The mood changed with each step in the snow. At first, they had been cheerful if a little nervous at the thought of getting out of here but now there was only misery and dejection evident in the group. No one spoke, each one of them running their own thoughts in a seemingly hopeless attempt to understand anything that was happening.
Sally looked around at the group as she walked along with Susan. She’d never seen so many of the locals in one place that was not her tavern room. They all looked so odd and out of place, like they were not the people she knew at all, or that she had never actually known them properly in the first place.
Joe had always taken care of anything that happened with an even hand and cool temper, but even he was now showing signs of strain that she wouldn’t have expected of him. Jeff was not far off his usual cantankerous self, but without Mouse he seemed less somehow, like part of him was missing.
As she thought about her observations of the others, her mind drifted to what they might think of her. It was true that she too must seem different today than any of them had ever known her. Truth be told she was scared — and not just a little. This was a very odd sensation for her and not one she’d grown up being used to. Her father had raised her to be fearless and more man than the men around her but she didn’t feel this right now. All she wanted was to be gone from this place despite how much she had loved living here.
So lost in her own thought was she that she bumped into Jeff’s back before noticing that everyone else had stopped. Looking at them, she saw they all head their ears cocked. They must have heard something that she missed. She wanted to ask what it was, but she knew by the tense pose of each of them that silence was required.
As she watched, she saw Sam pointing into the trees and the other following his direction. Then Sally heard it too; a noise like thin twigs scraping on a windowpane in the breeze. It was getting louder but still didn’t seem to be close. They all got their guns ready, Sally letting go of Susan a moment to set her own rifle towards the noise.
“Call when you see something?” Joe said.
The whole lot of them looked into the darkness between the trees and listened as the sound grew louder and then seemed to be suddenly be approaching much faster than before.
“It’s coming!” Jeff shouted, and he took a step forward to plant his feet against the shooting he was poised to do once anything came into sight.
“Don't shoot unless there is something to shoot at!” Joe warned.
The noise was loud enough now that Sally barely heard what he said. A quick glance at the young couple showed Jarrod holding a pistol in two shaking hands and Ava trembling in terror just behind him. She too held a gun, but it was not raised to fire. It wasn’t something that was in her.
Sally looked back to the trees just in time to see what looked like hundreds of tendrils spring forth as though from nowhere and dart between each of the group. Gunshots rang out, and bright lights flashed and Sally shot her own gun at the mass of limbs coming at them. The screams and shouts of all of them filled the air and then she saw people being knocked over or sent flying through the air. She heard Jarrod cry out in pain and as she looked at him saw a huge gash opened up on his chest, blood spreading quickly to his shirt. Ava screamed and grabbed hold of him but at that same moment she was sent flying by a limb and her grip on his arm sent Jarrod stumbling over onto the ground.
Sally fired again and again at the some of the larger limbs and she saw them shatter and splinter to in the air, dust flying from the dry interior like chalk in the moonlight. She was getting ready to fire again when she suddenly felt a huge pressure around her waist and she was lifted from the ground. It took her so by surprise that she dropped her rifle and pulled at the branch before she even saw it. She kicked wildly with her legs and pulled her torso this way and that in an effort to wriggle free but the powerful supple wood held tight without lessening its grip.
“Joe!” she shouted seeing that he was still on his feet and shooting, but as he looked at her he too was swiped hard across the chest and sent tumbling backwards losing hold of his gun as he fell. She pulled and punched at the coiling wood and then it began to constrict and the pain in her midriff just above her hips was searing. She cried out in pain.
“No!” a new and gruff voice shouted out above the din. The deep voice had come from within the trees and then something new and bulkier came crashing through the limbs at an angle that cut them off from the falling group. No one was firing anymore and the new visage pounding from the forest like a wild animal took all their attention.
Limbs and branches snapped and pulverized to dust and it moved through the melee. It was like a man but seemed to carry behind it a huge bush of tree limbs and twigs that was snapping and cracking just as the limbs it forced its way through. Squealing sounds like a wounded animal came from all around as the limbs pulled back like fingers burnt in a fire. The shape moved through to where Sally was and smashed through the large branch that held her. It broke clean in two and Sally fell the few feet to the ground and rolled over backwards. Without a moments pause the beast moved off at great speed in the direction the attack of the trees has come from. It wailed and roared in a way that sounded almost human and soon it was gone deep inside the forest and they could hear neither it nor the scuttling of wood any longer.
“What the hell was that?” Jeff said getting to his feet.
“Whatever it was it just saved our asses!” Sam said. He too was standing up again though it was taking some effort and Sally saw that many of his wounds from earlier were bleeding again.
“It was Maul,” Sally said.
Those back on their feet looked at her.
“You saw him?” Joe asked. Sally shook her head,
“No, but I know it was him. He wanted to save me.”
“Jarrod!” a shrill scream came from behind them. They all turned to see Ava kneeling over her husband. Everyone rushed over and Joe bent down to him.
