“Me too,” Grant said. He stood, pulled on his clothes, wincing against aches and stabs of pain. “But it's all we have. Maybe I need to find out more about it.”
“Was that thing…” Amos swallowed, shook his head, tried again. “Was that thing pointing the way somewhere?”
“I think it's guiding me to Cassie. Whenever I think hard enough about her, it… points, like that. Part of me just wants to go now, follow it and save her. But we have no idea what we might be walking into.”
“We, boy?” Amos's eyes were wide.
“Please, Amos. I'm alone in all this. I need some help. I don't know anyone else.”
“I'm an old man, what can I do?”
“I don't know.” Grant slipped his shoes on, rose with difficulty, and stumbled toward the door. “Maybe you can help me learn some stuff. Stuff that can help us?”
“That conjunction happens tomorrow night,” Amos said, offering him a helping hand as he guided Grant out into a single room with a small kitchen and dining area to one side and a living area on the other. “Hell, it's nearly tomorrow already. You've probably only got the day time to figure out what you're going to do. Maybe you need to consider that there ain't nothing you can do.”
“I refuse to accept that! I at least have to try.”
“I'm sorry, son. I don't know what else to tell you. There's maybe one person anywhere near here that knows more about this stuff than me, but she's…”
Headlights cut across the front window, setting the tattered curtains aglow. Grant stood, but Amos made a calming motion.
“It's just my son,” Amos said. “Back from town. He went to get some more bandages and such from the store while I kept an eye on you.”
A rill of fear tickled along Grant's spine. “We're not in town?”
“No, we're on the edge of the woods, a couple of miles from town. After spending all day working in the diner, I like me some peace and quiet.” Amos went to the door and pulled it open.
A young man stood there, tall and lanky with light brown skin and amber eyes, a rifle cradled in his arms. “Sorry about this, Pops, but we want Shipman.”
“What are you talking about, Elijah? Who is we?” He glanced over his son's shoulder and whoever or whatever he saw there made him gasp, his eyes wide.
“Come on out!” another voice yelled. The unmistakable burr of Jesse Stallard. “We got unfinished business with Shipman. Give him over and we'll leave you alone, Amos.”
Through the front door, Grant saw several silhouettes out front, stark against the headlights of a truck.
Elijah gave his father a shove and Amos staggered backward, colliding with a small dining table. He turned to Grant, and pointed at the back door. “Run!” he gasped.
Grant took a step toward the door and froze as Elijah leveled his rifle at him. His son distracted, Amos grabbed a wooden chair and swung it with surprising strength.
The upswing caught Elijah's forearm, knocking the rifle barrel upward as he pulled the trigger. The shot went off with an ear-shattering report, and the ceiling light exploded in a shower of sparks, plunging the small house into darkness.
With a grunt of fear and frustration, Grant turned and groped for the door handle. He cried out as a hand grabbed his upper arm and dragged him to one side. “It's me,” Amos hissed.
The headlights of the truck outside arced through the door, casting long, confusing shadows. People pushed and shoved to get into the house. “Fuckin' shoot 'em both!” someone yelled.
Rather than coming after them, Elijah turned and stumbled toward the door, cradling one arm in the other. “Not my Pops!” he shouted.
Two gunshots rang out and wood chips exploded from the wall by Grant's face. He jumped aside, half-pulled by Amos, and cracked into the door Amos pulled open. They tumbled through with the sounds of scuffling behind them. Three more shots barked out in the darkness accompanied by fiery flashes. Amos yelped, but pushed on, slammed the door behind them. “There!” He pointed across the small yard to a Yamaha trail bike parked up near the tree-line. “Key's in it. You can ride, right?”
Crashing noises came from the house as they ran across the scrub and dirt, ducking into shadows.
“You have to come with me,” Grant said. “They'll hurt you if you stay.”
“My own goddamn son.” Amos's voice dripped pain.
“I know, but it was me he was giving up, not you. He tried to protect you.” Grant jumped onto the bike and turned the key. His thumb found the starter and it roared into life.
“I didn't raise him to fall in with fools like that!” Amos said.
The back door burst open and gun barrels swung towards them.
“Get on!” Grant screamed and the old man swung a leg over the pillion seat. As soon as his weight hit the bike, Grant opened it up and fishtailed across the dirt, wincing at the sound of rifle shots. He headed for the trees, Amos hanging on valiantly, one arm tight around Grant's waist.
The bike slipped and skidded, tires spinning for grip on the loose earth. With sheer force of will and more than a little luck, Grant managed to control it and speed into the woods. He was thankful for the half a dozen sessions of mini-motocross he’d insisted on as a kid. He flicked on the headlight and tipped left and right as guns fired and bullets bit chunks out of the tree trunks by their heads. Hoping he could out-run and out-maneuver their shooting, he powered through the forest, up the mountain.
Chapter 17
The gunshots stopped as they barrelled up the steep incline behind Amos's house. There was no way the Stallard's truck could follow them through the dense woods, but Grant had no idea where they were or where to go. “You okay?” he shouted over his shoulder, slowing to a safer pace to navigate the trees.
“Those bastards got my son.” Amos said weakly, barely audible over the bike's engine.
“I know, I'm sorry. But if we stop them, you'll get your son back.” Grant felt terrible laying his own agenda over the old man's grief, but it was the truth.
“I should kill every last one of those Stallards and Brunswicks,” Amos said. “Those families are the heart of all this. Always have been.”
“So we need a plan. Where to?”
“Just keep heading up. Soon enough you'll hit a fire trail. When you do, turn left.”
Grant followed the simple instructions. Sure enough, a scrubby track soon appeared across their path and he turned onto it, grateful for a reprieve from tree dodging. They rode more sedately as the trail wound slowly up the mountain at a shallower gradient. Amos lay heavy against Grant, his one-armed grip weakening. “You okay?” Grant called back to him.
“Soon enough there's a fork in the trail,” Amos said. There was a disturbing slur in his voice. “Take the right fork and head on up till you find a cabin. Ma Withers lives there.”
“Ma Withers?”
Amos nodded weakly against Grant's back. “She's a witch. And she's older'n the hills themselves. But if anyone knows more than me about this stuff, it's her. Mind you, she's plum crazy too.”
“Will she help us?”
The old man didn't answer.
Grant tried to see back, but couldn't turn and safely control the bike. Gritting his teeth, anger a red heat in his gut, he powered on up the trail. Hang on, Amos, he thought. Please hang on.
The fork appeared after less than a mile and Grant turned up the mountain. The trail got thinner and rougher and the trees denser. How could anyone live all the way out here? He slowed enough that the bouncing suspension didn't dislodge the old man from behind him and prayed the cabin wasn't far. He was rewarded a few minutes later as the trail opened into a natural clearing and a moss-covered, broken-down building stood bathed in moonlight. It looked like little more than a garden shed, but there was candlelight flickering inside and a figure stood on the small front porch. As Grant pulled the bike up, the headlight illuminated the oldest person he had ever seen. Shrunken with age, bent over, stick-thin, bald and toothless, the woman looked barely human. Her skin was a deep mahogany, striped with more wrinkles than Grant would have imagined possible, hanging off her spindly bones like parchment.