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  “Alvin, you moron. Get him!” Danny snarled.

  Denton groped his way past the counter and the breakfast table. His hip knocked a chair aside, but stealth was no longer an option. Speed was the only thing that mattered now. He reached the door and started fumbling with the locks. There were two deadbolts and one on the handle. He turned them all and tried to yank the door open. It wouldn’t budge.

  In a panic, he ran his fingers over the locks. What had gone wrong? Was there one he missed? No, that wasn’t it. He had only twisted one deadbolt away from the frame. The other hadn’t been locked. He turned it back to its original position. The door opened. Icy air welcomed him through the widening gap. He inhaled gratefully.

  A hand grabbed him by the back of his head and slammed him against the door, shutting it closed again. He was let go, and he fell backwards onto the floor. Blood ran down his face, blinding him.

  Alvin got on top of him, one knee on his chest. He grabbed Denton by the jaw. The massive hand seemed to encompass the entire lower half of his face.

  “Now for some fun.” Alvin started to squeeze.

  Denton struggled to break free while agony ripped through his mind. Already closed to keep the blood from burning them, his eyes clenched tight. He could feel the shift in Alvin’s weight as he drew his arm back. He braced for the blow. Off in the distance there was a strange tinkling sound followed by a rattling. And then he heard it again, this time closer.

  Bells? Why would there be bells?

  The punch didn’t come. The pressure on his face eased.

  He opened his eyes and saw that Alvin was staring at something over his right shoulder. His arm was still cranked back, but it was beginning to droop. A look of bewilderment drained the violence from his face.

  The room was filling with smoke.

  Chapter 22

  Case Closed

  DENTON LOOKED UP into the dull winter sky. His bleary eyes barely perceived the varying layers of gray. The slate cloud cover was marred by the darker hues of an approaching storm. The sky itself was masked by streaks of dirt and dust on the window that had been shaped by rain since it was last washed.

  “There. All done,” the nurse said, withdrawing the needle and pressing cotton down on his arm.

  She held the syringe with the same hand she used to keep the cotton ball in place. Her free hand stuck tape over it with a practiced motion. The vial was filled with dark blood destined for a lab somewhere in the basement of the hospital.

  Denton’s attention lingered on it for a second, before shifting his focus to the foot of the bed.

  The painkillers were making him woozy. A fog hovered over his mind and a slight nausea circled around his belly. But on the plus side, they had numbed him to everything else, and he felt a hundred times better than he had earlier.

  In the cabin, the smoke billowed from an unseen source behind the kitchen counter, rapidly filling the room. It didn’t smell like fire but instead burned like acid. Alvin was gone—just suddenly gone. The back door burst open. Hands hooked under Denton’s armpits and dragged him out as boots thundered by his head. Voices shouted an incomprehensible confusion of orders and commands.

  “Down—Tango—Down—Charlie—Team—Perimeter—Down—All Clear—Asset secured—Roger that.”

  Denton was propped up against the building, where the eaves had prevented the snow from building up. He sank only an inch before settling on the frozen ground. He coughed the teargas out of his lungs. His eyes burned like coals and shed water in constant streams down his face. He fumbled his hand toward his back pants pocket.

  “Hang in there,” a deep, muffled voice said. “The EMTs will be here soon. The snow’s slowing them down.”

  He managed to get two fingers on his handkerchief and pull it out from underneath him. He wiped his eyes clear and rubbed the mucus from his nose. Through his squinted vision, he could see the cloth stained with glistening red. Tentatively, he felt his head. His fingertips came back coated in blood. The cut on his forehead was flowing freely. He pressed the hanky to it to try and staunch the bleeding.

  By being flat on his back when the raid began, he had avoided the full effect of the gas. After about ten minutes in the fresh morning air, he began to feel clear of it with only a lingering burning in his eyes and throat. There was also a thumping forming in his head. Although it was hard to be certain since he’d had a headache all night and the pain from where his head had come into contact with the door did a good job of camouflaging the new sensation.

