1 The Bank of the River (12 page)

It seemed
like he walked for another twenty minutes but by his watch it was only five. He
was beginning to think he needed to return to his father, make sure he was all
right. If he left now, it would take him at least a half hour to get back to
the cabin, and Roy would have been alone for almost an hour.
What if the old
man fell asleep?
he thought.
Would this proximity to Lukas’s body make
his attacks more potent? I shouldn’t have left him.

 Just as he
resolved to turn around and begin back, the tunnel opened into a small room
that was the size of a large living room. Steven could see a pathway leading
out at the other end. There was more water in here, in some places several
inches deep. Some of the ground was exposed, and Steven scanned it for signs of
a grave. Nothing appeared obvious.
What would a grave from fifteen years ago
look like in here, now?
Steven wondered.

 He followed
the stream and another room lay beyond, similar to the one he just left. He
examined the ground there too, finding nothing that stood out to him as a grave
site. The tunnel continued on into a third room. Here, he was startled to find
several animal skeletons. One was large and looked canine, like a wolf.

God, what
if this is a home for wolves or bears?
he wondered. Bears were plentiful in this area. He suddenly
thought he’d made a huge mistake coming into the cave unarmed. The ground here
was more scuffed, and it looked like several holes had been dug, but by
animals, not humans. The water from the stream pooled on one side of the room;
Steven couldn’t tell how deep it was.

Enough
, he thought.
Time to return to
Roy. I can always come back. Next time with Roy’s 9mm or a shotgun.
He knew
his dad had a wide selection of firearms. The smart thing to do was to return
home and come back more prepared. Roy could make more of his potion, Steven
would remember to bring painkillers, and they’d being plenty of ammo.

As Steven
turned and began to backtrack, the sensation that something was following him
overcame him. He stopped, turned, and looked, but nothing was there. He picked
up his pace on the way out, now familiar with the terrain, but the faster he
walked, the surer he became that an animal was chasing him out. A bear, or a
bobcat, or maybe a wolf. The sounds of his steps echoing in the small space of
the tunnel helped create the illusion. He turned several times, checking, and
each time nothing was there. As he approached the cave entrance he slowed his
pace a little, catching his breath. Once outside, he paused and took a swallow
from a bottle of water in the backpack. He let his mind calm down, and began
the trek back to the cabin. His markers were easy to find and soon he saw the
cabin come into view.

He opened
the door to the cabin and stepped inside. “Roy?” he called.

Roy was not
on the sofa. He searched the cabin, calling for him, but he was not in any of
the rooms. He walked back outside.

“Roy!” he
called, and waited. No response.

Now Steven
was really worried.
I shouldn’t have gone for so long, not while he was
feeling bad,
he thought. He circled the cabin, calling. Still no response.

He knew his
father wasn’t along the path to the cave. That left the path to the car. Steven
walked back to the cabin and locked the door.

As he
approached the car he could see Roy slumped in the passenger seat. He went to
the driver’s side, threw his backpack in the back seat, and turned to check on
Roy.

“What are
you doing back here?” Steven asked.

Roy didn’t
respond. His eyes were open, but unresponsive. There was a small trickle of
blood coming from his nose. Steven shook him, but Roy didn’t respond. He felt
for a pulse – there was one. Roy was breathing.

“I’ve gotta
get you out of here,” Steven said, starting the car, and turning it around. He
raced the car back down the dirt road. After a few minutes he reached the main
highway and cell reception returned to his phone. He dialed 911.

“My father
has had some kind of stroke,” he said to the operator, “and I’m out in the
middle of nowhere, on Highway 97, twenty miles south of Leavenworth. Where’s
the closest hospital?”

“No stroke,”
Roy said. “No hospital.”

As the
operator asked him more questions, Steven turned to Roy. “What? Dad, you were
catatonic. You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine.
No hospital,” Roy said, seeming to come back to life with each passing second.

“What do you
mean you’re fine?” Steven asked, ignoring the operator on the other end of his
call.

“I mean,”
Roy said, wiping the blood from his nose, “I feel just fine.”

“I wish I
knew if I believed you,” Steven said. “You didn’t look very fine. Hold on a
moment, operator,” he said into the phone.

“I felt I
was going to fall asleep, so I put myself into a trance. Sort of a defensive
posture. I’m out of it now. I don’t need a hospital.”

Steven
turned to the operator again, “I’m sorry, false alarm – he’s OK.” The operator
started to object but Steven hung up on her.

“If you can
protect yourself with a trance, why haven’t you been doing that all along?” he
asked Roy.

