Blood Oath, Blood River (The Downwinders Book 1) Page 2

  Winn stepped aside and let Virginia walk into the tour office.

  “What the fuck?” Winn asked Deem.

  “She’s visiting from Arizona,” Deem said.

  “So?” Winn asked. “Why are they here?”

  “My mom asked me what I was doing tonight, and I told her about this tour,” Deem said. “Next thing you know, they were coming along.”

  “You couldn’t dissuade them?” Winn asked.

  “I mentioned there were only ten reservations for a fifty-person bus,” Deem said apologetically. “And I think my mom was looking for something to do with her sister. She’s been in town for a week and they haven’t done much. She insisted.”

  “Did you tell them I was coming along?” Winn asked.

  “I did,” Deem said, knowing where this was going. Deem’s mom wasn’t a big fan of Winn, and Winn knew it. Winn was a smoker, a swearer, a drinker, promiscuous, and, worst of all, non-Mormon.

  “So she’s here to keep an eye on me,” Winn said.

  “Yup, make sure you don’t corrupt her daughter.”

  “Well, won’t this be fun,” Winn said sarcastically.

  “Buck up,” Deem said, walking to the tour office. “I think my aunt likes you.”

  ▪ ▪ ▪

  They re-boarded the bus after a brief stop at Pipe Springs. No matter where Winn sat, Deem sat across from him, and Deem’s mother and aunt sat behind them.

  The driver of the bus, Winn’s friend Dave, had chatted with Deem while they were letting the tourists explore the Windsor House at Pipe Springs. Deem asked him about the man they had seen running by the bus, and he became quite agitated describing what he’d experienced. He said it appeared twice, both times on the drive back to St. George, just after sunset.

  “It wasn’t a hundred percent dark yet, so you could see it was a guy, not an animal,” Dave said. “And the thing that made him stand out was his eyes. They glowed. You might not have even noticed him out there if it weren’t for the eyes, moving along so fast.”

  “How do you know they were eyes?” Deem asked.

  “’Cause they blinked,” Dave said. “Once you focused on them, you could tell it was a man. And the creepy thing was, he was running so fast, but it didn’t look like he was struggling. I mean, I was going sixty down the road, and he’s keeping up with the bus!”

  “Other people saw it too?” Deem asked.

  “The second time, yeah,” Dave said. “They all took pictures, but nothing turned out. Too blurry.”

  Deem thanked Dave and walked to the dusty parking lot, waiting for the others to finish. She’d seen Pipe Springs many times, and didn’t enjoy walking through it while rubbing elbows with other people. Eventually the stragglers made their way back to the bus and they departed for their next destination on the tour.

  Deem listened as Dave spoke over the intercom. They were twenty minutes from their final stop, the Anasazi ruins. Deem leaned over to Winn, sitting across the aisle.

  “Dave seems nice enough,” Deem said.

  “Told you,” Winn said.

  “Do you think the tour office might be rigging something?” Deem asked. “To build an audience for a ghost tour or something?”

  “How do you rig a man running that fast?” Winn asked.

  “You’re right,” Deem said. “I guess I just need to see it to believe it.”

  “Your aunt felt me up back there,” Winn said, “when we were alone in one of those rooms at Pipe Springs.”

  “Eeww!” Deem said. “She did?”

  “Yup,” Winn said.

  “You realize she’s not a spring chicken,” Deem said, “like your usual.”

  “She’s what, in her mid-fifties?” Winn asked. “They’re usually the horniest.”

  “Stop!” Deem said. “She’s my aunt!”

  “Grabbed my ass,” Winn said. “Just telling ya.”

  “You will not have sex with her, do you understand?” Deem said. “I don’t care if she throws herself at you. Promise me.”

  “Why?” Winn asked. “She’s kinda hot.”

  “’Cause she’s my aunt!” Deem said as she reached across the aisle and pushed his arm. “And I introduced you. I don’t want to be blamed if she catches something.”

  Winn pushed her back. “Nothing to catch. I’m as clean as a virgin.”

  “Hardly. And I don’t want my mom thinking anything is up.”

