by Harvey Click
Somebody yelled, “Hey in there, bring out the woman now. You got thirty seconds and then we’re sending in some things that will eat you like a couple sirloins.”
Another voice yelled, though more weakly, “This is Sheriff Candy. Listen to me boys, you gotta do what they say or they’re gonna kill us all. They got things in the back of this car that will eat you alive.”
Amy knew they’d be hunting her as soon as they found Floyd bleeding on the floor. Their headlights were aimed at the house instead of the shed, and that’s probably where their attention was aimed as well. Behind the shed was a steep declivity leading to a wide flat area with shrubs and boulders, and she eased her way stealthily down the rocky slope, ran a little ways to a dense thicket of mesquite, and hid behind it to listen.
There was a gunshot but she didn’t think it was aimed at her. It had sounded muffled, as if the muzzle had been pressed against flesh, probably the sheriff’s. She ran farther until she saw two flashlight beams exploring the landscape on either side of her, and then she hid behind a boulder.
“Amy Malone, we know you’re out there,” someone called. “It won’t do you any good to run. We have two helpers with us. I believe maybe you’ve met up with their kind before. They’re called grimsnuffers, and they can sniff you out wherever you are. I’ve given them orders to bring you to us alive, but if they see you running away from them they’re liable to get mad and forget all about their orders.”
She peeped out from behind her boulder. She could see by their flashlights that the men were standing beside the shed on the hill she’d climbed down, and then in one of the flashlight beams she saw something that had already come down the hill and was scrabbling around the flat area below it, sniffing the ground. It was scrabbling on all fours like a gorilla but was obscenely hairless, its slimy gray skin glowing in the moonlight.
Amy ducked her head back behind the boulder.
“We’ve already called for reinforcements,” the man yelled. “They’ll get here pretty soon and surround the whole area with more helpers just like these and maybe some others that can fly through the air. We promise we won’t harm you if you surrender now. You don’t have a chance out there.”
She waited until both flashlight beams were aimed away from her boulder, and then ran. The ground was generally sloping down so she would have been able to run very fast except it was stony and rough and creased with ditches where water had run during heavy rains.
She knew the men were pursuing her because she saw their flashlight beams dancing on tree trunks and boulders on either side of her, and when the light moved too close to her she ducked behind whatever was available or fell down flat on the ground, but there was little time for ducking and hiding.
One of the ditches was deep enough to hide her if she kept her head down while she ran. It led to an arroyo that wended down into a shallow ravine with a dry creek bed running through it, and as she followed its twists and turns the rocky walls of the ravine grew steeper and higher on both sides of her.
The soles of her tennis shoes weren’t sturdy enough for the stony creek bed, but she ignored the bruises on her feet and ran until she was panting so hard that she had to stop, then she’d walk for a minute or two and when her breath slowed she’d run some more.
After a long while she needed to rest. She ducked into a cavern in the ravine wall and sat down on a flat boulder. At first she was panting too hard to hear anything else, but when her breathing finally slowed she still couldn’t hear anything except crickets chirping and some water slowly dripping into a small pool at the other side of the creek bed.
Her watch said 1:20, and she figured she’d probably been running for at least an hour. The man had claimed his grimsnuffers could sniff her out wherever she was, and she knew that was true if the sorcerer who controlled them had some of her hair or fingernails, anything with her DNA, and she wondered if he did. But the thing she’d seen back there had been sniffing the ground like a dog, so maybe grimsnuffers were able to follow her scent like dogs even without DNA. If the creek bed had water running in it maybe she’d be able to throw off its scent that way, but it didn’t.
Though the day had been hot the night was chilly, and her sweaty T-shirt felt so cold she began to shiver. She wondered how much longer her strength and her feet would hold out. Somewhere there had to be a road, but where, and if her pursuers had called in reinforcements would the road be safe? By now there could be cars looking for her on every road surrounding this wilderness.
