Ancient Enemy (18 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

“Like I told
you before,” Stella went on, “the Anasazi were a very advanced culture at that time, about seven to eight hundred years ago; they were the most advanced culture in North America. They had no one to fear, yet they built these massive cities right into the sides of cliffs. Why go through all of that work if they were the strongest and most advanced tribe?”

Cole didn’t answer. He knew he couldn’t keep up with Stella on this level of conversation. He just let her continue.

“All these years archeologists have always wondered what they were defending themselves from. What were they so afraid of? And after all of that work, what would make them suddenly leave these cities? Or the Maya. Or the Olmecs. Or the Inca. Something drove them out of their cities. Some say it was because of drought or shortage of food supplies, but other tribes stayed in the same regions.”

Stella took a breath; she had been talking so fast, her voice getting louder. She glanced at David to make sure she hadn’t disturbed him. “There are many legends in Native American cultures about demons that would come in the night and take people. Sometimes these demons would ask for things, offerings. And if these offerings weren’t given to them, then they would take people. And supposedly the only people who could see these demons were the shamans. Like witch doctors.”

Cole nodded to indicate that he understood what a shaman was.

“What if David can see that thing out there? What if the reason it wants to kill David is because he’s a shaman – natural-born shaman?”

Cole just stared at her.

“Many believe that shamans were people who may have been born with some kind of psychic or telekinetic abilities. And they used these … these skills to wield power over their tribe.”

“So you think David is a natural shaman? You think he’s psychic or telekinetic?”

“I think he might be, even though he doesn’t know it yet.”

Stella looked at the front door with the recliner in front of it. She looked back at Cole.

“I don’t know what that thing is out there. A demon? I don’t know. The Native American legends of demons predate Christianity. An alien? Who knows? There are many theories of visitations by aliens to cultures in North, Central, and South America. The Nazca Plains. The Hopi Indian rituals. The sacrifices at the temples in the Maya culture may have not been religious ceremonies to their gods. What if they were offerings to that thing out there through the years? Maybe that thing out there only comes around every few hundred years. What if a day to it is a hundred years to us, and a night of sleeping to it is a hundred years?” Stella had been talking so fast, she stopped and stared into Cole’s eyes where she could see doubt and confusion.

“So you think that thing out there might be an alien? Like from outer space? Like from a UFO?”

“Maybe they’ve been here for a long, long time,” she said quickly. “Even before human civilization. I know it sounds far-fetched, but look around you. You’ve seen what that thing can do.”

Cole only nodded.

“I think that thing out there may roam the Earth, unseen and unfelt by most. But then every once in a while someone like David comes along; someone who can see it, feel it, maybe even fight it.”

Suddenly, Cole became a little excited. He could see a glimmer of hope, a small dot of light at the end of this long horrible tunnel they were in. “So you’re saying that we can get David to kill this thing?”

“I don’t know if it’s that easy.”

“What do you mean?”

“David may be a natural-born shaman, but he’s still just a boy. He’s had no training. He may not even know what to do.”

“Great,” Cole said and sighed. “Then I guess we’re back to square one. We try and run in the morning.”

“It may be all we can do for now,” Stella told him. “But we need to protect David. That’s the most important thing.”

Cole leaned back against the couch and let out another long sigh. He looked at Stella who yawned again. “Why don’t you get an hour’s rest? I know you need it. I’ll stand guard for a little while.”

Stella nodded. “I’ll try. Wake me up if you hear anything.”

“I will. Just try and get some rest. Tomorrow morning may be very stressful.”

*

Almost three hours later everything was still quiet outside. Cole hadn’t heard a single sound from out there, not even the wind.

He sat near the kitchen in the only dining room chair that they hadn’t broken apart and used as wood for the barricades over the windows. He watched Stella and David. Both of them were asleep, both of them breathing heavily.

Cole watched them for a while. He needed to make sure they were asleep.

He got to his feet, being as quiet as he could.

He looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. It would be dawn very soon.

He knew what he needed to do now.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Cole opened the
refrigerator. He had rummaged around in here for some food earlier. They had eaten a lot of it so far. But he had seen something earlier that he thought he could use – a can of soda in the bottom drawer underneath a head of wilted lettuce. He took out the can of soda from the crisper drawer and set it on the counter next to the stove. It was a cheap brand of cola. But it didn’t matter to him because he wasn’t going to drink it.

