The skin thief, p.1
The Skin Thief, page 1
ALSO BY T.E. MACARTHUR
The Volcano Lady Series:
A Fearful Storm Gathering
To the Ending of the World
The Great Earthquake Machine
The Lidenbrock Manifesto
The Doomsday Relic
The Gaslight Adventures of Tom Turner Series:
The Yankee Must Die: Huaka’I Po
Death and the Barbary Coast
Terror in a Wild Weird West
The Omnibus Collection of Tom Turner
Anthologies:
Twelve Hours Later: 24 Tales of Myth
& Mystery
Thirty Days Later: Steaming Forward
Some Time Later
Next Stop on the #13
Lou Turner, P.I.:
A Place of Fog and Murder
Copyright © 2023 by T.E. MacArthur.
Published by Indies United Publishing House, LLC
First Edition
First Printing, 2023
Cover design by T.E. MacArthur
All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this publication may be replicated, redistributed, or given away in any form without the prior written consent of the author/publisher or the terms relayed to you herein. This includes no replication by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author / publisher. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts as part of a review.
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-64456-596-4 [Paperback]
ISBN: 978-1-64456-597-1 [Mobi]
ISBN: 978-1-64456-598-8 [ePub]
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023932002
www.indiesunited.net
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To AJ (Aaron) Sikes and Ana Manwaring, editors extraordinaire, my heartfelt thanks. To them I owe a big debt of gratitude and a willing friendship.
To Ethan Hay, Jay Hartlove, M.M. (Michelle) Chouinard, Debbie Young, Chuck Johnson, Pamela Duncan, Shelly Howell, Juliana & Patrick Gaul, and the ever-splendid Sharon E. Cathcart, my collaborative development beta reading team C'est Magnifique!
Many thanks to my Uncle Bill Christensen for all the cheerleading and occasional insider information.
To Linh Tran proprietress of A Cuppa’ Tea, on College Avenue, Berkeley CA, for the hours she allowed me to sit in her shop.
And to Indies United Publishing House, LLC for allowing me to join their merry band. What a grand way to start the year 2023.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
I grew up in Colorado, though I was California born and now California living. Places such as Mesa Verde, Canyon de Chelly, and Chaco fascinated me. Like many children, I wanted to know all the exotic supernatural wonders of these magical ancient people. It was never my privilege to visit those sites in my childhood. And perhaps that is just as well – over time we have learned so much more about the actual people who lived in the cliffs and along the mesas, things that are far less exotic and magical, and far more human.
I offer you this story from my inner child to yours, in search of the mysterious and scary, but by no means looking to make any of those real ancient people or people today in the Four Corners region appear to be some sort of “other.”
The best lesson we can learn is that people are people – they are decent and bad, nice and mean, smart and dumb, and everything in between. Pedestals are for only statues. Human beings were always a mix of good and evil, just as they are now, just as they always will be.
Perhaps that is the scariest lesson of them all.
T.E. MacArthur
DEDICATED TO
My father, Tay McArthur * (1932 – 2022,) whom I lost last year in April. He was my best beta reader, always being a teacher first, a fan second.
*(yes, missing an “a.” It’s a long story.)
My dear friend and almost-husband, Patrick James Lacy (1950 – 2023,) a man who never heeded the airline admonition to put on his oxygen mask first before helping others. His generosity was infinite. He leaves a big, PJ-sized hole in so many lives.
Table of Contents
TITLE PAGE
THE SKIN THIEF
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
EPILOGUE
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
FOUR CORNERS REGION
COLORADO
AGENT X138 REFUSED TO BELIEVE IN GHOSTS, despite the gnawing premonition he was about to become one of them.
He shook it off, hoping that the tingling in his hands and spine would go away. Imagination was taking over, not facts, and X138 was here for the facts. For the sake of getting his bearings, he stopped, crouched, and dragged his fingers through the coarse gray dirt. Splinters of stone and wood pierced his uncalloused skin.
So much limitless night sky pressing down on him. For a moment, X138 recognized his own insignificance, how tiny he was. Above him were more stars than he’d ever seen in Washington DC or New York. Absolutely nothing competed with the glare of the Milky Way. Desert scrub concealed much of the distant horizon, leaving X138 surrounded by the unknown, bottomless canyons in every direction, an endless sea of looming rock, and vicious creatures with only one purpose — to find something to eat.
