Legend of Spiralling Cedars

by Natasza Waters

  “Lucie has sent me to take you back to your people.”

  Rachel quickly closed the door. “Elijah, what is going on?”

  Dark eyes, almost black, peered at Garrett. “You must leave the park until this is over.”

  Rachel shook her head. “No. I’m not leaving. The park is my responsibility. I’m not going to argue politics. This forest means as much to me as it does you.” She paused. “You know that.”

  “Follow me now,” he said harshly.

  Garrett stepped forward. Something didn’t ring true about the guy. “Who are you?”

  Elijah’s dark eyes glistened in the firelight, but he didn’t answer.

  “Elijah is one of the wild people. A shaman in training from the Squamish band,” Rachel answered for him.

  As in someone who might be a skinwalker? Garrett held the weapon steady and aimed it at the guy’s chest. Maybe he’d left one door open to the paranormal. If the lore was actually true, he couldn’t kill him, but he sure as hell could make him back up a step or two with a bullet through the heart. “We’re not leaving until daylight.”

  “I will get you through the forest unharmed. Young Raven, you must leave the park.”

  “Elijah, my staff have called for help. There’s a body hanging in a tree in the campground. Soon the police will be swarming the park.”

  “More of your people will die. You must stop this from happening. Whatever it takes.”

  Rachel licked her lips, then swiftly turned and picked up her weapon as if she was going to follow this guy without question.

  Keeping his weapon aimed in Elijah’s general direction, he said, “No. We stay until dawn. You can’t trust this guy.”

  Rachel stepped toward the fireplace. “I can trust him.” She plucked her jacket from the floor and thrust her arms through the sleeves . “For a man who just told me he didn’t believe in legends, you’re acting as if you do. I know what you’re thinking, Garrett. He’s not dangerous.”

  “How do you know that?” Unwilling to let his gaze wander from the guy who looked like he’d walked out of B-grade horror movie waiting at the door.

  Elijah stepped onto the porch, and Rachel shot a look over her shoulder as she followed. “Based on your assumptions, if he was anything other than a Shaman, there’d be a ruckus in the forest.”

  Garrett lowered the weapon and sighed. “Stay close to me, Ranger Crossing.”

  The silence of the woods disturbed him. Coyotes didn’t howl. Not even the haunting hoot of an owl. Only the sound of their passage through the night and the odd crack of a branch under their feet. Garrett stopped to search the area where Mary had disappeared. The bush had been flattened by something large enough to trample the area, but there was no sign of the old woman.

  None of them spoke as they made their way on the small animal path that led toward Beaver Trail. Rachel tried to use her flashlight and Elijah quickly covered the light with his hand, shaking his head.

  Garrett kept his weapon ready, not convinced they weren’t being led into an ambush. With his senses on high alert, they crossed a small creek which lay only a half mile from the main trail. Elijah stopped suddenly and cranked his head around to listen. Garrett did the same, but couldn’t hear anything. Even with his eyes accustomed to the darkness of night, he couldn’t see more than twenty feet in any direction.

  Elijah headed out, his animal hide moccasins didn’t make a sound crossing the moist ground.

  After fifteen minutes, Garrett could see the main trail. Elijah stopped again, but this time he grabbed Rachel and hurried behind an enormous old stump that rose six feet in the air and wide enough at the base to hide four men. He joined them and hunched down. Elijah’s finger rose to signal not to speak. Above their heads, he heard a squawk and the rustle of a bird landing on a branch. Elijah trained his gaze into the pine tree.

  The bird squawked again, and Elijah rose to his feet. “We must move quickly,” he said.

  When they turned left onto Beaver Trail, Elijah broke into a half run. Within ten minutes they reached the truck.

  Rachel was breathing heavy as she fished for her keys. Elijah waited close by, his head swiveling as if he heard something. Before she opened the cab door, he stopped her and pulled a necklace over his head and placed it around her neck. Tiny fragile feathers and what looked like bone were tied onto the strip of hide.

  “White men will die if they enter the woods,” he warned. “You must convince them not to interfere.”