He peeked into the living room.

Stella and David were both still asleep.

Cole looked back at the stove. It was a gas stove. He lifted up the top and blew out the pilot light. He lowered the lid carefully, trying not to make a sound. Once the lid was back down, he turned on all of the burners and the oven. He could already smell the rotten egg smell of gas coming out of the burners.

He grabbed the can of soda from the counter and shook it up. Then he opened the microwave oven and set the can inside. He closed the door and set the timer on the microwave for thirty minutes. The digital numbers began counting down from twenty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds. Fifty-eight seconds. Fifty-seven seconds. After thirty minutes the microwave oven would start and heat up the can of soda. The numbers counted down like a ticking time bomb in a movie.

Because this was a bomb.

Cole looked into the living room; he watched Stella and David as they slept while he slipped his coat on. He could feel the stacks of money in his coat pockets that he’d stuffed earlier; the metal case of money, now about half full, still sat on the floor in front of his chair. He had also stuffed some packs of money into his socks and a few in his pants pockets. There was no way he could carry all of the money, but he guessed he must’ve had close to a hundred thousand dollars on him.

This was his share of the money, his mind whispered. And Trevor’s. This was his starting over money.

At least he hoped he would have a chance to start over.

But first he needed to get out of this place alive.

Cole slid his hands into his thin leather gloves and he glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was almost six o’clock in the morning.

And Frank and the others haven’t even tried to attack yet, Cole thought. Why? What were they waiting for?

They are waiting for you, his mind whispered to him again. They are waiting to see what you will do, waiting to see if you will follow instructions and kill the boy.

Cole grabbed the flashlight he had set on the counter earlier and he walked as quietly as he could to the front door. He unlocked the deadbolt and the clicking noise sounded loud in the silent night, but he didn’t even bother to turn around and look at Stella and David if they were waking up now. What could he do now? He didn’t have the time to explain his actions or motives now because the clock was already ticking down to zero – down to detonation.

He slid the recliner out of the way and unlocked the door handle. He opened the door up to the freezing air, and then he slipped out into the pre-dawn darkness and closed the door behind him.

*

Stella opened her eyes and she watched Cole slip outside and close the door. It was a surreal moment for her as her mind drifted back to a similar scenario for her when she had slipped out into the night from the trailer at the dig site in New Mexico and ran outside for David.

She turned and looked at David. She thought about waking him up, but she didn’t. Let him sleep some more; he needed his rest; he needed to be at his strongest in a little while when they made their escape.

She had read Cole wrong, she realized that now. She had believed that he was really going to stick around and help them. But she should’ve known better. He was a criminal and no matter how much he said he was going to change, he couldn’t do it. He was still just a criminal.

She looked into the kitchen at the single dining room chair that was left. Cole had been sitting in it, she guessed, because one of the metal cases of money was on the floor. It was open, and even from here in the living room she could see that some of the stacks of money were gone.

She thought about taking some of that money. A pack or two could help her and David get far away from all of this.

She had decided not to go to her aunt’s house. What would she do if this thing followed them up there? What would she do if it took her aunt and then sent her aunt back as a hollowed-out husk that asked for things in a gravelly voice?

Or maybe this thing would try a different approach next time. Maybe it would tear her aunt apart piece by piece; her aunt would scream and beg Stella to help her, to kill David so this thing would stop hurting her.

Stella closed her eyes for a moment and tried to push the terrible vision out of her mind. No, she couldn’t risk hurting her aunt or anyone else that she knew. She needed some of that stolen money so they could run and find somewhere safe.

Stella got up and she hurried through the murky cabin and crouched down in front of the open case of money. So many stacks of money inside – one hundred dollar bills collected into a brick of money wrapped in plastic. Stacks and stacks of the plastic bricks of money. She was about to grab one of them, and then she thought of the old man who had been killed in the bank robbery. The one Cole said Needles had killed. This was blood money. A man had died for this money.

And many had died since then.

But she couldn’t let that get to her, she needed to protect David, and she needed some of this money to take him somewhere safe, a place where he could grow up and become strong. Maybe she could find someone who could help them, a shaman or Medicine man who could train David to harness his powers.

That might mean going back to the Navajo reservation, back to where they had come from, back to where all of this had started.

But what else could she do?

