by Erin Lorence
“Why? What else is going to burn around here?” Reed gestured at the charred surroundings in the limited light.
His eyes held mine a second too long and smirked. I know what you were going to say. You chickened out—changed your direction midcourse. Experienced self-doubt.
But his voice said, “It was a headache for Stone to find enough burnable wood to keep it going for you this long. I wouldn’t worry.”
“That’s why mountains catch fire. Because of people like you. But that’s not what I even meant about extinguishing it, Mr. Insight.”
“Oh. Let them come.” Reed shrugged, interpreting my meaning correctly this time. “The pagan workers who put out fires are long gone. And if any more of their kind decides to investigate such a small spark, then let them come. We’ll be far enough away by then.”
~*~
He wasn’t joking about the distance we’d put between ourselves and their abandoned campfire tonight. They set a brutal pace—at least for Melody and me, who’d never imagined reaching the warrior only the first half of our day’s quest. It must have been killer for Reed too, since his right leg stopped short and rotated inwards. Yet he led.
Then, I understood.
When Gilead halfway hacked off an appendage or electrocuted himself checking zip line defenses, he followed up the incident by working with a ferocity that dared anyone to even think he was injured or weak.
So, a disabled warrior-guy playing off his disability with a pace that gave everybody a stitch in their sides? I guess it made sense. In that macho-mentality sort of way that wasn’t part of my own genetic makeup.
The air was breathable where we hiked—next to the vertical bluff. Sometimes we scrambled around fallen boulders, but even with this, my quivering leg muscles assured me we didn’t gain elevation. We also didn’t lose it. We hiked around Mount Washington’s base without dropping into the foothills.
The filmy haze thinned enough for the moon’s light to filter through, revealing that the forest to our right had escaped the most recent fires. I could also see that Melody and I had fallen behind.
I didn’t holler “wait up” or anything. I preferred the extra distance between myself and that bobcat.
Never in my life have I trusted a cat. I wasn’t about to start tonight.
“Hold it.”
The group ahead halted. I could make out Reed’s silhouette and the monster bobcat’s. But I saw no trace of the giant’s.
My gaze flickered to the feathery black shapes of trees down the slope and then to the angular warrior who crouched eye-to-eye with his bobcat, their foreheads touching. So frozen they seemed not to breathe.
The taut silence snapped. Creepy noises—a rusty groan, a fading siren, a rumble—emanated in a nightmarish duet from the human and wild animal. Then, Reed moved. Still kneeling, he thrust one arm out and pointed it at me. Attack.
Cold sweat drizzled between my shoulder blades. I uprooted and hauled Melody further into the shadows of a pillar crumbled from the side of the mountain.
“Easy.” The pillar behind came to life and held me in place with steadying pressure on each shoulder. “Easy,” Stone repeated. “Don’t run off. You’re OK. He’s only sending Darcy back home to let our folks know you made it, and we’re on our way to the Council now. It’s our signal we’d agreed on, and this is the easiest access route to our home.”
“Darcy?” I pretended my pulse wasn’t hammering like a manic woodpecker against my skin while watching Darcy caress her forehead against Reed’s beard. The cat leaped up the slope without a sound. Then it melted into the boulders and night.
Stone guided us into a patch of moonlight. Walking next to him, I discovered his tread was as silent as Darcy’s. And he’d somehow managed to shift Melody’s and my packs to his own shoulder without me noticing. Tricky.
Melody trotted to catch up to Reed. She craned back her head as if trying to see their home at its inky peak. “Your home? Your home is up there?”
“Mmm.” Reed ducked his head.
“How many of you live here together? What plants do you eat? I bet there’s always enough. Is there? I don’t see snow. Does it snow? Do you stay warm when it does?”
Melody’s eager questions flowed nonstop while we wound our way around the mountain’s base.
After overhearing yet another of Reed’s vague responses that didn’t reveal anything, I poked her. “Better drop it, Melody. He’s not going to tell you much. He considers it probable we’ll sell out his location to the devil and later return to pillage his family’s food sources.”
