Devil Creek

by Mertz, Stephen

  But the hulk in black raised his left arm and the two-by-four splintered into pieces against his forearm. He laughed, an ululating, hideous wail. Mike reached for another piece of lumber, but the figure in black was upon him, taking them both to the floor once again.

  Robin and Paul reached the entranceway. She turned to look back, and saw that it was now her husband who was fighting for his life, pinned to the floor by Ataka.

  Mike got traction beneath his feet and shoved, and for a few seconds he was on top. Another ululating wail from Domino and they tumbled again, the fight taking them closer to where flames leaped from the floor, creating a barrier of flame between them and Robin.

  Paul said, “Mom, what are we going to do?” Again, his own voice; terrified, frightened, but yes, her son had been returned to her.

  Ataka’s claw-hands had finally secured their hold on Mike’s throat despite rigorous resistance, and the ululating wail became a blood lust snarl as Domino began to pull and twist.

  Robin said to Paul, “Stay here, honey,” as she started toward the barrier of flame separating her from Mike and Ataka.

  And that’s when the tall, wall-to-wall windows blew inward with the cyclone force of the fire.

  In that first instant, she threw herself back to shield Paul as thousands of razor-sharp shards of glass missiled across the lobby.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw one large V-shaped shard decapitate Domino as cleanly as the blade of a guillotine.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The burning frame of the lodge groaned and sagged. The entire structure was aflame around them.

  Mike flung the headless corpse from him before much of its spurting geyser of gore could splatter upon him. He shoved the body into the flames.

  Domino’s head rolled into the fire like a white bowling ball wearing red war paint, and exploded into a bright flare of finality.

  Before Robin could reach the barrier of flame, Mike was up and dashing through it, too fast for it to ignite him. He grabbed her hand and with his other he scooped up Paul and flung him over his shoulder. They ran for their lives, into the firestorm night where the police cruiser and the Subaru waited. Mike got them into the Subaru and raced to get behind the wheel.

  The Subaru sped away just as a grinding, cracking, exploding eruption, louder than any previous thunderclap, filled the night. When the Subaru was at the top of the access road, Mike stomped the brakes and skidded them to a sideways stop, positioning the vehicle so that they could look at the inferno.

  The cataclysmic shattering of the night, by what had sounded like a nuclear weapon detonating, had been the collapse of the lodge combined with a series of mighty thunderclaps.

  The thunderclouds overhead opened and released a storm that began drenching the world.

  Robin stepped from the Subaru. The rain felt luxurious, soaking her as if she was being cleansed. She wanted the sensation to never end.

  She heard sirens in the distance, approaching up the access road. The downpour was suppressing the smoky haze, beating it to the ground. The hotshot teams and rescue personnel would make better time now with the clearing visibility.

  The fire continued to blaze vehemently, the towering, garish flames licking far above treetop level at a starless sky. But the devouring monster of flame was ceasing its advance, as if the construction site had at last satiated its appetite. The flames were showing the first indication of losing their brilliance to become a pale, golden conflagration now caught in a struggle for survival against the elements. The onrush of blistering dry heat began to noticeably dissipate.

  Mike hurried around the Subaru to where Paul sat sideways in the back seat of the vehicle with his door open.

  “Son, are you all right?”

  Paul’s eyes no longer blazed with a warrior’s fury, but instead held exhausted blankness.

  “I … I guess so. Mike, I don’t remember anything that happened.”

  Robin leaned down and kissed her son gently upon the top of his tousled head. “There will be time to try and understand later, if we ever can. Oh, Paul, honey, I’m so glad you’re safe.”

  “Mom, don’t call me ‘honey.”’

  She laughed because joy filled her, and kissed the top of his head again.

  With teenage aloofness, Paul pretended not to notice this and said to Mike, “You saved my life … Dad.”

  And the three of them stood there beside the Subaru, in the rain, linking their arms about each other and witnessing the spectacle of nature commencing the process of taming a monster it had created.

  The loud, pounding rain was dousing the most recently ignited flames—the rubble of the lodge—into nothing.

  Mike said, “Whatever happened here tonight, we made it through, thanks to each other.”

  Robin nodded. “And thank God it’s over.”

  There was much that she would never understand. An ancient, timeless Native American presence had possessed her son: a spirit warrior. And Jeff. Mean, cruel, sneering, pathetic Jeff, who ultimately chose to risk and sacrifice his life to protect Paul, rather than further perpetuate the evil he had helped bring about. She would try to understand.

  She thought she understood why Paul had been returned to her, to her and Michael. Gray Wolf had explained that he chose Paul because he needed physical strength, a purity of essence to combat what Ataka had summoned forth. But once she had freed Mike to fight for them, Gray Wolf had known that Michael Landware possessed those same qualities. She smiled to herself. The ancient shaman had left Ataka to them, and contented himself with putting out the forest fire.

  The sirens were ascending from just below the final bend in the access road.

  Tonight, she understood the rain, a monsoon soaker that could continue for hours.

  And she understood that it was never “over,” just as their world and Gray Wolf’s would always be one, as he’d told her. There was no “happily ever after.” The challenge was to embrace the abundance of now: to live at peace with the past, so that the good and the bad of the present and the future would be embraced with a strength of spirit born of the powers of acceptance, faith and love. Not learning that lesson had been Jeff’s undoing, but Kelly Shaw had learned it and, Robin hoped, so had she, and Mike and Paul too.

  She had the feeling of being watched.

  She glanced over Paul’s head, into the inky darkness of the rain, beyond the range of the diminishing fires. She saw nothing.

  Then, when the first headlights of the convoy swept around the bend, she glimpsed a gray timber wolf that stood, out of the rain, at the base of a mighty pine tree nearby.

  As she watched, the wolf turned and trod away, and vanished into the night.