Devil Creek

by Stephen Mertz

  Flame was beginning to jump from the last of the line of condos, to ignite the end of the wing closest to the onrushing fire.

  Domino drew back a foot and, without interrupting forward momentum, delivered a kick that sent the doors flying open.

  The interior was partially finished. There were stacks of lumber in here also, and drywalling equipment. The walls needed paint. The floors were bare and there was no furniture. But what was intended to be the front registration desk had been installed. A chandelier hung suspended just beneath the high, vaulted ceiling of thick oak beams, and three tall, wide windows, meant to provide a view of the natural splendor of the mountainous surroundings for newly arrived check-ins, instead provided a close-up view of the advancing wall of fire. Its flickering illumination poured in through the windows to fill this big room with garish reds and shadowy blacks.

  Domino pitched Mike to the floor so forcefully that he had to bite his lip so hard to keep from making a sound that he tasted the coppery taste of his own blood. He remained on his side, in a fetal ball, unmoving, squinting to watch these two.

  It could only be his vantage point, but from where he'd landed, the side of his face plastered to the floor, Domino looked like he had grown yet again.

  Domino—or Ataka, as he was calling himself—raised both clenched fists and bellowed a roar of defiance that mingled with the thunder of the inferno.

  Lovechio cast a fretful glance out the tall windows at the advancing flames. He stood next to Domino/Ataka. Sweat made his face shiny and the gash on his forehead looked like a cancerous sore. But it seemed that nothing could erase the sneer from his face.

  "So long, you punkass hick," he said to what he thought was an unconscious man, and he kicked Mike. "Hey, wake up, sucker. I want to see the fear in your eyes one last time."

  Mike thought, This is it. This would be his one chance. If he could drive Jeff into Domino and then propel himself over to Jeff and get at the gun he was bound to be wearing. . . . There was no way in hell he could pull that off, but he wasn't about to hand his life to these creeps on a platter.

  He kept his legs together at the knees and kicked out, catching Lovechio sharply behind the knees. Lovechio gave a startled yelp and fell against Domino. The man in black brushed him aside. Domino hoisted Mike in the air and flung him against the registration desk. Mike collided with the oblong counter and more pain rocked his body. He tasted blood again, this time because his face smacked the floor so hard.

  Lovechio regained his footing, casting another wary glance of concern at Domino for the way he'd been brushed aside, but also glancing out the window at where flames were gobbling in toward this wing of the structure. The heat was sweltering.

  Lovechio said to Mike, "You're a tough son of a bitch, I'll give you that. But you're about to become one dead son of a bitch. Come on, Domino, let's get the hell out of here." And he turned to leave.

  "Ataka stays to fight," intoned the supernatural voice that emanated from Domino The special-effects voice seemed to have grown proportionately with his physical stature, and boomed about the vaulted ceilings, even louder than the thunder of the fire.

  Lovechio's eyes bulged. "What?" He waved both arms frantically at the fire that now seemed to be licking at the glass of the windows. "Can't you see what's happening? We'll be roasted if we don't get out!"

  "It ends here," Ataka boomed. "It is the moment of truth."

  Lovechio drew away from him. "Maybe it ends here for you, but I got what I wanted and maybe I was a fool for wanting it because I sure didn't think I'd be risking my life against a goddamn forest fire. His words and face trembled with fear and a rising panic. "I'm getting the hell off this mountain." He pivoted toward the main entrance behind them, and held that position.

  Mike saw what Jeff was seeing.

  Robin stood in the doorway, her eyes wide saucers of shock and disbelief at what she was seeing, the back of her hand drawn up to her open mouth.

  Paul stood in front of her. Mike blinked several times at what he saw, afraid that the sweat dripping into his eyes or having gotten knocked around so much had blurred his vision. But no, it was Paul . . . and yet it wasn't Paul, much like Domino had somehow morphed while retaining most of his physical characteristics. Paul looked bigger, stronger.

  He said, "Ataka," in that same booming, sepulchral voice used by the man in black.

  Ataka said, "Gray Wolf."

