This Deep Panic Page 19

  Nathaniel came to Ethan, his cheeks wet with tears. “Should we go back out there and bury him?”

  “We can’t,” Spike said. “If we start moving shit around the whole mountain is going to come down on top of us.”

  “We can’t leave him like that,” Rowan said. “We just can’t.”

  “I’ll go,” Ethan said, his voice husky with heartache. “Cover him as best I can and mark the spot with something. When this is over we’ll come back for him. For all three of them.”

  He bent for his pack but as he lifted it, Lucy screamed. Nathaniel grabbed her as Ethan swung back to the slide, where she pointed.

  A man, a not-man, something, moved fast and sure-footed down the boulder field to the rock and Paul. Ethan stared, frozen. It was man-shaped but taller than normal. Skins, or at least things with fur, were tied around its body and draped over its shoulders. Something like huge antlers came out of its head. The hand that reached toward Paul had extraordinarily long fingers that looked almost, from this distance, like narrow claws. And wrapped around its waist like a surreal kilt was a pumpkin orange coat.

  Ethan heard a thud behind him and glanced over his shoulder to see Jennifer collapsed, knees up and arms tucked in. The sight kicked his brain back into gear. With shaking hands he fumbled in his pack for the Walther. Fear and rain made his hands slick as he chambered a round.

  “What’s it doing?” Nathaniel whispered. “Oh, god, what is it doing?”

  The creature was now bent over Paul. It reached out and seemed to gently stroke the side of Paul’s face with a finger, like a mother would stroke away a child’s nightmare. But then the hand came up and a long, bloody strip hung from one claw. As they stared in horror, the thing swallowed the strip of Paul’s skin.

  Ethan fired. He saw the bullet ricochet off the boulder near what would have been the thing’s waist if it were human. It barely reacted, reaching out to Paul again. Ethan fired a second time. They all saw the bullet hit the hand that pulled another strip from Paul. The creature recoiled backward, staring at its hand.

  Ethan blew out a breath and held it, pulling up his training. His arms steadied, his mind cleared. Slowly he squeezed the trigger, aiming for the thing’s head. But at the last second it lurched uphill behind the boulder and the shot again ricocheted off granite.

  And then it was back, the long arm coming around rock, reaching for Paul. Ethan suddenly realized the thing was going to be preoccupied with its meal. It might mean time for those still alive. He looked over his shoulder. Payton was on the ground in an obvious faint. He saw terror in their eyes.

  “Go!” he shouted.

  They didn’t seem to comprehend him. Nathaniel and Jennifer stumbled to their feet, but then turned in circles as if lost. And then Rowan raised her arms.

  “This way! Come on!”

  Spike bent over Payton, straightening with her in his arms. He ran toward Rowan and his movement broke through the wall of terror and shock. When Ethan saw they were headed down the remains of the logging road, he turned back to the creature and raised the gun again.

  But it was gone.

  And so was Paul’s head. Only a bloody stump remained, along with a trail of blood going back up the slide and into the tree line.

  Ethan grabbed his pack, and keeping the gun in hand, went after his kids.

  9

  The rain stopped some time during the night. When Anya came out of the cabin the next morning, she was dressed in jeans, thick socks in heavy boots, a silk undershirt, a long sleeved tee shirt, and a logger’s wool plaid coat. And yet she shivered, as if she’d never thawed after the events of the day before, or from the night before when something had stalked the cabin in the dark.

  The quiet of deep shock hung over the place and the forest was devastated.

  Anya gripped the rifle and stepped slowly away from the security of the cabin. Bird ventured further, but she noticed he stayed within a smaller perimeter than normal. She studied the torn up ground in front of the door then walked around the cabin, peering at mud and forest debris. There should have been tracks. Even with the rain, there should have been at least indentations left. But she saw nothing. No proof that anything had been out there the night before.

  It was hard now, in the light of day, with misty clouds hanging low and dampness still in the air, to remember the fear. Had she really heard something outside the cabin, or had she simply been in shock from all that had happened? A nightmare maybe?

