The remains

Chapter 51

Rain began to pour down in sheets of painful, ice-like bullets. The heavy cloud cover surrounded the hillside like a vapor ring. Directly before me came the intermittent explosions of lightning. Without them the darkness of the woods would have been absolute and impenetrable. Because of the cloud cover, no stars shined up above. No moonbeams penetrated the low lying mist and fog.

Another quick shot of lightning caught my attention just as I began the sightless journey onto the narrow trailhead. As I was about to place boot-heel to the soft mud-covered floor, the lightning struck the ground somewhere off in the distant valley, toward the field and my parents’ house at the far end of it. Because of its flat, dark appearance, I became convinced that I was looking directly at my parents’ property.

What had seemed like a dream was now painfully real. Whalen had kidnapped Michael and I, somehow dragged us up to Mount Desolation. Michael was inside that old house in the woods. He was tied up, held hostage in the basement. If I didn’t get to him before Whalen got to me, he would die. Or maybe we would both die anyway.

I inhaled a deep breath, exhaled, tried to get my head together, tried to think logically, without fear or emotion clouding my judgment. The distant lightning strikes provided just enough light to tell me the path I was about to tread would lead downhill. Downhill toward the house.

I also knew that downhill could be deceiving. Mount Desolation wasn’t really a mountain at all. It was made up of several large hills that crested and dipped before finally the flat, heavily wooded land took over. I also knew that if the empty field behind my parents’ house was located in front of me, then so was that terrible house in the woods.

Whether I liked it or not, that was my direction. I was the blind woman forced to move by touch, one foot before the other, the rain coming down stronger now against my face and head, running down my scrunched brow in streaks.

A branch slapped me in the face and my eyes teared up. Big tears fell and mixed with the rain on my face. I tried to stay on the narrow trail. I was blind, trying to stay free and clear of the brush and the trees; trying to do it by touch, by feel, with arms and hands extended out in front of me while I moved at a slow, frustrating trot.

Another lightning bolt revealed a landscape of thick, dripping growth. The sight of it lasted only a split second. Pine trees, mulberry bushes intermixed with birches and oaks. Still another bolt revealed something else-something scattering before me. Something alive, quick and fleeting.

At first I thought it might be a dog. Maybe a deer. Instinct spoke to me, told me to drop to my knees while gripping the flashlight, holding it out before me. It was my only available weapon. Lightning struck. Thunder exploded. The concussion took my breath away, shook the ground at my feet. Lightning restored my sense of sight. It allowed me to spot the monster, if only for an instant. That single instant is all it took for me to know the truth.

Whalen blocked the trail.

Whalen, head shaved, dressed in dark clothing, smiling, eyes covered with goggles. Green tinted eyes. Green tinted, mechanical, night vision eyes. He stood in the center of the narrow trail, heavy rain water washing over his lean body.

All oxygen escaped my lungs. Blindness returned. But not for long.

More lightning lit up the night sky. Another eye view of the path came and went with the speed of a heartbeat.

Now the path was clear.

Like the lightning, Whalen had vanished in an instant.

Now you see the devil. Now you don’t.