by Arthur Slade
He grabbed at the cross.
There was a blinding flash of light. A smell of burning flesh. Kar screamed and fell back. I was hit by a shock wave that drove my head into the door.
I saw bright, swirling lights.
Then darkness.
25
I opened my eyes, turned my groggy head. I had no idea how long I was out. My skull ached, my ankle, my arms—my whole body felt like a herd of buffalo had stampeded across it twice. The interior of the truck smelled like smoke and burnt flesh. I felt my hair; some of it came away in my hands.
What had happened?
I inhaled and held my breath. Listening. There was nothing. Just silence. I looked, but everywhere was inky darkness. I couldn’t see a thing through the windows.
I peeked my head up a little higher and stared out the back. By squinting I could make out a huge, lumpy shape moving on two feet. It disappeared into the bushes.
It looked like it was carrying two sacks of potatoes.
Michael and Angie. Kar was taking them away.
I had to do something. I had to.
But what? I scrambled around the truck, searching for the flashlight. It was like one of those nightmares where you need something really bad but it just keeps slipping out of your grasp. It could have gone anywhere when the truck went off the road. Even been thrown out.
My hand felt something hard and round under the seat. I pulled.
The flashlight.
I pushed the switch forward. No light. Nothing.
I slapped the flashlight in my other hand, a movement I’d seen my father do a hundred times before when he was going out in the night to check the dogs. That moved the batteries around and suddenly the flashlight grew bright, shrinking my pupils.
I pointed it down.
The cross was on the seat. Broken in two.
The wood was still smoldering. I touched it and burned my hand.
I knew it wouldn’t be any help anymore.
I climbed out of the truck. I felt on my back. I still had the wineskin. I had no idea whether it would do me any good.
I took a deep breath and started in the direction I’d last seen Kar. My ankle almost collapsed beneath my weight, but I carried on, pushing into the underbrush, branches slapping at my face. Even in the dull light, his trail was easy to follow. Broken bushes, bent saplings, and huge prints in the soft earth.
I charged on, deeper into the woods, running past trees, tripping over roots. Getting up and running again.
No one’s going to find us, I thought. All of us could die out here, lost in the trees.
I should have phoned the police.
A few steps later it dawned on me that they were probably patrolling the area. They’d see the truck all smashed up and suspect that something was going on. Maybe they’d come looking, see Althea’s truck too. Just maybe.
I headed on. Twigs cracking below me. The mist grew heavier again, tendrils reaching through the trees. When I looked down, I couldn’t even see my feet, it was so thick. I could fall into a pit without knowing it.
But I had to carry on.
The trail was growing harder to follow. There was too much fog. Too much darkness.
A few steps later the flashlight went black.
I stopped, slapped the light against my hand. It wouldn’t work. I took out the batteries and put them back in again. No luck.
I gave up and kept moving ahead, slower now, squinting and dodging trees. I gripped the flashlight tight in my hand. It was heavy enough to be a good weapon.
But against what? Kar had bested my grandfather who had a shotgun. Had crushed Hugin. What could I do against him?
Sarah, a voice said inside my head, stop thinking that way. Just keep going. I was sure it was my own voice—but why did it sound like Grandma Asmundson? She couldn’t be talking to me. Not from heaven.
But a lot of strange things had already happened tonight.
My imagination was getting to me. All I knew was that I had to charge on, no matter what.
A sudden dark flash in my head made me stumble and fall to my knees. I felt claustrophobic suddenly, had an image of darkness, boards being moved, and could hear my brother whispering: no no no no no.
I knew what it was. I was feeling the same thing as Michael. He was being shoved in a shallow hole and covered with earth. I could sense him choking, clawing, fighting to keep the dirt from blocking his mouth.
My brother was being buried alive.
Then the image flew away from me and I was left crouching, feeling sick.
I got up again. Michael needed me. Grandpa. Angie. Althea. They all needed me to keep going.
But how would I find them? I’d lost the trail in the darkness and mist.
I looked up at the moon, a silver face peering through the trees. It wasn’t bright enough to light my way.
I couldn’t just stand here.
I gathered my courage and started walking in the direction that seemed correct. Looking for any sign that I was going the right way.
After about five minutes I began to panic. I was lost. I wasn’t even sure where the road was . . . ahead of me or behind me. I might have made a circle. I could wander out here for days with no hope of finding anything.
I leaned against a tree. It was hopeless.
Then I looked up.
In the distance a light was glowing.
26
I ran towards it blindly, not caring if I fell or smacked my head against a tree.
It retreated. So I sped up.
I couldn’t tell what kind of light it was . . . a flashlight? A torch? Maybe I should yell.
Just as I opened my mouth to holler, the light disappeared.
