The Dark Ones Read online

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “How are you, honey?”

  “Good. Got some news for you.”

  “Well?” Milo asked.

  “Can’t tell you now.”

  “That’s it, talk in riddles, just like your mother always did.”

  “Meet me for dinner tonight? I promise I’ll tell then.”

  “You’re holding out on me. This must be good.”

  “How about the Alligator, six o’clock?”

  Milo set his sandwich on his lap. “That the place on Chippewa?”

  “The one and only.”

  “I feel old in those places.”

  “You’re not old, Dad. Besides, I’ve got news.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  She said good-bye and he hit the End button. He hadn’t seen her in a week or so. Debbie was busy with her social-work courses at Buffalo State. What could she possibly have to tell him? He was curious to find out, but also pleasantly surprised. He didn’t get to spend much time with her these days. Debbie’s time was divided among the Chippewa bar scene, her girlfriends, and Brian Penberthy, who was her current boyfriend.

  Dinner with her would be nice.

  CHAPTER 13

  After making love on the couch, Dave and Jenny crept to her bedroom. She had slept, her head on his chest. The feel of her warm skin against his side, the delicacy of her hair spread on his chest, had been some comfort. He still hadn’t slept well. Several times he heard the chatters and chitters of animals outside and he nearly held his breath, ready to spring out of bed, expecting an attack. When he wasn’t worried about being attacked, he thought of Sara.

  What if the Dark Ones had found her first? Or what if some predator with an eye for teenage girls offered her a ride? Maybe she was bound somewhere in a basement, held by some creep who would torture her for his own pleasure. When the morning came, Dave had never been so glad to see the rays of the sun.

  He separated himself from Jenny. As he began to roll out of bed, she took his hand and whispered, “Thank you.” Then she rolled over lazily and yawned.

  Dave slipped into his jeans and T-shirt and went out to the kitchen. He heard the gurgle of the coffeemaker and smelled a nice French roast brewing. Frank was seated at the table, fully dressed and reading the newspaper. His Orioles cap rested on the table, next to a plate littered with toast crumbs.

  “Sleep well?” Frank asked.

  “Jumped at every little sound.”

  “We’re well defended here.”

  “Still.”

  “Notice you didn’t make it to the spare bedroom last night.”

  “You’re grinning behind that paper, aren’t you?”

  “She’s a lovely woman,” Frank said. “Nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Who’s ashamed?”

  Frank chuckled from behind the paper. David couldn’t help but grin. “I’m getting some coffee before you drink it all, Reverend.”

  After his toast and coffee, and while Chen and David finished their breakfasts, Frank called home. Sandra picked up on the third ring.

  “How are you?” Frank asked.

  “Where are you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m in a little town called Routersville, Pennsylvania.”

  “What in God’s name are you doing there?”

  “I can’t explain.”

  “Try me,” she said.

  “Later.”

  “The parishioners didn’t take your absence very well. Norma McCullough got up and stomped out of church.”

  Oh, boy. “Old Norma will get over it.”

  “You hope.”

  “I know.”

  “Really, Frank, why can’t you tell me? Please?”

  Her voice had the quality of a child pleading for a parent to reveal some awesome secret.

  “Can you leave?” Frank asked.

  “Leave where?”

  “Lexington. Is your brother staying up at his cabin at all?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Sandra, be quiet and listen.”

  From the silence on the other line, he knew he was overstepping his bounds, but a lot depended on this. “Call your brother. You, him, Gertie, the kids, get up to that cabin. The mountains should be safe for now.”

  “Safe from what?”

  “Trouble. It’s coming, dear. That’s all I can tell you. You might be able to avoid it up there, but not in the towns.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Can you do that for me?”

  “You’re not making sense.”

  “I understand I sound like a mental patient, but please trust me. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

  A long sigh came from the other end.

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “If we don’t take care of things in Buffalo, the whole country, maybe the world, is in danger.”

  “Frank Heatly, savior of mankind.”

  “Would you just go up there with Gertie. For me?”

  “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to get away for a week. And it is awfully nice up there.”

  “I just want you to be safe. I love you,” Frank said.

  “I love you, too. I don’t even pretend to understand you sometimes, but I love you.”

  They said good-bye and he hoped she would go to the cabin. He also hoped it wasn’t the last time he would ever speak to her.

  They agreed to meet at Ruby’s Diner. Jenny had called McGill and Peters, who spread the word among the other Guardians. Dave walked into Ruby’s, where a row of men in quilted flannels and camouflage jackets sat on red vinyl stools at a linoleum counter. The booths that lined the large picture window were full. More people crowded into a central dining area. A country song—Dave thought it was something by Kenny Chesney—rang out over speakers mounted in the corners. He smelled fresh-brewed coffee and the pleasantly greasy odor of bacon frying.

  A petite woman in dark blue jeans and a flannel shirt approached them. She had hair that matched the red on a Campbell’s soup can and large blue eyes. She looked as if she might have graduated high school in the past year. She walked up to Jenny, and they embraced.

