by Siara Brandt
The demeaning contempt in her words hit him like a familiar echo from the past. But Helice still wasn’t finished yet. “Did you know they’re already planning their annual karaoke party? You know what that means.”
Yes, he did know. It meant another long, sleepless night. It meant Eymann’s ire building like a ticking time bomb as Caleb Lydon’s inebriated guests amused themselves until all hours of the night by singing off key at the top of their lungs and making a racket that was loud enough to raise the dead. It meant choking smoke from not one, but two grills drifting into his yard and smoldering till morning. It meant cleaning up the morning after. Eymann still hadn’t forgotten that last year someone had thrown a crushed beer can over the fence into his yard. He had brought the empty beer can back over to Mr. Caleb Lydon and very politely suggested that he keep an eye on his guests in the future so that it did not happen again. And it also meant Eymann checking again with the courthouse about just what exactly constituted drunken behavior and disorderly conduct so he would know exactly when he could legally call the police.
He pressed his lips so hard together that they practically disappeared. “Sometimes I think he sits up at night just thinking of ways to annoy me. No one could be that clueless. Well, he might think he is getting away with his little games, but we will see who has the last laugh this year.”
Eymann left the garage and stalked into his office. “You reap what you sow,” he quoted solemnly, repeating Helice’s earlier words, thinking that he should probably mention that in his letter, too. It was biblical, a phrase that both he and Helice referred to often. It covered a lot of territory without getting down to specifics.
“He needs to repent. If he can’t figure out how to do that himself, if he can’t save himself, then I’ll have to help him do it.” Eymann knew that sometimes he pissed people off with his letters, but that was the price he was willing to pay for making the world a better place, for saving people’s souls. Soul saving was the important thing in the greater scheme of things.
So far, he had turned the other cheek because he wanted to be a good example of what a neighbor should be. He had hoped that Caleb Lydon would learn from that. But enough was enough. Eymann would do what he was supposed to be doing. The Lord’s work.
“I’m going to write that letter,” he announced.
A low current of excitement was already building inside of Helice. To anyone paying close attention, her gleeful anticipation of a showdown was unmistakable.
“And I’m going to take his dog’s doody over there. I’ve been saving it up for weeks now.”
Behind her thick, plastic-rimmed glasses, Helice’s pale eyes were agleam with anticipation as she watched Eymann sit down at his desk and lay several sheets of paper carefully out before him. As always, she would make suggestions and help him with the letter. She was shrewd enough to have learned long ago that Eymann still lived in the shadow of his father. Back of the stern, religious fervor, the unyielding pious exterior that her husband wore as a protective shield against the world, were the roots of the same criticism that Eymann had lived with his whole life with his own father. Melton Buckminster had barely tolerated his shy, introverted son. A son he felt was too timid and too withdrawn to ever amount to much. The boy’s very presence, in fact, had seemed to grate upon him and was a constant reminder of what he probably carried around inside of himself deep inside, because he had also had a brutal, domineering father. The elder Buckminster saw his son as weak. He had from the beginning. To prove it, all Melton Buckminster had to do was to look at the boy the wrong way and he started to shake.
The unfortunate consequences of such a harsh past meant that there were holes in Eymann’s heart, very ragged holes. He had tried patching them up, but deep down, under the surface, he could still feel the past reaching its claws into the present. In seeking a resolution to the pain and the terror that he still carried around in his heart, he had found, and then manipulated, a shield of self-righteous religion to a dark purpose. The letters. Ever since he had learned that vengeance could have an incredibly-sweet, incredibly-satisfying taste, the urge, the inevitable need to lash out had become a repeating pattern in his life. Just as it was with Helice and her meltdowns, he could not seem to help himself.
He opened another desk drawer. “That man is going to regret his trespasses,” he muttered as he set his pen to the paper, and began to write.
The Holy Spirit led me to speak this to you. Better it be offensive to you now than to wait until you are in danger of hell’s fire. The Lord sends people across our paths to bring us help and messages, even if it appears offensive . . .
An hour later, Eymann finished the letter to his satisfaction, with his wife’s help. Both of them were blissfully unaware of the glaring grammatical errors and the misspelled words. On the contrary, they thought the letter was a literary masterpiece, because not only had they convinced themselves that they were religiously superior. They thought they were intellectually superior as well. Eymann then put the letter in a plain white envelope and carefully sealed it, wincing at a painful paper cut he received on his upper lip.
Outside, a thunderstorm was building, but with the air conditioning running, Eymann wasn’t aware of it. He didn’t even hear the faraway clap of thunder that gave way to an ominous, lingering rumble as he walked into the living room to find Helice staring fixedly at the television. She reached for her fifth cookie without even looking, so absorbed was she in what she was watching.
Behind her head, there was a shelf of photographs of the two of them together, frozen moments in time that attested to the eternal bond between them. They were mostly vacation pictures to show themselves and the world where they had been and how committed they were to each other in the state of everlasting matrimony.