  “What are they interfering with, Elijah?” she asked.

  Not more than ten feet into the dense bush, a screech Garrett had never heard before today, nearly made him jump out of his skin.

  “Get in the truck,” he ordered.

  “Do as he says,” Elijah said, nodding in agreement. “I’ll lead the betrayer away.”

  Rachel refused to do either, standing her ground. “Who is the betrayer?”

  A thump like something heavy landed on the path they’d just left had Garrett raising the weapon in that direction. Man, he’d give just about anything for a pair of NVG’s, Night Vision Goggles, right now. A low, guttural growl pushed his instincts from standby to action when he heard running. And whatever it was, the thing was running toward them.

  He fired into the darkness. “Get in the fucking truck, Rachel!”

  Chapter Six

  “Where the hell are you going?” Garrett asked sharply, as Rachel sped past the park headquarters. He’d kept his eyes glued to the side mirror, watching for flapping wings or hairy legs or some kind of unnatural beast chasing after them.

  Rachel gripped the wheel with both hands, her body rigid. “To the cave.”

  “The cave?” Now, he was shouting. “What the hell for?”

  “I can’t stop a legion of cops. They won’t listen to me. The only way to stop this is to find the name of the skinwalker.”

  “Jesus, woman. There’s no such damn thing.”

  “You want to walk through the woods unarmed and prove that theory?”

  “Isn’t that what you’re intent on doing?” he snapped back. He should take control of the truck and drive them straight out of the park. It was the only way to keep Rachel safe. He dug in his pocket and found his phone.

  He put the phone on speaker. “Tigg?”

  “Lieutenant. What’s your position?”

  “Rachel has some crazy-ass idea the answer to all of this is in the cave.”

  “We’re on our way back from Cedar Estates. I’m with Sarah and William. Booker took Marla to Squamish.”

  “Where’s Crack?”

  “He’s with Lacy, somewhere. Cork is at the park headquarters.”

  “What the hell do you mean somewhere?”

  Rachel’s head shot around to look at him. She did a quick loop past all the campsites. Probably to confirm everyone was gone.

  “We don’t know. They went to talk with residents of the estates and didn’t come back. Just been there ourselves. Everyone is gone, but he’s not answering his phone, and there’s no response from Lacy on the radio. This is the craziest damn mission I’ve ever been on, Lieutenant. The tribal chief told William and Sarah we need to extract from this situation. I agree, ‘cause I’ve seen things I don’t want to see.”

  “A shaman named Elijah told us to do the same, but he wants Rachel to stop the cops from crawling over the park.”

  “Think he’s right. Those four cops who came earlier are nothing but torn meat. We need to load out with heavy artillery to kill whatever is doing this kind of damage. Watch out!” Tigg shouted.

  Rachel hammered on the breaks as if he was talking to her. Out of the speaker came a sound of crunching metal, then Sarah’s scream.

  Rachel backed into one of the sites and hammered on the gas pedal.

  Garrett gripped the overhead handle for stability. “Where’re you going?”

  Rachel’s brow creased. “Going to them, what do you think? They need help.”

  “No. Stop!”

&
nbsp; “They need our help, Garrett.”

  His skin tightened and the hair had risen permanently on his neck. “What do you think is in that cave?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know, but we saw something in there earlier. Maybe Sasquatch hides in there. Maybe he’s protecting something. We need to figure out who the skinwalker is.”

  Garrett inhaled deeply. “Drive.” He switched off the speaker and brought the phone to his ear. “Tigg, you there? Tigg?” Moans in the background raised his pulse. “Tigg?”

  “Can’t find my phone, Lieutenant. Stand by.” Tigg groaned. “Something put a frickin’ log across the road. Didn’t expect it.”

  “William and Sarah. Are they okay?”

  “There it is.” Tigg’s voice became louder as he picked up the phone. “We’re walking from here, Lieutenant. William and Sarah are bruised, but ambulatory.”

  “Take them away from the park. Highway is only a mile away. Get ‘em out of here. Rachel and I are going to check out the cave we saw earlier.”

