The Revenants Read online

  “Peyton, hand me one of my gloves…” she started to say, but she suddenly remembered Peyton had climbed into the back to help Wally with cleaning up the payload area; something about how her mom used to be a nurse.

  Becca grabbed one of her thermal gloves off the empty seat beside her, leaned forward, and used it to wipe the condensation off the windshield. As she did so she thought she saw bright flashing yellow lights up ahead. She strained her eyes trying to stare through the oncoming snowstorm as though her sheer will might actually allow her to see better.

  Yep, sure enough, yellow strobe lights lay dead ahead, beckoning her like a lighthouse to ships.

  Of course, that’s not really the purpose of lighthouses is it, lass? Lighthouses, by design, are meant to warn people away from danger, like shoals and hazardous coastlines--not draw them in.

  Oh yay, Donnie’s back. I was wondering where he’d been. At the moment Becca was imagining her not-so-favorite Late Night host sitting in the seat beside her, grinning ghoulishly at her like a wildcat.

  “I mean, you might as well say a moth to a flame, or a bug zapper; which, for the record, none of these analogies end well for you, Becca dearest. Donnie then studied his surroundings and added, “Say, I like sitting up front.”

  “What are you talking about, Donnie,” she said aloud sleepily, and then realizing she had spoken to a figment of her imagination out loud she quickly checked to see if Wally or Peyton had heard her. Thankfully, they hadn’t. The two were busy chatting amongst themselves.

  “Uh, are you daft? A bug zapper uses bright light to attract its prey to their doom, so… ya know.”

  All right, Analogy King, that’s enough, you’re not helping.

  Not sure why, she eased back on the gas and brought the ambulance to a complete stop. Through the blowing snow she could see a large set of taillights, like on the back of a big truck. As near as she could tell, and she wasn’t sure, it appeared to be one of those big utility trucks, like the kind with the big boom cranes on them. The big truck was parked half off the road and its strobes were still activated. Becca jumped in her seat slightly when a ball of white hot flash ignited like lightening, near the ground.

  Wally’s head suddenly popped up in-between the seats like a gopher and he asked, “Why have we stopped?” then seeing the boom truck parked on the side of the road ahead of them he asked, “What’s he doing way out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  Thinking of what happened to them with the ravens, Becca figured whoever it was might be in trouble and need their help. “We probably should take a look,” Becca said, unbuckling her seatbelt and putting her hand on the latch of the door.

  Wally’s hand gripped her by the shoulder. “No wait. I know what this is. I think we’ve got a downed power line. Very dangerous. Let me see if we have any thick rubber gloves and a hot stick in the back.” Before disappearing in the hatch that connected to the back he said, “Hit the strobes, will ya?”

  Becca scanned the panel of buttons on the center dash. She was about to ask where the switch was when she saw one button clearly marked, ‘STROBES’. She flicked it and immediately she could hear the lights whirring noisily in the bar light over the cab.

  When Wally reappeared a few minutes later outside her window, she got out and joined him. As she exited the vehicle she told Peyton to stay in the truck. Becca needn’t have bothered, the young girl not only wasn’t going anywhere, but the moment they got out Peyton lunged forward and locked the doors.

  Before Becca could say anything Wally told her, “Don’t worry, I’ve got a spare set of keys. Locking the doors probably just makes her feel better.”

  Becca turned toward him. “Yeah, that’s nice and all, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  Wally shrugged. “No joy on the gloves or hot sticks, but at least our boots are made of rubber so we’re grounded. Still, let’s take it nice and slow, and whatever you do, don’t touch anything, especially anything metal, and if you see a live wire on the ground be sure and keep your distance.”

  Becca nodded.

  Wally handed her a fat, heavy, square-looking flashlight identical to his and they approached the back of the enormous boom truck in the snowy mist.

  I wonder if this is what the Captain felt like boarding the Mary Celeste.

  Donnie, now walking beside them said, Geez, there you go again with the Mary Celeste. Why don’t you two get married or something?

