“But how? How do you keep the monster from eating you?”
“You don’t understand. The wendigo legend was meant as a deterrent. The mere threat of turning into such a demon was enough to discourage breaking the taboo.”
Sara frowned, clearly unwilling to give up but evidently unsure of what button to press next. “Let’s keep looking,” Beck suggested, “If this place is a dead end, the sooner we’re out of here, the better.”
That seemed to satisfy Ellen. She headed forward into the next gallery. Beck and Sara followed and found the historian gazing at the largest display yet, an exhibit built around a section of upright wooden planks, fitted together to form a palisade. Carved conspicuously onto one of the boards was a word: ‘Croatoan.’ Behind the replica of the wall that had once encircled the Roanoke Colony, was an interpretive sign that bore the headline: ‘Where did they go?’
Beyond the palisade, a series of smaller displays explored some of the more popular theories relating to the disappearance of the colonists. Beck gave them only a cursory glance. She did not know enough about the story to separate fact from elaborate speculation, and there seemed to be plenty of the latter. She found Ellen standing in front of another display, gazing at a shelf containing several flat rocks, each one inscribed with carved cryptic letters.
“This is it,” she said, pointing at the first one in the line. “The last message of my ancestor, Eleanor Dare. This isn’t the real one of course. That’s still in the collection at Brenau University in Georgia. This is just a replica.”
“What about the others?” Sara asked, a hopeful note in her voice.
“Fakes. The first one—the real one—was found in 1937, the same year that the Lost Colony play started running here in town. After that, everyone and his uncle started showing up with new ‘Dare Stones,’ each one purporting to be the continuation of Eleanor Dare’s story.”
“How do you know they’re fake?”
“Inconsistencies in the carving style, the language, contradictions in the narrative. Unfortunately, when the hoax was revealed, it was assumed that the original stone was also a fake. But I know it’s true.”
Beck was curious about how Ellen knew this, but she sensed that the answer to that question might not be entirely satisfactory. Sara asked a more obvious question. “What does it say?”
“‘Father, soon after you went to England, we came here.’” Ellen seemed to be reciting the message from memory instead of reading it, and her voice took on a haunting quality. It was like listening to a ghost.
“‘Only misery and a war torn year. About half are dead for two years or more from sickness, we are four and twenty. Savage with a message of a ship was brought to us. In a small space of time they became afraid of revenge and all ran away. We believe it was not you. Soon after, the savages, fearing angry spirits, suddenly murdered all, save seven. My child, Ananias, too, were slain with much misery. Buried all four miles east of this river on a small hill. Names are written there on a rock. Put this there also. Savage show this unto you and hither we promise you will give great and plenty presents.’”
Beck stared at the carved rock. Evidently, she would also have to accept Ellen’s translation as well. Other than the fact that some of the carved symbols looked like letters, the stone was completely illegible.
“Again,” Sara said, a gleam in her eyes. “Slower this time.”
Ellen obliged, but as soon as the first line was out, Sara stopped her. “Where is ‘here’? Where was this stone found?”
“The stone was found by the Chowan River, near Edenton on the other side of the Abelmarle Sound, almost sixty miles from here. But I believe the stone may have been moved there. I haven’t published this research yet, but I have reason to believe that the stone was originally found near Buffalo City, on the banks of Mill Tail Creek. That’s the river Eleanor mentioned in the message. The whole area is a marsh, but there is a slight elevation change about four miles from that area. That’s the small hill where the others are buried.”
Sara’s eyes darted up, looking at nothing as she processed this information. “How long do you think it would have taken to carve that message? Hours? Days?”
Ellen’s brows knitted together as if the question had never occurred to her. “I suppose.”
“Your ancestor sat down and carved out a message to…her father, right? Why? Put yourself in her shoes. She wrote this two years after the colony was abandoned. What changed?”
“My hypothesis is that the tribe she was with was relocating, probably to a hidden refuge to avoid reprisals. The Secotan knew that more Europeans would arrive. The message says as much.”
