by C R Langille
Allison’s phone buzzed. It was a text from Mick Tully back at the campus.
Allison, where did you get this? Is this for real or are you shitting me?
Allison smiled and texted back. It’s for real, Mick. Found it on a sword my friend has up here in Utah.
A moment later her phone buzzed again. I want to see this for myself, I’m coming up. What’s the address?
Allison sent him the address and put the phone away.
“Looks like my friend is going to come up here and take a look at the sword himself. He seems excited about it,” she said.
“Thanks, Allison. Randall, we may be on to something big here. Real big,” Garrett said as he went back to scouring the internet.
Chapter Seventeen
October 20, 1180
Sir Ralph grows nervous and tired. I can see it in him, and I do not blame him. When we started this quest, there were five of us, five Poor Knights of Christ. Now only three remain, one of which is possessed or sick. The deaths of Sir Pons and Sir Brian weigh heavily on my heart, and I know Sir Ralph feels the same. Fortunately, most of our men-at-arms have survived and are in mild spirits.
I have seen a change come over Sir Geoffrey as well as a number of the imprisoned natives he is with. While most of them move and speak as one, it seems Sir Geoffrey and a few others act independently from the rest of the group.
Sir Geoffrey converses with the others in their native tongue. How he learned their speech, I know not. Perhaps it was by the same means that Sir Ralph and I can communicate with our hosts. What worries me the most is I know that Sir Geoffrey and the others are planning something. Whatever it is, it cannot bode well for any of us.
-Sir William Brock
Outside of Canyon Shadows, Utah
Troy Grimes pulled his car into the small gas station. The midday sun sat obscured behind gray clouds that hung in the air like stained linens on a clothesline. The wind didn’t blow, which made the air stifled and oppressive. Before shutting the engine off, he looked at the dash, noticing the gas gauge showed empty.
He opened the door, and the heat hit him in the face. Who chose to live in this kind of heat? A quick scan of the surroundings revealed that other than the small family-owned gas station and a yellow minivan parked across from him, there was nothing else nearby.
The van sported a faded sunflower yellow paint job and had a sticker in the back window showing a stick figure family: a dad, a mom, and two daughters, as well as a dog stick figure. However, at the moment, none of the actual family members could be seen.
His forearm bled, made even worse by his incessant scratching, yet it didn’t hurt. He absentmindedly scratched at his forearm. As he scratched, it was almost like a sense of calm overtook him, assuaging the buzzing in his brain. It didn’t feel right, though. This whole trip didn’t feel right. The time loss, the voices, and the constant pull bringing him closer to Canyon Shadows sent shivers through his spine.
On top of it all, he was starting to see things. Random images and horrible visions haunted his mind. At least he hoped they were visions or images and not suppressed memories. Most troubling to Troy was that deep down, somewhere in the dark corners of his psyche, he started to like what the visions showed him.
Part of him wanted to turn back, and the closer he came to arriving at Canyon Shadows, the less he wanted to know what his father had found in the sleepy little town. On the other hand, he’d gone too far into the maze to turn around.
He needed gas, or he wasn’t going anywhere, home or otherwise. Troy flipped the gas cover open and stuck the nozzle of the gas pump into the tank. As the vehicle gorged itself on fuel, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes. It was empty.
“Son of a bitch,” he whispered to himself, throwing the empty package into a nearby garbage bin.
He turned to go inside the gas station to buy a new pack and almost ran into a young blonde woman who stood right behind him.
“Holy shit! You scared me,” Troy said.
The woman grinned at him. Without saying a word, she reached into the front pocket of her maroon apron and pulled a package of Lucky Strike cigarettes out.
She slammed the package into her open palm slowly. Thwack, thwack, thwack. With each hit, her mouth seemed to widen at the edges until it looked like her cheeks should split under the pressure.
Troy’s vision blurred, and the station spun. He felt like he might throw up. Time seemed to slow down with each thump of the package.
Thwack, thwack, thwack.
For an instant, the woman’s visage disappeared entirely. Behind the pale skin and blond hair, Troy could see her. Her eyes lost their green color, replaced with opaque black orbs with angry patches of red swimming in the darkness. Her mouth was even more distended, stretching wider than humanly possible, until it dominated the bottom half of her face. Her skin was a yellowed, dried husk, stretched over crooked, misshapen bones. Patches of hair fell away leaving scabby and bleeding skin exposed.
As quickly as it had happened, his vision cleared, and the image returned to normal. The woman flipped the box top open and pulled two cigarettes out. She put one in her mouth, her red lipstick smearing the white paper. She held the other out to him.
Troy looked at the smoke like it would bite him. He wanted to run, to get as far away as possible, but a voice in the back of his head told him it was okay. Troy looked up from the cigarette back at the woman’s face. Normal.
“Thanks,” he said, taking it.
“Ain’t a thing.”
Her voice was smooth but sticky. It clung to his eardrums like tar, and he couldn’t shake it from his thoughts.
Troy pulled a lighter from his pocket and urged the flame to life. He moved it close to the blonde attendant, and she leaned in. The end of her cigarette glowed with a burning orange color, not unlike the black and red eyes he’d seen earlier on her face. He pulled away, and the woman’s smile grew even larger.