  Shut up, Donnie.

  (I’m actually not supposed to say anything but what happened to the crew of the Mary Celeste was actually far-far worse. Don’t tell anyone I told you. Big guy sort of frowns on these sort of things.)

  (No, I don’t mean Big Leonard)

  Wally cupped his hand to his mouth and yelled, “Hello! Anybody here?”

  As they drew closer Becca stopped Wally by his arm and pointed to the pavement. Wally lifted his eyes and saw a smoldering dog lying on its side.

  “There’s another one,” Becca said when the snowy winds parted intermittently.

  As they drew closer to the back of the utility truck they saw several other dogs lying still on the pavement. No. Now she could see the dead dogs were actually coyotes. And some were still on fire.

  Amongst them was a downed power line, still energized with thick bluish sparks spraying out of its broken end like a cobra spitting lightning.

  Wally steered her around the live wire giving it a wide berth. She thought he said something to the effect of, “Watch where you step, you don’t want to get between that live wire and the ground,” but again, she couldn’t be certain because the combination of the cacophony of noise and her lousy hearing.

  The downed power line must’ve been the ground lighting I saw. She jumped when Wally yelled out another hallo.

  Then she saw the prone legs, sticking out from beneath the big utility truck. “Wally, over there.”

  “Hello,” Wally said again, only this time not near as loud as before.

  But the man under the truck must’ve heard him because his legs started to move. He was alive.

  “We got a live one,” Wally breathed. Then realizing he had forgotten it he said, “Damn it, I left the kit in the truck. Just give me a sec, I’ll be right back.”

  Before she could object he vanished in the flurried mist.

  Against her better judgement, Becca moved past the big truck’s rear wheels. As she was kneeling down she was already conjuring a reasonable explanation as for why the man was under the truck; he was obviously fixing something, maybe a muffler had come loose and he was just tightening it up. Sure, that makes sense.

  The man in coveralls wasn’t fixing a muffler.

  As Becca knelt down and peered under the big boom truck she saw a coyote with its jaws muzzle-deep inside the stomach of a dead lineman. Sensing her presence it picked up its head, flashed its bloody canines dripping with intestines, and uttered a menacing growl.

  Becca backpedaled until she fell on her butt, never taking her eyes off the growling coyote. Eventually got to her feet, turned around, and ran face first into a tree smack down in the middle of the highway.

  The impact should’ve knocked her back down to the pavement but the tree stretched out its arms (wait, do trees have arms?) and steadied her by her shoulders.

  “Hold on now, ma’am, I’m one of the good guys.”

  She was pretty sure that’s what the talking tree said. She couldn’t be certain with all the wind. Damn my hearing.

  Becca had to take a step back to stare up at the colossal man; he was easily six-eight, and he had to be pushing four-hundred pounds. He had an enormous charcoal-colored beard, and when he slapped his utility helmet on top of his head Becca got the impression the lineman had done it a zillion times before.

  Shite, lass, that man’s the size of a prehistoric polar bear!

  “Who are you?” she began but the big man with the big bushy charcoal beard just shook his head.

  “No time.” He nodded back toward her tru
ck. “We need to get our asses outta here, and pronto, before the rest of them come back.”

  As the big lineman led her back to the cab of his truck Becca was forced to wonder, Did he use the power line to kill all of those coyotes? Was it in self-defense, or was he some kind of sick twisted weirdo? If it was the latter, she took comfort in the fact she was still carrying her sidearm. Or was she? She ran into the tree-sized lineman pretty hard, her clip-on holster could’ve tumbled off her belt. She discreetly reached beneath her outer shirt. Nope. Gun’s still there. We’re good.

  “What happened?” she started to ask, but the big man grabbed her roughly by the arm.

  She was about to yank her elbow out of his oversized grasp when she saw the expression on his face and the fear in his eyes. Becca wasn’t sure she wanted to see what could frighten such a gigantic man.

  “Hey guys, I got the first aid kit,” Wally began, but then he also saw what the big man was looking at. “Oh, crap!”

