Black Valley

by Jim Brown

  Stay calm. Don’t go into shock. Wasn’t that what Dean had said? She tried to remember the exact words.

  Try to stay calm. I don’t want you to go into shock. Understand? I think he’s fishing for some kind of reaction here. He wants us to squirm.

  Piper shifted in the coffin, body contained but her mind roaming free. Science, Piper, science. Do you understand?

  Do you understand?

  She rolled the thought around in her mind. There was more here than was being said. Dean had known Dobbs was listening. So he couldn’t come right out and tell her what he wanted her to do.

  So, what did he want her to do?

  Shock!

  The stun gun. Piper reached beneath her jacket. Her fingers closed on the black metal box and carefully pulled it free. She felt for the controls in the dark, trying to see it in her memory. There was a power setting. She turned it to maximum. At least, she hoped she did. With her left hand she explored the surface of the homemade coffin, searching for the nail that jabbed her earlier. She found it with her fingers. The nail had missed the coffin side, extending at least an inch and a half into the box.

  Again she remembered Dean’s words. Was she right? Did she understand the clue?

  She had to chance it. She moved the stun gun to the nail, took away her left hand, and fired.

  Sixteen minutes.

  Despite the cold, Dean’s flesh was covered in sweat. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and tried to concentrate on the area in front of him.

  The clearing had been raked. Freshly turned brown earth replaced the topsoil, masking all signs of recent digging. Dobbs had covered his tracks well. Dean suspected the grave would have been dug some time ago and camouflaged. A rusted shovel with a weather-worn handle found just inside the clearing confirmed his theory.

  Dobbs had been prepared – ready.

  Had she gotten his message? And even so, did she still have the stun gun? And would it work? In theory, yes, but . . .

  It was easy to underestimate him, to catagorize Whitey Dobbs as a bully, a madman with a knife, a fool.

  He might be crazy, but he’s not a fool, Dean reminded himself. Dobbs had a keen mind and a gift for strategy. The fact he had convinced a future version of Dean to aid him was proof of that. And now, without the time to set up an early warning system, they were essentially blind as to where Dobbs would appear.

  None of that mattered. All that counted was Piper. He had to save her, had to get her out of that grave in time. If not . . .

  Twelve minutes and fifteen seconds.

  He had divided the clearing into a series of grids. Nathan searched in one area, Dean in another. But it was difficult to stay focused and follow the pattern. The wind had picked up, hurling skiffs of snow into the clearing and further impeding their search. In the blaze of the powerful klieg lights his shadow stretched out before him.

  Something moved on the ground. He stopped.

  One, two . . . Was it a fluke, or had it worked?

  Three, four . . .

  “Nathan,” he screamed.

  Five, six . . . Dean dropped to his knees. Worms – beautiful, squiggly – little worms. Using the stun gun, Piper had sent an electrical charge through a nail and into the earth, causing the worms to climb to the surface.

  “Here! Nathan, she’s here.”

  Dean began to dig.

  The earth was softer here, yielding easily to the flashing shovels. Nathan worked as fast as he had ever worked, ignoring the burning in his muscles and the jagged bolts of pain in his back. Two feet . . . three . . .

  It wasn’t fast enough.

  Whitey Dobbs would be here soon – too soon, and they were not ready. Nathan hazarded a look to the Jeep Cherokee, where the tranquilizer gun and medical supplies waited.

  One shot. They had only one shot.

  Four feet . . .

  “How long?” he asked.

  “Five minutes and fifteen seconds,” Dean answered without looking up.

  Nathan’s muscles were on fire. Something snapped in his back. He faltered.

  “You okay?” Dean asked, his face sheathed in sweat, his eyes wide with fear and desperation.

  Nathan nodded and continued to work, ignoring the scream of pain that flashed through his body. He looked back at the Jeep. It seemed so far away – far and woefully inadequate.

  . . . four and a half feet.

  The shovel struck wood.

  Both men paused, eyes meeting for the briefest of moments.

