. “The kid too?”
She nodded. “It’s tapping us.”
“What is?” Flynn asked.
“The Keelut,” she answered. “It’s tapping into our deepest, hellish desires. It wants us to feel the same way as it does. It wants us to go willingly.”
Flynn let go of Puckett’s arm and let it fall like a length of rope.
“What the hell is a Keelut?”
“Hell-hound,” Draper answered him. “That’s what Meg thinks is out there. That’s what did this to Puckett, probably to Burgess too.” He didn’t say Mercer’s name.
“Then we’re fucked,” Flynn replied. “I’ve watched the Discovery Channel, I’ve seen what those bastards can do. We need to find Mercer, and soon.”
His reaction shocked Draper. He had expected ridicule to come back at him, not acceptance that some kind of supernatural dog was out there.
“Makes sense why the whole damn claim stinks so much. Dirty damn dog.” Flynn touched Puckett’s arm tenderly. “Reckon it’s already got its claws into Vinson. Deep deep down.”
“I think he needs to go and lie down. He’s still shivering.” Meg stood up and then lifted Puckett’s arm gently. He turned his head and looked at her. His eyes were a bemused muddle of questions.
“I’ll take him.” Flynn reached over and took Puckett away from her.
“We’re all going,” said Draper. “From now on, nobody goes anywhere on their own.”
Meg pulled on her jacket, hat and gloves. “Suits me.”
Puckett was catatonic but he wasn’t completely useless. He could walk, as long as he was guided and gently pushed. He was like a robot, or a child.
Flynn opened Puckett’s camper and led him up the steps inside. Meg and Draper followed. It was cold inside but warmer than outside in the storm. It was the first time Draper had been inside Puckett’s camper and it wasn’t what he expected. It was tidy, clean and it smelled good. It smelled familiar somehow. There were a few items of clothing on the table but nothing much.
“Come on.” Flynn patted the bed for Puckett to climb up. “Leave your feet dangling and I’ll take your boots off.”
Despite his mood, Draper smiled. He never thought he’d see the day when Flynn did something like that.
“Dad!” Meg whispered. “Leave it out.” She was staring at him.
That was the familiar smell. The faint scent of Meg’s perfume drifted up to him as she leaned closer to tell him to stop laughing.
Except the smell was stronger than that. It was deeper and it was everywhere. He leaned in and sniffed. It was definitely the same smell. He turned and looked around. Did Puckett have an air freshener in here?
His eyes fell on the table where there were a few items of discarded clothing. A bra and some panties. Meg’s underwear on Puckett’s table. He bit down on his lower lip, feeling the pressure rise in his already throbbing temple.
“Why the hell are they in here?” He reached across to the table and picked them up. Another bra fell to the floor.
“What?” Meg turned.
“These.” He handed them to her. It made sense. How would she know that Puckett woke up crying unless she had been there when it happened?
She took them with a confused look painted across her face. “I...” She looked at Puckett. “I don’t know.”
Draper also looked at Puckett who was sitting in the edge of his bed. One boot on, one boot on the floor, his eyes vacant and staring straight ahead.
“Why are they in here?” he demanded. He felt rage come from almost nowhere. His voice sounded strange even to him and it felt strained as it erupted from his mouth. He could feel a strange fire burning behind his eyes, and the taste in his mouth was foul and corrupt.
“They shouldn’t be in here, you shouldn’t be touching her!” He took a step forward, his hand moving toward his hip – toward the Beretta.
Flynn rose up in front of him and put a palm on his chest. “Steady there, boss.”
Draper looked down at Flynn’s hand and saw his own fist was clenched. “Take your hand away,” he said.
“Not until you’ve calmed down a touch I won’t. You’re not thinking straight.”
“You move aside, Flynn, or we’ll have a problem here.” At that moment he wanted to reach inside Puc
kett’s jeans and rip his balls off. Rip them off and feed them to the Keelut.
Flynn kept his hand where it was, right in the center of Draper’s chest. “You want to bawl him out, fine by me. You want to kick his ass, well you can do that too but you’re not doing anything until he’s fit to speak up for himself. And the Scott Draper I know wouldn’t do either of those things until he thought things through.”
