Dark Woods (14 page)

Cal saw the look of terror on Eden’s face and felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.

‘Are you saying I’m going to die?’ Eden whispered.

‘No,’ said Jefferson. ‘I’m saying that this is the moment you die in your dreams. It is the moment that the things which pursue you finally achieve their goal.’

‘So how’s that going to help us?’ asked Cal. ‘Because they aren’t in our dreams any more, are they? They’re out there right now, hunting us down.’

‘Precisely,’ said Jefferson. ‘We know from your dreams that they won’t stop until they reach that end point. So the only chance you have is to give them what they want. You have to stop running. You have to let them come here and find you.’

‘Are you crazy?’ asked Eden. ‘If they find us, they’ll kill us.’

‘They’ll try to,’ said Jefferson. ‘But the truth is, they’re going to find you anyway. At least in this way it can be at a time of your choosing. And in this way, I think, it is we who can decide how it ends.’

‘How?’ asked Cal.

‘Let’s just say I’ve always expected that one day the authorities would catch up with me,’ replied Jefferson. ‘That someday they’d look at their records and discover that I sold my mother’s house without paying my taxes and disappeared from their system. They wouldn’t like that one little bit. So I figured they’d come along with their trucks and chainsaws, telling me that this land didn’t belong to me and that I owed them lots of money. And after this, of course . . .’

Jefferson waved his hand around to indicate the whole sorry mess he had gotten them into.

‘So anyways. What I’m saying is, I made provisions.’

‘What kind of provisions?’ asked Cal.

‘You let me worry about that,’ replied Jefferson. ‘Let’s just say that anyone comes around who I don’t want to be here, I got ways of dealing with them, OK? And while they’re being dealt with, I fixed myself a way out. I’ll be honest with you, I ain’t had cause to go down there in a long while, but I know where it starts and where it finishes, and that’s more than you can say for most things in this life.’

‘I don’t get it,’ said Eden. ‘Are you saying we’ve got to wait here for those things to come and get us?’

‘No,’ replied Jefferson. ‘I’m saying you need to go out there and find them. And when you do, you need to bring them back here.’

‘Isn’t that dangerous?’ asked Cal.

‘Life is dangerous,’ said Jefferson. ‘If you want to live it, you have to take risks.’

‘Cal?’ Eden moved closer, putting a hand on his arm. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think,’ said Cal, ‘that we don’t have a choice.’

Eden squeezed his arm and then walked across to the door.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Let’s do it.’

The clouds were beginning to break up, but the moon was still hidden. After the brightness of the lamp, Cal’s eyes took a while to adjust. But soon the shapes of the forest became clearer, trees looming out of the darkness on either side of the track.

‘Do you think your guy will come up with the others?’ asked Eden as they walked side by side, following the track around the bend.

‘I don’t know. Maybe. Depends how bad you messed him up with the shotgun.’

‘Not so bad he couldn’t punch through the window and try taking my throat out.’

Cal stopped and listened to the wind in the trees. ‘Eden, what are we doing?’

‘I don’t know. You want to go back?’

‘More than anything. But like Jefferson said, maybe if we do it his way we get to choose how it ends.’

They had only walked a few more paces when Eden stopped and nudged him.

Something was moving up ahead.

Cal saw the shadows change, then return to stillness.

‘Did you see that?’ whispered Eden.

‘Yeah, I saw it.’

They stood motionless, two statues on a dirt track.

‘What shall we do?’

‘Keep walking. Just a little way.’

‘Cal, no. Please.’

Cal wanted to run. He guessed they were probably going to die. But because he knew Eden was afraid too, it somehow made him stronger.

‘Hold on to my arm, OK? Just hold on tight and don’t let go.’

‘I’m scared, Cal.’

‘Just a few more seconds, that’s all. When we know they’ve seen us, we’ll make a run for it.’

‘Promise you won’t leave me, Cal.’

‘I promise.’

Cal could see the shapes more clearly now, moving through the trees.

‘Call to them,’ he whispered.

‘What?’

‘Call to them. Let them know you’re here. Then we can get this whole mess over with once and for all.’

Eden took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

Then she opened them again, let go of Cal’s arm and cupped both hands around her mouth.

‘Hey!’ she shouted. ‘Hey! I’m over here!’

Beneath the whisper of the breeze Cal heard a low murmur as the figures gathered at the tree line, their ancient incantations echoing amongst the shadows.

Then they turned and swept up the road towards them.

‘Go!’ shouted Cal and they ran up the track with their shoes slapping against the hard ground, the rasp of their breath heavy on the night air.

