Out here in God’s country, miles from the constant whine of tires on asphalt, away from the hum of power lines, ringing phones, screeching computer modems searching for a connection, and screaming neighbors, every sound was magnified. The snow packed down and crunched under his feet, his nylon suit swished as he stepped out from under the metal awning. He stared up at the cold light of the brilliant stars that now crowded the sky, and he remembered how much he had missed them. The last six months, Randy had been in California, attending UCLA, finishing up his degree in biotechnology. He loved California, but in most areas, stars were little more than myth.
Randy ripped open a Velcro pocket. He withdrew a small but powerful Maglite flashlight and swept its beam over the front entrance to the mine.
Where was dad?
It wasn’t like him to not be waiting when he arrived. To gloat, sure, but also to make sure that Randy made it to the mine in one piece. His father loved competition and he loved to win, but it all took a backseat to safety.
From another, larger pocket Randy extracted a walkie-talkie that his mother had purchased the day before at the Trading Post in town and had insisted they carry. Randy squeezed the TALK button.
“How the hell did you get here so fast?”
His breath smoked in the frosty air. He let go of the button and listened to the low hiss of static, waiting for the reply. He stood there a good two minutes, getting colder by the second, waiting. He shuffled from foot to foot, sweeping his light over the awning, the two sleds, the gap in the evergreens where he had entered the clearing. All was still save the falling snow.
Again he pressed the TALK button. “Dad?”
The dead air sounded ominous, like a low chant whispered just beneath the surface of his understanding, a message hidden in the white noise. Had his father turned on his walkie-talkie, or brought it along at all for that matter? Neither scenario would surprise him. His father was old school to the nth degree. He came out to the wilderness to be one with nature, to live off the land and experience a connection between man and nature that couldn’t be found in the cities. He carried nothing that he wouldn’t use. No fancy gadgets, no battery-powered socks. Thinking back, Randy remembered his father’s face when his mother presented them with the walkie-talkies. The way he eyed the digital screen, and the myriad of tiny buttons and knobs with the kind of naked revulsion one would normally employ when gazing upon a bizarre new breed of insect.
Randy tried one last time and then pocketed the radio, leaving it on, just in case. He and his father had been coming out to the mine to camp and hunt since before Randy could even hold a rifle. He knew his father’s favorite haunts. He wasn’t worried. If he knew his dad, he was up there on the second floor right now setting up camp. Always one to look on the bright side, Randy pinched a cigarette from a crumpled pack and sparked the end. He knew his father hated his smoking and considered smoking in the clean cold mountain air the highest form of sacrilege. So, this little snub out here at the entrance delivered his last chance to light up. He dragged deep on the filter, filling his lungs with the poison of nicotine and a million other carcinogens with names he couldn’t begin to pronounce. And he felt better. With his Maglite leading the way, he stepped over the crumbling entranceway into the darkness of the interior.
The Monk’s Head Mine had been closed for more than forty years. The front office of the once profitable venture was set right into the face of Monk’s Head Mountain, named for three separate mountains that seemed to form a balding dome, bordered on either side by smaller peaks giving the range the appearance of a traditional monk’s head.
In the summer it was the preferred make-out spot of all the locals, where on any given Friday night at least two or three cars would be parked inconspicuously around the crumbling structure, their windows fogged up like a greenhouse. But now, nearing the end of December, only the most desperate lovers made the trek up the winding dirt road, covered in snow and usually blocked by a felled tree. But if you were looking for a little private shelter, a place out of the way that guaranteed a winter of solitude, it was definitely your spot.
Randy’s footfalls over the rotting wood floor echoed hollowly off the cinderblock walls. On his back he carried an orange backpack. Across the top of the pack rested a rifle, concealed from the elements in a black leather case.
With all the gaps in the walls and the broken windows, the building wasn’t much warmer than outside, but at least he was dry and out of the falling snow. He unwrapped the scarf from his face and dusted the snow and ice from his blonde goatee. He sat his tinted goggles on top of his head and scanned the interior of the place.
He found himself in a short gray hallway without windows. Graffiti advising him to go fuck himself and that Sally B is a real slut were written in red and took up most of the wall space. Sweeping his flashlight beam, he spotted remains of previous inhabitants—an ancient campfire, a small pile of cans and clothes, bits of wood stacked against the wall.
And the small burning eyes of a wolf that glittered in the sudden light like drops of fire.
Randy froze.
The wolf did not move. Its body lay crumpled against the wall, blood spilling from its mouth to puddle around its large head. Its hind legs were horribly twisted, thin leg bones poking free from its matted fur like splinters of ivory. Randy figured that the wolf had challenged another for the same scrap of food and lost. Mortally wounded the wolf had shuffled inside the building to die. The theory held water, at least until he looked at the wall above the wolf’s corpse.
The wall was smeared with blood about five feet above the floor, as if the wolf had been thrown. What could throw a wolf with enough force to kill it? Randy stroked the matted fur of the wolf’s head and felt the shards of skull just beneath the skin like broken bits of pottery.
