by Lorne Dixon
Ross’s voice crackled. “I went to visit them a week before his birthday. I didn’t make him wait. I wanted to see his face when he opened it. He was so happy. So happy.”
Bella turned off the road onto a long driveway.
“They buried his parents and his sister on his birthday. David turned … eleven … standing over … his mother’s grave … dropping … flowers …”
Silence returned, as deep as the vacuum after an explosion, and Chev turned his eyes to the driveway. There were No Trespassing and Attack Dogs signs nailed to the trees. The driveway spiraled around the property instead of leading directly to the house that was barely visible through the trees. In summer, the foliage would have completely blocked his view. He saw a tall watchtower standing above the highest treetops. Devil Ayers clearly wanted warning before he received visitors.
“Is this safe?” he asked.
Bella smirked. “That’s the second time you’ve asked me a question like that. This time, though, I don’t know. Dev is a real outcast. Never comes into town to buy anything or mail out any bills. Probably noticed there’s no mailbox anywhere. He’s completely isolated himself out here.”
“Safe to say he’s armed?”
The smile withered. “To the teeth.”
Chapter Seven
When the winding driveway finally ended, Bella parked the Beetle in a gravel cul-de-sac alongside Devil Ayers’s ranch house. Turning towards the backseat, Chev told Ross to stay put. He and Bella got out.
A five-foot-high caged rock wall surrounded the split level ranch. A metal door was bolted into the rampart.
Chev slid the revolver into his jeans and covered it with his shirt. “This must be the absolute latest in medieval home security.”
Bella took a step towards the door.
“You’ll want to stop right there,” a voice called down from the watchtower. They turned. Devil stood on a platform thirty feet high, a burly, white-haired man in a patchwork leather jacket with fur lining and matching pants. He balanced a hunting rifle in his hands. “Your right foot is about four inches away from a homemade anti-personnel landmine. My own design.”
“Dev?” Bella called. “Dev, its Bella Lowell and this is Chev. Ross is in the car. We came to ask—”
Dev snickered. “I know why you’re here.”
“You do?” Chev asked.
“Since none of you look like IRS agents,” Dev barked as he climbed down the tower, “I would say you’ve come because you want to kill some werewolves. Not many other reasons to visit me. I don’t serve tea and crumpets.”
Werewolves. The word buzzed inside Chev’s head like an angry hornet. Bella and the townies had called the monsters by a few different names—Brothers, beasts, even wolves—but they had all stopped short of that word: “werewolves.”
“I didn’t know who else could help us,” Bella said.
Dev jumped to the ground and walked over to the rock wall. “Miss, I’d bet pitchforks-to-politicians that no one can help you if you’re on my doorstep. I’m not what you would call a first resort.”
“But you will help us?” Chev asked.
Dev’s face didn’t give any indication of sympathy. “This town’s been nothing but a slowly turning knife in my gut. You make deals with monsters and then expect them to honor them. Sheriff comes by once a month with some new ordnance and tries to kick me off my land, make me go away. I won’t say I’ll help you, but I’ll listen to your story. Don’t be surprised if the answer’s not one you like.”
He turned and headed away from the metal door.
Chev shrugged at Bella. Does he want us to follow him?
“If you’re coming, move your feet. I’d suggest you stay in my tracks and move single file. I think I know where all the mines and bear traps are buried, but I’m getting older and my memory’s not what it once was.” Before he rounded the corner of the wall, he pointed to the door. “And don’t ever open that. It’s rigged up to—to nothing you want to know about.”
Chev gestured to Ross to come with them. The three followed Dev around to the back of his house. There was another reinforced metal door on that side. Chev passed it by, too. Finally, Dev uncovered a trap door, opened it, and herded them down a short flight of concrete stairs. When they were all in, he flicked a switch. Bare light bulbs on strings lit up a long passageway. He closed the trap door and locked it shut with a couple of two-by-fours.
