by David Haynes
His body was at a right angle to his head as if his neck were made of jelly. A white and gleaming shard of bone erupted from his throat. Blood covered his face, he was literally washed with it but the look in his eyes was somehow worse. It was a mixture of shock and of utter, incomprehensible horror. He didn’t need to check Flynn’s pulse to know he was dead.
“Oh Christ, oh Christ, oh Christ!” Puckett’s voice came from behind him.
It jolted Draper away from the horror and he turned around. “Stay with him, stay here!”
He jumped up and tried to hobble as fast as he could toward his daughter. “Meg!” he shouted. He couldn’t think about Flynn or what had happened to him. He just needed to get to her.
“Meg! Where are you!” he shouted again. His voice echoed back at him. Perhaps it was the wind but to him it sounded like his voice returned with a horrible laughter.
“Get down,” a voice hissed at him. A second later he was lying face-down in the pine needles, spitting snow.
Meg put her hand on his back. “It’s still here, can you smell it?”
The reek had been constant for a long time but it had grown stronger. He shuffled onto all fours, easing back to where she was crouching.
“What?” he asked, his voice a barely audible whisper against the wind and creaking trees.
“Keelut,” she answered.
“Meg...” He wanted to disagree with her but she cut him off.
“Flynn?”
He shook his head.
She blinked twice but didn’t take her eyes from the forest. The Beretta, held in two hands, pointed at where she was looking.
“I saw it. I saw it pick him up. The shadows came alive, Dad. Shadows, claws and those eyes, those ruby eyes dripping in blood. And his body...” Her voice cracked. Only slightly but enough to be heard.
“It was like he was inside a tornado. Twisting, bending… the cracking sound of his bones.” She paused. “Oh, God. It lifted him off the floor and just spat him into the air, through the branches up there.” She pointed into the dark canopy above their heads.
She twitched suddenly and jerked the gun to the side. Draper raised the rifle and put the useless sight to his eye.
“See something?” he whispered.
She moved her head from side to side, scanning the forest before shaking her head. “We need to go.”
He grabbed her arm and they both rose together. “We need to get Flynn,” he said. “Puckett’s with him.”
They started walking. Both held their guns out in front.
“You got injured?” Meg asked.
Draper remembered he had Mercer’s hat in his pocket. He lowered the rifle and reached down.
“I found this. It was over there on the bank.” He shone the flashlight on it.
Meg stopped walking, forcing Draper to stop too.
“Vinson’s behind it. I know he is.” The anger had dissipated the instant he heard Meg’s screams but it now returned with equal intensity.
“He’s lying. I can’t say for certain what he’s up to but I know he’s a goddamn liar.”
He put the hat back in his pocket. “And I mean to kick his ass, and keep kicking it until every bone in my foot is broken and there’s nothing left of him to kick.”
Meg looked up at him. “If he’s hurt Ray... I’ll...”
He shook his head. “You leave that bastard to me.” He looked into the forest. “Come on, we need to move.”
They reached the spot where Flynn’s wrecked body had been lying. Neither Puckett nor Flynn were there.
“Right place?” Meg asked.
He moved the flashlight in a circle, found what he was looking for. “He was here,” he said. It looked like Puckett had started dragging Flynn out of there, back toward the camp.
“He’s trying to take him back.” They walked as fast as Draper’s ankle would allow. Already the pain was beginning to subside, his hobble turning into a limp as they followed Puckett’s trail through the forest.
The air was filled with an almost deafening creaking as the trees struggled to keep themselves anchored to the ground. Some of the creaks were so loud and so long they sounded like a drawn-out wail of excruciating agony. If trees could scream, that’s exactly what they were doing, thought Draper.
They found Puckett about forty yards away. He had hold of Flynn by his collar and was hauling him backward. Tears glistened like snow crystals on his cheeks in the flashlight’s beam.
Meg ran toward him. “We’ll help,” she said and touched his arm.
Puckett turned his head and smiled at her. “I’m doing this myself. That fucking dog comes anywhere near us, I’ll bite its goddamn head off.” He carried on pulling the body.
