This Deep Panic

by Lisa Stowe

  “You buried your son under a yew tree?” He put his hand in his pocket.

  Anya nodded. “They’re incredibly slow growing. The grandfathers of the forest. I thought…I thought it would protect him forever.”

  Ramon pulled his hand out and opened his fingers where the small tip of a yew branch rested on his palm. He held it out to her. “The boy with the grizzly gave me this. He told me to give it to his mother.”

  Anya stopped suddenly and gripped Ramon’s arm. “Do you think it’s my son?”

  Ramon shrugged, his fingers tingling from lack of blood flow. “I don’t know. But my niece, whatever happened to her, is older. And she’s with a wild animal. She said the boy and the trees saved her. So yeah, maybe the boy is your hijo, your son.”

  Anya let go of his arm and he rubbed circulation back.

  “I need to go home,” she said, and he heard the quiet desperation in her voice. “I can’t leave him out there alone.”

  Ramon understood. More fully than he’d understood anything else that had been said that day. But he didn’t know how to show this woman that he knew the deep need to be with their kids, to keep them safe. Even if they were no longer children. Even if they were no longer fully human. Whatever Alegria was, she was his blood.

  “Your nieces,” Anya said quietly. “Are they your only family?”

  “No. Their parents are somewhere. If they survived the quake. My brother and his wife.” Ramon laughed shortly at the irony. “I moved to the States to spy on my brother. My sister-in-law thought he was having an affair. She wanted me to watch him, confront him. She thought it might save the family if I stepped in.”

  “Was he? Having an affair?”

  “Oh, yeah. More than one. Doesn’t matter now though, does it? They’re dead or missing, and who knows how long it will take for roads to be passable again. It might be months before I can even begin searching for them. So I’m all my nieces have.”

  “I’m going back as soon as this is resolved.” Anya stared up into the mountains. “Whatever this is. I’m going back to my cabin and my child.”

  “I’m going to have to stay, too,” Ramon said. “As long as Alegria is out there in that wilderness, Marie and I need to be close.”

  He started to turn back, but a low growl from Bird made both of them jerk around in the direction Bird stared. The dog was growling but his hackles weren’t up.

  Ramon saw movement in the trees. As he watched, heart racing, a man stumbled out onto the street, falling to one knee and then slowly pushing himself back up. He was old with patchy gray hair and a large blood-crusted spot on the crown of his head. His clothes were torn and he was covered in cuts and bruises. He limped heavily as if one ankle was broken or sprained. The man staggered and Ramon ran forward to catch him before he fell again.

  “Get Samuel!” he shouted to Anya.

  Carefully he half-carried the injured man to the park next to the school and lowered him onto a granite block. He pulled off his jacket and draped it over the man’s shoulders as Samuel and Anya came at a run. Ramon saw some of the others following and the old man’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Curtis.”

  Ramon glanced over his shoulder to see Curtis part of the crowd. “Yes, he’s here.”

  Curtis came forward with a broad grin and tears coursing down his cheeks. “Henry! You’re alive! I found your scalp. Well, a piece of it anyway. I thought maybe an eagle or something attacked you. I’ve been searching for you.”

  “Not an eagle,” Henry said, his voice rough.

  Samuel cracked a bottle of electrolyte water and helped Henry to take a drink. “Just a little.”

  “Not an eagle,” Henry repeated, reaching out to catch the sleeve of Curtis’s raincoat. “A dog. A monster dog. It attacked me. Knocked me into the fault.”

  “Later,” Samuel said. “Right now let’s get you to the station.”

  Max and Casey got Henry to his feet and headed toward the station, trailed by Curtis who was still talking. Or so Ramon assumed by the gesticulating hands.

  Ramon started back to the fire as the first drops of returning rain fell. Anya walked beside him and he caught her looking over her shoulder, back at the woods and the mountains, now disappearing under sinking clouds.

  “They’ll be okay,” he said. “My niece. Your son. Probably better than us.”

  Anya nodded, but he felt her yearning, like a rubber band stretching between her and the woods, pulling her back.

