by Dennis Yates
The dogs were excited. They wanted to chase the elk woman through the woods. And they wouldn’t denied.
Chapter 52
“Leave her alone,” Chad shouted.
Cyclops turned and stared, his body now charged with the energy of the dog pack. The boy was where he’d left him. His eyes were open and he was struggling to get up. Cyclops drew the knife from his jacket and the dogs barked excitedly.
Ann leaped forward and grabbed his arm. He lifted her up and pitched her against the concrete wall. She struck her head before dropping to the ground. Shards of broken glass bit into her palms. She felt him snatch her by the hair and lift her up against the wall and for a moment she saw silver motes dancing in the corners of her eyes. He leaned in close and waved the knife in front of her face.
“Don’t interfere, elk woman. Unless you want some of this.”
“What are you doing?” she cried.
“I think it’s his time, don’t you?”
“You don’t have to hurt him. He hasn’t done anything.”
“Why should it matter to you what happens to the boy? You just said a moment ago that nothing was permanent.”
“Then take me. I don’t think he’d even be here if it wasn’t for me.”
Cyclops stared at her. His single eye seeming to have filled his entire forehead like that of an insect. Ann gasped and looked away.
“I’ll take care of one thing at a time.”
“You’re crazy!”
“I know. But the dogs always get what they want.”
“The dogs? What dogs?”
“You don’t see them?”
“No. You’re just imagining them.”
Cyclops laughed. “I’m not surprised you’d say that.”
He let her go and started toward the boy, wading through the thick river of dogs that now filled the parking lot. They fought and howled for the best place to watch. He refused to look at them, didn’t want to see their faces anymore.
He heard a familiar sound and stopped. Recognized the growl of an engine. When he looked up toward the highway he saw the lightless van roaring down the empty highway. He looked over his shoulder and saw Chad struggling to sit up.
Not yet boy. Not just yet.
He ran up to the drive and waved. The van skidded to a stop in the middle of the highway. Sat while its engine boiled. It was too dark to see who was inside.
“Joseph,” he shouted.
The door swung open and the sheriff slid out and landed on weak legs. His clothes were covered in blood. His eyes moved slowly, as if he’d been hitting the whiskey. They paused on Ann. What is she doing here?
“He says he’s going to kill us,” Ann screamed.
The sheriff raised Cuke’s.45 and pointed it at the Cyclops’ forehead.
“Toss the knife to me. Slowly.”
Cyclops grinned. He lobbed it toward the sheriff and it landed next to his feet.
“Now get your ass on the ground. Before I blow out that goddamned eye of yours.”
Chapter 53
Ann followed the sheriff’s orders and ran to check on Chad. He didn’t appear to be bleeding anywhere that she could tell. But his face and hands were pale and he was cold to the touch. She noticed deep bruises around his neck. When he’d heard her voice he’d looked up and smiled weakly.
“Can you walk?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where do you hurt?”
“All over…”
She lifted his arm and flung it over her shoulder and helped him to his feet. His legs were wobbly.
“I don’t know about this.”
“You’re going to have to try and help me Chad. We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Where are we going?”
“There’s a boat down below. It still has a little gas left in it.”
“But the sheriff is here.”
“I don’t think we can count on anything.”
Cyclops watched as the sheriff seemed to expand and contract with each wave of pain, the barrel of the.45 still leveled at his face. He noticed the dogs sniffing hungrily at the sheriff’s legs. The blood that had soaked through his pants now trickled across his boots.
He still hadn’t lain on the ground as the sheriff had ordered. He’d seen something in the sheriff’s eyes that gave him hope that he wouldn’t have to. It was obvious the sheriff was teetering on the edge consciousness.
The dogs raised their heads and whined. As loud and piercing as a railcar crying against steel and causing his ears to ring. He looked down and saw their human faces superimposed like bloodless masks. Men and women whose lives he’d taken. Some deserving and others just unlucky.
Many would want to argue with him at first, especially the traitors. They’d say they didn’t deserve what had happened to them, that it was someone else he should have killed. And at first he would argue back, list each offense that may have conveniently slipped their minds, and this seemed to quiet most of them.
It was the others that he felt bad about, the ones the dogs had forced him to claim. They hadn’t deserved the knife, and every time he saw them his heart would ache with guilt until after the years the guilt lifted and he accepted what he had done and what he would do to others in the future.
The sheriff seemed lost in a daze. Each time he closed his eyes Cyclops took a step closer until Cyclops snatched the gun from his hand and whipped him across the face with it until he dropped to the ground.
“You can have him if you want,” Cyclops told the dogs.
He checked the chamber to see if the gun was loaded. It was not.
Chapter 54
Getting down the gangway hadn’t been easy. Chad had stumbled forward several times and almost sent them both over the railing. When they reached the dingy Ann helped him on board before heading to the back. She pulled the rope-starter and the motor kicked to life and began churning up black water. She sat on the cold aluminum bench and saw Cyclops staring down at them from the concrete seawall.
We’re going to make it out of here.
She was about to put the motor in reverse when Chad looked over his shoulder and pointed at the dock.