Helice didn’t look up at him as she took a bite out of her fifth, and last, cookie, unmindful of the crumbs that fell unnoticed into her lap as she listened to the news. She had always prided herself on her political savvy and she seemed riveted now by what was happening on the screen.
“Reports of widespread attacks continue to come in,” Eymann heard. “Officials say . . . ”
“What’s going- ?” Eymann started to ask, frowning as he looked at the TV.
Helice shushed him immediately. “There have been some kind of attacks in different places,” she told him. “Two planes have crashed and a train derailed in Ohio spilling toxic chemicals. Fires are burning,” she went on, running the reports together without saying where the fires were or if they were from the train wreck or the planes.
Fires? Plane crashes? Train derailments? Could these be terrorist attacks, Eymann wondered? Terrorist attacks happened all the time, but unless they were really big attacks, like most people, Eymann had stopped paying attention to them. They had become a part of life. Only something really drastic was going to get his notice. At the moment his internal stress was far greater than anything that might be happening on the news. His focus was on his letter and when and how he would deliver it.
Somewhere deep inside him, he knew what drove him. He knew the thing that writhed in a dark corner of his soul and would not let go, but he couldn’t allow himself to see it for what it was, for if he allowed himself to do that, it seemed he would break into a million shards of glass too painful to be endured. And that was something Eymann Buckminster was not willing to let happen. Not yet at least.
Chapter 2
Kynston Shaw was literally not a happy camper. “I had second thoughts about going on this retreat in the first place and now look at us. We’re stuck up here in the middle of nowhere, hiding in a cabin like a bunch of kids who are scared of the dark. I say we get in our cars and get the hell out of here.”
There were five other men in the room, but Rafael Garetson was the first one to answer him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Kyn, not until we know what we’re dealing with.”
“What we’re dealing with is some kind of wild animal,” Kyn continued to argue. “One
who is probably pissed off because we’re invading its territory. What the hell else could it be?”
Kyn wasn’t one for making rash decisions, not under normal circumstances. But the circumstances they found themselves in were anything but normal. Kyn was frustrated. And worried. They all were.
Because no one had an answer to Kyn’s question, Rafe looked at Trace Atwell. “You’re the big hunter, Trace. You tell us what it was.”
“I’d say it was a raccoon fighting with- something.”
“Something like- ?” Rafe prompted.
Trace shook his head. He obviously had no answer to give them.
But they all silently finished the question in their own way.
Something frightening.
Something vicious.
Something that didn’t sound like any animal that they knew, but something not quite human either.
Trace finally admitted, “I’ve got no idea, Rafe. I’ve never heard anything like it before.”
“A fox can make a lot of different sounds,” Renton Walcott began. “Maybe- ” He stopped as another keening cry of whatever it was out there in the darkness rose from the hollow with blood-curdling echoes.
It further frayed already-ragged nerves. Even Kyn swore under his breath as he turned to stare at the closed door of the cabin, the one thing that stood between them and whatever was out there. He wasn’t the only one who was suddenly thinking that it was a good thing they weren’t roughing it completely and staying in tents. They’d actually been considering doing just that before they opted for the luxury of the lodge.
“That was no fox,” Trace told them all.
No one argued with him. Now that they heard it again, there wasn’t a single one of them who even remotely thought it was a fox.
“Whatever it is, it’s closer than it was before, isn’t it?” Ren asked.
“It’s closer,” Kyn confirmed what most of them had already figured out. “But what has me really worried is the phones being dead. None of us has been able to make a call outside and we still don’t know why.”
A military-themed retreat had sounded like a good idea when it had been in the planning stage and they’d all been looking forward to it, even Kyn. They’d all needed some time away from their demanding jobs. For the first few days everything had been great. But that was before the phones had stopped working, and they hadn’t planned on being stuck up here wondering what was making those ungodly sounds out in the darkness.
The lodge was the perfect getaway. At least it had been in the beginning. Surrounded by acres of virgin wilderness it boasted a massive stone fireplace, cathedral ceilings, and several balconies that overlooked Willow Lake, a place of almost breathtaking beauty.
Kyn looked around the room. “Look, we all had fun playing soldier for a few days, but if my family is in trouble, I’m for cutting this trip short and getting back to them. My family’s a hell of a lot more important than my job. No offense to you, Gaut.”
“You’re right, Kyn,” Dohnall Gautier readily agreed with him. Despite the fact that he was technically their boss, Gaut would be the first to say that family comes first. But Gaut wasn’t just their boss. They had all been friends since high school. They’d built their computer gaming business from the ground up, with hard work, long hours and just plain guts and drive. And it had quickly become a wildly successful business, beyond anything any of them could have imagined.
No one blamed Kyn for wanting to leave. The last communication he had received was a message from his wife saying that he needed to get home as soon as possible. But the phones had stopped working before she could explain why. At first, everyone thought that since they were in the middle of nowhere, they were in a dead zone or there had to be some kind of interference. Some alarming reports on the TV later that morning, however, had them re-questioning those theories. Even more frustrating, the electricity had gone out about two hours ago. They had lit two lanterns. Other than that, they were surrounded by complete darkness. And a whole lot of wilderness.