The attendant took a deep drag from the cigarette. She let the smoke flow out from her lungs, letting it slip through her nostrils and open mouth, blowing away from her face before slowly floating up into the air like a light fog. The woman’s head snapped up attentively.
“He waits for you, Troy. Deep in the mountain.”
Troy inhaled at the same time the woman spoke. It interrupted his drag, causing him to fall into a coughing fit.
“Wha—” he tried to say, but the coughs overtook his words. “What did you say?”
The coughing fit came so violently that he had to put a hand against the wall to steady himself. He flung the cigarette away as he fought the urge to throw up, his vision blurring from the tears forming in his eyes.
“Troy, clean out your damned ears. I said, He’s waiting for you. Deep. In. The. Mountain,” she said, enunciating each word like she spoke to a foreigner.
He shot her a look, filling it with equal parts anger and fear. The coughing subsided, and he stood up straight, afraid to take his hand from the wall but also afraid to show this woman any fear.
“How do you know who I am?” he asked.
“You really are an idiot, ain’t you?” she said, giggling.
“Fuck this.”
Troy walked back to his car and put the fuel pump back on the rack. He turned to close the fuel door and found the blonde woman standing right next to him again.
She took another deep drag from her cigarette and then said, “I’ve got something you need to see. He wants you to see it.”
Her words came through mumbled, almost fuzzy. It didn’t matter, though. It wasn’t the words that caught him; it was her cigarette. He focused on it, lost in the burning tobacco and ash. Troy grabbed her by the shoulder and dragged her away from the car moments before the ashes fell to the gas-infused asphalt.
“Are you insane?” he said through gritted teeth.
S
he kept laughing, and the sound seemed to echo all around him. It felt like he was at a bad Pink Floyd cover band concert with a shitty sound system. It flitted from ear to ear and seemed to warble as if being played on an old phonograph.
Blood trailed down his nose and into his mouth. Blind rage overtook him, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap his hands around the woman’s throat and choke the life from her. That would teach her to shut the hell up—teach her not to fuck with him. He would tear that giggle right out of her throat.
Somewhere, in the sane part of his mind, he was screaming up a storm. Never before in his life had he ever had the urge to enact violence upon a woman. Now, not only did he have the urge, the very thought of it made him smile. He slapped a hand across his temple, and the homicidal urges disappeared.
The woman’s laughter came back into focus. Each intonation resonated throughout his skull, and he felt like his head would split if it kept up much longer. He put his hands over his ears in an attempt to drown it out, but much to his dismay, it only amplified the sound. He glanced up and saw her pointing at his face as she continued to cackle.
The rage returned, and he slapped her so hard she fell to the ground. The laughter stopped. As soon as it did, the guilt and shock of what he did hit him like a charging rhinoceros.
“Holy shit, I’m sorry!” he said. “Are you okay?”
She looked up at him and grinned. The blow had split her lip open, and the blood trickled down her chin.
“I have something to show you,” she said again.
He didn’t know if he should get in the car and drive home as fast as he could… Go see it, Troy …or if he should leave and keep heading to Canyon Shadows. You need to see it first, Troy. You’re going to like it. Trust me.
“I’ve got to—” He felt his head spin like a turntable. “Got to—” What was it? What did they want him to see? “To—” Nothing made sense anymore. All he could think about was what was behind door number one. “I’ve got to see it.”
The woman turned and walked back to the gas station. Troy fell into step behind her. As they walked past the minivan, he looked into the rear window. A lone, beat-up teddy bear stared back at him from inside. He smiled.
***
Deputy Brent Rockwell flipped through his small notepad, reviewing the information he received from Sheriff Blackwood. Something didn’t look right.
“Tell me again what happened?” Rockwell asked.
“What’s the problem, Brent? We’ve been through this enough already,” Dan said.
They were sitting on the hood of Brent’s police car while the firefighters finished putting the flames out at the pawn shop. It was hot enough outside that, with the flames burning, the two had been forced to move down the block and park under a large oak tree. The shade felt better but did little to put Deputy Rockwell at ease.
“Sorry Dan, but it’s procedure. You know that,” Brent said.
Brent had let himself go over the years, and although many people didn’t take notice, Dan saw that the man drowned his sorrows in food rather than booze. He always walked with his head down and shoulders slumped. His blonde hair was stringy and thinning, and he wore a mustache that looked like a five-year-old glued fake hair across his lip but missed certain areas. Dan gave him shit about it from time to time, partly in hopes of getting Brent to shave it, and partly because it was Dan’s way of being friendly.
Brent transferred from St. George P.D. almost eight years ago. Not many other people in the department knew why, but Dan did. He’d read the case file: an armed robbery involving a minor. Brent had ended up having to shoot the kid out of self-defense.
Dan looked back to the building. The fire department finished packing their equipment up. The fire had destroyed most of the shop, and only a burnt-out foundation still stood. Exactly how Dan wanted it.
