Nephilim Genesis of Evil Page 4

  He’d been in some kind of accident recently. What was it? Oh, she nodded to herself. He’d been walking across the street and was hit by a car. She thought she’d read that he died, but clearly that wasn’t the case. He’d been declared dead at the scene, but the paramedics had revived him. Maybe that was the reason for his troubled appearance.

  Anna set the plate on the counter, and slowly picked up a glass from the sink. Through the window she watched the sunset. The trees in the distance became like haughty stick figures, pure black in the fading light.

  The newcomer certainly intrigued her. She wanted to know why he’d chosen this part of the Rocky Mountains to come and visit, why he’d chosen to stay clear across Taylor Lake on a snippet of land where only a crazy man would build a home. And, she thought impulsively, she wanted him to ask her out.

  Come to think of it, why hadn’t he asked her out? Had she lost some of her appeal, she wondered as she noticed her reflection in the window glass. Forty was only a year away, but she hadn’t felt old before. She disliked the emphasis she inadvertently put on that word. Old. She sighed. Where had all the time gone? She’d never have pictured herself single at this age, living with her aging father. But it had been thrust upon her, all in one fateful day. She’d never really allowed herself to think of men. Until now. She finally finished drying the glass, putting it away and resting her hands on the edge of the sink, eyes focused outside, thinking about Rory. And she had to admit that she wanted to know more about his writing, and why he chose the subject matter he did. She’d never met a writer before, and she was naturally curious.

  The last of the light crept over the ridge and dusk the color of lead consumed the peaks. The Holmes cabin sat on the side of the mountain to the west of Taylor Crossing, and the closest cabin was on the other side of a small rise. In the daylight, if she strained her eyes, Anna could just make out part of the cabin’s roof from the kitchen window, but in the darkness she couldn’t find the place without a spotlight. Too many trees and too much blackness came between the cabins. Even tonight, with the moon only a day short of full, she still couldn’t see the other cabin’s roof – just the outlines of trees.

  She was hanging the damp towel over a cupboard door when something out the window caught her eye. She leaned over the sink to look, wondering if a raccoon, or possibly a coyote, had emerged to prowl in the safety of the night. She scanned from left to right, seeing nothing but inky tree limbs. In the other room, the television show ended and a commercial began about why Coors was the best beer. She straightened, still watching, hoping to see a coyote. In all her years of living in Taylor Crossing, she never tired of seeing the wildlife. Except for bears. She’d had a close call with a big black bear ten years before, and it had scared her plenty. But the rest of the wildlife was generally harmless, especially if you were watching from the safety of your cabin.

  She started to turn from the window when she saw it again, certain this time that she saw something. A shimmer of silver, a reflection of moonlight. She leaned over the sink again and cupped her hands up to the glass, trying to take the reflection of the kitchen lights out of her vision. Outside nothing moved, then something off to the left. She craned her neck, turning toward the movement. What was it?

  Casper, she thought, her mind on the earlier conversation with Rory. Ghosts running around in the night.

  Her breath fogged a small circle on the glass and she shifted a couple of inches, eyes narrow and focused. It moved between two towering aspens. Like a bear standing on his hind legs, she thought, only not as bulky. It had seemed almost human. She squinted and looked harder, breathing harder. What was it? Was it anything?

  Then it seemed to be a number of yards away from the cabin but directly in front of the window, and since she’d been looking left, it was in her peripheral vision. She jerked her head. It was gone. She was sure she’d seen something. Were some kids out there, playing tricks on her? The city kids, a mainstay each summer, used the night as a means of scaring each other, or the hapless residents of Taylor Crossing. Harmless antics. Was that who she’d seen?

  “What’re you looking at?”

  She jumped as her father came into the kitchen. “Nothing,” she said quickly, rubbing her forehead where she’d banged it against the window. She stifled a wave of irritation at him and forced a smile.

  “You seeing things?” Jimmy asked. He went to the refrigerator and pulled out a soda.

