One.
Jack jerked his head to his left. The Hound’s head was exposed for just a moment.
Alex pulled the trigger.
Chapter Thirty
I’m never going to be able to go into an attic again.
I reached up and rubbed at my right ear. There was a small, round notch in it where Alex’s bullet had grazed it. It wasn’t bleeding anymore, but still stung.
We were driving—if you could call it that in a car leaking steam from the hood, and making weird thumping sounds—away from my house as fast as Alex could take us. I had two duffle bags in the back seat: one with some clothes I’d managed to hurriedly throw in, the other with my grandfather’s journals and the two film reels. I’d been tempted to leave the one labeled “Discoveries,” but somehow that felt wrong.
There’d been no sign of the Insider when we went downstairs after Alex’s bullet had torn through the Hound’s head. We’d been out the door five minutes later.
Alex suddenly pulled us to the side of an old access road and stopped the car. She looked pale, and her hands trembled. It was an odd sight. She’d almost always been so calm and cool that seeing her start to freak out made me freak out.
She opened the car door and barely managed to get her head outside before puking her guts out. She wiped off her mouth with the back of her hand. Distantly I considered it a good thing she still had her hair tightly wound up.
She pointed back at me without looking up. “Water. Glove box.”
I reached in and found a bottle of water. I opened it for her and handed it over. She took a swig, rinsed it around her mouth, then spit. The process repeated until the bottle was empty.
“I need a place to change,” Alex said weakly. She looked down at her dress and bare feet. The dress would be a complete loss. Her feet were cut up and bruised, and one of her toes appeared to be broken. Blood still covered her, though now it was kinda dry and flaky.
I remained relatively clean. The sticky blood on the back of my neck and head from the gym and then from the Hound having its head blown apart next to me would need to come off, but apart from that, I could probably change shirts and no one would be the wiser. Well, aside from the massive bruise on my face. All of that should have bothered me, but it all blurred together in my mind like memories out of focus. Maybe it was a coping mechanism. Or maybe I was just a dumb kid in shock, and it would all hit me later.
“A hotel?” I asked. They had showers. A crappy hotel likely wouldn’t even ask questions about why a kid like me was asking for a room. I was about the size of your average college student. And that whole Homecoming stereotype…thing.
Leaning back into the car, Alex sat back. I had a feeling her car needed a deeper cleaning than we did. “OK. I’ve got some cash in my gun bag. We need to keep this off grid as much as possible.” She closed her eyes for a few moments like she was trying to collect herself. When they opened again, she was back to business. I envied her ability to compartmentalize.
“I know a hotel at the edge of town,” she said. “Tourist trap. It’s like fifty-nine dollars a night. I saw it on my way out of town to buy my dress.”
There wasn’t really any need for me to reply, so I didn’t. She pulled back out onto the road, dirt swirling in our wake. We were off the access road and onto the main road within a few minutes.
#
It was close to midnight when we finally reached the hotel. The name on the side read “The Vacancy Inn”. It was every horror movie cliché wrapped in a neat little bow. But like Alex had mentioned, it only cost fifty-nine a night. HBO was extra.
Alex fished out some twenties from her bag and handed them over. I took off my dad’s sport jacket, and unbuttoned my shirt to take it off as well. I used it to scrub at the back of my head and neck. It was a goner anyway. I took a t-shirt from my bag and slipped it on.
“Be right back,” I said and hopped out of the car.
The night clerk was half asleep when I got there. Tall and rail-thin, he typed away at a laptop. Calm guitar music—instrumental—played from his tiny laptop speakers. He looked up at me and let out a sigh and a half-smile.
“Hey there,” he said. He ran his hand through thin hair, which served only to make it stick up wildly in every direction. His name tag read “Rob”.
“Hey,” I said. I figured the less I spoke the better.
“Room?”
“That’d be great.”
“Sixty-three dollars and thirty-four cents.” He checked his watch. “Since it’s 12:05 our policy is that we give you all day tomorrow, then make you check out the day after that at 8am. Sound good?”
“Sure.” I handed over four bills. As he made change he kept glancing over at his shoulder at me.
“You OK, man?” he asked. “You get in a car accident or something?”
My face. “Or something,” I said.
He nodded slowly. He seemed to be considering something, then as he handed back my change said, “You need anything?”
“You have an ice machine?”
He pulled a face. “Not really. I have an ice maker in the back room,” he pointed to the door behind him. “We charge ten bucks a bucket.”
Looking at the change he’d just given me, and thinking of Alex’s battered feet, I asked, “How big are the buckets?”
Rob pulled one from under the counter. It would fit one foot. Barely. “Tell you what,” he said with another smile. “My boss won’t have any idea how much ice is gone. It’s not like he checks the levels or anything. How much do you want?”
“I could use three buckets,” I replied.
He got up from his chair and went into the back room. I heard a rumbling, then he returned with three buckets of ice. He passed them over the counter to me, and pulled a key from a rack on the wall next to him.
“Room number three,” he said with another tired smile. “It’s at the end on your right. Ice is on me.”
“Thanks,” I said with a genuine smile.