Right about then Randy got that little twinge in the belly, a little ice in his bowels. Something was not right. Not a big something, but a lot of little ones all lined up in a row like dominoes. Randy had never been very intuitive, but he was definitely picking up a bad vibe now. A moment ago the mine had been a palace filled with childhood memories, which, for the most part, he could look back on fondly. Now every shadow seemed to hold menace. He suddenly realized just how isolated they were out here. Totally alone. Anything could happen. No one would hear. No one would know. It was a twenty-minute sled ride into the deepest part of the forest. They were in a building with no road access. They weren’t due back for three days. If anything went wrong they would have to wait it out until his mother missed them.
A noise like the shuffle and scrape of a footstep yanked Randy out of his paranoid ramblings. He swung the flashlight in a circle, illuminating the pathetic contents of the near empty room, finding nothing but garbage and more shadows.
Randy unslung his backpack and removed his rifle from its leather case. After checking that it was fully loaded, he switched the safety off. Whatever killed the wolf had to be either much larger or rabid or both. Something very strong and very big. Something Randy would rather encounter holding a loaded rifle.
With his pack replaced, he carried his rifle in his right hand, cradling the stock in his elbow, and his flashlight in his left. He moved forward through the reception area to a wrought iron staircase that spiraled upward, disappearing into the shadows of the second floor. At the base of the staircase, Randy swept his flashlight, again proving that he was indeed alone. His father had always camped on the second floor in one of the executive offices, but the stairs were loose, the whole structure twisted underfoot, swaying as if he were walking up a mast pole in high winds. So he waited, resting one foot on the first riser and feeling horribly exposed. Exposed to what, he had no idea and didn’t want to know.
“Dad?” he called. He waited, but only the wind moaned a reply. He began to climb.
The ancient staircase creaked and groaned under his weight as the bolts shifted in place, releasing little clouds of rust with every step. When he reached the second floor he w
ent straight through a pair of heavy double doors into a conference room where two of the walls were glass. During the day the view would be breathtaking, but here in the dark there was only his grimy reflection shining his light over the room.
At the north end of the room was another set of double doors, their edges defined by lines of harsh white light. He stepped through the doors. His dad’s small collapsible halogen lamp lit the room generously, revealing his dad’s open pack. It looked as though his father had begun setting up but never finished. His pack was open and his sleeping bag unrolled, but the small camp stove was in pieces and their tent still rolled in its sack.
Randy called out once again, a little edge in his voice, a little panic. His dad was a lot of things, but disappearing acts in the wilderness was not his style. Sure, he’d hide and maybe jump out at you in the woods, but he hadn’t done that since Randy was nine. Randy doubted it would be a good time to start trying that shit while he carried a high-powered rifle.
Randy did a U-turn out of the conference room and took a right down a short hall that sported a washroom with no door or window, into a large common roomonce dominated by neat rows of orderly desks, now jumbled haphazardly throughout the room.
Where the hell is he?
Randy called a third time. His voice trembled, warbling a little like a scared kid of twelve, not a man of nearly thirty.
He made his way across the room to a door marked STAIRS, where his light caught a flash of color.
Yellow.
Randy ran to where his father’s parka lay in a heap on the floor. Puffs of white stuffing bled from where the coat had been ripped up the back, nearly slicing it in two. He held the coat up to his face and smelled the familiar mix of sweat and his father’s cologne. A snake of ice-cold fear curled and snapped in his belly. A thin sheen of sweat broke out over his body.
Randy searched the coat and found his father’s flashlight, matches, a compass, a pen, a notepad. A thin metal canister contained two cigars—victory cigars, his father called them, awarded to the hunter after the kill. Cigars were not cigarettes. Cigars were civilized, and therefore did not defile the purity of the great outdoors.
The walkie-talkie was missing.
That is, if he had brought it at all.
He brought it, Randy thought. Mom would make sure he did. Randy fumbled open the Velcro pocket and retrieved his radio. He pushed the TALK button. In the stillness of the mining office, the answering click sounded like a snapping bone.
“Dad?”
It was hard to pinpoint where the sound came from, but he had a sinking feeling he knew where he should look.
Every year that he and his father had come here to hunt, he had found this same door, the one leading down into the mine, and as always he had found it locked, sealed by the local authorities to keep overly curious kids from getting lost inside one of the winding tunnels or dropping into a sinkhole never to return.
But now the doorknob sat almost parallel to the door, the steel around it puckered, as if someone had wrenched it to the left until the bolt sprang free of the lock. Someone of incredible strength. Someone who could kill a wolf by throwing it against a wall. The thought froze his hand, hovering over the twisted doorknob.
At that instant, he knew his father was dead, killed by some horrible thing that was no longer interested in wolves. Images of his father being bled, hung by his ankles, his green eyes frosted over like so many deer they had taken from this forest, crowded his thoughts until he had to close his eyes and shake his head to clear his mind.
After a moment he found he could breathe again. He took a few deep breaths just to be sure, grabbed the warped doorknob, opened the creaking metal door and slipped into the darkness.
Beyond the doorway lay a set of metal stairs that spiraled down through the heart of the mine. Standing on the first stair he once again pushed the TALK button on his radio. The answering click was louder.