If she spirit-traveled she might be able to spot the monsters and men who were following her, and maybe she could find the nearest road and see if it was patrolled by enemies. She didn’t want to leave her body unguarded when a gunman or a grimsnuffer could be prowling nearby, but it seemed she had no choice.
She lay back on the rock and was about to sing the spirit-travel chant silently in her head when she heard a sound nearby, a rock tumbling down the side of the ravine and landing at the bottom. She crept to the mouth of the cavern and cautiously peered out.
One of those hideous naked things was crouched with its back to her not thirty feet away. It was sniffing the ground near the creek bed but not smelling her scent because it was in the wrong direction from the cavern, where she hadn’t been. It must have just clambered down the wall of the ravine and was wondering if she was down here.
She held her breath and crept back into the darkness of the cavern, moving her feet slowly and carefully so as to not dislodge a stone. The cavern was deeper than she expected, and the ceiling became so low she needed to duck her head.
She was maybe twenty feet back from the mouth when a snake rattled just a foot or two behind her.
Amy had always been terrified of snakes, and icy sweat tricked down her back as she forced herself to stand still. She didn’t dare move because the grimsnuffer had just shambled into view at the mouth of the cave and was peering into the darkness where she was hidden. The wide nostrils of its little punched-in nose wriggled as it sniffed the air and the hideous polyps on its face writhed and squirmed. It bent down and made a snuffling sound as it smelled the ground, and the snake rattled again behind her.
The next minute lasted an hour, and then the grimsnuffer let out a quiet but blood-chilling howl and ambled away in the direction from which Amy had come. She breathed at last and crept forward as slowly as she could. Maybe the chill air had made the rattlesnake lethargic, maybe it was drowsy and content with a fat rodent in its belly, or maybe it had decided she was no threat because of her absolute stillness, but she knew she would feel forever grateful to the viper for not striking.
She moved to the mouth of the cave and peered out. The demon was down on all fours, following the path she had recently traveled. She waited until it disappeared around a bend and then ran swiftly the other way.
The ravine twisted and turned and she came to a place where another narrower ravine branched off to her left and a shallow pool of water sat in the creek bed. She stood in it for a moment to cool her blistered feet, and then continued through the wider ravine. It grew still wider as it descended, and eventually it ended in a rocky bajada.
Though there were some shrubs and boulders down here to hide behind, she felt exposed in the moonlight. On the other hand she was better able to see if something was sneaking up on her. Her feet hurt so badly that she’d stopped running, but she moved quickly from one hiding place to another, where she’d watch and listen before moving to the next.
It was 2:30 when she found a circle of boulders she could hide inside. Somewhere a nighthawk called as it hunted, but otherwise all was still. She lay on the ground and silently sang the spirit-travel chant.
For a while her astral body circled protectively above her real body, searching the hiding places in all directions and seeing nothing, and then it flew west in the direction of the descending moon. She saw a road about a quarter mile from where her body lay, and as she flew toward it she spotted an SUV hidden behind a patch of brush not far
off the road. She perched in a tree and watched, and soon she saw two figures with rifles dart from one thicket of trees to another.
She flew back toward her body and was circling above it looking for a better place in the bajada to hide when she spotted the grimsnuffer. It was no more than fifty yards from the boulders where her body lay, shambling closer as it sniffed the ground.
Then she saw a man duck behind a tree not very far from the demon.
She opened her eyes, pulled the single-action Browning from her waistband and cocked it, though she knew it would be no good against the demon. Her only hope was that the thing would pass her by. She peeped out between two of the boulders and saw that was not going to be the case; the thing obviously had her scent and was headed directly toward her, now only twenty yards away or less.
Though bullets wouldn’t kill it, maybe they would slow it down enough for her to outrun it—though even if she managed to get away from the thing she’d need to save some bullets for the man sneaking up behind it and the two people coming from the road. She decided she’d fire three shots at the demon and then run like hell.
