Ancient Enemy

by Mark Lukens

  And that’s when she heard the thump from the freezer.

  She jumped up to her feet and stared into the kitchen at the freezer against the far wall. The lid bumped again; it opened just a bit and then thumped back down.

  “Oh God,” Stella whispered.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Cole stepped off the porch and his boots sank down into the snow. He had his gun in his coat pocket, but he didn’t take it out; he wasn’t even sure it would do any good anymore, yet he still felt better knowing that it was there.

  He scanned the snowy field and the dark blob of trees with his eyes, but he couldn’t see much in the darkness. The moon was already setting low in the sky behind the trees, but even with the scattering of clouds across the night sky, he could see a little bit into the darkness. He didn’t turn on the flashlight yet, he would wait until he was inside the garage to use it. He didn’t know if using the flashlight would attract this thing out here, but he had a feeling that it didn’t matter either way – this thing knew he was out here now, he was sure of it; he could practically feel it watching him, waiting to see what he was going to do.

  Waiting to see if he would follow instructions.

  As long as Cole was following instructions, he felt sure that he was relatively safe for the moment.

  Cole trudged through the snow towards the hulking black shape in the darkness that was the garage. He walked past Tom Gordon’s pickup truck and it blocked the freezing wind a little. Already his face felt numb and his fingers were turning into ice blocks underneath his thin leather gloves. He paused for a moment at the end of the pickup and looked around one more time – nobody moving in the darkness. He looked back at Frank’s spot in the snow, but Frank wasn’t there. He looked back at the cabin which was dark except for the yellowish glow of the kitchen light in the windows. He didn’t see any movement inside and the door wasn’t open with Stella watching him from the doorway.

  He turned back to the garage. He needed to hurry; he could see the digital numbers from the microwave oven (bomb) counting down in his mind.

  He hurried through the snow to the garage doors which were already partway open from when he’d entered the garage days ago. But he would need to push the doors open even wider to drive the snowmobile out.

  And what if it doesn’t start? What if the battery is dead? What if that thing has known about the snowmobile the whole time and destroyed it already? What if it has known about your plans the whole time?

  Cole pushed these thoughts away. He had to try. What else could he do?

  He pushed at the other wooden door with his hands and immediately he felt the sting of the cold through his gloves. He pushed against the door, but it wasn’t budging. He leaned into it more, driving with his legs, trying to find some traction in the scattering of snow on the concrete of the garage and the gravel of the driveway in front of the doorway. One last push, and he nearly screamed with effort as …

  … the door broke free with a crackling of ice; the garage door let out a wail of protest into the freezing air as he slid it all the way open until it thumped to a stop.

  That might have woken Stella, he thought.

  He hurried into the darkness of the garage. It was like entering the mouth of a cave. He thought about looking for a light switch somewhere on the wall; if the electricity worked in the cabin, then it must work out here. But he didn’t want to waste time with a search for the switch; he had to hurry. The flashlight should be enough to light his way. Besides, he knew exactly where he was going in the garage.

  He turned on the flashlight, its beam knifed through the darkness and he could see the clouds of his quick breaths in front of his face. He moved forward through the pathways of boxes, crates, shelves, and junk. He came to the tarp over the snowmobile – it was just how he had left it, with a few boxes toppled down on top of the blue tarp.

  Cole set the flashlight on a nearby shelf, and he tried his best to angle the light beam down onto the tarp. He pushed the boxes to the side and he ripped the tarp away; it made a loud crinkling noise when he stuffed it down between some boxes. He could see tiny ice crystals and dust floating in the air through the light beam.

  And right where he’d seen it before was the snowmobile. He checked it over quickly, it was an older model, maybe ten years old he guessed, but it looked well-maintained. Living out here in the woods and mountains, this snowmobile would be someone’s (Tom Gordon’s) lifeline if a blizzard hit, and that person would take care of it; the snowmobile would need to be operable at all times.

