Fear Weaver (16 page)

“It’s time for you two young ladies to think about bed,” Aunt Aggie announced. Taking Tyne and Anora by the hand, she escorted them to a far corner. They didn’t protest.

Fatigue gnawed at Nate, but he shook it off. He must stay alert no matter what.

Peter dozed sitting up. Aggie turned in, but the way she tossed proved sleep was elusive. The girls managed to fall asleep, but they would whimper and groan.

Above them, the moon crept across the patch of sky.

Nate found it harder to keep his eyes open. He took to pacing, with frequent glances out the window. He had been at it for more than an hour when he stepped to the window for yet another look.

Lit by moon glow, the clearing was empty. The woods were a black tangle that hid their secrets. Nate yawned. He glanced back at the others. They were all asleep, even Agatha. The fire had burned low. He turned back to the window, and his blood turned to ice in his veins.

A face was staring back at him. A pale, hideous, sinister face, framed by a filthy shock of black hair
and gristle on the chin. The skin was drawn tight over the bones, the lips were thin and bloodless. But it was the eyes that were truly terrible, eyes lit by inner fires that bordered on the demonic. They glared at him with such raw ferocity, it was like gazing into the eyes of a rabid wolf. Only these eyes evinced far more cunning, and wicked intent.

Whether it was Norton, Liford or Blayne, Nate couldn’t say. He suspected it was the oldest. With a start, he galvanized to life and grabbed for one of the pistols at his waist. Suddenly a hand shot through the window and gripped him by the throat. The arm was scrawny, the fingers no thicker than pencils, yet they clamped like an iron vise. Nate could feel his neck constrict as the pressure threatened to pulp his flesh. He grabbed the wrist and pried at the fingers, but it was like prying at metal bands.

The face in the window laughed.

Nate punched the arm. He twisted. He tried to fling himself back. But the madman held on, his fingers closing tighter. Nate’s throat was pulsing pain and his chest hurt. He needed air. He must break free, or die. He struck the lunatic’s elbow, but the hideous face didn’t react.
The face
. Drawing back his arm, Nate rammed his fist into its mouth. The thin lips split and an upper tooth broke but the mad-man went on squeezing as if he hadn’t felt a thing.

Nate’s lungs were fit to burst. In desperation he tried to rake the lunatic’s right eye with his finger-nails, but Norton—if that is who it was—pulled back. Nate did scratch the eyebrow, though, deep enough that blood flowed.

Norton snarled, and blinked, and his hold on Nate’s throat slackened slightly.

It was the moment Nate needed. With a powerful surge, he broke the stranglehold. In doing so he lost some of his skin. But that was of no consequence. The important thing was to see to it that no one else suffered Sully’s and Ryker’s fates. Molding his palm to a flintlock, he brought up the pistol.

The madman was gone. One instant he had been there, and the next he wasn’t.

Nate leaned out the window. The lunatic was bolting toward the corner of the cabin. Refusing to let him get away, Nate darted to the door and removed the bar. He was outside and to the corner in seconds, but no one was there.

In frustration, Nate pounded the wall. Whoever it had been could now kill again. Wheeling, he stalked toward the door. Belatedly, he realized his mistake in leaving the door open. Worse, he had left his rifle inside. Fatigue was making him careless and carelessness cost lives.

A slight sound overhead caused Nate to glance up. There, perched on the edge of the roof, were the other two, as pale and feral as their brother, their hair a filthy mess, their skin splotched with bloodstains. They were naked from the waist up and their pants were in tatters. Their eyes had the same demonic quality, as if their human intelligence had been replaced by something from the pit. But the explanation was simpler. They were mad, completely mad, their sole craving to kill and kill again. In their deranged states, they couldn’t kill enough. They could never spill enough blood. Animal blood or human blood, it was all the same to them.

Even as Nate glanced up, they sprang. They were smaller and lighter, but there were two of them and their combined weight slammed him onto his back
on the hard ground even as their teeth sought his throat and their hands clawed at him like talons.

Nate tried to shout a warning to the Woodrows, only to have a hand shoved halfway down his throat. He gagged on the feel of the fingers and the stench.

The other brother, Blayne, abruptly stood, whirled, and bounded into the cabin.

Heaving up, Nate dislodged the one on his chest. He had barely gained his knees when the madman was on him again. Filthy nails dug at his throat while a mouth rimmed with teeth speckled by bits and pieces of rancid meat gaped to bite his face.

