Ancient Enemy (16 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

As the sun
dipped down below the forest of trees in the west and the winter sky darkened in the east, Needles’ body lay on the floorboards of the front porch not too far away from his eyeballs which were offered up in one of Tom Gordon’s plastic cereal bowls. Both eyeballs faced the woods like they were looking at them. The freezing wind had picked up a little and the trees swayed, but there wasn’t any snow falling yet.

Inside the cabin Cole, Jose, and Stella sat at the dining room table. The area in the dining room had been cleaned up as much as possible, but the chair that Needles had been tied to was still stained with blood and it was pushed in at the table, the back facing the hallway. The wood floor still had dark smears of blood stained into it from where Cole and Jose had dragged Needles’ body outside. The coils of bloody rope and telephone cords were piled up near the freezer, and the duct tape and gauze that had been wrapped around Needles’ head and body was now in the trash can.

David sat on the couch and watched the three as they sat at the table. He had his spiral notebook near him, but he wasn’t drawing in it now – it seemed like he was done with the things he had drawn. Every few minutes David glanced at the front door like he was expecting someone to come to the door.

Jose sat at the table with his hands curled around the whiskey bottle. He sipped from the bottle every few minutes and he was beginning to get a little drunk. He was beginning to lose his control just a little. But he didn’t care; he needed the numbness that the whiskey brought with it, even if just for a little while.

Cole and Stella sat close to each other at the table. The cabin was silent; the only sound that could be heard was the whistling winter wind outside playing around the eaves. In the silence, Stella spoke.

“I’m an archeologist,” she said, and then she looked at Cole.

Cole nodded; she’d already told him that before. He was tired now, beyond exhaustion. He wasn’t sure how many nights he’d stayed awake, and he was pretty sure he’d had only about eight hours of sleep in the last few days.

“I specialize in the cultures of the Southwest Native Americans,” Stella continued, and it seemed like she was leading somewhere this time, like there was something she finally wanted to tell them, something she finally wanted to reveal. “Especially the Anasazi. The Anasazi were a group of people who lived in that region hundreds of years ago. They built massive cities all over the region. They built kivas and they constructed roads that went on for miles and miles. They built some of their cities right into the sides of cliffs, massive cities carved right into the solid rock. The only way to get up to the city was by ladders or hand and toe holds carved right into the rock.”

Stella sipped her coffee. She glanced at David who watched her, and then she looked at Cole who was listening to her. “These cities, and some of their other cities, were highly defensible, like they were constantly at war and constantly defending themselves, like they were constantly afraid of something. Some scientists speculate that they were afraid of other tribes of Indians. But at that time, the Anasazi were the most advanced tribe in that area, maybe even in all of North America. Who would they need to be afraid of?”

Jose sipped his bottle of whiskey. “Is this going somewhere?” he asked her, his words slurring just slightly.

“About seven hundred years ago the Anasazi vanished,” Stella continued, undaunted by Jose’s remark.

“Like many groups of people in North and South America, the Anasazi built massive cities and roads, they built an entire civilization, and then they abandoned them, like they just walked away. Recent findings at some Anasazi sites have uncovered mass graves of murder victims and evidence of cannibalism.”

“The history lesson is fascinating …” Jose said and let his words trail off as he sipped more whiskey.

Stella ignored Jose as she went on. “I got a call from a colleague, a man named Jake. He told me that he’d made an amazing discovery, the greatest of his life. Maybe one of the most amazing and important discoveries in archeological history, and he asked for my help. He needed my expertise of the Anasazi history.”

Stella paused for a moment, sipped more coffee, and then she continued. “Jake wanted everything kept quiet until we were sure what we’d really found. I drove there and met him at the dig site. It was amazing. Jake had found a hidden cave system, and inside the cave were the ruins of a civilization. An Anasazi civilization, I was sure of it.”

Cole stared at Stella. “And that’s where this happened to you and David. Like what’s happening here.”

“Yes. That’s where I found David. He was bloody, but not hurt. But he couldn’t remember what had happened. He wouldn’t even talk to any of us at first. He was afraid of everyone. Except me.”

Stella looked at David to gauge his reaction. He just stared back at her with his dark eyes, eyes that were almost black. He sat motionless on the couch, not moving a muscle.

“Not long after we found David, that’s when everything started to go wrong. Jake suggested that one of us take David to the nearest Navajo village and get some help for him. But …” Stella glanced at David again.

