I was staring at
myself.
There was nothing else to
think. There I was.
‘
I’ smiled at
myself.
“
You’re in love with him,”
the skinwalker me said, my voice exactly as it sounded in
recordings.
She took a few steps
back.
“
If you’re lucky, he may get
a chance to love you back. Before it’s too late.”
And with that, the
skinwalker me waltzed out of the tack room and
disappeared.
On the plus side, I was
still alive. She could have killed me but she didn’t. And it meant
that Dex was still alive. On the negative side, I was still tied up
awaiting certain fate and Dex was about to meet his, most likely by
the hands of someone he trusted the most.
No wonder Bird had said not
to trust me. He knew. If only the old idiot had actually put enough
energy to explain why, it would have made a whole world of fucking
difference.
And then the spins came.
Not just the spins that made my head wobble back and forth like I
was having an out of body seizure, but the waves of paralysis that
coursed through me. I went from feeling like I could rip out of the
binds (which I knew I couldn’t) to feeling like I was frozen from
the inside out.
Then the room started to
move again in waves. But it wasn’t my head this time. It was
figures and shapes coming out of the shadows. They were ghostly,
transparent. Shapes in vaguely human forms. They hovered around me.
I didn’t know if this was a product of going insane from the
circumstances or the fact that I was drugged with
peyote.
I looked at the objects.
They hovered and quivered as if they were timed to an irregular
heartbeat. Whether they were real or not, I didn’t have many
options.
“
Can you help me?” I
pleaded, quietly at first, ashamed of my voice when there was no
one around. I was talking to myself.
“
Please? Can you help me? I
need help.”
Tears pricked at my eyes
and fell unaided onto my thighs. I started bawling. I couldn’t help
it. I was so lost. I couldn’t do a single thing. I couldn’t even
think.
I cried for a few minutes,
feeling stupid and useless and a sorry excuse for a human being.
The love of my life (OK, so there it was) was in grave danger and I
wasn’t able to do a single thing about it.
I cried for a bit more
until I noticed a change of energy in the room. I looked up through
my tears. My vision was watery but I could see the figures were
closer to me. I wasn’t afraid though. They didn’t mean me harm,
whatever they were.
“
Please,” I sobbed one last
time, meaning every messy note I managed to get out.
I felt warmth around me
which made me feel better. The warmth didn’t undo my straps
though.
But they did make my
fingers feel more agile. I started to strain my wrists behind my
back, trying to loosen their casing. It worked in a sense. I worked
out how I was tied to the chair. My hands were tied together but it
seemed I was only connected to the chair on my right
side.
I wondered if I had
anything MacGyver-ish in my left pocket. I moved my hand around in
that direction, still noting that the strange white figures were
hovering nearby like blurbs on badly processed film.
I felt in my back pocket
and my fingers reached something. It felt like a plastic bag. Was
it a gum wrapper? Only MacGyver could make something out of a gum
wrapper.
I coiled my fingers around
it and brought it out of my back pocket. I leaned forward in my
seat as far as I could, so that I was almost tipped forward and
tried to look behind my shoulder. I couldn’t see what it was but it
did feel like something soft and squishy had been encased in Saran
Wrap.
I had no idea what it could
be. And I had zero patience to slowly open the bag and figure out
what it was. As soon as it was in my fingers, I ripped it
apart.
I heard a faint puff of
sound and felt a sprinkling of softness on my thumbs.
The white, weird figures
suddenly retreated into the depths of the room and were gone. I
didn’t know if that was a good sign considering they hadn’t done
anything wrong but, regardless, the fact that I could the rip the
bag made me realize I could reach the other hand with the
other.
I concentrated as hard as I
could, and even though it took a few wrong attempts, much like
trying to do your hair in front of a mirror, I was finally able to
get my left hand free from the straps.
I brought the hand forward
and marveled at it. It was covered in a white powder, similar to
talcum. I quickly made work of my other hand. I bent over and tried
to untie my feet but the reins were too tight. I looked up at the
wall and spied a saw hanging above the sink. I hopped awkwardly
across the tack room floor, chair clanking loudly as I went. I
hoped wherever Sarah and Shan were, they wouldn’t hear
it.
I got the saw off of the
wall and quickly put it to use against my leg binds. The supple
leather snapped easily and soon I was free of the chair. I was
still dizzy and disoriented but I was free and ready to
go.
I stumbled across the room
and into the barn. I heard the horses stirring nervously in their
stalls as I ran past.
Seeing the cloudy moonlight
at the end of the barn, I started sprinting for it. I entered the
stormy air of outside. Nothing ever smelled as sweet. The wind was
really blowing now and threw my hair behind me.
I narrowed my eyes against
the flying grit and sand and tried to piece together where Dex
could be. He went into the house with the sheriff, the last I
saw.
They couldn’t obliterate
everyone, could they? The house was the first place I would have to
go.
I scampered across the dry
paddock towards the Lancaster’s house, which still had the lights
on. As I neared, I saw that all the cars had gone. That wasn’t a
good sign.
I slowed a bit and tried to
take everything into account as much as I could.
If everyone was gone, that
probably meant that they were alive. Maybe taking Bird to the
hospital? Would they leave without Dex though? They couldn’t, Bird
wouldn’t let that happen. Unless Bird was so out of it…
I stopped a hundred yards
from the house and instinctively crouched down, hiding
myself.
So where was Dex? I didn’t
have the luxury to examine all my options. All I knew was that
–
A flashlight.
