Rise the Dark

by Michael Koryta

  “Who are you?” Mark said. “Who in the hell are you? You’re not Dixie, and you’re not in the right house, so—”

  He stopped talking abruptly, the woman’s identity suddenly unimportant. The flashlight had caught a glint of metal and drawn his eye to an old table just behind her shoulder. Knives glittered from every inch of it. A dozen, at least, and no standard blades in the mix. There were fat, curved bolo machete blades, hard-angled tanto tips like small samurai swords, an ancient knife with a stone cutting edge and a bone handle. Ancient, but honed. Any of them would kill you, and cruelly. They were not knives designed for simplicity. They were designed for pain.

  “What was the plan?” Mark said. His voice was hoarse. It took an effort to look away from the knives and back to the blond woman who’d promised to find his wife’s energy. A moment ago she’d looked weak and under attack, on her knees and temporarily blinded. Now she lowered her hands and smiled with empty contempt.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” she said. “But it wasn’t up to you, was it? I bet that’s even what you tell people. I bet you’ve said that already. If you haven’t, you will soon. You’ll explain how you ended up in this room. Do you know what word you’re going to use? Called. That’s what you’ll say. You felt called here. You might blame the dead bitch, but when you’re alone with your thoughts, you’ll know that’s not true. She’s the smallest part of it. And you’ll be sure of that by the end.”

  Mark had once gotten a murder confession from a man who’d calmly and precisely explained how he’d gone about killing a husband and wife in their own living room following five days of careful hunting and planning. He said he’d done it because he’d understood that the gods—plural; he was clear on that too—wanted him to carry lessons of respect into the world. For many years, Mark had thought he was the most chilling specimen of what could appear on this earth disguised as a member of humanity.

  That was before he’d met this woman.

  The flashlight trembled just the faintest bit in his hand, but because of the play of light in the dark room, the shaking was obvious, and her smile widened, a leering, rictus grin.

  “What do you know about my wife?” Mark said.

  “More than you, which is to say that I understand she’s inconsequential. When you accept that, you’ll be better off, but it won’t really matter.” She shrugged. “Your mind isn’t strong enough to matter to us.”

  “Who is us? You and Myron? You and Garland Webb?”

  “I have many brothers,” she said.

  “Is Garland Webb a brother to you?”

  “I don’t know that name.”

  “He shared your house.”

  “He never shared my house.” She rose from the floor and reached for one of the knives, grabbed the one with the bone handle. By the time she lifted it, Mark had cleared the .38 from its holster and had the muzzle pointed at her.

  “Wrong weapon,” he said.

  She didn’t answer, just backed out of the bedroom with the knife held at shoulder level. Then she headed for the stairs, and Mark was left with only a few options, none of them good: try to stop her and invite the opening of his arteries in the process, shoot her in her own home, or let her go.

  He let her go.

  When the front door banged shut behind her and he was alone in the house, Mark moved to the wall, sagged against it, and looked at the table of knives. He wondered how close he’d come, how many minutes—or seconds—he’d had left when he’d drawn the light.

  And whether he’d been the first Novak to cross this threshold.

  As silence descended around him and sweat dripped from his forehead, he pushed off the wall and gathered himself. He didn’t know how long she’d be gone or how many people she’d bring with her when she returned, but right now he was alone in a house that might have evidence relating to Lauren’s death, and he wasn’t about to waste that chance.

  12

  At first Sabrina thought the voices were a trick of her mind, because they were usually faint, whispered echoes, and in the brief period she’d had light, she’d become convinced that she had seen the entirety of the cabin.

  Eventually, she realized that there was a second level above her, and that was where he was. The sound had confused her because there were no interior stairs, no evidence of a second story. Access had to come from outside.

  Her first reaction to this realization was added fear, because now she knew that even when she thought she was alone, she wasn’t.

  In time, though, she decided that it was a good thing. The more she understood about her situation, the better her chances of escape. All the things she could not see were potential threats. Having a greater sense of the layout was a help. When she ran, she would need to know as much as possible.

  So far her escape plan had only its first step: obtain the woman’s assistance. Sabrina thought that she could get that. In the time the woman had remained in the cabin, preparing food for Sabrina in the small kitchen, she had been both tender and obviously uncomfortable. She’d kept her eyes away from the handcuff and the chain, and Sabrina was certain that they bothered her. When she’d brought food to Sabrina—oatmeal with brown sugar—she’d actually tried to feed her with the spoon, like a loving mother, before Sabrina simply used her free hand to do it herself. The woman had made a soft cooing sound and stroked Sabrina’s hair sympathetically. At first Sabrina had recoiled from the touch, feeling only madness in it, but then she realized the concern was real. However powerful the madness was, it had not evaporated the human concern, the empathy. It was there, and real, and it could be used. How easily it could be used, Sabrina wasn’t sure.

  In this, as well, Sabrina found comfort. This woman wasn’t chained and shackled, but she was still dominated. Controlled. And somewhere in her, Sabrina believed—had to believe—there would be resistance to this. Resentment.

  Please God, let that be true.

  She understood that trying to make one of her captors into an ally was hardly a first-class plan, but she was chained to the wall with only three feet of movement; it was the best she had.