Something like him.
Why did his boss send him, a city boy, on a mission to the blistering Southwest desert? At least he’d had the good sense to accept a local kid’s offer to guide him in the back way. “I’m going to go catch pot pickers who are selling on the black market,” he told the kid. Hey, he read Tony Hillerman’s Navajo Police mysteries. It wasn’t the truth, but it was a fair lie and got the kid willing enough that it only cost X138 twenty bucks to secure his support. When he told the kid he’d need to go into the ruins after sundown, it cost him another eighty. He’d have to ask for reimbursement when he got back to Seattle.
Going to the site in the daytime like some tourist, had failed for the first agent. Athenaeum Intelligence had sent X456 out here weeks ago and he since dropped completely off the radar.
X138 shifted his footing and moved deeper into the rock formations surrounding the site.
Two loud booms rang out from the canyon near him.
Drums?
No.
Falling rocks?
On the way here, the local kid — who looked like a typical American Indian to him — had warned him to stay off the mesa, especially at night. Keep away from the ancient dwellings. No one liked the place. No one talked about the place.
Who constituted no one?
Indian Kid, with his stereotyped long braids, bead necklace, baggy jeans, and frowning face didn’t explain further. The kid kept talking about terrible things, sounding just like X138 expected an Indian kid to sound.
God, if someone had ever designed a perfect In dian teenager from his imagination, that kid would have been it. Hollywood movie perfect. Perfect to every detail. Not that he’d ever met a real Indian before.
Native American, he silently apologized.
And man was that kid fixated on Spirits. Ravenous, cruel, evil Ghouls. Spirits of this, spirits of that, spirts of divine retribution, spirits of people so unknown even the local tribes had no name for them. Ghosts of those who were betrayed and now wanted to get back at the wicked for everything wrong in the world! They’d have to get in line, X138 muttered to himself. He was an intel operative and knew damn well how many people wanted to punish the world for all the sins they perceived being committed.
Small rock skidded down the path behind him, making X138 spin around.
Nothing. No rocks, no pebbles, no sand.
Must be the ghosts, he thought, laughing inside and seriously reconsidering the wisdom of being out here at night. Alone. Indian Kid had left him at the bottom of the path, refusing to go any further once the sun had passed below the outcroppings around the mesa.
Geez, the kid loved telling him all about those Spirits in every gruesome, stomach-turning detail. Wasn’t the kid on his side? His nerves were raw by the time they reached the back road into the mesa, where the kid had left him and high-tailed it back to town.
At least X138 was coming out of this assignment better educated in Southwest culture.
Skinwalkers, he had asked the kid, trying to sound smart?
No. These Spirits of the mesa weren’t them. Weren’t Ute. Weren’t Navajo. Not Pueblo or Hopi. None of those people. Nobody knew anything about them.
X138 wasn’t sure if he believed any of it, but he was positive the Kid believed. And damn it, the stories unnerved him.
It got to the point where he had to tell the Kid to shut up when they were only halfway to the mesa.
And now, X138 wondered if X456 was a ghost whatever now. Would he find the body of the former agent, only to be eaten by his ghoulish spirit? Would another agent be sent out here find his corpse?
This was exactly why X138 hated horror movies and scary camp stories. He took comfort knowing that if anything did happen tonight, at least he would be the only casualty. By now, the kid had to be safe and sound back in town.
Enough children were being hurt by the situation here already — hence X138’s mission.
He kept thinking of death. Of the sudden, creeping, morgue-like cold overwhelming his hands and joints, making them hurt. Of stillness blanketed in a suffocating layer of beige dust. Of shifting silhouettes seen when the moonlight allowed.
Of being foolish enough to be out here alone, at night. All alone.
Spasms of fear coursed up and down his legs, like icepicks stabbing at them. Goose flesh crawled along his arms. He was sweating, desperately flapping his coat to cool off. Any field experience he had was useless, wasn’t it?
A burst of chilled wind blew dirt and stinging gravel at him, spraying the area with debris and noise. Shit, the landscape didn’t want him there anymore than that kid’s supposed ghosts. What followed the cacophony was eerie, empty silence.