It was Trace who broke the silence. “I didn’t want to worry anyone earlier, but the last message I got from Tessa said that two planes had been brought down.”
“Brought down?” Kyn questioned with a frown. “Why didn’t you tell us that before? And what exactly does that mean?”
“I don’t know. That was the last message I received.”
Kyn swore under his breath as he looked around the room at the other men. “You think that means we’re seeing 9/11 all over again?”
“That means they’re not sure what happened yet,” Rafe said. “That or they’re keeping the information from the public.”
“Which means it’s got to be bad, whatever it is,” Kyn said as he checked his phone one more time. “Still nothing,” he muttered in frustration as he looked down at the dead phone.
“These can only be terrorist attacks, right Rafe?” Ren asked. “An EMP maybe. What else would knock out all our communications and the electricity at the same time? And what else would bring down two planes?”
“It could be that,” Rafe answered him. “But that still doesn’t tell us what’s out there.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the door.
And that’s precisely why they had to stay put.
Out of mounting worry and frustration, Kyn began to pace and said to no one in particular, “You think we really needed some lame military games to teach us about teamwork in the first place?”
“The zipline was pretty cool.” When everyone looked at Ren, he looked a little sheepish before he added, “I never did that before.”
No one said anything. Ren was Ren.
Ren was right, Rafe thought to himself. That zipline was pretty sweet. But Rafe’s instincts, which had been finely honed after years of specialized military service, had been kicking into high gear all day. Something was wrong and it was damned frustrating being this isolated and not knowing exactly what it was. Or what to do.
He watched Kyn as he continued to pace and repeated his earlier advice, “I don’t think anyone should go out there. Not in the dark.”
“So we’re just supposed to do what? Wait around here all night doing nothing? All I want is to go home. Is that too much to ask?”
“We all want to go home, Kyn,” Rafe said. “But let’s not be stupid about it.”
Kyn shoved the dark hair back from his forehead. “What do you suggest we do then? Sit around here all night playing Guess What’s Out There?”
“I have a better idea,” Gaut spoke up. “We open that bottle of bourbon that Trace brought and play cards till daylight which is just a couple of hours away. Then we get out of here. At least we’ll be able to see any threats that might be out there.”
Kyn stopped his pacing and sighed deeply. “Hell, Gaut. I know this isn’t your fault. It isn’t anyone’s fault. I’m just damned frustrated. You know Beth. She wouldn’t send me a message like that unless something was really wrong.”
No one answered him. They did know Beth and they all knew Kyn was right. Beth was one of the strongest, most independent women they knew. But they eventually came to an agreement, a reluctant one, that they would wait until morning to leave.
“Get the cards,” Gaut said. “Let’s do something to pass the time. It’ll be morning before you know it.”
While they set up the chairs and lit an extra lantern, Ren asked, “Animals hunt at night, don’t they, Trace?”
“Most do.”
The feral sounds earlier had been more than just a little alarming. Down in one of the hollows that surrounded the lodge, the sounds had been amplified so that they were truly blood-chilling. Rafe walked over to one of the windows and stared out at the darkness. High above the trees a pale moon pierced the slowly-drifting clouds, creating an eerie landscape of stark moonlight interspersed with darker shadows. An early fog was moving in, but other than that, nothing moved out there and they hadn’t heard any more sounds for a while now.
Rafe understood Kyn’s frustr
ation very well. He felt like saying the hell with it all himself and getting in his Jeep and driving out of there, feral animals be damned. Kyn wasn’t the only one who had someone to go home to. Rafe was worried about loved ones, too, and patience was not usually at the top of his personal list of virtues. Like the others, he was used to doing, not waiting. And like Kyn, he wanted more than anything to be out of there. He was just better at hiding it. Whatever was happening, Rafe hoped that everything was all right at home, but it wasn’t going to do him or anyone else any good if he started obsessing over possible scenarios.
But tomorrow- He was getting out of Dodge, come hell or high water.
“A pepperoni pizza,” Ren said as he walked over to the window and peered out through the curtains beside Rafe.
Rafe turned his face. “Huh?”
“As soon as we’re home, I’m going to have a pepperoni pizza. Delivered. From Big Joe’s Pizzeria”
“Sounds good,” Rafe said as he went back to staring out the window. “I’ll probably do the same thing myself.”
Ren asked quietly, “You think he’s going to last the night?”
“Kyn? Hard telling. We can’t really force him to stay if he’s dead set on leaving.”
“You can’t blame him,” Ren said as he looked out the window. “He’s right. It sure seems like something is going on.” He continued to scan the endless darkness through narrowed eyes. “Maybe whatever it was, is gone by now.”
“That’s entirely possible,” Rafe agreed.