5 Years After (Book 2.5): Smoke & Mirrors

by Correll, Richard

  He was watching the front door when he saw him. He was a large man with small, spindly legs like toothpicks sticking out of a Styrofoam snowman. His face was hidden by an un-kept beard that had grown down to his neck. There some kind of shapeless hat covering his forehead and…….the jacket.

  The jacket, Brett felt his eyes telescope toward the familiar turf green and gold. The Green bay Packers logo on the front was a dead giveaway. Dad, he had always worn it. It was his go to for the winter months and he was naked from the waist up just a few minutes ago, his thoughts had an awareness now. He had a logical path to follow .It pointed toward the winter. His feet were moving faster. The strides had an adrenalin surge to them.

  Was it adrenalin that pushed you forward now or was it a darker emotion?

  “Where did you get that?” Brett’s voice was dark, cruel and husky when he confronted the man in the doorway of his parents’ cottage. They were 15 feet apart. The man’s mouth fell open slightly as he sized Brett up.

  “Where did you get the jacket?” Brett didn’t recognize his voice. He felt himself focused on this one thing, this one man. The rest of the world could burn in Hell.

  ”Why should I tell you, asshole?” A slow smile worked across his face and his head tilted back.

  Brett felt himself light up like a fire had ignited behind his eyes. A firecracker exploded and his right rib cage in the back was suddenly stinging with the agony of broken bones. A heavy blow across the head clouded his vision. His eyesight became vague and unfocused at the edges. The peripheries seemed to expand until his eyesight was a series of black and grey shadows. The floor fell away, his knees were gelatinous.

  “Get his gun! Get his gun!” The guy with the jacket ordered through a haze of growing darkness. Eager hands pulled something metallic from his fingers. He was falling forward into blackness now. Clambering feet ran past the opening pit he felt himself falling into.

  Nighttime……pitch black

  Thump! It was a pressure against his hip for a second. It subsided only to return again. Awareness began to spread about him. He could sense he was lying on his side in the darkness of his parent’s cabin. He tried to will his eyes open to take in every speck of light and help him reveal more.

  Thump! He felt the pressure against his hip again and it suddenly stung like hell. He was lying against the front door, every so often something was pushing against the other side. The door would press against him and then close again. Brett reached up and turned the lock on the door. It clicked audibly into place and a high pitched whine of frustration came in reply. He stood up slowly and knew the vertigo would come. The darkness swirled with a myriad of blue and green mixed with sparklers. He was suddenly aware of pain. It was the dull, throbbing of an intense spot that was slowly spreading through him. He heard himself utter a rasp in reply to a sharp sting halfway up his sternum,

  That would be a cracked bone or something like it. He knew the feeling from half a dozen horses in his past.

  The back door, he silently walked through the blinding darkness to find the door closed but unlatched. He carefully put the lock in place and retreated with as little sound as possible. The moon was casting a shadow into the living room and Brett began to find his way around. He turned slowly and peered out the kitchen window.

  The shadows all seemed to be natural. Trees, huts and other non-threatening things were all in the right place. The moonlight seemed suddenly strong for a second. Perhaps it had just peaked out of an errant cloud, it didn’t matter. Brett focused on what it revealed. A pearl white passage way through the snow, tracks.

  Their tracks……..

  Something clattered to the floor. It was metallic. It had just fumbled from underneath his layered clothes. Brett’s hand reached back and let his index finger cover the hole in the cloth of his flak jacket. He then knelt down and found the bullet. It was a .22 caliber. The person who had shot him in the back must have been hiding behind the door when he entered. He had a coldness to his thoughts now that seemed out of place, unfamiliar. He didn’t question it. Instead Brett carefully walked to the living room window and surveyed his situation. The half moonlight revealed shadows that must have only recently arrived. The more he saw the more Brett realized he’d only been out for about an hour or two. There was plenty of time to catch up.

  To catch up with them……..

  The specters appeared to be leaning against invisible pillars in the front yard. A barely discernible difference between the right and left shoulder betrayed their stance. The shadows on the pale snow from the moonlight were real. A few more figures appeared from the woods and then stood still in the dreamlike winter’s night. On the porch, the face of an old woman was staring at the door. Her face was inches from the surface while her spidery arms ran themselves over the smooth wooden surface. She paused for a second, instinct was whispering in her ear. She slowly turned her head sideways and saw Brett’s face in the window. The eyes seemed to grow outwards, swallowing her face as they grew like broken egg yolks on a sidewalk. Blackened teeth found enough moonlight to flash in the darkness. Something between a rasp and animal howl rose from her lungs. It was repeated by the statues standing in the snow. They began to move.

  It was all instinct now. He was out the back door without a thought to the contrary. They were moving through the snow in the front yard without concern for the cold. Brett made a quick pace through the pathway that was now his trail. He heard the window in the living room shatter with a force that seemed to startle the silence, voices rose from behind. Was it communication? Were they like that now? As he followed the path he didn’t look back toward the cabin. He heard a timber break and for a minute hoped they would buy some time destroying the place in a vain search for him.

  But you know they’re smarter than that…….

