by Lukens, Mark
“Not long after we found David, everything started to go wrong. Jake suggested that one of us take David to the nearest Navajo village and get some help for him. But …” Stella glanced at David again.
David watched her and then he looked at the front door.
“But our vehicles wouldn’t start. There was nothing wrong with them, they just wouldn’t start. Like all of the batteries had died at the same time.”
David’s breathing grew quicker as he watched the door.
“Then the first person went missing. Jim Whitefeather, a friend of mine. He left in the middle of the night like he just walked off into the desert. Or into the cave.”
“But then he came back,” Cole finished for her.
Stella nodded.
“What did he ask for?” Cole asked.
“It was like this. He asked for body parts.”
“And you guys gave him what he asked for?”
“Not at first,” Stella answered quickly. “We tried to run. Tried to escape. Tried to fight back. But it wouldn’t let us go. It made an example out of one of us.”
Cole stared at her.
“An example like Trevor,” she explained.
Cole flinched at his brother’s name. Cole looked away, thinking for a moment as he pushed the thought of his brother out of his mind. Then he looked back at Stella as a thought occurred to him. “So this thing just took you guys one by one, and then asked for body parts? And you don’t know why.”
“It was making us do things. Trying to scare us so badly that we’d do anything it wanted, anything it asked us to do no matter what it was.”
“Because it was leading up to something,” Cole said.
Stella saw a movement out of the corner of her eye. She glanced over at David and saw that he was frightened now as he stared at the front door. He was up on his feet, standing next to the couch. She looked back at Cole as he asked his next question.
“It was leading up to something specific,” Cole told her. “Wasn’t it?”
Stella didn’t answer. Cole had figured it out. A quick glance at Jose told her that Jose was getting drunk now and not really listening to them anymore, his eyes were nearly closed, pure exhaustion taking over his body.
“It’s leading up to something specific here, too,” Cole said, staring at her with an expression that seemed accusatory and victorious at the same time. “You know what it wants, don’t you?” he asked, his voice getting louder. It was even beginning to rouse Jose from his drunken slumber.
Stella looked over at David. He took a step towards the front door, then another, almost like he was in a trance.
Cole turned in his chair and looked at David, and then he turned back and looked at Stella. “You know what it’s going to ask for next,” he said even louder. “You know what it wants.”
“He’s out there,” David said from the living room.
This brought Jose fully awake. He jumped up from his chair and spun around on his feet and stared at David. Then he looked at Cole and Stella, the fear was back in his eyes now.
David took another two steps towards the door, and then he stopped and looked at Cole. “He’s calling you.”
CHAPTER 37
Jose didn’t waste any time. He grabbed his coat and walked right to the front door on legs that were a little unsteady from the amount of whiskey he’d drank in a short amount of time.
“Jose, wait,” Cole said a low voice.
Jose turned and looked at Cole through red-rimmed and terrified eyes. “No, we need to go out there. We can’t keep it waiting. We have to do whatever it wants.”
Jose turned and marched towards the front door.
Cole and Stella exchanged glances. Stella nodded and Cole followed Jose to the door. Jose was already unlocking the deadbolt. Stella took David’s hand and they both followed Cole and Jose outside onto the porch.
The four gathered together outside on the porch, a few steps away from the door. Stella was closest to the door. She closed the door almost all the way, leaving it open just a crack. The yellowish light from inside the cabin could be seen through the crack in the doorway. Outside, the world was growing dark very quickly. And it was getting colder.
Frank stood in the same spot as before—thirty yards away from the cabin. The snow was up to his calves and he wore the same clothes. He stood very still, no movement at all, almost a shadow himself in the pitch-black darkness that was descending on the land as the night moved in.
Cole stared at Frank, and he thought of what Jose had said about Frank’s body being hollowed out. Yet here Frank stood. Cole hadn’t believed Jose before, but now after seeing his own brother’s pieces put back together into a walking and talking body, he believed him.
Frank stared at them with a blank expression; there were no fake smiles from him anymore, no need to pretend any longer. They knew Frank was just a hollowed-out corpse now, just a meat puppet with some all-powerful, invisible force pulling his strings. Frank spoke in a loud, guttural voice. “He is very pleased so far. He believes you are ready for your final task.”
The four waited on the porch. None of them moved or said anything. They didn’t shout back at Frank like they had done before; they didn’t challenge him, or threaten him. What else could they do but listen to his demand?
“When you give him this one last thing he wants,” Frank continued, “then he will let you walk out of here untouched. You will be allowed to keep your money and leave.”
They were silent for a long moment, and then Cole finally spoke up. “What does he want?”
Stella held her breath. Cole had been right earlier in the cabin; she knew what Frank was going to ask for. She knew all along what this was leading up to—one final task, one final request from this thing. She looked at David. She still held his hand and she squeezed it a little harder. They braced themselves as Frank answered Cole.
“He wants you to kill the boy.”
They were all silent, not sure how to react.
Cole and Jose both looked behind them at Stella and David. It was just a brief glance from both of them, but Frank’s voice turned them back around.
“Kill the boy and leave his body on the front porch. Then all of this will be over.”
