It was bright. Too bright.
Ben froze.
The muffled light was dawn. His body was rigid, impossible to move. He was trapped, alive in a dead body, helpless to prevent anyone from opening the curtains―
Move! I have to―have to―
Ben fought the cold rigor mortis settling over him. It gave way abruptly, and Ben thrashed on the ground―
“Jesus!” The voice shocked him into stillness. “Are you all right?”
Ben looked down at himself. He was shaking, his skin cold and clammy, George’s duvet draped over his legs. Fear, he realized. Not death. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Sorry. It was―” He swallowed. “A bad dream.”
“In this profession? We all have nightmares.” George sat up. Out of respect for what she termed Ben’s ‘delicate sensibilities,’ she’d slept in a T-shirt and sweatpants. “Least you didn’t wake up screaming.” She swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “Coffee?” She reached for the jug.
Ben had to shift position so that George could reach the kitchen unit. The air mattress took up most of what floor space the RV had. “Did I wake you?”
“I was half-awake already. Nightmares of my own.” George looked down at him. “Kind of surprised I didn’t wake you, actually.”
“What kind of nightmare?” Ben rested his back against the caravan seats. He shut his eyes, trying not to compare its support to Nate’s arms, but the stab of loss was immediate.
Nate―
“The usual.” George shrugged, rinsing out two mugs in preparation for the coffee she was about to make. “Whatever horrific stuff I’ve seen in the day job plus a good dose of ‘You’re going to die and it’s going to be horrible’.”
As she turned her back, Ben caught sight again of the scarred patch on her neck. He stood.
“They usually fade over time, but ever since Harriet died, they’ve been more frequent. I guess―” George froze.
Ben took his hand away quickly. “Sorry,” he said. “I should have asked.”
George let a breath out, placing a hand over the scar on her neck. “You’re very lucky you didn’t get a kick in the nuts just then.”
“I’d have deserved it,” Ben said frankly. Until he’d felt George tense, he hadn’t even thought about the implications of touching her. “I thought ‘vampire’ and reacted automatically. It’s― It is vampire, isn’t it?”
George nodded. “Revenant. One of my first solo gigs. Harriet didn’t want me to take it, but I wanted to prove I could handle it. All I proved was that I made a very attractive meal to vampires. Luckily, Harriet had second thoughts about letting me handle the job on my own. He was there to end the thing before it ended me.” She glanced at Ben. “Where’s yours?”
He pulled back his hair so that she could see the two puncture marks in his neck.
“No fair. I get a scar, you get almost nothing.”
“Dead flesh reacts different to living,” Ben reminded her. “It’s not on purpose.”
“Even so.” George bit her lip. “If you die―again, I mean―”
Ben knew where the question was going. “I’ll become a vampire again,” he said. “I don’t see how I couldn’t. I’ve been exposed to so much of it in the last year… I’m pretty sure it’s inevitable.”
“And that doesn’t freak you out?” When Ben shook his head, George tilted hers. “Because you’ve experienced it?”
“Worse,” Ben said with certainty. “I know exactly what it will be like.”
George looked at him. Her mouth was half-open, for once without lipstick. She looked as if she was on the verge of asking but aware she might regret the question.
“You’re not yourself.” Ben looked down. He picked up a biro resting on the table, tapped it against some papers just to assure himself his body was his to control. “You’re never alone. It’s like having another person right there with you, in your head, looking out from behind your eyes, always waiting for its chance to get out.”
“But I thought you were one of the―” George caught herself.
Ben smiled at her, but from the look on her face, he didn’t think it was successful. “One of the lucky ones? No such thing. You fought a revenant, right? Getting up close and personal with one is bad enough. Imagine coexisting with one inside your own skin…”
George shuddered. “Harriet said the same thing. That if his time came, he didn’t want to be brought back. Not that I would, of course, but―”
Ben understood that. In a world where monsters of myth and legend were reality, cancer had lost none of its power. The immortal life of vampires held no hope to humans and their numbered lifespans. It was a strange joke, made stranger by the lack of punchline. Still, there were those who hoped, fought against all reason, to find some kind of life in the undead, realizing too late that they simply prolonged their inevitable death. Any hunters with such beliefs inevitably lost them in the business of their work. Seeing what unnatural life did to those in its thrall was the best argument against resurrection.