  A long pause prevailed before Tigg said, “I see flashing lights up ahead. Think the cops have arrived.”

  “Try to stop ‘em, Tigg.”

  He chuckled. “What do we say, Lieutenant? There’s impossible, and then there’s not a God damn hope in hell.”

  “I’ll check in when we’re out of the cave.”

  “Roger, out.”

  Rachel raced toward Echo Loop and skidded to a stop at site sixty. The headlights shone into the bush. Garrett gripped her arm when she made to get out of the truck. “Wait,” he whispered, and rolled the window down a crack. He nodded and she shut the vehicle off. “You follow me. If I tell you to run. You do it. Without question.”

  Rachel’s jaw flexed.

  “I’m not letting you out of this vehicle unless you agree.”

  She reached behind the seat for the rifle. “You’re forgetting whose park this is, SpecOp guy.”

  “And you’re forgetting that your job is to protect the forest and little critters. Mine is to neutralize.”

  He released her wrist and grabbed a flashlight stuck in the cup holder then carefully opened his door. She stopped behind him when he put up his hand as they stepped onto the wet moss behind the campsite. Listening for movement and hearing none, he continued.

  They reached the site of the original murder and found two of the RCMP members at the base of the cedar. He didn’t pause the light for long on their shredded bodies. Slowly, he and Rachel made their way through the trees. He stopped often to listen and then carried on until they reached the clearing in front of the cave.

  Every instinct warned him this was a bad idea. Once in there, they’d be trapped. The situation would get ten times worse if whatever they wanted to avoid had hunkered down for the night inside that hole in the wall.

  Slowly, he skirted the perimeter of bush until he reached the hillside. Rachel stayed on his heels as he slid along the rock face, then stopped to listen for sound inside the cave. Garrett flipped his wrist and his watch glowed green with the time. Twenty-one-hundred hours. Too early for bed, but he sure could use one, not to mention a bottle of whiskey.

  Rachel poked a finger into the middle of his back.

  Impatience could get them killed. With a last survey of the forest, and twisting a cap on his doubt that this would be worthwhile, he slid around the corner into the cave.

  Somewhere nearby, water dripped onto stone. The steady plop as each droplet splashed against the rock echoed within the cave walls. Sound traveled, and he’d use it to his advantage. Carefully, they walked deeper into the darkness. If something was in here, it could surely hear them coming with no way to mask their footsteps. Each scrape of loose stone loud as a symphony to his ears.

  Rachel’s palm lay against his back. He stopped and flicked on the flashlight, spraying harsh light against the wet rock walls. Scraggly, dark roots grew between the cracks. Illuminating the ground, he followed the path of light. They’d reached the end of the cave. Against the wall, a mound of moss covered the uneven surface. Rachel walked past him to the left corner and lifted her flashlight to see the wall.

  “Prehistoric graffiti?” he asked, seeing the markings on the surface.

  “Too high for a human.” She stretched her arm up to show him.

  She was right. The scratches in the slate walls started six feet above the ground.

  “I know very little about petroglyphs.”

  He sure as shit couldn’t read them either. “They look like people standing in a circle. Maybe that’s a fire in the middle.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed, fear making her voice tight. “We need a specialist to decipher this. Shine your light on it while I take a picture.” She pulled her phone and stepped back, taking a few shots from different angles. “Are there any more?”

  He shone the light in a sweeping pattern from top to bottom. “Not that I can see.”

  Rachel tucked the phone back in her pocket and inspected the moss on the ground. “Creature comforts,” she muttered.

  “Think we’ve spent enough time in here. Nobody’s written Alfred Jones on the wall. Time to go.”

  “Agreed.”

  Garrett turned and flashed the light toward the exit.

  Standing only eight feet away, Harry made himself known and roared at their intrusion.

  “Don’t…move,” Rachel breathed.

  ****

  Tigg let William take the lead, speaking with the first RCMP officer they encountered. He offered the events as they occurred. Initially the RCMP officer, a young man in his early thirties, looked at William as if he’d lost his mind. Sarah tried her best to keep calm and support his story.