Flynn’s head lolled to the side and his body made a sound like marbles being shaken around in a bag. The way he slid across the floor, Draper suspected every single bone in his body had been broken.
“Let me help you,” he said, trying to take hold of Flynn’s legs.
“Don’t touch them,” Puckett said. “I don’t reckon they’ll stand being touched. None of him will.”
His voice broke completely then. The sound of his teeth smashing together was like a twig being snapped.
He took a moment then turned to Meg. “You see what happened?”
She nodded. “It was that thing, the same thing you went after.”
Puckett nodded back. “Kee... something, you said it was? Hell-hound, that’s what it is. Overgrown stinking dog.” He turned back to Draper. “I’m gonna kill that motherfucker. I should’ve done it earlier. If I had then my best buddy wouldn’t be smashed up like this.” His voice broke again and tears streaked his dirty cheeks in muddy rivers.
“Mercer’s gone, ain’t he?” Puckett wiped the tears away. “Same as Flynn.”
Draper pulled Mercer’s hat out of his pocket again. “Maybe but I don’t think it was the same way.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve got a feeling Vinson’s been lying to me. Lying about a whole lot of stuff. I plan to find out what he knows.”
Puckett nodded and continued pulling Flynn’s body.
“We won’t let you do this on your own,” Meg said. “We just won’t.” She touched his cheek where another tear had fallen.
Draper looked down at the body, and grief washed over him without warning. He’d known Jim Flynn for most of his life, worked with him, drunk with him, argued with him and relied on him for all of that time. The man was as solid as a rock. Now he had been reduced to this by... by something none of them understood.
“I want to help you with him,” he said. “I need to.”
“We both do,” said Meg.
This time when Draper reached down for Flynn’s boots, Puckett didn’t try to stop him. The boots were soft and seasoned but beneath the leather, Draper could feel bones moving unnaturally. His boots might as well have been full of sand for how it felt. It made his stomach turn. Meg stayed beside them with her gun drawn, scanning the forest.
They walked slowly back to camp. All the while, the rage in Draper’s guts was boiling away and he knew any moment the lid would come off. Mercer, Flynn, even Burgess, all of them dead. The body in the container too. Why hadn’t he seen it all sooner? Why hadn’t he taken them all home before it came to this? Greed, that was why. Plain simple greed. It was all his fault, just like it had been at Delta Junction.
As if hearing his thoughts, Meg spoke. She had to shout to make herself heard above the din.
“Dad, please don’t do anything stupid up there. Let’s just get in our trucks and go. Forget the gold in the plant. Just go. Whatever Vinson’s up to, just walk away. It’s feeding on us, on our bodies and our minds. Can’t you feel it? It wants you up there with Vinson. It wants you to tear him apart and then it’ll take you with it.”
He looked at her but couldn’t speak. He was too angry, too hurt. There was nothing anyone could say to turn him away from what he was about to do.
It took a long time to
reach the camp. When they finally climbed out of the forest, the snow was worse than any of them could have imagined. In the deepest parts, where the snow had drifted in the biting wind, it rose halfway up Meg’s thighs. She had spent the journey turning this way and that, telling them to be still as she tried to scan through the trees.
Draper suggested putting Flynn in the container but Puckett would have none of it. Flynn was to be laid out in Puckett’s camper so he could take him home. As Meg and Puckett were covering him over, Meg comforting Puckett and talking softly to him, Draper sneaked out and walked straight to the saloon. His fist was clenching and unclenching rapidly, in time with his jaw and the drums beating in his head.
He opened the door and stepped inside. Vinson was sitting at one of the tables drinking coffee. He looked up with an expectant look on his face. The air was warm, and for a moment the room rotated and tilted as his body acclimatized to the temperature.
“Found him?”
Draper shook his head. “Flynn’s dead,” he said, taking the rifle off his shoulder. He placed it down carefully on the table.
“What?” Vinson’s expression was not one of shock, although it was obvious that was the emotion he was attempting. There was a knowing in his eyes.
