The Darkly Stewart Mysteries: Light and Darkly

by DG Wood

  “We will need a week to prepare,” Buck said with as much humility as he could muster.

  “You have until the next sundown.”

  The old man turned and began walking to the other side of the river. He continued to speak.

  “I will not take hostages the next time.”

  Buck and Geraldine organized the exodus from Wolf Woods speedily. Most everything would need to be left behind. The few working vehicles would carry people, not supplies. Cash from the outside world was useless here. But, plans were put in motion decades ago for just such an end times event. Disease and hunger were not reasons to send out emissaries with money. Settling colonists like Marielle and the relocating of the entire town were why the thousands of stolen dollars were now being piled onto the hood of Buck’s pickup. For thousands of years, Buck’s kind never got too comfortable in one place.

  Buck’s time as sheriff was coming to an end. For now. There would be no need for an alpha when there is no community. One of his last official duties was to divvy up the money among the families. Then the convoy would move out. The plan was to drive to the U.S. border, where some families would cross into the country to the south, and others would move east. It was certain this was the last time Buck would look many of his extended family in the eye. It was too soon. They weren’t ready for this. Yet, here they found themselves, setting out to convert the world. Whenever does change happen according to schedule? And how ironic was it that the wolf who was never destined to be alpha would set such a plan in motion?

  It hit Buck as he pocketed the last of the dough, that he had no clue where he was going. Buck spotted Trey and Victoria, lingering by the edge of the Moon River. Well, he had better get this over with. Trey looked away as he saw the man he had thought was his father approach, a wad of bills in his hand.

  Buck split the bills up and handed the larger of the two parts to Victoria. She’d been crying.

  “You’re going to need this.”

  Trey still didn’t look at Buck and let Victoria do the talking for both of them.

  “We’re not going to…” she trailed off, not able to finish the thought.

  “You’re not brother and sister. You’re not even half way to that. My brother lied.”

  Trey turned to look at Buck.

  “Well, he didn’t think he lied. He’s just not that good with dates. The RCMP constable. Darkly. She’s your sister, Trey. I buried your mother up on the ridge. Your father was killed before you were born. I’m sorry. I did my best.”

  Buck had said his peace, and now it was time to deal with Wyatt. As he walked away, he heard the words he didn’t think he would hear again.

  “Dad.”

  Buck stopped, and Trey walked up to him. After a brief stand-off, father and son hugged it out. With his eyes tearing up, Buck gave a last word of advice.

  “If you find yourself in trouble, with no way out of it, go to your sister. The world we’re going out into belongs to her.”

  Buck watched from the sidelines as the convoy of trucks rolled out of town, across the ford in the Moon River, and made their way to the rural highway that would take them to the continent long Trans-Canada Highway. He watched as Trey drove his pickup truck up the hill on the other side of the river, Victoria pressed closely to him.

  The last vehicle was an old Indian motorcycle. Gus pulled up next to Buck with Geraldine behind him.

  “You sure you’ll be okay on foot?” Gus asked Buck.

  “I’ll be far enough away from here by sundown.” Buck addressed the old Indian he knew to be nearby, watching the drama unfold.

  Geraldine tapped Gus on the shoulder and dismounted. She walked up to Buck, grabbed his face with both of her hands and kissed him tenderly on the lips.

  “I’ll see you soon.”

  She then got back on the bike without saying another word, and Gus drove off.

  Buck walked into his office, sat down at his desk and poured himself a whisky.

  “Here we are back where we started, brother.”

  The next words came from a jail cell. Wyatt sat on a cot in the holding cell, his wrists handcuffed.

  “My wife’s dead. One son dead, the other good as dead where he’s going. Just the original family. Me and you, Buck.”

  “He’s not your son. And we’re not family anymore.”

  Wyatt laughed.

  “I understand you need to tell yourself that. You never did like to talk about uncomfortable truths. You always put a wall up around yourself. An introvert, they call people like you.”

  Buck poured another shot and walked over to the cell. Wyatt met him at the bars, where Buck poured the whisky into Wyatt’s mouth.

  “So, where are we going? New York? Hollywood? Dallas? The world’s our lamb, little brother.”

  “I haven’t decided where I’m going yet.”

  Wyatt stepped back. He got the message, and perhaps for the first time in his life, he looked worried for his safety.

  Buck pulled out his gun.

  “If you try to turn, I’ll shoot to kill.”

  An hour later, while Wyatt screamed in agony, Buck took one last look at Wolf Woods and the Moon River below. As the sheriff without a town made his way on foot to the highway, his brother, crucified with ropes and wood, laughed through the pain. Buck felt ashamed that he hoped the Indian would let his brother suffer, rather than feed him to the creatures right away.

  Wyatt rocked back and forth, his arms wrapped around his knees. Buck’s story of events had been too much for him.

  “If the old man is controlling them, we should kill him,” Marielle said emphatically.

  Darkly gave Buck a knowing glance before answering her.

  “You can’t kill someone who’s already dead.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Darkly dropped into a doze, when the almighty bang shook the building. She leapt to her feet, awake, and moved to Buck’s side by the window.

  “They’re here,” Darkly said, mustering her sense of calm.