  “Piper!” Dean screamed, striking the top of the homemade coffin with his shovel. “Piper, can you hear me?”

  No answer. Were they too late? Was she even alive?

  “Dean,” Nathan said.

  “Three minutes,” Dean answered without being asked.

  Three minutes?

  “We’ve got to–”

  Dean dropped the shovel. “Keep digging. Get her out of there.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To stop Dobbs.”

  The rifle was neither heavy nor light; it just was. The barrel shook as Dean took aim. He blinked away saline pebbles.

  Two minutes thirty-one seconds.

  His could feel the pressure of the trigger against his finger. More sweat. He blinked again. The air smelled of ozone. The hair on his arms and neck stood on end, registering a mild yet growing charge of electricity.

  Two minutes . . . ten seconds.

  His finger jerked.

  The gun fired. A puff of blue smoke. The dart! A flash of silver – then gone.

  “No!” Nathan screamed as the sound of the shot reverberated in the static-thick air.

  Dean dropped the now worthless weapon on the ground and ran back to the grave.

  “The dart!” Nathan screamed.

  Dean stepped into the grave. The lid of the coffin was fully revealed. Piper was right – the top of the box had been nailed into the wood. “Any response?”

  “We’ve lost the dart,” Nathan said, ignoring his question. “We’ve lost our only chance.”

  Dean pulled on the wood top. It creaked but didn’t move. “Help me get her out.”

  “No hope, no hope,” Nathan cried. He climbed out of the grave.

  “Nathan. Nathan? Where are you going? Help me get her out. Nathan, what are you doing?”

  His words flagged behind him like smoke in the wind. “Stopping Whitey Dobbs.”

  40

  Nathan felt a lightning storm flash beneath his skin, as if his very cells were being ignited, individually set afire at the exact same second. My God, is this what it’s like for Piper? he wondered.

  A blue-purple whirlpool opened in the center of the clearing. Whitey Dobbs rippled into existence as if reality were a still pond and he were a pebble. He stood less than twenty feet away.

  For half a beat it was as if he were there and not there at the same time. Like seeing between the seconds. Then he blinked, becoming suddenly, completely, and dangerously real. An evil, smiling creature with dead-man’s hair.

  “How’s it hanging, Jimmy Dean?”

  Click.

  Flip.

  “You’re not Jimmy Dean,” Dobbs said, more amused than hostile.

  Dean had specifically said no guns except for the tranquilizer rifle. He was convinced conventional weaponry wouldn’t work. More than that, he was sure it would be used against them. It wouldn’t be the first time Nathan had broken the rules. He reached behind his back.

  The nine-millimeter Glock snapped free of the holster.

  He felt him before he heard him. Whitey Dobbs. His presence announced in every fiber of Dean’s body. The irradiated hilltop gave them all a hint of what life must be like for Piper. He took a deep breath. A new countdown was underway.

  Piper.

&
nbsp; The grave was silent. Dean’s fingers throbbed from efforts to rip the top of the coffin off by hand. The nails held firm. He tried to work the shovel beneath the lid, but the curved bowl wouldn’t fit.

  Laughter, as raw and electrifying as any lightning bolt ever hurled by Zeus, crackled across the clearing. The left corner of the shovel slipped beneath the lid – less than a inch, but more leverage than before. Dean pushed down. The nail squeaked and moaned in protest. The lid rose slightly as the metal was pulled from the wood.

  “A gun,” Dobbs said.

  Dean moved to the second nail.

  “I’m disappointed,” Dobbs said. “Do you really think a gun can stop me?”

  There was a fingernail-on-chalkboard quality to his voice, as if his words, like the knife, were made of something different from what they seemed. Both mercurial. Both deadly.

  The second nail began to move.

  “Whitey Dobbs!” Nathan spat out the name like a man who had just taken a hearty bite of something vile and sour.

  The lid rose a half inch. Dean moved to the middle nail. Working as fast as he could, resisting the urge to look in the coffin, willing himself not to look behind him, not watch his friend’s suicidal showdown with Dobbs.