  “Sir, can you hear me?” The officer leaned over into Denton’s face. He had removed his gas mask. It hung to the side from a strap at his neck and looked like a second head. The man’s voice had a much less rich tone than with it on. He was young, maybe only a year or two older than the boys who had held him captive.

  Denton opened his mouth to speak, but instead of a voice he found only muddy gravel. He nodded.

  A second man in a much less militaristic uniform knelt down in front of him. He pulled Denton’s hand away from his head and after a glance pressed it back to the wound.

  “Keep it there,” he said.

  “We’re going to put you on the stretcher now. Do you understand?” the officer asked.

  He nodded again.

  They maneuvered him in the snow, shifting him around until he was stretched out flat. He was handled like a mannequin, something devoid of free will and incapable of moving on its own. He was far too relieved to care about his loss of control or how they manipulated him. They could put their hands on him all they wanted. It was finally over.

  A firm grasp took his legs and another gripped his shoulders, and they quickly heaved him up and over to his left. Before they set him down, his head wobbled to the side like newborn’s and came to rest against a hard tactical vest. They let go of him and the young officer moved away.

  Denton stared at the pattern formed by the icicles above him as a blanket was put over his body and he was strapped onto the gurney. From straight on, they looked like a neat row of bubbles gurgling along the roofline.

  “Will you two be able to carry him on your own?” the officer said, stepping to Denton’s side as the paramedics hoisted him into the air.

  “Yeah, we got this,” a voice by his ear said. It was tinted with resentment that said, don’t tell me how to do my job.

  They started moving and Denton realized the young officer was staying behind. He called back to him, “If you find my glasses, I need them.”

  “Try not to talk, sir,” he said.

  It was rough going through the deep snow at the side of the cabin. The straps dug into him each time he was jostled to the left or the right. But, oddly, he found himself enjoying the ride. There was something comforting about having all decisions and actions removed from his concerns. His only job was to keep the handkerchief pressed to his cut and watch the world go by.

  Out front, another half dozen SWAT officers stood about. They had the Bexhill Guerrillas kneeling in the snow with their hands on the backs of their heads, assault rifles trained on them. The gas was still affecting them. Coughing and sputtering could be heard from the group. Occasionally, one of them would make a retching sound.

  There was something cruel about keeping them there at gunpoint. Surely there was no reason not to just load them into the back of police cars and take them off to jail. But here were the notorious mass murders. What other chance would these men get to revel in their victory, gloat over their trophies, or inflict a small dose of punishment?

  Denton felt bad for Eddie, but secretly relished seeing the other two there, especially Alvin, who wore only his boxer shorts. His bare legs were buried by the winter’s accumulation. He only wished he could see clearly enough to make out the expression on the big redhead’s face.

  Then they moved passed the commotion. The farther away from the cabin they got, the less peo
ple they encountered. Until the black forms of the trees were the only thing to look at while they trudged down the footpath to the access road.

  The sky was still gloomy pre-dawn, and the only sounds were from the men’s breathing and their boots crunching through the ice and snow. Every now and then, a shout from behind them would stir the stillness. A bird darted across his vision, from one branch to another. Then they turned the stretcher around and loaded him head first into the back of the ambulance.

  “You good?”

  “Yeah. Go check on McGravie’s ankle. I’ll be fine here.”

  Boots retreated away from the vehicle.

  “Alright, let’s see what we got.” The remaining EMT lifted the bloody hanky away from Denton’s head and placed his arm down against his chest. He held it there for a second, wordlessly telling Denton to keep it there.

  “Looks like you’ll need stitches, but you’ll live.”

  He cleaned and disinfected the cut, before carefully taping a gauze pad over it. Next, he tried to force open Denton’s right eyelid with two fingers. Denton thrashed his head back and forth, dislodging the hand.

