Silas: A Supernatural Thriller (15 page)

After more than two hours of tense driving we entered
Vermont
. Traffic decreased to a slight trickle, and eventually we were the only two automobiles on the road. The van accelerated, tearing across the dividing line to the right, picking up speed, and careening down the exit ramp for Route 9. I panicked, amazed at how fast the large, clunking beast of a van could move. I pushed my own pedal to the floor and jacked the wheel. As my target disappeared around the next bend, his flashing taillights in the darkening evening were the only sign that he was heading west.

I’d lost him.

I slowly drove through
Vermont
towns I’d never been to. If only he’d decided to pull this stunt closer to home, I might’ve been able to at least guess where he was headed. Here, in an unfamiliar, mountainous land filled with dense evergreens and winding roads, I was screwed.

After another half-hour of fruitless wandering the road took a steep upward turn. There were no houses to be seen, only guardrails and trees. Darkness painted the surroundings in an eerie shade of blue-gray. The forest resembled a platoon of monstrous, unmoving sentinels waiting to flay me with their barbed appendages. I let out a disgusted grunt, realizing that I was running out of time. I was also getting tired. As if to answer me, Silas stirred in the back seat, circling twice before he lay down and sighed.

“You’re right, boy,” I said. “Enough of this.”

A small shack of a gas station finally appeared to my right. The sign posted on the edge of the gravel parking area read,
Mount Snow/Haystack Ski Resort Next Right
, accompanied by a smaller sign that said,
Ski Areas Closed for Summer.
I pulled into the lot and parked in front of the lone pumping station. The shack’s windows were blacked-out, like a bank of dead eyes. The place looked abandoned.
It’s probably only open during skiing season
, I reasoned. Not that it mattered. I still had a quarter tank of gas, and all I needed at that point was a telephone. I’d call the cops and then Wendy, to let her know what’s up. The authorities could take it from there. I’d played vigilante too much already.

I scanned the area and spotted a pay phone on the side of the building, but there was no receiver in the cradle. Its chord hung like a decapitated snake. I groaned.

“So much for my luck.”

I got back behind the wheel and checked the clock. 8:37. It would be completely dark soon. I didn’t like the idea of driving through a series of twisting, streetlight-less mountain roads with nothing but the moon and my high beams to lead the way. Silas poked his head between the seats and stared at me. “Guess I better get going, huh?” I said. He panted and licked my forearm.

We left the station. I decided my best course of action would be to stop in the center of the previous town –
Wilmington
, if I remembered correctly – and use a phone there. Maybe I could even stop by the local police station and give them the scoop. Hopefully they wouldn’t think me a complete loon. But more than anything I wanted to find out how Joe and Jacqueline were holding up. Even though they were without a doubt scared, I told myself they would be fine otherwise. With that I smiled. The notion that this long, grinding day could have a somewhat satisfying ending offered me a sensation I hadn’t felt in a while – contentment.

Not even five minutes down the road, however, all those relieved feelings were stripped from me.

Silas leapt from his resting spot in the rear and barked. The noise startled me so much that I swerved to the side and almost ran the Subaru down a steep embankment. I slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop inches from the guardrail. My heart kicked up its pace again and I peered behind me. Silas had positioned himself on the passenger side, staring off into the woods, his canines exposed.

I backed up slowly and looked to my right. A small, cleared path appeared, like an old dirt road that had been recaptured by the wilderness. I stopped at the aperture of the newly discovered thoroughfare, debating whether I should explore it or not. Everything in me pleaded to stick with the plan, to head into town and alert the authorities.

Curiosity and a need for closure won out over reason.

I entered the passageway. Branches slapped at the sides of the Subaru. The dirt road climbed sharply for about fifty feet and then flattened out.

Sitting cockeyed on the side of the road, at the base of a grassy hillock, was the
Staffordville
HVAC van. I swallowed my shock at the sight of it, parked, and stepped out of the car. Silas followed, cautiously maneuvering with his nose to the ground. The dark sky above us still held traces of crimson from the setting sun. I stood still, trying to decide whether or not I should check out the van. The tinted windows were just as ominous in their blackness as those back at the service station. A wolf howled in the distance and something large snapped branches in the wooded area at the crest of the rise. Fear washed though me. If Nick Goodman, as strong as he was, wanted to take me down, what could I do to stop him? He’d already proven my better. Suddenly I felt like coming here hadn’t been the brightest idea in the world.

Silas yelped. It was a high-pitched, surprised whimper. He pranced away from me, nipping at his own neck. “Silas!” I whisper-screamed. I felt close to passing out from panic. “Silas, what’s wrong?”

My precious black lab collapsed in a heap by the side of the road, his body thrown into spasms. I wanted more than anything to run up to him, but fear held me back. “Anybody there?” I yelled at the surrounding woods, which grew blacker and more threatening by the second. “C’mon, show yourself!”

No one did. Thankfully.

With my feet moving much too slowly I wandered over to Silas. His gyrations ceased and, other than the gradual rise and fall of his chest, he lay pretty much motionless. I knelt down and placed a hand on his neck. His eyes were closed. “Oh shit, boy,” I muttered, running my hand down his side. My fingers struck something on their way across his smooth fur, something small, cylindrical, and metallic, wedged between his neck and torso.

