Latham's Landing (14 page)

“
How did you get to the island?” he
said, taking a step back. “You were here when I got here. You said
you took a snowmobile. But there were no tracks on the ice when I
came across.”

“
Because I came from the other
direction,” Carolyn explained, indicating her car. “You came from
the opposite side, when you appeared.”

“
That’s where the ice is reported to be
thickest,” Helter said arrogantly. “I didn’t want to
die.”

Caroline narrowed her eyes, even as she
flushed again. “Well, the ice wasn’t as thick where I came ashore,
and I stopped the snowmobile too soon. It fell through the
ice.”

“
Yet you had the gas to try to burn
everything?” Helter said, reaching for his gun. He drew it and
pointed it at her. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“
I’m telling you the truth!” she
shouted.

“
Then how did you get the gas on shore
without being wet?” he retorted.

“
I tied them all together,” Caroline
said urgently, her hand clutching her cross. “The first time I
came, it was summer and my boat sank. The containers all floated
away. I wanted to have them together if the snowmobile fell through
the ice, not just to get the job done, but to make sure I didn’t go
under the ice. The containers are plastic. They float!”

“
So you do want to live,” Helter said
with a ghost of a smile. He safetied his gun, then holstered it.
“Didn’t you give a thought to freezing to death? That water might
look pretty but it’s got to be cold enough to give you
hypothermia.”

“
I didn’t care, so long as I destroyed
this place,” Caroline said tiredly. She sat down on a large rock,
her shoulders slumped. “But all my plans were for nothing. I never
thought that it couldn’t be burned—”

“
It’s going down in a pile of rubble,”
Helter assured her. “Just stay here and I’ll be right
back—”

The whine of a boat motor approaching shocked
him into silence. There, coming across the water, was a blond woman
in a boat. Her light hair was cut in a short bob, her expression
friendly, her face absent of any makeup. She looked dressed to go
hiking in the fall, a light blue rain jacket tied around her
waist.

“
Is she real?” Helter said
disbelievingly.

Caroline stared, shading her eyes from the
bright morning sun. “She looks real.”

“
Looking real isn’t the same as real
out here,” Helter said ominously. “Be on your guard.”

“
She’s real,” Caroline said with
confidence, waving to the woman with both arms.

“
How do you know?” Helter asked
curiously.

“
Because there’s a dog with
her.”

The boat’s motor stopped offshore, and the
woman threw in an anchor. “Is it safe to come closer?” she called.
“I heard there were bad rocks near the shore.”

“
Yes! Stop there.” Helter waded out
into the water, almost to the boat. With a lunge, he pushed off,
swimming the last few feet. Taking hold of the boat, he pulled it
into the shallows where he could stand up.

“
Thanks,” the woman said brightly. “I’m
okay to get out here. I don’t mind getting my feet wet.”

“
Ma’am, I need you to take Caroline
Stone here to shore right now,” Helter interrupted. “We were both
snowmobiling, and hers fell through the ice in the
thaw.”

“
I’m so sorry,” the woman said to
Caroline, her expression worried. “It’s so lucky you
survived.”

Caroline managed a smile.

“
What about you?” the woman said to
Helter. “Shouldn’t we all go to shore now? I can drop you off, and
we can talk—”

A disquieting feeling seeped into Caroline.
This woman showing up, just as Helter was about to blow up the
house.
Had the house sent her to stop them?
“Why are you
here?” Caroline said brusquely.

“
That’s a long story,” the woman said
perkily. “First off, I’m Barb Usher. I’m a paranormal researcher.”
She held out her hand.

“
You’ve got to be kidding,” Caroline
muttered under her breath, shooting a look at Helter. Neither of
them made a move.