“Sally, can you have a look at this,” he said. She bent down and looked at Jarrod’s chest and then to his face. He was conscious but looked very pale and ready to pass out.
“How does it feel Jarrod?” she asked trying to gain eye contact with him.
“It hurts,” he managed to say, a massive understatement Sally thought but at least he was talking.
“I’m going to give this a little clean to make sure it doesn’t get infected,” she said, “It’s going to hurt but I have to do it.” Jarrod nodded and then looked to Ava with a thin blue lipped smile.
“You probably won’t want to see this,” he said.
“I’m staying right here,” Ava replied squeezing his hand.
As Sally cleaned and dressed as best she could Jarrod’s wounds, the rest of them talked about what had just happened.
“Our guns are useless against it!” Jeff said and there was a huge surge of anger in his voice.
“There’s no argument there,” Joe said. “But we need to think of a way to deal with it.”
“I think we’ll need to split up,” Sam said. The others looked at him. “We can’t take it on so we need to try to run from it. That’s how I survived earlier, and you too sheriff.” Joe thought about this for a moment.
“We need to get Jarrod and Susan back to the Tavern,” Sally said. “They won’t be able to make it out like this.”
“We can’t go back now!” Jeff said he looked to Joe for agreement on this. Joe looked in Sally’s eyes and said,
“We have to get the wounded back to somewhere we can take care of them.”
“This is fucking ridiculous!” Jeff cried. “What the hell did we risk our lives coming this far for?”
“We tried, and it didn’t work,” Joe said, “We can’t try the same thing again; we need to learn from every mistake we make!”
“I’ve learned from my mistakes already,” Jeff said, “I’ve learned not to let any of you people talk me into anything else. I’m going down the mountain. Alone if I have to, but anyone who wan
ts to come is welcome.”
Jeff looked around by no one was in agreement with him.
“Come back to town with us,” Sally said looking at him. Jeff looked back bitterly and then sighed.
“I don’t wish any of you ill but going back there is a death sentence, I can feel it in my bones,” Jeff said pleasingly. “I’ve got to go with what I think is right and that’s getting out of here.”
“We can’t change your mind?” Joe asked. Jeff shook his head. “Well then we wish you the best, Jeff,” Joe said holding out his hand. Jeff shook it.
“If I get out, I’ll get help to you somehow,” Jeff said with tears forming in his eyes.
“Let us know you’re off the mountain with three bursts of your gun, will you?” Joe asked.
“I will.”
“You don’t want to be out there on your own,” Sam said. “Take it from someone who knows.” Jeff smiled at him.
“I appreciate the concern son, but my mind is made up.”
Jeff took up his pack and checked his gun. He nodded to the group. “I hope to see you all again soon; best of luck to you.” He walked away with murmured goodbyes from the group behind him, each one of them assuming they would never see him again.
Chapter 26
The slog back towards Mercy was even more miserable than leaving. Each of them was hurt — mostly cuts and bruises save Jarrod, and they had been severely demoralised with the ineffectiveness of their weapons. Susan was having a lot of trouble breathing and Joe felt that it wouldn't be long before fever was back upon her. Sam was practically carrying her now despite his own worsened injuries. The whole lot of them looked like soldiers after battle more so than ordinal people living in a mountain idyll.
They stopped as before by the old mine entrance and looked over the mountain. Joe had been taking much of the weight of Jarrod and he was exhausted. The cold air felt good in his lungs as he breathed more easily without that strain.
“This all looks different to earlier,” Sally said. Joe looked and saw that she was right. The white from the top of the mountain had spread like a blanket even further down towards Mercy than before and below them the patches of white were not only joining up now but were also coming closer to the town. They were being surrounded and hemmed in and there was nothing they could do about it.
“We better keep on moving,” he said, not wanting anyone else to start dwelling on the negative thoughts trying to invade his own mind. Jarrod moaned at the judder of his body as they moved again.
“Stop it, you’re hurting him!” Ava cried out pulling at Joe’s arm.
“We have to keep moving,” he said to her. “It won’t do him any good to stay out in this cold in the shape he’s in.” Ava looked to her husband with fresh tears in her eyes and nodded.
“Can you make it just a little farther?” she asked him. Jarrod did his best to smile and after drawing breath managed to say,
“You’re the one holding us up.” Ava smiled back at him and squeezed his hand a little and then looking at Joe said,
“Take it as easy as you can, sheriff.”
“I will,” Joe said glad that the delay was over. He looked down over the hills below and wondered how, if he was still alive, Jeff was getting on. Then setting a firm foot to the ground he pressed forward with Jarrod’s weight on his body.
They were moving now and Joe leaned forward a bit to take some more of the load on his back when suddenly he felt the full presence of the young man disappear from his back. He heard screaming but the disappearance of the weight so sudden and his leaning forward sent Joe tumbling down a few feet before he could halt his progress and look around to see what was happening.
Everyone was standing aghast and looking at the sight of Jarrod being pulled along the ground by a cluster of long wiry tendrils that had shot out from the woods without sound or warning. Jarrod was crying out in both pain and fear and Ava scampered after him and grabbed hold of his hands. It was no use and the small girl was no match at all for the power of the trees and she fell to her knees and was dragged along too.