“Wait… You forgot the rope.”
Ann glanced at the dock and felt her stomach roll over. Sure enough, the boat was still tethered. She’d been in too much of a hurry to untie them from the dock.
Come on. Don’t lose focus now…
She set the motor in neutral and climbed out of the dingy. As she worked to loosen the rope, footfalls began thundering down the long gangway. Cyclops was heading toward them, dragging the edge of his knife along the steel handrail as he went. She could see that Chad was trembling with fear.
“Chad.”
“What happened to the sheriff, Ann? He was supposed to protect us.”
“You’ve got to help me.”
“No. I don’t want him to hurt me again.”
“He won’t Chad. But you have to listen to me. I need you to take over the motor. I might not have time to get back there.”
Her fingers were numb. The rope was sticky with frost and not coming loose easily. She could hear Cyclops getting closer. She turned and saw him grinning at her as he advanced, the knife singing against the steel rail.
She got the rope free and tossed it into the boat. Chad was still inching toward the back. There was no way he was going to make it to the motor in time. He stopped and stared up at her with widening eyes.
Ann felt a hand take hold of her collar and lift her into the air. As she swung her fists to free herself, Cyclops dangled her over the swift water of the bay before tossing her onto the dock. She lifted her head and saw that Chad still didn’t have control over the motor. The side of the dingy was still bumping next to the dock.
“Go!” Ann screamed.
“I’m not leaving you, Ann.”
Still lying on her side, she kicked the boat with her foot and sent it moving away from the dock. Chad stared at her one last time before the dingy spun
out into the current and was lost in darkness.
“It’s your time,” Cyclops told her.
Ann ducked as he reached down for her again. She got to her feet and ran up the gangway. Cyclops was fast behind her and she heard the snick of his knife as it sliced off hunks of her hair. The fire in her leg was making her cry.
Halfway up the gangway she spun around and kicked Cyclops in the jaw. He hadn’t seen it coming. He stumbled back and caught the railing with his hand. Blood dripped from the corners of his mouth and collected on his filthy beard.
“This is going to be fun, Ann.”
She turned around and ran. When she got to the top landing she noticed an empty steel drum and pulled it over. The drum bounced down the gangway and she heard Cyclops grunt as she cleared the seawall.
She ran across the parking lot in the direction of her car. She thought that if she had enough time she might still be able to get the mace out of the glove compartment but stopped when she realized it wouldn’t work. Her Volkswagen had been flipped over onto the right side. Getting to the glove box would be too time consuming.
Not far from her car she noticed a body lying on the ground. She recognized the uniform and the shape that filled it.
“Sheriff?”
“Help me, Ann…”
When she reached him, his eyes fluttered as if straining to stay open. He was trying to reach for something near his leg but she saw nothing.
“Don’t move. I’m going for help.”
The sheriff shook his head. He raised himself again and stretched his hand toward something near his leg. This time he’d managed to grab his pant cuff and pulled it up far enough so that she could see what he was after.
Strapped to his calf was what looked like a snub-nosed.38 revolver. He nodded at her and she bent down and pulled it free. Just as she was about to stand up she felt his fingers claw into her ankle and she leaped back and briefly pointed the.38 down at him. He stared up at her.
“It’s too late for me, Ann.”
“Don’t say that.”
“He busted me up bad. You’ve got to stop him before he kills anyone else. Before he kills you.”
They both turned to see Cyclops emerging from the opening in the seawall. His face lowered with only his single eye floating behind a greasy curtain of hair. The sheriff began to tremble.
Ann leveled the.38 and fired. A bullet tugged at Cyclops jacket before he dove behind Chad’s car. She was unsure if she’d even hit flesh.
“Run,” the sheriff wheezed.
“No. I’m going to stay here with you. I can keep him away until someone comes.”
“It’s not going to work. Gun’s almost empty…
Ann broke open the chamber and glanced inside. The sheriff was right. There was only one bullet left. How in the hell can I stop him with one bullet?
It made sense that she should leave. If Cyclops followed her, the sheriff might stand a better chance. It was obvious that Cyclops had only gotten started on him.
“I’ll get help…”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m finished.”
She turned and ran toward the highway.
Chapter 55
It was as if a hot coal had been shoved into the flesh of her leg. Ann had run some brutal cross country races in the past, but she’d never felt like she was on the verge of blacking out. She wondered how far the scarlet line of infection had traveled. Did running make it rise faster? Would it reach her heart by the time she got to town? I should be feeling cold but I’m burning up inside.
It wasn’t the actual running that concerned her the most. She could do that, even if her leg went numb and she was forced to drag it along behind her. It was her mind that she was worried about-the thoughts that kept coming and going in her head-some times so real that she wondered if she were already blacking out and didn’t even know it.
It’s because you’ve got a fever from your infection. It’s affecting the way you think, altering your perceptions. That’s what’s happening to you. Now concentrate on getting back to Traitor in the little time you’ve got left.
She gritted her teeth and pushed forward. She could still sense Cyclops behind her, although the last few times she’d risked slowing down to look, all she’d seen was an empty highway.
