Authors: Jeff Gunhus
But Sorenson was too cocky for his own good and Janney knew that would eventually lead to mistakes. The same way Huckley’s arrogance kept driving them to the brink. He decided to retire Sorenson after the current problem was cleaned up. That is if Lonetree didn’t take care of him first.
Janney headed back toward the cafeteria where Lauren sat waiting for her husband to appear. With any luck, Janney thought, this whole mess would be resolved by the end of the night. If only the resolution could include getting rid of Huckley, permanently. Even if the Boss didn’t agree to it, it didn’t mean it was impossible. He pushed the thought around in his head, savoring its implications. Life without Huckley. Life without the hassle and complications that followed the man. Life without the risk that he put them all through. Just imagining it brought smile to his lips. Suddenly he felt a new sense of promise and opportunity. He whistled a little tune as he walked back to the hospital cafeteria, the seeds of a plan to destroy Huckley taking root with each step.
Even through his shirt, Jack felt the cold metal of the gun against his stomach. He reached down to his belt line to make certain it was still secure after his sprint across the lawn. The downward angle of the gun pointed the business end of the weapon straight into his crotch, so he had checked a dozen times to make sure the safety was engaged. He pulled back his sweater and felt for the safety catch again. Just in case.
He tried to control his breathing. He was panting far harder than he should have for the small exertion he’d made. He had to relax. A couple of deep breaths as he crouched in a shadow against the brick building and his pulse started to slow and even out.
I’m going to kill a man.
The thought didn’t startle him, it just oozed its way into his mind.
I’m going to kill a man.
The simple statement had replayed in his mind since he and Lonetree had worked out their plan. These six words formed the soundtrack to his actions, looping around his brain until they dissolved in the background and made way for the other voices that clamored for attention in his head. Angry voices, angry because they knew Jack held out hope that killing would be unnecessary, that mercy would ultimately prove a better strategy than revenge.
Especially to this enemy.
The voices insisted the man Jack hunted was not really a man at all, but a monster that killed women and children. Tortured them in bizarre rituals. Had these victims been shown mercy? Of course not. So then, why shouldn’t such a monster be killed? Why should he be afraid to do it?
The voices were compelling, but Jack still hoped he wouldn’t have to take the safety off the gun.
Jack ran down the length of the building, careful to check each window for watchful eyes before he passed by it. The grass crunched beneath his feet, frozen by the cold. Each footstep sounded impossibly loud in the still air, like he was sneaking around with a string of empty soda cans tied to his feet. But he knew it was his mind playing tricks on him. No one could hear him. He hoped.
A door around the back was unlocked, just as he expected. He turned the knob slowly, careful not to make a sound, and inched it open to minimize the creak of the hinges. The room was dark so he walked in and eased the door shut behind him.
Forward through the room, down the hall, he moved on the balls of his feet. It reminded him of playing hide-and-seek as a kid, tip-toeing through a dark house, not knowing who was going to jump out of a shadow to scare him. The difference was that as a kid it was fun to get scared. He wasn’t having any fun tonight.
With sudden clarity, he realized that his prey might not go quietly. Until that moment he hadn’t fully appreciated the possibility that the man might find him first. That on turning the next corner, a tire iron might crush into his face. Or a flash of light from a gun could be the last thing he saw before being enveloped in darkness forever. Jack had the uneasy feeling of a hunter whose role has been reversed, that the panting beast no longer running ahead of him trying to escape, but now stalked him from behind waiting for the moment of ambush. Some of his resolve melted into fear and paranoia, but he kept moving through the house.
Jack took the gun from his waistband and held it out in front of him, the muzzle pointed up to the ceiling, just like he’d seen in the cop shows on television. Heeding Lonetree’s advice, he left the safety on but kept his thumb on the mechanism so he could release it in a hurry if he needed to. The instant it took to disengage the safety could cost him valuable seconds, but he also knew it gave him the time he needed to avoid shooting the wrong person. He appreciated that Lonetree’s suggestion was clearly an act of self-preservation.
Jack moved into the next room. Still dark. There wasn’t a light on in the place. The prey was either gone or expecting them.