“Well, as
you can see,” Roy said, wiping the rest of the blood from his nose, “it comes
at a price. I only did it because I was desperate. I didn’t know how much
longer you’d be, and I was starting to drift off lying in the cabin. I figured
I’d walk back to the car to try and stay awake, and to be further from it, hoping
it’d help. Seems to have worked.”

“I’m sorry I
took so long,” Steven said. “I should have retuned sooner. I got caught up once
I found the cave.”

“Cave?”
asked Roy.

“Yeah,
another fifteen minutes past where you stopped,” Steven told him. “I went a ways
into it, didn’t find a grave before I decided to turn around and come back.”

“Did you go
to the end of the cave?” Roy asked.

“No, it went
on past where I stopped. When I ran into animal bones I thought it might make
more sense to explore it armed.”

“Good
thinking,” Roy said. “We’ll use my Benelli.”

“We’re,”
Steven replied, “not going to use anything. I’ll be using it. You can’t go back
there.”

“If I have
my protection, I’ll be fine,” Roy said.

“Forgive me
if I doubt that,” Steven replied.

“Look, you need
me to find the grave in that cave,” Roy said. “I can locate it.”

“Locate it?”
Steven asked. “How are you going to do that? You can’t even get within a
thousand feet of it, let alone locate it.”

“That’s
because I didn’t have my protection,” Roy said. “Look, you need to trust me on
this. I know what I’m doing. I’ve been doing it a long time.”

“You’re
telling me if you drink that stuff, you’ll be able to walk into that cave
without a problem? After what we saw today, you’ll be able to just walk along, carrying
a shotgun, and help me survey a dark cave, full of water?

“Yes.”

“And not
fall and break something, not get sick?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t
want to have to carry you out of there.”

“You won’t
have to.”

“How do I
know?” Steven raised his voice, angry and frustrated. “How do I know that? If
you collapse in that cave and I have to carry you out, I’m not sure I can do
that.”

Roy didn’t
respond. A moment of uncomfortable silence passed. Steven remembered the fear
he felt as he left the cave earlier that morning. He couldn’t imagine trying to
do that with his father slung over his shoulder.

“Listen,”
Roy said calmly. “I realize you think I’m an old geezer who is two steps away
from falling into my own grave. And I realize you think my protection is bogus,
and I’m too weak to defend myself. You think everything is worse than it is, you
always have. You don’t understand these things, they’re all a mystery to you,
you’re frightened because of your perspective.”

“No, that’s
not it,” Steven said. “It has nothing to do with my perspective.”

“Then what?”
Roy asked. “Why do you think I can’t handle myself?”

Steven felt
tears surfacing, and he fought to stop them from appearing in front of his dad.
“Because I’m worried you’ll get hurt. That you’ll misjudge something and be permanently
hurt. Or worse, that I might lose you. And I don’t want that to happen.”

Roy reached
across the seat and placed his hand on Steven’s shoulder. Steven couldn’t
remember the last time his dad had touched him this way.

“I’m more
worried about you, kiddo,” Roy said.

They agreed
on the way home that they would not return to the cave until the next day, when
they’d have plenty of daylight to maneuver in the woods. They stopped for food
and then returned to Roy’s house, the sky already starting to darken. Roy went
about gathering the various guns he thought they should use, and ammo, and
placed them on the kitchen table.

“You could
outfit the army of a small country,” Steven said, looking over the pile.

“We can
decide later which ones we want to take,” Roy said. “I’m going to be in my
bedroom for a while.”

“Not
sleeping, I hope,” Steven said.

“No, not
sleeping. Making more of this,” Roy said, shaking the empty Mason jar.

“Can I
watch?” Steven asked.

“I’d rather
you didn’t,” Roy said.

“Why?”

“It’ll just
make me fuck it up. I’ve always made it by myself, if you watch I’ll get
something wrong.”

“Nothing
like confidence in the family,” Steven said.

“I have
enough confidence to know you need to stay the hell out while I make it. I want
to be able to concentrate and make a strong batch.”

 “How long?
I’m going to check on you if it goes past the time you tell me.”

“Half an
hour,” Roy replied, and walked back to the bedroom.

Steven was
intrigued by whatever was going on behind his father’s bedroom door. He could
hear rustling, and once he thought he heard chanting. He was careful not to
make any noise; he didn’t want to disturb Roy in any way, make him think he’d
been distracted.
Even if the stuff is just psychosomatic, it works for the
guy, and he needs it,
he thought. Anything that might help, he was for.

Steven
noticed the book on the kitchen table under the guns, the secret book his
father had tossed there a day before. He had told him to look through it, to
see if he could find anything that might help. He pulled it out and flipped
through it.