  He could make out shapes moving through the trees to his left. They had come off the road and were now spilling into the forest and the nest of cabins like a waterfall. They cascaded out of the trees like a flood, their direction dictated by the grooves in the landscape and his scent on the crisp night air. His fingers fished around in his knapsack for the gangsta handgun he tossed in there a few years ago. It was gone along with a few other horded treasures.

  A mile down the road a figure weaved in the darkness. The trees had shuttered the moon briefly. As he passed by at a safe distance of thirty yards a second, smaller head popped into view. The long hair that was thick enough to create a shadow betrayed the larger figure as a woman. He was closer now. The smaller figure had to be a child. As a shaft of moonlight slithered through the trees he saw their puss yellow eyes. She was about fifty with a large rotund body. A motherly figure, his father used to say. She took a step forward in front of the little girl in a pink snowsuit. The child gave him a perfunctory glance and returned to a black monster attached to her leg.

  The teeth of the bear trap were clenched firmly about the little girl’s ankle. She was pushing with bare fingers back and forth. It was hopeless to try and open the trap. Instead, she was pushing the steel teeth up and down her skin. She was slowly cutting through the brittle and exposed bone. Her eyes were intense on the slow progress of amputating her own leg.

  The mother wore a heavy jacket, the kind people had when they understood the winter with an embittered practicality. The red black wool pattern was darkened by the shadows and feeble moonlight. The mother took another threatening step forward and howled a warning. Brett could feel astonishment creep through him in the cold night air. It never occurred to the woman that she could attack. After all, it would leave the little one defenseless in the darkness. She stood her ground and stared him down.

  As Brett turned his back he could feel her eyes on him. It occurred to him to watch the snow for tell-tale signs. One trap could mean more. The snow suddenly seemed sinister in its pristine white tapestry. He kept his feet within the pathway. He finally deviated to a neighbor’s shack quickly, he had been here before and he knew where to find it. The chains of
his new prize gave him a grim confidence.

  You’re really going to do this, aren’t you?

  It never occurred to him as a question. It was just an emotion. The cold seemed to melt away. The dropping temperature was not discernible anymore. His universe was reduced to a churned up path of snow about four feet wide, larger in some spaces. If he kept going he was bound to catch up. He had one advantage, after all. They think your dead. They don’t know what you’re doing…..

  What are you doing?

  To Brett, the world had always been a place where you had to give respect to get it. If you ran into the odd bad apple you stood your ground and that would be that. He had spent three years watching rust invade the world and weaken it. The rules were still there, we just had forgotten them as fear, hunger and basic instinct cut away at our insides. Yes, we are all still good. Just not now……….just not right now. He could sense the cold but not feel it. It seemed to match the temperature of his insides. Emotions seemed meaningless. They had been locked away in a place where he could only hear their muffled cries. What are you doing? What will this prove?

  His feet kept up the pace through the snow. It had been hours now. The idea of looking over his shoulder had not even occurred to him. It was not where he was going. His eyes followed the endless path in the snow as the trees closed in on either side. The ground began to steeply rise as he kept his attention firmly planted on what was in front of him. The trail seemed to break up here and there among the branches and scattered refuse of a forest floor. But as he topped a patch of clearing on a hill he found the footsteps in the snow once again.

  Brett finally glanced over his shoulder as the sun rose. He saw no figures pursuing but knew they must be there. They don’t give up that easy, he started moving down the hill again. Are you any different from them? Hunting on instinct, seeking what hungers in your soul?

  You know what the Chinese say: before setting out for revenge, dig two graves.

  “Good,” he whispered to the wind. “Somebody give me a shovel.”

  That evening, he got his first glimpse of his prey. They were at least a mile away. In the gathering dusk of another nightfall he watched the stick figures in the distance approach a small cluster of cabins that formed a half moon crescent around one of northern Montana’s massive lakes. They were hardly cautious. Confidently they peered into the cabins and kicked down the doors with the adrenaline rush of raising hell.

  At times, individual hostile forms challenged them. They would howl at them in warning, to the two people Brett was tracking this was part of the game. At a safe distance, they opened up with all the firepower they had. It wasn’t about protection. It was about killing.

  Where were they? Brett performed a slow and careful search of his surroundings. He listened for anything tell tale of something following. The air, trees and frozen ground seemed at rest. It was one of those cold, clear days where the wind was calm and silence was in abundance. The very world seemed to pause.

  Where were they? Brett tried simple reason for starters. There is hardly anyone up here, the fewer the population in Montana then the less chance of infection. That had to be it. There would be a few who would die from lawlessness or natural causes but the numbers were on the side of rural communities. Brett felt a slow sensation of cynicism growing inside. That’s right. Break all of this down to numbers. It might help you understand it more. It also let you peel the emotional fabric away from the current crisis. You didn’t have to feel what others were going through. You could let them die. Kill them for the good of others. Face it, that’s history in a nutshell.

  So, don’t tell me what I’m fucking doing is wrong, there was a spike of anger rising inside of him. He balled his fists while trying to watch the distance figures in the fading light. The rage paled as he felt himself breathing harder. Don’t tell me what I’m fucking doing is wrong, he repeated to himself, shackling his emotions to the events that were coming. He was almost looking forward to it. Is that what happens? A contrary opinion rose up inside. You just start enjoying this too much and then what have you become?