“No.” Stone spoke for the first time since explaining Darcy. “That’s not true. We don’t think that. Tell ‘em, brother.”
Reed laughed. “I can’t because she’s right, at least partly. Melody, it’s only habit—not that I mistrust you. Repeat your questions please. I’ll try to be real this time.”
~*~
By the time we stopped for the night, I knew way too much about these brothers, Reed and Cornerstone Bender. Like their favorite food was turkey vulture. And the intricate, step-by-step process their mom used to turn deer hides into the leaf-thin leather clothing they wore. Melody had grilled them about that one hard. No one had objected when I demanded she stop with the questions.
I’d lagged behind during the grueling Q and A session. But now I caught up. Reed was explaining the setup of their community.
According to him—and unrefuted by Stone—their family lived with seven other Christian groups halfway up the craggy peak. They called their eight-family community the MTV—mountain top village.
Everybody in the MTV had a job, and the Bender brothers protected their village. They didn’t live in the trees like my family. No surprise, since the upper part of Mount Washington looked pretty sparse on green. But the MTV didn’t exist underground like Melody’s either. The village divided its time between shelters in the open and a cave.
“Isn’t everyone freaked out that the godless will get them if they’re outside during the day?” Melody crunched in on herself as if to hide at the thought.
Reed frowned. “Of course not. They know I’d never let that happen.”
She pulled upright. “Oh! Right.”
I shook my head. “Except the major flaw with that line is you’re going to be gone now, for weeks at least. Anything could happen to them. What if you get back home and everyone in your MTV is dead?”
For the first time Stone stumbled.
“Dove.”
“What, Melody?”
“No, it’s OK, Mel.” Reed’s shoulders shook, which I didn’t understand. “Wow. Have faith much, Dove of Peace? Plus, don’t you think it likely I’ve prepared extra precautions in lieu of our absence?”
His brother fell back, shortening his stride to mine. “That’s partly why he sent Darcy home instead of bringing her along. She can sense strangers’ bad intentions. I guess sort of like her.” He nodded at Melody. “Plus, you should see Darcy when she’s feeling protective.” He shuddered and gripped a shoulder strap, his knuckles blanching white. “It’s...she’s merciless...terrifying.”
I eyed him. “You’re no warrior, are you?”
He agreed with a shrug. “Boost up? This ancient deer blind’s the best rest spot we got on this side of things.”
I realized we’d stopped, and he gestured at a mammoth-sized, crooked rectangle of rotten boards halfway up three tight-growing pine trunks. “No ladder, but I can get you up there all right.”
I backed away. After age four, tree dwellers don’t accept boosts up or help down.
I held out my hand for my bag. “I’m out of water. I’ll rehydrate before climbing up myself.”
Reed stepped into Stone’s braced hands. “You’re in luck.” He grasped the branch next to the crow’s nest platform. “There’s a stream not too far from here.”
I turned my head in the direction of the whispering current. “Which is why I said I’m going to rehydrate. Melody? C’mon.”
I knew she was out of water too, yet she hesitated.
“I could send Stone with you,” Reed suggested from above.
I grabbed both our packs and steered her away. “I thought you didn’t like hanging out in trees. And,” I threw over my shoulder “we made it this many weeks without a bodyguard. We’ll survive another five minutes.”
Reed’s voice trailed after. “Don’t drop too far down the slope. Or you’ll end up in the smoked out area again.”
Melody sighed. She sounded, what, happy again?
Sky alive! What’d happened to my traveling partner?
Then, it clicked.
I hoped her brain damage from smoke inhalation and high-elevation oxygen deprivation wouldn’t be permanent. Her dad might not notice, but her mom was bound to. And that was one conversation on top of everything else I could live without.
~*~
I wiped the drips from my chin with my sleeve and capped my bottle. “You going to wash?”
“Nah. Too cold.”
The high elevation and late night had woven themselves into an arctic result. Plus, the flowing water cut like February’s ice. But thanks to Reed’s self-proving pace, I dripped with sweat.
“Wait for me.” I shoved my bottle into my bag. “I’ll be quick.”