Agent X138 crept forward, weapon ready. Every breath shallow by half, too quick, and followed by a shake up and down his spine.
The official agency communication he’d received was simple:
AGENT X138
INVESTIGATE: TWO AGENTS SENT TO SITE NOW MISSING.
SITUATION UPDATE: TWO CHILDREN KILLED IN WAR FOR CONTROL OF 32ND STREET GANG TERRITORY. GANG LEADER MISSING — REPORTED DEAD — LURED TO REMOTE LOCATION.
STATUS URGENT: DETERMINE DISPOSITION OF MISSING AGENTS — DETERMINE DISPOSITION OF MISSING GANG LEADER — DETERMINE PARTY/PARTIES RESPONSIBLE.
CODE: YELLOW. LETHAL RESPONSE AUTHORIZED.
Urgent. Dead Children.
In quick strides past sagebrush and rock, his boots sank into the deep sand and dirt.
The entrance to the old cliff ruins was ahead.
A placard, like those at any state park, bore the name of the place in scratched paint on rusted metal. The sign was bent sideways, its pole crimped in the middle by force, and now lying at an ominous angle off the path. Withered, leafless branches stuck out in all directions, and dust drifted into mounds against the boulders. It looked nothing like the fruitful farmland only a couple of miles away.
They had tried to make this a tourist spot?
Tried.
Failed.
No one took care of this place anymore, certainly not since an epic flood had drowned every living bush, tree, and creature, a few years before the drought. Even the land was deceased.
Stop. Wait. Listen. An agent’s basic training. The air smelled of rot instead of piñon pine. The kid’s warnings iced his nerves. The kid wasn’t precisely clear on what could happen to him, only that it was worse than eternity in Hell.
Creeping forward again, one step at a time, barely rising above a crouch, X138’s stomach churned. Heavy chains drooped across the path, proving a complete failure in their one purpose. A sign squeaked on its last nail, writhing in the resurging wind. The lettering was gone, scoured away by the elements over time.
The dirt tempest settled for only a moment, giving him enough time to hear the ringing in his ears and the sound of every movement. Mist hung inside the canyon, blotting out its true depth.
Wailing cut through the silence, putting X138’s on edge. Was that a human shrieking in pain, or some animal? Or something else entirely? Not a ghost. No such thing.
Pivoting slowly, he concentrated, trying to triangulate where the sound came from. Behind him? No. In front of him? He stilled every muscle, straining to hear the slightest echo. Yes. There it was, the last of the cry. Toward the entrance to the dwellings.
What was that?
Imagination? No. He never imagined that kind of thing before.
A coyote? Sure. That was it. Just a coyote.
Overhead, an empty sky, filled with too many stars, blended so completely with the blackened distance that it gave him vertigo. He shifted his foot in the dirt, letting the scuffing and crunch of gravel calm his nerves. Those sounds were real or tangible.
He pushed his hair out of his face and inched his way to the edge of the cliff dwelling’s entrance. It was little more than a gaping, black hole on the edge of the ravine, partially blocked by sagebrush.
Sweat formed on his upper lip and at the nape of his neck. Focus on the mission. Down the stairs, cautiously, one barely steady step at a time. They’d been hacked out of the rock by someone a long time past and were eroded by blasting sand and, at another time not so long ago, tourist foot traffic. Treacherous and hazardous enough in good light, in the dark they might be deadly. But he didn’t dare turn on a flashlight. He’d be spotted by someone nasty. Or something.
Every nerve in his body screamed, Run back home.
Those weren’t his orders. His orders were crystal clear.
Use extreme prejudice. Code: Yellow. Lethal response authorized.
Agent X138 also knew what his orders didn’t address — what other agents were saying back at the Headquarters. Who cares if gang leaders were dying or missing? But in the underworld vacuum their absence created the power struggles that emerged and were spilling into the streets. Now, there were mounting civilian casualties.
Two more dead kids.
Two dead innocent kids.
I have kids.
Voices — whispers. Couldn’t be. No such thing as ghosts. But no one was here.
More than one? Saying something about him – unworthy – lawless – undeserving.
Muffled laughter? Growling? Hissing. Jesus, what was he hearing?
In front of him. Behind him.
He ran down the last stairs toward the ancient dwellings, weapon poised.
