The animal didn’t freeze in the light like he’d hoped.
He did, however.
The deer’s mud-splashed hide hung on its bones like a moth-eaten sweater, pockmarked by dozens of dark holes where its decaying skin had peeled off. It had no eyes, just two dirty sockets, and the flesh of its snout had rotted away to reveal twin rows of teeth. Maggots rained from its underbelly with each shuddering step.
“Did you think you could outrun me, Timmy?”
Tim staggered, clapping his hands to his head.
With no further warning the deer exploded into a run, shedding parts of its decomposing flesh in the process.
Tim screamed. He yanked up on the handlebars, spun the bike around on its rear wheel, and hit the pedals the moment he faced the other way. The rear tire kicked up dirt. The decrepit deer lunged, lowering its withered head. Jagged antlers reached for his flesh like Death’s bony fingers.
Tim careened to the right and dodged off the path. The diving points missed him by mere inches. The creature brushed past him and crashed into a sapling on the road’s edge, trampling it to the ground.
Not looking back, he rode down the steep embankment, plunging into a nature-made sluice eroded from years of runoff rainwater. The bike bounced and slid over the mixed terrain of hard rock and soft sand, but the momentum of his initial run drove him through it with minimal interference. He headed down hill, picking up speed.
In his wake came the crash and snap of the deer fighting its way through the entangling brush.
Pushing the bike faster, he guided it down the trench, jerking and jolting over the rugged basin floor. Half-blind, he expected to strike a large rock and flip over at any moment.
Instead, he made it to the bottom of the hill where the ditch leveled out beside Tomahawk Trail. He turned hard right onto a footpath he knew paralleled the railroad, separated from the tracks by sixty or seventy feet of forest.
He shifted the bike to its lowest gear and raced down the trail. Rubber tires hummed on the packed dirt, wind whooshed over his head, and the panting wheeze of his own breath made him feel like a locomotive himself, a grisly combination of flesh and machine.
The ugly abstraction triggered a frightening realization; if he didn’t get to town before the train did, it would block his route home again.
From behind came the clatter of trampled foliage, and the quick repetition of hooves stomping the ground.
Tim wailed, pushing himself to the limit.
His legs burned, his heart beat in his chest with the pace of a machinegun, and sweat spilled down his face.
The train whistle cried into the night, shrieking closer than ever. Tim knew exactly what it meant; the first engine had reached town. In seconds, it would temporarily divide County Road 19, cutting him off.
Cranking harder, he exploded from the woods. The canopy of shifting trees gave way to night sky, and Tim made a right onto the same road the train rolled toward farther up. To his right the forest blurred past out of the corner of his eye. At his left, an army of corn stalks flanked the road.
Keep going… a hundred more feet… Lights to the right… Train’s entering town.
The railroad signals clanged just ahead, their red warning lights flashed. Tim thanked God the designers hadn’t selected the type of signals that automatically lowered crossbars over the road.
The deer smashed out of a cluster of bushes at his right, having apparently tried to gain ground on him by darting crosswise through the woods. It leapt in front of him, but he swung around it, passing close enough to smell the creature’s putrid flesh.
The train flashed into partial-sight ahead, glimpsed between the buildings. It powered onward, rumbling closer and closer.
Tim flew forward, his eyes sighted on the warm beacons of light coming from street lamps on the far side of the tracks. He knew that Fritz & Joyce’s was closed at this hour, but the Choo-Choo bar would still be open. There would be people there who could help him. It wasn’t far now. He could smell the food.
The train’s horn screamed to his right, and it thundered into full view like a gigantic bullet. In another inexplicable moment of slowed time, Tim saw the conductor’s face peering out the engine cab, eyes fixed on him while he soared into the light. The man’s lips moved in wordless spasms behind the glass. The horn howled again.
Exhausted, deaf, scared shitless in the headlamp of the oncoming freight train now crossing the road, Tim raced over the rails, moving so fast that he doubted the bicycle’s tires were even in contact with the ground when the monstrous machine hit him.
CHAPTER 36
Derrick drove his Mercedes over the uneven ground of the farmhouse driveway, and Mallory directed him toward the front of the barn. Troy followed close behind in his Bronco, and they both parked on a flat stretch of land about forty feet from the building, the only place free of debris.
Mallory stepped out of the car as a train whistle cried in the distance. She looked to her friends. “So, what do you think?”
“Spectacular,” Elsa replied.
“And then some,” Lisa added. “When did you find this?”
“Yesterday on a run. Come on, I’ll show you around.”
They piled out. The others disembarked from the Bronco.
Derrick unlatched the trunk and got out two flashlights from a roadside emergency kit. Ten feet away, Troy unloaded the beer.
“You know how to pick the spot, babe,” Becky said.
“Hell, yeah,” Derrick agreed. “We can light a fire in the middle of the floor if it’s all dirt in there.”
“Adam and I will get some wood,” Becky said. “Give me one of the lights.”
“Wait a second,” Mallory interjected. “Before we go inside, turn off both the lights and just look up at it.”
They gave her odd glances at first, but then the lights went off and a heavy darkness caved in from all directions.
“Now, don’t say anything,” she whispered. “Just listen.”
The group went along with her request and soon nature’s familiar, yet unintelligible, language filled their ears.
The wind breathed. Trees rustled. Boards creaked. A rusted weathervane squealed. Far away, the heavens rumbled.
Mallory wanted to recreate the adventurous sense of treading on unfamiliar ground she’d felt here the day before, a sensation that would no doubt be intensified by the unlit nighttime hours.
Even in its forlorn condition, the barn appeared formidable and impressive. Gaping holes peppered the building’s outer skin, and the exposed support beams now seemed like aged bones when set against the deeper darkness within. The silo to the right-hand side appeared equally ominous, looking like a danger-filled tower from an older, more superstitious age.
Derrick led the group forward, entering the building without pause. Mallory and the others followed, shinning their flashlights around.
“Smells like raccoon turds,” Troy commented.
Ignoring him, the group went to work at clearing the floor near the entrance. Soon firelight pulsated on the ramshackle crossbeams overhead, and the throbbing shadows it cast made the barn’s upper reaches appear to be inhabited by an amorphous black monster.
They all gathered near the blaze while Adam deposited the last batch of lumber scavenged from around the property. To the side, a radio taken from Troy’s Bronco played background tunes as they relaxed, talked, and cracked open his stolen beer. Derrick passed Mallory a can, insisting that she’d like it, but after one taste she passed it back.