Cole shook his head no. This was too much. He had helped carve out his friend’s eyeballs earlier today, but this was going way too far now. How much more could he do? Where was the line? He couldn’t kill a little kid.
“No,” Cole said loudly as his breath plumed up in front of his mouth from the cold.
No reaction yet from Jose, Stella, or David.
No reaction from Frank.
“We can’t do that!” Cole yelled out to Frank.
Frank still didn’t answer. He began to glide back towards the trees but his legs didn’t move; it was like some invisible string was pulling him back to the dark mass of trees, or like he was on some kind of conveyer belt hidden underneath the snow. But he wasn’t answering Cole. He wasn’t arguing with Cole. He wasn’t threatening Cole. He didn’t need to—it didn’t need to. They all knew what it could do now.
“We can’t do that!” Cole yelled louder as he stepped to the edge of the porch.
Jose stepped away from Cole. He turned around and looked at Stella and David, keeping an eye on them as they stood near the front door. He spoke to Cole, but he kept his eyes on Stella and David, making sure that they weren’t going to dart back inside and try to lock them out here. “Cole, listen to me for a second.”
Cole turned and looked at Jose. “Jose, no …”
“Just think about it for a second,” Jose continued in a very calm tone, his voice soft and reasonable. “It’s asking for one life to spare the rest of us. One life for three, and then we can leave.”
“You think that thing’s going to let us leave?” Cole asked Jose.
“It doesn’t matter!” Jose snapped. His reasonable voice was suddenly gone now. “We have to do what it wants! I’m not going to end up like Frank. Or T
revor!”
Hearing his brother’s name stung Cole for a moment, he looked away, his defenses down.
Jose pulled out his pistol from his coat pocket and aimed it at Cole, but his eyes kept darting back to Stella and David.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Cole asked Jose.
“Stay right there,” Jose warned. He looked at Stella and David. “You two don’t move.”
“Let’s think about this, Jose,” Cole begged.
“Put your hands up,” Jose told Cole.
“Jose, we can’t do this.”
“We’ll just put a bullet in that kid’s head,” Jose said. “That’s all. You don’t have to do it. I’ll do it. He’ll never feel a thing. He’ll never see it coming.”
“We can’t do that.”
Jose held his gun steady on Cole even though he’d drank a lot of whiskey earlier. His eyes kept darting back to Stella and David. But then he looked at Cole when he said his next words.
“You might as well tell Stella the truth,” Jose told Cole.
CHAPTER 38
“Tell her the truth!” Jose repeated to Cole.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Stella watched Cole and Jose. She was ready to bolt inside with David, but she couldn’t take a chance on Jose shooting at them; they’d never make it inside—she had to wait for the right time.
“Jose, why don’t you put the gun down?” Cole said. “We can discuss this.”
“There’s nothing to discuss!” Jose said. He looked at Stella and David. “We were going to kill you two anyway. That’s the truth. We couldn’t leave two witnesses alive.”
“That’s a lie!” Cole said. “We never discussed anything like that.”
“Nobody discussed anything with you, Cole. You weren’t part of the team anymore. You just did this job to help your brother, to get him out of debt with Frank. Nobody trusted you anymore. Me and Frank didn’t trust either one of you anymore.”
“That’s a fucking lie!” Cole said, but there wasn’t as much force in his words now. He was beginning to see what may have really been going on. Frank and Jose were discussing things behind their backs. Were they going to kill him and Trevor after they killed Stella and David? Split the money up between the three of them? Or maybe they were going to kill Needles, too. There was a lot of money at stake this time, and perhaps they had been ready to kill for it.
Jose looked at Stella again, and he gave her his best and most reassuring smile in the darkness. “But listen, Stella,” he said. He was calling her by her name now. “We don’t have to kill you now. We just have to kill David.”
“We’re not killing that kid,” Cole said. “We have to think of another way.” Cole’s mind was spinning as he realized that Frank and Jose had been planning on killing everyone involved. If they had made it back to the warehouse to split the money up, he and Trevor would’ve been dead.
“There is no other way!” Jose snapped.
Cole noticed Jose’s body swaying just a bit. He was still a little unsteady on his feet from all the whiskey he had drank. His hand holding the gun was beginning to tremble.
This is my only chance, Cole thought. Jose isn’t going to wait much longer out here in the cold before he shoots David. Or all three of us.
“Just listen to me for a second, Jose,” Cole said, trying to stall for time, trying to wait for exactly the right time to charge.
Jose was about to explode with rage again—he was only a few seconds away from shooting, Cole was sure of that. But then Jose’s attention was distracted for a second by David opening the front door of the cabin.
Jose turned his gun on David.
Stella stepped in front of David, ready to take a bullet for him.
But Jose didn’t care—he’d shoot through Stella to get to that kid if he needed to.
Stella squeezed her eyes shut.
This was Cole’s only chance. He rushed at Jose and tackled him just as Jose’s finger pulled the trigger. The gun fired, but Cole had knocked Jose’s arm away just enough, and the bullet whizzed past Stella and struck the log wall of the cabin.
