by Ike Hamill
“There is no safe harbor anymore,” Mason said.
He kept his word. When they got to the entrance of the old library, Mason cut their ties and let them walk in like free citizens. Brook scanned the crowd inside. She didn’t see Logan, or Harper, or any of her co-conspirators. Usually, before meetings, the gathering would be alive with casual conversation. People got a chance to catch up with friends and acquaintances that they didn’t see during the normal course of a day. Tonight, there was a hush in the haunted attic.
The windows at the end had been draped with black blankets. As the last people filtered in through the door from the fire escape, that door was blanketed as well. Brook moved to an empty folding chair and took a seat next to an old man. She recognized him as a healer from Flower Street. When she flashed a nervous smile at him, he reached out and touched her arm. The gesture was small, but it made Brook want to hug the man.
At the front of the room, Cleo held up her hands. Several lights were turned towards her and the already quiet group held their breath as they waited for her to speak.
Cleo took a chestful of air and let it out slowly before she spoke. “Thank you all for coming,” she said. Her voice was just above a whisper. Chairs creaked as people leaned forward to hear better. When Cleo spoke again, her voice was a little louder to accommodate.
Brook glanced around and tried to guess the attendance. It would have been easier in the courthouse—she knew what a full house looked like there. It seemed like maybe only a third of the citizens had shown up.
“It’s difficult to get a quorum at this hour, so please find your friends and neighbors when the meeting is over to share what you’ve heard,” Cleo said. She paused and cleared her throat. “There’s a unique threat to our community this evening. I’m afraid if we don’t act immediately, it could tear us apart. A small, dedicated group of evildoers has infiltrated our ranks, and they’re determined to kill or disband everyone who calls Fairbanks their home. I don’t understand their motives. Penny is going to explain what she and Mason found earlier today.”
Brook looked to her right and saw Mason moving towards the front of the room. He went and stood behind Penny, who had taken the place where Cleo stood.
Penny spoke nervously at first, but found her voice as she told her story. “We were called out to a house out in the Highlands early this evening. A young man reported hearing a scream at his neighbor’s house. Mason and I responded and we discovered the body.”
She swallowed and scanned the group before she continued. “Some of you probably knew Ned. He mostly kept to himself. We found him in his own house. The killers cut him up and took most of his organs with them. They also erased his security cameras so they could hide their identities. But Ned himself told us who did the deed. He wrote the name ‘Jacob’ in his own blood. Multiple witnesses saw it.”
Mason was nodding behind Penny as she spoke. Brook’s head turned to see a few other people in the front row nodding as well.
“We don’t know if he’s acting alone, or if he’s working with his accomplices—Harper and Logan. I know that he was trying to persuade some of you to join his conspiracy earlier. Now that we know what he’s capable of, I’m sure everyone will want to re-think that allegiance.”
Penny swept her eyes over the room as she spoke, but Brook saw that Mason was staring right at her.
“We have some witnesses to other crimes with us as well,” Penny said.
When she gestured, a pair of people stood up in the front row. They moved next to Penny and turned. Brook recognized Jayden and Andrew. She covered her mouth and shrank down. They had been a part of the other search party.
Andrew spoke. “We went out with Scarlett and Wyatt to look for Ryan. In light of what happened, I suspect that the whole thing was a setup. Jacob took another group on a different trail and we didn’t see him again until much later. But when Wyatt went ahead from us, he was attacked and cut up in the same way that Ned was. We brought Wyatt’s body back and Jacob somehow reappeared and intercepted us on our way back to town. I think they want us to believe that Ryan is attacking people, but it could have been them.”
“Let’s not draw conclusions yet,” Cleo said as she stood back up. “We want everyone to guard against the potential threat, but we don’t have enough evidence for trials yet.”
Another man from the front row stood. The volume of his voice shocked the group into silence. He wasn’t yelling, but he was twice as loud as anyone had dared speak before him. “I don’t believe this Ned business,” he said. Cleo opened her mouth to address or question him, but he plowed ahead before she could speak. “I saw the body, and I don’t fathom how he could have written on the floor. Did he do it after his brain was removed? If not, then why didn’t the killer smear away the name. If this Jacob character did it, then he would have covered his tracks like he did with the video.”
The man’s conjecture spawned a dozen whispered conversations in the group. Cleo saw that she was losing the room and put her hands back up to silence everyone again. The whispers took several seconds to trail off.
Before Cleo had a chance to speak again, the building groaned. The timbers of the old place creaked like the front door yawning open on a haunted house. Brook’s eyes went wide. She glanced around. Other people her age had the same reaction. When she was growing up, the old library had been well known as the most haunted place in Fairbanks.
Cleo frowned at the group and put her hands up again.
She didn’t match the volume of the skeptical man, but this time Cleo spoke loud enough for everyone to hear without straining. “Let’s not panic, people. We’re not here to assign blame. We simply want everyone to take the necessary precautions to stay safe. Our attacker, or attackers are targeting people who live alone. For the time, we’d like everyone to gather in small groups to better defend themselves. We have reason to believe that Jacob and his compatriots, Harper, Scarlett, Amelia, and Logan, may have information about the attacks, so we’d like everyone to keep watch and report any sightings of them. Everyone deserves justice.”
