Hold the Dark: A Novel (12 page)

The hunter grinned, flecks of meat packed between his teeth. “Do you like a story, traveler?”

“I like the truth.”

“The truth. Every story is the truth,” and he laughed the smoke loose from his nose. “Okay. I’ll tell you. It was ’85 when I shot it. Early winter just before freeze-up. About a mile west of here, coming down a ridge into a ravine. Everything dusted with snow but not that hard cold of January yet. The ravine still running. It looked like a brown bear from the crest of the ridge. They’ll stand on their hind legs, you know, to reach up a tree. And I saw it that way, standing. But then the path dipped down and around and when I had a clear view again, maybe eight minutes later, it was still standing. No brown bear stands that long. And through the glasses I saw it, its face gorilla, but not. A sagittal crest like one of them Neanderthals in the
National Geographic
pictures. Overall, I’d say, it was six hundred pounds easy but with the body shape of a human. You can see from that skin there behind you it was over seven feet in height.”

Slone turned to look, then handed the pipe back to the hunter.

“But it was the eyes that got me. They were human eyes. Larger, of course, but human in every way. Its gaze, I mean. It was aware,
self
-aware. It was the Kushtaka. I heard about it all through my youth and there it was, clear as the day around me. It had a young one with it. With her, it was a female, I could see the teats. Young one about five feet, less hairy. Its face like any child’s you’d see. A little monkey nose. But already muscular. Round with muscles, and it just a little thing. They were at the water drinking and it seemed she was teaching the young one something. About fish, I thought. And then pointing up into the tree at birds but I couldn’t see what kind. The son of a bitch had speech. The damnedest thing.”

He raised the pipe, took the smoke down deep into himself.

“This was a once-in-a-lifetime, as you can guess. I was a good eighty feet away but on my belly in thin snow and camouflaged real good in wolf down. Any wind there was in that ravine was against me, so they couldn’t smell a thing. I had a .308 Winchester then, you know, the finest rifle ever made. It took that young one’s head half off. The mother saw it before she heard it. Then she howled. Some sound, I have to tell you. Not like a wolf but a man’s howl. It was the damnedest thing: half in the water, she tried to hold the young one’s head together, where it was split, as if she could undo what been done. Of course she couldn’t. And she just howled, looking up and around like it was lightning that did it. I dropped her right there, with the young one in her arms, right through the heart. You can’t get a better shot than that.”

He paused to finger more tobacco from a pouch.

“I had a sled with me on the ridge top but I couldn’t fit them both on it. I mean, I couldn’t tote all that weight, heavy bastards. I tried going back that night for the young one but the wolves had their dinner of it. And I ate all winter of the mother. A pork taste, I’d say, not like moose or bear. Not gamy like wolf. The strength that meat gave me, the spirit of the Kushtaka in me . . . I can’t explain it. I had orgasms just standing here, not stroking myself, nothing like that at all. Just standing. I saved the eyes too, those amazing eyes. They’re around here somewhere.”

Slone drank again from the mug and they finished the last of the tobacco. Soon he rose and went slowly over to Medora’s boots. He squatted and brought one to his face and inhaled the sweat-strong fur.

“You’re welcome to the woman’s boots. They’re yours, really. I don’t meddle.”

Slone returned the boot and stood. On a low table there among bullets and tools was the key to Medora’s truck fastened to a key ring Bailey had made at school: a smiley-faced heart of fired clay painted over in scarlet gloss. Slone held up the key, dangled it in the jumping firelight for the hunter to see.

“Yes. I traded her trucks. She took my Ford. I got the better of the deal, I’d say, for that Chevy. But the Ford is a damn good truck too. She didn’t want her vehicle spotted on roads, I’m guessing. I don’t like to meddle. Told her just take mine, I’d trade her, an even swap. Plus the boots I made her.”

Slone removed the key ring, felt its polished flat weight in his palm, ran a thumb over its surface, then slid it down into a pocket. He said nothing.

Inching along the ribbed wall of the cave, he examined the wolf masks in museum display, each one crafted to look hellish and rabid.

“You’re welcome to any of them masks there. Have your pick of them. It’s not my business but I can see you need to let your wolf out a little. When’s the last time you showed the monster in you, boy?”

