Canyon Shadows

by C R Langille

  Allison couldn’t believe her ears. He must be hiding something. Garrett had the same idea, his mouth forming a frown. Randall opened and closed his mouth, fumbling for words but only serving to look like a fish gasping for oxygen-rich water. Garrett’s eyes narrowed.

  “I was afraid you were going to say something like that. I am fairly positive that this sword is real, and although I’m no expert in Native American handcrafts, I would be willing to bet money that those are authentic as well,” Garrett said.

  “Like I said, the sword may be real, but was it up in those dwellings with the rest of that stuff? Who knows? I doubt it myself.”

  “But, I—” Randall started.

  “But nothing. Look, Garrett, Allison, I’m sorry you came all this way, but there isn’t any way of verifying this anymore,” Dan said.

  “I see,” Garrett said.

  Allison wanted to confront him, but it was obvious they weren’t going to get much more from him. Sheriff Blackwood had said his piece and was making his exit.

  Randall walked back into his office with his shoulders slumped. Allison sat on the couch crunching the data in her head. It didn’t make sense. What was he hiding?

  “How about I treat you all to dinner? I mean, I wasn’t much help with your research. The least I can do is get you something to eat,” Dan said.

  “Thank you, Sheriff, but I’ll pass. I have some things I want to check out first regarding these artifacts,” Garrett muttered. “I still think there may be something to them.”

  “Suit yourself,” Dan said.

  Allison shot up from the couch. This was her chance to get him alone. She tried to tell herself it was only so she could get the information out of him, but there was that animal instinct still prowling in the depths of her core.

  “I’m starving,” she blurted.

  “Good, let’s get some grub then.”

  Dan walked to the door, and Allison followed. When she reached the threshold, she turned back and looked at Garrett.

  “You going to be okay, Boss?” she asked.

  “Go ahead, Grasshopper. Have fun.”

  When she turned and looked out the door, Dan was at his Bronco, leaning against the hood.

  “Okay, I’ll be back!” She grabbed her satchel and rushed out to Dan. She’d get the info, even if it wasn’t the only reason she was going.

  ***

  Night had a cold grip on Canyon Shadows when Rusty came up on The Last Stop. Dull yellow streetlamps shone down on the door, and angry florescent lights flickered from inside the store itself, but otherwise the exterior of the gas station was dark. He walked toward the door and eyed the dusty minivan abandoned at the pump. Something about the vehicle brought about sadness from deep down inside him.

  He opened the door and walked into the store. Rusty expected someone to be behind the counter and hoped to feel the cool wash of air from the air conditioner. Instead, hot and muggy air mixed with a fecal stench punched him in the face. Rusty took his “Chick Magnet” trucker hat off and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  “Hello?” he called.

  Silence greeted him.

  Rusty walked over to the cooler and spied the beverages. He looked at the racks of soda and juices, finally coming to the water. When he opened the cooler door, the brisk, refrigerated air rolled over his skin. It was a refreshing break from the heat outside. Rusty grabbed a large bottle of water, which happened to be the last one on the row. As he removed it, a small set of eyes peered at him from the other side of the shelves.

  “Hello,” he said gently, a smile forming on his face.

  The small figure crouched down, disappearing from view. Rusty crouched down and looked through the next set of shelves at the vague form of a child huddled on the floor, rocking back and forth.

  “You doing all right, little one?”

  The child scurried back into the darkness.

  Yeah, that wasn’t creepy at all.

  Rusty found the door leading to the back storage area. As he crossed the threshold, everything changed. The hairs on the back of his neck raised, and the room, although slightly more chilled due to its location next to the refrigeration, threatened to choke him with its humid stench. It wasn’t the stench or the heat that made him hesitate at the doorway and draw a sleek obsidian knife hafted in deer antler; it was the blood.

  Blood covered the floor in a sticky pool, and someone had drawn crude, childish pictures on the wall, using the blood like finger paints. A stick figure family depicting a mommy, a daddy, and two little girls decorated the wall. The father’s head was missing, and a big red splotch covered the mommy’s face. The two little girls were depicted with abnormally sized grins on their tiny faces. Behind the stick family, an enormous bloody mountain rose high and mighty.

  Rusty tightened his grip on the knife. Strange runes and pictographs were etched deep into the obsidian of the blade, pulsing with their own power—a power from a simpler time.

  The hallway T-sectioned into two different areas. A right would take him to the cooler where he knew one of the little girls hid; however, a massive trail of blood to the hallway on the left would lead to what he suspected was a storage room.

  He chose the right and moved in after the little girl. After seeing the bloody picture on the wall, he decided on caution over bravado.

  The only light in the room came from the other side of the shelves, buzzing florescent lights that put the menagerie of drinks and snacks on display. However, very little of the light made it back into the cool room. Boxes and cartons of sodas and other drinks littered the floor. He moved into the room, and his boot hit something, sending it skittering across the concrete. He looked down and saw a dozen juice boxes scattered across the ground like carcasses, each drained dry of its essential fluids.

  “Hey, little one, you come on out now and let Rusty help you,” he said.