  And the crackling of the flames was dwarfed as each bellowed a war cry from another world, and began advancing on the other.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The insane jumble of images that assaulted Robin's eyes, mind and senses as she stood in the entranceway was a living nightmare.

  Her son—Gray Wolf!—stalking inexorably toward the demon in black who was approaching him.

  And Mike, rising from the floor, struggling to gain his footing, his wrists bound behind him.

  The tall windows at first looked like bright red stained glass, but it was fire. There came an ominous creaking sound. The walls below the high vaulted ceiling undulated, buckling inward under pressure from the fire. Hell could not have been hotter than it was here.

  And there was Jeff! A man she had once loved. A man she had slept with. Paul's biological father. A cheating, lying, cruel bastard who she had never expected to see again after her escape from Chicago. But the horror, shock and fear in his face mirrored her own at the sight of Domino and Paul approaching each other across the spacious lobby.

  "Jeff!" she cried. "My God, what have you done! What are you doing?"

  His eyes swung to her. Insanity twisted his features. "You bitch! It's your fault, what's happening. I wanted to make you suffer! You bitch!"

  Her attention was tugged back to Ataka and Gray Wolf.

  It was as if the two were taking measure of each other, neither in a hurry to thrust himself into combat but each approaching this fight with a building ferocity.

  "Paul, stop this," she shouted at her son, and to Jeff, "Who is he?" She waved her knife in Domino's direction. "Make him stop, Jeff. Do you want him to kill Paul?"

  And just like that, something went out of Jeff when he heard those words, like air escaping from an inflatable figure. His arms dropped to his sides and the insanity in his features gave way to something else.

  He said, "No. No, I don't want that. I never wanted you or Paul to be hurt." Then, as if a different, sadder person were speaking through him, he said, "In my own way, I loved you, Robin. I guess I still do. I never got over you." He viewed against the escalating confrontation between Paul and Domino. "And I love our son." He wasn't shouting but somehow she heard him through the roar of the blaze outside the windows.

  Ataka and Gray Wolf were less than ten feet apart now, circling, their eyes burning embers like clashing lasers, and their feral growling carried through too.

  She indicated Ataka and shouted, "Whoever he is, Jeff, for the love of God, stop him!"

  He said, in that different voice that was still his own, "You're right. What have I done?" And he rushed to stand between Ataka and Gray Wolf. He shouted at the man in black, "Domino, what the hell have you become? Leave my son alone!"

  Jeff was in the process of bringing up his fists when Domino/Ataka lifted him off his feet, hoisted him high in the air and then flung him to the floor without releasing his grip of Jeff's throat. Jeff's eyes were bulging. Ataka pinned him down with one knee.

  Gray Wolf lunged at Ataka with an otherworldly, bellowing war whoop.

  Without altering his position atop Jeff, Domino's free leg shot out backwards, a pile-drive kick that flung Paul into a nearby wall as if he had been kicked with superhuman strength, hard enough to send him to the floor, though he quickly rose, shaking his head to clear it.

  Jeff had time for one brief scream before Ataka's bellow of blood lust filled the air, and with one savage rip he tore Jeff's head off his shoulders. Ataka stood, triumphantly holding high the severed head. Jeff had not lost his terrified expression. />
  Ataka bellowed, "To the gods of fire!"

  Jeff's headless corpse jolted upon the floor with spasms, and the neck cavity geysered blood.

  Ataka tossed away the human head and started to turn again toward Paul, but Robin flew into him in a leap, her knife going for Ataka's heart. She would give her life before this hideous creation could harm Paul. But Ataka swept her aside casually and she went down, rolling away to avoid the spreading pool of Jeff's blood.

  She was functioning on pure adrenaline and reflex now and nothing but. She hadn't released the knife, and she stood as Paul/Gray Wolf sprung at Ataka, taking down the man in black. In the fiery shadows, they became a madly wrestling tangle and she held back for fear of accidentally stabbing her son. She became aware of Mike shouting her name over and over again through the din of the fire and the struggling beings thrashing about upon the floor, but finally she awakened to something other than her immediate concern for protecting her son. She whirled about.