The tunnel led to a third metal door. Dev opened it and led them inside a large bunker. He locked the door with four deadbolts. There were tables covered with bomb making equipment, gun parts and ammunition. Faded, curling magazine and newspaper clippings covered the walls. A single mattress rested against one wall. “I don’t use the house upstairs at all anymore. I try to keep them out, but once in a while one of them gets feisty and gets in.”
“Aren’t you cornered in down here,” Chev asked.
“See that?” Dev pointed to a red lever attached to a huge electrical box. “It’s my kill switch. They ever rush in down here, I jump up on a table. You look down at their legs, you’ll see they’re rubber insulated. The floors, the walls, everywhere becomes a giant circuit. Anything down here not on a table gets hit with the generator’s full capacity.”
Chev ran his hand over a diagram cut out of a survivalist magazine. “You get that idea from one of these books?”
“Bride of Frankenstein,” Dev said with a smirk. “At the end of that flick the monster pulls on a lever that blows up the laboratory. Why the good doctor had a lever like that I’ll never know. But I know why I have mine.”
Ross stared at the copper wire mesh that ran across the ceiling and down the walls. It was like being inside a piece of complex electronics. Or a toy oven that cooked monsters.
Dev pointed to the only clear table and gestured to each of them to take a seat on one of the folding metal chairs. “You might as well take a seat and get comfortable. Tell me everything. They keep a sentinel or two outside my place. They know you’ve come here, so we’re in no hurry. No one’s going anywhere for a while. Don’t leave anything out.”
They sat and Chev told it to him from the beginning, how he had hit an animal on the highway and encountered the old men. How they had given him a head start and he ran down the highway to the Food Cabinet.
“Lew Daudelin? I’ve been after that crazy old wolf for years. He was an Elder. You see, when they’re young it’s easy for them to live both lives, man and monster, but as they age it gets harder on them. They get confused. Some last longer than others, but eventually they all go insane. The younger ones, like Marek, they’re stronger and more rational. More cunning, too. But you can’t predict what an Elder will do and that makes them just as dangerous as the younger Brothers. They’ll even turn on each other.”
Ross told his part of it, about the detour and the Blue Honda. Bella took over, describing the confrontation at the supermarket and the gas station. Ross finished the story, stating with quivering lips, “And they took my grandson, my David. He’s all I have left and they took him from me.”
Dev pushed away from the table. “Let me ask you: what do you expect? You think I can save the boy? I’m not some sort of commando like on television. If he’s still alive—and there’s really no reason to think he is—they’ll have him in their den. That old church is always protected. There are never less than a dozen of those wild boys there. Even at my most rye whiskey drunk, I’ve never dreamed of attacking it straight on. I think it’s suicide to try.”
“Are you telling us your answer is no?” Chev asked.
Dev stood up. “All this hair on my head and face, it all used to be red. I mean, fire engine red. My father’s too. These days, it’s getting hard to find a strand that’s not white. Never found a wife. I’m slowing down. I can feel it every day. One of these days, I’ll go out hunting and they’ll outsmart me and take me down. Maybe they’ll make clothes out of my hide like I’ve made out of theirs. I can’t win these battles forever.”
Dev laid a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “It means that I can spend however long I have left picking them off one by one and never getting anywhere, or I can take up your offer and try to take them all out at their nest. And if you three want to kill yourselves right along with me, well, I guess we can make it a party.”
“Thank you.” Ross began to weep. Chev could tell that these tears sprung from hope rather than despair.
Dev took away his hand. “Rest now; we go at noon.”
“Do we have to wait?” Ross asked.
“You like history?” Dev pointed to his bookshelves. “Two hundred and thirty-some years ago tonight, George Washington crossed the Delaware River and invaded a Hessian stronghold in Trenton. He found nearly a thousand soldiers celebrating Christmas. They were asleep, drunk, completely unready for battle. I doubt I could come up with a competing strategy, so let’s stick with ol’ George on this one.”