“It’s not extended life so much as a prolonged death,” Ben said. “Being in control of my thought processes didn’t change that, it just meant that every moment I was aware of what I was and what I was not. I died again, every single dawn. You can feel it, the exact moment when your body turns against you and you become―”
“Enough.” George shook her head, picking up her cup. “This is only my first cup of coffee. I need to be on my second before I’m ready for this level of doom and gloom.” But she was thoughtful as she sipped her drink. “You killed many vamps?”
“Lots.” An alarming amount when you considered it really. But for that one year, it had been his only saving grace. Yes, he was a monster, but he could spend that vampiric killing instinct on those more monstrous than himself… “Why? You’re not worried about my qualifications?”
George shook her head. “I need someone to make sure I don’t walk.”
Ben’s fingers closed around the pen. He wasn’t expecting the request.
“Harriet was going to. I assumed I’d die before him.” George frowned, picking at the fuzz on the sleeve of her fluffy dressing gown. “You never met Harriet. He was a great guy. Calm, never bothered by anything. I guess it was convenient to imagine he’d always be here. Always complaining about the coffee, that I spent too much time flirting, not enough time on the job… He was good at it. Too good to be dead this soon.”
Ben swallowed. There was an unmistakable note of mourning in George’s voice.
After a moment’s pause, she continued. “I can’t ask my family, and Harriet was my only friend in the biz. When I die, I need someone to put me down before I hurt anyone. I’m tainted. The revenant’s bite–”
“I know.” Ben took a deep breath. He’d thought this life was behind him, but there was no way he could turn down this request. “I can do it.”
The smile George gave him was genuine. “I’ll do the same for you,” she promised. “Unless you’ve already got someone lined up.”
“Actually, I don’t.” It was one of the first things he should have done leaving ARX. Ben frowned. There was only one person he could have asked, and…
He couldn’t inflict this on Nate. Providing, of course, he could even make Nate see the necessity of it.
Nate loved me even as a monster. Ben bit his lip. Risked his life to save me as a vampire. He could not imagine Nate standing by his grave with an ax, waiting.
“So that’s settled.” George spoke loudly to cover her genuine relief. “You want to look at my messages with me while we wait for Kenzie to get back to you? You can help me decide who to pass on to the authorities as possible predators, and who to flag for further investigation.”
Ben cautiously joined George on her side of the table. “Sounds like fun―” He stared at her screen. “That is a lot of messages.”
“Brace yourself, Benjamin. You’re going to learn things about humankind you never wanted to know.”
“It’s Bennet, actually.” Ben stared at the laptop screen with dismay. “And you’re really going to meet these people?”
“Not unless I absolutely have to.” George brought up the first series of messages. “Eager to get our hypothetical fifteen-year-old alone, but pushing the fun, not the romance. My gut says pred.”
“Can we look him up elsewhere?” Rockford’s laptop selection came to mind again. Ben drummed his fingers against the table. A laptop was preferable to no laptop, even if the selection was severely limited…
“I’m going to do something I don’t do for just anyone. Get out your phone, Bennet. I’m giving you my Wi-Fi password.”
A depressing indictment on the state of mankind followed. Was there no end to the amount of people willing to encourage a supposedly teenage girl to share intimate pics or meet up with them in person? Ben’s anger numbed into a deep disgust. George was tireless in clicking ‘report as inappropriate.’ The worst offenders she set aside to be brought to police attention.
“What happens if you do find the agent?” Ben asked, watching as George shifted another possible, a man with blond dreadlocks and a metal eyebrow stud, to the ‘possible agent’ file. “Obviously you’re not fifteen. He’s going to know something’s off when you show up.”