Barb was unfazed as she took back her offered
hand. “I was planning to wait until spring, but when I saw we’d had
this surprise thaw, I wanted to take advantage of the abnormal
weather—”

“
Didn’t you hear me?” Helter shouted at
Barb. “Start your motor and take Caroline off this island. She
needs to go home—”

“
I’m not going home until I see this
house made into rubble,” Caroline hissed at Helter. “And you aren’t
going to be doing anything with a witness now, are you?

Helter glared at her.

“
Is there some problem?” Barb asked in
confusion, looking from one of them to the other.

“
What are you going to say?” Helter
whispered harshly to Caroline, putting his back to the woman.
“Explain in detail how your plan of arson didn’t work? That we
heard some animal howling outside the tent last night? Neither of
us is supposed to be here!”

“
Hey,” Barb called again. “Can I come
onshore or not?”

“
Sure,” Caroline said, ignoring Helter.
“But throw me a rope so we can tie your boat to the nearest
tree.”

“
Why not tie it to that dock behind
you?” Barb replied, pointing.

Caroline looked to her left, following the
woman’s gesture. Yes, there was a tiny decrepit wooden dock just in
sight, opposite where Helter reported finding the boathouse.
Caroline stared at it, a shiver passing through her.
Had it been
there all along, buried in the snow and ice?

Helter took the rope from Barb, and began
walking out into deeper water. As soon as it was shoulder height,
he swam, guiding the boat after him. Caroline followed on the
shore, keeping a close eye on their supplies from her vantage point
while she also tried to watch Helter, worried at some moment some
monster would emerge from the depths and drag him under.

When Helter reached the small dock, he waded
ashore, then tied up the boat and offered his hand to Barb.

Barb gingerly stepped off the boat onto the
dock. “Thanks.” Her dog, a Golden Retriever, bounded out, then
began sniffing wildly on the shore, moving rapidly back and forth.
“That’s Cooper.”

“
Sorry for how we must seem,” Caroline
called awkwardly from shore, petting Cooper as he passed her
several times in his relentless sniffing. “We spent the night here
in the winter cold and woke up to summer. We’re dead
tired.”

“
I saw that,” Barb said consolingly.
“But you don’t have to worry. I called the police.”

Caroline blanched, her expression horrified.
“What?” Helter managed.

“
I called the police,” Barb repeated
brightly. “I found your SUV this morning on the shore, Caroline,
and called in the VIN number from my cell. When I saw the
snowmobile trailer you had, and an empty container of gas floating
in the water, I worried you’d somehow gotten stuck out on the ice
last night and something bad had happened in the sudden thaw. So I
reported it, because I was worried.” She checked her watch. “They
should be here in about an hour or less.”

Helter swore, then began to pace.

“
Is there something going on here?”
Barb said directly to Caroline, her expression finally losing its
persistent joyful outlook.

“
Why are you here?” Caroline said
coldly. “The truth. Now.”

The last vestige of false cheerfulness
vanished from Barb’s countenance. “Here,” Barb said, putting down a
micro recorder device on the porch steps. “Listen to this.” She
flipped the switch.

“
At first I thought it was
a bear. The thing had to be eight feet tall. First the eyes were
low and then they rose up—”

“
Who is that?” Caroline
said.

“
Lenny,” Barb said. “A hunter who ran
into these things one night in the woods.”

“
What things?”

“
Shut up and listen,” Barb said flatly,
all her perkiness vanishing.

Caroline was irritated, but pushed her
feelings aside, listening.

“
It was fast, real fast. It came at
me and I ran. When I got to my car and looked back, it was there in
the trees, eyes shining at me.”
Pause.
“And there wasn’t
just the one pair. There were five, at least back last
fall.”

“
How long ago was this?” Caroline
asked.

“
Two years ago,” Barb said urgently.
“Please, just listen.”

“
They killed that kid. I
know there was no body found, but I tell you, he was dead. They got
him. That aunt of Kelsie’s, she made those things. The other aunt
confessed it was going to eat his soul—”

“
He’s crazy,” Helter said, looking at
Barb like she was probably crazy too.

