by Ike Hamill
# # # # #
“Wait,” Madelyn said.
It was almost dark. She could barely see. Still, she made a wide circle around the young woman. There was something wrong with the situation. Elijah watched the sky nervously as Madelyn made her approach. Harper wasn’t moving. Madelyn held still until she saw the young woman’s shoulder move with the intake of breath.
“Harper?” Madelyn whispered.
When she grunted, Madelyn moved forward. Harper jerked back as Madelyn laid her hand on her shoulder.
“Harper, we’re going to get you out of here.”
“No,” Harper said. “They’re coming.”
Madelyn got her hand under Harper’s arm and started to pull her up. She shot a look at Elijah. He saw the motion in the last light and moved to help. Harper moaned as they lifted. Elijah was fumbling with the healing wrap. Madelyn wanted to tell him it could wait, but they had a long walk ahead of them. Harper would need the energy to keep up. It was getting dark and Madelyn wanted to be indoors as soon as possible.
She lifted the back of Harper’s shirt while Elijah spread the wrap. Without enough light to inspect her, the back was as good a place as any. She perked up immediately.
“Climb,” Harper said. She pulled against Madelyn’s grip. Harper still needed help supporting herself, but she propelled both of them forward. The sound was terrible. It was impossible to stay quiet as they shuffled through the leaves and climbed the hill. Elijah dropped back so he could listen for danger away from their noise. Madelyn’s senses were overrun with the sound.
They climbed.
Harper waved her arms in front of her, pushing away trees when they got in the way. As soon as they got to a level place, Harper stopped.
“I don’t know which way,” she said.
Madelyn pointed her the best she could and the two of them moved forward. Elijah had the compass. He didn’t correct her, so Madelyn assumed they were still moving in the right direction.
Harper stopped.
“Do you need another wrap? We have one more,” Madelyn whispered to the young woman.
“Stand still,” Harper said. Her voice had been little more than a breath in Madelyn’s ear.
Madelyn listened for trouble. She heard nothing more than her own thudding heart.
When Harper spoke again, her full voice shocked Madelyn to her core.
“They’re coming!” Harper said.
Madelyn heard Elijah start to run. Harper lunged forward and tripped. Madelyn propped her up so she didn’t hit the ground, but Harper’s churning legs were working against them. They stumbled forward in the dark.
She squeezed Harper’s arm and hissed in the young woman’s ear. “Harper! Harper! Settle down.”
Harper responded with a sad moan. “They’re coming again. I don’t want them to get me again.”
Madelyn guided Harper forward. They stumbled through the woods. Madelyn cringed at every snapped stick and shuffling step. A blind person could have followed them. Harper began to sag under Madelyn’s arm. The young woman was weeping.
Madelyn tensed when she heard something approaching. She braced herself for the impact.
The young woman became lighter in Madelyn’s arms.
Madelyn tried to prepare herself for the worst.
“Veer west,” Elijah said. He was on the other side of Harper, helping them along.
Madelyn was able to breathe again. She found new strength to continue. Even Harper seemed to perk up.
After a few minutes, Harper was nearly walking on her own. “You should see a row of birch trees ahead,” Harper said. “Stay to the right of them. It’s easier going.”
“We can’t see a thing,” Elijah said.
The three of them struggled for the longest time. They hit patches of brush that seemed impassable. They felt their way around boulders with extended hands and Madelyn fell more times than she could count. Elijah was always there to help her back up, and he steered her around a couple of things she didn’t even see. Each time he used the compass, Madelyn wanted to tear it from his hands and double-check his navigation. It wouldn’t do her any good. She had no landmarks to navigate with. All they had to go on was Elijah’s sense of how far they had traveled.
“We have to stop,” Madelyn whispered to Elijah as he caught her arm. She was exhausted and covered with scrapes and bruises.
“No!” Harper said. “Trust me. If you stop, they find you.”