  The very thing you are fighting. Brett felt his mouth twist in rage at the counter point. Whatever, I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

  Don’t cross that bridge…….

  “Fuck off.” He spoke through grinding teeth. The silence of the lakes edge and forest continued, the only evidence he had spoken was a wisp of cold vapor that quickly dissipated in the gloom.

  As darkness took hold, they made themselves easier to find. Beams of light pierced the frigid darkness. The flashlights played slowly about the landscape on the other side of the lake. They were like walking lighthouses now. It beckoned him forward, an invitation to come closer. As he watched them carefully pick their way among the cabins, Brett realized he was close enough to begin to be more subtle. You were once following, he realized. Now, you are close enough to stalk, corner and ………

  His eyes slowly surveyed the ice on the lake. Was it thick enough? He could catch up within hours of this one risk. A full moon was rising across the sky, eagerly awaiting his decision. The trees surrounding the clear, dark surface seemed to be taller, more alive. It was a flat surface. A clear invitation from point A to point B, his feet tested the ice at grounds end and found it solid.

  Okay, he hunched his shoulders and bent his knees, offering a less prominent profile to the moonlight. Each step became more confident. His eyes located the shafts of light on the other side of the lake. His target was acquired. The chains on his shoulder rattled softly.

  As the moon rose in the sky, Brett slowly became aware of his surroundings as he crept silently on the ice. The lake was like most in this area. A circular indentation in the landscape that had a small aperture to a larger body of water in the distance, a gap in the trees helped him find this route. At the mouth of the escape route was a trident standing up right on the surface. It was about a mile away, a jagged crucifix jutting out of the ice.

  A sail or radio tower from a sunken ship, he wasn’t sure. It just wasn’t what was on his mind right now. The flashlight beams played across the landscape, they were closer now. He could feel instinct rise within him. Brett felt every footfall now. His eyes were piercing the darkness, drinking in the pale moonlight and discerning every small feature in the landscape before him. This is what they are like. You know that, don’t you?

  They? Brett kept his eyes focused on the two figures while listening to the emotions of a world long since passed.

  They. That band of things hunting you just a few miles behind. The purpose might be different but it’s all the same level. Brett exhaled carefully as he crossed the perfectly flat surface, his crouch had become more pronounced as the distance between him and the probing flashlights continued to get smaller. You’re an animal now.

  Just like the things you are hunting right in front of you, the knife point of the argument was twisted into self torture. Face it, you are just like them. Don’t feed yourself any shit about justice. Revenge, is what it is, don’t fucking fool yourself……

  You have become what you’re fighting………….

  The flashlights froze. Brett became a slow shrinking statue in the darkness. He lay down on the flat top of the clear, dark ice and hid his face. Any snow had been blown off the surface. The lake was an opaque circle among trees and drifts of white.

  “Who’s there?” A voice called out. A flashlight played out over the lake.

  Brett could hear his breathing. He was just a hundred yards away now. The silence of the lake seemed to swallow any conversation between the people in front of him. His breath left a tell tale cloud near his face for the briefest of seconds. Could they see that? Don’t be stupid, you can hardly see it. But there was that other sound. It seemed very close, a slight increase in volume from the sound of his lungs expanding and contracting. Scratching……….scratching………..

  They were inches from his face on the other side of the ice, their fingers clawing at t
he surface from beneath the frozen tableau. The eyes pushed up close as they could to see what they could not smell. The skin on all them was bleached white from the cold to the point of absolute radiance. There were two or three faces crowding around him and clawing to get closer. They moved like eels, twisting and turning through the icy water to stay close to the surface and the thing they wanted to devour.

  “C’mon.” An angry, impatient voice spoke through the darkness and the flashlight beam turned back toward land.

  The scratching was all around him now, he knew that. As Brett let his eyes wander over the smooth surface of the lake, inconsistencies in the ice became apparent. Small nodules poked up through the surface in no specific pattern. The more he widened his viewpoint, the more he saw.

  Fingertips……..

  The little bumps moved backward and forward in a feverish pattern. They were clawing their way through. Scratching bit by bit to get to you. His eyes wandered back to the ice his face was lying on. The swirling apparition was a few inches away may have been a woman at one time. The now almost albino hair waved in the frozen water while her mouth and fingers worked furiously. It looked like she was screaming at him.

  Thuuuuuuuuuuummmmmp!

  It was a subtle sound. It seemed again to come in several directions at once. Brett took a breath and tried to find its source. The moonlight was full, rich and almost as strong as the flashlights. It pointed to a crack or crevice in the ice that seemed to play out along the surface toward the horizon. Did they do that? He returned his attention to the woman in the ice. The other two forms he had seen earlier were back. Perhaps they could sense she was making headway. At any moment their fingers would pierce the thinning surface and drag him into the depths of their world.

  Move, you have to move now. He suddenly felt something for the first time in days. It wasn’t a sensation that started somewhere. It was simply in his system, overtaking everything from the flow of blood through his veins to the beating of his heart. He was suddenly cold……..very cold.