“Whatever it is out there smashed him up like a pile of twigs and threw him fifty feet in the air.”
“Jesus!”
“And I found this.” He threw Mercer’s Broncos hat on the table.
Vinson picked it up. “Mercer’s?”
Draper nodded.
“Where was it?”
“Downstream, on the bank.”
“Doesn’t look good if he fell in there,” Vinson sighed.
Fell, thought Draper. Fell or pushed? “Things don’t add up, Mike. I was thinking things over while we were out there in the snow. While Puckett was dragging Flynn’s body through the forest. I mulled things over.”
“What things?” Vinson asked.
“Well, for starters, how do you know what Puckett saw? You said you’d seen the same thing as Puckett.”
“What of it?”
“The only way you could know what he saw was if you were there, or you were listening to our conversation in his camper. Now I don’t think it was the former because you would have said, so that leaves the latter, which means you were outside with your ear to the wall.”
“Are you crazy? You saw the state of my face, my jacket. What the hell are you talking about?”
“A few scratches? Everyone else meets that animal, they end up with their whole body smashed to bits. And as for that nugget. None of us believe Mercer took it. Did you take it out of my locker when we were in Chicken? Is that what you did, Mike? Why? For God’s sake, why?”
Vinson stood there, open-mouthed. His eyes were as wide as saucers.
Draper left it hanging. The wind pushed and shoved at the building, and the timber squealed at it to stop.
After a few seconds Vinson stood up. “I don’t need to listen to this. I’m going.” He took a step to the side but Draper grabbed his arm.
Quick as a flash Vinson turned to face him, breaking Draper’s hold. His eyes were full of spite and his hand dropped down to his hip.
“If you go for that and I go for this, we’ll see what happens.” Draper tapped the stock of the rifle. Even above the sound of the wind, he could hear his heart hammering in his ears. He wanted Vinson to go for that ugly hunting knife. He realized, for all his anger, he still needed a push in that direction. He wasn’t lost completely. Yet.
They locked eyes for a moment. Vinson looked at the rifle. He waited a second before lifting his head slowly.
“I’m going to take it all,” he said slowly. “And you’re all going to go the same way as Mercer, Flynn and Burgess. You’re all dead.” He spat the words out and smiled. “It’s taking you with it. Can you smell it?”
He exhaled slowly, extravagantly, and Draper smelled the rotten reek on Vinson’s breath. “It’s death.” Vinson licked his lips and smiled.
The wind stopped, everything stopped. The creaking timber, the fracturing pines, the creek. Even Draper’s heart ceased to make a sound.
And then they both went for their weapons at the same time.
31
Even as Draper reached down for the wooden stock of Mercer’s rifle, he knew he wouldn’t have time to bring it level and fire before Vinson got his knife free. It was loaded but it wouldn’t do him any good at close quarters like this. Vinson had the edge.
He lifted the stock, intending to use it as a club. As he swung it, he saw a flash of silver and felt a piercing, burning pain shoot along his arm. The stock glanced off Vinson’s shoulder and hit him in the jaw.
Draper had been aiming for his temple but he was happy it had landed at all. Vinson was knocked back, quickly regaining his composure. As Draper was turning the rifle the right way around, Vinson jumped up on the table and threw himself at Draper. He fell back, the rifle skidding across the bloody floor.
Draper was shocked as much as injured. Vinson had slashed him with the knife and the pain had been intense, but he knew without looking it wasn’t a bad one. He could still move his fingers, which were sticky with blood, so no tendon or ligament damage had been inflicted.
Vinson straddled him with the knife in his hands. He was bringing it down rapidly in short twitching movements, trying to stab Draper. But Draper had taken hold of his forearm and was stopping him driving the point home. He couldn’t do it for long. Unlike Vinson, whose eyes seemed to have taken on a dim red glow. Almost like... almost like the... Keelut.
Vinson spat at him and Draper felt a tooth land on his cheek. It rolled off and rattled against the floor. The stock of the rifle had done some damage at least.