  “Stay still. I need to check if you have a concussion,” the paramedic said in a loud authoritative voice.

  Denton gritted his teeth and tried not to move as an impossibly bright light was shone in one eye and then the other.

  “Looks like you’re good. Does anything hurt?”

  “My face.” He wasn’t lying but a more accurate answer would have been everything.

  “Right.” The word was spoken with humility. With all the cuts and bruises, he shouldn’t have needed to ask.

  Fingers probed Denton’s face. They applied a solid but gentle pressure to his nose and both cheek bones. Then they rotated his jaw in a slow circle.

  Denton exhaled a rasp of pain.

  “Okay, nothing seems to be broken, but they’ll get an x-ray at the ER to be sure. I’m going to clean you up a bit. This is going to sting. Just try and relax.”

  Paper ripped and liquid could be heard sloshing in a bottle. The sharp smell of raw alcohol filled his nose. He flinched the first time the pad touched the welt on the side of his face, but after that it soothed more than it hurt.

  “Try and rest. We have a couple of other people to look at and then we’ll be on our way.”

  Denton Reed closed his eyes and let his head sink into the stretcher’s thin pillow. The urge to start weeping threatened to overwhelm him. He couldn’t believe he was still alive. How was he going to explain any of this to Linda?

  “It’s mostly superficial,” a voice said. “Nothing life threatening.”

  A second voice responded but was too faint to make out.

  Denton longed to enter a world of forgetting. Why hadn’t the paramedic sedated him? All he wanted was to wake up weeks from now, when this whole mess was over and done with. Or better yet, wake up in his own bed and find out this was all a dream. Perhaps he could wake up early that Friday morning—that last peaceful morning—before Mr. 8 entered his life. He could slide over to the other side of the bed and snuggle up with Linda. Her body warm from sleep and the down duvet. He’d kiss her behind her ear, waking her.

  “Dent, you have a knack for finding trouble,” Bill’s voice boomed, echoing in the small confines of the ambulance and shaking him out of the haze he had been drifting into.

  Denton looked up to see his silhouetted figure climb on board. The EMT was nowhere to be seen.

  “One day, I’ll learn to stop going near Mt. Nazareth,” he said, trying to make his thin voice sound glib.

  Bill frowned and knitted his eye brows until they almost touched. He seemed to be having a hard time making sense of the statement. After a moment, his face relaxed and he gave a slow nod. “Oh right, that weird cow killer. I guess this place attracts the crazies.”

  Despite the small chuckle he gave, Denton got the sense Bill was only humoring him.

  “You look like shit.” Bill kept his tone light.

  “I wish I felt so good,” Denton said. “Thanks for getting me out.”

  “Yeah, well, the raid didn’t exactly go as planned.” Bill rubbed his eyes and giving his head a shake. “It was a bit of a goat-rope, really. When the scouts reported things deteriorating in there, the sergeant ordered them to go in ‘quick and dirty.’ Too dirty, if you ask me. Hell, who uses CS gas in a hostage situation? I would have preferred to handle the whole thing without those boys from State. But we’re not in Bexhill, so it was their show.”

  Denton nodded as though he understood what Bill was talking about, but his concentration had begun to wander after Bill had mentioned the goat. He searched for something to say, but his mind produced nothing.

  “So I got to ask, what possessed you to come up here?” Bill said, after they had been silent for a minute or two.

  “I heard about the lodge and had hunch they might have used it to hide the evidence.”

  “So you headed up alone?”

  “I was just checking it out. When I saw they were here I tried to call, but…” He twirled his finger in the air. “No signal up here. How did you find me?”

  “Thank Linda,” he said. “She banged on our door late last night in a fit.”

  A cold knife slipped into Denton’s heart.

  “Apparently, she wasn’t too happy when the 911 operator told her to wait and see if you came home in the morning. She was sure you’d been abducted. Lucky for you, that fancy car of yours has satellite tracking in it. We found it in ravine a few miles from here. One of the men pointed out that the Radcliff place wasn’t far. And knowing your…” Bill seemed to fade off trying to find the right words.

