The River Is Dark

by Joe Hart

  “Who was it?”

  Harley glanced at Tracey in the passenger seat of the truck. “That old hippie bitch, Grace, that’s on the council. God, she’s a pain in my ass. The only one that voted against us going forward with tomorrow’s decision!”

  “Ugh, she’s so earthy,” Tracey said, making a face. “I bet she doesn’t even shave her armpits.”

  Harley laughed and turned onto Shallow Drive, his heart pumping harder as Tracey placed a hand on his upper thigh. “But I shaved for you,” she said, her hand gliding up near his crotch and back down.

  He groaned. “You don’t know what you do to me.”

  “Should I tell you what I’m going to do to you?”

  “Mmm, go ahead.”

  “I’m going to take everything off but this when we get there,” she said, fingering the solitaire diamond pendant at her throat. She held it up, and he saw it glint in the dim light of the dashboard. “God, Harley, it’s so beautiful.”

  He smiled. Distracted by a bauble. She was great in bed, but oh so dumb sometimes. “You deserve something as pretty as you are.”

  She grinned and slid closer to him as he rounded a bend in the gravel road. “How much did it cost?”

  He knew this part turned her on the most, knowing how much cash he’d dropped on her. Some sort of value issues in her past, he supposed, but he wasn’t going to question it. “It was four grand.” He heard her excited intake of breath.

  “How did you afford that? I mean, I know you make a lot of money, but how did you sneak it past your wife?”

  He smiled again. “You can keep a secret, right?”

  “Would I be here now if I couldn’t?”

  “Good point. You know that big shot from Colton that got his head bashed in?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s just say he made sure the vote was going to go his way.” He felt her hand trace the same path up his thigh and then grasp him through his slacks. The truck swerved and then came back to center.

  “You bad, bad boy,” she said in his ear. Her head turned for a moment toward the bed of the truck. “Is that camping gear in the back?”

  He sighed, feeling her hand draw away from the place he wanted it the most. “Yeah, my oldest boy borrowed the truck yesterday to go camping with some buddies, and he didn’t take it out when he got back. He had to use our tent since no one else had one that could hold five teenage boys.”

  “Oh, I thought I saw it move back there. The tent isn’t going to blow out, is it?”

  Harley glanced in the rearview mirror, but all he could see was the general bulk of the flaccid canvas in the pale scarlet glow of the running lights. “No, it’s fine. There’s some stuff piled on it to keep it down.”

  Harley guided the truck to the right, onto the side road, the Bramble Lane sign barely visible in this year’s growth of forest, which seemed to encroach the little drive more every season. His body thrummed with excitement at the thought of a few hours alone with Tracey at the cabin. He barely noted the tendrils of fog lacing the edges of the woods where the truck’s headlights scraped the darkness away. As he turned into the driveway of the cabin, he reached over, grasping Tracey’s thigh and trying to run his fingers beneath the skirt she wore. With a mocking offended sound, she slapped his hand away.

  “Not so fast, big boy. Gotta wait till we get inside.”

  “Oh, I can’t wait to get inside,” he growled.

  “Just wait until you see what I’m wearing,” she said as he coasted to a stop before the modest cabin in a little clearing ringed with fog. He growled again and made a grab at her, but she pulled away, giggling as she opened her door.

  Harley flipped the ignition off and jumped out of the truck like a schoolboy released for summer vacation. The headlights stayed on for a few seconds and then winked out, leaving the afterimage of the porch stairs and the cabin beyond burned into his retinas. He heard the opposite door slam and, strangely, the rustling of the canvas in the rear of the truck. Maybe she wanted to do it out under the night sky. The idea thrilled him, but as he rounded the front of the truck, he heard Tracey make a short squeal of pain. Shit. Had she turned her ankle in the ruts beside the driveway? He’d been meaning to have them filled in. If those ruts cost him his night with her, he’d have to take double his blood-pressure medication when he got home, not to mention some aspirin to dull the ache in his balls that grew by the second.

  As Harley came around the truck’s fender, he saw Tracey standing stock-still, an outline beside her door. Hearing a pattering of liquid, he glanced down and saw a pool expanding near her feet.