As they rounded the bend, Cal saw the house ahead of them and began to think they might actually make it. He heard Eden cry out, gasping for oxygen as she pushed her body to the limit. Then with a snarl something thumped into his shoulder blades and he was rolling in the dust, grappling with hands that threatened to choke the life from his body.

‘Leave,’ hissed a voice. ‘She is ours now. There is nothing you can do to save her.’

Cal didn’t reply; instead he tipped his head back, brought the weight of his body forward and slammed his forehead into the darkness of the hood. There was a sound like a gunshot as the blow hit home and he smelled the sweet, sickening stench of decay. Then the figure fell back and he was on his feet again, grabbing Eden’s hand and running for the door.

As they stumbled into the living room, Jefferson slammed the door and drew the bolts across.

‘Are they coming?’ he asked as Cal fell onto the sofa, gasping for breath.

‘Oh they’re coming all right,’ said Cal. He looked down and saw that Eden was curled up in a ball beneath the table.

‘Listen,’ said Jefferson.

He turned down the lamp and Cal heard the whisper of voices approaching, coming closer and closer, until at last they seemed to seep through the windows and walls of the house.

‘She has to come out and face them,’ said Jefferson, nodding towards Eden.

‘And then what?’

‘And then they can do what they have come to do.’

‘Kill her, you mean?’

‘They have to reach that point, Cal. After that, we can change things. But if this is going to work, you have to do exactly as I say.’

Cal nodded, then got down on his knees and spoke as calmly as he could.

‘Eden. You have to come out and face this.’ He reached out and touched her hand. ‘It’s the only way.’

‘No,’ said Eden, pulling away. ‘I
can’t
.’

‘Eden, listen to me. If we do this, then it will be over.’

‘If
we
do this? You’re not the one who has to do anything, Cal. It’s me. I’m the one they want.’

Outside, the whispering grew wilder, more agitated.

‘I’m frightened, Cal. They’re going to kill me, aren’t they? They’re going to kill me and I don’t want to die.’

‘I promise you you’re not going to die,’ said Cal. ‘But you have to trust me, OK?’

And although for his own part Cal had never been able to trust anyone, he knew he would do everything in his power to keep his promise. Because in the end, even if it meant dying himself, he would at least have proved to himself that there was someone in this world he could believe in.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Take my hand.’

As Eden’s fingers closed over his own and he drew her out from beneath the table, Jefferson pushed the sofa back and took a crowbar from beside the stove. He bent down and levered up the floorboards, revealing a square wooden hatch beneath. He opened one of the hatch doors and suddenly the room was filled with the smell of damp earth. Cal saw that there was now a deep sloping hole where the floorboards used to be.

‘Tell me again,’ said Jefferson as the whispering grew louder, ‘how your dream ends.’

‘Like this,’ said Eden, and Cal could tell she was close to breaking, her nerves shredded by the thought of what was to come. ‘I see the shadows, and I hide beneath the window, and then they come for me.’

‘Then that is where you must go now,’ said Jefferson quietly as dark shapes flitted past the window. ‘Kneel by the glass and wait. When they come through, you must both run to the passageway and keep on running until you reach the end of it. When you can go no further, push upwards and you will find yourselves at the edge of the wood. Do you have the keys to the van?’

Eden nodded.

‘They’re still in there.’

‘Good. There’s a can of fuel in the back if you need it. But you must drive away as fast as you can. Don’t stop for anything, and don’t look back.’

‘But what about you?’ asked Cal.

‘I can make my own escape.’ Jefferson put a hand on Eden’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Everything will be fine.’

Cal saw Eden swallow, watched the way her hands shook and he thought for a moment that she wasn’t going to do it. But then she stood up, walked to the window and knelt down with her hands pressed together and her head bowed as if in prayer.

The whispering grew louder until it filled the whole room, hidden voices seeming to taunt and mock them from every corner. Then the voices stopped abruptly, as if someone had pulled the plug from a radio.

In the silence that followed, Eden lowered her hands and raised her head until her face was level with the window.

She stared into the blackness, waiting.

For a moment it seemed as if nothing would happen.

Then, without warning, two eyes appeared on the other side of the glass, glowing like hot coals, and as Eden screamed there was a sudden roar and every window in the house shattered into a thousand pieces.

They came like a flood, pouring through the windows as the whispers turned to the snarls of predators that have found their prey.

Jefferson took the first one out with a single shot, the flash from the gun’s muzzle lighting up the room as the bullet found its target, sending the dark figure crashing to the floor. The second one was right behind it and although Jefferson loosed off another shot it still managed to seize Eden by the hair, dragging her screaming to the centre of the room. Cal grabbed the crowbar and swung it at the crouching figure, knocking it sideways into the wall.