  “My habit of sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong,” Denton suggested, dryly.

  Bill laughed. It was a quiet laugh but genuine. “Well, we put two and two together.”

  “How did you get a SWAT team here so quickly?”

  “There was nothing quick about it. I’ve been trying to get them out here since 2:30. And they’ve been standing around waiting to go in for hours.”

  “In that case, what took you so long?”

  “I suppose we could have knocked on the door and asked them to surrender. But we were afraid they’d put a bullet in you,” Bill said, returning to his bedside banter.

  “You know, they did it.” It was as though Denton had forgotten and just remembered everything that had happened.

  “Yeah. We’ll have to wait until the evidence is collected, but I had a glance in there, and I’d bet we’ll have enough to put those fuckers away for good. I guess you could say it’s case closed. In the meantime, State PD will hold them for kidnapping and assault, thanks to you.” Bill chuckled again.

  “They thought it was aliens. Christ, Bill. Aliens!”

  “Huh?”

  “That Danny kid, he’s behind the whole thing. He read it in a book. A book with a devil. Somehow he convinced the other two. Although, Alvin didn’t need much convincing. I don’t think Eddie is…” What didn’t he think Eddie was? Guilty? No, he was definitely that. Did he not think he was as evil as Danny? Was that what it came down to: who was more or less evil?

  “Just take it easy. After you get patched up, we’ll get a full statement.”

  “Are you coming to the hospital?”

  “Not yet. There’s lots of work to be done here. It’s been a long night and it’s just gotten started.”

  As if on cue, a dark green front loader rumbled into view. It continued down the road and began to plough a path to the cabin. They must have wanted to be able to get their vehicles in closer.

  “But I guess you had a long night too,” Bill said distantly, as he watched the tractor work.

  “You have no idea.”

  The pain medication made time elusive, slowing it down and speeding it up unnaturally. The sounds of the
hospital droned around him without anything distinct to cling to. He had no idea how long he had been laying there when Linda came rushing in.

  She ran straight to him and threw her arms around him. She hugged Denton desperately with her face pressed into his neck.

  “Oh my god, are you okay?”

  “I’m alright,” he said.

  She pulled away and slammed a fist against his chest, then another and another, until they were raining down on him.

  “You idiot. You stupid, stupid idiot,” she sobbed. Finally, she collapsed and buried her face next to his heart.

  He put his arm across her shoulders and held her as she let the tears flow. He could feel some of his own beginning to well up, but he forced them back. He knew that Linda wouldn’t be able to stop if he got started.

  “Promise me you’ll never leave me like that again,” she said.

  “I won’t, Sweetie. I won’t.”

  She pulled her head away and looked into his face. Her cheeks glistened with tears. Her eyes were red from a night’s worth of crying.

  “Promise me,” she insisted.

  “I promise,” Denton said.

  Chapter 23

  Getting Back to Normal

  DENTON’S FACE DIDN’T FEEL HIS OWN. It was more like a mask he had been forced to wear. Half of his forehead was covered with a brown cloth bandage to hide and protect his stitches. The left side of his face was a swirling mess of purples, yellows, and reds. The swelling in his lip had gone down, but there was still a sharp red line marking the split. And his glasses were foreign and uncomfortable.

  The police had bagged and cataloged just about the entire contents of the lodge for evidence. They had also carried out a thorough forensic sweep of the surrounding area. Despite that, his glasses had never been recovered. The black plastic frames and their thick lenses with astigmatism correction were lost beneath the snow, and there was very little hope of them turning up until spring.

  Until he could see an optometrist, his old pair of wire rims would have to do. They had sat in a dresser drawer for the past four years. The right arm was slightly bent, making them always look crooked, and the prescription was outdated enough that he felt the constant beginnings of a headache forming.