by Mark Lukens
“What?” Angie asked.
“I can’t make it out.” He stared out the window at the thing in the dark. It was only about three or four feet tall and skinny. It looked almost like a tree trunk that had been snapped off about four feet up. But there was no tree there in his front yard. It wasn’t a person—too thin. A child? No, still too thin. This looked more like a short ragged post in the ground.
Begay moved away from the window. He knew he needed to go out there. Sam was out there. If Sam was in trouble he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he stayed in the house under the guise of protecting everyone else. He walked over to Angie and handed her the shotgun.
“No,” Angie whispered. “Don’t go out there.”
Begay knew Angie could use the shotgun, he had taught her to use it in the backyard years ago. He had also taught her how to use a handgun and a rifle.
“You watch the front door,” Begay told Angie. “When I come back I’ll call out to you. I’ll identify myself. If anyone comes to the door you tell them to identify themselves or warn them that you will shoot.”
Angie nodded, but she looked scared to death. She knew there was no use in arguing with him about it now.
Begay still had his pistol in his hand. He went into the kitchen and opened the drawer where they kept the flashlights. He grabbed two of them. He handed one to Angie and kept one for himself. He kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll be fine,” he whispered.
She didn’t look like she believed it.
Billy Nez met Begay at the front door; he had an old revolver in his hand.
“Where’d you get that?” Begay asked, nodding down at the gun in his hand.
“My medicine bag. I did not only bring feathers and beads.”
Begay was going to tell Billy to wait, order him to stay in the house, but he knew he couldn’t do that; he wasn’t a captain in the Navajo Tribal Police anymore, and Billy Nez could go where he wanted. Begay was about to warn Billy that it could be dangerous out there, but he saw that Billy already knew that. Begay wished they had gone somewhere else today, but it had been late and he figured they could stay the night here in the house. Besides, where could they have gone that the Ancient Enemy wouldn’t know about? Where were they truly safe?
Maybe the killer wasn’t out there yet. Maybe Officer Sam had just stopped by and was taking a look around, checking things out. But Begay didn’t believe that. Sam would have called first, or at least knocked on the door. And the electricity going out couldn’t just be a coincidence.
David will be in the house, Begay told himself. At least Angie and Awenita will be safe with David here.
A voice cried from outside, a female voice, the voice of a little girl. “Help meee. Please, help me!”
CHAPTER 30
Begay
Iron Springs, New Mexico
Billy Nez’s eyes widened with fear, his body suddenly tense and ramrod straight as he listened to the little girl call for help outside. He knew that voice. “Kai,” he whispered.
“Acheii,” the girl screamed from outside—the Navajo word for grandfather. It was then that Begay realized it was Billy’s granddaughter out there calling him.
Begay saw Kai in his mind, just a flash of memory from this morning when he’d seen her and her brother Yas. He’d been at their home with David, asking if they knew where their grandfather was.
Billy brushed past Begay and unlocked the front door, tearing it open.
Begay was about to order Billy to wait for him, but both men froze as they stared at the open front door. There were blood splatters all over the outside of the door, the blood so dark against the white paint in the moonlight. Whatever had hit the front door five times had left smears of blood behind. There were more splotches of blood on the floor of the front porch, just barely visible in the darkness, the spots that Begay had seen through the window, the spots he thought were mud or dirt tracks.
“Help meeee!” Kai’s voice mewled out in the darkness.
Begay realized that Kai’s voice was coming from the object he had seen in the front yard, the short shadowy thing he couldn’t make out in the darkness.
Billy bolted out the door with his revolver in his hand. “Kai, hold on! I’m coming!”
“Billy, wait!” Begay yelled, but Billy wasn’t waiting.
Begay turned to Angie. “Come lock this deadbolt when I leave. You don’t unlock this door for anyone except us!”
Angie took a step forward and nodded, the shotgun still clenched in her hands. Her eyes were so big and round with fear.
Begay twisted the lock on the doorknob and rushed outside, pulling the door closed behind him. He looked down at the concrete floor of the front porch as he ran to the edge of it, shining his flashlight beam down at the splatters of blood all over the surface. It looked like someone had dunked a basketball in blood and bounced it all over the front porch and front door.
A moment later Begay was running through his front yard. Billy was already ten yards ahead of him, running towards Sam’s Durango, kicking up sand as he sprinted. Begay had his flashlight trained on Billy, but the light beam was swaying back and forth as he ran. A cold wind blew, rattling the leaves of the cottonwoods at the other end of the yard, the line of trees marking the end of his property on that side.
Billy had stopped running. He had stopped cold. His body was suddenly very still, his shoulders slumping like all the strength and energy had suddenly drained out of him. He lowered his gun down to his side. He was standing in front of the object in the middle of the yard.
