by Gregory Kay
Frank couldn't shake the fear, even though he knew he'd had taught his son well. He knew they were probably holed up somewhere up on the mountain, waiting for the weather to break so they could get back down. Like he'd told his wife, they'd done it once before, so normally he wouldn't be nearly this worried, but some deep, atavistic part of him knew something was bad wrong.
Why the hell don’t they fire an answering shot?
He pressed the button to illuminate his watch. That had been almost five hours ago: three driving around to find Jake’s truck and two more of waiting, signaling, and hoping. Now it was 2:38 in the morning, and the damned ice was still coming down, forming a dangerous crust on the road and everything else. If – no, he corrected himself, when – he found them, he wasn’t at all sure they would be able to make it back down the road, even in four wheel drive.
Alternately praying and cursing under his breath, he slung the rifle across his back, dropped the tailgate, and pulled down the ramps that would let him roll his ATV out of the truck.
Jake's terror had already taken him halfway up the steep side of Little Back when Susie screamed in his ear.
Jake!
He gasped and jerked his head around, bringing up his hands defensively, but he was alone in the storm that seemed determined to push him right into the rocky mountainside.
“You get the hell away from me and leave me alone! Get out of my head!”
I'm not in your head. I'm in your heart.
“Shut up!”
Her next scream was so loud and painful it made him stumble and fall to his knees, both hands clasping his head in agony.
No! I will not shut up! Now you shut up and listen to me! You're going to freeze to death, Jake!
“I don't care! I ain't coming back!”
I do care, and whether you come back yet or not, I ain't going to let you die!
“Why the hell not?” He suddenly noticed his teeth were chattering like typewriter keys. “Why do you care?”
Because I love you! Now you listen, because you haven't got much time; I can feel your body shutting down! You have to get warm!
Jake knew she was right but even as he patted his pants pockets, he remembered his lighter was in his jacket and...He felt the bulge of his pocket knife, and remembered what he'd been taught.
As he desperately cut and broke loose pine and hemlock boughs, shaking the snow off them before stuffing them inside his shirt, he couldn't quite bring himself to thank her, although he almost did.
You're welcome, she told him, making him start.
“How did you...”
Know? I know everything you think and feel; I'm part of you and you're part of me now.
Dragging his shirt closed over the boughs that were cold and prickly against his skin but would hold at least some of his remaining body heat, he shook his head.
“I still ain't – ”
I know you ain't coming back until you're ready, and I can't make you. I told you, I know what you're thinking, so stop worrying about that, shut your mouth and save your strength because you're going to need it. Now get moving and get up over that mountain! The cold wind blowing up against this side will kill you if you don't!
He definitely could agree to that, so he started trudging, although it took all his strength.
I'm right here with you, Jake, and I'll support you all I can, but there's only so much I can do. Keep going, just...
There was an abrupt pause in the voice, then, Your papa is coming after you!
“How do you know that?”
I said be quiet and save your strength! Listen while you move. We – our kind – can sense a lot of things. I'm a part of you now, after I...I bit you, and because he's your father and you're a part of him, I can feel him coming. Not like I can feel you, but I know he's there, and headed this way, but you have to get over that mountain to where he can find you! I won't let you die!
Jake had read Dante's INFERNO as a reading assignment in English class, and he remembered it held that the worst part of Hell, the very lowest, worst level of it, wasn't fire at all, but was ice and wind, cold and freezing. By the time he crested Little Back Mountain, staggering and delirious from hypothermia, shock, and exhaustion, he believed that with all his heart.
Stumbling against a tree, he put his hand out to catch himself, but before his palm could make contact with the rough bark, a particularly hard gust of wind hit him in the back, causing him to lose his balance and fall face-down in the ice- and snow-covered leaves and slide several feet down the slope before being brought up sharply by impacting a log. Still, he was out of the wind, and with the chill gone, he felt almost warm...so warm he decided to just lie there and rest for just a minute, just to get his strength back...
Get up, Jake! You get up right now! Do you hear me? Get the hell up!
He tried to obey, but could only manage to get as far as his hands and knees, despite his best efforts, and it was at that point he knew he'd gone as far as he could, and he was going to die.
“I can't,” he whispered, “I just can't.”
He could sense the raw fear in her voice as it rang through him.
Then start crawling! I mean it! Start right now. Listen to me, Jake; it's all downhill from here. Your papa is down there looking for you, but you've got to keep moving or you'll die. There was a brief pause, and then, Papa thinks we can bring him to you, with all of us trying together, but I'll have to leave you for a few minutes. You just keep moving and don't stop while we get him. Promise me!
In answer, he started crawling, and he felt her presence leave him. He just wondered how long he could keep going without her.
The only way Frank could describe what happened was that he felt a pull. It almost a physical tugging, like a magnet pulling steel, and an overwhelming feeling that Jake was to the left and up the mountain just to the northwest, and he simply had to go that way. Part of him suspected it was wishful thinking, but it was all he had, so he went with it, gunning the ATV and weaving through the game paths that would take him there, pushing ahead on nothing but desperate faith.