  Mike was there with his back to her, gesturing madly with the tape-lashed wrists behind his back.

  "Robin, cut me free! Hurry!"

  She steadied his arms with one hand and, with the knife, sawed through the tape, which was like cutting butter with a hot knife, the blade was so sharp.

  Then Mike was darting around her. Passing her, he snatched the knife handle from her hand and rushed the struggling pair upon the floor.

  Paul was on his back. The man in black, the human beast in war paint, was again howling his blood fever madness, sliding his hands around Paul's throat despite the boy's fierce resistance.

  Mike launched himself into a pile drive at Ataka, which sent Domino tumbling off Paul, and as a follow-through, Mike plunged the knife into Domino's back.

  Paul scrambled to his feet and tottered, his expression shaken and woozy. But he no longer conveyed to her a sense of the supernatural, of incredible power and strength. He looked like a confused, battered fourteen-year-old boy.

  Robin ran to him and embraced him. "Oh, Paul! Paulie, baby, are you okay?"

  His dazed voice asked, "Mom . . . what's going on? Am I . . . dreaming?"

  No, thank God, it was not Gray Wolf's voice!

  Domino/Ataka howled with the knife handle protruding from his back. He flung Mike away from him and got to his feet, bellowing another war cry, louder than before, as if a knife, plunged to the hilt by a man who knew from experience how to inflict a fatal wound, was but an irritant. The war cry became a menacing growl, and Ataka advanced toward Mike in his unhurried, inexorable stride, dismissing Robin.

  There was a grinding, crunching sound from above and portions of the flaming roof collapsed into a pyramid of fire in the center of the lobby, the fire spreading across the floor to the walls. The windows seemed to be bending inward under pressure from outside.

  Domino advanced, blocking Mike from the entranceway as if the lodge was not burning around them.

  Mike held his position and assumed a combat posture.

  He shouted at Robin, "Get out! Take Paul and get out!"

  "Mike, no! What about you?" Panic and despair were mounting within her.

  "Just go! Save yourselves!"

  She knew that he was right. Paul was her child. She must get him to safety.

  Paul glanced up at her, vacant-eyed, holding onto her the way he had when he was a little boy, like the day he hadn't wanted to leave her for his first day at school.

  Feeling something die within her, she shielded Paul with both arms from the spreading flames; she began angling them away from Mike, negotiating the flames, darting toward the entranceway.

  Another groaning sound from high above. Flaming debris fell upon the registration desk, which ignited—spontaneous combustion.

  Ataka charged Mike.

  Mike sidestepped, and another step took him to a pile of lumber, as yet untouched by the flames. He took firm hold of a two-by-four and came around with dazzling speed, the piece of lumber coming around like a singing bat aimed at Domino's head.

  But the hulk in black raised his left arm and the two-by-four splintered into pieces against his forearm. He laughed, an ululating, hideous wail. Mike reached for another piece of lumber, but the figure in black was upon him, taking them both to the floor once again.

  Robin and Paul reached the entranceway. She turned to look back, and saw that it was now her husband who was fighting for his life, pinned to the floor by Ataka.

  Mike got traction beneath his feet and shoved, and for a few seconds he was on top. Another ululating wail from Domino and they tumbled again, the fight taking them closer to where flames leaped from the floor, creating a barrier of flame between them and Robin.

  Paul said, "Mom, what are we going to do?" Again, his own voice; terrified, frightened, but yes, her son had been returned to her.

  Ataka's claw-hands had finally secured their hold on Mike's throat despite rigorous resistance, and the ululating wail became a blood lust snarl as Domino began to pull and twist.

  Robin said to Paul, "Stay here, honey," as she started toward the barrier of flame separating her from Mike and Ataka.

  And that's when the tall, wall-to-wall windows blew inward with the cyclone force of the fire.

  In that first instant, she threw herself back to shield Paul as thousands of razor-sharp shards of glass missiled across the lobby.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw one large V-shaped shard decapitate Domino as cleanly as the blade of a guillotine.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The burning frame of the lodge groaned and sagged. The entire structure was aflame around them.

