Valley of the Shadow (24 page)

    Pale Man waved his hand. “Well, it’s all a little complicated. I’ve got certain constraints to work within. A subject has to be conscious for one thing. Plus there’s a whole bureaucracy involved. Approvals to get. Forms to fill out. Bottom line is we generally outsource this kind of job. Go with what we call a codependent contractor. And that’s where you come in.”

    “Yo, man.” Devon was shaking his head. “I told you, man, I can’t kill no one. I ain’t never killed no one before.”

    “If you could hear yourself with my ears.” Pale Man chuckled. “So, anyway, here’s the thing. You cooperate with me and I’ll help you retrieve your heretofore unremembered item of extreme importance for Mr. Karenga so he doesn’t kill you. Now I think that’s a pretty darn good deal, if I do say so myself.”

    Devon bit his lip and swore. Oswald Karenga probably had his entire security force out looking for him at this very moment. There was no way to be sure Pale Man would ever keep his word even if Devon did cooperate. On the other hand, if this Mitch guy was as bad off as Pale Man had described, it wouldn’t really be like killing him. The guy sounded like he was half-dead anyway.

    Devon was starting to feel sick inside and he knew he was in trouble.

    He was in a boatload of trouble.

    “Okay,” he said at length. “What do I have to do?”

MRS. BRISTOL’S PLEASANT
expression had morphed into an icy stare. Conner’s heart pounded hard against his ribs and he felt dizzy.

    “Now . . . now, hold on a second,” he said, but his voice sounded thin and weak. “Look, I don’t want any trouble. I’m not trying to cause any trouble.”

    “We’ll be the judge of that,” Mrs. Bristol said. Her grandmotherly demeanor had all but evaporated. “You see, Stewart and Anna Grady were my parents. They used to own this farm. I grew up here. Right in this very house. They passed away thirty-five years ago now. And their son, Felix, was my brother. He’s gone too.”

    Conner felt as if the floor had dropped out from underneath him. His knees buckled and he sat down again. “Look, I’m really sorry, but I can explain.”

    “I’m sure you can,” Mrs. Bristol said. “Start by telling me who you really are and what you want with my husband. Why were you in his room today?”

    Conner opened his mouth to explain, but before he could get a word out, Mrs. Bristol continued. “Because if you think for one minute you can get me to remove that tube, you are sorely mistaken.”

    “I don’t want you to remove his feeding tube,” Conner said. “In fact if you really do love him, you should probably do everything you can to keep him alive.”

    Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you say that?”

    “And I’m not with any insurance company or anything either. My name is Conner Hayden. I’m from Chicago. I’m not trying to get you to do anything. And I’m sorry I wasn’t more forthcoming. But really… I didn’t think you’d believe me if I told you the truth.”

    Mrs. Bristol folded her arms. “Try me.”

    Conner’s mouth was dry. His eyes flitted between Mrs. Bristol and her imposing son. He needed to defuse the tension in the room. He’d been caught in a deception and didn’t want to add to the mess with more lies. But he knew he’d have to be judicious with the facts. He couldn’t tell her the whole truth.

    “The truth is . . . I had a heart attack two months ago. My heart stopped beating for something like fifteen or twenty minutes. I had a near-death… an out-of-body type of experience. And during that time, I met… I met your husband.”

    Mrs. Bristol’s eyes widened momentarily. She glanced at Owen, who remained silent, leaning back in his chair. Then she turned again to Conner. “You’re telling me you met Howard during a… a what?”

    “I know it sounds crazy. But I didn’t even know what was happening to me. I didn’t know I was dying. Everything seemed so real. I met a few other people. And Howard too. And he invited us here. We stayed in this house. Right here on this farm.”

    “You expect me to believe that?” Mrs. Bristol leaned forward. “I suppose now you’re going to tell me that Howard said he wants me to sell the farm to you. Or that he wants me to take out his feeding tube and let him die.”

    Conner sighed. This wasn’t going well. “I told you already, I don’t want you to take out his feeding tube. And I don’t want your farm. I… I was just curious. That’s all. I just wanted to see him for myself. Just so I could know that I wasn’t going crazy.”

