Windigo fire, p.25
Windigo Fire, page 25
“Danny …” Rachel coughed bitterly. “I can’t … breathe …”
“Me either. We’ve got to … go back up.”
He turned back up the incline, clutching Rachel’s hand. He stumbled blindly over the gravel, not stopping until they climbed out of the smoke into fresher air.
They collapsed on the ground, gasping.
“Stay down, Rach.”
“I’m thirsty,” she said.
He pulled the water bottle from the bag, opened it and gave it to her. She drank a couple of swallows and passed the bottle back to him. Hardly any left.
The forest beckoned, fifty yards away.
“OK, that’s where we’re going.” He pointed to the trees, pushing away thoughts of an unseen bullet. “You have to run, like track and field at school.”
“I can do it.”
“If something happens to me, promise me, you’ll keep going.
Find the road. OK?”
“No, Danny, no …”
High above them, he heard the rapid exchange of gunfire. “Now, Rach …”
He grabbed her hand and shot out over the loose gravel. Heart pounding, he kept her close, shielding her from the tower with his body.
A bullet mashed into the soft gravel by his foot. He heard Logan return fire.
Don’t think, run.
The soft earth and stones tripped them, made them clumsy and ungainly. He saw the trees…
All at once they were caught in a dark maze of branches and weeds. He fought through them, dragging on her arm.
“Can we stop now?” Rachel asked.
“Yeah.” He leaned on a birch tree and tried to catch his breath. “You OK?”
Her face was muddy and stray bits of leaf were tangled in her hair, but she was smiling. “You look like a crazy wild man,” she said.
“No kidding. Come on, that jerk could fire into the trees any minute. This way.”
He slogged through the bush, making sure Rachel stayed close behind him.
“Once we hit the road, walking will be easy,” he said. “Only ten clicks and we reach the highway.”
“What about Mr. Logan?” she asked.
All he could hear was the numbing thud of their feet on the forest floor, the swish of tree branches and Rachel’s tight breathing.
“That shooter won’t get him, don’t you worry about it.” I better not be lying.
“I saw him in the tower last night. He looked like a ghost.” Rachel rubbed at the insects that descended on them, moving or not. “I-I tried to tell Mr. Logan.”
“Hendrix,” Danny said.
So Hendrix had survived the crash of the Twin Beech. He’d climbed down from the shattered cockpit and walked out of the woods to the mine. When Logan and Rachel showed up in the VW, he took refuge in the gallows frame.
He left Logan and Rachel alone, but when he saw me he started shooting. I nearly got Rachel and Logan killed, he thought.
No witnesses: scorched earth.
“Sergeant McKenna said Hendrix is a real badass. He came to Blue Sky Bookstore,” Rachel said.
“What!”
“Odile called him a demon, a windigo.”
“Oh God … out there, that’s what she tried to tell me.”
“Danny …” Rachel stopped moving. “I don’t hear Mr. Logan shooting anymore.”
She was right. The world had fallen silent.
38
The mine road shone through the trees like a dusty river. They tumbled onto it, free of the smoky darkness of the forest.
“Rach, listen to me.” Danny bent down and took her shoulders. “We’re going to split up now. I want you to run out to the highway and get the cops. I’m going back for Logan.”
“No! Hendrix will kill you.” She clung to his torn shirt. “I’m coming with you.”
“You can’t.” Gently he detached her hands. “It’ll be easy. Just follow this road. The cops patrol up and down the highway all the time. Hide in the bush until you see an OPP cruiser. Then yell, wave, jump up and down, do anything to make them stop.”
“What if they don’t stop?”
“Wait for the next one. And promise me, swear that you’ll hide until you see a cop car. A lot of weirdos drive along the highway.”
“OK, OK, I’m not stupid.” Her strange yellow eyes were wide. “I’ll wait for you and Mr. Logan.”
“NO! Get the cops.” He stood back, silently urging her to run. “I’ll be fine, Little Sister. Now go. Run!”