Frank's lungs were burning in the cold air, and his tires were slipping and sliding on the ice-covered slope, nearly overturning the machine more than once, but the tugging became stronger as he went, and Jake's father refused to slow his uphill pace. Finally he forced his way through a patch of rhododendron and had to swerve to avoid running over his son.
Jake was painfully crawling downhill on his hands and knees with nothing on his upper body but a tattered, bloody and ice-covered shirt stuffed with pine branches. His socks were worn to bands around his ankles above his bare, bleeding feet, and his hair was frozen in spikes on his head. Shivering uncontrollably, his face was deathly pale as he weakly raised on hand, his eyes wild in the headlights, cried, “Daddy!” before the very last of his strength gave out and he collapsed on his face.
Frank was off the ATV in an instant, and had his own coat stripped off before he reached his son. Rolling him over and pulling him to a sitting position before wrapping the garment around him, he said, “Jake! What the hell happened?” When no answer came beyond a low moan, he slipped the boy's arms into his sleeves and gently shook him, demanding, “Where are Scott and Joe Bob?”
“D-d-d-d-d-dead...a-and I-I-I'm c-cold,” he stammered between chattering teeth, “S-s-s-s-so c-c-cold!” With that, he closed his eyes and his body went limp as he passed out.
“Shit!” Frank snarled, yanking off his hat and his coveralls to put on him, followed by his own boots, and he cringed at the icy feel of his son's bare, bloody feet. Still, as he picked Jake up, he took a moment to glance around and yell the other two boy's names, but got nothing in response beyond the mournful keening of the wind, and the pattering of ice and snow on the leaves.
He knew he couldn't wait anymore; they had to get the hell off the mountain. Frank knew that all too well, even without what had been pulling turned to pushing, encouraging him to leave.
Chapter 16
“Frank?”
He looked up from the uncomfortable plastic chair where he sat beside a sobbing Kathy in the Emergency Waiting Room, and into the worried eyes of Scott Donald’s father. When he spoke, his voice still had a quiver; after he'd stripped out of his winter gear and put it on his son for their return trip, and had become dangerously hypothermic himself by the time they reached the truck. Even though that had been over an hour ago, he still couldn't seem to get warm.
“Tim.”
Tim Donald’s lips writhed as if in pain, and it took him a moment before he could speak.
“What happened up there? Where’s my boy?”
Frank shook his head.
“I don’t know. Jake – Jake was out in the storm, and didn't have anything on but his pants and shirt: no coat, no boots, nothing.”
“My God, Frank, what the hell...
“He was raving and out of his head, and passed out almost as soon as I found him.” Frank had already made up his mind that there was no way he was going to tell a man his son was dead until he knew for sure, regardless of what his own son had told him; he felt enough like shit already for not being able to find the other two as well. “I didn't see any sign of him or Joe Bob either one, but I yelled for them and fired some shots, hoping they'd answer, but they weren't anywhere nearby. I stayed and looked as long as I could, but Jake would have died if I'd stayed any longer. I'm sorry.” Nodding to indicate the closed doors with the sign Authorized Personnel Only, the swinging portals that had swallowed his son, Frank added, “He hasn’t regained consciousness yet, but he’d walked a long way.”
“How is he?”
“I don’t know. They say he’s hypothermic, frost bit, his feet are in tatters; cut to the bone in places from the snags and rocks, and frozen so badly the doctor is afraid he may...lose them.” Frank hurriedly went on to keep from screaming in horror and anger at the thought. “And something tore him up some: bit his throat and clawed his back.”
“A bear maybe?”
“I don’t know,” he helplessly repeated again. “I just don’t know.”
The outer doors opened in a rush of cold air to admit a tall, gaunt old man in a set of insulated hunting coveralls. He spotted the two boys’ parents and paused only long enough to stomp the ice off his boots on the mat before going to them.
Frank stood up as Kathy vainly wiped at the tears that wouldn't stop coming.
“Reverend McDermitt.”
“Frank, Mr. Donald.” He put his hand on Tim Donald’s shoulder. “I heard what happened. I’ve spoken to the sheriff as well as calling all the men in the church. They’re rounding up every four-wheel drive and ATV they can get their hands on right now, and we’ll start searching for your boy as soon as it gets light enough to see. The storm’s letting up, and they called the state boys and got the plow working on opening up the roads. We’ll find him and the MacKenzie boy too. My wife’s with his mother right now.”
He turned back to Frank.
“Has Jake told you where they were?”
“No sir,” he said, shaking his head, “He's not awake yet, but I found home almost at the top of Little Back Mountain.”
The preacher went several shades paler, then quickly recovered, obviously trying his best to behave as if nothing was wrong. Jake’s father saw something in his eyes that bothered him, like this man of God definitely had something to hide. Even though his son, at least, was still alive, Frank was suddenly very, very afraid.
“Then I reckon we’d better pray for his recovery.” His vocal chords were tight, and his voice came out several octaves higher than his normal sonorous drone.
“Reverend,” Tim asked, the desperation as evident in his voice as the tears in the corners of his eyes, “could you pray for my son Scott too?”