  He thought about the things he hadn’t said earlier. About the fear he didn’t want to voice.

  If they found a way to destroy these mythical beings, would his niece, would Anya’s son, survive? He wouldn’t be able to help kill monsters if it meant the death of Alegria.

  And he wasn’t sure how to convince people who were terrified that a grizzly and wolf, even if mythical, were safe.

  7

  Curtis shifted on a hard metal folding chair wishing he could go back outside to the warm fire. Even if it was raining lightly again. But Henry was asleep on a cot and he felt obligated to sit by the old man’s side.

  Henry’s ankle wasn’t broken, but badly sprained. He was exhausted, dehydrated, and covered with cuts and abrasions. One large blue-black bruise over Henry’s ribs clearly worried Samuel, but in their primitive settings there weren’t many options.

  “He should be on antibiotics,” Samuel said. “But we don’t have any.”

  “You should ask the old man who drove the truck into town.” Curtis reached back to rub his aching tailbone. “He said they had a lot of supplies and were willing to share. Maybe he has antibiotics.”

  “Good idea.”

  Albert, the mayor and backhoe driver, came inside and gestured to Samuel who walked over to join him. Curtis watched Henry’s labored breathing, barely aware of their quiet conversation behind him. They talked about having to find a burial spot for the bodies, how long before the National Guard might show up, which locals knew how to preserve food without electricity. Their conversation grew quieter as they moved further away.

  Henry stirred and shifted on the cot but didn’t wake. Curtis reached out to tug the army surplus wool blanket up a little higher. He was overwhelmingly grateful that Henry had survived. As much as they argued, he liked to think that Henry was rather like the father he never had. And now, because of the quake, maybe that was all Curtis had left.

  His mother lived in Anacortes, a coastal city near the San Juan Islands, and it was unlikely she survived the quake or the tsunamis that would have followed. He’d always been close to her. She understood his fear and knew what it was like to be afraid of everything, to have to learn how to maneuver through life in spite of that fear. She’d never told him to get over it or to be brave, or that monsters didn’t exist.

  And now she was gone and Henry was the closest thing to family he had left. Curtis brushed away tears.

  “There is no sense crying.”

  Curtis jumped at Henry’s scratchy voice. “You’re awake.”

  “Obviously.” Henry plucked at the blanket but made no effort to sit up.

  “I’m so happy you’re okay.” Curtis put his hand over Henry’s. “I searched for you, all the way up to the top of the Wall. I was so worried you’d died. Or that you were out there, injured, with…in danger.”

  Henry pulled his hand free and slipped it under the blanket. “You should have listened and heeded my warnings. Although I believe the damage was already done.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I told you the Fifth Force experiments were causing earthquakes.”

  “But-”

  “Those tremblers opened the fault and once that pressure was released it was only a matter of time before plate tectonics shifted in response.”

  Curtis gripped the edges of the cold chair, all thoughts of Henry as a father-figure gone. “You misunderstand what experiments were being conducted. They had nothing to do with causing this. It’s just been a matter of time b
efore the Pacific Northwest experienced a major earthquake, and it finally happened.”

  “If that is what you need for your conscious to rest easy, I understand.” Henry tugged on the blanket again. “But I passed the Hole. I smelled radon. I saw the black dog again, the one that attacked me, this time coming out of the Hole. If radiation is leaking out of there, no wonder it has gone insane and has eyes filled with blood.”

  “Radon gas is odorless.” And then Henry’s words sank in. Curtis reached out and caught the blanket. “Wait. You mean the Hole isn’t blocked? I thought the quake would have destroyed the entrance.”

  “Boulders came down, of course. Most of the entrance is blocked. But it is not completely closed off. You should never have bored into the granite. Now all the radon is escaping.”

  Curtis looked down at Henry, at the wispy gray hair, bandaged scalp, and arthritic fingers picking at the blanket and realized it was impossible to change Henry’s mind, about radon, about the gravity experiments, about anything. He would have to accept Henry as he was.

  “I’m glad you’re okay, Henry. As much as you annoy me sometimes, I’m happy you’re back.”