  “I can’t get over how old you guys are,” Dobbs mocked. “Do you realize how bad you look? Though not nearly as bad as John and Mason. One lost his head and the other fell all to pieces.”

  Whitey Dobbs laughed again. Dean shuddered with revulsion. The third nail began to move.

  “Tell me, Nathan, how’s that bride of yours? Maybe after I finish you, I’ll finish what I started with her.”

  “You bastard! I swear to God I’ll kill you!”

  “Naw – you’ve already tried that. Dead and buried, remember? Can’t say as I really cared for it.”

  The third nail was out. Two to go. Dean blinked sweat from his eyes and moved to the next. His arms quivered with exhaustion.

  The fourth nail moved. Or had Dean imagined it? He was so tired, he wasn’t sure; he could no longer trust the feeling in his own limbs.

  A gunshot – the sound amplified by the cold, dark air – shuddered across the hilltop.

  No! Dean screamed in his mind.

  The fourth nail gave. He moved to the last, working from mental programming more than conscious thought. Praying against hope he was wrong – that a bullet could do what had to be done, could stop a monster.

  The last nail moved.

  Nathan screamed.

  A thick bolt of lightning jagged across the length of the sky.

  The scream was so high pitched and raw that it rang in his bones like a bell.

  Don’t look, don’t stop.

  Dean dropped the shovel and grabbed the lid of the coffin. He had to free Piper, then . . .

  What? Save his friend? Run? Face the devil?

  Using his legs for leverage, Dean began raising the wooden top. The wood popped and creaked in objection. It was heavier than he thought – heavy and unwieldy. His hands slipped. The lid dropped. He caught it. It felt as if his joints were being pulled from their sockets. The move exhausted the last of his strength. He held the lid a quarter of the way open but lacked the muscle to move it higher.

  The screaming had stopped. A lugubrious black wind moaned through the trees. The ozone-rich air seemed to hum with a power all its on.

  “Piper,” Dean whispered, begged.

  Something grabbed him from behind, gripping the fabric of his coat and jerking him out of the grave. The coffin slammed shut.

  On his back and beyond exhaustion, Dean looked up into the ageless face of Whitey Dobbs.

  “How’s it hanging, Jimmy Dean?”

  41

  Dobbs smiled. Small white teeth, symmetrically even, were displayed in an oblong grin. “No fair digging up the dead.” He grabbed Dean by the shirt and yanked him to his feet. Hair as white as a bloodless face flapped in the growing wind.

  “I’m impressed you found her.” Dobbs looked over into the grave. “A shame you were too late.”

  Dean pulled away. He took a step toward the grave.

  “No, no . . .” The knife was suddenly between them. The vibrant sheen of the quicksilver switchblade pulsed in the blare of the klieg lights. “We’ve got a lot to do. Ticktock, ticktock.”

  Time. How much time?

  Dean turned, scanning the crest of Hawkins Hill. The air churned with whirlpools and eddies – sinkholes cut in the very fabric of space. He found the spot he was looking for, and beyond it . . .

  Nathan. The mayor lay on the ground in a growing pool of blood. The gun he had used lay impotently beside him. Dean rushed to his friend.

  “Oh, he’s alive,” Dobbs said behind him. “Just a little nick, that’s all.”

  Nathan struggled to raise up. Dean dropped to the ground and helped him into a sitting position, propping him against the side of the Jeep. His leg was sheathed in red. A deep gash, just below the thigh, continued to bleed. “Hang on, buddy. You’re going to be all right.”

  “Bastard. His knife. So fast.”

  Dean took off his belt and cinched it around Nathan’s leg just above the cut, praying it would stop the bleeding or at least slow it.

  “Piper?” Nathan asked. He saw the answer in Dean’s eyes. His head dropped. He sobbed quietly into his chest. “Bastard,” he whispered.

  “Oh, boo-hoo, boo-hoo,” Dobbs chanted. “The clock’s ticking, boys, and I’ve a schedule to keep.”

  Time?

  Five minutes and twenty-two seconds, answered the silent clock perpetually running in the back of Dean’s mind. Five minutes.

