As the dogs howling got louder she stepped off the trail and began pulling herself blindly through the wet undergrowth. She came to a tunnel of salal and passed through it onto a worn deer path of hardened clay that followed a narrow ridge. On either side sharp cliffs plunged down to roaring surf. When she reached the end of the path she recognized an old fire ring and lichen-spotted boulders where she and James would sometimes sit up all night and talk until dawn. If the sky remained clear you could see the faint yellow glow of towns up and down the coast.
How long had it been since she’d come here? After she and James returned from Portland, they’d never made it back. They’d try to make plans but something else would always come up and they continued to put it off until one day it became a kind of cynical joke between them, a sign that their relationship had been forever changed.
Shadows shot from the entrance of the salal tunnel and coalesced in front of her. The dog’s barking deafened her. Cyclops emerged from the tunnel last and unfolded into an impossibly tall and horrifying figure. As he advanced toward her, the dog-shadow spread apart like a pool of crude oil. His gutting knife glowed as if harvest moonlight were striking it.
“I’m running out of time. It’s going to be daylight in a few hours and I’ve got a train to catch… How’s the leg by the way?”
“Go to hell.”
Cyclops laughed. “You’re kind of late to be saying that little girl …”
“What do you want from me?”
“I think it’s pretty clear … And if you think about it you’ve only got two options: The other side of that cliff behind you, or me. But it’s really just an illusion, don’t you think? Ann dead and Ann dead…”
Ann pounded the head of the flashlight against the side of her good leg. It burst on long enough to see that Cyclops was naked down to his waist. His chest was covered by tattoos and wormy white scars. She noticed his arm was bleeding where she’d shot him but it looked like she’d only grazed him and the blood was drying.
The light in her hands died and everything fell back into shadow.
“Why am I hearing dogs but not seeing any?”
“Because they’re ghosts, Ann. My ghosts. People I killed for business and people I killed because they looked tasty to them I guess.”
“I still don’t understand why you want me.”
“I’m just trying to survive the only way I know how.”
“By killing people.”
“It’s not something I enjoy.”
“Yeah. It shows.”
“You don’t understand. I have no choice anymore.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. I admit that I have killed a lot of people. And they’re angry at me at first. But then most start to accept what’s happened to them and they leave me alone. It wasn’t until I took down the really bad ones that things started happening. Murderers worse than me-rich men who paid big money to satisfy their bloodlust and ruthless drug lords. These dogs-these bad ones got together and decided what the hell, if they could use me as their instrument then they might as well start having fun.”
Ann tried to knock the flashlight back to life again but it refused to come on. She tossed it into the brush and gripped the.38 in both hands. You’ve only got one chance to get this right. One bullet and that’s it. So piss him off and get him in close.
“Sounds like some more of your hobo-psycho bullshit to me.”
“Bullshit?”
“You heard me.”
“I could have left you on that rock to die, Ann. It would have been so easy.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Cyclops edged forward and so did the pool of shadow.
“Because the dogs weren’t interested. They needed to see your fear and you were only semi-conscious.”
“Drop the knife.”
“Come on Ann…”
“For your information I’m pointing a gun at that big greasy head of yours.”
“You and I can keep debating the truth for a while longer. But why must you insult me?”
“Because you smell bad… Like a vulture just pissed on you.”
“I know what you’re doing, Ann. And it won’t work.”
“Why do you have to do this?”
“I loved your mother. If you must know, this is all her fault.”
“Drop the knife. Now.”
“You must understand. I had to do it. I never planned to let her live the day she left with me to California.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Chapter 57
Other than giving her mother the best few days possible of her life? You drowned her in the motel pool before you left town. But then you began to feel guilty about it. You kept seeing those eyes staring at you, so you invented the story of her drifting out at sea and losing them…adding yet another layer of self delusion that you just kept telling yourself over and over with the hope it would one day make it true.
You only went back to town and stole her from the morgue and buried her in the desert because you thought it would ease your mind. But it never did. She followed you. Left pool water in every car you owned, until you gave up and switched to riding trains. Haunted you day and night. Until you thought the only way she would ever rest was if you gave her what she missed the most-Ann…
Cyclops still hadn’t let go of the knife. She watched him raise the blade and gaze at it in the phantom light. He was still too far away from her. She began to wonder if she would ever be able to find a clean shot at all.
And then something happened she couldn’t explain. The black cloud drifting around Cyclops began to break apart and turn into the shapes of dogs. With human faces.
Ann wanted to scream and run. But there was no where else she could go. He had her backed up against the cliff edge.
She pressed her back against a rock and tried to steady her pounding heart. What was she going to do? He knows you’re losing it, that the fever’s got hold of your mind.
Something moved next to her legs. She knew it was stupid to look away from him but she did anyway. One of the dog-shadows had broken away from the others and was approaching her. She saw a whitish form hovering where its head should have been. A woman’s face framed by a fluid sheet of protoplasm. She smiled when Ann looked at her. Ann thought she was beautiful.
“Who is she?”
“You don’t recognize her?”
“No…”
“It’s your mother Ann.”
“It can’t be. You’re lying.”
“Then take out your locket and you’ll see.”
How did he know I had it with me? And then Ann recalled how she’d awakened on the beach without her clothes.The bastard had had plenty of time to see all that he’d wanted. What else did he have time to do? Thinking about it made her sick to her stomach.
She reached down the neck of her damp sweater and pulled out her mother’s silver locket with a trembling hand. It felt like ice against her palm. She pressed the tiny clasp on the side and it clicked open and she held it up close. Inside she saw a cutout picture of her mother as she remembered her, smiling, with the sea behind her.
Ann looked back at the image floating in the night mist. No, it can’t be.
“What did you do to her?”
Cyclops had moved several steps closer. “I ended her suffering, Ann.”
“No…”
Chapter 58
“She knew she would probably never see you again. That Duane would surely come after her. And then one night I made the decision to go through with it… I came back to the motel to find she’d been drinking again and taking pills. She was angry and talking shit. It was our fault that she couldn’t be with you. She told me everything she knew about the business I had going with the sheriff and Duane-enough, I thought, to get us into some real trouble. Instead of taking them away, I gave her more pills and vodka. And after she calmed down and stopped screaming at me, I waited until it was late and took her down to the pool. We talked and I told her the last week had been one of the happiest in my life. When it was time I asked her to forgive me and she seemed to nod her head as if she wanted me to help her die.”