By the time they reached the campgrounds it was pitch black outside. The mountain air carried the sharp scent of pine and wood smoke, and somewhere in the darkness below them, Haatim could hear the distant rush of water over rocks. Haatim was thoroughly exhausted from driving all day and ready to collapse. It was getting cold, too, and he wished he'd brought a jacket with him. Truth be told, he wished he'd brought dozens of things with him.
He wondered, and not for the first time that day, what the hell he was doing. He had dropped everything to follow a demon hunter halfway across the country.
But he found this situation oddly exciting. It was messed up, he knew, but nevertheless he couldn't deny it.
"We're here," he said. Abigail didn't hear him, staring out the window at the woods. "I said: we're here."
This time he got her attention, and she blinked at him. "Sorry, I was lost in my thoughts."
"No worries. What are we looking for?"
She glanced around. It was dark, with only a few lights showing them the way. The campground was a giant roundabout. Even in the darkness, Haatim could feel the weight of the mountains pressing in around them. Ancient Appalachian peaks worn smooth by time, their forested slopes rising into blackness on every side. The isolation was absolute. Gravel clearings jutted off the roundabout, and the central area was grass and picnic tables. The town itself had that particular Appalachian feel. A place past its prime, clinging to old ways. The mountains kept their secrets, and the people who lived here had learned not to ask too many questions.
No roads went farther into the forest; it simply made a giant circle and headed back to Raven's Peak
Two of the gravel clearings led to cabins that were a million times more advanced than the one Abigail had taken him to earlier in the day. They looked like expensive multi-level behemoths, though one was clearly better than the other.
He drove slowly down the roundabout, listening to gravel crunch under the tires. One of the cabins was dark and empty, but the other had lights on inside.
"I don't see any power lines," he said. "Do you think they ran them underground?"
"It's a possibility," she said, "but more likely they are using generators. See that shack? That's probably where they have to refill the tank."
Music could be heard playing in the interior of the first cabin they rolled up to. The doors and windows were closed, so all they could hear was the bass.
"Probably the college kids," Abigail said offhandedly. "This is Owl Cabin."
"Owl Cabin? That's…strange."
"I didn't come up with the name."
"I suppose it's better than 'Sturgeon Hangout," Haatim offered. "The other one was probably where the woman and her kid were staying."
"What woman?"
"A tourist I met back at the store. She couldn't stand being out here in the woods and bailed on the cabin three nights early. Seemed like a city kind of girl. I think they checked into a motel earlier and are leaving tomorrow."
"A motel? Seems like a downgrade if you ask me."
"I was thinking the same thing."
"Did she say anything strange happened?"
"No," he replied. "She just said her kid went wandering out in the woods, and she didn't want him to get lost or something."
"All right. We can stop by and talk to her on our way out of town tomorrow, if you think it'll do any good."
"What about the college kids? Should we check on them now or wait until the morning?"
"Let's talk to them now. We should at least make sure they are doing all right. Just knock on the door."
Haatim nodded in agreement. They sat in the car, staring at the cabin, and a long minute passed. He glanced over at Abigail and saw her staring at him.
"Well?" she asked. "Go on."
"Wait, you want me to do it?"
"Yep."
"Why don't you?"
"Because, like the townsfolk, I don't like spoiled college kids very much. They seem more like your kind of thing, and I'm sure you'll hit it right off. I'd rather just wait in the car."
"What if something is wrong with them, though? What if they're being attacked or something?"
"Then I'll be right here to watch your back," she said.
He sighed and opened the door. "Fine, I'll go."
He walked up onto the porch and to the front door. It was oak and quite beautiful with designs carved into it. He knocked lightly and listened. He waited for a moment without getting a response and then glanced back at the road. Abigail was still in the passenger seat, yawning.
She gestured her hand toward him with a knocking motion and mouthed the words "knock louder."
He knocked again, harder. Then louder still, but there was no response.
He headed back to the Chevy just as Abigail was climbing out. She said: "If they are drunk and passed out inside, so help me…"
"What do we do now?"
"Wait here."
She walked up onto the porch and wandered along the wooden walkway on the outside. A patio ran across the front, about three meters wide. Abigail glanced in the windows, and Haatim waited next to the car. After a few minutes she waved for him to come up.
"I don't see anyone," she said. Her entire demeanor had changed, and the joking side of her was gone. Now, she was all business.
"You think they are missing?"
"It's a possibility," she said. "I'm going to check it out."
"Want me to wait out here?"