The book was
both old and new. It was bound, but handmade, and had been expanded and reinforced
several times. All of the writing was by hand, with some drawings. As he
flipped through it he noticed that the writing became more modern as he
progressed. At the end he noticed it was his father’s handwriting.

He returned
to the front of the book and looked for changes. There were four sections where
the style of writing and the paper incorporated into the book changed significantly.
Steven realized this book had been given to Roy, and Roy was updating it with
his own experiences and knowledge.
This section just before Roy,
Steven
thought,
was this the writing of Roy’s father? Has this been in the family
for generations?

He flipped
back through the center of the book, tried to read the writing. It was
difficult. The words were in English, but the meaning seemed to rely on
something else not contained within the text, like a key or some bit of
knowledge that Steven didn’t have. Some sections looked like lists, or recipes,
but he couldn’t determine what they would make or what they were for. There
were occasional drawings. He didn’t know how long he had been turning the pages
when he came across one drawing that made his blood run cold. It was the head
of a man, with no eyes. Curling out of the back of the head were horns, like
those of a goat. The lower half of the image was charred and burned. He ran his
fingers over it, and carbon came off on them.

“That was
where your mother tried to burn it,” Roy said, behind him. “That was something
your great-grandfather dealt with, and his drawing of it scared her.”

“What was
it?” Steven asked.

“Some kind
of demon,” Roy said. “Would have been about 1890. He lived in California.”

“What
happened?”

“Don’t know.
Your mother burned up most of the page where he wrote about it. Hope we never
run into one, we’ll have no idea what to do.”

“I’m
guessing the fact that the book is still intact means you rescued it from her?”

“Yes,” said
Roy. “She could barely stand the idea of me being involved with any of this.
But when she saw that drawing, it flipped her Jesus switch big time. I stopped
her from destroying it but she insisted I hide it away and make sure you kids
never saw it.  Told me if she ever saw me reading it again, she’d divorce me.
And I knew she meant it. Your mother didn’t make idle threats.”

Steven shook
his head in agreement. “So this book is the reason I had to sit through church
all those years?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m
afraid so,” Roy said. “She’s probably pissed you’re seeing it now.”

“How far
back does this go?” Steven asked.

“Four
generations,” Roy replied. “Your great, great grandfather Thomas is first. Then
his son, Charles, my grandfather. Then my father, David. Then me.”

“This is
incredible,” Steven said. “I thought when you said a secret book you meant some
kind of…well, I don’t know, I don’t know exactly what I thought. But I didn’t think
this. This is a family history. This is valuable.”

“You think
so?” Roy asked. “I’m glad to hear you say that. Because when I die, I’m not
leaving it to Bernie.”

Steven
looked at Roy. “Well,” Steven stammered, “I’d be honored to have it. Really, Dad.
I’m sure I can take care of it, maybe have it protected so it doesn’t
deteriorate,” he said, turning the pages. “Some parts of this are so old, I’m
worried they’ll become brittle.”

“You do
that. In the meantime, it’s mine,” Roy said, taking it out of Steven’s hands.
“I’m not finished with it.”

“Of course,”
Steven said.

“Potion’s
done, made it extra potent. Time to work on a way to dispense of Mr. Johansen.
You sleep first. I need to start going through this in detail, looking for
something that will head us in the right direction.”

Steven retreated
to the guest bedroom and tried to go to sleep. He could hear his father turning
pages in the other room, studying the book. He wondered what Roy would write
about their current problem in the book, after it was finished. He wondered if
Roy had memorized the look of Lukas’ image in the trance, so he could draw it
in the book like his predecessors. He realized more was going on with Roy than
it appeared.
He’s a tough old man,
Steven thought.
Tougher than I
thought.

He drifted
off to sleep.

-

Roy woke
Steven around 4 a.m.

“Any luck?”
Steven asked.

“No,” Roy
said. “My eyes are tired from all the reading, I’m seeing nothing but blurs.”

“Sleep,”
Steven said. “I’ll wake you at nine.”

Roy padded
off to his bedroom, and Steven poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot Roy
had made during his stint. He sat at the kitchen table and stretched his eyes
open, trying to clear the sleep from them. The book lay open where Roy had left
it, and Steven tried to focus on the page. He decided to wait until after the
coffee had done its job. He walked into the bathroom, intending to take a piss
and splash some water over his face. As he flushed the toilet and moved to the
sink, he noticed the sink was full of water. The stopper was up, but the sink
was full.

He turned to
look at the bathtub. Also full.
It’s here,
he thought.

