by Ninie Hammon
Gabriella’s hands are shaking so violently she can barely hold the cell phone to her ear and the car on the road. It’s rush hour; she is only inching forward. At one point she screams, just screams—so loud that the driver in the next car turns and looks at her.
“You don’t know what Mother said to me that day—”
“Yes, I do. You told—”
“I told you what she said to us. Not what she said to me. She screamed at me that it was all my fault. She dragged me over to Grant’s body, and the smell … I gagged and she grabbed my neck and pushed my face down until it was just inches from Grant’s, the skin was … black.” Gabriella hears him make a grunting, guttural sound deep in his throat, the dying cry of an antelope being ripped apart by jackals. “And she said, ‘Look what you did! You killed him!”
Then their mother yanked Garrett upright and spit words into his face, told him she knew it had been his idea to leave the chalet when they weren’t supposed to because he was always the instigator, the rebellious one, the evil one and Gabriella was a pathetic little mouse with no mind of her own.
“She said I might as well have put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.” Garrett paused then and continued in a monotone, a dead voice. “She said, ‘You killed your only brother. You killed my only son. You’re a murderer. That’s what you are—a murderer!”
And in a sudden flash, Gabriella sees down a tunnel of memory. She and Garrett in the chalet. He’s shaking his head, doesn’t want to go with her. He has a stomachache.
“No, Garrett!” she cries into the phone. “You’re wrong. Listen to me. You didn’t do it; I did.”
She has pulled off the highway onto the street where they’d lived as children—before the end of the world. She can see the house halfway down the block. But it seems to be moving away from her. Like in a nightmare, she drives faster and faster toward it, but can’t seem to get any closer.
And time snaps back into place and she is in his driveway, wailing into the phone as she lurches out of the car.
“Garrett, no. You were sick that day! Don’t you remember? You wanted to stay in the chalet. I was the one. I wanted to—”
“Drumma du, Gabriella.”
“Garrett—!”
She is on the front porch, reaching for the doorknob when she hears the stereo sound—in her phone and in the house—of a gun going off inside.
She didn’t cry when she told Pedro that she opened the door and saw what was left of her brother after he put a shotgun into his mouth and pulled the trigger.
And some part of her understood that telling a story like that without tears was like dumping a motorcycle and sliding across the pavement without protective leathers. Your soul’s contact with the surface of that kind of horror would rip the skin off all the way down to the bone.
“Both my brothers died because of me. I killed them.”
Pedro reached out and took her chin and turned her face toward him. “You know that ees not true.”
“No, actually, I don’t.”
“Gabriella, it was an accident! You were only seven years old!” His Spanish accent hijacked his speech and his words ran together. “If Ty had accidentally hurt somebody when he was seven, would you hold that against him? Would you want him to suffer for it for the rest of his life?”
“How do you forgive yourself? It doesn’t help to know you should. It isn’t about what you know in your head. It’s bigger than that. Uglier. Meaner.”
“Ees that what you meant when you said you had created a monster?”
The mention of Yesheb was like running into a brick wall at a dead run. She staggered back from it, dazed.
“No … I didn’t … the monster’s real. He’s flesh and blood. And he’s out there right now searching for me.” She heard her next words drop out of her mouth but had no memory of forming them in her head. “I’m Rebecca Nightshade. I wrote …” She realized all at once what she’d said.
“The Bride of the Beast,” Pedro finished for her. “I know. At least, I suspected.”
Her head snapped up. “You do? But how …?” Then it hit her. “Does everybody know?”
“No. Well, I cannot swear to that, but nobody has mentioned it to me. And if anybody had figured it out, everybody would know it. Small town—hundredth monkey.”
She had no idea what he meant and her confusion showed on her face.
“You know, the theory that if ninety-nine monkeys know something the hundredth will know, too, just because the others do. These people live in each other’s pockets. There are no secrets in St. Elmo.”
“How did you figure it out?”
“From your picture on the back jacket of the book.” Before she could react, he continued. “But I am good at that, at faces, at recognizing people from pictures even when details—hair, beards, things like that—are different. I missed a real career opportunity in airport security.”
He didn’t say anything about the scar, how it was a dead giveaway. She appreciated that.
“And you won’t …?”
“Tell anybody? Of course not.” He paused. “But I do not get it. The monster in the book is made up. How could he be plotting to kill you?”
She sighed. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“Not kill me, kidnap me. A fan has been stalking me. He believes he has opened up a door in night itself, crossed over from the Endless Black Beyond for a purpose and I’m the purpose.”
“That does not make sense.”
“Crazy people don’t make sense. He’s … evil.”
“And he is stalking you because—what? He thinks you are Zara?”
Her eyes grew wide in surprise.
“Sí, I have read the book. I found it on top of a dryer after some tourists were here doing laundry. I have … trouble sleeping at night sometimes. The writing’s excellent. God gave you an incredible gift.”
Gabriella was suddenly deadly cold.
“Is that it? Is that why all this is happening? I used a … gift from God to create evil and now—”
“Do you honestly think God sent some lunatic gunning for you because he did not like the book you wrote?”