The clerk was already turning back to stare at his computer screen. “No worries, man. You look like you could use a little help.” He sat down and resumed typing.
I walked out the door and pointed down towards the room and held up three fingers. She backed out and pulled into a stall fifty yards further down. Alex stayed in the car until I caught up. After I’d unlocked the door I waved her in.
Alex went straight for the shower. I took her keys and pulled out the bags, taking them two at a time into our room. Her bags were at least twice as heavy as mine. I slid one of her bags that had clothing in it next to the shower door.
There was only one bed in the room.
Huh.
I took a washcloth I tried to think of as totally clean despite the overall look of the room, and wrapped some ice pellets in it. My face hurt bad. Getting hit in the face was far worse than the movies pretended. The ice felt amazing.
My eyes were closed, my head resting against the wall—which I prayed nothing was crawling on—when I heard the bathroom door open.
Just in case, I kept my eyes closed.
“Is this ice for me?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. I was exhausted. “The night clerk told me I looked like I ‘could use a little help’. Apparently my face is looking awesome. I figured a little ice for my face, and a lot more ice for your feet, which have got to be killing you.”
No response. I waited for at least a couple of minutes before daring to peek through a cracked eyelid. She sat on the edge of the bed in a pair of short running shorts and t-shirt, staring at me. She had one foot in each of the buckets of ice, though the ice was more of a watery slush now.
The next thing I knew tears spilled down her face.
The way I figure, a person can only hold in that kind of stuff for so long. It sucks when it all comes out. It sucks even worse when someone else sees you lose it. Been there, done that.
I got up and quickly crossed the tiny room to sit next to her. I pulled her into a hug jus
t like she had for me only a couple days earlier. We stayed like that for an hour while she cried her eyes out. I didn’t know all the reasons behind the tears, and I didn’t need to. Sometimes things just get to a point where one little thing makes it all spill over.
No words were said. Nothing I could say would likely do any good. When her tears stopped, we were lying down on the bed next to each other. She stretched up and gave me a peck on my throbbing cheek, then relaxed against me. She was asleep within a minute.
My own eyes closed right after, and for the first time in forever, I didn’t dream.
Chapter Thirty-One
I woke up in the exact same position I’d fallen asleep in. Alex was still curled against me. She smelled like generic soap and cheap shampoo. It was amazing.
I levered myself up as carefully as possible, trying not to wake her up. The digital clock next to the bed showed almost nine-thirty.
Alex stirred and opened her eyes.
I expected a freak out. Instead she leaned into me with another hug and smiled. She looked fantastic.
Unlike her, I was still a complete disaster. My face hurt even worse, and my right eye had swollen half-shut. Reluctantly I pulled away from her and shambled to the shower. I grabbed my own bag of clothes and brought them in with me.
Forty-five minutes later I felt somewhat refreshed. I used the rest of the shampoo in the little bottle the hotel provided, then spent some time making sure all the grime and blood went down the drain.
When I came out of the bathroom, Alex was fully dressed, and all our stuff packed. Our torn and bloody clothes were in a garbage bag. Alex had emptied all the pockets of my clothing, and the contents lay on the table. Apart from the ammunition magazines, it was depressingly little: my wallet and a rumpled envelope.
The documents the Insider gave me.
I wanted to open that envelope badly, but we had something else we needed to take care of.
“I have an idea,” I said. “Let’s go for a drive.”
#
I had Alex stop the mostly-wrecked car near the sign marking the entrance to Calm Waters. Changed from the vision of my grandfather’s time, now a rest-stop sprawled here. We had the radio on and listened to various news reports.
Calm Waters was a disaster. Reports ranged from wild animals on the loose to a terrorist attack. The number of dead was remarkably consistent across every version of the story.
Between sixty and seventy-five dead. Another twenty estimated missing. A majority of the dead were teens.
I reached forward and turned the radio off.
“You sure you want to do this right now?” Alex asked.
“I’m worried if we wait, things will get worse,” I answered.
“OK. Lead the way.”
We got out of the car. I wore a normal pair of jeans and a t-shirt with a track-jacket over the top. Alex was in her usual cargo-pants and long-sleeved shirt. She walked a bit gingerly, but not too badly.
Alex carried her normal gun, and I’d refused the more compact one she’d offered me. I just wasn’t good with it. I was probably more a danger to us with the gun than without it.
We crossed the road and headed straight into the woods. I circled us around until we were at the approximate spot where in my grandfather’s memory I had seen through the trees as headlights had shone across the “Welcome” sign. The sign was different, and the foliage around us had also changed.
But not the redwoods. They don’t change much over a few dozen years. It was that very trait that made them an attraction year-after-year.
The going was slow, and every so often I would stop and close my eyes to recall the dream. It almost wasn’t even a dream anymore, since I’d lived it so many times. It was more like a memory. My own memory.
The path was clear in my mind. Every so often Alex would point out something she would notice while reading my thoughts.
Our progress was slow, but there were enough similarities in the larger trees we were able to move steadily along. We took a small break for water and for her to rest her feet. The further we walked the less we talked.
Three hours passed, and then, just like in the memory, a hundred yards ahead I could see the forest opening into a small clearing. Alex drew her pistol.