Slone chose the black mask with elongated snout and overlarge fangs. With the leather straps he fastened it to his face through his yellow wreath of hair.

The hunter was bent now over the stove, adding a wedge of wood, and when he turned he seemed ready to say something. But Slone was in the mask with a knife gripped by the blade, handle aimed at the hunter.

They stood that way regarding one another, their fire-thrown shadows towering about the cave. Seconds later the blade pierced the hunter’s chest to the handle, just above the aorta. Midway between them in the air the blade had caught the quick glint of firelight. In a gasp the hunter looked at the handle stuck to his chest, then at the upright animal across the cave. It seemed he wanted to ask yet another question he’d just lost the language for.

He needed both hands to yank out the blade. The coin-slot wound was black and withholding blood. He stood inspecting the knife almost in admiration of its design and the blood began seeping from the slot. Still gasping, he glanced at the monster in the mask. He stepped to the grizzly skin and collapsed on his back, waiting for what more would come.

Then Slone was above him, handgun aimed at the hunter’s hairline, his own breath wet within the wolf face. Through the eyeholes of the mask he could see the hunter blinking and breathing, asthmatic, his lips trying to speak to whatever god he claimed for his own. Slone put the bullet in the hunter’s forehead and watched the hole ooze a blackish blood.

He walked back into the polar night with Medora’s boots beneath his arm, the mask still fastened to his face.

C
heeon started shooting as soon as Marium reached the line of vehicles in front of his cabin. He didn’t know the make of rifle Cheeon had in the attic but it was without stop, ripping cup-sized holes through the trucks. He could not fathom why a man would have a weapon like that, how he’d even go about getting one. He looked over to a cop to tell him to duck, duck lower, then saw a piece of his face and skull tear off in sherbet under his helmet. He ducked then and fell dead.

The rounds came faster than he’d ever seen or heard. He could see the flame from the long barrel in the attic window. It pivoted smoothly up and down, right and left, attached to a tripod. Cheeon wasn’t quitting to reload. He didn’t need to. The windshields and windows of the trucks were shattering, spraying over Marium, the men, the ground. Air hissing from shot tires. Rounds clunking into engine blocks, dull but loud like hammer hits.

When Cheeon turned the gun to the nearby pines the rounds trimmed off branches, hacked the bark through. The snow showered down in great mist. The men in those trees fell dead to the ground with branches and snow. He couldn’t hear any men returning even a single round. They were crouched close to the earth, hands over their heads despite their helmets. Those who weren’t shot dead looked amazed that this was happening to them. Or that such a thing was even possible at this place.

He crawled over to the end of the nearest truck, beneath the back bumper. He waited there with the carbine for a break in the fire, for Cheeon to reload. But it’d been a minute or more and the lead would not stop. He thought that soon one of the trucks would catch fire and blow, that they’d all be burnt or worse. He could aim at the attic window from beneath the bumper. He fired there, splintering the wood of the cabin. Maybe getting a round or two inside at him. He just couldn’t tell.

Cheeon’s fire broke for several seconds, then started again at the truck Marium was under. The lead piercing the truck sounded again like quick hits with a hammer. He didn’t know what they were doing to the fuel tanks. He could see the rounds erupting in snow beneath the truck, hear them against the chassis. And once more he just could not understand why this man would have that weapon here. What purpose it was supposed to serve other than this one upon them.

He crawled back around, crouched behind a wheel, saw a man try to dash to a spruce where another flailed, yelling. This man was hit halfway there, his blood flaring bright against the white before he fell sideways. His insides spilled, steamed there pink in the snow.

A minute more of this and Cheeon quit. Whether to reload or just watch all he’d done, Marium could not know. At the left flank of the cabin a man shielded by spruce began firing at the alcove. It must have been his service pistol—the pop-pop discharge sounded pitiful after the barrage they’d just heard. Marium hollered for him to hold his fire. He knew as soon as Cheeon saw where the rounds were coming from he’d mow down those trees and that man along with them.

The trucks were perforated, made of tinfoil. He yelled again for everyone to stay low. A man was facedown near him, by the exhaust pipe, in an oval of his own blood. Marium turned him over and saw that the rounds had gone through his flak jacket, into his throat. This man hadn’t had even a second for a last tally. Marium heard himself yelling again—for someone to get on the radio, the satellite phone, something, to call in backup. But no one responded to him.