“If you read the book, you know the stalker only has two days. This is the third full moon. If he can’t find me in two days …”
“I do not believe you are at St. Elmo’s Fire by accident. Unless you left a trail of bread crumbs behind you, The Beast of Babylon will not find you there. Hang on.” He paused, struggled to smile and actually managed it. “In the words of that great theologian Dory the Fish, ‘just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming ...’”
She looked down and realized she was still clutching her coffee cup in her hand. She hadn’t taken a single drink. It was cold now.
“Let me warm that up for you,” Pedro said. She caught herself before she blurted out, “You warm up everything for me, Pedro.”
A little over an hour later, Gabriella carried a laundry basket full of clean clothes down the steps of the Mercantile and loaded it into the back of her jeep. Pedro brought out a box of supplies and she was ready to head back up the mountain. As she got in behind the wheel, she noticed a gawking tourist across the street snapping pictures with his phone—of everything he saw—the buildings, the trees, the mountains, the flowers. The sight made her smile. She’d only been here a little less than two months, but St. Elmo had come to feel like home.
She pulled out of her parking space and before she drove away she called out to the tourist what the bag lady had said to her a lifetime ago, “I hope you enjoy our mountains.”
THE TOURIST SMILED and nodded, then stood in the street and watched the blonde woman in the jeep drive out of town. As soon as she was gone, he emailed the photographs he’d taken of her to his boss. He’d used a phone to look less conspicuous, but his was an iPhone 4, the latest model, with a five-megapixel camera. Even had a zoom. Four clear, close-up shots of her face—in good light. Paid special attention to her right cheek. You could
see a scar there even with heavy makeup covering it. Got two really good shots of that. His boss wanted verification of the woman’s identity and the pictures he’d sent would leave no doubt. They’d either confirm that she was, or make it clear that she wasn’t who his boss was looking for, some woman named Zara.
* * * *
Oblivious to the storm, Yesheb crosses the empty street slowly. Partly because without his cane he still has a slight limp. But mostly because he is savoring this moment, his moment. He wants to remember every detail of the day he and Zara become one.
The storm sprang up shortly after midnight. Just as he knew it would! He had stood out in the parking lot of the motel in Buena Vista with his arms spread wide, his face lifted to the torrential rain, welcoming it, feeling the wind lash its approval and blessing on his quest. Then he returned to his room and went over with his team the timing of their two-pronged assault one final time. Rainwater ran out of his white hair and dripped off his face onto the pile of aerial photos of Chaffee County, Colorado, two of them with locations circled in bright red. One of those locations was a small hanging valley 2, 600 feet below the 14,269-foot summit of Mount Antero.
The chopper pilot pointed out, as if it were new information to Yesheb, that the “extraction” would be dangerous if it was still storming when Yesheb activated his call signal—and the forecast called for scattered thunderstorms all day.
“Even if the storm’s on the back side of the mountain, wind gusts on the mountaintop could reach 80 miles per hour, with wind shears that—”
“The storm will not be a problem. I’ll take care of it.”
And he would! He had been infused with such power since his time of seclusion that there was nothing he couldn’t do. The wind and rain would obey his commands. The dog, the growling beast at the airport, would yelp at his merest glance, tuck his tail between his legs and slink away. The old man would be struck dumb in awe. And Zara, his beloved Zara, would swoon into his arms, willingly offering her son’s life to seal their union. Yesheb’s time was so near his two worlds almost overlapped. He could sense the presence of legions of demons awaiting his command. His blue eyes sparkled with the reflected flames from the other realm.
He feels strength pulse through his veins with every heartbeat as he reaches the wooden sidewalk that runs the length of the pathetic cluster of buildings, deserted now as rain pelts them and puddles in potholes in the street. Yesheb has glided through the torrent between the raindrops and now stands perfectly dry before the door of the St. Elmo’s Mercantile.
CHAPTER 16
THE BELL ON THE DOOR JINGLED AND PEDRO LOOKED UP TO SEE a lone man drenched to the skin, dripping water in a pool around him as if he had made no effort at all to stay dry.
He was the first customer Pedro had had all day. No fun hiking mountain trails in the rain—particularly not a cold rain like this one. His friend Dan, who managed the Mount Princeton Hot Springs resort, always had the opposite problem. The tourists staying there loved to sit out in the hot springs when it was pouring. Had to drag them inside to keep the lot of them from being struck by lightning.
“Good morning,” Pedro said.
“Yes,” the man said and stepped out of the shadows into the glow of the front set of fluorescent bulbs hanging from the store’s ceiling.
His hair, plastered down to his skull, was either white or a pale shade of blonde. Hard to tell in the yellow fluorescent light. What was impossible to miss was his striking good looks. He had the perfect features of a male model, and maybe that’s what he was. He was outfitted right out of an L.L.Bean catalogue—windbreaker, cargo pants, hiking boots, the works. All appeared to be brand new.
“You look like a man who could use some coffee. I lit a fire in the fireplace this morning to knock the chill out of the air if you would like to warm up.”
“I’d like that.” Then he added, “Please.” He turned and walked toward the swinging saloon doors into Pedro’s kitchen.
How does he know where the fireplace is?
