“What is happening, Nadie?”
Nadie looked at her husband, bewildered that he hadn’t yet come to the obvious truth. “It is the Croatoan, Matunaagd. It has come for us, just as we feared it would.”
Matunaagd swallowed and nodded, accepting the conclusion without argument.
Matunaagd took one step toward the opening of the wigwam, then another, until he was close enough to lift the leather covering which protected the house to the outside.
“Matunaagd, no!”
“I have to help them, Nadie. Those are our people. They are dying.”
“It will kill you, Matunaagd.” She looked away. “It will kill us all.”
The screams of pain and panic raged all around Nadie and Matunaagd’s dwelling, flying above the wigwam like wayward spirits, and the pair looked at each other with a knowing farewell in both of their eyes.
“I will come back,” Matunaagd assured, averting his gaze to the floor as he spoke.
Nadie nodded, accepting the lie.
Matunaagd pulled back the thick hide that formed the door of the wigwam and, as he did, an imperiled scream erupted from the other side.
Matunaagd didn’t hesitate, acting on untainted instinct as he lifted the tomahawk quickly and in one sweeping motion brought the weapon down fiercely upon the intruder outside.
He stood motionless for a moment, staring at his kill, his arm stuck in the motion of the lethal blow. Slowly, he pulled his hand away and stepped back, and as he did, Nadie could hear the thud of her husband’s victim collapse to the ground outside.
“No.” Matunaagd’s single word was just a whisper, but it was quickly followed by a low, thunderous bellow of pain. “Nooooooo!”
Nadie felt the first droplet stream down the inside of her cheek as she stepped to the opening of her home, silent as sand as she moved. She looked first to her husband, who had retreated to the far end of the hut and was now crouched in a half-huddle against the wall, staring in disbelief at the slaughter he had just committed. Nadie took a deep breath and turned back to the door, forcing herself to look to the ground outside.
Sokwa lay dead in the dust, her eyes open and tortured, blood streaming through the middle of her face like the melting snows of spring.
Nadie took a step outside and looked to the center of the village where chaos reigned. She watched in stillness as the disorder of the morning spread around her, observing a dozen dead bodies on the ground, lying just below the lift of the fog, as if the vapor itself had been the exterminating poison. And in the broken white of the air she could see people running and screaming, attempting to carry their babies and injured to some fictional place of safety and shelter.
Another scream rang out, and as Nadie turned toward the sound, she saw it for the first time.
The Croatoan.
It had the size and thickness of a small oak, and though its stride was that of a walk, its pace was quick, each tread the length of three made by a man.
Nadie felt no fear standing in her position, exposed to the murderous giant, and as the Croatoan passed by her, it turned and looked in her direction, its eyes catching hers for no more than the breath of a butterfly. Whether it had seen her through the fog, Nadie couldn’t know, but she had seen it, its blackness so complete it was as if the Manitoosh himself were striding past her. She had been spared in that moment, but it felt to her as if the Croatoan had chronicled her, had enumerated her to its registry, promising to return later for the final collection of her heart.
Nadie walked back into the wigwam and toward Matunaagd, grabbing his hand as she brought him to the floor. And there they sat and waited for the carnage to end.
Chapter 36
“What happened here?” Danny asked, rubbing his finger across the open hole at the top of the conch shell.
“I told Jessica, that’s my friend who owns the store, why we needed the conch, and she was all over it. She bored out the hole right there in the store. You put your mouth right here and blow.” Samantha paused. “And spare me any sex jokes.”
“You told her why we needed it?”
“Well, just that we...you wanted it to make calling sounds. Apparently, that’s a thing. She knew exactly what I was talking about.”
Danny held a suspicious gaze on Samantha for a few beats and then nodded, accepting the answer. “If you say so.”
“It’s fine. She doesn’t care. Just say ‘thank you’ and let’s figure out how we’re going to make this work.”
