Darkwind: Ancient Enemy 2

by

MARK LUKENS

Darkwind: Ancient Enemy 2—Copyright © 2015 by Mark Lukens

All Rights Reserved

No part of this work may be reproduced without written permission by the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead (or in any other form), is entirely coincidental.

Cover Design by: www.damonza.com

PLEASE CHECK OUT THESE OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR:

Ancient Enemy –
www.amazon.com/dp/B00FD4SP8M

Descendants of Magic –
www.amazon.com/dp/B00FWYYYYC

The Summoning –
www.amazon.com/dp/B00HNEOHKU

Night Terrors –
www.amazon.com/dp/B00M66IU3U

Sightings –
www.amazon.com/dp/B00VAI31KW

The Exorcist’s Apprentice –
www.amazon.com/dp/B00YYF1E5C

What Lies Below –
www.amazon.com/dp/B0143LADEY

Ghost Town: a novella –
www.amazon.com/dp/B00LEZRF7G

A Dark Collection: 12 Scary Stories –
www.amazon.com/dp/B00JENAGLC

The Darwin Effect –
www.amazon.com/dp/B01G4A8ZYC

Devil’s Island – Coming Soon

This sequel is dedicated to all of the readers out there who have written to me or left reviews asking for a sequel to my novel ANCIENT ENEMY. After I wrote ANCIENT ENEMY, my first novel, and then published it on Amazon, I had hoped it would do well, but I never would’ve dared to believe that I would get so much positive feedback. I had always planned on ANCIENT ENEMY being a standalone story with an ending that hopefully kept the reader guessing and perhaps thinking about the story for some time. It had started out as a screenplay, and it’s common for horror films to have a kind of open ending to set up for a sequel if the film happens to be successful. Some readers didn’t like the somewhat ambiguous ending, but many others did, and many asked for a sequel. At first I was dead set against a sequel—I had a lot of other projects I wanted to work on, so many other stories I wanted to tell. But then I began wondering what I would write if I wanted to write a sequel. Where would the story go? What would Stella, Cole, and David do now? And then the story kind of unfolded for me. And now I’m glad I wrote the second installment to Ancient Enemy. I’m glad I ended the story, and I have so many readers to thank for that. I wish I could list individual names here, but it would take too long. I do want to say a special thanks to some of the readers who have stayed in touch with me—you know who you are: Kat, Conny, Ann, Mitch, Mark, Bill, Sean, Lisa, Allen, and Sharyl.

Thank you for your comments over the last few years, your help, and your support. I imagine readers like you when I’m writing; I imagine you reading my stories and your reactions to them, and that’s why I continue to write.

Thank you, dear readers, for giving me the opportunity to live my dream.

This book is for you.

This book is a sequel to ANCIENT ENEMY, but I wanted to say that I don’t believe you necessarily must read the first one to understand what’s going on in this story. I tried to write this book so it could stand on its own for a new reader, yet still conclude the story for readers who have read the first book. Either way, I hope you enjoy it!

Much of this book takes place in Colorado and on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico and Arizona. I tried to be as true to the geography of the area as possible, but some of the locations in this story are fictional.

Navajo Reservation—dig site

R
andy Tahoma sat on his horse at the edge of the ridge, staring down at the dig site on the canyon floor below. He had ridden by this dig site several times in the past few weeks, stopping for a few minutes to watch the scientists below as they hurried around like ants on little missions. He wondered why they were so intent on digging up the land, digging up the bones of the ancient people. They should let those old ghosts lie in peace. Nothing good could come from digging around down there; Randy was sure of that.

In the many times he had sat up here on this ridge watching the scientists, he hadn’t gone down there to greet them. What they were doing wasn’t any of his business. Many other Navajo in the area were openly critical of the archaeologists and this dig site but Randy tried to mind his own business and keep to himself. Besides, if he went down there they would probably bombard him with questions about ancient stories and local legends. White people thought every Navajo could recite their people’s entire history at a moment’s notice. It wasn’t worth the hassle. He was content to sit up here on his horse and just watch for a while.