He bucked his hips and used all of his strength to force Vinson’s arm up and away from his body. Vinson brought down his other fist and drove it into Draper's nose. He saw a bright white explosion as the punch dazed him. Vinson was stronger than he looked.
He bucked again and roared. This time Vinson toppled back. Only slightly but enough for Draper to use it to push his arm further back. He drove his own bloody fist under Vinson’s chin, hearing the crack of teeth as they jammed together. He hoped he’d dislodged another one.
This time Vinson fell back into one of the chairs, banging his head on the table in the process.
Draper jumped up. His intention was to go for the rifle, but Vinson saw where he was looking and slid over. Blood was running down Vinson’s chin and his jaw was swollen. It gave his face a strange deformed shape. His jaw was probably broken but he showed no signs of pain in his maniacal grin.
Draper felt behind him, grabbed a chair. He brought it out in front and lifted it like a lion tamer in a circus.
His own face didn’t feel too good. There was a shot of pain when he tried to take a deep breath through his nose. It felt bloated on his face and he could taste blood. His left hand was covered in sticky, warm fluid.
The two men stared at each other. Vinson with a grotesque smile painted across his face. He looked like the devil to Draper – the devil enjoying his work. To accompany his expression, a guttural snarl came from outside. It vibrated somewhere deep beneath Draper’s feet and rattled his skeleton all the way up to his skull. It intensified the pain in his head.
“I’m going to kill you,” Vinson said. “I’m going to cut chunks out of you and feed it to that creature out there. I’ve see what it can do. I’ve seen where it belongs, where it comes from. A place of darkness, torture and pain. The same place I’ve been living most of my life. Me and it... we’re kin.”
Draper lunged forward and swung the chair at Vinson’s face. All he wanted to do was smash his face to bits. Shut him up. But the blow was crude and he telegraphed the attack. Vinson dodged to the side and swung the blade. Draper felt it fizz through the air beside his cheek but no pain. The chair twisted awkwardly in his hands as it hit nothing, and his blood-soaked hand released its grip – it flew across the r
oom and hit the stove.
He now had no weapons. Vinson had his back to the weighing room, behind him the rifle. Vinson jumped forward and slashed with the knife again but Draper saw it coming and stepped to the side.
He drew back his right fist as if he were going to throw a punch, but it was a feint. Vinson fell for it and ducked down to his right. Draper brought a blood-drenched fist up and into Vinson’s nose. Blood flew everywhere and the audible crunch of broken cartilage was as revolting as it was satisfying.
Vinson screamed and jumped back. His eyes were watering, blood coming from his nose in a steady stream. The wound on his cheek had opened up again in a dark and stringy clot.
Draper grabbed another chair and advanced. He intended to seize his advantage, press it home and beat Vinson to an even bloodier pulp. A strange bloodlust crept through his body, intensifying his anger. It felt good, so much better than Delta Junction. This time it was the right thing to do.
He took one step and froze. The back door, the door to the weighing room, swung open with a force that jarred it against the jamb. Wind howled through the gap, sending a funnel of whirling snow toward them both. It was so strong that Draper bent his body into it for fear of being pushed backward.
The wind and snow were bad but the shape that appeared in the doorway made his stomach churn. A great, lumbering, deformed shadow of a thing. Decay surged into the room like never before, filling his mouth and nostrils with acid.
Vinson didn’t turn, he just smiled ever wider, blood dribbling from his lips like a vampire. Whatever it was that had taken Flynn, Burgess and Mercer had now come for him, and Vinson was not in the least concerned. He’d called it kin, he thought it was his brother, his friend.
Draper hefted the chair to his shoulder. He was going down swinging. He roared and charged forward, waiting until the last moment to swing the chair at Vinson’s shoulder.
As he swung the chair, Draper was filled with confusion. Vinson wasn’t trying to get out of the way or throw his own counter-attack. What was he waiting for? Protection from the beast? The aluminum chair hit him on the shoulder and glanced off into his already broken jaw.
