On Tenterhooks (50 page)

“Well, I didn
’t know until just now myself.
I’ve been wondering about
that
these last few days
.
Would I have the guts to stand up to him? But as soon as I saw
Preacher
—
when I realized it was him and not Martin
—
all I thought about was getting between him and you and
Veronica
and Martin
.
Didn’t think much about how to stop him, or what could happen to me for doing it
.
I just grabbed the axe and took a shot.”
He turned the axe over in his hands.

“Soun
ds like textbook bravery to me,” she replied.

“No, I don’t think so.
More like commitment
.
Biker seems pretty confident that we can beat him.”

“I wish he were here,” said Abby at the mention of Biker’s name.

“Me too, kiddo.”

Martin and
Veronica
returned with the blankets and mattress
.
After they
organized a makeshift bed on the floor
,
Abby and
Veronica
scooted in under the covers
,
and Martin stretched out on the couch
.
Despite their exhaustion, Preacher’s trick filled them with fresh fear.
Steve was on watch, but it
was several hours before any of the others gave in to fatigue.

Chapter
4
2
 

“Steve.”

He felt pressure on his shoulder.

“Steve.”

Steve awoke to find
Veronica
sitting on the edge of the
couch
.
He reached for his glasses on the
arm of the
couch,
put them on and sat up.

“Hey there,” she said
.
“It’s five o’clock.”

“Right.
Thanks for waking me.”

He yawned and stretched. The house was still quiet
.
Pink tendrils of
dawn
ing sky
were
just beginning to pe
e
k through the
windowpanes
.
The night crickets were still
chattering,
but the day’s birds had already begun to chirp in
the trees surrounding the property
, intent on bringing the day to order.

“What’s the status?” he asked.

“Nothing to report
.
Abby and Martin are still asleep,” said
Veronica
, gesturing over her shoulder
.

Martin lay balled up on the mattress on the floor at their feet
.
He had covered his head with the sheets, but his rhythmic breathing lifted them up and down like clockwork
.
Abby had curled up sideways in the nearby chair.
Steve was jealous of how eas
il
y she could contort herself into such a small space for sleep.

“A
bby stayed up with me until about midnight
,
talking
,
and then she went to bed
.
I didn’t want to wake her.
It’s been all quiet since then.”

“Good,
I guess
.
All of this waiting
is getting old
.”

It had been over two days since they’d seen Preacher, but they knew he was still close by
.
Abby insisted that she could feel him, somewhere out in the woods.

Steve rose from the
couch
and rummaged through his
nearby backpack
to find a clean shirt
.
They had agreed that it made sense to sleep in their clothes, in order to be prepared
.
Steve had laughed a little at this decision afterwards
.
The idea of being prepared for something like this was a little foolish, considering that they did
n’t
know what “this” would be like
.
Between the attack on Abby in the alley and his
imitation
of Martin, they had
already experienced two very different
,
yet terrifying
,
encounters
with Preacher
.

“
It’s only been
a few
days,” said
Veronica
.
“
But yeah, it
seems like a lot longer.”

“I know
.
You seem to get stuck pulling
the
late nights
.
Are you doing okay with that
?”
he asked.

“Yeah, it’s not a problem.
I’m used to staying up late
and
getting up early
.
When I was in college, my exam weeks were
all-
night cram sessions
—
and I did
damn well on them too.
Of course,
nowadays
, I need just a little bit more caffeine to keep the blood flowing
.”

Steve chuckled.
“Funny, I would’ve
thought that the idea of an impending confrontation with
one of t
he most powerful demon
s
walking the face of our planet would be enough to keep your eyes open.”

“Well,
t
hat helps too.”

Steve
walked to the window as he buttoned up his shirt
.
The dew was thick on the blades and a cool fog hovered over the
scrub
forest beyond.
He cracked the window
and
breathed deep
ly
.
The cool
,
fresh morning
air felt good on his face
.
The rich smell of earth and the
woods
was comforting and peaceful. He knew it was a temporary peace, but that made him appreciate it even more.