“Once I find the guy, I got a new line to sell him.” George was already clicking her way through the next series of messages. “A poor, bewildered young woman, who has left the religious community in which she was strictly raised, and is finding herself lost and alone in the big, bad world. In desperate need of a protector, and far too ready to confuse gratitude with love.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“What, and hunting revenants isn’t?” George turned to face Ben. “I’m a hunter, remember. And a capable hunter. I can handle―”
Ben’s phone rang. He grabbed it, hitting accept call. “Kenzie?”
“Hawick.” There was a formal note in her voice. “Before I can send the file, I have to read you a caution.”
Ben felt his heart beat. The only way Kenzie would need to read him a caution was if they’d found something. “What did you find?”
“Demons and their associates are a known risk to human life and well-being, recognized as such by the Council for Supernatural Understanding. In accordance with the guidelines laid down by Federal Law, I have to remind you that fraternization with demons in any form is considered a Class A offense and is prosecuted harshly under the laws of this country. I must also remind you that pursuing knowledge of demonic law and practices related to the summoning thereof, and possession of classified material related to their summoning without an appropriate license is an offense punishable by imprisonment. Any evidence of demonic involvement discovered should be communicated to the police without delay. Do you understand the risks and liabilities involved in accepting these files?”
Had she got that memorized? Ben sat up straight, nodding even though Kenzie couldn’t see him. “Yes, Ma’am.”
“And you are still willing to receive them?”
“Absolutely.”
Kenzie did not sound at all surprised. “I’ll send them now. I’ve already forwarded the results of my search to the sheriff’s office. You’re on to something, Hawick. A string of unsolved deaths within the railway, going back at least seventy years―all at regular ten-year intervals.”
“Seventy years?”
“The guy’s good at what he does,” Kenzie said with a growl. “We had no idea these deaths were linked. Won’t know for sure until we’ve looked into these cases, but on the surface, it looks pretty clear cut. It’s all one agent―and we’d have had no idea if you hadn’t spotted the railway line.”
“Right place, right time,” Ben said. “That’s all it was.”
“Local police are too used to the place. The train could have gone right past them, and it would only have registered as background noise.” Kenzie hesitated. “Now you’re a free agent, you considered working for the Department? You could do a world of good.”
“Never,” Ben said immediately. “Working with Gunn― You know that’s not a possibility.”
Kenzie sighed. “There’s a reason we banned him from the recruitment procedures. Still. You ever change your mind, let me know right away.”
Ben ended the phone call to find that George was waiting, the laptop already opened to a fresh window and turned towards him. “You caught that?”
“I caught enough to know that we’ve got a serious lead.” George held herself in check with impatience as Ben logged into his mail and downloaded the file. “Let’s have it.”
The map was grim but perfectly clear. The correlation was too neat to be coincidence. Ben and George studied it in silence for a long moment before, with a sigh, George brought up the first of the victims. “Fourteen years old. Jesus Christ, people suck.”
Ben frowned, studying the list of names of the victims. Most were girls, but there were two boys among them. He looked back to the map, mentally charting the position of Nate’s barn onto it.
It fit the pattern exactly.
“George, I’ll leave looking into the files to you.”
“What?” George’s gaze jerked away from the computer. “You just found the break we’ve all been searching for, and you’re walking away from it?”
Ben retrieved his car keys and phone from the table. “I’ve got a visit to make.”
✩✩✩
“Visiting twice in two days.” Nate leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. The plain T-shirt of the prison uniform was ill-prepared for Nate’s powerful biceps, riding up to allow a full view of his muscles. Aki’s words popped into Ben’s mind. A great bod… Amazing body when you think of it actually. Just one more thing Ben and Nate did not have in common. “Didn’t think you cared about me.” There was hurt in the challenge.
Ben put his hand on the plastic. The barrier between them was painful, but in some ways, without the temptation to put his hand on Nate’s shoulder and ease his sorrow, it was easier to speak. “You know I care.”
“Do I?” There was definite challenge in the look Nate gave him.
Even on the wrong side of the plastic barrier, Nate possessed confidence that Ben couldn’t even dream of attaining. Secure not just in himself, but in Ben’s perception of him. For the first time, Ben questioned the hunch that had brought him back to the prison. Nate was simply too confident to be taken advantage of.