David watched her and then he looked at the front door.

“But our vehicles wouldn’t start. There was nothing wrong with them, they just wouldn’t start. Like all of the batteries had died at the same time.”

David’s breathing grew quicker as he watched the door.

“Then the first person went missing. Jim Whitefeather, a friend of mine. He left in the middle of the night like he just walked off into the desert. Or into the cave.”

“But then he came back,” Cole finished for her.

Stella nodded.

“What did he ask for?” Cole asked.

“It was like this. He asked for body parts.”

“And you guys gave him what he asked for?”

“Not at first,” Stella answered quickly. “We tried to run. Tried to escape. Tried to fight back. But it wouldn’t let us go. It made an example out of one of us.”

Cole stared at her.

“An example like Trevor,” she explained.

Cole flinched at his brother’s name. Cole looked away, thinking for a moment as he pushed the thought of his brother out of his mind. Then he looked back at Stella as a thought occurred to him. “So this thing just took you guys one by one, and then asked for body parts? And you don’t know why.”

“It was making us do things. Trying to scare us so badly that we’d do anything it wanted, anything it asked us to do no matter what it was.”

“Because it was leading up to something,” Cole said.

Stella saw a movement out of the corner of her eye. She glanced over at David and saw that he was frightened now as he stared at the front door. He was up on his feet, standing next to the couch. She looked back at Cole as he asked his next question.

“It was leading up to something specific,” Cole told her. “Wasn’t it?”

Stella didn’t answer. Cole had figured it out. A quick glance at Jose told her that Jose was getting drunk now and not really listening to them anymore, his eyes were nearly closed, pure exhaustion taking over his body.

“It’s leading up to something specific here, too,” Cole said, staring at her with an expression that seemed accusatory and victorious at the same time. “You know what it wants, don’t you?” he asked, his voice getting louder. It was even beginning to rouse Jose from his drunken slumber.

Stella looked over at David. He took a step towards the front door, then another, almost like he was in a trance.

Cole turned in his chair and looked at David, and then he turned back and looked at Stella. “You know what it’s going to ask for next,” he said even louder. “You know what it wants.”

“He’s out there,” David said from the living room.

This brought Jose fully awake. He jumped up from his chair and spun around on his feet and stared at David. Then he looked at Cole and Stella, the fear was back in his eyes now.

David took another two steps towards the door, and then he stopped and looked at Cole. “He’s calling you.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Jose didn’t waste
any time. He grabbed his coat and walked right to the front door on legs that were a little unsteady from the amount of whiskey he’d drank in a short amount of time.

“Jose, wait,” Cole said a low voice.

Jose turned and looked at Cole through red-rimmed and terrified eyes. “No, we need to go out there. We can’t keep it waiting. We have to do whatever it wants.”

Jose turned and marched towards the front door.

Cole and Stella exchanged glances. Stella nodded and Cole followed Jose to the door. Jose was already unlocking the deadbolt. Stella took David’s hand and they both followed Cole and Jose outside onto the porch.

The four gathered outside on the porch, a few steps away from the door. Stella was closest to the door. She closed the door almost all the way, leaving it open just a crack. The yellowish light from inside the cabin could be seen through the crack in the doorway. Outside, the world was growing dark very quickly. And it was getting colder.

Frank stood in the same spot as he had before, only thirty yards away from the cabin. The snow was up to his calves and he wore the same clothes. He stood very still, no movement at all, almost just a shadow himself in the pitch black darkness that was descending on the land as the night moved in.

Cole stared at Frank, and he thought of what Jose had said, about Frank’s body being hollowed out. Yet here he stood. Cole believed Jose now after seeing his own brother’s pieces put back together into a walking and talking body.

Frank stared at them with a blank expression; there were no fake smiles from him anymore, no need to pretend any longer. They knew Frank was just a hollowed-out corpse now, just a meat puppet with some all-powerful, invisible force pulling his strings. Frank spoke in a loud, guttural voice. “He is very pleased so far. He believes you are ready for your final task.”

The four waited on the porch. None of them moved or said anything. They didn’t shout back at Frank like they had done before; they didn’t challenge him, or threaten him. What else could they do but listen to his demand?

“When you give him this one last thing he wants,” Frank continued, “then he will let you walk out of here untouched. You will be allowed to keep your money and leave.”

They were silent for a long moment, and then Cole finally spoke up. “What does he want?”