Open
ing the
windows was a risk they chose to take
,
T
he house
was
stifling in the daytime sun.
Cracking
the
windows in the evening
was
the only way to make things tolerable.
However, t
hey all agreed to sleep with them closed
.

Veronica
seemed to read his mind.

“Are you scared, Steve?”

“
Absolutely.”

“Me
,
too.”

“Sure, we all are.”
He walked
back
to the
couch
and sat down beside her.

“But I am also proud of us
.
I think we’ve got what it takes to beat this, whatever this is
.
We’re here because we we
re singled out, by both s
ides, b
ecause we have more potential
for doing good things than most of the people
on the planet
.
I think that is pretty reassuring
.”

“Yeah, I know.
I just wish we knew what was going to happen
.
Th
is
wide-open
not-knowing is
so .
.
. frustrating
.
Give me something to
fight
!”
She raised a fist in front of her, shadowboxing.

Before Steve could respond, Abby answered from the
chair
.

“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that much longer,” she said.
She cleared her throat.

Steve noticed how tired she looked
.
Her hair and clothes were disheveled. Her
lower lip was purple and a little swollen, the result of
her constant nervous chewing
.
Her eyes were still beautiful, but
the dark circles under them spoke of a long period of restless nights
.
S
ince their encounter with Preacher in
Cozumel,
she seemed to have aged into a full adult.
Steve
briefly
imagined how
frantic her parents must be by now
and then forced the thought out of his head
.

“Something’s happening out there,” she said, gesturing to the window.

It was hard to believe, given the forest sounds and soothin
g breeze floating into the
room, that
anything was out of the ordinary beyond the confines of the small cottage
.
Nevertheless,
Steve had
already
seen enough of her intuition to k
now that it
had to
be trusted
.
He nodded
.

“
Martin!
Time to get
up
brother! Looks like today is gonna be a busy day!”

Martin stirred and groaned under the twisted blankets.
Steve
turned to
Veronica
and Abby.

“
How about you two d
o a window and door check?
  I’ll get this one.”

The
women
nodded and
left the room
.
Steve stood and once again walked to the window
.
He bent down and opened
it wider
, then
leaned out and stretched, looking at
the
clearing around the front of the cabin. I
n the distance he could see the orange glow of the sun just beginning to
climb above
the horizon
.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

There isn’t anything
ordinary about any of this.

He pulled the
window
down and then shut and locked
it
.
He put on his shoes and
nudged Martin w
ith his foot
.

“Come on, rise and shine, Martin. This looks like
a
good day for a decent breakfast!”

Chapter
4
3

Dawn came and went
as
they huddled in the den
.
They each clutched their m
akeshift weapons
.
They paced. They rocked. T
hey whispered
.
They had locked and blocked b
oth doors leading
out of
the den
.
Conversation was light and carried
in hushed tones.

Steve had taken
the chair closest to the window. He
stole frequent glances through the dirty pane out onto the yard beyond
, where he
could see the sunlight glinting off dewdrops on the
few blades of
grass
that shot up from the verdant carpet
. The mist had retreated from the lawn
itself
,
but still hung low and heavy over the surrounding
brush
.

The evening sounds of the forest had long since given way to the familiar bird calls that they had heard loud and strong every day they had been in the cabin. But the sunlight and the birds did nothing to dull their nerves
.
Each of them was alert, gripping
and re-gripping weapon handles and furniture arms
. They took turns stealing glances and sometimes even long stares out the window at the empty lawn and peaceful forest beyond
.

“Guys,”
Steve
said, “I have never coached a team
,
and I suck as a salesman. So this pep talk might not
be the best you’ve ever heard. B
ut what I am saying needs to be said, and it needs to be said now.”

