“We’re all heading in for sustenance.” Finn waved them into the house. “We’ll do target practice this afternoon. First we need to get the house ready for nightfall.”
“And then can we go out looking for my mom again?” Rebecca asked as she entered the house.
“After shooting practice.”
Rebecca placed her mother’s shoe on the floor next to the door as if it were a priceless family heirloom. His grandfather made sandwiches and apologized for his lack of cooking skills. Rebecca helped and offered to slice up the leftover rotisserie chicken in the refrigerator, but they agreed on turkey sandwiches.
“You all right, Art?” Finn asked.
His grandfather shook his head. “No, I’m not all right.”
They talked about subjects that had nothing to do with guns or phantoms of the night or the temple until Finn dropped his hands on the table and stood up.
“We should prepare for the worst,” Finn said. “Do you have any plywood to put over the windows?”
“Some wood in the garage, but not much. I’ll dig it out and cover whatever I can before dark.”
“I guess more important than that is we need to gather as many weapons as we can,” Finn said. “Have them ready. In fact, let’s get some weapons together right now.”
His grandfather grabbed a set of keys from the back of a drawer in the kitchen and opened the basement door. The stale, humid air spilled out around them. “There’s not much room to maneuver in the basement. Otherwise, we’d all stay down there for the night. And maybe all the extra prep we’ll do is for nothing. Maybe, but I know them bastards.”
Their footsteps creaked on every step as they descended.
“Have I ever taken you down here, Michael?” his grandfather asked.
“A long time ago, Grandpa.”
“Not much to see. I keep all my junk down here. All the stuff Mary didn’t let me keep upstairs.”
A single bare light bulb in the center of the ceiling illuminated everything. Stacks of totes and boxes were crammed into every corner. Wooden shelves made from scrap wood covered one entire wall. A narrow, winding path through the maze of boxes circled under the stairs and formed a giant ring.
“Some of your dad’s old stuff is down here too. Boxes of junk he promised he’d haul out one day.” His grandfather chuckled.
Finn pushed aside a pile of boxes and waited for his grandfather to open a metal storage cabinet next to the stairs. The keys jingled as he unlocked the cabinet to reveal a row of rifles. Several pistols lay across the bottom with boxes of rounds scattered next to them. Some pistols were loose, and some were inside holsters with the ends poking out.
“This is only some of them,” his grandfather said. “I hid most around the house so we could grab them easily. No sense in keeping them all in one place.”
Michael’s heart skipped a beat. Somehow, he would make sure his grandfather didn’t find the empty box labeled ‘.44’ in his room upstairs. He doubted his grandfather could keep track of them all anyway. He wouldn’t miss one.
Finn examined a few rifles and distributed one to each of them. He emptied a small green cloth bag, like a miniature duffel bag, and put three pistols inside along with some rounds. He slung the bag over his shoulder and it rattled.
“After you’re done in the backyard, I’ll show you where the others are at, in case the worst happens and you need one.”
“We’ll only shoot at the demons, right?” Rebecca followed his grandfather to the kitchen.
“Right. Just those non-human, non-demon bessies,” Finn said.
“The guns are adequate if the thing is far away,” his grandfather said. “I suggest using knives if they get close.”
They gathered in the kitchen and held their rifles like soldiers waiting for battle. His grandfather set his rifle on the table and went to the cupboard below the kitchen sink. He returned wielding two machetes with silver blades the length of his forearm.
Rebecca leaned back when he moved closer to her. “You want me to use that?”
“You’ll be fine.” His grandfather handed one to Rebecca and one to Michael. “Finn will train you. Go outside now and listen to him.”
Finn led them out the back door and over to the one-car garage. He set the green bag down and balanced his rifle against the side of the garage before heaving the door open. A car with a dusty brown cover draped over it filled most of the space. Finn reached along the wall and retrieved two thin panels of plywood. Someone had stapled a black and white sheet of paper with the silhouette of a person to one side of each.
Rebecca broke away and walked across the driveway to where the woods behind her house came into view. Michael stepped to her side in silence. She met his eyes and the corners of her mouth widened, but her eyelids wilted. She glanced back at her house every few seconds as if something had grabbed her attention.
“Hope I don’t shoot myself.” He cringed. What a stupid comment. He wanted to shoot himself after saying that.
Rebecca giggled. “I hope you don’t either,” she said. “You nervous?”
“No, not really.”
“You keep tapping your foot.” She grinned, pointing down.
He stopped tapping and took in a deep breath.
Finn carried the sheets of plywood to the end of the yard and leaned the cardboard cutouts against a pile of logs that had been there as far back as Michael could remember. As a child, he had played in that pile of logs during one of his visits and had climbed to the top like a conquering explorer. Finn walked back and picked up the bag of pistols and his rifle along the way.
Michael turned to Finn. “Do you think the neighbors will call the cops when they hear gunshots?”
“People shoot guns out here all the time,” Finn said. “Pheasants, pigeons in the barn, target practice. The white vans will make an appearance, I’m sure of that, but I’ll be ready if they try to mess with me.”