Face solemn, she turned away from him. She set off slowly down the road, each footstep an accusation.
“Sorry, Rach,” he said softly.
Her footsteps became shorter and shorter until she was running. He waited until her small form merged with the distant trees.
The dirt road was humped like a hill in the middle and scattered all over with stones. How long would it take to run ten clicks? The longest cross-country race Rachel had done in school was only three clicks.
A funny pain in her right side under her ribs. A stitch, that’s what Dad called it. He’d had one during his last triathlon and had to drop out.
She rested her hand on the pain, rubbing to make it go away. She slowed down to a walk, kicking the odd stone in the road, and tried not to think about Dad getting on the sag wagon during his race.
Why wouldn’t her stupid side stop hurting? She stopped walking and took a deep breath to see if that would help. The forest was deathly silent now that she was alone. No animals, just stupid stinging bugs, and trees lining the road like the walls of a dark corridor.
A sudden cry like a baby in pain. She spun, looking behind her. A grey shape, soft as dust, skimmed over her head and landed on the top of a nearby spruce.
“An owl,” she said aloud.
She rubbed her bare arms, feeling cold. Dr. Amdur, Dad’s boss, got freaked out by owls. He said that back in England, where he grew up, seeing an owl meant bad luck.
She sensed the car before she saw it. It was gliding silently toward her.
Barry’s beige Prius.
Santa!
Her brain told her to run into the woods, but her legs had gone rigid. She couldn’t move. He’s going to run me over, she thought. Still she couldn’t move.
She watched the Prius creep over the dust of the road and stop ten feet away.
The driver’s door opened and Santa got out. He wasn’t wearing his dirty red suit any more. His hair was filthy and full of leaves and his bare torso was plastered with dirt. In those dorky striped undershorts, he looked like he was pretending to be a Maori warrior from New Zealand.
“Well, I’m damned,” Santa said, leaning on the open driver’s door and swinging a bottle in one hand. “If it isn’t Logan’s granddaughter. Aren’t we the happy little Vegemite? Come over here. I want to talk to you.”
“No!” Rachel forced out.
“Do as you’re told. You’ve been a thorn in my backside ever since I clapped eyes on you.”
“I’m not stupid, Fat-ass. You want to hurt me because I know you killed Barry.”
“Such a heartbreaking loss to the youth of today, our dear departed Barry. He had you in his sights, you know, you social worker’s nightmare. You should thank me proper for ridding the world of his useless existence.”
They stared at each other.
Legs shaking, not daring to take her eyes off him, she leaned down and scooped up a fistful of gravel.
“Well, well, you vicious little monkey.” He stepped round the door. “Bloody get over here.”
“No way,” she called back, forcing the vibration out of her voice. “Come and get me. I dare you.”
“Move your skinny tail or I’ll get back in the car, drive you down and flatten you proper.”
Rachel lobbed a stone onto the hood of the Prius. Not a hard throw, but enough to make the metal ping. He reacted with irritation just as she’d hoped. She tossed a second rock, harder this time.
“Stop that,” he shouted.
She winged a stone at the headlight, heard a most satisfying crack. Dad always said she’d make a great softball pitcher.
“Stop it, I said.”
“Come and make me, Killer.” A direct hit on the windshield, another to the window on the open driver’s door, making him leap out of the way and drop the bottle on the ground. She threw freely now, dinging the car all over, watching his face grow scarlet.
Best for last. She leaned back like the pitchers in the American League and bopped him square in the middle of the forehead.
He roared in outrage and charged down the side of the car toward her.
She fled down the passenger side of the Prius, aiming for the trees, but he doubled back and caught her behind the trunk of the car. He seized her right arm, wrenching it so viciously the world glowed red.
She screamed the way Dad had taught her. Use that microsecond of surprise to get away. She twisted and let fly the gravel left in her free hand.
It struck him full in the face. He cried out, clutching his eyes.