  She needed her captor’s concern, and the bathroom. She was considering the latter, and not just because of the rising pressure in her bladder. The cabin was too neat and they went to too much effort to provide a bizarre illusion of comfort for her to believe that they intended her to sit in her own mess. At some point, the handcuff was coming off that bolt in the wall. She was almost sure of it.

  She had to be sure of it. Because if it wasn’t true…

  She cried again then, softly but desperately, her body aching. Leaned against the log wall and sobbed herself dry, and when it was done, she told herself that it was the last time.

  Until the woman returned, at least. The woman who was weaker than the man, and certainly weaker than Sabrina. Anyone who could be controlled by this man without chains and handcuffs was far weaker than Sabrina. She would use emotion as a weapon, because she believed the woman would respond to it. The tools she had now were limited, and so it was critical to identify them and sharpen them.

  Her mind was clearer now, whatever narcotic she’d been drugged with cleansed from her veins, and she had begun to make mental lists—the things that she knew about her situation, a short list, and the things that her captors did not know.

  It was in this second list that she was starting to find more strength. Things they did not know about Sabrina Baldwin:

  She had been orphaned at twelve, her parents killed by a jackknifing semi on an iced-over Michigan interstate; she and Tim, closer than most siblings because of the tragedy, had gone through three different foster homes. Before she turned eighteen she’d earned a partial athletic scholarship to the University of Montana for track, where she won conference titles. Before she’d turned twenty-five, she had started her own business, and had paid off every loan within two years. When she buried her brother, the only family she had left, she’d moved to a new town and faced new challenges and none o
f that had broken her yet. What her captors saw—a helpless woman in a nightgown, frightened and cowering—was not what they actually had.

  Sabrina Baldwin was a lot of things, and frightened was sure as shit one of them right now, but helpless and cowering never had been and never would be.

  These were the things she had to remember.

  She continued to build onto the list as the minutes—hours? It was impossible to know—passed by, and though she did not move from the wall and could not, she began to feel less anchored to it. Some kidnapping victims escaped. She had seen the stories; everyone had. It was possible. She just had to remember that it was possible.

  When the woman returned, she was alone, entering through the front door that seemed to provide the only access to the lower portion of the cabin. Sabrina had slept in fits and starts until the pressure in her bladder built to such a constant ache that she could sleep no longer. She’d been about to give up and succumb to her body’s demands when the locks turned.

  “Dear? Are you awake? Are you all right?”

  “I’m awake. I need the bathroom.” Sabrina’s voice cracked and rasped. It had been hours since she’d spoken, and the crying bouts had left her dried out. The request I need the bathroom felt childlike and weak, and she hated herself for it.

  “Of course! Of course, dear.”

  Remember that she can be manipulated, Sabrina told herself. She shouldn’t fear showing weakness around this woman; she should strive for that. It was clear that the woman could be manipulated—her very existence in this place, her acceptance of it, announced her coercion. You could sell this woman a lie.

  A flashlight came on, and Sabrina squinted against the harshness of it. The woman was carrying a bag, and inside the bag were Sabrina’s own clothes, apparently stolen from the house along with her.

  “For your comfort,” the woman said. “I’m sorry it took so long. I didn’t know where they put them.”

  There was a metallic jingling and then a key ring appeared in the light and the woman set to work unfastening Sabrina’s handcuff from her wrist. She carried herself like a concierge rather than a kidnapper. She gave Sabrina her clothes, then went into the little kitchen and turned her back politely to allow Sabrina to change in privacy. The feeling of slipping into jeans and a sweatshirt was remarkable; they felt more like armor than clothes, made her feel so much less vulnerable than she had in the thin nightgown.

  And the only thing between her and freedom was the door, and the woman had the keys for it.

  You could run, Sabrina thought. She could knock this woman aside and run. She was stronger than her, and far, far faster.

  “Ready for the bathroom?” The woman walked for the door, keys in hand. Sabrina stared at her, astonished at how easy she was making it.

  Just run. You posted a sub-six-minute mile for five years straight. Just run!

  Then the door was open and the woman shone her light outdoors, and Sabrina understood much more.

  The cabin stood in the center of a fenced enclosure, like a shelter in a zoo’s pen. The wooden fences had to be fifteen feet tall, maybe twenty. The corner posts were constructed from telephone poles.

  “This way, dear. This way.”

  Using the flashlight, the woman guided her away from the cabin and down a short path to an outhouse. Traces of snow lined the path, and Sabrina was shivering, her breath fogging the air. They were up high, but they weren’t in the Beartooths, because there would be much more snow there. How many miles had they covered before she’d regained consciousness? Were they even in Montana?

  The woman opened the door and smiled awkwardly.

  “I have to wait, of course, but you’ll have privacy.”

  Sabrina stepped into the outhouse, pulled the door shut, and fumbled her way onto the seat. When she’d relieved herself, she rose again and tried to stretch in the dark, cramped quarters to get as loose as possible.

  It’s just a fence. Fences can be climbed.