Chapter Eight
Ross watched the others sleeping on the floor. Dev didn’t offer his mattress but provided blankets for everyone. The one he handed Ross had a slight, disorienting scent of formaldehyde. The smell wasn’t what kept him awake, though. It was David. The boy lingered in every thought. He imagined David served up on a long banquet table, the beasts lined up for their share of his tender flesh, goblets filled with his blood.
He shuddered.
He stood and paced the room. The others slept, the night’s excitement having turned to exhaustion. He watched Dev’s chest rise and fall as steady as a clock, peaceful.
Ross tiptoed to the corner of the bunker. Seven television monitors displayed views from night vision cameras set up around the perimeter of the rock wall. The screens cast an eerie green glow. Somewhere out in those woods, they had David.
He felt restless. How could he stand here doing nothing when his grandson needed him? Why had he agreed to wait? He knew the answer. He was an old man and wouldn’t have survived this long without Bella and Chev. David’s best chance was the two men and one young woman sleeping in the underground bunker. Still, each beat of his heart brought a stabbing pain.
In the second monitor, a man appeared between two birch trees. His eyes glowed, leaving trails of light behind as he approached the camera. He was smiling through a mouthful of sharp black teeth.
Ross stepped back from the monitor, as if the dark figure could reach through the glowing screen and seize his throat. He glanced at Dev, who was lost in deep slumber, and the others fitfully struggling to sleep. He moved to wake them.
As if he could see Ross, the Brother put a finger to his lips and shook his head.
The Brother raised his hand and lifted Copper up into the camera’s view. Then he walked, carefully navigating the exact path they had, disappearing from view in one camera only to appear in the next. He approached the trap door and stopped. This, Ross realized, was one of the sentinels Dev had mentioned. He must have been spying on them, memorizing their moves through the traps and mines.
Clearly, the sentinel wanted to talk.
The urge to wake the others struck him again. But then … Copper. The sentinel had shown the stuffed animal to the camera as a message to him. Why would the sentinel risk exposing itself to Dev? It had a message to deliver, a message from Marek, a message about David.
Ross made his way to the door, careful not to let his feet land too heavily on the floor as he walked. Once there, he released the locks. He glanced back over his shoulder as the deadbolts clicked but saw no movement from the sleepers. He passed through, down the dark tunnel, to the trap door. He slid the lumber off the brackets and cracked it open.
The sentinel crouched down and stared through the opening. He made no move to reach out for the door or to attack. Instead, he lit a cigarette and whispered, “Grandpa Ross?”
“How did you know the others were asleep?”
The sentinel smiled. “Call it instinct. We know what you’re planning tomorrow. It makes sense that they’d be down for the rest of the night. We’re doing the same, to be ready. Makes sense, too, that you wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight.”
“David,” Ross said, just that one word.
“He’s alive,” he said, puffing on the smoke. “And if you cooperate, that doesn’t need to change. He’d be tasty, yes, but a tiny meal. There’s something else we’re more interested in. Someone else.”
Ross felt a chill run through his body. “Dev.”
“Mr. Ayers has been a thorn in our paws for much too long. He falls outside the pact.” The sentinel held the cigarette between his thumb and pointer, just like the French soldiers Ross had met in Europe. “It’s a simple trade. Tomorrow, you suit up with the others and hike into our woods. He’ll arm you. You’re an old man; he’ll give you something small with no kick at all, a little handgun.”
The sneer in the sentinel’s voice reminded him of those French soldiers, too. He watched the beast inhale deeply on the cigarette, burning it down to the filter, before snubbing it out on the ground. “There’s a footbridge on the path leading up to the grange. It’s only wide enough for a single person. You will position yourself behind Devil. You’ll hear a crow call three times as your cue. After the third caw you’ll put your pistol against the back of Ayer’s head and pull the trigger.”