Pedro followed the stranger as he stepped through the doors, but the man didn’t go anywhere near the crackling fire in the fireplace on the wall. Instead, he walked purposefully across the room and stopped beside Angelina’s bed, though he paid her no attention, merely stood with his back to her, facing the door.
Something was wrong here, way wrong. Pedro’s heart began to rattle in his chest. He never should have invited the stranger into his home. Instinctively, he fell back on Marine Corps training, sized the man up and considered how he would take him down if he had to.
Anza came into the room from the back hallway, saw the man and flashed him a radiant smile.
Pedro casually stepped in front of the table so that he was between the man and his daughter, though the visitor gave no sign that he had even noticed her. And that right there told Pedro there was definitely something wrong with the guy.
“I will get you some coffee and you can take it with you into the store while you do your shopping,” Pedro said, and turned to the table for a cup.
“Actually, I didn’t come here to shop.” The man’s tone was almost pleasant, but not quite. And Pedro had the strange, momentary impression that there were too many teeth in the man’s smile. “What I need from you, Pedro, is the key to the gate on the trail up to St. Elmo’s Fire.”
YESHEB WATCHES THE man’s jaw drop and almost laughs out loud.
“It is honorable of you to place yourself in front of Anza, but do you really think you could protect her?” Then he glances pointedly toward the motionless child on the hospital bed. “Either one of them, if I chose to do them harm? Which I won’t if you cooperate.”
Anza looked confused. “Papa …?”
Yesheb doesn’t quite know how to read the look on Pedro’s face. Clearly, it isn’t fear, though. It might have been recognition. Perhaps Zara told this man about him. After all, he is the caretaker of the cabin where she is staying, had been providing her groceries twice a week. And she must surely be lonely up there on the mountainside with nobody but an old man and a little kid to talk to. Yesheb feels a stab of jealousy. His carefully devised plan calls for the elimination of Pedro and his family—leave no witnesses. But now that task has taken on an added delight.
“The man who owns that cabin left strict instructions that I was to give a key only to his invited guests. You’re not one of them. Sorry.”
There is a calm in the Hispanic man’s response that unnerves Yesheb.
“Oh, but I am a guest. Not of Rev. Benninger’s but of the lovely lady who is staying there now. As a matter of fact, we’re engaged to be married. Very soon.”
Yesheb sees the man’s eyes widen slightly and his jaw clench. He does know. Oh, Yesheb will very much enjoy killing this man! He might even take his time doing so, inhale the intoxicating aroma of his screams. But first things first. He needs the key. His men could simply have picked the lock, of course, or blown it up. But the gate is a barrier between him and Zara and prophesies are clear that he must overcome every obstacle in his path on his own. And he will.
Turning casually, he picks up the electric cord that stretches from Angelina’s ventilator to an outlet on the wall. The moment he touches it, Pedro tenses to spring at him.
“Don’t!” Yesheb warns, “unless you want me to unplug this.”
“Go ahead.” Pedro’s voice is cold. “Pull the plug. See what happens.”
What an odd thing to say.
“Come now, let’s have that key so things don’t have to get … unpleasant.”
Anza squeaks out a little scream. “Papa, who is …?” She turns to Yesheb, her eyes pleading. “Sir, you don’t understand what will happen if you unplug Angelina’s ventilator.”
“Oh, yes, I do. The little girl here, Angelina—what a lovely name—will stop breathing. That’s what happens to a person in a permanent vegetative state without a ventilator.” His voice becomes hard, brittle. He drops the next words individually into the dead air that str
etches out like a dark pool between them.
Four plops. “Give. Me. That. Key.”
“No.”
The simple act of calm defiance shakes Yesheb to his core. When he yanks on the ventilator cord and the plug leaps out of the wall socket, the action is almost as much in surprise at the man’s denial as in retaliation for it.
He expects the child to sigh out a breath and stop breathing altogether.
She doesn’t.
He doesn’t expect the whole world to erupt in a hoarse, honking cry.
It does.
If an air raid siren married a smoke alarm, their firstborn would be the sound that now blasts out a loudspeaker mounted somewhere on the front porch of the building. With a revving-up, grinding-toward-a-crescendo quality, the wailing cry gets louder and louder until it threatens to burst Yesheb’s eardrums.
Before he has time to recover from his surprise, the bell on the front door of the store dings, he hears running footsteps and a man bursts through the saloon doors into the room. He is huge, has a full, bushy beard and long hair that’s soaked. Following in his footsteps is a woman with tattoos covering her arms and legs and close behind her is a woman in a paint-splattered suit jacket and long skirt. An old Indian man hobbles into the room from a back entrance, followed by a bald man with some kind of red mark splattered on the top of his wet head and a fat Hispanic woman with a herd of small, rain-drenched children.
It takes less than a minute from the time he pulled the plug out of the wall for the room to fill with people—maybe two dozen of them. All of them look at him, surprised and confused, and he realizes he still has the ventilator cord in his hand. Instinctively, he drops it. Pedro takes two steps to the outlet, plugs the cord back into the socket and the screeching sound stops abruptly in mid-squall.
Into the silence that follows, Pedro says, “I warned you,” his tone surprisingly mild-mannered.