Swift clouds moved across the night sky like silent boxcars. She could smell the vinegary scent of rain moving off the ocean, feel the drop in air pressure. She thought she heard dogs barking and wondered if she was hallucinating.
Not much further up the highway, she remembered to take a shortcut locals often used to get to Traitor-a series of long and sometimes steep switchbacks that eventually led down to a railroad track far below. There were many drop offs you had to be careful of but once you reached the tracks, the rest was an easy distance into town. When she was younger and a lot more foolish she’d taken the trail many times at night with only the moon lighting her way. Tonight the moon wasn’t going to be much help. Whatever light did make it down to her now was too weak. But she still had the flashlight she’d found on the boat. And the.38 she’d taken from the sheriff.
Stepping cautiously down the slippery trail, she thought about the railroad tracks far below. As kids, she and her friends used them often in the summer to pick blackberries, although their parents warned them to keep away. She’d grown up hearing the same stories as everyone else. Of crazy hobos lurching down the tracks, looking to hurt someone. Neither she nor her friends ever encountered anyone like that but sometimes they’d find empty liquor bottles and once James said he watched a crow fly off with a bloody finger someone must have suffered the loss of while hopping a train or getting into a knife fight.
In the spring she’d come down with her friends and pick wildflowers before the berries ripened, set pennies on the rail to see what the train would do to them. James once put a quarter on the rail and after the train flattened it he took it home and drilled a hole in it and made a necklace. Later his father had found out and given him hell for wasting money so he’d given it to Ann. Her mother had seen her wearing it and asked her about it, teased her about James being sweet on her. It must have been only a few days before she disappeared…
You had me pack my pink suitcase. The one I’d covered with animal stickers. You told me I was just going to have to stay with Aunt Kate for a few days, that you’d be back before I knew it.
But it wasn’t true. You didn’t come back. And if you thought you could keep Duane away from me you were wrong. Duane, before he lost his teeth and the words still slid off his tongue as if they’d been buttered… A year later he’d talked Aunt Kate into letting him take me out for a chocolate shake. And on the drive back I broke down and cried and he’d pulled over and tried to hold me but I could tell it made him uncomfortable. I told him I must have done something wrong to make you go away and he hadn’t said anything or didn’t know what to say and he got out of the car and lit a cigarette and leaned against the door and just stared in at me. I think he was scared and didn’t want me to see it.
“I’m sorry Ann. I really am. But there comes a time when you have to accept things you don’t like. That’s life. I’m trying to move on and you need to start too.”
“Something bad happened to her. I know it. She’d never want to leave me.”
“Of course she didn’t want to leave you. But she did. And her leaving had nothing to do with you so stop torturing yourself.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“What? Are you calling your stepdad a liar?’
“You say whatever you think you need to in order to get your way. Mom told me that once.”
“News flash. We all do that, Ann. I don’t know who doesn’t. But I’ll tell you one thing-and I’m not just spreading icing over bullshit either. Sure, your mom and I had our problems. But I wasn’t the one who just up and left.”
“She was scared of you.”
“No she wasn’t. She was scared she was going to wind up dying in Traitor of old age. That
’s what happens to women when they get big ideas in their heads. I hope that someday you’ll understand. And maybe you’ll also learn to listen to people before you start accusing them of things.”
“You hurt her. She tried to hide it from me but I saw it.”
“Look. I did not hurt her. Your mother was in another one of her moods. We’d had an argument and she went on one of her crazy cleaning sprees. She was scrubbing the kitchen when I came in to tell her to stop and she stood up too fast and caught her cheek on a cupboard door she’d forgotten to close.”
“I don’t believe you. I hate you, Duane.”
“I understand, Ann. When people go through bad shit they say a lot of things they don’t mean.”
And Duane was right. He was the closest thing to a father I ever had. When things were good they were really good. Like the time he took us to Seattle and we went to the Space Needle. We were all afraid of the glass elevator and had held hands like a family…
Everything went dark.
Am I blacking out for real this time?
She could still feel her heart thumping in her throat. The ocean hadn’t stopped roaring and her leg felt like a bloody stump, but she knew that by all logically sane accounts it was not.
Check the light.
She knocked the flashlight against her palm. It flickered and went out, then sparked again before finding a steady but yellowish beam that gradually died.
And then she heard the dogs again. Close.
Chapter 56
Until her eyes adjusted, Ann saw nothing but shadow layered over shadow. She stared west, beyond a clearing in the trees. If she concentrated she could see the ocean as a dark band, and above it a faded red thread of sunset.
You can’t out run them. You’re not even halfway down this mountain yet. You’ll break your neck if you’re not careful.
As the dogs howling got louder she stepped off the trail and began pulling herself blindly through the wet undergrowth. She came to a tunnel of salal and passed through it onto a worn deer path of hardened clay that followed a narrow ridge. On either side sharp cliffs plunged down to roaring surf. When she reached the end of the path she recognized an old fire ring and lichen-spotted boulders where she and James would sometimes sit up all night and talk until dawn. If the sky remained clear you could see the faint yellow glow of towns up and down the coast.