Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Cillian didn’t know true terror until he was running through ever-darkening woods, away from the lights that relentlessly followed, trying not to trip on exposed roots or rocks in uneven dirt.
Rifle clutched in his hands, breath a rasp in his throat, he stuck close to Bran as the younger man hurtled down a forest path that was getting more difficult to see in the fast-encroaching twilight.
Some nights, Cillian thought it took the sun forever to set in summer.
Right then, he wished it hadn’t been so quick.
Something wailed behind them, the sound nothing like anything he’d heard before. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, stomach knotting tight in his gut, or maybe that was a cramp. He couldn’t tell, and it didn’t matter because Cillian wasn’t going to stop running.
Bran crashed ahead, running as if he knew where he was going, and Cillian hoped he did.
All he could think about in that moment was the claw marks outside the cabin the woman had made it to, how Ray’s body had been ripped apart, and the damage in the Shoppe.
Whatever had done it was with them in the forest now, and he didn’t want to meet them in the glow of the lights that were real.
Another wail, and the forest around them got incrementally brighter—not from the lights, but from witchmarks carved into tree trunks.
Cillian tried to make sense of it, brain thinking up excuses on why they might be glowing all on their own, but the impossibility of it seemed insignificant when they were being chased by the lights.
By monsters.
“Hurry!” Bran called over his shoulder. “The cabin is close by!”
Another scream behind them, sounding closer than all the others, and Cillian chanced a look over his shoulder. What he saw would live in his nightmares forever. “Bran!”
“Keep running!”
The creature hunting them was limned in ghostly light, thin and tall, with elongated arms and many legs.
Horns grew from its head, curved in a way that reminded him of a crescent moon.
Even with the rapidly closing distance between them, Cillian could see that its face had no eyes, that the gaping bit of darkness there on its head was its mouth, and what glinted in it was teeth.
How Ray’s body had looked flashed through his memory, vivid and horrible.
Cillian knew now why Ray’s ravaged face had been twisted with such terror in death.
The creature screamed again, gaining ground on them as the twilight settling in got darker with every second that passed.
Even the light emanating from the witchmarks wasn’t enough to offset the darkness.
Something glittered out of the corner of his eye, and Cillian looked to the left, seeing another light cutting its way through the trees. He didn’t know what monstrosity followed it, and he didn’t want to know. “There’s more lights following us.”
Bran swore, looking over his shoulder. Cillian didn’t like the way his eyes went wide, how he stumbled to a stop and let Cillian run past him.
Cillian skidded to a stop and spun around, bringing up his rifle and bracing the buttstock against his shoulder.
Before he could even warn Bran to get out of the way, Bran drew his arm back as if he were tossing a baseball and snapped it forward.
Something left his hand—glittering and golden like the witchmarks that surrounded them—and Cillian’s finger spasmed hard over the rifle’s trigger guard.
The creature that was almost upon them shrieked from the ensuing explosion, knocked back by a concussive force that had Cillian gaping for a moment in the fading light.
It was odd, he distantly noted, how the force of the explosion had only been one way.
Then Bran turned and grabbed him by the elbow, yanking him back down the path. “That won’t stop it for long.”
Cillian stumbled into a run again, clutching his rifle close. “Was that a bomb?”
He wanted it to be because that would maybe make sense amid everything else that didn’t.
Bran didn’t answer him, just kept running, and Cillian followed in his footsteps because that was the sane thing to do instead of interrogating the other man.
His lungs burned from the exertion, but better that sort of pain than death.
Maybe a minute later, Bran let out a cry of relief and pointed ahead. “There!”
Cillian squinted through the dimly lit darkness, catching sight of a shadowy shape looming up from between the trees.
The cabin was the best thing he’d ever seen in that moment, worth more than a million-dollar property in Boston.
Bran reached it first, slamming against the door and wrenching at the knob.
He shouldered it open and stumbled inside, one arm reaching back for Cillian, hand grasping at open air.
Cillian didn’t think twice about taking Bran’s hand and pitching himself through the doorway into the cabin.
He got inside, and then Bran slammed the door shut with a bang.
He turned the lock right as something heavy crashed against the door on the outside.