Stella held her breath. Cole had been right earlier in the cabin; she did know what Frank was going to ask for next. She knew all along what this was leading up to – one final task, one final request from this thing. She looked at David. She still held his hand, and she squeezed his hand a little harder.

David knew it, too.

They braced themselves as Frank answered Cole.

“He wants you to kill the boy.”

They were all silent, not sure how to react. Cole and Jose both looked behind them at Stella and David. It was just a brief glance from both of them, but Frank’s voice turned them back around.

“Kill the boy and leave his body on the front porch. Then all of this will be over.”

Cole shook his head no. This was too much. He had helped carve out his friend’s eyeballs earlier today, and this was going way too far now. How much more could he do? Where was the line? He couldn’t kill a little kid.

“No,” Cole said loudly as his breath plumed up in front of his mouth from the cold.

No reaction yet from Jose, Stella, or David.

No reaction from Frank.

“We can’t do that!” Cole yelled out to Frank.

Frank still didn’t answer. He began to glide back towards the trees, his legs didn’t move, it was like some invisible string was pulling him back to the dark mass of trees, or like he was on some kind of conveyer belt hidden underneath the snow. But he wasn’t answering Cole. He wasn’t arguing with Cole. He wasn’t threatening Cole. He didn’t need to. It didn’t need to. They all knew what it could do.

“We can’t do that!!” Cole yelled louder, and he stepped to the edge of the porch.

Jose stepped away from Cole and turned around and looked at Stella and David, keeping an eye on them as they stood near the front door. He spoke to Cole, but he kept his eyes on Stella and David, making sure that they weren’t going to dart back inside and try to lock them out here. “Cole, listen to me for a second.”

Cole turned and looked at Jose. “Jose, no …”

“Just think about it for a second,” Jose continued in a very calm tone, his voice soft and reasonable. “It’s asking for one life to spare the rest of us. One life for three, and then we can leave.”

“You think that thing’s going to let us leave?” Cole asked Jose.

“It doesn’t matter!” Jose snapped. His reasonable voice was suddenly gone now. “We have to do what it wants! I’m not going to end up like Frank. Or Trevor!”

Hearing his brother’s name stung Cole for a moment, he looked away, his defenses down and Jose pulled out his pistol from his coat pocket and aimed it at Cole, but his eyes kept darting back to Stella and David.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Cole asked Jose.

“Stay right there,” Jose warned. He looked at Stella and David. “You two don’t move.”

“Let’s think about this, Jose,” Cole begged.

“Put your hands up,” Jose told Cole.

“Jose, we can’t do this.”

“We’ll just put a bullet in that kid’s head,” Jose said. “That’s all. He’ll never feel a thing. He’ll never see it coming.”

“We can’t do that.”

Jose held his gun steady on Cole even though he’d drank a lot of whiskey earlier. His eyes kept darting back to Stella and David. But then he looked at Cole when he said his next words.

“You might as well tell Stella the truth,” Jose told Cole.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

“Tell her the
truth!” Jose repeated to Cole.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Stella watched Cole and Jose. She was ready to bolt inside with David, but she couldn’t take a chance on Jose shooting at them; they’d never make it inside – she had to wait for the right time.

“Jose, why don’t you put the gun down?” Cole said. “We can discuss this.”

“There’s nothing to discuss!” Jose spat out. He looked at Stella and David. “We were going to kill you two anyway,” Jose said. “That’s the truth. We couldn’t leave two witnesses alive.”

“That’s a lie!” Cole said. “We never discussed anything like that.”

“Nobody discussed anything with
you
, Cole. You weren’t part of the team anymore. You just did this job to help your brother, to get him out of debt with Frank. Nobody trusted you anymore. Me and Frank didn’t trust either one of you anymore.”

“That’s a fucking lie!” Cole said, but there wasn’t as much force in his words now. He was beginning to see what may have really been going on. Frank and Jose were discussing things behind their backs. Were they going to kill him and Trevor after they killed Stella and David? Split the money up between the three of them? Or maybe they were going to kill Needles, too. There was a lot of money at stake this time, and perhaps they had been ready to kill for it.

Jose looked at Stella again, and he gave her his best smile, what he thought was his most reassuring smile in the near darkness. “But listen, Stella,” he said. He was calling her by her name now. “We don’t have to kill you now. We just have to kill David.”

