Текст книги "Ancient Enemy"
Автор книги: Mark Lukens
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 15 страниц)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Trevor’s head and the pieces of his body were gone.
Cole stepped out onto the front porch, but only one step. He could hear Jose right behind him. “What the hell is this, Cole?”
Cole stared down at the floorboards of the porch. There were still puddles of blood all over the porch, some of the blood had turned a pinkish color as it mixed with the snow scattered across the floorboards. There were still splatters of blood on the front door and the front wall of the cabin where the pieces of Trevor’s body had pelted the wood from whoever had thrown them.
But those pieces were gone now. The pieces hadbeen here, Cole thought to himself. They hadn’t been a figment of his imagination. Everyone else had seen them, too.
Jose rushed out through the doorway beside Cole. He took two more steps out onto the porch and looked around. “What the fuck?” he said. “What the fuck?!” he said a little louder. “How the hell …”
Cole looked around at the porch, then out at the snowy field and the trees in the distance. There was no one in the snowy field or the trees.
Jose looked around, his gun gripped in his hand that was sheathed in the rubber of dishwashing gloves. “Cole, somebody was out here just a few minutes ago picking up all of these pieces.”
Cole didn’t respond to Jose.
“How the hell didn’t we hear them?”
Cole still didn’t respond.
“How the fuck did they get up on this porch and take all of those … those pieces without us hearing them? Without us knowing.”
Cole hurried over to the edge of the porch and looked over the railing. He stripped off the yellow dishwashing gloves and stuffed them into the pockets of his jacket. He dropped the box of garbage bags on the floorboards; it landed with a dull thud. He pulled his gun out of the waistband of his pants and studied the snow below the porch.
“Who the fuck arethese people?” Cole heard Jose ask.
Cole walked along the edge of the porch, keeping close to the railing, his gun ready in his hand. He searched the snow with his eyes all the way around the porch. When he got to the other side, he looked back at Jose. “There aren’t any tracks in the snow,” he said.
“That can’t be,” Jose said in a low voice. “How the hell can they be doing this?”
Cole walked back to the porch steps that led down into the snow.
“Cole,” Jose said. “What are you doing?”
Cole didn’t answer.
“Hey, man. Why don’t we just take the cases of money and walk out of here? We’ll leave that girl and her kid here in the cabin, and we’ll just walk on out of here. We don’t have to hurt them; we’ll tie them up and just leave them here.”
“They’ll die in there if we do that,” Cole finally answered Jose as he stood at the edge of the steps.
“So,” Jose spat out. “It’s her friends out here doing this anyway. I’m sure they’ll go inside the cabin and rescue her.”
Cole descended the steps quickly down into the snow. He walked a few steps out into the snow which came up to mid-calf on him. He wore calf-high boots underneath his pants legs, but he could still feel the cold on his legs, creeping through the cloth, creeping into his flesh, into his bones. It was so cold out here that he could feel his lungs ache as he took breaths.
Jose followed Cole down into the snow. “Just the two of us,” Jose said. “We don’t even need Needles to leave with us. It’s Needles’ fault we’re here in the first place.”
Cole still didn’t answer. He kept walking towards the corner of the cabin, away from the garage and Tom Gordon’s ruined pickup truck parked in front of the garage doors which were still partway open. The garage made Cole think of the snowmobile he’d seen in there. It stayed in the back of his mind. He didn’t want to tell Jose about it just yet.
You don’t trust Jose enough to tell him about the snowmobile, Cole’s mind whispered to him.
As if to prove Cole’s point, Jose continued following Cole through the snow, trying to convince him to leave. “Come on, man. Just you and me. We could split the money fifty-fifty.”
Cole stopped at the corner of the cabin and looked around at the fields of snow, at the line of trees that surrounded the fields. He didn’t see any movement, he didn’t hear anything. His eyes settled on the parting in the trees where the driveway began, the driveway that led back out to the county road.
God, it seemed like such a long time ago since they had come down that driveway in Stella’s truck.
Cole took a step and then he took another step towards the driveway.
Frank’s voice echoed in his mind. “He won’t let you leave.”
But Cole was going to walk to the driveway in the woods – at least that far. He had his gun ready. He was ready for these people to reveal themselves. He was ready to shoot them. He was ready to kill them. For Trevor.
Jose fell in beside Cole, matching Cole step for step through the snow as they trudged towards the driveway in the trees. Jose had given up trying to convince Cole to leave with him.
Maybe I should just leave by myself, Jose thought.
