by Sara Clancy
Right now, he had managed to sling one arm over her around her neck, essentially keeping her in a headlock that tightened with every attempt to escape. It took some squirming, but she managed to weasel her way out from under his arm and to freedom. Sitting up, she groggily wiped a hand over her face and glanced around in search of what had woken her.
The air was filled with the musical chirp of crickets, the distant hoot of owls, and the rustling of grass as stray animals scrambled through the undergrowth. All commonplace sounds that put her at ease.
Benton didn’t have the same reaction. Frowning in his sleep, he balled the blankets to his chest and rolled to face the back of the teepee, effectively taking all the sheets with him and leaving her to the cool air. She scowled at him and reached for the ends. Her fingertips had just brushed against the soft fur when a shadow passed across the fabric of the teepee.
It was just a flicker of movement—there and gone within the blink of an eye.
It made her freeze all the same.
Straightening her spine, she held her breath and strained to hear the slightest sound. Nothing beyond the common nightlife chatter. Glancing up to the peak of the teepee, she caught a glimpse of the deep purple sky through the gap. The blanket of stars was still visible, but the moonlight was coming from a far sharper angle. Around two a.m., she reasoned. If Benton kept true to form, he’d be waking up in about an hour or so.
Despite the stillness, she had a nagging feeling that there was something off. It wasn’t an overwhelming sensation. More like a splinter in the back of her mind that she couldn’t shake. It brought on a mental debate of whether or not she should get up to properly investigate.
The minutes passed slowly. Benton randomly growled in his sleep. A deep feral sound of real anger. What is he dreaming about? It took barely a second for her to decide that she didn’t want to know. She’d listen to it all, of course. That’s what Benton needed most. For someone to truly listen, even if they couldn’t understand. Either way, she couldn’t deny that it would be nice to have one day without hearing about the depths of depravity human beings were capable of.
Tugging sharply on the blankets neither woke him up nor got her any of the sheets. With a disgruntled huff, she settled down. Almost instantly, he rolled over and caught her in an iron grip, pressing his face hard between her shoulder blades. The childlike desperation for comfort made it really hard to be annoyed. At least I get some blankets out of it.
Fumbling with the noise canceling headphones, she didn’t have time to put them on before she heard it.
The soft wail of an infant.
It wasn’t a completely foreign sound, given where they were. The powwow was always a big draw with families. For some, it was their best chance to catch up with family members that didn’t live in town. With all the planes’ tribes coming together for a week, it was basically a giant family reunion. On top of that, there was an endless stream of tourists that came and went at all hours. Kids and newborns were a common sight and, over the years, their fussing had become an easily dismissed background noise.
So why is it bothering you now? The thought made her put the headphones aside. Prying herself from Benton’s grasp, she sat up again.
The rhythm of the newborn’s cry was a steady pulse. She examined it carefully, trying to pick up on anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing. It just sounded like an infant that was too cold or hungry to stand it. But a chill still trickled down her spine. As the last tendrils of sleep slipped from her, she realized what was off.
It’s behind the teepee.
The campsite was at the base of a buffalo jump. A thin stream snaked along the base, collecting seeds from a distant forest to disperse them along a river bend and create a small woodland. At her request, they had set up their teepee as far back from the others as possible, essentially nestling them amongst the smallest trees. Nothing was done with the area. No light had been set up, and no paths were ever cleared. There was no reason why anyone should be wandering around there at night. Especially with a child. It left an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“Benton?”
She regretted the whisper the moment she spoke. Benton was only just starting to raise his standards on self-care. He was forcing himself to eat full meals and increase his napping routine. It had to be in short bursts. The dreams crept up quickly. While it was possible to wake him from them, he found it hard to live with himself. He needed to stay until the end to learn the victim’s name. The peaceful beginning was a precious commodity that she didn’t want to rob him of.
Benton protested as she moved out of his grasp. She tried not to take it personally that he was able to replace her once again with a blanket. A heavy grunt made her pause. The rage and bitterness contained within the sound turned her skin to ice. Pushing the sensation aside, she continued up onto her feet. I don’t know how he does it, she thought. She couldn’t fathom taking those monsters into her head, knowing that he’d never truly be rid of them.
The baby was still crying.
It’s probably just a lost tourist. I can handle that on my own.
As quietly as she could, she pulled an oversized sweater over her pajamas and tiptoed around the ‘campfire.’ Silver moonlight flooded through the gap, giving her enough light to find her newly bought moccasins. The fur lining protected her feet from the frigid wind as she slipped outside. Why the organizers insisted on holding the powwow in winter was beyond her. Granted, the cold snap had come earlier than anticipated. A few more weeks and the snow would start to fall.