Cole slammed Jose into the side of the cabin. He heard a grunt as the breath left Jose’s lungs for a moment.
“Get inside!” Cole yelled at Stella and David.
Stella grabbed David and pushed at him, but David was already a step ahead of her. They hurried inside and slammed the door shut. Stella looked down at the door handle. She looked at the lock on the door handle. She looked at the deadbolt.
She couldn’t take a chance.
She locked the door.
*
Outside on the porch, Cole and Jose wrestled. Cole had a grip on Jose’s wrist, keeping the gun pointed down at the floorboards of the front porch. They wrestled on their feet for a moment, but with one violent twist of his body, Cole swung Jose over him in a Judo flip and they both landed on the floorboards of the front porch with Cole on top of Jose.
The gun went off.
The shot was loud in the eerie silence of the dark night all around the cabin. It echoed across the snowy fields.
*
Inside the cabin, Stella and David watched the door. They had heard the gunshot.
Who was shot?
Was it Cole?
Jose?
Both of them?
*
Cole got up off of Jose and his hands went to his own abdomen, afraid he’d been shot and didn’t feel the pain yet. But his bare hands came away dry. No blood on him. He looked down at Jose who wasn’t moving. Even in the darkness, Cole could see the darker stain spreading across Jose’s shirt underneath his open coat. Cole didn’t even remember shooting; he wasn’t even sure how it had happened.
It had happened so fast.
Cole picked up Jose’s gun from the porch and he aimed it down at Jose.
Jose stared up at Cole with wide eyes. He opened his mouth to speak and he coughed up a chunk of pulpy blood and then gasped for air.
Cole backed away from Jose, he moved closer to the front door of the cabin.
Jose’s body trembled as he sat up and scooted across the floorboards to the log wall of the cabin. He pushed himself up into a sitting position with his back against the cabin wall. He gritted his teeth and moaned in pain; his hands flew to his abdomen, holding on to it, trying in vain to stop the flow of blood.
Cole turned and looked out at the snowy field. “We left you a bonus!!” he screamed out at the woods. Then he turned to walk to the front door and Jose’s hand grabbed Cole’s pants leg, stopping him for a second.
Jose stared up at Cole with wide, terrified eyes. “Please, Cole. Don’t leave me out here for that thing.”
Cole stared down at Jose for a moment, and then he ripped his pants leg out of Jose’s grasp. He walked to the front door of the cabin and turned the door handle but it wouldn’t open—it was locked.
He beat on the door. “Let me in!” He screamed at the door. “Stella, it’s me! It’s Cole! Jose is shot! He’s not coming inside with me!”
No answer from inside.
Cole could hear Jose chuckling from the darkness. That chuckle turned into a laugh. “Now who’s been double-crossed?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Cole said.
“We’ll just both have to wait out here now,” Jose said. “We’ll both have to see what comes for us out of the darkness.”
There was a sound from the dark woods at the edge of the snowy field, a loud sound, like something very big was crashing through the trees. Cole turned and stared at the darkness. Nearly all of the light from the setting sun was gone now and the world around them was blanketed in almost pure darkness. And there was something in the woods, coming closer.
Cole turned back to the front door and pounded on it. “Let me in! There’s something in the woods, I can hear it!”
CHAPTER 39
Stella and David stared at the front door. Cole beat on the door, pleading to be let inside. Cole claimed it was only him and that
Jose had been shot.
But could she believe him?
David touched Stella’s hand. He nodded his head yes.
Stella nodded back at David, and she took a deep breath. She moved close to the door and talked through it. “It’s only you, Cole?” she asked.
“Yes,” Cole answered, and there was panic in his voice. “You have to hurry. I can hear something out in the trees. Something big.”
Stella looked back at David one more time, making sure. Then she opened the door and Cole rushed inside.
Stella closed and locked the door. She twisted the knob for the deadbolt and then she backed away as she watched Cole.
Cole stood only a few feet away from Stella, closer to the kitchen. He looked very cold even though he was only outside for a few minutes, but he didn’t have his coat, hat, or gloves. He stood very still and stared at her.
Stella began to wonder if she’d made the wrong decision by letting him in.
“You were going to leave me out there?” Cole asked Stella in a strangely calm voice. “Leave me out there in the cold? Out there with that thing?”
“I … I had to be sure,” she told him.
“I just killed another friend of mine to save you and David. How is that not enough?”
“You’ve seen now what that thing can do,” Stella answered quickly, a sudden anger in her voice. “I had to be sure it was really you.”
Cole walked away from Stella and let out a long breath. He inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself down, trying to think rationally. But he’d been through so much in the last few days; he’d seen things he never thought were possible. He hadn’t had much sleep or food, and now thinking rationally was a little more difficult than it used to be.
He grabbed the bottle of whiskey and took a sip, letting the fiery liquid relax him a little. He turned and looked at Stella who stood in the same spot in the living room, staring at him. He had frightened her, but at least she was trying to trust him.
She had trusted him enough to let him back inside, and he needed to trust her, too.
“This is what it’s been leading up to the whole time, isn’t it?” he asked Stella.