* * *
Inside the cabin, Stella and David sat on the couch. David was drawing again. Always drawing. She thought about the drawings she’d seen in his notebook. She had to talk to him about it, but she needed to wait for the right time. What he was drawing could be the answer to what was out there in the woods. But she didn’t dare give herself too much hope.
She looked over at the recliner, at Needles. He had been hunched forward, his cross dangling down from his neck on the thin gold necklace as he stared down at the large Native American rug on the cabin floor. Something about the patterns and colors seemed to amaze Needles. He would spend hours staring at the patterns on the rug and rubbing the small cross on his necklace over and over again.
But now Needles looked at Stella and David.
And Stella realized that they were alone in the cabin with this lunatic. How long were Cole and Jose going to stay out there? She had seen that Trevor’s body parts were gone, she had suspected that. And now Cole and Jose might be out there searching the woods for Trevor’s killer.
They could be out there for a while, Stella thought. Maybe for hours.
Needles stood up quickly. He was a lanky man, but he was tall and all muscle, he had a wiry strength to him. But his eyes were the scariest part of him. They were lost, completely gone now. He had been going more and more crazy, and now he was all the way gone. Stella could see that; she had seen that same look in a man’s eyes before – she’d seen it in New Mexico.
Needles smiled at them. “I believe you,” he whispered to Stella. “They might not believe you,” Needles gestured towards the front door, “but I know that there’s something supernatural out there.”
Stella didn’t answer. She just watched Needles. She was ready to grab David and run from the couch to the front door if she needed to. The door was still ajar, letting the cold air into the cozy warmth of the cabin.
“It’s okay, Stella,” he said in a low voice, as a strange smile played at the corner of his lips. “I already know who’s out there. It’s the devil, isn’t it? The old man in the bank told me.”
Stella tensed and David stopped drawing as Needles took another step towards them with that insane smile still on his face.
Then Needles froze in mid-step when they heard the gunshots from outside.
* * *
Cole and Jose had only made it five more steps away from the cabin when the gunshots started. They ducked down, frozen for a moment as bullets whizzed past them and struck the logs of the cabin.
“Fuck!” Jose yelled.
They turned and ran as fast as they could through the snow as more shots were fired. Cole couldn’t tell where the shots were coming from, somewhere from the woods, but he couldn’t be sure exactly from where.
They made it to the steps of the porch and Cole turned and fired at the trees with his pistol, trying to provide some cover for them as they climbed the slippery steps up onto the porch that was still smeared with his brother’s blood.
Needles was at the door as they made it up the steps. Needles fired his gun out at the woods, providing more cover.
“You see ‘em?!” Jose shouted at Needles.
“No!” Needles yelled. He moved back into the cabin to allow Cole and Jose to duck inside as bullets pelted the thick logs of the cabin wall.
Cole closed the door and locked the locks, then he backed away from the door, his gun still in his hand. Jose hurried over to the window on the other side of the door that looked out onto the porch.
“You see anything?” Cole asked Jose.
Jose shook his head no. “Nothing.”
“What kind of gun was it?” Needles asked, but they all were pretty sure they knew, it was a sound they’d heard plenty of times before. “I think it was a .45,” Cole said, and then he uttered all of their thoughts. “It sounded like Frank’s gun.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Three o’clock in the morning. The half-full moon managed to shine some moonlight down onto the fields of snow and endless woods on the earth below, but clouds rolled through the night sky causing night shadows to glide across the trees, across the fields of snow, across the cabin.
Cole had downed at least ten cups of coffee. He’d made the coffee strong. He’d added a lot of sugar. He wanted to make sure that he was going to stay awake tonight.
Jose had opened the bottle of whiskey earlier in the night. He’d only sipped at it, catching a little bit of a buzz, not enough to make him drunk, but enough to give him some courage. And it was making him drowsy – Cole could see that. He could see that it was going to be up to him again to stay awake and on guard through the night.
David was the first one to fall asleep. He slept on top of his notebook, like his body was guarding it. Stella tried to pull it out from under his body, but every time she tried to move the notebook, David’s eyes would pop open and he would stare at her with his large dark eyes.
“I’m just trying to make you more comfortable,” she whispered to him.
But David held onto his notebook of drawings and slept on top of it.
Of course Stella could rip the notebook out of the little boy’s hands if she wanted to, but she wasn’t going to do that. She would talk to him about the things he’d drawn when it was the right time. In the meantime, her mind began to wander as she thought of different possibilities of what David’s drawings could mean. Her archeologist’s mind offered up different explanations, different scenarios, analyzing and studying.
