The Hag

by Erik Henry Vick

  “I figured as much, Toby. You and Shannon get out of here.”

  “We’re not leaving you, Mike,” said Shannon from behind Toby.

  Toby frowned down at Mike’s back. “Did you get everything out of the car, Shan?” said Toby in a hushed voice.

  “Yes, everything I could find. It’s all in a pile about twenty feet from the tree line.”

  “My shotgun,” said Mike. “In the ditch. And you have to, Shannon. We can’t risk Toby getting caught. Or you.”

  “Or you, dumbass,” said Shannon but without anger in her voice.

  “Can’t help that,” said Mike. “Anyway, I know all the tricks. Take my wallet, Toby.”

  “But you rented the car‍—‍”

  “Yeah, I did, but that’ll take a little time to sort out. I’ve got amnesia,” he said in a wry tone. “Can’t remember who I am or why I’m here. All I remember is the gang of thugs that attacked the car when I stopped because of the fallen tree.”

  Toby stole a glance at the car, at the caved-in quarter panel, the strips of shredded metal on the roof, the broken glass. It could work, at least for a day or two. He looked at Shannon and nodded. “Shannon, are you with it enough to do your thing?”

  Shannon stared him in the eye for a few seconds, then inclined her head.

  “Can you make me invisible? Can you make a group of people overlook me?”

  “I’ve never tried that, and I’ve never tried to deceive an entire group. I have no clue if‍—‍”

  “We’ve got to chance it. I don’t want to leave Mike until the ambulance arrives.”

  “I’ll be fine, Toby. You two get going.”

  “While I respect your medical opinion, Doctor Richards, I’ll stay right here.” Toby grinned up at Shannon. “You go stand with the stuff, Shan. Try your best, that’s all we’ve ever asked of you.”

  “But Mike will recover? Fully recover?”

  Toby peered at the end of the road and frowned at the two police cars racing toward them. “I think so. Go on now, Shannon. Before they’re close enough to catch sight of you.”

  “Or you,” said Mike.

  Shannon glanced at oncoming vehicles before returning her gaze to Toby. “You think so?”

  “I’ll be fine, Shannon. Scout’s honor,” said Mike.

  Toby gazed steadily back at her, then bobbed his head. “If they see me, they see me, Shannon. You don’t come out of the woods, not for anything. Someone has to get away to tell the others what happened. Dan Delo will come back—he’ll bring others up here.”

  “But‍—‍”

  “Shannon, there’s no time. Get going!” said Mike.

  Shannon shook her head and turned toward the woods. “I don’t like it.” When neither man answered her, she walked into the woods.

  “You should go, too, Toby. I’ll be fine.”

  “I think so, too, Mike, but I’m staying right here until I’m sure. Who knows how long it will take for an ambulance to get out here?” The sirens were almost on top of them, and Toby knew without looking that the Sheriff’s Deputies were close. “Make sure they call for an ambulance right away.”

  “They will.”

  “And don’t let them take you to Rochester General. Tell them you want to go to Strong or Highland.”

  The police cars made a V, blocking the road, lights and sirens going. Both deputies got out of their vehicles and left the front doors open. One rushed forward, gun drawn, to check around the car, the other came toward Mike. Toby sat statue-still, trying to breathe without making a sound.

  “Sir?” the deputy asked, shouting over the noise of the sirens. “Are you conscious?”

  “Yes, Deputy. Are they still here?”

  “Who, sir?”

  “The…the men who did this. There were three—no four of them. Maybe four… They…they attacked me.”

  “Anything, Stan?”

  “Is that my name?” asked Mike, adding a slur to the words.

  Don’t lay it on so thick, Mike. Don’t overdo it.

  “What?” asked the deputy. “What did you say?”

  “You…called me ‘Stan.’”

  The deputy shook his head. “No, sir, I was talking to the other deputy. He’s near the vehicle. Is the car yours?”

  “I… remember…a tree in the road? It’s all so hazy.”

  The deputy squatted next to Mike and tilted his head to the side. “Whose shirt is this?”