  “What’d you spill?”

  A small breeze nudged the trees in the yard and brought a scent to his face: the thick tang of copper. “Wha—”

  A shadow rose behind Tracey as she jerked a little and more blood pattered to the ground around her high heels. Harley stared at the thing behind her, thinking it was the tent being raised by the breeze. To reinforce his thoughts, he heard a sound like opening a car window while on the highway.

  Tracey’s head exploded in a spatter of bone and brain.

  Something cut through the top of her skull, cleaving it in two as it sheared down to her neck, stopping just above the shining glint of the diamond there. Harley screamed, but not before he heard some of Tracey’s teeth tinkle off the side of the truck. The pitch of his yell was so high, for a second he thought it was from the loons that sometimes swam in the backwaters of the river, their cries like knives to the eardrums. Tracey fell forward and slid off the massive blade still hanging in the air, suspended by the humped shadow in the bed of his truck. Harley made a choking sound, and pain flared beneath his left armpit. The dreaded heart attack that he always imagined stalked him just one cheeseburger out of sight was finally here, and he prayed for it.

  He stumbled back, finding the ruts beside the driveway with his own feet. He fell in a heavy pile, his bones remembering instantly the feeling of impact from his high school football days, and he brought his head up and saw the shadow crawl from the bed of the truck. Harley flipped onto his stomach, wheezing out a strangled gasp as he struggled to his feet, the rough rocks near the driveway shredding the skin on his palms. He had to make it to the house, had to get inside, had to call for help. Gravel crunched near the truck as he made it to his feet, angled low like a sprinter coming off the blocks. Before he could launch himself forward, he heard the same howl of air parting behind him.

  It felt like being hit by a baseball bat across the ass. There was a split second of numbness and then a searing pain that stretched from one side of his hips to the other. Harley tried to run and found that his legs wouldn’t respond. Instead, he tumbled forward, his hands and face colliding with the bottom step of the porch. A hot, running sensation cascaded down the backs of his legs as he reached a shaking hand to his ass, feeling the raw edges of a gaping gash there, like a giant mouth spilling blood freely over his fingers.

  “Oh God, please,” Harley said, rolling onto his back while trying to inch up the porch steps, his legs nothing more than limp pieces of meat below him. The thing before him stepped closer, and he began to see details in the sparse light.

  “Please, no, please, I’ll give you anything!” His voice shook and broke as he held up a bloody hand toward the humped figure. “I’ve got a wife and kids, please!”

  It didn’t pause at his pleadings. Harley watched the long, heavy weapon spin in the monster’s hands, so that it was held like an enormous dagger, the notched tip rising smoothly like the sun he knew he would never see again. Just before the blade came rushing down, a blinding light flashed in his eyes, and he thanked God for taking him away before the thing could hurt him any more.

  CHAPTER 23

  Liam swung the truck around a corner and had to brake to miss a deer crossing from the sanctuary of the tree line on the left.

  He heard sand spi
t against the undercarriage as his tires found purchase on the loose dirt near the edge of the road. Looking back down into his hand, he redialed the sheriff’s number. The phone rang and rang.

  “Come on, come on,” he said. A beep sounded in his ear. “Barnes, they’re going after the mayor. I’m on my way to his cabin now. I’m guessing you know where it is.” He hung up and threw the phone onto the console while focusing on the road.

  The sky behind the trees was bruised purple; the leaves and branches stretched and waved their black shapes in contrast. Fog hovered at the edges of the road like milky springs waiting to overflow the ditches, some of it reaching so high he nearly missed the turnoff for Bramble Lane. The back end of the Chevy shuddered as it fishtailed and finally straightened out. Liam tensed his body, seeing the first driveway coming up on the left. With one hand he steered, and with the other he reached back and drew the Sig from its holster. As he turned into the cabin’s driveway, he debated whether or not to enter with stealth. He pushed down on the gas, knowing that reaching the mayor was more important than being covert. The truck came over a slight hill, and when the headlights lit up the scene in the yard, Liam’s breath caught in his throat.