He
felt responsible for each of them. He would have to answer to
Veronica
’s family, Martin’s family, Abby’s parents and anyone else who cared about them the way they now cared about each other.
Less than t
wo weeks ago, he would have scoffed at the idea of leading this group of
ragtag
soldiers into a battle they didn’t want
,
but couldn’t avoid.
And now, it was literally at their doorstep.

“Martin, a few days ago, you said you didn’t care to be a pawn in someone else’s game.”

Martin nodded.

“I agree with you
.
But I say we’ve got to
take that to
heart
. We
will
no longer sit by and let
this
happen
to
us
.
I refuse to be anyone’s pawn
!
 
We are
ready for this, all of us
! This is our board, our rules and we own this game
.
We are
n’t pawns
.
We are
the kings and the queens
,
and we will win this thing once and for all,
here and now! We can do this, and we will. I know you’re scared
—
I am too. But don’t let that beat us down. It’s time to rise up and forget what we think we can and cannot do
,
and just do what needs to be done!”

He pounded the floorboards with the butt of his axe for emphasis.

“We are bound to each other via knowledge that few other people on earth
have
shared, or would even believe. We are going to put this thing to rest. No more nightmares, no more suffering, no more manipulation. Preacher took
people
from us
whom
we loved deeply
,
and it put a hole in our souls. Whatever happens here today, we can’t bring them back.”

He fought back a flash vision to his nightmare and Julie’s body crashing into him.

“What is the point of being alive
,
if all you’re going to do is worry about being dead?  We are h
ere for a reason. S
o let’s show that thing out there
,
and anybody else who’s watching
,
that
we don’t take that ‘
pos
itive’
label lightly.
”

Steve
could see the resolution in their face
s
and the hope behind it
.
They wanted to believe.

“But we can be certain that his evil doesn’t unbind us at our core
.
He hurt us
.
He tore something right out
of our
hearts that we can’t replace.
We must remember why
.
Why did he do it?  Because he knew
God
had
chose
n
us
—
from among
b
illions of people on this planet.
Preacher did what he did in order to shake us to our core; make us forget about love, happiness, faith and following the path of a positive.
It didn’t work though
, did it?
  Biker told us that God has faith in us. And if He has faith in
us .
.
. then
so do I!
”

Please God, let that be enough to face him down.

Steve put down his axe and gestured them into a circle.
They all stood and embraced
in
a
tight huddle
.
Hot, angry tears fell down
Veronica
’s face
.
She wiped them
away
with
the
back of her hand, all the while clutching Biker’s .45. They were tensed, ready to rumble and let loose the adrenaline that coursed through their veins
.
The aggression, the tension was palpable
,
and it was time to
act
.

“You got us
,
brother,” said Martin, voice choked with emotion. “We’re with you to the end.”

They stretched, adjusted
a grip on
their
makeshift weapon
s
and stood crowded together.

With no warning
, the sound of silence broke loud over them.
It wasn’t
a
gradual softening of the sounds of the forest around them; it
was as if someone had
thrown a woolen blanket over the house
.
It was immediate silence
—
inside the cottage and out.
They all gathered around the grimy window
.
The
mist
still hovered
in the woods beyond the clearing
, but the chatter
ing of birds and insects
had stopped.

As quickly as the silence set in,
a single noise in the fog
replaced
it
.
It sounded to Steve like a
n
ancient front porch rocking chair, the aching joints screeching with each movement. Slowly the sound increased in volume. As it got louder, it
morphed
into what sounded like the guttural disjointed halves of a bullfrog
’
s call, from each
side of the tiny house.

Scree!
 
A brief pause.

Scrum!
 
Scree!

Scrum!”
For several agonizing minutes, the noise continued
. It was louder with each repetition. The windowpane
rattled
,
and they could feel the sound in their chests. Louder and louder, but still no sign of movement
outside the dirty window
.
T
hen, it stopped.

“This is it
guys,” whispered Steve.

Preacher walked out of the
mist and the
woods and stood at the edge of the clearing, baring his long teeth in a
sinister
smile
.