Stella curled up next to David and eventually she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Needles fell asleep next, curled up in an uncomfortable position on the recliner that he sat in all the time. Cole told him earlier that he might wake him up in the morning to stand guard. But he wasn’t sure if he was going to do that or not. He couldn’t trust Needles anymore. And he wasn’t sure if he could trust Jose either. He’d never been close to these guys; they were all criminals and their trust of each other only went so far. But Cole had trusted Trevor. And now the only person he really trusted was gone, the only one who would’ve had his back. His heart ached when he thought of Trevor. And a rage burned inside of him when he thought of Trevor’s body (pieces) out there in the woods somewhere. His remains desecrated, scattered among the snow in the woods.
Cole made himself think of something else.
Jose sat next to Cole for a while at the dining room table, a small glass of whiskey in front of him. No drinking – that had always been one of Frank’s rules when they were on a job together. After the job was done and they were about to go their separate ways, it was fine, but not while they were working. But Cole didn’t say anything to Jose about it. They were way past working right now, and if a few sips of whiskey calmed Jose down, then Cole was thankful for that.
“What’s our plan?” Jose asked in a low voice. The fire in him earlier was gone now. After they were shot at, Jose’s idea of just walking out of here didn’t seem so feasible.
“I don’t know yet,” Cole said and his thoughts turned once again to the snowmobile he’d seen tucked away under the blue tarp inside the free-standing garage. He could even feel the keys to the snowmobile in his pants pocket. There had to be some way he could get to it, see if it would start. There had to be some way to escape on it. But not right now. Not in the middle of the night.
“I’ll tell you something,” Jose said as he took another small sip of whiskey from his glass.
Cole didn’t respond.
“If I see Frank again,” Jose continued, “I’m going to get some answers out of him. I promise you that.”
Cole didn’t say anything.
Jose fell asleep a few hours later, stretching out on his blankets. He told Cole that he was just resting for a few minutes, but Cole heard him breathing heavily a few moments later, and then snoring lightly.
Cole sat at the dining room table and sipped his coffee. The only light on was over the stove, and the rest of the cabin was hidden in murky darkness. He glanced at the clock on the wall in the kitchen – three o’clock in the morning. He’d wait until dawn before he woke Jose up to take the next watch.
* * *
Needles woke up on the floor beside the recliner. It was late at night, he knew that, but he didn’t know exactly what time it was. He sat up and suddenly he felt vulnerable on the floor. He didn’t remember getting out of the chair and stretching out on the wood floor, but at some point in the night he must have.
Needles realized that something had woken him up, some kind of noise.
He looked back at the others. Everyone else was asleep. Even Cole and Jose were stretched out on their blankets on the floor, both of them breathing heavily. He was pretty sure that one of them was supposed to be standing guard through the night. But maybe they had given up on that, maybe they had realized what he had, that there was nothing they could do to fight back.
What kind of noise had it been that had woken him up? He tried to remember.
A thumping noise.
His eyes darted to the kitchen and Needles held his breath as he stared at the freezer against the far wall. The noise had come from the freezer, he was sure of it now. A thumping noise.
Thump.
The freezer lid popped up for a second, then it thumped back down, like someone inside was trying to push it open.
Like Tom Gordon was trying to get out.
Needles was frozen with fear. His throat had gone instantly dry, and all of his muscles seemed like they had turned to wet spaghetti. His lips trembled. He wanted to scream out to the others, he wanted to wake them up, but the only sound that would come out of his throat was a breathless wheeze.
It was silent in the cabin for a few moments and just when Needles began to think that maybe he’d been half asleep and still dreaming, the freezer lid flew open and smashed against the log wall of the cabin. The freezer was wide open.
Needles heard Tom Gordon before he actually saw him. He could hear the crackling sound of ice breaking, like the sound of ice cube trays being twisted to break the ice cubes free. Then Tom Gordon sat up in the freezer, he sat straight up like a vampire rising up out of his coffin.
Needles pushed himself back into the recliner, leaning against it, his hands clawing at the floor, searching his body and the floor for his gun. He tried to scream again, but only a whisper of sound would come out of his mouth. It was like being stuck in a nightmare where you tried to scream but no sound would come out, or you tried to run and the ax-wielding killer caught up anyway.
Tom Gordon turned his head to stare at Needles; the frozen flesh crackled with every move, his bluish skin sparkled with ice crystals. Even though Tom Gordon didn’t have eyes anymore, he stared right at Needles like he could see him. And then Tom Gordon smiled.
Needles shook his head no. He tried to scream again, tried to plead with this thing that used to be the owner of this cabin. But he still couldn’t utter a sound, and he still couldn’t move. And he still couldn’t find his gun.
Tom Gordon got out of the freezer faster than Needles would’ve expected. He crawled out, his bent limbs somehow cracking and straightening. It sounded like his bones were popping back into place.