“I am a ninja!”
She threw out her foot in a roundhouse kick, aiming her heel through the dirty grey bandage on his leg.
He bellowed like a shot moose. She jerked her arm free and ran past him to the open driver’s door. She leapt behind the wheel, jamming the door closed an instant before he seized the handle.
She punched down the power lock button, sealing all the doors and windows.
He pummelled uselessly on the window. “Try and start it. Just try, you black-hearted little lizard,” he shouted. “It’s far beyond your weasel’s brain. You’re trapped. When I get my hands on you, you’ll pray you’d never been born.”
The key to the Prius was still lodged in the steering wheel. Awesome!
She flipped him her middle finger straight and tall. Grinning now, she rotated her finger and pressed the power button on the dash. Instantly the video screen woke up.
“What the hell?” He stared wildly.
“My dad’s boss, Dr. Amdur, drives a Prius,” she said through the glass.
Seeing Santa’s expression was better than beating her best video game score.
“And Dad taught me how to drive.” She shot the gearshift into reverse and backed up, watching the road through the back window, steering with one hand.
She couldn’t see too well over the driver’s seat, so she couldn’t back up really fast the way Dad had taught her back at his old workplace, the body shop. Santa hobbled after her in a fury. His hands slid over the smooth hood of the car as he desperately tried to get a grip.
Abruptly she swung the wheel over in the first leg of a three point turn. He bellied over the hood, fumbling for the windshield wipers. She pressed down on the lever under the wheel and doused him with windshield washer fluid.
He roared, blue liquid streaming from his eyes and beard. She slammed the gear into drive, swung the wheel over into the second curve of the turn and tromped on the gas pedal.
Momentum rocked him off the car. He bounced and rolled like a dirty white barrel into the road.
“Yeehaw!” Rachel screamed and roared down the road.
He heaved onto all fours in a runner’s stance. Battered though he was, he limped after her.
She pushed on the accelerator, knocking the Prius into gas mode. He was running like a parody of a steam engine now, arms and legs pumping, face crimson as he wheezed for more oxygen. But no human had a hope of catching a car.
His frenetic form grew smaller and smaller. She plunged past the dark trees, howling with delight. In no time she was zooming through the Archangel’s open metal gates.
No police cruisers on the highway.
She turned south, heading for Red Dog Lake and the first phone she could find.
39
Danny followed the mine road until the roof of the gallows frame appeared over the trees. Breathing deeply, he quit the road for the shelter of the woods, pushing through the brush until he reached the point where the vegetation gave way to the barren flats surrounding the mine.
He crouched down in the weeds, scanning the building and grounds for signs of movement.
Nothing.
Smoke from the forest fire loomed like a black thunderhead west of the tailings pond. A deadly grey mist flowed around the abandoned mill building, smudging out the sight of Logan’s ruined VW.
He pushed back his tangled hair. He hadn’t heard any gunfire for over half an hour. That could mean everything or nothing.
Doesn’t matter what’s happened. I’m coming to get you, John.
The only way to keep out of sight of the tower, and Hendrix, was through the derelict mill. He’d cut through the building, dodge past the old mill equipment, and get across to the side looking down over the tailings pond. From there he’d signal Logan, find him somehow.
He stared at the wasteland before him.
The dirt and broken pavement between him and the east end of the mill stretched the length of a football field. He’d have to run across it, exposed and vulnerable as a rabbit on a jet runway. He prayed that Hendrix was lying in the tower dead or injured, or at least that he was watching for Logan and not looking east, out in his, Danny’s, direction.
Six years ago, back in high school, he and two of his Fortin cousins had tanked up on bootleg beer, driven up here and gone exploring. They’d all grown up hearing stories about members of The Community who’d died of leukemia or lung cancer after working at the Archangel Mine, but that hadn’t stopped them. Beer, weed and stupidity had fuelled them. And had nearly gotten them all killed.
He hoped he remembered enough from their drunken adventures to find his way around the mill building.
