Those Who Follow

by Garza, Michelle

  Javier could sense her need to hurry. He sped along the road to where he recalled seeing the market. After ten minutes of frantically scanning the highway, they finally saw an old sign pointing north directing them to the Heralds Market and Café.

  Pushing their luck, Javier sped faster, hoping no highway patrol cars saw them flying down the desert road. Soon the market came into view.

  Casey nervously pointed it out. “THERE!” she cried in a shaky voice, her hand holding onto the door latch to open it as soon as he found parking.

  He pulled into the nearest spot and her car door flew open. With the rough sketch that Javier had made from the description of her vision, Casey jogged to the front door, hoping that someone could identify the crown logo.

  Javier caught up to her and pushed open the old screen doors of the market. The pair scanned the crowd as they walked in. Javier placed a hand on Casey’s elbow, silently trying to calm her and keep her from running about the place.

  He whispered, “Don't draw any unwanted attention. We don't need any questions from cops. Just calmly ask for any information we can get without seeming strange. We don’t need to waste time with a long conversation.”

  Casey understood his reasoning. They couldn’t explain all of this to the police, and they certainly didn’t want to be detained for breaking into the run-down asylum. They would quickly be made, because surely her (their) escape was known by now.

  She shook her head to calm her breathing and slowed her steps. They needed information… not an interrogation. They could very easily become targets of the local police and that would only end one way… with her being taken back to the looney bin, and it would probably get the only person who could help her—Javier—fired from his job and maybe worse.

  No, she could not lose this opportunity.

  Casey slowed and looked at whatever happened to be in front of her. Javier nearly laughed when he saw Casey standing there holding a grapefruit. He understood what she was doing but, in the moment, it was funny to him. He could see her as a spy from an old movie.

  Standing next to her, he made small talk about the fruit as she looked around trying to get a feel for who seemed friendly or who seemed like they could help. Obviously, the teenaged boy sweeping the floor would probably not be able to give them any useful information. The kid might be too young to recognize the crown emblem. Perhaps it belonged to something in the area from before his time.

  “Not him,” Casey whispered to Javier. “Look for someone middle-aged or older. Maybe another worker who could recognize other businesses or organizations in the area.”

  Javier nodded, then motioned to an older lady behind a counter selling pies. Casey agreed. This lady seemed helpful and friendly. She remembered a loud rumbling from her visions, like a vehicle or maybe something mechanical. Still thinking of how to ask the pie lady, she pretended to inspect an orange and asked Javier, “What should I say to her?”

  Seeming to contemplate which lemons he liked best, he whispered, “Tell her we were driving through and you were intrigued by the symbol and wanted to maybe get a photo for a scrap book or something like that.”

  Casey smiled, pleased with Javier. He had really thought of a good reason to inquire about the crown. Far more on edge than she was showing, she was thankful to have him in her corner. Aside from the crown flashing in her mind, Casey had been having trouble finding the words she needed until he had made the suggestion. Casey nodded her approval and motioned for him to follow her over to the woman.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A ROARING ENGINE

  Behind the old wooden counter stood a smiling, older lady with greying blond hair. She wore an old-fashioned blue gingham apron. There was a small name tag pinned on the right side with Louise written in pretty cursive handwriting on it. Casey approached Louise smiling. After her time in the asylum, Casey had learned that, if you needed something from someone else, you got farther in most situations if you smiled and acted as friendly as possible. Louise smiled back. She had pretty light blue eyes that made Casey hopeful for some reason. The friendly-faced woman behind the counter waved and asked, “Can I help you, folks?”

  Casey and Javier smiled back and made small talk for a few minutes, talking with Louise about the fruit in the market, pie crust recipes and the weather. Javier was impressed. Casey seemed like a sweet young lady on car trip with her family friend. He could tell the type of upbringing she’d had. Casey had definitely been raised with some morals and she showed the proper amount of respect and witty humor that made strangers like her. He was a little relieved that the brash young lady from the asylum was nowhere in sight.

  Louise proved to be exactly the help they were looking for. She told them what they needed to hear when Casey asked, “I heard about this place from a friend, but we can’t seem to locate it. I would really like to see it.”

  “That insignia is from an antique shop about twenty minutes down the road.”

  “An antique shop? I have to go check that out. I bet there will be a ton of wonderful opportunities for pictures there for the scrap book I’m making of our little road trip.”

  “Thank you, Louise,” Javier said.

  “No problem. That’s what I’m here for,” The older woman grinned.

  They could hardly contain themselves on the walk back through the parking lot. Another piece to the puzzle was now in place.

  ****

  Casey bit her lips nervously on the way there. Finally, they pulled into the parking lot, but just as they were locking up the car to walk inside, an old man exited the store and jogged over to an older car—a shining black sedan. She felt like staring at hole through him.

  Javier grabbed her hand and tried to pull her along. Relenting, she slowly began to follow Javier until a familiar rumbling caught her ear. She stopped, rooted in place, Javier was talking but she couldn’t hear the words. Only the rumble of the that bored-out motor filled her head. Casey turned quickly and watched as the car sped off out of the parking lot.