“Okay, Brent, for the fifth time, here’s how it went down. Mr. Barlow was implicated in a disturbance this morning at the mini-store downtown. I came here to ask some follow-up questions. When I went in, I couldn’t find him. However, the Jorgensons were in the shop spreading gasoline all over the place. I tried to stop them, but they set the fire before I had a chance. We had a small altercation, and it was all I could do to get out alive. The Jorgensons, however… Well, as you can tell, they didn’t share the same luck.”
Brent looked over his notes, adding small additions as Dan related the story. Every so often he would twist the ends of his mustache with his pudgy fingers. Once Dan finished, he closed the notebook.
“Weak. This is weak, and you know it. What the hell happened here, Dan?” Brent asked, a low tone of seriousness entering his voice.
“Brent, I wish I could say, I really do,” Dan said. “I don’t know why the Jorgensons were here or why they torched the place. I can tell you this much, they weren’t themselves.”
Dan shimmied off the hood and stood up straight. He stretched his arms high above his head and winced a little when his back popped. Then he slapped Brent across the shoulder.
“Well, Brent, I got to go. I’ll put this into a formal report later back at the station. I’ll have my phone if anything comes up.”
Brent squinted at him. His posture screamed I don’t believe a damn word you’re saying, but he had enough propriety to keep his mouth shut, at least for the time being. He liked that about Brent.
“Okay. But I’ll need that report soon so I can add it to my own.”
Dan raised an eyebrow. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it. You’re quite the go-getter. Pretty soon, you’ll be the sheriff, and I’ll be taking orders from you!”
Brent responded with a grunt. He put the notebook in his car. Once Dan left, he walked up to one of the firefighters.
“Well, what do you think?”
The firefighter was rolling the water hose back into the truck. He took a look at Deputy Rockwell and continued at his task.
“Hey, I asked you a question,” Brent said, folding his arms across his chest.
The firefighter continued cleaning up his equipment. Brent took a step forward and raised his voice.
“I don’t appreciate being ignored. Either you tell me what you think started the blaze, or you point me in the direction of your supervisor!” Brent stated.
The man stopped messing with the hose. He leaned forward and grabbed a firefighter’s ax. Brent took a step back and rested a hand on his pistol.
“How about we put the ax down?” he said.
“How about we put the boy down? Shoot him right in the head and watch his brains hit the dirt?” The firefighter said in a low voice, his back still turned to Brent.
“What did you say? What in the hell did you say?” Brent asked.
He tightened his grip on the gun. Rage flooded his senses, and he stepped forward, kicking the man to the ground. The firefighter stumbled and crashed into the side of the firetruck.
“What the fuck?” the man said, getting to his knees.
He no longer held onto the ax and used both hands to get back to his feet. He turned to face Deputy Rockwell, and as he did, he pulled small ear buds out from his ears. Loud music poured out of the earbuds.
“What the fuck is your problem?” the man asked.
Brent was caught off guard. He fumbled for words, “I, uh—”
“I, uh—what?” the man asked.
“How’d you get access to my files? How did you know about that?” Brent yelled.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. All I know, is you going apeshit on my ass!”
“Don’t give me that crap; I know what I heard. I guess it was only a matter of time before one of you dickheads poked at me.”
“Fuck off and go file something!” the firefighter said.
By this time, the other firemen closed around them. They watched the unfolding scene with interest.
Brent felt the blood rush to his face, and his hands started to shake. He tugged at his mustache while the man stared at him. He didn’t know how to deal with what had happened, so he walked away.
“Put a bullet right between his eyes, just like that innocent kid,” a voice said as he was walking away.
Brent turned and hit the firefighter in the nose. Blood sprayed, and he felt cartilage crack under the pressure of the blow. He went to swing again, but the other firemen pulled him back.
The bloodied firefighter regained his senses and figured out what happened. He snarled with primal fury and lunged at Brent. A couple of other firefighters grabbed him and pulled him back.
“Enough!” a deep voice boomed.
Everyone quieted down. The crowd parted as a small man walked into the group. He didn’t wear the typical protective gear that the other firemen wore. Rather, he wore a dark blue polo shirt, black pants, and a ball cap with the Canyon Shadows Fire Department logo on the front. He was older than the rest of them by about twenty years, and it showed on his face. Bushy eyebrows covered dark brown eyes.
“What the hell is going on here?” the small man asked, his voice commanding authority and respect.
“Well, Chief, this deputy decided to go nuts on Howell here,” one of the firefighters said.
The small man walked up to Brent and looked up into his round face.
“What do you have to say about that, Deputy….” He glanced at Brent’s nameplate. “Rockwell?”
Brent pulled his arms free and tucked his shirt back in as he responded, “Well, one of your boys decided to make disparaging comments about a case I dealt with in St. George.”
The Fire Chief kept looking at Brent, his eyes narrowing, “Is that so? Howell, did you harass this deputy?”
“No, he came out of nowhere and started kicking the shit out of me!” Howell said, holding pressure to his face to staunch the flow of blood.
Fire Chief Wilkins looked back at Howell and then back to Brent. “Look, I don’t know what, if anything, was said. What I do know is that you attacked one of my boys. I would suggest you leave and not bother my people again.”