Madelyn knew she would say something like that. Elijah’s opinion was more important.
“I think we’re close. We should keep moving,” he said.
Madelyn nodded in the dark. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so alone and helpless, and she had definitely recalled times that qualified for both. She had always known her enemy before. She had never seen a Roamer, but she knew what they were. She knew what attracted them, and she knew what the outcome would be if they caught her. The same could be said for grief. Somewhere in the back of her head, even when she was hurting the most over the loss of David, she had known that the grief had an end and she would find a way through.
But struggling through the dark, with the inconsolable anchor of Harper weighing them down, Madelyn felt completely helpless.
“Wait a second,” Elijah said.
Something in his voice made Madelyn’s heart soar. Hope flooded in.
“This way.”
# # # # #
“Intrusion detected,” the kitchen said.
“Shut up,” Madelyn replied. “We’ll burn this damn place to the ground. Block all the windows, dim the lights, and lock the doors. Do it now.”
Elijah looked up. He seemed surprised that the house was responding to Madelyn’s orders.
“Lie down on the floor,” Elijah said to Harper. “We’ve got some more wraps for you.”
“Not here,” Madelyn said. “Downstairs. This house produces enough heat to attract a lot of things.”
Navigating the stairs was almost too much. After clawing their way through the woods in the dark, Madelyn’s heart nearly stopped when they slipped on the stairs. She imagined the three of them tumbling to the bottom and breaking their necks in the process.
They didn’t.
In the basement, they stretched Harper out on the couch. Madelyn got a good look at the young woman’s eyes. Both of them were as cloudy as Gabriel’s dead eye had been. Compared to the old man, Harper looked much worse in every way save one—she was still alive.
Madelyn saw Elijah swallow hard and take a deep breath before he spoke to Harper.
“What hurts the most? The wrap will take away some of the pain as it works,” Elijah said. Harper pointed to her head. What he had said to the young woman was a dirty lie. The pain wouldn’t subside. In fact, on an injury that bad, the pain would be compounded by a maddening itch that might continue for hours or days. Still, it wasn’t a bad lie. Maybe Harper would believe it and she would be able to cope more easily.
Elijah applied one of the big wraps to Harper’s head. Madelyn held her breath and waited.
Harper’s will was strong. She didn’t scream or squirm. The only indication of her discomfort was a shiver that ran through Harper’s body as her body tensed on the couch. Madelyn didn’t even want to imagine what it felt like.
“Can you tell us what did this?” Elijah said.
Madelyn wanted to tell him to shut up. They weren’t going to get any useful information out of Harper. The young woman was barely conscious. Again, it took Madelyn a second to realize Elijah’s wisdom. His question had distracted Harper from her physical body and helped her hide in her memory.
“They’re little people,” Harper whispered. “They’ve got knives made of bone and teeth. They wear clothes made of bark and grass. They hide in the trees and attack anything that moves. The only way to survive is to stay perfectly still.”
“Relax. It’s okay,” Elijah said.
Harper was shaking again.
“They’re not go
ing to get you here,” he said.
Madelyn looked to the stairs and hoped he was right.
# # # # #
With the lights dimmed and the display showing a quiet, moonlit forest, Madelyn could almost imagine that they were hiding in a cave, waiting for dawn. She looked over to Elijah. His eyes were drooping. Somehow, he was still awake.
“I’m not sure she’s going to be able to walk tomorrow,” he said.
They kept their voices low so they wouldn’t bother Harper. The young woman was so exhausted that it probably wouldn’t have mattered if they shouted.
“If we slap enough wraps on her, she will.”
“Is that worth it? I don’t think it’s a good idea to infuse her with too many alterations. A lot of people would…”
Madelyn cut him off. “Relax. I’m not suggesting that we do it. We can wait here another day until she’s well enough to go. That thing is already blocking our exit. I don’t think that problem is going to get worse.”
