Stolen Tongues

by Felix Blackwell

  “I need you to come up here right now,” I said, walking out onto the porch to avoid waking Faye. “Get a damn snowplow or whatever you need, and get up here.”

  “Everything okay?” he asked, taken aback. “Y’all need medical? I can call the hospital down in Orchid Valley. ‘Em boys got a helicopter.”

  “Nobody’s hurt. Not yet. There’s somebody up here on the mountain with us. Walking around in the woods at night, tapping on our windows, calling out to us. We want out. Right now. We’ve waited long enough.”

  The ranger paused for a moment. His tone noticeably changed.

  “We got a snowcat on the fritz, but it’s gettin’ worked on as we speak. Had to take it to the north face to go get some dumb-shit nature photographers lost in ‘em woods. Main center across the valley’s got the big ‘cats though. I can call ‘em if you think it’s an emergency and they’ll come out pronto.”

  I took a deep breath and sighed in disappointment. A huge cloud formed as I exhaled.

  “It’s…it’s not exactly, I mean, I don’t know what these creeps want. Seems like they’re screwing with us, but we really feel in danger.”

  “Tell you what,” the ranger said, “I’ll call ‘em up there by sundown if we don’t get ol’ Crunchy up and runnin’ beforehand. How’s your power?”

  “Good.”

  “And your water?”

  “Fine.”

  “Heat?”

  “Yeah.” I booted a clump of ice off the porch and watched it roll into the snow.

  “Just make sure you kids—”

  I waited for him to finish his sentence, but it never came.

  “Hello?” I said, taking a few steps into the driveway. “William?”

  The call had dropped. I didn’t bother trying again.

  Dusk fell rapidly. The sun dipped behind the mountain across from Pale Peak around 4 P.M., and I began to dread another night trapped in this god-forsaken cottage. I mulled the idea of suiting ourselves up in our winter gear and hiking down the road before dark, but I shook the thought out of my mind. It would have been suicide to miscalculate the trek or the light. And who knew what was really lurking around in the forests that covered the mountain? We had to stay put.

  Faye eventually woke up and complained about a stomach ache, turning down the sandwiches I’d made. Instead, I heated a bowl of soup for her, but she ran to the bathroom and vomited it back up after a few minutes. Her forehead was cool to the touch, so I figured she was just stressing herself out. We watched one of the many movies saved on her laptop. Eventually, she fell asleep again, leaving me alone to watch the last glimmers of twilight die to black.

  I sat at the kitchen table and forced myself to grade a stack of papers that were due the day we returned to California. Perhaps it was the flicker of the candles still burning from my lonely dinner, or the soft music seeping Faye’s laptop, but there came a wash of heavy relaxation that compelled me to lie down on the couch. I committed to resting my eyes for only a few minutes, but soon disappeared into dreams of brighter places.

  A ticking sound woke me up. For a moment I froze there on my back, struggling to put an image to the noise. Something caught my eye out the nearby window. A faint light pierced between the edge of the curtain and the wall, illuminating the mud mat near the front door. The beam went on and off in patterns of five. My stomach leaped into my throat as horrifying thoughts flooded my mind. I imagined some kind of creature standing in the darkness of the cabin, flipping the porch light switch up and down with a menacing grin on its face.

  The moment I got up, the lights flickered five more times and went dark. I peeked out the curtain near the front door and didn’t spot anyone. As I stared into the darkness, a groan erupted from far off in the distance. My first instinct was to check on Faye to ensure that she wasn’t talking in her sleep again. I wondered if she somehow attracted the voices by calling out in her slumber, and if she drew attention to herself with her babbling. The thought sent ripples of goosebumps across my arms as I made my way down the hall.

  “Faye?” I whispered, creaking the door open just enough to peer in.

  The bed was empty.

  I shoved the door open and looked around, finding only a vacant room. The sheets had been tossed off the side of the bed, as though she’d been dragged off in her sleep. I ran to the old door that led outside from that room and tugged on it, but the deadbolt was secured.

