“Damn straight we are.” Parker wasn’t buying a bunch of bones wrapped in rotten meat.
The body was male, long and lean, and still dressed in close-fitted pants and an undershirt. Long black hair hung over the man’s face, covering it completely.
“Not American.” Parker covered his mouth and nose again before stepping close enough to lift the head and check to see that the birds hadn’t been at the eyes or nose.
The man’s skin was burnt black, but his eyes were only faintly milky, and his nose and lips were still in place. Parker groped the rest of the corpse’s limp, cold flesh until he was satisfied.
“All right,” he told the interpreter. “Cut him down. We’ll take him.”
The farmer accepted the money, but refused to go near the jeep as the driver and the interpreter were loading the cadaver in the back. He kept his face turned, and made several finger gestures in the direction of the corpse as he chattered on in a low, disgusted voice.
“Why’s he getting all worked up?” Parker demanded.
The interpreter came over and asked the old farmer, who snapped something at Parker before he retreated into his shack.
“He say, dead man worse when guerrillas dump him in the field. Guerrillas not want long-haired man; he not American. They say dead man fall on grenades and . . . ” The interpreter mimicked the sound of an explosion, and flung out his arms. “Now he look better.”
“Worse? Better?” Parker scratched his cheek. “Shit, he’s dead. This is as good as it gets.”
The interpreter shrugged.
“Why was he pointing his fingers at him like that?” Parker asked.
“Keep-away-evil fingers.” The interpreter grinned and imitated the gestures. “Demon no take my land, demon no take my life, demon no take my children, demon you have my wife.”
Parker chuckled. “I know that one.”
That night, as Parker arrived at the private airstrip with the five bodies he’d managed to collect, he stopped to have a smoke while the corpses were wrapped and loaded onto the contract cargo plane. Genaro ran a sweet scam with his special-delivery planes, which brought over tons of church donations, packages from home, and other morale boosters for the troops every month. Genaro’s generosity was such that no one ever bothered to check where the planes went once they’d dropped their precious cargo, or what exactly was in the planes when they made the trip back to the States.
“Hey, George.” The pilot, who had finished his preflight, stopped to bum a cigarette. “How’s the grave-robbing business?”
“Shit, Judd, they weren’t in no graves,” he chided. “Found one this week hanging from a cross in the middle of a burned-out opium farm.”
“What a friend we have in Jesus.” Judd snickered. “You run ’em through the metal detector?”
“Don’t I always?” Parker spit on the ground. He’d learned the hard way that the guerrillas liked to leave bodies booby-trapped so they could relieve the U.S. military of a few medics without even having to be there. “Just watch out for the long-haired one. Old fart that sold him to me says he watches you like a hawk.”
The pilot leaned in, pulling the plastic shrouds away from the ruined faces until he found the one covered with black hair. “You mean, this old boy?”
Parker grinned as he looked over, and then the butt between his lips drooped. Two black eyes, open, clear, and bright, stared back at him.
“Yeah.” He turned his back on the dead man watching him. “That’s him.” He trotted off, and didn’t puke until he was out of the pilot’s sight.
October 4, 1999
Scarvaville, Oregon
Waking up didn’t seem right to Elle, not after dying. She’d expected the darkness, but not the light. Then there was the place she woke up to. Evelyn had always promised that if she was a good girl, she would end up in heaven, which was decorated by the angels. According to her mother, it was supposed to be a place of pure light and eternal peace.
So why was she on a bunk in a camper? And why was she so thirsty?
The thick layer of gauze over the front of her throat kept her from moving too much, but when Elle worked up the courage to touch it, it felt wrong, too. When you died and went to heaven, you were supposed to become an angel. She’d never seen a picture of one wrapped in bandages.
Carefully she poked a finger under the lowest edge, expecting to feel stitches and pain. The only thing beneath the bandages was her skin. It was tender, the way it felt after she sunburned and peeled, but she couldn’t feel any tears or repairs.
Finally she worked up the nerve to pull at the dressing, wincing as the adhesive tape holding it in place peeled away from her skin. Dark red-brown streaks of dried blood stained the inside of the bandages, but she couldn’t feel so much as a scratch on her throat.
She checked the rest of her body, what she could see of it. Her clothes were gone, and all she wore was a large man’s flannel shirt. She was virtually naked, she’d been attacked by a cougar, and there wasn’t a mark on her.
Be a good girl, Lillian, and you’ll get your reward.
But she hadn’t been a good girl. She’d run away. She’d never done anything so bad as that. What would her mother say now?
The camper shook a little as someone walked back toward her, and she sat up to see a grim, familiar face. “Mr. Huntley?” Her voice came out in a dry, straining rasp that sounded nothing like her.
“Lillian, you’re awake. That’s good. No, don’t try to get up just yet.” He picked up a glass of water from a little table and brought it to her. “Drink,” he said as he held it to her lips. “It’ll help.”
She drank until she had emptied the glass, and then cleared her throat. “Thank you.” Her voice still sounded wrong, but there were more important things she had to know. “Where am I? What happened to me?”
“You’re safe.” He put the glass aside and drew a little camp chair up by the side of the bunk. “How much do you remember?”
Why wasn’t he just telling her what had happened? “I was up in the hills with Dancer, and something spooked him. He took off.” The scratchiness in her throat came back, making her swallow. “Then something knocked me to the ground, and it . . . my throat . . . it was a cougar, right?”
He didn’t answer her, but hunched over to look at the floor of the camper.
When it became obvious that he wasn’t going to answer her, she asked, “Why am I here, Mr. Huntley? Shouldn’t I be in the hospital?”