  Oh, shit! Toby thought. I should have had Shannon make it invisible, too.

  “Shirt? It’s my shirt,” said Mike.

  “No, I mean the one on your back. The one sopping up the blood.” The deputy hooked the blood-soaked shirt with his pen and lifted it. Toby jerked his hands back just in time, wincing at the pain that erupted in his shoulder with the sudden movement.

  “Must’ve passed out. Is there a bus coming?”

  “Bus?” The deputy squinted down at Mike. “Are you on the job?”

  Mike was silent for a few seconds. “I… I… I can’t remember.”

  “What’s your name?” The deputy rocked back on his heels and let the shirt fall back to cover Mike’s wounds.

  “It’s the damnedest thing… It’s…it’s as if it’s on the tip of my tongue. I can almost remember…”

  “Did you hit your head in the accident?”

  “Accident?”

  “Don’t worry, sir. The ambulance is on its way. Should be here any minute now.”

  “Good. I…”

  “Did one of the men try to help you? Is that who owns this shirt?”

  “I really don’t know, Deputy.”

  The deputy sighed. “That’s okay. You said there were four of them? Can you describe them?”

  “I’m not sure. They attacked me when I got out of the car, but it’s all so hazy.”

  The other deputy approached. “That car is beat to hell, and not just from the accident. Looks as though somebody took after the roof with an axe.”

  At the intersection with Route 104, the buildings and signs again glowed with spinning lights as the ambulance turned onto the road and sped toward them.

  6

  LaBouche pushed his way through the glass door of the Oneka Falls Town Hall hard enough that it slammed against the wall. He had his state trooper badge looped through his belt for the benefit of any humans still working there, but he didn’t plan on any playacting. He walked right up to the reception desk. “Where?” he asked Sally McBride.

  Sally flashed him a sour grin. “They took a long dinner.”

  With a covert glance around, LaBouche hissed, “They don’t eat—at least not like that.”

  “Of course they don’t!” Sally snapped. “They’re off somewhere, fucking.”

  The acid in her voice surprised LaBouche. Can she be jealous? How can she be jealous if Chaz is giving his affections to another? After all the abuse, all the degradation he has heaped on her? He stared at her, his gaze zipping from her eyes to the set of her shoulders, to the corner of her mouth, to the way her ears lay flat back against her head. She is! LaBouche smeared a fake smile on his lips while resting the tips of his fingers on his chin. “He has treated you horribly, Sally,” he said with a hint of humor in his voice.

  Sally frowned but nodded.

  LaBouche rested his elbows on the reception counter and leaned toward her. “You’re not jealous, are you?”

  She jerked her head back as if he had spit in her face and opened her mouth to speak.

  “Because if you are, I must conclude that you are stark, raving mad.”

  Tears glimmered in her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest.

  LaBouche snorted and curled his lip. “That’s why things are the way they are, Sally. That’s why you’ll never rise above your current position.”

  “I can’t help it,” she wailed. “I hate Chaz, but… I don’t… I don’t want her to have him!”

  LaBouche’s grin broadened, and he lifted his arms, palms pointed toward the ceiling. “Th
e heart wants what it wants, Sally.”

  She glared at him through her tears but had nothing more to say.

  He lay one hand on the counter and drummed his fingers. “Where would they go? Chaz’s house?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know!” snapped Sally.

  LaBouche’s smile didn’t fade, not one millimeter. “Of course you would, Sally.”

  Sally looked down at the surface of her desk and then away toward the far corner of the room. “Shannon Bertram’s apartment.”

  “The woman with the hunters? That’s brash, even for Chaz.”

  Sally lifted her round shoulders and let them drop, setting her fat breasts and belly jiggling. “It’s close,” she said sourly. “It’s just across the street.”

  “Ah. Convenience has its advantages. Where?”

  Sally didn’t answer, she seemed lost in thought.

  LaBouche leaned across the counter and snapped his fingers in her face, and she startled. “I asked you: ‘where.’” All of his previous jocularity had faded, and his voice had gone as cold as an arctic wind.