He could tell they didn’t want to move at all. Someone he couldn’t see, whose voice he didn’t recognize, yelled for a doctor. It was an odd request, he thought, since there wasn’t a doctor among them or coming. No doctor who could undo what was being done here. Then Cheeon’s fire hit where this man lay and the voice abruptly quit calling.

He saw Arnie there on the ground with his carbine. He crawled near him and said his name. Arnie looked at him as if trying to remember who Marium was. Or what Marium might have to do with this alien thing now pressed upon him. He said Arnie’s name again, could see the shock in his eyes. Shock always looks the same, he knew—a cross between surprised and sleepy.

Arnie wouldn’t respond. Marium slapped him then, hard on the face, and was ashamed at the force of his hand. The snot flew slant from Arnie’s nostrils and he seemed embarrassed by this. He wiped his nose with a glove and the snot froze there in a white streak. He began blinking, swallowing, and Marium knew then that he’d come around.

“Are you hearing me now, Arnie? Arnie, goddamn it, please look at me.”

“I hear you.”

“You see those rocks there?”

He pointed behind them at the uneven row of boulders beside a snowed-in patch of spruce. Arnie looked to the boulders and nodded.

“You’re gonna go to them, get behind them. I’ll cover you as you go. Are you hearing me?”

“I am. I’m hearing you, Don.”

“Don’t run till I start unloading, but when I do, run quick, please. As soon you get there stay low between that dip there, between those two big ones, you see there? You see where I mean, Arnie? Please look, goddamn it.”

“I’m looking. I see it.”

“Then I’ll let up, and as soon as you hear me stop I want you to train that rifle on the window and don’t let off the trigger till you see me reach the cabin, the right side of it. The right side. Am I clear?”

“It’s clear, boss.”

“Is that magazine full?”

“It’s full.”

“Please check. Check right now.”

“It’s full.”

“You have others in that vest?”

Arnie felt his vest as you might feel for your wallet. “I have them,” he said. “They’re right here.”

Marium saw that the lap of his pants was soaked through with urine. On the hood of the truck sat an unshot cup of coffee, smoking there with the lid off, waiting for someone to come sip from it.

“You ready, Arnie? Are you ready now?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

“You haul ass to those boulders as soon as I start, and when you get there unload on the son of a bitch and please don’t stop till you see me reach the cabin. Do not let off on that window but for Christ’s sake watch me too, okay, to make sure I’ve reached the cabin before you stop. Tell me you understand.”

“I understand. I’ll do it, boss.”

“You do it, Arnie. His weapon can’t go through boulders, you understand that? Stay behind the rocks.”

“I’ll do it.”

Marium motioned to the others, to those who were left, those looking at him. Motioned to hold their fire. He crawled beneath the back bumper of the second vehicle in their line. He began unloading on the upstairs window full auto. He hoped the rounds would last in time for Arnie to make the row of rocks. Arnie couldn’t spare those few seconds it’d take Marium to load in another magazine. The rounds dislodged snow from the cabin roof, which slid down and off in a powdered sheet.

In a minute he was empty. Cheeon knew it and trained fire on him then. The rounds filled the wheel well, loud near Marium’s face. They hit the rear axle as he crawled backward from beneath the truck. When he was clear he looked himself over for blood.

From the boulders Arnie began shooting hard at the cabin. Cheeon waited it out. When he did, Marium sprinted, out of view of the attic window. Slipping, falling in ice and snow. Crashing heavy onto both elbows, his stomach onto the stock of the carbine, the wind kicked from him. He struggled to breathe. Between a gap in their trucks he saw Arnie’s fire stop. Marium showed him a thumbs-up but didn’t know if Arnie saw or not. And then Cheeon started in on him, the rounds sparking against the boulders, chipping off shards in a thin cloud of snow and rock dust.

From this side of Cheeon’s cabin he could see up the central road of the village. Sled dogs everywhere howled madly in their kennels. People stood in front of their doors and vehicles. He motioned for them to get back inside. They didn’t move at all. He thought for some reason that one of them might start shooting at him with a hunting rifle.