Jack squinted to interpret the shadows in the room, but the curtained windows blacked the moon out. There could have been a gun positioned three feet from his forehead and he wouldn’t have known it. Despite the impenetrable darkness, he felt something was different about this room. He knew without light, without hearing a sound. He knew something was wrong.
Someone is in the room. Someone is watching you.
A brilliant light flashed on overhead. It burst through his dilated pupils and turned the world glaring white. He raised his left arm to shield his eyes and his right hand to point the gun at whatever was in front of him. Blinded and scared, he pulled the trigger. Hard. The gun didn’t fire. He hadn’t removed the safety.
He crouched to the ground on reflex and fumbled with the gun, sliding the safety to the side. By the time he raised the gun again, his eyes had started to adjust to the light and his brain had caught up with the action. No one had shot at him. He wasn’t being attacked. Instead, the person who had turned on the light was sitting in front of him, regarding him with interest, as if curious whether Jack would figure out the safety on the gun or not, and once he did, if he would fire the weapon.
Satisfied after a few beats that Jack would not shoot, at least not yet, Max Dahl withdrew his hand from the light switch on the wall and sat back in his leather chair.
“I thought you might come by tonight.”
Lonetree moved expertly around the corner from the front of the house, his gun trained on the space between Max’s eyes.
“And I see you brought a friend. Joseph Lonetree, right?” He lowered his hand back to the armrest of the chair and sat smiling at them both. “I don’t suppose we could do this over a drink, could we?”
“Are Kristi or the kids here?” Jack asked.
“They’re gone. At her mother’s in Annapolis.”
Jack took a step forward, his knuckles white from his grip on the gun. “Where’s Sarah? Tell me or I’ll kill you.”
Jack thought he saw a momentary flare of indignation in Max’s eyes. But it was there only for a second, as if his friend suddenly remembered the charade was up and he was no longer entitled to trust.
“I swear to you, I didn’t know anything about it. I just heard about it tonight. After they’d already taken her.”
“Do you know where she is?”
Max shook his head. “I know where they’ll take her eventually. But they won’t do it right away. They’ll want things to calm down first. I’m so sorry. I understand how it feels to know you’re losing a daughter.”
Jack searched for any sign that Max was lying. The seconds stretched out as the two men stared each other down. Jack knew it was insane to believe anything Max said. Their entire relationship had been a lie. Lonetree had shown him the proof. Max was the enemy. He was a vicious killer, a predator. Jack had expected to feel rage at this moment. Rage for the lies Max had told. Rage for the betrayal of a friend. Rage for the evil that Max took part in. But his emotions were different than he expected, and he could not find the anger he knew he was entitled to feel. Something about Max had changed. His shoulders were slumped forward, his eyes circled with dark rings. Jack noticed the slight shake in his hands. Despite everything, Jack still felt pity for his friend. No matter the monster he was, right now he was just a broken man. The father of a little girl who was dying.
“How about that drink?” Max asked.
Jack hesitated. He and Lonetree had agreed that he would get the first crack at getting Max to help them. If he wasn’t successful, Lonetree would take over the interrogation. Jack wondered how long the big man would wait before he took matters into his own hands. He decided to see how far he could use his and Max’s friendship to make him talk. Lowering his gun, but knowing Lonetree still had him covered, Jack walked over to the small bar where he knew Max kept the good bourbon. He took out two tumblers, clinked some ice into each and poured two fingers of auburn liquid. He crossed the room and handed a drink to Max.
“Here’s to the truth,” Jack said.
Max paused, then raised his glass slightly toward Jack. “The truth.” He slugged back the glass of bourbon with a satisfied moan.
“I’m sure you know most of the story already, considering the company you’re keeping.” Max nodded toward Lonetree sitting behind Jack. “By the way, I met your brother a few times. He was a good man. Not that it makes any difference, but I was against removing him.”
Lonetree’s face was a mask. Jack remembered the story about Lonetree’s brother telling him who had killed him. Lonetree gave no indication that he accepted Max’s assertion or knew anything to the contrary. He simply stared and waited. A professional soldier on mission.
“Who else is involved Max? Who has Sarah?”
“I’ll tell you what I can, but you have to understand Jack, I can’t tell you everything.”
“But--”
“But nothing. You don’t know these people. They’ll go after Kristi and the kids. They’ll punish me through them. Even if you kill me, if they think I betrayed them, they’ll still take their revenge on my daughters. I won’t risk that. Not for you. Not for Sarah. I’d rather die.”