Off in the juniper woods,
near the other barn, there was a light bobbing in the trees. It
seemed to be searching.
I held my breath and
listened. I didn’t hear anything. I started running towards the
light as quickly as I could while keeping as low to the ground as
possible. Given my height, it wasn’t that hard.
I was close to where the
sheep paddock ended and the trees began, when I heard it. I
paused.
It was me. It was my voice
coming from where the flashlight was.
“
Dex, help me,” it
said.
I opened my mouth to scream
“No!” but nothing came out. Instead, I heard my disembodied voice
again coming from the trees.
“
Dex, help me!” it said
again, louder.
And to my horror, I heard
Dex’s gruff rely, “Perry? Where are you?!”
This could not be
happening. I started booking towards the trees at full throttle
now, not bothering to hide myself anymore.
I entered the forest and
came crashing through. I got a few yards in when my feet caught on
tangled undergrowth and I went flying onto the ground. My jaw
clanked against the ground and I bit my lip on impact. The metallic
taste of blood filled my mouth.
Footsteps.
I froze. From where I was
lying amongst the trees, I would be hard to spot.
The footsteps were coming
faster now and I saw a flashlight. Within seconds, Dex entered my
view. He had the flashlight in one hand, the infrared camera in the
other. That figured.
I tried to move, to yell,
but before I could do anything I saw myself come out from the
trees. And by myself, I mean Sarah’s skinwalker version of
me.
“
Dex,” it said, pausing a
few feet away.
Dex shone the flashlight on
the fake me’s face and ran up to it.
“
I’m so sorry, I’m so
sorry,” he started apologizing. He reached out for the fake me with
his hand. Every instinct in my body told me to get up and stop them
but that paralysis was seeping through my veins again. My own voice
was caught in my throat, borrowed by someone else.
“
Dex, I’m afraid,” it said
to him. It was my voice but it sounded emotionless and
robotic.
I could see him hesitate in
the dark. Did he know something was up?
He aimed the flashlight in
‘my’ face. It turned away, squinting. He couldn’t see the
eyes.
“
I’m hurt,” it said, still
flatly. She showed her hands to him. They were covered in blood.
Whose blood that was, I had no idea, but I was relieved it wasn’t
mine or Dex’s.
“
Shit,” he swore as he kept
the flashlight at the hands.
“
What happened?” he
asked.
She looked up at him. Her
eyes were carnivorous, ravenous. An animal’s.
Before he had a chance to
look into them, she reached up with her bloody hand and pulled his
face towards her, closed her eyes, and kissed him.
Er, I mean I kissed him. I
was awestruck and forced to watch something that should have been
the most epic moment of my life. Only it wasn’t happening to me.
Not really.
I was afraid she’d try and
eat him. That’s what it looked like she was doing.
And Dex. Dex was kissing
her back.
Wait, he was kissing
me
back.
My heart jutted around in
my chest. Despite everything that was going on, the thought, the
sight that Dex was kissing me (and getting quite into it, it
seemed), made my insides feel giddy, and my stomach lurch around
like I had butterflies. What was wrong with me?
I watched for a few more
seconds, feeling like a Peeping Tom, or like Jimmy Stewart
in
Rear Window
. It
was turning me on. It was so unbelievably wrong.
But something happened to
shake me out of it.
“
Ow.”
It was Dex.
He pulled back from the
makeout session and touched his mouth. He looked down at his hand.
Had she bit him?
The skinwalker me went for
him with her other hand. That hand was already a full-on wolf paw.
It was going to swipe across Dex’s face. It would remove his
handsome mug in one go.
Something came over me. I
don’t know what. But I found the strength, or the strength found
me. I bolted upright and screamed at the top of my lungs. I think I
tried to say “stop!” or “duck” but it all came out in a supersonic
unintelligible shriek.
But it worked. Dex looked
up just in time. He ducked and did a roll on the ground as the wolf
made a lunge for him. He got to his feet and scooped up the camera,
forgetting about the flashlight and aimed it at the wolf which was
moving raggedly away from him, its head and neck held at an awkward
angle.
“
Dex!” I screamed again.
“Get away!”
I ran towards him. He
flashed the camera in my eyes and tried to read me from the
infrared viewer. He looked as confused as you could
imagine.
“
What the fuck?” he
said.
I grabbed his arm and
started to pull him towards the trees. “Come on, it’s you she’s
after!”
At that, it was like the
heavens opened up. Whatever breeze was blowing lifted the clouds
away and the moon shone down on us in a straight shot. Everything
was illuminated. Dex’s confused face. The wolf lurking awkwardly
behind us. The crow that swooped down from the treetops and landed
on the ground beside us with a
squawk
.
We jumped at it, knowing
full well it wasn’t just a crow. But it was too late to do
anything.
The crow morphed into a
snake, then a deer, then a coyote, then Shan. For two seconds Dex
and I were looking into the sparkling eyes of the ranch hand,
Sarah’s confidante, and murdering medicine man.
He cocked his head sideways
at us but didn’t say anything. Dex pushed me behind him and held me
there with his arms, shielding me.
The wolf slowly crept over
to Shan. Shan raised his hand at it. It stayed still and sat back
on its haunches like a dog. Like a hunting dog.
“
If you had just left
things alone…things didn’t need to turn out this way,” Shan said
carefully. I wasn’t sure if Dex had gotten the memo of what exactly
was going on but it didn’t seem to matter.
“
You killed Rudy. No one had
to die for your fucked up cause,” Dex said.
Shan laughed. “Cause? You
are misinformed, young man.”