  He shoved his hand into his pants pocket and even though his fingers were beginning to go numb, he could feel the keys to the snowmobile. He grabbed the key and stuck it into the ignition. He twisted the key gently, he didn’t want to start the snowmobile, he just wanted to see if the electrical system still worked and wanted to see how much fuel was in it.

  The lights of the snowmobile lit up when he twisted the key, and he could see the fuel gauge – almost full. He twisted the key to the off position, took it out of the ignition and pocketed it. He didn’t want to start the snowmobile yet – there was something else he needed to do, the other reason he was in the garage.

  He grabbed the half-full gas can from the floor and ran for the open garage doors, he ran for the dark blue rectangle against the pitch black garage that was the open doorway. He almost expected Frank or Jose to step into that dark blue rectangle. He could see Frank’s head cocked to the side in his mind; he could see that plastic smile. “Where are you going, Cole?” Frank would ask in his pleasant but gurgling and grave-cold voice.

  Or maybe Trevor would step into the doorway.

  Cole pushed the thought of Trevor away.

  No one stepped into the doorway and Cole ran out of the garage and right to the cabin.

  Frank and the others would be coming now, Cole thought. They would be coming when they saw what he was doing.

  You’re not following instructions, his mind whispered.

  Fuck the instructions, Cole thought.

  He ran through the snow as fast as he could and the gas in the plastic can sloshed as he stomped through the snow. His lungs were burning and his muscles were already aching from the run through the deep snow. He ran right up to the corner of the cabin, the same corner where Trevor had hopped over the porch railing down into the snow to check the back of the cabin the first day they were here – it seemed so long ago now.

  Cole pulled off the plastic cap on the nozzle of the gas can and he tossed it into the snow; he wouldn’t need it anymore, he was going to use every bit of this gasoline. He sloshed the gas all over the logs of the cabin. He ran down the side of the cabin, drenching the logs as he went.

  He hurried around to the back of the cabin and he continued to douse the wood with the gas. But now he saw something in the darkness. Two figures stumbling through the snowy back field, stumbling right towards him. It was difficult to make out the details of the figures, but just by the awkward way one of them moved through the snow, like the pieces of his body were shifting against each other, and the tatters of clothing were hanging from the frame, he could tell it was Trevor.

  Cole didn’t watch them approach, he had to keep his mind on what he was doing, on his task at hand. The digital numbers were counting down in his mind. He rounded the corner of the cabin and ran as fast as he could through the snow, still dousing the logs on this side of the cabin with the gas he had left. He was afraid Needles and Trevor would catch up to him. He was afraid that he would feel cold dead fingers grabbing the back of his neck soon, afraid that he would hear his brother’s now-raspy voice.

  The gas in the plastic container was almost gone when Cole got to the front corner of the cabin by the porch. He looked back behind him; he could see his tracks through the snow, but he didn’t see the two figures anymore.

  You know who they were, his mind whispered to him. They were Needles and Trevor. You know that; don’t try to pretend that you don’t know who they were.

/>   Cole ignored the whisperings in his mind that seemed to be getting louder and louder. He splashed what little gas he had left all over the logs and then he threw the gas can into the snow. He climbed up onto the railing from the snow and he clamored over the railing and dropped down onto the floorboards with a thud as snow spilled off his pants legs and boots. He got to his feet and he was about to bolt to the front door, but a voice stopped him in his tracks. It was Frank’s voice – this monster’s mouthpiece.

  “What are you doing, Cole?”

  Cole looked out at the field and he saw Frank standing in the snow. Same Frank. Same clothes. Same smile. Same hollowed-out body. Only this time Frank had someone else with him – Jose, and Jose held an ax.

  “You need to kill the boy, Cole,” Frank said.

  Cole took a step towards the front door, and then another, yet he still kept his eyes on Frank and Jose.

  As Cole took a step closer to the front door, Jose took a step closer to the cabin.

