Valley of the Shadow (33 page)

    But Mitch couldn’t turn away from the image before him. He had no idea if this was a hallucination or if it had physicality like the house in the adjacent cavern had. He wasn’t about to climb up to the cross and touch it.

    The sense of pain, of agony, was palpable, however. It hung in the air and stung Mitch’s ribs. He winced. But he couldn’t look away.

    Then he felt a presence behind him and he spun around.

    Someone was standing in the shadows, just outside the ring of blue light.

    Mitch backed away. “Who are you?”

    “Do you know why you’re here?” The voice was soft. Feminine. Mitch recognized it immediately.

    “Mom?”

    His mother stepped out from the shadows. Her hair fell in soft, blonde locks onto her shoulders. Her skin was so white it seemed to glow all on its own. “Oh, Mitch, can you see me? Do you know where you are?”

    Mitch’s eyes stung. She looked so beautiful. Like she did before she got sick. Back when he was a kid. But now he was at the end of his rope. He’d been through too much. His emotions tumbled around inside him. He was relieved. He was frightened. He was angry.

    He backed up farther. “Stop doing this to me. Please, just leave me alone.”

    “Don’t be afraid of me.” She pointed to the tunnel. “Do you know what that is?”

    The cavern shook with another roar.

    Mitch shook his head. “The… the Keeper?”

    His mother nodded. “Yes. The Keeper. Do you know what it is?”

    The roars grew louder, more ferocious. Mitch looked back at the tunnel, his chest pounding. The rock wall behind him cracked. Rocks and dust flooded into the cave.

    “That thing is… they sent it to try to keep me here.”

    “No, Mitch. It’s you.”

    Mitch stared at his mother—or at the image of her. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”

    “It’s all of your anger. Your hate. This place gives it form. It becomes like a living thing. But it’s all from you. You’re giving it its strength. You’re giving it life.”

    “Hate?” Another tremor shook the cave. Mitch fell back onto the rocks in the shadow of the cross.

    “For your father. For God. You’ve let it fester and grow and now it’s become this monster. That’s what is keeping you here.”

    Mitch blinked, his mind reeling. “What are you saying?”

    “It’s been following you, appearing every time you think of your father. That’s why they keep making you think about him. They’re using your memories against you. All those visions. They’ve been trying to keep your hate for your father alive. To keep you trapped here.”

    Mitch’s thoughts raced. She was right. The visions of his father started up again the same day Mitch had met Nathan. After he’d first mentioned to Howard that he wanted to leave. And the creature appeared when Mitch made his first attempt at actually leaving the farm. And ever since then—in the garage and at the hotel and now here in the cave—each time it was preceded by another vision of his father. Each time, Mitch’s anger had grown more intense.

    Mitch nodded. “That’s why we couldn’t destroy it. That’s why it kept coming back.”

    “You’re feeding it. You’re making it stronger.”

    “But I can’t help it! I can’t stop hating him. It’s been too long.”

    His mother shook her head. “Oh, Mitch, don’t. My only prayer was that you and your father would mend your relationship.”

    “It’s too late for that, Mom. I killed you. He won’t forgive—”

    “He has. He called you. He wanted to redeem what little time you had left.”

    “He can’t forgive me,” Mitch said.

    The Keeper roared again. It had almost broken through the wall.

    His mother stood quietly amid the crashing rocks. “He can. Mitch, I love you. I never stopped loving you. Your father loves you. Even now he’s tried to tell you.”

    Mitch’s eyes began filling with tears. He wiped them away fiercely. “I couldn’t stand it, Mom. I couldn’t take watching you suffer.”

    “I know. And I know you blamed God for it. I know you hated Him. But God’s power is made perfect in weakness. I was suffering, but it was for a reason.”

    “What? What reason could there possibly be for you to suffer like that?”

    “For you. To show you what real faith was like. I know you only saw your father’s faith as empty religion. But I wanted you to know mine was real. It was more than belonging to some church. It was a real relationship with the Creator of the universe. I never complained. I never blamed God for taking me from you. He took me so you and your father would need to work out your relationship together.”

    Mitch could not keep himself from weeping now. “It’s too late for that.”