  “Let’s go!” she screamed, cutting off Javier midsentence.

  He stopped and stared.

  “That was it—the rumble. That car! That man! We have to keep up with him!” she said.

  Javier didn't question Casey. The look on her face said it all. They jumped back into his grandmother's car and sped after him, hoping to not lose sight of the black car.

  ****

  Benjamin worked furiously trying to remove their chains. From the trunk of his car, he pulled out every tool he had. Soon, they realized that only Ben’s brute strength and a sledgehammer was doing any kind of real damage to the shackles, but this was taking time, and time was something they all knew they didn't have. Celia and Eighty-two sat against the side wall watching the progress with sinking hearts.

  “You look so much like my sister. Annemarie was killed by the old bastard, but I swear you could be her daughter. Your looks and hair color are just like her,” she sighed, lost in recollection of happier times. “Even when you stand a certain way it reminds me of Annemarie. Sometimes, I fantasize that she did make it, and she was not torn apart by monsters. It’s just comforting somehow to imagine dying an old woman with her beside me.” The older woman began to weep.

  Celia quietly listened, then told Eighty-two, “If our end comes here—on this side—I will be beside you… but if I die, I will try my best to take that son of a bitch with me.” The women held hands for a moment trying to comfort each other and watching in desperation as their rescuer fought to free them.

  Benjamin repeatedly swung the sledgehammer down onto the old links in the chain. After a while, a few of the dented links finally crumbled apart, freeing Sixty-eight. They all cheered, then he and Allan took turns beating the rest of the chains until they were all freed of being tethered to the church floor—all but Allan. He was the last one to receive Benjamin’s attention.

  The women were now able to move around more easily, but they still had shackles around their ankles and leng
ths of chain dragging along beside them. Cautiously optimistic that they could try to make break for it, their elation seemed short lived when a familiar rumbling caught their attention. The bastard was back and would most certainly kill anyone he could get his hands on.

  Benjamin yelled, “Get the hell out of here. Get to the doorway!”

  Outside of the church, Byron stepped from his car holding a large revolver and immediately let fly shot after shot into the walls and windows. Smiling a yellow grin when Benjamin came into view, he reloaded his pistol confidently. The dark silhouette of Benjamin stood with his arms stretched over his head using a sledge hammer to free Allan.

  Byron whistled so the big man would turn in his direction. He wanted to be looking Benjamin in the eye when he blew him away.

  Inside, Benjamin had nearly finished doing all he could to set Allan free. He wished he could’ve done more, but at least at he’d managed to get them separated enough so they could try and run to the doorway.

  Hopefully, Celia could pull it open.

  A shot rang out and a bullet tore into his gut. Benjamin knew instantly that he was in trouble. His body quaked as blood ran down his legs. Turning back, he let the hammer fly and the chain broke at last. Allan scrambled across the floor towards a window as a familiar voice spoke from the church doorway, “Big Ben. Welcome to my church, are you enjoying yourself?”

  Partially obscured behind a church pew when he froze, Allan looked over to his old friend. Benjamin gripped his stomach and held his hammer at his side. Blood ran out from between his fingers.

  “Come on over here and find out, old man,” he answered.

  “I’ve been waiting for this,” said Byron as he strode forward.

  Allan slunk through the window as the preacher raised his pistol. He went falling out onto his head as a gunshot echoed through the desert in the middle of nowhere.

  Benjamin cried out.

  The old man laughed, “This ain’t gonna be quick.”

  Allan realized that Byron had intentionally shot the hulking traveler in a painful, yet non-lethal part of his body to make him suffer before he died. A thud came from the other side of the wall. Allan hesitated. The tree line was close, just beyond Ninety-seven’s corpse. He could make it there quickly, without drawing the old man’s attention. Climbing to his feet, he ran as he heard Benjamin screaming behind him.

  ****

  Javier pushed the gas pedal to the floor but the station wagon couldn’t keep pace with the black sedan. Its engine roared in the distance as it flew over every dip in the road. They watched it outpace them until it crested a small hill.

  In an instant, it was gone.

  “Where’d he go?” Casey shouted.

  “He was right there!” Javier answered.

  A single cloud of dust dissipated in the air at the roadside, but the black car was nowhere to be seen.

  “Slow down!” Casey cried.

  Javier brought the car to a crawl along the desert highway. “Does this look familiar to you?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  It was too surreal for Casey to see actual scenery from what she thought had been just a dream… A hallucination. The crooked saguaro stood tall just off the blacktop, pointing its arms to the sky. A feeling, like an electrical current, passed through her body.

  “She’s here somewhere.”

  Javier pulled off to the side of the highway and gave Casey a moment.

  “We have to find her,” she said then pushed the car door open.

  They walked cautiously towards a copse of twisted mesquite trees. Her skin tingled with an unseen power all around them.

  “Can you feel it?” Javier asked.

  “Yes.”

  “This is a place of strong energy,” he said. “A crossroads exists here.”

  Casey looked at him.