He left the
bathroom and walked down the short hallway to his father’s bedroom. The door
was open a crack. He knew it was there before he could see inside. As he pushed
the door open, the shadow came into full view against the far wall. The image
was constantly shifting, as though it was obscured by moving glass. Roy was not
in his bed, but suspended in the air near the ceiling between Steven and the
shadow. Roy’s body was shaking in the same manner Steven remembered from their
last encounter.

Fearful that
his father would fall to the floor, he ran to the center of the room and stood
under him, ready to catch him. He then faced the shadow, intending to dispel it
as he had learned.

Something
made him stop short of shouting the banishment. Once he positioned himself
under Roy he felt the same ice-cold blade he had felt at the third encounter
with the shadow. It sliced though his torso, but this time there was no pain,
just shock. He felt the blade inside him, twisting, but he felt no need to run.
He just stood there and waited for what might happen next. He saw his father’s
body shaking above him, and he knew he didn’t have much time for
experimentation. But something told him to wait and see what would happen.

He felt the
blade rise inside him. As it entered his head, the room was suddenly too bright
to bear. Dark images were now white, and white images were a series of greys.
Everything had been thrown into negative.

I’m being
attacked now
, Steven
thought.

Correct,
he heard Roy think. His father was
still suspended above him, but he knew the message was coming from Roy.

What do I
do?
he thought.

See if
you can talk to it,
he heard.

Talk to
it? To the shadow?

Yes,
he heard.
I can’t. See if you can
learn something about it we could use against it.

Steven
turned his attention to the shadow. The eyes were still there, looking at him.
He sensed awareness behind them, and he tried to communicate with it, but
nothing seemed to work. He thought sentences: “Who are you?” “What are you?”
“What do you want?” but got nothing in return except the continued staring.

Anything?
he heard from Roy.

No.
Nothing.

Try
another way,
he
heard.

Steven
considered what this meant, and closed his eyes. Immediately his mind was
filled with a rushing torrent of motion, flowing from his father down into him
and then on to the shadow, which now looked more like a man.
This is the
draining
, he thought.
The shadow forces the flow to him from us.
Steven pictured going inside the flow, as though he was riding an inner tube
through a waterslide tunnel in an amusement park.

That worked.
The shadow was now the creature he had seen in the hallway, grotesque and
threatening. In a moment, he was at the creature from inside the flow. He was
stopped from getting close to it by the panes of glass, shifting and distorting
the image beyond, which appeared in pain. He strained to see more, but the
shifting glass caused him to lose focus and he couldn’t concentrate on any one
thing long enough to figure it out. The image beyond was moving its lips, but
the distortion kept him from making out what it was saying. He felt his lungs
collapsing, as though he had held his breath for too long, and felt as though he
might pass out. He waited as long as he could, gasping for air, before he
decided he could bear no more.

Steven
opened his eyes and thought, “Be gone!”

In an
instant, the room changed back to its former light, the shadow began to recede,
and he felt his father fall on top of him. Steven broke the fall with his own
body, and the two lay in a heap in the middle of the room.

“Help me
up,” Roy said. “I gotta know what happened.” He was pushing himself off Steven,
who struggled to his knees.

“Ow,” Steven
grimaced, holding his head. “Oh, damn, that hurts.”

“I don’t
weigh that much,” Roy complained.

“It’s not
you,” Steven said, holding the side of his head and furrowing his brow. “It
feels like someone is jamming an icepick in my brain.”

“Oh, that,”
said Roy. “You’ll get used to it. I suppose now I should get
you
some
aspirin.”

“Yes,
please, this is fucking unbearable,” Steven said.

Roy got to
his feet and led Steven out of the bedroom and back to the kitchen table. After
sitting him down, he rounded up the medicine and gave it to Steven, who downed
it quickly.

“It’ll go
away after a few minutes,” Roy said. “Jumping in can fuck up your head for a
while. Especially when it’s your first time in charge, which I’m guessing that
was.”

“Son of a
bitch!” Steven cried, holding his head between his knees. “This really hurts. I
think I’m gonna be sick.” He raised his head and raced for the bathroom. Roy
could hear him retching for the next several minutes. He took the time to make
a new pot of coffee.

Steven
emerged from the bathroom and stood at the kitchen entrance, staring at Roy.

“Feel better
now?” asked Roy.

“Yeah,”
Steven replied, “I do. It still hurts, but not like they’re slicing my head
open with a cleaver anymore.”

“I remember
my first time,” Roy said, smiling, pouring a cup of coffee for Steven. “Nineteen
sixty-two, in Arizona. Had an interesting experience with a Thunderbird. And I
don’t mean a car or booze.” He handed the cup to Steven, who took it.