From all around he could hear the muffled thump of more creatures arriving. He watched Jefferson throw the empty gun at one of them and it scuttled up the wall before hanging grotesquely from the ceiling, clinging to the boards with bony fingers as it surveyed the scene below.

‘Run!’ shouted Jefferson, pulling Eden up from the floor. But as Eden stumbled towards Cal, the creature released its grip on the ceiling and descended upon Jefferson with an unearthly howl.

As another one came at Eden from the kitchen, she grabbed the hurricane lamp and swung it round in a wide arc, hitting the creature squarely in the face with a loud
crump
.

Cal stepped over it as it fell, raising the crowbar and bringing it down hard upon the head of Jefferson’s attacker. As the figure screeched and turned to face him, he looked towards the bedrooms and saw both door handles turning simultaneously.

‘Go!’ shouted Jefferson as more figures appeared at the windows.

Eden stared at them, unable to move.

‘There are too many of them,’ she said helplessly. ‘It’s too late.’

But Cal didn’t want to believe that. And so as the bedroom doors flew open he leapt at her, pushing her across the room and throwing her down through the hole in the floor. The momentum carried him after her and together they tumbled down the roughly dug slope to the tunnel below.

As the howls reached a crescendo above him, Cal scrambled back up the slope saw that the whole room was bathed in a strange yellow light. Jefferson’s face was covered in blood and as he ran towards the hatch, Cal slid backwards to let him in. But instead of jumping down into the hole, Jefferson put his hand on Cal’s head, pushed him back and slammed one of the hatch doors shut.

‘Put the bolt across!’ he shouted. ‘You have to go now!’

But Cal didn’t want to leave him and as Jefferson tried to close the other half of the hatch, Cal put his hands up to stop him.

‘No!’ Jefferson screamed. ‘You’ve got less than two minutes!’ Then because Cal still wasn’t moving Jefferson punched him hard in the face, knocking him back into the hole. Wiping blood from his mouth, Cal struggled up again to see two figures dragging Jefferson away from the hatch. Outside, a lone figure watched from the shadows.

‘Please,’ Jefferson screamed. ‘Go!’

In the distance, Cal heard a low rumble and then the rumble became a roar as the slime-covered creature from Eden’s nightmares burst through the floorboards, coiling around Jefferson’s legs and dragging him down.

‘Tansy!’ Jefferson screamed, hysterical now. ‘Tansy, where are you?’

As more figures swirled around Jefferson’s struggling form, Cal slammed the hatch shut and drew the bolt across. And as Cal followed Eden down the tunnel he could hear the sound of bolts loosening and the voices whispering,
We are coming, we are coming . . .

‘This is it,’ breathed Eden, stopping suddenly. ‘This is the end of the tunnel. We can’t go any further.’

‘We have to,’ said Cal.

The earth sloped up into a solid wall, but as Cal ran his hands across its surface he discovered a step, dug roughly into the soil. The space was narrower here and as he climbed onto the step he had to bend over until his back and shoulders were touching the roof of the tunnel. As he pressed against it he felt it give slightly and, using the strength in his legs, he pushed up as hard as he could. After a moment’s resistance, the earth gave way and then he was scrambling out into the forest and above him was the night sky, and the moon, and the stars.

Back at the house, Jefferson knew that he was dying. The darkness he had tried to escape from for so long had found him at last, just as he had always suspected it would. But as consciousness began to slip away from him he knew that – perhaps for the first time in his life – he had done a good thing. A last, unselfish act that would mean the girl and the boy would be free.

He stopped struggling then and imagined the two of them going out into the world, living their lives, moment after precious moment.

And as the timer beneath the floorboards ticked away the final few seconds, he closed his eyes and smiled.

‘Tansy,’ he said. ‘I’m coming.’

It happened as they reached the van.

There was a deep thump followed by a bright flash and an orange fireball rolled up into the night sky. Seconds later the pressure wave knocked them both off their feet, rattling the windows of the van and rushing through the trees with a roar like a jet engine.

‘My God,’ said Eden picking herself up from the floor. ‘What was
that
?’

It was then that Cal remembered the network of wires he had seen disappearing into the roof void, under the floor and behind the walls of the cabin. And he remembered the words Jefferson had spoken earlier that evening:

I made provisions.
Anyone comes around who I don’t want to be here, I got ways of dealing with them.

‘He never intended to leave,’ said Cal. ‘He knew all along he’d have to stay.’

For a while they watched the flames consuming the place where the house had once stood, timbers turning to ash in the fierce, unforgiving heat.

In the morning nothing would remain but the smoke and the dust, and the memories that would try to convince them, years later, that the things they had seen had been real.