Sara nodded. “And no one has ever investigated the actual location where the stone was found?”
“No. Remember, most academics believe the stone is a fake, so there’s no reason for them to take it seriously. If I had been able to find proof that the first part of the message is true—the remains of those colonists who died in the first year—I could have gone forward with the search for the graves of Ananias and Virginia Dare.”
Sara gripped her arm. “You did find proof.”
Ellen looked up in surprise.
“You were right,” Sara continued. “About everything. And that means you’re right about this, too. The native refuge where your ancestor lived is out there. And somehow, they knew how to beat this…this curse. How to make the wendigos leave them alone.”
The look of hope in Ellen’s eyes faded as quickly as it had dawned, replaced by an almost feral glint. “No. There’s nothing left of it. Even if we knew exactly where to look, the refuge is gone. They would have taken everything of value when they abandoned it. And whatever was left behind would have decomposed. It’s hopeless.”
Beck could see that Ellen was on the verge of slipping into hysteria again, and came to Sara’s rescue. “It’s the only chance we’ve got,” she said. “Snap out of it. Like Sara said, you were right about what happened to the colony. If anyone can figure this out, it’s you.”
For a few moments, Beck wondered if she had overplayed her hand. But then the hopeful look came back and Ellen nodded. “The Secotan, and really all the native tribes in the region before contact, were very simple. Primitive. So if they had some way of resisting the wendigo curse, it would be something equally simple. A certain kind of plant maybe. Something they would eat, or burn in a fire to make toxic smoke.”
“Something that can only be found in that one place,” Sara said. “That’s more like it. Now, where’s this Buffalo City?”
“On the mainland, about ten miles from here. Only there’s no city there anymore. It went into decline after Prohibition, and died out completely in the fifties. The site has been reclaimed by the wilderness. Now the whole area is a wildlife preserve.”
“The mainland?” The dark cloud of defeat abruptly shifted to Sara. “Outside the quarantined area?”
“Works for me,” Beck muttered.
“You don’t understand. They’ve shut the island down. No one in or out. That’s what a quarantine means.”
“Yeah, but they’ll let you out. You’re the expert. If anyone can clear us, it’s you.”
Sara shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way. And the soldiers manning the barricades aren’t going to let us get close enough to explain it. If we come too close, they’ll shoot first, no questions later.”
“Just call your office. Explain it to them.”
“There’s no service.”
“Of course there is. We all got the Emergency Alert, right after you called it in.” Beck took out her own cell phone, but where there should have been signal bars, there was instead a ‘No Network’ message.
“In a situation like this, access to the cellular network is restricted to official traffic,” Sara explained. “We won’t be able to—” She stopped abruptly and dug into her pocket for her own cell phone, which was buzzing furiously. She stared at the caller ID in consternation, then hit the button to receive the
call. “Hello?”
Her face lit up. “Jack!”
47
Before getting on his private jet, Hector Beltran had found the time to shower and change his clothes. Gone was the feathered cape, along with the blood and dust that had covered him following the destruction of the pyramid. Instead, he wore slacks and a tailored shirt, which revealed only a hint of the tattoos underneath. Parrish was no judge, but the clothes looked expensive. The cartel leader would have been unrecognizable but for his eyes. There was no mistaking the look of madness in those bloody orbs.
Beltran’s men had also cleaned up, but there were considerably fewer of them now. Just four other men, aside from Beltran and himself, doubtless the surviving members of the cartel’s leadership. Like Beltran, they wore designer clothes that almost, but not quite, covered their ritual tattoos. Not one of them carried a weapon. Parrish sat in their midst like a party crashing refugee.
He kept to himself, which seemed to suit Beltran just fine. Sunlight streaming in through the windows on the right side of the aircraft told him they were heading northeast, which meant they were indeed going somewhere in the United States. Beltran had been telling the truth about that much, at least. But the knowledge that he was once more in the skies above America failed to buoy Parrish’s spirits. Whatever it was that Beltran was up to, whatever had shaken him loose from his monomaniacal quest for revenge against the American commandos who had taken his brother, had to be worse than anything Parrish could conceive.