  Faye was an accomplished sleepwalker and had been doing it all her life. During the five-year span of our relationship, I had seen her descend stairs, open boxes, and try to operate her cell phone while unconscious. She was even capable of having semi-coherent conversations while milling around the house. On one such occasion, I heard a noise downstairs and went to investigate. I found Faye opening cabinets, taking things out of the refrigerator, and searching for her car keys. We chatted a bit about how she was late for work and how she hated her manager. To the uninitiated, Faye might have seemed totally cognizant of her actions. If not for the fact that she was completely nude and trying to heat up a couch pillow for breakfast in total darkness, even I might have been fooled. But I knew what she was capable of, and I knew that stress was the catalyst.

  It wouldn’t be too far a stretch for Faye to sleepwalk right out of the cabin and lock the door behind her. I ran out onto the porch and was met with the stinging winter breeze, but didn’t see any tracks in the snow.

  “Faye?” I called out, just loud enough for her to hear me if she was nearby. I didn’t want to risk our creepy forest friends realizing I was outside.

  There was no response. I ran back into the cabin and out the front door where the porch light had been flickering. I suddenly realized that it might have been Faye toggling the switch. Simple, repetitive actions like turning on lights are a common behavior of sleepwalkers.

  The icy wood of the deck seared my bare feet. There was no one out here.

  “Faye?” I called out again. Panic surged through me when I didn’t hear a response. Branches crackled in the woods across the street. My eyes searched for the source of the noise, and they landed on the rental car in the driveway.

  Something shifted near it.

  I squinted through the gloom and made out a figure sitting atop the roof of the car.

  “Who’s there?!” I shouted.

  It was a woman. She was naked, and her back was turned to me. Long, curly hair draped halfway down her back, and although it was silver in the pale moonlight, I immediately recognized it.

  “Faye?”

  She didn’t reply, but one of her shoulders dropped and the other raised. She cocked her head back as if to gaze at the stars, then looked down again. All of her muscles flexed, no doubt a reaction to the biting cold.

  “What the fuck are you doing out here?!” I yelled, mortified that she had slipped past me. It suddenly felt like someone had tightened a belt around my chest. I thought I’d drop dead of a heart attack right there on the porch.

  Again, she didn’t respond. I turned to quickly grab my boots just inside the door, but as I did, Faye leaped off the car and dashed away from the cabin. She bounded through the snow toward the forest, limping as she did.

  “Faye!” I screamed. My voice shook the entire mountain and returned to me a dozen times. I dropped the boots and took off after her, instantly cursing the electric cold that sliced into my feet like razors. Faye had already made it to the tree line, and the darkness swallowed her whole as she entered the woods. A terrible dread replaced my surprise. I knew then that she’d freeze to death before I ever found her in there. Her only hope for survival was to wake up.

  “What are you doing?” a weak voice called out from behind.

  I slid to a stop just past the car and whirled around.

  It was Faye. She stood there in the doorway of the cabin, wrapped in heavy blankets. Her eyes drooped under the weight of exhaustion and illness.

  I looked back at the woods, then again to the cabin. The stupefied puzzlement on my fac
e further confused her.

  “Felix,” she repeated, “what are you doing?”

  It took me a long moment there in the driveway to gather my wits. The sensation of cold vanished from my limbs, replaced with a numbness I could ignore. The realization dawned on me that I was being drawn out like a rabbit from the undergrowth. I stood motionless, staring out into the dark forest. I couldn’t help but feel like it was staring back.

  “Clever motherfuckers,” I said breathlessly.

  Chapter 7

  In my masculine crusade to protect my fiancée, I had forgotten to check the one place a sick Faye was most likely to be: the bathroom. I wanted to lie to her and tell her that I’d chased some elk away from the car, but instead I spilled my guts. My wide-eyed tale seemed to compound the misery of her stomach bug, and she lay there on the bed with a pillow over her face, begging me to get us out of the cabin once and for all.

  As if to answer her prayers, the unmistakable crunch and clank of a snowplow resounded from outside. She took heart at the sound and quickly threw on a jacket. I raced around, gathering our things and peeking out the window.