  A woman’s collapsed body was beside the mayor’s three-quarter-ton diesel pickup, and even in the millisecond that he was able to observe her, Liam saw the damage inflicted to her skull. Ahead of the truck, the mayor lay on his back, partially up a set of blood-drenched steps, his hand raised above him to a humped figure dressed in tattered clothing.

  The killer stood with his back to the drive, the curved hunch of his spine pressed against the thin cloth he wore. His head was oblong, just as Liam remembered it from the brief glimpse in the garage. Two knurled arms extended from the malformed body and held what looked like a four-foot chunk of rusted steel shaped like a pointed saw blade. The killer held the weapon above the supine mayor, and as Liam watched, brought it down in a violent, plunging motion.

  “Fuck!” Liam yelled as he saw the makeshift sword punch through the mayor’s face and pin his head to the step behind. Gore splashed upward in a fountain that caught the Chevy’s headlights in a strangely beautiful wash of reds and blacks before splattering down onto the mayor’s twitching corpse.

  “Dammit!” Liam flattened the gas pedal to the floor, rocketing his truck down the short slope and into the back of the mayor’s truck.

  The hood crumpled with the impact, and everything that wasn’t bolted down in the cab became airborne. Liam jerked forward and saw glass explode in showers of crystal-like pieces. His air bag deployed, but before it blew him backward into the seat, he saw the mayor’s truck slide ahead, pushed by the Chevy’s momentum, and bash into the humped figure near the stairs.

  Liam’s ears rang, and he tasted a chemical dust. He shook his head once, opened his eyes, and registered that he still clutched the Sig in one hand. He coughed and fired a round into the air bag. The bag popped with a sound almost equal to the gunshot and deflated, leaving him more room to paw at the door handle until he was able to pry it open and sprawl to the ground. Bright shards of light danced in his eyes, and he wondered if he’d managed to concuss himself with the improvised maneuver. The spangles of light merged and then faded as he stood and aimed the handgun toward the last place he had seen the killer. Peter, he told himself, his name is Peter.

  “Peter! It’s over—drop your weapon and put your hands up!” He heard his voice bounce back off the surrounding trees and the front of the cabin, and tried to listen for movement. His vision adjusted more, and he began to make distinctions between the fuzzy objects around him.

  The grill of the mayor’s truck rested against the mayor, the shining bumper barely grazing the man’s bloodied belly. Liam knelt and scanned the underside of both trucks, and then leapt onto the stairs, leveling the gun on the far side of the vehicles. The yard was empty and silent save for the gentle breeze that swirled blankets of fog across the manicured grass.

  A scraping thump made him spin around toward the cabin itself. The front door looked intact, and the windows to either side were unbroken. The sound came again, and he realized that it was farther away, around the side of the structure. Liam inched forward and saw that the porch wrapped around the left side of the house. Heat lightning arced in the clouds above, giving a surreal quality to the air, the gaps between the planks he walked on standing out in lines of black against the rest of the wood. He listened, pausing at the corner of the cabin to peek one eye into the open. The porch stood empty.

  Liam moved smoothly around the corner, amazed at how the muscle memory of his old job remained within him. He glanced at the ground, which quickly fell away beside the cabin, toward the bluffs thirty yards past the end of the wraparound porch. Yawning darkness waited beyond the bluffs, which could have been the edge of the universe for how much he could see. After another few tentative steps, he reached the next corner and stopped, leaning again around the side of the house to clear the porch. A set of patio furniture rested beside a hulking gas grill. A sliding glass door that led inside was whole, and a bundle of tiki torches leaned against the far railing.

  He waited, watching the fog roll in like a quiet tide across the lawn, smelling the air, and listening for even the slightest rustle of a leaf. Nothing moved. An all-encompassing fear began to drape over his shoulders, and his skin slid upon itself, urging him to run. Something wasn’t right. Gripping the Sig in both hands, he took one step farther toward the railing, aiming the muzzle down at the spot his instincts told him to look.

  The blade shot up between a gap in the wood, cutting a chunk from his shoe and barely missing his stomach.

  Liam cried out and fell back onto his ass with a grunt. Pain broiled at the tip of his foot, and he saw a dark stain spread on the planks around it. Leaping to his feet, he fired shots through the floor in bursts, blasting first at where the sword disappeared. He walked in a straight line until he heard and felt a thump beneath the porch.