  Henry’s fingers stilled and he met Curtis’s eyes. “I feared you were inside the Hole. I am, also, relieved you survived. Even though you are the worst type of scientist, unable to see past your narrow view of the world, and even though you are the cause of all this.”

  The worst type of scientist? The cause of the quake? The words cut deeply. Henry had feared for him, and that meant something. But Curtis had worried about Henry, too, and searched for him and been alone and terrified because of him. And none of that mattered to Henry.

  Curtis stood and walked away with an aching lump in his throat and hot tears in his eyes.

  Outside, Ethan sat on a wooden bench, bent over, elbows on knees, and hands dangling loosely. His dark hair hung forward to hide his face, but when the door shut behind Curtis, he straightened and pushed the hair back from his eyes.

  Curtis swallowed and wiped the tears away, hoping Ethan didn’t notice. He crossed the small stretch of soggy grass and sat down, feeling rainwater soak into his jeans. Ethan gave off an aura of being tough and self-sufficient, of being fearless and all the things Curtis wished he was. And yet at the moment, Ethan’s dark eyes seemed vulnerable. They didn’t speak, but Curtis felt comforted somehow, as if being with someone else that was hurting allowed him to hurt, too.

  Clouds hid the Wall and trailed low into the trees that still stood. Rain fell in a soft drizzle that collected in Curtis’s hair and shoulders like silver cobwebs. He felt it trickle down the back of his neck and shivered slightly in the light wind. The afternoon light slanted dull and gray across the town. Curtis thought about those hours of deep panic up on the Wall in the dark.

  “I was so scared the night I spent up there.” Curtis gestured at the Wall.

  “When you were looking for Henry?”

  “Yes. I’m in awe of the forest and yet when I’m out there, at work in the Hole, there’s always this underlying low-level fear of what’s walking in the trees. I just never thought it would be monsters.”

  Ethan watched the gray streamers sifting through treetops.

  “I was worried about bears and cougars.” Curtis managed a laugh. “And, okay, spiders.”

  “Bet you wish that was all you had to be afraid of now.”

  “Isn’t that the truth.” Curtis hesitated. “Are you ever afraid? I mean, you know, if that’s not too personal.”

  Ethan snorted. “Are you kidding? I grew up scared, hauled along like luggage. My folks dragged me from one world disaster to another, trying to save everyone. Every single day was nothing but fear. When would the next bomb hit? When would the next old truck filled with rebels and guns come in shooting?”

  “Your parents must have been brave, facing all that to help people.”

  “Sure.” Ethan’s voice was tight with bitterness. “But their empathy for the world didn’t include me. And then my father was killed and I was injured, and afterward I knew I had to take care of myself.”

  “I’m only confident in front of a classroom,” Curtis said. “In the middle of a lecture, with books and words and information. Is that why you became a teacher? To teach kids to be self-reliant, to give them the knowledge they need to move through their world?”

  “I wanted to be alone. With no one to be responsible for except myself. But I needed a job.”

  “And yet you chose a job with people. And not just people, but high school students.”

  This time, Ethan laughed outright. “Yeah. Go figure. Sometimes what terrifies me is that I’m just like my parents.”

  Curtis smiled, feeling the hurt from Henry’s words ease slightly. “Henry just blamed me for the quake.”

  “No shit?”

  “I know I’m a coward. I try to be brave but I always fail.” The words boiled up. “I was so scared looking for Henry. But I was more scared that he was hurt and alone out there.”

  “And he blames you instead of being grateful?”

  “No, it’s not that,” Curtis said. “I wasn’t looking for thanks. It’s just, well, I guess I thought we were friends. Sounds stupid to you, I suppose. But I don’t remember my father. He died when I was young. I kind of thought…”

  “That Henry would take on that role?” Ethan shook his head. “Well, it’s his loss.”

  Curtis glanced at him, but Ethan wasn’t laughing at him. And he also wasn’t judging him, or blaming him. He sat there talking to Curtis like they were equals. He even seemed to understand about Henry. Curtis straightened. Maybe he wasn’t a failure after all. Maybe he was braver than he realized, too.