  It was just before dawn on Monday morning, and Ranger Pike had finally arrived. Behind him was a cavalcade of happy sights: a police SUV and Faye’s father Greg in his old pickup.

  I threw the door open as the men approached the porch.

  “I’m so sorry ‘bout how long it took,” the ranger said, offering up his hands. A bushy brown mustache clung to his face and accentuated every movement of his lips.

  “Right on time, actually,” I responded.

  “Where’s Faye?” Greg said, stepping between me and the ranger. He was a bear of a man, a few inches taller than me with a chest you could chop wood on. His chin looked like a brick, and on it grew a gray and perpetual five-o-clock shadow – probably for striking matches.

  “Dad!” Faye called out from behind me. She rushed over and threw her arms around him.

  “Christ, sweetie,” he said into her shoulder, “are you okay? What happened?”

  Faye and I exchanged knowing glances, and when I opened my mouth to explain, she cut me off and said, “Long story. We’ll talk in the car. Let’s go.”

  “We need to keep her warm,” I said, holding my hand toward the truck in a ‘please get in’ gesture. “I’ll grab a blanket.”

  “And maybe some trash bags,” Faye added.

  “Young miss need a doctor?” the ranger asked. He shifted his bulk into the path of the plow’s headlights, throwing a gigantic shadow over the snowy meadow.

  “Just ate some of Felix’s fancy cuisine,” she replied, clutching her stomach. Everyone laughed except me.

  Greg ushered Faye back to the truck while the ranger and I collected handfuls of half-packed luggage. While inside the cabin, he asked me what was really going on. I took only a moment to elaborate on what I’d said over the phone: there was a weird object dangling in the nearby tree, and a lot of movement and voices in the woods, some in a strange language. On at least one occasion, someone approached the windows. I left out the little detail of the woman sitting on top of my car. As I rifled through the room, throwing clothes into a suitcase, the ranger sat down on the bed.

  “There’s been some…activity reported up here,” he muttered. “Weird shit. I dunno.” He seemed almost apologetic, and I realized he had deceived me by assuring us over the phone that it was pranksters causing all the mischief.

  “Weird shit?” I echoed, halting my rampage through the closet.

  “Well, nothin’ real serious,” he offered.

  “Go on.”

  “I mean… it’s a mountain,” William said. “People gone missin’ up here. Some of ‘em end up dead. Hikers say they hear things out there from time to time. Occasionally folks stayin’ up here call us up, tellin’ they heard all kindsa hubbub in the wee hours.”

  “Hubbub,” I said, hurling a shirt into the suitcase.

  “Ain’t nobody ever been murdered up here, Mr. Blackwell,” William replied, smiling and ticking a thumb on his badge. “Not since I been here. Damn sure of it.”

  I circled the bed and approached him.

  “You ever had a doppelganger of your wife try to coax you into the woods by sitting naked in your driveway?” I asked.

  William gazed up at me, completely lost. I grabbed the suitcase and left the room.

  Outside, the two officers from the SUV were on either side of Greg’s pickup, speaking to Faye and her dad. The red lights from the trucks cast across the snow, making for a surreal view in the twilight.

  “Mr. Blackwell,” one of the policemen called out, “you ride with your family. Officer Kennedy here’s gonna follow you in your rental.”

  “Be careful,” I said, tossing the keys to the officer. “That thing’s a death trap.”

  “One more trip and we’ll be ready,” William called out. He carried two bags out of the cabin and stuck them in the plow.

  “Ranger Pike, you lead,” the officer replied.

  The ride down the mountain was enormously relieving, and so beautiful that all our dark experiences momentarily vanished from my mind. I took the back seat so Faye could be next to her dad. Greg sat at the wheel, grumbling about the icy roads from time to time. I didn’t mind the slow journey as much as he did. At least we were getting the hell away from Pale Peak.

  Surprisingly, Greg didn’t ask much about the cabin. Instead, he kept the conversation on us. In his usual leathery voice, he asked, “So Felix, you tried to kill my youngest child?”