He rubbed his burning eyes. The smoke was getting worse.
The end of the mill building held a shattered multi-paned window, big enough for a cathedral, but it was set fifteen feet above ground. He’d never manage to get into the mill that way. He’d have to edge down its long northern wall and find the cargo bay he and his cousins had used.
Tricky. The north side had no windows or door openings.
And the cargo bay lay just below the gallows tower.
The hell with it.
He burst out of the weeds onto the barren ground. He ran, leaping over gaping potholes, the pitted concrete banging through his runners. He saw nothing but the broken ground in front of him, rolling toward him in a blur.
Halfway across.
The darkening sky pressed down on him. His lungs were on fire. His leg muscles screamed with pain. He couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe.
A sharp clang of noise. Pain shot through his side. He hit the ground, wheezing.
Breathless, he lay on his back, ribs throbbing, staring into a white Arctic immensity. A strange flaky snow drifted down on him.
Am I dead?
Not dead, winded.
He heaved himself up and gazed at the white specks littering the rusty ground. Not snow, but paint. Flaking off the corroded steel wall of the mill building.
Idiot, he thought and dragged himself up to his feet. I was such a scared rabbit, I ran straight into the end of the mill building. Didn’t even see it.
No time to waste. Move.
He limped along the eastern wall until he reached the northeast corner of the building. He began working his way down its northern side, pressing close to the blank, rust-stained metal that covered it.
He remembered his cousins joking that they might run across Logan at the mine. He probably had a big stash of rye whisky there, they’d said. If they found it, they’d have enough for ten parties. Everyone in Red Dog Lake wondered why Logan liked to hang around the Archangel Mine, but even as a disinterested teenager, Danny had sensed that the reasons for Logan’s lonely vigils ran deep. And whatever those reasons were, he didn’t want to know them.
He stopped halfway down the northern wall and wiped off his face. He didn’t remember the distance being this far. The air was really smoky now, getting hard to breathe.
I’m exhausted. That little bit of food and water Logan and Rachel gave me won’t wipe out two days of physical hell. I was running on adrenalin, now it’s leaking away.
He forced himself to keep going. It took forever to get to the spot where the north wall bent round into the cargo bay. Gasping for air, he stopped to rest. And when he looked up, he saw the dark outline of the gallows tower, exactly as he remembered it.
He picked up a stray stone and tossed it round the corner into the loading area.
Nothing. No sounds, no movement.
With infinite caution, he peered round the corner. The loading area was filled with piles of jumbled cables and bags of pale, cement-like waste. Leaking oil barrels with black and yellow signs that warned of radioactivity were stacked like giant Lego pieces in front of the sealed cargo doors. And right beside them, he spotted a familiar window.
The way in.
Don’t think. Go for it.
He slipped round the corner and picked his way through the toxic junk, mindful of anything that could tumble and make a noise. So far, so good.
He ran up the crumbling concrete ramp that led to the window. The chipboard covering it had been so moist and decayed that he and his cousins had found it trivially easy to kick away a piece big enough to let themselves in. Now only a tiny piece of the board remained, clinging to a rusty nail, but the splinters along its edges looked fresh.
Hendrix!
Danny’s heart beat faster. Hendrix had found the same way in. He’d gone through the mill building and found his way to the gallows tower.
What if he’d left the tower? What if he was hiding inside the mill?
Too late now. I have to risk it.
He eased himself onto the metal window frame, swung his legs over it and dropped down into the inky darkness of the mill.
He landed with a clang on a metal catwalk four feet below the window. Heart racing, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark, listening for any sounds.
Nothing but silence, thank God.
Light beams, murky with smoke, shone down through gaping holes in the roof. He watched the mill workings emerge: a strange, almost biological complex of pipes, ladders and tanks that stretched the entire length of the building. A yellow-brown dust coated everything. The smell of burning timber drowned out other odours he remembered: moisture and mildew, sewage and acid.