  Winn turned to Deem and gave her a big smile, widening it until Deem picked up on the innuendo. Her face contorted in revulsion. She saw him look back in the bus to where Margie and Virginia were sitting, then glanced back at her aunt just in time to see her give Winn a wink.

  Bringing them along was a bad idea, Deem thought.

  ▪ ▪ ▪

  Deem felt Winn’s hand on her knee, and she woke up. The sun had set and it was dark inside the bus.

  “Wake up,” Winn whispered to her, shaking her leg. She turned to look around the in the bus. Her mother and aunt were several seats back, napping. There were a few more people behind them, many of which had fallen asleep.

  “Look!” Winn said, pointing out the window. Deem turned to look, trying to focus her eyes.

  At first she saw only brush whizzing by at sixty miles an hour, hills in the distance. The landscape was dark.

  “Is it out there?” Deem asked.

  “A hundred feet straight out,” Winn said. “Dave was right.”

  Deem struggled to find what Winn was looking at. She couldn’t locate anything unusual. “I don’t see it.”

  Winn sat next to her and pointed. “It’s there. Keep looking right where I’m pointing.”

  Deem continued to focus out the window, searching the landscape for any sign of movement.

  Then she saw one speck of light become two as it turned to look at them.

  Deem gasped and strained her neck to see better. Around the eyes she could see a shape, a head. Below it was the dark body of a man, moving incredibly fast. Now that she’d made out the man’s outline, she could see it fine.

  “I understand why the photos didn’t turn out,” Deem said.

  “What?” Winn asked.

  “Dave told me they tried to take pictures last time,” Deem said, “and they didn’t turn out. I don’t think you could get a picture of that. It’s too dark.”

  Deem watched as the man occasionally turned his head to look in their direction.

  “How could anyone run that fast?” Deem asked.

  “I don’t think it’s human,” Winn said. “Or, not completely.”

  “It’s getting closer,” Deem said. “It’s angling in toward us.”

  The silence of the bus was pierced by the scream of a woman in the back. Deem turned to look, and a woman sitting behind her mother and aunt was looking out the window, observing the running man. A woman sitting next to her raised her camera to try and take a picture. The flash from the camera lit the inside of the bus. People on the left side of the bus got up and walked to the right, trying to see whatever had caused the woman to scream.

  “Please stay in your seats,” Dave announced over the intercom. “We’ve got to have everyone seated for safety.”

  “Do you see that, Deem?” Virginia asked. “Do you see it?”

  “Yes,” Deem answered. “I do.”

  Virginia got out of her seat and moved into the seat directly behind Deem and Winn. “What is it?”

  “It’s a man,” said Winn.

  As they watched, the running man closed the distance between him and the bus by half. Now he was easier to see.

  Deem’s mother followed Virginia and moved up behind Deem and Winn. “Is he going to attack the bus?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Winn said.

  “How could someone run that fast?” Margie asked. “It’s not possible. It’s got to be a trick.”

  The man running beside the bus angled in again, and now was just ten feet from their window. They could see his face, which was dark and featureless. Deem
gasped again as the man’s eyes locked onto hers, and he lifted from the ground and moved toward the bus as though he was flying.

  The woman in the back of the bus screamed again. Dave began to slow the bus.

  “Don’t stop!” Winn yelled. “Speed up!”

  The man was hovering four feet off the ground and moving quickly to Deem’s window.

  “Get back from the window,” Winn said to Deem. Then he yelled, “Everyone! Back from the windows!”

  The man landed at Deem’s window and pressed his face against the glass. Winn backed out of the seat next to Deem and pulled Deem with him. Virginia and Margie moved across the aisle, behind them.

  The man’s head passed through the glass without breaking it, his body attached to the outside of the bus. His head extended inside the bus, looking like a mounted trophy, but moving. He looked down at Deem. She saw his eyes center on her, felt his gaze deepen. Then it shifted its head and looked past Winn at Virginia and Margie. The woman in the back of the bus screamed again.