Lonetree stood up and raised his gun. “Sounds good to me.”
“Wait,” Jack yelled. “He said there are things he can tell us.” He turned back to Max. “Right? There are some things you will tell us.”
Max shrugged. “Sure, but it won’t do any good.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s hopeless, Jack. You can’t stop these people. Make no mistake, they will kill Sarah. They’ve decided they need her and that’s the end of it. Nothing will change that now. The only question is whether or not you’re going to die trying to save her.”
Rage tore through Jack’s system from hearing his daughter’s life dismissed so easily. The gun, still in his right hand, seemed to throb, begging to be used to punish Max for talking about Sarah in such a way. Jack felt the danger in such power. He carefully placed the gun on a side table. “You could help us, you know. Help us destroy them.”
Max grimaced. “It’s too late for that. Much too late. Besides, if they thought I helped you, they would take my family. I won’t risk that.”
Lonetree crossed the living room so Max could see his eyes as he spoke. “What makes you think your family is safe from me? You think I’ve never killed a woman? That I would hesitate to kill the child of a monster like you? Look at me and tell me if you think your family is safe.”
Max stared at Lonetree. “What I’m worried about is worse than death. Much worse.”
“All right,” Jack said. “Tell us what you can. After that, we’ll decide what to do with you.”
Lonetree backed away and leaned against the fireplace mantle, a brooding statue waiting for his chance to take action. Max took a deep breath and told them what he dared.
“There were fifteen of us at the beginning. Only a few of us are still in Prescott City. There were others. Some moved on. Others…well, some of them are no longer around.”
Jack didn’t want to turn this into twenty questions so he let the pause stretch out until Max continued with the story.
“We were a pretty rag-tag group. We met up in Baltimore, by chance mostly. Men who didn’t have anything to lose. All willing to do whatever it took to make our fortunes. We figured there would be safety in numbers. You know, bargaining power for supplies, better in a fight, that sort of thing. Like in any group of men, leaders emerged. I was one of them. So was a big German named Hans Boetcher -- you know him as Jim Butcher -- our friendly Piper’s bartender. Janney was another, a personal favorite of the Boss.”
“The Boss,” Lonetree prompted.
“Yeah, he was the real leader. He was different from the rest of us. Well-educated, a society man from up north judging by the accent. No one knew what his story was and no-one was brash enough to ask. Without a vote or any kind of agreement we all started calling him the Boss and deferred to him on decisions. It was the Boss who brought a strange looking man named Nate Huckley into the group.
“Even at the beginning there was talk about whether we were comfortable having Huckley along. You know what I’m talking about. That white skin and those pale blue eyes that wander around in his head like he’s watching everything at once. And his temper. Some men you can just tell have violence coiled up inside of them. Nate Huckley was the same back then as he is now. He had so much tension in him that you could almost hear his body hum if you stood too close to him.
“But the Boss said he was in and that was the end of the story. The same reasons we were uneasy with Huckley also made him the best front man for the group when we negotiated with the supply stores. He was also the one who came across the old man with a mining claim to sell. Supposedly the mine was a producer, but that the old man couldn’t do the hard work anymore. The Boss organized us all to go in together and buy it. The plan was that half of us could work the mine and the other half trap furs until we struck a vein. With all of us working we thought that we couldn’t help but strike it.”
“When did all this happen?” Jack asked.
“I still remember the date we left.” Max shook the ice in his glass and poured the final drops of bourbon into his mouth. “I don’t expect you to believe me. It was September 3, 1819.”
Jack reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a yellowed photograph. He held up the photo so Max could see it. “Lonetree gave me this on the way over here. I’m not saying I believe you. Just that I’m willing to listen.”
Max leaned forward, his eyebrows raised as he looked over the photograph. A group of men lined up in front of a clapboard shack. Burlap sacks were stacked up behind them. Some of the men were dressed in light colored suits, with waist coasts and hats, but most were working men dressed in coveralls. Scrawled across the bottom was the date, September 3, 1819.
“Where’d you get this?” Max asked.