  Bird snuffled something on the ground, then gave a short bark and backed away from whatever it was. He growled low. She walked to where he crouched.

  A piece of coarse material was half buried in mud. She bent and pulled it free. Pumpkin orange. So something had been out there. She didn’t have any clothes that color. Anya fingered the piece and then slipped it into a pocket.

  She turned back to the cabin and froze. While there were no tracks on the ground, she stared at proof that something, indeed, had been outside the cabin last night.

  Along the top of the door and the log lintel, out of her reach, long gouges cut deeply into the wood. She moved closer. Something was caught in one of the gouges. She stepped through the doorway, shoulders hunched as if whatever hung up there was going to drop on her head. Inside, she took one of the sturdy wood chairs from by the table and hauled it back outside.

  Standing on the chair helped and she was able to reach up and tug the piece free. With one hand against the doorjamb for balance, she stared.

  It looked like a five-inch thin strip of chicken.

  “Damn it!”

  In her fear and exhaustion last night she hadn’t secured the chicken coop. She climbed down from the chair, dropped the strip, and ran around the corner of the cabin. Bird followed closely.

  The coop door still hung from one hinge. The chickens were busy scratching in the debris of fallen needles and tree branches as if nothing had happened the day before. Anya quickly counted, then counted again. All twelve were there.

  “Well that’s weird.”

  Bird gave in to his favorite temptation and lunged at the birds, sending them scattering.

  “Knock it off,” Anya said over the squawking, more out of distracted habit then because she thought he’d finally listen.

  She watched the chickens a moment longer, then, frowning, returned to the cabin. Maybe the wild animal from the night before had found an owl or something. When she looked closer there were traces of dried blood on the strip. Whatever it had come from, she had too much to do to waste time over a piece of meat.

  She briefly thought about what wild animal was tall enough to leave behind something so high on the wall, but her thoughts skittered away. It was easier to ignore it than to let the fear at the edges of her mind sneak in.

  The coop had to be secured. The cabin had to be evaluated, especially the roof. Anya didn’t want to spend another night huddled in the blackness wondering if something could get in. When it got dark, she wanted to be locked up tight and secure inside.

  Just in case it came back. Whatever it was.

  Anya worked steadily in the damp and chill air. But she wasn’t able to lose herself in the tasks like she normally did. She was deeply unsettled as she pulled branches into a burn pile, screwed hinges on the coop door back into place, and climbed the ladder to her roof. She kept pausing to scan the clearing, the forest fringe, looking for movement, looking for something that shouldn’t be there. She kept her rifle close. She kept Bird close.

  But it wasn’t until early afternoon that her dog growled, low and deep.

  Anya’s boot slipped and she stumbled off the second to last rung of the ladder, hitting the ground harder than expected. Her hand slid on the wooden upright and a splinter bit into her palm. She barely noticed it over the racing of her heart.

  Anya lunged to the wall of the cabin and grabbed up the rifle. She spun around and stood, back to the false security of solid logs. She heard nothing but her blood pulsing. She pointed to the ground next to he
r and Bird took up his heel position. Slowly, trying to not make any noise, she moved along the wall, edging to the corner. From there she could make a run for the door and get inside.

  Bird moved with her, teeth bared, ears back, and head lowered. He stared to the east across the clearing but Anya saw no movement. She flipped the rifle’s safety off anyway and raised the gun to her shoulder.

  At that moment, she hated Devon with a pure, white-hot rage. He’d left her. Left her alone. There was no help, no salvation, no rescue.

  If he’d come out of the woods she probably would have shot him.

  But nothing moved that shouldn’t. Trees swayed in the cold wind. Alder and cottonwood leaves shivered and turned belly up, like they always did when rain came. But now their pale undersides seemed weirdly vulnerable. Dark clouds stretched across the sky, also moving to the pull of the rising wind.

  Nothing unusual.

  But Bird snarled.