Just like my grandfather before me, we took those last hundred yards with extreme caution.
At the edge of the clearing I studied the collapsing remains of the same cabin. Half of the roof had caved in, and the wall facing us appeared unstable. It looked like a piece of history time had abandoned.
Except for the pile of animal and human corpses, and they were obviously recent.
The Leech had been here.
No movement gave away the Leech’s position. Maybe it wasn’t even here right now. It could have been stalking another family for all I knew.
I circled to the left to get the best angle on door, but this time the Leech wasn’t laying there against the door frame bleeding.
The corpses were either animals or humans dressed in ragged clothing or plastic bags. Homeless. That was how the Leech had avoided pulling attention. I wondered if the Leech had just grown tired of preying on the homeless, or if the “supply” had begun to run out.
Cautiously, I entered the cabin, Alex at my heels. This had been the main living room, and for the most part remained intact. In one corner a pile of newspapers and foliage looked like it had been used as a bed. The room reeked of mold and filth. The back of the cabin wasn’t accessible due to the collapsed roof.
A shadow passed across the broken window.
Alex’s gun came up in an instant. I suddenly regretted not taking the gun she’d offered.
Nothing happened. Maybe the shadow had been just a tree branch moving weirdly. I was jumpy, and some of that rubbed off on Alex as she read my thoughts.
Sorry, I thought. She lowered her gun and turned towards me, waving it off.
Another flicker of movement, and the Leech suddenly stood behind Alex in the doorway. Its pointed teeth were bared in an animalistic snarl. Alex spun back towards the door when a writhing, purple spike jutted through her chest. She shuddered and dropped her gun, psychic energy bleeding from the wound as she slid off the spike.
She didn’t even make a sound as she hit the floor.
No. No. She couldn’t be…no…
The world trembled around me. I couldn’t scream. Couldn’t cry. The purple spike withdrew into the Leech’s arm. It smiled at me—a terrible smile that made my lungs freeze with fear. The Leech sniffed the air, and a look of recognition played out across its face, like it knew me.
Or it smelled a memory in me. Of my grandfather.
What could I do against this? Alex lay in a heap on the floor, maybe dead. She was the person that had kept me from coming unglued since my dad vanished. But she couldn’t help me here. Everyone was gone.
The Leech held up its hands, and I could see them elongate and creep towards me, just like they had when it had come for Barry. It had such control over them, and its psychic ability. I had nothing.
I promised Barry. The thought was random in my head. Am I gonna let him down? That thing just killed Alex, and now I’m waiting for it to kill me?
No.
I brought up my hands in front of my face and saw them wreathed in purple—lighter than the Leech’s. Everything slowed down, then stopped.
All that mattered was the Leech.
Dust particles froze in midair. Silence descended. No wind. Nothing. The only movement came from me and from the Leech. Its eyes narrowed in concentration. Its psychic hands reached for me, flexing open and closed in their desire to choke the life from me so the Leech could feed on my psychic essence.
No.
I did what felt natural. What I’d seen my grandfather do in the memory. I pushed out my psychic energy into a wall. It wrapped around me, making a protective bubble.
The Leech’s tendrils shot forward. Dozens of them. They flared out from the Leech’s aura and struck like
snakes. They looked like giant versions of the creature’s teeth I had seen when watching Barry’s death. It was all I could do just to keep them out, and even then a few somehow got through my guard. They stung where they touched me, and I could feel my strength draining with each nip.
And the Leech seemed to grow stronger.
Was it feeding off me? Using my own psychic ability against me?
For the most part my shield held. But all I was doing was stalling. I didn’t know how to use my aura to attack. I could only hold out so long against the Leech’s attacks. My breathing grew ragged, and on my arms dozens of tiny snake-like bites appeared, each weeping psychic essence. I was already exhausted. My aura stuttered, letting even more of the tendrils through. I didn’t have much more left in the tank.
The Leech’s tendrils shot at me again. I wouldn’t survive this. I thought of my grandfather in the vision, and how his will had been iron.
Like him, I willed my psychic bubble to hold.
Maybe I didn’t have the raw strength yet to face a monster like this straight on…but that didn’t mean I was helpless. It didn’t mean I should just give up.
I calmed myself like I had in Alex’s gun lesson. Just think of the target. The rest doesn’t matter. I poured every last, tiny scrap of power I had left into the bubble. I also sent one, small, thin tendril of my own snaking through the shadows to my left towards the Leech. I forced my legs to move, closing the gap between us until I stood over Alex’s unmoving figure. More and more of the Leech’s psychic tentacles hammered into my psychic barrier, and I fell to my knees at Alex’s side, next to her outstretched hand. A few more of the tendrils slipped through and pulled energy from me.
It hurt. More than anything. I wanted to cry out, and I had to blink away the tears forming in my eyes. The Leech laughed at me, thinking it had won. It actually licked its lips in anticipation.
My own singular, tiny, insignificant tendril burrowed into the Leech’s foot.
The monster stared down in shock. I felt the slightest trickle of energy coming from it. The momentary hesitation cost the Leech its focus, and its feeding tendrils retreated just an inch away.
Residue Page 21