  “I was taught about them in my time with a shaman. He tested me, but I couldn’t pass the barrier between worlds.” Javier hesitated before asking, “Are you strong enough to see what lies on the other side?”

  She shook her head, “No but I can feel something pulling at me, like a river trying to carry me away.”

  “Stand your ground until we know what we’re dealing with.”

  “I can hear the roar of his engine, but I can’t see his car,” she said, shaking her head. “I think he’s going to kill her.”

  “Call out to her. Let her know to stay strong,” Javier said.

  Casey nodded and closed her eyes. She could not see her sister but a sense of dread filled her. “She’s in danger.”

  “Speak to her in your mind. She will hear you,” He said.

  Casey concentrated, her mind focused on the vision she had seen of that very highway. She called out the only way she knew how, with the song they shared at birth before they were given to separate families.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A FAMILIAR SONG

  Celia dragged Sixty-eight by the hand. She was weak, malnourished and unaccustomed to traversing anything but the old, wooden church floor. Eighty-two was right beside them as they ran into the desert outside the church.

  Gunshots rang out again, reminding them of the monster behind them. Casey sought another doorway, an exit into the world on the other side. The morning waned into midday as they halted. Casey couldn’t sense another doorway anywhere around them.

  The heat was beginning to rise. Soon it would be sweltering. Their church prison had been as hot as an oven and reeked constantly of decay. The open desert held a breeze, though it did nothing to stifle the heat. If they became lost in the miles of endless sand and cactus, they would find themselves in a dire situation.

  Death closed in.

  They needed to make a decision about how they wanted to go if it finally drew its noose about their necks.

  “Do you see anything?” Sixty-eight asked just as her determination began to fade.

  “Nothing,” Casey answered truthfully.

  “Let’s keep going,” Eighty-two said in desperation. “He’s gonna find us out here.”

  Casey knew it was true. Her hopes of finding another way out were diminishing quickly.

  “The doorway… we have to go back and get through it,” she said.

  “He’s back there, how will we get by him?” Sixty-eight asked, her voice breaking as she tried to catch her breath.

  “Sounds like he’s busy.”

  Another shot ricocheted in the distance.

  “He’ll kill us too, for sure,” Eighty-two said.

  “Only if he catches us,” Celia said.

  The two older women nodded.

  “Are you sure you can get us through?” Eighty-two asked.

  “I’m sure as hell gonna try.”

  Celia allowed them a spare minute to collect themselves, to gather the remainder of their strength and bravery. It was all they had left after being held captive most of their lives.

  Both women were walking skeletons with bruised skin stretched over their bones. Celia couldn’t believe they had survived so long. It could only have been their determination to live keeping them going. She knew they would need every ounce of it to make it back into the other world.

  “What will we do?” Sixty-eight asked. “When we cross over?”

  “We’re gonna start over,” Celia assured her.

  “How?” the old woman wept. “Look at us.”

  “If we lived through this, nothin’ can stop us,” Eighty-two said, coaxing the battered old woman onto her feet.

  Sixty-eight nodded and smiled through her tears.

  ****

  Byron stood over Benjamin, the once mighty giant, a military hero who had fought enemy war parties on foreign soil and legions of shadow hunters in this world on the other side.

  Benjamin was bleeding out. His life would end here, on the splintered floor of the old man’s tainted sanctuary. Byron paused as he drove his thumb into a bullet hole in Benjamin’s gut, his eyes falling on his dog lying dead not far away. Rage filled him as he
turned back to gaze at Ben’s ashen face.

  “You brought this on yourself,” Benjamin spat.

  Byron shoved his thumb deeper into the weeping wound and savored Benjamin’s cries for a moment before responding, “Every life ends. You just gotta decide if you’re going out with a whimper… or a bang.”

  The old man lifted his pistol once more and placed it against Ben’s temple.

  “Beg me to stop,” he ordered.

  “Fuck, no.” Benjamin spat a fat wad of saliva and blood into Byron’s expectant face.

  “This is gonna be painful. I can promise you that,” The preacher said.

  He lifted his pistol high above his head and swung it down with all of his strength into Ben’s nose, breaking it with an audible crunch. Standing over the other traveler as he fell unconscious, Byron began pistol-whipping his face until his orbital bones were crushed and his eyes were swollen shut. He reloaded his pistol but refused to end it so quickly for the man who trespassed into his territory. Instead he kept wielding the gun like a club until Benjamin’s skull was a mess of broken teeth, shattered bones, flesh and blood.

  ****

  The old man would never have guessed who stood behind him, wielding a large, jagged stone. Allan shook, his cowardice screaming for him to run for the doorway that pulsed beyond the old black car while it wasn’t guarded, but he couldn’t abandon Benjamin.

  Not again.

  He lifted the rock above his head, then swung it downward against the back of Byron’s skull. It connected with a dull thud, leaving the preacher’s scalp dangling in a bloody flap.

  He pitched forward, tumbling over Benjamin who was barely alive. His bloody pistol skidded a few feet away as the old man tried to regain control of himself after that dizzying blow to the back of his head.