  Three more coyotes appeared near the front of the boom truck, each wore crimson snouts, giving them the appearance of evil grinning clowns.

  (Spoiler alert… all three of them don’t get eaten by the blood-faced coyotes… only one of them does. Care to hazard a guess? Really? Big Leonard? We only just met the big oaf.)

  “Change of plan,” Big Leonard said, holding his meaty arms out wide in front of her and Wally. “Let’s take your rig.”

  “Fine by me,” Wally announced, and started backpedaling toward the ambulance.

  The first coyote charged.

  Years of practice on the range honing her skills Becca expertly swept her jacket out of the way, unsnapped her holster with a flick of her thumb, drew, aimed, and fired, all in about a second.

  The first coyote went down. Seeing this, the other two scattered.

  “That won’t hold them off for long,” the big man bellowed, “And there’s a lot more of them out there. Believe me, I know.”

  She and Wally needed no further urging. They all ran for the ambulance. This time Becca took the passenger side. As they reached the hood of the ambulance they could see the dome light on inside the cab. Peyton was already unlocking the doors for them.

  Becca didn’t expect to make it to the ambulance, let alone to the door. She was certain the coyotes were going to overtake them from behind and rip out her guts much the way they had that poor fellow lying beneath the boom truck.

  Passing Donnie, who was standing stock still and facing the pursuing coyotes he said to her, “Yeah, that was gross. I can never unsee that now.”

  But Becca did make it to the door. And in no small part it was due to the fact that Peyton had cracked the door open for her.

  “Get in, get in,” the young girl kept shouting.

  Becca climbed inside, slammed the door shut and locked the door.

  Oh, so coyotes can open doors now, there, lass? Becca could see Donnie standing outside her window, grinning ear-to-ear.

  Go to hell , Donnie.

  Wally jumped in behind the wheel but a second later the big lineman half-ran, half-waddled, with surprising speed for someone so large, over to the driver’s side and opened the door.

  “Scoot over, junior,” he said with an unceremonious shove, moving Wally over to the middle of the seat. He hopped inside as quickly as he was able and slammed the door after him. He was so tall he had to tilt his head to the side to remove his utility helmet, which he dropped onto Wally’s lap. He scratched his thick charcoal black beard roughly before turning the keys in the ignition and starting the truck.

  (Huh, what do you know, all three of them made it. I may have to go back and check my notes.)

  Becca lifted her eyes and saw several more coyotes bounding toward them from out of the woods with animosity in his eyes.

  The big utility man must’ve seen this, too, because he slammed his oversized work boot on the accelerator. Gravel pinged the undercarriage like machine gun fire and after spinning the tires on the ice for a moment the ambulance peeled off the easement and onto the highway.

  One of the tires must’ve rolled over one of the dead coyotes because Becca bounced so hard in her seat that her head hit the ceiling before dropping her back down onto a seat that had long ago outlived its usefulness. Only then did she think about putting her seatbelt on. Her back spasmed and she was worried about it seizing up on her, but fortunately the pain passed and let her off with only a stern warning.

  Becca watched as the coyote pack chased after them in the mirror. She had no doubt the coyotes would either catch them or eat them, or their hearts would burst out of their chests from the effort of trying. Coyotes were known to do that. They were among the few animals in the world that, like horses, that would literally run themselves to death if properly motivated.

  First Mr. Midnight Knocker, then the vanishing Christmas Kewpie Doll, ravens, leaning bus-tower of corpses, and now a pack of half-crazed coyotes. What fresh hell is this?

  And then it occurred to her.

  Maybe I didn’t survive that I.E.D. explosion after all.

  Chapter 15

  Big Leonard and Becca

  “I’m Leonard, Leonard Crenshaw, but my friends call me Big Leonard.”

  He could see that she reflexively wanted to say something to the effect of, ‘I can see why,’ but she probably figured it was probably best not to tick off the guy who just saved your ass from becoming a pile of Kibbles.