Joe got his feet and pulled his gun and fired a few shots beyond Jarrod at the tangle of knotted tendrils where they joined up but his bullets only shattered small pieces and not stopping them in the least. Then to his horror the blood started to flow.
Jarrod’s sides were opening up with the pulling and twisting and thick gobbets of blood oozed out and he wailed in agony. As he watched, Joe saw Ava being pulled through the blood covered snow and it was spreading all over her and she too screamed at what she now knew was happening.
As she did, new tendrils separated from the ones pulling her husband and latched onto her and instantly pulled and tore fissures in her skin. Joe ran and grabbed at her and did his best to pull the limbs from her but for every one he broke away, another one came to take its place at once and then he felt the grasping of one of the spindly finger of death reaching for his own flesh and he backed away in fright.
The couple was pulled farther away, both of them screaming and oozing blood and Joe couldn't tell what else from their wounds. With tears in his own eyes now, he cocked his revolver and fired two shots. Both Jarrod and Ava died at once as the bullets entered their heads and all of a sudden the whole forest went silent.
The bodies of the couple stopped moving along the ground and nothing moved. Joe stared at what he had done and felt his knees buckle as nausea overcame him. None of the others said anything and after a few moments of silence, the tendrils slipped away along the ground like serpents, almost as soundlessly as they had come.
For a whole minute after they were gone everyone just stood where they were. It had been a much harder shock this time than last and Joe wished at that moment he had been the one to have a bullet through his head. He heard light footsteps come behind him and turned to see Sally. Her face was tear-streaked, but she managed to hold her voice.
“You did the right thing, Joe,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He looked in her eyes and nodded and then turned to see what kind of reaction Susan and Sam were having. Susan was weeping but still she nodded in agreement with what Sally had said.
“You saved them from a much worse end,” Sam said, “but it can’t have been easy for you.” Joe nodded at this; it had been the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life. He stood and looked once more at the couple. They were so unrecognisable to the two people he’d first met only a matter of hours before, really. How unlucky they had been to get stuck in Mercy on their way to California. How unlucky all of them had been to be stuck in Mercy for whatever reason had brought them all here.
“We need to try to hole up in the tavern,” he said, walking over to Sam and Susan and taking her weight on one side. “I don’t ever want to have to do anything like that again.” No one made any reply to this, and they set off towards Mercy, leaving the two bodies as they were. Now was not the time for ceremony or tradition.
“What part does Maul have to play in this?” Joe asked Sally when finally they were all ensconced in the tavern. Himself and Sam had spent the last ten minutes hauling a heavy bed into the main room so Susan could lie down and Sally could tend to her better. Sally looked at Joe oddly at the question.
“Why do you think I might know?” she answered.
“You’re as good a bet as anyone I guess,” Joe said and then hesitating a moment added, “He did save you after all.” Sally’s face flushed at this possible inference and her ire rose.
“Probably because I’m the only person in this town who ever showed him the smallest bit of human decency!”
“Take it easy, Sal,” Joe said raising his hands. “I’m not accusing you of anything, but if you know anything at all about Maul that might help us here we need to know.”
“He doesn’t control it,” Susan’s weak voice rose from the bed. Everyone looked at her.
“What’s that Susan?” Sam asked, taking up her hand.
“Whatever it is that's happened to the trees has also happ
ened to Maul. He doesn’t control what it does but he can’t stop it either.”
“How do you know this?” Sam asked.
“I don’t, but that’s how it looks to me. Maul saved Sally because he feels maybe he owes her that, but he didn’t try to save anyone else but that’s probably because he knows he can't.”
“You could be right, Susan,” Joe said looking to Sally to see if she had anything to add to this.
“So he’s as much a victim in all this as any of us,” she said flatly.
“I guess so,” Joe nodded but then thinking more asked of the room, “But why didn’t it kill him like it’s been trying to with the rest of us?” They were silent at this.
Sally went to the window behind the counter and looked up at the mine entrance where they had been and where the bodies of the two young people still lay out of sight.
“Those poor kids,” she said and Joe saw tears drip down her cheeks, a sight he never thought he’d have to see with her. Joe walked over and put a hand on her back and she turned and buried her head into his chest as he wrapped his arms around her. He looked out through the window himself as he comforted her and then he recalled what Sally had said about Maul being up there one day, and his own recollection of seeing the thin white trail from the mine entrance. Was that where this disease or white death had come from? Somewhere deep and forgotten in the earth.
Sally must have felt a change in him for she leaned back and looked at his face and then followed his gaze outside.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I just remembered when I was up there a few days ago looking for Maul, I saw some of this white stuff on the rotten wood that covered the entrance to the mine,” he answered. “I’m wondering now if maybe that’s where this all started.”
“Anything is possible,” Sally replied.
“Maybe I should go back up there and take a closer look into the shaft. It can’t make things any worse and I might find out something useful?”
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