  “Thought I saw a coyote,” she said, “or something walking around out there.” She sounded sharp and she told herself to ease up on her father.

  “That happens,” he said, nodding his head. “I see things out there, too.”

  “Sure you do,” she replied, trying to make her voice soothing. The last few years her father hadn’t been thinking as clearly. Old age was greeting him with a vengeance. She hated that it wore her down, just as she hated her own ambivalence at having to take care of him. She didn’t really mind the responsibility, but if it hadn’t been for him, things would be so different. A wave of resentment passed through her. If it wasn’t for him, she thought again, then quickly chided herself, Let it go.

  “Yep, I do. Odd things,” he interrupted her thoughts.

  “Uh huh.” Anna wiped off the table, pulling the crumbs into her hand. Her father shuffled back into the main room to watch more television, and she was ready to relax. But she couldn’t help taking one more glimpse outside, unable to shake the feeling that someone, or something, was watching her.

  CHAPTER 5

  Over the trees it came, an apparition gliding along on a placid breeze. It was part of the darkness, a form outside of time and space. It traveled without a map. Stars and landmarks held no meaning for it, yet it knew direction and destination.

  Gone was the old town, the many buildings lined up along Main Street. No more sounds of horses neighing, no dirt stirred up by restless hoofs. No more fruitless toil on unforgiving land. No more men drinking away their winnings and their losses surrounded by brothel women. The resonance of those depravities lay hidden in the years that had passed, leaving fallow ground in new structures erected over the past.

  The damp smell from Taylor Lake rose like an invisible mist, mingling with the scent of forest pine. And faintly, just beyond the reach of the senses, was an earthy smell, of precious metals locked into rock, of ashes and dust, of innumerable bodies interred over the years, fermenting with the dew of sweat drawn from countless hours of hard labor. Below that was the wickedness of the depraved, and the blood of the innocent who were calling for retribution.

  It sensed all this, pulling it in like a breath of air, a rejuvenating fire. It needed nothing more than the lights from cabins on the hills outside of Taylor Crossing, glowing like tiny torches of illumination in the darkly shadowed woods. Somehow it knew, and with that sense came recognition.

  It had returned.

  CHAPTER 6

  Eighteen-year-old Mick Hull felt the root of the aspen tree hook his left foot, and in a split second that his drug-induced state stretched out into long minutes, his lanky six-foot three frame tumbled to the ground. He flailed his hands out in front of him, but he landed hard anyway, the wind knocked out of him.

  “Dang it,” he mumbled, rolling over into a sitting position. In the darkness, the blood on the skinned palms of his hands didn’t look that bad. He peered down at the scrapes for a minute, cursing again as he picked dirt and tiny rocks out of the cuts. As bad as it hurt now, it was going to hurt worse tomorrow.

  His eyes burned as he regarded the moon, hanging in the steel blue sky. It was then that pain from another part of his body cut through his fogged brain. His khaki pant leg had a lengthy tear in it. Mick rolled up the fabric and noticed a gash in his right knee. It was oozing blood, but in the gloom it looked like motor oil.

  “Oh man,” he scowled, still not fully aware of the throbbing wound. He blew on it, like his mom used to do when he was a kid.

  He sat in the darkness, his arms crossed ag
ainst the cool air, knowing he needed to get back to the cabin where he was staying with his parents and his younger sister Ellie, but he couldn’t find the energy. And it wasn’t just from the fall.

  It was three o’clock in the morning, the moon was heading on its journey over the horizon, and he had been partying with his friend in an abandoned mine shack over the ridge from Taylor Crossing. He had snuck out at midnight, the sounds of his dad’s snoring echoing throughout the cabin, and he knew he was safe because his father was nearly comatose when he slept, and his mother, who couldn’t sleep with all that racket right next to her, would have her earplugs in. He and his friend Nicholas had trekked out to the mine, where they didn’t have to worry about making too much noise. They had smoked a lot of really good marijuana he brought with him. Combined with a case of beer that he purchased using a fake ID earlier in the day in Nederland, and the two of them got pretty wasted. No matter that the beer was lukewarm or that it was the 3.2 crap that Colorado had.

