by Lisa Klink
Matt had seen those movies, too. “He’s not a zombie.”
Ryan looked doubtful. “Then what is he?”
Partly to avoid answering, Matt went to check on Karen and Daniel. She was still curled in a defensive crouch around the boy. He spoke softly. “Karen? Are you all right?”
She raised her head, quickly looking around for potential threats. She loosened her grip on Daniel and examined him for further injury. She found none.
“I think so,” said Karen. She turned to Matt, trying to form a question. “What…?”
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “It’s over.” At least, the latest assault from the Dark Man seemed to be over, he thought. He didn’t want to imagine what might come next.
He expected to find Ryan keeping an eye on undead Frank, but the kid had moved over to Javier. As Matt approached, he said flatly, “He’s dead. I figured as much, but…” He gave a small shrug.
The young man seemed shell-shocked. Matt had been living with this kind of violence for so long that he sometimes forgot how a normal person would react. “What is going on here?” Ryan asked him. “You know, don’t you?”
Matt wondered how much to tell him. Even more, he wondered what Ryan already knew about the Dark Man and the weapon he’d used to drive him out of the body.
He plucked the arrowhead out of Frank’s eye and wiped off the black sludge. “Tell me about this.”
“I did,” said Ryan. “My grandfather gave it to me. He said it belonged to a great Shoshone warrior.”
“What else?” prompted Matt.
Ryan thought back. “He said the warrior used it to fight off evil spirits.”
Matt held up the arrowhead. “Did he show you what to do with it?”
The young man gave a short, humorless laugh. “You mean like ‘Here kid, go stick this in somebody’s eye?’ No. It was just a good-luck charm. I thought he made up all that stuff, but he didn’t, did he?” Matt could see Ryan reeling, suddenly forced to reevaluate everything his grandfather ever told him.
“I don’t know about the rest of it, but there really are evil spirits,” Matt told him. “The one we’re dealing with is called Mr. Dark.”
Ryan nodded uncertainly. “Mr. Dark. Okay.”
Matt felt bad for the kid. He remembered his own confusion and fear when the Dark Man entered his life. “He spreads evil by touching people. That’s what happened to Alex and Vanessa. That’s why they turned violent.”
Ryan seemed vindicated. “I knew there was something wrong with that guy. Besides being an asshole. He gave me the creeps.”
The kid had shuddered when the Dark Man was around, too. He seemed to pick up a bad vibe in the presence of evil. He obviously couldn’t see Dark or the rotting effects of his touch or, Matt assumed, he would have mentioned it. Matt had met only one other person who could, and she’d turned out to be a monster herself.
“What Mr. Dark did with Frank was different. He inhabited the body, controlling it from within,” explained Matt.
Ryan glanced back at Frank’s torn, bloody corpse. “That’s gross.”
“Yeah. He doesn’t like it, either.” Mr. Dark had told him how utterly repulsed he was by the “nasty meat bag” of the human body. But he’d set aside his disgust to inhabit Frank. Why? Why not to talk to Matt, as he’d done before? The corpse hadn’t even glanced at him, or at Vanessa and Daniel. It had gone straight for Ryan.
Now Matt realized, “He’s after you.”
Ryan didn’t follow. “What?”
Matt put it together. “I thought the Dark Man crashed the bus to keep me away from Battle Mountain. But it was to keep you away. Well, maybe both of us, but definitely you.”
Now the kid was alarmed. “Why me?”
“Because you’re a threat.” Matt indicated the little arrowhead. “You have this.”
He held it out to Ryan, but the younger man backed away. “Keep it.”
“It might not work for me. It was a gift to you.” Ryan didn’t move. Matt went on, “Your grandfather asked you to bring the arrowhead when you came to Battle Mountain, right?”
“Right…”
Matt remembered what had gotten Ryan so upset. “He wanted you to help him with something. Did he say what?”
“He said something dark was coming. And that it would cast a shadow across the land.” He looked to Matt for understanding. “That sounds like some fairy tale, right? How could I know?”
