“It’s this way, I am sure of it. At least it was.”
“Someone’s in the road up there,” Jackson said.
When the clouds obstructed the sun, they were able to see the silhouettes of a man and a small child. Visible for a moment, both disappeared when the sunlight touched them. Jen grabbed her camera and adjusted the telephoto lens until she saw the ghostly image of her brother standing with Willow.
“What are you doing?” Jackson called out, as she climbed from the truck. He followed her to the side of the road where she peered through her camera.
“Jen?”
“Quiet!” She raised a hand towards him and focused her lens on an empty field.
Barry and Willow materialized in front of them when a group of clouds masked the sunlight.
“What the hell?” Jackson said, stumbling backwards.
Jen stepped forward and tried to reach out to her brother, but her hands passed through him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We’ve come to warn you.”
“What happened to you?” Jen said, tearfully.
“The same thing that happened to this town, I think.”
She turned to Willow. “Thank you.”
Willow just smiled as she faded in and out with the sunlight.
“This is the girl who helped you escape?” Barry asked.
“Yes.”
“What’s it feel like...to be like that?” Jackson asked.
“I don’t feel anything.” He held up a misty hand and swirled it through the air.
“We change at night,” Willow whispered. “It’s like we come back alive. But only the bad parts.”
“We need to get you both to a safe place,” Jen said. “So we can figure out how to help you.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Jackson asked. “Sorry Barry. It’s just...”
“He’s right. At night we become dangerous and cannot help what we do.”
Jen walked over to the truck and opened the back door. “Get in, both of you.”
C H A P T E R F I F T Y - T W O
They arrived at the quarry and found they weren’t alone. The flatbed truck was parked with crates stacked behind it. Jen and Jackson got out and opened the back door for Barry and Willow who were clearly visible in the shadows of the truck.
“Wait here,” Jen said to them. “You too,” she said to Jackson, and then walked towards a storage building hoping to find Doc.
Within a few minutes, Jackson spotted Doc, Sully and Bobby. When they saw him, they waived and walked towards him.
Bobby stopped abruptly, raised his rifle and aimed. “Behind you!”
Jackson flinched when a shot sailed past his ear and blew out the rear window of the Rover. Barry felt only a puff of air when the bullet passed through him.
“No. No, don’t shoot!” Jackson shouted.
“Hold your fire!” Doc yelled. Bobby complied and lowered his weapon.
“What’s going on here, Jackson?” Doc’s hand rested on the grip of his pistol.
Before he could answer, Jen ran back from the storage buildings. “They’re with us. It’s Barry and Willow, the girl who helped me escape!”
“You brought those things here?” Sully shouted.
As the sun emerged, Barry and Willow faded from sight.
“They’re gittin’ away!” Bobby shouted.
Doc and Sully looked around, not sure what to do.
“Barry?” Jen asked.
“We’re here,” he replied.
“What in hell is this?” Sully stepped away from the sound of Barry’s voice.
“They came here to help you,” Jen answered. “Please, let’s go inside so we can talk.”
Jen and Jackson stepped into a windowless storage building and found Barry and Willow, fully materialized, waiting in the dark.
Outside, Bobby huddled with Doc and Sully in the comfort of the sunlight. “Looks like a trap to me.”
“I’ve got to agree with Bobby,” Sully said. “I don’t like the looks of this, Doc. Not one bit.”
“Alright, you two wait out here. I’ll go in and hear them out.”
Wind whipped across the open ground, Bobby zipped up his jacket and turned his back to the cold.
“You holler if you need us,” Sully said. “We’ll come runnin’.”
“Will do,” Doc answered.
He stuffed his pistol into his jacket pocket and walked inside. Jen and Jackson stood in front of a wooden shelf with Barry and the girl nearby. He reached for his pistol when Barry moved towards him.
“I’m sorry,” Barry said. “I didn’t want any of this.”
“I know, Barry. It’s not your fault. It’s just who you are.”
“This is not who I am.”
“You are a Rhodes and your people are afflicted.”
“They’re not afflicted. They’re under the control of something terrible. The one they call Evangeline.”
“Ezra’s sister?” Doc asked.
“That thing is not my family. It’s something far worse than the others.”
“She eats people,” Willow said. Her child’s face punctuated with black coal eyes.
“What the hell is she, then?” Doc asked.
“I don’t know,” Barry answered. “But I plan to find out.”
“We need to get back soon,” Willow said, looking up at Barry. “Otherwise, they will come here and find us.”
C H A P T E R F I F T Y - T H R E E
Jimmy heard the drone of a vehicle’s engine echoing though the hills. He took cover and waited with his gun ready.
“Marie?” he yelled.
“Right here, Jimmy,” she answered, poking her head out of the cabin.
“You might want to keep the kids in for a while and lock that door behind you.”
“Something wrong?” Her voice was high and she sounded nervous.
“Nah, just heard a vehicle on the mountain. Want to make sure they’re friendly, that’s all.”
She closed and locked the cabin door. The kids were busy playing a boisterous game of hide and go seek, but stopped when they saw her bolt the cabin door shut.
“Mama, what’s wrong? Vicki asked. The twelve year old walked over to her mother and looked into her frightened eyes.