  A low giggle came from behind one of the stacks of soda cans, muffled as if the girl were playing hide-and-seek but playing it badly. This wasn’t good.

  “Look, I don’t have time for this,” he said moving around the stack of cans. As he moved around the soda cans, there was a fluttering followed by a large crash. Moments later, he was showered with sticky, cool liquid. Instinctively, he brought his hand up to shield his face and took three steps back until he hit the wall.

  The top row of the soda cans had crashed into the concrete floor, breaking upon impact. A set of child’s footprints led from the pool of soda across the hall before disappearing into the other room. Another giggle emanated from the darkness of the storage room across the hall.

  He wiped the excess soda from his face and moved across the hallway. Like the other room, this one was dark; however, this dark wasn’t just from an absence of light. It was as if the darkness subdued and tortured the light. Rusty stopped at the threshold, staring into the abyss. It peered back at him, seething with hatred and hungry for the marrow in his bones. It was a familiar darkness.

  “What’s the matter, Spirit? Why don’t you come in and join us?” a hoarse voice croaked.

  The voice had the tinge of femininity to it but had another sound—a sound of something that didn’t belong. Something wet and old.

  “You should release the two little ones,” Rusty said, still refusing to enter the darkness.

  A harsh laughter filled the dark room which was accompanied by a duet of childish giggles. The horrible cacophony grated on Rusty’s nerves, causing a deep growl to rise from his chest, a feral growl not all together human.

  “You are in no position to make demands, Spirit!” the voice stated, still laughing.

  Rusty’s growl slowly turned into a mumble. The mumble started to form into semi-intelligible words in a language spoken centuries ago. The laughter’s volume increased, causing Rusty to flinch in pain as the sound echoed throughout the little store. In turn, R
usty’s chants began to pick up in tempo, and he started to move in rhythm to the words spilling from his mouth.

  As he did, the darkness weakened its grasp on the light, and the obsidian blade in his hand started to glow. The runes and pictographs thrummed with red and blue energy. As the light washed into the storage room, the darkness howled and shrank away from its burning touch. It wasn’t long before the dim red and blue illuminated the grisly scene in the storage room.

  High up on one of the shelves, the gas station attendant crouched, her body contorted in such a way that she looked like a medieval gargoyle waiting to descend upon any unwary victims. Her face contorted into a hellish grin which physically split the sides of her mouth, exposing her gums and teeth beneath.

  Below her were the two little girls. They held each other’s hands as they skipped around the corpses of their dead parents.

  Rusty’s chanting and rhythmic dancing was reaching a crescendo. As it did, the three stopped their laughter, and each snapped their attention to Rusty. As one, the three creatures followed his movements, watching him through eyes of burnt ember that ate the light of Rusty’s knife.

  One of the little girls knelt next to her dead father and picked up a box cutter that was sitting in a pool of coagulated blood. She extended the blade outward and moved at Rusty, her head cocked to the side.

  Rusty’s chanting continued, yet he spoke at the same time.

  “You will pay for this. Your time is short,” he said.

  He stopped his dancing and brandished his knife. The red and blue lights swirled and played around the blade in an intricate dance as he moved into the room. The crouching gargoyle cackled again.

  ***

  “Hey, do you mind if we stop by my place? I’d like to change into something other than this,” Dan said, using his hand to flourish across his sheriff’s uniform. He shot a smile to Allison and then turned his gaze back to the road.

  “No problem,” she replied.

  As they drove to the outskirts of town, she started to feel better. Cheerful even. She hadn’t noticed it before, but there had been some major negative feelings occurring earlier. Now, the tension was flowing away from her bones. Whether it was the prolonged presence of Dan or the fact that they were driving away from Canyon Shadows, she didn’t care.

  He pulled the Bronco into a dirt driveway that had a line of quaking aspen trees on either side which cast a web-work of shadows as the setting sun threw its colorful paint into the sky. A small cabin sat at the end of the driveway with an empty field for a backyard.

  “Home sweet home,” Dan said shutting the vehicle off.

  “It seems nice,” Allison stated, genuinely taken with the scene set before her. It was almost picturesque, like something that should be in a commercial or a painting.

  “Thanks. Come on in; I’m going to throw a different shirt on.”

  They got out, and Dan walked up to the door, opening it for her and motioning her inside with a gesture. She walked past, and the scent of her skin and hair caressed his nose. He couldn’t help but close his eyes and lose himself in her smell. It reminded him of a field of roses.

  “Do you always leave your door unlocked?” Allison asked as she stepped in.

  “Yeah. I don’t really have to worry about it. Nothing’s going to break into my house,” he boasted. He remembered the unwanted visitor from lower management and silently reminded himself to look at upgrading the wards.

  “You just jinxed yourself,” she said.

  The inside of the cabin was Spartan at best. A fireplace sat nestled in one of the walls with a wooden chair to keep it company. Nothing decorated the log walls, nor did any rugs or mats grace the floors. The kitchen was open and almost a part of the living room itself. A small stove and fridge huddled in one of the corners.

  “Quaint,” Allison said.

