by Sara Clancy
“I have a plan. I’m going to grab what I need and get the hell out of town.”
Nicole straightened, her brow furrowing. “You don’t mean that.”
“Like hell I don’t.”
“Benton, you can’t run away from this.”
“But isn’t it worth giving it a try?” Benton replied with a sharp smile.
“And what about your responsibilities?”
“What responsibilities? I don’t owe anyone anything.”
“You’re the only one who can see this thing.”
“When it wants me to,” he hissed. Suddenly, the space seemed too small to contain all the things that he wanted to express. His legs twitched with the urge to pace and his hands crashed into the shelves as he tried to throw them about. “Don’t you get that? It wanted me to watch. It wanted me to see it rip Kimberly’s heart out of her chest and know that I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. It wanted to make sure that I knew just how weak I am in comparison and, believe me, I got the message.”
“Benton, you’re a banshee.”
“So what? What possible difference does that make? It won’t even let me dream about it.”
The heat in Nicole’s words faded at this. “What?”
Benton flashed his eyes to the side, his chest heaving as testament to the anger that was quickly leaving him. “It ripped me out of its head,” he finally confessed. It seemed to pain him to say it. Almost as if shame was slipping in-between his fear and anger. Still, he forced himself to continue. “In my dream last night, the one I had in the hospital, it knew I was there. And it forced me out.”
“Out of the dream?”
“Out of its mind. It severed the connection.”
“Wait,” Nicole grappled with her surprise to form a meaningful sentence. “I thought your dreams were, like, snippets of the future or something.”
“Me too,” he said.
“So, in the future, the horseman would stop an attack to figuratively deal with you?”
“I don’t know!” Benton’s hands flung out as a new wave of anger hit him. Loose items scattered off the shelves and toppled down to fill the limited floor space. He didn’t seem to notice or care as he snapped, “I have officially lost the few shreds of certainty I have in this world.”
“We’re not going to get anywhere if we keep letting our emotions get in the way.”
Benton laughed, the sound tittering on the edge of hysteria. “The only thing I know for sure right now, Nic, is that this guy terrifies me.”
“I’m scared too,” Nicole said with a soft tone as she reached for his hand. “We all are. But we can’t turn away from this. We have an obligation.”
“Obligation? I’m not old enough to rent a car on my own, but I have an obligation to fight a meat man?” Benton roared. “Why? Because of some fluke chance of my DNA? I’m stuck facing off against every random demon that comes into town?”
“Random,” Nicole repeated as an idea sparked across her mind.
She was smiling now and the sight was enough to throw Benton off of his rage induced rant.
He scrunched up his face and muttered a confused, “Sorry?”
“What if it’s not random?” she said.
“Like,” he said slowly, “someone summoned it here?”
Her hands tightened around both of his arms. “Like we did.”
She watched him expectantly, her fingers restlessly squeezing his arms as she waited to see realization dawn in his eyes, for him to jump onto her train of thought like he normally did. But he just blinked back at her, confusion etched onto his face.
“We summoned it? Have you been doing some dark magic I’m not aware of?”
“Remember the symbol? The one painted on your barn wall?”
“No, I often forget giant things associated with random graves I find in my backyard.”
“No one likes sarcasm, and it was your front yard,” she quickly corrected, before getting back on topic. “Do you remember its meaning? The one Professor Lester told us about?”
It took Benton some actual effort to fight his automatic response in favor of an actual answer.
“He said something about it showing up in an ancient cult somewhere in Europe.”
She nodded, urging him to go on. He heaved a sigh.
“The cult believed that places where paranormal creatures died will naturally draw in others, possibly stronger beings unless the symbol is put in place, and … Oh, crap. This might actually be our fault,” he hissed out a long breath. “But we put the symbol up. And you’re a perfectionist. If it works at all, then it shouldn’t matter that we killed the Leanan Sidhe.”
“But you haven’t gone back to the graves to check on them, have you?”
He shook his head.
“Me neither. What if the symbols got damaged somehow? It might not work if the lines are broken. Maybe that’s why whoever put it up for Oliver hid it behind a false wall to protect it. And maybe that’s why Oliver’s acting out now. He’s been trying to warn us.”
“No. He’s just a jerk.”
Her mind was spinning with the possibilities, making her words tumble out faster as she ignored his response. “Okay, this could be good. Maybe all we have to do to get rid of this horseman is a simple paint job? Just a couple of touch ups and he’ll move along. We could go do that right now.”
He rolled his eyes. “You have paint in your jeep?”
“Mom’s on shift. We can swing by my place and pick some up.”
“Nic, think this through. You don’t honestly think that no one’s going to notice us leaving school?”
“We’ve been in a closet for the past fifteen minutes and no one’s cared.”
“Yeah,” Benton said, “this school has horrible supervision.”
She bounced on the balls of her feet and shook him as much as she dared, given his injuries. “So let’s go. This whole thing could be over before last period.”
“Seriously?”
“Okay, with travel time, it will probably take us a little longer. But we should definitely be back before my shift at the Buffalo Jump Museum starts.”
“You’re actually working today?”