  “It’s a test,” Buck elaborated. “I’ve been watching one of the sasquatch. He just wanted to see what they are up against. How many will be needed to get through the door. See there, behind the dumpster? The attack will happen while it’s still dark.”

  Darkly squinted, examining the shadows. Two pinpricks of red glowed back at her.

  “There’s no way out but going through them,” Darkly said, facing the inevitable truth.

  “No. We need them to get in.”

  Darkly, Marielle, and Wyatt stared back at Buck with incredulity. Buck then explained his reasoning.

  “The town’s reserves of heating oil are kept in the basement of the hotel. There’s enough barrels to set the whole building alight. If we can kill even a few of them, our chances of getting away rise considerably.”

  Darkly processed the information. There were some holes in the plan.

  “How do we kill them without killing ourselves? If we shoot one of the barrels, the rest will go up with it. That means one of us is going to be awfully close to the inferno.”

  Darkly looked at the cowering Wyatt. Was Buck planning to sacrifice his brother? Talk him into some act of repentance to save them? Buck could see where Darkly’s mind was wandering. He brought a stop to the wander.

  “We just need to light a few fires.”

  Darkly immediately followed the logic.

  “We raise the temperature until the fuel becomes unstable. That’s got to be pretty hot. Some fairly big fires,” warned Darkly.

  “There’s a lot of old curtains. A set in each room. They must burn easily,” Marielle weighed in.

  Buck shone his flashlight on the rusting barrels that lined the basement of the hotel in rows. It looked like a scene from a horror movie. A cavern full of eggs containing gelatinous monsters about to erupt from their metal cocoons. He had curtains draped around his neck. So did Darkly, Marielle and Wyatt. Darkly immediately tied a long panel of material around a barrel. She wiped her fingertip
along the top of the barrel, picking up oil residue that had seeped through the rusting lid. She smelled her finger. This wouldn’t take long, she thought.

  “This will do for a starter, but we need a fuel source that will burn longer.”

  It was Marielle who answered Darkly. She pointed to the other end of the basement, enshrined in darkness.

  “The storage closet down there has wooden chairs. Enough for a hundred people or more. My uncle said they used to throw parties in the hotel. There were a lot more people then.”

  Darkly walked along the basement wall, shining her own flashlight into the dark. Above her in the wall, were ground level windows, whose sills were at Darkly’s eye level. She looked outside. Nothing moved. But, she could make out the faint sound of a far off drum. She knew it would grow louder.

  The basement room was almost the length of the building, and Darkly, thanks to experience, pulled her gun from her belt and pointed it into the darkness. She swallowed. Her mouth was dry. She could make out the door to the closet. It was ajar. Okay, she thought, that’s not unusual. Behind her, she heard the shifting of barrels.

  Darkly reached the open closet door and shone her light inside. She saw the piles of dusty wooden folding chairs. She slid her gun back under her belt and reached for a chair. That’s when it hit her. Her mouth went numb. Then she felt her tongue swell up like a balloon, that was then popped by the points of a thousand needles bearing down on Darkly. She wasn’t alone. Whoever was very near to her, they or it had killed many times. It was unlike anything she had felt before in her life. She ran.

  Darkly made it only a few feet, when she saw a chair fly by her head and shatter on the ground in front of her.

  “They’re inside!” Darkly yelled.

  Darkly dove for the first row of fuel barrels and scampered through the maze, ducking down to hide behind one of the barrels. She heard the loping of heavy feet to her side, as they passed by her, moving forward toward Buck, Wyatt, and Marielle. She poked her head above the top of the barrel to get a look. She shone her light and hit the back of the biggest thing she’d ever seen. At least twelve feet, the sasquatch was the width of a kitchen table and the color of silver gray.

  The creature stopped moving, sensing the light on its back. It turned to look into the beam. The mouth and eyes were stained with blood. In its terrible face, Darkly made out muscles contorted in decades, or was it centuries, of torment? There was no pity, no curiosity. Just ferocious hunger. It swatted a barrel to its right. The drum launched into the air and crashed down onto other barrels, spilling the contents and drenching the basement with the stinging aroma of gasoline.

  The gray sasquatch made a beeline for Darkly, kicking barrels out of its path like footballs.

  “Keep the light on its head!”

  It was Buck’s voice that broke through her terror, when the monster was almost upon her. A shot rang out, and the sasquatch jerked its shoulder in pain. It looked behind it for a split second and then continued barreling down on Darkly. Another shot, and the beast threw back its head and screeched in agony. A third shot, and this ancient nightmare fell to its knees and face first onto the floor at Darkly’s feet.

  Darkly ran past the dead creature. Do they stay dead, she wondered again? Or were they like werewolves? She wasn’t sticking around to find out. Marielle had one of the street-level windows open. Wyatt provided her with a lift, and she dived outside.

  “Come on,” Buck said to Darkly.

  He offered Darkly a lift to join Marielle. She looked behind her at the flooded basement.

  “Taking a chance firing with all this fuel, weren’t you?”

  “You’re right, Darkly. I should have let it eat you. It would have given the rest of us more of a head start.”