But as the silence between them stretched out, Ben saw a flicker of something that put him in mind of the anxious kid of the photo album… “Tell me about Sandy.”
Nate raised both eyebrows. “Sandy? Why Sandy?”
“Aki mentioned he was in New Camden, trying to find you.”
“Are you accusing me of cheating now? You’re the one who decided we weren’t dating―not to mention the fact that I’m in solitary over here.”
“You shouldn’t be in solitary.” Ben glanced around, but there was no guard he could speak to. “That’s a serious breach of procedure―”
“Well, not solitary solitary. But it might as well be. There’s a special, more secure ward for supernatural prisoners. Right now it’s just me and some kind of werewolf? I don’t know. The guy seems like he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Don’t annoy a werewolf, Nate.”
“I’m not going to! Anyway, I’m here as Ethan, remember? Who could possibly get mad at him?”
I’m not touching that. Ben gave Nate a flat look. “When did you meet Sandy?”
“You sure you want to hear this? I mean, we’re not dating―” Nate caught Ben’s expression and sat up. “What’s going on? You found something?”
“That’s what I need to work out.”
“Well, you’re barking completely up the wrong tree.” Nate settled back in the chair. “Sandy’s got nothing to do with the demonic murders at all.”
“If you want to convince me, you’ve going to have to elaborate.”
“Fine. Though for the record, I’m willing to talk about my romantic history without the excuse of supernatural investigations.”
Ben resisted the impulse to roll his eyes. “As long as you talk.” He glanced at the clock in the visiting room. They had limited time.
“It must have been our first year of high school. I was just about as miserable as you would expect.” Nate shrugged. “New school, lots of new classmates who hadn’t grown up with Ethan and weren’t used to him. They picked on him, and our Little River classmates, eager to make friends, joined in the fun. Didn’t help that we were a head taller than anyone else in our classes―we stuck out in all the wrong ways. Ethan didn’t care―he never has―but I cared a lot.” Nate brushed his hair out of his eyes. “At the same time, I realized for the first time just how different me and Ethan were. At a time when I needed a friend more than anything else, my best friend was growing rapidly apart from me. It sucked. I didn’t think it was ever going to get better.”
Ben nodded. “And then you met Sandy?”
Nate nodded. “He was camping beneath our bridge. Trespassing, technically, but I wasn’t going to turn him in.”
“You met him under a bridge.”
“I was going to take you there. Thought you’d appreciate it.” Nate smirked at him. “It’s popular with travelers, literally covered in graffiti―like our own little piece of New Camden.”
“Shut up.” But despite everything, Ben had to fight a smile. He looked at his notebook, reminding himself that he was a serious investigator. “Sandy was a…traveler?”
“Yeah.” Nate’s gaze drifted to the ceiling, a smile playing across his mouth. “He was the coolest guy I’d ever met. No one in Little River had a tattoo. He had seven. He let me see them all.” A note of enthusiasm had crept into Nate’s voice. “And piercings.”
“You became―friends?”
“Yeah. Best thing that ever happened to me.” Nate glanced quickly at Ben. “It was soon after Dad got sick. He needed help running the farm. I persuaded him to give Sandy a chance, and he agreed to take him on for a season. We fixed him up a place to sleep in the barn―” He faltered.
“So, he did know about the barn.”
Nate sat up, shaking his head vehemently. “It’s not like that. Ben, you can’t think that!”
“Did you hang out with Sandy in the barn?”
“Yeah, but―there was nothing demonic about that at all! It’s monstrous―”
“Demons are monstrous.” Ben clutched his notebook. “You became close friends. According to Aki, you had a serious crush on him?”
“More than a crush.” Nate scratched the back of his neck. “It’s kind of embarrassing now, but I worshiped the guy. No one’d ever paid attention to me before, so it was all totally new.” Nate ducked his head. “It completely turned my life around. For the first time ever, I felt like I mattered―and it showed. I stopped shying away from talking to classmates, put my hand up in class. I made friends. People liked me―and it was all thanks to Sandy. Not that I cared about any of that. At the time, Sandy was all I needed.”