  She turned to Dave and said, “Well, good to see you all.” Then she reached up and wrapped her arms around Dave and gave him a squeeze. She did the same to Frank. Friendly, this one.

  “I’m Maggie Swain, but call me Ruby. Welcome to Ruby’s. You guys want coffee? Got some good pancakes and waffles, too.”

  Dave said, “No thanks.”

  “You own this place?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m impressed,” Frank said.

  “You want to know how old I am, don’t you? Twenty-three. I look about seventeen, right? This was my dad’s place. Named it after me. Passed on two years ago. The MS finally got him.”

  “It’s a fine establishment,” Frank said. “Sorry about your dad.”

  “It’s all right,” Ruby said.

  “Let’s get down to business,” Jenny said.

  Over the next hour, Jenny shared what her scouts had found out: The Dark Ones were moving closer. Frank then addressed the crowd about the group they had seen at the mine. Finally, Jenny spoke again and informed everyone of the provisions she had made at the armory. There was enough food, water, and ammunition for a two-week siege.

  Jenny divided the diner into four groups. She strode back and forth like a Marine Corps DI. Dave was surprised she had never been in the military. Each group would cover a separate quadrant of town, making phone calls and going door to door. Red McCormick, owner of the Hobson Shoe Factory, was in attendance. He would call a meeting, tonight making them able to inform nearly three hundred people. They decided to meet at five. Most people would be home from work, and it was still a little before nightfall. Those who believed and wanted protection would remain at the armory. It was the general consensus that the attack was coming soon, and it would be best for people not to return to their homes.

 
“Let’s go, then. No time to waste,” Jenny said.

  The crowd began to file out, a low murmur filling the diner.

  “Didn’t sleep well?”

  Sara sucked in breath, startled. She’d been watching a morning news program called Daybreak. The cops had ID’d a skinned corpse found at the old Bethlehem Steel Mill. It was a night watchman named Harry Hargrove. They had no leads, but Sara knew who had done it.

  “How can you tell?”

  “Luggage under your eyes.”

  “Yeah, just thinking.”

  “Pretty gruesome find there,” Laura said, nodding toward the television.

  “People are sick.”

  “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I see it every day. Two weeks ago this guy brings his six-month-old in. Kid’s got bruises from head to toe, black as a piece of licorice. Father says he couldn’t take the crying anymore.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I’m like, asshole, it’s a baby, what do you expect?”

  “You called him an asshole?”

  “It fit, believe me,” Laura said.

  “What happened to him?”

  “We called Social Services, they took the kid, cops came in, hauled Dad away. Sad thing is, he’ll be out in a few years.”

  Sara immediately felt a pang of guilt for trying to hurt David by running away. Sure, he had deceived her, but he had also been a kind and gentle father who never laid a hand on her. She could have done a lot worse.

  “What’s your dad like, my grandfather?”

  “Well, you’ll meet him soon. He was a good father. Never panicked or threatened to kick me out when I got pregnant. Supported me all the way. The only thing, he would never let me take you out alone. If I was going to the mall or anywhere public, he insisted on going along. The one time I managed to escape, I lost you.”

  “The day of my kidnapping. That wasn’t your fault.”

  Laura sat next to her on the couch. “You have kids someday, you’ll understand. You’ll hate to see them sick, in pain. You’ll blame yourself for not watching them close enough, for letting them skin a knee or break a wrist.”

  Sara put an arm around her. “I’m just glad I found you.”

  “I am, too. We’ve got a long way to go, catching up. It won’t happen overnight.”

  “But we’re going to try, right?”

  “Damn straight,” Laura said. “How about I treat you to breakfast? We’ll go to Ambrosia, Greek place, great all-around food.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Laura went from the couch to the table and picked up the receiver. She dialed the phone and Sara noticed her chewing her nail while she waited for someone to pick up. After a few moments, she hung up.

  “Calling your dad?”

  “Strange. Still no answer. We’ll have to drop in on him.”

  After leaving the brewery site, Charles drove through Niagara Square and over to South Elmwood. He passed City Hall and a little brick church called St. Anthony’s. His parents had been married there. He jumped on the Skyway, then headed out Route 5. He spotted the sign for Gate 4 and pulled his car onto the shoulder. His stomach rumbled. Hopefully he could slam down some of those eggs pretty soon.

  A web of police tape surrounded the gate. Tape in the shape of an X covered the door to the guard shack. Skinned alive, the poor bastard. People who crossed Engel’s path usually got something unimaginable done to them. This guy had done nothing more than report for work.

  Which meant Engel was likely hiding on the property of the mill. The rows of rolling mills and furnaces left places to hide, and since the mill was shut down, he could escape detection. How many of them were waiting among the abandoned buildings?

  Charles got out of the car. Behind him, the cars hummed past on Route 5, and occasionally a gust of air blew at his back. He approached the fence. The wind rattled and blew a Styrofoam coffee cup along the ground, in front of the guard shack. The mill seemed desolate to him, eerie. Long gone were the heavy grinding sounds of industry, the hiss of steam, the roar of furnaces, the glow of molten steel being poured from huge ladles. He couldn’t imagine a guard staying here at night, alone. Being here in the daytime left him with an uneasiness that manifested in chills up and down his arms.