“I wish we knew what we were up against.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Madelyn said. The three of them had encountered whatever was represented by the blue mass on the display, and the three of them had come away with radically different ideas of the threat. Elijah had seen bees, Madelyn had witnessed a giant goat man, and Harper described little forest savages.
“Maybe it’s frightening, but not deadly,” Elijah said.
“Tell that to Gabriel.”
“I’m not sure he died of his injuries. He might have just been exhausted by his hasty hike down from the mountains. Yes, he had some necrotic flesh and a bad eye, but I don’t think those injuries would have killed him.”
“What about her? The thing blinded her and left her to die in the forest. We don’t even know the extent of her wounds because we slapped a wrap on in the dark. I’m not sure she would have made it through the night,” Madelyn said.
“But how long was she out there alone? How long would it have taken Gabriel to reach town? Two weeks on foot? She was still alive after all that time? It almost makes me think that something was keeping her alive until we could find her.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Is it?” Elijah asked.
“What would be the point?” Madelyn asked.
Elijah turned up his hands. He had no answers. “I think her eyesight is going to come back. Maybe she can give us some insight when she feels better.”
“I doubt it,” Madelyn said.
Chapter 21
{Return}
“I feel a million times better,” Harper said. “Let’s leave right now.”
“No,” Madelyn shook her head. “First, you get something to eat. Those wraps make you feel like you’re full of energy, but it doesn’t last. A kilometer down the path and you’ll be flagging.”
Elijah kept his opinion to himself.
Harper came around to Madelyn’s way of thinking. In the end, it was up to the young woman anyway. She had coded the kitchen to her commands. The thing wouldn’t generate food at Madelyn’s request, even when she threatened to burn the place to the ground.
After a quick meal, they packed some basic rations and consulted the map display one more time.
“We’ll be walking right into it,” Elijah said, pointing at the blue mass.
“I know,” Madelyn said. “Call it a calculated risk. I’ve tried to cross this ridge here, and I can tell you that we won’t make it. Twenty years ago, maybe. But at our age and trailing a wounded girl, forget it. It’s one of the things that made these camps so desirable. They’re isolated on two sides.”
“Okay,” Elijah said.
It looked like the safest path was the one that went to Madelyn’s cabin. The idea brought her mixed feelings.
“No time like the present.”
Outside, the overcast skies hid secrets. The breeze was steady and warm. Harper moved quickly as they rounded the shore of the lake. She seemed fairly comfortable as they crossed through the meadows and climbed the ridge that hemmed in the creek. Harper stopped when they saw the forest.
The trees marked the beginning of Madelyn’s turf. Regardless of what the map showed, Madelyn knew she would be in her own element in those woods.
Harper saw them as dangerous.
“They come down out of the trees,” Harper said. “They’re really hard to spot because their clothes are made of bark and grass.”
“You said that,” Madelyn said.
“The first thing they took was my eyesight,” Harper said.
“At least your eyes healed up pretty well,” Elijah said. “You seem to be seeing fine now.”
“I still see halos around everything,” Harper said.
“That will go away,” Madelyn said. She had no idea if it was true. She started across the creek. “If you see something, just stop in your tracks and wait for it to go away.” She didn’t know if that would work, but it seemed to have before. Madelyn would rather execute a bad plan than wait for a better one.
She didn’t wait for the others or look back to make sure they were following. Madelyn continued under the canopy of trees that she knew so well. They closed in around her and felt both comforting and foreign. She couldn’t stop her eyes from darting around. There was something different. Her grandmother’s forest had been invaded by something, and that invading force was still there.
Still, she couldn’t pin down the feeling to a specific sight or sound. Whatever it was, it was incredibly subtle, but something that made her skin crawl.
Madelyn led the way up the path.
They didn’t stop until Harper couldn’t breathe.