Draper looked him in the eye. “Would you be thinking straight if it was your daughter? Stand aside, Jim.” A terrible tingle, like pins and needles, ran up his spine and into the base of his skull. It was like electricity. It was power.
“For God’s sake, Dad!” Meg grabbed him and spun him around. “Nothing’s happened between us, at least not what you’re thinking. And even if it had, it’s none of your business. I’m not a child anymore.”
Her touch jarred him away from Flynn and the extreme violence he was about to commit.
“But...” he protested. He felt like a different person immediately, his senses returning.
“I never put these here and Luke most certainly didn’t.” She waved her underwear in his face. He turned his head away. He didn’t need to see it again.
“I saw it.”
Puckett was shaking his head as he spoke. They all turned to look at him.
“I saw it and its tracks just disappeared. They were there and then they weren’t. Its eyes.”
Flynn put a hand on his shoulder.
“Take it easy.” His tone was fatherly.
“I saw it,” he repeated. “I heard it.”
“Just calm down.” Flynn tried to push him down onto the bed.
“It showed me everything. I saw you, Meg, Draper and me. All of us dead.” He stopped and shook his head again. “Except not dead, somewhere else and the pain, the unending agony. I heard my soul being ripped apart.”
He reached for Meg.
“All of us there, stripped to our bones layer by layer until... until... It wants to take us all there. It wants us down there with it. With the others.” He slid down off the bed. “The dreams aren’t dreams, they’re real. It’s coming for us. We need to get out of here. We need to leave now!”
He tried to push past Flynn but was held in check by the same meaty paw that had held Draper back. “Just settle down there. Let me have a look at your head, you must’ve banged it.”
Puckett swatted his hand away. “I didn’t bang my head, Flynn. I saw it! I heard you screaming, man. I heard you begging for it to stop. I heard your bones splintering and coming apart and then it started again. I saw your fucking dad cutting you. I saw him cutting those girls and I fucking heard them screaming!”
He turned to Draper.
Where Puckett’s eyes had once been the glorious blue of a California summer sky, they were now rubies; rubies deeper than the color of freshly spilled blood.
“And you loved putting that bullet in Tom Briggs’s head, you loved seeing his brains spatter all over the shed wall. The power, the power!”
The rage came again, swiftly and with clarity. It had a voice and it yelled, Kill Puckett. Put the gun in his mouth and blow his brains all over the camper.
His hand dropped down but before he could bring the Beretta out, Flynn punched Puckett in the side of his head, knocking him to the floor.
“You’ve never known when to keep quiet,” Flynn said.
*
Vinson stood outside in the darkness and listened to them turning on each other. Leaving the girl’s panties in Puckett’s camper had been a neat little trick, although he’d hoped for a better reaction from Draper. Maybe if Puckett hadn’t been quite so docile, things might have turned uglier than they did.
He rubbed his hands together and blew on them to try and give them warmth. Maybe he should have put Meg’s panties in Puckett’s bed. That really would have been nasty. He’d thought about it but how could he guarantee they would be seen? It couldn’t have worked out better though. He’d only put them in there in the hope that Draper would find them, when they led Puckett out of the saloon.
When was the last time he’d touched a woman’s underwear? The thrill of feeling that white cotton between his fingers had been almost as exciting as holding the gold. Both made him hard. He’d stopped short of holding them to his face but the urge had been there. It still was. He reached inside his pocket and twisted the second pair of panties around his fingers. He had been planning to put a pair in Flynn’s van too, and maybe Mercer’s if he had the time. He did laugh then. What would good old Draper have said when he found out his precious daughter was sleeping with the whole crew?
He picked up a handful of snow, rubbed it around his already crimson face then took the stick he’d been carrying and pulled it across his skin. The broken limb dug into his flesh, sending a warm trickle of blood down his cheek. He repeated it on the other side then across his chin and forehead. The sting was like sitting beside a furnace.
He withdrew his knife and drew it down his jacket. It was sharp, too sharp and it cut through the fabric in a neat line. That wouldn’t do. He replaced the knife and used his teeth and fingers to finish the job. He felt like an animal tearing into a human.
Vinson threw himself to the floor and screamed as loud as he could.