  The complex stretched for a mile in either direction. Engel could be anywhere. Charles considered going in to look for him, but without the power of one of the stones, it would be suicide. He would have to wait and hope that Reverend Frank would come through in Routersville. Or he would have to dig through tons of steel and other rubble at the recycling yard if they would even let him in. And the stone that had kept Engel buried was most likely burned out. For him to escape, its power must have diminished.

  He walked the length of the fence, stepping over broken glass and rustling weeds as he went. He thought of Laura. She wouldn’t leave. He would have to try and convince her somehow. Leave a good-paying doctor’s job, a job she basically loved, because her crackpot father said the end was nigh? Doubtful.

  The thought of leaving Laura’s fate to others, to possibly be captured, enslaved, and tortured, twisted his guts. Engel was here, he knew it. That poor night watchman was not slaughtered by chance. The Lackawanna cops hadn’t found him or the Dark Ones because they dissolved like so much black mist when they didn’t want to be seen.

  I have to try and stop this. I failed to keep him contained. It’s my fault, mine alone. If I wait, the blood of thousands will be on my hands.

  Charles looked up at the fence. He guessed it to be seven or eight feet tall. Back in his college days, he had run track and field, taken all kinds of meets. But now his knees ached and after a round of golf it felt as if someone were driving red-hot nails into his lower back. But he had to try.

  Gripping the fence, he shoved a toe in between the links. He pulled himself up, tendons in his wrist straining. The wind gusted again, shaking him. He clawed upward, one foot, one hand, until he reached the top of the fence. Luckily, Bethlehem—or whoever owned the mill these days—had seen fit to leave barbed wire off the fence. He swung one leg over, teetered, got his balance, then swung the other over. He scrambled down the other side, his foot catching in one of the links, and he stumbled at the bottom and hit the pavement. Wrist aching and a scrape on his palm, he stood up. He was in. Were they watching him?

  He strode past the guard shack. Ahead were the blast furnaces, hundreds of feet of tubing and pipe running into the air. How the hell did you build something like that? Each was flanked by the equally impressive stoves that at one time had fed hot air to the furnaces. He continued past them, past the skeletal ore bridge, farther down until he reached the long, narrow rolling mills.

  The opening to the one nearest him looked big enough to admit a cruise ship to its innards. The rolling equipment had been long since stripped and salvaged for scrap, but an impressive array of steel columns and jutting framework remained. Slats of light filtered in through high windows, but it would still be like entering a cave.

  His heart sped up. His wrist ached and his palm stung. He had left his overcoat on the other side of the fence and each gust of October wind knifed through him and he shivered.

  I can do this. I beat him before. He should fear me, the bastard. And after what he did to Lydia, I owe him another round of payback.

  He mustered a little light, the warm glow spreading through his arm, and he held out his hand, palm up, and the white glow shone around him. He had been a Guardian so long he no longer had to think of light or goodness to make the light spring up. It had become as natural as walking or talking.

  He stepped into the Ten Inch mill. The light showed a concrete floor smudged with grease. He smelled oil, the chemical pierce of solvents, and under that, something old and rotted.

  He looked up at the catwalks that ran the length of the building, which seemed to stretch a mile in itself. A fine black mist swirled around the railings. It descended, curling and gath
ering at the floor. He turned and saw the cloud rising up over the entrance, making the daylight outside appear through a filmy black curtain. The mist rolled up and stopped in a circle around him, leaving him and the light untouched.

  One of them materialized out of the mist, taking form as a shadow, then turning solid. Charles held up the light. The thing stepped closer. Charles recoiled. Its face was a mess of putrid, pockmarked flesh. The right eye had been sewn shut, and half the nose bitten off, leaving a ragged hole in the center of its face.

  Charles backed up. He sensed something behind him. He peeked and out of the corner of his eye saw something big and winged and leathery.

  The one in front of him said, “He wants to see you.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  “Turn out the light or we’ll tear you apart.”

  “I should fry your rotten hide where you stand.”

  He sensed the winged one behind him getting closer. More of them, grotesque forms in the darkness, crept toward the edge of the mist. He extinguished the light, and the darkness crept in around him.

  “Follow me.” The one in front turned, and the mist parted. “Don’t let the mist touch you. Lest you want to lose your skin.”

  He started forward, the winged creature behind him thumping along. He flattened his arms at his sides and followed the path through the mist.

  They led him through the mist. He guessed they walked a few hundred feet. His eyes adjusted to the slats of light filtering in the high windows, but it was still hard to see. The dark form in front of him stopped. It then stepped aside.

  He saw the black mist part. Engel appeared. Dressed in a trench coat full of holes. Hair stringy and black. Face as white as porcelain.

  “Interesting home you’ve chosen,” Charles said.

  The rotted, cracked voice said, “It suits me. Why did you come here?”

  “To stop you.”

  “You couldn’t stop me before.”

  “I buried you, didn’t I?” Charles said.

  “And I’m back. Where is the girl?”