The young woman grabbed at her chest and wheezed. Elijah held her upright. Madelyn stared at Harper’s terrified eyes. She tried to follow Harper’s gaze to get a sense of what was frightening the young woman. Madelyn didn’t see anything in particular. It was the same forest blotting out the overcast skies. The same familiar sights and sounds that were tainted by an indescribable wrongness.
Together, Elijah and Madelyn helped Harper move forward. She eventually caught her breath again. Madelyn managed to catch Elijah’s eye as they helped Harper forward. She raised her eyebrows and he gave his head a little shake. Whatever Harper was seeing, the two of them weren’t in on it.
“I felt it again for a second,” Harper said.
“We have to keep moving,” Madelyn said.
“I can’t tell you how lonely it was—how hopeless. When I was alone in the woods, I was so desperate that I wanted to die. I begged for death. I almost lost hope that even death would free me.”
They shuffled on.
Eventually, Elijah spoke. “Should we stop for a little bit?”
“No,” Madelyn said. “My place isn’t more than another twenty minutes.”
Her estimate was low. They moved slowly.
# # # # #
Madelyn pushed open the door slowly. It had still been locked, but someone had been in there. She would have bet anything. The air was a little too humid. The place felt damp with someone else’s sweat. Elijah led Harper over to the sofa and sat her down. Madelyn closed and locked the door.
“I have to check something downstairs,” Madelyn said. “Get some water from the kitchen. It’s clean.”
Elijah nodded.
Madelyn walked down the stairs, trailing her fingers lightly over the banister. She wondered if it was possible that someone else was still in there. If they were, they would have to be upstairs. The lift was still at the top of its shaft. She climbed in and lowered herself down to the control room. She felt the walls of dirt around her. As always, it felt like she was sealing herself down in a tomb.
She used the controls to run back through the surveillance. She and Jacob left. The sun rose and set on her grandmother’s legacy. She was about to skip forward when she saw something awry. There was a crack of black shadow along the edge of the front door. She could only see the bottom under the overhang of the porch roof. She changed the
view until she was looking down the hall from the inside.
The door swung open over the course of several hours. The motion wasn’t visible until she sped up the replay to ten times the normal speed. Then, she saw it. Something invisible moved through her cabin. It slid a vase a few centimeters. Rotated a photograph a few degrees. Systematically, something moved through the space, investigating the artifacts of Madelyn’s life.
It even turned David’s skull.
Madelyn’s queasiness turned to rage. Her space had been violated.
In a sudden panic, she returned the view to the current time. Her fear subsided when she saw that Harper and Elijah were fine. For a second, she had feared the worst. She had thought that the slow-moving invader had been waiting for people to return so it could murder them with its invisible hands.
Elijah spread a blanket over Harper’s legs and handed her a mug of hot tea. Madelyn looked at the rising steam. She thought about the clouds.
The sensors on her control panel didn’t rival that of the fancy lakeside camp. She had only rudimentary weather capability. Still, her sensors showed the equivalent of the blue mass hanging over the landscape. Whatever was above those clouds, it showed up on Madelyn’s radar as well.
Madelyn set an alarm on the door. If anything opened that door before morning, they would know. It wouldn’t do them much good—there was only one way out of the cabin—but at least they would be able to face their opponent.
She closed the panel and returned upstairs.
# # # # #
“Are we going to be safe here?” Elijah asked.
He met Madelyn in the kitchen for a little conference.
“Not remotely,” she said. “Whatever is out there has no problem getting in here. This mountain has become haunted.”
Elijah’s eyes went to Harper.
“How is she?” Madelyn asked.
“Still shook up. I don’t think there’s anything we can do for her here. Once we get back down to Fairbanks, she might be more comfortable.”
Madelyn folded her arms.
“What?” Elijah asked.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “What if that thing follows us?”
“What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t here before. I’ve lived up here for years, and that cloud didn’t show up until recently. Maybe it followed someone here. Maybe it followed the truck here the last time it came up. What if we go back and it follows us to Fairbanks?”