    Conner decided he’d better not tell her anything about Howard’s connection with the demonic creatures, how he’d been working with them and how he’d led Conner into a trap.

    “After I recovered, I tried to look up all the people I had met. To see if they were real. And to prove to myself that what had happened to me was real. That’s when I learned your husband was in this coma. I had to come and see it for myself. That’s all. I was just curious.”

    Mrs. Bristol sat back for a moment, her arms still folded and her lips puckered slightly. She cast a sideways look at Owen. “What do you think?”

    Owen shook his head. “The dude’s crazy.”

    Mrs. Bristol turned back to Conner. “You see, Mr. Hayden, I’ve been getting a great deal of pressure from my doctor to simply accept the inevitable. That my Howard won’t ever recover. They tried to operate. To relieve some of the pressure. But now they’re saying they can’t do any more for him.” She wagged her finger again. “But I’m not going to give up. Howard is a strong man. He’s a good man. And he deserves to live.”

    Conner started to reply but the words caught in his throat. He tried again. “I’m sure he does. And I certainly wish you the best.”

    They sat in silence for a moment. Then Conner stood again. “Look, Mrs. Bristol, I sincerely apologize for any trouble or worry I may have caused you. I hope you can understand why I did it.”

    She just looked at him for a moment. Then at length, she nodded. “I understand. And I believe you.”

    “You do?” Conner raised a skeptical eyebrow.

    “He’s here, you know. Howard is here.”

    “What?”

    She went on. “I can feel him here with me sometimes. I can sense his presence. I think he’s trying to reach me. He’s trying to come back to us.”

    Conner wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Well then . . . I hope everything works out for you.”

    With that, Conner excused himself and went out to his car, followed closely by Owen Bristol.

    Conner opened the door to his Mercedes as Owen leaned against the front fender.

    Conner rolled his eyes and sighed. “Look, Owen, I’m leaving, okay? You don’t need to—”

    “Listen up, guy,” Owen growled. “There’s a lot of creeps like you out there, trying to scam little old ladies out of their life savings. I suppose you think that just because we live out here in the country maybe we’re stupid or something. But I can—”

    Conner held up a hand. “Owen, I’m not trying to scam your moth—”

    “But I can guarantee you something.” Owen straightened up, his expression dark. “If you ever come back here trying to pull something like that again, they won’t ever find you.”

    “Is that a threat?” Conner tried to sound gruff, but his voice cracked and it just came out sounding pathetic.

    Owen snorted and leaned in close. “I mean, they’ll search for you… but they won’t ever find you. Are we clear on that…
Felix
?”

“THEY FOUND US,”
Nathan said.

    In the darkened shadows of the lobby, Mitch saw movement. A black shape passed between two columns that framed the main entrances. Then another, off to the left.

    Mitch’s breath came in choppy rasps as he watched several dark figures approach the circle. He could see their black shapes now, grotesquely thin, crouching low and moving slowly—as if with caution. Then against the darkness, Mitch could see white eyes glowing.

    They stood around the entire perimeter of light, sniffing it. Inspecting it. Their mouths gaped open in low growls. They pressed close to the circle but did not cross it.

    “Don’t worry, Mitch; they won’t cross the line,” Nathan whispered, his voice barely audible above the hisses and growls. “Their hate for you is tempered only by their instinct for self-preservation.”

    “Will it kill them?”

    Nathan managed a grim chuckle. “No. Death doesn’t have the same meaning to them as it does to us. There’s no finality for them. But there are things worse than dying. They would be… severely disrupted for some time before regaining any semblance of their current form.”

    “What are they… like, demons?”

    “Not exactly. They’re the multiplied manifestation of the being that inhabits this dimension. They’re its collective mind and will.”

    “What being?”

    “Death,” Nathan said. “Death itself ushers lost and dying souls through this dimension to the other side. And it has only one overriding desire: to consume. It’s an endless hunger that feeds on all life. It’s savage and insatiable, even though there’s a steady stream of human souls to feed from.”

    “What about all the hallucinations? all the weird stuff I’ve seen?”

    Nathan shrugged. “Some of it people create themselves. Some of it Death creates just to generate terror. To heighten the experience.”