She propped her hands on her hips but still felt more defensive than righteous. “My co-workers have kids, Benton. I can’t just leave them hanging.”
He was silent for a long moment, his lips pinched into a tight line as he thought.
“Oh, come on,” she whined. “It’s not like you have a better idea.”
“Yeah, I do. Leave town.”
She heaved a sigh. “I don’t want you to feel bad, but your plans are stupid and doomed to fail. Let’s do my smart thing instead.”
“Name one thing wrong with my idea and I’ll tag along with you.”
“You can’t drive and there’s no bus service out of town until Wednesday.”
“Fine, I’ll go with you. But if this doesn’t work, come Wednesday, I’m getting the hell out of this town and you’re not going to say one word about it. And I mean not one single guilt trip. Agreed?”
“No.”
“That’s not how bargaining works,” Benton snapped.
Nicole shrugged as she swung open the door and ushered him out with a wide sweep of her arm.
“I’ve never really tried bargaining before. I just go straight to getting my way.”
Chapter 5
Benton slid further down in the passenger seat to try and keep the crown of his head from brushing against the dented roof. The damage was a lot more impressive in the daylight, as if someone had taken a sledge-hammer to the metal. As they left the town, Benton had pulled his feet up onto the dashboard. The position forced his knees tightly against his chest, and the pressure was oddly comforting. Aside from that, he kept his eyes fixed out of the passenger window and spent the trip contemplating his life choices.
Sunlight blazed across the open fields, playing off the lush green and dusted golden colors of the towering grass. The rolling hills s
tretched under the low sky like a heaving ocean, expanding out to the snow-capped mountain range that lined the horizon. Only the confined road they were on and the Buffalo Jump Museum, perched on the highest point around, disrupted the view.
Everything he knew about the history of Fort Wayward came from Nicole. According to her, when settlers had first started to develop the town, eight properties had been set up on the very outskirts of the town limits. There was nothing really notable about them until a wildfire had swept across the prairies. They had all been destroyed, and given the superstitions of the time, the properties had been abandoned, leaving them as the perfect setting for local urban legends. But, for all her school classes and personal research, Nicole had never been told about a ninth property.
The forgotten basement had served to be the perfect hiding spot for the Leanan Sidhe. It made its nest in a cellar that shouldn’t, and historically didn’t, exist. It was also why, after they had killed it, neither he nor Nicole had felt any need to hide the den. They had simply closed the basement door. A month had passed with people searching for Victor, and still no one had stumbled across it. Why the ninth had been forgotten, or deliberately omitted from the history books, was a mystery that still annoyed the hell out of Nicole. It never seemed to sit well with her when she was confronted with things about Fort Wayward that she didn’t know.
He cringed and sunk deeper into his seat as they passed a slim dirt road. It was barely wide enough to be considered a path, but it was enough to make his spine turn to ice. Weeds and twisted saplings littered the dirt trail. When the wind blew just right, the towering grass on either side of the road bowed and hid the path from view. At the very end of that road, where the grass finally won, sat the basement, a pit carved out of dirt and filled with the Leanan Sidhe’s museum of death. If Nicole hadn’t come for him, if she had been just a few seconds late, Benton would have been a part of that collection. He would be rotting in that hole. Forgotten.
A chill crawled over him like spiders made of ice. Benton forced himself to look away. With determination, he managed to keep his eyes focused on the world passing by the windshield. He took in a deep breath, just to prove to himself that he could. It was easy enough to fill his lungs. Keeping his thoughts from dwelling on what could have been was harder.
When they had first started their trip, he had thought that going to the Leanan Sidhe’s grave first was the worst option. It was the basement where he had almost died. And the basement that still held Victor’s remains. He had wanted to get that pit out of the way, sure that he would lose his nerves if he had to wait. Now, however, he was actually grateful. Having the reminder that the Leanan Sidhe was dead and not lurking in any of the shadows, waiting for him, was going to be helpful.
Nicole turned the jeep onto a new path. The tires bumped and bucked over the uneven road, slowing their progress as they edged towards the dead end. The grass rose higher, swallowing the road and scraping along the sides of the jeep to release ghostly whispers. Neither of them spoke, leaving only the sound of the tires crunching the earth.
There wasn’t enough space at the end of the road to turn the jeep around without entering the grass field. The tiny clearing was just big enough to expose a cluster of pebbles and a patch of disrupted earth. Nicole brought the jeep to a stop a few feet from a slight mound, and put it into park. After she killed the engine, she remained where she was. The hard plastic of the steering wheel squeaked slightly as her fingers tightened around it.
“Well,” she awkwardly broke the silence. “It looks like we buried it deep enough to discourage scavengers. I can’t see any coyote or bear tracks. Can you?”
Benton snapped his head around to face her. “There are bears around here?”
She nodded, looking both confused and oddly proud. “Black bears. I never mentioned that?”
“No, you didn’t. I guess it just slipped your mind every time we headed out into the fields.”
“Maybe you don’t listen.” Nicole shrugged as she, apparently emboldened by the idle conversation, slipped out of the jeep.