Begay’s chest was burning from the short run, his heart jackhammering in his chest. His knees and back already hurt, and he couldn’t catch his breath. But he caught up to Billy and stood right beside him, staring at the object he’d seen from the window, the object he thought had looked like a thin tree trunk broken off around four feet high. He couldn’t understand now how he could have possibly thought this was a tree trunk. Maybe his mind hadn’t been able to process what he was seeing from the living room window, or maybe a part of his mind didn’t want to really see what it was. But now that he was standing right in front of it, there was no pretending that it was something else. It was a stack of heads, like some kind of morbid totem pole, all of the faces pointed towards them. Officer Sam’s head was on the bottom. His eyes were purplish and swollen shut, his mouth a grim line, his face squished just a bit perhaps from the weight of the four heads stacked on top of his. The head on top of Sam’s head was Doli’s husband. Begay couldn’t recall the man’s name, but he remembered that he was always in trouble. His eyes were halfway open, the eyeballs glazed and white. His nose looked broken, crushed in. Dried blood was caked under his nose and all over the lips of his open mouth. His tongue was swollen inside, forcing his mouth open a little. The head of Billy’s daughter, Doli, was on top of her husband’s head. Her long hair was parted in the middle and flowing down onto the sides of her husband’s face. Her eyes were almost closed. There were cuts and spots of blood on her face. The head on top of Doli’s head was Yas, her son. And the head on the top of the stack was Kai’s head.
Begay wasn’t sure how the heads were stacked up straight like they were; he thought maybe there was a wooden pole or piece of rebar shoved into the ground and the heads had been stuck down onto the stick like a shish kabob.
Billy still hadn’t moved. His face was a mask of shock and sorrow. He stared at his granddaughter’s face.
“We have to get back inside,” Begay told Billy. He was shocked by the obscene totem pole, but he’d been prepared for something like this; after what he’d seen in the ghost town seven years ago, he knew what the Ancient Enemy was capable of.
Billy didn’t answer Begay, he just whispered Kai’s name.
“Help me,” Kai whispered, her words just barely heard.
Begay’s eyes shot back to Kai’s head on top of all of the others. Her eyes had been closed but now they were wide open, her pupils looking like two round black polished stones se
t in her face, the large eyes of a child. Begay shined his flashlight beam at the girl’s face. There was no expression on her face, but her eyes remained open as her lips trembled. “Help me, acheii.”
She can’t be talking. She doesn’t have a neck anymore. No vocal chords. The Ancient Enemy is in there somewhere, a sliver of itself inside this totem pole, controlling this abomination, making the girl talk.
“You were supposed to be there with us, acheii,” the girl whispered. “You were supposed to protect us.”
Tears slipped out of Billy’s eyes, but he was so still, his body deflated, shoulders sagging, the revolver loose in his hand, ready to slip out of numb fingers and fall to the ground.
Begay grabbed Billy, turning him away from the stack of heads, shaking him, trying to snap him out of the stupor that had taken him over. “Billy Nez! It’s not Kai anymore! She’s dead now. The Ancient Enemy is controlling this. We need to get back inside the house.” He wasn’t going to wait much longer for Billy. He hoped Angie and Awenita were safe inside with David, but he couldn’t be absolutely sure of it. If Billy wasn’t going to come back with him, then Begay was going to have to leave him out here alone.
Billy seemed to suddenly come to life and Begay wondered if his words had finally gotten through to the man. Billy’s eyes narrowed, his eyebrows knitting together, his mouth turning down into a severe frown—a growing thunderstorm of rage on his face. He tore himself from Begay’s grasp and ran away from the stack of severed heads, running deeper into the yard, waving his gun as he ran. “Come show yourself!” he screamed at the darkness.
“Billy, no!” Begay yelled. He couldn’t run after Billy now, he didn’t have the strength for it. He needed to get back to the house. The Ancient Enemy would be going for the house now—he was sure of it.
Billy seemed to blend into the darkness, but Begay could still see him like a shadow moving along the moonlit ground. From the darker shadows of the cottonwood trees, something large and quick darted across the sand, slamming into Billy, lifting him up and spinning him around in the air. Billy was caught in a web of living darkness.
It was too late for Billy now. He screamed as he was pulled apart.
Begay turned to run back to the house. A man stood in his way. The man was tall, his clean-shaven head and face so pale and luminous in the moonlight.
It was the killer and he had something in his hand.
Begay raised his gun up, tried to get off a shot, but the killer had already swung the weapon in his hand. Begay felt a blast of pain in the side of his head and his body went numb, and then his world turned to blackness.
CHAPTER 31
David
Iron Springs, New Mexico
Angie kept the shotgun aimed at the front door like Begay had told her to. The weapon was getting heavy and her hands and arms were trembling, but she wasn’t going to set it down. She had backed up towards the kitchen with Awenita and David right behind her.
“I heard yelling out there,” David’s aunt said.
Angie nodded.
David had heard it too. Captain Begay had been yelling, but now it was quiet and it had remained quiet for a few minutes now. That might be bad, but it might be good. Maybe Captain Begay was still alive. But there had been other screams, too. Billy’s screams. Those screams had been cut short. The wind rushed up and then died down quickly. Now there were no sounds coming from outside except the faint rumbling of the police cruiser parked out on the road.
“We need to call the police,” Awenita said. “Get some help.” She ran for the phone on the wall in the kitchen. She grabbed the receiver and punched at the buttons frantically. She hung the phone up, slamming it into the cradle, then picked it up and tried the buttons again. The phone was dead.