Ben swallowed. His chest had squeezed painfully tight like something was choking him from the inside out. With effort, he kept his tone detached. “When did you become more than friends?”
“I don’t know. Since I’d never met anyone like him, it never occurred to me it wasn’t an ordinary friendship until he told me.”
Ben took a deep breath. “Did he ask you if you”―his voice shook―“loved him?”
“Yeah.”
The guard rapped on the door behind Ben. “Two minutes.”
Ben stood up. “Nate, did Sandy ever ask you to prove your love?”
“No. Nothing.” Nate frowned. “I mean, we talked about sex. Teenager with a hot boyfriend…I was all about it. Sandy thought it should be special. Meaningful. He wanted it to be romantic. He told me he was going to get things set up. And then he just”―Nate shrugged―“disappeared.”
“And you haven’t heard from him since?”
Nate shook his head. “My guess at the time was that he’d found out my real age and freaked out. I told him I was fifteen―didn’t want him thinking I was some dumb kid. Ethan and I, we looked a lot older than the rest of our class―no one could have guessed we were only thirteen. Which hurt a little, but at the same time, I took it as further proof he cared and wanted to do the right thing.”
“Really.” Fifteen was still underage. Did Nate not see how wrong this was? As Ben met Nate’s expression, he answered his own question. Nate believed totally in what he was saying.
“So you see that Sandy couldn’t possibly be the agent,” Nate said, as the guard rapped on the door to announce Ben’s time was up. “A demonic agent wouldn’t have cared about anything beyond getting his next victim. Right, Ben?”
Nate had no right to look at him so trustingly. None at all. “I have to go.”
✩✩✩
Ben found the bridge without problem. The road divided the Granger’s farm from the neighboring property, and the bridge, a heavy concrete construction, was part of it. Ben left his rental car at the side of the road and climbed over the fence to get a better look.
Either side of the river, the land rose sharply, meaning that the road and bridge were higher than the surrounding fields. A lot of concrete had been provided to stop the gaps, and the bridge that eventuated was a massive industrial eyesore, completely out of place in the rural valley.
Ben eyed it skeptically. Nate was joking. He had to be. Yeah, Ben was from New Camden, and possibly feeling more than a little homesick for his city―but he still had eyes. He can’t possibly think I would like this, can he?
Or was there more to the bridge than met the eye? The fence had been patched with mesh and board, presumably to stop farm animals swimming in or out. One of the boards was easily lifted up, and Ben squeezed through the gap to find himself in a large open space. The concrete supports that held up the bridge had necessitated a sturdy base, so either side of the river―tiny in comparison to the scale of the bridge―was a large, concrete slab upon which the river had deposited a coating of very fine sand. Light shone in through the gaps at the top of the fence, illuminating the space.
Shoe marks in the dirt indicated the space had been visited recently. From the number of footmarks, Ben guessed the police had made a better search of the farm itself than of the barn. And no wonder―the amount of paint on the underside of the bridge revealed it was a popular haven for drifters. Ben gave the circle of ashes amongst the dirt a cursory inspection, deciding that they were the result of nothing more alarming than a campfire, and turned his attention to the graffiti.
Most were tags, the kind that adorned any part of New Camden that didn’t have security cameras pointed at them. A few seemed to be advice of some kind, or commentary on the general state of the nation, the travelers having strong opinions of the society they’d opted out of. A couple were genuine artists, a striking mandala-like design taking up a good chunk of prime eye-level concrete, and a recognizable caricature of the sheriff―she didn’t seem to be popular. But there was nothing that gave Ben any further clue.
He found himself standing by the ashes of the campfire again. The police hadn’t camped here. Had the fire been made before or after their search? I just don’t know.
Ben sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets as he looked around the under bridge. What I need is to know what happened ten years ago. And for that… He squeezed back through the boards, returning to his rental car. Nate’s not the only member of his family with an opinion about Sandy.