“Thank you, Samantha,” Danny said, and then turned to Officer Benitez. “Samantha, this is Renata. Renata, Samantha.”
The women did their greetings, each giving a joyless smile, a glisten of dread lingering somewhere deep in their eyes, knowing the end of the world could be only minutes away.
“Well, I guess there’s no time like this second right here.” Danny inhaled and put his mouth to the opening of the shell.
“Wait!” Samantha said. “Did Tracy do her part yet. Is she..?” She looked at Renata and gave a cock of the head.
“I’m all filled in on the plan, Samantha. I know about all of it.”
Samantha gave Renata a grin and furrowed her brow. “Really? Wow, the whole plan?” She looked back to Danny. “Yeah, I guess he is kind of cute.”
Renata frowned. “I guess. If you’re into that sort of thing. Guys, I mean.”
Samantha laughed.
“All right, I’m trying to raise an ancient creature from the bottom of the ocean. So, anymore interruptions before I blast this thing?” Danny was irritated that he had to re-load his bow, regain his will, and there was no look of humor on his face.
Both women shook their heads.
“I have to admit,” Danny said, creating a bit of tension for the moment. “I’m nervous.”
“Don’t be,” Renata said. “You’ve already seen it. And this is what you’ve been waiting for for the last two years. When the time comes, you’ll do what you have to.”
Danny quivered his head. “I’m not worried about that. I’m worried that it won’t show. This is the only thing I’ve got left. If the noise from this shell doesn’t bring it out, my fear is that we’ll never be able to control it.
“Then blow the goddamn thing, Danny,” Samantha said flatly, “and let’s find out where we stand.”
Danny put the cratered mollusk shell to his mouth, ensuring that his lips were wrapped around the full circumference of the opening, and without another thought or hesitation, he loaded his lungs with air and blew it all out through the shell.
The sound was louder than he’d expected, joyously loud, and the other police officers on the scene now stopped and looked at the group curiously.
“It’s an Indian ritual,” Renata said, holding the stares of the officers until they shrugged and went back about their business of gathering evidence and searching for clues.
But there was nothing for them to find on the shores of Tippin’s Point. The killer was already known; now it just needed to arrive.
Danny held the shell against his thigh and nodded confidently, basking in the resonance of the alarm that still hung on the breeze. If the Croatoan’s nature was to respond to such a beacon, if it was indeed drawn to this horn of the sea, then it would come to that call. That was as hearty a blare as Danny could have produced.
“Nice shell, Sam,” he said, his stare now locked back on the misty surface of the bay, looking for the first sign of life.
“It’s Samantha. And I’ll let Jessie know you approve.”
“So what now?” Benitez asked.
Danny didn’t move. “Get the weapons ready,” he answered. “And the second you see that thing coming, don’t spare a fucking bullet.
Chapter 37
Nadie and Matunaagd exited the wigwam together, and Nadie was almost certain they had arrived in the afterlife. The fog in the air was even heavier than earlier when she saw the Croatoan pass by her, and it now almost blanketed the landscape entirely. She had no sense of how long they
had been hiding, how long they had sat waiting for a death that never arrived. Or perhaps it had, and she was becoming conscious to it in this moment.
“What is that sound?” Matunaagd asked.
A scraping noise resounded from somewhere in the center of the village, and it was accompanied by the low murmur of voices drifting in through the clouds.
Nadie shook off the question and walked toward the voices.
“Nadie, wait.”
Nadie ignored her husband and continued walking, stepping into a clearing in the haze where Nadie’s vision of heaven was immediately toppled. Dozens of bodies—maybe hundreds—were loaded into countless piles in and around the village square, with even more being dragged into other piles. The faces of the dead men and women were a combination of white and brown; all of the haulers Algonquin. The only talking being done was in the form of instruction, mainly about where the next corpse should be placed.
“What is happening?” Nadie said finally, her question subdued, directed to no one in particular. There were perhaps fifteen of her tribe that she could see working, all of whom ignored her.