She paused.
Mason left his position behind Penny and walked towards the rear. He paused at Brook’s side.
Brook saw several people turn around towards the rear corner. The way the old library was situated, the inside staircase climbed the side wall downstairs before it turned and came up the back. Nobody used that staircase. Half the treads were broken and the handrail had rotted to dust. To enter the attic, people used the fire escape or the ladder.
Something heavy thumped. It was followed by the creak of old wood and then another thump. It sounded like a giant was ascending the stairs.
Mason left his position and continued towards the back stairs. On the other side of the row, Finn—another of Cleo’s guards—headed in the same direction.
The thumps came in a slow rhythm. With one, the creak and groan of the wood was accompanied by a rifle shot of snapping lumber. Mason picked up his pace while the breathless crowd watched. He got to the railing first and leaned over the staircase. They saw him peer down into the dark. He turned back to wave Finn forward with his light.
The mysterious sound continued to thump.
The instant that Finn arrived with his light, Mason turned from the staircase. His voice cut through the dusty attic like a knife. “Evac! Disperse! All…”
His last directive was cut off. Something reached through the balusters of the railing and encircled Mason’s ankle. It jerked him backwards so hard that he crashed through the railing, tearing it down. Finn’s light flew as the man ducked away and covered his head with his arms.
The crowd was up in an instant. The room was filled with the sound of rushing feet. People sprinted for the ladder on the front of the building and the fire escape on the side. All meeting places had several exits. Slips of paper were normally handed out beforehand with exit assignments for each person. In the short time they had been meeting in the safe harbor, the practice had been forgotten.
People ran towards the closest exit.
Brook rose to sprint for the fire escape before the weight of the crowd ripped it from the building. Isaac’s hand closed on her wrist. He shook his head and pointed with his free hand to the window. Just behind the clump of people trying to get down the ladder, nobody was using the window.
She looked back to the stairwell. She couldn’t see anything from her distance, but Finn could. Whatever he caught sight of sent him clawing his way back to his feet so he could join the others trying to escape.
It had to be an eight meter drop to the ground. Brook didn’t understand, but Isaac was so confident that she let him drag her towards it. Besides, with the knot of people at the exits, any option was worth consideration. People began to yell as Cleo’s guards forced a path for the woman. She was generally respected, but in a crisis nobody wanted to defer.
Isaac pulled open a cabinet beneath the window. He handed Brook an iron bar that was attached to a pulley with a chain. She puzzled at it as Isaac pulled down the upper sash of the window. He put a hand on her shoulder and stepped up on the window sill. Isaac motioned for the contraption.
She handed it to him as the lights went out. A few handheld flashlights swept their beams through the dusty air.
Isaac leaned in close so he could be heard over the sound of pounding feet.
“When this thing stops spooling, hit the release and the bar will come back. I’ll wait for you,” he said.
Isaac reached out through the window and then was gone. She heard a buzzing, mechanical sound from outside. It sounded almost like the reel on a fishing pole, playing out line.
A new sound from the back of the attic claimed her attention.
It was a low, reverberating groan, accompanied by the return of the heavy footsteps ascending. People began to panic in the dark.
A man’s voice screamed, “No!” from back there.
The next sound was bending metal and then the building shook with several loud reports. Based on the cries from the crowd at the side of the attic, Brook guessed what was happening—the fire escape was being torn away by the weight of too many people.
She looked at the window, still unsure of what had happened to Isaac. He seemed confident, but must have dropped to the ground. A stray flashlight beam gave her a burst of insight. There was a cable attached to the side of the library, just above the window. Isaac must have ridden that pulley safely to the ground. Brook remembered his instruction and pulled herself up to stand on the sill. She reached through and felt for the cable. It disappeared into a mechanism with a lever on the side.
She pulled the lever.
A smaller cable began to zip by her hand—she withdrew it back inside before the friction burned her skin.
Brook turned back inside as a woman screamed. In the dark chaos, she couldn’t tell what was happening. From the sound, it seemed that people were still piling onto the collapsing fire escape. Others had given up on waiting for a turn at the ladder and they were throwing themselves down the hatch.
A flashlight turned towards her and its owner spotted the new escape route. Another person screamed and Brook saw something dark emerge from the staircase at the other end of the long attic. She wasn’t the only one to catch sight of the thing. A new wave of panic spread through the remaining people in the attic. Several people began charging towards the window where Brook was perched. They would knock her through and she would tumble to the ground if she didn’t move before they rushed her. Brook reached through for the cable.
Her hand hadn’t found it when the iron bar finished its return. It swung on its chain, thudding into her arm. The nerves lit up, numbing her hand. She found the bar with her other hand and pulled, dragging herself through the window. As soon as her legs cleared the frame, there was nothing stopping the pulley from the call of gravity. She flew through the night, somehow managing to get her other hand on the bar before her grip gave way.