Needles was finally able to move. He turned back to the others. One of them had to be awake by now, one of them had to have heard the freezer lid fly open and hit the wall, one of them had to have heard all of that crackling and popping of frozen flesh and bone.
Needles found his gun underneath the chair – he wasn’t sure why it was under there, and he didn’t have time to think about it right now. His fingers wrapped around the handle and he pulled it out and turned back to the kitchen, but he was suddenly face to face with Tom Gordon who was only inches away from him. Needles was sure that his heart was going to come to a stop, he was sure that his breath was going to dry up right in his lungs from fright. He stared at the bluish skin of Tom Gordon’s face, the deep black holes where his eyes used to be. Tom Gordon’s mouth opened, his mouth was a yawning black maw with jagged yellow teeth; his breath came out in a plume of frost as he whispered to Needles. “You know what to do. You know what needs to be done.”
Needles snapped into action. He brought his gun up and fired. He squeezed the trigger over and over again, just shooting and shooting. He was on his feet without realizing it, holding his gun in both hands, trying to still his trembling arms as he squeezed off more rounds. He was screaming continuously without being aware of it.
The others woke up and jumped to their feet.
Cole was the first one at Needles’ side, and Cole had his own gun in his hand, ready to shoot. “What is it?!” Cole yelled at Needles. “What’s going on?!”
Needles pulled the trigger again and again, but the gun only clicked. He was out of ammo.
Cole aimed his gun into the kitchen where Needles had been shooting; he stared into the kitchen which was lit up somewhat by the light over the stove. There were bullet holes in the logs of the far wall, and two bullets in the freezer. But Cole didn’t see anyone in the kitchen; he didn’t see what Needles had been shooting at. “What was it?” he asked Needles.
“It was the guy from the freezer,” Needles finally whispered in a trembling voice.
“Tom Gordon?”
“Yeah,” Needles answered. “He got out of the freezer.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Needles,” Cole said in a gentle voice. “Put your gun down.”
Needles kept his gun aimed at the kitchen even though there were no more bullets in the clip. His arms trembled as he aimed his gun at the freezer. “I saw him, Cole. I saw him get out of that freezer.”
“Needles, lower your gun. Let me take it. We don’t want any accidents.”
Needles did not lower his gun.
Stella and David sat up on the couch. Jose stood on his bedroll, his gun down at his side; his eyes were puffy, and he swayed just a bit from the buzz of the whiskey a few hours earlier, and from exhaustion. He looked into the kitchen; he looked at the bullet holes on the wall and at the two bullet holes in the freezer, which was now leaking water from underneath it. Jose looked back at Cole and Needles.
“Needles,” Cole said again, his voice lower and firmer. “Lower your weapon.”
Needles finally lowered his gun, but it was more out of sheer exhaustion than from Cole’s orders. He looked at Cole with red-rimmed eyes. Tears slipped out of the corners of his eyes. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“I didn’t say that, Needles. Let me see your gun. We don’t want another accident. Remember the old man in the bank?”
Needles nodded as he let out a shuddering breath. He handed his gun to Cole.
Cole took the gun and shoved it into the waistband of his pants. He felt a little relieved now that Needles didn’t have a weapon. He planned on getting all of the extra clips Needles had for the gun, but not right now.
Needles looked back at the kitchen and wiped at the snot and tears on his face. “Go look, Cole,” he said as he stared at the freezer. “Go look and see if that guy’s still in there.”
“It was just a nightmare,” Cole said in a soothing voice. “We’re all scared and tired. Stressed out. You just had a – ”
“No, Cole!” Needles screamed at him and he looked at him with wide frightened eyes. “It wasn’t a fucking nightmare. I know what I saw. It was that guy, Tom Gordon; he sat up in the freezer. I saw him get out and walk towards me.”
“Maybe you were still half asleep,” Cole offered, trying to keep his cool. “Maybe your eyes were open, but you were still dreaming. That happens. Especially when people are very tired and stressed out.”
Needles shook his head no. “I know what I saw.”
Cole looked at Jose and gestured for Jose to check out the freezer.
As Jose went to the kitchen, Cole looked at Stella and David. “You two see anything?”
They both shook their heads no.
“Nothing to say?” Cole asked Stella.
Stella shook her head no.
Jose stood in front of the freezer, his gun still in his hand. He opened the freezer lid and looked down inside.
“Is he still in there?” Needles asked Jose, on the verge of tears again, panic in his voice.
Jose looked back at Cole. “Cole, come over here.”
“Is he in there?!” Needles screamed.