Except for one girl, whose eye Nadie caught.
It was Jania, Sokwa’s sister. She pointed to one of the men beside her, directing him to take the body of Elyoner Cook to a pile near the edge of the road. The left half of Samuel’s mother’s face was missing, exposing the white jaw and cheekbone of her skull, her blue eyes remaining intact in their sockets. She looked like she was smiling, and Nadie reflexively smiled back as the corpse was dragged quickly to its temporary place of rest.
Jania approached Nadie, and as she stood before her, there was no expression on her face. “There is much to be done, Nadie,” she said, her words curt, stoic.
“What happened?” It wasn’t the right question, but it was all Nadie could think to say.
Jania looked around her and back toward the men and women pulling the twisted, bloody bodies into heaps of dead flesh. She turned back to Nadie, her eyes overwrought, and then shook her head, unable to find the proper explanation. “There are twenty of us remaining. And you. The Manitooshes stole the rest.”
Twenty left. If Jania’s number of survivors was correct, Nadie could see nearly all of them in her current view. They were all Algonquin.
“I am looking for Sokwa,” Jania said, a glisten of hope in her voice.
Matunaagd was now beside his wife, and as he began to speak, Nadie shook her head and interrupted. “I’m sorry, Jania, your sister is dead. Her body is just there.” Nadie pointed toward her wigwam, bowing her head in an act of shame, which Jania inferred as reverence. Matunaagd had killed Sokwa, but now was not the time for that revelation. And perhaps that time would never come. She shot a glance toward her husband and gave a warning shiver of her head.
Jania nodded at the news of her sister’s demise, still showing no expression of grief or emotion in her eyes. She then said, “We will need your help. Both of yours.”
“What is it you’re doing?” Matunaagd asked.
Jania looked around the scene as if searching for the impetus for such a question. “We cannot leave the village this way. The white men are returning. Perhaps not in this cycle, but one day. And this massacre will bring war to our shores.”
“So what then?”
Jania shrugged. “We’re going to burn them. All of the bodies, foreign and native. And dispose of the ashes.”
“But...what will you tell them when they return?” It was Nadie, the nausea building in her belly and throat at the thought of such an endeavor. “Where will you say they’ve all gone?”
Jania smiled now, narrowing her eyes, searching for the jest in the question. “We won’t be here, Nadie. We have to leave this land immediately.”
“To go where?”
“I don’t know. Another home. To the big lands of the west. And once there, we’ll disperse. And pray when the men of England do return, they won’t seek vengeance. But they will seek it. And have it eventually. Perhaps not upon us, but upon others. All we can hope to do now is survive for ourselves.”
Nadie stared into the square as the first torch was lit, grimacing as the hair and clothing of one of the elder colonists—Stephen Crowell—took to the flame. The orange blaze then caught the trouser leg of Stephen’s brother Isaac, and within seconds, the pile of a dozen dead Englishmen, women and children was a conflagration of human flesh and bone.
“Where did it go?” Nadie asked. “What happened to the Croatoan?”
“Croatoan.” Jania said the name in a whisper, feeling the full texture of the word in her mouth.
Nadie nodded.
Janie’s eyes filled with tears now, finally showing the first effects of the trauma. “It killed them so fast, Nadie. They could not run. They could not fight them. The children...Sokwa.”
Nadie pulled Jania toward her and hugged her tightly, allowing the young woman to set free her tears upon Nadie’s shoulder.
Before her weeping had ended, Nadie pushed away from Jania. She looked at her curiously—this girl who had organized the preservation of her people by instituting the morbid plan that was now burning all around them—and asked, “Them?”
“What?” Jania wiped a tear and shook her head, confused.
“You said, ‘they couldn’t fight them.’ Who else, Jania?”
“There were two. Two of these monsters you’ve named.”
Two.
Nadie had seen only the one pass, but the carnage that lay all around her was more suggestive of the number Janie had just mentioned. “Where are they, Jania? These two Croatoans? Where have they gone?”
