by Lukens, Mark
Trevor stood up and stretched. “I gotta take a whiz,” he let everyone know.
“Check the rooms back there,” Cole told him.
“I just checked them an hour ago. All the windows are locked. Back door’s locked.”
“Check them again.”
*
Trevor entered the first bedroom down the hall – the guest bedroom. He walked around the bed to the window. He parted the curtains and peeked outside. Nothing. No sign of Frank or anyone else out there. He checked the window. Still locked. He let the curtains fall back in place.
He left the bedroom and walked down the hall, his boots thumped on the wood floor. He checked the back door. Still locked. He entered Tom Gordon’s room and checked the two windows in the bedroom – both still locked. He peeked outside at the snowy field that stretched out in all directions from the cabin. He stared at the line of trees in the distance that surrounded the fields like a wall of woods in every direction. The woods had grown darker with the quickly approaching night, but he could still make out the individual trees, and he still didn’t see any movement anywhere outside.
Trevor left Tom Gordon’s bedroom and walked across the hall and entered the bathroom. He closed the door and walked to the toilet at the other end of the room, the toilet was just under the small bathroom window on the far wall. He took his gun out from the waistband of his pants and laid it on the toilet tank lid; the gun made a loud clinking sound on the ceramic lid when he set it there. He was about to unzip his pants, but something out of the corner of his eye demanded his attention; there was something moving outside the bathroom window in the snow.
He stared out the window, his body frozen in shock. His muscles all sagged at once, like all of the energy had drained out of his body. His bladder let go and the urine ran down his leg inside of his pants. He wanted to scream, but he didn’t seem to have any breath inside of his lungs to do so. He just stared out the window, trying to understand what he saw, trying to understand how this could be possible. His mouth moved as he tried to speak, as he tried to scream. “I … I don’t understand …” were the only words he could utter in a whisper.
*
Cole sat at the dining room table, the cup of coffee still right in front of him. He had consumed so much coffee throughout the day that there was no way he was going to be able to sleep tonight; he was going to make sure of it. But he had a feeling that at some time during the night, he was going to drift off to sleep without realizing it. It seemed like no matter how much each one of them tried to stay awake, no matter who was on watch, at some point in the long night, they would all fall asleep. Like we’re being put to sleep, his mind whispered. But he didn’t want to think of where that thought came from. What could put them to sleep whenever it wanted to?
Cole glanced over at Trevor’s playing cards spread out all over the dining room table. Then he looked at Jose who leaned against the kitchen counter, still anxious, still unable to sit still for very long. “Trevor’s been in the bathroom for a while,” Cole said.
“Maybe he had to take a shit,” Jose answered.
Cole looked at Stella who sat beside David on the couch as he drew in his notebook. It seemed like David had already gone through nearly half of the pages in the notebook, drawing at a furious pace. Cole figured it was a way the kid dealt with what was going on. It couldn’t be easy on a little kid like that to be held captive in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. And coming from whatever they were running from, from wherever they had been, whatever Stella was hiding from the rest of them, had to have taken a toll on him as well.
Cole’s thoughts were interrupted when David jumped to his feet quickly; the notebook fell out of his hands, open to a page on the wood floor at his feet. He stared at the front door like something was frightening him.
*
Stella had nearly dozed off when David jumped to his feet. She tried to take every opportunity to nap when she could so she could try and stay awake at night, or at least sleep as lightly as she could.
But she snapped awake when David stood up. She could hear his rapid breathing even before she looked at him, it sounded like he was having a panic attack, struggling for breath. She had seen this happen to him before at the dig site. He stared at the front door.
Something was outside. It had finally come for them.
“What’s wrong with that kid?” Stella heard Needles ask from his chair that he always sat in; the recliner – his talisman of safety that he curled up in, a place where he could rub his crucifix and pray to his God that he would be safe. But Stella didn’t think God was going to listen to Needles this time – they were all on their own.
“I don’t know,” Stella lied as she glanced at Needles. “He’s scared of something.”
Stella looked at David as he stared at the front door with wide, bulging eyes of fear. His mouth hung open, a little slack, his body frozen with fear.
She was about to hold on to David, try her best to comfort him, but her eyes darted down to the open notebook on the floor that David had been drawing in – she could see the open pages, she could see what he had been drawing. What she saw on the pages stopped her mind in its tracks for a moment. She stared at the drawings a little too long. That couldn’t be right, could it? her mind whispered. Those aren’t what I think they are, are they?
“Stella!” Cole yelled, snapping her momentary hypnosis.
She looked at Cole. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” she said again. She would have to figure out what she’d seen in David’s notebook later. She would have to confront David about it eventually, ask him how he knew. But for now she needed to put the brakes on her spinning mind and try to act normal – her and David’s survival depended on her not revealing too much; she knew that from experience, she had learned that down at the dig site in New Mexico.
“What’s out there, kid?” Needles asked in a quivering voice.
David didn’t answer Needles. He stared at the front door. Then David’s eyes moved away from the door, scanned past the dining room table, to the hallway that led to the two bedrooms and the bathroom.