    Mitch couldn’t take his eyes off the creatures. “But me and Howard—these things never bothered us much. Not on the farm.”

    “Because he wanted to keep you here. Keep you from leaving. He tried to make you feel safe and lull you to sleep so you wouldn’t begin to get curious and venture off.”

    “Why would Howard be working with these things? What’s in it for him?”

    “Nothing.” Nathan shook his head. “I assume he made some kind of deal. Maybe to be set free and returned to his body. I don’t know. Whatever it is, I can guarantee you, Death has absolutely no intention of keeping up his end of the bargain.”

    Mitch closed his eyes and tried to block the sounds and even the thought of the Reapers from his mind. He could feel their presence just a few yards away.

    And then he heard something else.

    “Mitch!”

    Mitch’s eyes snapped open. He turned to see someone walking toward him from the darkness.

CONNER BACKED OUT
of the driveway as Owen stood by, watching him. Conner put the car in gear and tore off down the highway. He wasn’t sure where he was going exactly, but he wanted to put some distance between him and that farm.

    His jaw was clenched so tight that his teeth hurt, and he cursed himself for being so stupid. Every instinct had screamed at him not to go with Mrs. Bristol to the farm. He should have just explained everything to her there in the nursing home. His heart was still pounding. And that crazed-looking monster of a son could have killed Conner with his bare hands.

    Conner glanced at his watch. It was nearly two o’clock. He drove a few miles farther and finally pulled onto the shoulder to collect his thoughts.

    His forehead was damp with a cold sweat. Owen had made a clear threat to him. He could kill Conner and dispose of his body where no one would ever find him. Conner glanced at his cell phone, still off. But there was no sense calling the police. From their perspective, Conner would have been in the wrong, looking as if he’d tried to take advantage of an old woman. Her son would have been justified in threatening him in that case.

    He leaned his head back and tried to clear his mind. Let his adrenaline level subside. He closed his eyes and tried to pray. But his thoughts were too jumbled and conflicted. Why was he even here? This whole trip had been a result of a dream. Just a stupid dream. And now he’d made a fool out of himself again.

    More than that, he’d been dishonest with Marta and Rachel. He’d left without explaining where he was going. At the time, he’d rationalized it away as being for their own protection. But protection from what? Conner had been feeling that he was up against some sort of ethereal menace. An enemy not of flesh and blood. Really just a general impression of danger. Or that someone he knew was in danger.

    But in the end, that was all he’d had to go on. He’d come all this way based on nothing more than a feeling.

    He started the car and pulled back onto the road. He’d had enough excitement for one day. For an entire month. And it was high time for him to go home and start to focus on his own family.

    He pulled into an old gas station to fill up. The station was so old the pumps weren’t even outfitted for credit card payment, so Conner had to pay inside when he was done. He stood at the counter while the gray-haired man swiped his card through the reader.

    The old man was leathery and grizzled with white hair and glasses perched at the edge of his nose. The reader had apparently not scanned Conner’s card properly, so he began tapping the card number into the keypad with a gnarled finger. Conner chuckled to himself.

    The old man grunted. “Forty-seven years and I still can’t get no one to work for me on Saturdays.”

    
Tap, tap.

    “Forty-seven years, huh?” Conner frowned as a thought struck him. “So… you must know the Bristols up the road.”

    The old man looked up and his face crinkled as if Conner had just insulted his wife. “You a friend of theirs or something?”

    “Nope, I, uh…” Conner wasn’t sure exactly how to describe it. “No, I just met them actually.”

    The old man snorted and went back to his tapping, muttering to himself.

    Conner’s curiosity was piqued. “So you do know them.”

    “Not personally. I know of them,” he said finally. “Nobody round here really knows them all that well. The whole family’s a bit creepy, if you ask me. But that kid of theirs sure is a piece of work.”

    “Owen? Why? What’s he done?”

    The old man shook his head. “Oh, he’s just…” His voice trailed off and he sucked in a wheezing breath.

    “What?”

    “Just a bad seed.”

    Conner slipped his credit card back into his wallet. “You know, now that you mention it, he did seem a little odd.”