Wrapping her arms around her stomach, Nicole stomped her feet to keep her blood flowing, and she took in as much of the campground before her as she could. Thin trails of campfire smoke snaked above the glow of the fairy lights strung around the area. They weren’t exactly a traditional decoration, but a necessity for meeting health and safety regulations. They kept the shadows from clinging to the center of the campsite but didn’t reach much further beyond. The river was to her right and, beyond that, the sheer cliff face of the buffalo jump. To her left was the campsite for those who brought their own tents. And that seemed to mark the edge of the world. There were no other lights or signs of civilization. Only an endless sea of towering grass that churned in the near constant wind.
Tourists were always surprised by how luminous the moon could be. When every other light source was gone, and their eyes had time to adjust, the night could actually be quite bright. Even as the full moon crept down towards the horizon, it held enough strength to paint the world in bright silver. It allowed her to see all the way to the parking lot beyond the tents, although it was hard to make out any great detail.
The crying continued. Same as it had ever been; a breathless, repetitive bawling.
Pulling the sleeves of her sweater down over her fingertips, Nicole walked around the circumference of the teepee, tracking down the sound. The forest was quick to rise up before her. Moonlight battled to pass through the clustered leaves, but it was no use. Thick shadows made it was impossible to see anything beyond a few feet.
She hesitated.
The crying didn’t. Soft but steady. Barely louder than a whisper. At times, she doubted that it wasn’t just a trick of the wind.
She glanced back over her shoulder, torn between going further and sinking back into the relative warmth of the teepee. Don’t start something that you’re not going to finish, she told herself. Ducking back inside only long enough to snatch up her flashlight, she inched towards the crouching darkness.
The torch had been a gift from her father and featured a red light that helped preserve night vision, although, having everything bathed in crimson could be a little unnerving. The grass softened her footsteps, turning them into a low muffle as she approached the blanket of dead leaves. A breeze howled as it swept through the trees. Something swooped at her head, brushing against her scalp while never making a sound. Nicole dropped onto one knee, twisting around to weave her flashlight back and forth
.
“Really?” Nicole muttered as she settled the beam onto a familiar owl.
It was easy to identify Bird, as Benton insisted on calling him, from the other great horned owls that were now constantly flocking to Benton’s side. He had a dark line of fathers connecting his two ‘horns,’ leaving him constantly looking annoyed at everything around him. Benton insisted that was why they got along. Similar viewpoints. Really, the owl had risked its life to save Benton’s, which was a surefire way to get on his good side. She knew that from personal experience. While Bird had healed up quickly and been released back into the wild, he refused to go far. It wasn’t exactly a surprise to see him. The swooping was new though.
“Was that really necessary?” she hissed at the bird.
Perched upon a branch, Bird fluttered his wings and snapped his beak. Even though she had seen them for most of her life, Nicole had never really appreciated just how sharp their beaks were. Now they were always so close that it was kind of impossible to ignore it. Swallowing hard, she inched a little further away, slightly worried that Bird was about to swoop again. Catching the motion, Bird expelled another harsh squall. A shrill screech that by all rights should have woken half of the camp. Nicole’s stomach almost plummeted into her shoes.
As a Banshee, a living omen of coming death, Benton had a close link with Death itself. The exact nature of it was beyond her, but the obvious connection was there. One that Benton seemed to willingly ignore. Whether he was willing to acknowledge it or not, it was a relationship that was quickly becoming symbiotic.
The Grim Reapers drew closer to him, visible to only his eyes, guiding him. And Benton always followed, willingly or not. He was important to death. Meaningful in some sense. As his closest friend, she had been in the position to help him survive the paranormal and human beings that threatened him. And that had, apparently, brought her into a very select group. One that warranted an early warning when danger was near.
She wasn’t about to waste it.
“Okay, I get it,” she told Bird and hurried to retrace her steps.
The soft crying grew dimmer as she rushed. A sickly-sweet smell filled her nose, coating her throat and thickening until she almost choked. Within a second, the cry became a mere breath again, but the smell thickened and turned rancid, almost making her gag as she pushed herself into a sprint.
The child’s cry rang louder in her ears, growing until it was so desperate that it gripped her heart. She leaped through the last of the underbrush and spun around. Chest heaving and sweat starting to glisten on her forehead, she searched the trees with the crimson beam of her flashlight.
A gentle breeze stirred the leaves, the slight rustle making her jump and pushing her heartbeat back into a rapid pace. Bird’s screech broke the night. Nicole took the hint and ran the rest of the way to her teepee.
Chapter 3
Benton had decided that he wasn’t going to leave the teepee.
The whole process had gone as well as could be expected. Come three a.m., he woke up screaming. It was a little disconcerting to open his eyes and see the teepee rattling violently around him. But it had held strong, and Dorothy had called a few moments later. She took in all the information he had to give. This time, there wasn’t much to go on. A name, a Twitter account, and the knowledge that they’d die screaming in a wildlife park.
Being able to pass on the information instantly was a mercy that he never thought would be given to him. Before they had this arrangement, his attempts to share the warning had only led to trouble. No one reacted well to a complete stranger randomly telling them that they were going to die horribly. His parents had never understood that he couldn’t keep it to himself. Holding it brought a blistering, bone-deep pain. It was torture.
