Katelynn stared at the two of them. They were really going to do it, whether she agreed to go along or not, she could see that.Have they both gone completely nuts? She was convinced they had.
“No.” she said, then once again more firmly. “No, I’m not going with you. And I won’t sit here listening to you anymore. You’ve got to be out of your mind, Jake. You heard what Sam said. This thing ripped Gabriel into little pieces. If he was one of these Elders with their mystical powers and still got torn to shreds, what do you think it will do to the two of you?”
“I guess we’ll just have to take that chance,” Jake replied calmly.
Katelynn could see the hurt in his eyes, but she ignored it. If he wanted to be mad at her for trying to save his life, let him. He’d done dumber things before. “Then you’ll do it without me.”
Katelynn got up and walked out of the kitchen.
A few moments later the two men heard the front door open and close, then the sound of her car starting in the driveway.
Katelynn wasn’t coming back.
Jake looked at Sam, then shrugged. “So be it. We’ll just do it on our own.” He got up, filled a mug with coffee for each of them, then sat back down and started to plan.
30
RIVERWATCH
Sam awoke to a hand gently shaking his shoulder. In the dim light he could see Jake standing over the bed. “Time to go,” his friend said.
Sam nodded to show he understood.
As Jake disappeared back into the living room, Sam swung his legs out of bed and quickly dressed. A passing glance at the clock told him it was 4:00A.M .
He slipped out of the bedroom and moved down the hall to find Jake waiting silently by the front door. Loki stood beside him, but Jake indicated to the dog that he was to stay, and the Akita complied. Sam nodded that he was ready, and the two of them left the house and climbed into the Jeep.
They had settled on a simple plan. The two of them would climb the Rock, a tall outcropping of stone that overlooked the Quinnepeg River and set up a watch. As the highest place in town, and one that overlooked the Riverwatch mansion, it seemed a logical place to start. All of the attacks had been at night, under the cover of darkness. That had led the two of them to hypothesize that the beast either chose not to be out and about during the daylight or could not. Either way, it would attempt to return to its hiding place before the sun came up. The Rock’s height gave them the best possible chance of spotting the Nightshade in the air, and there was always the possibility that it might actually be hiding in Riverwatch, despite the search the police had made of the premises earlier. Jake and Sam intended to be on the Rock before then, so that they would have the opportunity to see it when it returned. That would give them an idea of what they were up against.
After that, they’d figure out the rest of the plan.
For his part, Sam found himself wondering just what the hell they thought they were doing. He didn’t doubt for an instant that the beast really existed. He’d seen enough in the last two days to convince him of that. He also knew just what horrible acts of violence the beast was capable of committing, and yet, here he was actively going to seek the thing out, to discover where it lived. His anger had cooled slightly, and this gave him some perspective on the situation. Katelynn had been right. They had to be nuts to try a stunt like this. This thing could kill them without batting an eye. He turned to voice his opinion to Jake, when his friend said, “We’re here.”
Sam glanced out the window as Jake pulled the Jeep over and parked it on the side of the road. From where Sam sat, the woods seemed to extend for miles out from the road, though he knew that just a few hundred yards away they suddenly dropped off at the edge of the Quinnepeg River. Next to the shoreline loomed the Rock, though they couldn’t see it from the street.
“I don’t know about this anymore, Jake. It seems kind of crazy to me.”
Jake wasn’t pleased. “I thought we agreed.”
“We did,” Sam said. “It’s just the rest of the plan that bothers me. Sure, we might actually see this thing, but then what? What happens if it discovers we’re up here? Have you thought of that? Gabriel didn’t give us information on how to stop the Nightshade. I don’t particularly like the idea of trying to fight it off with my bare hands!”
“It’s not going to find us,” Jake said as he climbed out of the Jeep, looking back in through the open door. “We’ll be hidden in the trees, well out of sight. All we’ve got to do is hang around long enough to see if it’s still in the mansion, then we’ll get the hell out of here and call in some help.”
“Like who?” Sam wanted to know, making no move to get out of the car.
“How the hell should I know?” Jake replied in exasperation, and shut the door in Sam’s face.
Sam watched as Jake crossed to the other side of the road, stepped over the old stone wall that lay crumbling at the edge of the trees, and disappeared into the darkness on the other side.
The silence that settled on the Jeep in his passing seemed to weigh heavily on Sam. Fear had come to replace the anger he felt earlier when they’d decided on this course of action and seemed to settle about his shoulders like a wet cloak. Being alone in the dark was not the best idea at the moment. Should he stay there, and hope the Nightshade didn’t see him hiding in the car, or join Jake and pray it never looked in their direction? Neither alternative held that much appeal to him. It only took him another second to make up his mind.
Sam opened his door and got out of the Jeep. “Hey, Jake!” he hissed into the darkness. “Wait up!”
Ten minutes later they were settled in on the top of the Rock, doing their best to blend in with the landscape. The stone they sat upon was wet with the evening’s condensation, and its coldness quickly sapped the heat from their bones. The wind whistled lightly through the trees around them, rustling the leaves, sounding like voices calling out to them from the darkness. Below, a thick fog lay a few inches above the water, swirling about in the light breeze like ghosts dancing in the night. Nothing in their situation made Sam feel any better about his decision to leave the Jeep.
Sam glanced out over the water. From where they sat, the tall spires of Riverwatch were clearly visible in the light of the moon. It was there that they suspected the Nightshade had been hiding since the most recent killings.
They sat quietly in the darkness, ignoring their discomfort, lost in their own thoughts, until Sam broke the silence about half an hour into their watch.
“I think I have it figured out.”
In the dim light Sam could see Jake’s head turn toward him. “Have what figured out?”
“Why there’s been no evidence of Gabriel’s version of history.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because mankind just hasn’t recognized it for what it was when we saw it.”
Jake chuffed, a trait he’d probably picked up from Loki. “Run that by me again.”
“Think about it. If these things were supposed to have had their own civilization like Gabriel said, there should be some kind of physical record of their existence, right? I mean, if we can find evidence of man’s earliest ancestors walking across the plains of Africa, then there should be some clues left behind that these two great races inhabited the world before we did. Hell, Gabriel even bragged about the Elders’ great cities. Why isn’t there any evidence of them?”
Jake pondered this for a moment. “Beats me.”
“Maybe there is evidence. Think about it, Jake. How many unexplained coincidences and unsolved mysteries are there concerning the ancient world? Hundreds, right?” Sam’s voice started to rise in excitement.
“So?” replied Jake. He wasn’t sure where Sam was going with this. “And lower your voice, will you?” he added irritably.