Ancestor (43 page)

“It’s okay, Gary. I’ve been through worse. When you get to da church, give two flashes with a flashlight. I love you, son.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

Clayton broke the connection and logged out. Seconds later he was mopping away. He had the floor half done by the time Gunther walked back into the room, a steaming mug of coffee in his hand.

A SHADOWY FIGURE slipped out of the shed behind Sven Ballantine’s barn. The shed’s heat had saved his life, but he couldn’t stay there forever. He walked toward the house, limping, every step painful from the burns, the bruises and the frostbite.

He hadn’t eaten in days. His wounds needed proper care. They’d be infected soon, if they weren’t already.

And those …
things
. He’d seen them bring down a cow, tear it to pieces.

Besides, surely Magnus didn’t want
him
dead. That made no sense, so it simply could
not
be true. He had to get back to the mansion, where they had all those guns.

He passed the front of the barn. It gaped open. He saw no movement. Carefully, quietly, he looked inside. Filled with snowdrifts, but other than that, nothing.

Well, almost nothing. No cows, no people, nothing but scattered hay, broken stalls … and piles of feces everywhere he looked. He picked up one of the frozen piles and examined the stool.

What he saw almost made him cry.

He left the barn and limped toward the house, looking everywhere for any sign of movement.

“REMEMBER, GARY WILL give two flashes,” Clayton told Sara. “You answer with two. Anything else, and you lay low. It will be cold, but you need to stay in da bell tower and watch for him.”

She nodded. So much sadness in that girl’s eyes. Clayton wondered what it felt like to lose all your friends in one shot. He’d lost most of his, and two wives, and a daughter, but gradually over many years. Sven was his only friend left alive.

Sara put her hand on his shoulder. “We can’t thank you enough.”

Clayton started to say
don’t worry about it
, but she grabbed his face and gave him a fast kiss, then threw her arms around him and squeezed. Clayton stood dumb for a moment, then returned her hug. She let go and wiped away a tear.

He locked the church door behind himself. No one would miss the heater, kerosene or supplies he’d stolen for Sara. Still, this was all crazy risky. He’d left footprints in the snow, but that couldn’t be avoided. He could only hope that anyone shooting by on a snowmobile wouldn’t stop to look around.

Clayton breathed a sigh of relief when he finally climbed into Ted Nugent’s heated cab. He put the motor in gear and moved down the trail. He’d finish grooming the road and trails, just to keep up appearances. He passed James and Stephanie’s place. Had they been up and on their porch, Clayton could have waved. But he saw no motion at the Harveys’ house. Apparently, early morning on this freezing island was a time only for old fools.

The Bv’s heavy sled dragged across the six inches of fresh snow, compacting it into a perfectly groomed surface. Clayton turned on the CD player. Some old Bob Seger would be just the thing.

He turned northeast, which would take him within sight of Rapleje Bay. Just southwest of Rapleje Bay, the Harveys’ phone line connected to the main line. Clayton checked the latest repair map and drove to the break.

A fallen tree leaned against one of the phone poles. Both ends of the line were still connected, which meant a crack in the line—an easy, quick fix.

Clayton got out of the Bv and pulled a chain saw out of the back section. Poulan, the only kind he’d buy and use. He expertly cut the tree so it fell off the phone line. He climbed into the aerial lift bucket and raised himself to the break. The vantage gave him a clear view of Rapleje Bay. At first he didn’t notice anything. Then his eyes caught a few strange, snow-covered bumps out on the ice, some marked with high, curling drifts. Wreckage. Had he just been sightseeing, however, he might have missed the bumps entirely, or at least dismissed them as chunks of ice. Even if Magnus did drive by he probably wouldn’t notice. Just a few more hours, hopefully, and Gary would get Sara and Tim off the island.

Clayton turned his attention to fixing the landline, unaware of the hungry eyes that followed his every move.

THREE ANCESTORS REACHED the edge of the trail. Their bellies were full. They felt sleepy. But the food was almost gone—they had to find more.

A noisy thing had drawn them, pulling them through the woods with the promise of new prey. They stared at it, a new shape that made a steady sound much like a low, angry growl. It smelled like the stick that killed. But it
also
smelled like food.