"I want you to stick close to me," she said. "We don't know what we're dealing with, and until we know I don't want you out of my sight. I don't want to come back to find your dead body."
His pulse quickened. She said it so nonchalantly, like she was talking about inconvenient weather.
Abigail walked to the doorway, her revolver appearing in her hand and a frown on her face. She knocked a few times, and Haatim waited near the window. Nothing happened.
It was quiet. She tested the doorknob and found it to be locked. She knelt down, pulling small metal tools out of her pocket, and after a few seconds he heard the lock click.
"Count to thirty and then follow me," she said.
With one last glance at Haatim, she stepped into the living room. He watched through the window as she moved silently through the foyer, past the garbage on the floor, and into the dining room. Furniture was scattered, and a large oak table was covered with half-finished food and wrappers.
Abigail made it to the doorway of the living room and rounded the bend, disappearing from his sight. Haatim finished counting and then walked into the foyer behind her. The music was loud and spilling out of a pair of speakers along the right wall. They were cranked up to the max, and the music was cracking every few notes.
Haatim stepped gingerly across the dining room floor, dodging furniture and trash, and clicked the power button on the radio. The sound cut out, leaving him in a jarring silence.
A moment passed, but he couldn't hear anything from farther into the cabin. "Find anything?"
No response. He walked slowly toward the door leading to the living room, straining to hear. The place was eerily quiet, and he could feel the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. Something was wrong. He knew it the way he'd known George was in danger back at the library—not a thought but a certainty, lodged deep in his chest like a second heartbeat. As he got closer he could smell a sweet metallic scent wafting out of the living room, like copper. He peeked around the corner and—
"Haatim."
He screamed. The voice came from behind him. He scrambled forward and sideways, tripping and falling into the doorjamb. He saw behind him at the entrance of the cabin; Abigail was standing there, frowning at him.
"Where…where did you come from?"
"I went out the back and checked the perimeter," she said. "They are all dead."
"All of them?"
She shook her head. "Five bodies, but the cop back in town said six of them came out here together."
"What is that smell?"
He started to turn, trying to locate the strange scent. A hand on his shoulder pulled him back, but not before he caught a glimpse of what was in the living room.
Bodies, splayed out and with terrified looks on their faces. They were drenched in blood, though most of it looked dry and caked to their clothes and skin. One had his stomach cut open and his intestines were strewn across the floor, and another's arms had been removed and laid across his stomach.
The image burned into his memory, even with only a second's glance. He looked away in horror and saw Abigail standing next to him, a concerned expression on her face.
"Don't look in there," she said.
"Too late," he replied. He was light-headed and sick and started to wobble. He'd thought the decomposing corpse at the warehouse was the worst thing he would ever see in his life; he'd been wrong.
He put his hands on his knees and took deep breaths, swallowing down bile.
"Need to vomit?"
He didn't reply, just kept breathing. The image…the blood…
The smell, he realized: that is the smell of their blood.
Haatim ran back outside, leaned over the railing, and threw up.
Abigail followed and leaned against the railing next to him. She waited without speaking, giving him space.
"Oh, God," he muttered. "I'll never be able to eat again."
They stood in silence for a minute, breathing in the cool night air.
"Happened a few hours ago," she said finally, after giving him some time to recover.
"You said one of them wasn't here."
"No, the sixth is missing."
"You think he left?"
"Maybe," she said. "But I don't know if he was heading to town or somewhere else. It's too late to track him down tonight, so we'll have to wait until morning."
"Do you think he killed them?"
She hesitated. "I don't know. It's pretty terrible in there, so I'm guessing something supernatural was involved."
"That's awful."
"I know," she said. "I'm sorry you had to see that."
"It isn't your fault."
She shrugged. "Let's hope your father sees it that way."
"What do we do now?" he asked. "Should we head back to town to get a motel room?"
"Too long of a drive," she said. "Plus, why bother heading back when we have perfectly good accommodations right here?"
Haatim looked back at the cabin he'd just fled out of, feeling a lump in his throat. Abigail chuckled.
"No, not that one. The other cabin. The one you said the woman had rented. Grab the stuff from the car, and I'll get the door open."
Haatim did as he was told, grabbing the bags of food out of the backseat and carrying them over to the other cabin. By the time he was there, Abigail had the door open and the fireplace turned on. It was a gas fire with fake logs, but the warmth felt amazing.