  Cole couldn’t see Jose all that well in the darkness, but even from what he could make out, he could tell that there was something wrong with the way Jose looked, something wrong with his body, his neck, and his face.

  Cole took another step towards the front door; he was only about six or seven long strides away from it.

  And now Jose started running towards the cabin through the snow. He raised the ax up in his hands that were way too thin – almost skeletal.

  Cole ran for the door. His boots clomped down on the floorboards and snow flaked off of his pants and coat. He reached his hands out for the door handle as a thought raced through his mind.

  What if Stella was awake now? What if she’d seen him leave? What if she had locked the door?

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Stella hadn’t locked the door; she hadn’t even made it to the door yet. She still stared at the freezer in the kitchen. She was on her feet now and she backed away from the nearly empty case of money and from the dining room table chair. She backed away from the kitchen with its microwave oven that she could see was clearly counting down numbers. She backed away from the smell of gas.

  She backed away from the freezer. The lid continued bumping up and down, and then the lid finally crashed open and slammed into the log wall, held there by a thin arm with a spider-like hand.

  Stella had backed all the way up into the living room, in front of the couch where David still slept. But she didn’t look at David; she kept her eyes on the freezer where Tom Gordon sat straight up. His movements were jerky as he climbed out of the freezer, and his limbs, which seemed like they were at odd angles, popped back into place with loud snapping sounds as he moved. Tom Gordon’s body wasn’t completely thawed yet and the ice crystals still twinkled on his bluish skin. He stared right at Stella with his eyeless face.

  And then he smiled.

  “No,” Stella whispered.

  She finally turned to David. He was still sleeping on the couch, but his arms were straight up in the air and his hands moved like he was still drawing the symbols in his notebook, still writing an ancient language that he couldn’t possibly know.

  “David!” she screamed. “Wake up!”

  David’s eyes moved back and forth underneath his closed eyelids. Back and forth. Back and forth. But he wasn’t opening his eyes, he wasn’t waking up. His hands moved in the air as he drew the imaginary symbols.

  “David!!”

  She shook him. “You have to wake up!!”

  A slamming noise startled Stella. She looked back at Tom Gordon who stood in front of the freezer on unsteady legs. But she realized the slamming noise hadn’t come from the kitchen. It had come from …

  … the front door.

  * * *

  Cole burst through the front door and then he slammed it shut. He locked the deadbolt, but he knew they were going to have to get out of this cabin very soon – it was a ticking time bomb.

  “Cole!” he heard Stella scream at him.

  He turned and saw Stella in front of the couch where David slept, but David had his arms raised up in the air and his hands were moving. But to Cole it didn’t seem like his hands were drawing an ancient language in the air, to Cole it looked more like David was a puppeteer pulling on imaginary strings.

  Cole saw Stella’s eyes dart to the kitchen.

  He followed her stare and saw Tom Gordon by the freezer, he watched him take a step away from the freezer, a step towards them.

  “Where’d you go, Cole?” Stella asked in a cracking voice; she seemed close to tears.

  Cole ran to Stella. “I’ve got us a way out of here,” he told her. “Get David! We need to go!”

  Just then something slammed into the front door – an ax. Cole snapped his eyes to the front door and he could see the tip of the ax poking through the wood of the front door. The ax blade wiggled out and it left a gash in the wood. A few seconds later the ax slammed into the door again.

  Stella was watching the door as Cole grabbed her. “Get David up!”

  “I’ve tried! He’s not waking up!”

  “I’ll carry David,” he told her. He saw that she had Jose’s gun in her hand. “You need to put that gun down. You can’t shoot that gun in here no matter what happens.”

  She nodded; she knew what the gas smell in the cabin meant. She dropped her gun on the floor, it landed with a thud.

  Cole turned to bend down and scoop David up off the couch, but he never got the chance to pick him up.

  “Where are we going?” Stella asked him

  “We’ll go out the back,” he said, but even as Cole uttered the words he could hear the splintering of wood from down the hall, like something incredibly strong was tearing the back door off of its hinges.