  Mike flung the headless corpse from him before much of its spurting geyser of gore could splatter upon him. He shoved the body into the flames.

  Domino's head rolled into the fire like a white bowling ball wearing red war paint, and exploded into a bright flare of finality.

  Before Robin could reach the barrier of flame, Mike was up and dashing through it, too fast for it to ignite him. He grabbed her hand and with his other he scooped up Paul and flung him over his shoulder. They ran for their lives, into the firestorm night where the police cruiser and the Subaru waited. Mike got them into the Subaru and raced to get behind the wheel.

  The Subaru sped away just as a grinding, cracking, exploding eruption, louder than any previous thunderclap, filled the night. When the Subaru was at the top of the access road, Mike stomped the brakes and skidded them to a sideways stop, positioning the vehicle so that they could look at the inferno.

  The cataclysmic shattering of the night, by what had sounded like a nuclear weapon detonating, had been the collapse of the lodge combined with a series of mighty thunderclaps.

  The thunderclouds overhead opened and released a storm that began drenching the world.

  Robin stepped from the Subaru. The rain felt luxurious, soaking her as if she was being cleansed. She wanted the sensation to never end.

  She heard sirens in the distance, approaching up the access road. The downpour was suppressing the smoky haze, beating it to the ground. The hotshot teams and rescue personnel would make better time now with the clearing visibility.

  The fire continued to blaze vehemently, the towering, garish flames licking far above treetop level at a starless sky. But the devouring monster of flame was ceasing its advance, as if the construction site had at last satiated its appetite. The flames were showing the first indication of losing their brilliance to become a pale, golden conflagration now caught in a struggle for survival against the elements. The onrush of blistering dry heat began to noticeably dissipate.

  Mike hurried around the Subaru to where Paul sat sideways in the back seat of the vehicle with his door open.

  "Son, are you all right?"

  Paul's eyes no longer blazed with a warrior's fury, but instead held exhausted blankness.

  "I . . . I guess so. Mike, I don't remember anything that happened."

  Robin leaned down and kissed her son gently upon the top of his tousle
d head. "There will be time to try and understand later, if we ever can. Oh, Paul, honey, I'm so glad you're safe."

  "Mom, don't call me 'honey."'

  She laughed because joy filled her, and kissed the top of his head again.

  With teenage aloofness, Paul pretended not to notice this and said to Mike, "You saved my life . . . Dad."

  And the three of them stood there beside the Subaru, in the rain, linking their arms about each other and witnessing the spectacle of nature commencing the process of taming a monster it had created.

  The loud, pounding rain was dousing the most recently ignited flames—the rubble of the lodge—into nothing.

  Mike said, "Whatever happened here tonight, we made it through, thanks to each other."

  Robin nodded. "And thank God it's over."

  There was much that she would never understand. An ancient, timeless Native American presence had possessed her son: a spirit warrior. And Jeff. Mean, cruel, sneering, pathetic Jeff, who ultimately chose to risk and sacrifice his life to protect Paul, rather than further perpetuate the evil he had helped bring about. She would try to understand.

  She thought she understood why Paul had been returned to her, to her and Michael. Gray Wolf had explained that he chose Paul because he needed physical strength, a purity of essence to combat what Ataka had summoned forth. But once she had freed Mike to fight for them, Gray Wolf had known that Michael Landware possessed those same qualities. She smiled to herself. The ancient shaman had left Ataka to them, and contented himself with putting out the forest fire.

  The sirens were ascending from just below the final bend in the access road.

  Tonight, she understood the rain, a monsoon soaker that could continue for hours.

  And she understood that it was never "over," just as their world and Gray Wolf's would always be one, as he'd told her. There was no "happily ever after." The challenge was to embrace the abundance of now: to live at peace with the past, so that the good and the bad of the present and the future would be embraced with a strength of spirit born of the powers of acceptance, faith and love. Not learning that lesson had been Jeff's undoing, but Kelly Shaw had learned it and, Robin hoped, so had she, and Mike and Paul too.