  Anya reached the corner of the cabin. Leading with the rifle, she quickly looked out and then pulled back. Nothing happened, so she went around the edge, slower this time. Carefully, she stepped up onto the deck, the old wood squeaking under her weight. Bird followed. Giving in to the fear, Anya sprinted for the door, ran inside with her dog, and slammed the door behind her.

  In the semi-gloom of the cabin, she crossed to the window and stood at its edge, peering outside. Her hands and knees shook, her bladder felt loose and hot like she was about to pee herself, and her scalp was tight as if all her hair stood on end.

  And there it was. Something coming out of the trees. A tall man with sticks stuck in his long, scraggly hair. Anya, breathing fast, squinted but couldn’t make out any details. She propped the rifle at her feet and grabbed her binoculars that hung on a hook by the door.

  A man. Taller than normal. Angular and bony as if skin stretched too tight. Some sort of weird orange cloth tied around its waist, the same color as the scrap she’d picked up. And those weren’t sticks stuck in his hair. Anya adjusted the focus on the binoculars. It looked like he had shoved antlers in to the tangles.

  He looked left and right, then straight ahead at the cabin and stepped more fully out of the tree line. He carried something under one arm but it was still in shadow. He reached across his waist with one hand and she saw abnormally long fingers, almost like claws. He plucked something off whatever he carried and lifted it to his mouth.

  He chewed as he walked forward with an odd, lurching gait.

  Anya panned down with the binoculars, thinking maybe he was injured. But then she focused on what he held under his arm.

  A head.

  Blood was coagulated around long thin wounds along the face. Tendons and nerve endings hung from the neck like the head had been twisted off rather than cut. Horrified, Anya was barely aware of dark hair, of one wide, unseeing eye, of a hole where the other eye should have been.

  The man, the thing, reached across again and with one long claw, or fingernail, peeled off a strip of skin and put it in his mouth.

  The binoculars hit the floor. Anya went to her knees, rising bile choking her. She gagged and then heaved, and heaved again. She swiped a cold hand across her mouth and tried to stand but her legs shook too hard. She reached for the rifle but couldn’t grip it and it slid to the floor.

  “Oh god, oh god,” she whispered.

  She crawled forward and managed to take hold of the rifle butt. The door. She had to brace the door. She had to block the windows. Somehow.

  Pushing a hand against the log wall, she managed to haul herself upright, hugging the rifle to her chest. Bird stood in the middle of the room, head still lowered, front legs braced, staring at the door.

  How close was the thing? She didn’t want to see. But the fear of not knowing was greater. With chattering teeth she came up to the side of the window and looked out.

  The man, the thing, was close. Maybe fifty yards from the cabin.

  Anya pulled back and scanned the room. Seeing the creature so close to her home froze her terror. Her breathing deepened, her jaw clenched, her heart thudded slow and heavy. Her eyes skimmed the room. There was no time to figure out how to block windows or the door.

  She had to kill it before it got in.

  “Bird, here.”

  The dog came quickly to her side. She gripped the rifle, checked to make sure a round was chambered, lifted it to her shoulder, and with one shaking hand reached out to pull open the door. As soon as there was an opening wide enough, she stepped through, holding the rifle steady, finger on the trigger.

  The thing was only a few yards away, coming forward slowly, snacking. It stopped when she came through the door, studying her with eyes too big, too dark, too bottomless to be human.

  “Get out of here, you fucker.”

  It dropped the head, which hit the ground with a wet thud, flexed its clawed hands, and bent forward as if to catch her scent.

  Anya breathed deep and held it, resting her cheek against the butt of the rifle, siting in. The thing was going to launch and she was going to blow it back wherever it came from.

  She caught movement to her left, and so did the thing. It swung away from her, fingers opening and closing, the nails clicking. Anya risked a glance away.

  A huge grizzly stood in the clearing, near the yew tree. Possibly the same one she’d seen the day before. It reared up and slammed both massive front paws into the earth, coughing out a deep warning. And then it rose up on its back legs again and roared.

  Anya, still with the rifle in place, swung back toward the man creature then back at the grizzly. Which was the bigger threat? Her breath came fast again as she lost her focus, her aim. The rifle butt jittered against her cheek.