  Mick knew he could have stayed out for a couple more hours, but he didn’t want to get caught, so he had decided to head back to the cabin. His dad was an early riser, and he didn’t want to surprise him by showing up at dawn, stoned, smelling like pot and cheap booze.

  He finally got up, ran his fingers through his closely cropped brown hair, and meandered down the trail, still cursing the root that caused his fall, and for good measure, cursing his parents as well. In his mind, he wouldn’t have fallen in the first place if it hadn’t have been for them. In the twisted, egocentric way a teenager’s mind works, he would never have been out at this time of night – check that, he would’ve been out at this time of night – but he wouldn’t have needed to be clandestine about it if his parents weren’t so fricking rigid about their rules. He was eighteen after all, had just graduated valedictorian of his class from a prestigious prep school, was class president, and had achieved just about everything that a high school senior could achieve. He’d even gotten a full ride academic scholarship to Harvard, so you’d think his parents would get off his back. If he’d had his way, he wouldn’t have a curfew, and he wouldn’t have to be home by eleven, cooped up in that stupid little cabin with his parents and sister, instead of out partying with his friend.

  Mick stopped on the trail, aware of moisture on his shin. He sat down again and rolled up the pant leg, and saw that the bleeding was worse than he thought.

  “Great,” he mumbled. “Darn thing probably needs stitches. How am I going to explain this?”

  He could see his parents now, hovering over him in the emergency room in Boulder, wondering how he could’ve been so stupid as to wander the dark mountains in the dead of night. What was he thinking, he could hear his father asking, while his mother would wring her hands, tears on the verge of cascading down her cheeks. All because he’d snuck out and gotten hurt.

  If they only knew that their precious son, the apple of their eyes, the Harvard-bound overachiever, smoked dope and drank. He knew they wouldn’t believe him when he said he had it under control, that he’d only been doing this for a little while. It was just a way for him to release some of the pressure he’d been under lately.

  Another thought made its way into his muddled brain. What if the hospital did a drug test on him? Would they do that for a simple cut on the knee? He banged his fist on the ground, immediately regretting it as the torn skin on his palm ached more.

  “Aw, man!” He cursed loudly. The sound of his voice carried off into the darkness.

  He didn’t move for several minutes, unaware of time passing as he contemplated his state of affairs. Nicholas was probably already back in his own bed. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to fall flat on his face.

  As Mick sat there, a sudden sense of uneasiness washed over him, and it wasn’t from the possibility of getting caught. It was as if a shadow had swept through the trees and settled on him. He glanced over his shoulder, but only saw aspens, gray and gnarled. The leaves on the trees whispered lightly in a swift gust of wind, and he felt another wave of apprehension course through his veins.

  “Man, I must really be high,” he muttered, standing up and shaking his head. “I gotta get more of this stuff.”

  He started on again, this time with his eyes scanning the woods around him. Trees and shadows melted together ominously, and occasional rock outcroppings seemed like giant monsters protecting the forest. He stepped on a branch and it cracked loudly. He jumped.

  The wind whistled in the trees again, but he thought he heard something else, far off. He slowed and listened, unable to tell if it was the echoes of his own feet stirring the dirt, or something else. He tried to tell himself that it was Nicholas heading home, but his cabin was in the opposite direction, so he wouldn’t be nearby. The sounds continued, but he didn’t want to stop to find out what they were. Fear was taking over.

  He started to walk faster, unaware that he was hurrying, that an unacknowledged urgency was clawing at him. He pictured the safety of his tiny room with its double bed, his parents in the next bedroom, his sister sleeping in her room across the hall from his.

  Out in front of him, something moved over the trail. He wasn’t sure what he saw – was it just a hallucination caused by the drugs? It was shapeless, formless, and yet somehow tangible. Just as quickly, it was gone.

  Then he felt it, beside him.