In response, the preacher pulled off his cap, revealing a head of still thick, snow-white hair, even as he reached down to take Kathy's hand.
“Yes sir, and we’ll pray for the other boy as well. God is not limited; He can hear and answer just as easy, no matter how many we pray for.”
They all bowed their heads and Reverend McDermitt prayed sincerely, but it was little comfort, and he saw it plainly in their faces when he raised his head and opened his eyes.
They turned as one when the interior doors opened and a fat nurse in cartoon-patterned scrubs waddled out to say, “He's awake,” and motioned for them, but halted them momentarily at the door. “You need to prepare yourselves; he's delirious at the moment, and saying all sorts of strange stuff. Just don't let it worry you too much; people come off with all kinds of things when they've been sedated.”
Jake spoke, saw their disbelief, and his voice grew louder and louder until he was literally screaming, trying to make them listen. Finally the doctor nodded and a nurse injected a sedative into his IV. It took most of a minute before he was out again, murmuring his way into unconsciousness, but no one in the stunned gathering had spoken a word since. Finally the doctor who broke the silence.
“I’d say it’s the moonshine he mentioned and shock, but his blood alcohol level, while rather high, isn't nearly enough to produce these symptoms under normal circumstances. We're running a toxicology profile, but my guess is maybe it was the liquor combined with some street drug – probably LSD, hallucinogenic mushrooms, or some other psychedelic. The boys got hold of a bad batch, and Jake is hallucinating.”
“My boy doesn’t do drugs,” Frank told him flatly, the frustration, anger, and fatigue turning his voice into a course growl, “and it wasn’t any ‘hallucination’ that made those marks on his back and neck.”
The doctor gave him a skeptical look that plainly said, 'You're either in denial or full of shit,' before turning and leaving the room.
Jake’s father dropped his head and pinched the skin between his eyes in frustration and fatigue.
“Damn it...”
“Jake told you the truth, you know,” Reverend McDermitt said quietly.
“I know he thinks that’s what he saw –”
The preacher shook his head.
“That is what he saw. Those…things have been there since long before the depression. That’s why Red Creek died; they killed it.”
“Red Creek?”
“That’s what the coal camp was called.”
Frank and Tim looked at one another.
“We’ve never heard of it.”
“You weren’t meant to. The folks around here back then thought if they told what was down there, folks would get curious and go see for themselves, and eventually something like this would happen. Nobody knows except the very elderly who were here then, or preachers like me. The story’s been passed down to every pastor here after he swears not to tell. Otherwise, we thought it was something best forgotten, and if people left it alone long enough, it would just fade away with time like haunts generally tend to do.” He looked at his boots and heaved a heavy sigh. “Looks like we were wrong. May God forgive us.”
“My boy…” Tim began, the full implications finally hitting him.
“We’ll do what we can, Mr. Donald.” He glanced at his watch. “Let’s meet the Sheriff and get on up there; it’ll be daylight soon.”
Chapter 17
Red Creek, West Virginia: 8 June, 1920
Behind the Red Creek Company Store at one-thirty in the morning, Sid Roush's teeth glittered in the starlight as he smiled in the darkness; he loved it when a plan came together.
The blasting powder was right where they had promised, on the back porch, concealed by wooden crates of vegetable scraps piled around it, and it only took a moment to shift them in order to free it. Lifting the container easily and making sure the concealing burlap bag over it was firmly in place, he tucked it under his left arm, leaving his gun hand free. A half-keg in official size, it held twelve and a half pounds of black powder explosive; as the Red Creek executive had pointed out during their private meeting, Sid only needed to take out a single building, not everything on either side
of it.
Sid shrugged; not that he really gave a shit either way. He privately thought those in command of the company were gutless cowards, because, by his way of thinking, blowing up a whole shit-load of Bolsheviks would be way more effective than just getting one; now that would be a lesson to make the rest of those union bastards sit up and take notice! Still, the company was paying the bills, and he was a company man.
He passed no one as he walked down the deserted sidewalks, and saw no lights in the windows; the men of one shift were down in one or another of the Red Creek shafts, and the others were worn out from their own backbreaking labor, and were sound asleep. Finally he reached the cabin he sought.
Even though it was fully dark, he still found the shadow of a neighboring cabin out of instinct, and stood silently in its double darkness for almost a half-hour, watching and listening, seeing nothing and hearing nothing beyond heavy, regular breathing and soft snores.
For a big man, Sid could move quietly; he had learned the advantages of that long ago. It was only the work of a moment to unwrap the container, set the fuse, kneel down, and ease it as far underneath the cabin floor as he could reach. Taking one last look around, he struck a match, and it flared in the darkness. There was a faint hissing like a snake when he touched it to the fuse.
“Lets see you grin at this, asshole!” he whispered to himself from the far side of the fourth cabin over where he'd gone to take cover, “You'll be fiddling in Hell in just a minute.”
It turned out to be much less than a minute, and no sooner had he spoken than the cabin shattered with a roar and a flash of fire that threw clapboards hundreds of yards, shattered the windows of every building nearby, caved in the nearer walls of the homes on either side and took half the roof off the one on the left.