  “We’ve got to stall him,” he whispered to Nathan.

  “Can you guess what’s next, Mr. Scientist?” Dobbs asked.

  Dean stood slowly. “No. But then again, I’m not a sick monster like you.”

  Dobbs’ right eye twitched. Just a flicker. The only sign of anger. Dean began moving toward the spot he had chosen earlier, hoping to draw Dobbs away from Nathan.

  From his pocket Whitey Dobbs pulled a pair of chrome armbands connected to a small metal box. “Do you know what this is?”

  Dean knew it had to be something to transfer the neorads. He played dumb, letting Dobbs talk and eat up time.

  “No?” Dobbs said. “You should. You made it, or at least, you will make it.”

  Dean continued to move.

  “This is the little device that is going to make me normal and you history – literally.” Dobbs threw his head back, laughing at his own joke. Dean took another step toward the center of the clearing.

  “You’re the one making a trip,” Nathan shouted. He had recovered the gun. Unable to stand, bracing his back against the Jeep, he aimed at Dobbs. “A trip to hell.”

  “No!” Dean shouted as he rushed toward his friend. He kicked, striking Nathan’s outstretched arm as a shot exploded from the barrel. Flames punched the sky. The gun fell to the ground. Dean kicked it under the vehicle.

  Nathan’s eyes flared, his face a sculptured look of betrayal. “Why?” he choked, his breathing labored. “I could have killed him.”

  “You don’t understand. Killing him would only make things worse. The only way to end this is to give him what he wants.”

  From behind them came the sound of hands colliding. Whitey Dobbs applauded. “Very good, very good. Now you’re getting with the program. And tell me, Jimmy Dean, what is it I want?”

  Dean turned, surveying the timeless man. “You want me to take your place. You want to be human again.”

  Dobbs opened his hands in a who-me? gesture. “How do you surmise that?”

  “The radiation that’s keeping you in a state of flux,” Dean said. “It’s attached to your bioelectrical field. I suspect that under the right circumstances the radiation, the neorads, can be trans
ferred from one person to another.”

  Suddenly Nathan understood. “Then one of us would be the ghost – the man trapped between the seconds.”

  “And Dobbs would be just a man, albeit a dangerous one, still a killer, but human. Killable.”

  “Why now?” Nathan asked.

  “The conditions have to be just right. Tonight, at this location, we are in the midst of one of the time rips caused by the NxTech explosion. Even as we stand here, we’re all being irradiated. But not enough to effect us permanently. This increased radiation, however, should make it easier for Dobbs’s to transfer the neorads.”

  “Oh, listen to Mr. Smarty-pants. Mr. Knows Everything,” Dobbs sneered. “For your information, there will be other opportunities, but I wanted this one. Do you know why?”

  Dean looked across at the man with the throbbing knife. “Because in less than six months a newborn will appear, seemingly out of nowhere. His name will be Elijah.”

  Dobbs arched an eyebrow, clearly surprised by Dean’s analysis.

  “Elijah?” Nathan asked. “How does he figure into this?”

  Dean looked at him. The hurt still remained, but the sense of betrayal had diminished. “Both Dobbs and Elijah are so thoroughly irradiated that they can’t appear in the same place at the same time. But unlike Dobbs, Elijah was born that way. He’s been off limits his whole life. But if Dobbs is human, then he can touch the infant.”

  “And kill him,” Dobbs added.

  Dean smiled. The expression so out of place with the moment that Dobbs shook his head. “What’s so funny, Jimmy Dean? Share.”

  “It won’t work.”

  Now Dobbs smiled. “Oh, you’re going to stop me?”

  “Doesn’t matter whether I do or not. Your plan won’t work. You can’t kill Elijah that way.”

  Two minutes and thirty-four seconds, Dean counted in his head, praying he was right.

  “What the hell do you mean I can’t kill him? You watch me, you son of a bitch. I’ll make a baby-kabob out of him.”

  Dean laughed.

  Nathan frowned, worry written on his face.