“We’re not killing that kid,” Cole said. “We have to think of another way.” Cole’s mind was spinning as he realized that Frank and Jose had been planning on killing everyone involved.

“There is no other way!” Jose snapped.

Cole noticed Jose’s body swaying just a bit, just a little unsteady on his feet. His hand holding the gun was beginning to tremble. This is my only chance, Cole thought. Jose isn’t going to wait much longer out here in the cold before he shoots David. Or all three of us.

“Just listen to me for a second, Jose,” Cole said, trying to stall for time, trying to wait for exactly the right time to charge.

Jose was about to explode with rage again – he was only a few seconds away from shooting, Cole was sure of that. But then Jose’s attention was distracted for a second by David opening the front door of the cabin.

Jose turned his gun on David.

Stella stepped in front of David, ready to take a bullet for him.

But Jose didn’t care – he’d shoot through Stella to get to that kid if he had to.

Stella squeezed her eyes shut.

This was Cole’s only chance. He rushed at Jose and tackled him just as Jose’s finger pulled the trigger. The gun fired, but Cole had knocked Jose’s arm away just enough and the bullet whizzed past Stella and struck the cabin wall.

Cole slammed Jose into the side of the cabin, and he heard a grunt as the breath left Jose’s lungs for a moment.

“Get inside!” Cole yelled at Stella and David.

Stella grabbed David and pushed at him to get inside, but David was already a step ahead of her. They hurried inside and slammed the door shut. Stella looked down at the door handle. She looked at the lock on the door handle. At the deadbolt. She couldn’t take a chance. She locked the door.

Outside on the porch, Cole and Jose wrestled. Cole had a grip on Jose’s wrist, keeping the gun pointed down at the floorboards of the front porch. They wrestled on their feet for a moment, but with one violent twist of his body, Cole swung Jose over him in a Judo flip and they both landed on the floorboards of the front porch with Cole on top of Jose.

The gun went off.

The shot was loud in the eerie silence of the dark night all around the cabin. It echoed across the snowy fields.

Inside the cabin, Stella and David watched the door. They had heard the gunshot. Who was shot? Was it Cole? Jose? Both of them?

*

Cole got up off of Jose and his hands went to his own abdomen, afraid he’d been shot and didn’t feel it yet. But his bare hands came away dry. No blood on him. He looked down at Jose who wasn’t moving. Even in the darkness, Cole could see the darker stain spreading across Jose’s shirt underneath his open coat. Cole didn’t even remember shooting; he wasn’t even sure how it had happened.

It had happened so fast.

Cole picked up Jose’s gun from the porch and he aimed it down at Jose.

Jose stared up at Cole with wide eyes, he was afraid, he knew what had happened. He opened his mouth to speak and he coughed up a chunk of pulpy blood and then gasped for air.

Cole backed away from Jose, he moved closer to the front door of the cabin.

Jose’s body trembled as he sat up and scooted across the floorboards to the log wall of the cabin. He pushed himself up into a sitting position with his back against the cabin wall. He gritted his teeth and moaned in pain; his hands shot to his abdomen, holding on to it, trying in vain to stop the flow of blood.

Cole turned and looked out at the snowy field. “We left you a bonus!!” he screamed out at the woods. Then he turned to walk to the front door and Jose’s hand grabbed Cole’s pants leg, stopping him for a second.

Jose stared up at Cole with wide, terrified eyes. “Please, Cole. Don’t leave me out here for that thing.”

Cole stared down at Jose for a moment, and then he ripped his pants leg out of Jose’s grasp and he walked to the front door of the cabin. He twisted the door handle but it wouldn’t open – it was locked.

He beat on the door. “Let me in!” He screamed at the door. “Stella, it’s me, Cole! Jose is shot! He’s not coming inside with me!”

No answer from inside.

Cole could hear Jose chuckling from the darkness. That chuckle turned into a laugh. “Now who’s been double crossed?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Cole said.

“We’ll just both have to wait out here now,” Jose said. “We’ll both have to see what comes for us out of the darkness.”

There was a sound from the dark woods at the edge of the snowy field, a loud sound, like something very big was crashing through the trees. Cole turned and stared at the darkness, nearly all the light from the setting sun was gone now, and the world around them was blanketed in almost pure darkness. And there was something in the woods, coming closer.

Cole turned back to the door and pounded on it. “Let me in! There’s something in the woods, I can hear it!”