Mark Lukens - Ancient Enemy

What if Stella was awake now? What if she’d seen him leave? What if she had locked the door?

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Stella hadn’t locked the door; she hadn’t even made it to the door yet. She still stared at the freezer in the kitchen. She was on her feet now and she backed away from the nearly empty case of money and from the dining room table chair. She backed away from the kitchen with its microwave oven that she could see was clearly counting down numbers. She backed away from the smell of gas.

She backed away from the freezer. The lid continued bumping up and down, and then the lid finally crashed open and slammed into the log wall, held there by a thin arm with a spider-like hand.

Stella had backed all the way up into the living room, in front of the couch where David still slept. But she didn’t look at David; she kept her eyes on the freezer where Tom Gordon sat straight up. His movements were jerky as he climbed out of the freezer, and his limbs, which seemed like they were at odd angles, popped back into place with loud snapping sounds as he moved. Tom Gordon’s body wasn’t completely thawed yet and the ice crystals still twinkled on his bluish skin. He stared right at Stella with his eyeless face.

And then he smiled.

“No,” Stella whispered.

She finally turned to David. He was still sleeping on the couch, but his arms were straight up in the air and his hands moved like he was still drawing the symbols in his notebook, still writing an ancient language that he couldn’t possibly know.

“David!” she screamed. “Wake up!”

David’s eyes moved back and forth underneath his closed eyelids. Back and forth. Back and forth. But he wasn’t opening his eyes, he wasn’t waking up. His hands moved in the air as he drew the imaginary symbols.

“David!!”

She shook him. “You have to wake up!!”

A slamming noise startled Stella. She looked back at Tom Gordon who stood in front of the freezer on unsteady legs. But she realized the slamming noise hadn’t come from the kitchen. It had come from …

… the front door.

Cole burst through the front door and then he slammed it shut. He locked the deadbolt, but he knew they were going to have to get out of this cabin very soon – it was a ticking time bomb.

“Cole!” he heard Stella scream at him.

He turned and saw Stella in front of the couch where David slept, but David had his arms raised up in the air and his hands were moving. But to Cole it didn’t seem like his hands were drawing an ancient language in the air, to Cole it looked more like David was a puppeteer pulling on imaginary strings.

Cole saw Stella’s eyes dart to the kitchen.

He followed her stare and saw Tom Gordon by the freezer, he watched him take a step away from the freezer, a step towards them.

“Where’d you go, Cole?” Stella asked in a cracking voice; she seemed close to tears.

Cole ran to Stella. “I’ve got us a way out of here,” he told her. “Get David! We need to go!”

Just then something slammed into the front door – an ax. Cole snapped his eyes to the front door and he could see the tip of the ax poking through the wood of the front door. The ax blade wiggled out and it left a gash in the wood. A few seconds later the ax slammed into the door again.

Stella was watching the door as Cole grabbed her. “Get David up!”

“I’ve tried! He’s not waking up!”

“I’ll carry David,” he told her. He saw that she had Jose’s gun in her hand. “You need to put that gun down. You can’t shoot that gun in here no matter what happens.”

She nodded; she knew what the gas smell in the cabin meant. She dropped her gun on the floor, it landed with a thud.

Cole turned to bend down and scoop David up off the couch, but he never got the chance to pick him up.

“Where are we going?” Stella asked him

“We’ll go out the back,” he said, but even as Cole uttered the words he could hear the splintering of wood from down the hall, like something incredibly strong was tearing the back door off of its hinges.

They were trapped. They were surrounded.

It was never going to let you get out, Cole’s mind whispered. It knew about your plans all along and it was always a step ahead of you. You were never going to outsmart it – it has been around a long, long time.

Tom Gordon stumbled towards them and he nearly fell on his unsteady legs, but he kept on coming, he kept stumbling towards them, impossibly seeing through the black holes where his eyes used to be. And he opened his mouth and bared his teeth in a rictus smile.

The ax hit the front door again and again. It had already nearly split the door right down the middle; the door was barely hanging in the doorway by the door handle and the hinges.

From the hallway, behind the flimsy barricade of the dining room table, Cole could hear two more bodies stumbling forward through the darkness.

Needles and Trevor, his mind whispered at him. Needles with his eyeless face and the gory exit wound in his forehead that was now like another hole where a giant eye used to be.

And Trevor. Cole didn’t want to think about seeing Trevor again.

Stella shook David again and again. She screamed at him to wake up. But he wouldn’t wake up.

Jose split the front door apart with one last powerful strike from his ax. He stepped through into the cabin, into the light, and Cole could see Jose now.

The flesh from Jose’s neck and throat were nearly gone; only a thin shaft of spine and a few spindly tendons held his head up, like some kind of flesh balloon being held aloft by a string of bone.

Jose’s face had been peeled away in many places, revealing shiny white bone. On one side of his face, a large section of his teeth were visible now that the flesh was gone; his tongue flicked over the white teeth like a giant red slug.

Jose took a step towards Cole and Stella; he held the ax in hands that were skeletal, nearly all of the flesh had been torn away from his hands.

Cole and Stella huddled together.

Frank stood in the doorway and watched them. The thing out there was seeing through Frank’s eyes, and it spoke through Frank’s mouth. “Last chance,” it said through Frank’s mouth. “Kill the boy and we’ll let you go.”

Cole knew that he needed to get Stella and David out of the cabin now, in a few minutes the microwave was going to count down to zero and turn on. The can of soda was going to heat up and then it was going to spark and explode. And that was going to ignite the gas from the stove. And that was going to spread to the gas-soaked logs of the cabin outside. This place was going to become an inferno. He had to get David out of here; he couldn’t let David die or all of his preparations would be for nothing. David would die. He and Stella would die. And maybe this thing wouldn’t die – maybe it would go on living. David would be dead and that creature, that thing out there, whatever it was, would have won.

Cole couldn’t let that happen.

Cole aimed his gun at Tom Gordon, then at Jose. But then he lowered his gun – it wouldn’t do any good, one shot could ignite this whole cabin. Instead, he pointed his gun at himself; he shoved the barrel under his chin and laid his finger on the trigger, ready to shoot. He smiled at Frank.

“Move aside, Frank,” Cole said. “You let Stella and David go or I’ll kill myself.”

There was a crashing noise from the hallway. Stella looked over and saw the dining room table thrown aside from the doorway to the hall. She saw Needles and Trevor stumble out from the darkness.

Cole wouldn’t allow himself to look at Trevor or Needles – he kept his eyes on Frank. “Last chance, Frank,” he said.

No answer from Frank for a moment, and then he cocked his head the other way and smiled at Cole. “Pull the trigger, Cole. Die. And then we’ll all tear Stella apart with our fingers and teeth right in front of the boy. And you will help us.”