Ross began to shake. “I don’t know … if I can.”
“You can,” the sentinel said. “You kill Devil and we return your grandson to you in one piece. Not a single bite taken out of him.”
Stuttering, Ross asked, “What about Chev and Bella?”
“We’ll take care of them. Nothing for you to worry about.” The sentinel stood, leaving Ross to stare at his feet. “These terms are not negotiable. If you refuse, your grandson is dead. And Chev and Bella and Devil will die anyway. Maybe we’ll let you live like we let old Gus live after we raped his wife and left her womb barren. Let you spend your last few years agonizing over the decision you made.”
Ross said nothing. His face numbed over, leaving only a tickle of nervous energy dancing on his skin. He wanted to believe the Brother, to believe he would see his grandson again, but the churning in his gut told him not to be so eager to trust.
“Merry Christmas, Grandpop,” the sentinel said. As he retraced his steps back around the house, he whistled “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”
Ross closed the trap door and collapsed on the concrete stairs. He brought his knees up to his chest and buried his face in them, mind flooded with awful possibilities. By the time he stood and locked the trapdoor, his mind was made up. He knew he would never be able to forgive himself, either, for his trespasses.
Chapter Nine
Chev awoke to the smell of coffee. Dev set a cup in his hand as he sat up and chased the crust out of his eyes. He thanked Ayers, sipped the coffee, and quivered in response. “What kind of joe is this?”
“My own blend,” Dev said, helping Chev to his feet. “Dry roasted beans, ginseng root, dandelion, cayenne pepper, and root bark. Tends to perk up parts of you that you’ve forgotten about.”
Chev took another sip, decided against a third, and asked, “This is probably a very stupid question, but do you have a phone I could use?”
Dev led him over to a table, overturned a cardboard box, and said, “Got plenty. I can’t tell you how many of these I’ve found over the last few years. The beasts don’t usually take much from their prey; they just leave it with the remains. I found that red one four days ago. It stands the best chance of still working.”
There were dozens of cell phones, PDAs, wristwatches, and several devices that Chev couldn’t identify. One looked suspiciously like a pacemaker. He plucked the red phone out of the pile and turned it on. It came to life, welcomed him, and chirped. The screen read 27 New Messages. A text message scrolled up: daddy pls call were worried.
He thought of his daughters, Neva and Tawny. Difficult as it was, though, there was another call he needed to make first. His fing
ers knew the number. He dialed. On the second ring, Mr. Tom answered.
“It’s Chev.”
“Chev? Man, I was worried about you. Our guys from the Monroe depot got to your truck a couple hours back and didn’t find you. Where are you?”
He sat down in front of the bank of television monitors. “I’m safe for now, just past a little town called Easter Glen. Listen, Tom, I need you to call the state police and get them—”
“Whoa, whoa, Chev. The police?”
“Yeah, Tom,” he said, “the police. I’m in trouble here and we could use some help. There’s—”
“No, no, no no no, Chev, you have to listen to me, man.” Mr. Tom’s voice filled with tension. “You don’t understand. We can’t call the cops in on this one. The boys got your truck off the road, but that’s where it is, on the curb. They’re working on it, but—”
“I don’t care about any of that,” Chev told him.
“Listen, you know how things are. You had to have known that the money was too good for just a holiday run. You know the score. Our client on this needs our confidentiality. We can’t just call the pol—”
The low battery icon lit on the cell phone.
“Goodbye, Mr. Tom.” He hung up. For years he’d heard gossip that the company ran trips for organized crime, shipping high-end stolen goods cross country to be sold on the opposite coast. He thought about the pay and the awkward route the company had him take. He swore under his breath and dialed a number his head, heart, and fingers knew well.
It rang four times and went to the answering machine. His daughters sang “Silent Night” while his wife Bea said, “We’re out caroling, so we can’t get to the phone right now. But leave us a message and we’ll return your call. Merry Christmas.”