“Nothing, pumpkin. Jimmy just heard a car, that’s all. We need to be extra careful these days.”
Daniel moved closer to his two sisters. Marie’s eight year old son Max walked over to a boarded up window and peered through a peep hole drilled into the wood.
“Is Jimmy gonna be alright by himself?” Max asked.
“Oh sure, he’ll be fine.” Panicked thoughts crept into her mind, but she held them at bay.
After a few tense minutes, she looked out and saw the flatbed followed by the Rover. Relieved, she unbolted the door and walked onto the weathered porch.
“False alarm, I guess,” she said, smiling.
“Yep, just Doc and the others,” Jimmy answered. “Hope they found somethin’ we can use.”
Doc tooted the horn as he pulled the flatbed in front of the cabin and Jackson pulled beside it.
“How you making out, Jimmy?” Sully climbed out of passenger side of the truck.
“Better than they you did.” He gestured at the Rover’s shattered rear glass. “What happened?”
“We had a small misunderstanding. Help us unload and we’ll tell you all about it,” Doc answered.
“Come on now. Give a hand,” Marie leaned in the cabin door and called for the children.
Max and Daniel raced to the truck and each grabbed a box.
“Slow down, boys,” Jimmy scolded. “Careful with those.”
The boys stepped gingerly over jagged boards nailed in at random intervals along the porch. Doc examined the barriers running the length of the cabin.
“Nice work, Jimmy,” Doc said. “This oughta slow those things down tonight.”
On the back of the porch, timbers were arranged into a makeshift bunker with sh
arpened sticks surrounding it. “Check this out,” Jimmy said. He pushed a wooden panel covering a window behind the bunker and it swung inward.
“We can get in and out real fast, and I worked up a way to lock it from the inside.”
“This is good,” Doc said.
He had also arranged a dozen homemade torches in front of the cabin. The torches were made from tree branches wrapped with fuel soaked cloth.
Bobby examined the torches with a cigarette dangling from his lips.
“Watch that cigarette, Bobby!” Jimmy shouted.
“Relax,” Bobby answered. “It ain’t even lit yet.”
“Now for the last piece,” Jimmy walked to an oak tree with five ropes dangling from a thick branch, each with a hangman’s knot tied at the end. “When it’s all done, we can string up any injured ones and burn them in the morning.”
“I like it. We need to start taking those things out permanently,” Sully said.
Doc opposed the hunting parties, once commonplace in the camp. But his complaints were ignored until they lost an entire group of men. The incident changed most people’s thinking, but not Sully’s. He couldn’t stand hiding and hoping the creatures would leave them alone.
“Five of them dead will cost five of us,” Doc said flatly. “You know the way it works.”
“You don’t know that,” Sully objected.
Doc turned to Jackson and Jen. “Whenever we’ve destroyed one of them, they’ve taken one of us in replacement, sometimes more than one.”
“Here a newsflash for you,” Bobby said. “It don’t matter what we do. They plan on taking us all anyhow.”
“I’m with Bobby on this,” Sully said. “I don’t believe a thing those things told you.”
“Now, hold on,” Jen said. “My brother risked everything to come warn us.”
“You saw Barry?” Jimmy asked.
“Yeah, what’s left of him,” Bobby quipped.
“Can we cool it?” Jackson pointed at the fading sunlight. “Save your fighting for the dark.”
C H A P T E R F I F T Y - F O U R
Barry and Willow moved towards the plantation. The sun was setting and they made it back with little time to spare. The change began as the house regained its magnificence in the waning light. The grounds around them began to look new again. Cracks in the fountain in front of the house were erased and water began to spray from carved marble fish.
They quietly entered the house before the others made their nightly appearance. Barry followed the girl through the kitchen and into a small office with walls covered in a lustrous walnut. They waited a few minutes until they rejoined the physical world and lost their weightless transparency. Willow pushed open a hidden panel in the wall leading to a narrow servants’ stairway. Barry followed her inside and closed the opening behind them.
“What’s this place, Willow?” His mind was beginning to cloud as his primal side emerged.
“Follow me, I will show you.”
She led him upstairs to a fourth floor dormitory used for servants’ quarters years ago. When he wandered into the room, the door slammed behind him. He turned quickly and pulled on the locked door.
“What are you doing?” he screamed in a hoarse voice.
“No one knows about this place. You will be safe here.”
His wilder instincts took hold as he scratched and beat on the door.
“Open the door!” He pounded on the door with all his might, but she was already gone.
Willow closed the panel downstairs in the office, muting Barry’s screams. She was able to control her thoughts, but knew he couldn’t be controlled so easily. She moved unnoticed onto the crowded veranda where tables of produce had been laid out alongside decanters of murky red wine. The creatures ate and drank like wild things, ignoring everything around them.
“Willow?” Evangeline called out. Her voice was a velvet covered stone.
Willow turned and saw the crowd had parted. She moved towards Evangeline and felt a charge in the air.
“Willow, you look troubled. Is there something wrong?”
“No ma’am, everything is fine.” She kept her thoughts locked away as the words tumbled from her lips.
“Remember, we are family and I am here to guide you to the truth.”