“OK. Sure.”
The stream flowed out in the open, its surface glistening in the scant moonlight. I remembered Reed’s offer of Stone.
Surveying the smoggy darkness while rolling my pant legs, I sighted no one but Melody, hugging herself and hopping up and down. I splashed downstream and rounded a curve that blocked her from view. Up ahead I saw what I wanted and beelined for the bushes that promised privacy.
Up close, the brambles overgrowing the stream’s edge weren’t as concealing as I’d thought. Their branches crumbled between my fingers to brittle splinters, and the smokehouse odor filled my nostrils, which meant I’d wandered too far downhill—at least, according to Reed.
I scanned the stillness of the woods once more before balancing my bag on the tallest section of bush. The moment I let go, my belongings splashed into the shallows at its roots.
With an irritated huff, I bent to fish it out. A small, manmade object on the pebbles caught my eye. I turned the thin rectangle over in my hands. Cool, smooth, but also warped on one side. As if its plastic had melted.
The thing reminded me of the electronic Wolfe had held in his home—the one he’d dropped when I’d demanded my stolen clothes back. This smaller electronic had undergone fire damage. The reason it’d been discarded here as junk.
A sharp edge sliced open my lingering fingertip. I inhaled and released the broken junk back onto the rocks.
Light blasted up. Brilliant light shone from beneath the cracked glass rectangle that faced the sky.
I crouched down in the shallows with my back against the charred bushes so I could study it. Yet I didn’t dare touch the image of a man’s upside-down face that’d appeared.
I gasped. The man wasn’t a picture. The image moved. He panted for breath. Sweat trickled off his forehead, leaving lighter trails through patches of soot. An ominous orange glow waxed and waned around the edges surrounding him.
“This is Thomas J. Parker of Portland,” the man rasped from next to my fast-numbing feet. “It’s day five of our hunt to locate a clan of local fanatics living hidden—illegally—in this national park. Authorities said find proof. And that’s what I’ve got now. Proof. Which is only another reason to get out of this god-forsaken place.
“I’m the only one left. Two days ago my team disappeared. I think they’re dead. They were, we were, further down where the fanatics set that first fire. Murdering fanatics. Maybe I’ll be dead too, but—”
A deafening whoosh and bang drowned him out.
I bit my lip. I recognized that eerie sound. The unmistakable sound a surge of fire makes as it explodes from one treetop into the next.
The crackling roar died…and then I could make out the man’s voice again.
But I wished I hadn’t been able to. I wished I knew how to make it stop.
Because the man cursed God.
While he ground my Lord’s name into the muck, something in my chest hardened. And I gazed into his panic-stricken eyes without gnawing my lip at all.
“Heard that? That’s fire. Straight from Hades. Hotter than anything on this planet. Set by a pair of fanatic demons. Been trailing them, hoping they’d lead me to...but it was a trap. A set up. The whole thing. They got me where they wanted me, boxed me in with more hell fire. I’ll keep to the water now. My last chance—”
A gigantic shoe eclipsed the image. With a crack it extinguished the light and silenced the desperate voice.
I staggered backward and, with a final splash, sat down in the stream.
My eyes located the human figure, pillar-like on the riverbank. “You killed him.”
“Please.” Stone motioned me forward. “Come on back with me. Forget what you—”
“What I saw? What I heard? Touch me, and I’ll scream.”
“No, no, you can’t. If you do, and they hear, then they’ll come. Please. Don’t. Don’t make more come.”
I eased up from the stream but located no escape. He loomed in front of me, agile and fast. The frigid water pushed at my legs from behind and spilled out onto treacherous, slippery riverbanks that kept the forest at bay.
Trapped. I was as trapped as that dying Heathen in his last moments. Had he died where I stood? Not that I cared that the blasphemous man no longer existed. But Stone had killed—no, murdered—the man. In cold blood and not even in defense. In defense I could stomach, but not this. And he’d murdered a bunch of others too, if I believed the doomed man. I did.
All around me rushed the crimson of my dream. Bright rivers of warm red wound between the pebbles, dripped from the bushes, and soaked my shoes.