Brook spun as the pulley rode down the cable, picking up speed.
She saw the library retreating and then spun more to see the dark woods approaching. The cable was likely attached to one of those tall trees. She couldn’t see well enough to know how far off the ground she was.
“Let go!” Isaac called.
She obeyed, but too late. Brook flew into the darkness.
# # # # #
One branch hit her midsection and another jabbed into her thigh. Brook was spun by the impact and fell. Her head hit something hard. The sound of the blow was replaced by a low ringing. Something tugged at her leg and she kicked at it.
“Stop kicking!” Isaac whispered. “You have to get out of the way before the next person lands.”
She understood and tried to crawl towards the sound of his voice. When she sat up, her head swam and she slumped back down. Isaac continued to pull. Her shirt rode up as he dragged her away. Brook was trying to push it back down when Isaac pulled her to her feet. She could hardly stand without assistance, but he was shoving her to run.
“Come on,” he said. “You heard Cleo—we have to stick together.”
“They’ll probably throw us back in jail,” she said. Her voice was slurred, but he seemed to understand. At least she thought he did. She couldn’t see his face in the dark. She could barely see the path he had steered them towards.
“You may be right, but it’s still safer.”
“You go with them,” she said. “I’m going to find the others. I’ll find Amelia.”
Isaac stopped and gripped her arm. Brook was still unsteady on her feet. She turned back and looked at the library through the branches. They had to get away from the place. There were too many people making too much noise. Even as they stood there, someone screamed in the distance. The meeting had turned into a disaster.
“You’re right,” he said. “Do you have any idea where to find them?”
“Yeah,” Brook said. “We talked of a place to meet. I can get us there.”
“Lead the way,” he said.
Brook closed her eyes and imagined the route. They had to get across town. It wouldn’t be easy—most of the people streaming from the meeting would be headed in roughly the same direction. Some of those people would surely associate her with the list of people that Cleo had named.
“We have to get on the other side of the library,” she said. “The safest way is probably straight across the lawn.”
She felt his hand grip tighter at the idea. He didn’t protest. They left the path and parted the brush to emerge back on the library’s lawn. Across the night sky, they saw another person zip down the cable. Apparently others had figured out Isaac’s escape route.
Isaac was still holding onto her arm as she crossed the lawn. The sounds from inside the library were horrifying. The people trapped in there had lost all reason. They shouted and cried at whatever dark evil had invaded the space. Brook saw the shapes of people helping their limping friends. The fire escape had pulled away from the side of the building near the top. One person dropped from the stairs as Brook and Isaac passed.
They stopped and looked as someone shouted from the open door near the top. The next thing they saw was the outline of someone thrown from the open door up there. The person hit the metal scaffolding and it wrenched and bent.
Brook and Isaac hurried to the path on the other side.
“What do you think that was?” Isaac asked.
“I have no idea,” Brook said. She managed to pick out the path in the starlight and cursed herself for not grabbing a light. Then again, she figured she would have probably been too scared to use it. Some people said that electric lights were like beacons to the Hunters. She had no reason to doubt the assertion.
“We’ll go north until we clear Pine Brook. Then we can turn west,” she said.
“Wait,” he said. “Should we go back and see if anyone needs help?”
“It’s too dangerous,” she said. “Besides, you know the protocol—flee and then regroup.”
“Yeah,
” he said. He didn’t sound sure.
They moved in silence for a while. Brook didn’t try to randomize the trails they took. Each time they came to a branch, she took the one that led farther away from the community. Soon, the sounds of the other fleeing people diminished and they were alone in the night. They stopped at one of the remote water stations and crouched next to the barrel to take a drink from the metal cup.
“The fire is still going,” Isaac said.
He was looking at the orange glow on the southern horizon.
“Of course,” she said.
“No, they should have spread it. It was supposed to shift to the airfield today.”
“Is that right?” she asked.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter.”
“Why’s that?”
Isaac threw up his hands and let them fall. “No klaxon.”
“Pardon?” she asked. Brook had grown up in Fairbanks. The only time she ever heard the klaxon had been in the morning, when it was supposedly safe to move around in the sunlight. And that had only been in more recent years. They never used the klaxon at night.
“Why is it that people who have been here the longest know the least about the rules?” he asked. “Flee and regroup? Is that really all you know about emergency protocol? It was written on the notice of most of the meetings I’ve been to. If a meeting is broken up by an outside threat, we’re all supposed to leave by our assigned exits, return to our neighborhood rally point, and then the klaxon sounds to call any strays.”
“Rally point?”
“You didn’t even know about the zip line exit for the library.”
“I’d never heard of it,” Brook said.
“See?”
“I don’t get what this has to do with the bonfire. That’s basic survival. If the fire runs out before the switch, we’ll all doomed.”
“It’s the same thing. If people start ignoring one set of procedures, what makes you think that any other procedures are going to be followed? This is how Dawson collapsed.”
“You’re from Dawson?”