Chapter 38
Danny felt the vibration of his cell phone but didn’t bother to look at the number. He didn’t want to take his eyes off the bay even for a second. After all, he had made the call to the Croatoan, so if it did arrive on this beach, it was now his responsibility.
The fifth and final silent ring ended and, after a pause of a few seconds, began again.
Danny instantly knew something was wrong and fished the phone from his pocket. He looked at the number and saw it was Tracy.
“Tracy, where are you?” he answered.
“I’m where you told me to be, boss. Down at the beach in front of your house. Holy shit, Danny, you need to get down here now. It’s coming. It’s coming right. Fucking. Now.”
“What...what are you talking about? The god? The Croatoan? But...it was in the bay. The boy was killed here last night.” Danny was more ruminating than conversing with Tracy.
“Well, then you can come down and tell it yourself, because it’s coming. I can see its head. Oh my god, its head is out.”
Danny could picture it in his mind, the large cranium breaching the water.
The black and purple man.
His breathing turned to heavy panting, but not from the feeling of addiction he’d felt in his previous life, but of an empathetic terror for what Tracy was experiencing.
“I’m coming, Tracy. I’ll be there in five minutes. Get the hell out of there. Don’t watch it. Don’t try to study it or look at it or follow it. Just go. Now. Please.”
“It’s okay, Danny, the sheriff’s got his pistol on it. But we could use a little more firepower, so bring that twelve-gauge.”
“Tracy, run!” Danny shouted to the phone, but there was no answer on the other end. Tracy was disconnected.
“Jesus, Danny, what’s happening?” Samantha asked.
“Stay here, Sam. Keep an eye on the bay.” Danny turned to Renata. “We have to get to the ocean. My house. It’s coming. It’s rising now.”
Chapter 39
Samuel finally reached the eastern shore of the island, and by now his energy was all but spent. He could barely exhaust another breath as he brought the boat to a point where he could touch his feet to the bottom and pull the canoe to shore. He had never been a strong swimmer, a weakness about which his father had always reminded him, and with his muscles at near exhaustion, his only choice had been t
o use the broken oar to bring him in.
He lumbered over the hull and stood in the water, listening for the screams of the tortured victims somewhere up the hill and through the woods. But there was only the drone of the forest, meaning either the slaughter was over or he was too far away to hear.
But he wasn’t too far, he knew that, which meant the massacre had ended.
That was all right, Samuel thought. The Croatoan—Croatoans—were still alive, about that he felt sure. And, if for any reason they weren’t, if the colonists and natives had slayed them during their defense, then there were more gods in the sea. There must have been. This was an assumption, of course, that more existed, but in his heart, he knew it was true.
And the conch, which he now gripped tightly in his hand, would be his invitation.
Samuel pulled the canoe to the bank and then collapsed to the muddy shore. He lay with his cheek to the ground, continuing to listen for distress calls from the colony, hearing only silence instead.
He wanted nothing more than to sleep, but there was no time for such luxuries, so he willed himself to his feet and walked over to the cluster of oleander bushes where he had stashed the Woman of the Western Shores’ book.
It was still there, untouched, and as he picked it up and began his walk back to the colony, he saw the first plume of smoke rising to the sky.
There were survivors.
Samuel smiled at the signal, and he stumbled wildly through the tree line until he was on Kitchi’s secret path back to the colony. He wanted to run, but his body simply wouldn’t allow it, so he took large, heavy steps, spitting and gasping for air as he went, nearly toppling on several occasions, but gathering his footing each time. He could smell the fire now, and he recognized it as burning flesh. Whose? Samuel thought, fighting his mind that it wasn’t that of his gods.
Then who?
He began to weep as he struggled with each step, feeling as if the world were pulling him from behind, trying to suck him back toward the sound. He was perhaps only ten minutes from the colony, but he had to stop to rest.
The Origin (The Sighting #2) Page 21