This cabin was considerably cleaner than the last, neat and tidy. They checked over the rooms to make sure everything was in order before finally settling into the living room to relax. Haatim sat on the couch and watched the fire, trying to push the image of the blood and corpses out of his mind.
"You all right?" Abigail asked. She was sitting on the other couch, studying him.
"What? Yeah," he said. "I'm OK."
"You sure?"
He was silent for a long moment. "I don't know," he said.
She nodded. "Things like this, they take a long time to get used to. I'm surprised you're holding up as well as you are."
"Am I?" he said.
"The first time I saw a dead body, I cried for a week," she replied. "I was seven at the time, but I don't think that matters too much. Death is death. You've seen a lot of it today, and the fact that you aren't a heap of emotions on the floor means you're doing pretty well."
They sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Haatim started to feel hungry. His stomach growled, and he heard Abigail chuckle.
"Never going to eat again, huh?"
"Maybe that was a little dramatic," he agreed.
"Want me to fix something to eat?"
"No," he said. "I'll get it."
He went to the kitchen and started pulling supplies out of the plastic bags. He poured some canned beans into a bowl and tossed it into the microwave, then started making sandwiches.
"Shouldn't we tell the police?" he asked. "You know, about the dead college kids."
"We will," she replied. "But not until we are long gone and can call from a payphone. I'd rather be able to finish my work without having locals breathing down my neck."
"Makes sense," he said.
"Plus," she added. "How are we supposed to explain this? We stumbled across a cabin in the woods filled with dead twenty-something kids? Most of the time when people find something like this, they're usually the cause of it."
Haatim finished heating the food up and made them both a plate. "So, we just stay here tonight? And then what?"
"Tomorrow we find out what happened and whether or not their missing friend did this or if he's a victim, too."
"You think their friend could have done something like this?"
"The wounds were caused by a short serrated knife, and there were a lot of them. They were also imprecise and full of hesitation, so it wasn't a professional."
"Do you think he might have been possessed?"
"Demons don't usually hesitate when they are killing people."
"So you think he just snapped?"
"Maybe," she said. "But, it isn't likely that someone just snapped and did this, which means I'm thinking something provoked him. I'm just not quite ready to say it was a demon yet. There are several things that could trigger something like this."
"What if he comes back tonight?"
"Then we won't have to go out looking for him, will we?"
Haatim thought to object again and then changed his mind. He walked back over to the couches and handed a plate to Abigail, then started eating. He was starving, though he'd barely noticed until he actually had food in front of him. After all of the excitement from the last couple of days, he still felt entirely out of sorts, and his body was taking a while to catch back up.
It wasn't until he'd devoured half of his food that he noticed Abigail was watching him. He froze, mouth full, and then chewed slowly. She smiled and shook her head.
"Hungry?"
"I guess so," he said.
He set his plate down and stared at the fire for a long moment. He thought about his sister, his empty apartment back in Phoenix, and the blog he'd been pretending to write. He thought about the bodies in the other cabin and the look on Abigail's face when she said five people were dead. He thought about what it would mean to walk away now—to drive back to Phoenix and pretend none of this had happened.
"I should go home," he said quietly.
Abigail looked at him. She didn't argue or try to convince him. She just waited.
"I should call my sister. Go back to my apartment. Find a real job." He paused. "That's what a sane person would do."
"Probably," she agreed.
He rubbed his palms on his knees. "But I'm not going to."
"No?"
"Those people in there are dead," he said. "And their friend is out there somewhere, alone, and whatever did this to them is still here. If I leave now, I'm just another person who looked away."
Abigail studied him for a long moment. There was something in her expression he hadn't seen before—not surprise, exactly, but a kind of reassessment. "You knew something was wrong before we even opened that door," she said. "In the cabin. Before you saw the bodies."
"The smell—"
"Before the smell. You turned off the music and you already knew. I watched you through the window."
He didn't have an answer for that. She was right. He had known. The same way he'd known about George, the same way the sore on his arm had pulsed near supernatural threats.
"My grandmother used to say some people are born with thin walls," he said. "Between this world and whatever else is out there. She said it ran in families."
Abigail's expression didn't change, but her eyes sharpened. "Arthur said something similar once. Called it 'the Sight.' It's rare, especially in someone untrained." She paused. "Your father never mentioned it?"
"My father doesn't talk about things like that."
"He should have," she said, and there was an edge to her voice that surprised him. She caught herself and softened. "Get some sleep. I expect you to be ready to go when I knock on your door in the morning. We're going to have a really long day."
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