“—
that thing is out there,
and it’s been killing right along. Don’t know how many are out
there now. I stay out of the woods after dusk.”

Barb shut off the micro recorder.

“
Okay, tell us why we shouldn’t think
he’s crazy,” Caroline said quickly to Barb.

“
Or you are,” Helter muttered under his
breath.

“
I’m not crazy,” Barb said. “Lenny
witnessed these things attack another hunter and kill him. He
escaped because the girl, Kelsie, came upon him hurt and she helped
him. The things didn’t attack her.”

“
Why not?”

“
Because her aunts made them to protect
her.” Barb switched to another digital file, then hit
play.

“
We had to look after her. She was
our sister’s only granddaughter.”
Pause.
“Sylvia did the
spell to create the guardian, the Husterman. Some of the writing
was faded. She did as well as she could. Something came out wrong.
Sometimes when it feeds, a new one is created.”

“
Fuck me,” Helter said under his
breath. “This is just a stupid ghost story someone sold you
on—”

“
Hustermen are just
shadows. You can see their eyes in the dark, but they have no real
shape, only a mouth to feed and eyes to see. They are only there
when it’s dark. They feed off flesh and souls. They punish
evildoers. They are also just shadows, as in righteous ones seeking
to mete out justice. They don’t see distinctions, only black and
white.”

Barb stopped the recording. “That continued
until a year ago, when Kelsie’s Aunt Sylvia had a heart attack. She
survived, but something changed. The creatures began attacking
anything in the woods at night, not just those up to no good.” She
hit play.

“
I saw the skunk too late.
I got the dogs away from it, but they’d been hit bad. I looked for
the skunk, but it was gone. So I took both of them by the collar
and went into the woods—”

“
Who is this?”

“
Kelsie,” Barb said. “The granddaughter
who was supposed to be guarded by these Hustermen.”

“
I couldn’t see anything,
it was too dark. We were a good half hour late doing the walk. We
got about ten yards into the forest when I smelled a rank animal
smell.”

“
There were no footsteps,
no branches breaking. Something was just suddenly there waiting for
us, like it had stepped out from behind a tree. The dogs went
berserk, growling and barking. I couldn’t hold them. I heard a rush
of wind. Nothing touched me, but there was this terrible sense of
menace. I ran, yelling for the dogs.”

“
We made it out of the woods, but
Teal had a bloody chunk out of his left ear.”
Pause.
“I’ve
never been afraid in my woods before. But now…I’m scared to go back
there.”

Barb clicked off the recording.

“
The aunt lost control of them?”
Caroline asked.

“
If she ever had it,” Barb replied.
“But she did do something after that, because the disappearances
stopped. Well, let me amend that. They stopped nearby Kelsie’s
farm. They began again a few months later to the north, then
stopped, then began again further north.” She pulled up a diagram
on paper. “These points all show at least one unexplained
disappearance.”

“
They were on the move, but to find
what?” Caroline asked.

Barb spread her arms wide. “This island.” She
shifted her feet. “The Husterman, or hustrman, as it’s pronounced
by native Czech, is not a force for good. It’s a force for evil, a
water sprite that feeds on souls. It must stay wet to live, so it
sticks close to water.”

“
But these things were made in a
forest,” Caroline persisted. “You said they were made to protect a
girl, not hurt her. They don’t fit with the legend.”

“
Maybe not at first,” Barb argued. “But
their behavior has changed.” She pointed at the house. “What better
place for evil soul eaters who like water than an island mansion
already infamous for its death toll?”

“
Bullshit,” Helter pronounced. “Why
would they come all the way here? And how could they be made to
come, if they’d gone wild?”

“
There is an old saying,” Barb said
slowly. “Evil draws evil.”

“
I thought that was a Stephen King
saying,” Helter quipped. “An evil house draws evil men.”

“
But these aren’t men, are they?”
Caroline interjected softly. “At least, not anymore.”