Two of them started to move forward, but Baby McButter flicked her sail fin up and down fast, telling them to stop. This thing smelled too much like the stick. Her two brothers backed up and lowered themselves into the snow so that only their eyes peeked out above the white surface.

Movement, up high, on top of a skinny tree.
That
was prey,
that
was food. The skinny tree bent in on itself, lowering the prey back down to the noisy thing. Then the prey climbed
inside
the noisy thing. The noisy thing started running away.

Baby McButter flipped her dorsal fin high and held it there, signaling them all to move in.

Thick arms plowed through deep snow as they closed the distance. The noisy thing started out slow, but then picked up speed. Baby McButter roared in anger and ran faster, but the noisy thing had heard them and was escaping.

She slowed to a trot, then stopped. Her belly was too full. She couldn’t
run fast enough. As she watched the noisy thing fade away, she understood why it could move so quickly. No trees here, just a long, wide-open space that led deeper into the woods. The noisy thing liked the wide-open space.

To Baby McButter’s right, one of her brothers let out a low, mournful moan.
No food
. Soon they would be hungry, and hunger was the worst sensation any of them had ever experienced.

They sat down and waited. Prey had come this way. Prey would come again.

SARA CARRIED A blanket. She stayed behind Tim, letting him take his time going up the narrow stairs. The crutch helped him walk, but his knee was still pretty messed up.

“This is stupid,” he said. “I should just stay in the preparatory room.”

Did this guy
ever
stop bitching? “Just climb. You have to take shifts up on the bell tower, Tim. Sooner or later I have to sleep.”

Tim sighed and continued up the stairs that led from the back of the altar up to the choir loft. The walls were barely wider than his narrow shoulders. Sara wondered how small people were back when the church had been built … what … two centuries ago?

Tim made it to the choir loft. “Now what?”

Sara pointed down the loft to a ladder near the church’s front wall. “Right there. Figure out how to climb it, I’m not going to carry you.”

“Just because you kept me alive doesn’t mean you’re not a surly bitch. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.”

“Just get up there.”

Tim crutch-walked to the ladder. The choir loft was made from the same black stone as the church’s walls, but with an ornate wooden railing. She looked over that rail down on the dilapidated church proper below. The place must have been beautiful once.

Tim managed the climb up the twenty-foot wrought-iron ladder. He made way more noise than necessary, taking great pains to show Sara just how difficult it was for him.

She slung the blanket over her shoulder and followed him up, going out the trapdoor. The turret was about ten feet in diameter, ringed by four stone pillars rising up from a waist-high stone wall to support the witch’s-hat roof. Sara shivered as wind cut through the open turret—this was probably the coldest place on the island.

Tactically, though, they couldn’t possibly do any better. She could see the entire town and even down the trail that led to the harbor. Thick stone
walls would stop small-arms fire. Fate had put her in the most defensible spot on Black Manitou.

Except, of course, if Magnus decided to use the Stinger.

“Okay,” Tim said. “Mission accomplished. Now can I go back down? I’m freezing.”

She tossed him the blanket. “Nope. As of right now, you’re on the clock. Gary won’t come until tonight, but we have to keep an eye out for anyone approaching our position. Get comfy and keep watch. I’ll relieve you in four hours.”

“Come on, Sara. I’ll freeze up here, and I need a drink.”

A vision of Tim trying to get the syringe needle into the vial flashed in her head. Had he given the cow the right dosage? Had a drunken mistake cost the lives of Cappy, Alonzo and Miller?

“You’ve had enough to drink,” Sara said. “You pull your own weight, Feely, or else.”

He started to complain, but she ignored him and went back down.

“MOTHER DUCK-FUCKIN’ MOTHERFUCKER,” Andy said, then gently set the phone back in the cradle. This was turning into a crusty-turded shitstorm, and fast. How the hell was it even
possible?

He sprinted out of the security room, up the stairs and into the lounge. Magnus sat there, fresh bottle of Yukon Jack in hand, staring blankly out the picture window at the blustery winter night.

“Magnus, we’ve got a big problem. Rhumkorrf just called in.”