“Lonetree showed it to me when I refused to believe you were part of all this. It was mixed in with his brother’s files. Of course, it could be a forgery, but given everything else that has happened, I’m willing to believe almost anything. That picture was probably why Lonetree’s brother was killed, right?”
Max ignored the question and looked at the picture more closely. Jack figured he was picking himself out from the group.
“Haven’t aged at all, have you?” Jack said.
Max looked at the photo, his expression almost wistful. “No, I’ve aged. You might not be able to see it, but I’ve aged a great deal.”
“Which one of these is the Boss?” Lonetree asked.
Max smiled. “He’s not there. Even then he kept a low profile. Like he knew what was going to happen all along. In a way, I guess he did.”
“Listen. I need to know what’s going on here. Sarah is gone. Nate Huckley is haunting me from a coma. And it’s like he’s getting stronger every time he makes an appearance. I don’t have time for games. I need to know who’s involved and how all this works.”
Max nodded as if hearing that Huckley was haunting his friend was the most ordinary thing. “We’ve all had different reactions to the ritual over the years. Huckley was always sensitive, kind of a psychic, but nothing like he is now. I think even the Boss is afraid of him now. He’s a little off-balance.”
“Tell me about it.” Jack said.
“Still, Huckley won’t be quiet long. His body would have recovered by now. I imagine he’s chosen to stay in the coma for his own reasons. Out of body experiences would be his thing, that’s for sure.”
Jack shook his head. “I still can’t wrap my brain around it all. How does this work? How did it start?”
“You don’t know?” Max looked up at Lonetree. “We thought you already knew. I’m almost certain your brother knew the details or at least he suspected them. Unfortunately, he didn’t tell us much at the end. He was a strong. Huckley was very persuasive but he refused to tell us what he knew or where his notes were. All that pain and still he kept his secrets until the end.”
Lonetree looked away at the mention of his brother, his neck and face reddening. “Keep going Max,” Jack said, wondering if Max was deliberately antagonizing Lonetree.
Max exhaled a long breath and shook his head. “The group left Baltimore the day that photo was taken and we headed up into the mountains to work the mine and try to make a go of things. Nothing much happened for over a year. During that time, the Boss and Huckley would disappear for weeks at a time to explore the area, but no one else knew what they were looking for. When they were in camp, they spent hours poring over maps and strange books. Then one day, they came back from a trip and you could tell they found something. They didn’t say anything but it was written all over their faces. The next day, the Boss picked six of us and we headed off due west, mules loaded down with shovels, mining lamps and rope. Two days later we reached a hole in the ground and the Boss told us we were going down to a deep cave where treasure waited all of us. That was the beginning of the nightmare.”
“I know,” Jack said. “I’ve been in that cave.”
Max arched his eyebrows. “Really? How did you--” He slumped forward in his chair. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. But if you’ve been there, you know how horrible it is. While the rest of us stood there in the middle of that dark graveyard crossing ourselves and praying to God that we could get out of there, Huckley and the Boss walked around with smiles on their faces. Then we found the Source and Huckley really got excited.”
“The Source? The round structure in the center of the cave, right?” Lonetree said.
“Yes, we didn’t start calling it the Source until later, until we finally understood what it was. At first we weren’t sure. The Boss and Huckley were fascinated by the carvings. Almost like they were expecting to find them. The rest of us wanted to get the hell out of there, but the two of them kept walking around the carved wall, holding their lanterns up close to the carvings and muttering back and forth. I edged closer to them, trying to hear what they were saying. I overheard Huckley whisper, ‘It’s talking to me. Shut up so I can hear.’ Then the real horror started.”
“What?” Jack asked.
“Huckley did it for the first time. Not the whole ritual, of course, we didn’t know anything back then. But he did a Taking.”
“What do you mean Taking?”
“How about another drink?” Max asked, raising his glass hopefully. Jack obliged by filling the glass from the decanter. Max downed half the glass in one gulp. He nodded appreciatively. “Taking is what we called it. I suppose it’s easier to digest that way.”
Lonetree snorted. “You guys murder little kids but can’t stomach calling it killing?”
Max winced but otherwise ignored the comment. “Anyway, the first sacrifice was one of the guys with us, a friend of mine actually, named Frank Jeter. Huckley discovered a loose rock on the stone structure. It was circular, not more than a foot in diameter. Huckley pried it loose and pulled it out, revealing a hole that went right into the structure. The Boss told Jeter to go throw a rock into the hole. He did and the rock bounced inside, confirming our hopes; the structure was hollow.