Michael glanced toward the road. No vans in sight.
Finn took their rifles and set them on the grass. He made them put in earplugs. The sound faded, but Finn’s voice cut through.
“We’ll shoot the handguns first.” He pulled two pistols from the bag. One of them was a revolver. Finn flipped the barrel open like in an old Western movie and loaded the rounds into the chambers. The pistols were larger than the ones he had used with his dad at the shooting range. The silver metal glistened in the sun.
“Be careful.” Finn placed the revolver in his hands and angled the barrel toward the ground.
Michael wrapped his fingers around the handle, careful not to touch the trigger. His dad had shown him how to hold it, aim it, load it, and fire it, which he had done dozens of times without the slightest bit of concern. Shooting guns had been a joyful experience years earlier, something he used to look forward to, but now only darkness hung over his heart as the cool metal chilled his skin. The pistol weighed a little more than the .44 he had slipped into his backpack the previous day. He extended it out toward the target.
The black silhouette on the target transformed into a mirror image of himself. He aimed at the head, and it pointed a gun back at him. The dark cloud enveloping his mind had lifted over the last twenty-four hours, but it had always been there. So many things reminded him of his dad at his grandfather’s farm. The memories were impossible to ignore. He struggled to push aside the thoughts. His grandfather needed him. Rebecca needed him. But he missed his dad so much. A flash of dread passed through him. He would take one pistol from his grandfather’s collection in the basement and someday he would use it on himself when the time was right. It was the end-all solution to everything in his life, something to be dreaded, but also unavoidable. It was a shadow that lurked in the back of his mind at all times, a familiar demon that would wrap its claws around him someday and drag him into eternal darkness.
Rebecca accepted the other revolver from Finn with a grin that bared all her teeth. Her eyes lit up, and she steadied the gun in her hands.
&
nbsp; Finn and his grandfather backed away behind them. “Fire at will!” Finn yelled.
Rebecca’s revolver exploded as she fired the first shot. Their shared target of the human silhouette didn’t move. Nothing moved, not the grass or the log that the target had been nailed to or the field behind the target.
“Bullseye!” Finn yelled.
Michael squinted and strained his focus at the center of the target. A black dot sat on the silhouette’s forehead. He fired three times. The log next to the target splintered and chunks of bark burst into the air. His third shot hit the edge of the silhouette.
The four cows grazing in the pasture crowded into the barn after the firing began. Michael searched the pasture for more.
“What happened to all the cows?” Michael asked. “That field was full the last time I was here.”
“Gone,” Finn said. “Bessies took them. Cats and dogs in town disappeared first. Then, over time, the farms at the edge of town got wiped out too.”
“Why doesn’t someone kill the bessies?”
“We’ve tried. They don’t go away. We’ve blasted holes in them, chopped off their limbs, beak, head, and ripped them apart, but they don’t die. We even tried a flamethrower, but they don’t seem to burn. They just run away and come back the next night. And they don’t attack the homes of PJ followers, but we’re not sure why. PJ promised to protect his people, and it’s working somehow. What do they care if a bunch of us non-believers go missing? Just makes PJ look even more like a savior.”
Before they fired any more shots, a white van pulled up along the side of the road facing them.
“Forget the van, Michael,” Finn said. “Keep practicing.”
Finn had them shoot both the pistols and the rifles for another hour, and then Finn pulled out the machetes.
“You’re okay with shooting,” Finn said, “but these things will save your life.” Finn waved a machete across their line of sight.
Finn showed them how to hold them properly and how to swing them without slicing off their own head. They moved on to hacking them against the pile of logs next to the shooting targets. They practiced for an hour, mirroring Finn’s movements as closely as possible, until Rebecca whipped around and stretched her machete out toward Michaels’s face, squinting and growling as if she were in a pirate movie. Michael swung his machete up, knocking Rebecca’s away with a loud clink. She laughed and whipped her machete back again, knocking his machete from his hands. The blade pierced the grass handle-up, wobbling until Michael picked it up again.
“I’m ready now,” Rebecca said to Finn.
“Bring those wooden targets over here when you’re done,” his grandfather said. “We’ll use them to cover some windows.”
“Go help Art,” Finn said. “Rebecca, I’ll scavenge any extra wood from your garage. I’ll return it after this is over.” Without waiting for a response, Finn went to his truck and raced off toward Rebecca’s house. He blared his horn as he passed a white van on the way.
Michael grabbed the targets and brought them to the house. His grandfather took them and, for the next hour, they boarded up the basement windows and the living room window, but they left many others unprotected.
Finn returned soon after with more wood, but only enough for another couple of windows.
“It’s not much protection, but it’ll have to do,” Finn said as he helped them seal up more windows. “I’ll finish up out here, Art. Get them inside and go over the plan.”
Michael’s grandfather took them inside and went through each room of the house, showing them the location of each weapon. Michael was shocked to discover he’d slept above two assault rifles and two more pistols. His grandfather pointed out the .44 box Michael had emptied earlier, but didn’t pull it down. The master bedroom on the main floor held the most weapons in his grandfather’s arsenal. At least four pistols and five rifles and stacks of boxes of rounds.