They both stepped back, and Cillian brought his rifle up out of instinct, aiming at the door as the monster outside screamed in fury.
He braced himself because there was nowhere to run in the tiny cabin, no window to see out of, and he couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not.
Light flickered on, and he flinched, staring around wide-eyed at the space he and Bran huddled in.
The single light overhead hummed in time with the tiny generator in the corner that couldn’t be drowned out by the creature screaming beyond the cabin’s walls.
Its furious voice was joined by another, and something heavy slammed against the right side of the cabin.
Cillian jerked around, pointing his rifle at the wall, trying to get his breathing under control.
“They can’t get inside,” Bran said in a low, tight voice.
Cillian could barely hear Bran over the rushing sound in his ears. “They got into your Shoppe.”
“They had help.”
“Yeah? Is that help out there?” Bran’s silence was answer enough to that possibility. Cillian drew in a breath, then another, forcing himself to find a calm that was as elusive as a butterfly in winter.
“You can lower your rifle. We’re safe for now in here. I promise.”
Bran’s words weren’t a comfort, and Cillian didn’t let go of his rifle. “I’d like to be prepared.”
“This will be a better weapon.”
He half turned, seeing that Bran held one of his strangely curved knives out like an offering. “I don’t exactly want to get up close and personal with whatever is out there.”
“And if you lose your rifle? What else do you have on you that you can fight with?”
Nothing, unfortunately. Cillian had hoped his rifle would be enough.
Glancing back at the wall, noting how it still stood despite the heavy thumps on the other side, he finally lowered his rifle.
He reached for the knife Bran offered, but the second his fingers almost touched it, he jerked his hand back.
A warning clawed at his mind out of nowhere, instinct telling him not to touch that cold iron.
“Keep it. I’ll take my chances with my rifle. ”
Bran frowned at him, looking like he wanted to argue. Cillian turned his back on the other man and crossed the cabin in two strides to reach the bed. He leaned his rifle against it and sat down.
“Are you sure?” Bran finally asked after a moment.
“Very.” Cillian looked past Bran at the cabin wall. “Those things out there are the lights.”
He made it a statement, not a question, meeting Bran’s gaze.
The monsters outside still screamed, and the heavy hits against the cabin walls and door seemed never-ending.
He wanted to believe that none of this was real, that the witchmarks he thought were merely superstitious symbols all his life hadn’t glowed like beacons in the dark with the same sort of illumination Bran had impossibly held in his hand.
Cillian wanted all of what they’d just escaped to be a dream, but it was too much of a horror to ever be anything but a nightmare turned real.
Bran stood in the middle of the cabin, looking like he wanted to hide, but there was nowhere he could go.
The cabin was small, meant to hold only the twin-sized bed with its musty-smelling blankets, the cabinet probably filled with long-lasting food supplies and water, and a compost toilet in one corner that smelled like no one had used it in years, thankfully.
This cabin, like all the others in the forest, was meant to be a refuge, and Cillian finally knew from what.
Bran dragged a hand over his face. “Do you have your iron with you?”
“Yes. That’s not what I asked about.”
“It’s relevant.”
Cillian’s heart beat a little faster, and he rested his elbows on his knees, hunching over a little as he stared at Bran. “How?”
Bran glanced reflexively over his shoulder at the door as one of the creatures outside slammed against it. The door didn’t even rattle on the hinges. “Iron hurts them.”
The only stories Cillian knew where that occurred were just that—stories. Except what circled the cabin outside was far too real to be some long-lived tale passed down through generations. Some part of his mind was still having trouble believing that. “The lights are real.”
Bran nodded jerkily, looking at a point over Cillian’s shoulder. “They’ve always been real.”
He didn’t want to believe that, but the proof had chased them through the woods like they were prey. “They’re what killed your mother and Ray and the hiker?”
Bran flinched. “Yes, but they shouldn’t have been able to get inside the home or the Shoppe.”
“Why not?” Bran’s gaze finally met his again, the grimace on his pale face pulling at his lips, but he kept mutinously silent. Cillian dug his fingernails into his palms. “Why not, Bran? Why did the witchmarks glow? What did you do out there?”