  Bird moved beside her and she saw he was focused on the creature, as if the grizzly wasn’t even there.

  That answered the threat question. The rifle steadied. She squeezed the trigger. The rifle kicked against her shoulder but she was prepared for it. She smoothly ejected the shell and slid in another bullet. Squeezed again.

  Her aim was true. Through the scope she saw the bullets hit. She saw black blood oozing out of wounds. But the creature didn’t even flinch.

  The grizzly roared again, the terrifying sound of an apex predator, of something that wasn’t killed easily. Anya glanced at it in time to see it charge. Quickly, she chambered another round and smoothly brought the rifle into place, firing. She kept going in her rhythm now, focused on the creature.

  The grizzly was a massive blur coming from her left, attacking the thing. Anya fired until the bear was too close and she feared hitting it. She lowered the rifle and gripped Bird’s fur tight in one hand. The dog was rigid, muscles locked, straining forward. She dropped to one knee and grabbed Bird tight but he broke free and launched off the deck.

  “Bird! No!”

  Anya, gripping the rifle, started forward but stumbled to a stop. The little boy was there, coming around the yew tree.

  “Stay back!” she yelled at him.

  He glanced at her, but his focus was on the battle before them. The bear, roaring, slammed into the thing, its massive jaws clamping down on the creature’s middle. Bird danced around them both, darting in to snap at the creature. Anya fumbled a shell out of her pocket, chambering another round.

  The creature’s hands stretched out, long nails digging in on both sides of the bear’s neck. The bear threw up its head, dragging the thing upward, and then tossed it to the side as if it weighed no more than a broken branch. The creature hit the ground, rolled, came to its feet.

  Without thinking it through, Anya seized the moment, the clear shot. Up came the rifle and she fired, ejected the shell, chambered a round, fired again. And again, stopping only when the bear rushed the creature and crossed her line of fire. The creature’s antlered head swung toward Anya. The black gaze was like ice, freezing her heart.

  And then it turned, running in its jerky gait for the tree line. The bear followed, with Bird racing at its side.

  The
boy moved a few steps forward as if to follow the bear, but then turned toward Anya.

  “Stay here,” she said. “It’s not safe to go after them.”

  The boy studied her, head tilted slightly. And then he made an odd gesture, touching his fingertips to his heart and unfolding them, palm up, toward her. Before she could do more than just stare, he turned back in the direction he’d come from.

  Anya felt the vibration of the earth through her boots as the bear loped back into the clearing. Blood dripped from wounds on its neck and she saw the blacker blood of the creature around the bear’s jaws. Bird came behind the bear, but angled toward her when they came out of the trees.

  Anya’s breath caught. Would the bear now turn on her? But it passed without even swinging its head in her direction. She stood, unable to move, as it followed the boy. They passed the yew tree and were lost to sight, slipping into the shadowed forest understory.

  Anya sank down on the deck, the rifle beside her. Her muscles were suddenly like water, worthless. Bird flopped at her feet, panting heavily. Wind moaned through the treetops and a few fat raindrops hit the ground. More followed, a curtain of rain moving down the mountain pushed by the wind.

  Anya sat there, watching the rain, unable to move.

  The boy was gone and her heart ached. Twice in as many days wasn’t a hallucination.

  The creature was gone and her stomach twisted in fear. Whatever it was, wherever it had come from, she hoped it was dead. But the chill in her blood said it wasn’t.

  The head of a stranger wasn’t gone. It sat out there, rain pooling in the empty eye socket.

  “That’s it,” she said to Bird. “We’re leaving.”

  Anya went inside, pulled her pack out, and tossed it on the bed. The rifle rested on the quilts next to it. She grabbed warm clothing and shoved socks and sweaters into the pack, then went to the kitchen shelves and started pulling down dehydrated packets of food that she took with her when hunting. She’d need her headlamp. Fresh batteries. Her bedroll. Her hands shook as she tossed things on the bed.