✩✩✩
Ma’s normally tightly bound hair was in disarray, strands escaping in every direction. She made a halfhearted effort to fix it but forgot it once Ben stated his errand. “Sandy? Of course I remember… It was a while ago now, but we don’t have many guests and him leaving like that left Mitch and I in a bit of a fix over the farm.”
“Can I come in?”
Ma stepped out of the doorway without hesitation. “It’s a bit of a mess,” she said. “Now that it’s just me at home, I can’t find it in me to keep up the house.”
The sink, full of unwashed dishes, indicated that was the truth. “How about I wash and you dry,” Ben suggested, “and you can tell me about Sandy as we go.”
Ma protested, but in the end, the need for conversation overrode her hospitality. “Sandy wasn’t the sort of person I would normally approve of,” she admitted. “And he had a lot of influence over Nate. Mitch didn’t think there was anything in it―the sort of harmless hero-worship a boy has―but I felt that Nate spent too much time alone with him. Still, he could quote the Bible easy as you like, and he sang in church as sweet as a choirboy even if he looked an absolute disgrace. He worked hard too, and there was nothing I could fault in him, but all the same… It was a relief when he left.”
“And you don’t know why he left?”
Ma shook her head. “We never had a formal contract worked out, just a loose sort of agreement. But I do think that if he’d got bored of it, he could have told us.”
As Ma put away the newly washed dishes, Ben opened the fridge. “When was the last time you went shopping?”
Ma shook her head. “I can’t. The way people look at me…”
“You can’t go on like this. Write me a list.” Ben patted her arm. “You gave me a place to stay when I needed it,” he said. “This is the least I can do.”
“You won’t be popular around here if you’re seen helping me,” Ma warned. “The pastor himself stood up and said I was an ungodly woman, raising my sons to be demon-bound hedonists.”
“The pastor needs a primer on the differences between demonic entities and natural magic,” Ben said. “I guess it’s just as well I’m not a believer.”
Ma needed time to write her list. The empty house, so different to what it usually was, weighed on Ben. He headed outside. At least the mountains were only usual levels of oppressive. As he walked through the garden, a splash of color caught his eye. Ben paused in front of a flower bed.
The last time I saw this…wasn’t it trampled into the dirt? He looked around, but there was no sign of damage to the garden at all―or even neglect. Ben knelt by the nearest flower, tugging it towards him. Is this a dahlia? Whatever it was, it was in perfect health.
Ben looked around. Not just the flower bed, but the entire garden looked in perfect order.
He hadn’t asked Ma or Nate where Ethan was. Nate might be able to pass as his brother, but there was no way Ethan could ever pull off his younger twin. So where is he? The amount of dishes in the sink indicated clearly that Ma was alone in the house.
There was no sign of Ethan in the orchard. Ben climbed the stile, following the hiking trail through the woods.
It’s too quiet. When he’d walked the trail with Nate, there had been birdsong, the rustling of leaves. Now it felt like the entire forest held its breath. Ben’s footsteps sounded unnaturally loud and every twig he stepped on snapped with a resounding echo. Something is there.
Ben stopped walking.
It had been there since he’d first arrived in Little River. The pressure he’d felt standing in the garden looking up at the trees. Ben wiped his palms on his jeans. This isn’t imagination. This is―a presence. A powerful presence. And he was right in the middle of its territory.
Ben breathed out, steeling himself. In the absence of distracting sounds, it was easier to identify the direction of the presence. Like playing hot and cold with an unknown supernatural entity. Taking a second to nerve himself, Ben stepped off the path and into the woods.
This is the stupidest thing I’ve done in ages. He would get lost within seconds―and who was to say the being he was tracking would even stay in the same place? Every step Ben took away from the path was an invitation to disaster.
And still, he kept walking.
If nothing else, there’s a compass on my phone―
Ben stumbled, finding himself on his knees in the leaf bed. As he crawled to his feet, he discovered his foot was caught on something. A piece of wire stretched out in the dirt. Ben tugged at it, discovered that it was attached to a decaying post. “A fence?”
Pushing back the brush, Ben discovered further posts, almost entirely covered by moss or dead leaves, the wire rusted. He looked around, but no other signs existed to indicate private property. He continued on his way, careful to check where he walked.