“You couldn’t,” Matt assured him.
Ryan turned to him, struck by a new fear. “What if that’s how he died? The cops told us it was a mugging gone wrong, but what if it was really the Dark Man? What if something like that”—he pointed at the remains of Frank—“killed him?”
Matt thought that was a distinct possibility. “There’s no way to know.”
Ryan shook his head, overwhelmed by guilt. “I should have been there for him.”
“Be there now,” said Matt. “Come with me to the Washakie Lodge. We can still stop the Dark Man.”
The young man walked restlessly around the canyon. Then he grew calm and turned back to Matt. “Okay. I’m in.”
Matt held out the arrowhead again. This time Ryan took it. “We need to get there before it opens tomorrow night,” said Matt. He realized it was already early morning. “Tonight.”
“How?” asked Ryan.
“We walk.”
The kid looked at Matt, just now registering that he was on his feet. “Holy shit. You’re walking.”
“My spine was just bruised. I was lucky.” And an incredibly fast healer, which he supposed was another piece of luck.
“That’s great.” Ryan seemed genuinely pleased for him, then remembered what they were discussing. “You sure you’ll be okay walking across the desert for…do we even know how far?”
“No. But we can’t wait for rescue. They won’t get here in time, trust me.” Matt got ready to argue his case, but once Ryan decided he was in, he was all in.
“Okay,” he said again. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER FIVE
They found an unexpected bounty in Alex’s backpack. The drugs he was carrying turned out to be oxycodone, the painkiller that created so many suburban addicts. Karen gave a quarter of a pill to Daniel to ease the agony of his shattered leg. She kept a few ounces of water for her son and herself. The two men would need the rest. They’d need a lot more than three-quarters of a bottle to cross the Great Basin Desert, of course, but would have to make do.
Matt and Ryan left Karen and Daniel with enough wood to keep the fire going until dawn. If hungry coyotes showed up, Karen would fend them off as best she could with a heavy branch she kept close at hand. Matt thought the animals would be more likely to go for the smorgasbord of dead bodies that couldn’t fight back.
“We’ll send back help for you. I promise,” he told Karen.
“I know you will.” She smiled at him with perfect confidence. Matt leaned in and gave her a brief kiss good-bye. He never saw Karen again.
He and Ryan started walking through the canyon at four a.m. They knew the bus had been heading north along Route 305, but didn’t know how far east or west it had taken them off the highway. North still seemed like the best direction to go. According to Matt’s compass, the canyon they were following curved toward the east. They had to climb out.
Matt ran his light over the sheer walls as they went, looking for a gentler slope they could climb with no expertise and no equipment—and wearing only sneakers and work boots, respectively.
As the sky began to lighten, they came to a pile of fallen rock that had sheared off the wall in a heavy rain. It created a hill that reached almost halfway up the cliff. It was the best prospect they were likely to find.
Ryan went first, stepping carefully across the gaps in the pile. He reached the top without incident and smiled. Matt held off celebrating. The hard part was next.
They both found usable handholds and started to climb. Matt prided himself on staying in decent shape
, but this required a set of muscles he wasn’t accustomed to using. His calves had to support him as he balanced on his toes on shallow ledges. His forearms strained to hold his body against the rock wall.
Ryan was having no easier time of it. He was smaller than Matt, with less weight to support, but his activities were mostly limited to sitting, typing on a computer, and working the phone. He reached up to a promising handhold. When he shifted his weight onto it, the rock crumbled.
With a short cry, he slipped. Matt flung out an arm to catch Ryan, but he was too far away. Ryan’s fingers clawed at the wall until they found a narrow crevice. He caught himself and quickly grabbed rock with the other hand as well.
“Okay,” he said breathlessly. “I’m okay.”
Matt exhaled. They were about forty feet up the wall. A fall from this height might not have been fatal. It might have just broken his legs.
Ryan stayed where he was for a long moment, hugging the wall. “I took a lesson once,” he said.
Matt was nonplussed. “What?”