29
Draper fought the urge to shout. “Nobody leaves until we’ve found Mercer.”
“Dad’s right, we can’t just leave him. What about Vinson? We can’t abandon him either.”
Flynn gently lifted Puckett. “They’re right, kid.”
Puckett gave Flynn a weak push to get him out of the way. There was no strength in it at all and Flynn didn’t move. “Mercer’s gone,” Puckett started. “If that thing’s got him, he’s gone.”
Draper felt anger rise swiftly to the surface again. “You shut your mouth. We’re finding him and that’s all there is to it. Got it?” He realized his fingers were twitching just above the holster.
“You can’t stop me. If I want to go, I’m going.”
“I’ll lock you in here if I have to. Nobody’s leaving. We don’t leave anyone behind.”
He was face to face with Puckett now. The kid looked scared. Not of Draper’s threats – Puckett had faced bigger and nastier men than him without backing down. No, he was frightened of what he’d seen. In the corner of his eyes, tears were welling up. He changed his tack.
“Listen, I need you here, Puckett. I need you to help me find both of them. The sooner we do that, the sooner we all get the hell out of here.”
Puckett smiled. “Hell’s already here,” he whispered.
The scream outside made them all jump. Puckett’s camper rocked with their collective movement. Draper was first out. In the darkness he could see a shape rolling around in the snow. He sprinted forward, plowing the snow in all directions. Let it be Mercer, he thought as his eyes adjusted to the gloom.
But it wasn’t. He could see from the size it wasn’t Mercer. He had never heard Mercer scream but he was sure it wouldn’t sound like that.
“Mike!” he called out, skidding to a halt beside him. There were dark splashes across the snow next to where he was rolling around.
He looked over his shoulder and shouted, “Someone help me, he’s bleeding.”
Meg was the first to arrive, swiftly followed by Puckett and Flynn. She hooked an arm under Vinson’s armpit and helped Draper haul him upright. “Get him to the saloon!” she shouted above the wind. Puckett and Flynn ran on ahead and opened the door. It provided a wedge of yellow light to aim for.
“Put him there.” Puckett pushed empty cups off the nearest table. The realization that Puckett was the closest thing they had to a medic was almost crushing, yet as they laid the now-unconscious Vinson out, Puckett was already running to the cupboard where they kept the first aid supplies.
There was a lot of blood on Vinson’s face. In fact there was almost none of his skin visible. Some of it was dripping onto the floor and turning a shade of pink as it mixed with the melting snow from t
heir clothes.
“Looks bad,” Draper said but there was no need, they could all see what sort of a mess Vinson was in.
A few seconds later Puckett appeared with a bowl of warm water, some cloths and a small green case with his kit inside.
“I’m going to clean him up first and see what we’ve got.” Puckett lifted his head and looked at Draper. “All this kit’s good for is bandages and band-aids. Not much else in there.”
“Just do what you can,” Meg said.
Vinson had stopped moving as soon as Draper got to him. His feet had dragged through the snow when they brought him in here. He was a deadweight. Everything was going downhill and quickly.
Puckett dipped his cloth in the bowl and started wiping away the blood. Vinson twitched on the table but his eyes were shut. A couple of times Draper thought he saw the man’s mouth move, as if he was stopping himself from crying out. He pushed the idea away. Why would he do that?
Slowly, Puckett revealed the cuts to Vinson’s face. All but the cut on his right cheek had stopped bleeding now. They looked deep but not dangerous.
“Doesn’t look too bad,” Puckett said. “Leave some scars but he wasn’t exactly Brad Pitt anyway.”
Draper nodded and released a sigh of relief. “Can you fix him up?”
Puckett reached into his kit bag and withdrew a roll of bandages. “I can make him look like a mummy with this. I’ll have to look at the rest of him too, see if there’s any broken bones.”
Whether it was the temporary effect of concentrating on the treatment that had settled his mind or the return of sense and reason was unclear, but Puckett seemed more like his old self again.
Vinson murmured on the table and opened his eyes. “What happened?” He coughed and winced, then leaned over the side of the table and spat on the floor.
“You’re okay, man.” Puckett wiped away a clot of blood on Vinson’s cheek.