She stood and aimed her gun at the grimsnuffer, but before she fired she heard a thwick and the thing fell face forward in the dirt with an arrow sticking out of its back. The man who’d been following it was standing beside a tree maybe thirty feet behind the demon.
“Don’t shoot me, Amy,” he said. “It’s Bloody Joe.”
Chapter 6
Bloody Joe hid in the boulders with her and called someone on his phone. “I’ve got her,” he said. “Keep your eyes open for us, we’re moving west and I’m hoping I can find that damn road.”
“I know where the road is,” Amy said quietly. “But there’s an SUV parked beside it and I saw two people prowling around with rifles.”
“That’s probably Lucky and Nyx,” Bloody Joe said.
They hurried from hiding place to hiding place over the rough terrain, and about five minutes later Lucky stepped out of a thick shadow with his rifle in hand and said, “Over here, Joe.” A moment later Nyx stepped out of another shadow, and they all hurried to Lucky’s gold SUV and piled in.
Bloody Joe hadn’t wanted to make any unnecessary noise before, but as soon as their vehicle was on the road he called Shane and handed his phone to Amy.
“Are you all right?” Shane asked.
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
“Thank God. Tell Lucky I’m heading for my Jeep.”
Lucky was driving and Nyx was in the front with him looking at a GPS. Her hair was longer now and was brown instead of bright orange.
“I guess you’re still attracting demons,” she said.
“Save that crap for later,” Bloody Joe said. “Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open.”
Amy wanted to know why her old comrades were there, but she did as Bloody Joe said and kept her mouth shut. She was sitting in the back seat with him and looking out at the moonlit sky when a horrible face suddenly appeared staring into her window.
“Shit,” she said. “It’s a fucking harpy.”
“Pull over,” Bloody Joe said.
Lucky did. Bloody Joe and Nyx jumped out, and a moment later the harpy fell dead at the side of the road.
They got back in, and Nyx said, “See what I mean? I told you she’s attracting demons.”
“I don’t think whoever’s controlling them has my DNA,” Amy said. “The demons chasing me out there weren’t very good at finding me. They were sniffing the ground like dogs. For a while one of them was just twenty feet away from me but it didn’t find me.”
“Grimsnuffers, probably,” Lucky said. “They’re supposed to have pretty good noses, but not as good as bloodhounds.”
“Look, there are more harpies up there,” Bloody Joe said.
Amy looked out and saw two of them flapping in the moonlight, but they were a good distance away and didn’t seem to be interested in the vehicle. They seemed to be searching for her out there in the wilderness.
“Car coming, everybody down,” Lucky said.
Everybody except Lucky got down on the floor, and Amy heard the car go past them very slowly.
“What was it?” Bloody Joe asked when it was behind them.
“Black SUV, two men in the front seat, maybe some more in back,” Lucky said. “The driver had a close look at me as they went by.”
“That probably made him good and sick,” Nyx said.
“Do you see anything back there, Joe?” Lucky asked. “Did it turn around?”
“Not unless they shut their lights off,” Joe said.
Lucky’s phone rang. He listened for a minute, said “Okay,” and hung up.
“Shane says there’s an SUV prowling up and down the road over where he is,” he said. “He’s in his car now and says he’ll follow us when he sees us go by.”
A mile later they turned left onto a narrow dirt road. It was twisty and hilly, and they seemed to be going up more often than down. A car hidden off the road to the left pulled out behind them.
“That’s Shane,” Lucky said.
Amy looked through the back window at the Jeep’s headlights, scarcely able to believe she was sitting here safe or at least semi-safe with three old comrades while her husband was following just a few feet behind her. Now if only she had her baby, all would be well.
“Car approaching,” Lucky said, and they all got down on the floor. The road was so narrow they had to slow to a crawl to get past it.
“Another SUV,” Lucky said after it was behind them. “People in front and back.”