“A climbing lesson. In Yosemite. My folks took me there on vacation. They wanted us to all go climbing together.” Ryan was frozen in place, eyes fixed on the wall. Matt realized he was talking himself down from panic.
“Yeah? How was it?” he prompted.
“We never went. I quit after the first class,” Ryan admitted. He forced himself to look over at Matt. “Kinda wish I hadn’t.”
Matt had to smile at that. Ryan started to move again, slowly and carefully but steadily.
When they reached the top of the canyon wall, the sun was barely up. The view, they had to admit, was spectacular. They were in the foothills of the Shoshone Mountains, looking across the Reese River valley. They could see the river itself in the distance, but unfortunately not in the direction they were headed. A swim would have felt awfully good.
They took a few minutes to rest and had a sip of water before continuing. The compass led them north. They walked downslope for a while, then up and over a low ridge. The sun, and the temperature, began to rise. There were precious few trees, providing inconsequential shade. Once an hour, they stopped for another small sip of water. It wasn’t very satisfying.
By unspoken agreement, they’d avoided talking about the Dark Man, but Matt figured the kid would have more questions at some point. He’d answer them as best he could. Ryan was in the fight now. He needed to know what he was up against.
Ryan pulled the arrowhead from his pocket and ran his fingers over it as he walked. Finally, he asked, “So…how does this thing work, exactly?”
Great, thought Matt, let’s start with a tough one. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anybody force the Dark Man out of a body like that.”
“Would it work on a living person? Like, would it have worked on Alex and Vanessa?” He was clearly troubled by this, as if he could have, or should have, done something more.
“No,” Matt told him. “They weren’t possessed. They were…consumed. Once evil takes hold in someone, it keeps growing and spreading until there’s nothing else left.”
Ryan frowned. “So how do they get back to normal?”
“They don’t,” Matt said flatly. “They’re gone.”
“But there has to be some way…” Ryan protested.
“There isn’t,” snapped Matt. It was a touchy subject. “Believe me, I wish there was.”
It grew hotter as they walked. Matt rifled through his bag, hoping to find a baseball cap, or anything to help protect them from the relentless sun. The best he could come up with was a bandanna for Ryan and a ratty T-shirt for himself. They tied the cloths on their heads, and it did help. A little.
They crested one last peak and found themselves looking down into an open valley, which stretched as far as they could see. At the far edge of the horizon to the west, Matt thought he saw a road. Of course, he was looking directly into the sun, but as he squinted, he was sure he could make out a thin, dark line across the desert.
“Look!” Ryan saw it, too. “That can’t be more than…what, five or ten miles?”
Matt guessed it was closer to twenty. It was hard to judge distance across a flat plain with no other points of reference. But it didn’t really matter. If the road was a hundred miles away or a thousand, they still had to reach it. They had seen no other signs of civilization as they descended through the hills.
They drank a celebratory sip of water, a full ten minutes before the hour. The bottle was down to a quarter full, but that didn’t seem so important with salvation in sight. They’d make better time walking on even terrain than they had in the mountains. But Matt could also see waves of heat rising from the valley floor. It might feel a lot like walking across a nice, flat frying pan.
It did. By one o’clock, the heat was cruel. They finished the water, waiting as long as they could between sips. Matt noticed that he had stopped sweating. That couldn’t be good. He kept walking, until a sharp cramp in his abdomen made him stop. He doubled over and dry-heaved painfully. Then again.
When he looked up, the Dark Man was there, still relaxing in his lounge chair, sunglasses perched on his hooked nose. “I don’t think you’re going to make it to Battle Mountain,” he said.
Ryan had drifted ahead, out of earshot, but Matt still spoke quietly. “We still have time.”
“No, I mean you won’t make it at all. You’re due for heatstroke in…” he checked his watchless wrist, “…forty-two minutes.” Mr. Dark lifted a tall glass of ice water to his lips and took a long drink, letting some water dribble down his chin. Matt tried not to stare.
“We’ll see,” was all he could manage.