  I huffed in shock. I had no idea what he meant until Faye intervened. I thought he was talking about this little vacation.

  “He’s raggin’ on your cooking, babe,” she said, exhaling slowly in pain.

  “Oh, right,” I laughed. “Normally your daughter’s like a trash compactor. Eats whatever the hell she wants and still looks like a twig. Probably made a deal with the devil for that talent.” I tickled Faye’s side, but she winced and protected her stomach.

  “Not even Satan can protect me from your tacos,” she moaned, rolling the window down. I instinctively jammed my fingers into my ears and ducked for cover behind Greg’s seat. I’m a lifelong emetophobe, and cannot stand to be near someone vomiting – or even the sounds of it. Faye, in all of her good nature and selflessness, kept that in mind as she puked her guts up into the freezing mountain air that swooshed by. She tried to keep quiet so as not to freak me out. Afterwards, I rubbed her shoulders in support and thanks. Through the rear-view mirror, Greg shot a disapproving glance at my cowardice.

  “We left a bunch of stuff,” Faye said in a weak voice.

  “I didn’t get all my clothes. None of the groceries.”

  “I think I got most of your stuff,” I offered. “Didn’t open every drawer, though.”

  “We can buy you new clothes,” Greg added. “Just forget about that stuff.”

  The purplish gloom in the sky gave way to deep reds and oranges, the first heralds of dawn’s brilliant crest. The sunrise chased out the darkness and glinted off the snow in a million places, bringing the entire landscape to life once more. My relief swelled with the growing light. The snowcat in front of us picked up speed a bit, sending plumes of white powder into the air and over the cliff. They glittered like diamonds as they fell.

  “So Greg,” I said, once more trying to redirect the conversation to him, “when was the last time you stayed up here?”

  He snorted and adjusted his grip on the wheel.

  “’Bout uh, a decade or more.”

  I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.

  “Why so long without visiting?”

  “Never liked the cold. Metal in my knee and arm.”

  “Ah,” I said, “why not in the summers?”

  Faye stuck her head out the window again, this time unleashing a horrible sound. I was too late to cover my ears, and Greg seemed happy with the disruption.

  “Seem to be gettin’ worse,” he said, rubbing her arm. “Shoul
d take you to the hospital back home.”

  Faye covered her face in embarrassment.

  “At least Felix didn’t make chili,” she replied. “That always comes out the other end.”

  They both laughed. I didn’t.

  PART II

  Chapter 8

  Avonwood is a lily-white suburb about thirty minutes outside the Rockies. Tucked safely within it is the home Faye and her older sister grew up in, a place that is now too big for her aging parents. We got there after a visit to the ER; the doctor ran a few tests and deemed Faye’s condition to be the result of extreme stress, not food poisoning, as my fiancée had jokingly insisted during the lulls of her nausea.

  That night, the four of us sat around in the huge living room. We propped Faye up hospital-style on the couch with pillows and blankets. Greg was sprawled out in his three-thousand-dollar recliner. A relaxing fire crackled nearby. Faye had managed to keep down some soup, only after being repeatedly assured that I had no hand in its preparation. After the three of them grew tired of mocking me, the conversation became more serious. Lynn, Faye’s mom, was horrified at the stories we recounted of our trip. Greg barely showed any emotion at all.

  “Did you guys ever experience anything weird up there?” Faye asked, point-blank. “I mean, there must be a reason you haven’t been in years.”

  Initially, Lynn avoided answering, but Faye cornered her mother with direct questions and eventually she caved.

  “I was just never comfortable up there,” she replied. “I’d heard a few things and that was it for me. Nothing ever happened, not like what you’re telling us.”

  “What do you mean, heard?” I asked. “Heard stories from other people? Or you heard things outside?”

  I watched Lynn’s eyes closely. They darted all around but never at me. She glanced quickly at her husband, who cleared his throat and removed his reading glasses.

  “Bed time for me,” he said. “Sorry kids, you woke my old ass up too early.”

  Greg kissed Faye on the forehead and then abruptly retired for the night, leaving the three of us alone downstairs.