  “What about you?” the cop asked, addressing Tigg.

  “Came here for a guys’ weekend, ended up at a horror festival. But Rangers William and Sarah are telling you the truth, as unlikely as it sounds. Something out of the ordinary is going on in this forest. The tribal council for this area wants us to stay away.”

  “Who did you talk to?”

  “Lucie, the chief elder. She came to them with a message.”

  The cop sneered. “Yeah, well the natives believe in forest fairies and all sorts of bullshit.”

  Tigg handed the RCMP constable his identification with the JTF2 insignia. Not that the young officer would know what it was. As he was inspecting the card, Tigg said, “This time the bullshit is real, as four of your Mounties found out this afternoon.”

  “Move over to that car and put your hands on the roof,” the cop instructed.

  “What?” Sarah squeaked. “Where’s Sergeant McCaffry?”

  The young cop shrugged, avoiding eye contact with Sarah. “Hands on the vehicle.”

  McCaffry, Tigg thought. That was Sarah’s last name.

  Sarah refused to move, her eyes spitting fire. “I said,” raising her voice to almost a yell. “Where is Sergeant McCaffry?”

  The young cop had to be a rookie because he grabbed Sarah and twisted her around and threw her up against the car.

  Both he and William told the cop to calm down, but it wasn’t their words that made him freeze in the middle of a pat down.

  The growl was low and menacing. “Constable Petersen.”

  Constable Petersen turned around. “She resisted arrest.”

  “On what grounds are you arresting her?”

  “I told her to get up against the vehicle. She resisted.”

  “Did she resist, or did she ask you where I was?”

  The cop’s expression was nothing less than condescending, but he wouldn’t look his sergeant in the eye.

  “I asked you a question, rookie. Did Sarah ask you to find me?”

  The cop blinked with surprise. “She did.”

  “Then why the hell didn’t you find me?”

  No answer.

  “Constable Petersen, get in your unit. Drive to the detachment and remain there until your shift is over. I don’t want to see you back at the detachment until I call you. T
hat understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sergeant McCaffry waited until the rookie was in his vehicle and gone.

  Sarah didn’t pause and flung herself at the cop. “Daddy.”

  He hugged her in his large arms and kissed her on the forehead. “I’m glad you’re safe, honey. Your mom’s been texting me nonstop. Now, let’s try this again.” The sergeant turned down the volume from his radio mic hooked on his shoulder. “How are you doing, William?”

  “Sir. We’re fine, but Rachel is still in there. And I don’t think it’s safe for your officers, either.”

  “Dad.” Sarah attracted his attention. “I need you to keep an open mind.”

  “That bad, huh?” He held up his hand and spoke into the radio. “Constable Clinton, this is Unit Two Bravo.”

  “Go ahead, Sergeant.”

  “Want you to keep the officers from entering the park until I give the go-ahead.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  McCaffry turned his attention back to his daughter, but glanced at Tigg. “And you are?”

  “Sub-Lieutenant Bryon Cost. My team calls me Tigg. Canadian Special Operations. JTF2.”

  “Joint Task Force, eh. Where’s your team?”

  “They’re scattered, but our lieutenant is with Ranger Crossing. He and Rachel are checking out a cave inside the park.”

  “Dad, Lucie doesn’t want us interfering.”

  McCaffry listened while Sarah explained the events until she was finished. “If you weren’t my daughter, I’d think you were pulling my leg.” He nodded. “Any idea where Lucie is now?”

  “No idea,” William answered.

  “William, I’d like you to take my daughter back to Squamish. Her mother needs to see her in person or she’ll be harping on me all night.”

  Sarah shook her head. “Dad, we can’t leave Rachel in there.”

  He gripped his daughter by the shoulders. “If you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of reinforcements here.”

  “Don’t go in there, Dad. Please, don’t.”

  “Sub-Lieutenant Cost.”

  “Tigg,” he answered.

  “Tigg, think you can get me to the site where the officers were killed and the cave again?”

  “I can.”