“Let me have your cell phone,” Awenita told David when she came back.
“Cell phone service isn’t the greatest out here,” Angie warned.
David pulled his phone out of his pocket and gave it to his aunt. He’d been waiting to get a text from Stella but maybe the service here wasn’t letting her messages get through. Or maybe Cole and Stella were having a hard time with cell reception in Costa Rica—they were in a pretty remote area of the country.
Awenita dialed a number into David’s phone, waited a second, and then sighed in frustration. “No service.” She moved around in the kitchen and the dining room, trying the phone again and again.
It’s not going to work, David thought. The Ancient Enemy isn’t going to let it work.
“The captain will be back soon,” Angie said as she stared at the front door with her shotgun still aimed at it. “He’ll know what to do.”
“Officer Sam’s car is out there,” Awenita said when she came back and handed the cell phone back to David. “They’ll know his car is here. He probably called it in when he got here. They’ll come looking for him soon.”
David walked across the living room to the front windows.
“What are you doing?” his aunt asked.
“Going to look out the window,” he told her.
Awenita didn’t try to stop him.
David got to the window and pulled the curtain back just a little, allowing the faintest of moonlight to shine inside the house. He stared out the window for a moment, trying to make things out in the darkness. He could see the night sky and the dark silhouette of mountains and trees against it on the horizon. He could make out the dark mass of cottonwoods to the left of the front yard. The police cruiser wasn’t running now. All the lights were off, too. Someone had just shut the engine and the lights off.
The wind kicked up in a sudden gust, sand blowing around, obscuring the little that David could see in the yard. But he thought he could make out some of the objects in the front yard, but he couldn’t see anything clearly enough, especially not now with the sand blowing all over the place.
“You see him?” Angie asked. She sounded like she was on the verge of crying.
David let the curtain fall back in place. He walked back to Angie and his aunt. “No,” he whispered to Angie. “I can’t see anything out there. The police car isn’t running anymore. Someone shut it off. All the lights too.” The Ancient Enemy shut the police cruiser off, he thought but didn’t say it. The Ancient Enemy shut the police cruiser off just like it had shut off the electricity and the phones, and disrupted the cell service here.
“He’ll be back soon,” Angie told herself.
The wind died down as suddenly as it had picked up. The three of them stood in the dark and the silence. But then David heard the sound of shuffling feet across the concrete porch. Someone was walking towards the front door out there.
“It’s him,” Angie practically squealed with delight. She started to go for the door, but David put a hand on her upper arm, stopping her.
“It’s not him,” David told Angie.
She stared at him like she was shocked he would try to stop her from opening the door for her husband. “How do you know?” Her voice was louder and sharper, like she was accusing him of something.
“It’s not him,” David said again.
CHAPTER 32
David
Iron Springs, New Mexico
There were three heavy knocks at the front door.
Angie pulled her arm out of David’s grasp, swinging the shotgun down to her side, about to rush for the door.
“Please don’t open the door,” David told her. He wasn’t so worried for himself, more for her.
“Maybe David’s right,” Awenita said.
Angie ignored both of them as she walked towards the door.
Three more knocks at the door. The pounding was so hard it sounded like the door was vibrating in the doorframe from the force of the knocks.
Angie hesitated.
“Tell him to identify himself,” Awenita yelled at Angie. “That’s what Begay said to do. Remember?”
Angie didn’t look back; she still stared at the front door.
David was ready to grab his au
nt and herd her to another room, through the kitchen to Captain Begay’s man-cave. If his aunt stayed with him, maybe he could protect her like he had protected Stella and Cole in the cabin in Colorado. The only problem was that David didn’t know how he had protected them, and he didn’t know how to protect his aunt now.
“Baby,” Angie said to the door, her fingers on the deadbolt knob, ready to unlock it. “Is that you?”
Silence from the other side of the door. Not even the wind was blowing now; it was like the Ancient Enemy wanted them to hear everything.
There was no knocking now, but a voice answered Angie: “Let me in.” But it wasn’t Begay’s voice—it was Billy Nez’s voice.
“That’s not Billy anymore,” David told Angie.
Angie’s fingers still rested on the deadbolt knob.
David took a few steps towards Angie and the door. His aunt was right behind him. He turned his cell phone on and shined the light at the front door, illuminating Angie in front of the door. Her face was wet, shiny with tears in the light.
“Please,” Billy said from behind the door. “Let me in. The killer was out here. You have to let me in.”
David watched Angie’s face in the cell phone’s light. He saw that she was crying harder and it seemed like she knew the truth now; she knew it wasn’t Billy out there anymore.
“I’ve seen this before,” David told Angie in a calm and even tone of voice, trying to get through to her, to stop her from opening the door. He took a few steps closer to her. “The Ancient Enemy sends people back. It controls them like puppets.”
“The captain is out here,” Billy said through the door, but his voice was gruff and guttural, more of a growl now. “He’s still alive. He needs help. Don’t you want to help him?”
Angie’s eyes widened with hope, her fingers twitching on the deadbolt knob.
“It’s not true,” David told her. “He’s telling you anything to get you to open the door. Ask Billy why he didn’t bring the captain back with him.”