“SUVs must be all these assholes ever drive,” Nyx said. “Fucking gas hogs.”
Lucky turned left again, and before long on her left Amy saw the house where Floyd and Butch had brought her. As they drove past it she saw the sheriff’s body still lying in the driveway.
“Stop here,” Bloody Joe said.
Lucky stopped, and Joe hurried into a thicket off the road. While Lucky waited for him, Amy ran to Shane’s Jeep and got in. They hugged awkwardly over the console until Joe’s silver Santa Fe pulled out of the bushes and onto the road behind them, and then the caravan moved on.
There was much to talk about. Amy told her story first and then Shane told his. After calling his coworker Jim Blaine to ask for help, he had called Bloody Joe.
“How’d you know his number?” Amy asked.
“It’s the same one he had when we were fighting Sandoval. I deleted it from my phone after we left Blackwood, but first I memorized it and Lucky’s too. I’ve kept them stored in my head all this time in case of an emergency.”
“You never told me that.”
“I try to avoid talking about anything that might remind you of that time.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “PTSD. General Patton wouldn’t approve of me.”
Shane told her that Bloody Joe, Lucky, and Nyx were all in El Paso, where they’d just finished some sort of job, so they were able to get here pretty quickly. His phone rang soon after he had lost sight of the vehicle with Sheriff Candy and his abductors, and it was Joe saying they’d reached Silver Stone. With the help of Shane’s GPS and their own they were able to meet up, and then they went off in three separate directions searching for the SUV Shane had lost sight of.
“Joe and Nyx saw the sheriff lying dead in a driveway, so Joe hid his car off the road to have a look,” Shane said. “One of the house doors was open, so they sneaked in and found Floyd still handcuffed to the futon with a bullet hole in his forehead. They found a couple strands of brown hair on the back of the futon and thought they might be yours except they were too long, but when Joe called me I told him you’d been letting it grow.
“They had a good look around the yard and found footprints in the dirt out back. Joe decided that two men with boots had gone down the slope behind the house, plus one woman with tennis shoes and two demons with bare paws, and it looked like the only ones who’d climbed back up were the two men.
“So he started trac
king you while Nyx stayed and watched the house, and by the time Lucky and I got there he was already pretty far back in the wilderness. We called him, and he told us to find the roads surrounding the area and start hunting from those directions, so Nyx pulled up a map on her phone and we figured out the best places to start looking.”
“I don’t understand how he caught up with me,” Amy said. “I was running most of the time.”
Shane answered his phone. He listened for half a minute, said “Okay,” and hung up.
“Nyx found a motel on her phone about five miles up ahead,” he said.
It was a long shabby building finished with chipped yellow stucco, ten or twelve rooms laid out in a row but only three of them had cars parked in front. Joe and Lucky went into the rental office, but Shane parked way down at the far end of the row where the Jeep wouldn’t be easy to see. He shut off the engine but didn’t get out.
“Aren’t you going to get us a room?” Amy asked.
“Not yet. First I need to know what your plans are. Do you want to go to the police tomorrow?”
“Not in Silver Stone and maybe not any of the other towns nearby. I don’t trust the local cops. But I want to talk to the FBI.”
“Are you sure? The Lost Society has lots of money, and feds can be corrupt too. And of course sooner or later they’re going to ask questions about what happened in Blackwood.”
“I know that, but we’ve got to do it. We’ve got to find Emily, and we’re going to need some help.”
“I agree,” Shane said, “but I wanted to hear your thoughts before I said anything. But it probably means we should find a different motel. I don’t think the others are going to want anything to do with the law, and if the rental guy tells the FBI they came in and rented rooms the same time we did, then they’re going to be on the radar.”
“Yeah.”
Pretty soon the others came out of the rental office and parked their vehicles in front of their rooms. Bloody Joe and Nyx went into one room and Lucky into the one beside it. A few minutes later he went next door to join the other two, and Shane and Amy got out and tapped on the door.