As the flight wore on, the other men idly conversing in a hash of Spanish and Nahuatl, Parrish caught Beltran watching him. He sensed that the cartel leader was eager to share information, to satiate his guest’s curiosity, if only Parrish would ask. Parrish did not take the bait. He did not actually want to know. Curiosity was for cats. He was a bulldog, focused on one task and one alone: survival.
He slept fitfully, alternately lulled to sleep by the droning hum of the engines, and startled awake by murmured voices and episodes of turbulence. Later, much later, he was roused by a change in the plane’s attitude. They were descending.
He could no longer see the sun, which either meant they were traveling due east or that it was midday. As he blinked away the last vestiges of bleariness, he saw Beltran moving through the cabin toward the cockpit door. Though he could only hear Beltran’s voice, shouting in Spanish, it was enough for him to get the gist of what was being discussed. There were evidently some issues at the destination airport, which Beltran seemed to believe could be resolved by simply ignoring air traffic control and doing as he pleased.
Parrish rose and moved down the aisle to learn more about the situation. Maybe Beltran’s ultimate goal didn’t matter to him, but getting the plane down in one piece certainly did.
“What’s going on?” he asked in English.
“Nothing that concerns you, Buldog. Relax. You’re almost home.”
“I am concerned. It sounds like there’s a problem. Maybe I can help.”
To his surprise, the pilot spoke up, likewise in English. “They say the airport is closed.”
“So land somewhere else. Where are we anyway?”
“We need to land at this airport.” Beltran said with a frown, pointedly ignoring the question.
Parrish leaned his head into the cramped cockpit. Through the windscreen, he could see land—a patchwork of green and brown—and beyond that, an endless expanse of gray ocean. “Why is it closed? Tell them it’s an emergency.”
“I tried that.”
Parrish shuffled through a variety of responses, but without knowing more about their destination, it was impossible to know which was the right one. What might work at some backwater airstrip in the middle of nowhere would get them shot out of the sky if they approached a more heavily populated area.
He looked out the window again. East coast. Barrier islands. Florida? The Carolinas? “Where are you going?”
“Dare County Regional Airport,” Beltran supplied.
Parrish was unfamiliar with the name, which meant rural. “Tell them you’ll divert. Then drop below radar and double back.”
“That’s not the only problem,” the pilot said. “It’s like I told Señor Beltran. The runway is only four thousand feet long.”
“So?”
“This aircraft needs at least five thousand feet to take-off.”
Parrish almost laughed aloud. He turned to Beltran. “There you go. Pick another airport.”
“That is where we must land,” Beltran insisted.
“If we land there,” the pilot said, “we won’t be able to take off again.”
Beltran gripped the man’s shirtfront. “I don’t care. Do it.”
Parrish wondered if he should be concerned by Beltran’s lack of concern over that not-inconsiderable logistical detail, but whether or not the aircraft made it back into the sky made no difference to him. Once his feet hit the ground, there was no way in hell he would ever get back into Beltran’s plane.
The pilot capitulated, raising his hands and nodding. Beltran released him and then turned to Parrish. “Gracias, Buldog. It is good I brought you along.”
“I’m just deadheading.”
Beltran puzzled over the word a moment, then shook his head, his face becoming unexpectedly earnest. “When we land, something very special is going to happen. You can be a part of it, if you wish.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I already have a job.”
Beltran chuckled softly. “With Senator Marrs? I don’t think you have much of a future with him. The world is about to become a very different place.”
Parrish kept a diplomatic smile fixed to his lips as he shook his head again. Beneath him, the plane tilted and began to slow. “We should probably buckle up.”
“There’s still time, if you change your mind. Think about it.”
Yeah, that’ll happen.