There were other fences. There was even a barn, the roof collapsed in, and the branches of an apple tree extending out of it. The rusted remains of a truck were parked nearby.
Ben rested one foot on the bumper and considered the truck. He’d never seen anything like it on a road. The high wheel guards and the pinched shape of the engine put it somewhere roughly in the forties, maybe fifties. The amount of rust and the bush growing within it agreed with Ben’s assessment. This was a farm. If the truck was any indicator, it had been a farm roughly seventy years ago. And now, it wasn’t just abandoned. The forest had swallowed it up to an alarming degree.
Is this seventy years of forest? It should have taken years, surely for the trees to creep slowly across the fields, but the trees Ben passed were well established.
He took a moment to study them. Oak? He was pretty sure they were oak. The wavy shape of the leaf was just as he remembered from Mason’s Park. Oak is a sturdy protector against misfortune. Ben reminded himself of Godfrey’s teachings. He looked at the ground, hoping to find an acorn he could pocket for luck.
Instead, he found a spiky, green shell. Ben picked it up, turning it over in his hands before deciding to crack it open. Inside were three smooth brown nuts. Ben prized one loose for a closer look.
Chestnut? All the chestnut trees were gone, weren’t they, killed by the blight Nate had mentioned?
Ben looked around, but the only trees he could see were oak. He put the nut in his pocket and continued his exploration.
The silence grew more pronounced. Now that he was among it, Ben wondered if the hostile edge had been his own instinctive response to something bigger, something outside his knowledge. He made his way through the trees, feeling he was approaching the source. An overgrown tangle of apple trees revealed the remains of an orchard, and a splash of color up ahead indicated a garden. The flowers had escaped the stone fence that had once marked the perimeter to grow freely amongst the forest. Ben quickened his pace as he caught sight of a building in the trees. The Winnaker farmstead. It must be.
The house was just as it had been left all those decades ago. The windows were caked with dirt and moss grew freely over the porch and steps. Tree leaves littered the porch and the roof, still in one piece but now home to a precariously perched rowan. Ben studied the plant a moment, remembering he’d once had a rowan to thank for saving his life, and then looked around the clearing. It wasn’t the house as he’d expected, but something else…
Ben turned, trying to find it.
At the center of the clearing was the largest oak tree he’d ever seen. It dwarfed the surrounding trees, growing straight and proud, clearly the ancestor of the surrounding oaks. It was a veritable king―queen? How did you identify a tree?
Ben stepped closer. As he did, he felt the pressure solidify into something he could only classify as an awareness. His skin felt supercharged, like he was approaching a turbine―
“You.” Ethan’s voice was hard, edged not with anger but something that went deeper. Ben turned to see him standing in the doorway of the abandoned house. “I warned you. Stay away.”
Ben felt a surge of electricity all down his spine. “You can’t tell me what to do, Ethan.”
“Maybe I can’t―out there.” Ethan approached without hurry. That was the most unsettling thing. It felt like a thunderstorm building around them, the air crackling with rapidly gathering power, but Ethan was the same as he ever was. “But there’s no church here. No police, no school, no bank. Just us.”
The last syllable drifted, taken up by the rustle of leaves through the trees, stirring for the first time. Ben looked up, saw the branches ripple without any breeze to stir them.
Ethan’s hand settled on Ben’s shoulder, startling Ben back to his immediate danger. “But you’re in our place now. Our rules.”
Ben couldn’t shake himself free of Ethan’s grip. “Are you threatening me?”
“Telling you.” Ethan pushed Ben backward until he collided with a tree trunk. “Out here, we don’t take kindly to rot.”
“Do you understand the difference between a tree and a―” Ben froze.
The rough bark of the oak shifted beneath him, wrapping around his skin. As Ben watched, he could see the bark crawl over his legs and arms, trapping them entirely within the tree. Ben struggled, but it was entirely too late.
“What are you doing?”
Ethan watched impassively as the tree trapped Ben. “Got to make sure disease doesn’t spread.”