Jose’s voice turned deeper as he continued shouting, his voice became more guttural, more demonic. “Kill the boy, or it’s going to be bad. So bad. Worse than you can possibly imagine!”
There was a rush of wind from outside and the door shook and rattled in its frame.
And then everything was deathly quiet.
Cole looked down at David who still held his hand and stared up at him with his dark eyes.
Cole knelt down and got on the same eye level as David. “Don’t worry, David. We’re not going to hurt you. We’re not going to give you to that thing outside. We’ll find a way out of here. I promise.”
David stared at Cole for a moment, then he jumped at Cole and hugged him, squeezing him tightly, his eyes shut, a few tears slipping out of his eyes.
Cole was a little shocked by David’s sudden hug. He glanced over at Stella who watched them. She wiped away a stray tear from her eye.
David let Cole go and he ran back to the couch.
Cole got back up to his feet and he looked at Stella. “We have to try and run,” he told her.
Stella just stared at him.
“But we can’t run at night,” Cole went on. “We need to get through this night and leave in the morning.” Cole pulled Jose’s gun out of the waistband of his pants from under the back of his shirt. He held it by the barrel and walked over to Stella. He handed it to her.
Stella took Jose’s gun.
“Do you know how to use one of these?” Cole asked her.
Stella looked down at the gun in her hand, and then in a blur of motion, she expertly checked the clip for bullets, then popped the clip back in. She racked a bullet into the chamber, and then checked to make sure the safety was on.
Cole stared at her in amazement.
Stella gave Cole a small smile. “I taught myself how to use guns a few years ago. A girl by herself at remote dig sites can be a little unnerving.”
Cole smiled. “You’re full of surprises.”
He looked at the front door. “Since we’re going to be stuck here for the night, I think it’s a good idea to barricade the front door and windows.”
CHAPTER FORTY
The night was eerily quiet and calm. There was no winter wind whistling in the eaves around the cabin. There were no sounds of Frank or Jose calling out to them from out in the snow. No sounds of footsteps on the front porch. Everything was just … quiet.
Earlier in the night Cole barricaded the front windows and doors as best as he could. He managed to tear apart the dining room table and chairs so he could use the wood for the barricades. He used the hammer and various nails he’d found earlier in the cabinet underneath the sink. He used slats from underneath the beds and nailed the pieces of wood over the back door and the windows that looked out onto the front porch. They shoved Needles’ recliner against the front door; it wasn’t much of a barricade, but they didn’t want to use the couch as a barricade because none of them wanted to sit in the chair that Needles had occupied for so much of the time he was in the cabin. They upended the dining room table and shoved it against the entrance to the hallway. It closed off the bathroom to them, but they would just have to make do.
None of them wanted to go into the bathroom anyway after what happened to Trevor.
It was late, nearly two o’clock in the morning. David fell asleep on the couch. Cole and Stella sat on the floor in front of the couch, like they were guarding David.
Stella had Jose’s gun beside her on the floor. She stifled a yawn, trying to stay awake.
Cole looked at her. “I just wanted you to know that this was supposed to be my last bank job.”
Stella stared at him for a moment. “You guys seemed like an experienced group.”
“I used to be a part of Frank’s crew. Then I quit. But then Trevor got involved with them. He ended up owing Frank some money – a lot of money – and I needed to help them with one last job to help Trevor pay him back.”
Stella nodded.
“I don’t expect you to believe me; I just wanted to tell you that this was going to be my last time.” Cole thought for a moment. “I was really trying to change. I just wished I would’ve changed a little sooner. Before I got Trevor involved …”
“I’m sorry,” Stella said in a soft voice. “I’m an only child. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to lose a brother.”
They were both quiet for a long moment in the murky cabin. They had turned all the lights off except for the light over the stove.
“How did you get away from that dig site in New Mexico?” Cole asked Stella.
Stella looked at Cole, trying to determine if there was any accusation in his eyes or in the tone of his voice.
“You said your vehicles wouldn’t start,” Cole continued. “And then you said that the thing out there was taking your friends one by one.”
Stella sighed. “Even before I realized that the thing out there wanted David, I began to suspect that there was something … something special about David.” Stella stole a quick glance at David – he was still sleeping peacefully. “When the thing asked the few of us who remained to kill David, I began to believe that it needed us to kill David because it couldn’t do it by itself.”
“So David is …” Cole thought for a moment, trying to find the right words. “He’s special. Like powerful. Like you think he has powers?”
“There were only a few of us left,” Stella said in a low voice, looking away from Cole. “And Jake, my friend, he hadn’t been taken yet. But Jake and the others wanted to kill David. They felt like it was their only way out. I tried to convince them that once we gave it what it wanted, it wouldn’t let us go. It would just kill all of us because it wouldn’t need us anymore. But I couldn’t convince them, they had their minds made up, they wanted to kill David. So I took him and I ran to my truck.”
“And you knew it would start?”
“Yeah, I had a feeling it would,” Stella answered him. “It was a big gamble, but it was the only choice I had left.” Stella didn’t mention to Cole that she had watched Jake slit his own throat rather than let that thing take him alive.
They were quiet for a moment.
Stella thought of the things David had drawn in his book. She needed to take another chance right now, she needed to trust Cole. “I want to show you something else,” she said. “I want to trust you. And I want you to trust me even though I know you don’t have any reason to since I’ve hidden so much until now …”
“You had to,” Cole said quickly. “I understand why you did it.” Cole thought of her trusting him, and then he thought of the secret he’d kept to himself all this time – the snowmobile in the garage. But who knew if it would even work. The snowmobile could be old or damaged. Or maybe that thing out there knew it was there. Maybe that thing could read minds and had learned of the snowmobile from Cole’s thoughts.
Cole pushed the thought of the snowmobile out of his mind as Stella turned and carefully pulled the spiral notebook out from under David. She opened the notebook and showed Cole what was inside.
He took the notebook and flipped through page after page of what looked like some kind of symbols. He wasn’t sure what he was looking at, but it seemed like some kind of ancient language.
He looked at her, not really understanding what he was looking at.
“It’s the Anasazi language,” she told him in an awed voice.
Cole shook his head a little. “David’s been writing in this language?” Cole shrugged his shoulders like it shouldn’t be a big deal. “Isn’t David Native American?”
“Yes. I’m pretty sure he’s Navajo; most likely full-blooded. But he’s never told me much about himself.”