She rolled up her pants legs and grabbed a few stacks of the money. She stuffed the money down into her socks and then rolled her pants legs back down to her hiking boots. She stuffed more stacks of money into the waistband of her pants. She took a few more stacks so she could stuff them into her coat pockets.

And then she glanced into the kitchen and saw the numbers on the microwave oven that sat on the counter. The numbers were moving; counting down.

And now she could smell the odor of gas coming from the stove.

And that’s when she heard the thump from the freezer.

She jumped up to her feet and stared into the kitchen at the freezer against the far wall. The lid bumped again; it opened just a bit and then thumped back down.

“Oh God,” Stella whispered.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Cole stepped off
the porch and his boots sank down into the snow. He had his gun in his coat pocket, but he didn’t take it out; he wasn’t even sure it would do any good anymore, yet he still felt better knowing that it was there.

He scanned the snowy field and the dark blob of trees with his eyes, but he couldn’t see much in the darkness. The moon was already setting low in the sky behind the trees, but even with the scattering of clouds across the night sky, he could see a little bit into the darkness. He didn’t turn on the flashlight yet, he would wait until he was inside the garage to use it. He didn’t know if using the flashlight would attract this thing out here, but he had a feeling that it didn’t matter either way – this thing knew he was out here now, he was sure of it; he could practically feel it watching him, waiting to see what he was going to do.

Waiting to see if he would follow instructions.

As long as Cole was following instructions, he felt sure that he was relatively safe for the moment.

Cole trudged through the snow towards the hulking black shape in the darkness that was the garage. He walked past Tom Gordon’s pickup truck and it blocked the freezing wind a little. Already his face felt numb and his fingers were turning into ice blocks underneath his thin leather gloves. He paused for a moment at the end of the pickup and looked around one more time – nobody moving in the darkness. He looked back at Frank’s spot in the snow, but Frank wasn’t there. He looked back at the cabin which was dark except for the yellowish glow of the kitchen light in the windows. He didn’t see any movement inside and the door wasn’t open with Stella watching him from the doorway.

He turned back to the garage. He needed to hurry; he could see the digital numbers from the microwave oven (bomb) counting down in his mind.

He hurried through the snow to the garage doors which were already partway open from when he’d entered the garage days ago. But he would need to push the doors open even wider to drive the snowmobile out.

And what if it doesn’t start? What if the battery is dead? What if that thing has known about the snowmobile the whole time and destroyed it already? What if it has known about your plans the whole time?

Cole pushed these thoughts away. He had to try. What else could he do?

He pushed at the other wooden door with his hands and immediately he felt the sting of the cold through his gloves. He pushed against the door, but it wasn’t budging. He leaned into it more, driving with his legs, trying to find some traction in the scattering of snow on the concrete of the garage and the gravel of the driveway in front of the doorway. One last push, and he nearly screamed with effort as …

… the door broke free with a crackling of ice; the garage door let out a wail of protest into the freezing air as he slid it all the way open until it thumped to a stop.

That might have woken Stella, he thought.

He hurried into the darkness of the garage. It was like entering the mouth of a cave. He thought about looking for a light switch somewhere on the wall; if the electricity worked in the cabin, then it must work out here. But he didn’t want to waste time with a search for the switch; he had to hurry. The flashlight should be enough to light his way. Besides, he knew exactly where he was going in the garage.

He turned on the flashlight, its beam knifed through the darkness and he could see the clouds of his quick breaths in front of his face. He moved forward through the pathways of boxes, crates, shelves, and junk. He came to the tarp over the snowmobile – it was just how he had left it, with a few boxes toppled down on top of the blue tarp.

Cole set the flashlight on a nearby shelf, and he tried his best to angle the light beam down onto the tarp. He pushed the boxes to the side and he ripped the tarp away; it made a loud crinkling noise when he stuffed it down between some boxes. He could see tiny ice crystals and dust floating in the air through the light beam.

And right where he’d seen it before was the snowmobile. He checked it over quickly, it was an older model, maybe ten years old he guessed, but it looked well-maintained. Living out here in the woods and mountains, this snowmobile would be someone’s (Tom Gordon’s) lifeline if a blizzard hit, and that person would take care of it; the snowmobile would need to be operable at all times.