And that’s when they all heard the noise that came from the bathroom – a loud crashing noise.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Cole ran to the bathroom door. Jose was right behind him, his gun drawn. Cole pounded on the bathroom door. “Trevor!” he called out. “You okay in there?”
No answer.
“Trevor, answer me! Are you okay?!”
Still no answer.
Cole tried the door handle. It wasn’t locked, but it seemed like the door was stuck. “Trevor! Trevor, open the door!”
Trevor wasn’t answering them.
Cole looked at Jose who stood next to him, his gun in his hand. “I’m going to break the door down. You get ready to shoot if you have to.”
Jose nodded – he was ready.
“But be careful,” Cole told Jose. “Let’s see what’s going on before you start blasting away.”
“Yeah, man. I’m not going to shoot you.”
“I don’t want any accidents,” Cole said, then he turned back to face the bathroom door. “Trevor, I’m going to break this door down!”
Cole still heard nothing from inside the bathroom. He backed up a step and slammed his shoulder into the door and it almost caved in immediately. Cole backed up another step, ready to ram it again with his shoulder. He had played high school football, strong safety position, and he knew how to hit with his shoulder. Trevor had played high school ball too, his mind whispered, but he pushed the thought away. He didn’t want to think of Trevor in the past tense, but he couldn’t help feeling a knot of dread worming its way through his body. He rammed the door again with his shoulder, and this time it flew open and slammed against the wall.
The bathroom was empty. Trevor was gone.
Cole entered the bathroom, looking around in shock. Everything looked the same in the bathroom except for two things: Trevor wasn’t there and the bathroo
m window was wide open and damaged around the edges. Cole walked towards the damaged window, the toilet right underneath the window. The toilet lid was up and Trevor’s gun was on the toilet tank lid.
“Look,” Jose whispered from behind Cole. “Look at the fucking window.”
The freezing air from outside invaded the bathroom through the busted and damaged window.
Cole hurried to the window.
“What the fuck?” Jose said from behind Cole as he followed him to the window. “You think Trevor went out that window?” But it didn’t seem possible, he thought. The window was too small for a man to fit through.
Cole didn’t answer Jose. He drew his gun and pointed it out the window, looking around as much as he could see. “Trevor!” he called. “You out there?!”
No answer from outside, no sound except the freezing wind.
Cole stuck his head and arm out the window; it was as much of his body as he could comfortably fit. The sleeves of his shirt brushed against the splintered wooden frame and the small bits of jagged glass that were still imbedded in the wood. He aimed his gun around outside, ready to fire if he needed to, and he tried to look everywhere at once. But there were no tracks in the snow; there was no blood in the snow, no splinters of wood or broken glass in the snow that Cole could see. He looked at the trees in the distance; there was no movement in the trees, nothing out here at all except the lonely wilderness.
“Trevor!!”
Trevor did not shout back.
“Cole, look at the window.”
Cole pulled himself back inside and studied the splintered wood around the window. The wood was cracked in many places, almost like the wood had been twisted by some unimaginable force, like something too big for the window had been pulled through quickly. But what was more disturbing were what looked like claw marks grooved into the wood at the bottom of the window sill, like fingernails had tried to hold onto the wood. And then Cole found the piece of a human fingernail stuck in the groove of the window sill where the window would have come down if it was still there. It was nearly a whole fingernail with blood and a small piece of flesh stuck to the end of it, like it had snapped off completely from a finger.
Trevor’s finger.
Cole’s mind buzzed with panic. Trevor was gone. His little brother was gone. Someone had pulled his brother out through the window. And they hadn’t heard anything in the living room except the crashing of glass and snapping of wood. No screams from Trevor. No gunshots. Trevor hadn’t even gone for his gun; it was still here on the toilet tank lid.
How was this possible?
But Cole didn’t care how, he didn’t even care why at this moment, the only thing he could think of was going outside and finding his brother. He could feel a rage building up inside of him, a rage he hadn’t felt in so long, a rage that could make him kill someone.
Cole grabbed Trevor’s gun and shoved it down in the waistband of his pants. He brushed past Jose and ran out of the bathroom.
Jose turned to follow him. “Wait a minute, Cole! Where are you going?” Jose ran after Cole who ran right past the dining room table and straight for the front door.
“Wait for me,” Jose said to Cole.
But before Cole and Jose even reached the front door, still half a dozen steps away from it, something pelted the front door from outside. Whatever hit the door sounded solid, but it also gave a wet thump when it hit the door.
Cole stopped in his tracks and stared at the door, his gun still in his hand.
Jose stopped, too. He was only a few steps behind Cole. They waited a split second, but it felt like an eternity until they heard the next sounds – it sounded like dozens of objects pelting the front door all at the same time.
“Oh God, no,” Cole whispered, and then he ran for the door. He unlocked the deadbolt with trembling fingers, still trying to hold his gun in his hand.
“Wait a minute, Cole,” Jose said from behind him.
But Cole didn’t hear Jose. He didn’t hear or see anything around him; it had all faded away into a white noise. All he could think about was getting to Trevor before it was too late.