  Mick would never know if the scream he let out was real, or just in his head, but he did know that his legs had never moved faster, that he ran like the demons of hell were chasing him. He didn’t care who heard him or if he got caught. He wanted to be home, now.

  He stumbled once, quickly got to his feet, and tore down the trail. It seemed to take forever, but he finally staggered over a small rise, and his cabin came into view. He hurried to his bedroom window, gulping for air. He eased through the opening and crashed to the floor, sucking in his breath. He froze, listening. He was prepared for one or both of his parents to come barging into the room, but nothing happened. Over the sound of his pounding heart he heard his dad snoring. He waited a minute more before he decided that they hadn’t heard him sneaking back in.

  He pulled himself up to the window and peeked over the sill. The trees stood calmly swaying in a gentle breeze, and between the branches, Taylor Lake shimmered in the waning moonlight. He looked, but no specters appeared, no evil forces. Nothing.

  He heaved a sigh. Dang good drugs, he thought to himself.

  He tiptoed into the bathroom, where he cleaned up the cuts and abrasions as best he could. In the light of the single bulb over the bathroom sink, the gash on his knee didn’t look as bad. A lot of blood, but he didn’t think it needed stitches. A couple of band-aids did the trick. He figured he could wear pants in the morning and later in the day make up some story about falling and cutting himself. His parents would never know the difference.

  He heard his dad cough and begin snoring again. Mick turned out the bathroom light. He walked softly back into his bedroom and stripped to his underwear, purposely not looking out the window. Knee hurts like hell, he thought as he crawled under the sheets and fell into a heavy sleep.

  CHAPTER 7

  Myrtle Hester awoke at dawn, just like she’d done for most of her sixty-some-odd years. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, slid her feet into slippers, and stood up, pulling on her white terrycloth robe to guard against the early morning chill.

  “Come on, Boo,” she said. The dog was sleeping in a large, pillow-filled wicker basket on the floor. Almost as old in dog years as Myrtle was in human years, Boo got lazily to his feet and ambled after Myrtle, his tail wagging.

  Fall’s coming quick, Myrtle thought as she padded into the kitchen. She let Boo outside for a few minutes, and when he came back inside, she dumped food from a bag in a metal bowl for him, then pulled a coffee can out of the cupboard and got the old percolator running. Serve her coffee hot and black, and made the old-fashioned way, thank you very much. She’d had the old pot for thirty years, and it worked just f
ine, without all the bells and whistles of these new coffeemakers. And it made about the best cup of coffee you could find – she didn’t hold any account with all the new fancy lattes and mochas.

  She went into the spacious living room where she could look out on Taylor Lake and watch the sun rise, listening to the sound of the coffee bubbling in the pot, waiting for its rich aroma to fill the entire place. As the eastern sky turned rosy, she sat in the silence with her thoughts, absent-mindedly petting Boo, who had parked himself near her feet.

  Of the four cabins that Myrtle owned, this one was the biggest. It had three bedrooms, a nice large bathroom, the living room with a grand old fireplace and a huge bay window that faced the lake. She could’ve rented it out for a pretty penny, like she did with the D’Angelos and the Hulls, but this was the cabin that she and Les, her husband, had always used. It was the most familiar, and it had the most memories. Myrtle may have been getting on in years, but she wasn’t ready to give up yet. Besides, her daughter liked to visit a couple of times during the summer, bringing her three girls, and then she needed all the rooms.

  Thank goodness her daughter finally dropped that no-account husband of hers, Myrtle mused as the horizon above the trees took on a fiery tone. Her daughter had enough with raising the children, and her nursing job. She didn’t need to support a deadbeat as well.

  A slice of sun broke over the treetops and the darkness grew weaker. Myrtle didn’t watch the sunrise when she was in Denver, but up here, she relished each morning, and she usually took in the beauty of the dawn the same way each day, with a bit of breathtaking awe, some gratitude to still be alive to enjoy it, and a hint of guilt that too often she took this daily phenomenon for granted. But today she felt different. A little bit depressed, not her usual self.