“That’s all,” his grandfather said when he’d finished. “As far as I can remember.”
Finn came inside and dropped into a chair at the kitchen table.
“If the worst happens and one of those things gets inside the house,” his grandfather said, “don’t be afraid to shoot, but make sure we’re all out of the way! I can repair the house, but not you.”
Finn turned to Rebecca. “Let’s take that trip into town to look for your mom.”
Rebecca’s face glowed. “Thank you!”
“We’ll follow the stream,” Finn said, “but the creature has most likely taken her underground.”
They all piled into his grandfather’s car and Finn drove. Rebecca sat in the passenger seat, holding her mother’s shoe in her lap.
Finn took off out of the driveway, and they passed a white van on their way toward town. As always, the two men in the front seats craned their necks to stare at them.
“Bullies,” Finn said. “That’s all they are.”
They didn’t drive far before Finn turned down a dirt road and stopped where the stream ran below the road. He left the engine running as they all climbed out of the car and went to the edge of the road above a tunnel. The water gurgled and slurped into the tunnel with no sign of a disturbance within the stream, but in the gravel above the tunnel, a swarm of tracks and grooves ran perpendicular to the road as if a dozen people had climbed out on one side, crossed the road, and then continued on their way down the stream. A chill ran through Michael.
They returned to the car and drove past the Miller house.
“That’s where we were,” Rebecca said.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” Finn said.
They stopped at the end of the gravel road with the cemetery in front. The creek ran under the paved road to their right. It came out on the other side and ran straight along the edge of the cemetery. They pulled the car over to the side of the road, right before the asphalt began, and climbed out again. Two white vans sat on opposite sides of the road to their right beyond the creek, each facing opposite directions. A man in a white suit waved a car to stop as it entered town.
“They’ll wonder what we’re doing,” his grandfather said, gesturing at the white vans up ahead.
“We won’t be long,” Finn said.
They gathered near the edge of the road where the stream surged from the tunnel and headed toward the cemetery. The grass beside the road showed no signs of tracks, but the small patch of gravel between the asphalt and the grass showed the scrapes and chaotic patterns obvious at the previous tunnel.
“I’m telling you, that creature took her under the church.” Finn stood tall and faced the white vans.
“Don’t do it, Finn,” his grandfather said. “We got the kids with us.”
Finn nodded. “I’ll be good.”
“Her shoe!” Rebecca lurched to the bank of the creek and pulled out a black and white tennis shoe from the weeds at the edge of the water. It was the companion to the one she’d found earlier in the forest behind her house. “She was here!”
Finn turned to his grandfather. “The evidence is clear. You know what we got to do, Art. We got to head down into that tunnel again.”
“It looks like it,” his grandfather said.
Finn took one last look back at the white vans before he got into the car. The faint outline of the person in the driver’s seat came into view, although nobody moved inside.
“Why are they stopping everyone?” Michael asked.
“Those are the temple ambassadors,” Rebecca said.
“Ambassadors!” Finn said. “They’re armed guards! They’ll shoot you if you don’t stop. Rebecca, you still have a lot to learn.”
They made a U-turn and headed back down the gravel road leading to his grandfather’s house. The sun hovered near the horizon next to a scattering of clouds. They drove into the sun with the shadows from the pine trees stretched out toward them.
“We’ll need time to prepare before we can go down into the tunnels below the church,” Finn said. “We’ll need supplies.” He t
urned his head to Rebecca. “Get a good night’s sleep tonight, and we’ll head out in the morning.”
“Let’s go now!” Rebecca said. “My mom needs help!”
“We’re not ready. It’ll take time to prepare, and it’ll be dark soon. I’m sure you’re aware of what happens around here after dark.”
As his grandfather’s house came into view, a white van pulled out of his grandfather’s driveway and sped off, leaving a wake of dust behind it.
“They were at the house.” Finn looked at his grandfather in the rearview mirror. “Did you lock the door?”
“I always lock the door these days.”
Finn stopped the car in the driveway, and they got out. Nothing was out of place. The four cows had returned to the pasture.
“PJ wants the rest of that stuff we got,” Finn said.
“He’s not getting it.” His grandfather marched to the front door and turned the doorknob. It was locked. He unlocked the door and pushed it open. He hesitated before stepping inside, as if a trap awaited him. “Wouldn’t surprise me if they broke in this time. They’re all cowards.”
The rifles and pistols they’d used for shooting practice still lay in a line across the kitchen table and counter.
“We’d better get those cleaned up,” Finn said. “We may need them again soon.”
“Mary would have a fit if she saw the kitchen like this,” his grandfather said.
Rebecca and Michael sat across from Finn at the table as he explained every detail of gun maintenance. Each of them cleaned the weapons they had fired.
The sun set below the horizon in an orange blaze that pierced through the unprotected section of the kitchen window and faded to a brilliant red within minutes. They ate the leftover rotisserie chicken for supper that they had rejected at lunch. They pushed aside their empty plates just as the electricity to the house went out and everything went dark.
Shadows Rising Page 13