He moved as soundlessly as possible, but the steel stairs shook and clanged, announcing every step. He traded stealth for speed and moved quickly down, keeping his light trained on the next riser while his finger hovered over the trigger of his rifle.
At the first floor access door, he tried the radio and again discovered that the radio was further down in the mine. Finally he hit the rock floor.
Standing on the rough floor several stories underground gave Randy the feeling of being on another planet. His light washed over the pock-marked walls, shored up with ancient timber and iron. It was colder down here, a damp cold that soaked through his many layers to penetrate bone and pool in the pit of his stomach.
Another tap of the radio and the sound of a pistol crack made him jump and give a little yelp. Randy focused the beam down the tunnel ahead and found the radio lying in the dirt. He hit the button again and listened to the response. This time he was ready. Cautiously, he threw light over the tunnel walls and ceiling. Once he deemed that the radio was not bait for a trap, he crept over and scooped up the little gadget from the rock floor, slipping it into a front coat pocket along with its mate.
His heart picked up the pace again, smashing against his ribs. He moved slowly, his flashlight illuminating the uneven ground ahead of him twenty feet at a time. Every sound reverberated, bouncing off the rock walls. The scrape of his boots, the wheeze of his breathing, even the rustle of his clothing, all came together to create the illusion that he was not alone.
To his right, about fifteen feet away, his light found the edge of the first doorway. He followed the tunnel wall with his gloved hand until his fingers slid over the rock edge and he peered around the corner. Soft orange firelight flickered from a doorway about twenty yards down the passage.
He forced himself not to run. Anger and fear and hate boiled up inside him. As he crept down the passageway toward the orange glow, he thought that if he did indeed find his father sitting at a warm fire, sipping instant coffee, he might be tempted to shoot him. If this turned out to be some kind of rite of passage into manhood bullshit, he might even kill him. The alternative was that whoever had sliced his father’s coat up the back was warming himself by the fire. The thought of killing someone, of shooting them down, of slaughtering them for harming his father made his heart beat faster. His trigger finger curled reflexively around the trigger, ready for action.
He moved to the edge of the doorway and discovered that it had been sealed until recently by a sliding metal door. The door was rusted on its rails, but someone had opened it. He pressed his face close to the wall and peered through the doorway, where the room was revealed to him an inch at a time.
The room was small, no larger than ten by ten, an old storeroom by the look of it. Empty shelving lined the walls and paper garbage rotted in the dark corners. A Colima In lantern sat near the center of the room, bathing his father in harsh white light. He lay naked on the floor, arms and legs outstretched.
It seemed to Randy that his father’s skin was moving, trembling as if it were literally crawling. His father was in pain, that much was clear. Thick, ropy cords of muscle and tendon stood out on his neck as the large man’s body flexed, caught in some horrible seizure. Randy gasped and took a shuffling step into the room. His father’s eyes found his in the gloom and they were wide with pain and fear.
“Run, Randy!” he said through clenched teeth. “Run!”
4
It had been three days since Bishop had kidnapped James Rayford. Fifteen people had died that night, but it was just a dent, one cell out of hundreds. Maybe thousands. The Ministry of the Wraith wasn’t sure of their numbers, and that was the most maddening of it all, the not knowing. They desperately needed to find out who this Eve was. Was it even a woman? As far as hard facts were concerned, there weren’t many, except that these insiders were getting stronger everyday.
The major cities were dangerous now, but sometimes he had no choice. His SUV was one in a long line of vehicles waiting for the light to change. Bishop scanned the sidewalks left and right. His ri
ght hand drifted to his waist, his fingers played over the pistol grip. A man carrying groceries stopped dead in his tracks to stare at him. And then another, a woman this time, pushing a small child in a stroller. They were everywhere. A young kid holding a skateboard, a man in a suit. Soldiers forever vigilant. The light turned green up ahead and the line rolled forward, but not far enough. Bishop swore and the line stopped.
His admirers hadn’t moved. More and more stopped now, staring. Bishop’s head snapped left and right, waiting for the attack. His pistols were out.
Tap tap tap
Bishop wheeled in his seat and found an old woman staring at him, her dirty face inches from the glass. Grime and filth had darkened her tanned skin and her once brown hair was matted and flew away from her head in ragged tangles. Her eyes were the color of jade, clear and focused.
The barrels of Bishop’s guns were pointed chest level. If she so much as raised a finger to the glass he would shoot her through the door. Bishop’s fingers curled over the triggers. Breathless moments passed.
She did not raise a finger. She didn’t move. She simply stared for a moment, a small smile playing on her lips, and then she mouthed three words.
We see you.
The light changed and Bishop roared up the street and away, leaving the woman to watch him disappear into the distance.
The woman shuffled back to the sidewalk and the others who had been silently watching fell into step with the crowd. And just like that, they were hidden once again. Hidden in plain sight. Invisible. That was their greatest strength.
A little more than three hours north of the city, Bishop left the highway and followed poor country roads to an unmarked private drive. The twisted narrow road was crowded on either side by a dense forest. Their gnarled branches reached over the road to create a canopy of near darkness even at midday. After nearly a mile he emerged into the weak December light.
Sleepers Awake Page 2