  “Out the door, turn left, straight across at the traffic light, through the parking lot, up the stairs on the side of the building, the door at the top.” She turned to glare at him. “Happy?”

  LaBouche straightened and narrowed his eyelids at her. “You’ll want to watch yourself, McBride. I know you’re upset, and I’m making allowances, but I’ll have your respect.”

  Sally flapped her pink, pudgy hand at him. “Whatever. Get out and take your threats with you.”

  LaBouche glared at her for the space of ten breaths, neither one of them moving or looking away. Finally, he spun on his heel and pushed out into the fresh night air, slamming the glass door so hard it cracked.

  7

  Dan Delo circled the smashed car, far too high to be in danger of being shot by the hunters. His wing ached in the cold air, but the membrane would heal, given time and adequate sustenance. Below him, the cops traipsed back and forth between the hunters’ car and the knot of EMTs around the one he’d stomped on.

  The woman was in the woods, no doubt hiding, but the other one… The other one had disappeared. Even so, he wanted to watch where the woman would go. On the other hand, it might be fun to stop her from going anywhere.

  He wondered if that old idiot at the library had gotten away. Part of his intent in attacking the car was to check the trunk—something he hadn’t had time to do. He watched the woman take their weapons out of the trunk, but the angle had been wrong, and he hadn’t been able to see if the old demon was back there. If that ancient demon was in the trunk and woke up now…well, Dan would have to go to his aid, proscription against attacking cops or no.

  The EMTs loaded the ambulance and departed in a cacophony of sirens and engine noise. The two cops walked around, shining their flashlights on the ground, picking up spent shotgun shells and trying to figure out what the broken paintball shells were. Dan Delo circled lower and focused his ears on the two men.

  “What do you think, Stan?” asked one.

  Stan sighed and kicked the remains of the paintball into the ditch. “Drug deal gone bad? I’ll be damned if I know, Guy.”

  “Nah. What kind of idiot would it take to do a drug deal in the middle of a well-traveled road? Plus, you saw the guy. Clean-cut, decent shape…and he called the ambulance a ‘bus.’ I bet you dinner the guy’s on the job.”

  “You think? Maybe he’s undercover. DEA or something such as that. Maybe that’s why he caught the beating.”

  Guy straightened and stared at Stan as if he lost his mind. “No one going undercover in the drug trade would dress this way. He looks more like a police chief than a drug dealer.”

  Stan bowed his head. “Let’s check what they’ve got in the trunk, then. I bet it’s drugs.”

  Guy scoffed and strode toward the wrecked Lincoln. “Key’s in the ignition, you said?”

  “Yeah.” Stan walked over to stand at the trunk. “I mean, think about it, Guy. A large American-made four-door, a guy traveling alone… Suspicious, right?”

  Guy shook his head and leaned inside the car, retrieving the keys. “Stan, those guidelines were for Interstate traffic. Does this look like an Interstate?”

  “No, but everybody has to get off the Interstate sometime.”

  Guy didn’t respond but walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk. It was empty. “I guess you owe me dinner, Stan.”

  When Dan turned his attention back to the woods, the woman had disappeared. Again. He searched for her from the air, but it was as if she had turned invisible. With frustration pounding in his temple with the rhythm of his pulse, Delo turned south and began the long flight toward Oneka Falls.

  8

  Mason sighed as he switched off the ignition of his van—what his co-workers at the freight company called “his serial killer van.” The thought made him smile as it always did. Sometimes, the best place to hide was in plain sight.

  He had the van “outfitted for camping,” though he detested camping. It featured a metal-framed single bed along one wall of the rear compartment of the truck. He’d installed curtains to cover the back windows—blackout curtains, to boot—so nothing would disturb him when he was “trying to sleep out in the woods.” Those were the changes he talked about—the other changes were nobody’s business…unless they wanted the “special tour.”