    “No, it’s not. You can still let it go. You can leave it here and move on. Get back to your body. But you have to leave your hatred behind.”

    “I can’t.… I can’t just leave it behind. You don’t understand.…”

    His mother pointed to the cross. Mitch turned. The man was still hanging there, struggling for another breath. The cave trembled again.

    “Let it go, Mitch. Give it up. There’s still time.”

    The creature roared again. But it sounded different somehow. Instead of a blind, animalistic rage, Mitch could hear words. He could hear his own voice echo through the cave. It was a stream of profanity.

    The man on the cross grimaced. His body stiffened, as if Mitch’s words drove another lash, tearing into his flesh.

    
I hate you!

    The man groaned and threw his head back against the wood. Mitch could see His bruised and beaten countenance, contorted with pain. One eye was swollen completely shut. Blood dripped from the multiple lacerations along his forehead.

    The Keeper roared again in Mitch’s voice. More profanity. More hate.

    More pain racked the man’s body. His head drooped forward again. Blood, sweat, and saliva dripped from his face.

    Mitch shook his head. How could he stop the raging beast? How could he just will himself to give up his hate? It had been with him for so long. It was a part of him now. An extension of who he was. It felt…

    Mitch sobbed at the foot of the cross.

    It actually felt good.

    The tunnel gave way. Huge chunks of rock fell away. The beast had broken through and was reaching its clawed appendage toward Mitch.

    Mitch rolled away from the cross. His mother had vanished. The creature’s claws wrapped around Mitch. Constricting his chest. He couldn’t breathe. The cross seemed to be fading into darkness as well. Mitch could see the man gazing down at him as the Keeper dragged Mitch toward the tunnel. It was going to take him back to the farm. Back to his prison.

    He had come so close. He’d come so far. Only to fail.

    He clawed at the rocks, but the beast was too strong. The sounds grew muffled. Time seemed to slow down. Mitch caught one final glimpse of the man’s face. His expression unrecognizable.

    “Please,” Mitch gasped with all of his strength. “Help… me.”

    The man on the cross flung his head back against the wood and struggled to pull himself up. Teeth bared and straining against the gaping wounds in his wrists and feet, he sucked air deep into his lungs and with the last of his strength, he cried out.

    Thunder shook the cavern. The ground shook. The walls shook. A light blazed inside the cave, white and clean. It flooded over Mitch, blinding him. Burning inside him. He could feel the massive claws around his chest dissolve. The pressure released.

    Wind rushed past him, roaring in his ears. He clung to the rocks to keep from being blown away himself.

    Then it passed.

    Silence hung in its place. The wind receded to a steady, cold breeze. Mitch lay on his back, gasping for breath.

    He opened his eyes.

MRS. BRISTOL DIMMED THE LIGHT
while Owen pulled Conner’s gun from his jacket and held it ready as he peered through the window.

    “Is it him?” she whispered. “Can you see him?”

    Owen shook his head. “It’s too dark. I can’t tell.…”

    The slow crunching of leaves grew louder. Conner struggled against his ropes. His breath came in shallow puffs. His heart raced. His mind reeled as he struggled to come up with a plan. If he could try to talk his way out of their execution, if he could just delay until Amber managed to find help…

    Beside him, Katie was sobbing, mumbling to herself.

    Conner heard one of the porch boards creak.

    Mrs. Bristol gasped and her eyes moved to the door. “He’s here! He’s here! Let him in.” Conner caught a hint of fear in her words.

    Owen went to the door and pulled it open.

    A flash of light and a crack of thunder rocked the cabin. Owen staggered backward and toppled over at his mother’s feet. His head bounced on the floorboards. His limbs splayed out, quivering, with a gaping hole torn out of his chest. Crimson fluid gushed up over the charred remnants of tattered flesh and soaked his shirt. His eyes stared—wide open—at the ceiling; his breath came in shallow, gurgled rasps.

    Chaos filled the room. Katie screamed, twisting in her chair. Mrs. Bristol fell onto her son’s body, wailing with a high-pitched shriek.

    Conner looked up to see Amber in the doorway, a massive shotgun in her grasp. She dashed across the room and slammed the butt of the shotgun into the back of the old woman’s skull. Mrs. Bristol shuddered, then fell across her son’s body and lay still.

