The screams, when they started, sent ice stabbing through my heart, and I was off again before I truly registered what they meant. That was Marty out there, screaming, and over that, the big mastiff’s bellow rang out. Duke had him, and I thanked whatever deity might be listening.
I dodged trees more by sense than sight, hurtled deadfalls without thought for what might be waiting on the other side. I know I ran a hundred yards over rough terrain before I was forced to stop again. Forced, because the screams had stopped, and silence reigned again.
Dammit, Marty, don’t do this… I couldn’t go back. Even if I knew where the hell the cabin was and how to turn my ass around to get there, I couldn’t go back without him. I couldn’t leave him out here if there was any chance at all.
“Marty, answer me!” That was Cole, tracking somewhere off to my left. “Jesse!” Through the trees, I could see a white circle of light bobbing as Cole searched with his flashlight. He’d gone back for it, genius that he was.
Marty wasn’t answering us for whatever reason, but Duke… maybe Duke would. “Duke! Here, boy! Duke, come!”
Immediately, there was a whine to my right. Cole heard it too, because the flashlight came bobbing in my direction. Ten yards through the trees, and we found them.
Marty was sprawled on the ground, Duke planted firmly on his legs, and for a gut-churning moment, I thought they’d gotten to him. Then he moved, shoving vainly at his dog with one hand. “Gah, get off, you big dork.”
I’d never admit it to the guys, but I actually felt a bit weak in the knees for a second. Relief, I guess. “Good boy, Duke.” The mastiff grumbled and finally got up.
Cole arrived with his flashlight, playing the beam across our friend’s face. My blacksmith looked pale and sweaty under his beard. “You all right, Marty?”
“Yeah, just messed up my ankle. Tripped over a goddamn tree branch in the dark, trying to get away from this big doofus.” He roughed Duke’s short fur to show he wasn’t angry with the dog. “Thought he was a bear.” Only then did Marty glance around with a frown. “How the hell did I get out here?”
“Still working on that.” They were out there. I knew they were. Why hadn’t they pounced on Marty the second he crossed that barrier? The way they’d gone after Zane, the way they’d massed to my presence earlier, I figured fresh meat would be too much to resist. But there wasn’t a peep, not a rustle. Nothing to betray their location. “Where are you?” I muttered.
“Come on, we’ll get you to Will. He can patch you up.” Cole reached for him when the voices came again.
“Mom, have you seen my sneakers?” It was right behind me, and I whirled, sword at the ready. Nothing. Not even a twitch of movement. Cole’s light shone over the brush without revealing anything.
Duke growled softly. “Cole, grab him before he runs off. Get Marty on his feet.” There was motion behind me as they followed my orders. I kept my attention on the trees around us, waiting for whatever came next.
“Hey, take the trash out when you go!”
My head snapped around hard enough that I saw spots for a second. The voice, a woman’s, came from my left, only a few yards away. And for a heartbeat, one second of eternity, it sounded like Mira.
It wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t. After a moment to think about it, I could hear the differences, the slight change in tone and pitch that said it was some other woman, some nameless, faceless voice in the night. But there for a second… for a second, my world was over, and I realized belatedly that I’d shifted my weight, ready to run into the trees like a madman. Not good.
Cole’s voice was uneasy when he spoke. “We have to get out of here before they get us surrounded.”
“Pretty sure we’re already too late for that, little brother. Marty, you ready to make a run for it?”
“Yeah. I’m good.”
Mockingly, the random phrases echoed around us. “And it’s fourth and goal!”
“So I said she could just stuff it, if that’s how she was gonna be.”
“Daaaaadeeeeeee! I’m scared!”
Cole cursed softly under his breath. “Christ… that’s a child.” Even Marty winced, and I don’t think it was his ankle. It was the father in all of us, that place that responded to a frightened child even if it wasn’t ours.
“No. No, it’s not. It’s them, somehow.” Somehow, those things that weren’t supposed to have voices were having quite a nice chat out there. I couldn’t even count them all and if I listened too hard, my head started swimming again, my senses drifting. “Marty, take Duke. Cole, take Marty. Let’s get this circus on the road.” I wanted my hands free, my sword free.
“You wanna take point?”
I snorted. “Are you kidding? I have no freakin’ clue where we are. It’s all you, little brother.” I couldn’t be sure in the darkness, but I think Cole rolled his eyes at me.
Making our way back to the cabin was easier said than done, even with Cole’s uncanny directional sense to guide us. Marty was limping worse than I’d realized, and face it, the guy was short but he sure wasn’t light. It was a struggle for him to hold on to Duke and lean heavily on my brother at the same time. Cole kept his flashlight trained ahead of us, and I brought up the rear, watching for the ambush I just knew had to come.
Why haven’t they attacked yet? The eerie, nonsensical calls came from all around us, and every one of them tugged at some place just in front of my spine, a place in my gut that churned with nausea. The worst ones were the children’s voices, and one of them kept wailing out “I’m a little teapot” over and over and over again. It might have been funny, in another time, another place, but here in the near pitch darkness, there was a wheedle to it that was simply horrifying. It was a tiny urge, a subtle entreaty to go galloping off into the wilderness, just like Marty had. I bit my lip as hard as I could without drawing blood and kept moving.
Now, I was no navigational expert, but it seemed to me that we were drifting conspicuously uphill in our path, and I didn’t recall coming that way on my blind rush into the trees. The more I thought about it, the less certain I was that Cole was leading us in the right direction. Before I could comment on it, I nearly stumbled into the trio when they stopped abruptly. “What’s up, guys?”
Since I’d been walking pretty much backward, I dared a glance back to see Cole shaking his head, trying to clear it. “It’s like they’re in there, in my head. I’m getting a little muzzy.”
“How muzzy, little brother?” Face it, I was never a Boy Scout. If Cole couldn’t find our way back, we were well and truly humped.
He hesitated a moment, then said, “I think we’re good.”
About ten yards and an eternity later as we worked our way around deadfalls and thorny vines, Cole brought them to a stop again. “No, no, we’re not good. Shit, I have no idea which way we’re headed. My head’s reeling.”
Oh hell no. I was not gonna die out here, probably within yelling distance of safety. More importantly, I wasn’t going to let either of those two idiots die either. I couldn’t.
I moved to grab a handful of Cole’s short hair and yanked his head up to make him look me in the eyes. The flashlight beam cast his face in dark shadows, hollowing out his eyes and cheeks into a skeletal mockery of his actual face. My face, too, we looked that much alike.
Up close like that, he reeked of fear sweat, that particularly pungent aroma brought on by massive doses of adrenaline. We all did. Except maybe Duke. He just smelled like dog. “Listen, little brother. You are gonna get your shit together, and you’re gonna get us out of here. And you’re gonna do it with a smile on your face and a spring in your step, you got me?” It took him a moment, but he finally swallowed and nodded. “That’s my boy.” I butted our foreheads together lightly, just enough to give us both a good thump.
Only then did I realize the voices had fallen silent, and I had approximately two seconds to wonder why. That was the moment they chose to spring, of course, with all of us sufficiently distracted. And they took out the most dangerous of us first.