  He glanced in the extended rearview mirror. The bed—and its current occupant—was reflected there. She sat scrunched up against the metal screen headboard, eyes wide as she stared back at him. A gag kept her teeth apart, but more to make her uncomfortable than to keep her quiet—one of his modifications to the van that he didn’t share with anyone was the studio-quality sound dampening. His guest could scream her head off, and no one would be the wiser unless he had the windows open. He tipped her a wink and opened his door.

  She struggled against her bonds, but with tempered steel handcuffs and the quarter-inch-thick leather cuffs around her ankles, she couldn’t get away. She would leave when he said, and in the condition he dictated.

  He drew a deep breath and whistled through his teeth as he exhaled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  As he locked the door to his garage, he chuckled. He loved that part of the game. He’d leave her in the van for a few hours—or maybe more, depending on how the mood struck him—getting her out when he wanted. In the meantime, she’d jump at every sound, every vision her brain conjured out of the dark.

  Mason couldn’t draw sustenance from her fear like his friends could, but he fed on them, nonetheless.

  9

  Shannon kept the cloak of invisibility over them until they stood beside the strip mall half a mile east of the intersection of 104 and the road where Dan Delo had attacked their car. The strip mall contained a Chinese restaurant that was still open, and in the darkness next to the building, she changed her illusion, so they no longer looked like they’d been in a war, and so Toby was wearing a shirt again. “Toby, how long until the car gets here?”

  “An hour or two, yet. Rental car companies never deliver at the time they say they will.”

  Shannon sighed and put a hand over her eyes. She was still dizzy from the blow of the demon’s wingtip, and the cut across her forehead burned. “I don’t know how long I can keep this going.”

  “Let’s go inside,” said Toby. “At least you can sit down and rest.”

  Wearily, Shannon nodded and followed him through the door.

  10

  “They should be back by now,” said Benny from where he stood near the door. He twitched the curtains aside and peered out the narrow window to the side of the door.

  Scott nodded but said nothing.

  Benny rounded on him, his expression an angry one. “How can you just sit there?”

  Scott lifted an eyebrow. “Is there anything we can do? I don’t remember having a second car.”

  Benny scoffed and turned back to stare out the w
indow, watching for headlights on the road beyond. “Something’s wrong, Scott. I’m telling you. I can feel it.”

  “You can feel it, or you can feel it?”

  “I’m not sure how to answer that, Scott.”

  “What I mean is: do you believe something is wrong, or do you know something is wrong because of your gift?”

  Benny scoffed again and chopped his left hand through the air.

  “That’s what I thought,” said Scott. “Benny, I’ve been through situations like this a million times. Stakeouts, waiting for drug buys with an undercover, whatever. Man, you’ve got to put away the stress and learn to wait. Your mind will play tricks on you—you’ll imagine everything that could go wrong—but none of that means anything.” Scott chuckled. “One time I‍—‍”

  “I’m not in the mood for war stories, Scott. This is different, and you know it.”

  Scott held up his hands in supplication. “Okay. I was just trying to help.”

  “I… I think one of them has been hurt. I…”

  Scott got to his feet and walked over to stand next to Benny. “Go on.”

  “Maybe…” Benny bowed his head and swiped at the hair hanging down in his face. “What if…they were ambushed?”

  “And the paintball guns didn’t work?”

  Benny shook his head and waved the question away. “I don’t have details!”

  “Okay. Tell me what to do.”

  Benny stole a quick peek at him, his face drawn into sheepish lines. “I don’t know, Scott.”

  Scott cocked his head to the side. “Which one is hurt? Don’t think about it, just say the first name that pops into your mind.”

  “Mike.”

  Scott pursed his lips. He’d expected Benny to name Shannon as the one hurt. Mike was the last one who should get hurt. He had the training and the experience, and that should’ve allowed him to avoid injury. “Well, if it’s true, it’s true. There’s nothing we can do about it from here.”

  “Can’t you call them? Call Toby?”

  Scott pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and tossed it to Benny. “No service way out here.”

  Benny looked at the phone as if it were an alien artifact, then he tossed the device back. “I can’t stand waiting!”