  “It’s okay. I know it isn’t a palace befitting someone of my renown, but it does its job. Make yourself at home. I think there is water in the tap.”

  “Really, water in the tap? Don’t go all out,” she said.

  “Only the best for my guests,” he said, grinning.

  ***

  Dan left her to her own devices and walked to the bedroom. Allison sauntered around the cabin when he left. She moved close to his bedroom door and noticed that he hadn’t shut it completely. She couldn’t help herself. Chewing a piece of her hair, she edged up to the small opening and peered in.

  Dan walked across her field of view, shirtless. Allison noticed some things in that quick glance. First, Dan’s body was like a chiseled statue. Not a body builder type but definitely strong and lithe. He sported a long set of scars running up his ribcage like a large animal had clawed him or something. However, the most interesting thing was his tattoo.

  Dan had a large tattoo of wings across his back, starting at his shoulders and flowing nearly to his buttocks. Unlike most tattoos of wings, these were different. They started at the bend with feathers a deep midnight black, much like a crow’s, but as they ranged downward, they changed to a snowy white. The coloring scheme was chaotic, and she couldn’t detect a pattern. On top of it all, the wings were broken. The bends were crooked, and pieces of bone appeared at various intervals.

  Dan turned, obscuring the tattoo from view, and as he moved, Allison swore that the feathers seemed to flex and move as well. Chalking it up to a limited viewing field, she moved away from the door and sneaked back into the living room.

  As she looked around, she noticed that the cabin wasn’t completely undecorated. A carved inscription decorated one of the logs above the fireplace. The script flowed in a very immaculate cursive font and looked perfect in form. It read:

  “Long is the way and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.” –J. Milton

  ***

  Dan walked back out into living room and found Allison standing next to the fireplace. Something about the girl bothered him, but in a good way. She smelled like a field of wildflowers on an autumn evening. It was a familiar scent, but he couldn’t place it. However, now wasn’t the time for such indulgences. From time to time, he delighted in the pleasure of the opposite sex, but for the most part, his job kept him busy and occupied. Too much time had passed since the last time he felt a genuine attraction to someone.

  Something in Allison’s core called to his, and it was difficult to keep his hands to himself. Perhaps that was what scared him. He took a breath and crept next to her.

  “How true,” Dan said quietly.

  Allison jumped at his voice.

  “Jeez, you scared me.”

  “Sorry, I have that effect sometimes,” he said smiling. He walked to the door, and the floor creaked and groaned under his weight.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  “Heck yeah!”

  Allison was almost bouncy with happiness, and Dan couldn’t help but smile. He wasn’t a psychiatrist, but he didn’t have to be to read her signals. She blared them out so overtly, they were like a lighthouse in the dark and could be seen from miles away.

  Her red hair was like a solar flare, both mesmerizing and chaotic in the way it moved when she laughed. She had a goofy smile that he immediately found endearing when he stopped her on the road earlier. Even the way she composed herself when nervous brought a smile to his face. She had a light within her that was blinding and warming. She moved with an awkwardness that he found cute and odd. There was darkness in her too.

  It called to him just as strongly as the rest of her did. It wanted him, and he wanted it. Another reason for his hesitancy. It felt too right, and that was scary.

  ***

  Garrett didn’t want to go back to the motel. Not after what happened that night and this afternoon. Allison wasn’t back yet, and he figured that she probably wouldn’t be for quite some time. He knew her well enough to know that research with her was over tonight. />
  However, it was late. In fact, Randall gave up interest about an hour ago, and sat upright in a tall leatherback chair, his head slumped to one side, his glasses askew, with a line of drool cascading down from the corner of his mouth and down his shirt. Now and then he would stop breathing, and Garrett would watch quietly, counting in the back of his mind wondering if he should wake the poor man. But each time Randall would surprise him with a sharp intake of breath, snore a couple of times, then fall back asleep.

  Garrett couldn’t focus on the work anymore. His vision blurred, and he found his mind wandering as he searched through pages of internet sites looking for any clues that would help their research. He filtered through the pages like an automaton. As much as he hated it, it was time to call it a night.

  He got up from his laptop and crept next to Randall. He looked down at the man in the chair and instantly thought of dozens of pranks befitting a high school freshman. It brought a smile to his face. He decided to take the gentleman’s route.

  He leaned in close to Randall’s ear.

  “Randall!”

  Perhaps not quite a gentleman.

  Randall jumped and fell off the chair. He scrambled backward on the floor using his hands to shuffle up against the wall.

  “What the—? What the hell?” he asked holding a hand to his chest.

  “You okay?” Garrett asked.

  Randall stared at him in disbelief. Garrett imagined a set of gears moving very slowly as Randall tried to process what had happened. Garrett couldn’t take it anymore and started laughing.

  “You can kill someone like that!” Randall said, standing up and straightening his glasses.

  “Oh, I doubt it. Anyway, I’m out. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Sorry, Dan wasn’t any help. He caught me off guard with his explanation.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think he’s telling us everything.” Garrett started gathering his things. “Maybe Allison’s friend can help.”