Dorothy saved him from that.
After the call, he had curled in on himself and tried to hold onto the last shreds of his dignity. Nicole never teased him about his broken sobs or uncontrollable trembling, but he hated it anyway. Hated how he broke every time his real mind collided with the residue of what was left. It wasn’t him. Logically, he knew that he hadn’t done the things within his dreams. But he remembered it. The feeling of warm blood on his hands. The twisted delight of violence. Lust and rage and ecstasy all rattled inside him. They weren’t just monsters in the dark, villains from a movie, who could really walk amongst the general population. They were real. Flesh and blood and utterly mundane. It had come to the point that he understood their reasoning far more than he did anyone else’s. It terrified him that, one day, he might start agreeing with them.
Each dream chipped away at his mind, and he wasn’t sure how much of him was left.
He had spent the rest of the night hating himself for not keeping it together. Nicole hadn’t pressed him to talk. She just curled up against his spine and held him until he fell back asleep. It must have been a short nap because he didn’t have time to dream again. Nicole had already headed out for her run, and he was alone with the voices in his head. It left him with the jittery need to get up and start moving. Since there was no way in hell he was going to show his face out there, he snatched up his phone, shoved in his earbuds, turned his music up until it hurt, and tried to stretch some of the tension from his muscles.
Having a flood of personalities constantly filling his head had given him eclectic tastes in music. He didn’t know if it was the cellist that enjoyed killing her children or his own sway, but he had been on a classical music kick for about a week. Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor filled his head as he pushed his legs out a little further and fell forward onto his elbows. His fingers drummed against the floor in time to the notes. While his skin hit the fur blanket, he felt the strings of the cello. He groaned and dropped his forehead onto the ground. Just don’t think, he commanded himself.
Focusing on the music itself let everything else fall away, hollowing out his body until only the melody remained. He floated in that abyss until the flap suddenly drew back. The sound violently jerked him back into reality. He lifted his head to find Nicole stepping inside, her hip-length hair still dripping from a shower, and running gear balled in her hand. Benton went back to scrolling through his phone until he noticed that she had yet to move.
“Hey,” he said as he tugged out one earbud.
“Hey,” she chirped back. “Did you hear anything weird last night?”
Benton shook his head. “Why?”
“No reason.”
He watched as she carefully hid whatever she was thinking behind a brilliant smile. That’s going to come back to bite me, Benton thought, but decided to let it go for now.
“How was the run?”
“Mom and I were lazy today. We just did a three mile.”
“That’s lazy?”
She shrugged one shoulder as she crossed the room. Going back to his phone, he noticed her continued stare out of the corner of his eyes.
“We normally do a four mile. Six if we’ve been treating ourselves,” she said.
“Huh.”
While he was yet to meet Logan Rider, spending time with his wife and daughter had given Benton an insight into the family dynamics. The couple had known each other since birth, as most people in Fort Wayward do, but had only fallen in love once they had chosen their career paths. Dorothy had her eyes on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Logan wanted to get into the army. The elite Special Operations Forces Command, to be more specific. Both needed a workout partner who would push them. And both, apparently, were insanely competitive perfectionists. A trait they gave to their daughter in abundance. Needless to say, Benton and Nicole had very different definitions of ‘lazy.’ The earbud was almost back in his ear when he noticed that Nicole was still staring.
“Oh, great,” he mumbled, pulling out both buds and turning off his phone.
“Sorry?” she asked.
“What are you obsessing over this time?”
She puffed out her cheeks in indignation. “Nothing.”
“Your obsession face
says otherwise. I’m gonna have to trust the face.”
Shrugging again, she gestured to him loosely. “It’s nothing. I just didn’t expect to come in and find you casually sitting around in a full side split.”
“It’s called a straddle split,” he corrected.
“Whatever,” she said. “I think I have the right to be both impressed and surprised.”
Benton rolled his eyes. Reaching forward, he shoved his phone back into his bag, noticing too late that he had once again grabbed Nicole’s attention.
“How do you do that?”
“How is this surprising?” he grumbled. “I dance.”
“You told me that you like to dance. There’s a difference between getting your groove on and being able to do . . . that. You look like a ballerina.”
Benton sucked in a deep breath and prepared himself for impact.
“You were! Like, with rehearsals and dedication and stuff? How long did you do it? How old were you? Oh, did you wear the tights and everything?” Her eyes grew wider. “Did your parents film your performances? I need to see those videos. Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“Is that a serious question? Doesn’t this” –he waved a hand in her direction– “cover exactly why I didn’t tell you?”
“Huh?”
“You get way too into these sorts of things.”
“I do not.”
“In the space of three seconds, you had five follow-up questions.”
“Okay,” she said. “Well, I can reign it in. You can feel free to tell me anything.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Of course.”
“And you’ll just take the information without saying anything? No questions.”