  Darkly emerged out of the basement and looked around her. Nothing was approaching her and Marielle. Yet. But the drums were persistent. She reached down and helped pull Wyatt out, and then Buck.

  “Behind the dumpster,” Buck whispered.

  The foursome dashed across the alley.

  “We need to get to the river and swim for it. It’s our only chance.”

  Darkly cut Buck off and shoved him to the side. She drew her gun and fired, hitting a sasquatch in the eye. The upper half of its body slumped over the sill of the hotel window from which it was crawling.

  “One shot to your three,” Darkly bragged to Buck.

  “How come we never heard them get in?” Marielle asked, her eyes darting all around her.

  “They’re hunters,” Darkly answered. “Silence is their best weapon.”

  They then watched in horror, as long hairy arms grabbed the sasquatch body and pull it back into the basement. Darkly gave Buck a look, and he nodded in response.

  “On the count of three, we run for the river,” Buck said, as he poked his head around the dumpster.

  “It’s clear. One. Two. Three.”

  The four jumped out from behind their hiding place and ran down the alley. When they had cleared the alleyway, Darkly stopped, turned and aimed at one of the basement windows.

  “Get down on the ground,” she yelled.

  Darkly fired several rounds, and a second later was blown backwards, as the fuel in the hotel basement ignited. Glass and brick showered the alley, and the shock wave took Darkly’s breath away. The next thing she knew, Wyatt was helping her to her feet, and the four were running again. Darkly felt the heat of the successive explosions on her back. She could no longer hear the drums, but she could hear the howls of animals being burned alive.

  Darkly, Buck, Marielle, and Wyatt made it to the river without further incident. The diversion had worked. They ran into the ford and immediately made for deeper water. Darkly allowed herself to be carried away by the current. As the escapees entered the maelstrom of the first round of rapids rounding the bend in the crescent of the Moon River, Darkly looked up at the look-out point where her father had parked their RV when she was a young girl. She made out the small silhouette of a man. She assumed it was the old Indian. He watched as the hotel fire spread, and the whole town went up in flames.

  Darkly spotted Marielle’s head bobbing up ahead of her. She fought the white caps of the rapids to make her way to the pregnant woman, who was clearly losing the battle to keep her head above water. Marielle’s head went under again when Darkly was only a foot away. It popped up an instant later as Marielle the wolf. She snapped her jaws at Darkly, who inhaled a mouthful of water and was slammed against a rock outcrop. Marielle joined the other two wolves swimming for shore. Darkly was on her own, being carried down river at a pace she couldn’t fight. She was losing consciousness.

  The next thing Darkly experienced was a slap to her face. Then another. Her droopy eyelids opened. A bright light was shining in her eyes. She turned her head to the side and retched. She put a hand up to block the light.

  “Sorry.”

  It was Ennis McWhorter’s voice.

  “Ennis?” Darkly coughed out.

  Ennis shone his flashlight on his own face.

  “In the flesh. I’m afraid I followed you. I’ve been watching from the look-out above town. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Darkly looked around her. She was on shore, her feet still in the water. About a mile away, she could see the conflagration that used to be Wolf Woods.

  “There were three other people.”

  “I know. I saw them enter the river with you. I’m sorry. I lost track of them. Just encountered a pack of wolves on the way down to you.”

  Ennis removed his rifle from his shoulder and helped Darkly sit up.

  “I surprised one of them. I had to shoot. You okay to walk? My truck’s about a two-hour hike from here. Your father wants you to come home, Darkly.”

  “You shot one of them?”

  Darkly was on her feet now.

  “Where?”

  “Right over…”

  Ennis turned to look over his shoulder and stopped speaking. Darkly looked around him to
see Wyatt’s naked body lying in the fetal position about ten yards away.

  The hike back to Ennis’s car took all night. Ennis carried Wyatt over his shoulders like a sack of flour. Ennis was a big man. It wasn’t a chore. Relieved and confounded to see that Darkly was right, and that Wyatt was merely unconscious, his wounds healing rapidly on their own, Ennis did not complain. At Darkly’s request, he also didn’t ask any questions, when she insisted they travel ten miles out of their way in a roundabout approach to Ennis’s truck. Darkly didn’t disappoint Ennis when she unburdened herself, revealing the unabridged account of events she had denied Ennis two days before.

  When Wyatt awoke in Ennis’s home, Darkly was there to explain why it was best for him to remain with Ennis while she returned to Toronto. Despite all the terrible things he used to be, Darkly found herself secretly wishing she could take Wyatt with her. He was that connection to all that had happened to her over the past two weeks. He was proof that it had all been real. My God, she thought. Only two weeks. Then return to civilization she did.

  CHAPTER TEN

  William was there to meet Darkly’s plane. She threw herself into his arms. It felt like years since she last felt his touch. She pulled away and considered his eyes. There was love in them, but also the other thing she was looking for. Recognition.

  “You knew,” she said.

  “Come on. Let’s go have a drink.”

  William took his daughter to his old watering hole from when he was a constable. The English pub was covered with law enforcement badges from across the globe and the crests of provinces, states and far-off lands, where kangaroos and flightless birds found their way onto official emblems.