We all thought the same thing. No one would go through all the trouble to build such a thing unless it was to keep something safe inside. Something valuable. Gold, we thought. I guess Jeter thought the same thing. The Boss didn’t even have to tell him to look inside. Jeter did that all on his own.
“He wasn’t looking into that hole for more than a few seconds when it happened. Even now I can’t think about it without cringing. It was the shock factor, you know. None of us expected what was going to happen and that made it all the more terrible to watch.”
Max tipped his glass back until the ice tumbled against his lips and the last of the booze dripped into his mouth. He sucked in one of the ice cubes and crunched it between his molars.
“Whatever Jeter saw in there, it was the last thing he used his eyes for. No more than three or four seconds after he put his face up to the hole in the rock, Jeter’s body lurched forward like he was trying to force his face through the opening. He beat the palms of his hands against the rock, trying to push back. A few of us laughed. Jeter was always playing jokes. This one was in bad taste because we were so scared to begin with, but it was still funny. That is, until he started to scream.
“Then his legs shot out straight under him, rigid like electricity was going through them. The scream became garbled as his face wedged deeper into the hole. I went to grab for him. But I was standing next to the Boss and when I moved forward he reached out and took me by the arm. His eyes never left Jeter’s writhing body, but I understood. Whatever was happening, the Boss wanted to see the thing play out.
“Right then, Jeter’s feet jerked off the ground. I mean both of them, like he was levitating in some magic show. But he wasn’t floating. Violent spasms tore through his body as it rose up into the air until his legs were parallel to the floor.
“Jeter’s face was still pressed into the opening, so as his body rose higher we could hear the
pop-pop-pop
as his spine cracked into pieces. Even so, he was still alive.
“His torso suspended in the air, like a pole had shot out from the hole and skewered the length of him. That was exactly what it was like, a living piece of meat on a rotisserie, limbs flapping spastically in all directions.
“Then, as if seeing him like that weren’t enough, I could see something moving under his clothes. Where it was exposed, I saw bulges moving under his skin. I thought whatever was underneath would rip through the flesh and pop through.
“You what to know what I thought it was? Rats. Can you believe that? I thought maybe it was a bunch of starved rats that had crawled in through Jeter’s mouth and were going to town on the poor guy’s insides. Sounds nuts, but as horrible as that was, it was still better than the other option. If it wasn’t rats doing it then it was something outside of my understanding. Something evil and powerful. And sure to kill me just like it was doing Jeter.
“Then, in the middle of my panic, without any warning, Jeter’s body went limp and slumped to the ground.
“No one moved. We just stared at the man’s destroyed face, no more than a mushy plump with strands of his entrails hanging from his mouth. Janney turned and threw up at the sight. But not Huckley. And not the Boss. While we were scared for our lives and our sanity, they were enthralled. Like they had made some great discovery. Turns out this was exactly what they had been looking for all along. Seeing Jeter die just confirmed things for them.”
“What do you mean they were looking for it? How could they know?” Lonetree asked.
“They were just like your father and brother,” Max said. “They had done their research, pieced together the folklore and the Indian legends. They went searching for the lost tribe of the Sumac. And they found them. Or what was left of them anyway.”
Jack cut in before Lonetree could say anything about the implied insult of his family being grouped together with Huckley.“So what was in the stone structure? You call it the Source, but of what?”
Max looked at his empty glass and swirled the ice. Jack wondered how many drinks the man had before they arrived. Dark bags hung under Max’s eyes and his pupils were glazed over. When he started to speak again, Jack heard the slur in his voice.
“Well, after watching Jeter die, we all wanted to get out of there. All of us except Huckley and the Boss, of course. They were pointing to the carvings on the walls and arguing back and forth. We couldn’t tell what the argument was, only that the Boss gave in and agreed with Huckley. Then Huckley walked back, ripped the clothes from Jeter’s body, pulled out a knife and started cutting. Piece by piece, he fed the body through the hole in the wall. None of us helped, not even the Boss, but none of us left either. We were too afraid and too awed by what we saw when Huckley cut into Jeter’s body.”