I blinked. The red transformed back to hazy charcoal. Nighttime. And only icy water stained my shoes dark.
“Did you do it with your bare hands?” I managed through my chattering teeth. “Or did you let your fire—the one you set—kill him, them, for you?”
“I…they came searching, and then it was bad, and Reed—I can’t explain. He can.”
“Will you hurt me?”
“No, of course not—”
“Melody!”
“Shh...don’t make them come. Please. And she’s too far away to hear. Back at the campsite. With Reed.”
I knew now. Even if I could do the impossible and outrun Stone—I couldn’t. Reed had Melody. A hostage situation.
I forced my rubbery legs to take steps forward, out of the numbing water, over the slick rocks, and past him. When my clumsy feet faltered, I shook off his hand. I sprinted for the pines with the platform.
~*~
I out-climbed Stone. Which gave me zero satisfaction.
Melody, Melody.
As soon as my eyes cleared the platform, I found her. I recoiled from the terrible picture before me—her reclining on her elbows, so close to the murderer next to her they almost touched. Worse, they shared a blanket. A blanket!
“Get up, Melody.” Perched on a dead limb next to the uneven boards I extended a hand for her to grab. “We’re leaving. Come on.”
“She knows, bro!” The bigger brother landed with a muted thud opposite me.
“Melody!” I beckoned.
“Both of you. Watch your voices.” Reed tucked the bearskin’s edge around Melody, who blinked at me as if waking. She continued to chew on something that made her cheek bulge.
“They’re murderers.” I watched her shrink from my words. “I’m getting out of here. And I can’t leave you behind, so come on.”
Over the blanket, Reed draped his hand over hers—a protective motion that made me want to knock it away. “Don’t be a drama queen, Dove. Stone, what’s going on?”
His brother held out the shattered electronic. It rested tiny in his palm and as innocent as a pinecone without its light
and sound. “We missed this, bro. There were words on it from that last one. She listened to some of it before—”
Reed’s eyes darted to me and back. “You didn’t stay with her.”
Stone’s head fell into his hands. “She wanted to wash. Behind a bush. And I was giving her privacy.”
“Melody?” I urged.
She’d swallowed and pulled up straighter, a good sign. Except her hand still rested under his. “I don’t understand, Dove, but...I don’t feel they’re bad like you say. Wouldn’t I know if they’re bad? Murderers?” She shook her head. “You’re wrong this time. You’ve got to be. You’re the one who led us here. And now you say you made a mistake, and we’re leaving without them? That makes no sense.”
“Respect your friend’s wisdom, Dove.”
“Thou—shall not—murder!”
He shrugged. “Well, we didn’t, so stop shouting or we are going to have real problems—right now. We’re much nearer an enemy’s camp than you know. Now come off that limb before you break your neck. And sit down. And shut up.”
Stone sank obediently onto the boards and blew on his fingers, reminding me how hypothermic I’d become. Wet. Shivering. Worn.
I swung onto the platform and settled as far as I could from the others, with my back against a trunk. I pressed my chin against my knees, my arms to my stomach, and racked my brain for what to say for Melody to believe me. To get her to come away with me now.
I closed my eyes.
“Mel’s right,” Reed continued, oblivious to my need for silence. “You’ve depended on her God-gifted sense for recognizing evil for weeks. Why stop trusting her now? Plus, you’re forgetting Gran’s dream. Wasn’t it her belief that God’s plan is for you to join Stone and me for this leg of your journey?”
My mask of aloofness slipped because he pursued this point. Pounced on it—a bobcat on a wounded chipmunk. “Are you going to disobey the Lord you claim to love so much? Disappoint Him? Rely on your own wisdom instead of His?”
I glared at Melody, who ducked her head. There’s only one way he’d know about my passion for God, or my gran’s dream.
“I don’t know what lies you’ve been fed.” He wiggled the slim rectangle between his fingers. “But these are the words of a depraved man whose time on earth ran out the moment he set foot on this mountain. He was part of a team whose twisted obsession was to hunt down and terminate God’s people.