I picked up my pace, heading for the last place where I had seen it. Moonlight glinted through the tops of the trees, lighting some of my way. Painting everything white and silver.
I stopped when I heard a noise.
“Help! Help!” It was a small voice. Very far away and familiar.
I took a few steps. Listened.
Nothing.
I moved my left foot ahead.
“Help! Help!”
The cry came from directly in front of me. But there was nothing there. Just a bit of a clearing. A few bushes. Grass.
“Who is it?” I whispered.
No answer.
I moved my right foot.
Even in the moonlight I could see a dark round O in the ground. And I could hear splashing water.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hello! Sarah is that you?” It was Brand’s voice. Yelling up from far below me.
“Brand! What happened?” I got down on my hands and knees, careful not to move too far ahead.
“I—I don’t know. I was looking for Grandma. My flashlight stopped working and next thing I knew I fell down here—in a well.” He paused. “I think someone pushed me though.”
“Are you alright?”
“Yes. But—something looked down a few minutes ago, Sarah. It was big. Its head filled the hole. It was an animal I think.”
I knew it was worse than an animal. “Can you get out?” I asked.
“I can’t climb up. The walls are too slick. I’m treading water right now. Is there a rope or something up there you can toss to me?”
I looked around. “Nothing. How far down are you?” I couldn’t see anything but darkness. I heard another splash.
“About thirty feet, I think. It’s deep. I can just kind of see you.”
“So a tree branch wouldn’t work, then?”
“No.”
We were quiet a second. “It—” I started, then cleared my throat, “—that thing that looked in at you has Angie and Michael. And Althea too.” I paused. “We wrecked the truck.”
“The ’57 doesn’t ma
tter.” I heard him breathe in. “Listen Sarah, I’ll be okay here. There’s a ledge I can hang on to. You . . . you try and help Angie and Michael and everyone. Come back and get me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Go. I can last for hours down here.”
I paused. “Okay. I will. Take care of yourself.”
“Just get there!”
Then I was off again. Running. Careful not to fall in the well.
A few hundred feet farther and the light appeared again.
A glowing light. With a tiny figure inside.
I realized what it was.
The boy. The ghost. Showing me the way.
A moment later I saw the cabin.
27
It was the cabin from my nightmare.
The door was half open, the house lopsided. Wind and rain had hammered on it for years, twisting it into an almost living shape. I knew the boards and logs had soaked up enough evil to stain them black.
Somewhere inside I would find everyone.
Or their bodies.
I had to stop thinking that way. But it had been so long since Grandpa was taken.
What hope was there?
The boy had disappeared. If he had ever even been there.
I swallowed. Somewhere behind me, Brand was treading water, thirty feet below the ground. I needed to hurry if I was going to do anything.
I snuck around the side of the cabin, using the trees as cover. I inched up to the wall and tried to look in the window. The glass was thick and round. It seemed to be made from the bottoms of old, dark, wine bottles. I couldn’t see a thing through it.
I crept to the back of the house, looking left and right. I could make out an entrance to a cellar. I went up to it, bent down and listened, but heard nothing. I put my hand to the rope handle. Maybe there was some clue inside.
I couldn’t pull. I didn’t want to see what was under a cabin as horrendous as this one.
They can’t be there, I decided. I released the handle. They can’t be.
I went around the other side, found another window. It was even darker than the first one. I crept to the front of the cabin. There was a small porch and a half-open door.
I had to go inside. There was no other choice. I stole along the wall, up to the wooden floorboards. Fresh dirt was scattered in front of the door.
I stepped on the porch and the whole house moaned in protest, as if it knew I was there. I took another step and the board creaked. The wood was so brittle it could hardly carry my weight.
I set my hand on the door, staying to one side, and pushed slowly.
It creaked open.
I peeked around the corner. I couldn’t see anything inside but shadows. I listened.
No movement.
I came around the corner, took my first step into the cabin.
Nothing.
I went farther, boards cracking beneath my feet. Was the cellar under me? Would I fall right through?
I took another step and another, till I was past the door.
My eyes slowly adjusted to this black, black darkness.
I could see a broken table in one corner, a chair. An old bed. All dimly visible.
This would be an awful place to live.
And to die.
I edged ahead. There was dirt piled here and there on the floor. The cabin smelled musty and rotten. Then I stepped again.
My foot caught on something and I fell, headlong, letting go of the flashlight, sucking in air, trying not to scream.
Down, down, down.
But not onto the floor.
I hit a body.
I pushed myself up. Something big and cold and once alive was below me.
I rolled away from it.
Right into another body. Two big, pale, glassy eyes stared into mine.
I bit my tongue to keep from screaming. I sat up, backed away again.
Then I saw the horns. Just above the eyes. The four legs and hooves.
They were deer.
And cows.