“I couldn’t risk taking you to a doctor.” His head came up. “The thing that attacked you only looked like a cougar. It’s a man, or at least, it was a long time ago. I was sent here to put it out of its misery, but I never got close enough. It’s still human enough to outthink me. I think the only reason it went after you was because it tracked me back to your mother’s land. It must have been waiting up there for me.”
“Mr. Huntley, maybe you should take me home now,” she said carefully. “My mother is going to be really worried about me.”
“Evelyn left California the day after you disappeared. I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think she’ll be coming back.” He sighed. “I know you think I’m crazy right now, girl, but I’m not, and I promise, I won’t hurt you. As soon as I saw how fast you healed, I knew you were special. I don’t understand what you are just yet, but we’ll figure it out together.”
What she was.
Elle touched her throat.
He stood. “I’ve got a fire going outside. I’ll bring you some clothes, and we’ll get you up and around a bit.”
Neil Huntley did talk like a crazy man, but he brought her some clothes and left the camper so she could dress in private. As soon as Elle stood, the weak and trembling condition of her body made it plain that she would not be able to run away from the stable manager. She’d have to talk her way out of this, or try to get help from someone else.
Elle realized her second idea wasn’t going to work as soon as she climbed out of the camper. She didn’t recognize the empty hills around the campsite, which was deserted except for the camper hitched to Huntley’s truck. The strange mountains on the horizon didn’t look right, either.
“We’re in Oregon,” Huntley said as he dropped some dry wood onto the stone-encircled campfire.
“Okay.” Elle wrapped her arms around her waist as she cautiously approached him. “Why are we in Oregon? Do you live around here?”
“It’s outside the search area.” He brought over a pair of lawn chairs from the back of his truck. “Come and sit down, Lillian. I’ll tell you as much as I can.”
After scanning the area and finding no sign of anyone who would hear her scream, Elle went to the fire and sat down.
“Don’t want you to catch a chill.” Huntley covered her with a dark wool blanket, tucking it in around her but taking his hands away when he felt her stiffen. “I am your friend. Don’t be afraid of me, girl.”
“How can I not be?” she asked without thinking. Then she quickly added, “Mr. Huntley, this is kidnapping. They’ll put you in jail. But if you take me back right now, I won’t say anything to the police. I promise.”
“You can’t go back.” He sat down and held his head in his hands for a minute before he straightened. “My name isn’t Neil Huntley, and I’m not American.” The country accent disappeared from his voice, replaced by a soft, liquid accent. “I was sent here by the men I work for to hunt down this creature, the one that attacked you. It’s in a kind of eternal torment, and it can’t stop itself anymore. The only way to end its suffering is to kill it.”
He was genuinely, deeply nuts. “You could tell the police about it,” she suggested. “They’d help you find it.”
“They wouldn’t believe me, and even if they did, I could never let them near it. It would kill them all before they could even hurt it.” He stared at the tiny sparks rising up with the smoke from the fire. “It remembers women from when it was a man. It loved many women. I think that’s why it didn’t kill you.” He sighed. “Or maybe it was hoping to use you to lure me up there.”
Elle’s instincts told her to agree with him, to go along with anything he said so that he would feel she wasn’t the enemy. The shock had faded, however, and she suddenly felt a terrible anger. Who was this man to snatch her like this, to take her away from Evelyn and keep her like some stray dog? She didn’t know what he’d done to her throat wound to make it disappear, but it wasn’t right. She could have died. She should be dead, no thanks to him.
“I want you to take me home, Mr. Huntley,” she told him. “I’ll tell the police you found me, as long as you swear that you’ll never do this to anyone again.”
He stared at her. “Haven’t you been listening? You were dead when I found you, Lillian. The monster tore out your throat. I was carrying your body to my horse when you began coughing up blood.” He pointed at her neck. “I watched your wounds close up and vanish, as if they’d never been. The only thing on this earth that can do that isn’t human. You’re not human.”
Anger suffused her, spiking through her head and making her hair stand on end. It lifted her up, taking away the soreness in her back and the lingering dryness in her throat.
“Lillian?”
She rose up out of the chair. “Take me back,” she said, her ruined voice sounding low and rough, her entire body shaking. “Now.”
Huntley stood, his eyes wide.
“Lillian.”
After it happened, Elle was terrified. She dragged Neil Huntley’s body back inside the camper, and only after she had hefted him onto the bunk did she realize how strong she had become.
He has to weigh two hundred pounds. I can’t lift two hundred pounds
. But she had, and her arms weren’t aching even a little.
It’s adrenaline. It’ll go away
.
Huntley moaned.
“Oh, God.” She turned around, looking desperately for something to put over his chest and stanch the bleeding. Her head pounded as she began frantically searching through the cabinets, crying out in relief as she found a large first-aid kit. She knelt on the floor, grabbing at packages of gauze and tearing them open, making a pile of patches until she thought she might have enough. Then she got up and bent over Huntley, pushing aside the torn ribbons of what had been his shirt to expose the wound.
Four huge gashes ran across his chest, and when she blotted the welling blood from them, she saw that they went so deep the inner tissues bulged out like raw meat.
“I don’t know what to do, Mr. Huntley.” She piled the gauze over the wound and tried to tape it down, but the adhesive tape wouldn’t stick to his bloody chest, and oh, God, she was going to kill him; she knew she was—
“Lillian.” Huntley’s voice, like the whisper of a ghost, hummed in her ears. “I’m all right. You have to clean it. Stitch it.”
She stared down at the slits of his eyes. “Mr. Huntley, I’m not a doctor. I can’t do this.”
“You can. You watch Doc with the horses. Same thing.” The side of his mouth curled up. “Good . . . practice . . . ”
He’d fallen unconscious again.
Be a good girl, Lillian.