Nate lashed out, a punch to the gut that jolted him. He pushed to his feet, but he was only halfway up when the oldest brother, Norton, flew back around the corner and without slowing or breaking stride lowered his shoulder and rammed into him.

As Nate went down, a shriek filled the cabin. It was followed by a bellow from Peter. A pistol cracked.

Good for them! Nate thought. He hoped they killed Blayne. He wanted to help them, but he had problems of his own. The pair on top of him were attempting to pin his arms.

Then Tyne screamed.

Roaring with rage, Nate exploded upward. He hurled one of the maniacs from him and clubbed the other with his fist. Racing inside, he stopped short in stunned horror.

Erleen was on the floor, her jugular bit open, bucking and kicking and blubbering scarlet down her chin. Peter was unconscious a few feet away, one hand clutching the pistol he had fired, the other spouting blood from the stumps of severed fingers. His throat was intact but not his face; half of it had been ripped off. Anora lay curled in the corner, unmoving.

In the other corner cowered Tyne. Protecting her, armed only with a short-bladed knife, was Aunt Aggie. Speckled with gore, her dress torn, she slashed and stabbed at the nimble figure prancing in front of them.

Blayne cackled as he pranced, his blood-wet fingers hooked like claws. Aggie lanced the knife at him, and he snapped his teeth at her wrist.

Nate groped for his other flintlock, but he had lost it. He drew his bowie and his tomahawk instead. A snarl behind him gave him a twinkling’s warning, and he spun. The other two were coming through the door. He swung the tomahawk and connected, but with the flat side and not the edge. It knocked— Liford, was it?—into Norton, and both tumbled back out. Nate whirled again.

Norton had seized Aggie’s wrist. She was on her knees, her arm bent at a sharp angle. He was trying to make her drop the knife. Her teeth clenched, she refused to let go.

Nate raced to her aid. He made no noise, yet somehow Blayne sensed him. He released Aggie and turned.

Those demonic eyes locked on Nate’s. For an instant, Nate slowed. Only an instant, but enough for Blayne to coil and leap aside as Nate arced the tomahawk in a blow intended to split Blayne’s skull.

Most foes, human foes, would have closed with Nate while he was off-balance. But Blayne was as far from human as a human could be. Cackling with demented glee, he did the last thing Nate expected; he ran. Nate gave chase, but Blayne was ungodly quick.

At the door, Nate stopped. He refused to make the same mistake twice. He slid the bowie into its
sheath and the tomahawk under his belt. Kicking the door shut, he barred it, then reclaimed his rifle.

Aunt Aggie was cradling Tyne, who sobbed in great, racking heaves.

Erleen had stopped thrashing. She was dead. So was Anora. Her neck was broken. Peter was alive, but his pulse was weak. He had lost so much blood it was doubtful he would last much longer.

Nate covered Erleen and Anora with blankets. He eased Woodrow onto his back and was surprised when Peter’s eyes blinked open.

“My family?” The question was a weak rasp.

“Agatha and Tyne are alive.”

“Oh God.” Peter coughed, and swallowed his own blood. “And Blayne? Tell me you killed him.”

“They all got away.”

Peter coughed some more. “It can’t end like this. You know what you have to do.”

“Yes,” Nate King said. “I know.”

The sun had risen an hour before, but it would be another hour before it was above the high cliffs. Gloom shrouded the valley.

Nate glided through a false twilight realm of grays and blacks, every sense alert. In addition to his bowie and the tomahawk, he had his rifle and one of his flintlocks. He’d searched for the other one, but it hadn’t been anywhere near the cabin. Someone had taken it. He had a fair idea who.

The squawk of a jay broke the stillness. Somehow, it was reassuring.

The madmen and their mother had come close to exterminating every living creature in the valley, but they hadn’t killed all of them.

Nate tried not to think of their latest victims. Before starting his hunt, he had wrapped Peter, Erleen and Anora in blankets and carried them out near the corral. He would bury them later. After. If he lived. If he didn’t—he tried not to think of that, either. Aunt Aggie and Tyne would be on their own, with over a thousand miles of wilderness between them and civilization. The prospects of their making it back were slim.