  “Look at those rain clouds.” Ethan pointed at the Wall. “See them up there? And how those tendrils come down through the trees?”

  “Sure,” Curtis said. “It will probably be dumping rain by noon. I see why people describe clouds like that as sheep’s wool. Like the mist is caught in tree branches.”

  “No.” Ethan stood. “Look at how they move.”

  Curtis stood as well, studying the Wall. He wiped drizzle from his face. Those clouds, those tendrils of water vapor condensing into raindrops, sagged downward like long fingers.

  But they moved in the same direction, together, as if seeking something.

  “What was it you said back at the fire?” Ethan asked quickly. “About those things that steal your soul?”

  Curtis’s stomach bottomed and he reached with shaky fingers to grip the damp sleeve of Ethan’s jacket. “The Shadow People. The Gray Men.”

  “Yeah, those guys. I think they’re headed this way.”

  8

  “What do we do? Oh, god.” Curtis turned in a panicked circle. “We need to get everyone together. Find shelter.”

  The devastated town with collapsed roofs, fallen walls, and shattered homes offered no security.

  “The fire department,” he said breathlessly, heart racing. “Maybe we can fit everyone inside.”

  Ethan shook his head. “Walls won’t stop those things. They’re ghosts, fog, vapor. All that will do is gather a feeding ground. What the fuck do we do?”

  “Oh god,” Curtis repeated. He grabbed Ethan’s arm.

  Behind them, a door clicked. Curtis turned as Marie came out of the fire department bay, followed by Artair. She passed them, dark eyes raised and watching the tendrils through the trees. And yet her face was composed and calm. Curtis stared. Did she not realize what was coming for them?

  “Marie,” Ethan said. “Wait.”

  She kept going, heading toward the park where Ramon stood with Max and Casey, staring up at the Wall.

  “Come on.” Ethan went after her, toward Fifth Street and the others, towing Curtis.

  Marie went straight to Ramon and he pulled her close to his side. Curtis and Ethan joined them.

  “Are those…” Casey didn’t seem able to finish the sentence.

  “Soul eaters,” Curtis said, his voice high and
shaky. “What do we do? The river? Will they follow us into the water?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Max’s voice was controlled. “We can’t get everyone gathered in time, and no one would survive the river, running like it is.”

  Casey whirled on Ramon. “Your niece. The wolf. Can you, I don’t know, summon them somehow? Fight myth with myth?”

  Marie held her hand up. “Wait,” she said softly, lifting her hands slightly, palms up, cupping the slight wind. “They aren’t coming here.”

  “Where are they going?” Ramon asked, keeping his arm around her shoulders.

  Marie lifted her face, lifted a hand, and pointed. “They are following Sharon. That way.”

  “That’s right,” Curtis said. “She went over the tracks to the other side of town. She’s alone out there. Someone needs to help her.”

  “Marie.” Max touched her shoulder. “How do we fight these things?”

  Marie jumped as if startled and tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know. I can see things, like auras. I can…feel some of them. But those shadows, they’re just …emptiness. I’m sorry.”

  Max patted her shoulder and then his hand went to the butt of his gun in its holster. “It’s not your fault. Come on Casey. If bullets won’t work maybe the Tasers will. Give them a jolt of electricity. See what happens.”

  Marie tilted her head to one side and her pupils dilated. She grabbed Casey’s hand. “Wait.”

  The others held still, watching her. Curtis’s heart fluttered, like a tiny spot of hope flared.

  “Sharon,” Marie said. “I think…there’s some connection.”

  “Maybe Sharon has seen them,” Curtis said.

  “No.” Marie frowned. “I think they’re drawn to her.”

  “Okay then.” Max ran a hand over his short hair. “Let’s go find out why.”

  He and Casey headed toward the railroad tracks. There was no hesitation. No doubt. No fear. Curtis took a faltering step after them, but then stopped. It was their job to put their lives on the line for strangers. They would know what to do. But still, was he going to be someone who helped, or was he going to be like Jennifer, who put her safety above all else?