  A hobbling form erupted from the far end of the decking and raced toward the trees. Liam stepped to the railing and squeezed off two more shots. At the second report, he saw Peter flinch and swipe at his left arm before disappearing into the dense woods. Liam spared only a moment to wiggle his toes and make sure they were still attached before hurdling over the railing and onto the dewy grass.

  He landed, registering a grenade of pain in his foot before he rolled and then stood again, aiming the Sig at the still forest. Breathing through his mouth, he tried to listen. The sound of branches breaking filtered to him and he began to run. The cooler air of the woods caressed him and almost brought a shiver as it chilled the sweat on his skin. He forced himself to breathe through his nose as he moved, trying to bring his jackhammering heart back into a normal rhythm. Keeping the jagged bluffs close to his right, he pivoted back and forth, combing the dense woods for the hunched shape of his quarry. Leaves brushed against his shirt, and every so often he had to stoop or slide beneath a hanging deadfall.

  After almost a minute, the woods opened up and the trees grew farther apart. To his left, Liam spotted a low shape and nearly drew a bead on it before he saw it was only a picnic table. A few campfire pits dotted the ground, and he realized he was now in some sort of campground. He searched the area and stalked ahead, his eyes flitting in every direction. Thick pools of fog filled the dips in the ground and gave an ethereal quality to the landscape. Heat lightning continued to flicker and slash at the sky, giving momentary flashes of clarity.

  Liam stopped and turned in a circle, his heart finally slowing enough so that it didn’t throb in his vision with each beat. The area was relatively open. Where could Peter have gone? He walked forward, his foot catching on a lip of tar he hadn’t noticed until then. A paved path ran from his left and curved along the banks of the bluffs, lined with a wooden fence at waist level. Several more picnic tables stood like sentries near the fence line, their shadows not large enough to conceal a ma
n. He turned again and spotted a massive oak tree growing beside the walking path fifty yards ahead. It was the only place to hide in the vicinity. Liam moved toward it, the Sig outstretched in one hand. As he neared the oak, he heard a soft crackle of bark from the other side. He paused, the gun feeling too large and uncomfortable in his hand.

  “Peter, I know you’re there. Come out and drop your weapon.”

  Silence.

  Liam moved forward at a half run, his finger tightening on the trigger, preparing for the inevitable recoil. A bank of fog swirled to his right as he rounded the tree—

  —and saw that there was nothing there. Confusion became a thousand spiders crawling within his guts as he heard a rustle behind him and tried to spin in its direction.

  Peter rose from the ground and stood through the fog that had hidden him, swinging the rusted steel as he moved. Liam felt the blade connect with his gun, and he fired a round that went wild past Peter’s shoulder. The massive weapon cut through the air again, and Liam stepped back, firing a second time as the tip of the blade tugged a hole open in his T-shirt. The shot tore bark from the oak’s trunk beside Peter’s misshapen head, and the other man grunted and swiped at his eyes. Liam aimed the Sig once more, and gaped in horror as the slide locked open, revealing an empty chamber.

  Liam fumbled for the spare magazine in his back pocket as Peter closed in, his bulging and twisted arms raising the blade high in the air. Liam felt the flat pockets at the back of his jeans, his throat constricting. He must have lost the magazine near the trucks or jumping over the railing. He backpedaled faster and resisted the urge to hurl the handgun at Peter’s face.

  Peter advanced, a wheezing coming from his open mouth, his body jerking with a slight limp that made him wobble to one side. Blood dribbled down his left arm where Liam’s earlier shot had grazed the flesh.

  Liam felt his heels catch on something, and he nearly fell, regaining his balance as he stepped over an open fire pit. Looking around the campsite, he saw nothing he could use as a weapon, and Peter’s bulk cut off his escape route back to the mayor’s cabin. Peter walked around the edge of the fire pit, raising the weapon to shoulder level, like a baseball player preparing for a home run. Liam lunged forward and kicked the heavy metal cooking grate mounted to the side of the fire pit, and watched as it rotated directly into Peter’s shins.