Dead and strewn across the floor. Even in the dark I could see that some of them were half eaten. I heard flies buzzing quietly, back and forth.
There must have been at least six bodies. It was hard to tell because some of them only had the heads left.
Torn apart as if by some wild animal.
I stood in the center of the cabin now. Looking around.
Had the same thing happened to Grandpa? To Michael? Angie?
Nothing seemed to be alive in the room. Maybe that was good.
I stepped over the body of a deer. I squinted my eyes and looked around.
But I couldn’t see anything.
Then a glittering caught my attention, a movement in the corner of my eye.
The ghost boy was standing at the other end of the cabin.
28
He looked sad, lost, afraid.
I knew exactly how he felt.
“Bad,” he whispered. His mouth kept moving but no words came out.
He stopped, seemed to be crying. His big eyes looking at me.
“I know,” I whispered. “It’s a bad place. I know, Eric.”
His eyes widened when he heard his name. It really was him.
“Are you . . . trapped here?” I suddenly had an image of Eric still searching for his family in the trees after all this time. He didn’t seem to understand my question. He kept blinking his eyes.
“Bad man,” he moaned, “bad man put dirt on me.”
It must have been Kormak, Kar’s father. Fifty years ago he had buried this child. Then, how many years later, his son had come to take away my grandfather. What kind of a family were they? Evil ran in their blood.
I imagined Eric spending the last fifty years warning people away from this place. Not wanting the same thing to happen to anyone else. Maybe there was some way I could help him. To release him.
“You will be free,” I promised. “Your mother will hold you again . . . soon.”
He was crying now, big watery tears that fell from his face and disappeared before they hit the floor. I wished I could somehow hug him. I didn’t dare move closer; he might vanish.
He wiped at his eyes. “Under boards. Buried. Good. Buried old man.”
My heartbeat skipped. “Do you mean Grandpa?”
This question made Eric point down below him, stomping little feet that made no noise. “Hurry . . . fast . . . buried . . . bad man coming.”
I stepped towards him.
“Bad man coming,” he repeated.
Another step and he vanished.
I went to where he had been standing. Stood there. What did he mean?
A cry came from beneath my feet.
29
It was human sounding. Soft. A moan of pain. It was so familiar.
“Grandpa?” I asked, getting down on my knees. “Grandpa?”
Another whispering groan.
I felt around, found an edge on one of the boards. I pulled up with all my strength. Slivers bit into my hands, but still I kept working.
Finally, with a creaking protest, the board came up.
I looked down, couldn’t see anything but blackness. I yanked up another board.
A sliver of moonlight came through a crack in the roof, lighting up the space in front of me. There was a thin oval, a nose, mouth, closed eyes. An old and wrinkled face. Half buried in the dirt.
“Grandpa!” I exclaimed. “Grandpa!”
I touched his cheek. It was cold, so cold that I feared he was dead.
His eyes opened, slowly. “Sarah,” he whispered, his voice gravelly. I realized he probably hadn’t had any water for over a day. “Sarah, you’re here.”
“Yes,” I said, “Everything’s going to be alright. You’re alive. I kn
ew you would be. I’m going to get you out.”
He blinked. “I can’t move. I feel like I’ve been in a freezer for ten years. Now I know what a sirloin steak feels like.” He tried to smile, but couldn’t.
“Grandpa,” I asked, “is it . . . the man . . . thing . . . is it what I think it is?”
He blinked. “Yes. Too much hate inside him to stay dead.”
I swallowed. “He—” I said urgently, “Kar has Michael and Sarah and Althea too.”
This seemed to wake Grandpa up. “Help me out of here. First close the door.”
I went over and pushed the door shut.
“Now what?” I asked when I was standing over him again.
Grandpa blinked. “Listen very carefully. You must—Oh no!”
“What? What?”
“I’m getting . . . colder.” A frightened tone had come into his voice, his words were slurred.
“Colder? What do you mean?”
“C-c-c-older . . . colder . . . whenever he gets . . . close . . .”
“I’ll dig you out. Now.”
“No.” It seemed to take all of Grandpa’s strength to get these words out. “No . . . time. You must save . . . the others. Leave . . . me.”
“But . . .”
There was a rumbling sound outside, like thunder.
“Go,” he whispered. “Speak sofa um nótt.” He seemed to be rambling, not making any sense. “Sofa . . . um . . . nótt. Go . . . trust . . . your blood.”
He closed his eyes.
A weight hit the door and it rattled on its hinges.
30
I jumped back against the wall. There was a soft sst sound as something sharp and thin poked into my back.
Then I felt a wet, warm liquid running down my back.
Blood! I was bleeding.
I felt behind me, discovered that the wineskin I was carrying had been punctured and was leaking water down my back. I had hit an old nail.
The consecrated water! I knew I needed it and here it was pouring out onto the floor.