He was still seething as he watched her cross the front of the vehicle, one hand constantly patting the keys she had shoved into her pocket. But, no matter how much energy he put into his scowl, she never turned around to see any of his efforts. Grumbling under his breath, Benton yanked off his seatbelt and got out of the jeep to follow her. Swallowing thickly, he followed Nicole to the mound. In another ignored sign of protest, he moved as slowly as he could get away with.
Nicole crouched down by the disturbed earth of the grave and dusted off the loose debris from the large flat stone they had painted the symbol onto. It unintentionally served as a marker for the grave and he glared at it, fisting his hands to resist the urge to hurl it into the field. Nature was well on its way to reclaiming the small area they had carved out for the corpse. The soil of the mound had almost returned to the same color as the surrounding area, and tiny sprigs of grass poked out around the thick clumps. Wiping her hand on her jeans, Nicole retrieved her phone from her pocket, fiddled with the device for a moment, and placed it next to the stone. Benton’s chest tightened as he watched her. Logically he knew that it was dead and not about to reach out of the grave to grab her. Still, his body tensed in anticipation.
Searching for a distraction, he shifted his attention to the glowing screen of her mobile phone. He could just make out the photograph the phone displayed under the glare of the sun reflecting off the surface. It was a copy of a picture taken for a police report, and he wondered just when she had stolen it from the RCMP files. And if her mother knew that she had it. The sun warmed the side of his face as he mulled over the question while Nicole continued to ignore him. The sum total of her focus was on her detailed inspection of the symbol, tracing her finger over the lines on both stone and screen.
“It seems to be fine.” She spoke with the muttered tone that she used only when talking to herself. “Everything’s there. There might be a ritual that goes along with it. Like a chant or something. Or maybe it needs to be engraved into the Leanan Sidhe’s skin?”
“Can we check out the other one before you jump to defiling a corpse?” Benton asked.
Nicole jumped and blinked up at him owlishly. Apparently, she hadn’t been purposefully ignoring him but had legitimately forgotten that he was there. Frowning slightly, she snatched up her phone, brushing the specks of dust off the case, and stood up.
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” she said as she turned to face him. “It’s not the smartest idea to dig it up in broad daylight.”
“Yeah, that’s what I have an issue with.” He forced a smile as he backed up towards the jeep.
Nicole had the most remarkable talent for tunnel vision. Sometimes he really envied how she could dedicate every cell of her being to accomplishing whatever task she had deemed worthy. But at times like these, it creeped him out. Craning his neck, he checked the back seat before he swung himself into the jeep. Nicole took her time, carefully using the spray can of glue she had found in her garage to coat the symbol in a protective layer. It only occurred to him then that she might actually want to wait until the glue dried. His relief battled with his growing anxiety when Nicole jogged back and climbed up into the jeep as soon as she was done. Not wanting to disrupt the area any more than necessary, she twisted to look between the seats and reared the jeep back until they were again on the main path.
“Maybe we should burn it.”
Benton closed his eyes. “Sorry?”
“You know, cremate it. That way we can seal the remains in a jar and just cover the entire thing with the symbols.”
He didn’t respond as they drove almost casually down the road, but it didn’t seem to bother her. It was possible that she hadn’t really been talking to him anyway. The closer they got to the next turn off, the more it seemed that the ice spiders were burrowing into his flesh.
“How long do you think it would take to burn a Leanan Sidhe to ash?” Nicole ask
ed abruptly as she turned onto the side road.
“I don’t know.”
“The smell might give us away though,” her voice trailed off as her thoughts caught up to claim her.
While she still continued to chat, and every once in a while would throw a question at him, it was pretty obvious that she didn’t need him for the conversation anymore. By the time they had reached the end of the next path, she was attempting to calculate a proper cooking time for a demonic beast by what she knew about preparing turkeys. She brought the jeep to a stop and Benton happily jumped out of the door, grateful for the excuse to escape the conversation.
But without Nicole or the constant grumble of the engine, the world was completely, unnervingly silent. Anxiety rushed back to fill him like a swarm of ravenous insects. His fingers and shoulders twitched as he felt spiders crawl on the underside of his skin. No matter how hard he searched the world around him, there was no other sign of human life. The grass rose up to the height of his hips. The blades swayed in the wind and smothered any hint of roads they had just travelled. From where he stood now to the lines of the horizons, they seemed entirely alone. It left him with a crippling sense of isolation that he couldn’t shake or fathom.
He sought out Nicole’s gaze from across the jeep’s hood to find that she was already looking at him. The first traces of fear trickled around the edges of her expression, and the instant she realized he was watching, she did everything she could to hide it. A small smile served as her war paint, and she pushed the long strands of her hair back over her shoulder. It slipped back like silk and idly swayed across her hips.
Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she turned on its flashlight and brandished it, as if the weak glow would somehow protect them from whatever was possibly waiting for them. The display of incorruptible confidence was weakened slightly when she couldn’t stop her other hand from slipping to her front jeans pocket and patting the bump that the keys had created.
“Ready?” Despite her effort to hide it, her voice still wavered slightly.
“Any chance you’d let me stay in the car?”