  They were trapped. They were surrounded.

  It was never going to let you get out, Cole’s mind whispered. It knew about your plans all along and it was always a step ahead of you. You were never going to outsmart it – it has been around a long, long time.

  Tom Gordon stumbled towards them and he nearly fell on his unsteady legs, but he kept on coming, he kept stumbling towards them, impossibly seeing through the black holes where his eyes used to be. And he opened his mouth and bared his teeth in a rictus smile.

  The ax hit the front door again and again. It had already nearly split the door right down the middle; the door was barely hanging in the doorway by the door handle and the hinges.

  From the hallway, behind the flimsy barricade of the dining room table, Cole could hear two more bodies stumbling forward through the darkness.

  Needles and Trevor, his mind whispered at him. Needles with his eyeless face and the gory exit wound in his forehead that was now like another hole where a giant eye used to be.

  And Trevor. Cole didn’t want to think about seeing Trevor again.

  Stella shook David again and again. She screamed at him to wake up. But he wouldn’t wake up.

  Jose split the front door apart with one last powerful strike from his ax. He stepped through into the cabin, into the light, and Cole could see Jose now.

  The flesh from Jose’s neck and throat were nearly gone; only a thin shaft of spine and a few spindly tendons held his head up, like some kind of flesh balloon being held aloft by a string of bone.

  Jose’s face had been peeled away in many places, revealing shiny white bone. On one side of his face, a large section of his teeth were visible now that the flesh was gone; his tongue flicked over the white teeth like a giant red slug.

  Jose took a step towards Cole and Stella; he held the ax in hands that were skeletal, nearly all of the flesh had been torn away from his hands.

  Cole and Stella huddled together.

  Frank stood in the doorway and watched them. The thing out there was seeing through Frank’s eyes, and it spoke through Frank’s mouth. “Last chance,” it said through Frank’s mouth. “Kill the boy and we’ll let you go.”

  Cole knew that he needed to get Stella and David out of the cabin now, in a f
ew minutes the microwave was going to count down to zero and turn on. The can of soda was going to heat up and then it was going to spark and explode. And that was going to ignite the gas from the stove. And that was going to spread to the gas-soaked logs of the cabin outside. This place was going to become an inferno. He had to get David out of here; he couldn’t let David die or all of his preparations would be for nothing. David would die. He and Stella would die. And maybe this thing wouldn’t die – maybe it would go on living. David would be dead and that creature, that thing out there, whatever it was, would have won.

  Cole couldn’t let that happen.

  Cole aimed his gun at Tom Gordon, then at Jose. But then he lowered his gun – it wouldn’t do any good, one shot could ignite this whole cabin. Instead, he pointed his gun at himself; he shoved the barrel under his chin and laid his finger on the trigger, ready to shoot. He smiled at Frank.

  “Move aside, Frank,” Cole said. “You let Stella and David go or I’ll kill myself.”

  There was a crashing noise from the hallway. Stella looked over and saw the dining room table thrown aside from the doorway to the hall. She saw Needles and Trevor stumble out from the darkness.

  Cole wouldn’t allow himself to look at Trevor or Needles – he kept his eyes on Frank. “Last chance, Frank,” he said.

  No answer from Frank for a moment, and then he cocked his head the other way and smiled at Cole. “Pull the trigger, Cole. Die. And then we’ll all tear Stella apart with our fingers and teeth right in front of the boy. And you will help us.”

  Cole hesitated. He knew if he pulled the trigger there might be enough gas lingering in the room to cause an explosion. He couldn’t risk it.

  Something bumped into Stella from the couch behind her. She whirled around and saw that David was still asleep, but his body was levitating, floating up into the air; his body was already up to her shoulders. His legs hung down in the air, but his arms were still straight up, his hands were still moving frantically, still frantically writing.

  Then the microwave dinged – the timer had counted down to zero. The microwave turned on and began heating the can of soda.