Randy was “retired” now … more like forced into it. His sons and grandsons had taken over the sheepherding chores on his property. He still felt like he could work, but they insisted that he take it easy in the years he had left. But now his days were filled with aimless wandering, and that aimless wandering had taken him here to the dig site today.

But he noticed that the camp was different today. Everything was still and silent, no movement anywhere, no sounds drifting up to the ridge where he sat, no smoke from a campfire. He waited at the top of the ridge for almost thirty minutes, bundled up in his heavy coat as he watched the two trailers and tents below. He also watched the line of trucks and SUVs farther away from the camp, all of them parked in a line near a stand of juniper bushes and cottonwood trees.

The mouth of the cave looked like a slit in the rock wall from way up here but he knew it was far bigger than it looked from where he sat. When someone entered or left the cave he could see that two people could easily stand side by side in the mouth of the cave if they wanted to. The opening was wider at the bottom and it narrowed to a crack thirty feet above the canyon floor. The mouth looked like it had been hidden before by shrubbery and plants for a long time, and now those shrubs were cut away and drying up in heaps on the desert floor.

Something felt wrong down there. Every time he’d been here before he had seen at least one person walking back and forth from their camp to the mouth of the cave. He had heard the clicking sounds of hammers tapping on rocks, music playing from somebody’s battery-powered radio, a bark of laughter, the words of a conversation floating up to him. He had seen the lights shining in the two trailers and he’d seen the lights burning on the string of electrical cords that ran from the generator into the mouth of the cave.

But today was different: no activity, no noise.

He decided to ride his horse down a barely perceptible trail towards the canyon floor below. He sensed the nervousness in his horse well before he reached the trailers.

“Whoa …” he cooed at his horse. But he felt as nervous as his horse did.

It was late afternoon now. As the sun dipped lower to the west, the shadows stretched all the way across the canyon floor. There were no lights on in either one of the trailers. The generator that sat close to the mouth of the cave was silent.

“Hello?!” Randy called out.

No answer.

He rode his horse over to a cottonwood tree and got off. He tied the rope around a low-hanging tree limb and then patted his horse for a moment. His horse sputtered and stared at him with wild eyes, shifting his weight nervously.

“It’s okay,” Randy whispered to the horse. “I just want to have a look around. Make sure everyone’s okay.”

Randy walked over to the trailer and knocked on the flimsy aluminum door. He waited for a moment, listening.

No one answered. No one was coming to the door—he would’ve heard their footsteps inside the trailer if someone was approaching.

He knocked again. “Hello?”

Still no answer.

The thought of entering the trailer crossed his mind, but it was rude to enter someone’s home—even if it was a temporary trailer—without their permission. Navajo prized privacy.

He looked at the next trailer beyond this one and thought about knocking on that door. No lights had come on in either trailer since he had been pounding on the door. He glanced over at the line of vehicles a hundred yards away past a field of juniper and sagebrush that dotted the sand and hard-packed dirt. There were four vehicles parked there, all trucks of some kind. There seemed to be a space where a truck had been parked before, but now it was gone. Maybe all of the scientists had left.

In one vehicle? And with their generator and a lot of other equipment left behind?

That didn’t make any sense.

Randy looked at the second trailer again. He walked towards that door and knocked on it. Still no answer. No lights coming on inside.

He was about to walk back to his horse but then he froze when he saw something in the dirt about thirty yards away near the edge of the brush. He walked over there and stood there for a moment, staring down at a large dark stain on the sand. It was dried blood. A lot of it.

Something had happened here … something bad.

Randy hurried back to his horse and pulled his flashlight out of his saddle bag. He turned the flashlight on and shined it back at the two dark trailers. The sky was still blue above him, but the shadows seemed to have darkened even more down here on the canyon floor. He pointed the flashlight beam towards the crack in the canyon wall … at the mouth of the cave.