Magnus turned sharply in his chair. Andy took an unconscious step back.

“If you’re bullshitting me, Crosthwaite, I’ll give you a million dollars right now.”

Andy shook his head. “No bullshit. He called from Sven’s place.”

Magnus stared for a second, then turned to once again face the window. He took a long swig of whisky, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Andy shuffled from foot to foot, waiting for orders.

Magnus finally stood. He capped the bottle and set it on a table. “Have you seen Clayton?”

Andy shook his head. “Not lately.”

“Who’s in the watchtower?”

“Gunther,” Andy said. “Colding is probably sleeping in his room.”

“Go get Colding. Tell him Rhumkorrf called in. You don’t know what’s going on, because Rhumkorrf is supposed to be on the plane. Both of you go to Sven’s house. Before you get there, kill Colding.”

Fuck yes.
Fuck yes
. “No problem,” Andy said. “And then what?”

“You take Colding’s Beretta. You kill Rhumkorrf. You kill Sven. When you come back down the trail, you kill James and Stephanie Harvey.”

The woman. Hell yeah. He could save her for last, take his time.

Andy felt an iron hand on his neck before he even saw Magnus move.
Fuck
, but that guy was fast. Andy stayed calm and stood very,
very
still as his boss leaned in so close Andy could smell Yukon Jack breath.

“We’re in a bit of a pickle here, Andy. All the evidence has to point
toward Colding. So if you go dipping your wick in Stephanie Harvey, that will leave evidence that is
not
from Colding. I’ll make this so clear even a twisted pervert like you gets it. You
shoot
her, you don’t
touch
her. Do you understand? Blink once for no, twice for yes.”

Andy blinked twice.

“If Rhumkorrf lived, we assume the others did, too. They have to be hiding somewhere. So do the only thing you’re good at—kill everyone you see. This is a good strategy, Andy. If you agree, blink twice. If you disagree, blink once, but if you blink once, I’m going to crush your windpipe, then sit here and sip whisky while you lie on the floor and slowly suffocate.”

Andy blinked twice.

Magnus let him go. Andy felt oxygen flood into his lungs. He blinked twice more, just to be sure he’d got the message across.

“Now move,” Magnus said.

Andy ran for the door, headed for Colding’s room.

TEN MINUTES AFTER Rhumkorrf’s call, P. J. Colding held his snowmobile throttle wide open. Andy was on a sled right behind him, the two of them shooting down Clayton’s groomed trails. Headlights played off trees that whipped by as blurs of green and brown and white.

Colding’s mind raced even faster than the snowmobile. How could Rhumkorrf be back? Colding had watched the plane take off. Nothing had landed since then. Had the C-5 crashed?

If Rhumkorrf survived, chances were Sara had as well. But if she had, why hadn’t she contacted him?

Because she didn’t trust him.

That was the only thing that made sense. Andy or Magnus had sabotaged the C-5 somehow, and Sara had crashed it on Black Manitou. Not
landed
, but
crashed
, as the landing strip was the only place to safely bring down a plane that big. Colding had sent her up. If Sara had survived, she’d think he had betrayed her right alongside Magnus and Andy.

He had to find her. Explain things. But more important, he had to save her from Magnus, which dictated only one sickening course of action—killing Andy Crosthwaite. First Andy, then Magnus.

Colding wondered if he’d be able to pull the trigger. No, that was the type of comment someone might mumble in a badly written movie. He could do it. He
would
do it.

He wanted to get as far away as possible from the mansion and Magnus before making his move. Maybe Rhumkorrf could provide enough of a distraction to let Colding slip behind Andy unseen. Andy was a trained killer—Colding knew he’d only get one shot.

He had to make it count.

MAGNUS GUNNED HIS Arctic Cat down the main road. The snowpacked road’s perfect condition was a bit ironic, considering Clayton had groomed it, yet Magnus was heading to Clayton’s house because the man had seemingly slacked in his duties.

Clayton Detweiler had always been the poster boy of the blue-collar work ethic. Maybe he looked like he’d slept in mustard and didn’t know that razors even existed, but the mansion was always clean and all the phone lines worked—everything seemed to just be taken care of as if by some invisible hand.