“Yes, damn it!” Jose yelled at Needles, but he looked at Cole. “Cole?”
Cole hurried across the wood floor to the kitchen. He still had his gun in his hand, and he could feel the heat from Needles’ pistol shoved down in the waistband of his pants. He stood beside Jose and looked down at Tom Gordon’s body. He was still in the freezer, but his body looked different. It looked like he was in a different position, and some of the ice that had covered his body before looked cracked now.
Cole and Jose looked at each other, but they didn’t say anything out loud and Cole was thankful for that, he didn’t want to hear Needles ranting and raving again. Something seemed strange about this, but Cole was a rational man who didn’t believe in the supernatural. His mind was already coming up with possibilities. Maybe they had forgotten exactly what position Tom Gordon had been in when they saw him the first time. Maybe the bullets from Needles’ gun had shattered the ice all over Tom Gordon’s body. It had to be something like that, Cole thought, something rational.
Jose shut the lid. They glanced at each other but didn’t say anything. Cole noticed a gash in the log wall behind the freezer; it looked like it was from the freezer lid being slammed into the wall. But it could’ve been there before and they just noticed it now.
Cole looked down at the kitchen floor and noticed ice chips and crystals all over the floor, but the water leaking from the freezer was reaching out for the ice chips and melting them. Cole looked away.
Needles was having a waking nightmare, Cole thought. That’s all. He woke up from a nightmare and panicked, and then he started shooting. Cole had taken Needles’ gun, and that was the right thing to do for now.
Cole turned back to the others. “Tom Gordon’s still in the freezer. Needles just had a nightmare.”
“It wasn’t a fucking nightmare,” Needles mumbled to himself as he crawled back into the safety of his recliner.
Cole glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was almost sunup.
* * *
As the sun climbed the morning sky, nearing the tops of the trees and shedding its light across the blankets of snow on the ground, Cole sat at the dining room table. He’d made more coffee. He made it even stronger. He added even more sugar.
The others had stayed awake for a little bit, but then one by one they had fallen back asleep.
Except Stella.
She walked into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. She sat down in a chair diagonally from Cole, her back to the others who slept in the living room.
Cole glanced at her, but he didn’t feel like questioning her. She wasn’t going to answer him anyway and he was tired of it. He was tired of all of this. His nerves were fried and he was just tired.
“I’m sorry,” Stella whispered to Cole.
He turned and looked at her.
“About Trevor. I didn’t know he was your brother at first. I should’ve seen the resemblance. I’m sorry about what happened to him.”
Cole nodded. She seemed sincere, but he couldn’t be sure with her anymore.
“I don’t know what’s out there,” she told him. “I swear to you, that’s the truth.”
Cole just stared at her.
“What did you see in that freezer?” she asked in a low voice, almost a whisper. She turned and looked into the living room at the others for just a moment, and then she looked at Cole again.
“Tom Gordon’s in that freezer,” Cole told her. “That’s where he’s been the whole time. Needles had a nightmare and freaked out.”
Stella stared at Cole for a long moment and then she just nodded.
“Why won’t you tell me everything that happened down at that dig site in New Mexico?”
Stella thought it over for a moment. “I want to trust you. But I don’t know if I can.”
Cole just stared at Stella for a long moment. There was nothing he could do or say to make her trust him now. She had been right earlier when she asked how he could ask for her help after carjacking her and David and pointing a weapon at their faces.
“Frank will be back,” Stella whispered, catching Cole off guard a little. He stared at her.
“He’s going to ask for something else,” Stella continued, “and you have to give him what he asks for, no matter what it is, or someone else will be taken.”
A sudden anger flared up inside of Cole. “And you’re just telling me this now? Why didn’t you tell us this before, when Frank asked for the money? If we would’ve known to put the money out there, then maybe Trevor would still be alive.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me if I would’ve told you before, and you know it,” Stella answered Cole through clenched teeth. Her eyes burned into Cole’s eyes.
Cole sighed, whether he wanted to admit it to her or not, he knew she was right.
“He still wants the money?” Cole asked Stella in a whisper.
“He doesn’t want the money. It doesn’t have anything to do with the money. It never did. He wants things and you have to give them to him no matter what they are.”
Cole stared at Stella. “What is he going to ask for next?”
Stella stared back, but she didn’t answer.
“You know, don’t you?” Cole whispered. “You know what he’s going to ask for next.”
Stella jumped as someone touched the back of her neck. She whirled around in her chair and she was face to face with David. She hadn’t even heard him walk up behind her from the living room.
And Cole hadn’t seen David walk up behind Stella.
David stared at Stella and Cole. “He’s outside again. He’s calling you.”