Cole unlocked the small lock on the door handle, twisted the knob and swung the door open and stood in the doorway.
It was too late for Trevor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Needles wouldn’t stop screaming. It was an insane scream. It was the screaming from someone whose mind had finally snapped. After seeing what was on the front porch, Needles’ grip on sanity was nearly gone.
Jose was still a few steps behind Cole who stood in the doorway staring down at the carnage littering the floorboards of the front porch. His body blocked much of what Jose could see, but he did notice the splatters of blood on the front door of the cabin. He didn’t want to see what was out there, he didn’t want to make his feet move forward, but he had to – he had to back Cole up. He moved to the side of the doorway, nearly beside Cole, but still a few steps behind him, his gun up and ready to shoot. But his gun hand dropped back down as he lost the strength in his body.
Stella let out a cry from the couch and turned David away from the gore on the porch. But she hadn’t been quick enough; she knew David had seen it, even if only for a few seconds. But David let her guide his face away even though they had seen this before, they had seen things like this at the dig site in New Mexico.
Cole stared down in horror at the pieces of Trevor’s body scattered on the floorboards of the front porch: pieces of Trevor’s arms, pieces of his legs, pieces of his flesh; some of the pieces were the size of small hams or turkeys. Most of the pieces of Trevor’s body still had clothing stuck to them, the cloth held in place by the drying blood which was so dark in some places it was almost black. A femur bone was splintered at the end of a chunk of flesh that used to be part of Trevor’s thigh; the fabric of the jeans was still wrapped around the skin of the leg. Trevor had been cut apart – no, it looked more like he’d been ripped apart, torn apart.
“No …” that was the only word Cole could utter. He could feel his stomach churning, the last meal and coffee he’d eaten and drank threatening to come back up.
Trevor. His brother. His little brother.
The worst part was Trevor’s head. It was right there in the middle of the pieces of his body. The head was upright and the eyes were staring at him; flaps of skin from Trevor’s neck were spread out underneath the chin like lily pads. Trevor’s mouth hung open in a silent scream. His eyes were wide open, staring at Cole; perhaps those eyes were still seeing their last image on earth – some unimaginable horror that had pulled him out through the bathroom window and torn him to pieces.
“Oh God, Cole,” Jose yelled from behind Cole. “Shut the fucking door!”
Cole still stood in front of the doorway. He wanted to look away from these pieces that used to be his brother, but he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away.
Jose moved into action; he could see that Cole wasn’t going to move, he was too paralyzed by shock. Jose hurried around Cole and slammed the front door shut, and then he twisted the lock on the door handle and then turned the deadbolt lock.
Cole finally came alive; he stared at Jose with a hatred burning in his eyes. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Jose stood his ground. “They’re out there. We need to shut the door. Get ready to defend ourselves.”
“Trevor … he’s out there …”
“We can’t do anything for him now! He’s gone!”
Cole stared at Jose.
Needles’ screams had died down, but now he was whimpering as he cowered in his recliner, staring at the front door like he was waiting for it to suddenly crash open. “I told you, Cole,” Needles cried. “I told you it was the devil out there! I told you the devil was coming for us!”
“Shut the fuck up, Needles!” Jose screamed at him.
“I told you when we first got here that we shouldn’t go inside this cabin. I told you we couldn’t stay here. And now it’s t
oo late. Now the devil’s here and there’s nothing we can do.”
Jose stomped across the room, his gun aimed at Needles who cowered back into the recliner even more. “I said, shut the fuck up, or I swear to God I’m going to blow your fucking head off.”
The cabin was suddenly quiet.
Stella held onto David, her body was nearly in front of his body, protecting him. She knew what was coming next.
She watched Cole who stared at the front door like he wanted to open it again, like he wanted to see his brother one more time, but he didn’t want to see him like that.
Then Cole looked right at her.
And Stella saw the rage in his eyes. He marched across the wood floor, his boots thumped on the wood as his long legs made the trip across the floor in a few strides. He stood in front of her, stared down at her. And she was afraid of him at this moment; afraid he would snap and kill her and David.
“Who’s out there?” he growled at her.
“I don’t know,” Stella told him.
“They killed my brother. If you don’t tell me …” Cole began.
“I swear to God I don’t know,” Stella said quickly, interrupting his words. “That’s the truth. I don’t know what it is. How many times do I have to tell you?”
Cole stared at her.
“I already told you what I know,” Stella continued. “At the dig site in New Mexico, it was like this. Something was taking us one by one. I took David and we managed to get to my truck and get away.”
“How come your truck wasn’t destroyed there like it was here?”
Stella paused for a moment, and then she answered him. “I don’t know.”
Jose paced across the living room floor, his gun still in his hand. His eyes flicked to the front door and windows every few seconds. “I told you, Cole. I told you earlier that you were making a big mistake.”
Cole tried to tune out Jose’s voice.
“We should’ve questioned her more,” Jose went on. “We should’ve started putting bullets in that kid’s knees until she told us everything we wanted to know.”