  Instead, “Becca,” was her only response. What few glances he could steal from the road he saw that the girl wore a frayed ball cap with the nomenclature ‘K-9’ stitched on the front of it. And the name CHAFFEE was stenciled over her breast pocket. He could also see she wore combat boots and military fatigues a tad haphazardly, like someone who had recently left the military but hadn’t quite yet learned how to let go of it yet. It was difficult to tell, because she wore the brim of her hat so low over her face. She was kinda pretty, not like model pretty, more like the girl next door kind of way. When she finally started speaking to him he thought he detected a slight lisp, something you might hear from the hearing impaired. And even after ten minutes of driving she still sat braced in her seat; feet pressed firmly on the floorboards, hands and elbows glued to the armrests.

  The firefighter had gone in the back to calm the hysterical teenager down. He didn’t have much interaction with the young man but Big Leonard could tell almost immediately the fireman was a straight up guy; some things you just know instinctively. And he wasn’t sure what happened to the teenager but it was obviously something traumatic. Heck, after the things he had seen tonight he felt like crawling back there and blubbering right along with her. ‘Course he wasn’t built that way; especially when there was still a job to do. Aren’t we a motley crew, he thought to himself.

  He remained sitting forward, his elbows on the wheel, and continued watching the road a lot more carefully than when he had first come out here a few hours ago to fix a broken transformer. The wind must’ve tripled in intensity. He had to keep both hands on the wheel just to keep the ambulance on the road. No casual driving here. No sir. In addition to the sheets of snow showering the highway in tsunami-like waves, the occasional forest debris would shoot across the road like it had been shot with a bazooka.

  “Where’d you guys come from?”

  She speaks. Not wanting to lose her, he quickly answered, “Me and my apprentice got dispatched out of Sioux Falls.” Wondering why he hadn’t thought of it before he asked, “Hey, I don’t suppose you guys have a working radio? My partner and I, well, as you saw, we ran into a little bit of trouble back there.” He could hear the strange shaky quality to his voice and couldn’t recall the last time he had ever heard himself talk like that before.

  Becca studied him a moment before answering, “Yeah? Us, too. And yeah, we got a radio, but nobody seems to be picking up on the other end.”

  He processed what she had said, scratched his beard roughly, and asked, “What do you mean? You ran into some trouble, too?”
>
  Leonard noted the woman chose her words carefully. “Two separate accidents; at least several people dead.”

  He hesitated, scratched his beard some more and said, “Yeah? We had a fatality, too. Darndest thing. My apprentice got mauled by a pack a coyotes.”

  Becca turned to look at Wally in the back. Sure enough, the firefighter was listening in and asked, “You mean, your apprentice got attacked by a coyote, singular? Right?”

  Big Leonard wondered what had spooked them so bad and shook his head. “No, we got attacked by a whole pack of ‘em; biggest damn pack I’d ever seen, too.”

  “So it’s not just the ravens,” Becca mused. “It’s also the coyotes.”

  “Wait a minute? Are you telling me you got attacked by wild animals,?” he asked, hearing his voice and thinking, So that’s what incredulous sounds like. Definitely a night for firsts.

  Becca nodded. “Yeah, but not coyotes, a whole flock of ravens. (An Unkindness! Aw, forget it.) And that’s not all. One of the other fireman went all psycho on us. Chopped up two people with an ax before we could stop him.”

  What’s happening? he thought. It’s like a nightmare, only, this is real. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer but finally he asked, “How’d you stop him, uh, the crazy fireman?”

  But Becca must not have heard him for she pointed out the windshield and asked, “Is that a town?”

  He knew it wasn’t. It was just a modern-day ghost town in the form of a long-since-used trailer park. All that was left of the place was a torched double-wide, a few smaller trailers with sagging metal roofs, and a faded blue telephone booth Clark Kent once might have used; oh, and tires, lots and lots of old, worn-out tires. They wouldn’t have been able to see the place were it not for the overhead strobe lights and a break in the cloud cover letting in the light from the insanely bright moon.