  The head slid along the inside of the bus, its body moving on the outside. It stopped when it found the woman who had screamed. It studied her, staring at her as though it wanted her to scream again. She obliged and let out another piercing shriek.

  Dave flipped a switch, and white fluorescent bulbs kicked on overhead. The light seemed to bother the head, and it pulled itself out of the bus. It continued to hang onto the outside, staring in. It moved back to where Winn, Deem, Virginia, and Margie were huddled further up the bus. It stared at them.

  “What does it want?” Virginia asked.

  Deem could feel something emanating from its eyes. It was a kind of heat, something that was making a connection. She felt it sink into her, and for a moment she felt light-headed. She lost her peripheral sight as tunnel vision took over and the only thing she could see was the man’s head outside the bus, staring at her. She gripped the side of the seat, afraid she might fall over. Then she saw the man detach from the side of the bus, falling backwards into the dark.

  The others in the bus rushed back to the right side, trying to see where the man had gone.

  Deem turned and saw that Virginia had passed out. She was lying next to Margie in her seat, her head hanging. “Mom,” Deem said, trying to get Margie’s attention. Margie was straining her neck to see out the windows on the other side, along with the others in the bus. “Mom!” she repeated.

  Margie turned to look at Deem, and Deem pointed to Virginia. “Help her!”

  Margie turned and finally saw that Virginia was out. She grabbed Virginia’s hands, then tried patting her cheeks. Virginia’s eyes fluttered open.

  “What happened?” Virginia asked.

  “You fainted,” Winn said.

  “It was looking at me,” Virginia said. “I felt it.”

  “Me too,” Deem said.

  “We’ll be back in St. George in about twenty minutes, everyone,” Dave said over the intercom. “Please stay seated.”

  Winn got up to talk to Dave. Deem joined him at the front of the bus.

  “Did it come in like that, before?” Winn asked Dave.

  Dave kept his eyes on the road as he answered. “Not that I saw,” he said. “It just ran alongside us. Didn’t come in.”

  “Did you see it this time?” Winn asked. “Its head? Inside?”

  “I saw something,” Dave said, “in my mirror. Can’t say exactly what. Obviously someone’s upset back there. Can you talk to the woman who screamed, make sure everything’s OK?”

  “I’ll check on her,” Winn said, and walked back into the bus.

  “Did he say its head was inside?” Dave asked Deem.

  “Yes,” Deem answered. “Its head was inside.”

  “But none of the windows are open, are they?” Dave asked.

  “No, they’re closed,” Deem said.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Dave said.

  Deem left it at that. Dave hadn’t seen the head inside the bus, and she’d learned from her father not to relate stories that others might find crazy; it tended to make them think you were crazy.

  “You might want to consider cancelling this particular tour going forward,” Deem said, “until we figure out what this thing is. I think it’s dangerous.”

  “Not my decision,” Dave said. “That’d be for the owners to decide.”

  “Then you might want to ask for another route,” Deem said.

  “What do I tell them?” Dave asked. “Something jumped on the bus and stuck its head inside?”

  Deem knew Dave wouldn’t be relating that story to his boss. Winn rejoined them.

  “She’s fine, just shaken up,” Winn said. “She’s got a set of lungs on her, that’s for sure.”

  “Deem says it’s dangerous,” Dave said, his eyes looking at Winn through his rear view mirror. “Do you think it is?”

  “Might be,” Winn said. “Hard to say. Don’t know what it is, exactly.”

  “Can I talk to you for a second?” Deem asked Winn, pulling his arm as she walked back into the bus. Winn followed her to a seat that was several rows from the front, with no one around.

  “It’s dangerous,” Deem said, “but not for any reason you can tell Dave. I felt it lock onto me. I nearly passed out, like Virginia.”

  “Lock onto you?” Winn asked. “Like how?”

  “Our eyes were locked,” Deem said, “but then everything on the edges began to black out until all I could see was his eyes. I got dizzy, thought I might fall over. It was some kind of attack. Did you feel it?”

  “No,” Winn said. “No tunnel vision for me. I didn’t feel anything like that.”