Parrish found his seat and buckled up. Perhaps because he was so eager to be back on terra firma, the descent seemed to take forever. The plane descended for several minutes, then leveled out and banked through a long turn before continuing down.
The landing gear dropped with a thump. He could see the ground coming up fast, verdant forests, threaded with ribbons of asphalt, dotted with houses and other buildings. There was no sign of the runway, and when the plane dropped below the level of the tallest trees, Parrish started looking for the escape exit. Then, with a screech, the plane was down.
The pilot reversed the engine thrust with what seemed like frantic urgency. Parrish recalled the man saying that the strip was just four thousand feet long. One thousand three hundred yards, give or take. Thirteen football fields. How many football fields did the plane need to stop? How many did they have left?
Enough, evidently.
The g-forces of deceleration finally relented, allowing him to settle back, and then the plane stopped altogether, with the wheels still on hard tarmac. As soon as all motion ceased, Beltran rose and faced the seated men, raising his hands.
“Four years ago, I called out to you.” He spoke in English, almost certainly for Parrish’s benefit. “I said, ‘Join me as fellow sons of Huitzilopochtli,’ and you did. Together, we brought back the old ways. We killed our enemies. We gave their hearts to Huitzilopochtli. We feasted on their flesh.”
The offhand declaration went through Parrish like an electric shock. He’s serious. He’s been eating people.
The tourists on that bus… That’s what they were eating last night at the pyramid.
He tried to get me to eat them.
It was all he could do to keep from throwing up, but Beltran was plowing forward, unaware of Parrish’s revulsion. “We sowed our enemies as seed, cast them upon the wind. Now, the seed we planted has borne fruit.”
The atmosphere in the cabin was charged with religious fervor. Murmured words, a prayer perhaps, grew together into a hum that sounded like a wire about to snap.
“Many ages ago, long before the Spaniards took our land, the pe
ople of the north told of a fearsome demon they called windigo; a creature who devours the flesh of men. When I heard these stories, I knew that what they feared, we worshipped.” He thumped his chest for emphasis. “Huitzilopochtli and the windigo are one and the same. We have awakened Huitzilopochtli with our offering of flesh. Now, let us go forth to meet our god!”
With that, he threw open the door located just aft of the cockpit. The men exited their seats and descended to the tarmac, leaving Parrish alone with Beltran. The cartel leader stared at him and nodded, as if sharing some silent joke, and then he too turned and headed down the steps. Parrish just sat there a moment, trying to wrap his head around Beltran’s confession. Yet, beyond the horror of the man’s admission of cannibalism lay something even more troubling.
The seed we planted has borne fruit. What did that mean? And why had Beltran come here? Why had he insisted on this place?
He rose and moved to the open hatch. Beltran’s men were gathered in a loose cluster on the grass at the edge of the tarmac, waiting it seemed for something to happen. Parrish looked past them, searching for a building or a road, anything that he could use as a signpost to guide him out of this nightmare.
His eye was drawn to movement at the edge of the field, but it was only an animal, probably a deer, moving faster than his eye could follow.
That was no deer.
An enthusiastic murmur rippled through the assembled men, but to Parrish, the sound was like warning bells. Another shape moved into view.
Definitely not a deer, but what the hell is it?
The thing was vaguely human in form, but hairless, with pale skin and extraordinarily long limbs. Parrish’s first instinct was to deny the reality of what he was seeing. It had to be a trick of the light. A hallucination. A dream…
On the ground below, Beltran and the others opened their arms as if to offer a welcoming embrace. There were at least a dozen of the creatures, and more were emerging from the woods with each passing second.
Beltran moved to the forefront, arms spread wide, shouting in Nahuatl, and then suddenly the leading edge of the swarm was on him. The powerfully built crime lord was dwarfed by the towering creature. A spray of blood erupted from the midst of the flurry of white limbs, and then the struggle was repeated over and over again as the monstrous forms fell upon the defiant crowd of believers.
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