    Amber dropped the gun and rushed to Katie, who was still screaming. She scooped Conner’s knife from the table and began sawing at the ropes, whispering words of comfort.

    Conner’s mind was a fog. He could see and hear everything clearly, yet he felt oddly detached, like he was watching a movie. Owen Bristol lay motionless on the floor in a growing pool of blood. His old mother crumpled on top of him.

    Conner blinked and said to Amber, “You… you okay?”

    Amber nodded, her hands trembling as she worked to free Katie. “I… I got to the farm… and I was hiding in the barn. And I—and I found this gun in the barn. I had to come back—I couldn’t let them kill you.”

    “You did the right thing.”

    Katie’s arms were finally freed and they embraced, weeping and laughing. Conner could only imagine their sense of relief, having been locked inside this cabin, in a hole in the ground, tied up in dirt and filth. He could only imagine the terror they’d felt over the last few days, not knowing what was going to happen to them. Knowing death was imminent.

    “Umm . . .” Conner cleared his throat. “Little help here?”

    Amber slid over and began sawing at his ropes. “God sent you to save us,” she said. “He… He told me to come back and save you.”

    “I think they were getting ready to kill us both,” Conner said. “I don’t think we would’ve made it if you’d gone for help. You did good. You did real good.”

    Once freed, Conner stood and rubbed his arms and wrists. They’d gone numb from lack of circulation. Katie was huddled by the doorway. Conner slid an arm under her and helped her to her feet again.

    “My car’s just up the road a bit.”

    Then Conner sensed something moving behind him. He turned to see Mrs. Bristol standing there, the shotgun in her grasp.

    Her hair was matted with blood, and it dripped down her face as well. Her eyes were wide. A crazed, animal look in them. Her lips pulled back in a twisted grimace. She hissed at them, and Conner could barely discern the words through her throaty snarl.

    “You killed him. You . . . you killed my baby!” She unleashed a torrent of profanity as she brought the gun up.

    Conner pushed the girls out the door and down off the porch as the gun blast exploded behind them. The shot bit a chunk out of the doorframe. Pellets whipped past them. Conner could feel the heat on his face. He tumbled to the ground and rolled to his feet again as Mrs. Bristol moved to the doorway and cocked the gun.

    Amber pulled Conner’s arm and they rushed into the woods as a second blast echoed behind them.

    Conner felt white-hot razors slicing into his back just under the shoulder blade. The force of the gunshot hurled him forward. Blistering pain knifed through his ribs. He cried out and collapsed into the dirt.

MITCH FOUND HIMSELF GAZING
up at a clear sky. An endless black canopy stretched out above him, shimmering with a myriad of stars.

    He sat up and saw that he was sitting on a wide, flat ledge. It was as if the walls and ceiling of the cave he’d been in had simply dissolved away, leaving the floor open and exposed to the sky. Behind him, the mountainside rose another three hundred feet or so; in front of him, the cliff—in fact the whole world—dropped away. Mitch crawled to the edge and peeked over. The gray rock of the mountainside fell into emptiness. More stars and galaxies shimmered below him. There was no sign of any land beyond the edge. Nothing but open, endless space.

    Mitch stood. There was no sign of his mother or the cross or the man hanging on it. Behind him was a small opening in the wall. Probably the tunnel through which he had crawled earlier to escape the Keeper. But there was no trace of the Keeper, either.

    Mitch stood at the edge of the cliff, his heart still pounding. He felt a sense of weightlessness. As if he’d been wearing a coat of sandbags and just now had taken it off. He could breathe easier. He sucked a lungful of cold, clean air deep into his lungs. He felt incredible. And he knew why.

    His hate was gone. His anger and rage. His sense of self-righteousness. He’d let it all go.…

    No. He had been unable to get rid of it himself. He had been caught in the grip of a monster of his own making. And he wasn’t able to free himself.

    The man on the cross had done it. Mitch recalled his last act of desperation, crying out for help. And forgiveness.

    But he hadn’t let go of his hate. It had been taken from him.

    And it felt beautiful.

    Mitch closed his eyes and breathed in again and thought of his father. He remembered the phone call he’d gotten just before his accident.