I plucked out the object and held it close to my face. Even in the sparse light I could see it was a dart, complete with tiny, feather-like veins. Tiny beads of clear liquid dribbled from the tip.

The next instant I heard the soft hum of a small projectile, followed by the sensation of a bee sting just below my right ear. I dropped the dart that had struck Silas and instinctively swatted at the painful intruder, knowing I’d find its exact replica embedded in my own flesh. Sure enough, I was right. My mind started to falter. I stood up and almost fell over. A lack of sensation spread down my neck and into my chest. It was hard to breathe.

I eyed my car and lurched toward it, my vacillating logic saying that if I could only get inside and lock the doors I’d be safe. Despite the fact it was only ten feet away, I didn’t make it. My legs gave out on me after only three steps. I collapsed, falling to the gravel road. Tiny stones cut into my arms, legs, and face. The ever-darkening world grew even hazier. A loud humming reverberated inside my skull, like someone had stuck my head in a vacuum.

“Well, I guess that’s that,” I heard someone say.

I turned to the sound as best I could. From behind a mound on the side of the road opposite the grassy hill walked Nick Goodman. He sauntered across the expanse, whistling while his large body swayed. He twirled a pistol on his index finger.

Nick grabbed Silas by the nape of his neck and dragged him over to me. Then he took me by the back of my shirt with his free hand and began to tow me along as well, whistling a sickeningly happy song the whole time. He hauled Silas and me up the steep hill. We stopped near the top, where the grass ended and a cluster of evergreens began, and he tossed me aside. I landed face-down in a pile of wet leaves. Cut off from air and powerless to move my own body, I started hacking. I heard a gasp of panic from Nick, and he tilted my head to the side, letting me breath again. He then placed Silas’s unmoving body beside mine.

“Okay then,” said the murderer. He checked his watch. Surprisingly, his tone sounded contemplative, not threatening. “It’s almost the hour. You got here right on time.”

One of his mammoth hands reached into his pocket and pulled out a small disk of some sort. I couldn’t really see it in the darkness, but it seemed to be illuminated somehow. He then wrapped his meaty fingers around it, completely swallowing its light. His eyes met mine and he smiled.

“I’m not usually wrong about people,” he said, “so I guess I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here. It’s all in the aura, you know.” He lifted his hand to the sky and twirled it in a circular motion. The fist holding the disk glowed with brilliant yellow light. The air around me grew thick. I wasn’t sure if what I saw was actually happening or a hallucination brought about by the drugs pumping through my veins. A part of me didn’t care, because to my gradually devolving mind the lights looked pretty.

“This is the best part,” said Nick. “It’s a wild ride. Pretty soon we’ll be home. And then we’ll see what you’re
really
made of.

Drowsiness overtook me. I heard Silas whimper. I lost all sense of gravity and closed my eyes, welcoming the sensation, just like the lights.
Feel. Pretty. Nice.

Darkness consumed me. Nothing had ever felt so relieving.

21

Ken pauses, glancing at the arms of the clock in his hospital room. It reads
11:32
. He licks his lips, feeling how dry and cracked they are. JT looks at him and nods. The young man knowingly gets up, grabs a plastic cup from the cabinet above the sink, and fills it with water. He then hands it to Ken, who slurps down more than a mouthful. His insides cool, the tightness in his throat eases. When things seem to be back to normal, he rests the cup on the table beside his bed and leans back.

“Did all of that really happen?” asks JT, sitting down on the bed again.

Ken lifts the flap off the box in his lap and takes out a file of newspaper clippings. He hands the file to JT. “Inside that folder are all the articles written about my excursion to the Mancuso farm,” he says. “I guess you could say I was a bit of a celebrity at the time…though not the type of celebrity I ever would’ve wished upon myself.”

“I’d say,” whispers JT as he flips from one clipping to the next. His eyes are wide and brimming with tears. “I can’t believe you went through all this. It’s amazing.”

“I know.”

JT closes the file and hands it back to Ken. “But why didn’t you ever tell anyone? After the fact, I mean? Shoot, it would’ve made a
great
story.”

Ken does not answer right away. His fingers strum atop the box. He has found it strange up until this point how easy it has been to tell his tale – not so much the
remembering
of it, but the effortlessness with which his voice has emerged from his throat. He feels young again, almost the age he’d been at the time of his tale. Though it is a wonderful sensation, it also frightens him. Now that he has felt vitality, he fears its inevitable retreat.

But that is not all that Ken Lowery fears. He is a proud man, after all, who has always feared rejection, and he knows what comes next will not be easy for the young man to understand.

“I have not told anyone,” he says, “because I haven’t even told
you
yet. What I’ve just told you is only the beginning. The rest of the tale is…let’s just say, much harder to believe.”

“Why?”

Ken points to the box. “I’ve shown you the clippings. That is proof – real world
proof
that something amazing happened to me. However, what comes next I can offer no evidence of,” he taps his forehead, “save the brain in my head and the heart that beats in my chest.”

JT nods. “I understand. I believe you.”

Ken sighs and runs a hand over his bald pate. “You say this, but I’m not so sure. It’s getting late, anyway. Maybe I should go to sleep.”

“Please, Mr. Lowery, believe in me as much as I believe in you,” JT pleads. “You can’t just end there.”