  “Did you feel it was looking at you?” Deem said. “Like it was targeting you, specifically?”

  “No,” Winn replied. “It glanced at me, but I felt nothing.”

  “Well, it could be dangerous,” Deem said. “I told your friend he should cancel the tours until we know what it is.”

  “He’s just a driver, Deem,” Winn said. “If he tells them what we saw, they’ll just think he’s whack, or drunk. Might lose his job over it.”

  “If that thing out there has appeared before, it obviously knows this bus and the schedule. It’ll happen again.” She was scratching her left hand with her right.

  “But what came of it, other than a scare?” Winn said. “I don’t know what harm it caused. It was kind of like seeing a UFO. Not a lot you can do about it.”

  “It was more than that,” Deem said. “I’m sure of it. We’ll need to ride this bus again tomorrow. Try the River next time…what the fuck is this?”

  Deem raised her left hand where she’d been scratching. There was a round, quarter-inch bump in the skin of her left little finger, between the first and second knuckles.

  “Looks like a bite,” Winn said.

  “It’s not,” Deem said, pressing on the bump with her right index finger. “There’s something really hard inside, and it’s sharp. It hurts when I press it.”

  Winn took over and tried pressing on the bump. It looked red and sore like a spider bite, but he could tell as soon as he touched it that it wasn’t a bite. It was soft and squishy, like a pocket of liquid, but inside was something small and hard.

  “Ouch!” Deem said. “Don’t push on it!”

  “How long have you had this?” Winn asked.

  “No idea,” Deem said. “I don’t remember seeing it before.”

  Winn reached into his pants pocket and removed a pocketknife. He popped the blade open.

  “Whoa, hold on!” Deem said. “What are you going to do?”

  “Cut it open,” Winn said. “I’ll just slit the top open here.”

  Deem winced at the idea, but part of her knew the bump was abnormal, and she wanted whatever was inside it to be out of her. “It’s gonna bleed all over the place.”

  Winn got up and walked back to Margie and Virginia. They talked for a moment, then Winn returned with a small white handkerchief.

  “We’ll use thi
s,” Winn said, “to wrap it up.”

  “Alright,” Deem said.

  Winn held Deem’s little finger and slowly inserted the blade into the bump. Once he had the tip of it past the skin, he slid the blade sideways, making an eighth-inch cut. As he removed the knife, thin wisps of grey smoke emerged from the incision, and the skin collapsed as the gas escaped. Winn gently pulled the skin apart, and saw a small piece of something white.

  “Hope that didn’t hurt,” Winn said.

  “Didn’t feel a thing,” Deem said. “No blood, either. What is that?”

  Winn gently inserted the blade of his knife back into the slit and pried under the object, lifting it out of the skin. He held it up for Deem to see. It was small, white, and jagged.

  “What is that?” Winn asked, studying it. He held it for Deem to see. “Is it bone?”

  “What the fuck?” Deem asked, looking up at him.

  Chapter Two

  Deem stared up at the ceiling, suddenly awake. The first thing she felt was the bandage wrapped around her little finger. She felt it with her other hand, running her fingers over it in the darkness of her room.

  Seems normal, she thought. Isn’t swollen again. Doesn’t hurt. Should probably leave it alone. What time is it?

  She glanced over at her alarm clock on the nightstand – two-thirty. She felt wide awake.

  She raised her hands to her face, rubbing it. She let her hands slide down to her neck, and then she slid each hand down her opposite arm. She could see a spot on the ceiling where the paint had come off when she’d ripped down a stick-on glow-in-the-dark star years ago. She stared at the spot as she rubbed her arms at the elbows, and she felt it.

  Again? she thought. She stopped her right hand, pressing on the small mound of raised flesh just above her left elbow.

  What the fuck is that? she thought. It feels just like…

  She threw off the covers and walked to the adjoining bathroom. She flicked on the lights and waited for her eyes to adjust. Then she lifted her left arm and pointed her elbow at the mirror above the sink. She peered into the mirror, trying to see what she was touching.

  Oh my god, she thought. It’s the same!