Headlights.
The road was a black-and-white photograph, mottled at the corners, streaked with lines, everything fuzzy. Falling snow made the whole picture dissolve, erasing it inch by inch, until all was lost inside a white inferno. If they drove off the edge of the world, it wouldn’t surprise her.
Vera concentrated on what lay ahead.
She didn’t react to Opal’s scream or Adam’s panic-laced cries.
If I don't look back, then I won't see it.
Whatever's there, whatever might be coming—I won't know until it's too late, and then — well, it’ll be too late.
She hugged the satchel without thinking. It wasn’t heavy or hard. It’s almost like a baby in a sling, she thought. I have to protect the baby. I have to make certain the baby gets home safely. Max will take us there.
Adam kicked at the driver’s seat. He shouted in Max’s right ear.
“You’re heading the wrong way!”
“Where would you like me to go?”
“Off this highway . . . look for a farm road. If we can’t get out of town, maybe we can find a better place to fight them.”
“All the roads are blocked,” Max said.
“How can you know that?”
Blood wept from Max’s head wound. He swiped at it with his knuckles but only managed to smear a rouge crescent on his cheek. He squinted at the road. They were crawling along. Vera checked the speedometer.
Five miles per hour.
“Maybe you should jump out,” Max said.
“What are you talking about?” Adam asked, growing louder, exasperated.
“You and your mom take a hike. Find a place to hide. The dawn is coming. A new day rising. It’s almost over. Vera and I can handle the rest. We’ll bring the stone in.”
“Pull over. I’m driving.”
“It doesn’t matter who drives. Nothing matters,” Max said.
Adam started climbing into the front. Something he saw through the windshield made him pause. In the obscurity, Vera detected bulky shadows. Tall barriers had been installed along both sides of the highway.
“I don’t remember seeing those before,” Vera whispered.
The headlights perforated the wall of snow. The barriers were moving.
“They’re men,” Opal said. “He’s bringing us to the Totem Motor Lodge. Whiteside’s waiting. He’s been there all along. Max is delivering us to him.”
The Pitch appeared out of the murk. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they formed a living chute that curved off to the right, dipping into a low spot in the landscape. Vera couldn’t see any faces. Hats, upturned collars, blankness. Then she realized they were facing away with their backs to them.
A larger form towered over the camper.
Vera looked up through the hole in the roof.
The totem pole.
Gargoyle faces stacked up. The top head stuck out its beak. Sharp-edged, curved like a knife. Tapered fangs crowded the mouth.
Icicles. They’re only icicles.
A sudden terror seized her. She was convinced that the second
they drove underneath the beak, it would strike, plucking her out of her seat.
They had no choice. The only route led between the rows of men.
It’s just wood. The faces aren’t real.
Why was she imagining them suddenly animated? The carved tree lips mouthing words in silent unison. Glittering eyes, sentient, malevolent. No, that wasn’t possible. The men must have put glass in them. Or it was ice like the fangs. That sparkling had to be a reflection of their headlights. That was it.
Wasn’t it?
She shut her eyes.
Beneath the beak was exhaled heat. She gagged on the stench.
Bird shit and fish guts.
Breathe through your mouth.
A coppery saltiness coated her tongue.
She startled. The satchel—something inside it shifted around like an animal growing suddenly alert.
The camper drawing forward: a toy pulled on a string.
As they descended through the turn, the lodge came into view. Lanterns suspended from upraised hands. Tiki torches liberated from the lodge’s storeroom were rammed in the snow. The log structure bathed in firelight.
Outside the main entrance, the ambulance sat parked; its rear door hung wide open. The vehicle was empty. They’d left it in a hurry; the keys were still in the ignition. Interior lamps shined a cobalt wedge into the lot, illuminating the lodge entry. Max steered toward it.
“We aren’t going in there,” Adam said.
“We have to,” Opal said. “It’s the only way.”
Max stopped the camper. He put the emergency brake on. “Listen to your mother. She’s a smart lady.”
Vera held up the satchel.
“If we give it to them, will they let us go?”
Max didn’t answer. He didn’t look at her. His body sagged.
Tears trickled down his cheeks. Snowflakes were catching in his hair. His skin turned sapphire under the cold artificial light.
“I can’t help you,” he said.
“It isn’t your fault, Max.” Opal patted his arm.
“Something’s here with me. It’s making me do these things.”
The dog, sensing her owner’s distress, came to him. Max gathered her into his arms and she licked his grizzled chin. Opal leaned into the front seat, grabbed the bag of chalk off the dashboard, and dropped it into Max’s lap. Before pulling back she kissed him lightly on the cheek. She opened her door.
He pointed at the lodge. “There are two of them.”
“Two?”
“You only need to worry about the dead man. He’s lost in dreams. If he sees what awaits him, you have a chance. Make him see it. Send him to hell.”
“What does he mean?” Adam asked.
Opal shook her head.
Vera joined them outside the camper.
The men hadn’t moved. Snow padded their shoulders.
The Totem Lodge. It was like standing at the mouth of a cave. The front doors were missing. Removed. Vera saw the bare hinges; the doors were stacked one on top of another, discarded in the bushes. Torches smoked along the walls. Patterns of dark and light alternated down an endless hallway.
Vera froze in her tracks.
“I can’t do it,” she said. She passed the satchel strap over her head and offered it to Adam. “Here, you take it.”
“No.”
“Give it to me,” Opal said.
“Mom, listen, okay? Let’s just leave it by the door.”
“That won’t work. I’ll take it to them.”
“Dad wouldn’t let you do that, and I won’t, either.” He blocked her path.
“Adam, you mean more to me than anyone in the world. I’m
asking you to step aside. Not because you want to, or because you think it’s a good idea. Do it because I asked you.” Opal held out her hand to Vera.
Vera passed the satchel to her.
Opal slid the strap around her wrist and tucked the satchel under her arm.
Adam stepped up to protest.
His mother hugged him. “I love you,” Opal said.
“I love you, too.”
She pushed him back and motioned to the men guarding the lodge.
A half-dozen of them advanced on Adam and Vera. Vera tried to call out, but a cold damp glove muffled her scream. They surrounded Adam, four against one. He dropped an attacker with a right hook. They wrestled him to the pavement. “Don’t go in there!” he shouted.
They tore a roll of duct tape. Slapped a gag over his lips.
Vera bit the man who tried gagging her.
The men bound their wrists and ankles. The last thing Vera saw: Adam’s wide eyes as they stuffed his head into a leather sack. Cinched it tight with a cord. Her hood was next. She stopped fighting. Her head inside the bag: It smelled like a shoe. She couldn’t see anything. They picked her up, by the sounds of effort they were taking Adam, too, carrying them through deep, soft drifts to the back of the lodge. Everything was over in less than a minute.
Opal didn’t watch the struggle. She might’ve quit if she did. And quitting wasn’t an option. She took the LED flashlight from her pocket. It had worked at the apartment, throwing a bright purple- white beam on the wall. Now nothing happened when she clicked the button. She shook the batteries. Tried again. Same result. Dead. She cursed and hurled it into the lot. Opal walked past the torches,
disappearing deeper and deeper into the hallway, alone in the darkness.
Knowing she would not be alone for long.
Inside the camper, Max crawled in shadows on the floor. He kicked debris away, clearing a space, putting himself at the center. He sat curled up with his knees to his chest. He took a stick of chalk from the bag.
He started to draw a circle.