  The truth was, it had looked easy to climb. It was constructed with plywood panels nailed against a frame of two-by-fours, cheap and easy work, and the frame was on the inside, providing handholds and foot braces all the way to the top. She couldn’t afford to wait in hopes of a better opportunity. This might be the only opportunity.

  “Are you okay?” The voice came from just outside the door.

  “Yes,” Sabrina said, massaging her hamstrings, bouncing up and down on her toes, telling herself she was just getting ready for a run, that was all it would be, just a short run and a climb and then go, go, go! “I’m fine.”

  When the woman opened the outhouse door, she was smiling—right up until Sabrina punched her.

  It was a wild blow, catching the woman on the side of her face, just below her left eye. She stumbled backward and cried out and then Sabrina charged her like a linebacker, lowering her head and leading with her right shoulder. The woman fell easily, just as Sabrina had hoped; she went down hard and landed with a grunt of pain and then Sabrina was past her and alone, nothing between her and freedom but that fence.

  They didn’t think I would try! How could they think I wouldn’t try?

  She was running now, giddy to the point of dizziness with fear and adrenaline, expecting some disaster, expecting the man from her house to rise up again, that strange dart gun in hand or, worse, a real one, but nobody came. It was just her and the open ground and she covered it easily, her stride fast and smooth, and she was half laughing and half crying as she neared the fence, the adrenaline so intense that there was a high hum in her ears, so strong it was something she could almost feel as she reached for one of those two-by-four braces that supported the fence and was about to provide her easy escape over the top.

  She didn’t register the impact, didn’t register even any pain, just surprise. There was a reason they called it an electric shock. One minute she was running free and strong and the next she was down on her ass and her right arm felt like it was missing and the rest of her tingled as if spiders were swarming over her flesh. She looked from the ground to the fence in bewilderment, dazed, and finally she understood that the hum in her ears hadn’t been imagined and realized why the woman had freed her from the handcuff with such casual confidence.

  The fence was electrified.

  Powerfully electrified.

  From pole to pole, strands of exposed copper wire ran along the wooden braces, and the voltage passing through was so strong that the hum was audible. Each brace carried a wire. It would take a pole vaulter to clear this fence without contacting the electrical current.

  Get up, she thought stupidly, get up and try another place. You can’t just sit here.

  She heard a sound behind her then and turned to see the woman approaching. Not running, just walking with a steady stride, all the kindness gone from her face. When she reached Sabrina, she knelt beside her.

  “You got buzzed pretty good, didn’t you?”

  Sabrina didn’t answer. The woman turned the flashlight away from the fence and panned it to the right, and Sabrina saw the cabin clearly for the first time—two stories, with only one door to the lower level and a set of exterior stairs on each side of the house leading to the second floor. All around the fence were tall pines, and just behind it a cluster of dead trees that hadn’t been cut. Then the flashlight beam stopped moving, and Sabrina gasped.

  They weren’t trees. They were telephone poles, ten of them, at least, and what looked like old transformers had been mounted high on them, though no wires were strung.

  “What are…you…doing here?” Sabrina croaked as the pain from the shock began to pulse through her arm, the surprise gone and only the agony left. “What do you want?”

  “It’s not what we want, dear, it’s what we need. All of us. It has to be done.”

  “What does?”

  “Awakening. Every society needs one. It’s undeniable, one of the firm truths we have. Eli will explain this to you. He’ll tell you what the mountains have told him.
I know that it will be hard at first, but please, please listen. Open your mind, open your heart. Here’s what you need to remember, Sabrina—the mountains have been here since before any of us were even imagined. Now, you tell me: Would they lie?”

  Sabrina couldn’t formulate a response, and the woman smiled again, her eyes glittering in the flashlight glow.

  “Exactly, dear. Exactly. The mountains wouldn’t lie. They couldn’t! And we should be very grateful that Eli can hear them. Are you ready to go back to the cabin? Have you satisfied yourself with your little experiment?”

  There was no point in resisting. She couldn’t climb the fence, so she’d have to figure out how to disable it. She was thinking about this when the woman said, “And, oh yes, dear, there’s one other thing—you’re not allowed to hit me. That’s against the rules.”

  She swung the flashlight and hit Sabrina full in the face.

  As Sabrina howled in pain and blood poured from her nose, the woman regarded her with the sympathetic eyes, the caretaker eyes.

  “Let’s not have a problem like this again,” she said. “It’s bad for everyone, isn’t it? But as Eli always says, rules need to be enforced or they aren’t rules at all. It’s a matter of energy, dear. Whatever you put out will be returned to you. It will pay to remember that while you’re here.”

  13

  By the time Mark had worked his way through the house, he was talking softly to himself. It was more a prayer than anything else. Please tell me she was never here. Please tell me she was never in this place.

  The idea of Lauren gunned down in that dark thicket of bamboo beside the ditch had always felt more than horrific enough.

  That was before he’d seen the house.

  Between the ground floor, the stairwell, and the upstairs bedrooms, he counted sixty-seven paintings on the walls and chalk drawings on the floors, all some variation of a spiral theme. Each one pulled him in like a hypnotic eye. Beyond the spiral imagery, there was only one constant to the artwork: the center of each spiral was black. Even in the chalk drawings, black paint had been used in the center.