He shoved his hand into his pants pocket and even though his fingers were beginning to go numb, he could feel the keys to the snowmobile. He grabbed the key and stuck it into the ignition. He twisted the key gently, he didn’t want to start the snowmobile, he just wanted to see if the electrical system still worked and wanted to see how much fuel was in it.

The lights of the snowmobile lit up when he twisted the key, and he could see the fuel gauge – almost full. He twisted the key to the off position, took it out of the ignition and pocketed it. He didn’t want to start the snowmobile yet – there was something else he needed to do, the other reason he was in the garage.

He grabbed the half-full gas can from the floor and ran for the open garage doors, he ran for the dark blue rectangle against the pitch black garage that was the open doorway. He almost expected Frank or Jose to step into that dark blue rectangle. He could see Frank’s head cocked to the side in his mind; he could see that plastic smile. “Where are you going, Cole?” Frank would ask in his pleasant but gurgling and grave-cold voice.

Or maybe Trevor would step into the doorway.

Cole pushed the thought of Trevor away.

No one stepped into the doorway and Cole ran out of the garage and right to the cabin.

Frank and the others would be coming now, Cole thought. They would be coming when they saw what he was doing.

You’re not following instructions, his mind whispered.

Fuck the instructions, Cole thought.

He ran through the snow as fast as he could and the gas in the plastic can sloshed as he stomped through the snow. His lungs were burning and his muscles were already aching from the run through the deep snow. He ran right up to the corner of the cabin, the same corner where Trevor had hopped over the porch railing down into the snow to check the back of the cabin the first day they were here – it seemed so long ago now.

Cole pulled off the plastic cap on the nozzle of the gas can and he tossed it into the snow; he wouldn’t need it anymore, he was going to use every bit of this gasoline. He sloshed the gas all over the logs of the cabin. He ran down the side of the cabin, drenching the logs as he went.

He hurried around to the back of the cabin and he continued to douse the wood with the gas. But now he saw something in the darkness. Two figures stumbling through the snowy back field, stumbling right towards him. It was difficult to make out the details of the figures, but just by the awkward way one of them moved through the snow, like the pieces of his body were shifting against each other, and the tatters of clothing were hanging from the frame, he could tell it was Trevor.

Cole didn’t watch them approach, he had to keep his mind on what he was doing, on his task at hand. The digital numbers were counting down in his mind. He rounded the corner of the cabin and ran as fast as he could through the snow, still dousing the logs on this side of the cabin with the gas he had left. He was afraid Needles and Trevor would catch up to him. He was afraid that he would feel cold dead fingers grabbing the back of his neck soon, afraid that he would hear his brother’s now-raspy voice.

The gas in the plastic container was almost gone when Cole got to the front corner of the cabin by the porch. He looked back behind him; he could see his tracks through the snow, but he didn’t see the two figures anymore.

You know who they were, his mind whispered to him. They were Needles and Trevor. You know that; don’t try to pretend that you don’t know who they were.

Cole ignored the whisperings in his mind that seemed to be getting louder and louder. He splashed what little gas he had left all over the logs and then he threw the gas can into the snow. He climbed up onto the railing from the snow and he clamored over the railing and dropped down onto the floorboards with a thud as snow spilled off his pants legs and boots. He got to his feet and he was about to bolt to the front door, but a voice stopped him in his tracks. It was Frank’s voice – this monster’s mouthpiece.

“What are you doing, Cole?”

Cole looked out at the field and he saw Frank standing in the snow. Same Frank. Same clothes. Same smile. Same hollowed-out body. Only this time Frank had someone else with him – Jose, and Jose held an ax.

“You need to kill the boy, Cole,” Frank said.

Cole took a step towards the front door, and then another, yet he still kept his eyes on Frank and Jose.

As Cole took a step closer to the front door, Jose took a step closer to the cabin.

Cole couldn’t see Jose all that well in the darkness, but even from what he could make out, he could tell that there was something wrong with the way Jose looked, something wrong with his body, his neck, and his face.

Cole took another step towards the front door; he was only about six or seven long strides away from it.

And now Jose started running towards the cabin through the snow. He raised the ax up in his hands that were way too thin – almost skeletal.

Cole ran for the door. His boots clomped down on the floorboards and snow flaked off of his pants and coat. He reached his hands out for the door handle as a thought raced through his mind.

What if Stella was awake now? What if she’d seen him leave? What if she had locked the door?