Dark laughed. “I’ve always admired that crazy determination of yours. Here you are, actually killing yourself in a futile effort to score one for the righteous. You’re like those…what are they called?” He snapped his bony fingers, trying to recall. “Suicide bombers.”
Matt glared at him. “I don’t slaughter innocent people.”
“Of course not,” said the Dark Man. “You only kill the bad people: the evil…the corrupt…the infidels.” He took another long, satisfying drink of ice water and waved his arm casually at Ryan. “And, of course, your little friend. If you knowingly lead him to his death, does that count as murder?”
“He chose to come with me,” said Matt.
“Sure, with a little persuasion.” He did a disturbing imitation of Matt’s voice. “Come to Battle Mountain and we can stop the Dark Man together. Do it…for Grandpa!” He laughed again.
Matt was quiet. Then something seemed to occur to Mr. Dark. “I’m being awfully rude. I haven’t offered you a drink.” He held out the glass. It looked real enough, with little droplets of condensation. Matt guessed the water would feel pretty real going down his parched throat, if the Dark Man wanted it to. Or it could be pure arsenic.
“So suspicious. What makes you think I want to kill you?” He leaned in closer, the stench of death even more pungent in the heat. “More to the point, what makes you think that if I wanted to kill you, you’d still be breathing?”
Matt had wondered this himself. The Dark Man was obviously more powerful than he. If Matt was any kind of threat, why hadn’t Dark simply squashed him like a bug? “What do you want from me?” he asked, knowing he wouldn’t get a straight answer.
The creature smiled with hideous beneficence. “I’m already getting it.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? Mr. Dark held out the glass, shaking it slightly to make the ice dance. Matt thought it really might contain plain water, and that drinking some really might save him from dehydration. But accepting the water would put him in the Dark Man’s debt. That felt more dangerous than poison.
“No, thanks,” he croaked. “I’m good.”
Mr. Dark scowled and snatched back the glass. His clownish face became something truly dark for a moment. Then he was gone.
Matt stood there for a moment, puzzling over the Dark Man’s words. What could he be giving Dark tha
t he actually wanted? Stop, he ordered himself. He wouldn’t get sucked in to the specter’s mind games. He wouldn’t.
It was a struggle to make himself move. The temptation to sit down and rest, just for a minute, was very strong. If he did that, of course, he wouldn’t get up again. Not for the first time, Matt wished that he believed in an afterlife. Technically, he supposed, he was already living a kind of “after” life. But it was hardly what he’d been promised in Sunday school—a heaven with white clouds and pearly gates, where he would spend eternity with everyone he’d ever loved. With Janey. That had always seemed too good to be true.
“Matt?” Ryan stood a short distance ahead, waiting. “You coming?” So Matt caught up with him and they went on.
When he first saw the line of asphalt across the desert, he hadn’t believed it. The Dark Man was creating an illusion to torment him. But as he and Ryan got closer, it didn’t vanish. Now, they could actually see cars zipping by. The two men exchanged a smile and broke into a shambling run.
A black Porsche was approaching. Matt and Ryan stood by the road, waving their arms. The car didn’t slow, and Matt thought the driver was simply going to ignore them. Couldn’t he see they were in trouble?
Then the car swerved sharply and headed straight at them. Matt pulled Ryan out of the way, feeling the rush of air as the Porsche passed within inches. He quickly got out his ax, for all the good it would do against a speeding car, and prepared for the next charge.
But the black Porsche just made a wide arc, got back on the road, and drove away. The two men stood there for a moment, watching, in case it returned after all.
“What the hell?” asked Ryan. “Was that Mr. Dark?”
Matt hadn’t gotten a look at the driver, but didn’t really need to. “Seems likely.”
The approach of another car made them back away from the road. Which pissed Matt off. He and Ryan had survived the bus crash and the Dark Man’s evil minions and made it all the way to the goddamn road. He wasn’t going to let Mr. Dark yank away the possibility of rescue now. Matt had no doubt that Dark had corrupted or inhabited the driver of the black Porsche, but he couldn’t do that with every single driver on the road. There were always some people, good people, who could resist his influence.