Zade (The Baylan Chronicles #5)

CHAPTER ONE

Ash

It was a little embarrassing to admit, but Ashley Hill had never used an outhouse before. Never in her life. No flushing! No sink! Everything just went down a hole and…sat there.

Ugh. But if this was how people did their business back in the day, she could do it, too.

She closed the outhouse door behind her and bent to the bucket of cold water and bar of soap beside it.

Four days. That was how long she’d be away from civilization, and then it was back to Long Island, New York, and normal bathrooms. She washed her hands and dried them on the front of her new flannel shirt—purchased for this trip—then headed up the short path, back to the lodge she and five other women had rented for the week.

Leaves floated from wide branches in a slow, jewel-toned dance and tall evergreen trees swayed in the cool, autumn air.

It smelled so clean out here. The sky was so huge.

This was as far from her life in New York as Ash had ever been, and it was as exhilarating as it was foreign.

She went inside. The large wooden structure faced the grandeur of the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

Despite being off-grid, it featured solar panels for lighting, a hand pump for water, and a large fireplace that faced a wall of windows. The view was utterly breathtaking.

The company was looking to be good, too. Ash smiled at Dana, another woman on the retreat with her.

“Got a text from Allie just before we headed up here,” Dana said. “She’ll be in late. Around eleven, but she’s determined to get here tonight.”

All five women who had already arrived belonged to an online support group for widows, run by their therapist, Allie, who was apparently delayed. The women knew each other in via their online message board, but this was the first time they’d met in real life.

“She should just come in the morning.” Ash peered out at the vast, open wilderness. “It doesn’t seem safe. What if something happens to her while trying to get here in the dark?”

Jen, another woman in the group, sipped a cup of tea and quirked an eyebrow at her. “You’re doing that projection thing again—worrying about something that hasn’t happened. Allie told us to call you out on it if you did it. You’re doing it.”

Ash pursed her lips. “I know, but it was crazy getting out here, and I wasn’t even the one driving the ATV. You were.”

“We have to trust that Allie knows what she’s doing,” said Jen. “She lives out here, after all. Tell us about living in New York, Ash. Do you see a lot of celebrities?”

Ash rubbed her chin and went with the change of topic. “Well, I did see Bruce Springsteen once.”

Dana sat up straight. “You did?”

“Yeah, at a concert,” Ash replied with a grin. “Guys, I don’t live in Manhattan.”

Dana chuckled. “Fine, fine. Let’s start making dinner while the others get back from their hike. Cooking is a little more complicated without an electric stove.”

This was the first time the women were meeting in real life. So far, they clicked as well face-to-face as they had in their online chat group.

Ash went outside to gather up some chopped wood for the wood stove. A loud rustling in the brush behind the wood pile made her pause. She stood still and alert with an arm full of split logs. “Anyone there?” she called. “Hello?”

Silence. It was strange how even the birds had stopped chirping. A prickle of unease tingled down Ash’s spine. It had to be an animal. Hopefully, not a large one. They said there were bears out here.

She straightened and forcibly brushed it off.

She did spend too much time worrying, projecting and bracing for the next bad thing to happen.

Even four years after the death of her husband from a car crash—which they’d both been in but she had survived—she couldn’t relax.

The broken pieces in her simply wouldn’t mend and allow her a fresh start.

But that was why she was here on retreat, wasn’t it? This was a chance to heal and open a new door. In fact, the retreat itself was called, “Beyond the Stages of Grief: Opening Up to New Possibilities.” The name was a bit cheesy-sounding, but the substance was real.

She went back inside with a shiver of unease, convinced she was overreacting, as usual. Jen and Dana were starting the fire in the wood stove. Ash stacked wood, but couldn’t help her frequent glances outside.

It didn’t hurt to be cautious. There were bears. It said so in the brochure.

The other two women returned from their hike as pasta was coming out of the pot, simmering sauce was going into a bowl, and wine had already been poured.

The women enjoyed a meal on the deck before moving inside when the sun went down and the air turned cold.

Ash stood in the kitchen as Dana arranged kindling in the fireplace.

They were out of newspaper, it seemed. Someone suggested going outside and gathering up some leaves.

She washed out her glass and set it on a towel to dry, her stomach tightening at the thought of going outside in the dark. Come to think about it, she’d have to go out there to go to the bathroom—

“What was that?” someone asked in a sharp voice. “I swear I just heard something.”

Ash turned to see Dana by the fireplace and the other three women on the couch. All of them stared intently at the darkened deck.

“What?” Jen asked. “I don’t see anything.”

“Something’s out there,” a blonde named Kate said. “You could hear it—look!” She pointed and Ash just made out a dark shape moving along the boards. The deck creaked under the weight of an unidentifiable creature. Gasps sounded from the women, who stood up, tense and alert.

“I saw that,” breathed Dana, who was the most outdoorsy of the group. “What the fuck is it?” It was huge, whatever it was. Everyone went silent and tense.

Ash’s pulse hammered hard as she inched toward the living room. A familiar pounding of panic thudded in her ears. “Is it a bear?” she asked. “I thought I heard something earlier, outside.”

“It’s too big for a bear,” Dana replied. A noise, like the screech of tires on asphalt, but animalistic, surprised yelps out of them, and a muttered, “Holy fuck,” from Dana, who gripped a fireplace poker.

Ash struggled to pull in breaths. This was not supposed to happen at the retreat. “Get away from the glass,” she hissed, but everyone was too afraid to move.

Suddenly, a wide, gruesome face filled the window. Gray and hairless, it opened a mouth filled with rows of sharp teeth. Four large black eyes, arranged in a row above a lipless mouth, glinted at them in the dim light of the few cabin.

Ash screamed. This was not a bear. It was three times the size of the biggest bear Ash had ever seen at the zoo. Her mind flew into chaos. Whatever it was, the thing outside was not of this Earth.

There was a mad dash to get away, but the creature let out another horrible howl and crashed through the window in an explosion of glass.

The creature filled the room, smashing furniture and making more of those awful noises. Claws extended from arms that were far too long. What looked like extra bones and oddly shaped muscles bulged from its grotesque body.

It moved incredibly fast for something of its size and slashed out at everything in its path.

Ash would never truly piece together what happened next. She knew panic. She heard screams and smelled the strong stench of sulfur. Suddenly that thing was right above her. Oh God, she could almost touch its flat, black eyes. It had slits for nostrils, which flared wide at the scent of blood.

It lowered its head and pain seared her lower leg.

No, “pain” was too easy a word—this was a burning agony unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

She opened her mouth and let out a ragged, anguished cry, kicking with her other foot out of sheer reflex.

It hit something soft—possibly one of its eyes because the creature howled and flung her across the room.

Ash felt weightless. The room slid by in a blur beneath her, before her body slammed into the wall.

And that was it. Her world went dark.