“I know.” The electrical field intensified as Evangeline probed for a path into her mind.
“Tonight we will celebrate mass and the light of the true religion will burn bright.” Evangeline’s black eyes shined as she spoke. “I want you to lead the sacrifice. We will eat the flesh and drink the blood as one.”
“Yes, Evangeline.” Willow fought to maintain her concentration.
“We will leave when the moon has risen,” Evangeline said.
“I understand.” Willow bowed and began to walk away.
“Willow?”
She turned and faced her again.
“Make sure you eat tonight,” Evangeline gestured towards the tables.
“Yes, I will.” Willow had never eaten the feast and the thought of it sickened her. She survived eating wild foods foraged in the woods north of the plantation. Turning away, she disappeared into the crowd. Once inside the house, she ran through the office and then slipped into the passageway to find Barry. When she unbolted the door and swung it open, he was on the floor with his head down and his knees pulled against his chest.
“Barry? It’s me.”
“I know,” he answered in a low voice. “I can smell you.”
He shot to his feet, startling her.
“Something terrible is going to happen tonight. We need to warn Jen and the others.”
“What’s going to happen?” he asked. He moved out of the shadows and closer to the open door.
“Evangeline plans to sacrifice one of your people.”
“One of my people?”
“Yes, at the cabin.”
His eyes glistened in the streaming moonlight and he ran his tongue over his lips before he spoke.
“These are my people. My kin.”
He shot forward, towards the door. Willow moved back and tried to pull it closed, but was too late. He smashed through the opening, knocking her down the staircase. He then ran past her and out through the office. She climbed to her feet and then ran through the house and out the front door.
C H A P T E R F I F T Y - F I V E
Barry rushed onto the veranda and his gaze fixed on the tables of wine and vegetation. He stumbled forward with his mind clouded by thirst and hunger and devoured a handful of rotten leaves. He then took a crystal wine decanter and began to drink, letting the red liquid run down his chin.
“Good evening,” Evangeline said. “Your hunger is strong, this is good.”
He only nodded while eating a molded corn cob. “I am so hungry,” he said between bites. He drank more, smiling with small jagged teeth stained red from the wine.
“Then you will enjoy the celebration of the sacrifice tonight,” she said.
He focused his thoughts for a moment as a thought occurred to him. “That girl, Willow, went to warn the others.” He then casually turned his back to Evangeline and continued eating the horrible bounty.
“Warn them about what?”
“The sacrifice...I guess.”
Evangeline began to change, becoming larger and surrounded by shadow. “Come with me.” She grabbed his throat and lifted him off his feet. His eyes were wild as he fought to steal a breath from her powerful grip. The crowd moved aside as she passed by, carrying Barry in front of her. She walked into the mansion and through the ornate foyer to a doorway located under a curved staircase. She opened the door and threw him down the stairs like a rag doll.
“You fool! You are not one of us. Not anymore,” she screamed down to him.
Barely conscious with both legs broken, the blackness drained from his eyes and he became himself again. He wretched and heaved up the putrid contents of his stomach. A dozen creatures descended the staircase and tore into him with jagge
d teeth, ripping away hungry mouthfuls of flesh.
“Enough,” someone said. “Bring him to the garden.”
His tormenters lifted him and carried him upstairs. Pain seared through his body as he went into shock. The creatures carried him outside to Evangeline who stood waiting at the iron gates of the cemetery. She motioned them to an open grave with its headstone knocked over, half buried in black soil. Evangeline pulled Barry’s head forward and ran a razor sharp fingernail across the back of his neck, severing his spine. His body went numb and thankfully, his pain was gone. Her gaze lingered on him for a moment, then she kicked him into the grave where he landed face up, staring into a starless sky. He closed his eyes when the first shovel of dirt hit his face.
C H A P T E R F I F T Y - S I X
Sully took a sip of black coffee. It was cold, but that was alright. He wasn’t drinking it for the taste. He sat on the porch of the cabin propped behind the barricade, holding an M-16 fitted with a night scope. It was the best weapon they had left. Jimmy had his Browning hunting rifle and a shotgun in the corner as a last ditch defense in case they were overrun. The two men pulled the first watch of the night with Doc, Jackson and Bobby bunking just inside in case they were needed. The moon was nearly full and illuminated the woods with a stark gray light. Black smoke billowed from the torches and swirled as it rose into the air. When a twig snapped in the woods, Sully tightened the grip on his gun and looked over at Jimmy.
“Probably another squirrel,” Jimmy said, with a nervous grin.
“Yup, probably a squirrel,” Sully agreed.
Another sound emanated from the woods. This time it was louder. Jimmy stood and trained his rifle towards the sound, while Sully lined up his scope. They waited and listened.
“Jen,” a voice called from the trees.
“Who’s there? Show yourself or we’ll shoot!” Sully shouted.
Willow stepped forward into the moonlight.
Sully opened fire and the girl collapsed to the ground.
Doc, Jackson and Bobby tumbled out of the trap door with their weapons drawn.
“What happened?” Doc demanded.
“Not sure. I think it was a kid,” Jimmy answered.
Beneath the Veil Page 10