He prayed Aggie kept the front door barred, as he
had told her to, and that she didn’t untie the curtains. She had the rest of the rifles and pistols, enough to fend off the lunatics should they try to break in.

The smart thing to do was to mount up and get out of there, to leave the valley to crazed Philberta and her insane brood. But Nate was determined to end it, one way or another. He owed it to Peter. He owed it to himself. So here he was, stalking the dappled woodland, pitting his savvy and his skill against
things
with an insatiable appetite for raw flesh. He could still see that hideous face in the window, still feel those terrible fingers squeezing the life from him. He shuddered, then steeled himself.

The junction of the cliffs appeared ahead. Nate couldn’t see the cave yet. He was hoping that was where he would find them.

The silence ate at his nerves. It was so unnatural. Even the wind had died. He avoided twigs and dry brush and anything else that might crunch or crackle and give him away.

Off through the trees the black opening yawned.

Nate went another dozen steps, and stopped. He watched the cave opening for signs of movement, but there were none. If they were there, they were in the inky recesses of their lair.

Wedging the Hawken to his shoulder, Nate advanced. He couldn’t wait all day for them to appear. He must force the issue. If they weren’t there, they could be anywhere. Maybe at the cabin, about to attack Aggie and Tyne. He must find out.

The sickening stench seemed worse than the day before, if that was possible. Nate fought down more bitter bile. He avoided looking at the grisly remains, and at the legion of flies and maggots crawling over the putrid flesh.

Nate stopped again. He was in clear view, and he braced for a howling rush. But nothing happened. The flies and maggots continued to eddy and the reek filled his nose, but nothing else. They weren’t there.

Nate turned to hurry back to the cabin. Yet again, he thought he’d made the right decision and it turned out to be a mistake. He should never have left Aggie and Tyne alone.

Overcome by guilt, Nate nearly missed the patter of feet behind him. He whirled just as the youngest of the three leaped. Blayne’s eyes were aglow with unholy bloodlust, and his teeth were bared. In mid-air he howled. And in midair, Nate shot him.

The Hawken’s muzzle was inches from the mad youth’s chest when it went off. The heavy slug cored Blayne’s sternum, and the impact flipped him onto his back. Growling and spurting crimson, he tried to stand but only made it to his hands and knees when his life fled and his limbs gave out.

Nate had no time to congratulate himself. The other two were almost on him. He dropped the rifle and streaked his hands to his waist. But he had not quite drawn his flintlock and knife when Norton and Liford slammed into him. Teeth sought his throat. Fingers gouged and ripped.

Spinning, Nate sent Norton tumbling. Liford clung on; dementia given form and substance, he shrieked and bit at Nate’s jugular.

Jerking aside, Nate tugged his pistol loose and slammed it against the madman’s temple. Liford sagged but didn’t go down. Nate smashed him a second time, and then a third, crushing an ear and splitting a cheek. But Liford still clung on. Jamming the flintlock against Liford’s ribs, Nate fired.

The lunatic staggered. He gawked at the hole in his side and let out a screech of rage and pain. Amazingly, he stayed on his feet and flew at Nate again in a frenzy of teeth and nails.

But Nate had the bowie out. He sheared it into Liford’s belly down low, and sliced upward until the steel grated on rib. Liford’s insides spilled out and he collapsed in a heap, dead before he sprawled in the dirt.

Two down, Nate thought to himself. He spun, looking for the third, but Norton had disappeared. Nate had a choice to make. Reload, or go after him. Thinking of Aggie and Tyne, Nate stuck the flintlock under his belt, drew his tomahawk, and dashed into the forest. To his right was a pine, to his left a thicket. He ran between them, watching the thicket since it offered better concealment. Above him a bough swayed, and the next instant a hurtling form slammed into his shoulder blades and he was bowled to the earth.

Norton screeched as he scrambled up into a crouch.

Dazed, Nate groped for his knife. He had lost it when he fell. The madman charged, and Nate cleaved the tomahawk at Norton’s contorted face. By rights the keen edge should have split it like a melon, but the lunatic’s speed was superhuman. Norton sidestepped, shifted, and sprang at Nate again.

Nate swung, and swung again, but it was like trying to imbed the tomahawk in a ghost. Norton dodged and laughed, and danced and laughed. And just when Nate began to think the madman was treating their life-and-death struggle as some sort of game, he swung again, and missed again, and before he could recover his balance, Norton sprang.